Earth and High Heaven (21 page)

“Miriam often makes things sound much worse than they really are.”

“I haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about. If you think your sister was giving me a blow-by-blow account of your home life ...”

“That's a nice way of putting it!”

“I was speaking figuratively,” said Marc with dignity. “Anyhow, the conversation was entirely general, mostly on the subject of relative values, only just as I was beginning to be really profound, she said she felt sleepy.”

The music stopped and they waited, hand in hand, and then the lights went down. “Thank God. Where do you think we're least likely to be noticed?”

“Out in the middle,” said Erica, “but you don't waltz that badly.”

He took her in his arms without answering, steered her out to the middle, kissed her quickly and holding her very close again, he said with his lips against her cheek, “We're too tall. I don't suppose it's ever occurred to you that there are distinct advantages in being a dwarf?”

“Well, no, it hadn't,” Erica admitted, “but I see what you mean.”

They danced for a while in silence. She could feel his mood changing, and at last he said abruptly, “Eric ...”

“Yes?”

He paused and then said, “I've got something to tell you.”

“Something — unpleasant?”

“Yes, darling.”

She drew away from him so that she could look up into his face, his dark, sensitive, intelligent face which she loved so much. The orchestra was playing a waltz left over from the last war; she had been trying to think of its name and for some idiotic reason, she went on trying to think of its name although it did not matter in the least, and she already knew from his expression what was coming. She said, “All right, I'm ready.”

“I'm on draft.”

“Yes,” said Erica. A young naval officer knocked against her left shoulder as he danced by and she said, “I'm sorry,” again, without thinking, and asked, “When, Marc?”

“Some time around the last week in September.”

About a month from now.

She said suddenly, “It's the ‘Missouri Waltz.'”

“I know. There are only two waltzes I really like, except the Viennese waltzes, of course, and that's one of them.”

“What's the other?”

“‘Moonlight Madonna.' It always reminds me of your — I mean, your hair isn't really gold, it's ...”

He stopped, and she said, “That means you're going to camp again, doesn't it?”

“Yes, next Monday.”

It was Wednesday already.

The Gatineau Rifles had gone over to Dieppe a few days before; time and again she had heard Marc say, “Reinforcements for the First Battalion overseas,” but it had sounded like something which would materialize with the opening of the Second Front some time next year, and not — next Monday.

‘The Missouri Waltz' went on and the colonel passed them again, this time with a brunette in tow. She found herself thinking that he must go through his partners a lot faster than most people, and hoped that he had come well provided, like a racing car equipped with several extra sets of spark plugs.

“Marc, you are going to Petawawa, aren't you?”

“Yes, darling.”

He could feel the breath going out of her with relief and he said, “I'm sorry, Eric. I should have told you that right away.”

“I was so afraid it would be Camp Borden, and you'd be too far for me to see you.”

It was better to figure things out so that you knew exactly where you stood, like collecting all your bills and adding them up when you were broke, in order to see just how broke you were. He would get one forty-eight hour leave, so what it amounted to was five days between now and Monday, then forty-eight hours, and finally a week or ten days' embarkation leave — probably a week, because they were obviously rushing it now — most of which Marc would have to spend with his parents five hundred miles away. They had already discussed that. Five days, forty-eight hours, say two days of his embarkation leave to be on the safe side, and finally a last dinner together when he was on his way through to Halifax. They could be more broke, this being August, 1942, though not much.

“It makes nine days altogether,” said Marc. “That is counting from now to next Monday too, of course.”

He paused and then went on hurriedly, evidently afraid that if he stopped to think how this thing ought to be said, he might not be able to say it at all, “They told me at Headquarters that I could go as soon as I'd got everything cleaned up there. I don't think it will take more than one day — tomorrow and maybe part of Friday. If you could get off, then we'd have almost three days together. Sylvia wouldn't mind, would she? I can get to Petawawa any time before midnight on Monday and ...”

It seemed to him that he had been talking a long time without getting anywhere except back to Petawawa again. The music stopped and he stood facing her, his hands at his sides, and said, “I'm asking you to go away with me, Eric.”

