Shipwreck

by Louis Begley

  Gone were the days, North told me, when telephone communications between Spetsai and the outside world were truly awful and calling the United States took considerable time and perseverance. Still, receiving calls at the Painters’ house was complicated, because the phone rang also in the quarters occupied by Marina and her husband, who naturally answered, because almost all calls were in fact for them, and I made it a rule not to answer so as not to have to convince some voluble Greek to stay on the line while I ran to fetch Kosta or Marina to the telephone. I arranged, therefore, to call Lydia every third day, at the same hour, just before she left the hospital. Efficiency and predictability were my goals, but the system also made it easier to make sure Léa was out of the room. The risk that if she saw me telephone Lydia she would immediately want to perform once again the services inspired by my call to Lydia from Paris about the French prize would have been intolerable. I spoke to Lydia, therefore, unconstrained either in my lies—necessary to brush Léa out of the picture I gave Lydia of my daily activities—or in my tenderness. I listened carefully, weighing each of her words, as she gave me news of her work and the family, told me which friends she had seen, and so forth. It all rang true; there was nothing feigned I could detect. Lydia’s intelligence and good nature, and innate rectitude, shone through every word. She showed no trace of guilt or embarrassment about not having come to Spetsai. That meant, I concluded, that she didn’t feel any. So far as she was concerned, she had acted sensibly, having considered, in perfect good faith, the competing claims: my health and need to get away; my reluctance to be alone; and the demands of her work. Perhaps she had not even bothered to articulate for herself the reasons for her decision. It was enough that it had been made. She didn’t feel the need to review it. And I didn’t hear anything that suggested trouble still brewing between us. If there had been such a thing when she left for Kyoto, or when she returned and refused to come to Spetsai, it had disappeared. It followed, said North, that I had spitefully and recklessly brought Léa to this island, and every moment of the day chipped away at the foundations of my marriage, when there was nothing to be spiteful about. I found my own stupidity intolerable. The sex I had imagined with Léa, and the fervor with which I had wanted it, now seemed of secondary importance in the decision. After all, I wasn’t utterly unable to exercise any sort of self-control. I would hang up after speaking to Lydia from the Painters’ studio, pour myself a scotch, and drink it on the terrace to delay the moment when I would have to enter the bedroom for the replay of the nightly scene: Léa’s leap out of the bed, her attack on my clothes until I too was naked, maneuvers to encourage tumescence, penetration this way and that. Afterward, I lay awake, ashamed and afraid.

  Don’t feel sorry for me, said North. Even now, I am not sorry for myself. The gods are just. I got what I deserved. All the while, I also felt blessed. Blessed by the incomparable shining sea which, wrinkled by the breeze and playful, waited for me as I rose from my adulterous couch. At first I would swim alone, the water being really too cold for someone not used to the North Atlantic. It wasn’t long though before Léa went in as well. She turned out to be a remarkable swimmer: powerful and elegant in her strokes and very fast. Obviously I was stronger, and I suppose that when I was in normal health I had greater stamina for long distances, but really she was better. Someone had taught her very well and she had talent. We swam off our rock immediately after breakfast, then off the boat, and then off the rock again, at the end of the afternoon, before having drinks on the terrace. I picked the anchorages that were good for swimming and had a great view, and, one after another, I took her to all the places I had liked best. My favorite spot I saved for last, when the water had warmed up, a deep bay with not a house nearby, facing Spetsopoulos, Stavros Niarchos’s private island. There were rumors and scandal in the seventies tied to his adventures, conjugal and otherwise. I was out of touch with this sort of gossip. Still, examining his installation through binoculars added spice to being there. The second time we went, I proposed to Léa that we swim out to one end of the mouth of the bay and race from there to the other and back. She said we had better double the length of the race if I was to have any chance of winning.

