by Dan Simmons
Cordie crouched next to him. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” Trumbo saw spots.
“Put your head between your knees. That’s better.”
Trumbo stayed in that position until the spots receded. “It’s probably the goddamn smell,” he said, raising his face to the rain. “Hey, where is she?”
Cordie looked over her shoulder. The young woman was gone.
“She’s up there,” said Cordie, pointing to the orange glow that was the volcano. “Come on, I’ll give you a hand.” She pulled Trumbo to his feet.
“We’ll bring Eleanor back,” said Cordie, “and then I’ll help you with your Japanese friend.”
Trumbo shook his head. “Hell of a parlor trick. If we could patent it, we’d make a fortune.”
“You’ve got a fortune,” Cordie reminded him.
Byron Trumbo grunted. “Had one. The Japs are probably halfway to Tokyo by now.”
Cordie made a fist and tapped Trumbo on the shoulder. “Are you saying you aren’t capable of making a million bucks again even if you’re broke tomorrow?”
Trumbo hesitated only a second. “Hell no,” he said. “I know I could.”
“And it’d be fun, wouldn’t it?” she said.
Trumbo did not answer but a small smile turned into a grin. They began walking toward the Big Hale. After a moment, he said, “Jesus Christ, but we smell.”
Cordie nodded. “Keep walkin’. The rain’ll wash the worst of the stink off. We’ll take a shower when we get to the hotel.”
“I wish we had some clothes,” said Trumbo, stepping lightly in his bare feet.
Cordie grinned at him. “You look all right naked,” she said. “For a man.”
TWENTY-THREE
The sky is established.
The earth is established.
Fastened and fastened,
Always holding together,
Entangled in obscurity,
Near each other a group of islands
Spreads out like a flock of birds.
Leaping up are the divided places.
Lifted far up are the heavens.
Polished by the striking, Lamps rest in the sky.
Presently the clouds move,
The great sun rises in splendor,
Mankind arises to pleasure,
The moving sky is above.
—from the Kumulipo, creation chant
Cordie and Eleanor slept late, oblivious to the sunrise sounds of helicopters landing and taking off and landing again. It was the singing of birds that finally awakened them.
Eleanor came in from the couch to where Cordie was sprawled on the king-sized bed. Cordie was still dressed in the wrinkled shirt and jeans she had pulled on the night before. “Good morning,” Eleanor said.
Cordie forced one eye open. Eleanor handed her a hot cup of coffee.
“Where did you find this?” Cordie asked, gratefully accepting the white mug.
“There’s a coffeemaker in your kitchen. Some individual filter packs.” Eleanor touched her head. “What a headache.”
“Yeah,” said Cordie, looking at her friend. “Do you remember much of…much of what happened?”
Eleanor managed a smile, “Of being dead, you mean? Of coming back to life?” The smile faded. “No. Just the dreamlike images we talked about last night…this morning…whatever.”
“Besides the headache, how do you feel?” said Cordie.
Eleanor took stock. “Pretty good. The soles of my feet are sore.”
Cordie grunted. “I had to slap them pretty hard to get your uhane back in there. It didn’t want to go.”
Eleanor shook her head. “You know what’s strange? I never believed in the soul or the afterlife.”
“Me neither,” said Cordie.
“You know what’s stranger?” said Eleanor. “I still don’t.”
Cordie sipped her coffee. “I know what you mean, Nell. It’s like we were caught up in somebody else’s universe here for a while. It’s not like it’s…real. Universal. Whatever.”
“I had the thought when I woke up,” said Eleanor, “that it might be hard for me to go back to teaching the Enlightenment. But it won’t. It may mean more to me now.”
Cordie sipped her coffee.
“What do you say I get dressed and we see what’s left of this place?” said Eleanor.
“Good idea,” said Cordie. She looked down at her wrinkled clothes. “I’m dressed, but I guess I could take a shower and find some fresher clothes.”
“That’s an interesting cologne you’re wearing,” said Eleanor.
