The Love Letters Read online

  She knocked on the door of the library. Her father did not answer. She knocked again. Finally she slid the door open. The light was lit on his desk. Within the past hour he had turned the hour glass, because the sand was trickling down in a fine stream. No matter how upset Charlotte was she always found a kind of peace in her father’s library, and it must have been that way for him, too, for it was to the library he always turned for refuge, not to Charlotte, not to Reuben and Essie, not to any human being in the world.

  There had been a fire in the fireplace earlier in the evening, but it had died. The only light came from the student lamp on the desk and at first she didn’t see her father; then she realized that he was lying on the black leather couch. He was lying very still with one thin hand over his eyes, and she knew that he had not fallen asleep. He was lying there, not asleep, but somehow not there.

  This was something that happened, that was not totally unexpected, but that always frightened her. It occurred usually when he was particularly depressed. He would lie down, and then he would seem to go away, much further away than if he had been asleep. She had read about holy men in the East who could lie down and appear to go to sleep, and then they would leave their bodies and wander out among the galaxies. This was the closest analogy she could make to what her father did when he lay down on the black couch and went not to sleep, but away. Did it help? Did he, in his own way, wander about among the galaxies until eventually he could bear to come back to himself again, to his brownstone house, to his typewriter?

  She wondered if anything particular had happened to upset him. Perhaps another cold letter from a publisher. She was not supposed to know about these letters. She was supposed to be too young. She was supposed to see only the image of her father that Aunt Ada had held up for the world to see, for Charlotte to see, for James Clement himself to see, the image of the great, misunderstood genius. And perhaps it was the true image.

  Charlotte looked down at him. His lying there, gone wherever it was that he went to, was all part of the strangeness of the evening, of Patrick knowing about James Clement, and being excited, but at the same time surprised that he was alive. It was all part of the strangeness of her feelings about her father, of other people never having heard of him, of the curt letters from publishers or from his agent.

  All she knew was that she loved him. The love became a pain that was physical when he lay down on the black leather couch and retreated. Or when she did not make his martinis and he cheated. Or, worst of all, once when she had slipped quietly into the library, and had seen him sitting leaning forward at the desk with his head in his hands and tears falling slowly from his shaded eyes and dropping quietly onto the manuscript in front of him. She had left as quickly as she could without making a sound, and he had never known that she had seen him that way. And she had never known what was making those slow, terrible tears. People used to say how deeply he grieved over his wife. But Charlotte did not think it was that kind of grief.

  She went over to him now and sat beside him on the black leather couch and very gently moved his hand from in front of his eyes. His eyes, as they were at times like this, were completely unfocused. They were open, but they were not looking at anything. Their blue, an almost purple-blue, like Charlotte’s, seemed veiled, greyed. He was not, she was certain, seeing anything at all, at least not anything that can be seen with the physical eye.

  “Father. Come on, Father, please.”

  A small tremor went through his body. She knew that when he went off in this manner it was difficult for him to return. And if she had thought that he was really out among the galaxies, if she had thought he was any place that made him at all happy, she would not have tried to make him come back, no matter how much it frightened her to see him lying there. But the most frightening thing was that now she did not think that he was really anywhere at all. He was just gone.

  “Come on, Father,” she said again. “It’s Cotty. I’m home. Let’s go down to the kitchen and make ourselves something to eat.”

  Slowly perception moved from the clouded depths and he was looking at her. He rolled over and stretched as though he had been asleep. She knew that he wanted her to think that he had only been asleep.

  “Hello, my darling,” he said, and held his arms out to her and she gave him a hug.

  “Father, I’m hungry. Let’s go down to the kitchen and make something.”

  He gave her one of his big, beautiful smiles. “Hungry, Cotty? As a matter of fact, so am I, now. Essie’s losing her hand at cooking, I’m afraid. Dinner tasted like plasticene. Shall I make you an omelette?”

