Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  THIRTEEN

  THE FORECASTERS LIED. They told us that the worst was over, they lulled us into a false complacency, we were not prepared for the storm that was to break over us in those first days of May, 1970.

  On May 1 we learned that combat troops of the U.S. First Air Cavalry and B-52 bombers had invaded Cambodia in an attack ordered by President Richard Nixon "to wipe out the headquarters for the entire Communist operation in South Vietnam."

  The newspapers reported 6,500 U.S. troops searching for the secret headquarters they were never to find. It was, I suppose, macabre, but I began to clip news reports of the war and paste them into the Reader's Digest Great World Atlas. I clipped a wire photo of a group of young Cambodian women tied together in an open field, suspected Viet Cong collaborators the caption said. Their faces were filled with terror, their bodies bowed. I had pinned this photo to my wall, but found that I could not bear to come upon it so often, so I pasted it in the atlas, over a conic projection of Southeast Asia, covering the southern half of Cambodia. A country visited long ago in that time of my life now relegated to dreams, a country that lies on my memory like the softest gauze, stirred on a summer's night. Once I could close my eyes and conjure up the young girls dressed in their flowing gowns, tittering as they made their way down the streets of Phnom Penh. Now all I could see was the faces of the girls in the clipping: tormented, terrorized.

  On May 2 Karin and Philip were married in the walled garden of Philip's house. Only family and the closest of friends attended. Dan and Thea were there, and May and Marge and Hank Fromberg—Hank's rumpled corduroy suit in rather nice counterpoint to Philip's sartorial splendor. Karin was radiant in an old-fashioned dress of ecru lace with a high collar; Philip was spilling over with high spirits. The ceremony had been timed for the sun, when the bank of deep red rhododendrons against which the couple stood to repeat their vows was in full light. Philip's plans were, as always, both precise and elegant. Although the forecast had been for possible showers, the sun shone brightly and on schedule, dazzling Karin's blond hair. There was just the right amount of ritual, nicely balanced by intimacy. Thea held Karin's hand throughout the simple ceremony performed by a retired justice of the state supreme court, an old friend of Philip's. A string quartet played "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," Sam took photographs, and I cried as quietly as I could, glad for this small, happy reprieve in that tormented time.

  The vows were said, the couple embraced and then, in an instant of silence, a mockingbird warbled out one clear lyrical phrase. We looked up to where it perched in the birch, the new green leaves draped gracefully over the garden, and Marge whispered: "That is too beautiful not to be prophetic." Thea threw herself into Philip's arms and Karin turned to Dan and asked, "Would I embarrass you terribly if I hugged you?" The boy wrapped his arms around her awkwardly, and for a small, tender moment buried his head in her hair.

  May put her arms around Karin and they rocked back and forth for a while before she kissed her on both cheeks, then May hugged Philip hard and said something to him that caused him to lower his head and answer her solemnly.

  I watched May. She busied herself passing champagne; her smile was, I thought, just a little too quick, her attention a bit splintered.

  "Come talk to me," I said as soon as I had a chance. She sat and took my hand and held on to it tightly, as if to quiet some turmoil within. Tilting my head close to hers, I asked if she could tell me what was troubling her.

  Her eyes grew too bright, and she smiled to stave off the tears. "It's just," she began, and had to stop to take a deep breath before starting over in a calmer voice. "I'm going to miss K of course," she said, "we've been so busy these past weeks, with plans for the wedding and all—I suppose it's just hit me that she won't be coming back to the house." Her voice began to quiver.

  I patted her hand and said, "But that's not all, is it?"

  Now tears filled her eyes and she turned away to struggle with them. I tightened my grip on her hand. We were too small a group, it would not do for the others to see May cry. "Are you thinking about Hayes?" I began, to help her.

  She nodded. "Karin and Philip . . . everything just seems so clear, what they want . . . and in a way so easy . . . but for me, for Hayes . . ." She sighed and took a deep breath. "For us everything is so complicated, absolutely nothing is clear, and I'm not sure it ever will be. I think it's going to be impossible to sort it all out, too much depends on things we seem to have no control over . . . it's just such an ungodly mess . . ." Suddenly she looked at me frantically. "Please . . . don't think . . . I'm terribly happy for Karin, I would not have wanted anything to be different . . ."

