The Blood Oranges (19 page)

And so it stands in that gentle half-demolished enclosure where three of us once frolicked and later, much later, two of us talked, and where Catherine and I may further contemplate it whenever we wish to view ourselves again in light of the handmaiden and youth combined.

Of course the cistern, with its resemblance to the squat church, and the little pink hermaphrodite, with its obvious resemblance to the yellow and vaguely female figure whose history is still fading high on the interior walls of the squat church, are merely two landmarks perused at random from our inexhaustible supply. There are other examples (the Byzantine grave marker on the beach beyond the pines, the table that still lies overturned in the lemon grove, the bend in a rocky path where I sponged the oil of roses onto Catherine’s
soft back, a bed of crab grass) and some are more important, some less. And yet how can we choose, Catherine and I, what difference does it make which kiss we recover, or which single laugh or which faint cry we hear again in silence? The tapestry hangs down, the map is spread, one road is as good as the next.

Love beckons.

I
D
I
D
 NOT KNOW HOW LONG I HAD BEEN STANDING THERE
with hands in pockets, legs crossed at the ankles, left shoulder slowly and heavily inclining against the flimsy and yet tightly fastened shutters, but I was quite aware of Hugh’s persistent silence and of the obvious fact that if I wished to open the shutters, as indeed I did, I had only to flip the hasp and give them an easy push with a finger or two. Still I waited, keeping my back to Hugh and preferring not to unfasten the shutters but only to lean against them with increasing pressure. I smelled the canal that lay outside at the back of the wall, I heard Hugh rattling his photographic equipment, I heard a solitary pigeon strutting above our heads on the roof. And I dismissed the sound of a liquid chemical slopping into one of his developing pans, I ignored Hugh’s silence, I asked myself what I was doing here with Hugh when I might just as well be embracing Catherine behind our favorite oleander tree. But then shoulder and shutters crossed some kind of threshold so that thanks to no apparent volition of mine they burst open,
those ancient tightly secured shutters, and swung back on the light, the gray water, the stone embankment, the rusted body of the old motorbus now the color of red lead.

But I knew full well why I was here with Hugh, knew what Fiona wanted and what was coming, and perhaps should have been more ready than I was to enlist Hugh’s agony in dialogue. And yet I waited, allowing myself to wonder what had become of the woman I had once seen waving from this window where now I leaned, allowing myself to wonder again why the pitted and rusted vehicle down there in the water was more real, so to speak, than the one I remembered. But the lonely pigeon fell into view for a moment, Hugh moaned.

“What’s the matter,” I heard myself saying. “Something wrong?”

“I’m sweating, boy, can’t you see?”

“Chest again?”

“No, boy, it’s not my chest.”

“Well then,” I said, and paused. “How about Fiona?”

“Fiona?”

“Sure,” I said mildly. “Why not?”

“God, boy. Do you know what’s happening?”

“Let’s talk about it.”

But would I be able to bear down on Hugh’s problem? Could Hugh be comforted? He had not selected this room for nothing, it seemed to me, and I could not have been more aware of sagging floor, wet plaster, the crude and heavy bench covered with tin pans, blind cameras. Even the photographs scattered here and there on the white walls were stuck to the rancid plaster with thick and rusted nails that were more appropriate to beams, coffins, heavy planks,
than to the glossy and curling enlargements of nude girls. And everything about Hugh himself bore out the nature of his purpose, the extent of his self-created pain, his determination to infect this hour, this day, our two lives and more with his despair. How could I miss the acid stains on the long and skimpy cotton shirt that clung to his chest? How miss the gray discolorations on his long cheeks, the beads of sweat in curling beard and knifelike mustache? How miss the black sailor pants on one side left unbuttoned from loin to waist? Or the fact that he had not even bothered to fasten the left sleeve with the usual safety pin, so that below what should have been the elbow there was merely the empty sleeve, the ghost unheeded but nonetheless in his way? How miss his eyes, his height, his agitation? And against all this I had only patience, tolerance, my systematic personality, Fiona’s silent prompting, the sun at my back. Was it enough?

“You just don’t know what’s going on. That’s all.”

“Do you?”

“I’m appealing to you, boy. Don’t let it happen.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “you’ve had your eye on Fiona since the beginning. Let’s reason from there.”

“She’s got a husband.”

“You’ve got a wife.”

“I’m talking about you, boy, not me.”

