The Golden Hour

by Beatriz Williams

  And I think I succeeded. I think I did grab that wheel. I may even have lifted it a foot or two. But the victory was a Pyrrhic one, I’m afraid, because in my haste and fury and determination, I hadn’t given due attention to the glass remaining in the frame. I only noticed the glitter of one transparent shard an instant before it sliced across my forearm. Split my skin clean apart, the way you butterfly a loin of lamb.

  I don’t remember feeling any pain. I just stood there staring at the blood as it streamed over my wrist and dripped to the pavement, and thought You are a goddamned idiot, Leonora Randolph. Or maybe someone said that out loud. Because I felt a little dizzy at the sight of that blood, I’m afraid, a little fuzzy at the edges, and if good old Veryl hadn’t come out of nowhere and grabbed me right there, grabbed me and yelled at me and smacked some wad of material—her apron, as it turned out—into my wound, I might just have fainted.

  Come to think of it, maybe that was Veryl’s voice, shouting inside my head. Veryl’s voice saying, You are a goddamned idiot, Lenora Randolph. And you know what? She was right.

  The glass missed that artery in my wrist, the one that’s supposed to bleed out when you slice it. Thank goodness, said the doctor at the hospital who stitched it up, nice-looking fellow. The nurse wound the gauze over his handiwork and thanked goodness also. Thank goodness, you might have been killed out there. Then they sent me in a wheelchair to a private room to stay for a night or two, just to keep an eye on me. I can’t imagine why.

  Now, I had slept in a hospital bed twice before in my life. Once when I was eight, to get rid of a trick appendix. The other time in Amarillo, Texas, for a reason I’d rather not disclose, if you don’t mind. I didn’t quite see why I should have to sleep in one tonight, although I didn’t quite see how I was supposed to get home to Cable Beach through a riot, either. All things considered, I supposed I should make the best of things. To that end, I settled back in my blue gown with a magazine and a glass of iced tea. But I wasn’t made for settling, apparently, because my attention kept wandering to the window and its partial view of the harbor, and how I might get my hands on my camera, and what the devil was going on out there, anyway. Whether New Providence Island stood in a state of insurrection, or whether paler heads had prevailed.

  Then the knock arrived.

  “Come in,” I said.

  A coppery head poked around the corner of the door.

  “Hullo, there,” said Thorpe. “I’ve brought cake.”

  The cake in question turned out to be Veryl’s own rum cake. I shrieked and asked how he got it. He said he’d stopped by the bungalow to make sure I was all right, hadn’t done anything stupid like ridden my bicycle straight into a riot, and luckily Veryl was there, packing me a few things, and explained the whole affair. Naturally—gentleman that he was—he offered to convey Veryl to her home and cake and toothbrush to yours truly in her hospital bed.

  All this he told me as he took the cake and the plates from the basket, like a picnic, and put them on the table, maneuvering about expertly with his stiff leg and his cane.

  “Well, kind sir, I simply don’t know how to thank you,” I said.

  “We’ll think of something. Cake?”

  He raised the knife and held it above the ring of rum cake Veryl had baked the day before. A broken ring, because I’d already eaten a slice last night. Can you blame me? That rum cake was a fever dream of vanilla and sugared rum, and I mean rum. Just sniffing it could render you blotto. I watched Thorpe sink the knife delicately into the sponge. For some reason, his knuckles transfixed me. They were large and bony and—compared to the rest of him, anyway—rather ugly. And yet they maneuvered that knife with tremendous precision. A cake surgeon. He laid a nice, pudgy slice on a plate, added a fork, and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Can you manage it?”

  “Can I eat a slice of cake, you mean? I believe so.”

  “Because you’re looking pale.”

  I roused myself to a sitting position and handed him the glass of iced tea. “Give me the damned cake, please.”

