Nine

Joy and frustration.

Frustration and joy.

It is Christmas here in Helsinki, and that brings the joy. But Lucy has the chicken pox, and that brings the frustration.

Having children is like giving hostages to Fate; one can never relax, never let down the guard. And meanings get mixed up, confused: pleasure becomes a source of worry because it could cause pain. I must always think: If I am happy now, will this somehow, on some weird universal scale, cause my children to suffer later? If I suffer now, will this protect me and my children from suffering later? Does Lucy have the chicken pox because I almost had an affair with Stephen, because I am leaving my husband for a job?

They came at the same time, Christmas and the chicken pox. Adam picked them up from his school where there was a sudden outbreak of chicken pox, and was sick with them ten days before Christmas exactly, so I knew what to expect. However Adam’s had been a light and easy case, only seven tiny pox marks, and no fever, and although I kept him in the apartment for five days straight I could tell it wasn’t necessary; he was bursting with energy. I gave him several cornstarch baths, but they were unnecessary; he said he did not itch. With Lucy, however, it is different. Poor little girl, it is quite different. She has a fever, and she feels fussy and cranky and she itches everywhere, and she is irrationally afraid of the bath now and won’t let me rinse her with the cornstarch water that is supposed to soothe her. The baby book says, “Do not let the child scratch the pox.” It sounds reasonable enough, but is an almost impossible thing to do: she itches, she has to scratch. I’ve cut her nails, and hold her and entertain her constantly to distract her from the itching, but still she scratches. A few pox are turning red, perhaps they are infected. Oh, my baby, poor baby, how awful for you. I empathize with her so much that I itch all over, behind my ear, under my breast, on my cheek. I refuse to scratch anywhere, as if tolerating these little irritations will make Lucy’s illness easier for her.

And yet, through it all, bad mother that I am, I keep thinking, Oh, PLEASE, Lucy, get well, get it over with. I want to go home, and I can’t get on a plane until all her pox are crusty and dry. Good Lord, if all these pox get crusty and dry, they probably won’t let us on a plane, they’ll probably want to quarantine us somewhere. The baby book says that the pox are not contagious or dangerous after they have crusted, but what a terrible sight it will be. What a terrible sight it is now, my daughter’s perfect face and body, covered with these ugly spots. They are round and red at the base, and white and pimply at the top, and I hate them. I sit rocking Lucy, saying I hate them, I hate these bad ol’ chicken pox.

At least there is the tree to look at. Dear Gunnel, our landlady, and her husband, Klaus, went to their summer home up in the middle part of Finland and brought us back a Christmas tree. It is exquisitely shaped, perfectly triangular, with branches that lilt gracefully down like ballerina’s arms. I almost cried with delight when I saw it, and smelled it: the fresh pine fragrance freshened these gray rooms remarkably. Adam had made cardboard and foil and construction-paper decorations at his little school and brought them home, and when we hung them on the tree they looked so charming that we decided not to buy any other decorations this year, but make all our own. The house looks like a trash basket now, for I have ignored cleaning it so that I could hold and comfort Lucy and occupy Adam by making more decorations. We have cut and glued and colored and pasted and sprinkled gold and silver sparkles on angels’ wings and paper candy canes. Red and green odds and ends and scraps have piled up around the kitchen table like a crazy gay enormous dust. We tried to make a popcorn chain, but it was such difficult work, what with Lucy sitting on my lap, making it hard for me to reach around her to push the needle through the popcorn without stabbing her or myself, that I gave it up and we ate it all instead of stringing it. And now the tree stands there, in the corner of our apartment, like a bit of magic in the midst of the everyday world. I miss having sparkling lights, but not very much. The tree seems so right somehow, this way, so primitive, childish, natural, merry. The Finns do not celebrate Valentine’s Day, and they used red hearts as Christmas decorations everywhere, and we have hung some on our tree, too, and they seem right, those symbols of love, dangling from the tree next to the stars and bells. I will use hearts again next year, I know; there are some things I am learning here that I will keep with me always.

Two sets of friends—acquaintances?—friends—have surprised us by stopping by with gifts for us and the children. Bright solid painted wooden toys for Adam and Lucy, pictures of Finland for Charles, jewelry from Arikka for me. Charlie and I were surprised and touched, and felt bad that we had nothing here to offer them in return. But really, it is strange. One couple we have seen only two times in the four months we have been here. They are shy and quiet and distant, and although they have always said that we were to call them if we ever needed anything, we have never really gotten to know them. And here they were, ringing our doorbell, arms full of presents. Perhaps they are, as the travel guides say, basically a warm people, the Finns. Certainly one could never accuse them of being greasily, insincerely overquick to friendship. Perhaps it has something to do with faces; their faces are by and large attractive, but do not have the easy mobility I am used to. They seem expressionless, passionless, and really rather dull, but apparently underneath it all there is a thoughtfulness and generosity that runs deep and true. At one of the formal cocktail parties we went to, where we all sat with our backs straight, balancing our plates and glasses on our knees and solemnly discussing income tax and education, I happened to compliment another guest on her striking metal and wooden necklace. We discussed the shop where she had bought it, and Finnish jewelry in general, and I had thought that was the end of it; but here, in a small elegant brown box, was the necklace for me, a gift from the hostess of the party. I had not known she had even heard, but she had, and remembered. In comparison it seems that Americans seem to talk incessantly and intimately; we have fun with our words, we don’t take the spending of them seriously. The Finns on the other hand seem to weigh and measure each word; their conversation seems heavy, but it is a heaviness of good value.

