by Sarah Relyea
There was no sense in running the problem by Tom, for he could be demeaning. She would pry her son away from Sammy, if only she could.
Even so, she was losing Curt, regardless of Sammy. He hung aloof, ignoring them, as though seeking camouflage among the fledgling young. The rebuff was wounding yet revealing, for he seemed alarmingly self-possessed. Of the Raysons, he alone was made for Telegraph: overwhelmed by an early adolescence, waving a coarsening tangle of hair, he was blooming and newly muscular, and though he had a boy’s smooth face, up close he had a man’s odor. He would be very handsome—more handsome than Tom—and she wondered if, growing among the freely expressive young, he would become more pleasing as well.
He was growing up much sooner than he should. For now, he should be hers.
Tom paused as they reached La Fiesta, the Mexican place Sabrina had been recommending so highly. Tom had agreed on the Mexican place because they’d heard the food would be tasty and cheap. Marian was pushing Sabrina’s preferences because Tom ignored her own and the family needed something new. She enjoyed hearing how Sabrina and her husband had voyaged to faraway places. How mind-expanding that would be, Marian thought, though she’d never imagined such things before—a season under the palm trees. And Sabrina’s daughters had been there, though of course they’d been very young.
On the way to Telegraph, Tom had purchased beer. Now, as the family crowded around the table, father and daughter on one side and mother and son on the other, he opened a can. A bearded and aproned man appeared bearing a glass. Tom poured carelessly, and as the glass foamed over, he leaned slurping the foam. Then he ordered some food more or less randomly. Tom’s presence was changing, becoming dour and unbending. Ever since the phone call from Ginger, he’d begun dropping references to her. The references were no more than he might say about other colleagues, yet there was something meaningful in them.
Tom, sunburned and sparing of words, was peering blandly through the window, as if the passing scene were enough.
Marian regarded her son, who was bouncing a leg as he leaned over the food. Soon he’d be old enough for the army. During the campaign, Nixon had used the ambiguous code words “peace with honor” in suggesting he would end the war. Then the bombing pause announced by Johnson had fallen through. Maybe, as many supposed, there had never been an agreement and Johnson had only hoped to improve Humphrey’s chances by announcing the opening of peace negotiations. Or maybe, as others supposed, Nixon’s people had sabotaged the plan by promising more favorable terms, if he were to win. Sure enough, the confusion and delay had worked in Nixon’s favor. Now, she was sure, the war would simply go on—no peace, no honor.
“How old is Sammy’s brother?” Marian inquired.
“High school.”
“Do you know what year?”
“Sophomore.”
“I hope he’s planning on college.”
“Why?”
“Among other reasons,” she responded, feeling her face flush, “college students can get draft deferrals. And college is safer than the army.”
“I’m planning on college.”
“Good.”
She would be damned if her son would go to war. She could be reasonably sure he would never join the army—but if he were called up, would he refuse? Though the problem was years away, she pondered all the same. He’d become obsessed with the carnage, following the evening news as zealously as a new baseball season—could she really be so sure he’d never go searching for glory? He would never say if the bloodshed appalled him or pumped him up.
Marian sought Tom’s gaze, wondering why he was so aloof, why he was always away. How far had things gone with Ginger?
Sabrina’s husband was engaging, flamboyant where Tom was drab, humorous where he was dour—if only . . . !
If only Humphrey had won. He was drab but safe, and she’d only been angry. Of course her personal vote for Cleaver had been of no consequence in California, where Humphrey never had a chance. She’d done nothing for the more dangerous one, Nixon, whose margin in his home state had been very secure. Tom had gone for Humphrey, she was reasonably sure; he’d never do anything so unruly as she’d just done! Her son was unhappy with her, of course; he was loyal to the home team—and for the Raysons, that was Humphrey. Her daughter was also unhappy, though the reasons for that were somewhat obscure. In the ensuing days, Marian had made one thing clear—Humphrey would have been preferable, if she’d thought her vote would change anything.