  He gave me the cake. While I ate, he cut his own cake, poured himself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher, and settled himself heavily in the armchair. I had forgotten about his leg. I stared at it now. He stretched the bones out before him, stiff as a pole and just as wasted. He had struck me as pleasingly lean in December, sturdy but not especially muscular. Now he was downright gaunt. His cheekbones sprang from his face. On his jaw, there was a long scar, still red.

  I nodded at his knee. “Speaking of injuries.”

  “It’s much better, thank you. All things considered.”

  “All things?”

  “Look here, there’s nothing on earth so tedious as listening to somebody explain the various points of his general health in full detail. I’m alive and whole. All’s well that ends well.”

  “Did they ever catch the fellow who did it?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t believe they did.”

  “It’s disgraceful.”

  “What, the fact that I was attacked? Or that they haven’t caught the scoundrel?”

  “Well, both.”

  “I must admit, it was rather a shock. But then I wasn’t paying attention, as I should have been. My mind was elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere, was it? I can’t imagine where.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to admit more cake.

  “You know,” I said, “I can’t help thinking I’m to blame.”

  “You? How so?”

  “Because there was another ending to that evening, don’t you remember? It might have ended much more pleasantly for both of us.”

  He set down the plate and rested his forearms on his knees, which brought his head closer to mine. Between us, the crumbs of cake, the glasses of tea.

  “Fault requires intent, Mrs. Randolph,” he said. “And you surely had no inkling that a man lay in wait for me at the docks with a billy club in his hand.”

  “A billy club!”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s too terrible. You can’t imagine how awful I feel about it. Thank God you’re alive.”

  “Life is made up of these little crossroads, after all,” he said. “A million daily forks in the road.”

  I studied his eyes behind the sheen of his spectacles. I thought there was something different about him—well, of course there was—some shedding of the boyish radiance that had surrounded him last December. That half-bashful exuberance. As I watched, he put his hands on the arms of the chair to lever himself upward. A wedge of sunshine passed across his face. Instead of reaching for his cane, he limped his way to the window on his own. He shoved one hand into his trouser pocket and braced the other one on the top of the window frame, while he squinted through the glass at the street outside.

  “Keeping an eye on the riot?” I said.

  “The riot is largely over, it seems. Good old Sir Leslie spoke to the ringleaders over at Government House and promised to look into things. Then the police sent everybody back over the hill.”

  “Really? That’s all?”

  “Not quite. I don’t doubt there’ll be trouble tonight. But the point is to keep the trouble where it belongs, at least so far as the police are concerned.”

  “Naturally. I’m sure they’ll be talking about nothing else at the Red Cross tomorrow. The iniquity of the coloreds, how they should be grateful to have jobs at all, how it’s just what you’d expect from a Negro to smash up the property others have worked so hard to build.”

  Thorpe turned his head from the window. “Do I detect a certain bitterness, Mrs. Randolph? A certain radical tenor to your thoughts?”

  “I’m no radical. I just happen to think the Bay Street crowd is a pack of bigots, that’s all. And the labor situation is plain unfair.”

  “And that’s why you wandered into town today?”

  “I wandered into town today because it’s a story, and I’m a journalist.”

  “A journalist,
” he said. “That’s all?”

  “What do you mean, that’s all? What else would I be?”

  The sunshine from the window slanted across his face, half alight and half in shadow. His white shirt hung from his shoulders, which were wide and bony, and while the bones were meatless they were also thick, giving him an air of authority, of trustworthiness: the kind of shoulders that could bear a great deal, could bear the weight of his troubles and yours; could bear the weight of your resting head, if you were tall enough to reach them. Then his hair, all ablaze in the sunshine. His serious eyes, oh. You could not evade scrutiny like that. You could only bear it. You could only sit there and let him take his fill, let him examine your lines and creases, your twitches and stitches, let him judge the stuff of which you were made.

  “This island,” he said at last. “This damned little island. Only a few hundred square miles of barren limestone.”

