‘You mean,’ Emma suggested, ‘when David moved himself and his people out of the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, he also moved in his understanding of God?’
‘What an educated grandchild I have!’ Grandpa Bowman rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Knowing all about Bronze Ages and Iron Ages. But yes, I think you are right. David’s understanding of God was wider and richer than Samuel’s or Saul’s.’
Louis finished chewing a bite. ‘You mean, Grandpa, people saw God differently?’
‘Through a glass, darkly,’ Grandpa Bowman said.
‘But, Grandpa, I thought there was only one way to see God, and all other ways were wrong.’
For a long moment Grandpa Bowman was silent, blowing his beard. Then: ‘I take it you go to Sunday school.’
‘Yes. Mom wants me to.’
‘Does your mother get up on Sundays to take you?’
‘She and Papa sleep late.’
‘Um. Theater hours. Who takes you?’
‘Sometimes Emma does. And I’m old enough now to go on my own.’
‘Hm.’
‘Grandpa?’
‘Yes, Louis?’
‘About God?’
Grandpa huffed. ‘All I can tell you is that God is love, and where there is no love, there God cannot be. For all his faults, King David loved God. That was his redeeming quality.’
Emma asked, ‘Did Saul love God?’
‘Can one be consumed with jealousy and love God? I think Saul loved himself more than he loved God.’
‘And Samuel?’
Grandpa Bowman huffed again. ‘Samuel loved his own opinion. So, because Saul spared Agag, Samuel rejected him.’
‘And Samuel said God rejected Saul, too?’ Emma said. ‘What you said in your sermon, Grandpa, it’s horrible.’
Louis nodded. ‘You said Samuel asked Saul to bring him King Agag, the one Saul spared, right, Grandpa?’
‘Right.’
‘And this Agag came, all unsuspecting—’
‘And Samuel hewed him in pieces,’ Emma finished.
As usual, Grandpa Bowman answered them in a sermon.
‘… after Agag’s death Samuel came no more to see Saul ever again. Never.’ Grandpa Bowman leaned over the pulpit, almost whispering. ‘Never. But even in his anger, Samuel mourned for Saul. And the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
‘Will the Lord repent that he has made this a great and free country? Yes! Well may the Lord repent unless we repent. I tell you the story of Samuel and Saul, my children, but what about our own story? Do we remember our story? Do we remember our fathers, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, as Samuel and Saul remembered Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Do we remember that we, too, are people of a covenant?
‘What did the Lord mean? Why did he want Saul to kill all the Amalekites? Is it the Lord, or is it Samuel? How do we look at our own slaughter of the Indians, to whom this land belonged long before we set foot on it? How do we look at the marketplace where we bought and sold slaves as though they were cattle? Were we, too, told to kill the Amalekites? To whose voice did we listen? To whom does the Promised Land belong? Children, my children, let us fall upon our knees, upon our faces, and let us repent for all that we are doing right now in preparation for war. Do we know what we are doing in selling great quantities of scrap iron to Japan? Do we not even suspect that Japan will turn and use it against us? Will the Lord not turn against us in our arrogance?’
Grandpa Bowman had prophesied war with Japan when Emma and Louis were visiting him. She was a senior in college when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday, and she and her roommate, a music major, had been relaxing in their room with the radio on, listening to the Philharmonic, when an announcer’s voice broke through the music and told them what had happened, or at least as much as was known. Every few minutes the music was interrupted, and Emma’s roommate said irritably, ‘Why don’t they just let us listen to the music and not bother us till they know more!’
Did Wesley Bowman really preach that prophetic sermon? Emma was proud of her memory, and her grandpa was unpredictable and paradoxical. Sometimes he angered his congregation, but they kept coming.
‘Hey, Grandpa,’ Louis said. ‘You really like King David, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Grandpa said. ‘I do. I like his joie de vivre, his panache—’
‘Grandpa, is that French?’
