Three Continents (5 page)

Still holding my arm, he led me away from the tree and toward the porch in front of the house. I could have resisted but to do so—to snatch my arm away—seemed childish, so I went with him and we sat in rocking chairs. I ought to explain that the porch had always been very handsome, but now the gray-and-white marble floor was polished and the white pillars newly painted; and the lawn it faced had been smoothly mown, and at this moment one of the followers was assiduously watering it to keep it emerald green. A house and grounds like ours did need a large staff, no doubt.

“I know you don't think too much of all that,” Crishi said, nodding toward the circle under the tree. From this distance, and in a mellow evening light, the scene was dignified and serene. They were all grouped around the Rawul as in a painting of a sage inspiring his disciples with wisdom and high ideals. “He means well, you have to admit,” Crishi said.

I said “I do admit”—no doubt sounding very uptight, for he cried out, half laughing and half exasperated: “Oh Jesus, Harriet, you sound just like Michael!”

Well, to me that was a big compliment, but I didn't care
for his familiarity; he even touched my knee—very very lightly, true, but he did touch it, as one laying a claim. I moved it away and he went on: “You've got such lovely principles, both of you, I think it's wonderful.” I sat upright and stared straight ahead of me; my hands were folded in my lap. I knew I looked like generations of my own grandmothers, and I also felt like them.

Crishi dropped his voice and spoke more intimately, sharing a secret with me: “But Michael's changing, you must have noticed. He's coming around.” When he felt me tense up—“Yes to me, but that's the least of it. . . . To the Rawul and the Fourth World—yes, okay, I know it can sound quite ridiculous—daft,” he said, fishing out that word from somewhere in his cultural ragbag. “But don't think it's all phony; all neti.” When he used
that
word, I flinched—he could have heard it in our sense only from Michael, who had up till then used it only with me. Crishi said it quite casually, taking possession of it as easily as of our house and everyone in it. “The Rawul really is a ruler and from a dynasty older than any other in the whole world. It's true,” he said, stretching his eyes wide open so I could see how honest they were. “He's a direct descendant from the Moon,” he added, and his lips twitched, and he kept on looking at me, encouraging me to smile if I wanted to; and when I didn't, he went on smiling himself—maybe at me as well as at the Rawul. But he changed his tone: “I like it that you're skeptical, Harriet. I wish more people were, instead of being so keen to throw themselves into the action. It's a responsibility when they do that. I don't mean Michael, of course.”

All the time his eyes were searching me out—as to what I was thinking, but also in another way, in a quite frankly sexual way. Only strangely it was this latter that was impersonal—it was how he instinctively looked at any girl or woman; whereas the other was much more directed at me, Harriet: what
I
was thinking and feeling.

“It's really nice having Michael with us. He has a good personality. I'm not saying the others don't—they all do really, including Paul. Paul? You know who you saw me with yesterday? Heard me with?” He laughed ruefully, and for a moment put one hand over his eyes. Then he looked at me,
biting his lip: “I have this horrible foul temper making me do things. It's a liability to me and a shock to other people.” He sounded so contrite that I began to feel I had maybe overreacted.

If I had known him better—or, at that time, liked him better—I could have told him that it was hardly the first ugly fight I had witnessed. I had grown up with scenes between my parents—when I was very small and they were still together, and later each time they met. Now they didn't meet anymore. Whenever I wanted to see Manton, I made a trip to the city without telling Lindsay. I did it the day after my conversation with Crishi. I wanted to tell Manton about all the new developments and also about Michael and Lindsay wanting to donate Propinquity. After another, very short marriage of his had ended, Manton had given up his place in the city and gone to live in a hotel suite. This really suited his life-style much better, and he didn't get married again but had different girlfriends.

