The O'Briens

by Peter Behrens

  “Let me get dressed first. I’ll go around back, put on the rest of my clothes.”

  “No, really,” she said. “Just as you are. Please.”

  He looked at her with such a serious expression she wondered if she had offended him somehow. Maybe he thought she was making fun of him.

  “Please.”

  He shrugged. As she opened the camera he walked back to the machine, threw his leg over, and sat in the saddle. For a moment she was afraid he might grab the handlebars and try to pose as though riding. Instead he leaned back slightly, crossing his arms on his chest.

  As she peered into the viewfinder he looked straight at her, with more force and determination than she’d felt in any other man’s gaze. A hardened loneliness in him, matching and filling something in herself. He was almost beautiful. Maybe she was too.

  She made six exposures from different angles.

  “I like to smell the sea,” he said. “I’ll miss it. Miss you as well.”

  “When do you leave for Mexico, Mr. O’Brien?”

  “Damn Mexico. I like it here.”

  If you want to kiss me, she thought, you might as well do it now. I want to be open, not closed. What if she slipped off the seersucker jacket, pulled the black woollen blouse over her head, and offered herself to him? A woman shaking with desire and loneliness, like a door left banging in the wind.

  He kick-started the engine and ran it up a couple of times. The noise was too much, and before she could say anything more he had started off down the canal path, kicking up dust, not looking back once.

  Was he annoyed with her for taking his picture on the motorcycle? Maybe it wasn’t how he saw himself. She had his jacket anyway. He’d have to come back for that.

  ~

  She developed the negatives and laid out the first set of prints for Elise to look at.

  “Hmmm, these are good,” Elise said. “These are rather wicked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His bare arms were crossed, the goggles were pushed back on his head. Clear eyes, burnished face. His black hair was stiff and coarse with salt.

  “Maybe you’ve caught a little bit of Mr. Joe O’Brien that he didn’t want you to see.”

  Iseult reconsidered the images. He looks like the future, she thought. Lucid, gleaming, and something withheld.

  She went home to bed, slept deeply, and the next morning walked all the way to Santa Monica to buy expensive German paper at the camera shop on Third Street. Then she went to the studio, chose the strongest image, and printed it over and over again until she was satisfied.

  ~

  Venice Land Company

  Windward Avenue

  Venice, Calif.

  1st March, 1912

  Dear Miss Wilkins,

  Would you care to see some flying? My brother and his partners will be at the aerodrome at Griffith Park, Sunday next. I could call for you at say 9 a.m. and make a day of it. But let me know. I think you must have my jacket, by the way.

  Yours truly,

  J. O’Brien

  ~

  Linnie Cottage

  2nd March

  Dear Mr. O’Brien,

  If you come by at 9 o’clock I shall be ready.

  Regards,

  Iseult Wilkins

  ~

  The motorcycle roared up through the canyon and down into the San Fernando Valley, which sprawled like an exhausted animal in the heat. Their tail of dust caught up with them as Joe turned off the main road at a sign:

  LOS ANGELES AERONAUTICAL CLUB

  It was supposed to be an airfield, but as they were driving in, the place looked like any ramshackle California farm. She saw a barn. Then she saw a big, luxurious Pierce-Arrow automobile parked next to pair of flying machines tethered to the ground. The barn doors were open and Grattan and two other men were inside, working on a flying machine. As Joe helped her from the sidecar they came out, all three wearing blue coveralls.

  “What do you say, Grattan?” Joe asked. “Will you be going up?”

  “Good flying weather, isn’t it.” Grattan introduced Iseult to the two Frenchmen. M. Levasseur was tall, thin, and gawky in his movements, like a heron. M. Tourbot was stocky and dark, and he shook her hand with some impatience.

  “We have installed the new propeller,” Grattan said. “If you and Miss Wilkins will lend us a hand, we can roll her out. I’m taking the first hop.”

  They trundled the machine out of the barn, Iseult and Joe at one wing, Tourbot and Levasseur at the other, Grattan pushing the tail. The aircraft seemed delicate and fragile, like an enormous dragonfly, she thought.

  While Grattan strapped on a leather helmet and pulled on leather gauntlets, the Frenchmen adjusted wires and struts. She watched the cloth-covered wings warp and flex when little M. Tourbot manipulated a pair of wooden pedals in front of the pilot’s wicker seat.

