In her room, Helen without ceremony shed her clothes, leaving them on the floor in a single heap, and threw herself down naked on the bed. The intimacy pleased her, he knew: to be able to bare herself without reflection or fear of his scrutiny under the strong overhead light. See what you like. Helen had clearly done her best, but in truth she still looked somewhat pounded-on by experience—blotched and slackened here and there, her legs varicose-etched right up to her seat. Not that any of these observations were critical. He was hardly a physical example himself, and he had not withstood two pregnancies. He had been oddly troubled of late to find white hairs growing in his pubic region. But he and Helen were approaching the same point—not quite on last legs, but battered, wobbling, losing the battle to the major forces of physics, gravity, and time. This was one set of facts beyond the power of even Helen’s will.
Stern, who had developed his own routine here, covered Helen in bed, shooed out the cat, and locked the doors. Yet for reasons he could not fathom he was not at ease. He was disturbed at moments by the thought of what it might spell for Dixon to have John in the hands of unfriendly counsel; but these were the kinds of worries that for decades he had been able to quell at night. Dozing off, he thought for an instant about Kate, looking transformed by the world of adult woe, then Nate Cawley, still to be cornered. Tomorrow he would catch him. Soon. And yet each time Stern felt himself gentling down to sleep, he rose like some float in the water. Eventually, it became a night of restless dreams. In the one that he remembered, Stern, from ground level, had seen a bird, lifeless in the snow, beneath the needled boughs of an evergreen. This bird, an old ragged thing with plumage of black and white, was gently lifted by a female hand. She stroked the old bird’s chest, stated that his wing, which was held erect from his body, was broken but would mend. Her voice struck a note of joy and congratulation. Waking in Helen’s room, with the strong morning light haloing the edges of the heavy drapes, Stern recalled nothing of this woman but that encouraging prediction. Helen continued in the shallow breath of sleep. He reached over to touch her shoulder. But he was certain that the voice he had heard when he was dreaming had not been hers.
23
KATE HAD BOUGHT STERN an answering machine. For all his love of gadgets, he’d sworn that this was one he’d never own. He was a slave to the telephone as it was. More to the point, it always pained him to listen to his voice on tape; his accent sounded so much more distinct than he imagined. But he could not spurn his daughter’s generosity. On the machine, Kate most days left a bright message or two (lately, as John’s problems had deepened, Stern thought he could occasionally detect a leaden undertone in Kate’s greeting); Helen also often recorded a pleasant word, so that Stern, despite himself, looked forward to coming home and fiddling with the buttons. Tonight, however, the first voice he heard was Peter’s. “It’s time to schedule your blood test.” Typically blunt—and indiscreet. Stern, in the empty house, actually reached to the side of the machine to lower the volume.
But the message was a familiar reminder. He lurked by the window, awaiting Nate Cawley. He had spent a number of evenings working at the dining-room table in the hopes of spying Nate as he drove up; Stern had given up on reaching him by phone. While he waited, he opened his mail. There was a brief note from Marta reminding him that she would be home in a couple of weeks, over the Fourth of July, to continue sifting through Clara’s things.
On paper, Marta was terse, but she had taken to calling late at night, on the verge of sleep, sometimes even waking Stern for long, meditative conversations. Marta had continued to dwell on Clara’s death—she recognized it as an enormous passage. And in her casting about, which she willingly shared, Stern, as usual, found much common ground with his older daughter. Sitting up in bed, he listened to her talk, mumbling responses, half-drowsed but intent.
Marta had always been a person of somber character; Stern could not remember her as frolicsome. Even at seven or eight, she seemed perplexed by the fundamental nature of things. Why does a woman marry only one man? Why do we eat animals if it is wrong to treat them cruelly? Can God see inside things or merely their surfaces? Stern, much more than Clara, valued Marta’s dark, contemplative side and was, inevitably, moved by her internal struggles. She was the child with whom he felt most in touch. Second in his own family, he understood her occasional mighty battles with Peter, her unrestrained—if momentary—resentment of him.
