The Marriage of Opposites

by Alice Hoffman

  I walked beside my mother now, our pace evenly matched. I realized that as delighted as she was with Aaron’s homecoming, his wife brought her no joy. “He brought home a feather,” my mother said contemptuously. “He would have done better with a woman.”

  “Well, she’s a feather weighted down with money. He might have had someone with more strength, but you didn’t care for her,” I ventured to say.

  “That was impossible and you know it. I don’t decide such things.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “If you think I make the rules or that I have any choice but to abide by them, you’re more of a fool than I’d ever imagined. Maybe when your own children disobey you and break your heart, we can discuss such matters. Until then, I don’t care for your opinions or advice. I did what I did to save him.”

  Once home, Aaron carried his Elise into the washroom, then left her to Rosalie and me. “This time make sure she doesn’t fall,” he said.

  “Does she have someone to bathe her at home?” I asked.

  “What is that your business?” Aaron said. “What she wants, she gets. That’s the way it is when you can afford to do as you please, Rachel.”

  All at once, I pitied him. “Do you at least love her a little?”

  “Do you think you’re the one to ask such questions? You of all people, who married a business rather than a man.”

  “And what shall I say to the woman you do love?” I asked.

  “That’s my affair,” my cousin told me. “Not yours.”

  THOUGH WE WERE PLEASANT enough to Aaron’s new wife, Elise was wary of our ways from the start. She gazed at Rosalie’s skin color rudely as Rosalie poured buckets of water into the bath. Before she entered the claw-foot tub, Elise cried, “The water’s green. I hope there aren’t frogs in there.”

  “Is there anything that makes you say thank you?” Rosalie said primly.

  I wanted to laugh but elbowed Rosalie to hush her.

  Elise threw us a look; then she slipped off all of her clothes, including her petticoat and her chemise, and tossed them on the floor. As she stepped into the bath, water sloshed over the silk. We noticed she didn’t wear pantalets, which was something of a shock. She clearly liked to show herself off, and I wondered if this was how she had caught Aaron. Soft, naked skin and money.

  “What kind of woman is she?” Rosalie asked me.

  “One from Paris.” I grinned.

  “She won’t last here.” Rosalie shook her head. “Not for an hour.”

  Elise dipped her head under, and when she arose she blew out a stream of water like a dolphin. To our surprise she laughed with pleasure. “Now I feel better. And the water is wonderful, so yes, thank you! But I want more. And colder. And be sure to get me my own soap. It’s in my bag.”

  Perhaps she was more resilient than she seemed.

  I AGREED TO TAKE Elise on a tour of Charlotte Amalie while Aaron met with my husband to discuss business. The synagogue was being rebuilt after several fires; we would soon have a beautiful stone edifice and a larger congregation than ever. Wooden buildings were no longer allowed on main streets, and the new synagogue would be both fireproof and hurricane proof, with four stone pillars, each representing one of the matriarchs of our people, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, and Leah. There were mahogany pews made by the best furniture makers. The walls were fashioned from sand and limestone, bound with sticky near-tar-like molasses, the island’s biggest export, along with rum. Despite the space for six Torahs to be housed in the mahogany ark, and the Baccarat crystal chandeliers that would be lit with oil, the floor was made of sand, there to remind the congregation of the sand floors that had muffled their footsteps when they met for prayer during times of trouble in their home countries so their presence would go unnoticed by the authorities. I explained the reason for the sand floor, so that Elise would not think our congregation barbaric. When I told her molasses had been mixed in with the mortar to bind it, and that the children said when they ran their tongues across the walls the building was sweet to the taste, she didn’t believe me.

  “There’s quite a lot you won’t believe about our island,” I said. Molasses and rum were at the heart of all we were and did, since the rest of the world wanted this from us. “We have to spray salt water on the synagogue to keep the ants away.”

  Elise grinned and said she wanted proof, so we went around behind the building and put our tongues on the mortar as the children often did. The taste was gritty and sweet.

