An Unfinished Season (21 page)

Secrets, I said.

Secrets, she agreed.

The definition of personality, I went on, reminding her that Odysseus wept when he heard the poet sing of his great deeds abroad because, once sung, they were no longer his alone. They belonged to anyone who heard the song.

I suppose, she said doubtfully.

Probably your father did something great in the war, I said. Some act of bravery or sacrifice—

She made a dismissive gesture. You should have seen him when he came back. He was a mess.

There's a cost, I insisted, remembering what he had said to me earlier about hatred and observing the enemy up close. “In your passion you become like them.” It's a private experience, I said, and he doesn't want to share it and shouldn't have to. I was surprised at my own vehemence and knew that I had intruded. I said to her, Sorry. I really don't know anything about it.

Aurora did not reply. We stood silently, looking at the photographs, making of them what we could, I felt a subtle change in her and in me, too, standing half stripped in her father's private study, wondering when he and Consuela would return from dinner. Of course I liked it where I was, with Aurora in the bright light of the desk lamp, my arm around her waist and her head on my shoulder, a delicious immodesty. It seemed to me that anything was possible now that we were on the right side of the divide. I remembered reading somewhere of one of the Italian hill communities, inhabitants of a region overrun again and again by alien peoples, Austrians, Hungarians, Serbs, Turks, Germans. The true test of character in that region was the ability to step outside one's own identity, go beyond one's roots to another realm altogether, a kind of transcendence. Such an ability required the severest sort of self-knowledge coupled with the will to survive. Your soul would be multilingual, not to mention your conscience. I felt one identity slip away and another take its place, and I was certain that Aurora felt it also, and with the same excitement. I knew we would make our own way in this fabulous undiscovered country, fortified by these new identities as yet undefined. We discarded the robe and the shirt. I kissed her, all the time wondering if her father had heard the poet and was afraid or was afraid of hearing the poet.

She bumped me with her hip while she thought things over. She said, It's your first time, isn't it?

Oh, no, I said. Not at all. I stand around naked all the time with beautiful girls in their fathers' private studies, looking at war photographs. It's the normal thing in Quarterday. We've been doing it for years and years. When she smiled wickedly and raised her eyebrows I knew at once that I had misunderstood the question, not for the first time that evening.

What if it is, I said.

Nothing, she said.

What about you?

What if it isn't? she said.

With my newfound identity, my multilingual transcendence-into-another-world-altogether, I summoned what I hoped and believed was a manly smile, the prelude to a most intimate exchange—and then I knew I did not want to hear this poet's song, not then, not ever. Somewhere behind me I heard the tick of a clock. I was aware of the heavy silence between us, Aurora turning slowly away from me, waiting for the answer to her question; I could not see her face, but I knew she was grinning. The men in the photographs stared out in vacant indifference. I pulled Aurora close and bent toward the photographs, believing that if I looked hard enough I would find—I suppose the word was inspiration. But nothing came and after an interval I said, It's the Pacific theater.

Yes, she said quickly. That's where he was. I know that much.

I was looking closely at the second photograph, the doctors standing in front of a military building, a flag hanging limply in the heat.

I said, That's the Philippine flag.

Aurora said, He's never mentioned the Philippines.

The last of the photographs did not include the doctors. It was taken by a professional, a posed picture of an American general and his aides. The general seemed to be composed of skin and bones but he stood alone and unsupported, a little apart from the others with his ghostly dignity, his eyes averted from the camera. His posture, his great height, and the boniness of his skull reminded me of Aurora's father as he was now. The general's face was familiar. And then I knew for a certainty where Dr. Brule had been and what he had endured.

I said, Your father called it “the Hike.”

That's what he calls it, Aurora said. Another joke.