“Yes,” said Erica. “Yes. Darling, you didn't have to ask!”

VII

Through the open windows of the bedroom they could hear the church clock striking in the village down at the other end of the lake, and Erica said wonderingly, “It's three o'clock.” So five hours had flowed by them uncounted, into the past, for she remembered that the clock had been striking ten as they opened the door of Marc's room. Before that, there had only been one brief interval since they had left Montreal when she had known what time it was. They had gone for a swim as soon as they arrived at the hotel, drifted for a while in a canoe, and then spent what was left of the afternoon lying in their bathing suits on the float anchored off-shore. Someone had called to them from the beach, “It's half past seven and the dining room closes at eight; if you want any dinner, you'd better hurry.”

The lake was in a valley with the Laurentian mountains rising steeply all around the edge, except at the other end where the rise began farther back, leaving enough more or less level ground for the village. The hillsides were green, and across the lake there were a lot of small houses up and down on different levels, like brightly painted toys.

Above them as they lay on the float, up a path like a stairway with broad, grassy steps, was the hotel, a long half-timbered building from which you could look down on the lake or out over the mountains, north, west, and south. The hotel stood with its back to the east, and the road wound its way through the Laurentians and then down a steep slope to the back door, so that you came into a small lobby on the second floor and went downstairs to get to the front door facing the lake, and the path to the beach.

There was a stone-paved terrace with small tables under orange and yellow umbrellas where they had sat for a while after dinner drinking coffee and then a brandy, watching the sunset and the slowly moving, slowly changing reflections in the water. The lights had come on one by one in the little houses across the lake, but before the moon rose they had come upstairs. Erica had heard the village clock striking the first of the ten notes as Marc opened the door, and the last sound to reach her from the outside world was a whippoorwill calling from the bush somewhere behind the hotel. After that there was silence and she was in his arms at last.

As she lay beside him later, individuality began to return and take form; she could feel the outlines growing clearer and more firm but it was a new mould, subtly different from the old one. She wondered if you got a new one each time and was on the point of asking Marc, but it was all rather involved and difficult to explain, and instead she went to sleep.

“Hello,” said Marc.

“Hello. Have I been asleep long?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you?”

He drew his arm out from under her and sat up, rubbing it, “No, I've just been looking at you.”

Erica also sat up, asking anxiously, “Have you got a cramp?”

He shook his head. “Just stiff.”

“Why didn't you shove me off?”

“Because I didn't want to.” He paused, listening, and remarked, “Romeo and Juliet had a nightingale but all we get is a whippoorwill. Persistent, isn't he?”

“Maybe it's a different one.”

“I don't think so. He always goes flat on the second note.”

“He may have a slight cold,” said Erica. “I remember thinking he probably had when we first came up, so I guess it must be the same one.” She settled back on the pillow again while Marc took two cigarettes from the table beside the bed and lit them, and finally Erica said candidly, “I don't see how even a whippoorwill can expect to get anywhere with a voice like that. He might just as well give up and go home. Incidentally, it was a lark, not a nightingale — remember?”

She repeated softly,

“‘It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.'”

“Go on,” said Marc.

“What with?”

“Shakespeare.”

She thought a moment, looking up at the ceiling, and then said,

“‘O fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle;

If thou art fickle what dost thou with him

That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune;

For then, I hope, you wilt not keep him long ...”

“I don't think I particularly care for that bit after all,” said Erica after a moment's silence.

“I wasn't listening to the words,” said Marc. “It's your voice. Did I ever tell you what a lovely voice you have?”

“No, I don't think so. You may tell me now if you like.”

“Some other time.” He kissed her shoulder and the hollow at the base of her throat and then lifting his head to listen again he said, “Everything is sort of suspended. It's so quiet, Eric ... even our whippoorwill seems to have gone off the air for the time being.”

He pulled the pillows up behind his head and turned so that he could see her better. “Are you sleepy?”

“No, are you?”

He shook his head.

“When
do
we sleep?” asked Erica without much interest.

“Later,” he said vaguely, paused, and then added, “Probably much later.”