Last Sunday we went as a family to our host family’s home for the traditional Finnish Christmas dinner. It was beautifully done. The house was full of flowers, poinsettias and hyacinths, and candles were lighted everywhere, and a small fire was burning in the square corner fireplace. The meal was enormous and delicious: the first course was herring served in seven different ways with a marvelous sill-salad of beets and herring and potatoes and sour cream. There were potato casseroles and sweet potato casseroles, ham, peas, a green salad, a dessert of homemade tarts smothered in whipped cream. And lots and lots of booze: glogg, wine, cloudberry liqueur. The warmth of the sweet, spicy glogg filled me before the dinner started, and so I was able to float, suspended in the insulation of alcohol, through the rest of the time, when I had to help my children act like human beings through the meal. The food interested them only moderately, and since there were no other children or toys around, they found themselves bored rather quickly. I had the sense to bring a box of building bricks, and they played fairly happily for a while with them. Oh, children make so many things difficult—marriages, foreign countries, elegant dinners. Still, I will remember the Christmas dinner in the warm Finnish home, and I think my children will too. I am glad they were there. After the meal our host, a high-level government official, took Lucy on his knee and sang her a Finnish children’s song and bounced her. I was surprised, pleased. Perhaps my children will take something warming away with them from this sojourn in a cold land. Perhaps we have all learned something, Charlie and the children and I, about making it through the tough times with a bit of persistence and grace.

Now it is Christmas night. We have gone to the America Center for a Christmas party complete with champagne, and to other Fulbrighters’ homes for cocktails and canapés, and people have been kind. But still there is a sense of isolation here on this day; still I feel lonely, and miss everything: the Christmas parades on television, football games, friends, relatives, home. Christmas has made the time go faster, at least, but still not fast enough. I have made plane reservations for the fourth day of January, but I see obstacles growing up around that day like bramblebushes around a sleeping princess. Perhaps Lucy will not be well enough to travel then—I must always watch out for “complications” from the chicken pox—or Adam might be ill with something else, or there might be a blizzard to stop all air travel and postpone things for days. Any number of things could happen; I hardly dare leave the apartment to go get groceries for fear that I’ll slip and fall down the stairs and break my leg. I do so want to go home.

“My bum hurts, my bum hurts,” Lucy cries as I sit rocking her in front of the Christmas tree. She is restless and whiny and miserable, and she rubs at her chest where scores of pox have popped out under her pajamas.

I open her pajamas to look at her bum and see that more, even more pox have broken out. It seems impossible for more to come, her skin will be completely covered. I try to rub cornstarch and water on it as a salve, but it seems to make her only more miserable. And some of the pox are clearly broken open and infected; an angry red. How can this happen, how can my modern child be so riddled with something as antiquated as pox?

“Charlie,” I say, “we have to call a doctor.”

“It’s Christmas night,” Charlie says. “Can’t it wait till morning?”

“Look, I was up with her all night. We didn’t sleep at all; you know that. I’m exhausted. She’s exhausted. We can’t go through another night. She is miserable.”

Charlie calls several friends who recommend physicians, but we are unable to reach them, and finally we call Gunnel. She tells us of an emergency clinic near the large open market at Hakaniementie, and wonderfully she offers to drive us there. Adam is contentedly playing with the toys Santa brought him, and it is senseless to take him out into the cold dark night, so Charlie stays home with him. But as I walk down the stairs with Lucy squirming in my arms I feel a horrible sense of dread. I want Charlie, his tall, strong presence, near me, to protect me, to make everything right. “I can’t do it by myself,” I want to scream.

Gunnel’s presence in the car is like a balm. She talks sweetly to Lucy, and tells me of the times when her own boys, who are now grown, were sick. She doesn’t seem Finnish to me, Gunnel, for she talks and laughs so readily, radiates such warmth. The strange car and bright city lights distract Lucy for a while from her itching, and soon we arrive at the clinic.

It is seven in the evening, and the clinic has several sets of people sitting in the waiting room. Some are coughing; one little boy looks quite sick, and a new sense of panic floods me: what if Lucy, so weakened now by her pox, becomes infected with one of the illnesses floating around this room? I was probably wrong to bring her here. I am endangering her even more. I twist in my chair, and bounce and cuddle Lucy, and smile and chat with Gunnel, but inside I am screaming loud and shrill with fear. Will the physician be able to speak English?, I wonder. Will he know the Finnish word for chicken pox, will he be able to do anything, will “complications” develop? We wait and wait and wait, and Lucy fusses, and my stomach grinds into itself.

Finally we are admitted into the inner office, where a surprisingly young doctor waits. Yes, he speaks English.

“She has chicken pox,” I say.

“And they are infected,” he tells me.

I feel like a child at a confessor: “She hasn’t slept for two nights, I’ve walked her and rocked her constantly, but she can’t sleep. I’ve kept her clothes on, but she still scratches.”

“I will give her an antihistamine for the itching,” the doctor says, “and an internal antibiotic for the infection, and also a local antibiotic which you must apply to the infected poxes. The local antibiotic will turn her skin blue, but after a few days it will wear or wash off.”

It is a religious experience, going to the doctor: the sense of fear and dread and guilt, and then the hot glory of being saved. I pay the physician his seventy Finnmarks (about sixteen dollars) for the office call, and then Gunnel and I rush back out into the night to find an open pharmacy.

I give Lucy her medicine in the car, and before we are home she falls asleep. I thank Gunnel and lug my sleeping daughter up the four flights of stairs and into our apartment. She lies sprawled on the bed while I dab the blue antibiotic on her infected pox, and I see how deep and blissful her sleep is; she feeds on it like a starved animal.