The evening was cool and damp as the Raysons emerged from the restaurant. Marian led them around the corner in search of a jewelry shop she’d found on one of her forays and was hoping to browse. She’d already persuaded Alice to go, by reminding her of the turquoise rings she’d seen in Santa Fe and—was it not so?—found very alluring. Alice had forgotten the rings; but that was all the more reason to see them now. Surely she would be eager to remember something she’d so truly enjoyed.
Marian paused in the doorway, Tom by her shoulder. From the shop, a woman surveyed them through a fringe of lemon-colored bangs.
“Do come in,” sang the woman.
Tom hung back as the others passed through the door. The room was overflowing with beads and hangings and glass cases showing off turquoise jewelry—rings and flashing necklaces of freer design than those they’d seen in Santa Fe. Along one wall, a row of water pipes dangled from a shelf, coyly camouflaged by several intermingling Hindu figures, gods and goddesses whose many waving arms resembled the curving hoses of the pipes. A musky fragrance embalmed the room, fed by the curl of smoke from a brass cupola of burning incense. Rumbling bass sounds underscored an edgy howl of melody, a posse of cars speeding through a tunnel.
By the glass cases, the woman’s eyes shone; her long, lemony hair moved in dune-grass waves over her shoulders. Surrounded by her jeweled wares, she was clearly eyeing someone—the handsome boy-man, Marian’s son.
He edged closer, as though moved by an unseen force.
“Can I show you my rings?” came the woman’s siren song.
“Oh my!” Marian enthused, running her hand through a row of beads. Then she glanced up, catching the woman’s eye. “Such lovely beads!”
Alice
ALICE WAS WONDERING what rings the woman had. Rings were good: they could render her unseen. If only she could slip on a ring and move freely . . .
In a glass case hung peacock feathers and abalone—blue, copper, and green. A woman was whispering in her ear. The murmur grew edgy, rebounding from the glass cases, the shudder of a passing world. The song was unnerving her senses, already flooded by incense. In the corner hung a poster of swirling words camouflaged among purples, reds, and greens, seeping over the paper in vibrant, unreadable code. Then she saw four faces smiling from the colors—for everyone and no one. Shrouded by glowing purple hair, the faces rose ambiguously from the shifting background shapes, among which she glimpsed the word “Avalon,” before the letters faded in whirlpools of color.
A new song was beginning. Just as the others were leaving, Alice approached the case of turquoise rings, poring over them. The woman leaned closer, smiling as though from the branches of a tree.
“Can I see one?”
“Yes, if you show me the one you’re looking for.” The woman’s face was a waxing, waning smile.
“Any one . . .”
“Are you sure?” The woman seemed oddly amused.
“Maybe . . . no . . .”
“You can find yours,” summed up the woman, “if you look long enough.”
There was no chance now, but she would come back.
Alice made her way through a rumbling, thumping din, just as her family was moving off. Under the glare of a street lamp, an unleashed dog nosed the curb. A lanky man wearing fringed leather swayed by. She passed along the curb, joining the family as they gathered at Telegraph and then moved on. Day had faded, replaced by pools of amber glare. Bushes and flowers loomed; trees cast branching shadows along the ground. Unseen bi
rds sang a few melancholy phrases as they passed: songbirds, whose shadows lay among the lacing branches. Turning here and there they ambled on, passing from shadow to shadow, and just as she was growing sleepy they reached a brown-shingle house with a palm tree swaying in the yard.
chapter two
Marian
JANUARY WAS NEARLY gone. Everyone was away when Marian emerged from the bedroom, consoled by the lonely house where she could do as she pleased. Tom had been in San Francisco on Saturday, presumably with Ginger, though there was a vague chance he’d been working, as he’d been feigning so far. Marian imagined Ginger as young and callous—as a woman lawyer, she would be needing some hard surfaces. She would be demanding, and Tom, a dogged and uncompromising man, would soon enough grow weary of indulging her. In any case, Marian could manage her feelings and keep a phony peace, though she found so many causes for war these days—and of course, the problem was never the problem. Even so, Tom’s absences had been posing a slew of minor problems: for example, he’d delayed her evening plans with Sabrina and Michael, and even when she’d dangled Michael’s research—he would be in the Amazon soon, if the funding came through—Tom had been unimpressed.
