He held his glass up again. “To all holidays, wherever they are.”
Violet leaned toward the baby and said, “You want to celebrate, too? Don’t you?” The baby smiled and gave forth a delighted little cry.
Lily touched Dominic’s sleeve, and pulled the cloth, so that he turned to her. “I’m so happy, Dom. And you really liked it?”
He nodded, and took her hands. “No, I loved it.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Can I come with you? Just for the holidays?”
This surprised her, and, in fact, she had been thinking about being on the road again, just her and the baby. She touched the side of his face and said, “Sure.”
But he had seen her surprise. “You go,” he said warmly, squeezing her hand. “We’ve got you and Mary for Christmas.”
3
THE SOUTH AFRICAN SKY is purple and streaked with heavy clouds, a twilight sky, over a chain of beautiful mountains, stretching the whole length of the horizon. Mary steps out of The Palace Hospital and sits weakly on a hard-backed chair on the veranda. Off in the low hills in the near distance, she hears gunfire. The sun is behind the building, so its long shade extends all the way to the gate, with its crossed beams and its bronze latch. There’s a bicycle propped incongruously against it. Off to her right, some of the roofs of Simon’s Town are visible.
The air is growing chilly. The nights here are always cold, no matter the time of the year. In the hospital are several hundred wounded soldiers, boys, really. Boer prisoners who have been wounded or are sick and dying. So many of them die. She has seen so much death now, and is so exhausted and feverish, she’s almost numb to it.
Almost.
A number of new nurses arrived this afternoon, and one of them joins her now, a young woman from London society, who is formally trained, and belongs to the Wesleyan missionary group.
—I can’t bring myself to feel Christian toward them, this nurse says, sitting beside her with a sigh. She pauses a moment, then sits forward and regards Mary:
—I’m sorry. We haven’t been properly introduced.
—Mary Kingsley.
—Margaret Lowes.
They shake hands, and then Miss Lowes draws back.
—You have fever.
Mary shrugs. They are silent, and more gunfire sounds in the hills.
—You’re quite warm.
Now, Mary nods.
—Have you lived here long? Miss Lowes asks.
—No.
She sighs again.
—Mary Kingsley. That’s a nice name. Somehow familiar-sounding. Have we met before?
—No.
Another minute later, a second nurse comes out, also from the Wesleyans. She sits on the other side of Miss Lowes and speaks familiarly with her about the horrors inside. Miss Lowes says:
—Have you met Miss Kingsley?
—I haven’t had the pleasure. Hello, my name is Chalmers.
Mary nods at her.
—How long have you been here? Miss Lowes asks.
Just now, both women appear to be dissolving before her eyes. The light wavers, and out in the sinking sun the mountains shift, and then shift again. She gathers herself, fixes her eyes on the two women, and sees them assemble into their respective shapes, staring at her with concern, and not a little fear.
—I’m just so tired, she tells them.
—I do hope we can be given the chance to work with our own boys, says Miss Lowes. These chaps are so dirty.
—Miss Kingsley, have you always been a nurse? I mean, you aren’t with the Wesleyans.
—I’ve been ’ere for a month. I came from London.
—Oh, you did. And what did you do in London?
Mary stares at them. Then she smiles, or thinks she does.
—I kept ’ouse.
—You show such skill, such a knowledge of medicine, for being a housekeeper, Miss Lowes says. Wherever did you learn it?
—Reading in my father’s library.
—But the practical skills.
—That is practice, Mary says. You learn ’ow by doing it over and over.
—But how did you come to leave your household?
—I wasn’t needed anymore.
—Cashiered, were you? How awful.
—I volunteered to come ’ere, Miss Lowes.
—And how perfectly fine of you.
Miss Chalmers clears her throat, her little fist over her lips. Then she sits forward and says:
—I noticed that you had a great familiarity with the bodies of these awful young men. I believe it is most Christian of you. It’s all I can do to go near them.
—Are you originally from London? Miss Lowes asks. That is, do you make your home there?
—Not quite, says Mary.
—You’ve been worked awfully hard, haven’t you. I’m so glad we’ve come.
