Whispers

by Belva Plain

  “His mother was my sister.”

  “He got his music from her, didn’t he?” Lynn said. “And his father must have been remarkable, from what Robert tells me.”

  “Indeed.”

  “It was such a tragedy, the way they died.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was.”

  Dad remarked, “It must have been lonesome when Robert was a kid. Christmas with just his parents and you.”

  “Well, we did our best,” said Jean, “and he grew up, and here he is.” She gave Robert a fond smile.

  “Yes, here we all are, and let’s look forward. Reminiscences are for the old,” Robert responded, after which he patted his aunt’s hand.

  He was making amends for having been sharp toward her. But the mild old woman annoyed him. And there seemed to be no reason why she should.

  On a day like this, at a moment of lonely desperation, Lynn thought now, you remember these false notes.

  There had been dancing on the deck that Darwin had built with his own hands. In the yard his perennial border was rich with pinks and reds; peonies and phlox, tiger lilies and oriental poppies, fired the blue dusk. Robert was at the railing, looking down at them.

  “Isn’t it just lovely what Darwin’s done with this house?” Lynn asked.

  He smiled—she remembered the smile—and said, “It’s all right, I guess, but it’s really a dump. I’ll give you so much better. You’ll see.”

  He meant it well, but just as it had hurt to hear him reprimand his aunt, it hurt to hear him scoff at Darwin’s garden, at Helen’s little house. Small things to have remembered for so long …

  Each night as they traveled through Mexico, when the door closed on their room, Robert said again, “Isn’t it wonderful? Not having to scrounge around for a place to go? Here we are, forever and ever.”

  Yes, it was wonderful, all of it. The sunny days when, in sneakers and broad straw hats, they climbed Mayan ruins in the Yucatán, when they drank tequilas on the beach, or drove through stony mountain villages, or dined most elegantly in Mexico City.

  And there were fourteen nights of passion and love. “Happy?” Robert would inquire in the morning.

  “Oh, darling! How can you even ask?”

  “You know,” he told her one day, “your father’s a fine old soul. Guess what he said to me when we were leaving for the airport? ‘Be good to my girl,’ he said.”

  She laughed. “That’s a sweet, old-fashioned thing to say.”

  “It’s all right. I knew what he meant. And I will be good to you.”

  “We’ll be good to each other. We’re on top of the world, you and I.”

  On the very last day they went shopping in Acapulco. Robert saw something in the window of a men’s shop, while at the same time Lynn saw something in the window of another shop just down the street.

  “You do your errand while I do mine, and I’ll meet you down there,” he said.

  So they separated. Since she was quickly finished, she walked back up the street to meet him. When some minutes had passed and he had not appeared, she went into the men’s shop and learned that he had left a while ago. Puzzled, she walked back. By now a rush of tourists just discharged from a cruise ship filled the sidewalks and spilled out into the traffic on the street. It was impossible to see through the jostling mass. She began to feel the start of alarm. But that was absurd, and fighting it down, she reasoned: He has to be here. Perhaps on the other side of the street. Or down that alley, out of the crowd. Right now he’s looking for me. Or maybe, not finding what he wanted, he had gone to the next block.

  Alarm returned. When an hour had passed, she decided that her search was making no sense. What made sense, she reasoned, was to go back to the hotel where he had probably also gone and where he would be waiting for her.

  When her taxi drew up to the entrance, he was indeed waiting. And she laughed with relief.

  “Isn’t this the silliest thing? I looked all over for you.”

  “Silly?” he replied very coldly. “I would hardly call it that. Come upstairs. I want to talk to you.”

  His unexpected anger dismayed her. And wanting to soothe, she replied lightly, “We must have been walking in circles, looking for each other. A couple of idiots, we are.”

  “Speak for yourself.” He slammed the door of their room. “I was about to go to the front desk and have them call the police when you arrived.”

  “Police! Whatever for? I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “I told you to wait for me in front of that store, and you didn’t do it.”