  “That would be lovely.” She hadn’t been in the least hungry when she suggested food, but suddenly there was a great gap in her stomach where all Patrick’s dinner had been, and the sound of an omelette, one of her father’s omelettes, was beautiful.

  They sneaked down the back stairs as though fearful that Reuben and Essie would hear them, which of course they couldn’t possibly because their rooms were up on the fourth floor. Her father had tried to get the old couple to move downstairs after Aunt Ada’s death so that they wouldn’t have to do so much climbing, but they refused. They loved their rooms and they would not, Charlotte knew, move unless they had to, or unless her father ordered them to, and her father seldom ordered them to do anything. Orders were the other way around.

  They turned on the light in the kitchen. It was Charlotte’s favorite room in the house, large, warm, with polished copper pots and pans hanging, and a copper hood to the stove. Essie and Reuben were very fond of copper. There were blue curtains at the windows, and blue cushions on the big rocker where Essie sat to do the mending. In the center of the room was a large, marble-topped table, and James Clement got out eggs and chose one of the copper frying pans, took a blue bowl and cream and butter and some herbs and arranged everything on the table. Then he said, “Cotty, where were you tonight?”

  “At Ursula’s, doing homework.”

  Her father broke four eggs into the blue bowl. “Cotty, I didn’t know you were in the habit of lying to me.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “Not in the habit, that is.”

  “But you were lying when you said you were at Ursula’s.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  James Clement took a fork and began to beat the eggs. “That is beside the point, Charlotte. I happened to have occasion to call you during the evening and discovered that you were not where you said you were going to be. Why?”

  She felt uncomfortable. Her father had a fierce temper, but since her mother’s death it had been leashed; in any case he seldom loosed it on her. She looked at his stern face as he beat the eggs, his head a little lowered, so that she could see the way his fair hair lay scantily on the delicate skull. “I didn’t think you and Essie and Reuben would approve.”

  “You didn’t think we’d approve of what?”

  She looked at him rather desperately. He was wearing a misty grey Norfolk jacket that he was very fond of, a blue tie she’d given him for Christmas, and an immaculate white shirt; he never wore anything but white shirts. “Well,” she said, “it was just that I went out with this boy.”

  “Which boy?”

  “Well, you know I went to this party down at Jane and Pete’s,” she started, but her father cut in.

  “Which party?”

  “Just that party I was going to last week when they had friends in to help them with their apartment. You said it was all right for me to go.”

  “Jane is a relative. One of the few we have left. She has always seemed to me like a perfectly pleasant young woman. I try not to forbid you to do things unless it is absolutely necessary. How did a party at Jane’s have anything to do with tonight?”

  “Well, I met this—I mean, I met a young man there. A medical student. That’s how he knows Jane and Pete. He’s in Pete’s class in medical school. And he asked me to have dinner with him tonight.”

  “And you thought if you told me that you were goi
ng out to dinner with this young man I’d have forbidden it?”

  “Well—yes. And I didn’t think Essie and Reuben would like it, either.”

  Her father was silent. He put the frying pan on the stove and began making the omelette. “I’m afraid you’re right, Cotty. But if you must do things we wouldn’t want you to do—Charlotte, please don’t lie about anything again. Is that what the nuns taught you, along with your charming manners? I’ve always thought I could trust you. I’d rather have you defy me, tell me you’re going to do something anyhow, permission or no permission, than be underhanded about it.”

  “It was just—it seemed so much simpler this way.”

  “I’ve always told you that anything easy isn’t worth a damn,” James Clement said sharply as he dished out the omelette. She was no longer hungry, but she sat down at the table across from him.

  “Cotty,” he said slowly, “I haven’t given you a proper life for a child. All those schools, and then the hotels all over the world during your holidays. But we were happier in the hotels, at least I thought we were, than when we were here with your Aunt Ada. But perhaps I should have brought you here more often, perhaps I should have let Ada take your mother’s place more than I did.”