Cordie made a face. “Eau de garlic anchovy Limburger,” she said. “Guaranteed to repel ghosts.”
Eleanor stood holding the door. “I haven’t really thanked you. I mean, I don’t know how…”
Cordie cut her off. “You know you don’t have to, Nell. You know.”
Eleanor nodded. “Midwives. We are there when the other is in pain and needs us.”
“Yeah,” said Cordie, sipping the last of the dark brew. “Jesus, Nell, you make shitty coffee.”
They toured the hotel together. The first floor was a riot of mud and tumbled furniture. The grounds were littered with fallen branches and trampled flowers. Lava flows were visible less than a quarter of a mile to the south and north, but the hotel grounds appeared to have survived intact, although bruised by the storm.
Workers and emergency crews swarmed everywhere, their yellow hard hats gleaming in the morning sun. A wind from the north had blown the ash cloud far south out to sea, although occasionally they caught the whiff of sulfur above the fresh scent of the ocean.
Television news anchors did stand-ups in front of the Mauna Pele’s entrance. Microphones were thrust at them, but Cordie and Eleanor waved them off and went upstairs past sleepy security men.
They found Byron Trumbo in the ruins of the long banquet hall. Whatever had come through here had left a mess. The billionaire was looking out over the terrace. He was wearing shorts, a crisp Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. Will Bryant was with him.
“Hey, By,” said Cordie.
Trumbo gave her a look. “I haven’t forgotten last night.”
Cordie smiled. “I wouldn’t think so. I don’t plan to. How’s Paul?”
“They airlifted him out at first light,” said Will Bryant. The assistant was dressed in a white linen suit that made Eleanor think of Mark Twain.
“How was he?” asked Eleanor.
“The medics said he’d be all right,” said Bryant. “We’ve got all the injured out now. No fatalities last night.”
“What about Caitlin, Maya, and Bicki?” asked Trumbo. “They make it through the carnage last night?”
“Yes,” said Will Bryant.
“Shit,” said Trumbo.
“They left together on Maya’s jet at sunrise,” said Trumbo’s assistant. “They had Jimmy Kahekili with them.”
“The giant Hawaiian?” said Trumbo. “Why?”
“They said something about paying the Hawaiian Liberation Front to assassinate you,” said Will Bryant.
Byron Trumbo grunted.
Eleanor looked around. “What about the Japanese?”
“They were out of here before the sun came up,” said Trumbo. “They’re halfway across the Pacific by now.”
“No deal?” said Cordie.
Byron Trumbo laughed. “They were talking about suing me for thirty-five million dollars.”
“What spooked them in the end?” asked Eleanor. “The earthquake? The riot here? The lava flows coming so close?”
Trumbo grinned. “None of those things, really. Cordie, you remember when we slapped Sunny Takahashi’s ghost back in his body?”
“Sure.” Cordie was drinking her second cup of coffee.
“Well, I poured it out of that Gallo bottle in such a hurry, I forgot that there were two spirits in there. Later, when we did Dillon, remember how hard it was to get that fucking ghost in the feet?”
“Yeah,” said Cord
ie.
Will Bryant looked at Eleanor. “Are sane people supposed to listen to things like this?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Eleanor. “I’ve been there.”
“What about the ghost stuff?” said Cordie. She had changed into a white, cotton dress that looked surprisingly good on her.
“We got the wrong ghosts in the wrong bodies,” said Trumbo. “So I dragged Sunny back to his loving friends, figuring Sato would sign anything after that, and all of a sudden Takahashi’s voice starts talking like Dillon. Then Dillon comes in and starts yammering Japanese. And then all hell broke loose.”
The four considered the morning light on the surviving coconut palms for a moment.
“Did you get them straightened out?” said Cordie.
“Nah,” said Trumbo, walking over to the railing and stretching. “Both Dillon and Sunny decided they liked the new bodies. They’re going to try them out for a while.”
Will Bryant shook his head.
Trumbo turned to look at his assistant. “Didn’t I fire your ass last night?”
