Duma Key (45 page)

I nodded to Kamen. Kamen nodded back. Then I looked at the audience and saw they were just people. All the angels were over our heads, and they were
now flying in the dark. As for demons, most were probably in my mind.

“Hello—” I began, then recoiled at the way my voice boomed out from the microphone. The audience laughed, but the sound didn't make me angry, as it would have a minute before. It was only laughter, and goodnatured.

I can do this.

“Hello,” I said again. “My name is Edgar Freemantle, and I'm probably not going to be very good at this. In my other life I was in the building trade. I knew I was good at that, because I landed jobs. In my current life I paint pictures. But nobody said anything about public speaking.”

This time the laughter was a little freer and a little more general.

“I was going to start by saying I have no idea how I wound up here, but actually I do. And that's good, because it's all I have to tell. You see, I don't know anything about art history, art theory, or even art appreciation. Some of you probably know Mary Ire.”

This brought a chuckle, as if I'd said
Some of you may have heard of Andy Warhol.
The lady herself looked around, preening a little, her back ramrod straight.

“When I first brought some of my paintings into the Scoto Gallery, Ms. Ire saw them and called me an American primitive. I sort of resented that, because I change my underwear every morning and brush my teeth every night before I go to bed—”

Another burst of laughter. My legs were just legs again, not cement, and now that I felt capable of running away, I no longer wanted or needed to. It was possible they'd hate my pictures, but that was all right because
I
didn't hate them. Let them have their
little laugh, their little boo-and-hiss, their little gasp of distaste (or their little yawn), if that was what they wanted to do; when it was over, I could go back and paint more.

And if they loved them? Same deal.

“But if she meant I'm someone who's doing something he doesn't understand, that he can't express in words because no one ever taught him the right terms, then she's right.”

Kamen was nodding and looking pleased. And so, by God, was Mary Ire.

“So all that leaves is the story of how I got here—the bridge I walked over to get from my other life to the one I'm living these days.”

Kamen was patting his meaty hands together soundlessly. That made me feel good. Having him there made me feel good. I don't know exactly what would have happened if he hadn't've been, but I think it would have been what Wireman calls
mucho feo
—very ugly.

“But I have to keep it simple, because my friend Wireman says that when it comes to the past, we all stack the deck, and I believe that's true. Tell too much and you find yourself . . . mmm . . . I don't know . . . telling the past you wished for?”

I looked down and saw Wireman was nodding.

“Yeah, I think so, the one you wished for. So simply put, what happened is this: I had an accident at a job site. Bad accident. There was this crane, you see, and it crushed the pickup truck I was in, and it crushed me, as well. I lost my right arm and I almost lost my life. I was married, but my marriage broke up. I was at my wits' end. This is a thing I see more clearly now; I only knew then that I felt very, very
bad. Another friend, a man named Xander Kamen, asked me one day if anything made me happy. That was something . . .”

I paused. Kamen looked up intently from the first row with the long gift-box balanced on his non-lap. I remembered him that day at Lake Phalen—the tatty briefcase, the cold autumn sunshine coming and going in diagonal stripes across the living room floor. I remembered thinking about suicide, and the myriad roads leading into the dark: turnpikes and secondary highways and shaggy little forgotten lanes.

The silence was spinning out, but I no longer dreaded it. And my audience seemed not to mind. It was natural for my mind to wander. I was an
artist
.

“The idea of happiness—at least as it applied to me—was something I hadn't thought of in a long time,” I said. “I thought of supporting my family, and after I started my own company, I thought of not letting down the people who worked for me. I also thought of becoming a success, and worked for it, mostly because so many people expected me to fail. Then the accident happened. Everything changed. I discovered I had no—”

I reached out for the word I wanted, groping with both hands, although they only saw one. And, perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside its pinned-up sleeve.

