She could have slid into the pool on her own. Russell was waiting below her, though, his arm raised to help her down, his weight carefully balanced to receive either possibility: her hand or her rejection. She took his hand. She even smiled. These were the efforts she must make if she were to begin loving him again\u2014which, after all, was why she\u2019d come with him on his business trip to Western Samoa. That, and not to see the pool at Piula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For four, maybe five years, he had talked about showing her the pool. \u201cThe most romantic swimming hole in the world,\u201d is what he\u2019d called it. Mandy remembered him easing her back on their bed and describing the pool\u2019s clear water, the way you could swim inside its cave and forget about everything. He\u2019d just returned from his first mission to Samoa, and he was still wearing his suit and shoes, his suitcase still standing by the bedroom door. \u201cThe pool is right next to the ocean,\u201d he\u2019d told her, \u201cand yet, the salt water doesn\u2019t seep into it. I tell you, Mandy, that pool is as pure as all innocence.\u201d That was a few months after they moved to Bangkok. She was pregnant then with Patrick, her belly already a round dome holding up her nightie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now that he\u2019d brought her to the pool, he didn\u2019t let on that he\u2019d ever seen it before. Yesterday he mentioned only that they would be going for an outing. \u201cThe Treasury has arranged a car for us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey thought we might like to see some of the country around Apia.\u201d Pesi Fetuani, Russell\u2019s colleague, was to join them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, they waited, Mandy and the two men, on the porch of Aggie Grey\u2019s Hotel, watching a ragged parade of dump trucks and taxis, government mini-vans, and knobby-kneed tourists with backpacks pass in front of them. The fabled South Seas seemed like any other place, maybe even tawdrier and more confused than most. Under cloudy skies the unspectacular bay looked shallow and colorless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, a Land Cruiser pulled up the drive and stopped. A lovely young Samoan woman stepped out and said her gentle \u201cgood mornings\u201d to the men. Russell introduced Soloia as a Junior Finance Officer with Treasury, and Mandy shook her hand. In the past he would have dared flatter Soloia, calling her the Treasury\u2019s brightest flower, and Mandy would have flushed with a surge of jealousy. But these days Russell was restrained, and she thought only how young the girl was and how timid her handshake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minutes later they were outside Apia riding past well-spaced houses and fales<\/em> where ugly black pigs scampered around rocky front yards. Inside the fales<\/em> women sat on mats. Their hands busy, their backs resting against the posts of their open-air Samoan houses, they paid scant attention as their children ran in and out, protected by the very simplicity of their unlockable dwellings. Farther along, heavy machinery blocked the eastbound lane. \u201cHurricane damage,\u201d Russell said. And he and Pesi launched into a discussion of the slow progress of the Cyclone Relief Project while their driver made his own slow progress past flagmen, bulldozers, graders, and rollers, and over newly spread gravel and sections of road undercut by heavy wave action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t seem right to her, Russell\u2019s continued enthusiasm for his work. He called it doing his duty, but it was obvious that he delighted in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was mid-morning when they turned into the grounds of the Methodist Theological Seminary. They parked on a bluff near the church. The driver unlocked the back door of the Land Cruiser and handed them their bags. Then he wandered over to a big, leafy flame tree while the rest of them made their way down the trail to the beach and the pool. By then the sky had lost its pale uniformity, becoming a confusion of white streaks and puffs and creeping gray-white banks on a background of blue. Mandy could feel herself going in and out of sunlight as they descended, the tropical warmth radiating first from above and then from the foliage and rocks on both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now at the pool\u2019s edge as she reached for Russell\u2019s hand, Mandy found herself looking instead at his feet. Seen through the clear water, the sharp outlines of his toenails and the smooth grey and white pebbles he was standing on seemed more significant than ordinary pebbles and toes. He offered her his other hand too, reaching up and steadying her so she could ease slowly down into the cool water. It was a metallic blue green, no less clear for its tint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She lowered her head and swam across the pool with her eyes open, passing unnoticed over a trio of shiny silver fish. Pesi was near the cave, approaching its mouth with slow, powerful breast strokes. Moving waves of reflected light played on his face and brown shoulders. Drops of water resting on the surface of his kinky black hair shot back sparkling daggers of caught light. Behind him the cave was dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandy swam toward it, sliding her fingers smoothly through the water in deference to the pool\u2019s serenity. As she passed through the cave\u2019s mouth, a gasp\u2014sort of a small whoop\u2014escaped from her throat and echoed off the dome of rock. She swam to the center of the cave\u2019s antechamber and stopped. A drop of water fell from the ceiling, then one more plinking on the still surface of the pool like a promise. A third drop glanced off her cheek. Her hopes were that small, she thought, small enough to believe in\u2014stray moments of peace, intervals of forgiveness, the possibility that someday the nightmare would fade. That\u2019s all she was required to believe in, for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slowly