The Swan Thieves

The Swan Thieves Page 37

I will pass over some of this part. I will pass over it, but I do want to describe how Robert came back. I called him that night, and he came back for the six weeks it took my mother to weaken to almost nothing. It turned out he hadn't gone farther than the college, although he never told me where he slept while he was there-- maybe at the studios or in one of the empty cottages. I wondered if our old house there was empty. Maybe he was sleeping among our own ghosts, in a pile of blankets on the floor, the rooms to which we'd brought Ingrid and Oscar home as newborns.

When he returned for that brief period to help me with my mother, he camped out in his studio room, but he was calm and kind and he sometimes drove off with the children on excursions so I could sit with my mother while she took painkillers and long naps, longer and longer. I didn't ask him about his work at the college. I thought Robert and I would wait together for the time when the hospice nurses would come in; everything was arranged, and my mother had even helped me arrange it--she would tell me, give me a sign, and I would call the number by the phone in the kitchen.

But in the end only Robert and I were there, and that was the real finish of our marriage, unless you count the previous endings, or the dwindling calls later, or his disappearance to Washington, or my filing for divorce and leaving his office untouched for more than a year, or my beginning to clean out his office at last, or my putting away most of his paintings of Mistress Melancholy, whatever you want to call her. Or even the moment when I heard he'd attacked a painting and been arrested for it, or when I heard later he had consented to enter a mental institution. Or when I realized that I wanted to help his mother at least a little with his bills, still wanted him to get better, if that was possible, so that someday he could come to the children's graduations and weddings.

People whose marriages haven't collapsed, or whose spouses die instead of leaving, don't know that marriages that end seldom have a single ending. Marriages are like certain books, a story where you turn the last page and you think it's over, and then there's an epilogue, and after that you're inclined to go on wondering about the characters or imagining that their lives continue without you, dear reader. Until you forget most of that book, you're stuck puzzling over what happened to them after you closed it.

But if there was a single ending for Robert and me, it happened the day my mother died, because she died more suddenly than we had expected. She was resting on the sofa in the living room, in the sunlight. She'd even been willing to let me fix her a little tea, but then her heart failed. That's not the technical term, but that's how I think of it, because mine failed me, too, and I reached her as it happened, dropping the tray on the living-room carpet in my rush to her. I knelt holding her by the arms while our hearts failed us, and it was terrible, and terrible to watch, but very fast, and it would have been much more terrible if I hadn't been there to watch and hold her after all the years she had taken care of me.

When it was over and she was no longer herself, I put my arms around her and held her more tightly, and my voice finally came back. I called for Robert, screamed for him, although I was still afraid it would disturb her. He must have heard the tone from his office behind the kitchen, because he came running in. My mother had lost most of her weight already, and I held her up easily in my arms, my cheek pressed to hers, partly so that I wouldn't have to look at her directly again right away. I stared up at Robert instead. What I saw in his face finished our marriage just as my mother's life vanished. His eyes were blank. He was not seeing us, me holding her lifeless body in my arms. He was not thinking how he could comfort me in those first moments, or how he could honor her death, or how he mourned her himself. I saw clearly that he was watching someone else, something that set his face alight with horror, something I could not see or possibly understand because it was even worse than this, this worst moment of my life. He was not there.

November 1878

Paris

Tres chere Beatrice:

Thank you for your touching note. I don't like to think I missed another evening with you, even for the best of Moliere; forgive my absence. I wonder, rather jealously, if the stylish Thomas pair was there again; perhaps it is knowing they are closer to your age than I am that makes me a little protective. In fact, I don't care, these days, for the way they hang over you -- or, for that matter, ogle your work, which ought to be seen only by discerning eyes (not theirs). Excuse my unbecoming grumpiness. If I could prevent myself from writing, I certainly would, but the beauty of the morning is too much for me, and I must share it with you. You will be at your window, perhaps with your embroider for some book, possibly the one I left last time, resting in your hand. You told me, when I committed the indiscretion of admiring them, that your hands are too large; but they are lovely-- capable-- and in proportion to your graceful height. Moreover, they are not capable only in appearance but in your handling of brush and pencil, and, no doubt, everything else you do. If I could hold each of them in mine (mine being, after all, still larger but less capable), I would kiss each in turn, respectfully.

Forgive me; I am already forgetting my purpose of sharing the morning's beauty with you. I've walked as far as the Jeu de Paume this morning, shaking off my late night at the theater and feeling, my dear, that I am after all not up to many late nights, since I always wake early; I would rather have been at your side yesterday evening, and perhaps tomorrow night I shall again be reading to you by your cheerful fire or saying nothing at all so that I can watch your thoughts. Do sit that way sometimes, when I cannot sit there with you.

Again, I wander. Walking to the Jeu de Paume, I saw a family of sparrows fed by an old gentleman who might have witnessed Napoleon's last charge and once looked very fine in a cocked hat. You will laugh at my innocent fantasies. Walking through the park, too, was a young priest (who in some other realm might have blessed us), kicking his gown impatiently ahead of him; he was in a hurry, that's certain. And I, who was not, sat down on a bench to dream for ten minutes, even in the cold, and you can perhaps guess some of my reflections. Please do not laugh at their wisfulness.

Now that I've come home, warmed up, and breakfasted, I must ready myself for a day of meetings and work, during which I will think of you incessantly and you will forget me entirely. But I'll have news for you by tomorrow, I hope, news that will please you, and at least one of my meetings concerns this news. It concerns also the new painting, my probable submission to this year's Salon. You will excuse my attempt at mystery! But I would like to talk with you about it, and it is of sufficient importance that I must beg you to come to the studio sometime tomorrow morning between ten and twelve, if you are free, on a matter of business--one of the utmost propriety, since Yves has urged me to seek your approval of the work. I have enclosed the address and a little map; you will find the street picturesque but not unpleasant.

Until then, I do kiss your slender hand with respect, and await a welcome scolding -- and acceptance of my invitation -- aimed at your devoted friend

O.V.