Certain Women Page 16

  “Of course I remember,” Alice said. “But it’s not wise to take stupidity or viciousness too seriously.”

  “I know, I know. God knows, in the theater I have plenty of friends who are lesbians or homosexuals, that’s not what I’m upset about. It’s what you said—the friendship of the heart—people seem to forget that it even exists. Adair—oh, hell, Alice, before—before—well, Billy came to warn me that there were rumors about Adair and me. When people say nasty things often enough, you begin to wonder if you’re crazy, and maybe all there is is sex.”

  “You know that’s not all there is.” Alice spoke gently. “Your love for your brothers and sisters is beautiful. People can be cruel, but you shouldn’t let it get to you.”

  “I know, but there’s so much emphasis on genitalia and expressing oneself and having one’s needs met, and that’s absolutely idiotic. Nobody’s needs are ever met. I do know that.”

  ‘So, even though he knew a woman—’ Nik had asked Emma. ‘What do you really think about Jonathan and David?’

  Emma had sighed. ‘I think we live in a sex-mad society. What’s wrong with their just being friends?’

  ‘Some of the language is pretty strong for friendship.’

  ‘People weren’t afraid to use strong language in those days.’

  ‘Oh, my sweet innocent!’ Nik softened the words with a gentle smile. ‘With your background I don’t know how you manage it. I suppose it’s Bahama—’

  ‘But, Nik—’

  ‘What I suspect is that you’re half right. David, King David, was like your father, with great big uninhibited lusts made comprehensible by the largeness of his heart and his joie de vivre. Jonathan, I think, adored him. Was in love with him. And even though Jonathan did have a son, I believe that in his heart he was totally faithful to David.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll buy that.’

  Nik took her hand and put it in the pocket of his overcoat in a now familiar gesture. They were walking to the Riverside Drive apartment for supper with David and Sophie. ‘There’s something inexpressibly tender about you that makes me long to protect you. I know you’re constantly worried about Etienne and Adair. And there’s gossip in the theater about another brother. Something weird about a subway accident when he was on his way to the theater.’

  Emma’s voice was rigid with control. ‘Yes. It was an accident. He fell in front of a subway train.’

  ‘William Wilburton.’

  ‘Yes. Billy. My eldest brother. He didn’t use his own name. Papa’s name. Wilburton was his stepfather.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Em.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It must have been awful for you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Nik’s voice was tender. ‘You’re still hurting. Did you love him very much?’

  The tears started to course down Emma’s cheeks. Nik caught her by the shoulders and turned her so that he could hold her as she sobbed, her head against his chest.

  Nik patted Emma’s back, gently kissed the top of her head.

  With an effort Emma managed to control the sobs, quench the tears. Her outburst had completely surprised her. And there was no way she could explain to Nik—‘Sorry, sorry.’ She wiped her face against the rough tweed of his coat.

  He took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. She took it from him and blew her nose. ‘Sorry—’ She breathed again.

  ‘Everyone’s due a good Aristotelian purge once in a while. Feel better?’

  ‘Yes. But, Nik—’

  ‘You don’t have to talk about it. I know it’s upsetting. I’m glad I know some of your other brothers. Did I tell you Jarvis is interested in producing one of my plays?’

  She swallowed. ‘That’s Jarvis.’ Nik did not want her to talk about it, whatever he thought ‘it’ was. Sooner or later she would have to. But perhaps not yet? His play had opened in early September, the first hit of the season. It was only mid-November. It was not yet time.

  ‘Are you okay, sweetie? We’ve got over ten more blocks. Want to take a taxi?’

  They were both making good money but they did not ordinarily think in terms of taxis. Emma glanced at Nik, and in the streetlight his face was concerned. ‘No, Nik, thanks. Let’s go on walking.’

  Nik took Emma’s arm. ‘I went to your father’s show last night. God, he’s good! I stood at the back of the theater and I could feel affection for him all through the audience, and then, at the curtain calls, there was a great swelling of love, the same kind King David got.’

