Charmed Particles (23 page)

On the screen two men appeared carrying canvas-wrapped bundles on their backs. “Here are two of my porters,” Randolph continued. “I engaged these gentlemen on the advice of a fellow traveler and found them to be fine, loyal, honest young men willing to bear a heavy load for long, challenging days of walking.”

A tall, thin man in a long, loose-fitting robe looked out into the room from the screen, his wild hair held down by a headband he wore like a crown around the top of his head.

“Now, this fellow is a camel breeder, and it was from him that we acquired our means of locomotion through the desert. Here, I adopted Arab dress, finding it far superior to the clothing with which I had arrived.”

Behind the camel breeder, in the background of the image, Sarala could see the animals processing in single file over the sand dunes toward the horizon line, the sky rising up above them.

“We started out across the desert at midnight,” Randolph went on, “darkness all around us, caravan bells ringing as we went, the moon watching our slow progress, and the stars brighter than I have seen in all my travels. Aside from the sound of the camels' hooves and the tinkle of our caravan bells, it was the most silent night I have spent on this great earth. Along an age-old and well-worn road, there I went into an ancient land, full of mystery.”

On that trek across the Sahara, he had learned to wrap a proper turban. He had trekked slowly up mountains of shifting sand by moonlight, learned to train hooded falcons, with their bells and hoods of kangaroo leather.

The screen showed a street filled with shoppers leaning over blankets lined with pots and market wares, inspecting the offerings, and overhead, balconies from which hung brightly colored, hand-woven carpets.

“Here you will find picturesque streets and bright, vibrant markets where the local tea merchants brewed for me a strong, dark tea one drinks in clay cups fashioned by hand from the earth that runs beside the river.”

For Rose, watching from her place at the table, the pictures conjured up memories of her own travels with Randolph—the ornate, latticed windows through which the women watched the world passing by, the bustling markets and bazaars, rugs and vegetables and butchered animals all lying side by side, streets shaded with panels of fabric hung between buildings, slivers of sunlight peeking through gaps, making a pattern on the ground. There, the shops opened up onto the street, proprietors sitting among their wares, luring pedestrians with a compliment or a promise of an excellent bargain for all manner of things near priceless according to them, their goods hung out into the street—cloth, clothing, dishes, and tea. She remembered how the small Arab boys in their long flowing robes had looked to her so much like miniature men.

“Here, I lived for months in a houseboat,” Randolph continued, his voice bringing Rose back to the room, to the members of the Nicolet Ladies' Auxiliary and the drawn curtains, beyond them the long green fairway, and beyond that their home—her home with Lily. Randolph continued “Up the river we traveled in our little steamer. Along the shores, children waved to us from their huts and dwellings near the water. So completely had I fallen in love with this land, with its people and their customs, that I could scarcely imagine returning home again.”

For a moment, Rose's breath caught in her throat. She took a sip of water.

“In desert country,” Randolph continued, “the eye grows hungry for trees. In the heat, for cool. In the cold, for warmth. But in all these hungers, these desires, one finds adventure.”

And with that, Randolph turned toward the audience, the lights coming up to indicate the end of his lecture.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Winchester,” said Mrs. Albert Steege, rising to take his place at the podium. There was, again, the polite applause of the Nicolet Ladies' Auxiliary. The ladies in the audience began to collect their handbags, and, as Randolph had come to expect, a number of them approached with questions at the ready.

“How very brave of you to venture out among those savages.” Mrs. Reginald Larson held her hand to her throat as she spoke, the skin along her forearm thin, seeming to only barely cover her bones and the network of blue veins beneath it. “Why, at any moment, I suppose, you must be in danger of being assaulted by headhunters or wild animals or goodness knows what.”

“Oh, I assure you it's not as dangerous as all that,” Randolph insisted.

How, wondered Mrs. Ronald Carlson out loud, did the natives respond to his arrival? Why, he must so often be their first emissary from civilization, the first white man they had encountered save, she imagined, for a few intrepid missionaries.

“And what about you, dear?” Mrs. Norman Amundson asked, turning to Rose. “Might you join your husband on his next expedition?”

“Oh, I'm afraid not,” Rose protested. “My exploring days are long over.”

“You must be very proud of your husband,” Sarala said.

“Yes, of course,” Rose said absently, and Sarala thought she caught a shadow of unhappiness passing over her face. But in an instant it was gone. “We are so glad you and Meena could join us today,” Rose added.

“We are honored to be your guests,” Sarala said.

Beside them, Meena listened as Randolph responded to the Ladies' Auxiliary's questions and thought back to what he'd said about the perils of inauthenticity. Couldn't it be the case—and she wondered if this occurred to Randolph—that these natives he photographed might be putting on a kind of show for Randolph and his photographers? That his subjects, having gotten a sense of what was expected of them, might oblige by performing just that, without his knowing or understanding, carefully staging and posing the photographs for Randolph just as he had hoped to avoid?

If only, Meena thought, the photos could be taken by someone invisible, whose own presence wouldn't change the moment. How did he know with certainty, she wondered, that what he captured was authentic and not some sort of performance of authenticity?

