Thoreau in Love (30 page)

Perhaps that’s what I should do with my spare time, thought Henry. Then he dismissively closed the paper and lay down.

In class the next morning, waiting for Mary, who was cleaning up after breakfast, Henry had Willie reciting his Latin and Haven drawing great trees with scary branches. And Henry thought about how, with Edmund, nothing seemed at all strange or unusual or, yes, perverted, until Mr. Sewell made his comment. And then it was as if Henry had been branded. Henry shook his head, not really listening to Willie’s recitation. And wondered what Edmund was doing? And if he thought about Henry as much as Henry thought about him. Edmund would be sixteen, no longer a boy.

“And why do you think about him?”

“What?” said Willie.

“Nothing, nothing. I was talking to myself.”

“But what did you say?”

“I said, ‘It all seemed so natural. So normal.’ Happy now?”

“What?”

“Let me hear you say it again.
Amo
. . .
amas
. . .
amat
.”

Henry’s mind became a whirlwind. Why do I even think about Edmund, when I have Ben? Isn’t Edmund just a will-o’-the-wisp? What is wrong with me?

“Again:
Amamus
,
amantus
amant
.”

Am I normal? I seem normal to me, but to others?

“Am I, Master Willie?”

“Am you what?”

“Can we become who others want us to be? If I said I wanted you to be a gravedigger, would you become a gravedigger?”

“You’re cuckoo. He’s cuckoo.”

“Exactly my point. Now let me hear you say it:
Amo
,
amas
,
amat
.”

Willie droned on.

Henry’s mind took off again. Could Edmund have just put me out of his thoughts? Is he still rebellious?

“How many branches are there, Master Haven?”

Or did he become what his father wanted him to be? I’m sure his eyes and smile still sparkle. Does he remember how he said he’d never been happier, how no one ever listened to him the way I did? Do I remember how happy I was on
Dahlia
?

“Oh, that tree fell, like our elm. Very good, Master Haven.”

And what about me? Have I fallen into the trap my background laid for me? Am I too afraid to live?

Mary joined them, and Henry watched over her shoulder as she read
The
Deerslayer
aloud. She was doing so well that he put her in charge, left the classroom and went for a walk. And immediately questioned himself. “Should I have left Mary in charge? Won’t Susan be upset?” Up the dusty road toward Richmond town. “Haven’t I lived enough in fear? This is my time.” Henry breathed in the sweet scent of the hay field he walked by. Off the road and over the low stone wall and into the field of timothy. “Isn’t this supposed to be a time of awakening?” Down the sweet meadow, birds fluttering and chirping all around in the high grass. “My life belongs to me. If I fear them, my life belongs to them.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? If I fear them, I belong to them. To them, and not to me. I’m no better than a slave.” Up on the road, a handsome carriage pulled by six chestnut horses noisily charged by. “Even if I were Commodore Vanderbilt.” And just before entering the woods, Henry was stopped by his revelation. “No, Vanderbilt is Vanderbilt because he’s not afraid. Not afraid of anyone. My Lord, I’ve spent my whole life afraid. Afraid they’ll find out who I really am. What I’m really like. No more, no. I won’t be afraid. No matter the situation, if I begin to be afraid, I’ll stop. I’ll overcome my fear. Be like Ben. Ben’s not afraid. Nor is Ellery. Mad as he is, Ellery’s not afraid to be Ellery.” And with that, Henry whooped and ran into the woods.

Henry kept to the path through the marsh to the sea beach, and there was Reverend Ralph, sitting on a log. After a quick, icy dip they lay naked on the warm sand. Ralph asked how he had come to know Emerson, and Henry told him Waldo had taken him into his house, supposedly to do the odd job, and how he’d ended up caring for the emotional and spiritual needs of Lidian, how close they’d become, especially after the deaths of John and little Waldo. Henry went on and on, with the naked Ralph rapt, until, finally, Henry said, “What I don’t understand is, How can someone marry and then abandon his spouse like that?”

“People make mistakes, Henry.”

“That’s a rather large mistake.”

“People make large mistakes,” said Ralph, carefully considering each word. “Marriage is a difficult union.”

Trying to show he knew whereof he spoke, Henry told Ralph about how he’d nearly married Ellen Sewell.

“What if you had married her?” said Ralph.

Henry slapped sand from his hands. “I wouldn’t have.”

“You said you almost did.” Ralph turned onto his side, facing Henry, whose attention was rapt on Ralph as he casually pulled his surprisingly smooth scrotum skin out from where it was caught between his thighs. Ralph played with his testicles, pulled on his tree. Smiled leeringly. “What stopped you?”

Henry’s breath turned shallow; he guffawed nervously. He wasn’t about to tell Ralph about Edmund and the dinner at the Sewells’ house.

“You don’t have to tell me. But think if it hadn’t happened and you had married her. And were married to her now. Perhaps that’s what it’s like for your friend Emerson.”

Henry sat up, pulled his knees to his chest. It had never occurred to him that marriage could be a mistake. But what if he had married Ellen? What if Reverend Sewell hadn’t put a stop to it? And what about Bea? After his dream about Ben and Bea in Concord, he knew he couldn’t marry Bea. Had stopped writing her. He pulled on his drawers and his trousers. “May I say something to you in confidence?”

“Of course,” said Ralph, sitting up.

“It’s about Beatrice, the young lady—”

“Yes, I know Beatrice. A lovely and generous young lady.”

“I believe she’s thinking about a life with me, but I can’t do it.”

This time Ralph guffawed. He stood, not bothering to put on his trousers, and said, “Henry, what is it with you and these young ladies? They seem the most eligible prospects, and from what you tell me, you were smitten with both of them. If I may be so bold, what happened?” There seemed more to Ralph’s nakedness than his bare skin.

