Landscape: Memory (14 page)

By ten our feet were tired from the evening's stroll and my belly was beginning to grumble again. I had no doubts whatsoever that Mother had some miracle preplanned to deliver us into bliss at the close of the day. Indeed, she'd managed somehow to have a table saved at Sanguinetti's, which beyond being simply miraculous required both tact and guile.

We were squished up into a corner near the banjo player, all crowded around a table the size of my lap. Mr. Taqdir filled wineglasses all the way around.

The room was wild with laughter and the occasional chorus rang out to help the music along. "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" brought the house down, Mr. Taqdir singing, I'm certain, "Hog Time," rather than the conventional line. Mother had ordered ahead, all her favorite foods. Our table was filled with big bowls of pasta, hot garlic butter bread and a stewed veal shank that was collapsing off its bone under the juicy weight of its sheer deliciousness. It sat drenched in garlic-soaked juices, simmering in amongst onions and thin juliennes of zucchini, and more garlic, whole cloves roasted. There was salad and more wine. Already that delicious red warmth was running a soft, yawning tickle up the nape of my neck and helping me to lean lovingly into Mother or Duncan without remorse or ill will or second thoughts of any kind.

 
* * *
 

We walked back to the auto, over the hill, bundling along through the cold night air. My goodwill felt boundless. I thought it must be Duncan and how giddy and unknown it all made me feel, or it was the wine, running through my blood all warm and sloppy, washing at the backs of my eyes so I felt like weeping. Or it was how incredibly wide and cold the night sky was above us, stretching out to eternity, blowing a bracing breeze down around us from the chilly black nothing, the ice-cold stars twinkling there, right where they'd always been.

We motored west, clattering across the uncrowded city. Duncan and I bounced in the backseat, our caps pulled down tight on our heads, us bundled up in the blanket and taking the brisk night air cool across our flushed faces. I loved the way our lantern light dented the night, rushing along the open boulevards before us, barely staying ahead of our roaring engine, swinging wildly right, then left, sweeping across phantom shapes, making shadows of people and trees. We rattled over the high hills, past Lone Mountain, then along the low, curving paths of the park, under the windmills and down onto the Great Highway.

Mr. Taqdir turned off the lanterns and engine and we rolled quietly toward the dark edge of the highway.

Far off in the blackness I saw the ghostly white glow of the surf running a long line out across the sand. With the engine off you could hear it too, the roar and rolling of the waves coming in again and again. We sat quiet and exhausted, damp from the wet air rolling in off the sea, all salt and seaweed smell. It settled like dew over everything.

"I want to walk," I said, wanting to get closer to the water. Mother and Mr. Taqdir nodded their blessings but did nothing to get up and out.

"We'll stay, pumpkin," Mother explained. "Be careful of the water."

"I'll go," Duncan put in, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders. "I'll drag him out when he drowns," and we climbed out over the back with a jump off the sideboard and onto the beach. I fell over and lay happily in the sand, a few feet from the car. Looking out under its carriage I could see the sea, oddly disconnected from the black sky above. Duncan stood me up and wrapped the blanket around us both. He rested his chin on my shoulder and we stood for a bit.

"Let's go down the beach," I whispered into his warm ear. And we did, the blanket wrapped around our shoulders, bumped up close and getting silly.

I tried listening for the separate waves, trying to discern their beginnings and ends, but it was all so unclear, each wave rolling into the next. I steered us east with a push, getting us back onto a soft dune, back over a small rise and into a hollow.

Then Duncan stuck his hand down my pants, which is something we still hadn't done. It really was too much for me and I got all wild up my back and we fell over, pressed up close as we could there in the sand, his hand working around in my pants and me kissing him all over his face, hoping where we were was as dark as it seemed. I could hardly think to see, and just kissed and kissed. My tongue was all over his salty sweet skin wherever I could reach, and I tore his shirt buttons open to kiss down there. He'd pulled the snaps of my pants open at the top and tugged my boxers down so I poked out and up against him, rubbing all hard and furious onto his pants and up on his belly. Then he put his warm hand on me there and just held me soft and strong in his hand. We stopped flexing around all frenzied like we'd been and he just held me like I said, and pushed me soft into the blanket with his other hand warm against my chest. I lay there on my back, my shirt torn open down the front, feeling my body bare in the salty air and his spit all over me, me hard and warm in his hand. I kept thinking his name over and over like a sound in my mind, just like hypnosis or breathing. He undid the belt of his pants and pulled them down so I saw him, his I'm not sure what word to use, but it was so beautiful and warm and alive, pushing out from his waistband, over his soft black hair and curving up against his belly. He lay down on top of me, reaching his arms up across my sides and in behind my neck, our whole fronts bare and warm, all muscular and flexing against each other so slow and lovely. I tried breathing the whole of everything in through my mouth and throat, the air and the stars and all of him and the night, breathing it down into me as deep as deep could be, but there was always more, the cold empty air stretching out and away forever, and Duncan.