The principal one at that time was Barbara. She was my age but had more in common with my father than me. They both liked the same sort of good time and were always going out somewhere to have fun. That day they were going to a premiere where everyone had to come dressed in 1920s clothes; I guess that was the period of the film. When I arrived, Manton was out and Barbara was trying on her dress, which didn't suit her at all and she knew it. She was a big blond girl, very healthy and wholesome and beautiful, and she spilled out of the skinny little sheath into which she had tried to squeeze herself. “What'll I do?” she asked me. She meant about the costume, but Barbara was always asking me what to do, mostly about herself and her life; she didn't have many people to talk to, and was always glad when I showed up. With me helping her, she struggled out of her costume, and she tied a loose robe around herself, which suited her much better—physically and psychologically, because whenever she got me on my own, she liked to be entirely relaxed and talk about every kind of intimate thing. She had taken off her bra too and was naked under her robe. She got on to the usual subject, how Manton wouldn't marry her and how she was afraid of losing him because she was so dumb. “I know
I am, Harriet,” she said; her lovely big baby eyes filled with tears, and I said for the thousandth time, “You're
not
.” And it was true: She wasn't half as dumb as many people who think themselves very smart; and besides, she was really good for Manton, and I hoped he would stick with her. She truly loved him and looked up to him, the way I used to.

When Manton came back, she got all nervous because of not being ready. But with me there, he took no notice of her; instead he went into his father-daughter act he liked to think we had. And I suppose we did have it—we were certainly fond of each other, but it was not in a parent-and-child way. Or if it was, it was the other way around and he was the child, though I can't say I ever really saw myself as his parent—I guess his girlfriends like Barbara filled that role, even if they didn't know it but thought they were looking up to him. That was what Manton needed from women, to be mothered and to be admired, the way he had got used to from his own mother and, even more, from Sonya, his stepmother.

“Harriet, let me look at you!” He always said that and always went into the traditional Daddy-looking-over-daughter routine, holding me at arm's length to beam at me with pride and pleasure. At the same time he was looking me over quite sharply. Of course he was desperate about the way I dressed—or rather, didn't dress—and the most he could hope for was that my skin hadn't broken out, or some other thing that might not do him credit. For a daughter was not exempt from the function of his other women of doing him credit: Manton would not have kept company with a frump. He sighed as usually on letting me go and said “Why don't you let Barbara take you to some of her places, it's the one thing she knows about.” When he turned his attention toward her, she at once began to babble the way she did when she was nervous—how she was just getting ready, wouldn't be a second, that she and I got talking and she absolutely forgot the time, which was unforgivably stupid of her. The more she went on the more irritated he got, of course, and then she got more nervous, positively jumpy and crazy, and they were back in their vicious circle.

I felt sorry for her and mad at him. I knew how he could
be: If you showed the least weakness or nervousness he would take advantage of it (I guess that made him a natural bully, though there was another side to him). But I hadn't come there to listen in on their difficult relationship. I wanted to tell him about Lindsay and Propinquity—to ask his advice maybe, or just to have someone close with whom to talk about it. And as soon as Barbara had gone to squeeze herself back in her outfit, I did tell him. He was
outraged
. He couldn't believe his ears. He knew Lindsay was crazy but this beat everything. Not that he cared a damn about the house—in fact, he hated it, for being ugly-—but the idea of giving it away, giving away his children's heritage, and on such a whim and for such a cause: He was
speechless
, he said. I must say, his reaction seemed to me very sane and natural; I felt justified, confirmed in my own common sense while everyone else appeared to have taken leave of theirs. When Manton was angry, his color rose high and his eyes glittered cold and blue. He looked what he was perhaps meant to be: a soldier, colonizer, man of action—quite magnificent really, and formidable. At that moment poor Barbara came in, in her ridiculous little short frock, and all his manly anger turned on her: “Do you really seriously believe,” he said, very slowly and drawling like an Englishman, “that I would be seen out dead with you in that ludicrous getup?” I could see her plump knees knocking together as she hastened to agree with him that she looked terrible. “Go and take it off,” he interrupted her. “We're not going.” She pleaded for a bit, then burst into tears—not for herself but for him, for spoiling his evening. And in fact this would have been considered unforgivable, if he hadn't already changed his own plans; but he had—my news had stirred him up, and he decided that he would drive me back to the country to see what was going on. Barbara was allowed to come and sat in the back, talking away happily.

