Letters to My Mother

About the Book

2009-03-04T20:04:00.047+01:00

We were reaching the Student Union when Dr. Rosenau broke the silence. “You know, I never eat young ladies on Fridays. Only on Tuesdays.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Do I look that apprehensive?”

“Yes, rather.” He opened the door for me. “But I have just the cure for you. It’s David Rosenau’s patented shyness remedy, strawberry shortcake garnished with whipped cream, to be taken at least once weekly in charming company. Doctor’s orders.”

Kate is a college junior, a gifted student who skipped two grades in school, a naval officer's daughter who's lived in more places than she can remember. Shy and bookish, she's never had a boyfriend, let alone been kissed or gone on a date. Kate thinks falling in love is something that only happens to other girls.

David is a college professor, a sailor, a brilliant scientist trapped in a failed marriage; he buries himself in teaching and research. David's convinced that love has passed him by and he'll go through life with an empty heart.

When Kate gets a campus job as David's typist, they discover they're both mistaken. Letters To My Mother is the story of a May-December romance set in 1950s Seattle.

Prologue

2009-02-26T11:56:00.024+01:00

I inherited my mother’s home in the Oakland, California hills several years after the firestorm of 1991. A shifting wind spared the house, a modest 1950s ranch-style with a stunning view of San Francisco Bay, and when the fire was over, Mother’s was the only one still standing in a two-block radius of blackened rubble.

In retrospect, it might have been better if the house had burned down; at least the insurance company would have built her a new one. By 1991, a penchant for Caribbean cruises and flights to Hong Kong had exhausted Mother's modest inheritance, and the reality of living on a widow's pension that sufficed to buy designer clothes or maintain the house, but not both, was sinking in. She opted for Versace, and by the time I took possession of the property, the wooden deck was falling off, the paint was peeling and the roof leaked. My real estate agent said the buyers would tear the place down; only the land was valuable.

I set to work getting the house ready for sale. One afternoon, between trips to the dumpster, I discovered several cardboard boxes full of old letters underneath the bed in my parents' room. I found two more cartons in the closet under a pile of straw hats, then four more in the bedroom that was once mine, and then ... In short, my mother had saved all the letters she’d ever received, hundreds of letters, perhaps thousands of letters, in a correspondence going back more than 60 years.

I was astounded. Why hadn't I seen these boxes before? And why had my mother – who was neither sentimental nor a hoarder – saved the letters? I dragged the boxes to the living room and sat down on the floor to examine them. Most of the senders I couldn’t identify, and these letters I threw in the trash, but when I recognized a familiar name, I couldn’t resist the temptation to read a few lines.

In a letter three decades old, a high school friend of Mother's wrote that her daughter was coming home to have a baby while her husband served in Vietnam. Mother must have been happy to read Vicki’s news, but it brought tears to my eyes because I knew the Viet Kong shot down her son-in-law's plane and he never saw his little boy.

Another friend wrote to say a mammogram had detected a tumor in her breast, but since the growth was small – thank goodness – the doctor expected her to recover fully. He was wrong.

Granddad wrote that my grandmother was ill, then that she was worse, and finally that she was dead.

Dead, all dead. I don’t know why I opened those letters; reading them was like walking through a graveyard.

But there were happier ones. A small shoe box contained the letters Daddy sent to my mother in 1935, during their engagement; although the handwriting was familiar, I didn’t recognize the urbane man I knew as my father in the author’s awkward prose. In what were probably the first love letters he'd ever written, the young naval officer described his ship and his comrades; he thanked Mother for finding an apartment. And here and there, almost with embarrassment, he inserted a timid word of affection.

The last box was sealed with heavy tape; I got a knife from the kitchen and slit it open. To my amazement, the letters inside were mine – letters in a childish scrawl beginning invariably “How are you? I am fine,” sent from various summer camps, and others mailed from a boarding school in Spain. At the bottom, tied with a faded blue ribbon, lay a stack of letters I wrote from college, and in reading them I rediscovered myself.

Were those letters really mine or was it someone else’s correspondence in my mother’s box? Was I the girl who wrote about the Paraguayan professor that invited her to drink wine and listen to folk music in his apartment? I had felt so sophisticated telling this story. (True, I’d omitted a few details: we weren’t alone, and after the first sip of Chablis I was seized with a coughing fit).

Was it I who described a joyous day of sailing on Puget Sound with salt spray on my face and the wind whipping my hair? Was I the one who'd fallen head over heels in love?

With the passage of time, marriage, work and children, I scarcely recognized the light-hearted girl of 40 years before in the sober adult I had become.

I looked at the handwriting; it was little changed. And the return address, yes, it was the residence hall where I lived, but the author, was it really me? I read a few more of the letters. They were full of joy, exuberant, and bubbling with life. And they were mine.

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Epilogue

2008-04-29T16:04:00.292+02:00

Pioneer Square Hotel
Seattle, Washington
August 17, 1984

Dear Mother,

The SHARE conference ended this morning after five intense days of committee meetings, planning sessions, and technical seminars. My talk - on Applications Systems - was a success, and it was great getting together with I.T. colleagues that I see only once a year. Tomorrow I have a noon flight out of Sea-Tac and Carlos is picking me up in Oakland.

Do you remember that I used to work for a biochemist named David Rosenau when I was a junior at the university? He’s retired now but, as a professor emeritus, continues to teach a few classes. I phoned him on a whim and he remembered me, even after 27 years. He invited me to have dinner with him this evening...

Twenty-seven years. As he'd promised, David flew to Oakland when our baby was due and was by my side at the hospital during his birth. The morning after the delivery when we walked to the nursery and asked to see our son, the woman at the desk told us the head nurse didn’t allow unwed mothers to view their babies; hand-in-hand we stood gazing through the glass window, trying to identify the child who was ours. We grieved together for a day and then David went back to Seattle, leaving me to complete the adoption alone.
Within a week I found a job with an insurance company and started saving my money to finish college. I knew I wouldn't be returning to Washington; asking my parents to pay out-of-state tuition and living expenses in Seattle was unthinkable after what had happened and, much as I loved David, I couldn’t face a repeat of the depression and the fear of pregnancy that had haunted me the last months at the university. In September 1959 I enrolled in a pre-medical program at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in biology; two years later I married Carlos Cisneros, a foreign student I met while working part-time in a department store, and left school, once more without a degree. My letters to David were infrequent; I wrote to tell him of my engagement and he replied, wishing me happiness. We didn’t write again.
In 1967, one husband, and two children later, I returned to Berkeley and finally graduated, with a B.A. in anthropology. Despite having only a high school education, Carlos advanced from sticking telegrams in cubbyholes at Central Pacific, a railroad company in San Francisco, to rate clerk, to computer operator, and by the time I got my degree, he was working as a computer programmer. After I graduated, Carlos encouraged me to apply at C.P. for the same position – a suggestion I resisted strongly – but in the end, lured by the prospect of a higher salary than I could earn in any other line of work, I did apply, they hired me, and I found my niche.

Thirteen years later, when I read in a U.W. alumni magazine about Professor L.D. Rosenau's retirement from the Department of Biochemistry following his wife’s death, I wrote David a brief note of condolence. Returning home from work a few days after sending the letter, I picked up a stack of correspondence from the floor where the postman had shoved it through a slot in the front door, and carried it into the kitchen. I set my purse on the table and, still standing, leafed through the mail, tossing out a flyer for venetian blinds and a solicitation for a credit card, and there it was – a letter from David. When I recognized his handwriting, I broke into a cold sweat. David had addressed his letter to Mrs. Carlos Cisneros, even though I’d written Kate Collins-Cisneros on mine, and it struck me that he’d remembered my husband’s first name. My heart thumping, I tore the envelope open; I hadn’t heard from him in 19 years.

Department of Biochemistry
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington 98185
July 26, 1980

Dear Kate,
    Thank you for your heartfelt letter of sympathy. Your expression of concern has given me hope and encouragement during this difficult time.
Sincerely, David

     I must have sat at the table for the better part of an hour, reading and rereading his note, trying to decipher in it some meaning beyond the patently obvious, some kind of hidden message buried in the impersonal words, some expression of … love. David’s response disappointed me. The truth is I was hoping for an opening, an indication he wanted to see me again or at least keep in touch, and when I read his formulaic answer – probably the same thing he replied to everyone who wrote him – I couldn’t help wondering if our time together in Seattle meant so little to David that he’d simply forgotten me.
    In the late summer of 1984 Central Pacific asked me to attend a computer conference in Seattle and I seized the opportunity, knowing it might be my last chance to get in touch with David; he was 75 and there were so many things I wanted to tell him. Because David wasn’t listed in the telephone book and I didn’t know his home address, I wrote to him care of the Biochemistry Department, with “please forward” written on the envelope.

2700 Sonoma Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94708
August 1, 1984

Dear David,

    I hope I'm not being presumptuous in thinking you might remember me after all these years. I’m going to be in Seattle from Aug. 13 through the 17th attending a computer conference and I'd like so much to see you. Is there any possibility we can get together? I’ll be flying back to the Bay Area late Saturday morning, the 18th.

Yours truly, Kate

    Yours truly. I wondered if David would notice this phrase. Would he ask himself if I’d meant my closure literally? Probably not.
     David replied with a short note saying he still had an office at the university; he gave me his telephone number, invited me to dinner, and asked me to call when I reached Seattle. He didn’t say anything about remembering me, but I assumed he wouldn’t have extended a dinner invitation if he couldn’t recall who I was.
     When I phoned him, my heartbeat was pounding so insistently in my ears that I could barely hear the ringing on the other end of the line. I counted eight rings and David answered the phone. "This is David Rosenau. I'm currently unable to take your call. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I will contact you as soon as possible. Thank you." I hadn’t heard David’s voice in 26 years, and when I recognized his familiar Argentine accent, I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t utter a word. I phoned again and somehow managed to say I was free on Friday after five and would he please confirm the time he’d pick me up. Later in the evening, when I returned from dinner, the receptionist at the hotel desk handed me a message saying a Dr. Rosenau had called while I was out and he would come by my room on Friday at six. Once again we’d missed each other, a paradigm of our entire relationship.

    The conference ended at eleven on Friday morning; too agitated to attend the farewell luncheon, I took a sandwich to my room and spent the afternoon trying to read a novel, but David’s words of so many years before kept running through my head: “on Fridays, when I know you’re coming at three, from one o’clock on I start to feel happy.” David was coming at six, but I wasn’t happy; I was apprehensive, worried he’d changed too much, I’d changed too much, and that getting in touch with him was a terrible mistake. I took a shower, turned on the television set, watched the news, and returned, unsuccessfully, to the book.
    At six o’clock a soft knock on the door set my pulse racing. I looked through the peephole and saw David, an older version than I remembered, slightly stooped, eyebrows bushier than ever, with completely gray hair and more lines on his face, but he was recognizably David and my heart leaped. He glanced at the peephole; did he realize I was watching him? For a moment I wondered what we’d do when I opened the door. Would we shake hands? Would we just stand on the threshold staring at one another like a couple of strangers? Would I say “please come in” or something else equally awkward?
    I opened the door, our eyes met, and David raised his right hand as if to touch me. “Kate…” And then we were in each other’s arms, kissing, hugging, laughing, and crying. It was 1956 all over again and nothing had changed. David pushed the door shut with his foot.
    Still embracing, we crossed the room and fell across the bed.
     “I was afraid you'd forgotten me.”
    “How could you possibly have thought that?”
    “The letter I had from you – after your wife died – it was so remote; I wanted to keep writing to you, I longed to see you, but the way you answered me – it was the sort of letter you would send to just anyone."
    “Kate, I was only trying to forget how happy I’d been. Remembering the time we spent together was so painful, knowing it would never come again. If I didn’t suggest we stay in touch it’s not because I didn’t want you in my life. So many years had passed…your letters … the few you sent me … they were distant, too. I thought you’d probably forgotten about me as well, and if you hadn’t … you’re a married woman now, a mother. I don’t have the right to jeopardize your happiness a second time.”
    I started to unbutton his shirt and he withdrew my hand, gently. “No, Kate.”
    “Yes. This is my happiness, here with you. I was desperate to see you again because I was afraid … I’d never get another chance to tell you this – David, I love you, I’ve loved you since the day we met. Please. Hold me the way you used to.”

David removed his shoes and hung his jacket on the back of a chair. He lay down beside me on the bed again, and for a long time we talked in the gathering twilight, mingling our words with kisses and caresses.
    “Do you remember when we swam to Boone Island and made love on the beach?”
    “Do you remember the time at the zoo when you picked me up and swung me round and round like a rag doll?”
    “Do you remember …"
    It was bliss being with David again.

The telephone rang. I let it ring three times, switched on the lamp, and lifted the receiver with a sigh. “I’d better answer the phone. It might be Carlos.”

It was the shift supervisor of C.P.'s computer room; he was sorry to bother me, but a tape had broken and they couldn’t find a backup for the missing data. I opened my suitcase, pulled out a heavy three-ring binder of system flowcharts and sat cross-legged on the bed as I thumbed through the pages.

“Matt? Do you have the accounting system flowcharts available?” I waited while he got the computer room’s copy and came back on the line. “Take a look at page 113. Do you see the disk data set which is output from program FWBX1100?” I walked him through the procedure for restoring the data and began to jot down notes on the flowchart. “This situation will probably never come up again, but I just thought of a better way of handling it; I’ll work on it when I get back.” Matt thanked me and said he’d call if there were further problems.

“Very impressive.”

“Not really. This is what I do for a living. When I joined the accounting project in 1969, the programs took up all of 13 flowchart pages and now they number more than 300. I designed and wrote a third of them myself and I've patched most of the others, so it would be surprising if I didn’t know the system.”

“I hope you’re well paid for your expertise.”

“Very.”

David tilted his watch toward the light and read the time. “Do you realize it’s almost eight o’clock? If we don’t get out of bed pretty soon, we’ll miss the dinner I promised you. I’d take you to Sam’s, but Sam retired years ago and the place isn’t what it used to be.”

I was relieved; I didn’t want to revisit the past. “This hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, but there’s a good one just outside.” We put on our shoes, straightened our clothes, and took the elevator to the first floor.

After the maître d’ had seated us, I glanced around the dining room. “Do you realize no one’s staring at us the way they used to?”

“Naturally. When we met, I wasn’t – to use that dreadful cliché – twice your age, but two and a half times your age. Now I’m only 1.6 times as old as you are. You're catching up to me.”

“At this rate, when I’m 110 we’ll be the same age.”

“That sounds like a variation on Zeno’s Paradox.”

We smiled at each other, happy to be sharing esoteric trivia that few people would understand. I opened the menu, read the list of entrees, and ordered a crab salad. After the waiter wrote down our order and left the table, I took from my purse a plastic bag containing about 40 photographs and set it in front of David.

“These are for you.”

David removed the pictures, placed the stack in front of him, and started going through them one by one. They were arranged chronologically, from the photo of a young, blonde woman holding a baby, to a beautiful boy of about six posed as a ring-bearer in various weddings, the same boy participating in a race, vacation photos and finally, snapshots of the boy – now grown – in his early twenties.

David examined the pictures in stunned silence, and when he had finished, looked up at me. “Can this be … our son?”

“Yes, David, that’s our son.”

“How did you find him? What's his name? How did you get the photographs?”

Out of habit, I glanced around the dining room to make sure no one was listening.

“It’s a long story. One afternoon I was riding a bus in the East Bay and a teenage boy got on in Kensington. A few of his friends were already aboard the bus and they addressed him as 'Roger'. He resembled you so much that my heart nearly stopped. It was just a coincidence, but seeing him gave me the idea of trying to find our son. When I surrendered him for adoption, the Children’s Home Society told me three things – the father had a graduate degree, the mother was a beautiful blonde, and she had only a high school education.”

“Not much to go on.”

“No, it wasn’t. Have you heard of ALMA?”

“No.”

“ALMA’s an organization dedicated to putting adopted children and their natural parents in contact. I went to an ALMA meeting in San Francisco and learned I was entitled to more information than the CHS had given me, so I wrote to them and asked for additional details. They responded with three priceless facts – our son’s adoptive father was a medical doctor, he was of English-Dutch descent and our son was the first of two children he and his wife adopted.”

The waiter brought our our order and I paused until he’d left the table before continuing my story.

“I went to the Public Health Library at the university and consulted every medical directory they had for the San Francisco Bay Area in 1958 and I made a list of all the possibilities, eliminating those whose last names weren’t English or Dutch, and making a guess about age based on our son’s being their first child. I consulted as many biographical sources as I could find, computerized the information, and came up with a list of 200 doctors. Searching for our son was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack; it was like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack. I realized the odds that one of these men had adopted our son were remote, but the list was my only hope.

“I went to another ALMA meeting and discussed my investigation with one of their search assistants. I don’t know whether I impressed her with my sleuthing, my professional appearance, or what, but she agreed, in confidence, to tell me how to view the birth records at the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder's Office.

“I went to the courthouse in Oakland, followed her instructions and they gave me access to the microfiche. Then it was a matter of looking up the 200 names to determine if one of them was a boy whose birth date matched our son's. That sounds easy enough, but the task was staggering. Just the first name on the list, “Abbott,” had hundreds of babies listed.

“I began by looking up the name I’d used, Bentley – I was reading a book of theater criticism by Eric Bentley during my pregnancy and it seemed as good a name as any – and I found the entry immediately: baby boy Bentley, no parents, the date of birth, and the signature of my obstetrician, Howard Milliken. I was still in the B’s and the office was closing when I came to Timothy Allen Bowen, son of Richard Bowen, one of the doctors on my list. The birth date matched and Dr. Milliken's signature was on the form. I knew I’d found our son.

“Fortunately Dr. Bowen still had a practice in San Francisco; I wrote him a letter – it was so difficult – saying I hoped it wasn’t one he’d been dreading for 25 years, but I believed I was his son’s birth mother. In the letter, I mentioned working as a systems analyst at Central Pacific; two days later I received a call at work from Dr. Bowen's wife. She said she wanted to meet me and suggested that she, her husband and I have lunch together at Trader Vic’s, a restaurant in San Francisco. Mrs. Bowen told me Tim was in his final year of medical school and that he was her greatest joy – then she corrected herself to say he was one of her two greatest joys – and that he was a genius. I think the latter was a bit of hyperbole, but she based her opinion on an I.Q. test they gave Tim when he entered grammar school. The test had a ceiling of 150 and he got a perfect score.”

David smiled. “Unless they’ve repealed the laws of genetics, that’s what I would expect.”

“The night before our luncheon a terrible thing happened. The computer room at C.P. called me around one in the morning with a problem that had to be resolved immediately, so I got dressed and took a taxi to San Francisco. I worked non-stop under great pressure and got the problem fixed about six. Normally under those circumstances I just go home and sleep for the rest of the day, but because I had the lunch appointment at noon, I stayed in the city. I was completely exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally.”

David took my hand. “I wish I could have there been with you.”

“I decided to go to the restaurant early and wait outside, hoping to recognize them as they came in. It was a ridiculous thing to do, but I wasn’t thinking rationally. I waited and waited, but the Bowens didn’t show up. Unknown to me, they’d arrived even earlier than I had and were already in the restaurant. When I hadn’t appeared by 12:30, they sent someone outside to look for me; he found me, told me the Bowens were already seated and I followed him in. I felt so stupid.

“The first person I saw was Tim – Mrs. Bowen hadn’t mentioned he’d be there – and while the Bowens were complete strangers to me, I recognized Tim at once.”

“He looks very much like you.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? He resembles me more than my own children do. But I saw more than a reflection of myself – I saw my father and, of course, I saw you. Tim looked at me and saw … nothing.” I turned away from David and a tear ran down my cheek.

“Do you want to wait and tell me the rest later?”

“I’m almost done. I thought if I told you upstairs I’d do nothing but cry. Here in public it’s actually easier. Anyhow, Mrs. Bowen couldn’t have been more gracious; she is a lovely person. Dr. Bowen was polite and reserved and Tim was remote. I know he was judging me and I didn’t come off very well. I think I’m usually articulate, but I was so tired. Mrs. Bowen was the one asking all the questions. Tim was obviously uninterested in either you or me. He’s Tim Bowen, not Tim Rosenau; he’s the son of a wealthy surgeon, not the spawn of some adulterous little slut. Meeting me face-to-face must have been an enormous blow to his self-image.”

“Kate,” David remonstrated, “I’m sure you misinterpreted his feelings. He’s still young …think how hard it must have been for him, too.”

“Next to you, Tim’s the most self-possessed person I’ve ever met. I’m not wrong, believe me. Mrs. Bowen gave me the pictures. Carlos is an excellent photographer; he copied them and made a set for you, so these are for you to keep.”

“I take it, then, your husband knows … about Tim, about me?”

“I told him a few years ago.”

“Do you regret finding Tim?”

“I don’t know what I expected. I never thought I’d play a part in Tim’s life, but when I met him I was hoping we’d feel some kind of bond, and we didn’t, or at least he didn’t, so in that sense I’m disappointed. Mrs. Bowen happened to say that Tim's a big baseball fan; so was Daddy. He could recite every World Series statistic from the beginning of time. I wanted to mention this to Tim, I wanted to tell him your father was a doctor, but the words stuck in my throat. I think they would have sounded desperate, like I was trying to remind Tim of the link between him and us. Am I sorry? No, definitely not. When Daddy retired from the Navy, my parents bought a house in Oakland and a short time after they moved in, their next-door neighbors adopted a boy and a girl. One night the police received a call that the father was running around the neighborhood stark naked. A few months later his wife divorced him and the children turned out badly. I guess I was always afraid the CHS might have placed our son in a similar situation. I’m sure the Bowens wanted to make a good impression, but I honestly feel they’re a loving family, and they’ve given Tim every advantage. They even sold their house in San Francisco and moved to Marin County just so Tim could continue studying advanced Latin when he finished grammar school. He’s a lucky young man.”

“The Bowens are exceedingly fortunate to have adopted our son.”

David’s reaction was so typical of him, and I couldn’t help smiling. He squared the corners of the pictures, returned them to the plastic bag, and put it inside his jacket pocket.

“Are you going to try to get in touch with him?”

David shook his head. “I think meeting Tim would be as painful for me as it was for you. I’m happy to have a resolution to something I’ve wondered about for 26 years, but I’m willing to let it rest there.”

When we finished the meal and David paid the bill, he turned to me with a smile, “it’s Friday on a beautiful summer evening. How would you like to go for a walk around Pioneer Square to explore the nightlife? Seattle’s changed considerably since you were here.”
“Daddy used to say Seattle was the world’s largest electrically lighted graveyard.”
“Not any more.”

We left the restaurant, strolled hand-in-hand up Yesler Way, and turned down Occidental, past antique stores, art galleries and bookstores, content to talk and be together. In Occidental Square Park an orchestra was playing, and couples were dancing on a wooden floor set above the mossy cobblestones. We stopped for a moment to watch them.

“May I have this dance?”

The fragment of a poem went through my head and I recited it aloud, “Dame la mano y danzaremos, dame la mano y me amarás.” (Give me your hand and we will dance, give me your hand and you will love me.)

David supplied the next line, “Como una sola flor seremos, como una flor, y nada más…” (We will be like a single flower, like a flower and nothing more).

“Gabriela Mistral.” We smiled at each other. I listened for a moment to the beat of the music. “It’s not a waltz.”

“No, it’s a foxtrot. Does it matter?”

“Remember when you were trying to teach me how to dance? The only step I ever mastered – sort of – was the waltz.”

“It’s not your fault. If I recall correctly, as soon as I put my arm around you, we started getting other ideas. I don’t think we ever finished a single dance.”

At the memory of the aborted lessons in David’s office, we began to laugh. He gave me his hand and we danced until the orchestra took a break at ten. David went to speak to the bandleader, and returned with a smile on his face. “I told him I’m from Argentina and asked him to play a tango. The only one they know is ‘La Cumparsita’, but that’s fine; it’s an old classic.”

“A tango! Good grief, David, I don’t have the faintest idea how to dance a tango.”

“That’s the old Kate talking – ‘I can’t, ‘I don’t know how’- come on, just follow my lead.”

I put my right hand in David’s left and he held me close against him. David must have been an excellent dancer, for he made even me look good

We continued strolling along Occidental, ate ice cream cones, talked, turned down S. King, stopped for coffee, and talked some more. We were sharing a table at an outdoor café when I asked David the question that had been on my mind all evening.

“Are you going home after you take me back to the hotel?”

On the table in front of him David was constructing a building out of paper-wrapped sugar cubes. Instead of replying, he set down his coffee cup and carefully laid a final piece across the top. “A corbelled arch.”

I didn’t say anything, and waited for his answer, trying to keep from remembering the David of 27 years before who would have responded to a question like that with a mischievous leer.

Finally he looked up and our eyes met. “I was planning to.”

“Will you spend the night with me, instead?”

He hesitated for a moment and reached again for the sugar cubes. “I … yes, I can do that. I’ll drive you to the airport in the morning.”

David’s lukewarm response surprised me, and I wondered if he was having qualms because I was married, or if something else was bothering him.

At eleven, David hailed a horse-drawn carriage and we settled into the back seat. He told the coachman we wanted to tour the district for half an hour, and for a few minutes we rode in silence, enjoying the closeness and listening to the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestone pavement. David put his arm around me and I snuggled against his chest.

“You never told me how you and Carlos met. From your letters, I gather you knew each other for only a short time before you got married.”

I didn’t answer his question immediately.

“Is this a subject you'd rather not discuss?”

“No, I’ll tell you. I must have written you I was a pre-medical student at Berkeley; as you know, I always avoided the sciences at Washington because I’m weak in math, so I had a non-stop make-up diet of biology, chemistry and physics at Cal. I met Carlos in the fall of 1960, around the time I applied to medical school. I should have networked with the other pre-med students, I should have developed some sort of strategy for admission, there are so many things I ought to have done, but I didn’t, and I only applied to a few schools because the process was so expensive. I got A’s in my biology courses, B’s in chemistry, C’s in physics and did well on the MCAT, but it wasn’t good enough. Every school I applied to turned me down – me, the Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year, the girl wonder of the anthropology department. Failing to be admitted was the most humbling experience of my life. Maybe I never mentioned before that Carlos is Chilean; he was here on a student visa studying at a small business college when we met. We'd only known each other for a few weeks when Carlos left school to work full-time; immediately he got a letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service telling him he was under “docket control” and had 30 days to leave the country. I was so sorry for him. When I received my final rejection, I dropped out of the university, we got married, and he obtained his permanent residence visa.” I was staring at the carriage floor as I told my story; I looked up at David, who was regarding me intently.

“You married your husband because you felt sorry for him?”

“Marrying Carlos gave me an excuse to leave school without admitting failure. Carlos got his green card. It was a win-win situation.”

“Do you love him?”

“Carlos is a good person, honest, faithful, and hard-working, but … it isn’t fair of me to talk about him, even with you, when you’re only hearing one side of the story.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Picasso once said that in life you throw a ball; you hope it will reach a wall and bounce back so you can throw it again. You hope other people will provide that wall, but they almost never do. They’re like old wet bed sheets, and when that ball you threw strikes those sheets it just falls; it almost never comes back.
"I think that’s how relationships are, or mine, at any rate. With a few people – and I can name them on the fingers of one hand – I throw out an opinion or an idea, and it comes right back to me with a spin on it. With everyone else, the same thing just falls flat. I don’t make friends easily, but in the case of the individuals I mentioned, I knew instantly, from the moment I met them, that they were people with whom I’d forge a lifelong bond.”

“Norma…”

“Norma, Rosemary, you, of course, and … someone else I met a few years ago.”

“But not Carlos?”

“No. He’s like… no, not Carlos.”

The carriage drew up in front of the hotel and David asked the coachman to make another loop.

“Do you want to tell me about the ‘someone else’?”
I regretted my slip of the tongue; I should have known David would question me. But was it really a slip of the tongue or had I mentioned the other person intentionally? I’d always felt a need to confess to David, to unburden myself to the one friend from whom I had no secrets. Confessing to David was like a test of his love; if he could still care for me despite my transgressions, then my sins were truly forgiven.

“I shouldn’t have brought up the subject. It’s like when you and I were getting to know each other and we were talking about all the sadness in our lives – my mother, your marriage; we were torturing each other and ourselves. Was there any point to it?”

“There was for me; I wanted someone to confide in and I think you felt the same way. Yes, our conversations stirred up a host of emotions but sharing our loneliness brought us closer together. If you don’t wish to talk about him, that’s fine, but I have the feeling you do want to tell me; the ‘someone else’ is a man, I assume?”
      "Yes. David, it’s too painful.”
      “For whom, you or me?
      “For both of us, but especially you.”
      “He meant a great deal to you?”
      “Once. Not any more.”
      “Then tell me. Did you write and suggest we meet after 27 years just so we could mouth platitudes?”

I shook my head. “A few years ago when Carlos and I were going through a particularly difficult time in our marriage and he’d moved out of the house, I met a visiting professor at Cal, a Danish physicist named Helge. Helge was witty, he was charming, he was brilliant - and he'd just separated from his wife. We hit it off immediately – and as I said before, that’s only happened a very few times in my life. We'd still be friends if I’d been satisfied with his companionship, but I wanted more. I wanted him to be you, David, but he could only be himself.”

“Were you in love with him?”

“No, I wasn’t in love with Helge, but I was in love with the idea of Helge, with the fantasy I constructed about him. To tell the truth, he had many qualities I didn’t like. He used people and he was so contradictory. He’d suggest something we could do together, or a trip we could take, I’d get enthusiastic about the idea, and then he’d turn around and, without explanation, say he’d changed his mind. His vacillation drove me crazy, but somehow I kept hoping against hope the next time would be different.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“No, but the fault was mine, not Helge's. The biggest problem was that he never wanted a sexual relationship with me. It’s probably fair to say I seduced him, but in bed he was the anti-you.”

“What do you mean, ‘the anti-me’?”

“Helge didn’t like sex. For him intercourse was satisfying an urge, like scratching an itchy nose. But it was more than that – I mean he really didn’t like sex, the act repulsed him. He said I was the first woman he’d ever met who enjoyed making love; considering his only other point of reference was his wife, that's not saying much. And when he told me this, it wasn’t a compliment; I disgusted him … “

“Oh, Kate, come on … “

“No, really. Whatever we did – and it was nothing kinky, not even remotely as exuberant as what you and I used to do – he agreed reluctantly and only to placate me. He told me he’d wanted to, but his wife was unwilling; I think it was the other way around. The last time I saw Helge he was yanking the sheets off his bed and stuffing them in his washing machine because the odor of sex nauseated him. After I left his apartment, Helge phoned his wife and told her he planned to commit suicide. She drove him to a psychiatric facility on campus. A few months later his year at Berkeley ended and he returned to Denmark.”

“Was he gay, by any chance?”

“It’s funny you should say that. Norma asked me the same thing. Helge said himself that some of his colleagues in Denmark spread a rumor he was. I told him his sexual orientation didn't make any difference to me, but he denied it. He has two children … I don’t know.”

David put his hand on mine and squeezed it.

“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m a big boy; I can take it.”

“In the long run breaking up with Helge was a positive experience. Years ago do you remember my telling you I was directionless, always waiting for something dramatic to happen in my life to give me a focus?”

“Yes. You said you were like St. Paul on the road to Damascus.”

“Helge was that dramatic event. At first I was so happy – it was almost like reliving Seattle with you - but in the end I was miserable. I remember going to the bank to cash my paycheck right after we broke up and I couldn’t see to endorse the check because of the tears in my eyes. I know this will sound totally nuts, but I wanted to get away; I’d read somewhere about people being needed to pick coffee in Nicaragua, so I went to the Berkeley Co-op, where all the left-wing organizations in the East Bay post their notices, and on the bulletin board was one recruiting volunteers for Nicaragua. The coincidence was extraordinary – this occurred in December and I had no idea what time of the year they harvest coffee in Central America. I picked coffee for three weeks; then I returned with a technical volunteer organization a few months later and used the rest of my vacation doing computer analysis at an agricultural bank in Managua.

“Working in Nicaragua was a fantastic experience that stimulated my interest in the region, so I applied to the master’s degree program in Latin American studies at Berkeley. Carlos agreed with my decision completely, even though going back to school meant giving up my job, and I’ll always be grateful for his support. I graduated last year with departmental honors, applied to the doctoral program in history, and they accepted me. Carlos encouraged me to enroll, but studying for a Ph.D. would have been a huge drain on our finances and I couldn’t ask him to make that sacrifice. I knew we had to save for retirement, so I went back to work for Central Pacific.

“I can’t tell you what getting that degree meant to me. When I finally received my B.A. from Cal, I called my parents to invite them to my graduation. If I’d reached Daddy first, the outcome would have been different, but Mother picked up the phone and, in a bored voice, she told me she wasn’t interested in attending. Her answer hurt me so much I didn’t even go myself. Last year at the ceremony, when I heard Pomp and Circumstance, it seemed as though they were playing the music for me; graduation was the happiest day of my life. I knew so many intelligent, ambitious young women at Washington who went on to graduate school, to Fulbright’s, to study abroad – and I went home in disgrace without a degree. Earning the M.A. was a triumph, a personal best; it expunged the past, it erased the shame. And I never would have gotten the degree if it hadn't been for the experience with Helge.”

The horse continued its steady clip-clop over the cobblestones and we rode for several minutes in silence.

“What about you? After I left … did you find someone else?”

David shook his head. “The last month you were at the university tore my heart out. I couldn't have risked going through an experience like that again. It’s strange, but after Arlene was diagnosed with cancer our marriage improved considerably.”

“In what way?”

“In 1976 Arlene developed a persistent cough and started to loose weight. She had a chest x-ray, followed by blood tests and a biopsy, all of which showed a malignant growth. By then the tumor had already metastasized, so there was really no hope, but we – the doctors and I – decided not to tell her the gravity of her condition. She had chemotherapy. After she became ill, Arlene changed a great deal – she needed my support and accepted it gratefully. She wanted to be held and comforted so … well, it was all right. I don’t mean this in a sexual sense; that was over, but it didn’t matter. I’ll always be glad I was there for her. If I’d had a relationship with someone else, the situation would have been impossible for me. Arlene wanted to go to Paris, and after the chemo, when she was feeling better, we took a trip to Europe; we spent three weeks in France and she was very happy. She died four years after the initial diagnosis.”

“Arlene never realized she was dying?”

“Never. I’m not saying that’s the solution for everyone, but it was the right one for her.”

“Then what?”

“Our children were already grown and gone; I sold the house, moved my books to the office, and went to live aboard Sturmvogel.”

“Do you still sail?”

“Yes, but I don’t go beyond Puget Sound any more. I wish ….” He stopped and didn’t complete the sentence. “When Frank comes to Seattle we take the boat out occasionally.”

“How is he?”

“Very happy. He and Kathleen have three children and a fine marriage. Frank’s an associate professor of biochemistry in Eugene now. I talked with him shortly after I received the letter saying you were coming to Seattle; he sends you his greetings. Have you kept in touch with Norma?”

“She’s a full professor at SUNY in Stony Brook. Teaching at a university is the life she always wanted.”

“Still single?”

I laughed. “Of course; there’s no room in Norma’s life for a man.”

“And Rosemary? You mentioned in one of your earliest letters that she married and moved to the Bay Area.”

My eyes filled with tears. “Oh David, Rosemary is dead. She was killed in an automobile accident about ten years ago, together with one of her little boys. Yes, we saw each other frequently after she moved to California. Thanks to the woman at the Student Health Center, Rosie – and everyone else in Blaine Hall - knew why I left the university, and she guessed you were the father. She didn’t approve, but at least she accepted that we loved each other. Rosemary, her husband and three sons were driving up to Washington to spend the Christmas holidays with her family when …” I choked up and, seeing David's grief-stricken face, couldn’t continue. We both fell silent, remembering Rosemary’s tinkling laugh, her gifts, all in the past. I wanted to change the subject from Rosemary, and David’s mentioning Frank gave me the opening I was looking for.

