On Keeping Women

by Hortense Calisher

  Royal watches, greedily.

  Charles is receiving the picture as he might a gift—naming it. It hangs in the middle distance between recognition and shock. Between his own picture of the universe—and the world. It hangs there uncertainly, not yet philosophy, yet not merely flesh. And with the faintest flow—not critique, but not unreasonable—from the landscape of Immanuel Kant. But he can take it with him now, into those modest nights in the garden of satire, with his machines. It will follow him. Even onto those ranges where he hears the epistemological namings, the haunted messages. Which command him too to receive, to record.

  No, he can’t say yet. What the sight of those two figures—strict, bare, washed with meditation—may mean to him. Because it is in itself a naming. It is a picture of his world. Which he may hang in his universe.

  What are they doing there, naked but separate?

  “If they’re going to skinny dip—I wish they’d get in.” Maureen is angry, resonant. For Maureen.

  “If they’re going to make love—should we watch?” Royal’s voice is skiddy. For Roy.

  All three turn.

  Chessie is unfolding. Her long, nervous, beautiful legs look pale and cold, even in the hot, attic morning. Her lips move, frostily. “Can—they—see us?”

  She’s come to herself. She sees it in their faces.

  “Not if we stand back,” her sister says, so reasonably.

  “They’re not looking at us.” Her porky little brother is scared.

  Charles is silent. There’s always more to it than that; More, to us. More than one person, one reason. For why it happens. For why they’re out there. And how did Chess know? That they were.

  Chess is studying her wrists.

  Maureen reaches out to her, pulling the T-shirt’s long sleeves down over the bandages. “There, darling. There.”

  Taking her by the waist, Charles and Maureen draw her to the window. Or she draws them. The three stand there, her tall brother and chubby sister flanking her, each with one of her hands clasped between theirs, and held to their breasts.

  She stares for a long time, before she answers.

  Cassandra must have been something like her, Charles thinks, holding onto her. Like one of these. A spasm of guilt tightens his hold.

  She turns a cold smile on him. “They’re waiting for the bus. To see them.”

  Maureen with a harsh cluck drops her sister’s hand. It deals in poisoned revelations.

  Charles holds on, chilled. She’s right. It’s a signal, out there. Oh she’s right, and that’s why we want to put her in hospital. People like her—they pull the signals from our breasts.

  From above, Royal, forgotten on his ledge, whispers “Boost me down.” It’s the one thing he can’t do by himself—let down his own weight.

  No one attends him.

  “Charlie?” Lightly she draws her wrist from his grasp. “Let’s run away.”

  “You and me?”

  She looks at him, deep. So he’s thought of it. “No.”

  “All of us?”

  She nods.

  “Together?”

  She makes the same impatient “Tchk!” their mother does. At their father. Shaking her head at him. “Alone.”

  Maureen says “Away?” Slowly. They can see it dawn on her. Away from you, Chess. From Royal. From you, Charles. From each of you, differently.

  “And from them,” her sister says at her. “Ha, see Charles? Look at her … Listen, Reen. Where would you go? If you did.”

  A low grin. Reeny has her secrets. “To Grandpa Charlie’s. His wife; she says she’ll do me over. Just me, she says. And I love Florida.”

  “See. And you could go to Rocky’s. You’re there half the time already. Or until Harvard comes through. Or Oxford. You know you could … And Royal.” She shrugs. “We all know where little Roy.”

  “Yah. And where she will.” He’s white. “Let… me … down.”

  Chessie bars them. Holding up her arms, crossed at the bound wrists. “The minute you do—he’ll phone James.”

  They know he will. Without looking at him.

  “Chess. Where will you go? Where can you?”

  She trembles. She’s never heard that stern, despairing tone from him before. “You won’t like it, Charlie.”

  “Try me.”

  “Yah, tell us.” If Royal can’t get down, or up, he can sneer.

  Her head lifts on its long neck, the nostril opening black. “Yah to you.” She tosses it. Turns to him. “Charlie?” She can go in and out of beauty, like some old movie-star you’re watching, from either end of her life. “Charlie, I’m a swinger. Imagine. Me. I am, though. In town. And it wasn’t only the job—I got it, but I knew I wouldn’t keep it. I went to a bar. Every day for a week … They like me, Charlie.” She sees his face. “Listen, keed. All I did was sell a drawing. The one of Ma.”

