Palm Island

A. Brill Jana

Description

Suicide, remorse, making amends! Welcome to Palm Island--a paradise outside space and time where even death does not preclude redemption. Martin, a disillusioned and lonely physicist who decides that suicide is his only remaining option, is magically transported to this place where time stands still. There, he meets other scientists, two chefs, a lost family member, and a young descendant of royalty. All had also led tragic and unfinished lives--nevertheless, they had persisted! The threads of these lives weave together across the boundaries of culture, language, and time. In Palm Island, these lonely travelers' stories inspire the others and lead them to eventually find peace and, perhaps, a little joy.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645751076
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Palm Island
The Second Harbor
Jana A. Brill
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-05-29
Palm Island About The Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgements Part I: Arrivals Chapter One Martin: Desperate Measures Chapter Two Ana: Word Games Chapter Three Antoine: An Unfortunate Accident Chapter Four Sarah: The Unmade Bed Chapter Five Naja and Jira: Mothers and Daughters Chapter Six Lissa: Still Here Part II: Tales Chapter One Lissa’s Tale: Inheriting Stuff Chapter Two Martin’s Tale: It’s Never Too Late to Say, “I Love You.” Chapter Three Naja’s Tale: The Unbearable Happiness of Having Children Chapter Four Sarah’s Tale: Silver Followed the Gold Chapter Five Antoine’s Tale: An Army Often Crawls on Its Belly Chapter Six Ana’s Tale: A Necessary Fiction Part III: Life and Work at the Second Harbor Chapter One Martin: Life Is Not a Beach Chapter Two Alcassin and Lissa: Couscous and Clams Chapter Three Naja and Jira: Berries, Walnuts, and Shells Chapter Four Antoine: Wild Mushrooms Chapter Five Sarah: A Happy Garden Chapter Six Martin: Biscuits from Scratch Chapter Seven Ana: What Are Russian Teacakes? Chapter Eight The Community Dinner Part IV: Strangers in the Library Anamnesis and Proust: The Past Is Alive in the Present. Chapter One Martin Gardner (1915 – 2010) Chapter Two Frank Oppenheimer (1912 – 1985) Chapter Three Marie Curie (1867 – 1934) Part V: Families in the Café Chapter One Table One: Martin and Sarah Chapter Two Table Two: Lissa and Alcassin Chapter Three Table Three: Ana Chapter Four Table Four: Antoine Chapter Five Table Five: Naja and Jira Part VI: Delays, Departures, and Detours Chapter One Lissa and Alcassin: Permanently Engaged Chapter Two Naja and Jira: Getting to Know Omer Chapter Three Antoine and Ana: Exploring Possibilities Chapter Four Sarah: Mission Accomplished Chapter Five Martin: Exploratorium Exhibits – a Detour Part VII: Letter to My Daughter
About The Author
Jana A. Brill is a professor emerita of French at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. She earned her Ph.D. in French from UC Santa Barbara, with an emphasis in linguistics. Her articles have appeared in French Review , Romance Philology , and the Kentucky Philological Review . She is also the author of Oral Traditions: When Did the French Stop Speaking Latin? and Palm Island: A Sideways Slip in Time . Brill has two adult daughters, two grandchildren, and one cat. An avid bibliophile and lover of folk tales, she has always loved maps and mystery novels that take place around the world. “Whenever I read,” she says, “I have a map nearby so that I can get a sense of where the characters are.”
Dedication
For Alexa; in loving memory of her dad.
Copyright Information ©
Jana A. Brill (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Brill, Jana A.
Palm Island
ISBN 9781643782355 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643782348 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645751076 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020905514
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28 th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
[phone]
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Hannah Krieger, for courageously pre-editing a very rough first draft.
Memory, in faithfully bringing the past into the future, erases time.
Marcel Proust
Our understanding of reality might just be one version.
Marcel Proust
A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.
Albert Einstein
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe, “the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
Stephen Crane
Part I: Arrivals
Chapter One

