Certain Women Read online

  ‘Everard, are you going to carve?’ Sophie asked.

  Everard sighed in resignation. ‘Why is this job always given to me?’

  ‘Because you’re the best at it,’ Chantal said.

  ‘See!’ Jarvis raised a finger. ‘Ev should be a surgeon.’

  ‘Turkeys, yes,’ Everard said. ‘People, no.’

  Sophie had placed bowls of food on the table. David poured wine. ‘None for me. I have to work tonight. I’ll have ginger ale.’

  ‘Me, too, please,’ said Emma.

  ‘No wine for Louis or Inez,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I’m old enough! I am!’ Inez protested.

  ‘Quiet, child,’ her father said firmly. ‘Ginger ale. You can have it in a wineglass.’

  Conversation became general until after dessert. Sophie, Chantal, and Emma had cleared the table, and they were nibbling at plum pudding.

  ‘As you all know,’ David said, ‘Nik is writing a play for me.’

  ‘It’s going to be a great play. I want to produce it,’ Jarvis said.

  ‘There’s a good role for Emma, too—’

  ‘I want some more hard sauce, please. And milk.’

  ‘Isn’t the chronology confusing?’

  ‘I want wine, not ginger ale.’

  ‘How many wives?’

  ‘Straighten us out, Papa.’

  They were all talking at once.

  David tried to outline the play as far as Nik had taken it, to the burning of Ziklag.

  ‘Actually,’ Nik said, ‘between David’s move to Ziklag and the sack of the town, Saul goes to see the witch of Endor, but dramatically I think it will work better to have the whole Ziklag story in one scene, and Saul’s going to the witch and then his death in another.’

  Sophie came in with milk for Louis.

  ‘Can’t we help clean up?’ Chantal asked.

  ‘No. no. I have my own way of doing things. You talk about Nikkie’s play. That makes my Davie happy.’

  Nik and David had been excited by the scene that followed the attack on Ziklag. ‘Wonderful language,’ Nik said, ‘with David and his men finding the ruined village and weeping, according to the King James translation, at the loss of their wives and little ones “until they had no more power to weep.”’

  ‘They knew how to cry in those days,’ Everard said.

  ‘So what happened next, when they’d finished weeping?’ Inez asked.

  Nik said, ‘After he’d finished weeping, David asked God if he should go after the Amalekites. And God told him yes, go after the Amalekites. And he told David he would overtake the Amalekites and recover everything.’

  Everard spread his hands out on the damask tablecloth, now spotted with the remains of Thanksgiving dinner. ‘We have a nut in my ward who holds long conversations with God about how to run the war.’

  Louis protested, ‘David wasn’t a nut.’

  Jarvis laughed. ‘In my experience it’s mostly nuts who converse with God.’

  Inez piped in, ‘The Bible is full of nuts, then.’

  ‘Hey, let’s get back to Nik’s play.’ Jarvis let out a stream of smoke through his nostrils.

  Nik’s play. A safe topic of conversation. It kept them from talking about Billy.

  Jarvis continued. ‘People didn’t have much choice about war in those days. There weren’t any conscientious objectors like Ev.’ He took another cigarette out of a silver case, saw his father looking at him with disapproval, and put it back. ‘Basically, I’m a pacifist, too. Live and let live is my motto.’

  ‘Hitler?’ David suggested.

  ‘Ah, Papa, there’s the rub.’ He finished his wine. ‘But I don’t talk to God about it. I think it’s up to us. So, Nik, did David go after them thar Amalekites?’

  ‘He did.’ Nik had his pocket Bible open, his finger marking the place. ‘Here, Em, read it, please.’

  Emma read, paraphrasing as she did so. ‘David reached the Amalekites, who were eating and drinking and dancing, and David in his righteous wrath smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day, and David rescued his two wives, and all the wives and children of his men, and everything that the Amalekites had taken from them.’

  ‘I can see it,’ Nik said.

  ‘What?’ David asked.