  Emma laughed. ‘There are always adoring women crowding the stage door. Poor old Saul never got that, with his dark moods on him again and again, and his jealousy and irrationality.’

  ‘There’s a marvelous little scene I want to write,’ Nik continued, ‘with David coming on Saul asleep in a cave, and it’s a perfect opportunity to kill him. David looks down on the old man, and he knows he can’t—won’t—kill him. And then he takes his sword and cuts off the hem of Saul’s garment, and the old king sleeps on, unaware of his danger. Then David leaves him, going as quietly as he came.’

  ‘Wonderful, Nik! That can be a really moving scene. Saul’s a sad old man, overcome by madness.’

  ‘David truly believed that although he himself was the Lord’s anointed, so was Saul, and the Lord’s anointed must not be dishonored.’

  ‘The Lord’s anointed,’ Emma mused, pressing closer to Nik as a gust of west wind made her stagger slightly. ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘The anointing of kings?’ Nik raised his dark brows. The wind from the river was ruffling his hair. ‘Maybe, when being a king was a talent and a vocation, not something political.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What about your father? Isn’t he in a way also the Lord’s anointed? Where did his incredible gift of acting come from? Granted, he serves it well, he hasn’t wasted or perverted his talent as some artists do, but what about the talent in the first place?’

  ‘Is it maybe genetic?’ Emma asked.

  Nik shook his head violently. ‘I don’t want all our gifts relegated to genes and chromosomes. Although I’m sure that would have satisfied my father.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She believed in gifts. And that I have one as a writer.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘So all I can do is serve the gift. I’d give anything if I could serve mine as well as your father serves his.’

  ‘He tries,’ Emma said slowly. ‘When he’s working on a role it has nothing to do with his private life.’

  Nik hugged her. ‘I know he has a reputation. But I’ve only seen him with Sophie, and they seem to me to be a model of a perfect marriage.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing.’ Emma shook her head. ‘But it’s a good marriage.’

  ‘So.’ Nik’s mind was on the working-out of his play. ‘David refused to kill Saul. He was not a killer.’

  Emma protested. ‘What about “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands”?’

  ‘That’s different. That’s war. Hot blood.’

  ‘What about those two hundred foreskins?’

  Nik threw back his head and gave one of his rare, joyful laughs. ‘Maybe he converted them all before he circumcised them.’

  Emma laughed, too, but said, ‘No, no, that’s hardly likely.’

  ‘It’s still different.’

  ‘Why? If David had to bring all those foreskins back to Saul, he certainly had to kill at least a lot of those Philistines, and that’s cold blood, isn’t it?’

  He drew in his breath. ‘All I know is that David could not kill Saul. In spite of everything, he loved him.’

  In spite of everything. Yes. In spite of everything, her father loved Billy, his first son to survive babyhood. She would always love Adair. No matter what.

  ‘We’re here,’ Nik said. ‘Are you all right, sweetie?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He kept his arm about her as they went into the marble lobby. In every way
she was his girl. But he did not talk of marriage. Perhaps his parents’ example had soured him on marriage.

  David had not been a good example, either, but at least he had loved. He loved. And Sophie loved him.

  They went up in the elevator. Emma glanced at them in the amber-tinted mirror that lined the back wall. Nik’s dark curls were tousled by the wind. She pushed up the striped knitted wool cap which Abby had sent her from Florence, with a scarf to match. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold.

  ‘I’m starved,’ Nik said. ‘I wonder what treat Sophie will have for us tonight?’

  Blinis. Little pancakes with melted butter, sour cream, and caviar. ‘Davie’s thinking of doing Uncle Vanya next season,’ Sophie said. ‘So I’m being Russian.’

  ‘There might be a nice role for you, Emma,’ David said. ‘That is, if Nik’s play ever closes. You’re still drawing full houses, aren’t you, Nik?’

  ‘Yes. We’re very lucky.’

  ‘Luck shtuck. It’s a fine play with a good cast and you’ve written a role that’s perfect for Emma.’ He spooned melted butter onto his pancakes, added caviar and sour cream. ‘How’s the David play coming?’

