The Arcturus Man (29 page)
Authors: John Strauchs
Hamid Mashhadi didn’t like boats.
He got sea sick easily and although it was a
very short ride from the mainland to Eagle’s Head, he was feeling ill. Sam Bentley recognized the symptoms and tried to steady the boat as much as he could as he sidled it to
the dock. Jared reached down to help Hamid climb out of the boat. This was a working
weekend to get all of his patent legal work in shape for court but really intended to entice
Hamid to work on Sunday. Saturday was Hamid’s Sabbath and he would never agree to
work on his holy day but Sunday was fine.
Hamid was seven years older than Jared.
He was Jared’s first friend when they
were both in the M.I.T. gifted children’s program.
He protected Jared during their first
year in the program. He didn’t allow the other children to tease and torment Jared. Jared
was the youngest child in the program—youngest by many years.
Jared rarely invited anyone to his island home, but Hamid was an occasional exception, particularly if a deadline had to be met. Hamid was usually eager to accept. He
saw himself as being mostly responsible for Jared’s wealth. Hamid was well off and recognized as one of the best patent attorneys in the United States, but it was a pittance
compared to Jared’s never-ending fortune.
He sometimes resented that but he never
complained to Jared about it.
Hamid had short legs.
It was difficult to reach the dock for a firm footing. Jared
grabbed one had and literally lifted him up. There was mild surprise on Hamid’s face.
“And who is this?” asked Jared.
Jared reached down again and easily picked up
the little boy.
“May I introduce you to my son, Hana,” said Hamid. Jared didn’t like children
but he had to be nice.
The inducement to get Hamid to put in extra hours was a Sunday
at Jared’s lake for swimming and fishing.
“I am pleased to meet you Hana. That is the Arabic name for John. I know many
people named John,” said Jared.
The boy smiled and shook Jared’s hand. Jared guessed the Hana was five or six.
“Do you have big fish?” asked Hana.
“Yes we do, Hana.
Here is your fishing pole.
I’ll attach the hook and bait when
we get to the lake,” said Jared.
He handed a short fishing pole to the boy.
Hana immediately began to whip it around like a sword. Jared was reminded why he disliked small
children.
“This is very kind, Jared. I have a present for you, as well,” said Hamid.
Sam Bentley lifted a large cardboard box to the dock.
“Be seein ya, Mr. Siemels,” said Sam.
With that he backed the boat out of the
boathouse.
“I am sorry that it isn’t wrapped,” said Hamid as he passed the box to Jared.
“Thank you Hamid.
I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I wasn’t expecting a
present.”
“It is a Garmin GPS 212 and SeaClear III software. The SeaClear, of course, runs
on a different processor…probably...I think. I noticed that your boat (he pointed to
Jared’s large Boston Whaler) didn’t appear to have nautical GPS.
Of course this might
be a little too much for that boat…I don’t know…but it is a useful thing to have on the
water,” said Hamid.
“Again, I thank you very much for this. This will probably be more suited for my
ocean cruiser,” said Jared.
“Ocean cruiser?
I didn’t know you had a larger boat.
When you talked about
boating I always assumed you were referring to this one,” he said, pointing again.
Hana was tugging on his father’s pants.
He was impatient to get to the lake. By
now he had hit everything in the boathouse with his fishing pole that could be hit.
“Yes, I keep it at the Ovid Marina. I used to keep it here but the maintenance was
taking up too much of my time so now I have it under contract with the marina,” said
Jared. He put the box on his work bench. He pushed the grease bucket back against the
wall. He remembered that the silencer was still in the bucket. He made a mental note to
take care of that as soon as Hamid leaves on Monday.
“Then this is good, isn’t it?” said Hamid.
“I’m sorry that Asrar couldn’t join us today,” said Jared. He had hoped that Hamid’s wife would be coming so someone could play with the boy. The kid was going to
be in the way all afternoon.
She enjoys coming here so much.
You know, it is a female
thing. She just wasn’t up to it. The baby is due in a few weeks and she is staying in bed
as much as possible.”
“I completely understand. Perhaps after the baby is born,” said Jared. As soon he
started talking about the baby, Hamid started to recite mantras from the Koran in his
head. Jared stopped listening in. It was too annoying. The mantras were incessant. Ultra-religious people were annoying.
Jared was grateful that Jenny was only mildly religious.
provide them? I didn’t think he had a technical background,” said Hamid.
“Really? No, he doesn’t have a technical background, but give him whatever he
wants.
I don’t know why he asked you for them rather than me, but I suppose he has a
reason for needing them. Give him whatever he needs,” said Jared.
They reached the lake.
