Tremble (30 page)

“Am I beautiful to you?” he said, without a trace of arrogance, almost as if referring to himself in the third person. Clarissa, blushing, was shamed into silence.

Again Joseph reached for her breast. Not knowing how to react she froze as he bent down and began to drink hungrily. He nestled his head against her other breast and began to toy with that nipple, teasing it between his fingers. As she slowly came out of the hormonal fog of breast-feeding, she was shocked to realize that he was playing her nipple with his tongue. It was not the action of a child.

“Enough.” She pushed him off her, trying unsuccessfully to adopt the authoritarian tone of a mother. “I’ll get you something to wear, you can’t run around like that.”

She gave him a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt. They were her size but she calculated that he would grow into them in a couple of hours. He laughed and twisted around as she pulled the clothes over his head. Dressed, he leaped out of her arms and ran into the shallows, splashing joyfully and taking delight in both the coordination of his limbs and the foaming water.

Clarissa watched from the beach, trying to convince herself that he would be safe. To her relief he swam like a fish, singing some haunting song in Aramaic as he floated on his back, rolling with the incoming waves. He is like a mythical figure, she thought. It seemed to her that he was a being more archaic than Jesus. Indeed, if he did come from God, which God? Her own, she assumed, since he had been formed in her, but why her of all women?

Joseph suddenly tilted his head as if he had heard something.

“What is it?” she shouted, but he gestured to her to be quiet. He
stood, lifted his hands up to his mouth, and made a curious clicking sound out to sea. Silence. He called out again. Suddenly the spine of a humpback whale rippled out of a swelling wave, a spout of water following as the whale returned the call. Joseph clapped his hands with joy and called out again. And again the whale threw a great spurt of water up into the sky, the majestic barnacled head emerging for a second, one beady eye cocked toward the dancing boy. Slowly it turned and dived back down again. The surface of the ocean closed and it was as if the creature had never been there. Clarissa looked back at Joseph. He stood there staring at the horizon and for a moment she saw sorrow break across his face.

At dusk she fed him spaghetti, olives, and feta cheese followed by figs and honey. He paused before the huge plate of food, then grabbed handfuls of the pasta to stuff it into his mouth. She had to teach him how to use a fork and knife. He learned at lightning speed and she realized that he only needed to see anything once to master it.

After dinner he picked up a wooden flute lying on the mantelpiece and began to play. It was a complex melody embellished with sudden flourishes. As he played he danced, rotating his hips uninhibitedly as his feet drummed against the stone floor. He was dancing for her and Clarissa found the seductiveness of his movements both exciting and excruciatingly embarrassing. She covered her confusion by clapping along as he whirled, getting wilder and wilder with the exuberance of an adolescent.

He finished playing and threw himself down on the rug at her feet. There was the shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. His eyebrows had thickened, his cheeks had hollowed out, and despite having the skin of a boy he already had the bones of a man. A devastatingly handsome man. For a moment he watched her watching him, the fierce green of his eyes a beautiful but startling contrast to his olive skin.

“Clarissa?” he said, his voice now cracking with the hormones that were pumping through his body.

“What?” she answered softly, not wanting to destroy the moment.

“Lyrical, your name is lyrical,” he said, reaching across for her foot.
“Which comes from the Greek meaning senses, as in lyric, having the form and manner of a song.” He started to caress her foot. His touch was delicious; his massaging fingers sent a multitude of sensations up her leg to her groin. She involuntarily groaned; it was hard to pull her foot away but she managed.

“Remember, I am your mother,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. Joseph looked mystified. “Mother love is not the same as love between a man and a woman,” she tried to explain.

Then why did she feel so furtive, she asked herself. Was it because she desired him, or was it because she felt on some strange level that she was denying him? And why did she feel lust now? She never had before.

She covered up her leg. It was getting dark and she was very conscious that there was only one bed. Joseph rolled onto his back and stretched luxuriously. He had all the physical splendor of a young colt, his narrow shoulders not quite a man’s, his hips too narrow to cradle the bulge of his manhood.

“Why is mother love not the same?” He grinned.

Clarissa tried to ignore his erection clearly outlined under the thin material of his shorts. She was torn between intense curiosity and the terror of committing an unnatural act. His sensuality was so completely natural and without guile that she couldn’t help but be swept up by it.

“It’s late. We should sleep. If I give you a blanket will you be all right by the fire?”

He nodded reluctantly. He was now about fourteen, his hands dangling awkwardly at the end of his long wrists. She handed him the blanket and turned her back on him as she changed into her nightgown. But she felt him watching her undress, his gaze sweeping across her back like beams from a lighthouse. She played up to him, turning slightly, knowing that he would see the curve of a breast, the glimmer of pubic hair. Clarissa was appalled at herself; she was actually enjoying the tease. It excited her in a way she’d never experienced before.

