‘Does he talk to you the way he talked to Samuel?’
‘On occasion, which is the best anyone gets.’
‘Is it true?’
‘What, child?’
‘About the people wanting a king instead of God?’
‘It’s always true. Over and over.’
‘Did David?’
David was a child, not that much older than you. He was off in the hills with his sheep. He played his harp to the sheep and the birds, and he sang, and he knew as little as you know.’
‘When I’m grown up, I’ll know more.’
‘Let us hope.’
‘Grandpa?’
‘Yes, child?’
‘Why did the people want a king instead of God?’
‘Why did your mother choose greasepaint and footlights and want that small idol of an Oscar?’
It was a rhetorical question. But Emma prodded, ‘She’s a good actress, isn’t she?’
He huffed his beard out. ‘I should not have mentioned her. We’ve talked enough.’
‘No, Grandpa. Go on.’
He closed his eyes. ‘People make different choices in life. Perhaps Lizzie’s choice was the right one for her.’
‘But you think acting is wicked?’
His eyes opened wide, a deep, startled blue. ‘Where on earth did you hear that?’
‘Just some people talking.’
‘Where?’
She said, reluctantly, ‘After church yesterday.’
He scowled ferociously, his bushy eyebrows almost covering the gentian of his eyes. ‘Gossip is ugly. Uglier than acting. Your father is a fine actor and he has integrity. Am I not in my own way an actor, too? Is it not how both your father and I try to bring truth out of the darkness and into the light?’
Now Emma smiled. ‘Yes, Grandpa.’
‘Your father and I understand each other.’
Emma put down her fork. She could not help prodding, not yet understanding that her grandfather’s pain about his daughter was as great as hers about her mother. ‘But you do love my mother.’
‘I love her. I will always love her.’
‘No matter what?’
‘No matter what. But you cannot serve God and Mammon.’
‘Who is Mammon?’
‘A false God. All the things of this world.’
‘Bahama says we are supposed to enjoy the things of this world, because God made them for us to enjoy.’
‘Bahama is an Episcopalian. Nevertheless, she is right. It is when the things of this world become more important than the One who made them that problems arise.’
‘So maybe that’s what’s wrong about kings?’
‘Explain, child?’
‘Well, Grandpa, like when somebody puts the king ahead of God.’
Grandpa Bowman was triumphant. ‘I have not preached in vain!’
Emma loved Grandpa Bowman. He could call up thunderstorms. He was larger than life, but with Emma he could be infinitely tender. At bedtime he sang to her as though she were a small child, Gospel hymns, Blessed Assurance; Just as I am, without one plea; Jesus, tender shepherd. If he could not assure her that her mother loved her, he could assure her that he did, and that God did. ‘Be thou my strong habitation!’ he sang to her in a melody of his own devising, ‘My strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.’
Emma relaxed in Grandpa Bowman’s care. She thought less about her mother, and more about her father and Bahama. In the early autumn Bahama came for her and brought her back to the apartment on Riverside Drive.
‘Your father is working too hard,’ Bahama said, ‘but we are happy.’
David brought Sophie to meet Emma, and Sophie was gently loving. Sophie was nothing like Edith.
Sophie was an actress David had met on location during the shooting of a movie. It was apparent that she and Bahama also liked each other. It seemed natural when a few months later David married Sophie and she moved in.
‘It’s your house,’ she assured Bahama. ‘I’m a terrible housekeeper, but I do like to cook.’
With Emma she was tentative, not pushing herself, but always available, affectionate, ready with milk and cookies and conversation after school, more like a playmate than a parent. And she was soon pregnant. She called Emma into the kitchen one morning, put her arms around her, and whispered, ‘You’re going to have a baby brother or sister.’
David glowed with pleasure at the happiness in his household. Sophie bloomed with her pregnancy. ‘I never had a real mother’—she gave Bahama a hug. ‘I lived with three maiden aunts who didn’t believe in coddling. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.’ And she giggled, a sweet, throaty chortle. ‘You know what? Marical and I are friends! Isn’t that something!’
