My Heart Laid Bare Part 18

For, "'What wound did ever heal but by degrees?'" is Abraham Licht's defiant query. And: "We are not fools, after all, 'by heavenly compulsion.'"

Thus, he ministers unto himself.

It is a convalescence. There have been many such. The years, the seasons, the balm of quiet, the solitude of the churchyard, the swamp, the locked and shuttered room at the rear of the rectory: with no one as a witness (whether jeering or admiring) Shame will eventually yield to forgetfulness; forgetfulness, to Honor.

For Honor is the subject of Abraham Licht's story.

FIFTY-THREE YEARS OLD! So quickly!

A life more than half run!

And it cannot be said, can it? that the years have been generous to Abraham Licht; that, despite his love, devotion, industry, and selflessness, he has been provided with a family worthy of his sacrifice.

He requires more children, another son at least, another son very soon, for his children have not entirely pleased him.

Of course there is Millicent, who pleases him enormously, and who is bound, he knows, to serve herself by serving him; of her absolute fidelity he has no doubt. And there is the incomparable Elisha, the ever-astonis.h.i.+ng Elisha, whom Abraham Licht, were he not his stepfather and mentor, might almost envy! . . . a wily young genius, as adept at masquerade and cunning as Abraham Licht himself . . . though a creature of Abraham's, of no worth without his guidance. (And one day, when the time is ripe, 'Lisha's "color" will greatly advance his career; along precisely what lines, Abraham hasn't yet decided.) Apart from Millicent and Elisha, however, Fortune has treated Abraham Licht perversely.

For, consider: not one, not two, but three women captivated his heart, and, in time, trampled upon it. No matter the ardor, the depth, the eloquence of his devotion. (For, as time pa.s.ses, Abraham has come to believe that Sophie's illness and her final, deranged behavior was a repudiation of his love, as of all earthly love. For which, in my heart, how can I forgive her?) As for Thurston, his firstborn-he doesn't wish to think of Thurston.

As for Harwood-he doesn't wish to think of Harwood.

(Yet, only a few days ago, there arrived in Muirkirk, addressed to him, a curious letter postmarked Ouray, Colorado; a single stiff sheet of stationery from the Hotel Ouray; and these lines in Harwood's childlike, labored hand: Ive given thought to my Life Father & am not so angry now with my Brother as I had been. I am not so lonely now. I will be writing again soon Father to seek your advice. I know your angry with me & blame me but I am not to be blamed, it was not my fault but Thurstons. I will not return East I swear til my Fortune is made & you will see what a Son I am to you. Or til you bid me come to you Father.

Yr Son Harwood This letter Abraham hasn't answered, uncertain of the spirit in which it was penned: sober, or drunk; sincere, or mocking; promising well, or ill. For once a man has spilled human blood he may have a taste for it.) Of the younger children, beloved by him, Abraham Licht rarely thinks. For he finds them merely children, who will never mature as the others have matured, lacking a gift for The Game.

Darian may indeed by a musical genius as Woodc.o.c.k and a few others insist but his talent, in Abraham's unsentimental judgment, is too wayward and capricious to be guided. And Esther, poor dear child-Abraham finds it difficult to listen to the girl's cheerful prattle and to follow with interest her schoolgirl news, her enthusiasm for nursing, or doctoring, "making hurt things well again" as she says. Alone of the family it's plain, good-hearted Esther who seems to have made friends in Muirkirk, quite as normal, ordinary children do; according to Katrina, as bemused as Abraham himself, Esther actually likes her cla.s.smates and their families and is, in turn, liked by them; an unmistakable sign of mediocrity. (Compare this dull child with Millicent at that age, Abraham thinks. Already, aged eleven, Millicent was a practiced coquette, by instinct arousing affection in others without feeling so much as a moment's affection in return. "But then the sensual yet morbidly pious 'Miss Hirshfield' was Millie's mother, a volatile combination," Abraham thinks, "ideal for the stage, if not for life.") So he muses, broods; through many a long day; too restless to stay in one room, or even inside; hoping to stave off melancholy until it's safely dusk and he can sip bourbon without qualms. How is it possible-he's fifty-three years old, and so quickly?

