Enchanted Islands

by Allison Amend

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “Can we go to your apartment?” I asked. I’d never been there, never even asked to go. “I want to talk to you.”

  “All right,” he said. He motioned to the waitress for the check. I called the office on the pay phone and said I had a headache and was taking the afternoon off. I had never done that before. The receptionist was worried rather than suspicious and said she hoped I’d feel better.

  We hailed a taxi and rode over the Bay Bridge not speaking. Joseph lived in faculty housing, a row of identical buildings. His apartment was a tiny efficiency with a nice view of Berkeley Hills. I took it in for just a second before I stripped my clothes off, and we made love with a hurry that we hadn’t felt before.

  “So I don’t have to ask you about how it is now that your husband’s home,” he said, afterward.

  I turned my head. “I was going to tell you we couldn’t see each other anymore,” I said. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “This, now? Or this any of this?” I had meant the two of us in bed now, but now that he said it, I might have meant much more.

  “I’m actually happy with Ainslie,” I said. “Except…” I searched Joseph’s face for some sign of hurt or disappointment. If he felt any, he concealed it well. “How do you feel about it?”

  Joseph shrugged. “I am not so good with how I feel. I will miss you, certainly. But you are married, and it was known from the beginning.”

  “So you won’t fight to keep me.”

  “Fight? With whom? You are not mine to keep.”

  “And if I were?”

  “If you were what? Unmarried? You’re not.”

  “I could be,” I said. “I could get a divorce. He would give me one.”

  Joseph sat up to light a cigarette. He said nothing.

  “Joseph?”

  “If you want to get a divorce, then get a divorce. It’s none of my business.”

  “But it is your business,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I am telling you that it is not my business,” he said. He spoke slowly and carefully. His back went rigid. My heart contracted as though a hand were squeezing it, and the edges of the room went blurry. I blinked rapidly.

  “Okay,” I said. I wanted to say something more. Something more elegant, a fine closing line, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. But all that I produced was “Okay.”

  Joseph stood up and ran the shower and I understood that it was my cue to leave. I felt used. And cheap. And sorry for myself that no one loved me the way a woman deserves to be loved.

  I waited for the Key train, weeping openly. A few people looked my way pityingly. I berated myself the entire way home. I had known it would end eventually, and I was the one who was married. And Joseph had told me countless times not to fall in love, that he found love a bad investment from an economic point of view. I knew that he had been hurt by his wife and then devastated by the war. I was aware that there were things I didn’t know, things he didn’t want to speak of. He had stories he wasn’t telling me; he had hardened. I couldn’t help but feel, though, that a different kind of woman, a different woman, might have cracked that exterior.

  By the time I got home, Ainslie was making fried eggs for dinner and singing along to the radio. When he saw me he said only, “Poor puppy.” He put the egg on my plate with a piece of toast and I stared at it, numb.

  Then he led me to the bed, pulled back the covers, and sat me down. He removed my shoes and tucked me in.

  *

  I could have gotten a divorce. I could have refused to return to the Galápagos. But the same arguments that existed before I went the first time still applied. My job was boring; I had no friends except Rosalie. And her life was so different from mine. I was nothing like her other friends; we had a good time together, but it was impossible to imagine that we would be together except for our shared origins.

  She invited Ainslie and me to Shabbat dinner each week, but there was no way we could go. I didn’t even tell Ainslie. His off-color jokes, his merciless humor, were not right for a Sabbath dinner just after the war. Plus, what if Joseph were there? I didn’t want to face him, and I especially did not want Joseph and Ainslie to see each other. Rosalie’s world could not have accommodated Ainslie. He would have stuck out like a sore thumb. I couldn’t ask him into this world. Nor would Rosalie’s cohorts admit him. It was better just to keep them separate.

