Her Father's House (6 page)

“So then Bettina is something like an extra wife, a spare.”

Lillian laughed. “You should see your face! You really don't have to look so sarcastic. Sometimes you remind me of—”

“Of what?”

“Oh, I don't know. It's just that we do annoy each other sometimes, don't we?”

As she stood at the window, her profile was in full view, so that for the first time he became aware of a very small bulge developing below her belt. The sight of it, this evidence of the new life, was suddenly confusing and very moving to him. So he replied very gently, “All of us annoy all of us sometimes. It's only natural. Listen. Let's rent a car for tomorrow and keep the day for ourselves, shall we? Call off your friend.”

“How can I possibly do that? She's planned the whole thing. Oh, do be nice to her, Donald.”

He was silent. When was he ever not nice to anybody? And yes, they did annoy each other. His mind, his mood, and his very heart kept switching back and forth between bleak disappointment and cheer. But he
must
try to make cheer triumph! He must make these last few days, this end of the vacation, as pleasing as the first days had been.

In the front seat of the car the next morning, the women chatted. He understood that these two friends had a few years of separation to make up for, but at the same time, he felt keenly what was unmistakably Lillian's indifference. And he watched her as he might never have watched her before.

In the churches and on the village streets near the city, he walked with the women, and yet he was not with them. He knew that men here in this country were more frank in their approach to women than they were at home; it was the custom. He also knew through observation that most women seemed not to pay attention. But these two, Lillian and Bettina, returned each frank stare with an inviting smile. They
preened
. They were two birds ruffling their feathers. They were a pair of pretty cats grooming themselves. And as they walked, he fell farther and farther behind them, thinking and trying not to think.

At noon they drove downhill and stopped for lunch at a piazza on a hill above the city. Here Lillian resumed her role as Donald's guide.

“You can see the whole of Florence from here. There's the Arno, curving down from the hills. That soft green, those patches over there, are olive trees. I always think it's such a superb shade of green. There's nothing quite like it. Look there; you can see the old city wall, or what's left of it. Isn't it superb?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

But Donald was only half aware of it all. Fear was what he felt, as if some crisis were approaching, a thing enormous yet unknown, so that he could make no preparation for it. Like a living thing, its fingers went running all over him. Never in his life had he felt anything quite like it. And while he pretended to be overlooking the marvelous view, he tried to control and account for this fear: his feelings about his wife and hers for him? The coming child? The spurious calm?

“Oh, I adore it.” That was Lillian's voice, a musical chime. “What I want is a villa here, to live among all this for six months every year.”

She was talking nonsense. How could he have failed to notice before now how often she did, and how often in the midst of a present for which any sensible person would be grateful, she looked toward some unrealistic, grandiose future?

He was breaking off a piece of bread, eating without appetite, when suddenly, with no warning, she jumped out of her chair and cried out.

“Oh my God, Betty, look who's in that car—over there—is he coming in? Quick, I'll hide in the ladies' room, come get me when it's safe, oh my God, I'm shaking—”

Donald stood up to look where she had pointed. “What's wrong? Who is that?”

“Just a man she used to know. Don't worry,” Bettina said. “Sit down, she'll be all right. It's nothing.”

“But what scared her? Who is he?”

“Please, Donald, sit down, don't attract attention. He knows me, too.”

“Look, Bettina. You're talking to Lillian's husband. I need to know what this is all about.”

“Much ado about nothing. They went around together for quite a while, then they broke up and he was furious. It's an old story.”

“There's something you're not telling me.”

“I forgot you're a lawyer! You'll dig till you find out something, won't you? But I guarantee that you won't like it when you do. Poor Lillian, she's in for a hard night, I see.”

There was the faintest twinkle in Bettina's eyes. They're not real friends, he thought. They never were. A woman as beautiful as Lillian rarely has real friends.

“You want to tell me,” he said, “but you're waiting for me to beg you. Never mind. Lillian will tell me.”