‘Yes, son. King David had flair. Like your father. It’s probably a judgment on me that my daughter married a David.’ Then he waved those words away.
Emma looked at him, but the lids had gone down over the smoldering eyes. She sighed. ‘Well, Grandpa, to get back to King Saul, he must have spared more than Agag, because wasn’t it the Amalekites who killed him and Jonathan in the end?’
‘The narrator is not always consistent,’ Grandpa Bowman said. ‘Perhaps we should learn something from that?’
Emma had taken their dishes to the kitchen and washed them, and they were on the porch, Emma and Grandpa Bowman in the two rockers, Louis on the steps.
‘Was Samuel a good man, Grandpa?’ Louis asked. Mosquitoes came in through the holes in the screen, despite the cotton stuffed in to keep them out, and Grandpa Bowman swatted at them.
‘Come up on the porch, so we can shut the screen door,’ Grandpa said, and Louis came and sat at Emma’s feet. ‘Good and great are not necessarily the same thing.’ He slapped at a mosquito which had lit on his brow. ‘You two, of all people, ought to know that.’
‘You mean like you, Grandpa?’ Louis asked innocently.
‘No!’ Grandpa roared. ‘I do not mean like me!’
Emma asked, straight-faced, ‘Who on earth can you be thinking of, Grandpa?’
‘Your father, child, your father, of course. He is indubitably great, but he is not good.’
‘My father is a good actor. He is good to me.’
‘And we have just had a good dinner which thank you very much for cooking. But is that the kind of good you’re talking about?’
‘No.’
‘No,’ Louis echoed sleepily.
‘What, then?’
‘Maybe being good has something to do with God?’
‘Such as?’
‘Maybe being, well, being in tune with God?’
‘And that means?’
‘Well, not being separated from God. Grandpa, are you being like Socrates?’
‘My child, I am an illiterate country preacher.’
‘But you know who Socrates is?’ Emma thought she had seen a volume of Plato in her grandfather’s musty library.
‘I am not that illiterate. Nor do I think that either of us is going to succeed in defining good, nor do I think your college professors will teach you to do so.’
It was a happy visit. And when they returned to New York in early July, David surprised Emma by telling her that he was trying out a new play in summer stock, and that there was a role for her.
It was the first time she had worked with her father, and she was both nervous and excited. The play concerned a novelist whose work was brilliant but unrecognized; the playwright compared him to van Gogh. Emma played his daughter. Although David Wheaton was successful in his art and the novelist was not, Emma still felt that she was beginning to understand her father as they worked together. The first scene for them was at Christmas Eve in a New York brownstone house; Emma’s role was that of a twelve-year-old talking with her father.
Christmas music blared out, and the father exclaimed, ‘Why can’t they turn the damned radio down? How is anyone expected to sleep? God damn God. Damn him.’
Emma’s breath came shallow. She backed away from her father, from his pain, from his blasphemy.
‘You still pray? You still say your prayers at night? The nuns see to that?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘You don’t forget? Even when you’re away from the convent?’
‘No, Father.’
‘And what do you pray for, hah? Now that you
’re too old to ask for dolls and toys.’
Emma made her voice low. ‘That we may be together for Christmas. That we may be happy.’
‘But that’s not in it, child. That’s not part of the bargain. Pray all you like, ask anything you want, but don’t forget he never promised he’d say yes. He never guaranteed us anything. Not anything at all. Except one thing. Just one thing.’
Emma waited a beat. Etienne, who was the stage manager, started to throw her a cue, then stopped. She asked, her voice breaking, ‘What one thing, Father?’
‘That God cares about what he has made. Never forget that, child. That is enough. It is why I write what I write …’ David Wheaton’s voice faded as he asked, It is enough. Isn’t it?’ And then, as Emma drew back, his voice rose to a shout. ‘Why don’t you answer? Haven’t those damn nuns taught you any manners? Why do I send you to a convent school if they aren’t going to teach you anything?’ He left the room and slammed the door.