  Seeing Rosalie reminded me too much of Joseph. I was shocked at how easy it was to distance myself. First, work was busy and I couldn’t meet her for lunch. Then, Ainslie and I had plans for the cinema, to go to Muir Woods, to play tennis on the municipal courts. If she noticed anything, she said nothing. My knowledge of her husband’s affairs made it hard to look at her. By keeping his secret, I was helping him betray her.

  If it seems I was excusing the same behavior in myself that I was condemning in Clarence, that’s because I was. I considered our situations so different. I honestly thought that Ainslie wouldn’t care if I sought companionship outside our marriage. He had hinted so throughout our relationship. It wasn’t as though I had fallen in love; it wasn’t as though I would leave him.

  Sometimes, though, in the darkest hour of the night, I knew my feelings for Joseph were more than affection, and sometimes I would let myself feel them. And would it have been different if he had wanted to be with me? Probably. I had two incomplete men, and only one wanted me. It would have to be enough.

  *

  Ainslie and I set November 1 as our day of departure. We had a little over a month to dismantle lives and prepare ourselves for the islands. This time, we knew what we were getting into. I bought us proper clothing, extra sneakers, quality hats, airtight containers, sheets and pillowcases, iron roofing, wire, a good shovel, the machete I dreamed about…When I gave Childress notice, he told me he’d already heard of our posting.

  “Got the queer exile,” he said, nodding. “I’d heard.”

  “I suppose it is a bit queer,” I said. “But we’ve lived down there before. And the Germans are still there.”

  “Right,” my boss said. “Got to keep an eye on those Germans. We’ll miss you, Mrs. C.”

  *

  Ainslie was out all night again. I willed myself to sleep, tried to tell myself not to worry. But worry wasn’t what I felt. It was jealousy, that green-eyed monster. I scolded myself. I’d had my fun while he was gone. And now he could have his.

  He must have gone straight to work, or maybe he skipped the day, because he arrived home around dinnertime the next evening, in good spirits, with marzipan, which he knew I liked. It was in the shapes of tropical fruits, glistening grapes, cherries, and bananas.

  “Thanks,” I said, as he pecked me on the cheek.

  “Won’t be much of this in the islands. Eat up. You got too thin the last time.”

  I had a flash of Elke’s face as she turned to leave me tied up to the tree, the drawn veins across her forehead. I pushed the memory away. “Are they still there?” I asked.

  “Who?” I spent so much time alone that sometimes I forgot that I needed to speak out loud if I wanted someone to hear me.

  “Elke and Heinrich.”

  “Not sure. They were when I left, but they were making noises about going home. I think it was hard for them to be away.”

  “What would happen to them if they go home? What’s it like in Germany?”

  “Who knows, who cares,” Ainslie said. “Why worry about them?”

  “I worry about everything,” I said. I paused. Was I really going to say this? “I worried about you last night.”

  “You needn’t have,” Ainslie said.

  “Where were you?”

  Ainslie sat down on our love seat and crossed his arms. “Franny, you don’t want to do this.”

  “I do, actually,” I said. “If we’re going back to the islands I don’t want us to have secrets. I’d rather know.”

  Ainslie spoke quietly. �
��I went to a bar.”

  “A bar where there are…people like you?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “And did you meet someone?” I asked.

  He nodded again.

  “Someone in particular, or just someone?”

  “Just someone. It’s always just a someone.”

  I couldn’t look at him. “And where did you go?”

  “There are rooms upstairs from the bar.”

  “Oh,” I said. Outside, the sky was the same gray color as the building across the street. I could see a woman at her sink, washing dishes. I could feel my rib cage expanding with the naked conversation, breaking open. I sat on my hands to hold myself together.

  “I had a lover, while you were gone,” I said, trying to wound him.

  “Do you want to be with him?” he asked. “It’s a him, I assume.”

  “Yes!” I said too quickly. “No, I don’t want to be with him. And he doesn’t want to be with me, so it’s over, obviously.”

  Ainslie reached over and pulled my hand from under my leg. I let him hold it. “So it’s us,” he said.

  I knew what he was asking. “It’s us.”

