Galilee

PART NINE. The Human Road

"I'm not a good man," Galilee said. "I've done terrible things in my life. So many… very terrible things. But I never wanted this. Please believe me."

They were on the beach, and he was setting a light to the heap of driftwood he'd made, in the same spot where he'd lit that first, fragrant fire: the fire that had summoned Rachel out of the house. As the flames caught, she saw his face. That curious beauty of his-Cesaria's beauty, in the form of a man-was almost too much to see; the exquisite nakedness of him. Twice on the way out here she'd thought he'd lose control of himself. Once when he came down the stairs, and in stepping over Mitchell's body, set his bare foot in a rivulet of blood. And again when they found Niolopua on the veranda. Great heaving sobs had escaped him then, like the sobbing of a child almost, terrible to hear.

His grief made Rachel strong. She took him by the hand and led him down onto the lawn. Then she went back into the house to fetch a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes. She'd expected to see the women there, but they'd gone about other business, it seemed, for which fact she was grateful. She didn't want to think about what happened to the dead right now; didn't want to imagine Mitchell's spirit, driven out of the body he'd been so proud of, lost in limbo.

By the time she got back to Galilee, she'd already planned what to tell him. Why don't we go down onto the sand, she'd said to him, taking his hand. We can build a fire. I'm cold.

Like a child, he'd obeyed. Silently gone to collect pieces of driftwood, and arranged them. Then she'd passed the matches over to him, and he'd kindled the fire. The wood was still damp from the storm; it took a little time for the larger pieces of wood to catch. They spat and sizzled as they dried out, but at last the flames swelled around them, and they burned. Only then did he start talking. Beginning with that simple, blanket confession. I'm not a good man.

"I'm not afraid of anything you've got to tell me," Rachel told him.

"You won't leave me?" he said.

"Why would I ever do that?"

"Because of the things I've done."

"Nothing's that bad," she said. He shook his head, as though he knew better. "I know you killed George Geary," she went on. "And I know Cadmus ordered you to do it."

"How did you find that out?"

"It was one of his deathbed confessions."

"My mother made him tell you."

"She made him tell Loretta. I was just a bystander." Galilee stared into the fire. "You have to help me understand," Rachel said. "That's all I want: just to understand how this ever happened."

"How I came to kill George Geary?"

"Not just that. Why you came here to be with the Geary women. Why you left your family in the first place."

"Oh…" he said softly. "You want the whole story."

"Yes," she said, "that's what I want. Please."

"May I ask you why?"

"Because I'm a part of it now. I guess I became a part of it the day Mitchell walked into the store in Boston. And I want to know how I fit."

"I'm not sure I can help you with that," Galilee said. "I'm not certain I know where I fit."

"You just tell me the whole story," Rachel said. "I'D work out the rest for myself."

He nodded, and took a deep breath. The fire had grown more confident in the last few minutes, cooking away the last of the moisture in the wood. The smoke had cleared. Now the flames were yellow and white; the fierce heat making the air between Rachel and Galilee shake.

"I think I should start with Cesaria," Galilee said; and began.

Nobody knows the whole story, of course; nobody can. Perhaps there is no thing entire; only that rubble that Hera-clitus celebrates. At the beginning of this book I boasted that I'd teD everything, and I failed. Now Galilee promises to do the same thing, and he's fated to fail the same way. But I've come to see that as nothing can be made that isn't flawed, the chaDenge is twofold: first, not to berate oneself for what is, after all, inevitable; and second, to see in our failed perfection a different thing; a truer thing, perhaps, because it contains both our ambition and the spoiling of that ambition; the exhaustion of order, and the discovery-in the midst of despair-that the beast dogging the heels of beauty has a beauty aD of its own.

So Galilee began to tell his story, and though Rachel had asked him for everything, and though he intended to teD her everything, he could give her only the parts that he could remember on that certain day at that certain hour. Not everything. Not remotely everything. Just slivers and fragments; that best universe which is rubble.

Galilee began his account, as he said he would, with Cesaria.

"You met my mother already," he said to Rachel, "so you've seen a little of what she is. I think that's aD any body's ever seen: a little. Except for my father Nicodemus-"

"And Jefferson?"

"Oh she told you about him?"

"Not in detail. She just said he'd built a house for her."

"He did. And it's one of the most beautiful houses in the world."

"Will you take me there?"

"I wouldn't be welcome."

"Maybe you would now," Rachel suggested.

He looked at her through the flames. "Is that what you want to do? Go home and meet the family?"

"Yes. I'd like that very much."

'They're all crazy," he warned.

"They can't be any worse than the Gearys,"

He shrugged, conceding the point. "Then we'll go back, if that's what you want to do," he told her.

Rachel smiled. "Well that was easy."

"You thought I'd say no?"

"I thought you'd put up a fight."

Galilee shook his head. "No," he said, "it's time I made my peace. Or at least tried to. None of us are going to be around forever. Not even Cesaria."

"She said at Cadmus's house she was feeling old and weary."

"I think there's a part of her that's always been old and weary. And another part that's born new every day." Rachel looked confounded, and Galilee said: "I can't explain it any better than that. She's as much a mystery to me as to anybody. Including herself. She's a mass of contradictions."

"You told me once, when we were out on the boat, that she doesn't have parents."

"To my knowledge, she doesn't. Nor did my father."

"How's that possible? Where did they come from?"

"Out of the earth. Out of the stars." He shrugged, the expression on his face suggesting that the question was so unanswerable that he didn't think it worth contemplating.

"But she's very old," Rachel said. "You know that much."

"She was being worshipped before Christ was born, before Rome was founded."

"So she's some kind of goddess?"

"That doesn't mean very much anymore does it? Hollywood produces goddesses these days. It's easy."

"But you said she was worshipped."

"And presumably still is, in some places. She had a lot of temples in Africa, I know. The missionaries destroyed some of her cults, but those things never die out completely. I did see a statue of her once, in Madagascar. That was strange, to see my own mother's image, and people bowing down before it. I wanted to say to them: don't waste your prayers. I know for a fact she's not listening. She's never listened to anyone in her life, except her husband. And she gave him such hell he died rather than stay with her. Or at least pretended to die. I think his death was a performance. He did it so he could slip away."

"So where is he?"

"Where he came from presumably. In the earth. In the stars." He drew a deep breath. "This is hard for you, I know. I wish I could make it easier. But I'm not a great expert on what we are as a family. We take it for granted, the way you take your humanity for granted. And day for day, we're not that different. We eat, we sleep, we get sick if we drink too much. At least, I do."

"But you're able to do things the rest of us can't," Rachel replied.

"Not much," Galilee said lightly.

He lifted his hand, and the flames of the fire seemed to leap like an eager dog. "Of course we have more power together-you and I-than either of us had apart. But maybe that's always true of lovers."

Rachel said nothing; she just watched Galilee's face through the fire.

"What else can I tell you?" he went on. "Well… my mother can raise storms. She raised the storm that brought me back here. And she can send her image wherever she wants to. I guess she could go sit on the moon if she was in the mood. She can take life like that-" he snapped his fingers "-and I think she can probably give it, though that's not her nature. She's been a very violent woman in her time. She finds killing easy."

"You don't."

"No, I don't. I'll do it, if I have to, if I've agreed to, but no I don't like it. My father was the same. He liked sex. That was his grand obsession. Not even love. Sex. Fucking. I saw a few of his temples in my time, and let me tell you they were quite a sight. Statues of my father, displaying himself. Sometimes not even him, just a carving of his dick."

"So you got that from him," Rachel said.

"The dick?"

"The love of sex."

Galilee shook his head. "I'm not a great Jover," he said. "Not like him. I could go for months out at sea, not thinking about it." He smiled. "Of course, when I'm with someone, it's a different story."

"No," Rachel said, with a smile of her own. "It's the same story." He frowned, not understanding. "You always tell the same story," she said, "about your invented country…"

"How do you know?"

"Because I recognized it when I heard it again."

"Who from? Loretta?"

"No."

"Who, then?"

"One of your older conquests," Rachel said. "Captain Holt."

"Oh…" Galilee said softly. "Where did you find out about Charles?"

"From bis journal."

"It still exists, after all these years?"

"Yes. Mitchell took it from me. I think his brother's got it now."

"That's a pity."

"Why?"

"Because I think it probably contains the way into L'Enf-ant. I told it all to Charles when we were going in there together, and he wrote it down."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I was sick and afraid I'd lose consciousness before we got there. They would have been killed trying to find their way in without my help."

"So now Garrison knows how to get to your mother's house?" Rachel said.

Galilee nodded. "Ah, well. Nothing to be done about it now. Did you read all the journal?"

"Most, not all."

"But you know how we met? How Nub brought Charles to see me?"

"Yes. I know all that." A flurry of snatched pictures passed through her mind's eye: the battlefield at Benton-ville, the phantom child on Holt's horse, the ruins of Charleston and the grisly sights in the garden of the house on Tradd Street. She'd seen so much through Holt's eyes. "He wrote well," she said.

"He'd wanted to be a poet in his youth," Galilee said. "He spoke the way he wrote, believe it or not. The way sentences fell from his lips; it was beautiful to hear."

"Did you love him?"

Galilee looked surprised at the question. But then he said: "I suppose I did, in a way. He was a noble fellow. Or at least he had been. By the time I met him he was so very sad. He'd lost everything."

"But he found you."

"I wasn't adequate compensation," Galilee said, smiling ruefully at his own formality. "I couldn't be his wife and children and all the good things he'd had before the war. Though… maybe I imagined I could. I think that's always been my big mistake. I want to give gifts. I want to make people happy. But it never ends well."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't give anybody what they really want. I can't give them life. Sooner or later they die, and dying's never very good. Nobody dies a good death. People ding on. Even when they're in agony they want a few more minutes, a few more seconds-"

"What happened to Holt?"

"He died at L'Enfant. He's buried there." He sighed. "I should never have let them take me back. It was asking for trouble. I'd been away such a long time. But I was wounded. All used up. I needed somewhere I could heal myself."

"How did you come to be wounded?"

"I was careless. I thought I was untouchable… and I wasn't." His hand went up to his face, his fingers instinctively seeking out the scars on his brow and scalp, touching them delicately as though he were reading something there: the braille of past suffering. "There was a woman called Katherine Morrow," he said. "She was one of my… what's the word? Concubines? She'd been quite the Southern virgin until she came to be with me. Then she showed her real feelings. This was a woman who had no shame. None. She would do whatever came into her head. But she had two brothers, who had survived the war, and when they returned home to Charleston came looking for her. I was drunk that night. I was drunk most nights, but that night I was so drunk I don't think I knew what was happening to me until I was out on the street, surrounded by a dozen men-the brothers and their friends-all beating me. It wasn't just that I'd seduced the girl. I was a nigger, and they were so full of hatred, because that spring all the niggers in America were free men and women, and they didn't like that. It was the end of their world. So they beat me and beat me, and I was too stupid with drink and my own despair to stop them."

"So how was it they didn't kill you?"

"Nickelberry shot the brothers dead. He walked up with two pistols-I can still see him now, just parting the crowd around me, and blowing holes in their heads. Bang! Bang! Then Charles was there, threatening to do the same to the next man who tried to land a blow. That made them scatter. And Charles and Nub picked me up and took me away."

