After Gregory

by Austin Wright

  But this child in his letter has discovered the truth of shame, which is another thing. For Jesus knows what lies deep in the heart of every person who loves him, and there he finds shame, a deep perilous grievous feeling. None of you is so pure not to have felt it, and woe if you deny it. (Keep your woe to yourself, Brother Landis, Rome said.)

  Delaware: Look at the Virgin Miranda. Later she’ll go down and take the crutches away from the people in the wheel chairs. They’ll roll the crutches away on a hospital cart.

  Each of you, good people, has known a time when shame rises like a devil, torturing and making you cry out: “I can’t stand myself!” Even I have had such thoughts. (No kidding? Rome said. You should have listened.) And if you are intolerable to yourself, how much more intolerable you must be to God. But folks, listen to God on this matter: the very moment you feel most miserable and repulsive, that’s the moment God’s grace is shining in you. For at that moment you have humbled yourself to judgment. Rejoice in that aboriginal shame, for what is it but God’s own consciousness of sin and hence of God, speaking in you? What is it but pity and gratitude disguised, pity for the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross and gratitude of our souls in shame for requiring such sacrifice? This aboriginal shame, what is it but the origin of our coming together, our church?

  How come I never felt like that? Luigi Pardon said.

  You got no shame, Rome said. Never did, never will. You’re not going to heaven. You’re going to freeze and live forever.

  Delaware: You shouldn’t poke fun. It comforts people, and they take it seriously. If it weren’t for the hokum.

  Shut up.

  Folks, how terrible to have the Lord within you and not to follow Him.

  You’ll have to guess the rest because Jack Rome switched him off. Shoot, Luigi said, now we won’t see The Miranda Miracles.

  According to Jane Delaware, the real reason Jack turned on the television was to look for his former wife and son in the audience. Four years ago they left him to join the Landis Community, a cult in a silver palace in the Adirondack Mountains. This was galling because of what Jack had originally done for Landis—in fact, there would have been no Landis or Landis Community without him. His response was a military operation to kidnap them back, a front page scandal with abductions and brainwashing and professional deprogrammers. Later it was made into a movie called Salvaging God, by the Rome Studios, starring Henry Francis. Unfortunately (though fortunately for Jane Delaware) the deprogramming didn’t take, for Alex and Helen went back to the Community, and now Osgood Landis is suing Jack Rome for kidnapping, libel, and slander. Jack turns on the program when he wants to stir himself up, and he always looks for them in the audience but hasn’t spotted them yet.

  She told you this while you were showing her around the grounds, down beyond the porch through the frozen garden to the white gazebo above the shore, while Rome and Pardon conducted long distance business on your telephone. She knew the relationship between Stephen Trace and Peter Gregory. This suggested trust, and you heard yourself confessing how you had seen Gregory’s children in the park. How sad, she said, defining your emotion as grief. She spoke as if your life were tragic, which was a flattering way to look at things, and you thought therefore she must be your friend.

  *

  Every night your insomnia was full of the wisdom of the ancient world, celebrated and lamented in myth and poetry. It said the past lives ever in the present, crime and guilt will not be left behind, nemesis bides her time without sleep, prophets speak truth. Beware, you know nothing, wisdom said. Those you think wrong may be right, those you think right may be wrong.

  Eventually insomnia reminded you of old murdered Jock Hadley, whose memory you had shoved aside because it made you uncomfortable. Idle old man tilted back on his chair on the front stoop of his bungalow across the street calling at you: Hey mister, come over here. What happened to your wife?

  She left me.

  Serve you right, you son a bitch. Ought to be in jail.

  The ghost of Hadley resuscitated the pale Sebastian ghosts, victims victimizing. Shadows from Gregory, chilling sleep, obscuring the boundary between what was yours and his. Memories so vivid—crash and floodlights and bodies lifted in a stretcher, bodies you (no, he) had killed, and prosecutor and judge and the vow of Never Again—it was hard to remember that Peter Gregory was gone. The voice of Jock Hadley hammered still, Child killer. I know your type.