“David, speaking of Frank, I need to tell you something, something that's been on my conscience for years.” I drew a deep breath. “Do you remember what took place – I know you must – between us when I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa?”

“Yes, I remember. Frank told me long ago what really happened in his apartment.”

I was stunned; I struggled to recall the story I'd told David on that terrible day so many years before.
      “What did Frank tell you?”
      “Kate, we don’t need to go into this.”
      “Yes, please, what did he tell you?”
      “He said the two of you had sex." David stopped and searched my eyes. "Is that true?”
      I sighed. “Yes.” We were silent for a couple of minutes. “When did he tell you?”

“After Spring Break, when he returned from Spokane, while I was still in the hospital. He talked to a priest when he was home. At this point I don’t remember if the priest told Frank to speak to me or if he felt he had to because he thought I was dying. In any event, he was remorseful and asked me to forgive him. We’ve never mentioned the matter since.”

“Then you know I lied to you...and you've know all along.”

“Yes.”

“I realize it’s not an excuse, but I lied because I was afraid of losing you. Is it too late for me to ask for your forgiveness now, to tell you how sorry I am?”

David put both arms around me and hugged me close to him. “All three of us behaved badly. You and I apologized to each other years ago.”
"And what I told you about Helge?"
"Dearest Kate, let it go."

Our carriage passed by the hotel for the second time just before midnight; David paid the coachman and we took the elevator to the fourth floor. Once inside the room, I turned on the bed lamp and we looked at each another with embarrassment. When I reached up to loosen David’s tie, he pulled back slightly; his reaction surprised me, and I dropped my hands. Conscious that David was watching me, I took my clothes off and slipped between the sheets. I expected him to do the same, but he remained standing by the bed, fully dressed, with a forlorn look on his face.

I stretched out my hand to touch him. “Is something wrong?”

David sat down beside me. “When you asked me to spend the night with you I should have invented an excuse to go back to Sturmvogel. Better yet, when you wrote, I should have foreseen this possibility and avoided the shame and the embarrassment altogether and said I was too busy to see you.”

I searched his face, trying to guess the reason for his anguish. “You can't mean that. I don’t understand.”

David bent over and covered his face with his hands. “Kate” he whispered, “I’ve never wanted to make love to you so much as I do at this moment, but I can't.”

David’s confession went straight to my heart. I put my arms around him and started to sob.

“I’m terribly sorry. I’m sorry to disappoint you," he said. "Please don’t cry, dear.”

“I’m not cr-crying because I’m disappointed. I’m … you were going to sh-shut me out of your life rather than te-tell me this?”

“I don’t feel like a man anymore. You told me about your humiliation. I assure you this is far worse; it goes to the very soul of what I am as a human being. I hate euphemisms - I’m impotent. Yes, I'm ashamed to tell you. I want you to remember me as I was when we were lovers, not the way I am now.”

“We are still lovers. David, don’t lock me out of your heart. What we had years ago was wonderful; if it’s over I can accept that, but I can't accept your rejection. I love you for your kindness, your humor, your understanding, your intelligence, and because you love me. None of that has changed.” I put his face between my hands and brought my lips to his. “Dearest David, there’s no reason for you to be ashamed. You’re still you – the man I’ve loved all my life.”

I started to unbutton his shirt and this time he didn’t stop me. David turned out the light. He was right about the sex, but we were as intimate and tender as two people could possibly be.

I dozed for a while, and when I awakened, David was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, with his hands clasped behind his head.

“You’re not asleep? It must be two o’clock.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and began running my fingers through the hair on his chest.

“My furry beast. You know, one of the first things I noticed about you when you took me to the HUB for coffee was how the hair on your wrist peeked out from the edge of your cuff. I couldn’t help wondering about the rest of you. It was such a turn on, but I was so naïve I couldn’t put a name to what I was feeling."
"Do you really prefer me this way? I was thinking of waxing my chest."
Knowing he was joking, I started to laugh. "I don't find hairless men even remotely attractive; they're like Ken dolls, so ... androgynous. Speaking of fur, though, there’s one part of you which needs improving.” I ran my finger along his eyebrows.

“Impossible. You always used to tell me how perfect I am.”

“Well you are, but David, with those eyebrows you’re turning into a sheepdog. Before long you’ll be walking into walls. Here, let me trim them for you.”

I got out of bed, turned on the light, found my cosmetics case and took out a pair of manicuring scissors. Sitting astride David, I bent over him and started to snip the unruly hairs. He raised his head and tried to touch my breast with his tongue.

“Behave. Keep your eyes shut.”

“You know what this reminds me of?”

“What?”

“When you wore your hair long and you used to lie on top of me – in a rather more intimate fashion than this – and spread your hair around us. It was like being in a tent.” David reached up and took the scissors from me. “That’s enough, remember Samson.”

“Delilah cut the hair on his head, not his eyebrows.”

“With me it’s eyebrows. I’ll be completely emasculated if you don’t quit.”

He took my hand and kissed it.

“Are you happy, David?”

“At this moment or in general?”

“Both.”

“I’d be less than truthful if I didn’t admit that seeing you again has been an emotional jolt and more than a little stressful, but yes, Kate, at this moment I couldn’t be happier or, in the words of a dear friend, I’m content. In general … if you’d asked me two days ago, I would have said I’m not unhappy.”

“And now?”

“Now … I realize how empty my life is … without you.”

I lay down beside him. “Do you think we can salvage something from the past?”

“Yes, but only if we have a future; otherwise what's the point?”

“What kind of future were you envisioning?”

“For the two of us?”

“Yes.”

He turned to look at me. “Will you close out your life in the Bay Area and come to live with me here, in Seattle? You can work in data processing, get that Ph.D. in history, pursue whatever goal you set.”

“David, you know I can’t leave Carlos any more than you could have left Arlene. My children would never forgive me. And Carlos ... he deserves better than that. I just can’t purchase my happiness at their expense. It’s too late. ‘The time is out of joint,’ as Shakespeare said.”

I think David expected this would be my response. He sighed and put his arm around me.

“I saw a movie once,” I began, “in which the hero’s wife dies before he does. Years later, at the end of his life, he sees her running toward him. That’s how the movie ends – with the two lovers running to embrace each other. I don’t believe in an afterlife any more than you do, but I'd like to think that’s how it will be for us.”
    “I was hoping for a more corporeal future than that.”
    “Do you have something in mind – other than what you just suggested?”
     He didn’t answer my question. “After our son was born, I took for granted you’d return to the university – to me; it never occurred to me you wouldn’t. When I got your letter saying you were staying in California, I was in shock. Why didn’t you come back?”
     “For so many reasons. I was still a minor, so I had to live either at home or in approved housing. I couldn’t return to the dorm … everyone knew. But that’s not it, really. David, I just couldn’t go back to my life at the university, always worrying about becoming pregnant, always saying goodbye to you.”
      "We could have been more careful. Half a loaf wasn’t better than none?”
     “Not for me. Was it for you?”
     “I coped. I think out situations were very different.”
     “Exactly. You had a full life. I only had you. I didn’t want to become another Iris Williams. Remember Iris?”
      David chuckled. “Of course I remember Iris. They’re living in Hawaii; I had a card from them a few months ago.”
      “Them?”
      “Can you guess what happened to her?”
      I pictured an Iris in her fifties, with her little teeth, gray hair falling over her wrinkled brow, still hunched over a desk in the Biochemistry office, typing at a computer. “No, what?”
      “Irving’s wife divorced him. He accepted a position at N.Y.U. and they got married.”

      For a long time we lay beside each other in the dark without talking. I thought about Iris and wondered what would have happened to David and me if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. David always said I would leave him eventually, but I knew better. After graduation I would have found a job in an office; I would have rented an apartment and seen David a few nights a week; maybe we would have sailed on Saturdays. Half a loaf, David had called it. Instead, I’d stayed in California, married and had two wonderful children. Even with Carlos’ moodiness and hair-trigger temper, would I have exchanged the four of us backpacking in Yosemite, traveling in Latin America, graduate school, my job at C.P., for a lonely apartment in Seattle, for some tenuous hope that David and I might eventually share a life together? No, I wouldn’t.
      I was reconciled to the past, but not to the prospect of a future without David. In the space of a few hours he had drawn me back into his orbit as surely as the sun changes the course of a passing comet, and the thought that I might soon be saying goodbye to him forever depressed me more than I wanted him to know. I turned away from him and stifled my sobs in a pillow.
      David touched me on the shoulder and realized I was crying; he sat up, switched on the lamp, and turned to look at me. “You’re crying; what’s the matter, dear?”
     “I can’t bear the thought of leaving you. I don’t know what to do.”
     He took a corner of the sheet and gently dried my eyes. “I saw a coffee-maker in the bathroom. I’m going to get up and make us a pot.”
      “At this hour?”
     “Neither of us can sleep, so a bit of caffeine won’t make any difference. Besides, we need to get this problem resolved before morning.”
      While David was in the bathroom, I went to the closet, took out my nightgown, and slipped it over my head; there was a terrycloth bathrobe hanging beside it which I carried to David. “Here. I’m getting cold and thought you might be, too.”
      “Is this yours?”
      I pointed to the hotel’s logo embroidered on the breast pocket and he slipped his arms through the sleeves; the hem fell to slightly below his knees and the sleeves were too short by nearly a foot. David prepared the coffee and brought it to where I sat curled up on the loveseat, covered by a blanket we’d taken from the bed. He wedged himself beside me and put his arm around my shoulder.
      “You made the right decision in 1958.”
      “To stay in California?”
      “Yes. When I told you how shocked I was you didn’t return to Seattle, I wasn't implying I thought you were wrong. One way or another your leaving me was inevitable, even without the pregnancy; I always knew that. But Kate, this isn’t 1958 and we don’t need to make the same decisions we did then; the old constraints are gone. When I invited you to have dinner with me this evening, I had no idea how our seeing each other would play out, and I didn’t come here with any preconceptions, or any agenda, but while you were sleeping a few things occurred to me.
      I interrupted him. “Maybe I’m taking something for granted and I shouldn’t. I’ve told you how I feel, but what about you? Do you want to see me again?”
      “What kind of a question is that? Less than two hours ago I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me; of course I do. Look, dear, here’s the answer, if you can accept it. My duties at the university are light and I have time to travel; in October I'm planning to attend a biochemistry conference in San Francisco …”
      “October! That’s just two months from now. Are you serious? In January I’m taking a business trip to the CSX Railroad in Jacksonville, Florida. Do you think you could …”
      “Yes, I could.”
      “And there are letters …”
      “… and telephones. It’s less than 700 miles from Seattle to San Francisco, a little over two hours by plane. That’s feasible, don’t you think? Kate, I’m offering you half a loaf; this time will you take it?”
      I squeezed his hand and my heart sang. “This time I’m never letting you go.”

      We fell asleep on the loveseat, me with my head on David's shoulder and David with his head resting on mine. He awakened about an hour later and nudged me. “Come on, sleepyhead, time for bed. If we sit here all night, by morning we'll be too stiff to move.”

“David?”

“Mmmm.”

“If Arlene had been willing to divorce you and we’d gotten married, do you think it would have worked out?” Naturally, I expected him to say we would have lived happily ever after. When David replied simply “no,” his answer stung me.

"No! Why not?"

“Because you wouldn’t have been happy; ergo, I wouldn’t have been either. You’re not like Arlene. She had no ambition, professional or intellectual. She was content to be my appendage, to live in my shadow, to be ‘Mrs. Dr. Rosenau’. But you’re different. When you were a student you were so competitive that you simply mowed everyone else down. You didn’t just want an 'A' – that was a given – you wanted the best 'A'. How would you like to have attended a party with me and heard me introduced as ‘David Rosenau, the biochemist who won the whatever prize,’ followed by ‘and this is his wife, Kate’, with the subtext ‘she irons his shirts.’?”

I smiled.

“You would have hated it. You may not have known what you wanted to do 27 years ago, you may not have had a goal, but you damn well weren’t going to be satisfied as a bit player in someone else’s life. You had to grow up, to affirm yourself, and you never would have done that with me. I’m proud of you. You’ve become the woman I hoped you’d be.”

I laid my head on his chest.

“Do you think we can be happy now?”

“I'm sure we will be.”
      I put the blanket back on the bed and David turned out the light; we stood for a moment in the darkness, holding one another. He took off the bathrobe and tossed it on the chair, followed by my nightgown, which he unbuttoned and slipped over my head. David picked me up and laid me on the bed. “Do you remember?” he asked, and even in the dark I could tell he was smiling.
      “Yes, I remember. We won’t ever say goodbye again, will we?”
      “No, Kate. This isn’t the end of our story; it’s the beginning of chapter two.”

When I awakened, sunlight was just starting to outline the edges of the heavy damask curtains and creep across the rug. I was lying on my left side and felt David press against my back; he was kissing the nape of my neck and stroking my breast with his right hand. I stirred slightly and snuggled against him.

“Kate,” he whispered, “sometimes, first thing in the morning ….”

I understood. I rolled over to face him and ran my fingers along his forehead. “Your eyebrows grew back during the night.” David laughed and clasped me to him.

He was still asleep when I woke up at eight. I tiptoed around the room collecting my clothes, packed my suitcase, and sat down in a chair beside him. David was lying on his back, and as I studied his face, I remembered what I’d told him years before, that he would always be handsome because it was in his bones. I was right. In repose his face was smooth, and a slight smile was playing around the corners of his lips.

I bent over to kiss him and David opened his eyes. “I like this hotel’s wake-up call. Thank you.”

“For this?”

“For this morning, for last night, for coming to Seattle, for everything.”

I kissed him again. “You don’t need to thank me. It’s mutual.”

David stretched and yawned. "Have you showered yet?"
     "I was waiting for you." As soon as I spoke, I regretted my words. When we'd gone to bed, he’d turned off the lamp before undressing and it occurred to me he might be sensitive about my seeing his body. The curtains were still drawn and the room was dim.
      “Do you want to keep the light off?" I asked as we went into the bathroom.
      David flicked the switch and gave me a knowing smile. “I'm not that decrepit; if we're going to make of habit of meeting like this, you might as well get used to me. Besides, in the dark how can I enjoy looking at you?”

While I was drying my hair, David inspected his face in the mirror. “I’ll be arrested for vagrancy if I go out on the street with stubble like this. Did you bring a razor?” I handed it to him and he ran his fingers along my cheek. “I’m sorry, your face looks sunburned where I rubbed against you. I should have thought of that earlier.”

He began to shave and then stopped to look at me in the mirror. “The first night we spent together at the motel – I went out to buy a razor because I forgot to pack one, do you remember? Did you have one with you?”

“I think so”

"How come you didn't offer to let me use it?"

My face reddened. “I didn’t want you to know I shaved my legs.”
      David guffawed. “I’m a scientist, remember? I’m aware women have hair on their legs. Next you'll be confessing you shave your armpits.”
      "True."
      "My God!"
      We looked at each other and laughed, happy to be teasing one another, to be silly; the pain and tension of the previous night were gone. It was as though we'd been parted for just a day, and we picked up the threads of our life without missing a beat.

It was only during the drive to Sea-Tac that our conversation faltered. We were both sobered by the memory of the last time David had driven me to the same airport 27 years before. He parked his car, took my suitcase from the trunk and we walked across the skybridge to the main terminal.

“Your flight’s with Alaska?”

“Yes, it leaves from Concourse C.” I went to the Alaska counter and checked my bag.

“I’ll have to say goodbye – no, not say goodbye, see you off - at the security checkpoint. The procedure's changed since 1957 when I could practically accompany you to the door of the airplane.”

I gave him a final kiss, put my purse and briefcase on the x-ray conveyor belt, and stepped through the metal detector arch. Before going to the boarding area, I turned to look back at David. He mouthed “October,” and I nodded. I pretended to take a ball from my pocket; I dusted it off on my sleeve, held it up to the light for inspection, and threw it to him. A big grin flashed across David’s face. He leaped in the air, grabbed the imaginary ball above his head, and then he hurled it back to me. I gave him two thumbs up and walked toward Concourse C.

I have saved Daddy’s letters for my children, who hardly knew their grandfather, and I have saved mine for my grandchildren, who hardly know me. Like the friends who corresponded with my mother, many of the people I wrote about have passed away, and I am a last witness to the experiences we shared so many years ago, but when I, too, am gone, these memories will live in the letters to my mother.

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Chapter Eighteen

2008-04-28T17:46:00.080+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
May 15, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

I’m sorry you received the ambulance bill before I had a chance to let you know I’m okay. The drivers must have sent it airmail on the way to the hospital. Anyway, please don’t worry - it was just a mild case of stomach flu, and an intravenous drip restored me to life.

Dr. Rosenau, the professor I used to work for, has recovered fully as well ...

Nothing about the start of that morning set it apart from the countless other mornings which preceded it; no premonition warned me that this particular day marked a watershed in my life, and that in less than a month I would be gone forever from the university. Indeed, it was so unremarkable that I didn’t even bother to note the date, but it must have been some time in early May.

I awakened with a catchy tune running through my head, the title song from a Spanish movie called Marcelino Pan y Vino. I was eating breakfast, and on the hundredth replay, a sudden surge of nausea knocked my mental needle off the record. It wasn’t a slowly developing feeling of unease as I’d felt the day of Maldonado’s memorial service, but a violent spasm of vomiting. I bolted from the dining room into the small bathroom just off the reception desk at the main entrance. I didn’t even have time to raise the toilet seat. As I sank to my knees in front of the ceramic bowl, a torrent of undigested egg, toast and orange juice poured into the water. I retched a few more times, rinsed out my mouth and staggered to my room. Trembling and bathed in a cold sweat, I covered myself with a blanket and went to sleep.

The next few days I felt fine and I attributed my sickness to stomach flu. Another bout of nausea later in the week was far more serious, however; the vomiting didn’t stop immediately as it had before, but continued through the rest of the day until I was so weak I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I vomited into an empty coffee can. Occasionally someone knocked at the door, but I didn’t answer; the phone rang, but I didn’t have enough strength to lift the receiver.

There was nothing in my stomach but bile, just bitter greenish bile. I’d grope for the can beside my nightstand, vomit, and sink back against the pillow. This cycle repeated itself two or three times an hour until I was exhausted and my abdomen ached from the violent contractions.

Late that night the vomiting finally stopped, and I sank into a heavy sleep from which I didn’t awaken until David telephoned the following morning at nine. David had become worried when I'd neither stopped by his office nor phoned him, and said he'd been calling my room for hours without getting an answer. I told him I didn't feel well. It was Saturday, and by nine they'd already finished serving breakfast in the dining room, so I asked him to take me to Manning’s. When he picked me, up I was pale and shaky, and I could tell by his shocked expression that my appearance worried him.

At the restaurant David sat staring at me with a look of concern. “Kate, is there something you’re hiding from me?”

I tried to make a joke of the situation. “Like Bette Davis in Dark Victory, soldiering on despite a fatal brain tumor? It’s nothing, just a touch of stomach flu.”

“You know what I mean.”

“My period started yesterday, if that’s what you’re getting at; it’s another reason why I’m a bit under the weather.”

This wasn't true, but David accepted my answer without comment and seemed reassured by my appetite as I wolfed down fried eggs, bacon, toast, waffles, and a slice of banana cream pie. I didn't tell him I hadn't eaten in 36 hours.

Again there were a few more normal days and my doubts were starting to vanish when the nausea – I was beginning to think of it as morning sickness – struck again. Dreading another all-night session of vomiting, I phoned the Student Health Center in the afternoon and they called an ambulance to take me to the campus hospital. The nurses put me in a four-bed ward with a girl in traction and another with bronchitis, and hooked me up to an intravenous drip for the next 24 hours because I was so badly dehydrated. Broken Leg kept prattling on about a short story she’d written – obviously plagiarized from Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” – that had caused a sensation in her English class, while Bronchitis told us how she’d inherited her heavy ankles from her father’s plebian ancestors and her narrow wrists from her aristocratic mother. I hugged my misery to myself and turned to face the wall.

Two days later, when the hospital discharged me, I phoned Frank and asked him to drive me back to the residence hall. I told him I’d had the flu and was phoning him for a ride because I didn’t want to worry David.

During the next ten days I was hospitalized two more times. The doctors were puzzled; naturally they asked about my menstrual history, but I lied to them as I had lied to David. Finally, during my third stay, I confessed I might be pregnant to a young intern who seemed more sympathetic than the others. Several days later I received a bill from a Seattle laboratory, charging me for a pregnancy test on behalf of the University of Washington Student Health Center, a test I had neither authorized nor requested. No results, just a bill.

The same day the bill arrived Frank called me in the evening.

“How are you feeling?”

“Weak, otherwise ok. I’m studying like mad trying to make up for all the classes I’ve missed.”

“Do you have time to go out for a cup of coffee? I’d like to talk to you.”

I remembered David’s comment about Frank’s perspicacity and wondered if he’d guessed. “I’m so tired. Why don’t you come over here; I can fix us a cup of something and we can talk in the lounge downstairs.”

Frank dropped by around eight. I prepared a pot of tea and took it to a table in the small alcove by the window, the same table overlooking the garden where Norma and I had drunk after-dinner coffee before she moved out. How long ago that seemed.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Yes, I’ve lost about ten pounds. Hard way to go on a diet.”

Frank glanced around the room, leaned toward me, and lowered his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. “David told me they admitted you to the Health Center, and I called this morning to find out how you were. The nurse who answered told me you’d checked out. She looked at your record and she said … she said ‘don’t worry about her, she’s just pregnant.'”

I looked at him, stunned, unable to say a word.

Frank paused for a moment and searched my face. “Is it true?”

“I think so.”

“Have you told David?”

“No, not yet. He must suspect by now, but I’ve tried to hide how ill I’ve been.”

“You’ve got to tell him; you can’t shoulder this burden alone. He’s worried sick about you. Do you know what you’re going to do?”

I shook my head. “Unless there’s a miracle, I’ll have to drop out of school and go home; I’ve missed too many classes. After that?” I shrugged. “I know you’re wondering if I’m going to have an abortion. That’s the easy way out, but I can’t bear the thought of killing David’s and my … baby. I remember your warning, when was it? Back in September? I guess you were right.”

“Kate, I didn’t come here to say ‘I told you so.’ I came to tell you that …if I weren’t already engaged to Kathleen … I’d ask you to marry me.”

I took the hand Frank held out to me and the tears poured down my cheeks. Fortunately, the lounge was nearly deserted.

“Thank you, Frank. That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

I made an appointment to see Dr. Libby. The scene in the waiting room was unchanged from the previous December, the same Boston fern, the same magazines, and the same pregnant women, only this time I was one of them. I waited my turn with none of the apprehension I’d felt months before; I knew the verdict even before the examination.

And I was right. “There is very little doubt you’re pregnant,” Dr. Libby announced coolly as he stripped the rubber gloves from his fingers. We discussed my situation and he offered to give me the names of a few Seattle abortionists, stressing that the law prevented him from performing the procedure himself. My head was whirling. I was afraid of an abortion; I kept thinking of the Charlotte’s fate in Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, and how the heroine died horribly of an infected uterus. What I wanted was an end to the morning sickness so I could somehow finish spring quarter and have time to think.

Dr. Libby didn’t take the nausea too seriously, even when I told him about my protracted bouts of vomiting. Graham crackers, that was the remedy. If I ate a handful of graham crackers first thing on awakening, the morning sickness would disappear.

I installed a two-pound box of graham crackers on my nightstand and followed the doctor’s advice. For the remainder of the week I felt fine, but on Friday morning the familiar nausea returned in full force. As I’d done before, I phoned the Student Health Service, but this time they informed me they didn't provide services to pregnant students, and I would have to consult a private physician.

I knew David was thoroughly alarmed by my mysterious illness, and I thought of calling him to ask for help, but I rejected the idea. I couldn’t face telling him. Not yet.

The vomiting continued fitfully through the day and on into the night. The telephone rang and I didn’t answer it. The bile had stopped; I was vomiting blood now and there was a burning sensation in my stomach. For the first time I began to wonder if I was going to die, to simply waste away there in my room. Saturday morning, my hand and voice trembling, I phoned Dr. Libby. Realizing it was impossible for me to come to his office, he agreed to give me an injection at the dormitory; he arrived an hour later and looked annoyed, as though I was interrupting his golf game. The shot was so powerful that I was unconscious even before he left the room and when I awakened, to the persistent ringing of the phone, it was already early evening.

“Kate, where in God’s name have you been?” David sounded frantic. “I’ve called everywhere, Norma, Frank, Rosemary, the Health Center…no one’s seen you. I’ve been phoning your room every half hour since ten this morning.”

The effects of the shot hadn’t worn off; I knew my speech was slurred and it was difficult to collect my thoughts. “I’ve … been …sick. What … time is it?”

“Eight-thirty. I’m coming right over to drive you to the Health Center.”

“No…they…won’t take me.”

“What do you mean they won’t take you? They have to take you.”

“I’m … I’ve…worn out my welcome,” I said with a forced laugh. “I’m so hungry. Could you … bring me … a hamburger .. and a milkshake? I … hope I can make it … downstairs. My head’s … still … swimming from…the shot.”

“What shot? Who gave you a shot?”

I realized I’d said more than I intended, and the game was up. “It was … Dr. Libby.”

There was a short pause. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Loud knocking awakened me. David must have given the food to one of the girls to deliver, I thought. I was about to call for her to come in when I remembered the door was locked. I staggered to the door and opened it to find David standing on the threshold with what looked like a physician’s bag in his hand. David and the room started to recede, like objects seen through the wrong end of a telescope, and I slumped to the floor.

When I regained consciousness, I was lying on my bed and David was sitting in a chair beside me, rubbing my hands.

“You had me frightened. What did Libby give you?”

“I don’t know … it was something in a disposable syringe. He threw it away in the … waste basket.”

I gestured in the direction of my desk and David started rummaging through the trash; he pulled out an empty syringe and a small cardboard box.

“No wonder you can’t stand up. This is enough morphine to knock out an elephant.” He opened the leather case at his feet and took out a brown paper bag. “For you, one hamburger, one milkshake and a large box of French fries. Eat first and then we’re going to have a talk.”

I attacked the hamburger ravenously. “Where did you get the doctor’s bag – it is a doctor’s bag, isn’t it?”

I bought it at a garage sale years ago. I knew someday it would come in handy as a disguise to sneak into a woman’s dormitory.” He smiled slightly and stroked my cheek. “Sorry. Under the circumstances that’s not a very good joke.”

“Well”, he said when I’d finished eating, “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but I’m going to be sick myself if we don’t get some ventilation in here.” He rose and opened the window.

“Oh please, David, not the window, I’m freezing to death as it is.”

“Only for a moment, to clear the air … and to get rid of this.” David picked up the coffee can, with its stinking accumulation of vomit, bile and blood; he stuck his head out the window and, after checking to see what was below, he heaved the contents into the bushes.

When I’d finished the last of the milkshake, David took my pulse. I studied his face as he timed my heartbeats; he looked tired and drawn, and I knew he was suffering too.

“One hundred and twenty. That’s very high; you're obviously dehydrated. I think you’d be better off in the hospital.”

I shook my head. "If the past is a guide, I’ll be all right for a few days. You have an engaging bedside manner, Dr. Rosenau.”

David smiled wanly. ”You’d be in much better shape today if I’d confined myself to the bedside. Dearest, why didn’t you tell me? Surely you weren't afraid I'd be angry?" He sat down on the bed and put his arms around me.

Then the tears came; I told him about the visit to Dr. Libby, the hospital, the never-ending nausea, all the things I’d minimized or tried to hide from him in the weeks before. I laid my head on his shoulder.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I just wish the nausea would go away; I feel so weak all the time.”

“What did Libby say?”

“About the morning sickness? He told me to eat graham crackers.”

David snorted. “Graham crackers! You need something a good deal stronger than a handful of graham crackers. Is that all?”

“He offered to refer me to an abortionist.”

David’s body stiffened and he turned to look at me. “Is that what you want?”

“No. What about you?”

“Kate, that’s your decision. I’ll support whatever choice you make.”

“But do you want me to have an abortion?”

“No.”

I buried my head in his shoulder; David put his hand on my abdomen and started to sob; it was the first time I’d seen a man cry. “Kate, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

The chimes rang at ten o'clock and David kissed me on the forehead. "I have to be going soon; I can't stay here much longer, even in the guise of a doctor." He covered me with a blanket, turned out the light, and sat down in the chair beside my bed; when I awakened, he was gone and there was a note on the nightstand promising to call in the morning.

When I became ill again the following Tuesday, David cancelled a lecture and drove me to Doctors Hospital. I stayed for two days in a semi-private room, and since the other bed was unoccupied, the nurses let David remain with me outside regular visiting hours.

Finally we had a chance to talk. Secretly I’d been harboring a plan to have the baby, go to Mexico and raise the child there, where I might be able to get a job teaching English and whatever David could afford to send me would go farther than in the United States. Legally I knew I had a claim on David, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him for money and when we talked in the hospital, I didn’t mention Mexico.

We had three options: abortion, keeping the baby, or adoption. Without question, abortion was the simplest solution; if I had an abortion immediately, I might be able to salvage something of spring quarter, take incompletes in a couple of courses and make up the work during the summer. But I was afraid of the procedure and David, who knew the medical risks better than I did, was adamantly opposed - "I'll be damned if I'll let some Caribbean medical school dropout do a D & C on you." We weren't opposed to abortion in principle, but neither of us could face the thought of destroying our baby. Although David never said so directly, I knew that ours was the gifted child he'd always hoped for, and while he was willing to abide by my decision, if given the choice, David wanted our baby to be born, even if we had to give it up.

We discussed the economics of keeping the baby as well as the social consequences. Single mothers were uncommon in 1957 and single, unwed mothers rarer still. Of course I could lie and claim to be a widow, but what would I do when the child was older and started asking questions? How could David play a part in our lives? Without a college degree, my job prospects were limited; if I worked, then someone else would be caring for our child all day. If I stayed home, the cost to David would be even greater. David was willing to make an economic sacrifice for himself, but we couldn't ask his family to suffer because of us.

That left adoption. Reluctantly we both agreed this was the best solution for everyone, and David promised to be with me when the child was born. I knew he felt guilty he couldn't afford to support two households, and once we made our decision we didn't discuss it again.

After my discharge from the ward, a nurse wheeled me to the driveway in front of the hospital where I waited while David went to the accounting office to write a check for the bill. He helped me make the unsteady transition from the wheelchair to the car and we headed north, toward the university. I was resigned to leaving school by this time and told David I wanted to phone my parents.

“Do you want to make your call from my office?”

“Can I make a long distance call on the campus system?”

“I’ll talk to the operator first and have it charged to my account.”

We didn’t exchange another word until we reached the university. I gave David my parents’ phone number in Oakland; he called the campus operator, spoke to her briefly and handed me the receiver.

“Please…if you don’t mind…I’d like to be alone.” David closed the door behind him just as the phone started ringing. My father answered and I explained the situation as briefly as possible. I kept running out of breath, as though something was choking me, and when I finished he said of course I could come home, and I was suffused with relief. David wouldn't hear of my making the trip by Greyhound; he insisted on buying me a plane ticket to California, so I told Daddy I’d phone again when I knew my arrival time

When the call was over, I put my head down on the desk and started to cry. David gave a soft knock and I asked him to come in. He tried to comfort me, but we both knew there was no balm, that somehow we’d have to live through the next seven months before we could pick up the threads of our lives and begin again. David made me an airplane reservation for a flight to Oakland at one the following afternoon.

There was a knock on the door. “It’s me, Frank.”

David shot me a glance.

“Ask him to come in.”

Frank opened the door, saw my tear-stained face, and remained on the threshold, with his hand on the knob, as though uncertain if he should enter.

“Please come in, Frank, this is the last opportunity I’ll have to say goodbye to you.” I turned to David, “it’s all right; he knows.”

Frank closed the door behind him, came over to the desk, and took my hand.

“I’m so sorry how things turned out … are you going home?

“Tomorrow afternoon. I wish you and Kathleen every happiness. Please keep in touch.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes, take care of David for me.”

Frank squeezed my hand, kissed me on the forehead, and left the office.

We ate dinner in silence at a small Chinese restaurant near the university and then went for a long walk; neither of us had the heart for Sam’s. When I returned to the residence hall, I took my suitcase from the closet, laid it open on the bed, and started to pack. Because my contract ran until the end of spring quarter, there was no rush to vacate my room, and since Norma had volunteered to ship whatever I left behind, I needed only a few essentials for the trip to California.

First in the suitcase went the framed photograph of David that I kept on my desk. In February he’d finally given into my pleading and agreed to sit for a studio photograph, and together we’d pored over the proofs. David favored a serious pose - what I called his "Leopold" look - while I preferred one that showed him with just the hint of a smile on his face – the way he often looked at me when I got carried away with an idea. I prevailed, and the black and white portrait stood upright on my desk when I was in the room alone and face down, under a box of tissues, at all other times. Most of all, I didn’t want Rosemary to see it. Only once was I caught by surprise; I was studying after dinner when a Blaine Hall monitor – one of the girls who came around at the beginning of the quarter to ask every resident’s grade point average – knocked on my door. I forgot to hide the photograph, and when she had finished recording my data in her notebook, she stared with interest at David’s picture.

“Is that your dad? He sure is good looking!”

David was greatly amused when I told him the story.

I picked up the music box David had given me for my twentieth birthday a month before; knowing my aversion to accepting gifts, he said it wasn't a present, but a commemoration of his being 27 years older than I was, instead of 28, a situation that would last until his forty-eighth birthday in July. I turned the winder, the cylinder started to rotate past the comb, and a song began tinkling from the box. “When I fall in love, it will be forever…” I switched it off and put the music box in the suitcase beside David’s picture.

My closet was full of dresses, each one evoking a memory of that last year at the university – the black linen sheath and lace top I’d worn to the Andres Segovia concert; the blue chiffon dress with blue velvet ribbons across the waist that I was wearing when I’d cajoled David into taking me to the Colony Club to hear Martin Denny; the sunset pink and white two-piece sleeveless dress I’d worn with a long string of white beads and matching pink shoes the day Maldonado and I had sung an impromptu duet of the folk song Eres alta y delgada in front of the Spanish 304 class. Maldonado had asked if anyone knew the words, and I'd raised my hand. So many memories, so many clothes, and in a few months I wouldn’t be able to wear any of them. I shut the closet door.

The next 24 hours are a blur. David and I ate a subdued breakfast at Manning’s the following morning and then stopped by Norma’s office to say goodbye and give her the key to my room. Norma knew, of course; she was the first person to whom I’d confided my fears.

Somehow I managed to control my tears at the airport. I was wrung out; there was no more emotion left in me. When the loudspeaker announced my flight, we kissed goodbye and I walked toward the plane. Just before climbing the ramp, I turned to look at David. He was standing where I’d left him, with a grief-stricken expression on his face. For an instant I wanted to run back to him, to hug him and tell him we’d be all right; instead, I turned around and boarded the plane. I didn’t go back to Seattle.

Go to Epilogue

Chapter Seventeen

2008-04-27T15:51:00.075+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
April 6, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Thanks for the postcard from Carmel- it sounds like you had a great time.

Norma and I will be taking the bus to Oakland around June 15. Do you have a sleeping bag, by any chance? A friend offered to lend me his, but Norma doesn’t have one ...

David awakened me Saturday morning, shaking my shoulder gently.

“Kate, wake up; we’re going to leave early.”

David had lit one of the kerosene lamps, and when I opened my eyes, I saw he was already dressed and seated across from me at the table, bent over a chart of Puget Sound. Outside it was still dark. The increasing wind the weather bureau had predicted the night before was blowing aloft, and as Sturmvogel swung in restless arcs around her anchor, the chain grumbled against the bow rollers.

I yawned, stretched widely and poked my right leg into David’s side of the sleeping bag. It was frigid, and I withdrew hastily. Leaning out of the bag, I reached beneath the table, felt for David’s ankle, and ran my hand up inside his pants, grazing the hair on his calf with my fingertips. David looked under the table at me, our eyes met, and he smiled.

"What do you think you’re doing, young lady?”

“Trying to lure you back to bed; it’s cold in here without you.”

