Near Canaan

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  She smiled.

  “I think he wanted another mama; or maybe a tame little wifey, to sit at home and knit. Shit,” she said, and drank. “Hell, I wanted something, too.”

  “The wildebeest,” I said.

  “You remember,” she said, quietly. “Well, that didn’t happen. Jesus Christ. Things are really a mess now.”

  I thought, not for the first time, that it was the moneyed, privileged girls who tended to curse and drink, while the poorer, churchgoing ones kept pure. I thought of Joan, who was probably getting home from work right now.

  “Do you have to be somewhere?” asked Beth, reading my thoughts.

  “No,” I said. “We can talk.”

  “Well, Billy’s gone all vindictive these days, and he won’t let me have a divorce. Meanwhile, his parents are willing to pay me to stay with him.”

  “They offered you money?” I said, aghast.

  “Not in so many words. The wealthy are good at folding their money around things,” said Beth. “I don’t understand why Billy doesn’t want out,” she added. “He’s as unhappy as I am. But he’s convinced that he’d be releasing me to my lover.”

  “Lover?” I repeated.

  “I think he’s afraid of divorce because then so-and-so can start to pester him about marriage.”

  “So-and-so?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t know I know about her. I’d have to be an idiot not to.” She drank again, and then let out a gust of laughter, clapping her hand to her mouth. “Did I tell you?” she said. “That’s what they call him.”

  “Who?”

  “Those people,” she said, waving her hand, somehow conjuring up that brittle painted crowd she’d been so much with in the last few years. “They call him ‘The Village Idiot.’ Is it perfect? Anyway,” she said, with an abrupt return to seriousness, “I think I can get him on grounds of adultery. If I wanted to, I could cite a dozen times. What a day in court,” she said, and then added thoughtfully, “Though it would kill old Lucy.”

  “Are you sure—” I began, and blushed.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “How he finds so many willing I’m sure I don’t know. Maybe he pays them.”

  “Don’t you care?” I asked.

  “Stupid,” said Beth. She tapped her empty bottle on the table, and the waiter came over with another: it was that kind of bar. “Of course I cared, once,” she said, when the waiter had gone. “But that kind of caring stops. It gets killed. I don’t care anymore. If you want to know the truth, I’m glad. If he’s getting it from them, then he isn’t bothering me.”

  “Same old Beth,” I said. “Flippant as always.”

  “Not quite the same,” she returned, tipping up her bottle. “This one’s pregnant.”

  “Wonderful!” I said. “Joan is, too.”

  “I know,” said Beth. “She told me.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, congratulations.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, with a sour look. “I can’t have it, of course.”

  “What else can you do?”

  “Well, I can’t have it. It would be the worst thing. Bill would never let me go then. I’d be trapped.”

  “But—” I began.

  “Listen,” said Beth. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, knowing that it’s in you, that you can’t get it out, that it’s just going to grow and grow and grow—”

  “You make it sound like a monster,” I said. “It’s a baby.”

  “It’s a ball and chain,” said Beth. “And it’s—goddamn it—inside me.” She tapped the table again; this time, the waiter brought two bottles, and took our empties away. “But I’m afraid of abortion,” said Beth.

  Abortion. The word scared me, with its implications of blood and infection, of heedless slaughter. Under the table, I crossed my fingers, so that even hearing the word should not affect the child that Joan was carrying.

  “Shocked you again,” said Beth. “Damn,” and she leaned her forehead on her hand.

  “It’s illegal,” I whispered.

  “Don’t be stupid, G.I.,” she said, without looking up. “You don’t think Tillie Coombs really went out to Iowa last year to help her aunt. She came home pregnant, and her pa was so mad he threw her out. She went over to Tall Creek, where there’s a lady does them for fifty dollars. She got septic, and died.” Beth was a little pale at the end of this story. “I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  “It won’t,” I said.

  “Of course,” she said, brightening, “there’s always the possibility of miscarriage.”

