Certain Women

by Madeleine L'engle

  ‘No, but I’m a heathen.’

  Emma’s fingers clasped his more tightly. ‘For a heathen, my darling love, you have your characters talk a lot about God.’

  Nik pulled his fingers out of hers, then took her hand again. ‘Yeah, they do, don’t they? Their idea, not mine. I have to let my characters say what they say.’

  ‘What I think,’ Emma said, ‘is that you don’t like what institutions and establishments have done about God.’

  ‘They think they know everything,’ Nik growled.

  ‘They don’t, and we don’t. But I think your characters know a lot, and you’re a good writer because you listen to them.’

  ‘Yes. I listen to my characters better than I listen to anybody else. That’s not good.’ They had reached their building and he let go of Emma’s hand to reach for his key.

  ‘No, it’s not good, but I think maybe it’s true of all artists. When I’m working on a role I listen to my character. And I listen better than I listen to myself. Or to you.’

  ‘Is it a fatal flaw?’ Nik opened the door.

  ‘No,’ Emma said as they went into the apartment. ‘The fatal flaw is hubris, pride against the gods. Maybe as we listen to our characters we’ll learn to listen to each other.’

  Nik turned on the lights, threw his battered briefcase on the bed. ‘Good enough. Maybe that’s why you’re an actress and I’m a writer. If we need to have a reason.’

  Marical

  Amnon … is dead: for by the appointment of Absalom this hath been determined from the day that he forced his sister Tamar.

  But Absalom fled … And David mourned for his son every day … And the soul of king David longed to go forth unto Absalom.

  II SAMUEL 13:32, 34, 37, 39

  Emma walked slowly along the wooden planks of the dock, not seeing the vessels tied up on either side, not seeing a child who almost ran into her, not hearing the noise of sea gulls. She was thinking not of Nik but of Chantal, Chantal who was far away in Mooréa, busy with her own life, her marriage, her children, a life far from the stresses of the mid-twentieth century. It was a kind of peace Emma had known for a few weeks during her one visit to Mooréa, and while it had been wonderful for a few weeks, she had been happy to get home to New York, the theater, the work she loved.

  She and Chantal wrote regularly, phoned on birthdays and Christmas. Chantal knew that David Wheaton was dying, had offered to come. Emma and Alice had talked it over; Emma had called Abby for further confirmation of her feeling that Chantal should stay home with her family. Desperately as she would have liked to have Chantal with her now, she still thought she and Alice and Abby had been right.

  Everard, too, had offered to make the long, hard journey. Everard, too, had been willing to accept their advice and to stay in Mooréa. It was another world. It was almost another time. David was married to Alice. He loved Alice. If Chantal or Everard had come, old wounds would inevitably have been opened. Adair, Emma thought. Let Adair rest in peace.

  She walked, looking down at her feet in old socks and sneakers, looking at the worn planks with their occasional knots and scars, until she got to the phone booth. She stopped, feeling in her pockets. She had used up her change in the first call; this one would have to be collect.

  She gave the number to the operator and waited while it went through, and then her heart lurched as she got a busy signal. “Please try again,” the operator told her. She walked up and down the dock. Three minutes. Nik did not like to waste time on long phone calls. Surely the line would be clear.

  Busy again. Why was she so upset? What did it matter? She was no longer part of Nik’s life. It could be anybody. Another woman.

  She made herself wait five minutes, walking up and down, back and forth, before she could tell the operator again that she wanted to make a collect call.

  This time the phone rang and was answered at once by Nik, who accepted her call. “Em, did you try me a few minutes ago? I’m sorry, I tried to keep the line clear, but it was a producer—someone who may be interested in my new play.”

  “Oh, Nik, I’m glad, and I’m sorry I had to call collect—”

  “No problem. I’m taking an early plane tomorrow morning, one of those new jets, and I should be in Port Clements by late afternoon, what with the three-hour time difference. How is Dave? Is he—”

  “Physically, he’s thin and weak,” Emma said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Of course I’m coming. See you tomorrow.” He hung up.

