When he looked out the mullioned window over the landing on the stairway, he saw that it was a beautiful evening. He particularly liked a full moon, and he always made a silly wish. But not anymore. Wishes never came true, and prayers sometimes weren’t answered, either. They were alike, he thought, although his mother said they weren’t.
Philippe’s steps lagged as they always did when he walked past the library, past the picture of the Three Muskeeteers. He hated it now, with a passion. The smiling man looked evil to him, and Daniel’s honest-looking face didn’t seem the same, either. Only his mother was unchanged. Twice he’d taken the painting down and faced it toward the wall. His mother always rehung it and never said anything. When he was thirteen he’d thrown a tantrum and refused to go in the car if they were taking it to Paris. Gritting his teeth, he’d told his mother the picture was ugly and he was grown-up and grown-up boys didn’t salivate over unknown fathers. She’d smacked him, something she’d never done before in the whole of his life, but the picture remained at the château from that day on.
He hadn’t meant to enter the library, but here he was, staring at the familiar faces from childhood. He knew every brush line, every hair on his father’s head, and he hated every inch of the picture. The smiling face was false as far as he was concerned. At one time it had been so real, as real as the stories his mother told him.
The urge to lash out, to rip the painting from the wall, was stronger than it had ever been. He clenched his hands, then jammed his fists into his pockets. “Damn your soul to hell, Reub…Father!”
His quest for food forgotten, Philippe stomped back to his room.
Chapter Forty
Bebe walked through the neatly tended gardens, marveling at the beauty of the plants and flowers—tended she knew, by a very capable gardener. The roses, however, had been fertilized and pruned by her husband. She stared at some of the delicate blooms in their little nests and knew they survived the California sun because they were fed, watered, and nurtured. They were really no different from people, she thought sadly. If the gardener forgot to water the plants or prune the leaves, they would wither and die. So much like humans. For years now she’d abused her body and her mind because there was no one to care, to nurture her.
She was Bebe Tarz. Period. Not Bebe Tarz, movie actress, not Bebe Tarz, Reuben Tarz’s wife, not Bebe Tarz, mother. She was, but she wasn’t. In order to be those things she would have had to participate, and she hadn’t, not really. All those years she’d wasted in a nightmare world of liquor and drugs—and all because of Reuben. If only she could go back in time and erase some of her mistakes…but that wasn’t possible. It was time to accept the fact that she was an alcoholic and a drug addict and that she was pregnant with another man’s child, a man whose face she couldn’t even remember.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. There were no more chances now, she’d had her quota. Reuben was not about to forgive this latest escapade of hers. The truth was, she couldn’t forgive herself. “Oh, God, what do I do?” she cried.
Huge with child now, and waddling like a duck, she made her way to a bench under a shady tree. Wearily she closed her eyes as she tried to sort out her life. She’d loved Reuben, obsessively so. She’d given birth to three sons, one lost to her and the other two just…children. Only once had she felt true mother love, the day she’d held John Paul. Where was he, what was he doing? she wondered. Whom did he look like, her or Reuben? God, she wished she knew, wished she had a photograph. Maybe that was where her life went wrong. Her throat felt thick and swollen when she thought of that time in France.
“If only you had been kind to me, Reuben,” she murmured. “I know we could have had a decent life if you’d been kind and considerate. I knew you didn’t love me, but I thought I had enough for both of us. I really thought you would come to love me. I did everything I could think of to make you love me, but it wasn’t enough. You love Mickey, you’ll always love her and she will always love you. I understand now. I understand that you can’t love me…but you could be kind. I can live with kindness. I know I can.”
She wept silently as all her past sins rushed through her like a raging river. It was too late, too late for her and Reuben. Too late for so many things. She yanked at the deep pocket of her maternity dress, drew out a small silver flask, and gulped its contents, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
Drinking was forbidden by the doctor, but she didn’t care. There was something wrong with this pregnancy, with the baby she carried. By now she should have felt life, some small movement, but she hadn’t. She knew without anyone having to tell her that she was going to give birth to a stillborn child. And it was just as well; Reuben didn’t want another man’s child. He didn’t want her, either.
