Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  Esther the White was the only member of the family who had not been at all surprised by Phillip’s second drowning in this season; she believed that it was truly her son inside the coffin. Although she had always been sure she would survive him, although she had imagined Phillip’s funeral dozens of times, she had not thought that she would be so cold as she stood by the open grave, or so angry that the workmen continued to curse the heat as they dropped the coffin into the earth; she had certainly not thought that she would be so tired that she would be forced to lean on Cohen’s arm.

  “Esther,” Cohen whispered to her as the rabbi began to chant, “how are you doing?”

  “Not very well,” Esther the White said.

  “Are you sick?” Cohen asked.

  Esther the White shook her head. “Tired.”

  Esther the Black could no longer look at the rabbi or the coffin; she stared across the Compound lawn. She wondered if Phillip’s death had been her fault; if she had been there the drowning might not have happened. She might have raced across the green stones and thrown her arms around him; he was so light that she could have picked him up and carried him over the sea wall. But Cohen had been there; and the truth was, he was a much better guard than Esther the Black could ever have been. And really, Esther the Black had always known that there was one thing Phillip wanted to do: he wanted to float away, to move with the waves in the middle of the night, through the eelgrass, and the sand, as quietly as any fish, and much, much lighter than air. Esther the Black took off her dark sunglasses, she thought of Phillip moving freely in the waves, she remembered how clear his eyes were; then she saw something begin to cross the Compound lawn. She was the first to see them; slowly, the fishermen were moving across the lawn like a tidal wave. Some were on foot, some drove their old station wagons and vans right over the leveled earth that had once been the pine grove. Esther the Black caught Cohen’s eye, she nodded toward the eastern section. The line of fishermen grew nearer; the children and women covered their heads with scarves in the bright sunlight, the men wore caps, their steps shook the earth.

  “What is this?” Mischa said, as the fishermen circled the gravesite.

  The rabbi looked up and removed his glasses. “Should I continue?” he asked Mischa.

  “What is this?” Mischa pointed a finger at several of the old men who drew near him.

  The fishermen were silent; their heads were bowed.

  “Should I stop the service?” the rabbi asked.

  Mischa pounded his cane on the ground. “Out,” he said to the crowd. “Get out of here.”

  “We’re here to pay respects to the Drowned Man,” the oldest Bolo player said.

  “What do you know about respect?” Max said. “You have the nerve to bother my poor brother when his son is under the dirt? I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” a young fisherman called out.

  “Please,” the rabbi said.

  “Continue,” Esther the White told him.

  “How can we continue with these thieves breathing all over me?” Mischa said.

  Esther the White had never seen the fishermen at such close range. She knew that Cohen was their friend, she had imagined Cohen sitting in their campground, she had imagined the way the light flashed from their blue headbands as they bent over the fire to lift up the iron coffeepot. When the old Bolo player walked up to Esther the White and stretched out his hand, Esther the White noticed that his hand was like a claw.

  “My sympathies,” the old fisherman said.

  Esther the White took his hand and nodded. She saw no reason why these men, who worked the harbor that her son had loved, should not be there. “Continue,” she called loudly to the rabbi.

  The rabbi chanted quickly; the odors of gasoline and fish and salt rose in the air. The gravediggers picked up their shovels, they stood at attention; the rabbi cast down the first handful of earth.

  “I don’t want them to bury him,” Esther the White told Cohen. “Those men,” she pointed to the gravediggers. “I don’t want them to bury him.”

  Cohen left her side. As he walked over and took a shovel from one gravedigger’s hand, Esther the White relaxed. It was right that Cohen should bury him; caring for Phillip had been his job. The earth fell loudly on the wood; gulls circled. No one left the site until the job was done, until Cohen had returned the shovel to the gravedigger, and the rabbi had left.

