In all the times I’ve seen her, I think she never smiled. Or showed anger.
She arrived at the back door on that hot sultry day when everybody with any sense was cooling off at the lake. She was wearing a long red velvet skirt that swept a broad swath in the sandy path to the cottage. Her embroidered bodice was a fine example of nomadic art, and her flowing costume could have held three of her. It seemed impossible that her frail, flat-chested body could support the weight of that heavy velvet and those strings of beads.
“Yes?” I said. “You wanted something?”
For the few seconds before she replied, she gazed at me, and even now it is hard to describe her eyes. They were blue, they were white, they were colorless, and they seemed unable to blink or change expression. They were a child’s eyes—porcelain eyes, with no appearance of depth.
“I heard you were looking for somebody to clean house,” she said.
“Right. But my wife is down at the lake. She’ll be back around six.”
“Could I see the house first?” she said.
“Sure. My studio’s separate. I take care of it myself, so there’s just the living room-kitchen that you’re looking at and a couple of small bedrooms. Not very much. It’s nothing but a summer shack.”
“I know,” she said. She moved forward and appeared to study the room. “When were you born?” she asked.
It was a peculiar question, and later it occurred to me that it was even more peculiar that I answered it. “Nineteen thirty,” I said.
“No. I mean what date?”
“October,” I said. “The fourteenth.”
“Libra,” she said. Then she walked forward and touched the paperweight on my desk. “That’s why you have the opal,” she said. “It’s your birthstone. And your wife? When was she born?”
“Same month as I was, but on the seventh.”
“I’m a Virgo,” she said, “so there won’t be any problem. Just so you’re not Scorpio.”
She seemed about to leave, but before making up her mind she took a last look at the room and saw the sketch I’d made that morning. It was a quick drawing, only half finished, of a young girl. She picked it up and gazed at it rapturously.
“Oh, I like that!” she exclaimed. “It’s me!” And she clasped it to her meager bosom. “May I borrow it? I have to be with it for a while.”
“Of course,” I said, flattered by her enthusiasm and watching her hug it, carrying it as she would a sleeping infant.
She seemed embarrassed, and she turned and looked at me with those pale, innocent eyes.
“I have to go to The Area,” she said, as if she hated the necessity of explaining, “but you don’t have to take me there unless you want to.”
“Glad to,” I said. “No trouble at all.” And I felt noble and virtuous at giving her a ride.
I don’t know when people first started calling that grassy peninsula “The Area.” It had acquired the name long before Gerda and I had started coming to the lake, and by immemorial custom it was reserved for nude bathing. Nobody was sure who owned it. I tried once to check the title on the tax records, and found that theoretically it didn’t even exist. Perhaps that was why the police, otherwise so strict in petty law enforcement, stayed away from The Area.
When I returned to the house, Gerda was changing from her bathing suit, and I told her about the apparition that was due to work for us.
“What’s her name?” Gerda asked.
“Amanda Pyle. She has strange, light-colored eyes, and her hair is blond-red, something like a pink grapefruit.”
“What a romantic image!” Gerda said.
I had to go to town shortly before six, and when I returned to the house I saw Martin Fuller’s beat-up bug parked nearby. I recognized his car by the variety of oversized flower decals that decorated its pockmarked hide. I pulled up alongside.
“Hi,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for Amanda,” he answered. “It seems she’s decided to work for you.”
“We certainly need her. Ever since Gerda hurt her arm, she’s been desperate for somebody to help out.”
“That’s why Amanda came,” Martin said.
That stopped me. Gerda needs someone, and Amanda divines or intuits or telepathizes, and comes to the rescue. Which was ridiculous.
“Oh,” I said. “You mean somebody told Amanda about Gerda’s arm and that she needed a housecleaner?”
“Well,” Martin said. “I suppose so.”
I felt stupid and wanted to apologize or change the subject and get back to normal. “Been waiting long?” I said.
“Ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Why not have a swim with me?” I said. “I’m going to have a quick dip before dinner.”
“I can’t swim,” Martin said.
“You? A big guy like you? How come?”
Martin gave me a sheepish grin. “Makes me unique,” he said. “Everybody else swims, I don’t.” Then, becoming serious, he said, “When I was a kid I almost drowned, and I’ve been scared of the water ever since.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll get over that. Maybe Amanda can manage it.”
