White Moon Black Sea (16 page)

“Why does everyone but me have a clearer vision of who I am and what I am, my strengths and my weaknesses? Why am I so slow to understand and to act upon my feelings?”

“Because you are too modest about the power of your personality. You’re not vain enough about your beauty, or greedy enough to want everything on your terms. Because being one of the wealthiest, most powerful women in the world, a wife, and now almost a mother is still new to you. You are still living in the first forty years of your skin, which we know nothing about and cannot possibly understand. But Deena can, having known you for so long.”

“Nice of you to put it that way, Brindley. No wonder I make no big decisions without my lawyer! I had no idea you offered a guidance-in-pregnancy service! Thanks for asking Deena to come.”

He smiled and inwardly gave a sigh of relief. She would do the right thing for all concerned, he was sure of that
now. A gust of warm wind blew up, and he looked up at the sky. The weather was changing yet again.

Deena reappeared, dressed in white cotton duck trousers with cuffs, a halter top of white cotton that barely covered her breasts and left a bare midriff, and over her shoulders a nubbly cotton-knit cardigan. She gazed skyward with her husband and said, “Would you believe, I’ve forgotten my bathing suit? All this shopping and I forget the one thing I need. Just typical. Well, I’ll just have to wear one of yours, Mirr.”

Brindley went to her and took her in his arms and kissed her, saying, “Let’s wait until lunch to open the presents. I’d like to get a little fishing in, and it won’t be long. Look, Moses is lighting the bonfire.” Before she could object, he was on his way to join the other men. She sighed and nodded assent. As she sat down again in the wooden deck chair and swung her legs up on the footrest, she said to Mirella, “Isn’t it a miracle that with all the shmuks I dated and suffered in my life — the pseudos, the suaves, the Jewish doctors, dentists, and lawyers, the goy boys and the ganefs — that I should end up with someone as special as Brindley? I am not going to analyze it, but I sure would like to know what it was that I did right to deserve him and so much happiness.”

She watched her husband pick up a rod and cast it into the waves, then turned her gaze back to Mirella. “It’s different for you, Mirella. You and Brindley, Rashid and Adam for that matter, were all born to privileged lives. It’s a lot different from working for a privileged life. You somehow never quite get rid of the callouses on your hands from climbing those rungs. I wonder if I will ever stop being grateful for being me, knowing you, and having married Brindley. It turns out that English bitch was right: ‘It’s all in the bloodline.’”

“Bloodline and luck,” added Mirella. “Those two things are on my mind all the time these days. The luck of having Adam for a husband and Rashid for a lover, a devoted Moses, about whom, by the way, you and I must have a talk, and Brindley, the greatest piece of luck I have ever had. Without his diligence in finding the rightful heiress to
the Oujie legacy, none of us would be together or where we are now.

“Deena, you are my oldest friend and know me better than anyone. Surely you must see the character change in me. It troubles me less and less with every shackle of middle-class morality I shed. The more I live in this
ménage à trois
with Rashid and Adam and delve into the archives of my ancestors, the more I become rooted in an unconventional marriage and family clan and take on the responsibilities of the Oujie legacy, the more I am aware of nurturing my own independence and individuality. And I feel the need for my own space and time, my freedom, as well.

“Right from the beginning I understood that need in both Rashid and Adam, but until now never really appreciated them. I am never hurt or feel abandoned when Adam goes off alone on a dig, or to his tent on the banks of the Euphrates, or on a safari. It never crosses my mind to be concerned if he has another woman, or what he does. Every day of my married life he has been in contact with me one way or another. So has Rashid. And I share with both of them whatever part of their lives they choose to offer. Life without their love and devotion is unthinkable to me. Yet something in me holds back from becoming dependent on them. I find myself becoming more like my great-grandmother. There’s the bloodline in my case. It’s powerful, holding my lovers through sex and through some strange power inside me, some charisma I don’t fully know about — and I’m not only enjoying it but cultivating it with every breath I take.”

“And love,” added Deena.

