You Are Always Safe With Me (11 page)

She lay back in the sand, bunching the baby bunting in its paper bag under her head, and closed her eyes. She felt the warm breeze on her face, heard the lapping of the water on the pebbles and shells of the shore. The sand conformed to the shape of her body; she knew she was falling asleep and she gave herself over to it. What a relief it was, to enter darkness and gain peace from the dancing of her mind. Stillness overtook her.

*

“Lilly.” A voice in her ear. “Lilly.”

“I’m coming,” she said. When she opened her eyes she saw Izak kneeling over her, his face above hers.

“Is it time to go already? Where are the others? Did you just come in the Zodiac?”

“The others are not here yet. I have been to the Turkish bath.”

“
You
have been there?”

“Yes, an hour ago.”

“You weren’t on the boat?”

“No,” he said. “I have been here in the town to buy new blankets for the boat, and two pillows Harrison wanted for his bed. Down, from the farmer’s goose feathers.”

“Who is on the boat?”

“Morat stayed. Barish stayed.”

“And Marianne?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see.”

Lilly bowed her head. She put her fingers in the sand.

“Marianne not kind to you, not kind to me,” Izak said.

“No, not kind,” Lilly echoed his words.

“We don’t worry,” he said. “No problem for us.”

“No,” Lilly said. “Not for us.”

“Our problem,” said Izak, “is big ocean between our countries.”

“Yes,” she said. “Between our worlds.”

“What is there to do?” Izak said. “I think about this.”

“I think also,” Lilly said.

He sat beside her on the sand and put his hand between them where she was letting the smooth grains run between her fingers. He stopped her from doing this by closing her fingers under his strong hand.

“We both think about this,” he said. “And no answers come.”

As Barish helped Lilly up the ladder from the Zodiac to the solid wooden deck of the
Ozymandias
, a strange vision met her eyes. On the foredeck, Marianne, dressed in the garb of a Whirling Dervish (the white bell-like skirt, the long-sleeved white shirt, the conical hat with the squared top) was spinning slowly in a counter-clockwise direction. She held one palm downward and one facing upward toward the sky. Music came from a tape player balanced on one of the kayaks, plugged by a long cord into an outlet under the wheel of the boat.

Though Marianne must have heard the Zodiac arriving, heard the high-pitched voice of Gerta, the hearty laugh of Harrison, she gave no sign of recognition of their arrival, but continued to spin to a low, rhythmic chant accompanied by the hypnotic music of zither, flute and drums. Her eyes were half-closed; she seemed oblivious to all sounds and movements. She did not appear dizzy, nor did she alter the rhythm of her spinning.

“Don’t interrupt her, she’s communing with God,” Fiona warned, as she stepped off the ladder and took in the scene. “I read about this after we saw the Whirling Dervishes in Istanbul. They dance around like that in a state of meditation, to become one with the universe and to submit oneself to God. See that tall hat? It’s supposed to signify the tombstone of her ego. The skirt represents her shroud. See how she’s holding one hand up and one down? One hand receives God’s grace, and the other hand brings it down to earth.”

“I don’t think Marianne is a woman who submits herself to anyone,” Harrison said under his breath.

“You’re just jealous she can swim further and better than you,” Gerta told him.

“I think she’s a woman in pain,” Lance observed. “You can see her pain in her eyes.”

Lilly’s mother patted Lance’s shoulder. “You’re a very sensitive, kind man,” she said to him. “That’s why I admire you. You know when people are hurting.”

“I think we’re
all
in pain,” Fiona said. “Especially after we walked so many hours this afternoon. God, my feet are killing me.” She sank down in one of the deck chairs. “Listen children, I have just the thing to dull all our pains. I propose we have some wine—my treat—before dinner. But first let me go downstairs and take a shower.”

*

When the sun had hid itself under the darkening waters leaving a faint, fiery spray of brilliance in the sky, when the heat had relented just a bit, after all the guests had swum or showered, when Gerta and Harrison had surfaced after a nap, Fiona brought forth a bottle of Turkish wine she had bought in the village that afternoon. She produced a corkscrew and began to work on the cork.