He tweaked my nose, affectionately. “Not this morning, Kate. I’ll make it up to you in Seattle.”

“What time is it?”

“Four-thirty. Put on some clothes and let's have breakfast. We need to get going as soon as possible.”

I groaned. “My travel agent warned me about these shipboard romances. Why do you want to leave so early, anyway? Last night you said the tide won’t turn at Deception Pass until ten and it only takes a couple of hours to get there.”

David was measuring off distances on the chart with a pair of dividers; he held up an index finger to indicate he was busy and didn’t answer immediately. He wrote down some figures on a note pad and then looked up.

“I was listening to the weather report a few minutes ago. There’s a low-pressure system moving in from the north, a spring storm from the Gulf of Alaska. We’re supposed to get gale force winds this afternoon, so if we delay our start to catch the slack at Deception Pass, there’s no way to avoid the brunt of the wind later on. We’re going back by way of Admiralty Inlet; it’s longer and more exposed, but at least we can get underway sooner, before the wind picks up.”

I knew there was no point in disagreeing, so I dressed inside the sleeping bag and got up to make breakfast. We ate our oatmeal and canned peaches in silence. David was absorbed in calculating the current strength and direction at various points along our route, and he jotted down numbers between spoonfuls of cereal. I was simply too scared to talk.

I had never sailed in winds higher than twenty knots, and I was sure from Sturmvogel’s restless motion that it was already blowing at least that hard. “Gale warning” means winds of 34 to 47 knots. My mouth was dry and the oatmeal stuck to my palate.

“Have you ever sailed in a gale?”

“Up in Alaska. I’m going to set the number one jib because the wind’s from the north and I want to make time. I’ll tie a couple of reefs in the main though, before we leave.” He laid his hand on mine. “Don’t be afraid, Kate. If I’ve done it alone, the two of us won’t have any trouble. I’m not telling you the trip is going to be easy; frankly I think it’s building into one bitch of a day, but we can handle it.”

I cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink while David went forward to get the jib.

“Don’t bother to wash up now,” he said, lifting the sail bag over his shoulder. “I need your help on deck.” He opened the hatch and flung the bag into the cockpit, letting in a blast of cold air that lifted the edge of the chart off the table. By the time I donned my foul weather gear and joined David, I found he already had the jib hanked on and the sheets attached.

“Ready?”

I nodded and took the tiller. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was a glimmer of light in the east, just enough so I could make out David working by the mast. As soon as he released the gaskets on the main, the sail started flapping like a wild thing; his hands moved quickly to the winch and began cranking. David raised the sail only part way to reduce the area exposed to the wind, then lay on his back across the cabin top tying the reef lines that secured the unused portion of the sail to the boom. Once the main was up, Sturmvogel burst into life, and I steered her toward the anchor while David took in on the chain with the windlass; it must have been difficult freeing the anchor in so much wind, for David was breathing hard when he returned to the cockpit.

He looked at the dark instrument panel. “I forgot to turn on the lights.” He reached down into the cabin and flicked on a couple of switches. The cockpit instruments lit up with a subdued red glow, and at the bow the red and green navigation lights reflected off the jib, which was still tied down on deck. I looked at the windspeed indicator. Twenty-two knots. David went forward to raise the jib, sending Sturmvogel flat on her side; I eased the sheets and she came upright again, only to be knocked over by another gust of wind. My eye went to the windspeed. It registered 25 knots and then the needle dropped slowly back to 20 as Sturmvogel struggled to her feet once more.

We scudded out of the cove into open water. The wind strength held steady, but the sound was choppy with a short, steep motion that sent the boat shuddering and lurching between the swells. David went below and returned with two safety harnesses, made of rope and Dacron webbing with six-foot tethers, for attaching the wearer to the boat. I knew he kept the harnesses in one of the hanging lockers, but we had never sailed before in conditions that justified using them.

“Here,” he said, handing me one. “It’s a lot easier to keep the crew on deck with a harness than to rescue someone who’s gone overboard.” We helped each other into the straps, taking turns steering, then clipped the long ends to a couple of rings through-bolted on either side of the companionway.

I looked back at Boone Island, receding in the distance, and thought of the carefree days we’d spent in the cove. It seemed unfair that we had to return to reality, to the pressure of term papers and examinations, to the inevitable separation. In two and a half months Norma and I would be leaving for Mexico. What if we never made it back to Seattle? I looked over at David. He was staring straight ahead with an occasional glance at the sails and compass. I knew he was in his glory battling the elements, and his confidence lifted my spirits. He saw the expression on my face and nudged my boot with his.

“Smile.”

I managed a wan imitation and turned my gaze to the water. Even with the chop, Sturmvogel was flying along, averaging more than seven knots, far faster than she could go under power alone. Somewhere behind the gray curtain that enveloped us, the sun must have risen, for I began to recognize the shapes of islands to the east and west, while to the south lay the featureless expanse of Rosario Strait. The wind blew hard with a biting chill, and I huddled against the cabin trunk, glad to leave the steering to David.

I must have dozed off, for when I awakened at eight, we were in sight of Coupeville, on the western side of Whidbey Island, and still moving fast. A glance at the anemometer confirmed my apprehensions: the wind had increased to the low thirties.

“Thanks for letting me sleep.”

“I don’t know how you managed it. Your head was bobbing back and forth like a rag doll’s. Could you steer for a while? I want to go mark our position on the chart.”

David went below and I heard him pumping the toilet. With Sturmvogel's motion and angle of heel, I was glad he hadn't tried urinating over the side of the boat, as he usually did when we were alone. He handed up a box of pilot crackers, a block of cheddar cheese, and a knife. Down in the galley I heard David fumbling with the thermos bottle, then Sturmvogel lurched; he swore an oath in Spanish and I guessed he’d spilled boiling water on himself.

“Quick, take these,” he said, passing me up two mugs of coffee. Even though the cups were only half full, the coffee sloshed from side to side, spilling at every roll of the boat. He climbed back on deck.

“Beautiful day,” David said, reaching for the tiller.

“Let me steer for a while; you’ve had it long enough.”

He looked at the compass. “Ok, but keep her on course; you should be steering 128 and you’re ten degrees off.”

I put both my hands on the tiller and wrestled Sturmvogel back to 128. “Why is she fighting me?”

“Because we’re carrying too much sail, but so long as the wind’s behind us, I want to keep the number one up. If the wind stays over 35 or if it shifts to the south I’ll take that jib down and put up the number two instead.” I pictured David trying to change sails under those conditions and hoped the weather moderated.

Since both my hands were occupied by the tiller, David cut off slices of cheese and fed them to me. My tongue was as dry as a piece of old leather, but the tang of the cheese got my saliva flowing once more.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine now that I’ve eaten. Actually I’d rather steer than just sit here; when I‘m concentrating I don’t have time to be frightened.”

David relieved me at noon and I dozed fitfully in the cockpit until the motion became so severe that I had to brace my feet and hold on with both hands to keep from being catapulted across the cockpit. The wind was blowing well into the thirties now, fairly shrieking in the gusts, and I was afraid. Something else had changed: as I looked out over the water, I realized the wind had swung toward the south and we were now heading into both the wind and the water, rather like sailing into a brick wall. Sturmvogel’s motion seemed to be up and down as much as it was forward. I watched as she climbed the face of each oncoming wave and reached the crest; the view from the top was awesome, like looking over an interminable mountain range, with gray mountains, gray valleys as far as the eye could see. Sturmvogel hung on a crest for a moment, then plunged down the back side of the wave, only to meet another. And another.

David’s face was grim. “I’m glad you’re awake. I was going to call you, anyway. I’ve got to get that sail down."

My teeth were chattering, but I didn’t want him to see I was afraid, so I took the tiller from him without saying a word, and he went below to get the smaller jib. The clock chimed and I counted the bells. One … two … three … four. Four bells, two o’clock. Oh God, would this day ever end? I heard David dragging the number two jib from the forward cabin, and turned to look at the water ahead. Fifty feet in front of the bow an enormous wave was taking shape. It rose from the surface like some primeval monster; it hunched its shoulders and continued rising. The monster gave a roar and lunged toward us. I grabbed the cockpit coaming with my right hand and braced my feet. I shouted “hold on,” but no sound escaped my lips. I sat at the tiller too petrified to move; just as it appeared the mountain of water would engulf us, Sturmvogel starting lifting, like a car slowly ascending the track of a roller coaster. She inched up the side of the wall, reached the crest and hung suspended for a moment. Then the water fell away from her keel and she toppled off the back of the wave, crashed over on her side, and skidded crazily down the slope. Water boiled into the cockpit, tearing me away from the tiller and hurling me against the stanchions; only the safety harness kept me from going overboard.

From down in the cabin I heard the sound of breaking glass, of objects being flung against the hull; there was a loud crack of splintering wood and David cried out. Sturmvogel reached the bottom of the ravine, shuddered, and came upright, quivering like a jack knife thrown into a fence post. Aching and badly bruised, I went back to the tiller and took control of the steering. Instinctively I looked up at the mast and rigging; to my amazement, everything was still standing. The boathook which David carried on the cabin top was gone, but otherwise the deck appeared normal. I was frantic with worry for David, but I couldn’t leave the tiller without risking a broach. I called his name, but he didn’t answer. Then I remembered David had told me Sturmvogel would steer herself to windward if the tiller was lashed. Two sail gaskets were still in my pocket; I took them out and tied them between the tiller and the stanchions, pulling tightly until the tiller was immobilized. I looked out over the water again, wondering if I dared leave the cockpit long enough to go below and find out what had happened to David. The waves were still large, but nothing like the behemoth that had attacked us a minute earlier. As Sturmvogel continued punching her way southward, I dashed for the companionway, but I didn’t get far before the safety harness tripped me up and I had to go back up the ladder again and reach into the cockpit to unclip myself.

The scene below was chaotic. The ceramic coffee pot lay broken on the cabin sole, surrounded by a pile of paperback books that had leaped from the bookcase. The VHF radio was smashed. The breakfast dishes, in the sink only moments before, lay scattered about the cabin, and the bulkheads were splattered with globs of oatmeal. Pieces of broken glass crunched under my boots. David lay on the remains of the table, bleeding from a cut on the side of his head; he wasn’t moving.

“Oh my God”, I thought or perhaps I cried it aloud. I kneeled beside him and called his name, but he didn’t reply. My hands were shaking as I felt for his pulse, but I was trembling too badly to be able to detect anything so slight as a heartbeat.

David opened his eyes and tried to move his head, but the effort was too great, and he let out a moan of pain.

“I’m sorry … I waited too long …”

“No! It’s not your fault. There was a wave … a big wave ... oh, David!” I sobbed, laying my head on his chest. Stiffly, he put his arm around me.

“It’s up to you now, Kate. You’re going to have to get us home by yourself. You and Sturmvogel.”

I wanted to scream. There was no way I could sail the boat myself, not in that wind. The jib had to come down and I wasn’t strong enough to change it alone; it would be dark hours before we reached Seattle, if we ever got near Seattle, and I’d never be able to endure until then. I wasn’t sure where we were and I didn’t know the course to follow. I can’t do it, I thought. This is the end. Another one of those waves is going to come along and smash us; the boat will break up and we’ll be drowned. There’s nothing anyone can do. I’ll just lie down here with David and wait to die.

David stirred. “Kate … can you get your weight off my chest … it’s my ribs … something’s broken.”

I sat up and looked at him. He was lying with the right side of his face on the cabin sole and there was a pool of clotting blood beneath his cheek. The knockdown had thrown him against a kerosene lamp, breaking the glass chimney, then down upon the table, which had collapsed under the impact. I looked again. A froth of red bubbles covered his lips. Did he have a punctured lung in addition to broken ribs? Was he dying? I didn’t know.

“The course …” he groaned and took a deep breath. “The course is one-one-eight. Repeat it.”

“One-one-eight.”

“Kate, remember … 'Ulysses.'”

He lost consciousness.

One-one-eight, one-one-eight, one-one-eight. I kept reciting the numbers over and over to myself as though the key to our survival lay in memorizing them. One-one-eight, I said to myself, bitterly. What the hell difference does it make if the course is one-one-eight or one-eight-one or eight-one-one? It’s all the same in the end. What did David mean about Ulysses? I tried to remember Tennyson’s poem, which David knew by heart, and then the closing lines came to me: “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

I looked at David and was glad he was unconscious. At least he was spared the pain and anxiety of our situation. It seemed strange to see David lying there helpless, David who was always so strong. How ironic that his life was in my hands. I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my jacket and got up to look for the chart; I found it on top of the stove. Clearing the glass and crockery away from one area of the cabin sole, I sat down to study the route David had plotted in the morning. At two he'd marked our position on the chart and penciled in the log reading as well. I looked at the clock. It was a quarter past two, which gave us at least another couple of hours before we had to alter our course.

The jib bag lay at David’s feet, reminding me that I needed to change the sail. I considered leaving the number one up, but if the wind increased, the pressure of the large sail might break the mast, and then the mast, secured to the boat by the rigging, would act like a battering ram against the hull, and then a hole would be punched in the side of the boat, and then … I got up and climbed into the cockpit. Sturmvogel was off course, but not by much, and she was sailing herself without any help from me, so I clipped on my safety harness and sat down to think about the sail change. After I got the jib down – if I got the jib down – I needed some place to put it; normally we tied an unused sail to the lifelines, but in such a high wind I couldn’t leave it on deck. I’d have to stuff it below, through the forward hatch. That meant opening the hatch in advance, so I went below again and made my way carefully toward the bow. I had to hang on to the overhead grab rails at every roll of the boat to avoid stepping on David, and it was several minutes before I returned to the cockpit.

Dragging the sail bag behind me, I crawled along the cabin top and bent low to keep from being knocked over by the wind, clipping on my safety harness to the rigging as I went. Gasping for breath, I reached the mast and sat with my arms and legs encircling the spar. When I recovered, I slackened the tension on the jib halyard, planning to go forward and grab the sail as it came sliding down the forestay, but I let up on the halyard and nothing happened. I released the halyard completely, relieving the upward tension on the sail, but the jib remained obstinately in place, pulling like a mule. Then I realized what was wrong. When David and I were sailing together, he always ran downwind as we removed the headsail, thus blanketing the jib with the main and reducing the wind pressure, so that the sail plummeted toward the deck like a stone as soon as he released the halyard tension.

I didn’t have that happy option and I knew if the sail was ever coming down, it would be by brute force. I hated leaving the security of the mast for the foredeck since the wind was howling and Sturmvogel was taking water over the bow with every roll, but I crept forward, attached my safety harness to the bow pulpit, and started to pull down the sail. The deck was like a trampoline; as the sea roared by, Sturmvogel would give a mighty heave, lift me clear of the deck and dump me, seconds later, in the same spot. The oncoming waves exploded against the hull, drenching the bow with salt water. I had water in my boots and water down my back, but I held on. Inch by inch I wrestled the jib down the forestay, smothering my adversary with the weight of my body. Sometimes I lost ground, the jib tore from my grasp, and I watched in despair as three or four feet of sail, a good five minutes' worth of work, slithered back up the forestay. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." I thought of David, lying injured in the cabin, dying perhaps, and hung on stubbornly, timing my fight with the downward roll of the boat, when the force of gravity, combined with my weight, gave me a momentary advantage over the sail. At last it was down; both the sail and I lay in an exhausted heap on the foredeck.

Sturmvogel’s motion was easier now; the wind was blowing as hard as ever, but the boat was upright and had stopped crashing into the waves. I lifted the hatch and began stuffing the sail below.

It was four o’clock before I had the number two jib up and drawing, an hour and a half to accomplish a task that shouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes under better conditions. I was worn out, almost beyond caring. The wind had increased to 40 knots, but with the smaller jib set, I hardly noticed the difference.

I saw Port Ludlow to the southwest and went below to mark our position on the chart; it was obvious Sturmvogel wasn’t holding us on course with tiller lashed, and I realized I’d have to steer by hand. David was delirious; I kept trying to understand what he was saying until I realized he was speaking German.

In a deep locker behind the stove, half a dozen cans rolled back and forth with every heave of the boat, setting up an unbearable rhythmic clatter. I opened the locker and set the cans upright, but they fell over on the crest of the next wave, resuming their mournful cadence. I opened the locker again, grabbed a can of vanilla pudding just before it rolled out of reach, and sat down on the cabin sole to eat it. According to my calculations we were 40 miles from Seattle; at an average speed of five knots that was another eight hours. Eight hours and we weren’t making anything like five knots against that wind and sea.

I untied Sturmvogel’s tiller and took over the steering myself. We continued south, passing towns and islands whose names I couldn’t remember, breasting wave after wave in an unending succession until I was hypnotized by the motion. At five-thirty I turned on the navigation lights, hoping the batteries would last, for I couldn’t recall if David had charged them recently. I wasn’t worried so much about the navigation lights themselves - I was willing to take a chance with ships – but I would need the instrument lights to read the compass in the dark.

At nine, by my reckoning and the boat’s log, it was time to alter course and head for Seattle, still some 20 miles over the horizon. Coming about was an automatic maneuver; I pushed the tiller to port and waited for the moment when the bow would swing through the wind and I could release the port jib sheet and start hauling in on the other side.

As Sturmvogel started to come into the wind, a wave shoved the bow back. I waited until the boat gathered speed and tried once more with the same result. I tried a third and fourth time. On the fifth try we came close; Sturmvogel’s bow swung slowly around and she poised on the top of a wave. She shuddered for a moment, as though undecided, and then fell back on the starboard tack. I was beginning to feel panicky. What if she refused to turn? We’d keep right on sailing southeast, a veritable Flying Dutchman, until we fetched up … where? I was too tired to remember the geography of Puget Sound. I considered our situation. I could always jibe the boat, but in forty knots of wind that risked carrying the boom, the sail and quite possibly even the mast, completely off the deck. Jibing was out. I would have to turn at precisely the right moment, preferably in a stretch of smooth water, if I could find such a place in the tumultuous seascape that surrounded us. I tried again and this time we almost made it; the bow was only a hair’s breadth away from completing the turn before it fell off, and I was encouraged. On the seventh attempt I shouted, “goddammit, Sturmvogel, TURN!” The bow swung ninety degrees through the eye of the wind and then over to the other side. I released the port jib sheet and hauled in on the starboard side. I felt triumphant; we were heading home.

At ten, I lashed the tiller again and went below to eat something. Inside the cabin it was black; even though I was afraid of exhausting the batteries, I had to see, so I turned on one of the electric lights and kneeled beside David.

“Do we have any hot water … for coffee?” he asked. There had to be some left; I'd forgotten all about the thermos, and my spirits lifted at the thought of a hot beverage. I found the thermos under the remains of the table, but when I picked it up my hopes were dashed, for the sound of tinkling glass inside told me the liner was broken.

“I can try lighting the stove …”

“No, it’s too rough. Can you get me some water?”

“How about fruit juice?”

He nodded.

I made another foray into the locker of banging cans and came up with one can of tuna fish and another of peach juice. I poured a small amount of juice into a plastic cup and bent over beside David. He lifted his head with difficulty, and I noticed a bloody gash down the right side of his face; even by the dim cabin light I could see the area around David’s eye was bruised and swollen. He gave a short, wheezing cough and more foaming blood appeared at the edge of his mouth. I pulled a tissue from my pocket, wiped his lips, and whisked the tissue out of sight.

“Show it to me.”

Reluctantly I held it in front of him; our eyes met, but he didn’t comment on the blood.

“How far are we from Seattle?”

About seventeen miles.”

“What’s our course?”

“One-five-eight – when I’m steering; I have the tiller lashed.”

“So you’ve already tacked,” he said, struggling through a curtain of pain to remember the course he had plotted earlier in the morning.

“About an hour ago. It was awful. The waves just kept pushing …” I checked myself. There was no point in worrying David with my problems. “I’d better go back up and steer. Can I do anything for you besides get you to Seattle as quickly as possible?”

“Yes …” he hesitated. “I hate to ask you this, but I need to urinate. There’s a small basin under the sink … would you mind?” I unzipped David’s pants and held the basin while he relieved himself.

There was a wry smile on his face, the first smile I’d seen since the accident.

“This has to be the ultimate humiliation; now I know how it feels to be helpless.” He wheezed again and coughed up more blood.

“Don’t talk anymore, David,” I said covering him with a blanket. “Go to sleep, if you can.” I readjusted the pillow under his head and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, braving the stench of oatmeal, blood and salt water that rose from the cabin sole.

I disposed of his urine in the toilet and started up the steps to the cockpit, fork and tuna in hand.

“Kate?”

“Yes?"

“Thank you.”

The wind had moderated to thirty knots; that was still far more than anything I’d experienced in the past, but in comparison with what we’d encountered in the afternoon, the evening wind was a mere zephyr. I finished the tuna and tossed the can overboard.

The moon and stars were invisible behind the clouds of the night sky; there was nothing to see at all except for the red glow of the instruments and an occasional winking light on shore. I was still wet from the soaking at the bow and thoroughly chilled besides; my teeth began to chatter and I was wracked with uncontrollable shivering. I went below, rummaged around in the hanging locker, and found two dry sweaters. David’s transistor radio lay intact in the bottom of the locker; I stuck it inside my jacket to protect the case from the damp air and spray, and returned to the tiller. How strange it seemed to be sitting in Sturmvogel’s cockpit listening to popular music while the wind screamed overhead and David lay below badly injured. How unreal that just a few miles away people were carrying on the most mundane activities – brushing their teeth, riding in cars, watching television – while we were living a nightmare.

My head kept drooping. When my grasp on the tiller relaxed, Sturmvogel changed course, and the boat's altered motion awakened me. I was tired, incredibly tired, fast falling into a torpor that made any sort of mental activity a virtual impossibility.

It was past midnight when the loom of Seattle’s lights finally shone over the horizon; the water was calmer although the wind was still blowing hard. For the first time since David’s accident, I dared to hope we were going to make it, and I started to think about getting into the marina. I’d have to sail in; the outboard motor was far too heavy for me to lift from its place under the cockpit seat and secure on the transom of the boat. If I sailed in I’d have to take down the main and use the jib alone, for I wouldn’t be able to spill the wind from the mainsail fast enough to avoid a crash landing at the dock. These thoughts were going through my mind, but slowly, very slowly.

I was steering by eye now; Seattle’s skyline was emerging over the horizon and I began to make out a few of the landmarks. Then, gradually, the city started to fade. I blinked several times; was I losing my eyesight? My answer came as a rainsquall hit us, blotting out everything beyond the bow of the boat. It was back to steering by instruments. I looked at the compass and looked again, in horror, for the light had gone out. The other instruments were dark, too, and I realized with despair the batteries were exhausted. I searched for the flashlight David kept in the cockpit, but it had either gone overboard or been hurled into the chaos below. The rain pelted down and I started to cry. Oh God, I sobbed, how can you do this to me, just when we’re so close? I began to panic. In the dark and the rain I was completely disoriented ; without the compass how was I going to find Seattle? We were somewhere near the vessel traffic lanes; how was I going to avoid the ships?

Inside my jacket the radio lost power and station KIRO flickered out. What, you too? I thought bitterly. Then a wave caught the bow of the boat, we changed course, and the music came on again. The radio. What had David told me once about navigating with a radio? I struggled to clear the cobwebs from my brain, and then I remembered. He was telling me about a Japanese sailor who had crossed the Pacific in a home-made boat, heading for San Francisco. His only navigational instrument, other than a compass, was a small transistor radio, and he’d pinpointed his landfall homing in on a San Francisco radio station. But how had he done it? There was some trick to lining up the radio’s axis with the transmitting tower, but what was significant, hearing the station or not hearing it? Suddenly the answer came to me; if I was able to hear KIRO at full volume when I could see we were heading in the right direction, then all I had to do was keep the radio in the same position and orient the boat in such a way that the signal strength remained constant. I shoved the tiller to one side and the music faded again; I changed course and the music returned. Satisfied my theory worked, I readjusted our course and steered through the rain to the sound of music. We were going home.

My memory of the rest of the trip is blurry. The rain lasted for about an hour and, as the shower passed to the north, Seattle emerged again from the haze. When we were less than two miles offshore, I started to recognize individual buildings. Even late at night they were lit up, and as I scanned the skyline for familiar landmarks, the buildings seemed to inflate. They billowed out like budding yeast cells. Parapets and towers mushroomed up, wagged their heads and leered at me. I watched in horror, fully aware I was hallucinating, but the city kept changing shape ominously, expanding and contracting like something out of a drug-induced nightmare. The land seemed so close; several times I changed course in a panic, sure we were running aground, only to realize we were still in deep water. I looked at the companionway and saw an elephant climbing out of the cabin; one-half of my brain accepted the pachyderm with complete indifference, while the other half told me I was seeing things. I blinked hard several times and the elephant disappeared. Somehow I found the breakwater outside the marina and got the mainsail down and secured around the boom. It was no longer so dark, for the lights of Ballard illuminated the deck.

The landing at the marina was hard; in my exhaustion, I let the jib sheet fly too late, and Sturmvogel charged into her berth, hit the dock with a bang, and bounced back. We were home. I sat in the cockpit for a few minutes considering how to get David to a hospital. Until then I’d been so concerned with surviving, that reaching Seattle was my only goal, and I hadn’t thought beyond our arrival. I was too weary to think and I needed someone’s help. Norma and Rosemary didn’t have cars. Was Frank back from his trip to Spokane? I wondered if I dared ask Frank for assistance after the incident in his apartment. What would David say?

I finished tying Sturmvogel’s lines and went below. The hard landing had awakened David; he was coherent, though in great pain, and when I told him I was going to phone Frank to arrange for the doctor and ambulance, he just looked at me and whispered “all right.”

The simplest tasks were agonizing; I knew I needed the marina key as well as money for the telephone call, both of which were in my purse, but somehow the purse had got misplaced in the knockdown and it was too dark in the cabin to find it. I sat down on the cabin sole wondering stupidly what to do. David suggested I use his key, so I slid my hand deep in his trouser pocket and came up with not only the key, but enough change for the call.

Once out on the dock my head cleared somewhat and I began to worry what to do if Frank wasn’t home. David’s doctor was a family friend; I didn’t want to phone him and say the two of us were sailing back from the San Juans when the accident happened. Should I just call an ambulance?

I found a telephone booth, dialed Frank’s number and counted the rings. One…two…three…four. Oh Frank, please be home, I prayed. On the fifth ring someone picked up the receiver and a sleepy voice said hello.

I was flooded with relief. “Frank, it’s me. I’m so glad you’re back. I need your help. David was hurt on the boat and I think he’s badly injured. Can you call his doctor and get an ambulance and come yourself to let them in?”

“Kate? Let them in? Where are you? What are you talking about?”

“I’m at the marina. We just got here. David’s still on the boat and I think his ribs are broken. Do you have a gate key?”

“Yes … but …”

“David’s doctor is Sanford Kadish. K-a-d-i-s-h. Since you have a key, can you open the gate for them? I’ll explain everything when you get here. Please hurry, Frank. I’m going back to the boat.”

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m just … very tired.”

Twenty minutes later, when Frank and the ambulance crew arrived, I was asleep on the cabin sole beside David. A beam of light from Frank’s flashlight shone in my face, awakening me, and then played around the interior.

“My God, what happened?” Frank was down the ladder in an instant; I stood up and sagged against him.

“Oh, Frank, it was so awful,” I said, starting to cry. He put his arms around me and patted me on the back.

“Everything’s going to be all right now. Let’s go up and give these guys room to get David out of here.”

Two paramedics went below and, with Frank’s assistance, they swayed David out of the cabin in a blanket, and then laid him on a gurney. The men covered David, strapped him loosely, and started rolling the gurney toward the gate. I jumped off Sturmvogel and began running after them.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m going with David … to the hospital,” I called back. “Can you lock up the boat?”

Frank was beside me in a moment. “Kate, they won’t let you go with him; Dr. Kadish is going to be waiting for the ambulance and they’ll take David right to the emergency room. You won’t be able to see him for hours. And besides, they’ll call his wife…”

“But I want to be with David," I wailed.

Frank took my arm. “Come on, let’s go to the car and I’ll drive you home. “

“What time is it?”

“Three thirty.”

“I can’t get in,” I said wearily. “They don’t open the residence hall until six.”

Frank didn’t reply. He helped me into his car and I fell asleep while he went back to lock the boat. When I awakened, Frank was opening my door.

“Where are we?” I asked, staring into the darkness.

“My place.”

“I thought you were taking me home.”

“I did take you home. My home.”

I climbed out, too exhausted to care where I spent the rest of the night. Frank switched on the lights in his living room and stared at me in disbelief. “My God, but you’re a sight!”

He handed me a pair of pajamas and I went in the bathroom to change. I looked in the mirror with shock; the face that met mine was barely recognizable, a grotesque caricature of myself. My hair was matted and stuck out from my head; I looked like a waterlogged Medusa. Underneath the puffy lids, my eyes were inflamed from the buffeting of the wind, and there was a streak of blood – David’s blood – down one side of my face. I left my soggy clothes in Frank’s shower and stumbled into bed.

Go to Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Sixteen

2008-04-26T14:08:00.117+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
March 21, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

I just finished my human paleontology final exam - the last one of winter quarter. A week ago the professor, Dr. Osborne, told the class he’d give us as long as we wanted for the normally three-hour test; I’m not sure now if he was joking, but I thought he meant it at the time, so I showed up at eight for the final with four blue books in hand. At eleven o’clock I was just getting started - you can imagine my horror when he called for the blue books! I reminded Dr. O. of what he’d said, and he asked me to follow him to the Anthropology Department. I wrote for the next two hours, regurgitating every mandible, cranium and femur ever discovered. I think I got a good grade in that course.

I’m eager to see your new apartment, but something’s come up here, so I plan to spend spring break in Seattle...

When the alarm clock rang at three thirty Saturday morning at the end of finals week, it took me half a minute of fumbling in the dark before I could silence the buzzer. I got dressed, lifted my duffle bag over my shoulder, and tiptoed downstairs. The kitchen staff would arrive at five-thirty, heralding breakfast with the aroma of frying bacon, but at three thirty the first floor was deserted. Although I could have gone stomping through the living room without anyone’s hearing me, I walked stealthily, keeping to the rug, and avoiding the creaking floorboards. The lock on the front door opened with a resounding thunk; I went outside and pulled the door closed behind me, and as the lock slid noisily back in place, I hoped I hadn’t forgotten anything.

David was waiting for me in the driveway; he put my duffle bag in the trunk beside his own and gave me a quick kiss. His unshaven cheek brushed against mine; it felt like sandpaper, and I reached up to touch his face.
     “Sorry, I overslept. I’ll shave on the boat. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten anything, have you?”
     I shook my head.
     “Me neither. We ought to have breakfast before we leave; this is going to be a long day.”

David pulled in at a truck stop on the way to the marina. In contrast to the silent residence hall and the empty streets, the parking lot full of men chatting and smoking cigarettes was an oasis of activity in a dark city two hours before sunrise. We took seats at the counter next to a group of truck drivers engaged in a lively discussion with the waitress, a leather-faced woman in her late forties whose straw-colored hair clashed with her olive complexion. The man sitting beside me had his sleeves rolled up and his elbows on the counter, exposing a devil with an octopus tentacle for a tongue tattooed on his left forearm.

“Shee-it,” he exclaimed, waving cigarette smoke in my face. “If it was up to me we’d go into Hungry and drop an A-bomb on the Reds. You know why we don’t? It’s the damn Jews and Commies in Washington.” David nudged me with his elbow. “Hell, you know the Russkis are goin’ to attack us sooner or later, so why don’t we beat’em to it? Those guys in Congress are yellow, that’s why.”

The waitress refilled his coffee cup. “Yeah,” she agreed, "those fuckers don’t have any balls.”

“Shee-it.”

When we reached the marina it was still dark, and David started the outboard immediately, eager to get underway. As soon as we cleared the breakwater, he turned the tiller over to me and went on deck to hoist the sails. Together we’d studied the chart of lower Puget Sound: we would leave Seattle before dawn and head north toward Whidbey Island, pass it to port, and continue up the Saratoga Passage into Skagit Bay. David was timing the trip to take advantage of the slack current at Deception Pass, a narrow and turbulent ribbon of water between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands, where the swirling currents boil through at speeds up to nine knots at maximum flood. According to his calculations, slack water would occur at six in the afternoon, and we had to be ready to transit the pass precisely at that time or anchor somewhere and wait until the following day. Once through Deception Pass we faced another open stretch across the Rosario Strait that divides the eastern portion of the Sound from the San Juans.

David’s destination was Boone Island, scarcely more than a dot on the chart, one of the many small outcroppings in the southern San Juan chain. He was purposely mysterious; he told me only that he’d visited the island once a couple of years before and had always planned to return.

Aboard Sturmvogel, I’d never been out of sight of Seattle, and I watched eagerly as the lights of the city receded in the distance, replaced at dawn by steep evergreen-clad shores to the north. The weather was clear with just enough wind to sail, but David kept the motor going because we had a schedule to meet.

We took turns steering and navigating; using a hand compass, I marked the bearings of buoys, bluffs and towers, charting our steady progress northward. Even though the city was far out of sight, civilization still surrounded us. We passed a number of towns on Whidbey Island, an occasional sea plane flew overhead, and we saw a few ferries and other small boats, powerboats mostly, carving broad V’s in the water in their hurried passage north.

We reached Skagit Bay by late afternoon and since David calculated we would keep our rendezvous with Deception Pass on time, he turned off the motor and we sailed for an hour before sighting the bridge over the channel. To port lay lovely Cornet bay, and we debated whether to anchor there for the night. I wanted to stay; we'd already been underway for more than twelve hours, and I felt apprehensive about trying to find Boone Island in the dark, but David prevailed. I cast a wistful glance at the bay as we headed for the narrow passage between the steep wooded bluffs, and understood how Columbus' sailors felt gazing back at the Pillars of Hercules.

After the anxiety of going through Deception Pass, the glassy smoothness of Rosario Strait was almost anti-climactic. David set a compass course and noted the log reading; with darkness obscuring the landmarks, we would be navigating by instruments from that point. The wind died to a whisper and David started the outboard again while I went below to open a couple cans of stew and heat the coffee. We ate dinner in the cockpit, spooning our stew from deep plastic soup bowls, while watching the sun go down behind the forested mountaintops.

David knew much of Puget Sound's history and, as night fell, he told me stories of Indian raids on the first settlements, of the smuggling of Chinese laborers and of the early British exploring parties. The last thing I remember is his story about a farmer who found a cache of smuggled opium and used the drug to cover his barn, thinking the brownish-red material was paint.

“Kate, wake up; we’re here.”

I yawned and looked around. A full moon was just rising in the east and to the west a black silhouette loomed out of the water, but in the dark I couldn't make out the features of the island, if indeed it was an island.

“How long was I asleep?”

“I’m not sure, maybe about an hour. You don’t do much for my ego. I was rambling on at great length how the Haidas tried to massacre the governor’s family back in the Indian Wars of 1856, when I realized my entire audience had fallen asleep. It’s an occupational hazard for a biochemist.” He gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “That’s Boone Island over there. I’m going to cut our speed and head for the cove. How about getting the windlass handle for me?”

We approached the island slowly, and as we neared the shore, I could make out a tiny bay, barely large enough for three boats to anchor, a thin strip of beach and, behind the beach, a solid phalanx of trees, somber and indistinguishable in the moonlight.

“How deep is it in here?” I called from the foredeck.

“About twelve feet; when you’ve let out fifty feet of chain let me know and I’ll start backing down.”

David brought the boat to a halt and I let go on the windlass. The 35-pound anchor splashed into the blackness below, followed by the rattle of chain on the bow rollers. When the anchor was set, I sat with my back against the mast and watched the moon trace an undulating pencil of light across the surface of the bay; the scent of evergreens drifted from the island. Daybreak would bring airplanes overhead and powerboats out in the strait; perhaps the island was inhabited. David hadn’t told me. But for that one night were isolated from man and from the works of man.

I returned to the cockpit, where David was holding a small flashlight between his teeth and writing in the log.

