The questions could have been asked differently, but they could not have been asked better, George coming at once to the truth. “I have not,” he mutters sorrowfully, the moon seeming to lose some of its silver. “…I have not.”
“The King and I,” Simon says, after a moment’s silence, “The King and I…Rodgers and Hammerstein…remember the song, Hello Young Lovers?”
“I recall the song, if not its origin; but why do you ask?”
“It’s about that measure,” Simon explains, “that question of achievement. And since you know the song, follow with me the lyricist’s plaintive lines as he addresses all the lovers who may have been under the stars that night, telling them to be faithful and true…to cling to each other…to cling very close.
“At first, you wonder what he means. By what authority, by what wisdom is he admonishing the lovers. But then he tells them, ‘I’ve been in love like you.’
“And continuing, he cuts to the heart of the matter, recalling what it feels like to have wings on his heels, to fly down the street…to fly on a chance. And what is this chance? The chance he’ll meet his lover…which, of course, isn’t really by chance.
“And there you have it!” Simon’s passion evident in his posture, as he sits erect to speak, “that measure we we’re looking for. It’s the ‘not really by chance’ that reveals it, the inner light, the infallibility of what Swedenborg called our ‘proprium’, that mystical something that can make just one couple’s love as big as the world it inspires.”
“But now you’re on another subject entirely,” George counters, less from objection than in hopes Simon is right.
“If you mean the soul, George, the spirit - the ‘over-soul’, as Emerson called it - then, yes; but it requires the union of two souls to create such a love; anything less is…well…at best, the animal magnetism you were smiling about.”
“And at worst?”
“Not something I’ve considered,” Simon avers. “But to finish the song, what does the songwriter claim as he leaves? That all of his memories are happy. And why? Because he had a love of his own…a love of his own.
“So, even in reflection, love’s power thrives, its measure applies. A life has been lived to its fullest. What more can be asked?”
Even as Simon poses the question, George hears the answer: a desire crying from deep in his tenebrous heart. And he reckons now what founding rock lies beneath a man’s dreams, his faith, his achievements - the revelation jolting him to his knees to swear by Artie’s grave, by his own honor - his redeemed honor - that such a love will be the measure of his life.
For Melody, the answer was there before the question. It has always been Melvin – the minister’s adorable son, pulling her pigtails in Sunday School; the bright-eyed fifth-grader, holding her hand through the matinee; the dashing young rebel, keeping her warm at football games; the Ivy League scholar, stirring more than her mind on long evening walks, the promise in his arms, his kiss, beyond her imaginings.
Perhaps the question has never arisen. Perhaps she has just always known - like the certainty of the changing seasons, or the unchanging songs of the bobolink, the chickadee, the goldfinch, or the faith in the leap of the squirrel, the unswerving path of the milk-cow making her way to the barn – perhaps it has been that simple, that rustic, Mother Nature embosoming them both; for even at Harvard, with its forced rub against a sandpaper world, she has retained her callow way of obliging society’s grit without being scarred. And now that she’s gladly with child, even her tears are not always sad, Melody agreeing with Ovid that, “A certain kind of pleasure ‘tis to weep.”
Weeping is the way Vincent finds her, ringing from the street below to announce his arrival. “Have I come at a bad time?” he asks discreetly, hoping she wants, even needs his company. Though propriety disallows his heart a voice, he has always admired this lady, this imagined femme fatale who even now seduces in his dreams.
“At a most opportune time,” she assures him, though a daub at her glistening blue eyes leaves him dubious, “you’ve come just when I could most use company…and especially if that company hails from home.”
“Well, Vermont has…has become like a home for me,” he falters, stumbling past the iron-caged elevator, following her up three flights of stairs to her brass-numbered, carved-oak door, “my ‘home away from home’, as the idiom goes.”
“For me. it’s a poignant one,” Melody unlocking the seven foot door for his entry. “Since Melvin…since he went away, I’ve come to think of Boston as my home away from home, if only because we shared it.”
