Belva Plain - Evergreen.txt

by Evergreen

  "This wasn't what I wanted, what I talked about!"

  "I know that, Steve."

  "I've gotta get away and think."

  "About what? Think about what?"

  "About everything. Myself, mostly. I've got to."

  "Where will you go?"

  "I don't know. Some empty place. A guy I know, quiet guy, not political, just into conservation and the earth, you know, he's got a place north of San Francisco, said I could come any time I want. So I guess that's what I'll do."

  "When will you go?"

  "Now. Tomorrow. I want to get out of here. I've been wanting to, you know that, only now it's for different reasons. You understand?"

  "I think I do." He didn't, really. He could feel pity and sadness, but he couldn't understand. Perhaps he never would.

  "You'll call the folks and tell them after I've gone? I don't want to go through the hassle of talking to them right now."

  "I'll call them," Jimmy said gently.

  They were an hour early. They stood in the lounge at the wall of windows, looking out upon arrivals and departures, baggage carts trundling back and forth, mechanics checking, pilots boarding with their little black bags en route to Paris; Portland, Oregon; and Kuala Lumpur.

  "I'll miss Philip," Steve said.

  "He'll miss you, too. We all will." Do all words that are torn out of you> Yes, torn and ripped, do they always sound so banal? 'Miss you': what did it mean?

  "Don't crap me up, Jimmy. It'll be a lot more peaceful in the family with me gone."

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  Why did he feel like crying? You'd think he was seeing his brother off to certain death, when all he was seeing were things past: Steve hunching up the MU after school (why was just this such a persistent memory?); Steve and he as kids in the bathtub together, and long before that, Laura with them; three in the bathtub until they got too old, he and Steve staring at Laura, laughing about her after they had been put to bed, wondering what it feels like.not to have a penis; Steve casually offering to go over his math with him, knowing he was stuck and ashamed to ask for help; Steve in the hospital with pneumonia and his mother crying in the bedroom, pretending she wasn't.

  "They tried to be impartial but they always loved you more, Jimmy."

  "Not more. Just differently. Because we're different, aren't we?"

  Steve didn't answer. A crowd of tourists came through when their flight was called. Bound for Hawaii, with tour signs pinned on their shoulders, they were middle-aged and raucous, wearing Hawaiian print shirts under their overcoats; the men were bald or balding; the women were freshly curled and blue-rinsed. They clamored out of sight with their cameras, bags and merriment.

  "I feel so sorry for people," Steve said suddenly. "For their struggles and their sicknesses, and all knowing they're going to die. I feel their pains so badly sometimes. Yet I don't like them," he mused, almost as if Jimmy weren't there. "I don't really like them, do you understand what I mean? With their transistor radios and their guffawing. They're such small-minded buffoons, most of them. I don't have anything to say to them."

  It seemed to Jimmy that if you tried, you could surely relate to anybody, even to a bald old guy in a Hawaiian shirt. He was human after all, like yourself, wasn't he? But probably that was too simplistic. If it were that easy Steve wouldn't be what he was.

  "How's Dr. Harris? Have you heard anything?" Steve asked.

  "He'll live. One leg's off at the hip, the other at the knee."

  "Christ," Steve whispered. He bit his lip. "He was a gentle, decent man, Jimmy."

  "Yes."

  "I don't know how I can ever get over it."

  "But you weren't involved! It had nothing to do with you."

  "On the periphery I was, and it did."

  "You didn't know what those people were going to do!"

  "But I should have known, that's the point. You see what I

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  mean about myself? I don't understand people. They never say what they mean or mean what they say."

  "Do you feel that way about me?"

  "No, it's funny, you're probably the only one I can read clearly."

  "I must be pretty empty, then!"

  "Don't joke. I know you're trying to make the moment easier. I think if I get away, just get out where it's warm-enough to be outdoors all year and plant things, work in the earth, use my hands, I think maybe that will help. Maybe I'll straighten out in my mind what I want to do."

  "Yes, yes, it ought to be a good thing," Jimmy said awkwardly.

  "The land needs healing, too," Steve said. "Maybe I can help heal it?"

  The question, rhetorical, hung in the air.

  Mother said once of Steve that there are people to whom living comes hard. They see the world as it ought—or so they think-it ought to be. But they are never at home in it as it is, for what reason neither they nor anyone else can say. Well, that was a neat enough summing up. But what was to be done about it?

  The flight to San Francisco was called and Steve picked up his bag.

  "Well, Jimmy?"

  Jimmy put his arms out. They hugged each other. Steve felt so light, so light and frail in his arms. Then Steve turned and walked abruptly away. It seemed to Jimmy that, of all the crowd pushing toward the plane, Steve was the only one traveling alone, although that was probably not so. He only looked that way, hurrying with his rapid walk, his shoulders forward and, although Jimmy could not see his face, the expression of anxiety that he so often wore.