  I blanched.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about these things.” She drank, slowly; there was silence for a minute. “Look,” she said then. “I’m really happy for you and Joan. It’s wonderful about the baby. I mean it.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “My situation’s different,” said Beth. “You all love each other; you have a happy home. Can you understand? I need you to understand,” she said. Her eyes were wide and honest, whole separate worlds inside her head. I realized how completely I did not know her.

  “Yes,” I said, the single syllable sent across to her like a key. Unlock your door, I was saying, let me in.

  “I thought you would,” said Beth, and for a moment we held the gaze. Then she looked down, breaking it. “Good old G.I.,” she said. She patted the crackling bags arranged on the seat beside her. “I’ve bought consolation gifts for myself.” She smiled. “I won’t be able to wear them for long.”

  “Beth,” I said.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said. “That worryface you get. I don’t know how Joan stands it.” She smiled and ran her fingers under her eyes in a fatigued manner. “I have to get home and slip poison into Billy’s supper,” she said. “Just kidding.”

  I helped her with the packages, but on the sidewalk she insisted on taking them from me.

  “Go on, now,” she said. “Go on.”

  I turned once to look back at her, a dozen yards away, but she had already turned the corner, and was out of sight.

  Joan’s pregnancy galvanized our marriage. By then, we had almost given up hope; time and routine had settled us into a comfortable pattern of work and childlessness. When Joan missed a period, one after four years, we scarcely dared to hope. She went off to Dr. Greene casually, alone, as though she wanted treatment for a cough. “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “I’ll be home in about an hour.” I watched her drive away, her face neutral and calm, wearing nothing of the hope that must have been leaping inside her.

  When she came home, several hours later, she was utterly different.

  “Hello, Dad,” she said, and started laughing. I laughed, too, and then suddenly we were both crying, sunk to our knees in the entrance hall, faces damply in one another’s shoulders.

  We ran out immediately, to do shopping that needn’t have been done for months yet. We bore our prizes home—heaps of tiny white undershirts, miniature ruffled socks, terrycloth bibs with bunny rabbits and ducks floating across them—and laid them reverently on the altar of our faith, the now-dusty nursery.

  Joan gave notice at the school.

  “They said they didn’t know what they’d do without me,” she told me. “They said they’d hold my position until I felt ready to return.” She looked up at me, and smiled. “They’ll be waiting a long time,” she said. “I’m not missing a minute of this baby.”

  “And this is just the beginning,” I said. “We’ll have dozens.”

  “Let’s get through this one first,” said Joan practically, putting her head on my shoulder.

  Joan found out soon enough about Beth’s pregnancy; when she reported the news to me, I reacted as though I hadn’t already known.

  “How does she feel about it?” I asked.

  “What a question,” said Joan. “She’s thrilled, of course. She says it’s perfect timing; we can bitch to each other for nine months, and the children can be playmates. Like havi
ng twins, but without the bother.”

  It sounded like something Beth would say, although the optimism of it surprised me.

  “I wish she wouldn’t drink so much, though,” said Joan.

  “She always did drink,” I said.

  “But not so much,” said Joan. “It’s those people she’s been running with. The way she tells it, they’re never sober.”

  I remembered the three beers Beth had downed in less than an hour, the last time I’d seen her. The first no doubt had been need, and the second pleasure. The third, I was sure, was habit. And when she’d stood up, there had been no unsteadiness about her: a bad sign.

  “Maybe the baby will settle her down,” I said.

  “It’s settled me,” said Joan, with a wry smile. “Everything but my stomach.”

  The first months were rough for her; she did not look obviously pregnant for a long time, but suddenly she ballooned, and in her fifth month she was enormous. The nausea persisted throughout, alternating with fits of voracious hunger. By the last few weeks, she was in a sort of daze.

  “I’m sick of not seeing my feet,” she complained. “Hurry up,” she told her belly.

