“The moral lesson instilled into a young girl is not whether a man has aroused her love, but rather it is, ‘How Much?’ Can a man make a living? Can he support a wife? From the outset her dreams are not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears …”
“Dreams of tears?” said Harry.
“Shh!”
“Instead she dreams of shopping tours and bargain counters.”
“I’m beginning to be sorry I brought you,” said Harry.
“No, no, she’s wonderful, are you listening?”
“I don’t have much choice,” he said. “I’m not Louis.”
“Who’s Louis? Shh!”
“As to marriage being a protection of the woman, the very idea is so revolting, such an outrage, such an insult on life! It reminds me of that other paternal arrangement—capitalism. It robs man of his birthright, stunts his growth, keeps him in poverty and dependence. Both are a travesty on human character!”
“She is making me want to defend capitalism,” Harry whispered. “When is the free love bit coming? I’m getting tired of standing.”
“Love is the strongest and deepest element in all life! The harbinger of hope, of ecstasy, the defier of all laws, of all conventions. Man has conquered nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has subdued bodies, chained the spirit but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, yet he will remain poor and desolate if love passes him by. Love, ladies and gentlemen, has the power to make out of a beggar a king.”
“She’s finally making a little sense,” whispered Harry, leaning closer.
For another hour, maybe three, Emma Goldman railed against the early feminists who were shackled by Puritanism. She was funny, bitter, loud—tremendous. If it hadn’t been for the folly of anarchy, Harry would’ve worn a Goldman pin on his lapel. He had to admit her libertarian principles were at the very least entertaining to listen to.
She talked about freedom for all women, freedom from marriage and children, the right to love whoever the woman chose and whenever; she yelled in protest about secret abortions and the denial of contraception, shouted about the Puritans making single women nuns or sluts, as if there was no in between. Playing to the grim Portsmouth Puritan crowd without humor or imagination, her impassioned speech fell on deaf and disapproving ears. Harry was neither, but he was keenly aware of the laughter and the applause coming from the animated and rejoicing woman to his right. Gina smelled so good, and her radiant face was aglow with the revolution.
After the meeting, they stood around in a crowded, smoke-filled room, while nearby was the beach, sand, ocean water—and privacy! Oh anarchy!
Impatiently Harry rocks from foot to foot. Gina won’t stop talking politics to people she has just met—current events, Boston finances, new developments, possible wars. When did she get so fiery?
He catches her scent again. Her hair twists in the salt air and his heart with it. He wants there to be heat—why can’t today be the kind of day they’ve been having recently, full of glorious warmth? Yet now when he craves the sun, it’s overcast and chilly. The ocean breeze is cool through the finally opened doors, and she is breathtaking, like an open furnace, and the wind from the sea has taken his sails up and away. She doesn’t want to leave the post-lecture party—they are offering wine and cheese and canapés. She is dressed better than anyone else there. Harry has noticed that the anarchists are not particularly well put together—but she stands out in tailored velvet and smelling of vetiver. Is he light-headed because he hasn’t eaten and has had too much wine? He asks her to come for a walk on the beach. She glances outside where there is no burning fire and no red wine and says it looks cold. He gives her his jacket, and finally she leaves with him, but on the beach her hat blows off her head, and he goes chasing it and she laughs. While he is running down the dancing hat, she takes off her shoes and waltzes by herself on the sand.
He comes back to her. Twirling on the sand, she quotes Emma Goldman to him in a song. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” He steps up. Come on, Gia, he says, be in my revolution.
She is barefoot on the sand. Where are her stockings? She hasn’t taken them off; they’re not lying in a heap nearby. When his open palm goes around her waist, he can’t feel her corset, he feels velvet and under it the curve of her natural waist and lower back. Suddenly he has three left feet and, usually such a capable dancer, can’t move backward or forward. She steps on his awkward toes a few times, laughs, and they trip and fall to their knees on the sand.
What’s gotten into you, Harry, she says.
