by Belva Plain
“Very good taste, Anna. You could get triple what you paid for them. Not, I suppose, that you care about that.”
“No, I bought them because they make me feel contented. That’s the only reason.”
They were simple works, spare of line: pond lilies and water weeds; a long vertical painting of a dead tree raising its arms into a thunderous sky; a small square picture of lichen on a wet, black rock.
“Charming,” Paul said. He walked to the window again and stood looking out at the shimmering afternoon, just stood silently looking.
When she followed his gaze she saw only the tea things on the garden table and the tops of the phlox, their towered flowerets showing mauve and cerise above the wall. A breath of their pungent fragrance came through the open window.
Anna sat down and waited. How strange it was that he should be standing here in her house! How briefly he had entered her life, only a few weeks’ worth of hours at most, if you were to add them all together! And he had done as much to change her life as anyone could. She recalled now what had not crossed her mind in years, for she had buried the memory, locked it away in a top drawer and hidden the key; those nights in his parents’ house, so long ago, and her own dry sobbing, the swallowed tears, the fist in the mouth. Youth, its pains more piercing than any of the deeper griefs that come later!
“You’ve had some good in life, when all’s said and done.” Paul spoke into the stillness. “In spite of the trouble I gave you, haven’t you, Anna?”
“It wasn’t only trouble,” she said gently.
“Wasn’t it, Anna?”
“There were moments of great, great joy.”
“Moments!” he exclaimed. “Moments! Out of a lifetime! That’s all I was able to give you.”
“Are you forgetting? You gave me my daughter as well.”
“And how are things between you?”
“She is a real daughter to me. I couldn’t want more.”
“I’m glad.”
He sat down facing her. She began to feel tense, and, picking up her knitting, twisted the yarn mechanically around the needle.
“I’m glad I could do something besides make life hard for you, Anna.”
“I never thought that. But you know, I have just thought of something else.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve never had a chance to tell you and thank you. After that time at the opera, when Joseph was so terribly angry and I told you I couldn’t see or hear from you again, you never betrayed my trust, or subjected me to the smallest risk. And you could have. Another man might have.”
Paul looked at her steadily. “I would have cut my right arm off first. You know that, Anna.”
She put her hand to her cheek. “Oh, God!” she cried.
There was a silence. After a moment he spoke again.
“So that’s how it’s been for us. I wish it had been otherwise.”
A locust rattled like a rivet and cut itself off in mid-rattle. From the tall wild grass beyond the lawn came the steady chirp of grasshoppers. Sounds of summer past the halfway mark: full bloom of summer moving toward its close, while late roses curled at the edges, scorched in the heat.
“The sad end of summer,” Paul said as if he had been reading Anna’s mind. “When the locusts make all that noise you can be sure it’s almost over.”
“Until next year,” she said.
“You always were an optimist, weren’t you. You find the cup half full.”
“And you find it half empty.”
“Often I do.”
She smiled at him. “Then you must rush to fill it, mustn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, that’s what I plan to do. I came to tell you about it. I’m going to go abroad to live.”
“Abroad? For good?”
“Yes. I’ve been, as I needn’t tell you, the most loyal American. Yet a part of me has always been in love with antiquity. I have a longing for one of those old villages in southern France where the ruins go back to the Greeks. Or else perhaps someplace in Italy. The lake country—Lugano, Como. Have you been there?”
“No, I missed those.”
“Ah, you’d love Lugano, Anna. It’s not tropical, but golden warm, with great, great peace. Yes, I’d like to buy a place there. Would you come with me? Would you?”
“Why,” she said, astonished. “I really—”
“I know I’ve dropped a bombshell. And it’s late, I know that too. But that’s all the more reason why one ought to salvage something.”
Why was it that the distant past was so much clearer than things which had happened only a few years ago? She was able now to feel herself, yes, actually to feel herself, back in the posture of the adoring greenhorn girl when he, a young god descended, stood so high above her. Yet here he sat, supplicating, and she could have wept for him, wept for them both.
“It could be very lovely for us to be married, Anna, even now.”
Lugano. Stony, narrow streets and blossoming trees. The two of them walking the streets, under the trees. A table on a terrace in the sun and a bottle of wine and the two of them. A room in an old house, with the night breeze coming through the windows as they fell asleep together and the morning breeze flowing when they awoke together. She couldn’t speak for longing and delight.
And yet she already knew the only possible answer.
“You know,” Paul said, “that something sprang to life between you and me at the very beginning. And it’s still alive. It’s lived through every kind of disappointment and mistake, through time and distance. Nothing’s killed it. Can’t we give it a chance to flourish at last? Can’t we let it go free?”
“If we were alone in the world—” she began. “But we never are. There are always others.”
“Tell me what you mean.”
She met his anxious eyes and spoke with utmost tenderness. “There are those who came before and are gone. There are those who came after. It’s just not possible. Not possible.”
“But why?”
“Because this is Joseph’s family, Paul. Don’t you see?”
He shook his head. “No, Anna. No.”