"Off to L'Enfant."

"Eventually."

"What happened to the people who'd been with you in your…"

"Pleasure palace? I don't know. I went back to Charleston a few years later, to look for them. But they'd all gone their separate ways. I heard Miss Morrow went to Europe. But the rest…?" He shrugged. "So many people have come and gone, over the years. So many faces. But I don't forget them. I never forget them. I see them all still. I dream about them, as though I could open my eyes and they'd be there." His voice dropped to a murmur. "And maybe they would…" he said.

He halted for a moment, then he got to his feet. "The fire's too bright," he said. "Walk with me, will you?"

They walked together, down the beach. Not hand in hand, as they'd walked that bright day when he'd taken her to see The Samarkand, but a little way from one another. He was so raw, right now; she was afraid that she'd hurt him, if she so much as touched him.

He continued to talk, but in the darkness he lost the thread of what he'd been telling her, and now he offered only fragments; disconnected observations about how his life had been in those distant days. Something about how his homecoming had unleashed a string of catastrophes; about horses killing his father; about his sister Marietta protecting him from his mother's rage; about his other sister's skills with the poultices and pills, which had helped heal him. Rachel didn't press him with questions about any of this. She just let his mind wander and his lips report.

Though Galilee made no defense of his actions, I feel that for the sake of veracity I must offer some observations of my own. Though he took the blame upon himself as though every sin committed at L'Enfant in those few grim days were his fault and his alone, this was simply not so. He wasn't responsible for my giving Chiyojo over to Nicodemus; he wasn't responsible for Cesaria's unrepentant rage; he wasn't responsible for the death of his friend Charles Holt, who died by his own hand.

He was, however, responsible for something he didn't mention in his account. When he. Holt and Nickelberry entered L'Enfant, they were followed. Their pursuers weren't common marauders; they were a small group of men led by Benjamin Morrow, the father of Katherine, who had lately lost both his sons to Nub's pistol. He was an old man by the standards of that age, well into his sixties, and perhaps his years made him more cautious and clever than a younger man might have been. Though he and his posse of five God-fearing Charlestonians had several times come close to their quarry as they'd chased them north. Morrow had refrained from attack. He wanted to get to the heart of the unholy power that had so besotted his beloved Katherine that she'd lost every drop of propriety, and gone to be a whore for this nigger Galilee. His caution and his curiosity had saved both his life and the lives of his men. By following in the footsteps of their quarry they'd unknowingly negotiated the traps that would have claimed them had they come into L'Enfant on their own. Once Cesaria realized she had trespassers, of course she descended on them like a fury.

I saw them in their graves, and I will never forget the expressions on their faces. They would have been better served by fate if they'd misstepped somewhere along the way, and perished in one of the traps. Instead they'd looked as though they'd been mauled by a cageful of hungry tigers. But given that they'd been killed by Cesaria, I'm certain even that would have been a kindness.

Anyway, now you know. And I have to say that in some corner of my being I believe the horrors that were visited upon us all soon after the dispatch of the Charleston Six would not have been so disastrous-indeed might not have happened at all-had they been forgiven their error and allowed to leave. Blood begets blood; cruelty begets cruelty. Once the Six were dead, it was all storms, horses and horrors. Galilee wasn't the cause of all that. She was; the goddess herself. Though she'd been the one from whom the glories of L'Enfant had come, she was also, in her madness, the architect of its darkest hour.

Rachel and Galilee didn't return to the fire. They went instead to sit on the rocks at the end of the beach. The sea was calm, and perhaps its soothing rhythm made it easier for him to confess what he still had to tell.

"It was Nub got me out of the house," he began, "just as he'd got me in. I think he probably believed Cesaria was going to kill me-"

"She wouldn't have harmed you. Would she?"

"In one of her furies, anything was possible. She'd made me, after all; I'm sure she believed she was quite within her rights as a mother to unmake me again. But she didn't get the chance. Marietta distracted her, and Nickelberry spirited me away. I was delirious most of the time but I remember that night-oh my God, how I remember it-stumbling through the swamp, thinking every sound we heard behind us was her coming after us."

"What about Nickelberry-the things he'd seen. How did he deal with that?"

"Oh Nub was a cool one. It was all too much for Charles, but Nub… I don't know, he just took everything in his stride. And he saw power. That was the crux of it. He saw power the like of which he'd never seen before, and he knew that if he had me, he had a piece of that power. He wasn't helping me out of Christian charity. He'd lived the life of an underdog. He'd been brought up with nothing. He'd come out of the war with nothing. But now he had me. My life was in his hands, and he wasn't going to let it slip away."

"Did you talk about what he'd seen?"

"Later. But not for many weeks. I was too sick. He'd brought out medicines that my sister Zabrina had given him, and he promised me that he'd stay with me and make me well."

"What did he want in exchange?"

"At the time, nothing. We made our way out to the shore, and we lived there in the dunes for a few weeks. Nobody came there; we were quite safe from discovery. He made a shelter for us, and I lay in it, listening to the sea, slowly getting well. He was my nurse, he was my comforter; he fed me, he bathed me, he listened to me rave in my fevers. He went out and brought back food. God knows where he got it. What he did to get it. His only concern was to make me well. I know it may sound perverse, but when I look back on that time, I think of it more fondly than any of my time in Charleston. I felt this great weight off me. Like I'd been cured of some sickness. I'd had every excess known to man. I'd made love to so many bodies, had so much beauty in my hands. I'd been so high I thought I'd never come down. And now it was all over. I was living out under the stars with nothing to call my own, just the sea, and time to think. That's when I first began to dream of building myself a boat and sailing away…

"Then one day Nub started talking about his own dreams. And I realized it wasn't going to be so easy. He had a friend in me; that's what he believed at least. We were going to work together, when I was well.

""This is the perfect time to start over,' he said to me. 'If we work together we could make a fortune out there.'"

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him I didn't want to have anything more to do with people. I'd had my fill of them. I told him about my dream of building a boat and sailing away.

"I expected him to laugh. But he didn't. In fact he said he thought it was a very good idea. But then he said: 'You

can't just sail away and forget what we've been through together. You owe me something.'

"And of course he was right. He'd risked his life for me in Charleston, shooting the Morrow brothers. He'd risked his life getting me out of L'Enfant. Lord knows, he'd seen things that would have driven lesser men mad, because of me. And then, when we'd reached the shore he'd tended to me night and day. Without him and Zabrina's poultices I would have been disfigured; maybe died. Of course I owed him. There was no question about it.

"So I asked him what he wanted from me. And he had a very simple answer: he wanted me to help make him rich. The way he saw it there were opportunities to make fortunes out there. Reconstruction was underway. There were roads to lay, cities to rebuild, bellies to feed. And the men who were at the heart of all that-with the wit and the skill to make themselves indispensable-those men were going to be richer than any men in the history of America."

"Was he right about all this?"

"More or less. There were a few oil tycoons and railroad magnates who were already so rich nobody was going to catch up with them. But he'd given the whole business some careful thinking, and he was not a stupid man; not by any means. He knew that as a team-with his pragmatism and my vision, his understanding of what people wanted and my capacity to get the opposition out of the way-we could become very powerful in a very short time. And he was impatient. He'd lived in the gutter for long enough. He wanted a better life. And he didn't care how he got it, as long as he got it." He paused, and stared out to sea. "I could still get myself my boat, he said to me, I could still sail away. That was fine and dandy. He'd even help me find a boat; only the best. But he needed me to help him in return. He wanted to have a wife and kids, and he wanted them to live the good life. It seemed like such a small thing when I was agreeing to it. Anyway, how could I refuse, after he'd done all he'd done for me?

"We made a kind of pact, right there on the shore. I swore I would never cheat him, or any of his family. I swore on my life that I'd be his friend, and his family's friend, for as long as I lived."

Rachel had a sickening sense of where this was going.

"I think you begin to understand," Galilee said.

"He didn't keep the same name…"

"No, he didn't. A couple of days later he came back to the shore in a fine old mood. He'd found a body in a ditch-or what was left of it. A Yankee, who'd died many, many miles from home. In his satchel were all his papers: everything Nickelberry needed to become another man, which in those days was not very much. After that day, he was never 'Nub' Nickelberry again. He became a man called Geary."

This was not remotely what Rachel had expected, but as she contemplated the information she saw how the pieces fitted. The roots of the family into which she'd married were deep in blood and filth; was it any wonder the dynasty that sprung from this beginning was in every way shameful and hollow?

"I didn't know what I'd agreed to," Galilee went on. "I didn't realize until a lot later the scale of Nub's ambition, or what he was prepared to have us do to make it a reality."

"If you had known…?"

"Would I have agreed? Yes, I would have agreed. I wouldn't have liked it, but I would have agreed."

"Why?"

"Because how was I ever going to be free of him otherwise?"

"You could have just walked away."

"I owed him too much. If I'd cheated him, history would have just repeated itself. I would have been pulled into something else-some other piece of human folly-and had to endure that instead. I would have had to pay the price eventually. The only way to be free-at least this was the way I thought of it-was to work with Nub, and help make his dreams come true. Then I'd have earned a dream of my own. I could have my boat, and… off I'd go." Galilee sighed deeply. "It was messy, working for him; very messy. But he was right when he talked about the opportunities. They were everywhere. Of course, to get ahead of the crowd you needed something extra. He had me. I was the one he sent in if he had trouble with somebody, to make sure he never had trouble again. And I was good at it. Once I was in the rhythm I realized I had quite a skill for terrorizing people."

"You get it from Cesaria."

"No doubt. And believe me I was in the right mood to do violence. I was an exile now; I felt free to do whatever crossed my mind, however inhumane. I hated the world, and I hated the people in it. So it made me happy to be the spoiler, to be the bloodletter."

"And Nub-"

"Geary, now. Mr. Geary."

"Geary. He never got his hands dirty? You did all the intimidation, he did all the business?"

"No, he'd get involved when he felt like it. He was a cook. He liked knives and carcasses. Sometimes he'd astonish me. I'd see him do something, so cold, so indifferent to the suffering he was causing, and I'd be… I'd be in awe of him."

"In awe?"

"Yes. Because I'd always felt things too much. I'd agonized over things I did. My head had always been filled with voices telling me not to do this, not to do that; or to look out for the consequences. That was why I liked to get drunk, and high; it hushed those voices. But when I was with Geary: no voices at all. Nothing. Silence. It was nice.

"And as the months went by, and I got completely well, and strong again, I began to get a reputation as somebody to be afraid of, and that was nice too. The more of that reputation I got the more I made sure I deserved it. When I needed to make an example of somebody, I was vicious.

There was this part of me that was cruel, venomous, and when people saw that in my eyes or heard it in my voice… it made them compliant. Often-especially later-^1 didn't need to lay a finger on them. They'd just see me coming, and they'd be asking what they could do for us, how they could help us."

"And the men who didn't?"

"Died. At my hands. Usually quickly. Sometimes not. Sometimes, if Geary thought an example had to be made of a guy, I'd do something so bad-" He stopped. She couldn't see his face. But she heard the soft sobs that escaped him; and could see his silhouette shake as he was wracked. He took a moment to recover himself and then continued, his voice muted.

