When he looked at her across the dinner table, her pale, fair hair and skin, her pale eyes, and the vein that divided her forehead, he looked for any sign of deception, but there was nothing but openness and affection. He looked into her steady, unblinking eyes and tried to see if she was capable of duplicity, but every feature in her face was loving, straightforward, and direct.
At night, her long thighs were cool and the insides of her arms were cold. As she slept, Carl thought how fragile she appeared, and how tough she actually was. It occurred to his sleepy mind that this was a deception in itself. At times, he was overwhelmed that she was purposely shutting him out of a part of her life, and then, suddenly, it all seemed normal to him. If he asked her, she would smile her eye-diminishing smile and tell him of course she swam every day. But he did not ask, and could not. He could not bear to admit that what was second nature to her had been news to him. He fluctuated between panic and calm. If she was swimming every day in Chicago, it meant that she had done the same in Cambridge—all that time and she had never said a word, but had simply arranged a part of her life away from him and gone swimming in it.
In the summers they went to his parents in Maine, or to hers on Stone Boy Lake, and swam together. But usually they were apart for most of the day, and she spent several hours of it in secret. It seemed so deliberate, so concealed and contrived—it broke his heart to think about it. But then perhaps his vision was distorted. They had been together for five years and he knew her swimming was something she probably assumed he took for granted, but at night it looked like sabotage.
On the day of a heavy rainstorm, he saw her from the window of his office, walking under a golf umbrella toward McWerter Hall, and he followed her. He climbed the stairs to the bleachers and waited until she came through a door and walked to the edge of the pool. His jacket was glazed with mist and he was sweating under his collar. The roots of his hair were damp. Through the steam and haze, he saw his wife on the low board. She dove into the water like a bird and he could see the white streak of her gliding to the shallow end. He wanted to call out, but held himself back, and since she didn’t look up, she never saw him. She tossed her hair out of her eyes and he could see that they were slightly unfocused by chlorine.
There was a catch in his throat as he watched her walk the perimeter of the pool, leaving delicate footprints on the tiles. She stood on the tip of the high board, and when she connected with the water it seemed to slice his heart.
She did a swan dive, then a jackknife. Stifling in his tweed, he watched ten laps of her sleek, racing crawl. Then she climbed back on the high board, framed by a window the width of the room. The sky was the color of faded ink. His clothes itched and he longed to throw them off and dive in with her. But it would have been betrayal. Instead, he watched her do a half-gainer and when she was underwater, he left by the side door.
After dinner, he said abruptly: “I want to go swimming with you tomorrow.” He was that desperate.
Lucy smiled and her cheekbones hid her eyes. It was a truly open smile.
“Sure,” she said. “That would be nice. I’m going around three thirty. Is that O.K. for you?”
“It’s fine.”
That was the end of the conversation: the spell was broken. They were going swimming together and everything was all right. When the dishes were done, Lucy curled up on the sofa to read, and Carl took the garbage out. When the wind hit him suddenly, he leaned against the railings and, to his own amazement, wept.
He was at the pool by twenty past three and she was already swimming laps. Bleak light glared through the window. When she lifted her head to the side, performing her slow, determined crawl, her eyes were albino.
Carl played in the water; did surface dives, stood on his head in the shallow end. He jackknifed from the low board and he and Lucy swam four laps of side stroke together. Then they dove from opposite sides of the pool, met in the middle, and kissed underwater. They held hands and floated. Finally Carl got out, sat on the side, and watched. She was not swimming for fun or exercise or habit. She had never joined a swimming team, not even in high school. It was like the air for her: she was amphibious.
She got out and sat beside him. Her feet were long and bladelike.
“That was refreshing,” he said.
“It’s really all right, for a pool.”
“If it ever gets warm again, we can swim in Lake Michigan.”
“That’s the ticket,” Lucy said. “It’s wonderful in the lake. I was in a couple of weeks ago.”
