An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  They drank and both Eloise and Judith wept. Freddie had never seen Judith weep before. He went around the table, embraced her, and kissed her. Barbara’s eyes were wet, and she said to herself, What a sloppy, sentimental toast that was. She wouldn’t dare put it in her book, yet it had worked, and everyone was talking and eating, and Adam even explained to Judith that this was not their best vintage, that their best vintage had disappeared into the bellies of the wedding guests.

  FREDDIE HAD A TWENTY-FIVE FOOT CATBOAT that he’d named Thrush, and that he anchored at a marina in Sausalito in Marin County. It was a wooden boat with a tiny cabin forward, an outboard motor of ninety horsepower, and no wheel but an old-fashioned tiller—a very simple boat, built by his grandfather, Dan Lavette, more than forty years ago. All this he explained to Judith while driving out to Sausalito. The boat had been kept in perfect condition, hardly ever used by Dan Lavette, and had come to him as a birthday present from his grandmother, Jean. Now, on the Saturday a week after the wedding, he’d asked Judith to go sailing with him.

  “This is the worst time for me to try to get away from the winery,” he said, “now when the crop is being harvested. Everything goes frantic, but Adam insists on Saturday as a day of rest, thank God. The Thrush is no yacht. They used to call them mosquito boats, and I guess they were the first small pleasure boats to be used on the Bay. But any idiot can sail a catboat. They’re beautiful, responsive little craft.”

  “Not this idiot, Freddie. I’ve never been sailing. The men I’ve dated have had no boats—not a black thing.”

  “Can you swim?”

  “Can a fish swim?” Her laugh was like a soft, musical ripple. “I was captain of the swimming team in high school and again in college. I won first place in the West Coast Women’s Trials. They wanted me for the Olympics, but I couldn’t face a year of spending four hours a day in a swimming pool. My breasts are already small enough, and they were beginning to disappear under a pair of oversized pectorals. Forgive me for boasting, but you touched a nerve. Truth is, it’s my height that gives me the advantage.”

  He glanced at her. She wore a sweatshirt and blue jeans, her feet in sneakers, and Freddie felt, as he often had, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  “—which is why I’ve always kept my woolly hair cropped close. Good for swimming, and the photographers love it. But swimming—oh, Lord, Freddie, how could you live without it? I’m in the pool every day, right behind my house, twenty minutes. It’s the only exercise I take—I hate exercise. I read a book by a Welsh woman—I forget her name—who claimed, and with a lot of good proof, that the evolution that created man took place on the seashore, that women were constructed so that they could nurse their babies in the surf out of harm’s way, and that the only place where there was enough protein for the taking was on the seashore. You know, the only animals that have a brain the size of man’s are the amphibious mammals, the sea otter, the orca, the whale, and the dolphin. I wrote a long piece for Natural History about it, and they pooh-poohed it, the way they discard any new idea offered by a woman. But swimming—yes, I can swim.”

  Freddie, listening with a bit of awe, admitted that he had never thought of that. Each time he was with her, he discovered a new side of her. “Who wrote that book?” he asked her.

  “I’ll find it in the library, and I’ll get it for you,” she promised.

  The marina man took them out to the boat. Freddie unhooked it from the buoy and began to haul up the sail. “Take the tiller until I get the sail. Just straight on, just hold it straight and steady. The wind’s from the west, so I’ll rope her on a slight tack until we face Alcatraz, and then we’ll head for the Golden Gate.” He crawled into the tiny cabin while Judith, thrilled with an utterly new sensation, held the tiller. Freddie checked his radio and then came back with two life jackets, one of which he tossed to Judith.

  “Put it on,” he said.

  “No way. It’s too hot.”

  “It’ll cool off. Put it on or we go back. I’m the captain, remember? Law of the sea. It gives me the power of life and death.”

  “Bullshit,” she said succinctly.

