Eden Burning

by Belva Plain

  “I’m not looking for thanks,” Patrick said.

  “The more fool you, then! Go! Go! Get yourself killed!”

  He sighed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever make you see, Désirée. And don’t be melodramatic. I’m not going to get myself killed.”

  “Oh, if I’d married a preacher I would not have had to put up with this holiness! You’re so damned holy, Patrick!” She amended the judgment. “I don’t mean you’re a hypocrite. No, you really mean it all; you care. But I’m not like you. I want things first for ourselves—”

  “I’ve tried to give them to you, I’ve done the best I could,” he said stiffly now, aware at the same time that his words were perhaps self-pitying and sulky.

  “Oh, I know. But I don’t want only things, Patrick. Not so much anymore. It’s peace I’m talking about now. I just want peace.”

  “I’m trying to give you that, too. Don’t you understand how I’m trying to give it to us all?”

  She sighed. “You’ve had no supper. Shall I fix a tray here on the porch? I’ve fresh broiled yellowtail with lime juice.”

  He was too utterly done in to be hungry. Nevertheless, he stood up. Food had always been her remedy, her way of expressing her concern and giving love.

  “I’m ready. We’ll go inside,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  She caught his hand, kissing the palm, then turning it over and kissing the back. She cradled his head, comforting and protesting.

  “Oh, dear God, what have they done to you! The animals! What have they done! But animals don’t do things like that! Still, I’m so proud of you, Patrick, no matter what I said. I’m angry at you and proud of you and I’m so afraid. Oh, my dear, my dearest, I’m so afraid!”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Did you know Rob Fawcett’s supporting your good old friend Patrick for election?” Marjorie asked as they arrived at the Fawcetts’ anniversary party.

  “No, I didn’t, and I wish you wouldn’t be sarcastic,” Francis said.

  “Erstwhile friend, then. Sorry.”

  Not wanting to talk about Patrick, he was, at the same time, curious. “Fawcett never mentioned it to me.”

  “He wouldn’t. He’s a gentleman. He knows how we feel.”

  Francis liked the Fawcetts. They had a depth often lacking in this ingrown, tight community where relationships could yet be so superficial; their house held music and vitality and good talk. Tonight Whim Longhouse, illuminated like an ocean liner, floated in the darkness; out of its windows streamed a glitter of celebratory light.

  Francis followed his wife as, in crisp lime-green taffeta, she rustled up the steps. Her spirits were high, higher than they had been since the day of Megan’s birth and this, of course, was because they were at last “going home.” Her increasing animation silenced him, although he knew he had made the right, the inevitable decision. He simply didn’t want to talk about it.

  Everyone was already outside on the rear lawns. The Luthers were late; they usually were, because Francis would never leave home until Megan was asleep.

  “You go on out. I’ll phone home first,” he said.

  “But we’ve just left home!”

  “Forty minutes ago. I want to make sure of things. It’s the first time we’ve left her with this new maid.”

  The rule was that whenever the parents were away, a maid must sit in the room next to Megan’s until they returned. The idea was Francis’. He supposed it was neurotic to be so apprehensive, but that fire was always with him; he never came up the driveway at Eleuthera without seeing the ruin all over again and feeling terror in the pit of his stomach.

  When he had made the call he walked past the dining room, where the dinner would be served later in the evening, and through the great drawing room. Here was a comfortable clutter of overstuffed Belter furniture, all curved and curlicued. “So tacky!” Marjorie always said. The walls were hung with ancestors in broad, heavy frames. He wondered whether they were fake or real and decided, knowing the Fawcetts’ candor, that they were very probably real. So even these nice people had a need to worship their ancestors! Well, it was all right as long as you didn’t get to thinking you were better than people without ancestors—as if we didn’t all have them, even though they hadn’t left their portraits behind!

  He was oversensitive to everything tonight, he knew, without knowing why. It was just one of those times when, because of glands or hormones or something or other, his worries tormented him. He felt as if he were in limbo, still here on St. Felice, but not really here anymore, because his mind had already lurched on ahead to the new place, to the new start. It was almost like assuming another identity.

