An Independent Woman (45 page)

“Because you're a big woman,” Barbara reassured her. “It's perfectly natural.”

“I don't want a basketball player, I want the first black vintner.”

“Joe says it's a girl,” Freddie put in.

“Oh, worse. She'll be six feet tall, like her mother. Oh, Barbara, darling, why am I complaining? How are you?”

“A bit weak.”

“I know.” But Judith didn't know what to say, and she struggled to keep back the tears.

Oh, God, no more tears
, Barbara said to herself, and to Judith, quickly, “You're not still modeling—I mean, the maternity clothes?”

“Oh no, no, I wouldn't dare go into the City. I might do it on the way, and anyway, it's too much maternity.”

“I want you to try the chair,” Freddie said. Philip and Freddie helped Barbara into the wheelchair. Freddie watched with small-boy approval as Barbara pressed buttons and navigated about the room.

“Dinner tonight,” Freddie said. “Just roll right up to the table.”

But she and Philip did not come to dinner that night. At about three o'clock, Eloise knocked at the door. Barbara was in bed, propped up on pillows, and her eyes were closed. Philip had been reading to her from a copy of
Life on the Mississippi
, which he'd found in the living room library. He put the book aside and opened the door for Eloise, who said, “She's sleeping, isn't she?”

“No, I'm not,” Barbara replied, her voice weak and low.

“Eloise is here,” he said.

Barbara propped herself on one elbow and asked, “Where? Where is she?”

“Right here, darling,” Eloise said, walking around the bed and facing Barbara.

“Where?” Barbara demanded.

“Barbara—,” Eloise began.

“You're not Ellie. Who are you?”

Eloise looked helplessly at Philip, who went to Barbara and kissed her cheek. “It's all right, baby.”

“Why did she say she's Eloise?” And then, glancing at Philip, she said with sudden fear, “Am I sick? Are you the doctor?”

Eloise dropped into a chair, covering her face and her tears with her hands. Philip sat on the bed, his arm around Barbara. She turned to stare at him, and then she smiled. “Philip. Thank God you're here.”

“I'm always here.”

“Eloise,” Barbara said, her voice stronger, “will you please stop crying? You know what happens to me when someone I love weeps.”

“I'll stop,” Eloise agreed.

“Did you see the wheelchair? Freddie bought it for me. Isn't he a darling?”

“Yes. It's very nice.”

“Come here and give me a kiss.”

Eloise went to the bed and kissed Barbara. Philip, standing to one side, shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “Don't cry, please,” Barbara said.

“Promise. No more. How do you feel?”

“Morphine is wonderful. I have no pain at all. If Joe prescribes it for you, then it's proper medicine. What is Cathrena cooking for dinner tonight?”

“Fish Vera Cruz.”

“That's so good. Foolish of me to ask. I can't eat anything. Philip makes me drink milk…” Her voice trailed away, and she closed her eyes.

“She drifts off like that,” Philip said softly. “You can stay if you wish, but she may sleep for an hour or so.”

“I'll come back later.”

At the door, Philip said to Eloise, “I won't try to bring her to dinner tonight. It's too much for her, even with the wheelchair. You might send over a small dish of that fish she likes so much. Just a small portion, which she probably won't be able to eat, but it would be nice for her to taste it.”

“I'll bring it myself.”

“Good. She's so fond of you—and I don't know how ever to thank you enough.”

“God bless both of you for being here,” Eloise said.

T
HAT NIGHT BARBARA FELL ASLEEP
in Philip's arms. He could not sleep, and at about three o'clock in the morning, feeling his arm growing numb, he withdrew it from under Barbara. When he did that, she made no response, and when he kissed her cheek, lightly, it was cold. A spasm of sick terror wracked his body and he forced himself to feel for the vein in her wrist, but could find no pulse. He shook her. “Barbara, Barbara—wake up!”

He got out of bed and turned on the bedside light. Barbara lay on her back, eyes open, her white hair spread behind her over the pillow. He bent over the bed and kissed her lips. Then, without thinking, he made the sign of the cross. He was unaware that he was crying. There was a small mirror on her bedside table. He took it and held it above her slightly parted lips. There was no sign of breath on the mirror.

Philip closed her eyes, pulled up the blanket, and then folded the sheet below Barbara's chin. He could not cover her face. His first thought then was to call Joe, but he stopped himself before he picked up the telephone. What good would it do to wake him at three in the morning? What good would it do to awaken anyone? He had been a priest once, and he had seen enough death to recognize it. He got dressed, and then he kissed Barbara again, and then he sat beside the bed until dawn came.

A
T A HALF HOUR PAST SIX
, Philip called Joe and told him that Barbara had died.

“When?”

“Last night—at about three in the morning. She passed away in her sleep.”

“Phil, you should have called me.”

“Why? What good would it have done?”

“How are you taking it?” Joe asked.

“All right, I suppose.”
What else do you say
, Philip wondered—
that the best thing in your life is gone?

“I'll be there as soon as I'm dressed.”

“Thank you.”

The sun was rising over the hills as Philip walked to the kitchen, the air clean and sweet, a sting in the cold morning air that bit through his sweater. In the kitchen a fire was already, going in the big fireplace. Eloise and Adam sat at the table, drinking coffee. Cathrena stirred a pot of oatmeal.

Eloise glanced up as Philip entered, read his face, and whispered, “Oh no—no.”

Philip nodded. “Yes, Barbara's gone. She passed away last night, quietly, no pain; she was in my arms.”

