by Alice Adams
But Eliza was unable to listen, today, to Kathleen’s raging monologue.
And it was time to go to unemployment. On her way out she dialed Miriam. Still busy.
That day, in the huge, hangar-like, dreary greenish room, (called, euphemistically, the Office of Human Resources Development), in the unemployment lines, everyone looked like Miriam. The room was full of tall black girls with skinny legs, hunched over in their coats. But why would Miriam be here? She was almost anywhere else. Or dead.
And Eliza’s head was raw with sleeplessness.
Sometimes, perhaps because of the weather, there was unreasonably a sort of festive atmosphere in that room, up and down the waiting lines. Kids in bright crazy clothes, tall black men with terrific swaggering hats, all getting something for nothing. Sometimes it felt childish and fun.
But not today. Today the kids looked pale and shabby, the black men dangerous.
And this was Eliza’s interview day; about every six weeks the unemployment recipients had to say where they had applied for jobs. Possibly Eliza was not the only person who was not really looking for a job; possibly other people did as she did, which was to make up a few plausible places. (Miriam’s instructions: “List some folks you know. Like that, if they check you, you be okay.”) She listed Ted Kennerlie, sometimes The Lawyer. Still, she was always terrified of being somehow found out.
But her system worked, her small deception. The efficient-looking young Japanese man on the other side of the railing barely glanced at her list. He handed her her check, as once more she caught a glimpse of a black girl across the room, who was not Miriam.
She took the check to the office next door, where it had to be exchanged for cash: more danger. She headed for the bus stop across the street, afraid of everyone, of everything.
Miriam.
At home, with her coat still on, she picked up the phone and dialed, and Miriam answered on the first ring. “Hey, there, Eliza, how’re you doing? You okay? I’m okay, real okay—”
The departure of Eliza’s terror left her weak, too weak for anger; she felt shriveled, and suddenly small.
She said, “Well, I just wondered how you were—” and she hung up, thinking, But it could have been Miriam; Miriam’s life is dangerous. She is endangered; we all are, but especially Miriam. (We are not human resources.)
Half an hour later, Peggy Kennerlie called. She said that Ted was behaving strangely: he was talking about joining the Peace Corps.
Already bored, Eliza felt disloyal both to Peggy and to the Peace Corps. Peggy sounded ridiculous.
But not so, of course, to Peggy herself, who said, “I’m really worried, Liza” (an old college nickname that Eliza very much disliked). “It’s so unlike him. But I guess it beats chasing his secretary.”
“I guess so.” As she said this, Eliza had a clear and certain vision that that would be next: Ted would dump Peggy for his secretary, especially if he had a virgin secretary. Ted as a sexual person would only be convincing to a virgin.
“Well, what do you hear from old Harry?” Peggy asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Eliza sounded more irritated than she meant to, and for that she could not fairly blame Peggy.
The truth was she had not heard from “old Harry” since the weekend, almost a month ago now, when she flew to meet him in New York; and Peggy’s question reminded her of what now seemed another failure in love—in love, or perhaps simply in judgment. How crazy to go off to Mexico with a man you didn’t know, and even to imagine that you loved him, to think of marrying him. (How crazy to have married Evan Quarles.)
What did happen with Harry in New York? She had tried, with not much success, to sort that out. For a start, a bad start, they were both very tired, Harry from filming—a strenuous schedule—in Morocco, and then the trip, jet lag. Eliza was simply tired, for no reason. And the city, New York, seemed to conspire against them; everywhere, despite reservations, despite Harry’s flamboyant force, they had to wait for meals. For taxis, for theatre tickets. Harry’s joke was “Maybe we can only function in hyper-efficient Mexico,” but Eliza feared that this was indeed the case.
Worse, as the weekend went on, she feared that she had built up Harry in her mind as a kind of super and hitherto inexperienced combination lover and friend. She had even (Christ! embarrassing to remember) brought along a couple of poems that she had been working on for him to see. And no possible moment for poems ever arrived.
By the end of the weekend, Harry’s fatigue had evolved into a ferocious cold. They spent Sunday afternoon in bed, not making love (not reading poetry). Harry was coughing and blowing his nose with great violence; Eliza gloomily thinking.
But she had found it hard, somehow, to write off Harry. He would not become, in her mind, The Hollywood Producer, would not join The Consul and The Lawyer. To think of him was a further depressant, on a dark depressing day.
And that night Daria telephoned. She seemed to be crying, or barely succeeding in not crying. “I really feel okay,” she said, “but I have to stay in bed for a while, and it is disappointing. We’d really wanted—”
She had had a miscarriage.
“Oh, Daria—Christ, I’m so sorry. But you know, you are so young.”
“I know, sure, we can go on and have eleven children. But I wanted to have this one.”
10 / And Some
Good News
On a classically lovely day in early June, a Wednesday—the day after an unemployment appointment that was less frightening than usual—Eliza went down the slate steps to her mailbox, about midmorning. She found there mostly bills and advertisements, as usual. Macy’s, Saks, Catherine’s dentist. A mail order catalogue, some fliers from magazines soliciting subscriptions.
