by Marge Piercy
‘I don’t want to continue the way I have. I can’t live all discombobulated. I need to be settled.’
‘Itzak, I’m absolutely ready to make the commitment you want –’
‘Oh? Is this it? Or are you going to change your mind again tomorrow.’
‘Itzak, how often have I changed my mind?’
‘You’ve certainly kept it wide open, swinging in the breezes.’
Was he disappointed? Or just exhausted. He was certainly crabby. Now that she was willing to commit, had he withdrawn? She felt herself sinking. ‘But we have a huge amount of working out to do. How much settling can you really get from me?’
‘What does that mean? You’re still involved with Willie, or what?’
‘Only as friends. I’m absolutely willing to be a couple with you.’
‘That’s what matters most to me. That and to be sure you really love me.’
‘I can give you that, willingly, easily, joyfully. But I work on my own music. I travel too. I’m not prepared to live in the city. I’m prepared to go back and forth. I don’t want to go on tour with you.’
‘What I want is a home to come back to. We can experiment with dividing our time between Brookline and the Cape.’
She was almost dazed at the changes coming over them. ‘I’m ready to try.’
‘I love performing, but after a time, I lose myself.’
Figaro ran to him in the front hall, which seemed to move him. ‘Do you remember me? You big rascal.’ He seemed a loosely packed bag of emotions with the bottom going. She was worried. What was she taking on? Well, him. About the flowers he said grumpily, ‘Did someone take me for a soprano? Who sent them?’
‘I picked them. They’re all from my garden.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’ He was hungry. He ate the salad at once, two enormous plates of it with dark bread she had bought. As an afterthought he ate some Muenster and then took a bath, asking for coffee and balancing the cup on the rim of the tub. It will always be a big deal when he comes home, she thought, and felt oddly comforted. He will always be going out to tour and coming back trailing parts of himself. He lay in the tub in very hot water and washed himself again and again. She scrubbed his back, smooth, bony under her hands, hot and wet and sleek. His prick wavered underwater like pale seaweed.
He had never had a garden. He was a city person through and through. She felt defeated in advance. It looked grim, laborious. Willie and she shared a bounty of daily pleasures, walking, gardening, looking at trees and birds, a sense of the land, canning, clamming, all those country pleasures of the turning seasons. Maybe she was being too hasty in rejecting Candida. They did not have to be lovers. They could be friends. Maybe she was making a dreadful mistake.
He was staring at her. She helped him dry off and brought him more coffee. He dragged himself toward his king-sized bed, flung himself onto it. ‘It’s time to move into this house. It’s time to settle in,’ he said. ‘I kept thinking in the plane you’d have gone back to Willie and taken the easy way out.’ He seemed very vulnerable as he lay propped up. He kept himself in shape. He worked out on the road and at home, she knew, but he would always be a more fragile man than Willie. He was shorter, slighter.
She felt guilty for having wavered. He needed her more, he wanted her more than Willie ever would. ‘Willie isn’t my lover, he’s my friend now, and he has a new lover he’ll marry once she’s free. But I like him and I feel connected to his children. I helped raise them, and I can’t throw them out of my life. Think of them as the children of a first marriage. Or as nephew and niece.’
‘I need to be connected. Deeply.’ Naked, he let himself down in the bed to lie on his elbow, facing her. His eyes were very dark under his wet hair, curling from the water.
‘There’s no ambiguity for me. I love you, I’m going to live with you, that’s that. Everybody else are friends. I lived my life differently for a long time, but that’s what we both need now.’
‘Do you need me?’
‘I do. I need to go forward in my personal life the way I have in my work life. And I need both more integrated.’ What doubts I have are my own private business, she thought, for I have equivocated long enough. I am marching off a cliff and any second thoughts will remain just that.
‘Nobody thinks it will work. Everybody says you can’t have a virtuoso and a composer together.’
‘I think if a woman and a man can live together, anybody can.’
‘I don’t want to be on the road nine months out of twelve. I want to reduce to maybe three or four big tours a year. Beyond that just assorted gigs in the area, like Tanglewood in the summer.’
