Landscape: Memory Page 13

  I've got a book about memory Mr. Spengler gave me at graduation. All spring I'd kept asking him questions about memory, hoping to find some reassurance in his answers. But my uncertainties had become so mixed up in everything else that really I'd succeeded in sorting out nothing. The summer seemed like a promising time to put my mind to the task and I told him so, which is why he gave me this lovely gift and instructions to be rigorous in my work, which is what I fully intend to do.

  The book is lovely brown leather, all sweet with decay and that musty old book smell like the big library has in its crowded closed-off rooms. All those ancient volumes turning grandly to dust, stacked high into the dark rafters. It's a translation of the Ad Herennium, by Cicero, and has a whole long introduction filled with quotes and comments and excerpts from other classical works on the subject.

  I've read Cicero for public speaking, as we all did at Grant, and he was dull as dishwater. But it was very kind of Mr. Spengler so I promised yes, I'd read it. Really, I rather fancy trying out some of what he says, as it appears to be a practical guide, like Ruskin for painting, a way to set things in a neat structure so they all stay just as they really were.

  I've packed that and my drawing kit and paints because I should be getting on to colors soon. Mother was prostrate with fear, afraid I'd somehow ruin my hard work by impetuous application of the paints. She believes, I believe, that without her nearby I can't possibly move forward. But I think the paints will be the best part yet.

  Both Duncan and I've decided to travel light: twill shorts, two thin cotton shirts, one pair of long pants and a sweater. Socks and boots and boxers too, of course, and our caps and bow ties to be fancy. All stuffed up in a satchel, plus my various books and what not. Father says he's got bundles of old things up there as well, in case we're cold or bored or feel like wearing beekeeper's bonnets.

  We took the ferry to Sausalito and then rode a white steamer stage across the yellow brown hills to Bolinas and the sea. Flora was full of plans, explaining the situation of the town and its location on the fault line.

  "Max and I found a ruin there once," Duncan said. "A cabin that got busted up by the quake." He pulled his lips in and raised his eyebrows, just nodding his head remembering.

  "An insane asylum," I corrected. "It was an insane asylum."

  "No it wasn't," he answered.

  "Yes it was."

  "No."

  "It was, I'm certain. I marked it on a map." That seemed proof enough. Flora watched from the forward seat, watching back and forth as at a tennis match.

  "What map?" Duncan asked.

  "The map I made, when we were up there."

  "And you marked that it was an asylum?"

  "Right," I said, glad he'd finally gotten it. "An asylum." I smiled at Flora.

  "So you marked it wrong." Duncan could be very stubborn.

  "It's on the map," I insisted. "Ask Father, he knows." I remembered him talking about the asylum, but still I felt uncertain about the prospect of asking him again.

  "Fine," Duncan agreed. "We'll ask him." The stage dipped down into a cool redwood canyon, the high golden hills disappearing as we rattled through the thick grove of trees.

  "Was your father with you then?" Flora asked brightly.

  "What do you mean?" I said back, partly puzzled. "You mean was he on the hike?"

  "Right," she agreed. "Was he with you on the hike."

  Duncan bounced his leg impatiently against mine, fiddling with the door latch.

  "It was just us, just me and Duncan." It made me warm all over just thinking. "But Father was the one who'd told us, me, about the asylum. He's why we went up, to find the asylum."

  "Cabin," Duncan put in simply, leaning out to smell the morning air. Dust and the smoke of the noisy engine came rolling in with the heavy sweet scent of the woods. Flora pushed her face forward into the breeze so it washed across her, eyes closed and her thick hair all bustling about in the eddies. We both joined in, us three crowded together, sniffing in deep dog breaths the morning through our noses.

  Father met us in Bolinas. We shook hands and he hugged Flora, getting a peck on his bristly-whiskered cheek. I watched and then I hugged him and kissed him too, just on impulse and to his surprise. We all laughed it away, except Flora. It was a fine, warm walk to Father's wooded acre, down along the dusty road with our little luggage, then up a hill and into the trees at the head of the lagoon.

