Eden Burning

by Belva Plain

  “Well, there would be,” Marjorie persisted, “if they didn’t have such enormous families. It’s really disgusting. All these children and no husbands. But of course there was no wedlock in Africa, so I suppose—”

  “There are no jobs for the men, haven’t you heard?” Kate put in. “That’s why so many of them leave.”

  The women are sharpening their knives, Francis thought.

  Marjorie digressed. “They’re a childish people. One of the maids almost scared me to death last week. Shrieking that spirits were making her baby sick and spirits were throwing the furniture around in her house. I thought she was going insane till Osborne told me it was just obeah. What can you do with people like that? And they want to run the government!”

  “You sound like Lionel,” Kate said. Her jaw was set.

  They despised each other. Francis moved restlessly in his chair, wishing the guests would go home. It was only seven thirty; in an hour they could decently take their leave. He felt annoyed with Marjorie and also defensive of her.

  “Is it so bad to sound like your husband?” Marjorie asked. Your husband was accusatory. “I happen to admire him.”

  “Oh, he is admirable in many ways,” Kate replied.

  “I admire the way he enjoys life. He works hard and spends his money without all this heavy guilt about having it, which gets so tiresome.”

  The conversation went in waves. After each crash came a lull, in which the force of the wave withdrew to gather itself for the next collision. And he wished again that they would go home, and his wife go to bed, and leave him alone. They were upsetting him, which was a pity, for he had truly enjoyed the afternoon and the interaction between minds so different in experience from his own.

  “They were both in my classes,” Father Baker was saying. “I suppose I feel involved with their future because I always took special interest in bright boys of the other race. A mixture of compassion and, I’m afraid, some plain curiosity.”

  “Nicholas is obviously the smart one,” Marjorie said.

  The old man contradicted her. “Smart, yes. Clever, yes. But Patrick is the thinker. Slower and far less ambitious, almost without ambition, but—Well, time will tell.”

  “There is something very fine about him,” Francis said. “I always have a sense of depth, of much unspoken. There is something in his eyes”—and, looking over, caught Kate’s own eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, turning away.

  “Do you hear from Julia and Herbert?” Marjorie inquired now of Kate. She was remembering her obligation as a hostess, in spite of all. “We had a letter two or three months ago.”

  “Yes, she says it’s a good thing Herbert was brought up in England, otherwise they’d be just another pair of colonials. Colonials are never top-drawer, you know. It’s all so funny really, these silly people sticking labels on themselves! ‘I’m better than you; he’s better than she.’ Like those women at the club in town—especially the foreigners—acting so grand toward the help. They’re almost worse than those of us who were born here.”

  “I haven’t found them so,” Marjorie said stiffly. “I’ve made good friends at the club. I wish we lived closer in. I wish Francis would buy a house in town, one of those lovely old ones with a walled garden in an alley.”

  “You know I have to be here,” Francis said.

  “You have Osborne. You always say he’s so trustworthy.”

  “Yes, but not to wear my shoes.”

  Marjorie sighed and Francis thought again, She ought to have a child. The thought was always with him and no doubt always with her. Her nerves were going bad. During their visit to New York they had both had tests and the doctors had found no reason why she had not conceived. Everyone they knew had children, sturdy children with sun-bleached hair and rosy tans. Their joys and their tribulations were the inevitable subject of adult conversation. Sometimes he thought, although probably it was unfair of him, that Marjorie suffered more from a feeling of failure and deficiency in not having given birth than from the fact itself.

  Yet he felt his wife’s pain.

  “It’s getting damp,” she said now. “Let’s have our coffee in the house.”

  “Will you play for us, Kate?” asked Father Baker. “I remember when you were a little girl, practicing the Liebeslieder waltzes.”

  “I don’t play very well anymore.”

  “But will you, anyway?”

