Mercedes laughs, shakes her head, makes no audible re ply.
She's a husky, capable woman, walnut dark skin, good natured eyes. In her mid fifties perhaps. Big drooping breasts, waist sliding into hips, her hairnet slightly askew on her oiled pressed hair.
Moving behind Graice, re sting one end of the heavy platter on the edge of the table, Mercedes exudes a fruity smoky odor.
When Graice hesitates, Mercedes says, half chiding, Doan you want any more, honey? There's plenty!
Moving about the long candlelit table with Mercedes and the platters of food, missis Savage is flushed with happiness. She has slipped on a white ruffled apron over her black jersey dress, she's giving all credit for the meal to her mother, grandmother, great grandmother.
old recipes handed down through the family dating back to Mary Washington herself: That's her recipe for oyster stuffing. Truly.
You mean. George Washington's mother?
His mother. Truly.
doctor Savage is on his feet, pouring wine in his guests' many glasses as if nothing in the world could give him greater pleasure.
Byron Savage, so radiant in his role of host, so seemingly trans ported. he's clearing his throat repeatedly but it's a contented sound, like a cat purring. All his guests adore him, and he adores his guests: Just a little more, Emma dear? A touch of re d? White?
And you, Andrew? A little of both? Graice? No? Just a touch? Ah, yes, dear, good, you've hardly drunk any, and this is special, I think.
doctor Savage is wearing a nattily checked suit with a glossy maroon vest, a holiday sort of vest, and a silk necktie affixed with a diamond stickpin.
'A touch more, Julie? And you, Gwendolyn, dear? Yes?
Good!
Flickering candlelight that glitters in the crystal overhead and in the crystal on the table, a small galaxy of winks and sparks.
White roses, baby bud roses, in beautiful white and blue Wedgwood vases.
Graice Courtney drinks white wine, anxious to please.
She's staring hard. She's listening. And talking too, with surprising quickness, animation. Sitting very straight in her French Empire chair in her borrowed Lanz wool dress that brings out the hazel in her eyes and the faint golden glow of her skin. How is it possible that I am here? That I am here?
doctor Savage is seated again, beaming with pleasure, and missis Savage is seated again, fresh servings of food on everyone's plates, Mercedes unobtrusively in and out of the dining room, in and out of the kitchen through the soundless swinging door, the antique grandfather clock beside the sideboard companionably ticking, and talk resumes. talk of art, talk of politics, talk of the university administration and of the university's football team and of mutual acquaintances not present, talk of the weather, talk of the space program, talk of President Kennedy who is, or is not, trustworthy, since the farce of the Bay of Pigs: The man is a monster of egoism, says doctor Sewall the history professor, with a look of distaste; The man is our only hope, says doctor Savage, throwing his hands into the air. For some minutes there is an intense conversation, very nearly a debate, which most of the company joins in but which is dominated by doctor Savage, doctor Sewall, and the Reverend Andrew Reed the tall bald gentlemanly cleric is an Anglican minister , concerning the proposed Soviet American nuclear peace pact, the central issue being whether the Soviets can be trusted, whether Marxists who make no secret of their agenda can be trusted, and whether in fact America's leaders can be trusted. and Graice Courtney sips wine and listens, wondering at the vigor, solemnity, and passion with which these men talk, as if their opinions, so forcibly uttered at the Savages' dinner table, Thanksgiving 1962, Springdale Road, Syracuse, New York, were of profound, lasting significance were in fact expressions of political power.
As she often does at such times, in such pockets of time, Graice allows her thoughts to drift: there's the perpetual memory, or is it by now sheerly fantasy, of herself in Jinx Fairchild's arms, in his car above the river, Jinx Fairchild kissing her gently butte asingly there was a playfulness to it, not mockery but playfulness, kissing her touching and fondling and kissing her breasts, and she'd wanted him to make love to her but had not dared speak though in memory, in fantasy, she makes herself speak, she's brazen, reckless, a little crazy maybe. that curl of desire in her loins flaring up, up, up into flame. I love you, I would die for you. You are the only re al thing in my life.