  There were vegetables in a clearing, and fat-faced sunflowers reaching high on their tough sturdy stalks. The woods were mostly fir and pine, the ground clear of brush, all soft dirt and needles, tamped and toe-worn along the well-traveled paths: one to the garden, one downhill toward the water and one leading back away from the wooden house, up through a little meadow and into another stand of trees. Father slept up there in a small gazebo with a bed and desk.

  We were to sleep on the sleeping porch. Father led us through the one-room house out onto the wide screened porch. It faced the water, its two ends opened out onto woods. The screen door had little springs to swing shut and it did with a bang. There were two beds, one low little bed looking clean and comfy to the right and an enormous fluff-and-rumple bed, wide as the ocean and piled high with comforters. An obscenely baroque headboard leapt out of its upper end, all manner of buttresses and cupids and gargoyles carved into the dark wood.

  "That's the boys' bed," Flora said smartly, pointing to the mammoth thing. "I'd prefer something a little more manageable."

  She pulled her carpet bag along the worn wooden floor, and sat down pertly on the little mattress. It lay nicely on its humble frame. "Perfect," she pronounced, tweeking the taut blanket with a flick of her finger. "When I'm here, here I'll be."

  I asked Father if the big bed could stand bouncing and he said we could paddle it out to sea for all it mattered to him. He doesn't much like big beds or stuffed chairs or heirlooms like Mother has. He doesn't much like furniture at all.

  "It was there on the porch when I got here," he explained. "It's nailed down and solid, otherwise I'd've busted it down into firewood straightaway." I bounced in butt first and it squeaked and whinnied and bounced me back up some. I rolled over into the middle and sunk in amongst the downy covers.

  We three swept the cabin clean and sat around the one big table making plans. Father went foraging, gathering berries and garden vegetables for lunch.

  "I'll build a boat," Duncan began. "From driftwood and willow branches." He wrote "Build Boat" in flowing script on the little plan sheets Flora suggested we use. "We'll sail home and dock at the Fair."

  "I'll give you an hour's help each day," I volunteered, skeptical about the boat's prospects, but eager to spend all my time with him. "You can help me on my projects. We'll barter our labor." I wrote "Be with Duncan" in tiny letters near the middle of the page.

  ''Work with Duncan," Duncan corrected.

  "That's what I mean," I agreed happily. "What else? Flora?"

  Flora was staring off into space with a mischievous grin, clearly excited by some new thought.

  "Miss Profuso," I sang as Miss Gillian did to get her wandering attention. "Young lady."

  Birds sang back, a warble and twitters. All their lovely sounds cascaded through the branches and tumbled in around us.

  "Oh, Dogey, I've the best project," Flora said, tapping pencil points nervously onto her paper. "Photography! Mother got a Rochester just last month and she never uses it. I'm certain she'd love for me to have it here."

  "Is it big?'' Duncan asked excitedly.

  "Oh, it's enormous, a big box on a tripod. She's got a bag full of accessories too, lenses and French shutters and developing whatnot."

  She began scripting "I. Photography" and filling in an outline below, "A., B., C," all as yet blank, but evidence of some enormous ambition, just now kindled.

  "It's an ancient old thing, at least twenty years old," she explained. "Mother was willed it by some horrible uncle in Colma. I don't think it's even been taken out of its box
."

  "You should try all the various styles," I suggested, thrilled by the thought of this enormous box. "Landscape and portraits and wildlife photographs."

  "Oh, slow down, Dogey, slow down," and she scribbled in "Landscape" next to "A" and "Portraits" for "B."

  "And photos of boats," Duncan added, "crude willow boats."

  "And little scenes," I carried on. "You can cast little fantasy scenes with nymphs or satyrs and we'll act them out for pictures. You can put captions on them."

  Father banged in through the sprung screen door, loaded down with a bowl of berries and lovely yellow squash, flat wax beans and deep crimson peppers.

  I added "Photos" to my brief list.

  I'd put nothing of my own down yet, save "Be with Duncan," so I stayed quiet at my place and thought. Duncan scooted up next to me and put his arm across my shoulders. He had his pencil to paper too.

  I made a list of my regular things: "Drawing, memory book, Mr. Spengler's book." Duncan brought his pencil over to my paper. "Exploring, swimming, sleeping," he added. I wrote "together" after the last entry and then erased it as quick as could be, breathless just from writing it. "Mischief," Duncan added. "Food," I put down.