‘I know you can’t imagine now that you might like the country, but you might. It was new to me too when I moved there.’
‘I do think your work is important. I’m sure it’ll be a tug-of-war, but it has to stretch both of us.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. It was a gesture of assurance, but when the actual contact occurred, she could see his eyes change, darken. The hand seemed to grow warmer as he felt her, and the gesture turned from touch into caress. ‘I forget how much I want you. I forget when I’m away. I forget how strong it is.’
‘So do I. So do I.’ She sighed, holding him off with a braced hand.
He pulled her over onto him. ‘Let’s see if we remember how to put it all together.’
‘Just one agreement, first. No condoms, no pills. We won’t try and we won’t prevent. We won’t even think about it.’
‘That’s the very last thing I want to worry about.’
‘What’s the first?’ She smiled into his shoulder, sleek, satiny.
He was exhausted and they made love in slow motion, as if underwater. Afterward he fell asleep at once. She gradually extracted her numbing arm and turned onto her side to face him. Tosca stepped gingerly across the pillow to sniff them both. Figaro curled into the bend of Itzak’s knee and soon was softly snoring. She was not drowsy, but she could use the time just to think. With her decision finally made and ratified by his willingness, her life had become their lives together; now a great deal of massive construction and reconstruction was going on faster than she could grasp the implications.
She was beginning what was clearly her second marriage, whether or not they sought out a rabbi soon or in a couple of years. She was setting a different kind of roots, more traditional in one respect, less so in another. It would be very much a bonding of prickly equals. Although society would not judge it so, she was quite aware that this relationship was much riskier than her long triangle. It cut more deeply into her work, into her identity. It changed the nature of her journey, in some ways bringing her back onto an earlier course. It was a different alignment, in society, in family, in her work. If Itzak did not realize how profoundly they would be changing each other, he soon would; and they would continue or they would not, but each would be transformed.
And each time they made love, as just now, it would be an attempt to continue the line of survivors that pressed through her into the future. If she would be in the short run less of a composer, she accepted that risk, to be more fully who she was, Dinah bas Nathan, Dinah in history, Dinah the woman seizing her last chance at what she had finally decided she must have.
Chapter Fifty-Five
DINAH
Dinah jumped back hastily as a centipede scuttled off the log she was shoving into the fireplace. ‘It isn’t Christian, Itzak. It’s pagan. And what the hell, I’ve been observing it with them for years and I can’t start complaining now.’
‘But to go and steal a tree from someone’s yard?’
‘Willie and I have done it every year for the last decade. They don’t count their trees or even notice.’
‘From murdering trees with him, what happens then?’
‘Why don’t you come with us? I’d like that.’ She knew he was as nervous as she was, because Dr Bridey’s office was supposed to have the results of her test by late afternoon. That knowledge was like a fire burning in the cor
ner of the room each was conscious of and pretended not to notice every moment. She did not want to speak of it aloud, for that would be to admit her hope, and she was too superstitious to do that.
‘What do I know about stealing trees?’ But he put on his parka at once.
Dinah smiled. Another lump passed over. Theirs was a bumpy road, but they tooled along. Itzak, once he was persuaded into the woods, left off glowering and asked a hundred questions. Itzak was always forgetting how well he got on with Willie, for both men were curious about everything. Soon Willie was into his old shtick explaining pitch pines and Itzak told him stories back about planting trees in Israel, visiting his ex-wife’s family. She walked in front of them enjoying her own silence and their discourse. She pinched off a leaf of wintergreen and crumbled it into brittle pieces under her nose, inhaling the clean odour.
Willie chopped at the trunk until he had it almost cut through – six quick masterful blows. Then he handed the axe to Itzak. ‘Want to take over?’
Itzak gave a wary swing. Then he warmed to the task. Whack, whack. He was grinning. The tree toppled. He stood over it, pleased with himself but disappointed the cutting was finished so quickly. ‘Do we need another?’
