The Girl in the Garden

by Melanie Wallace

  A motel room would have suited; he could have managed a drink or two at a bar among strangers, and he wouldn’t have minded driving on up the coast. He now wanted nothing more than to leave, go elsewhere and anywhere of his choosing, journey on with or without her—without, it would have to be: Claire had reached her destination and would stay as long as she needed or wanted. He could hear the drift of indistinguishable words from downstairs, but he couldn’t bring himself to confront her now, instead decided he’d survive this one evening and tell her in the morning of his intention to leave, maybe stay on his own elsewhere nearby and explore the coast should she relinquish the car to him, and if not, return to the city. The decision steadies him for a second, then upsets him—for if she asks why, he won’t be able to explain, he can’t express reasons that are beyond his comprehension. Surely she’d ask why: she’d reached her destination, he’d seen her embraced by Oldman, saw that benedictory kiss that altered Sam’s vision of what he’d considered to be Claire’s inflexibly cold reserve, her unyielding physicality, watched Claire soften, meld into Oldman, become malleable, show herself to be delighted when Oldman held her intense, perfect face in his hands. Who she is, Sam couldn’t guess, but he knew she would indeed ask why he’d want to leave Oldman’s. A shrug, he considered, would not suffice to signal his distress at being a stranger among strangers.

  He moved from the window, removed his shoes, stretched out on the bed, let the cadence of their voices wash over him as he wished himself gone. He later awoke in a fetal position, facing the wall, to the sound of the car pulling away. It took a moment to orient himself, remember where he was. The house was mute. He eventually swung his legs over the side of the bed and rose, and in stocking feet took the stairs. The landing and stairwell night-lights were on, as was a corner lamp in the livingroom and an overhead in the passage to the kitchen. He walked through both and was in the room before he realized that Oldman—who’d looked up from the cookbook Claire had given him—was at the table.

  Sorry, I didn’t think anyone was—

  I was just about to fetch a beer, Oldman said, and now I’ll fetch two. Have a seat.

  Oldman wasn’t a man to be refused, there was an assurance to his voice, a firm kindliness, and he gestured as he got up that Sam was to sit anywhere he pleased. He went into the pantry and returned to find Sam still standing. Claire tells me you’re a cook, Oldman said, so I hope you don’t mind sitting around the kitchen. I’ve worked to keep the place pretty much as it was, and although my father took the liberty of replacing the hand pump—which I remember—with faucets a long time ago, I’ve had no reason to get rid of the tin sink, or close up the fireplace, or replace this old cooker-stove, or do anything but mop down the flagstone floor. Anyway—he handed Sam an opened beer and a glass, pulled a chair out for him—we always used it as a family room, the livingroom was only for special occasions until TV came along, and I still spend most of my time in here, pretending to think if I’m not cooking, sometimes pretending to think while cooking. Please, sit down, Sam—and Sam finally did as Oldman set his own beer and glass down, then brought out shot glasses and a bottle of whisky, which he placed in the center of the table. For chasers, Oldman said. And then was gone again, reappearing with a ramekin of cold chicken in aspic and a side of small, perfectly round potatoes in a sauce Sam couldn’t identify.

