Earth and High Heaven

by Gwethalyn Graham

  “Hello,” said Marc, smiling down at Erica. He touched her fair hair lightly with one hand and then added, “Come and dance, darling.”

  She was the right height for him, in fact everything about her was right and he held her close, wishing that they would play a waltz and turn the lights down so that he could kiss her. There was always an interval like this after he came back to her, when everything that had been confused, remote, and difficult to understand seemed to be rearranging itself in order, and all he could feel for the first few minutes was relief and happiness and a kind of amazement which usually took a while to wear off. He was in love with her, and it seemed to him that if only Erica and he could stay together, then sooner or later he would know what it was all about. But they could not stay together; all they had left was a handful of days scattered over a month or possibly six weeks at the most, although Erica did not know it yet.

  “Do you love me?”

  Her arm moved up a little on his shoulder and with her mouth brushing his ear she murmured, “I adore you.”

  His grip tightened for a moment, then loosened a little and he said, “Don’t, darling.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t melt in public, it’s not done.”

  “You started it, I didn’t.”

  “Damn it,” said Marc, “why don’t they play a waltz?” and swerved just in time to avoid an overstuffed colonel who was sailing back and forth across the floor, four sheets to the wind, with a rather bewildered redheaded girl in tow.

  “I thought you didn’t like waltzes,” said Erica.

  “I don’t. It’s what goes with them. By the way, your sister is definitely drunk. I wouldn’t mention it, but she’s bound to tell you herself sooner or later.”

  “You liked her, didn’t you?” asked Erica anxiously.

  “Yes, darling, of course. I never saw a woman who could drink so much and show it so little.”

  “This is one of her off nights,” said Erica apologetically.

  “Extremely off, I should say. What I liked most about her is the fact that she likes you. By the way, she asked me if I didn’t think it might be better for you to leave home and get a place of your own to live.”

  Erica missed a step, said mechanically, “I’m sorry,” and then answered matter-of-factly, “She thinks I’m going to develop into one of those spinsters who devote their lives to their parents. It’s just one of her ideas.”

  “Yes,” said Marc.

  “What else did she say?” asked Erica over his shoulder.

  “Nothing much. My God,” said Marc, “he’s back again.” The only way to make certain of avoiding him was to dance in a circle around the outside of the dance floor, for the colonel always tacked several feet from the edge.

  It took them several minutes to get past the orchestra where Marc could talk again without shouting into her ear. He said, “Don’t look so worried, Eric.”

  “I’m not, only ...”

  “Only what?”

  “Miriam often makes things sound much worse than they really are.”

  “I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about. If you think your sister was giving me a blow-by-blow account of your home life ...”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it!”

  “I was speaking figuratively,” said Marc with dignity. “Anyhow, the conversation was entirely general, mostly on the subject of relative values, only just as I was beginning to be really profound, she said she felt sleepy.”

  The music stopped and they waited, hand in hand, and then the lights went down. “Thank God. Where do you think we’re least likely to be noticed?”

  “Out in the middle,” said Erica, “but you don’t waltz that badly.”

  He took her in his arms without answering, steered her out to the middle, kissed her quickly and holding her very close again, he said with his lips against her cheek, “We’re too tall. I don’t suppose it’s ever occurred to you that there are distinct advantages in being a dwarf?”

  “Well, no, it hadn’t,” Erica admitted, “but I see what you mean.”

  They danced for a while in silence. She could feel his mood changing, and at last he said abruptly, “Eric ...”

  “Yes?”

  He paused and then said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Something — unpleasant?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  She drew away from him so that she could look up into his face, his dark, sensitive, intelligent face which she loved so much. The orchestra was playing a waltz left over from the last war; she had been trying to think of its name and for some idiotic reason, she went on trying to think of its name although it did not matter in the least, and she already knew from his expression what was coming. She said, “All right, I’m ready.”

  “I’m on draft.”

  “Yes,” said Erica. A young naval officer knocked against her left shoulder as he danced by and she said, “I’m sorry,” again, without thinking, and asked, “When, Marc?”

  “Some time around the last week in September.”

  About a month from now.

  She said suddenly, “It’s the ‘Missouri Waltz.’”

  “I know. There are only two waltzes I really like, except the Viennese waltzes, of course, and that’s one of them.”

  “What’s the other?”

  “‘Moonlight Madonna.’ It always reminds me of your — I mean, your hair isn’t really gold, it’s ...”

  He stopped, and she said, “That means you’re going to camp again, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, next Monday.”

  It was Wednesday already.

  The Gatineau Rifles had gone over to Dieppe a few days before; time and again she had heard Marc say, “Reinforcements for the First Battalion overseas,” but it had sounded like something which would materialize with the opening of the Second Front some time next year, and not — next Monday.

  ‘The Missouri Waltz’ went on and the colonel passed them again, this time with a brunette in tow. She found herself thinking that he must go through his partners a lot faster than most people, and hoped that he had come well provided, like a racing car equipped with several extra sets of spark plugs.

  “Marc, you are going to Petawawa, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  He could feel the breath going out of her with relief and he said, “I’m sorry, Eric. I should have told you that right away.”

  “I was so afraid it would be Camp Borden, and you’d be too far for me to see you.”

  It was better to figure things out so that you knew exactly where you stood, like collecting all your bills and adding them up when you were broke, in order to see just how broke you were. He would get one forty-eight hour leave, so what it amounted to was five days between now and Monday, then forty-eight hours, and finally a week or ten days’ embarkation leave — probably a week, because they were obviously rushing it now — most of which Marc would have to spend with his parents five hundred miles away. They had already discussed that. Five days, forty-eight hours, say two days of his embarkation leave to be on the safe side, and finally a last dinner together when he was on his way through to Halifax. They could be more broke, this being August, 1942, though not much.

  “It makes nine days altogether,” said Marc. “That is counting from now to next Monday too, of course.”

  He paused and then went on hurriedly, evidently afraid that if he stopped to think how this thing ought to be said, he might not be able to say it at all, “They told me at Headquarters that I could go as soon as I’d got everything cleaned up there. I don’t think it will take more than one day — tomorrow and maybe part of Friday. If you could get off, then we’d have almost three days together. Sylvia wouldn’t mind, would she? I can get to Petawawa any time before midnight on Monday and ...”

  It seemed to him that he had been talking a long time without getting anywhere except back to Petawawa again. The music stopped and he stood facing her, his
hands at his sides, and said, “I’m asking you to go away with me, Eric.”

  “Yes,” said Erica. “Yes. Darling, you didn’t have to ask!”

  VII

  Through the open windows of the bedroom they could hear the church clock striking in the village down at the other end of the lake, and Erica said wonderingly, “It’s three o’clock.” So five hours had flowed by them uncounted, into the past, for she remembered that the clock had been striking ten as they opened the door of Marc’s room. Before that, there had only been one brief interval since they had left Montreal when she had known what time it was. They had gone for a swim as soon as they arrived at the hotel, drifted for a while in a canoe, and then spent what was left of the afternoon lying in their bathing suits on the float anchored off-shore. Someone had called to them from the beach, “It’s half past seven and the dining room closes at eight; if you want any dinner, you’d better hurry.”

  The lake was in a valley with the Laurentian mountains rising steeply all around the edge, except at the other end where the rise began farther back, leaving enough more or less level ground for the village. The hillsides were green, and across the lake there were a lot of small houses up and down on different levels, like brightly painted toys.

  Above them as they lay on the float, up a path like a stairway with broad, grassy steps, was the hotel, a long half-timbered building from which you could look down on the lake or out over the mountains, north, west, and south. The hotel stood with its back to the east, and the road wound its way through the Laurentians and then down a steep slope to the back door, so that you came into a small lobby on the second floor and went downstairs to get to the front door facing the lake, and the path to the beach.

  There was a stone-paved terrace with small tables under orange and yellow umbrellas where they had sat for a while after dinner drinking coffee and then a brandy, watching the sunset and the slowly moving, slowly changing reflections in the water. The lights had come on one by one in the little houses across the lake, but before the moon rose they had come upstairs. Erica had heard the village clock striking the first of the ten notes as Marc opened the door, and the last sound to reach her from the outside world was a whippoorwill calling from the bush somewhere behind the hotel. After that there was silence and she was in his arms at last.

  As she lay beside him later, individuality began to return and take form; she could feel the outlines growing clearer and more firm but it was a new mould, subtly different from the old one. She wondered if you got a new one each time and was on the point of asking Marc, but it was all rather involved and difficult to explain, and instead she went to sleep.

  “Hello,” said Marc.

  “Hello. Have I been asleep long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you?”

  He drew his arm out from under her and sat up, rubbing it, “No, I’ve just been looking at you.”

  Erica also sat up, asking anxiously, “Have you got a cramp?”

  He shook his head. “Just stiff.”

  “Why didn’t you shove me off?”

  “Because I didn’t want to.” He paused, listening, and remarked, “Romeo and Juliet had a nightingale but all we get is a whippoorwill. Persistent, isn’t he?”

  “Maybe it’s a different one.”

  “I don’t think so. He always goes flat on the second note.”

  “He may have a slight cold,” said Erica. “I remember thinking he probably had when we first came up, so I guess it must be the same one.” She settled back on the pillow again while Marc took two cigarettes from the table beside the bed and lit them, and finally Erica said candidly, “I don’t see how even a whippoorwill can expect to get anywhere with a voice like that. He might just as well give up and go home. Incidentally, it was a lark, not a nightingale — remember?”

