Left at the Mango Tree (9 page)

“I have just one word for you, Raoul. May I call you Raoul?” Gustave was practically bursting at the seams, but with delight. Not confession. Raoul’s puzzlement resisted. He wrinkled his forehead and silenced the now not-so-happy hum in his head.

A weak and raspy “Well?” was all he could spit out.

“‘Well’ what?”

“Your one word. What is it?” The hum awoke again with ricocheted suggestions: Sorry. Trickery. Apology. Betrayal. Deceit.

“Mealybugs.”

Raoul rattled his head and smacked one ear with the palm of his hand. He examined the fizzy wine in his glass then set the glass on the table, pushing it away with the tip of his finger. “What’s that you say?”

“Mealybugs.”

Again. How much wine had he drunk? Mealybugs? “What do mealybugs have to bloody do with anything?” he finally managed.

More delight from Gustave. “They have to do with everything!” He refilled his glass and tried to top off Raoul’s but Raoul’s hand lashed out to protect it. “There’s mealybugs on Killig. The island’s overrun and this year’s crop has wilted away to nothing.” (Killig is the island neighbor that Bang’s grandfather sang about, the one with sweet fruits and sweet governors that plugged the hole in the pineapple market during the tax trouble on Oh.)

Gustave continued. “You’ll be getting the official word eventually, soon as the mayor over there talks to the governor and the governor goes to Parliament and Parliament makes a proclamation for the prime minister to put to referendum. Then they have to vote, you know. Shouldn’t take more than three or four months.”

“Referendum?” That certainly wasn’t one of Raoul’s fly-theories, which had all gone instantly quiet at the mention of mealybugs.

“Referendum. They got obligations to meet. Companies all over the world with exclusive contracts for Killig pineapples. And Killig’s got pests. They’ll be coming to desperate little Oh just begging to buy our precious piñas so they can sell ’em off as their own and cut their losses.”

Raoul still didn’t see how any of this had anything to do with
me
, his baby Almondine. Had Edda swallowed a mealybug with her fruited morning yogurt? “What are you saying, Gustave?”

“I’m saying we wait for mayors, governors, and ministers and sell Oh’s pineapples to Killig minus the big chunk of profits that you excisemen will nibble—worse than those mealybugs you are—or you and I join forces and move now. Put all the profits straight in our own pockets. I’ve been in touch with some growers on Killig, and I got it all worked out for moving the fruit, everything but Customs. That’s where you come in. You type us some phony forms for a fifty-fifty split. Can’t pass up a deal like that. We’d be ready to go in less than a week.”

Raoul was so angry that he went momentarily mute. (Gustave had that effect on him.) He huffed and sputtered and ah-huh-huh-hed until the indignation choking his throat finally leaped out. Or so it seemed to Raoul. In reality the leap was more of a clumsy stumble, a tumbleweed of tongue and retort, for Raoul didn’t know where to begin. He was pretty sure his honor had been insulted, he thought perhaps his wine had been drugged, he wondered if he shouldn’t call the police, and then there were the bugs. Raoul had come expecting apologies and amends, but had been offered insects instead. White, powdery, leaf-wilting insects and hot, pineapple wine.

The flies were really stirring now, and Raoul let them out all at once. How dare Gustave even suggest such an incriminating collaboration? Cheating the governments of Killig and Oh in one fell swoop, pineapple-trafficking with crooked growers, why, Raoul would have nothing to do with such flimflammery and had half a mind to call the police. Phony forms indeed! Who was Gustave to meddle in the affairs of mayors and ministers? To bungle referendums and jeopardize honest excisemen? To barter behind the square-shouldered back of the Customs Office and to benefit from blight while Edda sat tricked, swindled, sneaked up on, and Wilbur,
a respected officer of the Island Post, bamboozled in his breezy hammock on the porch? What about poor Edda, whose black eyes couldn’t hear, and baby Almondine, whose red ones said so much, poor baby Almondine with her blotched and haunted face and her dubious genes that awaited explanation and retribution, but mostly explanation, so that Raoul could get a good’s night sleep, without the flies buzzing in his bed? What about that? he said. What about the flies?!

