by M. J. Cates
“Well,” she said, as Carl lay gasping, “that was interesting,” and they rolled against each other, giggling.
Even after that she would never have thought that she could become so consumed by anything as grotesque as sex. But their wedding night changed her thinking, and the many nights that followed confirmed her in her wickedness. For she had no doubt that she had now stepped into realms of sexual behaviour that did not much occur outside pornographic novels, case histories, and French postcards. She found herself daydreaming about her husband’s penis, for God’s sake, right there in the lab, in the middle of the workday.
She’d be staring out the window, seeing not the elms or the carpet of fallen leaves or the November rain, but only that rod of flesh, imagining it in her fist, and in her mouth, and in its proper place. It was the oral business she couldn’t get over, because she had never imagined herself having anything to do with anything so bizarre. Yet now she thought about it at all hours of the day—the shape of him, the feel of him on her lips and tongue, the taste.
A behaviourist like Taunton would no doubt say that this degree of lust was a conditioned response. Just as little Edward had learned to fear a harmless rat, Imogen had learned to crave Carl’s body because he rewarded her with orgasms so exquisite they demanded a whole other word of their own.
“My God,” she said, after he had brought her to yet another heart-stopper with the tip of his tongue. “How did you get so good at that?”
She clutched his arm before he could answer and said, “No, don’t tell me. Never tell me. I don’t want to know about you and anyone else. Ever.”
“You don’t have to worry, sweetheart.” He looked at her with amused affection. “You just inspire me, that’s all. It’s all your fault.”
“I’ve never been with anyone else. You know that, don’t you? So this is rather frightening.”
“You’re my darling,” he said, stroking her hair, “and I plan to love you always.”
She kissed his shoulder and willed herself to be comforted. Because it was true: she really didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t stop wondering. No one was born knowing how to bring another human being to ecstasy; Carl must have been giving and receiving orgasms by the dozen with those beautiful German girls. The tooth of jealousy nipped at her heart but she fought it off, would not allow herself to be jealous of the past.
“Marriage agrees with you,” people kept saying those first few months. Ganz said it, Ruth Fein said it, Lila Quinn said it—Lila Quinn!—and even Donna, unsentimental Donna, said it. It made Imogen blush, because she thought, They know, and what they were really saying was, Well, my dear, you certainly look well f***ed!
“How is the physical side of things?” Donna said one afternoon when they had bumped into each other in the Phipps library. They didn’t get to see each other much now that Imogen had moved to an apartment with Carl.
“The physical side?” Imogen looked about to see if there was anyone else in the library but they were quite alone.
“Little tart,” Donna said, and squeezed her wrist. “It’s depraved, isn’t it.”
Imogen nodded. “Extremely.”
* * *
—
Carl was a big walker. Their apartment on Reservoir Street was a good three miles from the Phipps, but he never even considered taking the streetcar. Imogen soon learned to enjoy the walk at least one way every day.
On weekends they would walk up to Druid Hill Park. Imogen particularly enjoyed this outing because Carl liked to ride on the park’s whimsical narrow-gauge railway with its decorative Moorish and Chinese “stations,” thus giving her a chance to sit down. In contrast to Chicago, you could enjoy the outdoors in Baltimore into early December. But Imogen was bothered by the park’s rigid segregation of facilities into “coloured” and “whites only.”
“Chicago won’t allow that sort of thing anymore,” she said. “It’s not as if they’re still slaves.”
“I don’t think anybody minds being separate,” Carl said, “as long as things are equal.”
“That tennis court doesn’t look equal.” Imogen pointed across the lawn where two Negro couples, vivid in their tennis whites, were playing a game of doubles. “It’s rundown—and there’s only the one court. The white area has six.”
“This is the South, Imogen. You don’t see any Negroes in the Phipps, do you?”
“No—because the private patients wouldn’t tolerate it, and their fees are the only way the place can stay open.”
