The Moment She Was Gone

8

I had to learn how to be alone.

I was twenty-six years old when Maggie and I got divorced. The singles scene was alien to me. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stayed home a lot. I read a lot. I considered quitting teaching and going to Paris, after all, but I knew I’d never been any good at writing, knew I’d just be kidding myself all over again. I felt suddenly old. My wife was gone, and my sister was gone, and I felt like one of those old men you see on flaking green benches in the park, feeding the pigeons, tossing peanuts to the pigeons.

My sister claims she was in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1989. I know she was in Asia at that time because I got married in September of that year, and she wasn’t there for the wedding. She wasn’t there for the divorce, either. She would have been almost twenty-three when Maggie and I got married, which is when she took her second trip to India, which expanded into her sojourn in Nepal and then China, and then Papua New Guinea. But whether or not she was in Tiananmen Square on the day the tanks opened fire is a matter of conjecture. In light of recent events, as they say, I doubt everything she has ever told me.

And yet, she was remarkably knowledgeable about the events of that day and the days preceding it, and the internal politics of Deng’s regime, which caused him to force the resignation of Hu Yaobang, his popular right hand man — well, she always was a good student.

She says she was at the Xidan intersection when the soldiers opened fire on a crowd of Chinese trying to block them. She says she ran with the others, trying to hide. She says the soldiers kept firing, even after no one was trying to bar their way.

“One minute, it was like a country fair in the heart of a huge city, the people cheering the students, the students cheering the people, and the next thing you knew there were machine guns firing. The agents spoke fluent Mandarin, you know, they were well-trained. I could see them running in and out of the demonstrators, egging them on.”

“What agents?” I asked.

Even then, I wanted to know what agents.

“The ones who incited the riots,” she told me.

She did not say they were FBI agents. I could easily have believed she was talking about Deng’s own people.

She told me all this while we were sitting on the roof of the building my mother still lives in on Eighty-first and West End. No pigeons on this rooftop. Only ramparts and parapets, the hum of traffic far below, Annie telling me that despite what the world was led to believe by those pictures of the lone student bravely holding off a column of four tanks, what actually happened was that the tanks ran over anyone who stood in their path.

“Even after the army reclaimed the square, the tanks kept roaming the streets, firing on people. Soldiers were firing their weapons in the air. There was blood everywhere. Everywhere.” The sun was low on the horizon now. We loved to watch the setting sun. “There were no pigeons in the square,” she told me. “The Chinese kill birds, you know. They won’t let them rest. They chase them whenever they land. They keep them flying in the air until they get exhausted from flapping their wings, and fall to the ground dead.” The rooftop towers were in silhouette now; Manhattan could very well have been Camelot, all ablaze with red as bold as blood. “Do you remember the funny names all the geese had?” she asked. “In the book?”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“Ank and Wink-Wink...”

“And Lyo-lyok...”

“I liked her best.”

“Remember Aahng-ung the glutton?”

“And Ky-yow...”

“And Lyow the singer?”

“Such funny names.”

“So long ago,” I said.

“Flying across the North Sea, do you remember that?”

“ ‘Bump — they were on the ground,’ ” I quoted.

My sister picked up on it at once, finishing the passage for me. “ ‘They held their wings above their heads for a moment,’ ” she said, “ ‘then folded them with a quick and pretty neatness.’ ”

And together we shouted, “ ‘They had crossed the North Sea!’ ” and burst out laughing.

“Oh such fun!” Annie said.

“Oh such language!” I said.

But now there are no pigeons in Tiananmen Square.

The last time I saw Annie before her trip to Italy was in February of this year. I went up to Maine for the weekend of the twenty-second. On the car radio, they were talking about the Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Russians were now demanding a duplicate gold medal for their skater, Irina Slutskaya, who they said had beaten sixteen-year-old Sarah Hughes...

“Why not give everyone a gold medal?” I asked the radio.

