MOVING EAST FROM THE border country toward the populated areas, past the dying, wornout towns and homesteads and abandoned silver mines, the colors do not change so much as the topography, the mountains on either side and the dead places in between becoming a graying sameness of routine foothills and feeble, half-verdant river valleys. The newborn and ephemeral mountain streams feed down into these low sections from time to time, suggesting a better season for next summer, spring or fall, but never quite fulfilling the promise. It is an ersatz Eden, a mere accommodation to what lies farther east, but it is life all the same, even in its atmosphere of half-death, and the very lack of long, lush summers has produced a fierce people from the grim-faced German farmers who settled here a hundred merciless summers before. Game does not abound as it subsists, and the dwarfed liveoaks continue to push their roots into the blistered hillsides just as the patient farmer-ranchers stay on to make their living off the land.
Arthur Fenstemaker was not one of them, but they were proud to claim him as a neighbor. It was here where he was born and grown to manhood. He had not stayed on, but he had done the next best thing. He had come back.
He had come back with such luster and flamboyance that he was very nearly left bankrupt by the gesture, but it remained a monument to him nonetheless. From the earnings of his first oil strike he had returned to claim the few acres that were his family’s, expanding these holdings and constructing on the land a replica of an ancient Federalist mansion which had been a subject of fascination for him during a brief invasion of the Virginia horse country some years before. It was a truculent, appalling structure, huge and gloomy against the bald landscapes, complete with outbuildings, brick stables, slave quarters, stone fences, and an antique Federalist Eagle that frowned toward the distant hills from atop the main gable. Then Arthur Fenstemaker assumed his dream of infinite magnificence, retiring to his country place after his second big strike, at thirty years of age, bent on becoming a public figure esteemed for his good works (which were eventually many) and his dedication to the liberal ideal. That he had been successful, realizing the full measure of his ambition, was manifest in his present eminence; his election to the governorship had seemed the consummation of all that was right and exalted in man, as inevitable as the triumph of good over bad in some Western epic from the films.
Now his guests wandered through the lush gardens, down the promenade festooned with lengths of flowering shrubs and paper lanterns, past the brick terraces and the outdoor tables brought in for the party, lingering beside the imitation marble swimming pool. They seemed unwilling for the moment to give all this up for the brooding interior of the country house.
“The grounds are gorgeous, Arthur,” Shavers said to the Governor.
“It’ll be a wonderful party,” Vicki said, “it’ll be a marvelous party out here in the garden and all around. What kind of people are coming?”
“Nice people,” the Governor said. “Gay and enchanting and extraordinary people, all of them, all come to see you Miss Vicki. It should be an interesting party.”
“All come to see me?”
“The center of attention, the principal attraction … I wish Mrs. Fenstemaker were here to show you the place. She enjoys showing people around for the first time.”
“She’ll be here for the party?”
“Oh yes.”
“And Hoot Gibson? I’m mad about Hoot Gibson …”
“Sooner even. Tonight or in the morning. He’s bringing in some papers for me to sign.”
They moved back toward the house, beneath the flowering trees. Vicki walked arm and arm between Shavers and the Governor. Sarah, Jay and Greg Calhoun remained beside the pool for a few minutes before joining the others. The little girl lay asleep in one of the upstairs rooms. Sarah looked at Greg and said: “What do you think of it? All of it.”
“I’m disappointed actually. I’d rather hoped for a portcullis or at least a moat … Try to imagine one right over …”
They strolled on toward the house. “Mine will definitely have a moat …”
“Yours?” Jay said.
“Yes. I’ll go back and build one on the desert, a cheap imitation of the Governor’s, doing him one better. Mine will be an imitation of the Governor’s which was an imitation of one he saw in Virginia which was possibly a mutation of something someone saw in Europe or possibly out of Walter Scott’s books, both of which were probably imitations. This is all very sad. Am I making you people sad?”
“Oh yes,” Sarah said gaily.
“Good.”
Jay moved ahead of them, quickening his step on a signal from the Governor.
“I’m really feeling much better,” Sarah said to Greg.
“Why is that?”
“Away from the desert and those terrible trailers.”
“I thought it was Vicki who intimidated you out there.”
“How did you know? I mean — Well she’s still with us, but I’m feeling better. It was the trailers, I think, the whole place, confining the spirit.”
“It never seemed to confine Vicki’s, did it?”
“Perhaps she’s just irrepressible, is that it? That’s being nice … I’m looking forward to the party. Like Vicki, I can’t wait until the party begins.”
“Will there be any women? I mean enough women.” The others were far ahead of them now, past the entrance to the house and beyond, standing in the graveled driveway.
“Lots of women. All sorts of women. Women and girls, sisters and mothers and daughters and just all kinds.”
“I like all kinds. That’s the kind I like best.”
“Oh … Oh … Steel yourself.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The organized activities are about to get underway …”
A stripped-down Army command car had appeared from behind the house. Jay steered it out of the driveway and pulled up next to the others. The Governor turned and motioned for Sarah and Greg.