“Yes, and, of course, love. Having a baby has not interrupted my erotic life with either my husband or my lover. If anything now, my appetite for sex is insatiable. My pleasure in any sort of sexual act has increased tenfold. To being a kind of erotic madness. It worried me at first, this deriving so much bliss from such sensual instincts. It made me think of Humayun, whose entire life is controlled by sexual ecstasy. All sorts of questions preyed on my mind. Would I get to be enslaved by sex and my husband
and lover as she is by Rashid? Was I risking making one instinct in myself the whole human being? My unborn child: What effect might the love, and so much lust, have upon a living but unborn person? And Adam and Rashid? I am aware of what I am doing to them, binding them closer to me than ever before. My pregnancy not stifling my lust for them has acted like an aphrodisiac. I am closer to each of them than I ever dreamed it was possible to be with another human being. In spite of Rashid’s treachery, and his erotic life away from me, the love spiced with lust that we share is stronger than ever.

“They were right to call you. I guess that’s love taking care of its own. I have a great need to blurt all this out to someone, and it could only have been you. Never one of them. The basis of our
ménage à trois
is that I never discuss one of the men with the other. Or the fact that we are even living in such an arrangement. And I know the men never allude to it with each other either.

“How can I possibly tell Adam that it’s better if he’s not with me while I am giving birth to our baby, without explaining why? And how can I possibly explain? I know it was not Rashid’s seed at the time I conceived. But Rashid’s extraordinary sexual prowess with me all during my pregnancy has involved him intimately with my unborn infant. That child has become a part of Rashid’s and my erotic life. Rashid has felt that child grow in me just as much as Adam has. He believes he has a certain right to share in the birth of this child. And, God forgive me, though I find it out of the question, so do I.”

Mirella was aware of the blush of embarrassment that had come into Deena’s face. “Oh God, does this shock you?” she asked, suddenly sensing a rawness in what she was saying.

“Sort of. But probably more by your courage and passion than anything else.”

“Courage and passion.” Mirella repeated the words and pondered them for a few moments. The women remained silent and watched the men standing in the wet sand, the waves rolling over their feet as they cast their lines into the surf.

Deena broke the silence. “What are you going to do, Mirella?”

“Not what I want to do, but what I have to do. I will send them both away until after the birth of my baby. If I don’t, I may wreck what I have with them. And I have no intention of doing that. I didn’t see it before, but I see it clearly now. I find being pregnant a physically unpleasant experience. The act of giving birth is an ugly business. Not to mention painful. It’ll be hard work and disgustingly embarrassing. The very idea of losing control of my bodily functions, the mess of the breaking of the bag of waters, the expelling the afterbirth, the puffing and the screaming, the sweating and pushing. That is not something I want to share with Adam or Rashid. How can that add to the beauty and erotic love we feel? I turned them on to how erotic it can be fucking and making love to a pregnant woman. I managed to use my desire for sex and the state of sexual ecstasy to block out all the negative feelings I have for my condition. That’s it, Deena. There is no more for them, except to see the miracle of what love and erotic passion can produce. The miracle of birth is for me. The miracle of a baby is for them to see and touch and love when I bring it to them. It’s my privilege to have my baby the way I want to. And I intend to have it without exposing my agony to those I love.

“I almost fell for the propaganda of the wonders of childbirth, the miracle that the fathers should be able to share in. That may be good for some, but not for me. This is a job I will do the way I feel is right for all of us. It’s my body and my baby and my choice. And I hope you will wait it out with me.”

The manifesto had jerked tears from her eyes as she struggled from the deck chair. Deena jumped up and helped her, and then took Mirella in her arms and hugged her, comforting her.

“Of course I will stay,” Deena said. “That’s what I’ve come for, what the men want, what we all want. And, just for the record, I couldn’t agree more with you about not wanting my man around through all the mess. They will understand. And tough if they don’t! If they’re so eager to
be involved with birth they should have arranged to be women. And, let me tell you, if men instead of women could have babies, you would see how fast the world population explosion would fizzle out. Fizzle out? Christ, we would be lucky to see children on earth at all. It’s bad enough when they cut a finger, catch a cold. Ah, those delicate creatures who like to make war in between bouts of hypochondria.” In the distance, the men skipped backward from the incoming chill of the water.

