Golden Country

by Jennifer Gilmore

  “She does,” said Seymour, who had just come up from the lake, a towel hooked around his neck.

  “Do I what?” Sarah said.

  “Water-ski,” said Seymour. Could Esther see inside, where clothes were strewn in every corner and the air was so stagnant one could have sliced it up and served it for breakfast? Seymour hoped not.

  Sarah snapped the silk mask from her head, holding it by the elastic band with the tips of her fingers. “Yes. Yes,” she said. “Actually, I used to be quite good,” she told her hostess.

  “Well, great,” Esther said. “Fabulous! Why don’t you get ready and come up to the house? We’ll have a bite to eat and then head off!”

  So that there would be as little discussion as possible about the scene between his wife and Sarah Bloom, Joseph rushed back to the table and opened the Maine Times. He liked the Maine Times—it always made him feel that he was a part of the region. The news of people organizing to protest a wire fence, an announcement of the arrival of a new business in town: it made him feel as if he were once again part of a village.

  “What?” Esther said, slamming the screen door.

  Joseph looked up from the paper.

  “Maybe she just isn’t a morning person,” she said. “Lord help me if you were right about this.” Esther took two tomatoes down from the windowsill. “I mean, how many years of analysis am I going to need to know that not everything you say is right?”

  “I don’t know vhat you are talking about.” Esther smelled like the deep, fresh scent of evergreens. It made Joseph think of Miriam and Gloria, and how they would come back from outside, their bare feet covered in tar. He loved those evergreens. “Are ve going skiing?” he asked, pushing up his glasses.

  Esther got out a serrated knife, placed the roundest, reddest beefsteak on the wooden cutting board, and began to slice. She looked out the kitchen window. “Joe, look!” she said.

  Joseph stood to look out and saw Sarah Bloom in front of the guesthouse on her hands and knees.

  “My Lord! What on earth is that woman doing?” Esther gripped the tomato so tightly Joseph thought it would burst.

  She stormed out the screen door. The door slapped closed three times, and then Joseph, hesitating, followed his wife.

  “Everything all right?” Esther called out to Sarah from the patio.

  Joseph could see she was still holding the knife, and she waved it in Sarah’s direction. Sarah was in the flower beds in a long, silk nightgown.

  As Esther walked toward her, Sarah bolted upright, her back still turned. Poor thing, thought Joseph as he approached. But then he remembered Sarah’s display—had it been only a day and a half ago?—at the wedding. Slowly Sarah turned to face her new in-laws. Her look had a vacancy to it that seemed to startle Esther out of her anger. “I only wanted some flowers,” Sarah said.

  Esther put her hands on her hips. “Were there not enough in the cottage?” she asked her.

  Joseph laid his palm on his wife’s arm to stop her. Clearly Sarah was not well. “Ve can get you more,” he said. “Zhey are beautiful, no?”

  “Of course they are,” Seymour said. “And there are more than enough. Thank you.” He placed a hand on Esther’s shoulder.

  “Good,” she said. “I’m fixing a light brunch now, and I was just telling Sarah you must come up to the house for a bite and then we’ll go skiing.”

  “Zhe vater is fantastic,” said Joseph, looking out to the lake.

  “Sounds grand,” Seymour said. “We’ll be up in just a bit.”

  This seemed to calm Esther the way only a man could calm her, and as she pushed her way back to the house, Joseph turned to see Seymour helping his wife to her feet. He took the snapdragons she had torn out by their roots from her hands and tried to pat them back into the earth.

  Joseph followed Esther into the kitchen and watched her place the knife on the cutting board and open the refrigerator. She took out the smoked salmon he had bought in Portland from Merrill’s and the jar of capers. She took out two lemons and a large Vidalia onion, holding them all in her arms as if she were about to juggle, and placed them on the counter. With her palms down, her fingers curled over the linoleum edge, arms outstretched, she breathed.

  “Should I even bother with the kugel?” she asked.

  “Vhy wouldn’t you?” Joseph said.

  Esther shrugged. “What do I care?” She took the Pyrex dish of noodles, sour cream, and its cornflake topping out of the fridge, and slammed it on the counter.