And now the tears well up and fall. The physician has given us medicine, she will get better, she will get well. Already she is better, she is sunk in a healing sleep. At times like this I think how intolerable it is to be a mother, to have to see a child suffer, and I feel endlessly, helplessly grateful for the medicine that saves both my children and me. At times like this I feel a huge and resounding pity for all the mothers who lived before this century, who had to watch their children suffer without the cure of penicillin, antibiotics, miracle drugs. I wish compassion were retroactive; I wish I could somehow send some sense of strength and consolation back through the past into the endless dark nights, to help those other mothers as they rock and grieve over a sick child.

Lucy sleeps, and in the other bed Adam sleeps. I leave the room so that my crying, which has become exhausted sobs, will not wake them. Charlie takes me in his arms and holds me for a while, and kisses the top of my head.

“Come have a drink,” he says. “I made something especially for you.”

It is hot tea with brandy in it. He has also fixed a light snack left over from the Christmas dinner which I dutifully cooked earlier but was too worried and nervous to eat.

We sit in silence for a while, looking at the tree, enjoying our meal.

“Charlie,” I say at last, “how will I ever be able to live without you? I can’t.”

“You can,” Charlie says. “Of course you can. You will be in your own home, you’ll have friends to help you, and if there is an emergency I’ll be able to fly home to you. I’ll only be twenty-four hours away. It will be good for you; it will make you even stronger.”

“It’s going to be hell for us both, isn’t it?” I say, smiling.

“Yes, but it will be a nice, clean, healthy hell, with a light at the end.”

It is Christmas. It is snowing outside, both my children are sleeping and out of harm, and my husband, with his words, has just given me the best present he could possibly give me.

Until now December had been a terrible month. When Charlie came home from his Swedish lecture tour in November, I arranged for a babysitter and made him take me out to dinner. We hadn’t eaten out very often in Helsinki simply because we could not afford it, but that night in November we went to the Havis Amanda, one of the more expensive restaurants in Helsinki. It is located at the south end of the Esplanade, across from the famous fountain-statue of the naked woman, and the restaurant bears her name, but it shares nothing of her voluptuous and open sensuality. It is a dark, low-ceilinged serious restaurant, with first-class service and excellent, painstakingly prepared food.

During the meal we ate and talked lightly. Charlie told me about his trip; I told him about the children. But over dessert and liqueurs I told Charlie what I had gone there to tell him: about Stephen and our almost affair, about the job I was going to take in January.

Perhaps I was wrong to tell him about Stephen. I am certain that Charles will never be his friend again, and although he has agreed not to make a scene, not to kill him or hit him or tell Ellen about it all, still I know he will never be able to accept Stephen as his friend. That is one consequence of all this: we—Stephen and I—have ruined a friendship. It was strange that to Charlie that was the most important thing, the past, that I had almost had an affair with another man. When all the time it was the future that I felt guilty and tremulous about, that I was going to leave Charlie alone in Helsinki and go back to the States with my children so that I could work again.

It got to be embarrassing in the restaurant, that cool, reserved place, where the waiters moved as stiffly as if they were automated and everyone else laughed softly if they laughed at all, and spoke in German and Swedish. There we sat in our corner booth, Charlie and I, hissing at each other, trying not to yell. Finally we had to leave. It was difficult to argue on the streets, and worse on the bus, for most Finns know enough English to understand us, but we could not keep still. Once it was out, my secret, it was like a monster that we had to continually flail and fight with in order to beat down and away from our lives.

I had not thought it would be so bad. I had not thought it would take so long. We yelled and cried and argued all night long, while the children slept. Charlie could not believe that I had not actually slept with Stephen, and he could not believe that I wanted to go home only for the job; he thought I wanted to go home to continue my affair with Stephen. I felt helpless. There seemed no way to convince him that what I said was true; there was no proof I could give him.

Through the end of November and into December we raged at each other. We led a strange schizophrenic life after that first night. It was obvious that we couldn’t continue the discussion all the time, obvious that we could not settle it immediately, and so we were kind and cool and formal with each other in the daytime when we had to work, tend to the children, buy the groceries, attend Fulbright functions, and so on. But at night, as soon as the children were asleep, I would kiss both their smooth, sweet foreheads, and tuck their blankets about them, and leave their room, pulling the door shut behind me so they would not hear. And zap: there would be Charlie, standing there, his words ready.

“I can’t believe Stephen would spend the time and money to fly all the way here if you weren’t sleeping with him,” he would say, or:

“Come on, Zelda, let’s sit down and finish this. Tell me the truth.”

“But I am telling you the truth,” I would wail, and we would be off. We would talk frantically, furiously, deep into the night, only to give up in disgust or despair and to fall into our beds into a tossing, bothered sleep.

I described every encounter I had had with Stephen in great detail. I told Charlie to call Stephen on the phone and ask him. Of course, Charlie said he knew that Stephen would lie about it. I could see Charlie’s point; it was ridiculous that we had done all the sneaking and hugging and trembling but not actually had intercourse.

“But that’s the POINT,” I would scream at Charlie, “that’s the whole POINT! I didn’t sleep with him. I was faithful to you!”

Toward the middle of December, Charlie changed. He stopped being angry and became instead saddened, heavy with despair. “I haven’t given you what you want in life,” he would say. “I haven’t satisfied you. You should go to someone else.”

