"Phoebe? Your French is better than mine. Ask him if he has someplace to stay?"
"What? Sumner, what are you doing?"
"Ask him, Phoebe."
"Avez-vous un endroit pour dormir?
The man stared off into space, almost as if he hadn't heard what she said.
"What's his name, Phoebe?"
"Vieil homme, quel est votre nom?"
He shook his head. "Je ne sais pas, jeune fille."
"He doesn't know his own name?"
"That's what he said."
"Ask him if he knows where he is."
"Savez-vous ou sont?"
"Ooh...je marchais, par ma maison, alors je suis venu ici. Cela est inexact, quelque chose ne va pas...quelque chose est tres mal..."
"What did he say?" Liz asked.
"He says he was walking near his home, but now something is wrong, very wrong."
"Ask him what's wrong? What's different?"
"Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas? Qu'est ce qui a changé?"
"La vile a changé. Rien de tel qu'il était. Je ne comprends pas..."
"He says he doesn't understand, the city's different, that everything has changed."
Sumner leaned in close. "Ask him if he knows Marian Orgeron?" The old man canted his head when he heard that name...
"Sumner? What? What are you...?"
"Ask him, Phoebe."
"Monsieur, savez-vous une femme nommée Marian Orgeron?"
"Quelle! Qui est-tu? Comment savez-vous son nom?"
"He wants to know who we are, how we know her?"
"Tell him we can take him to her. Tonight. Right now. All he has to do is tell us his name."
"Monsieur, nous pouvons vous prendre pour elle en ce moment, mais d'abord, vous devez nous dire votre nom."
"Je ne vous crois pas."
"He doesn't believe you."
"Show him the video."
"Sumner?"
"Just play it."
She took out her phone and found the file and began playing it. She held the phone out so the old man could see it...
"Ce n'est pas possible!" "This is not possible!"
He continued watching, his eyes now round, full of fear...
"Comment cela peut-il etre vrai?" "How can this be true?"
After a few minutes Phoebe stopped playback. "Monsieur, voulez-vous la voir? Ce soir?"
"Oui," he moaned.
"Monsieur, dites-moi votre nom, s'il vous plait.
"Claude. Claude Debussy."
"Si vous, voulez voir Mlle Orgeron, s'il vous plaît venir avec nous. Maintenant, s'il vous plaît, Monsieur Debussy."
The old man stood and brushed the snow off his topcoat. "Je ne me sens pas bien...pourrais-tu m'aider s'il vous plait?"
"What's going on," Liz asked.
Phoebe seemed a bit unsteady on her feet now, and she looked at Sumner, then Liz. "He says he's not feeling well," she said, taking the old man's arm in her own. "He says his name is Debussy. Claude Debussy."
"And we're sure he's not a mad schizophrenic rapist, aren't we?" Lis added.
"Sumner? How did you know he was here?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea. It felt like something was pushing me here, literally like something was pushing me on the back, forcing me to walk this way."
"The unmoved mover," Phoebe sighed. "Why is this happening to you? To us?"
They were out on the street soon enough, but Debussy recoiled from the cars and by the people he saw walking by. "Quel est cet endroit? Que s'est-il passé?"
"I don't think he understands what he's seeing, he's confused."
"How long was he sitting there, in the alley?"
"Monsieur, combien de temps aviez-vous étéassis dans l'allée?"
"Je ne suis pas certain. Peut-être minutes, peut-être des années. Rien ne semble faire sens dans le présent..."
"He says he's unsure, maybe minutes, maybe years, only that the present doesn't seem to make sense."
"Depuis combien de temps Marian ici?"
"Elle est arrivée hier. He wanted to know when Marian arrived, and I told him yesterday."
Collins saw a market just ahead and went in, bought a half dozen avocados, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and a lime, then he rejoined Liz on the street; he could see Phoebe and Debussy ahead, the old man still holding onto her arm. He smiled, wondered just what the old man could possibly be thinking about the things he was seeing right now. How shocked would he be if he suddenly found himself in Paris a hundred years from now...
Liz was silent now, but she moved close and brushed snow off his coat, then took his arm in hers. "Will you ever by able to forgive me for leaving?"
"I still don't understand why you did."
"Because I was afraid."
"Afraid? Of what?"
"Losing you, I think."
"So you left?"
"Before you could leave me."
He shook his head. "You're afraid I would leave you, so you left me first? You know, in the world I grew up in, when a girl leaves like that she either wants to end things or she wants you to follow and sign your life away."