  Elise was delighted. “It’s like candy! Perhaps I’ve judged too quickly. Now I want to see everything it’s impossible to believe.” She had grown accustomed to the heat quicker than I’d imagined, perhaps because she wore lighter clothing borrowed from my mother’s cabinet, a white cotton skirt and blouse.

  I should have reconsidered, but I welcomed a day without the children when I could play at being a guide. I found Elise fascinating, and couldn’t yet imagine how conniving she could be. I loved her chatter about Paris. She told me about the new fashions, the teashops and lounges she and her friends went to, the parks with carousels. She spoke of the leaves turning color in October, a soft gold that made the entire city glimmer, and of the snow in the winter, when she and her brothers had built forts out of ice. I felt a sort of enchantment come over me, and I wondered if this was what had happened to Aaron. A door had opened into another life.

  In return for these tales, I would show her our marvels, small as they were. We went to the harbor to a café, where we drank limewater laced with a dash of rum; then we went to the fish market so Elise could gape at the piles of fish, which were so fresh they were pink and gasping. There was a fish we called ballyhoo that was a big favorite, and there were dozens lined up to be sold. All along the beach men had built fish pots in the surf out of straw and sticks and wire; fish could swim in but they couldn’t get out, and we waded in to see the coils of fish within these contraptions.

  I took Elise to the Petit house, and we had lunch with the children, who were all on their best behavior. She was especially charmed by the girls, Hannah, who was so lovely and polite, and the younger ones, Delphine and Emma. They were charmed in return, arguing over who would sit next to her, delighted by the way she approached a banana with a knife and fork.

  “You’re so fortunate,” Elise said to me when Rosalie took the children inside for their naps. “Those children are treasures.”

  I introduced Elise to Jean-François, our pet, and after her initial fear, she calmed down and fed him oats from her hand. She told me more of her life with Aaron, the house they had in Passy, on the right side of the Seine, which her father had bought for her, the garden with linden trees, the little park she went to on sunny afternoons. I had an edge of guilt when I thought of Jestine, and how she would ache when she saw Elise. I knew my cousin had forsaken her, but I was inside a story of Paris, and I simply couldn’t hear enough. In the afternoon I took Elise into the hills to search for wild donkeys. She was telling me about the goats that ate grass in the Tuileries when we spied some of the local beasts of burden. She grabbed on to me as one approached, then laughed when the donkey ran away, more frightened of us than we were of it.

  “See,” I told her. “No lions.”

  “I feel so free here.” Elise had taken off her boots and was barefoot, arching her beautiful, pale feet in the tall grass. “My family always babies me, and so does my husband. I want to do something Aaron would never imagine I would do.” The end of the day was nearing, and the sky was turning violet above us. “Something daring.”

  I asked if she’d ever been swimming in the ocean, and she laughed and said, “That’s it! I’ll be a mermaid! That will shock him.” We went to the beach in the fading light. It was a secluded cove, surrounded by greenery, the one where the turtles came. The path went through the tamarind trees. The air was silken and the water pale blue. We wasted no time in undressing. I felt happy to be a wild girl for an afternoon. As we laughed and hid our shoes in a log, I forgot who I wa
s with, the woman who had come to possess all that my dearest friend wanted. Or perhaps I thought I could not blame Elise for the ways in which my cousin had hurt Jestine.

  We hung our dresses on a branch and walked into the water in our petticoats.

  “This is madness!” Elise grinned as she went deeper into the water. A blue crab scuttled across the seafloor, and Elise shouted out, then recovered and laughed, diving in where the water was deeper and bluer. “Actually it’s heaven,” she called to me.

  The water was so calm here. Sandfish floated below us, and we tried and failed to catch them in our hands. Even though the evening was perfect, I had a nagging feeling of dread. I thought I saw a woman, out at sea, so far in the distance it did not seem possible a human could survive.

