Leon Uris (46 page)

“I’ve looked at this a hundred times,” Zach said. “Is that where we were?”

“Yes, very good,” she answered.

“And is that little dot over there you?”

“Yes.”

It had been a very long time, close on two hours, since he had touched her and kissed her well. With one hand Zach managed a mug of tea. The other hand was filled with her breast. He set the cup aside, laid his head against her bosom, and she dropped her pen and unbuttoned her top buttons, let her dress slide down over her shoulders, and awarded him full access.

He was stricken with bliss and she enfolded him and they swayed ever so gently, for ever so long. Amanda opened her eyes. They were filling with mischief.

“I’ve got something to show you,” she whispered. “Light up a lamp.”

They went up to the loft, which served as an extra sleeping place and, more recently, as an adventurous bordello filled with wild things. A ladder lay on the floor, to a side. She told Zach to set it up by a trapdoor. He poked it hard and it swung open into a storage area.

Amanda went up and into the space with her lantern. In a few moments she handed him down three paintings covered with oilcloth.

Amanda dusted them and removed the covers. The paintings were in Willow’s blurry style, of three nudes. They could not be distinguished by face, but the body of the model was unmistakable.

. . . Amanda posing topless in the same grass where they had found the rail bird. And one of her stretched on her stomach drying her hair on Veda’s porch and one was the full front of a girl proud of her nakedness.

Back before the fireplace, he arrayed the pictures while she filled wine goblets.

“I’ve something to tell you, Zach.”

“Aye?”

“Willow was my first lover.”

She waited for his reaction. It was a smile.

“It’s not that hard to understand,” he said.

“I’d like to tell you, if . . .”

“Then, tell me.”

“Will and I turned sixteen. There was no boy, not in my circles, who I wanted to escort me on my debut. That’s when I ended up with that phony Scottish so-called aristocrat. There were some artist friends I couldn’t take, but no one in the old-boys’ crowd.

“I was not happy. My girlfriends were nailing down husbands as fast as their hammers could pound and I learned from them that first love could be foreign and frightening and cause a great deal of pain.

“That was the summer I had Private First Class Zachary O’Hara ordered by the commandant to attend a party at Inverness. And that was when you touched my breast in the garden and my life turned on that moment. I was livid when I realized I could not have you on demand. I’d never been challenged like that before or been walked away from. It was the wrong reason for falling in love with you and it took a long time to change into something decent.

“After her debutante ball, Willow was being courted seriously by Jefferson Templeton. We were going our separate ways. I demanded to be able to come to Nebo with her for a last summer.

“Willow was a fair artist, as you can see, and she began sketching me. A Jewish peddler, Jacob Nussbaum, made stops in Nebo. In his wagon he had pots and pans and old magazines and used eyeglasses and women’s undergarments and secondhand children’s shoes, mirrors, store candies. I loved those candies. His wife made them.

“That summer, his son, Morrie, drove the rounds with him. Can you believe Jacob’s son was an art student in Boston? He was scouring for scenery to paint. Willow saw it as a chance to get free art lessons. Jacob would double back through Nebo in a week or so. Willow talked Jacob into leaving Morrie with us. He slept upstairs in the loft.

“The two of them started sketching me and I felt like a queen. Well, Morrie assured me that all students drew nude models, and after all, there are naked women hanging all over the walls of the museums. I agreed to lower the top of my dress. Zach, it was the most thrilling sensation of my life, other than you. And to make the game fair, Willow did likewise.

“Anyhow, Morrie left me all his sketches and rode off with Jacob, pots clanging. They’re on a pad, tucked away at Inverness. Willow did these three of me during the rest of the summer.”

Amanda stopped, anxious now that it could jolt Zachary, wrongly. He wore a smile that said mischief is mischief.

“Should I finish or just leave it?” she asked.

“As you wish.”

“You’re not angry?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I want to keep no secrets.”

He leaned over and pecked her cheek.

“Willow and I had slept together since we were infants. This was the summer of our sad parting. As she painted me we grew very affectionate. We slept close and kissed and then she felt what she had painted and I did the same. We rubbed a lot and it was really good but we didn’t go inside each other. Willow wanted hers for Jefferson and she would not take mine. So, that’s my secret! I hope I haven’t hurt you terribly.”

“I love you more than I did an hour ago, if that’s possible.”

“Willow and I have not touched each other again. You’re not jealous at all?”

“Envious, a little bit. It seems pretty natural for the two of you, and if you hadn’t, maybe you’d have regretted it all your lives.”

“I guess men have those feelings as well. My dear brother, Upton—”

“Men care for each other and run around bare-assed with their nothings hanging out and talk sex and women all day, but that isn’t part of our world. However, I sure do understand Amanda and Willow.”

That night, the greatest, most impossible fried chicken and mashed potatoes and a round of hymns and a few sea chanteys and Marine songs rang out from Ned and Pearly’s.

And they found a new plateau of loving, a place of trust and truth.

As the truth made them happy, there was the first sounding of an outside world seeking them back.

Time can come and go like a bolt of lightning.

Time can be slowed to a lovers’ infinity.

But time cannot be stopped.

