The Major's Daughter (19 page)

“That was lovely,” she said to George inside their car after they had shouted their good-byes to a dozen similarly departing couples. She meant what she said. There had been some talk of going out to the Wayward for last call, but the idea had never gathered momentum, and she was glad now to be heading home, the windows down, the soft summer night inviting them to not retire, to never retire.

“I told you that skinny Puerto Rican can play,” George said, backing up and fiddling his way out of the lot. “It's in their blood.”

“I hope the air marshals don't flag us down for using our headlights.”

“They're all buddies. You never mind. Now scoot over here and pretend that you know me.”

He held his arm up, and after a moment's hesitation, she slid under it. He drove expertly; she gave him that much. He let his hand drop lazily down to touch the side of her breast. She didn't resist, though the gesture tired her. She would have almost preferred, she thought, a full-on assault rather than these unmanly raids. Amos, in his vileness, was nearly preferable. She opened her mouth to tell him as much, when he surprised her by starting to talk about their future.

“We make a swell couple, Estelle,” he said, his driving hand playing patty-cake with the steering wheel as he negotiated the turns and twists back toward her house, “and everyone knows it except you. I'm not scolding you, I promise. I'm asking you to step back and take a look at the long run. Will you do that? I'm doing okay in business, if I do say so myself. You can ask around and confirm that. I know I should be over fighting the Hun, but my hernia, well, you know that whole story. Some of us have to stay behind anyway. Look at Kenny Lindsey! He's a demon tennis player . . . don't I know it . . . but he's got a little trick knee that says no way, no how he's going to fight the Krauts. That's just the way it is. Anyway, I'm getting turned around about all this . . . what I want to say is we could both do a whole lot worse than ending up together. You know that. We kind of fit together, we have a crowd to run with. Wasn't tonight fun? I thought it was fun, and we can have plenty of nights like these. These are our kinds of people. We fit here, Estelle, at least I think we do, and I bet your parents would back me up on it. So what I'm asking is maybe you think about it a little, and stop being so sure there's a better life waiting for you someplace else. Maybe there is, I don't know, but this isn't a bad life, is it?”

He looked over at her. The booze had made him talky, but she couldn't deny the dull wisdom of his words.

“I'm sorry, George. Sorry if I've been distant. . . .”

“There was some talk about you taking an interest in that Negro fellow who runs the flower shop. I told people that couldn't be true, but there were rumors.”

“He's not a Negro, George. He's an Indian.”

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck . . .”

“There is a difference, George, not that it particularly matters.”

“Well, anyway, I'm betting you don't want your name associated with him in that way. Not if you're smart and want a future at the club and in our set. You know what I'm saying. Birds of a feather fly together.”

“He's a very nice man. Very well-read.”

He leaned a little away, his face cut into a look of appraisal.

“Say,” he said, “you were sweet on him, weren't you?”

“Not sweet on him, George. I just told you. He's a nice man, and he's well educated. I enjoyed talking with him. That's not a crime.”

George let out a long whistle. He lost the line of his driving and had to hurry the wheel back in place.

“I'll be a monkey's uncle,” he said when he stopped whistling.

“You're making more of it than it was, George. I'd prefer we drop it.”

“Consider it dropped.”

“Let's go to the lake,” she said on impulse.

“Now?”

“Why not?”

“I thought you were tired.”

“I am tired, but this night . . .”

“Pretty damn night,” he agreed.

So they went to Lake Mindowaska, a brown, liver-shaped body of water not far from the club. It was a popular place in the summer; the town sponsored a waterslide in a roped-off area, and the local Kiwanis had put up grills and picnic tables, and the Boy Scouts had built a fire-pit where people from the Audubon Society, or the Fish and Game Department, sometimes gave talks on wildlife. Officially, the swim area was closed at sunset. It was popular for neckers and kids with nowhere else to go, but at this hour, Estelle saw, they had the place to themselves.

