Harvest

by Belva Plain

  “No, not tonight. I’ll be quite late coming home.”

  That for Theo! Let him keep wondering for another few days. Thinking so, in haste and distraction, she forgot to take Jordaine’s gift. Well then, next time, she thought, startling herself with her easy, positive assumption that there would be a next time.

  The blood pounded in her ears; a tiny fear leapt in her chest and lodged there until she stifled it.

  The wine went to Iris’s head and her face burned.

  “I get so red,” she apologized.

  “Never mind. It’s becoming. Are you having fun?”

  “How could I not? I’m living dangerously.”

  “For the first time in your life, I’ll bet.”

  “I’m drunk,” she said.

  The champagne bottle resting in its nest of ice was almost empty.

  “Not at all. You’re feeling a pleasant glow, that’s all.”

  That was true. All around them, in this luxurious, cushioned space sparkling with flowers, sat couples equally sparkling and luxurious. She wondered how many of them might be clandestine couples, like herself and Jordaine. If any were, they certainly didn’t seem bothered by it, for they were filling the room with their chatter and bright laughter.

  Victor was observing her with a mixture of interest and amusement. “Talk some more. I like to hear you.”

  “What about? Anything special?”

  “Just about yourself. Your family. After all, there’s nothing more fascinating than people.”

  She had been telling him, or actually answering his questions, about her ancestors.

  “Jewish,” he had said.

  “Oh, yes. But you’re not.”

  “No. We’re from every corner of Europe, a little Italian, some German, a touch of Greek—you name it. Tell me some more about your father,” he said now.

  She sensed that in part he was simply interested in knowing, because he had a sophisticated curiosity about things, and that in part he wanted to ease the conversation for her. Also, she remarked to herself, he had the subtle perception to understand that she did not want to say anything about her husband.

  “Well, my father—I loved him very, very much. He was kind and wise. He wasn’t educated, just self-taught. He made himself, really, starting with nothing. He was a builder. Some of the best prewar apartment houses in the city were his until he lost them during the Depression,” she finished ruefully.

  “An interesting business, building.”

  “Oh, I think so. One can actually see and touch one’s results. And what do you do, Victor?”

  “No one thing. I’m an investor. International investments. That’s what keeps me moving about. More coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “What I want is a brandy. I’ve got some fine old stuff in my place, so let’s go up. You may like one too, when you taste it.”

  Startled, she questioned. “Go up? But I have to get my train.”

  “Why, it’s only eight o’clock. People are just starting dinner. There’s plenty of time. I want you to see the view from up there. It’s a spectacle.”

  Obediently, Iris followed. Odd thoughts popped like small explosions in her brain. I follow because I have the habit of obedience. No, it’s because I can’t be rude, can’t eat the marvelous dinner and then walk away. No, I follow because he will be furious with me if I don’t.… But why should I care whether he’s furious or not? No, I follow because I have embarked on this cruise and must stay on until it ends.

  All the way up in the elevator, a little cage like a jewelry box, she trembled. They stood so close that she could smell his shaving lotion, which was spicy, tart, and aphrodisiac. Or more likely, it was all the champagne running warm inside that weakened her limbs.

  She was still trembling when they entered the apartment. Through swimming, dazzled eyes she saw a vast and lavish room, all white and emerald. The carpet was a snowfield, and there were white flowers on tables with marquetry tops. An illuminated cabinet of some rare wood, as long as the end wall, was filled with shining objects. There were large, vivid paintings, among which she recognized a Matisse.

  Jordaine was studying her reaction. “Like it?”

  Extravagance like this was beyond her experience. It was assuredly too ostentatious for her taste, but she was nevertheless impressed and could only nod, murmuring, “I’ve never seen anything so splendid.”

  “I had everything brought from Europe. Come, see the view.”

  Below lay the city and its rivers, the whole set forth like spangles on a dark cloth. She stood for a few moments as overawed as if she had never been this high above it or seen it this way before, although she had done so many times. He was breathing heavily just behind her shoulder, and his body seemed to be exuding heat. If she were to turn around, she would be pressed against him, and she dared not move, but stood there still looking down at the long northward reach of Park Avenue, while waiting for whatever was to come next.

  Then he put both hands on her shoulders and turned her about so that she was pinned against him thigh to thigh.

  “You’re afraid,” he said.

  “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re afraid because it’s forbidden.”

  He put his mouth down on hers, a soft, persistent mouth, hot with the fruity smell of wine. His persistent, skillful hands moved over her softly … softly.… All was drift, all was flow.

  His voice was hypnotic: “More. More.” Her head sank down on his shoulder. Her knees refused to hold.

  After long minutes he broke abruptly away, saying, “Go into the bedroom. I’ll wait. But hurry.”

  He opened a door and again she followed. Here in another spacious room was a vast bed covered in pale flowered silk. A tall rococo mirror in a gilded frame faced the bed. In a corner one lamp was lit, drawing an arc of pink light upon the wall; the only other light came from the sky-glow at the windows, where the curtains were drawn back.

  She stood quite still, looking at the bed. Her eyes moved to a bedside chair on which a woman’s robe of finely pleated pink chiffon had been laid. She understood that she was expected to undress and wear it till he should come in and take it off.