she moved forward, swimming deeper into the cave. At its highest, the cave\u2019s ceiling rose twenty feet above the water. In one place it dipped lower, like a roof overhanging a pulpit. The rock on the overhang was stained deep crimson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A faint light gave form to the walls at the back of the cave, but at one point the reflected surfaces fell away into a formless void. The water seemed to be coming out of a low tunnel. She paddled a little closer until she could make out the opening. Then she turned around and headed back toward the cave\u2019s entrance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside, the men were talking and Soloia was sitting on a submerged rock braiding a section of her thick wavy hair. Beyond them was the ocean, calm inside the coral reef. Mandy lowered her head and swam toward them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re a good swimmer,\u201d Soloia said when Mandy had joined her on a neighboring rock. The girl\u2019s English was pure South Pacific, soft and melodic and languid as the caress of an island breeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russell and Pesi were sunning themselves, each one dangling a foot in the water. They couldn\u2019t have been more different. Pesi with the size and bulging muscles of a legendary Tongan warrior, Russell so slim and graceful\u2014like a dancer or a diplomat. He had<\/em> been a good dancer, Mandy remembered, the best partner she ever had\u2014smooth, inventive, tireless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSoloia,\u201d Pesi said, raising up on one elbow, \u201cwhen are you <\/em>going to explore the cave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soloia lowered her eyes and shook her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on. You\u2019re not afraid of the evil cave spirits, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The young woman shrugged prettily, and Pesi cackled, a short baritone cascade of mirth. \u201cDon\u2019t tell me you\u2019re afraid of a nonexistent little devil?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat makes you so sure they don\u2019t exist?\u201d Russell lifted his foot out of the water and clasped his hands in a pensive pose around one knee. \u201cHow do we know?\u201d He had a penchant for posing unfashionable questions, Mandy decided, for broaching subjects other men avoided for fear of looking foolish. But it was all bluster. She couldn\u2019t help thinking it, although she was simultaneously aware of being unfair to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAitu?\u201d Pesi said. \u201cThey\u2019re just a local superstition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut you believe in God, don\u2019t you? So, let\u2019s be consistent. Good spirits, evil spirits. Or don\u2019t you believe in evil, Pesi?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSure I do. In fact,\u201d Pesi said, winking, \u201cI could nominate a few candidates for the title. I guess you could too.\u201d Pesi was three grades below Russell in the organizational hierarchy, sufficient reason in itself to go along. Mandy swished one finger back and forth in the water, then stopped and watched for fish. The water seemed warm now that she was used to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russell was affecting a dramatic air, staring off into space, more the trial lawyer now than the diplomat. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to dismiss the possibility of evil than to grapple with it,\u201d he said, \u201cless frightening to scoff at devils. But I\u2019m willing to believe in evil spirits. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brave man, Mandy thought. No self-protective mechanisms here. No sir, not for her husband. She felt her chest tightening, her breathing starting to accelerate. Would it ever stop: all this anger and blaming? She eased herself into the water and pushed away from the rocks. To be truthful, she didn\u2019t really want it to. She loved her anger. Sometimes she felt it was her only integrity. Not like this languid, jellyfish pose of hers, this floating and waiting for a wave of forgetfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She made a surface dive to the bottom of the pool, swimming close to the rocks. Accusations blew through her mind as they had almost every day for the past year, repeating themselves, storing themselves up for the next time. She couldn\u2019t tell if she was choosing them or not. Was she allowing them to flow through her head, encouraging them even. Or were they formed independently of her will? She only knew that she wanted to cling onto the shark\u2019s tail of her anger and let it drag her where it would, fast and deep, with a prehistoric, destructive mindlessness that\u2014if it would not bring her babies back\u2014would at least be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She surfaced at the far end of the pool, gasping for air. It felt so right, while it lasted. But her anger couldn\u2019t be sustained any more than her effort to love and forgive and be serious about living could. Once, a few weeks after the fire, she imagined she could follow her anguish to its end, as though it would culminate in some perverse form of peace, a racing, twisting, plunging breakthrough into the dark. The blessed nervous breakdown of eras past: a mother\u2019s love proving stronger than sanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, she was not so lucky. She lived in a no-man\u2019s land in which both insanity and acceptance were out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suddenly she felt tired\u2014too drained for prolonged anger, not exhausted enough for despair. Her breathing was beginning to return to normal. She turned over and, with a slow backstroke, returned to the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russell was rubbing the palm of his hand in circles on his chest, mussing the patch of curly brown hairs that grew there. Pesi and Soloia were watching him as though they expected him to explain more about the relationship between cave aitu,<\/em> God, and the devil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSoloia,\u201d Mandy said, robbing Russell of the chance to say any more, \u201cwhat exactly do people say about the cave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d Soloia tilted her head and rolled her eyes. \u201cThey say evil spirits live in there.