The Novels of Lisa Alther

by Lisa Alther

  “What’s this?” asked Jude, touching the sore.

  “A spider bite,” she said. Her lips were trembling.

  All of a sudden, the pieces fell into place for Jude: She’d learned enough from her years with her father to recognize jaundice when she saw it. They walked toward the park in silence, Jude trying to figure out what to do with this new suspicion.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Anna anxiously.

  Jude looked at her with disbelief. Did she not even remember breaking up with Jude? Or Jude’s failed rescue attempt the previous night?

  “Anna,” she finally replied, “I don’t know how to say this, but I’m worried about your drinking.”

  Anna looked startled, then stealthy.

  “I think you’re overdoing it.”

  “If you had a husband who slept with every coed in town, you’d probably overdo it, too. And children who flunk out of every college in the Northeast. And students who expect you to solve the ghastly problems of their decaying cultures and dysfunctional families. And a lover who thinks that life is an episode from ‘The Waltons.’ Believe me, I have good reason to overdo it.”

  “Who doesn’t have reason?” snapped Jude. “Having reason is no reason.”

  At Broadway, they headed uptown for Jude’s apartment. And Jude was forced to confront the fact that she was as much of a masochist as Anna. Any healthy person would have sent Anna home to her own fate. But by now, Jude’s fate seemed irretrievably merged with Anna’s.

  After making love as tenderly as in the beginning, they held each other and listened to thunder rolling in from the Poconos. Jude knew that no matter what was happening to them, she herself wouldn’t be able to end it—even if that was what was best for them both. But it would mean more for her than just the death of their relationship. It would be the death of her dream that happiness with another person was possible in this life.

  During their lovemaking, Jude had discovered more “spider bites” on Anna’s arms and back, and her abdomen had seemed faintly distended. She made a mental note to phone her father and find out what this meant.

  “Anna, I can’t bear to lose you,” she murmured.

  “You’re not going to lose me, Jude. You know I love you. I’ll never leave you.”

  As Jude watched rainwater flow in torrents down the windowpanes, she tried to figure out which was the real Anna—the snarling beast who ripped apart her own flesh with her bared teeth, or the woman who lay beside her right now, stroking her hair and running her tongue around the folds of her ear and talking about the apartment they’d rent in Montmartre once she divorced Jim.

  “You know I’m going to Australia for a few days on Friday?”

  Anna sat up abruptly. “How could I know when you don’t tell me;?”

  “I did tell you, Anna. A couple of times.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she insisted.

  “Well, maybe not,” said Jude, deciding it wasn’t worth an argument. “But anyway, I am.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to speak on a panel about feminist editing.”

  “Will that woman be there?”

  “Which woman?”

  “That French friend of Simon’s.”

  “Jasmine. Yes. She’s one of the organizers.”

  Anna said nothing for a long time. Jude began to feel guilty without having anything to feel guilty about.

  “Please don’t go,” Anna said.

  “I’m sorry, my love, but I have to. They’re counting on me. But I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

  “If you stay here, you could help me move some things into your apartment.”

  Jude turned her head to look at her. Was this really true, or was it just a ploy?

  “What if something terrible happens while you’re gone?”

  “Jesus, Anna, please don’t do this to me,” Jude moaned. “You’ll be fine for a few days. It’ll give you time to see a doctor and find out about these sores. Then when I get back, we can move you into my apartment. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she finally said.

  “Promise me you’ll see a doctor while I’m gone.”

  ␄I promise.”

  JUDE AND JASMINE TOOK a local bus to the seaside south of Adelaide as a remedy for their jet lag. As they strolled along the deserted white beach under a searing sun, they discussed ideas for the panel. Would women, free from the pressures of the marketplace, write differently from men? What were these pressures, and how did they distort women’s writing? What role did fiction play in challenging or confirming the dominant stereotypes of women in Western culture? Was it possible to run a successful publishing house in a capitalist economy without a hierarchy among the employees and a star system among the authors?