“What a beautiful evening,” I sighed.

“Isn’t it though? After that nap you should be good for another two or three hours at least. How about joining me in a cup of hot buttered rum.”

“Is it big enough to hold both of us?”

“Smartass!” David exclaimed, whacking me across the bottom.

He went below, lit a match and Taylor roared into action. With the burner’s orange flame illuminating the galley, I caught sight of the dirty dishes in the sink.

“While you’re down there, could you heat me some water for washing the dishes?”

“Leave them for tomorrow.”

“No, I don’t want to face dirty dishes first thing in the morning. I’ll wash them before we go to bed.”

David didn’t answer and I heard him filling the tea kettle.

When he returned a few minutes later, he was carrying two steaming mugs.

“Here, try this; I didn’t put much rum in yours.”

I tasted the drink. “Mmmm it’s good.”

David sat down in the cockpit beside me and extended his long legs across the well to the seat opposite. I snuggled close against him.

“Have I told you today that I love you?” I asked.

“No, I don’t believe so. That’s a capital offense aboard the good ship Sturmvogel. It’s called disrespect for a ship’s officer and the punishment is keelhauling.”

“What’s keelhauling?”

“The captain takes the miscreant below, strips her naked and … hauls up to her keel.”

I laughed. “You can be so silly sometimes. When I see you in public, proper and dignified, as you were at the AAAS convention, I can scarcely believe this side of you exists.”

“I know. I’m schizoid. The other me is Leopold. I like David much better, don’t you? Leopold‘s such a pompous windbag.”

We sat for a long time in silence, enjoying the night, relishing the thought of having no schedule for the next six days, no watches to look at. I was falling asleep with my head on David’s shoulder when an eerie wail floated through the trees and across the water.

“What’s that?” I asked, sitting up.

“A loon.”

“Oh.” I put my head back on David’s shoulder and shut my eyes. “Loon. Isn’t loon a lovely word? I remember when I was in high school and used to shelve books in the library. There was a novel called Loon Feather. I always meant to read the book because of the beautiful title, but I never did. It was about the Chippewa Indians, or maybe it was the Iroquois. What were the six tribes of the Iroquois nation? The Oneida, the Onondaga …"

“You’re not making a whole lot of sense.”

“I know; I feel all warm and sleepy. It must be the rum.”

“I didn’t put enough rum in yours to make a kitten tipsy. I think you’re a closet narcoleptic. Come on, Kate, let’s clean up down there. You wash, I’ll dry – and we’ll go to bed.”

David lit the kerosene lamps and we washed the dishes. When he’d dried the last bowl, David disappeared into the forward cabin and returned with two sleeping bags, his old blue one and a red bag I’d never seen before.

“I have something to show you. You see this sleeping bag? It’s brand new. Now I don’t want you getting any grandiose idea that I bought the bag for you, because you made it abundantly clear to me at Christmas how you feel about receiving gifts. On the contrary. The bag's for any young woman who spends the night aboard with me, so tonight you may use it.” David was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “It has one interesting feature.” He opened both bags, laid one on top of the other, and zipped them together to make a double bag.

“There! What do you think of that?”

“Very cozy. Tell me, am I the first one to try it out?”

“Let me see,” he said with mock seriousness. “Well, there was Janet, and then there was Linda and then…”

I wadded up one end of the bag and tried to cram it in his mouth. “I always suspected you had a sadistic streak.” We struggled for the bag and fell on the bunk, laughing. David propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me. “Kate, I love you.”

I took his face between my hands and kissed him. “I’m so glad we came here.”

“It’s time for sleep.”

“Sleep?” I asked mischievously.

David became serious. “Yes, sleep. Remember the conversation we had last week? We have plenty of time for sex; tonight we can be lovers in a different way.”

I changed my clothes in the small head compartment and put on a heavy flannel nightgown, a “Mother Hubbard,” I’d bought in anticipation of the chilly nights.

“Good grief!” David exclaimed when I returned to the main cabin. “Who designed that thing? Margaret Sanger?”

“See? I’m doing my part.”

I climbed into the bag and flicked my tongue against his upper lip.

“Uh-uh. Not tonight. Let’s just cuddle.”

“’Cuddle’. How well you pronounced it.”

“I have an expert speech teacher.”

“Are you sleepy?”

“A little. Why, do you want to talk?”

“I’ve been wondering about something for a long time.”

“What?”

“Would you tell me about Helen?”

I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but I felt him give a start.

“Where did you hear about Helen?”

“From you. The first day we met, when I came to the interview, don’t you remember? We were just saying goodbye and you asked Frank if I reminded him of her. Later on Frank told me he hardly knew her.” I realized bringing up Frank wasn’t a good idea, but it was too late.

“That's true, he didn’t. Helen moved back east shortly after Frank came to the university.”

“When I asked Frank about her, he wouldn’t say anything directly, but I could sense something was bothering him. What didn’t he want to tell me?”

“There isn’t much to tell. Helen was a graduate student in the department about three years ago. She was a little like you, slender, a bit taller, and very quiet. She wasn't in any of my classes, and for the first few months she was here I hardly noticed her; Helen was married and had a little boy, so she didn’t socialize much with the other students. Occasionally she spent a few evenings in the lab when her husband was out of town – he was a salesman – and she could get a babysitter. That’s how I got to know her; we had coffee together a few times. Poor Helen; she wanted so much to finish school and teach, but her husband had other ideas."

“Is that all you did, drink coffee and talk?”

“Kate, there was nothing between us.”

“But Frank was so evasive - something must have happened.”

David sighed. “I went to a party - it must have been about two years ago - at the apartment of a physiology professor. Helen was there, along with a number of the other graduate students and some of the younger staff, and when the party broke up, about one, I offered to give her a ride home. She'd seemed happy enough earlier, but as soon as we reached the car, Helen told me her husband had walked out, just packed his bags and disappeared.”

“Then what?”

“She stared to cry and I … "

"And you ...?"

"I tried to comfort her.”

“You kissed her.”

“All right, yes,” he replied huskily. “I kissed her; I can’t say I’m proud of my behavior that night.”

“What was Helen’s reaction?”

“She was like a lost child. She wasn’t looking for anything physical so much as sympathy. I know it sounds like I was taking advantage of her, but I swear what I did wasn’t premeditated. I had every intention of driving her home, seeing her to the front door and saying goodnight, but one minute she was crying and the next minute I was holding her.”

“Did you make love to her in the car?”

“No, but … no. Don’t torture me, Kate. I felt very ashamed afterwards; I still do.”

“What happened when you drove her home?”

“That’s the funny part, I didn't; the car wouldn’t start.”

“Oh, come on now!”

“Honestly; it’s God’s truth. The battery was stone dead. I didn’t want return to the apartment because I was quite sure I had lipstick on my face, so I took a long walk in the rain to find a phone booth; I called the Triple A and a cab for Helen. By the time I reached the car I’d sobered up – I don’t mean I was drunk, just carried away – and I’d regained my senses. I paid the cab driver and Helen went home while I waited for the road service. A week later she dropped out of school and moved back with her parents. She wrote me a note thanking me for my help – no mention of the party - and I answered, wishing her good luck. End of story.”

“If the car had started and you’d taken her home, would you have slept with her?”

He sighed again. “Helen had a baby sitter, so maybe she wouldn’t have invited me in. If she had …I like to think I would have said goodnight to her at the door.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“You’re not merely jumping to conclusions, you’re vaulting across whole canyons. For God’s sake, don’t rake me over the coals for something that never happened.”

“Did anyone else know? When I asked Frank, he said gossip really gets around in your department, but he’d never heard a word about you and Helen. At the same time, I could tell he was hiding something.”

“The coffee at the HUB was public and completely innocent. Frank left the party long before Helen and I did, but maybe someone just happened to mention to him later that I gave her a ride and his imagination supplied the rest. As for what occurred in the car ... I was parked more than two blocks from the party. I’m positive no one saw us. Frank’s antennae are always working and he’s incredibly perceptive, so if anyone was going to be suspicious, it was sure to be Frank. I’m sorry I told you; I can see you’re upset.”

“No, really, I’m not; I’m just sorry for Helen. Actually, I feel very objective about the whole thing. Was Helen in love with you?”

“Not for a minute. Unfortunately, other young women don’t find me as irresistible as you do. To begin with, I was much too old for her.”
We both started to laugh.

The cry of a loon drifted across the water; I fell asleep in David’s arms, trying to remember the tribes of the Iroquois nation.

The sun was streaming through the open hatch when I awakened in the morning, and for an instant I couldn’t remember where I was. Then the memory of Saturday’s trip came back to me and I stretched, lazily. It was Sunday; David and I still had five whole days ahead of us before we had to return. David… suddenly I realized he wasn’t in the cabin.

“David?”

“I’m out here.”

I sat up and saw him sitting in the cockpit, looking out over the water.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making the sun rise.”

“You're what?”

“I’m making the sun rise. When I came out here at six it was still dark; I’ve been concentrating hard and behold,” he said, gesturing with his arm, “the sun's almost over the top of that mountain. Another fifteen minutes and you’ll be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“From being sacrificed. Remember those Aztecs, how you told me they believed the sun wouldn’t rise without human blood to nourish him? I’d hate to offer you up now, just when I’m getting so fond of you.”

“Sorry, the sun prefers virgins. I’ve been 4-F since the New Year.”
     David stuck his tongue out at me. “Want some coffee?”
     “I’d love some,” I replied, snuggling back in the sleeping bag. He came down to the cabin, poured me a cup of coffee and held it out, a good six feet from where I was lying.
     “Aren’t you going to bring the coffee to me? Oh, David, have a heart; surely you don’t expect me to get up at this hour.”
     He sat down beside me. “What ‘this hour’? It’s seven o’clock.”

I sighed. “I thought we weren’t going to keep any schedules this week.”

“We’re not, but are you planning to spend our entire vacation in bed?”

I pulled the sleeping bag up to my chin and batted my eyelashes at him. “That’s not such a bad idea, is it?”

David yanked the bag down. “You little minx; I have a better idea. Let’s go for a swim and have breakfast on the island.”

“Swim over to the island! Are you crazy?” I sat up and looked out the porthole toward the beach. “Do you have any conception how cold the water is?”

“Indeed I do. It’s about eight degrees.”

“If it were eight degrees we’d be in pack ice.”

“Eight degrees Celsius. Listen to my idea. I’ll put everything we need – our clothing, towels, food and so forth - in this heavy plastic bag. Then I’ll tie the bag on top of the lifebuoy. You’ll go first and I’ll follow, towing the buoy. It can’t be more than a hundred feet to shore.”

“Beautiful,” I said, curling up in the bag once more. “Your plan has one fatal flaw.”

“I know you’re a good swimmer; don’t tell me you can’t swim.”

“It’s not that; I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

“Neither did I; that’s the fun part.” David was grinning from ear to ear. “Come on lazybones, up!” He made a lunge for the sleeping bag, pulled the zipper down one side and uncovered me. In anticipation of enticing him back to bed with me, I had slipped off my nightgown.

“How efficient, you don’t even need to change.”

We packed the plastic bag with everything we needed for the day, including several pounds of Swiss cheese, water, a large salami and four cans of juice. When we were ready and David had the package tied to the lifebuoy, I stood hesitantly on the toe rail. I still felt shy to have David look at me naked, especially from a distance, and I waited with my arms crossed over my breasts.

“Don’t dive in,” he cautioned me. “The bay’s so cold you could gasp and take water into your lungs. Just ease into it, over the side”

I did as he instructed and gasped anyway, but at least my face was out of the water. My teeth chattering from the cold, I struck out immediately for the island, stopping only once to make sure David was right behind me. After what seemed like the crossing of the English Channel, my feet hit the sandy bottom and I waded ashore, picking my way gingerly among the rocks on the beach. David followed a moment later and I went back to the water’s edge to help him with the lifebuoy. Shivering with cold, we carried our provisions up to a sandy spot and lay down, hugging each other.

“I've read,”David mused, “that two hypothermic people warm up faster if they're of opposite sexes and in very close proximity to one another.”

“You're making this up.”

“Even if I am, don't you think it's an experiment worth conducting? In the interest of science, of course."

“It’ll never work; our swim transformed me into a permanently frigid woman, and look at you. You’re so shriveled you’ll never function again.”

“Don’t be too sure of that.” He pulled me to him and pressed me down in the sand.

“Right here? Out in the open like this?”

“Yes.”

Hunger finally got us up. “We could eat here on the beach, but I have a better idea. The last time I was on this island I found a tiny pond a few minutes' walk inland; it’s sheltered and I think we’ll be warmer there.”

I opened the plastic bag and started to take out my blue jeans and t-shirt.

“Don’t put your clothes on; let me enjoy you this way.”

“What if there’s someone else on the island?”

“I don’t see how there can be. This cove is the only anchorage; on the rest of the island the banks are steep and the trees grow right down to the water’s edge. I know what you’re going to say – what if another boat comes in here?”

“Right.”

“I’ll smear my body with mud and run down to the beach screaming and brandishing a stick.”

The thought of David Rosenau, Ph.D. playing a lunatic made me laugh, and I agreed to leave my clothes in the bag. We pulled the lifebuoy above the high-water mark and went off in search of the pond, carrying our provisions with us.

Thirty feet beyond the beach the evergreens parted slightly, revealing an overgrown path leading to the interior of the island. We followed the trail through a miniature jungle of tree ferns until we reached a small pond – no more than forty feet across – fringed with tall grass along the shoreline. I stuck my foot in the water and found it was pleasantly warm; something darted in front of me and I recoiled.

“Look, David!” I exclaimed as a salamander came to rest on the surface, five feet from where I was standing.

He glanced at it. "Taricha torosa.”

“How do you know that?

“It’s a Pacific pond newt, a common laboratory animal.”

I waded into the water toward the newt, trying to repress a shudder of revulsion as mud oozed between my toes. One quick grab and he was mine. The newt was about six inches long and the color of terra cotta; he lay still in my hand and examined my thumb with curiosity. The newt’s flat head and upturned jaw gave him an endearing expression, rather like an amiable simpleton.

David followed me into the water, and we splashed along the shoreline like a couple of children, grabbing at the newts as they swam by.

“Well, if we’re stranded on this island at least we won’t starve,” David remarked as we released the last of our catch.
“Ugh! I’d rather eat cheese and salami. How about it?”
We waded to the bank, made a nest in the center of a tall clump of grass, and spread out a bath towel. David sat down cross-legged and started slicing the salami with his penknife while I opened the cans of tomato juice; we ate with our fingers, washed our hands in the pond, then lay down and dozed, warmed by the sun and secure in our grassy kingdom. A few flies buzzed overhead, but the twitch of a leg sent them away; now and then a dragonfly hovered over us, noiselessly, only to dart off. The island was awake.

I heard the drone of a small plane’s engine before I saw the plane itself, a one-engine Piper, flying about 1000 feet above us, directly over the island. I felt very naked. “Do you think the pilot can see us from up there?”

David squinted at the sky. “Probably not. If it'll make you feel more inconspicuous, I’ll camouflage you.” David reached up and drew a long blade of grass over me.

“Let’s stay here forever,” he suggested.

“We’ll eat clams …”

“… and oysters…”

“…and fish …”

“…and berries. Somebody did live on Boone Island once. The last time I was here, I found the ruins of a cabin about a quarter of a mile from this pond. Whoever he was, he had a vegetable garden that’s gone to weeds and he planted a small apple orchard. I’ll show you later.”

“Are we starting to live on the island right now, or are we going back to civilization first?”

David considered for a moment. “I think we’ll have to make one trip back – for seeds, you know, and a few chickens … and books, plenty of books.

“We’ll be like the Swiss Family Robinson” I giggled. “Where will we live?”

“I’ll build us a log cabin.”

“I’d rather have a tree house, one with a vine ladder. Why did they live in a tree anyway? Do you remember?”

“Probably because of all the dangerous animals on the island. I don’t think safety will be much of a problem here unless the newts mutate into dinosaurs.”

“All right then, we’ll live on the ground in a log cabin. What will we do all day? And what about Sturmvogel? We won’t sink her like the Bounty mutineers did when they reached Pitcairn Island, will we?”

“Oh no, we’ll need Sturmvogel so I can go fishing. I’ll carve a dugout canoe for going back and forth to the boat. When I’m not fishing, I’ll be farming. And you? Let’s see … you’ll be feeding the chickens, sewing our clothes and … taking care of the children, of course.”

I turned on my side to look at him. “Children?”

“Yes, children. We are going to have children, aren’t we?”

“I hadn’t got that far yet.” I started to laugh. “Did you ever read Cheaper by the Dozen?”

David shook his head.

“I read it about six years ago. I was so enchanted with the Gilbreth family that I decided someday I’d have twelve children, too. I worried I might not able to feed such a brood, so I came up with the idea of giving them dog food. To test my plan I made a dog food meatloaf for dinner one night and served it to my parents without telling them what was in the dish.”

“How did it taste?”

“It was awful! Just before dinner a friend of my parents dropped by unexpectedly, so of course they invited him to eat with us. He took one bite and got the queerest expression on his face! That poor meat loaf … it wouldn’t even hold together; it sort of disintegrated into a pulpy mess.”

“Twelve’s a bit many.”

“How many were you thinking of?”

David put his hand on my abdomen. “Oh, four or five.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun and I drew closer to David. We were straying into dangerous territory. David stood up and offered me his hand. “Come on; I’ll show you what’s left of the cabin and then we can dig clams for dinner.”

Go to Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Fifteen

2008-04-25T12:46:00.126+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
March 14, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa!!!!!!!...

“Kate! Alice! I just heard the news. Congratulations to both of you!”

I looked up from my lunch as Rosemary bubbled into the dining room. She approached the table, her face wreathed in smiles, looking first at me then at Alice Duchek, on my left.

“Congratulations for what?”

“There’s a big sign right inside the front door. You’ve been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, you and Alice. It was in the newspaper this morning, too. Didn’t you see the article?”
    I turned to Alice. “Oh, I saw our names in the paper", she said, "but I forgot to mention it to you.” A Monday night Bible reader, Alice was majoring in Home Economics, a cheap way, I thought, of getting good grades; the science majors probably thought the same thing about me. She was completely blasé, as if being elected to America’s most prestigious honor society was an everyday event.
    “Forgot to mention it” – I was dumbfounded. Phi Beta Kappa. How many hours of study did that represent, how many dates and facts committed to memory – the causes of the fall of Rome, the geologic eras, the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, how many term papers? When I went to the registrar’s office at the end of every quarter to pick up my marks, I stood in line with sweaty palms and a pounding heart, and then rushed outside to calculate my grade-point average. Three point eight zero was the magic number for election to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, and I had cleared the hurdle with room to spare. I was beyond ecstatic.
    I thanked Rosemary profusely for the news and hurried through lunch. I thought of my father and smiled, and David – how proud he was going to be.
    I reached my room at twenty to one, with barely enough time to write Mother and Daddy a note and to call David before leaving for my next class. My heart started racing when I heard his deep voice on the other end of the line.
    “David! I have the most fantastic news! I can't tell you over the phone, though. I want to keep you in suspense. Are you free tonight?"
    “My whole evening’s at your disposal. Let me guess. You got an A+ on the human paleontology quiz?”
    “Much better than that.”
    “You’ve inherited a million dollars, bought a yacht and we’re sailing around the world together.”
    “Don’t I wish.”
    “You’ve been chosen the sweetheart of Sigma Chi.”

“I’d rather be yours,” I giggled. “Stop guessing or you’re sure to hit on it eventually, and I want to surprise you.”

“Whatever it is, I can tell your news calls for more than coffee at the HUB. Let’s eat dinner at Sam’s and go to Sturmvogel afterwards; we can pull out the starboard bunk, find some soft music on the radio and – uh, celebrate.”

“That sounds great. There’s only one problem though – your last suggestion – I’m afraid it’s the wrong time of the month. I’d rather tell you now than disappoint you later on the boat.”
“Oh.” There was a long pause and I began to wonder if we’d been disconnected. “Why don't I give you a call tomorrow.”
His response stunned me. Didn’t my news mean anything to him? Was sex the only thing that mattered to David?

“I … I’ll have your typing ready tomorrow afternoon,” I finally managed to say.

“Very good, I’ll see you then.”

Convulsed with sobs, I hung up the telephone, devastated by David’s cruelty. Phi Beta Kappa seemed so trivial. I sat crying at my desk until time to leave for class, then filled my fountain pen, attached a notebook to my clipboard and left the room; I wanted to go out, anywhere, and human paleontology was as good a place as any.

Dr. Osborne’s lecture dragged on. I tried to pay attention to his slides of Javanese fossils, but I kept hearing David’s voice.

“Why don't I give you a call tomorrow.”

“A study of the stratification in the Trinil layer shows …"

“Why don't I give you a call tomorrow.”

“If you look closely at this next slide of an immature Homo erectus, from the Djetis bed, you will observe the premature ossification characteristic of…”
    I couldn’t focus on the immature Homo erectus through a blur of tears, so I got up and left the lecture hall. For the next three hours I wandered aimlessly around the university, avoiding the south end of the campus where I might run into David. I didn’t think; I was past thinking or feeling. I just walked.
    When I returned to my room at six the telephone was ringing, and I dashed for the receiver, praying David was on the line, but Frank’s voice greeted me instead. “I was hoping I’d catch you before dinner. I've got the most terrific news! Kathleen's been offered a teaching job in Seattle next fall – second grade – and we’ve set the date. We’re going to be married June 15. How about that? Another three months and I’m a married man!”
    I congratulated him, hoping my voice sounded more cheerful than I felt.

“The reason I’m calling is to invite you to have dinner with me, at my place. I’ve got some of Mamma Caputo’s internationally famous spaghetti sauce in the freezer, a pound of noodles, a loaf of French bread and a bottle of Chianti. Say you’ll come. I feel like celebrating. I’ll pick you up at 6:30, okay?”

I couldn’t help smiling at the irony. I was going to celebrate after all, not my good fortune, but someone else’s and not with David, but with Frank. At least Frank wanted my company. I told Frank I’d come, and when I phoned Norma to tell her my news, I was almost looking forward to the evening.

Frank’s apartment was located on the ground floor of a rambling house the owner had converted to student lodgings. His room was sparsely furnished, with a hide-a-bed, a square table, a bookshelf and a tiny kitchenette. The bed was open. There was a large poster of Marilyn Monroe – nude – hanging on the wall beside the refrigerator, a record player on the floor and a stack of phonograph records, mostly operatic, leaning against the bed.

Frank tuned his radio to a popular music station and harmonized with the “The Platters” as he lifted strands of noodles from the boiling water.

“They-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey call me the Great … chop the garlic finer, will you, like this,” he instructed, taking the cleaver and demolishing several cloves of garlic against the chopping board. "Now sauté this in one cube of butter … Pretender. My need is such, I pretend too much. I'm lonely, but …"

“Do you sauté on high or low heat?

“Child, didn’t your mother teach you how to cook? Sauté, from the French verb sauter, otherwise known as saltare, to jump.” He made leaping motions with his hands. “High heat. I seem to be, but I’m not you see, I’m wearing my heart like a crown… Hey, Kate, if this was a pizza, I’d flip it up like so and catch it like….” Frank tossed the noodles into the air, grabbed a plate and intercepted the pasta less than a foot from the floor. “See all those spots on the ceiling? That’s from when I was just an amateur.” His mood was infectious and I laughed in spite of myself.

Frank cleared a Playboy magazine, two soiled undershirts, and a pile of uncorrected test papers off the table and dragged it across the floor. We sat facing each other, Frank in his one-and-only chair and me on the edge of the bed, both of us gorging on hunks of garlic bred and his mother’s spaghetti. Frank was right about the sauce. It had lost nothing in translation from Italy to Spokane.

After dinner I washed the dishes, trying to keep from dropping the plates while dodging Frank, who was determined to pinch me. He said the spaghetti made him feel very Italian and it was every Italian’s prerogative to pinch a few fannies.

Frank poured more wine and changed the music to something softer. We settled down on the bed, half-sitting, half-reclining, with our backs against a row of cushions along the wall and our feet sticking out in front of us. Frank pressed his leg to mine and seemed pleasantly surprised when I didn’t resist; he moved closer still, and put his arm around me.

"What would you say if I told you I was just elected to Phi Beta Kappa?”

“I’d ask how many professors you’ve been sleeping with.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious. Well, I am telling you.”

“Congratulations! All the more reason to celebrate. David must be pleased.” He filled my wine glass again.

“I haven’t told him.”

“That’s as in ‘you haven’t told him’, or ‘you haven’t told him yet’?”

“The first one.”

“Oh?” Frank looked at me curiously.

“You know, there’s one thing I like about you, Frank. When I’m with anyone else, even David, maybe especially with David, I feel as though I’ve got this big intellectual image to live up to, but when I’m with you I know there’s no way I can impress you. You think I’m a dumb broad, just like every other dumb broad. From anyone else I’d resent that attitude, but with you I can relax and be myself.”

Frank laughed. “I don’t think you’re dumb, au contraire. Actually, I’m not a bit surprised you’re a Phi Bete. You’re just the type.”

“What type is that?”

“A memory machine. I could give you this telephone book and you’d have it down cold in an hour. I’ve known dozens of students like you. They impress the hell out of everyone else, but there’s not a creative thinker in the bunch. If you don’t mind me saying so, you’ve even fooled David.”

“I do mind your saying so and I don’t want to talk about David.”

“Well, well. While you’ve been exploring his body it looks like you’ve found his feet of clay.” Frank started to caress my thigh.

“I don’t mean to put a damper on the festivities, but isn’t your conscience bothering you?”

“Why should it?”

“Are you dense or something? What does your Catholic morality say about a man who’s engaged to one woman and practically in bed with another?”

“Oh, I won’t do this sort of thing after I’m married. That would be adultery, a mortal sin.”

“What do you call this?”

“Fornication, merely a venial sin. I’ll go to confession before the wedding and get forgiven.”

Frank poured himself another glass of wine. “I’ll bet you think I’m very experienced.”

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Aren't you?"

“Like to guess how many times I’ve done it in my whole life? Twice. Two times. Due volte. Two lousy times and I’m 25 years old.”

“When was the first one?”

“I was sixteen. I had this girlfriend – Gina – from a really strict Italian family, I mean her parents didn’t let her do anything. She had so many relatives crawling around the house you’d have thought they took in boarders. Her mom used to slip Gina’s kid brother a quarter to keep on eye on us and if it wasn’t Spartaco – honest to God, the kid's name was Spartaco – spying on us from behind the couch, it was Aunt Flora vacuuming the rug, or Uncle Giorgio detouring through the living room every fifteen minutes on his way to pee in the bathroom. I mean their place was like a hotel! Well, anyway, one Saturday the whole family went to a funeral. That is, everyone but Gina, and she got to stay home because she had a big test coming up. So she phoned me and I went over to her place with some records, and we sat on her bed and listened to music. We started fooling around and … it sort of happened.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Frank stopped me.

“Wait, there’s more. Just as I was finishing, there was a sound of tires screeching and a dog yelping. We got dressed as fast as we could and ran outside. God, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Some guy in a pickup hit Gina’s little dog. He was laying in the street with his ribs crushed and the blood running out of him. The driver kept saying over and over how he tried to miss him and how sorry he was.”

“What did you do then?”

“I got a burlap bag out of the garage and we buried him in the garden. The whole thing made me sick. Gina was a nice girl, you know, very parochial school, very quiet, all that sort of thing. I was scared shitless she’d get pregnant, but a couple of weeks later she told me everything was ok; she moved to a different part of town at the end of the semester and I didn't see her again.”

“How about the second time?”

“It happened at a party. I was so smashed I don’t remember much.” He paused and took a sip of wine. “How big is David?”

“He’s six foot three.”

“I didn’t ask you how tall he is. I know that. I asked you how big he is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

I hadn’t, but his tone of voice enlightened me.

I shrugged. “Why are men so preoccupied with genital size? I don’t know because I don’t have anything to compare him with.”

“Do you give him a blow job?

“What’s that?”

“Do you suck his cock?”

“Do I what?”

Frank hooted with laughter. “Were you a virgin when you met David?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt the first time he did it to you?”

“A little.”

"Did you come?"

"Come where?"

Frank laughed again. "I mean did you have an orgasm?"

I couldn't believe I was having this conversation. Maybe it was the wine. "Not the first time, but afterwards, yes."

Frank shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. David’s pushing fifty; what do you see in an old fart his age? It must take him all night to get it hard.”

I didn’t feel like offering a testimonial to David’s sexual prowess. Frank opened my blouse and slipped his hand inside.

“What you need is a young man.”

“Like you?” Frank was too aroused to notice my sarcasm.

“I’d rather have sex with you than with Marilyn Monroe,” he whispered in my ear.

I suppose he meant it as a compliment, but Frank’s remark struck me as outrageously funny, and I burst out laughing. “We can’t.”

“I bought a condom.”

“It’s not that; I’m having my period.”

“I don’t care.”

Frank flung himself on top of me and we kissed. I felt a curious sense of detachment, as though the real me was standing in the wings watching someone else play the role of Kate Collins. I might as well have been looking at two strangers queuing up at a bus stop.

He put his hand in my crotch. “Are you wearing a tampax?”

“Yes,”

“Take it out.”

I went to the bathroom to wash; when I returned, Frank had turned out the lights, and he was waiting for me by the bed in his underwear. He clasped me from behind and cupped his hands over my breasts, reminding me of the evening in the Health Sciences Building when David had embraced me the same way.

“Was it you, that night in the hallway? I know someone was watching us.”

“Yes, it was me. I wasn’t spying on purpose. I just happened to be leaving the lab, and there you were. It drives me crazy to see you and David together like that.”

When it was over, I lay beside Frank wondering if he’d noticed my lack of response. I knew I’d cheated him; he must have expected I'd give myself to him as I did to David, passionately and without reservations. After one especially torrid session, David had said making love would never be the same for me with any other man. At the time, I thought his remark a bit conceited, but I was beginning to wonder if he was right. I only hoped Frank’s lack of experience kept him from passing judgment on me.

I sat up and glanced at Frank; his eyes were closed and he was covered with sweat. He took my hand and put it on his penis. “Make it big again, Katie, make it big again, Katie,” he crooned over and over. I snatched my hand away and started to put on my brassiere.
Frank opened his eyes and pulled the sheet up to his chin.
“He’s huge,” I said irritably. “Like a bull.”

Frank sighed. “It figures.”

“I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry. Next time it will be good for you, too.”

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” I snapped.

We dressed in silence. The feeling of detachment was gone, and I was filled with self-loathing. How could I have done something so idiotic? David trusted me and I’d betrayed him. And for what? Not love surely. Frank was probably flattering himself he’d seduced me, but I’d known I’d go to bed with him from the moment he called. I was lashing back at David’s cruelty with my ultimate weapon, but there was no joy in the victory.

Frank and I didn’t exchange a word on the ride to the dormitory. He walked with me to the steps, and when we reached the door, I paused for a moment before getting out my key. “Do you have a picture of your fiancée?”

Frank took a photograph from his wallet and handed it to me grudgingly, as one might proffer an heirloom to a leper. The picture was taken in a classroom, and showed a young woman bending over beside a child. The photographer must have called her name and snapped the shutter just as she looked up. I was unprepared for the face that met mine; it was a gentle face radiating goodness and serenity, a face that almost mocked mine with its goodness. I was expecting someone plain, homely even, but Kathleen was beautiful, and it was easy to see why Frank adored her.

“She’s in love with you?” I asked, handing him back the picture. Frank gave me a wounded look, turned abruptly, and ran down the steps. I wanted to call him back, to apologize for the cruel, senseless remark, to apologize for the whole evening, but I let him go without saying a word. Frank, that was 40 years ago and I can still see the expression on your face. I am sorry.

At two o’clock the following afternoon, an hour before he'd be expecting me, I took David’s typing to the Health Sciences Building, having decided to put it in his cubbyhole and leave without going to his office. I dreaded running into him, certain that in one glance David could read my guilt and would hate me forever. When the elevator reached the fourth floor and the doors opened, I peeked out to the left and right with my finger on the “close door” button, ready to flee if I caught sight of him, but the corridor was empty and I dashed to the Biochemistry office; I entered and saw David standing at Iris’ desk looking through his mail. He glanced up, our eyes met, and he returned my timid nod with a glacial stare. “I want to see you for a minute. In my office.”

Grim-faced, David stalked silently down the hall ahead of me, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. He opened the door without looking at me and I walked in. I heard him close the door and lock it, but I didn’t turn around.

“Here’s your typing,” I said, laying it on his desk.

“Where were you last night?”

“At what time? I was various places.”

“Don’t play games with me, Kate. I know you were with Frank.”

I whirled around to face him. “Since you're so sure where I was, what are you asking me for?”

“I was calling you all afternoon, and when you didn't answer, I finally phoned Norma; she told me you’d gone to Frank’s.”

I felt as though I was suffocating; some invisible force was encircling me, crushing out my breath.

“He … he invited me to have dinner with him.” My reply was barely above a whisper.

“In the dark?” David asked sarcastically. “I must have driven by Frank's place ten times. His car was parked in front, but the lights in his apartment were off.”

David seized me by the arm. “What the hell were you doing in there?” he roared. “Let me guess. Frank wanted a dress rehearsal of his wedding night, didn’t he?”

“David,” I pleaded, “lower your voice or they’ll hear you in the hall.”

“I don’t give a damn who hears me,” he bellowed. ”Do you have any idea how I feel? I love you and you’re walking all over me with hobnail boots. What do you want out of me, anyway, just sex? Don’t I give you enough that you have to go running after Frank like a bitch in heat? Don't flatter yourself that he cares about you; all he wants is to get you in bed.”

“You’re a fine one to accuse me of only being interested in sex. Yesterday you were full of enthusiasm to spend the evening with me until I told you I was having my period.” I paused to give my words more effect. “Frank didn't seem to care.”

David took his right hand from my arm and struck me hard across the face; the blow sent me reeling back against his desk and for a moment we were both too startled to speak.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You certainly have a short memory,” I said between sobs. “When I called you yesterday to surprise you with something, you wanted to go to Sturmvogel badly enough until you found out there wouldn’t be any sex in it for you and then you practically hung up on me.”

An anguished expression crossed David’s face. “Oh my God, is that what you thought?”

I had a premonition that somehow I’d made a terrible mistake. “David,” I sobbed, “it’s not what you think. We didn’t do anything. Frank wanted to, but I didn’t. Please believe me.”

David passed his hand over his face. “What a mess we’ve made of things. Listen Kate, when you and I were talking on the phone Arlene walked in; she didn’t even knock, she just walked in. She’s never done that before; she never comes to my office, but she did yesterday, and I was on the phone with you. I don't know how much she heard. I wasn't even aware of what I was saying; all I wanted was to end our conversation as quickly as I could. I never stopped to think how it must have sounded to you. I wanted to take you to Sturmvogel. I called you back immediately, the moment Arlene left, but you didn’t answer … I kept calling you…”

I was convulsed with sobs and overcome with guilt. What had David said once about taking an action that determined the course of one’s life irrevocably? I only hoped it wasn’t too late.

“David,” I cried, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I swear we didn’t do anything.”

I took the hand he held out to me. “It really doesn’t matter,” he said in a low voice. “Kate, please forgive me. What I did was …” David sat down, drew me to him, and I buried my head in his shoulder, crying like a child.

The telephone rang and David answered with annoyance.

“No, not right now; I’m busy at the moment. Can it wait?”

“Yes, fine, give me a call tomorrow.”

I stopped crying. David brushed his hand gently against the bruise on my cheek where he had slapped me.

“I’m so sorry, Kate, truly sorry,” he murmured. “May I be struck dead if I ever do such a thing again.” I squeezed his hand. “What were you going to tell me yesterday, the good news?”

“My surprise is a little anti-climactic now, but I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.”

David’s eyes met mine; he smiled slightly and shook his head. “What can I say?”

“You might try congratulating me.”

“I do congratulate you, from the bottom of my heart. I’m enormously proud of you, though I have no right to be. I guess we're fraternity brothers now.”

