But I proceeded with our plan because I was willing to die rather than live with this shame, the horror of an illegitimate pregnancy that I couldn’t halt in any other way. Certainly Shay tried to comfort me during that long gray ride as Eli drove us to St. Paul, speeding away from the safe familiar campus while my heart scrambled around in my chest. I sat between them in the front seat, feeling the panicky pumping of all the organs locked inside the darkness of my body.
The sudden ring of Marge’s telephone so startles me that my elbow jumps and knocks over my wineglass, pouring pink onto Marge’s tablecloth. I lift the receiver while watching the blot spread across the cloth. Marge runs into the kitchen for a sponge.
“Nat? Did you get there okay? Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, Shay, everything’s great.”
“I hope I didn’t wake anybody up, but Mickey just telephoned to tell me Jerry was shot and you guys went to Minneapolis. I mean he called before, but I wasn’t here. But, really, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life.”
“In your life,” I hiss. “You know, you’re a pathological egomaniac, Shay. Somebody else gets shot and you scream you’re wounded.”
Standing up, I walk the length of the telephone cord into the hallway so Marge can’t hear me.
“Oh, Nat, ple-ase. Mickey is just furious at me. Who’s this crazy cop who keeps butting his nose into our business? Somebody is really jeopardizing my relationship with Mickey.” She begins to cry. “You didn’t tell Mother anything about any of this, did you, Nat? I don’t want her to know.”
“No. I haven’t. Yet. But there definitely seems to be some sort of statute of limitations on secrets around here.”
Shay suppresses her sobs for a moment as if she’s digesting my comment. Then she begins crying even harder.
“Do … you … still … have … the … interview?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, burn it, Nat. Ple-ase. Right away.”
“What the hell good would that do? The people who want it won’t know I burned it.”
“Natalie! I’m trying to get us out of a lot of trouble. Do you want to get all of us gunned down in the street by some hoodlums?”
“You should have thought about that before. You didn’t mind me taking the risk when you were doing it for the Duke.”
But I don’t know if she can hear anything I say because her sobs are so loud and harsh now.
“You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Shay. Why don’t you call back later, after you get a grip on yourself? I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
I replace the receiver very quietly and return the telephone to the dining room. Marge is still rubbing at the wine stain on her white linen cloth.
“Gee, I’m sorry, Mom.”
But instead of helping her, I walk into the living room and sit down in a turquoise armchair with a matching hassock.
My Abortion Act II
The three of us had walked up an outside staircase to the second floor of one of those muted, weathered-gray, two-family duplexes that stud the Twin Cities. A young man admitted us into a barely furnished flat. An examination table, complete with stirrups, was set up in the kitchen. One bare bulb hung from the ceiling on a long umbilical cord.
The man who admitted us was now joined by another medical student wearing a not-too-clean white jacket. I heard some hurried first-names-only introductions. Then Shay and Eli went into the front room to wait and I, burning with shame, removed my pantyhose and lay down on the table. Following instructions, I ignominiously spread my legs and hooked my heels into the stirrups.
“Scoot down,” one of the students said.
Then they instructed me on how to administer gas to myself through a mask that I kept over my mouth and nose. I used this mask to cover my shame as well as my pain.
Again Marge interrupts me.
Having left the tablecloth soaking in the kitchen sink, she insists on kissing me before she goes to bed. Meanwhile, my own fatigue has evaporated completely. I am no longer tired. Instead, I’m wired. I turn on the television set to watch some convention coverage, scanning the crowd of political hacks and groupies and junkies and scribes for a glimpse of my husband, whom I do not see. Then I go hunt through the refrigerator, where I finally find a bottle of Amstel Light, which had rolled to the rear of the bottom shelf. This time when the telephone rings my heart jumps, but at least I don’t blow away my beer.
“Natalie?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Bo Culver. Sorry to be calling you so late. I called information there, in Minneapolis. Only one Karavan listed in the Twin Cities, so I knew it had to be your mother.”
