Keeping Secrets (22 page)

I watched from Lyla's upstairs window as the van was loaded—her house was not far from Woody's. I caught my breath as I saw the enormous breakfront go trooping down the walk on the backs of two men. The other porcelain pieces had been removed. The books were still intact.

“I wonder how long it takes to go through and inventory all those things,” I said.

“Oh, that can go on for months,” Lyla replied. “When my grandfather died they were nearly a year appraising all his things and getting his estate settled. Wouldn't you hate to be the one to dig through all that old man's bric-a-brac? Must be tons of it.”

“Yes, quite a lot of work I suppose.…”

A few days later, while taking Scoop for his afternoon walk, I noticed Elissa chopping back the queen's-wreath vine, still blooming in all its glory. The bright-pink petals rustled at the chop of the hoe, then fell in one last flash of color and lay softly on the grass and walk.

I chatted with Elissa over the fence while Scoop sniffed around, trying to detect familiar odors through the fresh paint job on the house and fence. “I'm getting rid of this thing once and for all,” she said of the vine. “You can't walk down the sidewalk without getting tangled up in it or walking on the curb to keep from stepping on it. Besides, the place will look so much neater without it, don't you think?”

25

The porcelain vase that I took was one of many objects Woody had pointed out to me during the period of our friendship. Though I was certain before I chose it that the vase was one of considerable value in his collection, I realized all too soon that I was mistaken and had chosen instead a piece of lesser value.

As the third antique dealer I visited confirmed two earlier reports that it was worth only around twelve hundred dollars, I silently despaired of my unpracticed eye for rarity in art treasures. I should have known … should have remembered this as one Woody had compared with another long ago, and explained why this was less worthy of note because of the later period during which it was made, and the place.

It seemed I had no sooner mailed the proceeds to Mark than I found a scurrilous note about his receipt of the money, which included a warning that made the hair rise on my neck. “I gave you your chance to pay me off through one business deal a long time ago,” he said. “There are other deals that ain't so neat and clean as that, and I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm givin' you till the first of the year to pay me at least the rest of what you originally owed me, then we gonna do some talking face to face about another payment plan, one that I can personally oversee.”

I knew then I had to act immediately. I would have to attempt to borrow money—something I'd hoped never to do—and the only collateral I could offer was at this point in time questionable at best.

I telephoned Adolph Tetzel and explained that I needed to see him on a strictly confidential matter. He agreed to meet me for lunch the following day, at a place far from Emory's office.

I hardly slept all night. While Adolph's telephone voice was friendly and reassuring, I had a strong sense of foreboding about meeting him face to face. I went over and over my approach to him, like an actor studying lines for a play, and I tried too to look at the proposal from his standpoint, to consider what he might think but not say which would weigh in his decision. By the next morning I was sure I was prepared with every piece of information, every phrase which would convince him to make me a loan, without telling him the object I had in mind.

I was to be thankful for this forethought as the meeting took place and he seated me across from himself at a little corner table, because he proved to view my request with far more suspicion than I would have guessed, and, already nervous, I was soon muttering under my breath like a frightened servant.

I told him I had to meet some obligations that came about before I married Emory, and that I did not wish to burden him with them, that I knew everything about his dealings in Mexico, all about how involved he was, and I felt I couldn't add to his troubles now. I was trying to make Adolph understand that Emory considered my judgment sound enough to confide in me. He did not seem to interpret my meaning correctly, though. He seemed instead to suspect I was dealing behind Emory's back—his stern expression and probing questions about my life before I came here indicated this. While I was in a way betraying Emory, I was doing nothing that would bring him ultimate harm, and I couldn't figure why Adolph should be so wary of me.

He warned me I was dealing in “risky business,” and perhaps it was true that I was a bit naïve in my request. This was the first time in my life I ever had property of value to borrow against, and it did not help matters that the value could not yet be redeemed. Still I was desperate. Surely he could see that in my face. Even if he were laughing to himself behind that businesslike, inscrutable mask he wore as the meeting continued, he must have guessed that if I failed to come through with repayment of the money he could always take Emory aside without my knowledge and demand he make good the loan. The way he eagerly handed out money to Emory in amounts many times what I asked, his reluctance to associate himself with me or have any sympathy for my needs seemed quite odd.

In the end he refused to give me an answer. He said mine was a highly irregular request and he wasn't sure he'd be able to honor it. He mentioned something about “banking rules” and “loan committees,” but by that time I was hardly listening.

When we parted he said, “I'll let you know something soon,” and I felt then more disconsolate than I had felt since the day I sold the Mexican opals Emory had given me, and it seemed the pounding in my temples was like the ticking away of a clock as time ran out.

In the days that followed I tried to remain calm, and to concentrate on the fact that Tetzel had not given me an unequivocal “no.” I wrote to Mark that I was working on something which I was confident would bring enough to pay him the rest of what I owed, all in one payment, by sometime in January.

Except for this preoccupation, we had many good days and nights that fall which I always want to remember. Never since the beginning of our marriage nearly three years before had Emory been so attentive, or talked with me so openly. I soon realized more than ever what a strain we had both been under for the previous months as he began to laugh again over simple trifles and I stopped having to worry about his being so touchy should I say something on a sore subject.

Nathan was becoming more and more withdrawn, even though Emory wasn't bothering to taunt him over the growing possibility of national conscription, or in fact, bothering with him much at all. Now that pressures were off, Emory was pleasant to Nathan, at least whenever I was around. I thought I could foresee a happy ending to their story: eventually, conscription would touch Nathan, and when it happened, he would go off to service (I'd help to bolster his courage, myself), and prove to himself once and for all he was a bright, independent young man. While he was away, Emory would see how valuable an employee he had been, and upon his return, their association would change.

