To some Legend is a story, to others a list of symbols on a map, to another legend is key ….to a dictionary
Michèle stops first at the nearby drugstore off Main Street to let me pick up a few basics before heading to the safe house. He walks in with me, but as we pass the front line of people checking out, I glimpse at the magazine tabloids and see the letters that spell out “hostage” but that isn’t what caught my eye. It is the photo. Because it is a photo I know. Of myself. And though the mandate of mask wearing has been dropped, I find myself reaching into my hand bag for the one I happened to grab from the package I had seen in the penthouse kitchen before I left and decide to put it on now as I notice some gaping stares.
I look up at Michèle as I do this and whisper,
“you would think with all the celebrities that come here people here would be better accustomed to showing a polite respectful observance of space,” I search for the aisles I need, quickly grabbing shampoo, body wash, and some other basics and cannot be out of there fast enough, slamming the car door shut as soon as I slide in.
Michèle pulls off down the street and I hardly notice what I see beyond the reassuring familiar shops that have been there forever and the shaded sidewalks with heavy limbed trees in front of those classic billion dollar homes we pass as again my mind is recalling other summers here walking with my mother into those very shops.
It is not until we are down an old familiar street I used to often walk, by the beach that, I am pulled from those balmy memories. It is the road with the tall hedges where you cannot see anything of the vast property that lurks behind except for the massively long rooftop with its defining red Spanish tile reaching its highest pinnacle somewhere in the center in that great mystery. But this is exactly where Michèle stops and gets out to enter a code into a security keypad at the black high iron gates and the gates start to magically open as he returns to the car and gets in
“Don’t tell me this is the safe house, Michèle?” I say now to him as we drive through
He glances at me from the mirror,
“yes, but it is where it will be for you. There are five guarded security people right now there. But don’t worry, you will have privacy. They will be staying at the guest houses and will stay out of your way but they will be close by if the need arises. Are you so surprised?” when he asks this now, he turns to look at me from the front
“Of course I am!” I say as we drive down the long gravel path that leads to the incredibly grand front entrance that has massive steps leading up and now have to ask, “where is the person who lives here?”
But now he shrugs,
“I cannot say for sure, but he is not here.”
“And he doesn’t mind I am going to be staying in his house?” I ask as he slows to stop in front of the entrance
“I am sure,” he says now
And after I step out onto the gravel path, Michèle takes my suitcases from the back trunk of the car and then leads me towards the entrance,
“we have all been instructed to give you complete privacy,” he now says as we mount the brick steps up to the front door and as he unlocks it, and pauses to hand me the keys he says, “I’ll just put these for you in the bedroom, which is this way, mademoiselle!” he says with a fliratatious smile
“You are too kind,” I say with a laugh and follow him, shutting the door behind us
The cool interiors sweep around in a breeze coming from somewhere outside as we step inside and right away, I am in awe of the architectural beauty, after my eyes adjust to the dimness of the interiors, lit only by natural light from all the tall arching windows. The floors are terracotta and spread throughout the wide open entrance and onto through the following rooms that lead off of the wide entrance; the hallway all flanked by tall red-clay, vase shaped pots holding, I notice, bunches of eucalyptus, cattail, heather and pussy willow, their earthy and warm nuance of scents lending an atmosphere of welcome. We pass a sitting area that I see leads outside to a court beyond tall arching doorways and past their distance comes the unmistakable sound of ocean waves.
At the end of the wide hallway, unlike the usual hacienda, there are stairs leading up to another floor and once at the top I follow Michèle down another hallway
Michèle stops inside a room and waits for me patiently as I catch up. I have barely noticed the room when he puts down the suitcases and says,
“I will let you settle in. I have sent a message to your phone so that you have the number to reach me, whatever you need, if you need to go somewhere, I am at your disposal.”
“Really?” I hold back a snicker, “well, is that necessary? Can’t I just go walk downtown? It’s not that far!”
“We’d prefer not. You may still be in danger,” he sighs
“Oh….” I say feeling the disappointment of the loss of freedom and look out towards the window
“We can, however, watch you from the beach from the tower. It is a private beach for residents, which is why this location was the most favorable.”