With Emma staring after him, her hand to her mouth, whispering, ‘Father—’
They talked about the scene after rehearsal, sitting at night on the porch of the inn where they were staying, a long porch with green rocking chairs. It was late, and they were the only ones there, sitting and rocking, light from a streetlamp moving over them in shifting patterns as a breeze tossed the leaves.
Emma had had a hard time moving into the role. The atmosphere of professional stock was completely different from college theater, where Emma still had tended to play the leading men’s roles in plays by Molière, Chekhov, Shaw.
‘Emma, Emma,’ her father said after the first rehearsal. You’re acting like a twelve-year-old.’
‘Well, she is twelve years old.’
‘Ah, there’s the difference. She is twelve years old. You’re acting like a twelve-year-old.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Flatly.
‘Emma, not so long ago you were twelve years old. As long as you’re acting like a twelve-year-old, you’re not going to believe that you are twelve, and the audience isn’t, either. You have to be twelve years old. Come on, Emma, you can do it.’
They had two weeks of rehearsal. It was not until well into the second week that David Wheaton and the director were satisfied with Emma’s performance.
‘I’m vindicated.’ David laughed with delight, reaching out to touch Emma’s hand.
She clasped his. ‘Oh, Papa, thanks. I know everybody thought casting me was a mistake …’
‘But now,’ David interrupted triumphantly, ‘you walk on the stage and you are a twelve-year-old girl.’
‘I work slowly, Papa, even when I have you to direct me. But I do identify with her.’
‘Because her father isn’t the kind of father most girls would like to have?’
‘No, Papa! You make him lovable; sad, but lovable. I guess I mean because she didn’t have a mother.’
‘Like you?’ His smile was wry.
‘I have Sophie now,’ Emma reminded him gently, ‘and she loves you, and she’s made a family out of all of us … most of us.’
‘Most?’ His green wooden rocking chair squeaked as it moved back and forth.
‘Billy doesn’t come very often. I suppose because he’s older, and Myrlo’s married a man with lots of money. And Edith hardly ever lets Inez get away. But the rest of us—we’re a real family, Papa.’
‘Marical’s kids and Jarvis. Louis is lucky to have such brothers and sisters. Sophie makes me happy.’
‘We all love Sophie.’
‘With Sophie I have the kind of stable marriage I expected to have with—well, no point hindsighting. My mother—’
Emma smiled. ‘Bahama.’
‘She gave you at least a semblance of stability, didn’t she?’
‘More than a semblance.’
‘When that poor sod I’m playing asked his daughter about God, I thought of you. I left it to Bahama and your Grandfather Bowman.’
‘They were probably a lot better than convent schools would have been.’ Emma rocked, slowly. Her skin prickled slightly. This was the first time her father had ever talked to her in this way, revealing himself, admitting frailties.
‘Tomorrow, Em, we’ll try that scene with the girl and her father in the kitchen. It’s tough, but it will be moving. The thing we have to convey to the audience is the real love between the man and his daughter. She’s older in this scene, isn’t she?’
‘Yes. Sixteen, about.’
‘That’ll be easier for you than twelve.’
Emma laughed. ‘Less of a transition. Thank you, Papa. I couldn’t have done this without you.’
‘You’re good to work with, my daughter.’
‘I love it.’ And then, ‘I love you, Papa.’
In the morning, while the director had David Wheaton work on a scene with the actress who played his wife, Emma climbed a steep ladder to the grid, which ran the width of the stage, above the proscenium arch, and lay down on it, watching the scene from above, and yet feeling a wonderful part of it. This was her world, and she was happy.
In the afternoon she and her father worked on the scene in the kitchen, over and over, until not only the director but David Wheaton was satisfied.
‘Take it from the top,’ the director said at last, ‘and run it through.’
The scene started with the stage dark, a big basement kitchen lit only by the light from the street outside. Emma came in, looked around, turned on a lamp on a small table, and saw her father sitting slumped in a chair. A half-empty glass of whiskey was on the table by him. She went over to him, touched him on the shoulder. ‘Father.’ He did not move. ‘Father. Come on, Father, please.’