  She’s so proud. Though people have bought her drawings before, they were only neighbors. “The one you said to show the doctor.” She’d titled the ink-drawing The Fat Bourgeois. Though in it Lexie looked thin and desperate. “Even he said it was good.” She frowns, and for a minute he’s afraid she is lost again. She sees that too. “Uh-uh, brother.” She smiles. Then flings over her shoulder “And. it’s an okay bar, little brother. James goes to it … Charlie? The owner doesn’t pay me anything. But he says that I can go there any night and draw the—guests.” She’s shy. “I mean, you know… what is the right word?”

  “Customers.”

  “And I am a swinger. I mean—I already know I can be.”

  Chess with a man. He can only nod.

  “Don’t glom that way. And don’t be a simp. I’ll stay in a hostel. I’ve got money to.”

  “From where?” Royal can’t help being interested.

  “From Gram. Real Gram. Renata. She wrote—and sent it.” She’s shuddering now, but from excitement, and the vitality which sheds from her almost tangibly, like sparks from a frayed wire. “She says I can be all right, if I want to. I can. I can.” She says it like a rune. “I can be all right, if I really want to. Away from them.”

  And it’s all true. Or could be. He can go to Rocky’s and find a girl there, or somewhere. Maybe at Harvard. He visualizes her without actually seeing her. Some girl in trouble, maybe. Whom he’ll help. And Royal can leave, surely. Even Maureen, probably—what a surprise.

  And Chess. He doesn’t want to see that film. But he sees it. The swinger, drawing her diagnostic pics. Going in and out of madness, on her own. Innocence seeping from her, rank and powerful as filth. Smelling like anarchy to all customers—guests.

  Yet it would be—what they three could do for her.

  But not only for her. For us too—Maureen, Charles, and even little Lord Roy.

  And even—for them. For those two out there.

  “Let’s. We can all start off together. Reeny has the farthest to go. I’ll help.” When Chess is strong, she’s Lexie distilled—falling apart only within sight of the original. “Eh, Reeny?” She gives her an encouraging tickle. “I’ll even wear a proper dress. To see you off.”

  “Oh, la.” Maureen is a custardy rose. “What would I wear?”

  “Nothing special. She wants to do you over, remember? And you won’t even telegraph. You’ll just arrive. They’re always there. With Grampa on the dock, talking travel—you know how they are.” She even has their mother’s ironical smirk. She can inhabit one after the other of Lexie’s moods, adopting each like a costume. Or do they inhabit her—issuing from her mouth? Only the saliva of the ordinary, to join them all, is missing. “We’ll have to take Roysie here with us. Or else leave him, on his ledge. How about it, Royal? Ready for export? Or not?”

  He won’t be left out, our Royal. Chess knows how to handle him. He’s afraid of her. Aren’t we all—a little afraid of her? She goes too far. Is that why we want her out of our sight?

  Geniuses—his mother said to James once—and to his father, sitting offside, the way he did—they always go too fa
r. Mocking herself. But pleading too, for what’s in her that’s also in Chess. Sometimes he thinks Chess is his mother’s very vengeance, for what Lexie knew her own powers had been kept from, by the time she bore Chess. As the first son and child, he’d escaped. “When I bore you, I knew nothing; you were all Ray’s.” But by the time I bore Chess—it was never said. Only implied—by her guilt over what Chess is or does—alternated with her blind, angry pride in it. “Our two heroines” James calls them. While his father, silent, never defends. Charles fingers the scraps in his pocket. Who’s ever known what Ray thinks? Lexie’s vengeance is bent on Ray—and on James. But nature’s vengeance—is on her. Her own power, wildness and capability, submerged and souring, wandering chemically afloat in her own girl.

  But it’s not genius. His great men; yes they go far, far, but knowingly, a compass at the core of their wandering. Not like Chess. And not with those wrists.

  “Eh, Charlie.” She’s been watching his very thoughts. “You’ll—go along with it?”

