No Time To Blink

by Dina Silver

  I gasped and covered my mouth, then slid back behind the guesthouse. My father stumbled over to her and called her name. “Lola,” he said, but she didn’t move.

  I watched my father, with a tumbler of Scotch in his right hand, tap her body with his foot and then swear under his breath. Moments later, he walked inside, leaving her there.

  In my sixteen-year-old mind, I remember thinking I wanted to push this horrid woman in the pool and watch her drown. How dare she disrespect my parents’ marriage like that! And who invited her, anyway? I hated her for lying there motionless with her tits hanging out. It wouldn’t be right for little Mary Grace, who was eight at the time, to wake up and see some strange woman passed out next to the diving board the next morning. What was he thinking leaving her there?

  I snuck in through the service entrance and ran up the back stairs. I was just about to wake Margaret when I saw a Belle Haven security car pull in the driveway, followed by a Greenwich Police car. Two men got out of each vehicle and walked to the back of our house. Father was nowhere in sight.

  Quickly as I could, I scurried back down the kitchen stairwell and slammed into my father as he was walking up.

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” he said.

  I caught my breath. “I’m . . . I was getting a Coke,” I said, but he couldn’t have cared less. He was more annoyed that I’d knocked into him and spilled some of his drink. He walked right on past me with the signature sound of ice cubes jingling against the sides of his glass.

  I froze on the steps, thinking I might be seen if I walked to the window. I couldn’t even imagine how he was going to explain this mess to my mother. I leaped down the remaining stairs and ran through the house to the back patio doors that overlooked the pool. It was dark in the house, so I stayed close to the drapery, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed, but that didn’t last very long. One of the police officers, a very tall man with bright orange hair, looked up as the other three men gathered Lola by her feet and under her arms. He was a striking figure, towering over the others, standing about six feet seven inches. Without meaning to, I willed him to look at me. In an instant, he was staring at me, studying me. And if I were any average sixteen-year-old girl other than a Belle Haven brat, he’d pity me. I took a step backward into the shadows, but he didn’t take his eyes off mine, even nodded to make sure I knew that he saw me.

  In the morning, Lola was gone, and there was never any mention of her. Not another visit from Belle Haven security, not from the ginger giant, and certainly not from Lola. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

  After I accused Gabriel of having a mistress in the mountains, he forbade me from going there.

  “If you have nothing to hide up there, then why haven’t we been to visit?” I pressed him.

  “My home there is not for you right now.”

  “What the hell does that mean? I’ve heard you talk about it for a year. It’s a two-hour drive from the apartment, and you promised to take me there.”

  “I’m tired of arguing about it,” he said. “I have never promised anything about that house.”

  I sighed and relaxed my tone, opting for a different approach and hearing Brigitte’s advice ringing through my head. “Can you see where I’m coming from? If I had a second home that was important to me and my family, and it was only a short ride away, don’t you think you would want to go there?”

  He just stared at me.

  “I know you’d be very curious if I treated it as some sort of a secret,” I added.

  Gabriel slid a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and walked to the balcony. When he was through, he found me in the kitchen, brewing some water for tea.

  “It’s a very special place, and one day I will take you both there. When I am ready.” He dismissed me and went to make a phone call.

  In the bathroom, I gazed at myself in the mirror. I knew all too well that men, loving husbands and fathers, could easily keep secrets from their wives with zero guilt. I also knew what those secrets could do to their families. My mother wasn’t naive. Just because she never caught some floozy stumbling around the pool deck doesn’t mean she didn’t know they existed. I mean, she never told me she knew my father was a cheat, but as I got older, I could tell. It was in her eyes. The way she looked at him over the years had changed. A child’s senses are like no other, and when my mother stopped looking at my father with love and started looking at him with contempt, the whole house suffered for it. I did not want my daughter to endure the same pain.

  Gabriel was holding a book in one hand and hanging up the phone when I found him. “I want to go this week,” I said.

  He looked at me as if I’d spoken in one of the few languages he didn’t understand. “Where?”

  “Beit Chabab. I want you to take me up to the mountains this week.” I crossed my arms. “I’m ready.”

  He almost laughed at my brazenness, but his anger got the best of him. “I said I would take you there when I’m ready. Don’t test me.”

  “Don’t hide things from me.”

  His face got bright red. “I don’t take orders from you! Are you crazy?” He tossed the book at my head, and it grazed my left cheek as I flinched. My mouth went wide, and my hand flew to my ear.

  Before I knew it, he was gripping my arm with his hand. “You will never go!” He let me go with a shove.

  I slept on the couch that night with one eye open and woke to a hot August day. The balcony doors were wide-open, as they always were then, and the hum from our three ceiling fans had put me to sleep with Ann Marie on my chest. Our arguments were getting more and more frequent, but with added aggression and no make-up sex. Almost every one was a result of my asking to fly home and visit my family, or questioning his faithfulness. Had I been relentless, as he’d said? Maybe I was, but he’d treated me like a flight risk, a prisoner, and he was the one lying to me.