“Organized activities?” Greg said to her.
“Yes. First you’ll take a long ride across the ranch. He’ll show you the cattle and horses and irrigated farmland and maybe even the old fish hatchery. Then you’ll come back and take a swim or play shuffleboard or badminton and then you’ll go in for drinks before dinner and afterwards he’ll insist you try the brandy and then there’ll be some more drinking and then a hell of an awful long walk out into the woods and back again and by then …”
“That’s enough,” Greg said, raising his hand. “Couldn’t we just take a ride on that vibrator, instead, just you and me?”
“It’s too late,” Sarah said. “Here they come … And I just remember I’ve got some work to do. Besides, I’ve been on this tour.” She waved at the others and left Greg Calhoun standing there; she walked quickly toward the back of the house.
Inside, the place smelled of damp stone and stale air, reminiscent of something from her childhood, she could not remember, not entirely, searching for pillbugs possibly, in the cool dark earth beneath the front steps of her home. Lying under the steps, herself against the ground, Chinamen underneath if you dig deep enough, watching the dust motes rise and fall, searching for pillbugs and doodlebugs and dirtdobbers’ nests, I found one here, watch out for snakes and scorpions, I found one, too, right here, right where? Right here. No go away no I don’t want to see you no and you haven’t been circum — No I haven’t one and no yes maybe yes I want to feel yes, someday I’ll have breasts and you won’t and maybe you can feel.
The servants had arrived from town early, and now they moved quietly through the big rooms, dusting the furnishings, mopping the insides of ashtrays. From the kitchen she could smell the steaks cooking. Up the carpeted stairway, past the enormous tapestries, she paused finally at the entrance to the bedroom where the little girl lay sleeping. Victoria Anne’s eyes fluttered and she looked up in heavy-lidded pleasure.
“Hello Sarah.” She smiled and closed her eyes and opened them again. “Where are all the others?”
“Out for a ride. Jay and I will take you for a ride later. All right?”
“Yes …”
“Have you ever hunted for pillbugs, Annie?”
“Pillbugs … What’s a —”
“Never mind, sweetheart. Finish your nap and we’ll take a ride or go for a swim when you wake up.”
“All right.”
She smoothed the covers on the bed and left the room quietly. In the privacy of her own bedroom she unpacked her bags and then lay down and closed her eyes. She thought of Jay next to her; not grabbing or feeling but next to her, not breathing or talking but just the two of them in love together, next to one another, each to each, all others excluded. Would there ever be such a time, such a place, and could there ever be beauty and ease and grace? How did it go? How did the phrase go? Convention and tradition work blindly for the preservation of the normal type and for the extinction of … Well who were the normal types? Extinction of … Extinction of … Where was beauty and grace? Where was it? She had asked Arthur Fenstemaker just the week before, on an evening following that business in Jay’s apartment; where was it, she asked him; would there ever be beauty and ease and grace?
My dear, he began, and hesitated, and she half expected some dumb German farmer lecture on sweat and toil and sorrow. Sweetheart, he began, and hesitated, moving toward his window, looking out, his back to her, over the darkened Capitol grounds. You have to look for it, he said finally, you have to look for it. Look out here, he said, pointing toward the trees and beneath them, an old Negro woman bent in ancient pain, standing alone and calling to the birds … cheeree … chee-ree … she sang, and the birds sang back. You have to look for it, he said.
Was that all? Was that really all there was? The rest an illusion and a monstrous joke. If Jay would only — If Jay only … Jay could be sweet; Jay could be proud and resolute and sweet when he wanted to, when the other wasn’t on his mind, he could be a dear sweet dear the way it was at his apartment; it had all seemed so fine, the two of them in the room, in beauty and grace, Jay next to her, his cool hands on her skin, and I want to yes I want to and then the other. Those awful Vicki pictures in the magazine, Vicki pictures was what they were, like the books hidden under the front porch with the pillbugs, and the scalding thought that it was Vicki, not her but Vicki, not her but any transferable female would do, on the bed with him, naked and alone with him in beauty and ease and grace.
“I’m ready, Sarah,” the little girl said, standing in the doorway in her bathing suit, “I’m ready for the swim.”
Sarah stood and moved toward Victoria Anne and put her arms around her. “Do you like it here, sweet?” Sarah said. “Do you like it here with Jay and me?”
“Yes, yes,” the little girl said, holding onto her neck. “I like it here with you and Jay … I want you to come sleep with me sometime. Daddy slept with me last night; I remember he came in and slept with me until Mommy came and they fussed and he left. Will you sleep with me tonight, Sarah?”
Sarah was trying to hold back the sobs from her voice … “If I can, Annie, if I can …” She took her suit and undressed quickly in the bathroom. There was a faint, last summer’s line of darkness running round her and she wondered if the new suit would —
“You’re beautiful, Sarah,” the little girl said in awe, standing half into the bathroom with her great sad eyes staring. “You’re so pretty all over.”
Sarah smiled back, but then she had to turn her head as the tears flooded her eyes.