Martin: Desperate Measures
The man hesitated, a newly purchased and now-loaded small-caliber pistol at his temple. Then there was a memory of holding his two-year-old daughter tightly as she struggled to get free. His mind traveled back to the beautiful clear day at Lake Mead, where they were visiting his wife’s sister. He was sporting a thick bushy beard in the style of the late seventies and an old jean jacket. His wife was wearing stylish bell-bottom jeans and a furry brown cap with a visor. They were laughing as his sister-in-law shouted above the child’s protests, “The terrible twos!”
Going further back, he saw his future wife, just his girlfriend then, swinging on a swing near her old college dorm in the late sixties. Her blondish hair flew in a ponytail. Her clear blue eyes were smiling. That shy smile as she looked at him… Was it possible that they – he – had actually been happy once? He would later admit – much, much later – that even then he had been thinking, Is that all there is? Now the swing was empty. He remembered that he sent her away when their daughter was five. Divorce was all the rage back then.
“Do your own thing,” said his mother. And he did.
He still had some of that family – even though they lived two thousand miles away – his daughter now in her late thirties, a son-in-law, a grandchild, and another on the way. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw the familiar sadness in his deep-set hazel eyes, the wiry gray hair that used to be jet black, and the thin-lipped determination. The depression was familiar, but this constant pain was new. Maybe he could wait until the new grandchild was born. Maybe then there would be more than just the pain. After all, he had once been a boy scout! He could survive.
He wavered. The hand holding the gun fell to his side. His mind traveled back to his scouting days. He remembered the worn khaki-colored backpack that he carried on camping trips. The contents were permanently set in his memory – each item meticulously cleaned and placed in its proper cloth container:
One small Optimus camp stove with fuel and burner plate inscribed: ‘Made in Sweden,’ stored in a US Army rucksack
One tin frying pan with foldable handle in a green cloth bag
One tin cup stored in the frying pan
One tin plate/bowl with fork and spoon
One canteen stored in a green bag with a shoulder strap
One large camp knife in a leather sheath
One hatchet in a leather sheath
One skein of thick white rope
One small kit containing a metal mirror, compass, wood matches in a waterproof tubular metal container, a sewing kit, one Band-Aid, and a small skein of thin green rope
Yes, he knew how to survive in the woods. But this pain? It was funny what his wife saved when they moved to California. She wanted to discard his high school leather jacket. A friend secretly saved it for him. But she insisted on saving his scout backpack. Maybe she even still had it somewhere.
Yes, she does, said a soft voice in his head. But the canteen is gone, probably rusted.
He placed the gun back into the bathroom drawer and called a friend.
The pain had started two years earlier, a few days after a flight from Chicago, where he had enjoyed a jazz festival and given his grandson a beautifully carved train. At first, there was just nausea. Then the headaches began – a constant pain at the base of his skull. He was treated for migraines and numerous other ailments including depression, but the outcome was always the same – he was perfectly healthy. It was ‘all in his head.’ In desperation, he traveled to a world-renowned clinic and submitted to five days of comprehensive testing. He explained to the world-class doctors that he spent his days in bed and was no longer able to walk to the mailbox and listen to his beloved jazz, read, or watch television for more than thirty minutes. He was listless, depressed, suffered blinding headaches and nausea, but just as after previous tests, he was pronounced to be perfectly healthy.
Martin sold his new car since he could no longer drive. He hired a caretaker to shop, cook, and clean – and so his family in Chicago wouldn’t worry. In any case, he had never enjoyed shopping. It was agony for him to select a new shirt or sweater, so he preferred to wear the familiar old ones, especially the green sweater with the worn black leather elbow patches. It had taken him more than a year to find a suitable new car to replace his beloved but aging maroon Mercury Cougar, and even then, he worried that the new Ford had not been the best choice. He eventually agreed to move to a lovely assisted living facility in the hills. The decision was sudden and surprising to his family, which had been advocating for such a move for several months, mainly because a nurse was required to administer at least some medical relief. His refusal to move had always been adamant. He loved his perfectly arranged home, from the balcony of which he could just glimpse the sea. Now he was one of the youngest residents of a community of interesting but unfamiliar people. At least here he could receive appropriate pain medication whenever necessary. He even made a few friends and was able to ‘enjoy’ (a relative concept t