The little boy immediately ran out on the small pier. Hamid ran after him and brought him back.
They began to undress. Hamid and Hana had
their swim trunks under their clothes.
Marie had already placed a large pile of towels at
Jared’s little beach.
“A quick swim and then we can get to work. OK?” asked Hamid.
“Of course. Enjoy,” said Jared.
Marie came down the path and set a large platter of sandwiches and soft drinks on
the picnic table. She spread out a table cloth and repositioned the platter. She kept ham
and any other pork products out of the sandwiches. She knew that Hamid was Moslem.
She had once given him a BLT. She never forgave herself for that
faux pas
. She brought
Jared a large cup of fresh coffee. She knew that Jared didn’t like children and understood
that he might need the coffee. Coffee always calmed her boss.
Jared sat on the ground and watched Hamid and the boy as they waded into the
water. Although Hamid had been to the island a number of times, this was the first time
that Jared had invited him and his family to swim.
The little boy sat in the shallows. He liked splashing. Hamid was talking to Hana
and instructed him to stay where he was, but to watch. Hamid worked his way farther out
into the lake until it was almost over his head. Then he began to swim. He kept his head
out of the water at all times.
Johnny Weissmuller had that kind of unusually style but
was, nevertheless, able to win five gold medals at the Olympics in the 1920s, not to mention 76 world records.
Hamid was no Tarzan.
Hamid’s swim strokes were more than
odd.
His arms remained stiff as he flailed at the water.
For a moment Jared became
alarmed and thought that he might be drowning.
Somehow Hamid survived and worked his way back to the shallows. He took the
boy by the hand and led him to waist deep water.
Hamid was teaching the boy how to
swim—exactly as he swam. Jared had enough. He got up and walked back to the house.
He would wait there until the swimming lesson was done.
Jenny refused talk to Jared for many weeks. She refused to take his calls or read
his e-mail. She tried to hate him. She tried hard. No one treats someone they really love
like he had treated her.
Her apartment was overflowing with flowers and gifts from
Jared.
They were always delivered when she was out so she couldn’t send them back.
Finally, she came home late one night and he was waiting for her.
He had picked the
lock on her door. She knew that Jared was a proud man and often suffered in silence. His
eyes were red. He had been crying. Jared never cried. It was inconceivable that he would
ever cry, but he had cried over her.
He asked Jenny to forgive him. That is something
else he had never done before. He often said he was sorry about one thing or another, but
he had never asked for forgiveness. Jenny’s heart melted. He must love her after all, she
thought.
She didn’t allow him to spend the night. He returned in the morning and made her
breakfast, but things weren’t back to the way they were or should be.
Jenny took long
walks alone at night thinking about what they meant to one another. How important was
she to Jared?
She had learned a lot about Jared, but most of what she knew about him
came from other people, such as Father O’Connor.
It was important that Jared reveal
himself to her.
He had to explain himself in his own words.
She vowed that if that
couldn’t happen or if he wouldn’t be completely open with her, she had to make a clean
break. Someone was out there for her and maybe it wasn’t Jared. In her heart, she didn’t
think that Jared would ever be honest with her.
There were too many secrets.
She convinced herself that their love was doomed but should she give it one more chance.
Why Aren’t Polar Bears Whiter?
Eagle’s Head Island – December 2013
Jenny approached the island in the late afternoon. The air was cutting cold on the
open water and she began to shiver. Ice had already formed on the cold metal of the boat.
She could see the wind violently swaying the tops of the evergreens across the bay. She
revved the throttle. The Maine hard freeze started many weeks ago.
She rented a small outboard skiff from Sevigny’s Marina. The bay was full of
chop. She should have gotten a hulled boat, but they stopped renting by the end of September, and certainly by the middle of October at the latest. This was the only boat that
hadn’t been hauled away for storage. They thought she was out her mind wanting to go
out in a skiff in early December. She didn’t have a choice, she thought.
Her cash was persuasive.
As importantly, when she told Sam Bentley that she
needed to get to Eagle’s Head, he instinctively understood that this was somehow important. Sam only knew Jared to say hi now and then when he dropped people off at the island. Everyone on the bay wanted to get to know Jared but few ever got the chance to.
Getting to know someone who was close to Jared might be almost as good.
He was a
hard man to know. He didn’t talk much. Everyone knew that he was rich and that he kept
to himself.
Sam heard that a girl had been seen on the island this past season.
He assumed that this was probably her.
Sam came close to letting her have the boat for free,
but luckily came to his senses before he had said too much.
She was going to confront Jared, maybe for the last time, but she had to know.
She wanted to give him no warning.
Their relationship was deteriorating.
