Read The Weight of Water Page 16


  “Please go now,” I repeated.

  He got up slowly from his chair, but in doing so, arranged himself so that he was standing even closer to me than he had been before. I did not like actually to back away from him, and besides, I would have had to press against the stove, which I could not do for fear of burning myself, and so it was that he reached out and put his fingers to my cheek, very gently, and to my everlasting shame, unbidden tears sprang quite suddenly to my eyes, tears so numerous that I was unable to hide them.

  “Mrs. Hontvedt,” he said in an astonished voice.

  I reached up and tore his hand away from my cheek. There was no reply I could have made to him that even I myself could have understood, and as I did not think that he would leave the room, I grabbed my cloak from the hook and ran from the cottage altogether.

  Once begun, the tears would not stop, and so I walked nearly blindly to the end of the island and put my hands into fists and shook them angrily at the sea.

  I did not tell my husband of Louis Wagner’s visit to me, as, in truth, there was not much to tell, but John shortly could see for himself that his boarder was improving in strength. I never did, after that first morning, invite Wagner into my apartment when I was alone, but I saw him often enough, as I continued to nurse him, and then later, morning and evening, when he took his meals with us. Indeed, after he was fully recovered, Wagner took to sitting by the stove in the evenings, so that there would be Wagner and myself and John and Matthew, and sometimes the men would talk, but most often, they would smoke in silence. I am happy to report that I never again lost my composure with Louis Wagner, although I must say he continued to place me under his scrutiny, and if he no longer dared to tease me with words, I did think, from time to time, that he mocked me with his eyes.

  There was only one other occasion when I was seriously to wonder at Louis Wagner’s intentions and, indeed, his sanity. On a late summer afternoon, while Louis was still recuperating, I heard through the wall that separated our apartment from his room the most dreadful banging about and muttering, and I suddenly became extremely frightened.

  “Louis?” I called, and then again, “Louis?”

  But I had no reply, and still the commotion in the next room continued. Quite concerned, I ran outside the house and looked in at the window of our boarder’s room, which, I am sorry to say, I had not yet adorned with curtains. There I saw a most astounding sight. Louis Wagner, in a fit of uncommon distress, was thrashing and flailing about, upturning objects on the shelf, creating a chaos with the bedclothes, and all the time expressing a terrible rage on his face and in a series of unintelligible sounds. I was too terrified to call to him lest he turn his fury on me, but I was also apprehensive for his own well-being. And then, seemingly as suddenly as he had begun, Louis Wagner stopped his wild behavior and flopped himself back upon his bed and began that sort of hysterical laughing that is accompanied by tears, and after a time, he threw his arm across his eyes, and I think he fell asleep. Reassured that his fit, whatever its origin, had ended, I went back to my kitchen and pondered this unusual and unnatural outburst.

  Gradually, as I have said, Louis Wagner recovered his health and was able to return to work for John. Several times, after Louis was up and about, John went, as accustomed, to fetch Karen from Appledore, and on these occasions, which were always on Sunday afternoons, Louis would be dressed in his best shirt, and I must say, that when his hair was washed and combed, he made a rather fine appearance. Karen, perhaps thinking that Wagner might be a possible suitor, was considerably warmer with him than she was with me, and I observed that her melancholy seemed to leave her altogether. She made some effort to fix her face, but this effort was largely unsuccessful in the way that trying to reshape a molded bit of rubber will be a futile enterprise, as the elasticity of the rubber itself will cause the object immediately to resume its original shape. One time Karen actually said to me that she thought Louis Wagner a handsome man and that he seemed to be favoring her with some attention, but as I had actually been there on every occasion they had been together, and had observed Wagner’s demeanor toward my sister, which was cordial, but not overly so, I privately thought that Karen must be in the thrall of those peculiar fantasies that visit spinsters in their desperation.