So in place of evening plans, Marian would be joining them for lunch in one of the Telegraph Avenue cafes. Then Michael would show her the campus. Marian would enjoy some pampering, finally; she’d hardly seen the campus beyond Sproul Plaza, where she’d ended up sparring with the brassy young Wanda, and here she would be having a professor’s tour.
She poured some coffee and glanced over the yard. Things were lush and blooming even in January. She could have fun here, Tom be damned.
The day shone warm. Marian wore a paisley dress and a handmade shawl; blonde waves bounced over her shoulders. Roses burgeoned along Forest Avenue: a lovely place.
Overhead, a sparrow made joyous song.
As Marian rounded the corner of Telegraph, she saw Sabrina under the awning of the Caffé Med. She was an elegant woman, wearing a loose dress in black and rose, resembling a Greek vase painting; on her feet were black sandals. Her bangs had changed, becoming wispy, and her eyes were deepened by a barely observable eye shadow.
“Such a lovely day,” she exclaimed, “and such a foul world!”
Marian surmised that Sabrina was offering a form of bonding in the wake of Nixon’s inauguration and chose a simple response. “So wonderful to see you, Sabrina.”
“Michael’s coming, but he’s running late as always.”
The glass door of the Med swung open, and four young men emerged, wearing shaggy sideburns and unruly manes and blinking in the sun as though they’d just awakened. The cafe was a gathering place for sundry groups; undergrads and hippies, professors and runaways could be found there rubbing shoulders, as Marian remembered from her early foray. Of course Sabrina would drop by the Med for coffee or lunch, and Michael would prefer the hubbub of a cafe, where he could do informal research on the counterculture overrunning Berkeley beyond the campus classrooms. Marian had been imagining having a group of people beyond the Party—women in the same circumstances as herself, with husbands and children. That was why she’d chosen Sabrina from among the Party people, so many of them underemployed ex-students who referred to marriage—slyly or carelessly, depending on the mood—as “sharing a pad.” However Tom was passing his Saturdays, there was a good deal more to marriage than that.
As the women passed through the door, Marian found a heavy odor of food and tobacco and the hum of many people communing over coffee, or maybe just gossiping.
“By the window!” suggested Sabrina, shepherding Marian. “Let’s have some sun.”
“How lovely.”
“I’m a tropical flower, I need my sun.”
A young woman in a greasy apron came by for the order. Peering through a screen of bushy bangs, she seemed bored by these women who were merely professors’ wives, or so she would suppose—no longer young and free, and having no place in the Telegraph scene.
“The Moroccan coffee’s far-out,” she said, nudging the bourgeoisie.
“Oh, regular for me, with cream and sugar. And you, Marian?”
“The same.”
“Coming up. What else?”
“Nothing, thank you. Maybe when my husband comes.”
“Hanging loose for now?”
“Yes.”
The young woman moved on, surrounded by her bushy fringe.
“Some days I just embrace being a square,” Sabrina laughed. “There’s no keeping up anyway.”
With her own glossy waves, Marian could afford to agree. “Such a change from a few years ago, when everyone had bobs.” She glanced over Sabrina’s elegant French bangs—had she been younger, she would have resembled Godard’s lovely waif, Anna Karina. “Though I never had one.”
“Nor I,” laughed Sabrina. They exchanged a glance, and Marian saw something rueful in the other woman’s eyes. “By the way, Michael’s Amazon funding came through. He goes in July.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Yes, I’m glad for him. He’s going to be researching some very unusual people, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer groups on earth.”
“He sounds so engaged. Tom says everyone would become Americans if they found themselves in America.”
“Aggressive, you mean? Jealous and possessive?”
