by John Dalmas
The movie was a western, The Last Roundup, starring Randolph Scott. They ate popcorn, and when the popcorn was gone, they held hands.
Afterward they strolled Nehtaka's tree-lined residential streets. In jackets; September had brought offshore breezes, and the evening was cool and humid. For the first fifteen minutes they hardly spoke at all, but Macurdy's mood was pregnant with things needing to be said. He'd lost totally the confidence he'd felt Saturday night.
Finally he broke the silence. "How old do you think I am?"
"I don't know. Twenty-five?"
"Twenty-eight."
"That's not old."
"Old enough to have been married. Twice."
There was a long moment's silence before Mary responded: "Tell me about it."
"My first wife's name was Varia. She'd always seemed kind of strange, but we were in love. We were married about six weeks when her family sent people to kidnap her, and I followed them. Out of the country. By the time I found her, she was married to someone else."
"But-that was bigamy! Couldn't you get her back?"
"Not under their laws. And her new husband was an important man. Later I married a girl there named-it translates to Melody-and I got a farm. But a few months later she drowned."
Her hand on his arm, Mary stopped him, looking earnestly into his eyes. "Those things were no fault of yours. Were they?"
"Not so far as I know. But that's just part of what I've got to tell. The easy part. I'm afraid you'll think I'm crazy when I tell you the rest of it, but it wouldn't be honest if I didn't."
When he said nothing more, she turned, and they began walking slowly again, still holding hands. "I have a secret, too," she said. "Not like the one I told you on Saturday, that I'd hidden from myself all those years. It's one that goes on every day of my life, and I've only ever told one person."
He didn't ask, but let her continue in her own time. "You've seen pictures of Jesus and Mary, with haloes around their heads."
"Yeah."
"I see haloes. Everyone has one, and not just around their heads. They're brightest there, but when I take the trouble to, I can see them around their whole body." She peered at him earnestly. "Does that sound crazy?"
This time it was Curtis who stopped. "You see them? I do too! Varia called them auras." He paused, his features vague in the darkness, but to Mary's eyes his aura had expanded: pastels of red, gold, violet-a kind of personal aurora. "That makes it easier for me," he said. "Easier to tell you what I need to."
They walked again, one street after another, Macurdy talking at length. He told her more about Varia, who'd married his Uncle Will when Curtis was four years old. Varia had seemed about twenty. Twenty years later, when Will was killed felling timber, she still looked twenty. Then she'd married Curtis.
The story grew stranger, Macurdy's voice becoming monotone as he told it, as if he'd lost hope again that Mary could possibly believe. Varia had come from another world, he said, then repeated it another world, named Yuulith, with gates that from time to time opened into this one. In Yuulith she'd belonged to a Sisterhood that was like a tribe. Its women used magic-nothing all that amazing, but useful-and stayed physically young for nearly a century, then rapidly grew old, and died in just a few years. They had men in the tribe for breeding and soldiering, but the head Sister was the boss, like a queen. What she said was. law.
A month later, when the gate had opened again, he'd gone to find Varia, and on the other side been made a slave by a tribe there, then a shaman's apprentice, then a soldier. Had been in a war, and found Varia, only to discover she'd remarried. Then he'd married and lost Melody, and returned home again.
They'd stopped on a low bluff overlooking the sparsely lit town, the Pacific stretching in the distance to a horizon seen only by inference, where the stars ended, the blackness becoming sea instead of sky. "And now," he finished, "you probably think I'm either crazy or the world's biggest liar."
She took both his hands. -Curtis," she said quietly, "I'm not even going to think about it. I'm lad you told me, but the smartest thing for me to do is juste me and let you be you, and see how things develop.
"I see haloes, or auras, and most people, if I told them, would think I was crazy or lying. Of course, another world, with gates to this one, sounds quite a lot stranger than that, and I might never quite believe in it. But I'll get used to the idea, and that's more important."
"I can generally tell when people are lying, by their haloes, and you're not. And you don't have bad intentions, either; I can tell that too."
