Galilee. Part 63

"Why don't we just leave," she suggested. "The two of us.""In a minute."

"If this is such a bad place-"

"I told you: in a minute. Just let me go upstairs first."

"Don't, Mitch."

His eyes flickered in her direction. "Don't what?' he said. She held her breath, aware that his hand was tightening around the knife. "Don't hurt him? Is that what you were going to say?" He moved toward her. She flinched. "You don't want me to hurt lover-boy, is that it?"

"Mitch. I was there when his mother came to the mansion. I saw what she was capable of doing."

"I'm not frightened of any f.u.c.king Barbarossa." He c.o.c.ked his head. "You see, that's the problem- ".

As he spoke he jabbed the knife in Rachel's direction, p.r.i.c.king the air between them to make his point.

"-n.o.body's ever stood up to these people." He was suddenly all reason. "We just gave up our f.u.c.king women to that n.i.g.g.e.r up there, like he owned them. Well he doesn't own my wife. You understand me, baby? I'm not going to let him take you away from me."

His empty hand reached out toward her, and he stroked her face.

"Poor baby," he said. "I'm not blaming you. He f.u.c.ked with your head. You didn't have any choice. But it's going to be okay now. I'm going to deal with it. That's what husbands are supposed to do. They're supposed to protect their wives. I haven't been very good at that. I haven't been a very good husband. I know that now, and I'm sorry. Honey, I'm sorry."

He leaned toward her, and like a nervous schoolboy gave her a peck of a kiss.

"It's going to be okay," he said again. "I'm going to do what I have to do, and then we're going to walk out of here. And we're going to start over." His fingers continued to graze her cheek.

"Because honey, I love you. I always have and I always will. And I can't bear to be separated from you." His voice was small; almost pitiful. "I can't bear it, baby. It makes me crazy, not to have you. You understand me?"

She nodded. Somewhere at the back of her mind, behind the fear she felt-for Galilee, for herself- there was a little place in her where she'd kept enshrined the last remnants of what she'd once felt for her husband. Perhaps it hadn't been love; but it had been a beautiful dream, nonetheless. And hearing him speak now, even in this crazed state, she remembered it fondly. How he'd made her feel, in the first months of their knowing one another; his sweetness, his gentility. Gone now, of course, every sc.r.a.p. There was only the curdled remains of the man he'd been.Oh Lord, it made her sad. And it seemed he saw the sadness in her, because when he spoke again, all the rage had gone from his voice. And with it, the certainty.

"I didn't want it to be this way," he said. "I swear I didn't."

"I know."

"I don't know... how I got here..."

"It doesn't need to be this way," she said, softly, softly. "You don't have to hurt anybody to prove you love me."

"I do... love you."

"Then put the knife down, Mitch." His hand, which had continued to graze her cheek, stopped in midstroke. "Please, Mitch," she said. "Put it down."

He drew his hand away from her face, and his expression, which had mellowed as she spoke to him, grew severe.

"Oh no..." he murmured, "I know what you're doing..."

"Mitch-"

"You think you can sweet-talk me out of going up there." He shook his head. "No, baby. It's not happening. Sorry."

So saying, he stepped back from her and turned toward the stairs. There was a moment of almost hallucinatory precision, when Rachel seemed to see everything in play before her: the man with the knife-her husband, her sometime prince-moving away from her, stinking of sweat and hatred; her lover, lying in the bed above, lost in dreams; and in between, on the darkened stairs, on the landing, those spectral presences, whatever they were, which she could not name.

Mitch had reached the bottom of the stairs, and now, without another word to her, he began to ascend. He left her no choice. She went up after him, and before he could stop her slipped past him to block his pa.s.sage. The air was busy up here. She could feel its agitation against her face.

If Mitch was aware of anything out of the ordinary, his determination to get to Galilee blinded him to the fact. His face was fixed; like a mask, beaten to the form of his features; pallid and implacable. She didn't waste her breath on persuasion; he was beyond listening to anything she said. She simply stood in his way. If he wanted to harm Galilee he'd have to get past her to do so.

He looked at her; his eyes the only living things in that dead face.

"Out of my way," he said.

She reached out to the left and right of her and caught hold of the banisters. She was horribly aware of how vulnerable she was, doing this; how her belly and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were open to him, ifhe wanted to harm her. But she had no other choice, and she had to believe that despite the madness that had seized him he wouldn't harm her.

