The Lone Pilgrim (10 page)

It seemed entirely natural to Martha to perch on the arm of William's chair. The cottage he had stayed in during the conference had had one big chair. Each evening William sat and read the paper. Martha perched on the arm of the chair and read over his shoulder. He looked the same now as he did then—a middle-sized, shaggy-haired, well-dressed man who looked at home in anything he sat in.

The chair he occupied had belonged to a great-aunt of Martha's husband, Robert Howard, who was in New York on business. William knew all about Robert. Martha had met him in London. He was an economist and at the time had been working for the Foreign Trade Commission. William knew what Robert looked like from the photograph on Martha's night table. He found it interesting, but sweet, to keep a photograph on your night table of the person lying beside you. He toured the apartment and saw the study Martha and Robert used, the bed they slept in. He sat in Robert's great-aunt's chair and went through the wedding photos.

William and Martha's parting six years ago at Heathrow Airport had been entirely silent. They had no idea if they would ever see each other again. Now, in the same room, they did nothing but talk, although less had changed in William's life. His oldest daughter was now thirteen. Martha knew what his family looked like from the photos he had carried in his wallet. He had a few new ones. His wife, Catherine, had let her hair grow, Martha could see, and she recognized the little girls she had seen the faces of so long ago.

But these things—Robert's great-aunt's chair, the photo on the night table, or the pictures in William's wallet—diminished beside the pure happiness of their reunion. She could not get over the sight of him. That she could close her eyes and then open them to find him made her almost dizzy. It was wonderful to hear his voice.

William had come to Boston to deliver a paper at the archeological society. His seeing Martha had been planned by letter. What could be left to say after all those years of letters? But the afternoon melted away. Martha got up to make William another drink. He caught her eye and smiled. He said: “You still have that old lavender sweater.”

She looked down. Had she had that sweater in England? It was newer than that, she thought. She did a rapid computation. He was right: it was the old lavender sweater he knew. William touched her elbow.

“I'm starving,” he said. “Didn't you tell me you were going to take me out and feed me?”

“I didn't forget,” Martha said.

“Then take me out of here and show me Boston like you promised,” said William. “I'm a hungry man.”

They had an early dinner. William was tired from his flight. He had gotten off the plane and come directly to Martha. She drove him into Cambridge where he was putting up with one of his former students. They arranged that Martha should come and pick him up the next afternoon which they would spend together. Then William would deliver his paper and go home. William knew her schedule: she had stopped teaching in order to finish her dissertation, but she worked in the morning, and William was committed to spending the morning with his host.

It began to snow again as Martha drove home. As soon as she got in, Robert called from New York. Later that night, William called.

“I don't want you just to pick me up tomorrow,” he said. “I've got this place to myself and I want to spend some time with you on neutral ground.”

She knew exactly what he meant. What could she do? She went.

The room she entered the next day contained nothing she had ever seen before—a stranger's room. This neutral ground contained two utilitarian bookshelves, a plain desk, a couch, a hard chair. Off the living room, a kitchen with a hardwood counter, and a wrought iron stand that held mugs. Down the hallway, a bedroom. A bed with blue and white striped sheets. A pair of slippers—too large to be William's—underneath the bed.

“What do you think?” said William.

“It shows a lot of decorative flair,” said Martha. “Who lives here?”

“Did I ever write you about that student of mine who thinks you can predict sites by computer? Well, it's him. He's got himself a big grant to go to Sumatra this summer.”

“That's nice,” said Martha. “A few feathers and some native baskets would do wonders for this place.”

William watched as she began to pace—a sight he was familiar with. The first time Martha had come to see him in his rented cottage she had paced for half an hour.

He said: “Martha, come sit down.”

She sat, not next to him on the couch, but on the straight-backed chair.

“I couldn't have spent another minute in your living room,” he said. “You understand that, don't you? In Robert's great-aunt's chair.”

“Did I say it was his great-aunt's chair?” said Martha. “I don't remember.”

“You said lots of things yesterday,” William said. “You sat on the arm of the chair and gibbered.”

“I did
not
gibber.”

“You did so. We both did. We had a lot to gibber about. But now we've caught up. I have this one afternoon and that's all.”

Martha sat still in her chair. She knew she was being looked at intently. She looked as she had looked in England: her hair in one thick plait, her tweed skirt and a heather sweater.

“Everything's changed, though,” she said. “Hasn't it?”

“Not for me,” said William. “Not after all these years.”

“I'm married,” Martha said. “I love Robert.”

“Well, well,” said William. “Married, are you? How interesting. And what does your husband do for a living?”

“Don't be cross with me,” said Martha. “Don't tease.”

“I think you mean to say that you love me as you love a friend and that any small glimmer of desire you may have had for me is dead. Is that right?”

“No,” said Martha. “I just don't know what I'm doing.”

“I see,” said William. “You mean that I'm an old hardboiled sinner seeing as how you were a pure young thing and I was an old married wreck when first we met.”

“But I wasn't married then,” said Martha. She put her head in her hands. Tears spurted from her eyes. What the sight of William caused in her had nothing to do with the life she was living. In her life she was a happily married woman. She loved Robert: she adored him. She loved the way their apartment looked. She liked the friends they entertained, the trips they took, the time they spent together. But her desire for William had hardly died down. The past was a tunnel—a long, dark tunnel you strolled down on your own. Whatever had been between them was not past.

It did not occur to her to hide the truth from William. It would have been perfectly acceptable for her to stand up, smooth down her skirt, and make an exit speech, making sure to twist her wedding ring nervously as she did so. Yes, she could have said, it is just friendship between us now, and if you cannot accept that I must leave.