  She bent down to remove a shoe, but the sight of the robe stayed her hand. Then she looked back at the bed. Its long, low headboard took the shape of a giant’s grimace, and this illusion frightened her. Was she losing her mind? What was she doing in this place, in this bed?

  And as if she had been injected with some stiffening potion, all the heat and all the softness left her body; cold and rigid, she kept standing there, not moving from the spot, just staring.

  This couldn’t be Iris in this place.… She was frozen, unable to move or think except to sense vaguely that she must get away yet not knowing how to get away. Her mouth was dry, her palms sweating. She felt terrified and, at the same time, ridiculous.

  There came a knock at the door. When she did not answer, the knock was repeated. Then the door opened, and Jordaine stood naked in the doorway. The sight repelled her. It wasn’t plausible that only a few minutes before, in the other room, she could have desired the man. Yet it was so.

  “What? What’s the matter?” he demanded.

  Her lips quivered. “I—I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t? What the hell do you mean?”

  Her eyes filled with tears of shame. “I don’t know. I made a mistake. I thought—”

  “Yes? I’m really interested. I’d really like to know what you did think.”

  “Don’t be angry. Please don’t.”

  “I said—don’t you listen?—I said I want to know what you thought this was all about.”

  “I thought—I guess I didn’t really understand myself.”

  Jordaine’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “No, I guess you didn’t,” he said in a nasal voice rough with contempt. “I didn’t know there were women like you anymore. You’re a hundred years behi
nd the times. Oh, I sized up your type, of course I did, but it’s a matter of degree. You! You belong in a goddamn museum.”

  Iris gave him a look of piteous fear. The man was in a fury. He was blocking the door, and she was trapped. When he took a step toward her, she recoiled.

  “Ah, get the hell out, you little fool!” he cried. “What do you think I’m going to do to you? Rape you or beat you up? No, I don’t need that sort of publicity. Get the hell out, I said, and be quick about it.”

  When she fled, he gave her an extra shove through the outer door so that she stumbled and struck her cheekbone on the opposite wall. Then he slammed the apartment door behind her.

  Once out of the elevator, she ran as fast as her three-inch heels would allow. Park Avenue under the gold, squared-off top of the Pan Am Building was busy with strollers and prosperous-seeming people climbing in and out of taxicabs, going about their various, sensible affairs. Only one drunken derelict came weaving sadly out of a side street; he and I, she thought, are both out of place in this scene.

  Incredible as it was, for her wrath at Theo had not abated, she was nevertheless running home to his protection. It was only because of him that, at the moment of decision, the man who had been until then desirable had become an impossibility. It was only he who, from the day she had met him, had ever appeared in any of her erotic dreams. Chastity or naïveté, call it what one would, she was addicted to Theo. And in her trouble she needed only him.

  Her heart began a violent beating that seemed to resound in her ears. How would she be feeling now if the thing that had begun tonight in that fantastic white-and-emerald room had gone to completion? And where else might it have led? She imagined herself facing her sons and her young daughter.…

  Humiliation stung. And it all came of having a conscience. It came of having parents like hers. Imagine either one of them … No, it could not be imagined.

  But it had happened to her! So quick, so easy it was to do what one had no original intention of doing. Yet hadn’t I secretly had the intention? she asked herself. I had been playing about with the idea of vengeance, of showing Theo.…

  No, she dared not be as angry at him as she had been only a few hours ago. And never, never would she tell him about today; in him, because he was male, there would be no forgiveness. Fair or not, this was simply a fact of life. But as soon as she got home, she would talk to him quietly, reasonably, and in the end, once having told him the reason for her cold fury—even lovingly. Not right away, but soon. Yes, she would tell him, I will put it all past if you will do what is right from now on. Yes, she would say that.

  The conductor was calling her station. The train stopped with a screech of iron, and she stepped down into the hot smell of cinders that had lain all day in the sun. Half a dozen people got off, found their cars in the almost empty parking lot, and drove away. Iris’s car was at the far end, the last one, parked under a light pole. When she saw that Theo was standing next to it, she speeded her steps, prepared to give greeting, until, coming nearer, she saw that he was in a high, serious temper.

  “Where were you, Iris? I’ve been worried sick. I have to know.”

  The words “have to” affronted her. “You don’t ‘have to’ know anything about me.”

  “I’m your husband, Iris, angry or not. Last night, the night before last, then the night before that. Anything could have happened to you! What’s going on? Come, get in the car and let’s talk about it.”

  “I’ll get in the car because it’s too long a walk home. That’s the only reason I will, not because you ask me to. What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I took a cab to the station. I was going to wait here until the last train came in and then I was going to call every person in the city who might have a clue for me. All of this because I refused to fly out to Chicago! Okay, you’ve made your point.” Even in the sickly light from the lamppost Theo’s face was dark with distress. “Now, tell me, where have you been, running around all dressed up with your jewelry on, alone at this time of night?”

  Where I’ve been, she thought. I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for you in the first place; it’s your doing; you drove me to it.

  He was waiting for an answer. But she was cornered and utterly unable to think of one.

