by Belva Plain
“Very few of us are perfect in everything, so I wouldn’t worry about the math.” Another fatuous remark, when what he wanted to say was: Let me look at you, stare at you, take your features apart one by one. Let me ask you whether you’re ever very unhappy and why. Tell me what you want to do when you grow up. Tell me whether there’s anything you want very badly and let me give it to you. Let me tell you who you are.
Anna had recovered herself. “Iris is a very good student, and a good pianist. She works hard. You may be hearing her at a concert someday.” And she gave the girl a fond look.
“No, Mama, you don’t understand,” Iris said impatiently. “I’ll never be good enough for that. I keep telling you, but you and Daddy keep saying it and it’s really silly.”
She has a sharp little tongue when she wants to, Paul thought. Well, good. Stand up for yourself. And he asked, “How do you know you won’t be good enough, Iris?”
“Because I can tell. I’ll probably be just a piano teacher.”
“Do you feel bad about that?”
Again there came that delicate shrug. “Well, anyone would like to be famous, but I know I won’t be, so I don’t think about it.”
What extraordinary judgment for a nine-year-old! “Very well put,” Paul said. “It’s not always easy to see oneself. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve done it yet.”
Iris laughed, showing the braces on her teeth. She was going to be an interesting personality. In a vague way, she reminded Paul of Meg at the same age; although there was no physical resemblance between Meg’s big-boned awkwardness and this girl’s thin, dark fragility, there was the same mixture of childish shyness and adult perception.
When she had scraped up the last of the ice cream, Iris went to the ladies’ room.
“How sweet she is,” Paul said as soon as she was out of hearing.
“She doesn’t think so. She’s convinced that she’s homely.”
“You must do something about that.”
“Well, we do. But you must admit she’s not a beauty.”
“She’ll be distinguished-looking when she’s older.”
“She’s much too serious.”
“Does she have many friends? Tell me everything, quickly before she comes back. Is she healthy? She looks pale.”
“She’s healthy. A nervous type of child, but perfectly well. As for paleness—well, you aren’t exactly rosy, are you?”
He laughed. “Oh, Anna, this is the most wonderful thing, in spite of all! Our child … Tell me, does she love you very much? It’s not every girl who has a mother like you.”
“We have no big troubles. But she’s closer to Joseph. He adores her. She’s the heart of his heart, he says.”
Of course. Fathers and daughters. That’s the way it is, Paul. Fathers and daughters.
Anna cried out, “I wonder sometimes whether my feelings ever come through to her. Because when I look at her, oh, I try to put the past away and act as if she were—”
“His and yours,” Paul said steadily.
“Oh, I try. But now that I’ve seen you together, it will be harder.”
“I had to do this, Anna. You’re never out of my mind. Don’t you understand that, my darling?”
He could barely hear her answer. “It was a mistake.”
“Day and night, you’re with me. You spoiled me for other women, charming women.… There’s only you.”
Her head was bent and her eyes cast down so that her eyelashes lay on her cheeks. He had forgotten how thick they were and tipped in gold. He remembered, though, the infinitesimal bump on the bridge of her nose, which so offended her, and how once she had taken his hand and made him feel it. And he remembered walking together in the winter, and how he had been always aware of her coat, a smart, cheap gray wool not nearly warm enough. He had wanted to give her things, but had not dared to; in his mind he had dressed her in velvet and put diamonds on her fingers. Now he saw that she did wear a diamond, a large one, emerald-cut, the gift of the man who lay beside her and enjoyed her body. White as milk, her flesh …
How little he knew about her anymore!
“Years,” he said. “Time spins away. Does it seem long to you or short?”
“Both, depending on the way I feel that day.”
“I think of you as my wife, my real wife, my child’s mother. You should be with me, really with me, all the time. You know that, don’t you?”
“Darling Paul, don’t. It’s too late.”
Hopelessness lay on him like a heavy hand. His fists, lying on the table, were clenched. “Is this the way it’s to be for us forever?”
When she turned her face up to him, her collar spread open; her bare throat asked for pity. “Oh, don’t, I’ll start to cry. For God’s sake, don’t do this to me.”
“All right, I’ll be good.”
“You promised. Don’t make it harder.”
They sat for a moment in silence, making an island of somber quiet in a sea of clatter and chatter.
“There you are, Iris. Ready? Mr. Werner has to go back to work.” Anna spoke blithely. “We must tell Daddy what a nice time we had.”
He marveled: How does she do it? Lies, lies … She lives with a lie and is cheerful, or has to pretend to be. Where does the courage come from?
They shook hands. Thanks were spoken, polite and casual thanks. And he watched them walk away, the tall, graceful woman and the girl who would soon be as tall as her mother. He watched them as far as he could see, until the crowds on the street absorbed and hid them, these two whom he loved, who were his, who were part of him and would be as long as they all remained on earth together.
He went back downtown to the office and closed the door. Miss Briggs had come in, although it was Saturday, to clear up a backlog. She had left a pile of papers on his desk for his signature. He read them without understanding what he read, and gave up, to sit and stare and think.