  Rose leaned against the sea wall and wept; the heat and the gin she had drunk earlier flowed through her; she wiped her eyes with her fist and straightened the veil of her straw hat. She was the beneficiary of Phillip’s life-insurance policy—but the policy wasn’t worth much. Solomon Rath had gotten it from a small company in New Jersey as a favor to the family—so that Mischa could show his son that his suicide attempts were laughable: not even an insurance company would believe them. Rose’s pink veil was glued to her face with tears; a widow, standing alone at the sea wall, with nothing to count on but the good graces of her family. And they would be good to her now. Rose smiled. She was a widow, and widows did not sit poolside at the Dunes Hotel, dragging their black veils through chlorine; widows were respected and taken care of by the surviving members of the family.

  “Esther,” Rose called to her mother-in-law when Esther the White turned from the grave. Rose walked away from the sea wall, glad that they were about to leave the gravesite and get out of the white-hot sun, “Esther, let me help you.”

  Esther the White stopped; she watched as Rose reached for her arm. “Do I need help?” she said.

  “You’ve had a shock,” Rose said, brushing the pink veil from her shoulder.

  “What shock?” Esther the White said. “Where have you been that Phillip’s drowning is a surprise?”

  Rose held Esther the White’s arm; she began to lead her to the main house. “Let’s get away from the scene of the accident,” she whispered, like a widow, like a nun.

  The family began to walk toward the main house; the fishermen followed. Mischa bent down and said to his brother, “Wait a minute.” He turned to the crowd of silent poachers and cried, “Go away. Go.” He waved his hand in the air as if he spoke to bluejays or crows. The family continued on. “You got to treat them like that,” Mischa confided to Max.

  “But they’re still following,” Max said.

  Mischa faced the fishermen. “What are you following for?” he shouted to the crowd.

  Esther the White turned. “Don’t yell,” she said. “It’s bad for you.”

  Cohen walked with the old Bolo expert. “What’s going on?” he said.

  The old man shrugged.

  “Are you going to hold the family for ransom?” The crowd was crossing the lawn; soon they would be at the porch steps. “You don’t even have guns—you’re going to hold a bunch of people for ransom on such a hot day without guns? Never work.”

  “No ransom,” the old man said. “No guns. We’re just not leaving.”

  Cohen had not mowed the lawn for a week; pretty soon there would be dandelions if he didn’t watch out.

  “So what’s your plan?” Cohen whispered.

  “No plan,” the fisherman answered. “Just not leaving.”

  Cohen patted the Bolo expert on the back. “Nice try,” he said. He jogged ahead to catch up with Mischa and Max. “Listen to this,” he called out. Mischa waved him away. “Listen, they say they’re not leaving.”

  “Hah,” said Mischa.

  Cohen shrugged. The family had reached the main house, but the crowd of fishermen and women was still gathered. And when Cohen had stared at them for some time, he realized that the old fisherman hadn’t been fooling. The poachers were staying. “They’re not kidding,” he said to no one, to himself. And then he waved his arms in the air. “You’re crazy,” he yelled. “Good luck,” he told them.

  “Cohen,” Mischa screamed from the porch stairs. “Cohen, you traitor, shut up and get over here.”

  “Don’t yell,” Esther the White told her husband, bu
t she, too, had stopped on the porch to watch the crowd.

  The young fisherman, Daniel, raised both his arms in the air; and on that signal, the fishermen began to run. They raced over the Compound lawn, running down the paths, kicking up sand with their feet.

  “Call the police,” Max said.

  “They’ll live to regret this,” Mischa said. “If the police won’t kick them out, I will.”

  “Why should you care?” Esther the White said. The Compound lawn was moving, alive with bodies, alive with cries. “This place legally belongs to Solomon Rath now. It’s his headache. So, what does it matter?”

  “It’s the moral point, Esther.”

  Esther the White sighed. Inside her pocket, her fingers stroked the jade pendant she had been waiting to give to her granddaughter; she wished everyone else would go inside and leave them alone. “It doesn’t matter if they stay,” she said to Mischa.