“The way you cushion dilemma,” Vincent obeying Melody’s gesture to follow her into what had once been a sitting room, its richly paneled walls reflecting Venetian chandeliers, “saying Melvin - uh, Mr. Morrison - has just gone away-“
“Melvin,” she corrects, motioning Vincent to cross the room for its view of the river Charles through a tall expanse of leaded glass, the broad and pillowed window seat affording rest. “Call him Melvin. And yes, I refer to his death as a journey, as though he’s gone somewhere a little ahead of my own departure. Death is more acceptable that way - by one’s heart, I mean,” she adds faintly, and with a demure glance. “But do look at the river, Vincent, and Longfellow’s Bridge…just there to the right, beyond the trees, bare as they are now…and the grass, lush in the summer, where we used to sit on a blanket and read our Kerouac - two young Vermonters trying to comprehend the world.”
“And making a success of it, too, I dare say,” Vincent more aware of the gold in her sunny blond hair than the shimmering crests of the Charles, the innocent blue of her cotton smock than the time-darkened stones of the bridge. “I have always admired you…the two of you,” he adds awkwardly - but she seems not to notice.
“There were fireflies in the grass that summer,” Melody peering dreamily past the bridge, “…can you believe it? I remember us watching the city’s skyline lose its reflection in the rippling water, Melvin telling me not to look round, to pretend we were on the Winooski when the little trollop lights came out to play - as if they heard him, too, sparkling the grass with their harlotry. It was like magic…one of those perfect points in time, to employ another idiom; only now the point has begun to flow, to become a line…a line which I once believed would turn again and form a perfect circle.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Vincent mutters, “except…except you haven’t been here in the summer since, have you? Maybe the fireflies still sparkle. Maybe it’s you that-“
“Lost my sparkle?” she finishes for him. “Do you think I’ve…oh, what am I saying?” Melody stifling the thought before it can be piteously denied. “I’m very pleased you’ve come,” she begins afresh. “I’ll play your cicerone; a quaint little inn out in Concord coming immediately to mind – provided you like beef Wellington.”
“Mad about it!” he exclaims, relieved by her turn of the subject, “…just mad about it!”
If my bargue sinks, ‘tis to another sea. (Ellery Channing)
XVII
With Melody’s Back Bay apartment deserted and dark, I’m at the mercy of Aunt Martha’s sleuthing, her inquisitive thoughts fanning out like cat whiskers to tickle some waiting fancy – the fancy in question surprising us both: a seventeenth-century inn, on the Concord green, purveying English cuisine.
“So the minuteman’s memory lives up to his moniker,” I crack, perusing the menu over a stylish Vincent’s shoulder, “he risks his life to expel the British, only to import their fare.”
“And you should know,” A.M. eying with envy the bottle of Perrier Jouet iced in silver beside the candle-lit table, “you should know, since the appellation describes with unerring accuracy your performance as a lover.”
“Enough of your crudities, A.M.,” I bark, “and especially in the presence of my wife.”
“You mean your widow, don’t you?” Aunt Martha’s undertone shouting volumes, “your pregnant widow on a date wit
h a dashing young man? one who happens to be conveniently wealthy?”
“Is this why you whisked me down from Vermont?” I huff, chafed by her rude implication, “this-this meeting of two friends for a congenial dinner? Vincent was my client, A.M., a guest of our home on numerous occasions; and I would expect no less of him than to call on my wife in her bereavement.”
“And in her pregnancy?” A.M. unmoved by my umbrage.
“And in her pregnancy,” I concur, checking my temper.
“And in your favorite dress, as I recall. That blue-violet, décolleté dress that accents her sensuality, her feminine form, her-“
“And in my favorite dress…which proves she’s thinking of me,” I cut in. “So tell me, what help does she need? Why are we here?”
“Rumors,” Aunt Martha’s response fraught with conviction, spoken as final, a kind of tiptoe readiness to meet opposition head-on, “…rumors.”