“Siblings.” We looked at each other again and smiled.

There was a knock on the door. “¡Carajo! ¡Mierda!” David exclaimed, getting up from the chair. He unlocked the door and opened it just wide enough to see the person on the other side.

“I know these are my office hours, but I don’t have time right now. I was about to leave.”

He closed the door and put his lab coat on a hook. “Let’s get out of here or we won’t have a moment’s peace.”

I took a small pocket mirror from my purse. “How do I look?”

“Well…”

“Like I’ve been in a brawl?”

“Sort of. If we run down the back stairs no one will see us.”

Once outside the building we turned our backs on the campus and walked south along the grassy path overlooking Portage Bay. We walked until we were alone, away from the picnickers, the strollers, the boys playing Frisbee. David picked a sunny spot and spread out his jacket

“Let’s sit down for a while and have a talk. You’ve been so strange lately. It's not enough, is it?”

“What?”

“The way we see each other, sneaking into my office at night, the few hours we spend on Sturmvogel.”

“Well, that’s part of it. We're always saying goodbye, always getting pulled apart, when the only thing I want is to fall asleep in your arms the way I did in the motel, and not have to get up in fifteen minutes to put my clothes on.”

“But there’s something else, too,” I continued. “Does it seem to you as though the sexual part of our relationship is just … taking over? Last fall we used to do more things with other people, we used to talk more. Sex is practically an obsession now. I’m not blaming you; I feel driven every bit as much as you, maybe more. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed anything could dominate my life so much; sex is like a narcotic addiction. Even now part of me is aching for you, and I long to say ‘please let’s go to the boat, David’, but another part of me feels guilty and ashamed of my weakness.”

David eased a blade of grass from its stalk and put it between his teeth.

“Yes, I feel the same way, though perhaps it hasn’t surprised me the way it has you. You’re right; sex has become a compulsion. It’s like the intense relationships couples had during the war. We’re not marching off to battle, but I suppose the future is equally uncertain for us.” He paused. “At times I wonder if I’m trying to prove something to you…”

“That you’re still young enough…”

“Something like that. I’m far more conscious of the difference in our ages than you are. I used to think it bothered you too, but then I realized you really don't care. I’m not a young man, Kate, and sometimes that fact comes home to me rather brutally. I had a strange experience a few weeks ago at a faculty cocktail party; I knew most of the guests, at least by sight, if not by name, but one man I didn’t know caught my eye. He was standing across the room from me, holding a glass in his hand and looking bored. He was a good ten years older than I, a little haggard …I turned slightly to get a better look at him and as I did … God, what a shock… it was my own reflection! I was seeing myself in a mirror and I didn’t even recognize my own face! It was horrible. For one fleeting moment I saw myself as others see me, and I’ve never felt so old in my entire life. I’ve wondered since then what a man my age … in my position … can offer you.

“I suppose sex is one way of binding you to me in lieu of something more tangible. So many times you’ve come to the office in the evening and I’ve thought we should talk or invite some of the others in for coffee as we used to, and then I look at you …well, you know how long those resolutions last. You’re right though”, he said with a smile, “it’s entirely your fault. If you weren’t so responsive we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“Likewise.”

“So,” he continued, “maybe we should make some changes, not see less of each other, but differently, before we burn ourselves out.”

“David, about Frank…”

“Let's not talk about Frank. When I got to the office this morning, I found a note in my box saying he’d gone to Spokane through spring break. He had the vacation coming to him and I think it’s best for everyone.” David hesitated. “I realize I’m partly to blame for what happened; I could have been more discreet. I know sometimes he watched us and it must have seemed like I was dangling a piece of meat in front of a starving dog.”

I was relieved Frank hadn’t contradicted my story.

David lay back on the grass with his hands behind his head, staring at the sky. “You were telling me about the frustration you feel at always having to say goodbye. I have a few frustrations of my own. I loathe the subterfuge, all the sneaking around. I hate asking you to endure a clandestine relationship and it bothers me terribly that I can’t marry you. That’s a part of what I mentioned before, about wanting to bind you to me. I’m afraid of losing you; I admit it. Frankly, I’ve reached the point where I want to do a Paul Gauguin, to shout ‘to hell with you world, I’ve done enough, I’ve paid my dues and from now on I’m living my life exactly as I please.’ The other thing which frustrates me is that we can’t … that we shouldn’t have children. You have no idea how this thought depresses me.”

He was right; I had no idea. We’d never discussed pregnancy before, except how to avoid it, and his admission touched me profoundly.

He turned to look at me. “Do you worry about becoming pregnant?”

“Constantly. I go through hell every month. My periods are so irregular …”

“I know. I cross off the days myself on a little desk calendar. It’s odd …sometimes… when your period is late I’m almost relieved, as though I’ve faced the worst thing that can happen to us and it’s bearable after all. I've even reached the point where I’m looking forward to your being pregnant; I imagine putting my hand on your abdomen and feeling our child move inside you. Then your period begins and I’m let down, disappointed. It’s like a lost opportunity; I’m a month older. What do you think if we stop worrying, love each other without any barriers and accept the consequences?”

I shook my head. “I’m not ready for that. It’s impossible. It wouldn’t be fair to either the child or me. How would I make a living? When would you see us? A couple evenings a week? Saturdays?”

David sat up. “You’re right, of course. It’s a preposterous idea, economically, socially, morally. You have my permission to smack me on the head with a brick if I ever suggest anything like that again.”

We sat silently on the grass for a while watching the crew practice on Portage Bay; we were close enough to hear the coxswain calling the strokes through his megaphone.

“David, you said before how you are … how you might be using sex. I'm doing the same thing myself, but in a different way. I look at you with your degrees, your academic position, and I feel so … inferior. I’m using sex to hold on to you because sex is the only thing we have in common. I can’t talk about biochemistry with you; I don’t understand a word of what I’m typing for you. I’ve never even heard of half the authors you read regularly.”

“Do you think I’d love you more if we could discuss the biochemistry of kidney function?”

“It's not just science, it’s everything. Do you remember, last September, the first time we went sailing, when we started singing? You asked Frank to sing something from a German opera. Then he agreed and he sang another song – but in Italian - and you burst out laughing. Well, I laughed too, because I didn’t want to look like a fool in front of you, but I had absolutely no idea what was so funny. I still don't”

“He sang the aria Di rigori armato. Yes, it’s in Italian, but the aria's embedded in a German opera, Der Rosenkavalier. Look, when I was your age I wouldn’t have known that, either.” David stared at me with a frown. “For Christ’s sake, Kate, you’re only nineteen. Your college record is virtually perfect and you’ve just been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Isn't that good enough?”

“But that’s just it, that’s all I’ll ever accomplish. I’m not like you. I don’t have any goals or any commitment to anything. I don’t have any real ability. I’m nothing but a fraud, and I’ve been shaking in my boots for six months scared to death you’d find out. Don’t you see – I’m only sleeping with you to avoid having to talk to you. After I’ve graduated summa cum laude or whatever, and I can’t even get a job because I can only type 40 words a minute, you’re going to be totally contemptuous of me. You mentioned my grades – the only reason I get good grades is because I’m so afraid of failing that I study ten times harder than any normal person – it’s like Frank told me last night, I’m just a good memorizer. He says I’m fooling you.”

“Frank! Since when is Frank an expert on achievement? He has his own agenda. Kate, Kate, how can I make you see yourself as I do? You have the ability to do anything you want, anything. The only thing that can stop you is lack of faith in yourself.”

“I want so much for you to be proud of me.”

He sighed. “Dearest, I can’t be the magnetic north of your life; I’d be doing you a terrible disservice if I encouraged you to excel in order to please me. I can’t chart the future for you. The only thing I can do is stand by and give you a helping hand. You realize what you’re doing? You’ve taken 19 years of dependency on your parents and transferred them to me. You’re dependent on me for love and you’re dependent on me for approval. You can’t put all your emotional eggs in one basket like that; I won’t be around forever.”

“I know I'm too dependent on you. I didn’t mind it so much before, when I thought maybe you needed me as much as I need you, but going to the AAAS meeting was an epiphany. When I attended the opening session and saw you with your colleagues, I realized you have so much more in your life than your relationship with me. You don’t need me at all, except maybe for sex, and even then you could do better. I’ve known that, intellectually, from the beginning, but when I realized it, when it finally got through to me …”

“Is that the problem? Is that what’s behind all this unhappiness? You think you’re unimportant to me, nothing more than a sex toy?”

“Well, look at us,” I said, starting to cry. “You’re a Ph.D., highly respected, poised, a renowned scientist, you can talk on any subject with anyone. You have many friends. You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met. What woman wouldn’t fall in love with you? What can you possibly see in me?”

David didn’t reach out for me, didn’t put his arms around me. He sat with his head bent over, his face cradled in his hands, as if searching in the dark for an answer.

“Kate, not everyone thinks a university professor is the highest life form the way you do, and I can’t imagine anyone but you considering me handsome. Many years ago, when I was your age and a student at Berkeley, I did have friends, and I think I use the term correctly, as I did when I said Mateo was my friend. They were young men who shared my triumphs and shared my sorrows as I did theirs. Most of us were Jews, passionately dedicated to saving the world, socialists, communists, knee-jerk liberals, whatever you want to call it. We had a vision of another kind of society, and we wrote pamphlets, we spoke in union halls; we worked hard to make that vision a reality. Berkeley was an exciting place to live in the 30’s; it was a center of intellectual ferment, and when I look back to those days, I can honestly say they were among the happiest in my life.

“Well, the years went by, I married, the war came along, our group scattered. Perhaps it’s a natural consequence of maturity rather than the result of a disastrous marriage or the death of so many of my friends in the war, but whatever the reason, I turned inward, away from people.

“I know I’ve become disillusioned; the solutions which were so obvious to us in the 30’s now seem simplistic in the extreme. I don’t have the answers anymore. History rolls on like a juggernaut, and I’m as powerless to understand its meaning as I am to alter its course. You said I have my work; well, thank God for that. How could I have survived all these years without teaching and research to sustain me?

“You said, too, that I have friends. You’re wrong. I have a wide circle of what others might call ‘friends’, but I think ‘acquaintances’ is a better word. They're people who send Arlene and me Christmas cards, who invite us to dinner, other professors I chat with in the halls. But there's not one person in that sea of faces I can turn to and say ‘I’m heartsick because I love a girl I can’t marry, please counsel me’ or ‘I’m lonely, please listen to me.’ No, we prattle on about the weather, or what make of car we’re buying next year. We talk about football, and you know how football bores me. It’s as though silence is a void which must be filled, even if the fill is garbage. Maybe they’re dying inside, too, and we’re all sending each other SOS messages that never make it past the barriers of social trivia.

“I’ve been living this way for years, Kate, desperately lonely. Then, one day, a shy girl walked into my office and started telling me about storks’ nests and pistachio vendors and how she felt listening to an old man play the lute. You know how it is to be lonely with no one to confide in, and I’ve been your confidant, just as you’ve been mine. We were friends before we were lovers, dear, and while we’ve heaped many things on our relationship since the beginning, it’s the bedrock of friendship which laid the foundation for everything that followed.

“You think you don’t matter to me? You’ve brought me joy in so many ways. The other day one of my students returned from a trip to Martinique and gave me a conch shell to decorate my bookcase. The shell reminded me of you, of that day in the curio shop when you picked up a conch and held it to your ear, of the delight on your face when you heard the sea roar inside it, and how you held the shell up for me to listen. I never see a sailboat or look at the stars without thinking of you.

“Perhaps my words can move you; perhaps they can make you cry as they’re doing now, but only growing up will make you happy. You’ll be leaving for Mexico in three months and, much as I’ll miss you, I’m glad you’re going. You have to learn to stand alone, and you’ll never manage that with me any more than a rose can bloom in the shade of an oak tree.” David reached out and stroked my cheek. “I love you, Kate. You've turned back the dial of my life.”

It was getting dark when we approached the dormitory. Through the open window above the garden, we heard the voices of the girls from Blaine Hall, rehearsing for “Spring Sing,” an annual music competition. We stopped to listen just as they were finishing Deep Purple and starting a selection from Carousel. Rosemary was at the piano, surrounded by a group of eight or nine singers.

“Rosie’s wearing her glasses,” David observed with a smile.

“Chopin she knows by heart; for Richard Rodgers she needs sheet music.”

“Spring break begins on the twenty-third. Your parents recently moved to California, didn’t they?”

“Yes, a month ago.”

“Are you going home?”

“I think so, why?”

“Arlene is flying to Boston with the children to spend a week with her family. I’m sailing up to a little island in the San Juans. Nothing special. Just a time to think, to do a little fishing, a little clamming. Will you come with me?”

“Yes.”

The music spilled out over the windowsill, into the spring evening.

If I loved you,

Time and again I would try to say

All I'd want you to know.

If I loved you,

Words wouldn't come in an easy way

Round in circles I'd go!

Longin' to tell you,

But afraid and shy,

I'd let my golden chances pass me by!

Soon you'd leave me,

Off you would go in the mist of day,

Never, never to know how I loved you

If I loved you.

I looked at David with tears in my eyes.

“Kate, there’s a school of thought which says a quarrel between two lovers improves their relationship, that a fight clears the air and brings them closer together. I don’t subscribe to that theory. Today you and I came perilously close to losing something precious to us both; next time we might not be so lucky.”

David put his arms around me and I hugged him, grateful for the second chance.

Go to Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Fourteen

2008-04-24T21:44:00.076+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
March 4, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Do you remember what Daddy always says about Seattle - that it's either raining, has just rained, or is just about to rain? These past few months have confirmed his judgment and I’m looking forward to the sunny skies of Mexico.

Winter quarter will be over in less than three weeks; not much going on except studying like mad. My employer, Dr. Rosenau, is speaking at this year’s American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting here in Seattle; his accent's pretty strong, so I’ve been giving him diction lessons ...

January wept into February and February into March,the winter bringing weeks of gray skies and unremitting drizzle that turned the campus into one huge quagmire. Across the “quad,” a grassy esplanade between the principal liberal arts buildings, the rain's ceaseless assault eroded a network of dirt shortcuts into rivers of mud.

The wind buffeted my corner room in Blaine Hall from two directions and I sat shivering at my desk every night, wrapped in a blanket, because the radiator stubbornly refused to raise the temperature above 60 degrees, even when turned on full. At least my room was dry. After a hard winter rain, the roof over Norma’s apartment began to leak; it leaked selectively, first in one spot, then in another, and Norma was perpetually rearranging her furniture to avoid the drips. Because Norma’s landlord was away when the problem started, David spent an entire Saturday afternoon on the roof, making patches; his repairs were partially successful, but as Norma observed philosophically when she moved her couch for the sixth time, the humidity seemed to be good for her Boston ferns.

Shortly after the start of winter quarter, I received an invitation to the annual Honors Banquet. I went with a group of residence hall students, and at dinner happened to sit next to a freshman from Blaine whom I didn’t know, a girl named Rosemary Hughes. When the meal was over and the servers had cleared away the dessert dishes, the speeches and presentations began. One by one the honorees were called up to receive their awards, until the moderator came to the climax of the evening, the Phi Beta Kappa prize for the most outstanding entering freshman. It goes without saying the young woman being honored had a perfect high school record; in addition she had placed first in a state-wide piano competition, won the grand prize at the Washington State Science Fair, and was the recipient of a four-year General Motors scholarship – and these were just a few of the highlights. As I listened in awe to her catalog of achievements, I happened to glance at Rosemary, who was sitting bolt upright in her chair with her eyes closed and an expression on her face half way between astonishment and terror. When they announced her name as the winner I don’t know who was more amazed, the girls from Blaine Hall, who knew her as just another freshman, or Rosie herself. It’s not surprising we were unaware of her accomplishments for Rosemary was, without question, the most unassuming person I’ve ever met, and few people guessed that behind the twinkling blue eyes and the infectious laugh lay a mind that dealt as easily with differential equations as with the music of Chopin.

Rosemary and I became close friends after the banquet, and she helped fill the void I felt when Norma moved out. Rosemary was of Welsh descent, with black hair, blue eyes, and the porcelain complexion common in people of Celtic origin. She was slightly plump, forever on a diet, and a short waist gave her a slightly boxy appearance. Although not beautiful, Rosemary exuded an unselfconscious charm that endeared her to everyone she met.

Rosemary was majoring in mathematics after a painful struggle with both her conscience and her music teacher, who told her flatly if she didn’t pursue a career as a concert pianist she was spitting in the eye of God. At my insistence, Rosie played for me one night after dinner. She chose Debussy’s Reflets dans l'eau, and when she struck the final notes, there was a hush in the living room, followed by a spontaneous burst of applause from everyone present. She had the power to make you cry with her fingers.

Rosemary often stopped to chat late at night when she returned from a date. I’d put on the tea kettle and we’d sit for hours discussing boys, sex, our parents, our futures, all the things that concerned college girls in those innocent times, before the Pill, before Roe v. Wade, before no-fault divorce. We weren’t women’s libbers then – the term hadn’t been invented – and we unthinkingly accepted our destinies as wives and mothers. Rosie, in particular, saw herself working for a few years after graduation, marrying a wonderful young man, and then retiring to a house and children. I wasn’t so sure about my own future; I had too much ego to subordinate my identity to the caprices of others – except David, of course – and too little ambition for anything else.

I introduced David to Rosemary as my employer and she accepted his role without question. Many times I was on the verge of confessing the truth to her, but how could I tell a girl who agonized over kissing a boy on the first date – even Rosie – that I was having an affair with a married man?

When David learned of Rosemary’s interest in music he made a point of inviting her to some of the concerts we attended, and she accepted enthusiastically. Rosemary captivated David, as she did everyone, and he shared my desire to keep our relationship a secret from her; unlike his behavior in Frank’s presence, when David almost flaunted his sexuality, with Rosemary he scrupulously avoided any word or gesture that would have betrayed our real feelings.

Although extremely near-sighted, Rosemary refused to wear glasses except under the most unusual circumstances, and she jokingly attributed her amazing memory for musical scores to her aversion to playing from sheet music with the aid of glasses. Her vanity often had amusing consequences. Once at a concert by the pianist Byron Janis, Rosemary offered us some candies during the intermission. I was sitting between her and David, and when she passed a small box in front of me, I declined, barely looking at it. David nudged my ribs and I followed his gaze to the candies.

“Rosie!” I exclaimed, “those are chocolate flavored laxatives!”

She snatched the box back and peered at it closely. “Oh my gosh, you’re right; I thought they were Necco wafers!”

On another occasion, David took us to dinner at a small Italian restaurant in the university district; all three of us ordered lasagna, and when our dishes arrived, Rosemary seized a glass shaker from the table and started pouring the contents liberally on top of the tomato sauce. David watched her for a moment with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Rosie, what are you doing?”

She looked up, all innocence. “I’m sprinkling parmesan cheese on my lasagna.”

“But, that’s sugar.”

Rosie glanced down at her plate in surprise. “I thought it was odd how the cheese kept sinking in.” Then she exploded in a peal of laughter, for no one was more amused at her antics than Rosie herself. As David said when he met her, “the sun was shining on the day Rosemary was born.”

David and I were constantly together throughout that dreary winter quarter. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I had no afternoon classes, David closed his office early and we’d sneak away like children playing hooky, running down the back stairs of the Health Sciences Building to his car before anyone had a chance to interrupt us. We rented bicycles and rode through Woodland Park; we attended concerts and went to movies; we sailed and ate dinner at Sam’s. There was a joy in simply being together, and the most ordinary activities took on a new meaning because we shared them.

One rainy day we spent in Tacoma is etched forever in my memory. We didn’t go to Tacoma for a reason; David had just started driving south, and when we were a few miles from the city, he suggested we visit the aquarium. The building was deserted that afternoon, and we wandered undisturbed for hours through its narrow corridors in a world of perpetual night, like the sea itself. Fluorescent tubes above the tanks provided the only illumination, and as the light filtered through layers of flowing water, it cast eerie, rippling shadows on the walls and on our faces. The fish inspected us briefly, twitched their fins, and swam silently away. Only the creaking floorboards and the sound of bubbling water ruffled the atmosphere of total calm.

All the fish were blennies. My recollection must be faulty; surely there were groupers and bass, eels and flounder, the standard fare of aquariums everywhere, but all I remember is tank after tank of blennies. Big blennies, small blennies, each fish more grotesque than the one before. We stood hand-in-hand studying displays explaining the differences between cartilaginous and bony fishes, we looked at an exhibit of salmon migration, and tried to pretend an interest in ichthyology when we had something else on our minds.

David drew me to him, ran his hand along the curve of my back, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Do you want to go to the boat afterwards?”

“Can we wait that long?” The look on David’s face was answer enough.

There was something titillating in the atmosphere. Perhaps it was the velvet dark, or the solitude or the sinuous movements of the fish. We stood in front of the tanks kissing and caressing until the tension became unbearable, and then we moved on, letting the emotion drain away, only to begin again.

Facing a large community tank was a wooden bench placed so visitors could sit and look at the fish. Sitting down in silence, we watched the marine creatures gliding behind the glass, and then we kissed languorously like divers overcome by rapture of the deep. I felt as though I should hold my breath, as though at any instant we had to break apart and swim for the surface. We made love there on the bench, in the dark, twenty fathoms beneath the sea.

When we left the aquarium, it was still raining, and although the sky was overcast, we blinked like people emerging from a movie theater on a sunny day. We walked to a small restaurant nearby, a cheap café with greasy oilcloth on the tables and a collection of semi-humorous signs on the walls: “we run a tight ship, only some of us have been getting tight a little too often;” “in God we trust, all others pay cash.” The bathrooms were labeled “buoys” and “gulls”. We ordered clam chowder and coffee, looked out the window at the waterfront, and held hands under the table.

It was a magical afternoon, one which stands out in my memory like a mountain peak illuminated by a shaft of sunlight on a cloudy day. We all have experiences we fail to appreciate at the time, and it is only later, too late, that we recognize their significance. We are sleepwalkers at the banquet of life. But as I strolled through the aquarium that afternoon with David, I realized how happy I was, and I knew no matter what the future held, I would always cherish our enchanted afternoon among the blennies.

I can see San Francisco Bay from my window. It is calm and unruffled. To a casual eye the water is still, and at a distance boats appear to rest motionless on its surface. But there is a current flowing, a river running to the sea, and close up you can read the signs of its passage: the tilt of a channel buoy, the streaming fingers of kelp, the tide rips swirling around barnacle-encrusted pilings. It is felt by the mariner whose boat is swept off course, even though every sail is full and drawing.

So it was with our lives. Beneath the gaiety, the laughter, the embraces, flowed a current of sadness. There were moments when this current was slack – those were the good times, the glad times – but the current always turned, bringing with it an ebb tide of melancholy.

If we passed a young mother in the park as she pushed her baby in a carriage, I would glance at David, then look quickly away. If we encountered a couple embracing outside the residence hall, I steered him abruptly down another path. By unspoken consent we avoided discussing the future, avoided any reminder that we would never have more than we had then, that in a real sense we had no future.

I suffered more than David did. He at least had his work, and while I know our situation frustrated him, David wasn’t pervaded by a feeling of gloom as I was. On the contrary, he seemed happier than I had ever seen him. Being in love touched every facet of David’s personality, endowing all his activities with a new vigor, just as it seemed to be robbing me of mine.

I was obsessed with David, completely dependent on his approval for the validation of everything I did. No dress I sewed was worthy until David had praised it; if I received a good grade on an exam, it was David’s delight in my success that made me happy, not the achievement itself.

In fairness to David, I have to admit my enthrallment was not his fault. Link by link I forged the chain that bound me to him; I fettered my ankles as eagerly as a medieval monk doing penance.

I attended my classes as before, I studied, I wrote papers, I excelled. But my heart wasn’t in it. I only came alive with David; between our rendezvous I lived in a sort of limbo, like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her prince’s kiss. But if the hours we spent together were ecstatic, our partings were torture. I couldn’t bear to leave him; I invented excuses to linger in his office, and when we kissed goodnight I cried for no reason at all. I did everything possible to postpone the moment when I would climb the dormitory steps and hear the sound of David’s car driving away. My behavior was irrational and I knew it, yet no amount of intellectualizing could lift the cloud of gloom hanging over me; I clung to him as to life itself.

My sadness perplexed David. When I was seized with one of my crying spells, he’d put his arms around me and hold me until the sobbing stopped, rocking me back and forth as if I were a child. I told him how I dreaded returning to the loneliness of my dormitory room, knowing he was going to the suburbs, to a house with two fireplaces and a book lined den, to a wife and children. No matter how bleakly David described his home life, it had to be more fulfilling than my existence away from him, but it was pointless trying to make him feel guilty. Even though he protested I was the only thing that mattered to him, I couldn't help thinking he was getting considerably more out of our relationship than I was.

As winter turned to spring, we continued going to the marina on Saturdays and I still visited his office in the evenings as before, but the focus shifted. We went to Sturmvogel with one objective: to pull the curtains over the portholes and fall on the settee in an embrace. It was the same in David’s office; I brought my books with no intention of studying. After a few minutes of desultory conversation, we read in each other’s eyes the compelling need that had brought us together. He would turn out the lights, remove the cushions from his chairs and line them up single-file on the floor while I undressed.

The cushions made an unsatisfactory bed, one little better than the floor itself; they were too narrow for us to lie beside each other and the glacial chill of the leather against my bare back made my teeth chatter. As the hour approached for David to take me home I used every sexual wile in my repertoire to distract him from the time, but David didn’t need to look at his watch; he had a chronometer in his head. Promptly at ten forty he’d get up and put on his clothes, saying he was sorry, but it was time to go. David could turn off his passion as easily as one switches off a light, and he couldn’t understand why I was so different. As I begged for one more kiss, one more embrace, he’d point out we could spend the following evening together and how foolish it was to jeopardize my college career by breaking the residence hall rules. His logic was impeccable, but I was beyond logic; I only wanted to fall asleep in his arms, to wake and find him beside me.

David practiced lovemaking with the same fervor he attacked everything else that interested him; he was an exuberant and joyous partner, and even with the radio on I found it hard to relax in his office, wondering what sounds were escaping from the room. The graduate students who studied in the building at night, those who met informally in David’s office before Christmas, surely guessed what was going on behind the opaque glass door, and it embarrassed me to meet them in the hall. David was a law unto himself; it didn’t matter to him what other people thought.

One evening I had just arrived at the Health Sciences Building and my hand was on the doorknob to David’s office when he came down the hall. He pressed against me from behind, encircled my body with his arms, and cupped my breasts in his hands. Just as I turned my head to receive his kiss, I glanced along the corridor. A shaft of light suddenly illuminated the dark passageway as someone opened a laboratory door at the far end of the hall. The light remained on for a couple of seconds and then flickered off; someone was watching us. I thought David’s behavior was reckless, but I didn’t tell him what I’d seen. If I had, he would merely have shrugged and said “so what?”

Frank knew we were lovers and David didn’t try hiding the fact from him. If Frank was in the cockpit steering Sturmvogel when David and I were below, it was only seconds before David would be running his hand up inside my sweater. Frank needed no effort to watch us, and I know he did, puritanical and disapproving, but nonetheless consumed by curiosity. David must have realized Frank was observing us, but he wasn’t above displaying his virility in front of a much younger man.

David was insatiably sexual, and he was both pleased and surprised he could arouse a similar passion in me. We made love four or five times in the course of an evening, and only the need to be back at the residence hall before eleven terminated these sessions, not a lack of desire. David was both gentle and passionate, tender and funny, as concerned for my enjoyment as for his own. We only abstained during my periods, for David had an abhorrence of menstrual blood. Those were the days we’d go sailing with Frank or take Norma or Rosemary to dinner.

I worried incessantly about becoming pregnant; my periods were highly irregular, from 21 to 30 days apart, and when the twenty-first day passed without a sign, I was in agony. Every time I went to the bathroom, I examined the toilet paper, searching for the bloodstains that signified another month's reprieve and, until they appeared, I was tormented with anxiety. During those days of waiting, I imagined myself pregnant and leaving school without telling David, or living in a Florence Crittenton home for unwed mothers, or moving to California and trying to survive on welfare payments. My self-pity was exquisite, but no less real for being so melodramatic. From a few oblique references, I realized David counted the days too, though he didn't tell me so directly. I wondered if he shared my apprehensions, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science provided a welcome interruption in our routine. Seattle was the site of that year’s convention, and David was chosen as the opening speaker, a singular honor in such a prestigious organization. He threw himself into a frenzy of speechwriting, and when I arrived at his office to spend the evening I would find his radio was off, the lights were on, and David was hard at work, surrounded by books and writing paper. I can see him still, sitting at his desk with his sleeves rolled up, running his fingers through his hair, a perpetual furrow between his eyebrows, gulping the omnipresent cup of coffee.

I assumed the role of speech teacher to help David overcome his strong Argentine accent. His English vocabulary was enormous, greatly exceeding my own and, most unusual for a foreigner, his command of written English was indistinguishable from a native’s. When he opened his mouth, though – well, that was another story. David’s accent was his point faible. He was utterly humorless on the subject of his English diction; if he was occasionally misunderstood, it was because the listener wasn’t paying attention or was mentally deficient. Although a few vowel sounds eluded him completely, his meaning could usually be guessed from context, so when he told me about hailing a taxi-cub or sealing the flop of an envelope or getting his feet wet stepping in a rain paddle, I knew what he meant. People’s names were another matter though, and if David introduced me to someone as “Dan,” I had to see the name in writing before I could be sure it wasn’t “Don.” Despite his protestations, David was aware of his shortcoming, however grudgingly he admitted it. The first speaker on the AAAS agenda had the misfortune to be named Edward Cropper, and David confided to me his nightmare that he would stand up in front of a thousand distinguished scientists and introduce his colleague as Edward Crapper.

For hours on end I played Professor Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle, drilling him on babble and bubble, badge and budge, lab and lob. We improvised our own version of The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain, which went The Bear Cub Loves to Paddle in the Puddle.

David also practiced his opening address on me; I heard the speech so many times that I knew it as well as David himself, and we joked if he became ill I could carry on in his place.

The night before the start of the meeting, David invited Frank and me to his office to hear the speech. David had the pronunciation down perfectly by then, and even Frank’s good-natured heckling didn’t fluster him. When he was finished, Frank, who knew of the elocution lessons, turned to me and said in a British accent “by George, he’s got it, I think he’s got it,“ parodying the lines from My Fair Lady.

I looked at David and took Frank’s cue, “again,” I said dubiously.

David enunciated his words with care. “The-bear-cub-loves-to-paddle-in-the puddle.”

“And where does that blasted bear cub love to paddle? Frank bellowed.

“In the puddle! In the puddle!” David shouted jubilantly. We doubled over with laugher and David waltzed me around the room to the beat of Frank’s clapping hands.

The ballroom of the Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle was the site of the meeting. I went to the hotel with David a couple of times when he was making arrangements for the convention, and sat on the sidelines studying while he discussed the placement of the rostrum and the acoustical equipment with one of the hotel officials.

The agenda included several evening talks intended for the general public and a greater number of esoteric symposia for the scientists themselves in the mornings and afternoons. David encouraged me to attend a few of the general interest lectures, but winter quarter finals were approaching and I knew he’d be too busy to spend any time with me, so I bowed out. I did want to hear David’s speech, however, and when Frank offered me a ride to the opening session, I accepted his invitation eagerly.

Opening day's schedule included speeches from two to five in the afternoon, followed by a 60-minute break and then a cocktail party in one of the banquet halls. Ever alert to the possibility of cadging free food, Frank urged me to come with an empty stomach.

Punctuality wasn’t one of Frank’s strong points, and the meeting room was nearly full when we arrived. Frank showed our passes at the door and, after excusing ourselves ten times and stepping over twenty feet, we eventually found a couple of empty folding chairs at the back. David was just standing up as we took our seats.

I felt like a theater prompter; I recited David’s speech in my head as he spoke on the podium, and had he faltered I was quite prepared to supply the missing words. But his delivery was letter-perfect, and when David came to introduce the ill-omened Dr. Cropper, he did so without hesitation. The audience clapped and David sat down. He poured himself a glass of water, bent down to hear the whispered comment from a man on his left, and gave a quick glance around the room as if searching for someone; there was a slight smile on his lips.

I have to admit the speeches didn't interest me. I stole a look at Frank from time to time; he seemed engrossed in the proceedings and I had the uncomfortable sensation that I was an impostor, easily the most stupid person in the room. There was an intermission at three-thirty and while Frank made a trip to the bathroom, I remained in my chair with my eyes on the speaker’s platform. David was standing by the dais in the center of a group of men, talking rapidly and with great animation as he always did when gripped by an idea; his audience was listening intently and I felt proud, foolishly proud, of this man I loved so much. Other people drifted toward the rostrum, introduced themselves and shook hands. I was fascinated; outside the university setting it was the first time I’d seen David among his peers. I was struck by his total self-assurance and his easy rapport with the other scientists. I don’t know how I could have expected otherwise; his height and bearing alone exacted deference from others, and his towering intellect earned him their respect.

I felt isolated from David as I watched him on the platform. When we were lying beside each other in the dark, it was easy to fool myself into believing I was the center of his universe, as indeed he was of mine. Here at the meeting, however, it was obvious David moved graciously in several worlds. He was on center stage wherever he went and I was only a supernumerary.

When the meeting adjourned at five and David disappeared with his coterie, Frank and I wandered around the hotel for an hour looking at a watercolor exhibition, killing time until the cocktail party began.

Frank stood with his hands in his pockets, examining the pictures. He was jingling his loose change, a mannerism that never failed to annoy me, and at last I exclaimed in exasperation, “For heaven’s sake would you please stop playing with those coins! You’re driving me nuts.”

Frank looked hurt. “Geez, you’re in a bitchy mood. I bet you don’t talk that way to David.”

“David doesn’t stand around jingling his change.”

“That’s not the point.”

Frank was right; that wasn't the point. I was in a bad mood and had no right to vent my feelings on him.

At six, when they opened the doors to the Evergreen Room, Frank was one of the first to enter; he went directly to the hors d’oeuvres, piled a plate high with ham slices, crackers and cheese and brought the food to me for safekeeping while he went back in search of a martini and seven-up.

There were more women in the group now; apparently, many of the scientists had made the trip with their wives. The men were wearing pin-on nametags, but even at a distance Frank was able to identify a number of them. He was plainly awed by the company he was keeping.

“You see that guy by the table, the one in the gray suit with the spade beard?” he asked, pointing surreptitiously under his napkin. “That’s Weill from M.I.T. And that one, the one with the crazy looking tie – that’s Rabinowitz from Cal Tech.”

Then I saw them. As Frank was pointing out the luminaries, my gaze traveled over the crowd until I recognized David, standing with a group of six or seven people halfway across the room. He was holding a cocktail glass in his left hand and gesturing with his right. Beside him stood a matronly woman in a green dress and I knew it was Arlene even before Frank told me. The first thing I noticed was her hair, a beautiful shade of natural auburn.

I looked at Frank accusingly, “You never told me she has red hair.”

Arlene had on a knit sheath so tight that it outlined the ridges of her girdle against the bulge of her buttocks. The seams of her brassiere would have been visible too, but I could see from the way her breasts jiggled she wasn’t wearing one. Arlene’s silver shoes were backless and open at the toes, like house slippers on heels, and from her neck, wrists and ears dangled a matching set of gaudy rhinestone jewelry. She had a cigarette in her right hand. The whole effect was unspeakably vulgar and I felt agonies of embarrassment for David.

As I watched, he turned slightly and our eyes met. For a split second he didn’t react – he obviously wasn’t expecting to see me at the party – and then he recovered, acknowledging his recognition with a curt nod of his head.

Suddenly everything in the room came to a halt like a movie stuck on the first frame. Waiters held out trays of champagne glasses, but no one took them; the pianist lifted his hand and the music stopped in mid-note; guests stood open mouthed in the act of speaking. Perhaps I actually lost consciousness for a moment. Then David turned toward his group and resumed talking. Again I became aware of the hum of conversation, of laughter and the tinkling of a piano. Nothing had stopped. Nothing had changed. I realized I hadn’t returned David’s nod; I’d only stared.