  Yet at the heart of it all was Megan. Going on six, past kindergarten age, with each passing month she made plain the difference between what she was and what she ought normally to be. Her future was becoming more cruelly certain. And silently Francis groaned, while he went outdoors toward the clatter of music and voices.

  Little round tables for hors d’oeuvres had been set up at the edge of the terrace, under a triple row of maria trees so tailored that their intertwining branches formed a flat and solid roof of leafage. Candle flames wavered in hurricane lamps, each set in a ring of red hibiscus blossoms. The bar stood under a flaring tulip tree, against a background of marble-striped croton leaves. For a moment Francis stood looking over a scene now grown familiar, the pastel luster of the well-dressed crowd, the black waiters, soft-footed and white-gloved, and the wealth of flowers. Already, he saw, the men and women had separated. He wondered what the women could find to talk about, since they saw so much of each other at the club most days. The men, who did not see each other that often, had politics to talk about, of course. Now, spotting his host, he went down the steps.

  “Congratulations on twenty good years,” Francis said, shaking hands. “I’d like to be around to celebrate your fiftieth.”

  “If we make it, God willing,” Fawcett replied. “It’s a pity you won’t be with us here if we do. You’ll be missed,” he added.

  He meant it, Francis saw, murmuring his thanks.

  “Yes, losing a man like you is a great loss for this place.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” Francis replied, feeling embarrassment.

  “Not lately,” Fawcett said steadily, “but you could again.”

  Old Whittaker interjected, “Listen to me, Luther, and don’t pay attention to what anybody tells you. You’re doing the smart thing. Half of these people—I don’t mean you, Fawcett, you’ve got your own way of looking at things—but half of these people would quit tomorrow if they could find a buyer. They’d sell out like that!” He snapped his fingers. “They just haven’t been as lucky as you, that’s all.”

  These remarks were unusually lengthy for Whittaker, whose small pink mouth was usually pursed, as if to open it were an effort not worth attempting. His wife makes up for his silence, Francis thought with some distaste, not welcoming his unexpected ally.

  “My wife tells me,” Whittaker continued, “you’re planning a New York apartment and a country place on Long Island.”

  “I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the city all year.”

  Now his depression settled as if someone had placed a shawl on his shoulders. Limbo, yes, that’s where he was. At home there were cartons and boxes in the hallways. Marjorie had already begun to drag things out of attics and closets, to sort and give away. He supposed, or rather knew, it was foolish to impart life to inanimate objects, yet it hurt him to discard his schoolbooks—which no one would ever use—or Megan’s crib, which they would never use again, either, or so many dear old possessions.

  “We simply can’t drag all this stuff back with us,” Marjorie declared. “It would cost a fortune, and where would we put it?”

  He was too sentimental, by far.

  And accepting from a silver tray a drink and canapés, he sat down among the men, to let their conversation wash over and past while he only half heard. The talk was the sam
e talk that had been circling through the clubs and the great houses for months past.

  “The burglaries in Covetown are not to be believed, especially in the hotels. They don’t put them all in the papers, you know.”

  “The tourists bring it on themselves, flaunting their money and their jewelry. What do you expect?”

  True, Francis thought, but not all that simple, either.

  A large, bald man on the other side of the table—Barnstable, his name was, from the south end of the island—was telling a story amid much laughter.

  “So when my cook’s father died I went to pay a condolence call. Way the hell and gone out in the country it was. But good Lord, Sally’s been with us eighteen years! They sit up all night at the wake, of course, but what I didn’t know was, they tell jokes and drink and dance, a regular party! They even poured rum down the dead man’s throat. He was sitting up in a chair—”

  “Who was?”

  “The corpse!”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “True, though, I swear it. What do you expect of these people, anyway?”

