Garden of Lies

by Eileen Goudge

  Please, God, this time let there be one. It’s been so long, two whole months, and I’ve been so patient. Just one letter, a postcard, anything. I know he’s not dead, because his mom and dad get letters. There has to be a good reason I haven’t gotten one.

  But what if that was the reason, because he didn’t love her anymore?

  Rose felt herself begin to sweat, a coin of clamminess between her breasts that was spreading in a circle like a drop of water on a blotter, making her armpits soggy, sticking the back of her blouse to her shoulder blades under her thick wool coat. But at the same time in her stomach she felt an icy lump of fear. Please ... oh please let there be a letter this time. ...

  Then she became aware that a body wedged against her back was moving. A male body that so reeked of cigarettes she could smell it from behind was undulating against her. Dear Jesus, even through the thickness of her coat she could feel him, his hardness. Anger and loathing boiled up inside her.

  She tried squirming away, but she was jammed in on all sides, and meanwhile he only pressed closer. She couldn’t even turn and see who he was, dammit. Pervert, creep, he probably makes obscene phone calls to little girls.

  [165] Then Rose thought of the book tucked under her arm, the bound 1967 Law Review volume. She angled it downward, and brought her elbow back in a knifing motion, the heavy book giving the blow added weight. She felt it connect, and heard a surprised grunt. The pressure against her back abruptly eased.

  Then they were jerking to a stop, doors sliding open, the conductor bawling, “De Kalb Avenue, next stop Atlantic!” Passengers squirmed out and then even more shoved themselves in. Rose had an urge to charge between them and fling herself free out onto the platform. The next train probably wouldn’t be as crowded, and at least she’d be rid of the pervert.

  But no. She gritted her teeth and hung on. She had to get home. To Brian’s letter. Yes, today there would be one, she was sure of it. Maybe several, a whole bunch of them, all the letters he’d have sent her, which had somehow gotten misdirected, or stuck in the wrong post office somehow.

  “Just this one thing, God,” she whispered under her breath, her prayer drowned out by the clackety roar of the train. “And for every letter I’ll say a dozen rosaries. And I won’t kneel on the carpet. I’ll do it on the bathroom floor, where it’s hard and cold. And I’ll start going to Confession again ... and First Friday Mass. ...”

  Thinking of Mass soothed her, and that reminded her of something else that would make her feel good. The Law Review volume under her arm. It had already done good for her once this evening. She savored the thought of digging into it later on, the crackling of its stiff buckram spine, feeling the smooth freshness of its thick pages. She knew she wouldn’t understand everything she read, but she loved the phrases, the rich cadence of Latin terms, and all those case summaries, dry at first glance, but if you read between the lines, used your imagination, they were like stories. Yes, it was a little like the feeling she got kneeling in church, reading her missal, hearing the priest’s incantations.

  Then she felt a pang of worry. What if he found out? Would Mr. Griffin mind her borrowing this, and all the others before it? But she never took more than one at a time, and she always brought it back the following morning. Probably Mr. Griffin wouldn’t have noticed even if she’d kept a book for a week. But why borrow trouble? Working for him was the best of the three jobs she’d had so far—[166] the first for an office supply wholesaler who went out of business, the second for a lawyer who wanted overtime to include bedtime—and she meant to keep this one.

  No, of course he wouldn’t mind. He was so nice, so unlike those other two, Walsh and then Delaney. And so energetic! Why, sometimes he made her feel like Dorothy, caught up in a tornado.

  She pictured him now, pacing to and fro behind his desk, the phone receiver jammed against his ear, every now and then waving his arms or even thumping the desktop for emphasis. A big man in his forties, a bit heavy around the middle, but a good face. The face of a man you could count on, she thought. He reminded her of Brian that way, though they looked nothing alike. Mr. Griffin made her think of an ex-prizefighter, but one who punched with words instead of his fists. His jacket would be tossed over the back of his chair, shirtsleeves rolled up over his forearms, and he was forever plowing his fingers through his thick tweedy-brown hair, making it stand up in spikes that made her feel oddly tender toward him, the way she did toward Brian’s little brother Jason, who always had a cowlick. He smiled a lot, too—she liked that about him. And that time she’d sent the wrong letter to the Cressler Corporation, the one intended for Damon Chandler, about how old Mr. Cressler’s memory was getting a little foggy and he sometimes got his facts mixed up—God, what a disaster! She’d felt so terrible. But Mr. Griffin had been nice about it, even though she could see he was upset. He told her it could have happened to anyone, that they’d straighten it out somehow.

