Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

The letter stopped writing itself inside his head. He thought of his mother sitting down having tea with Martha, saying, “You say your mother lives in Philadelphia? And your father … oh … Do try one of these cakes. And you say you met Munnie in Florence and then just you and he and Bert went all around Europe for the rest of the summer all together … Lemon, cream?”

Munnie shook his head. He’d handle his mother when the time came. He went back to writing the imaginary letter.

You said once that you didn’t know what you wanted to do with yourself, that you were waiting for some kind of revelation to send you in a permanent direction. Maybe you’ll laugh at me for offering myself as a revelation, but maybe you’ll feel that marrying me will …

Munnie shook his head disgustedly. God, even if she was crazy in love with him, he thought, a sentence like that would queer it forever.

I don’t know about you and other men , he went on jumpily in his head. You never seemed interested in anybody else while you were with us and you never mentioned anybody else in any particular way and as far as I could tell you never showed any preference between Bert and me …

Munnie opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Bert and Martha. They were sitting close together, almost head to head, facing each other, talking in low, serious voices.

He remembered Bert’s description of what he called his gift. I have charm and I don’t give a damn. Well, Munnie thought, with satisfaction, even if she overlooked the egotism, that can’t have attracted her so much. And besides, there was that open and avowed blonde in St. Tropez. If Bert had planned to do anything with Martha, or if Martha, as Bert had predicted, was interested in making a choice, that certainly would have put an end to it, wouldn’t it? Bert, Munnie decided, could be the amusing, bachelor friend of the family. The best kind.

Munnie dozed a little, a succession of warm and delicious images pouring through his mind. Martha coming off the airplane at Idlewild, because after getting his letter the boat was too slow, and walking away from the runway into his arms. Martha and he waking late on a Sunday morning in their own apartment and deciding to doze for another hour and then go out to breakfast. Martha coming into a party on his arm and a slight, approving, envious, subtle hush sweeping the room for a moment, because she was so beautiful. Martha …

Someone was shouting. Far off, someone was shouting.

Munnie opened his eyes and blinked, thinking, puzzled. Now, why did anyone shout in my dream?

The cry came again and Munnie stood up and looked out at the bay. In the water, at least three hundred yards away, was a small boat. It was the dory they had seen before. It had capsized and it was low in the water and there were two figures clinging to it. As he watched, he heard the cry again, wordless, desperate. A hand and arm flashed in the sunlight, waving.

Munnie turned and looked over at Bert and Martha. They were stretched out, their heads together on the towel, their bodies making a wide V, sleeping.

“Bert!” Munnie called. “Martha! Get up!”

Bert stirred, then sat up, rubbing his eyes. The shout came again, wailing, from the bay.

“Out there,” Munnie said, pointing. Bert swung around, still sitting, and looked at the capsized boat and the two almost-submerged figures clinging to it, a man and a woman. “Good God,” Bert said. “What do they think they’re doing there?” He nudged Martha. “Wake up,” he said, “and watch the shipwreck.”

The boat lay almost motionless in the water, only shifting a little as the two figures moved, changing their positions. As Munnie watched, he saw the man push off from the boat and start to swim toward the beach. The man swam slowly and every thirty seconds he stopped and shouted and waved. After each stop he slid under, then reappeared, splashing and frantic.

“Oh, my,” Bert said. “He’s leaving her out there!”

Bert was standing by now, with Martha at his side, peering across the bay. The man had a good three hundred yards to go before he could touch down on the beach and with his screaming and waving and going under twice a minute, it didn’t look as though he was going to make it. The woman who had been left hanging onto the boat shouted from time to time, too, and her voice sounded shrill and angry as it floated across the glittering quiet water.

Finally, Munnie could make out what the swimmer was shouting. “ Au secours! Je noye, je noye! ” Munnie felt a little flicker of annoyance with him. It seemed melodramatic and overdone to be shouting “I’m drowning,” especially in such a powerful voice, on a peaceful afternoon in the calm, sunny bay. He went over to the edge of the wall, joining Bert and Martha.

“He seems to be doing all right,” Bert said. “He’s got a nice, strong stroke there.”

“He’s going to have to do a little explaining later,” Martha said, “leaving his girl friend out there like that.”

As they watched, the man went under again. He seemed to stay under a long time and Munnie began to feel his mouth get very dry, watching the spot where the man had disappeared. Then the man surfaced again, this time with his shoulders and arms bare, white and glistening against the deep blue water. He had taken off his shirt underwater and a moment later the shirt came up and floated away, billowing soddenly. The man shouted again. By now it was plain that he was calling directly to the three of them, standing on the wall. The man started swimming again, thrashing heavily.

Munnie scanned the beach and the wharf on which the Snipes were put up on blocks for the winter. There wasn’t a boat of any kind he could use, or even a length of rope. He listened for the sound of the hammer they had heard when they had first come onto the wall. Then he realized it had stopped a long time ago, while they were still eating. Far across, on the other side of the bay, there was no movement in front of the houses that faced the water and there were no swimmers or fishermen or children playing anywhere in sight. The entire world of stone, sand and sea that afternoon seemed to be given over to the three of them standing on the wall, and the woman clinging to the bottom of the capsized boat calling shrilly and angrily to the half-naked man struggling in the water and moving slowly and painfully away from her.

Why couldn’t this have happened in August? Munnie thought irritably. He looked down at the water rippling in gentle regular swells against the base of the wall. It wasn’t very deep now, with the tide out, four or five feet at the most, and huge chunks of rock and concrete broke the surface irregularly. If you jumped it was a drop of at least fifteen feet and there would be no avoiding the rocks.

Munnie looked, almost embarrassedly, across at Martha and Bert. Martha was squinting and there were lines on her forehead. She was biting her thumbnail absently like a little girl puzzling over a problem in school. Bert seemed critical and mildly interested, as though he were watching the performance of an acrobat in a third-rate circus.

“The damn fool,” Bert said mildly. “If he couldn’t handle a boat any better than that you’d think he’d have had the sense to stick close to the shore.”

“Frenchmen,” Martha said. “They think they can do anything.” She went back to chewing on her nail.

The man called again, aiming it at them.

“What’re we going to do?” Munnie asked.

“Bawl the stupid bastard out,” Bert said, “when he comes ashore, for being such a lousy sailor.”

Munnie peered at the swimmer. He was going more slowly now and he seemed to be settling deeper in the water after each stroke. “I don’t think he’s going to make it,” Munnie said.