Away from Home

  Away from Home

  A Novel

  Rona Jaffe

  for my grandfather

  O que o Brazileiro destroi de dia,

  cresce de noite.

  What the Brazilian destroys during

  the day grows back at night.

  CHAPTER 1

  Rio. At this hour the beach was not usually so deserted. But now only a few lingering bathers remained, and a group of boys playing their daily soccer game at Posto Six. The sky was streaked with the pink and blue beginnings of sunset. If you looked straight out to sea you could see only the incredible blueness of the water for miles and miles and then the striated sky. A little to the right you could see an island with a lighthouse on top of it, just beginning to blink its man-made star into the evening. Farther to the right was the five-mile curving crescent of pale sand—the beach of Copacabana. On the far left, mountains, green, brown, gray, starting to fade into blue and purple in the setting sun. It was Christmas Eve.

  On the small traffic island in front of the Copacabana Palace Hotel they had just lighted up the Christmas tree for the first time, and it looked a little strange and out of place: northern fir and luminescent globes in a hot tropical night. In front of the tree was the mosaic sidewalk, swirls of gray and white tiles in the manner of old Portugal. It was getting darker.

  On the beach that edged the sidewalk in front of the hotel the man who sold kites had laid them to rest. They were bird-shaped kites made of cloth, great eagles, red and blue and black and white, that flew above the beach during the day in the blue sky like real birds, and in the evening perched in the sand supported by thin wooden poles. All day another man had been working too, dressed in shabby khakis, crouched in front of a giant sand castle he had built and finishing the last exquisite details of the windows with a tiny pointed stick. Now it was complete, just as the sky turned black and filled with stars. Carefully he set candles all around the sand castle and lighted them, so that from across the street it looked like a mysterious shrine, all glowing. He put a painfully lettered sign in the sand in front of it: Exact Replica of the Taj Mahal. He had never seen the Taj Mahal except on picture postcards. There was a string of lights now all along the curve of beach, the lights that some people call The Queen’s Necklace. They were street lights, lights of hotels, of sidewalk cafés, of apartment buildings, of Copacabana and Ipanema and Leblon.

  In one of the great modern apartment buildings overlooking Copacabana Beach an American couple named Helen and Bert Sinclair were sitting in their library waiting for a long-distance telephone call he had put in to the States an hour before. They were a good-looking couple, he very dark, she fair, both young, with the look of settled Americans in a foreign country: healthy, sleek, privileged, proud, and vulnerable.

  Helen had lighted only one lamp as the room had slowly darkened. Under the lamp on the desk the telephone rang; the long-drawn-out ring of Long Distance. “That’s it,” Bert said. “You take it first.”

  “Hello?” Helen said into the receiver, not quite sure whether or not she should shout. This was the first time they had spoken to New York.

  “Helen?” her mother said. “How are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. We’re all fine. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mother. We called to say Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, darling. Merry Christmas.” She could hear her mother begin to weep. “How are Roger and Julie? I read in the papers that there’s a smallpox epidemic in Brazil.”

  “That’s the first I ever heard of it,” Helen said. “The children are fine. Please stop crying, Mother, I can’t hear you.”

  “Does Julie still have allergies?”

  “No, they’ve gone. I wrote you that. Please stop crying, Mother. I can’t hear anything.” It gave Helen a sick feeling to hear her mother cry on the telephone; it was like going down too rapidly in an elevator. And in a way, she felt angry at her mother, too, for crying now when all she and Bert had wanted was to call and make tonight a happier Christmas Eve. “How’s Daddy?”

  “He’s fine. He’s here, grabbing the receiver out of my hand. Take care of yourself, Helen. Take care of yourself, darling. Don’t let the children drink that milk. They never pasteurize it. I’ll send you some more powdered milk by air mail.”

  “Mother, that costs a fortune. Please don’t. They do pasteurize some of the milk. Don’t send me any more milk. Please stop crying.”

  “Hello, Helen!” her father said happily. “Merry Christmas!” He sounded so hearty and cheerful and genuinely glad to speak to her that it almost made Helen start to cry herself.

  “Daddy, how are you?”

  “Fine. We’re all fine.”

  “Is it cold in New York? Is it snowing?”

  “It’s nice and invigorating. Eight above zero. You would like it.”

  He wants me to come home, too, Helen thought. He knows how much I hate cold weather. “It sounds lovely,” she said.

  “I went ice skating this morning in the park. Your old man can still do a figure eight. I wish I could take Roger ice skating.”

  “And we wish you could come here and lie on the beach with us,” Helen said cheerfully. But she was beginning to feel depressed and homesick, and she was wondering if it would have been better after all if they had not called. They could have sent a cable and avoided the pang of sensing all the unsaid things that came through those familiar voices.

  “Do you still like Rio?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s Bert?”

  “He’s fine. I’ll let you speak to him.” She held the receiver out to Bert, mouthing “Hurry.”

  “Hello,” Bert said. “Merry Christmas. Fine. We’re all fine. Thank you, same to you, sir. Hello, Mother. Merry Christmas. We’re all wonderful. Thank you. Yes … just a minute.” He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “Your mother wants to say goodbye.”

