Galilee. Part 65

Reconstruction was underway. There were roads to lay, cities to rebuild, bellies to feed. And the men who were at the heart of all that-with the wit and the skill to make themselves indispensable- those men were going to be richer than any men in the history of America."

"Was he right about all this?"

"More or less. There were a few oil tyc.o.o.ns and railroad magnates who were already so rich n.o.body was going to catch up with them. But he'd given the whole business some careful thinking, and he was not a stupid man; not by any means. He knew that as a team-with hispragmatism and my vision, his understanding of what people wanted and my capacity to get the opposition out of the way-we could become very powerful in a very short time. And he was impatient. He'd lived in the gutter for long enough. He wanted a better life. And he didn't care how he got it, as long as he got it." He paused, and stared out to sea. "I could still get myself my boat, he said to me, I could still sail away. That was fine and dandy. He'd even help me find a boat; only the best. But he needed me to help him in return. He wanted to have a wife and kids, and he wanted them to live the good life. It seemed like such a small thing when I was agreeing to it. Anyway, how could I refuse, after he'd done all he'd done for me?

"We made a kind of pact, right there on the sh.o.r.e. I swore I would never cheat him, or any of his family. I swore on my life that I'd be his friend, and his family's friend, for as long as I lived."

Rachel had a sickening sense of where this was going.

"I think you begin to understand," Galilee said.

"He didn't keep the same name..."

"No, he didn't. A couple of days later he came back to the sh.o.r.e in a fine old mood. He'd found a body in a ditch-or what was left of it. A Yankee, who'd died many, many miles from home. In his satchel were all his papers: everything Nickelberry needed to become another man, which in those days was not very much. After that day, he was never 'Nub' Nickelberry again. He became a man called Geary."

This was not remotely what Rachel had expected, but as she contemplated the information she saw how the pieces fitted. The roots of the family into which she'd married were deep in blood and filth; was it any wonder the dynasty that sprung from this beginning was in every way shameful and hollow?

"I didn't know what I'd agreed to," Galilee went on. "I didn't realize until a lot later the scale of Nub's ambition, or what he was prepared to have us do to make it a reality."

"If you had known...?"

"Would I have agreed? Yes, I would have agreed. I wouldn't have liked it, but I would have agreed."

"Why?"

"Because how was I ever going to be free of him otherwise?"

"You could have just walked away."

"I owed him too much. If I'd cheated him, history would have just repeated itself. I would have been pulled into something else-some other piece of human folly-and had to endure that instead. I would have had to pay the price eventually. The only way to be free-at least this was the way Ithought of it-was to work with Nub, and help make his dreams come true. Then I'd have earned a dream of my own. I could have my boat, and... off I'd go." Galilee sighed deeply. "It was messy, working for him; very messy. But he was right when he talked about the opportunities. They were everywhere. Of course, to get ahead of the crowd you needed something extra. He had me. I was the one he sent in if he had trouble with somebody, to make sure he never had trouble again.

And I was good at it. Once I was in the rhythm I realized I had quite a skill for terrorizing people."

"You get it from Cesaria."

"No doubt. And believe me I was in the right mood to do violence. I was an exile now; I felt free to do whatever crossed my mind, however inhumane. I hated the world, and I hated the people in it. So it made me happy to be the spoiler, to be the bloodletter."

"And Nub-"

"Geary, now. Mr. Geary."

"Geary. He never got his hands dirty? You did all the intimidation, he did all the business?"

"No, he'd get involved when he felt like it. He was a cook. He liked knives and carca.s.ses.

Sometimes he'd astonish me. I'd see him do something, so cold, so indifferent to the suffering he was causing, and I'd be... I'd be in awe of him."

"In awe?"

"Yes. Because I'd always felt things too much. I'd agonized over things I did. My head had always been filled with voices telling me not to do this, not to do that; or to look out for the consequences. That was why I liked to get drunk, and high; it hushed those voices. But when I was with Geary: no voices at all. Nothing. Silence. It was nice.

"And as the months went by, and I got completely well, and strong again, I began to get a reputation as somebody to be afraid of, and that was nice too. The more of that reputation I got the more I made sure I deserved it. When I needed to make an example of somebody, I was vicious.

There was this part of me that was cruel, venomous, and when people saw that in my eyes or heard it in my voice... it made them compliant. Often-especially later-^1 didn't need to lay a finger on them. They'd just see me coming, and they'd be asking what they could do for us, how they could help us."

"And the men who didn't?"

"Died. At my hands. Usually quickly. Sometimes not. Sometimes, if Geary thought an example had to be made of a guy, I'd do something so bad-" He stopped. She couldn't see his face. But she heard the soft sobs that escaped him; and could see his silhouette shake as he was wracked. Hetook a moment to recover himself and then continued, his voice muted.

