Island

1.
I had bought a second house on an island off the north coast of the country of my exile. I had come to the island to create distance from the pressures of my daily life. Buying the island house was part of the long game. I would learn that there is no long game for a human life.

The island is very small, its longitudinal bulk perched transversally on the geographical north-south axis. It is at a two-hour boat ride from the mainland. The two hours are explained by the course the ferry, taking in some 1,500 passengers and up to 300 passenger cars at every crossing, is forced to plot to avoid getting stranded (like the occasional whale does) on one of the many sand plates to the south of the island, paradise to birds and seals, internationally recognized world heritage.
Large parts of the island flood with tourists in the summer. High school kids, let go on meagre holiday severance by their weary parents, flock daily at the one large supermarket on the island, where they buy beer, chips and pizzas. Proudly carry off whole cases of beer. Nincompoop masters of a seasonal universe.

Small as it is, the island has parts where the gregariously inclined don’t go. The house I had bought is in one of those parts. It’s an old farmhouse, sitting right at the border of a surprising extent of dune area that runs up to the beach and open sea to the north. It has a fair stretch of garden land around it. The side of the house facing away from the dunes is separated from the road (the island’s single thoroughfare; a small affair of a main road) by nondescript shrubbery, undergrowth and wild flowers. On the other side of that road grasslands stretch out towards the dyke which protects the south coast of the island from the unpredictable tides (as unpredictable as tides, belying the implied regularity, come in certain types of water) of the sand plated sea between the island and the mainland. The grasslands are used for dairy and beef farming (agriculture is absent from the island), or have been acquired by nature conservation societies, sporting seemingly inexhaustible check books, to provide sanctuary to geese, curlews, peewits, harriers, larks and many other species of birds. From spring through fall the air is filled with the manifold sounds of birds, shrieks, cries, chirrups, but songs hardly, even from larks, whose voices, to allow signalling danger or desire for mating, seem to have evolved in shrillness so as to match the racket produced by competing species in a Darwinian struggle for survival of their own kind on the island.

The country to which the island was still attached as recently as at the dawn of Christianity is the country of my exile. The best part of living in exile is to always feel the pull of the promised land.

2.
I was on the island. September was half way. An unpredicted early autumn atmosphere had put paid to a summer which had seen two heat waves and subtropical temperatures throughout. I had been taking the dog on long walks through the dune area, along the seashore, back in over trails meandering through fields with sheep or cows, or the species thrown together, or just horses, or empty of anything save for the occasional rabbit that I would not have discovered (the dog did not chase them – she doesn’t chase animals, not even cats, except the ones I keep at my house on the mainland) but for the wholly unwarranted fear which precipitates these animals into ineffective flights betraying their whereabouts.