  The electric fan whirred above us. My arm throbbed, my head ached. I said, “When did you arrive back?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “You’re still staying at Wenner-Gren’s place?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s in Mexico, isn’t he? The FBI put him on a blacklist of some kind, the second we got into the war, because of his Nazi friends. He’s been stuck in Mexico since December.”

  “Oh, is that what you heard?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Well, Wenner-Gren’s not a Nazi. He’s a businessman, that’s all.”

  “Then why did the FBI blacklist him?”

  Thorpe produced a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and removed his spectacles. “I suppose you’d have to ask the FBI. I’m just a scientist, Mrs. Randolph. My concern is plants, not people.”

  “Some people, surely.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. People so often disappoint one. Plants, on the other hand. They simply exist, you see. It’s up to you to discover their nature.” He replaced the glasses on his nose. “How’s the old arm feeling?”

  “The old arm will be just fine.”

  “All the same, I believe I’m going to sleep with you tonight.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  “I mean on the sofa, of course. Someone’s got to keep an eye on things.”

  “The sofa? What sofa?”

  Now the grin, like the rising of the sun. “In your bungalow, of course. I’m springing you out of here.”

  “What?”

  “I had the feeling you’re not the sort of woman who enjoys lying around in hospital beds.” He tossed the basket onto the bed. “Come along, then. If you’ve quite finished your cake. You’ll find a change of clothing in there.”

  “But how—the doctors—”

  “The doctors in Nassau, like the rest of the population, proved remarkably susceptible to corruption.” He reached for his cane and moved to the door. “And of course, I assured them I’d keep the closest possible eye on you.”

  So Thorpe carried me home to the bungalow in the sidecar of his motorcycle and fed me the dinner that Veryl had left out for us. He allowed me neither cigarettes nor the demon liquor, although after he sent me to bed with a glass of water and a couple of aspirin, I spotted him through the window on the patio chair, imbibing both without shame.

  I suppose you imagine we woke restlessly at midnight, the two of us, and found our way together to make furious love by the light of a tropical moon. I’m awfully sorry to disappoint you. There was no waking, no restlessness. I suppose we were both too exhausted. Besides, we were cripples.

  Instead, I slept like death. By the time I rose the next morning, the sofa was empty, the parlor neat, the blanket folded square on the armchair.

  Elfriede

  July 1905

  (Florida)

  One week before Wilfred’s return to England, Elfriede learns she has not conceived a baby. She informs her lover as soon as they’re alone together, taking their usual walk in the garden once the children are in bed.

  He draws a sigh. Relief or disappointment, she can’t tell. “Ah. I was wondering about that. You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  He stops by the orange tree and draws an arm around her shoulder. Together they lean against the trunk. The blossoms have all fallen, the bees have moved on. The air’s grown hotter, if possible, filled with the sultry scent of the rotting buds. “That’s what I meant to ask you about, that first night.”

  “And I told you the answer was yes.”

  “I wasn’t entirely sure you understood the question. But I could have done something about it, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Wilfred turns to face her in the twilight. “Well? Should I do something about it? There’s a chemist in town.”

  “A chemist?”

  “A—what do you call it. A drugstore. He ought to be able to find something for me, if I ask the right way. Of course, there are alternatives.”

  She smiles. “You say that as if . . .”

  “As if what, my dear?”

  “As if it matters.”

  He reaches out to touch her hair. “Of course it matters. I’d never forgive myself if I burdened you with a child you don’t want to bear. I haven’t forgotten why you were in Switzerland to begin with.”

  Here they are, dancing around the point of a needle again. Why can’t they just agree to marry and make children together? Or—the other end of the needle—agree to part as friends after this halcyon interlude comes to an end? Maybe it would be simpler if Elfriede were pregnant, a not unlikely outcome after weeks of rapturous fucking, nightly and sometimes daily, in bed and out, filling Elfriede’s womb with the stuff of life. But Nature didn’t take her cue. If he likes, Wilfred can board his train to New York in eight days with warm memories and a clear conscience.

