Charlie La Farge was just sixteen. He was of medium height, nice-looking, with the close-cropped hair that was the fashion among high-school boys that year. Through some happy accident of heredity he had escaped his father’s tediousness, while retaining a little of his mother’s jolly high spirits and humor. This did not make him anything special, but at least he was good-natured. It was his somewhat hybrid ambition at this stage of his life to be a lieutenant commander in charge of a submarine and to become a bandleader, combining the two so that the easy frivolity of bandleading would not contradict the other, austere side of his nature, which brooded often upon crash dives and the heroic terrors of depth bombs. He also gave women a great deal of thought, frequently to the exclusion of his ambitions, and sometimes his thoughts about women reached such a pitch that he knew his real and only desire was to lose his virginity. Breasts, legs, thighs and other things filled his mind with constant fleshy images, indistinct and maddening, the more so because he had no precise idea of what a girl felt like—although a fourteen-year-old first cousin named Isabel, from Durham, once let him rest one hand, lightly and on the outside of her dress, upon her disappointing little breast. On summer mornings he would awake in an ecstatic heat, half-frantic with the obscure and swollen dreams that lingered in tatters at the margin of his consciousness, and with a groan he would succumb to that private sin his father had vainly walloped him for at the age of twelve, watching the sycamores shake ever so gently, the sparrows that swerved in raucous, terrible haste against the sky.
A year ago he had fallen in love with Peyton. She alone among the pretty girls he knew remained unscathed in his morning despoilments; because he loved her, she alone stayed undefiled, unattainable. In a fashion he had fostered her remoteness, made of her something far apart from lustful considerations, and adored. He had had dozens of dates with Peyton, but he had never kissed her: he was afraid. He would leave her at night at her doorstep and drive slowly around the house—unkissed, balked and frustrated, peering up desolately at her lighted window in hopes of catching sight of her, she who, minutes before, standing at the door, had shown no emotion whatever at his aloofness and his self-control, but had merely said, “Good night, Charlie,” touched his hand lightly and vanished into the house. At such times, toying with the idea of self-destruction, he would drive home and go to bed where, crucified, shaken, miserable with unfamiliar insomnia, he would listen to his sister’s baby squalling in another room, and attend this solitary vision: He and Peyton had been happily married for some years now, but a trivial argument had come up; her back was to him; she was weeping. She was gazing from their penthouse window at the Manhattan spires and towers which lay below, as if drowning, in the movielike glow of autumn dusk. This light seemed to send tiny golden thorns through her hair. The radio, from distant hidden recesses in the room, played “Maria Elena,” a recording his band had made before he went off to war with the submarine service. She wept, he couldn’t see her face, and the climax was all simplicity and wonder: approaching her, he laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her about: “Peyton darling, you mustn’t cry.”
“Go away, you brute.”
“Darling, I love you.”
“Oh, no, Charlie, I mustn’t cry,” she murmured while, crumpled and acquiescent—realizing, as if by some transcendental power of autumn, of his strength, music, the power of love—she yielded herself up with a little cry, forgiving and forgiven, into his enfolding arms.
This, his most exciting vision, he turned over and over in his mind and ornamented and examined until it melted away and he fell asleep. The other dreams, fairly routine, concerned endless dancing, separate bedrooms in a Miami chateau and a good deal of problematical kissing.
Peyton looked slick in a bathing suit. It was made of tight red Lastex which glistened like a lobster shell under the arc lamps of the swimming pool. Dripping water, suntanned, she stood.at the side of the pool, removed her bathing cap, and fluffed her hair out properly. A boy named Eddie Collins, standing with Charlie in the shallow end of the pool, was trying to persuade him to sneak off into the woods, where he had a pint of whisky hidden, but he shook his head absently, watching Peyton. There was a great splashing, a shout; some boy rose up like a seal at the side of the pool and heaved a rubber ball at Peyton’s head. It bounced off. She laughed, threw the ball back and slid into a woolly robe. “Peyton!” he shouted, but the amplifier—playing music—the shouts, the splashes, drowned out his words, and Peyton, shod in rope-soled clogs, shuffled along the side of the pool and vanished up the slope.
