Galilee

PART FIVE. The Act of Love

The wind had carried the rain clouds off toward Mount Waialeale by early evening, where they'd shed the bulk of their freight. The skies cleared over the North Shore, and about seven-fifteen the gusts died to nothing with uncanny suddenness. Rachel was eating at the time-a plate of baked chicken, prepared by Heidi, who'd come in, cooked, and departed. She looked up from her meal to see that the palms were no longer churning, and the sea was quite placid.

The silence unnerved her a little, so she put on some music: a big-band melody. It was a mistake; it reminded her of a night early in her courtship with Mitchell when they'd gone out dancing, and he'd chosen a very exclusive place uptown where a small band played forties tunes, and everyone danced cheek to cheek. Oh but she'd been in love that night; like a fifteen-year-old infatuated with the school quarterback. He'd plied her with champagne, and told her that he was devoted to her, and always would be. "Liar…" she murmured as she stared out at the sea. Sometimes, when she remembered things he'd said-sweet things that he'd betrayed, hard things that he'd known he would hurt her by saying-she wanted him right there in front of her, to point an accusing finger and say: why did you say that? God Mitchell, you were such a liar, such a miserable liar…

Rather than turn the music off, however, she sat it out, determined to endure every last, melancholy note. The only way to get past the hurt was to face it. If this trip to

Eden did nothing else, she thought, it would at least give her an opportunity to leaf through her memories, and look at them dearly. Then, and only then, could she move on. Put Mitchell and all he'd been to her in the past, where he belonged, and start a new life.

A new life. There was a daunting thought. It wasn't the first time she'd wondered what would become of her now, but the question had a new pertinence on this island, where she knew others had come before her, and begun again. Jimmy Hornbeck, for one. And what of the Mont-gomerys and the Robertsons and Schmutzes buried on the cliff? They too had been emigrants, presumably. Fugitives perhaps, like her: running from lives that had hurt and disappointed them. It wouldn't be so bad at that, she thought, to disappear from the world and live and die in this paradise; to be buried on a cliff where nobody came, nobody mourned, nobody remembered.

She went to bed at ten, or thereabouts, and fell asleep as quickly as she had the night before. But this time she didn't sleep through till daybreak. Instead she stirred from a dream some while after midnight. She had the impression that she'd been woken by something, but she wasn't sure what it was. All she could hear was the rhythmic rasp of crickets, and the soft croaking of frogs. There was a little moonlight coming between the drapes, but there was nothing disturbing enough to have roused her.

Then she realized: it was a smell that had woken her. The sharp-sweet scent of something burning. Her mind reluctantly formed the thought that she'd better get up and check that the source of the smell wasn't somewhere in the house. Her body still heavy with sleep she pulled back the sheet and climbed out of bed. Then she slipped into a T-shirt and knickers and went downstairs to investigate. As soon as she readied the living room she spotted the fire: it was burning brightly at the top of the beach. Had the three surfers she'd seen the first day come back in the middle of the night to make a bonfire, and maybe smoke a little pot? If so, they'd built a much bigger fire than last time. It was a steep pyramid of timbers, from the flanks and apex of which bright yellow flames sprang. The smell however, wasn't just that of burning wood. There was an aromatic pungency about it, which lent it a pleasing exoticism.

She slid open the French doors and stepped outside, thinking she would see the fire-tenders better. But she could see nobody. There were stars, a great array of them bright overhead, but no moon. She went back into the house, located a pack of cigarettes she'd bought in Honolulu Airport, lit one, and wandered back out again, this time stepping off the veranda onto the chilly grass, and on down the lawn to the path.

Though she was now no more than ten or twelve yards from the fire, she could still see no sign of its architects. But she could smell the fragrance more strongly than ever, rising out of the pyramid like incense from a mountainous censer. The smell pleased her even more than it had at first. It was sweet yet sharp, like the honey from ancient hives.

She wandered through the shrubs and over the sand toward the fire, enjoying its warmth on her face and bare legs. Obviously the fire-makers had departed, leaving their handiwork to blaze away through the night. Not the cleverest thing to do, she thought. If the wind were to rise again it could easily blow splinters of fiery wood into the bushes, and, worse still, toward the house.

What should she do, she wondered? Wait here until the fire burned itself out or attempt to smother the flames with sand? The second option was beyond her, she decided. The fire was simply too big, and too well made. And as to waiting here; well, it would be a long, long wait.

Perhaps for once she was just going to have to have a little faith that the worst would not happen.

She should just go back to bed and sleep. By morning the fire would be a blackened, smoky pit in the sand, and her fears of cataclysm would seem ridiculous. Still, she might tell the surfers next time she saw them not to build their fires so big, or so close to the tree line. So thinking, she walked once around the fire, and started back to the house.

The scent came with her. It was in her clothes, in her hair, on her skin, in her mouth even. And it seemed-though this was plainly nonsensical-that the further she got from its source the more powerful it became, as though cooler air was refining it. By the time she got into the house it was so strong it might have been oozing out of her pores.

She was of half a mind to shower before she climbed back into bed, but she decided against it, persuaded less by fatigue as by the subtle sense of intoxication the fragrance had induced. Her head felt feathery, her perceptions a little awry (when she reached to turn off the bedside lamp she missed it by a couple of inches, which amused her). When she'd finally found the switch, and lay her head down in darkness, there were colors billowing behind her lids, intense as the hues crawling on a soap bubble. She watched them entranced, vaguely wondering if they'd been burned onto her retina from staring at the fire. The thought came into her head that they were with her for ever now-the colors, the aroma-and that she was therefore their captive: bounded by them, shaped by them. She would never see the world without it being colored for her; never draw breath but that she'd smell the fragrance of the fire.

She opened her eyes again, just to be certain the world she'd left out there, beyond her lids, was still in existence. There was a nice, mellow sense of dislocation in all this: no paranoia, no fear; simply suspicion that things outside her head were not to be taken too seriously tonight.

The room was still there: the ring of lamplight on the ceiling, the open window, the drapes lifted and let go by the breeze; the carved bed in which she lay, with its lovers lying in their ripe bowers; the door at the end of the bed, leading out onto the hallway, down the stairs-

Her gaze seemed to go with her thoughts, out onto the darkened landing-floating up to the ceiling one moment, grazing the footworn weave of the rug the next.

By the time she got to the top of the stairs an unbidden thought had formed in her head: she wasn't alone in the house. Somebody had come in. As silent as smoke, and just as harmless-surely, on a night like this nobody meant harm-somebody had entered the house and was there at the bottom of the stairs.

The realization didn't trouble her in the slightest. She felt absurdly inviolate, as though she had not simply watched the fire on the beach but stood in its midst and walked through it unscorched.

She looked down the flight in the hope of seeing him, and thought she caught the vaguest impression of his form, there in the darkness: a big, broad man; a black man, she thought. He started to climb the stairs. She could feel the air at the top of the flight become agitated at his approach, excited at the prospect of being drawn into his lungs. Her gaze retreated along the landing, back toward the bedroom; back into her head. She would pretend she was asleep, perhaps. Let him come to her bedside and touch her awake. Put his hand to her lips, to her breast; or if he wanted to, press his fingers against her belly; then down, between her legs. She'd let him do that. None of this was quite real anyway, so why the hell not? He could do whatever he wanted, and no harm would come to her. Not here, in her carved bower-bed. Only joy here; only bliss.

For all these fearless thoughts there was still a corner of her intellect that was counseling caution.

"You're not being rational," this fretful self said to her. "The smoke's got into your head. The smoke and this island. They've got you all turned about."

Probably true, the dreamy wildling in her said. So what?

"Butyou don't know who he is," the cautious one pointed out. "And he's black. There aren't any blacks in Dansky, Ohio. Or if there are, you don't know any. They're different."

So am I, the wildling replied. I'm not who I was, and I'm all the better for it. So what if the island's working magic on me? I need a little magic. I'm ready. Oh Lord, I'm more than ready.

She'd closed her eyes, still thinking she would pretend to be sleeping when he came in. But as soon as she felt the stirring of the air against her face, announcing his presence at the threshold, she opened them again, and asked him, very quietly, who he was.

By way of reply, he spoke one word only.

"Galilee," he said.

A that moment, on the cloud-obscured summit of Mount Waialeale, the rain was falling at the rate of an inch and a half an hour. In gorges too inaccessible for exploration, plants that had never been named were drinking down the deluge; insects that would never venture where a human heel could crush them were sheltering their brittle heads. These were secret places, secret species; rare phenomena on a planet where little was deemed sacred enough, exquisite enough, tremulous enough, to be preserved from the prod, the scalpel, the exhibition.

Out in the benighted sea, whales were passing between the islands, mothers and their children flank to flank, playful adolescents breaching in the dark, rising up in frenzied coats of foam and twisting so as to spy the stars before they came crashing down again. In the coral reef below them, its caves and gullies as untainted as Waialeale's heights, other secret lives proceeded: the warm currents carrying myriad tiny forms, transparent flecks of purpose which for all their insignificant size nourished the great whales above.

And in between the summit and the reef? There was mystery there too. No less an order of life than the flower or the plankton, though it belonged to no class or hierarchy. It lived, this life, in the human head, the human heart. It moved only when touched, which was rarely, but when it did-when it shifted itself, showed itself to the creature in which it lived-there was revelation. The prospect of love could stir it, the prospect of death could stir it; even, on occasion a simpler thing: a song, a fine thought. Most of all it was moved by the prospect of its own apotheosis. If it felt its moment was near, then it would rise into the face of its host like a light, and blaze and blaze-

"Whoever you are…" Rachel said softly, "… come and show me your face."

The man stepped into the doorway. She couldn't see his face, as she'd requested, but she could see his form, and it was, as she'd guessed, a fine form: tall and broad.

"Who are you?" she said. Then, when he didn't reply: "Did you make the fire?"

"Yes." His voice was soft.

"The smoke…"

"… followed you."

"Yes."

"I asked it to."

"You asked the smoke," she said. It made an unlikely kind of sense to her.

"I wanted it to introduce you to me," he said. There was a hint of humor in his voice, as though he only half-expected her to believe this. But the half that did believe it believed it utterly.

"Why?" she said.

"Why did I want to meet you?"

"Yes…"

"I was curious," he said. "And so were you."

"I didn't even know you were here," she said. "How could I be curious?"

"You came out to see the fire," he reminded her.

"I was afraid…" she began; but the rest of the thought eluded her. What had she been afraid of?

"You were afraid the wind would blow the sparks…"

"Yes…" she murmured, vaguely remembering her anxiety.

"I wouldn't have let that happen," Galilee reassured her. "Didn't Niolopua tell you why?"

"No…"

"He will," Galilee replied. Then, more softly. "My poor Niolopua. Do you like him?"

She mused on this for a moment; it hadn't been something she'd given much thought to. "He seems very gentle," she said. "But I don't think he is. I think he's angry."

"He has reason," Galilee replied.

"Everybody hates the Gearys."

"We all do what we have to do," he replied.

"And what does Niolopua do? Besides cutting the grass?"

"He brings me here, when I'm needed."

"How does he do that?"

"We have ways of communicating that aren't easy to explain," Galilee said. "But here I am."

"Okay," she said. "So now you're here. Now what?"

There was more than enquiry in her voice. Though her tongue was lazy, the words slow, she knew what she was inviting; she knew what answer she wanted to hear. That he'd come to share her bed, whoever he was; come to exploit the dreamy ease she'd inhaled, and make love to her. Come to kiss her back to life, after an age of thorns and sorrow.

He didn't give her the answer she expected. At least, not in so many words.

"I want to tell you a story," he said.

She laughed lightly. "Aren't I a bit too old for that?"

"No," he said softly. "Never."

He was right of course. She was perfectly ready to have him weave a story for her; to let the deep music of his voice shape the colors in her head: give them lives, give them destinies.

"First," she said, "will you come into the light where I can see you?"

"That's part of the story," he said. "That's always part of it."

"Oh…" she said, not understanding the principle of this, but accepting that at least for tonight it was true. "Then tell me."

"It would be my pleasure," he said. "Where should I start?" There was a little pause while he considered this. When he spoke again his voice had changed subtly; there was a lilting rhythm in it, as though there was a melody to these words, that he was close to singing.

"Imagine please," he began, "a country far from here, in a time of plenty, when the rich were kind and the poor had God. In that country there lived a girl called Jerusha, whom this story concerns. She was fifteen at the time when what I'm about to tell you happened, and there was no happier girl in the world. Why? Because she was loved. Her father owned a great house, filled with treasures from the furthest reaches of the empire, but he loved his Jerusha more than anything he owned or anything he ever dreamed of owning. And not a day went by without his telling her so. Now on this particular day, a day in late summer, Jerusha had gone out taking a winding path through the woods to a favorite place of hers: a spot on the banks of the River Zun, which marked the southern perimeter of her father's land.

"Sometimes in the morning when she visited the river bank the local women would be there washing their clothes, then spreading them out on the rocks to dry, but the later in the day she went the more likely she was to be there alone. Today, however, though it was late afternoon, she saw-as she wound between the trees-that there was somebody sitting in the water. It was not one of the women. It was a man, or nearly a man, and he was staring down at his own reflection in the river. I say he was nearly a man, because although this creature had a man's shape, and a pretty shape at that, his form glistened strangely in the sunlight, silvery one moment, dark the next.

"Now Lord Laurent, who was Jerusha's father, had taught her to be afraid of nothing. He was a rational man. He didn 't believe in the Devil, and he had over the years punished any man who committed a crime on his land so quickly and severely that no felon ventured there. And he had also taught his daughter

that there were far stranger things in the world than she'd seen in her schoolbooks. Perfectly rational things, he'd told her, that one day science would explain, though they might at first glance seem unusual.

"So Jerusha didn't run away when she saw this stranger. She just marched down to the river's edge and said hello. The fellow looked up from his reflection. He had no hair on his head; nor did he have lashes or brows; but there was an uncanny beauty to him. which awoke feelings in Jerusha that had not stirred until this moment. He looked at her with his flickering eyes, and smiled. But he said nothing.

" 'Who are you?' she asked him.

" 'I don't have a name,' he told her.

'"Of course you do,' she said.

" 'No I don't. I swear,' the stranger said.

" 'Were you not baptized?' she asked him.

" 'Not that I remember,' he told her. 'Were you?'

'"Of course.'

" 'In the river?'

"'No. In a church. My mother wanted it. She's dead now-'

"'If it was in a church then it wasn't a true baptism,' the stranger replied. 'You should come into the river with me. I would give you a new name.'

" 'I like the one 1 have.'

" 'Which is what?'

" 'Jerusha.'

'"So, Jerusha. Please come into the river with me.' As he spoke he stood up, and she saw that at his groin, where a normal man would have a penis, there was instead a column of water, running from him the way water pours from a pipe, all corded and glittering, and seeming almost solid in the sunlight…"

Rachel had been completely still until this moment; enraptured by the pictures these simple words were conjuring: of the girl, of the summer's day and the riverbank. But now she sat up a little in the bed and began to scrutinize the shadowy man in the doorway. What kind of story was he telling here? It was certainly no fairy story.

He read her unease. "Don't worry," he said. "It's not going to get obscene."

"Are you sure?"

"Why? Would you prefer that it did?"