At the Hague, Slobodan Milosevic had projected for the Tribunal judges a documentary movie made by an American film maker, attempting to prove that all his crimes should be blamed on anyone but himself.

“Fat Chance Department,” I said, and began stabbing at buttons on the dash, trying to find a station playing classical music, a near impossibility on the road. By chance, I stumbled upon public radio, but it came in riddled with static. I finally settled for a station playing pop and advertising merchants in Portland.

In this, the dead of our American winter, I drove up Maine’s craggy shoreline to visit my sister for the last time before she left for Europe and who knew where else? The landscape was desolate. What during the summer must have been festive seaside resorts were now shuttered and windblown hot dog stands, large brooding hotels, and Ferris wheels with their empty gaily painted seats rocking in the wind. I drove the rented car with the heater up full, and even then I was shivering.

My mother had told me that Annie was living in “a charming seaside cottage.”

I drove up a gravel driveway lined with scraggly bushes and withered stalks of weeds. A wooden shack with gray smoke billowing from its brick chimney sat on the edge of a cliff, the sky beyond it menacing and forlorn. Below, huge waves crashed against a narrow beach strewn with shiny black rocks. Salt spray burst on the brittle air.

I parked the car as close to the house as I could. Struggling against the wind, I took my small suitcase from the trunk, carried it to the front door, and knocked.

I had not seen my sister for several months now.

I had only my mother’s reports to go on.

I think I mentioned that Annie usually takes very good care of herself. She is a tall woman with a stately carriage and blond hair she normally wears falling loose and sleek to her shoulders. She rarely wears makeup... well, she doesn’t need any, really. Her green eyes are somewhat almond shaped, and she has thick lashes, and high cheekbones, and a good nose, and a full mouth that makes its statement without benefit of lipstick, truly. She has always been a quite beautiful girl.

I did not recognize the woman who opened the door for me.

“Andy?” she said. “Hey, bro!”

And took me in her arms, and hugged me.

She was wearing what my mother used to call “a candy-store owner” sweater, a shapeless gray cardigan missing several buttons down its front, hanging open over the sort of housedress my grandmother Rozalia used to wear when she was cleaning the house in New Rochelle, a loose-fitting cotton garment printed with a vague flower design on a faded green field. Her hair was clipped short. It framed her face haphazardly and appeared grimy and limp, as if she hadn’t washed it in days or even weeks. She was wearing combat boots with leather laces, and cotton stockings of a sort of buff color, wrinkled and hanging limp on her legs, distorting the shape of them and adding to the impression of... well... a shopping bag lady who’d just come back from searching through garbage cans on a city street. She had gained weight, but she did not appear plump, she merely looked... unhealthy. Unkempt and unhealthy.

“How are you, Sis?” I asked.

“Oh, fine, Andy, just fine,” she said. “Let me look at you.” Holding my hands, she held me at arms’ length and studied me approvingly, nodding, smiling. “Your hands are freezing,” she said, “come sit by the fire, come. Would you like some tea? I just made some wonderful herbal tea, a friend of mine sells organic food in a little shop she owns, you’ll meet her tonight, would you like some?”

“Yes, I’d love some.”

She had replaced the ring in her left nostril with one of her own design. It strongly resembled a miniature silver penis, its eye decorated with a tiny red ruby, as if its bulbous head were bleeding. The circlet over her right eye was similarly fashioned of silver. It was etched with miniature markings of what I supposed was Sanskrit.

I sat by the fire in a chair upholstered in cracked and peeling brown leather. It looked like something a lawyer might have thrown out when he was redecorating his office, something Annie might have found in some back alley someplace.

“How was the drive up?” she asked.

“Fine. Cold. Barren. But fine.”

“Oooo, yes, it’s cold up here. I can’t wait to get out.”

