Certain Women

by Madeleine L'engle

  “It’s okay, Alice,” Emma said. “We’ve all done the same thing, I know I have.”

  Alice had known when Emma moved out of the apartment, away from Nik. The two women’s time to talk was always after David had gone to bed, when it was just the two of them together. They sat in the living room of the Riverside Drive apartment. It was spring, or should have been, but an April storm was blowing across the Hudson, and the wind slashed against the windows. Emma curled up on one corner of the big couch, a shawl pulled over her shoulders.

  Alice sat to her left, in a wing chair. ‘Oh, Emma, is it really over, with you and Nik?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Emma said. ‘I just don’t know. I haven’t been feeling well, and after that last explosion with Nik I threw up. I caught an intestinal bug which was going through the company. Everybody says it hangs on and on. It hasn’t helped me to think rationally.’

  Alice looked at her questioningly, but Emma continued.

  ‘I wish I could speak to Grandpa. I wish Nik could.’

  ‘Did Nik know your grandfather?’

  ‘Grandpa came to New York to marry us, and we visited him once, and he gave us his bed, that great, glorious oaken monstrosity I love—so I know he approved of Nik.’

  ‘Emma, I wish I could help.’

  ‘You do help, just by caring.’

  The wind beat against the windows and both women jumped. Yes, Alice cared, but her focus was on her husband, not on her friend. Alice, Emma understood later, already knew that David Wheaton was dying.

  Michal

  And Michal Saul’s daughter loved David: and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.

  And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him … And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.

  And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king’s son in law …

  Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins … and Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.

  And Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal Saul’s daughter loved him.

  And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David’s enemy continually.

  I SAMUEL 18:20–21, 25–29

  Emma got ready for bed, then climbed into her bunk and picked up a scene between King David and his wife Michal. Odd. Michal was referred to as King Saul’s daughter or King David’s wife, but never as princess or queen. Nik, she thought, had given Michal short shrift, calling her, casually, ‘spiritually constipated.’ Emma had pointed out Michal’s reputation for beauty; Grandpa had told her that the four most beautiful Hebrew women were listed as Sarah, Rahab, Michal, and Esther.

  She let the pages drop, and bent to retrieve them as her memory flicked up Grandpa Bowman telling her that Saul had been called Cush, or Ethiopian, and his dark beauty contrasted with David’s ‘ruddiness.’ Michal, Grandpa said, was referred to in some of his sources as daughter of Cush,’ so her beauty, like her father’s, would have been dark.

  Emma skimmed a scene where Zeruiah was defending Michal to the servants. ‘She doesn’t mean to be rude. It’s just her manner. Saul taught her to be arrogant. It’s not really her fault. If you have any problems, bring them to me.’

  There was no indication in Nik’s play that King David’s first marriage was a happy one.

  The wind gently blew the light curtains that covered the Portia’s portholes. Alice leaned on one elbow, looking at Emma in the opposite bunk. “Dave doesn’t want me to dwell on his past. I think he’d like me to feel I’m the only wife. Not that he wasn’t honest with me, giving me a brief rundown on them all.”

  “We had eight showers in my dorm at college, and I named them after Papa’s wives. Meredith, Abigail, Myrlo, Marical, Harriet, Elizabeth, Edith, Sophie,” Emma intoned. “Of course, I could equally well have named them after King David’s wives, because Papa’s always made a lot over the similarities.’

  “The first wife—”

  “Papa’s, or King David’s?”

  Alice closed her eyes briefly. “Either.”

  “Meredith was rich and I guess selfish, and Jarvis is the only one who keeps up with her. King David’s first wife was Saul’s daughter, Michal, and I feel sorry for her, because I think she loved David, at first, at any rate, but for David she was just a very big step up the ladder. Nik certainly didn’t think David felt any love for her. Funny, we don’t know anything at all about the wife who comes in the right chronology for my mother. And we don’t know much about my mother, either.”

  “Are you bitter about that, Em?”

  “Not really.”

  “She’s still in Hollywood?”

