I somehow managed to laugh, but as soon as I laughed I wanted to cry. It was because he was genuinely concerned. I thought it was so kind of him to spare a moment to worry about someone who was just the wife of an old friend.
Making a great effort to match his casual tone of voice, I said lightly, “I was always brought up to believe that gentlemen drink Scotch, Southerners drink bourbon, and ladies—if they drink at all—drink sherry or, if they’re very fast and live in New York, cocktails with a gin base.” But even as I spoke I was wondering painfully how long Mona had been in residence as his caretaker. I realized that Cornelius must have given the Polish woman an apartment as soon as I had sanctioned the arrangement, and suddenly the world looked gray to me, while the laughter from the nearby tennis court seemed cruel and mocking. I was going to be quite alone when I returned to New York. Sebastian would return to Harvard, Andrew was due to go into the air force to pursue his ambition to be a pilot, and Cornelius would spend most of his time at Willow Street. I was going to be utterly alone with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one, no one, no one I could possibly turn to …
“Oh, Kevin!” I exclaimed in despair, but could say no more.
“Life’s frightful sometimes, isn’t it?” said Kevin. “Do you ever feel you’d like to grab a hatchet and smash everything in sight? I’d like to, but unfortunately there’d be nothing to smash. My personal life at the moment’s like Hiroshima after the bomb.”
“I …” I wanted to speak, but again nothing happened.
“Of course, if I were you, the first thing I’d smash would be that ghastly house of yours on Fifth Avenue. I always felt so sorry for you, marrying that mausoleum when you married Neil! Now that all the kids are grown up, can’t you persuade him to sell it so that you can choose a home of your own? Think what fun you could have picking out a nice house, and how great it would be to ditch all the priceless antiques and have exactly the furniture you want! I think you deserve some sort of reward, Alicia, for being such a superb Mrs. Cornelius Van Zale all these years—I think it’s time you came first for a change. It should now be your turn to express your self—and when I say your self I don’t mean Mrs. Cornelius Van Zale’s self, I mean the self that belongs to you, Alicia … what was your maiden name?”
“Blaise.”
“Alicia Blaise. You. You’re still there, aren’t you, buried alive in that godawful tomb on Fifth Avenue? God, if I had the dynamite, I’d blow the whole place sky-high myself to set you free!”
I laughed. My eyes were full of tears, but he never saw them because I was taking such care to stare down at my hands. More laughter came from the tennis court below us, but I barely heard it. Even when Cornelius returned to the terrace and Kevin excused himself in order to use the phone, I was hardly aware of them, for I had just seen my problems from an entirely different angle and the vision mesmerized me.
I saw now that I didn’t have to become some man’s mistress in a sacrificial gesture made solely to make life more tolerable for myself and those around me, and that contrary to what I had always supposed, I wasn’t on the brink of some last resort which required me to abandon my self-respect. For the truth was, Mrs. Cornelius Van Zale didn’t have to debase herself by inaugurating a new era of self-effacement as some man’s mistress; instead, Alicia Blaise could assert herself by taking a lover.
That was quite different.
In taking a lover, instead of becoming a mistress, I would have an active, not a passive role. I would define myself, not be defined by someone else, for this step was one I could take not only for myself but as myself, and I would have to take it all on my own without any help. I would have to choose the man myself. I would have to manipulate the first meeting with him. I might even have to seduce him if he balked at seducing me. It was a terrifying landscape, but it was my landscape, the landscape of my own creation, and it would belong entirely to me.
I thought in panic: I can’t do this, I can’t stand alone with no one to help me, I don’t have the courage.
But then I thought of Kevin saying: “Isn’t it your turn, Alicia?” and I thought: Yes, why should I be miserable when everyone else is happy and content? Why should I? And that first faint spark of anger gave me the courage I needed to go on.
For the first time, I began to think not of some man who might condescend to take an interest in me for his own amusement, but of a man who could adequately assume the role I needed so much to assign to him.