  “Run to the city you mean? That’s not far. Or even Florida.”

  “Doesn’t have to be. Far enough.” She lays the words down like knives. But not from corners now, or waiting to be caught. The certitude is on her now—the same force that allows their mother to say to him “Be me”—and perhaps, in the womb, said it to her. “Listen, Chucky-chuck.” Diminutives rain from Chess like love, when she’s like this. Softening a force which maybe she knows has to be humanized.

  He always falls for it. He wants it to be love.

  “All four of us?” He sees the four of them running, with clothes, books, saved old toys and secret collections, the whole impedimenta of childhood flying in clouds after them. “At once? With all our junk?”

  “Listen. It’ll be like the night of the fire, don’t you see?” The look she hands him is strong, gleeful, almost coarse. “We’ll each take—the one thing that matters. Just that—and money.” She stretches, lazy but sure, to pat Maureen. “Not Gabriel, baby. Cats have to be left. They go with the house.”

  “What, then.” Reeny’s immured at once in the choice.

  So is he.

  And Chess is laughing at them both. “We’d all be taking it with us. Already. Wouldn’t we, Charlie.” She stares at him, feeding him it.

  The one thing that matters. To them.

  Yes—she dazzles him.

  “What? What is it?” Reeny gets naggy when she sees the two of them like this. “Tell me.”

  He pats her too, making light of it. But it isn’t light.

  “Us.”

  Everybody’s quiet.

  “Abracadabra,” Chess says then. “Let’s be off.” She’s her old theme-correcting self. Grammar-hard on excess. Biting off what counts. “And we won’t wait for the bus, my hearties. Will we, Charles.”

  Everybody’s waiting on him.

  So he’s caught. Since he was fourteen, he’s been their illegal transportation, sub rosa, in his friends’ cars. And since he was sixteen, in his Volks. Which because of the lack of much garage space near these hill-houses, is parked way up the hill behind them, on the upper road. Often these days, he has to prime the little bugger. When it does start it makes a sweet little racket. The family joke is that the Kellihys will object. Once it goes, it does what you tell it to.

  They could all sneak out by the alley-way. Up and over the hill. And out. They wouldn’t even have to use the front door.

  “You can phone them later where we are, you want to,” Chess is saying. “From Rocky’s.” She’s rueful; she knows what this means to him. But stern. He can see her, the figurehead, flying the snub bowsprit of the Volks.

  It can’t last; it can’t last. But she dazzles him.

  “And if we don’t like it—” Maureen’s saying, “—we can all come back here. Couldn’t we?”

  Royal is drumming his feet on the window-ledge. First the hod-foot, then the good one, bump drum, bump drum. Then the good one. Then the hod. He has his shadow-tune, which follows him. He likes them to remember that. “Lookit out there. Something’s wrong. Why don’t they move?”

  Their mother’s body is sungilded now. She lies at full length, one arm flung back. Father, sitting beside her, has his back to them. His neck is bent.

  “Can’t we go out there? Can’t we speak to them?” Reeny moans it. “It’ll soon be time for the bus.”

  “Sure, go down on your knees. Maybe he’s done her in, you shits. Let me down.”

  Chess, the expert, is peering out. “No, they’re alive.” Her voice mocks.

  “We could go out there,” Maureen whispers. “Oh please, couldn’t we? We could stand in front of them. We’re dressed.”

  Maybe everyone in the family should kneel in turn to the others.

  In silence, Charles lifts his small brother down, hugs him for fraternity, gathers them all close.

  The sun is rising. The picture is lit. In all darkrooms there must be a millionth of a second like this. When the negative takes. Oh, the wind is blowing, ruffling hair dead or alive. Hold still, everybody. Green fronds high above, wave your last. Going to be a perfect picture.

  Up in the tower, the four faces straining. Down on the bank there, the naked two who made them. Yes, a perfect picture. A good take.

  And in the distance, telegraphed far ahead by the alert water, the mumble of the bus.

  Far down in the lefthand corner though, a movement. Below the terrace, out on the road there, just beyond the frame. Somebody moving. It’s the paperboy on his cycle, coming down from Kellihys’. Kneeling over his wheel, in fury. They know that posture; he’s not been paid again. They will him to go on, fairly or not. Ride on, missionary boy. Ride on without seeing. Ride past.

