Whispers

by Belva Plain

  “Well, he’s a banker with connections in the new republics. It never hurts to pick up information and connections wherever you can. Besides, they’re nice people, and you can see they’re feeling a little bit lonesome.”

  She was amused. Even away on vacation his mind was with General American Appliance.

  “It’s dress up tonight,” he said. “I read it on the bulletin in the lobby. Dancing and entertainment.”

  “Limbo and calypso, I’m sure. Funny, I keep loving calypso no matter how often I hear it.”

  “That dress is perfect, well worth the money.”

  White silk was even whiter and pearls more luminous against sun-tinged skin. She was pleased with herself.

  “Where’s the bracelet?” Robert asked.

  “Which one?” she replied, knowing which one he meant because he always asked about it.

  “The cabochons. The good one.”

  “It’s much too valuable to take traveling,” she told him.

  It was indeed a special piece, always remarked upon whenever she wore it, and yet she wore it only when he reminded her to. It made her remember the sinking despair of that bleak windy night on the bench overlooking Lake Michigan. It wasn’t healthy to relive a night like that one.

  The Hummels had reserved a table near the dining-room balcony overlooking the sea. Champagne was already in a cooler. They were beaming, he in a summer dinner jacket and she in light blue chiffon, rather too fancy. A pair of solid burghers, Lynn thought, and felt kindly disposed to them. Fifty years married!

  “It is so nice to be with young people for our little celebration,” said Mrs. Hummel. “You must tell us more about yourselves. You have babies at home?”

  “Not babies,” Lynn answered. “Not babies. A daughter of seventeen and an eleven-year-old.”

  “My goodness, we have grandchildren older. A boy twenty-seven. He works in Franz’s bank,” she added proudly.

  The conversation now divided, Mrs. Hummel describing to Lynn every member of her large family, while the men, led by Robert, pursued a different direction. With half an ear Lynn, who was hardly interested in the Hummel grandchildren, was able to hear some of the men’s talk.

  “I’m starting a course in Hungarian,” Robert said. “I don’t know where I’ll get the time, but I’ll have to make the time.”

  “A man of your type makes the time. I know your type.”

  “Thank you, but it’s a difficult language. An Ugric language, related to Finnish, I’m told. I decided to start with it because, by comparison, Hungary is already somewhat prosperous. My firm deals in home appliances, as you know, and as the country gets richer, the demand will grow.”

  “Have you been in Hungary yet?”

  “No, I want to prepare a team for Russia, Poland, and the whole area before I talk to the top brass—the president, that is. I’ve got to get a better handle on the languages, though. It makes an impression if you can show your contacts that you’re at least making the effort to learn their language.”

  “You’re right. It’s true that not everybody speaks English. People seem to think that everybody does.”

  “—often think boys are easier to bring up,” Mrs. Hummel was saying. “I suppose your husband would love to have a boy.”

  “I guess he would, but two are enough, and he adores our girls.”

  “Actually, I’m in marketing, but one needs to broaden one’s scope. I have to know what they’re doing in product development if I’m to do a competent job in marketing, don’t I?”

  “Ya, ya. Technology changes by the hour. You give me your card, I’ll give you mine, and if I can be of any help, who knows, we may work some good things out together. No?”

  “I’d be delighted. Now I think we’re neglecting your great occasion. I’m going to order another bottle, and we’re going to drink to the next fifty years.”

  “Your husband is a very ambitious, very intelligent young man, Mrs. Ferguson,” Mr. Hummel told Lynn.

  “It’s heartwarming,” Mrs. Hummel said, “to see a couple still young and beautiful together. All these discontented couples, I never understand, so many of them. Franz and I are seventy-three. I’m seven months older, but we never tell anybody.” All four laughed, and Lynn said politely, “Neither one of you looks his age.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Hummel was gratified. “If it’s so, it’s because we have been so happy with each other. My mother always told me—there is a sprichwort—a saying, about not going to sleep angry.”

