The Blood Oranges: A Novel Read online

  I turned away, calmly I tied the ends of my forgotten sash. And straightening shoulders and spectacles alike, I returned along the empty path that stretched endlessly from villa to villa. It amused me to discover that I was walking slowly but with a step reflecting nonetheless the rhythms of the central phrase in Hugh’s proposal, as if an old drummer were beating a brief and muffled paradiddle in my head, my inner ear, my heart. Would he find my tennis shoes? Would he begin to understand that there could be no limits on our exchange and that in the circumscribed country of Illyria a grassy wind was bound to blow away the last shreds of possessiveness? I hoped he would.

  In all this darkness and silence I smelled the dead roses, saw the open door and warm rows of tiles, heard the clear but sleepy voice of Fiona calling to me from deep within our thick white walls and timeless collection of vases, earthen pots, artistic tokens of harmonious life. Her soft clear voice was coming as close at it ever did to peevishness, she might have been lying in the dew at my feet. I yawned, I approached the door, I noticed that our morning-glories were doing better than Hugh’s.

  “Cyril? Is that you?”

  “Expecting someone else?” I murmured, and entered the darkness, listened for another brief volley from her hard sweet sleep-ridden mind.

  “Just you, baby. You.”

  “WHERE’S MY MOTHER?”

  “I told you, Meredith. They’re bringing the wine. You can’t have an idyl without wine.”

  “I’m sick of your old idyls.”

  “You’re lucky to be here. If it weren’t for me, you and your little sisters would be back at the villa where Hugh, for one, thinks you belong.”

  “It’s not my father who doesn’t want us around. It’s you.”

  “Look, Meredith. We need flowers, lots of flowers. You can’t have crowns without lots of flowers.”

  “I don’t want any old flower crowns.”

  “Your sisters do.”

  “How do you know? They can’t say anything.”

  “Of course they can. They speak the language of children. But take my word for it, Meredith. All little girls like flower crowns in their hair.”

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to impress my parents. That’s all. You’re just trying to fool them again.”

  “I’m simply going to bedeck their daughters with flowers, Meredith. It’s a nice idea.”

  “It’s dumb.”

  “That’s enough. I want you to gather all the flowers you can. Understand?”

  “God, you’re mean.”

  “To work, Meredith, to work.”

  She turned, she hiked up her baggy shorts, she tried to shake some kind of curl into the chopped-off hair now wet and dark and stuck midway to her ears, she attempted to appear undaunted. But she knew I was watching her, had once more felt the weight of my interested wisdom bearing down on the brittle sticks of her suspicion, and as if my gentle insistence on obedience were not enough, had already begun to respond reluctantly to my idea of the crowns. Even Meredith was not above the idea of a little self-beautification, not exempt from the hope of one day becoming glamorized, idealized, in the eyes of preoccupied parents. Already the green shoots were popping up in that small dark brain of hers, she was trapped in my smile.

  “Come on,” I said. “Dolores and Eveline and I are waiting.”

  She glanced at me over her shoulder and then muttered something, stopped, and yanked up a fistful of Cyclamen persicum without regard for the pink petals scattering, bleeding, or the soft heads clutched in her hand.

  “Not so hard,” I murmured. “And leave longer stems.”

  “I want my mother. I don’t like your silly games.”

  “Put the flowers over here. We’ll make a lot of piles and then we’ll start weaving.”

  Without turning she flung her poor crushed offering toward my feet. But she had heard my voice, she was drenched in my patience, she could not deny the laughter of Dolores (or was it Eveline?), and her fingers were stained with the juice of the torn Cyclamen persicum. She could hardly help but see that our glen, our golden glen, was filled with clumps of pink flowers, and red and yellow and white flowers, and already she must have envisioned all those helpless buds entwined in little Eveline’s hair and in her own. She could not resist. She squatted. She began to pick.