On Saturdays they would walk to Lexington Market, so colourful and noisy, and stop into Henny’s to purchase coffee and tea. Carl was not a materialistic person, but he was finicky about his coffee. He had a small grinder with a crank, and its crunchy whir greeted Imogen as she woke most mornings. That was the only aspect of the kitchen in which he took any interest. Like all men, he expected meals to be set before him on a plate and expected that plate to be washed and put away while he was doing something more interesting.
Carl saw their careers as equal, but he never offered assistance in the kitchen, nor did Imogen expect him to. Before they got married, they had both come to rely on the food services provided by the Phipps and Johns Hopkins and, faced with the prospect of meal preparation, Imogen had been obliged to write home to her mother’s housekeeper, Mrs. Bidwell, for some simple recipes.
Carl was good about fixing small things around the apartment—a sticking drawer, a loose tile, a jammed window. He took pleasure in such projects, just as he enjoyed his various contraptions in the lab.
* * *
—
One Sunday morning in February—after a week of frigidly un-Southern temperatures—they rose early and went up to Druid Lake. The sun had still not cleared the treetops, and there was no one else around. They clamped blades to the soles of their shoes and skated around the lake, hand in hand. Eventually Carl took off at great speed, torso low, right arm swinging. He spun around and called back to her various insults—Lazy! Slug!—but Imogen preferred her more contemplative pace.
As she completed another circuit, she noticed they were no longer alone. The low sun was now directly in her eyes, but she could make out a man in a long dark coat as he stepped onto the ice. A few moments later he was gliding toward her with his hands behind his back—a small man, with a dark goatee, sharply pointed, skating with a preoccupied air. He started when Imogen called to him.
“Dr. Ganz, how nice to see you.”
“Why, Dr. Lang, how delightful to see you abroad on this beautiful morning.”
“Yes, rather more like Switzerland than Baltimore with all this ice.”
“Indeed. Perhaps it was an attack of nostalgia that provoked my little outing. Mary thought I was quite mad. Is that young Kromer pounding toward us?”
“It is.”
“A good researcher and an athlete—a combination to be treasured.”
“Hello, my treasure,” Imogen said as Carl scraped to a halt beside them. The three of them stood talking, their breath visible in the cold.
Dr. Ganz inquired after Carl’s latest experiments, speaking in the dry tones of his lectures. “It would be of inestimable importance,” he said, “if we could discover the organic processes underlying the formation of habits—but wait—don’t tell me now. Why don’t the two of you come to my house for dinner tonight? Come at six. That way we can enjoy a long conversation before dinner.”
“Perhaps we should make it another day,” Imogen said. “We wouldn’t want to be an unpleasant surprise for Mrs. Ganz.”
“You won’t be. Mary will be charmed by your company.”
“You’re not left-handed, are you, Doctor?”
“Carl,” Imogen said, “why would you ask a thing like that?”
“The chief was skating clockwise. Most people skate counter-clockwise.”
“What power of observation,” Ganz said. “I am right-handed, as it happens, and like everyone else I usually skate counter-clockwise. But I am writing a monogr
aph on habits, and wanted to note my own reaction to breaking one. It’s quite a distinct sensation—a tightness in the chest, which one suspects is anxiety. But please. Enjoy your recreation and we’ll speak more of this tonight.”
That evening, Imogen had a difficult time deciding what to wear. It was a lucky thing that the Phipps required, and provided, clinic whites, because the economic realities of being a student, followed by the slow repayment of her debt to her uncle Mason, had turned shopping for clothes into a luxury she could rarely afford. She tried on a dress of sage-green cotton voile, but it seemed too light for the season. She was fond of her blue check gingham, but it was out of the question for a dinner party. She finally settled on a silk messaline in midnight blue with a Russian-style blouse hanging loose from the shoulders.
“What do you think,” she asked Carl, “too much?”
“Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“I think you may be biased.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t perfect.”
