by Pamela Morsi
The two young people stood there staring at her expectantly. Gertrude couldn't think of a thing to say.
Chapter Thirty
IT WAS RAINING. A slow, steady rain that had started at morning and had continued with unrelenting persistence all day. Inside the little upstairs apartment on Second Street, however, the weather was of little concern. It certainly should have raised some eyebrows when Gertrude left for an "outing to the library" in such inclement weather. But the situation at the Barkley house was so strained, no one even noticed.
For Mikolai and Gertrude, encased in a warm sunny glow of their own making, the gray gloom of the afternoon went unnoticed. They lay together wrapped in each other's arms in the narrow rusty bed, which actually no longer appeared rusty.
As a surprise for Gertrude, Mikolai had bought a fluffy down pillow and fresh sheets of twilled bleached muslin to grace their secret shelter. He'd scoured the rust from the head and footboards and festooned them with garlands of rosemary and straight lengths of satin ribbon.
"It's beautiful," she had said when she saw his handiwork.
Mikolai had smiled with pleasure. But he hadn't told her he had decorated their bed of assignations like a Polish wedding bower.
Gertrude had added her own touches to the room. A lace cloth now graced the scarred table and she'd hung sheer draperies to cover the windows.
"It looks very nice," he told her.
She had gratefully accepted the compliment, but hadn't admitted that such wifely tasks were things that she wanted to do for him.
They lay together in the languor of satisfaction. After a weekend of unplanned closeness without privacy, they had come together with a wanton hunger for the touch of the other. Their garments had been dispatched with undue haste. And they had fallen upon each other eagerly and without self-consciousness.
"I love those little sounds you make. They are part sigh, pan squeal from way back inside you," he whispered as he entered her.
She moaned with pleasure and squirmed beneath him. "I'm not making those sounds, you are," she answered.
He chuckled, pleased at her words. "I confess to being noisy myself," he said. "But I don't see how I can make sounds come out of your throat."
Her eyes were dreamy, teasing. "When you press all the way inside," she explained, "you are so deep, you actually bounce against my voice box."
Grinning, he bounced against it a couple of times, as if to test her theory. It seemed a valid one.
"I love being inside you," he said. "I think about us being like this awake and sleeping. You cannot know how much I crave our union when I am away from it."
Her expression was soft, dreamy. "I do know," she answered. "I crave it. And I treasure it when it is here."
It was there, at that moment, a true union of bodies and of hearts and spirits. Their solemnity softened to sweetness as the pace of their coupling quickened.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and twisted. He laughed as he allowed her to roll him beneath her.
When she was on top, he reached up to clasp her dangling breasts in his hands.
"This is my favorite of the 'tricks,'" she told him. "I can pretend I am the first woman jockey at a horse race." Her grin widened. "Or perhaps I appear more like Lady Godiva?"
"I don't care who is in the saddle," he told her, his eyes dreamy and his smile broad. "As long as we ride long and hard this afternoon."
And they did.
Mikolai was no longer uncertain about offending this woman of his heart, whose desires seemed so to complement his own. She was no shy, faint flower fearful of his manly needs. She was his lover and his partner and wanted from him part and parcel of what he had to give. He gave her everything. The "tricks" he knew, and even the ones he'd only heard about, had become savory platters in their feast of love. And when they had enjoyed until their strength ran out, they lay sated and content in the lassitude of their lasciviousness.
Later, at his insistence, she wore his shirt. It was meant to keep the chill of the room from her shoulders. Its effectiveness for that purpose was lessened somewhat because she hadn't bothered to button it. And Mikolai was content to allow it to gap open, giving him a pleasant view of her bosom, which he continued to tease and explore.
He himself was wearing nothing at all. And the chill made little impact upon him. Gertrude's hands, leisurely stroking his back, his buttocks, his thighs, kept him quite warm and unbelievably content.
They sighed together as one. It was wonderful being together, totally together. And with the world so far away, they held the privacy of the moment for as long as they could. But ultimately the world outside came sneaking in like a wily thief to steal what they had of value.
"Are Claire and Teddy still talking of marrying soon?" she asked him as she twirled the hair of his chest between her fingers.
Mikolai nodded. "Yes, they still are saying they want to wed right away." He shook his head. "I don't understand it," he admitted. "They say it as if they want me to put a stop to it."
"Will you?"
"No, I don't think so." He was thoughtful as he smoothed a stray curl from Gertrude's cheek. "How can I tell him no? I was younger than Teddy when I wed his mother," he said. "But I do wish they would wait."
"That's what I wish for them, too," Gertrude admitted with a loud, frustrated sigh. "But every time I try to talk to them about it, Claire gets very . . . I'm not sure what it is. It sometimes sounds almost as if she is challenging me to tell her not to. And yet she doesn't listen to my advice."
"I know what you mean," Mikolai said. "It is a puzzle, isn't it? They act as if they cannot wait to wed, but I have yet to see Teddy try to steal a kiss." He leaned down to Gertrude and placed a small sweet one upon her lips. "My son is a better gentleman than me," he said.
Gertrude smiled up at him. "They cannot feel as we do, Mikolai," she said. "I don't think anyone else in the world feels this."