As soon as George turned off the headlights, Estelle pushed out the car and ran down to the water. She left her heels at the sandy edge; wading in, hoisting her skirt to her knees, she called to George to join her. But he lighted a cigarette instead and stood watching her, his face illuminated by the red glow of his rhythmic puffing. She felt slightly drunk, and a little crazy, and she wanted to take big bites of the summer night. That was impossible, she knew, but she felt it anyway, and when she came out and saw George flick his cigarette away, she knew what he had in mind.

He led her to one of the picnic tables and he pushed her down, his hands fumbling under her skirt. She pushed his hands away, but she had invited this, she knew. How strange she felt. For a moment George seemed to be everywhere at once, at her mouth with his lips, then his hands on her breasts, then down below, down where she could not let him go but did anyway. She lay back and gazed up at the moon, at a quarter moon, and she knew this was a sort of bargain she had struck. She was not sure with whom, or why precisely, but she let him do what he wanted for a time, just a short while, then she sat up and said it was all right.

“Jeepers,” he said, backing away, his balance thrown off by drunkenness and the unexpected. “What a night this turned out to be.”

“Do you love me, George?”

“I do,” he said. “I really do, Estelle.”

“I hope you do.”

“You don't think I'd . . . be like this if I wasn't serious.”

“I'm not sure what you would do, George. I've never been very good at figuring all this out.”

“It means we're kind of steady, doesn't it?” he asked.

“I suppose so.”

“That makes me real glad. Real glad. I think we're swell together.”

“I don't want to think about anything anymore, George. Will you keep me from thinking about things?”

“You've got it, sister,” he said. “You got whatever you like.”

“Wouldn't that be lovely? To have whatever one wants.”

“You can have it, baby. I'll bring you the whole world and set it up on a snack table.”

“If you say so, George.”

“I do.”

Then he kissed her some more. This was it, then, she realized. This is how people went forward and made plans and ended up married. She thought of her parents, and thought of Collie and August, thought of a half dozen married couples. They all began like this, she thought. In some ways, she realized as she pushed up from the table and straightened her clothes, it was no different from picking out an outfit. One went over the selections, considered the events ahead, determined what one strived for, then made a choice. Maybe her dates with these different men were simply outfits to hold up against oneself in front of the dressing room mirror, to model the gown and see where it struck the knee, how it flowed against one's legs. It was simple, really, entirely obvious, and she wondered how such knowledge had escaped her. Maybe, she thought, women always knew this but never passed along the secret to the newer candidates.

George lighted another cigarette and sat on the picnic table and blew smoke up at the sky. She went to retrieve her shoes, the sand now cold and gritty under her feet.

“I'm tired now, George,” she said when she came back to join him.

“I'll take you home, honey.”

“How do you know if I'm the right person for you?”

He looked at her and shrugged. He dotted out his cigarette on the picnic bench, then flicked the butt toward the water.

“You just are,” he said.

“But how do you know? Aren't there a thousand women out there who might be the right one for you?”

“You talk crazy sometimes, Estelle.”

“You haven't answered the question.”

She felt the alcohol in her blood now more than before, she realized. The cold had done it, and his hands had done it. Something bitter and empty worked around in her stomach, but she couldn't name it.

“There's always someone else, if you want to frame it that way,” he said. “I mean, people die and then the surviving spouse gets remarried, so, yes, sure, you're right. But I don't look at the world that way, Estelle.”

“How do you look at it?”

“Straight ahead.”

“And I'm a good match in most ways?”

“Sure you are,” he said.

“I wish I knew how to be more like you, George.”

“Stick around. It rubs off, I promise.”

Then he took her back to the car. He held the door open and she climbed inside. He tuned in the radio as they drove back to her house. The secret, she realized, was not to wish. Wishing was the cause of too much heartache. George was right. Straight ahead was the way to go about things. She saw that. He reached over and held her hand for some of the way home as they traveled the streets beneath the great trees. She held one hand out the window and let the wind lift it and settle it down as it liked. When they came to her house, she let George come around and open her door.