  She sat down at the piano. From his “own” chair near the window, Francis had an oblique view of her cheek and the curving hair which swayed like a curtain as she moved. He supposed she played with skill, but he was no judge; he only knew when music moved him, and Brahms always did. He had not worked, because it was Sunday, and had no reason to be so tired, yet he felt a need to soothe fatigue, and putting the coffee cup aside, he laid his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. The music rippled, telling of simple, country things, of May and streams, of gardens and first love. And the scents of frangipani and wet grass blew in with drenching sweetness.

  Then, abruptly, the music changed. It paused and slid into a minor key. It was as though the shadow of some sorrow had darkened the spirit of the player. Just so, two or three times in the past, he remembered, had a visible shadow passed across her face.

  … but he married me instead. He could still hear the cadence of the words, could see the sudden gravity and then the determined cheerful toss of the head. Funny, plucky little soul! A scrapper, he thought, afraid of nothing, and yet—

  He had been thinking of her ever since. No, not thinking, exactly, just aware, as of a hovering presence at the back of thought, so that on an errand in town it would cross his mind that he might perhaps encounter her again on the street. It had never happened. Or entering a room at one of those crowded gatherings where you stand all evening holding a drink, it would cross his mind—oh, idly, very idly—that she might be there among the crowd. She never was.

  All of this was meaningless, of course—aberration and whim! It came to all men at some time or other. It came and passed. And opening his eyes, he met Marjorie’s rather thoughtful gaze, just as the music stopped and Kate closed the lid of the piano with a final thump.

  “It’s late,” she said. “Come, Father.”

  It had grown quite dark. At the car Kate paused and looked up at the sky, where there was no moon and blue stars quivered.

  “No wind up there. No sound,” she said. “It seems so strange. Turning and turning, millions of stars in total silence.”

  He thought he saw tears in her eyes, but it might have been only their natural shine.

  “We don’t know anything, do we?” she said, and got into the car.

  He went back up the walk to where Marjorie was waiting. Braced against the doorpost, she, too, was looking up into the sky.

  “A depressing night,” she said.

  “Depressing?”

  “Yes. Yes. Tell me, do you really think we’ll ever have a child?”

  With his arm around her, he could feel the rigid muscles under the soft silk.

  “I don’t know,” he began. “Still—”

  “But how stupid of me to ask! How can you know?” She began to cry. “I’m sick of myself, Francis! What excuse is there for a woman without a uterus that works? What am I to do with my life? Keep putting a good face on things with my friends? Run around like Kate Tarbox, making an idiot of myself?”

  His fingers, which had half-consciously been soothing her shoulders, withdrew.

  “What have you got against Kate? She’s never harmed you.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  He spoke quietly. “Can’t women have compassion toward each other? You know she’s not happy at home.”

  “That doesn’t give her a license to poach.”

  “Poach, Marjorie! That’s total nonsense!”

  Was it? Hesitating and denying, tentatively reaching and withdrawing, with their silences and their eyes, they had been communicating, he and the other wo
man. Yes, they had.

  And, very troubled, very afraid, his arms went out again to his wife, but she had pressed herself against the door and shrank away.

  “I’ve done you an injustice,” he said, “keeping you here.” When she did not deny it, he continued, “I suppose we ought to quit and go home.”

  “You know you’re not going to do that, you’re too committed here.”

  It was so. Now, would he have gone willingly with her if it were she who had committed herself to a labor and a way of life that fulfilled her need? With painful honesty he tried to answer Yes, he thought he would. True, this was a man’s world, but there was in him a sense of fairness, and he thought he would. Then, was he asking too much of her, after all? He thought he was not.

  As if she knew there was nothing more to be said on the subject, she sighed again. “I’m going in. Are you coming?”

  “In a minute,” he answered.

  She wanted sex tonight, he understood. It was not only because of her now-frantic need to become pregnant. It was her need to receive her due, proof that she was desirable and that their marriage was successful, according to the books. He couldn’t prove that this was so, but when he lay with her, his body knew it.