When she heard her husband’s car in the drive, she uncapped the flask and drained it, then angrily tossed it in the bushes. Later she’d send the maid to fetch it, but right now she didn’t give a damn about anything.
Reuben knew he had walked into his own corner of hell when he saw Bebe in the garden. She looked so sad and miserable, he wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but he held back. That was another man’s baby she was carrying and she expected him to give the child his name. And he would, because he had no other choice. Sweet Jesus, how much was a man supposed to bear? Unable to face his wife, or even enter his own home, Reuben retraced his steps and got back into his car. Where to go, what to do?
An hour later Reuben found himself outside the steamship offices. He’d been there so many times, had tentatively booked passage more often than he could remember, only to cancel at the last minute. He could sit there all night and wait for them to open in the morning. He never had to go home again unless he wanted to. He never had to do another thing he didn’t want to. Then his conscience needled him. It’s not that simple. You aren’t blameless. The reason Bebe is the way she is is because of you. Make it right, it’s not too late.
“Mickey?” he said brokenly. Mickey is the past and the past is dead. How long are you going to torture yourself? “Forever, probably. I can’t let go. If I let go, I have nothing. Nothing!” You have a wife. Go home and make peace with her, his conscience ordered. Maybe you can’t have what you had with Mickey, but maybe you can have something better.
“It’s too late,” Reuben muttered. How will you know unless you try? Go home, put the past behind you, pick up the pieces, and get on with your life.
“All right, goddammit!” Reuben cried. “One more shot, but that’s it. One more time, and if she fucks up, that’s it! I go to France. I don’t look back, either, and forget that crap about sickness and health, till death do us part. One more time!”
When Reuben drove away from the steamship offices, he felt lighter by about a hundred pounds. Guilt and remorse were awesomely heavy burdens to carry around for all these years. How would he say his last good-bye to Mickey? he wondered. Silently, in his heart? In a letter he would never mail? By trying to save Bebe and his marriage?
Driving back to the house, Reuben forced himself to examine the motivations, the subconscious influences that had urged him in this direction. Was it conscience that spurred him on—or had he just made a pact with the devil?
Bebe entered the ninth month of her pregnancy the following day. It seemed sacrilegious to her to be carrying around a dead child, but there was little she wanted to do about it. Listless and wan, she sat at the shallow end of the pool, her feet dangling in the cool water. She hadn’t had a drink yet today because she felt sick to her stomach. Her ankles were so swollen she couldn’t wear her shoes. Perhaps the cool water would reduce the swelling.
Bebe Tarz felt ugly, unloved, and unwanted. Woodenly she glanced down at her hands bracing herself on the concrete ledge. They hadn’t been this puffy earlier this morning. She leaned over, trying to see her reflection in the clear water. Suddenly she panicked, afraid that she’d leaned out too far, that her ungainliness might tip her over into the water. She was trying desperately to struggle u
pright when a long arm reached out to her.
“Let me help you.” It was Reuben—Reuben lifting her gently to her feet, talking to her in a soothing, caring tone of voice. “The housekeeper called me at the office and suggested I come home. She said you looked ill. Atta girl, come along. I’m taking you to the doctor. Why didn’t you say something this morning? Is it time?”
Her husband’s gentle concern was more than she could bear. She burst out crying. “The baby is dead, I know it is! It’s never moved once all these months. I think you better take me to the hospital. I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean to cause you a problem, Reuben.”
“It’s not a problem. Can you walk?”
“If you go slowly. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m about as big as an elephant,” Bebe said sourly.
Reuben stopped in mid-stride and looked carefully at his wife. He chuckled. “I think you’re right. C’mere,” he said, scooping her into his arms. “You might look like an elephant, but thank God you don’t weigh as much.”
Settled in the front seat of the car, Bebe turned to her husband, eyes imploring. “Please, Reuben, don’t pity me. I couldn’t bear…Please hurry, Reuben, but don’t drive too fast. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.”
“You know, you could have fallen into the pool, Bebe,” Reuben chastised her.
Bebe nodded. “I thought about it. Deliberately falling in, I mean. I’ve been thinking a lot about dying these last few days. When it comes right down to it, I didn’t think anyone would care.”
