A Southern Girl (45 page)

I am on the verge of asking him, “The way to what?” when there is a sharp rap on the door we entered earlier. Pham, Mr. Quan’s manager, pokes his head inside. They exchange rapid Vietnamese, after which Mr. Quan rises.

“I asked to be notified if a particular supplier arrived. He is downstairs and I must see him. I will be only a few minutes.” He walks unhurriedly to the door and closes it softly behind him.

“The conversation turned a little strange,” Allie suggests and I agree.

“Don’t forget,” I say, “to discuss money with him. He hasn’t said what he’ll pay you.”

“I’ll mention it when he comes back,” she says, leaving her chair and walking around the room restlessly. She inspects the music and observes that his taste is certainly varied. The videos are American classics, musicals and comedies mostly, plus a few Vietnamese videos of indecipherable subject matter. Next, she approaches the bookshelves and as she browses I pick up a dated issue of
Newsweek
and scan it casually.

“Dad, come in here,” she says. She has gone through the doorway between the shelves and is calling from the adjoining room. “Look,” she says as I enter.

She is pointing to an altar, layered with white linen and adorned with thin candles in a multiplicity of sizes. It is quite large and takes up half the wall. In its center is a jade Buddha statue approximately eight inches high, raised above the level of the table on a small wooden stand. Directly below hangs a scroll on which is depicted a spoke wheel. Small bowls, ceramic and charred on the bottoms, possibly for incense, flank the scroll. Spread among the candles are several delicate flowers made of glass. My eyes are drawn to a low table, off to one side of the altar and also decorated with
candles. On it are fifteen or twenty framed photographs of Vietnamese of all ages. Some are posed, others are casual shots of groups at a picnic or at a shore, a few are the individual snapshots school children bring home. The quality of photographs vary, so that it appears this collection has been accumulated over a span of years. Near the center of the arrangement is an eight-by-ten of a wedding couple. As I study it in the dim light of the room—there are no lights on and no candles are lit—the groom in the picture looks out at me. Allie, drawn by my intensity, studies it also.

“It’s him,” she says. “It’s Mr. Quan.”

“He can’t have been much older than you.”

“Do you suppose this is his family?” she asks.

“I’ve never heard him mention one. Only a brother, who lives in Seoul, by the way. I’ve been meaning to mention that.”

“His wife is very beautiful,” she observes.

I am looking over the remaining photographs when I hear footsteps on the stairs. Turning to leave, I stop involuntarily. On the back wall hangs an enormous Vietnamese flag, three red stripes against a yellow background, the standard of the now extinct Republic of South Vietnam. We return to the living room and seat ourselves as Mr. Quan enters.

“Suppliers can be difficult,” he says. Then winking, adds, “Owners can likewise be stubborn.”

As he and Allie renew discussion of her summer employment I debate whether to ask him about what I’ve seen in the other room. I am curious as to why, having just told me that one government is as good as another, he so brazenly and defiantly displays the old flag. I want to ask about those photographs and his bride, where they were married, if any of those pictured are his children. Most of all, what happened to them? But we strayed into that room without invitation, and my sense of decorum bests my curiosity. After he and Allie agree that she will start “as soon as possible” after graduation for minimum wage plus tips, we depart.

“My suggestion. Take her to the land of her birth,” he urges me by way of farewell. “I could call my brother. He knows the city now. And the language. He would be veddy kind to my customers.”

“Yes, Dad, the land of my birth,” she echoes as we wave good-bye and walk out onto the sidewalk.

Daylight is failing among the buildings as the sun begins its descent. Headlights are coming on among the few cars plying King Street and the
neon signs of merchants are humming in the twilight calm, the sidewalks strangely deserted and the street lamps softening encroaching shadows.

“Can we stop by Mom’s grave?” she asks as if seized by a sudden inspiration, and before I can respond she turns.

“We’ll have to hurry,” I say, picking up my pace to catch her.

We walk north on King Street, turn east at Queen, then north again on Church to the cemetery across from St. Philip’s. They will lock the gates soon. We hustle past the tomb and monument to John C. Calhoun toward the back wall and the Carter family plot. The carpet of brown grass shows no sign of spring. We are the only visitors.

