Keeping Secrets

by Suzanne Morris

  I shrugged. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter anyway, now.”

  He looked anxious. “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

  “I was turning it over in my mind,” I said, and scooped a spoonful of sugar from the bowl.

  “Well, I wouldn’t blame you. I’ve been a real bastard lately. But I wish you wouldn’t. I love you very much and I need you, now more than ever.”

  I was moved by that remark, but unwilling to show it. “I’m worn out with serving as your whipping boy, as I am sure everyone else is. I hope that wreck last night shook some sense into you.”

  “I’ll straighten out,” he said earnestly, avoiding my eyes. “I guess sometimes you have to go all the way to the bottom before starting up again … but promise me you won’t leave.”

  “I’ll think about it, but first let’s get something settled. I want to know whether or not you’re carrying on with Aegina Barrista, and I want the whole truth. You owe me that, at least.”

  “No. There is nothing between us except business, I swear. Once things were different, but that was a long time ago and it is all over.”

  “Someone saw her with a man of your description, at a tea dance, not too long after we married.”

  “Oh, is that what got you started on her? Well it must have been one of her boy friends—she has plenty of them. Hell, I don’t have time for tea dancing, never have. And I don’t see much of Aegina. Since we got back from Mexico I haven’t seen her at all.”

  “And why was she with you in Mexico—just on a nice little visit with her old man?”

  “She had been there for a few days before I went. She tried as hard as I did to change her father’s mind about the movement. It was almost time for classes to begin here, and Barrista is always worried about her safety, so he asked that we return on the same train.”

  “And you expect me to believe nothing happened between the two of you on the way back?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. We talked a lot, mostly about conditions in Mexico and about Barrista himself. But she has someone else now, and I wouldn’t have come after you if I’d wanted anything more to do with her. I don’t see why you’ve always felt so threatened by her.”

  “Ah … men! All right, but I want to see some changes in your behavior or I swear I’ll walk out that door and never come back. You ever talk to me again the way you did last night, and you will see how fast I can get my baggage together. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. We’ll overlook last night,” I said, and began to tidy the kitchen. He walked up behind me as I stood at the sink, and kissed the back of my hair. Then he whispered, “All my life, there has never really been another woman for me. You’ve got to believe that, and stick by me through the hard times.”

  “It’s a pity you weren’t around to help me through when I was having them,” I said caustically. I wanted to be kind and forgiving, wanted to tell him I supported him more than he knew, but something kept holding me back. Everything came out in spurts of bitterness. He kissed my cheek, and probably could have used his old advantage against me, but instead he mumbled something about being exhausted. I told him he ought to show the first signs of common sense he had in months, and skip the office today so he could rest. Without another word, he went upstairs.

  I stood holding a plate and a hand towel, fighting back a disgusting urge to cry for him because, while I’d seen him hurt by other things, I had never been so hard on him, or ever expected to be.

  I don’t know whether he would have been able to better deal with what he stood to lose in Mexico by virtue of the encounter between us, because he never had the test of time. Within a few days the situation south of the border—like one of our city streets—had taken another abrupt turn.

  Throwing caution to the winds, Barrista was on the way to San Antonio, fire on his breath.

  23

  From what I gathered between Barrista’s frequent lapses into frenzied Spanish during dinner at our home the next evening, Carranza was showing all signs of installing himself as a dictator. He was rolling out decrees that spelled assurance of his own election to the presidency the following spring. The title that he had carried for almost three years—First Chief of the de facto government—would not keep him from succeeding himself in effect, but would, on the other hand, give him authority to change the constitution immediately.

  “He has called a constitutional assembly for late November, and picked the delegates from among his sympathizers. By spring he will have a new constitution representing his ideas alone. He has written his ticket to absolute power,” Barrista said, then emptied his wine goblet in one gulp. “The man is contemptible. He must be stopped.”

  Emory cocked an eyebrow. “Are you ready now, Señor Barrista?”

  “You have my word, amigo. There is no backing out.”

  He then began to detail his plans beginning the first of the year. He wanted to make the perfunctory gesture of getting his name on the presidential ballot, and was confident he could get the backing of the most powerful rebel chiefs, including Pancho Villa, plus the solid support of mine workers, textile workers, and ranchers. “Once I announce my candidacy, and become a public figure in this new respect, I can associate my name with the Plan de Pacifica Reforma safely. Carranza cannot persecute me or my followers without the risk of being labeled a dictator.”

  “You still better post an armed guard around your hacienda,” Emory told him.

  “I intend to.”

  “And if you run for President, only to find there has been a ‘slight discrepancy’ in the vote count, causing you to lose, what then?” Emory asked.

  Barrista shrugged. “A call to arms.”

  My pulse quickened. It seemed Emory was locking all the windows.

  The expected course of events, on the other hand, was that Barrista would not be allowed candidacy, so the final coups would be pulled a little earlier. The signal would be the single name of Carranza on the ballot. Within one week following the election, Barrista’s four brothers, in co-operation with the other Mexican revolutionaries, would have a band of troops numbering close to 150,000 by Barrista’s estimation, prepared to form a chain around the radius of the capital and close in. Emory would be in Mexico while it happened, but Barrista himself would co-ordinate the forces. “I know I can get the trust of these men, but they will never put their trust in a gringo,” he said, and, remembering all the jesting about Emory’s love of a fight, I glanced at his face. His expression was calm and thoughtful.

