“What’s my motivation?” If she could tease him, she thought, the obsession must be exorcised. Now it was ordinary, simple, priceless, perfect love. Magic.
“Actresses!” He got up, took one big step and pulled her to her feet. He put his hands around her neck and unfastened the catch of her pearls. “Put these away somewhere, they’re much too good to lose in this mess.”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“All in good time. First I have to undress you. Button by button. I’ve got to be careful of your dress, it’s just too right.”
“Right for what?”
“The scene where the girl goes to tell the guy she loves him, of course. It’s such a clever dress, so severe, so uncompromising, so low-cut. So very low-cut. The poor sucker, he never had a chance.”
Freddy had gone to sleep unusually early the evening after she’d taken her white Rider up for the first time since her accident. Mac sat at the kitchen table, in front of a sheet of writing paper, the newspaper he’d just finished pushed to the floor in weary disgust. He’d dueled in the air with too many fearless, wily German pilots to believe that they’d ever give up. The last twenty years had seemed like one long, uneasy half-truce to him, and Munich just another battle they had won.
Where would they attack next? And how soon? The pace had been getting quicker ever since ’33, when, first, he had clearly heard the sound of approaching cannon. It wasn’t a question of if any longer, now that the Sudetenland had been sacrificed, it was only a question of when. Any man, he thought heavily, who understood how the borders of countries vanish when you try to find them from the air, knew that Isolationism couldn’t last. A year? Maybe less?
The news from Munich had only underlined the resolution he’d made yesterday, when Freddy had spoken of his making a good father. But it had come as a warning, pushing him over the edge of the line on which he’d been hesitating in heartbreak and self-hatred for the past few weeks. Freddy wasn’t pregnant. He knew that. She wasn’t yet, but, like the next war, it was only a matter of time. He took up a pen and started to write, searching with difficulty for every word he was doomed to write, finally leaving out all but the essentials.
Darling Freddy,
I have to leave you. It’s the only thing for us. I know you want to get married. I know you realize that if you were pregnant I’d marry you. So I’m going away to give you room to live your life as you should. You haven’t even started on your life yet. I can’t clip your wings.
You know how I feel about marrying you. As unfair as I’ve been in the past, it would be worse to take that far greater advantage of you. I’ve told you that, as directly as I can, and I’d tell you again and again, but it won’t do any good. You never believe I really mean it. And you’ll never give up on me unless I leave. Everything I own is yours, the house, the planes, the business. Keep them or sell them, as you like.
The one thing you must never think is that I didn’t love you enough. If I were a young man, I’d marry you tomorrow—I’d have married you long ago. It’s because I love you so much that I’m letting you go. I am not your future, my beloved girl.
Mac
He reread the letter, put down the pen, took the paper, folded it in half and wrote her name on the outside. Then he weighed down a corner with the pitcher of wildflowers she always kept on the table, and went to the closet to take out the bag he’d packed while she was out flying. If there were any better way to do it, Mac thought, he’d have found it by now. But there wasn’t. She would recover from the pain. He would not.
Many hours later, as he drove his car too rapidly north, he realized where he was going. His only thought, for hundreds of miles, had been to get far away before he changed his mind, his only destination a place without memories. Only as dawn broke did he feel safe, because soon she’d be reading the letter.
He could have used one of the planes, he thought. He would join up in Vancouver, across the border. There was bound to be a Canadian Air Force base there. Or if not there, in Toronto. They always needed instructors, and didn’t quibble about age. Nobody ever wanted that job, not once they’d learned to fly. At least he could lend a hand, at least there was one worthwhile thing left for him to do with whatever was left of his life.
15
FREDDY tore across the landing strip at Dry Springs, driving her car as fast as it would go. She came to a violent, skidding stop with a smashing of brakes, two feet away from her plane. She sprinted out of the car, untied the Rider, kicked the chocks out from under its wheels, jumped into the cockpit, punched the starter button, started the plane, and left the ground behind within seconds. For the first and last time in her life she neither checked out her ship before she got into it, nor went through the necessary run-up procedure to test the motor before takeoff.
