The Crimson Shaw

by Elyse Lortz

  “James, while I do not deny your situation is an uncomfortable one, it is hardly an uncommon occurrence. You are not the first war-stricken soldier to find comfort in the arms of another woman.”

  “She was black.”

  Oh.

  Keane’s head gave a slight jerk, but I knew I was the only one to notice so small a discrepancy. He was not, nor had he ever been condescending toward anyone on the basis of race or ethnicity. In fact, I had watched him give various speeches regarding the importance of integration, and that all people—men and women, black or white—were indeed equal in the eyes of God, and therefore should be viewed the same by the various government agencies plaguing the United States. The country had sworn that all men were created equal; that a person’s worth came not from their ancestry or heritage, but by birthright. They entered into this world, and ought to be given protected freedoms like their neighbor, their neighbor’s cousin, and those so following.

  What hypocrites.

  I shifted my position on the stage, allowing my legs to dangle over the edge like an attentive youth fishing on a dock.

  “So? Yes, that may throw the proverbial wrench in the works when it comes to the child, but I don’t see why race is a problem.” Why was race ever a problem? “If one may marry whom one likes, why would an affair be unreasonable?” Keane flinched angrily in his seat, dropping a small smudge of ash onto his trousers.

  “Lawrence, may I remind you this is not England? There are different laws and mores here that are intended to be followed, however immoral and ridiculous they may be.”

  “But surely that damnable law about interracial marriage doesn’t apply to . . . er . . . indescresions of the heart.” The two pools of silver fire glaring up at me gave me an answer so clear I would not require a duplicate.

  Damn.

  Harrison snatched up one of Keane’s offered cigarettes.

  “The law might not come charging after me, but Cohen’s fucking goons sure as hell did. Some just wanted to bring that son of a bitch his extra money to keep my information on the down low, but others—like that Smith girl—included their own personal prices in addition to Cohen’s already inflated rates. She just wanted a part in this show, but others wanted extra green to line their own pockets. Can’t say I’m sorry she died, but I tell you, seeing something like that makes you get off the white stuff faster than—” The director snapped his fingers through the air with such passion I almost didn’t consider the blatant fact that he did not ‘get off the stuff’ by sheer willpower. No, that had been Keane who had supplied the ambition on his behalf. It had been Keane who had stayed awake for several consecutive nights only to stagger into my hotel room as the last fleeting glimpse of a man desperate for sleep and a hearty meal. As though I had said this aloud, my companion leaned back in his chair with a voice softer than the lazy, white clouds of smoke encircling his head.

  “What happened to the child?” Harrison shrugged.

  “I never knew.” He never knew if his son was dead or alive. He never knew if that boy of his was making him proud in the cesspool of business or lying dead in some flimsy excuse of a grave dug just a few feet down in enemy soil.

  He never knew.

  But the fact that the boy had, at one time or another, existed, was enough to ruin him forever.

  THAT EVENING, AS KEANE and I retreated from the theatre’s battleground, I found him to be excessively silent; far more so than what was necessary when driving an automobile on evening’s deserted streets. My questions involving this infamous Meyer Cohen were met with a wall of indifference mortared together with a near obsessive attention of the empty roads winding toward the coast. The last few birds of the air chittered along the telephone wires that struck through dusk’s dimming haze. If they could hold their petty discussions, Keane and I could certainly have one of our own. I stared at the window a moment longer before glancing at my companion.

  “You’ve been horribly silent ever since Harrison shared that rather unexpected lesson in the art of procreation. Care to state your opinion?”

  “On procreation?”

  “Most any subject would be some sort of an improvement, albeit an uncomfortable one. Keane, I swear, if you don’t start answering at least a few of my questions about this Cohen fellow, I might just go and ask him myself.” His entire body convulsed violently, hurling us dangerously near to the road’s edge before he again dragged the hunk of machinery back toward a respectable path.

  “You would—by God, Lawrence, only a desperate woman would do something so foolish.”

  “Foolish? I hardly think it is foolish to want some information about the enemy. No doubt the Navy trained you to identify German ships and submarines, else you might have been taken captive or . . .” I hardly needed to continue, for my point had sufficiently shaken both our minds into a reality neither wished to walk. Keane’s entire form seemed stone against the moving horizon; a constant that would not be deterred. I reached into my pockets for the little package, lit a cigarette, and handed it to him. One, swift, long draw was all it took to see that tightness in his face relax into—not pleasantness—but acceptance.

  “Lawrence, I believe you are misguided in your inquiry.” I opened my mouth and was immediately silenced by a frigid glimpse of ice. “You are misguided because you really don’t give a damn about Mickey Cohen, or perhaps not to the extent you intend me to believe. No, you have fallen into that constant state of curiosity.”

  “Curiosity? Curiosity be hanged! What would I have to be curious about?”

  “Me.”

  “You?” I gaped openly at my companion, who wrenched the car a bit sharply around a right turn, allowing the centrifugal force to edge me closer to him. I caught that sharp scent of his cologne mixing with the dull brush of hair pomade and the vanilla of his tobacco. It was all incredibly familiar, as was that omnipotent glance in my direction once we were again steadfast on the road.