“Frank, take me home.”

“Right now? The party’s just getting started.”

“Please, Frank. I don’t feel well.”

“You don’t have to pay any attention to them,” Frank said, nodding toward David’s group.

I laid my glass and napkin down and started to put on my gloves. “All right, if you want to stay I can take the bus back.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’ll take you. Let me grab something else to eat first.” Frank loaded his plate with enough food for a CARE package, camouflaged it with a couple of napkins, and we left the room. On the way out, I turned to look at David, who was standing as before with the same group of people; he wasn’t gesturing with his right hand this time, though, because his arm was around Arlene's shoulder.

Go to Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Thirteen

2008-04-23T16:27:00.041+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
Jan. 9, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Another quarter - seven down and five to go. Norma’s all moved in to her new apartment now; I went over there Monday night and we prepared a Mexican dinner together. She’s done wonders with the place over Christmas vacation, painting thrift shop furniture (gilt paint - looks better than it sounds), upholstering, and sewing (pink curtains with gold tassels - ditto remark as above), to achieve a sort of Renaissance look.

This Saturday she’s having a house warming. The professor I had last quarter for Spanish 304 offered to give me a ride to the party. I think I’ve mentioned him before - his name is Corrado Maldonado - he’s about 30, at least six feet tall (almost as tall as Dr. Rosenau), with ramrod-straight posture like a flamenco dancer’s. Maldonado speaks Castilian Spanish (as opposed to the Latin American variety), and even his English has a slight lisping quality to it. I’m not quite sure if he meant that I was to go as his date, or what, but I already had transportation, so I thanked him and said no...

David drove me to the residence hall and I checked in for winter quarter. The housemother allowed men in the rooms during check-in – and only during check-in - since she took it for granted we girls needed fathers and brothers to help with the luggage. David carried my suitcase upstairs.

“So this is where you live, “he remarked, sitting down in my armchair; “What a lot of books. You never told me you have an El Greco on the wall.”

The thunderclouds hanging over the city in El Greco’s View of Toledo mirrored my mood. Without a word, I sat in David’s lap and drew my feet under me. “Poor baby,” he said, patting me consolingly, “it’s been quite a weekend for you, hasn’t it?” I fell asleep in his arms and the sun was nearly down when he awakened me. “Kate,” he said gently, “it’s after five. I have to be going.”

“Did you ever read Mary Poppins when you were a boy?”

“When I was a boy, dear, Mary Poppins hadn’t been written.”

“There’s one chapter I remember particularly. It’s about the time she takes Barbara and Michael to visit a friend of hers on his birthday. They start laughing so much they fill up with laughing gas and go bobbing up to the ceiling. Her friend tells them they’ll stay up there forever until one of them has a sad thought, but they’re all laughing so hard that everything they think of is hilarious. Finally, Mary Poppins says ‘it’s time to go home’ and they all float down to the floor. That’s how I feel whenever we say goodbye, sad and deflated. I know we can see each other tomorrow, or go sailing on Saturday, and it's not like I’m afraid you’re going to die or anything morbid’s going to happen. I can’t explain it; I’m just terribly depressed, as though my life is ending and won’t resume until I see you again. That’s neurotic, isn’t it? Maybe the term being 'crazy' about someone has a scientific basis.”

We sat together in the twilight. “While you were sleeping I was watching the sunlight fade on your picture. It’s strange how certain buildings stand out to the end, just as they do in real life. Have you seen the original?”

“When I went to Spain I looked for the painting in the Prado, but it’s in the Metropolitan, in New York.”

He sighed. “Perhaps some day we can visit those museums together. Well, it’s time you were getting off my lap, young lady. I think my legs have atrophied for lack of circulation.”

I smiled at his pleasantry. I wasn’t going to let me see me break down, regardless of how depressed I felt.

“May I leave my cans of paint, fenders, etcetera here until Saturday?”

I nodded and slipped my hand into his. We embraced and my resolve disappeared in a torrent of tears. “Please, David, stay a little longer.”

“I can’t.” He held me away from him with his hands on my arms. “I hate to leave you like this, crying, but if I postpone going for another half hour it won’t be any easier then. I know you've had an emotional 24 hours, dear, really I do understand, but I must go.” He kissed me on the forehead and left.

Tuesday afternoon I was walking out of Dr. Garcia’s Latin American poetry class in Denny Hall when I saw Mr. Maldonado standing outside the door, holding a brown paper bag in his hand. He didn’t notice me immediately and I thought briefly of pretending I hadn’t seen him; I was in a hurry to attend an anthropology seminar on the top floor of Thomson Hall and had less than ten minutes to make it.

My conscience got the better of me. “Buenas tardes, Señor Maldonado.”

“Catarina. I … I was hoping to find you here. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

I thought of the Scarlet Letter and regretted speaking to him. “I have a class at three, but …yes.” Standing next to Mr. Maldonado I saw that behind the thick glasses his right eye was slightly misaligned; despite this defect, he was a good looking man.

“I wanted to thank you for helping me clean up after the Christmas party. You left so quickly I didn’t have a chance.”

“You’re very welcome … it was nice of you … I enjoyed the music so much; in fact I tried to buy the album in Ogden over Christmas vacation, but the record store didn’t carry it.”

“Yes, I noticed you jotted down the name. I’m glad you couldn’t find it, though, because I’d like to give you this.”

He handed me the package and I opened it. Inside was Villancicos Españoles – Christmas Songs of Spain, a Folkways recording. I didn’t know what to say. “But this is yours ...”

“I can always get another copy here in Seattle; please take the record. It will make me happy to think you’ll play the music and remember … Spanish 304.”

I thanked him and started edging in the direction of the exit, feeling panicky he was going to say something about David or the postcards.

Mr. Maldonado took a few steps toward me. “Norma told me she invited you to her housewarming on Saturday.”

“Yes … I think the party starts at eight.”

“It’s a long walk up her hill …. may I give you a ride?”

I was speechless. What was I going to say to this kind, earnest man – "thank you, but I already have a date with the married professor you saw me having breakfast with on Sunday"? I realized how awkward it would be if David and I attended the party together and made an immediate decision to decline Norma’s invitation. I knew she would understand when I explained about the postcards.

“I really appreciate your offer, but something’s come up and I can’t go after all.”

Mr. Maldonado looked crestfallen. I thanked him again for the record and sprinted from the building, arriving at Thomson with two minutes to spare. When I returned to my room later that afternoon, I took the record out of the bag; with a black marking pen, Mr. Maldonado had written on the cover “to Catarina from Corrado – a belated Merry Christmas, January 1957.”

Around ten o’clock in the morning, three days after my encounter with Mr. Maldonado, I was in my room typing David’s work when the phone rang. It was raining, as it always seemed to be in Seattle when bad things happened, and I remember looking out the window just before picking up the receiver and seeing raindrops running down the pane, like tears down a cheek. I recognized Norma’s voice, but she was sobbing so convulsively that I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Finally, I made out a few words: “Corrado … found him last night … hanged himself …”

“Oh, my God, Norma …”

“I’m in my office. Can you come over?”

I threw on a raincoat and ran to Denny Annex, where the Romance language teaching assistants had their offices. The place was in an uproar; everyone was stunned by the violent death of a man they’d all talked to only days before. Several of Maldonado’s students were in the corridor trying to find out what had happened and many others were crying.

Gradually, as Norma calmed down, she told me the story. Wednesday morning Mr. Maldonado missed his Spanish 102 class and hadn’t called the department office to give an explanation. When he failed to attend a meeting in the afternoon, the chairman of the department, Dr. Nelson, phoned Maldonado’s apartment and no one answered. Thursday morning he was absent again, and by then the staff was getting worried. Later the same day Maldonado’s landlady let the police into his apartment and they found him; Maldonado had thrown a rope over a beam in the ceiling of his living room, stood on a chair, kicked it away, and hanged himself. He left a note concerning funeral arrangements, but nothing else.

I was numb, speechless. “But why?”

Norma shook her head. “Everyone has a different theory; you wouldn’t believe the rumors I’ve heard. I'm quite sure I know the reason, but I'll never be certain.”

“If David’s free can I ask him to join us? This may not be related to Maldonado’s death, but there’s something we need to tell you.”

Norma agreed and I phoned David. He must have guessed why I was calling from the tone of my voice because he said immediately, “I know. I saw the story in the paper this morning.”

Fifteen minutes later David arrived; he hugged Norma and he hugged me.

“Why don’t we go to Commons and talk,” he suggested; “it’s too noisy here and too depressing.”

David held his umbrella over our heads and we crossed Denny Yard to Commons, a cafeteria in Raitt Hall. David brought three cups of coffee to the table; we told Norma about the postcards and I recounted my meeting with Maldonado three days previously.

I dried my eyes and wiped my nose. “I can’t help holding myself responsible for his death in some way. What if he hadn’t noticed me and David at Mannings or I hadn’t given him the grade card, or he hadn’t seen us together at the HUB? What if I’d agreed to go to your party with him? What if being disappointed with me tipped him over the edge? Regardless of whether he had any romantic notions about me, I feel like I let him down.”

“Everyone’s saying the same thing. We all feel guilty. Just before you arrived, I was talking to one of his students, a Spanish major. She said they’d had a discussion – more like an argument – in class a few days ago. They were talking about a novel – right now I’m so distraught I can’t even remember its name – but the point is Nélida told him there was no reason to get emotional about the characters' motivations because it was fiction, and Corrado got upset because to him fiction was every bit as important as reality. He certainly didn’t commit suicide because a student disagreed with him about literature, but this is one example of what I’ve been hearing all morning”.

“What else are they saying?”

“That he was homosexual and his lover broke up with him.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“Honestly, I don't have any idea. I didn’t think he was … but you never know. The rate of homosexuality in any Romance language department is certainly high, but Corrado… how can you reconcile his being homosexual with your conversation on Tuesday and everything else that happened before? Did he offer you a ride because he thought of it as a sort of date – or was it only a ride? In a way, his remark about hoping you’d play the record and think of Spanish 304 – by which he certainly meant himself – seems like a foreshadowing of his death."

David had been largely silent until then. “Norma, you said you have an idea why he killed himself. What is it?”

“I haven’t mentioned this to anyone else because it seems disrespectful to his memory but … I had a long talk with Corrado Monday afternoon. He’d just come from a meeting with Dr. Nelson and Nelson told him he was out after this quarter. He was totally devastated.”

“Out! You mean fired?” I exclaimed, “But why?”

“Corrado came here in 1953. The department hired him at the rank of Instructor with the understanding he'd be promoted to Assistant Professor once he completed his dissertation and got his Ph.D; that was four years ago. You can’t take four years to write your dissertation. I’m amazed he lasted as long as he did. From what he told me, I gathered he wasn’t making any progress, either. You mentioned feeling guilty – well, I feel guilty myself. It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic, but maybe there’s something more I could have said or done. It never crossed my mind he was considering suicide.”

Maldonado’s father arrived from the Midwest and took his son’s body home for burial. A couple of junior faculty members volunteered to clean out Maldonado’s apartment, and when the landlady admitted them, they discovered he'd made a list bequeathing many of his possessions to his friends. To Norma he left a beautiful Florentine box with leaves embedded in the cover and to me another record, Germaine Montero singing Folk Songs of Spain.

Maldonado must have expected his funeral would be held in Seattle, for he requested they play one of the songs on the record at the church. By the time his gifts were discovered however, Maldonado’s remains had already been taken home, so his friends decided to play the song at his memorial service, held a week later at a nearby Methodist chapel.

I went with Norma and David. Friends and colleagues spoke about his scholarship, his sense of humor, his kindness. Dr. Nelson said how much he would miss an inspired teacher. Norma had been asked to say a few words, but she declined, knowing she couldn’t talk about Maldonado without breaking down. Mr. Mazzello, from the Italian department, mentioned Maldonado had requested a certain Spanish folk song at his funeral, and he put on the record – my record now – of Montero singing the haunting Ya se van los pastores.

Ya se van los pastores a la Extremadura,

ya se van los pastores a la Extremadura,

ya se queda la sierra triste y oscura

ya se queda la sierra triste y oscura.

Ya se van los pastores ya se van marchando

ya se van los pastores ya se van marchando

más de cuatro zagalas quedan llorando

más de cuatro zagalas quedan llorando.

Ya se van los pastores hacia la majada

ya se van los pastores hacia la majada

ya se queda la sierra triste y callada

ya se queda la sierra triste y callada.

(The shepherds are going away to Extremadura, leaving the mountains sad and dark. The shepherds are going away, they’re going away, leaving more than four shepherd girls crying. The shepherds are going away to the flocks, leaving the mountains sad and silent).

Norma and I burst into tears.

Go to Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Twelve

2008-04-22T00:26:00.094+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
Jan. 7, 1957

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Happy birthday, Mother! I’m going to phone you after my first class and give you my greetings in person, but am writing this just in case you're not home. Even though you’re busy getting ready for the move to Oakland, I hope the two of you have a chance to enjoy an evening out to celebrate.

My friend Frank picked me up at the Greyhound station Saturday afternoon; we had dinner at a seafood restaurant near the marina and then he took me to the residence hall for check-in...

When my bus reached the Greyhound depot in Seattle on the fifth, I looked anxiously out the window for David and finally spotted him standing apart from the crowd, aloof as always, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his overcoat.

I went running to his arms as soon as I stepped off the bus, and we embraced with a long kiss, oblivious of the people around us. David was grinning from ear to ear. “God, it’s good to see you. It seems more like two years than two weeks. Give me your baggage check and let’s get out of this place.”

By the time we finished our meal and left Sam’s, it was eight o’clock and already dark. Throughout dinner we chatted gaily, delighted to be together again, but on reaching David’s car I fell silent. Two weeks at home had given me plenty of opportunity to worry about spending the night with him and I was starting to shiver with anxiety.

“Where are we going?" I asked, as we drove down an unfamiliar highway.

“Straight to hell, probably. Seriously, I’m heading toward North Seattle. I don’t want to be too near the university. I think there’s a number of … motels on Aurora Avenue.”

“Where do you usually take your girlfriends?”

David didn’t smile. “I’ve never done this before with anyone.”

I slid over beside him and put my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Bad joke. That makes two of us.”

We left Highway 5, turned up Aurora and passed a couple of prospects. “Those seem decent enough,” David remarked. “At least they’re AAA approved. Do you have any preference? TV?" He shot me a quick smile. "Twin beds? Shower?”

“I’m not much of a TV watcher and I’ll leave the bed arrangement up to you. I would like one thing, though.”

“What is it?”

“A bathtub. I feel so grimy after the bus ride. I’d love to relax in a tub of hot water.”

David circled back and drove into the closest motel. He returned from the registration desk with a key in his hand and a smile on his face.

“Done. No TV, a double bed for me and a bathtub/shower combo for you. And courtesy coffee in the morning.” David carried my bag to the room and I lingered outside for a few minutes, petting the motel owner's golden retriever who had padded over from the office to greet us.

David stood in the doorway, watching. “It’s well past nine; surely you’re not going to stay there all night with that dog are you? We can always invite her in, you know.”

I realized he had more on his mind than dogs; almost reluctantly, I said goodbye to the retriever and followed David inside. It was a typical 50’s style motel room, neat and anonymous, amply furnished in chrome and formica. A slightly crooked picture of a Dutch windmill hung above one of the two double beds.

“Two beds?”

“Of course. One for you and one for me. Which one do you want?” David started to laugh. “They came with the tub.” He locked the door behind us and put his arms around me.

“What name did you use when you registered?”

“My own. I gave the biochemistry department as my address, though.”

We stood holding each other without saying a word. David looked at me.

“Do you still want to take a bath? While you’re in the tub, I'm going in search of a drugstore. I forgot to bring a razor; if I don’t shave I’ll look like a bum in the morning.”

David left and I started to unpack. I laid out on the bed the nylon chiffon nightgown my parents had given me for Christmas, a timely and rather uncharacteristic gift. It was light blue, and cut low at the neckline, with appliquéd flowers on the yoke and sleeves. David returned about ten minutes later and knocked on the bathroom door to let me know he was back. I dried myself, loosened my hair so it fell to my waist, and put on the gown. I peeked out at David; he’d pulled a chair beside the bed lamp and was sitting with his legs crossed reading a newspaper.

I opened the door and smiled at him, shyly, clutching the neckline of my nightgown. David glanced up and gave a gasp of surprise. “Kate … I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long…”

I repeated the words David said to me the first time he held me in his arms, “they say anticipation is better than realization. Is it true?”

He replied with mine, “Emphatically not; the realization is infinitely better.”

“You remembered.”

“Yes, dear, I remember. That was a first time, too, just as this is.”

I walked over to his chair and he stood up. “Before we reach the point where we can’t stop, there’s something I have to do. I’m going to shave and take a shower; I won’t be long.”

“Do you always shave at night?”

He took my hand and rubbed it against his cheek. “Almost never, but if I don’t shave now, your face will be sandpapered raw by morning.”

I sat down, picked up the newspaper, and read an article about the preparations for Eisenhower's inauguration at least three times without understanding a word. I listened to the noises from the bathroom, and when the shower stopped and I heard the sound of David’s vigorous toweling, my mouth went dry. He appeared a moment later with one towel wrapped around his waist and another over his arm.

“Something else I didn’t bring – a pair of pajamas.” He looked down at the towel around his waist. “I didn’t want to frighten you with my maleness.”

I realized why he'd covered himself and tried not to stare.

David put his hand on the light switch. “May I?”

I nodded and he turned out the overhead light, leaving only the small lamp where I was sitting. He crossed over to the bed, pulled down the covers and spread the towel he was carrying over the bottom sheet. I turned off the lamp and stood up. For a moment the darkness blinded us; David reached out to touch me and I began to tremble.

"I'm sorry. Somehow it was easier on the boat."

"What happened on Sturmvogel was spontaneous; you didn't have time to be apprehensive. I understand."

He put his arms around me and started to cover my face and neck with tiny kisses.

“David, when people do this, do they take their clothes off?”

“Well, it depends.” Even though I wasn’t able to see his expression clearly in the dark, I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was smiling. “According to Dr. Kinsey’s study there’s a positive correlation between the educational level of the partners and their state of undress. So in that case, dear Kate, I think we’re entitled to remove these.”

David untied my nightgown and it slithered to the floor, followed by his towel. He picked me up, laid me on the bed, and lay down beside me.

My teeth began to chatter.

“Dearest," he whispered, "I know you’re afraid. I promise to be gentle.”

And he was. I felt a sudden rush of heat and saw sparklers flashing behind my closed eyelids; it was a strange sensation, neither painful nor pleasant, and I have never experienced it since. Afterwards I lay beside David, half awake and half asleep, listening to his regular breathing. Cars sped by on the road outside the motel; their headlights raked the walls of the room like gunfire and then disappeared, plunging us again into darkness. I studied David’s silhouette in the dim light and began tracing his profile with my index finger.

“What are you doing?” he asked sleepily.

“I’m pretending I’m a sculptor. You’re craggy. You look like you were just carved from a marble block – all angles and planes – no curves. You know, you’ll always be handsome; it’s in your bone structure.”

I ran my finger down his profile again and this time he bit it.

“Are you happy, Kate?”

“More than happy, contented.”

“What’s the difference? In Spanish they’re the same."

“All the difference in the world. To me contented means something more than being happy; contentedness is an all pervasive joy, a state of nirvana where there’s no more striving, no more desire.” Abruptly I sat up on one elbow. “What’s your name?”

David looked puzzled. “David Rosenau, of course; is this one of your African witchdoctor things about names?”

“The sign by the door to your office says ‘L.D. Rosenau.’ What’s the ‘L’ for?”

“Oh that. 'Leopold,' for my father. You can see why I go by ‘David’. Why are you asking me now?”

“This is terrible. It just occurred to me I’m in bed stark naked with a man and I don’t even know his name!”

David laughed. “Do you know one of the reasons I love you? Because you’ve restored my sense of fun. I’d forgotten what it was like to let myself go and be utterly goofy. I’ve been so busy living up to the image of David Rosenau – Leopold David Rosenau – that the real me, the quintessential me, was nearly extinguished”.

We were silent for a few minutes; David put his arm around me and drew me to him.

“There’s something I want to ask you”, I said, “an anatomical question. No, don’t look at me. I get embarrassed when I ask questions like this and you can see my face.”

“My eyes are shut. Ask away.”

“You know with male dogs, how they have a sort of sheath and the penis is inside and it only comes out when the dog is ready to mate?”

“Yes.”

“Is … that the way men are?"
"You've never seen a naked man, not even in a photograph?"
"When we were in Florence I saw Michelangelo's David, but I was too embarrassed to take a good look."

David laughed. “Men are different; may I show you?”

I shook my head vigorously. “I can’t look at you … not yet.”

He took my hand. “Then let me show you this way. You said you didn’t know if you should touch me in certain places. Is this what you meant?”

“Yes. Is it … is it all right?”

“More than all right.”

"David?"

"Mmmm."

"Do you remember the conversation we had at the zoo ...when you told me what you were afraid of?"

"Yes, I remember."

"It didn't turn out the way you thought, did it? I mean ..."

"No, it didn't. With you it was different, completely different. How about you? All the things you worried about?"

"Me? Was I ever afraid?"

He guffawed.

"David?"

"Yes?"

“Do people ever make love more than once?”

“Sometimes.” He moved his head slightly to catch the light on my face. “You’re very narrow, dear, and I’m … would it be too painful?”

“No.”

He put his hand between my legs, inserted a finger deep inside, withdrew it, and started to massage me with a circular motion. I recoiled in shock and clamped my legs together.

“Please, Kate,” he whispered, “relax and let me touch you. I want us to reach a climax together. Tell me when you’re ready.”

We embraced and David buried his face in my hair. He cried out “oh Kate,” with a moan that was muffled by the pillow, whether from ecstasy or despair I wasn't sure. I felt like I was surfing the crest of an unending wave. I pulled him tightly to me and we made love twice more without parting before sinking back, wet and exhausted, upon the sheets.

In the middle of the night we awakened again. I don’t know which of us touched the other first; a simultaneous urge made us grope for one another in the dark. We made love drowsily, languorous as a pair of sloths, until the knife-edge of desire blurred once more into sleep.

When I awakened, sunshine was streaming through the curtains and I was alone in bed. I listened for sounds from the bathroom and, hearing nothing, I sat up. David’s jacket and coat were lying on a chair, but his other clothes were missing. “David?” A key rattled in the door and he entered, carrying a brown plastic tray with a carafe of coffee and two cups. Almost instinctively, I pulled the bed sheet up to my shoulders. David’s eyes caught mine and he smiled.
     Still holding the tray, he closed his eyes, and sniffed loudly. “Ummm.”
     “What do you smell?”
     “Sex.”
     “Sex?”
     “Sex. Or in scientific terms, semen, sweat and vaginal secretions. You and me. Memento of a glorious night in bed.”
     “I don’t smell anything.”
     “That’s because you’re immersed in it; I just came from the fresh air outdoors. The scent's an aphrodisiac. I think we should bottle and sell it as the antidote to war. One whiff and people will be so busy screwing like rabbits, they won’t have time to fight.”
     “If you're not awarded a Nobel for your scientific accomplishments, you’ll still win one for peace.”
     “My thoughts, exactly; a joint prize, like the Curies'.”

He laid the tray on the table. “We’ve availed ourselves of the tub, the absence of TV and”, he grinned broadly, “the double bed. I thought it was about time for the coffee.”

“What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Seven! It's the middle of the night!” I groaned and slipped under the covers, burying my head.

David pulled at the blankets and I pulled back. “¡Dormilona! Come on, up, up! ‘morning’s at seven, the hillside’s dew pearled, the lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn, God’s in his heaven and …’”

“I’m tired!” I uncovered my face and stuck my tongue out at him. We laughed and I sat up again, still clutching the sheet. David poured the coffee and handed me a cup.

“You’re looking very fit this morning, Leopold David Rosenau.”

“I’m feeling exceptionally fit, thank you, well rested. And you?”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I answered with a giggle.

“Are you … all right?”

“I’m fine … a little sore.” Actually, I was very sore, but I didn’t want to tell him.

“How about this. Why don’t you go back to sleep for a while and I’ll sit in bed and read the paper.” He draped his trousers over a chair, propped his pillow against the headboard, and got into bed beside me in his sport shirt and underpants.

I pretended to be asleep for a couple of minutes while I watched him through my eyelashes. “I forgot to bring a tape measure!” I exclaimed suddenly.

David looked up from his paper. “What for?”

“There’s some peasant community in Europe – in Czechoslovakia I think – where the mother measures the bride’s neck on her wedding night and again in the morning. If the girl's had an orgasm, her neck gets larger.”

David exploded with laughter. “Where do you get all this stuff? I swear you’re making half of it up.”

“I'm not either," I replied with mock indignation.

“At least you've answered one of my questions.” David looked pleased. “How many times?”

“You know how terrible I am at math. I can’t count that high. Couldn’t you tell?”

“Oh, I had a sneaking suspicion. Either that or you’re a consummate actress.”

I moved my hand along David's chest and started to unbutton his shirt.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Making you comfortable.”

He gave me a long look. “I always wondered what would happen if a satyr met a nymph. I believe I’m finding out.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and cradled my chin in my hand. “I want to ask you something. Seriously. After the first time were you doing it because you felt you had to prove something to me, I mean because of your age? I love teasing you, but I’ll stop if you’re doing this out a sense of obligation to me or because you think I’m expecting it or...”

“I’m not trying to prove anything to you. One can’t will these things you know. If that were possible, there wouldn’t be any impotent men. I feel … like someone who’s dying of thirst in the desert when out of nowhere he stumbles upon an oasis.” David rolled up the newspaper, flung it gaily across the room and turned to me with a smile. “I’m thirsty again.” He hooked his index finger over the top of the sheet I was still holding up to my chin and started to pull it down.
     After months of a chaste courtship – if it could be called that - David’s uninhibited sexuality took me by surprise and I wasn’t sure how to react.
     “I’m so flat-chested ….”
     David lowered the sheet and pressed me back against the bed. “I adore your firm little breasts.” He nuzzled my armpit, caressed my nipples with his tongue, and covered me with kisses. “Can you tell the effect they have on me?”
     Feeling his bulging erection, I realized that women’s magazines were right when they said large breasts aren't everything.

We were still asleep when a maid knocked on the door at eleven. David showered hastily, and by the time I was out of the tub, I found him already dressed and straightening the bed. He picked up the bloodstained towel he'd spread over the sheet the night before, looked at me sadly, without smiling, and carried the towel to the bathroom. I heard him running water in the sink.

We ate a late breakfast at Manning's Café, near the university – eggs, bacon, hash-browned potatoes, toast and – for me - a piece of banana cream pie. David winced at the idea of dessert, but I was ravenous and still at the age when I could eat sweets with impunity.

“Don’t turn around now,” David cautioned as I smothered my toast with strawberry jam, “but there’s a man near the cash register who keeps staring at us, about 30, dark hair, olive complexion, glasses. Do you know him?”

I turned my head slightly and searched for the man out of the corner of my eye. “It’s Mr. Maldonado, the Spanish professor I had last quarter.”

“He’s leaving,” David said in a low voice.

Maldonado crossed the room to where we were sitting. Feeling embarrassed to be seen eating breakfast with David, I didn’t look up. He passed by our table and paused for a moment before going to the exit.

“What a queer duck!” David exclaimed. “He stared at you for at least three seconds; I wonder why he didn’t stop and say hello?”

“He probably wasn’t real; it was the personification of my conscience, like the cricket in Pinocchio.”

“This is real enough, though. Is he CEM?” asked David, taking a card from his jacket pocket.

“The postcard! You got it! Did he write anything besides my grade?”

David handed me the card. On the long axis of the postcard to David, and with the same ink he’d used to decorate mine, Mr. Maldonado had drawn a huge red ‘A’ at least four inches high, bordered with small black hatch-marks along the edges of the letter.

“What on earth is that supposed to mean? Here’s the one he sent me; it’s straightforward enough.”

David read my card without smiling and looked at the postmark. “He mailed mine three days after yours; that’s strange.” He turned the cards over and his expression hardened.

“Do you have any classes with him winter quarter?”

“No, I have Dr. García for Latin American poetry. You noticed something about the cards, what is it?”

“If this is his idea of a joke, I’m not amused. Look at your card. He wrote the grade as an ‘A’ plus. Now look at mine. The grade is an ‘A’ without the ‘plus’, a big, fat red ‘A’ with little marks along the border that appear to represent sewing or embroidery. What does that suggest to you?”

A chill passed through me. “A scarlet letter, ‘A’ for adultery.”

“Exactly. That accounts for why he sent my card a few days after yours; since you addressed mine to the biochemistry department, he knows I’m on the staff. Your Mr. Maldonado must have been doing a little checking up on me.”

I sat staring at the postcards, too stunned to speak. “But why? Is this some kind of blackmail, or what?”

“I doubt it. Your first guess was probably spot on, but he’s no phantom, and he's addressing his message to me, not to you. I think he's warning me off. What do you know about him?”

“Not a great deal; Maldonado's a Ph.D. candidate from some school in the Midwest, the University of Chicago, I think. He’s been here for a couple of years while he writes his dissertation, sort of like Frank’s position in your department except he has the title of Instructor. Last quarter I had him for Spanish 304; he’s an excellent teacher, very funny and super-conscientious. Right before finals, he gave us a Christmas party. He brought in cookies, cake, punch and his own record of Spanish Christmas carols, and went to the trouble of transcribing the words of the songs and mimeographing them so everyone could have a copy. Then, after he’d gone to all this work, when the students realized they weren’t having a regular class, most of them just grabbed the refreshments and walked out. I stayed afterwards to help him clean up.” My voice broke. “I felt terrible for him. I think he's the kind of person who can't take rejection. He seems … so vulnerable.”

David’s face softened. “I’m sure he must have been deeply hurt. Is he married?”

I shook my head. “He’s Norma’s faculty advisor.”

“Is there anything between them?”

“Absolutely not.”

"Is he Spanish?"

"No, he's an American."

David read my card again. “Does he always call you ‘Catarinita’?”

“He never calls me Catarinita. He always addresses me as Señorita Collins. No, wait. About a week ago I was in Denny and I saw him in the hall. He was standing talking to a couple of other professors, I didn’t pay any attention to who they were … and just as I passed him, Mr. Maldonado said ‘Catarina’s such a pretty girl.’ Right out loud. It was such a bizarre remark – it was almost like he was talking to himself. David! Could he be infatuated with me?”

David shrugged. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Another thing - it just occurred to me; several times when you and I've been at the HUB having coffee together, I noticed Mr. Maldonado there too, and he was looking at us - maybe watching us is a better word. At the time it didn't strike me, but now ... should I tell Norma about the postcards?”

“No, don’t mention them. What’s the point; you won’t be seeing him again, anyway.”

“But the party! Norma’s party! I forgot to tell you. I received a letter from her when I was home and she’s having the housewarming this Saturday the 12th. Norma’s sure to invite Maldonado.”

“How jolly. Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll let that poor devil intimidate me.”

Go to Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Eleven

2008-04-21T21:37:00.072+02:00

When we reached the residence hall, Norma was waiting for us in her room, surrounded by stacks of cardboard cartons, all taped and neatly labeled. David shot me a look of dismay. I knew he was wondering if we'd be able to move Norma’s possessions in one trip, and I was thinking the same thing myself.

From his trunk of his car, David removed two cans of bottom paint, a hose, several boat fenders and an old sail, making space for three of the smaller cartons, and while Norma and I carried his boating gear to my room for safekeeping over the holidays, David lugged her boxes to the car, crammed most of them into the back seat, and with a long rope, tied the rest to a roof rack. As we started up the steep hill leading to Norma’s apartment I worried the boxes on top were going to slip off, but David’s lattice-work of rope held, and when we reached the crest not only was everything intact, but we still had more than an hour and a half to spare before my bus left.

Norma’s apartment was a converted sun-porch, glassed in from floor to ceiling and occupying the entire wing of a private home. The owner had partitioned off one end to make a small kitchen and bath; the rest, a good thirty feet long, was the “living room,” containing a convertible couch, a bookcase, and nothing else. Norma’s newly purchased supply of kitchen utensils, pots, bedding and miscellaneous household articles lay in a heap along one wall.

“Isn’t it airy!” Norma exclaimed as she let us in. “It’s almost like living in a greenhouse; and just look at that view!” Norma gestured with a sweep of her arm toward the panorama of houses on the hillside opposite. “Of course the place isn’t much now, but I’ve got nearly three weeks and I’m simply bursting with ideas. It’s going to be Italian Renaissance out of Salvation Army. I’ve been down to the thrift shop and they have some tables and chairs for only a couple of dollars; they’re dilapidated, but I can refinish them. I’m going to rent a sewing machine to make drapes and a cover for the couch. What do you think?”

“It’s going to be great! I wish I had an apartment of my own.”

David gave me a sly smile. "I wish you did, too." He rubbed his hands together. “Is there any heat?”

“Well, not at the moment, but my landlord says he’ll put in a Franklin stove. He has a couple of fireplaces in his part of the house, and a lot of wood in the garage.”

We carried the boxes upstairs and I went into the kitchen with Norma while she brewed a pot of tea.

“What’s this, a shopping list?” I asked, pointing to a long strip of paper taped to the refrigerator. Similar strips fluttered above the counter and the sink and another one was stuck to the bathroom mirror. I looked more closely and saw they were lists of German words with their English translations on the other side.

“Oh that!” laughed Norma. “Remember the German course I was taking to prepare for the Graduate Reading Exam? It was so slow I decided to drop out and study on my own. I put up the word lists so I can learn the vocabulary … a hundred words while I’m washing the dishes, a hundred words while I’m brushing my teeth and so on. I’m going to take the test next month.”

“You’re planning to cover an entire year’s work over the Christmas vacation?” I asked incredulously.

Norma shrugged. “I attended class for two months and I still have another three weeks ahead of me; that should do it.”

When we finished our tea and got ready to leave, Norma turned to David. “I can’t thank you enough; I don’t know how I could have moved all those things without you. I’m having a housewarming party after winter quarter starts. Nothing fancy, just a few friends from the Romance Language Department, and I’d be happy if you could…”

“I’d be delighted. May I bring a date?”

A momentary look of horror crossed Norma’s face and I knew, however irrationally, she thought he meant his wife. I linked my arm through David’s. “He means me. You do, don’t you?” I asked, giving his arm a squeeze.

Norma sighed with relief. “I’ve already invited Kate, so that solves her transportation problem.”

David offered to bring wine to the party, and with a round of Christmas greetings on all sides, we were on our way.

“Your friend is a very determined young woman,” David observed as we drove to the bus depot.

“Norma? She’s the most determined person I’ve ever met. If you hadn’t driven her to the apartment, she would have found a wheelbarrow and pushed her boxes up the hill. Can you believe she’s the first one in her family to graduate from college? After high school Norma got a clerical position in the Foreign Service; she learned Spanish in Panama and Guatemala, saved her money, came back to the United States and worked as a secretary full-time in Cleveland while attending Western Reserve at night. It took her seven years, but here she is. If Norma told me she was flying to the moon tomorrow I’d bet my life's savings on her making it. Norma’s my role model.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-nine. She’ll be thirty New Year’s Day.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Norma? She doesn’t have time. I don’t think she’s ever been in love, infatuated maybe, but not in love. She’s so focused on getting her Ph.D. that there’s no room for anything else in her life. Norma doesn’t fritter away her abilities the way I do.”

“Are you referring to me?”

“I’m not referring to anything specific. Norma knows what she wants and she’s determined to get it. I don’t even know what I want.”

“Tis the season to be jolly, remember? When are you returning to Seattle?"

I consulted a pocket calendar. “Classes begin Monday the seventh; I guess I’ll be back on the sixth.”

“Sunday?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And you’ll check in at the dorm on Sunday?”

“It's not open before then.”

“How about leaving Utah on Friday and arriving in Seattle on Saturday? I can pick you up.”

“But where will I stay Saturday night?”