  The beer, which Sam followed with a shot of whisky, was followed by another, then a second whisky. Oldman prompted Sam to try the chicken, told him the aspic was nothing more than chicken broth gelled. Told him, too, how he came to discover cooking during the war, that he’d sometimes billeted with families—what was left of them—who seemed able to make a dinner from nothing, an omelet from an onion and one egg, soup from a few carrots or turnips and a bone, wild greens tenderized by cooking slowly with a piece of fatback or bacon or any fowl fat; that was in France, but Germany was another matter, even in the countryside there was hardly anything to be found, everything had been pilfered or consumed or destroyed by the war’s end; everyone needed to be fed, everyone was scrounging, foraging, what with the defeat and the enormous confusion caused by displaced populations and the massive destruction resulting from the Allied air raids; at any rate, the country was basically stripped of anything edible but what people had hidden, had somehow preserved, which is why, Oldman said, he developed a taste for mustard and pickles and K rations there. He went on, telling Sam—who was surprised by the texture and taste of the chicken and potatoes set before him, and who quietly finished both along with a third beer, another whisky—that he’d never been at the front, that as a photographer assigned to the mop-up troops who followed Patton’s push through France and into Germany he’d never seen action, for which he was grateful, as it had been hard enough witnessing what he’d chronicled. And Sam felt the warmth from the whisky work its magic, he relaxed back, drank more, listened, occasionally lost the thread of Oldman’s one-sided conversation as he absently wondered who Oldman was to Claire, how old he might be—fifty or seventy, Sam couldn’t tell, the man was slender, his movements fluid, he had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair but there was no telling what that meant—as Oldman went thoughtfully on, recounting to Sam how he’d found solace in simple food and those families with whom he sometimes billeted, and in the camaraderie he found among the troops. There’s a lot to be said, Oldman told him, for a democratic army in which everyone who can, serves. That war pulled together boys and men from all forty-eight states and from all walks of life who, despite their differences, had to find and indeed found common ground in the fight against fascism—though that had been lost in Spain, Oldman noted—and thank the powers that be for the Russians because, no matter what you think of them, without them all of Europe might have been sieg heil-ing for decades. Sam waved off another beer and instead helped himself to the whisky again, sat satiated and more than mildly inebriated and somewhat stunned by how comfortable he’d begun to feel in Oldman’s presence, how soothing it was to listen to Oldman’s melodic voice, to someone who, in another time and place, might have been the keeper of tribal history, the chronicler of all that had come before, the bard who sang of what was past and would come to be. The damndest thing is, Oldman continued after a longish pause, in those years I served I was never sick, never had so much as a sniffle, never suffered more than a few cuts and bruises, never got hurt. He traced the scar on his face and told Sam: Actually, the damndest thing is, I got this from a monkey.

  Sam didn’t know if he’d heard correctly. He cocked his head slightly and the movement induced vertigo, the room swam behind Oldman, and Sam leaned back and steadied himself—his joints were liquid, he was losing his balance—as Oldman said laughingly, That’s right, a monkey. Sam began laughing too, the room was no longer reeling but somehow expanding, contracting, as Oldman went on to ask: So, what happened to you?—and then Sam’s chest was heaving, a strangled sound came from him as he began sobbing into his hands, his tears salty and the taste of them bitter and Sam unabashed and anguished. For no one—not his parents or his brother, not Freddie, neither Rita nor Gloria, not Leonard, no one—had ever asked; they’d seen him, they’d seen what had become of him, Rita had often touched his scars, and maybe they’d all waited for Sam to recount what he’d been through, but their silence only reinforced his impression that they all, every last one of them, willed his story to remain untold, his past unspoken. Oh god, he finally managed, the words guttural through his ragged breathing, oh god, and then he wiped at his face with his hands and saw Oldman through a blur, and in a voice he doesn’t even recognize begins to haltingly tell what he has never told anyone, haltingly because he is drunk and because he has never put what happened that day into words, he’s lived with the impression of it for six years, been reminded of it every time he’s seen his reflection or seen in the reflection of others’ eyes the pity, disgust, shock—for his face is shocking, even with that eyepatch—and he hears himself begin to describe that day, knows he is telling a disjointed tale
. He’d had a bad feeling, guys got those, everyone at one time or other gave in to their premonitions, he was seventeen days away from discharge and they’d been sniped at that morning and maybe were in pursuit of they knew not how many Vietcong and by late afternoon had seen nothing, not been engaged again, the Cong had a way of disappearing into the ground, or the paddies, or the air, the country was a mass of tunnels, there were interminable swamps, endless jungles. The heat was hellish, unbearable, the mission unclear, and Sam had had this awful feeling, his sweat tasted sour from his conviction, his fear, that his number was up, and then they’d stepped out from the forest into a small clearing and saw the hamlet encircled by paddies and also saw what might have been an old man or woman—who could tell, everyone wore the same loose black pajama-like shirts and pants, everyone looked alike at a distance—sitting, no, leaning against a dike, the bottom half of the figure submerged in the paddy, not moving, not bothering to get up and run, just motionless under a conical hat; and as they drew nearer a wind kicked up and the hat and head suddenly tilted back and Sam was looking at—and being stared at by—the dead, the cadaver’s face bereft of nose and eyes and lips, strands of blackened skin clinging in skeins to its skull, the sight was horrible and to Sam ominous. They torched the empty hamlet, went back the same way they’d come, kept to the narrow trail in silence. Sam was unable to shake off that skull’s gaze and eventually his knees gave way, he became sick to his stomach and stopped to vomit, heaving as quietly as he could, the men behind him halting—he’d been on point—and waiting for him to go on, but he couldn’t get to his feet, not just then, so the others passed him as two men helped to raise him, steady him, before pushing him forward. A minute later, or moments later, all hell broke loose. The trip wire—It was meant for me, Sam said, almost choking on his words, his breathing still ragged—entangled one of the men who’d passed Sam by, and three men paid for that with their lives. The soldier in front of Sam was blown to the side and landed on another mine—That was meant for me too, Sam said brokenly—and didn’t survive.