—I ’aven’t got much sleep, Mary says. Red wine only ’elps a little.
—Evidently not schooled in London, Miss Chalmers murmurs to Miss Lowes, who makes an effort to cover this with a cough.
—Well, you should try to rest now.
—Yes, says Miss Chalmers. You do look as if you feel ill.
—It’s nothing, Mary says, though she knows enough to understand exactly what is happening to her.
—We’ll hold things down, says Miss Lowes.
—If I can only sit ’ere and rest a bit. I’ll be able to work on a little.
—Perfectly wonderful of you.
Mary closes her eyes, and the other two begin to chatter about the hardships that await them. They are naively excited about it all, these well-trained young women who have so far seen only a smooth sea passage and a barracks room lined with beds in which men they do not consider their own lie suffering, or dying. They seem so young, these two. Babies. They go on about the people they left behind in London, and it is evident to Mary that neither of them has the slightest idea about her, or about Africa, or about the carnage all around them.
She tries to rise, but can’t. They do not notice this. They go on talking, and she feels herself drift toward delirium, sees rivers, men, dark faces, women and running children and masks, the fierce animal eyes of some lost night, Batty and Dolokov and Guillemard, her mother and father, the shadows moving toward her and then receding, the night sky gliding over, and the swells of the boundless, storm-tossed sea. She opens her eyes and looks at the fantastically altering shape of the world, and she knows this is her last fever. The gunfire comes across the undulant green plain leading to the hills, the softening shapes of the mountains.
4
December 2, 1990
Lily,
As must be painfully obvious, I’ve decided to make one last communication with you, to let you know what my plans are and to set some things in motion, too. I want you to know that I bear you no ill will. I mean that. I hope you’re happy now, and if you’re not, I hope you find happiness. When I left you that morning and headed for the dealership, I was as close to doing something really pathological as I hope I ever get. You were right to worry about it, and I was thinking exactly what you were afraid I was thinking that time at the July Fourth party, when you found me with Buddy’s rifle. The truth is, I had started thinking about it a lot by then. At any rate, I drove the car down to the river and sat on the bank for a long time, trying to figure out some course of action. I couldn’t stand anything any longer, the whole pressure of keeping up appearances about something that had been ruined for me for good. It was finished between us and I knew it, even if you didn’t, because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the facts out of my head, couldn’t shake the anger all of it caused every time I thought of it, and you were right, we were only marking time, faking it, and it was just killing me. I acted like the good father as best I could, and I mean I really tried. But it wasn’t there, and nothing had any taste for me anymore and the future looked even worse to me, looked like it was only going to go on getting worse.
When I decided to leave, to take up my
own life elsewhere—when it hit me that I had, really, nothing but the accident of blood keeping me in Oxford, and that I could spare myself the trouble of worrying what Sheri and my mother and Roger and Rosa and all of them would know, and what all of your family would know, just by getting out, taking up my life somewhere far away; when I realized how much it hurt me to have to be there where Buddy died and with those people whose faces and voices and every gesture reminded me of it; when I realized, in short, that I could leave, that nothing was keeping me from leaving—well, I felt like a man who has had a tooth pulled after a long period of suffering and worrying over it. The tooth has been his only concern for so long that he forgets what life can be like without pain, and when it’s out, and the pain’s gone, the relief is like nothing words can describe.
I had already been thinking of committing an irrevocable act, merely to spare myself the humiliation. And I came to the knowledge that the act could consist of simply leaving everything, and everyone.
It’s easier than you might imagine.
I wish things could’ve been better for us. I wish we had both been better at it all. But we weren’t. Neither one of us was. If that sounds bitter, it is not meant to. The fact is, now that it is out and everybody knows about it, I’m finding it easier to live with, and I admit that I wonder how it would be if we tried to work things out. If we were to think about finding some ground on which to meet and find some way back to each other.
