Dry Your Smile

by Morgan, Robin;

  By then, when they talked, she and Laurence talked at each other, then in circles, then in accusation, finally in monosyllables. By then, when they walked together on the street and passed a child, their silence turned palpable, an ice-scrim between them. By then, when they tried to make love, he felt her body trying not to fight his; she felt her brain impose itself between them, shrilling through every pore for some denied limbspread freedom each part of her had tasted and could not now forget. By then, he began to take late-night solitary walks again. By then, she knew Iliana could read the desolation in her face each time they met. By then, the repeated expressions of support by Athenians for the reconciliation of her marriage began to appear excessive, vehement, homophobic.

  Julian moved into her study, sleeping on a rolled-out piece of foam rubber on the floor. No time now, for a repeat flight. No will. No energy for anything but Hope, who had begun eating less again, and sleeping more. The nurses and Dr. Grimes confirmed her growing weakness. Then, on the first of October, the pace accelerated. The fall lectures began. Another chapter was due on the book. Athena’s schedule intensified for the winter and spring lists. What Julian had estimated as the outer reaches of tolerable pressure expanded to a seemingly limitless terrain in which she dwelt, disbelieving in the possibility of rescue, able only to react from day to day. Iliana would just let her sit in silence when she came to visit, or sometimes Julian would fall asleep, her head in Iliana’s lap, Iliana’s hand lightly stroking her hair.

  It was in the middle of the night when Larry knocked and then pounded at her study door, opening it before she could reply, and thrusting himself inside. He was sobbing. She raised herself up to one elbow from her pallet.

  “Larry! What is it?”

  “It’s you. Me. Us. Jule, I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand any of it—your wheeling and dealing to try and get me jobs, the way I know you really want to be with her but stay with me, the way—”

  “Please, Larry, have mercy on both of us. It’s three in the morning. We’ve been over and over this.”

  “—I never get heard. Can’t breathe, can’t speak. No forum. Why’d you come back? Lemme go.”

  “For crying out loud, Laurence, will you stop your self-pity for a minute? You deserve better. From yourself, from the world—”

  “Lemme go. Stop pursuing me with this death’s-head deathless love of yours. Enough of the tests. I’m a dead man, a guy who drowned one day a long time ago in a mysterious leap off Brooklyn Bridge. I’m not even identifiable now, washed up on some midnight dock. I can’t—I can’t—”

  Julian sliced through his appeal, indifferent to whether outraged love or the nausea of repetition was forging this new adamance that made the incision.

  “Go to bed, Laurence. You’re drunk. I’m too empty to have another scene. I’ve got to get up in four hours to catch a plane.”

  He stared at her. “I’m in real trouble,” he whispered, baffled, “I—I’m scared I’m not gonna get through this alive. I’m scared I’m—”

  Julian lay back down and closed her eyes. “Laurence,” she sighed, “I don’t want to hear your emotional blackmail. Go away, Laurence. Go to bed.”

  She heard him murmur, “There’s no more ‘us.’ It’s you or me. Gotta practice losing you. Gotta.” Then she heard the door close behind him.

  Empty, she thought. Like the Yeats line, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”

  There was no more respite in sleep that night. She tossed on her pallet like a dazed shipwreck adrift on a raft, visions assaulting her in punishing waves. This death’s-head deathless love of yours. I can’t afford this, she prayed to herself, I can’t afford a nervous breakdown. If there were only a way to halt the cacophony, to stop the brain from its obsessive pattering to one blocked exit after another. Then it was morning, and the brain was commandeered to drive the body again.

  When she stepped off the plane in New Mexico that afternoon, the women who met her—without knowing anything about her other than her public self—saw their guest speaker near collapse. The pre-lecture events were canceled. No book signing, no poetry reading, no guest class, no faculty dinner, no women’s center reception.

  But that night, she mounted the podium to speak about the institution of the family in patriarchal society. Her voice rose and fell in familiar cadences and phrases.