"Cynical."
"Doesn't matter."
"No, I suppose not." She pulled away from him, fell a little behind. "I guess that's it, then. Easy come, easy go."
"Liz, the world I deal with is all shades of gray, not simple blacks and whites. You've told me why you left, but it feels hollow to me, and I guess we have a trust issue now. And I think we will until we don't. If you can't handle that, if the easy way out is to shut down and walk away, well, you're only proving my point. That's what you'll do whenever we hit a rough patch. You want the situation to change? Well then, you got some work to do."
She walked along in silence for a while, but took his hand when he came to the boat. "Fair enough," she said.
He helped her across, then Phoebe and Debussy hopped aboard. He led them below and found Sophie at the piano, playing a few tentative chords. She looked up when she saw them, but her eyes went wide when she saw Debussy.
"Non, non, cela ne peut pas être! Qu'est-ce que cela, ce qui se passe ici? Ceci est absurde!"
Phoebe came below, rushed to the girl's side. "Sophie, relax, we found him on the street..."
Debussy began yelling -- "Cela ne veut pas Marian! Ce n'est pas ce que vous avez promis! Ou est Mlle Orgeron?!"
Collins took the old man by the arm and led him aft, leaving Phoebe to calm down the girl, but when he opened the door and led Debussy into the aft cabin the old man looked at Deb sleeping -- and burst into tears.
"Oh mon Dieu!" He hissed between clinched lips. "Ce qui est arrivé a mon Marian? Qu'avez-vous fait pour elle?"
"We haven't done anything. She's very ill..."
"Je ne comprends pas l'anglais? S'il vous plait, ou est la femme qui parle français?"
"Phoebe? Need a hand here!"
"Sumner?"
He turned, saw Deb looking at him from the bed, then she looked at Debussy...
"Claude? Mon dieu! Qu'est ce qui t'es arrivé? Vous avez grandi si grand? Est-ce que vous mangez tellement maintenant?"
"Uh-oh," Phoebe said, now standing right behind her brother. "She just told him he looks fat."
"Time to get the fuck out of Dodge..." He turned on the overhead light and shut the door behind them, then returned to the main cabin.
"Well?" Liz said.
"He recognized her, as Marian," Sumner said.
"You mean," Sophie said, "Claude Debussy just recognized that woman as my great-grandmother?"
"It would appear so."
The girl stood and ran back to the cabin and listened at the door, just as Collins saw Dr Mann at the head of the companionway steps.
"Ooh, wonderful!" Mann said. "It looks like I got here just in time..."
"Indeed," Phoebe said.
"What has happened?"
"We went out to dinner. And ran into Debussy."
"Who?"
"Claude Debussy."
"Merde."
"Well said. Just so," Collins sighed, then he walked to the cabinet and poured himself two fingers of rum.
"One for me, if you please," Mann said. "You know, I never drank rum until I met you. Now I can't seem to get enough. You are a shameful influence, Captain."
"Thank you. We aim to please."
The doctor shook his head. "I like you, Collins. In spite of your blusterings I think you must be a good man. Now, where is this imposter?"
Collins handed the doctor a tall glass of dark rum and pointed to the aft cabin, to Sophie, who was still standing, transfixed, at the door.
The doctor walked back to the door. "Have you heard anything interesting?"
"Cela est impossible, Docteur? C'est de la folie! Que se passe-t-il?"
"Nous sommes a l'intérieur d'un rêve dans un rêve, ma fille. Nous devons marcher avec précaution, can nous marchons a l'intérieur des rêves de Dieu maintenant..."
Mann opened the door and went in, found Debussy by Deborah's side -- the composer openly weeping now. Deborah lay very still and he went to her, took her wrist in his hand, then set it down gently.
"Would you find Mr Collins, please, and bring him to me," Mann said gently, looking up at Sophie. She nodded and left; Sumner returned a moment later, looked at Deborah for a heartbeat -- then his eyes filled with tears.
"Is she..." he managed to say.
"Oui," the physician said -- just as Debussy held out his hands and cried "Dieu, pas encore!" -- and his form began to shimmer in the air. Within the space of a long sigh his body disappeared, leaving Deborah's stillness once again the center of the universe. Sophie came in and sat on the bed, looking at this stranger who once might have been the center of her universe, once upon a time. She took her hand and kissed it. "Adieu, vielle mere. Adieu."
