A Dual Inheritance

by Joanna Hershon

  “You stayed on Hitler’s former playgrounds? That’s … creepy. I mean, don’t you think?”

  Vivi nodded. “I think it is creepy but also kind of perfect. What better revenge? American families enjoying his favorite places?”

  “But do you think most of the families even thought about it?” Rebecca looked out at the water. Mr. Shipley was swimming long laps beyond where the waves were breaking. He hadn’t even looked up. “Do you think most military families think about the Holocaust, or do you think they’re mostly, like, Ooh, totally excellent powder today? And how many of those Americans staying in the hotel are even Jewish? I couldn’t stay in a place like that. I’d be too preoccupied with the past.”

  “Ever been out west? Like California or Arizona? Or, really, anywhere in America? Are you preoccupied with the slaughter of Native Americans?”

  “That’s not exactly a fair comparison.”

  “Well,” said Vivi, before sitting up. “We don’t go skiing there anymore, anyway.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “You don’t think I know what you’re saying? Did you hear my father at lunch? Believe me, his passion about home improvement doesn’t begin to approach other, actual human injustices. Ask him about bigotry sometime. I mean it, go on.”

  “Do you think he’s … too extreme?”

  “No, I don’t.” She shook her head. “He’s dedicated. I don’t really know what I’m saying. But sometimes,” she said, with uncharacteristic intensity, “I wonder what the point of ranting is. You know? What does it actually do?”

  “But I wonder the same thing. What is the point?”

  “You want to help people? Fine. Then help. And my father does help. I’m not saying he doesn’t. And—listen—just because I skied at Hitler’s former mountain getaway and I enjoyed it, it doesn’t mean I’m empty-headed. Just because I’m not openly despondent over every single human-rights struggle doesn’t mean I’m not deep.”

  “Who said anything about you not being deep? You are extremely deep.”

  “You don’t have to go that far, but don’t make that mistake about me. Okay?”

  “Definitely not.” They both lay back and closed their eyes. “So,” offered Rebecca, “what do you do on these ski trips, anyway?”

  When Vivi didn’t say anything, Rebecca sat up and saw Vivi lying with her eyes still closed. She remembered that day at the tree; it seemed like years ago now.

  “We usually hit the slopes around ten-thirty,” said Vivi finally. “We have lunch at one-thirty, and that’s … generally about it for the day. We’re all pretty lazy about skiing. My mom and I usually crap out on the last day—sit in the hot tub, eat too much fondue.” She opened her eyes and sat up, more animated now. “Do you know how to ski? I didn’t even ask.”

  Rebecca nodded, tried to keep from smiling.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that we start at about eight, break for lunch at noon—half hour, maybe an hour—and ski until the very bitter end of the day. My father doesn’t have it in him to pay for something and not use it. And he’s constantly paying! And we have a ridiculous amount of photos indoors in the ski lodge, which are always terrible because of the goggle tans, and then my father always insists on having one professionally done at the top of the mountain, where we have to do something stupid like stick our poles in the air.”

  “I want to see those pictures,” said Vivi.

  “One day,” said Rebecca, taking a deep breath. The errant palms sticking out sideways, the pale-turquoise water, the white sand—it was all so beautiful. And then she realized, with an odd little twist of smug surprise, that this kind of beautiful was also boring. “Why do you think our fathers didn’t stay friends?”

  Vivi shrugged. “Who knows. They don’t exactly have much in common, do they?”

  “No, but—”

  “I mean, I doubt they were all that close.”

  “What makes you think so? It sounds like they were. I mean, nobody meets my grandfather.”

  “I guess I think my mom would have more to say about your dad if he was a really good friend back then. She’s opinionated, and my parents were definitely together then. They’ve been together since high school. I mean, maybe my mother didn’t like him. Maybe that’s why they didn’t stay friends.”

  “Or maybe she did,” said Rebecca, widening her eyes.

  “Oooh …” said Vivi dramatically. “Can you imagine?”

