by Ray Succre
“It’s not astronomy. Just love. I rather like it.”
“Of course you do. There’s no risk on your part.”
“You were less objectionable to it last week. It’s like the closer we get to deciding, the less you want to decide.”
“I know. We’ve talked it over too many times. Now I can’t see it from the outside anymore. But I think I have the answer now, and I know how to tell you.”
“Oh?”
“And you won’t like it.”
“I see.”
“Because the answer is that I can’t agree to marry you.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Just listen. I can’t agree to it, Em. No matter how you might try to convince me. It’s too complex. We can’t do it. And you should consider your mother, after all. It’s only right to sacrifice some things for our families.”
“That was how you prepared to tell me no? By bringing up my mother?”
“Well?”
Their ambling view of Antioch opened then upon the whole, busy smash of spring on campus. This university was a modern place and with a workman’s appreciation of structure, but a sense of idolatry effused the place. It felt to be an institution holding itself high and marching as per the seasons. The whole of campus was a commanding officer. The structure and system reminded him of the ARMY yet was nothing like that force. Antioch had the force of fellowship and academia, yet was so unlike a place in which one might find true fellowship, as in a plane surging over a war zone, or an actual place of employment. He was not employed by Antioch to learn, but rather he employed the university to teach him, as was the new thought. He paid, or rather, the military paid. He had taken to study and the enhancing of his grayest matter well enough, but this broadening was not much interested with him. It seemed to like others more. Walking along the university’s center courts gave one good cheer, but within the buildings and while sitting in lectures, one felt to be but a grain buried in the suffocating heat of a silo. College made you feel like a child, while entreating that you were assuredly an adult.
“I couldn’t care less what my mother thinks of my wife,” he replied, agitated at Beth’s use of his mother as a device, “Her old religion is intolerant. I don’t care about that. And I won’t let the preoccupations of others, even my dear mother, blind me to anything that I actually find true and beautiful. Oh, that sounded nicer than I planned.”
“I did sound nice.”
“My brother said I should give my heart to whomever I please, and that mother will be fine.”
“Isn’t he still a bachelor?”
“Yes, well. At any rate, Susa the Jewish mother does not love you. That’s true. But I do. And your Protestant grandparents don’t love me, but you do. It’s not complex. It’s incredibly simple.”
“Emery, you’re here on the G.I. Bill and-”
“What does that matter?” he interrupted, defensive.
“-and if you’ll let me finish what I was saying… you also majored in English your first terms, then physical education for the next few. What’ll it be this year? Do you even know? Will it be geography? Maybe baseball? My family would see you as a dumb lug who can’t make up his mind. And worse, they’d treat you that way.”
“Until I got to talking. You’re right; I’ve been picky. I’m switching over to Literature, I think. And hell, even if I didn’t switch, there’s nothing wrong with physical education. It’s a good job to work with kids.”
“I know that.”
“With your major, you of all people should understand that there’s nothing wrong with teaching kids.”
“Of course not. That’s not what I meant. Don’t snap your cap.” Emery grunted at this. Telling someone not to be angry after you had made them angry never helped, but rather, accelerated that troublesome mood. He was put out, but contained his agitation as best he could. She was rejecting him, though her dodge was yet to truly smart because he had not yet chosen to accept it. He had anticipated her reaction and he was using his ploys to nudge it aside, just as she had ployed in bringing his mother into the argument. They were officious little lovers.
“Well, you’re putting me down. That’s supposed to rile me. Besides, you know I’m no jock, and Phys Ed helped build up my knee again. I can actually run on the thing now. It’s important to me not to have a gimp leg. I’m lucky I got to keep it.”
This repair had taken time. In the perfecting of a wobbly walk, one needed to adopt swagger. The importance of a careless façade came into play, but was quick to become boring. The swagger tapered into the natural, dull limp over time and rehabilitation grew to be necessary. His second major had held a secondary agenda for him, in that he was working his knee into proper shape again. The years he suspected this should take were not to be needed, he had discovered. In his sophomore year alone, the knee began to feel as its brother did, and in the newest week, he was able to remove it from his hourly mind. The scars were a knotty mess, but not entirely unattractive, and so he was comfortable during those rare bouts of swimming with his newer acquaintances, and at the last retreat, Beth.
Her quick glances about, nervous perhaps at being seen in a manner that might be perceived as courting behavior, were adorable. That she was nervous did indicate she thought their relationship of worth, but also that she still wished, in some way, to keep it private, which inferred it was a thing to be hidden. Hiding things was something Emery did not enjoy. The world was better off when people said what they thought and were honest with themselves and others. Secrets, when not life-ruining, were a sort of deplorable thing to him. Emery sucked in his breath and strolled across the Antioch campus as a boyfriend of uncertain tenure, beside Beth in the manner he wished to be, and in the manner he hoped she, as well, favored. The air was chilled but his hands seemed warm. He would have preferred they hold one another’s hands, but her resolve was chaste.
