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

HIM. That unspeakable person isn’t what you’d call a man. I’d like to bang him over the head and knock him out of his selfish, shameful ways. He’s never lived any sort of hard life. How would he fare if he had to swing an ax all day long? After an hour, he’d break down and try to wrangle his way out of work with overblown words. It gives me a pitiful kind of pleasure to think that his foreman would smirk at him and order him back to work. Sometimes I imagine him shanghaied and slaving away on a cargo ship, where he’d wilt under the sun and scorn of no-nonsense sailors. But, honestly, I try not to waste too much time thinking about him.

The honk and grind and soup lines of New York depress me. It’s all so seamy. I feel my dreams unraveling, the whole lot of them—my once shimmering, iridescent hopes. Will I ever publish again? “Poppy Island,” my old pirate ballad, is, I think, quite good. But it languishes in a trunk. Vanity Fair once accepted it on the condition I cut it down, but my supposedly infallible editor told me not to. Well, we know how that turned out. I still work on Lost Island, but whenever I take it up, I worry it’s mere drivel.

I can’t let you think I’m completely miserable, for I do find glimmers of happiness. Sabra will soon be with us. She’ll have her big sister again, and I’ll help Helen take care of her and teach her all sorts of things.

But, honestly, the thing that keeps me going is Ethan. I worry about him up there in the Arctic. I drift aimlessly without his letters and the joy of writing him. Do you know he didn’t say a word to me about the dangers of Point Barrow? He cares about me, you see. But I know it’s perilous.

I anxiously count the days until I hear from him again. And when he’s back, I’ll invite him to visit, for I yearn to have him beside me so we can speak of the things we dream about. Do you know it’s been nearly 15 months since we met? I can’t imagine how I’d get on without him. He’s as essential to my world as the sea and bees, as meadows and trees.

I’m so sorry Bert sees no way to bring the family together. You ought to let him know you and the girls can’t go on like this forever. Why don’t you come East this winter? You could spend some time with Bert and then settle in for a visit with us. We could drink cocoa and write to our heart’s content. I’m sure we’d inspire marvelous scrivenings in each other.

So, dear Alice, I’m getting along well enough, considering everything. You mustn’t worry about me. Only do write and tell me how you’re doing so I can write back soon, for you’re my dearest friend, and I’m grateful I can unburden myself to you.

With much love,

Barbara

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

BARBARA AT SIXTEEN

New York City, October–November 1930

In October, a quickly scribbled note from Ethan arrived. He was back in Seattle and would write more as soon as he could; he only wanted to reassure her he was safe and missed her dreadfully.

Barbara catapulted from foreboding—that tragedy might strike him in the Arctic or that time would dull his love—to bliss. She fired off an affectionate letter. He responded with a ten-page epistle. Oh, howling-fierce joy, he was still hers!

November 23, 1930

Dear Ethan,

It’s terrific the captain has trusted you and your mate to keep the ship in order at the dock. Why shouldn’t he depend on as steady a sailor as you? Only I’m disappointed you can’t visit New York, even if it’s miserably cold here and dirt-crusted snow sullies the sidewalks and street edges. It’s not what you’d call pleasant or picturesque.

Now that you’ve signed on for three more seasons of summer trading, I wonder when I’ll see you again. I’m pleased you’re saving for our life in Alaska, but I long to have you near, to gaze into your eyes, and shelter in your embrace. I hunger to talk of the things letters, dawdling one-sided exchanges that they are, can only hint at. Please tell me I won’t have to wait three whole years.

Life in this big city is peculiar. After residing in villages and hopping about islands in the West Indies and South Pacific, it’s strange to cram into a subway like sardines and work in an office with people grinding away like automatons. It’s so IMPERSONAL. Were people meant to live in these gigantic buildings in cities covered by concrete? With only pigeons, crows, and sparrows for wild creatures? There are so many here who roam aimlessly, with little prospect for employment, that I wonder if they’d be better off in the countryside working the land. But farmers aren’t faring well either, so perhaps that makes no sense. What’s to become of this country and the beauties of our world?

All this strife and suffering make me ponder evolution. The scientists speak of it abstractly, but I prefer to see into it, into the depths of life and its meanings. We are all of one stream—I know you agree—with seemingly simple plants and wild animals abounding, sea life plying the oceans, farmers planting the fertile land, even workers of the concrete cities producing goods. I wonder, though, if city-dwelling financiers and scientists have stepped out of the stream. They likely believe they’re above it, profiteering and pontificating like aristocracy or high priests. But with their worship of money and efficiency, they profane nature. For what is God if not beauty: the moon in full-faced glory; nature’s color and symmetry all unfolded, and wind and waves coursing the globe? What a travesty, so many fail to use their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their hearts to feel.

If only Atlantis would rise again. We could sail to its