by Liza Wieland
Then, on her side of the train, she sees what the others have: a funeral procession. The small white coffin (Heavens! A child, Clara says) carried on the shoulders of four men in black suits passes at the front of the train. The mourners who follow appear slowly, one by one, sometimes in pairs, having walked, one heavy foot at a time, over the tracks in an awkward kind of gait: climb, step, stop, step, climb. Following the coffin is the priest, or maybe a monsignor, in brilliant purple robes and a golden stole, looking too festive, outrageous. He carries a small crucifix, which catches the sun and turns into a blade in his hand.
Maybe it’s meant to be thrown in on top of the coffin, Elizabeth thinks suddenly, the violence of the gesture surprising her.
A man and a woman follow the priest. He helps her over the railroad ties, and it’s slow going. Once beyond the tracks, the woman stops, shakes herself free of the man’s hand, turns, and begins to run back the way they’ve come. The man lunges to catch her but misses, holds out his arms, shouts something that must be her name. Now passengers across the aisle turn to look out the windows, and Elizabeth sees it, too, the woman hurrying past the line of mourners. Some try to stop her. Others shake their heads and let her go.
On Elizabeth’s side, the pallbearers, coffin, and priest move on, passing beyond a line of plane trees. They become opaque then, as if viewed through the screen on a confessional, people and objects turned into geometry: a white rectangle, aloft, behind which is another rectangle, perpendicular, violet and gold, moving parallel now to the stalled train, in the woods. This is not a graveyard (no church), not a cemetery. Why bury a child here, that place where frightened children are led or left or lured, both in and out of dreams? Maybe it was the father’s idea—or the priest’s—and the mother can’t bear it, won’t watch. She doesn’t want to see it happen anywhere, her child dropped into the ground and left alone. The shiny cross won’t be any use under all that dirt, those shards of leaves, no matter how soft the moss might be.
The left-side passengers are holding their breath now—something new is happening. Oh! Tiens! they whisper. The train’s engineer has come down out of his cab. He’s walking down the line of mourners and into the trees to the west. Elizabeth wishes she could see his face—how grim or sad. He’s going to get the mother and bring her back—Elizabeth knows this as if she were the man himself. Without the mother, his train can’t go anywhere. He disappears into those opposite trees, his pale blue jacket and red neckerchief an inverse of the priest’s garb. Everyone waits, inside this train and outside in the glare of the sun. Somewhere in the next car, an infant wails and is hushed (how was this accomplished so quickly?). In a few minutes, the driver of the train reappears, carrying the mother in his arms. She does not struggle. She has not fainted. He is a large man, and she is small and frail, her arms twined around his neck and her legs like birch sticks, spilling from the black satchel of her dress. His mouth is very close to her ear—he must be whispering to her. They pass through the line of mourners, over the tracks, past her husband, who bows his head and follows. Behind the scrim of trees, Elizabeth sees the little splash of red neckerchief stop between the coffin and the priest.
Soon the mourners have cleared the tracks. The driver returns, then disappears from Elizabeth’s view. The train shudders, begins to move forward. The forest has become impenetrable, as if the trees closed ranks against the world of the living. Nothing more to see here. Move along.
Clara stares, then cranes backward for the last slice of view. When she turns forward again, Elizabeth sees that her face is chalk white, her eyes enormous.
What did he say to her, do you think, to bring her back? Elizabeth asks.
I would give my life to know, Clara says.
So would I, Elizabeth thinks, and she cannot let go of the possibilities, even though she cannot put them into actual words an actual person might say.
It is evening when the taxi from Caen arrives at the Hôtel d’Arromanches. Clara has booked two rooms with baths and sea views. She asks the management to send up sandwiches and cider and bids Elizabeth good night. She is obviously very tired, and Elizabeth is glad for the privacy. She is pleased to discover the rooms do not adjoin. She unpacks her suitcase, and after a tall, sandy-haired boy brings the supper, she settles herself by the open window and listens to the sea. Voices chime up from the bar, though not the words themselves, just the cadences of speech. It’s very soothing. The sandwich is good: butter, cheese, ham, a huge slab of bread, the cider a happy, heady fizz, but gone much too quickly.