Returning from one such bout of vagrancy, the dog at the end of its tether on account of its tiny frame having had to negotiate unforgiving scrubland that my experiments with daring shortcuts forced us to cross, I found a man standing at my front door. He was rather short (for a man), about my length (I’m rather tall, for a woman), but well built, in his late forties I estimated as I took in his appearance. He had a pleasant face. His arms were unnaturally short, the tips of the fingers reaching to his waist. These arms were lithe and perfectly shaped, as were his very small hands. He had the arms and hands of an 8-year old boy.
Turning slightly to make up for the missing length of his arm he extended his right hand, which was hairless as was the exposed part of his arm, and introduced himself. Mentioning my name in return I shook the delicate hand. I was thrilled by the feel of its beauty.
– I’m your neighbour, he said. I thought I might drop by and say hello.
His voice was a deep and sonorous tenor. A gush of deep sympathy for this man spread inside me; how badly I wanted to reach out to him, to hungrily prostrate myself at his feet. There was something strangely perfect in him, complete. His arms looked matter-of-factly inadequate on him, the best they could not to define him. He was as inoffensive as he was without defence.
– The one a mile down south or the one two miles up north from here?
– North, he said, but not two miles.
He looked in the direction as if that helped him to reconstruct his coming to my house.
– I walked up here. I wouldn’t have walked two miles, not to visit you. I would have taken the car.
I wondered what modifications were to be made to a car to allow him to drive one.
– Please, come in, I said.
I unlocked and opened the front door. The dog, which had not been paying any attention to the man at all, wriggled her way in ahead of us.
– The dog needs food and water or with the ordeal I put her through she’ll turn her back on me for good. You’ll excuse me for a minute.
We had tea in the front room.
– The thing with my arms, he said, looking at them as if they were something he was about to put down on the table for me to pick up and appraise, is hereditary. It’s a genetic defect, passed on randomly from one generation to the next or skipping any odd number of generations. It’s inconvenient, impractical. But at least my arms are functional, if not optimally so; they’re much too short, and they’re weak. They’ll always be a sight to people. It would’ve been useless not to bring them up to you. What’s your dog’s name?
Just as it was felt useless by my guest not to be upfront about the defect, I thought it useless to comment on what he had volunteered. I mentioned the dog’s name, Ella. I wondered what sex with this man would be like; what form, or forms, sex with this man would take.
– Are you permanent?
– I am now. We started to come out on long weekends, midweek vacations. We bought a house here six years ago; I moved in for permanence three years later.
– You mean you and your family?
– I’m divorced. It’s not because we saw it coming that we bought the house though. We didn’t see it coming, not from any distance, or we wouldn’t have bought it. But I’m glad we did. I’m glad I could come out and live here. I’ve seen you around on the island a few times. Are you by yourself, I mean not counting your dog?
– My husband died three years ago. I bought this as a second house, not just for holidays, but to divide my time between it and my home in W. I have a son and daughter. My son is a GTU freshman and moved to G. My daughter is in high school. She’s at home. My sister is staying with her. She has started on a sabbatical, my sister has. She will leave on a six-month tour of the US and Canada after I’ve returned. I used to be a lawyer. I’ve broken with the trade. I’m considering what to do with my life, in terms of earning a living that is. Do you have work on the island?
– I’m a sports journalist. I write for ** (he mentioned a national newspaper) and several sports magazines. I’m free-lance. I write on soccer, cycling, swimming, tennis, other sports too, if called upon.
I was only familiar with the newspaper he had mentioned, which I did not have a subscription to.
– I’m sorry to admit that I’m not much into sport, I said.
– Don’t be, he said. Not on my account. I don’t care for sport at all.
– You don’t? You don’t care for sport, but make a career out of writing professionally about it?
– I would not be able to write about it in any but a professional capacity. That’s how little I care for it.
– I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s… it’s like someone writing book reviews without being interested in literature.
– No, it’s not. I don’ think it is. To be able to write about sport, you just need to familiarize yourself with techniques, dates, names, records of matches lost and won; and the vernacular, of course. To write about literature you’ve got to have the mind of a writer, and a writer’s temperament. You must have an understanding of what makes writing good or bad, exceptional or mediocre. That requires a deep and constant involvement with literature. I don’t have to know what makes a person accomplished in a sport. It’s not expected of me. I can simply observe achievements and throw in a quote or attribute an expert opinion here and there. There is very little research work involved in sports journalism. Facts are practically thrown in your face and their one-dimensional, rock bottom nature defies analysis. It’s hard to think of anything as overrated and empty at the same time as sports journalism.
– Yet, you devote most of your energy and your skills to it! I could not help to exclaim.
– Think of it as an experiment. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?
An experiment! I felt disappointed. It must have been the thing with his arms which decided him, or made him careless enough, to turn his adult life into a crazy experiment. The thought crushed my image of his perfection. At some point, most likely during his adolescence, oh, cursed adolescence, he must have rejected the beautiful childlike arms, destroying the unique balance.
– Of course. You go through the door at the end of the back room; you’ll find the bathroom next to the staircase.
It was only when I heard the sound of the toilet flushing that it occurred to me that the flush pull was broken, leaving a short length of cord dangling from the lever of the high level cistern. I was mortified at picturing my guest mounting the toilet seat to reach the cord and pull it to flush.
– The pull is broken, he said as he re-entered the room.
He smiled. He produced something from the inner pocket of his jacket.
– This foldable rod makes up for most of the missing functionality of my arms in a situation like that. See? It has a little steel hook. I used it to work the lever.
I could not but admire his sensitivity to my vexation, which I was certain he had presaged the moment he took in the situation in the bathroom.
– I’m working on a portfolio of short fiction, he said, but I haven’t advanced to a point where I would discuss them with a publisher. You have rustled up a nice place for a second home. I have to get going. We stay in touch, I hope. Why don’t we exchange phone numbers?
He didn’t specify what we might need each other’s phone number for, but I didn’t hesitate to say yes, please, and we did.

