Enchanted Islands

by Allison Amend

Genres: Biographical; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Born to immigrant parents in Minnesota just before the turn of the century, Frances Frankowski grew up coveting the life of her best friend, Rosalie Mendel. And yet, decades later, when the women reconnect in San Francisco, their lives have diverged. Rosalie is a housewife and mother, while Frances works for the Office of Naval Intelligence and has just been given a top-secret assignment: marry handsome spy Ainslie Conway and move to the Galápagos Islands to investigate the Germans living there in the build-up to World War II.

Amid active volcanoes, forbidding wildlife and flora, and unfriendly neighbors, Ainslie and Frances carve out a life for themselves. But the secrets they harbor—from their friends, from their enemies, and even from each other—may be their undoing.

Release date: May 24, 2016

Publisher: Anchor

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One

You’re not allowed to read this—I’m not even really allowed to write it. But now that Ainslie is gone and I will surely follow before too long, I don’t see that much is the harm. I suppose the government will censor what it will.

A curious effect of childlessness is that your story disappears with you. Of course, everyone’s does eventually, but the suddenness with which my history will be extinguished causes me much consternation. I am of the generation who came of age in the new century, though my formative years were spent in the last—I am therefore pulled between the past and the present.

That my life will be of interest to readers I dare not assume. But it is an unusual one, and for that reason alone record should be made of it.

*

It is the usual manner with these memoirs to begin at the beginning and head toward the end, so I will start with my name: Frances Conway. It was not always thus. Still, this is the name you will read on the placard that is outside my room. I was born on August 3, 1882. I will save you the math—I am eighty-two. It is only thanks to Rosalie’s largesse that I can spend my last years in relative comfort in a private “retirement home” rather than one of those paupers’ adult day cares.

At mealtimes I am supposed to go to the dining hall where the Mexican nurses serve food that is inoffensive to any palate, which is to say, offensive to all. They are surprised that I speak Spanish. I am in complete possession of my faculties, as much as I ever was. It is merely the corporeal situation that is in disrepair—my hands twisted like muyuyo branches and my back as bent as a burro’s. I have to wait for someone to push me in my wheelchair if I want to go anywhere, and that stands in contrast to my days in the Galápagos when it was nothing to walk three or four hours for a chat or to get the mail.

Rosalie is already waiting for me at our table, her walker at attention like an obedient dog beside her. She has started on her soup, and I can hear the slurping from here, an annoying habit she picked up after getting dentures. She waits for me to get situated, but I can tell she has something to say. Her head is cocked toward me, her eyes unnaturally bright.

Lourdes puts an identical plate of soup in front of me, but then, seeing the glare I give her, takes it away.

“Sleep all right?” Rosalie asks.

“Fine,” I say. “You?”

“Listen, Fanny, you’ll never guess, but there’s a ceremony for me!”

“What kind?”

Lourdes returns with a plate of what must be food, though its origins are mysterious. Chicken? Potatoes? I pick up my fork and poke at it.

“I’m to be honored.” Rosalie has a bit of soup on her chin. I motion to her to wipe it and she does so, without breaking her story. “Hadassah of Northern California. They want to celebrate my war work.”

“War work?” I ask. I never knew that Rosalie ever worked, especially not for the war.

“It’s the twentieth anniversary of the end of the war. Can you believe it? Twenty years already.”

“What are they honoring you for?” I ask.

“Fanny, pay attention!” Rosalie drops her soup spoon into the bowl. It clatters, causing those with the mobility to swivel their heads in our direction. “Do we need to get you an ear trumpet?”

I frown at her. “But I don’t understand what you did in the war that deserves honoring.”

“You were there,” she says. “You were there at all those fund-raising parties for Israel. Do you think that state just appeared out of thin air?”

I put down my fork. I’m not going to eat this mush. “Throwing parties is war work?” I see Gloria making her hobbling way toward ourtable. “Incoming!” I whisper.

