A Green and Ancient Light (11 page)

One soldier sat on a bench by himself, reading a soft-covered book small enough to fit in his pocket. Studying his large, beakish nose, the red blotchiness of his teenaged complexion, I wondered what the book was.

My heart sank as the shiny-haired commanding officer appeared and stopped in front of us. “You made it aboard, Madam,” he said. Behind us, the tomfoolery died quickly down.

“With your help, Major,” answered Grandmother.

I made the connection: this was the major Grandmother had seen through the hotel window, the one whom Grandfather wouldn't have liked. I was sure my father wouldn't like him, either.

Removing his flat-topped hat, the man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “And how do you know that I'm a major?”

“Well, even if you weren't wearing a major's bars, we in the village all know our Major P ——.”

He laughed in obvious delight. Grandmother didn't talk like most of the villagers. She tended to stand out wherever she went.

“May I?” he asked, indicating the seat across the aisle from us.

“Of course,” Grandmother said to my dismay. But what else could she have said?

“You're no stranger to the Army,” the major said. His aide, who carried a bulky black case on a shoulder strap, took the seat in front of him.

“No,” Grandmother said. She explained that her son—my papa—was currently serving as an Army captain, and she cited his name and that of his regiment. Moreover, she went on, her husband in his youth had put in six years of voluntary service before the First War.

“Well, then!” exclaimed Major P ——. “You're quite a patriot! Mrs. T ——, is it?” (He'd gotten her name from her mention of my father.)

Grandmother introduced herself properly and added that I was her grandson, that I was staying for the summer.

I didn't like being under the major's gaze. “And are you going to be a soldier, like your father and grandfather?” He leaned toward me with his elbows on his knees.

“I don't know,” I said in a small voice. I meant that I hoped not, that I didn't want to be a soldier any more than my papa did. But that hardly seemed the wise thing to say.

“You have a tradition to uphold!” he said. “Don't you want to make your family proud?”

“Yes, sir.”

He laughed, showing his teeth, and batted my shoulder. “Well, you have a long while to decide yet, and there are many ways to serve the motherland.”

He returned his attention to Grandmother, which made me feel marginally better. I still had the carpet bag over my shoulder, pinned beneath my elbow on the side toward the wall. I imagined R ——'s gun making a gun-shaped bulge in the bag's fabric—though that, of course, was ridiculous.

The major repeated Grandmother's family name. Then a light seemed to go on behind his eyes. “In fact, I've heard of you, Madam. Your name has come up more than once in the last couple days. I'd made a note to come and see you—and fate brings us together here!”

“Really?” asked Grandmother, looking amused. “In what connection has my name come up?”

“Nothing but good is attributed to you, I assure you. Particularly . . .” A curious expression crossed his face, and he gestured absently with his hat. Its bill was as black and shiny as his boots. “Particularly, I've heard that you are the local authority on those unusual old statues up in the forest.”

I felt as if someone had touched cold metal to the back of my neck.

Grandmother smiled. “The grove of monsters? I'm hardly an authority.”

“Yet you are clearly a woman of education.”

Perhaps to change the subject, Grandmother explained how she'd gone away to school, and how her husband, after his time in the Army, had been a finish carpenter of some renown. She'd
traveled with him to sell his bookshelves and cabinets even in the neighboring countries. Together they'd attended many concerts and known the friendship of poets, musicians, and artists; they had vacationed at the beach cottage of the writer T —— L ——, for whom Grandfather had crafted a bed. On trips to the grand and ancient cities, Grandmother had entertained herself in ­museums and libraries while Grandfather installed his exquisite mantelpieces in many a fine home. (Which explained, I thought in later years, how it was that Grandmother had never needed to work at the cannery or take in washing and mending like so many of her friends did; she spent her long widowhood in modest comfort.)

The major looked at her in apparent wonder. “Am I to understand, Mrs. T ——, that you might have lived anywhere, and you chose this village?”