“Well, actually, no,” said Bryant. “After the Japanese freaked out and you and I had a few drinks, you told me that you thought of me like your own son.”
“Bullshit,” said Trumbo.
“I’m sure,” said Will Bryant. “But you said it. You also said that anyone who would have agreed to go into that cave with a two-ton pig was too stupid to work for you, so I wasn’t fired.”
Trumbo scratched his head. “Shit.”
Eleanor looked at the wreckage of the banquet. “What does this mean, Mr. Trumbo? Financially, I mean.”
Trumbo shrugged. “Financially? Financially, I guess it means that I’m fucked up the ass. I guess it means that my wife will have my guts for garters and the Mauna Pele, too. I guess it means that I have to start all over, not from scratch, but from bankruptcy court.” Suddenly he grinned at Cordie. “Not the worst fate, huh?”
Cordie set her coffee cup down. “Not the worst fate, By. But not the only choice, either. What was Sato’s group offering when it got down to the short strokes? About three hundred million?”
Trumbo blinked. “Yeah. So?”
“I’ll offer three hundred and twenty-five million and sign the papers this afternoon.”
Byron Trumbo started to laugh and then stopped. “Are you going to pay cash?”
“If you like, although my people suggest a mixture of cash and stock options would work better for both of us.”
Eleanor watched, puzzled, as Will Bryant twitched as if touched by a cattle prod. “Mrs. Stumpf from Chicago… Chicago… Cooke? Is it Cooke?”
“What?” said Eleanor, watching the sudden dawning of amazement on first Bryant’s face and then Trumbo’s. “What?”
“Cooke Removal Systems of Chicago,” said Trumbo, slapping his forehead. “The biggest goddamn garbage business in North America. They serve every college between Nebraska and Vermont and half the big cities. Stumpf…whatshisname…he died a while ago and his wife ran the business. Rumor said that she always had.”
“Rumor is right,” said Cordie.
“It was sold just a couple of months ago,” said Will Bryant. “A year after it went public. Three quarters of a billion dollars from Richie-Warner-Matsu.”
“That was just the cash part,” said Cordie. She leaned on the railing next to the stunned-looking Trumbo. “So what do you say, By? My people tell me that three hundred twenty-five is in the ballpark for this place.” She looked around. “Even allowing for cleanup.”
Trumbo’s mouth opened. He closed it.
Eleanor spoke. “Cordie, do you… I mean, do you really want to go into the hotel business?”
“Hell no,” said Cordie. “That would bore the panties off me. But remember what I said about how this would make a good hospital-slash-research center for cancer patients?”
“Hospital?” said Trumbo flatly. “Hospital?”
Cordie shrugged. “Every damn cancer treatment center in America seems to be in the slushy old rust belt. Why not have a place where people can get a tan while they get helped…even if they’re dying?”
“Why not indeed,” said Will Bryant to himself.
“Besides,” said Cordie, “the economy of this island’s in the crapper. It’s never going to get better when the locals are just hired to be waiters and busboys and laundry people. If the Mauna Pele were an international oncology clinic and medical training center, maybe some of these local boys and girls would consider a career in medicine. Hell, I bet Byron Trumbo, Incorporated, would probably agree to pitching in a scholarship or two if the deal depended on it.”
Trumbo looked at her.
“Well, what do you say, By?” said Cordie. “My lawyers should be flying in by lunch. You want to draw up the papers by then?” She held out her large, callused hand.
Trumbo looked at the hand, looked at Will Bryant, looked back at the hand, and shook it.
As the two men conferred, Eleanor and Cordie took their refilled coffee cups and went downstairs and down the littered path toward the beach. Once on the sand, they stopped to enjoy the sight of the sunlight dancing on the clean water and the slow rolling of the surf.
“This will be a beautiful place to recover,” said Eleanor.
Cordie only nodded.
“Do you have any worries about…” Eleanor gestured toward the south.
“Kamapua’a?” said Cordie. “Pana-ewa? Ku? Nanaue the shark-man?”