As soon as Edith remarried and David could stop his alimony payments, he completely did over the kitchen for Sophie. Sophie did not want the cook or the maid Edith had demanded.
‘My aunts never let me into the kitchen. They said I’d make a mess. I love making messes.’ Sophie turned to Bahama. ‘You don’t mind?’
‘I’m delighted,’ Bahama assured her. ‘I’m an adequate cook, I suppose, but I don’t really enjoy it. I like to sew.’
‘Let’s have Marical and the children over for dinner,’ Sophie suggested. ‘Jarvis, too. I’ll cook roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.’
‘But that’s so much work—’
‘I do it mit Liebe.’
The next few years were the happiest of Emma’s childhood. Sophie created a family for her, a strange family perhaps, but a family. Marical and her children were often around, and Sophie encouraged Adair to teach Emma to roller-skate, to ice-skate. Etienne and Everard were called in to help Emma with homework. Chantal and Sophie played with Emma’s hair, washing it, rolling it up and setting it with bobby pins, and finally agreeing with Marical that the best thing to do with Emma’s hair was to leave it clean and straight.
Sophie was lavish with love, and when Marical’s children were not around, she played with Emma, games of make-believe and let’s pretend, in which Sophie was quite happy to be the wicked witch to Emma’s princess. For Emma, Sophie was an older friend who seemed, if anything, younger than Chantal. Sophie gave parties for Emma, birthday parties, for which she decorated a special cake with Emma’s name on it; Valentine parties, with red paper-and-lace doilies and crayons and glue for the making of valentines; Halloween parties, with pumpkin carvings and apple bobbings and pumpkin pie.
‘I didn’t give you enough parties,’ Bahama said.
Emma was quickly loyal. ‘Yes, you did. You gave me a birthday party every year.’
Bahama sighed. ‘I’m grateful for Sophie. She can do all the things I’m too old to do. She thrives on them and she always manages to make me feel she couldn’t do without me.’
‘She couldn’t,’ Emma said. ‘You love her, and Sophie needs to be loved.’
Bahama patted her hand. ‘Words of wisdom, my granddaughter.’
Sophie told Emma, ‘I want Bahama to live forever, so my baby will know and remember her.’
Emma had never thought of the possibility of Bahama’s death, and it struck cold against her heart. Sophie swept her up, holding her against her bulging belly so that Emma could feel the baby kick. ‘Don’t worry, pet, Bahama’s going to be with us for a long, long time.’
Occasionally Sophie did a play or a TV show, but she refused to go to Hollywood when she was offered a big contract. ‘I don’t like it out there. People have affairs and get divorced. But I trust Davie if he has to go to the West Coast.’
Perhaps it was because of Sophie’s childlike trust that David was trustworthy. The marriage was stable. The household was happy. When Louis was born, all ten pounds of him, Emma was filled with joy. She was allowed to hold the baby, to help Sophie bathe him. She loved him even more than she had loved Inez.
When David and Sophie were not involved in a the
atrical production, they often went to the opera or the ballet, and Sophie would call Emma to her closet to choose her evening dress. David wore tails and a top hat and sometimes carried an ebony cane with a silver handle. To Emma they were the most glamorous and handsome couple in the world.
If Sophie or David were in a play, they had an early supper with Emma and Bahama. Both David and Sophie took great care to see that Emma did not feel displaced by Louis. Louis was for Emma a gift; he was a happy, healthy baby. On the rare occasions when he woke the household at night, Sophie made a game of it. She would put records of Strauss waltzes on the record player, and if Emma was awake she would follow Sophie and David into the baby’s room, and the three of them would dance around Louis’s crib until he laughed, drank his bottle, and fell back to sleep.
One night Emma woke from a nightmare. Sat up in bed, shivering. She was afraid to go to Sophie and David’s room, where she had heard David and Edith make terrible noises. Finally she called out, ‘Papa! Sophie!’
Fortunately Sophie heard, came running. ‘Emma, lovey, what’s the matter?’
‘I had a dream, I had a horrible dream.’
