An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  THINKING THAT AT LEAST Barbara and Philip could provide a clean shirt and a toothbrush, Freddie returned to Green Street that evening. He telephoned Sam from Barbara’s study and asked whether Sam could arrange for a private nurse. When Sam agreed, Freddie said, “Now, please, Sam, tell me about her condition.” Freddie sat at Barbara’s desk, staring at a picture of a freighter that flew the leopard flag of the Levy—Lavette Line. The ship was called the Clair, named for old Jake’s wife, Clair Harvey.

  “Her condition is good,” Sam said with a note of irritation that always entered his voice when he was asked a medical question by a relative.

  “What does ‘good’ mean? For God’s sake, be more specific.”

  “Just take it easy, Freddie,” Sam said more gently. “I know you care for this woman. As I told you, there’s a very faint hairline fracture of the skull.”

  “Well, that’s serious, isn’t it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There’s no sign of brain trauma, and it will heal quickly. It doesn’t incapacitate her. There’s a slight fracture of the cheekbone and some damage to her face. Her nose was broken and there are lacerations. There’s no sign of damage to the spine and her limbs respond properly. I’m trying to put this simply. She had a team of the best surgeons we have working on her. We’ll remove the bandages from her face in a week or so and begin taking out the stitches. We had to use more than thirty stitches.”

  “Oh, my God—”

  “No. Don’t go bonkers over that. At the worst, she’ll be a candidate for plastic surgery.”

  Freddie’s hand was shaking as he put down the phone. For a long moment he sat and stared at the picture of the freighter, the odd thought crossing his mind that a ship always merited the feminine pronoun—quite naturally, since it carried life in its hold. Judith was pregnant. Had she lost the child? Why hadn’t he asked Sam that? He started to call him back, and then hesitated and put down the phone. That was between Judith and himself. Would the doctor know?

  He joined Barbara and Philip in the living room. They were listening to music on the radio, and Philip switched it off as he entered.

  “Did you reach Sam?” Barbara asked him.

  “Yes. I hate to call doctors at home. They’re touchy about it.”

  “Freddie, you’re mumbling,” Barbara said.

  “Am I?” Then he raised his voice and said, “She is pregnant.”

  “Judith?”

  “Yes, Judith. I forgot to ask Sam about that—and I’m afraid to call him back,” he added hopelessly.

  Tenderly Barbara said, “I think you should tell us what Sam said.”

  He told them, almost word for word, and added, “Do you know what it means? Her face is cut up and smashed. She had the most beautiful face in the world, and now it’s gone. A broken nose. Thirty stitches. Barbara, she was so beautiful.”

  “She still is,” Philip said.

  Freddie appeared about to say something and then swallowed his words. For a few moments they sat in silence. Then Freddie asked, “What was on the radio when I came in?”

  “Something by Mozart.”

  “Would you turn it on?”

  Philip switched on the radio, modulating the sound. “Suppose,” Barbara said, “your face had been smashed up like that, Freddie? Would she still love you? Accept you?”

  “No, don’t lay that on me,” Freddie responded, almost angrily. “You know the answer.”

  Barbara shrugged. “Why don’t you say that men and women are different?”

  “That’s not fair,” Philip put in. “That’s simply not fair, Barbara.”

  “I’ll leave it to Freddie,” Barbara said. “Tell me, Freddie, am I being unfair?”

  Staring at the floor, Freddie did not answer. They waited, and finally Freddie said, “No, you’re not being unfair. You’re talking about love, which I suppose is the most overused word in this country. I think I love her—but—well, we’ll see, won’t we? I’m very tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

  ELOISE HAD NEVER SEEN ADAM QUITE SO ANGRY. “Doesn’t he know that we’re pressing the grapes! The Chardonnay was his own damn foolish notion! Doesn’t he have any sense of responsibility? I sent a wire to him at the hospital, where he seems to have taken up residence!”