“Yes,” said Eleanor. “All of them.”
“Naw,” said Cordie. She showed her small teeth in a smile. “I don’t think they’ll want to fuck with the sisterhood of Pele again for a few centuries at least.”
Eleanor smiled and sipped her coffee. The sunlight was bright and fierce against her skin. She slipped her sandals off to dig her toes in the warming sand.
“Nell, you decided what you’re gonna do for the next few days?”
“Yes,” said Eleanor. “I came for a week’s vacation. I don’t feel I’ve had it yet. I’m going to ask the new owner if I can extend my stay until then.”
Cordie rubbed her lip. “I have a feeling the new owner may even comp you a room. She may even suggest we go swimming later and have a drink at the Shipwreck Bar this afternoon to shoot the shit.”
Cordie kicked off her shoes and the two women began walking down the curving line of white beach, sipping coffee as they went. Eleanor squinted and did her best Bogie imitation, getting the lisping voice almost right. “Louie,” she said, “this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“You bet your ass,” said Cordie Stumpf, and skipped a pebble across the line of surf into the quiet lagoon.
Letter found in the back of Aunt Kidder’s Journal:
June 18, 1905
21 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York
Miss Lorena Stewart
3279 W. Patton Blvd.
Hubbard, Ohio
Dear Miss Stewart:
It is with a great sense of guilt and some trepidation that I finally respond to your kind note of one year ago. As you know, it was Just a year ago June fifth, on a Sunday evening in Florence, that I lost my dear Livy. You will also understand that not a day has passed in that intervening year that I have not wished to join her.
But as we both learned those many years ago in the beautiful Sandwich Islands, the living have their duties to the living, and your beautiful and generous note of last year reminded me of that forgotten fact.
In your letter, you asked that I tell you someday how Livy and I met and how we came to be married. That someday has arrived.
You may remember that after we parted, I convinced my newspaper to send me on a ‘round-the-world’ voyage, from which I sent my early and crude correspondences to amuse the unwashed multitudes. Well, it was while I was in the Holy Land that I made the acquaintance of a young man named Charley Langdon. Charley showed me an ivory miniature of his sister one day, and I promptly fell in love with her.
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I saw her in the flesh for the first time the following December. She was slender and beautiful and girlish—she was both girl and woman. Two years later we were married.
This sounds easy enough, but true love is rarely that unobstructed. I had connived to spend a week with the Langdons but spent almost no time alone with Livy during that frustrating week. It was on the carriage returning me to the railway station that Fate struck with the heavy-handed blow we know she utilizes so well. It seems that the back seat had not been well fastened and, when the coachman touched up the horse with a whip, Charley and I went over the stern of the wagon backward. Charley was the only one legitimately injured, but I feigned concussion and swooned until they carried me into the house and forced enough brandy down my throat to choke an Irish horse, but it did not diminish my unconsciousness—I was taking care of that myself.
To make a long, sweet story modestly short, I managed to stay in that unconscious condition until Charley and his other sister ceased their ministrations and turned over the stroking and massaging of my insensate brow to Livy. This I endured for as long as I could until my eyelids fluttered open and Livy and I said hello for the first true time.
I got three days’ extension out of that adventure, and it helped a good deal. By and by, Mr. Langdon asked me for letters of reference and I furnished them as best I could. When Livy’s father read those letters there was a great deal of pause. Finally he said:
“What kind of people are these? Haven’t you a friend in the world?”
“Apparently not,” I replied.
“Then I’ll be your friend. I know you better than they do. Take the girl.”
The engagement ring was plain and of heavy gold, engraved with the date February 4, 1869. A year later I took it from her finger and prepared it to do service as a wedding ring by having the wedding date engraved inside—February 2, 1870. It was never again removed from her finger, even for a moment.
Last summer, in Italy, when death had restored her vanished youth to her sweet face and she lay fair and beautiful and looking as she had looked when she was a girl and a bride, they were going to take that ring from her finger to keep for the children. But I prevented that sacrilege. It is buried with her.