Whatever spell had been broken re-formed. A couple of weeks ago, it had still been winter. She had been swimming out of doors—something unusual enough to tell him about, yet she had seen fit to conceal it. The skin around her nails was grainy and her hair was flat against her head. Drops ran from her bangs to her nose and down her cheeks. He stared at their separate feet, spookily luminescent in the blue water.
The weather got warm and the spring air was sweet. Riders appeared on the bridle paths in Jackson Park. The ground was fuzzy with new grass.
Carl walked under a little stone bridge in the park, listening to the traffic above him. He followed a winding cement path until he came to the rocks that lined the lake. The sun was setting and when the park lights came on, there were halos of mist around them. He climbed the rock steps down to the lake and sat by the water. He had come directly from the office and was still wearing his tie and jacket. Lucy might be home, or she might be on the other side of the park, swimming while he sat. He looked down into the deep water that had contained her and saw mossy algae moving gently with the current. He took off one shoe and sock and tested the water with his toes. It was icy cold. He stretched out on the rocks and watched the sun go down.
It was dark when he got home. Lucy had left a note that she had gone to do some last-minute shopping. His bones felt light and he took a nap on the couch with the windows wide open, and dreamed that he had a fever. He was awakened by Lucy’s cool hand on his forehead. In her other hand she was holding a brandy snifter full of water.
“Look,” she said. “Snails.” In the bottom of the glass were some small stones covered with algae. Two snails sat on the stones, and four clung to the side. The water magnified them, and when he took one out it was gray and tiny in his hand.
“I got them today,” she said. “They’re all over the rocks. I went snorkeling.”
They had a quiet dinner, read the papers, and listened to the Mozart clarinet concerto. Every window was open, and the sweet air breathed in.
Late at night, the bedroom was cool. Lucy slept without a sound, but Carl was awake. He had his arm around her and he put his cheek next to her damp hair. Her sides, as always, were cold, as if under her skin her bones were cold. He watched her sleep and knew that even with his arms around her, she was dreaming in private. He kissed the top of her head, resting his chin on her hair. It gave up a heavy, slightly burned smell: she was drying. A cool lock of hair fell across his wrist and he moved closer to her. In a few weeks, it would be warm enough for them to swim together. Then it would be summer. They would go to Stone Boy Lake and swim some more. It seemed to him that he had done some fine adjusting. What had grieved him was simply a fact: every day of her life she would be at some point damp, then drying, and for one solid time, wet.
the big plum
IT WAS Pineapple Week at the Big Plum supermarket. The checkers wore large straw hats with plastic pineapples affixed to their brims. Binnie Chester, who did not wear a hat, was taping a cutout of a pineapple in evening dress to her cash register at counter three. Harry Markham, whose family owned the Big Plum chain, sat in his manager’s booth and watched Binnie Chester as she taped. Each of her gestures contained for him an ultimate purity. Harry noticed these things: at night, after work, he was finishing his dissertation entitled Vermeer and the Art of the Impossible. Soon, he would be the only member of the Big Plum staff, including the members of the board—perhaps the only person in the supermarket business�
��with a Ph.D. in art history. Harry’s father often said that when the dissertation was published, they would have a Vermeer Week at the Big Plum, and sell copies of Harry’s book on special.
Binnie Chester had spidery fingers with eggshaped nails. Her fine brown hair was coiled into two perfect ovals at the back of her head. Pinned to the front of her Big Plum smock was a plastic plaque that had CHESTER embossed in black letters, and she seemed to be self-conscious about it. From his manager’s booth between aisle four, soaps and cleansers, and aisle five, beans and soup, Harry watched Binnie. In his mind, he referred to her as the Miracle of Rare Device. She cracked gum authoritatively, and when the supermarket was quiet, Harry could hear it. He had discovered that if he hummed the first movement of the Boccherini cello concerto, she was generally on beat. He wondered what she was cracking time to.