  She left the phone booth and turned back toward the Portia, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to calm the racing of her heart. Would she feel differently about seeing Nik if she had not spent these days deep in the past of his King David play? Did it make it easier or more difficult? She stepped up onto the wooden milk box Ben used as a step, and onto the deck.

  Abby was in the main cabin, playing solitaire, her sketch pad beside her. “Everything all right?”

  “He’s coming tomorrow. He should be here in time for dinner.” Automatically, she walked to the stove. Alice had rice steaming in a colander. The curried shrimp were keeping warm in a bain marie which Abby had brought from France one year to give to David for Christmas. “It’s good of Alice to have fixed dinner. Is she in the pilothouse?”

  “Yes. She gave David a shot a few minutes ago. I’ll take the table up in a moment so she’ll know we’re ready. Emma, sit down. You’re pale.”

  Emma pulled out one of the captain’s chairs. “It’s absurd. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not absurd. Nik’s arrival has to be a great emotional drain on you.”

  “I don’t know—I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you have to do anything?”

  “I can’t huddle up in my sleeping bag and hide.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  Emma stood at the stove, staring out at the dock, not seeing. Said, at last, “You still love Papa.”

  “Yes, Emma, though when Myrlo came into the picture I had no emotion left for a long time. But it comes back, Emma, and when it does, the pain has become bearable.”

  “Thanks, Abby. I’m sorry.’

  “No, Emma. Just give yourself time. I know that Nik’s coming is too soon, but sometimes too soon isn’t too soon after all. I agree with Bahama that there is a time that has little to do with our ordinary chronology and which is more true. Eh bien. Enough philosophizing.”

  “Thanks, Abby, and thanks for reminding me of Bahama.”

  Abby’s pencil moved carefully on the page of her sketchbook. “You’ve managed to allow your father to be human, faulted and flawed like all human beings, and to love him, anyhow, haven’t you?”

  Emma sighed. Nodded.

  Abby continued to sketch. “We’d all like people to be what we want them to be, instead of what they are.”

  “Your marriage to Yekshek—that was terrific, wasn’t it?”

  Abby laughed. “Terrific, but highly imperfect.”

  “I don’t think I’m looking for perfection …”

  “I’m sure you’re not, my love. Whatever your problems with Nik have been, I know they’re real.”

  They turned as they heard a movement, and Alice stood at the head of the pilothouse steps. “Emma. You’re back.”

  Emma rose. “Nik will get to Port Clements sometime late tomorrow afternoon.”

  Abby rose, too, putting cards, sketch pad, pencil, into her bag. “It will be good to be able to leave this dock.”

  Alice smiled. “Dave says the wonderful thing about the Portia is that we can be someplace different every night, but he can sleep in the same bed, not like one-night stands when he went on tour with a play.”

  Emma’s tour started in late August. Her father would not be leaving the city till well into the autumn. Nik went with Emma to Boston, where they would be playing for two weeks. Opening night went well. The audience was appreciative; all the laughs came, and she heard several sniffles at just the right moment when tears were needed to bala
nce the laughter.

  Emma was being starred on the tour, rather than featured, her name for the first time above the title of the play. Nik was waiting for her in her dressing room, where there were several bouquets of flowers from well-wishers, and a crowd of people hovering in the doorway.

  ‘My God,’ Nik exclaimed when the dressing room emptied, ‘I’m married to a star. Okay, love, we’re going to go back to the hotel—the Ritz, we have come up in the world!—and order supper sent to our room.’

  ‘Oh, Nik, are you sure we should—’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. We won’t do it every night, and we do need to put money in the bank so our kids can go to college, at least six children, I hope. But once in a while it’s good for our souls to splurge, and I want to do a little brain-picking about Bathsheba and the baby. I plan to do a good bit of writing while we’re here. Okay?’

  Emma grinned. ‘Sure.’ Her fingers moved softly against the palm of his hand.

  The stage manager knocked at the dressing-room door. ‘Hey, Em, good performance. This tour’s going to be fun.’

  Nik was holding out her light jacket. ‘Come on, sweetie. It’s late.’

