Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America, and All the Ships at Sea

by Richard Bausch

  “Not much of a view,” she said, bringing the drinks in on a tray.

  She sat next to him and put her drink to her lips, watching him. He took his own drink and sipped from it.

  “Good?” she said.

  “Very.” He took another sip. He liked the taste, though it did nothing to warm him inside as she had said it would.

  “You are very attractive young man, Walter. And I do—I wish you vas older sometimes.”

  “What difference—what difference does my age make?” he said.

  She studied him. “You are always so nervous.”

  He almost choked on the drink. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know you are attractive?”

  “No.”

  “People who know they’re good-looking—I think they are not such nice people sometimes. Even when they are supposed to be.” She drank. Then she leaned forward. “A toast. To us.”

  “To us,” he said, and they clinked the glasses.

  She swallowed. “Because I feel the same vay. I don’t feel attractive.”

  “Oh,” he said, “but you are.” He drank.

  “No,” she said. “I look in a mirror and vhat do I see? A big nose too big for the face. And a long chin. I don’t like my chin.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. The drink was tingling in his nerves, somehow. He took more of it.

  She stared at him. “You would not disillusion me, I think.”

  “No,” he said.

  “To beauty,” she said, holding her glass up. “And to all the beautiful people.”

  “That’s us.” He drank. He looked at the room with its tall bookcase and its television, its pictures of horses standing in grass fields under sunny skies. “You like horses,” he said.

  “Since I was little girl in Berlin. I told you. We went to the Catholic school and the sisters took us for walks out to the countryside.”

  “Have you ever ridden one?”

  “Long ago. In Germany. I vas very small, before the bombing starts.”

  For a long moment, they were quiet.

  “My father works at the embassy,” she said. “He is not an important man, but a good man. He keeps the accounts—for all the services, you know? The butlers and the maids and the drivers. All that.”

  “Yes.”

  “A good man, to bring me here. He wants to make me a citizen. Always I try not to let him down.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  After another pause, she said, “I don’t ride horses now. I only have pictures. You ride horses?”

  “I did when I was ten. A Tennessee walking horse. You know what they are?”

  “I think so.”

  “A very strange gait, the Tennessee walking horse. I rode it bareback.”

  “Bareback. How nice.”

  The ice rattled in the glasses. She finished hers and got up to pour more whiskey for herself. “It’s good straight, too, you know.”

  “I’ve still got some ginger ale,” he said.

  She came back and took her place. “I like to sit in the dark.” She crossed one leg over the other. Marshall realized that the light was almost gone from the room. “I do,” she went on. “It makes me feel hidden.”

  “You’re not afraid of the dark?”

  “Only sometimes.”

  A moment later, she said, “I vonder, has somebody broken your heart?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You must have hundreds of girlfriends.”

  “Oh, well—sure. I’ve dated all the runner-ups for Miss America. Since—1960.” He shook his head and gave her a sardonic smile. “I’m swamped with them. Can’t fight them all off.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t have hundreds of girlfriends,” he said.

  “Nobody for funny Walter?”

  He took a long drink. The whiskey seemed to be gathering behind his eyes. It was as if some pressure had begun there. But he felt good, too, and he was no longer so nervous.

  “I’m sorry—I embarrass you.”

  “I think you’re very beautiful,” he said.

  She put her glass down and sat forward. “In Germany, a man does not speak to a voman like this unless he has intentions.”

  “Yes,” he said, unable to believe his own ears. “I have in—intentions. Right.”

  “You vould not run away if I said I liked you to stay?”

  “Yes,” he said. Then, “No.”

  “Some men think a woman is something for their fun.”

  “Not me,” he told her. His mind was swimming.

  She put her hands on either side of his face and gazed at him in the near dark. “If I kiss you, you von’t think it’s merely what you deserve?”

  “No,” he said. It was almost a shout.

  “You would treat me so gentle and nice.”

  “Yes.”

  She sat back, put her hands together under her chin, half reclining there, only a shape in the bad light. “You would be unselfish.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “Drink.”

  He swallowed the last of the whiskey and ginger ale, and set the glass down on the table, next to hers. She was very still, and quiet, and he couldn’t tell if she was looking at him.

  “Natalie?” he said.

  “No.” She stirred, brought her legs up under her. “It’s no use.”

  “What’s no use.”

  “I’m silly,” she said.

  “Me, too,” he told her.

  “Drunk,” she muttered.

  “What should I do?” he asked, feeling that he would charge through flames if she asked him to.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “You are such a young nice person. Don’t be a bad man. Don’t be a politician.”

  He waited.

  “You would marry me and make everything all right. You would not worry about before. What happened before…” She stopped.

  “Yes,” he heard himself say.

  She moved closer and put her head on his shoulder. He breathed the fragrance of her hair, turned his own face into it, and kissed her.

  “Sweet boy,” she said.

  His own voice seemed to come from a distance. “Will you marry me?”

