“Oh, Ernest,” I said, feeling exasperated, but he was already striding away.
Later, when I went to seek him out and talk it through, Boise was perched on the table by Ernest’s plate while he fed the cat soft ripe slices of alligator pear with his fingers. As soon as he saw me, Ernest began to mutter to Boise about how terrible it was that a woman had taken the only thing that was truly his, his power.
“We don’t like wimmins now.” He was only looking at the cat. “I’d keep your distance.”
I could hardly believe he wouldn’t let the matter go. “You’re acting like a child.”
But he only went on feeding Boise and stroking his head, the two of them conspirators in some war I didn’t even understand. And yet apparently it had become my war, too, without my consent.
“I’m going to bed,” I finally said. “Are you coming?” He’d been out for weeks; surely he was going to drop all this.
“We don’t like wimmins,” he said again, not taking his eyes off the cat.
I strode off to our room, letting doors rattle behind me on the way, and lay awake for some time, boiling over with exasperation. My thoughts spun on themselves, and I knew it was no use. I would never find sleep this way. Reaching over to Ernest’s side of the bed, where he kept a bottle of small red sleeping pills, I took one and waited for the slow film of it to lower over my brain and my muscles like a heavy and good annihilating fog.
I woke with no hangover—thankfully—except the emotional one. Here was my husband, sleeping beside me. Here, but far, far away. It was a silly argument and I missed him. Even when he was wrong, I missed him.
* * *
—
Day after day, while the cats ran and tumbled and moused and waited for their feast of ground-up filet mignon, and mourned their lost sexuality—if indeed they’d ever prized it—I shut myself in my office and sailed away on my pages as they took shape. Liana was an unschooled young woman, and a great beauty. Her cold, white plantation-owner husband, Marc, had married her to spite the woman he truly loved, and kept her as a kind of trophy. He had no true feelings for her, and she didn’t know what love even was until a handsome young French teacher, Pierre, entered her life and began to teach her the ways of the world.
In one way, it almost embarrassed me that I was so taken in by this small and personal story that was not about war or social justice or any larger thing, but only people. I was taken in, though, and ecstatic to be working so well. The days felt very full, suddenly, and alive and also hopeful. Hitler’s army was still raging overseas and out in the Gulf Stream, menacingly invisible. Things with Ernest weren’t entirely calm or simple, but I was happy and occupied and feeling strong.
Soon, I had almost twenty thousand words, and they kept coming, flowing from some point beyond rational thought where imagination lived like a rare white dragon. I didn’t know anyone like Liana, but she felt utterly real to me, and also terribly tragic. I loved her and was moved by her life, and finally grew brave enough to share what I’d written with Ernest.
“This is wonderful, Rabbit,” he said when he’d read the pages.
“Really? You like her, then?” I was so relieved, I could have cried.
“I do. You’ve drawn her so well. And the whole world has texture and it sings.”
“Oh, God, I’m glad you think so. I’ve been so happy doing it, but that never means anything. We never really know what we’re doing.”
“That’s the truth, but keep going. Don’t stop for anything,” he insisted. “I’ll be waiting to read the next installment when I come in again just before Christmas. You’re the writer in the family now, Marty. I’ll be your editor, and if you don’t want that, I’ll be the person who cheers you on no matter what.”
His tone had been light, but I still felt alarmed that he’d say such a thing. “You’ll start up again soon,” I told him. “There are two writers in this family, and always will be.”
“Sure,” he said weakly while a shadow flickered through his eyes.
“Don’t go out again,” I said suddenly, feeling that everything had become so fragile between us, inside and out. “I’ve been craving you awfully, you know.”
“You miss me, do you?” He came over to where I sat, and as he pulled me to my feet, we tucked into each other like a lock and key, my head under his chin, his hands clasped at the base of my spine. I wanted to stay like that, exactly like that, for years and years.
“I miss us. Let’s hide away from everything. Remember when this was our foxhole and we were alone for months at a time?”
“I’ll be back before you know it.” He nodded into my hair and then squeezed me tightly, and let me go.
62
When they came through the channel and saw the little island with its bone-white sand and its clusters of date palms in a cove where they could beach the dinghy, he knew it would be as good a place as any to hide from himself.
Not that the boys knew anything about it. He’d tried very hard to conceal his worry and the strain he’d been feeling, like a lead weight in his chest, and thought he’d done all right by them. Now he banked to starboard and then cut the engine, letting Pilar swing toward the sandbar, which was rippled and white and looked like flesh beneath the clear waves. Like a woman’s thigh swung out casually as she slept.
He told the boys to get the dinghy and take a look at the beach. “If you find any Krauts, you know what to do,” he called out to Gigi, who loved this game. Then he went below to make himself a drink and came up again, looking out and out, trying to spot the shadows of mako sharks.
Everything had a shadow, he knew. Clouds shading the surface of the water darkly. Long thin gars that streamed in silvery lines against the current, and tuna that hovered under his boat like monsters. Words had shadows you could feel long before they reached you, and love had a shadow, and so did he.
