she focused on his eyes she saw the reflection of the garden behind
her.
Roy returned with the drink, and as she sipped, she felt a great
weight drop. Its coolness propped her up from inside. The fifteen
pounds per square inch that pressed down from miles of atmosphere
above seemed to have eased a bit.
Leona did not return to the Crystal Ship that day. Real magic so
rarely came into her life that she knew she could not walk away from
this place now that she had found it. She held a deep appreciation for
the numinous, though she had not often experienced it directly. At
the Crystal Ship she helped sell all sorts of accoutrements intended to
impart mystical rapture—crystals, herbal infusions, mandalas, tarot
cards and essential oils. But she was no pagan: She knew the magic
wasn’t in the trinkets. They could never engender anything that
wasn’t already incipient in the user.
In this strange and simple place she felt that seed beginning to
flower. Rather than accessorize, here she felt compelled to shed all
trappings—her inhibitions and self-consciousness melted away in the
presence of the aborigines of this tiny land. Normally timorous about
her body, she agreed to undress and join them in kungkum.
The three of them sat for an hour in silence up to their necks in
warm water while concentrating only on the silence. How could there
be such quietude here, so close to a busy shopping district? Perhaps
the high walls surrounding the garden blocked out the din of
civilization.
When the hour was done and they were dressed again she
wondered if these two weren’t gay after all. She was accustomed to
having her titanic breasts openly and categorically gaped at by men,
and that was with clothes on. As far as she knew, they hadn’t even
hazarded a furtive glance.
Afterwards, Roy brought her some tea. She took a sip and
announced stoically, “Well, I guess I’m in big trouble at work.”
Roy offered her a position at Undergrounds. They couldn’t pay
her much, he explained, but she could live there for free. He took her
by the hand and gave her a tour of the property.
Though only a shabby old bungalow, it boasted a certain shabby
splendor and positively burst with inner space. The view from the
roof, a panorama of sea and sky was enough to give Leona blue
vertigo. It was as if Undergrounds stood on a canal linking the river
of the street with an ocean of impossibility.
ABYSSINIA
24
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