Victorine

  Every day he called for the Squire’s granddaughter and the other girls whispered that they were engaged, and Lydia was furious.

  Costello lay flat on the grass between sets at the tennis court and watched, without seeming to, Magda Smith. He longed to kiss her magenta mouth, to comfort her, to possess her, but he was afraid of his emotion. He saw Beany Wycoff, his mouth full of candy Magda had given him, staring at Magda just as he surreptitiously was, and he saw him innocently fondle himself as he stared. Costello blushed for the little man and for himself.

  That night, sleepless, Costello went to his little-boy desk, like the ones they screw to the floor in country schools, and took out a piece of paper. The moon, shining through the window, turned it light blue. He dipped the pen in the Louis XIV inkwell his mother had given him. “Magda,” he wrote, “Magda. Magda. Magda. Magda. Magda.” It was as if he had been kept after school to write it a hundred times. What was he being punished for? He took a fresh piece of paper and sat quietly waiting for words, for something to make sense that he could write down. It wasn’t a letter he wanted to write, it was just some words—a line that scanned? “Magda . . .” but nothing came to him, nothing legible, his feelings were wordless—did Flora sigh in her grave? Costello put the ink away carefully, and the pen, and the paper. Fifteen years later everything he wanted to say, and couldn’t, Dennis would say, and sign it, and publish it, and think nothing of it.

  And so the affair at the tennis court stood still. The passionate hullabaloo of the toddlers reached its peak and began to wane. Magda’s pallor became more and more pronounced and her throaty laugh ended in a vicious cough. It was learned on pretty good authority, none other than the rascal, himself, in the club car, that Magda had been propositioned and had slammed a fictitious door in his face. “Little devil,” he had laughed, “we’ll see,” and quite a few commuters discussed the possibility of Magda’s conquest before Labour Day. It was only a harmless, left-over, secondary sex characteristic, one might say, of the domesticated male animal, a kind of space-ship talk of the slightly over middle-aged. Magda was in no danger from that quarter.

  But it looked as if she couldn’t bear whatever it was much longer, and Costello looked on in terror, sensing a crack-up.

  “Qu’y a-t-il? De quoi s’agit-il?” said the Squire’s granddaughter with a pretty accent.

  Costello shook his head.

  “You must say, ‘Il n’y a rien,’” she persisted; there was a little of the school-teacher in her. But saying “It is nothing” in French didn’t help Costello.

  “Jesus!” he said and leapt to his feet. In his sweetheart’s language he exclaimed at his sweetheart’s collapse.

  The children were gaping at Magda’s very still form on the grass where she had fallen, and on the courts it was as if a lot of statues were posturing in the park; everyone stopped in his tracks, even the round white tennis balls seemed suspended in mid-air. Nobody said, “Your serve”; nobody said, “Game!”

  Costello lifted her as easily as a rag doll which she very much resembled : the two spots of rouge on her cheeks and her unevenly cut black hair, her little sandals, and a frilled blouse, a short black skirt.

  “Get out of the way!” No one had ever seen Costello so masterful before. He nodded at Lydia. “Call the doctor!” he said, and he carried his darling all the way home. The children dispersed, on their lips one of Magda’s songs, “O death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling.” Heartless little brats! And, “Magda’s fainted, Magda’s fainted, call the doctor, call the doctor,” they chanted all the way home to the bathroom.

  Costello kicked open the screen door of Magda’s little cottage and carried her over the threshold as if she were his bride. He lay her tenderly down on the bed in the only bedroom and did what he used to do to his dog when he had running fits and fainted. Hating to do it, he sprinkled cold water from the tap on Magda’s upturned face. He would have upset a pail of it on his dog, but Magda looked so little, so fragile, he was afraid of startling her. “Jesus Christ, I love her,” he said to himself, but he made absolutely no plans, he was in that very present that Victorine had wondered about, and like that bird who had neither memory nor anticipation.

  He kissed her mouth.

  She did not stir.