  When they reached their hotel room she undressed and bathed while Nik ordered up sandwiches. By the time she was dried and in her nightgown, Nik was waiting, having eaten most of the sandwiches. ‘But we can order more.’

  ‘No, this is plenty.’

  ‘Em, Sweetie, I’m glad we’re having this time together. Now that we know the play’s going to go well, we can relax. Your father’ll be starting rehearsals for the tour—when?’

  ‘In about a month. He and Sophie are off in the Poconos for a few days together, now that Louis’s back in Choir School.’

  ‘When I’m writing lines for Bathsheba I can’t help hearing Sophie’s voice. And it’s made me love Bathsheba.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Emma said. ‘I think she should be lovable.’

  ‘And David.’ He put his hand on the Bible. ‘All the while the baby is dying, David is praying, importuning God, begging for mercy. And when the baby dies—

  ‘What the Bible tells us,’ Emma said, ‘is that David called for his servants and asked for meat and wine.’

  Nik looked over her shoulder at the open page. ‘And the servants were incredulous, asking, “Now? Now? When your baby has just died?”’

  ‘And David said—’

  Nik took over. ‘Why should I cry to God now? The child is dead. I can do no more. I had hoped that God would repent. While the child was alive I could hope. But the Lord did not repent. And I need something to eat and drink.’

  ‘Pragmatic,’ Emma said.

  ‘He had to be, to survive as a king.’

  ‘But he did believe in God.’

  ‘Yes.’ He turned to her with sudden vehemence. ‘You still do?’

  ‘Bahama and Grandpa have had their influence. But I come closest to a glimpse of God-who-cares when I’m working on a role—the way I’m already working on Abigail—suddenly understanding what a character wants, feeling love and pity even when I have to play someone I’d hate in real life. I know it isn’t going to work until that happens.’

  ‘Ha!’ Nik said. ‘That’s why you aren’t good at first readings.’

  ‘That’s right. When I get a script, at first it’s as though I’m trying to read in the dark, and it’s a while before the light comes on.’

  ‘Does the light always come on?’

  Emma pondered. ‘Sometimes it’s brighter than others.’

  Nik took the last sandwich off the platter. ‘Bathsheba would at least have had Abigail, Abigail who understood and loved both David and Bathsheba, and Abigail would weep with Bathsheba,’ Nik said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Your Abigail,’ Emma said, ‘the one you created out of that one glimpse when she stopped David from revenge and blood guilt over Nabal’s stupidity.’

  ‘Your Abigail, I’ve drawn her from you.’

  ‘Your Abigail,’ Emma said firmly. ‘A delicious role. The Biblical Abigail must have been pretty old by the time Bathsheba had the baby.’

  ‘Old enough to hold the girl like a mother and weep with her, for Bathsheba’s babe, and for her own two dead sons.’

  ‘I love Abigail,’ Emma said. ‘She’ll be wonderful to play.’

  ‘You’re the actress for her. It’s a wonderful story.’

  ‘Abigail’s?’

  ‘Yours. And mine.’

  Was she still part of Nik’s story? Or had he ripped her out of the typewriter and flung her into the wastepaper basket?

  She had left Nik, not the other way around. She thought she had cause. But was she being like Papa, who had not been able to make a marriage last?

  She and Abby were in the pilothouse with David, sipping herbal tea. Ben looked in. “Since we can take on water here, why don’t you ladies take baths and wash your hair tomorrow? You can take turns, a good hour apart, to give the water time to warm up between baths. The tank’s not very big.”

  Abby laughed. “I’m used to cool baths on the Portia.”

  Emma ran her fingers through her hair. “It needs washing. At home I wash it every day.”

  “Home?” Her father asked. “Where is home for you, child?”

  “New York. And I’m not a child, Papa.”

  He put his hands to his sides, as if in pain. “Forgive me, Emma, forgive me.”

  Emma’s voice was low. “Papa, I love you. Let the past be past.”

  “People’s lives should be consistent with what they do,” David said, “at least to some extent. My life has been—”

  “It’s been your life, Papa, nobody else’s. What’s right for you—”

  “It isn’t right for you, Emma, and whether or not it was right for me, God only knows. But it isn’t right for you.”

