Bright Flows the River

  “And me,” she laughed. “Oh, don’t apologize. Everybody to his own life. I just ask that the damned government won’t hound me too much, and let me alone. My life is mine—yours is yours. There’s no quarrel.”

  (“It’s your life, kiddo,” Tom had said.)

  “He didn’t have any ambition,” said Guy.

  “I don’t either, Mr. Jerald. All I want is to be let alone to live my life as I want to live it.”

  “My father had a lot of books.”

  “So do I.”

  Guy smiled. “My father would have loved you, Mrs. Turner.”

  “And I’d have loved him, I’m sure. I bet he had a low opinion of government, too, as any intelligent man would have.”

  “He did, indeed. If any bureaucrat had come to ‘advise’ him, he’d have kicked the damned fool off his land, or probably have shot him.”

  “Good,” said Beth. “I feel that way often. When I was a teacher the bureaucrats on the local school board yammered at me all the time, in the name of the sacred children, whom they were trying to straitjacket into conformity. It’s an old story of tyranny, isn’t it? When I refused to ‘cooperate’ and sing the joys of Socialism to my children, I was fired as being ‘incompetent.’ But my kids learned to read and write and no nonsense. I refused to teach social studies, too. I taught my kids history, not a pack of social-consciousness lies and hypocrisies. Yes, I’d like to have known your father.”

  “But wouldn’t you like to have more money?”

  She showed open surprise. “What for? As I said, I have all I need now. I’m not interested in clothes and hairdressers and jewelry or clubs.”

  Guy thought of his wife. “Don’t you do any volunteer work?”

  “Why, no. Why can’t we let people alone, to live their own lives? To live as I do is rugged at times. But at least it isn’t wasted time.”

  “My wife,” he said, “is on hospital committees, and does a lot of work raising funds.”

  “Poor thing,” said Beth. “Yes, I’ve read about her in the papers, too.”

  “She would call you selfish.”

  Beth shrugged. “Because I mind my own business? What a horrible world it’s becoming. Everybody sniffing in everybody else’s pots. Scratching each other for social fleas, like the so-called lesser primates. Everybody doing ‘good,’ when the best thing you can do for others is not doing ‘good’ for them, but attending to your own garden.”

  Guy was becoming more and more at ease. “I often think of what Mark Twain said: Are we going to continue imposing our alleged superior ways of living on ‘those who dwell in darkness, or are we going to give the poor things a rest?’”

  He added, abruptly, and without a formed reason, “I was very poor at one time.”

  “So was I,” said Beth. “But what does that matter?”

  “The degradation and humiliation of poverty,” he said, as if quoting.

  “Who says it is degrading and humiliating? I never felt that way. I don’t feel that way now, and God knows, I have very little, but that little is the whole world to me. Degradation, humiliation: They are artificial concepts. They are taught falsehoods.”

  The sun was suddenly dimmed as a cloud passed before it, and there was a far rumor of thunder. Beth studied the Sky critically. “It’s going to rain. I hope so. We need it.”

  He stood up. “Now, Mrs. Turner. All we want is about forty feet of your land, where all those trees are, for an easement to the main road, for the children to reach their school buses faster. As you know, I already own that tract of land—fifty acres—adjoining yours—for my new development. We’ll have two roads to the main road, but we need yours, as I said, so the youngsters won’t have to walk so far from the development to the school buses.”

  “They’d have to walk four hundred yards!” said Beth, with scorn. “Imagine that. Four hundred great big long yards! Too bad for them. Why can’t they walk, as I did—and probably you did? Why should things be made so easy for the frail creatures?” She pointed to the great oaks and maples on her land. “And kill those trees—for the holy children? No, indeed. What’s the matter with their damned legs?”

  “I bet you weren’t popular with mothers,” said Guy, and he chuckled. “But seriously, Mrs. Turner—”

  “No, I’ll sell you ten feet of my land, as I told your men, but that won’t be wide enough for their mothers’ station wagons, if the weather is bad and the Loved Ones might get rain or snow on them. My God, what a people we’ve become! And you won’t be able to buy part of the adjoining land beside mine. My friends who live on that farm there are already upset about your development and the crowding it will make, and the ruin of the land with your houses and condominiums. They aren’t rich people; just hard-working, self-respecting. They know taxes will be raised on their land for new sewers and so on, and because the alleged ‘value’ of their land will be increased. I’ve already talked to them. They won’t sell—if I won’t sell. I’m not one of those ecology fiends, but my trees are not going to be killed.”