  I placed my sleeping baby in her playpen, snuck two quick drags on a cigarette, and called Brigitte for some advice.

  “Are you busy?” I asked when she answered.

  “Until school starts again, I am always busy, but never for you.”

  “Can you come over?”

  Brigitte sat with me on my balcony, and we drank white coffee from a tea set that had belonged to Gabriel’s mother.

  “You know how badly I want to go home and visit my family.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Do you think it’s too much for me to ask?” There was more sarcasm than significance in my question.

  “Is this about Gabriel?”

  “Yes,” I said. I hadn’t confided in her about the lies he’d been telling and the secrets he was keeping from me. Or that he’d refused to take me to the mountains. She must have known, though, because it was such a common occurrence for so many of our neighbors. Yet we remained in the city every weekend.

  She shrugged. “He’s spent so much time in the States. I can’t see why he’s so opposed to the idea.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Me either. He says I’m being relentless and I will want to stay too long, and that he can’t take the time from work and a bunch of other nonsense.” My shoulders relaxed. “I’m heartbroken about it, and every time I mention it, we argue. Why should I walk on eggshells around here just because I want Ann Marie to meet her grandparents?”

  “Where are these eggshells?”

  I laughed. “It’s an expression. It means I’m afraid to bring up the subject.”

  Her expression was still bewildered. “Are you happy here?”

  She began speaking again before I answered. “Maybe he is worried that if you go home, you will come back sad and depressed about having left your family all over again.”

  The truth was that I loved my husband, but I wasn’t happy in Beirut. “I’m not unhappy, but I miss my family. I need to know that I can see them and talk to them without restrictions. I’ve done nothing to deserve his distrust, and we have enough money to afford as many phone calls as I w
ant. I never intended to abuse the phone bill. Even when I talk for five minutes with my sister, he scolds me like I’ve committed some crime and put us in the poorhouse. He’s threatened to have the phone disconnected more times than he’s told me he loves me in the past two months.” I almost told her he threw a book at my face, but instead, I protected him.

  She sighed. “I am sorry to hear that. You are a beautiful couple, and you have this beautiful little angel.” She looked over at the playpen. “Do you want Sammy to talk to him?”

  “No, absolutely not. I think it would only make matters worse for him to know we’re talking behind his back.”

  “That is what friends do.”

  I smiled. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Brigitte crossed her arms. “You are a feisty girl. You know I tell you that. Men like Gabriel want to think they are the only thing that matters. He wants to believe that you are happy in his home country. That he can provide for you like your parents have, or better than they have. It’s always about ego, my darling. If you make his ego strong, then he will give you the world. But if he thinks you are his challenger and not his champion, then he will never back down from the fight.”

  She was right. We’d been together for merely a year and gone through our share of chaos, both good and stressful. I wanted desperately for things to work between us, but I had my daughter to think about, and she deserved to have a relationship with her entire family. We both did.

  “You are my wisest neighbor,” I joked. “And I love you.” She rolled her eyes. “I know you feel like a broken record.”

  Brigitte gave me the same confused glance she’d given me when I’d made the comment about walking on eggshells.

  “You know, saying the same things over and over,” I clarified. “But I think I finally understand what you’re saying, and you’re right. I don’t want to fight with Gabriel.”

  But I wanted to get my way. Her advice finally gave me clarity, and I knew exactly what had to be done.

  Brigitte left, and I fixed myself a bowl of yogurt with cherries for lunch, which I ate on the balcony. Just as I padded quietly back into the apartment to clean up, I heard the key in the front door. It was Gabriel.

  “Hi,” I said. “What are you doing home so early?” It was just after 1:00 p.m.

  He looked around the apartment as if there were clues to a crime waiting to be found. There were none. His cologne wafted through the room as he walked past me and into the bedroom. I used to melt at the scent of it. “Honey . . .” I placed the dishes in the sink and followed him. “Can we talk about last night? What are you doing home in the middle of the day?”

  I entered the bedroom to find him rummaging through the desk. He stuck something in his pocket and walked past me again. “Gabriel,” I said in a low voice so as not to disturb Ann Marie. “What is going on? Would you stop walking past me?” I stomped my bare foot and chased him into the kitchen, where he opened a cabinet that housed a combination safe. He spun the dial, opened the door, took what he’d put in his pocket, and locked it away.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “It’s your passport.” He turned his back on me. “I’m sorry, but you will never leave this country.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  CATHERINE

  Beirut, 1971

  By the time Ann Marie was six months old, my desperation hit a new low. After Gabriel first took my passport, I lost it. My hands and limbs were trembling so much that I had to lie on the kitchen floor so I wouldn’t pass out and hurt myself by tumbling onto the table and chairs. He’d come home that day like a flash of light and turned our relationship from partners and lovers to captor and hostage. As soon as I was able to stand and see straight, I rang Brigitte again. She had just left my apartment, leaving a trail of sage advice that was intended to bring me peace. No such luck.

