The Postmistress (3 page)

Now it would start, this next part. The orphaned girl with the serious eyes and the mole at the base of her throat was now the doctor’s wife, with a husband, a house, and a town. Marrying Will had pulled her through the dim gray curtain of unaccented time. The time spent in a shared room at the top of a boardinghouse, her stockings drying on the ladder-back chair. She was going home. She tried a smile in the window glass. Home. To Will.

Emma slid the Federal Writer’s Project guidebook on Cape Cod out from her satchel, turning to its section on Franklin:
The bait at the end of the sandy hook sticking fifty-odd miles into the Atlantic, the town of Franklin waves slyly back at the shore. The first thing one loses there is a sense of direction. Ringed by the yellow-white sand dunes and water on all sides, North and South seem to switch points on the compass, and the sky is no help. It is a place swollen by fish and the smell of fish, of cod oil, of the broken spars of whale bones and masts spat back from the sea onto the broad swath of beaches behind the town. Pilgrims of one sort or another have always come: first the Puritans, then the Portuguese whalers, and then at the turn of the last century artists arrived, wrapping their scarves on the tops of old dories and painting them; and policemen’s daughters who have come down from Boston mixed with the parti-colored crowds, saying wasn’t it fun, wasn’t it something how the Mediterranean sons of fishermen walked arm and arm with the Yankee gold while the bright lights of the summer theaters glow out into the dark—
Christ! She flipped the book shut and stuffed it back. It was as purple as the Garnett.

Mr. Flores hunched low over the wheel, peering into the slanting light, and Emma felt the road spinning her closer and closer in. The stark white houses of Woodling passed one after another. Through the Tralpee forest they went, the squat beechwood flinging away on either side, until at last the bus reached the crest of the hill before Franklin. And as the bus stuttered at the top in the beat before descending, she sat up straight wishing—suddenly, unaccountably—that the line between her and this town would snap. Mr. Flores’s fist paused above the gearshift. The dunes spread wide around them.

For a brief instant, Emma felt they might fly. The sky through the broad front window called. And she nearly stood up in her seat, imagining herself able to continue straight, the road falling away as the bus rode forward into the illimitable air. But the gears caught, and the bus shuddered down through the high hills of sand. Down they rode until the tarmac pulled free of the dunes and curved toward the sea, jogging alongside the gray harbor into town.

The bus churtled past the stark lines of the shingled roofs triangling into the September evening. The flag snapped in the wind above the steep pitch of the post office, and the bus slowed to a crawl as Mr. Flores negotiated the narrow street shared now with people walking, hallooing to the bus, on bicycles spinning alongside. The town unfolding outside the window, she put her hand out upon the seat in front of her, a flush rising in the hollow of her throat. She had prided herself on how quickly she would get the names of all the townspeople, showing off her knowledge to Will, whom she imagined would return every night as if to a theater of her making, delighting to find himself in his familiar town, revealed and illumined now by his Emma’s perceptions. Emma meant to be an asset to him in this way. He would be the best doctor because his probes need not be blind.

But the flesh was a different matter. Arriving, as she had, straight into the center of the town, the slightness of her imagination struck her full force. For here they all were already. Two women in conversation on the corner broke off to stare as the bus pulled to its stop. The town was not waiting to start up with her arrival. The town was clearly already itself without her. The door swung open and she smelled the sea in the air. She sat still in her seat for a moment, collecting her gloves, marshaling the courage to find Will in the crowd, certain he was just there on the other side of the bus waiting with that impatient, exacting smile of his. The woman from the back of the bus brushed past, causing Emma to look up, and then she made out Will’s head above the line of some others coming toward the bus, his long body tipped forward. One felt that he had much on his mind, and much to do. He had caught sight of her through the glass and he waved. She waved back and the scarf slipped off her shoulders as she bolted up now, she was that happy, and through the empty bus toward the door.

