Emma said, “If all goes well and he makes his connections, it could be any time now.” She went down the steps, through the main cabin, and out onto the deck, as though looking for Nik on the dock. Ben followed her.
“Em, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’d give anything if I could help and I know I can’t.” He reached his strong hands toward her, then dropped them to his side, helplessly. “You gave me such joy, that summer when you and I—”
Emma sat in one of the folding chairs. “It should never have happened. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
“I am. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“It was my fault.”
“No, Ben. Ours.”
“You were hurting,” Ben said. “You’d lost your baby, and Nik—”
“It was hell for Nik, too.” Emma clasped her hands tightly.
“You were in need.” Ben’s voice was stubborn. “And it was beautiful. Rowing you to that little island, with the birds still singing, as though just for us.”
When Emma had come to the Portia for a few days’ rest, Nik was, she was certain, having an affair with another actress. Emma was still full of grief for the lost baby. She felt that Nik had turned away from her because her body had failed him. She had stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shining wet from her bath, and looked at her body with misery, not quite understanding that her feeling of sadness as she looked at her breasts, her belly, still slightly swollen, was residual sadness not only for the miscarriage but the violation of her body by rape.
Ben had pulled the rowboat up to a small, round jewel of an island crowned by trees, picked Emma up and carried her to a soft bed of sweet green moss, undressed her gently, slowly, then undressed himself. Slowly, tenderly, Ben explored her body, affirming it, returning it to health and beauty.
Emma sighed. “Yes. It was beautiful. But it shouldn’t have happened.”
“You were in need,” Ben repeated.
Emma sighed again. “Ben, one thing I have learned is that all our needs do not have to be fulfilled.”
“Okay, Emma, I honor that. But if you ever—”
“Ah, Ben, you’re my friend, my good, true friend. But right now I’m not fit for anybody. I have too much to work through. What’s left of me has to be for Papa.”
“I just want you to know I’m here.” Ben reached across the table and loosened her clenched fingers.
“Thank you. Thank you, Ben.” Emma gently withdrew her hands. Ben nodded, watched after her as she went back into the main cabin.
Emma opened the door to the fridge. Automatically she drew out the crab Ben had cleaned earlier in the day. He had shaken her. She did not want to think about Ben. How different was she, in essence, from her father? The evening with Ben may have been the only time she had—she did not like the words—committed adultery. But that, in fact, was what she had done. And if Ben had helped her at a time when her self-esteem was almost nonexistent, she had hurt Ben.
“We all hurt each other,” Nik had said, once. “It’s part of the human predicament.”
She shut the fridge door, returned to the pilothouse, hearing her father saying, as she came up the steps, “Emma, I’m glad you’re here. I want you to know that I know that God has forgiven me. I’m not sure whether or not I’ve forgiven myself. God doesn’t have false expectations of us human creatures, but we do. And if I can believe that God has forgiven me, then I can believe that Adair has forgiven me, too.”
“Yes, Papa, believe it.”
“I needed to hear it again. I’ll try not to be too repetitive. I miss your grandfather after all these years. How I wish he was here, to argue, shout, stimulate. When he died—remember—that church could have been filled a dozen times over for his funeral. I’ve never seen so many people, weeping, moaning. And speak of funeral baked meats! I’ve never seen so much food.”
When she came back to New York after the funeral, Emma missed her grandfather more than she could ever express.
There were other sorrows, the ordinary sorrows of daily living, of two artists struggling to serve their work.
There was something missing after Nik put the David play away and they no longer had the intimate working together, the discussions of character, period, ideas. Instead of balancing Nik’s glooms, Emma fell into moods of sadness, continued to grieve for Grandpa Bowman, tended to weep when she remembered his sermons, irritated Nik because both their lights were dim.
Weeping for Grandpa Bowman was also weeping for Billy’s abuse of her. For Adair’s and Etienne’s deaths. For her lost baby. She needed the tears, but Nik did not understand all they were for.