He got out of the pool, dried himself off and put on a terrycloth jacket. He followed her toward the club, hoping to surprise her with a clap on the back or perhaps a horrible and chilling Dracula laugh, for which he had won considerable fame. She walked up the dimly lit front steps and started to go into the lobby but, drawing back suddenly, she paused there for a moment, watching. He halted and hid behind the fender of a car. Then he saw her go into the lobby, softly closing the screen behind her.
He crept up to the door and peeked in. The lobby was deserted, except for Peyton and a fat colored woman who staggered past under a loaded tray. An electric fan whined softly. A bug spanked up against the screen, clung there twitching, beneath his nose. The colored woman disappeared. Very quietly Peyton walked to the door of the golf museum and slowly tried the handle. She pressed downward gently, once, and again without a noise, but the door, it seemed, was locked. For two or three minutes she stood at the door; her head, cocked thoughtfully to one side, made him wince, it was such a lovely thing: he thought of kisses, of love.
She turned away and walked slowly toward him across the lobby. He drew into the shadows, ready to pounce. “Gotcha!” he cried as the screen opened; with a little scream she collapsed deliciously into his arms, then pulled back from him just as quickly, trembling, with a look of horror.
“Charlie!” she said. “Charlie! Oh!”
And fled down the steps and into the darkness.
What had he done?
It worried him enormously; never since he could remember—for he had led a quiet middle-class life, free from emotional extremes—had he seen on a girl’s face, or, for that matter, on anyone’s face, such a look of desolation. Then he knew. Standing at that door, he figured, she must have seen, or known, something frightening and terrible.
Later, when the other boys and girls had gone home, he searched for her, longing to offer his apologies, and finally found her sitting alone by the pool in the dark.
“Peyton,” he said.
A flicker of moonlight crossed her face. She looked up. “Hello, Charlie,” she said.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” he said, sitting down beside her. “Look,” he said painfully, “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m——”
“That’s all right,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t that so much——”
“What’s wrong, honey? Tell Cholly boy. What happened up there?”
“Nothing.”
She lay back in the grass. He stretched out beside her, shivering a little, and put his arms around her, which was the usual thing to do.
“Nice party, honey,” he said.
She was silent for a moment. “No,” she said, “no, it wasn’t a very nice party. It wasn’t a very nice party at all.”
“Come off it, kid. You’re depressing. Get off this gloom kick, will you?” Kissing her, somehow, mainly occupied his mind, but lying there, feeling her hair brushing at his chin, he knew his head was too high, too far up. He edged down.
She was quiet.
“Honey——” he began.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say anything, please. Just hold me.”
He shivered again. “O.K., honey,” he said, “I can always oblige.”
“Hold me,” she said.
This was it, he knew. Desperate, yearning, bending his face toward hers recklessly, he hazarded, out of a year-long desire, the first kiss, coronation.
She turned her he
ad away.
“No,” she whispered, turning back to him.
With a shock he realized that she had been crying. He drew her close to him.
“Don’t cry,” he said, “I love you, Peyton.”
“Hold me close.”
That was all that happened. She put her arms around him, too, and they lay there like this for a long time silently by the abandoned playground, in the summer night.
The garbage heaps and junk piles have disappeared; the creek, down which the hearse and limousine traveled a parallel route, winds through a lovely meadow. Only the gas tanks, rising from the adjacent marsh, and the remnants of a deserted brewery, disturb the peacefulness of the scene. From here as far as the eye can see stretch the bay, the river and, obscured by a curtain of smoke, the distant sea. In the heat of midday, among the surrounding inlets and shallows, boys go hunting for shrimp; the marshgrass and cattails are motionless; the bleached ribs of a discarded rowboat lie half-buried in the sand, among driftwood, shells, seaweed like crumpled green banners. There is a tarry odor here, a strong smell of sea; above, the flaunting wings of seagulls tilt and recover, over the passing ships, the sound of bell-buoys and the sea itself, where dead men wash and turn and tremble and yield up to remote fathoms—perhaps on a summer noon like this—their inhabiting bones. The meadow is windless and peaceful, insects make a fitful drowsing sound; in August all the Negroes gather here with Daddy Faith, who drives down once a year from Baltimore, to find peace, redemption, the cleansing of the sea.