“Who?” Rosalie leans toward me. Her vision is not the greatest.

“Gloria.”

“Oh Christ.” Rosalie sighs. “We’re waiting for Jemmie, tell her.”

“You tell her,” I whisper back.

“Huh?” Rosalie says I need an ear trumpet, but it’s her hearing that gets worse at convenient times.

“Gloria,” I say, “so nice to see you. Sorry you can’t join us. We’re supposed to have a meeting with Jemmie.”

I feel a bit bad for Gloria as her face falls in disappointment. But I can’t sit through another meal with her dribbling food into her lap and hearing about her successful grandchildren who are always planning to see her but then never quite make it. Here in the retirement home we are nearly all women. The few men in residence are even more decrepit than we old hens. They are cocks of the walk. The younger women mill about, fawning over these toothless skeletons as though they were meat worth catching.

“A meeting for what?” Gloria is from New York, and sounds like she’s a carnival barker.

Rosalie has turned back to her soup, leaving me to deal with the consequences.

“For the . . .” I rack my brain. “Rosalie, what’s the name of it again? My memory fails me.”

Rosalie says, “Huh?,” but I know she hears me.

“The name of the committee. The official name. You know, of the committee we’re meeting about.”

“Oh, the CFC. The Condolence Flower Committee.” Rosalie has always been good with a quick lie.

Gloria has already begun to turn away, a process not unlike that of a giant tortoise, as she says, “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” No one wants to be on any committee that has the word condolence in it. Not in Chelonia Manor.

We call it that because the first day, after witnessing the interminable shuffle to get to the dining hall, I said, “It’s a chelonian stampede.”“What’s that?” Rosalie asked.

“Chelonian. Turtles.”

Rosalie thought this was hysterical, and from then on we lived at Chelonia Manor.

When Gloria’s finally out of earshot, Rosalie giggles.

I shush her. “What if she hears? Now we have to form a Condolence Bouquet Committee.”

“Flower,” Rosalie says. “No we don’t. She’ll forget. Can you please pass the bread?”

Rosalie has become quite plump since we moved in here. I, on theother hand, am my usual skin and bones and tendons. The last time I saw Rosalie heavy was when we were children. Since then, she’s always been vain about her appearance.

I take a piece of bread for myself. It’s a generic white biscuit, but I’ll put some butter on it. Unsalted butter, of course.

“Ay, Señora Conway, pero, no come nada!” Lourdes says to me in mockc oncern. I tell her my plate is still full because the food is tasteless, artificial, though it pains me after those years of near starvation to waste even a morsel. She tells me in a stage whisper that they have beans and rice in the kitchen for the empleados. She brings me a plate. It is not inthe style of Ecuadorian food, but at least it was growing recently, and it is nice and salty.

“No se lo diga a nadie,” Lourdes warns. Really, who cares if someone myage eats salt or doesn’t?

Rosalie and I have lived at the Chelonia in Los Gatos, California, near San Francisco, for two years. We both survived our husbands, though mine was more than a decade younger than I. When Rosalie fell and broke her hip, her son insisted she move in here. So I did too.

It is one of nature’s great injustices that once you have carried out your purpose on earth you are not worth feeding anymore. We saw this daily in the Galápagos, where animals gave their elderly parents no more thought than the bones of the animal they’d just licked clean.

I don’t want to let Rosalie’s announcement go. “I didn’t see you do anything during the war that you weren’t already doing before the war or that you didn’t continue to do after the war.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention. Clarence and I brought over several refugees from Europe. And I knitted. I was constantly knitting.”

I have no memory of Rosalie knitting. I do have a memory of helping her and the maid put up bunting for VE Day, which apparently is twenty years ago next month.

A belch of jealousy burbles up inside me. Rosalie is to be honored. It was always thus, that Rosalie was in the spotlight while I sat in the wings, but this in particular galls me. I am the one who truly served my country during the war. I am the one who stayed in a marriage for the sake of my country, who came close to losing my life for it. And I can tell no one.

