“But love, I soon learned, and as you know well, takes far more effort than sex. We’ve so few models, men like us, for intimacy, for devotion that endures. By no fault of our own. How many of our stories have been expunged—from history, from memory? With no stories, we’re made to feel alone, unnatural, ashamed. But I’m lucky: I know Ted and George, and you and Maurice, so at least I understood what I was seeking.”
“Tell me his name.”
“Mohammed.” Morgan chuckled.
“Why is that funny?”
“Because his family’s Christian! Not that he cared much for Christianity: he complained it caused too many problems and that the English called themselves Christians, and they were often nasty.”
“But not you.”
“Not me. Very English, but not nasty. What a hopeless life I’d lived before him! He was Egyptian, beautiful to my eyes—with such a very bright mind and wit! When the war broke out, he had come to Alexandria from his village for work. He got a job driving one of the new electric trolleys. That’s how we met. I’d taken to riding the trolleys all over, into the old parts of Alexandria, where the English never go. How could I have stayed in my room on those endless balmy twilights by the sea?
“I’m so grateful we had those many hours to talk in a public space, because that’s how we got to know each other as friends. He insisted we speak English—now that caused lots of laughter. And when we met for our real first date, I didn’t recognize him. I’d only seen him in his tram-driver’s gear, and he showed up in these dazzling tennis whites! The joke was on me.
“That night he invited me to his room near the bazaar. He asked if he could try on my uniform.”
“The clever rascal…”
“Absolutely. It was marvelous to love him—at thirty-eight, I thought I was too old to know such love. How ridiculously I was mistaken!
“But as the war was winding down, so was our time together. He was obliged to return to his village, to the marriage his parents had arranged for him there. We wrote each other, and even managed a couple of visits.
“But not long after the armistice, the Influenza killed half his people, among them Mohammed and his infant son, whom they’d named Morgan.”
Alec took Morgan’s hand as they sat together and leaned his head on his friend’s shoulder, enjoying the shared silence and the warmth.
At last Morgan said, “I won’t be stopping long in England.”
“No?”
“I’m setting things in order for my mother—property, finances, getting the right help for her—but I don’t plan to stay. This country wants to destroy us. It’s dangerous, worse than you know. I finally learned why no one had heard from me for so long. Early on, I’d written Teddy some cautious words about Mohammed, but not cautious enough. The army decided I was a pervert, so they started withholding my letters, even to my mother.
“Before the war, before Mohammed, I might have endured England’s slow suffocation. No longer. I’ve changed. I’m leaving. For India. I’ve been recommended for a job with one of the minor rajas. He’s a delightful fellow, wants an Englishman to work for him, to bring his family up-to-date, and his realm. Maybe you’d consider a visit.” A candle guttered out. “Am I keeping you up too late?”
“No, not a bit. But please, while we’re here, just us two, could you help me sort through some things in my head?”
Morgan listened. He gave no advice. Rather, he asked questions of his young friend. The most perplexing to Alec was also the simplest: “What do you truly want, what’s your deepest desire?”
Alec hesitated: “I can’t say…”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. Many people can’t. Most, I believe. Oh, they might say something vague like, I want to help others. But in truth they’re afraid to ask themselves the question. Or maybe they don’t know they’re allowed to. Not you, though. And, Alec, when you can name that desire, I’m confident you’ll pursue it.”
* * *
Upstairs, Alec couldn’t sleep. First it was too warm next to Maurice under the covers, so he kicked them off. Then it was chilly without them. He got out of bed, went to the old wing chair, wrapped himself in a quilt, and nested there, swami-style, in the dark. He wanted to smoke, but he might wake Maurice; then he’d have to explain his state of mind, which would change his state of mind, and he needed to stay with it.
What did he want? He wanted Maurice, always and forever. No doubts or hesitation there. But love was only half the answer. What did he want to do? What would he do with life itself, snatched away from Llewellyn and Billy Wrenn and Swavely, but lavished on him? He was certain of what he did not want to do: he did not want to be always sponging off Maurice’s money, nor did he want to squander his mind and his strength on work he deemed meaningless.
