“Luke is a very good man,” I said.
“We call him St. Luke,” added Tamarisk.
My father smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
“There is an aura of gentleness about him. I hope you see a good deal of him.”
We were shown our rooms. They were side by side. Everything was in light wood. There were a few rugs on the wooden floors and the windows were screened by the mesh. Washbasins and ewers were in each bedroom and I discovered later that water had to be drawn from the well near the house. It was no less primitive than conditions had been in Cato Cato. Two families lived in hut-like dwellings in the grounds and they acted as servants. Considering the circumstances, I could see that everything had been done to provide the utmost comfort.
What I wanted most was to talk to my father alone. Tamarisk seemed to realize this and after we had had a meal, which was served under Karla’s supervision, she said she felt very tired and would like to go to her room. That gave me the opportunity I needed.
He took me to the room where I had first met him.
“This is my sanctum,” he said.
“I am here a great deal. Karia says you are a little puzzled and I should explain everything to you.”
“Who exactly is Karia?”
“This is her house. She is the daughter of an Englishman and a native woman. Her father came here and set up a large coconut plantation. He did not marry her mother but he thought a lot of Karia. She is a very clever woman … and attractive. In fact, she is a very wonderful person. I knew you two would like each other from the start. Don Marling, her father, left her this house, the plantation and a fortune when he died. She is a power in this place.”
“And you share this house with her?”
He smiled.
“We are very great friends. She brought me here when’ he touched his eyes ‘when this was happening to me.”
“Aunt Sophie used to tell me about you. She did not mention that you were blind.”
“She did not know. I did not tell her.”
“But you were writing to her. And I thought you were in Egypt until I was coming here to see you.”
“I was in Egypt. In the Army at one time, you know! And then … I left. I did all sorts of business deals out there … and in other places. It’s in the past. No sense in dwelling on a misspent youth.”
“Was it misspent, then?”
“I enjoyed it, so how could it have been? I was stating the general view rather than my own.”
“I want to know so much about you. All these years I knew I had a father and I had never seen you. I knew very little about you until Aunt Sophie told me.”
“You mustn’t trust her. She would be too lenient with me.”
“She always spoke of you with great affection. She was always fond of you.”
“I was fond of her, too. She kept me informed of your progress. I was very glad when you went to live with her.”
“It was wonderful for me.”
“I liked to think of the two of you together, comforting each other.
Sophie was adept at the art of comforting . always. “
There was a deep regret in his voice, and I wanted to ask him more about their relationship. I knew that she had loved him: I fancied he had loved her too. There was so much I had to learn. I could not expect to know it all at once.
“I want to hear more about Karia,” I said.
“So this is her house and we are her guests.”
“I live here too.”
“As her guest?”
“Not exactly.” There was a brief silence and then he went on: “You have probably heard about my rather cheque red career. Your mother and I, we parted. You know why.”
“You were not happy together.”
“She was well rid of me. We could never have been happy together. I was by no means a saint … not in the least like your Luke. I am afraid I am rather different, and with a man like me there must be … relationships.”
“You and Karia?” I asked.
He nodded.
“We share the household.”
“You could have married … or couldn’t you?”
“Well, yes. I am free now. She was married once … married for her money, I suppose. Perhaps not entirely, but it would have been an incentive, I dare say. He might have robbed her but he didn’t because she is a shrewd businesswoman. He died. Yes, we could marry, but here it is not the same as an English village where the neighbours keep a sharp look-out to make sure society’s laws are observed. Karia does not think of marriage. Nor I. But that does not prevent our enjoyment of each other’s society. Now, you are not shocked, daughter?”
“I don’t think so. I guessed that was how it might be. She is a very kindly person.”
“She is interesting half-native, half-Anglo-Saxon. It makes an interesting combination. I met her in Egypt. She has travelled somewhat. I liked her freshness, her frankness, and her happy disposition. Live for the day, that is her doctrine, and I suppose it is mine. We were friends in Egypt and then when my affliction began to descend, she looked after me. I was in a low state. I feared blindness, my dear Frederica, as I had never feared anything in my life. I even went so far as to pray.
“Dear God, leave me my eyes, and take everything else.” And the Lord ignored my request, but He gave me Karia. ” He gripped my hand tightly for a moment. Then he went on:
“Karia was wonderful. She is the eternal mother. Why do such women not have children? She was with me through my despair. She was very important to me. And she brought me here to this house left to her by her doting father. She is rich by island standards; she owns thousands of highly productive coconuts. She is a businesswoman and looks after the plantation as well as any man could, and she looks after me like a mother. Besides her coconuts she has my eternal gratitude. Frederica, I could never have come through to accept my blindness without her. “
I said: “Aunt Sophie would have cared for you. You could have come back to us.”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“I know she would, but I could not go back to her. There were times when I thought of it … before the blindness began to come on. You see, in the first place …”
“I know. She told me. She thought you would marry her, and you married my mother instead.”
“So you see …”
“She would have understood.”
“It wouldn’t have worked. I really was not worthy of Sophie. I could never have lived up to what she would expect.”
“She wanted you for what you are.”
“But she had my daughter a much better bargain.”
“And it is Karia who looks after you. You share her house … her life.”
“It is what she wants.”
“And you are happy here?”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“Well,” he said at length, “I have a good life. And now I have come to terms with this. There are compensations in all things. I am overjoyed when I recognize a footstep. I say, ” That is Macala coming or young Mandel. ” I know Karla’s footsteps. I am acutely aware of the inflection in people’s voices. And so I get through my days. I think of the pleasures of the past, and there were many of them. The unpleasant things I try to dismiss. I am often able to do that. It is quite an art, you know.
Sometimes I say to myself, “You are blind. Perhaps your most precious possession has been taken from you, but there are these compensations.”
Then I count them. I have the love of Karia and now my daughter has come all the way across the world to see me. “
A week had passed and I felt that I had been a long time on the island.