  The loaded plane slid down the field to the takeoff point, where it went out of sight behind a wing of the terminal building. Jimmy watched until it came in sight again, taxiing to the far end of the field where it waited for takeoff. Even from this distance he imagined he could see it trembling, an insect with two rows of seats in its thorax, and a roaring heart too big for its skin. He thought he could even hear its mighty whir as, gathering all its strength, it tensed itself and leaped, rose into the lurid air and headed west.

  Back in his room he waited for Janet. The hour moved so slowly. He ought to be using the time. The pile of books, the as-

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  signment notebook on the desk, were urging him to use it. But a lethargy had come over him, lying on him like heavy, pressing hands.

  He ought to call his parents. They would take the news with an assumption of calm, not wanting him, Jimmy, to know the force of the blow. (Would they always, all their lives, shield and protect him, or would a time come when it would be their children who would shield them?) They would go into the dining room at the next dinner hour and tell Laura and Philip, keeping their manner light, that Steve had gone but would surely be back, that while they thought it was a grave mistake, people had to make their own mistakes and were sometimes the better for having learned from them. (That would be Mother talking.)

  Afterward, upstairs in their bedroom, she would cry, and come to breakfast the next morning with slightly swollen eyes and claim a head cold. (Was this a harbinger of years to come that, already while they were still only in late middle age, not really old at all, already he could feel this way for them? And feel the end that was inevitable? A tooth parting from its socket, a wrenching of bone out of bone, that's how it would be.)

  The telephone rang. He got up to answer it, hoping it wasn't his parents, because he hadn't yet framed what he was going to say.

  It was his grandmother. She had never telephoned him at college and a fear of some disaster shot through him.

  "It's all right, everything's all right," she said, as though she could read his fear. "Except that we've heard what happened on your campus."

  "Yes. It was awful." Inadequate word, so far from the unspeakable truth.

  "Has Steve gone yet?"

  "Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I just came back from the airport. What made you ask, Nana?"

  "I just had a feeling. I felt he might go in a hurry because of all this."

  "That's just how it happened."

  "You haven't told y
our parents yet?"

  "No. I'll do it tomorrow. I sort of wanted to get myself together first."

  "I know. I won't say anything. Besides, that's not why I called. I wanted to talk about you."

  "About me?"

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  "About you and Janet. You know, Jimmy, she's a marvelous girl."

  "You think so?" Jubilance in his voice, and a little cracking sob. Exhausted. Too much of everything, this whole long week.

  "Yes, I do. When are you going to marry her?"

  Jubilance faded. "We've another year of college and four years of medical school, Nana."

  "Five years are too long to wait. It's waste and a sin to put off living while you're young and when you have the capacity to live. So many people haven't got it."

  He threw his free hand helplessly into the air. "What can we do?"

  "You can let me give you the money to marry her."

  Years before she had come into his room during a thunderstorm, sensing his fear. Now again, across more than a thousand miles, she had sensed his need. Tears burned and he blinked them back, as though she were able to see them.

  "It's too much to take from you," he said quietly.

  "I'm the best judge of that, don't you think?"

  His parents wouldn't like it. They liked-his father especially liked-to be self-sufficient. They wouldn't even let him take it from Nana, he was sure. They were always saying she did too much as it was. And they were right.

  Hope sank.

  "Jimmy? Are you there? Well, what do you say?"

  He thought of something. "Would you, do you suppose we could borrow it from you? We could start to pay you back as soon as we go into our internships." Hope rose. "Interns get pretty good pay. Would you consider that?"

  "Listen, I called you, didn't I? I want you to get married. I want to give, I mean lend you, enough so you'll be able to."

  "With interest, it would have to be," he said proudly.

  "Of course, with interest, what else? A business deal is a business deal. Right?"

  She was playing a game, humoring his pride. He was quite aware of what she was doing, and yet this was the only way he would have it.

  "How much interest?" he asked.

  "Well, five and a half, six percent. The same as I get from tax exempts."

  "The ordinary rate's much higher."

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  "I know. But a grandmother and a grandson, after all! I don't want to get rich on you. So, five and a half, all right? And you figure out what you'll need for light housekeeping, two rooms and your monthly expenses, above your allowances. You do that and mail it to me this week. Hear?"

  "I hear. Nana, Janet's coming any minute and when I tell her,

  she won't believe it! I'm so grateful, I can't start to tell you, I—"

  "Then don't. Listen, this call's getting expensive. My telephone

  bill is a disgrace this month. Write me a letter, Jimmy." The

  receiver clicked.

  He stood there wiping his wet eyes and shaking his head. A dollar more on the telephone bill, and thousands to support them for the next five years!