Through the window he saw that tonight’s sky was perfectly clear. Here in the country, unlike in town, no man-made lights distracted his eye from the stars. He found the North Star. Though he could not name the constellations, they seemed to gyre, to pivot about it, their music silent to his ears, their order unknowable and sublime. How rich the endless canopy appeared tonight!
He wanted to keep learning, to study. That was the answer to Morgan’s question! It was by no means the final answer, but it was the right place for him to start.
39
Maurice was restless with his own question: how to acquaint his family with Kitty’s circumstances? He stalled for time. On the phone with Mrs. Hall he said, “She’s in perfectly good health, I promise. No need to worry. But, you see, several military hospitals in the area are shutting down, and it’s absurdly hectic for her right now, trying to get her patients discharged or properly transferred. You do understand, don’t you, Mother?”
No answer.
“I told her I knew you would.”
Much as he valued their Millthorpe friends, he did not wish to discuss this particular matter with any of them. He believed he needed a woman’s advice, someone wise and trustworthy, so he called on the baroness.
In the foyer of her house on Bedford Square, Maurice and Alec encountered another guest, about to depart, whom Alec recognized and greeted.
“Oh yes!” said Madame Mardash. “I remember you. Who could forget such a kindly face? Thank God you’ve survived, dear boy. My heart breaks these days, dozens of families coming to me, hoping they might speak to sons who’ve died. But for you I recall feeling a certain confidence that night, because the Hanged Man had just turned up when you did—” Then she seemed to recognize Maurice. “You were also there, sir.”
“No, ma’am.”
“But surely—you must recall—such a vibrant soiree—I had an awful cold—and you were with your friend, standing by him, as close as you are now.”
“That’s impossible. I was serving in the Dardanelles.”
She closed her eyes. “I see.” She opened them. “Someone very much like you, then, but older, considerably, in civilian clothes. An uncle, your father?”
The baroness entered from the hall and interrupted: “Roxana, I assure you, Mr. Scudder was alone that night. It must have been another guest you saw with him.” She greeted her young friends.
But Maurice was intrigued by the clairvoyante and wished to answer her question. He said to her, “I’ve no uncles, ma’am, and my father died more than twenty years ago.”
“Ah…” Madame Mardash closed her eyes once more. She smiled and opened them: “Then perhaps it was he.” She bade them goodbye.
* * *
The baroness brought them into a small parlor and closed the door. When Maurice finished telling Kitty’s story, she stood up and paced, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. “What a painful situation,” she said quietly; then, “I’m so very touched that you would come to me.”
“Do you think we should tell my family?”
“How can you not? Since you’ve asked me, I’ll tell you I believe you’d make a great mistake by trying to hide the truth.” Her eyes were distressed in a
way Alec had not seen before: “I suppose one might try to weave a fiction of adopting an orphan, but such deceit has a way of playing out its consequences over decades, even lifetimes, and how unkind to the child…” Then her expression turned calmer: “But your sister is so very fortunate in your care for her, Maurice. You know, I’m thinking of your father—and my recollection has nothing to do with the visions of Roxana Mardash. He would have protected his daughter and her child. I’m certain of it.
“Please let her know she’s very welcome here. Or, better, ask her if I may write to her and I’ll invite her myself. It’s a big house; she’d have her privacy, and we’ll get proper attention for her. She has a friend in me, and, believe me, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.”
* * *
Kitty accepted the baroness’s heartfelt invitation. In June 1919, she gave birth to a fine baby girl.
40
In due time, Maurice called to let his mother know that he and Kitty wished to visit together; they hoped Aunt Ida might also be at home and that Ada would be there too.
Brother and sister had discussed the visit in advance. They’d considered saying more to Mrs. Hall ahead of time, or even writing her, but finally agreed the news was best delivered in person. They asked the baroness to listen to their plans. The lady promised to speak up if she believed at any time they were making a mistake, but requested otherwise to be excused from suggesting strategies in this family matter.