He stopped, one stair below her, and for a moment she dared hope she could still make him see reason. But then his hand was up at her face, at her hair, and with one jerk he pulled her back down the stairs. She lost her grip on the banisters and fell forward, reaching out to secure another hold, but failing, toppling. He held onto her hair, however, and her head jerked backward. She reached up to catch hold of his arm, a cry of pain escaping her. The world pivoted; she didn't know up from down. He pulled on her again, drawing her dose to him, then throwing her backward against the banister. This time she secured a hold, and stopped herself from falling any further, but before she could draw breath he struck her hard across the face, an open-palmed blow, but brutal for all that. Her legs gave way beneath her; she slipped sideways. He caught her a second blow, with sickening force, and then a third, which sent her into free fall down the stairs. She felt every thud and crack as her limbs, her shoulder, her head, connected with stairs and banister. Then she hit the floor at the bottom of the flight, striking it so hard that she momentarily lost consciousness. In the buzzing blackness in her head she struggled to put her thoughts in order, but the task was beyond her. It was all she could do to instruct her eyes to open. When she did she found herself looking at the stairs, from a sideways position. Mitch was staring down at her, grotesquely foreshortened, his head vestigial. He studied her for several seconds, just to be certain that he'd incapacitated her. Then, sure that she could not come between him and his intentions again, he turned his back on her and continued to ascend the stairs.

XXI.

All she could do was watch; her body refused to move an inch. She could only lie there and watch while Mitch went to murder Galilee in his bed. She couldn't even call to him; her throat refused to work, her tongue refused to work. Even if she'd been able to make a sound, Galilee wouldn't have heard her. He was in his own private world; healing himself in the deepest of slumbers. She would not be able to rouse him.

Mitch was three or four steps from the top of the flight; in a few more seconds he would be out of sight. Oh G.o.d, she wanted to weep, in rage, in frustration. After all the grand endeavors of the recent past, would it all come down to this? Her lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs, unable to move, and he at the top, just as powerless, while a man with a little knife and a little soul cut the bond between them?

She heard Mitch speak; and tried to focus on him. But it was difficult to see him up there at the top of the stairs; the shadows were dense and they seemed almost to be concealing him from her.

She tried to move her arm; to raise herself up a little way, and get a better look at him. As she did so he spoke again.

"Who are you?" he said.

There was distress in his voice; a little panic even. She saw him jab his knife at the darkness, as though to keep it at bay. But it wouldn't be driven off. It seemed to come at him, alive and eager.

He stabbed again, and again. Then he took a backward step, loosing a panicked cry as he did so."Jesus!" he yelled. "What the f.u.c.k is this?" With one last, agonizing effort of will Rachel pressed her aching arms into service, and lifted her upper body off the floor. Her head spun, and a wave of nausea rose up in her, but she forgot both in the next moment, as her eyes made sense of what was happening at the top of the stairs. There were three, perhaps four, human forms up there with Mitch.e.l.l; they moved with gentility, but they pressed against him nevertheless, backing him against the wall. He still continued to jab at them, in the desperate hope of keeping them away from him, but it was dear that they weren't susceptible to harm. They were spirits of some kind; their sinuous forms expressed from the simple convenience of light and dark. One of them, as it closed on Mitch.e.l.l, looked down the stairs, and Rachel caught a glimpse of its face. Not it; she. It was a woman-they were all women-her expression faintly amused by the business she was about.

Her features were not perfect by any means; she was like a portrait that the painter had only sketched, leaving the rendering of detail until later. But Rachel knew the face, nevertheless.

Knew it not because they'd met, but because this woman had lent the essentials of her features to the generations that had followed her. The sweep of the brow, the curve of the cheekbones, the strength of the jaw, all of these were echoed in the Geary line, as was her penetrating stare. And if she was, as Rachel guessed, one of the women who'd been with Galilee in this house, then so too were the others. All Geary women, who'd pa.s.sed sweet, loving times beneath this roof, and who in death had returned here, to leave some part of their spirits where they'd been most happy.

The spinning in Rachel's head retreated somewhat, and as it did so she was able to make better sense of the other forms that moved around Mitch.e.l.l. Her suspicions were confirmed. One of this number was Cadmus's first wife Kitty, whose picture had hung in the dining room at the mansion.

A resplendent woman, with the bearing of an undisputed matriarch, she was here unleashed from her corsets and her formality; her body sensual despite the simple stuff with which it was expressed; as though she'd come back here in the form of the hedonist she'd been under this roof.