  As she and Jasmine wrangled over these issues and others, Jude felt herself becoming more energized than she’d been in months. The deadly struggles with Anna faded from her mind, and she felt her tensed muscles relax and her breath start to flow freely again. They sat down at a green metal table beneath some eucalyptus trees, alongside a roadhouse with a metal roof. As the sun sank into the ocean, they sipped Australian beer and discussed Simon’s inability to find a love that lasted longer than three weeks.

  “Yet three weeks of pleasure is not nothing,” said Jasmine.

  Even on safari in the outback, she was impeccable, in spotless white cotton pedal pushers and a loose silk shirt in shades of orange and red that coordinated with the sunset. Under the open shirt, she was wearing a lacy white camisole, and she had a gold herringbone chain at her throat.

  “No, but I think he longs for what he had with his friend Sandy. But he’ll never find that again, because Sandy was a very unusual person.” Jude was studying the ash-gray bark of the trunk tree beside her, which was mottled with impetigolike patches of rust and black. They reminded her of Anna’s scabs. She hoped Anna would go to the doctor as she had promised. But often these days, she seemed not to remember what she said from one moment to the next.

  “I never met Sandy. But he was also your friend, was he not?” asked Jasmine, watching the golden sea shining like molten ore in the setting sun.

  “That’s right. We grew up together. He was like a brother to me.”

  “But more than a brother?”

  Jude looked at her quickly. “Simon told you that?”

  Jasmine nodded.

  “Did he also tell you I’ve been with a woman for the past several years?

  She nodded again. “Sometimes our dear friend Simon talks too much. I hope you do not mind. Because I am supportive of you in this regard.”

  Jude blushed. “No, I don’t mind. And thanks for your support.” But was Jasmine saying that she also loved women? Jude couldn’t tell, but she couldn’t ask, either. Jasmine’s manner discouraged familiarity.

  Also speaking on their panel were editors from England, Holland, and Australia. The five women sat at a long table beneath a huge white-canvas tent and discussed women’s writing among themselves and with the large and lively audience. Afterward, the panel members dined with the festival officials at an Indian restaurant in downtown Adelaide and everyone agreed that the event had been very successful.

  In the hotel lobby, before ascending to their rooms on different floors, Jasmine, who was departing at dawn for Paris, said to Jude, “I must say good-bye to you now. But I will look forward to our next meeting. At the ABA in Atlanta, no?”

  “Yes. In May. I look forward to it, too. And meanwhile, take good care of yourself, Jasmine.”

  Jasmine smiled and gazed into her eyes. Placing her hands firmly on Jude’s shoulders, she leaned forward and kissed each of her cheeks in decisive slow motion.

  The attentive stewardesses on Jude’s endless flight back to the United States on Singapore Airlines the next day had the same fragile build and carefully kempt dark beauty as Jasmine. Unlike Jasmine, though, they seemed submissive and eager to please. Jude realized that what impressed her most about Jasmine was that she was in char
ge of her own life. She ran a successful publishing company. She traveled around the world. In contrast to Anna, whose lifetime of laziness was coming home to roost, limiting her options in ways that were punishing Jude as well.

  She remembered how she and Anna used to debate literature and philosophy and art in their early days together. Anna recited her poems and Jude made suggestions. Anna read the books Jude was editing and they discussed them. But now all they talked about was their next meal. It was as though the intensity of their physical exchanges had extinguished all their more subtle forms of intercourse. She vowed that when she got home she would once again initiate with Anna the kind of conversations she had just enjoyed in Adelaide. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  When the plane finally landed in Los Angeles, Jude was disturbed to realize that she’d thought more about Jasmine as she hurtled across the Pacific than she had about Anna. But it was a new experience for her to be able not to think about Anna. For years, her first thought upon waking and her last before sleeping had been of Anna. And throughout each day, she had replayed every word that they had exchanged the previous day. Anna’s name had echoed continuously through her brain, like a Moslem on a pilgrimage to Mecca chanting, “La illaha ilia Allah.”