She was at the stove now, in the small kitchen that formed part of this... well... this dump she was living in. Mama’s “charming seaside cottage” was in fact a single large room with four double-hung windows and walls papered with peeling wallpaper in a repeating pink hibiscus pattern that seemed more suited to Florida than to Maine. One corner of the room had been set aside as a work space, with a high stool and a table upon which Annie had spread her tools and her works in progress. In the kitchen, there was a chipped white enamel-topped table, with two wooden chairs painted green around it, There was a single bed on one wall of the room, and a cot on the other, both of them covered with fringed throws that looked Indian, and an unpainted dresser with an incense burner and a cluster of candles of various sizes on its top, and there was a clothes line hanging near the fireplace, festooned now with woolen — well, bloomers, I have to call them, because they were too shapeless to be called panties — of the same buff color as Annie’s stockings. All at once, I got the feeling that my sister was living at the poverty level. All at once, I wondered exactly how much money my mother was sending her each month.

“Did you want lemon or milk in this?” she asked.

“Lemon, please,” I said.

“Good, because I ran out of milk this morning.”

She brought me the tea in a mug. “Here,” she said, “drink this while it’s hot,” and handed me the mug and a paper napkin. I opened the napkin and spread it on my lap. I warmed my hands on the steaming mug.

“Taste it,” she said.

I sipped at the tea.

“Nice, huh?” she said.

“Mm, delicious.”

“I told you,” she said, smiling.

She sat opposite me on a low stool, tucking the faded housedress between her legs. The fire crackled and spit.

“When are you leaving?” I asked.

“The sooner the better,” she said.

“Yes, but when?”

“I thought the middle of March. Italy’s no great shakes in February, you know. I thought I’d get there just as spring arrives.”

“Good timing,” I said.

“Oh sure.”

“Where will you be going first?” I asked.

“Sicily, I think. It’s all the way to the south. It should be nice and warm there in March.”

“But you don’t know yet.”

“No, not yet. Well, I have time. I’m trying to get a cheap ticket on a charter flight. You know Mom.”

“Where will you be staying?”

“Oh, I’ll find a place, don’t worry. I always do.”

“I wish you’d keep in touch this time.”

“I’ll call you, sure.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. You want to see what I’ve been making? I think the jewelry’s taking some new and very exciting turns, really. I’m so happy with it. Come,” she said, “let me show you,” and took my hand and pulled me out of the easy chair so suddenly that I spilled tea getting up.

“Ooops!” I said, and started dabbing with the paper napkin.

“Leave that,” Annie said, “I’ll get it later. Come.”

Her jewelry seemed to have become amorphous somehow, almost misshapen. She proudly exhibited rings that resembled mangled male organs, pins that were presumably vaginas but appeared more like runny eggs, earrings that seemed too spiky and even dangerous to wear.

“Beautiful, huh?”

“She said modestly.”

“Well, don’t you think so?” she asked.

“Gorgeous, yes.”

“Come on!” she said, and punched me playfully on the arm. “I worked hard on this stuff.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Truly.”

But it wasn’t.

We met her friends for dinner at seven-thirty that Saturday night. The place Annie chose was a Thai restaurant on the edge of a marsh. Wide windows framed tufted brown stalks lighted from spots mounted on the building’s roof. The menu was moderately priced, but I had the feeling that Annie and her friends considered the place elegant. All of them behaved as if dining out was a rare occurrence, a treat to be savored, and remembered, and perhaps cherished. There was certainly a holiday atmosphere around the table as we settled in and ordered drinks. I began to feel relaxed for the first time since I’d left New York.

Jessie Kilgallen was the woman who ran the organic food store. Some thirty-eight years old, dressed for the climate in jeans, a bulky blue turtleneck sweater, and a woolen ski cap and padded blue parka, neither of which she removed. The restaurant was, in fact, a bit chilly. Everything in Maine, in February, seemed a bit chilly.

Buck Crowley was in his mid-forties, I guessed, a broad-shouldered man with a gruff and hearty manner and a ruddy complexion that hinted at a great deal of time spent outdoors. He was wearing a bristly reddish-brown mustache and sporting a red plaid woolen shirt and wide red suspenders. He snapped one of the suspenders and asked, “Why do firemen wear red suspenders?”

