Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness (9 page)

We followed the trail down into the forest then curved around to the river’s edge. The sound of water was all around us; we could not help but stare at the dazzling spectacle. He sat down on the stone bench and watched it. I stood behind him. After a few minutes I felt more at ease. My fear of violence subsided. He said nothing about the waterfall but did not take his eyes off it. Finally I sat down next to him and attempted to explain myself.

“I come every day to this waterfall. I used to sit here and watch it and think about my pain cascading endlessly over the rocks and twigs, my pain being carried down from the pond to the river and away. But since I met you I only see pleasure flowing there. Even if you never agree to see me again I want you to know that you’ve changed the way I see the simplest things.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was wincing or smiling or both. He was silent except for a few huffs of air that came from his mouth. “Perhaps I’ve said too much,” I said.

“No,” he said at last very softly and with astounding tenderness, as if during the course of his short life he too had once gazed at the spectacle of his own pain. “You can say anything.” He broke off bits of a stick and threw them into the water. They raced away with the current.

I stood up. “I’ve got to go. I’m afraid I didn’t plan this very well. I was out of my mind yesterday.”

“It’s okay, I’m late for school anyway.” He said this bashfully as if embarrassed by his youth and its requirements, then kicked an acorn into the river with the finesse of a World Cup football player. High school. Dear God, I’d almost forgotten.

“Oh I’m so sorry, how unthinking of me, I’ve completely lost my head. Honestly, I’ve become an insane person!”

“It’s just cooking. I know how to cook already so it’s not a big deal.” Recklessly, I thought of him and Violet listening raptly to Dostoevsky while stirring a vat of Gouda.

“Will you be punished?” I asked, a bit fearfully, for I knew little of American high schools.

“No,” he laughed and shook his hair out of his face. His skin was a balmy, tempting color, of pale fruit waiting to darken.

“Can you come tomorrow?” I asked rather boldly, for what, if anything, had he gained by coming today?

He nodded immediately and seemed even to suppress a smile. I thought I detected a bit of impatience in his eyes and it occurred to me that he was expecting me to make all the arrangements. It made sense I suppose. We both knew full well what I was old enough to be and if I wasn’t going to protect him from the world of adult perils and pleasures, I should at least guide him firmly across the waters and onto the isle. “We’ll meet here tomorrow,” I said, pretending decisiveness. “Tomorrow’s Friday. It’s my day off.”

His eyes went dark. He tilted his head forward slightly. “Okay,” he said, looking briefly at me and then at the river. He didn’t move from his place on the bench, as if at once afraid of joining me and anxious for tomorrow to come.

“I’m going to leave you here. You’ll be all right won’t you?”

“I’m not a child,” he said in that masculine, slow-winding voice that had so effectively ensnared me from the start. It was certainly
not
the voice of a child, I thought as I ran up the snowy trail, leaving him sitting alone in front of the waterfall.

It wasn’t until I was running across the land bridge that I realized I’d left my cloth bag containing my lunch and my ballet flats in the apartment, in all likelihood on the kitchen counter. I experienced a giddy surge of gratitude that I did not have the kind of husband who would observe such an oversight and then immediately deliver the forgotten lunch to his wife’s workplace. So there were benefits after all to having this kind of husband! I laughed aloud as I ran, I didn’t care about the lunch, I could buy a bar of chocolate and a bag of cheese puffs when the time came, I could buy two bars of chocolate for God’s sake. What on earth did it matter?! I would stomp through the stacks happily all day in my boots, leaving traces of melted snow everywhere.

I arrived at the library breathless. It would have been humanly impossible for Nella not to have noticed my unusually radiant mood, though she betrayed nothing, asking only the question she asked every me morning, “How’s Baby?” the two words sounding such a new key of hilarity that I burst out laughing, thrilled with the double meaning.