\u201d She shrugged her shoulders. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true, but, anyway, I don\u2019t want to go inside. A few years ago, two white men explored the cave. They brought large torches. They followed the tunnel into the mountain for three miles. But when they came upon a large white skull, they turned back. When they finally got out, they had many injuries. One of them was admitted to hospital.\u201d She leaned over and scooped up some water to splash on her shoulders. It ran in streams down her Australian bathing suit and onto the Samoan lava lava <\/em>she wore wrapped around her hips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandy looked at Russell, expecting him to continue the discussion. But he was hunched over, watching his pale, motionless toes through the blue-green water. For a moment she wanted to hold him, to comfort him. But then he straightened up. He stretched his chest, filling it with air. He leaned back on one elbow and crossed his suntanned legs, looking as pleased with himself as any other man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on,\u201d she demanded suddenly, \u201cSwim with me into the cave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without waiting for a response, she plunged into the pool and treaded water until he was beside her. Then they swam toward the cave, silently and in unison, like performers in a water ballet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its entrance, Russell paused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may have been merely a pause to take his bearings. But Mandy took it for something else. Afraid, she thought. The word had been waiting to burst out, and now it reverberated in her head, setting other angry words in motion: careless, irresponsible. She sprinted away from him, entering the cave with swift free-style strokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t stop until she was deep inside, looking into the cave\u2019s blackest corner, the noisy gasps of her breathing echoing off the rocky walls. All around her condensation from the ceiling was falling, tinkling in the pool like fairies\u2019 bells. But under her and beyond the glints of light on wet rock everything was black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She heard Russell breathing softly behind her, treading water. \u201cReady to go back?\u201d he asked quietly. \u201cI think we\u2019ve seen all there is to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yes, she thought, wouldn\u2019t that be convenient? A quick foray into the cave, and then right back out again. The requisite gesture, an appearance of bravery. \u201cNot yet,\u201d she told him. \u201cLet\u2019s wait for our eyes to get used to the dark. I want to see where the water\u2019s coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat can you see? We don\u2019t have a flashlight. Come on, let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the tip of her finger she touched the wall, hoping it wouldn\u2019t be slimy. It was merely wet, though, so she felt her way along it to the place where the rocks receded into the mountain. A slight pressure of water against her chest told her she had found the underground stream. It flowed out of total darkness, and it occurred to Mandy that if snakes were slithering down the walls or weaving through the water, she wouldn\u2019t be able to see them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRussell?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI found the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t you want to come closer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She waited, but he didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re not planning on turning back, are you?\u201d If he was afraid, why couldn\u2019t he just say so? Why couldn\u2019t he face up to things? How could she ever be expected to forgive him if he wouldn\u2019t even ask for forgiveness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right from the start he had proclaimed his innocence. Only moments after she ran from her car, while they were pulling her back from the burning house, lifting her off the ground to keep her legs from running, he was there behind her sobbing, excusing himself, saying it had been impossible to get in. \u201cI tried everything, Mandy,\u201d he pleaded as the neighbors clutched her arms and shoulders. She didn\u2019t hear him then. She heard flames and steam and falling, burning ceilings and walls, and she heard their cries, over and over, \u201cMommy, Mommy, Daddy \u2026.\u201d Only later did Russell\u2019s words come back to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even as his first reaction had been to justify himself, hers had been to fix blame. \u201cWhere were you?\u201d she screamed when he reached out to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He thought it was explanation enough to say that he was just next door, and the maid was with the children. And though it wasn\u2019t good enough, she held back from asking more. People were listening, solitary observers and clumps of neighbors on the lawn and sidewalk. She was their mother, Patrick\u2019s and Timothy\u2019s. She should have been out of her mind, unable to think of anyone except her children. But somehow, she remembered to protect Russell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Afterwards, though, when she talked to people in private, she was like a detective. Without appearing to be interested, she asked her questions. And when finally, she had pieced things together, she could see that no matter how you looked at it, no matter how much he might have loved his sons, her husband could not claim to be blameless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn\u2019t leave the maid with them; he left her out back washing clothes. And\u2014if the maid could be believed\u2014he didn\u2019t even tell her he was going next door; he just left. Yet even that could have been forgiven, by now the whole thing would be nothing but history, if only he had saved them. Russell was their father. He should have been strong or resourceful enough to break down a bedroom door. Instead, it was Jae Hoon Kim who ran back for an ax and then used it. And it was Jae Hoon who crawled on his hands and knees through the smoke-and-flame-filled bedroom calling their names. But he didn\u2019t know about the walk-in closet where they were huddled. Only Russell knew the contours of the bedroom and where two little boys might hide to play with matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou want to explore the tunnel,\u201d Russell whispered, his body sliding past hers, \u201cthen let\u2019s explore.