"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. God 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.
"Yes?"
"Is that how I'm going to be one day? Like the women in the house? I'll die, and you'll just dream me up when you're lonely?"
"No. It's going to be different for us."
"How?"
"I'm going to bring you into the Barbarossa family, Rachel. I'm going to make you one of us, so death won't take you from me. I don't know how I'm going to do that yet-I don't even know that I can-but that's my intention. And if I can't…" he reached for her, took her hands in his, "if I can't live with you, as a Barbarossa, then I'll die with you." He kissed her. "That's my promise. From now on, we're together, whether it's to the grave or the end of time."
I stayed up through the night writing Galilee's confession. It was in some ways the happiest of labors: I was finally able to unburden myself of portions of this story I've waited a long time to set down; and it was pleasing to interleave my voice with Galilee's in the telling. But it was also the first of many acts of closure that the next few days will bring, and toward the end of the night a distinct sense of melancholy crept upon me. You might think this strange, given how painful many of the demands of this book have been, but for all my complaints, I have been moved and changed by the journey I've taken, and I don't look forward to its being over, as I thought I would. In truth, I'm a little afraid of being finished. Afraid that when I get to the end, and set my pen down, I will have spilled so much of myself onto the page that what remains inside me, to fill the vessel of my being, will be inadequate. That I'll be empty, or nearly so.
My mood lightened somewhat when the dawn chorus started up; and by the time I crawled into bed I was feeling a little happier with my lot. At least I had something to show for my labors, I thought to myself: if I were to die in my sleep, there would be something left behind, besides the hairs in the sink, and the spit stains on my pillow. Something which had come from my hand and head; evidence, if you will, of my desire to make order of chaos. Speaking of chaos, I realized as I fell asleep that I'd missed Marietta's wedding celebrations. Not that I would have ventured out to attend them; even if the book had not been demanding my attention I would have made some excuse not to go. When I finally travel beyond the perimeters of L'Enfant it won't be to go on a drunken rampage with a bar full of Marietta's lesbian buddies. On the other hand I couldn't help but think that her wedding-assuming it took place-was yet further evidence of how things were changing; and how I, who'd witnessed all these changes, and been their loyal transcriber, was now left behind. A self-pitying thought, no doubt; but sometimes self-pity works better than any lullaby. Bathing in a stew of martyrdom, I fell asleep.
I dreamed again; and this time I didn't dream of the sea, or of the gray wastes of a city, but of a bright burnished sky, and a wilderness of desert. A little way off from me, there was a caravan of men and camels, its passage raising clouds of ocher dust. I could hear the camel drivers yelling to their animals, and the sharp snap of their sticks against the creatures' flanks. I could smell them too, even though they were a quarter of a mile from me: the pungent aroma of dirt and hide. I had no great desire to join their company, but when I looked around I saw that the landscape was otherwise empty in every direction.