“Sorry,” he said. He realized he’d been looking down the front of her dress. He looked at her and she smiled.
“This is it, Rudy. This is what you’re looking for — alegria. The embrace of a woman. And the love of your daughters, your three lovely daughters. Rejoice in them, and remember your wife with love. Your whole world is full of love, Rudy, and I think you know that. Gratitude is the word that should be on the tip of your tongue. Not ‘I’m worried I’m worried I’m worried,’ but Thank you thank you thank you.’ For your daughters and the good times you shared with your wife, for hot water in your bathroom and this good wine, and for these wonderful enchiladas. Don’t be afraid.” She stuck her fork into the last bite of her enchilada, pointed it at him, and then stuck it in her mouth.
Rudy didn’t know if she was offering him the accumulated wisdom of a civilization older than his own, or if she was tempting him to abandon his quest.
Meg
Aman with three daughters will never run out of stories. At the beginning of June Margot called from London to say that she’d just auctioned off a book of erotic drawings she had found in the convent where she’d been working. She’d restored it herself and sold it at Sotheby’s for a quarter of a million dollars. She wanted to know how to set up a trust for the convent. Rudy tried to explain. Two weeks later Molly called from India. Someone had handed her a dead baby in front of the Kalighat in Calcutta; she’d placed a garland on the shaft of the great black lingam at the Golden Temple in Benares, where she’d met the King of the Dead — down at the burning ghats; a rhinoceros had wandered into the tea garden in Assam, and Nandini, TJ’s mother, had shooed it away with a broom; she’d been riding Nandini’s elephant, Champaa, through the jungle every morning, before the rains came, and they’d been to see the erotic sculptures in the museum temple of Shakti in Madan Kamdev.
“What did you do with the dead baby?” Rudy asked.
“I handed it to someone else.”
“And the King of the Dead? What sort of guy was the King of the Dead? How did you meet him? Did you just bump into him on the street and he invited you in for tea?”
“There’re two of them, actually,” she said. “Two brothers — two kings — but they don’t speak to each other. They’re the richest men in India. They take on the bad karma of the people they burn.”
“Doesn’t sound good to me,” Rudy said. He didn’t ask about the great black lingam or the erotic sculptures.
Both these phone calls ended on a sour note: “You sold the only place I ever called home,” Margot said to him when he suggested that she might like to come to live in Mission. And Molly, who had a dozen more names to add to the guest list, wanted him to reconsider having the wedding in Detroit. She’d landed a role as a dancer in an independent film about life in Assam on the eve of independence, part of which was going to be filmed at a neighboring tea garden, and she wouldn’t be back in time to make the arrangements — they’d have to have the wedding in September instead of August. TJ’s aunt would take care of everything if they had the wedding in Detroit. Texas was too inconvenient.
But Texas was convenient for Rudy who’d already ordered a hundred wedding invitations, and he refused to budge, even though he’d have to order new invitations with the new date — Saturday, September 9. He wanted his daughters to come to Texas, wanted them to see the grove and the river and the house with its thick adobe walls that kept it cool even in the hottest weather, wanted them to see the garden and the barn and the elephant.
Meg had a story too, but he wasn’t sure what it was. She called at the end of the month, right after lunch, as Rudy was about to go into town to pick up the new invitations. She wanted to tell him more about the shrink she’d been seeing. Her theories — or the shrinks theories — made Rudy so upset he’d had to put the phone down and take a pill. That’s when he told her about the heart attack. It was the only way to stop her. He didn’t want to hear what he’d done to her, how he’d screwed up her life as well as Mollys and Margot’s. This was unfamiliar territory. She said she’d be there the next day, Friday He tried to talk her out of it because the Russian was bringing Norma Jean on Saturday, and that had gotten her going too.
“An elephant? Listen to me, Pop — you need someone to look after you. I’m coming down there tomorrow.”
He tried to dissuade her, but she was determined. So he canceled his cultural Friday and met her at the airport. As soon as he saw her emerge from the door in the side of the plane and start down the steps to the apron, he forgot that he was annoyed. She was wearing a suit with shoulder pads that made her look like a football player, and even at this distance he could see dark shadows under her eyes. Her hair was pulled back so tight he thought it must be hurting her scalp. He waited for her to detach herself from the crowd of passengers walking across the tarmac.
“Imagine, having a heart attack,” she said, before he could even embrace her, “and not telling anyone for two months.”
He put his arms around her. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You weren’t going to tell us at all, were you?”
He shrugged. “Someday.”
He could see two men on the apron behind her, unloading the luggage from the small DC-10 that had brought her from Dallas to Miller International Airport in McAllen.
She bought a copy of the Monitor and glanced through it while they waited at the baggage claim.
“Have you tried your theories out on your sisters?” Rudy asked as they walked across the parking lot to the car. Rudy offered to carry the suitcase, but Meg wouldn’t hear of it.
“They’re not theories,” she said. “They’re insights.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said, once they were in the car. “Molly could never settle down with one man because 1 was always too affectionate with her, so she kept falling in love with men like me. It begins with an all-consuming passion, but then the incest taboo kicks in and causes her to lose interest?”