\u2019 His knee bumped her elbow, his foot brushed against her hand. And then he was ahead of her, splashing and breathing in the darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandy lifted her arm. Like a blind person, she slid her fingers over the rock, trying to \u201csee\u201d the contours of the tunnel before entering it. It was\u2014at least at the beginning\u2014two to three feet above the surface of the water. Without trying to probe the bottom with her toes, she swam slowly into the tunnel, touching first one side and then the other. Before she\u2019d gone more than ten feet, it widened. She could feel the rock with her right hand, but she couldn\u2019t touch the other wall. \u201cRussell? Where are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was still in front of her, but she couldn\u2019t tell how far away. It seemed to Mandy that no one in the world had ever been more responsible for her pain than her own husband. Surely that was reason enough to hate him. But if he was hateful, she thought as she moved slowly through the darkness, walking her fingers along the right-hand wall, what was drawing her to him after all those months of living with her parents and then each of her sisters? Was it a remnant of love, or something more sinister?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She tried to ignore the black water and thoughts of what might be under it. She was even more afraid of knowing how deep it was. To keep herself going, she imagined the depth at a constant three feet. It was a ploy that worked for a while. Then a rock scraped her thigh and hip, and immediately she felt the tunnel closing in on her. \u201cRussell,\u201d she called, trying not to sound hysterical, \u201clet\u2019s turn around. That\u2019s far enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh?\u201d he said very clearly, though his voice sounded more distant than before. \u201cIs it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, come back.\u201d She wanted to scream, but suddenly it seemed there was no air in the tunnel. She inhaled again and again, and still she couldn\u2019t get enough oxygen. Forcing herself to concentrate, she bent her knees, making her body short; then she swiveled around, careful not to lose touch with the rock wall. If she got disoriented, she\u2019d never find her way out of the mountain. \u201cRussell,\u201d she called once, then with her hand touching the wall, she started toward the dim light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dizziness\u2014or was it nausea\u2014washed over her. Her chest hurt, and the panic exploding inside made her feel she was spinning away from any power of self-control. She willed herself to stay conscious, to keep going. She mustn\u2019t think of anything else. Surely Russell would have followed her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMandy. Are you all right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Soloia, treading water just outside the cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes. But send Pesi in here. And run up and get a torch. You do have a flashlight, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHurry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandy\u2019s hands were shaking, a wave of fear that rolled through her arms to her shoulders and neck. \u201cRussell?\u201d she shouted into the passageway. \u201cRussell, please. Turn around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRou-ound-d-d \u2026\u201d Her voice echoed in the cave\u2019s hollowness, penetrating, it seemed, only a few inches into the tunnel. But no, he wouldn\u2019t turn back, she knew that, not once he\u2019d started this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Pesi was swimming toward her, stroking rapidly with one hand, holding the flashlight aloft with the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGive it to me,\u201d she said reaching out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And as she started in, the mountain\u2014all those tons of rock and dirt\u2014balanced itself over her head, and over Russell\u2019s. Hurrying toward him, she could only think how much farther in he was, how much heavier was the weight hanging over him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She could have slid into the pool on her own. Russell was waiting below her, though, his arm raised to help her down, his weight carefully balanced to receive either possibility: her hand or her rejection. She took his hand. She even smiled. These were the efforts she must make if she were to begin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10671","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3Kn1e-2M7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10569,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/a-blind-eye\/","url_meta":{"origin":10671,"position":0},"title":"A Blind Eye","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"February 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"By Nicki Chen A rainy day, though the blank-faced sky pretended innocence, shining in the puddles and on the rain-slicked pavement. Behind her Toyota\u2019s fogged-up windows, Natalie leaned across the steering wheel like a student driver and looked straight ahead, feigning invisibility. 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