Salt Water (4 page)

I WENT TO
town the day Mother had lunch with Mrs. Mertz and Zina. Mr. Strangfeld drove me to the station. He was perfectly American as far as I could tell, but he knew I had been born in Germany, and he liked to use German phrases with me,
guten Morgen, guten Tag, wie gehts.
When he picked me up that morning I said, “It sure is a fantastic
Morgen
this
Morgen
.”
“Ach, ja,
” he said,
“sehr schön,
” which he translated for me: “Oh, yes, very beautiful.” And it was beautiful—cool and crisp and clear.

The town, Father said, was just the right size, small enough to know what’s going on, but not so small it didn’t have mysteries. Rich people moved in at the beginning of the century.
One of them built the college, and another built the art museum. People liked it because it didn’t have mills or factories.

My pal Hillyer, the one whose parents were divorced, was coming from his country place to meet me. He wanted to go on a movie binge—one in the morning, two in the afternoon. I wanted to go to the museum. Zina had been talking about the impressionists (“they painted light, not things”), and I wanted to fill my head with what was in her head, although I didn’t try to explain this to Hillyer. We compromised. We did the museum in the morning, then after lunch we saw the flick the museum was showing and another one in a regular movie house.

My main reason for going to town was to have dinner with Father. Mother had suggested it, and I always enjoyed it. Hillyer’s reason was to spend the night with his girlfriend. He had described in his letter how he had come into town and tried it a couple of weeks before, but when they opened the door of his house some lights were on. Had his father come home from South America? Hillyer left the girlfriend at the corner and went back to investigate. The house had been broken into. He tried to persuade her to come back with him (“We can call the police later”), but she was too shook up and he walked her home. It had taken a lot of effort to get her to try again. He promised to go through the place first to make sure the coast was clear.

The paintings were great, except there weren’t enough of them. I bought some Monet waterscape postcards as a memento. The museum movie was an old French flick
Devil in the Flesh
, about a boy who was having an affair with the new wife of a soldier away fighting in World War I. It was as if the movie had been chosen for me. The second one was
Lolita
. Hillyer pointed out that both couples had an age gap. I secretly thought this was a good omen for me, even though the movies ended unhappily.

I wished Hillyer luck with his girl and went on to Bobo’s Steakhouse, a roomy, oaken place. Along the bar there were dice in leather cups the customers threw to see who would pay for drinks. The captain recognized me and said that Father had called. If I arrived first I was to be seated, a bottle of red wine was to be put on the table, and if, when no one was looking, I were to help myself, what could the law do about it? I was on my second glass when Father showed up.

I saw him as soon as he came in. So did everyone else. He was in black tie. The captain took him by the hand and elbow; the bartender leaned over to greet him; Bobo himself appeared. If you didn’t know Father was a businessman you would have thought he was a celebrity. It wasn’t only that he was good looking, people woke up when he was around. He didn’t do anything special, his presence just made people feel good. Both Bobo and the captain escorted Father to the
table. The fuss people made over Father was another reason I liked Bobo’s.

Father explained that after dinner he was going on to the opening of a nightclub. The owners were clients. Otherwise he would have asked me along (“I think your mother wants you to keep an eye on me”). Father got the same treatment leaving as arriving. He had the car outside and drove me to the apartment. He told me not to wait up for him, which I had no intention of doing anyhow.

Our place was an eight-room duplex. You could see the water from almost every room. We had been there four years. The first time I saw it no one told me it was a duplex. I walked around the first floor. There seemed to be something wrong. I saw a kitchen, two big rooms, a smaller room, and a bathroom. Where were the bedrooms? Upstairs was where—three rooms and a storeroom, the only room you couldn’t see the water from.

I loved the beach house, but the apartment was more comfortable. For one thing, there was endless hot water. My bathroom had a seven-foot bathtub and a bidet, which my friends got a kick out of, and a marble sink as big as a desk.

I thought of phoning Hillyer as a joke and asking him how he was making out—it was just the kind of thing he would have done—but instead I got into bed with the copy of Emily Dickinson Melissa had also given me. I saw a poem
I had never noticed, and before I went to sleep I decided to give the book to Zina and write the page of the poem as an inscription.

Wild Nights —Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with a Compass —
Done with a Chart!

Rowing in Eden —
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight —
In Thee!