It’s after ten. Elizabeth is not accustomed to late nights in Paris, but today’s travel has jazzed and jangled her in some way, caused her to wonder about this eagerness to flee with Clara and to the place of Clara’s choosing. Flee to this: to the sound of the sea, the view of breaking waves where the light from below casts itself over the seawall. She should take up her travel diary, continue studying the French surrealists, but really she understands them perfectly, that the amalgamations of dreams are beautiful and true and not so far beyond us as we think they are.
Women’s laughter drifts up from the bar. The old thirst. The usual thirst. She wants another drink. Maybe the hotel will sell her a bottle to keep in her room. She must go ask now before it gets any later.
In the hallway, she turns left, away from Clara’s door, and takes the stairs two flights down to reception. The boy who delivered her supper sits on a stool behind the front desk reading a newspaper. He appears shocked to see her and asks in English if the countess is unwell. Elizabeth tells him that the countess would like a bottle of spirits, gin or scotch. She is appalled by her own lie and the involuntary manner of its telling.
A short, slight man, middle-aged, with a prominent nose and watery blue eyes appears beside her.
Jenever, he says. Oude.
Pardon? Elizabeth says.
He’s telling you what to buy for the countess.
Jenever? Is it good?
Bien sûr, the man says. He kisses the tips of his fingers.
All right, then, Elizabeth says. How much? She shows him a twenty-franc note.
No money, the boy says. On the bill.
He and the man go across the reception area and into the bar.
She should just hurry away, back upstairs, and try to forget her thirst. Clara will certainly look at the bill and feel—what? Elizabeth isn’t sure. But the old need keeps her rooted there, her mind ticking over itself as if she were trying to understand or remember. And then it’s too late. The boy is back, holding out a bottle wrapped in brown paper.
The countess will like it very much, he says.
Elizabeth searches the boy’s face, listens for any trace of irony, but there is none. The man behind him is nodding.
* * *
The bottle is made of burnt-sienna-colored clay and comes with amusing instructions printed on the label: Selon la tradition, la première gorgée doit être prise sans tenir le verre, mais en pliant le dos pour appliquer sa bouche au verre.
Why not?
Elizabeth places a water glass on the windowsill, pours to the brim, then, without touching the glass, bends to take the first sip.
The sea shouts approval.
After breakfast the next morning, Elizabeth and Clara arrange their chairs at the Café de la Plage to face the small, calm harbor of Port-en-Bessin, and beyond it, the sea, which seems today a lolling, lazy being, undulating and degenerate. Odalisque, Elizabeth thinks. Unaccountably, this makes her want to send a postcard to Miss Moore and her mother. Not of boats, but a drawing of seabirds maybe. Or the seashore. And on the back she would write, There’s not much between here and Coney Island. Isn’t that odd to think about? She would add something more, light and breezy, since her last letter, about Margaret and the accident, must have been terribly distressing.
I will be sixty-four in October, Clara says. That’s a long time to live. I’ve published a memoir, you know, last year.
Elizabeth nods.
It’s mad
e a bit of a splash in literary circles, Clara says. I quite like writing.
You do? Elizabeth says. Can you teach me to like it?
Clara looks puzzled, then deflated. Elizabeth understands Clara was expecting to have a tête-à-tête with someone more enthusiastic about the whole enterprise.
I was joking, she says quickly. I’m just such an awfully slow writer.
You’re young, Clara says. You’ll get faster. You will because you’ll see that time speeds up. At my age, time is just a blur. So you’ve got to work like a whirlwind to get it all down.
Elizabeth nods, though she suspects otherwise. She wants to make Clara happy. She imagines a snowstorm of paper. That’s what a whirlwind would look like. It would be unreadable.
So will you do another volume? she asks.
Oh my, yes, Clara tells her. She lowers her voice to a whisper. I shall have to in order to tell all the secrets.
Are there many?
One or two. But I think there will be more.
Elizabeth wants to say, Tell me one of the secrets, but she’s afraid Clara might expect she would respond in kind.
Also, Clara is saying, something will have to be written about the Paris exposition, and the strikes and the Popular Front lowering the standards of art and literature. You know what I mean, Elizabeth, don’t you?
I think so, Elizabeth says.
