Ширли Мерфи - The Grass Tower

They stood on the street in the blinding sunlight staring at each other. And then they were running, laughing, released, through the city, clutching the brightness to them, heady with it, delirious; even the city seemed brighter. The clouded sky was dark and rich, and where the sun slanted through the clouds the colors were brilliant as wet paint; the whole city shone around them. At last their delirium calmed, and they poked into shops, ate ice cream, drank orange pop, watched sweating men raise scaffolding for a building; and the joy in them was a quiet, sustaining wholeness.

But still, in spite of the sudden brightness, Bethany could feel the darkness tucked down into some recess of Ninea’s mind as if she still would will it to her, as if she still would choose it in her terrible need.

They climbed aboard a rattling chiva bus painted with bright pictures of flowers and fighting roosters; they crowded in among hot sweaty people, some of them long unwashed, Bethany thought; then they walked on the old seawall and sat atop it while Ninea pictured for Bethany the dungeons that lay below them, barred cages in the wall that looked out upon the rising tides of the bay, where sharks swam, dungeons that for two centuries had held the convicted prisoners of the city. “Once all this part of the city was a walled fort,” Ninea said, “to protect it from pirates.” And they looked at each other for the hundredth time, and each thought she was seeing herself as no one can ever see herself; and each felt wonder.

“When you cut your hair,” Bethany asked, “did you plan it first?”

“I thought of it when I woke up. I wanted you to do it too.”

“But—” and the idea shocked Bethany. “Did you know we were twins when—after you dreamed of me?”

“No. I knew you looked like me. I didn’t understand it, though,” Ninea said half-defiantly. “Not at first. But I thought if I cut my hair, and could make you cut yours— I don’t know, but after that I thought you might be. I thought if we were twins it would explain the secrecy. I’ve always known there was something I wasn’t told, the way Grandmother was so careful about what she said, the way she was evasive about my—our—mother, and the way she would look at Corrinne sometimes and Corrinne would stop talking. When I thought about it, it seemed— Well, it was the most logical thing to think, to explain what—who you were.” Ninea gave her a long, steady look. “I wasn’t like you, you know. I never did get thoughts much from anyone, not like the things you’ve told me. If I had, I would have known what it was Grandmother was hiding. I got feelings, fears, I used to feel her terrible resentment sometimes for no reason; I couldn’t understand what I was feeling when I was little. I think maybe it was because our father married an American, then was shot the way he was. I don’t know for sure, but she says things sometimes.

“After I started to dream of you, and when I saw you in the museum glass, something started to change in me. Maybe it was there all the time. I began to see pictures, things began to come to me, faces I didn’t know, then the dark room and the candles. And then I heard voices for the first time, I heard a voice like my own voice saying the incantations— I thought I was going crazy.” She stared at Bethany, rapt. “I just— I wanted to be there. I tried, I just—I just made myself be,” she said with sudden passion. Bethany stared back at her, loving her for perhaps the first time. Caring. In a way, the Zagdesha story was true. At least for them; they had found each other. Would they have, without it? She thought they would. After all, Ninea had dreamed of her.

“Ninea? Do you ever think—did you ever think what we could do? I mean with our lives, the way we are? Something special.” She felt very close to her sister suddenly, as if, after all—

But Ninea had turned to stare at her with a really defiant look. “I don’t know. Why should we?”

“I—well because,” Bethany began lamely. “Because—” she tried to make Ninea see without words, but she could touch nothing but a wall in her mind. “Because if we can do some good—” She stared at Ninea, and felt Ninea’s sullen response, almost as if she felt Bethany were trying to spoil something for her. Bethany stiffened, and they stood locked in a defiant exchange; then all at once Ninea turned on her heel and began to walk fast down the top of the stone wall, high above the water. Bethany stared after her, perplexed, and she did not follow her; she turned away instead, hot and irritable suddenly. Tired suddenly. And there was a lingering sense of darkness, of the voodoo —as if Ninea would prefer to delve with her into some dark cult. Bethany longed suddenly, more than anything, to be home, on her own shore, and safe. She longed to be with Reid.

She sat on the wall and stared out at the bay and tried to think about Ninea—it was her responsibility, she felt. But what was? Not Ninea herself, surely. Or was she? Well at least it was her responsibility not to let Ninea lead her. Her sense of self, of keeping control of her own powers and her own way of life seemed more important than before. But there was more, and that was harder to think about. She could not just humor Ninea as she did Colin. Ninea’s power, her potential—at least when it was linked with Bethany’s own—was too great for that. Oh! She clenched her fists and scowled down at the water. She didn’t know what was right—not at this moment, in this place. Was it right to fight Ninea if she used her powers for—well, for voodoo or something? Or was it right only to keep herself in the path she wanted to tread, and let Ninea go her own way?

She sat there for a long time arguing with herself. And when she thought Ninea was not coming back, she grew angry. But at last Ninea returned, sheepish, and they started home in silence, Ninea kicking at a can on the sidewalk. And Bethany’s joy at the brightness they had felt together so short a time ago was quite gone.

Well they would be home soon, really home, on the dunes, and maybe things would be better there. It was only last night they heard the decision. “Ninea may go for the American school year,” Senora Ruiz had said in a cool tone. “Ninea’s school year is different, of course, even though it is an English-speaking school. A very special school,” she said pointedly, as if Ninea wouldn’t find anything to compare in the States. “You will miss your vacation entirely, Ninea—but then that can’t matter, can it, when you want so much to go.” She had said this with such sarcasm that a surge of anger had swept Bethany.

She glanced at Ninea now, feeling a little less cross with her. After all, what would she be like if she hadn’t gotten any more love than Ninea had? Ninea looked up sideways under her lashes, and she was not sullen any more; Bethany felt her own lightness return and grinned back at her. “You’re going home with us!” she said, feeling the excitement of it now, looking forward to it. “I wonder how Grandfather ever managed it.”

“He charmed it out of her; haven’t you been watching him? What do you think all this going out in the evening and opening doors for her and being so flattering has been about?”

“You don’t think— They aren’t getting romantic?”

“No! Oh, no!” Ninea doubled over with glee, breaking the tension completely. “Oh, they couldn’t, Grandmother’s too—too proper. That would be—” she was almost hysterical with laughter. “That would be incest!”

When they had recovered from this witicism, they felt better, definitely better, and climbed the tree to get into their bedroom, then sneaked down the back stairs to the kitchen and talked Corrinne out of hot empanadas and milk, which they took to Ninea’s room. “We don’t eat in our room,” Ninea mimicked Senora Ruiz. And they were altogether happy and uncomplicated and at ease in the world.