  “It doesn’t matter?” Mischa repeated. “Look at them.” He pointed his finger. The fishermen were opening the doors of all the houses—the cottage where Phillip had been locked for twenty years of Drowning Seasons, the house which Rose and Phillip shared with Esther the Black in every other season, Max’s cottage, the lighthouse, the houses which had never been lived in at all. There was a low, constant murmuring as every house, each room, was examined. Every house except for the main house where Esther the White and Mischa lived. Not one fisherman walked up the steps to that house. When a boy of fourteen was about to open the kitchen window of the main house and climb right through, leaving his footprints on the window-sill, an older man, the boy’s father or uncle, grabbed him by his arm and led him away. Esther the Black sat in the wicker rocker and lit a cigarette; she watched as a light was turned on in her own bedroom. The fishermen had climbed the stairs, their children had run their palms over the walls, and now they were opening all the windows; curtains in her bedroom window moved in the night. Esther the Black watched her room, as if it belonged to someone else, and then she turned to the landscape artist, who was hanging on to the porch banister.

  “Cohen,” she asked. “Do you think they’ll stay?”

  Children were running across the Compound lawn; station wagons were parked on the paths which would soon be bordered by September roses. Mischa’s face was white with anger; Max was purple with fear. Later in the evening, a few guests would sit shiva for Phillip: the accountant, Rath, who Esther the White found she could be polite to, because it no longer mattered who held the title to the Compound, would cry for his own son, who had deserted him for rock and roll; the builder, Sam Gardner, would drink sweet sherry and pinch the lint from his maroon jacket; Phillip’s analyst, Dr. Otto, would already be packing for his winter in Manhattan, and would find the time only to send a telegram.

  “Will they really stay?” Esther the Black asked again, just as Max sneaked into the hallway, to call the moving company he had contacted weeks before, when Sam Gardner’s signature was still wet on the eastern section’s bill of sale. He wanted to get his furniture out before the fishermen wrecked the velvet and the wood; he and Lisa had planned to flee to Miami, and he did not intend to let Phillip’s death, or the fishermen’s arrival, change his plans.

  Cohen lit a match, and then killed the flame between his calloused fingers. He wondered if Esther the White would forget him now—if Mischa would take her away from the fishermen, whisk her off to Manhattan or the south of France. “They’ll stay,” Cohen nodded. He patted Esther the Black’s head lightly. “Why shouldn’t they stay? Nobody lives in those houses.”

  Esther the Black was still on the porch, long after everyone had gone inside. She could hear them pulling up hard-backed chairs in the parlor, she could hear Mischa telephoning the police, she could hear him shouting indignantly about squatters’ rights. But after a while, all she could hear were the fishermen. When the Compound grew dark, the windows in every house were lit by electricity or by candles; Esther the Black stared at the darkness and the light, and let Phillip’s face move through her memory. Her father would no longer be a captive, shut away from the water, locked in a cottage too dark and too small for any man. He was close enough to the harbor now; he could probably feel the earth move when the tides changed.

  Esther the Black had not spoken more than a few sentences to anyone in the family since her return from Manhattan; the only one she might have wanted to talk to then was Phillip, but it was too late—all she could do was stare out toward the harbor and imagine his face. So Esther the Black stayed on, in the dark, listening to the fishermen’s songs. Their voices were carried high above the Compound; they floated as far as the sea wall, as far as Phillip’s grave. Esther the Black listened carefully to the new sound of the Compound; she listened until that sound was too sweet for any outsider to hear, and then, slowly, she walked inside the only house that remained.

  Chapter Two

  THE next morning the Compound had grown into a small village; all during the night the fishermen had moved their belongings into the houses; some had set up trailers and tents. They nodded to Esther the Black when she walked by, but that was all. Esther the Black felt her aloneness grow tighter, it grew closer to her heart as she watched the fishermen claim the Compound; early in the day, she walked to town to try to get her old job back.