I can’t imagine, he says, his eyes roaming wildly over her flushed and eager face. Both his hands are entwining the narrow space from which her hips begin.
It’s late afternoon on the wide Hampton beach; it’s gray and foggy when he kisses her. He’s never kissed Sicilian lips before, only Bostonian. There is a boiling ocean of contrast between the two. Boston girls were born and raised on soil that was frozen from October to April and breathed through perfectly colored mouths that took in chill winds and fog from the stormy harbor. But his Sicilian queen has roamed the Mediterranean meadows and her abundant lips breathed in fearsome fire from Typhonic volcanoes.
He kisses her as if they are alone at night—as if she is already his. His arms wrap around her back and press her to him. They become suspended, he floats like a phantom around her in the moist air. He won’t let her go, he can’t.
Harry, she whispers into his mouth.
Let’s go, he breathes out, right now, let’s go.
Yes! Let’s go swimming, she says, still in his arms, pulling slightly away to look at him. I haven’t been in the ocean in … she trails off. Harry, I’ve never been in the ocean.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to give her the ocean—he wants to give her everything—he’d like to be there for her first swim in the Atlantic, but how should he politely explain to her that now is not the time?
We didn’t bring any swimming clothes, he mutters lamely, tilted on his axis, unable to tear himself away from her Belpasso lips. His holds her face in his hands. She is like grains of sand already slipping through his fingers.
Come on, we’re alone on the beach, she says, still on her knees. Who in their right mind would be out here in the cold to see us?
Cold? Inside he is combusting—at any moment, lava is going to pour forth from him.
To entice him, as if he needed enticing, seducing, mesmerizing, she opens her radical blouse, unhooks her revolutionary undergarments, and reveals her proletarian body to him. Reveals her neck, her high young breasts, the promise of her bare stomach—jumps up and runs into the water, like a Modigliani nude. He follows faithfully, his empty arms stretching out to her. The icy rolling waves knock her down, he retrieves her, but she is thrilled to have been tossed and squeals with the joy of it, and in the foamy water throws her arms around his neck, presses her naked breasts, her cold dark nipples against his bare chest and kisses him like madness all salty and wet and whispers, Harry, do you have any idea how long I’ve dreamed of this? He is so weakened he is afraid he’ll pass out. A wave comes, knocks them both over, and spares him the indignity. All good sense abandons him, all hope, all reason. This way ruin lies and desire to trump all sanity. Step right up, like a carnival wheel on Revere Beach, and ride that tiger.
She remains in the water longer than his reverie lasts. He has no plan, he has not thought this through, he only knows what must happen next, what is the absolute imperative. How he gets there is immaterial.
Not even the dunes separating them from the distant boardwalk, from the civilized houses, will help them. Harry, she whispers, we’re in a public place … oh now, she whispers. She says this because she finally realizes the looming peril to herself on the sand in the open air under the sky. Yet what Harry sees is an empty beach and a bare, gleaming goddess in broad daylight under his fevered hands.
Harry, God, wait, Harry!
You flaunt the
blaze of yourself in front of me and then you say wait Harry? Harry can’t wait.
In damp clothes haphazardly thrown on their bodies and sand grinding in their shoes and hair, they detach themselves however briefly and stagger out onto the boardwalk almost like any other cultured couple enjoying an afternoon saunter before dinner. Instead of drinks or dinner, he finds them the poshest guesthouse, and she says, no, that is too expensive, and he says, if I could, I would buy you a Medici palace. The Seagate Mews overlooks the sand and the water where he kissed her. Much later from their balcony, they search for the spot on the sand where they had lain.
The proprietor tells them dinner is promptly at seven. Harry asks the woman if they could take dinner up in their room. Is there wine? Is there a bath? Is there wood for the fire? The dinner request, though unorthodox, is reluctantly complied with. Ah, so you’re newlyweds? the dour woman says to them, writing something down in her daybook.
He twitches, paling, not answering, while she giggles, blushing, and answering, yes, how did you guess?