  “You don’t have to come to the Galápagos,” he said. “I understand if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to,” I said. “I haven’t had a moment of peace since I left.”

  *

  I couldn’t put Rosalie off forever. “Thank you, Melanie,” she said when the maid had brought us coffee. “How is it now that Ainslie’s home?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Good.”

  “Uh-huh…And what about Joseph?”

  “I don’t know what you—” I started.

  Rosalie gave me the same censorious look she’d been giving me for more than forty years, nostrils wide, eyes narrowed.

  “How did you know?”

  Rosalie continued to give me that look. “Anyone who knows you, Fanny, would have known. It’s like you came alive, like suddenly your skin looked glowy.”

  “Glowy?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have thought it would be Joseph, but then, to each her own.”

  I couldn’t speak. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Rosalie said. “I didn’t think it would hurt to speak about it. I thought it was just for fun, until Ainslie got back.”

  “It was,” I said, shaking my head vigorously to dislodge the melancholy that had settled there. “And now it’s over.”

  “Well, I won’t invite him anymore if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, dabbing my eyes. One of the good things about eschewing makeup is that it never runs during times of emotional indulgence. “We won’t be around that much anyway. I think we’re going back to the islands.”

  “No!” Rosalie said. “No, Frances, you can’t!”

  “We are,” I said. “Ainslie got posted there again.”

  “Hasn’t he aged out of the navy yet? The war just ended. Tell him to resign. Clarence will get him a job.”

  “I want to go too,” I said. “I miss it. It was hard there but everything just felt much more…purposeful. What am I doing here?”

  “The same thing we all are, Frances. Living.”

  I said nothing.

  “I can’t change your mind? Invite you to come live here with me?”

  I shook my head.

  “The children will miss you so much,” she said. I doubted this was true. “You have to spend all your free time here before you leave. And you have to tell them. I refuse to be the bearer of this bad news.” The lamps lit the room only dimly. Rosalie poured me some more coffee.

  “That’s plenty,” I said.

  “So,” Rosalie said. The silences between us had grown long, full of all the things I couldn’t say to her.

  “Sew buttons,” I said, which made her laugh.

  “Frances, I want to talk to you about something,” she said.

  “Uh-oh, this sounds serious,” I said.

  Rosalie grimaced. “Well, there’s no way to say it but to say it. Ainslie has been frequenting bars of…ill repute.”

  “Ill repute? Are you in a Western movie?”

  “I don’t know how else to say it. Bars that only serve men, but not gentlemen’s clubs, do you know what I mean?”

  Of course I did, but I didn’t want to admit it. I shook my head.

  “Bars that men go to in order to meet other men. For sex. There, I said it.”

  Because I am such a bad liar, I tried not to look at her. Instead, I stared into her fireplace, which needed sweeping. So much for all that household help. “It’s not true. Who told you this?”

  “Clarence’s firm needs to hire detectives sometimes, and he wanted to try one out so we…we hired him.”

  “To follow Ainslie?” I said. I didn’t believe her story.

  “I wanted to know who he was, married to my best friend. I got the sense when we met that he was hiding something. And as it turns out, I’m right.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “That’s a terrible accusation.”

  “I do, Fanny. It’s not that hard to believe. But you knew. You had to know. I knew when I met him.”

  I had known. I had known and not known at the same time. I wanted not to know. How angry must Adam have been at Eve for destroying his ignorance. I was angry at myself, at my stupid blindness, at all my years of pining. But I took out that anger on the person in front of me.

  “Clarence has a girlfriend,” I said. “He’s cheating on you too.”

  Rosalie didn’t flinch. This was not news to her.

  “It’s filthy,” I said. “How can you live with him?” But I knew. I knew how one could live with someone’s dirty secret.

  Now Rosalie was angry. Little bits of spittle stuck to the sides of her mouth. “I didn’t judge you when you were with Hradistsky. I don’t judge you now. But how dare you tell me what’s acceptable and what’s not in my own marriage!”