  Well, will he? Why haven’t they spoken of his departure at all? They’ve had all the opportunity in the world. True to his promise, Wilfred arrived back at Elfriede’s house just before luncheon the day after his arrival. By dinnertime he’d settled into the most spacious of the spare bedrooms. By nighttime he’d settled into Elfriede’s bed. During the heavenly days that followed, he and Elfriede have spent scarcely an hour apart. He’s won the adoration of Gerhard’s daughters, if not quite that of Gerhard’s son. He’s shared meals and laughter with them, he’s gone on walks and swims and endless picnics, he’s listened to Elfriede play the piano, listened to Elfriede teach the children to play the piano. He’s almost part of the family. Except, of course, he’s not. In all official respects, he’s an ordinary houseguest on holiday. They don’t speak of the steamship ticket tucked in the pocket of his suitcase, but it’s there.

  Should Elfriede speak of it now? Wilfred’s face lies near hers, so familiar and beloved she can’t imagine its absence. Can she keep it there? Will she keep it there? That steamship ticket. Does he mean to use it? Does she want him to? Is she still afraid?

  The reason Elfriede departed Schloss Kleist in such a hurry all those months ago, packing only the essentials, was Helga.

  “I’ve decided to take the children on holiday,” she told her sister-in-law, one morning last autumn. “It will do them good, I think, after all this gloom and misery.”

  Helga was aghast. What could Elfriede possibly be thinking? Take Johann away from his home? From his aunts and uncle and cousins? From his education? So soon after his beloved father’s death? Where on earth did she imagine taking the boy?

  “Oh, someplace warm, I think, since winter’s coming on,” Elfriede answered. “Maybe Florida.”

  Florida! Florida was the worst possible idea, a hedonistic wilderness on the other side of the world. Why, Johann might forget he was German at all! In any case—Helga leaned forward confidentially—Elfriede absolutely could not take Those Children away with Johann. Out of the question. It was immoral. He was young and impressionable. He was a baron. He had his father’s legacy to uphold. What would people think if he regarded these girls as his sisters?


  “But they are his sisters,” Elfriede pointed out, even though she knew how Helga would react to this statement of fact. (Elfriede at twenty-six was not the same creature as Elfriede at just eighteen, gazing in awe at the new relations gathered to her wedding dinner.) Then she added, “Gerhard himself acknowledged them,” although in this she stood on shakier ground. Gerhard, believing himself immortal, hadn’t yet troubled to compose a will in which he made explicit provision for his bastard daughters and their mother. Helga was perfectly aware of this fact. Hardly had the mourners dispersed when she made the first of many efforts to evict the cuckoos from the nest, even while one cuckoo was yet unborn. Elfriede resisted each onslaught. But the day was coming, she knew, when Helga’s arguments would prove unanswerable or her tactics invincible. So she allowed the subject of Florida to drop. She allowed Helga to believe she’d won, but when Helga left the following week to spend a few days with her sister, Elfriede packed the children and Charlotte and whisked them away.

  She left behind a note, of course. During the voyage across the ocean, she took great pleasure in imagining Helga’s face as she read that note.

  Helga, of course, wrote plenty of her own notes during the ensuing months. But Elfriede has no intention of giving up her girls and her freedom, not yet. She knows she eventually must. Helga has some justice on her side. Johann is the baron, he’ll return to Schloss Kleist at some point and learn to be its master. But not yet. Let him be a child first. Let him know his sisters, so he might not banish them once he gains the power to banish. Let the sun warm their hearts and blood and skin. Let them know a little of a man like Wilfred.

  Elfriede thinks of all this and puts her arms around her lover’s neck.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she says. “I’m not having a baby.”

  “Not yet—” he begins.

  She cuts him off in the customary way. By kissing him.

  So they keep dancing, these two.

  Now, Gerhard—a pious man—strictly observed the biblical injunctions against menstruating women, so Elfriede’s amazed when Wilfred follows her into her room, in the customary way, and turns her around to unbutton her dress. She makes some stuttering protest.