Rocks, The (34 page)

S
eñor Gerald!”
exclaimed
Lestrado Puig, rising to his feet as Gerald came into his office along the street from the
mercado
in Cala Marsopa. “This is a pleasure. Sit, please.”

They sat on either side of the lawyer’s desk. Early in their acquaintance, Puig had abandoned efforts to speak Gerald’s surname, the unpronounceable “Rutledge” with its thicket of confusing consonants, and since they had become friendly, there had been no need—though he could now spell Gerald’s surname to a nicety, for Puig represented the owners of C’an Cabrer, the small farmhouse in the hills above Cala Marsopa where Gerald had lived for the previous three years. Once a month Gerald walked into town and paid his rent to Señor Lestrado Puig, who then sent it on to the owners in Palma.

“I have had some good fortune,” said Gerald. He explained, as best he could in his now serviceable Spanish, the nature of his earlier voyaging, his published articles, the letter from the publisher in London.

“This is splendid news,” said Puig. “You should make an investment.”

“I thought so too,” said Gerald.

“Do you have an idea?”

“Yes.”

F
or his first night
as master of C’an Cabrer, Gerald slept again on the thin mattress in the small room where he had slept for the last three years. In the middle of the night he woke and walked around the other, still-empty, rooms of the house. He wondered how long he would live here. Perhaps he’d buy another boat someday and sail to Greece. Perhaps the book would sell. But here he would stay and live, for now . . . somehow.

The night air coming through the open window of the larger room was warm and smelled of citrus and the trees and vegetation around the house. He stood before the window for a moment and then climbed out onto the solid surface of the cistern at the side of the house and looked down the hill, to the sea. The partial moon had risen late and hung over its scattered reflection on the Mediterranean in the southeast—it hung over the Aegean. Suddenly, now that he could, he no longer had the urge to be sailing away. Was it gone, that long-held desire, or would it come back? For three shore-bound years, during which he had felt marooned, he had wanted to be on a boat again, sailing southeast across the Mediterranean. Yet when he’d seriously considered buying another boat and leaving . . .

He walked to the edge of the cistern top. Put a rail here and he’d have a terrace that overlooked the sea. Knock out the lower part of that window and he’d have a door to his terrace. Sit here and look at the sea and the dirt road between Son Moll and the port, and the villas along the road fronting the rocky shore.

•   •   •

A
t the bottom
of his hill, Gerald found two letters in his dusty mailbox. One was from his sister, Billie, in Sevenoaks. “So you are a Man of Property! Well done! Swallowed the anchor? I must come down for the
vendemmia
! What larks we’ll have!”

The other letter was from Pocock at John Murray. A fear gripped Gerald: what if they’d changed their mind and wanted the money back? Well, it was too bloody late!

Dear Gerald,

Everything going well with the book here; on course for publication early in the autumn; I’ll be sending you proofs in September.

The only spot of dissent amongst the savants is with the title. Some feel, and I have to count myself among them, that
The Route of Odysseus
is rather too prosaic. It’s quite accurate, as far as it goes, but limiting and not exciting. The book is only a little removed from being a gripping travel narrative, and the right title could position it very favorably for reviewers at the Sunday papers, not to mention readers. We’ve been batting this about a bit. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the word Odysseus doesn’t lend itself easily to the possessive:
Odysseus’s Voyage, Odysseus’s Journey,
etc., as some have suggested here. Odysseus
is, in fact, a bit of a mouthful. Odyssey is preferable to Odysseus and also looks better on the page, although, again, this says scholarly rather than fun. Other suggestions have been:
Homer’s Voyage, Homer’s Ill Winds,
etc., etc. The best of a poor lot, and really not right.

Can you put your thinking cap on and suggest something less literal; a little more, dare I say it, poetic, Homeric? We are doing same.

Otherwise, all bodes well for a good autumn launch and run up to Christmas.

Sincerely,

Eric Pocock

But “route” was the whole point, thought Gerald, a little tetchily.
Where Odysseus Sailed
—worse. He could think of nothing. Blow the savants; let them come up with it, then.

