Robert Waller - The Bridges of Madison County

When they came downstairs, the radio was still on. Dawn had come up, but the sun lay behind a thin cloud cover.

“Francesca, I have a favor to ask.” He smiled at her as she fussed with the coffeepot.

“Yes?” She looked at him. Oh, God, I love him so, she thought, unsteady, wanting even more of him, never stopping.

“Slip on the jeans and T-shirt you wore last night, along with a pair of sandals. Nothing else. I want to make a picture of you as you look this morning. A photograph just for the two of us.”

She went upstairs, her legs weak from being wrapped around him all night, dressed, and went outside with him to the pasture. That’s where he had made the photograph she looked at each year.

Robert Kincaid gave up photograpby for the next few days. And except for the necessary chores, which she minimized, Francesca Johnson gave up farm life. The two of them spent all their time together, either talking or making love. Twice, when she asked, he played the guitar and sang for her in a voice somewhere between fair and good, a little uncomfortable, telling her she was his first audience. When he said that, she smiled and kissed him, then lay back upon her feelings, listening to him sing of whaling ships and desert winds.

She rode with him in Harry to the Des Moines airport, where he shipped film to New York. He always sent the first few rolls ahead, when it was possible, so the editors could look at what he was getting and the technicians could check to make sure his camera shutters were functioning properly.

Afterward he took her to a fancy restaurant for lunch and held her hands across the table, looking at her in his intense way. And the waiter smiled, just watching them, hoping he would feel that way sometime.

She marveled at the sense Robert Kincaid had of his ways coming to a close and the ease with which he accepted it. He could see the approaching death of cowboys and others like them, including himself. And she began to understand what he meant when he said he was at the terminus of a branch of evolution and that it was a dead end. Once, in talking about what he called “last things,” he whispered: “‘Never again,’ cried the High-Desert Master. ‘Never and never and never again.’” He saw nothing beyond himself along the branch. His kind was obsolete.

On Thursday they talked after making love in the afternoon. Both of them knew this conversation had to occur. Both of them had been avoiding it.

“What are we going to do?” he said.

She was silent, torn-apart silent. Then, “I don’t know,” softly.

“Look, I’ll stay here if you want, or in town, or wherever. When your family comes home, I’ll simply talk with your husband and explain how it lies. It won’t be easy, but I’ll get it done.”

She shook her head. “Richard could never get his arms around this; he doesn’t think in these terms. He doesn’t understand magic and passion and all those other things we talk about and experience, and he never will. That doesn’t necessarily make him an inferior person. It’s just too far removed from anything he’s ever felt or thought about. He has no way of dealing with it.”

“Are we going to let all of this go, then?” He was serious, not smiling.

“I don’t know that, either. Robert, in a curious way, you own me. I didn’t want to be owned, didn’t need it, and I know you didn’t intend that, but that’s what has happened. I’m no longer sitting next to you, here on the grass. You have me inside of you as a willing prisoner.”

He replied, “I’m not sure you’re inside of me, or that I am inside of you, or that I own you. At least I don’t want to own you. I think we’re both inside of another being we have created called ‘us.’

“Well, we’re really not inside of that being. We are that being. We have both lost ourselves and created something else, something that exists only as an interlacing of the two of us. Christ, we’re in love. As deeply, as profoundly, as it’s possible to be in love.

“Come travel with me, Francesca. That’s not a problem. We’ll make love in desert sand and drink brandy on balconies in Mombasa, watching dhows from Arabia run up their sails in the first wind of morning. I’ll show you lion country and an old French city on the Bay of Bengal where there’s a wonderful rooftop restaurant, and trains that climb through mountain passes and little inns run by Basques high in the Pyrenees. In a tiger preserve in south India, there’s a special place on an island in the middle of a huge lake. If you don’t like the road, I’ll set up shop somewhere and shoot local stuff or portraits or whatever it takes to keep us going.”

