by Anita Shreve
Beside Olympia, there is Martha, and it is an effort to pull away from the adult debate and banter to pay attention to the girl’s odd and disjointed comments, each designed, it would appear, to elicit Olympia’s undivided attention. But from time to time, Martha does penetrate Olympia’s reveries, reminding her of how rudely she is ignoring her. So that after the pudding, when Martha asks her if she would like to go up with her to see her room, Olympia cannot refuse without drawing undue attention to herself. As they stand and excuse themselves, Martha pulls at her sleeve, eager to be gone from the table.
“The pudding was wretched,” Martha says as they move through the dining room and into the lobby. “I hate raspberries, don’t you? They stick to your teeth and hurt when you bite down.”
“Yes, they do,” Olympia says distractedly.
“I went out this morning early, before Mother was awake, and collected all manner of pearlish seashells, which seem to have washed up on the beach with the bad weather. You must tell me what they are.”
“I may not know,” Olympia says.
They climb the stairs to the fourth floor, where the Haskells have rooms facing the ocean. Along the way, Olympia is struck by the pale blue walls of the hallways and their high white ceilings. Through open doors, she can see other rooms, and beyond them the ocean, which seems to lie suspended just outside the panes of glass. The effect of the blue and white is of the sky and fair-weather clouds, and she thinks the interior an inspired design. Martha takes her through a door and into a room that leads to others at either side — bedrooms, Olympia imagines, for the room they have entered is clearly a sitting room. Wisely, the beautiful windows here have not been shrouded in heavy drapes, but rather are framed with muslin. The room is suffused with a delicate light through the gauze that might have a sedating influence upon the spirit, but Olympia’s senses are preternaturally alert; she is both curious and fearful of what she might find, in the way of a lover confronted with his beloved’s private mail. Even as Martha chats away and lays her prized seashells upon a table for inspection, Olympia’s eye travels to every surface of table and chair for some sign of Haskell and how he has lived in this space.
On a desk in a corner are several volumes and what appears to be an opened ledger filled with slanted cursive in indigo ink. A pair of spectacles lies next to the ledger, and these surprise her, since she has never seen Haskell with eyeglasses. On the pale mauve settee is a white crocheted throw curled into a soft mound, as though it recently sheltered someone’s feet. On the floor beside the settee is a book, Gleanings from the Sea by Joseph W. Smith, a silk ribbon defining its pages.
Martha queries her incessantly. Olympia does her best to identify the girl’s treasures, though there are several oddities she does not recognize — one shell a delicate opalescent, so fine it seems it might shatter to the touch.
“My best one is not here,” Martha complains. “Randall must have taken it. I know he did. Wait here. I know just where he will have hidden it.”
Martha strides out of the sitting room in the direction of one of the bedrooms. Olympia stands for a few moments, looking at the water. Many people are strolling along the beach and flirting with the surf, doubtless because of the good weather after such a dreary week.
Waiting for Martha, Olympia finds herself drifting slowly to the opposite doorway. She does not know precisely what she is doing or why; it is only that she wants somehow to be closer to Haskell, to understand how he lives. Silently, she steps over the threshold into the second bedroom.
It is a masculine room — there is no mistaking that — and though Catherine Haskell has obviously set her trunk upon a stand, it seems she is more a visitor than an occupant. Olympia notes a tortoiseshell brush and comb upon the bureau, above which is a spotted mirror. The bed, though made, is slightly rumpled, as though a man recently sat on it to pull on his socks. On a marble-topped table by the windows is a porcelain chamber set and a man’s shaving things, a brush and mug and razor. Beside the table is a valet with a frock coat hung upon its wooden shoulders.
Emboldened by Martha’s continued absence, Olympia moves farther into the room until she can see the whole of it — specifically, a wide oak bureau, the surface of which is covered with photographs. From a distance, she can make out images only: a profile, a portion of a hat, a railing such as might be on a porch. Gliding closer still, she sees that these are the photographs that were taken on the front steps of her house on the day that Haskell had his camera.
The pictures make a fan shape. At one of the edges, tucked behind the others, she notes a trouser leg. She slips the photograph away and recognizes the picture she took of Haskell on the day they had a picnic on the beach: a face, in repose; clothing loosened upon the limbs; rolled cuffs revealing legs covered with darkened hair and sand; a Franco family in the background. She closes her eyes. When she opens them, she sees the white border of a further photograph, tucked in behind that of Haskell. With her index finger, she slides it free. It is, she discovers, her own photograph. But it is not the picture itself that is so arresting; rather, it is the blurry impression of fingerprints that have stripped away the emulsion that compels her attention.
Martha steps into the room, her hand outstretched with her treasure. On her face is a look of confusion. Olympia drops the photograph on top of the bureau. She assumes an attitude of slight boredom and indifference. “I was looking for a lavatory so that I might wash my hands,” she says.
“It is not in here,” Martha says, frowning.
“You have found your shell,” Olympia adds, moving toward her.
“It is not a shell,” the girl replies. She retracts her palm and studies Olympia intently. “It is sea glass.”
“May I look at it?” Olympia asks, returning Martha’s gaze as steadily as she bestows it.