  “I could get an easement—”

  “With two new roads from the development to the main road? No chance, sir, no chance. Your land isn’t landlocked. There are already two dirt roads on your property, and you plan two more. That’s enough. Four roads leading to the main one, for a rather small development. You don’t need another, you don’t need an easement. Have you talked to my neighbors?”

  “Yes. They’re as stubborn as you.” He smiled at her. He could smell the scent of her flesh, warm, clean, fragrant with earth. He studied her again, her tall body, her full breast, her long legs, slender in their trousers, her little backside. Again the tension ran between them, quicker now, more imminent.

  It was growing darker; the breeze freshened to a wind; lightning flashed. Guy stood up. “I want you to think about it,” he said.

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking, and the answer is no, no, no.” There was a spatter of rain. “Let’s go in my house. I’ll make you some coffee, and I have a pitcher of lemonade, too, and I baked a cake this morning.”

  He wanted to leave—yet he did not want to leave. He told himself that he had met as obstinate people before, and had always persuaded them. She picked up her cigarettes and matches and, as she bent, the neck of her shirt divided and he saw part of her smooth white breast, unconfined. He followed her into the house. “Excuse me for a minute or two,” she said. “I’m pretty filthy and besides I don’t wear pants in the house. It’s indecent, for a woman.” She whistled for the dog and he rushed in and she closed the door after him. “You old fool, Joe,” she said. “We’ve got company. Amuse the gentleman for a few minutes. Show him your tricks.” She went away quickly, whistling something indeterminate. It was a happy sound, gay, and he thought, a little ribald, and more than a trifle brave.

  Guy looked about him. It was a big light room with pale green walls, and very orderly. The chairs and deep sofa were upholstered in flower-printed chintz, the rug was dark green and inexpensive, the tables round and covered with tablecloths exactly the color and design as the other furniture. There were simple glass lamps here with white shades, and there was an enormous fireplace filled with logs, with a carpet of ashes under them, and old steel tools against the wall. One wall held nothing but books, and they gave a quiet sentence to the room. Here was repose and no frivolity, few ornaments and those of brass, and it was all color and serenity. Guy moved to the books and examined them; many were very old, and bound in leather. Some were in French, some in German. They were classics, even the modern ones. Guy could see Beth Turner here, in the winter, with the fire rumbling in the chimney and the sparks leaping, with a book in her hands. The dog watched him, his tail gently moving, as if he understood.

  He picked up a book at random.

  He had seen a copy of this book in his father’s house, all heavily bracketed, as this was, about particularly pungent quotations. (Where were his father’s books now?) Apparently Mrs. Turner had the same philosophy of
life as had Tom Jerald, and Guy smiled wryly at some of the more emphatic remarks in the margins. Montaigne: He had been an especial favorite of Tom’s: “With the tenderness of a mother Nature has provided that our necessary actions should be pleasant. She invites us to use them not only by reason but also by appetite, and it is ingratitude to break her laws. When I see Caesar and Alexander in the thick of their mighty business, enjoy to the full all the bodily pleasures—which are as necessary and proper as they are natural—I do not hold that they have demeaned their souls. No, they have exalted them by subjecting their high powers to the ordinary uses of life.”

  Guy thought: When have I really enjoyed “the ordinary uses of life,” or, in fact, when did I last enjoy myself, if ever? When I was a youth? Perhaps—a few times, but always with that stringency my mother taught me, always with that mean sense of guilt, always with the degrading semi-thought that I was wasting time, or money.

  He was shocked at his own thoughts, his own conscious bitterness. He felt he had betrayed—what? The Protestant ethic of endless work without joy, just for the sake of work? He turned a page and saw another bracketed quotation, this time by “Anon.”: “Sex is not only the vital life force which rules the world, but it is also responsible for the greater part of all worthwhile art, music, drama, and literature. Yet it is considered vile, ignoble, or ridiculous. How silly.”