Now they're talking animatedly of travel: Italy, Greece. missis Wells is reminiscing. mister Malone is re commending. missis Savage is asking advice on. doctor Savage makes everyone roar with laughter by telling an anecdote about missis Sewall speaks of a recent visit to Amsterdam, and doctor Reed speaks of a re cent visit to London, and there's The Hague, that remarkable museum there, and in Washington the Phillips Collection, and there's Brussels to which doctor Savage once journeyed solely to see the museum and, there, discovered to his horror. isn't that typical of travel: the unforeseen. There's Picasso who simply continues. There's Matisse rather like Yeats in his old age.
There's El Greco, there's Titian, there's Vermeer, on whom doctor Savage's son Alan once worked, spending a year in the Netherlands, and he'd come up with some splendid things before, alas, moving on into the slovenly twentieth century. and there's Constable, with whom doctor Savage is now engaged. and there's Bosch, whom doctor Savage can bear only in small doses.
doctor Reed speaks of Bosch's untitled triptych in the Prado Museum in Madrid, what a singularly unpleasant but powerful work, and doctor Savage agrees; in fact as a young man he'd made a study of sorts of the painting's effect upon visitors to the gallery; he's entirely ambivalent about it himself, he's been puzzling over it for decades and has never felt certain that it is, or is not, a work of surpassing genius but surely it is a riddle: The Garden of Earthly Delights, so called. And he jars Graice Courtney out of her hazy erotic trance by asking her what she thinks.
It isn't a cruel professorial tactic to trip up a daydreaming student, it's posed with genuine sincerity, even gallantry, but Graice Courtney is taken aback, feels the blood pound foolishly into her face. She's astonished that doctor Savage should believe that she thinks anything at all on the subject or that her thoughts, impressionistic and random, should merit articulating, in such company at least.
Stumblingly she says, I. feel the same way, I suppose. In class, when you showed the slide, I could hear a collective intake of breath It is a code of some kind, at least on the surface. doctor Savage questions Graice further, a benign sort of catechism, and by degrees she begins to speak more knowledgeably: not only has she studied the rudiments of Hieronymus Bosch with doctor Savage but she proofread the galleys of a Journal article on an aspect of his iconography not long ago; thus she knows a fair amount, or can give a fair impression of so knowing, enough to acquit her with doctor Savage and with the company at hand. Recklessly she concludes that the code of the work doesn't matter anyway, the meaning doesn't matter, it's the fact of the work, whether, seeing it, you are stopped dead in your tracks. nothing else matters.
Oh, re ally! Is that so! Really. doctor Savage says, amused.
Others join in. Graice falls silent. She's embarrassed, chagrined, afterward she'll realize to her horror that she'd spoken disparagingly of the very enterprise of art history and of iconography, doctor Savages religion, doctor Savage's life's blood, it's amazing he should let her off so easily.
Mercedes has been unobtrusively gathering up dirtied plates and cutlery, and as she heads for the swinging door, a weighty stack of china in her strong arms, missis Savage's melodic voice rings out, not sharply, but on the edge of sharpness, Those bottles, Mercedesyou've forgotten the wine bottles. Mercedes mumbles, Yes, ma'am, comin' right back to get em.
Hearing this exchange Graice Courtney says, I'll take them, jumping up impulsively from her chair before missis Savage can protest. She snatches up the empty wine bottles and bears them off in the black woman's wake. brazenly out into the kitchen where no guest is welcome.
Thinking, Why am I doing this?
She sets the wine bottles down on one of the counters where there's space. How disappointing the Savages' kitchen is: old fashioned fixtures. an immensely ugly stove. a single over head light emitting a pitiless glare. dishes, pots, pans heaped on all sides.
twin sinks filled with sudsy water and stacked with china. The air is heavy with the smells of turkey grease, gravy, and percolating coffee.