Chapter Three
I
AS EVERYONE KNOWS, IT’S easy for a man to find someone to sleep with him. He just has to walk up to any of the numerous willing candidates and ask. But for a woman, particularly a woman such as I was, the situation is far more difficult.
New York society was notoriously loose. The cynical joke that the only way to be sure that a couple were sleeping apart was to establish that they were married did in fact have a strong root in reality, but I was not by nature promiscuous and my two husbands had been the only men in my life. It was true I had retained my looks, but I knew very well that my appeal to the opposite sex was limited by my reserve, which often made me seem cold and aloof. I was not and never would be one of those scintillating women who could ensnare a man just by lighting a cigarette.
As I took a bath before changing for dinner that evening, I saw clearly that there were two separate problems which had to be overcome. The first was that both my temperament and my scanty past experience placed me at a disadvantage in initiating an affair, and the second was the old difficulty that there was no man I wanted. I decided to tackle this latter problem first by making a determined attempt to visualize someone suitable. Obviously he would have to be someone of my own social level; I wasn’t about to throw all discretion to the winds by seducing a servant, a mailman, or a store clerk at Macy’s. Obviously, too, since I wanted someone as firmly anchored to his domestic situation as I was to mine, he would have to be someone’s husband, but the only husbands I knew well were the husbands of my friends, and I refused to treat my friends shoddily. In fact, I had no close friends—my shyness has always made such friendships difficult—but there were a number of women I liked and I was determined that they should continue to like me as much as I liked them. That left the husbands of my more casual acquaintances, and the idea of approaching strangers was inconceivable.
I added more hot water to the bath and lay back in despair, but gradually as I persisted with my train of thought I found the situation became clearer. I asked myself why a stranger should seem so ineligible when most women would surely have preferred a lover who had no connection with their everyday life, and I realized that I was distrustful of strangers not merely because I was afraid they would gossip about me but because I was afraid they would gossip about Cornelius. No one who hasn’t suffered from the pens of the gossip columnists can imagine how fanatical a victim can become to avoid their attentions, and ever since I had left Ralph to live with Cornelius I had placed the highest value on a private life which remained private under all circumstances. The gossip columnists kept a sharp eye on us because we were very rich, we were still moderately young, and we were the parents of one of America’s prettiest heiresses, and although our quiet family life had provided the minimum of fodder for these columns, I was always aware that the vultures were ready to pounce if we ever put a foot wrong. Vicky’s elopement with the beachboy had been made twice as unpleasant by the fact that the news had been plastered all over the tabloids.
So because I was in a different social position from most women, my options too were different. In fact, I had no options, because there was only one course I could safely consider. I had to find a man who would not only keep quiet about me to his friends but a man who would somehow be able to resist saying in the men’s room of the Knickerbocker Club: “Say, Cornelius Van Zale sure has problems!” The picture of my lover slipped into focus at last. He was going to have to be not just a friend of Cornelius but an ally who would always be loyal to him, and of c
ourse, as I well knew, there were only three men in all New York whom Cornelius trusted absolutely. Sam was ineligible. Kevin couldn’t help me.
That left Jake Reischman.
I scrambled out of the bath, upset my dusting powder over the carpet, and huddled myself deep in the folds of the largest towel I could find, but later, sitting at the vanity while my maid brushed my hair, I was able to think of Jake again. His great advantage was that I felt I could trust him as absolutely as Cornelius did. He was a man of the world, yet he had been married for fifteen years and maintained a rigidly respectable home life. Obviously such a man would not only share my horror of gossip but would know just how to conduct an affair with the maximum of taste and good sense.
Of course, he was Jewish, but I wouldn’t think of that.