  “Yes. She’s a good actress,” Emma said.

  “As good as your father?”

  “No. She doesn’t have his reach. In the revivals of movies I’ve been able to see that they did together, the two of them have a tremendous combined vitality, but it’s Papa who gives the depth.”

  Alice said, “Ben’s the moviegoer. I’d rather read.”

  Emma smiled. “Not a bad choice. I’m sorry you haven’t met Abby before.”

  “I’ve seen her work, of course. Dave takes me to galleries and museums. But she was never in New York when we were.”

  “Now that she’s older she doesn’t come to New York every spring the way she used to.”

  “I’d like to have met her before—it might make it easier when she comes tomorrow. She’s a good painter, and—wasn’t she married for a while to someone in Europe?”

  Emma smiled. “To a Yugoslavian count with an unpronounceable name. There were a lot of them in Europe after the First World War, some of them phony. Yekshek was for real—that’s what I called him, and it’s a small part of his whole name. Abby’d already been painting for a while as Abigail Wheaton when she married Yekshek, and Abigail Wheaton is who she is when she’s in the States. I think in Europe she’s quite often ‘the Countess,’ and she has a kind of royal quality. You’ll notice it in her bearing and in her manner. I liked Yekshek. He adored Abby. I cried a lot when he died.”

  “Why didn’t she come home to the States?”

  “Yekshek left her a house in the Auvergne. And there are servants, old family retainers she feels responsible for. She says it’s a wonderful place to paint. And they had a tiny flat in Florence, which she keeps. It’s another world, Alice, and mostly it vanished after the war. You’ll like Abby, truly. I’m glad she’s coming. It’s hard for me to remember Sophie’s the only one of Papa’s wives you know.”

  “Sophie’s so friendly she put me at ease right away. She didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about being friends with her husband’s new wife.”

  Emma laughed. “Dear Sophie. She and Marical were good friends, too. She’s an extraordinarily generous person. She and Papa were happy together for a good many years.”

  “I think she still loves him,” Alice said.

  “She does,” Emma agreed. “Ulysses was a mistake. He was the director of a gym where she exercised and they—well, I guess they fell in love. They lost a child, a little girl, and nothing worked out for them after that.”

  “Dave told me she had a rough time.”

  “She asked Papa if she should marry Gino—though she didn’t take Papa’s advice. Gino ran one of the most posh and expensive restaurants in town. Did you ever eat there?”

  “Yes, Sophie insisted that we go, as her guest, and we went a couple of times, but it was obvious Gino was uncomfortable.”

  “If it weren’t for you, I’d be sorry she left Papa.”

  “Why did she? Was it just this health-club guy?”

  “No. Ulysses was the least of it. She got involved with
him only because Papa got into a terrible depression after Billy and Adair and Etienne died. That’s a lot of death, even in wartime. Sophie stood it for as long as she could, but finally she left. You’ve never experienced one of his depressions—”

  “No. He was very honest with me about them, and I was afraid when he got cancer—but, Emma, he’s been marvelous, brave, not complaining, completely himself.”

  “Papa’s depressions are never over anything that happens to him. They come when bad things happen to someone he loves. Abby’s exhaustion and grief—the poor little twins—and then he was in this comedy with Myrlo—oh, Alice, Papa’s more centered now in his old age than he used to be. He’s an actor, and he’s vulnerable to—what I’m trying to say is, Papa thrives on sunshine. When those around him aren’t shining on him, he turns to someone else.”

  “And Myrlo shined?”

  “I guess. Don’t ask me to explain Myrlo. I don’t think Myrlo can explain herself.”

  Alice nodded. “It takes a lot of maturity to acknowledge our real selves.”

  “Can we ever, all the way?”

  “Probably not. But it’s worth a try.”

  Sophie’s love of David had been not only lavish but tolerant. She had made the apartment on Riverside Drive into a warm, hospitable home, full of color and comfort. Her delight in preparing after-theater suppers for David, and at least once a week for Emma and Nik, was genuine.