“Congratulations,” I say. “Is it a party?” I suspect that Rosalie hears the green-eyed monster in my voice, but she has seventy-five years ofpractice ignoring my uncharitable sentiments.

“A ceremony at the synagogue. They’re sending a car for me. I hope it’s a limousine. I’d love to see these old biddies’ faces when I drive off in a limousine.” Actually, I’d like to see that too. I had no idea that a nursing home would have more cliques than a middle school. “Of course you’ll come, Fanny. I’ll insist. They wanted me to give a speech, but I told them I couldn’t possibly. They nearly insisted until I explained I can’t stand for long because of my hip.”

“You’re not that hip,” I say, and Rosalie, quick as ever, laughs at the joke.

*

Once a month, Rosalie’s Dan comes to see us. We have lunch in a diner and then he takes us to visit Ainslie’s and Clarence’s graves. I would prefer to go to Muir Woods or the ocean. But I don’t know how to tell him and Rosalie this. Nor do I imagine I could do anything at Muir Woods other than sit in the car enjoying the parking lot.

Dan always has flowers for both of us and kisses my cheeks when he comes in my room.

“How are you, Fanny?” he asks. He has Rosalie’s charm, her lively eyes. I think Dan has gotten even bigger since I last saw him. His stomach hangs below his belt, billowing out as if he’s stuffed a pillow in there. When he walks it jiggles to his mid-thighs.

Without asking, he stands behind me and wheels me out of the room. I don’t like being moved without my permission. Being confined to a wheelchair should not turn you into a child. But the wheelchair’s resemblance to a stroller is undeniable. Oh the infantilization of old age!

When we get outside, Rosalie is already situated in the front seat,which I suppose is her right, as it’s her son who is taking us out, but it would be nice if occasionally she would relinquish it to me.

It is a process, always, to get me in a vehicle. I must stand on my own weight, then launch into the seat, hoping I’ve judged the proper trajectory. Dan’s low car does not help the situation. It’s bright red, hard to miss. It is new since his divorce.

The radio blares when he turns the key—rock’n’ roll. I got used to silence on the islands, and that’s what I like now, the sound of living things going about their living. But it’s his car and he finally turns down the volume, telling us the latest about his children, who seem to be spending more time outside school than in.

Dan drops us both off at the entrance to the diner. He parks the car and then comes to wheel me inside. Rosalie performs what she calls her “soft shoe,” the shuffle-step-step that is her gait. We make our way like a misfit parade to a table. I’d like to sit in a booth, but the logistics seem insurmountable.

I order the saltiest thing I can think of, lox, or as they call it here, smoked salmon, and Rosalie orders tongue, which I think tastes like shoe leather. Dan gets a corned beef sandwich. Rosalie has passed on her messy eating habits: While Dan’s still chewing he takes a bite of pickle. I watch the juice run down the corner of his mouth like water from a hole in a cliff face. He says nothing while he eats, makes no attempt at conversation the way he did in the car. I take a couple of bites of my fish,but his eating has put me off mine.

When he is done, he hits his chest twice with his fist as if to knock the food farther into his stomach or dislodge a gas bubble. Then he crumples his napkin and throws it on his plate amid the bits of crust and beef. It still seems a shame to waste food, even though I know we live in a time and place of plenty.

Rosalie, too, has turned quiet, like she always does when we take this trip, like she does when she’s dreading something. I, on the other hand, am happy. Happy to be out of the Chelonia, happy to eat sodium, happy to visit Ainslie.

We visit Clarence’s grave first. I stay in the car, and Dan helps Rosalie to the gravesite. I watch as they pick up rocks and place them on the tombstone, bow their heads for a prayer. The sun has gone behind a cloud and the wind is picking up the leaves.

Dan comes back to the car, giving Rosalie her space. When he gets in, the car bounces. “Cold out there,” he says, blowing on his hands. “Listen, Fanny, I have something serious to discuss with you.”