So it had happened, and only God knew whether he would ever see them again. Just across the park they lived, a bird’s short flight from where he lived. There Anna did her daily chores, there Iris went to school. And he knew, quite clearly he knew, that their painful presence so near and so far was a fact he would have to accept, exactly as if he had been born lame or born the king of England.
But in another way, it was not a fact; it was a debt. He hadn’t married her, and there lay the wrong. There lay the lifelong debt on which the interest would be forever owing. Out of his memory, his heart and soul, he would have to pay. It was a fixed charge on his life and there was no use struggling against it because it would always be there, coming due again and again and again.
Miss Briggs tapped on the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s an urgent call from London.”
“Put it through,” he replied.
Stocks and bonds, debentures, and loans and gold. The whole lot was worth little more in the sum of things than a heap of dust.
He picked up the transatlantic call.
Later, much later, he went home. He was in no hurry, for it was Marian’s turn to have her card club, and he had no wish to greet the women today. Instead he left the subway and walked the rest of the way through the park. It came to him that if it hadn’t been for Central Park, the city would often have been unbearable. What tensions had he not walked off, or tried to walk off, in the park!
Children were still sailing their boats and still circling the Ramble on their two-wheeled skates. A tiny girl, pushing a doll carriage, sang to her doll. He stopped for a moment and tried to recall the voice of Iris, but the sound had vanished. For so long he had wanted a son! He had even sometimes pretended when they walked together that Hank was his boy. Now it seemed to him that there was nothing to compare with having a daughter, buying dresses and books for her, taking her to Europe maybe, or out west, through the Rockies …
The card tables had already been put away, the women were long gone, and Marian was sitting by herself.
“Where on earth have you bee
n all afternoon?” she asked.
“I had to see a client at the office.”
“It’s a shame that people can’t leave you alone on a Saturday afternoon. It really is.” Marian’s mouth had her familiar, set look of patience. “You work much too hard. Between the bank and all your charities, you’re hardly ever home.”
“But I don’t mind. I like what I do.”
“I was hoping you’d be here to say hello to my friends.”
“I’m sure they didn’t mind, Marian.”
“Well, I minded. You said you’d be home early.”
She was in one of her moods. To be fair, they came seldom. He supposed she might be having another miserable sinus attack.
He asked mildly, “Have you got a headache?”
“As a matter of fact, I have. And one reason is, I don’t get enough sleep. You get up so early, and then I can’t fall back.”
“I’m sorry. I do try to be quiet.”
“Would you mind—now don’t take this the wrong way, Paul—but I’ve been thinking, maybe if we had twin beds, it would be better. You see, it isn’t so much that you make noise, it’s that I feel you getting out of the bed, and that wakes me up. Would you care?”
He could have answered: Why should I care? But he said only, “Not at all, if it will make you rest better.”
“You mean you don’t care at all?” There were tears in her voice.
“Marian, I want to please you. If you can sleep better—”
“Another man would be disappointed, to say the least, that his wife wanted to move out of his bed.”
“And if I were disappointed, what would you do?”
“Why, I would just give up the idea.”
“But wouldn’t that be foolish, when it’s a matter of your getting the proper rest at night?”
She did not answer, and he went on, speaking quietly and reasonably. “Marian, if I said no, I will not allow you to change the bed, you would say that I didn’t care about your health. I’ve said yes, change the bed, and you accuse me too.”
She stood up and went to the window. Something was roiling within her. Maybe she wanted him to be possessive and jealous, to give the appearance, at least, of that miraculous closeness we call love. Once, very briefly, he had thought they had it. He remembered that summer when they were very young, when he had been in Europe on business for his father, and had written to her from London and Paris, missing her and wishing that she were there with him. That had been before they were married.
That had been before Anna.
She turned suddenly about. “If only you loved me!” she cried.
“I do love you, Marian. Why do you say these things? I do love you.”
And in his way, he did. He would do anything for her, to guard and keep her, as he would for any of the women in his family, for Hennie or for Meg, and as he had done for his mother.
The inverted V, as her eyebrows drew together, looked painful. She was twisting her wedding ring.
“Sometimes I feel, I think, I’m useless. Am I useless, Paul?”
This humble appeal, coming from Marian, was especially distressing because it was so at odds with the patrician hauteur of her face. Nature’s accident, it was.
“Oh,” he said, “whatever, whatever could have put such a thought into your head? I suppose it’s because we have no children, and some silly women have set you thinking that there’s no other purpose in life. Is that it?”
She cast her eyes down. “In a way. Maybe.”
“Well, they’re abysmally stupid! Is a woman no more than a fertile womb?”
She gave a weak smile.
“You’re a valuable citizen in the city. When I think of the things you do for the community! Useless! I defy anyone to say that to me about you—including you. Don’t you dare,” he threatened in mock indignation, “don’t you dare talk like that about yourself, do you hear?”
The smile grew a bit stronger. And he beheld her: an immaculate woman, not unpleasing, with a formal appearance even in her underwear. Such a good, well-meaning woman! And he felt a piercing pity because he could give her no more than he had given, because of the wrong he had done when he married her. Yet if he had not married her, that would have wronged her too. Round and round.
“You know,” he said, “we really are being very silly about this business. All because you asked for twin beds and I said yes.”
