“It would be fun to go over there some time, rent a cruiser in Marsalupe...”
“There’s no place to land.”
“How do people live there?”
“No one does. There are no people on the island because there is no water.”
“Water,” Evelyn repeated. She had never before in her life thought of water except as something that came obligingly, hot or cold, from a tap. But out here it was all she heard about, and everywhere she looked she saw reminders: the disconnected showers; the big tub under the kitchen sink where Carmelita saved the rinse water to use later on the vegetable garden, soap and all; the bricked-in flower beds, empty and baked into clay by the incessant sun, and the lawn that was so dry and crisp it crackled under one’s feet. When the rains start, people said, or, When the dry season is over. They measured time in cups and gallons.
When they passed the grove of eucalyptus trees the house itself came into view. It was a comfortable house, built sturdily and economically of adobe brick and native stone. But to Evelyn the place had a curious air of unreality, as if the people who had lived there had formed a small compact group independent of the outside world, the daily newspaper, the radio, the postman. In actual fact, the newspaper came (a day or two late), the mail was delivered, and there was a Capehart in the living room. But still the impression of isolation was so strong that Evelyn hesitated before turning on the radio, and once it was turned on she soon lost interest. “We’re becoming a couple of lotus eaters,” Mark had said, and it was true that, day by day, they were being absorbed by the house and the sea and the woods. Any other life seemed more and more remote.
The main rooms of the house faced the sea, but at the back there was a huge kitchen where Carmelita did the cooking and the Romas ate all their meals and spent most of their leisure time. To the north was the L-wing, two rooms and bath, now unoccupied. This wing was subtly different from the rest of the house, but it wasn’t until now, when Mr. Roma parked the jeep outside the kitchen door, that Evelyn realized why.
“That’s funny,” she said. “I didn’t notice it before.”
“What?”
“The windows remind me of a jail.”
Mr. Roma smiled and said they did, at that, though he volunteered no explanation of the fine wire mesh that unobtrusively covered the windows.
Evelyn managed to look wispy but obstinate. “Why would anyone put windows like that in a house?”
“Because of Billy. Mrs. Wakefield was afraid that Billy might break a window and hurt himself.”
“She must be one of these over-protective mothers.”
“Must be.” Mr. Roma honked the horn to summon Carmelita to help carry in the groceries.
“I’ll take some of the things in,” Evelyn said.
“Oh, no, thank you. Carmelita always helps. Carmelita is very strong.”
In response to the horn, Carmelita came out onto the back porch. She was a fat stubborn woman with fierce dark eyes, like Luisa’s. She wore loose huaraches on her feet, and her head was wrapped in a red silk scarf. Luisa insisted that her mother be stylish, and she had taught her how to do her hair up in pin curls. Carmelita wanted to please, and so she did her hair up in bobby pins once a week and tied a scarf around it. There, for the rest of the week the scarf and the bobby pins remained intact. It was Camelita’s way of obliging Luisa without taking too much trouble about it. No one could say she was not stylish, with all her pin curls.
In spite of her weight Carmelita had a proud willowy walk, and she carried her head high, in great disdain. The truth was that she was frightened of people who couldn’t speak her language; her neck got quite stiff with fright sometimes, but she never told anyone.
“Carmelita is as strong as a horse,” Mr. Roma said with pride. “Aren’t you? Eh?”
Carmelita flashed him a brief impatient smile, and, lifting two of the milk cans, strode back into the kitchen. Mr. Roma followed her in with the larger box of groceries. While Evelyn picked up the books from the back seat, she could hear the two of them talking in staccato Spanish. A minute later Mr. Roma came out again. He had put on his spectacles, the pair that Carmelita had chosen herself in the dollar store in Marsalupe.
He looked at Evelyn over the top of the spectacles. “I have had a letter. Mrs. Wakefield is coming today or tomorrow.”
“That’s fine.”
“She will not bother you. She said to tell you that.”
“We’ll be glad to have her,” Evelyn said truthfully. “Is she bringing her little boy with her?”
“No” — Mr. Roma took off his hat and rubbed the deep red wound across his forehead where the hat had been squeezed down tight to foil the wind — “the little boy is dead.”
Later, when everything was put away, the paper bags folded, and the pieces of string wound on a twist of paper to save for a rainy day, Mr. Roma settled down in the platform rocker beside the kitchen window and read the letter aloud, translating to Carmelita as he went along.
It was dated Monday, June 14, three days earlier than the postmark, as if Mrs. Wakefield had hesitated about sending it once it was written.
“Dear Mr. Roma: I thought I’d better enlarge on my previous note. When I returned and found Mr. Hawkins had rented the house, I was rather upset. But what’s done is done, and I guess it’s just as well to get some income out of it while I’m waiting to sell. It distresses me to think that so much of my stuff should be lying around the house in the way of these people who probably have their own pictures and drapes, etc., to use...”
(“They haven’t,” Carmelita said shortly. “They’ve got nothing but books. Books and clothes.”
“She doesn’t know that.”)
“... I am driving up on Saturday or Sunday. Mr. Hawkins tells me I should make my own inventory of the contents of the house. It seems like an awful bother, but I must come, in any case, to pick up some of the very personal things I left behind, the trunk of toys and clothes in Billy’s room, and the camellia tree in the tub (if it’s still alive after this terrible year), and things like my records, and the music in the piano bench...”
(“All marches,” Carmelita said. “All fast quick marches.”)
Mr. Roma nodded. He knew by heart all the marches that Mrs. Wakefield had played on the piano. She always played them good and loud, while Billy sat on the floor beside her, moving head and arms in a queer helpless way as if he wanted to keep time.
“... This inventory business may take me a few days, or perhaps a week. If these people don’t mind me sleeping in Billy’s old room, I can eat my meals with you and Carmelita. It will be good to see you both again, though painful, too. We’ve been through so much together. Perhaps all deep friendships have been watered by tears, ours more than most — John’s and yours and Carmelita’s — Billy was the only one of us who never cried...”
(Carmelita’s lower lip began to tremble and she turned and wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron.)
“... I didn’t intend to tell you this in my letter, but I suppose it makes no difference how I tell it. Billy is dead. He died three weeks ago quite suddenly. He was nine years and twenty-eight days old. I know he is in better hands than mine.
For a long time Mr. Roma sat with the letter in his hand staring out of the window, while Carmelita wept into her apron and shuffled back and forth across the kitchen, up and down its length.
“I had to burn the camellia, there was nothing left of it but sticks,” Mr. Roma said at last. “She will be disappointed.”
The camellia had died, not suddenly, but with a slow sure finality. The tired buds dropped, shriveled before they opened, and the leaves turned black and fell, one by one.