Hayes paced the room, anger flashing on his face. "The bastard," he spat out, "the filthy bastard."
"I guess I worked a lot of my anger out while I was sitting in that prison cell, watching insects crawling around the walls. I have no feeling left for him, none at all, except maybe disgust."
They talked about Sam for a time, about his anger at the Diehls, his anger at the world, and how it had consumed him.
Hayes told her about his work at the headquarters of the OECD in the Chateau de la Muette in the western part of Paris, and rattled off all the acronyms as he might a child's ABCs: DAC and NIC, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Development Assistance Committee, and the Newly Industrialized Countries. His own work was with DAC, his special field of study Sub-Saharan Africa, an area with problems so vast, he said, it is going to require an enormous effort in the coming decade on the part of the rich nations of the world.
And when she asked, Hayes answered: "Yes, it feels right. I know now what I can do, and what I can't, and both of those things were important for me to find out."
They rode the tram to Victorian Peak to watch the lights come on over Hong Kong harbor, and ate long noodles and lo han vegetables at the dai pai dong, or street stalls, and drank Iron Buddha tea.
They lived in the present, and only talked selectively about the past. He told her that Eli was in Libya, that he had married a Palestinian woman who was in the university there, an act which had complicated both their lives but which seemed to have preserved Eli's sanity.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, they lay in bed together, with all that had not been said pushing hard between them. Hayes sat up. May ran her hand lightly along the spine of his back. She forced herself to say, "There is so little time left."
He ran his hands through his hair. "My flight is at eleven, we should be moving."
She took a deep breath: "I have to know. Please, Hayes. Now."
He turned, and she saw that he couldn't trust himself to speak.
So May said it: "I have to know about Marie-Claire. I know she loves you. I have to know if you love her."
"What you have to know," he said, almost angrily, "is that I love you, more than anyone. Anyone."
"But she thinks . . ."
"She knows," he said, his mouth tight, "I called her the day you came, while you were sleeping, and she already knew. I didn't have to say it."
"Then say it to me," May pushed, "what you would have said to her, if she hadn't already known."
He got out of bed, pulled on his pants, poured a drink for himself, and did not look at her.
"That I was sorry, that I had never wanted to cause her any pain, that . . . I was sorry."
May pulled the sheets around her, and huddled in the depression that was descending upon her. Hayes was leaving, was returning to France. She wouldn't see him for how long, how long . . . he was returning and he would not say he didn't love Marie-Claire, would not say what it was he felt for her. A kind of panic moved into her throat, "I need to know, Hayes," she began in a pleading voice.
He turned now and said very calmly, "I don't want to talk about Marie-Claire, and there's no need. Please try to understand, May. I could never marry anyone else, not when I feel this way about you."
"Marry?" she blurted. "I didn't know you wanted to be married, I didn't think you were ready . . ." She burst into tears, and let them stream down her face.
"May, listen to me . . . can you do that? Listen?" He spoke in a slow, measured way. "There are things about you, about your life, that are complicating . . . the way you work, for one thing. Your ambition, and you are ambitious. I've never been sure that I'd be able to hold you. On top of that there's the bloody Hunt fortune . . . I know what an albatross that kind of money can be. My father became a banker so he could manage my mother's family money, and that's a fraction of what you are worth."
"It isn't that much of a problem . . ." she began, but he stopped her.
"Wake up, May. You haven't had to deal with it because Kit is doing it for you. Kit knows very well what you are refusing to see— that money is power, whether you want it or not. Kit hasn't been afraid to use that power, but I don't know what's going to happen when you're faced with it—what I do know is that I don't want to be in the position of taking over from Kit."
She smiled, she couldn't help it. "And I had you figured for a fortune-hunter," she said, wryly.
He brought her a robe, held it out for her, and, when she lifted her hair, he could not resist bending to kiss her on the neck. "I only need to think about you and the juices start flowing," he said. "You are the most exciting woman I've ever known, and I don't think I can live without you. I've just got to get used to the idea that it isn't going to be any kind of an ordinary life."
"Is ordinary what you want?" she asked. "No, wait, don't answer that. Instead, tell me what you mean by ordinary?"
He grinned, reached for her hand. "Going to bed in the same bed together at night, waking up together in the morning, having breakfast in a kitchen that belongs to a place we share, making love, having children, fixing peanut butter sandwiches . . ."
She looked at him, wide-eyed. "And you don't think I want that too?"
It was his turn to look serious. "There are so many complications, May. This thing about your mother needs to be resolved before we can begin to be together, we both know that. And it scares the hell out of me to think you might try another crazy scheme. If I'm the reason that you went off half-cocked into Thailand, then I'll tell you this, I'll wait for you forever, if I have to . . . but I want you to promise me you won't try to go into China illegally again."
