"I told you Mat was so dedicated to his ideas that at times I think he looked upon his love for me as an attempt to prove them in reality. He was too busy to be anything but monogamous." Cynthia stood up. "I should look in on Barbara. Oooh . . . Yale . . I feel so dizzy."
Yale grabbed her around her waist and pulled her back on the couch. "I love you, Cindar." He kissed her.
Slowly, she put her arms around him, and then wildly kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes. "Yale, it can never be." She pulled away from him. "You can take me tonight, but only the way you'd take a whore."
Yale kissed her and pulled her gently across his lap into his arms. "You're drunk, my little sweetheart."
"Mmmm, Cynthia is very, very drunk," she murmured, and relaxed with a sigh. She closed her eyes while Yale caressed her legs. He brushed his hands under her dress to the edge of her buttocks. She didn't stop him. His hand caressed the roundness of her stomach, and nestled between her legs. "Oh, God, Yale," she sighed. "What a mess our life has been . . . If only your father could have understood."
"Could have understood what?" Yale whispered.
She didn't answer.
"Could have understood what, darling?"
"Could have understood that I always loved you so much. That being Jewish only meant that I could love you even more . . . with all the fierce love of Jews for what is theirs . . ."
"What did Pat say to you?" Yale demanded, looking at her, startled. That was it! Why hadn't he guessed? Pat had done some intensive meddling on his own, Yale thought bitterly.
Cynthia's voice was far-away when she spoke . . . "Oh, God . . . oh, God . . ." she shuddered, "I'll never forget the way he looked at me. . . ."
Slowly, Yale pieced the story together. Cynthia had passed almost into an alcoholic hypnosis. As he prodded her, repeating questions, patiently repeating again, she would answer as if she were in a trance and then relapse into drunken silence. Yale managed to reconstruct a vivid picture of the meeting in Pat's office. Finally, he could pry no more out of her. She collapsed, a dead weight in his arms.
What kind of a man was Pat? Yale wondered. Pat had deliberately forced Cynthia to break up with him. Pat had moved him and Cindar around just as unconcernedly as he would pawns in a game of chess; more calculating even because he had a shrewd understanding of motivations. He knew exactly how Cynthia would react. He knew that without Cynthia his son would be temporarily directionless and that he could steer him to Harvard. Given time he could engulf him with his own values. Yale could only feel a dull anger. Not hatred. For some reason he could no longer hate Pat. It was pitiful really, he thought, to build a life out of the fabric of your children's lives. For Pat, success without a son to emulate him, to build on the foundations he had started, was a hollow thing. For Pat the act of love was an act of possession whether it be his wife or his child.
Yale picked Cynthia up and carried her upstairs to his room. I never want to possess you, dearest, he thought. I simply want to share the fun and sorrow of living with a woman who cares for me. Strike domination out of the world! Strike down those who would master others for desire and profit! To this I will devote my life! He dropped Cynthia lightly on his bed. For the first time he had a glimmering sensation of purpose in his life, and Cynthia was a part of the tenuous dream.
As he undressed her, he smiled. The second time in a week. He was getting pretty adept at undressing women. When he had wrestled Cynthia out of her clothes and tumbled her under the covers he walked through the bathroom to see Barbara.
She was sitting up in bed, evidently feeling much better. She asked him where Cynthia was. "She is your Cynthia, isn't she?" Barbara accented the "your."
"If you mean is she the Cynthia I knew in college," Yale said, "the answer is yes. I just finished getting her very drunk . . . to find out why she did something crazy a few years ago."
"You mean why she broke up with you?"
Yale nodded grimly. "And you found out what Pat did?" Barbara asked.
"So you knew all about it."
"Not until it was too late. Pat told Liz. Liz told me. She was shocked, but then she thought it was for the best. Jews aren't popular in Midhaven society, you know." Barbara fidgeted with the cover of her quilt. "Don't you think you should leave well enough alone? She's pregnant, or don't you know?"