  “So are ve going skiing, Es?” For the second time Joseph peered around his paper. “Should I get zhe boat ready with skis?”

  Esther turned to look at her husband. And he looked at her. What was she thinking? Joseph knew he let in only what he wanted of the world. But Esther seemed just then the opposite of him: nothing ever got out. He imagined his wife, each pore of her a passageway leading directly inside. Once a word or a snatch of dialogue made it through, it fastened to something else in that sea of water and blood. Perhaps, Joseph reasoned, her craziness was these accessed bits of phrases that knocked against the walls of her stomach.

  “My stomach hurts,” said Esther.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Who are you, God? We’ll be ready to go in about an hour. Get the goddamn boat ready by then, okay?”

  Only then did Joseph look at his wife’s face. “What’s zhe matter, Es? Vant me to run out to the stand for some more tomatoes?”

  She looked at her husband and shook her head. “No, Joe.” She turned the tomato she’d been slicing, the one that bore her fingerprints on its side, and began to cut again. “We’ve got enough until tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Joseph said. “Good.”

  “Pull yourself together.” Seymour moved in close behind Sarah, whispering in her ear as she stood in front of the guesthouse.

  He held his wife’s wrist, guiding her up the little steps and into the cottage. But just then its smallness and the odor of dirty clothes and smoke and breath that permeated the dark room that he had been so embarrassed by in front of Esther, were not on his mind.

  Still holding her arm behind her back, Seymour pushed Sarah facedown onto the bed. It had been years since he had been genuinely attracted to his wife. Making love to Sarah had once been the erasure he craved, but now he needed to lose himself from her as well. Usually he got himself excited, Sarah on her side, head propped on her elbow, watching him with a mocking gaze.

  Yet the pathetic image of his wife on her knees in the moist soil, the way the silk of her nightgown fell over her ass, a shimmering moon sinking into the bed of flowers, the dirt he saw underneath her fingernails when he grabbed her arm—it all got to him now. In this position his wife revealed a neediness she rarely showed, though he knew she felt it often.

  On the bed, he pushed up her nightgown. The silkiness of the fabric over his hands and fingers made him harder, and he saw that his wife was not wearing underwear. He slipped inside her easily then, and she pressed against him, drawing him closer. He pushed her into the bed with more force and lay flush against her, the convexity of his own body resting perfectly in the slight concave contours of hers. He reached for her hair and pulled it. She moaned, and so he tugged it harder, as if it were this act that made the sound produced by his wife—a sound he had not heard for ages in this context.

  Sarah stopped. “Wait,” she said. He stopped moving and kissed her neck. She smelled of sweat and the previous evening’s alcohol. Sarah shifted beneath the weight of him, and Seymour started to move as well, but something had been inexorably altered. They were out of sync, and his hipbone now seemed misplaced, that small shift enough to knock them totally off-kilter. He had no idea where to place his hips, and they jabbed into her. As he tried to kiss her neck, she pulled away slightly, which made him put his weight on his arms and begin to move quickly—in and out—in an effort to put them both out of their sudden misery.

  Sarah now lay there like the rag doll she turned into by twilig
ht. And Seymour hated her, this lovely and smart girl who had become a lush of an old woman before his eyes. Just to see her flesh moving sickened him. And he could tell that Sarah met his hatred halfway. While she waited for him to finish, their reciprocal emotions coupled in midair.

  He moved off her and onto his back. When she rolled away from him, he could see the dirt marks on her knees—two smiles—out of the corner of his eye. For one brief moment a fear came over Seymour as he remembered her in the dirt that way: What is happening to her? he had thought.

  She patted his shoulder. “Oh, Seymour,” she said.

  He was shocked at her affectionate tone. It was not right between them. It simply was not right, and this thought went through both of their heads at exactly the same moment, so that when they looked each other in the eye, they converged in a mournful and apologetic embrace.

  Over an hour after Esther had invited them to the house, Seymour and Sarah were dressed, their bathing trunks beneath Bermudas and oxfords. They traipsed up to the main house for brunch.

  “How quaint!” Sarah said when they entered the spacious wooden living room, strewn with oval, multicolored braided rugs.

