Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

by Cynthia Voigt

  Ann read it through again.

  All of the paragraphs could be tied in with naming, if she thought about it. But as to what Hildy had actually said, Ann was not sure. Hildy’s use of language was correct. It was the jumble of ideas that confused.

  “What was your outline?” Ann asked.

  “I do not know outlining. I thought to write about the unveilings. The professor mentioned that one day. It had to do with the theme of human excellence. He said—the professor—that the most important question for the book is: Why did Odysseus refuse Calypso’s offer of eternal life?”

  Ann nodded. She remembered.

  “Can you help me?” Hildy said. “If you could tell me what to do?” She waited, with bright expectancy.

  “I don’t know, Hildy. You see, I can’t understand what you are trying to say in this.”

  Hildy shook her head.

  “I can’t follow your ideas. And sometimes, you seem to lose the thread of what you’re saying so that all your grammar indicates that this is the main idea of the sentence, but what you actually say indicates that that is the main idea. Does that make sense?”

  Hildy’s color was higher “Yes,” she said. “No. I think I understand, but I do not know how to fix it. All the spelling is correct?”

  “That, yes. And the grammar But— You see, I could write it myself—”

  “No, no. That is plagiarism.” Hildy took the paper out of Ann’s hands.

  “Let me finish the sentence. I could write it myself, but I can’t figure out how to explain what I’d do, or why I’d do it.”

  This Hildy did understand. “Make it as simple as you can. What is the most basic thing I do wrong?”

  “Basically? I think . . .” Ann hesitated and then continued. “I think that you don’t consider words real. Not real as things are real. Not like desks or volleyballs or eggs. Does that make sense?”

  Hildy nodded. Watching her face, Ann felt that Hildy understood everything she was saying, and much of what she was trying to say.

  “If grammar is the orderly presentation of ideas, you don’t use words and grammar to present your ideas,” Ann said. “You write as if the two were not related.”

  “What two?”

  “The idea, and the tools you use to express it.”

  Hildy mused: “I think I see. If words are real, like stars, absolutely there . . . . Good. Now, what do I do?”

  Ann considered. Hildy needed quotes in the paper and to recast most of the sentences. She needed to put in transitions and to write an introduction.

  “Make an outline.”

  Niki burst into the room. Ann immediately felt foolish, but Hildy ignored Niki’s presence. Niki listened for a while, then sat at her desk, unexpectedly muted. Ann forgot she was there.

  “Why do I need an outline?”

  “For a plan. Everything you write about should have to do with your topic.”

  Hildy’s face grew puzzled again. She shook her head and looked at Ann.

  “Look,” Ann said. She pointed her pencil at a paragraph. “What does this have to do with unveiling? With showing who someone truly is?”

  “Oh,” Hildy said. She turned to her desk. Ann sat and watched the back of her head, bent low over the paper Ann did not move, because a fragile picture was forming in her head and to jar it would be to destroy it. Hildy’s mind was clumsy, cumbersome—like what, in its befuddlement with abstraction, its lack of polishing technique? Also, its abundance of possibilities. Her perceptions were true. Like a forest, perhaps, wild and profuse in its growth, some several strong and noble trees growing above a tangled floor Like a forest, accidental, at least in human terms, in its self-management. And large: one did not weed a forest to bring order A forest was too complex an arrangement of livings, too tough in its own right, for garden management. To improve a forest one would have to deal with the essential ingredients, and be patient. Like, adjusting soil balance or planting seedlings, and then waiting to see. Because what you planted would be altered by the nature of the forest into something other than you had imagined.

  Whereas Ann’s own mind was water, a lake held within controlling banks, sensitive to induced changes, but always with unexpected water-promises. Things would float to the surface and, within limits, move free. You could easily see how to alter and improve a lake, although you could not predict what it might give up to you from its unseen depths.

  How would you teach a mind like Hildy’s? Not by piddling weed-pulling points. And how teach it without changing its real nature?