“Good detective work,” I say wryly, even though I know he’s just warming me up. Prepping me. “So? What’s happening?”
“Your house got hit again a few hours ago. It was completely ransacked. Looks like Nagasaki. One of your neighbors called it in around ten o’clock tonight. I went right over.”
“Oh, no.” Dread begins playing kettledrums in my head. “What should I do, Bo? Should I come back? Oh, Bo. We’ve got to return those papers. I can’t go on living like this. If they’d shoot their own lawyer, they’ll kill me. Or Shay. Or someone. I want to give the interview back, Bo. Right away. Please. Can you arrange that?”
“Okay. Sure. I’ll get in touch with Jerry. Or his wife. Or his doctor or the cops or someone. Don’t worry. I’ll get word to him first thing in the morning that we’re ready to return the stuff. Maybe I’ll call Mickey and see if he can go see Jerry and cut the same deal he wanted to make before.”
“That’s a good idea, Bo. Do that. Mickey can go to the hospital; he can ask Georgia to take him over there. It’s the best way to do it, and I’ll get the first plane out of here tomorrow morning. Maybe we can give them back to one of Jerry’s people in D.C. Whaddaya think, Bo?”
“Sounds sensible. Doable.”
“I’ll leave Amelia here and be back in D.C. by noon tomorrow. There’s a seven o’clock plane in the morning.”
“Don’t expect to stay at your own house, Nat.”
“Oh, God. It’s that bad?”
“Yeah. It is. Anyway, call me as soon as you get in tomorrow.”
When the line clears, I dial the number of the Atlanta Omni, which I now know by memory. This time Eli picks up his extension.
“Eli! Where have you been? Why haven’t you called me?”
“Did you call here? I didn’t get any message.”
“Oh, Eli, I started calling you Sunday night and I’ve called you at least a hundred times since then. I just stopped leaving messages. Didn’t you even know I’d been trying to reach you?”
“Honey, I’ve been in and out a lot, but I never got a single message. And the phone never rang once while I was here.”
“But, Eli, you were never there.”
“Nat, this hotel’s a zoo. The switchboard looks like a Christmas tree. You know how it gets during a national convention.”
Silence, so he can hear his own words.
Of course I know how it gets during a national convention. This is the first one I’ve missed.
SNAPSHOT
Here’s a picture of us on our way to a one-thousand-dollars-minimum Democratic donors’ dinner dance at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami. A friend of Eli’s gave us some free tickets. That night I looked like someone I had always wanted to look like. Maybe Ali MacGraw, someone who wasn’t me. That night I had looked glamorous in the way I know Eli admires. Over the years I’d noticed the kind of women he noticed, and since it was the absolutely thinnest moment of my life, I wore a shocking red-and-navy-blue-striped floor-length T-shirt evening dress I borrowed from Shay. You can see Eli standing beside me and looking down at me very appreciatively. That night he had the hots for me and I loved it. That night Eli looked like he wanted to get all over me. Is that any reason to remember that night? You bet your ass it is.
“Please, don’t get all
bent out of shape over nothing, Nat.”
“I’m not bent out of shape, Eli. I’m just not very happy.”
“Nat, believe me …”
He’s too obsessed with establishing his innocence to hear what I’m saying:
“Listen, Eli. A lot’s happened since we’ve been in touch.”
“What do you mean?”
So I tell him about our bedrooms windows and my going to the Hamptons and Jerry Russo being shot and my coming to Minneapolis and our house being vandalized just a few hours ago. I tell him everything, but I also tell him nothing, because I don’t factor my feelings into the narrative. There is just enough emotional content for him to realize I am in a very different place from when he last saw me.
I feel some sweet vindication as he slowly begins to react to my recitation of disasters. His shock is authentic. At least, I have the Pyrrhic victory of knowing he’s not been with Shay, because everything I tell him extracts cries of surprise and distress. His ignorance is so real that it eliminates Shay as his possible companion down there—which I had never totally discounted. I never count Shay out of anything until it’s absolutely over.