•   •   •

H
e was in
the lemon grove
when he heard the sound of Lupe the donkey: the usual one-note honking for which there was no anthropomorphizing a meaning beyond generalized asinine complaint. Lupe brayed often and Gerald was always pleased when Gonzalo, who lived down the hill and across the road and had worked the farm for the owners, took her away. Gonzalo had used Lupe to carry straw panniers filled with olives, almonds, and lemons down the hill. He was surprised to hear Lupe again, for he had let Gonzalo go, intending from now on to do all the work at C’an Cabrer himself and try to live off the proceeds of the produce he would harvest and take to market—he would somehow have to be the beast of burden. Gonzalo had been told of the sale of the farm by someone, Puig perhaps, or the owners, and he had been visibly upset when Gerald told him he would do all the work himself and no longer required his services.

Then he heard the girl’s voice. He walked through the trees and found Gonzalo’s daughter, the third member of the Gonzalo labor force that had worked the farm. She was standing beside the house with the donkey, which was now quiescent and staring at the wall.

She smiled when she saw Gerald. It was hard to tell her age; Gonzalo didn’t look older than thirty-five. His daughter’s looks and womanly figure had initially strongly reminded Gerald of the Italian film star Anna Magnani, whom he had seen in a film screened by a faltering projector in a bar in Argostoli, Greece, shortly after the end of the war. The actress had screamed a great deal during the film, and the Greeks in the bar, all men, had shouted back
Anna Magnani! Anna Magnani!
after each of her outbursts, which was how Gerald knew and remembered her name. However, Gonzalo’s daughter didn’t have the Italian’s piercing eyes or volcanic behavior or her appearance of innate intelligence—she seemed more a lobotomized version of the actress—but her heavy-lidded eyes and openmouthed smile that habitually found Gerald had persistently made him aware of her interest in him. Gonzalo usually spoke to her in peremptory or rough tones, and Gerald had twice seen him cuffing his daughter on her arms, back, the side of her head. The first time he saw this they were some distance away through the trees and it took Gerald a minute to be sure of what he had seen. The second time they were closer, and he had called out, “Please do not touch the girl like that, it’s not correct,” in his awkward Spanish.

“¿Qué?”
Gonzalo answered, and Gerald repeated what he had said. Gonzalo shrugged and moved away, mumbling. Gerald was pleased to let the man and his daughter go when he returned to C’an Cabrer as owner. So he was surprised and discomfited by her appearance. He looked around but didn’t see Gonzalo.

“Hola,”
the girl said now, swaying slightly in her thin cotton dress beside Lupe’s flicking tail.

“Hola,”
answered Gerald.

“Good, then, here’s your animal.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lupe. She is yours.”

“No, she belongs to your father. She is of Gonzalo.”

“No, she is of C’an Cabrer. She is of you now.”

“No, I’m sure not. I don’t want her. Please take her back to your father.”

“He told me to bring her here to you. She is yours now, truly. And she is hungry. You must feed her.”

“I don’t know what she eats, I can’t keep her.”

“She eats anything. It’s not important.”

“No, please, take her to your father. I will talk to him later.”

“No,” said the girl.

“Yes,” insisted Gerald.

“No.” She laughed and looked suddenly animated.

“Please take her back to your house.”

“No. And anyway you need her, for the work. I can work too if you want. I will come every day and help you.”

“No, thank you. I’m going to do all the work myself.”

“Ahhh.” She smiled, swaying.

“Good day,” said Gerald. He turned and climbed up the hill out of sight.

The donkey’s braying began again. When he came down to the house, the girl was gone. Lupe was nibbling a bush.

In the afternoon Gerald walked into town and spoke with Lestrado Puig, who confirmed that he owned all the equipment that came with the property, including the donkey. Gerald asked where he could sell the donkey. Puig told him he would find out and let him know.

•   •   •

H
e woke again
in the night and lay beneath the sheet and looked toward the open window. Not a breath of wind in the trees—his trees now—not a good night to be at sea.

Names and lines from
The
Odyssey
floated through his brain. Laistrygonians . . .
and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them . . . Hope the voyage is a long one . . .

That wasn’t from
The
Odyssey
, but from Cavafy’s “Ithaka.”