Elizabeth’s headstone is modest, engraved with her name and the dates of her birth and death as she instructed. Nearing, we slow our pace. I am comfortable here now, although in the weeks following the funeral I left church by a side door in order to avoid looking at the mournful magnolia tree that stands near the wall. When I visit with the children, we seldom say much, each preferring the solitude of thoughts commingled with the reinforcing presence of each other. But this afternoon, Allie is talkative.

“The job looks like it will work out,” she says. “My leaving for Princeton on the fifteenth will leave him a little short for a couple of weeks but I guess that’s a slow period anyway.”

The cemetery is well groomed, but several brown magnolia leaves have fallen onto the plot and I stoop to collect them.

“I’ve got an idea,” I say, stretching for a leaf near the headstone. “For graduation, how about a trip to San Francisco? You’ve told me how much you want to see it.”

“That would be nice,” she concedes, “but it’s not my first choice.”

Allie is standing at the foot of the plot, her arms folded and her head inclined toward the marker. From the corner of my eye I see her staring at the engraved name, but whether her thoughts are of me, of Elizabeth, or of herself, I cannot tell. Nearby, a sapling stands naked of a single leaf, its stark branches adorned only by a sparrow perched forlornly near the top. The church bells toll a reminder that the caretaker will soon come to lock the gates. The sparrow flees.

“Dad, if I died could I be buried here, in St. Philip’s?”

“Of course,” I say, not positive but unaware of anything that would prevent it. “What an odd question.”

“Not really,” she says. “Think about it.” The morning’s distance has returned, and she seems unconcerned whether I think about it or not.

“Sweetheart, the St. Simeon isn’t directing this at you personally. The fact that it never makes exceptions shows that this has nothing to do with who you are and everything to do with clinging to who they are.”

“I don’t think,” she says, her eyes still focused on the name, “Mom would want us to take this lying down.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” I ask, my voice betraying my own doubts.

“Aren’t we?” The royal “we,” but the message unmistakable.

“No. I’m still looking for an answer. Margarite is looking as well. Something may turn up.”

I cannot bring myself to discuss Margarite. From the moment of Allie’s arrival, she has gone out of her way to indulge her in the unique displays of affection usually bestowed by adoring aunts. At her Christening, she gave a sterling silver cross Allie still wears. When Allie had the measles, Margarite came by daily with ice cream and to read stories. Allie played T-ball, and Margarite rarely missed a single chaotic inning. After her confirmation at St. Philip’s, Margarite threw an elaborate reception for all the communicants, but in that she had never previously given one, and has not since, I feel certain that it was a gesture of generosity directed exclusively at my daughter. No, I must preserve Margarite’s image as a beneficent godmother; anything less would hurt Allie beyond measure.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Natalie Berman,” she says. “The paper says you’ve given up the idea of suing, although I know you never thought seriously about it anyway.”

It occurs to me in the diminishing twilight that all day she has been choosing her time and her words; that this trip to Elizabeth’s grave is not spontaneous but meant to dramatize, in a macabre but effective way, the contrast between our approaches to the St. Simeon. I circle my wagons, relating the story of Natalie’s parents and the country club. “So her victory,” I say, “if you want to call it that, was hollow, like a lot of litigation ends up being. She won admittance to a club that didn’t want her, where she wasn’t accepted and couldn’t comfortably go. So what did she win? Is that what you want? Once the well is poisoned, you can’t drink from it.”

“There was obviously a principle at stake,” she says. “She won that.”

“I wonder,” I respond. In the deep dusk between us now I cannot make out her face but only the contour of her body, standing very still
with her head yet inclined toward the marker. “I have a theory that she’s a very lonely woman. Besides, at the risk of playing the devil’s advocate, there is a principle at stake for the St. Simeons too.”

“What is that?” she wants to know.

“Sweetheart, everywhere you look there is change. It frightens people. It always has, but now it seems to be accelerating. At a time when the entire country is losing its culture, these people want to celebrate something that is nailed down, something they can count on being like it was last year and forever before that. They have to adapt to so much that is out of their control that they value even more highly those few things that remain permanent. The St. Simeon is one of those things.”

“You sound as though you agree with them.” Her voice is even.

“No, but I understand them. After all, I’m one of them.”

