I Cannot Get You Close Enough (9 page)

I carried the letters up to my room and opened them and began to read. They were dated June and July, 1979. The stamps had never been canceled. The first one was to Big Ed.

Dear Daddy,

I have gotten into an awful jam. Please send someone to get me as soon as you can. I am pregnant. I am at 15 Mutlu Sokak Street in Istanbul. I am almost dead now. I don't know if I will be alive when you get this. Hurry, Daddy. Please hurry and come and get me.

Sheila

The second letter was dated two months later.

Dear Daddy,

I guess you didn't get my letter. It's too late now anyway. I am going to have a baby by this man who raped me and there is nothing anyone can do. You couldn't even find me if you get this and I don't guess you'll get it either. I cut my leg in a hundred places. I fell in a glass hole in the street. If you get this send someone to Istanbul to 15 Mutlu Sokak. Daddy, this is the worst place in the world. The windows are rusted shut. I don't know what anyone is saying. They used to speak English to me but they don't anymore. My leg is very bad and now it hurts my back to move. It is my own fault I am here. I should never have gone away and left you. If you ever get this you will know I loved you. You will never get it.

Your daughter,

Sheila

The third letter was to a friend in London, the director of a theater on Queen's Square.

Dear Shannon,

Sick people everywhere, maimed and broken, sightless, broken lights, broken doors. Now I am maimed too. If you get this call my father in Charlotte, North Carolina. His name is Ed MacNiece, he owns the TV stations, anyone can find him there. He will give you a reward to call him and tell him where I am.

Two weeks later: I can't even find a way to mail a letter. I am pregnant and I have been injured. I stepped through a glass tile in the sidewalk and cut my leg, a terrible gash on the knee and lacerations everywhere. A glass brick like the ones they use to let light into buildings, only this one was cracked and I stepped on it and fell in up to my knee. Someone carried me to the hospital. They poured alcohol on my knee and then they poured Mercurochrome. When I woke up Zeno was there and took me back to his mother's. Maybe the drugs they gave me will kill the baby. I want to kill the baby. When the baby comes I will kill it, I will strangle it to death. I told his mother I would kill the baby. I never speak to anyone here.

The next week I went back to have the bandages changed and they picked the pieces of gauze off — it hurt so much — then they poured alcohol on it again. It was like having the skin burned off. Please call my father, Ed MacNiece, in Charlotte, North Carolina, if you get this.

Sheila

The rest wasn't easy but it was possible. There was a record of the child's birth at the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church and an official at the embassy remembered helping her leave the country. There had been some holdup because she had lost her passport. I wrote down the names of everyone I had talked to and the child's name, they had named him Georgios. Also, I interviewed several people about the activities of the communist party of Cyprus. Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou, a political Mafia, shady even by Turkish standards. There was a chance the custody suit might end up in court and I wanted as much documentation as possible. I was talking to Daniel every day on the phone, sometimes twice a day. He was determined to come over and bring me home but I kept him at bay. “I can finish this,” I told him. “You take care of Jessie. Where is Sheila now?”

“She bought a house. I guess Ed got it for her.”

“I'll be home. I'll be there Wednesday.”

Daniel met me at the airport and swept me up into a great Daniel bear hug and took me to his house. We settled down into huge overstuffed chairs that his last girlfriend, a decorator, had piled into his living room, great sofas and chairs that looked like gigantic animals waiting to devour anyone who came near. “We'll go to the lawyers tomorrow,” Daniel said. “Tom's waiting to file suit. We'll fix it so Sheila can't take her out of town.”

“Is Jessie seeing her?”

“Yes.”

“What does she say about it?”

“She doesn't say a thing. She just goes over there for a while and then she calls me and I go and bring her home.”

“We don't need lawyers, honey. We need to go to Big Ed and get him to call her off. You can get Tom to change the visitation rights later but let's handle Sheila through her daddy.”

“I'm not sure he can control Sheila anymore. She's pretty crazy now. She acts completely nuts.”

“Of course he can control her. She's still his heir, or hopes she is. The only reason she wants Jessie is to get money out of him.”

“No, Sister, you don't have that right. She loves Jessie. She really wants her to live with her.” He hung his big head.

