Russell Banks - The Reserve

Their passion rose slowly. His because he had never made love like this before, delicately, teasingly, fully aware of each slow turning, and though it frightened him a little, it excited him in a fresh way. Hers rising slowly also, but with her it was because she had made love in this fashion many times before and knew very well its effect on a man who was used to having his way with a woman quickly and efficiently without being conscious of having lost awareness of his body. Men like Jordan Groves, egocentric sensualists, men whose lovemaking left them with a sense of accomplishment, were rarely truly satisfied by a woman, unless she managed to slow him in his headlong rush. He had to be brought, bit by bit, cell by cell, to complete awareness of his body, moving, as if he were a woman, from the outside in, rather than from the inside out, so that when he did lose his body, he lost everything. Men like Jordan Groves had to be braked and slowed. They were the only men capable of exciting Vanessa’s passion. Slowing them almost to a stopping point gave her a power over them that she otherwise lacked. It brought her out of herself and forward toward another human being and through that other into the shuddering void beyond, and when that happened she cried out in joy. Afterward, with no memory of having cried out, she had to be told of it by her lover, as if she had been elsewhere at the time. For she had been elsewhere — she had left the locked and guarded, dark room of her body for the blinding light of self-forgetfulness, where there was no one to be courted or seduced, where there was no one to affirm her reality by means of his or her gaze, and no one to fail at it over and over again. Making love with men like Jordan Groves let Vanessa Cole believe for a few seconds in the sustained reality of her essential being, even though afterward she could not remember ever having experienced it as such. Even though afterward it was as if self-awareness had been surgically removed and all she had to go on, all she was capable of experiencing, was its phantom. But her belief in its existence, like a Christian’s belief in a god she’s never met, gave Vanessa strength and a small, transient portion of equanimity, and for many years that belief had kept her from annihilating herself.

IT WAS NEARLY DARK WHEN THEY HEARD FOOTSTEPS ON THE DECK at the front of the house and then the squeak of the screened door of the porch opening and closing, and someone crossed the porch and knocked lightly on the living room door. Jordan reached for his clothes and rapidly began pulling them on, while Vanessa calmly rose from the bed, strolled naked to the dressing room, and emerged wrapped in a white cotton sheet. She told him to stay where he was and walked from the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. Jordan peered cautiously from the window along the front of the house to the porch. In the heavy shadow of the overhanging pines, even with a full moon rising in the east, it was too dark for him to see who was there, except that it was a man.

At the living room door Vanessa called, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Hubert. Hubert St. Germain, Miss Cole.”

“What do you want? I’m not dressed.”

“I got to talk to you, Miss Cole.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

She opened the door, but did not invite him inside. “What do you want? You shouldn’t be here now, you know.” The cold air rushed into the room, and she shivered and pulled the sheet tightly around her. She was not fooled: the guide was bringing news that she did not want to hear.

“I know I shouldn’t have come out. But I got to warn you.”

“What, the British are coming?”

“No. I did something that I thought…that I thought was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do, under the circumstances. Only it didn’t work out right.”

“For heaven’s sake, Hubert, you sound like you’ve been a bad boy. Stop beating around the bush and tell me,” she said, although she already knew what he’d done and what would follow. She turned away and told him to come inside, then walked to her bedroom door and called to Jordan, “Come on out. It’s Paul Revere. The British are coming.” He’s told someone, she said to herself. The bloody fool. She never should have trusted him. He was weaker than she had thought.

Returning to the living room, she strode to the bar and poured herself a half glass of rum and the same for Jordan. “You want a drink?” she asked Hubert. “Sit down and have a drink,” she said. Then, “No, make a fire first, will you? It’s cold in here.”

“I could use a drink, I guess. H’lo, Jordan,” he said as the artist entered the room, dressed, but shirtless, with his leather jacket on and zipped.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jordan said.

“I’m afraid he’s the harbinger of bad tidings. What do you want, Hubert? To drink, I mean.”

“Same as you, I guess.”

“You guess. Is that all you do, guess?”

“No. I know a few things. I’ll have the same as you and Jordan,” he said and knelt by the fireplace and crumpled newspaper into it and laid some sticks down and while the others watched in silence got the fire lit.

Jordan slumped in a large chair and looked at him. Finally he asked, “What’s the bad news, Hubert? No, don’t tell me, let me guess. You got back to your cabin and sat there looking at your dog and had a crisis of conscience. Right?”

Hubert stood and looked at Jordan, then at Vanessa, who handed him the drink. The burning pine sticks snapped loudly behind him. He saw that they had spent the afternoon making love, and was glad of it. So many things were fracturing and getting reconfigured that it felt somehow reassuring to see still more of it. What the hell, let it all come down, he thought. Everything that’s broke is beyond repair. He was even glad that Alicia and he would not be able to see each other again, and that he might never be able to hire out his services to the Reserve again. Better that nothing will ever be the same again, rather than only some things. “Yes, you’re right,” he said to Jordan. “As far as it goes.”

“Jesus Christ,” Vanessa said. “‘As far as it goes.’” She moved from table to table, lighting the kerosene lanterns, filling the large, high-ceilinged room with pale orange light. “My father’s dead only a few weeks, and my mother’s killed this morning by a shotgun blast, a regrettable, sad accident, as we know, and Daddy’s ashes are in the lake, and Mother’s body is buried in the woods, both deeds illegally done, and you’re having a little crise de conscience ? Get some perspective, Hubert. I haven’t even started to properly mourn yet, because of all this goddamned mess, and meanwhile you’re feeling a little guilty? Why should we care about that?”

“If that’s all it was, that I talked to Alicia about…about what happened this morning and all, I wouldn’t have come out here tonight. I would’ve just left it like it was.”

“You did what ?” Jordan said. “You told Alicia? Jesus!”

“Why on earth did you do that, Hubert? What were you thinking ?”

Jordan said, “I’ll tell you what he was thinking. He carried his little bag of guilt straight to his lover, my wife, because he couldn’t handle it himself, and she’s the only one he knows who would keep his secret, since I’m a part of it and she’s married to me, the father of her children, and is therefore obliged to protect me. Besides, she’s good at keeping secrets, isn’t she, Hubie? So now Alicia knows about it, and you’re feeling guilty about that, too. You’re having a second crisis of conscience, and you’ve rowed all the way out here in the dark to get it off your chest. You can screw another man’s wife, but you can’t stand thinking badly of yourself. Better get used to it, Hubie.”