“Baby’s great,
really
great!” I said, glossing over the discrepancy between what I was feeling and what I could safely express with chitchat about Maria’s growing repertoire of Petula Clark songs. “And how’s Penny?!” I posed my customary question with unprecedented enthusiasm, for on that morning I understood more completely how important one’s objects of affection are to one. Penny was Nella’s one-year-old puppy—a copper-colored spaniel that would only return home to the sound of a penny whistle, of which Nella had a fine collection. There was talk of dog food and of Penny’s ankle, which had plunged into the hole of a crumbling sidewalk and been twisted that very morning. All of it was immensely interesting to me and yet was simultaneously of no consequence, as was everything that happened that day, so absorbed I was by thoughts of the young man. The memory of our morning encounter was like a passage in a book that brought me more pleasure each time I read it. As I walked from station to station performing my duties, I was rereading.

Soon the UPS driver arrived with a shipment of books to be processed, which I welcomed as objects that would stand in for Reality as I dreamed. At noon, the director emerged like a stallion from the basement (where she had no doubt been working at a galloping pace since dawn) to remind us of various upcoming events and projects that begged our attention. She cantered across the street to the general store and returned with a cardboard tray full of cups of deliciously strong coffee paid for out of her own pocket, which were as much liquid incentives as treats for the staff. I added a slow spoonful of honey to mine and a splash of cream whose snowlike swirl into the round black sky held my attention for several minutes. So the day unfolded.

Siobhan did not work Thursdays and though I regretted her absence, some last remnant of my rational mind observed that even her absence was something to be grateful for. I saw my situation clearly now. I had landed alone on a new island. I had gone ashore and was surrounded by seas neither she nor I could cross. But I did not care to dwell on such matters and so I turned my energies instead to greeting the library public, the patrons who read and worked and whiled away their winter days there.

They were the very young, the lonely, the old, the highly literate, the thinkers and daydreamers, those prone to escapism and those committed to learning a skill, those who could not afford to heat their homes or to own a computer, those who would not have thought to purchase such a machine if they could have, too busy were they building houses or catching fish or knitting sweaters or planting seeds in rows, those in a hurry, for whom every minute meant money gone, and those who had all day, all the rest of their days really, to squander. Our island is a haven for misfits, a retreat for those marked by fragility or age or simply an incurable love of beauty; its forests hide fugitives, the mute, the unusually self-sufficient, the deranged, the damaged, the wild.

I waited on each with equal passion and authenticity. There was no end to my patience with the most tedious of requests, no end to my detachment from the misfortunes of computer malfunctions and missed ferries, the grief of stranded children, and the injustice of overdue fines. It was confusingly paradoxical. Far from inciting me to commit a social crime, the young man had thus far reformed me. He had, in a single morning, made me a gentler person. In less than an hour, I had been illicitly transformed into a kind and joyful woman.

This mind-bending paradox persisted throughout the day and on into the evening. It followed me like a shadow up the stairs into the apartment where I found myself bestowing a flurry of extra kisses on Maria’s plump, cake-scented cheeks, leaning in to Var’s room to place a kiss on his startled lips. It was a sincere kiss. My invisible cup of pleasure was being filled. Day and night it would flow on, I could sense this was only the beginning. I could afford to be kind. Though that implies a kiss driven by pity and it was a kiss fueled by joy, unstoppable, indiscriminating, full of love. For Var was no longer the emblem of my despair, a thief draining my cup, he was simply a craftsperson who lived in the apartment. To be fair and honest and more generous still, he was the father of my child, he had given me my beloved Maria and for that I would always be grateful, for that I could always manage a kiss.

I cooked a tasty Indian dinner and then cheerfully did the dishes which, like the books, stood in for Reality while I dreamed. I washed each dish tenderly. I was generous with the soap. Never before had I seen such lather and the smell—lavender mint—was heavenly. I was washing Maria’s enamel cup, trying to recall how he’d looked while laughing at my fear of school punishment, when the phone rang. Overtaken by the irrational hope that it would be him, (he possessed neither my phone number nor my name), I slapped the phone off its hook with my slippery soap hands.

“Hello?” I panted out the words, as if I had just run the length of a high school gymnasium to answer. It was the library director, wanting to know if I could please cover for her in the morning.

I was very fond of the director, so fond that I often agreed to cover shifts when it was in fact rather inconvenient for me. To work tomorrow of course would be beyond inconvenient. It would be heartbreaking. I set my right hand down on the counter and studied it, literally bracing myself for the wave of guilt that would rise in me when I said no. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and a friend coming to visit after that.” Surprise. The lies came easily.