  I never found it joyous or inspirational, Guy said to himself. My father did. My encounters with women were only to satisfy an animal imperative, like thirst or hunger or sleep. It was done without gaiety or happiness or laughter or tenderness or love, and always, again, with that base guilt which I acquired at dear Mama’s knee. Yet the old boys in the Old Testament, as my father pointed out to me, loved lustily and with delight and celebration, whether with concubines or their numerous wives. My father used to quote Haskin: “Do not dwell on your sins. David killed Uriah the Hittite for the sake of stealing his wife, had King Solomon by her, and everything went well.”

  Again he had a mean thought: Was Beth Turner happily available to any man, did she have a present lover? Was she promiscuous? He became ashamed and angry with himself. Of what importance was it to him? Was it his affair? She was a mature woman who lived her own life. Why, then, this sudden vexed inner contraction of his concerning a woman he had not known two hours ago? With more energy than was needed, he pushed the book back into its place and gloomily lit a cigarette. The storm was becoming stronger; the room was darkening very swiftly, so that all the colors blended together in a dim twilight.

  He stared at the many books grimly. He thought of the books in his own library. Yes, sometimes he read them, but he really retreated to the library to avoid Lucy and her friends and relatives, as he had earlier retreated to avoid his noisy and exigent children. Perhaps I should start to read again, he thought, to enjoy reading as I once did, to laugh with the authors and to think with them. Not just as an escape but as an exercise in living.

  He heard the growling of thunder, the slash of rain at the windows, the drumlike roar of the wind in the chimney. He saw the lightning, scarlet and dangerous. Then a lamp was suddenly lighted and he turned to see Beth Turner in the room. She had discarded her gardening clothes and was dressed in a thin white frock and her plain face gleamed with cleanliness. The red hair had been combed and wound into a tidy knot on the top of her head; the freckles were very prominent on her wide cheekbones. She said, “I’m only afraid of one thing, lightning. I’ve seen what it could do to trees and animals in the open.”

  He heard himself saying, and with what he thought was banality, “I thought nothing could ever frighten you.”

  She smiled, and again she had that fugitive beauty he had seen before in her garden. “How could you know, Mr. Jerald? Coming down to it, I’m really afraid of a number of things, mostly people. That’s why I’m so happy here, when I don’t see anyone for days except for the postman, sometimes, and the boy who helps me on the farm with the milking and other chores.”

  He misunderstood her. He said, “Perhaps you have reason to be afraid of people, living isolated here alone, with all this crime.”

  She shook her head and advanced into the room, though once she slightly cringed at a particularly vivid flash of lightning. “I’m not afraid of crime. I’m well armed, and I’d shoot to kill any intruder. I do mean that. Human life is sacred when people make it so, and it isn’t sacred for the criminal. What I meant by being afraid of people is that I’m afraid of their malice, cruelty, viciousness, and, above all, by their monkey curiosity, their meanness, their greed, their willingness to betray a friend if it means some advantage for them, some nasty gratification. That’s why I stay far away from others. The only thing I demand of them is that they mind their own business, and let me alone to attend to mine.”

  She stood near him, faintly smiling, her head cocked quizzically, and he thought again that she was too thin, too tall, for his taste, a little too angular, except for that plentiful breast. He found himself staring at it. The white cotton frock was cheap and without style. Yet she gave it a sort of flair, perhaps of innocence, perhaps of nonchalance. He looked at her eyes. She was still smiling, yet those eyes were grave and thoughtful.

  “What would you like, Mr. Jerald? Coffee? Lemonade? Milk? Or, I have some whiskey, Bourbon.”

  He glanced automatically at his watch, and she laughed and he felt embarrassed and annoyed. “If you’re in a hurry,” she said, “please don’t let me keep you from walking back to the road in this downpour. I know you must be very busy.” The last word had a faintly amused irony in it, and he decided that she was a woman easy to dislike.

  “I do have an appointment at six,” he” said, and he heard the stiffness in his own voice.

  “I could drive you to the road to your car. Down the path.”