Collins went forward just then, and he found Charley sitting on Elizabeth's lap; he picked her up and carried her aft, let her walk and circle around the bed, come to terms with Deborah's stillness, then the little pup walked up, and curled up, on Deborah's chest -- and then she began to lick her chin.
In this new silence she too lay in a great stillness, trying to understand the calm in the cooling body where she liked to rest her head.
+++++
"I am left," Mann said, "trying to understand what has happened, but what I have seen is like a puzzle with too many of it's vital pieces missing. A well so deep," he said, think of Thomas Mann's Joseph, "that we may never see the end of it." He looked around at the bare trees and the graceful arc of the Trocadero that lay beyond, then down, at Debussy's grave. "Pieces of a puzzle larger and more complex than any I have ever known, the passing of Miss Hill leaves us only clues, yet we remain in the here and now, left to carry on. Her passing gives us reason to pause and examine the very meaning of time, just as her life was a clue to this meaning. We may be tempted to view her life as a series of despairs, and we may be tempted to say her despairs were without meaning, but I do not believe that. With her passing I am left to struggle with the idea that our lives, our souls, perhaps, echo through time. That her despairs were echoes of earlier struggles, and that she will carry on fighting into the future until she finally can overcome the pain of her existence, and then perhaps we may all reach out to her at last, for understanding."
He bent over and took a small scoop of ashes and spread them around Debussy's grave, then he handed the scoop to Collins, who smiled for a moment, then did the same. When everyone who came had looked down and thought about her life in her presence one last time, the small group walked out to the street and scattered on the wind.
Collins went to the car and picked up Charley, then walked back to the grave. She circled a few times, then lay down for a bit, and he sat there beside her on the brown grass, stroking the top of her head while he thought about all that had happened the last few months.
Paul Whittington came by then and lay some roses on Debussy's grave, then sat on the grass beside Collins and pulled out a pint of rum and handed it to him. Collins took a long pull from the little bottle, then handed it back to Whittington.
"It's been a strange slice of life," Whittington said. "Any plans yet?"
"No, not really. I think I have to get used to the way the world is right now before I think much about what might be. Does that make any sense?"
"Really? It does, but that doesn't sound at all like you. Dwelling on the past and all."
"Well, I planned to stay here through winter, 'til March at least."
"I could use a hand, you know. Getting Aphrodite up to Paris."
"Okay."
"What's with you and Liz? Did that fall apart?"
Collins shrugged, looked down at Charley. "Not sure what's going on there. Have you met anyone yet?"
"Yes, oddly enough, I have."
"Well, good for you. Is she a sailor?"
"Well, Sumner. No, he's not."
"Ah. So, life goes on then, eh?"
"I suppose it will, one way or another. I'd like to grab hold of my little bit of happiness before shuffling off the coil."
"That's the thing, I guess," Collins sighed. "It's just that every bit of happiness I've ever held seems to lead back to suffering."
"You're beginning to sound like a Buddhist, Sumner. Be careful or you'll soon be ridding yourself of all worldly possessions and walking up some bloody mountain in Nepal."
"The Razor's Edge?"
"Precisely. If I were you, I'd keep to the path you're on, see where that leads. But I think you should get back to the sea as soon as you can."
"Oh?"
"That dolphin. She holds the key to your existence, you know?"
"You think so?"
"I do."
"So, when do you want to move Aphrodite?"
"Oh, any time."
"Christmas is next week; do you want to be here before that?"
"I suppose so, if at all possible."
"Well then, I reckon we ought to get with it. Tomorrow, don't you think?"
"Would you like to drive down with me today?"
"No. I have a few things to tie up today. Pick me up at the train station, I guess the ten o'clock arrival."
"Okay. See you then." Whittington stood and held out his hand -- and Collins took it.
"Adios, Amigo."
Collins picked up Charley a few minutes later and walked back to the car; Liz and Phoebe were sitting in the back, arms crossed across their chests, eyes staring vacantly ahead. He put Charley in the seat beside his and slipped into the heavy, late morning traffic, struggling to find the riverside route back to the Arsenal. Once back on the boat, Liz pulled out Deb's things and began baking a fresh batch of scones, while Phoebe went forward and began cleaning up the boat. Collins sat in the cockpit, his legs stretched out, Charley sitting there, looking up at him, waiting, always waiting, for the music to begin again.