“Oh, I don’t doubt you, Emery. And I didn’t mean to put you down. But you see they would. You’d be a bad meal in a restaurant to them, one they’d just pick and pick at. I know them, Emery, and you have to understand that my grandparents would not approve of you. Never. My father sent me here to school and provided this way for me. He chose to let his daughter attend college. That’s unheard of in my family. And I can’t just throw it in his face that I won’t be like them, or that I don’t take my schooling seriously. My mother and I fought very hard to convince him that my schooling wouldn’t be a mistake, and marrying you, no matter how much I want to, would be exactly that to him. To both of them. Incontrovertibly. A mistake.”
“Incontrovertibly,” he muttered.
“Yes.”
“I feel much better now, thank you.”
“It’s just that they won’t approve of you. In any way.”
“You said that already. Incontrovertibly.”
“Em, they wouldn’t even like your shoes. They’d especially loathe you if you didn’t convert, and even then… well, my grandfather says the word ‘convert’ with a very special sort of venom.”
“I’ve told you, that can’t happen. My father’s death made my mother a wreck. She can’t even write out a check by herself anymore, or pay her bills correctly. Aunt Vera does all that for her. Since William declined her moving in with him in D.C., she’s nearly abandoned. Boys that won’t come home, husband gone… telling her I was converting and becoming a protestant would devastate her. I owe her the illusion that I am, still, to her measure, a good, Jewish boy.”
“Well, I can’t be a Jew, Emery. And you can’t be a Protestant, so that’s that.”
“I’m so tired of this. It’s all wet. Listen: My mother wouldn’t approve of you anymore than your grandparents would care for me, dear. For whatever reasons they have. So we have to forget about that. All of it. I don’t care. We’re in love and we’re both carrying the torch and we don’t need their consent. This isn’t Romeo and Juliet. Look around; the world is fine with us. Our stodgy parents are the ones who have the problem. They’re
the ones who make all these troubles and mistakes, not us. I jumped out of planes to try and repair some of the ills they’ve ground into this world. My knee was turned into chuck. They’ve made a muck of things for us, we all know it, and we can’t let them make a muck of us.”
“I won’t lose my family, Emery. If you love me, you’ll accept that. Just accept it.”
“So you’re declining my proposal?”
“Sadly,” she said, a small nod following.
Study and learn and live and forget. Kill and win and be torn up and move on. Go up and come down. Jump to land. What madness. What universal calamity man had built for himself. He felt so good in it. He was as a dog ruling over his master’s house. And he loved. He loved so fervently at times that the entire world eclipsed into his dizziness. The women were fond of the veterans and the veterans were fond of the women. They studied and learned and lived and they thought of one another and forgot one another to the day.
“…and last night?” he said, quieter.
“Oh, Emery. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not.”
“I’d like to.”
“You’ve had too many girlfriends here. Oh, what’s the nice way to say it...?”
“A ladies man. That’s what they usually say when the man is well-liked.”
“Right, a liar. A ladies man. I think you’re still on active duty, Emery Asher. And no woman with any brains marries that.”
“And no self-respecting ladies man would marry a bright woman, especially not daddy’s pride and joy. In ensures he’ll be caught being a louse. So it would seem that my asking to be your husband proves my willingness to be with you solely, and that I am not, in any way, on active duty, you.”
“…”
“Do I have the point?”
“I hate how weirdly sensible your nonsense can sound.”
“Well, ignore all that, then. Gobbledygook. Just remember this: We’re in love, Saunders. That’s a big deal. That certainly counts for much, if not all. You’re all I think about, really.”
“I know. You’re star-crossed stupid. But none of this is any good. I do love you, Em. And I believe you love me, but how can I be certain I’m not your next girlfriend? I like being one, but not if I’m simply the next one.”
“You’re the only one. It’s true. I’ll write it on a blackboard a hundred times.”
“Don’t belittle it. I asked how I could be certain. Answer me that, mister.”
“Well, I’m trying to marry you,” Emery replied, “That’s… that’s damn certain.”
“Oh, of course. Marriage. That’s not a real answer, Emery, and I know it. It’s an agenda for you. It’s a mission. You’re... you’re pulling more maneuvers.”
“That’s silly. I’ve thought all of this out, sure, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful.”
“I think you’ve thought out getting married more than you’ve thought out me, specifically. I’m above your pay grade, Emery Asher.”
“That’s wrong. And it’s hurtful.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but how else am I supposed to see this?”
“As an opportunity to be my one and only shiksa goddess.”
“Oh, stop it. I’d have to be certain long before committing to marriage. And you don’t make me certain about anything. You make me dizzy and dull.”
She was correct about his history with women on campus. There had been many. To what purpose did a man receive his life from the den of his enemies if it was not to live well? Wasn’t a good life the best sort of survival? The nightmares came so often lately. More than they had at first. The schooling diluted his mood and eagerness. The veterans compared their stories and wounds and girls to the point of vanity. What was there for Emery Asher? Pretty eyes lashed in ideas had followed him at times, especially that first year back. He could not help but notice, and want them. Yes, there had been girls, and many, but he had lied to no one, and he was less a ladies man than he was a recipient for opportunistic, fun-loving girls. They existed and he had been present. He was no hunter here; they usually made themselves quite available, shamefully and excellently, though that had all ended last year. No person seemed so real to him as Beth Masson Saunders.