  “The average North American homemaker works a 99.6-hour work-week with no pay and no respect; it’s not even considered a job … One out of every four women experiences sexual abuse before she’s four years old … 40 percent of all women killed in the United States are murdered by their spouses … Every eighteen seconds a woman is beaten by her husband seriously enough to require hospitalization … the Reagan Administration’s assault on reproductive freedom … the infant mortality rate in Detroit now has passed that of Honduras, due to social-welfare cutbacks … needed re-definitions of ‘family’ … freedom of sexual choice … custody rights of lesbian mothers … children’s suffrage … rights of the elderly … internationally … child marriage, forced marriage, polygyny … dowry murders … divorce rights … marital rape …”

  The audience leapt to their feet at the end. Those who had heard Travis speak before marveled how she never seemed to get burned out, how this was the finest speech she’d ever given, positively electric, especially with those quotes that kept coming in: “The quality of mercy is not strained,” and that peroration about one’s right not to be shut away from the free air and the lambs in the meadows, something about rejecting perpetual imprisonment. The English majors in the audience smiled at each other in recognition of Shakespeare’s Portia and Shaw’s St. Joan. But all agreed that Travis’s image of a woman huddled on the floor of a spare room—the woman she said all women were—was unforgettable.

  Julian went directly from the airport to Peacehaven, not bothering to brace herself any longer for whatever might await her. But Hope was asleep, jaw slack, mouth open with labored breathing, the lines a tortured knot in her forehead. Her daughter sat beside her, waiting. Perhaps she would wake up and take a little food. Perhaps she would sing for Friend. Perhaps she would tell Friend that The Baby had given a good performance, like a real trooper.

  But Hope slept on, and the night nurse looked in at the door to warn softly that visiting was about over. Then, as Julian began to gather up her raincoat and suitcase, Hope opened her eyes.

  Brilliant and clear they were, black crystal stars in the bone-colored pottery bowl of her skull. They focused on the woman standing before her, suitcase in hand.

  It was a woman in her forties, slender, looking as if she hadn’t slept much lately. Light brown hair beginning to fleck silver. The eyes appeared overlarge in the drawn face. But the smile was friendly, almost familiar …

  “Julian!” she cried. “Julian! ’S you! You came home!”

  Her daughter watched through a blur of tears how the forehead knot began slowly to release its lines, a rose window radiating light, making of the entire face a sanctuary. Brilliant and clear, the dark stars glowed recognition and love. Then that whole sunken, twisted constellation of features caught and blazed recognition, the dry lips leaking spittle but cracking into a luminous smile.

  “Yes, Momma. It’s me. It’s always been me. And it’s always been you. Yes, Momma,” Julian wept, dropping her suitcase and rushing to the bed to gather all that decaying matter into her arms, “Yes. Oh yes, Momma.”

  Hope looked up at her, the face incandescent with love.

  “I missed ya so, Baby. I’m so g-glad ya finally c-came home.”

  “I’ve been here all the time, Momma. But I’m sorry it took me so long. I love you, Momma.”

  “’Course you do, h’ney. Never doubted ’at. It’ll all be okay. ’N I love you. Ya know that now, don’ya?”

  Julian nodded, seeing drowsiness already reclaim Hope in its embrace. Still, she held on to the old woman, rocking her softly as she lapsed to sleep again, until the nurse came and repea
ted that she must leave.

  It had been a moment only, yet who could measure one length of grace against two lifetimes?

  She tried to tell Laurence as soon as she got home. But he turned on her, too full of his own grief to hear about anyone’s even momentary cessation of theirs.

  “I can’t listen, Jule. Jule, I’m afraid we’ve lost each other. For good. I’m afraid …”

  He stalked into his study. Fear for him rose in her beyond what she’d ever felt before. But when she tried to follow he barred the way, and spun on her with eyes now livid in hate.

  “Do you know that today was October fifth, our twenty-second wedding anniversary, Julian?” he spit at her. “Do you know? Do you care?”