I took a step forward to look at the photographs more critically. The war was close in time, but it seemed part of another era. Today's war was Korea. Books came one after another and there were articles every day in the newspapers, an anniversary of a battle or the death of one of the great commanders or a fresh analysis of this tactic or that, the Ardennes or Guadalcanal. The agreed-upon silence not to contradict the Hollywood version of events was giving way at last, yet even the firsthand accounts were written with circumspection and most veterans declined to speak at all of their wartime life, the experience too personal, too frightful even now to relate for the education of civilians, spectators really, bystanders who listened out of a sense of duty or simple curiosity or pity. What self-respecting veteran could look into those faces, so filled with sympathy and noncomprehension, and tell the exact truth? The exact truth was profoundly private, as closely held as the most shameful secret; and to speak of it would be to lose it, a truth so hard won. The hard facts of the matter were etched on their faces. I looked at those long-ago photographs in their dime-store frames and knew that “the Hike” was the Bataan Death March and that Jack Brule was one of the survivors and that his stoic silence was the means of that survival.

I said, Did he ever mention Bataan?

No, Aurora said. What's Bataan?

I volunteered nothing further, preferring instead to join the conspiracy of silence. There were so many conspirators, would one more make a difference? Somehow Jack Brule's secret had become my secret, and if he did not care to share it with his daughter, neither would I.

What's Bataan? she said again.

A battle early in the war, I said. The Philippines.

Was my father in it?

I don't know, I said. Might have been.

The name's familiar—

Let's go back to your room, I said. They'll be here soon, your father and Consuela. We can go around the corner, have a bite to eat.

Will you tell me about Bataan at dinner?

I don't know much about it, I said, and turned from the photographs. How I enjoyed telling stories about municipal corruption and the Chicago Mob, describing the way of the world to North Shore debutantes. But this was different. This was serious, a war in which many thousands died and Jack Brule was one of the walking wounded. I had an idea that it was some form of patriotism that caused him to withhold the facts of his own life; and it was not my business to interfere, though as I thought about it I knew I had made a choice. The choice was between Jack Brule and Aurora, and I had chosen him over her, preserving his privacy and her—I suppose the word was innocence.

You know more than you're telling, Aurora said. You have that
look,
the Wils look. It's a wiseguy look, and it's unbecoming. She was grinning and went on about my look, furtive, sly, a smile that was becoming a smirk, signals of a guilty conscience. I wasn't listening to her. My hands were around her neck, then slid to her waist, and for now all else was forgotten in a full avalanche of desire. I knew so little of women, and that little I knew now seemed illusory. It had never occurred to me that seduction could be cooperative.

We remained in her father's study for a while, until Aurora went away on some unspecified errand, gliding from the room on her toes with a knowing glance over her shoulder. I watched her go, then rose lightheaded from the couch and turned off the table lamp. I stood in the darkness a moment longer, wishing I had a cigarette and remembering then that I had tucked a pack and lighter in her father's robe, and as I fished for them I noticed his scent, an old man's sour smell mingled with bay rum. The robe looked to be many years old, as worn and frayed as any favorite item of clothing was bound to be. I stepped to the window and looked out, Lincoln Park mostly dark but through the trees I could see headlights on the Outer Drive and, close in on the surface of the lake, the running lights of sailboats and yachts out for an evening cruise. I lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings into the darkness, still thinking about Jack Brule's secret that had become my secret, and the guilty conscience that went with it. I wondered if I would always associate a guilty conscience with bay rum and an old man's sweat. Well, it was his business. The choice was his, not mine. I had only gone along, as I had every right to do. But my God, Chicago was beautiful at night. The breeze from the lake was soft, a sickle moon rising in the east. The city seemed as tranquil as a country village. All that was missing were church bells and a town crier. I heard the purr of an airplane far away but I could not hold it and the sound disappeared into the silence.