“Hiya.” His head came around the open door and he was up the stairs just as she arrived at them and he reached for her and pulled her directly into his arms. She raised her mouth to his and the warm familiar lips pressed hers, softly at first and then more deeply as he gathered her even closer so she could feel the whole hard length of him against her skirt. Though they were right out in public, she closed her eyes and moved into the grotto of their kiss where it was dark and cool, her lips opening under his, and then with a happy moan she pulled herself away from his lips, back out into the light.

“Hiya.” She smiled up at him breathless, a little prick of pride rising at the sight of him right there before her. How
had
she managed it? She had sat beside him in restaurants, on buses, walked next to him on the streets of Cambridge, the familiar length of his stride a comfort, almost like knowledge. They knew each other this way. He had shepherded her around, his arm under hers, his hand at the small of her back propelling her into smoky rooms, and back out again. They had talked and laughed. They had even quarreled. And then, suddenly one afternoon in the spring, he had asked her to marry him. It was crazy, mad—but that was part of the story, wasn’t it?—Dr. Lowenstein had written to take him into the practice and he had stuffed the telegram in his pocket and gone down on his knees right there in the Back Bay post office. And she looked down at him and began nodding before he had opened his mouth. They had arrived at the pact like children. It was the next step, the only step, the serious one. As if, joining hands, they had closed their eyes and jumped, without even holding their breath.

He leaned down to read the title of the book in her hand, still holding tight to her as he did. Her scarf had slipped off her shoulders and the long triangle of her bare skin gave off a bright heat like summer grass. “Like it?” he asked.

“Could they have been making love in the nineteenth century?” She pulled her gaze away, offering up the last thing, least important, that had rested on the shelf of her mind.

“I don’t see how we’d all have gotten here if they hadn’t.”

“No, no. Look.” She opened the book right there on the top step of the bus and rippled through the pages, sharply aware of his eyes on her shoulders and arms. They had kissed. They had touched each other through layers of silk and wool. Through jackets and trousers and blouses and skirts, but his eyes might as well have been hands now, her skin prickling and flushing as he put his foot on the stair next to hers and his jacket slid open. “There,” she pointed.

He looked down and read,
“Vronksy was making love—”

“It’s so naked,” she said and then blushed, “to say it like that.”

He pressed against her. “Like what?”

“On the page. Wouldn’t the readers have been shocked? I am.”

“You are not,” he whispered.

“I am,” she giggled, leaning her shoulder into his. “I really am. A modern reader.”

“It meant something else. Everyone understood.”

“Sex?”

“Courting,” he answered, his smile lighting up the impossible inches between them.

“Oh,” she sighed happily. “Well, you would know.”

“Come on,” he put his hand under her elbow to draw her down the stairs. “Let’s go home.”

Through the open door, a suitcase sailed off the busman’s hook, flying for a moment in the air until it crashed down and split, cracking open upon the sidewalk neat as a tapped egg.

“Oh!” cried Emma.

Will stopped where he was at the door of the bus, staring down at the voluptuous explosion of what must be Em’s underthings cascading over the popped sides of the case. They were numerous, silky, and a twilit blue, tossed and flung in a delirious striptease, showing themselves like sirens. He squeezed Emma’s hand tucked in his behind his back.

“No one saw,” he said to her. “I’ll step around and help Flores. That’ll give you a minute.”

Emma nodded, letting go of his hand, and slipped off the last of the bus stairs onto the pavement. She had to fight the urge to fling herself onto the smashed case and cover the strewn clothing with her body, but that woman from the bus was leaning against the railing on the pavement, watching.

“Shall I help you pick up?” she asked.

To her own surprise, Emma found herself nodding. The two of them kneeled down without another word to gather the stockings, the soft bras, and the slight blue panties from the ground. The woman was so quiet and so careful with Emma’s things that the bride’s throat closed over with tears.

“It’s only clothing,” the other woman said quietly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know,” Emma whispered back.

“Then don’t let him see you cry. He’ll think you are ashamed.”

Emma’s hand hovered over a nightie and she flushed up. What did this woman know about Will or about what he would think? She tossed the thing into her case.