“Look, Charlie,” I would plead, “don’t be that way. Look, look at my side, please. You have me, and your children, and your work. I don’t feel guilty because your work is so important to you. I know your work is a part of you. Can’t you see that my work is just as important to me?”

“I thought you wanted children, you wanted to be a mother,” he would say.

“I did. I do. I want my children, I want to be a mother, I want to be a wife. But I also want to be a teacher. I also want my work. I want everything. You have everything; why can’t I?”

“I’ve never had a lover,” Charlie said. “All these years, I’ve never held another woman in my arms. I’ve been satisfied by you, but I haven’t made you happy. You’ve needed another man.”

“Charlie, Charlie, stop. I haven’t needed another man. I haven’t even had another man. Probably I do need someone to look at me a certain way from time to time; it feels so good, it’s an ego trip. Everyone needs that. But I don’t need Stephen, I don’t want him, I didn’t sleep with him. I’ve been faithful to you. And yes, you have been faithful to me, I believe that, but good heavens, you’ve had Adelaide and how many other women before me! I’ve always been faithful to you.”

It got to be humorous, absurd. We would be together in Stockmann’s department store, looking at dolls and Lego sets for Santa to give Lucy and Adam for Christmas, and Charlie would look up from a battery-operated train and say, “You should go to him, Zelda. You really should. You should divorce me and go marry Stephen.”

And once on Bus 16, coming home, surrounded by grim housewives with fur hats and shopping bags, we got into an argument over the meaning of faithfulness: Charlie argued that I was not faithful to him because I had wanted to sleep with Stephen; I argued that the important point was that I hadn’t. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered, tears coming into my eyes, “I wish I had slept with him, I really do. At least then I would have the experience to remember. I’m getting the same punishment, the same anger, whether I’ve done it or not.” Several Finnish women sat staring at me, impassive, as the tears rolled down my cheeks.

The crisis came just four days before Christmas, as we were walking along the Esplanade. It was a clear, painfully cold day, but pretty even so. There were seven grand tall evergreen trees along the center path of the Esplanade, all covered with lights and Scandinavian flags. Bright orange tents rimmed the circle around the tall central square statue, and fur-coated women from different charity groups huddled inside the warmth of the tents to sell handmade toys and hand-knit scarves and mittens to give as Christmas gifts. We had brought Adam and Lucy downtown with us to show them the Christmas window at Stockmann’s and Sokos and Elanto-Centrum. The large window at Stockmann’s was full of Snoopy dogs of all sizes, which made Adam squeal with delighted recognition. Lucy fell asleep in her stroller, and Adam walked along beside us, eating a fat sweet pretzel. As we came to the orange tents in the Esplanade, a handsome young man passed us and smiled, and I smiled back: it was Christmas. I suppose it was the young man’s smile that Charlie noticed.

“Now that there’s been one lover, how do I know there won’t be more?” he asked.

“How do I know you haven’t had hundreds of lovers on all your damned weeklong conferences?” I replied. It was an offhand comment, not a serious one. I was thinking of Christmas, enjoying myself.

Charlie was silent for a moment. “You’re right,” he said. “I see your point. Actually, I could have slept around at the conferences; certainly a lot of people do. And I’ve had plenty of offers.”

“Have you really?” I asked, stunned. I looked up at my husband. The Esplanade vanished, and I suddenly saw only Charlie’s face. He was older now, of course, with gray in his hair and a thick beard, but he was still monumentally attractive. He was large, virile, wise. “Graduate students, right?” I asked. “I’m sure. They hear you talk, they know about you. Why, they’re like academic groupies; they want to sleep with the great Charles Campbell. Right?” For some reason I was excited.

Charlie smiled. “Right,” he said. He smiled almost foolishly, and I could tell he was remembering. “But I haven’t slept with anyone else but you, not since the day I met you,” he said. “And I won’t.”

“And I haven’t and won’t, either. Sleep with anyone else but you,” I said. “Oh, Charlie, I’ve trusted you, and trusting is a way of loving. Can’t you trust me? I’ve told you everything. And the important thing to me is not that Stephen wanted to sleep with me, but that he acted like a friend. He helped me get a job. He was my friend. The job is the important thing to me.”

“Mommy, can I have one of those little Santas?” Adam, oblivious to our discussion, pulled at my hand. He pointed to an orange stand where little red-hatted Santas made out of pinecones and wooden balls dangled from bright yarn strings.

I gave him a mark and said, “Be a big boy, go up and buy it yourself.” Adam walked off toward the tent. I took Charlie’s arm. “Please,” I said, “don’t be my enemy anymore. Be my friend.”

Charlie wrapped me in his arms and hugged me tightly to him. “Oh, God, Zelda,” he said, “it’s so painful to think of you in someone else’s arms.”

“Charlie,” I said, “believe me. He held me, but we never even had our clothes off. He never saw so much as my belly button.”

“Oh, Zelda,” Charlie said. “Oh, Zelda.”

Adam came back then, radiant with delight that he had been able to communicate to the Finnish woman and buy his pinecone Santa. Lucy whimpered in her stroller, and Adam said, “I’m brrrr,” and Charlie and I unwrapped from each other enough to realize that it was time to get on a bus and go home, night was falling, our feet and fingers were cold. As we walked out of the circle on the Esplanade, we noticed several people staring at us, probably because we had been standing out in the open hugging each other, which is not comme il faut in Helsinki. Charlie walked ahead of me, holding Adam’s hand and talking to him, and I followed behind, pushing the stroller. My heart felt lighter, easier. There on the Esplanade something had happened between us, some sort of unspoken settlement had been made. It occurred to me to wonder if Charlie had had an affair during one of his conferences, or if he slept around; he had certainly backed down once I brought the topic up. But I sensed that he had been telling me the truth, that he had been approached, but had never followed through, that he liked the approaches, the pleasure of desire, the sensations of longing and lust, but that he had, like me, not wanted or needed anything more. At any rate, I knew it would be crazy to start worrying about whether or not he had been unfaithful. I wanted him to trust me. I would have to trust him. Trust. In the next few months, I realized, we would have to trust each other as never before.

