~ ~ ~
Nobody really gets lost in there, Zan is assuring himself at the maze’s mouth when, twenty minutes later, first Parker re-appears and then Molly, without Sheba.
Molly looks at Parker, Parker looks back at her. Molly looks at Zan, shaken. “I thought she was with you!” she says to the boy.
“She was with you,” says Parker.
“You lost her on purpose!” says Molly.
“Hey,” says Zan.
“I did not!” the boy cries. “She was with you!”
~ ~ ~
From far off near the middle of the maze, they all hear the rise of a small and distant voice singing. Jasmine, I saw you peeping. Zan is furious but there’s no time for that; as calmly as he can, he says to Parker and Molly, “All right, let’s go back in and get her. Keep one hand on the same wall of the maze as you go in — that way you can follow it back out and not get lost.” He can hear it now, for years to come: You left me in the maze! As he follows the other two, Sheba’s song continues to drift back to them through the hedge.
~ ~ ~
The three dart back and forth within the maze when there comes “HEY, WHERE IS EVERYBODY ANYWAY!” rattling the foliage like she’s just around every corner. Then, much less certain, “Hey?”
“Sheba!” calls Zan.
“Molly!” the girl calls back.
“Sheba!” Zan says.
“Molly!” Sheba’s voice sounds on the move but in the maze Zan can’t be sure, since he’s on the move too. “Sheba,” says Zan, “just stay in one place! We’ll come to you!”
“Molly!” She’s beginning to cry now.
“Just stay in one place, Sheba!” Zan adds, “It’s Poppy.”
“Molly!” the girl keeps answering, crying now. It seems to Zan that the hedges grow higher and closer together. “Zema!” he hears Molly call.
~ ~ ~
Zan stops. He hasn’t heard Molly call the girl this before; he tries to think if he ever used that name in front of her. “Sheba,” he calls again, “please answer! Please answer Poppy!”
“Molly!” the girl cries. “Molly, Molly, Molly!”
He turns a final corner to find Sheba mid-passage just as, at the passage’s other end, the nanny turns her corner as well — and Sheba runs to her. Did the girl see the father before she saw Molly? Was a choice actually made, or would she have run to him had he turned his corner a split second sooner? Sheba runs into Molly’s arms and, catching the girl, the woman looks up at Zan; she’s terrified. “I’m sorry!” she blurts. “I. . she just saw me first! She’s scared! I didn’t mean to lose her, I thought she was with the boy and I shouldn’t have said that to Parker, please don’t. . ” and behind him, Zan hears Parker’s footsteps as the boy stumbles onto the scene.
Please don’t. .? Is it merely the prospect of losing a job that has so riveted her? or something more. “She’s all right,” Zan says hollowly, “that’s all that matters,” and the girl says to Molly, “Chillax, sweet cheeks.” Watching the two of them, Zan backs away and turns to the passage out, trusting they’ll follow.
~ ~ ~
On the train from Hampton back to London, Molly sits staring out the window stricken, some private prophecy having been fulfilled, and almost unconsciously grabs the girl close to her so hard that Sheba, who usually presses herself into others as if to meld her body to theirs, pulls away.
~ ~ ~
Five days after his lecture at the university, Zan meets J. Willkie Brown at the pub off Leicester Square. “Well,” Brown says, arriving after Zan, “the kids?”
“With Molly,” Zan says. “Thanks for coming.”
“Right. African lady with the English name.”
“James. . ”
“Anything from the bar?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll have a pint,” Brown says, signaling to the bar.
“James, listen,” says Zan. “You had nothing to do with setting it up, right?”
“Setting up what?”
“The nanny.”
“Sorry about that,” he allows, “I know I told you I would—”
“Forget that,” Zan says, “but then where did she come from?”
“Must have heard. . ” Brown thinks, scratches behind his ear, then shrugs. “Don’t know,” not finding it that interesting or understanding why Zan does.
~ ~ ~
Zan points out the window of the pub. “Our second day in London,” he says, “or maybe it was the third, I forget. . before I met you, before Viv vanished, the kids and I sat here at this same table and Sheba was watching someone right out that window, there across the street — and it was Molly, staring back. A day or so later, she shows up at the hotel and says, Here I am, the nanny.”
“That is peculiar, isn’t it?” says Brown.
Jesus, you think so? Zan wants to reach across the table and grab Brown by the lapels; the British diffidence is driving him nuts. “Now,” he says, “Molly claims she heard we needed a nanny from Viv — who I haven’t heard from at all. Nothing. No email, no phone call, I can’t reach anyone in Ethiopia. . ”
“Viv is a resilient woman,” says Brown.
“Will you stop saying that?” Zan hears his voice rise. “I know she’s resilient. I also know she’s driven about this thing with Sheba’s mother, that this whole business has become a moral crisis for her—”
“She can hardly hold herself responsible—”
“I know that. . ”
“Right. Ronnie Joe. . ”
“Ronnie Jack Flowers. . I know all this. Doesn’t matter what perspective you or I hold on it, what matters is how Viv feels about it and whatever lengths she’s compelled to go to in order to find or help someone who may or may not be Sheba’s mother — and no sooner does Viv go looking for Sheba’s mother and suddenly become incommunicado than Molly shows up.”
The other man frowns. “Not sure I follow that last bit.”
“Never mind,” Zan shakes his head. He doesn’t want to explain the crazy thing that’s been in his head since Molly appeared. “What’s important at this point is finding Viv.”
“Of course.”
“Until then, we’re stuck in London,” and we have no money and we’re about to lose our house but he doesn’t want to explain that either.
Brown replies, “Let me see who I can talk to.”
First useful thing you’ve said, thinks Zan.
~ ~ ~
That night as both kids sleep, Zan surrenders to his insomnia and turns on the TV. The sound is down so low he can’t be sure, but back home the BBC seems to find the new president somber before his time. It’s a strange thing to witness from five thousand miles away, but Zan suspects that many people, from the woman on the plane to his anarchist friend in Texas, will take some satisfaction in this. For his part Zan takes solace in the same presidential ego that others consider so intolerable; the new president hasn’t merely a political sense of himself but an historic one. Mere elections are small potatoes for him. He’s running for history. He’s running for greatness, and in the eyes of history, whether he’s a megalomaniac, as is entirely possible, depends only and entirely on whether he succeeds.