  The waiter was passing a mushroom quiche. Francis, wincing acutely, glanced up at the man’s face, but the face was bland. I wonder what they tell about us? he thought.

  And he looked back at the large, bald man, who was still laughing, pleased with his contribution to the entertainment; then he watched as a covey of butterflies, attracted by the lights, went fluttering into the bougainvillaea and clung there, like black velvet bows pinned to a veil.

  “So you were at one of Courzon’s rallies,” someone remarked to Rob Fawcett.

  “Yes, I wanted to hear him for myself. The newspapers don’t dare print it all.”

  “You were impressed, your wife says.”

  “Yes, I was. I’m not going again, though. I’m too tall a target for a bottle or a brick.”

  “They’ve gone utterly mad. A kid was stabbed not two blocks off Wharf Street a couple of days ago in some political brawl.”

  “I didn’t see that anywhere.”

  “I told you, they don’t dare put half of it in the papers.”

  “I give us ten more years on this island at the outside.”

  “Too generous, by far. I’d say four or five, more likely.”

  “No, no, not with Mebane running things. I’m not that pessimistic.”

  “Ultimately some crazy will throw him out and take everything over. It’ll be like Cuba, mark my words.”

  “The next three days will tell the story. If Mebane wins the election we’ll be all right. He’ll quiet things down.”

  “I doubt it. The pot’s boiling too fast.”

  “Give the man a chance! How much time has he had?”

  “Enough to fill the jails with his fancied enemies.”

  This, outside of the host’s, was the first dissident voice of the evening. Issuing as it did from a newcomer to the island, it produced, in domino effect, a series of surprised and disapproving frowns.

  “Aren’t you exaggerating, Mr. Trumbull?”

  “On the contrary, I’ve not said a fraction of what could be said.”

  Mr. Trumbull, being of that breed of lawyers known as liberal, wore an emotional expression. He was very young and had, for some reason probably connected with his liberal sympathies, recently opened a practice in Covetown. His somewhat babyish blue eyes looked startled, as though he had suddenly realized he stood almost alone.

  A second later, though, he had an ally.

  “Mebane’s a brute, a canny, cultured brute.”

  This voice came from Whittaker’s nephew, the musician. More disapproving faces were turned toward him, but there was no immediate protest, for the Whittakers were one of the wealthiest families on the island and they were pleased to humor their “odd” nephew. And, Francis recalled, there was oil money on the young man’s mother’s side.

  Their host spoke quietly. “I couldn’t agree more. What the rest of you call straightening out, what you call law and order, are only euphemisms for a police state.”

  Whittaker opened his little pink mouth. “You’re entitled to your opinion, Rob, and so is my nephew, but I would advise you both to be careful of what you say. This is no time for loose talk.”

  “Mr. Whittaker is right.” Francis spoke up clearly. He hadn’t intended to speak at all, had deliberately closed his mind to all affairs except his own. Now he surprised himself with his own positive reaction. “Even you who favor this government are admitting, aren’t you, that you don’t feel safe?”

  “Do we understand then,” someone asked, “that you’re voting for Courzon?” There was malice in the question, for Francis’ feelings toward Courzon, as well as the reason for them, were well known.

  “I don’t intend to vote at all,” he answered curtly. “What I’m thinking is, A plague on both your houses.”

  “Well, of course, you’re leaving. But for those of us who want to stay, who have to stay, it’s no pretty prospect. Personally, I believe Courzon would pauperize us all. He may mean well and sound good, but in the end we’d have nothing.”

  “What have you got now?” asked Whittaker’s nephew.

  The senior Da Cunha, sumptuously suited as befitted a merchant of his class, came over now and took a vacant chair. He was obviously excited.

  “I’ve just come from town. Here, look at this.” He held up a newspaper. “A special edition of the Trumpet just out this afternoon. I’ll read it to you. Listen, it’s an editorial by Kate Tarbox.

  “‘For many months now and through various means we have been gathering information about the men who run what they are pleased to call our government. Now, on the eve of a decisive election, the time has come to reveal who and what this government really is.