“Yes. I see….”
“I will leave you here,” and he starts to go. He stops by the door just outside of it, “feel free to help yourself to what is here. The kitchen has been prepared for your stay here so, all that is at your disposal too.”
And then he leaves. And now I look around the spacious bedroom. There are two wide arched windows and between them an arched door that I only now realize leads out to a balcony
I walk over to one of the arched windows in the room where it is possible to see the beach and look out. And immediately I am hypnotized by the sound of the ocean and watch the waves. A private beach. After a few moments I see Michèle walk across the lower property and head out towards the beach, then disappears from my view.
I look down from the window and see that the bedroom overlooks the court below. From here I can see there are topiary gardens outlining beds of flowers, climbing rosebushes that wind around statues that as they flank, they mark the entrance to a small labyrinth made of manicured lush green hedges
I turn from the view and sit down on the much too big, dark, heavy-wood, four poster bed ….that looks like it belonged to some Spanish pirate— and then I think: oh, from a dungeon to another ivory tower
****
“I have some news for you,” Willem stops by, as promised, a few days later
I invite him into the large kitchen built for a full service staff, with too many ovens to count and a lot of unidentifiable kinds of equipment cluttering the intimidating pantries. But the ‘contraption’ intended to make coffee I long gave up on, so instead have opted to using the dependable French press and, as I serve it for Willem, using the heavy hunter-green cup and saucers with the gold trim, I glance up to notice he digs into the messenger bag that he walked in wearing, slung over one shoulder.
He takes out his tablet and sets it up on the marble prep island which dominates the room. I bring the coffee over, dragging two tall chairs after and then walk towards the industrial sized stainless steel refrigerator,
“you take milk?” I ask but when he does not answer, more involved in what he’s looking for, I find a porcelain pitcher and pour some milk in and bring it over
“Here it is,” he says now and taps on the touch screen as I go about putting honey in my cup, “this is an email from Jörn— everybody got one of these....”
“Everybody? Who’s everybody?” I ask him
“Stina, FBI—Smulligan.... CIA.... Interpol, KGB, you name it, they got it....”
I stop what I’m doing as I watch Willem move to tap open an attachment of the email but —then, he just waits holding his finger over it as he says,
“it’s a video of him.... with the safe....” Willem studies my eyes as he says, “he’s opened it....” he stares at me for a long moment
I hold my breath looking back at him as he says now,
“he’s gone to a nearby island off Long Island.... he went there to—“
But I gasp cutting him off,
“to destroy the weapons!” and cover my mouth in shock.
I sit down in the nearest chair but grab Willem’s arm,
“oh my god!” then put my face into my hands and then whisper through my fingers, “when was this?”
“This morning.”
I pull my head from my hands and look up at him. Finally, I say,
“and....?”
He moves to tap as he says,
“Just watch, Dusk—“
“No— wait! Just please tell me first.... please, Willem....”
His eyes soften and he half smiles,
“no he did not blow himself up or get himself contaminated with chemical weapons, if that is what you’re worried about.”
And only now I see something there exposed in his eyes as he searches my face. And then, after a moment he kind of nods to himself and makes a clicking sound in his mouth, as if somehow just having had a question answered, and now goes to tap the screen.
For the next forty-five minutes we watch together. First the process of opening the safe, using the series of codes. Jörn, wearing a safety jumpsuit and goggles now shifts the focus through a microscope-like lens that shows a peep hole of the “lock-letter” grooves that line up and the puzzle like edges fit into each other. And then the angle of the video shifts to show the other part of the safe’s ‘key’ —using the base of the safe’s sibling; the matching wood stained drum table designed by the Dutch windmill maker, with the base, its pronged four legs that insert into the cut out grooves of the base of the chest safe. A click snaps as something has released in an eerie haunting echo that now vibrates chillingly through the kitchen
And feeling sick, I now watch as Jörn opens it like a treasure chest, split in half —and inside, reveals a tripped ticking bomb that by this opening of the chest has set off. It is some twenty minutes as he solves the wiring and safely removes it. There are jars beneath it and sets to task over each one and through every step he is explaining his course and what each thing is and what he is doing
....when each object is neutralized and destroyed, Jörn drags both safe and table into a room and steps outside the chamber and shuts it off behind a thick stainless steel door with a locking lever, and through a lens that records the chamber’s interior, both objects are reduced to ashes
And by the end of it I am left too shaken to say anything.