  ‘David going into the camp of the Amalekites. Breaking up the noisy celebration. The stage designer can go wild with colors, flags, tents, costumes. And music! The Amalekites all singing and dancing and making merry, cymbals clashing, tambourines, horns, wine flowing, and then David bursting on the scene. I can hear him bellowing—’

  And David Wheaton roared, ‘Where are my wives and my children?’

  ‘I’m not, obviously, going to show the battle. I’ll just have the music shift into cacophony and then silence, and everybody drifting off until the stage is nearly empty.’

  ‘And then, what do you bet,’ Emma suggested, ‘Ahinoam would come strolling out of one of the Amalekite tents, cool as a cucumber, with Amnon bouncing on her hip.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Nik said. ‘Zeruiah—she’d be there, of course, running to David, panting, calling, “Come, David, my lord, come to your wife Abigail, who is waiting for you!” And she’d catch hold of the hem of his garment.’

  David asked, ‘Why wasn’t Abigail there?’

  Nik said, ‘That’s what King David would ask, and Zeruiah will tell him, “Because she would not go into the tents of the enemy, my lord.” And Ahinoam will say, defensively, “What would you have me do? I needed to take care of my baby, the king’s son.”’

  David Wheaton asked, ‘So where was Abigail?’

  ‘Coming,’ Nik said, ‘walking slowly toward them, carrying her baby, Chileab, wrapped in her own garment, so that she comes to David naked, her head held high, her eyes proud. And David will leave Ahinoam, take his cloak, and wrap it around Abigail, embracing her.’ He stopped, looking at Emma. ‘Why are you laughing? It’s not a funny scene.’

  ‘No, no,’ Emma gasped. ‘It’s very moving. Truly.’

  ‘Then why are you laughing?’

  ‘You have Abigail naked again.’

  ‘Emma, do you have a thing about this?’

  ‘No, you have.’

  Nik got up and stalked out of the dining room, leaving the kitchen door swinging violently.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Emma sighed.

  Her father reached out and patted her hand. ‘Well, my dear, it wasn’t tactful of you.’

  ‘No. I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’ll have to learn more about men and our pride.’

  ‘Hey,’ Chantal objected, ‘what about women and our pride? Do we have to make special exceptions for men?’

  Emma fought down her impulse to run after Nik. ‘It’s okay,’ Louis reassured her. ‘Ev’s gone after him.’

  He really does have too many nude scenes—’ Emma said.

  David continued, ‘I assume David got all the flocks and herds of the Amalekites as his spoil and took them back to Ziklag. At least, that’s the usual way of things.’

  ‘Here they come,’ Inez said.

  ‘Hush,’ Chantal warned.

  Emma looked up in relief as Nik came in between Everard and Sophie and returned to his place at the table.

  ‘So, then, Nik,’ David went on as though there had been no interruption, ‘David took his wives and children home.’

  ‘Right.’ Nik made his voice casual. ‘And Chileab caught a chill from which he never recovered.’

  ‘Poor Abigail.’

  ‘And Zeruiah would be furious at Ahinoam for being a collaborator, as it were, while Abigail and Chileab had to sleep in the open.’

  ‘Good scene, Nik,’ David Wheaton said.

  Emma, Nik, and David left for the theater together. In the elevator David urged, ‘Please come back after the show for a turkey sandwich. Sophie’ll be terribly let down, and tired, and it will help if you’ll come.’

  ‘But if she’s tired—’ Nik started.

  ‘She�
�s going to want to sit up with me for a while, anyhow.’

  ‘Okay,’ Emma said. ‘We’ll come for a few minutes.’

  After the theater Emma, too, was tired. The audience had been heavy Thanksgiving evening. The cast had had to work hard for their laughs. She sat wearily at the table, which Sophie had set with her favorite crocheted mats. She had put fresh candles in the holders, rearranged the flowers.