“I just knew,” said Henry, feeling painted into a corner on the wide open beach. Then he found his way out. “But I was talking about Lidian. Was it right for Emerson to give her over to me? That’s what he did. I didn’t lead Lidian on. I gave freely of my emotions, but never for a moment offered more than friendship. She was a married woman. Yet she whispered to me, ‘Do you know I often imagine that you’re my beloved?’—with Emerson and others sitting across the room! That’s when I knew I had to leave.”

“I can understand that.”

“But doesn’t that make Emerson the most dishonest of all? He prides himself on his sincerity. He considers himself a truthful man. Still he wanted me to live in their house knowing his wife was smitten with me.”

“I don’t think it’s so black-and-white.”

After dressing they parted company, again vowing to see one another soon. And again, the parting left Henry disturbed. Hadn’t he just pledged to live without fear? How could he, so soon after determining not to be afraid of the truth, have been so untruthful with this man he was sure understood every bit of him. Henry laughed, thinking of the absurdity of his life. “I aspire to share the shelf with Milton, with Marlowe, Shakespeare and Homer, to be one of the greats, and I can’t even get printed in penny publications. I’m one of the greats, all right—one of the great delusionists.” He picked a leaf off a sapling. “Will I ever get the respect Emerson does?” A seed pod. “Will my seeds sprout? Will their little heads ever break the warm soil or are my seeds condemned to remain dormant under a blanket of ice and snow? Ice and snow. . . . That’s it!”

Henry hurried home, went up to his attic aerie, picked up a pencil, licked the lead and, moping done, reworked a part of “A Winter Walk” he’d never liked. And worked it again, and again after dinner, until he finally felt he got it right. He went to bed and awoke to another June day so blue and green and clear and warm he nearly bust his buttons.

After teaching, he went again to the sea beach. Ralph was waiting for him. “Henry,” he said, “You’re rocking my world.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“Oh, yes, good on one hand, very difficult on the other.” Ralph took Henry’s arm and they walked arm-in-arm along the beach, looking for seashells and treasure. And then Ralph began to sniffle so that Henry thought he might burst into tears. But then Ralph said, “Do you see that horse washed up over there?”

Because Henry had been scouring the sand immediately before him he hadn’t seen it, though he’d wondered where the luxuriant smell came from. On the beach, a bloated blob with a fore and aft leg high in the air, was what was left of a chestnut Arabian horse. “Alu-Baba and the thousand flies,” said Henry. Ralph punched him lightly and said, “It was that gale we had the other day. All kinds of animals are swept off the decks of ships and wash up on the beach—horses, dogs, oxen, cows.”

“Why don’t we go the other way,” said Henry. They turned, and, picking up their conversation from when they’d last spoken, Ralph said, “I have something I must confess to you.” A lump grew in Henry’s throat, sure Ralph would again take him to task about Beatrice and Ellen. “Well?”

“In my silence I have been dishonest with you. You see, like your friend Emerson, I too suffer from having made a mistake in my marriage.” Blindsided, Henry didn’t know what to say, and so said nothing. “Yes, for the outside world we keep up a fine facade, and in a way I do love Toppy very much, but it was for me a great mistake.”

“Does she feel the same way?”

“No. And that’s what makes it such a great mistake. It pains me every day to see how she loves me, and to know I don’t and never will feel as she does. Fortunate for you that you discovered your mistake before you stepped into the abyss.” Pain creased Ralph’s brow. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told that. But you, Henry, you have given me some sort of confidence I’ve never had. I feel my life is changing for the better. So much of my life has been lived in deceit.”

Henry wanted to say, I know the feeling, but instead asked, “What will you do?”

“I don’t know. I feel very fortunate to have met you. Parts of my life I cherish. Perhaps, for now, being able to speak honestly with you is enough.”

Ralph smiled feebly, then said he had to get back, and they bid each other good day. Once again Henry wished he’d been able to speak of his own rude truth.

Henry received another letter from Stearns on the third of July, sent from Berlin, where, Stearns said, he was dining with counts and princes. He told Henry about a chestnut grove where handsome young men, mostly soldiers in uniform, leaned against trees waiting to be spoken to. Stearns said he talked with a young soldier in his faltering German, then went with him into the bushes—in the middle of the city, in broad daylight!—and did things some dared do only in the darkest of dark nights, away from all civilization. Henry knew Stearns was referring to the two weeks they’d spent in the woods before Stearns left for Europe. This young soldier, Stearns said, was as handsome as any man he’d ever seen.

As for the count, Stearns met him at the carp pond in the Thiergarten—which everyone in Berlin knew was where men could meet men. He invited Stearns to stay with him, and introduced him to the prince. “It is a different world.” wrote Stearns. “The new thinking is everywhere abundant. The doors have opened here, and will never close again.” The count and the prince took Stearns to a performance of Christoph Gluck’s
Orfeo ed Euridice
performed entirely by men.

“It is a different world,” said Henry, and thought, But not one I’d fit into. He went back to the letter. “At the opera,” wrote Stearns, “I had the strangest feeling. The feeling that I was normal, a member of society. No one throwing rocks, punching me, making fun or calling me names. Do you remember the outrage we felt about the classics we discussed and translated—those love stories and poems where the pronouns had been changed from
he
and
he
to
he
and
she
, so as not to upset society?”

Henry did remember.

Stearns concluded, “My outrage is gone. Come to Germany, Henry.”

“Not likely,” said Henry. The letter was signed, “Your devoted friend.” Henry read it again, then put it in the back of the drawer with the other from Stearns.