Ever since he was a boy, he’d had moods that could steal in and leave him almost breathless. Sometimes they came so quickly and seemingly from nowhere that he took to fearing what could happen inside him, the terrible transformation from one feeling that could be handled to another, more horrible one that couldn’t.
More and more lately he had felt the dark space thickening in him, threatening to crush his breath. But he hadn’t given himself over, not yet, and wouldn’t if he could help it. Once, in May of ’36, he had been alone on Pilar hours out of Havana and heading toward Key West when a wind had come tearing up without warning, waves running up and over the bow, the foam bright and shockingly cold when it struck him over and over.
That was a night that had pulled anchor and stretched free of time. His compass had shuddered and swum. He couldn’t leave the stern to check the fuel stores or to see how much water he was taking in below. He didn’t even know his position until dawn came like a gray paw and he felt worse somehow, for now he could see exactly what was against him and his small boat.
The dawn had muddied into morning and the wind roared on, and waves were concrete walls to crash against. Finally, sometime after noon, he reached the edge of the storm and pulled free. He was closer to home than he’d thought too, and was soon pointing at the harbor in Key West. He was wrung out and spent, but another part of him swelled to know that he’d done something difficult and brought the boat in safely, and brought himself in with it. That he’d come through.
Sometimes shadows bore blacker shadows when they found you. Yes. Some storms had darker, more terrible storms inside them. But even then you could come out of them and see a known shoreline. You could look up to see that somehow, some way or other, you’d found your way back.
63
December came and with it the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Bombs only bred more bombs, it seemed. The United States had just attacked Naples. The RAF was bombarding the Netherlands. Japanese destroyers had taken the US cruiser Northampton at Guadalcanal.
And on and on it went, terribly.
The boys were all home for Christmas. Gigi from Key West, Patrick from his new boarding school in Connecticut, and Bum from Dartmouth, where he’d transferred after swearing off the University of Montana. He’d thought it was the place, not his course work, that had put him off college, but now it seemed Dartmouth wasn’t sticking for him, either.
“Do you think Papa would mind if I dug in here for a while?” he asked me. “Just until the dust settles and I can think of what comes next?”
“You can stay forever, darling, no matter what Papa says. But please tell me you’ll go back to school. You’ll be enlisted if you don’t.”
“I told you I’m not afraid of going over there.” He lifted his chin, his eyes clear, and I could see he meant it. “Maybe it would even be a good thing. I could use some growing up.”
“Nonsense. You’re perfect now.” And you’re alive, I didn’t say.
“I’ve got some friends who’ve enlisted and they say it’s a relief, actually. Rather than waiting for some ax to fall.”
“Can we not talk about it anymore?” I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice, but it was nothing doing. “Why don’t you move your things into the Little House? We’ve made it over, and it’s awfully nice when we can keep the cats out.”
“I think Princessa’s hurt,” Gigi said, carrying the big blue-gray Persian into the room, half draped over his shoulder. “She’s bleeding.”
“That’s the fruit rats, I’m afraid.” I rubbed at the patch of red he pointed to just under her chin. “She’s the most brutal mouser we have. Usually she bathes better, though.”
Gigi’s look of concern had changed into a kind of thrilling regard, and I recognized it as the way he sometimes looked at his father. His swashbuckling, daredevil heroic father who was now out fighting Krauts in the Gulf, taking them on like a cat might fruit rats, which is to say fearlessly and with some gusto.
That was the fantasy, anyway. That was the story. But more and more I began to wonder if Operation Friendless wasn’t something infinitely more complex. Either Ernest was using these missions as a way to hide from trouble and all he didn’t want to confront, or he was secretly hoping to get a book out of his adventures, much the way he’d found Robert Jordan by going to Spain. But Spain had been terribly real, full of challenges and daily tests of courage, and legitimate heroes. While in the year he’d been patrolling, untold hours spent sweeping the Gulf, he’d spotted a sub only once—a distant black shining thing off Mégano de Casigua—and that had led to nothing.
It made me feel worried for him, and sad. He didn’t look well to me, and was drinking too much. He’d always been a drinker, but there had been a rhythm to it, a rise and fall. Two drinks at lunch after a full morning’s work, then two or three with dinner. Now there wasn’t even the ghost of an anchor, and no reason at all not to be drunk all day.
The boys noticed it, too, I realized, and I wanted to reassure them that Papa was just going through a dark time and would be back good as new. But did I believe it myself? Could I?
On Christmas Eve, we went into town for dinner at the Floridita. Ernest had been drinking on and off since noon, and now there was a string of double frozen daiquiris ferried to our table by Constantino. I tried to meet his eyes surreptitiously, a hidden plea for him to slow down, but he seemed not to notice. He was Ernest’s ally, not mine, in any case.
Our meals finally arrived and we’d just begun eating when a man approached our table, a tourist from some southern state, a drawl on his lips and his hat in his hand as he asked Ernest to sign a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Ernest’s glazed eyes flicked over him. “She’ll sign it,” he said, meaning me.
