by Belva Plain
They were rising from the table, Annette proposing, “Let’s have coffee by the fire, or what’s left of it.”
In the library the fire was barely high enough to cast a pink glow on a wall of books that were themselves a mosaic of soft colors. The coffee service was on a table, along with an enormous heap of chocolate macaroons.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Annette. “Where did these come from?”
“From your old favorite bakery on the East Side,” said Gene.
“Oh, you went there too?” That was Brenda.
“Ours are from there.” That was Daisy.
“We each wanted to be different,” said Ellen.
And then there was more laughter over the macaroons. Annette felt the warmth of all the silliness. Feeling the peace in the room, she watched and listened.
Brenda was examining the portraits. Ellen was showing an album of old photos to Lucy. Daisy was browsing through the bookshelves, and the men, all except Andrew, were in one corner, talking.
“I’m saving,” she heard Mark say, “to buy into an uptown gallery. If I ever get enough together, it will be my dream come true. And I’d still have time to work on my book. I’ve got a publisher somewhat interested.”
Gene remarked that it all sounded very worthwhile.
“Well, it may come true and it may not. Either way, we’re okay, Ellen and I.”
“Can’t you get a loan?” asked Aaron.
“It’s very hard to get one without a good deal of collateral.”
For a few moments the two fathers looked at each other. Then Gene said, “This sounds like something that should be talked over some more.”
“Very definitely,” Aaron agreed. “It’s a pity when a person has a real commitment to something and has to wait forever.”
Lewis, who had been listening, remarked that that was quite true. He himself had lately been missing his own commitment. He had been wanting to get back to it with someone, though on a much smaller scale.
“Not impossible, I should think,” said Gene with a meaningful smile.
“It’s time for bed,” Ellen called. “Lucy’s falling asleep.”
“I think we all are,” said Aaron. “We’ve had a strenuous day, to say the least.”
Annette was the last to turn out the lights and go upstairs. “Look at Mother,” she heard Lewis remark to Gene as she closed her door. “Look at the happiness on her face.”
Oh, yes, she was happy.… Except for Cynthia … All evening she had tried to catch her glance, to convey a message and plea. But plainly, Cynthia wanted to hear no message or plea.
Oh, what is the matter with me? I want perfection, Annette thought as she lay down to sleep. That’s what’s the matter with me. As if this evening has not been enough, I want more. I want it all. And I get so impatient.
* * *
Up and down the hall, around the corner into the wing, which Cynthia could see from her window, all the bedroom doors had been closed for the night. This would be the first time in what seemed like years that she would be sleeping under the same roof as Andrew was. It came also to her mind that the first time they had both slept under this particular roof was the night of the party that Gran had given for them when they returned from their wedding trip.
It would be far better now to forget all that. Yet there were hours in every human being’s life that refused to be obliterated: times of unspeakable horror like today’s, or else times like the one in the photograph, so beautifully framed, that Gran, for some reason known only to her, had placed on the chest of drawers in this room. There they were, Andrew looking unfamiliar in the traditional black morning coat and striped trousers; she in clouds of white silk with ushers and bridesmaids ranked on either side, all smiling, and he and she so happy that the happiness had bubbled up and wet their eyes. She stood now in the light of the bedside lamp, staring at the picture.
What innocence—summer, flowers, and a bottle of champagne in the room, kisses and joy forever after. Thank God that we never know what will happen to us tomorrow, to say nothing of any farther future. We had all the smiles and approval, we had everything, while Ellen and Mark had to sneak away to flee the storms.
She went to the window. The sleet had ceased, so that the pond was clearly visible, gleaming out of the dimness like a coin found on a dusty street. And the whole evil scene reenacted itself: Ellen’s anguish, her mother stripping her skirt off, Andrew on the brink, hauling the rope, the abandoned baby crying on the grass … The whole scene.
Afterward there beside the fire and then later at dinner, I should have been at one with them in relief and thankfulness. In my heart, of course, I was, yet in my heart there was also something that kept me apart like a stranger watching a drama. You hear a tragic story and tears come to your eyes because you are human, a decent human being who feels a deep compassion, but still you are alone.
Pushing the curtain aside, she saw that clouds were slowly breaking apart and receding. Tomorrow might even be sunny. They would leave here as early as possible. Then her parents should return to Washington as soon as possible. She was not angry at them; she was only, and undeniably, hurt. And she thought again that they need not have been so cordial to Andrew. I’m going back to work, she thought. That’s all I need. Work.
It was early yet, too early to sleep, but she had brought two books and could read comfortably in bed. This house, although it had never been her actual home, had always had the feel of a second, or other, home. Gran had a talent for giving comfort. In this room with its wide bed that was probably a hundred years old, the reading lamp was perfect, the down quilt was light, and there was a tiny flowering plant in a pot on the windowsill.
Tired as Cynthia was, she took a quick shower, laid out her clothes for the morning, and put on a warm bedjacket over her chiffon nightgown. These articles, she reflected as she put them on, came from a life, or rather parts of a life, that had been spent with a husband and a career. Now both of these had been left behind.
