I didn't see him again till later that night.
Working all afternoon, I tried different approaches to the problem, but none of them worked. After a few hours I didn't think about Venasque or when he would return because I knew it would either be when I had figured things out or given up altogether.
Sometimes people came by and said hello, but for the most part I was alone. It was better that way because I wasn't feeling very friendly.
If you take the word "car" or "dog" and say it over and over a few hundred times, it no longer means or sounds like anything. The same was true with this puzzle. I thought about it so much, and poked at it from so many different angles, that by the time the sun was going down my brain was empty. The sunset was all smeared brown and orange, and punched-up thunderclouds that looked like pillows on a mussed-up bed.
I watched it and waited for it to tell me something, but it didn't. If only God would speak to us at moments like that. Appear as a snow-white cockatoo on our shoulder and explain the correct way. Or take up the whole sky with a Ronald Colman face and a few choice, brilliant words that make everything resoundingly clear.
I watched the sunset until the light was almost gone and the colors dried into evening. Unconsciously, I tapped the stick on the sand in front of me. When I became aware of doing it, the solution dawned on me. The moment was disconcerting because the answer was so simple.
Jabbing the stick over my head, I started whistling the theme song to Zorba the Greek. "Teach me to dance . . . Venasque!" That made me laugh. It felt so good to figure things out. I danced and kicked up my feet, feeling a foot taller . . . or smarter.
The stick touched the sand a sliding scratch. I drew it a long way to the left, then up and over. No real plan in mind, I let my hand do its own moving and design. It was eager to work. When I'd been at it awhile, I jumped when someone put his hand on my shoulder.
"Walker, you got it! Good man. Let's see."
I'd drawn a castle, but that was only part of it. It sat at the edge of a group of other buildings. It was so dark on the beach by then we could barely make out what else I'd drawn.
"You did a whole town, huh?"
"My hand did what it wanted. It sort of got carried away."
"I'll say! I can't see everything, but it's terrific. You got a simple answer to a tough question. That's the right way to begin. Sand castles don't all have to be up in the air. Come on, let's get going."
No more than that. I hesitated a moment, sad to be leaving my brainstorm so soon after having done it. Venasque was already a long way up the beach, walking toward the parking lot.
Without turning, he yelled over his shoulder, "Leave it, Walker. That's nothing. Wait'll you see some of the other things you'll be able to do."
"Will you teach me to dance, Venasque?"
I didn't even know he'd heard me until he snapped his fingers over his head and spun around to face me. "'Will you teach me to dance, Zorba?' 'Dance? Did you say dance, Boss? Come on, my boy!' Zorba the Greek. Directed by Michael Cacoyannis. Starring Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, and Lila Kedrova, who won the Oscar that year for her performance as Bouboulina. A great film. I saw it the other day on cable."
"Walker, I miss you. Where are you?"
"The Sleepy Arms Motel."
"You're kidding. Where's that?"
"Outside Santa Barbara. We spent most of the day at the beach."
"That doesn't sound too magical."
I leaned against the headboard of the bed and told Maris the story of my sand castle. Venasque was sitting on the other bed, looking at TV Guide and scratching Big Top with his foot. He leaned over and pointed out that a film called Nude Druids was playing on the porno cable channel. I rolled my eyes. He shrugged.
"Have you had anything to eat?"
"Yes, we had some sandwiches for lunch and we're going out later. There's supposed to be a pretty good restaurant near here."
"Please eat, Walker. I don't want you coming back ten pounds lighter."
"Okay. How're things there?"
"I went to the radio station with Ingram today and listened to him do his show. There was a woman on who teaches people how to scream."
"That sounds hard. She charges for it?"
Maris laughed. "She wore an army helmet, too. There was a bumper sticker on it that said 'Screaming has Meaning.'"
"I'll try to remember that."
"I'm going to stay at Ingram's place for a couple of days, so call me there, okay? I miss you like crazy."
"Me, too! A thousand times."
"Is Venasque there with you?"
"Yes."
"Tell him to take care of you."
"I will."
"And remember the man who ate all the cake."
"And you remember the man who drank the coffee through the straw. I'll call you tomorrow, Maris. I love you."
"Good night, mein Liebster."
"Good night."
I put the receiver down and sighed. It was the first time we'd been apart at night since arriving in California. I didn't look forward to spending it without her.
"Were you ever married, Venasque?"
"Twenty-seven years I was married."
"What happened to her?"
"She died. You ready to go out?" He stood up and straightened his pants.
I took my sweatshirt off the bed and followed him out of the room. The parking lot was a pale coppery-orange from the lighting overhead.
"Is it okay to leave the animals in the room?"
"Sure. They'll sleep like rocks after running around all day. Sorry I snapped at you. It's hard talking about my wife. I'll tell you more about it at dinner, after we've gotten some food in us. I hear this restaurant's got great king crab, and it's my treat tonight. Our celebration for your sand castle."
There was no reason for Maris to worry about my not eating. The two of us tucked into enough crab that night to make the waiter give us strange looks. We finished with hot fudge sundaes big as catchers' mitts.
"I lived almost thirty years with a woman I loved, but could never figure out. We were happy, but there were too many times we'd look at each other and wonder 'Who's that? Do I know them?'
"When she died, she died badly, Walker. Got a cancer that ate right through her. She died too long, and the only thing left at the end was an empty box of anger."
"Couldn't you do anything for her? With your . . . powers?"
"Nothing. Life and death do their own deciding."
That shocked me. "Really? Nothing?"
"Learn what life is, Walker. Dying comes anyway. I couldn't do anything for Nelia – that was my wife – because the war taught me to concentrate on life and how to make it better. That was something Nelia and I agreed on because both of us went through that war. Living was more important than dying."
"But you just said she died badly."
"She died badly because she didn't learn enough about life. She went back to her other lives again and again, as you're beginning to do, but all she did was look around in them like a tourist in a foreign country. She took snapshots of them so she could show her friends, but not think about them herself. That's why she died badly. The only thing we can really know is what we're experiencing, or what we've already lived. Then we've got to study it like crazy till we understand."
"But you keep asking me after I go back to one of my lives if I felt myself die there. And what it was like."
"Of course I do! Maybe you'll be the one to tell me what I've tried to find out all my life. I told you: I'm as much a student as you are."
"What are you still trying to find out? Seems like you've pretty much found things."