“Okeydokey!” she said, “I’ll try Nella. Have a great night!” I stood admiring my plain, ringless hand. No wave of guilt had risen in me. The sea of me was placid. It made no sense. I had always felt guilty saying no to the director, even when I had the most legitimate of excuses (Maria has a fever, I’ll be off-island, my cousin is visiting from England, my aunt is visiting from Japan etc.). And yet now, on what was to be the eve of my crime, I felt absolved, exonerated by the prospect of my own pleasure.

When I woke the next morning it was snowing. The garden with its bare branches and dead leaves had become, by a curious reversal of fate, a bright picture of purity, its many withered stems and yellowed blades mercifully covered by a thick layer of sparkling snow. Snow, as mothers who live in cold climates know, in addition to having the power to beautify and to cleanse, acts as a sleeping powder upon children, indeed even upon Maria for whom car rides and stories read aloud had the effect of stimulation. The snow might have well have been falling directly upon her through the ceiling, so still and heavy her plump body had become. She had removed her pajamas and kicked off the quilt during the night. The soles of her feet were pressed lightly together, her knees were open, her arms overhead. I felt distinctly the importance of external factors working in my favor. Like some distant ally come at last to my aid, the snow released me from the bed, it muffled my movements as I dared with uncharacteristic ease to open and close the dresser drawers. I went so far as to leave the room and take a shower—something I’d never have the audacity to do under normal circumstances for she was too light a sleeper. What a pleasure it was to stand under the rush of warm water, to feel the water clean my face, to be alone with my body and my thoughts of what might soon occur, and then to return to the bedroom wrapped in a towel to find her still sleeping.

I sat on the bed next to her and unwrapped my towel. I applied to my legs and elbows the good quality lavender oil, which I normally reserved for her highly sensitive skin. I applied to my wrists and neck a solid perfume of rose and vetiver. I combed my hair slowly though it hardly needed it. A hand run through once was sufficient. As gently as I could, I looked at my face in the mirror. With the exception of my very black hair, I did not look seventeen, but neither did I look forty-one. Though my face held evidence of age and suffering, it held too the same bone structure that had gotten me this far; my cheekbones were high, my lips well shaped, my eyes clear with conviction. In appearance, I am very much my father’s child. Indeed, the only trace of my mother’s phenotype that survived the making of my face was her sea blue eyes, which peer out like nervous European tourists from my otherwise Japanese face.

Maria woke whining, as she often did, angry that I was not in the bed with her.

“Maaaaaaa-Maaaaaaa!” I turned away from the mirror and sat down on the bed.

“I’m here!” I said and held my arms out to her.

“You were supposed to be watching over me!” she complained and slapped my arms down before turning her back to me.

Now the typical morning began. I was there to meet it. I didn’t mind. I felt in myself the strength to meet anything. My cup was already being filled as I handed Maria her socks and underpants and then dressed myself, as I stood before the stove to prepare her morning soup and then my tea. As soon as she had eaten, her mood improved. It happened every day like this. Meanwhile, Var slept on, oblivious to her transformation. Today I felt only pity and tenderness for them both: her for being possessed by such a violent hunger upon waking and him for daily sleeping through its fulfillment. Snoring and twitching, he was animallike in his den, as possessed by his need for sleep as Maria was by her need for breakfast. Like a family dog, he was part of us and yet excluded from certain of our activities.

I held Maria’s mittened hand tightly as we walked. We passed the hundred-year-old church, the general store, the pomelo yellow house with the well in front, the swan and her cygnets gliding across the mill pond, and a field formerly green, covered in brown and white sheep, now blank as a fly-leaf.

“Kiss me,” I said and knelt down before the little wooden gate of the school. Immediately she took my cold cheeks in her woolly hands and kissed my lips with gusto. Since the first moment she had pounced upon my swollen breast and drawn blood, she had shown herself to be an aggressive and passionate lover. “Maria,” I began. I felt the need to say something to mark the occasion, to express both my happiness and my guilt, but before I could finish my sentence she slipped through the gate and was running to greet a friend.