She had not been reading for very long when somebody, no doubt Gran, who often liked a short evening chat, tapped on the door. Most likely, too, Gran would be seeking reassurance of her forgiveness for today’s “little trick.” Poor Gran, who believed she could right everyone’s wrongs. Smiling at the thought, Cynthia got up and opened the door.
“May I come in?” Andrew whispered.
“What are you thinking of?” she replied in a furious whisper. “No, you may not come in.”
“Please, Cynthia. I already am halfway in.”
She had opened the door wide, and indeed, he was so far into the room that she was unable to close it. Now Andrew closed it firmly and stood leaning against it.
“What are you doing? Taunting me because I can’t make an outcry?”
“Make one if you want to. You have the right. I am, after all, invading your room. Only, it might seem rather odd, since technically I am still your husband and have my right to be in your room.”
“Macho man. Very funny. Go on. Say what you want and get out.”
He was looking her up and down. “I remember that nightgown. My favorite color, sky-blue.”
She wanted to slap from his face its unreadable expression, a mix of sorrow and plea.
“You’re disgusting. Go on, take full male advantage of the fact that you’re seven inches taller and weigh sixty pounds more than I do. Go on, it’s typical.”
“Ah, Cindy, haven’t we had enough of this? It’s time to get over it. Long past time.”
“Is this what you’ve come to tell me? You’re wasting your energy and mine. I’m in the middle of a good book.”
“Please, listen to me. I was as shocked as you were when we met here today. I’d given up trying to communicate with you after a policeman stopped me for loitering at your—and our—front door. Well, to be accurate, I had almost given up. So when Gran invited me today, I thought that maybe she had some news for me, some good news.”
“It’s too late for good new
s.”
“Why is it too late? I should think that after what we’ve been seeing here today, you’d realize that it’s never too late.”
“For you and me, it is,” she repeated.
“Don’t include me, Cindy. When I saw you holding Freddie today, I remembered—”
“I know too well what you remembered. And I have that, too, and more than that, to remember.” She wanted to hurt him, and in a strange, perverse way of which she was entirely aware and was unable to explain, she wanted to feel the hurt herself.
Andrew sat down. For a few minutes he bowed, holding his head in his hands, not speaking. He looks white, he looks thinner, she thought. He looks beaten, sitting there like that. Yet she still wanted to hurt.
“You’re bringing it all back,” she said, breaking the silence. “It’s indecent to do this to me. Haven’t you done enough?”
“That silly woman—do you think she meant anything, for God’s sake? I don’t even remember her name, if I ever knew it. I wouldn’t recognize her if I were to fall over her now.”
“You’ve told me that a few times before, I think. Are you going to leave this room, or are you going to sit here all night? I’m freezing, and I want to go back to bed.”
“I’m not leaving, Cindy. I’ll sit here all night if I have to. Go back to bed if you’re cold.”
“Back to bed with you in the room? You must be out of your mind!”
“Go. I’m not going to touch you. I don’t attack women. That’s not my thing.”
“Really? That’s interesting.”
In the bed again, Cynthia drew up the quilt and propped the book against her raised knees.
“How could you have?” she burst out.
“Cindy … I make no excuse. I guess in that crazy moment I just needed to feel alive again. I’d been dead for so long.”
“You had? And I? What had I been?”
“Dead too. But I believe, I hope, that if you had done what I did, I would forgive you.”
Yes, dead, she thought. We had not made love for more than half a year. When your heart is broken, what’s left of you breaks too.
“I make no excuse,” he resumed. “I say again that I wronged you terribly, and I’m sorry. Yes, I was a little bit crazy.”
“Dead and crazy at the same time? Very unusual.”
He got up and stood by the bed. White and thin, she thought again, like me. This has wrecked us both.
“You saw what happened today, and what else could have happened,” he said. “The world is a dangerous place. But we don’t stop living because it is.”
“A noble philosophy,” she answered bitterly.
“What else can I say, then, except ask you to try again?”
“I can’t.” She was trembling. “I can’t go back to what there was before. Now let me sleep. Will you go now?”
He shook his head.
“What are you going to do? Sit up all night?”
“No. I shall sleep on the floor.”
“Damn you. I’m going to turn off the light.”
For a long time she lay awake. The hurt in her chest grew with the suffocating weight of memories: the twins, the agony, the betrayal.
The clock on the stair landing chimed once. One o’clock. She had perhaps dozed for a little while; it was often impossible to distinguish between true dreams and waking dreams. There was no sound in the room, not even a rustle. He had probably crept away while she dozed. She reached to the lamp and turned it on.
There he lay, asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. He had removed his jacket and, in his fastidious way, much like her own, had hung it over the back of a chair. The room was too cold to be lying there on the floor in his shirtsleeves. From the easy chair in the corner she took an afghan, most likely one of those that Gran’s mother had knitted, and laid it over him.
He did not wake. She stood there looking at him. He lay perfectly straight, flat on his back, as people lie in their coffins. The wedding ring was gone from his left hand; it had been his idea to have a double-ring ceremony. He needed a shave. By the end of the day he always needed another shave.