“I can understand how change frightens people,” she says. Then, as if changing the subject, she says, “Dad, the Arts Center project?”

“Yes?”

“Your firm is working pretty hard to get that contract.”

“We’ve put a lot into it, that’s true.”

“But won’t they have to tear down a lot of old homes to make room for it?” In the dimness she turns her head to me. “But I guess that’s different.” She turns and walks briskly toward the gate, leaving me as alone as I have ever been.

I discard the leaves and follow, but she quickens her stride to maintain the gap between us. I break into a trot, but keys and change jangle in my pocket and she can monitor my approach without looking back. She accelerates, jogging now. I speed up and look for shortcuts to intercept her. There are none, and her conditioning begins to tell as we near the house. I am reluctant to call out, advertising this unseemly chase, but near the house I yell her name and, panting heavily, ask her to stop. She breaks into a full sprint, reaching the door and slamming it behind. As I slump into the foyer, her door upstairs closes with a telltale snap of the lock.

I bend over, hands on my knees, my breath coming in gulps and gasps and my pulse racing beyond any rate achieved by tennis, even strenuous singles. Slowly, the wind returns and I grow calm.

An hour later, I tap timidly on her door. Silence. I knock again, harder. More silence. I press my ear to the panel and hear no sound within.

“Allie, open up. I have more to say.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Please, sweetheart.”

“I’ve heard it. Go away, I’m tired.”

The St. Simeon, I now realize, has become for her a mere skirmish in a wider war, having far less to do with Charleston’s stubbornness than my own. Her allusion to “taking it lying down” is a lethally directed indictment of my failure to force the issue, to assault in her name and stead the consanguineous fortress. Elizabeth would have done it, and her ghost hovers over this battle ground like a skirted Napoleon. I knock again, impatiently.

“I’m not leaving here until we talk,” I say. “If it takes all night.”

There is only silence, but then something in the room stirs and moments later the lock retracts. The door swings wide, exposing her back as she strides to her bed, flopping down without a glance in my direction. She wears her flannel pajamas and a robe.

“That was quite a pace you set,” I say. “Have you considered your guilt if I drop dead of a heart attack tonight?” She does not smile. A long silence ensues, lengthening painfully as I search for an approach. In the vacuum, I resolve on the method she most prefers: direct.

“You’re disappointed in me,” I say.

“I’m confused. I thought you’d be on my side.” She is visibly upset, but her eyes are dry and her gaze at the wall hard.

“Does that mean I have to come out swinging?”

“We’re getting punched, or at least I am.”

“We, and yes it seems that way.”

“You should have warned me. If you had come to me and said, ‘Look, this is something that I can’t control and that’s the way it is so get over it,’ I’d have probably forgotten about it by now.”

“I gave you false encouragement. I regret that.”

“And now it’s in the papers, a public humiliation and my own father saying he won’t lift a finger.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I wouldn’t sue.”

“What else is there, wring your hands?”

“I deserve your sarcasm but it hurts.”

“Well, join the crowd.” She has picked up a throw pillow and kneads it aggressively.

I commandeer the chair from her study desk, bring it over by the bed, and straddle it in reverse, my arms folded atop the back. “I don’t blame you for being upset. But regardless of what you’re thinking, I have a stake in this too.”

“Not any more. That Arts Center deal is in the bag from what I’ve read.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t give hoot or holler about the Arts Center. My stake in this is much more personal. Of course I’m on your side, and of course I want to see you go. But I want it done in a way that allows us both to feel like we’ve won a point, not forced one.”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it because I don’t fully understand it myself. I’ve had a lot of … turmoil lately. Within. I’m not asking for your sympathy, only your awareness.” She pulls her knees up, sets the pillow on them and rests her chin as she stares at me blankly. “The Society represents tradition; one that I value and enjoy, or at least have up until now. There are all kinds of clubs and organizations I’m not eligible for: foreign war veterans, skydivers, survivors of disasters, alumni of colleges, left handers, IQ gifted—the list goes on. They each represent a niche of some kind, many exceedingly narrow. The St. Simeon’s niche happens to be blood or marital descent from the original members. Call it retarded, call it regressive, but that’s its niche. You with me?”