In Sunlight and in Shadow (81 page)

The next day, the sun was dependably hot, the air reliably clear. Just as after two days at sea, out of sight of land, you become a sailor as the boat moves ahead, rising and falling on the waves, as they sped north they were separated from almost everything they had left behind. In the valley it was as hot as molten silver, dust devils arose and played in the fields, and the golden summits of the mountains were lost in glare.

“We’ll make Redding by evening if we don’t get sidetracked,” Harry said. Catherine was content just to be driving through the summer air. After a silence of ten minutes or so, Harry said, “I’ve been thinking about your father and your mother.”

“You have?”

“I have. You’re their only daughter, their only child, and they’ve entrusted you to yourself and to me. I was my parents’ only child as well. Everyone in my family is dead except my aunt by marriage, who’s older and not a blood relation. I never knew our relatives in Europe, and they’re all almost undoubtedly gone—if not murdered, then broken and scattered only God knows where.

“The two of us are kind of a slender reed. If the car blows a tire and flips, two families come to a sudden end. I’ve never quite understood how brave and disciplined your parents are and mine were. I’ve never quite felt the way they must feel when they look after us as we go out into the world. Maybe I should drive more slowly.”

Catherine said, “No. You’re not driving too fast. Just drive well. There’s no guarantee, no safety. That’s what—between us and them, and between us—clarifies love. That’s what the songs that they pay me to sing are about, and I want nothing but that. Of course, I’ve already got it.”

As she put her hand out into the wind, her arm was lifted by an insistent and invisible force. By rolling her hand slightly left, it was forced down until she rolled it back to the right and it was lifted as smoothly as a sea bird. The afternoon passed in confident silence, and then Redding appeared in the foothills. The plain of the valley had subtly vanished, and although here just as dry, it was rolling. They had no idea how they were going to find Rice, but the town was not that big.

By the time they checked into a hotel, settled, showered, and dressed, it was almost dark. They stepped out on the sidewalk unsure whether they were going to find someplace to eat or look for Rice. There weren’t many streets and they didn’t know where to go, but when they heard the sound of distant music coming over the air they walked in its direction, and as they crested the top of a hill what appeared to them a quarter of a mile in the distance was a lighted dance floor, about fifty feet square, beneath strings of colored lights.

Musicians were arrayed on steps at the platform’s north end. The music was strong, and on the boards were scores of dancing couples moving gracefully beneath Japanese lanterns waving in the wind. As they do at such times, children chased around the perimeter. Adults who were not dancing were engaged in conversation at the edges. Sometimes the wind took the music, but then brought it back with a slight slur. The mountain wall in the distance was black at the base and purple at the top beneath a rim of vanishing royal blue.

As they approached, now in the spell of the music, Harry said, “I see him.”

“How can you tell at such a remove?” Catherine asked. “You can’t see anyone’s face.”

“I can tell by the way he moves. I’ve never seen him dance, but I’ve seen him walk a hundred miles. He doesn’t know we’re coming. Let’s go up there. We’ll dance, and see how long it takes for him to recognize us.”

Partly because of their clothing, which hadn’t been bought at the two or three stores that supplied the town, they stood out as they danced. Some men wore their war uniforms, some were almost formally dressed, some danced with their hats on, others not. The women’s attire was more varied, although none of it matched the elegance of Catherine’s simple white dress, with pearl buttons in a line down the front, a sheath cut that her figure could bear easily, and the partially built-up shoulders of the period, which if not done well looked stiff and off-putting but if skillfully done gave the impression of an upper body as wide and noble as that of a goddess. Harry had no hat, much less a cowboy hat, and was one of the few men without a string tie. Though obviously they were strangers, they were cordially welcomed.

He wanted to avoid Rice for as long as possible so that Rice would see them in the corner of his eye and become accustomed to them, and the surprise would be that they had been there all along. Catherine didn’t know this was what Harry was trying to do, but was happy just to dance beneath the strings of colored lights, the brighter stars, and the Milky Way, which despite the lights was visible in the desert-clear sky.