  On one such Sunday afternoon as I am describing, Karen came into our house with John. It was, I believe, early in September, and the weather was mild, but quite dreary, as the sun hadn’t broken through the cloud in several days. Everything on the island that day was covered with a fine mist, and I fancied I could see the dew on John’s hair as well when he brought my sister to us.

  But my attention was most drawn to the expression on Karen’s face, which seemed a mixture of secret confidence and of pleasure, and was so fixed upon me that I could not turn away from her. She came directly toward me and smiled, and I was quite at a loss as to what she meant to convey to me, and when I asked her outright what seemed to be pleasing her so, she said only that I must be patient, and that perhaps I would find out in good time. Her withholding of her secret made me, I confess, cross with her, and I vowed to put my sister and her machinations out of my mind, but so determined was Karen to whet my curiosity that it was nearly impossible to turn away from her or to avoid her glance. She then proceeded to preside, in her rather silly fashion, over the entire Sunday dinner, speaking of the personages who had been to visit Celia Thaxter, who was Eliza Laighton’s mother and a poetess of some repute, of the work on the Jacob Poor Hotel, and of a small altercation she herself had had with her employer, and, in short, speaking of nearly everything but the one thing she wished me to know.

  As I am not possessed of extraordinary reserves of patience, and as she meant to keep me guessing an entire week more by not revealing anything else that afternoon, I found that I could not hold my tongue when she was preparing to leave and was putting on her cloak.

  “Tell me what your secret is, Karen, or I shall die of curiosity/’ I said, knowing that this was precisely the begging sentence my sister had wanted to hear from me.

  “Oh, it is nothing, Maren,” she said airily. “Simply that I have had a letter from Evan.”

  “Evan,” I said, catching my breath. “And did you bring this letter with you?”

  “I am so sorry, Maren, but I have forgotten it, and have left it back in my room.”

  “Then tell me what Evan has written to you.”

  She looked at me and smiled in a condescending manner. “Only that he is coming in October.”

  “Evan?”

  “He is sailing in two weeks and will be here toward the middle of the month. He says he wishes to stay with you and John, here on Smutty Nose, for a time until he can settle himself.”

  Evan! Coming to America! I confess I must have betrayed my excitement by clutching John by the arm. “Do you hear Karen?” I asked. “Evan will be coming. And in only a month’s time.” I bent and picked up my dog, Ringe, who, having sensed a mood of enthusiasm in the room, was leaping about wildly.

  I may truly say here that the next weeks were the most pleasant I ever had on Smutty Nose. Even Karen I was able to tolerate with some equanimity, though, irritatingly, she forgot each week to bring Evan’s letter to me. I doubt I have ever been as industrious as I was in those early autumn days, scrubbing the upstairs bedroom clean, making curtains and a floorcloth, and as the time grew closer for Evan’s arrival, baking many of the delicacies I knew he loved in Norway and probably thought never to have again: the rommegot, the krumcake, and the skillingsbolle. John, I believe, was quite happy to see me so content and purposeful, and I think he did not mind at all that soon we would have another mouth to feed. If the thought of my brother’s arrival could cause such happiness in his wife, a happiness that was infectious and conveyed itself to all, so that there was on Smutty Nose an atmosphere of the greatest gaiety and anticipation, then my husband would accept its cause gladly. Even the weather seemed to cooperate, bestowing upon us a succession of clear days with a live
ly but manageable sea, so that just to walk outside that cottage and breathe in the air seemed nearly intoxicating.

  Because I had taken on so many projects and had so little time in which to accomplish them, I was quite beside myself on the last day of all, and most eager to finish the floorcloth for the room that we had made up for him, so that while I might have been watching all day from the window for the first sight of Evan in the schooner and then on the dory, I was instead on my knees. Thus it was that I did not even know of my brother’s arrival on Smutty Nose until I heard my husband halloo from the beach.

  Actually, it was quite an evil day, with a gale from the northeast sweeping across the island so that one had to bend nearly double to make any progress. Nevertheless, I ran from the cottage down to the beach. I saw a knot of people, and in this knot, a glint of silvery-blond hair.