That night, after the children were in bed, we sat up late into the night again, but talking sensibly this time rather than arguing. That day an envelope had come in the mail for me from the little college where I was to teach; it contained a one-year teaching contract. There was a friendly accompanying letter from Jim Steele; he said he was eager to meet me and to have me join the department. Second-semester classes would not begin until the first of February, he wrote, but it would be good if I could come in before then, to learn about their system of teaching freshman comp, to get acquainted with the texts, and so on. I told Charlie that I wanted to go home after the first of the year, so that I would have time to get the children settled and into nursery schools, so that I would have time to get organized for my work.

“Zelda,” Charlie said, “are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you need to do it now?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “I’m absolutely sure.”

“We could go to Greece in January,” he said. “I have to lecture there. We could take the children and spend two weeks sitting in the sun on some warm island.”

“I don’t want the sun and some warm island,” I smiled. “I want a classroom full of pimply-faced kids who aren’t sure of the difference between a semicolon and a colon.”

“What will we do for sex?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know what you’ll do,” I said. “But I know what I’ll do. I’ll sublimate. I don’t want sex with anyone but you. And I’m craving work so much that it will be a real substitute for me until we’re together again. I feel very strongly about this. It will be hard working full-time and taking care of the children without you. I’ll be too tired for sex. I’ve discovered I don’t even want sex with anyone but you. And, Charlie, I promise you, I won’t see Stephen. I don’t want to see him. And in spite of all that’s happened, I think he is a good and honorable man. I know he won’t try to see me anymore. He’s my friend now. But what about you? What will you do for sex?”

“I don’t know, Zelda,” Charlie said. “I really don’t know. I feel very committed to you, even now. Especially now. Perhaps I’ll see if the Fulbright people will let me finish early. I could be home in April. And I can always go back to the States once or twice to lecture somewhere. I could stop by in February or March for a quick screw.” We both laughed, and then he went on, his voice more serious, “What I don’t know how I’ll handle is missing the children. It will be awful not having Adam and Lucy around. It makes me want to weep to think about it.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, amazed, astonished, overjoyed. “You’ll miss those noisy, messy, troublesome little kids?”

“God, yes, of course I will,” he said. “They give me the happiest moments of my day.”

“Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie,” I cried. “Thank you!”

“Thank you?” he echoed. “For loving my own children? Zelda.” He looked at me.

I looked at him, really looked at him, this man I had seen almost daily for thirteen years, and I saw him. He loved my noisy children; he loved me. He was doing the best he could, he was letting me go free while still admitting that we were dedicated to each other.

“God,” I said, “I love you so much. You’re so good!” I went into his arms and began to cry. “I don’t want to be away from you,” I said. “I don’t want the children to be away from you, and they’ll miss you terribly. But, Charlie, I feel this is my one big chance, to teach at a college near a place where you teach, to have it all, my career, my children, and you. I want it so much.”

“Then don’t cry,” Charlie said. “It looks like you’ve got it.”

We made love that night for the first time in a long time, and it was rich and warm and affectionate, and touched with a bit of new strange exhilaration, as if we were making love with someone slightly new. After that we mentioned Stephen less and less and discussed our future more and more. And Christmas came, and Lucy had the chicken pox, and I felt better deep inside; I realized that life would never be perfect, there would always be trouble and trials, and that, in my superstitious point of view, was right. Perfection is cold and clear and unmoving. Life is warm and muddled and complicated. And good.

* * *

It is January 4, 1978, and these things have happened:

Lucy has completely recovered from her chicken pox. A few scabs spot her body here and there, but she doesn’t mind them, nor do I. We all laugh at the patch of blond hair that has turned green from the medicine I had to dab on a pox in her scalp. She will look a bit odd, but she will be able to make the trip home. And Adam is healthy; we all are.

Cathy, who is now twenty, has dropped out of university in the middle of a semester and run off to California with a handsome boy who plays the guitar.

Caroline has been accepted by the biology department at the graduate school where Charlie teaches. She said she is sick of New Haven and feels she needs to get back into contact with the “real” world. She wants to know if she can come live with us on the farm in January.

Adelaide has remarried. Her new husband is vice president of a bank and apparently has lots of money, but Adelaide has decided to keep working; she is proud of her position at the university now, and feels that she is rather indispensable, and intends to work there until retirement. She and her new husband, whose name is Bob, have bought a smart town house, and alternate cooking gourmet meals there in the evenings when they come home from work. They were married over the Christmas vacation, and honeymooned in Bermuda. Adelaide is happy, and calm.

We know these things have happened because in the past few days we have been bombarded with letters and telegrams and telephone calls. We know that Adelaide is calm because of the way in which she handled Cathy’s disappearance with the guitar player.

“She’s ruining her life,” Adelaide said to Charlie on the phone during a transatlantic phone call. The call had been placed at eleven o’clock Massachusetts time; Adelaide had waited up that late so that we would not be awakened before six Finnish time. There was only a slight hint of hysteria in her voice. “Do you suppose there is anything you could do about it?” she asked Charlie. “She always did want to please you.”

