“But what are we going to do about her?” says Charis. “About Zenia?” says Roz. “After tomorrow she’ll be somewhere else. Personally I would like her permanently removed, like a wart. But I don’t see that happening.” She’s lighting another cigarette, from the candle in its red glass holder. Charis gives a timid cough and flaps a hand at the smoke.
“I don’t see,” says Tony slowly, “that there’s anything we can’ do about her. We can’t make her vanish. Even if she does go, she’ll be back if she wants to come back. She’s a given. She’s just there, like the weather.
“Maybe we should give thanks,” says Charis. “And ask for help:” Roz laughs. “Thanks for what? Thank you, God, for creating Zenia? Only next time don’t bother?”
“No,” says Charis. “Because she’s going away, and we’re still all right. Aren’t we? None of us gave in:” She’s not sure exactly how to put it. What she means is, they were tempted, each one of them, but they didn’t succumb. Succumbing would have been killing Zenia, either physically or spiritually. And killing Zenia would have meant turning into Zenia. Another way of succumbing would be believing her, letting her in the door, letting her take them in, letting her tear them apart. They did get torn apart some, but that was because they didn’t do what Zenia wanted. “What I mean is ...”
“I think I know what you mean,” says Tony.
“Right,” says Roz. “So, let’s give thanks. I’m always in favour of that. Who’re we thanking and what do we do?”
“A libation,” says Charis. “We’ve got everything here for it, even the candle.” She lifts her wineglass, in which there’s an inch of white wine left, and pours a thimbleful onto the pink remains of her Assorted Sorbets. Then she bows her head and closes her eyes briefly. “I asked for help,” she says. “For all of us. Now you.” She also asked for forgiveness, for all of them too. She feels this is right, but she can’t say why, so she doesn’t mention it.
“I’m not sure about this,” says Roz. She can see the need for a celebration, touch wood it’s not premature, but she’d like to know which God is being invoked here—or rather which version of God—so she can guard against lightning strikes by any of the others. But she pours. So does Tony, smiling a little tensely, her bite-your-tongue smile. If this were three hundred years ago, she thinks, we’d all be burned at the stake. Zenia first, though. Without a doubt, Zenia first.
“That’s all?” she says.
“I like to sprinkle a little salt, into the candle flame,” says Charis, sprinkling it.
“I just hope nobody’s watching,” says Roz. “I mean, how long before we are three genuine certified batty old crones?” She’s feeling slightly light-headed; maybe it’s the codeine pills she took for her headache.
“Don’t look now,” says Tony.
“Crones is not so bad,” says Charis. “Age is just attitude.” She’s staring dreamily at the candle.
“Tell that to my gynecologist, “ says Roz. “You just want to be a crone so you can mix potions.”
“She already mixes them,” says Tony.
Suddenly Charis sits up straight in her chair. Her eyes widen. Her hand goes over her mouth.
“Charis?” says Roz. “What is it, sweetie?”
“Oh my God,” says Charis.
“Is she choking?” says Tony. Possibly Charis is having a heart attack, or a fit of some kind. “Hit her on the back!”
“No, no,” says Charis. “It’s Zenia! She’s dead!”
“What?” says Roz.
“How do you know?” says Tony.
“I saw it in the candle,” says Charis. “I saw her falling. She was falling, into water. I saw it! She’s dead:” Charis begins to cry. “Honey, are you sure that wasn’t just wishful thinking?” says Roz gently. But Charis is too absorbed in her grief to hear.
“Come on,” says Tony. “We’ll go to the hotel. We’ll check. Otherwise,” she says to Roz, over the top of Charis’s head, which is bowed into her hands now and swaying back and forth, “none of us is going to get a decent night’s sleep:” This is true: Charis will worry about Zenia being dead, and Tony and Roz will worry about Charis. It’s worth a short car ride to avoid that.
As they get their coats on, as Roz settles the bill, Charis continues to sob quietly. Partly it’s the shock; the whole day has been a shock, and this an even bigger shock. But partly it’s because she saw more than she’s told. She didn’t only see Zenia falling, a dark shape turning over and over, the hair spreading like feathers, the rainbow of her life twisting up out of her like grey gauze, Zenia shrinking to blackout. She also saw someone pushing her. Someone pushed Zenia, over the edge.
Although she couldn’t see it clearly, she thinks she knows who that person was. It was Karen, who was left behind somehow; who stayed hidden in Zenia’s room; who waited until Zenia had opened the door onto the balcony and then came up behind her and shoved her off. Karen has murdered Zenia, and it’s Charis’s fault for holding Karen away, separate from herself, for trying to keep her outside, for not taking her in, and Charis’s tears are tears of guilt.
That is just one way of putting it, of course. What Charis means, she explains to herself, is that she wished Zenia dead. And now Zenia is dead. A spiritual act and a physical one are the same, from the moral point of view. Karen-Charis is a murderer. She has blood on her hands. She’s unclean.
They go in Roz’s car, the smaller one. There is some delay while Roz tries to find someone to park the car; as Roz complains to the man who is finally provided, the Arnold Garden is not exactly Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to service. Then the three of them walk into the lobby. Charis has pulled herself together by now, and Tony has a steadying hand on her arm. “She’s in the fountain,” Charis whispers.
“Shh,” says Tony. “We’ll see in a minute. Let Roz do the talking.”
“I was here this afternoon, checking out your hotel as a convention possibility, and I think I left my gloves,” says Roz. She’s decided it would he a mistake to say they are looking for Zenia, on the outside chance that Charis may be right; not that Roz believes it for an instant, but still. Anyway, if they call the room and there’s no answer, what would it prove? Nothing about death. Zenia could have checked out.
“Who were you talking to?” says the woman behind the counter.
“Oh, this was just preliminary,” says Roz. “I think I left them out there in the courtyard. On the edge of the fountain:”
“We keep that door locked at this time of year,” says the woman.
“Well, it wasn’t locked this afternoon,” says Roz belligerently, “so I just had a look around. It’s such a nice patio for cocktails, out by the fountain, is what I thought. That would be in June. Here’s my card:’
The card has an improving effect. “All right, Ms. Andrews, I’ll have that unlocked for you right away,” says the woman. “As a matter of fact we often use it for cocktails. We could do a buffet lunch out there for you, too; in the summer there’s tables:” She motions to the concierge.
“And could you have the outside lights turned on?” says Roz. “I might have dropped my gloves in the fountain. Or they could’ve blown in:”
Roz’s idea is to have the whole place lit up like a Christmas tree so Charis will be able to see as plain as day that Zenia is nowhere in view. The three of them go out through the glass patio door and stand together, waiting for illumination. “It’s all right, honey, there’s nothing,” Roz whispers to Charis.
But when the lights go on, big floodlights from above and also from under the water, there is Zenia, floating face down among the dead leaves, her hair spread out like seaweed.