David took his eyes off the road for a moment and gave me a mischievous smile. He raised his eyebrows a couple of times and I started to laugh.

“What do you have in mind?”

He grinned. “I have two weeks; I’ll think of something.”

The Seattle Greyhound depot was located in the most depressing section of the city, flanked by pawn shops and sleazy hotels. David’s patrician nostrils flared as we walked into the station.

“Jesus, what a dump. Why don’t you fly home instead?”

“Flying's too expensive. My parents are spending a fortune as it is to send me to a university out-of-state; I can’t very well ask them to fly me home every quarter. Anyway, I actually like the trip; it gives me a chance to think.”

After I bought a round-trip ticket to Ogden and checked my bag, we went to the lunch counter for coffee. Mine was tepid and David’s cup had a lipstick smear on the edge; he pushed the coffee away in disgust.

“David, why don’t you go now? There’s no point in your waiting.”

“With all the creeps and pedophiles wandering around this place? I’m going to stay and see you safely on the bus. Did you bring something to read?”

I reached in my purse and showed him a copy of Miguel Delibes’ La sombra del ciprés es alargada. “Norma lent me the book. I like to travel with Spanish novels. That way if someone disagreeable sits next to me and tries to start a conversation I’ll just tell him I can’t speak English.”

The PA system announced the Salt Lake City bus departure, and as I turned to say goodbye to David I felt the tears rush to my eyes. Suddenly I didn’t want to go home; I reached for his hand.

“This is absurd,” I murmured. “I know it’s only for two weeks, but …”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, very much.”

“And I love you. What better way to end one year or begin another? So let me remember you with a smile on your face.”

We kissed, self-consciously, and I boarded the bus for home.

The moment my bus pulled into the Portland terminal, I dashed to the counter for something to eat; the bus was one of six in a convoy and they obviously couldn’t feed all the passengers in the 30-minute break. I knew the meal would be terrible, but the alternative of vending machine candy bars for dinner was even worse.

After eating a greasy toasted cheese sandwich garnished with a few flabby potato chips and a limp pickle, I went to the ladies’ room. It was nearly deserted. The arrival of the buses mimicked the ebb and flood of a current; first there was a surge toward the restrooms, followed by a mass movement to the food counter. Now the passengers were queued up two-deep behind the swivel chairs at the counter, and I had the restroom to myself. They’re all alike, those bus depot restrooms, with their stained walls, black and white hexagonal tiled floors and their pervasive odor of Lysol. I entered the one stall with a functioning door; its walls were covered with graffiti scrawled in lipstick and eyebrow pencil:

Beans, beans, good for your heart

The more you eat the more you fart

The more you fart the better you feel

So eat your beans at every meal

Fuck you

Linda C. your a cunt

I thought of David and couldn’t help smiling. How distressed he would be to see me reading such trash. David lived in a world of well-bred individuals who knew how to use the subjunctive mood in several languages, flew to their destinations, and never, ever saw graffiti on lavatory walls. David was a liberal, a concerned intellectual who favored unions, racial equality, day care centers for mothers and national health insurance. Yet he was light years away from the lower classes whose causes he espoused. For once I felt superior to David; I wasn’t one of the great unwashed either, but at least I could mingle with them without curling my lip.

When the loudspeaker announced the departure of the Salt Lake City bus, I was already aboard. As the passengers started filing in, an old man leaned over and asked if the seat beside me was occupied. I had hoped to keep it vacant, but fought back the urge to say yes; the bus was certainly going to be full and he was a more presentable traveling companion than some of the alternatives. I remembered Frank’s telling me prisons sent released convicts home by Greyhound. I just hoped the man wasn’t chatty.

I replied the seat was free and whipped out my Spanish novel. Looking fragile as a blown egg, the old man settled himself beside me gingerly, as though afraid of breaking something. With hands whose veins stood out like blue mountain ridges on a relief map, he took a candy bar from his pocket, carefully peeled back the first third of the wrapper, and offered me a piece, smiling benignly; I shook my head and mumbled my thanks. Many of the passengers had evidently gone without dinner, for the air cracked with the sound of cellophane, followed by lusty open-mouthed chewing, and the sort of smacking noise people make when they suck on their teeth. My companion extracted a toothpick from his lapel pocket and began to investigate the crevices of his dentures. I shuddered. I wasn’t comfortable around old people, and I felt guilty for my lack of compassion. After all, I was going to be old myself one day and it wasn’t their fault if they reached their dotage ahead of me. I looked at my seat companion out of the corner of my eye and thought of David. In another twenty years or so David would be the same age as this man. I rebelled at the idea. David’s neck would never by creased with wrinkles. David would never have wattles, or white hairs bristling from his ears. He would never have foul breath, and he would never seem so … helpless. Never, never, never. I turned abruptly toward the window and concentrated on my book.

At ten-thirty, when I flicked off the overhead light and put my seat back, the old man was still sitting bolt upright with his eyes staring straight ahead. He had rented a pillow in Portland and stuffed it behind him so that his body was pitched slightly forward. He looked uncomfortable, but I thought perhaps he had difficulty breathing in another position. It wasn’t until I heard his hand fumbling at the side of his seat that I realized he didn’t know how to make it recline. My conscience bothered me and I turned around.

“Are you having trouble getting your seat to go back?”

“Yes’m. I don’t seem to have the hang of it.”

I reached over his lap. “You see this lever … this metal bar sticking out on the side? You push down on it, and at the same time you lean back.”

The old man followed my instructions and gave a sigh of relief. “Much obliged. I couldn’t hardly sleep sitting up like that.”

I said goodnight and turned again to face the window. Except for a few snores, the bus was quiet. We were traveling east along the Columbia River, and as we left the coast behind, the weather got colder. The windowpane was icy against my cheek, and there were patches of snow on the ground. I awakened once as the bus passed through The Dalles and glanced over at the old man; he was fast asleep with his head to the side, his mouth ajar, and a thin trickle of saliva falling on his lapel. For a few minutes I watched the line of buses ahead as they careened around the curves; it looked as though they were connected, like the cars of a train. When I awakened again, it was morning and we were in Idaho.

After a quick breakfast, exceeded in greasiness only by the dinner in Portland, my companion and I fell into conversation. Mr. Hyde was a widower, he told me, a retired telegrapher for some obscure railroad in eastern Washington. Every December he made this trip at Christmas to visit his married daughter in Burley, Idaho. This year, however, failing eyesight prevented him from driving, so Mr. Hyde was taking the bus for the first time. He told me, without the slightest embarrassment, that he talked with God and God always sent him money when he needed it. I had a mental picture of Mr. Hyde’s sitting cross-legged on the ground while coins rained down on him from heaven, but just the thought of poking fun at this gentle man made me feel guilty. He accepted the vicissitudes of life without complaining; he saw his wife’s suffering and his own infirmities as part of a divine plan. Mr. Hyde looked death in the face and he was unafraid. I envied him; he was the bamboo that bends before the wind, while I was the oak that resisted.

Later in the afternoon, when we arrived in Burley, I was genuinely sorry to see him leave. Mr. Hyde collected some packages from the overhead rack and put on his hat. “It’s been real good talking to you, miss.” He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Do you want to know the secret of happiness?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “John three-sixteen.” With this cryptic message, and a "Merry Christmas", he got off the bus.

My father met me in Ogden and together we hoisted my suitcase into the back seat of the Volkswagen and drove home to Clearfield. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him; physically I resemble my mother, but in every other way I am a Collins, with the same taciturn New England temperament of my ancestors, born from generations of struggle with icy winters and rocky soil. It was only at nineteen that David was beginning to thaw some of my glacial reserve.

Over the Christmas holidays Daddy and I talked incessantly. He was an avid reader and the only person I knew who could skim a page in seconds and recall everything on it; even David couldn’t do that. I often wondered how my father felt about his career as a naval officer, if he wouldn’t have been happier in the academic world like his younger brother, who'd left the Navy after the war and used his G.I. Bill to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, how he felt about my mother, or about me, but emotions were strictly taboo as topics of conversation. When I was fifteen he took me to the Naval Academy chapel in Annapolis and showed me, carved on the wall, his favorite Biblical quotation: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” That phrase exemplified my father; when he died twenty years later, a truly good man left the world.

Mother and I didn't discuss Petrarch or the Battle of Lepanto. When David came up in our conversations, she prized from me most of the truth about him and her intuition supplied the rest. Her indifference to David's marriage amazed me. She considered him an extension of my university education; he would teach me sex and, being an older man, would make sure I was properly taught. One evening after dinner and three double scotches, she regaled me with her teenage misadventures: ripped condoms, clumsy groping in the back of a car, an abortion. David was going to spare me all this. I didn’t want to hear her stories, but it was Christmas and I felt sorry for her. That David and I loved each other never entered her head.

Sunday I helped Daddy put up the tree, a job which traditionally fell to us every year. Together we whittled down the base until it fit the chipped enamel holder, and he guyed the trunk to the walls of the living room with piano wire, for the tree was too large to stand unsupported. Nothing evokes the past for me like trimming a Christmas tree. I can see them still, the glittering German ornaments I bought in Chicago with the money I earned shelving books in the high school library; the little cardboard houses with their mica-sprinkled roofs, ordered from a Sears catalog when we lived in Hawaii; the white feathered dove of peace that crowned every tree. They are all mine now, ghosts of Christmas Past.

Shortly after Christmas, I received an amusing postcard from my Spanish professor. The day of the final exam I had given him two cards so he could mail my grade, one addressed to me in Clearfield and the other to David at the university. Knowing I'd earned an ‘A’ in the class, I wrote on David’s “I told you I can sew and study at the same time!”

My card from Mr. Maldonado arrived with a border of holly leaves and berries he’d drawn around the edge in red and green ink. He wrote:

A+

Catarinita – francamente, me parece requetetonta enviarte

una tarjeta postal. De todos modos es así. Feliz navidad y

próspero año nuevo de parte de

CEM

(Katie – frankly it seems extremely ridiculous to me to send you a postcard Anyway that’s how it is. Merry Christmas and a happy new year from CEM)

My parents invited me to a New Year’s celebration at the Officers Club, but I declined, not wanting to start 1957 in the company of drunks. About eleven o’clock the night of the party I got on my bicycle and pedaled past the rows of silent warehouses toward the club. Straddling the frame, I stood and looked through the window at the gaily-decorated room, filled with crepe paper streamers, balloons and bare-backed ladies. I was suffering an acute attack of Missing David, anxious for the New Year to arrive, yet apprehensive at the prospect of spending the night with him. I bicycled back home to watch Guy Lombardo on television and continue a sewing project.

Just before midnight the telephone rang. I recognized David's voice instantly despite the noisy background music and the sounds of a party.

“David? Where are you?”

“I’m calling from a public telephone in the Washington Plaza Hotel; it’s just before eleven Seattle time, so it's nearly 1957 where you are. I wish you were here – not at this party, it’s dreadful – but with me. Kate, dear …”

Just then he stopped and I heard a woman’s strident voice over the phone line.

“Why David, you naughty boy, where have you been hiding? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Be a sweetheart and get me a martini.”

The woman must have been standing at David’s side; her voice was slurred and she sounded like someone who'd been drinking heavily. I wondered if she was Arlene.

David didn’t bother covering the speaker with his hand and I heard his icy response. “I’m making a personal telephone call, Marion. I’ll go back to the party when I’m finished.” There was a short pause and David returned to the line. “Sorry for the interruption. I'm just calling to say I love you and I miss you. You’ll be here Saturday afternoon?”

“Yes, at four. David, I love you, too.”

Outside the house, an explosion of firecrackers heralded the arrival of 1957 and the strains of Auld Lang Syne poured from the television set.

“A happy New Year, dearest.” I wished him the same and we said goodnight.

Go to Chapter Twelve

Chapter Ten

2008-04-20T11:45:00.057+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
Dec. 16, 1956

Dear Mother and Daddy,

My last exam is Thursday afternoon. On Friday, Frank and I are helping Norma move to her new apartment and then he’s taking me to the Greyhound depot to catch the 5:00 pm bus for Ogden. It’s supposed to arrive at 1:30 pm Saturday afternoon. I hope Daddy can pick me up; if he’s not at the station when I arrive, I’ll call. I’m looking forward to coming home ...

It snowed Saturday evening, the first snow of winter. In the garden beneath my window, two Indonesian girls from Blaine Hall ran barefoot across the grass in their white nightgowns, squealing with delight. They raised their arms to catch the falling flakes, like priestesses in a midwinter rite.

Long after the girls had come in, I stayed at the window watching the snow fall. For the first time in weeks I felt at peace with myself and with David and the crushing weight on my heart was gone. True, finals week started on Monday and I needed to call Dr. Libby’s office. Worse yet, I'd have pay Dr. Libby a visit, but Friday afternoon David was taking me to the Greyhound depot and I would be going home for Christmas. I thought of my parents and our rambling house on the naval base in Clearfield, surrounded by acres of farmland and pasture. I thought of the garden behind our house, where the rich soil yielded bushels of tomatoes, beans, and watermelons despite my parents' desultory efforts at farming. The garden would be covered with snow now; perhaps at that moment Daddy had a fire blazing in the living room. Daddy was going to be so proud of my grades, so happy to have someone besides my mother to talk to. I thought how much he would like David if they ever met, but Daddy would never understand how I could love a man older than he.

On my bed the Pendleton wool robe I was making for David lay nearly completed, and I smiled in anticipation of giving it to him. David knew I’d been sewing recently; he’d even chided me for spending more time at the sewing machine than with my books, but he had no suspicion I was making something for him. Tuesday afternoon I would take the bus to Frederick & Nelson’s department store to buy a box and gift wrapping. It was going to be a very Merry Christmas.

Despite the approaching holiday, a hush lay over the dormitory. No one lingered downstairs after dinner to play records or watch television, and the halls were strangely silent. Every night during finals week at ten o’clock the girls gathered in the living room for doughnuts and hot chocolate, a Blaine Hall tradition. We trooped down in pajamas and hair curlers, giggling with nervous laughter, keyed up by the tension of finals week. The girls who were still preparing for exams brought their books and notepads and sat on the floor studying, while those who were finished laughed too much and discussed their preparations for going home.

My schedule was fairly well spread out; I had an examination in Spanish literature on Monday, Oceania and modern European history on Wednesday, and physical anthropology Thursday afternoon. After the Spanish final, I found a secluded phone booth in the basement of Denny Hall, and called Dr. Libby’s office. As I stood in the booth with my heartbeat pounding in my temples, I imagined the receptionist thumbing through her appointment book.

“This is for an annual?” asked the voice at the other end of the line.

“Yes.”

“We’re booked until the middle of January, but I do have a cancellation Thursday morning at ten. Can you make it then?”

“Yes.”

“Are you already a patient of Dr. Libby's?”

“No.”

“Who referred you to us?”

My mouth went dry. I hadn’t anticipated this question. For a moment, I considered giving David’s name and then changed my mind. How was a person supposed to find a doctor if he didn’t have one? The answer came to me at once.

“The King County Medical Association.” Did such a thing even exist? I wasn’t sure. My reply must have been satisfactory, for the receptionist said “Very good then, we’ll see you Thursday at ten.”

I stayed away from David’s office all week, but we talked on the phone. Even though I felt prepared for the exams, I was tense; my face broke out as it always did when I was stressed, and I didn't want David to see my pimples. Tuesday afternoon Norma and I went downtown to do our Christmas shopping or at least mine, since Norma planned to stay in Seattle over the holidays to get settled in her new apartment. We splurged and ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant, foregoing the free meal back at Blaine Hall.

Thursday morning I arrived nearly an hour early for my appointment with Dr. Libby and after registering at the desk, I sank uneasily into an overstuffed chair to observe the other patients. Dr. Libby shared his practice with another gynecologist; five women were sitting in the waiting room, four of them obviously expecting. I glanced surreptitiously between the fronds of a huge Boston fern at a couple of young women, girls actually, no older than I, who were comparing notes on their pregnancies, and listened in fascination as one related how she’d married her high school sweetheart, a sailor, the day after her graduation, when she was already three months pregnant; this was her second baby in less than two years. The girls prattled on mindlessly about breast feeding, morning sickness, and how much weight they’d gained. I sneaked another look at them through the fern; there they sat like a couple of complacent cows. One began telling the other how to predict the baby’s gender using a piece of string, a key, and a Bible. I turned away with a shudder of revulsion, embarrassed for my sex, and picked up a year-old copy of Fortune, the most intellectual publication in the waiting room’s magazine rack.

At last the receptionist called my name. “Catherine, doctor will see you now,” and I felt a surge of annoyance. It was demeaning to be addressed by my first name at the age of nineteen, and why had she said “doctor” and not “the doctor” or “Dr. Libby”?

A nurse measured my height, weight and blood pressure; handing me a shapeless blue gown, she led me to an examination room. “Take off everything including your bra and panties and put this on, open to the front. The doctor will be with you in a few minutes.”

I changed into the gown and perched on the edge of the examination table, wishing I’d had the foresight to bring the magazine with me to establish my bona fides as something more than a baby machine. I tried to think of a few conversational openers to impress the doctor, to show him my intellect clearly set me apart from the mass of vaginas and buttocks that slid across his table every day, but I was too nervous to come up with anything.

Five minutes later I heard a discreet knock on the door and, without waiting for a reply, Dr. Libby entered; he was about David’s age and coolly professional. While I balanced on the edge of the table with my feet dangling two feet from the floor, Dr. Libby took down my medical history on a pad of yellow paper. Sitting on the table reminded me of riding the subway in New York City when I was a little girl; my legs hadn’t reached the ground then, either. I was clearly at a disadvantage; Dr. Libby sat poised and comfortable on a folding chair while I faced him in that ridiculous position.

As Dr. Libby was questioning me, I kept looking for a good point to interject the real reason for my visit. At last there was a lull and I swallowed hard. “In addition to the examination, I would like to be fitted with a diaphragm.” I looked closely at the doctor. He kept on writing. No raised eyebrow, no glance at my ring finger. Nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me. I was getting ready to rephrase my request when he glanced up.

“We’ll get to that after the vaginal exam.”

His nurse draped me with a sheet and directed me to place my heels in the stirrups at the end of the table. Dr. Libby was taciturn; his conversation was limited to asking me to slide father down, to take a deep breath and to lift my head. When he had the requisite smears on the glass slides, neatly labeled for the laboratory, Dr. Libby brought out a tray of diaphragms. He determined the proper size, explained how to use one and wrote me a prescription. Clutching the precious paper and a couple of pamphlets, I stopped by the receptionist’s desk on the way out.

“I’d like to pay for today’s examination now, if possible.”

The receptionist smiled. “How nice. That will save us the trouble of sending you a bill.” I smiled back, suffused with relief the ordeal was over, and paid the $15.00 charge with a feeling of benevolence toward her that I’d lacked before. I put on gloves before entering the pharmacy and presented my prescription with feigned nonchalance, as if a diaphragm and spermicide were everyday purchases.

David phoned me in the evening. We had to be circumspect, of course; everyone knew the dorm switchboard operators listened to the conversations.

“Well, how did the appointment go? David asked.

“It was fine, no problem. What a relief to have it behind me! By the way, you were right.”

“About what”

“W.L. He didn’t put me on a rack or pull out my fingernails. He didn’t even turn a hair when I brought up the subject.”

I could imagine David’s “I told you so” grin at the other end of the line.

“Are you still coming by the dorm early tomorrow afternoon?” I asked. “You said you’d help Norma move before we go to the bus station.”

“Yes, I should be at Blaine by two unless one of you has a change in plans. Your bus leaves at five?”

“That’s right. Are you going to be in your office tomorrow, before you come here?”

“Probably, why?”

“I can’t tell you; it’s a secret. I’ll see you then.”

Friday morning I packed my suitcase and gave David’s robe a final pressing. I didn’t know where he was going to wear it, unless his wife was so accustomed to David’s receiving gifts that he could take the robe home with impunity. I was doubtful; maybe he could keep it on Sturmvogel.

I raced down to the Health Sciences Building after an early lunch, carrying the gift-wrapped box concealed in a brown paper shopping bag. It must have been the hint of Christmas in the air that made everyone I passed so happy. Strangers beamed at me and I returned their smiles; one of the gardeners raised his watering can and wished me a happy holiday.

On the way upstairs to David’s office I ran into Frank.

“Merry Christmas!” he exclaimed. Frank took the package from me and folded back an edge of the paper, exposing the Christmas wrapping beneath.

“How marvelous of you to bring me a present!”

“The present's not for you, silly. It’s for David. Is he in?”

“He was five minutes ago.”

“And a Merry Christmas to you, Frank. I do have something for you.” I leaned over, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and dashed up the stairs to the fourth floor.

When I knocked on David’s door he called for me to come in with the tone of voice he used with strangers; he obviously wasn’t expecting anyone. He was standing with his back to the door, bending over a couple of boxes on his desk, and he closed them hurriedly before turning around.

“Why Kate, what brings you here?”

“This,” I said, taking his present from the bag. “Merry Christmas, David. I made it myself, and I hope you like it.”

David looked both pleased and embarrassed. “I’m overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting you to give me anything. Jews aren’t accustomed to receiving Christmas presents, you know. Shall I open your gift now or wait until the 25th?”

“Oh now, please. I want to see how it looks on you.”

David unwrapped his present carefully, without ripping the paper or cutting the ribbon, and he gave a gasp of astonishment as he lifted the robe from the box. “So this was your sewing project! You made it yourself?”

“With my own eleven fingers.”

“Eleven?”

I counted down the fingers of my left hand. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six ... and five makes eleven.”

“Thank you so much, Kate. It’s beautiful.” David put on the robe and gave me a kiss. “How did you manage to get such a perfect fit?”

“Haven’t you noticed I’m always embracing you? I’ve been measuring you, secretly.”

David held out his arms. “Then come measure me some more.”

He gestured toward the boxes on his desk. “Santa Claus brought you something too, but you caught me in the act of wrapping it.”

“Oh David,” I said with dismay, “I don’t want you to give me a Christmas present. I mean it; please don’t ever give me anything.”

He looked hurt. “For crying out loud, why not? I didn’t get you anything like a lace negligee or a diamond bracelet. On the contrary, my gift is so utilitarian I was having second thoughts.”

“If you start giving me things you’ll begin to wonder if I love you for yourself or for what I’m getting from you; I don’t want you to have any doubts.”

“Not a vestige.”

“Maybe you don’t now, but … isn’t that the stereotype, the older man showering the younger woman with gifts, buying her affection, really?”

“My economic condition doesn’t allow much showering, only a sponge bath now and then. Besides I know you’re not that kind of person.” David nodded toward the boxes. “Look, Kate, I don’t want to take these things back. Won’t you at least open them and then decide? If you keep them, I promise never again to buy you so much as a candy bar. You can pay for our dinners at Sam’s. You can buy our coffee at the HUB. You can subsidize my gasoline bill. Wait, I have it. I’ll be your gigolo and you can pay for everything. Let’s see, my car’s getting old…”

“David, you’re so silly,” said, tweaking his nose.

“Yes I am silly with you. It’s a blessing, like something I’ve retrieved from the past or maybe I’m just learning it for the first time.”

I opened the larger package and took out a foul weather sailing outfit, a duplicate of David’s, complete with yellow jacket and yellow bib-and suspender pants; the second box contained a pair of high black boots.

“David! Thank you! Now we’re twins! I can’t think of anything more wonderful. I’ll try them right now.”

I put on the outfit and we stood looking at each other, laughing. David put his arms around me. “You get soaked every time we sail; these clothes should keep you good and dry. Dry anyway. You ought to accept the boots, at least,” he whispered, running his tongue lightly down the edge of my ear. “When your tennis shoes get wet they smell.”

“David, “I giggled, “that’s an outrageous thing to say!”

“Sad but true. Will you keep them? I can take the clothes to the boat and put them in the hanging locker beside mine.”

“Of course I’ll keep them.”

There was a sound of someone kicking the door, followed by “open up, my hands are full, it’s me, Frank.”

David opened the door and Frank stepped in, concealing something under his jacket. He began to sing:

We wish you a Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year!

“Merry Christmas, everyone. Or do I have the wrong holiday? By the looks of you two I'd swear it’s Halloween.” Frank pulled out a bottle of wine and a stack of paper cups from under his jacket. David picked up the bottle and read the label.

“Tsk, tsk, an alcoholic beverage on university property? I’m surprised at you Frank Caputo.”

Frank poured the wine into the cups and proposed a toast.

“To 1957!”

“To your wedding!”

“To fair seas and following winds!”

We raised our cups and drank. Unmindful of Frank, David put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a kiss; I wondered what Frank thought. He started to refill our cups.

“No more for me, thanks,” David said, putting his hand over the top of his. “I’m driving Kate to the Greyhound depot. Which reminds me…” He looked at his watch. “It’s time we were going. I hope Norma has her boxes ready.”

While Frank finished the rest of the wine, I took off the sailing outfit and David removed his robe.

“Let's bury the dead soldier.” Frank suspended the bottle over David’s waste basket.

David took it from him. “Not in my waste basket you don’t. What I do in this office is damning enough without adding drinking to the list. Dispose of this in your own office. Or better yet …” He took one of the paper bags from his desk, put the bottle inside and handed it to Frank. “Take the bottle home and throw it away there.”

Go to Chapter Eleven

Chapter Nine

2008-04-19T12:03:00.105+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
Dec. 15, 1956

Dear Mother and Daddy,

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve mentioned sailing. You must be thinking (and hoping) that I do nothing but study. Finals begin next week, but I’m caught up, so when Dr. Rosenau and Frank suggested going for a sail Thursday evening, I decided to go with them. It was divine - there was no moon and the stars were like diamonds in the sky...

The chimes were ringing three o’clock the following afternoon when I ran up to David’s office in the Health Sciences Building but, instead of finding the lights on behind the glass door and hearing the sound of music from twenty feet down the hall, his room was dark and a piece of paper was taped to the door:

P.P.M. Meeting 3-5

Inquire at office for messages

I read the note several times. What was a P.P.M. meeting? Why hadn’t David called me? I could just as easily have come at a different time. A cold hand clutched my heart as I began to wonder if he was avoiding me. “Inquire at office for messages,” had to mean the typing. I continued down the hall to the departmental office where Iris Williams was bending over a typewriter; she glanced up at me without breaking the rhythm of her fingers on the keys.

“With you in a minute,” she said, returning her gaze to the note pad at her side. Iris’ unwashed hair was falling in front of her eyes and across her forehead, reminding me of a sheepdog. She finished the page, pushed her hair to one side, and looked up.

“What can I do for you?”

“I work for Dr. Rosenau. Did he leave anything for me?”

“Oh, you’re Kate Collins, aren’t you?” A lightbulb of recognition flashed on over Iris’ head and we stared at each other for a moment. I felt infamous; she Knew Who I Was.

“Yeah, he asked me to give you this.” Iris took a heavy manila envelope from the corner of her desk and handed the package to me. “He’s very nice, isn't he?”

“Who?” I said stupidly, and then recovered myself. “Dav… Dr. Rosenau, yes, he is.”

Feeling foolish, I turned and left the office. Frank was waiting for me outside the door and fell into step beside me.

“Frank, what’s a P.P.M. meeting?”

“That meeting of David’s? Geez, I don’t know. I think it's got something to do with the premedical curriculum. I wouldn’t wait for him if I were you. He probably won’t be out much before five. Don’t the two of you usually go over to the HUB around now?”

I nodded.

“How about joining me for a cup of coffee, instead.”

Frank was too full of Christmas spirit to notice my lack of enthusiasm and he managed to keep the conversation going with a minimum of input from me. He told me he was driving to Spokane the following week to spend Christmas with his fiancée. Frank had never talked much about her, but that afternoon, encouraged no doubt by the prospect of seeing Kathleen after an absence of several months, he related the complete history of their courtship. They’d met in high school as cheerleaders, which I couldn’t picture – Kathleen sounded too shy and Frank was fresh off the boat from Italy. After meeting Frank, Kathleen had converted to Catholicism and, as sometimes happens with converts, she became more Catholic than Frank himself, going so far as to spend two years in a convent before deciding to marry him. They’d been engaged for three years, and while Frank completed the work on his Ph.D., Kathleen was studying for her teaching credential at a Catholic women’s college. When I asked if their long separation was physically difficult for them, Frank looked at me aghast; he babbled something about the wife’s being the vase of chastity of the family and how he’d never done more than kiss Kathleen and hardly any of that.
“She’s very pure, you know; she’s with those nuns all day long.”
I was several years younger than either of them, but I suddenly felt old, very old.

“Are you still typing those articles for David?” Frank asked, glancing at the envelope on the table.

“Yes, we haven’t finished yet. He thinks we’ll be done in a couple of months.”

“Can I see what he gave you?”

“Sure, go ahead, but everything's in Spanish. You may be a biochemist and fluent in Italian, but I don’t think you’ll understand it. I read Spanish as well as I do English and even I don’t know what half of what I’m typing.”

Frank removed a sheaf of papers and thumbed through them as I finished my coffee. He stopped at one page, read it, and looked at me with a frown. “You’re right; I don’t understand.” Frank replaced the manuscript in the envelope, bent the metal tabs carefully in place, and handed me the package.

When I reached the dormitory, I hurried along the hall leading to my room, key in hand, hoping the telephone would be ringing, but the room was silent. I sat down to study with one eye on the clock. By 5:45 I knew the meeting must be over and David still hadn’t called, but I didn't dare leave the phone, even though I needed to go to the bathroom. I thought of calling the biochemistry department and dismissed the idea. David wasn’t likely to be in his office so late and if, for some reason, he was avoiding me, I had too much pride to let him know I was hurt. At six Norma knocked on my door to ask if I was going to dinner; I threw a final glance at the clock, another at the telephone, and left the room.

After dinner we sat for a long time in a small alcove overlooking the garden while Norma told me about her hunt for a cheap apartment in the university district. The residence hall restrictions disgusted her and, being over 21, she could live where she pleased. With enthusiasm, Norma described the place she'd found, a converted sun porch, large and airy, within walking distance of the campus, if two miles could be called "walking distance" and cheap, because the apartment was perched on the top of a steep hill. Norma wasn’t deterred, however; she was a great walker and big on views. I tried to share her excitement but, in truth, I was going to miss her. Norma wouldn’t understand, of course, for she was too self-sufficient to need anyone, just as I'd been before allowing myself to become so dependent on David. The problem of David was weighing on me. I was depressed Norma was moving out and even Frank’s engagement seemed like a sort of defection. I was wallowing in self-pity.

“Norma, do you think it’s true a man loses respect for a girl if she allows him to be too intimate with her?”

Norma lifted her eyebrows in surprise at the unexpected turn in the conversation. “Unfortunately, I’ve never had an opportunity to test that theory. I suppose it depends on the people involved.”

“You know how you read in advice to the lovelorn columns something like ‘I’ve been going with this boy for six months. He's pestering me to prove my love to him, but I want to save myself for marriage. I’m afraid if I give in he’ll lose all respect for me…’ and so on.”

“Yeah, I’ve read those letters. I’m dying to see one that goes ‘Dear Ann Landers, you’re all wet. I’ve been screwing with my boyfriend every day for six months and we just got married. He said if we had sex first and he still wanted to marry me, that was proof he was interested in more than my body. Signed: Glad I did it.’”

I laughed in spite of myself.

“Judging from the conversations I’ve overheard around here, this dilemma seems to be fairly common. Something tells me your interest in the topic is more than academic.”

A group of girls sat down near us and we left the table to go to my room.

“You’re right,” I said as I unlocked the door. “David and I went sailing last night. I didn't come back here; I slept on his boat."

"With David?"

“No, he left around midnight. When I went to his office this afternoon to pick up the typing, there was a note on his door saying he’d gone to a meeting. He could have called me, but he hasn’t.”

Norma was sitting on my bed with her back against the wall; she stuffed a pillow behind her. “Hey, wait a minute, that’s a non sequitur. What does David's going to a meeting have to do with your spending the night on the boat? What happened last night?”

I sighed. “I think David invited me to go sailing so we could talk; I'm sure he didn't have any other intentions, but somehow we both got carried away.”

“You had sex?”

“Not exactly, but it was pretty close. Oh, Norma, it was all my fault. David didn’t want to - I practically threw myself at him. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid.”

“So now you think he’s changed his mind about you, lost his respect for you, or something like that?”

“One minute I’m this virginal teenager and the next one I’m pulling a box of contraceptives out of my pocket and begging him to spend the night with me. He’s probably in shock.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Just before he went home he said he was leaving the boat before I raped him – he was laughing and I took his remark as a joke, but now I’m beginning to wonder.”

“You think he went to the meeting because he’s avoiding you?"

“He hasn’t phoned me, either. What else am I supposed to think?”

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, but you’re too busy painting the Devil on the wall to see it. What if the meeting came up unexpectedly? Suppose someone was with him when he wrote the note? Is that all it said, that he was going to a meeting?”

“The second line said to inquire at the office for messages.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, he left the typing for me with the secretary.” I gestured toward the envelope on the bed.

“May I?”

“Help yourself.”

Norma opened the package just as Frank had done a few hours earlier, and examined the contents page by page.

“What a bunch of gibberish. This is what he’s having published in Argentina?”

I nodded.

She smiled triumphantly. “Well, here’s one page that isn’t. It starts ‘My dearest Kate, I lay awake last night for hours…’” She broke off and handed me the letter.

“I’ll leave you to your ‘typing’ while I go search for a job as an advice columnist.”

I smiled my thanks and Norma closed the door behind her. Trembling, I sat at the desk and read David’s letter.

My dearest Kate,

I lay awake last night for hours reliving everything we said and did on Sturmvogel, feeling both anxious and elated, wondering if we reached any decisions, and whether I ever succeeded in making clear to you the nature of my misgivings. I’ve tried to apply the scientific method to our situation but, sad to say, logic is not applicable to affairs of the heart, or perhaps it is, and I’m unwilling to accept the conclusions. I made a mental list of the pros and cons, and while the pros number three at the most, the cons run on for pages.

Seriously, dear, I decided to hold the meeting this afternoon rather than see you, to give you more time for reflection. Please think over everything we discussed. I’ll call you Saturday morning.

All my love,

David

P.S. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas - Blaise Pascal

I finished the letter and laid my head down on the desk, suffused with relief. I knew I was foolish to have doubted David; with his letter in my hand I had trouble remembering the apprehensions which were worrying me a mere hour before. Suddenly I realized Frank had seen it when he was leafing through the manuscripts at the HUB. I read David's note again, trying to imagine Frank’s reaction, and when I finished I knew what he meant by saying he didn’t understand.

A nightmare awakened me at two in the morning. David and I were together on Sturmvogel. I was leaning over the side of the boat, trying to run a line to a mooring buoy, but every time I was on the verge of success, Sturmvogel drifted away, and my body ached with exhaustion. I awakened with a start and sat up; I had fallen asleep with my head on the desk, and my neck was stiff. I tumbled into bed fully clothed and turned off the light.

I was still sore the following morning when the telephone rang.

“Hello, Kate? This is David,” he began as usual.

How funny, I thought – as if the caller could be anyone else.

He hesitated for a moment. “Did you get my note?”

“Yes, I found it.”

“After I left the papers with Iris I realized you might not open the envelope right away. I’m relieved.” I smiled and said nothing. “Are you free now?”

We agreed to meet after lunch outside the residence hall and David’s green DeSoto pulled up beside me on the driveway at one o’clock

“Are we going to the boat?” I asked as I opened the door. “I can dash upstairs and change to pants in a minute if we're heading for the marina.”

“No, let’s go somewhere else. How about the zoo?”

“To see the fennecs?”

“I don’t care what we see. I just want to be alone with you. But not too alone.” David took his eyes off the road long enough to give me a quick smile.

Thursday’s clear sky had given way to a leaden overcast with more than a hint of rain in the air. Except for a couple of women pushing baby carriages and a few elderly men walking down the paths with their hands clasped behind them, Woodland Park was nearly deserted. David parked the car and we strolled past the rows of empty cages whose occupants had fled to the heated interiors. We sat on a bench facing the polar bears, the only animals that appeared to be enjoying the weather; across the moat, two cubs were playing tug-of-war with a huge piece of meat, romping and somersaulting from one end of the cage to the other, and we watched them, in silence, for several minutes.

