Salt Water

by Charles Simmons

  “If she isn’t in love it would be better, is all.”

  “And if she is?”

  “If she is, she is.”

  “About the who. You wouldn’t shoot him, would you? Or her?”

  “Shoot Zina?”

  “I didn’t quite mean that. I meant if the him turned out to be a her. But I mustn’t joke. All right, I’ll try, and I’ll tell you if I honorably can.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I can’t very well tell you something told to me in confidence. Misha, how old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “You’re certainly old enough for love, but you must know somewhere deep down that this is not likely to work out.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Of course you care. But you have no choice.”

  “No, I have no choice.”

  “All right, I’ll try to find out, not to satisfy your curiosity, but because it’s better to know. And I have another reason. It’s this. I don’t think your personality is fully formed. You’re an extremely intelligent and very attractive young man and grown up in many ways, but in other ways you’re not grown up. Your destiny has not been decided. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  I said yes, but I didn’t.

  “In a word, your hash has not been settled, and this may settle it. We’ll go to my place, and we’ll find out, for better or worse. Okay?”

  Like Father and me, Henry was a water person. Besides having the Chelsea Hotel, he lived in a houseboat moored not far from the restaurant. It was mostly one room, with a lot of portholes. You could feel the boat shifting and hear the slap of the water against the hull.

  “The only problem with it,” Henry said, “is rats occasionally come aboard, including the two-legged kind.”

  He pointed me into a sling chair, gave me a glass of vodka, and dialed Zina at the Point. “I have to get her talking without actually asking questions.”

  He held up his hand. “Darling, you know I’m psychic… Yes, psycho too. You remember that dream I had, you were a siren singing at passing ships, and the next evening three Greek sailors came on to you. I was absolutely prescient… Yes, precious too. Listen, darling, last night I dreamt you came to me wrapped in a sheet… A bed sheet. Or maybe it was a winding sheet, and you said you were in trouble… You didn’t say… What you said was you were losing control…”

  I waved my hands and shook my head. He was using the same words. She would know.

  He patted the air reassuringly. “I knew it. Tell Henry everything.”

  So she was in love. He listened, grunting every now and then. What was ominous, he only looked at me twice during the whole thing, and then quickly looked away. He said nothing, except for things like, “Say that part again” and “I don’t think so.” Finally his voice rose to close the conversation, “All right, sweetie… Yes, of course… We’ll talk,” and he hung up.

  “Well, you heard it,” he said.

  “Who is it?”

  “She didn’t say who.”

  “She talked and talked and didn’t say who?”

  He held his palms up hopelessly.

  “You know.”

  “Misha, please.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  I think I was shouting, and I think he was a little frightened.

  “Misha, I have lots to say to you, but you’re in no condition to listen. I want to help you, and I can, but you’ve got to quiet down. Why don’t you absorb the basic fact, and then we can talk.”

  “You know.”

  “Misha, go home!”

  13

  Hillyer’s Theory

  I WENT TO Hillyer’s place and told him the whole thing. I wanted to hear him talk about how love didn’t exist. Instead he talked about who Zina was in love with.

  “How do you know she really told this guy? He says she didn’t.”

  “I heard everything he said. He didn’t once ask her. He would have asked her.”

  “So why do you want to know?”

  “Henry asked that. Look, if it’s an old boyfriend, say, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “Bad as what?”

  “Somebody new.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Or suppose it’s this guy Henry himself. That wouldn’t be serious either. He knows about art and photography. It could be they just have things in common.”

  “Why would he go through all this calling up and everything?”

  “To lead me off the track. He’s a good-looking guy. It could be him.”

  “All right, phone him. I’ll get on the extension. Tell him how bad you feel. Sound suicidal. Tell him you’d feel better if you knew, no matter who it was. Tell him you never felt so bad.”

  “I never have.”

  “Good, you’ll sound convincing.”

  Henry was back at his gallery. I pleaded with him.

  “Misha, you’re breaking my heart. Put it in the freezer. A few weeks from now, when you look there, it will be gone. I know you feel bad, but it won’t last, I promise you. I’ve had plenty of experience in this department. Listen, Misha, tonight you come to the boat, and I’ll cook dinner, and we’ll talk. I have a lot of things I want to say to you.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  “We’ll talk.”

  “But will you tell me?”

  “Tonight, seven o’clock. We’ll open a wine from heaven.”

  I said I’d let him know and hung up.

  “It’s him,” I said, “I know it.”

  “It’s not him, he’s a queer.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That’s a homo voice if I ever heard one.”

  I didn’t entirely know what homosexuals did.

  “Also he’s after your ass. He’ll cook dinner, a wine from heaven, with music by candlelight. Come on!” Hillyer stood up and started pacing around the living room. “Let’s work this through. First he agrees to find out. You even said he was eager. And he finds out…”

  “We don’t absolutely know that.”

  “Yes, we do. You were sure when you came here, and I’m sure now. On the phone now, he didn’t deny it.”

  “Maybe he’s a homosexual,” I said, “and she loves him anyhow.”