3.
I couldn’t get him out of my mind. In bed I found myself sexually aroused thinking of him. I manoeuvred my hand between my legs but I was too tired to make anything of it. I called him the next day. I said I had enjoyed his visit and that I would welcome an opportunity to get to know him better and would he accept an invitation to a home cooked dinner? To which he answered that a strange coincidence had it that he had been on the brink of calling me to invite me over for dinner at his place.
– Let’s say you get here around six. Bring your dog. Take your car. I don’t like the idea of your walking the stretch in the darkness. Drive up north. It’s the first house on your left, behind some trees at a little distance from the road. Or I could collect you, if you prefer, but I have a feeling that you don’t.
Indeed, I did not. I would not mind sitting next to him in his car, not at all, but there was no sense in it. I knew that was what he meant: if you feel that it makes sense. If I accepted his offer to take me up to his place in his car I would surely disappoint him. Besides, entering a room in control of the impression you make is much easier than making it into a car and not lose your bearing. I needed the expanse of an approach.
– That is marvellous! I love to see how you are set up for permanent living on the island. I will take my car.
We exchanged goodbyes and disconnected.
I started dressing at 4.30. I put on a dark above-the-knee rabbit fur full skirt, which I teamed with a fitted black wool sweater. Among a considerable line-up of shoes I picked a pair of pumps with kitten heels. I routinely redid my hair and my make-up. I required no primping to achieve a result I was happy with. I avoided using a perfume.
His house was small, as was mine, but exuded an atmosphere of comfort that I had not yet managed to create in my own house. I did not detect anything that might be explained as an adaptation to his handicap, but I knew that in many subtle ways the place must be brimming with concessions to it. He wore dark suit pants, no jacket, a dark grey sweater, its V-neck framing a light green shirt, no tie.
We had dinner.
– What made you suggest I consider your professional life an experiment? I asked.
– Oh, but isn’t everything we undertake an experiment by definition? Time progresses linearly, and nothing we do, we did before. We have a single lifetime. We can change our course, or what we think is our course, try and mend what we broke along its way, but we cannot return to whichever point we have passed and take it in a different direction from there. We cannot move a finger and not consider it an experiment. The one thing we do that cannot be called an experiment is die.
At those baffling words he rose.
I helped him clear the table and load the dishwasher and hand wash non-dishwasher safe and odd-size items. Perhaps it was because of the intimacy of the island, our lives, our clothes, his house, the kitchen, our washing up together, and the experiments of each of us, that we held each other and then kissed with a conscious and wise and deep passion and just because of his arms and hands it felt as if I were holding a towering little boy. Then I knew what sex with him would be like.
– Show me where you sleep, I said. Have me with you tonight.
– Yes.
His bedroom was comfortably warm. It was roomy. It was softly lighted. I stretched out on his bed. He sat down beside me. He leaned towards me. He rested his little boy hands on my shoulders and kissed me. Then he positioned himself so he could reach under my skirt. He touched me.
– Help me.
His voice was soft but very clear, not at husky or croaky, not betraying excitement. I pulled up my skirt. I pushed my pantyhose down to my hips. He put his hands under the gathered hose and the seam of my panty and pulled them both down and over my feet. I plied and parted my legs and he moved his hand back to my intimate parts. I knew what would follow if I allowed it and I had already decided to allow it because it was what I wanted. And because he knew it, he did it. His beautiful and smooth little arm moved up and down inside me in, lovingly, attentively, his tiny hand touching my cervix with each thrust. And this we would continue doing. But when we joined, he filled me up almost as fully as his perfect little arm, his small hands searching restlessly, there being so much of me they could not reach.

4.
The linear progress of time: nothing we did, we had done before; each of our breaths an experiment. During the two years or so that had followed the day we had first met I had availed myself of some job or other. When I was on the island, he and I roamed, and Ella followed, and by the by our accumulated wanderings throughout the seasons had covered the entire island. He kept adding to his portfolio of unpublished short fiction, which he allowed me to read, edit if I wished. During those two years we had started planning a future together. Then he did the one next thing which was not an experiment. He died. He died from cardiac arrest. I would learn that it was considered possible that his proneness to heart failure was inherited. It was not thought it had anything to do with the genetic disorder which caused the condition of his arms, but the one defect was often seen to coincide with the other.

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I sold the old farmhouse and never returned to the island. What I would do was I would escape to the United States, to New York or Boston, someday. Other parts, some of which I had become acquainted with during visits in the past, on business, had failed to attract me. But who knows?

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