An old man shuffled up the gravel path toward us holding a leather leash, at the end of which plodded a white-muzzled dog. Both dog and master walked stiff-legged, as though suffering from pain in the groin. As they passed, the dog turned off the gravel to sniff my ankle, and his owner said “Don’t be afraid, miss. Samson won’t hurt you.”

I smiled. The thought of that poor old creature’s biting me was the farthest thing from my mind. I leaned over to pat him and Samson lifted his head to peer at me through eyes bleary with cataracts. Samson was an appropriate name. I murmured a few words of Christmas greetings and the old couple continued their walk.

David sighed. “There I go in twenty years, thirty if I’m lucky.”

“You don’t own a dog.”

“That can be remedied.”

We looked at each other and laughed.

“What have you decided?” I asked.

“The decision isn't mine, it’s yours. Kate, dear, I love you very much. That’s what makes everything so hard; what right do I have to put you in this position? Our situation is simply tearing me apart.”

“With guilt?”

“No, not guilt. With frustration. And apprehension. Thursday night was the epitome of both. It all comes down to this: do we keep on seeing each other, with everything that implies, or do we just walk away from each other, right now?”

“Isn’t there another alternative? Can’t we go back to being the way we were?”

“Before Thursday night?”

"Yes".

“You know that’s impossible, Kate,” he said softly. “If Thursday night hadn’t happened I’d say we had a chance of keeping our innocence a little while longer, but not now. We're on a one-way street, and there’s no u-turn.”

David's was no if-you-don’t-give-me-what-I-want-I’m-going-to-leave-you speech. I knew he was right.

“I understand the frustration, but why are you apprehensive?”

“I’m afraid for you.”

“Because I can become pregnant?”

“That’s part of it, though pregnancy is preventable. I worry how the guilt is going to affect you.”

“But I don’t feel guilty. I know I should, but I just don’t. Maybe I’m amoral.”

“That’s what you think; I know you better. You carry guilt around with you like Sinbad carried the Old Man of the Sea. You can’t even put your books aside for half an hour without feeling guilty. If you’re that way about something trivial, what's having an affair with me going to do to you?”

“Don’t say ‘an affair.’ That’s an ugly, tawdry word.“
“Kate, you need to go into this with your eyes open. No matter what you call our relationship, ‘a love affair,’ a ‘romance,’ other people won’t be so charitable; you’re going to be criticized and you’re going to be hurt.”
“I don’t care what other people think.”

David sighed. “It's not only you; I worry about myself as well, how I’'ll feel when all this is over. Yes, you will leave me, it's inevitable," he said in rebuttal to my look of reproach. "Then what? These past three months I’ve been happier, more alive, than at any time in my life and I can't face the thought of losing you. I want to marry you, but that’s impossible. Our whole relationship is impossible. What do I have to offer you?”

“I told you on the boat Thursday night. Your love, your friendship.” I looked at David’s face, tortured and unsmiling, and put my arms around him.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“I hardly know how to tell you this,” he began. “When Arlene and I… when we’re in bed together…”

“No!” I shouted. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Please listen to me. If I don’t tell you, then the rest of what I’m going to say won’t make any sense.”

I stared at the ground again and began to shiver.

“My wife and I sleep in different beds; we share the same room, but our beds are separated by a large hooked rug – and a good deal more. When I want sexual intercourse – I won’t call it making love – I go over to Arlene’s bed and call her name as abjectly as a little boy begging his teacher for a better grade. Sometimes she pretends to be asleep; sometimes she turns me down flatly or with an excuse; and other times she’ll give a martyred sigh and say yes. You must have noticed Thursday night that I have a fair amount of body hair…”

“David, please, I don’t want to hear any of this.”

“I have to tell you. Arlene has always been repelled by my body, or at least she has been ever since we were married. Apparently she finds me too bestial or too something. Anyway, to keep from contacting my disgusting person she exposes just enough of herself to make the act possible and, it goes without saying, I’m completely clothed myself.”

David’s voice broke. “The other night, on Sturmvogel, when you pulled me to you and I felt the warmth of your body against me … I wanted to cry, Kate. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I was on the verge of tears. After all these years it didn’t seem possible anyone could respond to me the way you did.” He smiled and looked at me. “What would you have done if I’d burst into tears then. Me, a grown man?”

“I would have have cried, too.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, to continue. Arlene won’t let me touch her, of course. A thief could penetrate Fort Knox more easily than I could slip my hand inside her nightgown. I don’t even try. She complains I take too long. I can hear her querulous voice now saying ‘can’t you hurry up; I’ve got the alarm set for six tomorrow morning to bake cookies for a meeting.’ Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

David was sitting bent over, with his elbows resting against his thighs; he covered his face with his hands.

“How … often …?”

“Before … maybe once every two weeks, once a month.”

“What do you mean by ‘before’? Before what?”

“Before you.” He removed his hands from his face and turned toward me. “Yes, that’s right. I spend the evening with you, I go home, go to bed, and I’m so full of the thought of you I can’t sleep. Do you remember what I said on the boat, how I felt watching you sleeping on the bunk the first time we sailed together alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice anything then?”

“Only that you were on the other bunk, reading.”

“Nothing else?”

“What else was there?”

“Ah my innocent Kate. Yes, I had a book in my hand, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept looking at you and I wanted you so badly my whole body ached. When you awakened I was, to put it politely, aroused. Highly aroused. I covered myself with the book to keep you from noticing. Fortunately, just then, you bent down to put on your shoes; I took advantage of your distraction to escape to the stove, and I stayed in the galley until I could get a grip on myself.

“I must have got home that night about one. I went into the den, lit a fire in the fireplace and poured myself a drink. I just sat in my armchair, staring at the flames and thinking about us for a long time. I wasn’t any too pleased with myself, Kate. I realized my feelings for you were inappropriate and that I should put an stop to things before it was too late – but I didn’t want to. I hadn’t even told you I was married, and I despised myself for the deception. What had we done? Nothing - we'd held hands; it was enough. I knew. You were like a flower, opening to me petal by petal, and I was coming at you like a threshing machine. Well, I went upstairs. Arlene was asleep, really asleep this time, and when she refused me I lost my head ... and the whole time – God help me – I kept thinking of you. Arlene was furious. She accused me of being drunk, and I didn’t contradict her.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Arlene is the safety valve that keeps me on my best behavior with you. She says I’ve turned into a sex fiend; she even asked if I’ve been taking some kind of drug. I told her she should be glad I’m coming to her rather than going elsewhere, and can you guess what she replied? That she didn’t give a damn.”

“Did you ever suggest marriage counseling?”

David snorted. “What good would counseling do? Arlene doesn’t think she has a problem. She thinks I’ve got a problem, that I’m some kind of sex-crazed maniac. Arlene regards the whole business of sex as unspeakably distasteful, and she’s not going to change after all these years. Anyway, I’m beyond caring.”

David took a deep breath. “I realize you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this garbage. It’s because … well, frankly, I doubt that I’m capable of being the kind of lover you deserve or expect.”

“With my vast experience? What do you think I’m expecting?”

“Kate, you don’t understand.”

“Apparently not. Can you say that after what happened Thursday night?”

“Especially after Thursday night; that’s my whole point. For one thing, you were a lot more … willing … than I thought you’d be. Not that I thought you’d scream or slap my face, and I wasn’t expecting you to be another Arlene – God forbid. But I was surprised, maybe even a bit intimidated by you. Your reaction made me realize, rather forcefully, that you’re going to be dissatisfied with the little I give Arlene. Now do you see what I’m getting at, the truth I keep skirting? Thursday night I couldn’t make love to you, Kate. I tried, but I came too quickly. After 23 years of instant, loveless sex, I’m simply not programmed to do any better. Now do you understand?”

“I'm ... not sure. After you explained what happened I thought ... you did what you did because you were afraid I’d get pregnant.”

“That’s what I wanted you to think, because I was too ashamed to tell you the truth. Erase any image you have of altruistic David sacrificing his pleasure on the altar of your virginity. Thursday night on the boat I had every intention … you can visualize the scenario, can’t you?” he asked almost savagely. “We’ll be in bed together, full of desire, and I’ll finish in twenty seconds, that’s if I’m lucky and haven’t botched the job before I even touch you. Then you’ll turn your back to me, wondering if that’s the way love-making is supposed to be, wondering why you’re so unsatisfied, and feeling guilty because you’re so naïve you’ll think it’s your fault. And you’ll lie to me, out of kindness, and I’ll know you’re lying, and I’ll be consumed with guilt because I’ll know it’s my fault. Oh hell, Kate, we're going to exchange one set of frustrations for something else ten times worse.”

“It's not going to be that way; I know it's not. You’ve told me your fears, now let me tell you mine. If I confess to you all the things I worry about, you'll die laughing. Here I am 19 years old and you’re the first man I’ve even kissed. I haven’t had the sexual apprenticeship of other girls my age. David, I don’t know anything, and I'm afraid you’re going to be disappointed with me. This is so hard to say … am I supposed to touch you below the waist and if so, where and how? Am I supposed to keep my legs flat on the bed … or what? Am I supposed to lie still or move? Am I supposed to part my lips when we kiss? I'm scared stiff ... I'll do something accidentally which violates some sexual taboo that everyone in the world but me knows instinctively."

David couldn’t repress a smile. “Dearest, you’re worrying over nothing. Whatever you do to give pleasure to me or to yourself will be right. There aren’t any rules.” He squeezed my hand. “After everything I've said, do you still want to continue seeing me … and all that implies?”

“You know I do. You said the decision is mine, but what about you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t already made up my mind. If I thought otherwise I’d have written you an entirely different kind of letter. I would have said something like what a sweet girl you are, but I’m a married man, the difference in our ages, blah, blah, blah. That’s the letter I should have written … but I didn’t.”

“Speaking of your letter, I never saw it until Norma found it when she was looking through the manuscripts. When you weren’t in the office and you didn’t call I was afraid … you'd changed your mind about me. I can laugh about my fears now, but I was in a sorry state yesterday afternoon.

David shook his head in disbelief. ”What a little ninny you are. I’m sorry I worried you, but how could you possibly have thought such a thing?”

“I don’t know; in retrospect my worries do seem rather silly, even to me. I guess I was afraid you thought I was immoral or too easy or something like that. I should have more faith in you.”

David regarded me gravely. “No, you should have more faith in yourself.”

“Even in the depths of despair, though, I was positive I’d see you at least one more time.”

“Such confidence. What made you so optimistic?”

“Because I still have your watch. Remember? You gave it to me Thursday night.”

David smiled. “You're right. I’ve been meaning to ask you for it.”

I took the watch from my purse and handed it to him.

“Why do you wear your watch with the case on the inside, over your wrist?”

“To protect the face.”

“Do you know there’s something sexy about men who wear their watches on the insides of their wrists?”

David laughed. “I think you’re slightly crazy.”

I leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You know something else? I love the hair on your chest.”

We left the polar bears and walked to the Reptile House, with its promise of warmth and shelter. Inside his glass cage, a large python gazed at us impassively, his head resting on a stack of glistening coils.

“What do you know about birth control?” David asked. He must have felt my body stiffen. “Look, dear, you told me you don’t want to think about the future. Well, if we don’t take some precautions then, believe me, we'll have plenty to think about.”

I considered for a moment. “At the university all the girls have to enroll in a health education class – that’s a euphemism for sex – in order to graduate. I took a test at the beginning of this quarter. It was full of words like dysmenorrhoea and endometrium, and I got such a high score they excused me from the class and gave me credit for the course. The university must think I know something.”

“That’s my Kate,” David said, patting my head with mock condescension. “Full of book learning. But do you know anything practical?”

“Well, I have a friend in Utah who told me about diaphragms. I’ve never actually seen one, but I have an idea how they work.”

“Then you realize they have to be fitted by a doctor?”

“Yes, I know, but … isn’t there anything besides a diaphragm?”

“In Puerto Rico they’re experimenting with a pill that inhibits ovulation. It’s essentially estrogen, the same hormone a woman secretes when she’s pregnant. The pill's supposed to be extremely reliable, far more so than a diaphragm, but it has side effects. Some of the researchers are colleagues of mine, but even if I could pull a few strings and get you a supply, I’m not a medical doctor and I don’t like the idea of your being a guinea pig. There are other alternatives, but I think a diaphragm is the best solution. Do you have a doctor here in Seattle?”

“Only the student health service, and I can’t imagine their providing me with contraceptives.”

“I can give you the name of a good gynecologist, the same one who delivered my children. I’ll write it down for you. David pulled out a small notepad from his pocket, wrote “William Libby, M.D.," tore off the sheet, and handed me the paper. “I don’t remember his address, but he’s somewhere near Doctors Hospital; you’ll find him in the phone book.”

I looked at the name with misgiving. “What should I tell him? What if the nurse asks me what the appointment is for?”

“Tell the nurse you're scheduling an annual physical exam; then, when you’re with Libby, say you want to be fitted with a diaphragm.”

“But I’m not married.”

“He’s not going to ask, but if it makes you feel any better, tell him you’re engaged.”

“But...”

“For heaven’s sake, he's not going to give you the third degree. Libby won't care why you want a diaphragm.”

“David, wait. Okay, so he’s a gynecologist. What if he’s a Catholic and doesn’t believe in birth control?"

“He fitted Arlene with a diaphragm after Marcia was born. Now go ahead and ask me if he’s converted to Catholicism in the last fifteen years.”

I smiled, feeling a little foolish. “All right, I know I’m a professional worrier. There’s one more thing, though.” I buried my face in David’s shoulder. Can a virgin be fitted for a diaphragm?”

“I think so.” David put his hand under my chin and raised my face to his. “You make me feel like a child molester when you say things like that.”

“I’m sorry; I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that I have to know.”

“I understand, Kate, and I realize seeing the doctor will be embarrassing, but having a physical exam is one thing I can’t do for you.”

I hugged him and we kissed. David’s hand slid down my back and over my hips, then up again and under my sweater. I pulled away, laughing. “Hey, wait a minute. I thought you were afraid to be alone with me.”

“Oh, we’re not alone; we have Oscar here as a chaperone.”

I glanced at the snake.

“How do you know his name's Oscar?”

“Because the sign above the cage says his name is Oscar.”

“Some chaperone! Here’s this human drama going on not three feet from his nose, and he hasn’t moved a muscle. He’s probably asleep. Maybe he’s even dead and stuffed. Who would be the wiser?”

“He’s not dead; he winked at me.”

“That's impossible. Snakes don’t have movable eyelids. Their eyelids are fixed and transparent and form the outer …”

David put his arms around me in a tight bear hug and began to swing me round and round like a rag doll until we were both out of breath and giddy with laughter. I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes as a kaleidoscope of snakes and lizards whirled in front of me.

“What on earth got into you?” I asked when I finally regained my equilibrium.

“Looking at all these constrictors made me want to squeeze you.” David put his arm around my shoulder. “Come on; let's go to Sam’s and get something to eat.”

I glanced back at Oscar as we left the Reptile House. David was right; I could have sworn the python winked.

Go to Chapter Ten

Chapter Eight

2008-04-18T15:31:00.139+02:00

Blaine Hall, Room B102
University of Washington, Seattle
Dec. 12, 1956

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Norma and I finally heard from the American Friends Service Committee and they accepted us to the work camp program! We’ll be living in a village called San Pedro Tlaltenango, not too far from Puebla, just south of Mexico City. It’s really primitive - no electricity, no running water, virtually no roads. We’ll be helping the people of the village to build a school, and when I say "build" I mean that literally - even grinding stones to make concrete. We can hardly wait to go.

I submitted my term paper for the Anthropology of Oceania and received an A+ on it - the highest grade in the class...

When David called me the following Thursday evening after dinner, I sensed a note of excitement in his voice. “Kate, this is David,” he began as usual. “Have you seen the sky this evening?”

“No, I’ve been in since four-thirty. Why?”

“I’ll hold the phone, go look out the window.”

Mystified, I put down the receiver, drew the curtain aside and peered out. As far as I could tell, the night was unremarkable - cold, dark and moonless.

“I’m afraid I can’t see anything; it’s too dark.”

“That’s just it; there’s no moon. Didn’t you see them?”

“What?”

“The stars, Kate! The stars are blazing like lighthouses in the sky. The night's so clear you can see all the way to Alaska. Can you be ready in ten minutes? We’ll go for a sail away from the city lights and let Sturmvogel drift. We can lie in the cockpit and study the constellations.”

“Are you crazy? The weather's freezing. What about other boats? Is it safe to sail at night?"

“Perfectly safe. Sturmvogel has all the required navigation lights and we’ll stay away from the shipping lanes.”

“But I’m studying for my final in Oceania.”

“Forget Oceania. After the term paper you wrote about the sweet potato in Polynesia you don’t even need to show up for the exam to get an 'A'. Please come.”

“All right,” I replied with a laugh, “but you really must teach me some constellations. I can only justify this trip on educational grounds. How cold is it?”

“Freezing, as you said. Put on everything you own, gloves, cap, everything. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes. Oh, one more thing. What time do they lock the front door on Thursdays?”

“On Thursdays … at eleven.”

“And you're required to sign out?”

“Well, I’m supposed to.”

“Just for once, don’t. We may return too late. If I can't get you back to Blaine before eleven, you can spend the night on Sturmvogel and give me the marina key tomorrow.”

We walked down the dock hand-in-hand, my right one clasped in David’s left, and both thrust deep in the pocket of his heavy wool jacket. Except for a few birds, the marina was deserted. Startled by our footsteps, an occasional seagull tumbled off the dock into the water and flapped noisily along the surface before gaining the speed to get airborne. The evening was cold, the silent, knifing cold of clear winter nights, and our breath condensed into a vaporous halo as we fumbled with the lines. I held the tiller and mainsheet while David walked the boat out of her berth; he pushed the bow away from the dock, gave one final shove, and jumped aboard. Sturmvogel ghosted out of the marina on a slight breeze and passed between the winking red and green lights marking the channel, and when we cleared the breakwater, I lay down, wrapped in couple of blankets, with my head on David’s lap. It must have been such a sky that inspired the Sumerians to study the heavens. The stars hung suspended in the firmament like a display of celestial fireworks, and beneath them Sturmvogel sailed on a star-dappled sea of ink.

“Look!” we exclaimed together, as a single light broke ranks from the stellar armada.

“A meteor,” I said, stopping to think for a moment whether the object was a meteor or a meteorite.

David corrected me. “Not a meteor, a falling star. Can you imagine John Donne’s writing “Go and catch a meteor?”

I shook my head. “How does the rest of the poem go?”

Go and catch a falling star

Get with child a mandrake root

Tell me where all past years are

And who cleft the devil’s foot.

Teach me to hear mermaids singing

And to keep off envy’s stinging

And find what wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

David’s words hung in the air like the stars themselves and when he finished, I heard his voice echoing in Sturmvogel’s wake; the poem is out there still, hovering over the water like a haze. I turned my eyes up to where the mast was poking a hole in the sky, near the Dog Star Sirius. Logic told me the stars were fixed and the mast was moving, but the illusion was the opposite: the stars seemed to dip and sway in a giddy orbit around the slender spar.

David named a few of the constellations. “That’s Orion, the Mighty Hunter facing Taurus the Bull, and Orion's dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor, are by his side." He pointed toward the north. "See the three bright stars forming his belt? Over there’s the Winged Horse, Pegasus, and to the east, the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux. Orion was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. Do you know how he got up in the sky?”

"How?"

“According to the Greeks, the goddess Artemis fell in love with Orion and this made her brother Apollo so jealous he decided to destroy him. One day when Apollo and Artemis were out walking, Apollo spotted Orion swimming, and he challenged his sister to hit an object bobbing up and down in the water. Unknown to Artemis, this speck was Orion’s head. Artemis drew her bow and killed her lover with a single arrow; when she realized what she’d done, she was so overcome with grief that she placed him in the firmament among the constellations as a tribute to her love.”

“How beautiful! Aren’t you glad I don’t have any brothers? I know a story about a star too, a true one. Have you heard of Aldebaran?"

“Of course; Aldebaran is one of the stars used in celestial navigation.”

“The Aztecs believed the world exists in 52 year cycles, and at the end of each the gods meet to decide whether to destroy the earth in a cataclysm or to grant mankind a reprieve. When one of these cycles ended, the people extinguished all the fires in the Aztec kingdom, and the priests gathered for prayers and sacrifices on Coyoacan, the Hill of the Star, outside their capital of Tenochtitlan. They observed the movement of Aldebaran, and if the star passed the meridian, this meant the gods were conceding another 52 years of existence to the world. Then the priests kindled a sacred fire and from it runners carried burning torches to light all the hearths in the Aztec empire.”

“What a lovely story. The Aztecs must have had a bad press agent; the only thing I know about their religion was their proclivity for human sacrifice.”

“Even sacrifice is understandable if you examine the religion from their point of view. The Aztecs believed without human blood to nourish him, the sun would lack the strength to rise every morning. Therefore, sacrificing oneself was a supreme act of altruism because it enabled all other life to continue. If you accept the basic premises, their religion is completely logical, much more so than Christianity. Is Aldebaran visible this time of year?”

“Yes, it’s in the constellation Taurus,” David replied, pointing toward a cluster of several hundred stars.

I looked in the direction of Taurus and shook my head, laughing.

“Okay, maybe Aldebaran's not that obvious. Sit close beside me and sight along my arm.”

I moved closer and put my cheek against David’s.

“See it? Aldebaran's the bright one south of Orion’s Belt.”

Our faces turned from the sky toward one another and we kissed, softly at first, then harder and harder as David pressed me down on the seat. He unbuttoned his shirt and lifted my blouse, and as we touched, I felt his warmth coursing all the way to my toes. I could feel something else as well: David’s hand moving along my back, searching for the closure of my brassiere. I clamped my arm down over his hand and he retreated, only to try a few moments later.

“Why won’t you let me touch you?”

I was burning with embarrassment. When I didn’t answer, he repeated the question.

I buried my face against him. “I didn't want you to find out … I wear padded brassieres.”

I felt his mouth crease into a smile where his lips touched my cheek.

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed I do … I just didn't want you to know. You’re going to be disappointed.”

“Kate, dear, it doesn’t matter.”

He slid his hand along my back again. "How do you open this thing?"

Laughing at his frustration, I sat up and unhooked my brassiere. David groped for my lips in the dark and, finding them, kissed me until I was out of breath. He rested his weight on one elbow, opened his zipper, and thrust himself between my legs. Something hard pressed against my thigh and, thinking it was David’s flashlight, I reached down to move the light aside. I touched the object, realized what it was, and withdrew my hand in shock, exclaiming “Oh! … I’m sorry!”
“Shh,” David whispered, “it’s all right.”
We drifted on in the darkness, rocking gently as if in a cradle, and all the world was still except for the sound of our breathing.

David sat up abruptly and covered his face with his hands.

“My God, what am I doing?” he whispered hoarsely. I sat up beside him, shivering; I straightened my blouse and pulled my jacket around my shoulders.

“What’s the matter?”

“Everything. I was a fool to bring you out here; I should have known what would happen. We haven’t taken any precautions ... you’re hardly more than a child.”

I put my arms around him. “Can we anchor and stay here? The night's so calm. I did what you suggested. I only pretended to sign the register, so no one knows I’m gone. Please? We can sleep on separate bunks … if you don’t want to we don’t need to do anything … I can’t bear the thought of leaving you, not tonight. Please?”

“We’re getting close to the shipping lanes. If we anchor now we'll be run down in an hour. I’m sure some people would consider drowning a suitable fate for us, but I’d rather hoped to sail another day. As for your platonic two-bunk suggestion … Kate, I can’t even keep my hands off you out here. Down below I wouldn’t give us three minutes before…"

I reached in my pants pocket and pulled out a small cardboard box. "Yesterday I went to a drugstore and bought - well, actually, Norma insisted, and she bought them for me - these - just in case."

He took the box from me, held it up to the instrument lights and squinted to read the label. "Nonoxynol-9. What the devil is Nonoxynol-9?”

“They're … don’t know you what they are? They’re vaginal suppositories, contraceptives. They're supposed to be inserted ten minutes before …intercourse.”

David regarded me with surprise and then reread the label. "I don't know how effective they are."

“I can use more than one." I opened the box, removed a small package, and ripped the foil. A gooey mess oozed out. "Do you think they're supposed to look like this?"

David took the package from me, examined it, and let out a string of Spanish oaths. "You had them in your pocket and they melted from the heat of our bodies. Oh, hell!"

I wanted to laugh, but I realized David wasn’t amused.

“I don't care,” I said, slipping my hands around his chest.

“You ought to care; we’re going back.”

“We’ve been going out together since September, and you never even kissed me until Tuesday night. Please, David. Can't we ... ?”

“God dammit! You think I don’t want to? Do you remember the first time we sailed together, just the two of us, when you fell asleep in the cabin? I was sitting on the other bunk, looking at you and I kept imagining how I'd kiss you, you’d wake up and we’d make love. I played this scene over in my mind so many times that the projector broke.”

“What stopped you?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I'd like to think my better judgment prevailed. It probably needs some adjusting, but I do have a moral compass. We'd known each other for what - a week, two weeks? You’re so naive … even if you'd been willing, sleeping with you would have been tantamount to rape. At that point, I was still fighting the idea of getting involved with you. Maybe I wasn't fighting very hard, but the intent was there."

I put his head between my hands, turned it toward me and flicked my tongue lightly along the edge of his upper lip.

“Dammit, Kate, stop teasing me! I can’t take any more.” He was breathing heavily and the expression on his face was a mixture of desire and despair. Without warning, David pulled me to him.

“Oh, Kate,” he moaned, pressing me down on the seat. He reached for the elastic at the top of my pants and with two strong tugs yanked them below my knees. He pressed against me in a tight embrace and something warm and wet trickled down my thighs. David lay upon me for a moment as though spent, almost suffocating me with his body, then he shifted his weight to his forearms and remained in the same position for several moments longer with his face buried in my hair. He whispered, “I’m sorry,” and sat up heavily, without looking at me. When David reached down to close his zipper, the blankets slithered into the cockpit well; he picked them up and covered me, averting his gaze.

“You’d better get dressed.”

I lay shivering under the blankets while David went below to the cabin. The warmth that had burned so brightly within me just minutes before was extinguished, along with my pretensions of maturity. How young and clumsy I must have seemed to David. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. Could he have entered me without my feeling anything? Wasn’t intercourse supposed to hurt the first time? What was trickling down my leg? Blood? I ran a finger through the viscous liquid on the inside of my thigh and held it up to the dim light from the cockpit instruments; I couldn’t make out what it was.

David’s head appeared in the companionway and he handed me a cloth. “Here. You can clean yourself off with this.”

I wiped myself and inspected the fabric; still seeing nothing, I stuffed the cloth in my pocket.

Without a word or a glance, David lowered the sails and started the outboard. For once I welcomed the noise of the motor, whose steady drone spared us the need to talk. I sat wrapped in a blanket, leaning my back against the instrument panel. Normally David got annoyed if anything obstructed his view of the dials and gauges, but this time he didn’t even notice. I glanced at him, hoping for a smile, for some sign of acknowledgment, but he sat with his hand on the tiller, staring straight ahead into the darkness.

When we approached the marina, I got up to prepare the fenders and mooring lines, and as David brought Sturmvogel into her berth, I jumped on the dock to secure the boat. After I'd finished tying the lines, I knelt by a dock light to examine the cloth in my pocket. It was damp, but I couldn't see any blood stains. David was coiling the mainsheet when I returned to the cockpit; he laid down the line and put his arms around me.

“I owe you an apology for what happened this evening; it wasn’t so great for me, either.”

“Please don’t apologize. You said I’m a child, and you’re right. I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was supposed to do to … satisfy you or anything like that. You must be terribly disappointed with me.”

“Kate, that's not what I meant.” David looked at his watch and I sighed; we were always saying goodbye.

“If we leave immediately, I can just barely get you back to Blaine Hall by eleven.”

I sighed again. “All right, I’m ready.” I took the cloth from my pocket, found a dry edge, and daubed my nose, sniffing audibly.

“Dearest, please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

“Yes you are. I can hear you sniffing.

“I am not crying. It’s so damn cold out here my nose is running.”

Taken aback by my unaccustomed profanity, David began to laugh.

“You really didn’t sign out at the residence hall?”

“That's right.”

“Do you want to spend the night here? Alone,” he added hastily.

“I can take the bus back in the morning.”

“Then let’s go below and warm up.” He smiled. “I mean, I'll make us some hot chocolate”

“Will you promise me something?”

“If I can. What is it?”

“That you won’t look at your watch. If you look at it just one more time I know I’ll scream.”

He removed his watch and slipped it in my pocket.

Down in the cabin David lit the trawler lamp, pumped up the kerosene tank, and turned on the stove. He set the flowerpot on one burner and the tea kettle on the other while I huddled under a blanket, waiting for the makeshift heater to take the chill out of the air.

David went forward and I heard him moving the chain. “You’ll need something besides those blankets if you’re going to spend the night on the boat. I have a sleeping bag up here somewhere.” One anchor banged against another. “Eureka!”

He returned carrying a sail bag, from which he pulled the sleeping bag itself, a voluminous down-filled creature that mushroomed out over the berth and on to the cabin sole.

“This will keep you good and warm; the bag's rated at zero degrees Fahrenheit, an arctic bag. I used it last summer, and even in Alaska's rigorous climate I nearly roasted. If you get too warm, just open the bottom zipper.”

I hugged the first three or four feet of the bag to me with a giggle. “Sleeping in it will remind me of you.”

David sniffed the other end. “God, I hope not; the bag hasn’t been washed in months.”

Together we pulled out the settee on the starboard side, converting it to a double berth, and stuffed a couple of blankets behind us to serve as a backrest. David made hot chocolate, poured the remaining hot water into a thermos bottle, took off his shoes and climbed into the bunk beside me, pulling the sleeping bag over us.

He put his right arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get one thing straight. When I said tonight wasn’t so great for me, or whatever I said, I wasn’t referring to you. I was angry with myself, at my lack of self-control. We’ve reached the sexual Rubicon, you know. I want to make love to you, Kate, but not the way we did this evening. I don’t mean the cold weather or the hard cockpit seat, though God knows they were bad enough. I mean if you decide … if you agree … that yours will be a rational decision, if such a thing is possible, and not because you’re carried away by some sex-starved professor who has one hand in your blouse and the other in your pants. I made a bad mistake once because I was too foolish to consider the consequences of my actions and I’ve been regretting that mistake for 23 years. I don’t want to ruin your life the same way. You’re still very young and you have the optimism of youth; believing every problem has a solution is practically an American axiom, like thinking it’s never too late to change, or there’s always a second chance. But, my dear, that's simply not true. Sometimes we take actions which are irrevocable, actions which alter the course of our lives forever. In 23 years you’ll be 42. How will you remember me when you’re 42? Will you think of me fondly as the first man who ever loved you, or will I manage to destroy your happiness, as well as my own?"

“Can’t we be happy just for this moment? I don’t even want to worry about next year, let alone how I’m going to feel a whole lifetime away. Besides, when I’m 42 what makes you think I’ll ‘remember’ you? Can’t I love you then, too?”

David smiled sadly and shook his head. “Dearest, when you’re 42 I’ll be 70; you’ll be in the prime of life and I’ll be an old man. One of these days you’re going to meet someone your own age and you'll forget all about me. Don’t look at me so reproachfully; that’s the way it ought to be, and if I weren’t so selfish, it’s what I’d wish for you. But I’ll be honest with you Kate, I’ll be devastated when that happens, utterly devastated. I’m not asking you to make any promises you can’t keep. What can I offer you in return? Suppose, on the other hand, you don’t meet someone else. You'll still wake up some morning full of regret because you’ve wasted so many years of your life on me. Do you remember telling me about your dream of being on a raft? Well, I’ve been on a raft too, just drifting along, not heeding where I’m going. Oh, occasionally I glance up and see the shoals ahead and I stick a feeble twig in the water to change course, but the current carries me on, inexorably. After Mateo’s letter … his death… I started thinking about us, where we’re heading. It’s rather obvious where we’re heading, and if we’re going together, at least I want a rudder, a compass, and some charts. And, most important, I want you aware of the dangers ahead, all the uncertainties. That’s the reason I asked you out here tonight, what I wanted to say to you, Kate, before we got lost up there in the stars. I can offer you nothing, not a name, not a home, not a child, not a future, absolutely nothing, and I’m suggesting … oh, I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

I laid down the cup of chocolate and put my arms around him. “ You have everything to offer me, all the things I’ve never had before – friendship, affection, understanding. I love you, David. This is the first time I've ever said those words to anyone. I love you so much that nothing else matters. I don’t care about tomorrow or next week or next year. I want to be happy now.” Neither of us said anything for a while. "David?"

“Yes, dear.”

My curiosity finally overcame my shame. “I’m awfully embarrassed to ask you this, but there’s something I simply have to know.”

“What is it?”

I buried my face in his shoulder. “After what we did … am I still a virgin?”

David was trying hard not to laugh. He smiled and shook his head slowly with disbelief. “Who but you could ask a question like that? I’m not making fun of you. If you were a virgin before, you still are.”

“Well I was… am.”

“I never doubted it for a moment.” David’s eyes were laughing. “What makes you ask me, anyway, couldn’t you tell?”

“I don’t know how ... intercourse is supposed to feel and besides … what was that liquid? I thought it was my own blood.”

“Kate,” he said softly, “I never penetrated you. I ejaculated outside your vagina. That liquid was semen.”

“So much?"

“It’s been two weeks.”

I didn’t understand his answer. David continued. “I suppose there’s a remote - infinitesimally remote - chance you could become pregnant. When was your last period?”

My face turned crimson; I’d never even discussed menstruation with a doctor, let alone anyone else. “A few days ago.”

He sighed. "I wish I’d known that earlier. No, this way is better; at least you don’t have any regrets.”

"But if it's how you said, then why am I ... so wet inside?"

"Because, dearest, you're sexually aroused. That's nature's way of giving pleasure to both of us and making it easier for me - when the time comes."
     “One more thing.”
     “Mmmm?” David was nuzzling the nape of my neck.
     “When we were in the cockpit and I reached under the blanket … I didn’t mean to … I thought that was your flashlight pushing against my thigh.”
     David chuckled. “No offense taken. I think it would be safer to change the subject.”

"Ah." I threw my leg over him playfully and nibbled his ear. We kissed again and the old feelings of desire welled up once more. He looked at me speculatively. “David,” I whispered, “can we…”

He leaped off the bunk, laughing, and sat down opposite me on the other side of the cabin.

“Yes, my little temptress, we probably could, but we’re not going to. I’m getting out of here before you rape me.” He put on his shoes. “Seriously, Kate, I need to leave now. I’m turning off the stove. I put plenty of water in the thermos and it should still be hot in the morning.”

David opened the valve and the pressure escaped from the kerosene tank with sharp hiss. He put on his jacket and I sat up, sighing.

“I’ll leave the padlock down here, just be sure you lock the boat when you go. Here’s the marina key so you can use the toilet. Do you know how to extinguish the trawler lamp, or shall I do it now?” We were saying goodbye again and I was starting to get depressed.

“I know how. I have some more typing ready for you. I’ll bring it tomorrow at three.”

We kissed goodnight and David climbed into the cockpit, letting in a blast of cold air as he opened the hatch. Sturmvogel rocked gently when David stepped on the dock. I pressed my face to a porthole and watched him as he walked toward the marina gate; he didn’t look back.

For the first time I was alone on Sturmvogel; without David the cabin was cheerless, and the varnished wood and gleaming lanterns on which he lavished such care only reminded me of their absent owner. I put my arms around the mast and pressed my ear against its surface. The hollow spar was like a sounding board, magnifying the creaks and groans of the hull, and from high in the rigging it carried the lonely sigh of the wind. I blew out the lamp, slipped into the down bag, and fell asleep. I never did see Aldebaran.

Go to Chapter Nine