The Secret Life of Violet Grant

by Beatriz Williams

  At which point, as if God himself were delivering me a thunderbolt upside the head to adjust my moral philosophy, a knock shook the hollow panel of my bedroom door.

  “Shh.” Doctor Paul moved the suitcase to the floor and laid me back on the bed. The startled mattress groaned out beneath us.

  “What is it?” I gasped.

  Sally’s voice. “Telephone for you!”

  Doctor Paul, growling in my ear: “Tell her you’ll call back.”

  “I’ll call back!”

  Lips on my breast. “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  Footsteps. Silence. I put my hands to Doctor Paul’s lapels and struggled him out of his unnecessary jacket. He was smiling, light with relief. He threw the jacket on the floor and cradled my face and kissed me.

  Sally again. Bored and urgent. “Vivian! It’s your friend Gogo. She says it’s important.”

  Gogo.

  My hands froze in Doctor Paul’s hair.

  “Vivian, no. Call her back. She’ll be fine. She’s stronger than you think.”

  Just like that, in a blink of the eternal eye, Doctor Paul’s weight atop me was intolerable. I scrabbled at his chest and pushed him up.

  “Vivian—”

  But I was already buttoning up my guilty blouse, already straightening my telltale hair. I threw open the door and ran to the telephone.

  “Gogo.”

  “Oh, Vivs.” Her tears were flooding so fast, they nearly ran down the telephone line to wet my hand.

  “Gogo, what happened?”

  “He said . . .” Hiccup. “He said . . .” Hiccup.

  “He didn’t propose?”

  “No! He said . . .” Hiccup.

  I lowered myself into the chair and rested my cheek against my arm. My skin still returned the imprint of Paul’s lips; the tips of my breasts still tingled without remorse. Nerves, hormones: they had no conscience. I looked out the window and wanted to throw myself into the courtyard. “Oh, Gogo. Oh, sweetie pie.”

  “What’s wrong with me, Vivs? Why doesn’t anyone want to marry me?”

  I heard Doctor Paul’s words in my head. “Oh, honey, because they’re idiots. They think they want something else, but they’re wrong. They want something exciting, and they don’t understand that—”

  “I’m not exciting?”

  “You are exciting. To the right man. The right man will come along, Gogo. A smart, wonderful man who—”

  “Are you crying, too, Vivs?”

  “Yes, Gogo. I’m crying, too. I’m so sorry. So . . . God, so sorry.” I looked up, and there was Doctor Paul, leaning against the door frame, arms folded, shirt untucked. His face had gone all heavy and confounded. My bed hovered in the tiny Manhattan space behind him.

  “The worst—” Hiccup. “The worst of it was that he was so nice.”

  “Nice.”

  “He was so k—” Hiccup. “Kind. He kept telling me how much he cared for me, how much he wanted me to be happy. I thought . . . I thought he’d pull out the ring any minute. And then lunch was over, and we got up, and . . . He kissed my cheek, Vivs. My cheek!” Flooding anew. “And then I realized what he meant. Happy! How could I ever be happy without him?”

  My eyes shot a stream of gamma rays straight through the frontal bone of Doctor Paul’s skull. “Gogo, let me come to you. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’m not alone. I have Rufus.”

  “Jesus, Gogo. Your teddy bear is not enough. You need a martini. You need five martinis. You need—”

  “Vivs, stop.”

  “You need to be taken out and gotten thoroughly drunk, and then we’ll—”

  “Vivs, stop. I’m not like you. I just need—” Sniff. “I just need a good cry, that’s all. I’ll be fine. I really will.”

  “Forgive me, but your strategy doesn’t seem to be working. You should try mine.”

  Gurgle. “Oh, Vivs. I do love you.”

  I turned away from Doctor Paul’s elegantly poised body and watched my finger travel along the smooth dark plastic of the telephone, the spiraling cord, the little twin buttons that could sever this excruciating connection in an instant. I whispered: “I love you, too, Gogo.”

  “Good night, Vivs.”