  Something had happened, something had changed. And it was not just because they were living here; for here, as there or anywhere, one throve if all else were right. Neither was it her twinge of jealousy; he would give her, he vowed, no cause. He’d seen enough of that sort of thing with his father. Was it, then, simply because they had no children?

  He became aware of an agitation in his chest, an altered heartbeat.

  Far below, a sliver of sea gleam shone through the wilderness of leaves. A wind rose, moving through the high acomas. And Francis’ memory, drifting without direction, plucked through some association with this sound of wind, a picture of Marjorie, standing with her arm in his, laughing, struggling as a gust blew the wedding veil across her mouth.

  When had it changed, and why? He didn’t know, he couldn’t say, only that it had. It occurred to him that such must be the regret you know when you are old. He felt a lonely, chilling sadness. And he stood quite still, waiting, willing it to pass.

  Ah, well, only a fool expects to keep forever all those first, mysterious raptures!

  Then, then, there was always this, which alone would never change: he flung his arms out to the breathing night. All blue it was: the far pale stars were blue and the trees threw blue-black shadows on the grass. A bird, not yet sunk into sleep, called one clear, genial note and, falling still, stilled also some portion of the agitation in the young man’s heart.

  And he, too, sighed as Marjorie had done and went in and closed the door.

  ELEVEN

  “There’s so much to be done,” Nicholas urged, tipping back from a spacious desk on which papers were ordered with soldierly precision, “while you’re holed up in a village school, wasting yourself.”

  Around him the office walls held shelves of law books and well-framed diplomas. Above the windows hung a long green-and-yellow banner which proclaimed with spirit, NEW DAY PROGRESSIVES FOR A BRIGHT TOMORROW.

  Nicholas followed Patrick’s glance. “Like it?”

  “It certainly catches the eye.”

  “Well, have you thought any more about our last talk?”

  Now Patrick had to play devil’s advocate. “No honest work is ever wasted. And I’ve always wanted to teach, you know that.”

  “You also understand what I mean. We’ve discussed more than once your sense of futility at teaching children what they’ll never use.”

  “Still, if you can reach just one, light a fire in just one—”

  “I know, I know. Pious hopes, but someone else could do what you’re doing now. What I’m asking of you is far more demanding. You want to improve conditions? Then consider the power of the press! You write well, and our party needs a paper that will express its point of view. The island needs a paper, as a matter of fact. Here, listen to this.” Nicholas picked up a copy of the Clarion. “Here’s the front page: ‘Miss Emmy Lou Grace was guest of honor at a party in celebration of her eighty-fifth birthday last Wednesday at the home of Mrs. Clara Pitt.’ And here’s what passes for an editorial: ‘We must deplore the condition of the square on market day … fish heads attracting stray cats!’” Laughing, he flung the paper down. “Pap like this! And nothing about schooling, nothing about housing, nothing even about independence, which can’t be more than two years away! Pap! Patrick, I’ve got money enough to start a paper and keep it going until it can support itself. When my father died last year he left much more than I knew he had. Look, I’m supporting this whole office, all this extra space I’ve taken for the party! I want you to take charge of a paper for me. I want to build a constituency before any of the other parties get ahead of us.”

  “They don’t amount to anything. They’ve no real leadership, no programs except muttering discontent.”

  “Exactly. But you can’t count on that forever. When independence comes—before it comes—we want to be in first place. You’re an idealist, but what good are ideals if all you do is talk about them? Here’s your chance to bring some of them to life.”

  Patrick looked out the window, away from that pair of searching, vivid eyes. Across the cove an outboard skimmed, its wake a triangle drawn upon a clean page. Cathedral bells made a brief alto clatter and ceased. Sunday calm lay over the town, touching his ears and eyes with its languor, beguiling him away from the coiled energy of Nicholas and the decisions he was urging.

  I am not a man of action, he thought again.

  “Have you talked about me to your father-in-law?”