  “Have you been meeting a man?”

  She gave a short laugh. This was such a reversal! It was also the triumph she had envisioned, and yet there was no sensation of proud triumph, only this queer, bitter comedy.

  “What the hell are you laughing at? Have you?”

  “I’m going to let you worry about that so you’ll know how it feels, how I’ve felt.”

  He groaned. “Oh, my God! Are we going to dredge up ancient history again? How long is it—seven years, eight years?”

  “Try one week,” she said.

  She met his eyes, fastening his startled gaze with her defiant one, until at last he lowered his.

  “You were at the office,” he murmured.

  “Yes. I went there to tell you,” she said in a breaking voice, “that I was sorry we’d had words and how much I loved you. Then I saw you come out with her, I saw you kiss her, I saw—”

  “Oh, my God,” Theo said again.

  He reached for the hand that lay on Iris’s lap, but she drew it away.

  “Will it do any good if I try to explain what happened?”

  “Not much. I’m just as well off not knowing the details of your love affairs.”

  “Oh, Lord. That was as far from being a love affair as—as—Listen to me, I haven’t ever had a love affair since we were married. I’ve done a few stupid things, and this was the most stupid of all. She came in—”

  Iris clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear what you did. Do you think I don’t know? ‘My wife thinks I’m working late, isn’t that a good one?’ Yes, the two of you laughing away at your fool of a wife! ‘She’s a fine little woman, my wife, and I don’t want to hurt her, but you and I are different, darling, you give me—’ ”

  “Wrong, wrong! I never spoke two words to her before that night, much less talked about my wife. I haven’t seen her since, and I don’t intend to see her ever again. The woman’s a zero to me. Zero. Do you hear?”

  “Now you’re going to tell me that I didn’t see what I saw.”

  “Yes, you saw it, but it meant nothing. She—”

  “Next you’re going to tell me nothing happened in that office where all the lights were out and—”

  “I could lie or try to, anyway, but you wouldn’t believe me, so here’s the truth: I don’t know how it happened. It was one of those crazy things, five crazy minutes, after which I hated myself.”

  She had a clear, blinding picture of those five minutes, of him whom she knew so well, of him avid and searching, of his secret ways.… And now this woman, a woman whom she might so easily encounter on the street or in a store, a woman unknown to her, Iris, but who would know who Iris was, had the same intimate knowledge of the man that the wife had. It was unbearable. Unbearable!

  “Oh, you disgust me!” she cried. “I can’t stand being next to you on this seat. You’re foul, you’re rotten!”

  She opened the door. Theo slid over and grasped her, but wrenching her skirt away, she got out and slammed the door behind her. And a terrible cry filled the air, a cry like nothing Iris had ever heard in all her life, and she turned to see him bent over on the seat, bowed almost to the floor of the car, clutching his hands.

  Then it flashed. He was reaching to pull me back when I, not knowing, slammed the door on his hand.

  She ran around the car and got into the driver’s seat stammering, “What? What?”

  The words coming through gritted teeth were barely audible. “My fingers. Hospital.”

  In her terror her own teeth chattered. She drove like mad, watching the road and watching Theo. He was holding his head down to keep from vomiting or fainting; she knew that, and remembered, too, that the
fingertips were the most sensitive parts of the body. He was stifling his moans. Macho, male pride in bravery, it was, and this cut her to the heart.

  He went stumbling into the emergency room. A nurse came forward, greeting him in surprise: “Dr. Stern!” and then saw, with horrified, comprehending eyes.

  They took him away into the depths of the hospital, into places unknown to Iris. As if she were paralyzed, she sat unmoving on the straight wooden chair. In a kind of fog she was aware that people were running and gathering, that people were being telephoned for on Theo’s behalf. All of this was out of her hands. There was nothing for her to do but wait. She was aware in an odd way that she was not having coherent thoughts. People were coming and going—a drunkard, a man with a bee sting, a baby with a fever—in a thin, steady stream. She couldn’t think about them. She couldn’t think clearly about Theo. She wished there were a place to lie down in, a hidden place where there wouldn’t be any guilt about not thinking.

  After a while a nurse came over to her.

  “They’ve taken the doctor to the operating room, Mrs. Stern. It’ll be awhile.”

  Iris raised her eyes, which had been closing.

  “What doctor?” she asked.

  “Why, Dr. Stern,” the woman said gently.

  “Operate? I thought—”

  “The damage is quite extensive. Dr. Bayley’s come in. Mrs. Stern, do you feel all right?”

  “Yes.… Stupid of me … not knowing whom you were talking about, I mean.”

  The woman took Iris’s elbow. “Come. You can wait in one of the doctors’ offices upstairs. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No. No, thanks. It wouldn’t go down.” Operating. Not just bleeding and bandages. “Is it so bad, then?” she asked, following the white back through corridors.

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll know what to do. Dr. Bayley’s outstanding in microsurgery. I’m sure you know about him.”

  Iris didn’t. Now every nerve in her head was waking up. Microsurgery meant attaching parts that had been severed.

  “Dr. Bayley’s outstanding,” she repeated.

  “Oh, my, yes!” The nurse gave Iris a keen look. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”