  Sam's approach caused her to break off her sentence. I patted her hand so she would know I understood. "I'm bringing the two of you some wedding cake," Sam said, grinning. "Aren't you supposed to take it home and sleep on it or something, so you are the next one up to bat?"

  I laughed. "You two can sleep on it if you wish, but I've been out of the ballgame a long time so I plan to eat mine right now."

  By four-thirty the newlyweds were on their way to Carmel, leaving the rest of us to sip champagne and face the empty evening.

  "Want to keep me company?" I asked May.

  Sam answered for her. "Don't worry, Faith," he said, "I'll take care of her."

  The house was as May and Karin had left it that morning, an empty shoe box on the dining room floor, mounds of tissue paper scattered in their rush to get off to the wedding. Sam picked up the shoe box and stood holding it; after a time he put it down again and said he was going to the cottage to change.

  May sank into the sofa where Karin always sat. A spool of green thread and a bone china thimble had been left on the table. She put the thimble on her finger and studied the tiny violets painted on it.

  She squinted against the last of the day's sunlight, but she could not find the energy to get up to close the shades. A strange lethargy had overtaken her. She had sipped two glasses of champagne, but had eaten nothing so her stomach felt hollow and echoing. Still, the effort it would take to go to the refrigerator was more than she could manage.

  Sam returned, sat next to her, rolled the film out of his cameras, marked it for the lab. "I'm going to drop this in the city, want to ride along?" he asked.

  "I don't feel like the city," she said petulantly, "I feel like being alone somewhere in the middle of nothing. On the flank of Mauna Loa, preferably. Or in a desert. Anywhere away from here."

  Sam looked at her abstractedly, he was figuring logistics. "Okay," he said, all action, "let's throw our sleeping bags in the truck, we can drive through the city to drop off the film to be developed and keep right on going over the Golden Gate and out to Point Reyes. There's nothing out there—I mean nothing. Just windswept beach and sand and ocean. I've got camping gear in the back, ready to go. What do you say?"

  She looked at him, bit her lip, shrugged. She did not think she could move. "I'm hungry."

  "We'll eat on the way. At Giovanni's. I'll pay, you can deduct it from what I owe you." He grinned to show he was teasing.

  "Okay, sure," she finally said, making the effort to unfold herself and stand. Her leg had gone to sleep and she grimaced. "Why not?"

  The rain started about two in the morning. May was wakened by a sudden shock of cold water on her neck, washing into her down bag. Sam had placed his sleeping bag on slightly higher ground, and was still dry. He ran to the truck, came back with a blanket and a tent. While Sam put up the tent, May stripped and wrapped herself in the blanket. The rain was falling steadily now; she was thoroughly chilled and her teeth were chattering. They crawled inside the tent and huddled together on top of his sleeping bag.

  "Can we build a fire?" she asked.

  "Not in the dark," Sam said, "not in this rain."

  He put his arms around her and felt her shivering. "Poor kid," he said, soothing her, rubbing her arms and back to try to warm and comfort her. "We'll still be seeing a lot of Karin . . . she couldn't do
without you, you know that." She could feel his breath warm on her neck. "And I'm here too," he said, trying not to sound so serious. "As a matter of fact, I have wanted to be here for you for quite a long time . . ." He moved his hand tentatively under the blanket, touching the soft place under her breast.

  She sobbed, and took his hand in hers, removing it. "You will always be my friend, Sam," she said, burying her face in his neck, "you and Karin and me . . . we will always be great, great friends . . ."

  And though he did not move and scarcely breathed, she could feel him withdraw from her, she could feel the cold, angry blanket of his disappointment settle over them and she knew, she understood in a flash of awful clarity, that Sam had wanted to be more than her friend for a very long time.