  Hildy returned with a new sheet of paper, topic and subtopics.

  “That’s it,” Ann said. “Can you see it now?”

  Hildy shook her head, apologetically.

  “Wait,” Ann thought. “How long was this supposed to be?”

  “More than five. Less than ten.”

  “Typwritten?”

  Hildy nodded. “I can’t type. I don’t have a typewriter. He said it had to be typed too, the rewrite.”

  Niki spoke: “Did he write this down, or just tell you?”

  “He spoke to me after class.”

  “I could have guessed he’d be too busy,” Niki said. “Don’t worry about typing, OK? I can easily knock off ten pages.”

  “That’s fine,” Hildy said.

  Ann had been thinking. Hildy’s outline would produce only two or three pages. “What does it mean about Odysseus if nobody recognizes him?” she asked, trying to show Hildy that there was more to write about.

  “But that is not true,” Hildy said. “His wife does.”

  “What do you mean Penelope does?” Niki interrupted. “She’s the worst of the lot. She doesn’t know who he is even after he tells her. Not until that stupid test about what their bed was like.”

  “Oh, I think she does,” Hildy said. “He is her husband and she loves him.”

  “If she loves him, why did she send her suitors those secret love letters?”

  “For her son. And for her husband, her son’s father She is in a difficult position, you see. He has been away for so long, her husband; the suitors no longer fear him or they would not be there, living in his house. If the suitors understand that she will not marry any one of them, they will take the property by force. Her son’s property. And maybe take her, too, by force. So she must make each man think he is the one she would choose, when she can lawfully choose. She must encourage them just enough, each one. And she must stay firm until her son is grown to manhood and can fight for himself and hold his father’s property. Or until Odysseus returns.”

  Ann looked up from the outline. “Hildy, did your professor tell you that?”

  “No. He did not like Penelope. He liked, I think, Calypso for Odysseus. He said Odysseus was diminished at the conclusion, in his woman. I do not understand what he meant by that.”

  “The idea about Penelope,” Ann said, “is it your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “How should I prove it? It is clear to me. The kind of woman she was.”

  “Can you take that idea and show how it explains the way she acts in different scenes? Can you show how she shows she knows, by referring to things she says and does?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that’s your paper.”

  “What of these?” Hildy pointed to her outline.

  “It’s not as good, not nearly. Why did you take that topic anyway?”

  “The professor talked about things like that. Unveiling, diminishing, the function of the gods. I thought these were the kinds of ideas I should be having.”

  “They’re OK,” Ann said. “But that’s not the way you read the book, is it? Hildy, when you pick a paper topic, you should always pick something you’re good at. I’d guess you’re good at character At people.”

  Niki asked Ann: “You’ve studied this? You seem to know what you’re talking about.”

  “A couple of years ago.”

  “Good memory.”
r />   Ann nodded. “I told you, it’s a talent.”

  “You recommend that I write about Penelope,” Hildy said.

  “Try it. Try it and see how it goes. Make an outline and all that.”

  Hildy nodded. “I think so. Will you read it when I am through?”

  “Sure,” Ann said.

  For a brief time, Ann thought about Penelope. If she had recognized him. If she was the master, not the gull. Then Penelope too had excellence, human excellence. And there were some scenes of high comedy. Ann knew how she would approach the paper, how she would place fact atop fact and have an impregnable wall built, before she named her thesis. What would Hildy do, being earth and not water? Ann cleared her head and turned to the Greek middle and passive voices.

  But Niki interrupted her concentration by slipping a sheet of paper before her eyes. It was labeled The Socrates Award. Niki had drawn a prize ribbon, then shaded it in with blue pencil. To Ann Gardner, the writing went on, under the ribbon. Here’s to you, Annie. At the bottom of the page a hand held out a crude goblet inscribed with the word hemlock.

