The Bridges Of Madison County (5 page)

As Francesca stripped the Iowa liquor seal from the top of the brandy bottle, she looked at her fingernails and wished they were longer and better cared for. Farm life did not permit long fingernails. Until now it hadn’t mattered.

Brandy, two glasses, on the table. While she arranged the coffee, he opened the bottle and poured just the right amount into each glass. Robert Kincaid had dealt with after-dinner brandy before.

She wondered in how many kitchens, how many good restaurants, how many living rooms with subdued light he had practiced that small trade. How many sets of long fingernails had he watched delicately pointing toward him from the stems of brandy glasses, how many pairs of blue-round and brown-oval eyes had looked at him through foreign evenings, while anchored sailboats rocked offshore and water slapped against the quays of ancient ports?

The overhead kitchen light was too bright for coffee and brandy. Francesca Johnson, Richard Johnson’s wife, would leave it on. Francesca Johnson, a woman walking through after-supper grass and leafing through girlhood dreams, would turn it off. A candle was in order, but that would be too much. He might get the wrong idea. She put on the small light over the kitchen sink and turned off the overhead. It was still not perfect, but it was better.

He raised his glass to shoulder level and moved it toward her. “To ancient evenings and distant music.” For some reason those words made her take a short, quick breath. But she touched her glass to his, and even though she wanted to say, “To ancient evenings and distant music,” she only smiled a little.

They both smoked, saying nothing, drinking brandy, drinking coffee. A pheasant called from the fields. Jack, the collie, barked twice out in the yard. Mosquitoes tested the window screen near the table, and a single moth, circuitous of thought yet sure of instinct, was goaded by the sink light’s possibilities.

It was still hot, no breeze, some humidity now. Robert Kincaid was perspiring mildly, his top two shirt buttons undone. He was not looking at her directly, though she sensed his peripheral vision could find her, even as he seemed to stare out the window. In the way he was turned, she could see the top of his chest through the open buttons of his shirt and small beads of moisture lying there upon his skin.

Francesca was feeling good feelings, old feelings, poetry and music feelings. Still, it was time for him to go, she thought. Nine fifty-two on the clock above the refrigerator. Faron Young on the radio. Tune from a few years back: “The Shrine of St. Cecilia.” Roman martyr of the third century A.D., Francesca remembered that. Patron saint of music and the blind.

His glass was empty. Just as he swung around from looking out the window, Francesca picked up the brandy bottle by the neck and gestured with it toward the empty glass. He shook his head. “Roseman Bridge at dawn. I’d better get going.”

She was relieved. But she sank in disappointment. She turned around inside of herself. Yes, please leave. Have some more brandy. Stay. Go. Faron Young didn’t care about her feelings. Neither did the moth above the sink. She didn’t know for sure what Robert Kincaid thought.

He stood, swung one knapsack onto his left shoulder, put the other on top of his cooler. She came around the table. His hand moved toward her, and she took it. ‘“Thanks for the evening, the supper, the walk. They were all nice. You’re a good person, Francesca. Keep the brandy toward the front of the cupboard; maybe it’ll work out after a while.”

He had known, just as she thought. But she wasn’t offended by his words. He was talking about romance, and he meant it in the best possible way. She could tell by the softness of his language, the way he said the words. What she didn’t know was that he wanted to shout at the kitchen walls, bas-reliefing his words in the plaster: “For Christ’s sake, Richard Johnson, are you as big a fool as I think you must be?”

She followed him out to his truck and stood by while he put his gear into it. The collie came across the yard, sniffing around the truck. “Jack, come here,” she whispered sharply, and the dog moved to sit by her, panting.

“Good-bye. Take care,” he said, stopping by the truck door to look at her for a moment, straight at her. Then, in one motion, he was behind the wheel and shutting the door after him. He turned the old engine over, stomped at the accelerator, and it rattled into a start. He leaned out the window, grinning, “Tune-up required, I think.”

He clutched it, backed up, shifted again, and headed across the yard under the light. Just before he reached the darkness of the lane, his left hand came out of the window and waved back at her. She waved, too, even though she knew he couldn’t see it.

As the truck moved down the lane, she jogged over and stood in shadow, watching the red lights rising and falling with the bumps. Robert Kincaid turned left on the main road toward Winterset, while heat lightning cut the summer sky and Jack slumbered toward the back porch.

After he left, Francesca stood before the bureau mirror, naked. Her hips flared only a little from the children, her breasts were still nice and firm, not too large, not too small, belly slightly rounded. She couldn’t see her legs in the mirror, but she knew they were still good. She should shave more often, but there didn’t seem much point to it.