  “I can’t understand you,” she said. “Give me ten minutes.”

  She came back over and found me cradling my child, tears streaming down my face, lip quivering. “He locked up my passport!”

  She covered her mouth.

  “He wouldn’t even speak to me. Came home seconds after you were gone. He left work to come here and put my passport in the safe.”

  “Do you know the combination?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  Ann Marie began to wail.

  Brigitte took the baby from me and bounced with her in her arms. “Did you yell at him?”

  I shook my head and buried it in my hands. “I’ve done nothing but ask to see my family.”

  “Did you ask him again today when he came home?”

  “No. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I tried. All he said was that I was never going to leave this country.” I looked up, furious now. “If he thinks for one second that he can lock me up and keep us from my family, he has another thing coming.”

  Brigitte bounced some more and cooed at Ann Marie, who was fussing. “May I fetch her a bottle?”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Go on the terrace and try to find your breath. I will meet you out there.”

  I found my breath in a pack of cigarettes and a glass of vodka as my neighbor fed my child and placed her back into bed.

  Brigitte took a seat next to me. “Let me help you.”

  “Escape?”

  “No.” She leaned forward. “The more you talk of going home, the less he is willing to allow it, yes?”

  “Why do I need his permission to see my family?”

  Her face hardened. “Your stubbornness has gotten you this far. I am trying to tell you that you are married to a proud Middle Eastern man.” She clapped her hands in front of my face as if to wake me up. “And until you understand what that means for you and the baby, then his threats will be your reality.”

  “You keep asking me what I did wrong today, and I did nothing.”

  “I keep asking you so I can understand where we go from here. If you did not argue with him today, then let him come home from work this evening and pretend you are not upset with what he’s done.”

  I laughed out loud. “So, he should get away with confiscating my passport?”

  Brigitte sat back in her seat and crossed her legs. “Do you want to go home or not?”

  Her message that day was not lost on me, and if I had to swallow my pride to see my family, then that’s what I had to do. With every day that had passed since Ann Marie’s birth, my relationship with Gabriel had become more and more strained, and his tolerance for my wants and needs became nonexistent. Back home, the feminist movement was plowing ahead with the force of a locomotive. But in Beirut, he wouldn’t allow me to order off a menu for myself, meet a friend for lunch—not that I had many—and even asking a waiter for more ice in my water led him to publicly ostracize me. Anytime I went to leave the building during the day, Walid was there. Even walking down to the ocean with the baby turned into a day at the beach with Walid and Ann Marie.

  And then something happened. I went to get the mail, and there was a letter for me from an address I didn’t recognize. Inside was the article I’d written for the Chicago Tribune about my holiday lunch at Marshall Field’s in the Walnut Room and a handwritten note on Abigail Rushton’s personal stationery.

  Dear CC,

  My apologies for sending this so late, but it took me nearly as long to locate your address in Beirut from your cousin Henry. However, it was a wonderful reason to call him and catch up. But you can blame him for the tardiness of this letter! Anyway, I hope the copy of the article has made its way to you, and you should know it was quite well received. You are a talented writer. We had many inquiries from readers wanting to hear more about your other adventures and opinions. I told you, everyone loves a socialite. Hope you are well and settled in Lebanon. I must say that is a place I have never been. Do stay in touch.

  A.R.

  Her letter lit the mass of smoldering kindle in my belly. It was a sign that I should be writing more and not just in my journals, and it was
a sign that I should be living, not suffocating. Abigail’s gesture made me bound and determined to get home to my family. And if that meant taking Brigitte’s advice, then that was precisely what I would do.

  That day, when Gabriel came home from work after locking up my freedom, I never said one word about it. Never even mentioned the Tribune article that I should’ve been clamoring to show him.

  The new me.

  I stopped using the phone, stopped talking about my family, and focused solely on him and our home in Beirut. We began making love again and talking about growing our family. Within three weeks, he was a changed man. A man whose threats had been removed. A man who was in control of his woman again. A man who was being hoodwinked. A fool.

  Early one Wednesday evening, I asked Walid to drive me to a market about ten miles away because I knew they had a bank of pay phones in the back. Some of the students at AUB had mentioned that to me as a great resource.

  “Would you mind staying in the car with Ann Marie while I shop?” She was asleep in her plastic infant seat.

  His face lit up as if he’d been asked to represent his country in a peace summit. “I would be honored! You do not have to worry for one second, Miss. I am a father myself, as you know, and I will treat her as if she were mine.” He stood at attention.

  I smiled and laughed a little too much on purpose. “Of course, you will. That’s why I asked. You are truly the sweetest man I know.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “And I will only be about fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, of course. We will be right here. You take your time, and do not be concerned for even a second.”

  I ran inside to the back of the store and placed a collect call to Laura. It had been months since we’d spoken, but I’d written to her that I would try and call on that very day. How did I pick that random Wednesday? Because that’s how I did everything back then. All decisions were made to appear as arbitrary as possible.