  “Now, Miss Wilkins, would you like to go up?” Grattan said.

  A quick panic so deep she felt like laughing. And a sense of everything being unreal, colours changing, sparks of light flying off M. Levasseur’s spectacles.

  “Of course,” she heard herself saying. “I’d love to.” She couldn’t bear to show any fear in front of Joe O’Brien.

  “No, Grattan, don’t be ridiculous. Of course she won’t,” Joe said. “That’s not why I brought her out. ”

  “But I want to,” she insisted.

  “No,” Joe said. “I won’t allow it.”

  “I tell you, I want to go.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Joe’s right,” Grattan said. “It is too dangerous.”

  “Miss Wilkins, there was never any question of your going up in the machine. It never occurred to me.”

  “Why did you bring me out here, then? And who are you to tell me what I can’t do?” She turned to Grattan. “Grattan O’Brien, if you’re a gentlemen, you won’t be bullied by your brother. Does your offer stand, sir?”

  “Well, I guess it does, Miss Wilkins. If you put it that way.”

  “I will not stand here and allow you break your neck,” Joe said. “If you think that’s the kind of man I am, Miss Wilkins, you don’t know me.” There was kind of fury, a passion, in him she’d not seen before; his eyes shone with it.

  Iseult touched his arm. It felt hard. “Come on, Joe O’Brien,” she said softly, “let’s talk. I must talk to you.”

  It surprised her that he allowed her to lead him away while Grattan and the others went back to fussing over the machine. She and Joe walked out onto the crisp stubble that had once been grass. Locusts were sputtering and flicking themselves at the sun.

  She held his arm. “I want to be closer to you,” she said. “Do you understand? This is what matters now. This is what is interesting. Don’t you feel it?”

  He stopped. Standing in the forceful sunlight, eyes narrowed, he gazed at her.

  “Don’t you?” she repeated.

  “All right. Go up, if that’s what you want. I won’t stop you. Only you ought to marry me, Miss Wilkins. I think it would be better if you did. I want to marry you right now.”

  “You do?”

  “I strongly do.”

  She could hear the wind whining through struts and steel wires. She looked over her shoulder at Grattan and the two Frenchmen, who were busy, or pretending to be. No telling if they’d overheard.

  Meanwhile, Joe O’Brien had somehow regained all his composure. “There it is, Miss Wilkins,” he said wryly. “Fine piece of an offer, wasn’t it? Pretty smooth.”

  “Do you wish to withdraw your offer, Mr. O’Brien?” she said.

  “No. Not in a million years.”

  ~

  Fear wasn’t bad unless you let it show. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast: maybe that was why she felt weak. Or was it just pure fear stirring her intestines? Her mouth tasted dry. I really don’t want to be mangled, she told herself. Don’t want to be burnt. But if we get up and down again, everything will taste better. I’
ll know myself better.

  “We shall want to shift the machine about again, I suggest,” the tall, skinny Frenchman, M. Levasseur, said. “The wind is turning.”

  M. Tourbot and Joe each took a wingtip and she helped M. Levasseur and Grattan lift the tail. The undercarriage was an assembly of varnished wooden struts supporting a pair of spoked bicycle wheels. The wings and the forward part of the body were covered in yellow cloth; the rest of the framework had been left bare and looked like a skeleton.

  They swung it around until it nosed into the wind. Tourbot and Joe supported the wings while Grattan climbed gingerly into the pilot’s seat, then signalled for Iseult to scramble up into the observer’s seat. She tried to hold her skirt about her, sensing that if she put a foot in the wrong place she would break the taut fabric of the wing. Her seat had a leather belt attached and M. Levasseur demonstrated how to cinch and buckle it. Then he ran around and gave the propeller a spin, then another, and on the second spin the motor began to spit and snarl.

  Iseult felt the machine trembling. It seemed as frail as a paper lantern, except for the dirty stink of exhaust spurting from the motor and the manic whipping noise from the propeller. The machine began to move forward in a series of awkward jerks, with the three men walking along supporting the wings and the tail, the motor raging, frame creaking, wires and struts groaning and squeaking as the wings sagged and flexed.