  “Lawrence, at times you have the tactful qualities of an air raid siren. You think I am depressed. You think I am on the brink of becoming some crotchety old man listlessly looking upon my life with regret for not having done those little ceremonies expected of a man. I have not married, nor have I enrooted my lineage in this young generation. I was too old for this last skirmish against the Germans and their allies, and, even if I had a son, I don’t believe I would have been like those other fathers and encouraged him to go marching into battle as some mighty proof of manhood. I have already walked that path, and I would be a fool to make him do the same. No, Lawrence, I am an ordinary man. I desire nothing more than a life well-stocked with books and the time to do as I please. Not once has a woman tied me to her apron strings or set me by the fireplace like a pet poodle with no more purpose than to drink himself to sleep for the sheer peace of it.” I took his words like an old wine; the taste honed through years of thought, and yet the subject was not to my taste. I would be a liar if I said I had not thought of matrimony before in those years of my youth. I had even toyed with the idea when I found myself staring at the ceiling, rather than drifting off into sleep. The honest truth was that I did not want children. It wasn’t that I minded having to watch other people’s children, or that they were wretched little creatures like other people believed. I just didn’t really want to be a parent.

  A mother.

  That was another problem.

  I never found great trust instilled in some woman who cared or watched over me. I could not trust them. And yet I could trust myself. I could trust myself and this man at my side more than I could my own mother, if I had trusted her at all. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t made an effort to be a systematic child. I had tried several times. But that trust had been broken, along with my own mind, so many times that I had lost all grasp of what it meant to truly and honestly trust another human being. I was alone in the world. Alone.

  Keane must have understood my silence, for he said nothing more as we wound our way toward the beach house; inching ever cl
oser at a steady and relaxing pace complementary to the waning day. The light tap of his long, tapered fingers along the steering wheel gave music to my soul and sent my mind along a finer path well traveled in times of peace. The last few drops of sun caught Keane’s silhouette and reflected it through the window as he stepped from the automobile and began that long, easy stride up toward the painted door. A key appeared from the depths of his pockets, strung to its cousins with a metal ring. He pushed the door gently open, took one step forward, and bowed to collect a sparse selection of envelopes from the floor; shuffling through them as he entered further into the house. Rubber seals were torn open carelessly and one article after another was flung aside until the handful of useless correspondence was flung across the floor. Only one still remained in Keane’s slender hands, the white edges still unopened as he turned it over and over. He caught my curious glance and chuckled.

  “From Bridget. Mrs. McCarthy must have forwarded it, God bless her.” In the past year I had grown to believe there were no two siblings in the world closer than Keane was to his sister. He had played protector for much of her life, even when he was thousands of miles away fighting his own war.

  The first war.

  I watched eagerly as he methodically cut open the envelope’s paper lip; tugging from it a letter that naturally would have taken him only a minute or so to read, but he took his time; those blue eyes tasting every syllable of the child-like penmanship before swallowing it all as a fine wine.

  “I take it she and Sean are well?” My companion’s attention slowly released the paper with a nostalgic smile.

  “Quite. She has even taken up lessons in embroidery from one of the neighbors. Alice is also grand, if you cared to know.” I chuckled. Alice was as much a friend to Bridget as any person could be. The only unusual aspect was her existence as a worn rag doll Keane had bought for his sister decades before. As he began folding the letter away, I started plucking the other envelopes from the floor. Most of it was rubbish, but one article succeeded to catch my attention where it had obviously escaped Keane’s.

  “Sofia Livens?” I asked.

  “Mm? Oh, yes. She’s the wife or something of one of the young stage hands. Never met her personally, though?” I skimmed over the card’s contents.

  “Looks like some sort of invitation.” It was not by imagination Keane groaned.

  “No doubt for something tedious and absolutely dripping with self-proclaimed scholars. Throw it away.”

  “The party is this Saturday at seven. Rehearsal ends at six.” My companion, who had disappeared somewhere in the kitchen, now reappeared with his cigarette case at the ready.

  “And since when has Jo Lawrence ever been a social butterfly?”

  “Really, Keane,” I scoffed. “I am not becoming infatuated with the idea. I was just . . . curious.”

  “Which was the downfal of the saber toothed tiger, wooly mamoths, and, eventually, the female sex as we know it. A pity.”

  “Well don’t get your hopes up. There are those of us who know when to avoid tar pits in favor of a paved road. I mean, why would I want to spend my afternoon discussing nothing more interesting than the recent Hollywood wardrobe.” Keane’s eyebrow arched and his eyes twinkled with amusement even after I tried to brush the matter aside with my hand. “Besides, if you’re not going, why would I want to go?”

  “It might be good for you. Get away and be with people your own age. Antisocial behavior is rarely good for your health, Lawrence.”

  “It may not be advisable, but it certainly saves one’s sanity not going to those sorts of things.” I protested. “Besides, you turned out alright.” That at least earned a light chuckle from my companion.

  “Kind though it is for you to say such a thing, and while I can hardly disagree, I think it would be best if you attended this party.”

  “But you yourself admitted it would be tedious.”