  Rose thought he could probably straighten out just about anything. She didn’t have to listen to the coffee-kitchenette gossipers to know Max Griffin was a superb lawyer, the most admired in the firm, probably one of the best in the City. God, if she were sitting on a jury, for sure he’d win her over, and the rest of the people, too.

  Monday she’d tell him about borrowing these books. Not that he’d mind, just ... well, she felt so dumb and embarrassed. What if he laughed? What if he thought her notion of maybe someday becoming a lawyer was silly, a big joke?

  At Avenue J, ten stops later, Rose got off. As she clattered down the grimy steps leading from the outdoor platform, then through the turnstile and now outside onto the street, her heart began to pound. A few blocks’ walk, and she’d be home.

  [167] Rose suddenly wanted to prolong the short walk. What if she got home, and there was no letter from Brian? Today was Friday, and sometimes the postman came on Saturday, but more likely there’d be the whole long weekend and all day Monday before any more mail. And she had already waited so very long ...

  She stopped at the fruit seller’s on East Fifteenth and bought six oranges, choosing each one with far more care than necessary. Then at the kosher bakery across the street, seduced by the mingled aromas of cinnamon and chocolate and rye, she bought a slice of apple strudel in addition to her usual loaf of pumpernickel. Old Mr. Baumgarten, who always had a pencil perched behind his enormous ear, threw in a macaroon the way he’d been doing since she was a little girl, coming here with Nonnie.

  “So, your grandmother, how is she feeling?”

  “Fine,” Rose answered dutifully.

  “And you, such a fine young lady now! Working all the way in the City. So stylish, and wearing high heels!”

  “I’m fine, too, Mr. Baumgarten.”

  Rose felt herself growing warm. If she had taken off her coat, the baker might have noticed the scorch mark on her blouse. She’d been in too much of a hurry ironing it this morning, and she had no other clean one to wear in its stead. Three good blouses in her whole wardrobe! And two nice wool skirts, which she alternated every other day. This gray one, and the navy pleated one from her old school uniform. Some stylish lady, ha!

  Well, someday, she told herself, I will be. When Brian comes home, when we’re married. I’ll be a professor’s wife then, and then I won’t ever have to feel shabby or inferior.

  But what if he doesn’t come home? ...

  Suddenly, she felt dangerously close to tears. She thanked the baker and, snatching her white paper bag from his hands, fled from the store.

  Now she was running, running, charging across Avenue J, half an eye to the traffic and ignoring the red light.

  She had to get home, she had to see if today ... oh please, God ... today ... let there be a letter. ...

  The sidewalk seemed to pull at her, slow her down, her high heels catching now and then on the uneven pavement—step on a crack, you break your mother’s back—and when she came to some girls [168] playing hopscotch, she had to swerve out onto the street, darting in between t
wo parked cars. The oranges in their plastic bag swung against her, bumping her hip as she hurried.

  Then at last she was bounding up the three low steps into the vestibule of her building. Breathless, she hardly paused before pelting up the four flights to her floor. Her heart was smacking against her ribcage when she reached the landing.

  Brian, oh Brian, I miss you so. Your letters, that’s all I have. They’re everything.

  Today, please, let it be today.

  Nonnie was sitting in front of the television. Mrs. Slatsky, who always left at six sharp, a good half hour before Rose got home, had switched on Nonnie’s favorite, “Gilligan’s Island.” As Rose walked in, Nonnie barely glanced up.

  “Dinner’s in the oven,” she said offhandedly. “That woman, she brought over a meatloaf.”

  That woman. Jesus, Mrs. Slatsky was still “that woman” after how many years?