She felt to him a woman he had thought up his very self, and that could not be manifest in actual life. In her presence, slight horns lifted from his brows and an impish smile crossed his thoughts. He had gone to much fun in swaying her fondness, and had given her so much thought of late that the other girls he saw walking campus now seemed as if improbable fictions. Beth Beth Eliza-beth.
“Do you want me to stand on my motorcycle and do circles beneath your dorm window? That brainchild got your attention quite well. Hey, I could try a handstand and yell out your name so everyone knows who, this time.”
“Heavens, no. That was humiliating. It bothers me when you grandstand like that. You can be some sort of fat-head sometimes.”
That was untrue; she was supposed to act bothered, was all. The Sun had set and the air had taken up its chill from the outlay of campus. Emery returned to the particular detail most present in his day’s mind.
“Then what about last night? You seemed certain enough, then.”
“I told you, I’m not going to talk about that,” she said, annoyed.
“Wonderful things deserve to be talked about.”
“No, they should be treasured quietly, or else forgotten.”
“How philosophical and crone-like of you.”
“You’re being a pill, Emery.”
“You’re a hag, Beth.”
“Curly jewboy.”
“Bitch wasp.”
These were insults that passed one sort of talk into another. Unfriendly words said between loves in studious mockery. Irony. Little words in the twilight. They meant only what was intended in saying them, which was nothing but the frustration of impasse. Beth was a crude teaser, as was Emery. They got along quite well because of this humor. He felt forceful now that the Sun had fallen, a bit of darkness spurring him.
“I wish you were certain about me,” he said, a little pained. This was legitimate feeling, and despite his coltish behavior and single-mindedness, he did have a great amount of care for her. She sighed and gave in.
“Fine. Emery, last night was… well, that was a present for you. I was giddy, is all.”
“Yes. Excellently giddy.”
“And we didn’t have the whole sin, so I think it could be fixed with a few prayers.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true?”
“Well, it is true.”
“What’s true is that I’m going to marry you and your family will just have to tolerate me. In my mind, it has already happened. It’s you and me, Beth. Now, I know they raised you, but if your grandparents won’t tolerate me, well, then I won’t tolerate them, and they can just have their lonely, great-grandchild-less Christmas by themselves each year.”
“Great-grandchild?!”
“At some point. You did say you wanted two children some day.”
“Eventually, you dolt, but with my husband.”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“And you and I can’t marry, Emery. Look at you going on in the future like that. It’s silly and it sort of hurts. You don’t seem to understand reality; you’d wish my grandparents to be as lonely as you say your mother is? That’s cruel.”
So many things were cruel. Finding a place in which to nestle his life among others, to simply be among his fellow men… that was, at times, cruel. Foregoing rare joys in the securing of a grander, longstanding pleasure, like a marriage or tolerable career… cruel. Dying parents. A pulverized kneecap. Bullets. Orders. Night. Frost. A lack or abundance of vision. Cruelty was on every tongue to have ever spit a bigoted word into every cruel ear that made one hear it. He had found enough cruelty in his life. He needed no more, and for this had entered into that lifelong skirmish of optimism and apology.
“I- You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
/> “Let’s just have our walk and talk about something different.”
“All right, Ms. Saunders. I concede.”
“Good.”
“…”
“…”
Talk wanted itself. They both felt it.
“Say, how did your test go?” he asked, then.
“Chemistry or English?”
“Oh, did you—
“Well, either way, they both went well, I think.”
“Ah. That’s good news.”
Silence. His subjects adjusted to match her own, then fell out of place again. Non-syncopation of their walk occurred. He was tired and thought briefly of kissing her. Right there on the walkway.
“Are you sleeping any better?” she finally asked.
“No,” he admitted, “Just look at my eyes. Once I’m out, I’m mostly fine. It’s getting there that’s rough.”
“I did notice them. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Sure.”
“…”
“…”
“Unitarianism, Beth.”
“What?”
There was a time for everything. To finish college. To launch a career. Time enough to jump from a plane and wait for the ground. He had rummaged through her arguments of late, and struck upon a unique salve by which they might mend their thoughts on the matter of a life together. It was the long-shot, but all he really had left in argument. Academia, it seemed, had birthed a church. This was a last resort for Emery, a final attempt. It as not a ploy, or a strategy, but a viable possibility for removing certain problems in their being together, marriage or not. He had kept on to the idea in the event she might grow certain not to marry him. Emery cleared his throat and tried to explain himself, to do justice to the ramshackle occupation on which he would now fall back.
“Keep an open mind for a second. See, an instructor was telling us about how it worked. And I looked at a few pamphlets.”
“What on Earth for?”
“Safe passage.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Listen, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m at a brick wall, and this is something I hope you’ll take a good look at before tossing more bricks at my feet.”