  Until the last leg, I kept maybe a length ahead of her, falling back a little from time to time to see what she was up to. It wasn’t all that easy to stay ahead. She had one of those freestyle strokes that make you think of what a virtuoso does with his bow. Back and forth it goes, all by itself, so natural and simple, except that only a Heifetz or Milstein can do it. But I was all right. In fact, I knew I was keeping my strength undiminished, in reserve. The rest cure had worked. We started on the fourth leg, and I really let go with everything I had. The only discomfort I feel when I swim in salt water is the smarting of my eyes. They have always been very sensitive to strong light and to salt. The concentration of salt in the Aegean is greater than in the Atlantic, and swimming as a boy in Spetsai I had sometimes really suffered. On this swim, though, I was wearing goggles. For this reason, and because I had timed myself well, my happiness was complete. I pulled ahead of Léa easily and then just kept going at the same pace, which was much faster than what I had done before. I knew I could sustain it. There seemed to be no reason that I should ever have to stop. The high of mobile perpetuum,an unveiling of the secret of perpetual motion. If she liked, we could triple the race, I would not rest until the moon rose. At some moment of my euphoria, for no reason I know, I turned my head to look for her. She was not anywhere near. I stopped, stripped off my goggles, and shading my eyes against the sun looked again, carefully. There she was, perhaps thirty-five yards away, waving her right arm and calling out. I called out in turn to say I was coming and rushed toward her. She was crying by the time I reached her. I could not understand what had happened, and at first thought she might have been stung by jellyfish. Big ones are rare in those waters, but they do exist, and they can hurt a swimmer. No, she sobbed, I lost you, I didn’t know where you were or which way I should go, and I am freezing. I felt a sudden chill myself, which was, I think, the cold of panic. Of course, she was blind as a bat, but it was easy to forget it because so much of the time she wore contact lenses which, of course, you have to take out to swim. The rest of the time, if she didn’t have her glasses on, she faked it. Her technique made me think of Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire. She had never had to worry before when we swam, because I was always near her. I hugged and caressed her until she was calm and we swam to the boat slowly, very close to each other. Once we had climbed onboard and she had warmed up—I wrapped her in towels that had been baking in the sun—and I had gotten her to drink some of the terrible Greek brandy I kept on the boat for old times’ sake, I got on top of her without asking for the usual services and we made love very sweetly. This was a change that I think she noticed. I had been brutal with her since our first day on the island, and, as a matter of fact, was surprised that she didn’t complain.

  When the meltemiblows hard in Spetsai the sky can remain perfectly clear but the quality of the light becomes very different. It acquires a cold sort of luminosity, as though the island were all of a sudden under a different sun. Light suitable for natural disasters and mourners. That’s what happened the next day, not to the island or the general population on it or to Léa. Only to me. My sister, Ellen, telephoned and said that this time my father was really dying. I had better get to Washington as fast as it could be arranged if I wanted to see him alive. He had been demented for so long, all real contact between us rendered impossible, that for a moment I hesitated. Couldn’t I tell Ellen that I would be there as soon as possible, and then take my time? The man occupying the bed in the best guest room of my parents’ beautiful house—the master bedroom was where my mother reigned alone in her own Stygian gloom— resembled my father, but that was all. Nothing good could pass between him and me before I closed his eyes. But I didn’t have the courage to stay away. Instead, I called the lawyer in Athens who had been willing for years to look af
ter my parents’ real estate and tax problems, not because these paltry issues were worthy of his attention, but because of who they were, a point he never failed to make in any of his conversations with me. I did not seem to impress him nearly as much. It was the perfect moment in the morning to try to catch him: not so early that it was unthinkable for him to have arrived at the office, and not late enough for him to have left for his lunch and the nap at the house of his mistress. I was in luck. He agreed to charter a helicopter to pick me up at the tiny landing strip across the water and take me to the airport in Athens. That is where I said goodbye to Léa and managed to catch a direct flight to New York. Lydia was already in Washington, and met me at the house in Georgetown.