A small tremor went through David Wheaton’s body. Emma urged, ‘Come on, Father. I’m home.’
David stirred, moving his entire body, then stretching his arms up and out. It was apparent by his movements that he was returning from some place deep inside himself. ‘Hello, my darling,’ he said, and held his arms out to her, and she gave him a hug.
‘Father, I’m hungry.’
David Wheaton gave Emma a big, beautiful smile. ‘So am I. What time is it?’
‘A little after eleven.’
‘Shall I make us an omelette?’
‘That would be lovely.’
He rose, taking his glass, went to the refrigerator, and from a basket on a nearby shelf took imaginary eggs, got a pitcher in which was supposed to be cream, and some herbs, and arranged everything on a big, marble-topped table. He took a drink from his glass (filled with iced tea for the stage), then put it down by the cream pitcher. ‘My dear, where were you tonight?’
‘At a friend’s, doing homework.’
He broke the imaginary eggs realistically into a blue bowl. ‘I didn’t know you were in the habit of lying to me.’
‘I’m not. In the habit, that is.’ Emma looked at her father’s hands as he took a whisk to the imaginary eggs.
But you were lying when you said you were doing homework with your friend.’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘That is beside the point. I happened to have occasion to call you during the evening and discovered that you were not where you said you were going to be.’ He looked at her, then continued with the making of the omelette (‘As bad as raspberry sherbert,’ Etienne had said), put the frying pan on the stove. ‘Please, daughter, don’t lie about anything again. Is that what the nuns taught you, along with your charming manners? I’ve always thought I could trust you. I’d rather have you defy me, tell me you’re going to do something anyhow, permission or no, than be underhanded about it.’
‘It was just—it seemed simpler this way.’
‘I’ve always told you anything easy isn’t worth a damn.’ He dished out the imaginary omelette with sharp, angry gestures.
Silently Emma sat at the kitchen table, looked across it at her father.
He sighed, heavily. ‘I haven’t given you a proper life for a child.’ He pushed the untouched omelette a
way from him.
She reached across the table toward him. ‘Oh, Father, I’m sorry I lied to you. I won’t do it again.’
‘Fight me if you must, but don’t lie to me.’
‘I promise.’
Her father pulled his plate back to him and began eating. They ate in silence, until her father said, ‘I’m tired. So tired.’
She looked across the table at him.
‘There is nothing more physically exhausting than a sense of failure.’
‘But you’re not a failure, Father!’
‘Oh, my dear, let’s not fool each other any longer. Why do I go on groping in the dark? Why can’t I accept the absurdity of existence and laugh, as the absurd ought to be laughed at?’ He stood up, took his plate, and put it in the sink. ‘Why does all of me reject this? Why must there be beauty and meaning when everything that has happened to me teaches me that there is none.’
She left her plate on the table, went to her father, and put her arms around him in a totally protective gesture. ‘But there is.’
He clasped her tightly. ‘Why do I do this to you, child? Why do I try to drag you into the pit with me?’
‘You don’t, you don’t, Father.’
‘My sweet, go on up to bed and don’t worry.’
‘I don’t want to leave you when you’re feeling this way.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You’re not all right.’
‘This will pass, too. Do you know how applejack is made?’
She tilted her head to look up at him, wonderingly. ‘No.’
‘You put apple juice in a keg and leave it outdoors all winter and let it freeze. Almost all of it will turn to ice, but there’s a tiny core of liquid inside, of pure flame. I have that core of faith in myself. There’s always that small searing drop that doesn’t freeze. Don’t worry about me, my darling, I’m all right. And you must get some sleep.’
‘And you, too, Father. I won’t wake you when I come down for breakfast. I’ll try to miss the squeaky stair.’ Emma kissed her father and left the stage, putting her hands over her mouth, hurrying, so that he would not see her cry.
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