  “Good night, sweetiest of pies. Feel better.”

  The line clicked. I hung up the receiver with both hands and stared at that damned apparatus, that instrument of divine retribution, waiting for Doctor Paul to speak first, because I surely to God could not. I surely to God could not say what I had to say.

  A coffee cup clattered before me, black and hot and smelling strongly of cheap brandy. “From the sound of Gogo’s voice, I thought I might just get a pot going,” said Sally.

  “Always prepared.” I sipped. The coffee-to-brandy ratio was just about where I needed it. Which is to say, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

  “And now,” Sally went on, with a long red kimono stretch, “I think I’ll just slink on back to my cave and give you two a little privacy. There’s more brandy in the cupboard if you need it. Enchanted to meet you, Dr. Salisbury.”

  “Pleasure.”

  I waited until the bedroom door closed. “She’s wrecked. We wrecked her.”

  “I wrecked her. You have nothing to do with it. It’s on my conscience, Vivian, not yours.”

  “Gallant to the last.”

  “This is not the last.”

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Will you look at me, at least?”

  I turned. He’d pushed himself away from the door frame and stood on his own two feet. His eyes were wide and desperate.

  “I can’t, Paul. I can’t do this. I’m not perfect, God knows, I’m no angel. But I can’t do this to her. I will sink like a stone if I do. I will be beyond human hope.”

  “You’re not doing anything to her. It’s my fault. I’m the one who led her on.”

  “You didn’t lead her on. It’s just Gogo. She’s . . . she’s romantic. But that doesn’t change anything. In fact, it makes things worse. If she saw us together, if she knew . . .”

  Doctor Paul was shaking his head. “So we’ll wait a bit. We’ll give her a week or two—”

  “No. Never.”

  “A month. Two months. Whatever it takes. We’ll be as quiet as mice.”

  “Never, never.”

  “You’re not serious. She’ll understand, Vivian. She’s a beautiful girl. She’ll find someone else in no time.”

  “You don’t understand. Not ever, do you hear me? Do you not understand a single thing about women? If she were to fall madly in love and marry and have a dozen kids, and if you and I were to start an affair when we were sixty, it would still not be okay. It just wouldn’t.”

  He stood still and stricken, about ten feet away. The shadow from the lamp made his cheeks hollow.

  “And there’s my job,” I said. “Lightfoot will fire me faster than a Soviet rocket.”

  “Your job?”

  “My gig, my career. A writer at the Metropolitan. It’s all I ever wanted from life.”

  “Vivian, there are other magazines. Look at you. The most dazzling woman in Manhattan. They’ll be clamoring for you. You are sitting there, Vivian, and throwing away our happiness with your two hands.”

  “For God’s sake. Listen to yourself. It’s Monday. When you woke up Saturday morning you didn’t even know I existed.”

  “Saturday morning I was a different man.”

  “Oh, lose the melodrama. This is not Saturday night at the Met. People don’t just fall in love in a minute and a half.”

  “It was twelve hours. Plenty of time for a quick study like me.”

  “You’re a quick something, I’ll give you that.”

  Without warning, he whipped around and slammed his
fist into the door frame.

  I jumped to my feet. “What the hell was that?”

  “You can’t, Vivian. You can’t just send me away. You can’t pretend this never happened.” He spoke into the plaster next to his fingers.

  “I’m a Schuyler, kiddo. Watch and learn.”

  “I don’t understand. I cannot comprehend why you’re doing this.”

  I whispered: “Yes, you can.”

  Here’s the thing about New York, the thing I love most: there is no such substance as silence. If you stop talking, and he stops talking, the city takes over for you. A siren forms a distant parabola of sound. A door slams. The old couple in 4A argues over who will answer the telephone. The young lovers in 2C reach an animalistic climax. A million other lives play out on your doorstep, and not one of them gives a damn about your little problems. Life goes on and on and on.

  Without looking at me, Doctor Paul detached himself from the wall and picked up his jacket from my bedroom floor. He shrugged it over his shoulders and shook out his cuffs. I stared at him: handsome of face, straightforward of shoulders, sunshine of hair.

