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would reject it because it was too like the other one without being the other one. Perhaps she would
reject it because it was too unlike the other one. Who knew which way her mind would turn. But perhaps
she would accept it and talk to him and close the distance between them before she shut herself off like
used machinery.
He went home to her.
Her belly got in the way when he hugged her in greeting. On any other occasion, he would have laughed
and stroked it, thinking of his child inside. Now, he only looked at it, realized that she could give birth any
time. How stupid he had been to go away and leave her, to give up any part of what might be their last
days together.
She took his hand and led him into the house while her son Julien took his horse. Julien gave Doro a
long, frightened, pleading look that Doro did not acknowledge. Clearly, the man knew.
Inside the house, he got the same kinds of looks from Leah and Kane, whom Anyanwu had sent for.
Nobody said anything except in ordinary greeting, but the house was filled with tension. It was as though
everyone felt it but Anyanwu. She seemed to feel nothing except solemn pleasure in having Doro home
again.
Supper was quiet, almost grim, and everyone seemed to have something to do to keep from lingering at
the table. Everyone but Doro. He coaxed Anyanwu to share wine and fruit and nuts and talk with him in
the smaller, cooler back parlor. As it turned out, they shared wine and fruit and nuts and silence, but it
did not matter. It was enough that she was with him.
Anyanwu's child, a tiny, sturdy boy, was born two weeks after Doro's return, and Doro became almost
sick with desperation. He did not know how to deal with his feelings, could not recall ever having had
such an intense confusion of feelings before. Sometimes he caught himself observing his own behavior as
though from a distance and noticing with even greater confusion that there was nothing outwardly visible
in him to show what he was suffering. He spent as much time as he could with Anyanwu, watching her
prepare and mix her herbs; instruct several of her people at a time in their cultivation, appearance and
use; tend those few who could not wait for this or that herb.
"What will they do when they have only the herbs?" he asked her.
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"Live or die as best they can," she said. "Everything truly alive dies sooner or later."
She found a woman to nurse her baby and she gave calm instructions to a frightened Leah. She
considered Leah the strangest and the brightest of her white daughters and the one most competent to
succeed her. Kane did not want this. He felt threatened, even frightened, by the thought of suddenly
greater visibility. He would become more noticeable to people of his father's class people who might
have known his father. Doro thought this too unlikely to worry about. He found himself trying to explain
to the man that if Kane played his role as well as Doro had always seen him play it, and if also he clearly
possessed all the trappings of a wealthy planter, it would never occur to people to assume that he was
anything but a wealthy planter. Doro told the story of Frank's passing him off as a Christianized African
prince, and he and Kane laughed together over it. There had not been much laughter in the house
recently, and even this ended abruptly.
"You have to stop her," Kane said as though they had been discussing Anyanwu all along. "You have to.
You're the only one who can."
"I don't know what to do," Doro admitted bleakly. Kane would have no idea how unusual such an
admission was from him.
"Talk to her! Does she want something? Give it to her!"
"I think she wants me not to kill," Doro said.
Kane blinked, then shook his head helplessly. Even he understood that it was impossible.
Leah came into the back parlor where they were talking and stood before Doro, hands on her hips. "I
can't tell what you feel," she said. "I've never been able to somehow. But if you feel anything at all for her,
go to her now!"
"Why?" Doro asked.
"Because she's going to do it. She's just about gotten herself to the brink. I don't think she plans to wake
up tomorrow morning like Luisa."
Doro stood up to go, but Kane stopped him with a question to Leah.
"Honey, what does she want? What does she really want from him?"
Leah looked from one man to another, saw that they were both awaiting her answer. "I asked her that
myself," she said. "She just said she was tired. Tired to death."
She had seemed weary, Doro thought. But weary of what? Him? She had begged him not to go away
again not that he had planned to. "Tired of what?" he asked.
Leah held her hands in front of her and looked down at them. She opened and closed the fingers as
though to grasp something, but she held only air. She gestured sometimes when receiving or remembering
images and impressions no one else could see. In ordinary society, people would certainly have thought
her demented.
"That's what I can feel," she said. "If I sit where she's recently sat or even more if I handle something
she's worn. It's a reaching and reaching and grasping and then her hands are empty. There's nothing.
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She's so tired."
"Maybe it's just her age," Kane said. "Maybe it's finally caught up with her."
Leah shook her head. "I don't think so. She's not in any pain, hasn't slowed down at all. She's just . . ."
Leah made a sound of frustration and distress-almost a sob. "I'm no good at this," she said. "Things either [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]