He had been so pleased when she went to law school, not merely because he was flattered to be imitated, but more because the law, with its substance, its venerated traditions, and its relentless contemplation of social relations, seemed capable of providing one set of proposed answers to the questions with which Marta had been so long preoccupied. But neither law school nor practice seemed to have lessened her brooding or uncertainty. She took the bar exam in four states before deciding to remain in New York; she’d found three different jobs before accepting the present one, the lowest paying, most tenuous, least promising. She was a single professional in New York, caught up in the usual New York swirl of consumption—the latest restaurants, stores, and events—but late at night there was an unguarded tone of deprivation. She was unsuccessful in her relations with men, stalled in her career, baffled by life, and more or less alone. Stern looked down to her note, with strong sensations of her. Marta’s quest—soulful, troubled, yearning—was nowhere near its end.
Out the window in the lengthening evening, against a magnificent streaked sky, the BMW at last circled around the Cawleys’ drive. Stern was out the door and halfway to the auto before he saw that Fiona was driving. He stopped in his tracks.
“Sandy.” She smiled and stepped from the car, carrying a small bright sack from some shop.
Stern stood in the grass. He wore his suit pants and a handmade shirt, monogrammed over the pocket; he had removed his tie. Glancing down, he noticed he was still carrying Marta’s note. Stern explained to Fiona that he had mistaken her for Nate.
“I took his car today. Mine’s conking out whenever I use the air.”
“Ah,” said Stern, and rocked on his toes. With Fiona and him, it was always awkward.
“Actually,” she said, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to show you. Come in for a minute.” Fiona set off for the front door, keys in hand, without allowing him the chance to refuse. Stern moved reluctantly in her wake up the pea-gravel walk. What new treachery of Nate’s did she wish to disclose? Fiona set her package down on a candle table near the doorway and snapped on some lights. Stern said he had an appointment shortly, a remark which Fiona, predictably, feigned not to hear.
“This is really the most curious thing,” she said. “Come upstairs. I want you to see this.” Fiona stopped to release the collie from the kitchen. Stern declined her offer of a drink, but Fiona paused to pour a bourbon over ice, and quaffed half of it at once, easy as water. “It’s so hot,” she said. The dog, in the meantime, jumped all over them both, then, rebuked, followed placidly as they walked toward the staircase.
Upstairs, Fiona opened the door to the bedroom and passed down a hall into the bath. Stern hung back, hesitant to follow. There was a certain stimulating intimacy in being with a woman in her bedroom. It was not the bed so much as the privacy of the scene. The room was clearly Fiona’s, finished to her taste in crepe de Chine and ambiguous pinkish shades. The strong scents of powders and colognes, too sweet American smells, rose here. A long umber negligee lay as a sort of inviting preconscious thought, discarded beside the bed on an upholstered chair arm, suggesting a languorous form.
“Here,” said Fiona, “this is it. Come here.” She was in the bathroom, the door partly closed. When Stern pushed it open, Fiona was studying a tiny paper bag. Her drink had been set down on the counter. “I saw this last week. I couldn’t understand why Nate would keep something with Clara’s name on it in his medicine cabinet.”
In his surprise, he virtually snatched it from her—the small patterned bag from a local chain pharmacy. Tw
o computer-generated prescription receipts, little tags that conveniently assembled all the information required by Medicare or insurers, were stapled to the lip of the bag, overlapping one another. On the top one, Clara’s name, address, and phone number were printed. Stern could feel a large vial inside the sack. It was pointless to ask what Fiona was doing roaming in her husband’s medicine chest. Undoubtedly there had been many such expeditions: the pockets of his suits, his daily diary, his wastebasket. Fiona would have no trouble with the kind of low tactics divorce-court hostilities required.
“Indomethacin,” Stern read the tag. “This is for Clara’s arthritis, I believe. Nate told me he had brought some to her.”
Fiona passed him an odd look.
“If he brought it to her, how come it’s still in the bag?”