She wanted to ask, but she couldn't think of a way to do so that wouldn't seem impolite. And among the other questions from the Ladies' Auxiliary, hers seemed wildly out of place.

“Very informative.” Mrs. Eugene Vogt took Randolph's hand in her strong, formidable grip. “Now, though, what about the children? We must think of the children.”

“Their children are, in general, very happy, it seems to me,” Randolph answered with a benevolent smile.

“Well, you must write a book.” Mrs. Norman Amundson took his hand in hers, patting it as she spoke. “About your adventures.”

“Yes,” Randolph nodded at her. “Many kind friends, including my lovely wife, have made that suggestion. I do a short article now and then, but a book would mean being trapped in my study, writing about my adventures rather than going on them. Perhaps one day, when I am an older man and my exploring days are well and truly over,” he conceded.

“And where might your next adventure take you?” Mrs. Ronald Carlson asked.

“Well,” Randolph smiled. “I believe there is magic and mystery to be found everywhere, even right here in Nicolet.” At this the women laughed, as though the very idea was outrageous.

Mrs. Albert Steege swooped in. “Ladies, I think we must let Mr. and Mrs. Winchester and their guests take their leave.”

On the ride home, Lily asked her father whether he didn't sometimes find himself exasperated by the questions he received after his lectures.

“Ah, but it is all born of curiosity,” he explained, “and that is an important quality to indulge.”

Rose hardly listened to them, floating back to the photos, to her memories of the years when they had explored together, a happy, carefree time. She thought of the sound of oxen wearing wooden bells meant to frighten off evil spirits, of the night train from Siliguri, the tea plantations of Darjeeling, the small house where they had spent monsoon season.

But now there was Lily, and it wouldn't have done to have raised her on a caravan—no home to call her own, no friends her own age, let alone reliable, consistent schooling. It was better this way, Rose thought, agreeing with herself yet again, or convincing herself, she was never sure.

Rose thought of how Randolph had looked the day of his return, unpacking his trunk with Lily, unearthing treasures for her, regaling her with stories. Always, at the beginning of his trips to Nicolet, he was happy, this period between the end of one expedition and the beginning of another. It was only later that the itch to pack returned. This she had learned to recognize in him, the way he began to move from room to room, fingering the mementos from his previous trips she had so carefully arranged in his study. Then she knew he was once more ready to make his escape from civilization.

And it was true, she reminded herself, that she loved their women's home—hers and Lily's—filled with dispatches from exotic locales. That she relished her and Randolph's separation for the sweet atten-tiveness it brought to their reunions. She missed him, yes, but it was the kind of pain one sometimes liked to feel if only as a reminder of its presence. The kind of pain that also gave one a bit of pleasure.

Perhaps it was part of her farmer's upbringing—her sense that the harder something was to do, the more valuable it was.

CHAPTER 15

School of Navigation

F
OR
L
ILY AND
M
EENA,
THE
TRANSITION TO
HIGH
SCHOOL
HAD
been difficult. No longer were they cloistered in the Free Learning Zone. There were AP classes, where they spent the majority of their school day with their classmates from the old Free Learning Zone days, but there were also moments when they found themselves in class—for there was no AP gym, health, or lunch, though many of them had come to wish there was—with kids they had hardly seen since elementary school.

Meena found herself enjoying these opportunities to interact with her other classmates, but Lily found it agonizing (a feeling, Meena noticed, that was shared on both ends of the conversation). The few times Lily and Meena were invited to social events—birthday parties, a football game here and there—it became increasingly obvious that, whereas Lily seemed to find these interactions excruciating, Meena had a gift for them, moving easily among her peers, meeting new people, able to slip into and out of conversations with ease. She enjoyed these events, though she wondered if she might enjoy them even more without Lily to attend to.

Lily on the other hand, could usually be found with her voice teetering on the edge of exasperation, involved in some conversation it was clear her partners wanted nothing more than to escape from, and here Meena would often step in, extricating all parties from the social tangle they'd found themselves helplessly caught in, Lily relieved to be back by Meena's side, her partners grateful to be free to join less unpleasant conversations. Meena had begun growing concerned, though, noting that even at social events that included only their AP classmates, Lily still managed to behave as though she felt out of place.

As Rose and her team prepared their campaign strategy, they took advantage of each of the city council meetings, over which Mayor Callahan presided, to size up the competition.

Well-liked but not a political heavyweight, was Rose's assessment. The mayor was a former crop insurance salesman who, like many in Nicolet, had had career change thrust upon him as the area farms transformed, seemingly overnight, into subdivisions. He had, Rose noticed, a habit of using the expression “like I said” indiscriminately, on matters on which he had not previously offered comment, leaving her wondering whether he perhaps carried on in his mind a more substantive commentary in which he believed himself to have weighed in on these issues both sensibly and eloquently.

His campaign slogan, each time he ran, had been the same: “Larry Callahan: Your Mayor and Friend.” This was not, in Rose's opinion, likely to cut the mustard in the current political climate.