  ‘Come often,’ David urged. ‘It means so much to Sophie. And Louis misses his sister.’

  ‘I miss Louis. But he’s in bed when we get to you in the evenings.’

  ‘Come, anyhow. For Sophie. For me. After all, I have a certain interest in this play Nik is writing.’

  Emma and Nik walked briskly uptown, bent slightly against the wind that was blowing in from the river.

  Emma said, ‘Your coat’s not warm enough.’

  Nik laughed, squeezing her hand. ‘My play’s a success. I can afford a winter coat! That’s hard for me to realize!’ He swung her hand high in his pleasure.

  ‘Nik, get one tomorrow. Take care of yourself. Please.’

  ‘Come with me and help me choose and we’ll buy me a coat. Whoopee!’ Nik was normally serious, if not solemn, and Emma rejoiced at this lightheartedness.

  As they started to cross Broadway, a group of laughing soldiers ran into them; one caught Emma by the waist and twirled her around, and then they turned the corner, still laughing, and whistling appreciative wolf calls.

  Nik was indignant. ‘Hey!’ and he started after the men.

  ‘Whoa!’ Emma put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay. They don’t mean any harm. They’re on leave and they all know they could be dead in a month or so.’ Nik relaxed. Then she dared ask, ‘Nik, what about you? Are you going to be called up?’

  He shook his head. ‘Right after my parents died, I applied to the Air Force and I was turned down. In fact, I was turned down by all the services because I have a slight heart murmur.’

  Instinctively, Emma reached out to touch his arm.

  ‘Don’t worry. My doctor says it isn’t serious. As long as I live a reasonable life, I could easily make it to the Biblical threescore and ten. But war isn’t reasonable, and none of the services will take me. For a few weeks I was in a total funk.’

  ‘No, no—’

  ‘I got over it. Like Jarvis.’

  ‘Jarvis tends to asthma.’

  ‘That’s what he told me. We sort of apologized to each other for being 4-F.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologize.’

  ‘It’s just the climate. I’ll do my part in other ways.’

  ‘Making people laugh is no small way.’

  ‘It’s okay. But you have two brothers in the war, and Everard’s a conscientious objector working in that army hospital in New Jersey.’

  ‘Nik, relax. Be happy your play’s still drawing packed houses. Work on the new play.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks. The David play. I eat, sleep, dream the David play. Music. I do want to have a lot of music in this play.’

  Oklahoma! was playing on Broadway. Emma began to hum one of the hit songs, then stopped as she realized it was ‘People Will Say We’re in Love.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nik asked.

  ‘Oh, the music in David’s day would have been totally different from ours. I think even the scale wasn’t the same. Much more Oriental.’

  ‘David played the harp. Do you think Abigail was musical? We haven’t anywhere nearly got to her yet, but she was David’s second wife.’

  Emma nodded. ‘I know. Yes, I think Abigail would play the harp, too. She and David could play together—wouldn’t that make a nice scene?’

  Nik asked, ‘How’s your singing voice?’

  ‘Okay. I’ve taken voice lessons off and on, and right now I’m studying with Madame Estavik.’

  Nik was impressed. ‘If she’s taking you, you’ve got to be good.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘Just good enough to sing a small song with the harp. The lessons are good for my breath control. I’m not aiming for musicals, much less opera.’

  They had reached David and Sophie’s building and went into the marble lobby, greeting the doorman, the elevator man. Sophie was waiting for them.

  ‘Angels. Sit at the table. I have a treat for you, don’t I, Davie?’

  ‘A treat, indeed.’ David Wheaton led them into the dining room, where Sophie already had the candles lit in the brass sconces and in the silver candlesticks on the oval cherrywood table.

  When they were seated, Sophie proudly brought in a silver dish of lobster Newburg. How did she manage it, in wartime?

  ‘Sophie, you’re a marvel,’ Nik said, ‘feeding the starving so miraculously.’

  Sophie heaped his plate full. ‘You’re even scrawnier than Emma.’