Mercedes is staring at Graice Courtney, this pushy white girl who is in her kitchen, uninvited. and Mercedes isn't smiling. The surprised, gruff growling sound she makes only vaguely sounds like Thank you.
But almost at once missis Savage has pushed through the swinging door, diamond earrings glittering in alarm, and missis Savage is smiling.
smiling rather hard at Graice Courtney. No need for you to help clear the table, dear, she says, re aching for Graice's arm.
You're our guest, you know!
Graice resists the instinct to draw away. She says, I get restless just sitting. I don't like being waited on.
missis Savage laughs as if Graice has said something clever.
But that's what being a guest is, dear.
Her arm linked snug through Graice's, leading Graice back to the table.
Penetrating the voices of the company are a series of liquidy re ver berating chimes.
Chiming the hour, the half hour, the quarter hour, and the hour again.
to eternity.
Says doctor Reed, beside Graice Courtney, showing his gums in a wide smile, You almost don't mind the passing of time, do you, when it's heralded by such music!
It's the tall ivory faced grandfather clock beside the Jacobean sideboard: a Joseph Mills clock, they are told, ca. 1740, London.
One of the most prized possessions of the late Lawrence Savage.
Misty eyed missis Wells fingers her rope of pearls, smiles at Graice Courtney across the width of the table. She says almost vehemently, There is such beauty in the world, isn't there! I always feel, coming here to the Savages', that it compensates for the other.
The re mark is the sort of random social observation, uttered spontaneously and lyrically, that no one is obliged to answer.
Graice Courtney quickly smiles.
For dessert there are three delicacies, each from a recipe handed down through Gwendolyn Savage's family, the Makepeaces of Raleigh, North Carolina: a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, an airy prune whip, chocolate puddings in fluted little half pint cups.
Up and down the table missis Savage is lavishly praised, praised most lavishly by doctor Savage himself, who smiles at her adoringly. He clears his throat and says, And my dear wife is as good as she is capable.
missis Savage blushes prettily and says, Oh, with these recipes, anyone could succeed. Truly.
Graice Courtney is no longer hungry but she spoons chocolate into her mouth and feels a powerful rush of sweetness, sweetness raw as pain flooding her mouth. Suddenly she wants to cry, Oh, Jesus, how she wants to cry. sitting at this table among strangers.
Two hours have passed. Two hours fifteen minutes. And still
the antique clock ticks on, its finely calibrated mechanism preparing for another outburst of chimes.
But the dinner is concluding, and talk has fragmented into smaller, more casual groups. It seems clear that most of the Savages' guests are intimately acquainted with one another. Graice hears missis Wells inquire of missis Savage in a gentle voice, And how is Jenny, Gwendolyn? and sees a flicker of dismay or hurt in missis Savage's face as she says, Oh, she's generally happier, we think. Sometimes it's hard to gauge. She has a new job. she's still living in Manhattan. Of course, as you can see, she isn't here with us today.
There is more to be said but missis Savage doesn't continue, and missis Wells discreetly changes the subject: Did I mention to you, Gwendolyn Alan was so sweet, he remembered my birthday? Imagine!
He sent me a lovely card from Paris this summer. How is he? missis Savage's expression brightens. She says, Oh, Alan is fine, thank you; Alan is very fine, working enormously hard to get his book finished.
Byron and he disagree about the merit of what he's doingnot the quality but the subjectbut Alan did get a Guggenheim fellowship to do the re search and Byron was delighted about that. you know, it isn't easy to be the son of Byron Savage and an art historian, people tend to be envious. But Alan has been doing very well, we think. He's still in Paris, we won't see him until Christmas; he's promised to come home for Christmas.
At this moment missis Savage glances toward Graice Courtney, locks eyes with her, smiles. That lovely radiant smile. Throughout the meal she has drawn Graice into conversations, has asked her questions; now she asks, Graice, where did you say you're from? and Graice says, Hammond, New York, and missis Savage says, Oh, yes, that's near Lake Ontario, isn't it, and near Rochester? and Graice says, Yes, and missis Savage says, And your family is from Hammond?