The Arm of the Starfish Read online

  She looked at him over her ice cream cone and Adam shifted his gaze, for he wanted neither the canon nor the child to know that he was observing them. He took a book out of his briefcase and pretended to read it until his flight was called.

  He started to the gate, and saw out of the corner of his eye that they were following him.

  Because it was the height of the tourist season the plane was crowded. Adam had been assigned a seat by the window in the tourist section, and though the wing partly obscured his view he would still be able to see a good deal. Across the aisle, next to the window, sat the child, the canon beside her, and a lady with lavender hair in the third seat. The places next to Adam were occupied by two businessmen with attaché cases.

  It was ten o’clock at night by Adam’s watch when they took off. He had flown in from the Cape in the morning, but this was his first trip in a jet, and the pull of the gravities took him by surprise as momentarily he seemed to be pinned back in his seat. Then, with a smoothness he had never felt on a prop plane, they were airborne, rain drenching against the windows. And suddenly there was a star, and then another and another. Adam tried to watch as the plane flew high and clear of the clouds, but the lights in the cabin turned the windows into mirrors so that he saw his own reflection thrown back at him.

  He looked warily about the plane, trying not to let his gaze linger on the dark figure of the canon, who was talking to the child, his face quick with interest and intelligence. But was it a malevolent or a benevolent face? Adam could not tell. The child laughed, openly, spontaneously: Dr. O’Keefe’s child. Adam gave a shiver of excitement. Already, and before he had even met Dr. O’Keefe, the job promised to be far more than a summer job with a well-known scientist. Adam, crossing the Atlantic for the first time, dazzled by the international atmosphere of the great jet, felt ready for anything.

  There was the click and buzz of the loudspeaker, and, while an attractive stewardess demonstrated, a voice explained, in English, French, and German, the emergency use of oxygen and how to put on the life belts just in case the plane should have to be ditched in the middle of the Atlantic. The captain, also using the three languages, introduced himself, and described the flight route and the altitude at which they would be flying. All of this and Adam hadn’t even noticed that the NO SMOKING and FASTEN SEAT BELTS signs had blinked off. Feeling a little foolish, he undid his belt, noting that his companions had already unfastened theirs, and tried to relax and look world-traveled. But he was too keyed up for the tautness to leave his body.

  Dinner was served, a full and delicious meal in spite of the hour, and Adam, having had none of his cheeseburger in the coffee shop with Kali, ate ravenously. After the trays were cleared the stewardess came around with pillows and blankets, and Adam, like the older men beside him, leaned back in his seat, loosening his tie and belt. He knew it was important to try to sleep as soon as he could because the difference in time would make it a short night. When they landed in Lisbon at eight-thirty in the morning it would still be only three-thirty in New York.

  But his mind would not shut off. He found himself remembering a trip to the Hayden Planetarium. He loved the Planetarium and went there often to see the dome come alive with stars. He thought now of a lecturer who had said, “Of course you never see stars like this in New York. If you want to see stars you must go out into the country where there are no lights to dim them. But if you really want to see stars then you must be out in the middle of the ocean. Then you can see them as the sailors and navigators saw them in the days when stars were known as very few people know them now.”

  Adam, wakeful, remembering these words, glanced at his seat companions. Both had their eyes closed, so very gently he drew back the curtains at the window. The lights in the cabin had been dimmed; the window was no longer a mirror, and he saw that the Planetarium lecturer had spoken the truth. Never had there been stars as he saw them now, not at Woods Hole on the beach, nor even out in a sailboat at night. The stars—how many miles out over the Atlantic?—were clearer and more brilliant than anything he could have imagined, glorious myriads pulsing and throbbing about the plane. With his face turned toward the window he dozed, never sleeping soundly, but over and over again opening his eyes to the stars.

  Then, very slowly, in the east, straight ahead of him, the sky began to lighten faintly, the stars to seem just a little less clear. A pale red warmed the horizon, but what made it different from sunrise seen from the land, or even from a ship, was the plane’s great altitude, and the most extraordinary sight came surprisingly from behind the plane, in the west. They were flying east into sunlight, but the western sky was a strange, deep blue, with a haze of rose spreading out below and pulsing slowly upward.

  By now he was completely awake, looking out the window before him, behind him, below him. The plane was so high that he did not see the ocean as ocean, but as great patches of purplygrey darkness among the scattered whiteness of clouds. As the light brightened, so that he was afraid his seat companions would ask him to draw the curtains, the clouds thickened beneath the plane, though it was flying in dazzling sunshine.

  He leaned back in his seat, saturated for the moment with beauty, and looked around the cabin. Most of the passengers were still asleep. A portly gentleman moved stiffly up the aisle past Adam to the washroom. Across the aisle the canon and the O’Keefe child were eagerly peering out the window, the priest leaning over the child, his arm around her. He seemed very avuncular and not in the least sinister, and for a moment Adam wondered if he could have dreamed Kali and her warnings. In the aisle seat next to the canon the lavender-haired lady snored delicately.

