Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart (30 page)

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.

Annie Dillard

1.

She has been walking the beach all afternoon, which isn’t unusual for days when she cannot write. And there have been several dry days now in a row, one following wordlessly after the next. A mute procession of empty hours, or, worse still, a procession of hours spent carefully composing sentences and paragraphs that briefly deceive her into thinking that the drought has finally passed. But then she reads back over the pages, and the prose thuds and clangs artlessly against itself, or it leads off somewhere she has not the time or the skill or the inclination to follow. She has deadlines, and bills, and the expectations of readers, and all these things must be factored into the question of whether a productive hour is, indeed, productive.

It becomes intolerable, the mute procession and the false starts, the cigarettes and coffee and all those books silently watching her from their places on the shelves that line her office. And, so, she eventually, inevitably, goes to the beach, which is not so very far away, hardly an hour’s drive south from the city. She goes to the beach, and she tries very hard not to think of what isn’t getting written. She tries only to hear the waves, the gulls and cormorants, the wind, tries to take in so much of the sand and the sky and the blue-green sea that there is no room remaining for her anxieties.

And sometimes it even works.

Today is a Saturday near the end of winter, and there are violent gusts off the sound that bite straight through her gloves and her long wool coat. Gusts that have twice now almost managed to dislodge the fleece-lined cap with flaps to keep her ears warm. Thick clouds the color of Wedgwood china hide the sun and threaten snow. But, thanks to the inclement weather, she has the beach all to herself, and that more than makes up for the discomfort. This solitude, like the breathy rhythm of the surf, and the smell of the incoming tide, is a balm. She begins at Moonstone Beach and walks the mile or so south and west to the scatter of abandoned summer cottages at Greenhill Point. Then she walks back, following the narrow strip of beach stretching between Block Island Sound and the low dunes dividing the beach from Trustom Pond.

The estuary is frozen solid, and when she climbs the dunes and stares out across the ice, there are flocks of mallards there, and Canadian geese, and a few swans wandering disconsolately about, looking lost. In the summer, the land around the salt pond is a verdant tangle of dog roses, poison ivy, greenbriers, and gold-enrod. But now it is ringed by a homogenous brown snarl, and the only sign of green anywhere in this landscape are a few spruce trees and red cedars, dotting the southern edge of the forest to the north.

She turns back towards the sea and the cobble-strewn sand. It doesn’t seem to her that the sea changes its hues with the season. Today, it wears the same restless shade of celadon that it wears in June, quickly darkening to a Persian blue where the water begins to grow deep, only a little ways out from shore. Ever shifting, never still, it is her only constant, nonetheless. It is her comfort, the sight of the sea, even in a month as bleak and dead as this.

She begins gathering a handful of pebbles, meaning to carry them back towards the dunes and find a dry place to sit, hopefully somewhere out of the worst of the wind. This beach is somewhat famous for the pebbles that fetch up here from submerged outcroppings of igneous stone, earth that was the molten-hot core of a mountain range millions of years before the coming of the dinosaurs. Here and there among the polished lumps of granite are the milky white moonstones that give the beach its name. She used to collect them, until she had a hundred or so, and they lost their novelty. There are also strands of kelp and bladderwrack, the claws and carapaces and jointed legs of dismembered crabs and lobsters, an occasional mermaid’s purse—all the usual detritus. In the summer months, there would be added to this an assortment of human jetsam—water bottles, beer cans, stray flip flops, styrofoam cups, and all manner of plastic refuse—the thoughtless filth that people leave behind. And this is another reason that she prefers the beach in winter.

She has selected six pebbles, and is looking for a seventh (having decided she would choose seven and only seven), when she spots a small, peculiar stone. It’s shaped like a teardrop, and is the color of pea soup. The stone glistens wetly in the dim afternoon light, and she can clearly see that there are markings etched deeply into its smooth surface. One of them looks a bit like a left-facing swastika, and another reminds her of a Greek
ichthus.
For a moment, the stone strikes her as something repulsive, like coming upon a rotting fish or a discarded prophylactic, and she draws her hand back. But that first impression quickly passes, and soon she’s at a loss even to account for it. It is some manner of remarkable artifact, whether very old or newly crafted, and she adds it to the six pebbles in her hand before turning once more towards the frozen expanse of Trustom Pond.