  Stumbling through the international arrival gate at JFK after thirty-two hours in transit, Jude was astonished to find Anna waiting for her. This was a first. All around them, reunited lovers, relatives, and friends were embracing, so Jude and Anna tried to parody the friendly welcoming hug of long-lost sisters.

  “Do you have any idea,” Anna whispered in her ear, “how much I want to bury my tongue deep inside you?”

  Jude stroked her cheek and gazed into her eyes, but she was thinking that the only thing she wanted deep inside her right then was some hot coffee.

  Anna grabbed her bag and led her to the exit door. They waited at the curb for a bus to town. A van from the Hilton pulled up. As Anna climbed aboard with the suitcase, Jude called, “Wait a minute, Anna. This isn’t us.”

  Gesturing frantically for her to get on, Anna whispered, “I’ve rented us a room for the day.”

  Jude smiled, but her heart sank. She was exhausted and she had a million things to do. Back at her office and apartment, a hundred phone messages and several days of mail awaited her.

  Anna had stopped off at the room on her way to the airport. It was as crammed with yellow tulips as a Dutch wake, and a bottle of sparkling cider was packed in melting ice in the sink. Anna phoned room service and ordered chicken salad and toast points.

  All Jude wanted was to sleep. Instead, she drank cider while Anna informed her that she was absolutely right: She used to have a drinking problem. But no longer. She’d sworn off alcohol for good.

  “What about the sores?” asked Jude as they sat at the linen-shrouded table rolled in by the waiter from room service. “Did you go to the doctor?”

  “He said it was an allergic reaction,” said Anna. “To some sleeping pills I was taking.”

  “And?” Jude eyed her suspiciously, having no idea anymore what was truth and what was fabrication.

  “And now that I’m not taking them, the sores will go away.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Jude, picking up a piece of toast and tackling the chicken salad, her sixth meal since Hawaii.

  “So did you sleep with her?”

  “With whom?”

  “With Jasmine.”

  “Of course not. Did you think I would?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you care?”

  “Very much. I’ve been miserable.”

  “So now you’re relieved?”

  “Temporarily.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jude without enough forethought. “She’s married.”

  Anna regarded her ironically. “But that’s what turns you on, isn’t it? The primal triangle? Stealing Mommy from Daddy?”

  Jude paused with the toast point halfway to her mouth. “Is that how you see it?”

  “And once you succeed,” Anna continued blandly, “Mommy seems very boring.”

  Jude thought this over. “Maybe so,” she finally conceded, not even caring enough to argue. Though she actually thought that her waning interest in Anna had more to do with not knowing from one moment to the next whether she’d be dealing with a tender Madonna or an avenging destroyer. Loving Anna had become like trying to love Kali. Finally, you just gave up.

  Anna insisted that they take a bath together, slithering around on each other like minnows in a hatchery. Afterward, she dried Jude with a large, fluffy towel. Then she basted her like a turkey with lotion and massaged her on the bed until she was groaning with fatigue. Stripping off her own robe, Anna lay down beside her. Jude stroked her belly, which seemed even more puffy than before. “What did the doctor say about your bloating?”

  “It’s menopause,” she said. “Water retention. I’ve put myself on a diet and exercise plan to regain my girlish figure. In a couple of months, you won’t recognize me. I want it to be like it used to be for us, Jude.”

  “So do I.”

  Lying in the giant bed later that afternoon, nearly delirious with exhaustion, Anna asleep beside her, Jude recalled their first hotel room, at the conference in Boston several years earlier, and her own anxiety at waking up in the middle of the night and finding Anna gone. Something had happened between them since then. Who knew what. The worm had turned. The wind had shifted. Now it was Anna who waited for Jude, Anna who felt anxiety over being left behind.