“I guess she will, eventually,” he said. Which was a commonplace remark, and yet at the time I had the feeling that Martin meant she’d perform some kind of hocus-pocus, that she’d tell him he was no longer afraid of the water and could swim, and her saying so would make it so.
“Mmm. Well, I’d better bring my packages in.”
Gerda told me later on that Amanda had walked into the house, tilted her head to one side while she studied Gerda, and announced that it was all right for her to work for Gerda.
“Just like that?” I said. “She told you she was going to work for you? She didn’t wait to be asked?”
“I wanted somebody and she looked clean, so why wouldn’t I give her a try?”
“Just like that?” I said again.
“Well, she said I had the right vibes—vibrations, I guess—so we went on to other things.”
They were on the “other things” when I arrived. They were discussing when it was best to eat fiddleback ferns and whether purslane should be creamed or merely sautéed. It was clear that they were kindred souls, even to the point of finance.
I heard the bargain being made. Amanda was about to leave when Gerda mentioned money. “I forgot to ask you how much you want. I suppose three dollars an hour, like everybody else.”
Amanda objected. “Oh, no. I couldn’t take more than two. Two is Yin and Yang, and three would be triad.”
Gerda looked surprised, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, yes,” she said. “That will be all right.”
I quote the exact conversation, to prove that there was nothing sinister. Nothing.
I was in my studio the following morning when Amanda arrived, and didn’t see her until I came into the house for my second cup of coffee. She was standing at the sink. Despite the bright sunlight a lighted candle was burning on either side of her. She was using my favorite eggcups as holders, and she was slowly washing a coffee cup in a basin of water. Later on, when Gerda and I redid the dishes, she told me Amanda had put a white lily in the basin instead of soapsuds.
“It was quite beautiful,” Gerda said.
At the time, however, I was overwhelmed by the sight of Amanda and her candles. “What!” I exclaimed. “What the—”
But Gerda put her finger to her lips and murmured a “Shh!” Amanda appeared not to hear. I think she was in a trance.
At lunch, after Amanda had left, I asked Gerda how things had worked out. “Well,” Gerda said, “she did about ten cents’ worth of work. Not much more.”
“Did you complain?”
“In a way. She said she’d do better next time.”
She did. Or at least Martin did. He brought her to the house and came in with her. “Martin is going to help me,” Amanda announced. “It won’t cost extra, he’ll do a couple of things.”
What he did was wash the kitchen floor, run the vacuum cleaner, sweep and clean the porch, and shake out the rugs.
“Twenty dollars’ worth of work, easily,” Gerda told me.
The next time, however, Amanda came alone. Perhaps in apology for her incompetence, she presented us with a loaf of health bread that she’d baked.
At almost every visit she brought something wild that she’d made or gathered, and she spent the first half hour or so, at our expense, telling Gerda how to prepare it. As the result, I found myself drinking sumac tea, eating pigweed or lamb’s quarters, and having wild sorrel salads and soups. Once Amanda arrived with a basket of mushrooms, and Gerda and I were shocked to see a couple of amanitas mixed in with some edible species.
“Amanda!” Gerda said. “Throw them out. Those white ones—they’re a deadly poison.”
“I know,” Amanda said serenely. “I wasn’t going to eat those. White is wrong.”
“Amanitas,” Gerda said sternly, “are poisonous.”
“I’m careful,” Amanda said, “and I know where to look. The ones that grow in circles are good to eat, and so are the ones that grow in clusters, but when they’re alone and dressed in white they represent pride and vanity. I wouldn’t dream of eating them.”
“That’s nonsense,” Gerda said firmly. “Inedible ones can also grow in circles and clusters. That’s no way to identify. You have to know a mushroom the way you know an aster or a rose.”
Amanda didn’t answer, and I’m not even sure she listened.
After a few weeks Gerda’s arm had regained its normal strength, but it was not in her nature to fire anybody, particularly someone like Amanda.
“We’re friends,” Gerda said. “She tells me all kinds of things. How she came to the lake, for instance. She was in a commune, and she was on her way to town one day when Martin’s name popped into her mind. She knew him from some yoga classes that they’d both gone to, and they’d kept up with each other in a vague sort of way. When she got back to the commune, she found out Martin had phoned her, so she called him and he said to come up here. Naturally she did.”
“Naturally,” I said.
She worked for us on Mondays and Fridays. Sometimes she brought Martin, and when she did he polished up the house until it was spic and span. Otherwise she left behind her a faint scent of incense, a couple of burnt-out candles, and a stack of dishes to be rewashed. We were therefore surprised to see her arrive one Tuesday morning.