  They began picking up speed. Now Joe and M. Tourbot were running to keep up, barely holding onto the wingtips. Looking down at the rushing ground, she saw a rabbit leap into a hole, and then they were lifting off, white rubber wheels skimming the grass and rising, spinning free as the machine bucked into the air. They kept climbing at a shallow angle. She could feel the propeller dragging them up, the engine screaming. Invisible airflow punched the machine and she felt it skip and shuffle, but still she felt the motive pull upward. She stared at Grattan’s bare neck, the back of his head wrapped in brown kid leather. He began tramping hard on one of the foot pedals, warping the starboard wing, which dipped. They were turning. She clutched his seat back, terrified of falling out. They were still climbing as they turned. Dry pasture below, tawny squares of wheat fields, a streak of grey road, cows, blue buildings on the edge of Glendale, the San Gabriel peaks.

  Flying level now. Grattan twisted around and grinned at her.

  Exhilaration.

  ~

  The landing was fast and alarming, fear climbing in her throat as the plane dropped suddenly. A side wind buffeted the machine and made it skip, but Grattan straightened it out and lifted the nose at the last moment. Iseult felt the bicycle wheels bump, skip, then bump again and start running over the rough ground.

  The Frenchmen and Joe were waiting by the Pierce-Arrow, M. Tourbot gripping a green champagne bottle by its neck, and four fluted glasses. M. Levasseur came forward and helped her climb down. She heard him telling Grattan they had been in the air twenty-seven minutes. M. Tourbot filled their glasses and, standing beside the plane, made a toast. “All honour to yourself, mademoiselle. Félicitations!”

  The wine tasted sweet and good. She touched the yellow cloth covering the wing. Everything lit with sun, the crisp wine and the fierce engine smell and the toasted scent of dry grass. Even the dust kicked up by the desert wind had fragrance. She coughed and felt the first minute ache in her chest. She looked around for her silk scarf, thinking to hold it over her nose and mouth, but she couldn’t see it anywhere.

  Tourbot and Levasseur were drawing straws to see who would pilot the next flight. Grattan was kneeling on the ground and greasing the wheel hubs.

  “Are you going to fly?” she asked Joe.

  He shook his head. “No, not me. There’s enough excitement here on the ground for me. Have you had a chance to think over what I said?”

  A spell of coughing shook her.

  “Joe! Miss Wilkins! Come give us a hand!” Grattan shouted.

  M. Levasseur had won the draw and was climbing into the pilot’s chair. He sat pulling on his gloves and helmet while Iseult and the others picked up the machine and started turning it into the wind.

  The coughing fit had passed but she could feel her lungs itching. All her life, high excitement and stimulated feelings had been followed by disastrous spells of bronchial inflammation. Sore lungs and weak, whispery breathing. She’d learned to seek solitude and emptiness for a kind of peace.

  M. Tourbot ran forward to spin the prop, and as soon as the motor fired he scrambled up into the observer’s chair. He was still buckling himself in as the plane began moving. Joe supported one wing, Iseult held the other. Grattan was supporting the tail. She could feel the machine quivering and flexing as the undercarriage trundled over the rough ground. It began picking up speed. She had to walk faster and then run to keep up. The wing surged from her grasp and the plane stumbled over grass for a few more yards, then the wheels lifted off. She stopped running and stood shielding her eyes against the sun, trying to ignore the ache in her chest, watching the frail machine staggering up into the blue sky.

  There was more champagne in an ice chest underneath the Pierce-Arrow. “It’s great having Frenchmen for partners,” Grattan said. Joe would not take any more wine but Grattan refilled her glass and his own. Keeping to the narrow strip of shade beside the automobile, they ate hard-boiled eggs, cucumber sandwiches, and peaches from a wicker basket.

  She was sitting on the running board and Joe and Grattan were lying on the grass when she felt Joe’s thumb and fore-finger wrap around her ankle and hold on. She felt electrified and calm all at once. Nothing seemed impossible. Her lungs ached, but if she was lucky and stayed calm the inflammation might subside. Perhaps more cold champagne would help. She refilled her glass.