Erica moved over so that she was lying with her head on his shoulder and observed in a detached tone, “You know, you're going to be in a shocking condition when you arrive at camp Monday.”

“They must be used to it by this time.”

After another brief silence she asked suddenly, “What were you like when you were a little boy?”

“Why?”

“You've told me a lot, but there are still too many gaps. It's like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing; I want a whole picture, not one full of holes.”

“Where shall I start?”

“Well ...” She thought, and then asked, “Have you always lived in the same house?” He nodded. “What's it like?”

“It's just a house, with a big veranda in front and a lot of trees around it, and a garden at the back that slopes slightly down toward the garage, so in winter when the snow is melting, the water in front of the garage is about a foot deep. David and I used to get hold of some planks every year and paddle around on them till we fell off. It was wonderful,” he said reminiscently. “The water was good and muddy.”

Erica wanted to know about the inside of the house and after struggling, Marc finally produced the information that the sitting room contained some ferns or something in brass pots, and a canary named Mike that never sang.

“How long have you had Mike?”

“Oh, years. He must be pretty old by now.”

After trying to visualize the sitting room furnished with brass pots and one aging canary, Erica gave up. “What about your room?”

He was much more satisfactory on the subject of his own room. He even told her that there was a large spot on one corner of the carpet where years ago, the afternoon plane on the Moscow-Zagreb line running above his desk had come down too low, picked up a bottle of ink and deposited it somewhere in Transylvania.

“Of course that was around 1922 when the airplane industry was still pretty young and almost anything was like to happen.”

Erica laughed and then asked, “How did the planes work?”

“On wires. They had hooks on the nose and tail so you could attach them to the wire on one side of the room and they'd shoot down the slope to the landingfield on the other. I kept building more planes and rigging more wires and our maid kept complaining to Mother that whenever she tried to get in there to clean, the wires either caught in her hair or tripped her up. Mother was sympathetic but that was about as far as she was willing to go. For the first time in my life I seemed to be learning geography, accidentally, of course, but she'd realized by then that accidentally was the only way I was ever likely to learn any. Then David came home from his first year at medical school and I lost interest in airplanes and began dissecting frogs all over the house and filling my room with bottles containing various forms of animal life, more or less preserved in alcohol.”

“What happened to the less preserved ones?”

“Mother used to go into my room and remove them when I was out,” he said, sighing. “I remember being particularly annoyed about a small mud puppy which vanished when I was out fishing. Mud puppies are pretty rare and it had taken me weeks of digging around in swamps and streams before I finally found one. I felt that its scarcity value should have outweighed its smell. Mother didn't.”

He said thoughtfully, “You know, I've always wondered what Mother did with those things. Do you suppose a young mud puppy, slightly overripe, would burn easily?”

“I shouldn't think so.”

“I must ask her some time.”

“What's her name?”

“Maria,” he said, giving it the German pronunciation. “How are the gaps?”

“Filling up nicely, thank you.”

“Mine aren't,” Marc pointed out.

Erica was more interested in her own gaps than in his, and she asked, “When did you first decide you wanted to be a lawyer?”

“I don't know. I must have been pretty small anyhow. I used to sit on the back fence and look at the Algoma Hills and dream of being a judge. I don't know what gave me the idea of going on the Bench either, it must have been something I'd read.”

There it was again, she thought, as the stone wall which had appeared for the first time that day back in June when Marc had said, “They don't take Jews,” suddenly turned up again in front of her. She knew by now that there was no way of getting through it, over it or around it, but she had not yet learned to take it for granted. Whenever she was confronted with it she always stopped and stared for a moment, while the conversation went on without her.

Marc, however, having been brought up with it, barely gave it a glance. He said, “By the time I got cured of that idea it was too late to change my mind,” and then asked immediately, reverting to his own gaps again, “What did you want to do when you grew up?”

“I wanted to be a conductor.”

“On a tram?”

“Certainly not,” said Erica indignantly. “I wanted to conduct an orchestra.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing, that was the trouble. I took theory and harmony and tried awfully hard, but no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up at the top of the class in English and at the bottom in music, so finally I got discouraged.”