I woke at 2
A.M.
, I suppose because I had gone to bed early, and I got up to see if Father was home. His bedroom was empty, but a small light came from the first floor. I went downstairs on tiptoe. The guestroom door was closed. The light in the hall was the light from under the door. I could hear someone inside. I must have been half asleep, because
for an instant I thought it was Hillyer and his girl, who for some reason couldn’t stay at his apartment. Then of course I realized it was Father. I went upstairs and got back into bed. I didn’t want to know any more about it. Was it Mrs. Mertz? Had she come into town? Had he made a date to meet her at the nightclub?

A few years earlier, when the facts of life were circulating around my classroom, I asked Father if what I heard was true. More or less, he said, and added that when two people make love they make something out of nothing. It was an act of pure creation. He didn’t say anything about marriage.

I woke late the next morning and stayed in bed as long as I could. I wanted to make sure Father was gone. Silently I opened my door and listened before going into the hallway.

The apartment sounded empty. In my parents’ room the bedclothes were turned back and one of the pillows was punched. Downstairs in the guestroom the pullout couch was closed. But I could smell cigarettes. The ashtray was empty but dirty, so I cleaned it. Father didn’t smoke. I was covering up. On the table was a note: “Michael, if you want to ride out with me late this afternoon, call the office. On the other hand, Strangfeld is meeting the one o’clock train if you want to go out earlier. You didn’t miss much last night. P.” He always signed himself “P.” I once told him I would
have preferred “Father.” He said, “P stands, not for Peter, but Pater—no, Pop.”

Mr. Strangfeld picked me up at one. Zina had asked me to bring her a leaf from town—there were almost no trees on the Point. I got a big maple leaf at the station. On the way to the house I asked Mr. Strangfeld if he had driven anyone else in the day before. “
Nein, keiner,
” he said.

“
Danke
,” I said. “
Bitte
,” he said. So Mrs. Mertz and Zina had both been at the Point last night.

Mother was cheery. I told her about everything but the busy guestroom. She enjoyed the description of Father’s elegant entrance at Bobo’s and pretended to disapprove of Hillyer’s assignation but really was amused. I asked how the lunch had gone with Mrs. Mertz.

“Good,” was all she’d say. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it from Zina,” she added.

I changed into my bathing suit and took the maple leaf to the guesthouse. Mrs. Mertz was sunbathing in front, and Zina was reading on the deck, in back.

She sat up straight and held out her hand to kiss, like a courtly lady.

I gave her the leaf. “Why did you want this?”

“So you would return to me.”

“Why wouldn’t I return to you?”

“You might have forgotten me on your travels.”

I looked at what she was reading.
The Waning of the Middle Ages
.

I ached to tell her about Father. It would have been a binding secret between us. But if Mrs. Mertz found out that Father had girlfriends it might encourage her.

As Zina twirled the leaf between her fingers she told me about lunch. “They were very femmy-chummy. They talked about the problems of being married to attractive men. They talked about running two households—we had a country place, too, when Father lived with us—and the problem of bringing up gifted, only children.”

“Did Mother say I was gifted?”

“Definitely.”

“Did she say what my gift was?”

“I’m your gift, Misha. I want you to kiss this leaf.” She held it against her mouth. I closed my eyes and leaned forward. She removed the leaf, and I kissed her lips.

MOTHER PROPOSED A
joint beach party with the Mertzes.

She took it upon herself to invite Melissa for me and suggested the Mertzes invite whomever they wanted. I suspected Mother hoped they would invite men friends who would put me out of business with Zina and Father out of business with Mrs. Mertz, if there was any business. Melissa would be a problem. With her around I wouldn’t be able to pay much attention to Zina. But then an idea occurred to me. I’d invite Ari Galaktos, a friend from school who was stuck in town for the summer. Ari was a poet and had actually published a poem. Melissa might go for him. Also, Ari was taller than Melissa.

The party was scheduled for Saturday night, three days off. In one afternoon Sonya, Blackheart, and I collected enough firewood for two beach parties. The ocean tides, sweeping by the Point, deposit all sorts of things on the beach. You wake up one morning and there are thousands of clam and oyster shells along the shoreline. Tires turn up, bottles, dead fish, dog carcasses, once a horse, cork and plastic floats, seaweed, tackle, jellyfish, and lots of wood— boards, planks, ties, beams, logs, crates, oars. Because wood floats and is carried at full tide to the high-water line it tends to stay on the beach, while jetsam can litter the shore one day and be gone the next.