A woman of pleasure for a few, blissful days, secure in Galilee's arms; loved, even.

That was what these women had come here to find-what she, Rachel, had come here to find, though she hadn't known it at the time-love. Something more than wifely duty; something more than compromise and concealment. A taste of an emotion that struck deep into their being; and offered them a glimpse of what their souls needed to stay bright. No wonder they'd found their way back here; and no wonder they now made themselves visible. They wanted to keep the man who'd offered them that glimpse from harm.

How much of this did Mitch.e.l.l understand? Very little, Rachel suspected, but there were signs that he was being told. She could hear whisperings coining from the top of the flight-gentle, playful sounds-and the women were pressing themselves upon him as they spoke, their faces inches from his. He'd given up attempting to keep them at bay with his knife; instead he raised his hands to his face and tried to blot them out.

"Leave me alone!" Rachel heard him sobbing. "Leave me the f.u.c.k alone!"

But they had no intention of letting him go. They continued to press their attentions upon him, while he cowered in their midst, as though he'd walked into a swarm of bees and having no way to outrun it could only stand there and be stung and stung and stung-Rachel, meanwhile, had reached for the curve of the banister at the bottom of the stairs, and was doing her best to haul herself to her feet. She was by no means certain she trusted her legs to bear her up, but she knew that while Mitch.e.l.l's gaze was averted she had a chance to arm herself. She might not get another. But as she was about to rise she caught sight of another figure up there on the landing. It was Galilee. He'd risen, naked, from his dreams, and was making his pained way to the top of the stairs.

Mitch.e.l.l had also seen him. He dropped his knife hand from his face and flailed at the spirits around him, loosing as he did so a venomous yell. Then he raised the knife again and pushed up through the veil of his tormentors to get to his enemy.

From her position at the bottom of the stairs Rachel could not clearly see what happened next.

Mitch.e.l.l's body blocked Galilee from view, and an instant later the women in their turn covered Mitch.e.l.l, closing around him like a cloud. There was a still moment, when the darkness at the top of the flight showed her nothing. Then Mitch.e.l.l appeared out of the murk, pitched backward with such force that his feet were off the ground. He missed the top stair, but struck the second, twisting as he did so. Rachel heard a shout escape him, then a series of smaller cries as he somersaulted down the flight. At the last moment she pulled herself out of his path, and he landed face down on the very spot where she'd been lying seconds before. Almost instantly he raised himself up off the floor, as though he were doing a push-up, and she drew away from him, certain he was going to renew his a.s.sault. But as he lifted his body she saw that blood was pouring out of him, slapping on the ground. The knife-that little knife of his-was sticking out of his chest. Her eyes went up to his face. The mask of his features had cracked; he was no longer implacable.

Tears of pain sprang from his eyes, his mouth was drawn down to make a pitiful shape. He looked toward her, his wet eyes wide.

"Oh, baby..." he said. "I'm hurting."

It was the last thing he said. His trembling arms gave way beneath him and he sank down, driving the knife all the way into his flesh; burying it. His gaze was still turned up toward her as the life went out of him.

She stared at him, dry-eyed. There would be tears later, but not now; now there was only relief that this was ended; that they were finally done with one another.

She looked up to the top of the stairs. Galilee was standing there, holding onto the banister for support. He was looking down at Mitch's body with such a forlorn expression on his face-such a look of loss-that it might have been the corpse of someone he'd loved lying there at the bottom of the stairs.

"I didn't..." he began to say. But he didn't have the will to finish the thought.

"It doesn't matter," she said.

He sank down, still staring at the body. Behind him, the Geary women stood like a melancholy chorus.Only one of them broke rank, and moving past Galilee began to descend the stairs. It wasn't until she was halfway down, and had halted, that Rachel realized who it was. It was Margie; or rather some echo of the woman she'd called by that name. Her features were no more finished than those of the other women-perhaps a little less in fact-but there was no mistaking the raised, quizzical brow, nor the sly smile that now came on to her face.

More than a smile; laughter. It wasn't quite the raucous din that had erupted from her in the high times, but it was still recognizably Margie. Who else would have found the sight of Mitch.e.l.l Geary, sprawled face down in his own blood, funny? The prince was dead, and Margie's spirit stood on the stairs and toasted the sight with long loud peals of laughter.

PART NINE.