“Perhaps this is the right thing for her to do,” Charlie said.

“Oh, Charlie, you always were so exasperating,” Adelaide wailed. “You’re a college professor. How can you believe that dropping out of college is the right thing for your daughter to do! I wish to God I had had a college education; then my life wouldn’t have been such a nasty grind when you left me.”

“Maybe she’ll finish college later,” Charlie said. “I can’t say I’m pleased that she’s dropped out after the tuition’s been paid, but Cathy’s not a dumb girl, and this must have been what she needed to do.”

“Oh, Charlie,” Adelaide sighed.

“Well, I’ll write to her. I’ll call her and find out what’s going on. Do you have her address or phone number?”

“No,” Adelaide said. “All I know is California.”

“California is a pretty big place,” Charlie said. “Why don’t you just relax? And when she gets in touch with you again, ask her to get in touch with me.”

“She’s only twenty,” Adelaide said. “My baby. But I suppose you’re right. There isn’t much we can do until she lets us know where she is.”

“Caroline wrote us that you’re married now, Adelaide,” Charlie said. “Congratulations. I hope you’re happy.”

“I am. I am happy, Charlie. Very happy. Although this Cathy business does get me down. I was hoping that I’d never have to talk to you about anything again, but this worries me, not knowing where she is or what she’s doing.”

“I’ll do what I can to help,” Charlie said. “I promise. As soon as she gets in touch with you—or Caroline or me—I’ll try to find out what’s going on. In the meantime, relax. Okay?”

“Okay,” Adelaide said. Then she said, “Charlie? Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said.

The children were still sleeping when Adelaide’s phone call came, and I sat in my nightgown and robe, drinking hot tea, fighting down irrational jealousy and trying to be glad that at least Adelaide and Charlie could talk pleasantly to each other.

“As the world turns,” I said to Charlie.

“When you get home,” Charlie said, “perhaps you can talk to Caroline and find out more about what Cathy’s up to. There might be some friends who would know where she’s gone, or what her plans are.”

“I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll write you if I find out anything.”

“And you’ll have to decide about Caroline,” Charlie said. “If you want her to come live with you.”

“That’s easy,” I said. “Of course I want her to come. I like Caroline. It will be fun having her there with me, great just to have another adult in the house. I’m going to have a lot of long, lonely nights.”

“You can sit up grading your precious freshman comp essays,” Charlie said. “That should keep you happy.”

I smiled. “I think you’re absolutely right. Charlie, I can’t wait to be home, to teach again.”

* * *

And now, on this cold January morning, I am doing the final necessary things so that I can go back home. I will let the children sleep a few more minutes. Last night I laid out all their clothes and packed their little backpacks full of books and toys and raisins and gum so that our long flight home will be tolerable. I scarcely slept all night, and have been up and dressed for almost an hour. While Charlie shaves in the bathroom, I pace one more time these small gray rooms, checking to see that I have not forgotten anything. I pause in each room to stare out the window at the gray Helsinki sky, at the stern modern apartment buildings and the autoroute, at the shivering birch and spruce and pine trees. In a while Gunnel, my friend, will come to drive us all to the airport, and all this will be behind me. I am not sorry to be leaving, but really I am not sorry that I was here.

I see that I have forgotten something. My Finnish fortune. It is a small, twisted, silvery piece of lead which created itself for me at a Finnish New Year’s Eve party just a few nights ago. It is a custom in Finland to tell one’s fortunes on New Year’s Eve by melting a small block of lead in a special long-handled pan over a fireplace fire, then quickly throwing the melted lead into a pail of cold water. The melted lead immediately congeals into a solid shape, and the shape is symbolic of one’s fortune for the next year. The final product is actually extremely pretty, like a small sculpture, glistening and silver, feathery and delicate and charming. Our hosts at the Finnish New Year’s Eve party helped Charlie and me cast and read our fortunes, and we took turns with all the other guests holding up the sculptures and guessing what they meant. Some were easier than others: several fortunes looked like sailboats, which delighted the Finns, who love to sail. One was full of dark spots, which indicate money, and of course that made that person happy. Charlie’s, if we all used our imagination, resembled an airplane, which was fitting, for he had more lecture trips lined up for the coming year than ever before.

My lead fortune, everyone agreed, looked like a series of steps. Twisted, knobbed, convoluted, ornate steps.

“It’s not to predict your future,” one Finn said to me. “It’s to help you remember your past here—all those steps you had to climb to get to your apartment!”

We had all laughed. Earlier that New Year’s Eve, when the clock had struck midnight and we watched out the window as the sky filled with bright fireworks, I had cried. I had cried out of happiness and exhaustion and fear and hope. Charlie had put his arms around me and held me tightly, and I had cried all the more, knowing how I would miss the comfort of his arms in the months to come.

And now here I stand, rubbing my twisted piece of Finnish lead, staring at the sky, crying again. I am sad to be leaving Helsinki and the friends I’ve made here; I am very sad to be leaving Charlie, even for this little while. But I am going to go; it is what I want to do, it is what I have chosen to do. I have made a decision; I am going to carry it out. Still, I think I never will get over how relationships and people and meanings change.

Last fall, in early September, just two days before we came to Finland, Caroline came up to the farm to see us and say goodbye. It was a Saturday, sunny and mild. She had Brad, her newest boyfriend, with her, and she was happy. She had graduated from college that spring and was now working for the government on a short-term federal project, studying gypsy moths, trying to find a way to keep them from destroying the trees and shrubs around New Haven. She had cut her hair to just below the ears, and given it a side part, and she looked much more mature, and less ordinary, than she had when she had had her hair long and straight and parted in the middle. She had been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and she had walked about the house and farm easily, relaxed, relaxed with the wonderful ease that comes from having a weekend off from a likable job and an enjoyable man to spend the weekend with.

I was frantically packing. The dining room was layered with open half-full suitcases, jars of peanut butter and popcorn, and cartons of granola bars and Jell-O. I kept putting dresses and sweaters in and taking them out again, not sure what to take, not wanting to take too much or too little. I felt pressured and grouchy; I had been sad that I was losing the chance to teach again. People kept dropping by the farm spontaneously: the mathematician who was renting it for the year, wanting to go over the water system and fireplaces with Charlie; friends bringing goodbye gifts; adoring graduate students of Charlie’s. The children ran around outside in unmatched too small clothes; everything decent was packed. The beds were unmade, the dishes were undone, the washer and dryer were running, people were coming in and going out, piles of necessities accumulated around the suitcases, and I could tell I was forgetting something. There was no way in the world I could manage to take everything we would need in a strange country for nine months.

Toward late afternoon Charlie went down to the cellar and came up with a few bottles of champagne. People kept coming and drinking a glass or two, but there was still enough for me to get slightly tipsy on, and that helped. Someone decided I shouldn’t have to cook dinner that night (I wasn’t planning to, anyway), and Caroline and her boyfriend volunteered to drive the long drive into town to get it. Adam asked to go along because he wanted to ride in Brad’s car, which was a great old wine-colored Jeep with a raccoon tail hanging from the antenna, and Lucy wanted to go because Adam wanted to go, and Charlie decided to go, too, so that he could drop some last-minute mail at the post office. I chose to stay home and take a long hot bath.

Suddenly everyone was gone. The place was silent. Our dog fell asleep on the kitchen rug. The sun began to set. The champagne bottles were empty. I stripped off my jeans and sank into a luxurious bubble bath, soaking in the heat, the pleasure, the silence. Then I dressed again and went back downstairs. I couldn’t stand to stay in the house—there was too much demanding chaos in every room—so I went outside to walk around.

The silence of a farm, of the countryside, without people, is a profound and mysterious thing. I can understand the people who become hermits and mystics, for being alone in the countryside exposes one to the powerful sense of life that shimmers in inhuman things. I walked about the farm, my farm, my home, looking at the orange and brown mums I had planted, at the last roses, at the apple trees now laden with fruit, the berry bushes now beginning to show spots of rust and scarlet and flame. Birds chittered in the trees, the trees themselves breathed almost audibly. There was a tension in the air, between the excitement of fall approaching and the restfulness of the more quickly approaching night.

I walked up our dirt drive to the barnyard, where the horses stood. Dear Liza, dear Gabe. They were now nineteen and seventeen years old. They were standing together at one end of the barnyard, eyes half closed, doing nothing with that marvelous sense of significance that animals have. I went inside the barnyard and walked over to Liza and leaned up against her. It had been days since I had had the time to ride her. I hoped she would make it through the cold New England winter. I wished there were a way to make her understand that I was going to be gone, but that I was going to come back. I stroked her neck. She was still in good shape, although the hairs around her mouth and in her mane had grown humorously gray.

“I love you, Liza,” I said.

She knocked her nose into my shoulder in reply. Gabe began to sniff around my hands and pockets, and sensing no sugar or carrots, stamped and snorted and walked away.

I stood there leaning on Liza as the light failed in the sky. I felt a marvelous sense of loneliness; no, not of loneliness, but of aloneness, of individuality. The horse I was leaning on was truly a friend, a creature on this earth that knew me and loved me and responded to me and trusted me, a creature I knew and loved and responded to and trusted. I had known her longer than I had known Charlie or Charlie’s children or my own. It seemed amazing. I calculated years in my head, and no, given even the most optimistic measures, I knew it would not be possible for her to still be around to comfort me when my children had grown and left home. She, Liza, would leave us first.

“I love you, Liza,” I said again, and wrapped my arms around her neck.

Liza tolerated my affection for a moment, and then, bored with it, bent her neck away from my grasp and began to nibble at the stubbles of barnyard grass.

The wine-colored Jeep came bouncing back to the farm just then. As I walked from the barnyard I saw the people get out; they were like bright-colored beads of life exploding from a box. Big Irish Brad, wriggling noisy Adam, large strong Charlie, and then Caroline, slim and blond, with Lucy in her arms. Lucy had fallen asleep and lay against Caroline, totally limp, lips open, sighing in her sleep.

It was a strange sight to see the two of them: Charlie’s daughters, one twenty-three years old, the other only two, one asleep in the other’s arms. I wondered if it seemed to Charlie that Caroline looked like Lucy’s mother more than I. They had the same coloring, the same bone structure, the same features; both girls were long and slim, fair-haired, green-eyed, white-skinned. At Lucy’s birth I had been afraid that she was dead, because she was so pale, as white as a sheet of paper. But she had been perfectly healthy; she simply had managed to have Charlie’s coloring. I remembered the time in Michigan when I had held Alice’s little girl and longed for a little girl of my own, one who looked just like me. Now I had a little girl of my own, and she looked just like, exactly like, my stepdaughter. How strange life is.

We all went into the house, and because it was growing cool Charlie made a fire in the kitchen fireplace. Brad went downstairs and found more champagne. “Champagne and pizza!” we all cried. “How weird!” But it was delicious.

