Galilee. Part 34

"There was a shark G.o.d at Puhi, called Kaholia-Kane-"

"I don't want to hear it!" she yelled.

"But I heard you praying-"

"No-"

"Please G.o.d, you were saying."

"I wasn't praying to the f.u.c.king shark!" she yelled, her fury and fear getting the better of her.

"Well you should. They listen. At least this one did. The women used to call to him, whenever somebody was lost at sea-"

"Galilee?"

"Yes?"

"It's not funny anymore. I want you back on board."

"I'm coming," he said. "Let me just-" She saw his arm shoot out of the water and catch one of the leaping fish. "Gotcha! Okay. I'm on my way." He began to plow through the water toward the boat. She scanned the surface in every direction, superst.i.tiously fearful that the fin would appear just as Galilee came in striking distance of the boat. But he made it to the side without incident.

"Here," he said, pa.s.sing the fish up to her. It was large, and still very much intending to return to its native element, thras.h.i.+ng so violently that she had to use both hands to keep hold of it.

By the time she'd set the fish down where it couldn't dance its way back over the side Galilee had hoisted himself up out of the water and was standing, dripping wet, just a step or two behind her.

"I'm sorry," he said, before she could start to tell him how angry she was. "I didn't realize I was upsetting you. I thought you knew it was all a joke."

"You mean there aren't any sharks?"

"Oh no. There are sharks out there. And the islanders do say Uliuli kai holo ka mano. But I don'tthink they're talking about real sharks when they say that."

"What are they talking about?"

"Men."

"Oh I see," Rachel said. "When it gets dark, the men come out-"

"-looking for something to eat." He nodded.

"But you could still have got attacked," she said, "if there are real sharks out there."

"They wouldn't have touched me."

"And why's that? Too tough?"

He reached out and took hold of her hand, escorting it back toward him, and laying her palm against the middle of his ma.s.sive chest. His heart was thumping furiously. He felt as though there was just a single layer of skin between hand and heart; as though if she wanted to she could have reached into his chest and taken hold of it. And now it was she who could smell him. His skin like smoke and burnt coffee; his breath salty.

"There's a lot of tales about sharks, men and G.o.ds," he said.

"More of your true stories?"

"Absolutely true," he replied. "I swear."

"Such as?"

"Well, they come in four varieties. Legends about men who are really shape-changing sharks; that's the first. These creatures walk the beaches at night, taking souls; sometimes taking children."

Rachel made a face. "Doesn't sound like a lot of fun."

"Then there are stories about men who decided to go into the sea and become sharks."

"Why would they do that?"

"For the same reason I got myself a boat and sailed away: they were fed up with pretending. They wanted to be in the water, always moving. Sharks die if they don't keep moving, did you know that?"

"No...""Well they do."

"So that's number two."

"Then there's the one you already know. Kaholia-Kane and his brothers and sisters."

"Shark G.o.ds."

"Protectors of sailors and s.h.i.+ps. There's one in Pearl Harbor, watching over the dead. Her name's Ka'ahupahau. And the greatest of them is called Kuhaimuana. He's thirty fathoms long..."

Rachel shook her head. "Sorry. I don't like any of these stories," she said.

"That leaves us with just one category."

"Men who are G.o.ds?" Rachel said. Galilee nodded. "No, I'm not buying that either," she told him.

"Don't be so quick to judge," Galilee said. "Maybe you just haven't met the right man."

She laughed. "And maybe it's all just stories," she replied. "Look, I'm quite happy to talk about sharks and religion tomorrow. But tonight let's just be ordinary people."

"You make it sound easy," he said.

"It is," she told him. She moved closer to him, her hand still pressed against his chest. His heart seemed to beat more powerfully still. "I don't understand what's going on between us," she said, their faces so dose she could feel the heat of his breath. "And to be honest I don't really care any more." She kissed him. He was staring at her, unblinking, and continued to stare as he returned her kiss.

"What do you want to do?" he said, very quietly.

She slid her other hand down over the hard shallow dome of his stomach, to his s.e.x. "Whatever you want," she said, unheeding him. He shuddered.

"There's so much I need to tell you," he said.