It was odd to think that she was the only person in the whole world who knew everything about him, or as much as you can ever know about another human being. She knew that his eyes filled whenever there was a lost dog in a book or a movie. She knew that he carried a toothbrush in his attaché case, and that in private, at home, he often ate with his fingers.
An entirely illogical swell of pity moved in her throat.
I heard him get up, said Marian. I heard him walk across the room and fall. Then she said something like: We wasted so much time.
You have been too proud, Annette said.
And Aaron quoted, “A man’s pride shall bring him low.”
Shivering in the chill, she kept standing there.
Damn you. She was so angry. Damn you, she said without making a sound, while tears rolled down her cheeks.
In his sleep he must have become aware of her presence, for he opened his eyes, blinking into the lamplight. Startled then, he sat up.
“Is there anything wrong?”
“I covered you, that’s all.”
He was looking at her tears, while she looked at his hands. They were blistered and raw.
“Your hands,” she said.
“Rope burns. It’s nothing.”
“Have they been like that all day? Why didn’t you ask for something?”
“I don’t know. It seemed unimportant with so much else happening.”
“I have no Vaseline, but face cream should help for the time being.”
He got up, sat on the bed, and stretched out his hands. Her tears were still brimming, while, with soft fingertips, she anointed them.
When she was finished, he gave her a long, steady look, and took her into his arms.
“Damn you,” she said, and began to laugh.
“We’ll begin again, Cindy. We can have everything again. Believe me. Everything. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Darling, turn out the light. We’ve waited so long.”
A December sky, thought Annette, can be as deeply blue as any sky in May. So it was, in the morning as the house emptied out. In the front hall after breakfast they were gathering their coats and possessions.
“I was thinking,” Gene whispered, “about your friend Marian. You may think this is foolish, but you know, in a certain way, she reminds me of Susan.”
“Not foolish at all. A little tartness and a lot of sweetness. Yes, I see the resemblance.”
“Perhaps I will give her a call sometime. Invite her to the theater or something.”
Rather touched and a little amused by her son’s apparent shyness, Annette replied quickly, “Of course. Why not?”
They were loading the cars. Lewis and Daisy were to drive back together, while Cynthia was to go with Andrew. You had only to look at those two to know that they had slept together. Nevertheless, Cynthia, wanting to make sure that she knew, had hugged her and whispered, “Thanks,” in her ear.
Annette had winked. “Okay?”
“Yes, Gran, very okay.”
And so they all departed. She stood watching them roll down the driveway and down the road until they were out of sight. Turning, then, to look back up at the house, she was reminded of Robert Frost’s lines: Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Well, none of my people had to come here; it’s I who wanted to take them in. And she wondered whether it needed a tragedy to make people value the treasures of home and love. I hope not, she answered herself, but maybe, sometimes, it does.
Back in the library she paused before her husband’s portrait.
“Well, Lewis,” she said aloud, “we’ve had a few troubles since you left us. They’re straightened out now, you’ll be glad to know. Oh, I’m not naive enough to think, for instance, that Gene and Aaron will become close, dear friends; their ways and paths are too far apart for that. But at lea
st they accept each other now, so when they meet it will seem natural, and the children will not suffer from the poison of anger. And our sons are together again, thank God. Thank Him for Ellen and Lucy, for Andrew and Cynthia. Thank Him for everything.”
Outdoors, ice was dripping glitter from the trees, and the sun was brightening toward noon. The day was splendid.
“Come, Roscoe, let’s take a walk,” she said. “Come, boys. I’ll get my coat. Let’s go.”
Enjoy the following excerpt from
Belva Plain’s captivating new novel,
LEGACY OF SILENCE.
Available now in hardcover
from Delacorte Press
PROLOGUE
My mother’s lover said, “How beautiful you are! You look like Rebecca at the well.”
Did I dream that, she asked herself. My mother, Caroline, died before I was old enough to know her. And Eve almost never talked about Caroline’s lover. More likely, as I think back, it was Lore who told it to me.
She told me how alike they were, Eve and Caroline, with their black exotic eyes, and only twenty years between them, so that although they were mother and daughter, they were often thought to be sisters.
The worlds in which they began their lives could not have been farther apart. One was a stolid, dependable town near the shores of Lake Erie, while the other was Europe, bleeding its way toward war. In the end, these worlds with their secrets came together, woven into a coat of many colors, as my mother’s lover might also have said.
PART ONE
1938
CAROLINE
ONE
The house, built of creamy stone, was square and substantial, made, as in all of Berlin’s prosperous suburbs, to endure forever. Its tall, narrow windows overlooked in various directions a sloping park across the avenue, elms, horse chestnuts, houses, hedges, and gardens; in its own garden, at the center, a rose bed had a sundial on a marble pedestal.
Here Caroline, while her poodle, Peter, lay under her chair, had often used to read or do her lessons. Now though, in 1938, there were to be no more lessons and no more examinations, for the university was closed to her, and her sole present problem was simply to decide what skill would be most practical for an emigrant. She was eighteen, but she felt much older, and she was much older because people age in times of fear and danger.