‘Your grandpa was a great man and he had a long life. Don’t be so inordinate.’
Was it inordinate?
Only after a brilliant dream in which she saw Grandpa Bowman and Bahama sailing together on a great river, golden with sunlight, did Emma’s grief begin to abate.
Sometimes, to compensate for the darkness, Emma and Nik quarreled noisily, but the quarrels weren’t the problem. Nik’s new play wasn’t going well. He was blocked. Emma offered to improvise with him, and that helped, but he felt that his juices had dried up. He wrote some scripts for TV which brought him in some money.
‘But I’m making enough, Nik.’
‘I won’t live on your money.’
‘It’s our money. Whatever either of us makes, it’s our money.’
Nik gritted his teeth. ‘So you say.’
‘It’s true. And you’re getting royalties from little theaters and summer-stock companies.’
He was. But it was, to him, money for old work and therefore devalued.
That night, while they were in bed reading, Emma looked up from her book. Hey, listen to this.’
Nik lowered his copy of Variety.
Emma read aloud, ‘This is Ibsen, writing of himself: “Your soul is like the dry bed of a mountain stream, in which the singing waters of poetry have ceased to flow. If a faint sound comes rustling down the empty channel, do not imagine that it portends the return of the waters—it is only the dry leaves eddying before the autumn wind, and pattering among the barren stones.”’
‘Why are you reading that to me?’ Nik asked.
‘I thought it was interesting. I mean, Ibsen was a really terrific playwright, and yet he got frightened and discouraged.’
Nik said heavily, ‘Emma, your sermonizing doesn’t help.’
‘I’m not sermonizing. All really good artists get discouraged.’
‘Okay, okay, so I’m discouraged, but I don’t need you to try to be Bahama and Grandpa rolled into one. Can’t you get out of their shadow?’
She knew that he was being unreasonable and couldn’t help it. She said, ‘I don’t think I want to.’
‘And I’m not Ibsen.’
‘You’re a fine playwright.’
‘At the moment it doesn’t seem so. I’ve hardly made a nickel in the past six months.’
‘Nik, darling. Can’t you relax? We’re not tight for money. And I’m working.’
‘Yeah, you’re in a show now. When it closes, who knows when you’ll get another job?’
‘Who knows? Like all actors I’ll be convinced that I’ll never work again. But I’m putting plenty in the bank every week. You don’t have to kill yourself writing stuff you don’t want to write.’
‘I do.’
Emma did not know how to be wise with Nik. She was wiser with Louis, her youngest sibling.
She came home after the theater one evening to find Louis waiting in her doorway, looking distressed.
‘Emma, excuse me, I need to talk to you.’ He was in high school now, a handsome if somewhat stocky young man with a mop of curly blond hair the color of wheat. His voice was a warm baritone, and he still loved to sing.
‘Sure, Louis, come on in.’
‘Where’s Nik?’ he asked.
‘In New Haven with a new play.’
�
�I like your new show,’ he said, ‘and I think you’re really exciting in it.’
‘Sam Behrman has given me some wonderful lines.’ She took out her keys and let them in. She hung up her coat and hat in silence, took Louis’s coat. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, Emma, I went to see Papa.’
She sat down on the bed. ‘That’s good. He’s lonely without you and Sophie.’
‘So am I. I mean, I miss being there, with Papa and Mom. I like Ulysses—what a crazy name for a health freak, and he adores Mom, and she’s pregnant and they’re ecstatic—but I certainly wouldn’t choose him over Papa.’
‘So what happened to upset you when you went to see Papa?’
Louis collapsed into her most comfortable chair. ‘I still have keys to the apartment, and of course the doorman knows me, so I just went in. I hadn’t called ahead or anything. I didn’t think it was necessary.’
‘It wasn’t, was it?’ Then she wondered: had Louis come across their father with some new woman?
‘Emma, he was lying on the floor of the living room. Emma, he was crying, I mean, really crying. I’ve never seen Papa except—well, like Papa, full of life. And there he was, on the floor, broken. I can’t bear it, not Papa!’