  “Swimmin’ in grease, I’ll bet. She don’t know how to cook, that woman, any more’n I could play first base for the Dodgers.”

  One of Nonnie’s good days, Rose observed. Her grandmother wasn’t slurring much, and she was sitting up straight, eyes sharp and bright as cut glass. Mrs. Slatsky must have washed her hair, and set it, too, though it wasn’t too great a job. Still, that spared Rose from having to do it, and she felt grateful.

  But never mind Mrs. Slatsky. Where was today’s mail? Rose looked on the oak hall stand where Slatsky usually left it after bringing it up in the afternoon. Nothing. Rose darted her eyes about the darkened living room. She didn’t want to be too obvious. Nonnie mustn’t catch on how much this meant to her.

  “On the kitchen table,” Nonnie said, as if she’d read Rose’s mind.

  She looked up at her grandmother, surprised.

  The frozen muscles in Nonnie’s face had never really gone back to normal after her stroke, and now she was looking at Rose with that curious half-smirking expression that, even after all these months, still unnerved Rose. She saw that her grandmother was wearing the quilted pink bathrobe Clare had sent her for her birthday [169] last month. Her hands, lying limply in her sunken lap, reminded Rose of those awful curled chicken feet the butcher gave away for soup.

  Saying nothing, Rose went into the kitchen. There, on the table, next to the toaster, two letters and a postcard.

  Her heart hammering, she picked up the first envelope and turned it over. Her hand was trembling, her mouth dry. But it was only from Clare. The other a flyer advertising a new shopping mall that was opening in Canarsie.

  The postcard was from Molly Quinn, now living in Vancouver. Molly’s boyfriend had decided to leave the country rather than be drafted, and Molly had gone too.

  Rose’s heart sank. No letter, nothing from Brian. No, not now ... what if maybe not ever ...

  Oh God, how would she keep getting up every morning, how would she live? How would she push herself through another day? Another hour even?

  She put her head down on the Formica, too crushed even for tears.

  Then she tried to imagine that Brian was in the next room—her favorite way of tricking herself into missing him less—that any second he would come strolling in and rumple her hair, and kid her about the law book she’d lugged home. Brian ...

  But now she couldn’t believe it, it wasn’t working, not even a little bit. The feel of his hand against her skin, she couldn’t summon it, however hard she tried. And his smell. What did he smell like?

  Smell. She sniffed. Smoke hung in the air, something was burning. She jerked upright. Mrs. Slatsky’s meatloaf.

  Suddenly, it struck her as funny. Here she was, worrying over Brian, and all the while life just steamrollered on, subway perverts, Nonnie, burned meatloaf, and all. Yes, it was funny. She began to laugh. Helplessly, with tears rolling down her cheeks and a knot the size of a fist in her gut.

  Chapter 8

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Miss ... ah, Dr. Rosenthal?”

  Dr. Dolenz smiled, but Rachel could see it was only a reassuring smile, not a really welcoming one. His manner made her think of her father, a bit formal, yet eager to please. And this Park Avenue consulting room with its massive gleaming desk and oak filing cabinets fitted with brass, it reminded her of Daddy’s office at the bank, how it had seemed to her when she was little, perched in the big leather wing chair opposite Daddy’s desk, feeling swallowed up by the room’s heavy dark authority, its leathery, smoky man smells. That’s how she felt now, swallowed up, diminished, as she sank onto the massive sofa beneath a trio of English hunting prints.

  She made herself sit very quietly, hands folded in her lap, but her heart was racing. What would the results of her X ray show? Six weeks since the abortion, and she was still not free of it ... and maybe never would be.

  Silently, she pleaded with him: Please, if it’s as bad as the plastic smile on your face, then I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know. ...

  She thought back to how sick she’d been those first days after the abortion ... burning up with fever, even delirious at times. The flu, she’d thought at first, so much of it going around. Like an arrogant fool, she had dismissed David’s offer to put her in a taxi. Six blocks she had wandered, numbly, drunkenly, in the rain until finally she sobered up ... or wised up ... enough to hail a cab. By the time she got home, she was drenched, shivering with cold, her teeth chattering.