We carried wood from as far as half a mile away and piled it on the beach in front of the house. Sonya supervised empty-mouthed, while Blackheart was practically lifting his own weight and carrying it stiff-necked like a soldier. Sonya would give him a bark when he dropped it devotedly in front of her. He mistook this and started leaping around her. She nipped him on the nose, and he scurried back to the house, I would say with his tail between his legs, but it was too short.

When we were done Zina came out with her camera and in the late afternoon sun posed me holding a series of bleached branches at my side. I was the hunter, this was my kill. I stood with my free hand shading my eyes; I stood
smiling and looking proudly at the limb; I stood glancing apprehensively over my shoulder. The tips of one of the branches actually looked like antlers. Then she brought out a tripod and took a picture of me holding her by the hair, her arms dangling and her eyes closed. Later when I showed that one to Father he said, “You two should have exchanged roles.”

Mr. Strangfeld delivered Ari Saturday morning. Ari, who was sixteen, had a long, dark face, heavy eyebrows, and a reserved manner. “He’ll be a diplomat,” Mother once said. “Or a butler,” Father added.

An hour later Mr. Cuddihy dropped Melissa off on the bayside. Ari and I were there to meet her and carry her things across the Point. When I took her to her room she said, “I have something for you.”

“No presents, Melissa.”

“It’s not a present, but it is for you.” She handed me a folded piece of paper. “Read it by yourself.”

I left her to change and took the paper to my room.

THOUGHT S FOR A B EACH PARTY

We’re all alone—at least the others are
asleep. We touch and smile. No words, just thoughts,
of which a chance one sparkles, and we laugh.
There’ll come a day, I fear, when you are out
of reach and memory is all of you
I have; and then another day when that
is gone. That morning I’ll awake and rise
and eat an ordinary breakfast, dress
and go to leave—to find that I forgot
a certain necessary something, just
my comb, my keys, a paper, or a book—
a light makes darkness clearly black: a part
of me is lost. And then I’ll wonder what
you were and where you were and try to reason
out an emptiness and hunt for nonexistent
strings to pull you back in view.
What then? These words I’ve understood and truths
I’ve known because of you, these lonely fires
that add a little light and comfort on
the mind’s black stretching beach of night,
the shifting tide forgetfulness will rise
and snuff them out, when it has carried you,
who lit them off to sea. What fumbling hand
and wet will kindle up the blazes then?

Walking downstairs with Melissa to lunch, I told her I liked the poem, which was true, but that wasn’t my main feeling. Mainly I was uncomfortable that she was writing poems for me at all.

After lunch I motioned Ari to come to my room and asked him what he thought of Melissa. Ari was always polite. I might as well have asked him what he thought of lunch. I showed him the poem. He read it carefully.

“It’s good,” he said. “Take the first line, ‘We’re all alone—at least the others are.’ It works two ways. The others are asleep, but they’re alone too. And the line ‘the mind’s black stretching beach of night.’ It’s one foot short, so you have to say it slowly, you have to
stretch
it out.” He saw other things I hadn’t seen. Then he asked me if I was going with Melissa.

“She’s all yours,” I said.

The plan was to have drinks on the bayside porch at seven and move to the ocean beach at eight. Zina and Mrs. Mertz brought one guest, a man about fifty named Max Pondoro. He was the only one dressed up—white slacks, brown and white shoes, paisley shirt, and navy blazer. Mrs. Mertz herself had caught the spirit of the thing—she came barefoot, in jeans and a man’s frayed shirt. Zina was proper in bell-bottom slacks and a pale blue blouse.

Max Pondoro kissed Mother’s hand and said how kind she was to have invited him. He kissed Melissa’s hand and said what a pretty young lady she was. He bowed slightly as he shook Father’s hand, which brought out Father’s big smile. Only Ari was up to Mr. Pondoro—he bowed back.

I left the porch at seven-thirty to start the fire. Zina came with me. “My mother is a genius,” she said. “Did you see Max’s way with your mother?”

“No.” I had, of course.

“Well, watch at the party. Mother told him to play up to her.”

“Why did she do that?”

“To make her feel attractive. You have to admit, Max was made for the job.”

“My mother feels perfectly attractive. She
is
perfectly attractive. She doesn’t need some dummy kissing her hand.”

“Misha! My mother is trying to be nice. She felt your mother was upset and needed a little perking up. That’s all.”

“She
was
upset, and it’s over.”

“Misha, you’re mad at us. We love you, and we love your mother. Come here!” She pulled me to her, put her arms around me, and hugged me. Then she held me away and said, “All right?”

