Maybe I should return to the desk now, I thought, while
I was still in such a positive frame of mind. If I was brave, and wrote on through my doubts, I could perhaps get the beginnings of Galilee on the page-his skeleton, so to speak-before the confidence the cocaine bestowed passed. I could flesh it out later. What mattered was to begin. And of course if I needed a little more courage along the way, I could always mix another glass of the concoction.
The plan pleased me. I decided to drain the cordial glass there and then, which I did, (tossing the empty glass into the brackish water) and then starting back toward the house. Or so I thought. What became apparent after fifty yards or so was that my mind, enamored of its own aroused state, had misled me, and instead of walking the safe, solid ground of the lawn I was getting deeper into the swamp. This was probably not a wise thing to do, some cautious corner of my mind muttered; but the greater part, being under the influence of powder and brandy, declared that if this was the way my instincts were taking me, then I should obey those instincts, and take pleasure in the journey. The earth was sodden beneath my feet, and relinquished my feet only with a comical sucking sound; the canopy had so thickened overhead that only a fraction of the starlight still made its way through to illuminate the path. And still my instincts took me on, deeper into the thicket. Even in my rush-headed state I knew very well I was daring disaster. This terrain was unsuitable for trekking through in broad daylight, much less at such an hour as this. At any moment the glaucous mud underfoot might give way and I'd be up to my neck in wicked waters, foul and full of alligators.
But what the hell? I had a hard-on to comfort me in extremis; and I would take my death as God's way of telling me I was not the writer I imagined myself to be.
Then, a strange thing. A certainty rose in me that I was not alone here. There was another human presence nearby; I could feel a curious gaze brushing the back of my neck. I stopped walking, and glanced back over my shoulder.
"Who's there?" I said, speaking softly.
I didn't expect a reply (one who comes after a traveler in near total darkness does not usually reply to an inquiry); but to my surprise I got one. It was not in the form of speech however, at least not at first. It came as a kind of fluttering in the murk, as though my unseen companion carried birds in his coat, like a magician. I stared at the motion, trying to make sense of it, and as I was staring I became unaccountably certain that I knew who this was. After decades of exile L'Enfant's sorrowful son, Galilee the wanderer, had come home.
I said his name, barely raising my voice to audibility this time. Again, there came the fluttering, and because my gaze knew where to look I seemed to see him there. He was shaped out of shadow rather than starlight; shadow on shadow. But it was him, no doubt. There are not two faces as beautiful as his on the planet. I wish there were. I wish he were not without equal. But he is, damn him. He's an order of nature unto himself, and the rest of us have to take what little comfort we can from the fact of his unhappiness.
"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 way off."
"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 assumed 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."
"Damn. 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 amusement. "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, damn 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 antithetical to one another. The passage 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.