  Panicky, he stood up and went to the window; had Lydia found the doctor at home or was he out in his god-dam sailboat? He had seen Lydia hop on her bike before he had finished his command and pedal off in a whirl of yellow dust, only her bottom, her blue-jeaned bottom, visible.

  “Dan?”

  He whirled around. “Magda dearest!” he said, not in the least realizing that he had never spoken to her before, ever.

  Magda’s eyes were wide open and tears spurted out of them and soaked the pillow; only little children cry like that with no contortion of feature, no sound, just as if a dyke had burst.

  She sat up, “I thought you were my . . . I thought you were Dan.” She did not try to hide her disappointment.

  “I never fainted before,” she said.

  “The doctor is coming.”

  “Hell no!” she said, jumping up.

  Costello caught her in his arms, he covered her face, that tasted like salt from her tears, with kisses. He had never kissed a grown woman before and he was almost savage. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, and her throat, he kissed the bracelet of scars. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” he said.

  She didn’t move.

  Had she fainted again? He heard a step on the porch.

  “The doctor,” she whispered, and at his frightened look, she said, as if to a child, “Never mind, never mind.” Magda had a heart of gold. She had no way, coming to from a total black-out, and with the loss of time, forgetful, imagining her Dan, her Smith returned, of knowing whether the beautiful amber-eyed boy was mad or drunk, but something in her responded to his sincerity and to his panic, because she was like that herself. Sincere as the devil and panicky as all hell. Christ!

  “It’s me, Lydia, the doctor’s out sailing.” Lydia’s cheeks were carnation pink from her hard ride in the hot sun and little drops of perspiration beaded her forehead and lay along her upper lip, suspended there by tiny golden hairs. She did not miss Costello’s frightened look but she misunderstood it. She looked in surprise at Magda standing firmly on her own two feet. “You okay?” she said.

  “Thank God!” said Costello passionately, but still she did not catch on, how could she, she was jealous of the squire’s pretty ultra-feminine granddaughter who had been to school in Rome, and Magda was thirty, married, and divorced. She did not think, as some did, however, that Magda was a freak. She smiled at her, “You better lie down; was it the sun?”

  “Yes, it was the sun,” said Magda.

  “Idiot doctor,” said Lydia, “all you could see was his blue spinnaker coupla miles out. Ride me home, Costello? I’m pooped.”

  Costello rode Lydia home on the handle-bars of her bike. He was perfectly furious at her for interrupting his kissing, he blamed her, he had to, because what would he have done if she hadn’t come, he would have been scared and panicky and probably would have gone home anyway, crawled home. Jesus God! He was angry at himself. But Lydia was happy, she felt his knees, imagined she sat between them and she did, she heard his deep breathing and his damp warm breath was pleasant on the back of her neck. It was so hot but this was lovely. She turned and saw, all out of focus, because his face was so close, his frowning brow, his angry eyes, his pouting mouth. She slid so quickly off the handle-bars that he almost ran her down, and did lose his balance and have to jump for it. The mistreated bike lay on its side, the pedals spinning.

  “What’s the matter with you!” cried Lydia, her green eyes flashing black. “What you so sore about!”

  “What’s the matter with you!” retorted Costello. “You want to kill me!”

  “Yes!” snapped Lydia. “I do! Good idea!”

  I don’t suppose anyone ever looked prettier than the glamorous tomboy as she stood,
head up, her auburn hair like a luminous halo, her legs apart, her fists clenched, her mouth swelled up, curving in an insolent smile, her blouse quivering over her angry lovelorn little heart, but who was there to see her and love her? Not Costello, his eyes and his heart’s blood saw only, flowed in his veins only, for Magda, the abandoned funny little, swearing little, idol of the moppet set.

  “Goodbye, stupid!” she said.

  Costello’s anger had quickly evaporated after the spill. “Lydia . . .” he began, but Lydia was a quarter of a mile away.

  •

  Well, Costello’s passion beat at his brains, he couldn’t eat, he didn’t sleep, the sheets of paper fluttered in the moonlight on his desk, blank and cold. He didn’t know much but he knew, he felt compelled, to tell her of his love, he must say the words which seemed final, to him, “I love you.” That was it, that he must do, then he would rest.