  He stops. Dead center. The front wheel spins, idles, rests. He’s seeing them, the two out on the green bank. A strange boy. Or only another boy, in his own tight world. On one knuckle he wears a pewter ring with his Savior on it. The sun catches it. Openmouthed, arm raised, he’s shaking his fist at their father and mother. The sun fires his nether lip. A long halloo comes from it. Stops. Comes again. And again. Stops.

  What’s he shouting, that prints itself on the wind like a banner?

  “i-in-nn, an a-aamem—aaa-tion.”

  “—S——iiin, nnn daa——n-na-aa-tion!”

  Charles, walking again, still hears the strange, clotted syllables. Each of us four hears it for himself, herself, he thinks. After a while, the full meaning will come to us. No window’s that thick, no tower that high. We guerrillas are trained to hear well.

  After a while, the sense of it will come to us. And of the signal too.

  There’s the bus. Nearing. Almost upon us, unless you know this cove well. It’ll be twenty minutes before the bus appears, jammed with heads, after coughing like a schoolmaster at every gate. Which the river and the hill can bounce between them to sound like nemesis.

  The missionary boy is gone. The bus’ll pass, and be gone, leaving its thin stream of gas. After it goes, maybe we’ll feel something. Whether or not it’s what those two down there want us to. Maybe they’ve forgotten us—and are telling us this is possible.

  Shall I lead us out of here? Down the stairs, out the front door and across the road, the four of us. To confront.

  Or? The possible dazzles him. He sees the team of four, a tall boy, a tall girl, a middling girl and a gimp, stealing out the alley, each with his or her single loot, scrambling the hill to the Upper Road, running, running from a dead fire—in the Volks. The Great Movie-Eye of the sky follows them. From the commune, eight pairs of eyes will audience. Underneath the frame, like the last sub-title the old silents float you off with, is Rocky’s whisper at the door each time Charles leaves there—“You’re not so different.”

  He checks his forces. Maureen’s not dozing. Royal has his kit again, clutched to his chest. His other sister is for the moment herself—or the one he knows. That chase is over—at least in this house. All three of them have their faces pressed to the glass.

>   He joins them there. On his way palming the tower-wall a farewell caress.

  Their mother is standing now, facing downriver. So is his father, though not hand-in-hand. The sun’s lost its gilding fire, or gone up past the house. Their bodies look ordinary. Ready to skinny-dip. Have they any loot? Only the night knows what guerrillas they are.

  It’s day.

  So they too straggle in, he thinks. Each from a little alp, onto the great divide.

  At some point while these shore-facts were accumulating, the figure on the river-bank had begun to wake. Her barge is moored again, but still faintly moving. Nobody knows how long these interior journeys take. She can feel the span of warmth that must be flushing over the horizon. It’s going to be a hot day in the temperate zone.

  So it’s possible, she thinks, surfacing, eyes still shut. To dream through all the conscious past, in the I-she admixture that you are. Refracting wave-like to the repartee of memory. In the stern, lyrical, humble agony that consciousness is. Attended by the comic valet-service of your own wit.

  Sure, it’s possible; everybody does it, every day. We’re such slow porcupines of idea, each weighted down at each moment with the whole of a sensuous history. Now and then, in one unbearable earthquake clap—we total it.

  But this time, before you open your eyes get as much of it clear as you can, before it all disappears down that grotto which isn’t dream, or sleep or even mind, but existence-as-record. Which if you persist there will link you honorably to the lives of others. Not merely as one more mortal born to die … In a marriage of record with the world—while you both so do live.

  And this moment before opening the eyelids, when the whole grotto is for one life-spark still with you, is the true clarity, the best time.

  Am I also, dear valet, in one of my slightly dishonorable sulks?

  She can feel herself, at age four or so, stealing out from a teasing kitchen to the quiet, soothing parlor, waiting there to be come after, to be recognized as in the posture of hurt—only to hear an auntie neighbor saying after her “Ah, she’s in one of her sulks. No, Renata, don’t go after her. What you start will never end.”