I don’t even notice how much time goes by before Willem finally says,
“why don’t we go for a drive to East Hampton and get some coffee there. I think this lot has gone cold.”
*****
I spend the next few days in a strange and uncertain daze. Sometimes walking downtown reluctantly allowing one of the plain clothes heavies to follow several discreet yards behind me to see again the old, familiar town where, no doubt, I have left one of my celves to haunt the streets…. But when this gets too tedious having that sense of being walked on a leash by a body guard, I find I prefer the illusion of freedom of walking up and down the beach, stretching my legs and reacquainting myself with the feeling of being out in the open sunshine and air, feeling the warm sand under my feet and looking out into the ocean. Stopping to write. Sometimes to sketch….
I have always found watching waves and water so healing to my soul, the sound of the waves so reassuring and the gulls overhead. I spend hours looking out into the sea, looking out into those depths, searching the distance and the beauty of the sky, the salty smell of the sea.
And my moody thoughts evoke some deeper place I’ve been avoiding…. emotions
There are so many emotions wrapped in these sensations ….thoughts of my early youth with my mother in Florida…. how we’d go out on her giant raft to ride the waves together ….and I’d lay looking up at the sky for hours till I fell asleep…. memories of beaches and sunshine…. memories to ….even before those days…. like those memories of Jamaica, on those beaches with her …. and the soft feel of the pink sand where I spent the first year of my life at the Halfmoon hotel where that year we lived; it belonged to her best friend’s family…. years later I’d listen to her stories of her jet set world, her wild friend at their resort hotel in Montego Bay; how my mother did love the sun and the beach, being here now, I remember Southampton with her, she had a house on Leo’s Lane which was right by Adams Lane…. And as I think of her and my being here, I think of how it seems to have come full circle — like of a layer of a Divine Comedy…. this labyrinthine journey…. in search to find…. towards some center —of a Celf
But only after a few days of this I start to realize …. I had the dream again …. and for days now, I have been hearing music within my thoughts …. as though, like some invisible current pulling me
and, no, it is then not the memories of my mother that I find my soul reaching for here on this beach
And should it really startle me to realize that my thoughts have been long lingering down other phantom avenues of some place
that long ago was —once home.
And so, I wonder now, as it seems to have long dawned upon me, this realizing….
….
how long has my mind been going in my half-awake/dreamy thoughts back there to visit?
But lately, it is with a more peaceful sense that I find I now end up there as I go. And with such certain memory that until now, when before I could not really fully let myself accept or truly acknowledge….
That I do feel the warmth of the sun —that I —do—that I can—feel now again —as it was ….then ….and know…. it is not as dream but as —memory
And even as now I look out to this present ocean, as I do now in this moment in time, I am not breathing the smell of salt sea air
no…. somehow— whether it be strange —it comes to me —so poignantly sharp— a very different scent of sea ….that I smell
And so, even more strange—but then, really, is it so very strange after all? That it should come to me with music, and it is —his— music …. which is like that of a heavy stage curtain that alters the setting and sense of everything —and dominates the backdrop of my mind ….as sharply and intensely —it comes to me now
like a ghost’s tap on the shoulder, with its eerie whisper from the shadows and with it more buried emotions to unearth and chase me and catch me up
….but it has been there all along
hasn’t it?
And always….in the background
always playing ….
the heavy yet warm sound of his haunting music that —in those early days saturated my sleep and dreams and blended with the shadows on the wall of his bedroom. It presses indelibly inside the recesses of my mind, that image of him, sat at his piano…. those haunting notes …. and watching the mad flight of his hair flung wild as he slammed on the keys, the shadows reflected on the wall ….the pounding of keys
his unfinished opera….
