Envious Moon (5 page)

W
hen I was first here, they did not allow me to have a mirror in my room and they had to bring me to the barber to shave my face and trim my hair. Now I have a metal mirror of my own and I can look at myself anytime I want. It's hard to be a good judge of oneself, but I wonder if she would recognize the boy I once was. I still have curly hair, though there is a little touch of gray at the temple. My face is a little heavier, especially around the jowls, and from the corners of my eyes crow's-feet radiate out toward my hairline. You can also see my age in the corners of my mouth.

I am different in other ways. I read all the time now. I must go through three books a week. I read all kinds of stuff. I think I like true adventure stories the best. People climbing mountains and having to fight their way out of snowstorms. Or sailing around the world. Men who show extraordinary courage with their backs against the wall.

They encourage my reading and they encourage my writing, though they would prefer it if I would write other things. I told Dr. Mitchell that I am of the mind that we all have one story to tell, one important story, and that this is mine.

“How do you know that?” he says. “You have so much living to do, Anthony.”

And when he says this, I'll tell you the truth, I think about it. But then I look out my one window to the manicured lawns and the walkways, and if the leaves are off the trees, I can strain my eyes I and make out the blue-green Atlantic between some of the other buildings. Whenever I see that water, it is this I come back to. This story. Hannah.

I
n the morning I said good-bye to Berta and when she stared up at me I wanted to tell her that she did not need to worry, that I had no intention of going to sea this time, but I knew she couldn't know this. I didn't say anything to Victor either. He would try to talk me out of it. I lied to Captain Alavares in a note and said I was on my way to New Bedford because of a death in the family. I knew Captain Alavares would not believe me and that I was making his life difficult. I also knew that I was probably forfeiting the right to ever be on his boat again, and I did not care about this either.

An hour later I was on the first ferry to leave Galilee for Cross Island. I wore a Red Sox hat pushed low over my forehead and I had my oilskin bag and inside it was everything I normally brought fishing. All that I would need for a month at sea. Warm clothes and rain gear. A jug of water. My bedroll. A surf rod, separated into two pieces. Tackle. A few ham and cheese sandwiches. A carton of cigarettes and a lighter. Yesterday's
Boston Globe
. And I brought two other things I would not have bothered with if I was going to the Grand Banks. Ten one-hundred-dollar bills that I had exchanged
for one of the thousands at the bank. And two bottles of Berta's homemade wine.

I had never been on the ferry before. Fishermen didn't belong on ferries. This early in the morning it was mostly filled with trucks bringing produce and other goods to the island. The truck drivers didn't leave their cabs during the crossing. There were a few tourists and I had worried I might see some of the girls I knew from Galilee, girls who worked on the island, but I did not. I climbed to the top deck and sitting on the blue metal benches were a few older couples. The other day, Hannah had stood on this same deck. I went to the railing and looked out over the harbor and the village. Below me ferry workers in their blue shirts and white shorts untied the ship from the moorings. And, slowly, the ferry began to drift away.

The morning was hazy and ocean-cool. When it burned off, it would be a warm one. Around me, the harbor was waking up. All manner of fishermen readied themselves and their boats to go out. Workers arrived at the cannery and the fish stores. Lobstermen unloaded their catch onto the wharf. The air full of brine and fish and diesel fuel.

This village was all I had ever known. That morning, seeing it from the high deck, from a height greater than I had ever seen it before, it was almost as if I was seeing it for the first time. The working wharves and the gray, featureless commercial buildings. The fish markets and the clam shacks. The small houses in the distance, houses like mine, where the men and women who made their living on this little sliver of coast lived. The bulbous steel water towers inland that loomed over everything. Where the town ended, where the sandy highways that led east to the tourist beaches started. And maybe it was because I had made another choice this day, a choice that would once
again lead me away from my life, that it looked so small to me. It looked small and it looked sad.

I turned to the front of the ship. The ceiling was starting to lift and the ocean sparkled in the first sunlight. I could see the rocky bluffs of the island, a mass of brown rising out of the water and toward the sky.

I
was the first one off the ferry. I walked down the ramp and past two pretty blue-eyed girls holding the rope open for me. I walked through a parking lot and threaded my way through the line of cars and trucks waiting to board the ferry for the return trip to the mainland. On Main Street the sidewalks were clogged with tourists carrying beach stuff and shopping bags. I pulled my hat lower over my face. On my left large Victorian inns built into the hillside leaned out over the road. On their tiered porches, people sat at tables above me and watched the harbor.