Now it was Gustave’s turn to be puzzled. He was speaking mealybugs and Raoul answered bedbugs and flies. Funny, Gustave had drunk more wine than Raoul, yet Raoul seemed far more drunk.

Mind you, it didn’t come as a complete surprise that Raoul shouldn’t go along. Gustave almost expected as much and had a back-up plan for that—assuming he could reason with this fellow spouting nonsense about sleeping mailmen and eyes that were hard of hearing. Though Gustave had some idea of what genes were, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine them awaiting an explanation, to say nothing of the fact that he didn’t know how or why he should be the person to provide one, nor how, if he did, it might keep the insects out of Raoul’s bed.

In the end, genes and mailmen weren’t really his concern, so Gustave tried to steer Raoul’s racing thoughts back to the matter at hand. “Now, why don’t I just let you mull this over for a few days. You might change your mind when your head’s clearer and you’ve thought things through.”

“Clearer? Clearer?” Raoul sputtered before his indignation leaped again. “Why, you’d have to feed me a barrelful of that swill before my head would be clear enough to be in cahoots with the likes of you.”

“Very well.” Gustave was standing now, pacing in front of Raoul, his hands clasped behind him, his flip-flops smacking the floor’s terracotta tiles in between his slow, deliberate words. “I understand. You’re a respected officer of the law, don’t want to get your hands dirty. Fair enough.”

Back-up plan: “Maybe you’d be interested in dipping your fingers in the pie just long enough to keep your head turned while those pineapples ship off to Killig. I can’t promise you fifty-fifty, in that case, but you turn a blind eye if something should look fishy at Customs and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Raoul went mute again. He was so angered now that even his flies were speechless. He stood and pounded his fist on the table (Gustave had that effect on him, too) so hard that the half-emptied glass of Puymute’s finest toppled over, its contents dripping into a shallow, sticky puddle. Gustave bent to wipe away the mess with a dishcloth that had somehow appeared in his hand. By the time he stood back up, Raoul had found his voice.

“Now you listen here, Vilder. Let it be as clear as the nose on my face that I want nothing to do with this scheme of yours. And I’d advise you to forgo it as well. You can’t likely get away with it now, anyway, can you? Now that you’ve gone and spouted off about it?”

“No. I guess it won’t work now, will it?” But Gustave was bursting at the seams again, again in delight. Not defeat. For he had a back-up plan for the back-up plan, and the back-up’s back-up put all the profits straight in Gustave’s pockets alone. He would have to stir up a little magic, which was perhaps not as easy or proper as proper phony customs forms, but how was Gustave to blame if Officer Orlean refused to cooperate?

Refuse to cooperate, he did, for Raoul was upstanding. His instincts told him to have no part in the plan, and instinctively
he had said no. Right then and there, though, as he was refusing, Raoul wasn’t thinking about upstandingness or about his Customs career. He had gone to Gustave’s to find out the truth, to solve a riddle, resolve a mystery. To explain those dubious genes swimming inside the blood he shared with his granddaughter. And no amount of mealybugs or money was going to tell him who she was.

It was time to ask Gustave flat out about Edda.

In the seconds while Gustave contemplated the magic he’d have to stir and Raoul deliberated dubious genes, the sun set, quieting the humors of both the island and the islanders alike. As if in agreement, the two men calmly sat back down and Raoul uprighted the glass that had tumbled over and spun on its edge.

Calmly, my grandfather began: “Let’s have no more talk of bugs and governors. That’s not what I came here for. I came to find out about Edda.”

Even more certain now of Raoul’s inebriation, for he really was making little sense, Gustave exhaled a cautious, “Edda, your daughter, Edda?”

“That’s right.”

“What about her?”

“Now don’t be funny, Gustave. I think you know something about Almondine.”

