Strange Fits of Passion

by Anita Shreve

  But I am getting ahead of myself.

  There were good times, have I told you that? At the table in the kitchen, he would tell me stories of his travels, wonderful stories of misadventures and comedies, peopled with characters I could clearly see as he described them. He was a gifted raconteur, and he saved for me all the bits he could not put into his articles, so that when he came home from a long trip, I'd be entertained for days.

  Or maybe we would lie side by side on the living room floor, with only our arms touching, our heads propped up on sofa pillows, and listen together to music he had chosen. We might smoke together or drink the wine we had brought from the bedroom, and between us for those moments there would seem to be a deceptive feeling of perfect ease.

  And sometimes, before the others knew about us, we would be at a large oval conference table in a meeting room at the office, and everyone would be arguing about a cover, or story ideas, and someone would say something that wasn't meant to be amusing but was, and I would seem to turn my head to look at the clock or out the window, and I would catch his glance in that moment and see just the most imperceptibly raised eyebrow or upturned corner of his mouth, and in that split second between us there would be an invisible smile big enough to last a morning.

  When he returned from Prague, he said that we would go to Rhode Island, tell his father that we were getting married. He had not said much about his father, although I knew his name was Harrold, with the same double r. It was, too, the father's father's name and so on. Perhaps once, years and years ago, it had been an affectation or possibly a mistake, but now it was so deeply a part of the passing down of the name that Harrold, my Harrold, could not bring himself to drop the extra r—even though he himself did not know its origins.

  The house was on the water, cavernous, filled with empty rooms, the prototype of the apartment with the empty rooms in Manhattan. It was Victorian, or turn-of-the-century; I never knew for sure. It had gray shingles and a porch and many windows of different sizes. The furniture inside was heavy, dark, and masculine. We drove up the driveway, and already I could feel a sea change in the man beside me. He grew quiet, taciturn. He turned off the radio. There were lines on his forehead, a tightening around his mouth. He said before we had even parked the car that this was a bad idea, but I said nonsense, I was dying to meet his father.

  There had been, in the city, a sense of manic joy as we'd set out, like opening the shutters and letting daylight flood into darkened rooms. Perhaps we would join the world, after all, we thought but didn't say, by getting married. There had been, after that night in the kitchen, a sense of striving for something like normalcy: We had, just the day before, on his first day back from Prague, told the people in the office that we were getting married. And we had both enjoyed, even more than the announcement, the surprise on the faces there.

  His father was a wizened man, a man who had once been large, like Harrold, but now was shrunken, caved in. His face was gray, like his hair. His hair was combed back straight from the brow in a style that seemed to be a holdover from an earlier era. You could see at once that he wasn't well, hadn't been for some time. He had Harrold's eyes, black and impenetrable, catching you suddenly in what might have passed for an indifferent glance. He held a cigarette, and there was a tremor in his hand. There were nicotine stains on his fingers. He was sitting in an oversized captain's chair of darkened wood that seemed to mold itself around him. He was wearing a suit, a formal gray suit that doubtless once had fit him well but now hung poorly over the wasted body.

  I remember a housekeeper standing by a window. Harrold walked to the center of the room but didn't go to his father. I had the feeling they hadn't touched in years, so couldn't now. Harrold turned around to look at me—I was behind him—as if he would have me leave the room, as if his father were something I shouldn't see, or the other way around. Harrold seemed lost. I had never seen him like this—smaller, diminished. His father, in the polished chair, was now the larger man. I walked to where Harrold was standing. Harrold said my name, said his father's name. I walked to the father, shook his hand. His hand was dry, like yellow dust in my own.

  Get us a drink, Harry, will you, his father said. It was not a question. I heard the diminutive. Harrold was never Harry, though sometimes he was known as English. Once in a while a colleague or the editor would call him that: Hey, English, they would say. I watched Harrold's hand reach for a glass on a sideboard. He made a large Scotch for his father, one for me. I had not been invited to sit down, but I did so, on a leather sofa. The room was not a living room, not a room that people lived in, though his father lived in here. It was a study, leather and wood and masculine, but there was a chaise by a window, with a throw. Beyond the window, you could see the water. The house was quiet, still, with dust motes drifting in the air.

  You make your living scribbling for that rag too, his father said to me. There was a scratch of metal in his voice; it turned questions into pronouncements.

  By the sideboard, Harrold had downed his drink already, had quickly poured himself another. I was sure his father had seen him do this. You had the sense the eyes saw everything, even though the body was immobile. I said yes, I worked with Harrold, and then because I was nervous and Harrold had not yet spoken, I said inanely, to fill the silence, that I had heard a lot about him, which was not true, and that I'd heard about the textile mills and how he'd made them out of nothing, which was true and which Harrold had mentioned to me, in passing.

  The business was his if he'd wanted it, but now it's gone to strangers, said the father, as if the son were not in the room. The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.

  We're getting married, Harrold said in a rush, like a schoolboy in his father's presence who wanted only to change the subject, and I winced that what we had come to tell had been used by him like that.

  There was a silence in the room. I thought that possibly Harrold had shocked his father too much, had not prepared him for this eventuality, and that his father, understandably, was at a loss for words.