“It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea.”
“And Margot … I was too protective of Margot, I treated her like a baby, and that’s why she’s so dependent?”
She nodded.
“Have you noticed,” he said, “that Molly’s getting married? To one man?”
“We’ll see,” she said.
“And that your little sisters been having an affair with a married man in Italy”
“And you think that’s a healthy declaration of independence?”
“Well,” he said, “at least it’s a good story. And it’s just the beginning.” He told her about the book of erotic drawings, and about the auction at Sotheby’s, and he told her about Molly’s adventures too — the dead baby, the King of the Dead, the rhinoceros, the elephant.
Meg didn’t say anything.
“They’re wonderful stories, Meg,” he said. “Imagine finding a book of dirty pictures in a convent and selling it for a quarter of a million dollars so you can set up a trust for the nuns. Imagine shooing away a rhinoceros with a broom. TJ’s mother just walked right up to it and started batting it.” He shook his head in disbelief. “But it’s your story that keeps me awake at night, Meg, do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because a father’s only as happy as his unhappiest daughter, and right now that’s you. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“We’ve got to get you out of here, Pop. That’s what’s going on. Get you back home where you can be near a good hospital. Dan says you shouldn’t be relying on nitroglycerin, that you ought to be taking something for the long run, phenobarbital for anxiety and a blocking agent like propranolol. You can’t stay down here all by yourself. You abandoned ship. You’ve had an adventure. You’ve got a good story to tell. Now it’s time to come back home. You can move into the apartment over the garage, Dan’s already started fixing it up. New hot-water heater. The kids would love it. We would too. And the dogs.”
“You’ve
been holding the dogs for ransom, haven’t you. I should have driven down with the dogs instead of flying.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It just wasn’t possible. Besides, the kids love them.”
“Is this your best offer?” he said.
“I’ll forgive you for saying that, Pop, because I know what’s in your heart. But it’s a good offer. And it comes from my heart.”
“Meg,” he said, not sure what he was going to say. But he didn’t have to say anything, because she interrupted him.
“Oh, Pop,” she said. “Just look at this. Have you seen tonights paper?” She batted the open newspaper with the back of her hand. “This is incredible.”
“The pro-war rally?”
“You knew about it?”
“Just what I heard on the radio this morning.”
“Your local congressman’s announced that he’s introduced a bill to jail professional agitators and flag desecrators.”
They were driving through an area of small truck farms — cabbages, carrots, onions, broccoli, cantaloupe, watermelon, sugarcane, corn, citrus. Small birds crowded the fences and telephone wires, but no crows.
She kept on: “Kill a Commie for Christ Oh, Pop, this is horrible. There’s a picture of a kid wearing a T-shirt that says Kill a Commie for Christ. How can you stand it?”
There was more in the paper, and he let her go on without interrupting. But when they turned in the drive, he asked her, finally, if everything was all right at home.
She shook her head.
‘I’s Dan having an affair?”
She started to cry.
Rudy was back in familiar territory. Now he knew what to do, what to say, knew how to handle the situation. Good advice started to bubble up inside him. But it wasn’t so simple. It turned out that she was the one having an affair, not Dan. She told him the story as she helped him fix supper. This was their traditional mode of discussing matters of importance. They kept their hands busy, wiping mushrooms, slicing them, mincing garlic, washing the last of the lettuce from the garden.
Rudy wondered, as she talked, what she’d think if she knew about his cultural Fridays at Estrella Princesa.
“Look at me, Pop,” she said. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m no better than Mama.”
“No better than Mama? How can you say such a thing? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what to do, Pop.”
“This man … who is he?”
“A civil-rights lawyer. He’s one of the leaders of the antiwar movement in Milwaukee. That’s what I’m doing. Counseling draft resisters, getting the paperwork done for marches and demonstrations.”
“Married?”
She nodded. Rudy took a deep breath. Margot’s married Ital ian was one thing; a married American was something else. “Does Dan know?”
She shook her head.
“Does he suspect?”
“I don’t think so.”
Rudy was at a loss again. He cut little slits in the fat on a couple of pork chops so they wouldn’t curl up when he browned them. Meg dried the lettuce in a salad spinner.
“Now I know what Mama must have gone through in Italy.”
“What do you mean ‘what Mama must have gone through’?”
“Bruno Bruni.”
Rudy was surprised, embarrassed. “I didn’t know Bruno Bruni was public knowledge. Did Mama …”
“No, Pop. Mama never said a word. Margot figured it out. A couple of years later, when she went back to Florence for a year and lived with the Ciprianis. Mama had an affair with Bruni, the man who helped them get settled. I didn’t believe her at first.”
“I didn’t know she knew,” Rudy said. He wanted to tell Meg the truth about the affair, but he didn’t know what the truth was. He’d never been able to pin it down.
“You called from Chicago,” he said, “after you went to Mama’s grave. Were you alone?”
“I was when I called.”