  “Oh, Father, you know Aunt Ada was never in the least interested in me. It was only you she cared about. She never gave a hoot what I did as long as I didn’t bother you, you know that. I saw much more of you when we were at hotels than I ever did here as long as Aunt Ada was alive. I used to have to sneak into the library if ever I wanted to see you, she was so afraid I’d interrupt the muse.”

  “Don’t scorn the muse, Charlotte, even in reference to me.”

  “I’m not!” she shouted. “I was just explaining about Aunt Ada! It was Reuben and Essie who loved me. They’ve been like my mother and—” she stopped.

  “Finish your sentence,” he said bitterly. “Like your mother and father, neither of whom were ever proper parents to you.”

  “You are, Father!” she cried.

  “Oh, Cotty.” His voice was heavy. “Oh, Cotty,” and he pushed his untouched plate away from him.

  She poked a bit of omelette into her mouth. She realized that everything she had said had been wrong. Everything she had said instead of making anything better was just making everything worse. Her father looked cold and pinched about the nose. He was no longer the gay young father the small Charlotte had adored. His blue eyes looked bleak the way they did when things were going wrong with his writing. She got up and went around the table and put her arms around him.

  “Oh, Father, I’m sorry I lied to you about going to Ursula’s. I won’t do it again.”

  “Fight me if you have to, Cotty, but don’t lie to me.”

  “I promise,” she said. “And, Father, Patrick did a paper on your books in college!”

  “Patrick’s the young man you went out with?”

  “Yes, and he thinks you’re wonderful, and his mother who’s some kind of musician thinks you’re wonderful. What was it he said she called your books? Oh, yes, the brilliant apocalyptical novels of James Clement.”

  Her father pulled his plate back to him and began to eat. “Where did he take you to dinner?”

  “He cooked for me himself.”

  James Clement shook his head, but he went on eating. Then he said, “I don’t know what to do about you, Cotty. Suddenly I realize the fact that you are still in school doesn’t make you still a child. And I realize even more strongly than ever that I haven’t provided you with any kind of normal childhood.”

  “Oh, Father, I told you. There hasn’t been anything in the world wrong with my childhood.”

  “You haven’t had the love you should have had,” he said somberly.

  “But I have! You’ve loved me, and Essie and Reuben have loved me.”

  “You don’t mention your mother. Don’t you remember her?”

  “Yes. I remember her. But she didn’t want me. I interfered with things. She liked parties and important people and showing you off. She was much happier when she was in Nassau or on the Riviera on in London or Scotland or somewhere and could pretend I didn’t exist at all.”

  “You’re not being fair, Cotty, but you’re too young to understand your mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, although she knew that she didn’t sound sorry and of course she wasn’t. But she should have been able to sound sorry. “I know people thought I was awful because I didn’t cry and carry on when she died. But it was as though some glamorous movie star had died, not anybody who really had anything to do with me, Cotty. I was impressed, and I guess I was shocked, but it didn’t—it didn’t really touch me any.”

  Now why was it that she could talk to her father openly this way about her mother, and yet she had lied to him about going out with Patrick, and she knew she’d do anything possible to avoid telling him now about having had two martinis and too much wine and then that bath in Patrick’s apartment with the man whistling at her: why?

  “Shall I make some coffee?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She’d had enough coffee. “No, thanks. But go ahead if you want some.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “No. I think I’ll just have a nightcap if you’ll be kind enough to fix it for me. Let’s go up to the library. And then we must both go to bed. It’s late and you have school tomorrow. I don’t watch your bed hours properly. All your life I’ve passed that kind of buck to nuns and other hired help.”

  “Essie watches my hours,” she said. “She’s always coming down and telling me to put out my light.”

  She picked up the plates and put everything in the sink for Essie and Reuben to wash up in the morning, and they went back up to the library. She mixed his father his nightcap, then sat on the couch while he sprawled out in his desk chair. He sat silently, glass in hand, not talking, but she did not feel like talking any more, either. She felt only very tired. She looked at the books across from her, and at the shelf where her father’s books were, his published books. She had not read all of James Clement’s books, and she was not sure why, because she liked them. She did not wholly understand them, but they fascinated her.