  ‘Emma and I were talking about it while we were walking up here. It’s coming.’

  ‘You crazies’—Sophie looked at them affectionately—‘walking all that way in this weather, with the wind coming across the river from New Jersey.’ The way she said ‘New Jersey,’ it sounded as far off as China.

  ‘We’re getting into some really good stuff with David and Saul.’ Nik was enthusiastic. ‘And then the next thing is that Samuel dies.’

  ‘Onstage?’ David Wheaton asked.

  ‘Very off. Not much is made of it. All the Bible says is, “And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah.” That’s all.’

  ‘—and then Samuel died.’ Grandpa Bowman lowered his voice. ‘Right after David had lovingly spared Saul, Samuel died.

  ‘And there was great grief.’ Grandpa Bowman winced in anguish. ‘For all Samuel’s faults and follies, he was a great man. God took a child and shaped him into a prophet, a strange prophet perhaps, a seer, a dervish, but God often uses strange people and seldom has the opportunity to train them from childhood as he did Samuel. When Samuel began to judge the tribes of Israel they were scattered and quarrelsome, united only by their fitful and frequently faithless worship of their God, and by their common enemies, who were always nibbling at their borders. Samuel went a long way toward uniting them into a nation. Samuel, for all his stiff-neckedness, understood that God was more than the tribal god who was greater than the other tribes’ gods, but still one god among many. Samuel had fleeting glimpses of the One True Creator, the One God. Samuel was often arrogant and stupid, but he believed that he was being obedient to God, even when he was being obedient only to Samuel.

  ‘Saul was darker, more introverted, understanding neither God nor Samuel. When Saul asked God if he would deliver the enemy into the hand of Israel, God answered him not that day.

  ‘Do you heah that, my people? The Lord does not come and go at our beck and call. The Lord is not a heavenly bellboy. Heah?

  ‘Even Samuel did not understand that, and before full understanding came, he died, and all Israel mourned for him, and Saul wept, and David wept, and Samuel was buried at Ramah, and David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. David was more complicated than Samuel, and his vision of God was more complex, less masculine, less patriarchal, more tender and nurturing. But it was Samuel who pointed the way …’

  ‘I think Grandpa’s fond of Samuel, maybe because he’s so much like him,’ Emma said.

  ‘As opinionated and as stubborn,’ her father agreed.

  Nik took a swallow of the tea Sophie had prepared, not too strong, and sweetened with a spoonful of marmalade, Russian fashion. ‘After Samuel was buried at his house in Ramah, David went down to the wilderness of Paran.’

  Sophie poured him more tea. ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘Abigail.’ Nik grinned. ‘At last we come to Abigail and her horrible husband.’

  ‘Nabal,’ Emma said.

  ‘The boor. In Hebrew, that’s what the name Nabal means. He was a sheep owner, a big one, and shepherds in open country were always in danger from bandits and robbers. David and his men asked Nabal’s shepherds for protection money, and the shepherds knew that David had indeed protected them. But Nabal, who should have known better than to confuse David with ordinary marauders, shouted boorishly, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” as though David was a nobody. Abigail was a woman of real wisdom, and she knew that David was going to be a great king.’

  ‘How did she know?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘I suppose stories of David’s greatness had gone before him—Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands, and so forth. And there were probably rumors of those two hundred foreskins he paid for Michal. Here.’ Nik put his finger on a passage in the Bible. ‘We introduce Abigail into a scene where David and his men are furious with Nabal. They are in the background, and Abigail is downstage. A young man rushes across the stage to her, “Oh, mistress, mistress, quickly!” He tells her that David is going to kill them all for Nabal’s idiocy, and’—Nik slipped into the role of the messenger—‘“But David’s men were good to us, and took nothing from us, and guarded us. Now you will know what to do, mistress, for Nabal has angered David and he has told all his men to put on their swords and they are coming to kill us!” Abigail tells him to hush, and she calls her maids and tells them to gather loaves and wine. “There are five sheep dressed,” she says. “Thank God there is always feasting at the time of sheepshearing. Get raisins and fig cakes. Hurry! Put it all on asses and I will go before you.”’ Nik leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Abigail goes to David riding on an ass, but of course that won’t work onstage any more than hewing oxen. So what I plan is for her to slip on a purple-and-scarlet cloak of soft silk, put flowers in her hair, and she’ll walk upstage to meet David, quickly, but not seeming to hurry. Read this for us, Em, and modernize it a bit.’ He pushed the Bible over to her.