But enough of that. You wanted to escape Paris. And I have a few people to see here.
I can certainly amuse myself for an afternoon.
They will want to meet you, though.
Clara seems suddenly flustered. Elizabeth notices she has twisted her paper napkin into a ragged coil.
All right.
That can wait until tomorrow. Why don’t we see about renting a sailboat? I only hope you’re as good a sailor as you told me. The English Channel can be unpredictable. Maybe we should charter a boat instead.
Elizabeth starts to say she’s sailed in the Atlantic before, since she was a child, but it occurs to her that a charter might be more restful. And then she might fish, close to the harbor. Clara doesn’t seem like a fishing sort of person, though. She doesn’t seems like an anything sort of person. Away from Paris, she seems sort of empty, like grand experiences slide through her, like a coin in a broken slot machine. The coin comes right back out again at the bottom of the chute, your very same coin.
A charter would be nice, Elizabeth says.
Yes, Clara says. I thought you’d see it that way. I’ve already arranged a boat for tomorrow.
Elizabeth wonders when Clara might have done this. In her head, a tiny bell rings, but she doesn’t want to upset Clara.
A young mother strolls past, pushing a little girl in a blue pram. The child is singing and the mother laughs at her song. The child is about five, obviously too old for such a conveyance. Elizabeth can see what Clara is thinking: That child should walk. But it’s a happy picture nonetheless, and Clara can’t sustain her irritation. Instead, her eyes fill with tears.
Suddenly, the child climbs out of the stroller and rushes to Clara. Granny! she cries. Clara stiffens. She holds her hands up and away from the child, a gesture of surrender, or as if she is preparing herself to catch a much larger object.
Granny! the child says. What are you doing here?
The mother looks on for a moment, amused and ashamed both, but she is waiting to see what Clara will do. Clara does not move. Finally, the mother comes forward, gently draws the child away from the table, unpeeling her hands from the shiny buttons on Clara’s jacket, explaining that this is not Granny, but a nice woman on holiday.
I’m so sorry, she says. You look like her gran. My mother. You really do.
Clara bows her head. She does not reply.
I hope we didn’t upset your mum, the woman whispers to Elizabeth.
The chartered sailboat is the Sirène, and her captain is the man who stood beside Elizabeth last night and suggested the jenever. He introduces himself as Dominique. He is Belgian. If he remembers Elizabeth, he gives no sign, except maybe his eyes hold her gaze a bit longer than necessary. He seems to assume that Clara and Elizabeth are mother and daughter. When Clara attempts to climb aboard on her own, he commands Elizabeth in French to help. Clara does not correct him, as Elizabeth expects she will, does not say she’s perfectly able. In fact, she looks at him approvingly, as if he is some sort of genius. They behave as if he has not spoken a word—though he has already said a great deal, that he takes on passengers because the fishing is really no good, or he hates fishing, Elizabeth isn’t quite sure, but she does hear the word déteste. He is much better at farming, he says, beaucoup mieux fermier, and Elizabeth wonders why he stays in this place that is too rocky for crops.
He pauses to stare intently at Clara, and Elizabeth feels some sort of fire between them, silent, heated communication. He asks in English where they would like to go.
A little voyage, Clara says. As we discussed.
Dominique nods, casts off the lines, throttles the engine until finally it catches, turns over, about the time Elizabeth begins to wonder if they will ever leave the dock. He stares out to sea with a horrible grimace, scanning the horizon as if he’s looking for a hurricane, a white whale, an albatross, or all three. When he assures them there should be something out there—quelque chose!—Elizabeth knows he means wind enough for a decent sail, but still the idea of a vague threat unsettles her. A strange notion comes into her head: She is in this small boat with her mother and father, the dead, the bereft, and the failure. But they have been somehow reunited and can take on these trials together. She presses herself into a corner of the cockpit.
When they have motored past the channel marker, Dominique prepares to raise the sail. Before Elizabeth can offer to steer the boat into the wind, Clara steps past her to take the tiller in what appears to be a practiced manner. Dominique climbs up to remove the sail cover, hands it to Clara, and she tosses it down into the cabin. He hoists the sail with five mighty pulls. Les lignes, he says, and Elizabeth unwinds the starboard sail lines from the winch, then moves to port. Clara’s look is determined, imperious. The ghost of a smile on her face seems to say, You have underestimated me, my girl.