  “Adam Levy,” Eloise said coldly and firmly, “have you become so old and mean with that white beard of yours that you’ve forgotten what it means to be in love? Don’t you dare talk to me about pressing grapes! You were pressing grapes before Freddie was born. He’s at the hospital because the woman he loves needs him more than you do. The truth is that you don’t need him at all. You have Candido and you have me. He’s with the woman he loves.”

  “That’s another thing—”

  “Don’t you dare say it! One word about her being black, and I will never forgive you! Never!”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything about her being black,” he pleaded. “We just received two truckloads of white grapes. I said I would think about it, and he went ahead and ordered them, and he isn’t here. And he bought them from Delfuzio, who makes the lousiest wine in the Valley. I don’t do business with Delfuzio. Freddie knows that, and the driver wouldn’t budge until I paid him cash. You know how low we are on cash after the harvest. What is it with you—do you think I’m a racist?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m learning a lot about racism.”

  “Have I ever said anything—one word?”

  She softened and kissed him.

  “And haven’t I given him every Saturday off so he could go sailing in that damn boat of his?”

  “You’re Jewish. You give everyone Saturday off.”

  “Not in the harvest season.”

  “He’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I spoke to him. They’re taking the bandages off today,” Eloise said gently. “So let’s go out and look at those grapes, and we’ll talk about Chardonnay. Everyone else drinks it, you know.”

  EACH DAY FOR A WEEK, Freddie had shown up at the hospital and had spent most of the day with Judith. She had closed herself off. She would have no visitors. After the third day, she whispered to Freddie to tell her mother and father not to come. She would see them at home. She accepted Barbara twice, but grudgingly. As the room filled up with flowers and plants, her annoyance increased and she told Freddie to get rid of them. He loaded his car with them and took them to Judith’s home, where Simone, Judith’s housekeeper, begged for a chance to visit her. He said that he would speak to Judith, but Judith refused. Photographers, advertising people, friends, and reporters lined up outside her door, and it was Freddie’s job to refuse them entry—and no easy job it was.

  She said once, speaking slowly and with difficulty, “Why don’t you go away, Freddie, and leave me alone? It’s over. I’m six feet of nigger woman without a face.”

  She was out of bed, as she had been after the second day, and staring at her bandaged face in a mirror. They had changed the bandages twice, but always when she was safely in bed, and now, as Freddie stared at her splendid figure, he said, “I’ve never been much of a face man. It’s your gorgeous ass and tits that turn me on.”

  A vase of flowers had just arrived, and she picked it up and threw it at him. He dodged it, and after the crash a nurse came running into the room. Freddie explained that he had dropped the vase, and Judith was laughing, the first time he had seen her smile or laugh. “You’re a nasty, unfeeling son of a bitch, and it hurts me to laugh.”

  “No pain, no gain.”

  “Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

  But he stayed.

  Each day Freddie appeared with an armful of newspapers and magazines, endured the barrage of her anger and annoyance, read to her, told her stories, and sat beside her while she slept. Barbara had persuaded him to remain at her Green Street house. One night he went to see a play with Barbara and Philip, and another night he went off to see a film by himself. When he spoke of switching to a
hotel, reminding Barbara of Benjamin Franklin’s statement that fish and guests begin to stink after three days, Barbara and Philip talked him out of it. “We want to know you, Freddie. Philip does, anyway.”

  But it was himself that Freddie wanted to know. Seven days after the accident he spoke to Sam and told him what he had in mind.

  “I don’t see why not,” Sam said. “Only be careful.”

  He turned up at the hospital at eight o’clock in the morning, and Judith said to him, “Get out of here! I don’t want you here! They’re taking off my bandages today.”

  “I know.”

  “So get out of here. I told you I don’t want you here.”

  “Yes. But I’m not going.”

  “I have rights here,” she said. “I can tell them to throw you out.”

  “No, you can’t. I fixed it with Sam. I have some rights, too. I’ve invested in you.”

  “What did you ever invest?”

  “Love. Time. Dreams.”

  Judith stared at him and said nothing. A nurse’s aide entered with Judith’s breakfast, and she ate hungrily. Then Sam and another doctor came into the room, along with a nurse, who removed the tray stand.