Retrieved and spread out on her coffee table, the array of envelopes was discouraging: there was nothing among them to read. Which meant no respite or postponement of work, from either messy old unfinished poems or the perfectly blank paper on her desk upstairs. Idly and without hope, she looked at all those envelopes, and then, with a small rise of irritation, she thought, I subscribe to the Nation; why are they writing?
Inside the Nation envelope was a short and graceful note: “We are accepting, with particular pleasure, your poem … an early issue … twelve dollars.”
Involuntarily, in disbelief, Eliza’s hands flew up to cover her mouth as she stared at the small and important piece of paper. And then happiness like new blood flooded through all her veins. It was a moment of pure joy; she recognized and greeted it as such, looking out to the pale blue spring sky, the fluttering gray-green eucalyptus leaves, and much farther away the rising wrinkled green hills of Marin County. Pure joy, and a moment that she would remember, would recapture, resee.
And now—whom to tell—to call?
Catherine was in school. Daria was in Italy, recuperating from her miscarriage. Harry Argent was in Morocco again, and she had no current lover.
Josephine? At the thought of phoning her mother and telling her this news, the familiar web of emotions began to knot and tangle in her chest: fear, guilt, affection, apprehension, anger. She dialed the well-known number: the house in Maine, which Josephine had gone to open for the summer.
The phone rang and rang, while Eliza pictured the house perfectly: the large rooms, long windows looking out to the June-sparkling lake, or, on the other side, back to the pale and green leafed-out apple trees. She could even smell that slight odor of disuse—perhaps less an odor than a need of air—that came from a neglected, although immaculately clean and polished house at the start of summer.
“Darling!” said Josephine, “how lovely to hear from you, such a surprise. And not calling collect!” She was out of breath, but insistently conversational. “What time of day is it out there? I can never remember which way it goes.”
Not saying: I haven’t called you collect for at least ten years (although knowing that she will say this, in her mind, to Josephine, repeatedly; she is fated to such unspoken fight
s with her mother), Eliza said, “It’s eleven-fifteen. Mother, I have some really good news.” And Eliza told her the news.
“Oh, Eliza, how marvelous! I’m absolutely delighted for you. But you didn’t say that you’d been writing poetry.”
“Well, it sounds sort of silly.”
“Not silly at all, when you impress a magazine like the New Republic.”
“The Nation, Mother.”
“Oh, I meant the Nation. It’s like the problem I used to have: no one could remember whether I had a piece in Harper’s or the Atlantic. Darling, I am so glad you called. I had a card from Daria this morning. They’re in Florence, and she seems to be feeling enormously better.”
“Oh good.”
“Well, I did think Italy would help. And they do seem to do it in style. I must say that Smith has rather grand notions.” And then, unfortunately in the same breath, she asked, “How much do they pay for poetry? The Nation, right?”
“Right. Oh, not much. In fact, not much at all. I may take Catherine out for a Chinese lunch, or something.”
“Oh, well, money.”
That’s easy for you to say: Eliza prevented herself from saying this to her mother, who had always earned a lot of money writing, and had inherited a lot. But she eerily recalled Smith Worthington saying those words to her, last summer in Maine, on the night before his marriage. “Mother, I have to go now,” she lied. “I have a lunch. I just wanted to tell you—”
“Darling, I’m so glad—how good you were to call.” And then Josephine’s voice sounded tremulous: was that because they were saying goodbye, or because she was truly glad for Eliza’s poem?
As she hung up, Eliza was trembling, and she did not understand, really, what had happened—or she could not face what she seemed to understand. Which was that Josephine was not entirely pleased.
An hour or so later, as she sat on her worn wooden front steps, in the sun, Eliza almost managed to return to her moment of joy. Smelling lavender, she thought of the enormous difference between having sold even one small poem and not. Being a published poet or not.
She wished that she were, in fact, meeting someone for lunch, but she did not have the right friend for that moment, and besides, it was too late—after noon.
Harry, if he were there—Harry would have been terrific, but he would have overdone it. Lunch at the Palace, champagne—he would have overwhelmed the event, and thus, not meaning to, have minimized it. Still, it would have been more fun with him.
And she thought of the splendid weekend that had succeeded the not good one in New York. Harry had had to come back to Los Angeles to look at rushes, and he managed three days on Nob Hill, at the Huntington—to which Eliza rushed for long afternoons of wine and love, some tiny naps—rushed home for supper with Catherine, back to Harry for more love and midnight feasts.
After that visit, Eliza thought, Well, he’s marvelous, but I couldn’t see him very often; I wouldn’t last.
Inside, she considered calling Miriam, but that was crazy, too much to explain. Considered, and dismissed, Kathleen.
She even thought of calling Peggy Kennerlie.
And then she saw a possibly oncoming wave of self-pity, against which she firmly braced herself. Firmly she spread her competent hands before her on the table, and she thought, Of course it would not be as important to anyone else; no one else has been inside my head, feeling my craving for any recognition, my really dying to be published.
She said to herself, I send poems out into space; that’s how it feels. And so, how extraordinary that someone should have heard. Someone bought my poem.
The threatened wave of self-pity did not strike.