Sophie had succeeded in protecting Louis, in keeping his image of his father bright. ‘Oh, Louis, I’m sorry.’
‘I left—and I walked around until I knew you’d be coming home—and then I came running to you. I didn’t let Papa know I was there, I couldn’t embarrass him, I just left.’
‘Listen, Louis, when I was in college we studied Kierkegaard—’
Louis interrupted, ‘Emma, I came to tell you about Papa.’
‘Yes, and I’m not changing the subject. Kierkegaard wrote about Solomon hearing a noise one night in his father’s sleeping quarters. He was terrified that one of David’s enemies had come in and was trying to murder him. He went into David’s bedchamber and he saw King David just the way you saw Papa. I still remember it, vividly, what Kierkegaard told about Solomon, who never got over seeing David broken apart by grief. So Solomon was never really a great king, in that he was never quite complete. He had more wives and concubines than David did, and he lived much more lavishly, but he was never able to accept that David was a human being, or that he himself was human. Don’t let that happen to you, Louis. Solomon couldn’t stand having the image of his father broken, the great king always in control, always the great hero, always perfect. He never got over it.’
‘Nor will I,’ Louis said.
Emma sighed. ‘Listen. Even if Solomon couldn’t, you must. Didn’t Solomon ever listen to the Psalms his father and Abigail sang? A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’
‘Emma, I saw Papa in agony.’
‘Yes, little brother,’ Emma said gently. ‘That’s part of life. No agony, no joy. Papa has an amazing sense of joie de vivre, and maybe that’s because he’s able to see himself as he is, and accept himself.’
‘Emma, what went wrong, that Mom left Papa?’
She looked down. ‘Papa grieved so over Adair and Billy and Etienne—’
‘But Mom should have understood that. I keep thinking that if I’d been home instead of up at Choir School I could have helped keep them together.’
‘For heavens’ sake, don’t blame yourself.’
‘I love Mom, but I don’t think she should have left Papa, particularly when he was full of grief.’
‘Marriage is complicated. You’ll understand more when you’re married yourself. Louis, does Sophie know where you are? It’s late, and you have school tomorrow, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Can I spend the night here?’
‘If you don’t mind sleeping on the couch.’
‘I’ll sleep on the floor if you want me to.’
‘The couch will do. Here’s a blanket and a pillow. Go call your mother.’
‘Call your mother.’ That was Bahama’s influence. Go where you need to go, but let me know where you are.
It was also Bahama’s influence, even more than Grandpa’s, that kept Emma going to church on Sundays. Sometimes she wondered why she went. If there was time, she took the subway up to the Cathedral, especially if Canon Tallis was preaching. His sermons challenged and stimulated her. Often what she heard in other churches seemed rigid and unloving and unforgiving and made her hackles rise. He always gave her something new to think about.
She came home from church one Sunday to find Nik tense and edgy. She fixed lunch, and while they were eating she asked, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Does something have to be the matter?’
‘No, but I think something is.’
He shrugged, then said, ‘I wish you weren’t so churchy.’
Surprised, she took a bite, then said, ‘I enjoy Canon Tallis’s sermons, and I got in the habit of going to church with Bahama.’
‘Habits can be broken.’
‘I don’t see this as a particularly bad habit. Does it bother you?’
‘I don’t want to go to church.’
‘Fine. Have I ever asked you to?’
‘No.’
‘Then give me the same freedom.’
They finished eating, and she picked up the papers and climbed onto the bed to read in comfort. Suddenly she put down the paper, shocked, chilled. In a gossip column she read: Playwright Niklaas Green is often seen in the company of a certain redheaded actress. She looked at him. ‘Nik?’
‘What?’
‘What’s this about?’ She held out the paper.
‘Oh, that. I hoped you wouldn’t see it.’
‘I’ve seen it.’
‘It isn’t anything, Em, just vicious gossip. You know good news isn’t news. If there isn’t anything available, the gossip-mongers make something up.’
