The Lords of Discipline (54 page)

Chapter Thirty three

T
he next week I paid the Bear. “Paying the Bear” was an underground term in the Corps of Cadets. Whenever the Colonel did a cadet a favor by circumventing the rules of the Blue Book, that cadet would receive demerits in a punishment order for acts he did not commit. It was a private matter between the cadet and the Bear, and no one else in the Commandant’s Department or the administration knew anything about it. It was an imperfect system of reparation and indemnity, but it was a secret and highly venerated law of the Corps. Because he covered for me when I missed the all-in check in the barracks, I had to pay the Bear. He restricted me to campus for a week and made me walk five tours on the second battalion quadrangle.

I tried to call Annie Kate at the hospital, but there was no one by that name among the maternity patients. For a week I tried to call Mrs. Gervais to tell her that I was restricted and could not go to see Annie Kate. No one answered the phone at the beach house or the house in town. I wrote four letters and received no replies to any of them. Each night, I waited in my room for someone to call me in the guardroom, but no one ever did.

It was seven days before I could leave the campus again. I drove out to Sullivan’s Island, but the house was locked up and deserted. I returned to the city and drove to their house South of Broad. I knocked at the front door and Annie Kate answered it. She looked surprised to see me.

“Hi,” I said. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

She was dressed in a sweater and skirt and looked perfectly lovely framed in the light by the door. I felt threatened that she was no longer pregnant and no longer needed me. I was shy before her beauty and her leanness.

“I’ve been busy packing and seeing some of my Charleston friends,” she answered.

“Don’t they think you’re in California?”

“I’m on spring break. Everyone knows that California colleges have their vacations at odd times.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said, noticing that she had not invited me inside.

“Now you do, Will,” she said coldly.

“I almost didn’t recognize you without your raincoat,” I said, trying to make a joke.

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” she said.

“How are you feeling?”

“Very well, thank you,” she answered politely. “How are you feeling?”

“My feet are a little sore. I was restricted for a while after that night. I had to walk tours,” I said.

“That’s what you get for going to a silly military school.”

“Yeh, I know.”

“What else is new?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I answered. “How about with you?”

“I’m going to California for real tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll be taking some courses this last quarter and an overload during the summer session to help catch up.”

“No kidding,” I said, trying to think of some way to knock down the terrible barriers that had sprung up between us. “Maybe I’ll get out that way this summer and come see you.”

“No, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

“Why? I’ve always wanted to see California,” I said.

“You can see California without seeing me.”

“It would be more fun with you,” I said.

“That’s just not a very good idea, Will. Maybe I’ll see you when I get back for Christmas next year.”

“That would really be nice, Annie Kate. What’s your address? I don’t know where I’ll be yet, but I’ll write you some letters and let you know what’s happening in the holy city!”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. Mother will tell me everything that’s important. Next year will be a very big year for me. It’s the start of my debutante season, you know. There will be hundreds of parties to attend before I’m presented at the St. Cecilia’s ball.”

“I’ll bet you look beautiful that night,” I said.

“I can assure you of that,” she said, studying her nails. “Maybe I’ll send you a picture.”

“Maybe you’ll need an escort,” I said.

“Oh, that will be taken care of, Will. They’ve been doing these things for hundreds of years. It’s the oldest, most prestigious ball in the country.”

“It’ll be something,” I agreed. “I’ve never seen a debutante ball.”

“Of course you haven’t. Well, Will, it’s been real nice seeing you again. I’ve got bunches of work to do before I leave tomorrow.”

“Would you like me to drive you to the airport? I get out of classes at noon and I can possibly work out a Charleston pass with the Bear.”

“Oh, no,” she said, “I’ve got someone who’ll be glad to drive me to the airport.”

“You’ve got at least two people.”

“That’s sweet, Will. But I’ve made all the arrangements.”

“Well,” I said, trying to smile and keep my voice steady, “I guess this is good-bye, Annie Kate.”

“Oh, I never, ever say good-bye. I detest farewells of any sort. They make me sad and make my skin break out.”

“I wouldn’t want to make your skin break out,” I said sarcastically.