  But Cyril among the children? Alone, absolutely alone, with Catherine’s two identical female twins and one hostile girl? And only the old black sleeping dog to share my guardianship? It was not a typical situation for me. To serve as liaison between the adults and children, now and again to break off from the four-pointed constellation of our adulthood and sail away, as it were, in order to intercept the small three-pointed heavenly figure of the children and stall its approach, contributing to the freedom of the adults I left behind and creating unenthusiastic coherence among the children I took in hand—all this was one thing and understandable. But to propose separation at the outset and before it was necessary, to make the suggestion casually yet willingly that it might be fun for the children were I to lead them on ahead to the glen—this was quite another thing, and had prompted surprise from Fiona and Catherine, scorn from Hugh, sullenness from Meredith, and mere acquiescence from the little twins. Then why the halfhearted magnanimity, the atypical gesture? Why this minor sacrifice, this exposure to boredom? Meredith was partially right, of course, but I was a better judge of motives than Meredith, and perhaps there was something more to my plan than deception, selfishness, showmanship. Perhaps I wanted to spare Catherine a moment or two, perhaps I wanted to ensure Hugh some time alone with my wife and his, perhaps I was simply inclined to amuse the twins for once and to appease Meredith in the process, show her my other side, give her a half-hour of my attention. Perhaps I wanted to share my capacity for different games, for love on another plane. Who knows?

  “I thought you were going to help.”

  “I am, I am.”

  “Then why are you just standing there like that?”

  “You need more of the Echium diffusum.”

  “Huh?”

  “Those little red flowers, Meredith. Over there.”

  The boredom was not exactly boredom, the distance between myself and the children was not intolerable. I was enjoying myself. The soft green dusty tumors were hanging from the branches of the fig trees just above my head and within easy reach, the infinitely soft and idle grass pillowed the sitting twins and the sleeping dog, a denser species of brushy pine ringed our glen, the fragile flowers were embedded in remarkable variety in the tissue of the ash-blond grass, the sunlight was descending through the green leaves and speckling all four of us. I heard Meredith crawling about this gentle place intent on my work, I saw the polka dots dancing, so to speak, on the ruffled jumpers of the two smaller girls seated side by side in the warm grass and holding hands, blowing chubby laughter in my direction as if they had never seen me before. And the peace, the warmth, the stasis, the smell of it—in such circumstances how could I help but enjoy my own immensity of size or the range of my interests, how help but appreciate the adaptibility of certain natural scenes which, like this one, allow for the play of children one minute and the seclusion of adults the next? I felt a coolness between my porous thin white shirt and the skin of my chest. In linen slacks and alligator belt and hard low-cut shoes the color of amber, I sensed the consciousness of someone carefully dressed for taking care of children. The children themselves were decked out for the occasion in ruffled jumpers, and in baggy but laundered shorts and sleeveless top.

  “It’s hard to tell your little sisters apart, Meredith. Very hard.”

  “It’s easy.”

  “At least your mother could dress them differently. Blue polka dots for one, say, and red for the other.”

  “She likes them the same.”

  “I see.”

  “Eveline has bigger teeth.”

  “I don’t think they understand our game. Let’s teach them.”

  No answer. No effort to
show me anything except her back. Was she engaged at last? Lost in the scent of the flowers and distracted in the dream I had offered her? Or was she eluding kindness, going through motions, feigning preoccupation, reminding herself that she disliked the sound of my voice and disdained my game? Was I dealing with Meredith the spy, who was filled with duplicity and fear of what she took to be my own duplicity, or was I now in charge of Meredith the harmless child, as I had first assumed? Engaged, I decided, and only the harmless child, because now her small white haunches were frozen where she had just been crawling in the still grass, her head was turned, one hand was raised, in poignant shyness and feminine delicacy she was holding up to her small pointed nose a single bud of Tolpis barbata and sniffing in pleasure unmistakably her own. The thin hand quivered. I was sure that her eyes were closed.

  “Well,” I murmured, “if you won’t help your sisters, I guess I’ll have to.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’d prefer that we work together, Meredith.”