  Perhaps one reason she hadn’t read them all was Sister Thomas More; no, it wasn’t Sister Thomas More, but Sister Mary Michael at the school in New York, who was for Charlotte in New York what Sister Thomas More had been for her in England. Sister Mary Michael told her class that there were two of Shakespeare’s plays she still hadn’t read, because she couldn’t bear to have read all of Shakespeare. Charlotte couldn’t bear to have read all of James Clement because there was something too final about it; it would somehow have been relegating him to the past, to an unused, undusted library.

  (‘Goddamit, Ada, I told you not to dust my desk. Leave my desk alone.’)

  James Clement had had seven books published before Charlotte was born, and only one since. One evening when he had mixed his own martinis he had shown her a portfolio of Picasso, from the blue and rose lovely ones of harlequins and Picasso’s son, Paul, to the strange, incomprehensible later ones. And he said that his writing was something like Picasso’s painting: he was still trying to communicate, because that is the main function of the artist, to express his vision, otherwise he wouldn’t be an artist; each book is in a sense an icon, and he mustn’t be afraid to try to let his images take new and different forms.

  “Listen to what Picasso himself says, Cotty, and he can hardly be accused of dogmatism, either theological or artistic. I’m not referring to politics.” James Clement searched among the papers on his desk until he found an old envelope with his dark scrawl on the back. He read from it, “‘In my opinion, to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. The one who finds something, no matter what it might be, at least arouses our curiosity, if not our imagination. When I paint my object is to show what I have found and not what I am looking for.’ Perhaps that is why Picasso is more successful than I am. I am still trying to find, to cut further and d
eeper where darkness is as blinding as light.”

  Charlotte was not sure. Perhaps it was only because she knew and loved James Clement that his work always meant something to her, and on occasion Picasso’s did not. So, as far as Charlotte was concerned, it was a moot point as to who had found and who had not.

  “I’m tired,” her father said. “Oh, Cotty, I’m so tired.” He finished his drink and stood up. “Come along.” They started upstairs.

  When they got to his floor she said, “I’ll come down and kiss you good night when I’m all ready for bed.” He just nodded, and she went upstairs and took a long, hot bath.

  She knew that her father would not be turning out his light for a long time, because he read until daylight, until dark had turned into light, wearing a cashmere cardigan and a silk handkerchief at his throat. So she luxuriated in her bath so different from the lukewarm inch of water in Patrick’s tub, then sat on a stool wrapped up in her big towel to dry. She would have to ask her father about having dinner with Patrick on Friday. She couldn’t just go without telling him. And Essie and Reuben wouldn’t think it proper. They’d be much worse about it than James Clement.

  She put on her nightgown and bathrobe and went down to say good night to him and to ask him about Patrick at the same time. When she got to his room and knocked on the door and he said, “Come in,” he wasn’t in bed reading as she had thought he would be. He hadn’t even started to undress. He was sitting on the side of his bed. Just sitting. Not gone off to wherever it was he went. Just sitting.

  But he smiled when he saw her. “Ready so soon, Cotty?”

  “It’s been an hour, Father.”

  “Oh. Time can be deceptive. And I’m tired. I’m so tired, Cotty. There is nothing more physically exhausting than a sense of failure.”

  “But you’re not a failure, Father,” she said.

  “Oh, Cotty, let’s not fool each other any longer. Why do I go on groping in the dark? Why can’t I accept the absurdity of existence and laugh, as the absurd ought to be laughed at? Why can’t I face the fact that it’s all an accident, that man is an unattractive skin eruption on an improbable planet, that what came gurgling up from the void will die down again into darkness.” He stood up. “Why does all of me reject this, Cotty? Why must there be beauty and meaning when everything that has happened to me teaches me that there is none?”