To See You Again (32 page)

And, no matter where Felipe was sent, she knew, more
surely than any other knowledge, that eventually, finally, the brothers or cousins or friends of Señor Krupp would find him: a boy with no money, the son of a plantation worker, could not kill a rich and powerful man, and live.

Felipe was in fact killed in what was described as a prison fight, although the police could not say how it had started nor who else was involved. Felipe had never before got into fights. When one of the same policemen who had taken Felipe away arrived at Teresa’s house and told her of this, she began to scream, and to cry out to God, as would the mother of any murdered son. Her daughters and some neighboring women gathered around to comfort her; among themselves they were saying, Aie, poor Teresa, she has had more to stand in her life than any human woman would be able to stand. Aie, poor Teresa.

And what they said was the truth; Teresa had withstood more than was possible for her. Perhaps for that reason, even as she wept and made much noise, in another part of her mind new words were beginning to form, new ideas and sentences; she began to think, Now I have no more to fear; now everything has befallen me that possibly could, and for the rest of my days I am safe. I can go to sleep without fear, I could even walk among North Americans, fearing nothing. Now it will be possible for me to work in the great hotel, maybe even to work for Aurelia, in her restaurant. With my daughters I will find a small beach hut to live in, away from these coconut palms that rattle so fiercely in the windy nights. We will live there together, by the sea, and grow old and be safe forever.

Two people, just meeting, do not necessarily react in identical or even in similar ways to each other: a long time ago, in the early Forties, war years, a little boy was introduced to a small blond woman, a new grown-up, at one of his parents’ parties, in their spectacular lakeshore house—and that boy’s whole heart rushed out to the older woman. He wished that he were grown and could marry her, or, he wished that she were his mother. Much later in life, during some bad times, he felt that he was being punished for those wishes, the second of which had in a sense come true; by then she was his stepmother. Posey, originally from Dallas.

In any case, at that first moment, what young Walker Conway saw was a woman not a great deal taller than himself, with curly short fair hair, a light-blue dress that shone like glass, like her light-blue excited eyes. Almost all the other women in the room wore black dresses, and they all seemed much larger and darker than this Posey, Mrs. McElroy—especially his mother, Althea, a pianist, who was larger and darker than anyone.

“And this is my son Walker. Walker, this is Mrs. McElroy,” big John Conway had just said. An architect, he was the designer of this innovative (for the Midwest, at that time) and impossibly uncomfortable house, in one of whose curiously tight corners (the room was trapezoidal) the three of them were standing.

Taking everything in, perhaps especially this gorgeous “modern” house, and her host, so big and blond, with a beard, like someone in a story—and the little boy, still in short pants, for which he was too tall, with those skinny knees—Mrs. McElroy said, in her soft but penetrating voice, “Most everybody calls me Posey.”

Although he had not been addressed, Walker asked, “How do you spell Posey, with an ‘i-e’ or ‘e-y’?” Just beginning school, and already the best speller, he was proud of new skills.

“Well, if you aren’t the smartest little thing! I’ll bet you can spell lots longer words than my silly old name.” And Posey laughed, looking up into the child’s father’s face. Her teeth were very small, and shiningly white.

Having taken her at her word, a habit that he was slow to break, in life, Walker glowed. “Well, actually I can. Last week I learned to spell ‘Massachusetts’ and ‘committee.’ ”

“Well, those two are going to come in mighty handy. What a lucky boy!”

At that instant the tiniest doubt as to her intentions may have stung at Walker’s love-swollen heart, but, like most children, he denied ambiguity; things were what they seemed, and a beautiful lady who said he was smart and lucky meant just that, and he was. “But how do you spell Posey,” he insisted, believing that they were having a conversation.

“P-o-s-e-y. And I’ll bet I can spell your name without you even telling me how to do.”

“W-a-l—”

But his father had cut in. “Now, Walker. Mrs. McElroy didn’t come to our party for a spelling bee. Why don’t you go and ask your mother if you can’t do something to help? You be the butler.” He turned to Posey McElroy. “You wouldn’t believe the help problem around here since the war began.”

“Oh, would I not! Why, down home every darkie in town has got a defense job.”