Was that why he was so prickly? ‘I’m certainly not a redheaded actress,’ she said.
‘No, and I don’t give a damn about any redheaded actress. Please, Em, don’t pay any attention to it. It’s a lie.’
It probably was a lie. Nevertheless, it hurt.
She returned to the paper, holding it to hide behind.
Suddenly he was sitting on the bed beside her. ‘Em, sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m a bastard, taking my insecurities out on you. Let’s go out to dinner, someplace nice.’
For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health …
They were solemn promises and she had made them solemnly and she believed that Nik had, too. It wasn’t that things were actively bad between them, or that they hit out at each other, or that they were particularly unhappy. It was just that there was a kind of greyness.
It was better when they had a chance to work together. Emma was rehearsing in an Off-Broadway production of Chekhov’s The Sea Gull. The director was a friend of Nik’s, who was invited to a rehearsal; they went out to a coffeehouse together afterwards.
‘You’re trying to make it too complicated,’ Nik said to the director. ‘I don’t think Chekhov’s trying to be highly symbolical. And I don’t think the play’s any more symbolical than—than—’
‘Hamlet or Winnie-the-Pooh,’ Emma supplied.
Chekhov’s people are complex, four-dimensional people, I know that,’ the director said, ‘but—’
‘No buts.’ Nik had ordered milk rather than coffee, and smiled at the director over his glass. ‘They aren’t Maeterlincky symbols. As for the sea gull itself, it seems to me to stand only for beauty carelessly destroyed.’
Emma nodded agreement. ‘It means more to Nina personally in her grief than it did to Chekhov or needs to mean to the audience.’
‘Yeah, but,’ the director said, ‘audiences are used to either the typical Broadway comedy or problem play where they find nothing but types, or the Shavian play where each character stands for an aspect of the author’s argument.’
‘Chekhov simply wrote about people—’ Nik said.
‘The way you do,’ Emma said.
‘—and his
characters are inconsistent with the terrible inconsistency of people. Sometimes those who go around saying how clear everything is are the most confused.’
Emma laughed, adding, ‘Or they laugh when they are sad, and cry when they are happy. If you live with a Chekhov play, really live with it, if you look at it simply, like a child, you’ll find there’s nothing confusing in the play; it’s as simple as life; but on the other hand that’s the most confusing thing in the world!’
‘Okay, okay,’ the director said. ‘I concede.’
‘If Chekhov’s plays need to be categorized,’ Nik said, ‘prophetic is better than symbolic.’
‘You’re right, you’re right,’ the director said. ‘But do you think it’s going to work?’
‘Of course it’s going to work,’ Nik said. ‘With Chekhov and Emma, how can you go wrong?’
‘Very easily, as you just pointed out.’
‘It’s going to be a hit,’ Nik said.
That was good, that mutual understanding between Emma and Nik. The production was well received, and the play settled down to a fair run.
Then there was an unexpected blow. The building in which they lived was being sold. It would be torn down, along with several others on the block, to make way for a large apartment complex. Leaving was a wrench.
‘It was inevitable,’ Nik said, ‘and maybe it’s just as well. When you get pregnant again, when we have children, there’s no way we can stay here.’
They found a comfortable two-bedroom apartment on 116th Street in Morningside Heights. There was no reason Emma should not get pregnant again, the doctor said. But she didn’t. Perhaps she wanted a baby too badly. Nik was a good lover, giving as well as taking. Their bodies meshed in rhythm. Even in Nik’s worst moods, Emma was subject, not object. But nothing happened.
And she felt she was failing him.
Nik’s play which had not made it to Broadway from New Haven had a chance for a two-week run in Miami. Nik went down to Florida with a new cast. The lead was now being played by a well-known comedienne, and Nik had real hopes that this time it would work.
He called Emma from the hotel. ‘The weather’s terrible. It’s pouring rain and it’s in the fifties. The set isn’t working. The turntable sticks.’
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