  And pausing, thinking, and then deciding to relent: “Dolores,” she said, “Eveline, pick the flowers.”

  I rubbed the patina of soft dust from one green pendant fig, I watched as Meredith broke a few more stems and abruptly propelled herself toward a clump of Cistus ladaniferus worthy, I thought, of any young girl’s breathlessness. But obviously Meredith was more attentive to the situation than to the flowers, was listening for some remark from me or some sound from the twins. She waited, she shrugged, until conscience and impatience overcame the lure to beauty and elicited a brief example of the pre-emptory maternal tone she always adopted when addressing the twins. “Come on, come on,” she muttered, “just pick them. Pick a lot of them.”

  “That’s fine, Meredith. But Dolores and Eveline don’t understand. Let’s help them.”

  “They won’t be able to make crowns anyway.”

  “Of course they will. But if we’re going to surprise Fiona and Hugh and Catherine, we’ll have to hurry. There isn’t much time.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Listen, Meredith. Let’s make yours out of those pink and lavender flowers and the white ones. They’re best for your eyes.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Maybe I’ll wear one too, who knows.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Just sitting down, Meredith. Do you mind?”

  Cyril descending among the children. Cyril reclining on the floor of the fig tree bower. Fiona’s husband reposing within arm’s length of Catherine’s two smaller girls who appeared to have been dropped like heavy seeds into our dark-eyed glen. Amuse them, I told myself, control them, don’t frighten them, don’t awe them with effusion or excessive magnificence. And how easy it was to avoid boredom, repugnance, or exceptional condescension. Of course Meredith was watching me, ready to pounce on my first slip, and of course the twins were watching me, waiting for what chance to erupt into private persecution or unpredictable rebellion I could not be sure. If they fled, if they pummeled each other, if they began to shriek—what then? Above all I expected serenity from all three of them, was determined to see for myself that even these three were capable of charm and of conforming to my own concepts of playful sport that would entertain not only them but me. And yet it turned out that I had only to incline my back, extend one leg, seize the upraised knee of the other and smile, first at Dolores and then at Eveline, to cause both children to blink, to roll apart, to come to me.

  “Look what you’re doing. You’re kicking my pile of blues to pieces.”

  “Sorry. Just gather them up again.”

  Supine, I was lying partially supine and wondering whether it was Dolores or Eveline who had flopped belly down on my heavy thigh, Eveline or Dolores who was attempting to perch herself on my upraised knee. But of course one name was as good as the other, I told myself, and for a moment longer tolerated the inertness of the little stomach flat on my thigh and the slow persistent movements of the short legs against my massive calf. But at least there was no tugging on Cyril’s hair, no poking at spectacles, no bouncing. Only the polka dots, the two fat bodies, the two sets of large brown eyes brooding impossibly on mine. The little stomach was sighing, the fat legs were searching for a grip. All this I tolerated for the sake of the apparent depth of feeling with which they were clambering upon the bemused figure of the man who kissed their mother and knew the way to the glen.

  “Now we’re going to help Meredith pick the flowers. I’ll show you how.”

  They understood, they disengaged legs and stomach from my knee and thigh, they stepped aside and waited (plump, somber, square-faced, bright of eye), and without hesitation they followed my example as I descended to all fours and moved through the speckled sunlight and between the dusty trunks of the fig trees appraising, selecting, admiring, but picking (endlessly picking) the flowers that most caught my attention or most appealed to little Eveline or little Eveline’s twin.

  “You like this one. Take it to Meredith.”

  “Don’t bother. We’ve got plenty of those.”

  “Never mind, Meredith. Eveline likes this kind.”

  “God …”

  Like my small white purely artificial sheep with its stifled cry and faint accusing expression on the small face that was neither human nor animal but something of each, they drifted about in the fig tree bower together, all three of them, clumsy industrious children engrossed in gathering armfuls of goatsbeard, ghostly asphodel, and the heavy lidded Anemone coronaria. I led the way. My industry, though of a different sort, matched theirs. Eveline, I noted, remained at my side while her twin preferred more independence and was given to nibbling certain prime specimens of the Cistus salviaefolius.