  There was such a great churning, such a twisting in his knotted chest. Steve, Adam Harris, Nana and Janet, all of life past and to come, churning and twisting. He wished he could sit down and weep with it as a woman might, without shame.

  Before the knock came he knew by the footsteps in the hall that it was Janet.

  "I'm so sorry," she cried. "Oh, I'm so sorry about Steve!" Through all the thicknesses of cloth, through her quilted jacket, he felt heartbeats. At least, he felt his own. Wave after wave of comfort rolled over him, just standing there like that. The knot in his chest untwisted itself in a wash of sedative and healing warmth. He held to her as though she were a tower, and he almost a foot taller than she!

  It came to his mind that he could give her the news now, but he didn't want to speak just yet. He unbuttoned her jacket and then her blouse, loosened her skirt and led her willingly to the bed.

  He thought he heard her whisper into his shoulder, "Don't worry, don't be sad about anything, not about your brother, not about anything, I'm here, I'll always be here." And then he heard nothing, saw nothing, just sank into a bliss like summer night, as warm and throbbing, and lay there in that night until at last he raised his head into what might have been the dawn of morning, into a gold so luminous that it flickered into silver and a silence so vibrant that it trembled into music.

  L

  45

  "Will you please make iced tea?" Anna asked, coming into the kitchen. "And bring out the walnut cake? I'm having a guest this afternoon."

  Celeste turned from the stove. "My, that's a nice dress! I was saying to Miss Laura just last week, your grandmother looks like herself again."

  During these few years since Joseph's death she hadn't paid much attention to appearances. At the beginning she had worn mourning for a year, although her friends had insisted that people didn't anymore, and that Joseph wouldn't have wanted her to. But she had known better. He, who had cared so much about old conventions, would have wanted her to.

  Now she adjusted the dress where her narrow gold bracelet had caught in the sleeve. It was fine, cream-colored linen, a dress for summer, that brief, beloved season, and she took pleasure in it.

  "The gentleman and I will have our tea outside," she added. "It's much too nice to be indoors."

  "Gentleman!" Celeste repeated. "Gentleman!"

  Anna smiled, "Yes, an old friend," and went out, leaving Celeste to wonder.

  She had not long to wait. The car paused at the entrance to the drive—he would be looking for the number to make certain of the house—then started up, crackling over the gravel, and came to a stop not far from where Anna stood. It was a small foreign

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  sports car, a young man's car. The door slammed and Paul Werner came up the steps.

  Anna didn't move, forgetting to offer him her hand. He stood there, looking at her.

  "You don't change at all," he said.

  "You haven't that much, either."

  He had gone gray, but his hair, still thick and smooth, shone silver against'tanned skin. The eyes—the family eyes—were brilliant, like the young eyes of a child.

  Suddenly Anna felt a dreadful awkwardness. What had she done? Why ever had she allowed him to come here? Leading him to the terrace, she murmured, "Sun or shade?" and when he had chosen shade, sat down and could think of nothing more to say.

  But Paul spoke easily. "What a lovely place! It suits you. Old house, old trees, and so quiet."

  "Yes, we've been very happy here."

  "I'm glad you answered my note. I was afraid you might not."

  "Why shouldn't I have? There's no reason anymore why I shouldn't."

  "I was sorry to learn of Joseph's death. He was a fine man."

  "Yes." 'Fine man.' A banal expression, gone meaningless through thoughtless overuse. All dead men became fine men. Yet in Paul's mouth, at this moment, the words had impact, the flavor of truth. Yes, he had been, Joseph had.

  "You knew that I also lost my wife?" Paul asked.

  "No! I'm sorry. When?"

  "Almost three years ago."

  "As long as that! I'm sorry," Anna repeated.

  "Yes. Well." He crossed his legs, his foot swaying into a path of sunlight. His shoe was new and polished. She remembered— such an absurd thing to remember—that he had always worn fine shoes and had narrow feet.

  She stood up. "I'll just remind Celeste. You'd like iced tea? Or something else?"

  "Tea will be fine, thank you."

  She was grateful, returning with the tray, for the small fuss of the tea ritual, serving the lemon and sugar, slicing the cake. It gave one something to talk about.

  "A long time, Anna."

  She looked up. Paul was smiling at her, and she smiled back.

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  "For people who—knew each other rather well, we're both pretty tongue-tied," he said.

>   She shook her head wonderingly. "Where does one begin?"

  "Suppose we begin with Iris. How is she?"

  "She's a middle-aged woman, Paul. That's hard to believe, isn't it?"

  "Our two lives are hard to believe. But go on."

  "She's grown so strong and competent! And a great help to me! Joseph left a good deal of property, and Iris is the only one of us who seems to know how to talk to lawyers and accountants. She's got a marvelous head for business. I think she surprises herself. Goodness knows, she doesn't get it from me!"