  She spread her hands helplessly. “Larry. Honest to god, I knew last week, and then … it got driven out of my mind completely. I’m sorry. Things have been so heavy—”

  “Oh heavy, yeah. Carrier of the world’s burdens. Bringer of peace to Hope, love to Iliana, feminism to the world. But never to me, who’s been broken so many times on the wheel of loving you he doesn’t even know how to stand up straight anymore. Who’s played your daddy. Who’s played your son, the one you denied us so you could pretend you mothered me and wouldn’t have to face dealing with a real-life child. Who’s played your political tutor and housekeeper, secretary and laundress, at the cost of my own manhood. Who’s even played your husband. But never been auditioned for the part he wanted most in all the world. To father our child. And to be to you the beautiful man I might have become.”

  “Larry, I’m going mad, please—”

  But he careened past her, down the stairs and out the front door, slamming it behind him.

  Julian dragged herself into her study, spread out her pallet and threw herself down on it, fully dressed. She took the phone from her desk and placed it on the floor beside her head, in case. Then she fell instantly into a dreamless sleep, her final thoughts clasping the memory that Hope had recognized Julian, and without hatred.

  The phone didn’t ring. But she was roused by the slam of the street door. The luminous hands of her desk clock read one o’clock. Five hours he’d been gone. She heard Laurence, cursing her with new damnations more fierce than any uttered before, and suddenly there was alive in the house a presence of danger so vivid it woke her to full alert. She heard him enter his study. She heard the familiar crash of glass, the thud of furniture falling. She heard him shouting.

  “Gotta kill it, once and for all. Drive her away. Kill it! Wipe it out!”

  Julian sprang up from her pallet and locked the door to her study. She ran to the phone.

  “Bitch! Bastard! Murderess!” he breathed into her ear from the extension in his study. “Oh no. Not gonna call your precious dyke for the gallant rescue. Phone’s gonna stay off the hook in my little closet here, see, and ain’t nobody calling out from nowhere. Gonna wipe it all out once and for all. Drive the vampire away, stake in your heart jus’ like you put a stake in mine years ago and called it love.”

  She hung up the phone. Think. This is Larry, forgodsake, he wouldn’t hurt a fly You are not a fly.

  “Once and for all, wipe it out,” he was shouting. “No more candy groom, no more candy bride.”

  Think. You can’t get out of the building. Too high to jump. No fire escape. Can’t get into the hall and down the stairs without passing his study door. Can’t phone. Think. He’ll calm down we’ll talk the door is locked don’t panic think.

  “Vampire! Vampire!” He was in the hall now, his voice coming toward her study door.

  So this is to fear him. Snow angels hear me now. Bridge and gulls, all you candy grooms and brides trying to love from your impossible perches, oh Hope and David this is your daughter calling now in need. Be calm, don’t panic, try to talk with him. Love drives out fear. No no something’s changed him maybe the war yes that must be it. I wasn’t wrong oh sweet snow angels all my mescaline freakouts with him foresaw this I knew I knew. Fear drives out love. Forty percent of all women killed in this country … Not me This can’t be me This is Larry forgodsake.

  He was pounding on the study door.

  “Come out, Vampire! It’s after midnight now, you can show your real face, your fangs, your claws, my heart’s blood dripping from your greedy mouth. Come out or I’ll come in!”

  This is really happening It can’t be Not us Not to me This is the man I’ve lived with for twenty-two … That’s what they all say … This is what the battered wife feels … Dear snow angels Momma help …

  Julian picked up her desk scissors, holding them open. A weapon. Fight back, we tell them. Fight for your lives.

  But her entire body shook so hard she couldn’t keep her balance. This is how they all feel at this moment, this precise moment with the door beginning to give on its hinges Snow angels With the large stranger beating fists against wood against skull against bone Not him forgodsake Not me Not us He doesn’t mean it We’re different That’s what they all say … Family tragedy in Chelsea loft last night the well-known political couple … No woman is raised to, you know, quite the contrary … Forty percent …

  “I’ve been outside this door in both your nightmares and mine for years, Vampire! You hear me? This time, damn your vampire soul to hell forever, I’m going to get through it!”

  She felt the scissors, slippery in her sweating hand. Fight back we tell them. No. No, somewhere the killing must stop. Not through my hands, not against someone I’ve loved No … That’s what they all say, that’s what they all think until it’s too late No! The door was splintering. One of his fists crashed through it.