I think of this now and feel inside me this incredible ache
And even under the warm sky, I get a chill and shut my eyes. I think of his hands and remember their touch; so unlike any; fingers that, though strong, have the adeptness of an artist that is accustomed to hold fine things…. not to warp or break
But the wind now, brings me to myself, as if reminding me to be aware; with its reckless trait that comes of a sudden from the ocean without warning, its unpredictable roar— but don’t care to bother to heed it and with eyes closed, I can still see the memory, not dreams, of that pirate with the vampire eyes; his long silken hair blown across and distorting his war scarred face ….and that little hut with the forge that was home….but the chill is warm and so are the kryptonite of his eyes
And finally, only now…. do I reach to pick up my phone
to open my text messages to Gerald …. and reread his messages….
After awhile of looking out into the sea, I get up and walk along the shore letting thoughts go where they will
There is a small pier a little further up the way where I like to go and sit on the edge and sometimes I write into my phone sitting there…. thoughts…. more thoughts of the legend
and that is where I head now, and set out to do and dwell within that room inside where it is always safe and nobody can enter without my permission and get lost in my words for awhile
There are a few boats that come and go from the nearby houses along the beach; their long graceful shapes, like beautiful ornaments that decorate the water, yachts with their wings of sails ….
watching over the sea, ever watchful on the horizon
For this view of the water, with those boats and sails, I would only choose watercolor for my medium, not oil
for their light buoyancy would demand nothing at all heavy
as oil and water do not mix —and like the unforgivable ocean, there is no room for error in a watercolor; there is only one chance of its lifetime
And so as I look up now, I think this, wishing I had with me a paintbrush, rough paper and a set of watercolor pans as I see one beauty nearby as it moves across the line of the horizon —but then it appears to stop, as if just for me, it poses for me to paint its portrait
This one I have not seen before. This one is slightly bigger than the others that I’ve seen.
And I watch from the distance of my pier, I watch as it seems to drop anchor as I stare into the horizon —and now see a man on the boat ….now climb down into a dinghy, and with the sun brilliant, high overhead, blazing so bright that it blinds me, it catches reflection off the water and—I catch my breath —with sight of the gold of his hair….
It is a slow approach, and as I watch the boat as it eventually nears, moments later, the sun seems to dim and to fade, as it dips in its descent from the horizon
I stand up now as the little dinghy boat nears….
When the dinghy reaches the pier, he ties it to the pole, and pulls himself up to stand just a few feet away from me and then just stares at me with those eyes
After a long moment, finally, he says,
“….did you really think it was all just for the code?”
But it is hard to hold his gaze, how he looks at me when he says this. And it causes a strange rush so that I lose my balance, and start to feel dangerously seasick, and stumble backward,
“I-I have not known what to believe, Jörn….” and look down from the fury there of his eyes to stare, instead, at the floor of the pier
“And my opera—you think as part of some cover that I just conveniently made up that whole opera thing?” and as he asks me this, pulls my head up by my chin, to look at him, “duva….?” but I still keep my gaze at the pier, so he half shouts at me, “look at me!”
And now when I raise my eyes to look up at him, defensively I say,
“you don’t make it easy, Jörn!—it’s not as if you ever…. say….!”
He lets go my chin and shakes his head with a kind of shrug and then glances in the direction towards the house,
“and you don’t either, duva…. and for the record—I did came back….”
After a tense moment of silence he sighs now and says,
“Uh….there’s something else you need to know about and no one else even knows about this….something that I found when I opened that compartment in your mother’s secretary. But then, it may require something from you that I seriously doubt you are capable of….”
“Something you found in the compartment? What?”
He shakes his head,
“I’m not sure if you’re ready for this…. Or ever will be….”
“Jörn! About my mother or— me? Or who?”
“Like I said, I don’t think you’re ready for this as… it may actually require you trusting me and ….” he shakes his head doubtfully
“What are you talking about?” I ask staring at him
He shakes his head,
“it’s been a rough week and right now, I could use a stiff drink so …. you’re welcome to join me back to the house—that is, if you should feel so inclined to decide it’s safe to —you know, be in the same room with.”
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