I was thinking of the life we would make together. I wanted to live in an apartment like hers, elevated from the street, a private place in the city where you could live as you pleased. Standing now at the window, watching smoke from my cigarette drift away on the breeze, I felt like the king of Chicago, looking down on my private park with the silver sliver of lake beyond, a line of sight all the way to Canada. I saw Aurora and me in an apartment like this one, smaller naturally, but well situated and comfortably furnished to our own taste. The bedroom would have the lake view. We would have exciting jobs, Aurora too, but we would have a life away from the jobs. Her father and I would become friends and I would keep his every confidence. He and Consuela would come to us for Sunday lunch or drinks on a Friday evening, the apartment alive with laughter; and one day he would bring Brando or even Adlai Stevenson and we would all tell riotous secrets, cocktail glasses filled and refilled, even Jack's. Our apartment, Aurora's and mine, would be the plac to come for Sunday lunch, and when we tired of the routine we would drive to Wisconsin, somewhere around Fish Creek, for a long weekend. We would own a cabin in the woods and a runabout and the cabin would be for us alone, no guests. The cabin would not have a telephone, only a phonograph. Aurora's Toulouse-Lautrec drawing would go in the bedroom. I thought this was a grand idea, living and working in Chicago and avoiding the North Shore and Quarterday. Away on Lake Shore Drive, whirling red lights sped north, the sirens faint and rhythmic in the distance.

I heard Aurora in the corridor and turned from the window, pitching my cigarette into the street. The telephone rang and she answered it, her voice curt; and then I heard her say, Oh, no, everything's just fine and We're leaving in a few minutes to get a bite to eat. We didn't realize the time was so late because we were playing backgammon and listening to music, your Goldberg variations. No, don't hurry. Take your time, you and Con-su-e-laaaa. We're having a fine time, don't worry about us. We've been delayed but we're leaving now. Poor Wils is tired and hungry. He's had a long day at the office.

When she rang off, I said, What are the Goldberg variations?

She said, Private joke. He didn't believe a word of it. He heard something in my voice. And what he heard was insincerity. He's good at that, you know. He's an expert. It's what he does for a living, listen to lies. Probably I shouldn't've mentioned the Goldberg variations but I couldn't resist.

She looked into the study and asked what I was doing in the dark.

I turned on the desk lamp and said I had been thinking about an apartment in Chicago and a cabin in Fish Creek as the venues for our future life together. The bedroom gets the water view.

Fish Creek, she said, making a face. Black flies and mosquitoes.

And Indians, I said. Don't forget the Indians.

There are no Indians in Fish Creek, she said.

I was misinformed, I replied.

She laughed at that and said, What makes you think I'd live in Chicago?

I looked at her blankly. Where, then?

I intend to live in Greenwich Village, she said.

I suppose Greenwich Village would be all right, I said.

Glad you approve, she said. She smiled wickedly and pulled on my arm. Come here, she said. I want to show you the skull.

In the consulting room once again, we peered into the bookcase. The skull rested on the bottom shelf. It was well formed and well cared for, as slick and polished as ivory, a small ragged hole just above the right eye. Of course I wondered whose skull it was, and the identity of the killer, and the circumstances of the death, time and place and cause. I wondered if Jack Brule knew, or whether his skull was an anonymous casualty, an unknown soldier of an undetermined war. Or a commonplace neighbors' dispute, an argument over a fence post or water rights or an insult to someone's wife or daughter. Or the wife or daughter.

Aurora closed the bookcase and said it was time to go.

Get something to eat, get our clothes on.

They'll be home soon, she went on. They were just finishing up at the Pump Room and unless I miss my guess, they're in a cab at this very moment. He's complaining about the Goldberg variations and she's in a snit because he wouldn't give her time to finish her peach flambé. It wouldn't be a good idea if they found us here undressed.

Stripped, I said.

Yes, stripped. And he doesn't like strangers in his consulting room.

I think I know why, I said.

What does that mean?

But I did not answer directly. I said instead, Were you serious about Greenwich Village?

Yes,
I was.

You never mentioned it before.

You never asked me. What did you mean about knowing why?

Everybody has a place they don't want people going into. Your father's study is private. I put my arm around her, her skin damp to the touch. Her hair was damp and I felt a sudden chill in the room. Aurora tugged gently and I stepped back from her father's glassed-in bookcase with its grinning memento mori that had nothing to do with an Indian mound near Galena or, I was convinced, anywhere else on the American continent. In the lower jaw was a molar with a gold filling, twentieth-century dentistry. I wondered if the skull belonged to a comrade or an enemy and if it was there to remind him of the war or to help him forget. Familiarity, the object present every day, bred absent-mindedness.