"We started to expand our territories, state by state. We went north into Virginia, we went into Tennessee and Missouri, we worked our way through as far as Oklahoma, then down into Texas. Wherever we went, Geary bought up land, most of the time with money he didn't have, but by now he had a name and a reputation; he was this new guy out of Charleston who had a vision and a fast tongue and a way of getting what he wanted, and anyone who said no to him regretted it, so fewer and fewer people did. Fewer and fewer wanted to. They wanted to be in business with him: he was the face of the future, and he always acted as though he had so much money that you'd get rich just by shaking hands with him." His voice was gathering strength again. "The thing was, a lot of people did get rich off him. He was a natural; he had a nose for wealth. I think he even surprised himself.

"In a little over three years he was a millionaire, and he decided it was time to start a family. He married a rich woman out of Georgia, who'd taken all her money up north before the war. Her name was Bedelia Townsend, and she seemed to be the perfect match for him. She was beautiful, she was ambitious, and she Wanted the world right there, in the palm of her hand. There was only one problem. He didn't take care of her in the bedroom as she would have liked. So I kept her company."

"Did she have children by you?"

"No. They were all his. I was very careful about that. Pleasuring her was one thing, giving her a Barbarossa was another."

"Weren't you tempted?"

"To make a half-breed with her? Oh yes, I was tempted. But I was afraid that would spoil what was between us. I loved being with her. Nothing made me happier."

"And what did Geary think about all this?"

"He didn't care. He was out empire-building. As long as Bedelia produced children, and I was there to play the bully-boy if somebody crossed him, he didn't concern himself with what we did together. It was a busy time for a cook who wanted to be a king. And to be fair to him, he worked, night and day. The seeds of everything the Geary family became were sown in that decade after the end of the war."

"So there must have come a time when you'd paid your debt to him."

"Oh there did. But if I'd walked away from him, where would I have gone? I couldn't go back to L'Enfant. I had no other life besides the Gearys."

"You could have gone away to sea."

"That's what happened, eventually." He paused, thinking on this moment. "But I didn't go alone."

"You took Bedelia?" Rachel said softly.

"Yes. I took Bedelia. She was the first woman to step on The Samarkand, and you were the second. We sailed off, without telling Geary we were going. She left a letter, I think, explaining her feelings; telling him she wanted more than he'd given her."

"How could she do that? How could she leave her children?"

He leaned a little closer to her. "You wouldn't have done that for me?" he said.

"Yes," she murmured, "of course I would."

"That's your answer then."

"Did she ever see them again?"

"Oh yes. Later. But she also had another child…"

"You had your half-breed?"

"Yes."

"Niolopua…?"

"Yes. My Niolopua. I made sure he understood from the beginning that he had Barbarossian blood. That way he could escape at least some of the claims of time. My father had told me that some of his bastards-the ones who lived in ignorance of who they were-lived ordinary, human lives. Seventy years and they were gone. It was only the children who knew their real nature who could outlive their Biblical span."

"I don't understand," Rachel said. "If you've got Barbarossian blood what does it matter whether you know it or not?"

"It's not a matter of blood. It's a matter of knowing who you are. It's knowledge, not chemistry that makes us Barbarossas."

"And if you'd never told him?"

"He'd be a long time dead by now."

"So you and Bedelia go out to sea on The Samarkand, and eventually you find your way here?"

"Yes. We came here by chance; the winds brought us here and it seemed like paradise. There was nobody at this end of the island back then. It was like the beginning of the world. We weren't the first visitors, of course. There was a mission in Poi'pu. That's where she had Niolopua. And while she was recovering, I finished work on the house." He looked past her, along the beach. "It hasn't changed much," he said. "The air still smells as sweet as when I was here with her."

She thought of Niolopua as he spoke: of the many times she'd seen unreadable expressions cross his face, and wondered what mysteries lay buried in him. Now she knew.

He'd been the dutiful son, watching over the house built for his mother all those long years ago, watching the horizon and waiting for a sail, the sail of his father's boat, to come into view. She wanted to weep, for the loss of him. Not that she'd known him well; but he had been a connection to the past, and to the woman whose love had made so much of what had happened to Rachel possible. Without Bedelia, there would have been no house here in Eden.

"Have you heard enough?" Galilee said to her.

In a sense, she'd heard more than enough. It would take her days to comb through what he'd told her, and put the pieces together with what she already knew: the tales she'd read in Charles Holt's journal, the oblique exchanges she'd had with Niolopua and with Loretta; that last, bitter confrontation between Cesaria and Cadmus. All of it was illuminated by what she now knew; and yet paradoxically was all the darker for that. The pain and the grief, the allegiances and the betrayals, they were so much deeper than she'd imagined. All of which would have been extraordinary enough had it simply been some story she'd heard. But it was so much more than that. It was the life of the man she loved. And she was a part of it; she was living it, even now.

"Can I ask you one last question?" she said. "Then we'll leave it for another time."

He reached out and caught hold of her hand. "So, then, it's not over?"

"What do you mean?"

"Between us."

"Oh God, my sweet…" she said, reaching up to touch his face. He was burning hot; as though in the grip of a fever. "Of course it's not over. I love you. I said I wasn't afraid of what you had to tell me, and I meant it. Nothing would make me let go of you now." He was trying to smile, but his eyes were full of tears.

She stroked his brow. "What you've told me helps me make sense of everything," she said. "And that's all I've wanted, since the beginning. I've wanted to understand."

"You're extraordinary. Did I ever tell you that? You're an amazing woman. I only wish I'd found you earlier."

"I wouldn't have been ready for you," Rachel said. "I would have run away. It would all have been too much…"

"You had another question," Galilee said.

"Yes. What happened to Bedelia? Did she stay here on the island?"

"No, she missed the social life of the big city, so she went back after three and a half years. Picked up where she'd left off."

"And Niolopua?"

"He went with me for a few years. Out to see the world. But he didn't like the sea very much. So I brought him back when he was twelve, and left him here, where he wanted to be."

One question answered, and another demanded to be asked. "Did you ever see Bedelia again?"

"Not until the very end of her life. Some instinct-I don't know what it was-made me sail back to New York, and when I got to the mansion she was on her deathbed. I knew when I saw her she'd been holding on, waiting for me to come back. She was dying of pneumonia; and Lord, to see her there… so weak. It broke my heart. But she told me she wasn't ready to die until she'd seen Geary and me make peace. God knows why that was so important to her, but it was. She ordered him to come up to the bedroom-"

"The big room overlooking the street?" Rachel said.

"Yes."

"That's where Cadmus died."

"A lot of Gearys have been born and died in that room."

"What did she say to you?"

"First she made us shake hands. Then she told us she had one last wish. She wanted me always to be there for the Geary women, to comfort them the way she'd been comforted. To love them the way she'd been loved. And that would be the only service I'd do for the Gearys after her death. No more murder. No more torture. Just this promise of comfort and love."

"What did you say to that?"

"What could I say? I had loved this woman with all my heart. I couldn't deny her this; it was the last thing she was ever going to ask for. So Geary and I agreed. We made a solemn oath, right there at the bottom of her bed. He agreed to protect the house in Kaua'i from any of the male members of his family: to dedicate it to the Geary women. And I agreed to go there when the women wanted me, to keep them company. Bedelia didn't die for another two days. She clung on, while we waited and watched-Geary on one side of her, me on the other. But she never said another word after that; I swear she made us wait so that we'd think about what we'd promised. When she died we grieved together, and it was almost like the old times; like it had been at the beginning, before everything went wrong between us. I didn't go to see her buried. I wouldn't have been welcome in the elevated company which Nub now kept-the Astors, the Rothschilds, the Carnegies. And he didn't want me standing beside his wife's grave, with everyone asking questions. So I sailed away. The day Bedelia was put in the ground I caught the morning tide. I never saw Nub again. But we wrote to one another, making formal arrangements for what we'd agreed to do. It was strange, how it all ended up. I'd been the King of Charleston when he met me; he'd been a wanderer. Our roles were reversed."

"Did you care? That you had nothing, I mean."

Galilee shook his head. "I didn't want anything that he had. Except Bedelia. I would have liked to have taken her with me. Buried her here, on the island. She didn't belong in some fancy mausoleum. She belonged where she could hear the sea…"

Rachel thought of the church that she'd visited when she'd first come to the island, and of the small ring of graves around it.

"But her spirit's here, sometimes."

"So she was one of the women in the house?"

Galilee nodded. "Yes she was. Though I don't know if I dreamt them or not."

"I saw them clearly."

"That doesn't mean I didn't dream them," Galilee said.

"So she wasn't her ghost?"

"Ghost. Memory. Echo. I don't know. It was some part of who she was. But the better part of her soul has gone, hasn't it? She's out in the stars somewhere. All you saw was something I kept, for company. A dream of a memory of Bedelia. And Kitty. And Margie." He sighed. "I was their comfort when they were alive. And now they're dead, a little piece of them is mine. You see how things always come around?" He put his hands to his face. "I'm all talked out," he said. "And we should make our plans to leave. Somebody's going to come looking for your husband sooner or later."

"One last thing," Rachel said.

"Yes?"

"Is that how I'm going to be one day? Like the women in the house? I'll die, and you'll just dream me up when you're lonely?"

"No. It's going to be different for us."

"How?"

"I'm going to bring you into the Barbarossa family, Rachel. I'm going to make you one of us, so death won't take you from me. I don't know how I'm going to do that yet-I don't even know that I can-but that's my intention. And if I can't…" he reached for her, took her hands in his, "if I can't live with you, as a Barbarossa, then I'll die with you." He kissed her. "That's my promise. From now on, we're together, whether it's to the grave or the end of time."

I stayed up through the night writing Galilee's confession. It was in some ways the happiest of labors: I was finally able to unburden myself of portions of this story I've waited a long time to set down; and it was pleasing to interleave my voice with Galilee's in the telling. But it was also the first of many acts of closure that the next few days will bring, and toward the end of the night a distinct sense of melancholy crept upon me. You might think this strange, given how painful many of the demands of this book have been, but for all my complaints, I have been moved and changed by the journey I've taken, and I don't look forward to its being over, as I thought I would. In truth, I'm a little afraid of being finished. Afraid that when I get to the end, and set my pen down, I will have spilled so much of myself onto the page that what remains inside me, to fill the vessel of my being, will be inadequate. That I'll be empty, or nearly so.

My mood lightened somewhat when the dawn chorus started up; and by the time I crawled into bed I was feeling a little happier with my lot. At least I had something to show for my labors, I thought to myself: if I were to die in my sleep, there would be something left behind, besides the hairs in the sink, and the spit stains on my pillow. Something which had come from my hand and head; evidence, if you will, of my desire to make order of chaos. Speaking of chaos, I realized as I fell asleep that I'd missed Marietta's wedding celebrations. Not that I would have ventured out to attend them; even if the book had not been demanding my attention I would have made some excuse not to go. When I finally travel beyond the perimeters of L'Enfant it won't be to go on a drunken rampage with a bar full of Marietta's lesbian buddies. On the other hand I couldn't help but think that her wedding-assuming it took place-was yet further evidence of how things were changing; and how I, who'd witnessed all these changes, and been their loyal transcriber, was now left behind. A self-pitying thought, no doubt; but sometimes self-pity works better than any lullaby. Bathing in a stew of martyrdom, I fell asleep.

