by Belva Plain
It was quite still, except for the long chirp and hum of cicadas, which was so unbroken that it seemed almost like a stillness. And the graying twilight was so mysterious that there was sadness in it. He had to break the stillness.
“Have you come from far?” he asked abruptly.
When she looked up, he was surprised to see that her eyes were wet. But she smiled politely, answering, “From the Valley. That’s Los Angeles, in case you didn’t know.”
“I’ve heard. I’m from Westchester. That’s New York, in case you didn’t know.”
“I’ve heard.”
Then he couldn’t think of anything to say. His tongue was tied. A minute went by, and he knew he had to say something, so he said, “My sister likes animals too. Dogs, mostly.”
“Is she nice, your sister?”
“Yes, but different from you.”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen. And you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Oh.”
Another minute went by. Then he asked whether she went to school.
“I have my high school diploma. I wanted to go to college, but I left home instead.”
He knew that she wanted to talk, that she needed to, but was shy of unburdening, of blurting out to a stranger, perhaps fearing to embarrass or to bore him. So he spoke with particular gentleness.
“I’d like to hear about it, if you’d like to tell me.”
“It’s a disgusting story.”
“That depends on who hears it. I might not think it is.”
“Well, all right. My parents got divorced three years ago. My father went to Florida or someplace, I don’t know. Anyway, we never hear from him. Not that my mother cares. She has plenty of money of her own.”
“Do you care?”
“Why should I?”
“I suppose you shouldn’t.” Strange, he thought, her father just walking off like that while his father held everyone so tightly. Tight enough to strangle, almost. “But why did you leave?” he asked.
She looked away, out where gray was turning to black on the grass. “The house didn’t seem—it wasn’t mine. My mother had men—different ones all the time. A week with this one, and then another one.” Her voice was a little hoarse, which oddly enough was pleasing to Steve’s ears, a voice one would remember. “I could hear them all night, even with my door shut. I could hear everything through the walls. Sometimes there were two at a time. And there were women too. Parties.” She turned back to Steve. “I hated it. Sex shouldn’t be like that.”
“You don’t think it should be free? Like food and drink that one takes when one is hungry or thirsty?”
“No. There’s got to be more to it than that,” she said, in a kind of astonishment at his question.
Her face, turned up to his, was too thin and her eyes too enormous to be called beautiful and yet it was a face one would remember. He sought words: wistful, delicate, intelligent, charming.…
And he saw that she was honest, no prig, no rigid moralizer from the bourgeois world, but merely an innocent who believed in what she was saying. He saw, too, that she was afraid. So he asked her how she had happened upon Peace Farm.
“There was an article in a magazine, something about places where you can work just for your keep, not for money, and it sounded so wonderful. Where I come from, there’s always been so much money.”
“I know what you mean. Money and things. Too many things.”
“Yes. I want to empty my mind of them. Of having to say or do or having to have. I want to clear my mind.”
It was by now quite dark. With common intent they both stood up. The girl took the box with the sleeping kitten, the tiny dish of milk, and the medicine dropper.
“It will probably wake in the night and be hungry,” she said.
When she moved, he thought he could smell her hair, or perhaps it was her skin. It smelled fresh and pure as hay.
“Susan B.,” he heard himself say, “you’re a lovely person.”
The next afternoon he went looking for her in the barn. He could just say, he told himself, that he was curious about the kitten. Then he scoffed at himself for planning an excuse; this wasn’t his usual way with women! Anyhow, she was just an interesting kid, a—a type.
“She’s in the separator room,” someone told him. “Jerry’s put her to work there.”
This room, in which stood a simple machine that skimmed the cream off the milk, was near the cow barns. There Steve found her, with head bent in attention and braids dangling, as Jerry explained the work.
He’s standing too close to her, he’s touching her. That was his first thought, followed at once by awareness that such thoughts were bizarre. It was no business of his where the man stood. A man was free to stand or to touch just as he liked. Everyone was free.
“You won’t believe it, but the kitten’s actually gotten lively overnight,” said Susan. “I’ll show you. Is it all right if I get it now?” she asked Jerry.
“Sure. We’re finished here.”
When she had left the room, Jerry said, “Pretty kid. Sort of bewildered. Scared of something.” He laughed, winking at Steve. “Maybe she just needs a little loving.”
Steve did not answer. An unaccountable sudden anger at Jerry rose in him, and he heard himself saying inwardly, Not from you. Not your red, hairy arms and chest, not your wet lips. It was strange because, as it happened, he liked Jerry.
The unwelcome image of that body persisted all the rest of the day, and in the evening he sought Susan to ask her something.
“Where are you sleeping, Susan B.?”
“In the big house, in what used to be the library.”
He nodded. The whole first floor was used for the overflow from the bedrooms, for mothers and babies mostly, whose cradles and sleeping bags strewed the grand spaces, music rooms, a billiard room, and a wide wraparound veranda.
“But Jerry’s offered me a place for myself. It’s just a cubby on the third floor that used to be a maid’s room, he said, but it’s really nice, much quieter.”