"I just want to be ready."

"'Don't be afraid.'"

"I'm not afraid," she said.

'' 'Come into the river.'''

Oh, she thought; he's started again.

"'What is that?' Jerusha said, pointing to the stranger's groin.

" 'Do you have no brothers?'

" 'They went away to war,' Jerusha said. 'And they're supposed to come back, but every time I ask my father when that will be he kisses me and tells me to be patient.'

" 'So what do you think?'

" 'I think maybe they're dead,' Jerusha said.

' "The fellow in the water laughed. 'I meant of this,' he said, looking down at the water flowing out of him. 'What do you think of this?'

"Jerusha just shrugged. She wasn't very impressed, but she didn't want to say so."

Rachel smiled. "Polite girl," she remarked.

"You wouldn't be so polite?" Galilee said.

"No. I'd be the same. You don't want to break his heart with the truth."

"And what's the truth?"

"That it's not as pretty as…"

"As?"

"… you'd like to believe?"

"That's not what you were going to say, is it?" Rachel kept her silence. "Please. Tell me what you were going to say."

"I want to see your face first."

There followed a moment in which neither of them moved, neither of them spoke. At last Galilee made a soft sigh, as though of resignation, and took half a step toward the bed. The moonlight grazed his face, but so lightly she had only the most rudimentary sense of his features. His flesh was a burnished umber, and he had several days' growth of beard, which was even darker than his skin. His head was shaved clean. She could not see his eyes: they were set too deeply for the light to discover them. His mouth seemed to be beautiful, his cheekbones high and fine; perhaps there were some scars on his brow, she couldn't be sure.

As to the rest of him: he was dressed in a heavily stained white T-shirt and loosely belted jeans and sandals. His frame was, as she'd already guessed, impressive; a wide, solid chest, a slight swell of a belly, massive arms, massive hands.

But here was what she hadn't guessed: that he'd lingered in the shadows not to tease her but because he was unhappy being looked at. His discomfort was plain in the way he held himself; in the way he shuffled his feet, ready to retreat once she'd seen all she needed to see. She ahnost expected him to say can I go now? Instead he said: "Please finish your thought."

She'd forgotten what she was talking about; the sight of him, in all its contrary sweetness-his effortless authority and his desire to be invisible, his beauty, and his strange inelegance-had taken all thought of anything but his presence out of her head.

"You were telling me," he prompted her, "how what he has isn't as pretty as…"

Now she remembered. "As what we have down there," she said softly.

"Oh…" he replied. "I couldn't agree more." Then, so quietly she would not have caught the words had she not seen the shape his mouth made: "There's nothing more perfect."

He raised his head a fraction as he spoke, and the moonlight found his eyes. For all the depth of their setting, they were huge; filling the sockets with feeling; so much feeling she could not hold his gaze for more than a few seconds.

"Shall I go on with the story?" he asked her.

"Please," she said.

He kindly averted his stare, as though he knew its effect from experience, and didn't want to discomfort her. "I was telling you how the man had asked Jerusha how she felt about his cock." The word startled her. "And Jerusha had not answered."

"But she wanted to go into the river to join him; she wanted to know what it would feel like to have his face close to hers, his body close to hers, his fingers on her breasts and belly, and down between her legs.

"He seemed to know what she was thinking, because he said:

" 'Will you show me what's under your petticoats?'

''Jerusha pretended to be shocked. No, that's not fair. She was shocked, though not as much as she pretended. You have to remember this was a time when women wore clothes that smothered them from neck to ankle, and here was this man asking-as though it were just a casual question-to show him her most private place."

"What did she say?" Rachel asked.

"Nothing at first. But as I told you at the beginning, she was fearless, thanks to her father. He would have been appalled, of course, if he'd seen what his lessons and his kisses had created, but he wasn't there to tell her no. She had only her instincts to go by, and her instincts said: why not do it? why not show him? So she said:

" 'I'm going to lie down on the grass where it's comfortable. You can come and look if you like.'

" 'Don't go into the trees,' he said to her.

" 'Why not?' she asked him.

'"Because there are poisonous things there,' he replied. "Things that have fed on the flesh of dead men.'

"Jerusha didn't believe him. "That's where I'm going,' she said. 'Ifyou want to come, then come. If you 're afraid, stay where you are.' And she got up to leave.

' "The man called after her, telling her to wait. "There's another reason,' he said.

"'What's that?' she said.

" 'I can't go very far from the water. Every step I take is dangerous to me.'

' 'Jerusha just laughed at this. It was a silly excuse she thought. "Then you're just weak,' she said.

'"No. I-'

" 'Yes you are! You 're weak! A man who can't climb out of a river without complaining? I never heard anything so ridiculous!'

"She didn't wait for him to reply. She could tell by the expression on his face that she stirred him up. She just turned around and traipsed off into the trees, wandering until she found a small grove where the grass looked soft and inviting. There she lay down on her back, with her feet towards the river, so that when the stranger found her the first thing he'd see was what lay between her legs."

Rachel had not missed the fact that her own position, lying there on the bed in front of Galilee, was not so unlike that of Jerusha.

"What are you thinking?" he said to her.

"I want to know what happens next."

"You could make it up for yourself if you'd prefer," he replied.

"No," she said. "I want you to tell me."

"Your version might be better," he said to her. "Less sad."

"Is this going to end sadly?"

He turned his head toward the window, and for the first time the moonlight showed her his full face. She hadn't been mistaken before: his forehead was scarred, deeply scarred, from the middle of his left eyebrow to his hairline, and his mouth was indeed wide and full: a sensualist's mouth, if ever there was one. But it was the foundation upon which these details rode that was the true astonishment. She had never seen a face, in a photograph or a painting or the flesh, that so exquisitely wed the curves and gullies of its bones with the filigree of tissue and nerve covering them. It was as though his flesh, instead of masking his skull, expressed it. And his skull-which had been made long before the sorrow in his eyes-had known in the womb that sorrow was coming, and had shaped itself accordingly.

"Of course it's going to end sadly," he said. "It has to."

"Why?"

"Let me tell how it goes," he said, glancing down at her. "And if you know a better way to finish it, please God tell me."

So he began again, revisiting the scene that he'd been describing, to be sure she remembered where the story stood.

"Jerusha was lying down on the grass, a little distance from the river. She was certain he'd come, and she wanted to be ready for him when he did, so she pulled off her shoes and her stockings, then lifted her hips off the around to pull her underwear down. Then she drew up her petticoats and her skirt until they were over her knees. She didn't need to touch herself to be aroused. A warm breeze came along just as she opened her legs and moved like a breath against her sweet pink pussy; spears of grass sprang up and gently pricked the insides of her thighs. She started to moan; she couldn't help herself. If her life had depended on her silence at that moment then she would have perished, she was so utterly overwhelmed.

"Then she heard him …"

"The river god," Rachel said.

"You've heard this before."

Rachel laughed. "That's what he is, isn't he?"

"A god, no. But something like that."

"Is he old?"

"Ancient."

"But not very clever."

"What makes you say that?"

"If he was smart he'd know to stay in the river. That's where he belongs."

Galilee sighed. "It's not always possible to stay where you belong. You know that."

She stared at him in silence for several seconds. "You know who I am," she said.

"You're my Jerusha," he replied, conferring the name upon her with the greatest gentility. "My child bride."

At this, Rachel reached up and took hold of the sheet that concealed her lower body. "Then I should let you see me," she said, and pulled the sheet off. Her knees were a little raised; the space between them was shadowy. But Galilee's eyes lingered there nonetheless, as though his gaze was piercing the darkness and seeing her clearly; piercing her too, maybe: insinuating himself between her labia to see what he would find.

The thought did not distress her; quite the reverse. She wanted him to look at her, and keep looking. She was his Jerusha, his child bride lying on a bed of soft grass, excited as she'd never been excited before. She was trembling with pleasure, and the prospect of pleasure, as aroused by him as he was by her; by his face, by his words, by his very presence. Most of all, by the sight of him watching her. She'd never experienced anything remotely like this before. She'd had sex with seven men in her life, including her tumblings with Neil Wilkens. She was no great sexual sophisticate, to be sure; but nor was she a complete novice. She'd had wild times. But nothing so intense as this; nothing so naked.

They hadn't even touched one another, for God's sake, and she was shaking. The bed between her legs was soaked. Her breaths were shallow and fast.

"You were telling me…" she said.

"Jerusha…"

"… lying on her back, waiting for the river god…"

"She looked up-"

"Yes."

"-it was strange to see him coming between the trees the way he did, with every step an effort, a terrible effort, that made his head sink lower and lower."

"Did she wish she'd never asked him?" Rachel whispered.

"No," Galilee replied. "She was too excited for regrets. She wanted him to see her more than she'd wanted anything in her life.

' 'And as he came toward her, there were times when he passed through a shaft of sunlight, and rainbows sprang from him, rising up into the trees.

"She was about to ask him if he liked what he saw when she heard the whirring of wings, and a beetle-about as big as a hummingbird, but dark and ugly-came circling over her. She remembered what the man in the river had said-"

"Poisonous things," Rachel said. "Things that have been eating corpses."

"This beetle was the worst of the worst. It ate onfy the bodies of people who'd died of disease. It carried every kind of contagion."

Rachel made a disgusted sound. "Can't you make it fly away?" she said.

"I told you before: you can finish it if you like."

She shook her head. "No," she said. "I want to hear it from you."

"Then the beetle has to circle… and suddenly it dropped down onto her body."

"Where?"

"Shall I show you?" Galilee said, and without waiting for a reply he went to the bottom of the bed and reached between her legs. She wanted him to touch her labia, but instead his fingers nipped the inside of her thigh between finger and thumb, "ft bit her," he said. "Hard."

She cried out.

"She cried out, more with surprise than pain, and killed the beetle with one blow, squashing its body against her white skin."

He withdrew his hand. Rachel could feel the beetle's ooze running down her leg; she reached up as if to wipe it away, and then reached further, to catch hold of Galilee's fingers.

"Don't go yet," she said.

"I have not finished telling you what happened," he murmured, and eased his fingers from her grip. Instinc lively she pulled the sheet back over her nakedness. The story was souring. If Galilee noticed what she'd done, he made no sign of it. He simply kept talking.

"It was as if the beetle's bite had broken a trance," he said. "Jerusha looked down at herself in horror. What was she doing lying here this way? She started to get up, tears stinging her eyes.

" 'Where are you going?' she heard somebody ask her, and looked round to see that the man from the river was standing just a few yards from her.

' 'He-looked wasted. His body, which had been shiny and strong when he was sitting in the water, was thinner now. His teeth were chattering. His eyes were rolling in their sockets. How could she ever have thought he was beautiful, she wondered?

"Then she turned her back on him and started to make her way home."

"Did he follow her?"

"No. He was too confused. He hadn 't seen the beetle, you see. He just assumed she'd changed her mind; decided he was too strange for her after all. It wasn't the first time a woman had rejected him. He went back to the river, and sank from sight."

"What happened to Jerusha?"

"Terrible things.

"Almost as soon as she got back into her father's house she started to sicken. The beetle had put so much poison into her she was barely conscious by sunset. Of course her father sent for his doctors but none of them looked between her legs, because they didn 't dare, not with their patron standing over them, telling them what a good, pure child she was. They did what they could to bring down her fever-cold compresses, leeches, the usual rigmarole-but none of it worked. Hour by hour through the night she grew hotter and sicker, until blisters started to appear on her neck and face and breasts as the poisons showed themselves.

"Finally, Jerusha's father lost patience with the doctors and sent them away. Then, once he was alone with her, lying on the bed, he started to talk to her, whispering close to her ear.

" 'Can you hear me, child?' he asked her. 'Please, my sweet

Jerusha, if you can hear me, tell me what happened to you, so I can find somebody to heal you.'

"At first she said nothing. He wasn't even sure she'd even heard him. But he was persistent. He kept talking to her as daylight approached. And finally, just as dawn was breaking, she said one word…"

"River," Rachel whispered.

"Yes. She said river."

"Her father instantly sent for his majordomo, and told him to take all the maids and footmen and cooks and to comb the banks of the river until they discovered what had happened to his beloved Jerusha.

"The majordomo immediately roused the whole house, even to the smallest boy who dusted the ashes from the hearth, and they all went down through the woods to the river. Jerusha and her father were the only ones left in the great house, as the light crept through it room by room.

"He wept, and he waited, holding his daughter's hand all the while, rocking her in his arms sometimes, telling her how much he loved her, then-forgetting all his rational principles, going down on his knees and praying to God for a miracle. It was the first prayer he'd spoken since he was a little boy and he'd been made to pray over his mother's casket, and thought to himself: if you don't wake her up God, then I'm never going to believe in you ever again. Of course his mother had remained dead in her casket, and the boy had become a rationalist.

"But now all his faith in reason failed him, and he prayed with more passion than the Pope, begging God to bring a miracle.

"Down by the river, the servants were praying too, sobbing as they searched the bank.

"It was the smallest boy, the one who brushed away the ashes from the hearth, who saw the man in the river first. He started yelling for everyone to come and see, come and see.

"By the time the majordomo got to where the boy was standing a figure had risen out of the river, and the morning sun, striking him crossways, pierced him, and emerged again as beams of pure color. Nobody knew whether to be terrified or ecstatic, so they

simply stood rooted to the spot while the creature emerged from the water. Some of the women averted their eyes when they saw his naked state, but most just stared, the tears they'd been shedding forgotten.

" 'I heard somebody praying for my Jerusha,' the nverman said. 'Is she sick?'

" 'To the death,' said the boy.

" 'Will you lead me to her?', the nverman asked the child.

"The boy simply took the creature's hand, and off they went between the trees."

"Nobody tried to stop them?" Rachel said.

"It crossed the major-dome's mind. But he wasn't a superstitious man. He shared his lord's belief that there was nothing in this world that was not finally natural, that one day science would explain. So he followed the boy and the nverman at a little distance, without interfering.

"Meanwhile, in the house, Jerusha was very close to death. The fever was so high it was as though she would catch fire in the bed and burn away to nothing.

"Then her father heard a sound like somebody mopping the stairs outside the bedroom; slapping a wet mop down on the marble, then dragging it up a step and slapping it down again. He let go of his daughter's hand for a moment and opened the door. There was a flickering light filling the hallway, like sunlight off water. And there on the stairs, mounting one torturous step after another, was the nverman. His watery body was diminished with every stair he climbed. The further from his home he strayed, the more of his life-essence he spent.

J''Of course Jerusha's father demanded to know who he was, and what he was doing in the house. But the nverman had no strength to waste answering questions. It was the boy who spoke.

" 'Re's come to help her,' he said.

"Jerusha's father didn't know what to make of this. The rational part of him said: don't be afraid, just because you 've never seen anything like this before. While the pan that had prayed to God for intercession now whispered: this is what heaven has sent. And that part was very much afraid, for if this was an

angel-this silvery form, swaying in front of him-then what kind of God sent it? And what kind of salvation had it brought his daughter?

"He was still puzzling over this, and blocking the riverman's way to the door, when he heard Jerusha say:

" 'Please, Papa… let… him… in…'

"Amazed to hear his daughter speaking, he pushed open the door, and with a sudden rush, like a broken dam, the riverman pushed through it and went to stand at the end of Jerusha's bed.

