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Authors: Peter Cameron

BOOK: The City of Your Final Destination
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In the car they were silent for a long time, Arden driving, Deirdre sitting beside her, looking out the window. They passed no buildings or houses or people or other cars.
“How did it happen?” asked Deirdre.
Arden glanced at her. “What?” she asked.
“How did Omar come to be stung?” she asked.
“Pete and Omar were netting a tree in the orchard. Omar was very kind to help. He was up on a ladder, and apparently he was stung. We have a hive, we keep bees,” said Arden. “Pete and I. Pete is Jules Gund's brother's companion. I don't really know what happened. I was in the house. We had gone for a—But poor Omar was stung, and—Did you know he was allergic to bee stings?”
“No,” said Deirdre. And then she said it again, “No.”
“I think it was immediate, his reaction. Pete came running in; he couldn't move Omar by himself. At first we didn't know he had
been stung. We thought he had just fallen from the tree. They realized that at the clinic, so he didn't get the serum as soon as he should have—But you see it's a distance to Tacuarembó, and then they had to summon the doctor when we arrived, and it all took time. It was awful. But you mustn't worry. He's going to be fine, Dr. Peni assures me.” She looked over at Deirdre, who was clutching the little strap that hung from the car's ceiling. “There's something I should perhaps tell you,” said Arden.
Deirdre looked over at her. Arden was looking straight out at the road, intently serious but her preoccupation was artificial, Deirdre could tell. “What?” Deirdre asked.
“It's about Dr. Peni,” said Arden. “It's really silly, but you should know, I think. He's taken very good care of Omar. Extraordinary care.”
“I'm happy about that,” said Deirdre.
“Yes,” said Arden.
“What is it?” asked Deirdre.
“Dr. Peni thinks Omar is my—well, I suppose he assumes he is my lover. I never told him that, he just misinterpreted my concern, and I didn't correct him.”
“Why not?” asked Deirdre.
“I felt it was in Omar's best interest,” said Arden. “Dr. Peni is a bit of a romantic, a chauvinist really, and well, he is like men here. He likes to see the world in a certain way. He saw Omar and me in a certain way that appealed to him, I think, and I sensed it would help Omar, so I didn't correct him. Of course, now that you're here, we shall, but I wanted to explain.”
“No,” said Deirdre. “Whatever works best for Omar. I don't care what the doctor thinks.”
“But he'll wonder who you are, coming from the United States, appearing like this.”
“I could be his sister,” said Deirdre, “or a friend. It doesn't really matter. Must you explain it? Let him think whatever. If he assumed
something about you, he will assume something about me, won't he?”
“I suppose he will,” said Arden.
“Let's leave it alone, then,” said Deirdre. “At least for now. At least until we're sure Omar is out of danger. I will be his sister. Or I suppose I can't be his sister, as I look nothing like him. Who can I be?”
“A friend,” said Arden.
“All right,” said Deirdre. “I will be a friend.” She looked at Arden. “A close friend,” she added.
Arden led Deirdre down the hall; the door to Omar's room was open. Omar was asleep. The bed Señor Miquelrius had abandoned had been assumed by a young man—a teenager, in fact—who sat up in bed, eating his dinner from a tray. He looked over at the two women standing in the doorway.
“Good evening,” said Arden, in Spanish. “We're here to see Omar.”
The boy had nothing to say about this. He returned his attention to his meal.
“Go and sit with him,” said Arden. “I don't think you should wake him, but sit. You can maneuver that screen if you want some privacy.” She pointed to the screen of white cloth panels that now leaned against the wall.
“Thank you,” Deirdre said.
“I'll be in the waiting area,” said Arden. She turned and walked down the hallway.
Earlier, from her tower, Caroline had watched them drive away. She sat looking out the window for a long while after the car had disappeared and the dust in the drive had settled.
Then she got up and walked down the stairs and across the courtyard. Deirdre's bag remained in the hall. She went out the front doors and walked down the drive.
She walked to the millhouse. She knocked, but opened the door before her knock was acknowledged. She stood inside the door; the living room was empty. She looked up. “Hello,” she called.
After a moment Adam appeared on the uppermost landing. “Caroline,” he said, “hello.”
“Hello,” she said again, rather stupidly, as if they could spend the rest of their lives greeting each other.
“I suppose decorum necessitates my descending.”
“I could come up,” said Caroline.
“Didn't the ancient Colette receive guests in her bedroom? I am not so decrepit. Yet. And besides, all the liquor is at ground level. I will descend.” He began to do that. Caroline went into the living room and sat on the couch.
“Where's Pete?” she asked, when Adam finally entered the room.
“Pete has taken his truck and is scavenging,” said Adam. “I hope that since I have exerted myself by coming downstairs you will mix the drinks.”
“Mix them?” asked Caroline. “Meaning you want a cocktail?”
“A cocktail! What a lovely word. If only we could have a cocktail, a proper cocktail, properly, sitting on barstools somewhere. But liquor is liquor wherever you go in the world. It is one of the great comforts. Perhaps it is the great comfort. Why don't you go in the kitchen and mix us cocktails.”
“What do you have? What do you want?”
“Nothing. It would take an alchemist, alas. There is a bottle of vodka. And some wine.”
“Which do you want?”
“Oh, the vodka, I think, if you can find ice. If you can't find ice, the wine.”