  “Oh, Mother,” Helen said. “Goodbye. Have a wonderful, wonderful New Year. Kiss Daddy for me.” What she wanted, really, at that moment, was to ask to speak to her father again; but she thought of how long they had spoken on this transatlantic call already and of the money it would cost, and how none of them had actually said anything that mattered, and her throat closed with the beginning of tears. It occurred to her suddenly that her father might die, that she might never see him again or hear his voice. Her father was always so reassuring and comfortable about everything, even when she knew that he was as worried as her mother about some imaginary South American epidemic. He could say, “I miss you,” and they were two people missing each other and it was honest and natural. Of course they missed each other. But then her mother would say, “I miss you,” and sob, and suddenly Helen would find herself obliged to feel so sorry for her mother’s bereavement that she did not miss her mother at all.

  “Is Daddy all right, Mother? Are you sure?”

  “He’s all right. But he misses you and the children. Do you really have to stay there for three years?”

  “Bert has to stay. We’re going to say goodbye now. The children send love. Give Daddy a kiss for me. Goodbye, darling.”

  When she replaced the receiver her hand was shaking. I wish we hadn’t called.

  Bert smiled at her, looking a little satanic in the dark at this moment. “My God,” he said. “It’s a good thing we decided not to put the children on. We wait here an hour and a half for the call to come through and it costs four contos, and then everybody cries so much you can’t hear anything anyway. You look like you could use a very small Scotch and water.”

  It was exactly what she had been thinking, but for some reason, perhaps because she felt guilty at hearing her thoughts ex
pressed aloud, she felt annoyed at him. “You don’t have to make fun of them,” she said, more vehemently than she had intended.

  “I’m not. I think your father’s wonderful.”

  “And you can’t stand my mother. You never could.”

  “I just think you ought to tell her a few things,” Bert said coolly. “You’re a big girl now. You have two big children.”

  “And I’ll always worry about my children, even when they’re grown up. That’s the way mothers are built. If you’re a mother, you’re a mother in your head too. Otherwise you shouldn’t be one.”

  “All right,” he said. “Excuse me. Do you want a Scotch?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Well, I do.” He walked to the door, not looking back.

  “Please!”

  He turned then, and when she looked at his face that was so beautiful to her, and remembered that this man would belong to her forever, no matter what ridiculous things they might say to each other in anger, she almost hated herself. “I do want a Scotch,” Helen said, very softly. “Wait and I’ll come with you.”

  They walked to the living room hand in hand, and Bert made two very stiff Scotches at the bar. “What’s that silly thing they always say here?” she asked.

  “Chin-chin.”

  “Yes. It sounds Chinese, not Brazilian.” They touched their glasses together. The first taste of Scotch and water was good and Helen drank it all quickly, feeling herself beginning to unwind. It had been stupid to get upset. Relatives always wept at things like long-distance calls on holidays, and weddings, and christenings, because of the whole fabric of emotion that has been woven about these events, not because anyone is genuinely moved. It was a mild form of hysteria. It was stupid to get upset about it. They had been alone here for almost a year and they would remain here over two years more, and there was nothing to be done about it. No one had put a gun at hers or Bert’s head and said, “You must go to Brazil.” They had come here by choice, for the money, for the adventure, for the chances Bert would have when he eventually returned to the States. They had wanted to come. And when they finished the three years here they would probably go to another country, like Colombia, for another three years, and only then would they go home.

  She put her arms around her husband’s waist. “Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Muito?”

  “Yes.”

  “Demais?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Do you think I’m an old, boring mother of two—what you said—two big children?”

  He put his hands on the small of her back and then slid them lower, pulling her to him. “No, I think you’re the young, beautiful mother of two little, tiny, midget children.”

  “Hold me there. I like that.”

  “Hold me too. Just for a minute.”

  Just for a minute, Helen thought; like two guilty teen-agers necking in the parlor. She looked into his eyes and knew that he was thinking the same thing. It’s very nice to tell children about sex but you mustn’t act it out for them. The children will finish their dinners and run in any minute. When you have children you are a Mother, you are, with a capital M; and you have to make love at night when they’re sleeping, or when they’re away, and things are never just the same.

  “I’m thinking of something I’m going to do to you tonight,” Bert said.

  “We have to go to that damned party,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “After the party.”

  I hate it, Helen thought; I hate it, I hate it. Eat on schedule, sleep on schedule, play with the children on schedule, even make love on schedule. Not when you want to, but when everything else is neatly disposed of and it’s time. Is that all life has turned into for us?

  “What’s the matter?” Bert asked when she drew away slightly.

  “Nothing, darling,” she said gently. She kissed him and drew away farther, pretending to look for a cigarette. “I thought it was supposed to be the men who don’t like to begin things they can’t finish. I think it’s the women too.”

  He lighted cigarettes for them both and gave her one. “Do you think we ought to eat something before this dinner tonight?”