_______________________________________________

20 JUNE 1915

Today we packed our satchels and put the house in order, as we'd promised Mother we'd do. School is out, at last at last, and we are graduated. Flora and Duncan and I and Alphonse too. Father came and sat with Mother and Mr. Taqdir, the three quite chummy and chatting all through. I don't understand sometimes. We flung our caps and went for lunch (not Alphonse) at Coppa's.

Today we go to Bolinas, all three of us. I made Father agree over lunch that Duncan and I would be welcome and then he asked if Flora would come, them hitting it off so well as they do, and I hadn't thought to ask, which was rude, but imagined it would be wonderful and she surprised the adults by saying yes right on the spot and doing it. So we're off to Bolinas by stage. Father says Flora's motorcar would be unwelcome.

I've got a book about memory Mr. Spengler gave me at graduation. All spring I'd kept asking him questions about memory, hoping to find some reassurance in his answers. But my uncertainties had become so mixed up in everything else that really I'd succeeded in sorting out nothing. The summer seemed like a promising time to put my mind to the task and I told him so, which is why he gave me this lovely gift and instructions to be rigorous in my work, which is what I fully intend to do.

The book is lovely brown leather, all sweet with decay and that musty old book smell like the big library has in its crowded closed-off rooms. All those ancient volumes turning grandly to dust, stacked high into the dark rafters. It's a translation of the
Ad Herennium,
by Cicero, and has a whole long introduction filled with quotes and comments and excerpts from other classical works on the subject.

I've read Cicero for public speaking, as we all did at Grant, and he was dull as dishwater. But it was very kind of Mr. Spengler so I promised yes, I'd read it. Really, I rather fancy trying out some of what he says, as it appears to be a practical guide, like Ruskin for painting, a way to set things in a neat structure so they all stay just as they really were.

I've packed that and my drawing kit and paints because I should be getting on to colors soon. Mother was prostrate with fear, afraid I'd somehow ruin my hard work by impetuous application of the paints. She believes, I believe, that without her nearby I can't possibly move forward. But I think the paints will be the best part yet.

Both Duncan and I've decided to travel light: twill shorts, two thin cotton shirts, one pair of long pants and a sweater. Socks and boots and boxers too, of course, and our caps and bow ties to be fancy. All stuffed up in a satchel, plus my various books and what not. Father says he's got bundles of old things up there as well, in case we're cold or bored or feel like wearing beekeeper's bonnets.

We took the ferry to Sausalito and then rode a white steamer stage across the yellow brown hills to Bolinas and the sea. Flora was full of plans, explaining the situation of the town and its location on the fault line.

"Max and I found a ruin there once," Duncan said. "A cabin that got busted up by the quake." He pulled his lips in and raised his eyebrows, just nodding his head remembering.

"An insane asylum," I corrected. "It was an insane asylum."

"No it wasn't," he answered.

"Yes it was."

"No."

"It was, I'm certain. I marked it on a map." That seemed proof enough. Flora watched from the forward seat, watching back and forth as at a tennis match.

"What map?" Duncan asked.

"The map I made, when we were up there."

"And you marked that it was an asylum?"

"Right," I said, glad he'd finally gotten it. "An asylum." I smiled at Flora.

"So you marked it wrong." Duncan could be very stubborn.

"It's on the map," I insisted. "Ask Father, he knows." I remembered him talking about the asylum, but still I felt uncertain about the prospect of asking him again.

"Fine," Duncan agreed. "We'll ask him." The stage dipped down into a cool redwood canyon, the high golden hills disappearing as we rattled through the thick grove of trees.

"Was your father with you then?" Flora asked brightly.

"What do you mean?" I said back, partly puzzled. "You mean was he on the hike?"

"Right," she agreed. "Was he with you on the hike."

Duncan bounced his leg impatiently against mine, fiddling with the door latch.

"It was just us, just me and Duncan." It made me warm all over just thinking. "But Father was the one who'd told us, me, about the asylum. He's why we went up, to find the asylum."