“And the torment,” I said and paused, “yours or mine?”

“You don’t know what’s going on in the shadows, boy. That’s all.”

“Tell me.”

“If we don’t work together, if we don’t stop this thing, you’ll lose her.”

“To you?”

“To me—to me. Don’t you see?”

I smiled, I shook my head, I waited. I leaned back in the frame of sunlight and glanced toward Hugh. And as I expected he began to pace, to stride from thick wall to wall, towering, lanky, disheveled, determined to keep us both captive in this little second-story dungeon of his and, in the bargain, to keep Fiona waiting. I watched him, wary and yet at the same time patient, and in that silvery monastic gloom his black bell-bottoms were flapping, his small black eyes were the eyes of a familiar saint. And he paced, he stopped, he tore down one of the photographs and stared at it with aching eyes. I took a long slow breath and tried again.

“Of course I care.”

“A dirty nest, boy. Is that what you want?”

“I suppose you’re trying to blame Fiona?”

“How about a little virtue, boy?”

“Fiona’s the most virtuous woman I’ve ever known.” “She wants me, for God’s sake.”

“Yes,” I murmured, “I think she does.”

“She laughs. She looks at me. She’s always talking about Catherine and me …”

The pigeon, I could hear, had returned to the roof and alone up there was pecking, scratching, fanning its tail. Now Hugh stood upright, and taller than ever in the right-hand empty corner of this oppressive room, reminded me in pointed ears, hard eyes, bitter mouth, that the face of Saint Peter was very like the narrow large-eyed face of Saint Paul. And were the ligaments beginning to part, the flesh to tear? Was his breathing under control at last? Was he beginning
to appreciate the tone of my argument? For a moment I closed my eyes and when I opened them there he was, directly in front of me, legs spread, expressionless, with his good arm raised and all his long bony fingers rigidly extended and cupped to the little black pointed beard on his chin.

“It seems to me,” I said gently, “that what you’re really after is my permission.”

I sighed a low leonine sigh and waited, watched the black eyes turning red, listening for the next gagging sounds of his confusion. Would the stony fingers tighten on the pathetic beard? Would he extend his arm and place the full weight of his murderous stone hand against the fern-green field of my expansive breast? But he merely took a step closer and slowly, unconsciously, began to rake his long curving ribs with the spread and rigid fingers of his single hand.

“You don’t mean it,” he whispered. “You can’t.”

“Put it this way,” I murmured, “you want to play footsy with Fiona …”

“No, boy, you’re wrong …”

“And you want me to sanction the bare feet under the table.”

“For God’s sake, I don’t.”

“But why should I? Why won’t you play footsy with Fiona and leave me out of it?”

“Don’t hurt me, boy. Don’t make it worse than it is.”

“Look,” I said gently, “do we really have to have all this male camaraderie in matters of love?”

But my confidence was exactly what he was fishing for, of course, and even as I spoke I realized that my last remark
could do no more than goad him on to exactly the sentimentality I had hoped to avoid. Fiona was waiting, Catherine was waiting, the wine was chilled, the thick-lipped bell was tolling in its bird’s nest of iron on top of the squat church. Yet here I stood, drinking from the sack of Hugh’s bad conscience and knowing full well that there was no stopping him and that I could not deny his confusion, his deflating misery, his annoying dependence on Fiona’s bored but sympathetic husband. At least I was ready for him and did not flinch when the long arm rose, as it did then, and the hand fell and clamped itself to my shoulder.

“I thought you’d listen, boy. I thought you’d get me out of this mess.”

“What more can I say?”

“How much has she really told you?”

“If you want to know what Fiona calls her little trade secrets—ask her.”

“I don’t believe she’s told you a damn thing. There it is.”

“Well,” I murmured, “the only problem is that Fiona’s afraid you don’t like her enough.”

“Don’t like her enough.”

“That’s right.”

“You mean she’s unsure of herself? Fiona? And worried about me?”

“Looks that way.”

“I just don’t understand, boy. I can’t believe it. She couldn’t just confide in you like that. Manhood rebels at infidelity, it’s only natural.”

“If you must know,” I said and laughed, “she calls you Malvolio. She says she loves her Malvolio best. Will you believe me now?”

“That’s crazy.”

“Ask her yourself.”

“She doesn’t love me best. She couldn’t.”

“Oh well,” I murmured, “you know what she means.”