“Maybe she won't give you the whole story. It's a rather unusual one. You see, there was another woman studying in our group here, a very rich one from Texas, and Lillian stole her passport. Then there were other things, a little medical problem—”

Donald interrupted her. “That man is driving away, so please get Lillian now. Here's the money for the lunch.”

A rat, he thought, despising the disloyalty and the pleasure that this so-called friend was taking in what she no doubt now saw as a mounting, very interesting drama. And he got up to wait on the outer step for Lillian.

“Donald, where are you going? We haven't had lunch yet.”

“We're not having it here. We need to do some talking before we think about eating.”

“Oh, I'm sure she told you, but I'll repeat it. He's a man I knew for a while. He's rather nasty, and I didn't want to see him again. That's the whole story.”

“No, not the whole. What about the passport you stole?”

“Stole? She said that about me? Why, damn her, she knows I didn't steal it. I haven't stooped to thievery, for God's sake. I borrowed it for one afternoon to show somebody—oh, all right, to show it to that man. It was fun. A game. A trick, pretending I was somebody else.”

“But you were afraid of him just now. You were terrified.”

“He has an awful temper, and I didn't want a scene here.”

“And the little medical problem?”

“She said that?”

“She did. What was it?”

“Oh, Donald, do I have to rake up every rotten memory in my life? I notice you don't rake up yours.”

“I've told you everything about myself. Everything, so help me.”

“Either you're not telling the truth, or you have no rotten memories, which I find hard to believe.”

“No, I would have told you if there had been any. I've had some sadness, but nothing rotten. Nothing I'm ashamed to talk about.”

“Lucky you.”

“There's too much secrecy between us. Come to think of it, there always has been. I'm going to persist until you tell me about the medical problem. I have a right to know.”

When she began to run, he caught her. “Be careful on those steps. Take my arm before you fall. In your condition—”

She turned then to face him. “All right. You won't be satisfied until you hear. I had an abortion. So?” And she waited.

They were following the river. Ahead of them a woman pushed a baby carriage, a pair of lovers paused to embrace, and tourists aimed their cameras. Timeless river, he thought again.

“Why?” he asked.

“It's a long story, and I'm terribly tired. I want to go back to the room and sit down.”

In silence they walked and went up to the room. Then she spoke.

“I met this man. We were in a group. He was Italian, very handsome, and he liked me. Somebody said he came from a distinguished family. And then there was a girl from Texas who was studying here, a rich girl with a well-known family name. Oil, I think it was. So I thought it would be fun to pretend I too was distinguished. And I showed him her passport. I took her name, Jean. She didn't mind. She was going back to Texas that week to be married.”

The room was still. On the floor there was a carpet printed in squares with a circle of flowers inside each square. When Donald looked down, he saw that his feet were neatly placed at the center of a square. When he looked up, he saw that Lillian, turned away from him, was staring out into the yellow afternoon. Then he looked back down at his feet.

“The man, this man, was impressed. We made love and were very happy. He took me to see his family, to meet his parents. They lived in a house, a small palace, that they'd owned for five generations. He gave me jewelry, heavy gold, beautiful pieces, the watch I always wear. He drove a Lamborghini.”

“What about him? Him? Do you think I give a damn what he drove, what he owned?”

“There's nothing else. Somebody told him the truth about me—I don't know who did—and he was furious. So violently furious that I thought he was going to kill me. So I flew home, went to work for Howard Buzley. And that's the story.”

Now they faced each other. There she sat waiting for him to say something while she smoothed her hands. He had always disliked the gesture, but now it roused an unreasonable anger that he fought to control.

“The whole story, except for the small matter of pregnancy and the abortion?”

“I had no money. At least not enough. What was I to do? Answer me that.”

“I don't know. . . . You had no right in the first place. . . .”

“It was a joke. The whole thing was a harmless joke.”

“Harmless? You fool with people, you lie. . . . Don't you believe in anything?”