  Followed by the Hammer Man himself, hammering holes in Hadley’s skull, paying him out with Gregory’s wish. Police lights a second time, floodlight and circular flashers across the second stories on both sides of the street, and yellow police lines marking off the old man’s house, while Gregory coming home from his walk wondered what had happened. He did not know, not yet. Not until Sam Indigo told him the next morning. Remember that. Stephen Trace was afraid of what thinking and unrelated fear could do to a clear memory. A possible danger occurred to you which Stephen Trace’s wealth and new name could not save him from. Only clear and unobstructed memory could do that, and he needed to guard that memory like wealth, even though it was Gregory’s memory, not his.

  TWENTY FOUR

  One bright sloppy day in early March, with melting ice folded into the mud foretelling spring and the ground soaked, in the afternoon a Volkswagen crossed the bridge. Mrs. Heckel called up the stairwell, Lady to see you Steve.

  Lady was a young woman with loose black hair over her coat, studying the stained glass panels beside the front door. She was tall with round and healthy face, brown eyes large like the robin you knew so well. Holding out her hand, Hi Steve, knowing you. You knew her too, after a moment. She was the one at the top of the Rome Building who led you to the deep chair where she asked you please to wait Mr. Rome’ll be right in. Now in your own house under the big curving stairway, saying, Hi there, my name’s Sharon Trace.

  Trace. Like you. Sharon Trace. We’re related.

  I doubt it. She giggled.

  I like your house. I like those stained glass panels. Mr. Rome thought you might have a job for me.

  A job? I don’t have any jobs.

  Sharon Trace in her brown coat in the middle of the hall. You, irritated by Rome’s officiousness, though you liked her looks, her eager big bird eyes, unadorned natural face, as if she had gifts for you. What’s wrong with your present job?

  It’s all right. Can I take off my coat?

  Sure, sorry, come sit down. You went into the living room with its big windows and upholstered Victorian chairs. In Rome’s office she wore black and white dresses; now jeans and a furry blue sweater. Slim.

  Jack Rome said you wanted a wife.

  Such a thing has to be said twice before it can be heard.

  Jack Rome said you wanted a wife.

  Is that the job you’re applying for? Joke. No joke. He suggested I suggest it, she said.

  Sharon Trace. If Stephen Trace marries Sharon Trace, her name will still be Sharon Trace. No one said anything for a while. She, looking at the fireplace, the new antique andirons. You, looking at her untinted lips, eyelashes, loose black hair. Forehead and brain, pale cheek, long fingers, jeans and sweater, intelligence, flesh, skin, and fingernails.

  If you would be interested in a wife or, specifically, me. Looked at him now, the genuine robin’s eye, eye to eye, brown, but though bright and amused, she couldn’t hold it, and in a moment her look slid off under the weight of civilization.

  Spend your life with her. Advice and breakfast. Travel and old age. I don’t know you. You and I, we’re strangers.

  I think that’s the point. I’m to remind you how pioneers in the old west ordered their wives out of the mail order catalogues. Fathers in ancient Russia betrothed their eight-year old daughters to unknown princes and counts on distant estates. Kings gave their daughters to Persian potentates to keep the royal blood pure. I think the idea is, like everything else, we start from scratch.

  Do you want to be my wife?

  I don’t kn
ow. What are your bad habits? Do you smoke? Neither do I. Do you drink? A little before dinner. Already we know a lot about each other. Do you find me attractive?

  She became more attractive as she spoke. Attractive enough for what a husband and wife do in private? Just saying this added to her attraction. You wanted to touch her but not yet. I’m easy to get along with. I’m patient, even tempered, thoughtful. I’m simple, no hangups, good manners. People like me.

  Meanwhile the living room of Stephen Trace’s house had windows on three sides looking out to the glittering Sound, this room with iron fireplace, dark old woodwork, lamps and antique furniture, lavender Victorian chairs where Stephen and Sharon Trace sat, negotiating. You wondered who built it, what families lived in it, what furniture they had.