In his extreme upset, Eli begins to stutter slightly as he asks questions, trying to clarify the sequence in which things happened. The magnitude of the events I’m recounting dwarfs whatever he’s been experiencing in his personal life down there in Atlanta.
There are some calamities even more compelling than adultery.
“Eli, I’m leaving Amelia here with Marge and flying back to D.C. first thing in the morning. I want to see the house and then I’m going to return those goddam papers to Jerry Russo’s clients or whoever wants them. But I really want you to meet me there, Eli. I want you to leave Atlanta first thing in the morning and come home. I need you. I’ve never asked you to help me ever before in my life, but I want you to come home tomorrow, Eli. I mean it.”
“Oh, Nat. What are you saying? How can I? I’ll lose my job. They’ll go crazy at the paper. I can’t do that. This is the biggest story of the year, for chrissake. You know that.”
“Come home, Eli. Someone is trying to kill me.”
“Do you want to come down here, Nat? Would that help?”
I hang up.
The balance between Eli and me has shifted imperceptibly in my favor. I, at least, am defending what was once our life. He has effectively abandoned any responsibility for it. If our relationship is over, I, at least, pay it some tribute by defending it now. Eli’s a double loser for not doing the same.
My Abortion Act III
I was groggy when it was finally over. They told me I could get dressed and for a moment I didn’t know what they meant. One of them pointed toward an apple-green wooden chair, where I had left my underpants and panty hose. When I tried to sit up, both of them hurried to help me.
Then Shay was there.
“You don’t need your panty hose,” she said, balling them up inside my panties and ramming them inside her coat pocket.
I slipped my bare feet inside my boots. The boots felt furry and soft but I knew they would rub against the backs of my ankles when I started to walk.
Eli paid one of the med students, who said to him, “Be more careful next time.”
“I’m not …” Eli started to say, but then stopped.
Shay walked over to stand beside Eli and reassert her ownership. She didn’t like errors about her status. I stood up and felt warm blood slide down my bare legs into my boots. It squished beneath my feet as I started toward the door. I was weak. Maybe I stumbled. Eli and Shay surrounded me. They helped me down the icy wooden staircase, which was vibrating in the wind.
Two years later, after Eli and I had been married awhile, we talked about that gray day in St. Paul. We didn’t yet know that the abortion had ruined me so that we would never have any children together. We told each other our very different memories of that event and Eli said, “Isn’t it odd that I was there?” What I said was “I think I was already in love with you.” Then he put his arms around me and rocked us both back and forth, as if we were the child we didn’t yet know we’d never have.
10
I fly back to D.C. first thing the next morning. Amelia gets hysterical when she understands I’m leaving her behind. Marge and I try to be reassuring, but eventually I simply must go downstairs and get into my taxi while Amelia continues shrieking “No, no, no” inside the apartment. I feel heartsick. Amelia must feel the way I did when Eli left for Atlanta. Not only left behind, but left out. It’s a shitty way to feel.
As soon as I’m strapped into my airplane seat, inhaling the stale, stingy air, I check the Fawn Hall papers for the tenth time. The innermost pages lining my bag are still smooth, the outer ones crinkly and wrinkled from too much contact and handling. Because I’ve taken so much of the heat generated by these papers, I now feel that they rightfully belong to me, to do with what I want. That settles that.
During a winding ride home from the airport, in an un-airconditioned taxi driven by an Iranian who understands English but prefers speaking Farsi, I realize that the leaves of the trees have begun to turn. The drought is triggering a premature change of color in July. The middle of July. Recently The New York Times predicted that if global warming continued at its present rate, palm trees would be growing in Rock Creek Park instead of pines. By 2050, D.C. could have the temperature profile of Dallas.