“Something like what?” Set sun or no, Gustave was feeling prickly-necked now.

“You must have heard what people are saying.”

“I heard some crazy lie about how this baby looks like me.”

Raoul was feeling a little prickly-necked now, too. “Well how do you explain it?”

“How should I know? A coincidence. How much like me could the child possibly look, if I haven’t ever been within two inches
of your daughter?” Gustave was bursting again, with feigned nonchalance, but underneath the casual coating he was worried. He hadn’t said it, the word, but it was there in the room with both of them—“magic”—as loudly as if he had. His whole life Gustave hated the terrible word almost as much as Raoul did, if for different reasons, and never more so than now. On Oh, Gustave
wielded
magic, he didn’t succumb to it. But he was beginning to have his doubts in that regard.

On the other side of Gustave’s indifferent shell, Raoul heard it too—“magic”—and although he didn’t believe Gustave’s assertion about Edda, although he didn’t understand the exact relationship between Gustave and the terrible word, a hint of Gustave’s doubts reached Raoul’s nose, a faint scent, but terrible enough to send Raoul home in a fog of worried disappointment and pity (was it?), resignedly aware that this particular night had held no answers for him.

As he opened the jagged gate of thick twigs to take his leave, he heard Gustave’s voice behind him.“Raoul! Listen, if you change your mind...”

Raoul hollered over his shoulder, “Call me ‘Mr. Orlean’!”

Poor Gustave.

Inside his head, yet one more detail came
un
-ticked.

In his bedroom, Raoul sat at the desk by the window, where he usually read. The walk from Gustave’s house had cleared his head, but it hadn’t changed his mind. He wasn’t a smuggler, or about to become one, and he still needed answers, or at least one answer as clear as a nose on a face. Why had he let Gustave off so easily? Was
it the wine? He didn’t really believe Gustave knew nothing about the baby, did he? And yet...

And yet.

Another fly hatched right then, still small enough that when Raoul shook his head—no, there’s more to this than Gustave’s telling—he shook it away. Perhaps somebody had seen Gustave creep into the house while Wilbur delivered the mail or dozed on the porch. Perhaps Gustave had bragged of his coup. Just possibly there was a witness, or someone who had heard something. Raoul would have to advertise to find out.

He pulled a lined sheet of paper from the desk drawer and sharpened a pencil. Staring out into the night, he composed the words with silent lips, his eyes fixed on the moon. She had followed him home, watching and winking, and now as he bent his head to write, she splashed her light over the desk and the paper before him. The impertinent moon, full and high and blue, a promise of the gifts wrapped up in the still, dark sky.

6

W
hen Raoul’s ad finally appeared in the paper, it caused quite a stir on the island, as you might imagine. It had the unfortunate effect of getting people talking, about all the wrong things. No one dared implicate Gustave—most were as content as ever to simply accept that he’d had a hand (or worse) in the matter—and no one had any information to share about
me
. Not a witness came forth.

The islanders did have plenty to say about some of the
other
Orleans, my mother to start. She was far too kind and gentle for them to accuse her outright, but their suspicions niggled and eventually made themselves heard. Mainly, though, they talked about Raoul. All of Oh was sure my grandfather was losing his mind. While Raoul was sure he wasn’t, he did know he was stressed (and to think that at that point not a pineapple as yet had disappeared). So as was his usual, he sought solace at the Belly. Alas, there wasn’t much there to be found, as you’ll see.

I know I’m jumping around a bit, in place as well as time. Stories on Oh are rarely straightforward. The wind has a way of tossing them about and mixing them up—and our lives along with them—so that often we find ourselves right where we started and
sorting our way back to where we’ve already been. Like the tide that claws its way inland every time it’s dragged back to sea.

Just now the wind is blowing us back to the Belly with Raoul. The ad has caused its trouble, Edda’s name is on the tip of every tongue, and half the island (at least) thinks Raoul is wholly mad. For
his
part, all he wants is a quiet evening and a little cheering up.