"We started to expand our territories, state by state. We went north into Virginia, we went into Tennessee and Missouri, we worked our way through as far as Oklahoma, then down into Texas.

Wherever we went, Geary bought up land, most of the time with money he didn't have, but by now he had a name and a reputation; he was this new guy out of Charleston who had a vision and a fast tongue and a way of getting what he wanted, and anyone who said no to him regretted it, so fewer and fewer people did. Fewer and fewer wanted to. They wanted to be in business with him: he was the face of the future, and he always acted as though he had so much money that you'd get rich just by shaking hands with him." His voice was gathering strength again. "The thing was, a lot of people did get rich off him. He was a natural; he had a nose for wealth. I think he even surprised himself.

"In a little over three years he was a millionaire, and he decided it was time to start a family. He married a rich woman out of Georgia, who'd taken all her money up north before the war. Her name was Bedelia Townsend, and she seemed to be the perfect match for him. She was beautiful, she was ambitious, and she Wanted the world right there, in the palm of her hand. There was only one problem. He didn't take care of her in the bedroom as she would have liked. So I kept her company."

"Did she have children by you?"

"No. They were all his. I was very careful about that. Pleasuring her was one thing, giving her a Barbarossa was another."

"Weren't you tempted?"

"To make a half-breed with her? Oh yes, I was tempted. But I was afraid that would spoil what was between us. I loved being with her. Nothing made me happier."

"And what did Geary think about all this?"

"He didn't care. He was out empire-building. As long as Bedelia produced children, and I was there to play the bully-boy if somebody crossed him, he didn't concern himself with what we did together. It was a busy time for a cook who wanted to be a king. And to be fair to him, he worked, night and day. The seeds of everything the Geary family became were sown in that decade after the end of the war."

"So there must have come a time when you'd paid your debt to him."

"Oh there did. But if I'd walked away from him, where would I have gone? I couldn't go back to L'Enfant. I had no other life besides the Gearys."

"You could have gone away to sea."

"That's what happened, eventually." He paused, thinking on this moment. "But I didn't go alone.""You took Bedelia?" Rachel said softly.

"Yes. I took Bedelia. She was the first woman to step on The Samarkand, and you were the second. We sailed off, without telling Geary we were going. She left a letter, I think, explaining her feelings; telling him she wanted more than he'd given her."

"How could she do that? How could she leave her children?"

He leaned a little closer to her. "You wouldn't have done that for me?" he said.

"Yes," she murmured, "of course I would."

"That's your answer then."

"Did she ever see them again?"

"Oh yes. Later. But she also had another child..."

"You had your half-breed?"

"Yes."

"Niolopua...?"

"Yes. My Niolopua. I made sure he understood from the beginning that he had Barbarossian blood. That way he could escape at least some of the claims of time. My father had told me that some of his b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-the ones who lived in ignorance of who they were-lived ordinary, human lives. Seventy years and they were gone. It was only the children who knew their real nature who could outlive their Biblical span."

"I don't understand," Rachel said. "If you've got Barbarossian blood what does it matter whether you know it or not?"

"It's not a matter of blood. It's a matter of knowing who you are. It's knowledge, not chemistry that makes us Barbarossas."

"And if you'd never told him?"

"He'd be a long time dead by now."

"So you and Bedelia go out to sea on The Samarkand, and eventually you find your way here?"

"Yes. We came here by chance; the winds brought us here and it seemed like paradise. There was n.o.body at this end of the island back then. It was like the beginning of the world. We weren't the first visitors, of course. There was a mission in Poi'pu. That's where she had Niolopua. And while she was recovering, I finished work on the house." He looked past her, along the beach. "It hasn'tchanged much," he said. "The air still smells as sweet as when I was here with her."

She thought of Niolopua as he spoke: of the many times she'd seen unreadable expressions cross his face, and wondered what mysteries lay buried in him. Now she knew.

He'd been the dutiful son, watching over the house built for his mother all those long years ago, watching the horizon and waiting for a sail, the sail of his father's boat, to come into view. She wanted to weep, for the loss of him. Not that she'd known him well; but he had been a connection to the past, and to the woman whose love had made so much of what had happened to Rachel possible. Without Bedelia, there would have been no house here in Eden.

"Have you heard enough?" Galilee said to her.

In a sense, she'd heard more than enough. It would take her days to comb through what he'd told her, and put the pieces together with what she already knew: the tales she'd read in Charles Holt's journal, the oblique exchanges she'd had with Niolopua and with Loretta; that last, bitter confrontation between Cesaria and Cadmus. All of it was illuminated by what she now knew; and yet paradoxically was all the darker for that. The pain and the grief, the allegiances and the betrayals, they were so much deeper than she'd imagined. All of which would have been extraordinary enough had it simply been some story she'd heard. But it was so much more than that. It was the life of the man she loved. And she was a part of it; she was living it, even now.

