On Such a Full Sea (19 page)

About a week later, in the late afternoon, we found him in the backyard of the row house. He was sitting on his rear in the grass; apparently he’d fallen. He was lightly bucking himself forward, then waiting, then bucking again, as if that might somehow help him up, and the thought occurred that he had momentarily forgotten how to go about getting back on his feet. He wasn’t in the least frantic or distressed. And for a few long seconds we let him keep trying, despite the fact that he would obviously not succeed, and not because we thought he would eventually figure out a better way. He was stuck in a rut of wrong thinking, or no thinking, whatever you wish to call it, and was never going to break out.

We lifted him up—he was as light as a child—and brushed the dirt off his cotton trousers, which hung loosely about his hips. With a stammer, he thanked us, patting us on the cheek like we were children, when we noticed that the back of his hand showed a pattern of perfectly round burns, as if a lit cigarette had been pressed against it. The wounds were smooth and reddish and just now beginning to heal.

What happened here, venerable cousin? we said, clutching his narrow wrist.

What? he mumbled, suddenly very confused. He thought we were asking about his having been on the ground.

We nodded to his hand.

He pulled it back. For a second his eyes flashed. And then they were distant, his mouth pinching up, his face flushed with bitter shame. He huffed and bit his lower lip, suppressing a cry. He didn’t say anything else and he seemed stuck in place so we pointed him toward the house, watching as he shuffled inside in his poky, inching way.

Who could do this? Could it be his seemingly too-contented wife, or the son who was always too quiet, or another cousin, whom we saw coming up with Gordon from the basement the other day for no apparent reason? And for goodness sakes, why? Good Cousin Gordon had never been mean or cruel to any of us. He did not owe money. He had not crossed or let anyone down. By every measure, he was harmless, a complete innocent, a fellow who should rightly live out his waning days free of untoward attention or circumstance; and yet here he was, ill equipped to defend himself or even to understand what was going on, his mind likely growing ever more bewildered by the assaults, retracting into its muddied depths. And what disturbs one most is the idea that in a densely inhabited household, one in which he had resided nearly all his life with a sense of sanctuary and succor, he now felt utterly alone.

Perhaps the rest of us, too, are experiencing a similar feeling. Do we not pause the slightest bit as we pass one another in the hall or on the stairs, checking each other’s eyes? Do we not scuttle a bit more quickly into our beds at night? Do we not brace ourselves and listen, when the house is silent, for the squelched bleat of an old man’s cry? We wait and wait but somehow it never comes.

Then tomorrow, or some other day, in a moment that catches us by surprise, the poor fellow will limp down the front stoop in his shower slippers, his big toe gnarly and black from being smashed. And a startling thing happens, on having to see this kind of thing once again. We get a quickening in the gut, a vestigial node glows hot behind the eyes. And though we betray nothing, we’re suddenly enraged, our fury hurtling and bounding but no longer for the person or persons responsible, or even for ourselves, but finally, at the pitiable fellow himself. We can understand better now: how when your hand on his neck means to comfort, when it hopes to assure, its grip only kind, can another impetus breathlessly arise, a strangely related volition that craves witness of the most wretched of sights, the just-crushed spirit.

We are the sinister and the virtuous and most everything in between, and we know too well that in their visitations the fates appear to pay us scant attention. One might ask our good Cousin Gordon how he thinks of his current affairs. Or in a certain frame of mind, perhaps Quig would offer some thoughts on the wayward procession of his life. Or if we were put on the spot to take a philosophical stand, we might well decide to no longer demur and full-throatedly say, We do welcome our turn.

That it may never come only prepares us more.

And things can change. We don’t fret so much, despite what is occurring. Instead of anxiety we have discovered, in the face of alarm, a burgeoning hope. Hope that if our livelihood dwindles we will learn to do something else. That we can remake another place. That we have one another and always will. And in certain rare moments, we think, we feel as free as Fan.

This may sound strange, given where we last left her, barely delivered from the most vile of clutches. But she was free, wasn’t she, and maybe well before she left us? For we must now realize how even in the confines of the tanks, Fan had begun to understand the true measure of her world.

Of her control, however, there is a different story. That night in Mister Leo’s house she was terrified, as anyone would be, and we shudder to consider not just what would have happened right then but on subsequent nights, and for a lengthy, miserable epoch. We would like to think that we or our loved ones or especially Fan would have somehow repelled the assault and immediately ended any further terror; but then certain cruelties have a way of engendering compliance, which only feeds the hideousness, the sequence cycling on. Poor Gordon knows this, as no doubt did the girls on Mala’s viewer, and the reality is that Fan might have had to know it, too, for the rest of her days.