  ‘I won’t be, if I go on eating like this.’

  ‘I’m going to go double-check on Louis,’ Sophie said. ‘He’s got a cold and I have the steamer going in his room. You go on and talk. I’ll be back in a while.’

  Nik looked after her. ‘Bathsheba.’

  David laughed. ‘She comes in the right chronological order.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with chronology.’ Nik spoke with his mouth full. ‘I just can’t help visualizing Bathsheba as being like Sophie.’ He pushed his long, thin fingers through his mop of dark curly hair.

  It was unfair, Emma thought, that Nik should have luxuriant, lustrous hair, while hers went limp five minutes after it had been washed.

  ‘All the battles—they get boring, and they would be impossible onstage. In a movie, maybe. What about a movie, Dave?’

  ‘I want a play.” David was firm. ‘I know a movie would be easier, but I agree with you that all the battles are old hat. Let Cecil B. DeMille take care of that kind of stuff. We’re interested in David’s loves.’

  ‘The women would have seen everything differently from the men. For instance, all of David’s wives and concubines would have lived together in a harem. Emma, is there anything in your life which would make you understand that?’

  ‘Sure, I lived in a harem myself for eight years, boarding school and college.’

  ‘How did you feel about it?’

  ‘I loved it. I’m not sure how I’d have felt if I’d been pulled from my stall in the library to go to the bed of some king. I guess a dorm and a harem are alike only in that there are a lot of women under one roof.’

  ‘So you were in more like a convent than a harem?’

  ‘Somewhere in between. There would be a few similarities. Friendship. I had wonderful friends. Some of them I keep up with, though none of my best friends are in New York. I spent part of the summer after Bahama died in Kansas with my roommate, because I knew that as an actress I needed to know more of the country than the East Coast and Seattle. Oh, dear, that sounds calculating, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘I was still struggling with grief for Bahama, and my roommate was a
supportive person. College was a very productive time for me.’

  ‘Did you all get along together?’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘Did you girls talk a lot about men and sex?’

  ‘Oh, sure. But mostly I was putting it off, waiting to grow up. And I loved the whole academic aura, which you certainly wouldn’t find in a harem.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Nik nodded.

  ‘So.’ David Wheaton sounded impatient. ‘Enough of harems. Back to our protagonist, King David.’

  ‘There’s no question that he’s our protagonist, but there’ll be a good many featured roles, such as Zeruiah’s sons, Abishai, Joab, and Asahel, who are so important politically, especially Joab.’

  ‘You can manage a cast of thousands with a movie,’ David said. ‘It’s not so easy with a play.’

  ‘Shakespeare managed with Lear.’

  ‘So you’re the new Shakespeare?’

  Nik shouted, ‘I’m just saying it can be done!’ He banged his fist on the table, so that the silverware clattered on the plates.

  Sophie paused on her way through the dining room to the kitchen. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ David said. ‘Nik’s explaining King David’s genealogy. It’s as complicated as mine. Sorry, Nik, didn’t mean to bait you.’

  Emma looked at Nik’s long, fine fingers, at the dark, soft hairs springing from them, and wondered why he was suddenly jumpy.

  ‘I’m glad you’re getting it all straight,’ David said.

  ‘I’m not. I’m still just sorting out the characters. Trying to get used to all the names, maybe eliminate a few characters who aren’t important to the play. Abigail is the most interesting of David’s wives.’

  ‘And of mine,’ David said. ‘I adore Sophie, but she’s not—Well, she’s just purely and enchantingly wonderful.’

  ‘Hush!’ Emma warned. But Sophie was singing in the kitchen, Noel Coward songs. Sophie could not stay on tune, but she sang with gusto and pleasure, and when she sang onstage the audience laughed and loved her.

  ‘Zeruiah, for instance,’ Nik said. ‘She was a sensible, pragmatic woman who saw what was going on and had her own point of view about it. My mother was frequently hysterical, but my father goaded her. When she was at her best she was something like Zeruiah. Of course, she wasn’t at her best very often, but—’