“Don’t start your meanness now,” she scolded. “You’ve been very sweet today and I want to remember you as an angel. You were my friend when I really needed a friend. I don’t want to remember you with any negative feelings at all.”

“The stuff I said the other night about getting married, Annie Kate. I meant that. Every word of it. I would still like to marry you and I’ll be glad to wait for you to finish college or any time you like. I’m ready any time you are if you’re still interested.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said, touching my cheek. “But I think you should look for someone else, Will. Someone who could really appreciate your good qualities. You see, Will—and I don’t want this to hurt your feelings—but I’m erasing all those bad thoughts out of my mind this year. All of them. I’m never going to think about this year at all. I’m going to pretend that none of it ever happened. I’m going to erase every single bad memory from my mind. You’ve been very sweet, Will, but you’re a large part of the worst year of my life. When I see you, it reminds me of all that happened, of what I’ve been through.”

“Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, Annie Kate.”

“Don’t say that,” she said shrilly. “Don’t think it. Did you ever stop to think about me just once, Will? Can you imagine how humiliating the entire experience was for me? To get pregnant by a boy I loved from a fine family and have him tell me that he wouldn’t marry me and that he felt no love for me at all? Can you imagine hiding for six months, terrified that your friends might see you, that you might be discovered or ridiculed and talked about at dinner parties? Only six people in the world know about my year of shame. Five of them will never say a word about what happened, Will. They are all Old Charlestonians and I can trust them with my life.”

“But you’re not sure about the ol’ kid, huh, Annie Kate? You can’t be sure what I’ll say to my fat ugly wife when she’s hanging out clothes at the trailer park.”

“Don’t get ugly. There’s no need for that, Will. You must try to understand me. I can’t ever love someone like you. We’re too different. We want different things out of life. I want things that you can never give me. And you know too much about me that isn’t really me.”

“What are you talking about, Annie Kate?”

“I wasn’t myself this past year. I was someone different, someone sad and lonely. Someone pitiful and afraid. I could never love anyone who loved me this past year, Will. I just couldn’t. I don’t even respect you very much for wanting to marry someone who was pregnant with another man’s child.”

“Who is going to love you, Annie Kate? Who will be worthy? Because the fact is that whoever marries you will be falling in love with a woman who was pregnant with another man’s child at one time in her life.”

“No, he won’t, Will,” she said simply. “He’ll be marrying a virgin.”

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out, Will. In time, you’ll understand.”

“You won’t tell the guy?”

“He’ll never know. None of it ever happened. None of it. It was a terrible dream, but I’m awake now and everything is lovely again.”

“Yeh, it’s lovely.”

“It’s time for you to go, Will.”

“I guess so. Well, I’ll be seeing you around,” I said.

“Thanks so much for dropping over, Will,” she said, smiling at me and extending her hand. “It’s so sweet of you to think of me.”

I shook her hand and said, “I was in the neighborhood. Goodbye, Annie Kate.”

“Hush. I already told you that I simply do not believe in saying good-bye.”

“Hello, then. I hope you have a good life, Annie Kate. I really do. I’m sorry I’m not going to be a part of it. Let me hear from you. I’m sorry your baby died. I never got to tell you that.”

“There was no baby, Will. There was only a bad dream and so much you didn’t know or understand.”

“I’m sorry your bad dream died,” I said as I left her and walked toward the gate. “And I’m sorry I ever met you, Annie Kate.”

The door closed behind me.

Two weeks later, I received a package in the mail from Santa Barbara. It was the cricket box full of sand dollars. Most of them had broken in transit. There was no note and no return address.

Chapter Thirty four

O
n Palm Sunday, I received an invitation to tea from Colonel Edward T. Reynolds. I met him and his wife on the steps of St. Philip’s Church after the eleven o’clock service. Colonel Reynolds was easy to pick out of a crowd, and he made the other Anglican communicants look like an anemic, malnourished race indeed.

When he spotted me he said, “Remove thy carcass from the steps of the one true church, you papist swine.”