“Oh, freedom-loving, home-owning—”
Sabrina laughed. “I keep forgetting Tom’s a federal employee. No, hunter-gatherers can show us where we come from, who we really are.”
“How long will Michael be away?”
“A whole year. Plantains and roasted caterpillars—he’s in for an eye-opener.”
“I see.”
“He’s never been in real jungle before.”
“But I thought—”
“He was in Samoa in ’57, but that’s a far cry. We were young and in love, and I was mad enough to go along. Imagine, a Pennsylvania girl—”
Marian eyed the other woman. Tom would have enjoyed such things; coming from Canadian farmers and lumbermen, he had some back-country longings. She was considerably less sure of herself, though.
“And how life-changing it was!” Sabrina exclaimed. “There’s something in the place. And now we’re real Californians.” She paused and added dryly, “Every year or so, my mother asks if I’m ever coming home.”
“Your daughter was born there?” Marian could hardly imagine the ordeal.
“Oh, yes. The women were so caring and generous. There’s a hospital, of course, and American staff, but I refused to go. And Maggie’s always been so happy. I’ve always thought that was one of the reasons.”
“Maggie . . . I thought it was Helen.”
“No, Helen was a toddler. In the local manner, we had her go nude, and she much preferred things that way. I worry she remembers the whole lovely unraveling—more confusing than we imagined. Helen’s very free, but she wanders so from one thing to another.”
“They all do, Sabrina.”
“I suppose. And that’s going to be her strength—feeling her way through the wilderness we call the future. Even now, she understands what’s happening more clearly than any of us grown-ups.”
Marian remembered the early gathering at Sabrina’s house: Helen’s bare feet and cool, assessing gaze, Shel and Dan Dupres, the announcement of Cleaver’s candidacy. She paused, wondering if Sabrina had regrets about the campaign but unsure how to proceed. The subject seemed so charged, and she hardly knew Sabrina.
Before she could say anything, the young woman brought the coffee on a round tray, with a small jug of cream.
Sabrina poured some cream for them; she enjoyed doing the honors. She’d probably done much the same under the palm trees, serving up some island brew.
“Then maybe Helen can explain the Panther phenomenon,” Marian suggested gently. “They seem so far removed from what King was doing.”
“We’re no longer needed, that’s all,” Sabrina said, with a shrug
, “and maybe that’s how it should be.”
“Change has been very slow, it’s true.”
“Yes—gradualism. College people who were in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer were appalled by what they found there. So, imagine how blacks are feeling. Many never followed King; they’ve been demanding self-defense all along, though you and I were never supposed to know. Young people are forging new ways, however they can. Who’s to say they’re wrong?”
“I worry about groups of young men with guns.” Marian was unable to untangle Sabrina’s loyalties.
“So do I.” Sabrina leaned in. “Everyone’s so awed by black men with guns. They feel they’re encountering some form of raw, male power—alarming and thrilling. The marching and waving of guns are symbolic—useful in rousing people.”
“Yes, Tom was saying—”
“The cops fear these symbols—”
“They fear an ambush.”
“Yes, I agree.” Sabrina’s eyes flashed with anger. “You know, I voted for Cleaver, but I was never impressed by him. Have you read Soul on Ice?”
“Of course,” said Marian, though she had not.
“Everyone knows rape is political. It happens in every war, hand in glove with armed force—it’s one of the things we should be opposing. I’m not surprised Cleaver should have defended the idea. But I should never have supported him.”
Marian had heard vague rumors connecting Cleaver with rape but had assumed they were merely propaganda. Now she was unable to reveal her confusion to Sabrina; she too had followed along, falling for the trap.
There was a pause. A man came through the cafe door. “Things are gonna be heavy,” he was saying.
“Yeah, there’s a bummer coming,” a woman agreed.
Looking around, Marian saw the couple: Wanda and Dan Dupres. She eyed Wanda’s jeans and rough lumberman’s jacket, worn over a clear vinyl bra and barely concealing her figure as she moved. Dan wore jeans and combat boots.
“We can undermine the regime,” Dan was saying.