“Oh yes, I believe in beauty, and freedom, and pleasure. It's a short, short life.”

“You lie,” he repeated. “You conceal. God only knows what more I shall learn about you tomorrow, or next week, or next year. God knows.”

“Perhaps there shouldn't be any next year.”

“Talk sense, will you? And please stop caressing your hands. I hate it.”

“I can't help doing it. I'm nervous when I'm with you.”

“Nervous with me? What have I ever done to you but love you?”

“You've been very, very good to me, Donald. That's what makes it so sad, don't you see? Because we started to go downhill after the first few months. We couldn't help it.”

Downhill? he thought. Our summer days on the boat in Central Park? in Venice last week?

But you're forgetting, Donald, because you want to forget. What of the night you were too despondent even to go home? And that awful party? You will never really know whether she was on her way to bed with that man. Very likely she was. And she has not let you touch her since we left home on this trip. Why, Donald? She is full of secrets. She has been from the start.

Lillian continued, “The zest has gone out of it for us. Oh, don't look like that! I'm not impugning your manhood. Some passionate loves last longer than others, that's all, and ours hasn't.”

“You have someone else,” he said.

“I could have very easily, but it happens that I do not. Oh, it's you, it's us! I wasn't going to say all this while we were here, I dreaded having to say it, but then things happened today and maybe it's all to the good that we're out in the open.”

“You told me once that it's easy to get along with anybody as long as he's truthful, so I'm asking you to tell me truthfully what's wrong with me.”

“There's nothing wrong with you, Donald. You're kind, you're honest, and you have a brilliant mind. But life is heavy for you, dead serious, while I want—”

He interrupted. “You're telling me that I never laugh?”

“Oh, you do but—well, it's just that you and I laugh at different things. I say again, we're too different from each other. The atmosphere, the friends, the people we like to be with—all opposite. You're disgusted with what you think was a cheap affair, with my trick, with the abortion, with the whole business.”

“I certainly won't deny that.”

“And anyway, you don't really
like
me, Donald. You only like to make love to me, which is not the same thing.”

“I don't believe what I'm hearing. You might as well be speaking Eskimo, or Bulgarian, to me.”

Yet always, he thought then, there are two sides. No, there are three—his, hers, and the truth. She thought him straitlaced, and he was. He thought her loose, and she was. So perhaps after all the storm, the fever, the truth was somewhere in the middle place where they could not meet?

He looked again at the swelling beneath her belt. There was another life to be considered here besides theirs. Order, peace, and common sense were slipping away. The future was slipping out of his hands, and he must retrieve it if only for the sake of that other life.

“Come on,” he said. “The afternoon's half over and we haven't gone to the museum.”

Lillian shook her head. “It's too late today. It's almost time to meet for Giorgio's dinner. He's invited a lot of our old friends, people I want to see again.”

“You should be thinking about what we're going to do about ourselves. We have a lot to straighten out before that baby arrives and we have to take care of it. Let's have a good dinner by ourselves at the best place in Florence. You choose it.”

“But I want to see my old friends. This has been a bad day, Donald, and I need a pickup.”

“I don't think you do. I think you and I need to be together.”

“We can be together at the party and talk later. Come on, you're invited.”

“I assume I would be, since I'm your husband,” Donald said, stiff with anger.

“Donald, I want to go.” She stood up and put on her jacket. “Will you come?”

He had gone as far as he would. “Do as you please,” he said. “So be it.”

When the door closed behind her, it left an echo in the room. Whatever way all this should end, he would remember the sound of that closing door. Where would he be, remembering?

Now he, too, had to get out of this room. After consulting the city map, he found his way to the Uffizi Gallery, and there spent a weary hour standing before the masterpieces that in his present state of mind were merely a blur of colors. Afterward he walked slowly back to the hotel and ordered dinner, not because he was hungry, but because it was routine to eat at the end of the day. Back again in the room, he idled over a stack of magazines, and at midnight, went to bed, where he lay staring into the dark.