The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

broach the topic. She’d only be disappointed all over again. Instead, she gave herself over to the sounds of back-and-forth chants drifting through the wide-open church windows. The square was otherwise quiet, save for the occasional caw of far-off birds. Scents—strangely, both sweet and squalid—of overripe fruit and manure hung in the sultry air. It all felt so alien. As if she’d stumbled on an other-worldly kingdom where time had stalled.

As Barbara watched the worshippers through the church’s gaping door, an odd mix of respect and skepticism washed over her. How peaceful they seemed, how harmoniously they acted—kneeling in unison, crossing themselves on cue, responding to the priest’s chants in one melodic voice. Why such faithfulness? Did they suppose their prayers put them on the path to eternal life? Or perhaps they were entranced by the very act of devotion.

Barbara and her mother finished their breakfast, and her mother asked, “Shall we go back to the room?”

“You can go. I’d like to sit here awhile.”

Barbara stayed until the end of Mass and watched the congregants exit. They lingered on the steps and chatted, glowing with sweat from the day’s building heat, greeting each other like brothers and sisters. This contentedness, this seeming absence of worry, puzzled her. Didn’t these people, like her, squabble with their kin? Hadn’t they lost loved ones? Maybe worshipping this god of theirs supplied them with some fount of charity and patience. Might she discover serenity, even happiness, if she believed as they did?

After the crowd dispersed, she wandered into the empty church, tempted by its shadows and slices of light, and slid into the back pew. A willowy old woman entered, regal in her flowing purple gown. She knelt on the red carpet before the altar, took out her rosary, and prayed, budging not one bit as she mumbled her prayers and rattled the beads through her fingers. Perhaps she prayed for the recovery of a sick husband—or the redemption of her soul. What did she expect from her solemn devotion? How would she know if her prayers were answered?

✭

Barbara and her mother spent that day wandering the Castries harbor and hiking the verdant hills of Santa Lucia. When she crawled into bed that night, church scenes ran through her mind—the worshippers dropping their hard-earned coins into the offering basket and dipping their fingers in water made gray by many hands. If only she could find the peaceful resignation and acceptance of suffering that must come with such faith. Could she uncover an explanation for the capricious ways of the world? Could all of life’s vagaries—including her father’s recklessness—be explained as the righteous will of an almighty being?

She shook her head at the thought, wanting only to push him out of her mind. No, there was nothing sensible about her father’s reprehensible conduct. Here she was, cast out into a world of uncertainty, all because that vile Miss Whipple had lured her father away. And because he’d chosen that shameful person over his own family. Over her.

How foolish to think life was righteous. A scolding shame overcame her. She could never embrace this notion of a loving and just god. It was a mere myth—and cruel myth at that, for the world was harsh and senseless. Didn’t these people see that the most delicate and sturdy creatures were subject to the same brutal whims of fate?

No, she’d have none of this blind faith in a fabricated god. The only thing that made sense was to worship beauty, for that was the one certain and lovely thing in this world—raw nature and all its flora and fauna.

But this beauty obviously held no sway over the morals of men. She would pray to no god, nor would she delude herself that meaning could be imposed on the deeds of foolhardy humans, brutes who had the gall to declare all the world their dominion.

Yet these natives, with their earnest faith, seemed closer to the peaceful ways of nature than so-called civilized peoples who’d committed such barbarisms as enslaving Africans and slaughtering all the passenger pigeons. She felt some affinity with this more primitive world, even as she doubted she could give herself over to it or the scraping existence of these people, who seemed so supplicant, not only to their god but to the owners of the land on which they labored. But neither did she wish to align herself with the landowners or their ilk. In truth, she belonged to neither world.

All she knew for sure was that the easy drift of life on these islands soothed her. And that she dreaded returning to the miseries of her old life. Yes, she thought, from this moment on, I renounce the viciousness of the modern world.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HELEN

Santa Lucia, December 1928

December 18, 1928

Dear Anne,

First, my report from Santa Lucia, the last of our West Indies sojourns. French is all that’s spoken here, and we’ve managed surprisingly well with our middling grasp of it—finding housing, buying food at the market, and having a new dress sewn for each of us.

We’ve been living as cheaply as possible, like tropical vagabonds, managing with one small room and eating most meals on benches in the park—fruit for breakfast and, for lunch and dinner, cheese, biscuits, chocolate, and sometimes a stick of nougat. But I insist we not go without meat, so we splurge on a fish dinner every few days.

Now, for the news: Barbara and I are going to Tahiti. At first, I was reluctant to journey even farther from New Haven, but now that I’ve made the decision, I find the prospect quite relieving. I’m honestly not ready to come home, perhaps because home is such a precarious thing just now.

Barbara, with her winning ways, made it possible. She befriended the captain of a cargo ship bound for Tahiti and asked if he’d like someone to compose advertisements to attract English-speaking passengers for the line. The idea intrigued him, and he wired his home office in Marseilles. They accepted