“It is just dinner. I don’t want to be overdressed.”
“You look lovely and confident and stylish. And I’m going to look a complete oaf beside you.”
“Nonsense.”
Carl was one of those perfectly proportioned men who can buy a suit off the rack and with minimum alterations have it look like Savile Row.
They took a taxi to number 9 Rugby Road, a four-square mock Tudor of stone and stucco, convincingly half-timbered, in stately isolation at the crest of a low hill. This allowed for a good sweep of driveway, and showed off the surrounding snowy folds of Roland Park. It was a country mansion compared with their own poky little place, and Imogen experienced for the first time the dull pinch of the heart that comes with the realization that one has come down in the world and might not be rising anytime soon.
Mary Ganz answered the door, greeting them warmly and taking their coats and scarves.
“We’ve landed on you unexpectedly,” Imogen said. “I hope we’re not a terrible inconvenience.”
“It was a surprise,” she said, hanging up their coats, “but a delightful one. Jonas always has such warm words for you both that you would blush to hear them.”
“We’re tremendously lucky to work with him,” Carl said.
“Oh, I’ll have to let him know you think so.” She leaned toward them and added in a whisper, “He sometimes worries he’s perceived as something of a martinet. Now follow me—le grand chef is in the sitting room.”
Dr. Ganz sprang from his wingback chair to greet them.
“Dr. Lang. Mr. Kromer. I’m so glad you could come. You’ve met Mary before, I think?” He put his arm on his wife’s shoulder as she came to stand beside him, and the two of them—both trim, both diminutive—resembled a pair of matched dolls. “It’s always a good thing to get to know one’s colleagues in a setting outside of work, don’t you think?”
“Depends on the colleague,” Carl said.
“Carl, really…”
“Well, it’s true. I was only being honest.”
“May I pour you a drink?” Dr. Ganz said. “We have gin, rye, bourbon…Don’t worry, I haven’t broken any laws. All of these were laid in before they passed the Amendment.”
“Jonas has been socking away the wine like Molière’s miser.”
“It’s a matter of civility, Mary. One must be able to entertain, one must have society.”
“I know, my love. And you know I approve.”
Imogen asked for a gin and tonic, Carl a bourbon. Dr. Ganz added ice to their glasses from an insulated caddy with dainty silver tongs. His wife declined.
“Mary has been visiting the families of new patients for the past three months,” Ganz said. “It has affected her views concerning the consumption of alcohol.”
“One just sees so much damage,” she said. “I would say, eight times out of ten, alcohol is a powerful force for harm in the homes of the mentally ill.”
“Not that it’s a cause per se,” Ganz put in, “except in a case of Korsakoff’s.”
“No, no. But you have a father who drinks his paycheque, or drinks and then gambles and loses the housekeeping money, or drinks and becomes violent…or worse. The stresses and strains to one’s mental and emotional balance can be considerable. Excuse me for a moment, I must just check on dinner.”
Ganz watched her leave, and raised his glass in a silent toast. “Light of my life. Could not do without her. Mary’s very active in the Mental Hygiene Society—doing a lot of work with Ruth Fein, arranging for talks, community programs, and so on.”
“The two of you will always have much to discuss—just as Carl and I do.”
Carl nodded. “I don’t know how so many of the medical and scientific people do it—go home to spouses who understand nothing of their work. How do they talk to each other?”
“Some of them don’t, I suppose. I know a lot of medical men—and one assumes women—who are happy to leave work at the hospital.”
“Not me,” Carl said.
“Nor me,” Ganz agreed, and of course this was Carl’s cue to talk about his current experiments on activity cycles. Ganz could not have been happier. In contrast to Robert Taunton’s work, Carl’s findings on endocrine levels could have immense implications for the affective disorders. Imogen too was thrilled to have this chance to discuss her husband’s work, as well as her own, with her chief, and to find Dr. Ganz so warm and welcoming.
