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

by Alice Hoffman

  “I thought he knew,” Cohen said. “I didn’t want to shock him.”

  “He would have found out sooner or later,” Esther the White said.

  Cohen sat on the porch steps; Esther the White smiled briefly and looked away. “Esther,” Cohen said. But she didn’t answer; she wished that she had told Phillip her plans for Esther the Black. “Esther,” Cohen said, “have you made a decision?”

  Esther the White had hidden the pendant when Mischa came out onto the porch, now she reached for it, and she held the stone in the sunlight. She felt as young as a girl, much younger than when she had first picked up the pendant from between the floorboards.

  “Esther, we don’t have forever,” Cohen sighed.

  When Esther the Black had returned from town she avoided the family; she had been sitting on a lawn chair down by the sea wall, but the heat had risen so that it was impossible to stay unprotected in the sun. The fishermen were in possession of all the other houses—so Esther the Black walked toward her grandparents’ house.

  “She’s coming this way,” Esther the White said when she saw her granddaughter. “Stay with me,” she said to Cohen. She felt a twitch beneath her left eye. “Please,” she said to Cohen.

  Cohen shook his head. “You have to give me an answer.”

  “Stay with me,” Esther the White said.

  “You’ll have to tell Mischa that you’re through with him,” Cohen said. “He’s a sensible man—he’ll understand. Of course I wouldn’t want to leave the Compound—but if it’s too uncomfortable for you to see Mischa after you leave him, we’ll just have to think of another place to live. Maybe out east farther,” Cohen said. “I’m not too old to get another job.”

  “She’s here,” Esther the White said. “Call her over. I have the jade.”

  “No,” Cohen said. “You call her.”

  Esther the Black noticed her grandmother on the porch, she noticed Cohen on the stair. They’ll both get sunstroke, she thought. Two more funerals.

  Esther the White waved her hand in the air. “Esther,” she called.

  Esther the Black stopped. A fly buzzed across her cheek. The air was so heavy that it seemed to sing. Flies and crickets cried above the heat’s constant pitch; the Compound was alive with wings.

  “Esther,” her grandmother was calling louder now. “Come over here. Over here.”

  Esther the Black thought of running; she couldn’t imagine what her grandmother could want. Could it be to ask where Esther the Black had been, where she had disappeared to; to demand an explanation for the abandoned Cadillac now that the shock of Phillip’s death was over? But Cohen was smiling at her, and Esther the Black was thirsty and hot; she walked over and leaned against the banister. She couldn’t really be threatened anymore, they couldn’t send Phillip anywhere now. Cohen looked at Esther the White. “Well?” he said. “Esther, are you going to talk?”

  “Esther?” said Esther the Black, surprised that Cohen would call her grandmother by her first name, wondering if the slip had occurred because the landscape artist sat in the noon sun without protection against the heat.

  Esther the White reached out her hand. “Take it,” she said.

  Esther the Black looked blank; she saw only an old woman’s veined hand. “Take what?” she asked.

  Esther the White grabbed her granddaughter’s hand; she let go of the jade, and the pendant rolled like an egg into the girl’s fingers. The sweat from Esther the White’s fingers covered the stone with a fine film, and the jade rested in Esther the Black’s palm like a living thing.

  Esther the Black looked up. “What is this?” she said, wondering if mirages could be cast by the extreme heat—by eleven o’clock the temperature had reached ninety-eight. She needed a glass of water, a Pepsi, or an orangeade. She might have been hallucinating—it would not have been surprising.

  “Go ahead,” Cohen urged Esther the White.

  “Ssh,” said Esther the White. She touched Cohen’s hand lightly.

  Esther the Black stared at the woman carved into the jade. The high cheekbones, the downcast eyes. A river of heat moved between Esther the Black and that woman’s face.

  Esther the White cleared her throat. From the corner of her eye she could see Mischa shouting at his brother in the heat. “The other day,” she began, “before his death, your father reminded me that I never give anything. I wanted to give you something. It was Phillip’s suggestion, and it was a good one.”

  Esther the Black was silent. She had not imagined that her father ever spoke to Esther the White. Cohen poked her shoulder. “Well?” he said proudly. “What do you say?”