‘Emma, Emma.’ Sophie put her arms around the child. ‘I just happened to be awake; otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard you. Whenever you have a bad dream, just come, come to Davie and me.’
Emma started to weep uncontrollably.
‘Emma, lovey, what is it? What’s the matter? Was the dream so terrible?’
‘No, no, not the dream—’ Sobs choked her.
Sophie rocked, coaxed, drew it out of her.
‘Ah, Emmelie, those weren’t bad noises. You just didn’t understand them.’
‘But Edith—’
Sophie said, ‘Little one, how can I tell you—’
‘Papa—it was a dreadful groan, as though something terrible was happening. Oh, Sophie, what was it?’
‘Emma, you’re too young to understand. You’ll just have to trust me. Emma, do you know how babies are conceived?’
Emma shook her head, pressing her face against Sophie’s soft, sweet-smelling shoulder.
‘When a man and a woman love each other, they—they—oh, lovey, how can I explain? They hold each other tight and they—well, sometimes they make noises like the ones you heard—’
‘Not you and Papa,’ Emma protested. ‘Sophie, you wouldn’t ever make noises like Edith, would you?’
At that, Sophie started to laugh. Her arms about Emma, she rocked back and forth, laughing and laughing. Finally: ‘Oh, Liebling, I might put Edith in the shade!’
‘What?’
‘Let it go for now. Don’t worry about it. It’s something you’ll understand when you’re much older. And remember, any time you have a bad dream, you come right in to your father and me.’ Sophie knew how to dispel fear.
Sometimes when Marical’s children came to the Riverside Drive apartment for dinner, they would roll back the great Chinese rug in the living room, left there by Edith because it did not fit in her more modern penthouse. Sophie and David danced well together, but Adair was the best dancer of them all.
‘You’re better than Fred Astaire,’ Sophie would gasp. Emma was quick to catch on to his lead, and ultimately the two of them would dance alone, with the rest of the family applauding. David urged Adair to dance professionally, but Adair only laughed and said he’d wait at least until Emma was old enough to be his partner.
They were good years. Whatever Sophie did, she did mit Liebe. When Emma played Celia in As You Like It, the family was in the front row for opening night, her father, Sophie, Bahama; Marical, with Etienne, Everard, Adair, and Chantal, with an excited Inez; Harriet with Jarvis; only Myrlo and Billy were not there, and Emma hardly noticed. David and Sophie sent her a corsage. She was made to feel like a star. Adair sent a dozen roses: ‘To my beloved sister, Emma, the Duse of the twentieth century.’
Adair knew who Duse was.
That year Sophie bought her a box of sanitary napkins and a belt. ‘Emmelie, you are an innocent, but it’s time you learned some of the facts of life.’
Emma wriggled uncomfortably. ‘I know them, Sophie.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Sophie said, and explained the workings of both male and female reproductive organs. ‘I read it all in a book, so I know the scientific part is right. Marical told me I should prepare you.’
Emma looked at Sophie, whose face was slightly pink. ‘I’m prepared. What do you think we talk about at school? I’m nearly ready to wear a bra. I’m not a child anymore.’
‘Did they get it right?’ Sophie was sitting on the foot of Emma’s bed. ‘When I was your age, some kids told me the baby comes out of the belly button.’
‘I know where it comes from. You told me, remember? before Louis was born.’
‘I guess I did, more or less. The important thing, honey, is that you not be scared the way you were scared when you heard your father and Edith.’
‘I’m not scared. I just don’t think it sounds very enjoyable.’
‘Oh, lovey, it is! When you’re older, and there’s a man you love, and who loves you, well, Emma, sex is maybe only a third of a marriage, but it’s a mighty important third.’
‘Sure,’ Emma said.
‘When it’s more than a third, well, that doesn’t make for marriage, that makes for an affair.’
Emma looked into Sophie’s big brown eyes. ‘Is that what happened with some of Papa’s wives?’
‘I don’t want you criticizing your father.’
‘I’m not criticizing, Sophie, but—’
‘Your father is a great man and a great actor and I love him madly.’
‘And I hope you stay married to him forever,’ Emma said.
