Cave of Little Faces. Aída Besançon Spencer
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you’re going to have to come up with a fourth pole to fill out the bill.”
“True, but otherwise we would have been stuck waiting until one o’clock, and I don’t know if this sparrow’s got the attention span to last two hours.”
“You’re probably right there.”
Basil looked at her with expectancy. “Star, you came up with this scam. You got any more ideas?”
Star paused a moment. “Well, we gotta keep it on theme. How about the orienting pole within each of us?”
“Good enough. Especially for this peacock. We’re good to go.”
When Daniela returned hurrying, her new friends had taken on a deeper tone of sanctimoniousness.
“Will your brother be all right,” asked Star, appearing to be concerned. And then, “Would he like to come with us?”
“Him? Naw! He’s good for the night.”
“Come then.”
They stepped out into a bright star-covered night. Waves gently played along the shore, driven by the moon and the trade winds.
“I always think Barahona is so beautiful,” said Daniela.
“No prettier place,” said Basil.
“And the perfect place to orient,” said Star, “don’t you agree?”
Of course, Daniela did.
“Oh, look,” said Star. “Here is a deeply spiritual friend we have known for many, many years. He has come with us on our pilgrimage to the pole. Let me introduce you to a friend. He is Spanish, from Spain. This is Daniela.”
“A pleasure to know—you,” said Daniela. She felt a little disconcerted because her new friend, “Peep,” had neglected to tell her his name and she was too embarrassed to ask. But Balenzuela put her immediately at her ease by a heavy application of his most courtly manners.
“The pleasure is mine, dear lady. Any evening I have the delight to meet someone as deeply spiritual as my friends and graced with such beauty as well is a night I am doubly rewarded.”
Daniela felt warm all over and blushed. “Thank you,” she said.
“You know, friends,” Balenzuela continued, still holding Daniela’s hand as he turned to Basil and Star, “I know you won’t believe this, but I have been feeling ‘disoriented’ all day.”
“It’s the place,” said Basil smoothly, “and, of course, the proximity of the pole. It always pulls at us until we orient.”
“How true, how true,” agreed Balenzuela.
“Let’s all assume the sacred position,” suggested Star and, turning towards Daniela’s expected confusion, said, “Have you ever done yoga, dear?”
“Yes,” Daniela brightened.
“It’s similar,” said Star glibly, “but not so directionless. We are not simply involved with the self, but with something greater. We are looking to the poles. Here, let me show you how to adapt it.” She sat down on the sand, speaking as much to Basil and Balenzuela as to Daniela. Lithe and young, Daniela followed her with the grace of a ballet dancer, while Balenzuela, and particularly Basil, lumbered into an approximation of what Star was doing. “Danny, see yoga as one step in the path to enlightenment,” continued Star, keeping Daniela’s attention focused on her so the other two could straighten out.
Balenzuela was smirking, but a frown from Basil cleared the signs off his face.
“Just so, my dear, just so,” murmured Basil.
And then Star began herself to intone in a low and compelling voice, “All people are disoriented sheep. All of our lives we search for balance. May the Pole orient you!”
“May the Pole orient you!” replied Basil and Balenzuela just a half step behind him.
“Daniela,” continued Star, her voice deepening with what suggested a profound and vast solemnity, “May the Pole orient you!”
“May the Pole orient you!” imitated Daniela with great sincerity.
Balenzuela smiled over at Basil.
“Heiress,” Basil mouthed without sound.
Balenzuela’s smile grew even brighter.
“Do you see how I am sitting?” Star asked shifting easily in the same voice to instructions. “I have one arm pointing north toward the North Pole. The other arm is pointing south toward the South Pole. My body is oriented to the Magnetic Pole. I, myself, am the fourth Pole—the Pole to be oriented.”
“I am the fourth pole,” murmured Daniela.
“Now you can know the truth,” confided Star, almost trance-like. “This island is the first stop Columbus made on his voyage of discovery. Do you know why it was first?”
Daniela waited breathlessly, holding her position as exactly as she could.
“It is because he was drawn here—by the Magnetic Pole!”
Balenzuela almost fell over backwards howling. It was all he could do to keep it muffled in. These people were good, he thought to himself, really, really good!
Basil, long in practice at keeping a straight face while his beloved put out one outrageous fable after another, simply nodded, murmuring, “Yes, yes, how true, how true.”
“For us, the Magnetic Pole is not just the center of our world. It is the center of our universe. The Sun to our Earths. It is where all nature meets. The adjusting conduit for all of the natural magnetism of our lives, melding it into one harmonious synchronicity—ordered within us by the natural poles of the earth. The polarities within each of us are reconciled! May the Pole orient you!”
“May the Pole orient you!” said all three in perfect response.
All the while, Star was putting this line out to snag this fish completely, she was wondering, how am I going to cut it off? She opened her eyes and sent a deeply meaningful glance toward Basil. He’d seen it before and was ready for it.
“We are Bo and Peep,” he intoned. “Our mission is to the lost sheep who are wandering about without guidance to direction. We present to them a Pole, a sacred lodestar to orient their path—and their lives!”
Star suppressed a smile. Good ol’ Bo.
“Tonight, as we have passed the sacred hour that symbolizes the orienting poles, and in deference to our new friend, sister, and devotée, I won’t ask you all to join me and sing our great hymn of praise to the pole, ‘O Great Magnetic Pole that Orients our Lives.’ I will simply sing the first verse to close our sacred session.” And then in a deep rich voice Basil sang softly, but loudly enough for anyone listening in to be attracted:
“O great Magnetic Pole that orients our lives,
when all direction’s lost, cut by sorrow’s knives,
O keep us now from wandering like he who only strives,
to know the peace you give us, as you orient our lives.”
“Amen,” said Daniela.
And then, with Star leading once more, they all said in unison, “Let the Pole orient you!” Then they hugged each other individually and altogether.
Through Daniela’s mind seemed to race a dozen thoughts at once. In this one moment she felt her inferiority disappearing. This was it! What she had needed all her life was not to be smarter or more devout or more accomplished—what she needed was orientation. That was all. There was nothing wrong with her. She wasn’t just a pretty face who feared age with the trauma of a sports star. Her life wouldn’t be over when lines began to appear and the deep richness of her hair had to be replaced with that from a bottle. Look at Peep and Bo, she thought.