Prospero's Daughter. Elizabeth Nunez

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СКАЧАТЬ Dr. Gardner’s servant. Ariana, naked in Dr. Gardner’s drawing room. Ariana who should not be questioned in the presence of Dr. Gardner. Images collided in Mumsford’s head: the naked woman, the man tucking in his shirt. Did he know she had written a letter to the commissioner?

      Dr. Gardner led him into the drawing room. “Drinks for the inspector,” he said as he brushed past Ariana.

      Mumsford kept his eyes focused on the room in front of him, too embarrassed to look back at her.

      “Bit of a shock, isn’t it, young man?” Gardner was speaking to him.

       Yes, but more than a bit of a shock.

      “One never gets quite used to it.” Gardner chuckled. “I mean, after the blistering heat outside.”

      The muscles on Mumsford’s face tightened.

      “Relax, old man.” Gardner gave him a friendly tap on his back. “It’s only air-conditioning.”

      It wasn’t that he had not felt the difference the instant he entered the room. Suddenly he could breathe, suddenly the pores on his neck and face contracted pleasantly, and his undershirt, seconds ago damp, sticking uncomfortably to his back, was a cool compress soothing his blistering skin. But it was a sensation he experienced almost unconsciously. His conscious self was preoccupied with sorting out the shock: the certainty that it was Ariana he had seen. He was not wrong about the hair, the lithe body, the liquid flow of brown skin. He was not wrong about the loose shirttails hanging out of Dr. Gardner’s pants, which were unbelted and, he could swear, unbuttoned at the waist.

      “So what do you think?” Dr. Gardner’s voice penetrated his brain and Mumsford pulled himself together.

      “I didn’t think the technology had been advanced for domestic use,” he said.

      Gardner grinned. “Not for everybody, my man.”

      She was still standing there, waiting, he supposed, for Dr. Gardner’s order. Dr. Gardner had not said what kind of drinks. Perhaps she was waiting to know exactly what he wanted her to bring.

      “But it has advanced, it has advanced,” Dr. Gardner was saying, taking no notice of Ariana.

      This was not his business, Mumsford reminded himself. He was not here to discuss her or her dealings with Gardner.

      “And my lawn? What do you think about my lawn and my flowers?” Dr. Gardner came closer to him. So Mumsford asked and Gardner replied, “The miracles of the latest research in botany. I’m a scientist, Inspector.”

      How logical was his answer, how simple. He was a scientist; he was experimenting with shapes and colors. Mumsford managed a smile. “And all this?” He cast his eyes around the room.

      “For my Virginia,” Dr. Gardner said. “A little of England for her.”

      Yes, that was what his subconscious mind had registered: England. He fixed his back resolutely toward her so he could not see her. England. There were no wicker and bamboo here, no couches covered in fabric with overlaying patterns of coconut fronds and bright red hibiscus. His eyes took in more: proper English armchairs, proper English love seats. Dr. Gardner had not been snared, as some of his compatriots on the island had, into succumbing to the foolish romantic notion of local color. In the drawing room where he stood, the chairs were upholstered in English fabrics, refined damasks in English floral patterns: sprays of pink, white, and red roses extending off long, leafy green stems against a pale yellow background. The drapes on the windows matched the yellow of the damask. On the mahogany cocktail table that separated the love seats were picture books of English gardens and a bronze sculpture of Don Quixote on his horse. He looked down to the rug on the floor.

      “Persian,” Dr. Gardner said before he could inquire. “An original. Handwoven, not one of those modern machine-made imitations.”

       No straw mats, either, on the wood floors.

      One wall was completely lined with books. Mumsford could not read all the titles, but he was sure they were by English writers. Shakespeare—the name stood out—and then there were others: Milton, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, names he had learned in grammar school. England’s heroes, her geniuses. Racial pride flared through him like a brush fire. Whatever distaste he felt for Gardner when the image of his unbuttoned pants flashed across his brain was replaced now with genuine admiration. Here was an Englishman indeed.

      “Sit. Sit.” Dr. Gardner pointed to an armchair. “Give me your hat and baton.”

      Mumsford relinquished them with a slight bow, clicking his heels in military fashion. Gardner laughed and laid his hand lightly on his shoulder. “For heaven’s sake, at ease, young man. Don’t be so stuffy. Make yourself comfortable.”

      Mumsford blushed. He had not intended the bow and the click, but he was overtaken by an enormous sense of relief. After the bugs, the scorching sun, the stifling scent of sweaty bodies, vegetation that was too green in the wet season, too brown in the dry, but always haphazard, always out of control, he was overjoyed to be in a room that reaffirmed a world he had been taught was his, a world of order and civility, though he did not know it personally, except from pictures his teachers had shown him and in the books he had read in school that reassured him of his heritage.

      “I haven’t seen anything like this, sir,” he said. “Not in Trinidad.”

      Dr. Gardner was pleased. “It’s all for my daughter,” he said. “So she’ll know. She was three, you understand, when we left.”

      Mumsford put his briefcase on the floor next to the armchair, drew his fingers down the front seams of his pants, and sat down. “It must have been difficult for you, sir,” he said.

      “Difficult?” Gardner fastened his eyes on Mumsford.

      “What with a three-year-old, sir.”

      “My daughter, Inspector, is that for which I live.”

      His words sounded strange to Mumsford’s ears, melodramatic, theatrical, but he nodded his head sympathetically. After twelve years in the Land of the Dead, it was to be expected. A man could be excused under those conditions for being melodramatic.

      “Quite. Quite,” he said. “And that is understandable, sir.”

      But Gardner was not finished. “I have done nothing,” he said, continuing to keep his eyes on Mumsford, “but in care of her.”

      Strange words again, but it was clear that Gardner meant exactly what he said. The intensity of emotion in his eyes made Mumsford uncomfortable and he looked away. He did nothing except for her? In care of her? Still, Mumsford managed to say, “You must love your daughter, sir.”

      “Immeasurably.”

      When Mumsford looked up, he saw that Gardner’s eyes were misty. “I mean it is admirable, sir,” he said, feeling obliged to say something more. “All you have done here.” He extended his arm in a sweeping gesture across the room. “This room, this house. The furniture.”

      The praise seemed to snap Gardner out of the sudden morose mood that had come over him. He turned his head, following the arc of Mumsford’s arm, and his lips curved upward in a self-satisfied smile. “I did my best,” СКАЧАТЬ