Wounded, frightened and angry—for Walker, a familiar constellation of emotions—the boy turned and made his way between the tall thick clumps of people, their legs firmly planted, arms and hands in motion. A few women caught at him and asked how he was; they seemed pleased at remembering his name, although several of them got it wrong and called him Walter.

His mother was near the corner window, with two much older ladies. “Dad said to ask if I should pass something, or do anything,” said Walker.

“Oh, no, darling. I don’t think so, not now. Mmm—did you meet Mrs. McElroy?”

“Her name is Posey. P-o-s-e-y. But that can’t be a real name, can it?”

Beyond the window the lake was ruffled with waves, frilly whitecaps on the dark bright blue. A few sailboats were out, faraway sails as small as handkerchiefs, against the black opposite shore, another state. It was a brilliant October afternoon, an hour or so before sunset.

Althea sighed. “Posey. Well, I suppose it must be a nickname. They’re Southern, although I know some people don’t consider Texas the South. Her husband is that young Army captain over by the bar.” And luckily John doesn’t like very small women, thought Althea, hopelessly, and mistakenly. Distrust of her husband had made her give up what had been a promising career, but she still practiced all day,
on most days, always intending to take it up again—and to lose some weight.

From another corner of that inconveniently shaped room, another woman also had her eye on John Conway, who was still talking to Posey. Lucienne Malaquais, a widow (her husband was rumored to have been in some way a French hero, in the Resistance), she had recently (inexplicably) settled in that small suburb of a great Midwestern city, on the lake. “It’s the perfect climate for a rose garden,” she said, but no one believed her. Lucienne wore, that afternoon, an old Balenciaga, whose extreme chic no one in the room could recognize; they thought her rather plain, with her short gray hair, that brown dress, no jewelry to speak of. Earlier that afternoon, as she put on the dress, which was her favorite, Lucienne had caught herself thinking of John, who was powerfully attractive to her. Surely, on seeing her, he would make some gesture? But there had been nothing in his eyes as he greeted her, as they talked for a moment or two. Neighborly, he had been.

And, watching John’s face as he listened to Posey, even from that smoky distance, what Lucienne saw written there forced her to several conclusions, the first addressed to herself, an admonition: Don’t be a fool. And secondly, more gently, she thought: Ah, poor Althea. She must have witnessed such a scene quite often, in her time. Lastly she thought, And that sad little boy, that funny tall Walker.

The house in which the party was taking place, the splendid house that Posey had already fallen in love with, was relatively new, completed the year before. John’s detractors said that he imitated Frank Lloyd Wright, or Saarinen; others, a smaller but noisy group, spoke of the house’s originality. Built on a huge outcropping of rock, on the lakeshore, it jutted into and over the water, with cantilevered
balconies, a lot of steel and plate glass; inside, there were giant fireplaces of massive, indigenous stone. But somehow the construction had not quite worked out. In the high narrow passageways between those eccentric rooms, the floorboards creaked, and everywhere the cold Midwestern winter winds leaked in. What was a wonderful house for parties was also, for three isolated people, quite miserably uncomfortable: cold, damp and wretchedly lonely, with so much space. John traveled a lot, was often away. Off in her wing, Althea practiced furiously, relentlessly, although she complained that the damp was wrecking the strings of her piano. And Walker, in his narrow, built-in bed, in his long ship’s galley of a room, told himself long interwoven stories. In his favorites he was the son of some very plain but substantial Midwestern people, who lived in a big plain square house that was warm.

It was never clear to anyone who observed them at what point John and Posey became lovers in actual fact—not to Althea, nor to Walker, nor to Lucienne Malaquais, who remained an interested friend. But that historical date hardly mattered. What was important, for many years, was the lively friendship between the two couples, a friendship animated, of course, by the strong attraction between Posey and John. For a long time the others felt themselves to be included in that liveliness, that excitement. They all had fun together.

Captain Jamie McElroy, a rather prissy young man, seemed as pleased by John’s attentions as Posey was—big flamboyant John, with his store of dirty limericks and his hard-core Midwestern isolationist opinions, although now that the war was on of course he was all for it: let’s slaughter
those Japs. Too bad a punctured eardrum had kept him out of the Army, Jamie often remarked to his wife; what a fine general he could have been. Posey agreed.