“Did you collect anything?”

“Yes. Later on I collected rocks.”

“What kind of rocks?”

“Any kind of rocks. After giving up music, I'd decided I wanted to be a geologist.”

“And what happened that time?”

Erica sighed, leaned over to reach the ashtray on the side table beside him, then back on the pillows again she remarked sadly, “Nothing happened then either. I took various courses at McGill and tried awfully hard, but I still ended up at the head of my year in English and the bottom in geology, so then I ...”

“You decided to be a journalist.”

“No, I decided to get married.”

He looked at her, rather startled, and then said, his face clearing, “Oh, yes, I remember. You told me you were engaged to someone who was killed in a motor accident. That must have been pretty tough ... How old were you?”

“Twenty-one. We were supposed to be married in June after I'd graduated. Well, I did graduate, but he was killed two weeks before the wedding.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes,” said Erica.

At the end she remarked, “It seems now as though it had all happened to someone else, because I'm not the same person now that I was then. My whole life would have been different if I'd married him. I like it better the way it is, not just because it is this way, but because I've had to develop more and work harder and adapt myself to life, rather than arrange things so that it would more or less adapt itself to me. You see, he had quite a lot of money, and I don't know what would have happened to us, but we would probably have been much too comfortable for our own good.”

“How old was he?”

“Twenty-six.”

“What was his name?”

“Eric Gardiner.”

“Any relation to John?”

“Yes, his older brother. That was the way John got to know Miriam, though we'd always vaguely known each other.” Leaning across him toward the bedside table again, she said, “You might put that ashtray where I can reach it, darling.”

This time he caught and held her against him, murmuring into her hair, “Why should I? It's much nicer this way.”

When he finally let her go he said reflectively, “You know, Eric, this is one of the best things in life ...”

“What is?”

“Just talking. Maybe it's the only time when it's really easy to talk, because you're so mixed up with someone else that you're not sure which of you is which, and it's like talking to yourself.”

“Is it always like this?”

“No, of course it isn't. Why?”

“Because I don't mind the idea of your having made love to other women before you met me — at least, not much — but I would object to your having got mixed up with them so you didn't know which was you and which was several other people. I mean it sounds sort of collective.”

“Yes, it does, doesn't it? It sounds awful. I think I'm insulted, as a matter of fact, or I would be if there were any truth in it.”

“Isn't there any?” asked Erica hopefully.

“Not an atom of truth. I've never been mixed up with anyone but you.”

“How do you like it?”

His expression changed as he looked at her and he said under his breath, “You know how much I like it, darling.”

“Yes,” said Erica faintly, and putting both her arms around him she said, “Well, kiss me, for heaven's sake.”

After a while he said, looking up at the ceiling, “I wasn't just talking, when I told you that you'd never happened to me before and I know nothing like you will ever happen to me again. Life is pretty average, on the whole, and even when you fall in love, you feel the way most everybody else has felt at some time or other. You only hit perfection by accident. It's like a sweepstake, trying doesn't get you anywhere and the odds are a million to one against the accident taking place. Have you ever been absolutely happy?” he asked suddenly. “I mean as though the whole world were an orchestra and instead of playing more or less off key, for once in your life you managed to be in complete harmony and for one day or just maybe for a couple of hours, everything was exactly right?”

“Yes, once,” said Erica.

“Once for me too.”

“Tell me about yours first.”

He said, “It was four years ago, in October 1938, when I was staying with David on a fishing trip. At least I was fishing but he wasn't. Morning after morning we'd start out together and then someone would fall off a horse or decide to have a baby or something and I'd end up going alone. Finally, the second to last day I was there, by some sort of coincidence nobody needed a doctor for once and off we went. It was early October, one of those autumn days when everything seems to be standing still, holding its breath and waiting ...”

He broke off, trying to remember, with his eyes fixed on the mirror over the chest of drawers. The mirror dissolved into a window through which he could see, not the soft rise and fall of the Laurentians all around them, but the high, clear-cut barrier of the Algoma mountains, guarding the North. He said, “I've got it. Listen: