Part 33 (1/2)

”That's a long story. I suppose the simple answer is that I've never really felt I belonged anywhere. Except out there.” He glanced seaward. ”And even there...”

For the first time since they'd begun this conversation, she sensed his attention wandering, as though this talk of things far off was making him yearn for them. Perhaps not for the specific of Samarkand; simply for something remote from the here and now. She touched his arm.

”Come back to me,” she said.

”Sorry,” he replied. ”I'm here.”

They'd reached the end of the jetty. The boat was before them, rocking gently in the arms of the tide.

”Are we going aboard then?” she asked him.

”We surely are.”

He stepped aside, and she climbed the narrow plank laid between the jetty and the deck. He followed her, ”Welcome,” he said with no little pride. ”To my Samarkand.”

The tour of the boat didn't take long; it was in most regards an unremarkable vessel. There were a few details of its crafting he pointed out to her as having been difficult to fas.h.i.+on or pretty in the result, but it wasn't until they got below deck that she really saw his handiwork. The walls of the narrow cabin were inlaid with wood; the colors, the grain and even the knotholes in the timber so chosen and arranged that they almost suggested images.

”Is it my imagination,” Rachel said, ”or am I seeing things in the walls?”

”Anything in particular?”

”Well... over there I can see a kind of landscape, with some ruins, and maybe some trees. And there's something that could be a tree, but might be a person...”

”I think it's a person.”

”So you put it there?”

”No. I did all of this work thinking I was just making patterns. It wasn't until I was a week into my next voyage I started to see things.””It's like looking at inkblots-” Rachel said.

”-or clouds-”

”-or clouds. The more you look the more you see.”

”It's useful on long voyages,” Galilee said, ”when I'm sick of looking at the waves and the fish I come down here, smoke a little, get a buzz going, and look at the walls. There's always something I hadn't seen.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her round. ”See that?” he said, pointing to the door at the far end of the cabin, which was constructed in the same way as the walls.

”The design on the door?”

”Yes.”

”Does it remind you of anything?”

She walked toward it. Galilee followed, his hands still laid on her shoulders. ”I'll give you a clue,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. ”The gra.s.s looks very comfortable...”

”The gra.s.s?”

She stopped a yard or so from the door, and looked at the patterns in the wood. There were arrangements of dark shapes towards the top of the door; and a sliver of pale wood running horizontally, broken in places, and some more forms she could make no sense of arbitrarily laid here and there. But where was the gra.s.s? And why was it so comfortable?

”I'm not getting it,” she said.

”Just look for the virgin,” Galilee said.

”The virgin?” she said. ”What virgin?” He drew breath to give her another clue, but before he could speak she said: ”You mean Jerusha?”

He put his smiling lips against the nape of her neck and kept his silence.

She kept looking, and piece by piece the picture began to emerge. The gra.s.s-that comfortable bed on which Jerusha had lain down-was there in the middle of the door, a patch of lightly speckled wood. Above it were those dark, ma.s.sy shapes she'd first puzzled over: the heavy summer foliage of ancient trees. And that bright'horizontal sliver running across the door? It was the river, glimpsed from a distance.

Now it was she who smiled, as the mystery came clear in front of her. She had only one question: ”Where are the people?””You have to put those in for yourself,” he said. ”Unless...” He stepped past her and put his finger on a narrow, almost spindly shape in the grain of one of the pieces of wood. ”Could this be the riverman?”

”No. He was better looking than that.”

Galilee laughed. ”So maybe it isn't Jerusha's forest after all,” he said. ”I'll have to invent a new story.”

”You like telling stories?”

”I like what it does to people,” he said, smiling a little guiltily. ”It makes them feel safe.”

”Going to your country? Where the rich were kind and the poor had G.o.d-”

”I suppose that is my country- I hadn't thought about it that way before.” The notion seemed to trouble him somewhat. He grew pensive for a moment; just a moment. Then he looked up from his thoughts and said: ”Are you hungry?”

”Yes, I am a little.”

”Good. Then I'll cook,” he said. ”It'll take a couple of hours. Can you wait that long?”

”A couple of hours?” she said, ”What are you going to cook?”

”Oh it's not the cooking that takes the time,” he said. ”It's the catching.”

ii There was no trace of the day remaining when The Samarkand left the jetty; nor was there a moon. Only the stars, in brilliant array. Rachel sat on deck while the boat glided away from the island. The heavens got brighter the further they sailed, or such was her impression. She'd never seen so many stars, nor seen the Milky Way so clearly; a wide, irregular band of studded sky.

”What are you thinking about?” Galilee asked her.

”I used to work in a jewelry store in Boston,” she said. ”And we had this necklace that was called the Milky Way. It was supposed to look like that.” She pointed to the sky. ”I think it was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You never saw so many diamonds.”

”Did you want to steal it?” Galilee said.

”I'm not a thief.”

”But did you?”She grinned sheepishly. ”I did try it on when n.o.body was looking. And it was very pretty. But the real thing's prettier.”

”I would have stolen it for you,” Galilee said. ”No problem. All you needed to say was-I want that-and it would have been yours.”

”Suppose you'd got caught?”

”I never get caught.”

”So what have you stolen?”

”Oh my Lord...” he said. ”Where do I start?”