“Oh God, not that one,” Jessie said.

“Why do firemen wear red suspenders?” I asked dutifully.

“To hold up their pants,” he said, and Jessie rolled her eyes.

Buck was not a fireman. He was, instead, a painter — I now noticed the traces of paint on his fingers and under his fingernails — who’d been living here in Maine for the past almost ten years, since right after the Gulf War, where he’d served in the First Infantry Division.

“I drove an M1-A1 Abrams tank equipped with a plow,” he said. “Our job was to cut lanes through a ten-mile-wide stretch of barbed wire, minefields, bunkers, and trenches north of the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border. This was in February of ’91,” he said. “The war was almost over.”

“Buck was a war hero,” Annie said.

“Some hero,” Jessie said. “He buried people alive in their trenches.”

“We bulldozed the trenches so the ragheads wouldn’t use them for cover,” Buck said. “It saved a lot of hand to hand fighting. You know, Jess, a lot of you bleeding heart individuals...”

“Oh, that’s me, all right,” Jessie said, “a bleeding heart individual.”

“A lot of you have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in the gut with bayonets. Well, it’s not.”

“I’m sure I’d prefer being buried alive, you’re right,” Jessie said.

“We killed maybe a thousand of the cocksuckers,” Buck said.

The word caused Jessie to raise her eyebrows, but she made no comment otherwise. Neither did Annie. Our drinks came. Buck had ordered a vodka martini straight up, “a pair of olives, please.” I had ordered Johnnie Walker Black, on the rocks. The two women had ordered Chardonnay. We toasted Annie’s imminent trip abroad...

“Safe journey, hon,” Buck said.

“Sweet dreams,” Jessie said.

“Come home soon,” I said.

And we drank.

A waiter brought us menus.

“The secret of Thai cooking,” Annie said, “is in...”

“She knows the secrets of the entire universe,” Jessie said.

“I do happen to know Thai cooking,” Annie said. “The secret is in harmonizing the four primary flavors.”

“She’s a very good cook, in fact,” Buck said, as though confiding something confidential to me. I had the feeling he was trying to tell me he’d been sleeping with my sister.

“Salty, sweet, spicy, and sour,” Annie said. “Or bitter, if you want to add a fifth flavor, but that’s not essential.”

“The question is what should we eat?” Jessie said, tapping the menu and grinning at me as if she’d just made a joke to rival the one about the red suspenders.

“It’s like the primary colors in painting,” Buck said.

“I didn’t know there were four primary colors,” Jessie said.

“Well, no, just three. But it’s the same thing. It’s a matter of balance.”

“That’s it exactly,” Annie said. “So here’s what I’d suggest, if you’d care for my expert opinion.”

“Annie Gulliver, Expert,” Jessie said.

We started with a hot and sour shrimp soup, and then my sister ordered something that turned out to be beef fried with hot pepper, garlic, and sweet basil. She also ordered fresh broccoli fried in garlic and oyster sauce, and chicken cooked in coconut milk with lemon grass and galanga...

“It’s called kha m Thailand,” my sister said.

... and half a dozen tasty little deep-fried spring rolls...

“I’ll burst!” Jessie said, and rolled her eyes.

... and a salted, steamed, and fried mackerel, served with a lime-juice dip and a paste made of shrimp, pepper, and garlic.

Buck stayed with his martinis, but I ordered a full bottle of Chardonnay, and poured for my sister and Jessie, and then for myself. We toasted again, this time to celebrate the news that Buck’s work would be exhibited n a Kennebunkport gallery this coming summer.

“The secret of great art...” he started to say, and Jessie said, “Another expert here,” and grinned at me again. I wondered if she was coming on. I wondered if Annie had told her she had a divorced and available twin brother. She wasn’t at all bad-looking, a trim woman with short brownish hair now that she’d taken off the woolen hat, and perky breasts in a tight sweater, visible now that she’d removed the parka.