  I wanted to tell her so badly. I wanted to explain that Ainslie and I got married so we could do a job and protect this country. “Your marriage was for money. You got married so you could eat. You’re a whore dressed up in fancy clothes.” I didn’t know what had come over me. I had never in my life spewed so much vitriol.

  “At least Clarence doesn’t fuck men.” I had never heard a woman use that word. It was coarse like sandpaper as it came through my ears and the shock made my jaw drop.

  Rosalie recoiled, slapped out of her anger by an unseen hand, and she clamped a hand over her mouth like it didn’t belong to her. “Frances, I’m so sorry.” Rosalie stood up and grabbed my shoulders.

  Half of me wanted to throw off her arms and half wanted to embrace her. I was angry, but I knew she was right. Plus, I had said something so hurtful. The old Frances would have stormed out of the house, nursed the grudge until I was in the grave. But I had grown brave in the Galápagos; I knew the braver thing would be to repair this relationship.

  We spoke at the same time.

  “I don’t know—”

  “I shouldn’t—”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  We hugged. I forgave her. For her betrayal forty years ago, for saying that about Ainslie, for her wealth and success.

  We fell onto the sofa, still hugging and crying. I finished sobbing first, and we parted, both rubbing our eyes with handkerchiefs. Rosalie said, “I must look terrible.”

  She did have gobs of mascara leaving dirty footprints down her cheeks. “It’ll wash,” I said.

  She stroked my hair. “I know about Clarence’s girls. I’ve known since that day at the hairdresser, but I knew even before that. We have an agreement. He keeps it mostly quiet. Did Hradistsky tell you? I thought so.”

  “I didn’t know about Ainslie when we got married, but I found out. I suppose we have an arrangement too. It’s all right.”

  “But you’d want it differently?”

  Fresh tears spro
uted. “There’s no use wanting.”

  “I’d had a hard life, and Clarence offered me a chance to rest. That’s all I wanted. Just to relax.”

  “I understand, I do,” I said.

  “Ainslie doesn’t like us,” Rosalie said.

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “We’re too Jewish?”

  “Something like that.”

  Rosalie sighed. “Well, we’ll just have to have girl time without him. Without them. Those stupid men. But why is he taking you back to the Galápagos now? Why are you going?”

  “We liked it there.”

  “But the war’s over.”

  “There’s the base, and some other things that need taking care of.”

  Rosalie looked skeptical. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for taking you away.”

  “He’s not taking me anywhere, Rosie. I want to go.”

  “All right. I don’t understand it, but all right. Go to your desert island. But we are not to be separated again. The second you move from the Galápagos or get back to the United States you must tell me immediately where you are. I will be here, so it’s on you.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  “And if you need anything, you’ll let me know somehow.”

  “I’ll send smoke signals.”

  “Tell me it all. Tell me everything. I feel like there’s been this distance.”

  So I told her all that didn’t require intelligence clearance. I tried to explain how Ainslie and I loved each other, and that it was a love that was profound and binding, even if it wasn’t typical. I told her I didn’t understand his proclivities, but they were too strong a force to ignore. I described him dancing the tango in Panama and how beautiful I found him, how beautiful everyone found him. And then I told her of his kindness, how he worked on roads in Floreana knowing that we would probably never set foot on them again, how he believed in the perfection of things, or of trying to attain that perfection. And I told her I was happy with him, because I was, even if sometimes I felt rejected. Rosalie was a good listener.

  Then she took her turn and told me about how poor she was in Los Angeles, how she would go out with men to get a good meal and if she spent the night they’d give her breakfast and cab fare. Clarence was one of these men, but different. He treated her like an equal, saw that she would be a good person to partner with, if that was the right word. And so she’d gone along with his religious “hooey.” It wasn’t so hard once you got in the rhythm of it. And she genuinely liked going to synagogue, to watch the heads turn to see her in her finery. She was so happy to have the children, even Sylvie, who was a mistake, it was true. Was I sad I never had any?