  “I know that.”

  “I let you down. You had just cause to be angry.”

  “I was angry. Don’t you remember? I really let you have it.”

  “God, Emma, you were like an avenging angel. That’s when I knew you should play Joan of Arc. And you were wonderful.”

  “It was a really great idea of Josh Logan’s, alternating Shaw and Anouilh, really stretching. Playing both Joans was one of the most exciting challenges I ever had onstage.”

  From Boston the road company of Nik’s comedy went to New Haven. The two weeks in Boston had been good, a beautiful memory, except that Emma’s period had come, nearly two weeks late, dashing their hopes that she was pregnant.

  But the review of Nik’s play, Emma’s reviews, and the reviews in general, had been all that they could have hoped for. Chantal, who came up to Boston to see the play, marveled at a new quality in Emma’s acting. ‘You’ve always been good, but there’s a sort of compassion—I can’t explain it. It isn’t just Nik, your marriage, and your love and your happiness.’

  Emma knew that there was a difference in her acting, a deepening that was beyond technique. Whatever had caused it, she was grateful.

  The last night in Boston they again had sandwiches sent to their room, and Nik sat cross-legged on the bed writing on his lined pad while Emma bathed.

  When she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in two towels, Nik was sitting staring at the tray of uneaten sandwiches.

  ‘Nik, what’s wrong?’

  He put his arms around her, breathing in her fragrance. ‘Emma, I can’t write this play.’

  ‘What?’ She pulled away from him, unbelieving.

  ‘I can’t write the King David play. I should have known it the night we got engaged. The night you told me about Billy. I did know it, but my vanity wouldn’t accept it. A play starring your father would have made me an important playwright. And I want to be important. Serious.’

  ‘Nik, have I—I mean, I want you to write this play. You’ve made me know I’m not Tamar. Have I been getting in your way?’ She had tried not to, to leave him free to write whatever he wanted. But was that even possible?

  �
�You’ve supported me in every way,’ Nik said. ‘But I’ve come to the Tamar, Amnon, Absalom scenes, and I can’t do it to you.’

  ‘No, Nik.’ To her surprise, tears began streaming down her cheeks. ‘I can’t bear it if you stop because of me.’

  His lips wiped away her tears. He no longer tried to hold back his own tears. ‘I can’t do it, Em, I just can’t do it. It isn’t only Tamar. The play’s not working.’

  ‘Because of Tamar—’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve hit a blank wall. I can’t get through it.’

  They held each other.

  ‘Don’t decide anything tonight,’ she said at last. ‘Give it time.’

  ‘There’s so much anger,’ he said. ‘Joab kills Abner for killing Asahel. And Absalom never forgave Amnon for what he did to Tamar, even after he’d had Amnon killed. And his rage turned into ambition. He wanted to be king. Ambition and anger were all tied up. He wanted to punish his father. Everard told me that when Adair left he was still angry. He wanted to punish your father.’

  Emma shuddered. ‘He’s succeeded in punishing if that’s what he really wants. He’s punishing Sophie, too. She sent Louis to Choir School only to protect him from Papa’s darknesses.’

  ‘Oh, Em, sweetie.’ Nik reached into his bathrobe pocket for his handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Maybe later. Maybe after everything stabilizes. After your brothers come home and you and I have our family. Maybe I can write it then. Not now.’

  ‘Nik, you’ve written such marvelous scenes—’

  ‘But they don’t hang together. Maybe it’s not my kind of play. Maybe I’m just kidding myself, the clown wanting to play Hamlet.’

  ‘No, Nik—’

  ‘I’ll write it someday, Emma. Someday.’ He picked up the tray of uneaten sandwiches and put it out the door for the waiter to pick up.

  Nik returned to New York, to catch up on mail which would have accumulated while they were in Boston, to check in with his agent.

  In New Haven Emma had a small room, but at least it was her own. In Boston she had been with Nik, almost as though they were on their honeymoon. In New Haven she was with the company, going out for supper after the show with two or three, depending on who had plans.