“The secret of great art,” Buck repeated, “is how the artist maintains tension in his canvas. I like...”

“Or hers,” Jessie corrected.

“I like my paintings to tug at the canvas from each corner.”

He started to demonstrate this with his huge hands, and Jessie warned, “Watch it, you’ll knock over the wine!” and reached for the bottle, almost knocking it over herself.

“The first thing I ask myself is ‘How can I make this painting inaccessible?’ ” Buck said.

“The Great Communicator,” Jessie said, which I thought was somewhat comical.

“Where are you from originally?” I asked her.

“New Jersey,” she said.

“Anywhere near Ridley Hills?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s near Princeton.”

“She never heard of Princeton, either,” Buck said.

I had the feeling he was trying to tell me he’d been to bed with Jessie, too. I suddenly wondered if the three of them had been to bed together. I suddenly remembered that my sister was a Tantric adept. I suddenly remembered that there were four enjoyments in the Tantric religious ceremony, the last of which was intercourse with a stranger.

“So how’d you end up here in Maine?” I asked Jessie.

“I’m into health,” she said. “Not health care,” she added quickly and spread her hands wide to my sister, as if to ward off an impending blow. Buck laughed. My sister didn’t. Neither did I. I had the feeling both Annie’s friends were familiar with her views on health care, and had teased her about it in the past. “I’m an organic farmer,” Jessie said. “I grow all the food I sell in my shop. No pesticides, no herbicides, no commercial fertilizers. Just good clean natural ingredients.”

“She’s got a compost heap a mile high in her back yard,” Buck said.

“Grass clippings, weeds, garden and kitchen waste, animal manures...”

“Please, not while I’m eating,” Buck said.

“I enjoy selling food that’s grown in healthy, vibrant soil. I enjoy breathing air that isn’t polluted,” Jessie said. “I enjoy...”

“She enjoys fucking in the outdoors,” Buck said.

“As if you would know,” Jessie said.

“As if anyone would care to know,” Annie said. “Who wants dessert?”

We ordered fried bananas and vanilla ice cream.

“How big is your store?” I asked Jessie.

“It’s just a little hole in the wall,” Buck answered.

“About as big as your gallery in Kennebunkport,” Jessie said.

“It’s not my gallery,” Buck said.

“And it’s a nice gallery,” Annie said. “Small, but nice.”

“Will this be a one-man show?” I asked.

“No, just one of my paintings,” Buck said.

“Tugging at the canvas from all four corners,” Jessie said.

“Well, it’s a small gallery, and I paint big,” Buck explained.

“My father paints big, too,” I said. “He’s a painter, you know.”

“He knows,” Annie said.

“I know. Big famous artist, I know,” Buck said. “I heard it a hundred times.”

“It happens to be true,” I said.

“Oh, sure.”

“He is a big famous artist. He’s Terrence Gulliver.”

“Sure, I know.”

“The show m Kennebunkport is for six area artists,” Annie said. “It’s difficult for emerging artists here in Maine, you know.”

“It’s difficult for emerging artists anywhere,” Buck said.

“At least you can breathe fresh air here,” Jessie said.

“Well, there are other places that have fresh air,” Annie said. “Where you don’t have to be harassed all the time.”

“Who’s harassing you, hon?” Buck asked.

“Forget it,” Annie said.

“No, seriously. I’ll go talk to them.”

“He’ll go bury them alive in their trenches.”

“Just some people who came by the shop,” Annie said. “I have to show you the shop, Andy. It’s really very cute.”

“What people?” Buck insisted.

“The Indecency Police,” Annie said, and pulled a face. “People who have certain opinions about what constitutes high art, and what doesn’t.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t make dirty jewelry,” Jessie said. “Am I the only one who finds these bananas a little too sweet?”

Annie was looking at her.

“What?” Jessie said, meeting her eyes dead on.

