It’s not about courage, said Bern. Shut your trap.
Viktor stirred on the ground and blinked confusedly, drawn and pale. She leaned over him again, cradling his pitted face. Lucci felt ill to see Viktor as low as this.
Nicolas is not even that bad-looking, said Parnell, in a rush. A bit greasy, but overall quite all right. It’d be a kindness to him, actually. He hasn’t had a woman in years and years, he said. Think of yourself as doing a kindness, Bernie.
And, listen, said Frank. You can write about it when you’re done. Imagine, a short story. Like that one you did, “L’ortolan,” that won all the prizes. It’s material. Be a good chap, Bern. Be a good sport.
Lucci leaped up, shouted, Enough, she will not do it. That is enough. He pushed Frank back, and though Frank was far larger than Lucci, he stumbled a little. As he waited for Frank to raise his fists, Lucci thought he could hear everything there was to hear in the world: distant planes, the shuffle of a weary family on the road, the wind rustling under the skirts of the trees, voices hushed and murmuring, moving in, moving out, one great tide. He could hear, somewhere, singing. No: it was Frank, whistling “La Marseillaise” softly under his breath. Lucci looked toward Viktor, who was struggling to sit up. When he looked back at Frank, a curious glint had come into the fat man’s face.
Frank said, slowly, Why the hell not, Bern? Everybody knows you’re a slut.
Shut up, said Viktor, voice deadly, quiet, but Frank gave his sour little smile. Oh, Viktor, I’m surprised you didn’t know, he said. She sleeps with just about everyone she meets. I could name hundreds.
I do know, Viktor said, rubbing his head wearily. She’s had a few lovers. It is her right, as it is yours. As it is Parnell’s, and Lucci’s, and mine. At least unlike Parnell, she’s not married. Bern, at least, is not a hypocrite.
Ha! A few lovers, well, said Parnell, his voice turning Cockney, ugly. Don’t you wonder, Viktor, why she won’t sleep with you? I do, very much. She fucks me, you know.
I know, said Viktor. I know.
She sleeps with everyone, said Parnell. She slept with Frank, if you can believe it.
What’s that supposed to mean? said Frank, but nobody heard him because now there was a hole ripped into the air in the barn, and Bern was alone in the middle of it. She reached out to take Viktor’s face in her hands, speaking low and seriously, but Viktor shook her off.
Frank, he said, very slowly. Frank? I knew about Parnell. He’s handsome, it’s uncomplicated. But Frank, Bern? Him?
Bern sighed and tried to find the sauciness in her voice again, but it came out strained. I don’t understand it myself. I guess I felt sorry for him, she said.
Viktor stared at her, and though it was dim in the barn, Lucci thought he saw his eyes fill. Well, Viktor said. I suppose you felt sorry for me, too.
No, said Bern, but he had already turned away, already walked to the muck and stink of the donkey’s area. Viktor, she said, but he raised his hand to quiet her.
Do what must be done, Bern, he said. It shouldn’t make a difference to you, should it.
They were all looking at Bern, all of the men. She took a step back and leaned against the door to catch her breath. Lucci saw that Viktor had changed something, had turned something with his words, and Lucci himself couldn’t resist the change. He saw the light again in Fiesole, Cinzia, the million small colors of that world, and longed to be in them. He longed.
In a minute, Bern stepped closer to Lucci, searched his face. She tried to take his hand. But Lucci couldn’t breathe, and he stepped away, turned his back.
Bern blinked and her voice came out ragged. Et tu, Lucci? she said with a grim little smile. Then she took a deep breath and turned her back and waited at the door. When one of Nicolas’s sons passed by, she called to him in a muted voice and told him to fetch his father. The minutes that she stood there, with her back to the men in the room, seemed to Lucci like weeks, like months. Her hair was lit golden in a sunbeam that fell in a long strip down her delicate back. He wanted, terribly, to say, Stop, to say Bern’s name, to stroke her soft cheek where it was bitten by the light. But, in the end, he didn’t do anything at all.
A SOOTY DUSK. It had begun to drizzle, and the men waited in the jeep. Under the seats were boxes of food: terrine, bread, cheese, pickles, bottles of wine. A full canister of gas. They had washed themselves with water the teary old woman had heated, they had eaten their fill beside a fire, warming their bones. The old woman would not look at them, though she wore Lucci’s woolen socks in her clogs. She held out food with a closed face, turned those perpetually watering eyes away. The two sons had stalked in and out of the house with their excitement, loading the jeep with provisions. At one point, they had both disappeared upstairs, and reappeared an hour later to sit whittling by the fireplace, dogs licking their paws, satisfied.
In the car, Viktor held his face in his hands. Frank held a bottle and his normal pink flush had already regrown across his cheeks. Parnell held an unlit cigarette and stared at his hands. Lucci held his camera, but did not take a photo.
At long last, the door of the cottage opened, and Bern emerged. She had lost a great deal of weight in the last few days, and her clothing hung on her; she moved as if sore, and her lip seemed torn and bleeding, as if she had bitten through it. She climbed up beside Parnell, who glanced sideways at her, his eyes liquid and fearful. Viktor turned on the engine, and looked at Bern in the mirror, willing her to look back; Lucci, tentatively, put his hand on her cheek. Her skin was icy and white as wax. The world seemed to slow for a moment — there was the moon like a half-closed eye — the wind had died and so everything seemed to hold its breath. But Bern would not look at Viktor and grabbed Lucci’s hand and threw it back at him.
Don’t, she said, very softly. Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. Go.
But they didn’t, at first. A hawk over the trees darted down. There was the wail of a distant plane. When it passed, they were able to hear the silence of the woods, as if it had gathered itself in and was waiting for the conflict to end. At last, Bern said, Go, again, and Viktor started up the jeep. Frank cleared his throat and turned his face toward the sky; Parnell sighed. The engine throbbed and the jeep pulled away from the cottage, into the trees. And for hours they drove like this, in silence, southwest, toward a certain kind of safety.
Acknowledgments
I OWE MY GRATITUDE TO MANY PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS, chief among them:
Everyone at Hyperion and Voice, especially my editor, Barbara Jones, who dove in like a champion and made this collection (wildly) better, Ellen Archer, Sarah Landis, and Allison McGeehon, all of whom believed; and Pam Dorman, at Viking now, but not forgotten.
The faculty and my fellow students of the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin, where half of these stories were written, especially Lorrie Moore, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Judith Claire Mitchell, and Ron Kuka.
The editors who selected some of these stories for their journals and anthologies: C. Michael Curtis, Heidi Pitlor, Stephen King, Natalie Danford, Richard Bausch, Susan Burmeister-Brown, Linda Swanson-Davies, Don Lee, and Bill Henderson.
The Corporation of Yaddo; the Vermont Studio Center; and Anne Axton and the University of Louisville’s Creative Writing Department for the Axton Fellowship.
My agent, Bill Clegg, an honest and true friend of my work.
My brilliant posse of readers: Steph Bedford, Kevin A. González, and Sarah Groff.
My family and beloved (though neglected) friends.
The brave and beautiful women whose stories inspired this collection.