I thought about it. For a moment my Eastern Seaboard upbringing among the Yankee aristocracy overcame me, but then I remembered where the road to anti-Semitism had led Germany, and I was ashamed of myself. A Jew was a man not some alien species of animal life, and anyway, Jake was fair, like Cornelius. If I put aside the degrading prejudices which had been instilled into me in childhood, I thought he was one of the few men I knew whom I might be able to find physically attractive.
The next hurdle, I thought as I dismissed my maid and hunted through my jewel boxes for a necklace, was to engineer an opportunity to speak to him alone. Whenever I saw him, he was usually with his wife—a very dreary woman whom I had never liked—and I thought it would be unwise to call or write to him at his home. To contact him at his banking house was out of the question. I would have to plan the next move very carefully. There must be no mistakes, no mess.
I went down to dinner.
II
“And when is your next major exhibition at the Van Zale Art Museum, Cornelius dear?” inquired Emily, daintily picking at her roast duck.
“It opens on the Monday after Labor Day. I’ve got together a collection of American primitives—several well-known artists and one or two newcomers.”
“What a pity I can’t stay in New York to see it!” said Emily. “But I’ll be in the middle of my fund-raising drive for the displaced persons of Europe.”
“I loathe American primitives!” exclaimed her daughter Lori, a tall noisy girl of sixteen with glossy dark hair and bright blue eyes. “I like huge florid pictures by Rubens of men with no clothes on!”
“Lori!” said her sister Rose, in disgust. “Do you have to be quite so vulgar?”
“Surely Rubens’ specialty was naked women?” said Scott, amused. “You’re confusing Rubens with Michelangelo, Lori!”
“Oh, I can’t bear Michelangelo! His angels look like hermaphrodites!”
“That’s enough, Lori dearest,” said Emily sharply.
“Angels are hermaphrodites, surely,” said Scott to his half-sister.
“Angels don’t exist,” said Sebastian, munching duck.
“Nonsense!” said Scott. “They exist in the mind.”
“That doesn’t make them real!”
“Reality is only what the mind perceives.”
“But—”
“Oh, I can’t bear these intellectual discussions!” said Lori. “Pass the salt, please, Andrew.”
“You’re so intolerant, Lori!” exclaimed Rose.
“No, I’m not! I know what I like, that’s all, and what I don’t like are American primitives. Why are you interested in them, Uncle Cornelius? I thought you only liked those awful blobs of red paint in messy black lines by Picasso!”
“Aren’t you confusing Picasso with Kandinsky?” said Scott.
“I thought Kandinsky played for the Cincinnati Reds,” said Andrew. “And just what is an American primitive anyway?”
“Oh, God,” said Sebastian.
“Andrew’s joking!” said Emily with a little silvery laugh.
“Fat chance,” said Sebastian.
“Cornelius,” I said, “when did you say the opening of this exhibition is? I don’t recall seeing it on my calendar.”
“Well, it must be there! My secretary told your secretary.”
“I like American primitives,” said Rose. “They have such pure innocent lines.”
“Enchanting,” agreed her mother, “and I must say I do like a painting which is representational.”
“Is there going to be a big reception for the opening?” I said to Cornelius.
“Yes, of course. All the New York art world will be there.”
“And all the board of the Van Zale Fine Arts Foundation?”
“Sure.”
So Jake would be there. I pictured the crowded reception, the cigarette smoke, the chance for a quick word in a quiet corner. But how was I ever going to detach him from his wife, who always clung to him like a limpet at all large social occasions? My problems once more seemed insuperable.
When I again became aware of my surroundings I found that the footmen were removing the plates of the main course before bringing in the dessert.
“What did you make of that chess problem in the Times last Sunday?” Scott was saying to Cornelius.