And my glorious career scarcely begun.

"You 'love' each other-and you intend to 'marry,'" Abraham Licht says quietly, looking from Elisha to Millicent, and from Millicent to Elisha, whose gaze s.h.i.+mmers with audacity and guilt. "I'm not certain that I've heard correctly or that I full comprehend the words I have heard. 'Love'-'marry'-what precisely can you mean? Elisha?"

Elisha says quickly, "Millie and I love each other, Father. We are in love. We have been in love for a very long-"

"-for too long without daring to speak," Millie says.

"-and we want, we must-be married," Elisha says. His voice has begun to quiver. "As people do. As men and women do who love each other."

"Yes, it's all very much as people do," Millie says in a bright hopeful voice, "-people who love each other in a-normal manner. There is nothing unusual about it."

"There is nothing unusual about it."

Abraham Licht's declaration hovers in the air, the most ironic of questions.

"There is nothing unusual about it!" Elisha says with a nervous laugh.

"If we are in love, and we are in love," Millie says breathlessly, her slender arm tight through Elisha's, holding him fast even as she leans against him, "-and have been so for a very long time, in secret."

"And why 'in secret'?" Abraham inquires.

Again looking from one of the timorous young people to the other with an air of detachment and equanimity. Not taking note of the extreme physical attractiveness of this young man and woman, of their fresh, open faces and striking features, but noting instead, with a clinician's eye, how Elisha's lower lip quivers and Millie's normally placid eyes are unnaturally dilated.

"But why 'in secret'-why the need for secrecy?"

Neither answers; until with an impatient expulsion of breath Millie confesses, "Because we worried, Father, that you wouldn't understand; that you'd be unhappy, or object, or-"

"My dear, why would I 'object'?"

"Because-" Elisha begins.

"-you would not understand," Millie cries.

"Yet what is there, Millie, and Elisha, to understand?" Abraham asks, lifting his hands in a bemused appeal. "You come to me at this odd hour of the night with a whim of yours that might better wait for the clarity and sanity of morning; you stand there like very amateur actors at an ill-advised audition, yet expect seriousness of me, informing me you're 'in love' and want to 'marry'-'as people do'-when the crux of the issue is, you can't be in love, and you can't marry, because you are my children; because you're brother and sister; and, in any case, you can't be 'as other people' because you are Lichts, and Lichts are not 'other people.'"

Elisha begins to protest but Millie, alarmed, hushes him, saying, "Father, we're not brother and sister-surely we're not. 'Lisha is a foundling, an orphan as you've always told us; he is not my brother."

Revealing none of the mounting rage he feels, Abraham says carefully, "Elisha is your brother, Millicent . . . and you are his sister. It is not possible for brothers and sisters to love each other in the way you claim to love; still less is it possible for them to marry. That is all I have to say."

"But he is not my brother!" Millie cries in exasperation. "Any stranger who glanced at us could tell in an instant!"

"But a stranger cannot know what we Lichts know," Abraham says. "He would be judging you merely by your appearances; by your superficial selves. As for what is inside, and hidden-only we know that. As if Elisha is to be known by way of his skin!"

"But Father-" Millie protests.

"What we know is this: that you and Elisha are linked from childhood by ties of blood that are far deeper than the 'love' of which you speak," Abraham says.

"But there is nothing deeper-more beautiful-than the love of which we speak!" Millie says boldly; and Elisha says, "We want only to be allowed to marry-and to leave Muirkirk-because we realize we can't stay here where we'd be misunderstood."

"'Misunderstood'!" Abraham laughs. "My boy, you would be 'understood' only too readily. For shame!"

As if for mutual support the lovers stand close together, Millie's arm still thrust through Elisha's, and her opened hand, in a gesture of supplication, pressed unconsciously against her agitated breast. How strange that they seem unable to look at each other but only at Abraham, who glowers smiling upon them, baring his teeth.

From somewhere close by in the churchyard a nighthawk cries wanly, a soul in torment.

"There is nothing deeper than the love of which we speak," Millie repeats, in a chastened voice. "There is nothing deeper than . . . our love."

