At the top of the slope, before the front entrance to the house, stood Elizabeth.
This was the monster Paul had described: an elegant woman, tall, slender, wearing slacks and a loose thin blouse, expensive clothes—I will determine that later, since now Sonya and I are approaching her from a distance—which she displayed perfectly. She might have been beautiful—I saw this as we came closer to her—had she not underplayed that aspect of herself. Subtle makeup—this became apparent when we reached her—seemed faintly drawn to emphasize high cheekbones, a face framed by dark hair. She is looking about the landscape, her head tilted quizzically, like a queen surveying new territory. Even the long shadow she casts before her asserts command, a woman sure of her imposing appearance, and entirely composed.
She is smiling.
This, then, was the reason for Paul’s reiteration of charges against her: He had known she was coming; he had alerted the gray ghosts, the gray couple; and he had, with all the vitriol he had enunciated against her, prepared the atmosphere for her arrival, spreading to all of us his welcome.
“She did come,” she said quietly, as if determined to be at ease. “Do you suppose the other wife will come?”
I shrugged, wondering the same.
Stanty’s voice called out, urgent, loud, untypical: “Father, Elizabeth is here.” His voice, remembered from the deadly night, made me turn away from its direction.
Smiling—preparing a smile—Sonya put on her hat. Steadily she lit a cigarette—unusual for her—from the pack abandoned by Paul. She inhaled, puffed out the smoke in one single plume, stubbed out the cigarette on her hand, like Paul—and she flipped it angrily away.
I readied myself to offer what I could to assuage her, whatever would occur. I put my arm about her waist. She touched my hand and smiled. “She’s going to love you, like I do.”
“I’m not concerned about her,” I said as we left the sundeck, “and I love you, too.” Declarations not of love but of allegiance.
Stanty was standing a distance away from the woman at the entrance to the house. The male of the gray couple was carrying a small suitcase; the female followed him into the house.
Paul is walking toward Elizabeth.
All assumed a kind of choreography about her.
I stand back to allow Sonya to go ahead.
The two women face each other—Sonya, boldly beautiful; and Elizabeth, in comparison, almost severe in her commanding presentation—both Paul’s women, Elizabeth perhaps now the woman she had become, not the one she had been.
“Sonya, I suppose,” Elizabeth greeted her.
“Elizabeth, I suppose.” Sonya’s tone was cool. The two women mimed a kiss, a touch, cheek to cheek, again on the other side, on Sonya’s part a formality, demanded.
Stanty walked up, close to Sonya.
Staring at the tall somber iron statues, which had been returned to the lawn, Elizabeth said to Paul, who had advanced to meet her with a light kiss, returned cursorily: “You acquired those, too; you always wanted them.”
“Yes,” he answered easily, “and I had them brought out to greet you.”
“A steely greeting,” she smiled. “Those two who brought me here in the boat—the woman in the village said they—”
Paul interrupted her. “I assume you’ve—”
She rejected his interruption: “—where did you find them?”
Stanty stood in his rigid position, like a sentinel, as if that would shelter him from whatever might unfold.
Paul, ignoring the pending question, resumed: “I assume you’ve been granted a brief sabbatical from Dr.—what is his name? You told me. Or is he a new one?”
She raised her hand before her, dismissing the question. “Paul, really,” she said.
I held back, not wanting to intrude on whatever further conversation they might reserve for each other.
By the time I did join them, they all stood in the large living room, like chess pieces anticipating a strategic move.
“This is John Rechy, the writer I wrote to you about,” Paul said to Elizabeth as he went about filling everyone’s glass—but not Stanty’s, not even the usual few drops—with the expensive wine that he preferred. He raised his glass in a vague salute.
Elizabeth—about Paul’s age, I determined—held out her hand to me, and I took it. I continued to marvel at the woman standing before me, not the mad jagged creature Paul had described.
She had just read what Paul had sent her by me, she told me. “I admire the intimacy of your work,” she said. Her cultured tone was natural, not strained, easy, inherited from her famous intellectual father and mother.
“Thank you.” I glanced at Paul, hoping to convey my astonishment at this unexpected presence.
“Paul sent me a copy of a story you wrote—’The Fabulous—’”
“‘—Wedding of Miss Destiny,’” I finished for her, to obviate her stumbling over my title.