  “What if I wanted to give this to the fishermen?” Esther the Black said.

  Esther the White shrugged. “Do whatever you want. The pendant is yours. But the fishermen are doing fine without your help.”

  Esther the Black narrowed her eyes. In her head the heat raced, the lyrics to “Nova Scotia Avenue” moved, the odor of honeysuckle reared up. “I can do anything with it?” she asked.

  “It’s yours,” Esther the White answered. “Anything.”

  “Why?” Esther the Black asked. “You never gave me anything before.” She wondered if the pendant had really been Phillip’s; he had willed it to her, and Esther the White might be taking the credit.

  “I have nothing more to say,” Esther the White whispered. “It’s just a gift.”

  “And what do you want from me?” Esther the Black narrowed her eyes. “What’s the price?”

  “Now, now,” Cohen said, looking from one Esther to the other.

  Esther the Black’s head was reeling; the odors and the noises of the Compound were too strong, they were rocking inside her head. “Do you have anything to drink?” she asked. “A Pepsi?”

  Cohen patted his stomach. “Hot drinks are better in hot weather,” he said. “They don’t shock the system as much. Have some tea.”

  “All right. Anything.” The pendant in her hand was like a piece of carved ice; Esther the Black touched the stone to her forehead.

  “You two stay, I’ll put the water on. Esther, what kind of tea do you have?” Cohen asked.

  “Jasmine, orange, peppermint,” Esther the White answered.

  “Peppermint,” Cohen nodded. “Wonderful.”

  Esther the Black’s eyes were wide; her grandmother was smiling at the landscape artist. “How is it,” Esther the Black turned to Cohen, “that you suddenly call my grandmother by her first name?”

  “What makes you think it’s sudden?” Cohen said. “Maybe it’s only sudden to you.”

  Esther the Black closed her eyes. She wondered how many people had recently died of thirst, and if the statistics were stored in the St. Fredrics town hall. Still, she hoped that Cohen would not leave her alone with Esther the White, not even if she did die of thirst.

  Esther the White stared over at the Compound gate. “It is true,” she said. “They’re leaving for Miami.”

  A large blue and white van edged through the gate. Cohen slapped his knee. “Good riddance,” he said.

  “Bad rubbish,” Esther the White agreed.

  “Who else leaves a sinking ship but rats?” Cohen said, as Mischa followed Max and Lisa, shouting and waving his fist.

  “If you consider this a sinking ship,” Esther the White added.

  Esther the Black looked at her grandmother. She looked at Cohen. She felt like a foreigner, a deaf-mute, a stranger. She ran her tongue over her parched lips. “You two,” she addressed herself to Cohen. “What’s between you two?”

  Cohen was proud of her; he patted Esther the Black’s shoulder. If he considered the situation, he would have to say that the girl had been raised under his influence—and she certainly wasn’t stupid. “Your grandmother and I have settled things.”

  “Things?” Esther the Black said. “What things?”

  Cohen waved his hand in the air. “Things you don’t know about. You’re too young to know about such things.”

  �
�Let’s eavesdrop,” Esther the White said to Cohen. “I want to be certain that Max is really leaving. I never really trusted him. Not one bit.”

  The moving men had begun to load the van with furniture. Mischa declared that every piece belonged to him.

  “Don’t touch that chair,” Mischa held on to gold brocade.

  “Half of everything is mine,” Max shouted.

  Up on the porch, Esther the White breathed deeply; she had always considered Lisa and Max to be intruders; it was a good omen that they would finally be gone.

  “Just watch,” Cohen whispered to Esther the White, as he stroked the sleeve of her blouse. “Watch them tear that chair in half.”

  Esther the Black no longer had the strength to be puzzled; she sat on the porch steps as if it were a natural thing to watch Cohen and her grandmother touching, as if it were common to be given a huge jade and gold pendant. But every now and then, when Esther the White laughed, or when Cohen made a sudden noise scratching a wooden match along his boot heel, Esther the Black turned her head like a bird, nervously, expecting anything at all to happen.

  “They shouldn’t argue so much,” Esther the White said after a while, when the moving van was nearly loaded, and the brothers continued to scream and accuse. “It’s too hot. They’re too old.”