  She repeated softly,

  “‘It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

  Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.’”

  “Go on,” said Marc.

  “What with?”

  “Shakespeare.”

  She thought a moment, looking up at the ceiling, and then said,

  “‘O fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle;

  If thou art fickle what dost thou with him

  That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune;

  For then, I hope, you wilt not keep him long ...”

  “I don’t think I particularly care for that bit after all,” said Erica after a moment’s silence.

  “I wasn’t listening to the words,” said Marc. “It’s your voice. Did I ever tell you what a lovely voice you have?”

  “No, I don’t think so. You may tell me now if you like.”

  “Some other time.” He kissed her shoulder and the hollow at the base of her throat and then lifting his head to listen again he said, “Everything is sort of suspended. It’s so quiet, Eric ... even our whippoorwill seems to have gone off the air for the time being.”

  He pulled the pillows up behind his head and turned so that he could see her better. “Are you sleepy?”

  “No, are you?”

  He shook his head.

  “When do we sleep?” asked Erica without much interest.

  “Later,” he said vaguely, paused, and then added, “Probably much later.”

  Erica moved over so that she was lying with her head on his shoulder and observed in a detached tone, “You know, you’re going to be in a shocking condition when you arrive at camp Monday.”

  “They must be used to it by this time.”

  After another brief silence she asked suddenly, “What were you like when you were a little boy?”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve told me a lot, but there are still too many gaps. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing; I want a whole picture, not one full of holes.”

  “Where shall I start?”

  “Well ...” She thought, and then asked, “Have you always lived in the same house?” He nodded. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s just a house, with a big veranda in front and a lot of trees around it, and a garden at the back that slopes slightly down toward the garage, so in winter when the snow is melting, the water in front of the garage is about a foot deep. David and I used to get hold of some planks every year and paddle around on them till we fell off. It was wonderful,” he said reminiscently. “The water was good and muddy.”

  Erica wanted to know about the inside of the house and after struggling, Marc finally produced the information that the sitting room contained some ferns or something in brass pots, and a canary named Mike that never sang.

  “How long have you had Mike?”

  “Oh, years. He must be pretty old by now.”

  After trying to visualize the sitting room furnished with brass pots and one aging canary, Erica gave up. “What about your room?”

  He was much more satisfactory on the subject of his own room. He even told her that there was a large spot on one corner of the carpet where years ago, the afternoon plane on the Moscow-Zagreb line running above his desk had come down too low, picked up a bottle of ink and deposited it somewhere in Transylvania.

  “Of course that was around 1922 when the airplane industry was still pretty young and almost anything was like to happen.”

  Erica laughed and then asked, “How did the planes work?”

  “On wires. They had hooks on the nose and tail so you could attach them to the wire on one side of the room and they’d shoot down the slope to the landingfield on the other. I kept building more planes and rigging more wires and our maid kept complaining to Mother that whenever she tried to get in there to clean, the wires either caught in her hair or tripped her up. Mother was sympathetic but that was about as far as she was willing to go. For the first time in my life I seemed to be learning geography, accidentally, of course, but she’d realized by then that accidentally was the only way I was ever likely to learn any. Then David came home from his firs
t year at medical school and I lost interest in airplanes and began dissecting frogs all over the house and filling my room with bottles containing various forms of animal life, more or less preserved in alcohol.”

  “What happened to the less preserved ones?”

  “Mother used to go into my room and remove them when I was out,” he said, sighing. “I remember being particularly annoyed about a small mud puppy which vanished when I was out fishing. Mud puppies are pretty rare and it had taken me weeks of digging around in swamps and streams before I finally found one. I felt that its scarcity value should have outweighed its smell. Mother didn’t.”

  He said thoughtfully, “You know, I’ve always wondered what Mother did with those things. Do you suppose a young mud puppy, slightly overripe, would burn easily?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “I must ask her some time.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Maria,” he said, giving it the German pronunciation. “How are the gaps?”

  “Filling up nicely, thank you.”

  “Mine aren’t,” Marc pointed out.

  Erica was more interested in her own gaps than in his, and she asked, “When did you first decide you wanted to be a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know. I must have been pretty small anyhow. I used to sit on the back fence and look at the Algoma Hills and dream of being a judge. I don’t know what gave me the idea of going on the Bench either, it must have been something I’d read.”

  There it was again, she thought, as the stone wall which had appeared for the first time that day back in June when Marc had said, “They don’t take Jews,” suddenly turned up again in front of her. She knew by now that there was no way of getting through it, over it or around it, but she had not yet learned to take it for granted. Whenever she was confronted with it she always stopped and stared for a moment, while the conversation went on without her.