  Freddie slipped on the sleeveless life vest, and tied it. “Seriously,” he told her, “you must wear it.” He dropped on the seat next to her. “The Bay is treacherous. I’ve seen boats flipped in a sudden squall. I’ll hold the tiller, and if you’re hot, you can take off the sweatshirt and wear the life vest.”

  “All right, Freddie… I never want to have a real fight with you. I was stopped one night by a mugger with a knife—yes, a black man. We don’t discriminate. I grabbed his wrist and flipped him over and broke his arm.” She smiled soothingly and leaned over and kissed him. Then she peeled off the sweatshirt and put on the life vest. “Let me hold the tiller, please. I love it. And tell me what tacking is. I hear about it all the time.”

  “All right. We’re tacking now. The wind is coming from the west. We’re sailing southwest, obliquely to the wind. That’s why I have the boom, the wooden pole that holds the bottom of the sail, roped and almost over our heads. It creates a suction and the boat moves off the direction of the wind. Now we’re in the Bay, and there’s Alcatraz, and to reach the Golden Gate, we’re going on what we call a broad reach. In other words, we’re sailing against the wind.”

  “It sounds impossible.”

  “If it were, Judy, we’d be in an awful fix. But look at the other boats, how they’re zigzagging. We’ll do the same thing. Now, here’s the tiller.” He loosened the sheet and told her to keep her head down. With one hand on the tiller, moving it slightly, he pulled in the boom. “Now we’re reaching. Watch the island, and you’ll see that we’re moving against the wind.”

  “We are, we are! I love it!” she cried, throwing her arms around Freddie.

  “Watch it!” he cried. “The tiller’s alive when you’re on this tack.”

  “Let me steer, Freddie, by myself.”

  “All right, but keep her into the wind. Watch the sail. Don’t let her get away from you.”

  “We can’t turn over?” she asked, alarmed for a moment.

  “No, don’t worry. Just keep her into the wind.”

  The Bay was alive with boats, some of them running before the brisk west wind, others on the same tack as the Thrush. Freddie, hanging on to a rope, leaned back for balance, watching Judith, impressed with the facility with which she managed the tiller. Then he sat down beside her. “Let me take the tiller. We’re coming about. Keep your head down.” The sail flapped idly for a moment and then filled out as they took the other tack.

  Judith appeared to be ecstatic. “Freddie, I want a boat—I want to sail for the rest of my life.”

  “You have a boat. You’re sitting in it.” Her excitement communicated itself to him. He pointed to a large oiler making its way ponderously through the Bay. “That piece of junk is going to make us wallow. Just be easy. You’re not getting squeamish?”

  “Me, squeamish? Freddie, I was born for this.” And then she suddenly said, “Freddie, I love you. What right have you to that fuckin’ golden hair? You’re so goddamn handsome, and you know it—why aren’t you black or brown or something?”

  “We’ll make it with the kids. They’ll come out brown or something.”

  “I’ll never marry you and I’ll never have kids! Am I crazy enough to bring kids into this lousy white world?”

  “It’s a damn nice world right at this moment.”

  She burst into laughter as the boat pitched and tilted in the wake of the oiler. “Right on!” she shouted.

  “Keep it this way,” Freddie said.

  She threw her head back and in her deep, throaty voice, sang:

  I sing because I’m happy,

  I sing because I am free.

  The Lord has his eye on every sparrow,

  So he must have his eye on me!

  On the next tack, a sightseeing boat passed them, its rail lined with tourists whose eyes were fixed on the black wom
an and white man in the little catboat. As they pitched in the wake of the sightseeing boat, Judith stuck out her tongue at the tourists.

  In sudden exuberance, she pulled at the laces of her life jacket, dropped it off, and sat half naked, letting the spray wash her body. The tourist boat had passed by. She spread her arms.

  “Put the damn jacket on!” Freddie yelled. “Have you gone nuts?” Yet he could not help admiring the beauty of her body, the breasts so firm and taut, her torso like a bronze sculpture.

  “Put it on!” he yelled again.

  “Freddie, have you ever made out in a catboat?”