She had found Mac’s letter less than a half hour earlier, and she had known immediately that if she didn’t get into the sky she couldn’t live through the pain. She had no way to handle it. She had no capacity to exist with this all-obliterating plunge into intolerable suffering. She had to flee from it or go mad. She put the nose of the ship up as high as it would go and climbed at the top possible speed, up and up into the gloomy, overcast sky, her stall signal shrieking again and again, so that she was kept busy correcting the attitude of the ship to keep from falling into a nosedive. She panted through her mouth, like a dog, blinking constantly into the grayness that was lit by a white glare. She had forgotten her goggles, she had on only the Levi’s, shirt and sweater in which she had gone down to breakfast, and soon she was shivering with the cold of altitude. Still she climbed headlong, on and on, height her only goal. Suddenly she burst through the overcast and found herself above the clouds. The blue sky struck the necessary blow she had been racing toward, like a runner straining for the tape at the finish line, and she slumped over the controls, all strength gone.
The Rider, uncontrolled, quickly assumed the configuration for which it had been designed and soon Freddy was flying level, a few hundred feet above a field of whiteness.
The sun on the cockpit warmed her, and little by little she stopped shaking. She lifted her head and took charge of her ship. Now, below her, there were scattered breaks in the clouds and she dove down through one like a porpoise, climbing up over the back of the next cloud, diving, climbing, diving and climbing, mindless motion her only focus. She saw a cloud with an unfamiliar shape and circled it meticulously, just at its edge, one wing in, one wing out. She found narrow, winding, brightly lit blue avenues between towering walls of white, and followed them wherever they led her; she entered clouds and stayed hidden inside them, unable to see more than fifty feet in any direction, until suddenly, at random, she charged out, seeking whatever lay beyond.
Freddy played with the clouds for as long as she could, crisscrossing, tracing edges, cutting them up, down and sideways, sometimes bullying them as if they were soapsuds, sometimes touching them as lightly as if they were made of old lace, never looking downwards. When, finally, she consulted her controls, she realized that she had almost no fuel left. She had no idea how long she’d been aloft. Now, some purpose restored, she dipped below the cloud level to find out where she was.
Beneath her, in every direction, stretched the desert. There were no roads, no trees, no landmarks of any kind. All pilots who know the San Fernando Valley know that only a few minutes away lies a vast desert no man has ever been able to chart. Freddy was as utterly lost as if she had been a thousand miles out at sea, except that, like all other mariners, she had a compass. Obedient to ancient laws that apply to all who wish to adventure, and all who wish to survive, she turned the Rider due west and found Dry Springs only minutes before she would have run out of gas.
On the ground she taxied to a far edge of the strip and came to a full stop. She turned off the motor, but she couldn’t make herself get out of the plane. As long as she remained where she was, she thought she was insulated, safe. As long as she stayed in the cockpit, nothing bad ha
d really happened. Even as the words came into her mind, she understood that reality had returned. Once she had realized that the plane was a refuge, it ceased to be a refuge. As lightly as a ghost, Freddy touched each of the controls, thanking them. Today they had been forgiving, today they had not made her pay any price for her insanely careless takeoff. Subdued by thoughts of what might have happened, she taxied the Rider and had it filled with fuel before she took it back to its parking space, and tied it down with reluctant thoroughness.
Now what, she thought, when the last knot had been tied and retied. Now what? She stood by her plane, touching its skin, a slim, tall figure with not a single idea of where to go or what to do. She folded her arms and leaned against the fuselage of the Rider, looking blindly at the dirt at her feet.
“Freddy, where’s Mac?”
“What?” She looked up. Gavin Ludwig, one of Mac’s assistants, stood in front of her.
“I don’t know what he wanted me to do with the Stuka I’ve been working on,” Gavin said. “Do I call Swede and let him know it’s finished, or do I wait for Mac to check it out?”
“Are you satisfied with it?”
“It’s better than when it was new, if I say so myself.”
“Then call Swede and find out where he wants it.”
“Nah, I’d better hold off on that. Mac’s so particular about the planes.”
“Mac had to leave for a little while. He’s left me in charge until he comes back. Just call Swede.”
“Well sure, Freddy … if you say so. When will Mac be back? He never mentioned anything about going anywhere.”
“In a week or two. Family business. You know how it is.”
“Who doesn’t? So you’ll be around the office?”
“Bright and early, Gavin, every day, bright and early.”
“There’s a bunch of messages on his desk that came in this morning. I guess they could wait till tomorrow, but if you’re sticking around today …?”
“Where else would I go, Gavin?”
“You’ve already been flyin’.”
“So I have.”
“Wasn’t a great day for it,” he said, looking up at the lingering overcast.
“Wasn’t bad,” Freddy replied. “Better than not goin’ flyin’, that’s for damn sure.”
On her way home from the airport, late that afternoon, Freddy stopped at the local market and bought all the ingredients for Mac’s most complicated beef stew, made with red wine and seven vegetables. By the time he came back, she’d know how to cook it, she vowed. Why should he be the only one to master that dish? Why should she continue to let him relegate her to easy dishes like hamburgers and fried chicken? She hesitated in front of the butcher counter. Should she ask for soup bones and marrow bones and a cracked veal knuckle, so that she could make a soup from scratch? That was another of Mac’s specialties that she’d never been allowed to try. Yes, she thought, as she talked to the butcher, this was the perfect opportunity to catch up with him in the kitchen.
When she got back to the house, Freddy dumped the bags of groceries in the kitchen. Mac’s letter lay folded on the table. She took it, turned on one of the gas rings on the stove, burned the letter without unfolding it, and started briskly upstairs to make the bed she’d left unmade that morning.
When the bedroom had been put in perfect order, she turned to the bathroom. There was a hamper half full of Mac’s shirts. She put them into a bag for delivery to the laundry tomorrow. When he came back he’d find every shirt he owned neatly piled on his shelves. She straightened their closet, making sure that all his shoes formed an orderly line, that his few jackets hung properly; she refolded his sweaters and put whatever socks and underwear of his she found near the sink, to be washed later.
By the time Freddy finished, it was dark outside. She turned on all the lights in the bedroom and went down to the living room, turning on all the lights there, noting that the bookcases needed her attention. Mac had never understood that books should be lined up neatly in the bookcases. This was her chance to work on them and make them as shipshape as they should be. She could even have some new bookcases built for the overflow. There wasn’t nearly enough space for what he already owned, books were crammed together every which way, and when he bought more books in the future they’d end up on the floor, if she didn’t do something about it while he was gone.
She poured herself a small shot of his whiskey and went into the kitchen to start to deal with the vegetables. Freddy was an expert at peeling, cutting and chopping. This was one of the jobs Mac had taught her to do when she first moved in with him. As she quickly scraped carrots, she wondered how long he could manage to keep himself from coming home. Certainly weeks, if she was any judge. Nothing less than two weeks would satisfy his scruples. Particularly after such a needlessly dramatic letter. If he slunk back in less than a few weeks, he’d just look plain silly and they’d both know it, no matter how careful they would be not to admit it to each other. A month? Possible. Even probable, now that she came to think about it. He was a hard-nosed bastard, and he was fully capable of letting this crazy situation go on for a month or even more, but not much more. He couldn’t hold out longer than that.
There was no question, she decided, as she shelled peas, while the beef browned in a large skillet, that he’d be back by, oh, say, a little after Halloween. Last year they’d made a huge jack-o’-lantern and put it outside on the porch for the neighbors’ kids. She mustn’t forget this year, or the kids would be disappointed.
She went at the celery tops with a sharp knife and made short work of them. The kitchen could stand a paint job, Freddy thought as she started on the potatoes. In fact, the whole house needed to be painted, inside and out. That was the sort of thing that Mac invariably would keep putting off and putting off when left to himself. While he was gone, while she had the place to herself, it was going to get done. When he came home he’d have to admit that it looked a lot better. While she was at it, she’d pick out some fabric and change the bedroom curtains, maybe even have slipcovers made for the living room. It could look so much better than it did now. If it were a prettier room, they’d spend more time in it, instead of just shuttling from the kitchen to the bedroom and back. There was so much to do before he returned that she didn’t know if she could get it all done on time.
It didn’t really matter. Once the jobs were under way, even if he came home before they were finished, there’d be nothing he could do to stop her.
He hated change. That man really was a creature of habit. Since she’d known him he’d never even moved a single stick of furniture in his uncomfortable office, except to add the map box she’d made him in shop. Well, she’d make the office comfortable too, while she could. Not chintz, that would be going too far, but some carpet and a few decent chairs wouldn’t hurt. It would serve him right for telling her to do whatever she wanted with the business. He’d learn not to give her carte blanche so easily when he was in a momentarily vile mood, for what else could account for a man as honorable as Mac sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night?
Somebody had to take over his private lessons on a temporary basis, while he was away, or he’d lose his pupils. She could get her instructor’s license by the end of the week. It was just a question of making an appointment to take the exam. She didn’t know why she hadn’t bothered to get it before now. His students would have to be notified to wait until she took them over. And she could handle the stunt planning on the Saturday serial, so long as she didn’t take on more flying work herself. All things considered, it would be better for her to watch the store than to accept another job. She wanted Mac to be forced to admit, when he returned to all the things he’d abandoned so hastily, that she’d been a good steward in his absence.
Freddy put all her vegetables into a tall cast-iron pot, along with a number of juicy, cut-up tomatoes, added the browned beef, three bay leaves and some homemade broth that Mac always kept handy in the icebox. Arms akimbo, she looked
at the contents of the pot. She’d add the wine later, and the seasoning. There didn’t seem to be anything further to do except wait for it to cook. She looked at her watch. Nine o’clock. How had it grown so late? Time flew when you kept busy. Dinner should be ready at … at midnight. The stew took three hours to cook. Worse, it was never, in Mac’s opinion, ready to eat when first cooked. It had to wait until the next day or, better yet, two, and then be reheated, before its flavor developed fully. Well, she’d just eat it on the first night and to hell with deepening its flavor, she decided. This would give her time to start in on the books in the living room. She poured another small shot of whiskey and marched in to attack the bookcases.
During the period when Delphine had entertained a series of lovers in her little house, the women who worked for her had found her abandoned behavior a source of intensely pleasurable interest and vicarious entertainment. It was certainly no less than they expected from a film star. She had a series of liaisons, yes, without question, but in a proper manner, under her own roof, and as much as they found to comment on, they had no downright moral criticism.
However, now that Delphine spent all of her nights away from home, and they were left in complete ignorance about her whereabouts, their employer seemed worse to them than any common slut. Who knew, Annabelle, the cleaning woman, speculated with disdain, how many different men were involved? Who knew what kind of sordid neighborhoods Mademoiselle de Lancel frequented, suggested Claudine, the guardian’s wife, sniffing with outrage. Who knew with what types of men she was making love, Violet, Delphine’s personal maid, conjectured, her tone making it clear that she suspected Delphine of a variety of fascinating depravities, one more debased than another.
Delphine, they told each other in honorable indignation, was guilty of the sinful activity known as découcher, a verb that literally meant “to sleep elsewhere than in one’s own home,” but one that carried a specifically immoral overtone. In 1939 only those Frenchwomen who were utterly reckless about their sexual reputations behaved in a way that permitted others to use the term découcher, a word that came closest in meaning to “sleeping around” but was far more flagrantly pejorative.
Judith Krantz Page 40