by Belva Plain
She turned back toward home. The Schulmans’ house was the last in a row that faced the lake. They were good, charitable people. Emmy and the others in the little group who had busied themselves with the apartment had taken Caroline in, had invited the new young couple, always including Lore, to dinners and lunches. They are probably disappointed in us because we don’t always accept, she thought now, although Joel and Lore had valid excuses. Lore, through Alfred Schulman, worked five afternoons a week caring for an invalid man, while Joel had long hours at the bakery, starting at five in the morning. Her own afternoons were busy with the lessons, but she was free at lunchtime, and Emmy knew it.
“If you keep making excuses,” Lore had said, “after a while you won’t be asked anymore.”
“Oh, I go sometimes.”
“But people can feel your reluctance. They’ll start thinking that you don’t appreciate all they’ve done.”
Lore was right. When the women at Emmy’s lavish luncheon table were talking, she kept mostly silent and only half heard them. She knew that somebody once had assumed she was hard of hearing, and so had raised her voice. She tried to be sociable, but it was difficult to act like a normal, newly married woman when she was not. One of Emmy’s friends had brought her daughter, a cheerful girl not much older than Caroline, with the obvious intent to create a friendship between them. They were both married; one had a baby, and the other was expecting a baby. So they had much in common, didn’t they?
All this went through Caroline’s head as she walked toward her daily three-mile goal. She might not want the child, but she had no right to deprive it of health, and so her body must be kept strong. What went on in her mind was another matter.
People were taking numbers at the counter in Ricci’s bakery as she passed. Mrs. Ricci, Angela, was waiting on customers. Fat and lively, she looked “motherly.” And she really was so. Last week she had brought them a real Italian dinner, hot out of the oven. She liked Joel. Anthony did, too. So did Alfred Schulman. It seemed as if everyone always did like Joel.…
He and Lore were becoming fast friends. Often it seemed as if they had long known each other, or were even related, distant cousins in some far-flung family met after long absence and trying now to make a home together. It was ridiculous.
Yet, on occasion, as Caroline observed them in the evenings, Lore knitting yet another sweater while listening to the classical station on the radio, swinging a little to the emotional music, the Chopin waltzes or Liszt rhapsodies that she loved, and Joel in the minute kitchen putting up another shelf—absurd as it all was, she had to feel a certain respect. At least they were trying to make the best of the situation. The odd trio was maintaining itself without any other aid.
Nevertheless, it was barely self-supporting, and Lore was right about that, too; without Joel, they would have needed charity. Lore kept telling her that she should be grateful to him.
“Especially in these circumstances,” she would say. “And he’s not bothering you. He hardly ever speaks to you. He hardly notices you.”
“I know that. But it’s like having a stranger, a boarder, in this little place. I hate the intimacy, going in and out of the bathroom in my robe.”
“He doesn’t think a thing of it, I’m sure.”
“Well, I do. And how do you know he doesn’t think a thing of it?”
Often, while the hammer tapped, she could hear him humming a phrase of repetitious, melancholy song. Yes, truly she ought to show a little friendliness toward him. It was odd that you could be sorry for a person and yet find it so hard to stand up and cross a room to say a few words.
Ostensibly to get a glass of water, she did just that.
“It’s very nice of you to do all this work,” she said.
“That’s all right. We need the shelves,” he replied.
He was awkward and self-conscious. But so was she. With glass in hand she went back to the other room, feeling guilty and exasperated with everything, including herself.
She had now and then caught him looking at her, then quickly looking away. She wondered where he went to satisfy himself. There weren’t many men who lived virginal lives. A horrid thought came to her: Would he, after the baby came, demand something of her? They were, after all, married. There in the top drawer of the chest lay the certificate in plain, legal English. Coming in now out of the cold, she went to look at it, and was standing there holding it when Lore entered.
“I did some marketing before I have to go take care of my old patient. Why are you reading that thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to make myself more miserable than I already am.”
“You may be miserable, but you certainly don’t look it. You look blooming. Many pregnant women do.”
“My cheeks are pink because I’ve been out in the wind, Lore, and I am not blooming. I am dying inside, but you don’t want to hear about it.”
“That’s not true. We both know it, Joel and I, and we both want to help you. We will help you.”
“Oh, so you discuss me with him?”
“He’s a very good man, Caroline, and he understands more than you may think he does.”
Turning her back on Lore, she gazed down into the yard. A few months from now she would be sitting there minding Walter’s baby. And, unbidden, a cry came from her: “I hate it! I hate everything!”
Lore said softly, “I know. It’s Walter you hate. But don’t take it out on the baby, or on Joel, either.”
“Don’t you think I try not to?”
“Listen to me. Will you come sit in the front room again after we eat tonight? All this week you’ve been alone, marking your lessons in your bedroom. It’s not good for you to remove yourself this way.”
Caroline looked at her, thinking: How devoted she is! I owe her so much. I am making things harder for her.
“All right, I will,” she said.
THE fragrance of baking chocolate came into the front room. Lore sniffed.