"Her eyes were still closed, but she knew her saviour was there. She started to pull at the clothes she was wearing, which were horribly dirtied with pus and blood and all the rest. She tore them with such ferocity she was lying there naked in half a minute, every inch of her wounded body exposed to her father and to the riverman.

"Then she raised her arms, like a woman welcoming her love into her bed…" Galilee halted here; then began again more softly: "… which of course was what she was doing.

"The room was suddenly completely still. Jerusha's arms raised, the riverman waiting at the bottom of the bed, the father staring at him, still not certain what he'd done, letting this thing into his daughter's presence.

"Then, without a word, the riverman threw himself down onto the girl. And as he touched her he broke like a wave, splashing against her face and arms and breasts and belly and thighs. In that instant all trace of his human shape disappeared. Jerusha cried out in pain and shock, as the water seethed and hissed on her body like water thrown onto a fire. Steam rose off the bed, and a foul stench filled the room.

"But when it cleared…"

"She was healed?" Rachel said.

"She was healed."

"Completely?"

"Every wound she'd had was gone. Every sore, every blister. She was healed from head to foot. Even the first bite, on her thigh, had been washed away."

"And the riverman?"

"Well of course he'd gone too," Galilee said lightly, as though that part of the story wasn't very important to him.

But it was to Rachel. "So he sacrificed himself," she said.

"I suppose he did," Galilee replied. Then, as though he were more comfortable addressing this question in the body of his story, he said:

"Jerusha's father believed that the whole thing had been brought about by his own lack of faith; that God had visited these torments on his Jerusha in order to make him realize that he needed divine help sometimes."

"To make him pray, in other words."

"That's right."

"And if it was indeed the work of God, then it was effective work, because Jerusha's father became a very religious man. He spent all his money building a cathedral right beside the river, where the creature had first been seen. It was a magnificent place. Vast. An eighth wonder. Or it would have been if it had ever been finished."

"Why wasn't it finished?"

"Well… this part of the story's very strange," Galilee warned.

"Stranger than the rest?"

"I think so. You see it was the old man's idea that the water from the river should supply the font in the cathedral. This met with some opposition from the local bishops who insisted that the water could not be used to baptize babies because it wasn 't holy water. To which Jerusha's father said… well, you can imagine what he said. These were already sacred waters, he told the bishops. They'd healed his Jerusha. They didn't need somebody mumbling Latin over them to make them holy. The bishops complained to Rome. The Pope said he'd look into it.

"Meanwhile, work went on laying the pipes from the river into the nave, where a beautiful font, carved in Florence, had been set.

"I should explain that this was very early spring. The snows in the mountains had been heavy that winter, and now that they

were melting the river was high and white; more violent than it had been in living memory. People working on the cathedral could barely hear one another, even when they were shouting; the din was so great. All of which may explain what happened next…"

"Which was what?"

''Jerusha 's father was taking a tour around the cathedral, and happened to be approaching the font when somebody-perhaps misunderstanding some instruction-let the water flow through the pipes for the first time.

"There was a noise like an earthquake. The cathedral shook, to its highest spire. The stone flags laid over the pipes-each one of them weighing a ton or a ton and a half-were thrown up into the air like playing cards as the waters washed down the pipe toward the font-"

Rachel could see all this quite clearly: her head was filled with noise and chaos. She felt the walls shaking, heard people screaming and praying, watched them running in all directions, hoping to escape the cataclysm. She knew they wouldn't make it; even before Galilee had said so. They were all going to die.

"-and when the water came up through the font it came with such force, suchpower, the font simply shattered. A thousand pieces of stone flew-"

Oh this she hadn't seen-

"-like bullets, some of them. Others big as cannonballs."

-she'd imagined the roof collapsing on everyone, the walls caving in. But it was the font that was going to do the most damage-

"-splitting open skulls, piercing people's hearts, slicing off their arms, their legs. AH in a matter of seconds.

"Jerusha's father was the closest to the font, so he was the luckiest, because he was the first to die. A huge slab of stone, decorated with a cherub, slammed into him and carried his body out into the river. He was never found."

"And the rest?"

"It's as you imagine."

"They all died."

"Every single one. Nobody working in the cathedral that day survived."

"Where was Jerusha?"

"Back at her father's house, which had fallen into terrible disrepair since he'd begun to build the cathedral."

"So she survived."

"She, and a few of the servants. Including, by the way, the boy who'd swept the ashes from the hearth.

"The one who'd led the riverman to her bed."

There he stopped, much to her astonishment.

"Is that it?" she said.

"That's it," he replied. "What more could there be?"

"I don't know… something more…" She pondered the question. "Some closure…"

Galilee shrugged. "I'm sorry," he said. "If there's more to tell I don't have it."

She felt faintly annoyed; as though he'd led her on, tempting her with clues as to what all this meant, but now that she was at the end-or at least as far as he claimed to be able to take her-it wasn't clear at all.

"It's a simple little story," he said.

"But it hasn't got a proper ending."

"It's as I said before: you could make it up for yourself."

"I said I wanted you to tell me."

"I've told all I know," Galilee replied. He glanced toward the window. "I think it's about time I was going."

"Where?"

"Just back to my boat. It's called The Samarkand. It's anchored offshore."

She didn't ask him why he had to go, in part because of her irritation at the way he'd finished his story, in part because she didn't want him to think her needy. Still she couldn't help asking:

"Will you be coming back?"

"That depends on you," he said. "If you want me to come back, I will."

This was said so simply, so sweetly, that her irritation evaporated.

"Of course I want you to come back," she said.

"Then I will," he replied, and then he was gone. She listened for him moving away through the house, but she heard nothing-not a breath, not a footfall. She slipped out of bed and went to the window. Clouds had come in to cover the moon and stars; there was very little light on the lawn. But her eyes found him nevertheless, moving quickly down toward the beach. She watched him until he disappeared. Then she went back to her bed, and lay awake in the darkness for an hour, listening to the double rhythm of her heart and the waves, wondering idly if she'd lost her mind.

She woke at first light and headed straight down to the beach. She'd hoped to find The Samarkand moored close to the shore-perhaps even see Galilee on deck-but the bay was deserted. She scoured the horizon, looking for a sail, but there was no boat in sight. Where the hell had he gone? Just a few hours before he'd asked if she wanted him to come back, and she'd told him unequivocally that she did. Had that just been a sop to her feelings; a way to extricate himself from her presence without having to say goodbye? If so, then he was a coward.

She turned her back on the water and started up the sand toward the house. A few yards from the path she came upon the remains of the fire Galilee had made the night before: a black circle of burned timber and ash, the latter being slowly spread across the beach by the breeze. She went down on her haunches beside the pit, still quietly cursing the fire-maker for his inconstancy. A bittersweet smell rose up from the embers: the acrid smell of dead fire mingled with a hint of the fragrance she'd carried into the house with her the night before: the aroma which had set her head spinning and put such strange pictures behind her eyes.

Was it possible, she wondered, that her first instincts had been correct and Galilee had been some kind of hallucination, a waking dream induced by an inhalation of smoke?

She got to her feet, and looked out toward the empty bay. Her memory of his presence was perfect: the way he'd appeared, the sound of his voice, the intricacies of the story he'd told her: Jerusha at the water, the river god in all his glory, the beetle carrying contagion. If there was any certain proof that he'd been there in the flesh, it was the story. She hadn't invented it, she hadn't told it to herself; somebody had been there to put those images and ideas in her head.

Galilee was no figment of her imagination. He was just another unreliable male.

She brewed herself a very strong pot of coffee, which she drank sickly-sweet, showered, ate a miserable breakfast, made some more coffee, and then called Margie.

"Is this a good time to talk?" she asked.

"I've got about ten minutes," Margie said. "Then I'm out of the house. I've got to be on time today."

Rachel was surprised at this; punctuality wasn't Margie's strong suit. "What's the occasion?"

"You mean: who's the occasion?" Margie said.

"Oh… the Fuck Fuck Man."

"Danny," Margie reminded her. "He's really good for me, honey. I mean really good. He told me last week he wouldn't make love with me if I was drunk, so the last couple of nights I didn't drink. We fucked instead. Oh Lord, we fucked! Then I didn't want to drink. I just wanted to go to sleep in his arms. Oh God, listen to me."

"It sounds wonderful, Margie."

"It is. So wonderful it's scary. Anyway… I've got to dash off, so just give me the highlights. How is it all?"

"It's as you said: it's magical." She wanted to start talking to Margie about her visitor, but with so little time to do it in, she was afraid she'd end up trivializing the event, so she said nothing. Instead she said: "When were you last here?"

"Oh… sixteen or seventeen years ago. I was very happy there for a little while. I was very consoled." The strangeness of the word was not lost on Rachel. "It was one of those times when I saw my life clearly for once. Do you know what I mean?"

"Not really…"

"Well that's what happened to me. I saw my life. And instead of doing something about what I saw, I just took the path of less resistance. Oh Lord, honey, I really have to go. I don't want to leave my lover-boy waiting."

"I understand."

"Let's talk again tomorrow."

"Before you go-"

"Yes?"

"-did anything really strange happen to you while you were here?"

There was a long silence.

At last Margie said: "When I've got more time we have to talk, honey. Yes, of course strange stuff happened."

"And what did you do?"

"I told you. I took the path of least resistance. And I've always regretted it. Believe me, there'll never be another time in your life like this, hon. It comes round once, and if you're ready, then you don't look back, you don't worry about what other people are going to think, you don't even wonder what the consequences are going to be. You just go." Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. "We'll all be jealous as hell, of course. We'll all curse you for doing what we didn't do, maybe what we couldn't do. But deep down we'll be happy for you."

"Who's we?" Rachel said.

"The Geary women, honey," Margie replied. "All of us sad, sorry and utterly fucked-up Geary women."

After lunch, Rachel went walking, not along the beach this time, but inland. There'd been a light breeze in the morning, but it had dropped away completely at noon, and the air now felt hot and stale. The atmosphere suited Rachel's mood. She felt stagnated; unable to move very far from the house in case she missed Galilee's return, and unable to think of very much other than him; him or his story.

There were some sizable bugs out today. Whenever one of them rose up from the shrubbery she thought of the beetle on Jerusha's thigh; and of how Galilee had imitated its bite. That had been his only touch, hadn't it? A cruel nip at her skin. So much for tenderness. But then as he'd retreated from her she'd caught hold of his hand, and felt the hard skin of his wide fingers, and the heat of his flesh.

She would have that again, and next time they wouldn't just be holding hands. She'd make him put his mouth to the place he'd pinched; make him kiss her hurt better. Kiss her and keep kissing, lower and deeper, and deeper, until he'd made amends. He'd do it too. She knew he'd do it. The story had been a game; a way of deliriously postponing the inevitable moment when they made love.

She sat down at the side of the road, fanning herself with a plate-sized leaf she'd plucked, and thought about him, standing there in her doorway. The way his T-shirt had clung to his body; the way his eyes had glinted when he looked at her; the tentative smile that had come into his face now and then. These few details, and his name, were all she really knew about him. Why then, she asked herself, did she feel such a sense of loneliness, thinking she might never see him again? If she was so desperate for the physical comfort of a man then she could find it readily enough; either here on the island or back in New York. It wasn't about the presence of another body, it was about him, about Galilee. But that was nonsensical. Yes, he was handsome, but she'd met more beautiful men. And she knew too little about him to be enchanted by his spirit. So why was she sitting here moping over him like a lovelorn fifteen-year-old?

She cast her makeshift fan aside, and got to her feet. Whatever the reasons for her feelings, she had them, and they weren't about to evaporate just because she couldn't get to their root. She wanted Galilee; it was as simple as that. And the possibility that he'd sailed away without telling her where she could find him made her sick with sorrow.

Niolopua was sitting on the front step when she got back to the house, drinking a can of beer. There was a ladder leaning against the eaves of the house, and a great litter of pruned vines on the lawn. He'd been hard at work, for a while at least. Now he was simply sitting in the sun, drinking his beer. He made no attempt to conceal what he was doing when Rachel appeared. He didn't even stand. He simply squinted up at her, his face pouring sweat, and said:

"There you are…"

"Were you looking for me?"

He shook his head. "I was just surprised you'd gone, that's all."

He set his beer can down at his side. It was not the first he'd had, she saw. There were three more empty cans sitting there. No wonder the shyness he'd evidenced at their first meeting had disappeared. "You look like you didn't sleep very well," he said.

"As it happens, I didn't."

He reached into his bag and pulled out another beer. "Want one?" he said.

"No. Thank you."

"I don't always drink on duty," he said, "but today's a special occasion."

"Oh?" Rachel said. "What's that?"

"Guess."

She could no longer keep up a pretense of bonhomie: his tone was irritating her. "Look, I think you should just pack up your tools and go home," she said.

"Oh do you now?" he said, popping the beer can. "And what if I said to you: this is home."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, and went to open the front door.

"My mother worked here all her life. I've been coming here since I was a baby."

"I see."

"I know this house better than you'll ever know it." He turned away from her, now that he was certain he had her attention. "I love this house. You come, one after the other, and you act like the place belongs to you-"

"It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the Geary family."

"No, it doesn't," Niolopua said, "it belongs to the Geary women. There's never been any men come here. Just women." A look of contempt crossed his face. "Why can't you have your husbands service you? Why'd you have to come here and…" the contempt deepened "… and… defile everything?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rachel said, turning back from the door and going to stand right beside him. Niolopua didn't avert his gaze. He stared right up at her with something very close to hatred on his face.

"You don't think about what you do to him, do you?"

"Him?"

"It's not like there's ever any love."

"Him."

"Yes. Him."

"Galilee?"

"Yes! Of course!" Niolopua said, as though she was an imbecile for asking the question. "Who the hell else would it be?" There were tears in his eyes now: of rage, of frustration. "My mother was the only one who ever loved him.

The only one!" He looked away from Rachel, and tears dropped from his eyes onto the wooden steps. "He built this house for her."

"Galilee built this house?" Niolopua nodded, still not looking up. "When?"

"I don't know exactly. A long time ago. It was the first house to be built on this shore."

"That can't be right," Rachel said. "He's not that old. I mean he's what, forty? If that."

"You don't know what he is," Niolopua said. There was a measure of pity in the remark, as though Rachel's ignorance was more profound than a lack of information.

"So tell me," she said. "Help me understand."

Niolopua took a mouthful of beer. Stared at the ground. Said nothing.

"Please," she said softly.

"All you want to do is use him," came the reply.

"You've got me wrong," she said. He didn't respond to this. At last she said: "I'm not like all the rest, Niolopua. I'm not a Geary. Well… no that's not true… I married a man I thought I loved and his name happened to be Geary. I didn't realize what that meant."

"Well, my father hates you all. In his heart, he hates you."

"Your father being?" She paused, realizing the answer. "Oh Lord. You're Galilee's son."

"Yes. I'm his son."

Rachel put her hands over her face and sighed into her palms. There was so much here she didn't comprehend: secrets and anger and sorrow. The only thing she grasped with any certainty was this: that even here, even in paradise, the Gearys had done their spoiling. No wonder Galilee hated them. She hated them too. At that moment she wished every one of them dead. A little part of her even wished herself dead. There seemed to be no other way out of the trap she'd married into.