  “She’s eating them. Make her stop.”

  “Dolores is enjoying herself, Meredith. Let’s leave her alone.”

  “She’s ruining everything. You want her to.”

  “Not at all, Meredith. Not at all. But look, it’s easy to make the crowns. You simply take a few flowers from each pile and a few green leaves and bind them together with these slender stems until you get a chain long enough to fit around your head. Then you fasten the ends, of course, into a beautiful circlet of all kinds of flowers. These little milky stems are like string. Think you can do it?”

  “God, what a question.”

  “You and I will have to help your sisters. But I’m sure that you can make a beautiful crown without any help from Cyril.”

  “Why don’t you just stop talking?”

  “I don’t suppose your mother ever told you that Theophrastus was the father of botany. Well, Meredith, he was.”

  She scowled. I cajoled the two smaller girls until they were finally seated in a row with Meredith facing what I thought of immediately as the feast of the flowers. Bent heads, sounds of dismay, hands tangling, tears of innocence stuck between chubby fingers or falling onto their little immobile legs. Their silence made mine the more melodious as I watched all of them struggling with tissued gems, their peaceful though unsuccessful employment heightened the serenity of my own involvement in what was, for me, an easy and, as it were, poetic task. I worked swiftly and my progress kept pace with their frustrations. Meredith was not as clever or dexterous as I had at first assumed, her sisters could do no more than mangle my prized flowers in helpless palms. Yes, I thought, their ineptitude was certainly my skill, their strain my relaxation, their dubious fun my pleasure.

  “Having trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Some of those stems are a little short for weaving. But that looks pretty nice, Meredith. Good choice of colors.”

  “It’s falling apart.”

  The occasion was mine, and I was determined that each child should have her luxurious and perfectly executed crown. It was up to me, and so I wove all three of them, though not before I created a great thick yellow wreath of Laurus nobilis and Genista cinerea that was heavy, majestic, sweetly scented and much too large for the head of a child.

  “L
ike it?”

  “God, you’re selfish.”

  “I simply knew it would take longer, Meredith, so I made it first. Now we’ll fix up yours and your little sisters’.”

  “I thought we were making them just for us.”

  “Who’s being selfish now?”

  “You don’t need one. Why do you have to have one too? They’re only for children.”

  “If you want me to make you a flower crown as nice as mine, how about a little politeness? Shall we finish the game or stop right here?”

  “It has to be as good as yours. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Yes, all three children wanted wreaths like mine, and so I wove them—tossing aside my splendid yellow concoction, adjusting the spectacles, smiling into those three little expectant faces. Meredith put an arm around Eveline’s shoulder, through their eyes I saw the familiar and freshly turned-out man become the flower god at play. Why not? Sentimentality was hardly a problem, my estimation of the circumference of each of those three small heads was more accurate, say, than Hugh’s. And if despite this good judgment of mine I erred somewhat in the size of Meredith’s little queenly crown so that it sat low on her slender brow and obscured her eyes? And if the other two were hastily made and were identically composed of nothing more than leftovers from the bed of Odontospermum maritimum? Could such trivialities detract from the eagerness of those cross-legged children or from my own composure? Not at all. The satisfaction of adjusting each delicate crown on each little bowed waiting head was mine. The satisfaction of seeing their self-consciousness was mine. The transference was actual, the flowers of the glen leapt from their hair, drooped over their ears, with a few good natural strokes I paid my debt to Iris and to all the other imaginary nudes of a more distant time.

  “On your feet,” I murmured, “they’re coming.”

  The three girls in a silent row, I leaning back against the bare trunk of the tallest fig tree—thus they found us, Fiona and Hugh and Catherine, when I called out, directing them to the passage through the pines. They veered our way, laughing, Hugh pursuing his dark unrhythmical shadow, our two wives carrying between them the wicker-bound demijohn of white wine, and found the passage and entered our fig tree bower.