“We should not be in here.”
“No, of course not. Let me take this to the windows in the sitting room so that I can see its color better.”
As they leave John Haskell’s bedroom and walk to the windows, and Martha reluctantly offers Olympia her small treasure — a shard of pale blue, the surface of the glass brushed cloudy by months or years of battering on the rocks and sand — Olympia realizes, too late, that the fact that she has disturbed the order of the photographs on the bureau will be immediately apparent to their owner.
• • •
Olympia’s parents are standing with the Haskells in the lobby when they return. She does not look at Haskell, nor does she meet Catherine’s gaze. She is apprehensive lest Martha, for whatever private reasons of her own, blurt out her knowledge of Olympia’s having wandered into the Haskells’ bedroom. But Martha hangs back, still puzzled, Olympia thinks, by something she can sense but not quite understand.
Olympia’s father, who has drunk more wine with his meal than is perhaps prudent, invites Catherine and John Haskell to dine with them on Tuesday. Catherine thanks him warmly but says that she is returning with the children to York later that afternoon. She makes a remark about abandoning her husband, after which she takes her husband’s hand. Olympia happens to glance up at the moment of that touch; and then, because she cannot not help herself, looks further at Haskell’s face. And perhaps only Olympia can read the complex mix of anguish and remorse that resides there: anguish for his wife and for themselves, and remorse for deeds not yet committed but for which she already understands that they will one day have to answer.
• • •
Olympia waits through the long afternoon and through the night until daybreak — that time of day when there is light but the sun has not yet risen, when all the world is still for a moment, seemingly gathering itself in silence. She washes and dresses quietly in her room and listens for any restless stirring from either her mother or her father, or from Josiah or Lisette, who might be up earlier than usual. Hoping to disturb no one, she slips from her room, moves through the house, and steps outside.
The tide is dead low, the shoreline a vast flat of sand
and sea muck. Long strands of sea moss droop from the exposed rocks like walrus mustaches. There are clam diggers already on the beach, and farther out, a lone boat with sails of dirty ivory moves parallel to the shoreline. At first, Olympia merely walks purposefully, holding her boots in one hand, her skirt in the other. But then caution abandons her altogether, and she breaks into a run. All the hard decisions have been made the day before. The debate, what little there has been of it, is already quashed and settled.
In the most brazen act of her short life, she sits upon the hotel steps, puts her boots and stockings back on, and enters the lobby, where she is immediately confronted with the stark reality of the night clerk. He is reading the racing form and smoking a pipe. He looks up and is clearly startled to see a young woman in the lobby at this hour.
“I have been sent to fetch Dr. Haskell,” Olympia says at once, inventing an emergency as she speaks. “He is needed at the clinic. Mrs. Rivard is having a difficult birth. . . .”
The clerk snaps to attention. “Oh, yes, miss,” he says at once, not eager for her to explain further. “I will go up myself. Just you wait right here.”
Olympia nods. Somewhat nervous now, she moves about the lobby, inspecting the horsehair sofas, the oil portraits on the walls, the carved pillars around which velvet banquettes have been placed for the guests. It seems she waits a long time for the clerk to return with Haskell. And as she does so, she begins to doubt the wisdom of her actions. What if Catherine and the children did not go yesterday afternoon as she said they would? What if Haskell is angry with Olympia for this ruse? In fact, he will be angry, will he not? Olympia hardly knows the man. He will undoubtedly think her foolish, if not altogether mad.
Suddenly panicked, she glances all about her. She did not give her name to the desk clerk. Haskell will guess who it is, but she does not actually have to be standing there, does she? She walks quickly to the front door. But as she nears its threshold, she hears the breathless announcement of the desk clerk.
“There she is, sir. Very good.”
Haskell, with his coat in one hand and his satchel in the other, sees her across the long expanse of the lobby. Olympia can move neither forward nor backward. With slow steps Haskell approaches her.
“It is Mrs. Rivard, then,” Haskell says quietly.
It is all Olympia can do to nod.
“Very well, let us speak further about this on the porch.”
Obediently, she passes through the door, onto the porch, and, following his lead, down the steps. Silently, they walk together to the back of the hotel. As they turn the corner, she stumbles on an exposed pipe, and in the sudden motion, he reaches for her arm.
“Olympia, look at me, please.”
She turns and raises her eyes to his.
“I wish with all my heart,” he says, “that it was I who could come to you. You understand that?”
She nods, for she believes him.
• • •
He will go up first, he says, to unlock the room. After a suitable interval, she is to follow.
The sun has risen, and through the windows in the hallways, the light is overbright, causing a continual blindness as Olympia passes from shadow to light to shadow. Not many are stirring in the hotel, although she does hear water running and, once, footsteps behind her briefly. Through the windows to the side, she can see wash on a line and a group of chambermaids sitting with mugs of tea on the back steps.
When she enters the room, Haskell is standing by the windows, his arms folded across his chest, his body a dark silhouette against the luminous gauze. She removes her hat and places it on a side table.
He tilts his head and considers her for a long moment, as though he might be going to paint her portrait, as though he were seeing planes and lines and curves rather than a face.
