Via Dolorosa(32)

“You’ve been quiet about it,” she said.

“About what?”

“The painting. The painting of the painting.”

“It’s just become a little hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

He pressed his lips together, said, “It’s nothing you did.”

Emma slid her eyes away, not knowing where to let them settle. Finally, she brought them down to her plate. “The dessert is very good,” Emma said, tapping her fork against the plate.

“Sure.”

She said, “Did you hear about those Chinese divers that drowned over in England?”

“No,” he said.

“There were about seventeen of them, I think. They were diving for cockles, working for a pound a day. Not a pound of cockles, I mean,” she clarified, “but, like, a British pound. You know—money.”

She was trying very hard, Nick could tell.

“I understand,” he said.

“Is that cheap?”

“What? A pound? It’s not a lot of money, no.”

“How much is it in dollars?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Maybe like two.”

“Two dollars?”

“I think so.”

“That’s it? That’s not very much at all.”

“It’s not,” he agreed.

“But you’ve never been to England.”

“That’s right.”

“So then how do you know about the pounds and the dollars?”

“I must have read about it somewhere, I guess.”

“I don’t even know what cockles are,” Emma said.

“Shellfish,” he told her.

“Really? Is that all? I thought it was…I don’t know…something better. To die for, I mean. To risk your life like that, to die for it like that, I would think that it would be for something worthwhile.”

“Just shellfish.”

He could tell she did not want to continue talking about the seventeen dead Chinese divers, and he did not want to hear anything more about them, either, but there seemed some ounce of safety in continuing to talk about them.

Emma said, “Well, they were out collecting cockles, and then it got too late in the day and the tide came in and they all drowned. I think they were on a sandbar off the coast. I think they had walked to the sandbar earlier in the day, when the water between the sandbar and the coast was shallow enough for them to walk it. But when the tide came in—and maybe they had lost track of time—but when the tide came in, the sandbar was submerged and they could not walk back and it was too far to swim, and so they all drowned.” Her eyes were suddenly heavy on him. “You didn’t hear about that, Nick? Those Chinese divers?”

Again, he told her no.

“It’s been on the news all morning, and it was even in the newspapers. I put the newspaper on the nightstand for you this morning. Did you see it?”

“Yes. But I didn’t read it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Cockles. Cockle-shells.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Imagine,” she said, “dying over shellfish.”

“Yes.”

“The damn waiter,” she said abruptly, looking around the patio. They were still the only two souls in existence. “Do you want more demitasse?”

“Do you?”

“I think so. I’ll get some.”

She stood and Nick watched her walk across the patio. He saw her reflection move swiftly across the surface of the pools before she vanished inside the hotel. The way she walked summoned the image of her from when they had first started seeing each other—back before his deployment when they had been in the early stages of falling in love. He had taught her to drive the Impala through a wooded Pennsylvania back-road. He had anticipated hesitance and fearfulness on her part, but she had taken to the vehicle quickly and adeptly, surprising them both. She took them down the wooded back-road and into an open dirt field. She’d asked if it mattered that the dirt got on the chrome and the dust got into the car, and that had made him laugh. No, he had told her, it didn’t matter. And he’d meant it. Then, at that moment, at that time, she was the only thing that mattered. Her hair had been longer then, and with the windows down it streamed about her face. Dust had made her skin bronze. He remembered watching her while she drove, and knowing so soon that he loved her, and how goddamn lucky was he that he loved her? And how goddamn lucky was he that she might some day love him back? Already in his mid-twenties, he had been in love twice before, or so he had duped himself into believing at the time. Fleeting, universal things. But in the face of this new love, this power, stupid in the face of its complexity and weakened by the tidal wave of it, he had become uncertain as to what it all had been in the past. Suddenly and from nowhere he did not understand anything that came before her. Ever. What was true? What was wrong? Could anyone be certain about anything? Abrupt as a kick to the shin, this young woman had, from nothing, made him suddenly and unceremoniously doubt his own certainty concerning all he had been previously so sure about. What was certainty? Nothing—it was nothing. And maybe that was the way it was intended to be. He didn’t know. He was a fool, really—a child. What did he know? Life was a country with many hills.