I dreamed again; and this time I didn't dream of the sea, or of the gray wastes of a city, but of a bright burnished sky, and a wilderness of desert. A little way off from me, there was a caravan of men and camels, its passage raising clouds of ocher dust. I could hear the camel drivers yelling to their animals, and the sharp snap of their sticks against the creatures' flanks. I could smell them too, even though they were a quarter of a mile from me: the pungent aroma of dirt and hide. I had no great desire to join their company, but when I looked around I saw that the landscape was otherwise empty in every direction.

I'm inside myself, I thought; dust and emptiness in every direction; that's what I'm left with, now I've finished writing.

The caravan was steadily moving away from me. I knew if I lingered too long it would disappear from sight. Then . what would I do? Die of loneliness or desiccation; one or the other. Unhappy though I was, I wasn't ready for that. I started toward the caravan, my walk quickening into a trot, and the trot into a run, as my fear of losing it grew.

Then, suddenly, I was there among the travelers; in the midst of their din and their stench. I felt the rhythmical motion of a camel beneath me, and looked down to see that I was indeed perched high on the back of one of the animals. The landscape-that aching void of baked earth-was now concealed from me by the dust cloud raised by the travelers in whose midst I rode. I could see the backside of the animal in front, and the head of the animal behind; the rest was out of sight.

Somebody in the caravan now began to sing, raising a voice more confident.than it was melodic above the general din. It was, I suppose you'd say, a dream song, wholly incoherent yet oddly familiar. What was it? I listened more carefully, trying to make sense of the syllables, certain that if I concentrated hard enough I'd discover what I was hearing. Still the song resisted; though at times the sense of it was tantalizingly close.

Frustrated, I was about to give up on the endeavor, when something about the rhythm of the song gave me a clue. I listened again, and the words, which had seemed nonsensical just moments before, came clear.

It wasn't a traveler's song I was listening to; it wasn't some exotic paean raised to the desert sky: it was a ditty from my childhood. The song I'd sung in the plum tree, all those many, many years ago.

It seems I am, It seems I was, It seems I will Be born, because It seems I am-

Hearing it now, I let my voice join in the rendition, and as soon as I did so, other voices were raised around me, all singing the same song. Round and round the words went, like the wheel of the stars; born and being and being born again.

I felt a surge of remembered contentment. I was not empty, despite the tears I'd taken to bed with me. The memories were still there in me, sweet and pungent, like the plums on the branches of that tree. There to be plucked when I needed sustenance. Yes, there were stones at their heart-hard, bitter stones-but the meat around those stones was moist and nourishing. I wouldn't go empty after all.

The singing continued, but the voices of my unseen companions were becoming more remote. I looked back. The camel behind me had disappeared; so had the beast I was following. My fellow travelers, it seemed, had fallen by the wayside. Now I was traveling alone, singing alone, matching the pace of my song to the steady tread of my mount.

It seems I am, I sang.

It seems I was-

The dust was clearing, now that there were no animals other than my own to stir it up. Something was glittering ahead of me.

It seems I will

Be bom, because-

A river; I was coming to a broad river, the waters of which had brought forth lush swards of flower-speckled grass and stands of heavy-headed trees. And beyond this verdant place, the walls of a city, warmed by the setting sun.

Now I knew what river this was; it was the Zarafsham. And the city? I knew that too. I had come, by way of a plum tree and a song, to the city of Samarkand.

That was all. I didn't get any closer to the city than that first glimpse. But that was enough. I woke immediately, but with such a strong sense of what I'd seen that the melancholy which had accompanied me to bed had dis appeared, healed away by what I'd experienced. Such is the wisdom of dreams.

It was by now the middle of the afternoon, and I took myself off to the kitchen to find something to eat. I did so without attending to myself whatsoever-thinking that I'd be able to find myself some food and slip back to my study unnoticed. But the kitchen had two occupants: Zabrina and Dwight. They both greeted the sight of me with some alarm.

"You need a shave, my friend," Dwight remarked.

"And some new clothes," Zabrina remarked. "You look as though you've been sleeping in those."

"I have," I said.

"You can take a look through my wardrobe if you like," Dwight said. "You're welcome to whatever I'm leaving behind."

Only now did I notice two things. One, the suitcase beside the table at which Zabrina and Dwight sat; two, the fact that Zabrina's eyes were red-rimmed and wet. It seems I'd interrupted a tearful farewell; at least tearful on her side.

"This is your fault," she said to me. "He's going because of you."

Dwight pulled a face. "That's not true," he protested.

"You told me if you hadn't seen that damn horse-" Zabrina began.

"That wasn't his doing," Dwight said. "I volunteered to go out to the stables with him. Anyway, if it hadn't been the horse it would have been something else."

"I gather from all this that you're leaving?" I said.

Dwight looked rueful. "I have to," he said. "I think if I don't go now-"

"You don't have to go at all," Zabrina said. "There's nothing out there worth going for." She reached across the table and caught hold of Dwight's hand. "If you've got too much work-"

"It's not that" Dwight said. "It's just that I'm not getting any younger. And if I don't go soon, I won't go at all." He gently extricated his hand from Zabrina's hold.

"That damn horse," she growled.

"What's the horse got to do with all this?" I asked.

"Nothing…" Dwight replied. "I just said to Zsa-Zsa-" (Zsa-Zsa? I thought. Lord, they'd been closer than I imagined.) "-that seeing the horse-"

"Dumuzzi."

"-seeing Dumuzzi made me realize that I missed seeing things, ordinary things, out there in the world. Except on that, of course." He nodded toward the little television which I knew he'd spent countless hours watching. Had he been yearning to leave L'Enfant all the time he'd been watching that flickering image? So it seemed. But he hadn't known, apparently, how much he yearned, until Dumuzzi had appeared.

"Well," he said with a little sigh, "I should be going." He got up from the table.

"Wait until tomorrow at least," Zabrina said. "It's getting late. You'd be better setting off first thing in the morning."

"I'm afraid you'll slip something in my supper," he said to her with a small, sad smile. "And I won't remember why I packed."

Zabrina gave him a small, forbidding smile. "You know I'd never do a thing like that," she replied. Then, sniffing hard, she said: "If you don't want to stay, then don't. Nobody's twisting your arm." She looked down at her hands. "But you'll miss me," she said softly. "You see if you don't."

"I'll miss you so much I'll probably be back in a week," he said.

Zabrina started to shake with sorrow. Tears splashed on the table, big as silver dollars.

"Don't…" Dwight said, his own voice cracking. "I hate it when you cry."

"Well then you shouldn't make me cry," Zabrina replied, somewhat petulantly. She looked up at him, her eyes streaming. "I know you have to go," she said. "I understand. I really do. And I know you won't come back in a week, whatever you say. You'll get out there, and you'll forget I ever existed."

"Oh darlin'-" Dwight said, leaning down to gather her against him. It was an ungainly embrace, to say the least, Dwight unable to quite get his arms around Zabrina at that angle, Zabrina so desperate to be comforted she grabbed hold of him as though she were about to fall from a great height, and he was her only hope of life. The sobs came loud and long now, though Zabrina's face was pressed against Dwight's belly. With great tenderness he stroked her hair, looking at me as he did so. There was sadness on his face, no question; but there was also a hint of impatience. He'd decided to go, and there would be no changing his mind. Zabrina's clinging and sobbing only delayed the inevitable.

Plainly he wanted me to intervene.

"Come on, Zabrina," I said brightly, "enough's enough. He's not dying. He's just going to go see what's out there in the big, bad world."

"It's the same thing," she said.

"Now you're being silly," I said gently, walking over to her chair and laying my hands on her shoulders. She was momentarily distracted by my touch, which allowed Dwight to pull away from her. She made no attempt to catch hold of him again. She was obviously resigned to his departure.

"You take care of yourself," Dwight said to her. "And you, Maddox. I'm going to miss you too." He picked up his suitcase. "Say goodbye to Miss Marietta for me, will you? Tell her I wish her well with her lady."

He took a couple of backward steps towards the door, but they were so tentative I almost thought he was going to change his mind. And perhaps he would have done so if Zabrina hadn't looked up at him, and with a fierceness that I truly didn't expect from her at that moment, said:

"Are you still here?"

At which cue he turned on his heel, and departed.

I spent a few minutes attempting to console Zabrina after Dwight left, but I knew nothing I could say was going to comfort her as much as food. So I suggested a sandwich. She didn't brighten up immediately, but the sight of my labors on her behalf slowly dulled her unhappiness. Her sobs faded, her tears dried up. By the time I presented her with my handiwork, which was a minor work of art I may say (freshly sliced ham, cold sliced asparagus, pickles, a little mustard, a little mayonnaise) she had quite brightened up.

Once she began to eat the sandwich I laid out a selection of desserts, and then left her to it. She was so thoroughly engrossed in her edible comforts that I doubt she even realized I'd left the kitchen.

I had made myself a more modest version of the sandwich I'd constructed for Zabrina, and I ate it while I washed, shaved and changed into something more presentable than my sleep-rumpled garb. By the time I was ready for the day, the day was almost over. Dusk was drawing on, so I poured myself a glass of gin and walked out onto the verr anda to enjoy the last of the light. It was a sublime evening: a clear sky, not a hint of a breeze. The birds were making a tuneful noise in the magnolias, there were squirrels in the grass going about their last labors of the day. I sipped my gin, and watched, and listened, and thought: so much of what makes L'Enfant beautiful will go on, long after this house has fallen. The birds will still sing, the squirrels will still caper, the night will still descend, and show its stars. Nothing important will pass away.

As I drained the last of my gin I heard laughter drifting across the lawn; distant at first, but getting closer. I couldn't yet see anybody, but it wasn't hard to make a good guess as to its source. This was women's laughter, though it was raucous and raw, and it came, I thought, from at least half a dozen throats. Marietta had brought her wedding party-or some portion of that party-back to the house.

I stepped off the veranda and onto the grass. The milky breast of the moon was rising round and full. Its light wasn't cold silver. It was butter-yellow; and it sweetened everything it lit.

I could hear Marietta's voice now, rising above the laughter.

"Get your asses movin'!" she was yelling. "I don't want anybody gettin' lost."

I watched the dark place under the trees from which her voice had come, and moments later she stepped into view, hand in hand with her Alice. A few steps behind came three more women, one of whom was glancing back over her shoulder, suggesting there were still others following on.

A few months ago I would have been appalled at the idea of Marietta bringing so many strangers onto the grounds of this sacred home. I would have thought it a violation. But what did it matter now? The more people who saw and enjoyed Jefferson's masterpiece before its destruction the better, and it was plain even at a distance that the women, now they had sight of the house, were suitably impressed. The laughter died away; they stopped in their tracks, exchanging looks of astonishment.

"This is where you lucky bitches live?" said one of the women in the party of three.

"This is where we live," Marietta said.

"It's beautiful…" said the woman who'd been glancing back over her shoulder. Now she'd forgotten her com panions. She walked toward the house with a look of astonishment on her face.