  She read, ‘My lord David fights only the battles of the Lord of Heaven.’ Emma stretched her hands out toward Nik. ‘No evil has ever been found in you, so I know that you will shed no blood today.’

  ‘Good, good. David would take one step toward her, and she’d say—go on.’

  ‘Mark me, my lord, for I speak the truth. The Lord is with you, and you will surely be lord over Israel. You are the Lord’s anointed.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Nik said. ‘I think that’s enough, don’t you? It’s a long speech in the Bible. Would you want to carry it all?’

  ‘No, thanks. She makes her point, and that’s plenty. David would thank her: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood—”’

  ‘He’s already in love with her,’ Nik said.

  ‘And she with him.’

  ‘And they’d come close to each other, so close they are almost touching, and then they’d break away, and the spotlight would go off them.’

  ‘And then?’ Sophie asked eagerly.

  ‘Perhaps we might have a scene with Abigail and Nabal, after the sheepshearing banquet, with Nabal drunk. He’d be even more repellent to her then, after she’s seen David.’

  ‘Perhaps we could condense a little here,’ Emma suggested. ‘Nabal would stagger to his feet to go to Abigail, too drunk even to know what he was doing, and then he could fall to the ground with the stroke that killed him.’

  David had taken the Bible and was looking at it. ‘He died ten days later.’

  ‘Yes, Papa, but time can be tightened a bit. Give Abigail a scene where Nabal has a fit and dies.’

  Nik nodded. ‘Then we can have musicians, and servants, everything to indicate that Abigail had all the proper mourners for Na
bal, and did all the right ritual things. A musical transition scene.’

  Emma smiled. ‘Abigail knew David would hear of Nabal’s death, and of course he did, and sent for her to be his wife.’

  Nik said, ‘I visualize a scene between Abigail and David in David’s chambers, lying together on his couch. Abigail will go to the window, to look out at the sky, which is that lovely blue that comes just before the stars. This can easily be indicated with a change of gelatins. A Maxfield Parrish or Edmund Dulac scene. I want to show the purple shadows on the hills, and Abigail leaning on the parapet, looking at the mountains and saying—what?’

  Emma smiled. ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’

  Nik said, flatly, ‘But that’s from the Psalms.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But the Psalms are David’s.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Emma said calmly. ‘Some of them are after the Jews have been driven out of Jerusalem and are in captivity.’

  ‘But why would Abigail know the Psalms?’

  ‘She wouldn’t. They were being written. So why’—she smiled across the table at Nik—‘why couldn’t Abigail have made up some of them? The way you’ve presented her, she’s intelligent and creative. Surely her first speech to David was poetic.’

  Nik scowled, then burst into laughter. ‘What an idea! I’d never in the world have thought of it! Okay, why not?’

  ‘Why not, indeed,’ David Wheaton said. ‘That’s my glorious Emma. Why couldn’t Abigail have made up some of the Psalms and taught them to David?’

  ‘Oh, I like that, Nik,’ Sophie said, ‘I think that’s wonderful.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll work on it. Now we come to a problem,’ Nik said. ‘I mean a problem for Abigail. As soon as David has married Abigail, he marries Ahinoam.’

  ‘Who?’ David asked.

  Nik answered, ‘A-hin-o-am. David married Abigail, and then, immediately, he married Ahinoam.’

  ‘I’ve never understood that,’ Emma said. ‘Even Grandpa couldn’t make it make sense.’