I straighten up. He attempts to turn so he can see me, but there’s not much room between his belly and the steering wheel.

“It’s about, well, it’s about what no one wants to discuss, mortality.”

“I’d rather discuss it than experience it,” I say. He laughs. Though he said he is cold, he is sweating profusely, round dark circles appearing on his short-sleeved shirt under his arms.

“It’s about the burial plot.”

“Oh,” I say. I’m caught up short.

“You’ll have to choose,” he says. “Ainslie’s not in the Jewish section, so if you want to be buried Jewish—”

“I bought the plot next to him,” I say. “It’s there in the papers.”

“I know,” Dan says. “I just thought you might want to think about it. It bothers Mom, thinking of you with the Gentiles.”

“So now I have to worry about your mother’s eternal rest?”

Dan holds his hands up in a gesture of retreat. “It’s your choice. I’m just giving you the options. You can think about it.”

I look down. There’s an age spot on my thumb. How long has it been there?

*

Dan wheels me to Ainslie’s grave. He stands a discreet distance away so I can converse with Ainslie’s headstone. Of course, I don’t believe I need to be here to speak to him, and I suspect that I’m just talking to myself anyway, but I do feel closer to him here, where there are few buildings. It’s like we’re back on the islands.

I tell Ainslie what Dan said about the religious burial. I tell him I wish he were here to ask his opinion. Then I smile because I know that I would never have to ask. He would give it, asked or not.

I look around at the willow trees, the combed grass. I am always grateful to be out of doors, but today something makes me feel lonely, like the only blade of grass in a clover field. I refuse to feel pity for myself, and I try to straighten up in my chair the best I can with this humped back.

Then I tell Ainslie that Rosalie is being honored for her war work. I tell him how unfair it is that our story goes untold while hers gets inflated. Ainslie tells me in my head (not really, I’m not that divorced from reality) that the negativity I feel is jealousy, and that I need to get over it. It was part of the deal, this secrecy. Still, I wish he were here to commiserate. He was always so good at validating whatever emotion I needed corroborated. And then there is nothing more to tell him unless I start to relate the gossip from the Chelonia, which bores even me. I tell him I love him and I’ll be with him eventually, though I don’t really believe there is any kind of afterlife. I wave at Dan, and he comes over.

“All set?”

I nod. He bends down, not without difficulty, picks up a rock, and puts it on Ainslie’s tombstone. In contrast to the Jewish section, it is the only rock sitting atop all the marble, though there are plenty of wilted flowers. The rock looks a little like a tortoise, swaybacked.

“Want a rock?” he asks.

“I’ll share yours,” I say.

He stands up and turns to me. “Ainslie would have loved this spot.”

I nod, though I think that Ainslie would rather be alive than buried anywhere. Wouldn’t we all?

*

I used to be so busy, not a moment to stop and rest. And now it is moments of activity that punctuate my sedentariness. I have swimming for physical therapy two times a week. It is odd to think that I have a sensual life again after so many years of emptiness. It may seem strange, too, for a woman my age to experience physical pleasure, but I am not dead, yet. Patricia comes to my room and lays me out on my bed. I’m embarrassed when she removes my clothes, and think it’s ridiculous when she puts me in a black swimsuit. My breasts have never been much to look at, but between my crooked back and gravity, they seem to be heading to the grave faster than the rest of me.

Then Patricia wheels me to the pool. I love the heat and the smell of chlorine. It’s usually quiet in there; only the sound of therapists whispering instruction and limbs moving through water. She straps me into the harness and then winches me down. I feel the water rise to meet me. It’s cool and silky. She unstraps me and holds me under my arms like I’ma child, but even with that point of contact I can feel the water loosen my limbs. My legs begin to kick with muscle memory. They’re free in the water. For a minute, I can pretend that I’m back in the islands, that it’s ocean tide lapping at me, not the splashes created by other residents.