I shrugged. Slowly and gently I dislodged his blind hand, and turned and carefully drew in the shutters, hooked them tightly closed. And above the sound of Hugh’s stony breath and the distant bell, was that of the voice of a young girl sitting somewhere in a doorway beyond the canal and pining in loud crude song for a lost love she was not yet old enough to know? I hoped that Hugh was not too preoccupied to catch a bar or two of that high song and plainly sexual refrain.

“Feeling better?”

“Do me a favor, boy. Don’t tell her about this … talk of ours.”

“Fiona? I won’t tell her a thing.” I crossed the room, dragged open the warped door and waited for Hugh to follow. “And by the way,” I said, “I won’t tell Catherine either. OK?”

It was not the last I would hear of Hugh’s medievalism, I knew, but at least for a moment the lid was once again in place on his poor troubled pot.

“A
RE THEY COMING?”

“Not yet, I guess.”

“Cyril? Are they staying away from us on purpose?”

“It’s only been a few hours, more or less.”

“It’s been a day, a whole day.”

“Perhaps they just don’t want to intrude.”

“Cyril? Give me a kiss.”

“You’re not the least bit interested in kissing old Cyril. Why pretend?”

“You’re right, baby. How did you know?”

Waiting? Letting the day die? Bridging our islands, as Fiona always said, with a few friendly sex allusions and silences that suddenly drifted away in passion? But was it possible that I had spent these six hours, eight hours, whatever they were, slumped in a wicker chair and arranging a half dozen common violets in the high narrow neck of a small clay vase the color of dark earth? Was it possible that the cigarette I had begun to puff somewhere around midmorning was still burning now, still turning to hot ash in the little white saucer not inches from my ring finger hand? Apparently so. And in her own way had Fiona passed this first day, which was already gone, merely changing her clothes, appearing now and again for my silent approval in gray slacks, rosy shorts, ankle-length gown of flaming silk, virginal white frock which must have won my approval and hers and which she was now wearing? Yes, I told myself, she had.

“Nice flowers, baby.”

“Glad you like them.”

“Maybe they’re not going to come to our little party.”

“Maybe not.”

And avoiding the arbor? Avoiding the lemon grove? Doing little, saying little, going our separate ways, keeping a safe distance from the dark and scented wall of funeral
cypresses? But listening? Had I too been listening for a voice, two voices, for whatever sound of life might reach us from beyond the trees? Yes, I realized that throughout the day even I had become aware of moments of passing disappointment that Fiona’s eavesdropping had not met with more success.

“How do they keep so quiet over there?”

“God knows.”

Fiona disappearing inside again, the cigarette burning, Fiona scratching her right thigh in a flurry of thoughtless exasperation, the recollection of a small half-eaten yellow crab on a large white plate near the crook of my elbow, the watery violets defying the aesthetic pattern I had in mind —yes, everything confirmed my impression of the typical first day as a slow and sluggish reflection of the first night. It was always the same, Fiona’s briefly pantomimed reassurances, my slumping revery, her thoughts, my thoughts, the curious sensation that the adventure begun in the dark was somehow obscured, discolored, drowned in the bright sun.

“Cheer up, Cyril. Please.”

Had I glanced at her book? Had she dipped her fork into the broken shell of my cold crab? Had she stared into her tall goblet while I drank from mine? Had I missed her in the midafternoon and then glanced up to see the hand on her hip, the slow consoling smile on her distant face? And had this dying sun waked the two of us and driven Fiona to an endless toilet and me to a hot cup of coffee ground from a handful of dead and blackened beans? Yes, this was how the day had passed, true to form.

Once again I found myself observing that while the
first night of adventure was always sober, despite darkness and excitement and fresh uncertainties, the first day was inevitably somnolent and oddly drunken, despite the sun overhead and the return of what I thought of as private consciousness. And once again I found myself observing how different we were, Fiona and I, and yet how similar. Because if it had taken her all day to arrive at the white frock, whereas I had climbed into the old white linen jacket without thinking and as soon as I had drunk my coffee, still my slightly rumpled white jacket and beige shirt unbuttoned at the throat revealed precisely the same taste and motivation as Fiona’s frock. Unspoken traditional decorum was always the handmaiden of unconfessed anticipation. At least our new-found friends on the other side of the funeral cypresses would appreciate if not understand the significance of the way we looked. Unless this was to be another one of those rare first days that sometimes ended, as they began, in silence.