Adam's face wrinkled with pain. He was very old, Philip thought; an old, old patriarch who rose and walked unsteadily around the table and put his arms about Eloise.

“I want to see her,” Eloise said, forcing the words through her sobs.

Adam helped her out of her chair, his arm around her, and they followed Philip back to the bedroom. “The morning's so beautiful,” Eloise said, almost in a whimper.

Eloise bent over Barbara's body, stroked her cheeks lovingly, straightened her hair, and then bent to kiss her. “Go, dear one, and wait for me.”

Adam said nothing; tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I couldn't cover her face,” Philip said. “She looks beautiful. She just went away.”

Adam managed to ask Philip whether he had called Joe. He spoke with difficulty, biting his lips.

“I called him. He'll be here soon,” Philip said.

“I'll stay with her until he comes,” Eloise told them. “I don't want to leave her alone.”

“Yes, of course,” Philip said. “She fell asleep in my arms, Ellie. She didn't cry out. I woke up, and she was gone.”

Eloise sat down, next to the bed. Philip took Adam's arm and led him outside. “There are a few things,” he explained. “Her wish was to be cremated, and she wanted her ashes scattered among the vines. I must honor that.”

“Yes, I understand.” Philip had never seen Adam like this, so deeply affected, his face tangled with pain.“I understand,” he repeated.

“We'll leave her in bed until Joe and Sally come. Sally will want to see her. Are Freddie and Judith here?”

“Yes.”

“I must call Sam. I'll call him from the kitchen.”

Adam nodded.

“Do you want to stay with Eloise?”

Adam nodded again.

In the kitchen Cathrena sat huddled over, weeping copiously. She spoke pleadingly to Philip. Philip's Spanish was indifferent, and he could only make out something about God taking the good. He stood a moment, looking at her uneasily. What could he say?

“You shrived her?” she asked in English.

He nodded, thinking how Barbara would have looked at him if he had ever suggested confession—that expression of loving disagreement. Or was it loving pity?

“That's good,” Cathrena said.

“I must use the telephone,” Philip said.

Cathrena nodded.

He called Sam at home, and when he answered the phone, shortly, Philip said, “Your mother passed away last night. Peacefully. There was no pain. She died in her sleep.”

Sam's reaction was unexpected. “No, no!” he protested. “Not so soon! Why didn't I do something? I could have done something—why didn't you call me?”

“It was three o'clock in the morning. There was nothing you could have done, Sam. She went as she wished to go.”

Sam went on pleading that they should have tried chemotherapy, and that she could have still been alive. Philip throttled his rising anger and said gently, “Come down here, Sam. You'll want to be here.”

Then Philip slumped into a chair at the table. “Please, Cathrena, could you give me some coffee?” he asked wanly. “I'm very tired.”

It was then that a sobbing Sally entered the kitchen, Joe behind her, and Philip stood up and embraced her. “She's in our room,” he told Joe, “with Eloise and Adam. Take Sally there.” When they left, he put his head down on the table and wept. There was a bottle of fifty morphine pills in their room. If he washed them down with a glass of water, all the pain would be gone; and then he felt defiled at the very thought. Cathrena brought him the coffee. Freddie and Judith were still asleep. He would have to awaken them, and he would have to call Harry and May Ling. “Everyone will be here,” he told Cathrena sadly. “You'll have food for them?”

She nodded.

Then he went to awaken Freddie and Judith.

B
ARBARA DIED ON THE I8TH OF FEBRUARY
. Later, in the spring, Judith's child was born, and they named her Barbara Lavette. She was nine pounds at birth, a plump, beautiful baby and an easy birthing. She had blue eyes and a skin of pale brown, and as Judith put her to her breast, she told Freddie, “I will never model again. I will have three more, just like her. I shall be a mother.”

On the 15th of February, a Sunday, a memorial service was held for Barbara at the Unitarian Church. Freddie and Eloise both spoke, and when Philip asked whether anyone else desired to speak, a black man came forward and said simply, “I went to rob her, but you can't rob a person who will give you all that she has. She gave me my life.” There were others who spoke, but these few words moved Philip most. When these memorials were done, Philip spoke and said, “For seven months, I was married to a gracious and beautiful woman who, above all things, knew who she was. I think that is the most I can say about her here and now. My church has given me a month for retreat, and perhaps at the end of that time I will know who I am, and my union with Barbara will be complete. I thank you for all the words of grace.”

A few months after Barbara passed away, Eloise and Adam had a granite plinth put in the small clearing on the hillside, opposite the bench where she and Eloise would sit and talk and open their hearts to each other. On it, they had engraved a verse from Barbara's book of poems, a verse selected by Philip:

DO NOT LOOK FOR ME HERE,

FOR I AM NOT HERE.

BUT YOU CAN FEEL ME WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

AND YOU CAN SEE ME WHEN THE VINES LEAF OUT

AND YOU CAN SENSE ME WHEN THE GRAPES ARE CRUSHED

AND YOU CAN SEE ME SMILING WHEN THE SUN RISES

AND YOU CAN HEAR MY LAUGHTER WHEN THE BIRDS SING.

SO DO NOT WEEP FOR ME. I AM EVERYWHERE.

Barbara Lavette Carter
Nov. 10, 1914–February 18, 1985

A Biography of Howard Fast

Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast's commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast's mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London's
The Iron Heel
, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel,
Two Valleys
(1933). His next novels, including
Conceived in Liberty
(1939) and
Citizen Tom Paine
(1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in
The American
(1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write
Spartacus
(1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast's appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release
Spartacus
. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including
Silas Timberman
(1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin's purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.