As they danced they saw one another’s faces, constant, steady, and close, as the background passed by in a blur. Pulling apart and coming together; held gently; hands clasped and positioned almost aloft and leading through the air; with no need to speak and yet every word that was spoken elevated and made lovely. Nothing was quite so promising, beautiful, and exciting as dancing with Catherine in the mild air and open sky of California just after the war, when the valley was forgotten and at peace. They would think of other things, and then they would come back to where they were. The pleasure of re-entering was more exquisite than the pleasure of the dance itself, and, like the caesura in Catherine’s song, it was the silence that perfected the sound.

The lights made Catherine think back to a time before the Crash, when none of her father’s friends whose ruin she had seen and grown up with had yet to be destroyed, when the bank had yet to face its own difficulties, and when she was only four or five years old and her house was her world. In the library, facing the East River, was a cherrywood table upon which were two sterling trays. On one was a crystal ice bucket and crystal tumblers. On the other were eight or nine bottles of liquor: a frosted-glass bottle of vodka, a green gin bottle with a red sealing wax medallion, a brown bottle of sherry with a reproduction of El Greco’s
View of Toledo
on the label, and bottles of Scotch, some with colorful caps in red and gold, others with more prosaic tops to fit their printed labels in black and white. Between the trays on the polished and glowing wood was a Wedgwood vase—in muted blue and white—in which on most days was a splay of red roses. The rest of the room matched this with the elegance of its rugs, furniture, and paintings, and views of the garden and river through French doors.

In those times, when her father was much younger and things were flush, without anyone’s knowledge Catherine would go to the library after breakfast, because there at all times of the year, although at different hours and from different angles, the sun climbing across the eastern sky would illuminate the concentrated colors in such a way that the child greeted them every morning she could, as if they were not mere effects of the spectrum but a living being, or a message of some sort, both of which spoke to her fluently, although she could not have translated.

The rich early morning light struck the roses and was refracted in a billion tiny gleams. The silver followed suit with the same microscopic glinting. And the reds, greens, and browns of wood, glass, and wax took fire, deepened, and glowed in caramel, emerald, and scarlet. In the very early morning when the sun was trapped by the stubby buildings across the river in Long Island City, it sent out weak rays to scout the gaps between the tenements, and these rays would leap the river and hit the bottles, their dim light making the room glow in preternatural brown, bringing up the colors so gently that they showed even finer than the blazes of color that would follow. Catherine watched this closely and was open to it as only a child can be. It wasn’t that it was speaking to her in particular, but that it was speaking of things that, though supposedly far beyond her understanding, she comprehended nonetheless. Some children have friends, and some who have no friends have imaginary friends. Catherine had neither. She had the light.

Once, her father, passing by, saw his daughter motionless as if hypnotized by the liquor and crystal. “What are you staring at, Catherine?” he asked after a few minutes. She motioned at the blaze of color. “I hope you don’t plan to drink it,” he said. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a ‘no,’ right?” She found this amusing, because she had smelled the stuff in the bottles and found it truly horrible. Somewhat reassured, Billy left for work in a city delirious with prosperity. Completely unknowing of the difference between riches and poverty, Catherine remained in the library, patiently observing.

Decades later, she was dancing beneath strings of lights that hung in the air like planets. She was embracing and embraced by her husband. She was loving and content, and yet aware that with the movement of time everything was slowly overturning. On how many platforms in mountain ranges overlooking summer plains or the sea in crescent bays or coasts from Maine to Catalina had heaven come down to bless a couple gliding across the floor beneath a string of colored lights? “Am I chasing you? Do I have you?” he asked as they moved together.

“You’re chasing me,” she answered, “and you have me.”

Rice was older than Harry, a lawyer, a superb soldier, but because he preferred not to be an officer, Harry had outranked him. His parents had died when he was young. His first wife had died, childless, in the thirties. Of all of Harry’s pathfinders, Rice knew the most and said the least. He was always good-humored, often taking the lead to spare others danger, and his life before the war had led him to believe that he was not going to come home. Shocked and surprised that he did, he left behind everything he knew except his profession, which he carried out to California when he settled in the great country north of the Sacramento Valley.