  The list looked fairly complete. We sat and considered it for some time. Father and Flora gabbed a blue streak in the kitchen (mostly Flora). Father listened and laughed and put in an occasional phrase that kept her going. He chop-chopped the vegetables, the heavy knife cutting through the peppers and squash, cutting into the solid oak block. A big black pan sizzled with butter on the stovetop and the aroma made my mouth water. Father tossed on several cloves of garlic, finely minced.

  Duncan began a timetable. "8:00 o'clock a.m.: Wake up. Swim. 8:30 o'clock a.m.: Breakfast." "9:30 o'clock a.m.," I continued, "Mr. Spengler's book." After breakfast was my best reading time. "Boat," Duncan added for that time. We paused. He wrote "11:00 o'clock a.m." We fiddled with our pencils and looked around the room thinking. "Exploring," I put in, not wanting to be too long by myself, then "1:00 o'clock p.m."

  "Lunch," we both said out loud and laughed. "Lunch," I wrote down. Duncan sneaked his pencil onto the next line down. "2:00 o'clock p.m.: Swim." I erased it quick as could be. "Nap, then swim," I penciled in instead. Duncan shook his head in agreement. "3:30 o'clock p.m."

  We looked around the room again. Father grated a brick of white cheese over the steaming pan. Flora stacked four plates on the stovetop and put a stew pot upside down over them, gesturing with her free hand and going on about emulsion fluids.

  "Drawing," I wrote down, as that was the time I always did my drawing with Mother. Duncan stuck his lip out, tapping his pencil repeatedly on the paper. "Running," he wrote down.

  "Running?" I asked out loud. He looked at me and shrugged.

  "Like soldiers do for training," he explained. "I want to be as fit as I can by the end of summer." I thought he was quite fit already.

  "You're fit as can be," I said, and stopped just short of kissing him there and then. He just looked at me and blushed, nodding his head and saying "You," and then nothing more.

  "I still want to run," he added after a pause. "I can't just do drawing, anyway." I nodded along with his thinking. "And I don't want to be lashing boats all day long."

  "Would you help me on my drawing just sometimes, when I need help?" I asked. I thought maybe I'd need to see him standing where we'd been standing, just to get it exactly right.

  "Sure I'd help," he agreed. "I just don't want to be doing stuff I'm no good at." The food was being piled onto plates. I looked him in the eyes for a long moment.

  "Let's finish quick," he said, "before lunch."

  "5:30 o'clock p.m.: Swim," I wrote. "6:00 o'clock p.m.: Dinner," Duncan put in below. "7:30 o'clock p.m." We looked up at our list of activities, looking for what we'd left out. "Mischief," Duncan penciled in, grinning with it.

  Flora put the steaming plates, piled high with garlic-buttered vegetables and gooey strings of melting cheese, at our places as we pulled the list into my lap and finished.

  "9:30 o'clock p.m.: Memory Book." "Read," Duncan added, as that was the time he liked best for reading. "10:00 o'clock p.m. Sleep."

  Our plan's in effect. Already it's almost ten and Duncan's reading and I'm writing, just as we'd said we'd do. Flora's all bundled up in bed wheezing into her pillow, asleep for an hour already. When we get into bed will be the most lovely because the cotton sheet will be soft and cool against our skin and I'll roll over on top of him all bare skin and tender and we'll kiss and kiss there in the big bundling bed, so very quiet lying in the cold night air.

  * * *

  21 JUNE 1915

  When we woke it was still just seven and Flora was gone, her bed neatly made. We lay around and rolled around a good hour together and both came, rubbing up against each other's bellies. I put his whole penis in my mouth like I'd tried a couple times before, but the sounds he made were so odd I wasn't sure it was what he wanted. We don't talk about details like that. This time though he swung around and put his mouth over mine at the same time and from how it felt I could hardly think and must have made sounds stranger even than what he made. We held each other all warm and slobbery in each other's mouths like that for a long while, hardly moving except for our heads and mouths and throats and tongues and reaching round behind to wrap my arms round his butt and pull him in close to me. Sure it was dumb and reckless, what with the bright morning shining down into the trees and no idea who might come wandering in. But we were under covers, a bit unusual still, but at least under covers, and I'm sure we'll do it again tomorrow and every day this summer if we're given half a chance.