“Bob’s coming,” she said, “and I need money to buy him a present. Shall I start in the bathroom?”
“That will be fine,” Gerda said. “Who’s Bob?”
Amanda went to the refrigerator and took out an egg and some of her barley bread for breakfast. “He’s very special,” she said. “He’s coming from California, and I have to fix the room for him.”
“What about Martin?” Gerda asked.
“Oh, Martin will understand. Bob’s special, you see. He’s been to India and he studied under the Master.” From the way she spoke, you could tell Master was spelled with a capital M. “Bob has Power.” And that was spelled with a capital P.
“Amanda,” Gerda said, “I don’t like to interfere, but I’m a little older than you are, and I’d like to give you some advice. Martin’s been sweet to you, he’s helped you and he’s been a good friend and you have certain obligations toward him, so it’s not fair to push him out and take somebody else, just like that.”
“I’m not pushing him out,” Amanda said. “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”
“Do they know each other?” Gerda said.
“They know each other through me. I think of both of them at the same time, and in utter harmony.”
“But when they see each other, maybe there won’t be quite that much harmony. Thinking doesn’t always make things so.”
Amanda turned slowly and fixed Gerda with her pale eyes. “I’d do anything that either of them asked me to,” she said. “We’re unity. We’re not external, we’re internal.” Then she ate the egg and barley bread.
Later, after she’d meditated in the bathroom and then left with her $4 and breakfast on us, I teed off on Gerda.
“That little chit conned us,” I said. “What did she do for her four dollars? What does she think we are?”
“She thinks we’re lost in desire. She’s a little sorry for us, and she uses us.”
“I don’t like to be used. I’m not a usee.”
“Neither am I, but I’m learning things. Peter, what do you know about communes and long-hairs and acid freaks? What do you know about Amanda’s young world?”
“I know plenty about her generation. First it went in for love, and then it was acid, and then the Jesus freaks and now I guess it’s something else. These kids are looking for something. Sure. They haven’t found it and I don’t think they’re on the right track, but they’re having a hell of a good time and I’m glad they are, because by and by they’ll settle down and have children and be good citizens and read the classics, just like you and me.”
“You’re old-fashioned,” Gerda said, “and you’re jealous of people like Amanda, and so am I. I envy Amanda and her two men, although I don’t think it will work out, and that’s why I said what I did. But deep down, Peter, I hope she gives it a try.”
“If she does,” I said, “it’s going to be murder for one of them.”
“Literally?”
“Of course not. They’re gentle people. Amanda is one of the kindest and gentlest people I’ve ever met. But look at the way she leads Martin around. And us.”
“You’re sarcastic,” Gerda said, “but wait and see.”
“Martin’s too nice a guy to be led around, and one of these days he’ll see what’s happening and he’ll turn on her.”
“And do what?” Gerda said. “Beat her up? Walk out on her? What?”
“I don’t know. All I’m saying is that there’s a limit. She puts things over on people, she does it all the time. Take yourself, for instance—has she ever really cleaned this place? Has she ever done a decent morning’s work?”
“If she had,” Gerda said, with her usual illogic, “my arm wouldn’t have gotten better so fast. It’s as if I had to cover up for her and my sprained arm was no excuse, so it had to get better and it did. All the things I’ve learned from her!” She started laughing. “She’s so pathetic that you feel sorry for her, and you never realize what you’ve done until it’s all over. Peter, how many pictures have you given her?”
“None,” I said, grinning, “but she took two.”
To nobody’s surprise, neither mine nor Gerda’s, Amanda failed to show up on her next cleaning day. “I guess that’s the end of that,” Gerda said. “No more groundnuts or crowberries, and no more barley bread. From now on we’ll have to go to the comer store and buy our food like everybody else.”
“But we can’t let her go,” I said. “I’m too damn curious about what’s happening with Martin and Amanda and this Bob guy. How about going down to The Area and looking for them?”
It was a long time since Gerda and I had been there, and the initial impact was strange, almost shocking. The flat, grassy area was covered with dogs and naked bodies, small dogs and big dogs and thin bodies and fat bodies, lounging, sunning themselves, talking, or doing nothing. Two or three longhairs were doing yoga exercises, and a small group was intent on watching a chess game. Some children were playing in the couple feet of sand that had been imported long ago in an attempt to make a beach.