Here was a further complication in the house, and to explain it, I should say something of Manton's relation to the rest of us. There is no need to talk about Manton and Lindsay: the less said there the better. And Manton and Michael—there was not much to be said there either, except that Manton was not cut out to be anyone's father and especially not Michael's. Over the years they had learned to
tolerate each other, which they did mainly by never seeing each other. Then there was Manton and Mrs. Schwamm—he was simply delighted to hear she was back, not only because she was such a terrific cook but because they had this thing about adoring one another. Manton was the type to make himself tremendously popular with any domestic staff, and they were always eager to do something extra for him; and that was how it was with him and Mrs. Schwamm—whom he alone was allowed to call Else, or even Elsie. Finally, Manton and Jean—well, that was better than one would have thought possible, considering how he was this very sexy man whose women had to be women, and she was what she was. But I think they were useful to each other. Jean kept Lindsay completely out of his hair, while he had put Lindsay off men forever—so Lindsay herself said, and in fact, on the very rare occasions when he was around, Lindsay simply clung to Jean, as for protection against him.

So Manton entered this arena—only to be thrown at once because everything had changed beyond his recognition. I had tried to tell him something about the Rawul and his party, but it wasn't possible to get across the fact of their influence: of how they had taken complete possession of the house and everyone in it. And Manton himself was at once drawn into the new dispensation. It happened just as soon as he saw the Rani and was bowled over by her. She was used to that—people being bowled over by her—and knew exactly how to handle him. She wasn't flirtatious as much as friendly; that is, she held him at a distance by giving him her respectful attention; but she was this phenomenally beautiful woman, so that while she puffed him up with her respect, she brought him down with her aloofness. I wasn't sure why she took even that much trouble with him; she didn't with anybody else. Maybe she thought he could be useful in getting me to donate the house; and of course Manton was a very handsome and attractive man, always had been—I mean, it was what he was, it was the essence of his personality.

Barbara's reaction to the scene was unexpected. She was upset about Manton and the Rani, but that wasn't all of it: She hated everything else too—I would never have thought that sweet, soft Barbara could hate anything or anyone, but
my God she did. It was awful for her when Manton decided he had to stay; he told her to go back to New York and pack some of his clothes and bring them up, and when she began to fuss, he said “Well you can bring yours too”; but that was the only concession he would make. When she tried to argue, he said “I've never heard such selfish nonsense”—pointing out that he had been called to help decide whether his son and daughter should give up their house, and how generous it was of him to allow her to be in on this family affair. She found she had no choice—if she wanted to stay with him, that is, and she did; but she was horribly upset, both before driving to the city to get their clothes and after she came back. I found her in tears in her bedroom—she had to sleep separately from Manton because he got onto this high horse of how it wasn't proper for her to share his bed in his wife's house and with his children present. I felt sorry for her, and also that it was mostly my fault that they were here—they had been all right in New York, living in their hotel and going to costume balls.

Michael came in on me while I was with Barbara in her room. This was constantly happening all over the house, people looking for each other in each other's rooms, everyone with something important, and usually intimate, to say. Barbara was lying on the bed crying, and I was sitting beside her. This room suited her well—it was as fluffy and fair as she was, with ruffled curtains and flouncy chair covers and an ivory carpet with pink roses on it. Barbara was never very articulate, and besides crying couldn't really explain herself. When Michael and I tried to comfort her, she said “It's not only Manton and her.” Here she burst into a new flood of tears; she cried like a child and her face went puffy like a child's. “It's all of it,” she said, when she could speak again. “All of them. You don't know,” she said. Michael and I looked at each other across her. If Barbara implied she knew something that he and I didn't, it must be true because usually she was very self-deprecating. Barbara's background and experience were quite different from what one might have expected: Looking at her, knowing her, one would think she came from some nice family in Connecticut, but in fact her mother was a movie star and Barbara had spent her early
years in Hollywood and on film sets in places like Morocco or Rome. And now what she tried to explain to Michael and me was that the atmosphere in the house—I suppose she meant the way everyone was so intensely involved with everyone else—was like it used to be around her mother and her associates when they were all locked up with each other on location. And just as she had got this out, there was a brief and very authoritarian knock on the door, which opened immediately afterward—I didn't have to turn around; I could tell by the shock passing through Michael that it was Crishi. “Oh there you are,” said Crishi, enfolding the three of us in his smile.