The Legacy (34 page)

*

An early morning plane out of New York brought Barbara to San Francisco Airport an hour before noon. Back in her house, she skimmed through her pile of mail, found a letter from Sam, put the rest aside, and opened it eagerly. “Dear mom,” he wrote. “The semester ended today —just in time to secure what remains of an overworked brain, not the best to begin with. How often I reflected on my four years of French in high school, and our hours of bright conversation in said language. Only natural that I should end up in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Hebrew, dear mother, is not a language, it's a form of Jewish torture, and two years of premed in the Hebrew tongue only proves that I should have opted for dedicated Episcopalianism. But you've heard all this before, and to be quite truthful, my Hebrew is not bad. I read easily, and when I listen carefully, I can understand most of what an Israeli says. They speak in sentences, having never heard of the theory that there should be spaces between words. Enough of that. My marks are pretty good, and I have come to believe that this place provides the best medical training in the world. Well, we shall see.

“But more than that, I'm concerned with your advice that I remain in Israel through the summer. I know how you feel about the draft, but since I registered before I left, I'm on legal grounds there, and from all I hear, they are not drafting college students. In any case, I would stand my ground as a conscientious objector — and if you think it is any easier to be a pacifist here than in the States, you're wrong. I've had more damn wild arguments on that score than you can shake a stick at. There are a lot of great things here, but pacifism is not one of them. I'm homesick for the smell of the bay, for the hills, for our house on Green Street, for you. It's a year since I was home. I know how you feel about the war and I know what war has done to your life, but aren't you a bit unreal about it?

“All right, I've had my say, and it's not as bad as it sounds. Freddie's mother feels the way you do, and like me, he's consigned to exile. He's coming over from Paris next month, and we're going to cover this place on foot, every inch of it. I'm really excited about that, because for two years, except for my trip home last year, I haven't taken my nose out of the books and the frogs, toads, and rabbits I've been dissecting. Two years, and I really haven't seen the place. Freddie will look into Israeli wine, which he says stinks and I agree with him, and we'll both do a bit of leering at Israeli womanhood. And remember — you promised to come over to see me in September, and I'm holding you to that. I love you very much.
SAM.”

Being alone, Barbara permitted herself a good cry, and then she felt better. An hour later, she was in her car and on her way to Napa. She had only just stepped out of her car in front of her brother's house when the door opened and May Ling ran out and embraced her.

“Darling Aunt Barbara! I'm so glad you're back. I've just finished reading your new book. It's great. I loved it. And now you're here in the flesh. Will you autograph it? Just to me?”

Smiling, bubbling with pleasure, May Ling put her arm through Barbara's and led her into the house. “You will stay for dinner, won't you? You won't run away?”

“No, of course not. I won't run away.”

Sally was inside, waiting, as they entered. She shook her head slightly and put a finger to her lips. “If you do want Barbara to stay for dinner, May Ling, we'll have to feed her. So be an angel and go into town and pick up a fresh pork shoulder at Schultz's. Medium size. Just tell him to put it on our bill.”

“Now, mother? Aunt Barbara's just arrived.”

“She'll be here.”

When May Ling had left, Sally took Barbara into Joe's office. He smiled wanly as he kissed her. “Welcome back, sister. It's a great big beautiful world, isn't it?”

“I don't understand. She's so happy.”

Joe looked at Sally and shook his head hopelessly. “Sit down,” Sally said to Barbara. “You might as well hear the whole thing.”

“You mean it was a mistake?” said Barbara. “It was someone else?”

