What Could Be Saved

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  “Mum seemed totally okay with Philip,” Laura said.

  “I think she might believe that he’s Dad,” said Bea.

  “I overheard her telling him something when she didn’t know I was there,” said Laura. She described what she had heard. “What do you think she meant by that? The girls must never know.”

  Bea shrugged. “Parent secrets. The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus.”

  “She wouldn’t have said never about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.”

  “You sure you heard correctly? You had a good amount of wine tonight, if I recall.” Laura didn’t grace that with a reply. “What did Philip say in response?”

  “He didn’t say anything,” said Laura.

  “Very Preston,” said Bea. She sipped some brandy. “We’re less a ‘read between the lines’ family and more a ‘hallucinate something onto this blank sheet of paper’ family.”

  The wall of windows was black, moonless.

  “You know, I never really understood about Philip,” said Laura. “No one actually sat down and explained it to me. He was just gone. And then we came home.”

  “We had to come home sometime,” said Bea.

  “What a horrible decision for Mum and Daddy to have to make.” Curiously, “What would you have done?”

  “I wouldn’t have lost him in the first place,” said Bea.

  “That’s not fair,” said Laura. “It just happened.”

  “It happened to them because they weren’t paying attention,” said Bea. “Because they entrusted their children to the servants.”

  “What did the servants have to do with it?” said Laura.

  Bea gave her an odd look. “We all knew it was the driver.”

  “What?” said Laura. A flash in her memory, of guilt and stealth. She felt some truth looming just outside of her consciousness, a berg floating in dark water.

  “The creepy one. Somchit,” said Bea.

  “Everyone knew that?” said Laura. “Mum and Daddy knew that?”

  “Especially Mum and Daddy,” said Bea.

  “Why didn’t I know that?” said Laura.

  Bea shrugged. “No one could prove it.” She leveled a look at Laura. “Is it really better than simply not knowing?”

  “Yes,” said Laura.

  Bea lifted her glass and spoke before the sip, her voice echoey. “I always wondered why Mum and Dad didn’t divorce, after.”

  “Why would they? They never argued,” said Laura.

  “They didn’t have to,” said Bea. “They were hardly ever in the same place. Did you ever see them kiss?”

  “On the cheek,” said Laura, but she couldn’t call to mind any specific memory of it. “Not much PDA in that generation, though.”

  “It was the 1970s,” said Bea, wry. “Plenty of their contemporaries were wife-swapping and dropping LSD.” She shook her head. “Mum and Dad made a deliberate choice to stay in their 1950s bubble. And they tried to keep us in that bubble with them. Remember the saddle shoes?”

  Those first years in America, after the return. Bea and Laura had never discussed them.

  “I remember the Drills,” said Laura. “That was an awful game.”

  “We were always alone,” said Bea, shaking her head. “We went everywhere alone. Two little girls, like the Lyon sisters.”

  Just the name put a chill through Laura. The Lyon sisters, ten and twelve, who had stepped into oblivion in 1975 while walking together to the mall near their Maryland home. The mystery had been recently solved, the perpetrator identified after more than forty years, but for Washingtonians of that era the horror was indelible, like an enormous fire that chars an entire geological stratum. No degree of later recovery, lush forests blooming on the same spot, could eradicate the bitter ash.

  “You’d think Mum and Dad would have been super paranoid even before the Lyon sisters,” said Laura. “But we were free to wander.”

  “They lived in a different world,” said Bea. “Remember having to curtsy when we were introduced to a grownup?”

  “Oh, God, yes,” said Laura. “Remember the white gloves?”

  “Those didn’t last long.”

  For the first time, she and Bea poured their separate glittering hoards of remembrance out between them, letting the precious bits mix up together, not getting defensive when a memory didn’t match exactly. Why had they kept them separate for so long? What did it matter if Bea’s recollection was slightly different from Laura’s? But it had mattered so much, for so long.

  Remember the green station wagon?

  Remember Dad’s parents visiting?

  The station wagon had those wood side panels, or it didn’t, but they both remembered how wonderful it was on long drives, how you could lie in the very back and watch the trees go by. The Preston grandparents, they agreed, were awful.

  “There was a reason for that,” said Bea. “They were extremely annoyed that we went away with two girls and a boy and came back with two girls and no boy.”

  “Which of us do you think they would have traded for Philip?” mused Laura.

  “Definitely you.” Deadpan. “They probably expected Mum and Dad to try for a replacement boy. They could have, you know. Mum was only thirty-three when we came back.”

  That seemed impossible, but Laura did the math: it was correct.

  “It does explain some of their choices,” said Laura. “Like deciding to make a road trip through the snow belt in December when Mum was eight months pregnant. She was only twenty-five then. At that age I wasn’t even responsible for a houseplant.”

  Bea sipped from her glass. Charitably not saying, You’re not responsible for a houseplant even now, thought Laura. But when Bea spoke, it was clear that wasn’t what she had been thinking at all.

  “Did you happen to notice that I am not mentioned in that story?” Bea said.

  “You were in the back of the car sleeping.”

  “That’s right. But I disappear, didn’t you notice? I’m not there when they get to the hospital.”