  “And how often do you heed my advice? No, Lawrence, you shall go to Miss Livens’ while I see what I can do about Meyer Cohen. Perhaps, with some success, we will be back in England by the start of August.” Damn. I didn’t think I could survive another day in America, let alone weeks.

  I threw myself almost violently into the nearest hideous chair like a rugby player diving for the ball.

  “But, Keane, I don’t like my generation. It’s all about ‘so-and-so’ and ‘he said’ and ‘she said’. Nothing is ever based on facts. Everything is according to another person who made a comment when they were roaring drunk that made some sort of sense to another intoxicated mind. I hate it.” A cigarette slipped gracefully from the silver case. Though lit, Keane took the time to wave the burning object through the air a bit before drawing in great breaths of the white haze.

  “You have not only described your generation, Lawrence. You have explained society as it has been passed down through the ages. There is something about being drunk that gives a person more educational accolades than a doctorate. Because they know to stagger around giddily, people expect them to comprehend life. We could hardly follow their example. If we did, we would all end up like James; slipping pills down our throats and enduring our existence through a dull haze. We wouldn’t feel any pain, but . . . no amount of pain is worth a loss of joy, Lawrence. Never lose that joy of life—that hope for what is to come. If I have one regret, it is that my life has been plagued with events which have deadened the light of the world into a dim dusk.” The fractured syllables—the raspiness of his voice—was something rare and, on the whole, concerning. I had heard Keane speak in slivers of his life, but the morose nature of certain events never broke into this sadness I now saw behind his eyes. Here he was, a man who loved life and the depths of society, and yet the world seemed determined to dislike him for wanting to understand the earth he was set to walk. He wanted to understand, so he did.

  And that hurt him more than anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SOFIA LIVENS’ HOME was not large itself, but behind it sat the popular point which warranted the dozens of people conducting themselves wildly outdoors on such a blistering hot day.

  A swimming pool.

  And so I discovered the singularly discomforting moment at the water’s rigid edge in an absurdly boorish conversation with a boy a year or so older than myself with infinitely less common sense. What was his name? Tyler? Travis? Tony? No, Trevor. Yes, that sounded right. Trevor Stevens. God, what a bore. It would have been a miracle to find anything more than the latest football scores filling the area between his two pitifully large ears. I listened to the hellish numbers longer than I thought possible until the young man was finally called away to a swarm of giggling girls: girls who had little on their minds not inclusive to a life steamed with passionate romance and ending in a disappointing marriage.

  Beads of sweat had begun to form along the nape of my neck and trickled downward to soak shamelessly into the cotton collar of my shirt. Had I known there would be swimming, I might have had the foresight to bring my bathing suit. But I had not known; therefore, I was stuck sitting along the edge of the pool in a hot cotton blouse and trousers that were just as uncomfortable as could possibly be imagined. The thick brown fabric clung to my legs and created great rivers of sweat to drip into my socks and shoes.

  God, how appalling.

  “It helps to put your feet in the water.” My head naturally jerked upwards, forcing me to shield my eyes from the sun’s devastating glare. The man towering over me was at least thirty, though I suspected slightly more. There was a distinct macherity to his face, as though he had seen the best the world had to offer and found it was made especially for him. His skin had been tanned to an even bronze with eyes so dark the pupils swallowed the irises whole. Brown hair sat ruffled on his head as a pile of twigs waiting to be caught alight by a careless match. It was as though he had just woken with no chance of going back to sleep; as if he had too much to live for to spend a third of his life in bed. That is, whatever he did at night, I did not b
elieve it included sleep. I immediately hated him and liked him within the same moment. It was not his party, and yet he was Gatsby; roaming between the guests with nary a care in the world. I squinted up at him for only a second more before tying my eyes down toward the water’s crystal, shimmering surface.

  “I am perfectly content with my shoes on, thank you.” There was such finality in my words I had hoped he would go off and leave me be like Travis—no, Trevor—had done. But unfortunately, he lowered himself leisurely beside the pool and outstretched his legs so the soles of his bare feet dangled over the edge of the pavement, hovering only a breath away from the water.

  “I’m Sam Barker. Let me guess, you’re Jo.” My gaze flickered from the water for a painful moment.

  “How did you guess?”

  “You’re the only one on Sofie’s list I haven’t seen before. Her parties are known as the hot weeklies. Same people. Same day. Same time.”

  “Oh.” Stunning reaction that, a true accolade representing years of ceaseless dedication to the furthering of my education. I had a mind carefully melded to accommodate the most pristine words of the English language. Through Keane I had grown fluent in the more practical languages, as well as a brief smattering of Gaelic; absorbed more through moments of necessity than a formal drilling of the grammar. All this, and what could I muster?

  Oh.

  Bloody Marvelous.

  I tried again.

  “These things are weekly then? Sounds like an awful lot of bother.” Sam Barker stared at me before letting his eyes wander aimlessly about the roaring party guests.

  “I guess it could be, but it is really more a celebration of those of us who have nothing better to do. I throw a party every week at my house. A big smash. You should come sometime.”

  “What about work?”

  “What about it?” I ripped all my attention from a bug skimming the surface of the swimming pool.