“It was Ruby Truaz. Let me tell you what happened that night. We were all sitting in the living room — all except Danny. He was in bed, thank heavens. May Ling had been watching the ten o'clock news religiously, always hoping to catch sight of Ruby. It's war in the living room, you know. Joe was reading. I was sort of watching, not very intently. I hate those war shots, but I did glance up when it came on the screen. I can't describe it to you. It was too horrible, too hideous. Those cameras they have now can leap in for a close-up without the cameraman moving at all, and how he could stand there and keep his camera going, I don't know, but I guess that's what they're paid for. It was Ruby, unmistakably. Of course, I looked at May Ling ——”

“The thing is,” Joe said, “that neither of them said a word. Sally gasped, and I looked up at her. Then I looked at May Ling. Her face was white, her fists clenched, her body rigid. The first thing I thought of was an attack of some kind. The notion of an epileptic seizure flashed through my mind, one of those instant reactions you get, but it didn't match. But I never looked at the screen, never saw the damn thing.”

“For which you can be grateful,” Sally said. “Joe said something — I don't remember what — and I just sat paralyzed, staring at May Ling. Then May Ling leaped to her feet and ran into the bathroom. I ran after her, of course, and Joe followed me. He still didn't know what it was all about. May Ling was bent over the toilet bowl, vomiting convulsively. I put my arms around her, and the vomiting went on. Then she stood up, holding her hands to her stomach. Joe still didn't know what was playing, and he got a glass of water from the sink and told May Ling to rinse her mouth. She did that. Then Joe told her to drink some water, and she did so, very obediently. Then she said, in that plaintive tone a sick child uses, ‘Thank you, daddy. It must be one of those funny viruses of yours. All of a sudden I felt so sick.'”

“I was still in the dark,” Joe said, “thinking it could be something she ate, and I wanted to get her into the office and look at her. But Sally said no, all she needed was to lie down and rest, and when Sally gets that tone in her voice, I don't argue.”

“I went upstairs with her,” Sally said, “and she undressed and crawled into bed, and she put her arms around me and kissed me, and then she said something about poor daddy, he looked so worried, and I must tell him that she'll be fine in the morning, and she couldn't really be sick because she had promised Ruby that she would remain healthy and exactly as she was until he got back from Vietnam. Spooky — oh, believe me, very spooky. I stayed there, and five minutes later, she was sound asleep. So there it is.”

“Poor baby,” Barbara said. “But what does it all mean?”

Joe shook his head.

“You're a doctor, Joe.”

“Oh, I know what it is, and I've discussed it with the people in psychiatric at the hospital. It's not a very common reaction in kids her age. She is almost nineteen. It's more frequent in the prepuberty stage, a kind of infantile amnesia. The mind receives a shattering blow, and as a defense, the mind blocks it. It never happened. The only trouble is that another part of the mind knows that it happened, and the defense May Ling used will crumble.”

“When?”

“Today, tomorrow. It's five days, and that should be about the limit. Ruby's body arrived in San Francisco yesterday. I think we'll tell her today.”

“I'm so afraid of that,” Sally said.

“I'm glad you're here, Bobby. It will help stabilize things.”

“I think Bobby might tell her, I'm such a coward,” Sally said.

“But then what happens?” Barbara asked. “Will she remember?”

“The strange thing is that she does remember,” Joe said. “The mind isn't one whole thing. It would be good if you told her, Bobby. She'll be back in a few minutes. Only if you want to.”

“Where's Danny?”

“He'll be hanging around school, so he won't be back until after four.”

Sally took the roast into the kitchen when May Ling returned.

“Do you need help, mom?”

“I'll just put it in the oven and be with you.”

Watching her, Barbara was baffled. How could she remember yet not remember, know and yet not know? “Come, sit here with me,” Barbara said, dropping down on the couch. May Ling sat beside her, and Barbara smoothed her soft black hair.

“I'm so glad you're here. You can't imagine how strange it is to read a book and then have the writer right in front of your eyes, especially when she's your aunt. I have a hundred questions for you — but of course you're not going to tell who the President's wife is.”

“Because she's a figment of my imagination, darling.”

Joe came into the room, stood watching them.

“But before we get into that, darling, I have something very important to tell you —”

Now Sally appeared and slowly sat in a chair facing them.

“— something very sad.”