For a second Reuben almost lost control of the car. “You what?” he thundered, risking a glance in her direction in time to see her eyes roll back in her head. “Bebe! Bebe! We’re almost there. Listen to me, Bebe, hang on, okay? Talk to me, tell me about the last time you heard from Simon. I want to hear what he’s doing in that fancy school that’s robbing us blind.” Reuben felt the first seeds of fear and struggled to remain calm.
“I…” She was burning up, she could feel herself lose consciousness. She tried to respond to Reuben. He hardly ever talked to her, and it must be important if he needed an answer. “I…” What had he asked her? He was yelling at her now, calling her name over and over. She heard her voice coming from far away and sounding so odd that she shivered. Maybe she was dying. She struggled to give voice to the thought.
“We’re here, Bebe. Don’t move, I’ll carry you in.”
In the blink of an eye Bebe was whisked away on a gurney. Reuben stood in the center of the corridor, certain he’d seen Death follow behind.
He lost all track of time in the hospital waiting room. Evening and darkness came and went several times, dawn worked its way slowly to the noon hour and then to midafternoon. He felt bilious with all the coffee he’d consumed, but worse than that, he felt heartsick and angry. At last his patience reached the breaking point; frustrated and angry, he strode to the nurses’ station and demanded an audience with the doctor.
“I want to see my wife. Now!” he thundered. “And don’t give me any of that busy crap. My studio has endowed this hospital handsomely, and that will cease in exactly five minutes. You tell that to the doctor!”
Exactly four and a half minutes later Bebe’s doctor entered the waiting room, a frown of disapproval on his face. “I just got here, Mr. Tarz, and your wife’s condition is unchanged. She has toxemic poisoning.”
“You just got here! You mean you went home?” Reuben raged. “You went home and left my wife!”
The doctor backed up a step and then another. For a moment he had a vision of his future at the hospital when the administrators learned that he had provoked Reuben Tarz into withdrawing Fairmont’s endowment. It was not a reassuring image.
“Only to change my clothes,” he blustered. “Your wife is in excellent hands. We’re doing everything we can. I simply don’t have the time to sit there and hold her hand. If you want to, I suppose I can see my way clear to allowing that.” His tone clearly indicated he thought the suggestion unlikely.
“You’re damn right I do. Why didn’t you tell me I could stay with her before? If anything happens to my wife, I am going to hold you personally responsible, Doctor,” Reuben shot over his shoulder as he stomped to his wife’s private room.
All the anger was jolted out of him the moment he crossed the threshold. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for his first sight of Bebe. She was so still, so ashen-looking under the sterile sheets. For the first time, he became aware of his wife’s mortality. Death hovered overhead, ready to snatch her away at any given moment. He wanted to do something, needed to do something. She was so alone, so defenseless.
Reuben realized then, to his own amazement, that he didn’t want his wife to die. In the car she’d sounded as if she didn’t care whether she lived or died. And who could blame her? Reuben wondered. Jesus, he hadn’t called Sol or Eli! He’d spare them what he was going through as long as possible.
He dragged a chair over to the side of the bed and sat down. How dry and hot her hand was. On impulse he began to talk to his wife, the words halting at first because he rarely used them; eventually they quickened, tumbling out of his mouth like a runaway car. He talked of his childhood, of Daniel and the war, and of Mickey, of the time in the barn, his goals and dreams, of Rosemary and his foolishness. He spoke of the studio and the progress he’d made. When he found himself tiring, his words winding down, he gave himself a shake and continued. He talked about Jake and how wonderful it was of her to get the dog for Daniel. By the time a kindly nurse tapped him on the shoulder, his voice had turned to a hoarse croak.
“It’s time for Mrs. Tarz’s medication now, and I want to sponge her off. Go home, Mr. Tarz, and get some sleep. We’ll call you if there’s a change. You’re no good to your wife in your present condition. If you were my son and it was my daughter-in-law lying in this bed, I’d tell him the same thing.”