As the limousine rolled through the meadow Dolly watched the gas tanks approach; they frightened her, and again the monstrous thought rose up fearfully in her mind: He doesn’t love me anymore. An act only of desperation, she knew—the way he had come to get her this morning, out of habit alone, maybe, and just because Helen wouldn’t come. An awful dread seized her; the car dipped into a depression in the road and instinctively she reached for his arm, as if for support, but held her hand in mid-air, and let it fall on the seat. She closed her eyes: oh, please, God.
Most people in the midst of disaster have yet one hope that lingers on some misty horizon—the possibility of love, money coming, the assurance that time cures all hurts, no matter how painful. But Loftis, gazing out at the meadow, had no such assurance; his deposit, it seemed, on all of life’s happiness had been withdrawn in full and his heart had shriveled within him like a collapsed balloon. He was not philosophical, he had never been trained that way, nor had he ever wanted to be. Emergencies had been things to get shut of quickly and to forget, and because in the past he had always been able to create some gratuitous hope, he had never had to believe in God. But hope. Yes: of course. Helen—she will come back to me. Faint, blurred as a mirage, he thought he saw columns of dust wreathing skyward from the farthest rim of the meadow; reflecting sunlight, huge, they ascended, spiraling: he saw weeds, sky, a ghost. I will cure her, make her well. Today I will tell her: Our love never went away at all. Sweating, he narrowed his eyes, half-shut: a wisp of a smile flew across his lips—My love—and the gas tanks rose abruptly out of the marsh beside them. The air was full of coal gas, the odor of fish. The hearse slowed down, steam billowing from the hood. Then the hearse stopped and Mr. Casper, throwing on the brakes with a jerk, halted the limousine behind it. There was a barricade, distant confusion: music, singing, jubilation. A crowd of Negroes in turbans and white robes were milling around a glistening Cadillac convertible.
“What is it?” Dolly said.
Ella Swan leaned forward on her seat. “It’s Daddy Faith,” she whispered. Perched on a seat of the Cadillac, Daddy Faith was bestowing grace upon the crowd. He was smiling; his face, black as night, was greasy with sweat. He made a wide arc with his hand, half a dozen diamond rings spun and glittered, and his shiny opera hat and diamond stickpin made beautiful flashes above the throng. A sigh, vast and reverential, went up from the crowd—Aaaaah!—and a shower of dollar bills, nickels, dimes and quarters cascaded over Daddy Faith, over the car and onto the ground. A band began to play, brassy, jubilant—and a big bass drum.
“Happy am I!” the crowd was singing.
Thump
“In my Redeemer!”
“Happy am I!”
“I am so happy!”
Thump
“Those Negroes,” Mr. Casper said, “are having some kind of revival or something. We’ll have to detour down that road.”
Hearse and limousine dipped toward the marsh, lurching over a cinder road. The Negroes rose up above them, unheeding, exalted, a mass of shifting robes, black arms lifted toward the sky, and Ella, peering out, said in a tone infinitely wistful as she turned, raising her hand to wave: “Hey there, Daddy.”
The limousine heeled alarmingly. “Oh dear,” Dolly said, “where are we going?”
Where indeed? Loftis thought: Does she always have to ask that?
The brewery towered over them, brick spires and battlements tumbling into decay. Trumpet vines and Virginia creeper and honeysuckle trailed over the parapets. Loftis looked upward. Now on fine Saturday afternoons amid the damp odor of hollyhock and dandelion, the glow of sunlight on crumbling stone, small boys would throw rocks, shatter what windows were left after all these years and shout fearfully through the echoing, deserted halls.
“Where are we going?”
Where indeed. We are going to bury my daughter, whom I loved.
The gas tanks rose up enormously; the Negroes, all singing, vanished behind those lordly, rustling forms. The Negroes would reappear. The gas tanks were old; God knew how ancient they were. Venomous weeds grew here, and tatterdemalion flowers, white, blue and rose; among crevices in the rust and tangled ancient iron a lizard would peep out drunkenly at the burning sun. Loftis looked upward. Gas tanks as old as time, here in the marsh and weeds, seaward-facing, ageless, from the lovely Virginia shores.
Salt air blew through the car; from the floor arose a thousand motes of dust. The gas tanks swept past. The Negroes reappeared, singing.