Jerry said that, did he? As fast as that? Oh, no!
“Susan B., have you got a warm outdoor sleeping bag? If you haven’t, I’ll get one for you.”
“I have one. Why?”
“I think you should sleep on the front veranda in the corner. It’ll be warm enough, and private enough, but not too private. It’s not a good idea to be too private.”
For a moment she was silent. Then, “What are you telling me? Are you telling me what I think you are?”
She was a kid, all right, but not naive, after all. How could she be, really, after what she had seen at home?
“Yes,” he said simply.
“I see. Thank you for letting me know.”
“It’s a good place here, you mustn’t think it isn’t. It’s just that we all share everything. Everything, you understand?”
“You too, Steve?”
He nodded. “On the theory that to possess any human being exclusively is wrong.”
“Even if the person wants to be possessed?”
“Ah, Susan B.! Give me time to think of the answer to that one, will you?”
When he had seen her bring her sleeping bag down and prepare for the night, he left her. And all the way back up past the orchard to his own place, he was puzzled about himself. Since yesterday, he had known who was to be his partner for this night, and now all at once, he didn’t want her. It had been so good with her too, easy and happy as it had once been with Lydia, whom he scarcely thought about, any more than he thought about a dozen others. Too bad, but he really had lost the mood tonight. The girl would just have to accept some excuse.
So it happened. Steve didn’t recognize himself. He remembered innumerable conversations with Jimmy, and how absurd his brother had seemed with all his talk about “going steady” and being in love with his girl, Janet. It had seemed like an affectation, almost, something that people in this society had been reared to believe they
ought to feel. It had been constricting, like being tied up and labeled. Now—now for the first time he wasn’t sure.
But after a month or two he knew he had to believe what was happening to him. The days passed, the kitten thrived and grew to be indistinguishable from all its sibling tiger-stripes who ringed the milk pan in the barn. The grass beneath the eucalyptus tree was worn down where he and Susan B. talked the evenings away. He told her everything about himself, even, after a while, about the dangerous things he had done with Tim’s group. Also, eventually he came to do the thing that had been strictly forbidden: He gave her Powers’s name.
“Because I trust you,” he said that night.
“You can,” she answered.
“You understand me,” he said. “You understand why I did what I did and why I am here now.”
“I do,” she answered.
And one night he told her he loved her.
She smiled. “I know that, Steve. And I loved you, I trusted you, from the very first day.”
Strange, he was thinking as he took her in his arms, I hadn’t planned to say that; the words came out by themselves. And he thought as he held her, so light, so warm, so fragrant, that his feelings, rising from hammering heart, to throat, to the joining of his mouth on hers, were all new, not anything he had ever known before.
Yet for almost a month he did no more than kiss her. She was not yet ready; slowly, slowly, he was moving toward the time when she would be ready for more. This was no “fun” affair, and it was not to be taken lightly. He did not reason these things out, he simply knew them and could not do otherwise, any more than, at this point, he could have agreed that possession of another human being is wrong. Now he knew that possession, full and forever, was the only way for himself and her.
At last he came to the sleeping bag on the veranda. It was deep night, pure black and soundless, but she was wide awake. When he found her face in the dark, he felt her smile beneath his fingertips. The wind from out of the hills was cold on his naked skin, yet within the soft bag her naked skin was burning hot. And when her arms opened, he knew that now, finally, she was ready.
Susan B. Lovable and lovely, trusting and good. Because of her Steve felt stronger than he had ever felt before. He had never known what it was to feel protective of anyone. But he was so fiercely protective of her that, to keep her safe, he would have killed in a moment anyone who would hurt her.
And the long, sweet months passed.
16
Gradually, life and the desire for life return. One morning the stomach that has for so long wanted no food feels greedy for it again, and the mouth waters at the sight of a warm cinnamon roll and the fragrance of coffee. One afternoon the eyes, which for a year or more have had no interest in shapes or colors, open wider to follow a woman going down the street, observing the cloth, the fit and cut of her dress. And suddenly you think: I would like to have that. It would look well on me.
With a mixture of pleasure, curiosity, and amazement, Iris looked around the vivid room. Here on one of the most fashionable streets of the Upper East Side, one expected to see celebrities of every kind among the lunchtime crowd; the astonishing thing to Iris was that they all looked like celebrities, even though they weren’t, for they couldn’t possibly all be famous.
The women were mostly blondes and smooth-haired. Their jewels—daytime jewels—were discreet, and their suits, she reflected, looked as though they had been bought at Chez Léa.
Anna, following Iris’s glances, murmured, “It’s a picture, isn’t it?” And then, being Anna, added, “I wonder who does their flowers? Changed every day, I suppose.”
In every wall niche stood flowers, fountains, plumes, and sprays, the oval cups of tulips and the silver, upturned faces of spring lilies.
“I could feed a family for three days, I guess, for the price of one bouquet,” said Iris.
The remark was without bitterness or envy. Actually she was pleased with all this beauty. It had been a long time since she had been in such a place.