The short Main Street followed the curvature of the island and soon I had left the harbor behind and now there were small Cape houses with porches and yards full of gardens and flowers. To my right the road fell sharply away and below there was a long beach that stretched until the island slipped out of view at other bluffs. High cliffs led to where I walked and this was so different from Galilee, where the land bled right into the ocean. I watched the rippling tide moving unevenly across the beach and into the sand, and the people bathing in the morning sun were scattered like bugs, no more than tiny spots of color.

Cars and couples riding bicycles passed me but no one looked at me twice. I left the town behind and the morning sun warmed my face. On either side of me now meadows of heather and clover rose up and away from me. The road moved inland and I could not see the ocean anymore but I could still smell it. Salt spray hung in the air and the big ocean sky was blue and flat.

At the edge of a small brackish pond I stopped and sat on the grass. I removed the bag from my shoulder and I ate one of the sandwiches. I watched the occasional car driving down the island road. Then I smoked and for a while I just looked across at the rolling land. After a time I rose and began to walk again.

The road meandered through a high country of sedge meadows. Low stone walls crisscrossed bright green pastureland and along the roadside purple loosestrife grew almost to my belt. This was beautiful land and I saw why the tourists all came here. In the distance weathered gray farmhouses sat on the sloping land and in front of some of them, brown horses in small paddocks flicked their tails against flies. The sun beat down and it was hot now. Not as bad as it was on the open sea but I took off my shirt and tied it around my waist.

As I walked the road began to curve back toward the coastline and coming around a bend I saw the ocean again, to my right and far below, and somewhere down there was the cove that Victor and I had brought our skiff into that night. I was getting close. The house could not be far now.

Another half hour and I found it. I had walked almost the full length of the island. I stood in front of an ornate iron gate cut into a high hedgerow. I couldn't see all of the house, but I could see a slice of roof, two of the three chimneys and
part of the turret, which gave it away. There was no mistaking this house. On the other side of the gate, a winding road cut through the trees.

Now that I was here, I had no idea what to do. It was not like I could just open the gate and walk through it and then knock on the door. What would I say? And in the back of my mind it occurred to me that maybe she had seen me better than I thought that night on the stairs, that maybe she would hear my voice and know that it was me, close the door in my face and call the sheriff.

And as I was thinking this, I heard a car slow behind me. When I turned I saw the rack of lights on the roof and I thought, so this is where it ends.

The red-and-white sheriff's car slowed next to me. I saw the cop inside, and to my relief it was not Sheriff Riker, but a man not much older than myself. I nodded at him and he looked me up and down and then he kept driving. My heart beat like a bird. I watched the car disappear around the bend in front of me and that decided things. I started to walk again.

I followed the road until it turned to the left and began to trace the other side of the island. In front of me was a lighthouse, another marker I knew from sea. It was a brick building turned a deep rust color from a century of exposure. A parking lot in front of it was full of cars. And on the wide-sloping lawn that surrounded it were hundreds of tourists, sitting on blankets, all here for the dramatic view.

I joined them and sat on the lawn. Far below two strong currents came together on the rocks. The waves moved not toward shore but toward each other, meeting some fifty yards from the rocky beach. Where the waters converged cormorants
and gulls dove over and over. The fishing must be good here. Where there were birds there were fish. Though to tell you the truth, this was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to blend in, as much as that was possible. Stay off the road. Figure out what to do next.

I
made camp on a private beach west of the lighthouse. I had spent most of the afternoon on the lawn and by early evening I left and found a general store on the road heading in the other direction from the way I came. It was a small gray clapboard building and it housed a post office. Inside I cracked one of the hundred-dollar bills and splurged on a nine-dollar steak from behind the case. It had been a long time since I had had a steak. I also bought a can of baked beans and then I returned to the lighthouse. I followed a path through high sea grasses and down to the beach where families had gathered to watch the sunset. I walked through them and then rounded the point and followed the coastline back toward the cliffs and the great house. I stopped when I found a beach that looked like it had not been used for a long time. Above me was a house but there were no pathways or stairs down to the beach. There was a rock promontory that hung over the beach and this provided me some shelter. I had good sight lines in either direction.

After the sunset, I gathered driftwood and with the newspaper from my bag as kindling, I started a fire. Fires were no doubt illegal but I kept it small. The sun-dried driftwood
burned hot and I only needed it to cook the steak.

I pierced the flesh of the meat with a long stick and when the fire had some coals I held the steak over the flames and I let them lick up the sides of it. I cooked it until it was good and charred on the outside. Then I let it cool by sticking the stick into the sand and letting the meat dangle from it. I opened the can of beans and warmed them in the coals. I uncorked a bottle of Berta's wine. I ate the steak right off the stick and I spooned the warm beans out of the can and into my mouth. I wished I had brought salt and pepper but after a long day of walking I can say that that was one of the best steaks I have ever had. I smoked. After a while I stood and stripped off my clothes. I waded into the surf. The water was shallow and sandy-bottomed and warm. I walked until it was thigh high and then I dove. I slid underneath and closed my eyes and when I came up I floated on my back. The salt water rinsed off all the grit of the day. All around me the color was leaving the world and the darkness rolled in.