"Later."

"Things you have to know about me."

"Later."

"Don't say I didn't try," he said, staring at her with no little severity.

"I won't.""Then let's go downstairs and be ordinary for a while."

She led the way. But before he followed her he walked back across the deck to where the fish lay, and going down on his haunches, picked it up. She watched his body by the lamplight; the muscles of his back and b.u.t.tocks, the bunching of his thighs as he squatted down, the dark, laden sac hanging between his legs. He was glorious, she thought; perhaps the most glorious man she'd ever seen.

He stood up again-apparently unaware that she was watching him-and seemed to murmur a few words to the dead fish before tossing it overboard.

"What was that about?" she asked him.

"An offering," he explained. "To the shark G.o.d."

VII.

i My half brother Galilee was always impatient with other people; it doesn't surprise me that he became "tired of pretending", as he explained to Rachel. What does surprise me is that he didn't a.s.sume that sooner or later he'd find himself playing that same game with her, and tire of her too.

Then again, perhaps he did. Perhaps even at the beginning, now I look at what he said to her more closely, there were contradictions there. On the one hand he seemed to be infatuated with her-all that sentimental talk about staring at the sea when he should have been watching for her- on the other quite capable of condescension. Samarkand, he dryly explains, is a long way from Ohio, as though she were too parochial to have any knowledge of what lay beyond her immediate experience. It's a wonder she didn't kick him off the jetty.

But then I think that from the beginning she understood him-contradictions and all-better than I ever have. And of course she was susceptible to his charms in a way that I'll never be, and perhaps therefore more forgiving of his flaws. I'm doing my best to evoke a measure of his allure for you. I think I caught his voice, and the physical details are right. But it's difficult to go into the s.e.xual business. Describing an act of coitus involving your own sibling feels like a form of literary incest, though I'm certain that my reticence does him an injustice. I haven't, for instance, told you how finely he was made between the legs. But for the record, very finely indeed.

So on. For the sake of my blushes, on.

ii There is, as I promised, much more calamity within the Geary family to report, but before I start into that I want to tell you about a little drama here in the Barbarossa household.

It happened last night, just as I was midway through describing Rachel and Galilee's encounter onThe Samarkand. There was a great din at the other end of the house (and I really mean a cacophony: shouting and thundering enough to shake down a few of the smaller books off my shelves). I couldn't work, of course. I was far too curious. I ventured out into the hallway, and tried to make some sense of the noise. It wasn't difficult. Marietta was one portion of it: when she gets angry she becomes so shrill it makes your head ring, and she was shouting up a storm.

Accompanying her complaints-which I could make no real sense of-was the sound of slamming doors, as she apparently raged her way from room to room. But these weren't the only elements in the noise. There was something far more disturbing: a clamor that was like the din of some benighted jungle; a lunatic mingling of chatters and howls.

My mother, of course. I'm sorry, my father's wife. (It's strange, and probably significant, that I think of her as my mother whenever I picture her more peaceful aspects. The warrior Cesaria Yaos is my father's wife.) Anyway, it was she, no doubt. Who else had a voice that could express the rage of a baboon, a leopard and a hippopotamus in one rise and fell swoop?

But what was she so furious about? I wasn't entirely certain I wanted to find out. There was some merit in retreat I thought. But before I could about turn and creep back to my room I saw Marietta running down the hallway, with what appeared to be an armful of garments. You'll recall that the last time we two had spoken we'd parted furious with one another, she having commented less than favorably on my work. But I think even if we'd been bosom buddies she would not have halted at that moment. Cesaria's menagerie noises were escalating by the second.

As Marietta ducked out of sight, I did what I'd been planning to do ten seconds before, and turned around so as to head back to my room. Too late. I'd barely taken a step when the noises ceased all at once, every last howl, only to leave room for Cesaria's other voice; her human voice, which is- I'm sure I've told you-nothing short of mellifluous.

"Maddox," she said.

s.h.i.+t, I thought.

"Where are you going?"

(Isn't it strange, by the way, that we're never too old to feel like errant children? There I was, old by any human standards, frozen in my tracks and guilty as any infant caught with sticky fingers.) "I was going back to my work," I said. Then added, "Mama," as a sop.