Stern made a sound. She was right about that. But the answer was obvious. Nate had had two prescriptions filled: that was why there were two tags. When Stern flipped to the lower one, he saw the word “Acyclovir” and his heart skipped. Quickly, he withdrew the clear brown container from the bag. What in the world would Nate Cawley need with this stuff?
“What is it?” asked Fiona.
Stern was intent on the label on the bottle. In the blank following the word “Patient,” “Dr. Nathan Cawley, M.D.,” was listed, and Nate’s office address and phone were also printed there. 85 ACYCLOVIR 200 MG CAPSULES. TWO (2) CAPSULES FIVE TIMES DAILY FOR FIVE DAYS, REMAINDER ONE (1) CAPSULE FIVE TIMES DAILY, IF NEEDED.
When the thought came to him, Stern’s face shot around to Fiona.
“Does Nate take these pills?”
She shrugged. “I’d imagine. This is his medicine cabinet. What are they?”
“Acyclovir,” answered Stern, pronouncing it just as Peter had when he explained that the drug was often successful in reducing the active period of the infection. The herpes infection. Dr. Nate had prescribed for himself.
She reached for the bottle, and Stern, without thinking, pulled it farther away. The prescription was dated two days before Clara’s death. He shook the container. Almost empty. Wrenching off the cap, he spilled the contents onto a piece of tissue and counted six capsules remaining. Seventy-nine consumed. Stern contemplated the numbers: Nate was taking these pills more than a week and a half after Clara’s death. He stared down at the little yellow capsules with an unremitting intensity. The brand name of the drug was printed right on them.
Fiona spoke to him again. “Sandy, what is this for?”
Oh yes, thought Stern. He had known this, had he not? It was all right here before him. Nate’s lying, all his dodging and running—they were classic signs. There was clearly something Nate wanted neither discovered nor discussed. And it was here. Right here. Not simply what had ailed Clara. But the fact that Nate, who went on serenely consuming these capsules after she was laid to rest, had spread the disease. It had taken a real act of will, a high-minded deliberate obdurateness, not to recognize Nate’s role. After all, there had been obvious opportunities for initiation of this dalliance. ‘Please remove your clothes and put on the smock. Doctor will be with you in a moment.’ A man as wrathfully henpecked as Nate would probably find Clara’s quiet, inscrutable bearing irresistible. Yes, and it still seemed, still—if he could claim he knew anything about this woman’s nature—that anything of this character with Clara would have required time, exposure, trust, a gradual erosion. It was inevitably someone she knew well. Oh, yes. Nate had visited Clara in the mornings, Fiona had said long ago.
“Sandy,” said Fiona, “for Godsake. What are the pills for?”
He continued to hold the bottle in his hand and he looked again at the label. The woman, he supposed, was entitled to know.
“Herpes,” he said.
“Her-pes,” said Fiona. Her jaw flew open and she stepped six inches back. “Why, that son of a bitch.” With a sudden snuffling sound, Fiona, as unpredictably as last time, began to cry.
“Let us sit down a moment.” Stern swept up the pills and replaced the bottle on a shelf within Nate’s cabinet. Then Stern steered Fiona around the corner into the bedroom and sat with her on the edge of the Cawleys’ perfectly made bed. The tailored spread was of a heavy mauve material, welted on the edges. Fiona was attempting to recover. She dabbed the backs of both hands at the heavy purple shadow over her eyes. Stern extended an arm in comfort, and she laid her narrow body against him for a moment, bringing close the rosy odor of her various perfumes. As soon as his hand was clapped across the thin cap of her shoulder, he had the first inkling. He had no notion from where the idea came. Some vicious instinct, he supposed, although it seemed that the plan had been present, unformed, for some time.
Fiona got up to find a tissue, but sat down again beside him on the bed. “Herpes,” she muttered to herself. Stern, from the corner of his eye, could see the barest trace of a smile as the clear thought crossed Fiona’s mind: Served him right. Served the bastard right. Then she looked at Stern directly.
“Am I going to catch this?”
“I am afraid that it depends.”
“On what?”
“Your contact.”