"My, my! You girls had a real talk-fest today, didn't you?" Yale said mockingly. "I know one thing . . . that you would enjoy castrating your husband. . . ." He shrugged. "So Pat will have a Jewish daughter-in-law, and a gay divorcee to entertain him in his old age." He started back to his room. "I'll leave the doors open. If you need me, yell. I'm sleeping with Mrs. Chilling, but don't listen for the springs to squeak, I never make love to drunken women."
Laughing, he ducked the pillow she threw at him. But he did make love to Cynthia. Quietly in the first grey hours of the morning, she turned into his arms and whispered, "I love you, Yale." He kissed the fullness of her breasts, and felt the firm roundness of her belly against I him. As he entered the warmth of her and felt the clutching of her vagina, he smiled happily. "You are going to be a very pretty mother, Cindar," he whispered. "We'll love this kid of Mat's, and then we'll have a brother for him . . . to keep him company."
4
Two weeks later, Cynthia and Yale were married. Even as she listened to the justice of the peace pronouncing the words that sealed the marriage Cynthia kept wondering whether it was the right thing to do. Barbara's reaction had not been enthusiastic.
"Yale's always wanted you," Barbara said. "If he can accept another man's kid without being jealous, it'll probably work out all right. Of course being Jewish in the Marratt family is not going to be any pink tea. If you can stand Pat and his inevitable reaction . . ." She paused and patted Cynthia on the shoulder. "What the hell . . . no marriage is a picnic. After a few years the romance goes. Then you spend your time wondering what some other woman has got that you haven't. Yale will be no different -- you wait and see."
Barbara stood up for them. She kissed Cynthia and wished her luck. After the ceremony they drove Barbara to New York. She had decided to join Pat and Liz at West Palm Beach. Barbara had called her husband and told him that she was going to get a divorce. "He said it was silly," Barbara told them; "that I should think it over. How do you like that?"
Driving back to Midhaven the next day, sitting close to Yale, Cynthia worried aloud. "Barbara's all mixed up, Yale. She knows that if she divorces Tom it won't accomplish anything. She still loves him. She'll end up marrying someone else. Their children will be separated from their parents and Barbara will still be carrying a torch for Tom. What do you think she should do?"
"I wasn't asked for my advice," Yale answered. He squeezed her hand. "But if I had been I would have told her to go back to him. It isn't as if Tom had pushed her out. The crowd she is in are all the same. They reach a certain age and then start to play the field. Some get mad at each other or think they have found the perfect love with someone else. They get divorced and the rat-race starts all over again."
Cynthia looked at him unbelievingly. "You mean that she should just accept another woman in her husband's life? I couldn't do that!"
"You have accepted another woman in my life," Yale said calmly.
"I know, and it frightens me. Supposing Anne really does love you? Supposing she didn't have an abortion? Supposing she had a baby and for some reason couldn't find you? Wouldn't that be terrible? Oh, God, Yale, I don't know . . . I don't know. Marrying like this, so quickly, was crazy. Our marriage has so many strikes against it already. You're going to have an awful problem with Pat. You can't help but feel funny that I've been married . . . that I'll have a baby that's not yours that you'll have to support me and Mat's baby."
Cynthia was crying. Yale stopped the car on the side of the road and kissed her wet eyes. "Look, Cindar, we've been over and over this for two weeks. First, I'm not going to work with Pat. I've told you already. I have some other plans. When Pat gets back I
'll toss the ball in his lap. He can take it from there. If he wants us as part of his family, it will be on our terms. It will take some reeducation for him. If he doesn't . . . okay. I'm not bragging but there is one thing I am sure I can do thanks to Pat's prodding . . . and that is make money. I need a few weeks to work out some of the ideas I have. If I succeed, Pat will be drawn in by the only thing he respects -- money." Yale smiled at the wonder in Cynthia's eyes.
This was a Yale she had never known. She was both pleased at the new strength she had found in him, and a little frightened. She prayed for his sake that he wasn't just whistling in the dark.