“Robert, when we were making love last night, you said something that I still remember. I kept whispering to you about your power—and, my God, you have that. You said, ‘I am the highway and a peregrine and all the sails that ever went to sea.’ You were right. That’s what you feel; you feel the road inside of you. No, more than that, in a way that I’m not certain I can explain, you are the road. In the crack where illusion meets reality, that’s where you are, out there on the road, and the road is you.

“You’re old knapsacks and a truck named Harry and jet airplanes to Asia. And that’s what I want you to be. If your evolutionary branch is a dead end, as you say it is, then I want you to hit that end at full speed. I’m not sure you can do that with me along. Don’t you see, I love you so much that I cannot think of restraining you for a moment. To do that would be to kill the wild, magnificent animal that is you, and the power would die with it.”

He started to speak, but Francesca stopped him.

“Robert, I’m not quite finished. If you took me in your arms and carried me to your truck and forced me to go with you, I wouldn’t murmur a complaint. You could do the same thing just by talking to me. But I don’t think you will. You’re too sensitive, too aware of my feelings, for that. And I have feelings of responsibility here.

“Yes, it’s boring in its way. My life, that is. It lacks romance, eroticism, dancing in the kitchen to candlelight, and the wonderful feel of a man who knows how to love a woman. Most of all, it lacks you. But there’s this damn sense of responsibility I have. To Richard, to the children. Just my leaving, taking away my physical presence, would be hard enough for Richard. That alone might destroy him.

“On top of that, and this is even worse, he would have to live the rest of his life with the whispers of the people here. ‘That’s Richard Johnson. His hot little Italian wife ran off with some long-haired photographer a few years back.’ Richard would have to suffer that, and the children would hear the snickering of Winterset for as long as they live here. They would suffer, too. And they would hate me for it.

“As much as I want you and want to be with you and part of you, I can’t tear myself away from the realness of my responsibilities. If you force me, physically or mentally, to go with you, as I said earlier, I cannot fight that. I don’t have the strength, given my feelings for you. In spite of what I said about not taking the road away from you, I’d go because of my own selfish wanting of you.

“But please don’t make me. Don’t make me give this up, my responsibilities. I cannot do that and live with the thought of it. If I did leave now, those thoughts would turn me into something other than the woman you have come to love.”

Robert Kincaid was silent. He knew what she was saying about the road and responsibilities and how the guilt could transform her. He knew she was right, in a way. Looking out the window, he fought within himself, fought to understand her feelings. She began to cry.

Then they held each other for a long time. And he whispered to her, “I have one thing to say, one thing only; I’ll never say it another time, to anyone, and I ask you to remember it: In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”

They made love again that night, Thursday night, lying together until well after sunrise, touching and whispering. Francesca slept a little then, and when she awoke, the sun was high and already hot. She heard one of Harry’s doors creaking and threw on some clothes.

He had made coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking, when she got there. He grinned at her. She moved across the room and buried her face in his neck, her hands in his hair, his arms around her waist. He turned her around and sat her on his lap, touching her.

Finally he stood. He had his old jeans on, with orange suspenders running over a clean khaki shirt, his Red Wing boots were laced tight, the Swiss Army knife was on his belt. His photo vest hung from the back of the chair, the cable release poking out of a pocket. The cowboy was saddled up.

“I’d better be going.”

She nodded, beginning to cry. She saw the tears in his eyes, but he kept smiling that little smile of his.

“Is it okay if I write you sometime? I want to at least send a photo or two.”

“It’s all right,” Francesca said, wiping her eyes on the towel hanging from the cupboard door. “I’ll make some excuse for getting mail from a hippie photographer, as long as it’s not too much.”

“You have my Washington address and phone, right?” She nodded. “If I’m not there, call the National Geographic offices. Here, I’ll write the number down for you.” He wrote on the pad by the phone, tore off the sheet, and handed it to her.

“Or you can always find the number in the magazine. Ask for the editorial offices. They know where I am most of the time.

“Don’t hesitate if you want to see me, or just to talk. Call me collect anywhere in the world; the charges won’t appear on your bill that way. And I’ll be around here for a few more days. Think about what I’ve said. l can be here, settle the matter in short order, and we could drive northwest together.”