It’s Saturday evening and not even dark out yet, the dinner has not been brought, nor the wine, and their bodies are peppered with sand. They descend onto the rug on the wood floor because he doesn’t want to get the crisp white sheets all gritty. He is thinking ahead. He is on his knees because he is about to worship her, but stops himself because she needs to be on the altar of the raised bed. He gets water and a sponge from the basin and washes the sand from her feet and her fine ankles. You want me to touch your ankle, Gia, he whispers, in memory of the distant quarry, both his hands gripping her ankles. I’ll know if it’s swollen, broken …
Yes, touch me, Harry … nothing is broken.
You want me to wait for you, Gia?
No, carry me, put your hands on me, put your mouth on me, he is already over her, trembling as she trembles, shuddering as she shudders. He is on his knees and she is his bride on the crisp white linen.
Have you got nothing to say? He whispers, knowing he himself is without words. He cannot believe what has happened, what is happening.
What took you so long.
So long? He runs his fingers down the length of her naked body. We barely just met. He heaves himself over her and kisses the underside of her breasts. He puts her nipples into his mouth to hear her moan, and closes his eyes, his mouth pressing into her heart.
We met six years ago, she whispers.
That doesn’t count.
Doesn’t it?
Does it?
He glances up to gape at her, but his vision is blurred and he feels unsteady like a man who just learned to walk, to breathe, to see—a man who’s come out of a coma and is weak in his whole being.
Why didn’t you come to me back then? she whispers almost in a cry. Didn’t you know how much I wanted you?
Tell me how much you want me now.
She doesn’t tell him. She climbs over him and shows him.
I didn’t come to you then, he says when he can speak again, because I didn’t want to lose my life.
Oh, you know Salvo is all talk.
That’s not what he means, but he doesn’t explain. As if he can.
Besides you know how my friend Ben felt about you, feels about you still for all I know, though we never talk of it. There was nothing I could do.
But you wanted to.
I wouldn’t let myself even want to. He takes her hands, caresses them and kisses her fingers.
But you wanted to.
I admit to nothing. He kisses her palms. These hands had made him something long ago that he treasures more than any other possession he has. He won’t even wear it, because he’s afraid the scarlet threads will unravel. He keeps it wrapped in tissue, in a box in his room, and only takes it out when he wants to remember what can’t be remembered. Someday he might tell her how he adored the roughened hands that could make something so beautiful. She won’t understand because what he values she throws away. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, he whispers, and she applauds him for quoting Jesus. He didn’t know he was.
Dov’è il tuo tesoro, sarà anche il tuo cuore, she murmurs in Italian, an aphrodisiac even stronger than anarchy.
Still astride him, she rubs her salty perspiring body over him, she caresses him with herself from his feet to his open and famished mouth.
I’ve lost the power of misery, he whispers to her. I’m parched into silence. I’ve lost the power of thought.
The moon is still full. We have time. We have nothing but time. She says this and then the sun rises over the ocean. Just like that, the night that had no end ends.
But if it wasn’t for your friend or your life or me so young, what then?
You mean if all circumstances were completely different? And if you weren’t so beautiful and Italian, if your breasts weren’t lush and your hips didn’t sway into my heart …
Is that where my hips sway? Your heart?
She paralyzes him with love. He wants to ask if he is her first, but the truth of it is, he feels like she is his. He can’t believe the bounty that life has blessed him with for one briefest night.
He is helpless. He doesn’t know what to do.
That boy who follows you around, Archer, what do you plan to do with him?
I’m not with Archer. I’m with you.
Tonight, yes. What about when I leave you?
Don’t leave me.
Eventually I have to go.
Don’t go. She lowers her face into his neck, her cocoa hair falling onto his chest. Now released from its refined shackles, the soft, messy curls tumble down her shoulders, onto his chest and stomach and face. His hands are in it. He’s never seen hair like this before, so long, so wavy, so exotic. He’s never seen anything like her before.
