Read Online The O'Briens by Peter Behrens - Free Book Online Page B

store had watch chains draped over his arm. “Real gold!” he called. “Come along, gents, don’t put a fine watch on a cheap chain! Real gold watch chains, only one dollar!”
    As they walked, Grattan O’Brien told her that Mr. Abbot Kinney planned to make Venice the most extraordinary residential community in America, a garden city with shining waterways instead of dusty streets. She was doing her best to pay attention while constantly feeling death, the presence of death behind everything.
    â€œWe’ll go by the Lagoon and see if we might catch a gondola. There are only a couple of houses to see. The lots have been selling, but the fact is not many people have built yet.”
    I am an orphan , Iseult thought to herself. An orphan led westward, windward, by a young man whose wrists and hands are brown and glossy smooth as the branches of a manzanita tree .
    The Lagoon was a stagnant green pond flanked by what he called the Amphitheatre.
    â€œThey held swimming races here this morning. The Amphitheatre seats 2 , 500 . This was all wasteland when Mr. Kinney first saw it. Nothing but mud and birds.”
    White plaster columns, plaster statues everywhere, and banks of rickety seats: she thought it looked a bit like a Roman ruin and a bit like the Dartmouth College swim tank. On the far side of the Lagoon, three black Venetian gondolas were tied up at a float where the boatmen, in striped jerseys, were smoking and playing cards. Mist was blowing inland, giving some texture to plain, brutal sunshine. She could feel surf thumping on the beach.
    â€œLuigi, per piacere , let’s take the signora down to the Linnie.”
    The gondoliers looked up from their card game. One of them shrugged, tossed down his cards, and stood up. “Sure thing, Mr. Grattan.”
    â€œHow’s business?” Grattan asked.
    â€œAh, not so good.”
    The man stepped into one of the gondolas, then held out his hand for Iseult as she stepped down. It was pleasant to be on the water, to sense something soft beneath the hull, liquid depth, a mystery. Grattan sat down next to her and the gondolier slipped his line and pushed off.
    With its toothed stern rising like a wicked tail, the gondola resembled a dragon. It had something of a canoe’s narrowness and fragility. The gondolier hummed a tune as he worked the scull.
    â€œIt’s a nice way to go, don’t you think?” Grattan said.
    It was wonderful: the scent of tarry wood and the black hull sliding noiselessly across the Lagoon, headed for the Grand Canal. A flock of ducks paddled in the sluggish water.
    â€œWhat’s the difference between a canal and a ditch?”
    He smiled. “Good question. You dig a ditch to drain a swamp or to bring water to crops. The canals are so people can enjoy living by water. That was Abbot’s idea, anyway. In summer it’s often fifteen degrees cooler out here than in Los Angeles. You can sleep under a blanket all summer. You’re from back east?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m out of Canada myself. Don’t let me get started on the ocean air out here, or you’ll think I’m huckstering you.”
    They glided along. To the north she could see the olive green Santa Monica Mountains, and the purple San Gabriels to the east, beyond Pasadena. Something dreamy, sleepy, about moving on water. Her mother would have called this day a whim. Was that what it was? How weightless and unencumbered she felt.
    The gondola slipped beneath a couple of footbridges. There were only a few people strolling along the canals. She saw survey sticks and sand piles but few houses.
    â€œWe haven’t actually sold that many lots, to tell you the truth. People don’t appreciate the canals; they want real streets so they can park automobiles in front of their houses. They might not own an automobile yet, but they hope to.”
    â€œYou’re not being a very good salesman. You shouldn’t