Richard was interested in sex only occasionally, every couple of months, but it was over fast, rudimentary and unmoving, and he didn’t seem to care much about perfume or shaving or any of that. It was easy to get a little sloppy.

She was more of a business partner to him than anything else. Some of her appreciated that. But rustling yet within her was another person who wanted to bathe and perfume herself… and be taken, carried away, and peeled back by a force she could sense, but never articulate, even dimly within her mind.

She dressed again and sat at the kitchen table writing on half a sheet of plain paper. Jack followed her out to the Ford pickup and jumped in when she opened the door. He went to the passenger side and stuck his head out the window as she backed the truck out of the shed, looking over at her, then out the window again as she drove down the lane and turned right onto the county road.

Roseman Bridge was dark. But Jack loped on ahead, checking things out while she carried a flashlight from the truck. She tacked the note on the left side of the entrance to the bridge and went home.

The Bridges of Tuesday

Robert Kincaid drove past Richard Johnson’s mailbox an hour before dawn, alternately chewing on a Milky Way and taking bites from an apple, squeezing the coffee cup on the seat between his thighs to keep it from tipping over. He looked up at the white house standing in thin, late moonlight as he passed and shook his head at the stupidity of men, some men, most men. They could at least drink the brandy and not bang the screen door on their way out.

Francesca heard the out-of-tune pickup go by. She lay there in bed, having slept naked for the first time as far back as she could remember. She could imagine Kincaid, hair blowing in the wind curling through the truck window, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a Camel.

She listened as the sound of his wheels faded toward Roseman Bridge. And she began to roll words over in her mind from the Yeats poem: “I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head….” Her rendering of it fell somewhere between that of teacher and supplicant.

He parked the truck well back from the bridge so it wouldn’t interfere with his compositions. From the small space behind the seat, he took a knee-high pair of rubber boots, sitting on the running board to unlace his leather ones and pull on the others. One knapsack with straps over both shoulders, tripod slung over his left shoulder by its leather strap, the other knapsack in his right hand, he worked his way down the steep bank toward the stream.

The trick would be to put the bridge at an angle for some compositional tension, get a little of the stream at the same time, and miss the graffiti on the walls near the entrance. The telephone wires in the background were a problem, too, but that could be handled through careful framing.

He took out the Nikon loaded with Kodachrome and screwed it onto the heavy tripod. The camera had the 24-millimeter lens on it, and he replaced that with his favorite 105-millimeter. Gray light in the east now, and he began to experiment with his composition. Move tripod two feet left, readjust legs sticking in muddy ground by the stream. He kept the camera strap wound over his left wrist, a practice he always followed when working around water. He’d seen too many cameras go into the water when tripods tipped over.

Red color coming up, sky brightening. Lower camera six inches, adjust tripod legs. Still not there. A foot more to the left. Adjust legs again. Level camera on tripod head. Set lens to f/8. Estimate depth of field, maximize it via hyperfocal technique. Screw in cable release on shutter button. Sun 40 percent above the horizon, old paint on the bridge turning a warm red, just what he wanted.

Light meter out of left breast pocket. Check it at f/8. One second exposure, but the Kodachrome would hold well for that extreme. Look through the viewfinder. Fine-tune leveling of camera. He pushed the plunger of the shutter release and waited for a second to pass.

Just as he fired the shutter, something caught his eye. He looked through the viewfinder again. “What the hell is hanging by the entrance to the bridge?” he muttered. “A piece of paper. Wasn’t there yesterday.”

Tripod steady. Run up the bank with sun coming fast behind him. Paper neatly tacked to bridge. Pull it off, put tack and paper in vest pocket. Back toward the bank, down it, behind the camera. Sun 60 percent up.

Breathing hard from the sprint. Shoot again. Repeat twice for duplicates. No wind, grass still. Shoot three at two seconds and three at one-half second for insurance.

Click lens to f/16 setting. Repeat entire process. Carry tripod and camera to the middle of the stream. Get set up, silt from footsteps moving away behind. Shoot entire sequence again. New roll of Kodachrome. Switch lenses. Lock on the 24-millimeter, jam the 105 into a pocket. Move closer to the bridge, wading upstream. Adjust, level, light check, fire three, and bracket shots for insurance.

Flip the camera to vertical, recompose. Shoot again. Same sequence, methodical. There never was anything clumsy about his movements. All were practiced, all had a reason, the contingencies were covered, efficiently and professionally.