Mirella was both laughing and crying at the same time; she was so relieved. Deena watched her and at first was concerned, but Mirella’s laughter was infectious. She caught it and began to laugh and shed a few tears in sympathy, understanding very well the emotional burden her friend had been carrying for too long: Having a baby at the age of forty, living outside the confines of convention, trying to integrate lust with her life.

They linked arms and started walking toward the bonfire where Moses was preparing food. He had built it on the beach close to one of the higher sand dunes which gave it a little shelter from the wind. The sun switched off once more. A chill wind with saltwater spray riding on it blew in from the ocean and across the beach. The weather was overcast. But any beach lovers like Mirella and Deena knew that it would not rain, and the day on the sand was far from ruined. It was just another one of those Long Island late-summer beach days, when you could still get a burn, even though it was a half-sun, half-wind burn, still take a swim and catch a beach cold.

Moses picked up a plaid blanket and a megaphone from one of the canvas and wood director’s chairs placed near the fire. He wrapped the blanket around Mirella, saying, “Just till the wind dies down.” He handed Deena the old-fashioned megaphone. “You just had to have been a cheerleader, Miss Deena. So how about cheering those Isaac Waltons over here for lunch, please?”

The two women looked at each other and wiped the tears from their eyes and burst into a grin. Moses couldn’t help smiling as Deena leapt into the air, arms outstretched waving the megaphone, which she could barely manage
because of its size and weight, then landed on her bare feet in the sand. She struck another one of her poses and shouted through the mouthpiece.

“Right again, Moses. You have here Vassar’s first Jewish princess cheerleader. Chicadee-boom-boom. And there are not many colleges that can boast of having had one of them. Rah, rah, rah.” Then she dropped the megaphone and doubled over with laughter.

Moses watched the two women whom he was so fond of quickly changing from beautiful sophisticated ladies into silly, giddy preppies. And it felt okay. Deena picked the megaphone up again and, hand on hip, back arched, breasts sticking out and pointing to the heavens, head thrown back, she began her knee-high strut while she shouted to a singsong beat through it.

“One, two, three, four. Who are we rooting for? America, America, rah, rah, rah. Remember the Rosenbergs. And don’t forget Hiroshima. Senator McCarthy was a facist fag, a vicious fascist fag. Vote for a free and honorable America. Vote democratic. One, two, three, four. Who are we —”

She fought against more laughter and lost, lowering the megaphone and collapsing on her knees next to Mirella, who was leaning against Moses. Both were lost in hilarious surprise at Deena’s performance. Struggling to stand, she settled for resting the megaphone on one bent knee and shouted though it.

“You also have here, Vassar’s last Jewish princess cheerleader. Straight A’s, valedictorian of my class, and I flunked cheerleading. That bastard McCarthy had a lot to answer for. Give me a
V
. Give me an
A
. Give me an S. And an S. Give me —” she fell back and sat down hard on her bottom in the sand.

When she looked up it was to the sound of Rashid, Adam, Brindley, Moses, and Mirella clapping. She smiled, and after Brindley helped her up and took her lovingly in his arms and kissed her, they all flattered her performance.

“If I was so wonderful,” Deena said, “then why did the Rosenbergs die in the electric chair? And why did McCarthyism go on for so long and damage so many lives? And
why have we been stuck with some schmucky Republican presidents. And why did one of the best women’s colleges in the world bust my cheerleader dreams over a little slip of the tongue in a sports arena?”

These gripes, all muddled together, made them laugh again, and even she had to smile. Only Brindley responded to the undertone of self-disappointment in her voice. “So you could grow up, and marry me, and take on Lyttleton Park as lady of the manor, and reorganize the village fetes, and put a colonial spark into the English social season. So you could take on London, Gloucestershire, England. And the world. And spruce them up a little with your charm, wit, intelligence, and beauty.”

“Then you don’t mind that I’m a failed cheerleader? Or an ineffectual liberal democrat, whose success in that common
trade
— as you English term business — of public relations has turned me into a wealthy closet republican who still votes democrat?”