Galilee. Part 21

"Are you really here?" I said to him. It would be a strange question, I realize, to ask most people; but Galilee inherited from his mother the ability to send his image where he wishes and having for a moment believed he was here in the flesh I now suspected this agitated form was not the man himself, but a message that he'd willed my way.

This time, I comprehended words in the midst of the flutterings. "No," he said. "I'm a long wayoff."

"Still at sea?"

"Still at sea."

"So to what do I owe the honor? Are you thinking of coming back home?"

The fluttering became laughter; laughter, but bitter.

"Home?" he said. "Why would I come home? I'm not .welcome there."

"I'd welcome you," I said. "So would Marietta." Galilee grunted. He was plainly unconvinced. "I wish I could see you better," I said to him.

"That's your fault, not mine," the shadow-in-shadow replied.

"What do you mean by that?" I replied, a little testily.

"Brother, I appear to you as clearly as you can bear me to be," Galilee replied. "No more, no less." I a.s.sumed he was telling the truth. There was no purpose in his lying to me. "But this is as close to home as I will be getting anytime soon."

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere off the coast of Madagascar. The sea's calm; not a breath of wind. And there are flying fish all around the boat. I put my frying pan over the side and they just jump on into it..."

His eyes shone in the murk, as though reflecting back at me some portion of the sunlit sea upon which he was gazing.

"Is it strange?" I asked him.

"Is what strange?"

"Being in two places at one time?"

"I do it all the time," he said. "I let my mind slip away and I go walking round the world."

"What if something were to happen to your boat while your thoughts were off walking?"

"I'd know," he said. "Me and my Samarkand, we understand one another. But there isn't any danger of that happening tonight. It's as calm as a baby's bath. You'd like it out here, Maddox.

Once you get out here you have a different perspective on things. You start to let your dreams take over, start to forget the hurts you were done, start not to care about life and death and the riddles of the universe...""You missed out love," I said.

"Ah, well, yes... love's another matter." He looked away from me, into the darkness. "It doesn't matter how far you sail, there's always going to be love isn't there? It comes after you, wherever you go."

"You don't sound very happy about that."

"Well, brother, the truth is it doesn't matter whether I'm happy or not. There's no escape for me and that's all there is to it." He reached out his hand. "Do you have a cigarette?"

"No, I don't."

"d.a.m.n. Talking about love always makes me want to smoke."

"I'm a little confused," I said. "Suppose I had been in possession of a cigarette..."

"Could I have taken it from you and smoked it? Is that the question?"

"Yes."

"No. I couldn't. But I could have watched you smoke it, and been almost as satisfied. You know how much I enjoy experiences by proxy." He laughed again. This time there was no bitterness, just amus.e.m.e.nt. "In fact, the older I get-and I feel old, brother, I feel very, very old-the more it seems to me all the best experiences are secondhand, third-hand even. I'd prefer to tell a story about love, or hear one, than be in love myself."

"And you prefer to watch a cigarette being smoked than actually to smoke it?"

"Well... not quite," he sighed. "But I'm almost there. So, to business, brother of mine. Why did you call me?"

"I didn't call you."

"I beg to differ."

"No, truly. I didn't call you. I wouldn't even know how to."

"Maddox," he said, with just a touch of condescension. "You're not listening to me-"

"I'm listening, d.a.m.n it-"

"Don't raise your voice."

"I'm not raising-""Yes you are. You're shouting at me."

"You accused me of not listening," I replied, attempting to keep my tone reasonable even though I wasn't feeling particularly reasonable. I never did in Galilee's presence; that was the simple truth of the matter. Even in the balmy days before the war, before Galilee ran off to seek his fortune in the world, before the calamities of his return, and the death of my wife, and the undoing of Nicodemus, even then-when we'd lived in a place that comes to look paradisiacal in hindsight-we had fought often, and bitterly, over the most insignificant things. All I would have to do was hear a certain tone in his voice-or he hear some unwelcome nuance in mine-and we'd be at one another's throats. The subject at hand was usually an irrelevance. We fought because we were at some profound level ant.i.thetical to one another. The pa.s.sage of years had not, it seemed, mellowed that antipathy. We had only to exchange a few sentences and the old defenses were up, the old anger escalating.