  As she spoke Mischa turned and stared across the lawn, as if somehow he could have heard her. He placed a hand to his chest. “Heart,” he said.

  “What did he say? What is he doing?” Cohen cried, as Esther the White quickly rose.

  “It’s his heart,” Esther the White said.

  Mischa’s posture was crazily bent, but Max seemed not to notice—he continued ordering moving men to lift the velvet couch more carefully. Esther the White ran across the lawn in the strongest heat of the day.

  “Oh, shit,” Cohen said. “Shit.”

  Esther the Black was convinced that everything around her was disappearing into the heat; everything except for the cool jade pendant she held in her hand. The moving men were carrying Mischa back to the main house; as they passed Esther the Black on the porch steps, she noticed that her grandfather was surrounded by a horde of lazy, buzzing flies.

  “We’ve got to call a doctor,” Esther the White said, as she followed Mischa and the movers into the house.

  Cohen and Esther the Black listened to the echo of the slamming screen door. It was impossible to see inside the dark hallway, even when they shaded their sun-strained eyes. Max and Lisa stood at the bottom of the steps. Max shook his head. “Disasters,” he said. “One disaster right after another. If he dies, it’s because of me.”

  “Please,” Cohen said. “He’s not dead so quick.”

  Esther the Black slipped the jade pendant into the front pocket of her jeans; she walked into her grandparents’ house. In the hallway, Esther the White was describing symptoms over the telephone, and Mischa lay on a dark green rug in the parlor, with the moving men standing around him. Esther the Black walked through the cool, dark house; her head was light, her feet seemed to rise above the wood. In the kitchen, Esther the Black leaned against the opened refrigerator and drank from a green glass bottle of lemonade. She could hear the conversation on the porch through an open window: Rose had joined the others, and she began to ask questions, as if she had been sent to the Compound by a detective agency. Flies were buzzing over a teacup where a slice of lemon had been left to dry.

  Outside, the fishermen were hanging up nets to dry in the afternoon sun, seagulls sat in circles on the lawn, and it was summer, even though August was disappearing and Drowning Season was finished. Because nothing would ever be the same again, Esther the Black stayed in the kitchen alone. She sat at the wooden table and drank lemonade; she drank when she wasn’t even thirsty anymore; and still, when the kitchen was dark and the moon was rising over the harbor, Esther the Black held the jade pendant in the palm of her hand, knowing that nothing would ever be the same again, and wishing that she could stay just a little while longer.

  Chapter Three

  MISCHA recovered. The only traces of his renegade heart were a very slight paralysis on his left side and a desire for warm weather. Max demanded total responsibility for Mischa’s attack; and he stayed on after Lisa and the movers had left for Miami. He sat at his brother’s feet and told circus stories and warned against smoking cigars; and after a while he convinced Mischa that the best remedy for an ailing heart was the aqua blue sky of Miami.

  Mischa assumed that Esther the White would follow his fragile heart to Miami, but Esther the White had never thought of living anywhere but the Compound.

  “Listen to me, Esther,” Mischa said, and he spoke softly because Max sat on a feathered quilt at his bedside. “I’m a sick man, and I need the sun.”

  Esther the White considered telling Mischa about her own illness; right then the pain was moving along her side like a snake. “Florida,” she said. “I never thought of going to Florida.”

  “Think about going,” Mischa said. “Just think about it. We’ve been together for a long time.”

  Esther the White smiled. Not just a long time; they had been together forever. And what did she have in the Compound—a granddaughter who refused to love her, an old landscape artist who wanted her to pretend she was young, and a son buried near to the sea wall. “Miami.” Esther the White shrugged.

  “Take my advice,” Max said. He crossed his legs and exhaled cigar smoke. “You’re better off without her. I can take care of you.”

  Esther the White went to the window. The bulldozers had been working for nearly two days; now and then the house moved, as if some small underground earthquakes shook up the sand.

  “I might go,” Esther the White said, as the bulldozers chased bluejays from the mimosas in the eastern section. “I will go,” she finally said.