She rose and came to stand before him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Look at me. Listen, my dear, my very dear. Can you imagine yourself at Theo’s and Iris’ table, facing them and me and their children? Can you see how I could possibly bring you into this family, in which your daughter doesn’t know she is your daughter and your grandchildren don’t know who you are?”
He didn’t answer.
“Iris has always had vague, uneasy thoughts about you and me, I know she has. And if they were to be sharply awakened again—can you imagine that?”
Still, he didn’t answer.
“It would be madness. Don’t you know that it would be? And that I couldn’t bear it?”
“You couldn’t bear it,” he repeated, very low.
“And you couldn’t, either.”
She broke away and walked to the end of the room. Tears came and, with her back to him, she rubbed them roughly away on her arm.
I mustn’t touch him again, mustn’t let him touch me.
“Again the family,” Paul said. “Always the family, coming ahead of everything else.”
“But you do understand why, don’t you?”
“Yes. Still, if I could change your mind, I would. And to hell with them all.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No, of course I don’t.” And then, abruptly, he said, “You know, I envy Joseph.”
“Envy him? He’s dead!”
“Yes, but while he lived he—lived.”
The mantel clock chimed in the next room, marking the hour—that indifferent, cheerful little clock which his parents had given—as it marked all the hours, whether of pleasure or pain, of coming or going. All the same, no matter.
“Is this truly final, Anna?” Paul asked.
She turned to look at him. This was the last time, really the last. Oh, the eyes, the marvelous
blue eyes, the laughter, the strength, the gentleness; the wonderful mouth, the hands—
“Is this your final answer?”
“Paul, Paul—it has to be.”
No tears, Anna. You’ve said good-by to people you love so many times and in so many ways, all your life long. This is another good-by. That’s all it is. No tears, Anna.
“Well, then. I shan’t see you again. I shall be in Europe before the end of the year.”
“I’ll think of you. I’ll always think of you.”
She gave him her hand and he held it for a long moment between both of his own. Then he dropped it.
“No, don’t see me out. Good-by, Anna,” and he left through the tall door to the terrace, stepped over the low wall onto the grass and out of sight.
The engine started up; the gravel spurted. When she knew he was gone, she went out to the terrace. The glass from which he had drunk was on the table; his fork lay on the plate. She looked at the chair where he had sat.
All, all a mystery. Our contradictory loves and loyalties. What we want to do. What we ought to do.
The clock chimed through the open window, chimed the half hour and the hour. Shadows laid long blue-gray streamers on the lawn and the sun had gone far west before Anna finally stood up again and went back into the house.
46
Some call it the Sea of Galilee. The Israelis call it Kinneret, the harp-shaped lake. The hotel is crowded with people come from all over the world to see it: Americans; Japanese with their cameras, two or three apiece slung over their shoulders; a party of French nuns whom Anna and Laura have encountered three or four times by now, from Eilat northward through Jerusalem.
Laura is already asleep. Light comes through the windows; light of the moon or stars? Anna gets up to look out where the lake lies below and trees droop like dark blue fountains. There is a diamond glitter on the water, the scattered radiance of phosphorescence. She thinks she hears the splash of fish.
Sleep comes quickly to her but so lightly that it doesn’t last. She remembers how Joseph used to complain about that and about early waking. For a long time she lies now, hearing Laura’s soft breathing from the other bed, thinking of the morning. As soon as she falls asleep again she dreams.
Some are old, troubling dreams. There is the dream in which two people are one and one is two: Maury and Eric are each other. There is the dream in which Joseph comes driving up in his car, and she runs to him with impulsive joy, but he turns his head coldly away. He will not speak to her; she knows it is because she has wounded him and there can be no balm for the wound.
She dreams a new dream about Laura and Robby McAllister. He is a nice boy, intelligent and friendly, with freckles and thick blond eyelashes. Laura has been living with him in college. He is of the wrong religion. Besides, he won’t marry her, anyway. Men don’t marry women who are had so easily. Or is that no longer true? Life has been changing so fast that she is often not quite sure whether a thing is still true or not.
She stirs and wakes again.
And if he should want her, his parents won’t. They will surely reject her. Fear dries Anna’s mouth. In the first morning light she sees Laura’s shirt and jeans on the chair: childish clothing for a child. Careless, foolish little thing!
Iris knows about it. “Does your mother know?” she asked Laura. “Oh, yes, she knows, she’s a little afraid I’ll be hurt. She hopes I know what I’m doing.” Is that all? Nothing about right and wrong, nothing at all of the truths we’ve been living with, or trying to live with, for all these thousands of years? What can be the matter with Iris? What kind of mother is she, anyway?
I sound like Joseph.
Laura said in Paris, “Mother told me not to tell you, that you’d be shocked.”
“Then why have you told me?”
“I like to be honest about everything.”
Honest about everything! The byword of this generation. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you come out in the open with it.
“Does your father know?” Anna asked her.
“No, he’d be too upset. He believes in the double standard, you see. It’s natural for men, but nice girls mustn’t.”
“I quite agree with him.”
“Nana, I don’t understand you! Why? What’s the difference between men and women. I mean—”
“Women get pregnant,” Anna said scornfully. “That’s the difference.”