"Cabin," Duncan put in simply, leaning out to smell the morning air. Dust and the smoke of the noisy engine came rolling in with the heavy sweet scent of the woods. Flora pushed her face forward into the breeze so it washed across her, eyes closed and her thick hair all bustling about in the eddies. We both joined in, us three crowded together, sniffing in deep dog breaths the morning through our noses.

Father met us in Bolinas. We shook hands and he hugged Flora, getting a peck on his bristly-whiskered cheek. I watched and then I hugged him and kissed him too, just on impulse and to his surprise. We all laughed it away, except Flora. It was a fine, warm walk to Father's wooded acre, down along the dusty road with our little luggage, then up a hill and into the trees at the head of the lagoon.

There were vegetables in a clearing, and fat-faced sunflowers reaching high on their tough sturdy stalks. The woods were mostly fir and pine, the ground clear of brush, all soft dirt and needles, tamped and toe-worn along the well-traveled paths: one to the garden, one downhill toward the water and one leading back away from the wooden house, up through a little meadow and into another stand of trees. Father slept up there in a small gazebo with a bed and desk.

We were to sleep on the sleeping porch. Father led us through the one-room house out onto the wide screened porch. It faced the water, its two ends opened out onto woods. The screen door had little springs to swing shut and it did with a bang. There were two beds, one low little bed looking clean and comfy to the right and an enormous fluff-and-rumple bed, wide as the ocean and piled high with comforters. An obscenely baroque headboard leapt out of its upper end, all manner of buttresses and cupids and gargoyles carved into the dark wood.

"That's the boys' bed," Flora said smartly, pointing to the mammoth thing. "I'd prefer something a little more manageable."

She pulled her carpet bag along the worn wooden floor, and sat down pertly on the little mattress. It lay nicely on its humble frame. "Perfect," she pronounced, tweeking the taut blanket with a flick of her finger. "When I'm here, here I'll be."

I asked Father if the big bed could stand bouncing and he said we could paddle it out to sea for all it mattered to him. He doesn't much like big beds or stuffed chairs or heirlooms like Mother has. He doesn't much like furniture at all.

"It was there on the porch when I got here," he explained. "It's nailed down and solid, otherwise I'd've busted it down into firewood straightaway." I bounced in butt first and it squeaked and whinnied and bounced me back up some. I rolled over into the middle and sunk in amongst the downy covers.

We three swept the cabin clean and sat around the one big table making plans. Father went foraging, gathering berries and garden vegetables for lunch.

"I'll build a boat," Duncan began. "From driftwood and willow branches." He wrote "Build Boat" in flowing script on the little plan sheets Flora suggested we use. "We'll sail home and dock at the Fair."

"I'll give you an hour's help each day," I volunteered, skeptical about the boat's prospects, but eager to spend all my time with him. "You can help me on my projects. We'll barter our labor." I wrote "Be with Duncan" in tiny letters near the middle of the page.

''
Work
with Duncan," Duncan corrected.

"That's what I mean," I agreed happily. "What else? Flora?"

Flora was staring off into space with a mischievous grin, clearly excited by some new thought.

"Miss Profuso," I sang as Miss Gillian did to get her wandering attention. "Young lady."

Birds sang back, a warble and twitters. All their lovely sounds cascaded through the branches and tumbled in around us.

"Oh, Dogey, I've the best project," Flora said, tapping pencil points nervously onto her paper. "Photography! Mother got a Rochester just last month and she never uses it. I'm certain she'd love for me to have it here."

"Is it big?'' Duncan asked excitedly.

"Oh, it's enormous, a big box on a tripod. She's got a bag full of accessories too, lenses and French shutters and developing whatnot."

She began scripting "I. Photography" and filling in an outline below, "A., B., C," all as yet blank, but evidence of some enormous ambition, just now kindled.

"It's an ancient old thing, at least twenty years old," she explained. "Mother was willed it by some horrible uncle in Colma. I don't think it's even been taken out of its box."

"You should try all the various styles," I suggested, thrilled by the thought of this enormous box. "Landscape and portraits and wildlife photographs."

"Oh, slow down, Dogey, slow down," and she scribbled in "Landscape" next to "A" and "Portraits" for "B."

"And photos of boats," Duncan added, "crude willow boats."

"And little scenes," I carried on. "You can cast little fantasy scenes with nymphs or satyrs and we'll act them out for pictures. You can put captions on them."

Father banged in through the sprung screen door, loaded down with a bowl of berries and lovely yellow squash, flat wax beans and deep crimson peppers.

I added "Photos" to my brief list.

I'd put nothing of my own down yet, save "Be with Duncan," so I stayed quiet at my place and thought. Duncan scooted up next to me and put his arm across my shoulders. He had his pencil to paper too.