  Esther smiled against her guest. “Why, thank you,” she said. “Quaint is exactly what my father was going for when he bought the place. We Mainers just adore quaint,” she said.

  Seymour and Joseph nodded to each other, an informal acceptance of the fact that they would be represented by their wives. Esther guided them toward the dining room table.

  “I thought we’d eat,” she said. “So we can get to skiing.”

  Esther brought out the platters of nova and onion and tomato, the bagels, the cream cheese and butter and jelly. She brought out her kugel, cut into squares, browned perfectly on top and placed on her mother’s Limoges platter.

  “Hmmm! The salmon!” Sarah exclaimed once they’d all begun eating. “Though these aren’t New York bagels, to be sure, the lox are to die for.”

  “Actually, it’s nova.” Esther smiled at Sarah. “Lox are very salted, you know.” Her hand fluttered over her chest. “Bad for the heart,” she said.

  Sarah shrugged.

  Seymour said, “These noodles are delicious, Esther!”

  To which Joseph said, “Noodles? It’s kugel! You never had a kugel? Esther’s is the best in the whole U.S. of A.!”

  Esther swatted his words away.

  By the time they all had eaten the first half of their bagels and were into their second cups of coffee, there was a silence.

  “It will be a great day to ski,” Esther said. She pointed outside. “Look how still the water is.”

  Everyone nodded. The white noon light glinted off the lake. The sound of water rippling over the rocks at the shore came in through the open windows.

  “Reminds me,” Esther said. “Sarah, do you need a bathing cap?”

  “You know, I do,” Sarah said. “I didn’t bring my silk pillowcase, and the water will make a mess of my hair for sure.”

  Seymour sighed. Sarah was trying to be nice, and she had been grateful for the gesture, he could tell. She had been terrible, screaming at the wedding that way. In truth, Miriam Brodsky was one of the only civilized girls their son had ever brought around. A bunch of whores they’d all been. Little bitches looking for money or a role in one of Seymour’s productions.

  “Thank you, Esther,” she said. “For everything. You’ve really been so kind.”

  Esther nodded to Sarah, smiling genuinely.

  Joseph knew that was exactly what Esther needed to hear. A little graciousness. He knew these women would never be friends, and he wouldn’t be friends with Seymour Bloom, but for the children, well, they could make an effort.

  Joseph said, “Oh, ve have everything here at camp! Zhe skis, zhe life jackets, the preservers. Don’t you vorry.”

  Joseph saw how Sarah cringed when he spoke. Was it his accent? Joseph brought his hand to cover his mouth.

  Sarah set down her bagel and looked at Joe and Esther. “You know,” she said, “I feel just terrible about what happened at the wedding.”

  Esther nodded. “Of course,” she answered hesitantly, waiting for Sarah to continue.

  But she did not continue. Instead, she picked up her bagel and resumed eating.

  Even Seymour could tell the mood had quickly turned.

  This was an apology? thought Joseph. They would endure these hateful people for their daughter, but that was it. He watched Esther heap on more cream cheese. With that came the strawberry jelly. He stopped himself from sliding the condiments tray away from her reach.

  Joseph and Seymour looked at each other. Should we be apologizing too? they both wondered. But who first? Joseph had simply been reacting at the wedding, and Seymour had responded in kind. It was as if they both decided no at the same time. Seymour squeezed lemon over his salmon, and Joseph dug into his kugel. Truly the best in America, he thought as he chewed the cream and sugar, the crunchy top, all of it distracting him from the problems with his new in-laws as it warmed him through and through.

  It turned out to be a magnificent day for skiing. Joseph knew that Esther didn’t much like skiing, but she did it for him. He had come to adore the sport. Simply to place one toe in the cold water exhilarated him. And driving a motorboat? The boat was not fancy—just a simple sixteen-horsepower, not so great for wear—but there was little that gave him such pleasure.