  “We’re close-hauled. If I let go of the rudder, we’ll go over. Please, Judy, put the damn jacket on.”

  There was a note in his voice that had not been there before. Like a small girl caught in some egregious act, she put on the vest, tied it, and said, “You’re sulking, Freddie. You’re really angry at me.”

  “Absolutely. You can swim to shore. I can’t.”

  “Freddie, beloved, I’d never let you drown. I love you.”

  “Not that I can’t swim,” he said.’ “Only, no one ever asked me to join an Olympic team… I’m not really angry.”

  At the Golden Gate he swung the boat around and they ran before the wind, Judith cuddled against him. “This is glorious, Freddie. Can we do it again?”

  “And again and again.”

  “And I’ll never take off the vest. I promise.” She opened a picnic basket, and they munched sandwiches and drank beer while Freddie cradled the tiller under his arm.

  “Tell me about your aunt Barbara. She fascinates me.”

  “Yes, she’s something.”

  “How old is she?”

  “She’ll be seventy in November.”

  “I don’t believe it. She moves like a young woman.” Judith was looking at the City now, the streets climbing the hills like lines drawn on an enormous map, the white buildings piled one on another. “The most beautiful city in the world. It’s a miracle. She’s like the City, she’s something else entirely.”

  “Who is?”

  “Barbara. She was in prison once. That’s what unites us. We’re a people of the prisons.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “The blacks. Me. My people. Freddie, do you ever use that pretty head of yours for anything but your fancy sailor cap?”

  “There you go.”

  “I apologize.”

  “I graduated Princeton summa cum laude.”

  “Freddie, darling, you’re brilliant about everything that doesn’t matter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now, about Barbara. Why did she go to prison?”

  “Well, it’s a bit complicated. She was involved in the Spanish Civil War in 1938, and she was part of a group that established a hospital in Toulouse for wounded and sick Spanish Republicans and their families. She raised a lot of money from people like my grandfather and others she knew, and then she was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Committee and told to give them the names of the contributors, and she refused. Contempt of Congress. They put her in jail for six months.”

  “For being decent and honorable?”

  “Decent and honorable don’t pay off.”

  “How did she get that way? Her family was so rich.”

  “It’s not being rich that corrupts me and makes me different from my aunt Barbara, it’s having a father who left me more money than I ever needed—not Adam, who adopted me, but my biological father—what a disgusting term—Thomas. Lavette; and whenever my aunt Barbara has one of her numberless causes, marches, or campaigns, she comes to me and gets enough money to ease my conscience.”

  Back at Sausalito Freddie tied up his boat while Judith furled and knotted the sail. The rubber dinghy took them to shore and, both of them starved now, they drove back to San Francisco and to Gino’s, a small Italian restaurant. “My grandfather Dan Lavette used to eat here,” Freddie told her. “Now Gino’s son runs the place. They make their own pasta, and it’s the best. When I’m filled with life and energy, the way I am now, I always want pasta. It’s genetic. I’m one-quarter Italian, you know.”

  The younger Gino embraced Freddie. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in months.” He stared admiringly at Judith and then stared questioningly at Freddie.

  “I kidnapped him,” Judith said.

  Bewildered, Gino led them to a table. “A bottle of Highgate red?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. And linguine with clams and garlic and olive oil.”

  “I’ll have the same,” Judith agreed.

  Each plate was enough for a family of three, and they ate and drank and ordered another bottle of wine and stuffed themselves with bread and pasta, and Judith declared that it was the best of everything; the best bread, the best wine.

  “I feel human with you,” Freddie said. “I’m born again. I’m not a good Christian, so how about a born-again pagan? Will you have me?”

  “I might.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Maybe. I’m ready to think about it.”

  “Me, not the boat.”

  She smiled. “I’m ready to think about it, Freddie. Of course, the boat comes with you. I’m a bit drunk, so when I sober up I may change my mind. Your face is red as a beet. You’re blushing.”

  “I’m sunburnt. I don’t blush. My God, this is the first time you even bent a little. Judy, I loved you the first time I saw you.”