Abraham smiles a hard white fleeting smile, but does not condescend to reply.

Elisha mumbles words to the effect that they want to marry, they will marry, but want his blessing; and Millie says softly, "Yes, Father, we want your blessing-please."

Yet Abraham will not reply.

He is their father, of course. Elisha's no less than Millicent's. They know, they cannot doubt, for, in the beginning, even before their awakening to childish consciousness, was his Word, his Truth, una.s.sailable. From what reservoir of profane strength might come their capacity to doubt? Already it seems that Millie for all her precocious belligerence is weakening; her lovely eyes are narrowed as if she faces too powerful a light, her smooth forehead is creased with lines of worry and apprehension. And poor Elisha-why does he stare so helplessly at Abraham?

"Oh, Father, we want your blessing-please!" Millie whispers.

And now like figures on a brightly lit operatic stage, as if Abraham were empowered with the majesty and cunning of Wagner's Wotan, a role for which, had he only the powerful voice, he might have been born, Abraham takes Millie gently by the wrist, and detaches her from her lover's side, and gazes into her eyes. His large, strong fingers encircle and frame her face; his fingertips stretch the delicate blue-veined skin at her temples; for a long moment father and daughter stare into each other's eyes, as into each other's soul, the fine s.h.i.+vering of Millie's arms the only sign of strain she betrays.

So rapid is their exchange in lowered, urgent voices, like lovers, Elisha might be listening to a foreign language, uncomprehending.

"But you are not yet his?"

"Oh no, Father-we're waiting to marry."

Abraham releases the girl who's gone deathly pale with guilt and terror and turns, brusque and smiling, to Elisha, to say, "You and I, Elisha, will talk now in private."

MILLIE, HEARTSICK AND exultant, seeks out Katrina for comfort.

As Abraham leads Elisha to the rear of the house, to shut them together in his study.

Millie, her teeth chattering with excitement, or with fever, presses herself into Katrina's reluctant arms, saying that she and Elisha are in love and will marry, and Father hasn't forbidden it. And Katrina says with a s.h.i.+ver of disgust that of course they can't marry because they are sister and brother-"And because Elisha is not of your race. He is Negro." Millie says, "'Lisha is not 'Negro'-but only himself." Katrina says sternly, "The world sees 'Negro.'" Millie says fiercely, "The world is blind!-mistaken!" Katrina says, "In some matters, Millie, the world's blindness is not mistaken."

At that instant in Abraham's study Elisha has fallen to his knees, sobbing. His handsome face contorted in pain, disbelief, mortification. For no sooner were the two inside the door, and the door locked behind them, than Abraham wheeled on the young man and struck him a savage blow across the face with the back of his hand.

Taken by surprise, unresisting, Elisha made no attempt to defend himself; but staggered backward, hurt, dazed, sinking to his knees on the hardwood floor.

"You!-and my daughter! My Millie," Abraham Licht says, in a voice out of the whirlwind and his eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire. "It is not to be borne."

Accusing the young man of treachery, betrayal and wickedness; forbidding him ever to approach Millie again; even to speak with her again; not because they're brother and sister (though they are brother and sister) and not because Elisha's skin is black (though as any fool can see, Elisha's skin is black) but because it is Abraham Licht's command. And Elisha protests he can't help it, he had not intended this to happen, he loves Millie, he would die for Millie, and Millie loves him, and they must be married, for they're already lovers, man and wife; and at this point Abraham Licht flies into a greater rage, saliva frothing at his lips, beating Elisha now with both his fists as Elisha, head bowed, cringes before him.

"You lie! You lie!-you black devil."

Is it terror, or pride?-this refusal of Elisha to so much as raise a hand against the older man, for Abraham Licht is Father; and many years ago saved Elisha from the flood; and in his heart Elisha knows, whether there is sin or not, he has sinned.

MILLIE CRIES HERSELF into a delirium in Katrina's arms, and Katrina sighs impatiently, for it's all so absurd, such tears are so absurd, how grateful she is she's an old woman now and her heart calcified and protected against such hurt. And at last, as she knows he would, Abraham calls to her to bring Millie to him, into the parlor where by the light of a kerosene lamp her father and her lover are waiting. Millie grips Katrina's hand hard, but Katrina pushes her away.