Le bôme vive, Dominique calls, unhooking the boom. Clara steers out to sea. France is behind them now.
Dominique says something to Clara in French, points to the tiller and then at Elizabeth.
Though Elizabeth has not asked for any explanation, Clara says, Because he’s tired of steering. Just keep on an eastern course.
Clara’s voice is rich with sympathy, as if she knows this particular weariness herself. Dominique steps out of the way, and Elizabeth slides left, then realizes she will have to stand in order to look between the boom and the companionway. Dominique watches her for a moment, shakes his head as if to say, Now we will all drown, and climbs down into the cabin and disappears. There is no sound from below. It’s as if he was never on the boat. Elizabeth looks at Clara.
He is tired of almost everything, Clara says.
Dominique calls up from below.
He’s telling you in the first cove, Clara says. There’s a stone house with a blue door. A friend lives there. We’ll stop to fish.
Then Clara follows Dominique down into the shadows, replacing the boards. Dominique’s hand reaches to pull the companionway hatch closed, a gesture like waving. Elizabeth almost waves back.
Well, this is something. She wonders if he will ask Clara how she liked the jenever. Nothing to be done about that now. Sky above, sea all around. The winds are light, the sea is calm. No sound from below. Elizabeth smiles. Why Clara! You minx! Who would ever suspect? The librarian and the sailor—or whatever he is. Elizabeth has to admit she feels a certain envy. The ease with which they can accomplish such things, men and women.
* * *
The glide of pelicans is more or less easterly. Might as well follow. Elizabeth tacks, roughly, remembers her passengers below, silently promises them to steer a more eve
n course. A pair of pelicans separates from the rest—the squadron—and circles back toward the boat. Elizabeth believes they will fly right through the sail, but one bird banks, turns. The other slows, flaps awkwardly, lands on the prow, arranges itself like a figurehead, completely unconcerned. And profoundly ugly. Scruffy feathers mottled gray and white. Prehistoric, more kin to a dinosaur than anything birdlike. The long bill rummages deep into the breast feathers, under the wings. The pelican does not appear to see Elizabeth. Along for the ride. The boat moves lazily east. What if I turned around and sailed all the way to Wellfleet? Elizabeth muses. The three of us on the open ocean. We could provision in England. Penzance. All that Arthurian magic. And pirates! I think I have had a dream like this, a ship with unknown cargo sealed below.
She wonders suddenly if Clara and Dominique have somehow exited the boat. Or died. Maybe they’ve made a pact, and they know I’ll wait for some minutes, that I’ll have to keep steering, that I’ll be preoccupied, and so I won’t disturb them for however long . . . whatever form . . . Clara would be thinking of Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet of course, but mainly of the lovers’ failure, not their intent to escape. Clara. No. Clara would never be a suicide. She has too much left to say.
Elizabeth realizes she is making up these small amusements to pass the time. Certainly there is no suicide being enacted below, only awkward, desperate lovemaking. The boat creaks like a bed, the sail flutters like a falling dress, the mast rises . . . obviously. She smiles at her own little pornographic bons mots. Louise will enjoy this story. Perhaps Sigrid, too.
Twenty minutes tick by. The pelican preens and shifts but does not fly off. How will the lovers look when they come up for air? she wonders. And what should I be doing? There is nowhere else to go, nowhere to turn away from the closed cabin door. She cannot leave the tiller. She wishes she had not made such a frenzied escape out of Paris. Looking back, she sees there was no need, her hysteria as insubstantial as a hangover. The figurehead pelican looks her in the eye now, just now, with its wise, wild, ancient gaze, mocking. How silly to put human thoughts into the expressions of animals. She’s learned this from Marianne Moore. What is happening here? she mouths to the bird, which hops to starboard, really an awkward shuffle, not a hop at all. She should write to Miss Moore, Elizabeth decides. Just news. I sailed with the comtesse de Chambrun and a Belgian fisherman. Nothing about this moment, though—she would hardly know how to express this state of affairs to Miss Moore. No, write only about the landscape, the familiarity of the sea, the child in the café.