  “Did you? You thought I was a classy hooker, and all you cared about was getting me into bed.”

  “Is that so terrible?”

  “Freddie, you’re drunk, and how are you going to get us home?”

  “Very carefully.”

  “You know, sweet man,” she said, “I’m glad you took it to my mama and papa that night. Otherwise, if I simply told them I was in love with a white man, my papa might have put me over his knee and walloped me. You’ve lived an easy life, Freddie. Now the hard part begins.”

  “Not so easy. I was at Princeton during the big civil rights drive of the sixties. A bunch of us went down to Mississippi to register black voters. A gang of rednecks caught us. They killed one of the kids and whipped and beat me half to death. I ended up in a hospital in Mississippi.”

  “Freddie—Freddie, why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

  “Why should I? It was nothing to boast about. I’m here. I’m alive, and I’m all right.”

  She had tears in her eyes. “Yes, you’re here. Take me home, Freddie. I want to hold you in my arms. I want to make love.”

  A FEW DAYS AFTER THAT SATURDAY, Barbara received a letter from May Ling. “My dear Aunt Barbara,” it began, “We’re here in Paris…” Ruefully, Barbara reflected that she had agreed to put off their own journey until October, due to tasks Philip faced at the church. But at least May Ling was in Paris.

  … and it’s wonderful. Oh, if I could only speak French the way you do! My Spanish is good, but two years of high school French aren’t enough to talk to a waiter; Harry says that we’ll go on to Madrid and Barcelona, where I will at least have the power of speech. Harry speaks French like a native, and he appears to know everyone in Paris. Of course that’s an exaggeration, but he has an office here and we’ve been to dinner three times at the homes of French people he knows. His firm has a small apartment on the Quai d’Orsay.

  Harry was always so shy. I know I’m shy, but with me he was even worse, and he’s like another person I never knew. He worships me, Barbara, and I don’t know how to be worshiped. We had lunch yesterday at Le Moulin du Village—I had to ask Harry how to spell it—and I felt that I was in the most romantic place in the world, and the proprietor and the waiters made such a fuss over me. They thought I was from Java or some such place, and everyone has been wonderful to me, and when they see I don’t understand their French, they say very flattering things that Harry translates later with great glee. I tell him I don’t believe a word of it.

  Wasn’t the wedding s
imply wonderful? I will never forget it as long as I live, and when Daddy told me that Freddie paid for most of it, I sat down and cried. I never understood Freddie, and I guess he never understood me. Mother was very sweet to Harry the day we left. Harry said to her that he had no object in life more important than to make me happy, and Danny actually kissed him and Mother wept. But she’s quite happy, because Daddy has a new nurse, and that frees Mother, who met a producer at the wedding—I don’t remember his name, but I guess you invited him—and he knew about Mother’s career, and he has a small role for her in his new picture, and I do hope she’s not disappointed, but she was so happy.

  Harry is the sweetest, most caring man, and I can’t believe that he’s the terror of prosecutors, as they make him out to be.

  We also went up in the Eiffel Tower. I’ll write again soon, probably from Spain. How’s Philip—I don’t mean as a husband, but how is he?

  Love,

  May Ling

  “THANK GOD FOR SATURDAY, and you don’t have to work,” Judith said. “I wait all week for Saturday. I’m a born-again Baptist. Are you a Jew, Freddie?”

  “I’m not a Jew. I’m nothing. You know that. I’m a heathen who worships a black goddess.”

  “You shouldn’t say that. It’s blasphemy.”

  “So be it. Adam decided to stop being Jewish today and declared it a workday. The harvest waits for no man’s religion. If he could, he’d have my mother out there picking grapes. I told him I was going sailing, and he threw a fit. Don’t think I don’t sacrifice for you.”

  She sat in the stern, the tiller under her arm, her head thrown back in sheer ecstasy—“Tell Adam that I passed up a job today for this. When the harvest’s over, it’s going to be every Saturday and Sunday. But after church on Sunday.”