The Fireplace

In 1938 I was no different from today's healthy young fellows who track girls and do and get away with what they can.

My pal and patron was Doctor Harry Greenberg.

Harry was a casual, regular guy. We shared girls, even the pretty sexy blonde nurse in his office. We had a setup. His stuffy wife, Arlene, taught college classes in the city and came home weekends. While Arlene was gone, Harry and I lived it up like lords and had a ball with a string of girls in his home. Arlene never got wise to the goings-on. To her I was a clean-cut young bricklayer and promising writer who could do no wrong.

In a sense, I was part of the family, and I got to know Harry's and Arlene's orthodox parents and relatives.

Before a New Year's Eve, Harry said, "Pete, wait till you meet my sister-in-law, Arlene's brother's wife, Leda!"

"What about this 'Leda'?"

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"She's a dream. You haven't seen a honey of a living doll until you've seen her."

"How's chances?"

"No chances. Absolutely nothing doing. Not stuff for me, you or anyone. Leda and Al are the hands-off perfect marriage. They'll be at my New Year's Eve party. Drool over Leda, but don't touch. If you get ideas, you'll be wasting your time. I'm telling you."

• • •

Harry held his New Year's Eve celebration in the village's best restaurant. There were Harry, Arlene, Harry's brother and sister and their mates, and Al and Leda.

Harry had not exaggerated about Leda. She was a stunning, svelte, black-haired, violet-eyed, peaches-and-cream Hebraic beauty. Solomon had described her well in the Song of Songs.

Her husband, Al, though short, was personable and handsome enough. They looked the ideal couple. Husbands with extraordinarily beautiful wives are usually worried. Al was a confident, relaxed guy. Leda had an uprightness that definitely discouraged approach. I managed one dance with her. She firmly kept her body away from me and would not let me press her to me. At midnight, when everybody got silly and slobbered kisses, I pecked at Leda's virtuous cheek.

If I have my eye on a married woman, I always butter up the husband. Al and I got chummy. He and Leda taught high school and lived in Flatbush. He collected butterflies and read science fiction. They had a summer cottage with Leda's mother, Hannah, in Provincetown on Cape Cod.

"Come up and visit us there next summer."

I assured him that I would. I asked him if he had any children.

"No," he said, "Leda and I aren't going to have kids until we're financially secure. How about that?"

"Al, I would say you're both using your heads."

We were all Harry's overnight guests. When I went to go to the bathroom before retiring, Leda was in there. She came out of the bathroom in a sheer nightgown. The way I quickly scanned her as she went by made her redden deeply. I envied Al's going to bed with her. It always seemed that the woman I hungered for belonged to some other lucky guy.

Harry and I sat up in the den for a while discussing the pros and cons of seduction. Harry was an old hand and certainly not the fainthearted kind. He combined business with pleasure. More than a few of his sexual conquests he audaciously initiated right at the goal with the enviable advantage afforded by the professional intimacy of gynecological examinations.

"The modern woman," he said, "makes her own laws about morals and freedom of the flesh. Under conducive circumstances--boredom with household drudgery, Hollywoodlike dreams, a two-timing husband, sexual curiosity, flattery--they're all Madame Bovarys; with strong drinks, romantic atmosphere, good times, just about any woman can be had.

"But Leda is the exception. In her case, you're up against religion more than anything else. She and her mother, Hannah, are women out of the Bible. They live by the old law. To them, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' has teeth in it. Leda's modest mien is consequential to faith. The B of her virtue follows the A of 'God.' Pete, this is one time you're not going to get in."

I bowed to Harry's dictum. Nevertheless, I availed myself of every opportunity to feast my eyes upon Leda. I saw her at the bar mitzvah of Harry's boy. It was not until Harry took me along to Leda's seventh wedding anniversary at her apartment in Flatbush that I met her mother. Leda did not take after her mother in looks. The widow, Hannah, was plain, hawk-nosed and severe of face; a veritable female tabernacle with austere dress and the black wig of the matriarch. Hannah was highly educated and spoke fine English.

At the very middle-class gathering, an eloquent rabbi blessed Leda and Al. His greatest praises were for Hannah. He extolled her as "a human inviolable island of the one true faith in our Babylonian and Faustian times" and "the Lord God's handmaiden and exemplar maternal rock."

The sentiments, refreshments and ceremonies were in the orthodox manner, amid all of which Hannah and Leda stood out as shining figures of womanhood.

There is a defective, remiss quality about an attractive loose woman. But about a beautiful religious good woman there is a most desirable something, a forbidden-fruit aura that is maddeningly exciting. Leda's virtue heaped more fuel upon my flames.

I could feel Hannah's eyes going through me. I wondered whether the eaglelike woman could read my sensuous thoughts. At the table, by the light of the seven-branched silver candelabra, Hannah made me think of occult theosophy, the dibbuk and the all-designing cabala.

I felt there was a mystic ruling bond between voluptuous Leda and stark Hannah. Hannah said little and studied me.

