Bones of The Moon Read online

  I told him it was very nice of him, but I was being met in Athens by my seven-foot-tall husband, and that calmed Lillis right down. I looked out of the window several hundred times, although it was dark out there and you couldn't see a thing. We were flying over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. I had quit my job, emptied out my savings account, had several yelling matches over the telephone with my mother, and essentially taken my life in my hands. There was courage in those acts, courage and gumption, and I felt reckless and brave and magnificent all at the same time.

  When we landed early the next morning, I saw the sea, old propeller planes painted in camouflage and white buildings everywhere. Danny was standing at the gate.

  Part Two

  1

  Because Greece was the first «Europe» I had ever known, I loved it like you love your first child: you demand everything of it and what you receive swells your heart like a balloon.

  When we returned to Italy after those first two weeks, I had the secret fear that nothing could he as good as those first days overseas. Afternoon light couldn't possibly fall on broken walls the same way as it did in Greece. Where else on earth would someone think of using giant rubber bands to hold the tablecloth down at an outdoor restaurant? On beaches of black sard, men walked alongside ancient mules that carried melons for sale. The men cut the melons in half with one swat of a big knife and the red fruit tasted so sweet and cool in the hot afternoon sun.

  And I was right – those things belonged in Greece's house and I gradually learned not to look for them elsewhere. But that was the most wondrous surprise of this new world: you didn't have to look for them, because «elsewhere» you looked out of the window of your _auberge_ in Brittany and saw sheep grazing in salt marshes by the gray ocean. Elsewhere you saw fresh blood on men's faces in Dublin and it made you realize that what you'd once read about the scrappy Irish was true. Elsewhere you felt the cogwheel train carry you up the craggy side of the _Schneeberg_ in Austria; halfway there, the train stopped at a tiny station so they could pour water into the boiler of the turn-of-the-century steam locomotive.

  Milan was a bunch of bustle and beautiful hidden courtyards. I got a job at Berlitz teaching young Italian go-getters how to speak American. The hours were odd and the majority of my students were snazzy young guys who couldn't decide whether to pay attention to the lesson or try making a little pass at the teacher. We got used to each other and I began learning not to be nervous when life wasn't going exactly as planned.

  But getting used to European life was hard. Getting used to European life _and_ living with someone for the first time was often a landslide of frustration, responsibility – and days when all I wanted was to quietly go off and ram my head against a wall.

  A sample? Danny was a slob, while I was Miss Neat. The first time he shed his clothes as he walked across the room to bed, leaving them in colorful little piles where they fell, I gawked but said nothing. The next time he did it I picked up the things in the morning and put them in his closet. The third time, I screamed. He smiled like he didn't know what I was talking about; said I sounded like Oscar in _The Odd Couple_.

  Another thing that drove me crazy about him was that he had no facility for language, but that didn't stop him for a second. He would walk into the corner store and ask in his nice American English for two yams, tabasco sauce, a bit of fresh basil and two Cokes. Then he would come home with the two Cokes and shrug sweetly: «I guess they were out of yams, Cul.» I'd be in the middle of making fresh pesto sauce, and more than once found myself throwing the stirring spoon at his retreating head. «Get back in here and stir this stuff!» I'd grab my Italian dictionary and head for the door, knowing it was partly my fault for sending him in the first place.

  When I got mad at Danny, I yelled. When he got mad at me, he either said four concise words or else wrote a note and taped it to the bathroom mirror or my dressing table.

  But the chemistry was right and I learned you can survive without basil so long as you like the person sitting across the table from you at dinner.

  He became less of a slob and studied his vocabulary. I grew less hysterical and learned to stop worrying about everything twice.

  Other problems? Two o'clock in the afternoon in Italy is fourteen hundred hours. _Quattordici_. Figure that word out when you're in a hurry. Everything was measured in meters and _ettos_. Old friends – words like butter and hot water – had had radical plastic surgery and were suddenly unrecognizable strangers named _burro_ and _aqua calda_. Doesn't _calda_ sound like _cold_? It did to me. I made that mistake for two weeks running.

  You get the gist. I ran around like a squeaky mouse in a cartoon, trying to learn this new language and culture in five minutes, and getting things straight with the man I was falling more and more in love with by the moment.

  In the meantime, Dan was tearing up the turf for his basketball team. As with so much else in Italy, the Italian basketball games were raucous, funny and loud as hell. I went to as many as I could. Fans jumped up and down in the stands, slapping their heads in mock dismay and yelling things like «_Mascalzone senze Calzone_!» («Filth without pants!») at the referee. They brought picnic baskets full of food to the games and shared their things with whoever sat near them. I think I gained four pounds that season, because I always sat in the same section at home games and got to know my neighbors, who always had some new sausage or sweet to eat along with the action. I think they secretly felt that if they fed me, it would give Danny more energy.

  Danny said he did so much better that year because of me, and I loved that, but I think he scored so many points and played so wonderfully because he was young and good and living his first adult days in Europe with someone he loved. There isn't much more you can ask for in life, and we often said – in our different ways – how very lucky we were to be there together.