But there is expectation in his features, too. Definitely expectation.
“Olympia,” he says.
He unfolds his arms and walks toward her. He puts his hands to the back of her neck. He bends her head toward his chest, where she rests it gratefully, flooded with an enormous sense of relief.
“If I truly loved you,” he says, “I would not let you do this.”
“You do truly love me,” she says.
He trails his fingers up and down her spine. Tentatively, she circles him with her arms. She has never held a man before, never felt a man’s broad back or made her way along its muscles. She no longer has fear, but neither does she have the intense hunger she will know later. The sensation is, rather, a sort of sliding against and sinking into another, so that she seems more liquid than corporeal. She brings her hands to the front of his shirt and lays her palms against him.
He seems to shudder slightly. His body is thicker than she has imagined it, or perhaps it is only that his tangible physical presence, under her palms, is more substantial than she has remembered. And it seems to her then that everything around her is heightened, emboldened, made larger than in her dreams.
“Olympia, we cannot do this.”
She is taken aback, unprepared for discussion.
“It is already done,” she says.
“No, it is not. We can stop this. I can stop this.”
“You do not want this to stop,” she says, and she believes this is true. She hopes this is true.
“I am a married man. You are only fifteen.”
“And do these facts matter?” she asks.
“They must,” he says.
He takes a step back from her. Her hands drop from his body. She shakes her head. She feels a sudden panic that she will lose him to his doubts.
“It is not what we are doing,” she says. “It is what we are.”
He briefly closes his eyes.
“I thought you understood that,” she says quietly.
“We will not be forgiven.”
“By whom?” she asks sharply. “By God?”
“By your father,” he says. “By Catherine.”
“No,” she says. “We will not be forgiven.”
An expression of surrender — or is it actually joy? — seems to wash over his features. She sees the strain of resistance leave his body.
“This will be very strange for you,” he says, trying to warn her.
“Then let it be strange,” she says. “I want it to be strange.”
He tries to unbutton the collar of her blouse but fumbles with the mother-of-pearl disks, which are difficult to undo. She stands away from him for a moment and unfastens the collar herself, impatient to reenter that liquid world that is only itself, not a prelude, nor an aftermath, nor a distraction, but rather an all-absorbing and enveloping universe.
There is a change in tempo then, a quickening of his breath and perhaps of hers, too. They embrace awkwardly. She hits a corner of the settee with the small of her back and stiffens. Her clothing seems clumsy and excessively detailed. He sheds his jacket in one sinuous motion. Her blouse is undone, open to the collarbone.
“Let me lie down,” she says.
If nothing is ever taught, how is it that the body knows how to move and where to place itself? It must be a kind of instinct — of course it is — a sense of physical practicality. Olympia has never had the act of love described, nor seen drawings, nor read any descriptions. Even the most ignorant of farmers’ children would have more knowledge than she.
She goes into the bedroom alone, into the room where Haskell and his wife have so recently lain together. The bed is unmade and rumpled, its occupant having left it in haste. There are no traces of Catherine now, nor of the photographs that were on the bureau. Olympia takes off her dress and her hose, her corset and petticoat. Wearing only her steps-ins and her vest, she lies down and covers herself.
Haskell comes into the room and stands at the foot of the bed. “If you only knew how you looked to me,” he says.
She watches as he takes off his collar and unbuttons his shirt. For the first time in her life, Olympia sees a man undress. She is struck by the way Haskell
tussles with his cuff links, the way he removes the collar of his shirt as if freeing himself from a yoke. She feels odd and cold beneath the sateen puff and frightened at the thought of a man’s nudity, which, in fact, she does not entirely see this day. Haskell stops short of removing his undergarments before he slides into the bed with her.
She rolls into the crook of his arm and rests her head there. She puts the palm of one hand against his vest. Uneasy and expectant, they are silent for a time. There is nothing impetuous in their actions, nothing at all. Though impetuosity will come soon enough, it is as though each movement toward the other must be taken with some forethought, some understanding of what it is they do.
He shifts his position and dislodges her from his arm, so that she is now lying beneath him. “I saw you at the beach that day. You do not remember me.”
“I am not sure.”
“I think I loved you then. Yes, I am certain of this.”
“How is that possible?”
“I do not know,” he says. “But I am sure of it. And then when I saw you on the porch the night of the solstice, I experienced . . .” He searches for the words. “As though I had known you. Will know you.”
“Yes,” she says, for she has felt it, too.
“You cannot know how precious this is,” he says. “You will think that this is how it always is. But it is not.”
He supports his weight on his forearms. He kisses her slowly on her neck. As if they have all the time in the world, which, in fact, they do not.
“I envy you,” he says. “I envy your not having known anything else.”
She can feel him pressing into her, a weight lowering itself, even as his hands draw up her vest and push away the rest of her underclothing. For a moment, he fumbles with something he must have had in his hand when he entered the bed, something she cannot now identify, though later he will explain his caution to her.
Does she feel pain? Not exactly. Not terrible pain. It is more a sense of greater weight, of a thrusting against her, though she does not resist. She wants to take him in.
“Am I hurting you?” he asks once.