Story: Palma (conclusion)

Palma

(part six)

“Don’t read it all.”

In a soft voice, unreflective of Anton’s capitals, Mary began.

Now you have shown you can be faithful

I had wished to count myself a human being

In this conceit perhaps I am mistaken

I may be the drop of blood that dyes the stream

And you are strong in ways I am unable

Your rooted hold on solid earth I see

But only as a drowning man forsaken

In memory knows the shore he cannot reach.

Palma had earlier sat where the door stood open and where anyone might have heard, and read aloud Anton’s six pages. She knew him to speak, in these lines, to another woman. He did this often, scribbling out his lengthening jeremiad, hating her, loving her. Wanting Palma to show magic, like the G.R.A.; to find Vonnie and persuade her.

Coastal people are like dandelions gone to seed. Pluck one from the field and the head scatters. It was an old proverb, and it might be no more than that had damaged Anton—that he spoke, and his adored misunderstood, or could not understand.

Yet Mary, the foreigner, wept over these words. She wept for David, for being alone, and soon. Anton called it love, Palma’s mission, and wept too, in his ignorance. She would never leave him; even now she planned his escape, the words that would make it seem to the G.R.A. they must follow this soldier back to his general. And though she would give him Mary Wainwright for a lover, and Mrs. Leonhardt for a mother, Palma would never be tender towards him.

6

Tourmaline

A Friend (part one)

(2016, Stephanie Foster)