  “Never let the sun go down on your anger,” Lynn said. “My mother told me that too.”

  “Ah, yes. And it works, it really does.”

  “Interesting types,” Robert said when they got up to dance.

  “Rather out of fashion these days in this world.”

  “Well, if they are, it’s too bad about this world.”

  They were in the open courtyard. When the music paused, one heard the swish of the waves, hushed now at low tide. Into the perfumed night the music blended. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Always and Always” they played.

  It might be corny, Lynn said to herself, and yet the music is as lovely as the day it was written before I was born. And it still appeals to a longing that doesn’t die, no matter what the style or the generation and whether people admit it or not.

  “Do I dance as well as Tom Lawrence does?” Robert whispered.

  She drew back and reproached him. “For someone who can be so tactful when he wants to be, I’m surprised at you.”

  “I’m sorry. It was meant to be funny, and it wasn’t at all. I’m sorry.” He kissed her ear and held her more closely. “Forgive me.”

  Passing the Hummels, who were dancing stiffly apart, the two couples smiled at each other.

  “Never let the sun go down on your anger,” Robert murmured. “Were going to remember that.”

  Yes. Yes. A whole fresh start. The champagne is going to my head. Such a lovely feeling. And above Robert’s shoulder the sky was suddenly filled with blinking stars.

  “Are there more stars here? Is that possible, Robert? Or am I drunk?”

  “You may be drunk, but it does seem as if there are more because there’s no pollution, and the sky is clear. Anyway, the constellations are different here. We’re close to the equator.”

  “You know so much,” she whispered.

  And she looked around at the men moving to the music in slow circles. Not one could compare with Robert, so distinguished, so admired, so full of knowledge, with such marvelous eyes, now gazing into hers with that long, long look.

  “I can’t help falling in love with you.” Their bodies moved to the nostalgia and the yearning, were led by it, slowly, closer and closer; as one body, they were barely moving, swaying together in one spot.

  “I can’t help falling in love with you,” he sang into her ear. And she thought: I was so angry that I wished he would die. Oh, God, oh, God, and overcome with tears, she reached up to his mouth, and there on the dance floor, kissed him over and over.

  “Oh, my dear, my dearest.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. “Say good-night to those people and get out of here. Quick, I can’t wait.”

  In the room he slammed and fastened the door, crying, “Hurry, hurry!”

  “I am. Don’t tear my dress.”

  “I’ll buy you another one.”

  He seized her and carried her to the wide, cool bed. Palms rattled at the window and the sea wind blew all through the first time and the second, and then all night, long after they had fallen asleep.

  They swam and went deep-sea fishing, then played tennis, took long runs on the beach, and lay resting in the shade. Others went to the free-port shops and returned with the usual bags of liquor and perfume, but Lynn and Robert went no farther than a sailboat could carry them. After the Hummels departed, they were always, by tacit agreement only, together.

  In the mornings when the first tree frogs began to peep, they made love again.r />
  “No work, no errands, no telephone, no clock, no kids,” he whispered.

  It was delicious, unhurried luxury. It was like being remade, like being married all over again. Robert had been right. This was what they had needed.

  PART THREE

  Summer 1988–

  Spring 1989

  No one was home when they arrived except Juliet, who gave them a tongue-licking welcome and then turned over to have her belly scratched.

  “Where is everybody?” Lynn wondered.

  “Maybe there’s a note on the bulletin board in the kitchen.”

  She opened the kitchen door, stood a second in total bewilderment, and gasped.

  “Oh, my God! What have you done?”

  Robert came in grinning. “Like it? Like it?”

  “How on earth did you ever do this?”

  “It was easy. Just paid an arm and a leg for their guarantee to finish it in ten days, that’s all.”

  A glistening new kitchen had been installed with a restaurant-sized stove, a double-sized refrigerator-freezer, a trash compactor, and a center island above which hung the best new European cookware. Closets and glass-fronted cabinets had been expertly reorganized and consolidated; a library of cookbooks stood in vivid jackets on the shelves, and African violets in lavender bloom flourished on the broad new windowsills.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” Lynn said.