“Let me take Lucy up and put her in her crib,” I said to Caroline.

“That’s okay,” Caroline said, settling into a kitchen chair. “I’ll hold her. She might wake up if you move her. She’s fine. I’ve got a free hand to eat with.”

We sat about the round oak table, eating pizza, drinking champagne, watching the fire. Irish Brad entertained us with stories, but I didn’t listen carefully. I kept looking at Caroline, holding sleeping Lucy, eating her pizza carefully, so that she wouldn’t joggle Lucy too much and awaken her. I wondered if Caroline was perhaps sitting in the same chair she had been sitting in two years before, right after Lucy’s birth, when I had sat holding Lucy at my breast, and feeding Adam and myself with my one free hand, and hating Caroline and Cathy with all my heart.

Oh, love. It is not a constant thing, though we would all prefer it to be so; it would certainly make for a calmer life. Love and time; love needs time; love must climb time as if time were a series of beautiful, twisted, convoluted stairs, with landings to rest at, and window seats looking out over the past, and railings to hold to against a fall into nothingness, and perhaps, one hopes, a room of wisdom and knowledge at the last step, at the top.

Here in Helsinki, I am not anywhere near the wisdom of that last step, but I have come this far, I do see now that I love Charlie, and that I always will. He loves me. We have come this far, quite far, together. I realize now that it is okay, it is allowable, to love other things at the same time I love him; my love for him is not diminished. And he realizes now that I must do the things I want to do or become a stunted person. In our case the way of separation enriches our love; the way of togetherness would have destroyed it. He will travel and lecture, and I will teach and play with the children, and we will write letters to each other. In a few short months we will be together again. It will be nice, coming together again. Perhaps there will be more comings and goings in our lives now that we are mutual people, both of us standing on our own personal ground. I will love him better for being independent of him. He will love me better, I think, because I will become a better person to love. It seems exciting. After thirteen years of marriage it seems that we are starting all over again.

And I love my children. I will love them enough to know, to accept the knowledge, that there will be times when I will hate them, when they will hate me, when we will make each other grieve and cry. But for the most part I will happily soak in the love, the beauty, the joy, of living with these young people.

I love my stepdaughters. Yes, I’ve climbed this far; I can say with honesty that I love them. It will be an interesting experience living with Caroline. Will she expect me to be her mother and keeper and cook and maid, or will she want to live as if we are friends? What will Adam think of having her in the house with us? He is almost five now, beginning to ask questions, sense relationships, put things together. He has never asked Charlie or me why Caroline calls Charlie “Dad” or why Caroline’s last name is the same as ours, but I know the time will come when he will. What will I, or Charlie—it’s his problem after all—say to Adam, innocent Adam, about Caroline and Cathy, these first children of his? What will we say to Adam about marriage and divorce and children then? Will Adam be afraid then that Charlie will leave him? Well, if so, he’ll just have to be afraid; there is always that possibility. This is the twentieth century, and even though we live on a farm now, we are caught up in the values of our time. All in all, I think Caroline and I will have a good time together this semester. I am looking forward to talking and laughing and sharing life with her. It’s obvious that I care for her—love her—more than I do Cathy. It always has been that way. But I feel no grudge against Cathy, and I think she carries no grudge against me. Out there in California with her guitar-playing boyfriend, she probably doesn’t think of me at all. She’s never needed me, leaned on me at all; it’s always been men she’s preferred, right from the start. Well, Adam is turning out to be a handsome and charming boy; perhaps when Cathy comes back this way she will enjoy his company. Perhaps someday Cathy will take Adam and Caroline will take Lucy to a movie, and they’ll sit and eat popcorn and laugh together, and perhaps, since they can never live as brother and sisters, perhaps they’ll live as friends. Perhaps they will somehow enrich each other’s lives. That is the most I could hope for. That would be a very fine thing.

But this much I know: it does not end here. We will not ever be at peace. Nothing will be definite. Our relationship will not now or ever become constant, settled, fulfilled. It will always change. I will have to remember that, and not hold grudges. It is just as possible that my stepdaughters and I will die hating each other as it is that we will die loving each other. In this relationship nothing is assured. I can only enjoy the good times and let the other times go by.

Charlie has never seemed to worry about the relationship between his two sets of children. Perhaps that is because he is a historian, and a realist. He seems to know that children will get sick, and then get well, and that people will learn to love each other, or not, no matter how much we fret and yearn. It would not bother him if Caroline and Cathy did not love or care for Adam and Lucy; I wonder why it would bother me. I think it is more than merely that I have been a housekeeper for so long and want things tidy. No, it is that these are four people that I care for and enjoy, and I would like them to care for and enjoy each other. But I will let the matter rest, go free, I will not try anymore to work things out myself. Lucy fell asleep in Caroline’s arms when I was not around.

Now, on this cold January morning, I pick up the twisted piece of lead, my Finnish fortune, and put it in my pocket. There’s no place else to put it; all the bags are packed and locked. I could throw it away, the small unnecessary piece of metal; it is certainly worthless to everyone but me. But I want to take it back with me, as a memento, a souvenir, a talisman. I want to remember all that went on here, all I thought about and learned, all the steps I climbed, physically and in my mind. I want to keep it near me, up high somewhere on a desk or fireplace mantel, some everyday place where my eye will fall on it occasionally. I want it to help me remember how far I’ve come.

And I want it, in its severe and shining way, to continually bless and protect me. With love I am climbing the steps of time; I have so far to go.