There was more laughter out of the trees, and what I took to be the last of the celebrants came out into the moonlight. One of them was barely dressed, her blouse unbuttoned, her lower half naked. Her companion, an older woman with unkempt gray hair, was dressed more formally, but the front of her dress had been opened up to release her ample bosom. Both women staggered slightly as they walked; and the younger of the two sank down into the grass almost as she saw the house, her laughter fading. I heard her say:

"Oh shit, Lucy… she wasn't kidding."

The older woman (Lucy, I assumed) came up behind her, and the younger let her head loll against her thighs.

"How come I never knew this place was here?" Lucy called after Marietta.

"It was our little secret," Marietta replied.

"But it ain't a secret no more," said one of the women in the trio, coming to Marietta's side. "We're going to party all the time, now we know it's here."

"Suits me," Marietta said. She turned back to Alice, and kissed her on the lips. "We can do-" another kiss "-whatever the hell-" another kiss "-we want."

With that, she and Alice made their way across the lawn to the house. I decided it was time to make my presence known. Stepping out into the moonlight I started toward the women, calling to Marietta as I went.

"Eddie!" she said, opening her arms to me. "There you are! Look at us! We're married! We're married!" I went into her embrace. "Did you bring the minister too?" I said.

"We didn't need no minister," Alice said. "We just said our vows in front of our friends, and God."

"Then we all got drunk," Marietta said. "And we've stayed that way." She leaned close to me. "I love you, Eddie," she said to me. "I know I don't always show it-"

I hugged her again, tighter than before. "You're quite a lady," I told her. "I'm proud of you."

Marietta turned round to face the women. "Listen up, everyone! I'd like y'all to meet my brother Eddie. He's the only man on the planet worth a damn." She grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed it. "Eddie, say hello to everyone. This is Terri-Lynn-" The blonder of the pair who'd followed on Marietta and Alice's heels said hi, with a lavish smile. "And the big ol' gal there, that's Louise, 'cept don't call her that 'cause she'll kick your ass. She prefers Louie. So you've been warned."

Louie, who had the physique of a weight lifter who'd gone to seed, flicked her hair out of her eyes and said hello. The woman at her side, her features as limpid as Louie's were severe, introduced herself without Marietta's prompting.

"I'm Rolanda," she said.

"And I'm pleased to meet you," I replied. She had a bottle of whiskey in her hand, and passed it over to me. "Want a drink?"

I took the bottle, and drank from it.

"And that's Ava and Lucy at the back there," Marietta told me. She took the whiskey bottle out of my hand as she spoke and drinking from it, passed a mouthful of the booze onto Alice.

"I think Ava needs to lie down for a while," Lucy said, "she's kinda out of it."

"Alice'll take you into the house," Marietta said. "I want to have a quick word with my little brother. Go on, honey!" she said to Alice, turning her bride around and patting her on her butt. "Take them in. I won't be long."

"Where do you want us to go?" Alice said.

"Anywhere you like," Marietta said with an expansive gesture.

"Not upstairs," I cautioned.

"Oh, Eddie. She's not going to hurt anyone."

"Who are you talking about?" Rolanda wanted to know.

"My mother."

"Louie'll sort her out. She likes a good fight."

"Cesaria isn't a fistfighting lady," I said. "You just stay downstairs and things'll be fine and dandy."

"Can I have my whiskey back?" Rolanda said to Marietta.

"No you can't," Marietta replied. Rolanda frowned. "You're drunk enough."

"Oh, and you're not?" Rolanda said. She turned to me. "I know what you're thinking," she said, with a sly smile.

"Oh and what's that?"

"If only I were a woman, I'd get myself laid tonight. And you know what? You would. Big time." She reached down and without a word of warning cupped my genitals. "Pity you got this ol' thing weighing you down." She grinned. I don't think I even attempted an answer. If I did, I stumbled over it, and she was on her way, following the other five.

"So this is your crowd…" I said to Marietta.

"Aren't they a riot? They're not always like this, by the way. It's just a special night."

"What did you tell them?"

"About what?"

"About the house. About us. About Mama."

"Eddie, will you stop fretting? They couldn't find their way back here if their lives depended on it. Anyway, I trust them. They're my friends. I want to make them welcome here."

"Well why don't we just have an open house for the county?" I said. "Invite everyone in."

"You know that's not such a bad idea," she said, poking me in the middle of the chest. "We've got to start somewhere." She glanced back at the house. All the women had disappeared inside.

"What did you want to talk about?" I said.

"I just wanted to drink a toast," she said, raising the bottle between us.

"To anything in particular?"

"You. Me. Alice. Love." She smiled at me. "It is a pity you've got a dick, Eddie. I could find you a nice girlfriend-" She laughed uproariously at this. "Oh Eddie, I wish I had a camera. You're blushing."

"I am not blushing."

"Baby, take it from me. You're blushing." She kissed my cheek, which was probably somewhat flushed, I'll admit.

"I need to live a little," I said.

"That's our toast, right there," Marietta said, "to being alive and living a little."

"I'll drink to that."

"It's been too fucking long." She put the bottle to her lips and drank, then passed it over to me. I took another swallow, vaguely thinking that I was going to be as drunk as the rest of them if I went on like this. I'd only eaten a sandwich all day, and this was my third shot of liquor, including my gin, in the space of half an hour. But what the hell? It wasn't often a man got to play among wild women like this.

"Let's go inside," Marietta said, slipping her arm through mine. As we ambled to the house she leaned against me.

"I am so happy," she said as we got to the door.

"That's not just the whiskey talking?" I said.

"No, it's not the whiskey. I'm happy. I'm deep-down happy. What a beautiful night." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Oh my Lord," she said. "Look at that."

I turned to see what had drawn her attention. There in the middle of the lawn was a quartet of hyenas, their eyes upon us. There was nothing predatory in their stare, I didn't think, but their presence so close to the house was indeed surprising. Their natural nervousness seemed to have vanished. They were suddenly brave. Three of them halted when we stared back at them, but the largest of the four continued to approach, undaunted, and didn't stop until it was perhaps four or five yards from where we stood.

"I think she wants to come in," Marietta said.

"How do you know it's a she?" I said. "I thought you couldn't tell male from female."

"I know a bitch when I see one," Marietta remarked. "Hey, honey," she called to the animal, "you want to come join the party?"

The hyena sniffed the air, then glanced back at her companions, who were watching the whole scene intently, but hadn't come any closer. Deciding perhaps that she needed to study this situation more closely before she took the final plunge and entered the house, the animal lay down in the grass and put her head on her paws.

We left her to her scrutiny. It would only be a matter of time, I thought, and the creature would be over the threshold. Then what? With the wedding party and the hyenas in residence, how long before the foxes came, and the birds? L'Enfant, in its old age, would soon be as busy on the inside as it was out. Perhaps after all my doomy predictions the house would not die a violent death, but be gently brought to ruin by animals that had flourished in its vicinity. Hadn't I even predicted the possibility, many months ago? The thought that my prediction might prove correct was surprisingly sweet.

I left the front door open when we went inside, just to be sure the hyena knew she was welcome.

Why is it so much harder to describe happy times than sad? I've had little trouble conjuring scenes of grief and devastation for the last God knows how many pages, but now-when I come to the simple business of telling you how I passed three or four blissful hours in the company of my darling Marietta and her tribe-words fail me. I was simply content with these women, whose repartee tended toward the ribald, and whose voices-when raised in argument-were deafening. What were the bones of contention between them? I can't remember, to tell you the truth. I know I contributed little or nothing to the debate. I sat and watched and listened to that charmed circle and I swear there was no seduction on earth that would have persuaded me to leave it.

At last, however, the drink and the hour took its toll on even the hardiest of the celebrants, and sometime after midnight the group broke up, and we all went on our way. I'd found a moment to tell Marietta about Dwight's departure, so she invited Rolanda and Tern-Lynn to take his bed for the night. Ava had been tucked up on the sofa since the beginning of the evening, and Lucy went to join her there. Louie stayed where she was, at the dining room table, her head sunk on her hands. The newlyweds, of course, traipsed away to Marietta's bedroom, hand in hand.

As I wandered through the house, heading back to my study, I thought about what was left for me to write. I would have to make an account of how Galilee and Rachel left the island: strictly for neatness' sake; it was an uneventful departure. And then there was the matter of the bodies in the house. I'd have to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to how they were discovered. It was certainly a more interesting anecdote than the details of the lovers' departure, touched as it was by an element of the grotesque. The same blind dog that had wandered up from the beach to be petted by Rachel when she'd first come to the house had been the one to raise the alarm. He had done so not by sitting on the veranda and howling, but by turning up on his owner's porch with a portion of a human foot, chewed off at the ankle, in his mouth. It didn't take long for the police to find the two corpses. Though the body of Mitchell Geary was inside the house, it was his body that was missing the foot. For some reason the animal had stepped over the corpse on the veranda to make dinner of the man at the bottom of the stairs.

The coroner determined that both men had been dead for forty-eight hours. Though the police began a search of the island immediately, it was assumed that the murderer was already long gone; probably back to the mainland. There was plenty of evidence pointing to Rachel, of course: her bags were up in the bedroom, her fingerprints on the banisters, close to the place where Mitchell Geary lay. Later, however, there would be good forensic reasons to doubt her culpability: the general store owner would identify Mitchell as the man who'd purchased the murder weapon; and there would be only one set of prints-Mitchell's prints-found on the knife. But just because she hadn't actually delivered the lethal wound didn't exonerate her. The newspapers were soon full of theories as to what had happened at the house, the most popular being the belief that Mitchell had come to the island to get his wife back, but had suspected that she had some plot laid against his life. He'd armed himself as best he could, killed the man she'd hired to murder him, and then-in some kind of struggle with Rachel-had fallen downstairs and perished in what was essentially a freak accident.

There was no lack of commentary attending this theorizing-a few of the more perceptive journalists commenting on how dysfunctional the relationships between the Geary men and their wives seemed to be. A few even claimed that they'd seen the tragedy coming; that it had been in essence inevitable. This was a mismatch made in hell, one of the bitchier society watchers wrote, and I'm only surprised it's taken so long for it to come to an end. That it has ended so tragically can come as no surprise to the surviving members of the Geary family, in whose ranks the course of love and marriage has seldom run smooth. A cursory glance over the history of the dynasty provides ample evidence that the men have all too often treated their wives as little more than investments with wombs, providing a return in children rather than dollars. Is it any great shock that Rachel Geary apparently resisted this life?

The family itself made no public pronouncements on the matter, except for a short statement, cautiously worded by Cecil, that put full confidence in the police investigations.

Behind closed doors, there was no gathering of family members to discuss how things went on from here, no stirring speech from Loretta about how this adversity would allow the Gearys to demonstrate their cohesiveness. This was the third death in the family in a matter of months, and it drove everyone into their own private places, to grieve or meditate. Cadmus's funeral was delayed by several days so that Mitchell's body could be flown back from Hawaii, and arrangements could be made to inter Mitchell and his grandfather together. Loretta did not oversee the preparations: she left it all to Carl linville. Instead she flew down to the house in Washington with Jocelyn, where she locked herself away, taking no calls or visitors, refusing to speak to anyone but Cecil. She had lost her last ally, now that the prince was gone. Whether her appetite for control of the family had been permanently spoiled only time would tell; for now she seemed content to let the world proceed on its weary way without her.