"Is he coming back?" she said after a time.

"Oh yes," Niolopua replied, his voice monotonal. "He knows his responsibilities."

"To whom?"

"To you. You're a Geary woman, whether you like it or not. That's why he's with you. He wouldn't come otherwise." He glanced up at her. "You've got nothing he needs."

He was being cruel for the satisfaction of it, she knew, but the words stung her nevertheless.

"I don't need to listen to this," she said, and leaving him on the steps to drink his warm beer, she went back into the house.

It's no accident that events of great significance, when they happen, do so in clusters; it's the nature of things. Having been a gambling man in my youth, I know from experience how this principle works, for instance, in a casino. The roulette table suddenly becomes "hot"; there's win after win after win. And if you happen to be at the right table at the right time then the odds are suddenly tipped spectacularly in your favor. (The trick, of course, is to sense the moment when the table cools, and not to keep betting beyond that point, or you'll lose your shirt.) Observers of natural phenomena large and small, astronomers or entomologists, will tell you the same thing. For long periods-millions of years in the life of a star, minutes in the life of a butterfly-nothing of moment seems to happen. And then, suddenly, a plethora of events: convulsions, transformations, cataclysms.

Of course it's the apparently tranquil periods that deceive us. Though our instruments or our senses or our wits may not be able to see the processes that are leading toward these clusters of events, they're happening. The star, the wheel, the butterfly-all are in a subtle state of unrest, waiting for the moment when some invisible mechanism signals that the time has come. Then the star explodes; the wheel makes poor men rich; the butterfly mates and dies.

If we think of the Geary family as a single entity, then the first of the events that would transform it had already taken place: Rachel and Galilee had met. Though much of what happened in the next few days had, at least superficially, nothing to do with that meeting, it seems from a little distance that everything else was somehow precipitated by their liaison.

I don't entirely discount the possibility. Any feeling as profound (and as profoundly irrational) as the passion which moved these two has consequences; vibrations, which may begin processes utterly remote from it.

In this sense love is of a different order to any other phenomenon, for it may be both an event and a sign of that invisible mechanism I spoke of before; perhaps the finest sign, the most certain. In its throes we need neither luck nor science. We are the wheel, and the man who profits by it. We are the star, and the darkness it pierces. We are the butterfly, brief and beautiful.

All of this was by way of preparing you for how things proceeded with the Gearys in a short space of time following Galilee's encounter with Rachel: how all at once a system that had survived and prospered for a hundred and forty years came apart at the seams in forty-eight hours.

For those who knew Cadmus Geary well the most certain sign of his sudden deterioration was sartorial. Even though he'd had bad, and sometimes extended, periods of ill health from his early eighties on, he had continued to pride himself on the way he looked. This had been a preoccupation since childhood. There's a photograph taken of him when he was barely four years old in which he presents himself like a little dandy, clearly proud of his perfectly pressed shirt and his immaculately polished shoes. He'd more than once been mistaken for a homosexual, which never troubled him. He'd laid more women that way.

Today, however, he refused his freshly laundered clothes; he wanted to stay in his pajamas, he declared. When his nurse, Celeste, gently pointed out that he'd soiled them in the night he replied that it was his shit and he liked its company. Then he demanded to be taken downstairs and put in front of the television. The nurse complied, and called in the doctor. Cadmus would have nothing to do with being examined however. He told Waxman to go away and leave him alone. Noncompliance, he warned, would result in a withdrawal of all funds made by the Geary family or any of its trusts to medical research, along with Waxman's retirement bonus.

"He still sounds like the Cadmus we all know and love," the doctor told Loretta. "Do you want me to try again?"

Loretta told him not to bother. If there was some worsening of her husband's condition she'd call. Much relieved the good doctor duly did as Cadmus had demanded and went away, leaving the old man to sit on the sofa and watch baseball. After an hour or so Loretta brought some food in: soup, half a toasted bagel and some cream cheese. He told her to set it down on the table, and he'd get to it later. Right now, he said, he wanted to watch the game.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asked him.

He didn't take his eyes off the screen, though his features showed not a flicker of interest in what was going on. "Never better," he said.

She set the tray down on the table. "Could I get you something different… maybe some fruit?"

"I've already got the shits, thank you," he said politely.

"Some chocolate pudding?"

"I'm not a child, Loretta," he said. "Though I realize it's a very long time since I proved it to you. I'm sure you're getting a good fucking from somebody-"

"Cadmus-"

"-I just hope he appreciates how much of my money you've spent getting your tits tucked and your ass tucked and that belly of yours all stapled up-"

"Stop that!"

"Did you get a pussy tuck while you were at it?" he remarked, his tone not once wavering from the lightly conversational. "You must be sloppy down there after all these years."

"Don't be disgusting," Loretta said.

"Do I take that as a yes?"

"If you don't stop this-"

"What will you do?" he said, a tiny smile coming onto his parchment lips. "Throw me over your lap and spank me? Remember how I used to do that to you, love? Remember that lacquered hairbrush you used to present me with when you were in need of a little discipline?" Loretta was having no more of this. She walked smartly to the door, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. "Don't you ever wonder how much of it I told people about?" he said.

She stopped a yard short of the door. "You didn't," she said.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Of course I told people. Just a select little group. Cecil of course. Some members of your family."

"Oh you are a filthy, disgusting old man-"

"That's it, sweet pea. Let it out. It may be your last chance."

"You never had any shame-"

"If I had I daresay I wouldn't have married you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nobody else would have had you. Not with your reputation. I thought when I first got you naked: there isn't anywhere on this body that's still virgin territory. Every inch of it's been licked and pinched and screwed and smacked. I found that quite arousing at the time. And when people said, why her, she's a whore, she's slept with half of Washington, I used to tell them, I can still show her a few tricks she hasn't seen." He paused for a moment. Loretta was quietly weeping. "What the fuck are you ay-ing for?" Cadmus said. "When I'm dead you can tell everyone what a brute I was. You can write a book about what a dirty-minded, decadent old goat I was. I don't care. I won't be listening. I'll be too busy paying for my sins." At last, having not taken his eyes off the screen throughout this exchange, he slowly, painfully, turned his head to look back at her. "There's a special hell for people who die as rich as us," he said. "So say a few prayers for me, will you?" She looked at him blankly. "What are you thinking?"

"I was wondering… if you ever loved me."

"Oh sweet pea," he said. "Isn't it a little late to be sentimental?"

She left without another word. There was no purpose arguing with him; clearly his medication was disordering his thoughts. She'd have to talk to Waxman; perhaps the doses were too strong. She went upstairs and put on a dress she'd had made for her the previous season, but had then never been in the mood to wear. It was white, and rather plain, and when she'd first tried it on she'd thought it made her look pallid. But now, seeing herself in the mirror, she approved of its severity; and of the somewhat frigid quality it conferred.

He'd called her whore, and that wasn't just. She'd had her high times, to be sure: what he'd said about there not being a piece of her body untouched was true. But so what? She'd made the best of what God had given her; taken her pleasures where, when and with whom she could. There was nothing shameful in that. Indeed, Cadmus had been perversely proud of her wild reputation at the beginning. He'd liked nothing better than to know that their courtship was the subject of gossip and tittle-tattle. And yes, she'd succumbed to the demands of vanity several times, and gone under the knife. But again: so what? She looked ten years her own junior; fifteen in a flattering light. But she had no wish to use her beauty the way Cadmus had implied. Once she'd taken his name, she'd had one lover only besides Cadmus, and even that had barely lasted a week. It would have been nice to think she'd broken his heart, but she harbored no such illusions. He'd been immune to love, that other one. He'd sailed away when he had finished with her, and nearly broken her heart.

So out she went, dressed in white, leaving Cadmus sitting on the sofa in front of his beloved baseball. Of course, he saw none of it. He hadn't actually watched a game in months. There was something about sitting there that helped him remove his thoughts from his present condition-from its pain and humiliation-and talk himself into the past. He had work to do there; things to put in order before death took him and he found himself removed into that special hell made for the rich.

Catholic atheist that he was, he half-believed in that hell; half believed he would suffer-if not eternally at least for a long, long time-in a barren spot where every comfort wealth and power could bestow was denied him. He'd never really cared about luxury so he wouldn't miss the silk pajamas and the Italian shoes and the thousand-bucks-a-bottle champagne. He'd miss control. He'd miss knowing he could get any politician, to the very highest, on the phone in five minutes, whatever their affiliations. He'd miss knowing every word he uttered was scrutinized for a clue to his desires. He'd miss being idolized. He'd miss being hated. He'd miss having a purpose. That was the real hell waiting for him: the wasteland where his will meant nothing, because he had nothing to work it upon.

Yesterday he'd cried quietly to himself at the prospect. Today, he had no tears left. His head was just a cesspool, filled with dirty little words that he had no use for now that his bitch-wife had gone. Gone to get herself fucked, no doubt; gone to spread her cunt for some stinking donkey-dick-

He was saying the words aloud, he vaguely realized; talking filth to himself while he sat in his own caked shit. And in his head there were pictures to accompany the monologue; too blurred for him to know if they were excremental or erotic.

Somewhere in the midst of all this confusion there were other concerns he knew he should address. Business unfinished, good-byes unsaid. But he couldn't pin his thoughts down long enough to name them; the dirt kept distracting him.

At one point the nurse came in and asked him how he was doing. It took the greatest effort of will not to let out a flood of filth, but he used the last remnants of his self-control to order her out of the room. She told him she'd be back in ten minutes with his noon medication, and then left.

As he listened to her footsteps receding across the hall he heard a whirring sound in his head. It seemed to be coming from the back of his skull; an irritating little din that rose in volume by degrees. He tried to shake it out-like a dog with a flea in its ear-but it wouldn't go. It simply got louder, and more shrill. He grabbed hold of the arm of the sofa so as to pull himself to his feet. He needed help. A head awash with dirty words was one thing, but this was too vile to be endured. He got to his feet, but his legs weren't strong enough to support him. His hand slipped out from under him and he fell sideways. He cried out as he went down, but he heard no sound. The whine had become so loud it overwhelmed everything else: the crack of his brittle bones as he hit the floor, the din of the table lamp as it came smashing down, caught by his out-flung hand.

For a few moments, when he hit the ground, he lost consciousness, and in a kinder world than this he might never have found it again. But fate hadn't finished with him yet. After a period of blissful darkness his eyes flickered open again. He was lying on his side where he'd fallen, the whine now so loud he felt certain it would shake his skull apart.

No; not even that excruciating luxury was granted him. He lay there alive, and deafened, until somebody came and found him.

His thoughts, if such they could be called, were chaotic. There were still fragments of filth in the stew, but they were no longer complete words. They were just syllables, thrown against the wall of his skull by the relentless whine.

When Celeste came back in, she was a model of proficiency. She cleared her patient's throat of some vestiges of vomit, ascertained that he was breathing properly, and then called for an ambulance. That done, she went back out into the hallway, alerted a member of the household staff to the crisis, and told them to find Loretta, and have her go to Mount Sinai where Cadmus would be taken. When she returned to Cadmus she found that he'd opened his eyes, just a fraction, and that his head had turned away from the door.

"Can you hear me, Mr. Geary?" she asked him gently.

He made no reply, but his eyes opened a little wider. He was trying to focus, she saw, the object of his attempted scrutiny the painting that was hung on the far wall of the room. The nurse knew nothing about art whatsoever, but this mammoth picture had slowly exercised a fascination over her, so much so that she'd asked the old man about it. He'd told her it was painted by an artist called Albert Bierstadt and that it represented his conception of a limitless American wilderness. Looking at it, he'd said, was supposed to be like taking a journey: your eye traveled from one part of the panorama to the next, always finding something new. He'd even shown her how to look at it through a rolled-up sheet of paper, as if viewing the scene through a telescope. On the left was a waterfall feeding a pool where buffalo drank; behind them, stretching across the canvas, was a rolling plain, with patches of bright sunlight and shadow, and beyond the grasslands a range of snow-capped mountains, the grandest of which had its heights wreathed in creamy cloud, except for its topmost crag, which was set against a pocket of deep blue sky. The only human presence in the picture was a solitary pioneer on a dappled horse, who was perched on a ridge to the right of the scene, studying the terrain before him.

"That man's a Geary," Cadmus had once told the nurse. She hadn't known whether the old man was joking or not, and she hadn't wanted to risk his ire by asking. But now, watching his face as he struggled to focus on the painting, she somehow knew that the pioneer was what Cadmus' eyes were straining to see. Not the buffalo, not the mountains, but the man who was surveying all of this, in readiness for conquest. At last, he gave up: the effort was too much for him. He made a tiny, frustrated sigh, and his top lip curled a little, as if in contempt at his own incapacity. "It's all right…" she said to him, smoothing a stray strand of silver-white hair back from his brow. "I can hear them coming."

This was no lie. She could indeed hear the medics outside in the hallway. A moment later, and they were tending to him, lifting Cadmus up off the floor and onto the stretcher, covering him with blankets, their gentle reassurances echoing her own.

At the last, as they picked the stretcher up to carry him out, his gaze went back in the direction of the canvas. She hoped his exhausted eyes had caught a glimpse this time, though she doubted it. The chances of his ever coming back to study the painted pioneer again were, she knew, remote.

For Rachel the house was a different place now that she knew that Galilee had built it. What a labor it must have been for a man on his own; digging and laying the foundations, raising the walls, fashioning windows and doors, roofing it, tiling it, painting it. No doubt his sweat was in its timbers, and his curses, and a kind of genius, to make a house that felt so comforting. It was no wonder Niolopua's mother had wanted to possess it. If she couldn't have its builder, then it was the next best thing.

Following the conversation on the veranda Rachel no longer doubted that Galilee would come back, but as the afternoon went on, and she turned over all she knew about the man her mood grew steadily darker. Perhaps she was deceiving herself, thinking that something rare and tender had passed between them the previous night; perhaps when he returned he'd be doing so out of some bizarre obligation. After all she was just another Geary wife as far as he was concerned; another bored bitch getting her little fix of paradise. He didn't know how much of a captive she felt: how could he? And how could he be blamed if he thought her despicable, taking up residence in his dream house, lying in the cool like some planter's wife while Niolopua trimmed the grass?

And then, as if that weren't enough, the things she'd done last night! She grew sick with embarrassment thinking about it. The way she'd displayed herself to him; what the hell had she been thinking? If she'd seen any other woman behave that way she'd have called them a slut; and she'd have had reason. She should have protested the instant she'd realized where his story was going. She should have said: I can't listen to this, and firmly told him to leave. Then maybe he would have come back because he wanted to; instead of-

"Oh my Lord…" she said softly.

There he was, on the beach.

There he was, and her heart was suddenly beating so loudly she could hear it in her head, and her hands were clammy and her stomach was churning. There he was, and it was all she could do not to just go to him; tell him she wasn't a Geary, not in her heart; she wasn't even a wife, not really; it had aH been a stupid mistake, and would he please forgive her, would he please pretend he'd never laid eyes on her before, so that they could start again as though they'd just met, walking on the beach?

