‘My sister-in-law, yes. How did you know she wasn’t my wife?’
‘I read the newspapers, Mr. Craig. I read books, by the bushel, and I read about their authors. I knew you were a widower.’
‘Yes, I am. My sister-in-law has been wet-nursing me for three years, ever since.’ He considered evoking Harriet, but felt that he owed her nothing tonight, not in this reality, and so he did not speak of her.
‘Your sister-in-law is handsome.’
‘I guess so. I really don’t know.’
‘Did your wife look like that?’
‘My wife was more feminine, in a way.’ He was not exactly sure, right now, how feminine Harriet had been. It was a relative matter, anyway. In relation to Leah, Harriet had been more feminine. In relation to the girl before him, Emily Stratman, Harriet-the vagueness of her Slavic features and brisk efficiency-seemed less feminine. ‘Leah, my sister-in-law, planted a proprietary flag on me early, and that’s the way it’s been.’
‘How do you live?’ asked Emily. ‘I know you live somewhere in Wisconsin-but how?’
The unlovely film of the last years unreeled in memory, and he weighed the masochistic and repulsive truth, and then instinctively vetoed this truth. Like an adolescent, he wanted to impress a beautiful girl. ‘I own a sprawling farmhouse in southern Wisconsin, at the outskirts of a charming small town,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I walk or garden in the mornings, ride sometimes, see friends. After lunch, I lock myself in my study upstairs and write until evening. My nights are quiet, a few companions, or cards, or reading. Sometimes I take a few weeks in Chicago or New York, to get the hay out of my hair. I’m afraid it sounds a little dull.’
‘It sounds divine.’
Craig smiled wryly. If only Lucius Mack could have heard him. He would have said: well, old man, glad you’re turning out fiction again, and about time.
‘What do you do with yourself?’ he inquired.
‘I-I tend my uncle’s house, and work in a veterans’ hospital outside Atlanta, and, as I told you, I read a good deal.’ The statement was so devoid of life that she was ashamed, and made up her mind to embellish it. ‘And then, of course, all sorts of famous people are always down to see Uncle Max, and I’m his hostess. We have too many dinners, too many late nights. I-I go out the usual amount, like all unattached women-I don’t care for nightclubs, but you know, the theatre, drives, private homes. It’s enough to keep one busy.’ She was more ashamed than ever, and wanted desperately to change the subject. ‘I’m reading one of your books now. I bought it for the boat.’
He was pleased, and showed it. ‘Which one?’
‘I’d read them all, I thought, and then I found I’d missed
‘Like our time.’
‘-yes, like our time, and that frightens me.
His instinctive affection for her had become adoration. ‘I’d like to bring you to my publisher’s next sales meeting.’
‘It’s not necessary. You don’t need puffs any longer.’ She stared at him. ‘It’s odd, meeting the author,’ she said, finally. ‘I couldn’t imagine what to expect. Two of the books, three actually, were so violent-no, I mean indignant-furious. You’re not like that at all.’
‘My gift for outrage is well hidden, and only brought out for special occasions, like when I write a book.’
‘Why? It’s a virtue, not a fault.’
‘Outrage is a red flag-it invites conflict-it invites grappling with life-and the obvious part of me is withdrawn and scared and wants no trouble. Do you understand?’
‘Completely.’
‘Maybe that’s why I retreat into history, where my real self won’t be spotted and forced to fight. It’s cosier. It’s a weakness, a kind of flight, but there you are.’
‘I understand that, too. I’d wondered.’
He looked about the salon, and realized that either he was myopic or a haze had fallen over the occupants. Too much to drink, he thought, far too much, and now he regretted the escape. He wanted to belong here, faculties intact, but it was too late. ‘Enough of this talk,’ he said to her, ‘the wrong note for the eve of the Royal Banquet.’ He drained his glass of champagne in a final flagellation. ‘Now,’ he said, setting the goblet on a marble- topped commode, ‘I want to show you something.’
He took her arm, but she held back. ‘Show me what?’
He pointed off. ‘See that chamber door down there? Count Jacobsson was telling me it leads to one of the historic state apartments-Sofia Magdalena’s state bedchamber-he said it’s worth seeing if I have a chance. Let’s look.’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t know-’
‘Be adventuresome.’ He divested her of her drink, and placed it on the commode, and then swiftly led her across the French rugs to the chamber entrance.
‘Follow me,’ he said, and she went after him through a dim passage into a tiny, bright drawing-room. He opened a door, peered inside, and announced, ‘Sofia Magdalena awaits within.’ She crossed into the state bedchamber, and then he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
The majestic bedchamber, dimly lit by a single lamp, was white and gold with a baroque ceiling. The pilasters bore the feminine touch of rose laurels. The ceiling represented an overwhelming allegory of the four continents. The rest was lost in the shadows.
Craig remained weak-kneed inside the door, his reddened eyes following Emily as she went directly to an alcove to examine two Gerard portraits of Eugene Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson, and Eugene’s wife, Princess Amalia Augusta of Bavaria. In the salon, Craig had been aware only of Emily’s face, but in these private quarters, he saw, as if for the first time, her slim body, accentuated by the black evening sheath slit up to the knee. Then, when she turned in profile, and next, three-quarters, he realized that she was not slim at all. The flesh of her shoulders, above the protruding breasts, appeared warm and soft, and the hips and thighs spread generously out from the tiny waist.
Rocking uncertainly, he realized with a pang that he had not been absorbed by a female body, as he was now, since the time of Harriet. Discounting, that is, his dream of Lilly last night, But that was different, fleeting. Now it was as if he had been revived from a long sleep of death. He wanted a claim on Emily’s physical comeliness, and the need, which was desire, and so long foreign to him, now was the strongest unreasoning part of him.
Drunkenly, he traversed the bedchamber, and planted himself in front of her. She looked up, with surprise, at his face. His head was a turmoil, and his heart pounded, and he felt wild and extravagant.
‘I wanted to be alone with you,’ he said.
Her eyes showed alarm, but she did not move. ‘We are alone.’
‘You’re so beautiful-it makes me shake inside-you’re beautiful-I have to say it-’
‘Thank you,’ she said, stiffening. ‘Now, I think we’d better-’
‘Emily, I want to kiss you. I haven’t touched a woman I cared for-someone beautiful-since-’
He placed his hands on her arms, felt their softness beneath his palms. He tried to draw her into him, but she was suddenly all resisting sinew and bone.
She tore free, and backed away. ‘Don’t you touch me!’
‘Emily, listen, I’m trying to tell you-’
‘Get away! Go away!’ She started past him, almost running, but he caught her shoulder and spun her to a halt.
He saw her then, as he had not seen her before, breathless, quivering, cornered and at bay, and then he perceived a secret damage in her that he had only known in himself. The enormity of the new hurt that he had inflicted overwhelmed him, and his shame was suicidal.
He released her. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. I apologize, believe me. I’m-I’m not like this at all-not at all-I had too much