I’m living like a single man, now. But I wanted you to know I’ve not begun the divorce process, though a lawyer has advised me to under the circumstances of my having left the way I did. The lawyer’s advice was to behave as if there would be an attempt at vindictiveness on the other side. I haven’t followed his advice, of course. I miss you. I miss you both terribly. I just couldn’t stand it thinking about how it would be when Mary was told who her father really was, and how she’d look at me then, and I know that’s selfish, but I couldn’t help it. I see now that nothing was as bad as my imagining of it, and the one thing I’ve learned out of all this is that there is not a thing you can do intellectually to change a feeling once it happens to you. But you can change an outcome. I do believe that. You can find a way to make up for your failings, and go on.
As you’ll see by the postmark, I’m stationed in Texas—officer training school. Talk here is all about the Persian Gulf. I don’t think it’ll add up to much, and even if it does, I’ll be here, still, in training. I am finding out how much I was made for this kind of life, where everything is in its place and one doesn’t have to be questioning everything all the time, and maybe I should’ve stayed in premed. Anyway, this war would have to end up being a protracted struggle for me to be involved in it. So there’s no need to worry. I acted precipitately when I severed ties with the people in Oxford, including Nick, with whom relations had been very difficult for a long time, even before Buddy died, but especially afterward. He was very helpful through the process of my separation from the family, and now I’m hoping to elicit his help in arranging some sort of connection with them again, after all. I do not feel that I did anything to apologize for, since I was acting in faith, and in pain. But I think I deserve some benefit of the doubt, and maybe you might feel the same way.
I wish you and Mary could see me here, in this element, where I’m not afraid all the time and worrying what people are thinking about me. I know I haven’t been the best husband to you, Lily, but I hoped that after all the dust settles, we might find our way to some sort of life again.
I forgive you. Love,
Tyler
December 18, 1990
Dear Tyler,
I am happy to think that you are relieved of your toothache. I don’t think I want to see you now, or ever again. Judging from your recent letter, I have only to go on fearing the next time something difficult comes along, and the next trouble you feel must be dealt with by leaving without a single word as to what you’ve planned or where you’re going. And it’s inspiring to see how far you’re willing to go to forgive my depredations. No, Tyler. It won’t ever be that easy, and I don’t know where you got the idea it was or could be. I can truthfully say I feel quite fortunate to have been through this last four months
She tore the page out of the pad and crumpled it in her fist. She wanted nothing from Tyler, now. The rage that she felt she put down to pride, and she would make the effort to let that go. Something of the anger would always remain, she knew, but it would eventually be manageable, as an old wound becomes manageable. One can adjust, and work on the problem. She told herself this, but nothing quite soothed her.
She was sitting in the wing chair by the living room window, with a pad of paper on her lap, trying not to cry. Aunt Violet had observed her writing the letter, and had labored into the kitchen to make herself some coffee. When she came back, Lily had wadded the page up and dropped it into the trash can beside her chair, and she was wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands.
“I’ve spent most of the last thirty years worrying about one thing,” Violet said, carefully placing herself in her chair by the other window. “Dying.” She laughed, as if surprised by her own admission.
The two women were now in opposite corners of the room, with the tall, sunny windows between them. They were facing the entrance to the dining room, which was just beyond the bath of sun coming through the windows. Lily closed her eyes for a moment and felt the craving for some sleep. It had been a long, tossing night of bad dreams and worries. The baby had coughed several times, and seemed congested again. Lily feared another bout of flu. But in the morning Mary was herself, overactive and cranky, and then bright and comical by turns. Even her temper was heart-pleasing, and made for laughter.
Now she was asleep in the crib upstairs.
Violet sipped her coffee, holding the saucer under the cup. Then she placed it all on the lamp table at her side, and leaned back. “What a strange household we make.”
Lily saw the other woman’s bony knees, and the threadbare sleeves of her dark blue dress, with the small white polka dots. This morning she looked too gaunt, depleted and pallid around the eyes, and her breathing was laborious, as if the effort of talking might harm her.
“You don’t have to entertain me, Violet. I’m writing a letter.”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Oh, no.”
“I thought you were writing the play some more.”
“No, it’s done—for now, anyway.”
“But I’m disturbing you.”
“You’re not disturbing me. I just didn’t want you to think you had to entertain me.”
“I never thought that, cher. I said: ‘What a strange household.’”