"As for magical powers-what you did last night was magical enough for me, and that happened! It was real!"
She moved closer to him. "I want you to take me home now. But first I want you to kiss me, because I'm in love with you." The kiss was soft and lingering, then they turned back down the hill, saying almost nothing at all until they reached her block, when Macurdy could delay no longer. "There's something I didn't tell you. Something more important."
"Yes?"
"Varia said I won't get old either, till I'm maybe ninety. And that's kind of how it seems. If she was right, then in fifty years I'll still look about twenty-five."
It was Mary's turn to introvert now. After a long moment she responded: "And I'll look about sixty-eight."
They walked on till they reached her front steps, then stopped. "I have a lot to sleep on tonight," she said. "Perhaps even more than on Saturday. Kiss me again, Curtis. It will help."
Again they kissed, a kiss cool but slow. "Than you," she said. "Stop at Sweiger's tomorrow when I'm at work, and we'll make another date." They stood a couple of feet apart, holding hands between them. "And before you go to sleep tonight," she added, "remind yourself that I love you."
He did. He also told himself that each woman he'd loved had been very special-better, it seemed to him just then, than he deserved.
The next day dawned drizzly. He arrived at Sweiger's just before 2 PM, and walked Mary home, both of them wearing raincoats. This time when they reached her porch, she didn't offer to kiss him. Instead she looked him in the eye and said, "Curtis, will you marry me?"
He stared. "Do you mean it?"
"Dammit, if I didn't, would I ask? Let's try it again. Will you marry me?"
It took him a moment to answer. "Yes, Mary, I'll marry you. I just it's hard to believe this is happening. I'll be very happy to marry you, and I'll be a good husband." As I was to Varia and Melody. Oh God, let this one last. Let it go on a long time.
"When?" she asked. "When will you marry me?" Now she didn't seem like a determined young woman at all. She stood like a young girl, straight-backed, brave, hopeful, vulnerable.
"Soon," he said. "We need to get the license, the blood tests, a preacher… You need to decide whether you want a lot of people there, a big party-keeping the expense in mind. It could be in a week, I'd think, or maybe a month."
She nodded thoughtfully. "I'll meet you after I get off tomorrow. If you can get off, too."
Then, though it was daylight, she kissed him before turning and going inside.
Curtis went back to the courthouse and told Fritzi he thought he was coming down with something and wanted to go home to bed. He lied about feeling sick, but he did go straight home to bed, and slept for ten hours without waking.
He went to Doc Wesley for his blood test. They were already acquainted; Wesley had examined him before Macurdy had been signed on as a deputy. The doctor drew the necessary blood, then said, "You laid with a woman recently?"
"Not for quite a while."
"How Iong?"
Macurdy looked back to that night when Omara had come to his room at the palace in Teklapori. "Most of a year." Not really so long, he realized, but a world away.
"A prostitute?"
"Nothing like that. A good friend. A nurse."
The doctor grunted skeptically. "Drop your pants. You were a logger till recently, and even you might not know what you did in Tacoma or Portland or Medford, som
e Saturday when you'd been drinking."
Macurdy dropped them. The examination took only a minute. "Well, that looks all right," the doctor said. "Look. I won't beat around the bush. I suspect your blood tests will be clean, too. But this whole community knows Mary Preuss. And we like her. A lot. We want her to be happy. What do you know about ladies? Beyond your mother and sisters? I'm talking about ladies now. This girl is no floozie that hangs around drinking in blind pigs, waiting to be picked up. Odds are a thousand to one she's a virgin. She's hardly out of school! Does a roughneck like you know how to treat a girl like that?"
Macurdy bristled a bit. "I think so," he said.
"Well let me tell you some things, because I don't think you do. Your intentions may be good, but I don't trust your knowledge, and the instructions are free."
Then he gave the would-be bridegroom a lecture, with diagrams, on how to deflower a virgin gently. Macurdy left embarrassed and grateful.