It was going
down hill. Worse, she was now convinced that he was keeping secrets from her.
Lovers
aren’t supposed to have secrets.
hours was also getting to Jenny.
lease the steam from that kettle.
Jared’s need for variety and kinkiness in their romantic
She beached the boat in the small cove next to the boat house.
She should have
taken her socks and sneakers off, but she was impatient. She was always impatient. Now
her feet were soaked and freezing. She felt a little foolish and graceless. There was a
squishing sound with each step. Her toes felt like icicles. It was disarming and perhaps
because it was, she began to question whether she was doing the right thing.
She was
losing her edge the closer she got to the house. She could be strong, but small misjudgments in her life sometimes robbed her of confidence.
She recognized that it happened
again.
She had never been a free spirit like Krissy.
She continued to walk up the path.
She wanted to be resolute about this.
There was something in the gusting wind. It was a distant sound that grew in intensity as she unhurriedly walked up the path to the house.
It was music.
It was a flute
being played.
It was so beautiful.
Jenny liked music but it had never been as strong a
focal point in her life as it was for Krissy. And yet, as the clean, clear sounds grew loader, it was so beautiful that it felt overwhelming and captivating. That just didn’t happen to
her. Not from music. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She owned several CDs
of flute music by James Galway but she didn’t recognize this piece.
It was hypnotic. It
was the most wonderful music she had every heard. It was like a strong fragrance riding
on a current of air. The music beckoned.
It was bitterly cold but, except for her feet, her heavy Navy coat over a thick wool
sweater kept most of the chill out. Her grandmother knitted the sweater for her, making it
all the more warming.
“Two skanes of love for each skane of wool,” her Mormor used to say, as Jenny
sat and watched her knit with old but nimble hands.
The word
kysmik
was knitted in
runes in thick ivory yarn across the front and back of the snow white sweater. It was the
old Nordic expression for “kiss me.” It wasn’t meant to be romantic. It was meant to be
loving.
“
I shouldn’t have worn this sweater
,” thought Jenny.
This wasn’t the message
she wanted to give Jared.
The music was a good excuse to procrastinate. She sat on a tree stump and listened for a while. Memories of her grandmother came along with the music.
The wind
was blowing in her face as the haunting sounds grew loader.
Then it stopped.
She had
been buoyed by the music and suddenly it had collapsed. She was in a free fall.
“Jenny!
I am so glad to see you,” said Jared.
He was standing in front of her.
She never saw him approach.
“Jared, you startled me. That always creeps me out!” She was trying to get angry
but Jared could be so charming—when he wanted to be. She took some deep breathes.
“What was that CD I heard? It is so beautiful.”
“No CD Jenny. That was me playing,” he said.
She wasn’t surprised. “I should’ve known.
I guess I would have known that if I
only thought about it. I guess you composed that as well.”
“Compose sounds so formal. No, not really.
I just improvise until it sounds like
something, depending on the mood that I’m in,” said Jared. “I would have picked you up
if you had called. But, I guess you came here for a purpose, Jenny. What is it?”
“We need to talk, Jared.” Her back was up now. “There are things that I need to
understand.”
“I’ve been phoning you for the past week.
I left messages everywhere.
You
seemed to be avoiding me again,” he said.
“I needed to get my head straight before we talked. I’m ready now.”
“It sounds serious. Let’s go up to the house. You look very cold,” said Jared.
“I actually hadn’t noticed.” That was a big lie. She was still shivering.
They walked up to the house and went in. Jared took her coat.
“Ginger, fireplace. High! Fan on!”
“That is another thing we need to talk about. Ginger!” she said.
The gas fire place roared into flame. The dry heat rushed out of the vents and enveloped Jenny.
It felt great, but she had to back off a few steps.
She sat on a stool and
pulled off her sneakers and socks. Jared brought her a towel and she tried to pat dry her
dampened white slacks. The cuffs of her pants were still soaked. She hadn’t noticed that
the bow spray had gotten to her everywhere.
“Take them off. I’ll get you a robe,” said Jared.
“That is not going to happen.”
“OK, where shall we start? How about Buxtehude?” He brought out some sheet
music.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
“You told me you played the recorder,” said Jared.
“Well, yes I do, sort of. But I came here to talk. Not to play music. Besides, I’m
pathetic.”
“This is a wonderful piece. It’s not that difficult…Canzona 10.”
“You’re not hearing me, Jared.”
“OK, we’ll talk.
Whatever you want to know!
I tell you anything, but you are
really wired. You need to mellow out. We’re not going to have much of a conversation
while you are so intense. Or are you telling me that you’re not?” asked Jared.
“Yes, I’m intense,” said Jenny.