The Human Road

I.

"I'm not a good man," Galilee said. "I've done terrible things in my life. So many... very terrible things. But I never wanted this. Please believe me."

They were on the beach, and he was setting a light to the heap of driftwood he'd made, in the same spot where he'd lit that first, fragrant fire: the fire that had summoned Rachel out of the house. As the flames caught, she saw his face. That curious beauty of his-Cesaria's beauty, in the form of a man-was almost too much to see; the exquisite nakedness of him. Twice on the way out here she'd thought he'd lose control of himself. Once when he came down the stairs, and in stepping over Mitch.e.l.l's body, set his bare foot in a rivulet of blood. And again when they found Niolopua on the veranda. Great heaving sobs had escaped him then, like the sobbing of a child almost, terrible to hear.

His grief made Rachel strong. She took him by the hand and led him down onto the lawn. Then she went back into the house to fetch a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes. She'd expected to see the women there, but they'd gone about other business, it seemed, for which fact she was grateful. She didn't want to think about what happened to the dead right now; didn't want to imagine Mitch.e.l.l's spirit, driven out of the body he'd been so proud of, lost in limbo.

By the time she got back to Galilee, she'd already planned what to tell him. Why don't we go down onto the sand, she'd said to him, taking his hand. We can build a fire. I'm cold.

Like a child, he'd obeyed. Silently gone to collect pieces of driftwood, and arranged them. Then she'd pa.s.sed the matches over to him, and he'd kindled the fire. The wood was still damp from the storm; it took a little time for the larger pieces of wood to catch. They spat and sizzled as they dried out, but at last the flames swelled around them, and they burned. Only then did he start talking. Beginning with that simple, blanket confession. I'm not a good man."I'm not afraid of anything you've got to tell me," Rachel told him.

"You won't leave me?" he said.

"Why would I ever do that?"

"Because of the things I've done."

"Nothing's that bad," she said. He shook his head, as though he knew better. "I know you killed George Geary," she went on. "And I know Cadmus ordered you to do it."

"How did you find that out?"

"It was one of his deathbed confessions."

"My mother made him tell you."

"She made him tell Loretta. I was just a bystander." Galilee stared into the fire. "You have to help me understand," Rachel said. "That's all I want: just to understand how this ever happened."

"How I came to kill George Geary?"

"Not just that. Why you came here to be with the Geary women. Why you left your family in the first place."

"Oh..." he said softly. "You want the whole story."

"Yes," she said, "that's what I want. Please."

"May I ask you why?"

"Because I'm a part of it now. I guess I became a part of it the day Mitch.e.l.l walked into the store in Boston. And I want to know how I fit."

"I'm not sure I can help you with that," Galilee said. "I'm not certain I know where I fit."

"You just tell me the whole story," Rachel said. "I'D work out the rest for myself."

He nodded, and took a deep breath. The fire had grown more confident in the last few minutes, cooking away the last of the moisture in the wood. The smoke had cleared. Now the flames were yellow and white; the fierce heat making the air between Rachel and Galilee shake.

"I think I should start with Cesaria," Galilee said; and began.

iin.o.body knows the whole story, of course; n.o.body can. Perhaps there is no thing entire; only that rubble that Hera-c.l.i.tus celebrates. At the beginning of this book I boasted that I'd teD everything, and I failed. Now Galilee promises to do the same thing, and he's fated to fail the same way. But I've come to see that as nothing can be made that isn't flawed, the chaDenge is twofold: first, not to berate oneself for what is, after all, inevitable; and second, to see in our failed perfection a different thing; a truer thing, perhaps, because it contains both our ambition and the spoiling of that ambition; the exhaustion of order, and the discovery-in the midst of despair-that the beast d.o.g.g.i.ng the heels of beauty has a beauty aD of its own.

So Galilee began to tell his story, and though Rachel had asked him for everything, and though he intended to teD her everything, he could give her only the parts that he could remember on that certain day at that certain hour. Not everything. Not remotely everything. Just slivers and fragments; that best universe which is rubble.

Galilee began his account, as he said he would, with Cesaria.

"You met my mother already," he said to Rachel, "so you've seen a little of what she is. I think that's aD any body's ever seen: a little. Except for my father Nicodemus-"

"And Jefferson?"

"Oh she told you about him?"

"Not in detail. She just said he'd built a house for her."

"He did. And it's one of the most beautiful houses in the world."

"Will you take me there?"