Also, Jamie cared a lot about music, in a knowledgeable way, which gave him a bond with Althea. Usually unfriendly Althea liked Jamie, and she chose to take John’s word for what he felt about Posey, that she was a helluva lot of fun, a nice gal. Her private view was that Posey was exceptionally stupid, which of course her brilliant, talented John could perceive without any comment from her, couldn’t he?

Young Walker, brought along on visits to the McElroys, at various Army bases, had a pretty good time. He enjoyed the comfort of Posey’s overheated houses, and he liked the piles of bright cushions that she moved from Fort Benning to Fort Bragg, Biloxi to Sill. He still thought Posey was the prettiest grown-up woman he had ever seen, and her unfailing effusiveness (a contrast to his somber mother) beguiled him, as it beguiled his father, and soothed an innately suspicious nature. For quite a while, he thought she liked him. She served him wine at dinner, like an adult, and strange sweet after-dinner drinks, even arguing with his parents: “Now, Althea honey, you know a couple of little sips of that créme de menthe is not going to hurt a boy.”

Sometimes what Posey said to him was puzzling, even vaguely troubling, as, “I think it’s absolutely wonderful, the way you’ve always got that cute big old nose of yours stuck in some book,” or, “Such a tall boy you’re getting to be, a person’d think twice ’fore calling you a sissy.” Eager for love, Walker chose not to understand. Also, like many exceptionally intelligent people, he was slow to perceive exceptional stupidity. And, perhaps worse, an awareness of his own deficiencies in physical charm—knobby knees had persisted, along with a nearsighted, narrow-shouldered stoop, and a non-cute big nose—made him overvalue grace and beauty in
others. Surely such a perfect physical specimen as Posey must also be good?

Lucienne Malaquais, in quite another way from Posey’s, became and continued to be a good friend of that family; more precisely, she was a friend of each of theirs, seeing them individually rather than as a group. With each of them she had a separate topic of conversation: with John it was architecture, and painting, about which she was highly educated; with Althea music and with Walker books. Novels, poetry—she urged him to read Mann’s stories, Proust, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf. She was a woman of extraordinary modesty, a remarkable listener who almost never spoke of herself. And her vast charm somehow summoned from everyone his or her best qualities; even troubled, difficult people, the three Conways, were at their best and quietly happiest with Lucienne, in her small memento-crowded house that smelled of roses.

She seemed not to age. Vaguely middle-aged when she first came to their town, Lucienne remained ageless, perhaps in part because she so seldom spoke of herself and thus seemed to have no history. She spoke with the slightest accent, with an odd attractive huskiness in her voice. Only much later, when Walker felt that he had known her all his life, would she occasionally allow him some glimpse of her past, dealt out like some small present, and he would learn that her husband had been a painter, which had been her own girlhood ambition. Which had somehow not worked out.

She had been right, though, about a climate for roses: her rose garden flourished extravagantly, an incredible profusion and variety of color, of scent.

Walker, as an adolescent, during the strictured Fifties, had no idea what to do with himself, with his unruly, brilliant mind nor his ungainly body. It was not a time for eccentrics. His grades were terrible, despite those big I.Q.
scores. He was secretly in love with James Dean, but afraid of motorcycles. What he liked to do best, he early discovered (perhaps at Posey’s), was to get drunk, and by the time he was fifteen he had worked out a technique for staying drunk all day, an undetectable buzz from a dose of wine here, a shot of brandy there, at carefully timed intervals. Usually he drank alone, but occasionally he would have a friend, sometimes a girl, who also liked to drink, and that was always the crucial thing between them, drinking. He was a lonely mess, and he knew he was.

But somehow he got into a small New England college (actually pull from Althea; it was in her hometown) and for a while his life considerably improved. For one thing there was an extraordinary teacher, a young man just out of the Harvard program in American Civilization. Timothy Stern: his black eyes were wild and his mouth had a slightly delinquent twist; he spoke passionately of Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson and Henry James—and what had been greedy but desultory reading on Walker’s part came into focus. He drank considerably less, and he too became a passionate student of the American Renaissance.