“I was born here,” Grandmother said. “I've lived all my life in the cottage my father built. I love the people. I love my garden and the sea and the mountains and the sky. The sky is different, you know, depending on which part of it you live under.”

Major P —— tossed his hat onto the bench beside him and tapped his aide on the shoulder. “A meeting with such a remarkable woman calls for a toast.”

Grandmother protested, but the major would hear none of it. The aide pulled from the black clasp case a corked bottle of wine and a set of ceramic cups. Popping the cork with a flourish, the major began filling them. “Please forgive the barbarity of the tableware,” he said. “Tulip-stemmed glasses do not travel well.”

He placed one cup in Grandmother's hands and one in mine, giving me a fatherly wink. Then he filled one for the aide and one for himself. I glanced over my shoulder to see some of the soldiers
watching us with curiosity and the villagers looking on impassively. We were near the front of the upper cabin, so we couldn't help providing a show for everyone behind us.

“To victory,” the major said, “and to our country, with its noble history of struggle and perseverance.”

“To our country,” Grandmother agreed.

The wine was a full-bodied type, a little more bitter than I was used to. I held the cup with both hands, afraid of dropping it.

“But these fantastic monsters in the wood,” the major resumed suddenly. “Giants and dragons and such. You're not afraid of them, are you?”

“Why should I be?” asked Grandmother. “Of all that humans can design, art is fairly innocuous.”

The major chuckled. “Some would debate that.”

“No doubt. But no, I think our monsters, asleep up there on the mountainside, are more in the nature of guardians. They represent a time when we celebrated beauty. Myth and story and dreams.”

“When we had the leisure to do so,” said the major. He swirled the wine in his cup, savoring the bouquet. “That time will come again, when we can return to the finer things. For now, we must be practical, though pragmatism is a bland feast. I understand that there is actually a law in effect which prohibits trespassing into any ruins of this type, of which our land has many.”

Grandmother chose to address only his last few words: “We were an artistic people.”

“And always shall be!” The major sipped his wine, and I noticed how rarely he blinked as he studied Grandmother's face. “Those statues are marvelous pieces. They should be preserved.”

“I suspect they will be,” said Grandmother. “When . . . we can return to the finer things.”

“Perhaps the day will come sooner rather than later. I was speaking the other day with a friend of mine, an artist . . .”

I saw Grandmother glance at him through narrowed eyes.

“But I've nearly said too much.” The major smirked and lowered his voice. “He's an artist of considerable fame, you see, and doesn't wish it to be widely known that he's traveling in this part of the country. He's hoping for peace and quietness.”

“As are we all,” said Grandmother quite pointedly. “
Praying
for it. But with your artist friend, Major, what were you speaking about?”

“The statues. That enchanting garden above the village. He had heard of it; I expect he'll pay it a visit soon. With the proper permissions, of course.”

I refrained from looking at Grandmother in alarm, but I didn't like the thought of a stranger prying into our sacred woods. The fear of R ——'s being discovered only accounted for part of my reason. I had already begun to regard the grove as our own private space. I didn't want Major P —— to think of it or to speak of it.

The major drained his cup. “I envy my artist friend. He can spend his days in the imaginary landscape of his mind, while I must be more concerned with the mundane. When the war is behind us, men such as I will at last have leave to indulge our spirits again. In the meantime, we do what we can.” He held up the bottle to demonstrate his devotion to fine culture. As he poured more wine, he asked Grandmother to tell him what she knew of the monsters' history, and she did so, relating what she'd told me: the duke, his obsession with adding to the garden, and his tragic romance; but she left out his strange disappearance.

As she finished, Grandmother deftly returned our empty cups to the aide before the major could refill them.

“So, we're bound for ——,” said the major, using the name that was printed on maps.

“Wool Island, yes,” answered Grandmother. “We're going to buy yarn. But I'm surprised that you're going there—and so many of you, at that. Is it possible that the enemy soldier has gotten over there?”

