Read Online By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker - Free Book Online Page B

stroll that would bring them to the cliffs overlooking the beach. Agreeable, as he almost always was, he said yes instantly. They set out as the air was cooling, and soon reached the stoning pillar that Irene could see from her room. It was made of marble, and leaned to one side. A large metal sign advertising Coca-Cola was propped against its base. There was Greek graffiti scrawled the length of one side.
    They used to stone women here, she said to Petros.
    I’m sure they did not! he said, looking at her with alarm. Whatever makes you say such a thing?
    Women are stoned, you know. Even today. She said this calmly, though she felt herself distancing from the reality of what she described.
    Her husband’s face had darkened. She felt him draw away from her. Why must you always think of things like that? he said to her.And is this what you brought me all this way to see? He was angry, not because he disbelieved Susannah, but because he knew there would be no sex now for at least a couple of nights, maybe none for the rest of their stay. And he so liked making love to her in his childhood bed. The child that he had been seemed to still be there in the room, somehow. Looking down upon them making love, a fantasy come true.
    She did not tell him that Irene had told her about the stoning post. She did not tell him anything that transpired between Irene and herself. Each day she simply walked to the church, went around to the back, and knocked on Irene’s black door.
    The next day, as she approached the church, she wondered if Irene had missed her. She thought she probably had not: Irene would be used to tourists showing up, perhaps for several days or even a week or more, but then abruptly disappearing as their boat or plane pulled out. The door was slightly ajar to admit a tiny breeze, sucked in by an electric fan that rotated slowly, and as if searching the corners of the room.
    Come in, said Irene.
    She was sitting on the green cushion, studying the cards she’d laid out on the floor. Susannah stood over her for a moment, looking down at the spread. It was a tarot deck unknown to her. All red and blue and white.
    The colors of our flag, she said, as she settled onto the maroon cushion across from Irene.
    Yes, said Irene. Odd, isn’t it? It was given to me by a woman from Turkey, who picked it up I believe she said in Spain. It’s a Gypsy deck. I don’t imagine the cards were so plain in the old days. She slapped down a card whose image was a woman frowning and carrying two huge swords. Oops, she said, time to cut the illusions.
    Is that what you think it means? asked Susannah, with the eagerness of her childhood. She loved anything mysterious, not figured out, not yet nailed to the wall.
    Irene looked across at her and smiled as she fumbled behind her to grab a package of Camels.
    That’s what it always means, she said flatly. I will do a spread for you, if you like.
    Oh, good, said Susannah, drawing her cushion closer as Irene shuffled the cards. This was awkward for her because the cards were large, and her hands quite small. Still, from years of shuffling them she was expert. They were soon spread in a pattern that resembled a cross. The “time to cut the illusions” card was prominently dead center.
    You are on a journey to your own body, said Irene. Not so much your own mind, at least not at the moment; or your heart. But to your own skin, the way it shines, the way it glows, smells, absorbs the light. It is now as if you are embracing a vapor, a cloud, a mist. You are actually someone who left her body long ago, when you were quite young; that is why you walk with such grace and stateliness. You are a statue, really.
    Oh, God, said Susannah, who’d always been praised for her walk. You don’t stoop over like most tall girls, she’d been told. You walk like a queen.
    Irene took up a card with a woman and a man entering an ancient carriage. The man’s hand under the