It is hot back here in D.C. Hot, humid and hazy.
When the taxi stops in front of my house, my pain revs up like a sports car zooming from 0 to 60 MPH in six seconds flat. I start to decompose. I am afraid to go inside. The damage to my home is an obvious symbol of my disintegrating marriage. Although my key to the front door won’t work, it doesn’t matter. The lock’s been sprung.
Inside I feel as if I’m viewing my own funeral. My home has become a ghost house. Everything that wasn’t nailed down has been moved, upended, torn apart, opened, turned, smashed or broken. There are papers strewn about everywhere on the floor: bills, checks, letters, envelopes, newspapers. Like a zombie, I walk slowly from room to room. The kitchen has sustained the most violent damage and, beyond its glass-brick wall, I can see that more of the shrubs and flowers in my garden have dried up and died as if nature were offering a sympathetic protest.
Only a Martian could miss this message.
It’s coming in loud and clear.
Someone wants what I have in my purse. Bad.
I touch the papers like a talisman and then telephone Bo.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he says, magically appearing at my front door ten minutes later.
He surveys my face with affection, making me smile a little.
Then he comes inside, walking with his usual grab-ass pitch and street-smart roll. He looks as if he’s lost a little weight; he’s trimmer and even lighter on his feet than usual. I’m starting to like this guy so much. I think he can walk on water.
In the kitchen he methodically picks up all the chairs and replaces them around the table. I start to make us coffee, ignoring the silverware strewn across the counters, the tipped apothecary jar full of flour, the chaos spewed out of junk drawers. Unwilling to confront the damage, I sit down beside Bo as if nothing’s the matter.
Maybe I’m crying a bit by now, but I don’t know for sure.
“Do you have the papers?” he says softly.
I nod.
“And you want to go through with this?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice breaking.
“All right, champ. It’s all set, then. Mickey went over to see Russo in the hospital this morning. With Georgia. He said Russo was plenty glad to guarantee your safety in exchange for getting the interview back. He kept saying Mickey was saving his life, that they would’ve killed him if he didn’t recover those papers. So Russo’s arranging for us to meet José Ocheros—Mr. Georgetown—tonight at that after-hours club of his, Ariel. Ocheros launders money for the contras through his club. I know Arturo Cruz’s a member.”
I don’t respond.
Bo turns his chair around so he’s facing me. “I’m not going to deny you’ve been catching it in the neck,” he says with a tender smile. “But you’ve taken it like a champ, Natalie Karavan Myers. My hat’s off to you.”
I grimace. “Thanks.”
“I even freaked out when I saw this place last night.”
I smile through my tears.
“I told Mickey what’d happened to your house when I talked to him last night and he freaked out too. Anyway, he was supposed to catch a plane and fly to D.C. right after his visit to the hospital. He’s going to stay at the Washington Hilton and he thought you should get a room there too. You should, Natalie. You can’t stay here.”
“Yeah, I know,” I murmur.
Complications …
I go to the telephone, get the number of the Hilton from information, call the hotel, make a reservation and leave a message for Mickey saying I’ll call him when I check in. I feel ill as I go through this procedure. I can feel disaster stalking me. Flares have been going off and warning alarms ringing, ever since I left Minneapolis. The anxiety that’s tracked me since the bullets shattered my bedroom windows is beginning to peak. Panic is in hot pursuit of my composure.
Next I call Marge to brief her on the condition of my house. I let her believe it was a random act of vandalism, but when I say I’ll be staying at the Washington Hilton she realizes how much damage was done and she grows quiet. Then Amelia picks up another extension.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi, sweet Amelia. How are you, my love?”
“Good.”
My heart is breaking. “Are you going swimming with Marge?”
“Yes,” she says and then mumbles something.
“What, sweetheart?”
“Am I going home, Auntie Nattie?”
“When are you coming home? Real soon, baby. I’ll tell Shaysie to call you up tomorrow, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too,” she answers.
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