Dressed in her flannel nightdress she spun around. He was already curled up in front of the dying embers of the fire. He studied her solemnly and the poignancy of his glance sobered her immediately. It was that terrible look of first love, of adolescent torment.

“Look, you can lie down next to me if you like, but that’s all,” she said curtly and got into bed. Joseph leaped to his feet and dragged the blanket over. His breath was a sweet perfume drifting across her cheek.

The next morning she was woken by the sharp scent of rosemary. Joseph was squatting by the side of the bed. His white teeth gleamed as he held up a fish still thrashing the air with its tail. For a moment Clarissa didn’t recognize the handsome man who leaned over her, then she remembered the bizarre events of the last two days. Struggling with the pervasive sense of disbelief that had never entirely left her, she sat up.

“Get up, it’s breakfast time,” he said. He looked about twenty years old and had a short beard covering his face.

“I will prepare the food,” he called out as she dressed. She noticed that his English was now perfect without a hint of an accent.

“How did you catch the fish?” she asked as she pulled her dress on.

“I didn’t have to catch them, they offered up their lives. They told me they would be honored to serve me,” he replied without a hint of irony.

He placed the platter of fresh fish, bread, and olives in front of her.

“Tell me, who are you?” she asked.

He sucked a bone clean and placed it carefully on the plate. He looked up, lines forming around his eyes.

“I am centuries old. I manifest only when I have been summoned.”

“But I didn’t summon you. All I did was touch a withered piece of flesh!” she protested, trying not to respond to the curious tightening in her loins she felt every time she looked at him.

“Don’t you believe I exist?” He reached out and caught her hand, holding it tightly.

“Yes,” she murmured, not certain at all.

“Clarissa, you summoned me—maybe not consciously, but part of you wanted me, wanted a sign.”

Surprised by his verbal sophistication, Clarissa glanced across to the fireplace. Lying next to the blanket was a pile of books he had obviously consumed during the night. One of them was Carl Jung’s
Man and His Symbols
. He’s probably got a complete grasp of psychoanalysis as well as contemporary philosophy by now, she thought, daunted by the prospect of dealing with a superior intelligence.

“Were you here before, with the other woman, Maria?” Clarissa pointed to the initials carved into the wall.

Without answering Joseph looked away; again a tremendous wave of sadness washed over him. “We have a little time, not much, but a little.”
He stood, clapped his hands, and executed a few flamenco steps. “First the sea, then the sky, then the earth,” he announced enigmatically.

He took her swimming. Now fully grown and the same age as her, he stripped off his shorts and stood in the water naked, holding out his hand. She found it hard to look at him directly, so, wearing a thin petticoat, she advanced and averted her eyes. A wave pushed her over and he caught her, pulling her up against him. The muscular tautness of his body felt utterly foreign to her. She pulled away shyly and from the corner of her eye caught the proud arc of his erection. Again she found herself torn between intense shame and desire.

He grinned at her, then turned toward the sea. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A minute later a pod of dolphins appeared, playfully leaping through the ocean spray. Joseph whistled again, and two of the sea mammals swam toward them. He waded toward one and, as it waited patiently in the shallows, straddled it and rode the beast, one arm held high, the other clasping its fin as man and delphis leaped through the waves. The image resonated with Clarissa; she tried to remember where she had seen it before, then it came to her: it was a motif she’d seen in a fresco in Athens. A boy riding a dolphin. So it had really happened, this ancient rapport.

“Come!” he shouted over the crashing waves. “You ride too!”

Clarissa hesitated. The smaller dolphin, obviously female, hovered in the shallows, waiting for her. Again Joseph beckoned. What the hell—the whole thing felt like a fantasy, and, as in fantasies, Clarissa assumed she was immortal. She waded out and cautiously hoisted one leg over the slippery but surprisingly warm back. The dolphin cocked her face up toward Clarissa as if to ask if she was ready. Clarissa firmly clasped the dorsal fin. And then they were off, speeding through the water. It was as if she were flying; the island became a shattered mosaic of sun, sea, and waving olive trees. Exhilarated, she felt like a god, the power of the creature surging between her legs as they swam. It lasted a few minutes, then Joseph threw himself off and dived into the warm water. Clarissa followed. The two dolphins stood on their tails and clicked a farewell. Joseph replied by making a similar noise in his throat and with a playful splash they were gone.

Clarissa floated on her back, her arms and legs spread. She relaxed and surrendered completely to the sea. Above her was nothing but the immense blue of the sky. All human frailty dissolved into meaninglessness.

After they’d dried off, Joseph led her toward a path that wound up the side of the mountain. They climbed in silence, with the song of the skylarks above them. Clarissa watched the straining muscles of Joseph’s buttocks and legs. He now looked older than her, somewhere in his early thirties. But she noticed that in the last hour the aging process seemed to have plateaued out. There was a new serenity to him, as if his form had stopped shifting and he was finally settling down. The path widened as it reached the top of the hill. Joseph leaned down and hoisted her up to the top.