Under "Announcements," the Nehtaka Weekly Sentinel reported that on October 5, 1933, a marriage license had been granted to "Miss Mary Preuss and Mr. Curtis Macurdy, both of Nehtaka. Miss Preuss is the daughter of Sheriff Fritzi Preuss. Mr. Macurdy is a deputy in the sheriff's department." Word had gotten around quickly, even among those who didn't read the announcements section, and since Macurdy was a local hero, the general response was more enthusiastic than Doc Wesley's had been.
Two days later, Macurdy went into Sweiger's Cafe for a late supper, his duties having precluded taking it at the boarding house. There was only a handful of customers drinking coffee and eating. Hansi Sweiger waited on him, and when he brought his food, sat down to visit.
The first thing he did was to thank Macurdy for saving his life that early August day in Severtson's messhall. He had no doubt at all that Hannigan was about to shoot him. Now he was in town for the winter. After the fire, Lars Severtson had promoted him to choker setter. It paid better than whistle punk, but setting chokers on a burn was the dirtiest job in the world. Usually he had to lie down in the ashes and dirt, to poke the cable knob under the logs, while to hook them up, he often had to lie on their charred bark.
So finally he'd quit-his father hadn't been happy about that-and come home to help out in his family's restaurant. He doubted he'd log again. With so much burned timber to salvage, it'd either be more of the same, or he'd have to go somewhere else.
In fact," he said, "I'm thinking about going back to the old country. Things were really bad there for a while-a lot worse than here-but they've gotten a lot better recently. My cousin Karl's been writing me about it; a guy named Hitler got elected chancellor, and he's putting everyone to work. He's better than Roosevelt any day." Hansi paused. "Roosevelt's a Jew, you know. His real name is Rosenfeld.
"My old man really blew up when I told him what I might do. He says Hitler will ruin Germany-that he'll start another war. Geez! Hitler's not crazy; he doesn't want a war! I tried to reason with dad, but it's like arguing with a brick wall. He got wounded four different times in the last war, you know" Hansi's expression turned thoughtful. "I never thought I'd want to go back, but now-maybe I'll give it a try. I can do it. I put more than enough money away working for the Severtsons."
He changed the subject. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, because you're marrying her, but I had a crush on Mary since the eighth grade. In high school, a couple times, I asked her to go out with me, but she never would. She never went out with anyone. People thought she might end up in a convent, but I guess all she needed was to meet the right man."
The door opened, jingling the bell, and Hansi got up. "Sorry I talked your arm off," he said. "Congratulations on getting engaged." Then he went to the counter to wait on the new customer.
Helmi Dambridge had come to Nehtaka from Finland at age five. By age seventeen she was an exceptional beauty who had scandalized her family and their Lutheran pastor, and titillated the rest of Nehtaka. The young men of the community found her particularly interesting, but she was interested only in those with "prospects."
Her first marriage was to the handsome young owner-skipper of a sealing ship, who arrived back from an expedition to the Aleutians to discover her gone. She was living with a sawmill owner in Longview, a man equally handsome and with even more money, who didn't sail away and leave her for months on end. Her husband promptly filed for divorce, and when the decree was final, his rival married her. But now, with a legal claim to her fidelity, he too became jealous, on one occasion to the point of blackening her eyes and loosening some teeth; she thanked him by plunging a letter opener into his abdomen.
Her lawyer provided more than legal services, and afterward they married. Twenty-five years older than she, he was totally devoted to her, while she had learned something from her first marriages. It helped, of course, that he had a very lucrative practice. Unfortunately he developed a heart condition, and at age thirty-six she found herself single again, a widow.
Still beautiful, accomplished in the bedroom arts, and with many friends in Portland society, the condition was temporary. She soon married Andrew Dambridge, a fifty-year-old bon vivant who had coveted her for years. Dambridge had built a considerable fortune through activities in railroads, lumber, and real estate. He'd also developed a reputation as a ladies' man, but with Helmi in his bed, his philandering dwindled almost to nothing. After a few years, problems of health reduced both his business and bedroom activities, and he died of an aortic aneurism on their ninth anniversary.