  She shifted slightly to look at him, then lay her head down again.

  He kept still.

  “You only know me from the school.”

  “I know I want to marry you,” he said.

  She seemed to take this as a challenge. She sat up straight, and put her hands in her lap. “All right, then. If you vill have me, I’ll marry you. People do it all the time.”

  “You—you’ll marry me?” he said.

  “Why not?” She looked at him. “You don’t believe me?”

  “No—I mean—yes—you’re—you’re not joking.”

  “I don’t joke about such a thing.”

  He coughed, looking through the dirty window across the dimness at the scattered lights of the city at sunset.

  “Just hold me now,” she said, snuggling closer.

  After what seemed a long time, he said her name. Silence. She had fallen asleep. The whiskey was swimming in his head, and he was anxious about his mother, the time, Alice, the falling darkness outside, but he remained very still, supporting her, while she fidgeted and sighed, for more than an hour. When she woke, it was with a start, and she sat up, running her hand through her shining hair.

  “I’m so sorry. Can you please go now, darling, I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “I’ll go,” he said. She stood, unsteadily, and put her arms around him. And now she kissed him, slowly, with an almost leisurely softness.

  “Sweet boy,” she said. They walked to the door, and she opened it, then kissed him again. “Good-bye.”

  “So long,” he said with an embarrassing flourish that he regretted immediately.

  Her smile was faintly tolerant, somehow. S
he kissed him again, this time on the chin, and then stood back, holding the door. “My very dear young boyfriend.”

  “Good night,” he said.

  She touched her finger to her lips, then closed the door.

  Chapter 13

  He would have to tell Alice. He would have to find some way to say the words, to let her down as gently as possible, and, of course, there were no words. When she called, Sunday evening, to tell him that Minnie was going to remain in the hospital for another few days, he strove to think of the way to say it all to her, how he had never meant to hurt her, how it was just that he hadn’t understood his own heart, how he liked and respected her, and had mistaken that for love. No, that wasn’t exactly true, either.

  Everything felt false to him.

  “What’s the matter?” she said—her small voice in the slight static of the phone.

  “Nothing,” he said. It couldn’t be right to tell her over the phone. “I feel bad about what happened. I’ve never seen anything like that.” This was at least true.

  “Minnie’s lived with it all her life,” Alice said, sniffling. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to keep from crying all the time.”

  “No,” he said. “I feel exactly the same way.”

  He would wait until he could explain, face-to-face. He would explain everything.

  But on Monday morning, when he saw her, he couldn’t bring himself to speak, couldn’t bring the words out of himself to begin telling it all. Even so, she seemed strangely withdrawn and quiet, which made him worry that she had somehow read things in his face. They went to lunch together. She seemed so sad and vulnerable. Surely it couldn’t be the right thing to say anything now. She would be spending a lot of time with Minnie, at the hospital. The next few days were going to be hard enough. She and her father had gone to visit with Minnie yesterday evening, she said. And while they were there, the two of them had argued: Her father did not want her involving herself in protests; he forbade it. He talked about the deaths of the three young Civil Rights workers—this and other things, other enormities, frightened him, and he was not reluctant to admit it. He said he had only one daughter and he refused to give her up to anyone’s idea of social justice or to some misguided idealism of her own. He said all this with Minnie lying there staring at him.

  “Misguided?” Minnie said. “Misguided?”

  “You know what I mean,” he told her, “and you know how I mean it. I don’t mean it generally.”

  “You the one misguided,” Minnie told him. “Ain’t you shamed of yoursef, na.”

  She couldn’t get out of the bed on her own, and they were running more tests. At the end of the visit, she refused to speak to Alice’s father, and he was now angry at Alice for this fact.

  “I told him I’m of age,” Alice said. “He can’t tell me what I can and can’t do, and he can’t stop me from going anywhere I want to go.”

  “I’m sorry you’re having to go through this,” Marshall said.

  “It’s not your fault. Although he thinks it is.”

  “Me?” Marshall said. “He blames me?”

  She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, of course. He wouldn’t give me credit for having the idea myself, you see.”

  He said, “Albert thought you were wonderful, Saturday.”

  This seemed to go through her like a pang. Her face appeared about to collapse, and the tears dropped down her cheeks. “You didn’t?”

  “Oh, no—we both did. We talked about it. We thought you were great. We did.”

  She said, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m not just—if I’m doing it all for some kind of approval—from somewhere. But then I look at Minnie. I love her. She’s my mother, for God’s sake—as much as anyone else has ever been. I never even knew my real mother. And the thing about her—Minnie—Minnie’s so much in charge of herself. She’s—herself. Complete—you know? She has an exact idea of where she leaves off and the rest of the world begins. I wish I had her strength.”

  “Is she…” He didn’t know how to phrase the question. He wondered if, now that Minnie had openly defied Alice’s father, she would be let go.