She did none of this, of course. She simply watched him as he made his way toward the house. He saw her now; waved at her, and smiled. She went to the French window, slid it open and stepped out onto the veranda. He was halfway up the lawn, still smiling. His pants were soaked to the knee, the rest of him wet with spray, his grubby T-shirt clinging to his belly and chest. He extended his hand to her.

"Will you come with me?" he said.

"Where are we going?"

"I want to show you something."

"Let me get my shoes."

"You won't need shoes. We're just going along the beach."

She closed the screen door to keep out the mosquitoes and went down onto the lawn to join him. He took her hand, the gesture so casual it was as though this was a daily ritual for them, and he'd come to the lawn a hundred times, and called to her, and smiled at her, and taken her hand in his.

"I want to show you my boat," he explained as they took the short path to the sand. "It's moored in the next bay."

"Wonderful," she said. "Oh… by the way… I really think I should apologize for last night. I wasn't… behaving… the way I normally behave."

"No?" he said.

She couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. All she could see was the smile on his face, and it seemed perfectly genuine.

"Well I had a wonderful time last night," he said, "so if you want to behave that way again, go for it." She offered an awkward grin. "Do you want to walk in the water?" he said, moving on from her apology as though the whole subject was over and done with. "It's not cold."

"I don't mind cold water," she said. "We have hard winters where I come from."

"Which is where?"

"Dansky, Ohio."

"Dansky, Ohio," he said, turning the words over on his tongue as he spoke them, as though savoring the syllables. "I went to Ohio once. This is before I took to the sea. A place called Bellefontaine. I wasn't there long."

"What do you mean when you say you 'took to the sea'?"

"Just that. I gave up the land. And the people on it. Actually it was the people I gave up on, not the land."

"You don't like people?"

"A few," he said, throwing her a sideways glance. "But not many."

"You don't like the Gearys, for instance."

The smile that had been at play on his face dropped away. "Who told you that?"

"Niolopua."

"Huh. Well he should keep his mouth shut."

"Don't blame him. He was upset. And from what he was telling me it sounds like the family gave everybody a raw deal."

Galilee shook his head. "I'm not complaining," he said. "This is a hard world to get by in. It makes people cruel sometimes. There's a lot worse than the Gearys. Anyway… you're a Geary." The smile crept back. "And you're not so bad."

"I'm getting a divorce," she said.

"Oh? Don't you love him then?"

"No."

"Did you ever?"

"I don't know. It's hard to be sure of what you feel when you meet somebody like Mitchell. Especially when you're just a Midwestern girl, and you're lost and you're not sure what you want. And there he is, telling you not to worry about that anymore. He'll take care of everything."

"But he didn't?" Galilee said.

She thought about this for a moment. "He did his best," she admitted. "But as time went by…"

"The things you wanted changed," Galilee said.

"That's right."

"And eventually, the things you end up wanting are the things they can't give you." He wasn't talking about her any longer, she realized. He was talking about himself; of his own relationship with the Gearys, the nature of which she did not yet comprehend.

"You're doing the right thing," he said. "Leaving before you start to hate yourself."

Again he was talking autobiographically, she knew, and she took comfort from the fact. He seemed to see some parallel between their lives. The fears that had threatened her that afternoon were toothless. If he understood her situation as he seemed to-if he saw some sense in which his pain and hers overlapped-then they had some common ground upon which to build.

Of course now she wanted to know more, but having made the remark about hating yourself he fell silent, and she couldn't think of a way to raise the subject again without seeming pushy. No matter, she thought. Why waste time talking about the Gearys, when there was so much to enjoy: the sky turning pink as the sun slid away, the sea calmer than she'd seen it, the motion of the water around her legs, the heat of Galilee's palm against hers.

Apparently much the same thoughts were passing through her companion's head.

"Sometimes I talk myself into such foul moods," he said, "and then I think: what the hell do I have to complain about?" He looked up at the reef of coral clouds that was accruing high, high above them. "So what if I don't understand the world?" he went on. "I'm a free man. At least most of the time. I go where I want when I want. And wherever I go…" his gaze went from the clouds to Rachel "… I see beautiful things." He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly. "Things to be grateful for." They stopped walking now. "Things that I can't quite believe I'm seeing." Again he put his lips against hers, but this time there was no chasteness. This time they wrapped their arms around one another and kissed deeply, like the lovers they'd been bound to be from the beginning.

It passed through Rachel's head that she wasn't living this but dreaming it: that every detail of this moment was in such a perfect place there was no improving it. Sky, sea, clouds, lips. His eyes, meeting hers. His hands on her back, at her neck, in her hair.

"I'm sorry…" he murmured to her.

"For what?"

"For not coming to find you," he said. "I should have come to find you."

"I don't understand."

"I was looking away. I was staring at the sea when I should have been watching for you. Then you wouldn't have married him."

"If I hadn't married him we'd never have met."

"Oh yes we would," he said. "If I'd not been watching the sea, I would have known you were out there. And I would have come looking for you."

They walked on after a time, but now they walked with their arms around one another. He took her to the end of the beach, then led the way over the spit of rocks that marked the divide between the two bays. On the other side was a stretch of sand perhaps half the length of the beach behind them, in the middle of which was a small, and plainly very antiquated, wooden jetty, its timbers weathered to a pale gray, its legs shaggy with vivid green weed. There was only one vessel moored there: The Samarkand. Its sails were furled, and it rode gently on the incoming tide, the very picture of tranquillity.

"Did you build it?" she asked him.

"Not from scratch. I bought her in Mauritius, stripped her down to the bare essentials and fashioned her the way I wanted her. It took two years, because I was working on my own."

"Like the house."

"Yeah, well, I prefer it that way. I'm not very comfortable with other people. I used to be…"

"But?"

"I got tired of pretending."

"Pretending what?"

"That I liked them," he said. "That I enjoyed talking about…" he shrugged "… whatever people talk about."

"Themselves," Rachel said.

"Is that what people talk about?" he said quizzically. It was as though he'd been out of human company so long he'd forgotten. "I mustn't have been paying attention." Rachel laughed at this. "No seriously," he said, "I wouldn't have minded if they'd really wanted to talk about what was going on in their souls. I'd have welcomed that. But that's not what you hear. You hear about pretty stuff. How fat their wives are getting and how stupid their husbands are and why they hate their children. Who could bear that for very long? I'd prefer to hear nothing at all."

"Or tell a story?"

"Oh yes," he said, luxuriating in the thought, "that's even better. But it.can't be just any story. It has to be something true."

"What about the story you told me last night?"

"That was true," he protested. "I swear, I never told a truer story in all my life." She looked at him quizzically. "You'll see," he said, "if it isn't true yet, it will be."

"Anybody could say that," she replied.

"Yes, but anybody didn't. I did. And I wouldn't waste my time with things that weren't true." He put his hand to her face. "You have to tell me a story sometime soon. And it has to be just as true."

"I don't know any stories like that."

"Like what?"

"You know," she said. "Stories that could stir you up the way that story stirred me up."

"Oh it stirred you up did it?"

"You know it did."

"You see. Then it must have been true."

She had no answer to this. Not because it made no sense but because after some fashion that she couldn't articulate, it did. Obviously his definition of true wasn't the standard definition, but there was a kind of cockeyed logic to it nevertheless.

"Shall we go?" he said, "I think the boat's getting lonely."

A they walked along the creaking jetty Rachel asked turn why he had dubbed his boat The Samarkand. Galilee explained that Samarkand was the name of a city.

"I've never heard of it," she told him.

"There's no reason why you should. It's a long way from Ohio."

"Did you live there?"

"No. I just passed through. I've done a lot of passing through in my life."

"You've traveled a lot?"

"More than I'd like."

"Why don't you just find a place you like and settle down?"

"That's a long story. I suppose the simple answer is that I've never really felt I belonged anywhere. Except out there." He glanced seaward. "And even there…"

For the first time since they'd begun this conversation, she sensed his attention wandering, as though this talk of things far off was making him yearn for them. Perhaps not for the specific of Samarkand; simply for something remote from the here and now. She touched his arm.

"Come back to me," she said.

"Sorry," he replied. "I'm here."

They'd reached the end of the jetty. The boat was before them, rocking gently in the arms of the tide.

"Are we going aboard then?" she asked him.

"We surely are."

He stepped aside, and she climbed the narrow plank laid between the jetty and the deck. He followed her, "Welcome," he said with no little pride. "To my Samarkand."

The tour of the boat didn't take long; it was in most regards an unremarkable vessel. There were a few details of its crafting he pointed out to her as having been difficult to fashion or pretty in the result, but it wasn't until they got below deck that she really saw his handiwork. The walls of the narrow cabin were inlaid with wood; the colors, the grain and even the knotholes in the timber so chosen and arranged that they almost suggested images.

"Is it my imagination," Rachel said, "or am I seeing things in the walls?"

"Anything in particular?"

"Well… over there I can see a kind of landscape, with some ruins, and maybe some trees. And there's something that could be a tree, but might be a person…"

"I think it's a person."

"So you put it there?"

"No. I did all of this work thinking I was just making patterns. It wasn't until I was a week into my next voyage I started to see things."

"It's like looking at inkblots-" Rachel said.

"-or clouds-"

"-or clouds. The more you look the more you see."

"It's useful on long voyages," Galilee said, "when I'm sick of looking at the waves and the fish I come down here, smoke a little, get a buzz going, and look at the walls. There's always something I hadn't seen." He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her round. "See that?" he said, pointing to the door at the far end of the cabin, which was constructed in the same way as the walls.

"The design on the door?"

"Yes."

"Does it remind you of anything?"

She walked toward it. Galilee followed, his hands still laid on her shoulders. "I'll give you a clue," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The grass looks very comfortable…"

"The grass?"

She stopped a yard or so from the door, and looked at the patterns in the wood. There were arrangements of dark shapes towards the top of the door; and a sliver of pale wood running horizontally, broken in places, and some more forms she could make no sense of arbitrarily laid here and there. But where was the grass? And why was it so comfortable?

"I'm not getting it," she said.

"Just look for the virgin," Galilee said.

"The virgin?" she said. "What virgin?" He drew breath to give her another clue, but before he could speak she said: "You mean Jerusha?"

He put his smiling lips against the nape of her neck and kept his silence.

She kept looking, and piece by piece the picture began to emerge. The grass-that comfortable bed on which Jerusha had lain down-was there in the middle of the door, a patch of lightly speckled wood. Above it were those dark, massy shapes she'd first puzzled over: the heavy summer foliage of ancient trees. And that bright'horizontal sliver running across the door? It was the river, glimpsed from a distance.

Now it was she who smiled, as the mystery came clear in front of her. She had only one question: "Where are the people?"

"You have to put those in for yourself," he said. "Unless…" He stepped past her and put his finger on a narrow, almost spindly shape in the grain of one of the pieces of wood. "Could this be the riverman?"

"No. He was better looking than that."

Galilee laughed. "So maybe it isn't Jerusha's forest after all," he said. "I'll have to invent a new story."

"You like telling stories?"

"I like what it does to people," he said, smiling a little guiltily. "It makes them feel safe."

"Going to your country? Where the rich were kind and the poor had God-"

"I suppose that is my country- I hadn't thought about it that way before." The notion seemed to trouble him somewhat. He grew pensive for a moment; just a moment. Then he looked up from his thoughts and said: "Are you hungry?"

"Yes, I am a little."

"Good. Then I'll cook," he said. "It'll take a couple of hours. Can you wait that long?"

"A couple of hours?" she said, "What are you going to cook?"

"Oh it's not the cooking that takes the time," he said. "It's the catching."

There was no trace of the day remaining when The Samarkand left the jetty; nor was there a moon. Only the stars, in brilliant array. Rachel sat on deck while the boat glided away from the island. The heavens got brighter the further they sailed, or such was her impression. She'd never seen so many stars, nor seen the Milky Way so clearly; a wide, irregular band of studded sky.

"What are you thinking about?" Galilee asked her.

"I used to work in a jewelry store in Boston," she said. "And we had this necklace that was called the Milky Way. It was supposed to look like that." She pointed to the sky. "I think it was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You never saw so many diamonds."

"Did you want to steal it?" Galilee said.

"I'm not a thief."

"But did you?"

She grinned sheepishly. "I did try it on when nobody was looking. And it was very pretty. But the real thing's prettier."

"I would have stolen it for you," Galilee said. "No problem. All you needed to say was-I want that-and it would have been yours."

"Suppose you'd got caught?"

"I never get caught."

"So what have you stolen?"

"Oh my Lord…" he said. "Where do I start?"

"Is that a joke?"

"No. I take theft very seriously."

"It is a joke."

"I stole this boat."

"You did not."

"How else was I going to get it?"

"Buy it?"

"You know how much vessels like this cost?" he said reasonably. She still wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. "I either stole the money to buy the boat, or stole the boat itself. It seemed simpler to steal the boat. That cut out the middle man." Rachel laughed. "Besides, the guy who had the boat didn't care about her. He left her tied up most of the time. I took her out, showed her the world."

"You make it sound like you married her."

"I'm not that crazy," Galilee replied. "I like sailing, but I like fucking better." An expression of surprise must have crossed her face, because he hurriedly said: "Sorry. That was crude. I mean-"

"No, if that's what you meant you should say it."

He looked sideways at her, his eyes gleaming by the light of the lamp. Despite his claim not to be crazy, that was exactly how he looked at that moment: sublimely, exquisitely crazy.

"You realize what you're inviting?" he said.

"No."

"Giving me permission to say what I mean? That's a dangerous invitation."

"I'll take the risk."

"All right," he said with a shrug. "But you remember…"

"… I invited it."

He kept looking at her: that same gleaming gaze.

"I brought you on this boat because I want to make love to you."

"Make love is it now?"

"No, fuck. I want to fuck you."

"Is that your usual method?" she asked him. "Get the girl out to the sea where she hasn't got any choice?"

"You could swim," he said. He wasn't smiling.

"I suppose I could."

"But as they say on the islands: Utiuli kai holo ka mono."

"Which means what?"

"Where the sea is dark, sharks swim."

"Oh that's very reassuring," she said, glancing down at the waters slopping against the hull of The Samarkand. They were indeed dark.

"So that may not be the wisest option. You're safer here. With me. Getting what you want."

"I haven't said-"

"You don't need to tell me. You just need to be near me. I can smell what you want."

If Mitchell had ever said anything like that as a sexual overture he would have killed his chances stone dead. But she'd invited this man to say what was in his head. It was too late to play the Puritan. Besides, coming from him, right now, the idea was curiously beguiling. He could smell her. Her breath, her sweat; God knows what else. She was near him and he could smell her; she was wasting his time and hers protesting and denying…

So she said: "I thought we were going to fish?"

He grinned at her. "You want a lover who keeps his promises, huh?"

"Absolutely."

"I'll get a fish," he said, and standing up he stripped off his T-shirt, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants; all this so swiftly she didn't comprehend what he was intending to do until he threw himself overboard. It wasn't an elegant dive, it was a ragged plunge, and the splash soaked her. But that wasn't what got her up and shouting at him. It was what he'd said about sharks and dark water.

"Don't do this!" she yelled. She could barely see him. "Come out of there!"

"I'm not going to be long."

"Galilee. You said there were sharks."

"And the longer I talk to you the more likely they'll come and eat my ass, so can I please go fish?"