  As for Magda, if she had an inkling, if she sensed his madness, she did not show it. The moppets, fingerlings all, eyed her with renewed interest and longed to see her drop on the grass again, be carried off and do it again and again right up to Labour Day.

  Then Costello made a decision. He waited until everyone was asleep. He listened at Victorine’s door, which was ajar, he heard her gentle deep breathing; his parents’ door was closed and Elsie had long since dropped like a log, a shillelagh on her bed. He walked, almost ran, to Magda. He knew the screen door was minus a hook, that Magda would be alone. He travelled under a full moon that dimmed the stars, stray dogs barked in the distance, muted barks, aimless, the harsh summer symphony of locusts had stopped at sundown, it was too hot for midget song life, tree toads and such, the only breeze was relative, he made it himself, and his brown locks stirred on his forehead.

  “Magda!” His voice was like a prayer.

  Magda lay on her bed with only a tiny night-light for comfort and it was dimmed like the stars by the moonlight which made bright oblongs on the floor like a blue sun. She wore only the bottoms of white cotton pyjamas, boys’ pyjamas, with a cord and a little fringe and two buttons in front. Her chest curved upward but her breasts were small squares with tiny pink nipples like an undeveloped girl, there was a dark blue hollow where her collarbone almost met and her short hair looked the colour of charcoal, against the pillow, in a drawing, a dense shadow, her skin was smooth and white as chalk, her cheeks, too, her feet were bare and her toenails, scarlet, the only colour in the room. In the moonlight her thick black eyelashes left a fringed and spiky shadow on each cheek. She was sleeping, or hiding. Costello held his breath, he felt like crying. To him it was beauty, the beauty, angelic and demonic, sacred and profane, heaven and hell, but he was wordless. The eleven forty-two whistled forlornly in the distance, a long musical wail, and it was still again.

  “Magda,” he whispered, “for Christ’s sake!”

  Her eyelids fluttered and she smiled. Was love coming to her in her sleep? She opened her eyes and they looked like two deep black holes in a double-barrelled shotgun.

  “Magda . . . Magda . . .”

  No one knows what Magda thought, and never will, but she made no sound, showed no fear, did not betray any notions by her expression. The smile that had begun in her sleep did not go away, or widen, and there was no hint of the flirt or the coquette in her look. She simply gave some sign which none of us saw, no one but Costello, who loved her, and he, quickly, without torment or mental reservation lay down beside her on the narrow white bed and took the small body, the dark head, the long slim legs with swelling thighs into his arms and they mutually kissed each other’s mouths. Neither said anything. Magda, without exactly abandonment, but not shy either, let him know, and he undid and slid off the little-boy pyjama bottoms, and looked with amazement and pleasure at the whole woman, the beautiful little freak, the desirable fearless Magda. Then he kissed her all over, tasting her as if she were candy and she sighed happily and frankly with pleasure. Costello, feeling her happiness that he all alone was giving her without any rehearsal, even in his mind, with no knowledge of anatomy or the zones of pleasure on a woman’s body, became of age, a man, but a man with the instincts of a woman, and Magda, who had never had anything but a plain man before who didn’t appear to have the least idea, experienced the transport that only bacchantes are supposed to sense, creatures of the woods and streams and rivers, mythological hermaphroditic ones, loved by the gods. And then, only when she wet his face with her tears of tenderness and disbelief and a number of things, did Costello’s own love melt and run like wildfire through his veins and it dealt him the pleasantest blow of all, and Magda kissed him and dressed him and blessed him. (“God bless dearest Costello.”)

  “Magda,” he whispered; the moon had set, a pale light lay along the horizon, a faint breeze stirred the leaves that had cooled and freshened in the night, and one bird began to sing, hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure of the time or the appropriateness of his melody.

  “Magda, dear, goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Costello.” Her voice was strong and sweet as if she were singing. Costello went away and Magda went to sleep.