  Now, resenting his tone, she countered, “I walked up to meet you. What’s wrong with that?”

  “I should think the result would tell you what’s wrong with it. Disorderly habits, and this is the result. Saying one thing and doing something else.”

  She said angrily, “Don’t lecture me, Robert. Don’t make such a big deal out of this.”

  He was staring at her. And at that moment she realized he was furious. Not angry, but furious.

  “I don’t believe it!” she cried when he seized her. His hands dug into the flesh of her upper arms and ground it against the bones. In his fury he shook her.

  “Let go!” she screamed. “You’re hurting me! Let go of my arms!”

  His hands pressed deeper, the pain was shocking. Then he flung her onto the bed, where she lay sobbing.

  “You hurt me.… You hurt me.”

  As quickly as it had come, his anger went. He picked her up and held her.

  “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. But I was terrified, Lynn. You could have been kidnapped—yes, in broad daylight—dragged down an alley, whisked into a car, raped, God knows what. This country is full of thugs.” He kissed her tears. “I was beside myself. Don’t you understand?”

  He kept kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her hands, and when at last she turned to him, her lips.

  “If anything were to happen to you, I wouldn’t want to live. I was so frightened. I love you so.”

  She put her arms around his neck. “All right. All right, darling. Robert, forget it, it’s over. We misunderstood each other. It’s nothing. Nothing.”

  And all was as it had been, as glorious as ever except for the ugly dark blue blotches on her arms.

  Two days later they were home, visiting her father. It was hot, and forgetting her raw bruises, she put on a sundress.

  “What the dickens are those marks?” Dad asked at once. They were alone in the house.

  “Oh, those? I don’t know. I don’t remember how I got them.”

  Dad removed his glasses and came closer. “Identical, symmetrical bruises on both arms. Somebody did that to you with strong, angry hands. Who was it, Lynn?”

  She did not answer.

  “Was it Robert? Tell me, Lynn, or I’ll ask him myself.”

  “No. No. Oh, please! It’s nothing. He didn’t mean it, it’s just that he was so scared.” The story spilled out. “It was my fault, really it was. He was terrified that something had happened to me. He had told me to wait on the street, and I wandered around the corner and lost my way. My sense of direction—”

  “Has nothing to do with these marks. Don’t you think I was ever upset with your mother from time to time? You can’t be married without getting mad at each other. But I never laid a hand on her. It isn’t civilized. No, damn it, it’s not. I want to have a little talk with Robert—nothing nasty, just a sensible little talk.”

  “No, Dad. You can’t. Don’t do this to me. Robert is my husband, and I love him. We love each other. Don’t make a big thing out of this.”

  “It is a big thing to me.”

  “It’s not, and you can’t come between us. You mustn’t.”

  Her father sighed. “It was easier when people married somebody from the same town. You could have a pretty fair idea of what you were getting.”

  “Dad, we can’t go back to George Washington.”

  He sighed again. “I feel,” he said, “I don’t fee
l—the same about things.”

  “Meaning that you don’t feel the same about Robert.”

  Now it was he who did not answer. And that exasperated her. The thing was being carried much too far. She saw a crisis looming, one that might change, might color, all their future. So she made herself speak patiently and quietly.

  “Dad, this is foolish. Don’t worry about me. You’re making a big deal out of something that happened once. All right, it shouldn’t have, but it did. I want you to put it completely out of your mind, because I have. Okay?” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Okay? Promise?”

  He turned, giving her his familiar, reassuring smile. “Well, well, since you want me to, I’ll promise. We’ll just leave it at that. Since you want me to, Midge.”

  It was never mentioned again. But neither Helen nor Dad ever had reason to raise any questions about the marriage of Robert and Lynn. They were to any beholder a successful, beautiful pair.

  Emily was born eleven months after the wedding. They had scarcely equipped an apartment before Robert bought a house, a ranch house not far from Helen’s but twice the size.

  “We’ll have more children, so we might as well do it now as later,” he said.