"Wait. Before I make any promises, let's get back to my question. What makes you think my career would be more important than my husband, and where did you get the idea that I wouldn't want a family? I just don't understand. You never asked me, remember—you were the one who went off to France to find out how you fit into this world, after all the turmoil in Africa and the South and Berkeley. I didn't try to stop you because I had some questions to answer of my own. But there was never any question in my mind, I always knew I wanted to spend my life with you. I never subjected you to the kind of cold scrutiny you seem to have subjected me to . . ." She didn't finish the sentence, but started on another tack, "Did you think Marie-Claire would make a better wife? That life with her would be less complicated, is that it?"
His face went cold; he began, methodically, to dress. May went into the bathroom, showered, and when she came out he was packing.
She put on a beige silk suit she had bought that morning, slipped into sandals, brushed her hair, and all the while the silence grew, swelling, filling the room, pressing against her rib cage. She could feel time pulling against them; rushing to empty. She looked at his back and wanted to touch him, but she could not.
"Where should we have dinner?" he asked in a stranger's voice.
"It doesn't matter," she heard herself say, "I don't care." The words exploded inside of her. She felt herself disintegrating, tiny black spots moved across her field of vision. "Oh my God, Hayes," she cried, "I do care. I care terribly. I was so frightened when I thought I'd lost you, when I thought you wouldn't be here, but you were. You came and you waited for me and I love you, oh God Hayes, I love you . . . I should not have . . ."
He held her quietly, rubbing her back thoughtfully. "We'll work it out," he said. "Somehow, we will make it work."
TWENTY-THREE
Fall 1972
A SPLINTER OF sunlight pierced the thin layer of my eyelid and lodged there, sending sharp, insistent messages into the dark center of my brain, needling me awake. Resisting, I moved my head on the pillow but the sunlight tracked me. It was no good; I was not to be allowed to rise easily to wakefulness. I opened my eyes and saw the problem—a rip in the old green window shade. It had always been temperamental and the girls—two of Annie's school pals who stayed in the cottage while I was away—were too young to be patient with t
his crochety old place. I suppose one must have given the shade too hard a tug and tore it. Why haven't I noticed it before? Of course! The sun had to move into place. It was the first good thought of the morning, the idea of the sun working its way around the heavens to get at me. I will have to add the shade to my list of things for Israel to fix.
"This old place is too idiosyncratic to loan out," Israel said to me after the first round of repairs. (He is studying the dictionary again, building his vocabulary.) I told him that as far as I was concerned, he was the resident expert on eccentricities. He wasn't about to be sidetracked into semantics, and grumbled, "Why didn't you just leave those rambunctious young ladies a list of things not to do?"
"Because," I explained, "the list would have been so long they would have thought me an intolerably fastidious old fussbudget, besides which you can't say on a list just exactly how to jiggle the handle on the toilet to keep it from running all day, or precisely how to lift the screen door and push it out ever so gently so it opens easily."
Still he fusses and fumes. His lumbago has returned, he complains that the fog makes his joints ache. He complains. The problem with Israel is he didn't want to come home.
It is no good lying here thinking; Karin and Thea will be along in no time. They promised to stop by before Thea's lesson. The family has been traveling so I've seen them only twice over the summer. Greece, Italy, Spain. I should say Philip, Karin, and Thea have been traveling. Dan did not go with them, he went to summer school. I suspect that Karin's coming here today has something to do with Dan.
Thea bounded in, long arms waving in free, floating movements: "Look, look," she said, dangling a card too close to my eyes for me to be able to read it. "It's my driver's license," she chanted. "The temporary one they give you right after you pass the test. You are looking at a certified California driver!" Karin stood behind her, hands clasped behind her back, delighted.
"Who would ever have thought it?" I teased. "That is quite a wonderful achievement."
Thea was dancing around the cottage, her long, slender legs threading their way perfectly through the small empty spaces like a butterfly, a graceful burst of delight. She came to rest behind Karin, her arms folded on her stepmother's shoulders. "And guess who is going to drive me to pick up my friend Amanda and then go on to our dance lesson? Guess!"
"I could never imagine," I pretended.
"Me! Yours truly. Thea Ward, licensed California vehicle driver."
"Sweetie," Karin began, "I'm not sure if . . ."
"You promised," Thea came back, holding Karin very tight from behind, as if to fortify her resolve. "You said I could at least drive from Aunt Faith's to my lesson and back, and Amanda's is on the way. You did say I could . . ."
"I thought I said 'maybe'. . ."
"No 'maybes,'" Thea said, giving Karin a quick kiss before releasing her, pirouetting perfectly, then breezing out the door. "I'll come straight back. No detours, two hours longest, not to worry . . ." and she was off.
Karin sank back in a chair and grinned at me. "She is so pleased with herself," she said, "getting a driver's license really is a rite of passage for today's kids."
She took a deep breath, and I could almost see the happy mood begin to dissipate.
"Let's sit out on the back deck," I suggested, "we have to make some good use of this sunshine while we've got it, and you can admire my dahlias."
"Sunshine and dahlias," she said, and for a moment I thought she had something more to add, but she hadn't. She lay back on the big redwood chaise, closed her eyes, and told me May had called her at eight that morning, from Paris.
"Hayes has been offered a position with the State Department," she told me.
It caught me by surprise, which must have shown because Karin said, "I know. I wouldn't have thought it, either, he has been on the other side for so long."