“He’s kidding,” Gigi jumped in quickly. “He’d be happy to do it.”
The man laughed nervously and produced a pen. He darted off as soon as the deed was done, and I didn’t blame him. A murky energy hung over our table, and it was Christmas. Surely we could do better, for the boys if not for ourselves. They were bent over their plates, pretending we were a family in the middle of a nice meal, while Ernest bent over a fresh cocktail, his eyes glassy. I felt sorry for all of us.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?” I said.
“I feel fine. How do you feel?”
“Awful. Embarrassed.”
“Then maybe you should drink more. I might like you better if you did.”
Patrick’s eyes flashed up to meet mine. I thought he might say something in my defense, so I shook my head pointedly and motioned for the bill, only wanting the night to be over.
When the waiter came, I told Ernest and the boys that I would take care of it and meet them outside in a few minutes. They left to get the car while I found the cash in my wallet and then lit a cigarette, hoping to clear my head and get a moment to myself. I breathed, shakily at first, and then a little easier. We would go home to bed and both sleep off this terrible mood, and tomorrow would be another day. A better one.
When I walked out on the street not even five minutes later, though, Ernest and the boys were gone. I thought I’d miscommunicated the plan somehow or they had, and went looking for them. I walked around the block, looking into every bar and café, wondering where they might have tucked in. I took the next block a bit faster, and then raced back to the Floridita, wondering if they might be waiting for me there. But they were gone. The truth dawned on me with a chilling shock. I would have to find my own way home. I was being punished. Ernest had left me.
* * *
—
The boys were horrified when I saw them the next morning, but no more than I was. Ernest had gone to the US embassy to give his monthly report, and was nowhere to be found.
“Is everything all right, Mart?” Patrick asked me, looking pained.
“I can hold my own with Papa, Mousie,” I said, but he didn’t seem to believe that any more than I did for the moment.
“It’s not fair,” he said quietly.
“No.” I put one hand on each of his shoulders, and felt tears rise. “It’s not. People are awfully complicated. I don’t know how else to say it. And sometimes they lose themselves a little. Papa will come back to us.”
“He doesn’t always, though.”
I felt something knock hollowly in my chest. It hadn’t been that long since he’d watched his parents battle out their differences, plenty and publicly. He must have been sick thinking that the whole awful story might repeat itself now, just when he’d started to believe the dust had settled, and that life—our life—was something he could trust.
“It’s all right, Mouse. Please don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”
He was fourteen going on a hundred just then, and though he let me pull him toward me and tell him again that all would be well, I could feel doubt as a stiffness in his body. I had my own version. I wanted to believe that Ernest could wrestle his darker nature and come running to my side, but I wasn’t sure that things could ever be truly simple again. The world was a more complicated place than it had been before. Time was different, and more costly. A page had turned, and we had, too.
64
Over the next few days, Ernest and I tiptoed around each other, keeping our interactions brief and light and cool and civilized for the boys. It was Christmas, after all, but I couldn’t help but feel saddened and defeated by the effort. It shouldn’t be so hard to be kind, I thought, particularly to the person you’re supposed to care about more than anything.
People, as I’d told Patrick, were complicated, and so was love itself. In fact, it was more and more complicated all the time. I decided to go to St. Louis to visit my mother and get a small respite.
“I’m just so tired,” I told her when I arrived. “I want to pull the blankets up over my eyes and not think for a bit.”
“Of course, darl
ing. Take all the time you need. I should tell you, though, that Ernest has rung twice. He doesn’t sound very well.”
“No, he’s not well. I don’t understand. Oh, Mother. Honestly. Where did we go?”
* * *
—
The next day I phoned the Finca and got Ernest on the first ring. We didn’t speak long. International calls were incredibly dear, then—and there was little to say. He was sorry and I was sorry, and we would try to be better for each other when I returned home in January. In the meantime, he would enjoy the boys and I would rest and work on my novel, which I’d brought with me.
“This is a beautiful book you’re writing, and you’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known and I’m going to learn how to do right by you. I haven’t loved you well or strong enough. I see that.”
“And I haven’t loved you well enough either, Rabbit. We can both do better. We have to.”
* * *
—
All this time at sea had been hard on his mistress, Pilar. She needed a new engine and other points of care. While she was laid up in dry dock, I had him back in my arms, but unfortunately that came with a price. His crew came along in the bargain, and all sorts of friends from town who had missed his company all these many months. The house was full to brimming and loud at every hour.
One night, an acquaintance drove his car into a corner of the house and fell on the horn. I ran out in my robe thinking he was dead, but he was only drunk. No one was around, either. They’d all gone to town for a nightcap.
“I can’t work this way,” I told Ernest.
“Maybe you should go to town? To the Ambos. I can make sure they reserve you the best room.”
“I don’t want to live in a hotel. This is my home. But why can’t it be the way it used to be—with peace and quiet? Just us two? What happened to those days?”