2.

It’s Friday evening, two days after her trip from Providence to the beach. Usually, she looks forward to Friday’s, because on Friday nights Sammie almost always stops by after work. Saramie is the closest thing she has to a close friend, and, from time to time, they’ve been lovers, as well. The writer, whose name is Edith (though that isn’t the name that appears on the covers of her novels), is not an outgoing person. Crowds make her nervous, and she avoids bars and nightclubs, and even dreads trips to the market. She orders everything she can off the internet—clothing, books, CDs, DVDs, electronics—because she hates malls and shopping centers. She hates the thought of being seen. To her knowledge, psychiatrists have yet to coin a term for people who have a morbid fear of being looked at, but she figures
antisocial
is accurate enough. However, most times, she enjoys having Sammie around, and Sammie never gets angry when Edith needs to be left alone for a week or two.

They’ve been mistaken for sisters, despite the fact that they really don’t look very much alike. Sammie is two or three inches taller and has striking jet-black hair just beginning to show strands of grey. Edith’s hair in an unremarkable dishwater blonde. Sammie’s eyes are a bright hazel green, and Edith’s are a dull brown. Sammie has delicate hands and the long, tapered fingers of a pianist, and Edith’s hands are thick, her fingers stubby. She keeps her nails chewed down to the quick, and there are nicotine stains on her skin. Sammie quit smoking years ago, before they met.

“Well, it was just lying there on the sand,” Edith says. “And it really doesn’t look all that old.”

“It’s a rock,” Sammie replies, still peering at the peculiar greenish stone, holding it up to the lamp on the table next to Edith’s bed. “What do you mean, it doesn’t look old? All rocks look old to me.”

“The carving, I mean,” Edith replies, trying to decide if she really wants another of the stale madeleines that Sammie brought with her; they taste faintly of lemon extract, and are shaped like scallop shells. “I mean the
carving
in the rock looks fresh. If it had been rolling around in the ocean for any time at all the edges would be worn smooth by now.”

“I think it’s soapstone,” Sammie says, and turns the pebble over and over, examining the marks on it. “But I don’t think you find soapstone around here.”

“Like I was saying, I figure someone bought it in a shop somewhere and lost it. Maybe it was their lucky charm. Or maybe it didn’t mean anything much to them.”

“It feels funny,” Sammie says, and before Edith can ask her to explain what she means, Sammie adds, “Slippery. Oily. Slick. You know?”

“I haven’t noticed that,” Edith says, although she has. The lie surprises her, and she can’t imagine why she didn’t just admit that she’s also noticed the slithery sensation she gets whenever she holds the stone for more than a minute or two.

“You should show it to someone. A geologist or an archeologist or someone who knows about this stuff.”

“I honestly don’t think it’s very old,” Edith replies, and decides against a fourth madeleine. Instead, she lights a cigarette and thinks about going to the kitchen for a beer. “If I took it to an archeologist, they’d probably tell me the thing was bought for five bucks in a souvenir shop in Misquamicut.”

“I really don’t like the way it feels,” Sammie says.

“Then put it down.”

“Is that supposed to be a Jesus fish?” Sammie asks, pointing to the symbol that reminded Edith of an
ichthus.

“Sort of looks like one,” Edith replies.

“And
this
one, this one right here,” Sammie says and taps the nail of her index finger against the stone. “That looks like astrology, the symbol for Neptune.”

“I thought it was a trident, or a pitchfork,” Edith sighs, wishing Sammie would put the stone away so they could talk about something else, almost anything else at all. The stone makes her uneasy, and three times in two days she’s almost thrown it into the trash, so she wouldn’t have to think about it or look at it anymore. “Can we please talk about something else for a while? You’ve been gawking at that awful thing for half an hour now.”

Sammie turns her head, looking away from the stone, looking over her left shoulder at Edith. She’s frowning slightly, and her neatly waxed eyebrows are furrowed.

“You
asked
me what I thought of it,” she says, sounding more defensive than annoyed, more confused than angry. “
You’re
the one who started this.”