  But then his father spoke.

  You can stay to supper if you want, he said, but I won't be joining you. I take my meals alone now.

  I glanced at Harrold, but he turned away from me, looked out at the water instead. Perhaps his father was deaf, I thought. The deafness would explain his rudeness. If he had not heard what his son had said, I would repeat it for him, I would tell him that I hoped he would come to the wedding. I would say this loudly, and he would understand then. I opened my mouth to speak, but his father cut me off.

  What's your family do? his father said. His voiced rasped, and he coughed.

  I knew then that he had heard but had chosen not to give his son anything like his blessing or even an acknowledgment.

  Harrold left the room, walked out of the room onto a porch. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, saw him, through the window, walk toward the beach.

  I answered his father's question about my family, about my mother. I could see that he was disappointed. He had hoped, despite his air of indifference, that his son would marry well, do that right at least. He gestured to the housekeeper to fill up his glass. I wondered if he sat like this all day, drinking Scotch, not moving much in this tomblike house.

  I excused myself. I said I would be back. I went out to find Harrold on the beach, saw him walking in the sand with his shoes on, his good shoes filling up with sand. He had his hands in his pants pockets, with his suit coat and his tie blowing in the wind behind him. We had dressed to meet his father. I took off my shoes and ran down to the beach to talk to him, but he didn't want me there, said he'd rather be alone. I chose not to believe this, ran in the sand to keep up with him. His hair was buffeted by the wind; his eyes squinted against the sun.

  We shouldn't have come, he said. It was always like this. His father was an alcoholic.

  As if that excused everything—the ice, the scorn, the ridicule. But it didn't, not entirely.

  What happened to your mot
her? I asked.

  He didn't answer me at first. He turned and walked toward a dune and sat down. He looked almost comical in his good suit sitting in the sand, and I felt sorry for him. His father was an ugly man, but I couldn't say that.

  I sat down beside Harrold.

  He was ten, he said suddenly, after a time. His mother was dying of cancer. Breast cancer. He didn't know that she was dying. He'd known about the operations and the hospital stays, but his mother had said to him that she was getting better, and he'd believed her. Had to believe her. He was only ten.

  And on this one particular day he was remembering, he had walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. It was a hot afternoon, and there was a swinging door into the kitchen. He'd swung the door open thoughtlessly, as boys do, he said, and he'd hit his father in the back. His father and then his mother's sister, who'd come to help with the care. They'd been embracing—not an embrace of consolation, either, Harrold said. He thought now that probably it was just a grope, a pass on his father's part, meaningless in the long run, but the boy did not see it that way. He was at an awkward age, old enough to understand yet not understand fully. He'd run out of the kitchen and gone outside, had gone into the dunes where we were then. He'd cried, he said. He'd cried for his mother and his father and for the shame of it—the hot earnest tears of a ten-year-old boy.

  And then, he said, he'd done the one truly terrible thing of his childhood.

  Later that night, thinking somehow that his mother would make it right, he'd half told her, or had begun to tell her, and then had realized he couldn't, ought not to, but she had seen it on his face, had heard too much before he could recover and take it back.

  And after that day, his mother had not spoken to his father again. She'd died weeks later, not speaking to her husband, and the father had never forgiven the son.

  Mine was the worse offense, Harrold said, looking at me. Telling her like that, hurting her.

  He'd understood that almost immediately and had tried to tell this to his father. But his father was a hard man. He'd always been hard, Harrold said—it was how he'd made his family, made his business.

  I hate the bastard, let's get out of here, he said.

  We drove back to the city in silence. The three quick drinks in the middle of the day had not made Harrold drunk, merely made him silent, almost sullen. I was disappointed for myself too, you must understand. It wasn't how I had imagined it might be; I had hoped we would be happy, like other people seemed to be. I didn't see how we could have a wedding in a church: That wouldn't suit us now, though we would be married. That felt inevitable.

  I said that I would go to Chicago to tell my mother. I didn't ask him to come. I knew he wouldn't now.

  Was this the reason, then? The reason why the man I loved was so twisted, angry, brutal? And if so, do we forgive him his brutality?

  Or if so, what then was the reason for his father's brutality and ice? A father's father's sin? A legacy that I have now dismantled?

  I am trying to tell you the truth. I am doing this so that you will understand how it was—how it was that I stayed, wanted Harrold, believed in us. Later, yes, I was afraid to leave, that was simple; but in the beginning, when I could have left, could have stopped it from happening, I didn't want to.

  You see, I loved Harrold. I loved him. Even on the day I left, even when I was most afraid of him.

  And I wonder now, was this a sickness on my part? Or was it my best self?

  I got your letter this morning. I knew that you would be surprised to hear from me, to receive the notes and writings I had sent you. I see you getting the package at your desk, your puzzlement as you look at the first page, wondering what this is, then your face as the wheels begin to turn, realizing you have your story after all, will not have to abandon all the work you've done in Maine, have a story that is viable.