He was dancing with a woman almost as tall as he was, and he stood at six-three. Her bearing and dress suggested that she had been born on a ranch, and that she might have been the daughter of the man who owned a great deal of the valley, and the granddaughter of the man who founded the town, and she was, in fact, all of these things. Slightly wavy blond hair fell to her shoulders. Her eyes were blue, and, like Catherine’s, her face was enchanting for its beauty and character. Merely from occasional glances, Harry and Catherine were impressed by and attracted to this couple that they carefully avoided. Many of the other dancers, though they may have enjoyed what they were doing, were burdened with an ineluctable stiffness that was less physical than emotional, and some with obviously long histories danced not only as if they hardly knew one another but as if they did not want to. In such circumstances, an alert divorce lawyer could make a fortune.

After an hour that went quickly, Harry said, “Let’s intercept.”

“You’re not a fighter plane, Harry,” Catherine scolded, but she agreed.

They moved toward Rice, staying close for a few seconds rather than allowing the distance that etiquette demanded, and then, still undiscovered, bumped him. He turned with an irritated look, but immediately recognized Harry. “Who’s
that?
” he said, referring to Catherine, recognizing the force of her beauty.

“My wife, Catherine,” Harry answered. “Who’s
that?
” he went on, returning the compliment.

Almost speechless, Rice said, “
My
wife,
Catherine.
”

The four of them had stopped in the middle of the floor, and everyone had to find ways around them.

Because the moon had risen just before they left, they could see their way in the dark. Ordinarily, in that they weren’t yet acquainted and were walking two by two, conversation would have been strained as everyone tried not to miss anything and to project so that all could hear. But the two Catherines, immediately comfortable with one another, silently came to the conclusion that they did not have to say anything until they reached home. Because they didn’t have to alter pace or posture to hear, they made good time through the few streets and a little way into the hills, to a large stone house that Rice explained had belonged to Catherine’s grandparents and was built of granite quarried in the Sierra Nevada. This broke open a line of conversation that was continued in the kitchen, where Catherine Rice, without tension or missing a word, began to prepare a light dinner.

Her parents still lived on their ranch. “Which is where?” Harry asked.

“Almost everything you see,” Rice said. “They were farsighted enough to buy land surrounding the town on all sides. Whichever way the town expands, as it will, the land will provide for their descendants.”

Soon after she had started her preparations, Catherine Rice excused herself, saying, “Hulda just beckoned to me.” As soon as her name was mentioned, Hulda disappeared. “She’s shy,” Catherine Rice said. “I think the baby’s up. I’ll go see.”

“Ten months,” Rice said.

In a few moments, Catherine Rice reappeared with the infant in her arms. He turned his head to his father, and then, upon seeing Harry and Catherine, buried his face against his mother’s right shoulder. With a little patting and a few kisses, he was reassured, and studied the new people. Harry looked at Catherine to see if this would be the next step, and to say that he wanted to take it. He expected perhaps a nod or a smile in return, but received far more when he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears that she would not let fall.

Catherine Rice moved forward decisively and placed the child in Catherine Copeland’s arms. No one saw, but a tear dropped on the baby’s gown. Catherine took in a breath through her nose, laughed a little, and smiled. As she began to talk to the baby, the baby took to her. “What’s his name?” she asked.

“Gordon,” Catherine Rice answered. “After Jim’s father. Kind of a strange name for a baby, don’t you think? Sometimes when I talk to him and call him by his name it’s as if I’m talking to a lawyer.”

“He’s half lawyer,” Rice said, “and half nurse.” He gestured to his wife.

“I was a nurse,” Catherine Rice said, “during the war.”

“And Catherine,” Rice said to Catherine Copeland, “you’re so young . . . I hesitate to ask.”