  They went together to furnish the house. Whatever he liked, he bought, and Lynn had only to admire a chair or a lamp, and before she had even glanced at the price, he bought it. In the beginning she worried that money was flowing out too fast. But she saw Robert was earning bonuses as business expanded. And besides, he kept telling her not to worry. Finances were his concern. She never had cash. She charged things and he paid the bills without complaint.

  “I wouldn’t like that,” Helen said once.

  “Why should I mind?” Lynn responded, glancing around the pretty nursery where the pretty baby was waking up from a nap. “I have everything. This most of all.” And she picked up her daughter, the daughter who already had Robert’s bones and black silk hair and dark blue eyes.

  Because Robert had been so aware of names, she had chosen the child’s name with subtle care. “Names have colors,” she told him. “ ‘Emily’ is blue. When I say it with my eyes closed, I see a very high October sky without a cloud.”

  Caroline was eighteen months later. “Caroline” was a gold so light that it was almost silver.

  And memory, a reel of pictures in reverse, sped on.

  “What a fabulous house!” Lynn exclaimed.

  The house belonged to her neighbor’s parents, who were giving the birthday party for their granddaughter, aged five. The terrace was bordered by a lawn, the lawn extended to a distant meadow, and the meadow attached to a pond, which was barely visible at the foot of the slope.

  “What a wonderful day for a party!” she exclaimed again.

  And it was a wonderful summer day, a cool one, with everything in bloom and a breeze rustling through the oaks. Under these oaks the tables were set for lunch, the children’s table dressed in crepe paper with a balloon tied to every chair. It looked, she thought, like a scene in one of those British films where women, wearing silk or white linen, moved against a background of ivy-covered walls. She, whose daily garb was either shorts or jeans, wore yellow silk, and her girls wore pink sister dresses and white Mary Janes.

  “They look almost like twins,” one of the women remarked. “Caroline’s tall for her age, isn’t she?”

  “We sometimes think she’s three going on ten. She’s strong and fast and into everything,” Lynn said comfortably.

  There was probably nothing more satisfying to a parent than knowing that her children were admired. No book, no symphony, no work of art, she was certain, could rival the joy, the pride, and, she reminded herself, the gratitude that came from these creations, these two bright, sweet, healthy little girls.

  Gratitude grew when she thought of two friends who were unable to have a child. And all through the lunch and the pleasant gossip she was aware, deep inside, of thankfulness. Life was good.

  After lunch a clown arrived to entertain the children, who sat in a circle on the grass. For a little while the mothers watched him, but since the children were absorbed and fascinated, they went back to their tables in the shade.

  “Talk about attention span,” someone said. “He’s kept them amused for more than half an hour.”

  It was just about time for the party to break up. Emily came trotting to Lynn with a bag full of favors and a balloon.

  “Where’s Caroline?” asked Lynn.

  “I don’t know,” said Emily.

  “But you were sitting together.”

  “I know,” said Emily.

  “Well, where can she be?” asked Lynn, feeling a faint rise of alarm and in the same instant driving it down, because of course there could be no reason for alarm here in this place.

  “She must have gone to the bathroom.”

  So they looked in the downstairs bathroom and all through the house; they searched the bushes where possibly she might be hiding, to tease them. Alarm turned to panic. Kidnappers? But how could anybody have come among all these people without being seen? They searched the fields, treading through the long grass. Then they thought, although no one wanted to voice the thought, that perhaps, being an adventurous little girl, Caroline had gone as far as the pond.

  And there she lay facedown, in her ruffled pink dress. Quite near the shore she lay in water so shallow that she could have stood up and waded back.

  One of the women there was a Red Cross lifesaver. Laying Caroline on the grass, she went to work while Lynn knelt, staring at her child, not believing … no, no it was not possible!

  People drew the children away from the sight. Someone had called for an ambulance; someone else had called the doctor in the next house. There was a bustle and hurry and yet it was silent; you could almost hear the hush and a following long, collective sigh.

