"I don't know that I trust helicopters."
"It's really the best way to see the island. And if you ask Tom he'll take you out over the ocean whale-spotting."
"Oh that I'd like to see."
"You like whales?"
"I've never seen any up close."
"I can arrange that too," Jimmy said. "I can have a boat organized for you at a day's notice."
"That's kind, Jimmy. Thank you."
"No problem. That's what I'm here for. If there's anything you need, just ask."
They were coming into a little town-Kapa'a, Jimmy informed her-where there were some regrettable signs of mainland influence. Beside the small stores of well-weathered clapboard stood the ubiquitous hamburger franchise, its gaud somewhat suppressed by island ordinance or corporate shame, but still ugly.
"There's a wonderful restaurant here in Kapa'a which is always booked up, but-"
"Let me guess. You have a friend-"
Jimmy laughed. "I do indeed. They always keep a prime table open each night, for special guests. Actually, I think your husband's stepmother invested some money in the place."
"Loretta?"
"That's right."
"When was she last here?"
"Oh… it must be ten years, maybe more."
"Did she come with Cadmus?"
"No, no. On her own. She's quite a lady."
"She is indeed."
He looked over at Rachel. Clearly he had more to say on the subject, but was afraid to say anything out of place.
"Go on…" Rachel said.
"I was just thinking that… well, you're different from the other ladies I've met. I mean, the other members of the family."
"How so?"
"Well, you're just less… how should I put it?"
"Imperious."
He chuckled. "Yes. That's good. Imperious. That's perfect."
They had emerged from Kapa'a by now, and the road, which still hugged the coastline, became narrower and more serpentine. There was very little traffic. A few of the locals passed by in rusted trucks, there was a small group of bicyclists sweating on one of the inclines, and now and then they were overtaken by a slicker vehicle-tourists, Jimmy remarked, a little contemptuously. There were however several long stretches when they were the only travelers on the road.
Nor was there much evidence of a human presence beyond the highway. Occasionally there'd be a house visible between the trees, sometimes a church (most so small they could only have served a tiny congregation), and on the beaches a handful of fishermen.
"Is it always this quiet?" Rachel asked.
"No, it's off-season right now," Jimmy said. "And we're only slowly recovering from the last hurricane. It closed a lot of the hotels and some of them still haven't reopened."
"But they will?"
"Of course. You can't hold back the rule of Mammon for ever."
"The rule of what?"
"Mammon. The demon of acquisitiveness? I mean commerce. People exploiting the island for profit."
She looked back at the mountain, which in the ten minutes since she'd last glanced toward the interior had transformed yet again. "It seems such a pity," she said, picturing the Hawaiian-shirted tourists she'd seen in Honolulu traipsing through this Eden, leaving trails of Coke cans and half-eaten hamburgers.
"Of course he wasn't always a demon," Jimmy went on. "I think originally he was a she: Mammetun, the mother of desires. She's Sumer-Babylonian. And with a name like that she probably had a lot of breasts. It's the same root as mammary. And Mama, of course." All this he said in an uninflected voice, almost as though he were talking to himself. "Don't mind me," he said.
"No, it's interesting," she said.
"I was a student of comparative religion in my younger days."
"What made you study that?"
"Oh… I don't know. Mysteries, I suppose. Things I couldn't explain. There's a lot of that here."
Rachel glanced again at the clouded mountains. "Maybe that's why it's so beautiful," she said.
"Oh, I like that," Jimmy murmured. "No beauty without mystery. I hadn't really thought about it that way before, but that's nice. Elegant."
"I'm sorry?"
"The thought," he said. "It's elegant."
They drove on in silence for a time, while Rachel pondered the notion that a thought, of all things, could be elegant. It was a new idea for her. People were sometimes elegant, clothes could of course be elegant, even an age; but a thought? Her musings were interrupted by Jimmy.
"You see the cliff straight ahead of us? The house is half a mile from there."
"Margie said it was right on the beach."
"Fifty yards from the ocean, if that. You can practically fish from your bedroom window."
Despite this promise the road now took them out of sight of the water, descending by a winding route to a bridge. They were now in the shadow of the crag which Jimmy had pointed out earlier, the origins of the river which the bridge spanned, a torrent of water that cascaded down the rock face above.
"Hang on," Jimmy said, once they were over the bridge, "we're going on to that lousy road I was telling you about."
Moments later they made a hard right and just as Jimmy had warned, the road deteriorated rapidly, the hard asphalt of the highway replaced by a pitted, puddled track that wound back and forth between trees that had obviously not been trimmed for many years, their lower branches, heavy with blossom and foliage, brushing the top of Jimmy's vehicle.
"Watch out for the dog!" Rachel yelled over the din of the revved engine.
"I see him," Jimmy said, and leaning out of the window, yelled at the yellow mutt, who continued to sit in the middle of the track until the last possible moment, when it lazily raised its flea-bitten rump and sauntered to safety.
There was other animal traffic on the track: a fine-looking cockerel strutted about while his wives pecked in the ruts of the road. This time Jimmy didn't need to yell. They were up in a flurry of aborted little flights, and into the dense foliage of what had once perhaps been hedgerows. Here and there, when there was a break in the greenery, she saw signs of habitation. A small house, in an advanced state of disrepair; a piece of farm machinery, rusted beyond reclamation, in a field that had mutinied many seasons before.
"Are there people living around here?"
"Very few," he said. "There was a flood about four years ago. Terrible rains; disastrous. In maybe two or three hours the river washed out the bridge we crossed, and washed a lot of houses away at the same time. A few people came back to rebuild. But a lot more decided to go somewhere less risky."
"Was anybody hurt?"
"Three people drowned, including a little kiddie. But the waters never came as far as the Geary house. So you're quite safe."
During this conversation the track had deteriorated yet further, if that were possible, the thicket to the left and right so fecund it threatened to obliterate the track completely. Now the birds that rose before the vehicle were not wild chickens but species Rachel had never seen before, winged flashes of scarlet and iridescent blue.
"Almost there," Jimmy promised, as the track threw the vehicle back and forth. "I hope you didn't pack any fine china." There was one last kink in the rutted track, which Jimmy took a little too fast. The vehicle tipped sideways, and for a few moments it seemed they'd overturn. Rachel let out a little shout of alarm.
"Sorry," Jimmy said.' The vehicle righted itself with a thump and a squeak. He applied the brakes, and brought them to a halt perhaps ten or twelve yards from a pair of large wooden gates. "We're here," he announced.
He turned off the engine, and there was a sudden flood of music from the birds in the trees and thicket, and from somewhere out of sight, the thump and draw of the ocean.
"Do you want to go in alone, or shall I show you around?"