  It was true, Laura realized. Bea had not been mentioned in the story after the blizzard began.

  “They forgot me,” said Bea. “They got out of the car at the hospital and left me there.”

  “No,” said Laura.

  “I remember it vividly. I woke up alone, in the freezing darkness. The car’s front doors were open, the snow was blowing in. I couldn’t open the back doors because the snow was too high. I was afraid to climb over the gear shift.”

  “What did you do?” said Laura.

  “I just waited,” said Bea, “and I cried.” Her voice sounded sad. “Eventually a man came and got me. A stranger. He turned off the engine and took out the keys, and then he lifted me out. He called me Peanut. Poor little Peanut.” She looked thoughtful. “I suppose I was lucky the doors were open—otherwise the exhaust from the blocked tailpipe would have done me in.” She tipped up the glass, drank the last of the brandy.

  “They were remarkably focused people,” said Laura, after a moment’s silence.

  “There’s no excuse,” said Bea. “You don’t have children. You don’t know.”

  The memories of their parents were like that, sometimes filled with fury, sometimes love, sometimes sorrow. Unforgivable things mixing with dumbfounding things and tender things, the same event in equal parts hilarious and enraging. There was no one way to think of their childhoods.

  Laura watched the shapes of the trees through the windows, dark moving against dark. She had known that she missed her brother; she’d been told so all her life—you two were so close—but she’d had no idea how much she’d missed her sister, who’d been with her all this time.

  “Edward asked me to marry him,” said Laura. “I said yes.”

  Bea looked genuinely pleased. “That’s wonderful. Isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Laura. “It’s just—it feels like giving in. Or giving up. Something.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Bea. “Join us ordinary mortals in our
ordinary lives. Have some ordinary happiness.”

  * * *

  They sat for a while longer, two sisters up far past their bedtime, the old house creaking and sighing around them, always in the process of settling, never completely at rest.

  1972

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  IT WAS the children’s bedtime, and still the parents weren’t home. Both cars were gone, the driveway empty. Philip wasn’t home either, so the parents must have taken him somewhere. They’d never done that before; the girls were jealous. They were fed dinner and Noi supervised their toothbrushing and saw them into bed, turned out their bedroom light.

  When Noi went down the stairs, Daeng was standing at the bottom.

  “I don’t think they went to a party,” Daeng said. “They always come here first.” It was true: they always came back to the house before a party, to bathe and change their clothes. “When Master will be late he telephones.”

  “Master did telephone,” said Noi in a small voice. “He said he was working late, that he would miss dinner.”

  “You answered the phone?” demanded Daeng.

  It had been almost easy the second time, just a few hours after the first, putting the handset to her face and speaking into the pierced plastic circle of the mouthpiece, her voice traveling into the master’s ear. Noi had still been sniffling after the encounter with Somchit, gathering up the dropped laundry from the ground, when she heard the ring from inside the house. Daeng was outside the gate, looking down Soi Nine after the disappearing Mercedes, as if Somchit would turn around and come back for the phak chi to cleanse the alcohol from his breath.

  “It rang and rang,” said Noi.

  “You should have come to get me,” said Daeng crossly. “All right, so Master is late at work. But what has happened to Madame and the boy? Did Madame telephone too?” Noi shook her head, eyes down. “I will wait for them,” said Daeng. “You go to bed.” She went into the kitchen; a minute later Noi heard the metered drum of chopping.

  In the Quarters, Noi fretted. Why did she do such foolish things? Big mistakes like Somchit, little mistakes like answering the phone. As she drifted into sleep, two memories slid into her mind and collided, and Noi came awake again. She knew where Madame might be. She got up and dressed, took the small bag of her savings from its hiding place, and crept quietly out of the Quarters.

  * * *

  The hotel doorman looked her over with disdain as she passed by him into a flower-thronged foyer and then an elegant lobby with a grand staircase curving away out of sight. Ahead of her was a tall counter and behind it, a man in a blue suit who watched Noi steadily as she approached.

  “Sawadee-kha,” she said when she reached the counter, making a deep wai. “I am looking for—” Her voice failed her. How could she say that name to this man? She whispered, “Mr. Short Penis.”

  The man behind the counter looked disgusted.

  “Get out of here,” he said.

  “It’s a farang name,” she said desperately. “I don’t think it means the same for them.” She invented, “His son has been in an accident. He needs to come right away.” The man looked uncertain. “Please look through your book, to see if there’s a name that sounds like—that.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” he said, not even looking down at the large book open before him.

  There was a familiar undercurrent to the words. That tone of indignation from a vendor in the market meant Guess my price. Could it mean the same here? Noi turned away from him, dug under her blouse for her money pouch, worked the drawstring open. She fingered the coins. The brash noise they made sliding against one another was too vulgar for this elegant place. It would need to be one of the bills, soundless and discreet. She pulled out a ten-baht note, and turned around with it in her hand. “Will this help?” she said, holding it out to the man, trembling a little. The bill’s shadow fluttered on the surface of the counter.

  The man’s face focused; he moved just his eyes, looking right and left; he reached and the money disappeared from her fingers. Then he turned some leaves back in the big book in front of him.