•
42
•

Ben seemed to age before his very own eyes. “Random Sixteen” was done. All the years of pondering and collecting were now writ with a wizard’s logic, ready to be tested, argued, revised, included, or discarded. This was secret for now; there were the keen hands of admirals helping guide it through the bureaucratic rapids.

The same young man who dared write the forbidden name of Japan was soon to take his men to the Amnesty Islands.

Ben could rest a bit; not too much. He had to remain on watch to protect Captain O’Hara’s flanks. Seeing it unfolding was what Ben lived for.

And Christ Almighty, only a year ago it was never going to happen. Zach took the material and made it sing and dance and show a fearless face.

What shithouse luck, Hillbilly Ben! He dozed in his great chair, contentedly, and didn’t try quite as hard to stop the old bones from
cracking. Sleeping in the daytime. Lord, what next? Ben wondered. Maybe he’d court a lady for a last fling before a last fling before a last fling. Who was available but a few itchy, out-of-bounds wives?

How about that music teacher, Miss Florence What’s-her-name? She was giving off some powerful looks across her piano, accompanying that violinist, What’s-his-name.

Ben dozed. Nice to doze without guilt.

A knock on his door had the authority of a silver knob at the end of a rich man’s cane.

“Come in!”

Horace Kerr entered and signaled Ben not to get up. He set down his top hat and cane and went directly to the liquor tray and poured himself a double.

“What are you doing up in Newport this cold-assed winter’s day?” Ben asked.

“I have this and that to take care of with my brothers at Tobermory. Drink?”

“No, thanks,” Ben said.

“I do not have to review,” Horace began, “how long we’ve known each other, etc., etc.” He stopped and seated himself. It was then Ben took note that Kerr had lost quite a bit of weight and sagged slightly on the left side of his face. Horace became misty-eyed.

“I want my daughter back,” he croaked.

Ben resettled himself without reply.

“Please understand, Ben, that I’m not here to bark. I’m seeking advice.”

“Then we’d have to leave the bullshit outside,” Ben said.

“Yes,” Horace answered, retreating.

“Is this visit out of love for Amanda or more commercial in nature?”

Into the rapids Horace Kerr went. “More from love than I believed possible. But there is always the gnawing matter of conti
nuity. You know about continuity, trying to keep your Corps alive.”

Ben indicated that an early drink might be in order. They tipped glasses. The room closed in as Ben probed for the precise words.

“Zach and Amanda are beyond all fear of us, Horace, and I do represent the Corps to him. The two of them, alone, are going to make their decision. You and I will have to abide.”

“I am prepared to compromise,” Horace said.

“They won’t be seeking a compromise nor issuing threats. They are going to do what they say they are going to do.”

“I feel like General Lee at Appomattox.” Horace knitted his brow. “This report or monograph or study, whatever, that O’Hara has done up here at the college seems to be gaining attention in Washington. All I know about it is that it is a thesis on future marine and naval warfare. Confidentially, Navy Secretary Culpeper and Commodore Harkleroad called me in. I’m laying the hull for the
Georgia,
sister ship to the
Vermont.
They want me to change the midship scheme to make a place for a forty-man Marine contingent. Ben, I’m not trying to bleed you for information, just putting two and two together.”

Ben smiled.

“You have the reputation of being untouchable, Ben. Now O’Hara’s name is floating around among the top brass as your protégé.”

Ben hid his face in his drink.

“You have Porter Langenfeld’s attention,” Horace said.

“High time.”

“This work. Is O’Hara some kind of genius?”

“No, he’s not a genius.”

“What is he?”

“Intelligent and organized, works beyond human capacity, finds his line of logic, and builds his case with clarity, but there’s more. He’s got the balls to walk into twelve-inch guns without backing down. If his name is on it, you are getting the truth.”

“And the truth?”

“Amphibious warfare, fought correctly, will require casualties, and that’s not in the American lexicon.”

“A twenty-four-year-old Marine captain who won’t bullshit. That’s a hell of a piece of personnel for the Corps. Don’t lose him. Where are you sending him?”

“Somewhere,” Ben answered.

“Committed mission?” Horace asked. “For how long?”

“Up to two years.”

“Wives?”

“No.”

Horace heaved a sigh.

“Does Amanda know?”

“Only that he’ll be gone for a long time.”

“What do you think they’re going to do, Ben?”

“I suppose their first rush of being together has settled in. Reality of the future has to be hovering around them.”

“They won’t try anything desperate, will they?” Horace asked.

“There’s a chance, Horace.”

They spoke now with great frankness of the unspoken things. As a Marine’s wife, Amanda would enter a life filled with loneliness and often fear, and at the expense of her own gifts.

As for Zachary O’Hara, no matter how he tried to split himself in half, both Amanda and the Corps would stand to lose.

Now Horace moved in on what his creative mind had worked up to.

“He’d make an extraordinary executive in industry. Isn’t that right, Ben?”

“You want your daughter back. I want my Marine.”

“But if we all agree, he should serve out this mission. Two years is not all that long to wait. He will be a great executive, and still a boy.”

“What about his tainted ancestry?” Ben asked.

“God willing, he’ll agree to a quiet conversion. There are lots of Presbyterians from Ulster with Irish names. O’Hara could well
be a Protestant. It will be a hard sell in the banking community and among my peers, but a sane answer to all this. There are bound to be some Catholics breaking through into the hierarchy soon.”