  "Great, great friends . . ." Sam repeated, using sarcasm to mask the anger, but he could not stop himself from adding, "It's Hayes. Right?" It was not a question. He knew.

  I clipped the story, pasted in it the Great World Atlas: On May 2, the day of the wedding, on a hockey field on the campus of Yale University police fired tear gas into a gathering of Black Panther supporters and an explosion ripped through an arena as tensions gathered. On May 3, Eli spoke at a Berkeley rally held for Black Panthers in Provo Park.

  The uneasy peace that had settled over Berkeley was shattered in those early days of May. Four hundred campuses across the country suspended classes, students gathered, their numbers bolstered by Americans infuriated by the invasion of Cambodia. The day before his wedding, Philip Ward had helped draft the Academic Senate's statement, which called the invasion "unwise, immoral and dangerous . . . and deeply exacerbating to the distrust of students and faculty of the U.S. government." Once again there was the sound of glass breaking, as students rampaged along Telegraph Avenue, heaving trash cans through store windows. The air was filled with the acrid smell of burning, as Army trucks and ROTC buildings were set afire. A state of emergency was declared.

  I clipped and pasted and wondered if I was losing my mind. Over a map of the subcontinent of India I pasted this special report from Cambodia: "The monsoon rains have come early and washed out our airstrip, so that hundreds of armored vehicles that spearheaded the morning thrust started to bog down as the thick clay turned to red mud. Rain fell all of Sunday, for four hours straight. American soldiers are putting the torch to homes because they might be useful to the Communists; they are killing livestock for the same reason. A young tank commander said: 'I had orders to burn everything.'"

  When my neighbor of fifty years, Mrs. DeLucci, came to tell me that her grandson Charlie was missing in action—little Charlie with the great, soft brown eyes and endearing smile—I held her hand and cried with her, but could find no words of comfort.

  On May 4, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a group of demonstrators on the quiet little campus at Kent State and four young people lay dead. Four young students, some of them carrying their books, just about Charlie DeLucci's age.

  I began to think crazy thoughts; I began to wonder if Charlie DeLucci might have met one of the Kent State girls, and married her, and old Mrs. DeLucci would move in with her daughter Cara so the young couple could have the house and raise a family . . . if not for this war, if not for this terrible war. It was too much. I could not go to the Peace Coalition office in Berkeley, I could not bear to watch any more. My eyes filled with fluid and the view was streaked and dark. I felt old and tired.

  Kit, returning from her New York trip, found me sitting on the sunporch of my cottage, unable even to find solace in my garden.

  "You've got to come to Wildwood with me," she said. "It's going to take a massive effort to get everything ready for the wedding reception next Saturday, and I can't do it alone." I said I couldn't. She put both her hands on my shoulders, looked me square in the eyes, and said, "You can and you will, if I have to carry you."

  The next day Israel loaded me into the van, along with thirty large boxes filled with family silver and crystal and monogrammed linens, and we were off for the country and the magnificent estate Connor McCord had built for himself in the first decade of the century, and called "Wildwood."

  The great house and surrounding acres of gardens are now operated as a public trust established by Kit, and thousands of people tour the place every year. Kit retained the right to use Wildwood for special occasions but she has exercised this right only two or three times for charity functions.

  "Perhaps I just need a few days in the country, away from it all," I told Kit in a worn-down voice.

  "Not a chance," Kit answered. "We've got work to do and you, my dear, are going to be in the thick of it. I told Karin and Philip to invite as many people as they wished. We've got almost three hundred people coming four days from today, and I'm determined to make it a grand occasion." She must have felt she did not have my attention, because she cried out, "Faith, listen to me—in all this sorrow we have a chance to carve out a little island of pleasure. There's nothing crass about it, we need this time—it's the only way we can stay sane . . . and human."

  It was Kit's way of shaking some sense into me, and it worked. We had to mark the marriage of Karin and Philip, to make it a grand occasion—for Charlie DeLucci and the girls at Kent State, for all of the young people who would never have the chance.