“But in Chicago? Did you go down there with the lawyer?”
She nodded. “We stayed at the Palmer House. He had a meeting.”
“Are you in love?”
“I don’t know, Pop. I don’t understand anything anymore.”
“You know, it’s not the end of the world.”
“It is for me … Don’t be angry, Pop.”
“I’m not angry.”
“I’m an adulteress.”
“But at least you haven’t been taken in adultery.”
She laughed, and then she started to cry again. “Do you remember Laura Chamberlain’s wedding? Laura’s little sister started to sing a solo right at the beginning and then she broke down and cried?”
“I remember.”
“That was okay. She was just overwhelmed. But nobody went up to help her, to put an arm around her. The accompanist kept starting over, and she kept starting to sing and then she’d start crying again. She just stood there and cried, and 1 couldn’t figure out why one of the bridesmaids didn’t go over to her, they were right up there in the front of the church, but they just stood there and let her cry and cry, and finally Mama got up and went up and put her arms around her. 1 feel just like that little girl, Pop.”
And suddenly she is that little girl; she’s fifteen years old and the boy who was going to ask her to her first dance has asked someone else. She’s sitting at the kitchen table. She’s come home from school early Walked home. Stunned. He wants to offer her the conventional wisdom, that there are plenty offish in the sea, that she’ll have plenty of opportunities, that any boy who’d treat her like that wasn’t worth her time anyway … But he doesn’t say any of these things because he knows that they’re like the advice he reads in Ann Landers —good advice as long as you don’t need it, perfectly sensible as long as you don’t have any use for it
“When you stayed at the Palmer House,” he said, “what was it like? Ecstasy?” It was awkward to say things like this, to his daughter, to this beautiful woman. But he wanted to know, and so he said them anyway as he waited for the pasta sauce to cook down a little: zucchini from the garden, sliced thick and cooked in butter and garlic.
“Pop, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to unload on you. I didn’t, really. That’s not why I came down here. What am I going to do? What did you do, Pop?”
“Ecstasy?” he asked again. “Is that what it was?”
She smiled. “I guess so. Pretty close anyway.”
“How often do you get to experience ecstasy?” he said. “I don’t want to damp it down. I don’t want you to damp it down.”
“Pop.” She seemed offended. “My marriage is at stake here.”
She wants me to scold her, he thought, she wants to be punished; but he was determined not to dispense any conventional wisdom, not to punish her, “Everybody wants a little aventura. That’s what they call it in Spanish — a little aventura. It’s perfectly normal. It’s human nature.”
“Do you really believe that, Pop? Is that what Mama wanted? A little aventura?” She was standing at the sink with her back to him.
He drained the pasta, added the sliced zucchini and some Parmesan cheese.
“I don’t know what I believe, Meg. We never talked about it,” he said. “Not really. We should have, but we didn’t. The rector of the American Church in Florence wrote to the dean at Edgar Lee Masters, and the dean called me, asked me to come up to his office. That’s how I found out about it. He said that Mama’d gotten involved with a man who preyed on American women. I was afraid she’d lose her job. I almost wished she would. That’s when I decided to go to Italy”
What he experienced now was the same shame and humiliation he’d experienced in Italy He could feel it in his face and in his neck and in his arms. He didn’t want his daughter to see him like this, but she turned toward him.
“Oh, Pop. Pop. I don’t know what to say.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “And it never evened out? You never …”
“No,” he said. “Well, actually, I
’ve been seeing a woman over in Mexico. Once a week. She’s a lovely woman. You’d like her. But it’s not ecstasy, Meg. It’s comfort, that’s what it is. Comfort. That’s the best I can hope for now. Comfort.”
He served up the pasta and they sat down to supper.
After supper they walked down to the river. It was late, but not quite dark yet. He put his arm around her. “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do,” he said.
“That’s the sort of thing Mama used to say,” she said.
“Let me try again: whatever you do, the feeling will follow.”
“Mama again!” She laughed.
“I’ve got Mama’s fountain pen in my pocket,” he said. He took the pen out of his pocket and showed it to her. It was too dark to read the inscription, but she held it in her hand as they walked.
“Do you wish you’d never found out?” she asked. “About Bruni?”
“No,” he said. “I can’t imagine not knowing.” When they reached the river Rudy turned off the flashlight and they stood in silence, listening to the night sounds: peepers, cicadas, king rails, the wheet wheet wheeeer of the pauraques, the whistle of a screech owl on the other side of the river.
“I suppose,” he said after a few minutes, “if Mama hadn’t had the affair with Bruni, she’d have become someone else. But I didn’t want her to be anyone else. I just wanted her to be who she was.”
“Did you become a different person too, Pop?”
“I guess I did,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“You were a saint.”
He shook his head.
“But who knows about Dan,” she said — a statement, not a question.
“Maybe you’ll find out,” he said, “and maybe you won’t.”
He told her about floating down the river on the anniversary of Helen’s death, the day she’d called from Chicago and told him she’d been seeing a shrink. He told her about letting go and just floating.
Philosophy Made Simple Page 11