  “It doesn’t work,” said Beth, patting her own abdomen. “I’ve tried it.”

  The two women were spending a lot of time together now. Beth seemed resigned to her pregnancy, and had never referred, by glance or statement, to our conversation of that afternoon, in the downtown bar. We heard nothing from her about Bill, who was conspicuously absent.

  Early on, we had invited the two of them to a dinner party. They arrived together, but divided immediately after stepping across the threshhold, staying at opposite ends of the living room until dinner, when they took chairs as far apart as possible. Down the long length of the table, I could see the relief on Joan’s face: despite the obvious schism, it seemed there would be no overt nastiness.

  One of the couples bred hunting dogs, and had a new litter; table conversation for a while centered on the naming of the pups.

  “I know I should follow the book,” said Vi. “But I get these terrific urges just to name one of them Daffodil, or something like that. Something simple.”

  “No one would buy a hound named Daffodil,” said June Nuckols, seriously.

  “Well, Spot, then, or Rover. The pedigree names are so long.”

  Bill had been largely silent all evening, drinking whisky, carrying his glass with him to the dinner table, and topping it up all through the meal. Now he looked up.

  “We should call ours Spot,” he said, loudly. “It’s a good mutt name. Or maybe Rover, after the mother.”

  There was an embarrassed silence, which Joan filled quickly, turning to her dinner partner and starting a new topic of conversation. Beth excused herself from the table, hurrying off in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. Bill continued his remarks, not seeming to notice that their target had left the company. I felt that I must do something. I stood up, not a little nervous. I had never been involved in anything like this; Bill was clearly out of control. I had never been so close to the threat of physical violence.

  “Come on,” I said, going over to Bill, taking his arm.

  “Whaddya want?” he said, pulling his arm away, peering up at me. “It’s you,” he said.

  “You’re drunk,” I said. “You’re disturbing the party. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Shaddup, you,” he said, jerking away.

  “Let’s not make a big deal out of this,” I said, desperately. All the guests were watching the two of us; even Joan had given up her pretense at conversation, and was looking our way.

  “Bill,” she said, clearly. He turned his head in her direction. “Go home,” said Joan.

  “Huh,” he said, and slumped.

  “Go home,” said Joan. She jerked her chin at me, and I left off tugging at him who outweighed me by thirty pounds, and backed away. “Go home,” said Joan, again, exactly as though she were speaking to a dog. Just then, Beth reentered the room, and watched with the rest of us as Bill shambled blindly to his feet, and toward the front door.

  “Night,” he said, vaguely, pulling it open, and passing through.

  “Well,” said Vi. “That was amazing.”

  “Do you want to go with him?” I asked Beth, quietly.

  “No,” she said. “He’ll find his own way home.” Seeing the other guests’ careful attempts not to look at her, she raised her voice a little, and addressed them.

  “A pedigree doesn’t always guarantee breeding,” she said, lightly and charmingly, and there was a wave of polite and forgiving laughter.

  “I’m glad that’s over,” Joan said, when the guests had left. “What a horrible man.”

  “What do you think he meant?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t hear,” she said, evasively. “He was slurring pretty badly.”

  “He was angry about something,” I said.

  “He was drunk,” she said. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

  “Beth handled it well,” I said.

  “I guess she’s used to it,” said Joan, sadly. “Here’s hoping we don’t have to have him here again.”

  And we didn’t; he seemed perfectly happy not to be included in our jaunts. For several months we made a bizarre threesome, two swollen women and one skinny man. On weekends we went to movies, and on weekday evenings we played card games, consuming enormous quantities of popcorn, one of the few foods Joan could tolerate. If that weren’t enough, the two women spent weekdays together while I was at work. They did desultory shopping, waddling from store to store, buying almost nothing, coming back to our house, exhausted.

  “What have you all been doing all afternoon?” I asked Joan. “Never mind, I know what you’re going to say. You talk.”