His wife smiled and said, “Good morning, Cadet McLean.” She was a small, delicately formed woman who weighed approximately as much as her husband’s legs. There was an alarmed, nervous flutter to her eyelashes whenever she spoke in his presence, and I could not imagine the form and content of their conversations with each other when they were alone. She was the only one who had ever referred to me as “Cadet McLean.” I had had tea at her house on several occasions and never once heard her express an idea of her own or disagree with one of Colonel Reynolds’s.

“My dear,” Colonel Reynolds said, turning respectfully to his wife, “while you are preparing tea, I would like your permission to take Mr. McLean on a brief stroll of the holy city.”

“Of course, dear,” she replied unhesitatingly, “but you and Cadet McLean will not be long?”

“Only long enough to digest that harmless drivel of a sermon we endured this morning.”

“See you in a little while, Mrs. Reynolds. I won’t let him play in any mud puddles,” I said.

She looked at me, then at her husband, and slowly it dawned on her that I had made a joke. Her lips formed a nervous, unnatural smile as she excused herself and walked toward their house on State Street.

When she was out of earshot, Colonel Reynolds, sensing my slight discomfort, said, “Strict formality is the only thing that can save a marriage, Mr. McLean. It is a fearful institution. Although, of course, I am fond of my own spouse, I am acutely aware of my own shortcomings and realize that I am a demon to contend with, regardless of how she cherishes her marital vows. But enough of that, I have some things to tell you.”

The azaleas were in full bloom and the gardens hummed with the gratitude of bees and the voices of lean, towheaded children playing spiritedly behind wrought-iron fences. We walked in the sunlight past the Dock Street Theater and the Huguenot Church, and it was like walking through the delicate pastels of a watercolor. The cold season had passed, and Charleston was celebrating the coming of spring with a thriftless, blazing eruption of flowers in its cemeteries and parks and gardens. The bells of St. Michael’s solemnly rang at fifteen-minute intervals, dividing the lives of all the privileged citizens within hearing, fragmenting the day and the season with sound—a gentler, more civilized, bugling. The houses we passed began to exude the aromas of Sunday dinner: mulled shrimp, fried chicken, fish poaching in wine and cream sauces. At one house, I caught the smell of paprika; at the next, a hint of curry escaped from an open window. We walked the city, slowly, inhaling and appreciating its marvelous profusion of smells. Turning on Broad Street we moved toward the river and the Battery, past Rainbow Row and St. Michael’s Alley. At first, we did not speak at all. The city had us, prisoners of its beauty and inertia. When we finally spoke, our voices seemed to violate the soundless scrimmage between the inaudible purr of the river and the green emergence of the gardens. No city could be more beautiful than Charleston during the brief reign of azaleas, no city on earth.

Colonel Reynolds walked as though his feet hurt, as though they had developed strategies to protest bearing the enormous weight they were not designed to carry. He carried himself with a strict absurd dignity; he was a heavy man who walked as though he was still a lean one, and he had the penetrating, confident eyes of one who seems to possess all that he sees. The sight of the Cooper River tranquilized him, as freighters navigated the channels, moving toward the sea lanes and away from azaleas.

“I have read too much history, Mr. McLean,” he said, moving past Vanderhorst Row. “And it has depressed me about my fellow man.”

“Why has it depressed you, sir?” I asked.

“Because the single theme of human existence is atrocity, sir. Even the most casual perusal of the subject would tell you that. Anything that man can do that will irreparably harm his fellow man, he will certainly do. I can close my eyes, Mr. McLean, close them this instant on this very pleasant walk, and my brain will come alive with horrendous, unspeakable images of heinous crimes men have performed against other men. Nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing shocks me. I have reached the point in my life when I am seized with an utter hopelessness about the human race. And you, sir,” he said, fixing his gaze on me, “how do you feel about the race that violates this lovely planet?”

“I like human beings all right, Colonel,” I said, “better than wart hogs or stingrays, anyway.”

“I assure you, cad, that you would receive far more justice and mercy from a wart hog than from one of the monstrous chimps who wears a black robe and sits in judgment against his fellow man. The God that created man in his own image, Mr. McLean, must be a vile, unconscionable being. Or he must be highly amused by depravity.”