"I'm not hungry any more."

"You will be," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice, then saw him throw his arms above his head and dive out of sight.

"You sonofabitch," she said to herself, her mind filling with unwelcome questions. How long could he hold his breath for? When should she start to be concerned for his safety? And what if she saw a shark: what was she to do then? Lean over the side and beat on the hull of the boat to divert its attention? Not a very pleasant idea, with the water so concealing. The thing would be on her before she knew it; taking off her hand, her arm, dragging her overboard.

There was no doubt in her mind: when he got back on board she was going to tell him to take her straight back to the jetty; the sonofabitch, the sonofabitch, leaving her here staring down into the darkness with her heart in her mouth-

She heard a splashing sound on the other side of the boat.

"Is that you?" she called out. There was no reply. She crossed the deck, stumbling over something in the dark. "Galilee, damn you! Answer me!"

The splashing came again. She scanned the water, looking for some sign of life. Praying it was a man not a fin.

"Oh God, don't let anything happen to him," she found herself saying, "Please God, please, don't hurt him."

"You sound like a native."

She looked in the direction of the voice. There was something that looked like a black ball bobbing in the water. And around it, fish were leaping, their backs silvery in the starlight.

"Okay," she said, determined not to sound concerned for fear she encouraged his cavortings. "You got the fish? That's great."

"There was a shark god at Puhi, called Kaholia-Kane-"

"I don't want to hear it!" she yelled.

"But I heard you praying-"

"No-"

"Please God, you were saying."

"I wasn't praying to the fucking shark!" she yelled, her fury and fear getting the better of her.

"Well you should. They listen. At least this one did. The women used to call to him, whenever somebody was lost at sea-"

"Galilee?"

"Yes?"

"It's not funny anymore. I want you back on board."

"I'm coming," he said. "Let me just-" She saw his arm shoot out of the water and catch one of the leaping fish. "Gotcha! Okay. I'm on my way." He began to plow through the water toward the boat. She scanned the surface in every direction, superstitiously fearful that the fin would appear just as Galilee came in striking distance of the boat. But he made it to the side without incident.

"Here," he said, passing the fish up to her. It was large, and still very much intending to return to its native element, thrashing so violently that she had to use both hands to keep hold of it.

By the time she'd set the fish down where it couldn't dance its way back over the side Galilee had hoisted himself up out of the water and was standing, dripping wet, just a step or two behind her.

"I'm sorry," he said, before she could start to tell him how angry she was. "I didn't realize I was upsetting you. I thought you knew it was all a joke."

"You mean there aren't any sharks?"

"Oh no. There are sharks out there. And the islanders do say Uliuli kai holo ka mano. But I don't think they're talking about real sharks when they say that."

"What are they talking about?"

"Men."

"Oh I see," Rachel said. "When it gets dark, the men come out-"

"-looking for something to eat." He nodded.

"But you could still have got attacked," she said, "if there are real sharks out there."

"They wouldn't have touched me."

"And why's that? Too tough?"

He reached out and took hold of her hand, escorting it back toward him, and laying her palm against the middle of his massive chest. His heart was thumping furiously. He felt as though there was just a single layer of skin between hand and heart; as though if she wanted to she could have reached into his chest and taken hold of it. And now it was she who could smell him. His skin like smoke and burnt coffee; his breath salty.

"There's a lot of tales about sharks, men and gods," he said.

"More of your true stories?"

"Absolutely true," he replied. "I swear."

"Such as?"

"Well, they come in four varieties. Legends about men who are really shape-changing sharks; that's the first. These creatures walk the beaches at night, taking souls; sometimes taking children."

Rachel made a face. "Doesn't sound like a lot of fun."

"Then there are stories about men who decided to go into the sea and become sharks."

"Why would they do that?"

"For the same reason I got myself a boat and sailed away: they were fed up with pretending. They wanted to be in the water, always moving. Sharks die if they don't keep moving, did you know that?"

"No…"

"Well they do."

"So that's number two."

"Then there's the one you already know. Kaholia-Kane and his brothers and sisters."

"Shark gods."

"Protectors of sailors and ships. There's one in Pearl Harbor, watching over the dead. Her name's Ka'ahupahau. And the greatest of them is called Kuhaimuana. He's thirty fathoms long…"

Rachel shook her head. "Sorry. I don't like any of these stories," she said.

"That leaves us with just one category."

"Men who are gods?" Rachel said. Galilee nodded. "No, I'm not buying that either," she told him.

"Don't be so quick to judge," Galilee said. "Maybe you just haven't met the right man."

She laughed. "And maybe it's all just stories," she replied. "Look, I'm quite happy to talk about sharks and religion tomorrow. But tonight let's just be ordinary people."

"You make it sound easy," he said.

"It is," she told him. She moved closer to him, her hand still pressed against his chest. His heart seemed to beat more powerfully still. "I don't understand what's going on between us," she said, their faces so dose she could feel the heat of his breath. "And to be honest I don't really care any more." She kissed him. He was staring at her, unblinking, and continued to stare as he returned her kiss.

"What do you want to do?" he said, very quietly.

She slid her other hand down over the hard shallow dome of his stomach, to his sex. "Whatever you want," she said, unheeding him. He shuddered.

"There's so much I need to tell you," he said.

"Later."

"Things you have to know about me."

"Later."

"Don't say I didn't try," he said, staring at her with no little severity.

"I won't."

"Then let's go downstairs and be ordinary for a while."

She led the way. But before he followed her he walked back across the deck to where the fish lay, and going down on his haunches, picked it up. She watched his body by the lamplight; the muscles of his back and buttocks, the bunching of his thighs as he squatted down, the dark, laden sac hanging between his legs. He was glorious, she thought; perhaps the most glorious man she'd ever seen.

He stood up again-apparently unaware that she was watching him-and seemed to murmur a few words to the dead fish before tossing it overboard.

"What was that about?" she asked him.

"An offering," he explained. "To the shark god."

My half brother Galilee was always impatient with other people; it doesn't surprise me that he became "tired of pretending", as he explained to Rachel. What does surprise me is that he didn't assume that sooner or later he'd find himself playing that same game with her, and tire of her too.

Then again, perhaps he did. Perhaps even at the beginning, now I look at what he said to her more closely, there were contradictions there. On the one hand he seemed to be infatuated with her-all that sentimental talk about staring at the sea when he should have been watching for her-on the other quite capable of condescension. Samarkand, he dryly explains, is a long way from Ohio, as though she were too parochial to have any knowledge of what lay beyond her immediate experience. It's a wonder she didn't kick him off the jetty.

But then I think that from the beginning she understood him-contradictions and all-better than I ever have. And of course she was susceptible to his charms in a way that I'll never be, and perhaps therefore more forgiving of his flaws. I'm doing my best to evoke a measure of his allure for you. I think I caught his voice, and the physical details are right. But it's difficult to go into the sexual business. Describing an act of coitus involving your own sibling feels like a form of literary incest, though I'm certain that my reticence does him an injustice. I haven't, for instance, told you how finely he was made between the legs. But for the record, very finely indeed.

So on. For the sake of my blushes, on.

There is, as I promised, much more calamity within the Geary family to report, but before I start into that I want to tell you about a little drama here in the Barbarossa household.

It happened last night, just as I was midway through describing Rachel and Galilee's encounter on The Samarkand. There was a great din at the other end of the house (and I really mean a cacophony: shouting and thundering enough to shake down a few of the smaller books off my shelves). I couldn't work, of course. I was far too curious. I ventured out into the hallway, and tried to make some sense of the noise. It wasn't difficult. Marietta was one portion of it: when she gets angry she becomes so shrill it makes your head ring, and she was shouting up a storm. Accompanying her complaints-which I could make no real sense of-was the sound of slamming doors, as she apparently raged her way from room to room. But these weren't the only elements in the noise. There was something far more disturbing: a clamor that was like the din of some benighted jungle; a lunatic mingling of chatters and howls.

My mother, of course. I'm sorry, my father's wife. (It's strange, and probably significant, that I think of her as my mother whenever I picture her more peaceful aspects. The warrior Cesaria Yaos is my father's wife.) Anyway, it was she, no doubt. Who else had a voice that could express the rage of a baboon, a leopard and a hippopotamus in one rise and fell swoop?

But what was she so furious about? I wasn't entirely certain I wanted to find out. There was some merit in retreat I thought. But before I could about turn and creep back to my room I saw Marietta running down the hallway, with what appeared to be an armful of garments. You'll recall that the last time we two had spoken we'd parted furious with one another, she having commented less than favorably on my work. But I think even if we'd been bosom buddies she would not have halted at that moment. Cesaria's menagerie noises were escalating by the second.

As Marietta ducked out of sight, I did what I'd been planning to do ten seconds before, and turned around so as to head back to my room. Too late. I'd barely taken a step when the noises ceased all at once, every last howl, only to leave room for Cesaria's other voice; her human voice, which is-I'm sure I've told you-nothing short of mellifluous.

"Maddox," she said.

Shit, I thought.

"Where are you going?"

(Isn't it strange, by the way, that we're never too old to feel like errant children? There I was, old by any human standards, frozen in my tracks and guilty as any infant caught with sticky fingers.)

"I was going back to my work," I said. Then added, "Mama," as a sop.

It may have mellowed her. "Is it going well?" she asked me, quite conversationally. I was sufficiently reassured to turn round and look at her, but she wasn't visible to me. There was just a busy darkness at the far end of the hallway where moments before there'd been a well-lit lobby. I was frankly grateful. I've never actually witnessed the form my mother takes in these legendary furies of hers, but I'm quite sure it's sufficient to drop a saint in his tracks.

"It's going okay," I replied. "I have days when-"

Cesaria broke in before I got any further. "Did Marietta go outside?" she said.

"I… yes… yes, I believe she did."

"Fetch her back."

"I'm sorry?"

"You're not deaf, Maddox. Go find your sister and bring her back inside."

"What happened?"

"Just fetch her."

(There's another second strangeness here, worth remarking on. Just as there's a guilty child lurking in everyone, there's also a rebellious self that prickles at the idea of being ordered about, and is not easily silenced. It was this voice that answered Cesaria back, foolish though it was to do so.)

"Why can't you go and fetch her yourself?" I heard myself saying.

I knew I was going to regret the words even as I spoke them. But it was already too late to recant: Cesaria's shadow self was in motion. She was moving-not quickly, but steadily, inevitably-down the hallway toward me. Though the ceiling is not especially high, there was something vast about her manifestation; she seemed like a thunderhead at that moment. And I diminished to a fraction of myself before her; I was a mote, a sliver-

She began to speak as she approached, but every word she uttered seemed about to collapse back into that terrible cacophony of hers; as though she was only keeping anarchy at bay with the greatest effort.

"You," she said "remind me" I knew what was coming "of your father."

I don't believe I said anything by way of reply. I was frankly too intimidated. Besides, if I'd tried to speak I doubt my tongue would have worked. I simply stood there as she roiled before me, and the animal din erupted out of her with fresh ferocity.

This time, however, there was a vision to go with the din, not uncovered by the cloud but seemingly sculpted from it. I had a mercifully short glimpse of it, though I'm certain that had Cesaria not wanted me to be her errand boy she might have given me more. That wasn't to her present purpose, however, so she showed me just enough to make me lose control of my bladder; perhaps three or four seconds' worth, if that. What did I see? It's no use telling you there are no words. Of course there are words; there are always words. The question is: can I wield them well enough to evoke the power of what I witnessed? That I doubt. But let me do my best.

I saw, I think, a woman erupting at every pore and orifice; spewing unfinished forms. Giving birth, I suppose you'd say, expelling not one, nor even ten, but a thousand creatures; ten thousand. And yet here's the problem with that description. It doesn't take account of the fact that at the same time she was becoming-how do I express this?-denser; like certain stars I've read about, which as they collapse upon themselves draw light and matter into them. So was she. How did my mind deal with the fact that she was doing two contrary things? Not well. In fact the vision did such violence to my system I fell down as though she'd struck me, and covered my head with my hands as though she might get the sight into me again through the top of my skull.

She chose to spare me. Just left me lying on the ground in my wet pants, sobbing. It took me a little time to recover my composure, but when I finally raised my head and chanced a look in her direction, I found that the thunder-head was no longer looming over me. She'd covered that furious face of hers and was waiting some little distance from me.

"I'm sorry…" were the first words out of my mouth.

"No," she said, her voice suddenly drained of either music or strength. "It was my fault. You're not a child to be ordered around. It was just that in that moment I saw your father so clearly."

"May… I… ask you a question?"

"Ask anything," she said, sighing.

"That face I just saw…"

"What about it?"

"Did Nicodemus ever see it?"

Despite her fatigue she was amused by this. There was a hint of a smile in her voice when she replied. "Are you asking me if I scared him off?" I nodded. "Then I'll tell you: that face, as you call it, is what he chiefly loved me for."

"Really?" I must have sounded astonished-as indeed I was-because she replied somewhat defensively:

"He had aspects that were just as terrible."

"Yes I know."

"Of course you know. You saw some of what he could do."

"But that wasn't all he was," I said.

"Just as what you saw a moment ago isn't all of me."

"But it's the truest part, isn't it?" I said. Under other circumstances I surely wouldn't have pressed her on this business so closely, but I knew the chances of my having the freedom to interrogate her like this again were nil. If I was to know who Cesaria Yaos was before the house of Barbarossa came crashing down, it was now or never.

"The truest part?" she said. "No. I don't think I have one face that's truer than any other. I used to be worshipped in dozens of temples, you know."

"I know."

"They're all heaps of rubble now. Nobody remembers how I was loved…" Her voice trailed off. She'd apparently lost her point. "What was I saying?"

"Nobody remembering."

"Before that."

"All the temples-"

"Oh yes. So many temples, with statues and embroideries, all depicting me. But not one of them resembled any other."

"How do you know?"

"Because I visited them," she said. "When your father and I had a spat we'd go our separate ways for a while.

He'd go find himself some poor woman to seduce, and I'd go touring my holy sites. It's comforting when you're feeling a little woebegone."

"Hard to imagine."

"What? Me, woebegone? Oh I can be self-pitying, just like anybody else."

"No. I meant it's hard to imagine how it must feel, going into a temple where you're being worshipped."

"Oh it can be wonderful. Wandering among your devotees."

"Were you ever tempted to tell them who you were?"

"I did it many, many times. I usually picked somebody who wasn't a particularly reliable witness. The very old. The very young. Somebody with a sanity problem, or a saint, which is often one and the same."

"Why do that? Why not show yourself to somebody literate, intelligent? Somebody who could spread your gospel?"

"Somebody like you?"

"If you like."

"Is that what your book's going to be: one last desperate attempt to put your father and me back up on our pedestals?" What did she want to hear from me? I wondered. And if I chose incorrectly, would I be subjected to her fury again? "Is that what you're up to, Maddox?"

I decided on the truth. "No," I said, "I'm simply telling the story as best I can."

"And this conversation? Will it be in your book?"

"I'll put it in if it seems relevant."

There was a silence. Finally, she said: "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter whether you do or you don't. Stories; temples. Who cares nowadays? You're going to have fewer readers than I have worshippers, Maddox."

"I don't have to be read to be a writer," I pointed out.