Up the bank, through the bridge, running with the equipment, racing the sun. Now the tough one. Grab second camera with faster film, sling both cameras around neck, climb tree behind bridge. Scrape arm on bark– “Dammit!”– keep climbing. High up now, looking down on the bridge at an angle with the stream catching sunlight.

Use spot meter to isolate bridge roof, then shady side of bridge. Take reading off water. Set camera for compromise. Shoot nine shots, bracketing, camera resting on vest wedged into tree crotch. Switch cameras. Faster film. Shoot a dozen more shots.

Down the tree. Down the bank. Set up tripod, reload Kodachrome, shoot composition similar to the first series only from the opposite side of the stream. Pull third camera out of bag. The old SP, rangefinder camera. Black-and-white work now. Light on bridge changing second by second.

After twenty intense minutes of the kind understood only by soldiers, surgeons, and photographers, Robert Kincaid swung his knapsacks into the truck and headed back down the road he had come along before. It was fifteen minutes to Hogback Bridge northwest of town, and he might just get some shots there if he hurried.

Dust flying, Camel lit, truck bouncing, past the white frame house facing north, past Richard Johnson’s mailbox. No sign of her. What did you expect? She’s married, doing okay. You’re doing okay. Who needs those kinds of complications? Nice evening, nice supper, nice woman. Leave it at that. God, she’s lovely, though, and there’s something about her. Something. I have trouble taking my eyes away from her.

Francesca was in the barn doing chores when he barreled past her place. Noise from the livestock cloaked any sound from the road. And Robert Kincaid headed for Hogback Bridge, racing the years, chasing the light.

Things went well at the second bridge. It sat in a valley and still had mist rising around it when he arrived. The 300-millimeter lens gave him a big sun in the upper-left part of his frame, with the rest taking in the winding white rock road toward the bridge and the bridge itself.

Then into his viewfinder came a farmer driving a team of light brown Belgians pulling a wagon along the white road. One of the last of the oldstyle boys, Kincaid thought, grinning. He knew when the good ones came by and could already see what the final print would look like as he worked. On the vertical shots he left some light sky where a title could go.

When he folded up his tripod at eight thirty-five, he felt good. The morning’s work had some keepers. Bucolic, conservative stuff, but nice and solid. The one with the farmer and horses might even be a cover shot; that’s why he had left the space at the top of the frame, room for type, for a logo. Editors liked that kind of thoughtful craftsmanship. That’s why Robert Kincaid got assignments.

He had shot all or part of seven rolls of film, emptied the three cameras, and reached into the lower-left pocket of his vest to get the other four. “Damn!” The thumbtack pricked his index finger. He had forgotten about dropping it in the pocket when he’d removed the piece of paper from Roseman Bridge. In fact, he had forgotten about the piece of paper. He fished it out, opened it, and read: “If you’d like supper again when ‘white moths are on the wing,’ come by tonight after you’re finished. Anytime is fine.”

He couldn’t help smiling a little, imagining Francesca Johnson with her note and thumbtack driving through the darkness to the bridge. In five minutes he was back in town. While the Texaco man filled the tank and checked the oil (“Down half a quart”), Kincaid used the pay telephone at the station. The thin phone book was grimy from being thumbed by filling station hands. There were two listings under “R. Johnson,” but one had a town address.

He dialed the rural number and waited. Francesca was feeding the dog on the back porch when the phone rang in the kitchen. She caught it at the front of the second ring: “Johnson’s.”

“Hi, this is Robert Kincaid.”

Her insides jumped again, just as they had yesterday. A little stab of something that started in her chest and plunged to her stomach.

“Got your note. W. B. Yeats as a messenger and all that. I accept the invitation, but it might be late. The weather’s pretty good, so I’m planning on shooting the– let’s see, what’s it called? –the Cedar Bridge… this evening. It could be after nine before I’m finished. Then I’ll want to clean up a bit. So I might not be there until nine-thirty or ten. Is that all right?”

No, it wasn’t all right. She didn’t want to wait that long, but she only said, “Oh, sure. Get your work done; that’s what’s important. I’ll fix something that’ll be easy to warm up when you get here.”

Then he added, “If you want to come along while I’m shooting, that’s fine. It won’t bother me. I could stop by for you about five-thirty.”

Francesca’s mind worked the problem. She wanted to go with him. But what if someone saw her? What could she say to Richard if he found out?

Cedar Bridge sat fifty yards upstream from and parallel to the new road and its concrete bridge. She wouldn’t be too noticeable. Or would she? In less than two seconds, she decided. “Yes, I’d like that. But I’ll drive my pickup and meet you there. What time?”

“About six. I’ll see you then. Okay? ‘Bye.”