“Delicious. I gave Joel some recipes, Caroline, some of your favorites, the chocolate torte and the plum strudel. He’s never baked anything except bread before, but he followed the directions perfectly, and Mr. Ricci was really impressed. They sold everything he made today. Isn’t that wonderful?”
In the lamplight, a flicker of pleasure passed across Joel’s round pink face, but weariness was more deeply marked there. As if Joel were not present to speak for himself, Lore went on speaking for him.
“Joel suggested to Mr. Ricci that it might be a good thing to have some variety instead of only Italian. He’d like to try French pastry, although that can be very difficult, more complicated. But the business could be tremendously expanded, he thinks. Don’t you, Joel?”
He nodded. It seemed to Caroline that he was either on the verge of sleep, or else deeply thoughtful, off in some distant place or time. No doubt he had plenty to remember.
So did they all, gathered here in this cramped space. Against one wall where in another house had stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase of African mahogany, there stood the bulky sofa on which Joel slept. It was new and clean, but tasteless. In the corner nearest the window where in that other house had stood a grand piano, there was a boxy chest bearing a pair of photographs in silver frames: Father faintly smiling, Mama serene in unadorned black velvet. Caroline sighed.
Perhaps Joel had heard the sigh because he looked over at her and spoke. “You need to stop thinking so much about what’s past and gone.”
She was astonished. It was the first time in weeks that he had addressed any remarks specifically to her.
“I’m sorry I’m hard to be with,” she answered him quietly. “I don’t know whether you can understand what I mean, but—everything is gray to me. If you have never felt like this, you probably won’t understand.”
When he failed to reply, she continued, still very quietly, “You are the only one who is earning a living wage here. It is a pity for you to be burdened this way. You would be far better off by yourself.”
“I have not complained,” he told her, “and I am not complaining now. But if you don’t mind, I have to get up very early, and I am very tired.”
The two women rose at once and left the room.
HER charm, he thought, if only there were some way to bring back her charm. She had seized him the very first moment he had seen her. Her voice, and the words that had come from her lips. He remembered every word. And the whiteness of her, like marble, or milk, or white lilacs. Then her eyes, those enormous, mysterious eyes. But they held no message for him other than indifference, or even distaste. He had been a fool to think that he, Joel Hirsch, could have anything to offer to a woman like her other than rescue from shame and the respectability of his name. Well, she had not pretended otherwise, had not lied to him, had she? So it was his own fault, and he had no right to be angry at her now.
One day he had asked Lore what she was really like, what she had been in that other life before her trouble. “Delightful,” Lore had told him, she had been delightful: lively, affectionate, eager to see and learn and do. She had been a treasure.
Very fine, but what had that to do with him? It was all the worse for him to know it, since she was now a different person in the depth of her black despair. She was ruined, beyond restoration, like a damaged painting, a book with torn-out pages, or a battered violin that could not be played.
I have made a mistake and I must face it, he said to himself, lying there on the uncomfortable sofa in the grim night. I wanted her, and I still want her, but it is only mockery, a fool’s stubborn fantasy, and hopeless.
I’ll see her through until the child is born, God help the unwanted little thing, and until the two women can support themselves. That should not take an unreasonable time. Then we can end it.
BEYOND the hospital’s second-floor windows, a wild, springtime wind tore through the bare treetops.
“It’s a splendid day for homecoming,” Lore said, “but awfully cold. I’ve brought your heavy red coat and three blankets to wrap the baby.”
Caroline was smiling vaguely; she was in a strange trance, as if she were not yet fully awake. Her body, now emptied of its prominent burden—for as Lore had predicted, she had “carried” large and heavily—was relieved, and she had at last been able to sleep in comfort.
“Youth,” the doctor had observed. “The younger, the easier.”
“Well, not always.” Lore liked to contradict doctors. “I’m a prime example of medical mistakes, if anyone is.”
No matter. It was over, and the collapse of spirit that Caroline had so much dreaded had not happened, at least not yet.…
“You look half asleep,” Lore said.
“I’ve been so lazy here.”
“Well, you won’t be anymore, starting now. Look at her. She’s waking up.”
On the bed, ready to be dressed for her first venture out of doors, the baby lay with wide eyes and dancing fists.
“The nurse wanted to show me how to get her clothes on, but I said you would save her the trouble.”
“Nothing to it. The main thing is not to let the head wobble backward when you pick her up. Joel should be here in a minute. The Riccis lent their car to take you home. Oh, here he is.”
He was standing in the doorway, hesitating. “They gave me the whole day off,” he said awkwardly.
Of course. It was only right to give a new father a day off, along with the jokes and congratulations. No wonder he was flustered and awkward.
“Come have a look,” Caroline said, holding the baby with her head resting properly on Caroline’s shoulder.
Joel made a surprised comment. “She has blond hair.”
He means, that man must be blond.
“My father had light hair.”
“Yes,” said Lore, “Father was a handsome man. Maybe she will look like her grandpa.”
“See, she’s staring at me!” cried Caroline.
“Not really. Their eyes aren’t focused yet at this age,” Joel said.
Lore nodded. “You’re right. Most people don’t know that.”
“Well, I’m the oldest in a large family. There was always a baby in the house.”
