not home where she damn well belonged. I fought against nasty little images in my mind, created by jealousy. She was damned attractive. She wrote me dutifully oncea week, stilted, almost formal letters. Like letters she might write to an uncle she did not know very well. And I wondered how well I knew her. I could have arranged to get away for a few days to fly down and see her and ask her to come home. But I was stymied by my own pride.
On October 16th I received the following airmail letter from her.
“By the time you get this, Leo, Martha and I will be off on an adventure. We have chartered a precious little sailboat called a ketch. It is named
Angel
and it’s owned and captained by an American named Rigsby. He’s going to sail us around to the other islands and teach us what ropes to pull on and so forth. We’re very excited about it, as you can imagine. Martha is all packed and I’m not, so I must cut this short. Love, Lucille. PS. We were terribly lucky to find him free. He told us somebody else canceled out. I asked around, and they say he is a very good sailor and knows the Bahamas well.”
The last I ever heard from her was a post card from Hatchet Bay, telling me that she loved sailing, and that the colors of the water were unimaginably beautiful.
On the fourteenth day of November I accepted a collect call at my office from a police official in Nassau who, after he had made certain of my identity, informed me that my wife was dead. He said she had apparently taken her own life, but he would not give me any further details. I remember very little about making flight arrangements or about the trip down. I went to the office of the man who had phoned me. The night before last she had locked herself in her room and taken an overdose of sleeping capsules. She had been in the hotel, alone, only two days. It had been obvious to the management that she had been drinking heavily. I stared at him. “She never drank heavily.”
He shrugged. He was very polite, very helpful, very remote. He gave me the impression that he had seen so many American women do so many astonishing and unspeakable things that he had lost the capacity for surprise. There was no empathy left in him.
He checked all the likely hotels to see if a Martha Dade was registered. She was apparently not in Nassau.
He got Lucille’s suitcases out of storage. The police hadpacked her belongings. There had been no note. Her money was in an envelope, carefully sealed. A little over twenty dollars. No traveler’s checks. A hotel bill had not been paid. He said if I would give him the money, he would take care of it for me. He gave me a receipt. There were intricate forms to be filled out and signed. He took me to where she was. I looked down at dulled black hair and the slack face of a dead stranger. She was heavily tanned, but it had a greenish, yellowish cast. Her face was far too thin, with pouches under her closed, sunken eyes.
She was flown back in a cargo plane for the horrid ceremony of funeral and burial. The boys could not be consoled. Their safe warm life had been fragmented.
After they were back in school I traced Martha to Bimini. I flew down. She was a guest aboard a huge yacht out of Miami. She was half-drunk and slightly sullen and strangely indifferent. Yes, she had heard of Lucille’s death. Too bad, she said, but she didn’t seem particularly moved.
“Why did you split up?” I demanded.
She shrugged so violently some of her drink spilled into the concrete quay. She was squinting in the hot sunshine. Her shoulders were peeling. “I got myself dropped off at Rock Sound. On the twenty-second of October. End of cruise for little Martha.”
“Why? Was there a quarrel?”
“Do you have to have it all spelled out for you, Leo? Should I draw pictures? It got too cozy aboard the
Angel
. Three’s a crowd. Yes, there was a quarrel. A dirty one. She was having all the fun and games, and I was the maiden aunt and I didn’t like
On October 16th I received the following airmail letter from her.
“By the time you get this, Leo, Martha and I will be off on an adventure. We have chartered a precious little sailboat called a ketch. It is named
Angel
and it’s owned and captained by an American named Rigsby. He’s going to sail us around to the other islands and teach us what ropes to pull on and so forth. We’re very excited about it, as you can imagine. Martha is all packed and I’m not, so I must cut this short. Love, Lucille. PS. We were terribly lucky to find him free. He told us somebody else canceled out. I asked around, and they say he is a very good sailor and knows the Bahamas well.”
The last I ever heard from her was a post card from Hatchet Bay, telling me that she loved sailing, and that the colors of the water were unimaginably beautiful.
On the fourteenth day of November I accepted a collect call at my office from a police official in Nassau who, after he had made certain of my identity, informed me that my wife was dead. He said she had apparently taken her own life, but he would not give me any further details. I remember very little about making flight arrangements or about the trip down. I went to the office of the man who had phoned me. The night before last she had locked herself in her room and taken an overdose of sleeping capsules. She had been in the hotel, alone, only two days. It had been obvious to the management that she had been drinking heavily. I stared at him. “She never drank heavily.”
He shrugged. He was very polite, very helpful, very remote. He gave me the impression that he had seen so many American women do so many astonishing and unspeakable things that he had lost the capacity for surprise. There was no empathy left in him.
He checked all the likely hotels to see if a Martha Dade was registered. She was apparently not in Nassau.
He got Lucille’s suitcases out of storage. The police hadpacked her belongings. There had been no note. Her money was in an envelope, carefully sealed. A little over twenty dollars. No traveler’s checks. A hotel bill had not been paid. He said if I would give him the money, he would take care of it for me. He gave me a receipt. There were intricate forms to be filled out and signed. He took me to where she was. I looked down at dulled black hair and the slack face of a dead stranger. She was heavily tanned, but it had a greenish, yellowish cast. Her face was far too thin, with pouches under her closed, sunken eyes.
She was flown back in a cargo plane for the horrid ceremony of funeral and burial. The boys could not be consoled. Their safe warm life had been fragmented.
After they were back in school I traced Martha to Bimini. I flew down. She was a guest aboard a huge yacht out of Miami. She was half-drunk and slightly sullen and strangely indifferent. Yes, she had heard of Lucille’s death. Too bad, she said, but she didn’t seem particularly moved.
“Why did you split up?” I demanded.
She shrugged so violently some of her drink spilled into the concrete quay. She was squinting in the hot sunshine. Her shoulders were peeling. “I got myself dropped off at Rock Sound. On the twenty-second of October. End of cruise for little Martha.”
“Why? Was there a quarrel?”
“Do you have to have it all spelled out for you, Leo? Should I draw pictures? It got too cozy aboard the
Angel
. Three’s a crowd. Yes, there was a quarrel. A dirty one. She was having all the fun and games, and I was the maiden aunt and I didn’t like
Similar Books
