“Like what?”
“Raffi, we are here to talk about you, not your grandfather.”
“It matters to me,” Raffi said. “He’s part of my genetic pattern, isn’t he?”
For a moment Dr. Rowan was silent. Motionless. She picked up her yellow pencil, put it down. “He fought his demons until they no longer controlled him.”
“He had demons?”
“Certainly. We all do.”
Raffi leaned toward her intently. “Will my dad be able to conquer his?”
Dr. Rowan returned Raffi’s gaze, then leaned back in her chair. “It was primarily your grandfather who taught me that people can always fight their demons. Not everybody wins, but far more than I believed when I was your age.”
“What about Grandmother?”
“We all have demons, Raffi. She’s fought hers, and well.”
Camilla would not have described herself as a dragon fighter. She simply did what she felt had to be done. She spent the summer vacation between graduation and her return to college for her master’s degree in New York with Luisa. She had already applied for and received a teaching assistantship for the following year, and had found a small apartment in a faculty building which would not be available until the autumn semester started. It was good to be back in New York, staying in the Rowans’ old Greenwich Village apartment. Mrs. Rowan was away on a consulting job for July and August, so the two girls had the place to themselves. Camilla took a couple of math courses at NYU. Luisa was dating a medical student, and was worrying about medical school and where she would be accepted with a good scholarship. Occasionally she would arrange a double date, and they would go to a concert, or a play in the park, or ride the Staten Island ferry to cool off. It was moderately pleasant. But Camilla wanted to talk to Luisa about Frank, so that perhaps Luisa would also talk about Mac and inadvertently give Camilla some kind of clue. Luisa was interested only in talking about her own boyfriend.
Camilla was glad when it was time to go back to college, though Luisa hugged her and said she’d never had such a happy summer, and hadn’t it been wonderful to be together.
Back in college, Camilla settled into her little apartment, the old routine of classes and the new one of teaching, and waited for Mac’s letters. Studying was not an escape; it was something she actively enjoyed. She endured her mother’s visits, accepting Rose’s need to be considered young, Camilla’s sister, Camilla’s friend.
THREE
Luisa came up for a weekend. ‘Medical school is hell, and I love it. I have two days off because of the Jewish holidays, so I thought I’d better come check on you.’
‘I’m fine. I like teaching.’
‘How’s your social life?’
‘Okay.’
‘Idiot, you can look at a man without turning into a nympho,’ Luisa, being Luisa, continued, ‘like your mother.’
‘I just haven’t met anybody interesting.’
‘Because you don’t want to. Listen, I’m having a generous impulse, take advantage of it. Frank’s going to be in New York next weekend. Can you come?’
‘Sure. I can take the train down Friday after my last class in the morning. I’ll have to be back Sunday evening.’
‘Good. I don’t want to lose touch with you.’
‘You won’t,’ Camilla said. She was nervous about seeing Frank again, someone she hadn’t seen since she was fifteen, someone who was the close friend of the man whose letters she so anxiously awaited.
Luisa had moved uptown and lived in the maid’s room of what had once been a grand apartment on upper Riverside Drive, within easy walking distance of her medical school and hospital. She shared it with six other medical students ‘of assorted sexes,’ she told Camilla. ‘I’m glad I was able to get this hole back here behind the kitchen. I’m not a nester, and I’d drive the others bats with my sloppy ways. At least this room is so small I have it to myself. The rich people who used to live here didn’t treat their maids too well.’
A desk, cluttered with books and papers, had been designed to go under a high bunk bed, making the best possible use of the limited space. The desk drawers were partway pulled out, with bits of clothing hanging out. Large tomes were lying open on the desk, on the floor. Anatomical charts decorated what wall space there was.
‘Even if I end up a shrink,’ Luisa said, ‘I’ve got to know my patients’ bodies, check out and see if physical problems are aggravating psychological ones. How are you?’ She peered at Camilla. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Astronomy. My math background simply isn’t adequate. The nuns in my school in Italy were not fond of math. I’m trying to take enough courses so that I’ll be able to fill in the empty chinks.’