So Maurice and Kitty brought the baby to their family. When the maid, answering the door, saw the infant, her eyes widened. “Good afternoon,” she said, “Miss Hall, Mr. Hall.” She parted the double pocket doors of the large parlor, where Mrs. Hall, Aunt Ida, and Ada were waiting for them.
The women’s eyes, like the servant’s, also widened on seeing the baby, and their lips opened in surprise. Aunt Ida gasped audibly.
“What’s this?” Mrs. Hall said. She looked at her son with a painful, reproachful question in her eyes: “Maurice?”
He and Kitty had failed to anticipate that Mrs. Hall would first take the baby for her son’s. She made her assumption clear: a child born from some illicit wartime union, perhaps a foreign one—in Malta, or on the Continent. Yes, men did that sort of thing and women were left to make the best of it. Deplorable, unutterably common behavior—so shocking from Maurice! But by no means unheard-of. Against her advice, he had waited too long to marry. Now this disgrace. What respectable family would permit their daughter to have him now?
Kitty did not wait for Maurice to address their mother’s unspoken accusation. “The child is mine,” she said. “Her name is Anjali.”
Aunt Ida sat down immediately and held her forehead in her hand. Ada began quietly to weep.
Mrs. Hall said softly, “Oh no, no, no…” Her denial was suffused with a certain tenderness, imagining her daughter, like so many others, married secretly in desperate circumstances and widowed by the war. “Oh, Kitty, had I but known … Have you no mourning dress?”
As decided in advance, Maurice told their family why it was impossible for Kitty to marry the baby’s father. When he had done so, Aunt Ida rushed from the room, Ada sobbed out loud, and Mrs. Hall was stunned to silence.
At last she said to her son, “How could you do this to me?”
“What has he done?” Kitty asked.
She ignored her daughter and addressed Maurice again. “Have you ever seen me weep?” And then came the downpour of tears.
“Now, Mama…” He tried to comfort her. But she would have none of it. She waved him away and wept louder. He said, “All right, then, maybe you need to cry.”
The tears stopped immediately. “What do you mean, ‘need to cry’?”
“Maybe the tears will open your heart. It seems to me that the choice is yours, you can have your pride or your grandchild.”
“I have a grandchild, thank you—Ada’s little William. This nigger bastard is not mine.”
“I’ll be outside,” Kitty said to Maurice and left the house.
Ada, without a word, ran upstairs. Alone with his mother, Maurice said to her quietly, “I’ve never heard you use such language.”
“Oh, now my language offends you? Yet you accept … that? You expose your mother and your aunt and your sister to that? I raised my son to be a gentleman, an English gentleman who defends women. If your father were alive, would you dare to so insult us? Where is my son? Do I even know you?”
He felt an agitation raging in his gut, a surge of nervous energy like what he’d often felt during the war, his body’s groundwork to fight or to run. She had the advantage of surprise: he’d no experience of such behavior from her—the vulgarity, the phony tears. In this gracious home where he’d been assured of her love throughout his life …
He turned away from her. He was shaking and knew that, if he tried to speak, his voice would quaver, or, worse, he would raise it, shout, yell, in an effort to dominate. So he did not answer.
At the window, he saw Kitty with the baby in her arms. She was walking down the curved brick path through the front garden, where Mrs. Hall’s prized dahlias, some nearly as tall as his sister, were starting to bloom, their tropical colors at odds with the tamer native hues. He saw Alec, who’d been waiting in the lane, meet her at the gate and open it for her. He understood at that moment that Alec, Kitty, and the baby were where they belonged: outside this house. He also understood that he belonged with them. They were his family now.
At some time in the past, before the war, he might have craved the safety of this home, of all it represented, and sought a way to remain inside, as his father had done. But now there was Alec.