  He paused with his hand on the doorknob. The entry bulb shone on the back of his neck. “One more thing. As a practical matter, after what happened Saturday night. Do you mind telling me the date of your last menstruation?”

  “You sound like a doctor.”

  “Imagine that.”

  I fingered the wrapper on the pastrami sandwich. “Three weeks ago. We should be safe.”

  “You’re never safe. So will you let me know? If we’re not.”

  “Of course. But I’m not worried. I wouldn’t have . . . I mean, I would have made you . . . I’m not that reckless.”

  He opened the door. “I’m not giving up, Vivian. I’m as stubborn as you are. If I have to wait until we’re sixty.”

  “Trust me, Doctor. I’m not worth it.”

  The back of his head swung back and forth in the doorway.

  “Trust me, Vivian. You are.”

  Violet

  The day after Violet’s visit to Dr. Winslow, she dressed and walked to the institute, and no one stopped her, no one told her she was no longer welcome. She did not see Walter all day, in fact.

  She spoke with the other fellows, she sat and worked on the equations from her latest round of experiments. At five o’clock she left and picked up dinner from a cookshop and took it home, though the smell made her queasy, and as she forced it down she thought she had better humble herself and write to Christina. Perhaps something could be worked out. She would not return to New York in shame—pregnant! of all the sordid and predictable female defeats!—no, she could never do that, but Christina had always supported her. Christina had a streak of adventure, had secretly longed to commit some grievous impropriety and live in freedom thereafter. Perhaps Christina would come and help her with the baby, and they could live a wonderful bohemian existence, the three of them. Like a modern novel, like something Olive Schreiner might write.

  Except that Christina now had a husband and a brand-new baby of her own, a respectable existence, stamped and approved with the Schuyler seal.

  She washed her plate and cup and changed into her nightgown and her soft cashmere-lined dressing gown, a relic from her brief young-ladyhood. She added coals to her little fire and settled herself in the nearby chair with the latest Proceedings.

  She must have dozed off, because a gentle knock startled her into alertness. “Come in,” she said.

  The door cracked open. “Miss Schuyler, Dr. Grant is waiting downstairs for you. Shall I allow him up?” said her landlady. On her face was an expression of compassion that made Violet want to weep with gratitude.

  “Yes, thank you.” She stood up and straightened her robe, straightened her hair. She wished she had a sword to buckle to her waist, a set of chain mail to cover her body.

  Walter swept into the room with his usual assurance. He took off his hat and placed it on the table and turned to her, smiling. “Good evening, Violet. I’ve come to apologize.”

  “Indeed.”

  He walked up fearlessly and took her hands. His eyes were warm and blue. “How are you, child? Are you well?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “I was wrong, I was quite wrong. You have every right to be angry.” He took up her hands and kissed them, and his beard scratched its familiar scratch against her skin. “I’m sorry, Violet.”

  “Very well. You’re sorry. I accept your apology.”

  “Sit down, child.” He drew on her hands.

  Violet paused, resisting, and then allowed herself to be lowered into the armchair she had just left. “What is it?” she asked, placing her hands in her lap.

  Walter sat down on the stool next to the fire. “I think we should marry, Violet.”

  “What?”

  “We should marry. It’s the sensible thing, the obvious solution to our little dilemma. We suit each other in every way.”

  His words whirled past her ears. Marry. “You, Walter? But I thought . . . I never thought . . . You don’t believe in it. You told me so. Marriage is an artificial institution, it denies the essential independence of . . . of . . .” She could not remember the exact words, but their meaning was etched in her brain. After all, she hadn’t disagreed with it. She had believed it, too, with all her heart.

  He shook his head and took her hands again. “Ordinary marriage, child, between ordinary people. But ours will be a different sort of marriage, won’t it? We’ll have a new model, a marriage of equals, of like minds united in respect for the fundamental independence of the other. We won’t be constrained by the rigid and hypocritical morality of the previous age. We shall place no restrictions on the freedom of the other person to pursue whatever interests give him or her happiness and pleasure.”