‘Your math is fine, or you wouldn’t have got your teaching assistantship. You know that’s not what I’m asking. How’s your ma? How’s your love life?’
‘Question one. My mother is my mother. Question two. No comment.’
‘No love life, hunh?’
‘Wrong.’ Yes, she had a love life, even if it had been put on hold. She did not fantasize about Mac, because her feelings about Mac were beyond fantasy.
‘In other words, you’re not talking.’
‘Correct.’
Luisa was not deflated. ‘Just don’t fall in love with Frank again. He’s got a nice girlfriend. He met her in Cleveland, but her parents are in England for a few years. I think her father’s an international banker or something like that.’
‘So where’s the girlfriend?’
‘In Turkey, working at the same press as Frank. Am I jealous of my brother? Not nice of me, is it? Regressive. Juvenile. I should have grown up, instead of unloading all my insecurities over my parents’ divorce on you.’ She pushed her fingers through her short red hair. ‘Thank God for drip-dry hair. I don’t have time to put my hair around rollers like some of my female classmates. How they sleep with their heads done up that way I don’t know. I’m glad you’re here, Cam. I’m feeling very low. My guy ditched me a couple of nights ago, and I thought we had a real thing going. Why did he ditch me? I come on too strong. And I didn’t like the way he looked at other women. Is jealousy genetic? It’s ugly, I know that. Am I stuck with it, or can I train myself out of it?’
She paused for breath.
Camilla asked, ‘When’s Frank coming?’
‘Any minute now. I’ll take you into the living room. We’ve got a pull-out bed we use for guests.’
The communal living room was comfortably but shabbily furnished with secondhand furniture acquired from generations of medical students. The windows faced east, onto a courtyard, so had no view of the river, and the room was rather dark. A girl, her hair up in those rollers Luisa scorned, was just putting away a vacuum cleaner, and hurried off as she heard the doorbell.
And there was Frank. It had been hard for her to visualize him as an adult, and not the teenager she had known. He was taller than she remembered, and solid, with great strong shoulders like a football player’s. He came to her, his hands out.
She took them, looking at him. She did not know what she had expected to feel, but she had expected something, some fluttering in her stomach, some prickling of her skin. But what she was looking for in him was word about Mac. He was Mac’s best friend. Maybe he could tell her …
‘Okay,’ Luisa said, ‘if we’re going out to dinner, let’s go. I had a hard time clearing my schedule for this.’
Frank grinned. ‘If it’s too much for you, I’m quite capable of taking Camilla out on my own.’
‘Nuts to you, Frank Rowan, let’s go.’
They went to a neighborhood pizzeria, at Frank’s request, since he said he hadn’t had pizza since he left New York. He smiled across the small table at Camilla. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘It happens.’
‘We were kids, and now life has caught up with us. So you’re still living with the stars.’
She smiled. ‘It’s a little less vague than that.’
�
��Sure. Sorry. And Lu’s in medical school.’
‘That isn’t vague, either,’ Luisa said. ‘I have to admit I was relieved when my cadaver turned out to be an old man in his eighties. One of my friends got somebody our own age. That was tough.’
Camilla leaned back, listening to Luisa’s tales of medical school, but looking at Frank. She liked him, liked the man he had become, but he awakened none of the old ecstasy. Nor, she felt, did he respond to her with anything beyond friendship.
‘As soon as we finish eating,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go downtown to see Mona.’ His and Luisa’s mother. ‘Life hasn’t been easy for her.’
‘She’s doing okay,’ Luisa said. ‘She can pay the rent and go to the theatre and she dates occasionally.’
‘She’s still not happy.’
‘Why does everybody expect to be happy?’ Luisa demanded. ‘Most people aren’t. What is it that guy said? Most people lead lives of—of—’
‘Quiet desperation,’ Camilla said. ‘Was it Thoreau? Or Emerson?’
‘Thoreau,’ Frank said. ‘Walden.’
Luisa made a face. ‘Mona’s desperation is seldom quiet. More power to her. God, what our mothers put us through!’