Instead it was Mister Leo who was trapped in a dark equation, slackly sitting in the sunroom most all of the day as Mala brought him food and drink and, when necessary, called over Tico, the new home nursing aide. Tico was there to lift him up from his wheelchair and onto the toilet basin, or to hold him up so that Mala could change his pajama bottoms. At supper Tico rolled him into the dining room, where Miss Cathy was already eating. She was still fragile but the incident sparked something in her now, a new savor or hunger piqued each time she looked across the table at her husband slumped before his bowl of blended food, waiting with a blank face for Mala to come and spoon it in. Sometimes Miss Cathy rose and helped him herself, took the spoon and gently nudged it in between his resistant lips, patiently waiting for his tongue to remind him what to do, her hand prickly with the memory of how she struck him, just once, at the base of his skull, with the head end of a stone statuette, the bulbous nude on display in the hall. It must have left no mark. After they followed the ambulance to the Charter health center and waited around, the doctor woefully informed her that Mister Leo had suffered a massive stroke, which they’d treated just in time to save his life. He woke up like this in the health center bed, wholly palsied and mute. He could no longer write or read or do his minerals trading, but of course, they had enough money to live several lifetimes, even Charter ones. Now, Miss Cathy missed him and also didn’t. When he gagged on the spoon, she awoke from her uneasy reverie, but try as she might she didn’t relieve him right away, keeping it there and maybe pushing it in just until he made a funny sound she never heard before he was stricken, this wan, alto squeak.

Fan would be a witness to these dispositions, but not Quig and Loreen; they left soon after coming back from taking Mister Leo to the hospital, Loreen anxious to bring Sewey his treatment. Quig and Loreen bid Fan good-bye, and she bid them well, and they drove off in the old car after a quick embrace. No one seemed to be much bothered by what had befallen Mister Leo, or even to wish to comment on it. Miss Cathy honored the deal her husband had with them, promising to send the drill, as well as giving Loreen a second, equally necessary set of vials her husband had been holding back (in case they’d balked at leaving Fan). She handed them a wad of money, too, for the purchase of another geno-chemo round, if they so needed.

But all this was in trade: she wanted Fan to stay. She wouldn’t say why and Loreen said fine but Quig told them, with a finality that seemed to shock Loreen for what he was willing to give up, that it should be up to Fan. He hadn’t said a word since the commotion on the other side of the wall roused him and drew him to Fan’s bedroom, where Miss Cathy was standing over a seizure-gripped Mister Leo, whose fit was causing him to bite his tongue. It looked as if he was eating a slick piece of ham. Fan had pressed herself back against the headboard, wrapped up in the bedsheet. She had a superficial scratch on her cheek but otherwise she was unsullied. Mister Leo was bleeding all over himself and the carpeting, and the blood had begun to choke him, as he was lying on his back. Quig simply stared down at him, seething with weariness and disgust at the scene but perhaps as much at himself as for the foaming mess of a man at his feet. For was this not yet another instance of his wrong-pathed life? Was it not a variant of the same ill-made picture? He had not much countenanced this girl but it turned out from the first moment on the road she had somehow latched on. Or the other way around. But Miss Cathy was panicking and imploring him to do something. Quig finally turned him on his side, and when the man momentarily rested between fits, Quig stuffed the corner of a pillow between his teeth, if too forcefully jamming the material back between the molars. Mister Leo reflexively bit down and caught him, but rather than automatically try to escape, Quig let himself get gnashed for a long breath, the sharp pain from the man’s teeth digging into his finger bones so searingly pure it was nearly self-erasing.

And what of our Fan? The more we follow the turns of her journey, the more we realize that she is not quite the champion we would normally sing; she is not the heroine who wields the great sword; she is not the bearer of wisdom and light; she does not head the growing column, leading a new march. She is one of the ranks, this perfectly ordinary, exquisitely tiny person in whom we will reside, via both living and dreaming.

We know, of course, that Fan decided to stay. There was no talk of how long, but after a week, it soon became apparent to Fan that Miss Cathy was not conceiving of an end.

In fact, it was quite pleasant at first, just as one might expect life to be if you were the only child of a Charter family. Miss Cathy decided that it would be best if Fan stayed at home to be schooled rather than take the huge leap into the hyperdriven Charter system, but instead of junky handscreens loaded with ancient storybooks to wade through, Fan was visited by private tutors in math and writing code and finance and design and everything else that was useful to know. Brought in as well were athletic coaches, who looked immediately crestfallen on seeing her size but were soon impressed by how strong she was, and swift, and nimble with her feet and hands. Though when a swimming coach arrived, she decided it was best not to show what she could do and Fan said she was afraid of the water. She was seven weeks on and didn’t yet look pregnant, just perhaps like she was gaining some weight with the regular, wholesome Charter meals. She was certainly hungry, feeling this new volume steadily opening up below her, this canyon she could eternally fill. So she ate as she pleased. Miss Cathy was tickled at this, as if her perceptions of this deprived lone waif were being duly confirmed.

Each afternoon they went out to town, where they would have lunch at one of the many sushi bars or brick-oven pizza places, then visit the galleries and confectionaries and shops filled with trinkets for the home and garden, and then end up at Miss Cathy’s regular salon and spa, where they took skin treatments and exotic massages of the feet and hands and face and neck. Miss Cathy was having her hair regularly colored again and had her stylist give Fan a cut in the current popular Charter style, a messier, slightly teased version of her bob. Although Fan didn’t mind it, on certain nights she’d brush it out and straighten it, and Miss Cathy would bemoan the job the stylist did and have them go right back again. But perhaps Miss Cathy’s favorite activity was to go to the children’s clothing boutiques, where the thrilled salespeople would crowd around Fan and dress her in a dozen outfits or more, shoes included, little party dresses and pantsuits and loungewear just like Miss Cathy’s and then take half of them home to model in front of Mister Leo in his wheelchair, his eyes straining with some dire message or emotion no one could begin to decipher.