Her words went straight to his heart and warmed him inside and out. He kissed her again, this time with more passion. She purred with pleasure from her throat. When he released her lips, she turned in his arms, pressing her soft, naked derriere tightly against the warmth of his genitals, and relaxed against him.
He rested his head in the crook of her neck and stroked her torso with strong, sure hands.
"George and Prudence are still not saying anything?" he asked.
Gertrude shook her head. "They are not saying anything. In fact they hardly ever talk at all, certainly never to each other, and I haven't heard them even mention Teddy's name."
"It's very odd."
"Yes, it is. And it's strange how Claire doesn't want to talk to them about it," Gertrude said. "She wants to talk to me."
"Apparently she already knows what they think," Mikolai observed. "And it doesn't sound as if they are much in favor of it."
"I'm sure they want Claire to be happy."
"And they don't think she would be happy with Teddy?" he asked.
"I think that they just don't know," she answered. "This whole thing has brought back a lot of bad memories for them, I think."
"Bad memories?"
Gertrude nodded and sighed. "I guess you didn't know George and Pru much when they first married."
"No, I didn't," he admitted. Adding thoughtfully, "In fact the first time I ever heard of Prudence was when I heard that she had married George."
"Pru's father was a farmer near Mansfield," Gertrude said.
"Really?" Mikolai was clearly surprised. "Mrs. Barkley certainly doesn't appear to be a farmer's daughter," he said.
"She's tried very hard not to be," Gertrude told him.
She wiggled against him as if trying to be even closer than human flesh would allow. It was not a motion meant as an enticement. She needed to be close to him, to feel safe in his arms as she told him a truth that she had never breathed to another living soul.
"I don't know exactly how it came about or what happened," she began softly as she stared out into
the gloomy grayness of the rented room. "But George began seeing Pru when they were only seventeen. He began seeing her on the sly."
"Oh?"
"I didn't know a thing about it. Papa didn't either. He would never have approved. He wanted so much for George. I'm sure he planned on a brilliant marriage for his son."
"Sometimes things don't work out the way fathers plan them," Mikolai said, speaking from experience.
Gertrude sighed and voiced quiet agreement.
"When George rushed into a hasty wedding with a girl we hardly knew, I was puzzled," she admitted. "And when Pru spent the first months of their marriage hiding out in the house and crying, I thought it the most foolish thing that I had ever seen."
Gertrude chuckled lightly in self-derision. Mikolai pressed his lips lovingly against her hair.
"I didn't understand what was happening," she said. "I was older than both of them, but I had lived such a sheltered life, I didn't even really understand how the world worked."
"You are a thinker and a dreamer, Gertrude," Mikolai told her. "Why should you concern yourself with the mundane?"
"Perhaps because the world I live in is quite a mundane one," she answered. "I commented one morning upon how fat Pru had become since their wedding. She burst into tears, of course, but in those days she cried all the time. I just thought she was a crybaby. I probably wouldn't have understood even then had George not barked at me. He told me that she was carrying a child. Honestly, at that moment a faint summer breeze could have knocked me over."
"Ahhhh," Mikolai commented.
"You didn't know?" she asked.
'Truly, I never gave it a thought," he said. "I had so much happening in my own life, I hardly had time to be concerned about anyone else."
Gertrude nodded. "Well, I suppose you were the only one in Venice who didn't notice. For months and months I could think of nothing else. That's when I really began writing for the first time. I thought I was attempting escape through my stories. And yet I found myself constantly trying to put myself in her place. I wrote it all down. As if it were me instead of her. I tried to see how it might be, how it might feel, so that I could understand. I wanted to understand."
"And, of course, you did," Mikolai said with surety.
"Yes, ultimately I think I did understand. But the rest of the world was not so magnanimous."
"I'm sure they were not."
"The gossips had a field day with the Barkleys' seven-month baby," she said.
Mikolai nodded solemnly. "Your father must have been furious. He was so concerned with appearances," he said.
"Yes, I suppose he was upset, but in all honesty he never said a word. He actually seemed to like Pru. That was part of what was so difficult for me. I was very jealous of her at the time of their wedding. Papa seemed to think that Pru was the perfect woman in every way."
"That was good. It would have been so sad for everyone if he had blamed her."
"But he didn't. I don't think he really blamed either of them," Gertrude said. "I think we blamed him for most everything and he rarely turned the tables around."
Her words became soft and sorrowful once more as she spoke. "I had to remind George of that at Papa's funeral. He was really shaken. He was so frightened, so guilty. He felt that his shame had somehow sent Papa to an early grave."
"Poor George."
"Yes, poor George. That's why he's tried so hard, you know," Gertrude said. "He's done everything possible to follow in Papa's footsteps. He's been more rigid and uncompromising than Papa ever was. I suppose he's still trying to make up for that one mistake."
"And no matter what he does, in his own heart he is never quite able to atone," he said.
"You sound as if you know exactly how he feels," Gertrude said.
"I do, I do know exactly."
"You are talking about your wife."
"Yes," he answered. "How did you know?"