Happy am I
In my Redeemer!
Oh, Helen, come back to me.
4
ALL the way over to Helen’s, indeed the entire morning, the Reverend Carey Carr had been thinking: Poor Helen, poor Helen. That and nothing more, for a predicament, overwhelming and hopeless, such as this one, couldn’t be helped by piety, or prayers, either; it was the human condition alone that he must minister to, and by flimsy human means, and so it was nothing but poor Helen, poor Helen that he thought, over and over. He drew up near the curb beneath a stoplight. Downsloping, the highway reflected sunlight, shimmering heat, and his automobile, a Chevrolet coupe, began to drift across the pedestrian walk. He pulled the emergency brake, looking around him. There was a clock above a corner barbecue stand, neon-blue in the midday sun. It was after eleven-thirty, and he would be late.
Carey Carr wore spectacles and he had a cleft chin. At forty-two he still looked very young, with round plump cheeks and a prissy mouth, yet to people who knew him this air of cherubic vacancy and bloodlessness, at first so apparent, quickly faded; one knew that this face could reflect decision and an abiding passion. As a very young man, he had tried to embrace all of the beauty of the world, and had failed. At sixteen he was a poet, convinced that the fact that he wasn’t very masculine was still somehow tragic, noble even, and born of a fatal necessity. He was an only child. His mother, a widow, had fine liquid eyes, lovely skin which curved tautly over the fragile arch of her cheekbones and drew her lips outward and down, so that it always looked as if she were sorrowing a little over something. But it was really not sorrow. She was actually a sweet, thoughtful woman, with a certain old-fashioned gaiety about her, and she loved Carey more than anything. She encouraged his sensitive nature. When he was seventeen she packed him off to Washington and Lee where an old, famous poet was in residence. But it was a mistake. Beguiled to a certainty of his own genius, Carey wrote a sonnet a day for nearly a year and finally, hopeful but exhausted, took them to the poet—t
hree hundred sonnets in a purple binder—not so much for appraisal as for admiration. What a mistake it was! The poet was a petulant and whalelike man who had resolved most of his problems in eating and in waspish, continual chatter about boys on the campus whom he suspected of perversion. He wrote poetry no longer, and had in fact developed a contempt for poetry in general, except his own, which he recited on Saturday nights to the half-dozen young men who sat languidly on the floor around him drinking sherry. He tried to be gentle with Carey, but only succeeded in brutally telling the truth: the sonnets, the boy knew finally, were miserably bad. He had staked too much upon them, and his failure shattered his health and his wits. He had what was then known as a “nervous breakdown” and was hurried off by his mother, who lived in Richmond, to a Blue Ridge mountain sanitarium.
Eventually his beleaguered soul took strength. He began to read the Bible, at his mother’s prompting. The mountains soothed him; his mind soared again, but in a different way: he knew, with the same gathering ardor which had produced the sonnets, that God dwelt in the high slopes. He had had a vision which, it seemed to him in retrospect, had lasted many months. Feverish, his imagination took flight, lifted up into unearthly realms, high valleys, smoky with the spirit of the eternal; a blaze of light enveloped him and he knew later it was a glorious thing, for this radiance, surely, had been the light of heaven itself. But then to earth, gently, he was borne on the billow of light—shaken, immolated and vaguely unsatisfied. He resolved to become a minister, to retrieve his vision through a life of hard work and prayer. His mother encouraged him. “Carey, darling,” she would say, and her deep liquid eyes would grow soft and her mouth draw down, lovely and sad, “your grandfather was a man of the cloth and his father before him. Oh, it would make me so happy.” Perhaps she thought that through the mysteries of theology she could get an even stronger hold on him, keep him for her very own. But here, too, she was mistaken. For when Carey got out of the seminary in Alexandria a few years later he was a changed man. He had put on thirty pounds and through a violent struggle had learned how to swim and play softball, and had in general cast out his womanish failings, even realizing, in this new pleasing maturity, a passionate affair with a girl who worked as secretary in one of the seminary offices. He married her quickly. A year later his mother died, crying in her last delirium that somehow she had been all her life tricked and cheated—of what, no one could presume to say—and imploring Adrienne, who was Carey’s bride, to take care of him and love him, as she herself had done.