  She had good reason to, Jude reluctantly acknowledged. Their luxurious afternoon in bed had felt to Jude like just another chore, one among many that had to be dealt with upon her return. To generate enough energy for lovemaking, so that they could get this reunion over with and go home, Jude had found herself visualizing that walk along the white sand with Jasmine and their talks that had stimulated so many exciting new ideas. There was a whole world out there, full of people Jude had never met, people with horrible problems that they didn’t expect Jude to solve.

  Holding the sleeping Anna in her arms, Jude was swept with sadness. Anna was right: Jude was moving on. She would have stayed put if she could have, but she was like a flailing swimmer being carried out to sea on a riptide. She had no plans to leave Anna, but emotionally she was already gone. She thought about Molly with new sympathy, because this time it was Jude who had stopped loving first and who would feel the guilt for the rest of her life. Her throat tight, she kissed Anna’s closed eyelids. Anna smiled in her sleep and snuggled closer.

  PART FOUR

  JUDE

  CHAPTER

  14

  BALANCING A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE, Jude wandered across the closely cropped lawn of Jasmine’s seventeenth-century stone town house, wondering how it had escaped being torched during the Revolution. After winding along the tourist-crammed side streets near St. Germain des Prés, she had passed through black iron doors in a high stucco wall and discovered this lawn strewn with wrought-iron furniture and shaded by horse-chestnut trees full of ivory obelisks. Jasmine, who had a spiky new frosted waif hairdo, kissed her on both cheeks. Then she tucked her arm through Jude’s to conduct her to the champagne table, where she cast her adrift on a sea of bright Ungaro sails.

  Although Jude knew that she was presentable in her raw-silk trousers and coral linen blazer, she had always felt like Godzilla in Paris, possessing as she did the long, lean mountaineer build of her father and his father—in contrast to her urban mother, who had reportedly had wrists the size of a broomstick.

  Jasmine was talking to a young woman in a black silk jumpsuit who had draped a silver-studded black leather carbine belt diagonally across her chest. The woman was studying Jude’s breasts. Slowly, her kohl-ringed eyes rose up Jude’s chest. When their gazes met, the woman smiled faintly, as though to indicate anything was possible. Jude recognized le regard, the famous French technique for seducing one another and unnerving visitors. She smiled back, struggling to feel playful despite her chagrin
at looming like Gulliver over everyone else on the lawn.

  The woman arrived by her side. “You are new here, yes?”

  Looking down from her heights, Jude nodded.

  “From America?”

  The kohl was making the woman’s dark eyes look huge and appealing. “From New York.”

  “On holiday?”

  “No, I’m going to work for Jasmine.”

  “How fortunate for us.”

  Jude smiled. “Thank you. For me, too.”

  “I am Martine. I also work for Jasmine.”

  “Delighted to meet you. I’m Jude.”

  As Jude sipped her champagne, the woman continued her inspection of Jude. In Tennessee, people wooed with words. Strangers who looked too intently at someone they didn’t know were considered either rude or insane. But for the French, the eyes were the initial erogenous zone.

  Across the lawn, Jude spotted Jasmine by the champagne table, talking sotto voce with the young man Jude recognized from that night on Simon’s deck, when she had first offered Jude a job. Jasmine looked up, right at Jude, and seemed to give her a small nod, as though of encouragement. Was a flirtation with Martine the initiation rite that would usher Jude into Jasmine’s inner circle?

  Drawing a deep breath, Jude returned her attention to Martine. She hadn’t flirted in years. While Anna was alive, she lacked the interest. Now that Anna was dead, she lacked the energy. She wasn’t sure she remembered what to do anymore. With an uneasy sideways glance, she studied the small firm breasts that formed the valley down which Martine’s carbine belt meandered. She remembered lying with Anna while out the window the lights from Palisades Amusement Park wavered like party streamers on the drifting waters of the Hudson. She remembered cradling Anna’s beautiful breast in her palm, its nipple caressing her heart line….