We found our threesome easily enough. They were lying in a circle, with their feet touching each other at the center. Martin, big and powerful, an athlete in perfect condition; Amanda, like a slender stick of flesh; and Bob, an undernourished little spider, all hair, hairy body and bushy beard with a stubby little nose poking out of it as if coming up for air. When I spoke, they sat up.
Amanda made a feint at introducing us. “This is Bob,” she said.
“I’ve heard of you,” I said.
“Many have,” he said. Bob’s squeaky voice surprised me.
Gerda tried to break the embarrassment by discussing edible wild plants with Amanda, but Bob’s treble cut her off.
“Let’s not talk about food,” he said. “This is our day of fasting.”
“Amanda fasting?” Gerda said. “She needs all the nourishment she can get. Just look at her.”
“Her nourishment is of the spirit,” Bob said. “She has a calm center.”
I coughed. Gerda said, “Well, well!” Martin looked uncomfortable, and then pandemonium broke loose in the form of a dog fight.
They were big dogs, a German shepherd and a Doberman pinscher, and they battled in a snarling whirlwind of fury. Everybody near them jumped and ran off shrieking, except for a couple of brave young guys, probably the owners, who tried gingerly and ineffectually to separate them.
I grabbed Gerda’s hand, ready, in case the tornado came our way, to pull her behind me in a gesture of protection. Bob, however, climbed to his feet, rising slowly, using some trick of elongating himself so that he seemed tall, despite the fact that he barely topped my shoulder. I was amazed to see him walk deliberately toward that whirling ball of canine destruction.
He was nude and unprotected against claws and teeth, while a pair of enraged animals were snapping and biting at each other and anybody near them. But Bob walked straight up to them, held out his hands, and said something no one could hear. Maybe he spoke, maybe he whistled, or maybe he exuded some power of silencing. In any case, the dogs stopped abruptly, withdrew, then faced each other growling. Bob held out his two hands and each of the dogs crept up to him, tails between their legs, and licked his outstretched fingers.
For a moment, there was silence. Then you could hear the rising babble of astonishment, and a few sentences carried to where we stood—words of admiration, almost of awe.
Bob paid no attention to anyone. He said something to the dogs in a low voice, and they did not follow as he returned to us.
“That was wonderful,” Gerda said. “What did you say to them?”
Bob didn’t deign to reply. He reached out for Amanda’s hand. “Let’s go for a dip,” he said.
She followed obediently, and we watched them walk toward the water, walking slowly until they reached the edge, where they seemed to explode and go splashing in. Martin gazed at them sadly.
“Does he do that kind of thing often?” I said. “Pull miracles, that is?”
“No, that’s the first time I’ve seen anything like that.”
“It’s going to be tough on you,” I said. “From now on he’s a hero, whereas you—” I didn’t finish the sentence.
“He’s not a hero,” Martin said. “You need an awful lot of ego to be a hero.”
“You think he has none?” I said. “I think he has nothing but.”
Martin shrugged. I felt that he agreed with me, but was afraid to say so. The subject seemed to be unpleasant to him, so I switched. “Why don’t you learn how to swim?” I said. “You’re a good athlete, it ought to be easy for you.”
“Amanda said she’d teach me when she thinks I’m ready for it.”
“You’ll be ready as soon as you try,” I said. “How can she know when you’re ready?”
“Don’t,” Martin said.
Don’t talk about it any more? Don’t destroy my confidence in Amanda and her way of life? Don’t make problems for me? Don’t—what?
We saw the three of them in town later that week. They were barefoot. Amanda was walking in the center, and her light cloak was thrown around both her escorts. It circled Bob’s narrow shoulders and made him and Amanda as one, but on Martin’s side the cloak was too short and too small to cover him, so it hung precariously from Martin’s midriff and threatened to fall off at every step.
“Yin and Yang,” I said to Gerda, “and three would be triad. I wonder whether she’d work for three bucks an hour now, if you offered it.”
“Martin will leave her,” Gerda said. “He has too much sense not to. He’ll find himself a good, healthy wench to love him, and he’ll love her in turn.”
“Sure,” I said. “To the end of his days.”
We were wrong.
The first we heard of the event was from one of our neighbors, who phoned to find out if we knew. Gerda answered the phone, and the shock in her voice made me gasp.
“What!” she exclaimed. “Martin? Oh, no! Not Martin. What happened?” She listened for a minute or so, then put the phone down gently. “Martin drowned,” she said to me. “He went rowing with Amanda, and he fell out of the boat and drowned.”