Gerald half rose off his mattress with the urge to look through his books, but remained propped up on an elbow . . . He didn’t have the poem with him. He lay back down. He could write to Pocock and tell him to look it up. He didn’t remember it all:

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops . . .

Hope the voyage is a long one . . .

How did it go . . . ?

. . . Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out. . . .

Something in there, perhaps?
Ithaca in Mind?
By Gerald Rutledge. Was that the sort of thing they wanted, Pocock and the savants at John Murray? Poetic and Homeric enough for you?

He lay on his mattress and looked at the opaque blue-gray trapezoid of night framed by the bare walls. Around it, the walls and ceiling of the dark room seemed to move, closing in, drifting outward, pulsing erratically with tricks of perspective and the dim light.

Ithaca the Marvelous Journey.
By Gerald Rutledge. Except it was hardly that, was it? Mostly a wretched, storm-tossed misery, full of wrong turns and monsters. And some very nasty females.

A
motor noise
from
the distant road, the sort of thing he never noticed beneath the cicadas, but did now because it grew louder and began to whine with effort, until Gerald finally realized it was coming up the hill. A visitor.

He came around the side of the house and saw a young woman pulling a Vespa backward onto its stand.

“Buenos días,”
she said. She was wearing a crisp white shirt, a blue skirt, proper shoes. Her black hair was pulled tightly back into a braid at the back of her head.

“Buenos días,”
said Gerald.

“How do you do. I am the daughter of Lestrado Puig,” she said.

“Oh. I am Gerald Rutledge. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yes, I know. We have sold the donkey. Someone will come and take it. Here is a check for the sale.” She handed him an envelope.

“Thank you.”

“
De nada.
Now I take you to meet Calix who will buy everything, all the produce.”

“Pardon me?”

“Comestibles Calix. Here in Cala Marsopa. They will buy everything that is produced on the farm: olives, almonds, lemons, carobs. At a good price. It is there that Gonzalo sold before.”

She turned to her Vespa and with a firm, practiced motion stamped on the kick-starter with her small black shoes and the engine started easily. She pushed the scooter forward off its stand and sat on the front saddle seat, one leg stretching from her tightened skirt with that foot on the ground. She looked at Gerald. “Get on.”

“I go with you?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we going?”

“To meet Calix.”

Gerald was hesitant. She was small and he didn’t see how they would remain upright if he got on the seat behind her.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I carry my father everywhere. He is bigger than you.”

Gerald approached. He raised a leg over the seat and slowly lowered himself. She brought her hand back and pointed at the handle immediately behind her tightly skirted rump between Gerald’s legs. “Hold here. Take off your hat.” Gerald removed his straw hat and she half turned and pushed it for him under his arm.

The scooter slid forward, turned, and plunged down the hill, bumping on the rutted track. Gerald remained stiffly upright, afraid even to lean his head to one side or the other in case he threw her off balance. She paused briefly at the road, looking quickly right and left, and Gerald felt the warmth coming off the back of her neck against his face, and he smelled perfume, and then the scooter leapt forward and they flew down the road. The speed seemed terrific but now there was no sense of precariousness. He watched her hands efficiently working the throttle and clutch. They were unconscionably close: she appeared to be sitting in his lap, they were spooning in a seated position. He tried to keep his legs away from her thighs. The back of her shirt flapped against his arms, errant strands of her hair flicked across his face.

She sped through town. Gerald tried to anticipate her turns to maintain balance as she and the scooter leaned in and out of the turns, but he was unable to prevent his legs, one or the other on each turn, rubbing up against her thighs.

She slowed abruptly on a side street and came to a stop. “You can get off,” she said.

Gerald released the handle, swung a leg off, and stood trembling with the memory of the motor in him as she shut off the machine and briskly pulled the scooter onto its stand.

“Come, please,” she said.

They walked through a curtain of beads into the dark cool interior containing shelves of food, baskets of fresh produce.

“¡Hola, Paloma!”
said a broad woman wearing an apron, smiling at them both as they came in.

When they were finished at Calix, she offered to ride him back up the hill to C’an Cabrer. Gerald thanked her and told her he had some business in town and would walk home. She shook his hand—very firmly—started the Vespa, and shot away like a hummingbird.

Unusual girl, he thought, the daughter of Puig.