There is a fireplace in the room. He throws kindling on it, a log, keeps it going through the cold morning. He pulls the thick eiderdown onto the floor and lays her down on it, covering her with himself to keep her warm while she scorches him with her body.
Sunday morning becomes Sunday afternoon.
I am bone of your bones, she whispers to him, I am flesh of your flesh.
At his distant house, a universe away, down the coast, his family is gathering for Sunday lunch. Orville and Irma are bringing Orville’s brother, invalided after a logging accident. Ellen said she might bring her sister Effie who is feeling a little better.
Harry has to go home. That’s what he tells Gina, still naked, still in bed. Sunday lunch when everyone’s gathering is sacrosanct. She is puzzled. He can’t say, if I don’t show up, they’ll know something is wrong. I won’t be able to explain. I’ve never not been there. He can’t tell Gina about the Porters of Boston.
They dragged their drained, reluctant bodies out. The day was gray, and the ocean waves broke downcast over the sand. It threatened rain.
“Whenever momentous things happen,” she said, “the day is always like this. It’s never a sunny day with the horizons clear in every direction. When I came to America through Boston Harbor, it was like this—and now today.”
“That’s a small sample,” he said, putting on his tie. “Only two.” He wished he could speak more plainly to her. He had wanted to talk to her during the night, but no speech had been possible. Speech was a controlled thing. Talk was what you did on the green lawn at the Barrington homestead. Talk was not possible with the windows open and the blue moon shining and her moans muffling into his naked collarbone.
They had a little balcony, all white, where they stepped out into the cold covered by a large woolen blanket, to get some fresh air because they were burning up and couldn’t breathe. He wanted to ask her things then, he wanted concrete answers to his vague questions, he wanted affirmation of the undeniable; in the end he stayed mute because that’s what was possible. He wanted to tell her he hadn’t read enough poetry about love to understand what was happening to him.
But it wasn’t just about love. It was a shifting of the sands under his feet. It wa
s a crumbling of the concrete on which he had built his life.
He had to stop the car somewhere around Newburyport, where the Merrimack River emptied out. He took her hands in his. “I don’t want to go home,” he said, lowering his entire face into the palms on her lap.
“I know,” she said, stroking his head, bending over to kiss him. “Nor do I. My place is with you.”
“You think so?”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“What about the vultures that surround you?”
“I don’t like that image,” she said. “I know you’re trying to insult them, but in the process you’re insulting me. What do vultures surround? Carrion.”
He was shamed by an immigrant for whom English was a second language.
“You are right. I’m sorry.” He wanted to ask her if what he had suspected was true. Did she remember her girlish crush on him when she first came to Boston? He was afraid to ask; he wanted the illusion to continue.
She had said something to him in the night—or was it a dream, a fervent prayer? He thought he heard her say, “In the beginning there was you. It’s all there is.” He didn’t ask her. What if he misheard, and she was forced to lie, to please him?
He had wanted to ask her if she had had other boyfriends. She seemed so self-assured. Is that what he was, a boyfriend? And Archer too? Though she had cried with him last night, he didn’t think it was from discomfort. If he weren’t a man, he would’ve cried.
Is there anything you want to tell me? he had said.
Is there anything you want to tell me?
He paused, observing her scrutinizing him, her chocolate eyes open, focused, her mouth slightly parted, barely breathing, trying to catch his next words, as if waiting for him to say what couldn’t be said, tell her of things that couldn’t be told. He said nothing. It would’ve ruined everything, and he wanted only to be ruined.
I love it when you press my face between your breasts, he whispered instead, willingly lost in the moment of other inexpressible things. I love your long legs. He showed her why. Because she wrapped them around him, pressing him to herself, like a bow on a gift, you’re mine, her legs murmured, smooth, silken, tanned. I’ve tied you up with a ribbon inside myself, only I can unwrap you, her bare clutching legs murmured, and I won’t unwrap you until I say you can go. Not yet. Not ever.