  “Evan!” I cried, running to greet him. I went directly to my brother, seeing his face clearly in what was otherwise a blur of persons and of landscape, and with my arms caught him round the neck. I bent his head down toward me and pressed his face to my own. Evan raised an arm and shouted loudly, “Halloo to America!” and everyone about us laughed. I saw that John was standing just behind Evan, and that John was smiling broadly, as I believe he truly loved me and was glad of my good fortune.

  And so it was that in the midst of these giddy salutations, my arms still clutched to my brother, I slowly turned my head and my eyes rested upon an unfamiliar face. It was the face of a woman, quite a beautiful woman, clear of complexion and green-eyed. Her hair was thick and not the silvery blond of my brother, but a color that seemed warmed by the sun, and I remember thinking how odd it was that she had not worn it pinned up upon her head, particularly as it was blowing in a wild manner all about her person, so that she, from time to time, had to clutch at it in order to see anything at all. Her face was lovely, and her skin shone, even in the dull light of the cloud. Gradually my brother loosened himself from my embrace and introduced me.

  “This is Anethe,” he said. “This is my wife, Anethe.”

  I SIT IN the foundation of the house an unreasonably long time, using up the precious minutes I have left in which to finish the assignment. When I stand up, my legs are stiff, and I am still shivering badly. I cannot take off my wet sweatshirt, since I have no other clothes with me, and I don’t think there are any in the Zodiac. I gather my cameras together and begin to shoot, in the flat light, the detail shots I have described to Rich. I move methodically about the island, hunching into the wind when I am not actually shooting. I take pictures of the graves of the Spanish sailors, the ground on which the Mid-Ocean Hotel once stood, the door of the Haley house. I use six rolls of Velvia 2 20. I shoot with a tripod and a macro lens. I don’t know exactly how much time elapses, but I am anticipating Rich’s impatience when I round the island and return to the beach. So I am surprised when he isn’t there.

  I sit down on the sand and try to shield my legs with my arms. When that proves unsatisfactory, I roll over onto my stomach. The sand, I discover, has held the sun’s warmth, and it feels good against my bare legs, even through the cotton of my shorts and sweatshirt. I take off my glasses and set them aside. Like a small sea creature, I try to burrow deeper into the sand, shielding my face with the sides of my hands. I find that by doing this, and by breathing evenly, I can almost control the shivering.

  I do not hear Rich as he approaches. The first indication I have that he is near me is a thin trickle of sand, as from a sand timer, from my ankle to my knee and along the back of my thigh. First one leg, and then another.

  When I do not turn over or respond, I feel the slight pressure of fingers on my back. He kneels in the sand beside me.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  “You’re soaked.”

  I don’t answer.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  I have sand on my forehead. I turn my head slightly, away from him. I can see the oily wet on the small dark rocks of the beach, a crab at eye level scurrying along the crusty surface and then disappearing into a hole. There is a constant susurrus of the wind, fainter on the ground, but ceaseless still. I think that if I had to live on the island, I would go mad from the wind.

  Rich begins to rub my back to warm me, to stop the shivering. “Let me get you into the dinghy. And onto the boat. You need a hot shower.”

  “I can’t move.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “I don’t want to move.”

  I am thinking that this is true. I do not ever want to move again. I do not want to go back to the boat, to look at the faces of Thomas and Adaline, to wonder what they have been doing, or not doing, what has been said between them. What lines of poetry might have been quoted. Or not quoted. I know that Bil-lie is on the boat, and that because of her I will have to go back, will shortly want to go back. I will have to participate in the sail to Portsmouth or to Annisquam or find a way to survive another night in the harbor. I understand that I will have to be a participant on this cruise — a cruise for which I am responsible. I know that I will have to repack the cameras, finish the log, go home and develop the film, and hope that I have something to send into the magazine. I know that I will have to return to our house in Cambridge, that Thomas and I will go on in our marriage, as we have, in our way, and that I will continue to love him.