"Just as soon as I'm sure," Yale continued, "I'll tell you the idea I have and how we will work it out together. But not now. What I want to have you understand, Cynthia, is that in the past few years I have grown up. Back in the Midhaven College days I never could have accepted that anyone else had ever touched you, let alone that you were pregnant. That was a war ago . . . plus the loss of you. Now, I know that a deep love between a man and a woman doesn't start in the genital organs. It starts and grows in a man's and a woman's brain -- in their sincere desire to overcome the demands of self . . . to break those barriers so that while there are two bodies, there is only one self. This is marriage. The baby in your womb is as much of a stranger to you as it is to me. That the baby is the result of Mat's seed and yours, and not mine and yours, is not important. You are the one, just as I am the one who could make this baby a genital thing -- devoid of anything else, and we're not going to do it because neither of us believes that the flesh between your legs or Mat's penis, or mine, is the vital factor in love. I'll love this baby, Cindar. Stop worrying so darned much! I don't think you are sullied because you have had intercourse with another man, nor would I if it happened, now after we are married. I don't want to own your body. I want to share life so deeply with you that if for some reason you did have intercourse with someone else, you'd still come back to me."
Cynthia kissed him, unable to repress her tears. Yale, she thought, you are so wonderfully, beautifully idealistic. I'll love you forever. "Come on, let's hurry," she said, "I love you so much, my brain and my breasts and the flesh between my legs . . . altogether want you."
A few days before they were married Yale had gone with Cynthia to see Ralph Weeks. He had remembered Weeks' remark that he wanted to sell his house. Yale told Cynthia that it was just an idea -- the house was probably such a wreck that it wasn't worth considering. Weeks had greeted them at the door. They followed him through the empty rooms. With the exception of the kitchen where Weeks slept on an old brass bed before a tremendous fireplace, the house was empty.
"After Martha died the antique dealers descended on me," Weeks said genially. "You see, Martha inherited this place and every stick of furniture that went with it."
"There must have been some very valuable antiques," Cynthia said. "I wish we had seen them."
Weeks smiled, "Oh, I'm no fool, young lady. Martha wised me up. After she died I moved everything she told me was real good into the barn. I sold the rest to one buyer for three thousand dollars. The stuff out in the barn is kind of a legacy. None of the collectors has seen it yet, but unless Martha was wrong it has enough value to keep me going for a few years."
As they examined the empty rooms both Cynthia and Yale were amazed at the construction of the house. All of the rooms had wide panelled floors built with dowels. Each of the six upstairs rooms had its own fireplace.
"No central heating," Weeks explained. "Had to use the fireplaces to keep warm. There's plenty of wood. More than twenty acres uncut."
"There are no bathrooms either," Cynthia said, looking sadly at Yale.
"Hell's bells, young lady, all the country folk ever used was a chamberpot. Keep it near the bed. Darned handy on a cold night. There's a two-holer out in back. Many a night I sat there with Martha when she was alive."
They followed Weeks back into the kitchen, smiling furtively at each other. A fire built of huge six-foot logs crackled quietly in the fireplace. Weeks proudly showed them his still. "Got a batch fermenting now. Try this." He poured them drinks in pewter mugs. "This last run is damned good. Too bad I can't sell it. Be a rich man in no time. Course, I keep a few friends around here supplied."
Sitting opposite each other, leaning on their elbows on a heavy pine table, Yale and Cynthia sipped their drinks. They grinned shyly at each other. Both of them wondered what the other thought of the house.
"It would be kind of fun," Cynthia said tentatively. "I'm a country girl. But this is an awfully big house."
"You'll have it filled with kids in no time," Weeks said, grinning at Cynthia. Cynthia blushed.
"I think the place has possibilities," Yale said carefully. "But it would take a lot of money to put it in shape. If you lived out here you'd need a handy man."
"I'm pretty handy," Weeks said. He poured himself another drink. "I'm a pretty fair carpenter. Tell you what. If you want to buy this place you can have me along with it. Real reasonable. After all I've got nowhere to go." He saw Yale look at Cynthia questioningly. "I could live out in the barn. Couple of good harness rooms out there. Won't be no trouble at all."
"How much do you want for the place," Yale asked, thinking that it was probably crazy to make a deal after one drink of Weeks' corn liquor.
