these forests, many of them a hundred and twenty or thirty feet high, and any single one of them bearing four million flowers, burst into bloom. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.
“Four million?” Seana said. “You counted?”
“Estimated,” I said.
“But these trees are dying—they’re being logged away to make room for your palm oil plantations, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Palm oil was used in the making of napalm, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So you are a shit,” she said.
“Probably. Still, I was wondering if you’d like to visit the forests with me and get to see them before they’re gone?”
“Sure,” she said. And then: “‘ Death is the mother of beauty,’ right?”
“Max used to say the same thing—a line from a poem, right?”
“‘Sunday Morning,’ by Wallace Stevens—I heard the lines from Max the first time too. But you say you don’t feel guilty?”
“About what?”
“About taking pleasure from seeing the beauty of these forests because you know they’re dying.”
“What good would guilt do?”
“Actually,” she said, “and take it from an Irish girl who knows about such matters—when it’s not self-destructive, guilt can be a splendid muse.”
“In some places I’ve been to in Borneo,” I said, “there can be more than seven hundred different species of trees in a twenty-five acre plot, which is more than the total number of tree species in the United States and Canada combined.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s one reason—being able to get to Borneo easily and often—I’ve stayed at the job in Singapore.”
“And you’d go there—to Borneo—if you knew you were dying, yes?”
“Yes.”
Seana was quiet for a while, after which she said she’d come to the conclusion it would be a good idea if I was the one who wrote Charlie’s Story, that she liked listening to me talk—to what she called the sweet, innocent timbre of my voice—and that maybe I could make this voice work on the page.
“I’m not as smart or talented as Max,” I said.
“Neither am I.”
“Not so,” I said.
“Well, who knows, Charlie?” she said. “But you do have the main thing most writers begin with: you loved to read when you were young. Because no matter what other reasons writers may give for why they write, most of them, in the end, will tell you that what made them want to be writers was that they loved to read when they were kids, and that they wanted to be able some day to write books that would be for others like the books they’d loved when they were growing up.”
“Max used to say pretty much the same thing when people asked him why he wrote,” I said.
“Oh yes,” Seana said. “And your father said you had a great thirst for advenure, right? So what could be more of an adventure than making up a story—creating a world that never actually existed, and peopling it with imaginary people you come to care about more than you often care about people you know, and all the while—all the while, Charlie—never knowing what’s going to happen to them next?”
“When you start writing your novels, you really don’t know what’s going to happen to the people in it?”
“No,” Seana said.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Some writers—Nabokov most famously—claim they always know what’s going to happen next—that a writer is like an omniscient god who controls the destinies of all his characters.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun,” I said.
“That’s because, despite a sometimes useless habit of being more innocent and timid than is good for you, you’re an essentially unique, adventurous, and playful young man,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Neither of us are as playful as your father is, though.”
“Not yet anyway,” I said.
“‘ Not yet anyway,’” she said, repeating my words, and when she did she looked away so that I couldn’t see her eyes. Then: “Don’t you think that’s sad, Charlie?”
I wanted to say yes, but instead I answered her question by telling her that the blossoms in the Dicterocap forests were pale and dusty, and looked something like hibiscus blossoms—wide, flat, and fringed like crepe paper, and the color of blood oranges—and that their leaves were light green and fleshy.
“Every four years, did you say? Which means that in two years we can go there, you and I—book a trip together, yes?”
“Is that what you writers do—book trips?”
“You’re not that funny either,” she said. “But sure—I’m game to go.”
I told her it was a deal, and explained what I’d learned on my trips there: that the massive flowering of the trees, and the fruiting that followed, had been a gift to the animals, especially to wild boar, who thrived on the seeds and spread them everywhere. I said that nobody knew how many centuries local populations had depended on those times when there was an abundance of seeds—and lots of pork to gorge on—but that anthropologists believed the relationship had lasted for as long as human beings had inhabited Borneo.
What I didn’t say was that most scientists had concluded that logging had probably reduced the density of the forests below the critical level needed to maintain reproductive cycles, and that the ecosystem was, therefore, irreparably damaged.
When we got to Tenants Harbor, I telephoned Nick’s parents—his mother answered, a lucky break—and I said I was in the vicinity with a friend and would like to stop by. Mrs. Falzetti said to please come, but to give her a half hour or so to tidy up. Seana was surprised I hadn’t called from Northampton, and I said I’d waited until we were nearby because I didn’t want to give them a chance to reject a visit out-of-hand, which I figured would have happened if Lorenzo, who could be nasty at times, had picked up the phone.
We had some time to kill, so I drove us out to Port Clyde, a few miles away, and we walked along the boat landing, where the ferry to Monhegan Island docked. The air was crisp, near freezing, but without wind, and Seana slipped her arm into mine. The ocean, like the lake at Camp Kingswood, was steel-gray and calm, but I knew how changeable the weather could be—how a pearl-gray sky could turn to slate-black within seconds, and how winds could become ferocious and waves could come roaring in and swamp small boats.
“Did you ever spend time here with Nick, just the two of you?” Seana asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Once—a total disaster—when we stayed with his mother and father. And I visited him and Trish a few times after they were married. For a while—before they were married, when the three of us would come up here together—I thought I might settle in these parts—not in a town around here, but on an island off the coast, where I could be totally alone and wouldn’t have to see or talk with anyone.”
“There are people around,” Seana said. “Still, it is peaceful and lovely here. Maybe Max and I can rent a house here for a few months—it would be a good place for getting work done. No distractions.”
“Except for Max,” I said.
“You never said how Nick died.”
“You’re right. I never said