  “Nothing,” he said, after having run his index finger down four pages.

  Perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe she had misremembered the name of the hotel Somchit had told her about, the one where Madame spent her afternoons. She almost turned away, but then she remembered the quiet, frightened faces of the Preston girls, getting into their beds without complaint.

  “Look again,” she ordered in a gruff imperative, an imitation of Daeng.

  He raised an eyebrow but looked again, making a big show of turning each page.

  “There is a Mr. Dawson in 510,” he said, finally.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “How do I get there?”

  “I can’t permit you to go up to the room.” Real indignation this time.

  “You can send someone up with a message,” she said, using the bossy voice again.

  “That’s a lot of trouble,” he said.

  She reached into her pouch, not bothering to turn around this time. The slim soft packet she pulled out was warm from lying close to her skin. She held it for a moment. It was not enough for the land tax; it was just enough to buy her passage home. But even if it had been enough for both, all of it was tainted by the bad path she had taken, her bad choices.

  The clerk accepted the money with a slight sneer, as though the bribe was so paltry that it dirtied his fingers. She thought for a moment he might send her away anyway; what recourse would she have? There was nothing left in her pouch but coins. But the man lifted the receiver of the black telephone beside him and pushed the dial around. They waited nearly a minute on opposite sides of the counter, both of them listening to the double-burr sound of the rings.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “I DON’T know any Noi,” said Max, impatient, into the phone.

  The loud ringing had awakened them both. My God, thought Genevieve, what time is it? The room was dark. She got out of bed and went over to the window, saw the lighted strings of traffic below. They must have slept for hours.

  “I don’t know any Sarah either,” Max said.

  Sarah? She froze. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be.

  “Tell her I’m coming down,” she said, scrambling into her clothing.

  “What are you doing?” he said, putting his hand over the telephone receiver.

  “It’s my Number Three,” she said frantically, pulling her dress over her head, buttoning it wrong, rebuttoning.

  “Tell her to wait,” Max said into the phone, and hung up. “What is your Number Three doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Genevieve. “I have to go.” She pushed her feet into her shoes while still buttoning her dress front, scooped up her hairband from the desk and put it into the purse, went toward the door with the purse under her arm, combing her hair back from her face with her fingers.

  “Do you want me to come?” he asked.

  “God, no,” she said. “God.”

  “I hope everything’s all right,” said Max as the door was closing behind her.

  * * *

  The utter humiliation of coming out of the elevator bank and seeing Sarah there, waiting.

  “What is it?” Genevieve asked. “Is it Mr. Preston?” During the slow descent of the lift, she’d had time to generate numerous dreadful scenarios, Robert killed in a traffic accident or felled by a coronary.

  “Philip, Madame,” said Sarah.

  Philip had been in an accident? It was Wednesday. Robert had been supposed to get him today from judo.

  “What happened to Philip?” Had they both been in a car accident while she lay for hours sleeping next to her lover? She wanted to vomit. How in the world had Sarah known where she was?

  Sarah was shaking her head. She kept saying Philip, not Master. How had Philip alone been in an accident? Maybe they had both been in the accident and Philip alone was injured. He was so small; she saw the hurtling heedless bus as i
t crushed the passenger side of Robert’s Mercedes, Philip’s face right before the impact, his mouth an O through the glass.

  “Where is he?” Genevieve asked, hurrying toward the hotel exit. If he was at a Thai hospital, he’d need to be transferred to Fifth Field. The embassy could help—if she could raise anybody on the telephone at this hour. Maybe Robert had already called them. Where was Robert? On the apron of concrete outside the hotel, she stood confused: Where was the car?

  Sarah was following behind, talking in a mix of Thai and English, urgent, incomprehensible. Genevieve turned and grabbed the girl’s hands, clutching them and pulling the girl’s arms up, as though they were reins that could halt her speech. Sarah stopped talking.

  “Is Philip in the hospital?” Genevieve asked slowly, each word separate.

  “No, Madame.” Sarah shook her head. “Philip not come home.”

  This made no sense at all. Genevieve let go of Sarah’s hands and backed away a few steps, as if distance would help to bring the situation into focus.

  “Mr. Preston was supposed to collect Philip from judo,” she said. Wasn’t that right, hadn’t they arranged that? Her day’s plan had been derailed after encountering the Ladies at Wat Phra Kaew. “Where’s Mr. Preston?” Sarah shook her head. “Both of them didn’t come home?” She looked around. “Where’s our car?”

  “Come,” said Sarah, beckoning to her to follow, in that Thai way of holding a hand by one hip and patting the air. Genevieve just stood there, so Sarah took her by the hand and led her to a waiting tuk-tuk. She spoke in Thai to the driver first, then gently pushed Genevieve in and climbed in after.

  “Where are we going?” Genevieve sat forward on the vinyl seat. The oblong of rearview mirror showed the driver’s curious eyes on her.

  “Home, Madame,” said Sarah. “We go home.” Her voice soothing, like a mother talking to a frightened child. She said something else, which Genevieve didn’t understand. “Master mai ru, Madame.”