  Rebecca let herself. She let the image pass across the screen of her mind: tall, aloof, in-the-present-moment Mrs. Shipley and her father, kicking leaves in Harvard Yard.

  “No way,” said Rebecca. “Besides, even though your mom is so beautiful, she’s not my dad’s type.”

  “You know your dad’s type?”

  “Well, I know my mother. And, yeah, I think I do know his type.”

  “No offense, but I think my mom was probably everyone’s type. You should see those pictures. And your dad …”

  “What?”

  “This is so stupid,” said Vivi.

  “What were you going to say about my dad?”

  “Let’s just ask them.”

  “No,” said Rebecca, “I don’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  Rebecca felt her chest and face flushing, and she became so flustered that she nearly shouted, “You’re suggesting that my dad was some kind of loser.”

  “I’m not suggesting your dad was a loser. Rebecca! You’re the one who said my mom wouldn’t have been your dad’s type.”

  “Okay, fine, but—I don’t think he ever dated anyone who wasn’t Jewish.”

  “Oh,” said Vivi. “Well, okay, then! I guess this ridiculous hypothetical conversation can come to an end.”

  “Definitely,” said Rebecca tersely. She stood up too quickly and got dizzy. The sky was easing into some kind of lurid pink. And then, even though she was suddenly chilled, she rushed into the sea, taking giant sloshing steps into that pale-blue water, which was—she now observed—the same color as Mr. Shipley’s eyes.

  Later that evening, Vivi shook her awake—when had she fallen asleep in the lumpy twin bed? It was pitch dark outside. Vivi picked out Rebecca’s clothes, handed her a cup of strong tea, and they were all off to the home of a local musician named Maxy Max—a black man with reddish dreads and a graying beard, who wore sunglasses even though it was nighttime and who threw his arms around Mr. Shipley and began talking so quickly about what he’d been missing since the last time he came.

  “I thought this was your first time here,” whispered Rebecca, after the introductions.

  “I guess not for my father,” said Vivi. “He travels a lot. I lose track.” They wandered off to sit on a big piece of driftwood. “How about this place?”

  It was a gnarled tree house by the sea with a large deck. There had been some damage, said Maxy, during the last big storm. A beautiful woman reclined in a hammock. It was only on closer inspection that Rebecca noticed she was nursing an infant. A pack of children ran around chasing a chicken, while a couple of men smoked a joint by a bar. They laughed and one skinny man called out: Getim getim gowon and get that nasty bird.

  Mrs. Shipley was drinking from a bottle of beer and talking to the woman in the hammock, whose dreadlocks were piled high atop her head. Rebecca heard Mrs. Shipley ask, How old is he? Are you getting any sleep? But because of the wind and the sound of the waves lapping onshore, Rebecca couldn’t hear any answers. Your fourth? said Mrs. Shipley. Then: Me? Only my daughter. Oh yes, just the one.

  They both watched Mrs. Shipley hold the baby boy. He reached up and grabbed Vivi’s mother’s hair, and as Mrs. Shipley smiled and smiled, Rebecca could not deny this unexpected thought: She’s sad.

  “You okay now?” asked Vivi.

  “Yep,” said Rebecca. “Totally fine.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I’m moody,” said Rebecca. “I realize that.”

  Vivi nodded.

  “And you’
re not.”

  “No,” said Vivi. “That’s true. But I’m other things.”

  The girls watched Vivi’s parents. They were laughing at something that Maxy had said. On the beach, two white birds poked around between the rocks and shells. A tree that looked like a giant gnarled bonsai appeared to be bending from a harsh wind, even though it wasn’t windy. She wondered if the Shipleys even celebrated Thanksgiving, which seemed—at this moment—like a monumental waste of time.

  “Maybe,” said Rebecca, “we should try to get a beer?”

  “Well, what do you know,” said Vivi.