She said: “When he told me he had invited you here, I read it, wondering what he had responded to so strongly, perhaps intimately.”
Just as I still wondered.
She continued, “I can see how Paul would be smitten by your writing. He is an expert pursuer of—perhaps I should call him a hound in pursuit of talent. I’ve often supposed he believes he can absorb it. Especially,” she added, “from attractive talent.”
“You make me sound like a vampire,” Paul laughed.
“You may be,” she said, smiling back. “But you’re also a sensational thief. Have you discovered that to be true, Sonya?”
“I have nothing to be stolen,” she said.
“You’re modest,” Elizabeth said. “Beauty is most easily exploited, with cunning.” She accused Paul: “Your description of her didn’t do her justice. She is even more beautiful than I expected. Will Corina be here?”
“Will she, Father?” Stanty asked.
“Do you want her to come?” Elizabeth asked him. Nothing in her tone indicated that she had been disturbed by Stanty’s query, or his tentative presence. He was untypically quiet, seeming confused, remaining close to Sonya.
Paul shrugged. “I believe Corina’s in Salzburg—I’m not sure. She never announces her visits; she comes when she wants.”
“It’s still her island?” Elizabeth said.
“Father!” Stanty reacted in anger. “It’s our island!”
“Of course it is,” Paul assured him. “Remember when we first came here?”
“Yes, yes!” Stanty said eagerly. “Island! Isl—”
“Dear Paul,” Elizabeth interrupted him. “Who are you trying to convince, and, more important, why? Have you finally acquired a sense of … oh, no, no, please not. Don’t lose your shamelessness, it’s a major part of your charm. You extorted the island from Corina, just as you did the statues—and what else? The paintings, and—a major feat, considering the wrath of her father. I’ve wondered how you made her your powerful ally throughout your fight for what I believe you call alimony.” She continued as Paul remained silent, “I believe the father wanted you removed from their lives entirely, to make you invisible. He approved anything that would send you away.”
To whom was this information being delivered, information that both of them knew? It had to be part of her purpose in being here, to inform. Whatever that purpose was, nothing about her indicated apprehension about her intent.
“Corina gave everything to me, all of it. She encouraged her father to agree,” Paul said calmly.
“She gave you everything.” Elizabeth smiled, shaking her head. “Including, of course, Stanty.”
I saw Sonya wince; she drew Stanty closer to her, as if to protect him from the harsh words.
“The island is mine and my father’s,” Stanty said.
“Of course it is,” Elizabeth said. Then to Paul: “She gave you everything you have, you charming—” She turned to face me and held up her glass as in a belated toast. “What is the word? Hustler?”
Directed at Paul, or at me? At both of us?
“Aren’t we all?” I said.
“Charming?” Elizabeth turned to me.
“No, hustlers.”
Elizabeth laughed easily. “Except for Stanty,” she added. “He’s still waiting to become—what will you become?”
“I—” Stanty looked at Sonya, he looked at Paul, as if for urgent help. “Father?” he transferred the question to him.
“A reflection of your father,” Elizabeth answered her own question. “That is what you will become.” She addressed Stanty in the eerily unchanged tone of easy banter.
Paul said to Stanty: “Nobody will determine who you will be.” The first note of anger, quickly suppressed.
“Except you, Father?”
Did he realize he had echoed Elizabeth? He looked at Sonya, he looked at Paul, as if he needed help. I had thought it impossible that I would ever feel sorry for him; the memory of what had occurred on the lake with him was implanted in my mind. For the first time he seemed lost. I rejected any feeling of compassion.
Sonya held on to Stanty’s hand, as if to claim him. What was she inferring about all this? How much did she know? Elizabeth was not here for a visit; she had arrived with scant luggage. The placid undercurrent that I had often detected was being disturbed, still barely perceptibly.
Paul had not responded to Elizabeth’s taunting words, flung at him in soft tones—and with cool smiles—as if in guaranteed agreement between them, a keen knowledge of each other’s tolerance for private insults. Yet Paul’s acquiescence in the polite, deadly exchange might be in anticipation of breaking all existing boundaries between them.
Paul joined Sonya, a slide toward her, away from Elizabeth. I was relieved. That might signal a lowering of the impatience he had begun to show her. He placed his arm about her waist: alliances forming, reinforced? Rigidly silent, Stanty seemed to be waiting.
All of us gathered here are waiting.