  “Well, don’t do that. You’re supposed to produce good meals here, not faint.”

  “It’s perfect. It’s gorgeous, you’re a magician, you’re Santa Claus, you’re an angel.”

  “A talented worker deserves a good workroom. I’ve done some thinking, and I truly realize what this means to you, so if you want to do some sort of baking or catering on a small scale, if it will make you happy, why, now you’ve got the place to do it in. And if not, well, you’ve got a handsome kitchen, that’s all.”

  “You couldn’t, you absolutely couldn’t, have given me anything more wonderful.”

  She was hugging him when the front door opened to a chorus, “Welcome home!” and the girls, with Josie and Bruce and Harris, came in with arms full.

  “Chinese takeout,” Emily said. “We didn’t expect you to make dinner in this palace the minute you got home.”

  “I came over every day to watch the miracle take shape,” Josie said.

  “Girls, I hope you didn’t make any trouble for Uncle Bruce and Aunt Josie,” Robert said.

  “We had a fine time,” Bruce assured him. “We ate out, we ate at our house, and last Sunday Harris took us to the woods and made a meal from scratch. He started a fire without matches.”

  “Without matches,” Lynn repeated, turning to Harris, who was actually blushing.

  “Well, I was an Eagle Scout. You have to know how to survive in the wilderness.”

  “The Connecticut wilderness?” asked Robert.

  Josie corrected him. “It’s the same thing whether you’re here or in the wilderness of Timbuktu.”

  Bruce laughed. “Timbuktu is not a wilderness, Josie.”

  “Harris,” said Emily, “tell them about you-know-what at school.”

  “No, they’re your parents, you tell them,” Harris answered quietly.

  “We both got an A in the advanced chemistry finals. The only ones in the class.”

  Harris corrected her. “You got an A, and I got an Aminus.”

  Robert put his arm about his daughter’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you, Emily.”

  Bruce spoke to Harris, who was standing a little apart. “You must be coming close to a college decision. Have you any special place in mind?”

  “Wherever I can get the best scholarship,” the boy replied seriously. “They’re kind of scarce these days.”

  “Well, summer vacation’s almost upon you, so just relax awhile and leave those worries for September,” Lynn said cheerfully. “And you know what we’re going to do? Next Sunday I’m going to inaugurate this kitchen. I’m going to make a big supper. All of you come. Annie, bring a friend or two, and, Bruce, if your cousin should be in town by then, bring him along. We’ll eat on the deck.”

  “It’s been raining all week,” Annie said, pouting.

  “Well, all the better. That means we’re due for a long spell of sunshine,” Lynn told her.

  A long spell, a lasting spell of sunshine in many ways, she assured herself.

  It was as she had predicted, the proverbial day in June, cool and blue. All the previous afternoon and all morning she had been working and humming to herself in the new kitchen, and the result was a summer banquet, “fit for the gods,” as Robert put it.

  On the big round table in the kitchen’s bay window stood a lobster ragout fragrant with herbs, crisp green peppers stuffed with tomatoes and goat cheese, warm French bread, a salad of raw vegetables in an icy bed of lettuce, a pear tart glazed with apricot jam, and a chocolate torte garnished with fresh raspberries and crême anglaise. In a pair of antique crystal carafes, bought by Robert, were red wine and white, while for Annie and her friend Lynn had set out a bowl of ginger-ale punch in which there floated a few balls of vanilla ice cream.

  “If you’d like me to grill a couple of hamburgers outside for the little girls, I’d be glad to, Mrs. Ferguson,” Harris offered.

  She looked at him and laughed. “You’re just too polite to tell me that those kids won’t like the lobster ragout, and you’re right. I should have thought of that myself.”

  Harris laughed back. What a nice boy, she thought, handing him a plate of raw hamburgers.