  “Oh, yes.” Patrick smiled mischievously. “He says to tell you he doesn’t resent you because you wear fine suits and speak with an Englishman’s accent.”

  Nicholas laughed. “So he approves?”

  “Well, you know he wants a government that will represent labor. He says if you can do that he will certainly support you.”

  “Good. And what about the paper?”

  “Obviously, it’s important to have access to the press. The planters will no doubt fight all the way.”

  “Except Francis Luther and maybe a couple of other mavericks.”

  Patrick said slowly, “Clarence isn’t even sure he trusts Francis. Needless to say, I don’t agree!”

  “Not trust him!” Nicholas exclaimed.

  “Well, Clarence is getting older and has seen too much. He admits he’s probably too cynical.”

  “He certainly is. Listen, it’s our job to point out conditions that are insupportable, that can’t go on. We need to persuade. It’s stupid to assume that because a man is a planter and has white skin he’s unteachable, or a natural enemy. And now there’s something I haven’t told you. I just found it out yesterday. Kate Tarbox wants to join you.”

  “How so?”

  “She’s left her husband. Finally. Should have done it long ago, or so the gossip goes.” Nicholas shrugged. “Anyway, she’s moved back into a house she had from her father. It’s an unpretentious place, down that alley at the foot of Library Hill. And she wants to earn some money. She’d like to work on the paper, maybe even write something, under a pseudonym, if necessary.”

  Patrick whistled softly. Could this move of hers have anything to do with Francis? At once he decided not.

  “Well, what do you think? It would be pleasant, I should imagine, to work with her.” Nicholas looked at his watch.

  Patrick stood at once. “Let me mull it over some more.”

  He went downstairs and got into his car, feeling the weight of Nicholas’s pressure. The offer was complimentary, to be sure. Also, it had its temptations—chiefly, more money. Désirée would be pleased with that! A small knot gathered on his forehead. Deliberately, he smoothed it. No use fretting! She had a strong taste for luxury, and this taste had been encouraged since Doris had married Nicholas and come here to live. Doris, by Désirée’s standards, per
haps by anyone’s, was a sophisticate, a connoisseur of good things to wear and eat and be surrounded by. Doris and Nicholas were living in the house that had been his father’s, but there was talk now, so Désirée reported wistfully, of their building a waterfront house on a hill about two miles from town. Very modern, it was to be, with much glass and open space. In the style of Le Corbusier, she had explained. She had very likely never heard of Le Corbusier until now, but she was an apt student.

  His mind slid back to the paper and Kate Tarbox, who had walked away from a splendor which would have dazzled Désirée…. And his mind slid back to Agnes. She had sold the store and was ready to leave. He’d worried: What sort of place was it where she was going? What sort of house?

  “Wattle and daub,” she’d told him. “One of my cousins’ husbands built it.”

  “But you’ve had running water here, you aren’t used to that,” he’d objected.

  Her earrings had swung. “Why not? I was born under wattle and daub. I’m not too high and mighty to live under it again.”

  Funny how some people wanted things and wanted so badly, while others didn’t care!

  As for himself, he was comfortable, cleanly housed, and well fed. He was, for the most part, doing what he liked. And with a twinge he thought of “his” children, certain faces appearing to mind according to the bench they occupied. There was Rafael, restless and cunning as a monkey; just lately Patrick had begun to see some settling of his mood. Then Tabitha, a stammerer who, he was certain, had been beaten since infancy. And Charlotte, with a head for numbers more competent than Patrick’s own by far. No, he was not about to abandon them! He could not! They challenged him and held his sympathies in their bare hands; they angered him, they tried his patience, and they loved him. Well, some of them did, anyway!

  What Nicholas wanted was, moreover, a step into the dark. If it didn’t work out, he would have forfeited his place in the school system. And if it did work out, he had no illusions about what it would lead to. Involvement in a tough political struggle, that’s what. He had no taste for it, none at all.