  “All right, let’s have a look at the maps you brought,” he said.

  I had no desire to see territorial maps scarred with red marks, so I went outside and sat on the front steps. Although the early autumn night was chilly, I hardly noticed. Every nerve in my body was charged with excitement because I knew the plans which had proved so elusive before were now destined for reality.

  The aspects discussed that night smacked more than ever of risk and hidden dangers, of the appearance of turncoats and disappearance of the faint of heart, but then I thought, what revolutionary plan did not? What force for change on such a grand scale did not bear heavy burdens of this kind? The only question at hand was whether or not it was worth it, and that had already been answered by Carranza himself.

  Under the glow of a full moon I rested my face in my hands. It was like touching a cold cloth to fever. The bruise on my temple already seemed to be getting smaller. Either because he was too busy concentrating on other matters to notice, or he was too diplomatic to make reference to my wound, Barrista had said nothing about it.

  The hour was very late when he and Emory folded up the maps. Barrista was to be our house guest overnight, and by the time I got everyone settled down it was nearly two in the morning. Yet I was still too excited to sleep. I waited until Emory had bathed and come to bed.

  “It seems a hundred years have gone by in the past couple of days. I’m exhausted,” he said.

  “I hop
e you weren’t thinking of going right to sleep.”

  “Did you have something else in mind?”

  “Come a little closer and I’ll show you.”

  He sat down near me and smiled. “I’ve left something to be desired as a husband lately, haven’t I?”

  “You might say that. I want to catch you while you’re sober.”

  He ignored the last remark and said, “Well, you see my dear, what with little revolutions here and there, dormant copper mines, and other minor incidentals, I do get preoccupied now and then.”

  “That’s all right as long as you’re not preoccupied with other women.”

  “How could I be? It takes all I’ve got just keeping you satisfied.”

  “That hasn’t seemed of major concern lately,” I said, and turned away from him. I wasn’t really mad. I just wanted to see whether he’d come after me. The feel of his lambent fingers up my spine and around my breasts brought a small smile of triumph to my face.

  Emory’s behavior was a great deal more civilized for the next couple of months, and he cut back to his more normal consumption of whiskey, even then so considerable I stopped wondering why he should blow up every time he read something new on the growing movement of the Anti-Saloon League toward national prohibition. Still he was a man relatively at peace, since Barrista finally had taken the helm in Mexico. There was probably never a time prior to that when I was more tempted to relieve my own burden onto his shoulders, because the truth was that I could no longer handle it alone.

  Mark’s letters since the receipt of the proceeds from the emerald ring had been increasingly frequent and nasty. It seemed to me that the larger the payment I made, the more apt he was to press for more immediately. Perhaps he thought Emory and I came into money sporadically—that was likely, considering the uneven pattern of my ability to forward him money—and that he would take as much as he could get while it lasted.

  Several of his letters made reference to the “little business deal” I had turned down with Richard Boscomb, and one said, “If you could let a good chance like that slip by, you must not be having as hard a time gettin’ your hands on cash as you said.”

  There was also the hint that he was laying the groundwork for blackmail, for he began to include such phrases as “You know, it kinda seems like I been through an awful lot to get this money. It don’t really seem fair, over what must be about like a handful of change to someone in your class. I kinda think somewhere along the way there ought to be an extra bonus.…”

  I wrote him a note ignoring the new threats, and saying I could not send him more just now, but would forward the balance due him within a few months. The promise was total fallacy, of course, except for the wishful thought contained in it. I wadded it up and threw it away, then thought again and burned it in the stove. I went upstairs, pulled out Richard Boscomb’s material again, and looked it over, then put it back into the drawer.

  By that time my nerves were in such a state that a letter from Mark could put me near hysterics, and there were many times when the unexpected appearance of Nathan at home during the day, to pick up an item from his desk or tend to something else, would startle me so I would jump as though I had seen a ghost.

  24

  Around ten o’clock on a morning in late September, Woody’s neighbor Mrs. Hormby rang the doorbell. “Do you know where Mr. Woodstone is?”

  “If he isn’t at home, I have no idea. Why?”

  “I’ve been hearing Scoop bark since I got up at five this morning—off and on, you know—and finally I went next door to see if anything was wrong. No one answers. Do you suppose he went out of town and left the little dog alone?”

  “Of course not.” I followed Mrs. Hormby down the street toward Woody’s house, more fearful with every step. When we came in view of the house I could see Scoop, first at one window then another, barking, tail wagging. Seeing me, he scratched against the glass.

  I circled around to the back door of Woody’s house and knocked, while Mrs. Hormby, aware, I think, of what might possibly have happened, stood reluctantly by the front gate.