I
followed the coastline and stayed as close as I could to the cliff. I had no idea how far it was in this direction. I had finished three-quarters of the bottle of wine and I was not drunk but I was starting to feel it, not foggy exactly, or euphoric, but somewhere in between. I did know that I wanted to come to the house differently. Not from the cove. It had been a couple of months since Victor and I had gone that way and no doubt it would have been fine but I didn't want to chance it.

The sand was hard-packed beneath my boots and I made good time. At one point the cliff face jutted out into the water and I took off my boots and tied the laces together and rolled up my pants and slung the boots around my neck. To my left was the black sound and the light at Montauk. In between I saw the running lights of boats heading to the mainland. Above there was the crooked moon and the first of the stars. On one stretch of beach I heard voices drifting down from one of the houses. A man laughed heartily followed by the lighter laughter of a woman.

I came upon a wooden staircase built into the hillside. There were no lights coming from above and I didn't hear
anything. Two weathered rowboats, overturned on the sand, looked like they had lain undisturbed for a long time. I still didn't know how close I was to the cove, but based on how far I had walked from the lighthouse, I figured it was not far. I climbed the stairs.

When I reached the top, a low-slung modern house sat across a lawn from me. Its large shiny glass windows reflected the moonlight. The wide lawn went as far as I could see on either side of it and I moved across it, heading for a stand of pitch pines.

Once under the trees I stopped and caught my breath. In front of me now was a high hedgerow, the end of the property. I went to it and touched it with my left hand. It was dense and nearly impenetrable. I looked both ways down the length of it. To my left it led to the cliff's edge. The other moved toward the front of the house, and, I assumed, the road. I followed it this way.

I had to go only fifty feet before I came to a small white gate cut into the row. The gate was waist high and latched from the other side but I reached over and opened it. I stepped through it and then underneath some small trees and I found myself looking at the great house. I thought maybe it was two or three properties away but I stood now looking at the front of it. It was giant and still in the dark except for one lone light glowing orange in the turret window.

I kept to the shadows. I moved along the border of thin poplars and cedars that separated the lawn from the cliff walk. When I got about thirty feet from the house, I found a spot beneath three slender trees that afforded me a view directly into the turreted room. The leaves of the trees created an umbrella of shadows from the moonlight. I did not think I could be seen from the window. And if anyone came, I could run back the
way I had come, or cut through the brush behind me to the cliff walk.

Through the window I saw a paneled ceiling and what looked like the headboard of a very large bed. But I did not see the girl. It was the only room that was lit. For a moment I thought about going around back as it occurred to me that in a house this big there were probably other rooms that had no relation to the front. And it was as I was thinking about this, that I saw her. It was fleeting and quick but there was no doubt. I stood stock-still. I stared at the window. Even if I had wanted to move, I do not think I could have. And in seeing her, I felt something give inside myself, a feeling I can only describe as becoming unhinged, and I did not know whether to yell or weep, whether to run to the front door of the house or to fall on the dewy grass and just lay there.

Come back, I whispered, please come back.

And a moment later, as if answering my plea, she breezed by the window again but did not stop long enough for me to get a good look. Like that, she was gone and then the light extinguished and I was alone in the dark.

For three successive nights I followed my exact path from the beach and stood in that very spot and looked into her window. I never asked myself at the time if this was okay. It was the reason I was on the island. I stood under those trees and I waited for more than a passing glimpse at her and on that third night, my wish was granted.

She opened the window. She opened the window and she placed her elbows on the sill and she looked out and over me to the ocean. I knew people looked to the sea for answers. What was it she wanted to know? The light was once again behind her and I could not tell the color of her hair or her eyes. And to be
truthful it was her eyes I wanted to see because it was a woman's eyes I loved the most.

But I was so happy just to watch her face, the high cheekbones and the full lips, the way the thin moonlight illumined her pale skin.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Otherwise, I did not move. At one point the breeze picked up off the water and she turned her face into it and the wind lifted her hair off her shoulders before settling it back down again. Was it only the truly romantic that fell in love with someone they had never met? For looking at her, I'm not ashamed to say that that was what I felt. Love. Inexpressible but as real as this great house in front of me. And there was also this: I felt present watching her, more present than I had ever felt before. It was like I had just woken up; it was like blood for the first time decided to pulse through my arteries and spill down my veins. I did not care about anything that came before and I did not care about anything that was yet to happen. I only wanted to watch this girl until she closed the window and turned off the light.