We went to many parties over the holidays, beginning with a small Halloween party at the Tetzels' home. Emory's pearl-gray Overland had arrived earlier that day and he insisted upon driving us to the party to show it off. I had never dreamed of riding around in such luxury—the seats were soft as bed pillows when compared to the cars I'd ridden in before, including the Cole Six. The automobile provided more privacy to passengers, too, which I found I liked, and I enjoyed watching Emory show it to guests arriving at the Tetzels. His demonstration included everything from the dome light to the tumble locks, and he proudly pointed out the silk curtains on the rear windows and heavy silk-cord rails on the back of the front seats. It gave me a special, warm feeling, seeing a man who had worked so hard and worried so much during his lifetime take joy over something his work had earned him. The immediate reason for the purchase of a new automobile had worked its way to the back of my mind by then. I really didn't believe he'd cause any further scars on our marriage to equal that night in September.

I'd half dreaded the Tetzel party; yet it turned out to be one I enjoyed most. I had not seen Adolph since our private lunch several weeks earlier and wasn't sure whether or not to approach him about the answer I anxiously awaited. To my surprise, he took me aside at the first convenient moment and assured me he was giving the matter consideration. Perhaps as desperate as I was, anything would have given me hope, but I thought I read a positive sign in his smile.

“Don't worry,” he added. “Let's enjoy ourselves, shall we?”

Everyone seemed to share his jovial mood. I met a woman who was having her portrait painted in miniature. The portrayal was being created on a piece of ivory, and would be made into a brooch and given to her mother as a Christmas gift. “When people grow as old as my mother, it is harder and harder to think of gifts they might enjoy,” she said. “At least this will be something no one else can give her. I don't know what I'll do when her birthday comes up in February.”

Immediately the idea crossed my mind of having one of myself painted for Emory, and framed on a small stand for his dresser. I wrote down the artist's name—Eleanor Onderdonk—and put it away in my handbag. Woody had mentioned knowing the girl's father—a famous Texas artist himself—so I had a feeling Miss Onderdonk might be very talented.

Closing my bag again I realized I had no money to pay for a portrait of myself, but at once I knew that was a foolish thought. Emory would pay the fee, as any husband would do for his wife when he was her sole support. I could see my problems over the previous months had taken a toll on my perspective.

I wonder if, when we are about to lose something dear to us, we instinctively take on a new awareness that will enrich the memory of it later. It seems to be so as I look back on the afternoon following the night of the Tetzel party that fall of 1916. I sat for a long while shelling pecans—my third season to take care of that time-consuming task—and as I worked I gradually began to perceive my surroundings differently, now and then pausing to gaze at the limb of an oak tree, its golden leaves brushing the window against the backdrop of a fine, chilly blue sky.

I was awakened to the nameless squeaks and groans of the old house, so long heard that they were hardly noticed by now, and, outside, the noise of a car trundling down the street, its horn honking above the shouts of a group of children using the pavement as their playground.

It struck me that these were the very things of which the permanence and continuity I had so long envied around me were made. I don't believe there has been another moment in my lifetime when I felt so content or fulfilled.

I wonder whether there ever will be again.

26

There was no reply to my letter to Mark promising payment in full, and in fact I never received another letter from New Orleans. The sudden discontinuance of his letters worried me all the more, so I began sending him reassuring notes every week or so.

Once Emory was on a train bound for Mexico in early January, I did not expect to hear from him again until he returned, probably without any notice, within a month or two. Knowing he would surely be busier than ever, I was prepared to depend upon the newspaper for reports from across the border, and upon the talk of people coming and going that I chanced to see. Yet within the first couple of weeks I had the beginning of many letters, which, though they were brief, proved at least I was on his mind a great deal.

The letters were always covered with so much postage there was room enough only for my name and address (as he explained, the amount of postage down there necessary to mail a letter was increasing faster than anyone could keep up with it, and he was never sure whether or not a letter sent to me would arrive). The messages were often from places I had not heard of before, located all over the interior of Mexico as proved by a check on the map, and were always completely devoid of any word which might betray his work down there. He told me only what I needed to know for piecing together the true conditions, and most of this vital information was between the lines. What surprised me was his thoughtfulness of keeping me apprised. Through most of our marriage, his doing so had seemed largely a matter of his own convenience.

Throughout January he wrote of all the laws and decrees being handed down by Carranza to make it rough on miners, and indeed all foreign investors. Later he alerted me that Barrista's circulars outlining his platform were being mysteriously pulled down around the villages almost as soon as they were posted, and his literature was being confiscated and burned by the
jefe
politicos.

Then came the final letter, which was so delayed in getting to me I had already read more than what it told me in the papers. Carranza's “delegates” had concluded their constitutional assembly, and the new constitution was ready for signatures. Presidential elections were set for March 10. Carranza was not to be opposed.

Emory would be home by the third week of February.

The next three weeks were the longest of my life.

Whereas before I had always looked to Woody or to Nathan to help me pass the long evenings during Emory's absences, now when I needed company the most, I had no one. I could have attended the last of the season's concerts at Beethoven Hall, but without Woody I had no interest in going.

Nathan rarely came in for supper. I presumed he was kept busy long hours at the office, poring over income tax figures. Just as well, I thought. Since Emory's wreck on the South Loop I hadn't felt comfortable with Nathan. Often I'd glance up to see him staring at me. At first I thought he was anxious about the wound on my temple, and perhaps he was. After a while however, I noticed his expression was somewhat transfixed, as though he were concentrating on me, yet placing me somewhere else. I never mentioned this to Emory because I was afraid the words would not come out sounding sensible. There was no telling how Emory would interpret them, and he might be inclined to jump on Nathan, all because of something which might turn out to be quite innocent. I certainly did not want to cause unnecessary trouble between them.