Gertrude turned in his arms so that she could look up into his eyes. She did look, for a long time, as the silence in the room was only broken by the sound of the rain against the window-sill.
"I didn't. But it seemed to me what I used to see in your expression. It was like a shadow on your happiness," she said, running her fingers tenderly along his cheekbone. "I have seen it many times in the past, but it is not there now."
"No, no it's not." Mikolai was surprised at his words. "It is gone," he said.
"How did you make it go away?"
He shook his head. "I just kept living," he said. "I just kept living year after year and it faded."
"And it finally just faded away?" she asked.
"No, it didn't fade away completely," he said thoughtfully. "I fell in love at last, for real. The guilt couldn't stand up against it."
She wrapped her arms around his neck. Their kiss was sweet, serene. "I love you, too," she whispered.
They were quiet together for long moments as they looked into each other's eyes. Here, within the safe haven of their little room, all things could be said, all words could be spoken. Love and truth were the same within these near-sacred confines.
Their solemn expressions, lightened to joy and they actually laughed. He held her tightly, protectively, against him as if she were a precious jewel to be guarded and cherished. He kissed her again with passion, but with fun also. They rolled playfully on the bed like rollicking puppies before once again they took up the more serious discussion.
"So why do you think that the children's marriage has conjured up such bad memories for them?" Mikolai asked her.
Gertrude shrugged, uncertain. "I suppose because they were obviously once very much in love, the way that Teddy and Claire must be. But their marriage hasn't been a truly happy one.”
"I am sorry for that."
"I am, too," she said, sighing. "It is as if they could never get past the guilt surrounding the circumstances enough to appreciate the good fortune they actually have in being married to each other."
"Do you envy them?" he asked in a breathy whisper against her ear.
"Envy them?"
"Being married," he said. "Do you envy them that good fortune?"
Gertrude sat up slightly and pulled the sides of the unbuttoned shirt together, the intimacy between them abruptly broken.
"No, of course I don't envy them, Mikolai," she said. "I told you that I never wanted to marry. Marriage isn't for everyone and I haven't changed my mind. Please don't think that I feel guilty about . . . about what we do here in the afternoons. I don't. I don't feel guilty at all. I guess I have a genuine streak of immorality in my nature, because I simply enjoy just exactly what we have together here. I love you. I've admitted that, but don't think that I, in any way, am trying to trap you or tie you to me. I don't have even the least desire to turn our little 'time out of real life' romantic affair into anything else."
She spoke the words hastily and without meeting his eyes.
He didn't hear the deception in them, however, because he was listening through his own bitter disappointment.
The labor was uneventful, as if giving birth to this child were event enough for the inhabitants of Barkley House. Papa paced the floor. All thoughts of disappointment and blame pushed from his heart by his anxiety.
In an upstairs bedroom, sweating and straining and suffering brought to life a new generation, a human being, a baby.
I had never seen a child born. I had no idea of how difficult and indelicate a thing it was to be. It is a wonder to me that women have managed through centuries to do such a thing. Around campfires and inside great medieval fortresses, near battlefields, and aboard sailing ships, women have taken this journey. This journey that brings life and death so close together, it is almost as if you can see the other side. You can taste the dust of eternity and feel the burst of flower's bloom.
I have seen this journey, now. I have seen it with my eyes and my heart, and I have felt it, though I fear it shall never be mine. It was then, almost. Because I wished it so, because I dr
eamed it so. Because I had written that it would be.
In a cry of agony and a plea of joy, a child burst forth from her mother's womb. A girl child. A beautiful girl child that was half her father and half her mother and in a way all mine.
"She is perfect, Prudence," I said.
She nodded through her tears. "Perfect," she agreed. "Perfect."
These are the last words that I shall write of this. This . . . this dream come true that was my lie and is my truth. Reality calls me from my written words and bids me to live, to live. If prose is to be that life, then let it be prose.
But the mix of life and lie is not prose, it is deceit of the highest nature.
As I hold this child to my breast and look down into her beautiful face, I promise that I shall strive never to covet and I vow to end this liaison of words that is beneath my dignity.
I shall release Mikolai Stefanski, whom I love and always shall, to the joys of his reality and I shall struggle to be a friend to the man that he is, not the man that I have wished him to be.
I shall take up my own destiny in my hands and shall mold it and shape it to the best of my abilities. And I will love what I have made because I have made it myself. How sad that I have waited for persons younger than I to teach me such lessons as these I have learned.
Claire's face screwed up in confusion. She went back over the contents of the diary's last page.
"'Reality calls me from my written words and bids me to live, to live. If prose is to be that life, then let it be prose. But the mix of life and lie is not prose, it is deceit of the highest nature,'" she read aloud. "Gee whiz, Aunt Gertrude. What on earth do you mean by that?" She reread it again and shook her head. "I hate it when you get so poetic."
Claire closed the journal and hid it once more under her bed. She put out the lamp and lay down in the darkness of her room. She had just read her own mother's description of the night that she was born. She wanted to luxuriate in those words to hold them to herself as warm comfort. But they were somehow unsubstantial. These words of the journal, these final words, were like no others in it. It was almost as if they were written by another person.