  In between games and language classes, we traveled whenever we could: to Florence, Siena, Assisi and Rome. We spent Christmas in a villa on Lake Maggiore with a wonderfully Catholic team member of Danny's who took us (along with his huge family) to mass every morning and told us we had to have at least eleven children.

  One night during our stay there, I suddenly started crying like a fool. Very calmly, Danny put down his book and asked what was up.

  «I don't know. It's so stupid. I'm just feeling very sad.»

  «Anything I can do for you?»

  «No, you go to sleep. I'll be all right.»

  «Cul, was it something I did?»

  «No, of course not! I'm just being a baby. I just want everything to stop right now and never _never_ move again: like a picture you carry in your wallet. You know those? The kind people carry in their wallet to show you? Whoever it is, is always smiling and so happy. But you _know_ they were always sad after that. Maybe five minutes or a day after the picture was taken, someone they loved died, or they lost their job . . . and everything got screwed up. I just want to freeze everything right now, so nothing will ever change or go wrong with us.»

  After basketball season was over, we spent a month driving through Europe in Danny's schizophrenic car. In between breakdowns and new mufflers, we went everywhere. We returned to Milan broke with thirty rolls of undeveloped film and memories galore.

  We were married that autumn and promised our parents to fly home the next summer to visit.

  The second year started out as gloriously as the first. There was nothing reluctant about life with Danny. He woke up most mornings smiling and ready to go, no matter what day it was. He taught me by his constant example how to charge forward and hope for the best. After much late-night discussion and some tearful scenes, I stopped taking the pill in January. A month later I found out I was pregnant. When I told Danny, he put his hands to his face and said through his ringers that it was the happiest news he had ever had. Inevitably, the pregnancy made me think about my abortion. I wondered if in some cosmic scheme of things, there was any way that I might be giving birth to the child I had purposely lost.
The idea was loony and I wasn't about to tell it to Danny, but why wasn't it possible? Who said things like that couldn't happen in life?

  I went around feeling great, and eating half of Italy. I felt no hesitation in gorging myself at any time of the day or night, particularly on goodies. Danny once caught me with a candy bar in each hand. I gained eighteen pounds in four months.

  Unlike many pregnant women, I felt fine and full of energy. I even took on more students at Berlitz and the flirting of the year before quickly disappeared when the snazzies saw I was _incinta_.

  2

  The first of what Danny called my «Yasmuda dreams» came on a night in early spring in Milan, when we were able to leave the windows open in our bedroom for the first time.

  It began with me looking out of the window of an aircraft as it circled some unknown airport. I turned and looked at a child sitting next to me, who I knew immediately was my son. His name was Pepsi. He looked like a little Irishman: curly brown hair, blue eyes full of curiosity and the devil. Instantly, I put my arm around him and pulled him over so that he could look out of the window too. I started talking as the plane began its slow descent.

  «I remember when the sea was full offish with mysterious names: Mudrake, Cornsweat, Yasmuda, and there wasn't much to do in a day. Clouds moved like bows over the sky. Their music was silver and sad. Your father drove a fast little sports car that sounded like a happy bee and he drove me wherever I pleased.»

  That was it. That was all that happened, or all I could remember of the dream when I woke the next morning. Danny was already up and after I excitedly told him everything, his only comment was, «Yasmuda?»

  I was proud of my unconscious accomplishment and told him he was just jealous. I got out of bed and wrote down every bit of the dream, which wasn't hard because the words and scene were still so vivid in my mind. I didn't know what any of it meant, but I didn't care. Creating Yasmuda the Fish and a son named Pepsi made me feel strange and very original.

  Sometimes dreams bite like fleas and leave little itchy bumps all over your skin. But you know they're not real; you know your brain is only cleaning out its closet. . . . But that does no good. The vision, like the flea bite, raises a bump that is almost impossible to ignore. I wanted to know where the plane was landing I wanted to know more about Pepsi . . . Pepsi James?

  Danny said it was probably my body chemistry moving around, but I didn't buy that. I was convinced something more interesting than that was going on and I wanted to know what.

  A few nights later some of the questions were answered. I had two glasses of wine with dinner, which normally made me feel only pleasantly warm. This time they laid a lead blanket over my head and sent me spinning into bed.

  «Will there be snow, Mommy?»

  «Yes, Pepsi, and the animals. All of the animals you'll love _and_ snow. They've been waiting for us.»

  The plane – I realized only now that it was propeller-driven – was dropping quickly through the air. Its rapid descent made me uneasy and slightly ill. I looked out of the window and saw something stunning, electrifying: the airfield was covered with enormous animals – larger than life, larger than even dreams could imagine. From hundreds of feet up, I could see their faces turned toward the sky, toward us. Their eyes, the smallest the size of October pumpkins, were happily expectant. They weren't just waiting for this plane; they were waiting for _us_.

  Pepsi was stretched across my lap, his face all wonder and glee.

  «And you know all of them, Mommy? You know each one?»

  I put one hand on his springy hair and pointed with the other. «Do you see that big dog there?»

  «Yes! He's wearing a hat!»

  «Well, that's Mr. Tracy. He's the guide.»