“Now I’m wondering if we should ask Marianne to join us. Even Whirling Dervishes don’t go on this long.” They could all see the white blur of Marianne, still spinning, on the foredeck. The soft brushing of her feet whispered on the floorboards as she listed first to one side, then another.

“I think she’s just converted to a new religion,” Lance suggested.

“I think she’s gone nuts,” said Jack Cotton.

“Maybe she’s angry at us,” his wife said. “Something’s definitely eating her. Maybe she just wants to give us the silent treatment.”

“Isn’t that what they call being passive-aggressive?” Harrison asked. “She’s angry about something and doesn’t want to join us for dinner, but there’s no way we can confront her and work it out if she’s having an in-your-face religious conversion.”

“Give her a break,” Fiona said. “She’s had some rotten times in her life.” She lowered her voice. “You all know that her daughter died five years ago, don’t you? A teenage girl. Got sick and died, very suddenly, just like that.”

“I lost my husband three months ago,” Harriet said suddenly. “I would never force anyone to feel sorry for me or think I expect special consideration. It’s not an excuse for rude or ugly behavior.”

“None of us would ever dream you could be rude, Harriet,” Lance said. “You’re just the opposite of Marianne. She says harsh things that make people feel bad and you do all you can to be nice to everyone.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Harriet said. “You’re so very kind.”

Lilly knew all too well that tone of her mother’s voice, her perky spirit, her stiff upper lip. In the years she was growing up, Lilly was endlessly irritated by her mother’s agreeableness, her willingness to make sure everyone was served and content, to make no waves about what she might prefer or what would please her. Coming of age in her mother’s shadow, Lilly had, by contrast, seen herself as selfish, greedy, unbearably needy. As a young woman she had reflected daily and bitterly that she was not smarter, prettier, born with a nicer personality or a kinder temperament. Why hadn’t she been born to royalty, like the princesses in fairy tales? Or simply rich, so she would have anything she wanted?

If she ever confessed these concerns to her mother, Harriet would pat her cheek reassuringly and dismiss her fears. “You’re a perfectly nice-enough looking girl with a good brain, and a good upbringing. You have plenty of clothes and books. Why shouldn’t you be satisfied with what you have? Others are much worse off than you.”

Lilly could never accept that argument. Why shouldn’t she aspire to be like those who were “better off”? Why should she be content to think about those unfortunates who were “worse off” and be satisfied with that?

Her father, too, had been a model of kindness and rationality. Mild mannered, good-humored, good- natured, he never found her wanting, and could not, it seemed, discover a single way in which he wanted her changed. Like Lilly, he loved to read, and spent hours in bookstores the way some men frequent bars. He often surprised Lilly by bringing her home a bag of books from a clearance sale.

She’d go through them and line them up beside her bed, putting the most interesting books at the bottom of the pile and the boring ones at the top. This would force her to read all of them, at least a little, always with the most attractive book to look forward to reading last. Now and then her father bought her a duplicate to a book she already had in her library. When she asked him to return it to the bookstore and get her another, he’d say, “Oh, give the double to one of your friends.”

“I don’t have any friends I like well enough to give a book to,” she wanted to say to him, but instead bit her tongue and hid the “double” in the back of her closet. She liked having two copies of the same book. It gave her a sense of plenty, of being rich. Someday, she imagined, she might meet a friend who by some miracle would be worthy of the other copy (though she doubted it.) Why she had been born with such a petty, ungenerous soul she did not know.

Here she was on this cruise, given freely away to her and her mother and all the rest of the guests by Fiona; here she was drinking good Turkish wine by the grace of Fiona’s generosity, Fiona, who, each time she went into one village or another, brought back little trinkets for all of them—woven baskets, or handkerchiefs printed with images of the cliff tombs of Myra, or tiny bags of saffron spice, or replicas of the blue glass eye. In fact, Lilly now wore one of the blue eyes around her neck on a piece of red wool (Turkish carpet wool!), one of the jewels of Turkey that Fiona had given all her guests.

These amulets had been distributed by Fiona, one by one, around each person’s neck. “This will protect us from the evil eye, from getting searched by the Coast Guard again, from being raided by pirates, or being crunched in a major earthquake. Also from food poisoning.”

