Via Dolorosa(53)

“Yes,” Nick heard himself say.

“Good evening, Mr. Granger,” Emma said as she approached the podium. She walked like someone very unconscious of her appraisers. Women are most beautiful when they are in ignorance of their own beauty, Nick understood.

“My lady,” Granger said, executed a slight but formal bow. “You look spectacular, dear.”

“Isn’t that sweet? How is little Fitcher?”

“Fitcher?” Granger said.

“The parrot…”

“Oh, yes!” Granger laughed. “So he has a name now, does he?”

“He had a name when I gave him to you,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to know it, for fear you two might become best friends.”

“You’ll be taking him when you leave, then, I suppose?” Granger asked, and Nick could not tell if the man was hopeful or anxious.

“Oh, yes,” Emma said.

“Then maybe I should never let you leave.” And Granger looked at Nick. Added, “The both of you.”

“It’s a wonderful island,” Nick heard himself utter. To his own ears he sounded like a complete fool.

“Nick and I are going to a festival on the water.”

“Well! You should both have a wonderful time. I hope there is plenty of dancing. You look like you are ready for dancing.”

“I would love to dance,” she told Granger.

“Promise me, Nicholas, that you will dance at least one dance with this beautiful young woman.”

“I promise,” he said.

Emma turned to him. “Do you?”

“I promise,” he repeated.

Granger clapped his little red hands together. “Then we are set,” he said.

Nick nodded at the bell captain and, placing a hand against the small of Emma’s back, ushered his wife out into the turnabout driveway.

“He is a sweet man,” she nearly whispered. “I can tell he likes you very much.”

Nick did not say anything.

As they passed by the dais, the Palauan raised a single black hand. “Friends,” he said.

“Have a good evening,” Nick said back.

“Friends,” the Palauan went on. “Buy a conch for the lady?”

“They’re pretty,” Emma said.

“A conch for the lady…”

“No, thank you,” said Nick, hurrying Emma along the white flagstones.

“Perhaps something for you, sir?” the Palauan continued. “Perhaps some hope? Perhaps some luck, good luck? Or perhaps some prayers for the dead?” Nick did not turn to look. “Prayers for the dead, sir! Prayers for the dead!”

They kept walking.





—Chapter XVII—





They shuttled the Impala south toward Harbour Town. It was early enough to see the striped twist of the lighthouse on the water, the sky streaked bright and pastel, unbidden and illuminative. Even at dusk, the sea was an icy green, formidably glowing and crested with whitecaps. They ran along the shoulder of Calibogue Sound. Ensconced by a wave of curling wet palmettos, the roadway extended before them, frame after frame after frame, until it finally broke open, yawningly, then clung tight and fast to the edge of the water. They could see boats, sturdy and proud, grazing at the shore like cattle. Fishermen were in small johnboats hoisting crab-pots from the channel. More fishermen, darkly silhouetted, were coming through the pines, nets over shoulders, buckets in hand. It would be a strong, dark night: the sun was setting deep and far behind the clouds, already sinking down behind the other side of the island. Cold, resigned, Nick pushed the car down a swivel of narrow streets, steering them away from the water. The sound glistened with the setting sun; they watched it peel away and recede in the Impala’s rearview mirror. Land flat, the wide face of the beaches appeared over the salt flats and dunes, through the black swaying stalks of ocean reeds. A slanting wall of clapboard storefronts soldiered up on either side of the Impala. There were some people in the streets here, mostly collected beneath the awnings of the cafés and bistros, fly-like, congregating, moving together in swarms. They all seemed to be drinking. Emma took down her window. The air was breezy and cool, smelling strongly of the beach. It smelled strongly, too, of oysters wrapped in Smithfield ham and of the spicy smoked link sausage and shrimp used in the local bistros’ indigenous Frogmore stew. Driving, the wind blew Emma’s hair back from her face and Nick could make out the faint hint of a smile on her lips.

They parked beneath a forest of sodium lamps. Nick did not move at first, listening to the car’s engine tick down as it cooled. Through the Impala’s windshield, the narrow strip of sand that ran alongside the roadway was turning from pink to pale-bone blue as the moon crept across the sky. Ahead, a few men in tennis whites came through the pines.

“Will you teach me to drive?” Emma said.

He turned and watched the sun setting on her face. “You know how to drive,” he said.

“I’ve never driven before. Maybe you can teach me.”

“Emma—”

“I’ve never driven before,” she said. Determined. “Maybe you can teach me.”

“Oh. All right.” They were starting fresh. He’d forgotten. “All right. Later,” he said. “Tonight. After dinner.”