“Do you think you could be more specific?” I ask; Melody’s sexy, pouting lips hinting a smile as Vincent dispenses the golden elixir - her crystal flute now delicately raised, touching the lips I yearn to kiss.
“Rumors and innuendo. Calculated guesses. One plus one making three…Vincent, a frequent guest of your home; and now-“
“To the point!” I shout, appreciating how we can cross our swords without being noticed by those responsible. “If Melody is about to be blackmailed-“
“That’s one very handsome black male with her now,” A.M. interjects, “and brilliant, too, wouldn’t you say?”
“That he is,” I admit, thwarting her thrust by agreement, “more brilliant, even, than the diamonds in his mines.”
“Diamonds!” she gasps, “I didn’t-“
“And you had me believing you could read minds,” I rejoin, surprised she’s unaware of Vincent’s source of wealth, “not to mention life patterns, diaries and financial statements; and all with just a few blinks of the old third eye.”
“But I can,” she avers, “except when access is denied…except for those few cases where guardian angels bar admission to their keep.”
“What angels?” I persist, “I don’t see any of our winged friends hovering over the bubbly…or flitting in the candlelight…or-or-”
“What’s the matter?” my aunt displaying genuine concern over my lapse of thought, “haven’t I told you guardian angels are of the highest order? They make themselves visible only when necessary.”
“Not that I recall,” my twinge of shame mitigated by her apparent miss of my fleeting, jealous thought.
“Aaah,” she sighs, “I get it. The problem is not the angels unseen, but the one visible: your angel, Melody - the champagne…the candles - and noticing your name’s not on the card she’s reading.”
“All right! So he’s thoughtful - just proves how well I chose my friends, that’s all.”
“Look,” she says in a quiet voice I haven’t heard since the night we visited Melody’s bedroom, “you have nothing to worry about here, sweetheart.”
“Easy for you to say,” I complain, “and after admitting Vincent is off limits, too. Some confidence you inspire, Aunt Martha!”
“Not what I meant,” her hand on my shoulder with atypical empathy, “and what I was saying about rumors…you can forget that, too; for you won’t be aware of the problem when it arrives.”
“Aren’t you confusing your philosophers?” I ask, her rare display of compassion having effect, “for now you’re admitting Sophocles was correct when he said, ‘In heeding nothing lies the sweetest life.’”
“In as much as the life of a babe is sweet - with its parents doing all the heeding - I agree,” A.M. removing her hand.
“So, these rumors, these innuendos…they won’t commence until after I return?”
“You guessed it. And I’ll be there to correct them, if not to prevent them altogether,” she promises, the care in her voice convincing, her ease of mastery, among the tools of meddling, something I know only too well.
“When the crib is again my bed, I suppose I’ll be grateful for the benefit of your care. It’s not every mother’s son who has an aunt with a hazel twig snooping round to divine what’s best for him.”
“And it’s good to be appreciated…even needed,” A.M. licking her diaphanous lips as Vincent refills the crystal, “good to be there in the nursery; there, while the feeling’s tender.”
“As is Melody,” I sigh, noting a tear in her eye.
“That she is,” A.M. agrees, “provided the feeling is noble. But right now she’s confused: an ache with foreboding, a yearning for the man she can no longer have and a suspicion of the man who would have her.”
“But you said-“
“That you have nothing to worry about? George will intervene.”
“How comforting,” I think sarcastically, hovering behind Melody in an attempt to read her card, “for of the two, George is the one I would more suspect.”
“But George won’t be drunk,” a wistful A.M. rejoins, the presentment of another bottle of Perrier Jouet supporting her assertion. “You should be thankful Melody’s driving,” she adds, “a safeguard with benefits: she can deposit your Diamond Jim in the lobby of his hotel instead of her bed.”
“Aunt Martha!” I fume, “have some respect, will you?” the neat but copious handwritten message in her card doing nothing to support my defense of Vincent.