  If she and Hildy were water and earth, then Niki was fire, Ann thought. Crackling, hot, destructive. She put the award into the center drawer of her desk, considered a minute, and pulled out a blank sheet of typing paper Thanks, Niki, she scrawled. She dotted the i’s in Niki with circles, in which she drew little smiling faces, each topped with a curlicue of hair. This she placed on Niki’s desk.

  Niki looked up at her, “Sweet, very sweet.”

  Hildy was bent down over the paper on her desk, her pen moving methodically along.

  Ann read this second paper. The ideas were orderly and strong. They were not skillfully presented, but the argument was clear, direct. It sounded like Hildy. “Penelope is always in control of things,” Hildy declared in her first sentence.

  “Is it good enough?” Hildy asked.

  “I think so,” Ann said. “You need to rewrite it for polish—”

  “No,” Hildy said. “I could not. That is the best I can do, for now. I think my next paper will be equally good, so I have learned. I cannot yet polish.”

  Niki typed it up and the next day Hildy handed it in. She told Niki and Ann that the professor read it through while she watched, nodded his head, and said he would accept it although it was not in the style he understood all Stanton students had mastered.

  “But he took it,” Niki said to Hildy. “It’ll be all right. I was afraid, from what you said about him, that he’d refuse it because of the ideas.”

  “Why should he do that?” Hildy asked.

  “You said he didn’t care for Penelope. Your paper contradicted him.”

  “He told me my thesis was an interesting one,” Hildy reported.

  “I’m glad,” Niki said. “Really I am. I’m just surprised.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” Ann remarked. “This is the Northeast.”

  “No gloating,” Niki answered. “Gloating’s not allowed.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Inevitably, the next Saturday arrived. Ann found herself surprisingly calm before their match with the fourth-ranked sophomore team. Eloise was pale and speechless. She polished her glasses vigorously. Niki bounced onto the court with taut energy. She stared at Eloise before she spoke: “You’re a fledgling Munchkin,” she announced. Eloise smiled a little. Niki punched her lightly on the arm. “Buck up. We’ll murder them. You won’t have to do a thing: I’ll be right beside you.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Eloise asked.

  Niki laughed. “To make me feel better,” she answered.

  “You’ll be fine.” Hildy spoke from behind Eloise. “You know how to keep the ball in play if you can’t make a shot.” Elois nodded and polished her glasses again.

  An audience had come to this game. It was mostly freshmen from the volleyball class scattered sparsely over the benches, but the Munchkin’s gray presence occupied one end of the front row.

  The first few points were played tentatively, by both sides. The sophomores had played together for almost two seasons, and that experience showed in their control and confidence. Even Niki was subdued by this. The score was tied at five-five when the sophomores quickened the pace. They gained five more points, in quick succession. Ann felt herself growing still more calm. This was what she had expected, to lose.

  Niki’s face was dark as she served. She seemed about to explode, all knotted muscles and angry eyes. Ann looked around. The faces of defeat, she said to herself, heavy, expressionless faces. Hildy alone held her body ready to move, her face alert.

  Niki tried for too much power in her serve, mis-hit the ball, and gave the opposing team an easy return. They sent it floating over to Ann, who debated seeing if it would go out of bounds, then moved too late to save it.

  “You twit,” Niki muttered. “Annie. Even you could get that.” Ann responded with familiar sullen self-pity and anger.

  “She is right,” Hildy’s quiet voice remarked. Ann flooded with shame. “We should win this match, but we cannot if we expect to lose it.”

  Her voice carried around their court, no further “OK,” Ann said to herself. “OK, OK.”

  Eloise flexed her knees and polished her glasses, yet again. Bess straightened her shoulders and spread out her strong arms. Ruth touched her toes twice, quickly, and all the laughter was gone from her face when she raised it the second time. Niki crouched, fiercer, if possible.

  They won back the serve. Then Hildy served for them, the balls placed so as to force the opponents to return shots from off-balanced positions. Eloise executed a perfect set, which Niki drove into the feet of the sophomore facing her. Ann returned a long shot to an unwary back linesman. Ruth passed quickly to Bess who as quickly sent it full across court. The score was tied. More important, they had assumed control of the game.