“It was interesting, wasn’t it?” Cornelius immediately brightened at the prospect of a chess discussion, and as he gave Scott his peculiarly radiant smile, I realized, not for the first time, that Scott had a relationship with Cornelius that neither of my boys had been able to achieve. For a moment I watched Scott closely but saw only his neutral good manners and his pleasant easy smile. I supposed some women might have found him attractive, but he did not attract me; there was some quality about his appearance which I found repellent. It was as if his black hair and black eyes were the outward manifestations of an opaque, closed personality, and I couldn’t understand why Cornelius found it so easy to behave paternally toward him. But perhaps Cornelius’ attitude was more fraternal than paternal. There was only eleven years’ difference in their ages, and Cornelius had once said to me how much he wished he could have had a brother. They also had various interests in common: the bank, Emily and her girls, chess …
“I hate chess!” said Lori. “All those little figures on a board—what’s the point?”
“But chess is like life, Lori,” said Scott, smiling at her. “We’re all a lot of little figures trying to edge our way across the board.”
I began to think again of Jake Reischman.
III
“I have to warn you,” said Cornelius to me a week before the exhibition opened, “that this woman I … that Teresa Kowalewski is one of the artists whose work will be on display and that she’ll be at the opening. Of course there’s no need for you to meet her. I’ve already asked her to arrive late, so she won’t be there at the beginning when we meet the other artists.”
“I see.” My image of the unknown woman became clearer; she was a woman ambitious enough to sleep her way to success. I passed no judgment but merely noted with relief that Cornelius had probably been correct in assuming she would never fall in love with him.
Cornelius was pretending to read the paper. It was evening and we were having a drink together in the Gold Room of our home on Fifth Avenue.
“Well, I’ve certainly no wish to meet her,” I said, “but if I want to avoid her later, how will I know who she is?”
“She’s about my height and she has curly dark hair which always looks untidy. She’ll be wearing a red evening frock.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because she only has one evening frock.”
“Oh.”
We did not say anything else. He turned a page of his paper, Carraway announced dinner, and as we rose to our feet to go to the dining room, I resumed my elaborate plans to detach Jake Reischman from his wife.
IV
I saw him enter the long crowded room, a tall man, heavier than he used to be, his hair not only fairer than Cornelius’ but straighter and thinner at the crown. His eyes reminded me of a clear sky on a winter’s morning. As I watched, he worked his way toward us with effortless expertise, a word
here, a word there, a light pat on the back, a professional smile, a step forward, sideways, forward again.
He was alone.
At first I could not believe it, and then as I grasped the fact that my elaborate plans were no longer necessary, I felt for the first time that fate was on my side and luck was at last beginning to run my way.
He reached us, “Good evening, Neil … Alicia.” His professional smile touched those wintry blue eyes briefly in acknowledgment that he was among old friends.
“Hello, Jake … where’s Amy?” said Cornelius naturally.
“She had to have a wisdom tooth removed today—an abscess developed last night, great crisis. She sent her apologies and said how disappointed she was not to be able to come. … Why, Vicky! Mrs. Keller, what a vision of loveliness! How’s married life?”
“Oh, Uncle Jake, what an old flatterer you are!” said Vicky, hugging him warmly.
“Skip the ‘uncle,’ my dear, and drop the ‘old.’ You’re forgetting I’m just as young as your husband! Hello, Sam, how are you? Art exhibitions surely aren’t in your line!”
“Vicky’s trying to educate me—I keep telling her it’s a hopeless task, but she won’t take no for an answer!”
We all laughed, and realizing in panic that I had to contribute to the conversation to prevent Jake moving on, I said quickly, “How are the children, Jake? Has Elsa settled down at her new school?”
“She likes the food, but I foresee she’ll be no happier at this school than she was at the last, unless she makes up her mind to diet. She should lose thirty pounds and become svelte and soignée—like you, Alicia my dear,” said Jake, smooth as midwinter ice, and smiled at me to signify a formal detached approval.
“Thank you!” I said, my mouth dry.
Sam and Vicky had already drawn away to speak to someone else, and at that moment another millionaire buttonholed Cornelius. I could hear talk of endowments for art scholarships and the setting up of another major trust fund.
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