  He hadn’t looked at Oldman, now reached for the whisky, took a deep breath and poured, downed, another shot: he had nothing else to say except that he couldn’t remember anything more, he’d regained consciousness without sight, his head was bandaged around his eyes, he was in pain. He shook his head in anguish, met Oldman’s eyes. Son, Oldman told him, those mines didn’t have anyone’s name on them. Not yours, not theirs.

  Oldman then pushed his chair back, rose, and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder before clearing the table, rinsing the dishes in the sink. Sam sat dumbly, like a man stunned, fingering the empty shot glass, focusing on the whisky bottle, trying to keep himself from falling over, the room from spinning, feeling that kindly word son flow through him, course in his veins: not even his father had called him that, no officer or nurse or doctor—not even Freddie—had ever put a consoling hand on his shoulder, and now Oldman, whom Sam didn’t know and to whom he’d told what he’d always imagined would kill him with the telling, returned to the table and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder again. You’ll want to turn in, Oldman said, and Sam nodded, let Oldman help him stand—he was drained, drunk—and keep him upright as he staggered slowly through the hallway, over the livingroom’s pitching floor, up the swirling stairs, Oldman pulling one of Sam’s arms over his shoulder, holding it by the wrist, encircling Sam’s waist with his free arm, supporting him, guiding him carefully through the house and finally into his, Sam’s, room. He let Sam down gently onto the bed and removed his shoes, left, then returned with an afghan and covered him.

  Sorry, Sam managed to mumble.

  Don’t be, came Oldman’s response.

  June

  IRIS SAID, That was my daughter who came yesterday.

  She didn’t mention Claire’s name, and although June waited for her to continue Iris turned her attention to Luke in her lap, took up the book he was holding and opened it, began to read to him. June busied herself with the late-morning routine she’d settled into and which she and Iris had never discussed, just as they’d never conferred as to how much Iris’s needs had changed. For in the beginning of June’s tenure—which Mabel and June and Iris had assumed temporary—Iris evidenced no desire for help, for June’s presence; she’d had a tremor in one arm and sometimes dragged one of her legs behind her but pretended to be otherwise hale, and the only request she’d made was that June bring Luke to her every morning at a certain hour, for a certain length of time.

  It was through Luke that they came to be as familiar with each other as any relationship centered on a child allows, especially as June was, for a long while, intimidated by Iris’s impenetrable remoteness, for Iris did nothing to alter the way she lived, the way she was, and never once asked June about herself. But they slowly became used to each other during that first fall and winter, as Iris accustomed herself to the girl’s comings and goings—June was prompt each morning, not a moment late, and on time to pick Luke up after Iris requested she be left alone with him—and Iris eventually began to talk to June about the baby. Iris knew a great deal about infants and, without mentioning that she’d ever had a child of her own, began to smooth June’s way through single motherhood and moderate the girl’s ignorance, assuage her fears; Iris knew how to relieve teething pain, whether a rash or runny nose was serious, when June should expect the baby to become steady on his feet, to talk. Iris never broached the subject of June’s—and Luke’s—transition back to Mabel’s until one morning after that first winter, when she announced almost savagely: I’ve decided to tell Mabel you’ll be staying here.