"Let's change the subject," I suggested.

"Fine. How's Luman?"

"As crazy as ever."

"And Marietta? Is she well?"

"Better than well."

"In love?"

"Not at the moment."

"Tell her I asked after her."

"Of course."

"I was always fond of Marietta. I see her face in dreams all the time."

"She'll be flattered."

"And yours," Galilee said. "I see yours too."

"And you curse me."

"No, brother, I don't. I dream we're all back together again, before all the foolishness."

This seemed a particularly inappropriate word for him to use-almost insulting in its lack of gravity. I couldn't help but comment.

"It may have seemed foolishness to you," I said, "but it was a lot more to the rest of us.""I didn't mean-"

"You went away to have your adventures, Galilee. And I'm sure that's given you a lot of joy."

"Less than you'd imagine."

"You had responsibilities," I pointed out. "You were the eldest. You should have been setting an example, instead of pleasuring yourself."

"Since when was that a crime?" Galilee countered. "It's in the blood, brother. We're a hedonistic family."

(There was no gainsaying this. Our father had been a sensualist of heroic proportions from his earliest childhood. I myself had found in a book of anthropology a story about his first s.e.xual exploits recounted by Kurdish hors.e.m.e.n. They claim proudly that all seventeen of their tribe's founding fathers were sired by my father while he was still too young to walk. Make what you will of that.) Galilee, meanwhile, had moved onto another matter.

"My mother..."

"What about her?"

"Is she well?"

"It's hard to tell," I said. "I see very little of her."

"Was it she who healed you?" Galilee said, looking down at my legs. Last time he'd seen me I had been an invalid, raging at him.

"I think she'd probably say it was both of us did the work together."

"That's unlike her."

"She's mellowed."

"Enough to forgive me?" I said nothing to this. "Do I take that to mean no?"

"Perhaps you should ask her yourself," I suggested. "If you like I could talk to her for you. Tell her we've spoken. Prepare her."

For the first time in this exchange I saw something more than Galilee's shadow-self. A luminescence seemed to move up through his flesh, casting a cool brightness out toward me, and delineating his form as it did so. I seemed to see the curve of his torso lit from within; up through his throbbing neck to the cave of his mouth."You'd help me?" he said.

"Of course."

"I thought you hated me. You had reason enough."

"I never hated you, Galilee. I swear."

The light was in his eyes now; and spilling down his cheeks.

"Lord, brother..." he said softly "... it's a long time since I cried."

"Does it mean so much to you to come home?"

"To have her forgive me," he said. "That's what I want, more than anything. Just to be forgiven."

"I can't intercede for you there," I said.

"I know."

"All I can do is tell her you'd like to see her, and then bring you her answer."

"That's more than I could have expected," Galilee said, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. "And don't think I don't know that I have to ask your forgiveness too. Your sweet lady Chiyojo-"

I raised my hand to ward off whatever he was going to say next. "I'd prefer we didn't..."

"I'm sorry."

"Anyway, it isn't a question of forgiveness," I replied. "Both of us made errors. Believe me, I made as many as you did."

"I doubt that," Galilee replied, the sourness that had first marked his speech returning. He hates himself, I thought. Lord, this man hates himself. "What are you thinking?" he said to me.

I was too confounded to admit the truth. "Oh..." I said. "Nothing important."

"You think I'm ridiculous."

"What?"

"You heard me. You think I'm ridiculous. You imagine I've been strutting around the world for the last G.o.d knows how many years f.u.c.king like a barnyard c.o.c.k. What else? Oh yes, you think I never grew up. That I'm heartless. Stupid probably." He stared at me with those sealit eyes. "Go on. I've said it for you now. You may as well admit it.""All right. Some of that's true. I thought you didn't care. That's what I was going to write: that you were heartless and-"

"Write?" he said, breaking in. "Where?"

"In a book."

"What book?"

"My book," I said, feeling a little s.h.i.+ver of pride.

"Is this a book about me?"

"It's about us all," I said. "You and me and Marietta, and Luman and Zabrina-"

"Mother and Father?"

"Of course."

"Do they all know you're writing about them?" I nodded. "And are you telling the truth?"