  “‘To begin with, it is not a government at all. It is a private enterprise of gentleman-criminals, defended by a secret police, a band of swaggering thugs, well paid out of your taxes, earned by your labor. Our country has become a safe harbor for shady enterprises, where narcotics and weapons are traded and dirty money laundered. Public monies have been directed to the pockets of the prime minister and his friends; safely hidden as they now are in as many as nineteen different banks as far afield as Switzerland, it would take a legion of lawyers and untold years to recover them for the people to whom they belong.’”

  “Good God!” said Whittaker.

  Da Cunha resumed. “‘These men make themselves heard almost daily on the subject of communist subversion, Cuban style. The truth is never mentioned: that communism was able to take over in Cuba because the mobsters had first laid the country in ruins.’ There’s more,” Da Cunha said. “Here, I’ll pass it around.”

  “She didn’t sign her name to that?”

  “She certainly did! Here, look, in big, black letters. Here’s the windup. ‘If you care about your country, if you care about yourselves, you will go to the polls on Thursday and vote them out. You will vote for Patrick Courzon.’”

  “Fool of a woman!”

  “Why? That’s what I call guts!”

  “Sure, if you call it guts to commit suicide.”

  Grudgingly, “Well, she does stand up for what she thinks. You have to hand her that.”

  “She won’t be standing up long at all, I’m afraid. Not after this.”

  “Too bad Lionel’s gone to England. Divorced or not, he’d have stopped her. He was always fond of her, even after the divorce.”

  “He wouldn’t have been able to stop her. You don’t know Kate Tarbox. She does what she wants to do.”

  “I wonder whether somebody should ride into town and—” Rob Fawcett began, when his wife came running in.

  “Rob! Rob! I’ve just heard, Emmy had the radio on, and she just heard they’ve called off the election!”

  “They’ve what?”

  “Called off the election! No election on Thursday! For reasons of national security, it said.”

  The Whittaker nephew smote the table. “Of course! Because C
ourzon is winning, don’t you see?”

  “But they say, they say, one of the waiters just came late and he’s terrified, he says things are frightful in Covetown! They’ve got police everywhere, arresting people. They’ve confiscated every piece of the Trumpet they can lay their hands on. And he saw”—Mrs. Fawcett trembled—“a man beaten up. They smashed his head in, right near the telephone building, it was—”

  All of a sudden the party was over. The candles, no longer festive, glimmered wanly in the looming darkness. Everything is in the eyes of the beholder, Francis thought queerly. All, all had become in these few moments vulnerable, the house with its music, its crystal and silk, its orderly men and women gathered, all breakable, destructible and powerless.

  Rob Fawcett made a vigorous effort, saying cheerfully, “There’s nothing any of us can do tonight. We might as well have our dinner. My wife tells me it’s going to be a good one, too.”

  Something seized Francis. They’ve confiscated every issue of the Trumpet … smashed his head in … And I shall sit at table holding a lobster fork and a wine glass, while she—Blood rushed to his head, not thought, just blood and strength, so potent, so compelling that his legs moved and his mouth spoke before he had commanded any of them.

  He caught Marjorie’s arm. “Make any excuses. The Whittakers will drop you home on their way. I’ve got to go to town.”

  “What are you thinking of? Covetown, now?”

  “I have to. Please. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Francis! Francis! Have you gone out of your mind?” Marjorie’s voice was a long, scared wail. “Francis, come back here!”

  But he had already leaped into the car and gone down the driveway, out of hearing, out of sight.

  Lights were on in the villages. Knots of people stood before the general stores and the rum shops as if they were waiting to be told what to do. Fear lurked among the trees beyond the headlights of the car. Doom rode the night air. He pressed the accelerator to the floor. There was one thought in his head, one purpose, and nothing could have stopped him. He knew, he knew. It was a good thing that neither police nor militia stood in his path, for he would have driven straight through them. He sped. If he could have flown, he would have.