  I see you in your white blouse and skirt, your shoes kicked off in the heat. Your suit jacket is behind you, over your chair. You are bent over your desk, reading what I have written. Your hand is at your forehead; you are concentrating deeply. I see your blond hair pinned back with tortoiseshell barrettes, falling behind your ears. Maybe you unsnap a barrette and run your hand through your hair, thinking; it's an excited gesture.

  And then you'll have a drink at lunch, maybe a glass of wine. You'll be humming with ideas, your own ideas of how to write the story. You'll think you've got the cover now; it cannot fail to make the cover. You'll have to time it right. The peg will be the verdict. It must come out before the verdict, or the story quickly will grow old. You are thinking—possibly, just possibly—that this story will be the one that will truly make your career. That will let you rise above the others, that will allow the world to see just how good you really are. It's got juice and meat, and you are thinking you can do it justice.

  Yet even so, I don't believe it is possible for you ever to know the truth or to write it. For at the end you will have an article, your own ideas, which you will have edited, by necessity, in the process of writing it, and that story will, in turn, be edited by those above you, and that final printed story will be read and perceived differently by every reader, man or woman, depending on the circumstances of his or her life, so that by the time all of the magazines are put out with the rubbish, and you are off interviewing someone else, no one will have any idea of my story as it really was at all, will they?

  We were married in the winter. My mother came and was radiant, even though we did not get married in the Church. I filled the apartment with flowers, made it seem like a happy place. We were married there and had a party: We invited people from the office.

  It was a curious match at the magazine—the subject of much gossip and of speculation: Why had Harrold chosen Maureen? I wore an ivory-colored dress and a wreath of flowers in my hair. I let my mother brush my hair in the morning, and she put it up with combs. I was buoyant with belief in the ritual, drifting lightly with the illusion. If we seemed happy, and had my mother with us, and there was sunlight in the rooms, and there were people there who wished us well, wasn't that enough?

  Not long after the wedding, I had to go to Los Angeles to do a story. There was an oil spill off the coast of California, and I was part of a team—two reporters and a photographer.

  My colleagues both were men. They had a motel room together; I had the adjacent room to myself. But the three of us moved easily from room to room, sharing takeout, talking of our story, watching television, until it was time to go to bed.

  One night Harrold called me on the telephone. Robert, the photographer, was in the room, writing down what I wanted from the Chinese restaurant around the corner. He called out to me as he was leaving, said not to bother with the money, it was his turn to pay. Harrold heard his voice, said, Is that Robert? I said, Yes. He said, What's he doing in your room? I laughed. Possibly that was my mistake. I shouldn't have laughed. I heard the ice in his voice. I said, What's the matter, Harrold? He said, Nothing. I knew that nothing. It's what he always said when he was angry and wouldn't talk. I made it worse then; I tried to explain. I said, Robert and Mike are always here. We eat our supper here. It's nothing. Don't be silly.

  Don't be silly.

  He said, Fine.

  I got in late at La Guardia, took a taxi to the apartment. He was waiting up for me, sitting in a chair in the bedroom. There was a bottle on the table. He'd been drinking, quite a lot by the look of him. He got up, hesitated, started walking toward me. I said, Harrold.

  Which one did you sleep with? he asked me, moving closer.

  I put my hands up. I remember that, I put my hands up. I said, Don't be ridiculous. A tremor in my voice suggested I was trying to wriggle out of it. He made me feel guilty, even though I was not. Harrold, I said, backing up to the wall. For heaven's sake.

  He put his hands on my shoulders, shook me once. He said, I know what these trips are like, what goes on.

  What does that mean? I asked.

  It means I know what goes
on, he said.

  I brought my arms up, pushed his hands away. I said, You're crazy; you've been drinking. I turned around, as if I would walk away. I wanted to get out of the room, shut a door.

  I don't know if it was my saying he was crazy, or my accusing him of drinking, but I'd said the magic word, ignited him. He grabbed my hair from behind, jerked my head back. I could somehow not believe that this was happening. Revolving as if in slow motion, I saw his hand, his free hand; it made an arc, hit the side of my head. I spun back into the wall, covered my face with my arm. I slid down onto the floor.

  I was motionless. I didn't move a muscle. I was afraid even to breathe.

  I heard a voice above me. God, he said. He hit the wall, put his fist through the plasterboard.

  I heard him grab his coat, his keys. I heard the door shutting.

  He didn't come back to the apartment or to the office for three days. I covered for him, said that he was sick. I said that a taxi driver at the airport had opened the door when I was bending down and that the door had hit me on the side of the face.

  Once you tell your first lie, the first time you lie for him, you are in it with him, and then you are lost.

  I want to tell you about something I witnessed when I was in St. Hilaire. Actually it was in Machias, when I was shopping at the A&P. I had Caroline in the baby basket in the front of the cart and was in the fruit-and-vegetable aisle, counting out oranges, when I heard a small commotion behind me. I turned to look and saw a woman walking fast, and with her there was a boy, about six years old or seven. He was crying, trying to catch up to her, trying to hold her hand. She was short and somewhat overweight. She had on a car coat, plaid, and a flower printed kerchief. She snapped as she was walking, You're the one that lost the money; don't come cryin' to me. There won't be no treats this week. I give you a dollar bill to hold on to, and you lose it.