‘One is usually enough,’ Willie said. ‘We have to set it up. That’s harder than taking it down.’ Willie had taken to acting older brother with Itzak, and Itzak slid into playing the city Jew who couldn’t tell a pine from an oak. They did not yet really see each other clearly, but those were comfortable poses for them, easy, companionable.
When they unloaded the tree from the truck, Willie was twitching with eagerness. ‘This is Chris’s first tree. He’ll be excited!’ Lisa had arrived two days before for the long-negotiated visit.
Chris was indeed excited. He cried hysterically for twenty minutes until Lisa carried him upstairs. The tree went up in the livingroom of the new house, where Candida too was living – her house being for sale.
Lisa was only a little shorter than Jimmy, a solidly built woman with maple-sugar blonde-brown hair, a strong jaw and broad forehead, full cheeks. Judging from the fact that half her blouses and dresses seemed to need pinning across the chest, her breasts had probably grown with nursing. She was soft spoken, her eyelids often at half mast; she was obviously ill at ease, not sure of her position or her best direction. She gravitated toward Willie, as her strongest supporter. Dinah also noticed that she was wearing a necklace that looked exactly like the one Jimmy had given Laurie. She wondered if he could have bought two of them. ‘It’s a present from Jimmy,’ Lisa said, fingering it. ‘He bought it for me last spring when the baby was born, but he just gave it to me. A friend of ours made it.’
‘It’s not a Christmas present,’ Jimmy said smoothly. ‘It’s a welcome present.’
When Candida and Dinah were in the kitchen together getting the food out, Candida said, ‘Willie is very eager that Lisa and Jimmy get back together.’
‘I thought so. The grandson?’
‘That, and he wants Jimmy settled. When Jimmy’s on the loose, he’s too loose, Willie says.’ She beamed at his cleverness. ‘They haven’t been here at all this fall, none of them. I think Tyrone is terrified. It’s bizarre to think he’s scared of a woman like me.’
‘You seem happier with Willie anyhow.’
‘Willie is perfect for me. I’ve played it safe my whole life, and what did I get for it? Men with no respect or feeling for me. Willie has a heart.’ Candida was growing her hair out and had gained some weight. She looked less fashionable but healthier, with a glow to her skin and a gleam in her eyes. ‘I have a favour to ask you,’ she said in a husky whisper.
Dinah felt wild apprehension. What could Candida want?
‘I wish you could say a word to Willie about his sculpture. He’s taken to doing these lovely pieces in resins, he calls them odalisques. But this is a time when suddenly there’s European interest in his more social work. A curator in Hamburg has approached us about a show. That would boost Willie’s career, but there he is making these lovely sensuous women. Nice, but not what they’re looking for.’ Candida stepped closer. ‘This is his chance, you see, for his work to take off.’
Candida was a born manager, she thought. ‘Why don’t you start buying all the papers? Get the left-wing papers. Get the Guardian. Start reading Mother Jones and talking about articles. He’ll be riled up in no time. He’ll start doing the political sculptures again.’
‘Thank you!’ Candida squeezed her forearm. She had a strong grip. ‘Politics, that’s the ticket?’
‘Take him to meetings about Central America and South Africa.’
‘Central America and South Africa,’ Candida repeated with enthusiasm.
‘Nicaragua. El Salvador. Guatemala.’
‘Nicaragua. El Salvador. Guatemala. Central America and South Africa. Thank you so much!’
Dinah detached her arm. ‘I have to make a phone call now. I’ll be back.’
‘Use the phone here.’
‘It’s long distance.’ She did not bother putting on her coat but ran across the yard, dark already. Venus up. She had to call Dr Bridey’s office before five. Inside her house, the cold lay on her skin, numbing her. It felt like a second skin of scales. She fumbled with the phone, had to redial. It was Brookline she was calling, but she wanted to be alone. It was her private business, because the odds were her missed period was caused by wishful thinking or hormonal imbalance or a change of diet.
She asked the nurse for the results. The woman came back. ‘Was that Mrs Asher?’
‘No, Adler. Dinah Adler.’
‘Hold on, please. We’re checking.’