‘What we do with what they put us through is up to us,’ Frank said.
‘Don’t be pompous.’
‘If we have kids ourselves, we’ll probably put them through a lot, too. It’s the nature of the beast.’
Camilla enjoyed the evening. Before he left for the subway Frank invited her out to dinner the next night, to Luisa’s displeasure, since she had classes she couldn’t cut and wouldn’t be able to join them.
‘Then I’m off to Cleveland to see Dad, and then back to the Middle East.’
He took Camilla to an Italian restaurant in the Village. ‘Remember?’
‘Sure. I haven’t been here since—’
‘Since?’
‘Since we were here together. It’s exactly the same.’
‘But we’re not.’
‘It would be pretty regressive if we were. So what do you do in Turkey?’
‘I run a small Christian press.’
‘Christian?’
He replied mildly, ‘In my own modest way I’m a sort of a missionary.’
‘What does that mean?’ She had learned enough from Mac not to jump to uninformed conclusions.
‘That I believe people have a right to literacy, to learn how to read and write.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you share my sister’s prejudices?’
‘Not necessarily. I just don’t know much about it. What I do know comes from Mac.’
He looked at her across the table, raising his brows slightly. ‘Luisa tells me you and Mac saw something of each other for a while.’
‘Yes. Mac does good work, and he says you do, too.’ She spoke too quickly, trying to keep emotion out of her voice.
‘We try. “Christian” is a trampled-on word. What it means to me, and to Mac, too, is that everybody should have a chance for enough to eat, reasonable medical care, and an opportunity to get off the treadmill and have a chance to pray or worship without fear. My part in the process is presses, so that pamphlets and papers and ultimately books can be taken from village to village, to reach as many people as possible.’
‘Not just Christians?’
He laughed. ‘You’ve been listening to Luisa, haven’t you? If I understand the Gospel, the Good News is for everybody, and is to be shared by concern and example, not coercion or propaganda. If people matter, I have to care about the fact that they’re poor and hungry and illiterate, whether they’re Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever.’
Lifting ravioli to her mouth, she paused and smiled at him with delight. ‘Oh, Frank, you haven’t changed. You’re just more the same person you were when we were kids, and I’m glad.’ The same, and yet her reaction was not the same. She liked him, but that wild and tremulous beating of love was no longer there. Not with Frank. ‘Mac,’ she said. ‘You’re friends …’
He nodded. ‘Lifetime friends.’ He looked directly at her. ‘Are things good with the two of you?’
She took her hands from the table and placed them carefully in her lap. ‘We’re friends,’ she said slowly.
‘Mac’s written to me about you.’ Frank continued to look at her steadily.
Startled, she asked, ‘What did he say?’
Frank smiled. ‘He likes you. As you’ve probably noticed, Mac’s a very private person. He’s been hurt, betrayed, so he’s cautious. I’m glad the two of you’ve come together.’
They had. And then Mac had left, taken them apart. She looked down at her plate. ‘He told me you met in Korea.’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘He usually tells people about our being classmates in seminary.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ Was it Luisa, rather than Mac, who had talked about Korea?
‘We were raw kids,’ Frank said, and added a few drops to her barely touched glass of wine.
She looked at the garnet liquid, but saw the desk in her library carrel with papers and magazines spread out on it. ‘Did guys really rat on each other? Accuse each other of collaboration even if it wasn’t true?’
Frank said, ‘This is good, crusty bread. Have some. You may remember that I grew up on the streets of New York. If I was ever innocent, I’ve forgotten.’
‘You were idealistic—’
‘Idealistic, but not innocent. And not good. And I didn’t expect other people to be good. But Mac did. Maybe it was growing up in the South, being a preacher’s kid—I don’t know. He’d seen a lot of bad stuff in his life, but he still expected other people to be good. So he told you about Korea.’ He pulled off a chunk of bread and put it in his mouth.
‘No. It was Luisa. Mac didn’t tell me anything.’ Now she remembered clearly. Luisa had brought Korea up and Mac had closed down.