  As Mischa, Max, and Esther the White prepared to leave for Miami, the family lived together under one roof for the first time. Max and Mischa shared a bed, as they had done when they were children. Rose threw down pillows and quilts on the parlor floor for herself and Esther the Black. Cohen and Esther the White sat in the kitchen each night, drinking hot tea with lemon and waiting for the rest of the family to go to their rooms. And then, as Max packed trucks full of Mischa’s suits and shirts, Cohen would shake the covers on the cot that had been set up for him in the pantry. When Rose closed her eyes and pulled a sheet around herself, Cohen washed the teacups and Esther the White dried the cups with a blue-and-white checkered cloth. And by the time Esther the Black was turning in her sleep, dreaming of her father’s soft drowned eyes or of Pagan Rath’s offers and promises, Esther the White and Cohen had already walked up the stairs to the large bedroom on the left.

  Esther the White’s suitcases were already packed. “I have to go to Miami,” she told Cohen one night. “I owe it to Mischa; we’ve spent our lives together.”

  Cohen sat on the bed. “You’d be miserable, Esther,” he said. “The sun down there would drive you crazy. You’ve been together with Mischa too long; you’ve forgotten what you want to do.”

  They had slept together for several nights, Esther had even turned off the lamp, but they had not yet made love. “We’re too old,” Esther the White had said each night, as they lay together under blue sheets, listening to the night cries of the fishermen rowing out into the harbor. “We’ll make noise,” Esther now told Cohen, and she pushed his hand away when he tried to touch her. She planned to leave the next morning for Florida with Mischa and Max; there was no point in Cohen’s touching her now—it was too late. But when he reached for her again, later that night, Esther the White could think of nothing she wanted more than Cohen’s arm around her waist.

  “Listen,” Cohen said, finally, “at least let me put a light back on. Let me see you.”

  “What’s to see?” Esther the White said.

  “Everything. You.”

  “Whisper,” Esther the White said.

  “For what?” Cohen lit a cigarette.

&n
bsp; Esther the White blinked like an owl when Cohen switched on the lamp. She nodded her head to the wall. “Mischa might hear,” she said. “I don’t want him to know about this affair.”

  “Is this an affair?”

  “Are you in my bed?”

  “No one will hear,” Cohen said. “We don’t have to be so quiet.”

  “I’m old. I think I forgot how.” Cohen’s hand was touching her leg. Esther the White swallowed; she didn’t want him to touch her, she didn’t want him not to touch her. She thought now that sleeping alone was like an addictive poison. “I think I forgot,” she repeated; but Cohen was not listening, his pulse was too loud to hear Esther’s whispering voice, until she asked: “And what makes you think you can still do it?”

  Cohen moved his hand from her skin, and reached to the night table to put out his cigarette. “Still fuck?” Cohen asked.

  Esther the White felt like a traitor in the dark; the blue sheets were cold, the beginnings of her pain moved like ice. She didn’t answer him.

  “Are you shocked by what I said?” Cohen asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Cohen shook his head. “Too bad. I wanted to shock you.”

  Esther the White laughed. Cohen was insulted.

  “It’s funny?” he said. “It’s not funny, Esther. What are we, twenty years old? It just may surprise you to know that I can still get it up.”

  “Oh,” said Esther the White.

  “Not so often, of course,” Cohen said. “But, I haven’t forgotten. And I can only say, you’re not with the times. Nowadays it’s a recognized fact that fucking isn’t the only thing. That’s right. Especially for women.”

  Esther the White was embarrassed; she had been married for more than forty years, she had had lovers—but she had slept alone for as long as she had lived in the Compound, for as long as a lifetime, and she didn’t know any new facts. “So,” she said, “what are you? An expert?”

  “I read.” Cohen shrugged.

  Esther the White stiffened; she told Cohen to be quiet because she had heard something. Downstairs, on the parlor floor, Esther the Black was dreaming. In her dream, Pagan Rath had turned a yellow Volkswagen onto a Pacific cliff; beyond was the ocean, and high black rocks. In her dream, Esther the Black reached out, but she only succeeded in knocking over a potted palm onto the floor. In the parlor, a terra cotta pot shattered. Rose’s sleepy voice drifted upstairs.