  Violet looked into Walter’s face: at his eyes, alight with sincerity. “What are you saying, Walter? Tell me plainly.”

  “That I was wrong to tell you to visit Dr. Winslow. I engaged with you knowingly in the act of creation, I accepted that risk, and it is your right to handle the matter as your conscience dictates.”

  “And you don’t mind?” Violet’s throat strained with disbelief. “You’ll agree to . . . to raise the baby with me?”

  “If that’s what you wish, Violet.” He paused. “I admit, in all honesty, that I would have chosen differently. But I am a man of honor. If you must have this baby, then you shall do it by my side. As my wife, since society demands it, but with my assurance of partnership in any case.”

  Violet couldn’t speak; she couldn’t collect her thoughts. The reversal was so swift and unexpected, she felt almost sick.

  Walter wanted to marry her. The brilliant Dr. Walter Grant, who had lived half a century without a wife, wanted to marry her, Violet Schuyler.

  “What are you thinking, child?” He kissed her hands again. “Do you need time to consider?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her eyes were wet. “That is, no, I don’t need time to consider. I’ll marry you, Walter. You don’t mind, really?”

  He pulled her into her arms. “I don’t mind.”

  They were married two weeks later, as soon as Christina could be summoned by cable (Violet’s parents refused to acknowledge the telegram) and carried by liner across the ocean to attend the small civil ceremony in the town hall of Oxford, attended by a few colleagues from the Devonshire and by Walter’s stern-faced secretary. Violet wore a tidy blue suit and an unfashionably small hat, and a bell tolled from some nearby church as they left the building. The April air smelled of damp grass and new flowers.

  After an elegant wedding breakfast at the Randolph Hotel, Christina returned to her husband and baby in New York, and Walter and Violet left for a short honeymoon in Paris, staying at the Crillon and visiting the Louvre and Versailles, where the extraordinary gardens were fully abloom with
spring. Violet walked with Walter down the Hall of Mirrors and marveled at their infinite reflections, husband and wife, repeated into eternity, united by the child nestled invisibly within, united by the great ideas and great works to come. She looped her arm through Walter’s and squeezed him to her ribs.

  They dined sumptuously each evening. Walter took no notice of her frequent exits to the lavatory, her fussy appetite, her visceral distaste for wine and for the strong-smelling tobacco in his pipe. He did, however, insist on her having tea every afternoon, which he served her himself in the privacy of their hotel sitting room, shooing her playfully away as he measured her leaves and added her cream and sugar. He made her drink every drop.

  When they arrived back at Oxford, Violet’s things had been packed and moved into Walter’s house, where they sat in brown boxes surrounded by uniformed removal men, who were rolling up rugs and tucking away vases. “What’s this?” she asked, rotating about in confusion.

  “Surprise, dear child.” He took her in his arms and kissed her nose. “I’ve been offered a position at the new Kaiser Wilhelm in Berlin. It’s all arranged. You’ve got your own place, too, I absolutely insisted, as the first condition of my employment.”

  “But . . . but the baby!”

  “Don’t worry about the baby,” he said, and indeed, a week after their arrival in Berlin, Violet saw the first spot of blood on her drawers, and by the end of the next day she had miscarried in quiet anguish, attended by a sympathetic German physician.

  Walter stopped making her tea after that. He waited a considerate six weeks before approaching her in bed, and when he did, he first opened up a box of custom-made sheepskin condoms from a chemist on Charlottenstrasse.

  “No more careless mistakes, child,” he said, smiling.

  Vivian

  When the metallic crash of the front door had finished echoing up the stairs, I rose from the chair, stumbled to my bedroom, and lifted Aunt Violet’s suitcase back on the bed.

  My eyes had dried out. If I’d wanted numbness, I had it now: a thick blanket of it, covering my ears and fingers and heart. My mind, however, was clear and scissor-sharp. Ready for business again. Thank God. No more messy spills to impair the old intellect.