It may have mellowed her. "Is it going well?" she asked me, quite conversationally. I was sufficiently rea.s.sured to turn round and look at her, but she wasn't visible to me. There was just a busy darkness at the far end of the hallway where moments before there'd been a well-lit lobby. I was frankly grateful. I've never actually witnessed the form my mother takes in these legendary furies of hers, but I'm quite sure it's sufficient to drop a saint in his tracks.

"It's going okay," I replied. "I have days when-"Cesaria broke in before I got any further. "Did Marietta go outside?" she said.

"I... yes... yes, I believe she did."

"Fetch her back."

"I'm sorry?"

"You're not deaf, Maddox. Go find your sister and bring her back inside."

"What happened?"

"Just fetch her."

(There's another second strangeness here, worth remarking on. Just as there's a guilty child lurking in everyone, there's also a rebellious self that p.r.i.c.kles at the idea of being ordered about, and is not easily silenced. It was this voice that answered Cesaria back, foolish though it was to do so.) "Why can't you go and fetch her yourself?" I heard myself saying.

I knew I was going to regret the words even as I spoke them. But it was already too late to recant: Cesaria's shadow self was in motion. She was moving-not quickly, but steadily, inevitably-down the hallway toward me. Though the ceiling is not especially high, there was something vast about her manifestation; she seemed like a thunderhead at that moment. And I diminished to a fraction of myself before her; I was a mote, a sliver- She began to speak as she approached, but every word she uttered seemed about to collapse back into that terrible cacophony of hers; as though she was only keeping anarchy at bay with the greatest effort.

"You," she said "remind me" I knew what was coming "of your father."

I don't believe I said anything by way of reply. I was frankly too intimidated. Besides, if I'd tried to speak I doubt my tongue would have worked. I simply stood there as she roiled before me, and the animal din erupted out of her with fresh ferocity.

This time, however, there was a vision to go with the din, not uncovered by the cloud but seemingly sculpted from it. I had a mercifully short glimpse of it, though I'm certain that had Cesaria not wanted me to be her errand boy she might have given me more. That wasn't to her present purpose, however, so she showed me just enough to make me lose control of my bladder; perhaps three or four seconds' worth, if that. What did I see? It's no use telling you there are no words. Of course there are words; there are always words. The question is: can I wield them well enough to evoke the power of what I witnessed? That I doubt. But let me do my best.

I saw, I think, a woman erupting at every pore and orifice; spewing unfinished forms. Givingbirth, I suppose you'd say, expelling not one, nor even ten, but a thousand creatures; ten thousand.

And yet here's the problem with that description. It doesn't take account of the fact that at the same time she was becoming-how do I express this?-denser; like certain stars I've read about, which as they collapse upon themselves draw light and matter into them. So was she. How did my mind deal with the fact that she was doing two contrary things? Not well. In fact the vision did such violence to my system I fell down as though she'd struck me, and covered my head with my hands as though she might get the sight into me again through the top of my skull.

She chose to spare me. Just left me lying on the ground in my wet pants, sobbing. It took me a little time to recover my composure, but when I finally raised my head and chanced a look in her direction, I found that the thunder-head was no longer looming over me. She'd covered that furious face of hers and was waiting some little distance from me.

"I'm sorry..." were the first words out of my mouth.

"No," she said, her voice suddenly drained of either music or strength. "It was my fault. You're not a child to be ordered around. It was just that in that moment I saw your father so clearly."

"May... I... ask you a question?"

"Ask anything," she said, sighing.

"That face I just saw..."

"What about it?"

"Did Nicodemus ever see it?"

Despite her fatigue she was amused by this. There was a hint of a smile in her voice when she replied. "Are you asking me if I scared him off?" I nodded. "Then I'll tell you: that face, as you call it, is what he chiefly loved me for."

"Really?" I must have sounded astonished-as indeed I was-because she replied somewhat defensively: "He had aspects that were just as terrible."

"Yes I know."

"Of course you know. You saw some of what he could do."

"But that wasn't all he was," I said.