  Then, at three o’clock in the morning New York time, all the lights were turned on in the plane cabin, and breakfast was served, which, Adam felt, must have been a little hard on those passengers going on to Geneva and Zurich, though he himself was more than ready for food, and the hot, fragrant coffee made him forget his lack of sleep.

  He was starting to wonder why they were not beginning the descent for Lisbon when he heard the buzz of the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We have just passed over Lisbon. Because of weather conditions we are unable to land and will proceed to Madrid.” The same message was repeated in French and German.

  The man next to Adam rang for the stewardess and asked about visas in Madrid; if they were being forced into Madrid he wanted to do some sightseeing; he wanted to go to the Prado.

  It would be perfectly all right, the stewardess assured him; if the plane was held in Madrid for any length of time those passengers wanting visas would be issued them.

  This struck Adam as an unlooked-for piece of luck; a glimpse of Lisbon and then the island of Gaea were all he had expected to see. A day in Madrid was a wonderful and added adventure. The Prado, he knew, was a museum; if that was the place to go, go to it he would.

  Within a few minutes the clouds dispersed as they started their slow descent, and he could see the countryside of Spain beneath them. It was all he could have hoped for in his most romantic dreams: it was as though the plane had taken them centuries instead of miles out of their way. In the distance were snow-capped mountains. Below him were fields of all shapes and patterns and in all shades of green and brown. He thought he recognized olive trees, but the plane was still too high up for him to be sure. There were hills with ancient forts built around a square; there were hills with turreted castles. He had heard of castles in Spain; now he was seeing them. Suddenly he saw great bare circles of some kind of modern military emplacements; he was not sure what they were; perhaps Nike sites. Strange, bleak pockmarks on an ancient rural landscape, they jerked him out of the middle ages and into the present.

  FASTEN SEAT BELTS flicked on. Across from Adam the canon and the child slowly sat back in their seats.

  The landing was effortless and the great plane taxied down and around long runways until in the distance Adam could see a large, cold-looking modern airport; there were many men in military
uniforms moving about. As soon as the plane had stopped, the rolling steps were pushed up and the passengers herded out and into a waiting bus, although the jet was only a few yards from the terminal. Probably, Adam thought, they’re taking us to some other entrance where they can fix up our visas and tell us when we can get to Lisbon.

  The bus was all part of the adventure, it was so definitely not an American bus. There was something almost institutional about it, as though it were not a bus for which one ever voluntarily paid a fare to take a ride; it was like a bus in a dream into which people were thrust, as the jet passengers were now, like it or not, and taken to some impersonal destination, probably unknown.

  About half the passengers were able to sit on the seats which ran the length of the bus; the rest of them, including Canon Tallis and the O’Keefe child, and, of course, Adam, stood as the bus jounced the few yards to the air terminal: no more. They were as drenched by the rain that had suddenly started as they would have been if they had been allowed to run the short distance between plane and port, and why they hadn’t been Adam could not fathom; but since nobody else was remarking on this he kept his mouth shut.

  From the bus they were urged into the terminal where one of the stewardesses smiled with professional cheer and confidence and said, “Wait.”

  This must be tough, he realized, throwing the whole flight out of schedule; for the plane personnel it was not the adventure it was to Adam and to some of the passengers who were already making sightseeing plans; others were yawning openly and talking about getting to a hotel and catching some sleep. There was also some speculation as to what kind of hotel they were being taken to, and one of the more traveled passengers said that probably it would be the Plaza, since the Swissair offices were in the same building, and that, though there was nothing wrong with the Plaza, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Plaza in New York and no one had better expect any such luxury.

  The interior of the terminal was as modern and cold and bleak as the exterior, and as filled with men in uniform, though these at least were keeping dry. As Adam looked at their dark, stern faces he felt some of his optimistic sense of well-being and grownupness beginning to fade, but shook himself, remembering that he had not had much sleep for two nights now, and lack of sleep always tended to make him edgy and apprehensive—one reason he never sat up late studying for exams. If he didn’t know it he didn’t know it.

  In the big, chill room some of the passengers sat wearily on wooden benches, others chatted desultorily, making tentative plans. Canon Tallis stood holding the hand of the child, who was beginning to look white with fatigue, but neither of them spoke. It seemed a long time before one of the stewardesses reappeared and said that they would now be given visas and would then be driven to a hotel in Madrid. She herded them into two lines, telling them to have their passports ready for inspection and stamping.

  Adam asked her anxiously, “I’m being met in Lisbon. Will they be notified there?”

  “Certainly, sir, but we’ll be glad to send a telegram for you. To whom?”

  “I’m not sure who’s meeting me. Could you just notify Dr. O’Keefe on Gaea? My name’s Adam Eddington.”

  “Of course.” She made a note, smiled again, and excused herself charmingly.

  In the other line, with his passport already being inspected, stood the canon, and Adam realized that the older man had overheard him and was now looking at him in an intent and curious way. As the priest took his passport and the child’s and walked off toward the exit he turned and looked back at Adam.

  The lines moved quickly. The passport was given to one man, who checked it. Then the passenger was moved along to another man who stamped the passport with the required visa and returned it. It was all brisk and uncomplicated.

