Odd Hours

who lived inside himself to such an extent that he never noticed the blood on my face or, later, the ice pack held to my head.

 
    THIRTEEN
    HUTCH’S PREDICTED TSUNAMI HAD SWEPT across the town, if you allowed that the fog was the white shadow of the dark sea, because it inundated every neighborhood, imposing the stillness of drowned cities. For all I knew, it measured a thousand feet high.
    As I sought Annamaria, the currents of opaque mist increasingly seemed to me not just the shadow of the sea, but a foreshadowing of a tide to come, the red tide of my dream.
    Street after street, every tree stood turbaned, robed, and bearded—until I arrived at the foot of a broad-leafed giant from which the fog appeared to shrink. This specimen towered sixty or seventy feet, and it offered a magnificent architecture of wide-spreading limbs.
    Because knowing the names of things is a way to pay respect to the beauty of the world, I know the names of many trees; but I did not know the name of this one and could not recall having seen one like it before.
    The leaves had two lamina, each with four lobes. Between thumb and forefinger, they felt thick and waxy.
    Among the black branches, white flowers as large as bowls seemed radiant in the dark. They were reminiscent of magnolia blooms, though more imposing, but this was not a magnolia. Water dripped from the petals, as if the tree had condensed the fog to form these flowers.
    Behind the tree stood a half-seen, two-story Victorian house, dressed with less gingerbread than was standard for the style, with a modest porch rather than a grand veranda.
    Although the fog seemed to retreat from the tree, it conquered the house. The pale lights inside were barely able to pierce the windowpanes.
    I passed under the tree, and psychic magnetism drew me not toward the residence but toward the detached garage, where a ruddy glow pressed out from the second-floor windows, tinting the fog.
    Behind the garage, a flight of stairs led to a landing. At the top, the four French panes in the door were curtained with pleated sheers.
    As I was about to knock, the latch slipped from the striker plate in the jamb, and the door eased inward a few inches. Through the gap, I could see a plastered wall where soft ringlets of shadow pulsed in a shimmerous coppery light.
    I expected the door to be caught by a security chain and to see Annamaria peering warily past those links. But no chain was engaged, and no face appeared.
    After a hesitation, I pushed the door open. Beyond lay a large room softly illuminated by five oil lamps.
    One lamp rested on a dinette table at which stood two chairs. Annamaria sat facing the door.
    She smiled as I crossed the threshold. She raised her right hand to motion me to the empty chair.
    Pleased to be out of the dampness and chilly air, I closed the door and engaged the lock.
    In addition to the table and two chairs, the humble furniture included a narrow bed in one corner, a nightstand on which stood a gooseneck desk lamp, a worn and sagging armchair with a footstool, and an end table.
    Distributed around the room, the five oil lamps were squat, long-necked glass vessels in which floated burning wicks. Two were the color of brandy, and three were red.
    When I sat across the table from her, I found dinner waiting. Two kinds of cheese and two kinds of olives. Tomatoes cut in wedges. Circlets of cucumber. Dishes of herb-seasoned yogurt glistening with a drizzle of olive oil. A plate of ripe figs. A loaf of crusty bread.
    I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until I saw the mug of tea, which tasted as if it had been sweetened with peach juice.
    As decoration, in a wide shallow bowl floated three of the white flowers from the tree at the front of the property.
    Without a word, we began to eat, as if there were nothing unusual about my having found her or about her expecting me.
    One of the oil lamps stood on the counter in the kitchenette, the others in the main space. On the ceiling above each lamp were circles of light and tremulous watery shadows of the glass vessels.
    “Very nice,” I said eventually. “The oil lamps.”
    She said, “The light of other days.”
    “Other days?”
    “The sun grows the plants. The plants express essential oils. And the oils fire the lamps—giving back the light of other days.”
    I’d never thought of the light of an oil lamp being the stored, converted, and then liberated sunshine of years past, but of course it was.
    “Lamplight reminds me