May Ling turned to face Barbara, all the pleasure fading, her dark eyes misting over with tears, and Barbara realized that it was done, that her mind had come together and accepted the memory. She rose, stood still for a long moment, and then went to Sally, dropped on her knees in front of her and put her head in her mother's lap and stayed like that, sobbing.

At dinner that same evening, in their home at Higate, Adam Levy saw another side of his wife's character. Eloise was a gentle woman. It was not a pose she assumed; she had been that way since childhood, living what appeared to many as a continuing apology for her existence. Unfeeling people described her appearance and her manner as a cliché, the clear pink skin of a child, the small retroussé nose, the Cupid's bow of a mouth and the blonde curls that required neither tinting nor permanents. Her first husband, Tom Lavette, had despised her and mistreated her. Adam adored her and in twenty years of married life had hardly once raised his voice to her. Eloise, on the other hand, remained what she was, a kind and gentle woman whose only weapons were defenselessness and vulnerability. But tonight, at the dinner table, she said to her husband, with unexpected firmness, “Adam, I must discuss something of great importance.”

“Now or later?”

“Now, I think, because I want Joshua to hear what I have to say.”

“O.K. Shoot.”

“Joshua registered for the draft today.”

“Oh? Well, it had to come. He's eighteen.”

“Is that all you have to say?” she asked him coldly. “Cándido brought Ruby's body back today. The coffin is sitting there in his living room.”

“Baby, I know that. I was with Cándido all afternoon. Don't think I'm callous to what happened. But what has that got to do with the fact that Joshua registered? Every kid has to. Freddie registered.”

“I don't believe what I'm hearing!”

“Mom, hold on,” Joshua said. “All pop means is that registering doesn't put me in the army.”

“I'm quite aware of what registration means. I'd like both of you to be aware of something else. No force on earth is going to take my son into the army.”

“Eloise, we're a long way from that.”

“Are we? Let me remind both of you of something. Your grandfather, Grandma Clair's father,” she said, looking pointedly at her son, “died in the First World War. He was captain of a munitions ship, blown to pieces in the North Sea. Grandpa Jake was in that war and he survived by a miracle. Yes, I got it from him,” she said when Adam looked incredulous. “Ralph Cassala was wounded and almost died. In World War Two, your father's brother died, and my own brother died in Korea, and the two men your aunt Barbara loved and who could have given her a rich and wonderful life, the kind of life I've had — both of them dead in these insane wars. It's enough. Our family has paid a high enough price, and I will not send a son of mine into that crazy slaughter. I know I sound angry and a little hysterical, and that's because I am very angry and hysterical, and what makes me most angry is the way the two of you sit there and indulge me! I don't want you to indulge me! Ruby Truaz was one of the sweetest, nicest boys I ever knew. Why did he have to die? What sense does it make?”

There was a stretch of silence then. Neither Adam nor Joshua had ever experienced anything like this from Eloise. It was too incredible for anything but Joshua's somewhat inane comment: “But, mom, Ruby was in the army. It happens.”

“Oh!” she exploded. “Oh, you are both so impossibly stupid!”

That too was incredible. They stared at Eloise in silence. She took a deep breath and said quietly, “I want your promise. I am very serious and very determined. Either you will give me your word that Joshua never goes into the army, or I will leave this house tonight.”

Father and son looked at each other hopelessly. “What can we do?” Adam finally asked her.

“Any number of things. We can send Joshua to Canada. We can hide him if we have to. We can do things if we make up our minds to do them. I want you to promise me.”

Again the silence. Then Joshua said, “All right, mom, we'll promise.”

She turned to Adam.

“Yes — if you feel so deeply about it.”

“I do!” Then suddenly, she burst into tears, left the table and ran into the kitchen. Joshua said to his father, softly, “I never heard mom talk like that before. She was really upset.”

Adam nodded.

“You think she really would have left us?”

“I don't know,” Adam replied. “I just don't know.”

“Mother,” Barbara said to Jean, “will you please stand still for a moment, or sit down.”

Pacing back and forth in her living room, Jean replied, “I need a drink.”

“Then have one. Shall I make it for you?”