  “What do we do if someone comes onto the beach?” Elise said, when we ran out, soaking wet, our undergarments clinging to our skin. We were as good as naked if anyone spied us.

  “No one ever comes here,” I assured her. “It’s a secret beach.”

  But I heard something. When I looked up I spied a figure beyond the trees, where the shadows were dark green. I recognized her shadow as she fled, for I knew her better than anyone.

  AS SOON AS WE returned to my mother’s house, we could hear my cousin’s raised voice. He was speaking with such fury that Elise and I didn’t dare go any farther. We stopped inside the corridor. My husband was in the parlor with Aaron. His expression was grim as he tried to calm him. “I’m not the one who wrote the provisions of the will. That was your uncle.”

  “How do I know you didn’t write it and force him to sign? He was an old man.”

  “You are a ward, though you were called cousin. There is no relation by blood.”

  My father had left a gift to the synagogue and one to the Lutheran church, which was the custom. It was expected that he would leave my husband in charge of the business. To divide the company would be to weaken it, and my father wanted to keep the family’s holdings together. Aaron would have a monthly check, but he was to have no say over how things were managed. After all, he had proved himself a poor businessman in France, and had lost money for our company. Our French relatives had relieved him of his duties, and he now worked for his wife’s father, who had a prestigious store in Paris. Still, he’d clearly come back with expectations. I wondered if he thought he might inherit everything and stay on and reclaim his life, perhaps have two families, as so many men did. The one he brought to the synagogue and the one he visited on Sundays as dusk spread across the sky and he would not be spied as he made his way along the alleys beside the wharves.

  We let the men speak and went to have tea with my mother.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll come to terms,” my mother assured Elise. “Men like to argue.”

  Elise’s skin had burned during our excursion to the beach; she was flushed and overheated and soon excused herself, saying she had never been as tired in her life. As soon as Elise went to lie down, my mother grabbed my arm and whispered, “She’s been here. Uninvited.”

  It took a while before I understood who she was talking about.

  Jestine.

  I WENT THROUGH THE courtyard to Mr. Enrique’s house. He was sitting outside, still dressed in the black suit he wore at the store.

  “Is she here?”

  “I don’t get involved in these things.” He looked away; therefore I knew the answer was yes.

  I went inside, and there were Jestine and Lyddie sitting in the dark. The shutters were closed and only the last of the day’s yellow light came through in bands. Jestine was in her best dress. She wore laced boots, and her hair was braided and pinned up. Lyddie was beside her, quiet, her hands folded on her lap. When she looked at me, I could tell she was alarmed. Jestine, on the other hand, was furious.

  “You didn’t think you should take it upon yourself to tell me that he had a wife?”

  “I was going to,” I said. But I hadn’t wanted to face her.

  “I suppose you were too busy. Well, don’t worry, I found out. Don’t you think Lyddie should meet him? A daughter should see her father at least once in her lifetime.”

  I asked Lyddie to wait outside with Mr. Enrique while we spoke.

  “You came to see his wife,” I said when the little girl had gone. “It won’t lead to your happiness.”

  “What do I care about her?” Jestine made a face. “Lyddie is his daughter. He should know her.”

  “You cared enough to spy on us.”

  “Because you didn’t even tell me he was back. You seem to care more for her than you do for me!” Jestine’s voice broke. “Is she your sister now?”

  “She’s nothing to me,” I said. It was the truth. Elise had been an amusement, nothing more. I suspected the same was true for Aaron. “And she should be nothing to you.”

  “I saw her fall on the road when she got off the ship, and you assisted her.”

  “She needed a cold bath, with her own soap from Paris.”

  “It didn’t help her from being ugly.”

  We laughed at that. Elise wasn’t ugly, but she certainly wasn’t beautiful, like Jestine.

  “I came to show him his daughter, and that is what I still intend to do. He says he wants to see her.”

  “You’ve spoken to Aaron?”

  Jestine glared at me. “What do you think?”

  I begged her to reconsider, but she wouldn’t listen. Perhaps I should have warned her that Elise was not as weak as she might appear to be.