  Her bathing cap flopping with orange and pink flowers, Esther screamed at her husband as she held the end of the taut line. “Slow down, Joe!” Wildly she made the thumbs-down signal, the universal sign for slow. “For God’s sake, slow down!” she screamed at him. But she was laughing as she moved rather easily in and out of the wake, her tiny tanned legs sticking out of her turquoise bathing suit, which encased her rather large, rounded stomach. Even as Joseph sped up, shaking his fist in the air, it was clear that they were both enjoying themselves.

  Only Seymour didn’t want to ski. “I just never have,” he told Joseph. “And I can’t say I’m too upset about it.”

  “Now’s as good a time as any to start,” Joseph told him. It was usually he who opted out of things. Football. Baseball. Who cared? He liked the tennis, but that was it. Here was this man who had probably killed people, and he was scared to ski.

  “I don’t think so,” Seymour said. He shrugged. The thought of these people seeing him fumble and fall was unbearable to him.

  So reserved he is, thought Joseph. He couldn’t picture Seymour trafficking in liquor or meeting shysters in dark alleys, as he knew his brother had done. Joseph wondered how it was he had ended up surrounded by gangsters. He looked over at Seymour Bloom dressed sharply in his golf jacket and Bermuda shorts, and then he looked down at himself, in swimming trunks and an open Cuban shirt, also his jellies. What made a man make his decisions? thought Joseph. As simple a decision as what to wear. And then as complicated as who to be. Was it a man’s wife? wondered Joseph. Because, when it came down to it, it was Esther who had made him resist so much as using his brother’s capital to invest in anything. Just to look at her face, and also those of their children, made him want to do right in the world. Had Sarah wanted Seymour to do wrong, or had she simply turned her back to it?

  And then he wondered what it would be like to live with a woman like Sarah. She really was very beautiful in her own way. Such marvelous skin, and her hair had a brilliant sheen to it. And bright? God, was she bright, with her allusions to Shakespeare here, her Smith this and Smith that, her “This is what I think of civil rights.” Opinions, this one had. But, even aside from the dramatics at the wedding, there was something very off-putting about the woman. Frightening even.

  “Would you like to drive then?” Joseph asked.

  “It’s okay.” Seymour sat, entirely self-contained, hands in his lap, futzing with his gold watch. Sarah pulled off her navy cotton sweater, and Esther helped her into a life preserver as if it were a coat.

  “Come on,” Joseph said to Seymour.<
br />
  Seymour couldn’t have known what a gift this was, Joseph letting someone else drive the MiriGlo. It was not a big boat, to be sure, but very little gave Joseph the thrill of pulling the gas lever to feel the boat cease and then speed off, watching the hull cut the lake, beads of water flying out to either side of them and hanging there suspended in the sunlight for a moment. He thought of teaching Miriam and Gloria how to drive the boat, and how each Fourth of July they’d go out into the center of the lake. His daughters lying on the deck and the fireworks blooming above them. And then the lull, the darkness but for the moonlight sweeping over the rippling water, the still boats, the strained expectation of beauty, and then the lights again, breaking into flowers across the sky.

  “Oh, all right,” Seymour said. “Why not?” He shrugged.

  Though he had never been at the helm of a boat, it was much easier than driving a car, and after a brief lesson—this is first gear, this is second—Seymour was ready. Sarah had climbed down the ladder and was bobbing in the water, her two skis pointed in the air.

  “Wait a minute.” She laughed. “Who’s driving?”

  Esther turned around. She was so brown, and her eyes flashed black in the sun. Seymour noted that she was a very pretty girl, in a sweet manner he had always liked. He could tell that Esther Brodsky laughed a lot. He realized just then, hearing the faraway tinkle of his wife’s laugh rising from the water, that Sarah rarely lit up that way. Esther turned back to Sarah, and, raising her eyebrows, she yelled, “Your husband!”

  Seymour thought Esther lovely, and so at ease with herself.

  Sarah hesitated, her smile fading just a bit before she gave Esther the thumbs-up.

  “Okay,” Esther screamed toward Seymour.

  And off they went, Seymour jerking the boat for a moment and then going steady and picking up speed, Sarah rising shakily, the rope tensing.

  “Hooray!” Esther said as she watched Sarah getting her bearings. “See? It’s like riding a bike,” she shouted into the wind.