  “Lie back, Judith,” Sam said.

  “Get him out of here.”

  “I can’t,” Sam said. “Lie back and don’t be difficult, and don’t move. We’ll take out most of the stitches.”

  “Damn you, Freddie,” she said.

  Freddie stood across the room, watching while the bandages were removed and the stitches were snipped out, to be replaced with strips of tape. Her nose received a new plastic bandage. Her face was marred, but still it was her face.

  “The scars will fade,” Sam said. “I’m going to discharge you today. You’re healthy, and very lucky. Come back next week, and we’ll see about your nose.” Then he and the other doctor left the room, the nurse following them.

  Judith climbed out of bed and stared at herself in the mirror. “Yich,” she said.

  “You’re very beautiful,” Freddie said, “and I like those strips of tape.”

  “Why don’t you get out of here!”

  “In due time.” He opened his briefcase; took out a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers.

  “They’re yours,” he told her. “I got them from Simone. Put them on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going sailing.”

  “You’re crazy! You’re absolutely crazy! I’m sick. I’m in a hospital.”

  “You’re no sicker than I am.”

  “I can’t go sailing,” she whimpered. “I’m through with you. You’re through with me.”

  “Like hell I am. And you can go sailing. I spoke to Sam about it. So get dressed and let’s get out of here. I never want to see the inside of a hospital again.”

  THE SOFT WIND BLEW, and the tack took them across the Bay, past Alcatraz. Sitting with the tiller, she stretched her long length, with one arm reaching toward the cloud-flecked sky.

  “Oh, Freddie!” she said.

  “Stay on the course. We’re close-hauled. When I tell you to come about, do it neatly. Both hands.”

  “Yes, sir. How long can we sail?”

  “How’s your head? No headache?”

  “None.”

  “Forever.”

  “That’s what I want, Freddie. Forever.”

  BARBARA FOUND IT DIFFICULT to believe that in his seventy-three years, Philip had never been out of the country, except for an excursion trip to Mexico and a drive with his wife Agatha to Vancouver. During the war he had been a chaplain, assigned to a camp near Augusta, Georgia, and then to Fort Totten on Long Island. As he explained, he and Agatha had never had much money, and they were saving for a long trip. His wife died, and after that, he had no desire to travel. But over five years had passed, and he was as delighted as a small boy to go to Europe with Barbara. His family had originated in the English Midlands, a farm family, and had emigrated during one of the anti-Catholic fervors that shook England in the seventeenth century. He knew the name of the town, and he had always planned to go there one day.

  Barbara, who had lived and worked in France and spoke French like a native, had been to England several times. She had no desire to go to France; there were too many heartbreaking memories that she would not awaken. She and Philip pored over a map of England and found Thornby in the county of Northamptonshire. Her mother’s family, the Seldons, had originated in England, but she had no idea of where and when, and she agreed with Philip that it might be fun to try to track down the name…. Her father’s family came from a small town in the north of Italy, a few miles from Milan.

  She loved Italy, although she had been there only once, during the honeymoon after her marriage to Carson Devron. Pompeii and the Bay of Naples had cast a spell on her, and she wanted to return and spend a few days on the Isle of Ischia and to visit Pompeii once again. She thought it would be pleasant to fly from England to Switzerland, where she had never been, and to take a train from Switzerland through Italy, stopping at Rome and going on to Naples and Ischia. Then on to Israel, either from Greece or from Italy. She assured Philip that if they flew with El Al, the Israeli airline, there would be no worry about terrorists.

  She had no great desire to go to Israel, where she had been before—and where her son, Sam, had taken his medical training and her first husband, Bernie Cohen, was buried—but Israel was a lifelong dream of Philip’s. He wanted to see Jerusalem and walk in the steps of Jesus and feel for something that had always been deep in him. He wanted to see with his own eyes the Mount of Olives, the location of the Holy Sepulcher, and Calvary. Barbara was still unable to untangle Philip’s beliefs and disbeliefs, but with each day that they were married and lived together, she had come to love and respect him increasingly. If his desire to go to Israel was this deep—well, she would go along with him. The church had given him a bundle of vacation time that he had never used, and Ms. Guthri would take over his pulpit for six weeks. The congregation’s delight in the fact that he had finally found someone was such that they were ready to agree to anything he asked for.