  At this moment, it doesn’t seem possible that I am capable of any of it.

  I want only to dig into the sand, to feel the sand around me for warmth, to be left alone.

  “You’re crying,” Rich says.

  “No, I’m not.”

  I sit up and wipe my nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. The entire front of my body is coated with a thin layer of sand. There is sand in my hair, on my upper lip. I wrap my arms around my legs as tightly as I can. Without my glasses I cannot see the sloop or anyone on it. Even the Zodiac, only twenty feet away, is an orange blur. A shape I take to be a gull swoops down upon the beach and lurches along the pebbles. There is comfort in not being able to see the shapes of things, the details.

  I bury my face in my knees. I lick my upper lip with my tongue and bring the sand into my mouth. Rich puts his hand at the back of my neck, the way you do with a child when the child is being sick to her stomach. His hand is warm.

  It seems to me that we remain in that position, neither of us speaking or moving, for an unreasonably long time.

  Finally I sit back and look at my brother-in-law. I can see him clearly, but not much beyond. He seems puzzled, as though he is not entirely sure what is going to happen next.

  “Do you remember the wedding?” I ask.

  He removes his hand from my neck with what I sense as a complicated mixture of regret and relief. “Of course I remember the wedding.”

  “You were only twenty-two.”

  “You were only twenty-four.”

  “You wouldn’t wear a suit, and you had a pony tail. You wouldn’t kiss me after the wedding, and I thought it was because you were cross that you’d been asked to wear a suit.”

  “You had on a black dress. I remember thinking it was a great thing to wear to your own wedding. You had no jewelry. He didn’t give you a ring.”

  “He didn’t believe in that sort of thing,” I say.

  “Still.”

  “You and I went swimming that morning.”

  “With Dad. Thomas stayed home and worked. On his wedding day.”

  “It’s his way… .”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I thought at the time that Thomas was making an extraordinary commitment in marrying me. That it was almost brutally hard for him to do.”

  “My parents were thrilled.”

  “Thrilled?”

  “That he’d got you. You were so solid.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, I mean you were rooted, grounded. They were tremendously relieved he had found you.”

  “I wasn’t going to cause him any trouble.”
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  “You weren’t going to let him cause trouble to himself.”

  “No one can prevent that.”

  “You’ve tried.”

  “Thomas isn’t doing well,” I say.

  “You’re not doing well.”

  “We’re not doing well.”

  I shake my head and stretch my legs out in front of me. “Rich, I swear I think marriage is the most mysterious covenant in the universe. I’m convinced that no two are alike. More than that, I’m convinced that no marriage is like it was just the day before. Time is the significant dimension — even more significant than love. You can’t ask a person what his marriage is like because it will be a different marriage tomorrow. We go in waves.”

  “You and Thomas.”

  “We have periods when I think our coming together was a kind of accident, that we’re wedded because of a string of facts. And then, maybe the next day, or even that night, Thomas and I will be so close I won’t be able to remember the words to a fight we had two hours earlier. The fact of the fight, the concept of an accident, will be gone — it won’t even seem plausible. You called him Tom.”

  “Earlier. I did. I don’t know why.”

  I look up toward the sloop I cannot see. My horizon of beach and rocks and water is a dull watercolor blur.

  “What do you think is going on out there?” I ask.

  Rich turns away from me. “Jean, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “It’s painful to watch.”

  I stand up abruptly and walk away from the water. I walk fast, meaning to shake Rich, to shake them all. I want refuge — from the cold, from the island, most of all from the sight of the sloop in the harbor. I walk toward the Hontvedt house. From where I have so recently come.

  But Rich is right behind me. He follows me over the rocks, through the thick brush. When I stop, he stands beside me.

  “This is where the women were murdered,” I say quickly. Jean.

  “It’s so small. They lived here in the winter. I don’t know how they did it. I look at this island, and I try to imagine it. The confinement, the claustrophobia. I keep trying to imagine the murders.”