  He hesitated, then made himself smile. “We haven’t settled about the easement.”

  “Oh, but we have. The answer is still: only ten feet.”

  He sat down very deliberately in a chair and regarded her closely. “I think I’d like that Bourbon, Mrs. Turner.”

  “Good,” she said. “Ice and water?”

  “Just water, thanks.” He saw her leave the room. She really had no backside, or very little, and her waist was slender and long and she moved quickly, like a young girl, her legs very slender yet graceful. Not to his taste at all. He asked only one thing of a woman, that she be complaisant and simply female, and not disturbing or distracting. Beth Turner disturbed him, and he felt irascible towards her. A door opened somewhere and he could smell something very delicious being cooked in the kitchen, something, he was surprised to know, that was not ordinary but tinged with wine and brandy and herbs. Women, solitary, did not cook so for themselves alone. Was she expecting a lover? Shut up, he said to himself.

  Beth returned with two plain glasses half filled with whiskey, and two more glasses filled with water. She gave him a glass mechanically; she seemed abstracted and suddenly withdrawn. “Cheers,” she said, and sat down at a distance. “That damned storm,” she added. “It’ll be over soon, though, like all summer storms.”

  The storm, to Guy, seemed too enthusiastic in its persistence and violence, and the windows were quite dark. He said, “You’re cooking a very sophisticated dinner. I can smell it.”

  “I’m very fond of good food, Mr. Jerald, and cooking is one of my hobbies. It’s only one of my own hams, with wine and cognac and some herbs I grow myself, and raisins and cloves. And yams basted in maple syrup.” She hesitated; he knew she was thinking of inviting him to dinner, and he wondered why. But he was pleased. Then apparently she decided against it. She leaned back in her wing chair. They sipped their drinks together in a silence he suddenly found warm and comforting. So—she was not expecting a lover at all. He did not know why he should be relieved. They listened to the storm; it made the lamp-lighted room a refuge, a safe place, protected and calm in the midst of turmoil. When had he felt this about his own house? His house was beau
tifully furnished and very elegant, and it was usually full of guests and relatives. Yet—it was empty, as this solitary house was not empty. Here, strangely, there was an immanence, as of friends, as of laughter and joy, as his father’s house had been. He had forgotten. There was no peace in his house, in spite of the large rooms. Because there is no peace in me, he said to himself, and was shaken. It was not that Lucy was demanding, except when it came to her children and money. It was that—she was not really present, Lucy, because she had no presence, no absolute verity, no passion.

  Again, he found himself studying Beth. Here was a very passionate woman, in the full sense of the word, a woman who enjoyed all her senses, an intelligent woman with no pretenses, no illusions, no artifices, no postures. She also had the assurance of deep wisdom, of acceptance, of understanding, of innate merriment, and, too, of gravity.

  “Have you many relatives, Mrs. Turner?”

  “No. No one. A cousin or two, in Wisconsin—I don’t know just where. My mother died when I was in my twenties—cancer.” Now those tawny eyes darkened with pain.

  “Cancer,” he said. “My father died of it. He was a brave man; he wouldn’t accept operations or opiates for his pain. He wanted to die on his feet, as he said, and he almost literally did that. He didn’t go to bed, except at night, and on the day he died.” He added, again with an impulsiveness now alien to him, “You’d have liked my father.”

  “Yes,” she said, gently. “I know I would have. I feel I already know him. You—loved him very much, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Well. We had our differences. We understood each other completely, until I was in my twenties. Finally, I didn’t understand him, or I resisted him. But he understood me.” His face became taut. What the hell am I jabbering about to this strange peculiar woman? he asked of himself. I’m not like this, not any longer. The house was suddenly shaken by an enormous bang of thunder and the lamps flickered. But here it was—secure?

  “My father,” Beth said, “decided to live his own life—and he went away and left us. It wasn’t his fault. My mother didn’t want to join him, and I was very young and I stayed with her. My father made a lot of money—in the way he wanted to make it. Sort of inadvertently.” She laughed, and he was entranced by her laughter, for it was free, with no giggling undertone to it. He still disliked her, was somewhat repelled by her, he told himself. And yet—?