  “No, she’s known him too long. Why now? Maybe if they fell into bed together. But he’s queer. That wouldn’t happen.” He began picking his nose, a sign of concentration in Hillyer.

  “If you weren’t here,” he said, “and I learned about this from someone else, you would be a prime suspect.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Look at the evidence. You were on the spot, you liked her, she liked you… Holy Christ, you know who it is? It’s your old man. In situ.”

  My body went cold. “Impossible.”

  “Possible,” he said.

  “When could they have done it?”

  “What do you mean, when could they have done it? How long does it take?”

  “I don’t mean it. I mean when could they have fallen in love?”

  “You’re the one who knows about love,” Hillyer said, “you tell me.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “It’s the one and only reason this guy won’t tell you.”

  “It doesn’t mean they actually did anything.”

  “Oh, no? The other night, when you went to her place, she wasn’t there, right? And your old man was here in town, right? When you were screwing Melissa he was screwing Zina. Fair is fair.”

  Was it possible I was being punished for having slept with Melissa?

  “Your father is obviously one of the great swordsmen.”

  This seemed to make Father even more of a hero to Hillyer.

  “I have to think about this,” I said.

  “Think away. But if you faced the fact that love is an illusion you wouldn’t mind so much. You might even get a kick out of it.”

  “You sure get a kick out of it.”

  “Hey, you enjoyed
yourself, why shouldn’t he?”

  “I didn’t enjoy myself.”

  I didn’t know why I was even talking with Hillyer. “I’m going home.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Not so good.” I stood up. It was hard to move.

  “Stick around. Rita’s coming over, we’ll get Melissa.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going home.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  The apartment felt especially empty. I went upstairs to my parents’ bedroom. On Mother’s bureau was the picture of Father when he graduated from college. He was standing on the campus lawn shading his eyes. He didn’t look much different from now. I don’t think Mother had met him yet. On Father’s bureau was the picture of me the day we caught the fluke. I was nine that summer; it was early July. Mr. Strang feld said the fluke were running. Fluke are bottom fish, so we took the rowboat. Father said he had never seen anything like it. We dropped a line and pulled up a fluke. We put on two hooks and pulled up two. When we ran out of clams we cut up the fluke for bait. Father said fish don’t ordinarily bite on their own meat, but they did then. We kept a fungo bat in the boat to put fish out of their misery when we hauled them aboard. Father usually did the whacking. But that day I did it. I’d whack one and he’d cheer. We beached the boat and took the fluke back in the wagon from the boathouse. It was so full they kept slipping off onto the sand. At the house Father took the picture of me with the fluke. There are a lot of pictures of me from that time. In this one I look really happy.

  Standing in the bedroom, I wanted to do two opposite things: figure this out and not think about it. I don’t know how long I stood there, but when I began to imagine Father and Zina in this bed together I called Henry and said I would like to come for dinner.

  When I got there, Henry was in an apron at the stove. He pointed to the sling chair. “Vodka?”

  “I don’t really like drinking that much, Henry. Maybe just the wine with dinner.” If Hillyer was right this was the first homosexual I knew was a homosexual.

  “Then we can really talk. Now let’s just chat.”

  “Can I ask you something in the meantime?”

  “Talk or chat?”

  “When you were on the phone and Zina didn’t tell who it was, why didn’t you ask her?”

  “Because, my dear Misha, because she said specifically, ‘I can’t tell you who it is.’ That’s why. You remind me of a friend of mine. The same problem, except that he’s twice your age. Six months ago he sat exactly where you’re sitting and he told me he couldn’t go on, it was all over, he didn’t want to live.”

  “Did the girl fall in love with someone else?”

  “He was devastated. And today there are no scars, he has another companion, and he can hardly remember the first one’s name. The special point I want to make is that you are half his age and will heal twice as fast. You don’t think so now, but there won’t be a mark on you, you’ll be as beautiful as ever.” He said all this with his back to me.

  “A friend of mine thinks Zina is in love with my father.”

  He spun around. “What a grotesque idea!”

  “Then it isn’t my father.”

  “Misha, it could be the man in the moon for all I know. Let’s eat.”

  He lit candles, as Hillyer said he would, and turned on music. He asked me what I thought of the wine.

  “Chateauneuf du Pape,” I said.

  “Very good.”

  “Nineteen-fifty-eight.”

  “Oh, you naughty boy, you looked.” He touched the back of my hand. “Misha dear, let me tell you something. In stories there’s a magic potion that puts you to sleep. When you wake up you fall in love with the first person you see. That is the most brilliant metaphor of love there is. Love is arbitrary, inexplicable, and cruel. It is also impermanent. Nothing so unreasonable could possibly last long.”

  “It’s not unreasonable that I’m in love with Zina. She is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

  “Exactly my point. She is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen because you fell in love with her.”

  “She was beautiful before.”

  “And, pray, when did you fall in love?”

  “As soon as I saw her.”

  “Voilà! Misha, there’s nothing wrong with hurting for a little while. Everyone has their heart broken. For some people it’s a way of life. Love feels like a ray that goes from you to someone else. Sometimes it’s returned, and sometimes not. But love is not a ray. It’s a burst of light that goes out in all directions. It seems to shine on one object because the lover sees only one object. But if the lover looks around he’ll see that many objects catch his light.” He touched my hand again.