“I had no resources to fall back on. As far as happiness went . . .” I shrugged. “I told my friend Kamen that I used to draw, but I hadn't done it in a long time. He suggested I take it up again, and when I asked why, he said because I needed hedges against the night. I didn't understand what he meant then, because I was lost and confused and in pain. I understand
it better now. People say night falls, but down here it rises. It rises out of the Gulf, after sunset's done. Seeing that happen amazed me.”

I was also amazed at my own unplanned eloquence. My right arm was quiet throughout. My right arm was just a stump inside a pinned-up sleeve.

“Could we have the lights all the way down? Including mine, please?”

Alice was running the board herself, and wasted no time. The spotlight in which I had been standing dimmed to a whisper. The auditorium was swallowed in gloom.

I said, “What I discovered, crossing the bridge between my two lives, is that sometimes beauty grows in spite of all expectations. But that's not a very original idea, is it? It's really just a platitude . . . sort of like a Florida sunset. Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth, and the truth deserves to be spoken . . . 
if
you can say it in a new way. I tried to put it in a picture. Alice, could we have the first slide, please?”

It shone out on the large screen to my right, nine feet wide and seven feet high: a trio of gigantic lush roses growing from a bed of dark pink shells. They were dark because they were below the house, in the shadow of the house. The audience drew in its breath, a sound like a brief but loud gust of wind. I heard that and knew it wasn't just Wireman and the folks at the Scoto who understood. Who saw. They gasped the way people do when they have been blindsided by something completely unexpected.

Then they began to applaud. It went on for almost a full minute. I stood there gripping the left side of the podium, listening, dazed.

The rest of the presentation took about twenty-five
minutes, but I remember very little of it. I was like a man conducting a slide-show in a dream. I kept expecting to wake up in my hospital bed, hot and shot through with pain, roaring for morphine.

xii

That dreamlike feeling persisted through the post-lecture reception at the Scoto. I had no sooner finished my first glass of champagne (bigger than a thimble, but not much) before a second was thrust into my hand. I was toasted by people I didn't know. There were shouts of “Hear, hear!” and one cry of “Maestro!” I looked around for my new friends and didn't see them anywhere.

Not that there was much time to look. The congratulations seemed endless, both on my talk and on the slides. At least I didn't have to deal with any extended critiques of my technique, because the actual paintings (plus a few sketches in colored pencil for good measure) were squirreled away in two of the large back rooms, safely under lock and key. And the secret of avoiding getting smashed at your reception if you're a one-armed man, I was discovering, was to constantly keep a bacon-wrapped shrimp in your remaining paw.

Mary Ire came by and asked if we were still on for our interview.

“Sure,” I said. “Although I don't know what else I can tell you. I think I said it all this evening.”

“Oh, we'll think of a few things,” she said, and damned if she didn't tip me a wink from behind
her nineteen-fifties-style cat's-eye glasses as she handed her champagne flute back to one of the circulating waiters. “Day after tomorrow.
À bientôt, monsieur.
”

“You bet,” I said, restraining an urge to tell her that if she was going to speak French, she'd have to wait until I was wearing my Manet beret. She wafted off, kissing Dario on one cheek before slipping out into the fragrant March night.

Jack came over, snagging a couple of champagne flutes on the way. Juanita, my housekeeper, looking trim and chic in a little pink suit, was with him. She took a skewered shrimp, but refused the champagne. He held out the glass to me instead, waiting until I swallowed the last of my hors d'oeuvre and took it. Then he clinked his own against it.

“Congrats, boss—you rocked the house.”

“Thanks, Jack. A critic I can actually understand.” I swallowed the champagne (a swallow per flute is all there was) and turned to Juanita. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

“
Gracias,
Mr. Edgar,” she said, and glanced around. “These pictures are nice, but yours are much better.”

“Thank you.”

Jack handed Juanita another shrimp. “Will you excuse us a couple of seconds?”

“Of course.”

Jack drew me to the side of a splashy Gerstein sculpture. “Mr. Kamen asked Wireman if they could stay behind a little at the libe after the joint cleared out.”