Only Garrison seemed untouched by all of this. No, not untouched, untroubled. When he flew to Hawaii to accompany his brother's body home he strode through the hordes of photographers at the airport like a man who'd been given a new lease on life. It wasn't that he smiled-nothing so crass-but to anyone who knew him, knew the brittle language of his body, and his reticence about being in the public eye, there was plainly a change in him. It was as though Garrison had taken on some of the qualities of his dead brother; inherited at the moment of Mitchell's decease all the confidence that had been the prince's birthright. He parted the journalists like a sea, saying nothing, but dispensing nods to right and left, as though to say: I am come into power.

When he got to the island his first duty was to go to the morgue in Lihue and confirm identification of Mitchell. This done, he was driven to Anahola to visit the house, which he was allowed to walk around alone. He wanted some time, he said, to pay his respects to the past. The police captain who was escorting him put up no objection to Garrison's request, but when, after half an hour. Garrison had not emerged from the house, he went in to see that all was well. The house was deserted. Garrison had finished with his meditations long since, and was now standing on the beach. He cut a peculiar figure, with his black suit and his slicked hair and his hands thrust deep into his pockets. The sun was blazing; the water turquoise and white. Garrison was staring out to sea, and he stayed there, staring and staring, for perhaps fifteen minutes. When he came back in, he was smiling. 'It's all going to be fine," he said.

There're no neat conclusions to any of this, of course. All these lives go on, past the end of this book; there's always more to tell. But I have to draw the line somewhere, and I'm choosing to draw it here, give or take a few observations. Tempting though it is to pick at the threads of things I've mentioned in these pages, but left unsewn, I don't dare touch them. Each is a garment unto itself.

So. Let me tell what happened when, having wandered about the house for a while, thinking the thoughts I've just set down, I came to the hallway.

I glanced up the stairs, and there, close to the top of the flight, I glimpsed a motion in the shadows.

I thought perhaps it was Zabrina, who'd been conspicuous by her absence throughout the evening (though she must certainly have heard the noise of the wedding party). I called out to her, but even as I did so I realized my error. The shape on the stairs was small, and even accounting for the fact that it was wrapped in shadow, somehow vague.

"Zelim?" I ventured.

The form rose up from its crouching position, and came a little way down the stairs, its gait hesitant. My second guess had been correct. It was indeed Zelim, or what was left of him. His presence stood to his earlier self as that self had stood to the fisherman from Atva. He was the phantom of a phantom, his substance negligible. Like smoke, I want to say; like a soul of smoke, who only held his form because there was no wind to disperse him. I held my breath. He looked so tenuous that he'd be banished by the mildest exhalation.

But he had sufficient strength to speak: a dwindling voice, to be sure, disappearing with every syllable, yet strangely eloquent. I heard the happiness in him from the first, and knew before he told me that his wish had been granted.

"She let me go…" he said.

I dared that breath now. "I'm happy for you," I said.

"Thank… you…" His eyes, in the last phase of his existence, had become huge, like the eyes of a child.

"When did this happen?" I asked him.

"Just a… few… minutes ago…" the infant said. His voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear what he was telling me. "As soon… as soon… as she knew…"

I didn't catch the last of what he said, but I was afraid to waste a moment asking, for fear of losing him completely in that moment. So I kept my silence, and listened. He was almost gone. Not just his voice, but his physical presence, fading by the heartbeat. I felt no sorrow for him-how could I, when he'd so plainly stated his desire to be gone out of this world?-but it was still a strangely melancholy sight, to see a living soul erased before your eyes.

"I remember…" he murmured "… how he came for me…"

What was this? I didn't understand what I was being told.

"… in Samarkand…" Zelim went on, the syllables of the city like gossamer. Oh now I understood. I'd written about the event he was remembering, I'd pictured it here on these pages. Zelim, the aged philosopher, sitting among his students, telling a story about how God's hands worked; then looking up and seeing a stranger at the back of the room, and dying. His death had been a kind of summons; out of his self-willed existence into the service of Cesaria Yaos. Now that service was ended, and he was remembering-fondly, I thought, to judge by the tender gaze in his eyes-how he'd been called; and by whom. By Galilee, of course.

Did Zelim realize that I was still a little puzzled by what he was telling me, or did he at the last want to simply state how things had come full circle? Whichever it was, he said:

"He's here."

And with those two words gave up his life after death, and went away, smoke and soul.

He's here.

That was quite a pair of words. If they were true, then I was amazed.

Galilee, here? Lord in heaven, Galilee herel I didn't know whether to start yelling at the top of my voice, or to go hide my head. I looked up to the top of the stairs, half-expecting to see Cesaria there, demanding I go fetch him, bring him to her. But the landing was deserted, the house as still as it had been in the moment before Zelim had spoken his last. Did she not know he was here? Impossible. Of course she knew. This house was hers, from dome to foundations; the moment he'd stepped into it she'd been listening to his breath and to his heartbeat; to the din of his digestion.

She knew that he'd have to come to her sooner or later, and she was simply waiting for him to do so. She could afford to be patient, after all these long, lonely years.

I didn't linger in the hallway, now that Zelim was gone. I headed for my study, and was a few yards from my study door when I caught the alluring whiff of a burning havana. I pushed open the door, and there, sitting in the chair behind my desk, was the great voyager himself, leafing through my book, while he puffed on one of my cigars.

He looked up when I entered, and gave me an apologetic smile.

"Sorry," he said. "I couldn't help myself."

"The cigar or the book?" I replied.

"Oh the book," he said. "It's quite a story. Is any of it true?"

I didn't ask him how much he'd read; or what he thought of my stylish eccentricities. Nor did I reply to his perverse question, about the veracity of what I'd written. Nobody knew the truth of it better than he.

We embraced, he offered me one of my own cigars, which I declined, and then he asked me why there were so many women in the house.

"We went from room to room," he explained, "looking for somewhere to lay our heads, and-"

"Who's we?"

He smiled. "Oh, come on, brother…"

"Rachel?" I replied. He nodded. "She's here?"

"Of course she's here. You think I'd ever let that woman out of my sight again after what we've been through?"

"Where is she?"

His eyes went to the door of my bedroom. "She's sleeping," he explained.

"In my bed?"

"You don't mind?"

I couldn't keep the grin off my face. "No, of course I don't mind."

"Well I'm glad I've pleased somebody in this damn house," Galilee said.

"Can I… take a peek at her?"

"What the hell for?"

"Because I've been writing about her for the last nine months. I want to see-" What did I want to see? Her face? Her hair? The curve of her back? I suddenly felt a kind of desire for her, I suppose. Something I'd probably been feeling all along, I just hadn't realized it. "I just want to see her," I said.

I didn't wait for him to give me permission. I got up and went to the bedroom door. A wash of moonlight lit the bed, and there, sprawled on the antiquated quilt, was the woman of my waking dreams. I couldn't quite believe it.-There she was: Rachel Pallenberg-Geary-Barbarossa, her liquid hair spread on the same pillow where I'd laid my own buzzing head so many nights, and thought about how to shape the story of her life. Rachel in Boston, Rachel in New York, Rachel convalescing in Caleb's Creek, and walking the beach at Anahola. Rachel in despair, Rachel in extremis, Rachel in love-

"Rachel in Love," I murmured.

"What's that?"

I glanced back at Galilee. "I should have called the book Rachel in Love."

"Is that what it's really about?" he said.

"I don't know what the hell it's about," I replied, quite truthfully. "I thought I knew, about halfway through, but…" I returned my gaze to the sleeping woman "… maybe I can't, know until it's finished."

"You're not done?"

"Not now you're here," I replied.

"I hope you're not expecting some big drama," Galilee said, "because that's not what I had in mind."

"It'll be what it'll be," I said. "I'm strictly an observer."

"Oh no you're not," he said, getting up from behind the desk. "I need your help." I looked at him blankly. "With her." He cast his eyes up toward the ceiling.

"She's your mother not mine."

"But you know her better than I do. You've been here with her all these years, while I've been away."

"And you think I've been sitting with her drinking mint juleps? Talking about the magnolias? I've barely seen her. She's stayed up there brooding."

"A hundred and forty years of brooding?"

"She's had a lot to brood about. You. Nicodemus. Jefferson."

"Jefferson? She doesn't still think about that loser."

"Oh yes she does. She told me, at great length-"

"See? You do talk to her. Don't try and squirm out of it. You talk to her."

"All right, I talk to her. Once in a while. But I'm not going to be your apologist."

Galilee contemplated this for a moment; then he shrugged. "Then you won't have an ending to your book, will you?" he said. "It's as simple as that. You'll be sitting down here wondering what the hell's going on up there, and you'll never know. You'll have to make it up."

"Jesus…" I muttered.

"I've got a point, right?"

He read me well. What was worse than the prospect of going up with Galilee in tow to face Cesaria? Why, the prospect of staying here below, and not knowing what passed between them. Whatever happened between mother and son when they came face to face, I had to be there to witness it. If I failed to do so then I failed in my duty as a writer. I couldn't bear to do that. I've failed at too much else.

"All right," I said. "I'm persuaded."

"Good man," he said, and embraced me, pressing my body hard against his. It made me feel meager, to be sure. I realized as he wrapped his arms around me that I'd hardly expressed with a quarter the passion it deserved what the Geary women must have felt in his embrace. I envied them.

"I'm going to wake Rachel," he said, breaking his hold on me and going to the door of my bedroom. I followed him, as far as the door, and watched him crouch beside the bed and reach out to gently shake her out of sleep.

She was obviously deep in dreams, because it took her a little time to surface. But when her eyes finally opened, and she saw Galilee, a luminous smile came onto her face. Oh, there was such love in it! Such unalloyed pleasure that he was there, at her side.

"It's time to get up, honey," Galilee said.

Her eyes came in my direction. "Hi," she said. "Who are you?"

It felt odd, let me tell, to have this woman-whose life I had so carefully chronicled, and with whom I now felt quite familiar-look at me and not know me.

"I'm Maddox," I said.

"And you're sleeping in his bed," Galilee said.

She sat up. The sheet fell away from her body, and she plucked it up to cover her nakedness. "Galilee told me a lot about you," she said to me, though I suspect this was to cover a moment of embarrassment.

"But I'm not what you imagined?"

"Not exactly."

"You look trimmer than you did when I saw you at the swamp," Galilee said, patting my belly.

"I've been working hard. Not eating."

"Working on your book," Rachel said.

I nodded, hoping that would be the end of the subject. It had never occurred to me until now that she might want to read what I'd written about her. The thought made my palms clammy. I turned to Galilee. "You know I think if we're going to go up to see Cesaria," I said, "we should go soon. She knows you're here-"

"The longer we wait, the more she'll think I'm afraid to come?" Galilee said. I nodded.

"I'd like to at least wash my face before we go," Rachel said.

"The bathroom's through there," I said, pointing the way. Then I withdrew from the room, to allow her some privacy.

"She's so beautiful," I whispered to Galilee when he'd followed me out. "You're a very lucky man."

Galilee didn't reply. He had his eyes cast toward the ceiling, as though he were preparing himself for what lay above.

"What do you want from her?" I asked him.

"To be forgiven, I suppose. No. More than that." He looked at me. "I want to come home, Eddie. I want to bring the love of my life back to L'Enfant, and live here happily ever after." Now it was me who didn't reply. "You don't believe in happily ever after?" he said.

