Thirty Girls

He slept against her and she looked around the room. There was an armoire whose ivory handles had carvings of bows and arrows, and by the door an iron hat stand with antler hooks. A brass lamp had a colored glass lampshade. She thought how these things would have had to be transported in some bumping truck, wrapped in thick burlap or canvas, to get here. The silver ribs of the bed curved over them, with a white canopy draped on it. The bed looked Mexican with its thick layer of paint shimmering.

She felt far from everything. She often felt far from things in familiar surroundings, so it was a reassuring alignment when she had the feeling when actually far from home.

Here her thoughts didn’t dominate the landscape. The landscape and the new people in it, asking to be explored, took over. Far from home, she had less need to answer the questions, Why was she here? What was she thinking? What was the point? Those questions hovered, but did not insist on an answer. Habit was left behind, and with it, the old perspective. Her perspective stayed alert when she was far away. Back there was not so important anymore. She dozed off again.

She woke to the deep sputtering of an airplane motor. It grew louder as it descended and seemed to land directly outside her window. Harry was gone from the bed; she got up. She went to the window and opened the shutter to see a small plane in the blue and brown light rolling forward in the field. It came to a stop past where the cars were parked, just another vehicle of transport. The door opened, and a thin metal stair folded down. Two men ducked out and descended. One was pale and fair, the other dark. The pale man went to the rear and opened a door and pulled out some backpacks and a few boxes. The other in rolled-up pants was setting wood blocks under the airplane wheels. An askari with bare black arms and draped in a blanket stood by holding a spear. They exchanged words, and the two men left the plane under his watch. Striding toward the house, they were laughing. Jane wondered which one was for Beryl.

Who was that? came Harry’s voice from the bathroom, echoing in the high ceiling.

Two men in a plane, she said. She wrapped herself in a kikoi and went into the bathroom. A lightbulb clustered by glass grapes hung from the ceiling. The sink mirror was stuck with eagle feathers in a fan shape. Harry was sitting in water smoking a cigar. The tub was cast iron with feet, claws clutching balls.

You look happy, she said.

Come in.

She slipped into the water facing him. It was a long bathtub. A part of her checked to see if she felt shy with him. Only a small part did. Then that part was gone. Jane picked up a blue bar of soap and lathered her hands. She was glad to be there with him, but didn’t say it. Instead she said, Good cigar?

He blew smoke, nodding.

They heard commotion in the hallway, the two men arriving and being greeted.

On the wall was a framed ink drawing of a naked woman, pregnant, lying on her side. Is that Beryl? she said. They both gazed at the frenzy of curving lines.

Yes, it looks like a Leonard.

She doesn’t sound particularly pleased with Leonard, Jane said.

Beryl has a lot of putting up to do.

And four kids on top of it, Jane said.

There was a silence in the tall room. Harry’s face was relaxed. Jane felt silence was something which must be filled.

I can barely imagine having one child, she said.

Which was not exactly true. Silence often got filled with things not exactly true. Jane did in fact imagine having a child somewhat often, and rather more often lately. Images of it appeared in various mirages. She was holding a baby in bed just after birth; a child was walking unsteadily across a lawn, arriving to her outstretched arms. Though in the vision Jane somehow looked more like her older sister, Marian, a real mother, and the child was teetering on familiar grass in front of Marian’s house in New Jersey.