"And I don't have to be worshipped to be a goddess. But it helps. Believe me, it helps." She made a phantom smile, and I-to my great surprise-returned it. We understood one another better at that moment than we ever had. "So, now… Marietta."

"One more question," I begged.

"No, enough."

"Please, Mama. Just one. For the book."

"One then. And only one."

"Did my father have temples?"

"He certainly did."

"Where were they?"

"That's another question, Maddox. But, as you're so curious… The finest of his temples to my way of thinking was in Paris."

"Really? Paris. I thought Nicodemus hated Paris."

"Later, he did. It's where I met Mr. Jefferson, you see."

"I didn't know that."

"There's a great deal about that man you don't know; that the world doesn't know. I could tell you enough about him to fill five books. He was such a charmer. But quiet… so quiet when he talked that you had to strain to hear him. I remember the first time I met him he'd just been given an apricot, which he'd never tasted before. And oh, the blissful look on that pinched face of his! I wanted him to make love to me on the spot."

"Did he?"

"Oh no. He played very hard to get. He was in love with an English actress at the time. What a wretched combination that was: English and an actress. The worst of all possible worlds. Anyway, Thomas toyed with my affections for weeks. There was a revolution going on around us, but I swear I was so besotted with him I barely noticed. Heads being lopped off every hour and I was wandering around in an adolescent daze trying to find a way to make this scrawny little American diplomat love me."

"How did you do it?"

"I'm not sure I ever did. If I were to raise him up now, out of his grave at Monticello, and say to him: did you love me? I think he'd say, at best, for a day or two, an hour or two, that afternoon you showed me the temple."

"You took him to my father's temple?"

"Every woman knows if you fail to get the man you want with words, you show him a sacred place." She laughed. "Usually it's the one between your legs. Don't look so shocked, Maddox. It's a fact of life. If a woman's going to get a man on his knees, she has to give him something to worship. But I knew raising my skirts for Jefferson wasn't going to be chough. He'd had that from his tarty little actress, Miss Cosway. I had to show him something that she could never supply. So I took him to your father's temple."

"What happened?"

"He was very impressed. He asked me how I knew about the place. It was a very secret cult your father had at that time. Noble families, mostly. And of course they'd either fled or lost their heads. So the temple was deserted. We wandered around while the mobs raged on the streets outside, and I think-just for that little while-he was quite in love.

"I remember he asked me who'd designed the place, and I took him to the altar, where there was a statue of your father. It had a red velvet doth draped over it. And I said to Jefferson: before I show you this, will you promise me something? He said yes, of course, if it was in his power. So I said to him: design me a house, where I can live happily, because it'll remind me of you."

"So that's how you got him to design you this place?"

"I made him swear. On his wife. On his dreams of Monti-cello. On his dearest hopes for democracy. I made him swear on them all."

"You didn't trust him?"

"Not remotely."

"So he swore-"

"-and I uncovered your father's statue. There he was in all his tumescent glory!" Again she laughed. "Oh, Thomas was the very picture of discomfort. But to be fair to him, he kept his aplomb and asked me, with great seriousness, if the representation was a true and proportionate likeness. I reassured him that it was an exaggeration, though not much of one. I remember exactly what he said to that. Then I am certain, ma'am, you are a very contented wife.' Ha! 'A very contented wife.'

"I showed him how contented I was, there and then. With your father's painted eyes looking down at us, I showed Jefferson how little I cared for marriage.

"We never did it again. I didn't really want to, and I'm quite certain he didn't. His affair with the actress ended in tears, and he went back to his wife."

"But he built you your house, just as he promised he would."

"Oh he did more than that," she said. "He also built a perfect copy of the temple. Perfect down to the last detail."

"Why?"

"That's another question for his ghost. I don't know. He was a strange man. Beautiful things obsessed him. And the temple was beautiful."

"Did he put an altar in it?"

"Do you mean did he have a statue of your father? I wouldn't be surprised."

"Where was this place?"

"Where is it, you mean."

"It's still standing?"

"I believe so. It's one of the best kept secrets in Washington."

"Washington…" The thought that there was a place of ritual sacred to my perpetually priapic father laid in the heart of the nation's capitol astonished me. "I want to see it," I said.

"I'll write a letter of introduction," Cesaria said.

"To whom?"

She smiled. "To the highest in the land. I'm not entirely forgotten," she said. "Jefferson made certain I would never want for influence."

"So he knew you'd outlive him?"

"Oh yes, he understood perfectly, though he never put what he knew into words. I think that would have been too much for him."

"Mother… you astonish me."

"Do I really?" she said, with something approximating fondness in her voice. "Well I'm pleased to hear it." She shook her head. "Enough of this," she said. "I'm quite talked out." She pointed at me. "And you be careful how you quote me," she said. "I won't have my past misrepresented, even if it is in a book that nobody's going to read."

So saying, she turned her back on me, and calling her porcupines to follow, she headed off down the passageway. I called after her:

"What do you want me to do about Marietta?"

"Nothing," she growled. "Let her play. She'll regret what she's done. Maybe not tonight, but soon."

While I was pleased to be relieved of the duty of going after Marietta, I was left somewhat curious as to the felony my half sister had committed. Indeed I was tempted to seek her out and ask her for myself. But I had such a wonderful freight of information from Cesaria, and I didn't want to risk forgetting a word of it. So I went straight back to my room, lit the lamps, poured myself some gin, and started to set it down. I paused only once, to reflect on what it might mean that Thomas Jefferson, the principal architect of the Declaration, the father of democracy in America, should have built a replica of my father's temple. To have gone to all that trouble in pursuit of beauty seemed to me unlikely. Which begged two questions: one, why had he done it? And two, if there was some other purpose, did anybody on Capitol Hill know what it was?

I will revisit Marietta's theft in due course; be assured of that. There are several threads of this tapestry woven together in her crime as you'll see. And-just as Cesaria predicted-there would be consequences.

But first, I must return to The Samarkand, and the pair who'd passed the night upon it.

When Rachel woke, dawn was creeping into the tiny cabin, and by its virtuous light she saw Galilee asleep at her side, one arm thrown over his face, the other across her body. Comforted by the sight, she dosed her eyes and went back to sleep. When she stirred again, he was gently stroking her breasts, kissing her face. Still only half-awake she slid her hand down between their bodies and raised her leg a little to guide him into her. He murmured something against her cheek that she didn't catch, but she was in too dreamy a state to ask him to repeat it. All she wanted was the fullness of him inside her; his gentle motion, his touch. She didn't even need to see him: he was there in her mind's eye when she closed her lids; her perfect lover, who'd brought her more sexual pleasure in one night than she'd experienced in all the years preceding it. She reached out and touched his chest, his nipples, then to his armpit and the mass of his shoulder, luxuriating in the polished muscle beneath her fingertips. One of his huge hands was at her face, stroking her with the back of his fingers, the other down between her legs, parting her, easing the passage of his sex by spreading her fluids down its length.

She made a little sob of pleasure when he was fully housed; begged him to stay there. He didn't move. Just kept his place, her body enclosing him so tightly she could feel the tick of his blood. At last, she began to move; just a tiny motion at first, but enough to send a shudder through him.

"You like that?" she whispered.

He replied with a short expulsion of air, almost a grunt, as he pressed his sex back into her, and the next instant withdrew it almost entirely. She let him do so without protest; the emptiness was delicious, as long as she knew it was only temporary.

She reached up and put her arms around his neck, knotting her fingers at the base of his skull. Then, oh so slowly, she preempted his return stroke by raising her hips toward his.

He spoke again. This time she heard what he said.

"Oh Lord in heaven…"

Slowly, slowly, she took him into her, both of them tender from a night of excesses; the line between bliss and discomfort perilously fine. As she rose he started down to meet her motion, and the image of him she'd had in her mind's eye lost its particularity, his substance dissolved in the wash of pleasure. The gleaming darkness of his limbs spread behind her lids, filling her thoughts completely. He was quickening now. She urged him on, her urges incoherent. No matter; he understood. She didn't need to tell him when to redirect his pressure, she'd no sooner formed the thought than he was doing so. And before he lost control of his body and came, she was distracting him from his crisis, slowing her own motion so as not to have their pleasure end too quickly.

So it went on, for two hours, almost three: sometimes a contest-jabs and sobbing; sometimes so quiet, so still, they might almost have been asleep in one another's arms. They made no declarations of love; at least nothing audible. They didn't even speak, not even to call out one another's name. There was no failure of feeling in this; just the reverse. They were so entirely immersed in one another, so entirely joined in their bliss, that for a short, sacred time they imagined themselves indivisible.

Not so, of course.

The illusion passed when their bodies had been wracked to exhaustion. They lay beside one another shivering in their sweat, gloriously satisfied, but returned into their own skins.

"I'm hungry," Rachel said.

They hadn't gone entirely without sustenance since boarding The Samarkand. Though Galilee had returned the fish to the sea as an offering to Kuhaimuana-all thirty fathoms of him-he'd opened cans of shucked oysters and brandied peaches in the middle of the night, which they'd eaten off and out of one another's bodies, so that the satisfying of one appetite didn't interrupt the satisfying of the other.

Still, it was now midmorning, and her stomach was complaining.

"We can be back on land in an hour," Galilee said.

"I don't want to go," Rachel replied. "I never want to go. I want to stay out here, just the two of us…"

"People would come looking," he said. "You're still a Geary."

"We'd find somewhere to hide," she said. "People disappear all the time, and they're never found."

"I have a house…"

"You do?"

"In a tiny village in Chile, called Puerto Bueno. It's right at the top of the hill. A view of the harbor. Parakeets in the trees."

"Let's go there," she said. Galilee laughed. "I'm serious," she said.

"I know you are."

"We could have children…"

The amusement left his face. "I don't think that'd be wise," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I'd be no use as a father."

"How do you know?" she said, putting her hand over his. "You might find out you really liked it."

"Bad fathers run in our family," Galilee said. "Or rather, one does."

"One bad father out of how many?"

"One out of one," he said.

She thought he'd misunderstood what she was saying. "No, I mean, what about your grandfathers?"

"There aren't any."

"You mean they're dead."

"No, I mean there aren't any. There never were."

She laughed. "Don't be silly. Your mother and father had parents. They might have been dead before you were born, but-"

"They had no parents," Galilee said, taking his eyes off her. "Believe me."

There was something faintly intimidating about the way he said believe me. It wasn't an invitation, it was a command. He didn't wait to see if she'd obey it or not; he just got up and started to dress. "It's time we went back," he said. "People'll be looking for you."

"Let them look," she said, sliding her arms around him from behind, and pressing her body against him. "We don't have to go yet; I want to talk; I want to get to know you better."

"There'll be other times," he said, moving away from her to pick up his shirt.

"Will there?" she said.

"Of course," he replied, not turning back to look at her.

"What was it I said that offended you?"

"You haven't said anything," he replied. "I just think we should get back, that's all."

"Last night-"

He stopped buttoning his shirt. "Was wonderful," he said.

"So stop being like this," she said, irritation creeping into her voice. "I'm sorry if I talked out of turn. It was just a joke."

He sighed. "No it wasn't. You meant it or you wouldn't have said it. You'd like to have children…"

"Yes," she said, "I would. And I'd like to have them with you."

"We scarcely know one another," he replied, and started up the stairs to the deck.

She went after him, angry now. "What about what you said on the beach?" she demanded. "About watching for me? Was that just a way to get me here?" She followed him up the stairs. By the time she got on deck he was sitting on the narrow bench beside the wheel, his face in his hands. "Is that all this was about?" she said to him. "And now we've had the night together you're just going to move on?"

He kept his face buried. From the sound of his voice, he might have been dead. "I meant nothing by any of this," he said. "I just got caught up in the moment, and that wasn't fair to you. It wasn't fair. I thought you understood…"

"Understood what?"

"That this was just another story," he replied.

"Look at me," she said. He didn't move; his face remained hidden from her. "Look at me and say that!" she demanded.

With great reluctance he looked up at her. His face was gray; so was the expression in his eyes. "I meant nothing by any of this," he said steadily. "I thought you understood this was just another story."

Her eyes pricked, she heard the whine of the blood in her ears. How could he be saying this? Her vision began to blur as the tears came. How could he sit there and tell her it was all just a game, when they both knew, they both knew, surely, surely, that something wonderful had happened?

"You're a liar," she said.

"That may be."

"You know it's not true!"

"It's as true as any story I ever told you," he said, looking down at the deck. She wanted to quote him back at himself on the subject of what was true and what was not, but she couldn't remember the argument he'd made. All she could think was: he's running away from me. I'm never going to see him again. It was unbearable. Ten minutes ago, they'd been talking about his house on the hilltop. Now he was telling her nothing he'd said was worth a damn.

"Liar," she said again. "Liar, liar, liar."

He got up and went into the wheelhouse, not looking at her once. He switched on the engine, and then flipped the switch to haul up the anchor. Between engine and anchor-raising there was quite a noise; any further conversation was out of the question. Frustrated, Rachel went below to dress.

The cabin was in total disarray, the pillows and sheets cast in every direction about the bed, her clothes scattered. She focused her emotions on a missing shoe for a minute or two, which kept the tears from coming again. By the time she'd found the shoe and got herself dressed, the weepy feeling had passed, and she was almost ready to have a rational conversation.

Shoes on, she went back up on deck. The boat was ploughing through the placid waters at quite a clip, the wind cold and bracing.

"Look!" Galilee yelled to her, pointing toward the bow. She could see nothing. "Go see!" he urged her.

She climbed up past the wheelhouse and onto the forward deck to see what he was so anxious she see. There was a pod of dolphins keeping pace with The Samarkand, three or four of them racing to stay so close to the bow they were practically touching it, their bodies like velvet torpedoes as they sped along. Now and then a smaller individual-a juvenile, she supposed-leaped out of the water to one side of the boat or the other, the leaps decorated with a fillip of the tail or a half-twist of the body.

She glanced back at Galilee to show her appreciation, but he had his eyes on the island. There were rain clouds obscuring the heights of Mount Waialeale, as there had been the first day she'd arrived. It was just a short time since she'd been driving with Jimmy Hornbeck and they'd had their conversation about Mammon, the demon of acquisitiveness; but it seemed like weeks. No; more than weeks: another life. She'd been a different Rachel then; she'd been a Rachel who hadn't known Galilee was in the world. For better or worse, that changed everything.

The jetty had an occupant when they came in sight of it: a solitary figure sitting staring out at the sea. Rachel assumed the man was fishing, and paid him little attention. It wasn't until The Samarkand was within a few boatlengths of its destination that she studied the figure more closely and realized that it was Niolopua, He'd risen now and was waiting at the end of the jetty, plainly agitated. Before the boat had even come alongside the jetty he leapt aboard. He took no notice of his father; it was Rachel he needed to talk to; and urgently.

"There have been messages for you," he said, "from New York."

"About what?"

"The woman wouldn't say-. She just told me to find you. Very important, she said. I've been looking for you since dawn."

"Who was it you were talking to?"

"Mrs. Geary."

"Yes, but which Mrs. Geary? Was it Margaret?" The man shook his head. "Loretta? It was Loretta?"

"The old one?" Niolopua said.

Before Rachel could confirm that yes, Loretta was the old one, Galilee had done it for her. "And she didn't tell you what it was about?"