“I’m not ashamed in the slightest.”

Iris heard the warning in the girl’s voice and glanced across the suitcase at her. “Fine,” she answered. And then, as an afterthought, she added, “I’m Iris James.”

Emma looked into the woman’s square but not unpleasant face framed by dark red hair pulled back on either side like curtains. “Hello,” she answered.

“And who might you be?”

Emma threw the last of the things in the suitcase and closed the lid. “Emma Trask,” she answered, and then blushed—“I mean, Fitch.”

“Nuts,” said Iris with a disarming smile. “The doctor’s bride. And here I had pegged you as a runaway.”

It was the first time Emma had laughed in days. And she would always remember that bubble of her laughter overtaking her there on the sidewalk at Miss James’s feet, her things disarranged, the green slant of the trees behind Miss James’s head, and the evening sun warm on her own back. Will came around from the side of the bus and reached out his hands to pull her up to him. It would all be all right, she decided there and then. And she had laughed out loud again, falling into the circle of Will’s arm.

“Thank you,” he smiled down at Iris. “You’ve been a great help.”

“You’re very welcome, Dr. Fitch,” Iris answered.

“Let’s go home,” he said to Emma.

“All right.” She smiled. And he grabbed her suitcase with his free hand, never letting her loose from his side. Several paces away, Emma turned her head in the crook of Will’s arm and saw Miss James waiting out the stream of cars before slipping in and crossing the road.

“Who’s that?”

“Postmaster James.” He wanted to kiss Emma right there again on the street, but picked up his pace instead.

“Hey,” she protested, laughing, but she skipped along beside him, not taking in anything at all of her new town except the dank smell of the sea, and the heavy air, and the
thunk thunk
of the waves against the sea-wall to her left. Straight through the thick of town and out toward the older, quieter part where the steep-angled houses softened as the afternoon wore down. Anyone watching—and everyone was, Emma knew it, it was a small town, after all, and she had to be the topic of most dinner tables, why not? she was young and fairly attractive and he was their doctor!—anyone watching would probably notice how easily the two fell into step as if they’d been walking together for years already. Anyone would have commented on that, and the lamps lighting up inside the houses they passed seemed to Emma a silent strain, like a low murmur beneath the chat, of approval and attention. She straightened herself a little in reply.

Perhaps this was why, when Will reached slightly ahead of her and pushed open a gate, looking down proudly, she hesitated. Here she was, at last. She glanced up at the house, which looked just like all the others along the way—steep-angled roofs and grayed shingles, a wide front porch and a door the color of the shingles, unpainted. They walked slowly toward it, and when they reached the porch steps, Will put his hand under Emma’s elbow. Someone was speaking inside the house, a woman, and as Emma rose up the steps toward the screen door, the urgency in the voice drew her in, as though the house were talking. “For Christ’s sake,” Will muttered as he pulled open the door. “I left the radio on.”

She walked toward the voice. Down the hall she could see through to the kitchen where Will had put beach roses in a jam jar against the window to welcome her. The evening sun splintered through the water and the flowers hung there like pink stars.
At the back of the pub, there’s a scoreboard
, the woman on the radio said.
And tonight, it reads RAF 30, Luftwaffe 20. Although it has been a bad night for the British, it’s been worse—
she paused
—for the people of Berlin. RAF 30, Luftwaffe 20. There it stands, the score that London keeps each night the Battle con—

Will reached to turn it off. “No”—Emma pushed gently against his hand—“no, who is that?”

“Who is what?” She was tinier than he remembered—he could wrap his arms around her and nearly hug himself, too—and he pulled her in to him and felt her heart just there against him, waiting. That was how it felt just then. Embedded in that whole sweet length—breasts and small belly and hips—her heart waited against his as they pressed together in the sweetening dark, listening to the woman carrying the war toward them, so urgently Will couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t stand there waiting anymore, and just as the woman on the radio slowed to say “
This is London, Good ni
—,” he did, at last, snap it off.