If your father were alive … Maurice had told no one, not even Alec, that he had seen his father’s shade among the dead in the depths of the Aegean. And so he was less skeptical than the others that the clairvoyante might have seen his father’s apparition, or that Alec might have felt his presence that day on Bernard Street while his son was buried in madness.
He turned to face his mother, seated in a fauteuil, her smooth wrist resting across the chair’s satin-covered arm, her hand relaxed and graceful. She fixed her gaze on the carpet. Sensing his attention, without raising her eyes, she repeated her question. “Do I even know you?”
“It seems not.”
Now she looked up.
He continued calmly, “If Anjali is not your grandchild, as you say, then Kitty must not be your daughter. But she is my sister, so tell me, who am I to you?”
“You side with her?”
There was no point in answering her question. He might have pitied her, except for her power to hurt and her willingness to do so.
“Why do you stare at me?” she said at last. “Is it a crime to be decent?”
“I wish to tell you something.”
“Yes?”
He looked back out the window. If he wanted to hurt her in return, he might tell her about his father’s secret life. But no, what was past was between husband and wife; it would be dishonorable for him to intrude on the privacy of their marriage. He could speak gently now. He knew that his own particular truth would be painful for his mother to hear, but he could say it with no wish to hurt her.
He said, “Look out the window, Mother. Do you see the nice-looking fellow waiting with Kitty by the gate? His name is Alec Scudder. He fought in the war, like me, and like Kitty, too. Well, much to her credit, she was fighting against the war. He’s the one I went to the Continent to find, when he’d gone missing after the armistice. I love him, and he loves me. We plan to live our lives together. We’ll stand by Kitty and the baby.”
He left the house, along the path through the garden. His step was light; he felt unburdened, happy. The feeling reminded him of the night he said goodbye to Clive at Penge, with Alec and a new life waiting for him in the boathouse.
Maurice caught the baby’s eye as he approached. He made a very silly face at her, threw his arms wide open, and flapped his hands, and that made her smile.
&nb
sp; EPILOGUE
41
“Kitty?” Maurice poked his head in at the stateroom door. “Up on the main deck, please? There’s one last document to sign for Anjali.”
“Yes—coming,” she said.
Alec opened his arms to receive the baby. “Here. Those stairs are steep.”
“Thanks. We won’t be fifteen minutes.” She followed her brother.
Uncle Alec was practiced in the drill: head elevated and supported in the crook of his elbow; if she fusses, pace and talk and pat her bottom. But she was being quiet, except for that baby thing where she flexed her feet and kicked her legs and clenched and opened her fingers and moved her lips and slobbered all at once, barely opening her eyes. Alec blotted the edge of her exquisite little mouth.
Even before the confrontation with Mrs. Hall, Alec and Maurice had talked of leaving England. But where to? France or Italy, where they might be despised but at least not imprisoned for their love?
Kitty and the baby brought new considerations to the table. Europe had done its best to “commit suicide,” as she put it, in the war—annihilating an entire generation of young citizens; maiming, both physically and psychologically, those who had managed to survive. Did she wish to raise her child in the midst of such depravity?
They talked about Canada; they talked about South America; finally, they settled on the States. The country was vast, its language their own, its culture familiar. They would all find work. Three healthy young adults would surely be able to create new lives for themselves in that nation’s promise of opportunity. And the child would thrive in its openness. Or so they hoped …
Alec looked up from Anjali’s face and out through the porthole. The sky was clouding over. But a little rain could hardly deter the departure of this enormous ship.
At first sight of the RMS Elysia he’d gasped: the low-slung design of the hull made its vast length seem impossible; the massive smokestacks, slanting backward at a vertiginous angle, suggested speed as well as might: one, two, three, four black colossi in a row. Arriving at the dock felt like stepping into a newsreel: gangplanks draped with bunting, a brass band playing, crowds boarding, larger crowds seeing them off. August 1919. Six years, nearly to the day, since he had not sailed on the Normannia, Alec was beginning his great transatlantic voyage, bound not for Buenos Aires but New York, New York.
Alec Page 26