  “They don’t know,” Alice said. “They can’t get to the bottom of it. She’s—she says she thinks her time is up, and her body’s just going along with it. And I took her there. I put her in the way of it.”

  “No,” he said. “Alice—listen.”

  But she wouldn’t be consoled. He walked with her back to work, and she kissed him on the cheek. He had never seen her so quiet. It was as though she were suddenly sensitive to his unease about her. There was something so kindly in the way she looked at him. “I’m going to the hospital after work. Do you want to come with me?”

  “I’ve got school,” he said.

  “Well,” she said, and hesitated. “My father—I think he’s—he’s sort of calling that Brightman thing off.”

  “He’s what?”

  “He said he blames you, Walter. And I got defiant with him. I told him I didn’t care what he thought, that I was going to do what I thought was right. Actually, I didn’t bother to deny it when he guessed the whole thing was your idea. We were—we were yelling at each other, you know, and he—he sort of said we could forget the Mitchell Brightman thing.”

  “Well, can’t—we can’t—we have to talk to him. You have to talk to him.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not talking to him. I’m moving out. I’m getting a place of my own, Walter.”

  “I thought you wanted him to—I thought he and my mother—” He heard himself say these words, felt the lie in it.

  “Oh, he was so ungracious,” Alice said. “Your mother had to notice it.”

  “But what about the party—all those presents.”

  “But that wasn’t for me, really,” she said. “Was it? That was for him, so he could show everyone how fatherly he is. You don’t understand, Walter, and I have to go now. I’m late.” She walked away from him, brushing her eyes with both hands. The other women in her office looked at her with concern, and in a moment they were all standing around her. One of them gave him a look, as though to fix the responsibility squarely where it belonged.

  “It’s not that,” Alice said. “Please.” She turned and spoke to him. “I’ll be home later tonight, Walter. Okay? I’ll call you. You better not call, because you might get him. And there’s no sense giving him any opportunities.”

  Chapter 14

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was two weeks ago. I indulged in pride five times, Father. I was vain a lot. And I committed the sin of drunkenness once. I had impure thoughts twenty times. And, oh, Father, I went to another church.

  Did you go there to worship?

  It was a funeral. The people I was with went, and I couldn’t get out of it.

  If you went to pay your respects to someone, I’m sure it’s all right, son.

  I didn’t even know the person, Father.

  I’m sure it’s all right, though. You didn’t go there to worship.

  No, Father.

  Go on.

  Father, I’m—I’m engaged to be married, and I went to see another woman. And now I think I’m engaged to her, too.

  Pardon me?

  I went to see another woman, Father. Not my fiancée.

  Did you have relations with this other woman?

  Relations, Father?

  Sexual relations.

  Oh, NO, Father. But I was drunk.

  Were you drunk when you went to see her?

  No, I got drunk while I was seeing her.

  Did you go to see her intending to have sexual relations with her?

  I don’t think so.

  You don’t think so. Well, son—did you or didn’t you?

  I think I just wanted to talk to her, Father. See—see her.

  Did you feel that you were doing wrong?

  I think so, Father.

  Did you or didn’t you?

  I think I did.

  Do
you feel something for this woman?

  YES—er, no—I don’t know.

  Perhaps you should speak to her about what you feel.

  You mean my fiancée? The first one?

  The first one—what do you mean—the—I don’t understand, son.

  I asked her to marry me, Father.

  Who?

  This woman.

  Your fiancée?

  Well, not my—not the real—the first fiancée—no.

  I think you’re going to have to explain this a little further, son.

  I asked a woman other than my fiancée to marry me. And she said yes.

  So now you’re saying you have two fiancées?

  Yes, Father.

  Are these women Catholic?

  One is.

  Which one?

  The second one. But the first says she’ll convert.

  Do they know of each other?

  Oh, NO, Father.

  How old are you, son?

  Nineteen, Father.

  I see. Excuse me—I have a—little—a cough. Wait. Aha. Hah. Excuse me. Go on.

  I don’t want to hurt anyone, Father.

  Do you love your—er—ah. Hah. Agh. Uh—fiancée?

  Which one?

  Either one—any one. I don’t know. Ah. Let’s start with the first one.

  I’m sorry, Father.

  Well?

  I don’t know, Father. I know I like her.

  And the second?

  I think so.

  You think so what—you think you like her?

  No, love. I think I love her.

  Son—what is this?

  I don’t know, Father.

  You love her. The second one, I mean.

  I think I do. I don’t know, Father. It’s all so confused.

  Look, what exactly are you trying to confess here? Confusion is not a sin. At least as far as I can still tell.

  I think I might’ve lied to the first one, Father. In a way. I kissed her, and it meant more to her than it did to me. I mean, I think I knew it meant more to her. No, I know it did.

  You know what conditions have to obtain for something to be a sin, don’t you?

  Yes, Father.

  Well, what did you intend in all this?