His hands were between her legs now. She took hold of the towel and pulled it away. "Let's go to the bedroom," she said.
"No," he said. "Here," and suddenly his fingers were inside her, and he was pressing her against the wall, his mouth on hers. He tasted strange, almost acidic; and the way he stroked her was far from tender. There was suddenly something ungainly about all of this. She wanted to call a halt, but she was afraid of driving him away.
He was unbuckling his pants now, pressing himself so hard against her she could barely draw breath.
"Wait…" she said to him. "Please. Slow down."
He didn't heed her. If anything his behavior became more frenzied. He pushed her legs open. She felt his erection jabbing at her, like something blind, poking around for its bed. She told herself to relax; to trust him. He'd made the most extraordinary love to her last night; he understood the signals her body was putting out better than any man she'd ever been with.
So why did she want to push him away now? Why did it hurt when he got inside her? What had seemed like a wonderful fullness a few hours before now made her want to cry out. There was no pleasure in this; none.
She couldn't govern her instincts any longer. She closed her mouth against his kisses, and put her hands on his chest to push him away.
"I don't like this," she said.
He ignored her. He was buried deep in her, to the root, his cock brutally rigid, his hips grinding against hers.
"No," she said. "No! Will you please get off me!"
Now she pushed him as hard as she could, but his body was too strong, his erection was too implacable: she was pinned against the wall.
"Galilee," she said, trying to look into his eyes. "You're hurting me. Listen to me! You're hurting me."
Was it the fact that she was shouting now, her words echoing around the tiled walls, that roused him out of his stupor? Or was he simply bored with his own cruelty, as his body language seemed to suggest? He pushed himself off and out of her like someone leaving a dining table because the food didn't suit them, his expression one of mild distaste.
"Get out of here," she told him.
He retreated a step or two, still not looking at her, then turned and crossed to the door. She hated everything about him at that moment-his idling gait, the way he glanced down at his erection, the little smile she caught in the mirror as he slipped through the door. She closed it after him, then listened as he made his way through the house. Only when she heard the sound of the French window opened, and then being slammed as he exited, did she go to her clothes and start to dress. By the time she ventured out into the house he'd disappeared.
Niolopua was sitting on the lawn watching the ocean. She went out onto the veranda, and called to him.
"You had an argument?" he said.
She nodded.
"He didn't even speak to me. He just went down onto the beach, looking like thunder."
"Will you stay here for a little while? I don't want him coming back."
"I'll stay, if it makes you feel more comfortable, but I'm sure he's not coming back."
"Thank you," she said.
"He'll set sail now," Niolopua said. "You'll see."
"I don't care what he does as long as he stays the hell away from me," she said.
Just as Niolopua had predicted, Galilee didn't come back. The day waned, and Rachel stayed in the house, feeling drained of any energy or desire, eating a little, drinking a little, but getting pleasure from nothing. As she'd requested Niolopua kept his watch on the lawn, coming to the veranda once to ask for a beer, otherwise leaving her alone.
The telephone rang several times, but she didn't pick up. It was probably Mitch, or perhaps Loretta, trying to persuade her to go back home. In fact, since Galilee's leaving, she'd started to think that returning to New York was not such a bad idea. Certainly staying here in the house would not be wise; she'd only brood on things. Better to go back to the family, where at least she understood her feelings. After the emotional chaos of the last few days there would be something bracingly plain about being among the Gearys. They were hateful, it was as simple as that. No confusion, no ambiguity, no kisses one moment and brutality the next. Maybe she'd just get drunk and stay that way, like Margie; pronounce against the world from behind her funeral veil. It wasn't a very pretty prospect, but what did she have left? This island had been a last resort: a place to heal herself; to watch the miraculous at play. But it had failed her. She was left empty-handed.
As the last of the light was going out of the sky she heard Niolopua calling her name, and went out onto the veranda to find him standing at the bottom of the lawn pointing out to sea.
There was The Samarkand. Even though its sails were little more than white specks against the darkening blue, Rachel knew without a doubt it was Galilee's vessel. For an aching moment she imagined herself on deck with him, looking back at the island from the sea. The stars coming out overhead; the bed below, waiting for them. She indulged the romance for a moment only, then told herself to stop it.
Even so, she couldn't turn her back on the ocean; not until he'd gone. She watched the boat get smaller and smaller, until at last it was utterly eroded by distance and darkness. Only then did she look away.
So that's the end of it, she thought. The man she'd fleet-ingly imagined might be her prince had gone. And what a perfect departure he'd made, carried away by the tide; who knew where?
Still she didn't weep. Her prince was gone, and she didn't weep. Yes, there was regret. Of course there was regret. However long she lived, she'd never stop wondering what would have happened if she'd better navigated the shoals of his nature; wonder what kind of life they might have had together in his house on the hill.
But there was something else besides regret: there was anger. That, she finally decided, was what kept the tears from coming: her fury at the way life piled hurt on hurt.. It dried her eyes the moment they moistened.
Margie's methodology had been much the same, hadn't it? By turning spite into an art form, by pronouncing loudly on the meaninglessness of life, Margie kept herself functioning.
That's how things would have to be for Rachel from now oh. She'd have to learn to be just like Margie.
God help them both.
PART SIX. Ink and Water
So Galilee sailed away; I cannot tell you where. If this were a different kind of book I might well invent the details of his route, culled from books and maps. But in doing so I would be trading on your ignorance; assuming you wouldn't notice if I failed to get the details right.
It's better I admit the truth: Galilee sailed away, and I don't know where he went. When I dose my eyes, and wait for an image of him to come I usually find him sitting on the rolling deck of The Samarkand looking less than happy with his lot. But though I've searched the horizon for some due as to his whereabouts I see only the wastes of the ocean. To an eye more canny than mine perhaps there are dues even here, but I'm no sailor. To me, one seascape looks much like the next.
I will confess that I tried to apply what I thought would be simple logic to the question. I took down from the shelves several maps I'd been given over the years (the older ones may even have belonged to Galilee himself; long before he left to wander the world, he loved to trace imaginary journeys) and having spread them out on the floor of my study I walked among them with a book on celestial navigation in one hand and a volume on tides and currents in the other, trying to plot the likeliest course for The Samarkand to have taken. But the challenge defeated me. I set his course north past the island (that much I remember seeing, through Rachel's eyes); I began to calculate the prevailing winds at that time, and set The Samarkand before them, but I became hopelessly distracted by the very charts that were supposed to be anchoring my imagination. They were, as I said, old charts; made at a time when knowledge was not so vigorously (some would say calamitously) divided from the pleasures of fancy. The makers of these maps had seen nothing wrong with adding a few decorative touches here and there: filigreed beasts that rose out of the painted ocean to foam at passing ships; flights of windy angels poised at every quarter, with streaming hair and trumpeters' cheeks; even a great squid on one of the maps with eyes like twin furnaces and tentacles (so the note informed me) the length of six clippers. In the midst of such wonders, my pathetic attempts at rational projections went south. I left off my calculations and sat in the midst of the maps like a man trading in such things, waiting for a buyer.