  Have I told you that I had made it a rule to go down there every three or four weeks to look in on father and mother? Sometimes it seemed to Ellen and me that they recognized us, but the flicker was brief and of uncertain significance. Certainly, they were unconscious of the lapse of time between our visits. That was the doctor’s opinion, and also Ellen’s, who went to see them more often, living relatively nearby, in Virginia. The lawyer who was the executor of their estates and paid the staff didn’t disagree. Nonetheless, I went there, sat by their bedside, patted their hands, which had become white as flour, and usually kissed them. It wasn’t really unpleasant. They were always clean and sweet smelling despite the unimaginable indignities of diapers, uncontrolled breaking of wind, and so forth, and their clothes were spotless and suited to the time of day and season. My father was shaved as carefully as when he was still alive—yes, this is how I thought of it, how I distinguished between his former and current states. In fact, he was shaved daily by the same man who came to do my mother’s hair. I thought they looked as they had always looked, but in reality they were specimens stuffed by an expert taxidermist. Not unnaturally, I came to believe that this part of my visit—the kisses and caresses—was really for my benefit, not theirs. Ellen’s and my more important task, I thought, was to check on the nurses: Were they alert? Were my mother and father so admirably cared for every day, or was this treatment reserved for days when an appearance by Ellen or me was to be apprehended? Was the linen really changed twice a day, rooms aired, food freshly prepared, massages carefully and punctually administered, clothes for them chosen according to our instructions? In other words, were we getting our money’s worth? It was difficult not to think of money as one added in one’s head the weekly salaries of the day and night nurses, the cleaning ladies, the cook, and the orderly whose presence had become superfluous when my father’s strength ebbed to the point where, even in his greatest agitation, his nurse, perhaps with the assistance of my mother’s nurse, could subdue him. But the orderly stayed on, just in case. What kind of case? I wouldn’t have been able to say until father bit the nurse and drew blood. Ellen and I clung to the vision of the house as it had been. Except for the hospital beds that had replaced the Queen Anne four-posters, nothing in the house on O Street was changed. We liked that. But in moments of exasperation, speaking to Ellen, I called the house a fake Egyptian tomb, a waiting room between life and death, from which, in breach of promise, we the heirs would eject the imperial couple, one after the other, as soon as the hour struck for embalmment and other serious business. In the meantime, I must confess on behalf of this particular heir that he devoted almost equal attention to the way his parents’ keepers treated the furniture. There were many glorious pieces in the house, and they deserved respect. I never left O Street without having made sure that the curtains were drawn where necessary to keep out the destructive rays of the sun, and that those glistening surfaces, polished by so many years, had been dusted and waxed. Probably you think that I am too hard on myself. It can’t be helped, because you end up with a load of guilt on your back no matter how conscientious you dare to believe you have been as a son. The dreary truth is that doing your duty is no substitute for love, and I can’t claim that I loved those troublesome bodies and their unremitting functions. At best, I felt sorry for the bodies and loved certain memories. So giving a harsh account of yourself is a form of defense, mounted before an attack has been launched.

  Because I had been sick, and then had gone to Spetsai, I had not seen my father for a long time. Eight or ten weeks, I suppose. During my last visit, I found him in his normal Madame Tussaud form, sitting by the window in a wing chair. He was dressed as he would have been if he had kept all his marbles: in a dark red cashmere turtleneck sweater, gray flannel trousers, red socks that matched his sweater, and loafers that had been shined within an inch of their lives. I remember my satisfaction: to keep the keepers on their toes, I had not telephoned before reaching the airport, just before the fifteen-minute taxi ride to the house, and so could tell myself that this was really how he was turned out every day, this wasn’t staged for my arrival. We thought, Ellen and I, that it was beneficial to have them dressed as they had used to be, to see familiar objects when they looked about them, to have fresh flowers. The doctors didn’t contradict us, though what they really thought was another matter, and who is to say what percolated in those damaged brains. I disliked the geriatric specialist, an unctuously slimy fellow, and never believed a word he said of comfort or otherwise. Or his silences. Of course, that last nice viewing of my father had its obligatory moment when the balloon of my self-satisfaction was punctured. The poor guy was fiddling with a ring of plastic sausages of various colors that could be detached and reattached—a toy for kids between the ages of one and two. For a dreadful, sentimental moment I thought that the nurses had found it in our old playroom. Then I realized that it couldn’t be; we had cleaned out that room when it was going to be used by the orderly. Besides, I didn’t remember our having this particular toy. So the nurses had bought it. I didn’t think that my father recognized me. If he did, he wasn’t glad because right away he began to swat me with the ring, going for my face, whereupon the nurse took that toy away, and gave him in its place a sponge shaped liked a football that he could squeeze.