“He did?” I felt a tickle of concern. “Why?”

“Well, he spent most of the day getting down here, and he said that him and airplane heads really don't
get along.” Jack grinned. “He told Wireman he'd been sitting on something all day and sorta wanted to climb down off it in peace.”

I burst out laughing. Yet I was also touched. It couldn't be easy for a man of Kamen's size to travel on public transport . . . and now that I really considered the matter, I guessed it would be impossible for him to sit down in one of those paltry airplane bathrooms at all. To stand up and take a leak? Maybe. Barely. But not sit down. He simply wouldn't fit.

“Anyway, Wireman thought Mr. Kamen deserved a T-O. Said you'd understand.”

“I do,” I said, and beckoned Juanita over. She looked too lonely standing there by herself in what was probably her best outfit while the culture vultures ebbed and flowed around her. I gave her a hug and she smiled up at me. And just as I was finally persuading her to take one of the glasses of champagne (my use of the word
pequeño
for small made her giggle, so I assumed it wasn't quite right), Wireman and Kamen—the latter still holding the gift-box—came in. Kamen lit up at the sight of me, and that did me more good than several rounds of applause, even with a standing O thrown in.

I took a champagne flute from a passing tray, cut through the crowd, and handed it to him. Then I slipped my arm around as much of his bulk as I could and gave him a hug. He hugged back hard enough to make my still tender ribs squall.

“Edgar, you look terrific. I'm so glad. God is good, my friend. God is good.”

“So are you,” I said. “How'd you happen to turn up in Sarasota? Was it Wireman?” I turned to my
compadre
of the striped umbrella. “It was, wasn't it? You called and asked Kamen if he'd be the Mystery Guest at my lecture.”

Wireman shook his head. “I called
Pam
. I was in a panic,
muchacho,
because I could see you were freaking out about the gig. She said that after your accident you listened to Dr. Kamen when you wouldn't listen to anyone else. So I called him. I never thought he'd come on such short notice, but . . . here he is.”

“Not only am I here, I brought you a gift from your daughters,” he said, and handed me the box. “Although you'll have to make do with what I had in stock, because I didn't have time to shop. I fear you may be disappointed.”

I suddenly knew what the present was, and my mouth went dry. Nevertheless I lodged the box under my stump, pulled away the ribbon, and tore off the paper. I was barely aware of Juanita taking it. Inside was a narrow cardboard box that looked to me like a child's coffin. Of course. What else would it look like? Stamped on the lid was
MADE IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
.

“Classy, Doc,” Wireman said.

“I didn't have time to do something nicer, I'm afraid,” Kamen replied.

Their voices seemed to come from far away. Juanita removed the box-top. I think Jack took that. And then Reba was looking up at me, this time in a red dress instead of a blue one, but the polka-dots were the same; so were the shiny black Mary Janes, the lifeless red hair and the blue eyes that said
Oouuuu, you nasty man! I been in here all this time!

Still from a great distance, Kamen was saying: “Ilse was the one who called and suggested a doll as
a present. This was after she and her sister talked on the phone.”

Of course it was Ilse,
I thought. I was aware of the steady murmur of conversation in the gallery, like the sound of the shells under Big Pink. My
Oh gosh, how nice
smile was still nailed to my face, but if someone had poked me in the back just then, I might have screamed.
Ilse is the one who's been on Duma Key
.
Who's been down the road that leads past
El Palacio.

As shrewd as he was, I don't think Kamen had any idea that anything was wrong—but of course he'd been traveling all day and was far from his best. Wireman, however, was looking at me with his head cocked slightly to one side and his brow furrowed. And by then, I think Wireman knew me better than Dr. Kamen ever had.

“She knew you already had one,” Kamen was saying. “She thought a pair would remind you of both daughters, and Melinda agreed. But of course, Lucys are all I have—”

“Lucys?” Wireman asked, taking the doll. Her pink rag-stuffed legs dangled. Her shallow eyes stared.