“But he was so scared of the water,” I said. “What made him go? And how do you fall out of a boat? Only fools stand up, and Martin was no fool.”
“You think not?” Gerda said. “You kept saying he was. Remember?”
The full account appeared in the local paper. It said that Martin Fuller, 22 years old and a part-time carpenter, had drowned in a tragic accident. According to Miss Amanda Pyle, who had been with him, he had stood up in the boat, for reasons she was unable to explain. He either lost his balance or became dizzy, and he toppled and knocked over the oars in his fall.
Mr. Fuller, the story continued, weighed about 200 pounds and Miss Pyle barely half of that. It was obviously beyond her strength to dive in and rescue him, and it was all she could do to paddle the boat with her hands and reach the floating oars. By that time it was too late for her to do anything to help Mr. Fuller. She rowed ashore and notified the first people she saw, who called the police. The body was recovered several hours later.
Amanda came to work for us the following Thursday. She seemed calm and collected, and at first she made no mention of the tragedy. She had a wreath of daisies in her hair. She removed the wreath ceremoniously and placed it on one of the two towels she took from the linen closet. She took the other towel into the bathroom, and presently we heard the shower going.
“What the hell is she doing in there?” I said to Gerda.
“Apparently she’s taking a shower,” Gerda said acidly. “But don’t ask her any questions for a while. If she doesn’t tell me anything, I’ll ask later on.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “The least she ought to do is look sad and tell us about Martin. But she’s so calm and quiet.”
“Wait and see,” Gerda said.
I waited patiently while Amanda came out of the bathroom, found two candles, and set them up on either side of the sink. She put them in my eggcups, as she always did, then lit the candles and went through her usual vague motions of washing. This time, however, it was all too much for me to take, and I marched over to the sink and blew out the candles.
“In case you’re wondering why I did that,” I said, “those are my eggcups, and I like to use them as such.”
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said meekly. “But when you’re with a candle flame, you are the candle flame.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I hoped you’d understand,” she said. “You’re upset about Martin, aren’t you?”
“You bet I am.”
“You don’t have to be,” she said. “He’s no longer lost in the darkness. He’s part of us now.”
Gerda interrupted what might have become a rather nasty and probably futile interrogation by me. “Amanda,” she said gently, “tell us what happened.”
“It was wonderful,” Amanda said. “Martin finally conquered his fear of water, and with it he conquered all fear. He asked me to go rowing with him, and when we were in the center of the lake he said he was no longer afraid of the water, and he stood up in the boat and he was smiling. When he swayed, I tried to reach out to support him and keep him from falling, but there was a force between us. There was an energy that kept me from reaching out, and suddenly I knew that his time had come, this was his karma, and I was privileged to be there at the time. I was so happy!”
“Happy?” I exclaimed. “When he’s dead?”
“You don’t understand,” Amanda said. “You’re like the police. They didn’t understand either. They kept asking me whether I’d pushed him.”
“Did you?” I said.
“I can’t stay here when people keep thinking that. Don’t you see, Martin and I were one. For a wonderful instant, we were joined as can only rarely happen between people. We found ourselves in a perfect circle.”
“And now you’re leaving The Area?” I said.
“Yes.”
“With Bob?”
“Oh, no. With a friend of mine. You don’t know him, but he’s Gemini, and Bob, while he’s wonderful, he’s Pisces. So you see, Bob couldn’t go with me.”
“Well, I hope it works out,” I said, “and that the tragedy—”
“Please, don’t call it a tragedy. It was the way of life, it was good that it happened, and good that it happened with me. Some other people might have tried to interfere.” Her pale eyes gazed upward, where police and other unbelievers like myself couldn’t possibly reach her.
“Tell me just one thing more,” I said. “Why did he stand up?”
“Because I wanted him to.”
“Oh,” I said.
I watched Amanda cross the room and take the daisy wreath from the towel on which she’d placed it when she’d come in. She adjusted the wreath carefully and then she left, with her long velvet skirt trailing along the path. She did not look back.
As soon as she was out of sight, I walked over to the towel and examined it. Her wreath had left a faint, light-colored ring that seemed to give off tiny shafts of light.
“It looks like a halo,” I said, dumfounded.
Gerda smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Didn’t you see her draw it?”
“Sure,” I said sarcastically. Then I bent over and touched the wet towel, and the yellow pollen came off on my fingers.
“Halo?” I said. “Halo?”