“Pirates!” Lance laughed. “I haven’t yet seen a Turkish gulet flying the skull and crossbones.”

“Don’t be so sure there are no pirates,” Harrison said. “Things do happen in these waters.”

“What kind of things happen?” said Lance.

“Some of these fancy boats are worth a couple of millions dollars. Their equipment is very desirable. And boats are sometimes left unguarded. Things disappear. Tourists have money, they have jewels, always good things to steal.”

Fiona was pouring the wine. “Nothing will happen on our boat,” she said. “We have our brave captain, Izak.” She slid the glasses across the table to the various guests. “Shall I pour one for Marianne, do you think?”

“Moslems don’t drink,” Harrison said. “Don’t bother.”

*

Dinner was once again outstanding. Morat had cooked crepes of spinach and goat cheese, a lamb stew with tomatoes and spices, a salad of melon slices of three colors and tastes, and a mousse that was dotted with shavings of chocolate.

By the time it was dark and the dishes cleared away by the crew, Lilly became aware that the sounds of spinning on the foredeck had stopped. When she walked toward the mid-point of the boat, she could see up front the shape of Marianne, lying prone on one of the foam deck pads. She was motionless, she seemed to have collapsed and fallen asleep.

Just as Lilly was about to turn around and go down to her cabin, she saw the a glint in the darkness beyond Marianne’s body. In the pale glow of the rising Turkish moon, Izak’s head, in outline, was visible as he sat on the floor near the anchor well, his legs crossed in Lotus position. His face was turned to the sea. Lilly studied his shaven head, straight nose, his beautifully lips. There was so regal a bearing to the angle of his head, the curve of his neck, the straightness of his back, a physical beauty so pure, that it made her breath catch in her throat and caused her heart to stop momentarily. When she could breathe again, she went down the steps to get the baby bunting for Gerta’s baby shower.

*

Lilly had been to enough baby showers to know how much they bored her. There was always the very-pregnant mother-to-be, the adorably beribboned packages with bunnies and teddy bears and butterflies and pacifiers on the wrapping paper, and the endless opening of presents, the oohs and aahs over the receiving blankets, the musical mobiles that would spin over the baby’s crib, the teething rings and rattles and fluffy toys and quacking ducks. When she had been in her early thirties, several female professors in her department took leaves of absence the same year. Because each woman had been granted tenure she felt she could finally take the time to have a baby: six months at home with the child, then placement of the baby in an excellent day-care program. The sleepless nights would be shared with the progressive, supportive father who had “no problem” with changing diapers and giving midnight feedings.

To Lilly, it seemed nothing to envy—a course so “charted,” so lacking in passion: parenthood by the book. But when her colleagues brought the babies to school after a few months and showed them off to the other professors and the secretaries and the janitorial staff, and beamed even as drool was running down the front of their stylish jackets, and milk was oozing from their breasts into the fabric of their tailored blouses, Lilly saw that it was
all
passion. Flesh and blood and drool and pink cheeks, and wide, staring, magnificent baby-eyes. Tiny grasping fingers, with infinitesimal finger nails, perfectly formed shell-like ears, eyelashes moving like beautiful little fans, heart-shaped baby lips with tiny tongue protruding.

All this had taken life from a spark occurring in the dark recesses of a woman’s body, had happened out of sight of the lovers so intent on their experience they could not know when the miracle happened.

Miracle
. A word that did not often enter Lilly’s mind, but what else could babies be, those perfect, elegant, miniature persons coming into being in the dark, coming brand new to replace those that were wearing out. Like Lilly.

She saw the signs of her own aging and did not make much of them. Still, women in their forties were having babies every day—actresses, professors, lawyers, women who had let their lives get in the way till they realized it was now or never at all.

Tonight, however, they were celebrating a miracle that began in a Petri dish, not between the slender hips of Gerta, not inside her perfect, gorgeous young body, but in a medical office, under controlled conditions, with an egg removed from Gerta’s ovary and with sperm delivered by Harrison into a plastic cup. This child was taking form in the womb of a hired hand, a woman who for a large consideration was happy to risk the stretch marks, the weight gain, the engorged breasts which might never return to their pristine state.