She knew the rules: if you slept with a man—not your husband—that was adultery, and that was what she and William were negotiating. But this was between her and William. William had some prior claim. She had loved him before she had met Robert, and she believed that without William she might not have known that any happiness could be hers. He had lifted some cloud from around her, and she was grateful to him. After this afternoon with him, she might not see him again for years. She might never see him again at all. What did that have to do with her life with Robert?

“So you're a properly married woman now,” William said. “And I'm about to suffer for it.”

“Don't tease me, William,” said Martha. “I do love you. You know I do.” She began to cry again, but William made no move to console her.

“Look here,” said William. “It's very simple. We still love each other. We deserve each other. We're both married and we're both happily married. There's still a lot between us, and it's nobody's business but ours. Someone is going to get cheated on—you or me or Robert or Catherine.”

It was, in fact, just that simple. There was plenty of room on the couch. One move and there she would be. She would have the opportunity to remember that she loved the way William smelled. She knew how easy it would be—something you could slide right into. It would take a series of warm, drowsy motions to get them off the couch, down the hallway, and between those blue and white striped sheets. And hadn't some ultimate betrayal already taken place? What was the difference between sleeping with your old lover and admitting that you loved him, or of feeling such happiness in his presence, or of weeping in front of him in a stranger's house—a place you might pass hundreds of times with your husband who would never know that you had any connection to the place at all?

“I'd never press you,” said William. He got up to make himself a drink, pushing the table out of his way. That abrupt shove let her know how angry he was.

She sat very still in the hard, straight-backed chair. The sky was clouding up, she could see. What sun there was filtered through the stranger's curtained windows. It would eventually rain or snow. Everything in the room looked silvery.

When William came back with his drink, Martha stood up. She had been sitting so rigidly that her knees hurt.

“Are you finally going to pounce on me?” William said. “Or are you leaving? Or are you going to pace around some more?”

“I was going to pace,” said Martha. “But now I'm going to make a cup of tea and play for time.”

One more moment in that insufficiently lit room and it was all over, she knew. What she really wanted was to get drunk. She wished it might begin to blizzard and shut them in together—anything that might coerce her besides her feelings. She filled the stranger's kettle—a kettle that looked as if it had never been used—and brewed herself a cup of tea in a white mug.

The occupant of this apartment was beginning to make himself known. He had chosen a low couch that was hard to get up from if you were bulky or long-legged. It was covered in some briary tweed that would prickle in summer. The living room rug was made of braided fiber and looked hostile to the naked foot. There was no dust or clutter anywhere. Every surface looked immaculate and resistant. On the kitchen windowsill were three plants—the tough spiky sort you can leave for several weeks without watering. The papers on the desk were neatly stacked. This was the encampment of a well-directed boy who had his hair cut often, who wore a wool tie, who scraped his face when he shaved, and who thought an apartment was a place to work and sleep.

While the tea steeped, Martha imagined herself in William's position, visiting him in San Francisco, on his turf. Would she be happy to be included into his family circle? She imagined herself sitting in his living room. She leaned over the stranger's counter and wondered what sort of conversation she might have with Catherine Sutherland. She let herself imagine William's house—a black stone fireplace, a window seat on the first floor landing where she might see ballet slippers, hockey sticks, schoolbooks. She imagined herself being given a tour of the house and standing at the threshold of the master bedroom.

The barrenness of the kitchen she was standing in made Martha reflect on the richness of domestic artifact. What a good shield a house is, emblazoned everywhere with the message that shared, daily life was lived within, something she and William would never know anything about. She would never, for example, cook William a meal. They would never have what must be love's greatest luxury: time. They would never own anything in common or travel together. Now that Martha was married, their few dealings were going to be entirely furtive.

Whatever she was going to do was going to be wrong. William was right: someone was going to get cheated on.

But William predated her marriage. He had led her out of the darkness and into the light. Once in the light, with William gone, she had met Robert. She had liked him at once. He was tall and rugged and he seemed rather fearless in his dealings with others. He had been a Boy Scout and had never gotten over it: he was genuinely kind and good. Furthermore, he was serious. He fell in love with Martha and wanted to marry her. He was interested in beginning his adult life, and Martha answered something within him.

They were an excellent match. They loved to travel. They liked to prowl around cities late at night. They liked to go to bed early and get up an hour before dawn in order to have a place all to themselves. Once married and settled in Boston, they found that their inclinations meshed. Their household was a perfect amalgamation of the two of them. The life she lived with Robert was real life to her.

Her tea was ready. She carried it to the living room where William was waiting. At the sight of him, her heart turned over. He looked mournful and expectant. For a moment they were simply lovers with a past between them.

It seemed to her the first real moment of her marriage—not her marriage to Robert, but her sense of herself as a married person. She felt exactly divided between the woman she was now and the woman she had been. The world in which she had been William's lover and would be again, the place from which her letters to him were written and his to her were kept—the place in which she now stood was only hers.

William had put on a light. It lit up Martha's face—that grave face he knew so well. What he called her fierce Quaker look was gone. She looked only serious and considering. He stood up and took her hand. She was sure that she was trembling. They walked down the hallway to the stranger's bedroom. At the doorway, William kissed her. She kissed him back, but it would have been more appropriate, she thought, to shake his hand to signify the formality, the seriousness of the occasion.

Travel

My husband learned to love flying in the army. He was sent to Vietnam, and flew over the delta with a buddy. After his hitch, he returned unharmed, but not to me. He was married to someone else at the time, and found on his return that his wife didn't want him anymore. Of this he says, “I created widows during the war, and the war made a widow out of me.”