“And how did he phrase his ‘thoughtfulness’?” she asks, observing my furtive glance at the perfumed and ribboned card, “by mentioning that unclouded day? a gathering at the river? the sweet by-and-by?”
“By all of the above,” I fret, “by asking my sweetheart to meet him some cloudless, summer evening for a stroll along the Winooski…to attend a symphony of fireflies…to frolic along a sylvan path…to accept…to accept-“
“Go on,” she cries impatiently, “to accept what? his condolences?”
“Hardly,” I snip, “’his conditions’ would be closer to the mark. Listen to this practiced prose, this attempt to assume the very memories of our courtship: ‘…your fairy-slippered feet in time with the whispering water, the gay old Winooski murmuring its Indian tongue, the warm spring rain swelling its phrase with the last hidden snow melting down from deer-haunted slopes.’ And, as though his lyrical line could snare her, ‘the mystical ecstasy in the touch of your hand.’ How overt! How obvious! Makes me grit the teeth I don’t have. One more crystal flute and she could fall victim to this conniving bastard’s intentions. And what’s more, he’s asking her to accept, as a token of friendship, a three-carat diamond, ‘One carat each for the Three Graces you favor’, he writes. How juvenile!”
“Yes…in fact it was Juvenal who said-“
“Please!” I growl, “We haven’t time for your Roman reminiscences. We have action to take, here and now.”
“Did you say three carats?” A.M. gasps, suddenly paler than the ghost she is. “You know what they say, don’t you, Melvin? diamonds are a girl’s best friend? Well, according to your boast but a toast or two ago, Vincent is just that: your girl’s best friend - the only difference being he has the where-with-all to memorialize the friendship!”
“He’s memorializing, all right,” I pother, wringing my supernal hands, “his diamond is heart-shaped, like a locket…a pendant to be hung between her breast. And would you look at that!” I steam, Melody leaning forward to accept his help in clasping the filigreed chain, bowing her seraphic head as though acknowledging his carnal designs. “What are you going to do?” I plead.
“Same thing as Vincent,” she quips, “…admire the perfect bosom she’s fairly spilling out before him: or rather, envy her the chance.”
“I need your help!” I cry, “not your hunger!”
“At last!” a gleeful A.M. exclaims. “At last, you admit your need, acknowledge the worth of my assistance! Well, a little work on an entrée and we should have these two on their way back to Boston in no time.”
<
br /> “Are you sure?” I ask, not wishing my pregnant wife to be ill, “do you know the chemistry of spices? the mystery of herbs? the secret of sauces?”
“Of course,” A.M. tugging me to the kitchen, “but what I know best is how to turn a spat, a beef; and Wellington is about to have his Waterloo. Trust me,” my aunt knocking over a tray of warm plum puddings for the cover of distraction, “I’ll only tamper with playboy’s food, not Melody’s.”
And in truth, it’s a good thing she doesn’t, Vincent embarrassingly sick all the way back to his lodging; any designs he may have harbored displaced by a rare strain of seasickness. In lieu of sleep, his baleful night pitches to and fro twixt watering the loo and upchucks.
Time, and the work of changing days, has made many a bad thing good;
fortune has played with many men, and set them firm again. (Virgil)
XVIII
While desire makes a fool of Vincent, George is a man of action, pacing under the Beacon Street lamps as he awaits some sign of Melody; pondering, between glances at her darkened windows, the worm in his apple of life. How can he tell her? Where should he begin? To suggest Melvin is the father of Charlene’s child is not among his options. Even Charlene would fear such a claim - if only because the pointing finger would crook in her direction. No, he must leave to time and familiarity the baring of hearts.
“George?” the mellifluous voice behind him, Melody appearing from out of the night like a ministering angel. “I would know that walk anywhere,” she declares, the pleasure of her discovery obvious. “What are you doing out here…guarding my door?”
“Such an assignment would be an honor,” George thinking: reality is in image, only concept in words; Melody’s presence a revelation. “I’ve been awaiting your return…wanted to surprise you.”
Twice Melvin Page 13
