He realized that he had never had his knowledge of a human being commence at such a pitch, and plunge so deep so fast. It was like what was supposed to happen with sex, but seldom if ever did. He had entirely lost sight of the fact that she was the woman who’d rescued him; that is, a strong sense of her character had obliterated that vague impersonal excitement he’d felt on first meeting her, and now he was making mad fantasies about her in his head.
How could he continue to know her and maybe even get to love her, and have her, and do this other thing he had to do? And he still had to do this other thing. He still had to go home and he had to determine the purpose.
As for her having been born down south, it had nothing to do with it. His head was full of too many images from his past, and the sense of destiny that united these images was too strong for it to have come from some random reminder of his home through her. Besides, on the deck of the boat last night, he’d caught nothing of that. Knowing her, yes, that was there, but even that was suspect, he still believed, because there was no profound recognition, no “Ah yes,” when she told him her story. Only positive fascination. Nothing scientific about this power of his; might be physical, yes, and measurable finally, and even controllable through some numbing drug, but it wasn’t scientific. It was more like art or music.
But the point was, he had to leave, and he didn’t want to. And it made him sad suddenly, sad and almost desperate, as if they were somehow doomed, he and she.
All these weeks, if only he could have seen her, been with her. And the oddest thought occurred to him. If only that awful accident hadn’t happened, and he had found her in some simple ordinary place, and they had begun to talk. But she was part and parcel of what had happened, her strangeness and her strength were part of it. All alone out there in that big awful cruiser right at the moment when darkness fell. Who the hell else would have been there? Who the hell else could have gotten him out of the water? Why, he could easily believe what she said about determination, about her powers.
When she’d been describing the rescue to him in more detail, she had said a strange thing. She had said that a person loses consciousness almost immediately in very cold water. Yet she had been pitched right into it, and she hadn’t lost consciousness. She had said only, “I don’t know how I reached the ladder, I honestly don’t.”
“Do you think it was that power?” he asked.
She had reflected for a moment. Then she had said, “Yes, and no. I mean maybe it was just luck.”
“Well, it was luck for me, all right,” he’d responded, and he had felt an extraordinary sense of well-being when he said it, and he wasn’t so sure why.
Maybe she knew because she said, “We’re frightened of what makes us different.” And he had agreed.
“But lots of people have these powers,” she said. “We don’t know what they are, or how to measure them; but surely they are part of what goes on between human beings. I see it in the hospital. There are doctors who know things, and they can’t tell you how. There are nurses who are the same way. I imagine there are lawyers who know infallibly when someone is guilty; or that the jury is going to vote for or against; and they can’t tell you how they know.
“The fact is, for all we learn about ourselves, for all we codify and classify and define, the mysteries remain immense. Take the research into genetics. So much is inherited by a human being-shyness is inherited, the liking for a particular brand of soap may be inherited, the liking for particular given names. But what else is inherited? What invisible powers come down to you? That’s why it’s so frustrating to me that I don’t really know my family. I don’t know the first thing about them. Ellie was a third cousin once removed or something like that. Why, hell, that’s hardly a cousin … ”
Yes, he had agreed with all that. He talked a little about his father and his grandfather, and how he was more like them than he cared to admit. “But you have to believe you can change your heredity,” he said. “You have to believe that you can work magic on the ingredients. If you can’t there’s no hope.”
“Of course you can,” she’d replied. “You’ve done it, haven’t you? I want to believe I’ve done it. This may sound insane, but I believe that we ought to … ”
“Tell me … ”
“We ought to aim to be perfect,” she said quietly. “I mean, why not?”
He had laughed but not in ridicule. He had thought of something one of his friends once said to him. The friend had been listening to Michael rattle on one night about history, and how nobody understood it or where we were headed because we didn’t know history, and the friend had said, “You are a peculiar talker, Michael,” explaining that the phrase was from Orpheus Descending, a Tennessee Williams play. He had treasured the compliment. He hoped she would too.
“You’re a peculiar talker, Rowan,” he had said, and he had explained it as his friend explained it to him.
That had made her laugh, really break up. “Maybe that’s why I’m so quiet,” she said. “I don’t even want to get started. I think you’ve said it. I’m a peculiar talker and that’s why I don’t talk at all.”
He took a drag off the cigarette now, thinking it all over. It would be lovely to stay with her. If only the feeling would leave him, that he had to go home.
“Put another log on the fire,” she said, interrupting his reverie. “Breakfast is ready.”
She laid it out on the dining table near the windows. Scrambled eggs, yogurt, fresh sliced oranges sparkling in the sun, bacon and sausage, and hot muffins just out of the oven.
She poured the coffee and the orange juice for them both. And for five minutes solid, without a word, he just ate. He had never been so hungry. For a long moment he stared at the coffee. No, he didn’t want a beer, and he wasn’t going to drink one. He drank the coffee, and she refilled the cup.
“That was simply wonderful,” he said.
“Stick around,” she said, “and I’ll cook you dinner, and breakfast tomorrow morning too.”
He couldn’t answer. He studied her for a moment, trying not to see just loveliness and the object of his considerable desire, but what she looked like. A true blonde, he thought, smooth all over, with almost no down on her face or her arms. And lovely dark ashen eyebrows, and dark eyelashes which made her eyes seem all the more gray. A face like a nun, she had, actually. Not a touch of makeup on it, and her long full mouth had a virginal look to it somehow, like the mouths of little girls before they’ve worn lipstick. He wished he could just sit here with her forever …
“But you are going to leave anyway,” she said.
He nodded. “Have to,” he said.
She was thoughtful. “What about the visions?” she asked.
“Do you want to talk about them?”
He hesitated. “Every time I try to describe them, it ends in frustration,” he explained, “and also, well, it turns people off.”
“It won’t turn me off,” she said. She seemed quite composed now, her arms folded, her hair prettily mussed, the coffee steaming in front of her. She was more like the resolute and forceful woman he’d first met last night.
He believed what she said. Nevertheless, he had seen the look of incredulity and then indifference in so many faces. He sat back in the chair, staring out for a moment. Every sailing ship in the world was on the bay. And he could see the gulls flying over the harbor of Sausalito like tiny bits of paper.