  Our swim was brisk, chilly cold and wonderful. We plunged in directly and leapt and dove as much as we could, though the rocky lagoon ran quite shallow. Flora spotted us from a distance and marched right down despite our nakedness, asking politely if we minded and of course we didn't, being so desperately modern, as we were. She stripped off her clothes and dove right in, fast as a kingfisher, bobbing her head back up and smiling brightly. She was always one to set the tone, directly and unmistakably, and so she did.

  We were back to breakfast (right on schedule), all wet-haired and noisy. Father joined us, alerted, no doubt, by the salty sweet smell of bacon and the hot black coffee. Duncan and I showed him our Day Plans, as we'd shown Flora last evening, and he clucked his approval of our busy schedule, promising to join us at mealtimes and advise us on exploration and mischief.

  I did dishes with Flora, and Duncan went out in search of suitable planks for his boat, deciding to draw up plans after he'd found what materials were at hand.

  "I think it's wonderful about you and Duncan," Flora said through steam clouds billowing out from the boiling water. She was pouring it over the piled-up dishes.

  "Us being such good friends?" I asked.

  "Oh, yes, that certainly," she answered in a leading voice. "That and everything else."

  I looked out the foggy window and thought about "everything else": Mother and Father and Mr. Taqdir and the two houses; all the trouble I'd had thinking through it all. It was wonderful being so close to Duncan through all of that. Just how wonderful, I thought, she certainly didn't know. Still, to think everything else was wonderful too, just because it brought me closer to Duncan, seemed wrongheaded.

  "It is wonderful, despite everything else," I said. "I wish some things had never happened. Though he makes things better for me."

  Flora put a firm hand on my shoulder and leaned in close. "Not despite, Dogey, not despite everything. You shouldn't feel ashamed."

  I felt a bit confused. I didn't feel ashamed.

  "All that 'else' is also wonderful," she insisted. "As it should be and completely natural, no matter what society says." Though my selfish thoughts were just the opposite, I'd come to accept Mother's action enough to agree with Flora.

  "I know it's natural," I said, still a bit reluctant. "And of course my friendship with Duncan is all bound up in it. It just sti
ll makes me cry and get mad and hate that it happens sometimes."

  She pulled me close to her and cooed, "Oh, Dogey, Dogey, you mustn't bring the judgments of society inside you. Just let it go. Feel what you feel without shame. Friendship, loving, all of it."

  She was right and I knew that. Part of being here was to help me feel better about Father and Mother as things were now, not just feel a need for them to change back again.

  "I know," I said simply.

  Flora stayed in to read with me, us feeling very close because of our little chat, and she snuggled up on the rug with Ruskin while I started in to Mr. Spengler's book.

  This part I read over and over because I thought it must somehow make sense: "Some men in the presence of considerable stimulus have no memory owing to disease or age, just as if a stimulus or a seal were impressed on flowing water. With them the design makes no impression because they are worn down like old walls in buildings, or because of the hardness of that which is to receive the impression. For this reason the very young and the very old have poor memories; they are in a state of flux, the young because of their growth, the old because of their decay."

  First I thought of water, dreaming I was adrift at sea, and the problem of memories stamped into water. So often I'd felt as if my mind was washing away. It made me think also of that river I'd imagined running through me and how I finally felt satisfied and complete really, only once it had washed a part of me away. It wasn't erosion so much as the making of something, like rivers make their riverbeds. It wasn't loss so much as gain. That's what I thought about first.

  Then I thought of old buildings, the walls all tumbled down and worn, like the ruins and like Maybeck's Palace at the Fair. This guy was wrong about the buildings, I figured. Old buildings hold so many memories. All the story and past of them crumbling is held and revealed right in the pattern of the dusty ruins. Old buildings hold so many more "impressions" because each event that happens to them leaves a mark. Their whole past is visible in the pattern of their decay. It's these new buildings that are unreadable, I think. Like the Fair. That must be what he meant by hardness. Those walls can't hold any "impressions." They're just rock-smooth and finished, and fake to boot. They're just frozen fake monuments. And then they'll just be gone and disappeared, blown up by dynamite before they've even had time to accumulate a real past.