Al showed me his butterfly collection and explained how he went about finding, capturing and preserving them. I had to pretend interest.

During June I was building a patio around Harry's pool. Hannah and Leda visited. Hannah watched as I chipped and laid the slate in mortar. After I had a backstroke workout in the pool, Hannah ran her hand over my shoulder muscles and complimented me upon my physical ability. Leda, as usual, remained proper and remote.

I was surprised by Hannah's personal friendliness. In the few days at Harry's, she favored my company. She carefully read the galley proofs of my novel and discussed it with me. Hannah had a wide knowledge of history and ethnic strains. I don't know how she found out that my parents had come from the rugged, poetic Abruzzi region of Italy, but she knew more about the background of my people than I.

"You imagine yourself to be of Italian blood," she said, "but that is only partly true. Originally, the area of your people was settled by the Greeks after the fall of Troy. Then throughout the centuries followed the mixtures of invading bloods: the Romans, the Semitic Saracens, the Normans and, finally, the Spaniards of the House of De Ávalos. Your face tells the story of these races and cultures."

I asked her, "Hannah, is that good or bad?"

She smiled. Then she said, "Al and Leda's vacation from school begins in two weeks. We are going to the Provincetown cottage for the summer. We have no fireplace. Would you come to Provincetown as my guest and build us a fireplace? I do not expect you to do all that labor for nothing. I will pay you."

That night, after Hannah and Leda left, Harry asked me, "Did you ever have a physical checkup?"

I told him I had never had any trouble with my health. He badgered me into letting him go over me from head to toe. The result was just as I thought. I was in first-rate condition.

• • •

Two weeks later, Hannah and Leda arrived at Harry's in a Buick coupe. Taking me aside, Harry said with a mockingly straight face, "Remember, Leda is my sister-in-law."

"Harry," I said, "I'd never think of dirtying your doorstep. I give you my word of honor. I'll behave. No kidding, I'm really going to Provincetown with them to build their fireplace."

Leda did the driving. We took the Port Jefferson ferry across the Sound to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and rode up through New England to the Cape. I asked Hannah why Al hadn't come along. She said Al had to officiate at a convention of the Butterfly Society and would join us the following week or so.

The cottage was on an ocean dune outside the village of Provincetown. Hannah and Leda slept in the bedrooms upstairs, and I had the bedroom on the ground floor. I was realistic with myself and could hardly entertain the hope of romancing Leda.

Hannah wanted a stone fireplace. I ordered the materials. The stone delivered was durable seaworn glacial-deposit rock of varying colors. Hannah and Leda did what they could to help me put in the concrete base and mix mortar for the masonry. After I built the hearth, firebox, smoke shelf and throat, I split the stone for the face and chimney. As I sweated and sledged the stones, Hannah commented with admiration. But Leda kept her distance.

It took me four days to lay up the stone and complete the job. As an act of my frustration for Leda, I deliberately chose and built into the face of the fireplace above the mantel two stones shaped and symbolizing the male and female procreative organs. Neither Hannah nor Leda said anything about the unmistakable effect.

We picked up sea-salt-encrusted driftwood from the shore, and in the evening lighted the fireplace. We sat silently before the entwining red, blue, green and yellow flames.

Hannah said, "The fire is writing the ancient Hebrew words. The forest and sea are burning with strange, leaping, passionate tales."

I asked Leda, "When is Al coming?" She shrugged. It seemed that my presence disturbed or displeased her. From the moment we had left Long Island, she had been tight-lipped and tense toward me.

Being piqued and having nothing to lose, I said, "There's no denying that you're a very beautiful and intelligent girl, Leda. In all respect--I sincerely wish you were my wife. I'm an open, honest person. Perhaps I don't understand you--or you don't understand me. You do not talk to me. I get the impression that you think I'm some sort of a dangerous corrupting demon. You sit and look at me mutely, and frozen like Lot's wife facing Sodom and Gomorrah as a lovely pillar of salt. Am I not right?"

An undefinable little smile escaped her. She lowered her head.

We listened to classical music. Before midnight, Hannah went to bed. I had expected Leda to go upstairs also. Leda remained. Then it seemed that she wasn't afraid of me. I decided to make a play. It could only go one way or the other. If she became shocked and insulted by my attempt to seduce her, I would pull in my horns, apologize and take off in the morning before she and Hannah arose.

I sat next to Leda on the divan. She did not move away. I was heartened. It was the first time we were alone. I knew that every hard stone and diamond has a grain, a hidden fissure that invites cracking. Instinct warned me not to taint the situation with logic or ethics. Biology and reason do not mix well. Talk under the potential circumstances would have been cheapening and would have spoiled the possible spell.

I snapped off the light without explanation. Leda gazed intently into the smoldering fireplace. I put my hand on her hand. I had found that kissing a girl's hand is a deferential key opening doors. I kissed her hand. There was neither a positive nor a negative response. I kissed her lips. She received it as stricken as one who expects the guillotine to fall. I avoided indecent haste, and proceeded with experienced, gentle hands slowly and smoothly, step by step ... and succeeded.