Reuben nodded. He was halfway out of the room when he turned back and waved the nurse away so that he could bend over his wife. “I know you didn’t hear a thing I said and you probably can’t hear me now, either, but, Bebe…I…Please don’t die, Bebe. I want us to start over as soon as you’re well. I’ll make everything up to you, I swear I will. We’ll go away, just you and me. We’ll have a honeymoon, a real one. I…I…think I love you, Bebe.”
At last Reuben allowed himself to be led out of the room and down the corridor to the main entrance. “Your wife is in good hands,” said the nurse. “Please, let us do our job. Come back when you’re rested.”
It was dark when Reuben walked onto his terrace, unsure of how many days had passed. He looked upward at the meadow of stars. He’d never felt so alone in his life.
Three days later Bebe Tarz regained consciousness, and on the fifth day the doctor performed a cesarean section. The child, a boy, was stillborn. On the afternoon of the sixth day the tiny body was lowered into the ground. Sol cursed Reuben as each shovelful of dirt thumped onto the small casket. Reuben clamped his jaws tightly together.
At his car Eli walked over to him. “Reuben, wait a moment. Look, I know you don’t think very much of me and that’s okay, it doesn’t bother me anymore. I just want you to know that I know the baby wasn’t yours. Bebe told me the day she arrived home. If I were in your boots, I don’t know if I could have taken the verbal abuse you just did from Pop. I think you did a fine thing, and if you still want that seascape I painted years ago, it’s yours.”
“Eli, the ten minutes I spent listening to your father made me want to kill. How you lived through what you did with that man is something I will never understand. You’ve got guts and I admire that in a man. You’ve made mistakes and so have I. You rectified yours and I’m going to try like hell to fix mine. As for the picture, I’d be honored to accept it.” Reuben stretched out his hand, and Eli, tears welling in his eyes, grasped it with both of his.
“Scum! Slime of the earth!” Sol bellowed. Reuben watched Eli’s step falter, but he continued walking, head high, back to his car.
Reuben was out of his car in a flash and running to where Sol stood outside his car. He reached down and grabbed the fat man’s shirt. “You ever talk that way to Eli again and I’ll kill you! And,” he said threateningly, “I’ll cut you off where it hurts, at the bank! Now get your ass in that car, and if I ever see you again, it will be too soon for me!”
His face a mask of anger, he stormed his way back to his car. Even from this distance he could see the tears in Eli’s eyes. Smiling, he made a circle with his thumb and index finger. “We’re square, Eli,” he said, mouthing the words. Eli nodded.
Talk about getting religion, Reuben thought on the way back to the hospital. If he kept this up, he’d be taking on the world. Almost overnight he’d turned into someone he barely recognized. He knew one thing, though: he wanted to get to know this new person better.
Bebe sat propped up on a chair by her hospital window, where she had a clear view of the front entrance and could see Reuben the minute he turned the corner. But although her view to the outdoors was excellent, it was her reflection in the windowpane that held her attention. She was bathed and combed, powdered and shiny. The nurse had tried to get her to apply makeup, but she’d refused. What she really wanted was a drink and a cigarette, both forbidden to her. The doctor had wagged his finger under her nose the evening of the day of her operation and said, “Mrs. Tarz, this would be a good time for you to give up your addictions. You have some time under your belt, the worst is over, so to speak, and if you’re determined, you can stay clean and get a head start on regaining your health.” She knew he was right, and she wanted to follow his advice.
Reuben had been an attentive husband, so much so she’d kept looking at him suspiciously, waiting and wondering what his motives were. Her husband was never nice unless he wanted something. Eli had said Reuben was at the hospital day and night. He’d also told her about their confrontation at the cemetery. Eli, it seemed, was ready to accept Reuben at face value now and had gone so far as to personally deliver one of his earliest paintings to the house. Her brother was not one of her favorite people these days, she decided. Maybe she was envious of Eli because he seemed happy at last. With the help of his friends, he was making a new life for himself and didn’t seem to need her anymore. No one needed her. Oh, Reuben said he did. Reuben had said a lot of things these past days; some she remembered, others she chose to blot out. Why now, after all these years, would he say he wanted to start over, to be a real husband to her in every sense of the word? Not that he’d exactly come out and said he loved her, but he had alluded to his new feelings, feelings he said he’d suppressed…. She couldn’t remember why he’d suppressed them.
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