“It’s not like I
meant to
find it, you know.”

“It’s not like you had to bring it home, either.”

Sammie watches her a moment or two longer, then turns back to the tear-shaped stone.

“This one is a sun cross,” she says, indicating another of the symbols. “Here, the cross held inside a circle. It’s something else you see in astrology, the sign for the earth.”

“I never knew you were into horoscopes,” Edith says, and she takes a long drag on her cigarette and holds the smoke in her lungs until she begins to feel dizzy. Then she exhales through her nostrils. “Why does it bother you?” Sammie asks.

“I never said it did.”

“You just called it ‘that awful thing,’ didn’t you?”

“I’m going to get a beer,” Edith tells her. “Do you want one, as long as I’m up.”

“Sure,” Sammie says and nods, not looking away from the stone. “I’d love a beer, as long as you’re up.”

Edith stands and pulls her bathrobe closed, tugging roughly at the terrycloth belt. The robe is a buttery yellow, and has small blue ducks printed on it. “You can have it if you want it,” she tells Sammie, who frowns softly, then sets the stone down on the bedside table.

“No,” she replies. “It’s yours. You found it, so you should keep it. Besides, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than most of the junk you haul back from the shore. At least this time the house doesn’t smell like dead fish and seaweed. But I still say you should find an archeologist to take a look at it. Might turn out to be something rare.”

“Perhaps,” Edith says. “But I was just thinking, maybe it wasn’t lost. Maybe someone got rid of it on purpose.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“I’m afraid all I have is Heineken,” Edith says, nodding towards the kitchen.

“Heineken’s fine
by
me. Moocher’s can’t be choosers.”

“I meant to get something else, because I know you don’t like Heineken. But I haven’t been to the store in a few days.”

“The Heineken’s fine, really. I promise.”

Edith manages the ghost of a smile, then goes to the kitchen, leaving Sammie (whose birth name is Samantha, but everyone knows better than to call her that) alone in the bedroom with the peculiar greenish stone. Neither of them mentions it again that night, and later, for the first time in almost three weeks, they make love.

3.

“Well, first off, continents don’t just
sink
,” Edith says, and she’s beginning to suspect that she might only be dreaming. She’s sitting on the closed toilet lid in her tiny bathroom, and Sammie is standing up in the claw-foot tub. Sammie was the one who started talking about Atlantis, and then Mu, and Madame Blavatsky’s Lemuria.

“And I read about another one,” she says. “When I was a kid, I found a book in the library,
Mysteries of the Sea,
or something like that, maybe one of those
Time-Life
series. One of the stories was about a ship finding an uncharted island somewhere in the South Pacific, back in the twenties, I think.
They
found an island, complete with the ruins of a gigantic city, but then the whole thing sank in an earthquake. Islands can sink,right?” she asks.

“Not overnight,” Edith says, more interested in watching Sammie bathe than all this nonsense about lost worlds.

“What about Krakatoa? Or Santorini?”

“Those were both volcanic eruptions. And the islands didn’t sink, they exploded.
Boom
,” and Edith makes a violent motion in the air with her right hand. “For that matter, neither was completely submerged.”

“Sometimes you talk like a scientist,” Sammie says, and she stares down at the water in the cast-iron tub.

“Are you saying I’m pedantic?”

“No, I’m not saying that. It’s kind of sexy, actually. Big brains get me wet.”

There’s a sudden fluttering noise in the hallway, and Edith looks in that direction. The bathroom door is standing half open, but the hallway’s too dark to see whatever might have made the sound.

“Okay,” Sammie continues, “so maybe, instead, there have been cities that never sank, because the things that built them never lived on land. Or maybe they lived on land a long time ago, but then returned to the water. You know, like whales and dolphins.”

Edith frowns and turns back to the tub. “You’re sort of just making this up as you go along, aren’t you?”

“Does that matter?” Sammie asks her.

“Whales don’t build cities,” Edith says, and there’s a finality in her voice that
should
have been sufficient to steer the conversation in another direction. But when Sammie’s been drinking and gets something in her head, she can go on about it for hours.