  The disagreement between Philip and Barbara concerning their trip was, strangely enough, about the cost of the excursion.

  “Let us be practical,” Barbara said. “This is 1984. Women are beginning to be looked upon as human beings, and there are even voices that say we are the equal of the male sex.”

  “Superior, if you ask me.”

  “That’s a fine statement, true or not. But the plain fact of the matter is, my darling Philip, that you are very poor and I am reasonably wealthy. If we are joined together in the holy bonds of matrimony, then we are joined together in everything else. I have a huge inheritance from my grandfather—”

  “You put that in a foundation. I know all about that.”

  “I kept some. I’ve earned money. My brother Tom left me two million in federal bonds, which I have never touched, and I’ve earned more than enough money to keep this house, in spite of your insistence that you pay your share. I’m not a fool about money. It means little to me—the fortune or misfortune of having rich parents—but I acknowledge it.”

  “Barbara, I’m well paid—”

  “Oh yes. I know how well paid you are.”

  “Barbara, I’m not poor,” Philip argued. “All the years Agatha and I were married, we saved money for a trip we never took. Since her death I’ve lived like a monk, and I’ve squirreled away over twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Barbara refrained from commenting on that.

  “Well, how much will this trip cost?”

  “I’m afraid to tell you. I’ve been laying it out with a travel agent. I’m an old woman, Philip; I can’t be satisfied with youth hostels and cheap hotels, and good hotels are expensive. I love you, and I have the right to give you gifts. You drive a car that’s twelve years old and has a hundred and thirty thousand miles on the odometer.”

  He sighed and admitted that he’d nev
er won an argument with her. “Suppose we compromise. I’ll pay for the airline tickets, and you can pay for everything else.”

  “Do you mean that? You won’t be reaching into your pocket every time we want a cup of coffee?”

  “I can afford a cup of coffee,” Philip said.

  “Will you stick to that?” Barbara asked. “If you do, I can live with it. But everything else goes on my American Express card. And the travel tickets won’t be cheap. We fly over the pole, nonstop, to Heathrow.”

  “The North Pole?”

  “Oh, I love you, Philip. Yes, the North Pole. But we’ll be warm and comfortable, and you won’t see a thing. We’ll be in Israel for my birthday in November, and I don’t want any silly jewelry. I want you.”

  THERE WAS ONE MORE DINNER at Highgate before Barbara and Philip left. The harvest had been good and the winemaking had begun. Adam predicted a superb Cabernet that would make 1984 a year to be coveted and remembered, and the white grapes were even putting forth Chardonnay that satisfied him.

  The whole family was there, including Harry and May Ling, who had just returned from France. Sam, Barbara’s son, and Sally’s son, young Dan, himself a resident at Mercy Hospital, were seated next to Joe Lavette at the far end of the big table, so that they might confine their talk about illness and intrusive surgery to each other; while Mary Lou, Sam’s wife, sat with May Ling and chattered away about Paris. Soon enough the national election would take place, and Barbara and Philip had already filled out their absentee ballots. Adam was intent on explaining to Harry why each harvest was different, and why the wine of one year tasted a bit different from the wine of another year, even though they came from the same vines. Harry and May Ling had spent a weekend at the chateâu-winery of a client of his Paris office, and he used his newly acquired knowledge of French winemaking to sustain the conversation with Adam, whose first appraisal of anyone was at least partly based on their knowledge of wine. May Ling, with Freddie on one side of her and Mary Lou on the other, appeared to be a changed woman. She had kissed Freddie and embraced him tenderly. With Mary Lou she talked about the shops in Paris and how she had argued to stop Harry from buying her things.