Anger (26 page)

“What's the matter?” he asked sharply.

“Darling, don't be afraid. I've just thought of something.”

“You forgot to send the laundry out?” he teased, and sat up so they were face to face.

“No. I've got hold of something that has haunted me for ages. It was always there after a fight—something lost I could not lay my hands on.”

“What was it?”

“Jacob and the angel—every time we fought, it was so painful because what we fought about was deeper than we could understand. I always knew that, but I didn't know how to come to grips with it”

“I'm at sea,” Ned said, trying to read her face.

“Jacob didn't know who he was fighting or why … all I remember is that they fought till daybreak and the angel had wounded Jacob near the end. Then Jacob said, ‘I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me.'”

“There didn't seem to be a blessing in those terrible fights. Only pain.”

“Yes, pain, because the anger was a war to break through, a rage for withheld truth. Ned, Ned, can't you see? My anger was outrage at being shut out and yours was the fear of being found out, of being vulnerable. We had to get to the bottom of it—and we did when you talked about your father and cried, and the anger and the grief were all wrapped up together. I can't explain it,” Anna said, lying down, her eyes closed. “But I felt the blessing. It has changed everything.”

Ned thought this over. He was amazed at Anna's ability to say things in words. He was almost convinced. “But,” he had to be clear, “do you really believe you'll never be furious with me again, or I with you for that matter?”

“I guess there may be some pretty thick fights ahead,” she said quite calmly, as though they would not matter. “We're not going to change completely, Ned, but something has changed. There is understanding now. That's all I know.”

Ned looked down at her face, her mouth so gentle and vulnerable, one arm relaxed over her head and the hand lying open on her hair. Had he ever seen Anna at peace? It was a little scary, she seemed so far away now, so he leaned over and put his arms under her and kissed her very gently, then long and deeply until he ran out of breath, and she opened her eyes.

“That,” she said, running a finger along his mouth, “was a metaphysical kiss.”

“Oh,” Ned was smiling, “was that what it was? Let's do it again, a thousand times.”

And they did. And the light was left on.

Yet the next morning at breakfast while Ned was calmly reading
The Wall Street News
as usual, Anna observed him, and wondered whether the exaltation she had felt had been all her imagination, whether radical change had taken place, or whether, as so often before, she had accomplished some inward journey alone and only imagined that Ned was there. She could not resist asking, “After last night, after all we experienced last night, do you suppose you could manage to say it, Ned?”

“Say what?” he laid the paper down and looked at her over his Benjamin Franklin glasses in a totally impersonal way.

“Say you love me.”

“Oh Anna, must you?” He picked up the paper again and disappeared behind it.

And she, who had been so at peace, she who knew she should not have asked the question yet so needed to hear the words, felt in that instant as though she had been struck by lightning, stunned, furious, black with rage so intense and helpless that for a second she wanted to throw herself out of the window. Anything to escape the violence of her feelings. Instead she rushed out into the kitchen and burst into tears.

Only much later after Ned had left and she had been lying on the unmade bed for some time, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, did she begin as she had done so many times before to unravel the tapestry and weave it together again. She would never never understand why Ned could not give what every lover gives and wants to give. So she was bound to be affronted and hurt again and again. Why stay? Why stay knowing there would always be violence, tears, pain and—yes—outrage to be dealt with? Why stay knowing that Ned would not and could not accept her as she was and would always be? Why stay, unwilling to compromise and unable to yield?

Because the very thing that tears us apart binds us together, she told herself. We are locked into an unremitting struggle each to defend and preserve authentic being.

Yet last night … for an hour or more, the struggle came out into light, and they had rested in each other at last. And as long as that had happened, there was the possibility of growth. If we could only not each feel so threatened by the other, Anna sighed, If only …

But whoever thought love was easy? Or that people change? No, the tapestry gets torn again and again and then rewoven in the same pattern and perhaps as time goes on our skill at reweaving becomes a little wiser and more compassionate: pride and fidelity and love.

Anna realized finally that what had happened in the night was real and could not be denied. To deny it because of what had happened in the morning, the insoluble clash of temperaments, was childish.

When she took Fonzi out into the Public Gardens she had made peace with herself.

A Biography of May Sarton

May Sarton (1912–1995) was born Eleanore Marie Sarton on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, the only child of the science historian George Sarton and the English artist Mabel Eleanor Elwes. Barely two years later, Sarton's European childhood was interrupted by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the onset of the First World War.

Fleeing the advancing Germans, the family moved briefly to Ipswich, England, and then in 1915 to Boston, Massachusetts, where her father had accepted a position at Harvard University. Sarton's love for poetry was first kindled at the progressive Shady Hill School, a period she wrote about extensively in
I Knew a Phoenix
, published in 1959.

At the age of twelve, Sarton traveled to Belgium for a year to live with friends of the family and study at the Institut Belge de Culture Française. There, she met the school's founder, Marie Closset, who grew to be Sarton's close friend and mentor, and who was the inspiration for her first novel,
The Single Hound
(1938).

On returning to the States, Sarton graduated from Cambridge High and Latin School in 1929. Although she was awarded a scholarship to Vassar College, Sarton joined actress Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York instead, much to the dismay of her father. However, while learning the basics of theater, Sarton continued to develop her poems, and in 1930, when she was just eighteen, a series of her sonnets was published in
Poetry
magazine.

In 1931, Sarton returned to Europe and lived in Paris for a year while her parents were in Lebanon. In large part, Europe provided the backdrop for her encounters with the great thinkers of the age, including the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, the famed biologist Julian Huxley, and of course, Virginia Woolf. After Sarton's own theater company failed during the Great Depression, she turned her full attention to writing and published her first poetry collection, entitled
Encounter in April
, in 1937.

For the next decade, Sarton continued to write and publish novels and poetry. In 1945, she met Judy Matlack in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the two became partners for the next thirteen years, during which she would suffer the deaths of several loved ones: her mother in 1950, Marie Closset in 1952, and her father in 1956. Following this last loss, Sarton's relationship fell apart, and she moved to New Hampshire to start over. She was, however, to remain attached to Matlack for the rest of her life, and Matlack's death in 1983 affected her keenly.
Honey in the Hive
, published in 1988, is about their relationship.

While the 1950s were a time of great personal upheaval for Sarton, they were a time of success in equal measure. In 1956, her novel
Faithful Are the Wounds
was nominated for a National Book Award, followed by nominations in 1958 for
The Birth of a Grandfather
and a volume of poetry,
In Time Like Air
; some consider the latter to be one of Sarton's best books of poetry. In 1965, she published
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing
, which is frequently referred to as her coming-out novel. From then on, her work became a key point of reference in the fields of feminist and LGBT literature. Strongly opposed to being categorized as a lesbian writer, Sarton constantly strove to ensure that her portraits of humanity were relatable to a universal audience, regardless of readers' sexual identities.

In 1974, Sarton published her first children's book,
Punch's Secret
, followed by
A Walk Through the Woods
in 1976. During the seventies, Sarton was diagnosed with breast cancer—the beginning of a long and arduous illness. However, she continued to work during this difficult period and received a spate of critical acclaim for her literary contributions.

In 1990, she suffered a severe stroke that reduced her concentration span and her ability to write, although she did continue to dictate her journals when she could. Sarton died of breast cancer on July 16, 1995. She is buried in Nelson, New Hampshire.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author᾿s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1982 by May Sarton

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

ISBN: 978-1-4976-8546-8

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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EBOOKS BY MAY SARTON

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