  «Mr. _Tracy_? Cullen, light of my life, only one glass of wine at dinner until the baby comes, okay?»

  I looked at my bowl of breakfast food and nodded sheepishly. Danny had a big dumb grin on, but out of pity or something he took my hand across the table.

  «Well, maybe you're lucky, Cul. Some people dream about being chased by monsters. At least Yasmuda and Mr. Tracy are friends. But you've got to be very careful of dogs wearing hats!»

  The dream came and went like the spring breezes. Most nights nothing happened; I dreamed of Danny, or silly unimportant things that had no meaning. One night I dreamed Mr. Tracy was putting on a magic show for us and I woke up right after he said, «Never ask a magician to do his tricks twice. Then they lose all their magic.»

  But now and then another episode appeared on my «dream screen» and by turns I was drawn and repelled by a new world which was growing and filling out before me. I didn't know whether or not it was common for people to have continuous dreams; each night a different but contiguous part of some mysterious whole.

  Everything there was unusual, somehow wonderful. The island was named Rondua. The only inhabitants I had seen so far were the big animals: Mr. Tracy, Felina the Wolf, Martio the Camel and others. I learned to set my expectations aside and be open to the waves of new stimulus that were forever washing over me. It was a lesson similar to what I had learned in my waking life with Danny, only Rondua was allowed to be and do whatever it pleased because it lived on the other side of sleep, where all bets were off and giant camels spoke Italian.

  Danny appeared amused by it for a while, then concerned. He asked me to go to a doctor, which I did. A very spunky _dottore_ Anna Zegna told me I was fine and who was my husband to say I shouldn't dream what I wanted? She got so heated about it that I ended up having an argument with her and more or less storming out of her office. No one was going to talk about _my_ husband that way!

  What I did was keep a notebook about Rondua and what happened when I was there. I kept thinking that what I saw had all the makings of a dandy children's story, but something held me back from writing anything more than a few shorthand notes to myself about the amazing – or the _more_ amazing things I encountered. There were times when I even felt frightened by the continally unfolding story, but I rationalized it by saying it was all in some way connected with my pregnancy. I ate candy and I dreamed of my Rondua twice a week. What was so bad about that? I considered myself lucky.

  The landscape around the airfield in Rondua was black and surrounded by high black rolling hills. Volcanoes lived here once and had left their mark everywhere.

  We stood and watched as the plane started its engines and began to move away. Just as it passed us, the pilot stuck her head out of the window and gave us a big wave.

  «Good luck, Pepsi! Cullen, don't forget your book report!»

  It was Mrs. Eigl, my dreadful sixth-grade teacher. I hadn't seen her fat old face in fifteen years, but I knew it in an instant as one remembers the face of an old nemesis. What the hell was _she_ doing here? She even wore one of those old-time leather flying hats with the flaps over both ears, like the Red Baron.

  The plane picked up speed and gunned down the black gravel runway. We watched as it lifted up and oft and banked hard into the sea-blue sky.

  I turned and looked at the funny sad brown face of Martio the Camel.

  «Where's that plane going now?»

  «To the Happiness of Seals. That's in the south of the Second Stroke.»

  «Oh.» I nodded and tried to look as if I knew what he was talking about. Seals? Stroke? Welcome to Rondua!

  Mr. Tracy and Pepsi were already walking toward a large metal building that looked like a hangar for small planes. I walked fast to catch up, but they had already stopped at the door by the time I reached them.

  «Cullen, do you want to tell Pepsi what's inside or should I?»

  «Um. Why don't you? I'm still pretty confused.»

  «All right.» The dog was so tall that both Pepsi and I had to bend our heads way back to see his face.

  «Pepsi, inside here are all the toys your mother owned when she was a girl on the other side. If you'd like, you may have two of them to take along with you on our trip. They have none of the magic of
the Bones, but because they were your mother's when she was your age, they may comfort you if you are frightened sometime. Would you like to see them?»

  «Oh yeah! What kind of toys?» Pepsi reached for the large door but couldn't pull it, so Felina the Wolf took the clasp carefully in her mouth and did it for him.

  There were no windows or electric lights inside, but somehow it was bright as day in there. It took several seconds for the sight to register on me, but when it did, all I could say was, «Oh, my God!»

  On a wooden table in the middle of the hangar were hundreds of toys of all sizes. Immediately I saw the tan stuffed dog with the black nose I had slept with for years when I was a little girl. Every night I would put my arms around it, kiss its nose that squeaked, and say, «Good night, Farfel.»

  «_Farfel_! Where did you get him?»

  «We have all of your toys here, Cullen.»

  It chilled and excited me – they were a treasured, lost picture album or time capsule. I walked to the table and slowly touched the things I had loved and lost and forgotten; things that had meant the world to me once and now, with a heart-pulling jolt, reminded me of that world. The ballerina I had left in a hotel room in Washington DC, the green sea monster whose yellow tongue popped out when you squeezed him. A «Winky-Dink» draw-on-your-television-screen kit, a cerise clay statue I had made of my father holding me in his arms: both of us were bald and round and had toothpick holes for eyes, noses and mouths.