The Ceremony of Innocence
The third part of the tale: 'Curse what deceives us in our dreaming'
He stood on the bow of the rumbling dive boat, holding onto the painted galvanized rail as it pounded through heaving, wind driven swell, trying to make out the lights off Catalina's Isthmus Cove. The man had just decided he was going to be seasick -- and wanted to get as far away from his students as he could -- and suddenly he leaned over the rail and retched, but nothing came up and he cursed his dehydrated gut, pulled out a roll of antacids from his jacket pocket and chewed a few, hoping to knock back the acid fueling this recurring storm.
He sensed one of his students nearby and tried to get his act together, but the combination of rolling swells and diesel fumes was a toxic mix, at least as far as his stomach was concerned, and he leaned over again as another wave hit...
"You feeling okay," he heard a woman's voice ask, and he shook his head, tried to remember her name.
"Not really. I think the water between Long Beach and Catalina is the best in the world for making me seasick. Every night I come out here...it gets me when the fumes hit."
"Half the class is hurling over the rail out back," she said, "so you're not alone. Are you taking Maalox?"
"Uh-huh."
"Here, take one of these?"
"These being?" he said as he held out his hand.
"Prilosec, a PPI."
"That's right. You're a doc, aren't you?" He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed it dry, wishing he'd brought a bottle of water with him.
"Yup, but only in the minor leagues. Here, take that with some water," she said, handing him an unopened bottle of ice cold water.
"Minor leagues? What's that mean?" he sighed as he downed the bottle in one long pull.
"I work in Santa Monica, at one of those big HMOs. Doc in the Box, I think we're called."
"Twelve years of school to serve fast food medicine? Must be fun."
"Not the words I'd choose, but it pays the rent. So. You don't teach SCUBA full time?"
"Nope. LAPD."
"Yikes. Bet that's a fun job."
"Not the words I'd choose, but it pays the rent." He smiled at her, tried to stifle a toxic fuming burp but it hissed out between his tightly clinched lips. He shook his head and squinted as another wave of bile tickled his glottis, making his eyes water. "Sorry," he groaned.
She looked at him for the millionth time, totally in lust with the guy. Really tall and almost too skinny, he looked like one hard muscle -- coiled and ready to strike. His arms and legs were wicked hairy too, and, like the hair on his head, it was all dark blond heading fast for grayish-white. She guessed he was in his mid-fifties, but whatever he was, every time she looked at him she got weak in the knees and wet where it counted.
"You married?" she asked, looking out towards Catalina.
He chuckled. "Depends on who you ask."
"Oh?"
"I was in the process of getting a divorce, but my wife was in an accident a few months ago, before the papers were final."
"Hurt?"
"Killed. She and her boyfriend, out riding his Ducati on the Angeles Crest Highway at two in the morning. Hit a rock and lost it, into the guardrail. I think the tequila in their systems had something to do with it, but my guess is she died happy."
"I seem to remember reading about that one..."
"A inglorious end to a somewhat glorious marriage."
"Bitter?"
"You know? About the second week of academy one of our instructors told us that if our marriages weren't rock solid we'd be divorced within two years. Ours just about got to twenty, so I wonder if that'd be considered semi-rock solid?"
"Twenty years? That's pretty good these days...for anyone."
The boat launched off a high swell and dove down into a deep trough, sending a wall of water all over the foredeck, drenching them both.
"We'd better move aft," he said.
"I'm going to stay up here if you don't mind," she grinned. "It's kind of exhilarating, I guess."
He didn't move, but he did turn around and look at her. Maybe forty, short as could be and stocky, built kind of like a fire hydrant, but with super cute, inquisitive eyes. He remembered thinking she wasn't fat the first night at the pool; neither was she what most people would consider trim -- these days, anyway. She looked fit and strong when they did their pool training, however, and she definitely wasn't a wimp.
"Why'd you decide to take up SCUBA diving?" he asked her.
"I moved out here last year, and it seemed like the thing to do. I love the ocean, everything about it. I grew up north of Boston, and my parents were big sailors. We went sailing every weekend all summer, every summer, and sailed up to Maine around the Fourth every year, but it was too cold to do much diving. I tried snorkeling a few years ago and loved it, wanted to see more, but with school and all, then work, well, there just wasn't time."
"The water here isn't particularly warm, you know?"
"What is out here this time of year?"
"Fifty, maybe fifty-two degrees. I hate to say it, but most of the old pros keep warm by peeing in their wetsuit right after they hit the water. The pee will keep you warm for a while, a few minutes anyway, and by that time your body heat will warm up the water inside your suit. The pee gets flushed within a couple minutes...after five minutes it's all gone. Still, it's kind of gross."
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