She was the only checker Harry didn’t know. He was too dazzled to say good morning, and they had never spoken. Looking over the cash registers, he watched seven heads as they bobbed up and down, pushing the change buttons. Butch, at counter one, had dropped out of high school and stole a six-pack of beer every three days. He had worn the same pair of red trousers for eight months. Arleen Solidark, stiffly peruked, extended her bosom over counter two. She had daggerlike nails that were painted a silvery peach. Harry knew that her husband was allergic to cats. Binnie, whose head never bobbed, graced counter three. At counter four was Murray, Harry’s cousin, although it was not known at the Big Plum that this relationship existed. He had been thrown out of college for taking drugs. His only substantial facial feature was a mustache, which was known around the counters as “Murray’s shredded wheat.” Counter five was manned by a rotating series of girls from the local secretarial high school. Mostly they were thick-set and straight-haired, and joked around with Butch. Their names were Trudy, Maryann, and Mary Jo. The sixth and seventh counters belonged to Max and Charlie, both of them old Big Plummers. They were bald and wore glasses. At the end of every day, Max and Charlie did a vaudeville turn around their counters, with brooms.
Harry spent his days fixated on Binnie Chester. She never seemed to speak to anyone, and Harry never saw anyone speak to her. She arrived on time, and left on time, like a European train. After she totaled her receipts at the end of the day, she hung up her Big Plum smock and disappeared. For several months Harry had been planning a collision with her. It would happen at the door, he imagined, and he would ask her out for dinner. He had spent a long time trying to figure out who she was and where she came from, and he had fantasized that she lived in Brooklyn, in an old house of ruined elegance, which had thin lace curtains. Binnie’s father, he imagined, was a tall, rakish man with Edwardian sideburns and no job, which accounted for his daughter’s working at the Big Plum. There was a grandmother, too, a faded, shapeless woman who gazed blankly, but tragically, out the window. She drank quite a lot of tea. Binnie had several brothers, but Harry hadn’t bothered much with them. They looked, he felt, like cleaner editions of Butch. In Harry’s fantasy, there was no Binnie’s mother. She had died in some way he had not yet worked out. This made him feel protective and tender about Binnie, and he dwelt on her family life as he watched her during the day.
Binnie was looking at the clock. It was nearly closing time. Harry stepped down from his manager’s booth and hung up his Big Plum jacket. He straightened his tie, and put on the jacket to his suit. It was his Parisian suit, chocolate brown, and he had worn it because today was Binnie day.
He found her at the streetlight in front of the Big Plum. It was a wet winter night, and she was wearing a wool scarf.
“Excuse me,” Harry said. “Miss Chester.” Binnie turned around. A circle of streetlight hit her in the face. She was lit like a Vermeer, Harry thought, suddenly feeling inappropriate, explosive, and hysterical. “Um,” he said, trying to get his bearings. “You look like a picture in the Frick, a museum, that is. Um, do you know a Dutch painter called Vermeer? You look like one of his pictures.” Harry stopped suddenly. Binnie looked patiently at him, as if he were an unfinished card trick.
Then she said, “You’re Harry Big Plum.”
“Markham,” said Harry. “Harry Markham.”
“Of the Big Plum,” said Binnie.
“I’m the manager,” said Harry.
“You’re the owner’s son,” said Binnie.
“That’s not generally known,” said Harry.
“You think,” said Binnie. “And Murray is your cousin.”
“That’s not known at all.”
“Huh,” said Binnie, with a little snort. She looked at Harry, who was swaying slightly. He had thick black hair that waved, and large blue eyes that seemed slightly fevered.
“Well, Harry Big Plum,” she said. “Why are you swaying around like that and what do you want?”
“I want to walk you home to Brooklyn,” said Harry.
“Oh,” said Binnie. “I see. Do you live in Brooklyn?”
“No.”
“Is there any particular reason why you want to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn in the cold?”
“Well, I just thought you might live in Brooklyn.”
“I don’t, though,” said Binnie.
“Where do you live?” Harry said.
“Around the corner.”