  “Not unless you’re hungry now. They’re Americans, so they’ll serve early. I figured out a whole timetable. There are the Americans who say, ‘We always eat at six-thirty, just like at home,’ with that tiny bit of comfortable smugness in their voices; and then of course they have to serve a whole buffet at midnight anyway. And then there are the Embassy people and the others who’ve semi-adapted, and they have dinner at eight or eight-thirty. And then there are the Brazilians, who have dinner at ten.”

  “Or twelve or one,” Bert said wryly.

  “All right, love, I can take a hint. I’ll have Maria make you a sandwich. Margie and Neil are coming over for a drink first, and then we’ll drive to the party in their car, if you want. It’s sport shirts tonight.”

  “Good.”

  She went into the kitchen to talk to the maids, and then into Julie’s room where the children were finishing their supper with the governess. It occurred to her fleetingly as she walked down the hall, pressing a light switch, picking up a book that Roger had left on the hall chair, that she had turned into a kind of major-domo. Menus, lists, social schedules, clothes, orders to servants—she sometimes felt as if she were running a small hotel. During the years in their apartment in Riverdale, and then in the house in Westport when the children were older, she had done her own work with only a twice-weekly cleaning woman to do the heavy jobs. Looking back, she realized she had probably done the work of five, but all her friends had done the same so none of them had really thought it was extraordinary. And now she was only the giver of orders to others, and she felt ten years older.

  Margie and Neil Davidow came at seven, wearing that polished, brushed look of people who have just dressed for a party. She was a smallish, dark girl, with an excellent figure and an even more spectacular clothes sense, and an incredible neatness and femininity of person that passed for beauty and actually managed to substitute very well for it. Many people said she was beautiful. Very quietly, Margie was a typical product of the twentieth century. She had had her teeth straightened while she was in high school, and her nose shortened a year later, and she wore invisible contact lenses for her nearsightedness. She had no children, and her husband had money, so she spent most of her time taking care of herself and her husband; choosing soft material to have his suits made, finding an obscure Italian tailor to cut them better than anybody else. She was twenty-five and Neil was thirty-one, the same age as Bert Sinclair. But Neil Davidow looked much older than Bert, not because of his features but because he had a kind of settled look. He was tall, with large features and dark straight hair. Until Margie had told her, Helen had never been able to guess how old Neil actually was. Neil and Margie had been married for five years, three of them spent in Brazil, and Margie Davidow was Helen Sinclair’s best friend.

  As soon as greetings had been exchanged the two couples separated; the men to the bar to make fresh drinks, the women to the corner of the sofa.

  “Look at us,” Helen said, laughing. “The men on one side of the room and the women on the other. God forbid someone should flirt with someone else’s wife.”

  “I’ll tell Neil to come over and flirt with you,” Margie said cozily. “He’ll love it.” She waved at her husband. “Come here, darling, we need you.”

  “What are you talking about anyway?” Helen said. “Money or women?”

  “Money,” said Neil.

  “Women,” said Bert. “Be quiet, you’ll have them too sure of us.”

  “Well, at least give Bert some good tips on the market, Neil,” Helen said.

  “That’s what I’m doing,” said Neil.

  How he lights up when he talks about business, Helen thought. And look at my husband. They look as if they’re off on a treasure hunt. “Don’t you want a drink, Margie?”

&
nbsp; “No. No, thank you. We’ll have to drink at the party, and it’s too hot tonight.”

  “Listen,” Helen said, “Roger is going to flip tomorrow when he sees that train you and Neil gave him. You shouldn’t have spent so much money. I never saw a train like that in Brazil.”

  “I sent to F.A.O. Schwarz for it,” Margie said. “Why not, anyway? By the time you all go back to live in the States he’ll be too old for trains. And I adore him.”

  “Oh, how he adores you, too!”

  “I really ought to have children,” Margie said vaguely. She turned her gold bracelet around on her wrist and looked at it as if she had never seen it before. “I can, you know. There’s nothing wrong with me. I just … never decided to.” She lowered her voice. “I had two martinis in the kitchen before we came here. You might have gathered.”

  “You look fine,” Helen said.

  “Neil got a letter from his mother today and she made another one of those awful coy remarks about how nice it would be to be a grandmother. I hate it.”

  “I hate it too. Luckily for me I had Julie right away, so all I had to put up with was ‘Oh, you’re too young, too young, what a shame!’” She and Margie grinned at each other companionably. Then Margie’s smile faded.

  “There are limits to everything,” she whispered vehemently. “I don’t care what anyone tells me. You can tell me my shoes clash with my dress, or my new tablecloth is ugly, or I ought to learn more about politics. All right. Okay. I’m not a brilliant person, I’m just an ordinary person, and I’ll thank anyone who wants to tell me something if it’s going to help me improve. But there’s one thing I can’t stand. Nobody is going to tell me when I’m going to do my screwing with my husband, nobody!”

  Helen looked at Margie, troubled. She had never seen her so excited. She covered Margie’s hand, where it lay on the couch, with her own. “Of course not.”

  “I’m just drunk,” Margie said lightly. She smiled, and she looked the same as before her outburst—unruffled, serene, ladylike, not even a bit of face powder beginning to wear off. “You know,” she said quietly, “Sometimes, like this evening before we got here, I wish I were dead.”