  The O’Brien brothers lay on their backs and passed a pair of binoculars back and forth. The distant buzz of the airplane engine was no louder than the insect hum. She sipped her wine. She had taken off her little jacket, but even in the shade she could feel the dry heat licking her, like sitting too close to a stove. Every now and then he touched her ankle.

  “It is dangerous, you know,” Grattan said. “Joe’s right about that. I’ll tell you the honest truth, Iseult — I would not let Elise come out today, not in her condition.”

  The ground was warm, storing heat. She sensed the attack coming. It was the dust, the golden dust. The dry wind and the running and the fear. With each breath she could feel tiny switches of pain in the bottom of her lungs.

  Joe had removed his hat, jacket, celluloid collar, and necktie. His white shirt was open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves. His eyes were shut; his face was bathed in sun. He was only a year older than she was. A few years ago he had been a boy.

  What would it be like to lie on top of him? How would it feel to have his hands on her? The clarity of the thought startled and embarrassed her. Picking up the champagne bottle, still cool and wet, she rolled the dark green glass over her lips.

  “He is rolling her a little stiff,” Grattan said.

  Looking up, she watched the machine on its jerky, buzzing circuit high above the field. The wings dipped as it continued banking into a turn. Grattan stood up and held the binoculars pressed to his eyes. Joe arose and stood beside him.

  “Something wrong?” Joe said.

  “Too much rudder.”

  She took a mouthful of champagne, hoping to stop the next fit of coughing, but it couldn’t be stopped and the spasms racked through her. Joe glanced over at her, then went back to staring upwards.

  “Ease up a little!” Grattan was saying. “Come on, mon vieux! Pull it out.”

  She took a sip, hiccupped, choked, spat out wine, and scrambled to her feet. Clutching the champagne bottle and an instinct to escape, run, hide, she started walking blindly past tethered flying machines smelling of varnish, cloth, and grease, crisp grass crunching under her shoes. She was coughing, spilling wine and tears.

  “Oh hell,” she heard Grattan say.

  When she heard the s
creaming engine, she looked up and saw the machine in a plummet, gathering itself to itself, spinning on its own axis. She heard Grattan coming up behind her. He ran past, heading for the place where it — they — would hit. Joe ran past her as well.

  The flying machine hit the earth with a sound like a branch snapping. Insignificant. It hardly registered. The engine scream cut off at the moment of impact.

  Silence. No smoke, no shock, no resonance. Just the play of the wind.

  After her father’s suicide she had smelled gunpowder in every room in the house, an acrid, salty tang that lingered for weeks. Her mother had insisted it was all in her imagination, and perhaps it was. On a warm day in March, three weeks after the suicide, their furnace man had lit every stove and grate in the house and furiously shovelled coal into the furnace. Two Irish housemaids, with the help of three French-Canadian operatives borrowed from the mill, threw open every window in the house and scrubbed it from top to bottom. It hadn’t done any good. She’d still smelled gunpowder.

  It was after that ferocious, useless housecleaning that her mother began talking of selling everything and going out to Pasadena.

  Grattan and Joe were racing across the grey pasture towards the tiny, livid heap of wreckage. She started running too. It was instinctive. A sense of wildness and panic to mark the profundity of death. Breathing askew, eyes blurred with tears and champagne, she ran, her lungs sore and straining. When she tripped over a cable tethered to one of the flying machines, the taut steel wire slashed her shin and she went down hard. The side of her head whacked the grey ground, and then she was out of that place.

  ~

  They were wed at one of the side altars in St. Monica’s. She had known Joe O’Brien five weeks. Mr. Spaulding, Cordelia, Grattan, and a hugely pregnant Elise made up the wedding party. The wedding breakfast was at the Ship Restaurant on Abbot Kinney Pier. Grattan, as best man, read telegrams of congratulation from the seminarian brother, Tom, followed by terse best wishes from Iseult’s Boston aunts and uncles and fulsome French congratulations from her relations in Lille. There was no word from the O’Brien sisters, cloistered in their convent at Ottawa. Joe kept reaching for her hand under the table. After the breakfast Grattan drove them to the Los Angeles train station in the Pierce-Arrow. He was trying to sell the car on behalf of the French consul, who was handling the affairs of the two dead flyers. Joe’s red motorcycle had already been delivered to the station and loaded into the baggage car. They intended to explore the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico and the route of the proposed railway.