"For us?"

"For anybody."

"But we're not anybody, are we? We're the Barbarossas. The rules are different for us."

"Are they?" he said, his gaze opaque. "I'm not so sure. It seems to me we're driven by the same stupid things that drive everyone else. We're no better than the Gearys. We should be, but we're not. We're just as petty, we're just as confused. It's time we started to think about the future."

"This is strange, coming from you."

"I want to have children with Rachel."

"I wouldn't do that," I said. "Half-breeds are no use to anybody."

He laid his hand on my shoulder. "That's what I used to believe. Anyway what kind of father would I make? That's what I said to myself. But it's time, Eddie." He smiled, beautifully. "I want to fill this old house with kids. And I want them to learn about all the miraculous shit we take for granted."

"I don't think there's much that's miraculous left in this place," I said. "If there ever was."

"It's still here," he said. "It's everywhere around us. It's in our blood. It's in the ground. And it's up there, with her."

"Maybe."

He caught hold of my chin, and shook it. "Look at you. Be happy. I'm home."

So, up we went, the three of us. Through the dark, quiet house, up the stairs, to Cesaria's chambers. She wasn't there, however. As I went from room to room, knocking lightly, then pushing the doors open, the realization slowly grew that of course she wasn't there. She'd gone up one more flight, to the skyroom. The circle was closing, quickly now. The place where all this had begun-where I'd been granted the first visions-was demanding our attendance.

As we turned from the empty bedroom, I heard the click of claws on the floorboard, and saw Cesaria's favorite quill-pig. Tansy, scuttling out from under the bed. I went down on my haunches and cautiously picked the creature up. She was quite happy to be in my arms-and for some reason I found her presence there reassuring.

"Where are we going now?" Galilee said as I passed him and Rachel on my way out of the bedroom.

"Up to the dome," I said.

He looked at me anxiously. "What's she doing up there?"

"I guess we're going to find out," I replied, and led the way, along the passage and up the narrow stairs. Tansy grew more agitated as we went; a sure sign that my instincts were correct, and that Cesaria was indeed awaiting us in the room above.

I paused at the door, and turned back to the lovers.

"Have you ever been in here?" I asked Galilee.

"No…"

"Well, if we get separated-" I said.

"Wait. What are you talking about: separated? It's not that big a room."

"It's not a room, Galilee," I said. "It may be that from the outside, but once you get in there, it's another world. It's her world."

He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"So what should we expect?" Rachel said.

"I'm afraid whatever I tell you, it's probably going to be something different. Just go with the flow. Let it happen. And don't be afraid of it."

"She's not afraid of much," Galilee said, offering Rachel a little smile.

"And as I said, if we get separated-"

"We'll go on without you," Galilee said. "Agreed?"

"Agreed."

With the quill-pig still nestling in the crook of my arm, I turned to the door, and reaching down-somewhat tentatively, I will admit-for the handle, I opened it. There was a sliver of me dared imagine being here would work another miracle upon me. If the first visit had healed my broken body, what might a second do? It was all very well for Galilee to extol the virtue of half-breeds, but I'd found no special glory in that condition; quite the contrary. Was it possible that stepping back into the heart of Cesaria's world I might be cured of my hybrid state? Might be made wholly divine?

That tantalizing possibility made me braver than I might otherwise have been. With just one backward glance, to be sure that I still had Rachel and Galilee in tow, I strode on into.the room. At first glance it seemed to be quite empty, but I knew how misleading such impressions could be. Cesaria was here, I was certain of it. And if she was here, then so was the court of visions and transformations that attended upon her. It was just a question of waiting for them to appear.

"Nice room," I heard Galilee say behind me.

There was an ironic edge to the remark, no doubt; he obviously thought I'd overestimated the miraculous nature of the place. I didn't offer any kind of defense. I just held my breath. A few seconds passed. The quill-pig had quieted in my arms. Curious, I thought. I let the held breath go, albeit slowly. Still nothing.

"Are you sure-" Galilee began.

"Hush."

It was not me who silenced him, it was Rachel. I heard her footsteps behind me, and from the corner of my eye saw her walking on past me into the room. She'd left Galilee's side. In other circumstances I might have glanced back over my shoulder and called him a coward, but the moment was too fraught for me to risk the distraction. I kept my gaze fixed on Rachel as she wandered toward the center of the room. That hush of hers had come because she'd heard something; but what? All I could hear was the sound of our breathing, and the padding of Rachel's soles on the bare boards. Still, she was clearly attending to some sound or other. She cocked her head slightly, as if she wasn't quite sure whether she was really hearing this sound or not. And now, as she listened, I caught what she was straining to hear. It was the softest of sounds: a sibilant murmuring, so quiet I might have assumed it was the hum of my blood, had it not also been audible to Rachel.

She looked down at her feet. I followed her gaze, and saw that a subtle change had overtaken the boards. The cracks were being erased, and the details of each board, the grain and the knotholes, were shifting. Rachel could obviously feel the effect of this shift against the tips of her toes: the flow of the motion was toward her, out of the heart of the room.

Now I put the sound I was hearing together with the shifting of the boards: the wood was becoming sand; sand blown by a gentle but insistent breeze.

Rachel glanced back toward me. To judge by her expression she wasn't so much alarmed by what was happening as entertained.

"Look," she said. Then, to Galilee, "It's okay, honey." She reached out toward him, and he came to join her, sliding an anxious glance in my direction as he did so. The wind was getting stronger; the boards had now disappeared completely. There was only sand beneath our feet now, its grains glittering as they rolled on their way.

I watched him reach out to take hold of her hand, wondering what place this was, creeping up upon us. The walls across the room had melted away into a gray-blue haze; and I cast my eyes heavenward to see that the dome had also faded from view. There were stars up there, where there'd been a solid vault of timber and plaster. The dark between them was deepening, and their pinpricks growing brighter, even as I watched. For a few giddying heartbeats it seemed I was falling toward them. I returned my gaze to Rachel and Galilee before the illusion caught hold of me; and as I did so the lovers' fingers intertwined.

I felt a subtle shock pass through me, and Tansy jumped out of my arms, landing on the sand in front of me. I went down on my haunches to see that no harm had come to her-strange, I suppose, but there was some comfort in concerning myself with the animal's welfare when the ground was being remade underfoot, and the stars burning too bright above. But Tansy wanted none of my help now. She was off before I could touch her, with that comical rolling gait of hers. I watched her go perhaps three yards from me before lifting my eyes. What I saw when I did so put the thought of her out of my head completely.

There was no apocalyptic scene before me; no vaults of fire, no panicking animals. There was instead a landscape that I knew. I'd never walked there, except in my imagination, but perhaps I knew it all the better for that fact.

Off to my right was a forest, thick and dark. And to my left, the lisping waters of the Caspian Sea.

Two souls as old as heaven came down to the shore that ancient noon …

This was the place where the holy family had walked; where Zelim the fisherman had left his bickering comrades and gone to engage in a conversation that would not only change his life, but the life that he lived after death. The place of beginnings.

There was no harm here, I thought to myself. There was just the wind and the sand and the sea. I looked back toward the door; or rather the spot where the door had stood. It had gone. There was no way out of here, back into the house. Nor was there any sign of Cesaria's presence along the shore. I thought I could see some hint of habitation in the distant dunes-a new Atva, perhaps, or the old-and there was the skeletal remains of a boat, the bones of its hull black in the starlight, a distance away, but of the woman we'd come here to see, not a sign.

"Where the hell are we?" Galilee wondered aloud.

"This is where you were baptized," I told him.

"Really?" He looked out toward the placid water. "Where I tried to swim away?"

"That's right."

"How far did you get?" Rachel asked him.

I didn't hear his response. My attention was once again upon the porcupine, who having waddled away some distance had now turned round, and with her nose to the sand, was snuffling her way toward the carcass of the boat. Halfway there, she raised her head, made a small noise in her throat, and quickened her pace. She wasn't sniffing her way any longer: she knew her destination. Somebody was waiting for us in the shadows of the vessel.

"Galilee…?" I murmured.

He looked my way, and I pointed along the shore. There-sitting in the boat-was the storm-maker, the virago herself, a scarf of dark silk draped over her head.

"You see her?" I murmured.

"I see," he said. Then, more quietly. "You go first."

I didn't argue. My anxiety had faded, calmed by the tranquillity of the scene. There would be no great unleash-ings here, I sensed; no forces raging around. Of course that probably meant that my hopes of being raised out of half-breed state were dashed. But nor would I come to any harm.

Following Tansy's tracks in the sand, I approached the boat. The starlight was no longer brightening, but its benediction showed me Cesaria dearly enough, sitting there on a pile of timbers, looking my way. With the ribs of the wreck rising to either side of her she looked as though she were sitting at the heart of a dark flower.

L'Enfants… she said to us… you took your time.

Tansy was at her feet. She bent down and the creature clambered up into her embrace, where it perched in grunting bliss.

"We looked for you downstairs…" I began to explain.

I won't be going back there, she said. I've shed too many tears down there. And now I'm done.

She hadn't taken her eyes off me since we'd started toward her. It was almost as though she didn't want to look past me toward her son; didn't dare, perhaps, for fear of shedding the very tears she said she was done with. I could see how dose they were; how full of feeling she was.

"Is there something you need from me?" I asked her.

No, Maddox, she said, with sweet gravity. There's nothing now. You've done more than enough, child.

Child. There'd been a time when she'd enraged me with that word. Now it was wonderful. I was a child, still. My life, she seemed to say, was still to be lived.

You should go, she said.

"Where?"

Through the forest, she said. The way Zelim went.

I didn't move. Though I'd heard the instruction, I couldn't bring myself to leave. After all my trepidation, all my fears of what being in her presence might bring, I wanted to stay a moment longer, two moments, three, to enjoy the balm of her eyes and the honey of her voice. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I made my limbs obey me, and turn me toward the trees.

Travel safely, child … I heard her say.

Lord, but it was hard, walking away, even though in a sense I was being set free. I'd paid for my freedom in words; every thought I've set on these pages has been a ransom against this release. But still, there was a sadness in me, to be going.

I didn't look back until I'd taken perhaps twenty paces. When I did, however, I stopped for a few minutes, just to watch what ensued. This was the moment. Galilee and Rachel, hand in hand, were approaching the boat.

Brat, Cesaria said to him. You took your time.

"I got lost. Mama," Galilee said. "I got lost in the world. But I'm home now."

There's nothing left to come home to, Cesaria said. It's all gone.

"Then let me build it again," Galilee replied.

You don't have the wits, child.

"Not on my own," Galilee said. "But with my Rachel-"

Your Rachel, Cesaria said, her voice softening. She rose from her throne of timbers, and beckoned to Rachel. Come here, she said.

Rachel let go of Galilee's hand, and walked toward the boat. Cesaria stepped out between the ribs of the hull and looked her up and down. I was too far from them to see the expression on her face, but I could well imagine how scouring that scrutiny felt. I'd experienced it myself; or some measure of it. Cesaria was looking into Rachel's soul. Making a final judgment as to the appropriateness of this woman. At last, she said:

Are you sure you want this?

"This?" Rachel said.