  A wife is for life. Would you commit your whole life to a stranger? She: But I know you better than you know me. I know something about you no one else knows.

  You heard that, it made everything quiet. What do you know?

  I read your dossier.

  There’s a dossier? The waters of the Sound, sheltered and calm, expand eastward beyond the tip of Long Island where they merge with the westward swells of the Atlantic. There’s a March chill blowing off the Sound. What’s in my dossier?

  Your name. Do you want me to say it? If you know it, yes I want you to say it.

  You heard the p and the g’s and the r’s. They sounded lovely in her voice. No one knows that name. It’s a secret I’m supposed to keep. But you don’t have to keep it from me. Love in the soft voice, sweet promise, the intimacy of knowing all.

  Does Jack Rome know you know? She: I’m the one who typed it for him. He: So you’re the detective who’s been keeping track of me? No honey, I’m only the typist. (Honey.)

  But you know where he gets his information. I don’t know anything. All I ever see are scrawly notes and messy legal sheets and teletyped shreds. Her healthy outdoor face (swimming skiing horseback riding, maybe tennis) should answer all doubts.

  I can’t for the life of me imagine why you’d do this. (Actually you could think of two reasons. One, to spy for Jack Rome. The other, to get her sweet outdoor hands on your money.) She: I recently lost a husband. Relax, it’s nothing to grieve over.

  You guessed (Stephen Trace too) the breasts inside the thick blue sweater were small rather than large, the figure slim, he would enjoy the thighs when the jeans came off. He imagined emotions melting under the lucid calm of her eyes as she leaned over him. It’s absolutely impossible to marry anyone without knowing you much better and longer than I do.

  That’s okay. I’m not suggesting you marry me now. Let me be a candidate. Let me live in the house for a while, you have plenty of rooms. Hang around, eat meals, see how we get along.

  What if I have a date with Genevieve Desmond?

  Tough luck for me. If you don’t like me, kick me out. If I don’t like you I’ll leave.

  It’s my house. I like my privacy. Are you going to make a lot of noise? She: I don’t make noise. Are you going to bring in friends? She: I can manage not to for a while. It’s my house and I make the rules. She: You mean I can move in? Is that what I mean? She: I can move in today if you’d like.

  Wait. Are you thinking of paying rent? She disguised her startle. To make it more regular. She: I wasn’t thinking of rent. I’ll pay rent if you want me to. Also board, are you expecting to eat here? She: Well I was assuming I would. Except for lunch during the week of course.

  That is, you expect free room and board. I’m not sure what you are giving in return. A new tone for Stephen Trace, stern and sarcastic, a possible meanness you had not noticed before.

  I’ll pay if you want me to. I just assumed, in return I’d be wifely for you. Wifely? You mean, what? You expect to take Mrs. Heckel’s place?

  I had supposed a man of your means would not expect your wife to do what Mrs. Heckel does. Am I mistaken?

  Well the fact was, until now you hadn’t given a thought to what was expected of Stephen Trace’s wife. Peter Gregory’s wife had done all Mrs. Heckel’s work, plus a full time job, and did not consider herself a slave. On the other hand, she ended up with Louis the Lover. By her question Sharon Trace defined for the first time what was not expected of Mrs. Trace. The other side of the definition remained open. He: So what do you mean by wifely, then?

  I thought you would welcome company. Someone to talk to. Blah blah blah. You: I don’t want to talk all the time. She: Not necessarily talk. Being there. Confidential, never to part, someone to count on, old age, pain, sickness, death.

  A chartered heart’s ease, a contracted turtle for your phoenix. Okay, if you could overcome this old suspicion about strangers in the house. To guarantee against her stealing, setting fires, murdering you in your sleep. You got references for Mrs. Heckel, should you get a reference for Sharon Trace? Ask Rome: would you trust Sharon in your house? You did not want to bother. If she wanted to move in today you wanted to agree before she changed her mind. All this caution was show, or Peter Gregory, or some other ass masquerading as Stephen Trace.