"Can I ask you one last question?" she said. "Then we'll leave it for another time."

He reached out and caught hold of her hand. "So, then, it's not over?"

"What do you mean?"

"Between us."

"Oh G.o.d, my sweet..." she said, reaching up to touch his face. He was burning hot; as though in the grip of a fever. "Of course it's not over. I love you. I said I wasn't afraid of what you had to tell me, and I meant it. Nothing would make me let go of you now." He was trying to smile, but his eyes were full of tears.

She stroked his brow. "What you've told me helps me make sense of everything," she said. "And that's all I've wanted, since the beginning. I've wanted to understand."

"You're extraordinary. Did I ever tell you that? You're an amazing woman. I only wish I'd found you earlier."

"I wouldn't have been ready for you," Rachel said. "I would have run away. It would all have been too much..."

"You had another question," Galilee said."Yes. What happened to Bedelia? Did she stay here on the island?"

"No, she missed the social life of the big city, so she went back after three and a half years.

Picked up where she'd left off."

"And Niolopua?"

"He went with me for a few years. Out to see the world. But he didn't like the sea very much. So I brought him back when he was twelve, and left him here, where he wanted to be."

One question answered, and another demanded to be asked. "Did you ever see Bedelia again?"

"Not until the very end of her life. Some instinct-I don't know what it was-made me sail back to New York, and when I got to the mansion she was on her deathbed. I knew when I saw her she'd been holding on, waiting for me to come back. She was dying of pneumonia; and Lord, to see her there... so weak. It broke my heart. But she told me she wasn't ready to die until she'd seen Geary and me make peace. G.o.d knows why that was so important to her, but it was. She ordered him to come up to the bedroom-"

"The big room overlooking the street?" Rachel said.

"Yes."

"That's where Cadmus died."

"A lot of Gearys have been born and died in that room."

"What did she say to you?"

"First she made us shake hands. Then she told us she had one last wish. She wanted me always to be there for the Geary women, to comfort them the way she'd been comforted. To love them the way she'd been loved. And that would be the only service I'd do for the Gearys after her death.

No more murder. No more torture. Just this promise of comfort and love."

"What did you say to that?"

"What could I say? I had loved this woman with all my heart. I couldn't deny her this; it was the last thing she was ever going to ask for. So Geary and I agreed. We made a solemn oath, right there at the bottom of her bed. He agreed to protect the house in Kaua'i from any of the male members of his family: to dedicate it to the Geary women. And I agreed to go there when the women wanted me, to keep them company. Bedelia didn't die for another two days. She clung on, while we waited and watched-Geary on one side of her, me on the other. But she never said another word after that; I swear she made us wait so that we'd think about what we'd promised.

When she died we grieved together, and it was almost like the old times; like it had been at the beginning, before everything went wrong between us. I didn't go to see her buried. I wouldn't have been welcome in the elevated company which Nub now kept-the Astors, the Rothschilds,the Carnegies. And he didn't want me standing beside his wife's grave, with everyone asking questions. So I sailed away. The day Bedelia was put in the ground I caught the morning tide. I never saw Nub again. But we wrote to one another, making formal arrangements for what we'd agreed to do. It was strange, how it all ended up. I'd been the King of Charleston when he met me; he'd been a wanderer. Our roles were reversed."

"Did you care? That you had nothing, I mean."

Galilee shook his head. "I didn't want anything that he had. Except Bedelia. I would have liked to have taken her with me. Buried her here, on the island. She didn't belong in some fancy mausoleum. She belonged where she could hear the sea..."

Rachel thought of the church that she'd visited when she'd first come to the island, and of the small ring of graves around it.

"But her spirit's here, sometimes."

"So she was one of the women in the house?"

Galilee nodded. "Yes she was. Though I don't know if I dreamt them or not."

"I saw them clearly."

"That doesn't mean I didn't dream them," Galilee said.

"So she wasn't her ghost?"

"Ghost. Memory. Echo. I don't know. It was some part of who she was. But the better part of her soul has gone, hasn't it? She's out in the stars somewhere. All you saw was something I kept, for company. A dream of a memory of Bedelia. And Kitty. And Margie." He sighed. "I was their comfort when they were alive. And now they're dead, a little piece of them is mine. You see how things always come around?" He put his hands to his face. "I'm all talked out," he said. "And we should make our plans to leave. Somebody's going to come looking for your husband sooner or later."

"One last thing," Rachel said.