He was sitting with his hands on his knees, on the edge of one of those dreadful chairs, and I thought of the long years Sheila has plagued his life and made him believe things. I don't know why I always end up thinking of Daniel as a victim. He has broken a thousand hearts. But he never lied to a woman or made promises he didn't keep. All he wanted was a woman who doesn't exist. A woman like our mother, like the image she imposed on all my brothers. Infinitely kind, infinitely sweet, infinitely forgiving and demanding. They don't make them like that anymore, et cetera.

“Daniel, Sheila doesn't love Jessie. She deserted Jessie, have you forgotten that? But she loves money. She loves money the way you love pussy. Do you still love pussy as much as you used to?”

“I don't know. It's a hell of a lot of trouble.” He sat up, squared his beautiful fine shoulders, gave me a cheerful, hopeful grin. “Okay, let's go to Big Ed. I hate to tip our hand if he won't help, but what the hell. You may be right. We have to take Dad though. I can't go accost Big Ed without telling Dad first. They still have joint investments.”

“Let's go, then. Big Ed can't afford to have this in his newspapers. His daddy was a bootlegger down in Union County. He can't stand to be embarrassed.”

“Jesus.” Daniel pushed one of his fists into the other. “How'd we come to this? Asking a man to hurt his own daughter. Goddamn, Anna.”

“Let's go get Daddy. Let's get it over.”

We went over to our mother's house and found Daddy watching a baseball game in the library, straddling a straight-backed chair, wearing a baseball cap. He looked better than I had seen him in months. He is always happy during baseball season, although he thinks the coaches are crazy, the calls bad, and the managers crooked.

“Anna went to Europe and found out Sheila has been running around with communists,” Daniel began. “So we're going over and talk to Ed and get him to stop Sheila from filing this suit to get Jessie. Who's winning?”

“The A's are ahead. Four to two.” Daddy turned off the set, removed the hat, got up from the chair, turned to face us. He looked like himself again, old powermonger ready to whip a room into shape.

“What's this? What have you been up to, Anna?”

“I haven't been up to anything. I went over there to find out what Sheila's been up to. I thought she was dealing drugs but it's worse than that. I don't even know how to tell you, it's so nuts. She ran off with a Turkish communist and had a baby and left the baby in Turkey. Two years ago. Dad, she's really crazy. She can't be allowed around Jessie. She definitely can't be allowed to take Jessie off alone.”

“Is all this true, son?”

“Anna says it is. Anna wouldn't say it if it wasn't true, would you, Sister?”

“Of course not.” I was getting furious. No one in the world can make me as mad as our father. All he has ever done is make me mad and give me pats on the shoulder. He hugs the boys and gives the girls pats on the shoulders. He makes all of us mad. Still, compared to Big Ed MacNiece, he's a saint. “Listen, Daddy, I just went all the way to goddamn Istanbul, Turkey. On my own money. I can't believe you'd say that. I don't spread rumors. When did I ever say anything about anyone that wasn't true? I went over there to find out what Sheila has been up to and I found out. We're going to Big Ed and tell him what we found. Do you want to go along or not?”

“Anna.” Daniel had my arm. “Save it for Ed. You want to go with us, Dad? We don't need you to. I just thought I ought to tell you before we went over there.” Mother came in from her greenhouse, her hands full of roses, yellow and pink and red. She had on gardening gloves. “Oh, Anna,” she said. “My darling, when did you get in?” She put the roses down upon a table covered with magazines and came over and embraced me. She is still as tall as I am although once she was taller. Her soft hair, her wonderful perfume, her garden gloves. They don't make them like that anymore, et cetera, although Daniel and Louise look exactly like her. And Jessie is also off that tall blond English tree.

I told her the story. Unlike Daddy she didn't flinch or disbelieve it. She is tougher than he is, I decided. If I told her we were going to have Sheila killed she would take it better than Daddy would. Only they didn't kill them when they went bad, did they? They had them lobotomized or zapped with electroshock or sent to live in the attic.

“Are you going over there with them?” she asked Daddy. “Well, I'll send Elise these roses then.” She took them into the kitchen to wrap them up. “Poor Elise,” she said over her shoulder. “She's had such a sad life. I wish there was some way to keep her from knowing.”