  Men came, two young ones wearing white coats. Lynn staggered to her feet, grasped a white sleeve, and begged, “Tell me! Tell me!”

  For answer he put a gentle arm around her shoulders. And so she knew. Hearing the women cry, she knew. And yet, “It isn’t possible,” she said. “No. I don’t believe it. No.”

  She looked around at all the faces, all of them shocked and pitying. And she screamed, screamed at the fair sky, the waving grass, the summer world. Screamed and screamed. Then people took her home.

  She was wild with despair and denial. She knew, and yet she would not let herself know. They had to hold her down and sedate her.

  When she woke up, she was in her living room. The house was crowded. It seemed as if a thousand voices were speaking; doors were opening and closing; the telephone kept ringing and being answered, only to ring again.

  Helen said, “Leave her alone, Robert. She’s not even awake.”

  Robert said, “How can she have been so stupid, so careless? She will never forgive herself for this.”

  She could not decide whether or not to wake up. In one way the dream was unbearable, so perhaps it would be better to open her eyes and be rid of it; but on the other hand perhaps it was not a dream, in which case it would be better to sink into a sleep so deep that she would know nothing.

  Still she heard Robert’s sobs, repeating, “She will never forgive herself.”

  There came another voice, belonging to someone who was holding her wrist: “Quiet, please. I’m taking her pulse,” it said sharply, and she recognized Bill White, their family doctor.

  “You’d better stop this talk about forgiveness,” said Bill White. “First of all it’s hogwash. This could have happened just as easily if you had been there, Robert. Secondly, you’d better stop it if you don’t want to have a very sick woman here for the rest of her life. Don’t you think she will torture herself enough as it is?”

  And so she had, and so she did still, here on this bench beside Lake Michigan. The images were imprinted on her brain. Caroline laughing at the clown, Caroline—how many minutes later—dead in the water. Emily’s little face puckered in tears and t
error. She herself surrounded by kind arms and soft words at the heartbreaking funeral.

  “I don’t know why my aunt had to come,” Robert complained. “Who sent for her, anyway?”

  “Helen got her number out of my book. She’s your family, she’s all you have, and she belongs here.”

  It was strange that he never wanted Jean. She annoyed him, he said. Well, perhaps. Perhaps her very kindness irritated him. Men were like that sometimes. But Jean had been so helpful during those first awful days, comforting Emily in her warm arms and clearing Caroline’s room, which neither Lynn nor Robert could have borne to enter.

  Somehow they had endured.

  “If a marriage can survive this,” people declared, “it can survive anything. Imagine the guilt!”

  Yes, imagine it if you can, Lynn thought. But Robert had taken Bill White’s words to heart. Through many cruel nights he had held her close. And for a long time they had moved softly about the house, speaking in whispers; she had walked on tiptoes until he had gently called her attention to what she was doing. It was he who had saved her sanity. She must remind herself of that whenever things went wrong.…

  Yet how could a man as forgiving as he had been, so caring of his family, give way to such dreadful rages? Like this one tonight, like all the other sporadic outbursts through the years? To live with Robert was to dwell in sunlight for months and months; then suddenly a flashing storm would turn everything into darkness. And as quickly as it had come the storm would pass, leaving a memory growing fainter in the distance, along with the hope that this time had been the last.

  The children never knew, nor must they ever know. For how could she explain to them the thing that she did not herself understand?

  Annie especially, Annie so young and vulnerable, must never know! She had been different and difficult from the start. A red baby, dark, raging, squalling red, she was to some extent like that still, a child of moods who could be childishly sweet or curiously adult; one felt at such times that she was seeing right through one’s slightest evasion or excuse. Yet she did rather poorly at school. She was overweight and clumsy at sports, although Robert, who did everything so well, tried hard to teach her. She was a secret disappointment to him, Lynn knew. A child of his, although not yet nine, to show not the smallest indication of doing anything well at all!