  Until it was Adam’s turn.

  The officer at the window took Adam’s passport and flipped casually through it, then turned back to the beginning and began to go slowly over each page. Finally, in heavily accented English, he said, “Your name, please.”

  “Adam Eddington.” Then the boy spoke in Spanish, since he had had four years of it in school, and Juan, one of his closest friends was a Puerto Rican, school track star and prize chemistry student, whose family spoke no English. “Aquí tiene usted todo escrito en el pasaporte.”—It’s all there, right in the passport.

  The officer looked at him sharply. “You have been in Spain before?”

  “No, sir,” Adam said.

  “Then why do you speak Spanish?”

  “I learned it in school.”

  The officer looked at him unbelievingly. “Americans do not make a study of languages.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Some of us do.” Adam made the mistake of smiling as he remembered Juan’s initial struggles with English.

  The officer stared darkly at Adam with hard black eyes; his hair, too, was black, wavy, and highly polished. His chin had a dark shadow on it that would never disappear no matter how recently he had shaved. Looking at him Adam began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. Maybe speaking Spanish had been the wrong thing to do, but he had only intended to be polite.

  After giving Adam the silent treatment for almost a full minute the inspector returned to the passport, his eyes flicking from Adam’s photo to his face to the photo again. Finally he said, in deliberate English, “Your destination?”

  Adam did not try Spanish again. “Well, Lisbon.”

  “And from there?”

  “Gaea.”

  A cold flicker seemed to come into the man’s eye. “Why Gaea?”

  “I have a job there for the summer with a Dr. O’Keefe.”

  “O’Keefe,” the inspector said thoughtfully, tapping Adam’s passport against his teeth. Then he slapped the passport sharply on the palm of his hand and stood up. He spoke to two other officials who were behind him, but in Spanish so swift and low that Adam could not catch it. He turned to the boy: “Be so kind as to come with me.”

  “Now, look here,” Adam said indignantly, “what business is all this of yours? I was supposed to land in Lisbon, not Madrid. The only reason I’m here is the fog, and I didn’t have anything to do with that. If you don’t want to give me a visa to go into Madrid, that’s your business. But I’m not trying to get a job or anything in Spain and I don’t see why any of this has anything to do with you.”

  The inspector listened impassively. Then he jerked his head. “Come,” he repeated.

  Adam opened his mouth to protest again, but something in the inspector’s visage made him keep quiet. Stomach churning, he followed the inspector past the line of passengers, through the airport hall, down a corridor. Until the corridor turned he could feel the eyes of the other passengers on him. He had a moment’s impulse to shout at them not to let him be taken away like this, but he controlled himself. It was probably something not quite right about his vaccination certificate, at which the inspector had glared for several seconds, or something silly and simple like that.

  The inspector led him into a bare room painted a dark, oppressive grey. There was an unshaded light glaring from the ceiling, a desk with a chair before and behind. The one small, high window was barred. Adam, his knees suddenly feeling weak, went to one of the chairs and sat down.

  “Stand,” the inspector snapped.

  Adam stood. “What is this—” he started to protest again, but the inspector cut him off.

  “Silence.”

  Adam shut his mouth.

  The inspector went with deliberate pace across the room, behind the desk, sat down. He looked at Adam again from head to foot, as though he did not like at all what he saw. With a gesture of his dark chin he indicated that Adam might sit.

  This time Adam decided that he was happier standing on his own two feet.

  “SIT,” the inspector barked.

  Adam sat.

  For a full minute the inspector looked at him in silence. Then he said, “Why are you working for Dr. O’Keefe?”

  “Well—it’s—it’s just a summ
er job,” Adam said. “I’ve just graduated from school and I’m going to Berkeley—that’s in California—in the winter.”

  “So why a summer job? Why is this necessary?”

  “Most of us kids have to work in the summer to help out some with our education. Besides this was a big opportunity for me.”

  “Opportunity? How?”

  Adam tried not to let his eyes falter as the inspector pinned him with his stare. He thought of saying that one does not treat law-abiding American citizens in this way, but decided that it might just get him into more difficulty, so he said nothing.

  Because of the placement of the chairs the sharp light fell directly on Adam, but the inspector did not entirely escape the glare which glinted against a gold tooth in his stern mouth and threw back a tiny gleam of light. “Opportunity, how?” he asked again.

  “Well—to work with Dr. O’Keefe—and I’ve never been in Europe before—”

  “And now that you are here you intend to do what?”

  “Well—just work for Dr. O’Keefe.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Just whatever I can to help out, I suppose.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well—there may be experiments with starfish or something I could check on.”

  The inspector looked at him sharply, as though the boy had said something unexpected. He opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by a knock on the door. He snapped, “Come in.”

  The door opened and in came one of the uniformed men, followed by Canon Tallis, looking grim.

  Adam suddenly remembered with horror all of Kali’s warnings. He realized that they had seemed part of an adventure that was somehow make-believe; he had not taken them very seriously.

  He took them seriously now.