  But after she arrived in the store manager’s office, the manager simply looked up and down. “No dice,” he told her. “You’ve proved that you’re just not a responsible girl.” Esther the Black then began the long walk home, through the midday heat; she had no job, and nowhere to go, she could only follow the road which led straight to the Compound gate. There, on her front porch, Esther the White had been waiting since dawn.

  Again and again, Esther the White drew out the jade pendant and ran her fingers over the cool face of the carved woman; as she waited for her granddaughter, she wished that Cohen was with her—for courage. Only for courage. Cohen could act as a mediator; if he were to present Esther the Black with the jade pendant, the girl would be less likely to throw the gift in the dirt—or worse, to walk right past Esther the White’s outstretched hand. As that day in the last week of August grew later, as the heat rose, Esther the White realized that she did not want Cohen there just for courage. Mischa had come outside, to drink his coffee in the sunlight and glare at the fishermen, whom the sheriff refused to evict. But when Esther the White finally saw Cohen walk across the lawn toward the main house, she knew whom she wanted with her.

  Cohen greeted each fisherman as he passed by them; he tipped his beret as if it were a derby. When he reached the largest cottage, he stopped. Suitcases were piled up on the porch, some of Esther the Black’s collection of sea skeletons which lined the railings of all the porches had been knocked down, and now lay scattered in the sand. Lisa ran in and out her front door carrying large cardboard boxes, while a group of Bolo players seated at a table near the upstairs window of the cottage looked down on her. Cohen waved up to the Bolo players and turned to Lisa.

  “Mrs.,” he said, “what is this? An evacuation?”

  Lisa placed her hands on her hips. “You’re just standing there? Help me.”

  Cohen groaned. “Mrs.,” he said, “you picked a heat wave to rearrange your furniture. Wait till tomorrow.”

  Lisa pursed her lips. “Some of us are not so lazy. Some of us can’t wait till tomorrow.”

  Cohen shrugged; Esther the White was waiting for him, he had no time for boxes and furniture.

  “Cohen.”

  “I’m a landscape artist,” Cohen explained, “not a mover.”

  Max came out onto the porch wearing a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt. “Let’s go,” he said to Cohen. “The moving van will be here before noon. I want all the furniture out on the lawn.”

  Cohen smiled. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Are you a little upset about your new tenants?” He pointed to the fishermen watching them from the upstairs window.

  Max folded his hands in front of his chest. He wanted to leave the
Compound quietly, with half the profits from the land sale in his checking account, and without disturbing Mischa. He had decided not to tell Mischa of the move, until all the furniture was safely packed away, and there was less chance for an argument between the two brothers. “Cohen,” he said, “you are an employee, and we are in the process of moving to Miami. Now, I’ll tell you again—all of the furniture goes out onto the lawn.”

  Cohen smiled broadly. “Back,” he said.

  “What?” Max growled.

  “Bad back,” Cohen explained.

  “Lucky for you,” Max seethed, “that we’re leaving this place. Otherwise, I’d fire you.”

  Cohen shrugged his shoulders, but he felt cheery as he walked across the lawn. “Good morning,” he said to Esther the White. “I just said goodbye,” he told Mischa. “Sorry I couldn’t help them move the furniture, but when you have a bad back, it’s no use trying to lift anything.”

  “Help who move?” Mischa said. He was dressed in a white linen shirt; he unbuttoned the top button.

  “Your brother,” Cohen said innocently.

  “My brother?” Mischa said.

  “Off to Miami,” Cohen said. “I wish them well.”

  Esther the White smiled. “Oh, wonderful,” she said. “At last they’re leaving.”

  “That flea,” Mischa cried. “He sneaks off the minute I give him a cent, the minute there’s some trouble with the poachers.”

  Mischa left Esther the White and Cohen; he raced across the lawn and stood outside Max’s cottage, where he yelled loudly through the open door.