‘As I said, Mac had seen some really bad stuff in his life, but nothing to prepare him for Korea. I suppose Luisa told you we were both prisoners of war?’ She shook her head. Frank continued, asking, ‘You’ve heard of brainwashing?’
She shuddered. ‘Yes.’ Brainwashing. It was a new phrase, come into the language with this war.
‘Mac and I were tried for being collaborators. Ultimately we were exonerated and given honorable discharges.’ His voice was level, controlled. Then for a moment it shook. ‘We were in hell together, Mac and I, and that will make people either hate each other or love each other forever.’
‘You love each other.’
‘Yes. One thing about having been in hell is that it gives one a keen appreciation for all the little lovely things in life. Like food. This is good ravioli. Like being allowed to sleep through a whole night without interruption. No sleep deprivation, my God, it’s good. Like—oh, I even enjoy having spats with Luisa.’
The candle on their table had burned out. They sat in the shadows of their booth.
‘You’re good to be with, Camilla. Mostly, like Mac, I don’t talk about Korea. You’ve always known how to listen. Not many people do. And now both you and I have someone we’ve given our hearts to.’
Again she did not respond.
‘You’d like Bethann. She reminds me of you, not just because her parents have money, unlike mine, but because of a certain quality, a realness. Is it that way with you and Mac?’
‘I haven’t seen Mac since he went to Kenya.’
‘But he writes.’
‘Yes.’ Not love letters. But he did write.
‘He’s a good guy, one of the best.’ Frank stood up, helped her into her coat, took her elbow as they went up the steps to the sidewalk. ‘How about a friendly kiss?’
She laughed. ‘I’m not sure what a friendly kiss is, anymore. My mother has muddied the waters.’
‘I gather she can’t keep out of your life?’ He pressed his cheek against hers. It was slightly rough; comforting.
Camilla leaned against him. ‘She loves being taken for a student. Not for a
mother.’
‘Sorry, Cam.’ He touched his lips lightly to hers, then tucked her hand under his arm. ‘We’re stuck with our parents’ messed-up lives, aren’t we? But we don’t have to let their messes be part of our own lives.’
Without thinking she asked, ‘What about Mac’s parents?’
‘They are amazing and terrific people. I love them. But they’ve had their own messes.’
‘As bad as—’
‘Don’t try to make comparisons. By whose standards do we compare? Yes, at least as bad as. That doesn’t make them any less wonderful. You haven’t met them?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll love them when you do.’
Why did he think she would ever meet Mac’s parents? They walked along toward the subway, Frank holding her close to his side as they moved through the crowded streets.
They rode the subway uptown, Frank finding a seat for her and standing in front of her, holding on to a strap. At the entrance to Luisa’s apartment he kissed her good night. A fraternal kiss. They did not mention Mac again.
What did all this have to do with Raffi’s questions? Questions to which Raffi was owed an answer. All the memories which were flooding Camilla were part of the story, but only marginally. Frank barely touched on the central events. Mac, even Mac, was not the central character in what Camilla had to tell Raffi. No, it was not her husband but her mother, Rose, on whom the story hinged.
Rose was in the forefront of her mind as little as possible. Camilla was liked by her colleagues, by the students. She was a good teacher. She enjoyed working with the undergraduates, teaching basic astronomy to them, not quite the equivalent of Freshman English, because they had to have a good math background; still, elementary astronomy. Her own enthusiasm was contagious.
Her life and the lives of her parents were both geographically and physically far apart. Her mother, she suspected, continued to have affairs. Why should that change? Camilla went home, dutifully, for the Thanksgiving weekend and, at her father’s request, went to the psychiatrist her parents were seeing.
‘I can’t do much for your mother,’ he said. ‘She is emotionally retarded. It’s not going to change. I can help your father. He’s quite right when he tells you he is necessary to your mother. He’s the only emotional ballast she’s got. She would kill herself if he left her, not a fake suicide, a cry-for-help suicide, but a real one. It’s not an easy situation. Do you love your mother?’
A Live Coal in the Sea Page 7