  David Wheaton was returning to thoughts of Nik’s play. ‘David had an extraordinary sense of community for his day. Tribes of fewer than a hundred people pitted themselves against other tribes, and David was a leader they could all love.’

  ‘You, too, Dave,’ Nik said. ‘The cast is utterly devoted to you. And we’ll need that kind of community if my play is ever to come to life.’

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘David, I need to ask you something.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘When you said grace before Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon—I don’t mean to pry, but you hinted at things I didn’t understand.’

  ‘Yes, Nik, I probably did, and you’re due an explanation, but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave it alone for a while. It’s something I find very difficult to talk about. When the time comes, it’s Emma who should be the one to tell you.’

  Emma sat with her hands clenched in her lap, an uneaten turkey sandwich on the plate in front of her.

  ‘Okay,’ Nik said. ‘I’m sorry. I can see I’ve touched on something really painful.’

  ‘Nikkie.’ Sophie pushed through the kitchen door. ‘Another sandwich?’

  ‘Believe it or not, Sophie,’ Nik said. ‘No.’

  ‘And your David play?’ Sophie asked. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Moving along. My next scene will be Saul, going to the witch of Endor. He is frightened and horribly alone. Out of his mind with terror. So he persuades the old witch to bring up Samuel’s ghost, and Samuel is outraged at being disturbed from his place among the dead, and he tells Saul that the Lord has rent his kingdom out of his hand and given it to David because Saul disobeyed the Lord in not killing all the Amalekites when the Lord told him to.’

  ‘The story does keep referring back to that. I don’t like it,’ Emma said.

  ‘But Samuel’s ghost spoke true,’ Nik said, ‘and Saul was killed in battle.’

  ‘What a role for a character actor!’ David exclaimed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Nik agreed. ‘Samuel refused to speak to Saul, and the old king, in anguish, begged God to let him know what was going to happen. But God was silent. God would not speak to Saul.’

  “It’s a tragic story in many ways,” Abby said. She was sitting on the long bench in the main cabin, a sheaf of Nik’s yellowed pages in her hand. “God’s silence. God refusing to talk to Saul. And Saul, old and frightened and knowing that his kingdom was lost—I can but pity him.”

  Emma nodded. “Nik’s made him pitiable. He’s made us care about him. Even understand him for going to the witch of Endor, and her familiar spirit, whatever that is.”

  Abby said, “Someone who’s in touch with the spirit world, I suppose.”

  “With God?”

  “Not with God. With the underworld. If you’re in touch with God you don’t need familiar spirits. Remember, Saul was not in touch with God, not anymore, so it’s not surprising he’d think of Samuel.” She picked up the next page. Read. “Ah. The death of little Chileab …” She put down the page. Her hands were trembling. “After all these years—my babies were both dead long before you were born. Every time I think I’m invulnerable, something happens to tell me I’m not.”

  “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me, showing you that scene.’

  “Nonsense. I’ve been reading Nik’s play right along with you.” She picked up her sketchbook.

  In the morning, just after six, with David Wheaton and Abby still asleep, Emma, Alice, and Ben got into the rowboat, Ben at the oars, and went to the far side of Whittock Island. The tide was unusually low, and the abalone were stuck to the rocks above the tide line. Ben pried them loose swiftly and with ease, and Alice, too, quickly had a small basket full. Emma laughed at her own futile efforts to get the abs to let go their suction on the rock. While Ben and Alice filled their baskets, Emma ended up with two.

  “That’s plenty,” Alice assured her. “We’ll never eat this many. If you can stand garlic at breakfast, I’ll fix some to go with the scrambled eggs.”

  “I thought I was supposed to cook.”

  “If you’ve never cooked abs, you’d better let me do it.”

  Ben turned the rowboat back toward the Portia, skirting the rocks, pointing out great colonies of sea urchins, a rich red, with thousands of sharp quills. “Poisonous,” Ben reminded them.

  They passed white and green sea anemones, and small, round, translucent jellyfish opening and closing in rhythmic motions as they swam.