  Bruce had brought his cousin, who was visiting from the Midwest. He was a quiet man, much like Bruce himself, who taught physics at a high school in Kansas City. Harris and Emily immediately got talking to him about physics and premed. Annie and her friend were full of giggles over some private joke. It gladdened Lynn to see Annie having an intimate friend.

  Bruce’s cousin admired the view. “You have a beautiful place here,” he told Robert, who sat across from him.

  “It needs a lot of work yet. I’m thinking of putting a split-rail fence along the boundaries. And of course, we should have a pool. I want a naturalistic pool, not one of those ordinary rectangular affairs, but something free form with woodsy landscaping. It’ll be a big job.”

  “I’m perfectly content with the pool at the club,” Lynn reminded Robert.

  “My wife is easily satisfied,” Robert said.

  “You always say that,” Josie remarked.

  And Robert remarked, “Well, it’s true.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the pool at the club,” Lynn insisted, out of a certain consideration for the feelings of the schoolteacher, whose income, one could be sure, did not provide either for a private pool or a country club membership, adding, “especially when the company pays for the club. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even want that.”

  “Let’s all help carry things back to the kitchen,” Bruce suggested. “Having stuffed ourselves like this, we need the exercise.”

  Robert sprang up. “After that, how about badminton, or croquet? I’ve just set up a game on the side lawn, so take your choice.”

  When the table had been cleared, Lynn sat down to rest.

  “Do you know the best thing about vacations, Josie? That they stay with you. Here I am, happy to be home, and yet a part of me is still down on the island. I can still feel that soft, damp air.”

  “I’m glad,” said Josie.

  “I can’t thank you and Bruce enough for taking care of the girls.”

  “Don’t be silly. We love them, and they were wonder-fid.”

  Juliet, having been unlawfully fed with hamburger scraps, came sniffing to Josie now in hopes of more.

  “Yes, yes, you’re a good dog,” she said almost absently, while her hand played in the thick ruff of hair around the dog’s neck. “A good dog,” she repeated, and then suddenly she raised her hand to confront Lynn with what Lynn knew she had been meaning to say all the time. “So. You
have an appointment with my friend, I think.”

  “I’m not going to keep it. I must call him.”

  “I think you should keep it,” Josie said.

  “Things change, Josie. Being away together, you get a different perspective. Robert’s right. When we moved, we all had too many adjustments to make. It’s been especially hard for the girls, unsettling, bad for the nerves, even though on the surface they handled it well. It’s foolish to take every blow-up too seriously, as if the end had come. In this last week alone since we’ve been home, why—I can’t tell you how good it’s been. Robert’s even been so nice to Harris. I convinced him that he shouldn’t worry, that they’re just kids having their first crush, and he finally agreed that I’m right, that Harris is a very fine person. And Robert’s gotten the girls interested in the hospital fund drive, so they’re selling tickets to everybody they know. They’ll be calling you next, I’m sure.”

  “It’s nice to hear all that, but I still think you ought to go, Lynn.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to say to the man. I’d feel like a fool,” Lynn said firmly. “No. I’m canceling the appointment. To tell the truth, I forgot about it or I would have done it already.”

  So she closed the subject. She regretted the day she had run to Josie and complained. She was a big girl, for heaven’s sake, and would solve her own problems. She already had solved them.

  June was a crowded month, a month of rituals. Annie had a birthday party complete with pink crepe-paper, pink icing, and a new pink dress. Friends had weddings and proud commencements. It was a time of graceful ceremonies, set about with flowers. And through these festive days Lynn moved with a fresh sense of well-being.

  On a hot Saturday, the last in the month, Robert went to the city for a morning’s work. Lynn, knowing that he would never alter his habits, agreed to meet him later in the afternoon at the club’s pool. Arriving early, she found a chair in the shade and, glad of the privacy afforded by Annie’s and Emily’s occupation elsewhere, settled down to read until Robert should arrive. She was somewhat irritated, therefore, when she saw a man approach carrying a folding chair, and more than irritated when he turned out to be Tom Lawrence.