“I doubt that, unless he's part fish. No, our visit is an inspection . . . by which I mean mostly a diversion. My men are tired of tramping through the woods, and the beaches over there are lovely.”

“That they are,” said Grandmother. “But the man you're looking for . . .”

Major P —— shook his head. “I suspect he's dead of his wounds in some ravine, and five years from now, a woodcutter will happen upon his bones. Or else in a few days, he'll wander down starving into some village and give himself up. At any rate, I think we've done what we can. Try not to worry, Madam. I'm sure he presents no threat.”

Grandmother pursed her lips and gave a nod with her brow furrowed.

The major corked the wine bottle and handed it back to his aide. “I'm afraid I offended the good sisters at the abbey. We made a rather extensive search of their premises.” Smirking again, he brushed at something on his sleeve. “The Church shows compassion to the wounded and the homeless—which is virtuous enough in times of peace.”

Grandmother sighed. “And when have we ever been at peace?”

“Alas, not in my memory.”

“Nor in mine.” Grandmother reached across me and opened the carpet bag. I had a vision of her pulling out the gun and handing it to Major P ——. But instead, she came up with tangerines and gave them to the major and his aide, two each. “Thank you very much for your kindness,” she said. “If you don't mind, my old legs need stretching. All this sitting and vibration is bad for the circulation.”

“The pleasure has been mine,” said the major. His glance fell upon the carpet bag. “What a charming piece of work! Surely that didn't come from a local market?”

“No,” said Grandmother. “I made it myself, actually, out of some good remaining parts of the carpet we had when I was a little girl.”

The major held out his hands to see it, and to my shock, Grand­mother tugged it off my arm and gave it to him.

He made a dramatic show of straining under its weight. “Are you carrying bricks? It's a good thing you have this young soldier to tote it for you.”

As he ran his hands over the plush side, tracing the swirling patterns with his fingers, Grandmother explained. “This was the part of the carpet that lay under the bookcase for years. It didn't fade or get worn out like the rest.”

“And you found its use,” said the major.

“Like your artist friend, I often prefer the ‘landscape of my mind.' That's where I find the uses of things.”

Balancing the bag on his knee, he shook his head with a bemused grin. “Mrs. T ——, you are an extraordinary person.”

“Major P ——, you are too kind.” Grandmother bowed humbly.

After what seemed an eternity, he handed back the carpet bag.

Grandmother passed it to me, and I lifted it to my shoulder. We each thanked the major again as we got up, and he waved.

“I wish your husband were still doing his carpentry,” he called after us. “I've acquired a set of antique chairs and would like a table that matches.”

Grandmother paused to glance back at him. “He could have helped you, sir.”

We passed between the benches. Once when the boat rocked, a curly-haired soldier lent Grandmother a steadying hand and cheerfully advised her to watch her step, calling her “Grandma” as R —— had done.

An open door at the rear led out onto a tiny aft deck, shaded by a roof but open on the sides and back. To our left, a steep metal stairway descended to the lower level. From the deck's rail, I looked down onto the edge of a similar deck below, which stuck out a little farther than ours. Beyond this, the churning white wake of the ferry's engine stretched in a long swath. The land was far away now, green mountains shimmering. All around us was blue air and the dazzling sea.

Seagulls swooped along beside us, coming up from behind, overtaking the ferry, then circling back to overtake it again. They screeched and crossed one another's paths, now dipping low, now soaring high.

Grandmother placed her walking-stick in a corner of the railing where it wouldn't fall over. She dug in the bag again and brought out the tin of crackers. Breaking one cracker up, she showed me how to feed the birds: first letting them see what she held, then flinging the morsels into the air, one bit at a time. Gulls veered and snatched the pieces before they hit the water. Other people
must have been feeding the seabirds through open windows on the lower deck; some of the gulls dove that way, and sometimes I saw bits of bread in the waves until the birds snapped them up, hardly leaving a ripple.