“All right,” I said. I knew she was doing to me what Max Pondoro was doing to Mother. But it
was
all right. Zina’s body was soft and hard, and I could smell the scent of her soap.

When we got the fire started I pulled out a tarred board that was smoking. Otherwise the fire was fine, big enough to
be fun, but not so hot you couldn’t cook over it. Besides franks, hamburgers, and marshmallows, there was wine and beer. Mrs. Mertz brought a thermos of martinis, and Father a bottle of scotch. The air was cool and dry, and there were no bugs. We sang rounds, “Frère Jacques,” “Dona Nobis Pacem.” Everyone slipped food to the dogs, and Blackheart spit up. Father, Zina, and I were on one blanket; Ari and Melissa on another; Mrs. Mertz, squatting, poked the fire with a stick and sipped a martini. And, sure enough, there was Max Pondoro chatting Mother up. She was laughing. Well, why not?

By firelight Zina took on a new kind of beauty. Her dark, tanned face had red in it, and her brown eyes were shiny black. She told a ghost story about a witch who was deserted by her lover for another woman. The witch turned herself into a pig and mingled with the man’s other pigs. She was the most succulent pig of all, and when Christmas came the man chose her for Christmas dinner. But just before the slaughter she ate the leaves of a deadly henbane bush growing at the edge of the wood, and when the couple ate her flesh they died a fearful death.

“Is the moral,” Father said, “not to eat pig or not to lie down with witches?”

“I think,” Mother said, “it’s watch out for any woman who makes a pig of herself.”

“I think the moral of the story,” Melissa said, “is that love is worth dying for.”

“It’s your story,” Father said to Zina. “What’s the moral?”

“Melissa has the right answer.”

The fire turned to embers. Father suggested we walk along the beach. Mother had fallen asleep. Max Pondoro and Mrs. Mertz said they would stay and guard her. The water was black except for the phosphorescent lights in the hollows of the waves. Backlit clouds passed in front of the moon. Melissa, walking behind us with Ari, recited Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.”

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits…
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain…

The poem was beautiful, but it was wrong about the world. The world at the moment was Zina and Father and I walking
on this perfect beach on this perfect night. Mother content. Mrs. Mertz probably staring into the embers. Melissa and Ari discovering each other.

Father felt it. “How dear we are to one another!” he said.

Zina felt it too. “Without one another we might as well die. Isn’t that what the poem means, Melissa?”

“Yes.”

When we got back to the fire only Mr. Pondoro was there. Mrs. Mertz had gone to bed. It seems that when Mother woke she wanted to know where everyone was. Mr. Pondoro tried to tell her, but she didn’t believe him. She said she was going to the guesthouse to look for herself, and that was the last he saw of her.

That pretty much ended the party. But the night wasn’t over. I woke, at what time I don’t know. The moon was gone, the room was dark. Blackheart had his paws on my chest and was whining. Someone else was in bed beside me. At first it seemed to be Mother, who for some reason thought I was still a baby. Then it was Zina, who now understood how much I loved her. But it was Melissa. “Is it all right to be here?” she whispered. She put her arm around me, and we kissed. The trouble was, when I had awakened I was having a sex dream. I could no more have turned away from Melissa than I could have stopped the dream. She smelled so sweet.
We didn’t do anything besides kiss, but it happened to me. I held her, and we kissed some more. Then I fell asleep. When I woke in the morning she was gone.

After lunch Father and I sailed Melissa, Ari, and Mr. Pondoro across the bay to town. On the dock Melissa squeezed my hand and whispered, “Write me your thoughts.” Ari embraced me and whispered, “Thanks.” What did he think he was thanking me for?

When we got back to the Point I wanted to go right away to the guesthouse, but I held off till later in the afternoon.

Zina was alone on the deck.

“Misha, I want to tell you something about yourself. You are actually older right now than you will be in a few years. You’ll be younger then and enjoy yourself more. For instance, why did you let Ari scoop Melissa up like that?”

“He didn’t scoop her up.”

“Misha, I was there. I saw it. And you didn’t raise a finger.”

“Melissa came into my room last night. She came into my bed.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Misha,” she said with a sly smile, “I hope you were a gentleman.”

“I was
not
a gentleman.”

“You don’t understand me. I hope you didn’t send her away. That would have been very ungentlemanly indeed.”

She was so pleased with herself. I could have struck her. I called to Blackheart and stalked off toward the house. He ran beside me, barking and jumping.