  He had forgotten to say, “I love you.”

  Chapter XV

  The Little Missive

  Well, Costello never did get around to saying, “I love you,” to Magda, the overwhelming necessity seemed to have vanished, the finality of it that was going to rest him, put him to sleep, the compulsion evanesced. And Magda, the talkative, the loquacious, the girl with jokes and crazy laughter on her lips, didn’t say a word either. Their terrible and outrageous passion was wordless, they were dumb, and even “Magda” from Costello’s lips and “Costello” from hers were more like sounds than names. Their passionate secret appeared to be safe, it did not look as if anyone, as the summer drew to its annual close, noticed a thing. Perhaps Magda did look the same to the others, her skin that had no high lights as if painted in tempera or done in chalk was probably the same, and her personal lustre that nearly blinded Costello and made him wild to possess it was probably part of their secret. Costello’s beauty had long been admired, and if there was a new look, so had there been each succeeding summer. If the curve and fullness of his mouth with the slight pout, the soft drooping outline, was driving Magda out of her senses with the desire to be constantly caressing it, it had long done the same thing to the adolescent Lydia, and had frightened, a little, Allison, since he was fourteen. No one even noticed that Costello had become of age, there hadn’t been any rites. That he knew what he was about, that his virginity, that had nagged at him for so long, was as obsolete as his slingshot, Magda, the little keeper of the seals, alone knew, because she had been there and guided him and held his hand and kissed him through it. And the smell and taste of her was in his nostrils and in his mouth and the feel of her pneumatic body clung to the palm of his hands.

  Lydia, who felt his loss, had never had anything else but the same thing with the exception of the fraternal roughhousing that included, even depended on, his sister, and that, now, was over, it appeared. Victorine, reserved and living in some new daydream, refused to pounce on her brother, or be a party to any of Lydia’s tricks and shenanigans. There was the light of elsewhere magic in her eyes, and if Lydia wanted to tantalize herself and Costello, she would have to bombard him alone, or wait it out, whatever it was. Lydia thought it was the doll who had been educated in Rome, and she longed for her sudden demise, she fervently wished on the first star, the sickle moon, breastbones of chickens and ducks, and on loads of hay and twin almonds in one shell, Filipino! She needed a medicine man and witchcraft, her beauty was not enough.

  But Victorine, skin relative and incest-conscious, must be far gone indeed, as she certainly was, in the mesmerism of Fool Fred, her understanding with him so complete and intense as to exclude everything else and that was it, not to intercept any signal at the tennis court between the mad lovers, so ill-suited as never to be suspected by the less sensitive.

  “Victorine?”

  His sister lay
sleeping quietly as she well might at dawn.

  It is not clear why Costello felt the need to share, in some small way, his secret with his sister.

  “Vic?”

  “What!” said Victorine, sitting straight up as if a telegram had come from Mars. “Costello,” she said thickly as if she, too, had been in some other planet and would have to relearn the language of Earth.

  “Wake up, Silly.”

  “Oh, Costello, go away,” but Victorine, wide awake now, looked at Costello. Rested, at her best, not yet drawn to Green Acres in consciousness, perfectly free to receive suggestion, she saw it. She smelled a strange perfume, not synthetic but real, and yet it wasn’t a flower either, nor a fruit, neither was it liquor, although it was heady, like . . . She thoughtfully stared at her brother, trying to place the smell of him. She couldn’t. She saw that the pupils of his eyes were larger than usual and pulsating like a cat’s, but that could be the semi-darkness.

  “I just,” said Costello, “have missed you, I wanted to say, ‘I love you.’ ” He tried to say it lightly, the thing he had forgotten to say to Magda and never would, but his voice trembled.

  Victorine, who a year ago would have said, “You make me sick,” said instead, “Dearest Costello.”

  Costello took his sister’s face between his hands and kissed her mouth, he felt the heat of his own lips as they touched her cool ones, he could feel them smiling, and a slight fear went through him, for her, so good, so sweet, so innocent, virgin.