She said doubtfully, “Maybe you’re right … I suppose I do make mountains out of molehills sometimes, don’t I?”
“Don’t we all? Come, aren’t we invited somewhere to dinner?”
“To the Foxes’. They’re having a few people in.”
“Well, that’s nice.” He heard how amiable he sounded. “I always enjoy them,” and added, “I hope it’s early. I didn’t eat much lunch.”
“I’ll get you a sandwich to hold you.” She smiled, quite brightly. “I’m sorry. It was just my beastly headache.”
Battering at clouds, that’s what it was, for neither one had any real grievance against the other. They were such a decent, civilized pair! They would have a pleasant dinner that evening with their friends, talk about them on the way home, and go to sleep.
Tomorrow would be another day.
Eight
Today was a good kind of day, traveling around with Ben in the new Packard coupe with a rumble seat, having lunch, then stopping for an ice-cream sundae at a place on Ben’s route and ending with a night baseball game. Hank had felt cooped up all winter in school; now in this first bright week of summer vacation, he was ready to celebrate.
It was coming close to noon by the time they crossed to the New Jersey side of the river.
“Hungry?” Ben inquired.
“Yup.”
Ben grinned. “I shouldn’t ask. You’ve got two hollow legs.”
It was true. The older he got, the hungrier he got.
“Growing like a weed,” Ben said, glancing at him with approval. “Thirteen years old and tall as I am. You’re going to be like Grandpa Dan.”
Well, Hank knew that. He probably heard it five times a week.
“Where are we going to eat?”
“Tony’s. Suit you all right?”
“Suits me fine.” His mouth was already watering with the taste of meatballs or clams oregano or spaghetti carbonara, and after that a couple of desserts.
Tony’s was across the street from the courthouse. The food was the best ever. Lawyers and judges, flashy, diamond-fingered politicians and union bosses gathered there to transact their various affairs.
The place really belonged not to jovial, swarthy Tony but to Donal Powers. Hank, knowing that, also knew enough not to mention it.
They were early. The tables, covered with clean white cloths, were set and ready for the lunch crowd with baskets of breadsticks and a container of grated Parmesan cheese in the center of each. A garlic-scented breeze blew out whenever the kitchen door swung open. Ben greeted Tony and took a table in the rear.
“Bring us a platter of antipasto for starters, Tony. What’ll it be today, Hank?”
“Spaghetti with clam sauce and a Coke.”
“Two Cokes,” Ben said.
Whiskey and wine were for the bosses in the back room at night, not now in broad daylight, in full view of the street across from City Hall.
The clam sauce was rich and smooth. They both ate steadily without much talking, pausing only to sop up the sauce with the good bread. Ben winked at Hank.
“No women around, so we don’t have to make conversation. Just eat.”
Hank laughed. They always teased his mother, making bets that she couldn’t keep still for five minutes straight. Sometimes she won, but you could see it was a painful effort for her.
“Mind moving over here for a minute?” Tony beckoned to Ben. “You don’t mind, Hank; just a little private conversation. Business.”
Ben took his plate and sat down two tables away. The two men spoke in low tones with their backs to Hank; neve
rtheless, he was able to catch a phrase now and then.
“… padlocked last week … no, can’t prove who, but the boys have an idea … sure, we lost two days … the prosecutor.”
This was no unusual occurrence. Hank had overheard such accounts before and, anyway, in the newspapers he read about them everyday. Everybody knew that mix-ups occurred. Somebody failed to pay somebody, and the place was closed up, most often for only a couple of days.
Hank wasn’t shocked. Prohibition was a farce. Even Grandpa Dan, whose respect for the law was religious, said that it was, that it wouldn’t last, that taking a drink of liquor was no sin—although he himself drank none—and that rather than to go about locking up restaurants, the authorities might better go about locking up factories where underpaid men were sweated like slaves.
The dialogue between Tony and Ben was lasting too long. The restaurant began to fill, men came up to Ben, and still he talked, while Hank sat alone waiting. Bored with the wait, he ordered a second dessert. You couldn’t get a coconut cream pie like Tony’s anywhere else in the world, he guessed. He ordered a third piece and, although he was feeling too full, kept raising the fork, more slowly now, not wanting to waste a bite, while musing on a fly that had buried itself in the sugarbowl. Then he overheard more pieces of Ben’s conversation.
“I’m a little worried. Not too much.”
He guessed it must have something to do with the income tax, not Ben’s own, but Donal’s tax. He wasn’t sure when he had heard them, but somehow or other, he could recall some pieces of talk during the weeks just past, something about Internal Revenue and going to court and Ben being the accountant.
Then he gagged. The last forkful of pie had stuck somewhere in the back of his throat and wouldn’t go down; his stomach lurched; cold perspiration wet his forehead and his palms; he stood up and rushed to the men’s room, making a clatter of overturned chairs as he ran.
Ben came up behind where he stood vomiting into the toilet. Ben held his straining head, while the lunch came up, a mess of clam sauce, pasta, meat, and coconut cream pie. It was agony. His knees buckled. When he was finished, too weak to stand, he braced himself against the door of the cubicle and trembled.