Anna, misunderstanding, reassured her. “It’s your birthday, and it needs to be celebrated properly. We’re going to have champagne and do it up right.” She patted Iris’s hand. “You’re looking better than you’ve looked in a long time. Working really does agree with you.”
“I love to teach, always did. I love feeling competent. You know, whenever there are problem kids they put them in my class. I have a reputation for setting them straight.” Iris smiled. “Well, not all the time, but at least I make a pretty good stab at it. I’m finally starting on my master’s too, did I tell you?”
“And then?”
“Doctorate. Oh, I know it’ll take forever but I don’t care. It’s what I want and it doesn’t matter how hard I’ll have to work for it.”
“I’m proud of you and glad for you,” Anna said softly.
“Well, you’re the one who really got me to do it. Remember when you came back from the Berkshires, and I was so absolutely hopeless, you said—”
“I remember, but let’s not look back. Look at the menu instead.”
She doesn’t want to remember that time, Iris thought. She’s still anxious about me—about us—ever since the accident. I know her quick glance, and the questions waiting to be asked, which she doesn’t ask.
“And how is Theo these days?” Anna inquired now. “I don’t see him as often as I’d like to.”
“Well, he works almost day and night, it seems. It’s not easy being a resident, a student, taking orders, when for years he was the one who gave the orders. But he has never once complained.”
Yes, he was brave, very brave. And, observing a group of men at a nearby table, men whose faces, clothes, postures, and gestures all spoke security and power, Iris felt a wave of sadness.
“Status has always been so important to Theo. Whether it should have been or not …” She paused, and went on, “But in Europe a doctor is, or was when Theo lived there, anyway, a personage. And so this has been terribly painful for him in many ways. There are people, who used to invite us all the time and almost fawn on Theo, who’ve now dropped us.”
“Good riddance, I say.”
“True. But even the friends who’ve been wonderful, and there are plenty of them, even they must feel sorry for us when they visit.”
“Your house isn’t exactly a slum.”
“No, but it must certainly be a big surprise, and I’m sure they have plenty to say about it in private, plenty of pity.”
If I, who never cared much about that sort of thing—or so I thought—can feel it, Iris asked herself, how much more must he be feeling it?
But Mama had intended this day to be a celebration, so she said quickly, brightly, “At least we do manage without pressing worries now! With all Theo used to earn, we were always just on that worrisome edge, while now we have a regular amount every month to depend on. Of course, one day the bank will have to be paid back. I still don’t understand how they could have made such a loan in the first place, without any collateral.…” And again Iris had to remind herself that this was a celebration, for heaven’s sake, not the time for such a heavy subject.
“I suppose,” Anna said, “they just had confidence in Theo’s future earning power.”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Anna merely shrugged. It occurred to Iris, as often before, that Anna might have signed a note for Theo and didn’t want her to know for fear it might worry her, which it would. Mama had plenty, but she wasn’t all that rich.
And she looked across the table at her mother’s hand, on which the familiar, simple ring glittered, Papa’s diamond legacy. He’d been a giver, her father had, and so was Mama; buying and giving were some of their ways of showing love.
Almost as though she could have been reading Iris’s mind, Anna said now, “Steve still hasn’t cashed the little check I sent him.”
“Against his principles, I suppose.” Iris could hear the wistfulness in her own voice. “We haven�
��t heard from him in two months. My heart pounds when I read about another outburst or see one on television. Will I see his face, or get word that he’s been beaten, clubbed, or jailed? I can’t talk about it to Theo. He gets too angry. I suppose that’s one way to cover grief.”
Anna soothed, “Think of good things, like Jimmy’s wedding.”
At once Iris complied. “I have to marvel at Janet’s ambition. Medical school ahead, and pregnant already!”
“You know, I guessed she was pregnant when I saw her at their little wedding. There was a roundness, a shine on her face that made me think so. I know it’s an old wives’ tale—what are you looking at?”
“Looking? I? Nothing. An old wives’ tale, you said.”
That man … oh, God! He was staring at her. Three tables away Jordaine sat, turned unmistakably in his chair to stare at Iris. That man.…
And for some crazy reason she had total recall of his naked body as he had stood in the doorway of that silken bedroom, passionate, expectant, and finally enraged.… She went hot and then cold.
“There was something very touching about their wedding in that little flat. The food spread on a card table in the hall and the aunts fixing platters in the kitchen.”
Iris stiffened the trembling hand that held the salad fork. She wouldn’t have thought it possible to tremble so.
“They could have had it in my house. Goodness knows it’s big enough. I kept offering it,” Anna was saying.
An answer was expected. “Janet’s very independent. She would have been pretending to be somebody other than who she is,” she said.
Jordaine was with a very young girl, probably no older than my Laura, she was thinking. A coarse-looking girl with a shrill, carrying voice. She had rhinestones on her sweater. While he talked to her, he kept coming back to Iris every few seconds. It was impossible to avoid his chilling eyes without bending over her plate.