“Good night, George,” she said on the front porch when he walked her to the door.

“Good night, baby. You're terrific.”

He kissed her. She waited, curious, to see if she would kiss him back. But no impulse pushed her further into their embrace, so she smiled when they broke apart and dodged through the door like an actress, she reflected, tiptoeing offstage.

 • • • 

Dr. Shepherd arrived close to dawn. Marie still hung on by a thread; she had come out of her ice bath flaming and hot. Herr Schmidt did not say as much, but it was clear he held out little hope. He and August had been escorted back to the barracks by Jules, the young guard. Now Collie worked in the kitchen beside Amy to make coffee and cut slices of bread. Father McIver administered last rites, then came to the kitchen and sat in a chair, his face drawn. He accepted a cup of coffee when Amy offered it; Collie carried it to the table and put it in front of him. It was good, she felt, to have something to do.

“Are you hungry, Father?” Amy asked. “We are toasting some bread and we have cheese, I think. . . .”

“The coffee is plenty,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Where did Papa go?” she asked the priest.

“He went out. It's difficult for him to be upstairs. He feels helpless.”

“We all feel helpless,” Collie added.

“Yes, in times like these . . .”

“I'll bring a tray up to your mother and Dr. Shepherd,” Collie said. “You take a rest, Amy.”

“Thank you. I will.”

Collie prepared a tray. She doubted they would eat, but at least they could have coffee. She went up the back stairs, walking as softly as possible. She overheard Dr. Shepherd saying something about fevers breaking at sunrise and sunset. Collie could not tell from his tone if he said such a thing merely to provide hope for Mrs. Chapman, or whether he truly believed it.

“Some coffee?” she asked when she came in the room. “And Amy sent up some toast, if you're hungry.”

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Chapman said.

Dr. Shepherd held his hand to Marie's forehead. He had placed a thermometer in her mouth, but the instrument had fallen to the side. It was not much use, Collie realized. It would report the obvious.

She arranged the tray on a small table in the corner of the room, then added cream and sugar by request. She handed the cups to Mrs. Chapman and the doctor. The cups rattled on their saucers, and it was not until she heard the sound that Collie noticed her hands shook. Mrs. Chapman took a brief sip, then put the cup on the bedside table. She stood and went out, as if the sip of coffee reminded her she had a body still. Collie took her place beside the bed, the doctor across from her.

She had hardly taken a look at him on his arrival. Now she saw he was a gray-haired, handsome man, a little stout, with a heavy beard this early in the morning. He had not been home, she realized. His hands moved well when he lifted the coffee cup; they were steady and certain, and she felt a spark of confidence in seeing them. A dark scar lined his right eye socket. His brow obscured it, but it was there nonetheless, and she wondered how he had come by it. As a result of her own bicycle scar, she always had an interest in others' injuries, because, she felt, they suggested a narrative about the person. One lived into one's scar somehow, and she had become an expert of sorts, though naturally now was not the time to talk of it.

“How is she?” she whispered instead.

“Very weak.”

“Was the ice . . . ?”

“Yes, it was fine. I'm not sure it made much difference in the end.”

“
Is
this the end?” she asked, her heart suddenly fluttering.

He gazed at her and pursed his lips. It was not an answer.

“She is such a sweet soul,” Collie said. “Such a light.”

“I delivered her,” he said, sipping the coffee. “She came into the world very easily.”

“I'm sure she would.”

“She's strong . . . but . . .”

Collie leaned forward and took Marie's hand.

“With the war going on, you don't think about regular, everyday people becoming ill.”

“They do all the time, I'm afraid,” he said.

“I don't know how you stand it.”

“Sometimes your work bears fruit. This evening I delivered a little boy to a woman who had wanted a child for a long time. She had a difficult delivery, but both came through. It's all a balance.”