  Down a dirt road, the car got stuck. The Shipleys were not fazed. Mrs. Shipley said, Girls, out of the car, and they got out, all set to push. Mr. Shipley, at the wheel, didn’t even take the cigarette from between his lips as he called out, NOW. The stars and the moon were so bright that it seemed as if there were streetlights, and as the car regained its momentum, Mr. Shipley sped over rocks and the girls jumped in, as if they were leaving a crime scene. He sped toward another outdoor deck, where there were so many bodies on the dance floor that it took a moment for Rebecca to realize they were the only white people on it. No island reggae here. No Jimmy Buffett. A shirtless black man rapped into a microphone over a dance-hall beat. His skin was slick with sweat. Everyone was sweating, and everyone was dancing, except for Mr. Shipley, who remained standing, a tall still tree amidst a field of waving, twisting reeds, and Rebecca was one of them.

  And after the rapping stopped, the canned beat went on, the dancing went on, and Rebecca squeezed through the crowd, following Vivi and her parents to what looked like the back lot of someone’s house (what, in fact, was someone’s house). Mr. Shipley knew to knock on the door and order barbecue for four. They sat at a picnic table in a small yard strewn with plastic toys and the familiar sight of headless, naked Barbie. They ate chicken and ribs. They drank Carib beer. And when, after Mr. Shipley drove them home too fast, weaving on both the dirt and paved roads (please oh please don’t let us die), they still didn’t go to bed. Without discussing it, the Shipleys took the narrow stone steps down to the sea, where Vivi and her parents stripped to their underwear and rushed into the water, and Rebecca raced to catch up. When it started to rain, they looked out for lightning but there wasn’t any; just rain—steady, warm, falling.

  She woke up with a speeding heart, panicked over the fact that she had ridden in a car with a driver so obviously drunk, that she was, actually, exactly that stupid, and that her father had no idea where she was. She thought it was five in the morning, and when she looked in Vivi’s bed and didn’t see Vivi, she assumed that her friend had stayed up all night reading, as Rebecca knew she sometimes liked to do. But then she peeked through the blinds and saw the light flood in; it wasn’t dawn light, not even close. She went up the stairs in search of—what? She wasn’t sure, but it felt urgent that she find out the time, that she orient herself, that—

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” called Mr. Shipley from the kitchen.

  “What time is it?” she wondered aloud, seeing the table on the veranda festively set, hearing the far-off splash of someone in the sea. She wandered into the kitchen.

  “Oh, about noon, I’d say. Or nearly.” Mr. Shipley was chopping mint; the scent hit her when she inhaled deeply—which she did when she was nervous.

  He looked up from his chopping, took a sip of water. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Um—really well? I have never slept past nine,” she marveled, kind of proud of herself. “I mean never in my whole life. What are you making?”

  “Sun tea,” he said, playing with the chopped mint as if it were a pile of sand.

  “The kind when you let it brew in the sun? Did you sanitize the jar?”

  “Did I—what?”

  “Sanitize the jar. You can get poisoned if you don’t.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I cleaned it thoroughly.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  He took another sip of his water and looked at her for a moment. “Aren’t you funny.”

  “How am I funny?” Her face burned, but all she felt was vigor.

  “How many fifteen-year-olds know that kind of thing?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying with all of her might not to sound defensive. “My babysitter taught me when I was little. She was from Haiti, too—not was, she’s still very much alive, thank God; she is from Haiti. I mean, not that you’re really from Haiti. Anyway, she moved back there. She lives there now. Her name is Solange.” As if he might go ahead and look her up? What was wrong with her?

  “Is that right?” he asked, nodding toward the refrigerator. “Why don’t you help yourself to some orange juice? Helen squeezed some this morning.”

  Rebecca did as she was told, and the juice was delicious. She drank it all and poured some more. Mr. Shipley stirred his tea.

  “I always make iced tea when I’m on vacation, but I never drink it otherwise,” he declared. “It’s one of those things.”

  “Yeah, well, my father does that, too,” she said, “but he eats donuts.”

  Mr. Shipley smiled, and it was a real smile, nothing like the tight grin that was, she’d noticed, usually skewered to his face. “There was this townhouse in Boston,” he said. “It was Helen’s cousin’s house. In the end, it’s a sad story, because Lolly later had a nervous breakdown, but during that time she seemed happy, or happy enough. She was so generous. And she made marvelous tea. It was always in the refrigerator. It was a reassuring sight, that pitcher full of tea. Who knows why? But I remember it better than any of the meals, and they were all excellent, too.”