  The sophomores spoke among themselves. “When that tiger moves off the front line,” they said. “Hit to the one with glasses, they’re protecting her.” But Eloise could keep a ball in play most of the time, and the girls beside her and behind her covered efficiently. Niki spiked, time and again. Hildy spiked seldom, but blocked with dazzling accuracy. Once she called to Ann to block with her and, to her own amazement, Ann did. She did not touch the ball, nor did she jump as high as Hildy; but it was as if Hildy could pull her upward. “I see,” Ann said to herself, “I see how.” This too she would practice.

  Eloise muttered Latin declensions to herself, dried her hands on the seat of her shorts, and played with unwavering steadiness. Niki perspired abundantly. Hildy, like a beam of light, moved among them.

  They took the first game seventeen to fifteen. The teams changed courts without speaking. Ann muttered to Eloise, “You might move on to conjugations.” Eloise nodded her head, but could not answer.

  It was halfway through the second game that the opposing team creaked, cracked, and crumbled. Ann felt it. The freshmen did not relax their efforts, but all sensed the collapse. More and more, individuals tried to take shots, crowding the net to spike, or calling for returns that were not properly theirs.

  After the freshman victory, the sophomores congratulated them. “Good game,” they said. “We’ll try again.”

  Niki shook her head. Sweat flew off her face. “You won’t have a chance,” she said.

  “Eat it,” a sophomore muttered.

  “Watch your language,” Niki snapped, and Ann suddenly understood how Niki was keeping faith with Hildy.

  “What are you, a bunch of effing saints?”

  “You’re that ashamed of losing,” Niki observed. “Is it humiliating?”

  The sophomore glared. “We’ll catch you on the way down.”

  “Hold your breath. Apoplexy becomes you.”

  The girl turned angrily away. “Gracious me,” Niki said.

  Ann answered her: “I thought it was more of a meeting of the minds.”

  “Annie. You, vicious? I never would have thought it.”

  The Mu
nchkin approached their team. The girls fell silent. “You have done well,” she said. “I shall make a point of seeing more of your matches.” She left abruptly.

  Eloise still sat where she had collapsed at the end of the last point. “That was terrible,” she said. She took off her glasses and polished them. “Look, I’m trembling.”

  Hildy gave her a hand up. “You were fine.”

  They showered and agreed to eat out. Hildy said she would join them. She had never had pizza, so they walked to the local pizzeria.

  Ruth wolfed down two succulent slices before she asked. “Could you feel it? Everybody. I want to know, could you feel them giving up?”

  “Yeah,” Ann said. “I’ve never felt that happening before, even when I was winning a tennis match. Which wasn’t often,” she hastened to add.

  “People will always give up,” Niki said. “If you go at them hard enough, long enough. That’s right, isn’t it, Annie?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “I do.”

  “We know,” Niki said.

  “Lay off,” Bess directed mildly. “This is a celebration, remember?”

  Niki continued. “The secret is to hate the opposition. There’s only so much hatred people can withstand.”

  “You’re kidding,” Ruth said.

  “No. I always do. Don’t you, Hildy?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you have to break them in order to win,” Niki said.

  “They will lose when we outplay them. To break them? I don’t want that. Then I have not won, but destroyed.”

  “And it’s only a game,” Ruth contributed. “It matters not if you win or lose,” she sing-songed at them, “but how you play the game.”

  “Hah,” Niki said.

  “Anyway, I could feel them giving up, or seeing it slip away from them.” Ann continued her own thoughts. “What happens in professional sports?”

  “The same thing,” Niki said.

  “How can it, when everybody has that drive? When everyone feels the way you do?”

  “One team or even one player has it more. The killer instinct.”

  That evening, Sarah called long distance and asked for Ann. “What happened? How did we do? We’ve only got a minute or two.”