Little wonder, I thought, after the cheering news of the past few weeks (slash, hack, another integer bites the dust). It was my turn to sigh. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Dowst.
So they were gone. Disheartened, disillusioned, shorn of hope, spirit and animation, heads bowed, tails between their legs, the oyster bar reduced to a burger counter, the yacht to a dinghy. For one disjointed instant I wondered if I’d ever see them again, wondered if they’d decided to bag it, write the whole thing off and go back to the lost world of prawns, Mai Tais and teriyaki. But then, as I considered it, certitude came over me in a rush, and I knew — categorically and beyond the shadow of a doubt — that they would be back. Of course they would. A hundred and sixty thousand, eighty thousand, forty, twenty — what difference did it make? It was all they had. They needed this thing as badly as I did — if it failed, after all the hope and sweat and toil we’d invested in it, then the society itself was bankrupt, the pioneers a fraud, true grit, enterprise and daring as vestigial as adenoids or appendixes. We believed in Ragged Dick, P. T. Barnum, Diamond Jim Brady, in Andrew Carnegie, D. B. Cooper, Jackie Robinson. In the classless society, upward mobility, the law of the jungle. We’d seen all the movies, read all the books. We never doubted that we would make it, that one day we would be the fat cats in the mansion on the hill. Never. Not for a moment. After all, what else was there?
Dowst and I did the morning watering; then I went back to bed. When I woke about noon, bathed in sweat, Dowst was perched on the edge of the couch, his duffel bag packed, leafing through an issue of Fremontia. “Listen,” he said, “I wonder if you could handle the watering by yourself tonight. I’m supposed to meet this friend of mine in the botany department at Berkeley — we’re going to have drinks and dinner in Santa Rosa. It’s really important. I could wind up with a two-year appointment there if things work out.”
I was being deserted for the second time that day. I was hot, disappointed, lonely, restless and beset with vague fears. I shrugged.
“Because I’d really appreciate it,” Dowst said, getting to his feet. “I mean, uh, I’ll probably be back late tonight — no, I’ll definitely be back tonight — so I can help you with the morning watering. And for the next couple of days, too — until those guys get back.”
I nodded wearily, and he was gone. I listened to the smooth rumble of the van’s engine until the sound was swallowed up in the rattle of insects and the harsh glottal complaint of a crow perched outside the door. The house blistered around me. I heard a shingle crack, watched a lizard emerge from a rent in the wall and disappear behind the couch. It was then that it seized me. An idea, a point of perspective, an exhilarating, lubricious, uninhibited foretaste of forbidden fruit. I was alone. I could do anything I wanted — anything — and no one would be the wiser.
But no. I’d given my word. Jerpbak lay in wait for me out there, the Sinsemilla Strike Force was poised to strike. Besides, I couldn’t leave the place unguarded — what if Sapers came nosing around? Or if some hiker or cowboy blundered across our sweet fields of money trees? No, I couldn’t leave the place, I couldn’t.
Thirty seconds later I was in the bedroom, poking through the mound of clothes in the corner and sniffing socks and T-shirts to discover the least offensive. It’s been over a month, I was thinking as I dug the dirt from beneath my nails with the blade of a pocketknife. From somewhere below, the crow let out a long rasping laugh and then flapped past the window like a knot of rags. My twice-brushed teeth gleamed at me in the mirror, my eyes were feverish. I eased down on the edge of the bed and pulled on a pair of white jeans, lamentably stained in the crotch with a blot of red wine but otherwise presentable, and then spit-polished my Dingo boots. Over a month. She wouldn’t even remember me. I held the keys in my hand. Would she?
Chapter 6
The shop bell made a prim, little-girl-peeing sort of sound, the sun blasted the back of my head, a smell of sweet herbs and the music of the spheres enveloped me, and I shut the door on a cool, leafy potter’s paradise. Outside, the streets were like furnaces, dust, glare, hot tires on hot pavement; here was the peace of a pine forest, soft-lit from the skylights above, suffused with the sweet scent of the sachets that clung to the beams like cocoons, viridescent with plants spilling from hanging pots, reaching for the ceiling from ceramic floor planters, sending tendrils out to embrace the weathered barn siding that silvered the walls. I stood there a moment, my back to the door, catching my breath like a man emerging from the sauna to plunge into a cold bath. Gentle breezes wafted, hidden speakers filled the room with a chorus of voices that rose and fell in passionate certitude — Bach, wasn’t it? Yes, J. S. Bach sending a glorious full-throated missive to a merciful and present God.
I looked around me and saw the colors of the earth. Muted browns, sienna, umber, the palest of yellows. I saw Boston fern, philodendron, wandering Jew, myrtle and jade. I saw pottery — vases, planters, tureens, amphorae, urns, earthenware cups, glasses, pitchers, plates, finger bowls. There were ceramic bells and windchimes, massive cookpots, diminutive snuffboxes. And all arranged with taste and discrimination, set out on shelves, sideboards, a huge walnut table with place settings for eight and a delicate faience vase of cut flowers as a centerpiece. I felt as if I’d stepped into a bower, a bedroom, a church. I pushed my hair back, wiped my sweating palms on the thighs of my pants and waited.
Nothing happened.
I listened to kyrie eleisons, examined this pot or that, discovered a fat orange cat and stroked its ears. Then I noticed a smaller bell, the familiar businesslike tinny sort of thing I’ve always associated with elementary school classrooms and hotel lobbies. I depressed the plunger—bing-bing, bing-bing—and was rewarded, a moment later, by the appearance of Petra.
She emerged from a door at the rear of the shop, dressed in a smock that flowed from her like a gown. She was barefoot, and a thin silver chain cut a V at her throat. I watched her official smile give way to a look of misplaced recognition. “Hi,” I said.
“Oh,” she murmured, stalling for time like a game-show contestant who’s just been shown, for the purpose of identification, the monumental color slide of a bearded president. “Hi.”
We smiled at one another.
“Fred?” she said.
“Felix,” I corrected.
“Felix,” she said.
I told her I’d dropped in to see how she was doing. She said she was doing fine and asked me how the fishing was. Her teeth were white, flawless, like something out of a toothpaste ad. “Fishing?” I repeated, puzzled, caught off guard, thinking of teeth and lips and the ache of enforced celibacy, until I remembered the lame story I’d concocted over the jack handle on that eventful evening a month back. “Lunkers,” I blurted, “we’ve been catching lunkers. Yellowtails, guppies and monkey-faced eels.”
To my relief, she laughed, and then turned to lift a ceramic teapot from a hot plate and offer me a cup of herb tea (rose hips or some such crap, which I detest and normally refuse, but managed somehow to accept gracefully). And then, stirring our tea, something magical happened — in a single leap we were able to extricate ourselves from the slough of trivia and small talk, and focus on the subject that bound us in intimacy: Jerpbak. Jerpbak, our mutual tormentor and bitterest enemy, our jailer, the agent that had brought us together, wed us, bound us flesh to flesh. I watched her eyes over the teacup and saw the back seat of Jerpbak’s cruiser. “Is he still bothering you?” I said.