Then Daddy called Big Ed and told him we were coming to talk to him about Sheila and the three of us went off, carrying seven hybrid roses and a jar of homemade pickle relish. Three pink Tropicanas, two Fantasias, and two yellow Freulich's Gold. The pickle relish came from the church bazaar. I'm not certain what it contained.

 

We drove up in the driveway of the white brick house and Weedle took the car and we went inside and Elise sat us down in the living room and took our orders for drinks. “Let me handle this,” Daddy said, when Elise left the room. “Sister, you try to keep your mouth shut and let me handle it.” He sat on the edge of a white damask sofa and Daniel took a seat to his right and I sank back into a black leather armchair. Elise reappeared with a tray, a Scotch and water for Daniel, a glass of tomato juice for Daddy, and a Diet Coke for me. I wasn't going to drink in the morning even if this was the place to do it. There was a small glass of sherry left on the tray and Elise took it in her pudgy hand and went over to the piano bench and sat down and began to sip it. Then Big Ed came in. I had the feeling he had been waiting in the wings, hovering somewhere. He had on a pair of tight khaki-colored slacks with suspenders and no tie. A strange-looking man. If I didn't know better I'd think he was an alcoholic. So pasty and sick-looking, like a man with a bad liver. Still, there was something there and women had been known to like him. He had even left Elise once, gotten a Mexican divorce, and gone off and married his secretary for a year. When he came back to the white house there was a wedding ceremony at the Methodist Church. Daniel and Sheila went to it and a coin merchant who turns Daddy and Big Ed's cash accounts into gold and the minister and the minister's wife. What did they do? I asked Daniel when I heard about the ceremony. They got married, he said. The minister's wife was crying and Sheila started laughing and couldn't stop. Was Jessie there? I wondered now. Did they take Jessie to her grandparents' wedding?

“Okay,” Big Ed said. “Shoot. Go ahead.” He was still standing. “Go on. Get it out.”

“Anna's been in Europe spying on Sheila,” Daddy said. “I'm sorry about this, Ed. I didn't know it had come to this.”

“Sit down,” Ed said. “Elise, go get us some cheese and crackers. And bring some water.” She got up from the piano bench. She is so pitiful she doesn't even call up pity. She is the closest thing to a true servant I have ever seen in my life, a born subject. All day long she waits on him or knits her terrible ugly afghans or cooks or bakes. When she talks she stops dead still in the middle of sentences. She stopped now. “You want ice in it?” Long pause. “I don't know if we have any cheese. We might not have it.”

“No ice. Just bring some crackers then. Go on.” He dismissed her and took a seat in a wing-back chair and laid his hands down on the arms. Daddy sat across from him and Daniel sat back down. I think they had forgotten me.

“Sheila's been over in Turkey with a bunch of communists, Ed. Anna thinks she lived with some communist over there.”

“She had a child and left it with the grandmother,” I added. “I didn't make this up, Ed. It's all true. We don't care what Sheila did or didn't do. But we care about saving Jessie. You have to tell her to stop trying to get Jessie. I know she's your daughter but you have to see…”

“What does this have to do with you, Anna?” Ed said. “Go write your dirty books. Daniel, you don't talk for yourself anymore? That's it?”

“I talk for myself, Ed. Anna's the one that went over there so I thought you'd want to hear it from her. I wanted to call Tom Watkins and do this in the courts. Anna's the one who wanted to keep it out of your newspapers.” Daniel stood up. His face was getting red. He is Momma's spoiled baby boy and he is not for sale. He might have a business in Chapter Eleven but he wasn't taking any shit off of anybody on this or any other day.

“Calm down, son,” Daddy said. Elise reappeared with a tray of crackers and cheese and set it down on a table and began to count napkins, bent over like a Russian peasant.

“What's the proof of this?” Ed demanded. “I'm supposed to take Anna's word for some cock-and-bull story about Sheila?”

“I think Anna saw the people,” Daddy put in. Daniel had finished his drink and handed the glass to Elise for a refill.

“Could I have a drink too,” I said, “if you're going.”