  Woody’s bedroom was at the back of the second floor, so the only thing left to do was go through a window and see if he was all right. I found a kitchen window unlocked, and climbed in. At once, Scoop was jumping on me, yelping hysterically. He wouldn’t let me pick him up, but ran instead to the foot of the stairs and stood barking. I took a deep breath and followed him up.

  I don’t know exactly how long Woody had been dead. He’d apparently gone in his sleep, peacefully. There was a book of English poetry, spine up, at his side. On the table near his bed was the picture of smiling Johnny in his uniform. Not having been this close to death before, I would not have believed I could feel so uncertain upon seeing it. I touched his hand and called softly, “Woody?” Then I moved away and raised the back of my hand to my mouth. Scoop kept yelping and scratching at my legs, until finally I came out of my daze and grabbed him up. But he needed a conveyor, that was all, and leaped right from my arms onto the bed, sniffed around Woody, climbed up on his chest, and licked his face, then quietly scrambled down and lay beside him. He glanced up at me as if he sought an explanation.

  I stood watching him, unable to move. In a moment he went to the end of the bed to the lump of his master’s feet and lay down again, his head resting across them, ears perked, eyes still curious.

  I held the stair rail tightly as I walked back down, then remembered Mrs. Hormby and opened the front door. She remained stationed at the gate. “Do you know his doctor?” I called.

  Her eyes were as wide as Scoop’s. “Is he alive?”

  “No.”

  “I think I have the doctor’s name written down. He treated my husband once.” She scurried down the walk, no doubt relieved at having a purpose, and I went back in to wait. Scoop neither made another sound nor came down the stairs. I sat for what seemed a long time in my usual place, across from Woody’s chair, and thought about all the times we’d sat together with music from the Victrola making interludes between the words we shared. He had regarded me almost as a special child. He never quizzed me on my schooling, or my bringing-up. He didn’t know where I had been before he came to know me, and I had never told him, although several times I had come close. It would have made no more difference than the fact the annuals in his garden had to be dug up and replanted each year. In his view, each day one started from the beginning to learn something new. With me he simply started from scratch. He was the only real friend I ever had. By the time the doctor knocked at the door, my eyes were filled with tears.

  At Woody’s funeral there were people I recognized, though I had never met them; people who lived in the bigger, finer houses of the neighborhood that I had seen alighting from their automobiles or talking to one another in their dooryards. There were people who lived elsewhere in the city, and drove Packards and custom-made automobiles up to the curb of the church. They wore fine clothing and had their names linked to the best clubs and cultural societies. Their pictures often appeared in the paper. They did not speak to me.

  There were probably near two hundred people at the service, and more floral remembrances than I had ever seen in one gathering. It all seemed so queer, when he had been so often alone, that all of these people should have known him well enough to attend his funeral. Of all the times his genuineness had struck me, I had never been more aware of it than on that day. His remarks about the people who’d been his students, and his social friends from all the literary and musical and art clubs that registered his and Elizabeth’s names, came back to me, sitting in the pew. I felt very much alone and out of place among them, and felt that having lost this lifeline Woody had offered me when we first met, I was no longer a part of anything he claimed. Yet it wasn’t his way of life I would miss. It was Woody himself.

  “He was an old man; his death was inevitable,” said Emory when we spoke of him at dinner, then he shrugged and added, “I tried several times to save you from this.�
�

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you not to become involved with him—or tried to give you a subtle hint.”

  “You ‘hinted’ that I shouldn’t take sides in that god-forsaken war overseas. Well, that had nothing to do with my friendship with Woody. Maybe you can turn your feelings for people on and off, like a faucet, but I can’t.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t learned to by now.…”

  “I’ll tell you what killed Woody. It was that war. It took from him the only person he had, and that killed him. He would have been around long enough to see his grandson again, one day, if the kid had not been massacred.”

  Emory turned around, furious. “What do you expect me to do about the war? You seem to believe it’s my fault.”

  I wanted to tell him it sure wasn’t a British gun that put an end to Johnny’s life, but I stopped myself just in time. It wouldn’t have helped Woody.

  Finally Emory put his hands on my shoulders from behind. “I’m sorry … believe it or not, I try so confounded hard to save you from being hurt. It never seems to turn out that way, though,” he said, and squeezed my shoulders, then walked off.

  He refused when I asked if we could keep Scoop permanently, but agreed to let me care for the dog until I could find him a home. I think he felt far worse about the war in Europe than he would admit, and didn’t want a constant reminder around of a casualty he’d been even vicariously responsible for.

  I decided to offer Scoop to Camille Devera—I’d seen her lately while I was helping to serve the hungry soldiers at the railroad station. She might enjoy the little dog, being a young single girl without much social life, judging from all the little odd jobs she took on. Yet that could wait. In the meantime, Scoop knew me better than anyone else, and I was more than happy to have him around for company. The will found among Woody’s papers in a bank vault was dated more than ten years previous. Everything in the Woodstone estate passed first to Johnny, and in the event he didn’t survive Woody (that must have seemed a remote possibility then!), the estate went to Johnny’s mother, the militant suffragette. I couldn’t see her coming all the way over here to pick up a dog. The way things were overseas, she could not even catch a steamer to arrive in time for the reading of the will.