She lay as if under deep hypnosis.

I considered her my most significant achievement. I had bided my time, undermined Hannah's wall, and took her Jericho daughter.

I whispered, "Leda, go up to bed. Undress and pretend to go to sleep. I'll wait for you in my room. Come down quietly. For God's sake, make sure you don't awaken your mother. You aren't doing anything wrong, because I love you."

She nodded and arose.

Soon she came softly down to me. She was reserved, embarrassed. It seemed I had to teach her sex. In bed she was a pulsing statue. At dawn she blushingly covered her nudity and went upstairs. I felt neither remorseful nor cynical. I was melted by her chaste aspect. I was in love with Leda. For her to break down her moral barriers and give herself to me convinced me that she was in love with me. I had visions of her divorcing Al and marrying me. And I intended to bring that about.

Hannah treated me royally. She provided steaks, lobsters, hot Portuguese bread and anything I wanted to eat and drink. She made each day a gourmet occasion. I was extremely careful not to give her a clue or reason to suspect my lovemaking to Leda each night. Leda played her part skillfully. Though she had become warmer toward me in front of Hannah, she did not betray the shadow of a sign of our intimacy. During the day she clove to Hannah's side.

I became very fond of Hannah. I felt sorry for her and regretted that I had to be such a hypocrite, but what she didn't know couldn't hurt her.

A change in Leda amazed me. The first three or four nights Leda was in bed with me, she was so passive that I felt like a rapist. Then, by swiftly mounting degrees, in bed she became a different Leda, wild with a Dionysian intoxication, making love with a sexually religious frenzy not unlike the orgiastic maidens of Euripides' Bacchae, seeking to drain and consume my life away.

Some things can be too good, such as overlove. The second week she couldn't get enough. In paradise itself too much would be too much. I was the hunter who had been transformed into prey. I was not made of wood, but certainly not of iron. By the third week I began to wonder when her husband, Al, would arrive. She grew radiant, lovelier, stronger, while I became quite wan.

With the excuse that I wanted to wander for characters and story material, I spent the days by myself in Provincetown. The queers had not claimed Provincetown yet. I met bohemians from Greenwich Village, a deaf-and-dumb time-and-space painter; an excommunicated, alcoholic impotent priest who was living with a Lesbian lion tamer, and a famous aged Portuguese sea captain named Vadi. But more often than not, I would go to the beach and prostrate myself at the water's edge to regain strength for the night with Leda.

After the fourth week, without why or wherefore, Leda suddenly reverted to her former closed self. She did not come to my room at night. At first I thought she, too, was satiated for a while.

She and Hannah went about with a smiling, enigmatic happiness.

My desire recouped itself. I wanted Leda back in bed with me again. She belonged to me, I thought. But she adamantly wouldn't let me get next to her. Then Hannah became a different person. She was less and less solicitous. She put only bland kosher food on the table, nor did she bring out the cheering bottles. I began to feel unwanted in the cottage.

When Hannah told me Al was arriving in a few days, I took the hint and knew I had to leave. Anyway, I did not care to be under the same roof with Al and his wife.

• • •

Leda sweetly but formally bade me farewell, without even a token kiss. I didn't take it gracefully.

Hannah walked me to the railroad station. While waiting for the train, Hannah looked me in the face and asked, "Well, how did you enjoy Leda?"

I was nettled and put on guard by her tone, and answered with lame innocence, "How do you mean, 'enjoy'?"

She said matter-of-factly, "By 'enjoy,' I mean having sexual intercourse with her every night for thirty days."

I stuttered, "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I can tell you now, Pietro. Poor, dear Al is sterile. I was not going to be deprived of a grandchild. You see?"

I got the message immediately. Her particular interest in me and scrutiny of me. Doctor Harry's out-of-the-blue request to physically check me, the selected stud; and the invitation to Provincetown.

Hannah was explicit: "I liked your mind, features, voice and body. I chose you to sire Leda's child. I made all the arrangements."

"And what about Al?"

"Why do you think he agreed to stay away from you and Leda? In his heart Al has been crying for years for a child from Leda. He likes you. Forgive me, but you did not answer my question. Did you enjoy Leda?"

"Very, very much. And with illusions of love."

"Ah, Pietro, you and Leda played nice, nice. That's nice."

"Tell me, Hannah, why did she abruptly turn cold and avoid me?"

"Because my Leda is a good girl. She never stopped being a good girl. When she missed her period and the medical examination proved she was pregnant, there was no further need of Leda's going to bed with you. That would have been sin. We are old-fashioned. To us, marriage is sacred."

"I see. Why didn't you find someone of your own race to help Leda, instead of me?"

Hannah ran her fingers caressingly over my face and said softly, "Your type fathers boys. I'm going to have a grandson, named Saul--and because there is so much about you ... that told me you had the soul of a Jew."

My train was about to pull out. Hannah put a roll of bills in my hand and said, "I did not want you to build our fireplace for nothing. You have made us such a wonderful fireplace!"