“Contact?” Fiona did not get it and looked at him with irritation.
Stern awaited the right words. Oh dear, this was difficult. Divorce lawyers must ask all the time. Probably, they were crude and direct. ‘When was the last time you let him plug you, honey?’
“I do not mean to be indelicate—”
“Are you talking about our sex life, Sandy?”
“Just so.”
“Not much.”
“I see.”
“It’s not as if I don’t like it, Sandy, I do,” she added quickly, fearing, as always, the poor judgment of others. “But you know how that can get. I haven’t let him come near me since I saw that thing.” She gestured toward the floor, the family room, the television set. “Not that he seemed to care.”
“And when was that, Fiona?”
“March?” She dipped a shoulder. “I don’t take notes, Sandy.”
“No, of course not.”
“Frankly, I think he’d given up trying by then. He gets like that.” She smiled again, grimly.
Stern imagined that Nate had given up long before. He had his own predicament. Not that it was much excuse. Nonetheless, here in Fiona’s precise bedroom, Stern was overcome by the mystery of anyone’s marriage. It was like culture or prehistory—a billion unwritten understandings. Nate and Fiona. What an unlikely couple, he mild and casual, and she so severe. She was always pretty, however. Her good looks must have mattered to Nate, been his pride. His treasure was at home while he went tomcatting all over the neighborhood, catching infections and fucking everybody’s wife—Stern’s wife, too. The recognition brought him to a kind of momentary delirium. Always reluctant to consciously anger, he felt drilled by the urge for revenge, high and mighty, powerful as a prizefighter. The thought passed over him again like a wave of fever. Was he really capable of this? Oh, yes. He felt excited, inspired, and nasty.
“So am I?” asked Fiona. “Going to catch this?”
“I see little chance of that, Fiona, given what you describe.”
She pondered. “I suppose I should be grateful he left me alone.”
Still seated beside her, Stern slowly said, “I should say he did a great injustice, Fiona.”
Her head listed to a dubious angle, as if he had gone loony. Stern smiled bravely.
“A great injustice,” he repeated and gradually lifted his hand. He grasped the top button of Fiona’s knit dress and leaned over to kiss the brown area at the top of her chest.
She drew back at once. But she was smiling. “San-dy,” she said.
His own look was intent; he meant serious business. He opened the button he had grasped and pulled the garment back slightly to caress her again.
“Oh, my,” said Fiona, and laughed out loud. “I don’t believe this.” Fiona, it seemed, found it hard to contain herself; this was screamingly funny. The choices here,
he knew, were entirely his own. She would not stop him. Fiona was a weak person. Her only resilience was in her brittleness of character, but she had no convictions. Taken by surprise, she would laugh her way along, not knowing what else to do. And he? How did he feel now? Odd, very odd, my American friends. Oh, this was wild and improbable and absurd. But sexual daring was more exciting than flying. He quietly touched her breast and felt blessedly, remarkably, fantastically, that he was no longer himself.
He opened another button and pulled her brassiere down. Her breast, small and white, seemed as startling as a fish darting by in water, and he bent to kiss her on the small button of her nipple—
Someone was looking at him!
On the bedside, Stern jolted. He actually found himself standing halfway, his arms raised defensively. The collie, cowed, had also jumped back, dragging its front paws, but did not utter a sound.
When he looked back, Fiona had risen and stood directly before him; her brassiere remained pushed down, so that her white breast looked like a package partly unwrapped. When he met her glance, something happened—perhaps his fear, even momentary, had dissuaded her, or, more simply, time had brought her back to herself. But he saw a point of contraction sharpening in her eyes, and then her arm moved. He knew what was coming but it seemed undignified to defend himself. There was a flash of pain as she struck him open-handed on the side of the face, and he felt instantly that one of his front teeth, which had knocked together, might have chipped.
“You’re not any better than he is,” said Fiona. “You son of a bitch.”
Her back to him, she fiddled with her clothing. He felt obliged to respond, but for the time being was not capable. He sat on the bedside again, suddenly melting in shame.