Sometimes Rosalie and I attend the morning lecture in the atrium. Today there is a woman from the San Francisco Opera, talking to us about Don Giovanni. I enjoy these lectures, most of the time. I like to see the slide shows of African safaris, take a virtual tour of the Hermitage, watch a second-rate magic show. It passes the time. Rosalie and I sit together, giggling and making trouble like schoolgirls. Once, the attendant shushed us, which set me into a laughing fit so strong they had to wheel me back to my room to calm me down.

This woman is a singer, part of the opera’s Merola program. She is young and thin. How can anyone sing opera so young, so thin? How does she know about real love? How can that small rib cage fill an auditorium?

She speaks about breath control. I remember seeing this opera, with Ainslie, in Golden Gate Park one summer night. He took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders, and though he finished the entire flask of gin he’d brought to the picnic, eating little as usual, he seemed sober, listening to the music attentively and humming it on the way home.

I listen now not to the music but to the silence before the young woman presses the button on the record player. The quiet, when the music ends, is dirty with the rustling of old people’s wheezing, the clicking of the phonograph needle bobbing against the label, the distant kitchen clanging. It sounds like the islands then, so silent, more silent than you can even imagine, and yet so noisy.

*

They don’t send a limo; they send a young person to pick us up in her enormous car, which is covered in bits of food and children’s books.

“Sorry,” she says. “I drive the carpool and the kids are slobs. I’m Susie.” I shake her hand; my bones rub together painfully. “Are you Rosalie Fischer?”

“No, I’m the friend,” I say. Susie’s hair is tremendously long, down past her waist, where it grows straggly like a passionflower vine. She is dressed in a wood sprite’s flouncy skirt and a ruffled blouse with no sleeves.

She looks disappointed. “You look so much like my aunt,” she says.“You are Mrs. . . . ?”

“Just call me Frances, please.”

“Okay, how are we going to do this?” She opens the front passenger door, at which I am surprised. I assumed I’d be riding in the back of the beast, which is elongated like a hearse. I decide to get in quickly before Rosalie arrives. Rosalie can take her turn on the way home. I want to see the world for once, instead of the back of Rosalie’s head.

I heave myself onto my feet, but I’ve done it too quickly and my legs wobble. Susie grabs me at my armpits. She is surprisingly strong for a wood sprite, and she lowers me into the seat carefully.

My fancy dress has ridden up, exposing the tops of my knee stockings and my old-lady thighs. Impossible to smooth it down. I place my jacketon top.

I would like to see the look on Rosalie’s face when she realizes she’s sitting in the back with the compost. But I can’t turn around. After Susie greets her and gets her situated, I say, “You can have the front on the way home.”

“Thank you, Frances,” she says, using my full name so I know she’s mad at me.

The ceremony is to be held in the synagogue’s ballroom. When Rosalie and I enter, all the women stand to clap. I am handed a glass of wine, which I drink, and then another, which I also drink, not wanting to be rude, and then the afternoon becomes like a blanket of fog settling in a valley. I’m vaguely aware of Rosalie receiving a medal, of her posing for pictures.

Susie sits down next to me and offers me a piece of cake. Why not? I take a huge forkful, much larger than my mouth, and laugh when it doesn’t fit.

“What did you do during the war, Frances?” Susie asks. I want to tell her what I did, what Ainslie and I did, how I played my own small but significant role, but I have been sworn to secrecy. Still, I wonder, what would be the harm now, when so many are gone? How long until a secret is no longer a secret?

“Oh, I was a secretary,” I say.

“It must have been a fascinating time.” Susie helps herself to a piece of my cake, and instead of thinking she has bad manners, I enjoy the intimacy. Is this what having a daughter would have been like?

“That’s one word for it.”

Susie laughs. “You and Rosalie have obviously been friends for a long time. You share the same emanations.”

I have no idea what this is. “Since we were eight years old.”

Susie shakes her head in mock disbelief. “You must have some stories to tell.”

“You have no idea,” I say.

*