Grandpa Bowman gave his instructions to Emma publicly, from the pulpit, demanding of his congregation:
‘Do you not understand that our concept of sexuality is as far below our Maker’s as that of the amoeba is below ours? Yes, my people, the amoeba. For the amoeba knows little of the pleasures of love. The amoeba propagates by dividing and subdividing. Does that sound like fun? Does that sound like love? Does that not sound egocentric? Would you like to be like the amoeba? I doubt it very much. But understand, my people, understand that we know as little about what love truly means as does the amoeba, in comparison to the one who loved us so much that he sent his only Son to live with us to teach us about love. Not sex, as the advertising world would have us think. The advertising world knows only about sex and nothing about love. And now the people of God are emulating the advertising world and trying to diminish God with human sex. We are not interested in God’s genitals!’ he roared, looking out over the pulpit and waving his forefinger at the congregation so that for a moment there was a total hush as the palm-leaf fans were stilled.
Bahama was more down-to-earth. One evening when David and Sophie were at the theater and Louis was in bed, she sat with Emma in the living room, smocking a yellow summer sundress for her granddaughter.
‘Well, Sophie told me;’ Emma said, ‘but mostly it was stuff I already knew.’
Bahama, embroidering two small green frogs on the dress, began to reminisce about her own marriage. ‘My time with your grandfather was sweet. Sweet. We were good together.’
‘How?’ Emma asked. She could not conceive of her grandmother in sexual terms. Her father, yes. She had heard David and Edith. Talked with Sophie. There was no avoiding David Wheaton’s sexuality. But Bahama?
‘Oh, yes,’ Bahama said, smiling. ‘I enjoyed my marriage bed. Or the beach. Or lying on a carpet of moss in the forest. There is a lot to be said for a single, faithful love. It takes a lifetime to learn another human being.’ She sighed. ‘Emma, I do not want you to be like your father, or to be dazzled by—’ She stopped.
‘My friends at school,’ Emma pronounced, ‘say that the idea of a separate standard for men is Victorian. Men and women are alike.’
Bahama threaded her needle with more green silk. ‘Your friends are right and your friends
are wrong. A separate standard probably is Victorian. But men and women are not exactly alike. I have extremely strong hands for a woman’—she held them out, long and strong of finger, wide of palm and wrist—‘but they are not as strong as a man’s. My pelvis is made for bearing babies, my breasts for milk. Like it or not, there is a difference.’
‘My friends wouldn’t like that.’
‘It’s a fact. Maybe they should choose the sea horse as an emblem. The female sea horse lays her eggs in the male sea horse’s pouch, and he has to carry the babies to term and then give birth.’
Emma pealed with laughter.
‘But it’s not the way it is for human females. Not, my dear Emma, that I think women are a hundred percent female and men a hundred percent male. We’re a rich mix of both. Your father has an amazing tenderness that is often thought feminine, though I believe it can come only from great strength and self-assurance.’
David was indeed gentle with Emma, talking to her about the theater like a fellow actor, but hugging her at bedtime like a little girl, praising her for her care of Louis whenever Sophie was away for a few hours and let Emma baby-sit.
Adair often took Emma to concerts. He was in graduate school now, majoring in business, but equally interested in music.
‘I’m not an artist,’ he told Emma, ‘but I can recognize great art when I hear it. Music will always pull me out of my moods. I want you to love it, too.’
‘I do.’ Emma loved music partly for itself and partly because Adair taught her. He brought her records, played them without showing her the albums, and made her guess the composer.
‘Schubert!’ she said triumphantly. ‘You can always tell Schubert by that sadness that’s under everything he writes, even the merriest stuff.’
‘Good,’ Adair praised. ‘Hey, Em, did I see Billy leaving as I came up the street?’
‘Yup. He wanted Papa to introduce him to some producer. Do you think Billy’s a good actor?’
‘Not in Papa’s league. But ask Jarvis. He’s the one who can pick the stars.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘Billy’s okay. He’s handsome. Papa’s pull does him no harm.’
Certain Women Page 5