“Not these days, they don’t.”
Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Anna thinks now. She moves quietly around the room, getting dressed. Throwing themselves cheaply away, cooking and washing for and sleeping with a man who owes you nothing in return, no loyalty, no responsibility; who can walk out between now and an hour from now! Good God!
Loud voices go down the corridor. People have no manners anymore, no consideration, making a racket at seven o’clock in the morning.
Her foot hurts where the new shoe has raised a blister. Outrageous, at the price you have to pay for shoes. Nobody gives honest value anymore. Everything is, as the kids say, a “rip-off.” Yes, it is, and they’re the worst of the lot, ripping off their elders.
She knows she is tired, irritable and cross. In two more days she’ll be home. She’ll take a book out into the yard, a book about any century except this crazy one in which she lives, and sit there. Just sit and let the world stew.
She oughtn’t to have put off traveling for so long. Five years ago she would have been steadier on her feet. She had resisted cruises, because of all the old widows she knew whose families put them on ships to pass time in luxury and to get rid of them safely. (There are doctors on cruise ships and Mama will be well taken care of in case anything happens.) Then this summer the desire came to go abroad. She wanted to see France again, having never forgotten its allure. And she wanted to see Israel.
“But Mama, why this summer?” Iris objected. “You know I’m finishing the dissertation for my doctorate. I couldn’t possibly take time off.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m quite capable of going alone.”
“Mama! You’re seventy-seven!”
“I might die, you mean. So they’ll send the body back.”
“Mama, it’s disgraceful to talk like that! Can’t you wait till next summer? I promise I’ll go with you then.”
“As you said, I’m seventy-seven. I can’t take the chance of waiting till next summer.”
She wore them down. So it was arranged that Iris would “put her on the plane” and Laura, who was hosteling through Europe with a group of girls, would meet her in Paris and go on with her to Israel.
She was more excited than she admitted to herself, so that the reality turned out to be anticlimax. Flying to Europe! It sounds dramatic but it is really almost like sitting in an inter-city bus and doesn’t take as long as some bus trips. That trip to Europe in 1929—ah, that was something else! You bought a diary and a steamer coat and dinner dresses; the orchestra played while you danced with the thrilling tremble of the engines underneath you, as the ship pressed on, pushed on across the ocean, the tumbling sea, the world. The very sound of it! Long, mournful vowels: across the world. Now that is all gone.
Still, Paris was what it was the first time. It pleased her that the room had the same view and that there were tall gladioli in the lobby. With delight she heard again the sound of the language, crisp sound of taffeta, ripple of water plunging into water. She watched the people going in and out: businessmen walking briskly, carrying their briefcases; women with poodles in rhinestone collars, patient little animals yawning under the tea tables.
Laura arrived. Darling Laura! Thoughtful enough to have worn a dress, for which Anna was grateful. Although, to tell the truth, if she had appeared in that handsome lobby in her dungarees with the backpack, Anna would have been so overjoyed to see her that she would have forgiven her.
She wanted a bath. Like a waif, she exclaimed over the enormous tub in the enormous bathroom. She came out of it all fresh and fr
agrant with Anna’s bath oil.
“Nana, is it all right if I invite a friend to dinner?”
“Is it all right! I’ve been expecting you to. Several friends, if you want.”
“Just one. We’ve been traveling together all summer.”
“Fine. Do I know her?”
“Not her. Him.”
And that was how Anna learned about Robby McAllister.
Laura opens her eyes and blinks into glorious light. Her skin is moist and pink with sleep, like a baby’s when he wakes from his nap. And that boy, Anna thinks, that boy sees her like this every morning, takes it as his right, as if he owned her! Anna is outraged at the boldness of him and outraged at Laura.
Fool! Fool! Wrecking your life when you have everything and are too stupid to know you have it!
I sound like Joseph.
“Did you sleep well, Nana? I’m starved,” Laura says.
“Well, don’t take too long stuffing yourself. The driver will be here for us at eight-thirty,” Anna orders, hearing the sharpness of her own voice.
Laura gives her a strange look and says nothing. She dresses and eats a quick breakfast in silence.
The cemetery is on top of a hill. Having been guided through the kibbutz—nurseries, library and dining hall (here he walked, ate, worked)—past the cattle barns, the great, clumsy, gentle animals staring solemnly as they go by, they begin the climb.
It seems that everything you want to see in foreign countries must be reached by a mountain of steps. Still, she’s doing well enough, trying not to hold too hard to Laura’s arm.
“Careful, Nana,” Laura says. She has been told to watch out, that old women fall and break their hips and get pneumonia. Anna almost hears Theo’s warnings and cautions to watch for failing heart, exhaustion, stroke. The young must take care of the old.
But unbeknownst to the young, the old also take care of them. Anna has been watching Laura, never leaving her alone with the room waiter at breakfast or with male guides; guarding her against bold eyes and impertinences (there’s an old-fashioned word that you never hear nowadays: impertinence). Although to guard a girl who has tramped all through Europe with a boy she’s not married to does seem rather absurd, doesn’t it?