Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins - The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World

“But—”

“I mean if a man intends to marry a girl—”

“But, Chief, there are two of them.”

“It is still a matter of intentions,” I say, feeling scalp-hawsers pop.

“You mean you’re going to marry both of them?”

“These are peculiar times. Abraham had several wives.”

“Abraham? Abraham who? My God, you couldn’t handle one wife.”

“Never mind,” I say stiffly. “The fact is I am responsible for all three of you.”

“Ho ho. Include me out!”

“Nevertheless—!”

“With those two”—she nods toward the wall—“you need me?”

“That’s right.”

“You need something. Chief, I don’t understand what is happening to you. You have so much to offer the world. There is so much that is fine in you. You’re a fine doctor. And God knows, if the world ever needed you, it needs you now. Yet all you want to do is live here in this motel with three women for months on end.”

“Yes!” I laugh. “You and I will spend the summer reading Calvin and Thomas Aquinas and let those two women squabble.”

“Not me, big boy! I’m leaving this afternoon.”

“You can’t. You heard what Art said.”

“It’s Art who’s picking me up.”

“What?”

“Dr. Immelmann offered me a job.”

“Doing what?”

“As his traveling secretary.”

“What in hell does that mean?”

“He’s going to Sweden to coordinate your MOQUOL program.”

“You and Art Immelmann in Sweden!”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“That’s the goddamnest thing I ever heard.”

“Your cursing doesn’t help the situation.”

“You don’t want to go with him.”

“No, I don’t, Chief,” says Ellen quietly. She sits bolt upright at the desk, starchy as a head nurse on the morning shift, eyes blue as Lake Geneva.

“Stay with me, Ellen. Things will settle down. We’ll go back to work. Somebody will have to pick up the pieces.”

Ellen is silent.

“Well?”

“There would have to be some fundamental changes before I would stay,” she says at last.

“Changes? What changes?”

“You figure it out, Chief.”

What does she mean, I wonder as I give myself a light lapsometer massage, firming up the musical-erotic as well as pineal selfhood.

A better question: why do I want all three women? For I do. I can’t stand the thought of losing a single one! How dare anyone take one of my girls?

Stepping out into the silvery rain, I notice a Bantu squatting cross-legged atop the Joy screen, looking toward the Center with a pair of binoculars.

The carillon has jumped back to Christmas.

Silent night,

Holy night

Moira sits on the bed reading Cosmopolitan . Damn, I wish she wouldn’t! I brought Rod McKuen and some house and home magazines for our weekend at Howard Johnson’s, but no, she has to bring Cosmopolitan . Why? Because of Helen Gurley Brown, her favorite author. She’s reading an article of Helen’s now, “Adultery for Adults.” Damn! For years now Helen has been telling girls it’s all right to screw anybody you like.

But what if she likes Buddy Brown?

I hand her House and Garden . “You shouldn’t read that stuff.”

“Why not?”

“It’s immoral.”

She shrugs but takes House and Garden . “You didn’t mind my reading it before.”

“That was before.”

“What’s wrong with my reading it now?”

“Everything.”

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s a matter of intention,” I begin, but she’s not listening. Something in House and Garden has caught her eye.

“I can’t decide which I like better, the new look or the Vermeer look.”

“What is the Vermeer look?”

“You know — Dutch doors with the top open, everything light and airy, tile.”

“Very good.”

“Myself I’ve always been partial to the outdoor-indoor look, green leaves in the kitchen, a bedroom opening to the treetops.”

“We had that.” I sit on the foot of the bed.

“Don’t you love this kitchen?”

“Yes.”

Moira must have had a nap. At any rate she’s rosy and composed, her old thrifty self. Cross-legged she sits, lower lip curled like a thick petal. Above her perfect oval face, a face unwounded, unscarred, unlined, unmarked by sadness or joy, the nap of her cropped wheat-colored hair invites the hand against its grain. My hand brushes it. My heart lifts. I am in love.

She’s the girl of our dreams, Americans! the very one we held in our hearts as we toiled in the jungles of Ecuador. She is! Sitting scrunched over and humpbacked, she is beautiful despite herself, calf yoga-swelled over heel, one elbow propped, the other winged out like a buzzard for all she cares. Prodigal she is with her own perfection, lip tucked, pencil scratching her head. She holds herself too cheap, leaves her gold lying around like bobby pins.

My throat is engorged with tenderness.

Planning a house she is, marking the margins of House Beautiful . She’s beautiful too. A bit short in the limbs, I’ll admit — I can stretch a hand’s span from her elbow to her acromium — but perfected as it were in the shortening. Her golden deltoid curves in in a single strong arc, a whorl of down marking its insertion. Now she turns a page and supinates her forearm to hold the spine of the magazine: down plunges the tendon into the fossa at her elbow. Sweet fossa. I kiss it.

“See how the prints of the casual pillows pick up the daisies in the wall tile.”

“Yes. I have any number of casual pillows at home.”

“I like casual living.”

“Me too.”

“Could we do the whole house over?”

“What house.”

“Your house.”

“Sure.”

“I think I’ll collect Shaker tableware. Look at these.”

“Very good. But I thought you were going to raise banties.”

“I am. But my great-grandfather was a backsliding Shaker who got married.”

“Is that so?”

“Here is something else I love: simple handcrafts.”

“I do too.”

She puts down her magazine, rises to stretch, sits in my lap.

“You are good enough to eat,” I say and begin to eat her kneecaps, which are like beaten biscuits. My fiery scalp begins to pop hawsers.

“You’re just like my Uncle Bud,” says Moira, burying her face in my neck.

“I know.”

“Only I like you better.”

“You’re a lovely girl.”

“What do you think of my taking up tennis at the club?”

“You’d look lovely in a tennis outfit.”

“I want to join a book club too.”

“There is a poetry club in Paradise.”

“I love poetry,” she says and recites a poem.

There was a girl in Portland

Before the winter chill

We used to go a’courting

Along October hill.

“Very nice.”

“It’s always had a special meaning to me.”

“Why?”

“Because we used to live in Portland, West Virginia.”

“I’d like to take you down October hill.”

“You look just like Rod McKuen, only stronger.”

“Younger too.”

“Wait a sec, Chico.”

“Where’re you going?”

“Next door. To get my sachet.”

“Ah. Hm. Actually I don’t … I didn’t mean … I …”

“Don’t worry. I’ll fool the battle-ax.”

“Battle-ax?” I say wonderingly.

She turns at the door, dimpling.

“Aunngh,” I say faintly. Segments of a road map drift across my retina, crossroads, bits of highway, county seats.

Sitting slouched and poetic, as gracefully as Rod, I wait for Moira before the winter chill.