  “That’s so sad about Mrs. Shipley’s cousin.”

  He winced. “You must call us Hugh and Helen.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I promise. My God, were you raised well, though.”

  She blushed, finishing her juice.

  There was the far-off sound of a squawking bird. Mr. Shipley mimicked the sound.

  “So,” Rebecca continued, in lieu of squawking right back, “do you have a Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “We’re from New England,” he said. “Besides, I really am a fan of the yam.”

  “Me, too!”

  “Well, then.” He grinned. “We have that in common. And let’s see what else … Do you know what you want to do with your life?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “I had no bloody idea when I was your age. Or when I was older, for that matter. I thought I wanted to be a photographer.”

  “I like taking pictures, too,” she admitted. And she felt his interest; she wanted to keep him interested, to keep talking, but she didn’t know what else to say. “But I don’t want to be a photographer.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s a very good thing to know.”

  “I think what I like about pictures is that they’re proof.” She waited for him to interrupt, but he just watched her. “My mother took these three pictures when she was a little older than I am, and they always hung in our front hall. And I’d always look at them and think: This is what she saw. Do you know what I mean? This is how she saw. And I feel like that taught me more about who she was than most of the pictures where she’s smiling for the camera.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” he said.

  “Plus she’s really photogenic, so there are a lot of those.”

  “I’ll bet. Is she an artist?”

  “Oh no. She’s a corporate lawyer.”

  “Is that right?”

  Rebecca nodded.

  “And your father?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “What’s he up to these days?”

  “He was in finance, but he stopped doing that about five years ago. Now he sells cars—I mean, it’s bigger than that. He owns car dealerships?” She heard how her voice went up at the end of her sentence in the way that her father hated, and she felt the need to cancel out that whiny imploring tone. “He’s in China now. He’s not going to believe a
ll this.” She gestured vaguely: to the two of them sitting in a kitchen, to the sunny world outside.

  When Mr. Shipley—Hugh—took another sip of water, Rebecca suddenly realized that he was drinking vodka. And his ease with her, his smile, it all seemed a little different now. He was drinking straight vodka and it wasn’t even lunchtime. But this was a vacation, wasn’t it? And didn’t he work under stressful and emotionally draining conditions? She thought: If I had that job, I’d probably drink all day long, too.

  “Where’re Vivi and … her mom?”

  “You can say it, Rebecca, I know you can.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “I’m sorry, but please. You can do it.”

  “Fine. Where are Vivi and Helen?”

  “They went to St. Maarten to go shopping. They’re on a mad quest for hazelnuts.”

  Rebecca realized that she was a little bit relieved. “Do you need help with anything? Any cooking?” she asked.

  What she really wanted was to walk down to the beach by herself, and when Hugh shook his head, that’s what she did. She put on her bathing suit and was grateful for the emergence of a big fat cloud, which kept the heat at bay. There were other people on the small beach today. Two girls lay in the wet sand on their bellies, and each one had an arm buried up past the shoulder so that, at first, they looked as if they were each missing one arm. One boy held a large shovel and finished burying a man’s body completely; only his head was visible. It struck her suddenly that beachgoing—the ritual lying out with eyes closed, the burying of bodies—was a clear practice round for death, complete with the beckoning sea. She waded in; it was as warm as bathwater. She floated until she was salty and pruned, until she was once again so tired that she didn’t have the energy to go back to the house for sunblock. She wrapped herself in a protective cocoon of towels and thought of her favorite children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The caterpillar eats his way through the journey—pickle, plum, salami, cake—never stopping long enough to see how anything tastes. Never stopping until he hides himself away, until he looks so remarkably different that, when people look at the caterpillar, they see only a butterfly; nobody sees the caterpillar anymore. This book was her favorite despite the fact that she was always aware how the next step for that butterfly was death. How there was nothing else left to become.