  I had to get out of there.

  Before he served the coffee I said I didn’t feel well and I had to get back to my dog. He said I should lie down until I felt better. I got out finally by promising to come back soon.

  Then on the way home I figured the whole thing out. It was completely my idea that Zina was in love with someone. Henry went along with it and faked the call to Zina so he could come on to me. He hadn’t spoken to her at all, and now he wouldn’t tell me who it was because there was no one. She wasn’t in love with anyone.

  14

  What Zina Said

  THE IDEA DIDN’T last.

  From the apartment I called the Point to say I was staying in town overnight. I got into bed to think. The morning Father had been short with me he said that when I was coming to town I must always tell him. Did he mean warn him? He hadn’t been concerned the night he took a woman into the guestroom, but he sure would care if I knew about Zina. This was real evidence.

  Finally I realized I wasn’t going to figure it out. But maybe I could figure out an attitude that would help me feel better. For instance, what attitude should I have if it really was Father? Or if Zina just had a crush on him that he didn’t know about. Things like this went around in my head until I remembered Mrs. Mertz’s advice: Ask her, she’ll tell you.

  So at 1 A.M. I got dressed and went down to the marina. The Angela was motionless in the still water. “Dover Beach” came back to me as I ran up the sails.

  The sea is calm tonight.

  The tide is full, the moon lies fair

  Upon the straits…

  The bay was calm, the tide was out, the sails hung slack. I drifted into the bay. Without a wind I’d eventually be carried out to sea, where a sudden change of weather could be dangerous for a one-man crew. I didn’t care. I was going to find out, one way or another. Then a breeze came up. There was no moonlight or starlight. I tacked across the bay using the one light on the Point, probably from Mr. Strangfeld’s shack. Walking over the sand, I felt a little better. Nothing was certain yet.

  Both houses were dark. I took off my shoes and left them on the porch. Blackheart heard me. I let him out and told him to be quiet. On the way to the guesthouse everything had a silvery tinge, but not enough to see shapes by. Across the bay a faint line of light stretched over the mainland. Otherwise I might have had my eyes shut. I made out Sonya asleep on the deck. Blackheart settled down in front of her, nose to nose.

  I held the catch on the screen door and let myself in. There were two bedrooms. I didn’t know which was Zina’s and which was Mrs. Mertz’s. I inched along in the dark and made my way into the near one. I stood in what I guessed was the center of the room, perfectly still, perfectly quiet. My plan had been to gently say her name until she woke. In that way I wouldn’t frighten her. Now the plan changed. If she was here in bed I would slide in beside her the way Melissa had beside me. She would turn to me as I had to Melissa. At first she wouldn’t know who I was. Somebody from the past maybe, like the boy with the Chinese eyes. She would put her arms around me. “It’s me,” I’d say. “Oh, Misha, what are you doing here? You’re in my bed. You naughty boy.” No, she wouldn’t say that. She’d kiss me. She had kissed me often. She’d kiss me now. She would
have nothing on. I’d run my hand down her back. Her breasts would be pressed against my chest. I’d pull her away and touch them. She’d say my name, once and then again and again.

  I was very excited. If the plan worked, we could meet at her place in town in the winter or at my place when my parents were away. It would be our secret. Maybe I’d let Hillyer in on it. I’d tell her how I had suspected Father and Henry. She’d stroke my face and say, “Poor Misha, it was you all along.”

  I could see nothing but the outline of the window. I felt a chair, a chest of drawers, and then my knees touched the bed. I listened for breathing. My ears were full of my own breathing. I knelt down and put my hand on the coverlet. The bed was flat and empty. She was in the other bedroom.

  I stood up. The plan hung on her being asleep. Otherwise I wouldn’t have the nerve to go through with it. I turned around and took slow, small, careful steps toward the doorway.

  In the other room Zina said, “Peter, I’m in here,” and after a pause, “In here, Peter.”

  At that moment a light went on in the main house. I thought of Melissa’s poem, “a light makes darkness clearly black.”

  I stood still. I don’t think I could have moved even if I knew what to do. I waited for something else to happen. Would Father show up? Would she say it again, “Peter, I’m in here”? Would he get into bed with her? Would she turn to him and pull him on top of her? Would I have to hear the sounds?

  I rushed out. I didn’t care if she knew it was me or not. On the deck Blackheart jumped up and followed me to the house. Mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a cup of tea. I called through the screen to say I was home.

  I explained that I couldn’t sleep in town. She poured tea for me and said she couldn’t sleep either. I asked where Father was.

  “Upstairs, probably tossing and turning like the rest of us. Usually he walks on the beach when he can’t sleep, whereas I come down here and get fat. It’s not fair.”

  Looking at her, puffy and huddled in a pink wrapper, I saw for the first time how unfair it was. She was having a rotten life, always jealous, not knowing what was going on, but knowing something was. And him up there, disappointed this time but planning the next time.