This house. This history. This brat of mine.

Rachel looked back over her shoulder. In the long moment that she gazed at Galilee I thought I heard the stars moving overhead, steady and content.

"Yes," she said. "He's what I want."

Then he's yours, Cesaria said.

She opened her arms.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?" Galilee asked.

Cesaria laughed. If not now, then when? Come into my arms, before you break my heart again.

"Oh, Mama-"

He went to her then, with such abandon, and pressed his face against her shoulder while she wrapped him in her arms.

"Forgiven?" he said.

Forgiven, she replied.

I did not expect to come to the last few pages of this story following in the footsteps of Zelim the fisherman, but that's what happened. Leaving the reunion to take its happy course behind me I headed for the trees, and stepped beneath their canopy. It was dark, and I very soon gave up any attempt to plot a course for myself; I simply plunged on through the undergrowth, letting accident decide my destiny. I wasn't particularly reassured by what I remembered of Zelim's journey. He'd emerged from this forest only to be raped by bandits. I hoped to be luckier; hoped, indeed, that though I'd left the shore and Cesaria far behind me, she was watching over my progress, and would guide me in my sightlessness.

There was little sign of a guiding hand, however. Just as I was certain the darkness around me was as profound as it could get, it became darker. I was soon reduced to stumbling forward with my arms stretched in front of me, to prevent myself from walking into a tree. That didn't keep my face and hands and chest from being scratched by thorns, or my feet from becoming entangled in the ropes of root across my path. Several times I fell headlong, the breath knocked out of me. So much for Cesaria's final blessing, I thought sourly. Travel safely, indeed. If this was her world I was stumbling through, as I presumed it to be, might she not have put a moon up there above me, to light the path?

No, I suppose that would have been too easy. She was never one to be needlessly kind, even to herself. Perhaps especially to herself. Just because her child had been returned to her, she wasn't going to change her ways.

It was too late for me to turn back, of course. The shore had long since disappeared from sight behind me. I had no choice but to wander on-as Zelim had done before me-hoping that the torment would eventually come to an end.

And so, after a long, long time, it did. I caught a glimpse of amber light between the trees, and fixing my eyes on the glow, I stumbled on toward it. Dawn was coming up, ahead of me; I could see layers of tinted cloud, their flat bellies stroked by the emerging sun. And to welcome the light, birds in bright chorus, filling the branches overhead. My legs were weak by now, and my body shaking with fatigue, but the sight and sound gave me a fresh burst of energy, and within five minutes of first seeing the light I was emerging from the trees.

My night journey had been far more elaborate than I'd realized. Somehow while I'd been blind Cesaria's enchantments had led me out of the house and across the grounds to the perimeter of L'Enfant. That was where I now stood: at the borderland between sacred ground and secular; between Barbarossian territory and the rest of the world. Behind me was a solid mass of trees, the thicket that swelled and blossomed between them so dense that I could see no more than three or four yards, while ahead of me lay a landscape of simple virtues. Rolling hills, rising away from the swampy ground that bounded L'Enfant; scattered trees, uncultivated fields. I could see no sign of habitation.

The birds who'd been greeting the dawn now took flight from the canopy, and I watched them rising up, wheeling around overhead before talcing their various ways. I felt suddenly immensely vulnerable, seeing them rise into that bright, wide sky. It was so long since I'd been roofless; I was sorely tempted to turn round and go back to the house.

I had unfinished business there, I reasoned: I couldn't just walk out into the world and leave the life I'd been living behind me. A journey like this needed thought and preparation. I had to say goodbye to Marietta, Zabrina and Luman; I had to append a few dosing paragraphs to the book on my desk; I had to tidy up my study, and lock away my private papers. There was this to do, there was that to do.

All excuses, of course. I was just trying to find ways to postpone the fearful moment when I actually faced the world again. That was why Cesaria had tricked me into this sudden exile, I knew; to deny me my procrastinations, and oblige me to venture out, under this expanse of sky. In short, to make me live.

I was standing there, facing the empty vista before me, chewing all this over, when I heard a motion in the thicket behind me. I turned around, and to my astonishment saw Luman digging his way out through the shrubbery, cursing ripely as he did so. When he finally emerged from the tangle he looked like some half-crazed spirit of the green, twiglets and thorns in his beard and hair. He spat out a mouthful of leaf, and gave me a fierce look.

"You'd better be grateful!" he groused.

"For what?" I said.

He raised his hands. He was carrying two leather knapsacks, both much battered and beaten. They were packed to the point of bursting. "I brought you some stuff for your travels," he said.

"Well that's good of you," I said.

He tossed the smaller of the knapsacks over to me. It was heavy. It also stank.

"Is this another of your antiques?" I said, looking at the Confederate insignia on the flap.

"Yep," he said. "I got them the same place I got the saber. I put your pistol in there, along with some money, a shirt and a flask of brandy."

"And that one?" I said, eyeing the bigger knapsack.

"Some more clothes. A pair of boots, and you know what."

I smiled. "You brought me my book?"

"Of course. I know how much you love that damn thing. I wrapped it in the ol' Stars and Bars."

"Thank you," I said, taking the second knapsack from him. It was quite a weight. My shoulders were going to regret my verbosity in the days to come. But it felt good to have the thing with me; like a child that I could not bear to be separated from.

"You went into the house for the book," I said. "I know how you hate it in there…"

He threw me a sideways glance. "Used to. But it's changin' isn't it? Animals shittin' on the floor. Women everywhere." His face broke into a puckish grin. "I'm thinkin' maybe I'll move back in. Them ladies is mighty fine."

"They're lesbians," I pointed out.

"I don't care if they're from Wisconsin," he said. "I like 'em."

"How did you know where to find me?"

"I heard you walking by the Smoke House, talking to yourself."

"What was I saying?"

"Couldn't make no sense of it. I came out and you jus' walked right on, like you was sleepwalkin'. I kinda figured she'd put you up to this. Old Lady Love."

"You mean Cesaria."

He nodded. "That's what Paps used to call her. 'Old Lady Love, all ice and honeysuckle.' Didn't you ever hear him call her that?"

"No, I never did."

"Huh. Well, anyhow I figured she'd decided to be rid of you. So I thought I'd just give you something to be going with."

"Thank you. I appreciate it." Luman looked a little uncomfortable that I was thanking him.

"Well…" he said, plucking another fragment of leaf from the corner of his mouth. "You've been kind to me, brother."

I wondered, watching him separate leaf and beard, if I'd missed some simple pattern in my investigation of our family; if he wasn't Pan, by another name, and my brother Dionysus, and-

I caught myself in this, and growled.

"What is it?"

"I'm still writing that damn book in my head," I said.

"You'll forget about it, once you get out there," Luman said, his gaze drifting past me to the landscape over my shoulder. There was a certain wistfulness on his face. I thought about our conversation about how he couldn't possibly face the prospect of returning to the world: that it would make too crazy. But I could also see how the idea of risking the journey was deeply tempting to him. I decided to play Mephistopheles.

"You want to join me?" I said.

He didn't look at me. Just kept his eyes on the sunlit hills. "Yeah…" he growled. "I want to join you. But I ain't gonna. Least, not today. I got shit to do, brother. I got to arm all them ladies."

"Arm them?"

"Yeah… if they're staying-"

"They're not staying."

"Marietta says they are."

"Really."

"That's what she says."

Oh my Lord, I thought: the invasion took place after all. L'Enfant has fallen. But not to the Gearys: at least, not yet. To a tribe of lesbians.

"But you know what you promised-" Luman went on.

"You mean about your kids?"

"You remembered."

"Of course I remembered."

He beamed, his eyes shining. "You'll go look for them."

"I'll go look for them."

He came to me suddenly, and clamped his arms around me. "I knew you wouldn't let me down," he said, planting a noisy kiss on my cheek. "I love you, Maddox. And I want you to take that love along with you, to keep you safe out there." His hug tightened. "You hear me?"

I hugged him back, though it was a messy embrace, with both knapsacks in my arms.

"You know where you're going to start looking?" he asked me when the hugging was done.

"No idea," I said. "I'm just going to follow my instincts."

"You bring my kids back with you?"

"If that's what you want."

"It's what I want…" he said.

He fixed me with his gaze for a long moment, and I swear there was more affection in his expression than I'd seen directed at me in many a long year. He didn't linger, but broke the gaze, and turned away, disappearing into the thicket. In four or five strides he'd been eclipsed by the green, and the wall between myself and L'Enfant stood resolute.

Luman's a lot smarter than a first impression might suggest. He didn't just pack the book, he packed a sheaf of plain paper, some pens, even ink. He knew I'd want to record my departure from L'Enfant; that my farewell to the house would also mark my farewell to these pages.

So here I am, sitting on the roadside maybe three miles from where he and I said our goodbyes, committing these closing thoughts to paper. The day's been kind to me. There's been a gentle breeze blowing since midmorning, and the sun's been warm, but not hot. I came upon this road after a couple of hours of walking, and decided to follow it, though I have no idea where it's going to lead me. In a sense-though I'm a very long way from the Caspian Sea-I'm still following in Zelim's footsteps; traveling blind, but in hope. Of what? Perhaps of a little wisdom; a due to the question I'd wanted answered by Nicodemus: what am I for? It's probably too much to expect; the world grants an answer to that question rarely, I think, and when it does usually makes the recipients pay dearly for the information. The tree of that knowledge has its roots at Golgotha.

In lieu of that, I have no clear agenda. I've been living under a despotic regime for a long time now, with the heel of my own ambition on my neck. Now that it's almost lifted, living free may be satisfaction enough. I am hereafter only the man who told a prodigal's story; who chronicled the return of Galilee and his beloved to the place where they could begin. Forward of that moment is an empty page. And though I will be walking there, I intend to leave no trace of my passing; at least not in words.

All of which is not to say I won't wonder, as I go, how the lives and afterlives of those I've written about here will proceed.

I can see Garrison Geary even now, home from burying his grandfather and his brother, sitting in what used to be Cadmus's sanctum. On his lap, Charles Holt's journal. On the wall in front of him, the great Bierstadt canvas. In his mind he has become the lone pioneer on the crag in the painting; but it is not the plains of the Midwest he imagines possessing. It is L'Enfant. He plans to take it by force. He even knows what he's going to do once he's become the Lord of that house, and it will change the course of history.

In Washington, Loretta is alone; also meditating on what lies before her. Seeing her men put into the ground, side by side, made her wonder if she hadn't been hasty when she'd told Rachel that these mysteries were beyond them all. We're little people, she'd said. We don't have a prayer. But in the dusk, listening to the traffic, she wonders if that's the very thing she has: a prayer; and someone to deliver it to. It will take her a little time to make sense of things; but she's a clever woman, and now she has nothing to lose, which makes her formidable.

Meanwhile, Luman's bastards pass the grimy days in some city I cannot name, the wisest of them expecting nothing; though they may yet be astonished.

And the shark deities move in the clear waters around the islands.

And the dream spirits of the Geary women sit laughing under the eaves of the house in Anahola;

And certain powerful men, weary from their day of politicking, come reverentially into a temple close to Capitol Hill, and pay their sullen respects;

And the gods go on, in spite of themselves; and the human road stretches out before us; and we walk, like wounded children, waiting for the strength to run.