  “That’s right,” said Joan, putting her feet into my lap.

  “What about?” I asked, taking her left foot into my hands, beginning to rub it.

  “Nothing, really,” she said. “How fat we are.”

  “It worries me,” I said. “You’re so tired all the time.”

  “You’d be tired, too, cowboy,” said Joan, with a sardonic look. “Hauling this blubber around.”

  “That’s no blubber, that’s our baby,” I said, drawing a finger up her insole.

  “That tickles,” she said, squeezing up her face. “Uncle.”

  “We still haven’t picked out names,” I said.

  “Blubber Corbin,” said Joan. “Ow, stop. All right—after you if it’s a boy, Margaret Emily if it’s a girl.”

  “Margaret, yuck,” I said. “People will call her Margie.”

  “Or Maggie. Or Meg. Or Peggy.”

  “Too confusing,” I said. “Maybe we should think of something else. What are Beth and Bill considering?”

  “They aren’t, as far as I know. Beth calls it the Tumor. I think Bill is still trying to figure out where babies come from.”

  “That sounds like something Beth would say,” I remarked.

  “It was, actually,” admitted Joan. “She can be awfully funny. I just laugh and laugh. Some of the stories she tells, about that crowd she used to run with—you wouldn’t believe what they get up to.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  “Beth tells them better,” said Joan. She looked at me. “You’re always so interested in what we talk about.”

  “I’m curious,” I said.

  “It’s not all that exciting,” she said. “I mean, we hardly ever say anything serious anymore. We joke, mostly.”

  “Sounds more like gossip,” I said.

  “That, too,” said Joan. “But not really nasty, just funny. It’s almost like she wants to distract me, keep me laughing. In case I get too close.”

  “Too close to what?” I asked.

  “To whatever.” she said. “Beth’s very private,” she told me. I felt a little stab of resentment: I know.

  “She seems more so lately,” Joan went on. “I think if I asked her what her favorite color w
as, she’d make a joke. To throw me off. I don’t know what it is she’s protecting, but she does a darn good job.”

  I remember quite well the day of Amanda Crawford’s birth. It was also the day that Joan gave birth to Emily. The two women went into labor almost simultaneously, while I was in the kitchen making supper.

  “Ooh,” I heard from the living room.

  “Joan?” I called.

  “Agh.”

  “Beth?”

  “It’s time,” the two women said together, as I walked toward the couch. Then they both doubled over with laughter, clutching each other’s hands.

  “Let’s go,” said Beth.

  I picked up the phone and asked for Dr. Greene.

  “Is it time?” said Bedelia, the night operator. “Oh, my, I’m so excited.”

  “It’s time,” I said. “Please put the call through. Oh, hello, Doctor. Uh, Gilbert Corbin. I—yes. Okay, thank you.” I hung up. “I’ll call Bill, too,” I told Beth.

  “Call from the hospital, G.I.,” she said, panting. “Tumor won’t wait.”

  I drove them to the hospital, feeling oddly like a harem keeper, my two wives hissing in the car with me.

  Dr. Greene met us, and raised his eyebrows when he saw both women.

  “Well,” he said. “Looks like a long night.”

  They took Joan away, and a nurse showed me to the waiting room.

  “I need to make a phone call,” I said. She pointed to the pay phone in the corner of the room.

  I tried the house on the hill first; no answer. At a loss, I asked Bedelia to put me through to the Trough.

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said.

  “I’m looking for Bill Crawford,” I told her.

  “You don’t mean—?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, isn’t that amazing,” she said. “But you won’t find him at the Trough anymore. He goes to the Broken Weasel, these days. I’ll connect you.”

  “I need to talk to Bill Crawford,” I shouted, when the other end was picked up.

  “Who needs him?” asked the man who’d answered the phone.

  “He’s having a.”

  “Having a what?” said the man impatiently.

  “Baby,” I managed. “His wife’s in the hospital now.”

  Bill showed up an hour later.