Most of his fortune he had willed to the children of his first marriage, but he'd established a very considerable trust fund for his second wife. He was not, however, a man who liked to lose possessions, so the trust fund carried the provision that if she married again, she'd lose it. She had no intention of losing it.
She'd continued her life in Portland's upper crust until the Great Depression eroded her trust fund rather severely. In the spring of 1931, she sold her Portland mansion and bought a nine-room home in Nehtaka. She had it modernized, then moved in, a storied and somewhat reclusive figure who lived alone with a housekeeper and custodian, traveled a lot, and largely ignored local doings. The townsfolk, who of course knew nothing of the trust-fund proviso, expected her to find another millionaire and leave again, but she failed to cooperate.
The Widow Dambridge was Mary Preuss's aunt, her mother's eldest sister. When Helmi had moved back to Nehtaka, she'd established limited connections with her family, including Mary, appearing occasionally at family events. But mostly she kept to herself. She was in her studio, painting an Aegean shorescape from a photograph, using memory for the colors, when her maid informed her that Mary was in the parlor.
Helmi sailed down to meet her. "Mary! This is a surprise!" she said. "Sit down, dear, and tell me why you're here."
"I'm going to be married. And-I thought you could advise me."
Helmi laughed. "Shouldn't you be talking with your Aunt Siiri? She's been married to the same man for twenty-five years, and very happily as far as I know."
"I have talked with her. But it seemed to me that…"
"Yes?"
"That there are things you could advise me on better than Siiri could."
"Hum. Interesting. What kinds of things?"
"Well-I love him a lot, and I don't want him to be disappointed. You see."
Helmi was careful not to smile. "No I don't," she lied. "I want to be good in bed for him."
"Ah. And you suppose I was good in bed."
"I think you must have been."
The aunt laughed again. "I was, my dear. I seem to have been born without inhibitions, and brought enthusiasm to bed with me. Those are the basic ingredients-those and imagination; if you lack them, you must develop them. And I had experienced husbands who knew what they wanted, so I learned from them."
"This fiance of yours-is he experienced?"
"He's been married before. To a very beautiful lady; he showed me a picture."
Helmi raise an eyebrow. "Really? I'd like to meet this
young man. He is young, I suppose?"
Mary read her aunt's skepticism. "Twenty-eight," she said.
"Where is his first wife?"
Wanting to avoid strange and incredible explanations, Mary adjusted the truth. "She drowned. She was riding her horse across a river and the ice broke. The current swept her under it."
Helmi studied her niece for a moment. "Bring him to supper tonight," she said firmly. "At 6:30. I want to meet him." Mary felt trapped by the invitation-order actually.
"I'll see if he can come," she said. "He works for Dad; he's a deputy. Sometimes he works at night."
"Call him. There's the phone." Helmi pointed. "I need to know now, so I can tell Lempi what to fix for supper."
Mary went to the phone and called. Three minutes later the invitation had been accepted, and the cook/housekeeper given instructions in a rattle of Finnish.
Helmi turned back to Mary, smiling again. "Now for your questions," she said. "Let's go up to my studio, where we have more privacy. Lempi is shy about using English, but she understands it somewhat; Eino's been teaching her. And visitors are so rare in this house, she might decide to eavesdrop."
Hansi Sweiger decided to go back to Germany, which made his father so angry, he refused to drive him to the depot. So Macurdy threw the youth's three suitcases in the back of a patrol car and hauled him to the train. Expecting never to see him again.
Macurdy arrived with Mary, wearing his uniform and driving Fritzi's 1932 Desoto. He'd bought a suit, but didn't want to wear it before the wedding.
Helmi made him feel welcome, and the food, Macurdy thought, was as good as anything he'd ever eaten. After supper they stayed for over an hour, talking. Helmi's reason for inviting him, he realized, was to check him out, but at the same time she put him at ease. He answered her questions without creating complications, and increasingly her aura reflected liking and approval.
Before they left, he excused himself to use the bathroom, and when he was out of the room, Helmi put a hand on Mary's arm.
"My dear," she said, "I'm truly happy for you. I believe you chose well."