Millie wipes her inflamed eyes, sulkily; seeing that something, unless it's everything, has changed. Father is very angry and has not forgiven them and Elisha is no longer her handsome young lover but a disheveled, shamed, confused young man; a very dark-skinned man; looking too desperately to her for solace.

"Elisha has decided to leave Muirkirk immediately tonight," Father says evenly. "And it's his belief, my girl, that you've agreed to go with him."

Millie blows her nose. Where in another, nose-blowing is a crude, commonplace act, in Millie, as in any stage ingenue, it's an act of sniffy, petulant defiance. Millie says, in a high childish voice, looking at Father and not Elisha, that, yes, she will go with Elisha if that's what he wants-"If that's what he has told you." Elisha says, rawly, that that is what he wishes-"And what you wish, too, Millie." Father says, his voice still even, judicious and measured, "If you go away with Elisha, my girl, then you will never again come home to me. This, I hope you understand." And Millie doesn't speak, though she's smiling. Dabbing at her nose with her embroidered little handkerchief. For her eyes, too, flash fire; and fire burns. Yet Elisha blunders forward, reaching his hand to her as if they were alone together. Saying, pleading, that Millie must come with him because they are promised to each other; they love each other; how many times they've vowed this. And Millie will-almost-take Elisha's extended hand, for it's a hand she loves, those slender fingers she has loved, swooning beneath their caress, she's kissed and stroked those fingers yet she can't seem to lift her arm, her arm has gone leaden, her spirit has gone leaden, her eyes are swollen and aching and ugly, she has rubbed them so hard the lashes are coming out, for it's wrong, it's unfair, it's cruel of these men to summon her to them as if in a court of law, putting her to such a test, demanding such a performance of her. And no preparation! Not a single rehearsal! Millie would whisper I hate you both! Elisha continues to speak, growing angry, impatient, but Millie can't concentrate thinking Hate you both!-bullies. Leave me alone I want to sleep. Abraham says nothing, merely smiling his hard, knowing smile, his eyes glinting like chips of gla.s.s; Millie can see that he is herself in her innermost soul . . . Father is her . . . as Elisha, a mere lover, can never be.

And so the scene plays out, until at last Millie sinks in a faint into Father's arms, at the jarring sound of a slammed door.

And so it happens that Elisha Licht departs Muirkirk forever in October 1913 and the following Sunday Millicent departs for Rhinebeck for an extended visit with the Fitzmaurices.

And so it happens that Abraham Licht will begin to forget Elisha, as one forgets any disagreeable episode; or, if forgetting is too extreme, he ceases to speak of Elisha; for, indeed, what's there to say? The past is but the graveyard of the future, as the future is but the womb of the past. And his thoughts are focused upon Rhinebeck, and the Fitzmaurice clan about which he will soon know as much information as he can garner.

Millie has ceased her silly schoolgirl tears. Millie has torn up a packet of letters, and tossed them into the marsh. Katrina never alludes to Millie's lost love except to lightly scorn it as an attack of nerves such as high-strung fillies often have, at certain phases of the moon; she never speaks of Elisha except to a.s.sure Millie that once she's away from Muirkirk and its unwholesome vapors she'll forget him-"As you've forgotten so much." And Millie laughs a high, startled laughter, a laughter that seems to pierce her like pain, saying, "Oh, Katrina, I almost wish what you say isn't so; but I know it is so; and such is Millie's fate."

"I HAVE NO FEELING OF ANOTHER'S PAIN"

Why-is it myself, transmogrified?"

So thinks the superintendent of the Camp Yankee Basin Mining Company, Mr. Harmon Liges, when, in the late afternoon of 9 April 1914, in the bustling lobby of the Hotel Edinburgh in Denver, Colorado, he happens to catch sight of a stranger, a stocky young gentleman in a brown herringbone tweed topcoat and a matching cap, who closely-indeed, uncannily-resembles him. So unnerving is the similarity, Harmon Liges cannot simply pa.s.s by; stations himself behind one of the lobby's stately marble pillars, in order to stare at the man un.o.bserved; feels a curious sensation of excitement mingled with repugnance, antic.i.p.ation mingled with dread . . . for the stranger, apart from superficial differences, might be a virtual twin of his. Or so it strikes Harmon Liges.

