Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Matthew, I wish you’d stop this non—”

“Where do you want to live when we’re married? Do you like the city?”

“Married!”

“Some people feel the suburbs are better for children, but—”

“Children! We’re not even... we hardly...”

“You’re my girl, Amanda,” he said.

“ Who’s your girl? Are you out of—”

“You’re my girl. Remember that. If you so much as look at another man, I’ll break both his legs.”

She was silent for several moments. Then she said, “Would you mind taking me back to the dorm, please? Really, I’ve had enough. Would you take me back, please?”

“No.”

“Well then, just stop the car, and I’ll hitch back.”

“No.”

“Matthew, please stop this car!”

“All right,” he said, and he suddenly swerved to the right, bounced over the concrete shoulder of the road, and came to a stop on the grass.

“Why’d you do that?” she said.

“You asked me to.”

“You could have got us killed.”

“To live without your love is to be dead anyway.”

“Stop talking like that!”

“Why?”

“Because we’re... we’re not... not any of the things you seem to think we are. And I... I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re talking as if—”

“Why don’t you want to hurt me?”

“Because I don’t like to hurt anyone! Oh, you’re just... you’re... oh, what’s the use? Let me out of the car.”

“The door is on your right,” Matthew said.

Amanda hesitated. “Really, can’t you stop?”

“No. I love you.”

“But...”

“You’re my girl.”

“I’m not your girl. I’m not anyone’s girl. Please, you’re going to make me cry. Please. Now please.”

He took her into his arms gently, and she lay against him, quietly exhausted, her hand on the lapel of his blouse. She did not move when he kissed her forehead.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I am, too.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“All right.”

She lay in his arms unmoving, the night air warm, the stars unblinking overhead. In a little while she sat up and said, “Let’s go to dinner.”

“Do you believe I love you?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Amanda...”

“Could we not talk about it, Matthew? Please? I’m really very hungry, and you do make me very angry, and I feel a little mixed up right now, and I’d rather not talk about it. Please, if... if... if you... you...” She could not say the word. “If you... feel the way you say you do, then please respect my wishes and let’s go to the restaurant and eat and talk about... about... b-b-baseball or something, please. Is my hair all mussed?”

“You look beautiful,” he said.

She turned to look at him as he started the car, and very gently answered, “Thank you.”

She saw the film many years later, thousands upon thousands of stop-action photos spliced together to show the blooming process of a plant from tightly closed bud to extended flower. When she saw the film, she thought, That’s the way it was, that’s the way you get married, and then she shoved the thought aside because she did not wish to defile a memory that was no longer even that, a blur instead, something that had happened very long ago to a very young and innocent girl.

But that was how it had been, she knew. Photo upon photo flashed in rapid succession upon a screen, no single photo important in itself, the change imperceptible from one still shot to the next, and yet each separate shot essential to the steadily unfolding sequence, each barely discernible change combining to form an overwhelmingly dramatic change, the juxtaposition of a remembered closed bud against a sudden bloom touched by morning sun. That is the way people get married, she thought.

She could remember with certain clarity only the afternoon he first called and the evening that followed. Everything after that seemed as gradual, as inexorable, as inevitable, as that stop-action flower unfolding to meet the kiss of the sun. It was impossible at first. They argued, they fought, she would often crawl into her bed demolished by his insensitivity, shattered to the point of tears, vowing never to see him again. She should have gone back to Minnesota instead of taking the camp job. Why did he insist on coming up each weekend? How had she ever become so involved with such a horrible person? But he would call in the middle of the night, and someone would wake her, and she would walk over the mist-covered grass to the camp office, clutching her robe tightly around her, to answer the phone. She would listen to his apologetic voice, and she would say, “I don’t think we should see each other again, Matthew,” and he would say, “I love you, Amanda,” and she would say, “Yes, but it’s impossible,” and he would say, “I adore you, Amanda,” and the very next weekend he would be back carrying flowers. “I just happened to spot these on the road,” a patent lie because he never arrived empty-handed. It was as if he felt his presence was really not enough to give, as if he felt his professed love needed tangible proof. They argued that entire summer long, interminably. “I can’t stand you!” she once screamed at him. “I hate you, I hate you!” But she continued seeing him.

She should have gone back to Minnesota in the fall. She took a job at a music school instead, and she saw Matthew almost every night. Together, they discovered the city, and in the process discovered each other. And yet there was nothing memorable in what they did, the rides up Fifth Avenue in the double-decker buses, the trip to the Cloisters, the ferryboat to Staten Island, all the tourist things, all the corny motions of strangers trying on a city like a new coat, touching it in exploration, but sharing it — though later she would not be able to remember what they shared. The atheist on Broadway and Fifty-seventh, his stand covered with antireligious pamphlets? “How are things going?” Matthew had asked him. “So-so,” the man replied. “Organized religion still has quite a hold.” Matthew grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll win yet,” he assured the man. “Have faith.” And Amanda had giggled into the upturned collar of her coat as Matthew whisked her away from the bewildered, bewhiskered man.

Incident, she knew, and unimportant. But incident piled upon incident to form a mutual bank of experience and knowledge: “Do you remember the time?” and then compressing memory into a personal shorthand so that a key word, a key phrase, a single punch line or gesture would trigger the memory and bring back vividly the experience itself, cherished because it belonged to them alone, wide-eyed strangers in a city as large as the world. Memory unmemorable. The unvoiced knowledge that a hundred thousand others were doing exactly the same things, exchanging the same glances, touching hands and lips, whispering secrets, telling all in that first sweet rush of romance.

Winter would not leave the city. It took on a personality, villainous, stubborn, wretched. Now that the war was over, now that victory was here, she had almost imagined there would never be winter again, yet here it was, obstinate and vicious, and she longed for spring. And when it came at last, it heightened what she felt for Matthew and left her somewhat giddy. The city itself, always a trifle unreal to her, became a gigantic balmy backdrop for Matthew the man, a Camelot into which he rode bravely and gallantly, wearing her favor. She loved the way he moved, the long graceful strides, the boyish tilt of his head, the purposeful energy of every motion, the way he miraculously translated thought into action without the slightest hesitancy or doubt. She came to know his every gesture and to wait expectantly for it, a small shudder of excitement accompanying the expected move.