“With your father?”
“My father lives in Minneapolis, with my mother.”
“And your grandmother?”
“What grandmother?”
Harry felt close to tears. “I just thought you might have a grandmother,” he said, staring at the pavement.
“I see,” said Binnie. “I don’t have any grandparents at all.”
“I’m sorry,” said Harry.
“Oh, it’s all right. They died when I was very young, and you seem to have come up with replacements.”
Harry looked at her. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Listen, Big Plum Markham. You follow me out of your father’s store and tell me I live in Brooklyn with my father and grandmother, and then you ask me if I’m making fun of you?”
“I don’t know what to say,” mumbled Harry. “I’m awfully sorry. I thought …”
“What did you think?” asked Binnie. “I’d be very interested to know.”
“Look, I’ll try to be honest. I mean, I stare at you all day, and I sort of made up this family for you. Look, I’m freezing.”
“Start walking,” said Binnie. “My home in Brooklyn is just around the corner, and I’ll get Granny to fix you a cup of tea.”
Harry blushed.
“About my father,” said Binnie.
“Really, this is very silly.”
“Talk.”
“Well, I had this picture of your father as a sort of Edwardian roué, with sideburns and all, and he doesn’t work or anything. That’s why you work in the Big Plum. And you don’t have a mother. This grandmother lives with you. She drinks a lot of tea.” He was profoundly embarrassed.
“That’s very interesting,” said Binnie. “Have you considered a career in fiction?”
Binnie lived on the third floor of a brownstone. Her apartment was painted white, and there was very little in it. Nothing was tacked or hung on the wall. There were no plants, or rugs. She had a sofa made of wooden planks covered with colorless sharkskin pillows and three straight-backed chairs of bleached pine. There was a desk, made out of a whitewashed door. Her bedroom contained a bed with a blue spread, and nothing else. There was a white kitchen with an unpainted table.
“Sit down,” said Binnie. “Take off your coat.”
“Where should I sit?” asked Harry.
“Any place.”
“You don’t seem to have much in the way of furniture in here.”
“My Edwardian father took it all away,” said Binnie, sliding a chair out from under the table.
Harry sat, and put his grubby book bag on the floor. It contained several pamphlets on Vermeer that he needed for his dissertation.
“I guess I go
t you all wrong,” Harry said.
“I guess you did,” said Binnie. “How do you want your tea?”
“Milk,” said Harry, “and a little sugar.” She led him into the living room and he sat on the sofa with his cup. Binnie sat at the desk that was made out of a door.
“Well,” said Harry.
“Well what?”
“Tell me how I was wrong.”
“You can see how you were wrong.”
“I mean,” said Harry, “where are you from?”
Binnie unhooked the ovals at the back of her head. Two coils of hair spread over her shoulder.
“My father is a spy and my mother is a zookeeper. My granny teaches Anglo-Saxon at the University of Uruguay,” she said, without inflection.
Harry watched her from the sofa. She looked like The Girl with the Pearl Earrings. It made him sad to look at her. He felt sullied, and ridiculous. What he wanted to do was suddenly to blurt out the truth to her—the truth about everything: his dissertation, how Murray had been thrown out of school for taking drugs, how he sometimes seemed near to tears in museums, how he watched her, how he felt that she must hate him for being such a fool. The words piled up in the back of his throat, but looking at her cool, uninterrupted face, he began to edit.
“I want to know who you are,” he said.
Binnie crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “No, you don’t, if you really think about it. Aren’t you sad that I don’t live in some old house in Brooklyn with my granny?”
“No,” said Harry sadly. “That was only because I didn’t know who you were.”
“You still don’t,” said Binnie, “and tomorrow you can make up a whole new life for me, can’t you?”
“As long as I’ve been so ridiculous,” Harry said, “can I ask you another ridiculous question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have any pearl earrings in the shape of a pear, a sort of round pear?”
“No,” said Binnie.
Passion and Affect Page 17