They had lost the results. The negatives fell through the cracks. False hopes. False promises. The house felt chilly. It needed a new furnace; this one dated from before Mark’s and her arrival. Mark had had a son he rarely saw, in whom he had taken only occasional interest. Even at the time she had thought that unfeeling of him, but she had been so young, it had been hard for her to challenge him.
‘Miss Adler?’ The voice sounded less cheery. ‘Your test was positive.’
‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Dinah thought she sounded exactly as inane and as grateful as Candida. She picked up Tosca, glaring from the top of the old refrigerator. ‘I won’t let you get jealous or unhappy. Think of it as one more lap being born.’ She rocked Tosca and squeezed her. Then as she sometimes did, she felt her father. He was sitting in the old chair at the table nodding at her the way he did when she had played some difficult passage well. The sense of his presence faded.
She walked back across the yard, through the vast clean darkness. She heard an owl hunting across the pond. Eyes shone red as taillights near the truck. Racoon? It was good to come in from the clear starry night to the kitchen that smelled of turkey roasting.
At the door to the livingroom she paused. Lisa had come down and she and Jimmy were helping Willie string lights. Itzak was sitting cross-legged before the fireplace watching. He saw her at once and raised his eyebrows quizzically. He glanced at the clock – he had obviously lost track of time – then jumped to his feet. ‘Did you call?’
She motioned for him to come into the hall, but he had forgotten everybody else. He had that capacity to concentrate utterly till nothing existed in this moment except the two of them and the news. It was the same concentration he had for his music. ‘The test was negative, of course? Of course.’
She was not about to announce her condition in front of everyone. ‘Itzak, come outside.’
He walked toward her, but he was not about to wait. ‘So what did the test say? Negative?’
She could feel the weight of his caring and now Willie, and Jimmy and Lisa paused, turning. But Itzak was in unnecessary pain and apprehension: she could feel his emotions burning her. ‘It’s positive.’
‘I didn’t think there was any … what?’
‘Positive,’ she said patiently. ‘I’m pregnant.’ Maybe she was wrong and his anxiety was the opposite of hers. Well
, it was her pregnancy, and only his if he chose to claim it.
‘Yes, a baby?’
‘Unless it’s a kitten and Figaro’s responsible. Who else sleeps in the bed?’
‘A baby? My god!’ he whooped.
Everybody turned. Lisa was grinning. Willie looked as if somebody had punched him in the gut. Jimmy gave one of his bright smiles and went back to disentangling the lights. Dinah drew Itzak into the hall. ‘You’re happy? It’s all right?’
‘If only my grandparents could know. Of course I’m glad – you think I’m crazy and I don’t understand what this means to you? We’ll work it out!’
Even if we can’t, she thought, I’ll have the baby. The one I had to have.
‘Maybe I should cancel my tour.’
‘Itzak, it will still take us nine months like other people. We have seven and a half to go. I’m just starting that chorale for voices and percussion. I think January third is a lovely date for you to go on tour. I will hole up here and take care of myself and write like a maniac.’
Jimmy sat on her left at supper. ‘You only got pregnant to have some use out of the room we put on. A frugal woman.’ Then he said to the table at large, ‘Toby’s going to drop by after supper while we’re trimming the tree.’
‘We always have just family,’ Willie said. ‘Why him?’
‘I have to talk a little business with him.’
‘Tonight? Why does it have to be tonight?’ Willie said sourly. ‘Here we all are together for once, finally.’ Willie and she had fallen into a brother-sister mode lately, lots of kidding, avoiding privacy. It would become easier over time as each of them went further into their couple.
Lisa was looking down into her lap, her hands kneading each other.
Jimmy said, ‘I want a lot in the subdivision. I’m going to build for my wife and kid. Toby and I have to work it out. They’re all three-quarters of an acre, but one of them is cut awkwardly –’
‘A house?’ Willie interrupted. ‘Are you staying?’ he asked Lisa.
Her round cheeks visibly reddened, as did her throat. ‘Er, yes, we figured that would be best for Chris, at least to try it, yes.’