  Still, the doubts he ought to feel. Again: Why me? Don’t you have friends, boyfriends? Don’t you consider me a bad bet?

  She: Jack Rome and Delaware (Delaware too?) thought it a good idea in our circumstances. If we don’t like each other, thank you, bye bye, no hard feelings.

  I won’t require you to pay room and board, if you’re quiet and don’t make a fuss.

  You must be crazy. Can I move in today?

  *

  Later in the afternoon he told Mrs. Heckel Ms. Trace would be occupying the north bedroom and having meals with them beginning tonight. Ms. Trace, she said. Is that your sista?

  A quick call to Rome through Delaware while Sharon was getting her things to move in. Is Sharon Trace reliable, he asked, can I trust her?

  Why sure she is, he said. She’s every bit as reliable as you.

  That night he took a studied look at himself in the bathroom mirror and was surprised how handsome Stephen Trace was. The beard he had grown in Stephen’s honor was noble, the high forehead enhanced his dignity and repose, his thoughtful intellectual eyes were full of knowledge of the world, humorous and wise. He was pleased by what he saw. No wonder Sharon Trace was attracted.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Stephen Trace’s courtship of Sharon Trace that spring went through three steps.

  The first step was sex and passion. It took a couple of days to get started. Stephen Trace occupied the big south bedroom with views of the water all around, and he put Sharon at the other end of the hall, facing the land. The hall crossed a balcony over the stairwell between their rooms. That first night after he had shut his door, brushed teeth, put on pajamas (with a fugitive memory of sleeping in the woods), he sat by his bed with the light on, the water outside with the red and green channel markers, thinking of Sharon Trace in the other room.

  She thinks he is in here thinking about her body, he thought. She said Good night Mrs. Heckel, and now she is thinking nobody’s in the house but us two. She thinks he is thinking that. She thinks he makes conventional assumptions about what happens in a house occupied by only us two.

  He wondered what she thought of a man who shut himself in his room when there were just us two, man and woman, alone in the house. And the woman a candidate to be his wife. If she was lying in her bed with her clothes off, the lamp on, wondering why he didn’t come. You hadn’t been this sexed up since the river, creating a danger of turning Stephen Trace into a fool. If she was on her bed without clothes and he didn’t come. On the other hand, if he went to her room (as you would expect of a man in such a case), and she, tucked in wool pajamas, cried out, What? Or if, doing what any man not a fool would be expected etcetera, he went to her room and she said, so you’ve decided to marry me.

  Such were the problems facing him the first night as he sat up a long time annoyed because he couldn’t decide what Stephen Trace would do in such circumstances and ended up doing nothing.
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  In the morning he awoke uncomfortable—there’s a visitor in the house—with uncomfortable responsibilities not his fault since he was under no obligation to her. Since she ought to know that, he need not worry lest she be disappointed by his lack of behavior last night. She might even appreciate his being a gentleman.

  When he came down she was eating breakfast and reading the paper. Like a smart young business woman from New York, bright and fresh in a tweed business suit with a navy blue bow. Now he was annoyed, wondering what she expected of him at the breakfast table, but she greeted him cheerily, saying, You don’t have to talk to me, and handing him the business section of the paper. She herself was reading the sports. She said I didn’t expect you down so soon, and showed him the note she had intended to leave:

  Dear ST

  Have gone to work. See you tonight.

  Love, ST

  So off she went to New York, taking the train, while he thought of her gliding around mysteriously in Jack Rome’s glass office above the world. All day “Love, ST” on her note made him feel good, though its didactic thrust irritated him.

  She came home that night at six. He saw her coming on foot down the street from the station, crossing the bridge, click click her heels on the porch. She went up to change, came down in jeans, and they had drinks in an alcove looking through the porch to the red harbor buoy. Mrs. Heckel served dinner, Sharon was famished, she said it was a nice house to come home to, the train ride wasn’t bad, she could tolerate such a life. He asked for her life story. She said her past was boring, and they ended up talking about Yankees and Mets. She was a fan of all the great sports. Baseball basketball football.