  No!

  She threw down the scissors. She pushed herself away from leaning against the desk. Somewhere in you there is a courage precise to this moment. Stand up, don’t lean, stand even if you tremble like an aspen leaf like your mother like every trembling woman in the world stand up. She stepped to the middle of the room and stood, arms fisted at her sides. She faced the doorway.

  Now, O angels! Throw a bridge between our sufferings, let the screaming gulls and stone towers sway toward us in pity, let the current carry us, let bloodsunset wings, waves, arches, lean all their weight against this moment, Momma be with me now and in the hour of our death—

  The door gave on its hinges and he burst through. Wild disheveled stranger, eyes red-rimmed with rage. Who is this man? He was shaking, too, but with fury.

  They poised in the roar around them, staring into each other.

  Laurence dropped his head into his hands. His words sobbed out mangled.

  “Run, Jule. Get out. I’ll be okay if you get out. Grab your coat and go. Please. Hurry. Fast. Run, Jule, I don’t wanna … Go. I gotta drive you away, doncha see?” He fell to his knees, face still buried in his hands. “Oh God let her hear me! This once, let her hear me!”

  Above every one of her nerves sirening toward him, above the din of longing to rush and fold him in her arms, Julian heard. She grabbed her coat, pushed past him through the splintered doorway, raced down the steps and out into the street.

  No wallet. No change with which to make a phone call. Nothing to do this time but run until the lungs burn and the body sags against a lamppost.

  “Ten dollahs, Baby? Give ya’ a tenner for a quick blowjob, whaddya say?”

  Then run again, run south, through the city’s night chill, to the Village, to Grove Street, run and slow to a walk when you can’t run anymore and then run again. Don’t think. Think if you have to think only about the blood pumping from your heart, the legs moving. Slow to a walk if you have to. Then run again. Run.

  While she waited for the buzz-back at the Grove Street house she glanced at the neon clock over the corner deli. Two-ten. Still, it was only a moment before the buzzer sounded. Run. Into the hall, up the stairs. Breathe as you climb, breathe. You’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you.

  Iliana was already at the landing, waiting.

  “I knew it had to be you at this hour.”

  “I … He …
Nothing hurt … Had to go … It’s over.”

  Iliana half-led, half-carried her into the apartment.

  “Oh my love,” she said, as she sat Julian down on the sofa. “You’re an exile, too. But … welcome.”

  It was more than an hour later—when Julian had swallowed some brandy and was undressed and huddled in a borrowed robe and blanket, lying on the sofa, trying to tell it, trying to exorcise it—that the phone rang.

  “Oh my god. It’s going to be Larry.”

  “Then I do not answer it. It’s three-thirty in the morning.”

  “No. We have to. It might be Dr. Grimes. We have to.”

  The phone insisted shrilly and the two women clung to each other against whatever message it threatened.

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Just this evening, yesterday I mean, last night. She was all right. She even knew me.”

  “Then I do not answer it.”

  “‘Yana! Even if it is Larry, I’ve got to know!”

  So they had had no time to prepare for Julian’s hearing Dr. Grimes’s voice.

  “Miss Trav—Julian. Thank goodness I found you. Your home phone’s been giving a busy signal for over two hours. I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve had to rush your mother back to the hospital. This time it was her heart. You’d better get up here. She’s sinking. I’m afraid this is it.”

  EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE

  (conclusion)

  PART FOUR

  January, 1986

  “You’re still waiting for her. What will it take to make you learn?”

  “I tell you I’m not waiting. I’ve done with that.” Iliana gave an irritable squeeze to her lemon twist and dropped it into her campari and soda. “Why do you keep saying that, Celia? Would I be in Paris if I were still waiting for Julian Travis? I proceed with my own life now, for a change.”

  “I keep saying that, vieja, because you talk about little else but her. Here you are, back for a visit. In triumph. Rehearsing the European debut of a major composition. Lionized by all us worldly debauched emigré Nicaraguans. Yet most of what I hear from you has to do with a crazy confused gringa lover far off in New York. I keep saying that, my dear, because I have known you since we were both six years old, and I can read you very well.”