  This time I found my father on the hospital bed, twitching and twitching. Since that last visit, he must have lost thirty pounds, perhaps more. He was mostly on his back, in skimpy pajamas that looked like a hospital garment. From time to time, he gave a big jerk, and for a moment turned on his side. Perhaps because he had become so very skinny, it was obvious that he was wearing a huge diaper. The room was very warm. He was uncovered, and his feet were bare. Was it possible that I had forgotten what they looked like? I had no idea how long it had been since I last saw him barefoot. Those feet were appalling. Big bunions had grown on them, the kind that deform the foot even when the sufferer is wearing shoes. I had always winced at that sight and here they were, disfiguring my father. Whoever had clipped his fingernails had forgotten about the toenails. They were horny, long, and cracked. If they had not been so very clean, I would have said they were the toenails of a homeless bum. He tried to cross his legs, but couldn’t manage it so I took hold of his ankle and tried to help. He pulled away with a violence and strength that surprised me and continued his own efforts. Then I looked carefully at his face. When I had first come into the room, I found I had to avert my eyes. Now I could look, and saw that something strange had happened. His face—indeed, his entire skull—had become longer, as well as narrower, as though it had been squeezed in a vise. Naturally, the jaw was narrower too. I did not want to think how the teeth had adjusted to it. I could not bring myself to kiss him on the cheek, so close to that mouth; it seemed to me that the gesture would be a histrionic one, in bad taste. Perhaps I was wrong. Lydia kissed him and that seemed, in fact, very right, but by then it was too late for me to follow suit. I resolved to kiss him on the forehead—that unfamiliar, pointed forehead—but only as I left. Ellen pushed me toward a chair. I sat down, and put my head on the pillow, as far away from his as I could. A sort of monotonous mumble was to be heard, occasionally words I recognized: my name, Ellen’s, the geriatric doctor’s, but not my mother’s, disconnected expression
s like “with such desire” that came back again and again, the names of days of the week as though he were rehearsing them to make sure they were all still there. Some sort of newsreel of hell was passing before those seeing and unseeing eyes, and then I suppose repeating and recombining itself. He attended to it with the greatest care. Ellen came over to my side of the bed, tapped me on the shoulder, and led Lydia and me out of the room. I had not noticed the nurse, but she was there, sitting in the corner. I deposited that kiss before leaving.

  The two doctors and the lawyer were in the library, drinking coffee. It was really quite simple, explained the neurologist. The reflex that makes us swallow food had been lost; if we were to feed him it would have to be through a tube that reached through his mouth and esophagus to the stomach. The lawyer began to mumble, much like father, about how we had nothing to say in the matter because that procedure wasn’t covered in father’s instructions and for once I interrupted him. I told the doctors we wouldn’t allow the feeding. Lydia held my hand as we went to my mother’s room, across the wide white hall from father’s. Silent blue and green parrots were swarming in the wallpaper. She too was in bed. The nurse stood up and put her finger to her lips. Mother was sleeping. Her face seemed fuller. Perhaps she had gained weight. There was nothing to criticize about the way her hair had been set, or about the pink angora bed jacket, or the gleaming white of her bed linen. I whispered, Does she know? The nurse smiled and shook her head.

  The funeral service in the cathedral was the best I have ever seen, except for Jack Kennedy’s, of course, which I had watched rebroadcast on a television set in a hotel room in Athens. Father received full military honors, so a brass band played on and on while the coffin covered by the flag was brought in by six marines in dress uniforms so stiff they creaked like a new harness on a horse, and it was a wonder that they could move at all. His best friend and classmate at school, who had been secretary of the navy a number of administrations back, delivered the eulogy. This old boy still had his wits about him. He managed, Lord knows how, to get hold of all the reports on father at school that the masters and the head had written, some of which had been sent to my grandparents and some of which I suppose had remained in the school’s files. That he had been a model student was no secret. Mother had drummed it into Ellen and me with the sort of unintended perverse effects on our own academic performance you would expect. But the stuff the secretary read painted father as a young god. When we talked about it later, Ellen and I agreed that we weren’t really surprised. Some of it may have come through to us, like an exotic scent, through the overlay of the war and government service and father and mother’s social life and many other things better forgotten. There was also the adulation that surrounded him whenever his school friends gathered at the house. It was a pity that mother could not have seen and heard it all—I mean seen, heard, and understood. We debated with Lydia and the neurologist whether she should come to the service, and in the end we brought her, sedated as the neurologist advised so that there was no risk of an outburst, and she sat through it all in the front pew between Ellen and me. We put two of the nurses right behind her. Although she didn’t utter a word, which made me ask myself whether the goddamn doctor hadn’t gone overboard with his Valium, she cried from the moment the marine band began until taps, which they played while the detail bore the coffin to the hearse. She cried noiselessly, without sobbing. Just tears and more tears. Perhaps one may conclude that she understood. But perhaps she cried because she had been to so many funeral services and so many burials that she was conditioned to cry as soon as she received the sensory stimuli associated with them. The neurologist did not express an opinion. We did not take her to the cemetery, because that was going to be another drawn-out affair, and the nurses, whose judgment we did trust, and who, I am certain, would have enjoyed seeing more of the military show, thought she was really too exhausted.