Fascinated, even as he's obscurely offended, Liges studies the man in the tweed topcoat to satisfy himself that he is a stranger; and very likely a new arrival from the East, on the 4:45 P.M. train from Omaha. Is he traveling alone, as he appears . . . ? Might he be on business? Yet he lacks the self-a.s.sured and expectant air of the businessman; seems to be, in fact, ill at ease in his new surroundings, though smiling a nervous, quizzical smile, even as the impertinent registration manager keeps him waiting. ("That is not the tack to take with the Edinburgh staff," Liges thinks impatiently, "-they will only mark you down for a fool.") Like himself, the man is about thirty years old; of but moderate height, no more than five feet seven inches; thick-bodied; with a large-pored, slightly flushed skin; heavy dark "beetling" brows; and small, moist, pink, curiously prim lips. His head is innocently round beneath the tweed cap, his face moon-shaped, the ears somewhat protuberant; a.s.suredly he is not handsome-though, to Liges's practiced and unsentimental eye, he is more attractive than Liges himself, being boyish and vulnerable in his manner, and clean-shaven, while Liges is guarded, and sports a close-trimmed Vand.y.k.e beard. (It is remarkable how this beard disguises Liges; how very simple a matter it invariably is, to radically alter one's appearance by way of a minor, though clever, change in grooming, dress, speech, bearing, etc.) In addition, while Harmon Liges is barrel-chested, muscular, and fiercely compact, with a fighter's unconscious habit of bringing his weight forward onto the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, the Easterner is plump, harmless, burdened by some thirty or forty pounds of baby fat, and a natural ungainliness in his movements.

Yet more significantly, Liges has cultivated the Westerner's skill of taking in all that is of importance in his surroundings, even as he appears oblivious of them; while the gentleman in the tweed topcoat, though glancing from side to side, and blinking, and smiling his sweet quizzical smile as if expecting a friendly acquaintance to step forward at any moment, very likely sees nothing at all.

"He has not seen me, in any case," Harmon Liges thinks.

Since he has a pressing engagement with an agent for the Union Pacific Railroad in the gentlemen's bar of the Edinburgh, Harmon Liges does not linger by the marble column; having in any case learned that the stranger's name is Roland Shrikesdale III, his hometown is Philadelphia, and he intends to stay in Denver for an indeterminate period of time.

("Indeterminate" being, after all, the amount of time most visitors spend in Colorado-or indeed, on earth generally.)

Again, at eight-thirty the next morning, entering the hotel's dining room for breakfast, Harmon Liges is given a shock by seeing across the room his "twin" of the previous day; whom, oddly, he seems to have forgotten in the intervening hours.

(Or had he in fact dreamt of the plump smiling man? Waking toward morning with a foul taste in his mouth, and an anxious, quickened heartbeat; and a sensation of arousal in his groin.) Him-!

Yet again-!

Liges deliberately takes a table close by the stranger, though he finds the man's very presence disquieting. "Is it myself, transmogrified?" he thinks, watching the stranger covertly, "-or an unsuspected cousin, or brother? For I have no doubt that Father has sired numberless b.a.s.t.a.r.d sons across the continent." This morning the young gentleman, sportily attired in a suede coat, string tie, and trousers of a casual cut, is occupied in eating a lonely breakfast and halfheartedly reading the Denver Gazette, even as his gaze moves restlessly about the room. He too has an unevenly receding hairline, though his hair is considerably fairer and curlier than Liges's; his skin is similarly rough, yet mottled, and pasty-pale beneath, while Liges's is tanned. Indeed, he has the appearance of a man not fully recovered from an illness who hopes to speed his convalescence by journeying out West where the climate is supposed to be health-inspiring-in the much-publicized way of Teddy Roosevelt.