He spent the rest of the day at the local newspaper office looking through old editions. It was a pretty town, with a nice courthouse square, and he sat there on a bench in the shade at lunch with a small sack of fruit and some bread, along with a Coke from a cafe across the street.

When he had walked in the cafe and asked for a Coke to take out, it was a little after noon. Like an old Wild West saloon when the regional gunfighter appeared, the busy conversation had stopped for a moment while they all looked him over. He hated that, felt self-conscious; but it was the standard procedure in small towns. Someone new! Someone different! Who is he? What’s he doing here?

“Somebody said he’s a photographer. Said they saw him out by Hogback Bridge this morning with all sorts of cameras.”

“Sign on his truck says he’s from Washington, out west.”

“Been over to the newspaper office all morning. Jim says he’s looking through the papers for information on the covered bridges.”

“Yeah, young Fischer at the Texaco said he stopped in yesterday and asked directions to all the covered bridges.”

“What’s he wanna know about them for, anyway?”

“And why in the world would anybody wanna take pictures of ‘em? They’re just all fallin’ down in bad shape.”

“Sure does have long hair. Looks like one of them Beatle fellows, or what is it they been callin’ some of them other people? Hippies, ain’t that it?” That brought laughter in the back booth and to the table next to it.

Kincaid got his Coke and left, the eyes still on him as he went out the door. Maybe he’d made a mistake in inviting Francesca, for her sake, not his. If someone saw her at Cedar Bridge, word would hit the cafe next morning at breakfast, relayed by young Fischer at the Texaco station after taking a handoff from the passerby. Probably quicker than that.

He’d learned never to underestimate the telecommunicative flash of trivial news in small towns. Two million children could be dying of hunger in the Sudan, and that wouldn’t cause a bump in consciousness. But Richard Johnson’s wife seen with a long-haired stranger– now that was news! News to be passed around, news to be chewed on, news that created a vague carnal lapping in the minds of those who heard it, the only such ripple they’d feel that year.

He finished his lunch and walked over to the public phone on the parking of the courthouse. Dialed her number. She answered, slightly breathless, on the third ring. “Hi, it’s Robert Kincaid again.”

Her stomach tightened instantly as she thought, He can’t come; he’s called to say that.

“Let me be direct. If it’s a problem for you to come out with me tonight, given the curiosity of small-town people, don’t feel pressured to do it. Frankly, I could care less what they think of me around here, and one way or the other, I’ll come by later. What I’m trying to say is that I might have made an error in inviting you, so don’t feel compelled in any way to do it. Though I’d love to have you along.”

She’d been thinking about just that since they’d talked earlier. But she had decided. “No, I’d like to see you do your work. I’m not worried about talk.” She was worried, but something in her had taken hold, something to do with risk. Whatever the cost; she was going out to Cedar Bridge.

“Great. Just thought I’d check. See you later.”

“Okay.” He was sensitive, but she already knew that.

At four o’clock he stopped by his motel and did some laundry in the sink, put on a clean shirt, and tossed a second one in the truck, along with a pair of khaki slacks and brown sandals he’d picked up in India in 1962 while doing a story on the baby railroad up to Darjeeling. At a tavern he purchased two six packs of Budweiser. Eight of the bottles, all that would fit, he arranged around his film in the cooler.

Hot, real hot again. The late afternoon sun in Iowa piled itself on top of its earlier damage, which had been absorbed by cement and brick and earth. It fairly blistered down out of the west.

The tavern had been dark and passably cool, with the front door open and big fans on the ceiling and one on a stand by the door whirring at about a hundred and five decibels. Somehow, though, the noise of the fans, the smell of stale beer and smoke, the blare of the jukebox, and the semihostile faces staring at him from along the bar made it seem hotter than it really was.

Out on the road the sunlight almost hurt, and he thought about the Cascades and fir trees and breezes along the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, near Kydaka Point.

Francesca Johnson looked cool, though. She was leaning against the fender of her Ford pickup where she had parked it behind some trees near the bridge. She had on the same jeans that fit her so well, sandals, and a white cotton T-shirt that did nice things for her body. He waved as he pulled up next to her truck.

“Hi. Nice to see you. Pretty hot,” he said. Innocuous talk, around-the-edges-of-things talk. That old uneasiness again, just being in the presence of a woman for whom he felt something. He never knew quite what to say, unless the talk was serious. Even though his sense of humor was well developed, if a little bizarre, he had a fundamentally serious mind and took things seriously. His mother had always said he was an adult at four years of age. That served him well as a professional. To his way of thinking, though, it did not serve him well around women such as Francesca Johnson.