When they returned home, Miss Cathy always rested and this was the time Fan spent with Mala, often helping her in the kitchen during the late afternoon while she ironed linens or polished silverware and prepared a small supper for Miss Cathy and Fan. It was Mister Leo who had wanted big, elaborate meals, and now that they also no longer entertained, Mala hardly needed to cook, usually just throwing together a salad and some buttered pasta and never any dessert, which is how Miss Cathy preferred it. Mister Leo would get a blending of mushy rice and some canned meat. Often enough Mala would make an extra, tasty dish like chicken adobo for herself and Tico to eat, which Fan always had as well, as it was by far the best food she made, and the three of them would eat while Miss Cathy watched her programs in her husband’s office, different shows going on the multiple screens, with her muting whenever there were commercials. Tico was a huge young man who didn’t talk much and always ate as though it were the last meal of his life, which in this case meant very, very slowly, the fork looking like a baby’s utensil in his fat mitt of a hand as he placed the morsel in his mouth and closed his eyes and very gently nodded. Fan and Mala always finished in half the time and, while cleaning their dishes, would sometimes make each other giggle by mimicking him, which Tico didn’t mind in the least, and which, in fact, made him giggle as well, the shelves of his wide, womanly breasts shaking in alternate time with his jowls. Once done, Tico would go give Mister Leo his nightly sponge bath and medicate him and lift him into the bed in a former mud/storage room adjacent to the garage that Miss Cathy had Mala set up for him with a screen, as it was the only spare space on the main floor that was wheelchair accessible and had a toilet room nearby. There were no windows but it did have a utility sink, which was handy for Tico for the sponge bathing and whenever the pathetic man soiled himself.

Meanwhile, as they dried and put away the clean dishes, Mala would ask Fan how each of her lessons went, or what Miss Cathy had gotten her that day, and Fan would describe everything in great detail whether it made any sense to Mala or not, and then invite her up to her room to see whatever fancy new blouse or dress or shoes they’d brought home. It was a pity that Mala’s daughters were too big for any of it, as Fan didn’t really care about the clothes, which had never been of interest to her back in B-Mor. It was simply stuff to wear to town, acquired in order to buy more outfits to tour town again the next day, and so on, and mostly, of course, for satisfying Miss Cathy’s whims, the dormant blooms of which had seemingly burst open with the permanent diminution of her husband. Miss Cathy no longer seemed depressed; in fact, if anything, she had swung too hard to the other end, seeming now restless and overboosted and collecting all that buzzing for Fan, adoring her bedecked in the outfits and adorned with new jewelry (the silver locket had long been tossed into the compost heap of the garden) and sitting with her among the other ladies in the handsome eateries of the village.

Fan enjoyed these excursions enough and didn’t want to displease Miss Cathy, but the secret reason she dressed up each afternoon without hesitation was the slim chance that she’d come upon Liwei, whom she hoped might appear in a shop or on the street and be immediately recognizable to her. She imagined he looked something like her, though perhaps with the steely expression of a brilliant student, but with each day he did not appear, her belief that he had remained in the new Seneca after the villages combined steadily eroded. Still, she asked if they could explore other sections of the village, even the service people’s neighborhood, which Miss Cathy dutifully took her to like any good mother enriching the life experience of her naturally curious, bright child.

There were plenty of shops and eateries there, too, though they were clearly not as elegantly designed and appointed as in the sections Miss Cathy frequented, being more like the mall stores and restaurants of B-Mor, which you surely didn’t patronize in order to lounge about, but simply because the prices and dishes were good. It was all very respectable, the idea being to offer these people a true sense of participation in Charter life, even as the sidewalks weren’t quite as hygienically scrubbed, the window displays of merchandise not as thoroughly dusted and polished, maybe the spackling of the wallboard featured a rougher finish, the coats of trim paint not as numerously or thickly applied; and the same could be said of the “dorms,” which was where Tico was born and raised and was living with his parents before being hired through an agency, these thirty-story-high brick-faced towers of modestly sized apartments with glassed-in balconies festooned with air-drying clothes, surrounded by grounds planted with sturdy shrubs and large sections of lawn but that lacked the ornament of artfully chosen annuals and topiaries and blooming fruit trees that graced the best avenues of Seneca. Indeed, by any measure it was a very decent place to live, a setting we B-Mors would be more than content with, though the lingering feeling was that here was a place that, once settled, was not easily decamped. Of course, you could say the very same about B-Mor, but with us, we know from the start this is the case, we understand it in our bones, and because we’re mostly among brethren and share a storied past and can take a daily pride in our productive, orchestrated labors, we feel fortunate to remain, rooting in as deeply as we can.