"Look, I know you're Pat Marratt's son," Weeks said. He stared at Yale. "But I know your old man would tell you this place was a dump. He offered me four thousand for it. Hell, the land is worth that. I wouldn't sell it to him, but I kind of like you and your young lady. You seem different from your old man somehow. If you want it you can have it for four thousand. If you'll let me live in the barn, and give me a couple of meals a day, I'll work for you for nothing." Weeks sighed. "You see, I'm kind of lonely. Be nice to have some people around. I'll keep you in corn liquor, too!"
Yale and Cynthia had exploded with laughter. "I like this house," Cynthia said. "I'll bet it has ghosts. I like the idea of living in a house where men and women have had babies, and families have grown and died. A new house has no roots. Yale, can we afford to buy it? I'll work hard to make it nice."
As they drove through Midhaven to spend their first night in their old house, Cynthia smiled happily. "This is a nice honeymoon. Yale, I mean it. It will be a challenge making the Langley house into our home. I'm so happy you decided to buy it."
"I'm glad you like challenges," Yale said, "because it isn't going to be easy. Right at the moment I have about two hundred dollars. I'm going to have to figure out how we are going to pay Weeks." Cynthia told him she had enough money from Mat's insurance. Yale refused to touch it. "That's your security," he said. "In case I go broke."
He wondered what Cynthia's reaction would be to the plans that were formulating in his mind. If he told her that he was going to try to accumulate several million dollars very rapidly . . . if he told her the purpose he had in mind for the money . . . she might have felt that he was quixotically tilting at windmills.
Agreeing to buy the Langley house was the first step. For Cynthia it was a home; for him, now that he had Cynthia, it was to be a headquarters; a command post in a private war he planned to wage against bigotry and oppression. Cynthia should understand, he thought. She had lived with Mat. Mat and he were cut from the same mold. Cynthia had been persecuted because of her love for him. But Yale sensed that Cynthia would prefer a withdrawal into the womb of her married life rather than fight for ideals. Strangely enough, Anne would have understood the necessity driving him. In a way the two women he had loved reflected the twin parts of his personality. Anne the visionary, the dreamer. Cynthia, the practical one with her feet firmly planted in reality.
He turned into the road that led to the Langley house. "We're here, Cindar. Here's our challenge. I hope we can rise to it."
"Challenge Farm." Cynthia chuckled, "Shall we name it that?"
"Wonderful," Yale said. You have named it better than you know, Cindar, he thought.
R
alph Weeks was waiting at the door. He watched Yale carry Cynthia over the threshold, and smiled as Cynthia held Yale in a long kiss. "I've got a beef stew on the stove. The piano came and the refrigerator. They had the darndest time getting the piano through the door. That's the biggest piano I've ever seen."
"Piano?" Cynthia asked excitedly, her mouth half open in surprise. "Piano?"
"It's a wedding present." Yale grinned. They followed Weeks into the living room. There was nothing else in the room except a grand piano. "I guess this room is as good as any. I can't get used to this house with all the old-fashioned parlors and sitting rooms. We'll make this room a music room. What do you think?"
"Yale Marratt," Cynthia wailed. "A piano! Are you crazy when we haven't even got a bed or a stick of furniture and we are broke?"
Yale was bubbling with happiness. "But we've got a piano -- so what the hell! I have a rule for living. If all you can afford is the choice between a luxury and a necessity then buy the luxury. We can always sleep on the floor but now we'll have music to delight our souls."
"My God," Cynthia said. "You are crazy!"
Yale banged out a two-fingered version of the wedding march. "You bet I am. Crazy like a fox. This is your wedding present, but I'm going to get the enjoyment every time you play for me."
"Don't worry," Weeks said to Cynthia. "You've got a bed with a feather mattress and a canopy. It's Martha's and my wedding present to you. I dug it out of the stuff in the barn. The sheets and quilt are new. I bought them Saturday. It's upstairs." Cynthia started up the stairs.
"Wait a while," Weeks said. "You can see it later. There's a fire going in the kitchen. Come on, let's eat and then you can go to bed. When Martha and I got married we spent the first week in bed." He bellowed with laughter and put his arm around Cynthia. "Martha had two of our kids on that feather mattress. I helped deliver them. Both kids as healthy as you could wish. That mattress will be good luck for you."
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 45