Caroline disappeared into the kitchen. Pete's absence was illustrated by the mess. Fortunately the bottle of vodka had risen above the mess and there was ice, though rather furred, in the freezer.
She returned with two glasses of vodka rocks, and handed one to Adam.
“I say ‘to what do I owe this pleasure,' because really, you know, it is a pleasure.” He raised his glass. “To the pleasure of you,” he said.
“How sweet you are,” said Caroline.
“Do you know,” said Adam, “often I think, often I say to myself: You must radically change your life. Now, before it is too late. Now, now, now. Extraordinary things often happen in the last few chapters, don't they? Do you ever think of your life as a novel? I do. It was something that started with me quite early. I thought—I suppose it was when I left here, for the first time—I thought: You must live your life as if you are the hero of a novel. You must always do something interesting, always earn your space on the page. It is very hard to live one's life like that. Novels are so deceitful in that way: they leave so much out. The years of tedium, of happiness perhaps, but tedious happiness. Or tedious unhappiness.”
“Actually,” said Caroline, “I want to talk to you about something in particular.”
“Shut up, in other words,” said Adam.
“Yes,” said Caroline.
“I desist,” said Adam.
It was silent then, just the two of them regarding the transparency of their drinks.
And then Adam said, “About what, in particular, did you wish to talk?”
“I'm not sure,” said Caroline. “About allegiances, perhaps.”
“Allegiances?” asked Adam.
“Yes,” said Caroline. “I think that's the word. I've just been thinking. Today, and perhaps for longer than today. Longer than
today, in fact, I'm sure. Since this business of authorization and the biography, I suppose.”
“Allegiances?” Adam said.
Caroline said nothing. They had a strange way of talking to each other, although perhaps it was not so strange, perhaps people who have lived almost exclusively together, and shared certain experiences, perhaps people like that all talk in this eliding way, like stones skipping over the flat surface of water. After a moment spent sipping her vodka, she said, “Perhaps it isn't allegiances I mean. I don't know what I mean.”
“You usually do,” said Adam.
“I know,” said Caroline. “It's all this business with the biography. I don't mind that you've agreed to it—really, I don't—but I'm bothered by how things stand.”
“How do you mean?” asked Adam.
“I mean I don't like feeling opposed to you, or Arden. You, especially. In some way I am forever opposed to Arden. But not you. Never you. That is what I meant about allegiances. I have always felt you were my ally, Adam, always. And if I thought you were not—”
“But of course I am. Caroline, really. This biography is nothing. It is nonsense. It is a divertissement.”
“I don't see it like that. I know you do, and perhaps you are right, but I don't. I can't.”
“And I respect how you feel. So does Arden. I daresay even the boy himself respects how you feel. There is no problem, my dear. Don't worry.”
“I can't help it. You see, something has shifted. I don't know what, or where. I don't know if it's inside me, or outside. But I feel—I no longer feel comfortable. Right.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Do you think I am a fool?”
“I think we are all fools.”
“Adam! No. Please, don't be like that. Please. Help me. I am trying to—I need to speak seriously. For once.”
“You are not a fool, Caroline. You are a wise and gracious woman.”
“Do you think—honestly, tell me honestly, please—do you think I should have stayed here?”
“What do you mean?
“You know what I mean. I mean after Jules came back, with Arden. Do you think I was right to stay?”
Adam shrugged. “I did not judge you. It was your affair, yours and Jules's.”
“But I want to know. Judge me now.”
“I don't think you can look back like that. It's futile.”
“I disagree. How do we know—how do we know anything about ourselves, if we do not look back?”
“I think why we want to know anything about ourselves is a better question. I prefer to know as little as I can about myself.”
“Adam!”
“I'm sorry. No, I don't think you were wrong to stay. I did not think so then and I do not think so now. This was your home and Jules was your husband and you had every right to stay.”
“Was, was …” said Caroline.
“Yes,” said Adam, “was.”
“What about is?”
“Oh, is. The less attention paid to is, the better.”
“I haven't been paying very much attention to it. It is what we do here, isn't it?—go on and on, and let life happen elsewhere, to others.”
“They are welcome to it.”
“Don't you like life, Adam?”
“Yes, I like life. I would not want to live forever, but for a little while, life is fine.”
“And are you happy living here? Or do you wish things had gone differently? Do you wish you had stayed in Stuttgart?”
“At my age I do not seek or expect happiness.”
“Forget happiness, then. Do you wish you were in Stuttgart? In Europe?”
“No,” said Adam.
“Why not?”
“You have to care—or pretend to care—about everything: politics, fashion, culture. It is exhausting. Why? Are you thinking of moving back to Europe?”
“No,” said Caroline. “Not really. I am thinking—wondering—why I am here. What keeps me here. If this is where I belong.”
“What scary things to wonder. I'd stop it at once, if I were you. And I'm not being glib. I am speaking seriously.”
“I'd like to stop it. I'd like to be like you.”
“You are here because this is where your life has brought you. You don't belong here. Nothing keeps you here. No one belongs anywhere, least of all here.”
Caroline stood up and looked at the window, at the rocky stream that ran behind the millhouse. After a moment she said, “It's not the letter.”
“What?” asked Adam. “What letter?”
“Jules's letter about not wanting a biography. That's not what's making me resist this.”

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