"No. Just that… this Mrs. Geary had to call as soon as possible, because there was something she had to know."

"Cadmus," Rachel said. The old man was dead, more than likely. "Come with me," she said to Galilee.

"Niolopua can go with you. I'll follow."

"You promise me?" she said. "Of course."

"We need to talk."

"I know. I understand. I'll come in a while. Let me just take care of the boat."

It was hard not to look back as she and Niolopua returned to the house; hard not to fear that Galilee was lying to her, and that the moment she was out of sight he'd cast off and sail away. But she had to have some faith, she told herself. If she didn't believe the promise he'd made her, then there was no hope for them. And if he broke that promise, then there'd been no hope anyway.

Still, it was hard. The closer they came to the ridge of rocks which divided one bay from the other, on the far side of which she would be out of sight of the jetty, the more the temptation grew to cast just one glance over her shoulder and confirm that he was still there. She resisted successfully, but the effort of doing so must have been visible to Niolopua because once they were down on the sand again, with the house almost in view, he said:

"Don't worry. He'll come."

She glanced sideways at him. "Is it that obvious?"

Niolopua shrugged. "He's who he is. You're who you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That he won't break his promise."

It was only once she reached the house, and stood still for a few moments, that she realized how she'd lost some of her equilibrium from being on board The Samarkand. The floor felt unreliable beneath her bare soles, and she felt oddly queasy: a strange reversal of seasickness. She went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, then asked Niolopua if he'd mind making her some hot, sweet tea while she called New York. He was happy to oblige. She retired to the relative privacy of the dining room and dialed the mansion, wondering as she did so how to best express her condolences. Would Loretta expect her to be tearful at the news? Surely not.

The voice at the other end of the telephone was not one she recognized: a man with a Bronx accent and what sounded like a heavy cold. She asked for Loretta.

"Mrs. Geary can't come to the phone right now. Who is this?" Rachel told him. There followed some muffled sounds as the receiver was passed over to somebody else. This time she recognized the voice. It was Mitchell. She felt a sudden spasm of panic-the way she felt when an elevator lurched between floors, and she feared it was going to stop. The prospect of entrapment loomed.

"I had a message from Loretta," Rachel said.

"Yes. I know."

"Who was that I was talking to?"

"A detective."

"What's going on?"

"It's Margie…"

"What about her?"

There was a short silence. Then Mitchell said: "She's dead, Rachel. Somebody shot her dead."

The elevator lurched a second time. "Oh God, Mitch…"

"They're saying Garrison did it," Mitchell went on. "But that's just bullshit. He was set up. It's just bullshit."

"When did it happen?"

"Late last night. Somebody must have broken into the house. Somebody with a grudge against her. God knows, Margie could piss people off."

"Poor Margie. Oh Lord, poor Margie."

"You have to come back, Rachel. The police need to talk to you."

"I don't know anything."

"You talked to Margie a lot lately. Maybe she told you something-"

"I don't want to come back, Mitchell."

"What are you talking about?" For the first time in the exchange there was some emotion in his voice; a mingling of rage and disbelief. "You've got to come back. Where the hell are you anyway?"

"It's none of your business."

"You're out on that fucking island, aren't you?" he said, his tone all anger now. "You think we don't know about that place? You think it's some big secret? I know what goes on out there."

"You don't have the first clue," she said, hoping he heard the certainty in her voice.

"If you don't come back, the police are going to come looking for you. Is that what you want?"

"Don't try bullying me. It won't work any more."

"Rachel."

"I'll call you back."

"Don't hang up."

She hung up. "You bastard," she said quietly. Then, more quietly still: "Poor Margie."

"Something bad?" Niolopua said. He was at the door with her cup of hot tea.

"Very bad," she said. He brought the tea to her table and set it down. "My sister-in-law was murdered last night."

"How?"

"She was shot. By… her own husband." She was laying all this out more for her own benefit than for Niolopua's; putting what was nearly beyond belief into words.

"Do you want me to go tell my father?"

"Yes," Rachel said, "if you don't mind. Would you ask him to hurry up? Tell him I need him here."

"Is there anything else before I go?"

"No, thank you."

"I'm sorry," he said. "She was a nice woman." So saying, he left her alone.

She took a few sips of tea, which Niolopua had sweetened with honey, then got up and went to the cabinet. If her memory served she'd seen a half-emptied carton of cigarettes in one of the drawers. That's what she needed right now: a bitter lungful of carcinogenic smoke inhaled in memory of her Margie. Several lungfuls, in fact, and fuck the consequences.

The carton was where she'd hoped it was, but there were no matches. Taking her tea and the cigarettes, she went through to the kitchen. The vestiges of her land-sickness remained; not the queasiness, but the unsettling sense that the ground beneath her was rocking. She found some matches and went out to sit in the veranda, where she could watch for Galilee.

The cigarette tasted stale, but she smoked it anyway, thinking of the countless times she'd sat happily immersed in the cloud of smoke that hung about Margie, talking with happy purposelessness. If the victim had been somebody else, Margie would have been thoroughly entranced, she knew; eager to talk over every possible scenario of how the murder had come about. She'd had no sense of tragedy, she'd told Rachel once. Tragedy only happened to people who gave a damn, and she'd never met anybody who did. Rachel had said this was nonsense. Amongst all the important people Margie had rubbed shoulders with there'd been some who genuinely wanted to make a difference. Not a one, Margie had replied; cheats, liars and thieves, every last one. Rachel remembered the conversation not for Margie's cynicism, but because there had been such disappointment in her voice as she spoke. Somewhere behind the veil there'd been a woman who'd wanted nothing more than to be proved wrong about what wretched bastards the movers and shakers of the world were.

Which thought led on, inevitably, to Garrison, about whom Margie had never said one good word. According to her he'd been-among other things-selfish, pompous and inept in bed. But these were minor felonies beside the crime of which he was now accused; and it was difficult for Rachel to imagine any circumstances in which he would pick up a gun and shoot his own wife. Yes, it seemed they'd despised one another; but they'd lived in a state of mutual contempt for years. It didn't make him a murderer. If he'd wanted an end to the marriage, there were easier resolutions.

She turned over what Mitchell had said, about coming home of her own volition, or having the police come and fetch her. It was nonsense, surely. She plainly wasn't a suspect, so any information she could supply would be purely anecdotal. If they needed to talk to her, they could do it by phone. She didn't have to go back if she didn't want to; and she didn't want to. Especially now, with so much to work out between Galilee and herself.

She'd finished her cigarette by now, and had almost finished her tea. Rather than sit on the veranda she decided to go back inside and change into fresh clothes. She picked up some cookies on her way through the kitchen, and went into the bathroom to shower.

It was only when she caught sight of herself in the mirror-her skin flushed from wind and sun-that she realized how strangely calm she felt. Was she simply too stunned by all that had happened in the last few hours to respond to it? Why wasn't she weeping? Her best friend was dead, for God's sake, and here she was staring at herself out of the mirror without a tear shed. She looked hard at her reflection, as though it might speak back to her and solve this mystery; but her face showed her nothing.

She went to the shower, and turned it on, shedding her clothes where she stood. The flow of water was weak, but she luxuriated in it nevertheless, remembering Galilee's touches as she sluiced off her salted skin. His hands on her face, her breasts, her belly, his tongue at play between her legs. She wanted him again, now. Wanted him to be whispering to her the way he'd whispered that first night: a story of water and love. She'd even take a tale of sharks if that was what he felt like telling. She was in the mood to be devoured.

Taking her leisurely time, she washed her hair and then rinsed the remaining soap from her body. She'd neglected to bring a towel from the rack, so she stepped out of the shower soaking wet, and there he was, standing in the doorway, looking at her.

Her first instinct was to cover her nakedness, but the way he was looking at her made the idea nonsensical. There was nothing salacious in his stare; the expression he wore was almost childlike in its simplicity. His eyes were wide, his face almost slack.

"So now they're killing their own," he murmured. "I suppose it had to happen sooner or later." He shook his head. "This is the beginning of the end, Rachel."

"What do you mean?"

"My brother Lurnan predicted all this."

"He knew there was going to be a murder?"

"Murder's the least of it. Margie was a sad creature, and she's probably better off-"

"Don't say that."

"It's true. We both know it's true."

"I loved Margie."

"I'm sure you did."

"So don't say she's better off dead, because that's not right, that's not true."

"Nobody could have healed her. She'd been swimming in that poison for too long."

"So I shouldn't care that she's dead?"

"Oh no, I'm not saying that. Of course you should care. Of course you should mourn. But don't expect any justice to be done."

"The police already have her husband."

"They won't have him for long."

"Another of your brother's predictions?"

"No, that one's mine," he said. "Garrison'll walk away from what he did. He's a Geary. They always find someone else to blame."

"How do you know so much about them?"

"They're the enemy," he said simply.

"So what makes me any different?" Rachel said. "I've been swimming in the poison too."

He nodded. "I know," he said. "I tasted it."

She was reminded of her nakedness as he spoke. It was no accident; as he spoke of tasting the poison his eyes had left her face. Gone to her breasts; to her sex.

"Will you pass me a towel?" she said to him.

He dutifully took the largest of the towels off the rack. She reached out to take it from him, but rather than pass it over he said, "Please, let me…" and, opening the towel, he pressed it against her body and began to dry her. Despite the prickly exchanges they'd had of late-first in the boat, now here-she was instantly comforted by his attentions; the intimacy of his touch muted by the plushness of the towel, but all the more teasing for the fact. When he dried her breasts she couldn't keep herself from sighing appreciatively.

"That feels nice," she said.

"Yes?"

"Yes…"

He drew her a little closer, carefully drying beneath her breasts, then making his way down towards her groin.

"When will you go back to New York?" he asked her.

She had some trouble concentrating on the question; even more formulating an answer. "I don't see… any reason why I should."

"I thought she was a friend of yours."

"She was. But I'm no use to her now. I'm better off here, with you. I know that's what Margie would tell me. She'd say: you've got something that gives you pleasure, hold on to it."

"And I've given you pleasure?"

"You know you have," she purred.

"Good," he said, with a kind of forced brightness, as though the idea was in equal measure pleasing and troubling to him.

His hands were between her legs now. She took hold of the towel and pulled it away. "Let's go to the bedroom," she said.

"No," he said. "Here," and suddenly his fingers were inside her, and he was pressing her against the wall, his mouth on hers. He tasted strange, almost acidic; and the way he stroked her was far from tender. There was suddenly something ungainly about all of this. She wanted to call a halt, but she was afraid of driving him away.

He was unbuckling his pants now, pressing himself so hard against her she could barely draw breath.

"Wait…" she said to him. "Please. Slow down."

He didn't heed her. If anything his behavior became more frenzied. He pushed her legs open. She felt his erection jabbing at her, like something blind, poking around for its bed. She told herself to relax; to trust him. He'd made the most extraordinary love to her last night; he understood the signals her body was putting out better than any man she'd ever been with.

So why did she want to push him away now? Why did it hurt when he got inside her? What had seemed like a wonderful fullness a few hours before now made her want to cry out. There was no pleasure in this; none.

She couldn't govern her instincts any longer. She closed her mouth against his kisses, and put her hands on his chest to push him away.

"I don't like this," she said.

He ignored her. He was buried deep in her, to the root, his cock brutally rigid, his hips grinding against hers.

"No," she said. "No! Will you please get off me!"

Now she pushed him as hard as she could, but his body was too strong, his erection was too implacable: she was pinned against the wall.

"Galilee," she said, trying to look into his eyes. "You're hurting me. Listen to me! You're hurting me."

Was it the fact that she was shouting now, her words echoing around the tiled walls, that roused him out of his stupor? Or was he simply bored with his own cruelty, as his body language seemed to suggest? He pushed himself off and out of her like someone leaving a dining table because the food didn't suit them, his expression one of mild distaste.

"Get out of here," she told him.

He retreated a step or two, still not looking at her, then turned and crossed to the door. She hated everything about him at that moment-his idling gait, the way he glanced down at his erection, the little smile she caught in the mirror as he slipped through the door. She closed it after him, then listened as he made his way through the house. Only when she heard the sound of the French window opened, and then being slammed as he exited, did she go to her clothes and start to dress. By the time she ventured out into the house he'd disappeared.

Niolopua was sitting on the lawn watching the ocean. She went out onto the veranda, and called to him.

"You had an argument?" he said.

She nodded.

"He didn't even speak to me. He just went down onto the beach, looking like thunder."

"Will you stay here for a little while? I don't want him coming back."

"I'll stay, if it makes you feel more comfortable, but I'm sure he's not coming back."

"Thank you," she said.

"He'll set sail now," Niolopua said. "You'll see."

"I don't care what he does as long as he stays the hell away from me," she said.

Just as Niolopua had predicted, Galilee didn't come back. The day waned, and Rachel stayed in the house, feeling drained of any energy or desire, eating a little, drinking a little, but getting pleasure from nothing. As she'd requested Niolopua kept his watch on the lawn, coming to the veranda once to ask for a beer, otherwise leaving her alone.

The telephone rang several times, but she didn't pick up. It was probably Mitch, or perhaps Loretta, trying to persuade her to go back home. In fact, since Galilee's leaving, she'd started to think that returning to New York was not such a bad idea. Certainly staying here in the house would not be wise; she'd only brood on things. Better to go back to the family, where at least she understood her feelings. After the emotional chaos of the last few days there would be something bracingly plain about being among the Gearys. They were hateful, it was as simple as that. No confusion, no ambiguity, no kisses one moment and brutality the next. Maybe she'd just get drunk and stay that way, like Margie; pronounce against the world from behind her funeral veil. It wasn't a very pretty prospect, but what did she have left? This island had been a last resort: a place to heal herself; to watch the miraculous at play. But it had failed her. She was left empty-handed.

As the last of the light was going out of the sky she heard Niolopua calling her name, and went out onto the veranda to find him standing at the bottom of the lawn pointing out to sea.

There was The Samarkand. Even though its sails were little more than white specks against the darkening blue, Rachel knew without a doubt it was Galilee's vessel. For an aching moment she imagined herself on deck with him, looking back at the island from the sea. The stars coming out overhead; the bed below, waiting for them. She indulged the romance for a moment only, then told herself to stop it.

Even so, she couldn't turn her back on the ocean; not until he'd gone. She watched the boat get smaller and smaller, until at last it was utterly eroded by distance and darkness. Only then did she look away.

So that's the end of it, she thought. The man she'd fleet-ingly imagined might be her prince had gone. And what a perfect departure he'd made, carried away by the tide; who knew where?

Still she didn't weep. Her prince was gone, and she didn't weep. Yes, there was regret. Of course there was regret. However long she lived, she'd never stop wondering what would have happened if she'd better navigated the shoals of his nature; wonder what kind of life they might have had together in his house on the hill.

But there was something else besides regret: there was anger. That, she finally decided, was what kept the tears from coming: her fury at the way life piled hurt on hurt.. It dried her eyes the moment they moistened.

Margie's methodology had been much the same, hadn't it? By turning spite into an art form, by pronouncing loudly on the meaninglessness of life, Margie kept herself functioning.

That's how things would have to be for Rachel from now oh. She'd have to learn to be just like Margie.

God help them both.