  Emma looked at Alice and Ben. This was their environment, their home. And yet Alice had appeared wholly contented with David in New York.

  When they got back to the Portia, Alice took the baskets of abs to the sink. The outside of their shells was lumpy and brownish. When Alice had cleaned them of the meat, the inside was lustrous, gleaming with the colors of mother-of-pearl. While Alice was cooking, Ben went back to pick up the shrimp traps, which contained many starfish as well as a plentiful catch of shrimp. Ben spread the starfish out on the cleaning shelf on the back deck to show Emma.

  “I’ve never seen starfish with as many colors,” she exclaimed. “Red, blue, lavender.”

  Ben pointed—“Sunflower starfish”—and Emma looked at a strange creature with twenty sun rays of legs. She counted. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Throw them back,” Ben said, doing so.

  Tamar

  And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son:

  The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

  Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

  Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.

  From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.

  Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.

  How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places.

  I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

  How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!

  II SAMUEL 1:17, 19–23, 25–27

  Ben planned to make the crossing to the Queen Charlottes that morning. When they had finished breakfast, Emma took the wheel, Alice keeping lookout for logs, or deadheads. It was cloudy, with just enough wind to rock the Portia. If they moved about the pilothouse, they held on to the brass rails above the wheel and along the port and starboard sides. Alice grinned. “Just like the subway.”

  David was asleep, snoring lightly. Abby was in the lower cabin, the curtains pulled around the double bed. Ben, too, was resting, stretched out on the long bunk behind the table. He would relieve Emma at the wheel when they came to open water.

  Emma enjoyed being on watch, steering the little craft through the beauty of quiet waters. “It reminds me of the Norwegian fjords,” she murmured.

  “When were you there?” Alice asked.

  “Nik and I took a vacation on a Norwegian mail boat, leaving from Bergen, and going across the Arctic Circle, around the North Cape, and back. We had a lovely, happy tim
e. The scenery was magnificent. Very much like this. Did you miss it terribly when you were in New York?”

  “Not terribly,” Alice said. Her voice broke. “Watch out for that patch of kelp over there. I think there’s a log in the middle.”

  Emma turned the wheel slightly. Rarely did Alice let her pain show. They held it between them, she thought, Alice and Abby and Ben and Emma, each bearing not only private pain but some of the pain of the others. She steered around a floating log on which sat five birds with dark beaks and bright red feet.

  “Oystercatchers,” Alice said, following Emma’s gaze.

  Emma nodded, staring ahead of her at the water, grey under a cloudy sky. They were still in sight of the land on either side, clothed in the deep green of fir trees. Occasionally there was a patch of lighter green where alders had grown up to replace trees which had been logged. Eventually the great conifers would grow and reach above the smaller trees.—Not in my lifetime, Emma thought.—These trees make our life spans seem very short.

  “Go to the left of that island,” Alice directed, and Emma turned the boat. Alice seldom used nautical terms like port and starboard. She said whatever was simplest. There was silence except for David’s breathing and the sound of the Portia moving through the water. Alice spoke softly. “I was reading the end of Samuel I and the beginning of Samuel II today. If we’re looking for contradictions, there are two completely different stories of Saul’s death.”

  “Two different writers, maybe?”

  “Maybe. In the end of Samuel I, Saul’s sons were all killed, and Saul himself was wounded, and he begged his armor bearer to take his sword and finish him off so the uncircumcised Philistines would not abuse him.”

  Although the two women had kept their voices low, David was roused from his nap and joined in. “Saul did not want to be killed by unclean swine.”

  Alice asked, “Was removing the foreskin that important?”

  “Yes,” David said. “It was a health measure in a hot and dirty country, very unlike the Pacific Northwest. But circumcision became far more than that. It was a symbol of being God’s true people, and those with foreskins were heathens, like me. Nowadays, when were all compulsive about our daily showers, there’s no need to remove a loose and healthy foreskin, is there?”