  Three days the fever had stayed high. She knew it couldn’t be just the flu. There was the pain in her abdomen, like surgical clamps. Kay finally had convinced her to come here.

  Dr. Morton Dolenz. She stared at him now, a dark man with hairy arms too long for his body, and thick features. But despite his simian appearance, he’d been surprisingly gentle. He had diagnosed [171] it as severe pelvic inflammatory disease. Bad, he’d said, but not bad enough to require hospitalization. Oh yes, she knew about PID. How it wouldn’t kill you, but it could scar you ... inside.

  He had given her ampicillin, one gram four times a day. Almost immediately, she got better. Then, a month later, he had suggested the hysterosalpingograph to see if there was scarring in her Fallopian tubes, and if so, how extensive. He made an appointment for her with a radiologist, then scribbled a prescription for morphine—they injected radioactive dye into your tubes, he told her, and there would be some pain.

  Now, a week later, here he was rising from his chair, undoing the clasp on a large manila envelope, pulling out films.

  “I don’t believe there’s any point in beating around the bush with you, Doctor,” he said. “Why don’t you have a look at these with me, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  She watched him clip the films to a lightbox on the wall. Slowly she rose to join him, a pulse in her throat jumping wildly, her stomach clenched.

  He pointed on the films to two grayish areas where the dye had not penetrated. “As you can see, there’s rather extensive scarring in both tubes. This would make conception ... well, let’s just say ... unlikely. At some point in the future you might wish to consider surgery. But—” he shrugged, “as you probably know, the results in that field have been far from promising.”

  Did he mean no children? Ever? No ... that can’t be ... oh God, no. ...

  Rachel felt lightheaded, as if somehow she had a fever again. She stared at Dolenz, riveted by a large mole on his neck from which three stiff hairs sprouted. She had to get away from those X rays with their murky patches, and from whatever it was he was saying. So she stared at the mole, wondering why a man with the power to wipe out a whole part of her life hadn’t thought to snip those disgusting hairs.

  “I’m sorry,” he went on, “I wish I could have been more encouraging. But in these cases I always find it’s best to be direct ... so as not to ... ah, raise expectations. Then you know which cards you’re holding, so to speak. You can always adopt, that is, if your husband—”

  [172] Rachel extended her hand in a brisk handshake, thanking him, putting an end to his fumbling attempts to brighten her bleak future.

  S
he made it outside, holding herself very erect, spine stiff, chin thrust up, as if by remaining totally vertical she might somehow prevent this hotness in her chest from spilling over. Stopping only for traffic lights, she walked the sixty blocks downtown to her apartment like a zombie, not slowing even when she felt blisters forming on her heels, or when rain began pelting her. Shortly past dark, her hair in wet tangles, her coat nearly soaked through, she reached home.

  She slumped down in the wicker chair in the living room, not bothering to take off her sodden coat. Now she felt cold. But dry clothes or any number of blankets, she knew, wouldn’t take away this coldness, like a lump of ice in her stomach.

  No children ... no babies ... oh God, what have I done? ...

  She clapped her hands over her face.

  Oh, if only Kay were here, she thought, she’d hug me and make me a pot of tea, and we’d talk and talk, until maybe I could find some way of dealing with this.

  But no Kay now, she was gone, three whole weeks already ... Vietnam, a world away. ...

  Rachel dropped her hands from her cheeks, curling them into fists. Damn it, no, I will not sit here feeling sorry for myself. All right, it happened, but I’m not dead ... Lord, how could I be? ... not with this pain in me.

  I have to get out of here, she told herself. A complete change. Maybe I should be with Kay. They need doctors in Vietnam. And right now Kay probably needs me as much as I need her. Then I could forget this, be someplace where I won’t have time to think about it. ...

  The phone was ringing.

  Let it ring. She didn’t want to talk to anyone now. Whoever it was, let them call back tonight, tomorrow.

  But the phone kept ringing, on and on and on. ...

  Rachel dragged herself to her feet.

  “Hello?”

  “Rachel, thank goodness, I nearly gave up on you!” Mama’s voice, clear and bright, rang like crystal goblets chiming against each other in a toast.