A House Like A Lotus Part 33

I sat up. "Oh, Omio, thank you, thank you."

"It's only cold tea," he said.

"Not the tea. Me. My life. If it hadn't been for you, I'd be in a watery grave.

I nearly was."

He put my gla.s.s down on the table between the beds and took my hands. "It was Frank, and Vee, as much as I, who saved you, Polly, but it has made you-lo, a part of me, a part of my own life."

"I'll always be grateful."

He was fierce. "I do not need grat.i.tude. I do not want it. This is not our way."

He smiled. "But we are friends forever in the mind of G.o.d, so I have brought you something," And he handed me the painting of the Laughing Christ from his notebook.

"But you can't take a page out of your book!" I protested.

"I will paste in another after I am home. I want you to have this so that you will always remember me."

"I would always remember you, no matter what."

"Lo, we need something we can touch or see," Omio said.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the painting of the Laughing Christ. Omio had no way of knowing that it could remind me of anybody except himself. I looked at it, and saw a double image, the face of sheer joy and Max carrying the statue, her face distorted with whiskey and fear.

"What is it?" Omio asked.

"Nothing."

292.

"I have hurt you."

"No-no-it's not you at all."

"That young man, that Zachary?"

I shook my head. "Not Zachary. Omio-if I take this, I need to give you something, and I don't have anything."

"A picture of yourself? A snapshot?"

"I don't go around carrying pictures of myself. Well -I do have my school ID card, but it's an awful picture like most ID cards."

"But I may have it?" "Sure, if you want it." Actually, it wasn't that bad a picture, or I wouldn't have dreamed of giving it to him. I got up and went to the desk and took it from my school notebook. I handed the picture to him.

He smiled. "Yes. That's my Polly." He opened his wallet. "You won't need it when you get back to school?"

"I can get another." It was all I had to give to Omio, and I wanted him to have something of me.

"Good, then, I will put it here, next to-" And he indicated a snapshot of a blond, fair-skinned girl with curly golden hair. On her lap was a dark-skinned baby boy, with a surprising mop of that fair hair.

"Who are they?" I asked curiously.

He looked surprised. "My wife and baby. When I married a girl who was born in England, I knew that I had truly forgiven, all the way deep in my heart, what had been done to my father."

My lips felt the way they do when the dentist has pumped them full of novocaine.

"I didn't know you were married."

His eyes widened. "But, my Polly, I showed you my pictures that first night."

"No."

293.

"How could I not? I showed them to Krhis, I know.

Our little one was born since I last saw Krhis, and is named after him."

I got up and took the picture of the Laughing Christ to my desk and propped it up. But now I saw no laughter in the face, no joy. "Norine will be wanting me,"

I said. "I've got to get dressed."

"Polly, you really did not know that I have a wife?"

I shook my head.

"Why does it make such a difference?"

I shrugged. "It doesn't."

He put one hand lightly on my shoulder. "I am married to one wife, and I will be true to her. But that does not mean that no one else can touch my soul."

"No," I said. "Please go, Omio. I have to dress."

He dropped his hand. "To deny friendship is unlove." And he left.

Why was I making such a big deal out of Omio's not telling me he was married? He thought I knew. He wasn't trying to keep anything from me. He truly thought I knew. And why should it matter, anyhow?

We'd be together for three weeks, and then Omio would go back to Baki, and I'd go back to Benne Seed, and maybe we'd write a couple of times, and that would be that.

But Omio had kissed my eyelids under the fig-sycamore tree. Omio had pulled me out of the sea. Yet, despite my own imaginings of his kisses, his touch, I knew that Omio had never kissed me as Renny had kissed me in the boat on the way back to Benne Seed. Omio knew restraints.

294.

We were in Osia Theola. Theola's love, and her perception of truth, were restraints. Krhis was a restraint.