Caroline had never held a baby. This one was only seven pounds, but unexpectedly heavy and warm. The wet mouth was kissing her neck.
“She’s hungry,” Lore said, noticing.
There was a hard lump in Caroline’s throat, and she needed to cry, but would not. Her thoughts raced: I thought I would hate it—her; her fingers are pulling at my collar; if Father could see her he would have tears; he teared so easily. And Mama would have a velvet coat ready, size two. Mama and velvet. Oh, my God, and I was so sure I would hate it—her.
She is mine, entirely mine. I made her myself. All her blood comes down from Father and Mama, from my people, through me. She belongs to me and to no one else.
“I want to tell you both something,” she said passionately. “You have to promise me that as long as you live you will never let her know anything about who—about how she came. She must never know. Do you promise?”
The two others looked at each other in astonishment. “Of course not. That’s understood,” Lore said. And Joel exclaimed, “Who in heaven’s name would hurt a child that way?”
It was bizarre. Here she was, this baby, just seven days old, going home with this odd, patched-up family to start out in the world. Yes, it was bizarre.
“What is her name?” asked Joel.
“Eve.”
Lore corrected her. “Eva. Your mother’s name is Eva.”
“In America, people say Eve, and this is America. Her name is Eve.”
FIVE
She remembered how, from the first, people remarked upon the child’s beauty. The first pale fuzz had soon turned into black silk, and the black eyes were brilliant in the tiny face. They were Mama’s eyes.
“An Italian bambina,” exclaimed Mrs. Ricci, who kept bringing feasts, along with wine and kisses.
Emmy Schulman came with her ladies, piling glossy boxes tied in pink ribbon on the table.
The Sandlers sent a snowsuit and a loving card, which unlike other people’s cards said nothing about “Happy Parents.”
Gertrude, always chary of praise, observed that the baby looked healthy. It was still early in the morning, and of all days, today Joel had forgotten to put the sofa back in order. “Eve had a wakeful night,” Caroline quickly said, for she had followed Gertrude’s gaze, “so Joel moved out here to get some sleep.”
Lore had knitted a yellow blanket. Often, when Caroline laid her book down for the late night feeding, she took a final look at the round lump under that blanket. An awful fear made her heart beat faster: What harm might life do to this child? This child had a legacy.… She reached down and gently rocked the cradle.
Joel had built it for Eve. It was made of fine wood, well joined and polished to a gleam. When Caroline, thanking him, expressed surprise at his skill, he answered simply, “What a person doesn’t know, he can learn.” And he explained, “Cradles are best for newborns. The motion reminds them of rocking in the womb, or so I have heard.”
“He’s full of surprises,” Lore said later, “and the soul of kindness.” She said it too often, for surely Caroline needed no reminder. “A father couldn’t be more attentive to that baby.”
In the pet store one day he bought a puppy, an unidentifiable gray mongrel with a rough coat and a pleading expression.
“A child should grow up with a dog,” he said earnestly. “Besides, he looked so sad in his cage. He talked to me.”
Joel had really taken too much upon himself, Caroline thought, bringing back a dog without asking whether it would be welcome. Nevertheless, she let it sleep on her bed at her feet, and she named it Peter.
Life in the little flat was undergoing a definite change. Drying diapers, midnight bottles, and the general fussing that a baby collects around its presence—to say nothing of the dog’s possessions underfoot, its bowls and rubber bones—had dimin
ished privacy and space. In these narrow quarters, they were living as someday people would live in college dormitories in brotherly or sisterly indifference, without emotion. Or so Caroline thought …
No longer could she feel uncomfortable about the shared bathroom, or about walking past the front room where Joel was sleeping. Nor did he seem to notice her. If he still cast quick glances at her when she passed, she did not see them.
Lore rebuked her. “You don’t pay any attention to Joel.”
“Why? What am I supposed to do? I’m too busy for small talk.”
“You’re never too busy to talk to me.”
“Well, you are a slightly different person from Joel,” she answered, somewhat impatiently.
“You could make a little effort. Aren’t you ever sorry for him?”
“I’m perfectly nice to him. I’m comfortable with him, but I’m indifferent. And that’s progress, Lore, counting from where I started.”
Indeed, as the months passed, she began to feel that she was making progress. One morning when she woke up, she realized that the feeling of hopeless dread with which she had so long been waking up was gone. It was as though a fog had suddenly lifted. She looked in the mirror and whispered to herself.
“I always used to think that I was a strong woman. Dr. Schmidt told me I was that day when my life fell apart, but I didn’t believe him. I knew I was not strong, not at all. Now I feel again that maybe I can be. And I must be, for Eve.”
NOW they were all making progress. To begin with, Mr. Ricci gave Joel a substantial raise. With Al Schulman’s help, Lore was studying for the licensing examination. And because Vicky was willing and eager to baby-sit, Caroline was able to put a notice on a bulletin board outside the post office offering lessons in both French and German at two dollars an hour. The response surprised her. It was a good feeling, now, to pay her fair share of expenses. They were all beginning to see daylight. Everything seemed to have changed since Eve arrived. It was as if the baby had given a sense of authentic purpose to those three who had boarded the train together in New York.