* * *
—
The twins were born the following winter, a couple of weeks after Christmas, a boy and a girl with Imogen’s round eyes and Carl’s curly hair. Imogen had a powerful urge to name the girl Laura and, having thought of Laura, was beset by an equally powerful urge to name her son Quentin. Once these names were glowing in her mind, all others seemed dull.
But she could not do it. There had been only one Laura and so it should remain. And to name the boy Quentin would be a final slap in the face to the young man who had loved her so unhappily: No, I couldn’t marry you, but I’ve named my son after you.
Charlotte and Aubrey, as they were eventually named, were in the eyes of their new mother entirely perfect—quiet yet curious, toothlessly good-humoured, and, what was most important, fond of a good sleep. Imogen was granted only three weeks’ unpaid leave from the Phipps (“Entirely out of my hands,” Ganz pleaded) and in order to add another two had to deduct them from her vacation time.
When Carl came home in the evenings he would coo over the twins in the most adorable way, and hoist them in the air and spin them around as they gurgled and drooled, and cover them with kisses. He constructed toys for them, after hours, in the lab—a tin “automaton” that might delight an eight-year-old, a wooden pedal car that might come in handy when they were four—until he finally hit upon an ingenious pair of hand puppets that he fashioned out of old mittens. The twins could not use them yet, but the parents could and provoked many smiles and wriggles of appreciation.
“You don’t think they’re just being polite?” Carl said.
“Not at all. They appreciate good costumes and fine acting the same as anyone.”
“My God, I am a lucky person,” Carl exclaimed. “So lucky!” And at such times Imogen, too, thought her happiness as complete as happiness could be.
When it came time to go back to work she made inquiries and found that the cost of hiring a white nanny was prohibitive. She interviewed three Negro women and although all three had good references and an agreeable manner with the children, she chose Myra Temple, largely because she had a very soft voice that the twins would find soothing—and also because Imogen liked her name.
“She certainly is negroid,” Carl said after they had interviewed her.
“I don’t think the children will mind.”
“But won’t it be confusing for them? They may start wondering why they’re not the same colour.”
“We can’t afford a white nanny, and even if we could I’m very taken with Myra.”
“You d
on’t think we should reconsider your going back to work?”
“We’ve discussed that, Carl.”
“Staying home is the normal thing, you know. It wouldn’t diminish you in any way.”
“It would diminish my career. Instantly and permanently.”
“I’m not so sure. The chief thinks you’re wonderful, you know that.”
“Carl, I’m going back to work.”
* * *
—
And going back to work proved to be even more pleasant than she had anticipated. To occupy her mind once more with patients on the wards and biochemical analysis in the lab was a deep pleasure compared with the repeated evaluation of infantile ingesta and ejecta by consistency, colour, and volume. The peace and quiet of the lab, the sense of doing work of some value, the talk with colleagues, restored her sense of self.
But she was also glad to come home at the end of the day. She loved Charlotte and Aubrey with a sea-surge of devotion that amazed her. Taking the streetcar toward Reservoir Street, she would find the cases of auditory hallucinations, say, or protease reactions in the brains of schizophrenics, receding and being replaced by the bright, milky faces of her children. To take them from Myra and hold them in her arms was a release of pure, unalloyed love.
“They the sweetest babies I ever did see,” Myra said.
“It must be your influence, Myra. No one in my family is so sweet-tempered.”
“Mine the same, Doctor. No, I reckon the good Lord just handed you and Mr. Kromer these two little angels he musta had goin’ spare.”
For a good six months after returning to the Phipps, Imogen could feel that she and Carl were something of an idealized couple—especially among the nurses. Here were two who had truly mastered the world of medicine: good jobs in a prestigious institution, a happy marriage, and children.
“Everybody loves you,” Donna told her one day when she came to visit her in the lab. “You show them everything is possible—everything the suffragettes have been yelling about.”