I made a list of my regular things: "Drawing, memory book, Mr. Spengler's book." Duncan brought his pencil over to my paper. "Exploring, swimming, sleeping," he added. I wrote "together" after the last entry and then erased it as quick as could be, breathless just from writing it. "Mischief," Duncan added. "Food," I put down.

The list looked fairly complete. We sat and considered it for some time. Father and Flora gabbed a blue streak in the kitchen (mostly Flora). Father listened and laughed and put in an occasional phrase that kept her going. He chop-chopped the vegetables, the heavy knife cutting through the peppers and squash, cutting into the solid oak block. A big black pan sizzled with butter on the stovetop and the aroma made my mouth water. Father tossed on several cloves of garlic, finely minced.

Duncan began a timetable. "8:00 o'clock a.m.: Wake up. Swim. 8:30 o'clock a.m.: Breakfast." "9:30 o'clock a.m.," I continued, "Mr. Spengler's book." After breakfast was my best reading time. "Boat," Duncan added for that time. We paused. He wrote "11:00 o'clock a.m." We fiddled with our pencils and looked around the room thinking. "Exploring," I put in, not wanting to be too long by myself, then "1:00 o'clock p.m."

"Lunch," we both said out loud and laughed. "Lunch," I wrote down. Duncan sneaked his pencil onto the next line down. "2:00 o'clock p.m.: Swim." I erased it quick as could be. "Nap, then swim," I penciled in instead. Duncan shook his head in agreement. "3:30 o'clock p.m."

We looked around the room again. Father grated a brick of white cheese over the steaming pan. Flora stacked four plates on the stovetop and put a stew pot upside down over them, gesturing with her free hand and going on about emulsion fluids.

"Drawing," I wrote down, as that was the time I always did my drawing with Mother. Duncan stuck his lip out, tapping his pencil repeatedly on the paper. "Running," he wrote down.

"Running?" I asked out loud. He looked at me and shrugged.

"Like soldiers do for training," he explained. "I want to be as fit as I can by the end of summer." I thought he was quite fit already. 

"You're fit as can be," I said, and stopped just short of kissing him there and then. He just looked at me and blushed, nodding his head and saying "You," and then nothing more.

"I still want to run," he added after a pause. "I can't just do drawing, anyway." I nodded along with his thinking. "And I don't want to be lashing boats all day long."

"Would you help me on my drawing just sometimes, when I need help?" I asked. I thought maybe I'd need to see him standing where we'd been standing, just to get it exactly right.

"Sure I'd help," he agreed. "I just don't want to be doing stuff I'm no good at." The food was being piled onto plates. I looked him in the eyes for a long moment.

"Let's finish quick," he said, "before lunch."

"5:30 o'clock p.m.: Swim," I wrote. "6:00 o'clock p.m.: Dinner," Duncan put in below. "7:30 o'clock p.m." We looked up at our list of activities, looking for what we'd left out. "Mischief," Duncan penciled in, grinning with it.

Flora put the steaming plates, piled high with garlic-buttered vegetables and gooey strings of melting cheese, at our places as we pulled the list into my lap and finished.

"9:30 o'clock p.m.: Memory Book." "Read," Duncan added, as that was the time he liked best for reading. "10:00 o'clock p.m. Sleep."

Our plan's in effect. Already it's almost ten and Duncan's reading and I'm writing, just as we'd said we'd do. Flora's all bundled up in bed wheezing into her pillow, asleep for an hour already. When we get into bed will be the most lovely because the cotton sheet will be soft and cool against our skin and I'll roll over on top of him all bare skin and tender and we'll kiss and kiss there in the big bundling bed, so very quiet lying in the cold night air.

 
* * *   

21 JUNE 1915

When we woke it was still just seven and Flora was gone, her bed neatly made. We lay around and rolled around a good hour together and both came, rubbing up against each other's bellies. I put his whole penis in my mouth like I'd tried a couple times before, but the sounds he made were so odd I wasn't sure it was what he wanted. We don't talk about details like that. This time though he swung around and put his mouth over mine at the same time and from how it felt I could hardly think and must have made sounds stranger even than what he made. We held each other all warm and slobbery in each other's mouths like that for a long while, hardly moving except for our heads and mouths and throats and tongues and reaching round behind to wrap my arms round his butt and pull him in close to me. Sure it was dumb and reckless, what with the bright morning shining down into the trees and no idea who might come wandering in. But we were under covers, a bit unusual still, but at least under covers, and I'm sure we'll do it again tomorrow and every day this summer if we're given half a chance.