It looked for a moment as if my sister would burst into tears. Instead she only shook her head.

“Maybe you shouldn’t sell food grown in pig shit,” I told Jessie.

Buck laughed.

Jessie gave me a look that said You want to fuck me or insult me, which?

“I had a long drive today,” I said. “Let me get the check.”

Annie’s shop was at the northern end of a strip mall directly on US 1. The plows had been through early that Sunday morning, but the snow heaped on either side of the highway was already turning a sooty gray from the steady stream of traffic in either direction. The shop itself was pencil-thin, a narrow sliver wedged between a barbecue joint on one side and a discount shoe store on the other. The lettering on the plate glass window of her shop read ANNIE’S JEWELRY. A small display in the window exhibited some of her less explicit pieces.

She unlocked the door and flicked a switch. Fluorescent light filled the small, cramped space. Easing herself behind a narrow display case, she slid open one of the glass panels, and then laid out several pieces on a black velvet pad.

“These are some of the latest ones,” she said.

I was looking at an array of formless, unstructured, vaguely erotic pieces done in silver and copper. But I had learned my lesson well.

“They’re beautiful,” I said.

“Aren’t they?” Annie said, smiling.

“So what’s this about the Indecency Police?”

“Please,” she said. “Don’t get me started.”

“Is that what they call themselves?”

“No, that’s what I call them. But that’s what they are, all right. This self-appointed group determined to stifle any form of creativity that isn’t absolutely orthodox.”

Her breath was pluming out of her mouth as she spoke. I realized that the shop was frighteningly cold, and wondered if she could afford to heat it during the daytime.

“They actually came by to see you?”

“Oh, on more than one occasion. Two men and a woman. The first time, they pretended to be interested in my jewelry. But I was onto them the second time. The third time, they became actually threatening.”

“What do you mean, threatening?”

“Oh, making all sorts of veiled threats, you know how these people are.”

“Well, did you call the police?”

“What good would that have done? You think it’s only here this is happening? It’s all over America. That’s the main reason I want to get out of here. Look at what happened in New York. Remember that big imbroglio at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where I forget the painter’s name, he put a clump of elephant dung on the breast of a black Madonna, and there were cutouts of genitalia in the background — Chris something his name was, this black kid from London? Well, the Indecency Police felt this was an insult to Christianity or whatever, and threatened to cut off financing to the museum, that’s the way they get you, you know, they cut off financing. They don’t need a reason to close you down, they just come and do it!”

“But, Annie, they didn’t close it down. In fact, the exhibit was very successful. Besides, why would anyone... honey, can we get out of here, please? I’m freezing to death.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and grinned like a little girl.

The shack seemed almost cozy.

Annie started a good fire the moment we got home, and we sat in front of it, drinking her good herbal tea, and talking again about her impending trip, which really seemed to excite her.

“I hear that Lu might be in Italy this summer...”

“Lou? Who’s that, Annie?”

“Lu. L-U. He’s a teacher of Buddhist Tantra yoga, don’t you read anything, bro? Sheng-yen Lu? The Grand Master? Doesn’t that name mean anything to you? I don’t know where he’ll be yet, or even if, he may be dead for all I know. But that’s what I heard. And wow, would I love to hear him speak! Can you imagine!”

“Do you think you’ll get on a charter flight?”

“Oh, yeah, there are plenty of them, don’t worry.”

“Annie... is Mama sending you enough money?”

“Oh sure.”

“How much does she send you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t like to think you’re... wanting for anything.”

“No, I’m fine. She sends me enough. Really.”

“How much?”

“A thousand a month. I can get by really well on that in Italy.”

“Because... if that’s not enough...”

“It’s plenty, bro. What is this?”

“I was thinking... maybe I could help out.”

“Come on, you’re a school teacher.”

“I could maybe send you three, four hundred dollars a month,” I said. “If you think that’d help.”

“I don’t need it, Andy, really. It’ll be cheap in Italy,” she said. “I’ll be fine, really.”