  Kit knew something about grand occasions, and Wildwood with its acres of formal gardens and reflecting pools and great smooth flagstone terraces was the perfect setting for one. No sooner had we arrived on Tuesday than the caterers began to troop in, checking out the kitchen, planning where to set up tables for the twilight supper. The decorators and florists came next, discussing flower arrangements and where the little flower stalls that would dispense champagne would be scattered around the grounds. Then came the musicians—a representative of the chamber orchestra which was to play in the small pavilion near the pool and the manager of a group called "Sweet Relish" which had what May said was a "Mamas and Papas" sound. When Kit opened the doors to the grand ballroom, the young man fell into a fit of hacking when he saw the polished parquet floors, the crystal chandeliers, and the stage.

  Kit assigned bedrooms for those of us who would be staying over. Her own was at the far end of the second floor hall, a suite of rooms she had shared with her husband—the only rooms in the house which remain reserved for her personal use. Karin and Philip were to share the room at the opposite end of the hall, and the rest of us—May and Israel and Thea and Philip's sister Germaine from Philadelphia—would occupy the rooms between.

  Dan had called Karin to ask if she would mind if he didn't come, because he had an important math exam on the Monday following, and he wasn't doing all that well in math. She told him she would miss him terrifically, but that she understood and maybe when his finals were over they could all take a trip somewhere together. He answered that when he came home he would like to take her and Thea on the Nimitz trail in Tilden. It was a pretty easy hike, he said, and he thought she'd like it. She said she knew she would, and that it was a date. Later, when Philip asked her about the conversation with Dan, she repeated all but the Nimitz trail part.

  On Tuesday, May 5, Sam had an hour and fifteen minutes to pack his gear and catch a plane to Ohio, to try to photograph the parents of the slain students at Kent State for a German magazine. May was to drive him to the airport, and they were almost out the door when the phone rang. Sam grabbed it and May heard him say, "Listen Eli, I can't talk now but I'll explain everything when I get back. No . . . it wasn't like that, no . . . listen . . ." he said, but Eli wasn't listening so he hung up.

  "What was that all about?" May asked as she threaded the Jaguar through the narrow hill streets.

  "Nothing," Sam said, preoccupied with checking his camera case. "It's too complicated to go into. If Hayes calls, just tell him there's no problem."

  She kept her eyes on the road and said nothing. It was the first time Hayes's name had been mentioned between them since the night of Karin's wedding. They had maintained a corre
ct silence; it was as if they had an unspoken agreement not to mention what had happened, what had been revealed in the cold rain at Point Reyes.

  But now Sam was involved in some way with Eli and Hayes. She frowned, but said nothing. She knew not to push; Sam was always nervous when he was leaving on assignment. Once he quit checking his equipment he would lean forward, drum his fingers on the dashboard, and she knew his mind would be a thousand miles away, in Ohio. Also, according to the unwritten rules of their fragile peace, she had to be careful around the subject of Hayes.

  "Will you be back for the reception on Saturday?" she asked as she dropped him in front of Western Airlines.

  "Can't say," he called back, already on the run, "I'll try. You'll see me when you see me."

  She saw him on Friday night. When she came home at eleven he was lying, fully clothed, across her bed and was sound asleep. He reeked of pot; she saw the remnants of a joint in the little bone china dish by her bed. He must have wanted to talk to her tonight, she thought. Probably he wanted to tell her about the assignment, he often did that when he returned from a job that was charged with emotion. Always before she had been excited, listening to him. But not tonight. She backed out of the room quietly, not to wake him, and went to sleep in Karin's room.

  If the wedding had been Philip's, the reception was Karin's, not by plan but by time and circumstance. Wildwood was the perfect setting for a dress-up party. A few years before, the dress would have been very proper, quite prescribed. "Dress-up" in 1970 was a free-for-all: any time period, or any mix, fantasy was fine and so was fun, and a large number of the five hundred who came took full advantage and made it something of a costume party.

  Guests poured in from all parts of the country: Philip's publishing friends in New York came, and the movie people he knew in Los Angeles, along with many of the Mount Holyoke girls who had graduated with Karin and May, and a large contingent from Berkeley.