I worked in the office with Norine for the rest of the afternoon. If I seemed preoccupied or upset, she put it down to the accident with Zachary. She kept me busy with the ancient mimeograph machine, and I did my best to run off stencils without getting completely covered with purple ink in the process.

"I hope Frank is not getting too fond of Vee." She frowned.

"Does he know? About her husband?"

"She does not make it a secret. Neither does she talk about it."

"Well-at least they can be friends." As I could be friends with Omio. To deny friendship is unlove, he had said.

Norine's hands slowed down as she was feeding paper into the machine.

"Without friends, we would not survive."

And I knew nothing about what had hurt Norine.

The phone rang, and she answered it in her usual brisk manner. "I'll see," I heard her say. "She may not wish to speak with you." She turned to me, her hand over the mouthpiece. "It is that young man who has caused so much trouble.

You don't have to speak to him." She shook her head.

But I moved toward the phone. "I think I'd better. He's got to be feeling terrible."

Maybe my concern over Zachary's feeling was, under all the circ.u.mstances, inconsistent of me.

295.

He was, indeed, contrite, and I had it in me to be sorry for him, and agreed to meet him in Athens between flights.

Norine had left me alone, saying that she had to speak to Sophonisba and Tullia.

"Hey, Pol, you know I'm really sorry, don't you?" he asked. "I mean, I know it was my fault we went in the soup, not yours."

"It's okay," I said, and that was all I could think of to say to Zachary. The funny thing was, it was okay. I could let Zachary be the way he was and it didn't really bother me.

Was it because I didn't really care about him that much? He'd been terrific while I was in Athens; I'd had fun with him; he'd done marvels for my ego.

But despite his talk about our chemistry being so great, it really wasn't. He didn't do things to my pheromones the way Renny did. Or Omio. I was going to be able to say a casual goodbye to Zachary, whether on Cyprus or in Athens airport; it wasn't going to make a ragged scar in my life.

I liked him, but I didn't love him. And that was very confusing, because I certainly hadn't sorted out what love is.

"Hey, are you there?" he asked. The phone was crackling as though we were talking long-distance.

"I'm right here. But I have work to do, Zach."

"But is everything okay with us? I haven't ruined it all?"

"No," I said. "It was an accident."

"So you don't mind if I meet your plane in Athens?"

"No, I don't mind a bit. It will be fun."

296.

"Can you sound a little more enthusiastic?"

"Sure, Zach, I'm still kind of tired."

"I'm just grateful that you're not dumping me," he said. "See you in Athens." I hung up and went back to the recalcitrant mimeograph machine, getting even more ink on myself. I didn't notice when Krhis came into the office until he spoke.

"Polly?"

I looked up from the machine and wiped my inky fingers on a rag. "Oh, Krhis.

h.e.l.lo."

"You are doing a good job, Polly, being very helpful."

"Thank you. I'm loving every minute of it."

"Despite your accident with the kayak?"

"Thanks to Omio-and Vee and Frank-nothing terrible happened."

"Norine is afraid we're working you too hard."

"Oh, no! I was afraid I wasn't working hard enough!"

"I am glad indeed that Max arranged for you to come to us."

I fiddled with the machine, spilling more ink.

"Polly, whenever I mention Max, you withdraw. Is something wrong?"

"Yes," I said, "but since Max didn't tell you-"

"What is it? Would you be betraying a confidence by telling me?"

I blurted out, "Max is dying. Maybe I am betraying a confidence, but oh, Krhis, she's afraid, and maybe you could pray for her-"

I could see a shadow of grief cross his face. "I will pray."

"She has an awful South American disease, transmitted by an insect bite. It affects the heart, and it's 297 /.

slow and painful. And lethal." I managed to keep my voice level.

He accepted without question what I said. "I'm glad you told me." He took my hands and looked into my eyes. "I think Maxa would be glad, too."

"I'm glad you know," I said. "Oh, Krhis, I'm very glad you know."

He squeezed my hands gently. "You are covered with ink. Go back to the dormitory, where there is warm water to wash it off."