No response occurred to Lily, so she left a pause.
The other woman regarded her. “Did you say something?”
“No.”
“I thought you said something.”
Lily kept still, having smiled at her and nodded. She looked at the pad she held on her lap, and realized that she wasn’t going to write anything just now. Violet was observing her with a discerning, narrow gaze; it might even have been scheming. She said, “What is it?”
“You look worried, cher.”
“I was just writing my—my soon-to-be ex-husband.”
“You’re at the start, cher. Don’t be so down in the mouth, if you can help it. You know the worst—most unhappy time in all the years I’ve had? My twenties. And I’ve spent the rest of my life wondering what I could’ve been so unhappy about back then. I was in love, I was out of love. I was always in a panic, running from one extreme to the next. Always making myself miserable.”
“I’m all right,” Lily said. “Really.” But she sniffled, and was angry with herself for it.
“I hate to see a young person unhappy,” Violet said. “You finished your play and it has made you sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“People ask me if I have any regrets,” Violet went on, apparently veering off to another
subject. “I say I wish I had learned to stop doing math, all the time. All that counting and subtracting and figuring, based on the arbitrary thing—when it stops. When any of us stops. It’s a stop. We stop. Counting takes away some joy.”
“I don’t count,” Lily said.
“No, I wasn’t talking about you, cher. I wasn’t sitting here trying to give you a lesson. I said that about being down in the mouth, but that was for my benefit. I want lighter company.”
Presently, Lily said, “You’ve been an inspiration to me.”
“I never liked hortatory speeches, cher. I crave interesting talk. Cheer me up. So I can stop counting all the time.”
Lilly sought vainly for something else to say. But now Violet had nodded off, her head lolling forward, her skin-and-bone hands, with the blue veins roped across the backs of them, gripping the chair arms.
Lily waited. The room was so quiet. Somewhere out on the street, a dog barked and yelped. The sunlight changed, a cloud passing over, and the room was gray for a few seconds, before the light returned, beams of it, full of dust rising in a slanting rush.
Violet lifted her head and then reached for more coffee. She took a sip, and looked over at Lily. “What’re we waiting for, cher?” Her smile was almost a leer. “You and me.”
“Mary’s going to be waking up soon,” Lily said.
“Waking and sleeping. Yes. A lot of that.”
She stood. “Can I get you something, Aunt Violet?”
The old woman considered this, then shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Mary will cheer us both up,” Lily told her.
“It’s the afternoon nap,” said Violet. “Mary will be very cranky.”
This had indeed been the pattern, and the child proved to be true to form. She sat in the middle of the living room floor and whined and cried, and nothing Lily did would placate her. Violet sat in the chair, sipping cold coffee and drifting in and out of sleep. But then, toward evening, she seemed to perk up. She went into the kitchen and began to put together some gumbo. Since she had been forced to stop driving, she had begun to get into various dishes, cooking. It had been a thing that fascinated her when she was younger, she said, only fifty. The spicy fragrance of the gumbo filled the downstairs rooms. Dominic came home and went in to help out, after picking Mary up and dancing around the living room with her, singing about Santa Claus. Lily couldn’t bring herself to share in the festive mood, still thinking about the letter from Tyler. When Manny came in from the restaurant, he was also out of sorts, and so at dinner he and Lily were of one mood, while Dominic and Violet were lighthearted, faintly intolerant of their dour companions. They communicated this through the things they said to Mary in her high chair, and the remarks they made between them—Violet leading the way by saying that in all her many years she had hardly ever had a dinner so good, and it was Christmas, another of her many Christmases, and how wonderful it would be if the whole world could have such enjoyment, every single minute. Dominic talked about how much he liked the play, and said she should title it The Shores of Home, since the title Hello to the Cannibals suggested something rather more lighthearted than the story of the tragic early death of a great explorer and travel writer, who, at least in Lily’s portrait of her, was lonely for a man, and who, at the end, fell in love with a homosexual and was rebuffed. “Anyway,” he went on, “there’re the people in Oxford, of course—since they’ve already expressed interest in it.”
Hello to the Cannibals Page 75