  Jestine led Lyddie into our courtyard. All of the yellow birds that loved the sweet fruit in our garden so much some people called them sugarbirds hushed when she appeared. There was a shadow at the upstairs window.

  I followed Jestine so I might stand beside her. I’d been wrong and thoughtless to befriend Elise. My cousin had been gone for more than five years. “He won’t come,” I warned.

  “He will.” Jestine held tightly to her daughter’s hand. Lyddie looked over at her mother, confused.

  The last of the sunlight was in our eyes, but Jestine refused to move into the shade.

  “How long do you intend to stand here?” I asked. “Don’t you see him for who he is by now?”

  “Do you want Lyddie to have to look into every man’s face, searching for herself? I have to see to this now, before he’s an ocean away and she never has the chance.”

  My mother was the one at the window. She gazed down when she heard Jestine, then promptly closed the shutters.

  “You’re locking me out?” Jestine shouted.

  I put a hand on her arm to hush her. “This won’t work out the way you want it to.”

  “He’ll see me.” Jestine turned back to shout at the house, to my mother, I assumed, and to Aaron as well. “I’m waiting for you to show yourself. You know she’s your daughter.”

  Surely Aaron heard her raised voice, but instead of coming to face her, my cousin played the coward and sent his wife. I suspect he feared meeting up with Jestine, and perhaps was most afraid of his own emotions. Elise came out in her rose silk dress. Jestine was too dazed to say anything as she approached.

  “He asked if you would leave,” Elise said.

  “If I don’t?” Jestine said. “What will you do then?”

  “That won’t happen, so we won’t discuss it.” Elise’s eyes flitted down to Lyddie, who still held her mother’s hand. Jestine glared back, fiercely protective of her daughter. Lyddie wore her blue dress, beautifully smocked. She gazed wide-eyed at the woman from France, who clearly had the upper hand.

  “Is this the girl?” Elise focused her attention on Lyddie entirely. “What a pretty dress you have.”

  “You know who she is.” Jestine’s chin jutted out. “And so does he.”

  Jestine sounded strong, but I noticed her hands were shaking. For once I was glad I had never been in love.

  “This is Lydia,” I told Elise.

  “May I?” Elise was clearly entranced by the child. Jestine was so taken by surprise, she didn
’t stop Elise from questioning Lyddie about her education at the Moravian School.

  “I’m going to learn four languages,” Lyddie said. “I already speak Danish, and soon I’ll study German and English and Spanish.”

  “What about French?” Elise smiled with a warmth I hadn’t seen before. “Do you study that as well?”

  “I’m speaking to you in French, Madame.”

  Elise laughed, delighted. That was when I felt a chill go through me.

  Elise turned to Jestine, cool but not unfriendly now. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll speak to my husband.”

  When Elise went inside, Jestine seemed shaken. “Who does she think she is to say ‘my husband’ to me?”

  “That’s who he is to her.” I don’t think Jestine had truly realized Aaron now possessed a life beyond what they’d once had together.

  We left the garden and went to my house. Since Aaron and Elise had arrived, I’d been so caught up with them I’d hardly been home. My children greeted me and hugged me, then ran off to play with Lyddie. Rosalie came out to the porch and threw me a look. “Do you still live here? Or did you move back in with your mother?”

  “I was trying to be polite to our guests,” I said.

  “Don’t be. Stay at home.”

  Jestine was quiet during this interchange, but when Rosalie went to keep watch over the children, Jestine turned to me. “You were right. I was a fool to go there.” She took my hand. She feared Elise’s pleasantries had been a deception. “Don’t let them do anything to me.”

  “They wouldn’t,” I assured her. “There’s nothing they can do to you.”

  I truly believed that at the time.

  There were green frogs in the garden, and the children were set on catching them with a net. We could hear them whooping, then gathering together to examine their catch. It was a near-perfect night, but beside me my dearest friend was crying.