Chapter 33

For Ari, spending another two hours in the company of the “Mono Lisa” was beginning to take on a ceremonial habit akin to his intake of five espressos before noon each day, both providing a sense of inner contemplation that of late was becoming more important than the outward contemplation his Nikon demanded of him.  The Louvre, however, unlike the rest of Paris, didn’t allow smoking or drinking within its walls, so the morning visit had its special kind of urgency.  Not only did he taste the lack of caffeine, and nicotine, but the time for his phone call was rapidly approaching.  The eyes of the famed painting once again created a sense of “self” in Ari that he could only experience in her presence. 

The shattered lives his photo experiences had covered during the wars: the impressions of an anxious planet proving fragmentary by definition; and especially Samantha and her illusory magic, forever leaving the observer off balance: these and other broken puzzle-like experiences that followed him every day like prisms through which he could see refracted realities of his inner world, all created the immediacy he felt right now… to connect.  Oh, to connect, he thought. 

The da Vinci eyes that he had first seen as a young boy in a magazine, the eyes that he believed could somehow reveal answers, drew him closer.  He stepped up to the painting one last time.  “I’ve stayed with you like others I’ve watched over the years’ stay with you, and you’ve always left us equally uncomfortable, yet strangely settled with ourselves.  You’ve always helped me turn this confused energy positive…  Those eyes, oh, those eyes… such a wonderful conundrum.”  For another few moments, it was just that… eyes meeting one another.  Then, he nodded acceptance to himself and surreptitiously leaned closer. “Understand?  I think…  I do.  I think you’re right,” he whispered.”

***

Harrison was waiting at his desk, but the call was not as he expected.  Perhaps the impact was influenced by the Italian sausage sandwich he had demolished in three minutes.  Maybe the doubts of his staff.  Perhaps the scene with the newspaper stand.  He only knew he didn’t feel right.  No, he felt angry.  The words Ari uttered hardly justified the three-month vacation he’d granted the boy genius. 

“You what?” shouted Harrison, his hands not knowing whether to throw the papers before him or open the window latch and jump.

“I think I have to resign,” came Ari’s heavy tone, sinking the Harrison dream, the magazine, even the Italian sausage that seemed to drop another two inches down the digestive track as Ari’s repeated words echoed, “I think that is what I should do… resign.”

The click on the other end of the line was the last thing Harrison remembered as he reached… for what?

***

The quiet lapping of the afternoon tide gave complement to Samantha’s soft voice as she read another chapter to the children.  Francisca’s eyes stayed fixed with rapt attention as the famous tale of Alice in Wonderland took her far away to a place where all her dreams were being fulfilled.  Samantha inched closer with the book and leaned into the circle of children,  “…Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.  ‘Dear, dear!  How queer everything is to-day!  And yesterday things went on just as usual, I wonder if I’ve changed in the night?  Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.  But if I’m not the same, the next question is “Who in the world am I?”  Samantha paused.  “Don’t stop,” pleaded Francisca.  “What happened?” 

Samantha glanced toward the road she and Max had in the past driven down to meet the children, remembering how out of place the whole experience had been for a honeymoon.  She looked back at the children and continued.  “Who in the world am I?  Ah, that’s the great puzzle!  And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself to see if she could have been changed for any of them.  ‘I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh, she knows such a very little!  Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and…oh dear, how puzzling it all is!  I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know.  Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four time six is thirteen, and four times seven is –oh dear!  I shall never get to twenty at that rate!  However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify let’s try Geography.  London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, that’s all wrong.  I’m certain!  I must have been changed for Mabel!  I’ll try and say ‘How doth the little—'' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come that same as they used to do:

      ‘How doth the little crocodile

                  Improve his shining tail,

      And pour the water of the Nile

                  On every golden scale!

      ‘How cheerfully he seems to grin,

                  How neatly spreads his claws,

      And welcomes little fishes in,

                  With gently smiling jaws!’

‘I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, ‘I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh, ever so many lessons to learn!  No, I’ve made up my mind about it if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!”  I shall only look up and say “Who am I, then?  Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else”—but, oh dear!’ cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, ‘I do wish they would put their head down!  I am so very tired of being all alone here!”

Samantha stopped once again, this time to compose herself, and then continued.  She turned the page and continued reading aloud… “as she said this she looked down at her hands and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid-gloves while she was talking.  ‘How can I have done that?’ she thought.  ‘I must be growing small again.  ‘She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly; she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether.” Francisca reached over and touched her cheek, gently wiping the spill of Samantha’s composure.  “Why are you crying?”

Samantha touched the girl’s hand… “I’m not crying… I’m just happy here with you… with all of you.” 

“Is that what happens when you’re in Wonderland? asked Juanita.  “Is it?” echoed Julia.

Samantha closed the book.  Her smile as she stroked the heads of the girls was not the smile of a professional.  It wasn’t the smile of the women she had experienced for so long.  For Samantha, her face felt liberated of study, of structure of conditioning.  The smile felt innocent and pure.  And so, the answer was without knowledge or experience… at least not the “all knowing” professional behavioral accuracy her public had grown to expect from her performances.  No, this was the smile she had wanted for so long to feel.  “Is it?” repeated Julia.  Samantha picked up Julia and sat her on her knee.  The others moved closer.  “Well,” she began, “Alice had her Wonderland and we all have ours.  Wonderland is what you, the you that is…” she touched each girl by the heart, “… in there, it’s that you that only you know.”  

She paused and remembered Sailor’s smile and calming wisdom… “How do you do it?” she had asked.

“Do it?  What?” Sailor had replied softly.

“Stay so happy… here… this desolate place.  No one to have to relate to.  No one requiring I be with them.”

Sailor had turned his head from side to side once again and smiled.  He had taken her hand and placed it on his chest.  “Feel it?”

“Feel it… what?”

“Happiness, my dear.  That wonderful sound within where the real thing resides.  Where no matter the interruptions in life, no matter the place or time when the unknown, the unseen, the unexpected, can surprise you, the happiness of life comes from little else but the honesty with oneself… and perhaps a small amount of intelligence to help one understand the quiet voice inside that keeps you company… keeps you from thinking you’re alone or without someone to relate to… or heaven forbid, crazy.”