  June was startled. The uncertainty in her gaze, her voiceless reaction, took Iris aback. I’ll eventually need help permanently, Iris told her gruffly, and Mabel will understand that. So if you want—

  I’d like for us to stay, June said.

  Then it’s settled.

  But I’d like to be useful.

  That will come, Iris asserted. And although Iris asked nothing more of her than to continue bringing Luke over in the mornings, she now acknowledged June’s presence less grudgingly, and by late spring they were working shoulder to shoulder in the garden, sometimes lunching and more and more often sitting quietly together during early evenings in Iris’s house with Luke amusing them. The isolation June had suffered during that first fall and winter had almost undone her; she’d never felt so completely alone, facing nothing but a void during those first months at Iris’s, each week passing exactly like the other and June barely able to contend with a lonesomeness that—like the boundless ocean she’d once walked into, the endless country she’d left behind—simply stretched limitless before her. There was Luke to care for, the cottage to keep up, the cursory Friday meetings with Duncan—Duncan always cordial but lawyerlike, unwilling to discuss the fact that Iris didn’t say much more than hello and goodbye to June when she brought Luke to and retrieved him from Iris each morning, just judiciously telling June in that noncommittal even voice that if Iris chose to break the ice then it would be broken and if she didn’t so choose then June was not to worry herself, was there anyone June wanted to telephone? And she always shook her head, let herself and Luke be ushered out by Oldman, who drove her to and from Duncan’s, sometimes persuaded her to let him take her shopping, and always took her and Luke to the Puritan.

  Oldman was her lifeline that first autumn, familiarizing her with streets and lanes and alleys, shops and the library, citing the town’s history and oddities, telling how the factories and mills had once worked nonstop and how they’d come to close, what the now quiet port had been like when commerce was thriving, how the cobblestones that yet lined the factory yards and streets and canal walkways had crossed the ocean in ships as ballast. He spoke to her as though he could make June a part of what she wasn’t, not then—in actuality, not even now—perhaps believing that certain things were settled forever, that June was settled forever, would never leave. His kindly and, to June, inexplicable interest in her, not to mention
the situation in which she found herself, added to a perplexity that ate away at and at times consumed her. Oldman, she eventually confided to him, I don’t know why I’m here, I mean, Iris has no use for me. And he’d studied the fried clams on his plate before telling her: Life’s a bit of a riddle, June. In my experience, things either work out or they don’t, but fretting isn’t going to solve anything.

  Her time with Oldman initially seemed dreamlike, especially because Friday evenings—after she and Luke were dropped off—were the harshest, almost impossible to face as autumn gave way to winter. The darkness June closed the door against settled in earlier each afternoon and lasted later each morning, and within that darkness she was isolate, trapped. She wondered whether Oldman had sensed this or just knew what it was to endure loneliness, to be so adrift. Not that she wasn’t thankful to have a place of her own, she was, far removed from the trailers she’d lived in all her life, let alone Ward’s annex in that houseful of men; and she had Luke, and they were safe and warm and wanted for nothing; but she was at odds and lost despite having Luke to love and despite whiling away the long evenings knitting, sewing by hand, eventually sitting motionless, curling within herself, and listening to her son’s breathing. Sleep often refused to overtake her because she was unable to understand for the life of her why she had a roof over her head, why either of the two women to whom she was utterly beholden had given her and Luke shelter, had indeed given her everything but a future. The contemplation of its emptiness left June disoriented, for she didn’t know how she would make her own way, stand firm, if tomorrow or during the following week or month she’d have to.