“You sure?”

“I’m positive. But thanks, you’re very sweet.”

She reached over, took my hands in hers.

“I adore you, you know,” she said.

“I adore you, too,” I said.

“No,” she said, and shook her head, and looked up into my face. “I really adore you.”

“Good. So take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Don’t get into trouble with any Indecency Patrols.”

“Police. And that’s not their real name, I told you. That’s just the name I gave them. Do you want some more tea?”

“Yes, please. What is their real name?”

“How should I know?” Annie asked, and got up and went to the stove. “Do secret organizations tell you their real names?”

“I don’t know any secret organizations, Annie.”

“That’s exactly my point.”

“What I’m asking... why would they go after somebody who makes jewelry?”

“Well, these are art pieces, you know.”

“I realize that. But why would they consider your work a threat?”

“Who knows?” she said, and handed me the fresh mug of tea. “Why was elephant shit considered a threat? I’m a menace to their conservative values. Well, look at it, Andy. I have a two-by-four shop in a strip mall in the asshole of creation, and they’re coming after me. Ask yourself why.”

“I already asked you why, Annie.”

“And I’m telling you why. Don’t be so dense.”

“Well,” I said, and took a sip of the tea. It was very hot. We were silent for several moments. The clock on the fireplace mantel ticked noisily. Outside, I could hear the ocean crashing in against the rocks.

“What’s with Jessie and Buck?” I asked.

“What do you want to know?”

“They seem like losers.”

“They are.”

“So why do you hang around with them?”

“Not for long, kiddo.”

“Why are you hanging around with them now?”

“I’m not. I thought you might like company for dinner, that’s all. Thought you might like to meet some genuine Maine types,” she said, and grinned.

“I came up to see you, Annie. Not some woman who shoots you down all night long...”

“Oh, I’m aware of that, don’t worry.”

“And some jackass who calls Dad a ‘big famous artist,’ I wanted to punch him right in the mouth!”

“He’s jealous is all. His paintings stink. He’s a loser, like you said. Look, Andy, don’t you think I’m onto them?”

“Then why’d you invite them to dinner? Why’d you turn the other cheek every time they...?”

“I know exactly how to deal with such people, don’t worry. The minute I know someone’s out to get me...”

“Out to get you? They’re two piss-poor...”

“Didn’t you hear all that sexual innuendo? They think Tantra is an excuse for promiscuity, but it isn’t that at all. Jessie’s an anachronistic hippie who’s been to bed with every dirt farmer in Maine. Who knows what Buck was involved in over there with his tank burying people? All these macho warlords are closet fags, you know, don’t you read the papers? They abduct twelve-year-olds from the marketplace, you can’t even go out to buy an orange! Please, don’t get me started, Andy. Buck and Jessie are the main reason I’m getting out of here!”

“You don’t have to go all the way to Sicily to end a relationship, Annie.”

“Oh no? Where else can an artist go to work in peace, without everyone telling her what to do? You think I enjoy the constant spying and ridicule?”

“I’m sure there are art communities...”

“Not in America, don’t kid yourself. No one in this country is willing to give an emerging artist a break! No one! They come around in skintight pants, you can see their genitals and everything, and they stand outside your shop window and slit their throats with their fingers, how are you supposed to work in that kind of threatening climate?”

“Annie, you’re remembering wrong. That happened in England.”

“It happened here, too, don’t kid yourself. I can’t wait to get out.”

She was silent for a moment.

Then she asked, “Do you think I’ll ever be as good as Dad?”

“Well, you’re working in two different mediums,” I said.

“Oh, I know. I meant comparatively. He’s very good, you know.”

“I know, Annie.”

“I loved him so much,” she said.

I left Maine the next day after lunch.

Annie and I stood on the rockbound shore, hugging each other, saying our goodbyes. The wind was sharp, the sky was clear.

The next time I saw her would be in the mental ward of a hospital in Sicily.