"What does May think about it?"
"May has always been determined to be apolitical, you know that—because of her father, what it did to him. What is important to her is that Hayes come to terms with himself, that he has a clear idea of what he wants to do. She says he feels he hasn't been able to accomplish anything outside of the power structure, and that events seem to be pushing him to work from within. Or at least to give it a try. May is pretty certain he is going to take it, and that is fine with her because what she wants is to make a life with him. She did say that Washington is a good place for her to be, too. She thinks she can finish her part of the Ring of Fire project by June if she works her tail off. In the meantime, with Hayes in Washington they can meet halfway in San Francisco, instead of these incredibly long flights all over the world."
Karin smiled. "It's so wonderful to hear the happiness in her voice," she said, her own voice catching. "For a while, I thought this obsession with finding her mother was going to take precedence over everything—"
"I don't think she's given up the idea," I said, "but the fiasco in Thailand frightened her enough to make her want to go in legally. The problem is, the Chinese don't seem to want to give her a visa. Kit thinks they must have her name on a list somewhere, that possibly they know about her connection to Wing Soong and they don't like the idea that one of the heroes of the revolution has a granddaughter who is a U.S. citizen."
"I tried to warn her about Sam," Karin said, her mouth turning down with disdain, "I honestly believe he wanted to hurt her— don't try to defend him, Faith. Maybe it wasn't conscious, but I think he has this rage in him and somehow, it all got focused on May. And it's unforgivable, really!"
"I wasn't going to . . ." I began, when the phone rang. It was Philip, for Karin.
The phone was just inside the kitchen, so I could not avoid hearing her end of the conversation. "Yes," Karin said, "I did." And then, "It is only a few blocks, and I thought . . ." Her back hunched, she leaned against the wall. "She is a good driver, Philip, you said so yourself . . ." She straightened, rubbed the small of her back as if it pained her. "I'm sorry, yes. I know. I shouldn't have, you're right, letting her drive for the first time in San Francisco probably was poor judgment. It's just that she wanted so badly . . . I know, I shouldn't be swayed into taking risks. I'm sorry to have upset you . . . yes, well, I know it's her safety that concerns you . . . Shall I call you as soon as she gets back, so you don't worry?" He must have been mollified, because her voice became relaxed: "Sure," she said, "take my extra set. I left them on the bed table in my room."
She walked to the edge of the deck to examine my dahlias. "They are so outrageously beautiful," she said, "my dahlias are puny next to these." And then, defensively, "It's not how it sounds, Faith. Philip has so much on his mind—he's having trouble sleeping, he's up most nights reading or working on his new book, and he worries that it keeps me awake. So sometimes I sleep in the extra room. Poor Philip, when it isn't insomnia it's headaches, he's working so hard and he's so upset about Dan that he's tightening his grip on Thea."
She did not turn around. "Dan was eighteen last week," she finally said, "and I'm almost certain he's coming home today to tell his dad that he is going to join the Marines."
The silky fabric of her blouse stretched tight across her shoulder blades. "Philip thought Dan would spend this year finishing high school. It is going to come as quite a shock to him to learn that the kid has managed to get enough credits to graduate early. At least, that's what I suspect. I figured that was his idea when he decided to go to summer school."
"And you haven't told Philip?"
She shook her head. "We can't talk about Dan anymore. What it seems to come down to is Philip telling me to 'stay out of this, it's not your problem.' It's okay for me to love them, I'm just not supposed to share in the responsibility. He was more surprised than angry, I think—that I would have made the decision to let Thea drive. I don't know what he'd do if Thea gets in an accident today and is hurt. As it is, with Dan and Philip I feel caught in the middle and bruised by both sides. And neither one of them can be made to see what the other
feels or wants. Dan can be a royal pain . . . he's so gung ho you would think he'd invented the Halls of Montezuma. And Philip's just as bad, in a much more articulate way. He can listen all day long to one of his students, but he can't hear a thing his son is saying. To tell you the truth, I wanted to get out of the house today. I've got a feeling Dan is coming home to square off with his dad, and I'd just as soon not be there when they decide to slug it out." She paused, added wistfully, "Kids put a terrific strain on a marriage, don't they?"
"I can't think of a parent who wouldn't agree with that," I told her.
They were sitting opposite each other in the living room when Karin and Thea returned. Philip leaned forward, turning the pages on a small file of papers placed precisely in front of him on the coffee table. Daniel slouched on the couch, his arms flung wide. Thea started rummaging in her handbag, to show her brother her license, then she saw her father's face and checked herself. "I'll catch you later," she called out to her brother, "I've got to get going on your cake." Karin tried to follow Thea to the kitchen, but Philip called her back.
They've waited for me, she thought. They didn't want to start the war without me.
"What do you think of this?" Philip asked, nodding toward the papers.
"I don't know what 'this' is," Karin came back, on guard.
"Daniel's school records. He has given himself an eighteenth birthday present. He has managed to finish high school a full year early. Isn't that a surprise?" he asked, caustically.
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