The phone rang. It was Josephine, who said, in a hurried, out-of-character voice, “I just called because I wasn’t sure I’d said how really glad I was. Just surprised. I wouldn’t have thought of you as being a poet. But, darling, that’s absolutely terrific. First-rate.” Was Josephine crying? “Well, I must hang up. We don’t want to start supporting the phone company, do we?”
Her daughter was totally confused.
But Eliza had almost returned to her earlier euphoria, when she heard loud and unexpected feet pounding up the stairs. It was, of course, Catherine, but then—at lunchtime?
“Mom, don’t you remember? There’s a teachers’ meeting, so we all got out early! I told you!” Blond and beaming, plump and almost twelve, Catherine burst into the room, trailing books and a favorite bedraggled pink wool cardigan.
“Oh, no, I did forget, but, Cat, I’m so glad. And guess what happened to me today.” Eliza told Catherine her news.
“Oh, Mom, a poem in a real magazine with your name on it? Mom, that’s terrific—God, that’s wonderful!”
Eliza and Catherine went off to Chinatown to have lunch, to celebrate.
11 / Expensive Hotels
What would it be like to be that woman? What goes on in her mind, or beneath her skin? Daria is thinking these questions as she stares at a youngish, black-wrapped, emaciated woman of indeterminate nationality—as they both stare down into an enclosed space of broken ruins. This is the Largo Argentina, in Rome, all overgrown with bright and thriving weeds, and overrun with cats: large and small, all colors, but uniformly scraggly cats, pirates, marauders; they sleep with one eye half open, one torn ear half cocked. Daria and the other woman are both watching the cats, but why? And what is she thinking and feeling, that other?
Poor: she is obviously very poor. The black clothes are rags, and both brown shoes gape open to dingy black socks, below a short space of bare raw white legs. Blond hair makes her look not Italian; her hair is the color of Daria’s sister Eliza’s hair, but otherwise, my God—how different the two. Daria imagines that she, the other, has wandered down to Italy from some other country—Poland? Austria?—maybe looking for work, a husband, a supportive relative. And nothing has worked out for her.
The woman turns to Daria and smiles, showing terrible teeth, and gestures toward the cats; she says something in her own language, which Daria partially understands; she has said, “… spaghetti.”
And Daria turns to see that a reasonably well-dressed older man, perhaps a retired civil servant, in proper brown, has gone halfway down some steps and has set out a large platter of obviously cold and old spaghetti. Which several dozen cats gobble down in half an instant. The plate now is perfectly clean, as its owner retrieves it. He is smiling to himself, as though this were a favorite moment of his day.
Ashamed of her own perfect, expensively maintained teeth, excruciatingly aware of expensive, impractical clothes, Daria smiles guardedly at the other woman. (After all, they have the cats in common.) And she thinks, I will give her all my money.
Will becomes must, an absolute imperative. It has the force of a superstition, or a charm. Since she had that thought—that directive, as it were—she must obey it.
She is to meet her husband—“Smith Worthington, my husband”—for lunch in a place called the Casina Valadier. “It’s up on the Pincio; you’ll have to take a cab. Just remember the name—here, I’ll write it on a card.” On one side engraved “SMITH WORTHINGTON,” on the other, tidily printed in ink, “Casina Valadier.” “And here, you might see something you want—” She is handed a sheaf of lire, crisp pale notes. “Oh, well, you might need more.” More notes. “Don’t spend it all in one place.” He laughs.
She has no idea how much money there is, no idea of the worth of all those notes, those large-denominated lire, folded inside her suede kid-lined bag. No matter; in fact, it is probably better not to know. Daria has been indulgently told for a long time that she has no head for figures: first by her astronomy professor at college, a kindly Dutchman; and later by her husband. But there are certain numbers that she remembers as secrets: for example, six million. Hitler killed six million Jews. And why does she remember this number, why think of it now, what happened when she was a small child? (This is in the middle Sixties, by which time Smith has made five million dollars and Daria has
had four miscarriages; she does not think of these facts, neither being as real to her as six million Jews, dead.) She does think, Last night he fucked me four times—“Fuck,” a secret word that no one knows she uses in her thoughts, certainly not Smith, the exhaustedly proud fucker.
Fucking: Daria senses that this is something that Smith must do; he must drive himself into her, as untouchingly and as often as possible. Often—that is very important to Smith. He counts; she has heard him mutter to himself, “Twice a night for a week, that’s pretty good for an old guy pushing thirty.”
No matter, then, the amount, the numbers of the money. The essential, the necessary thing is to give it all, and then to run away. Daria stares around at the streets that bound the small square, streets thunderous with the tearing traffic of an approaching Roman noon: heavy buses, darting urgent cars, careening delivery bicycles and roaring motorcycles. No exit. She will have to rush through the traffic, praying Roman prayers. Santa Sophia? Minerva? Agatha?
Now she moves along the railing toward the other woman—the other, the poor and unlucky. She is holding her bag in a way that feels furtive and embarrassed. And she feels embarrassed perspiration seeping under her arms, down her dark silk dress.
Up close, the woman looks older, worse. Cracked pale lips, a white flaking around her nostrils, red-rimmed eyes. Still, at a certain time she was a young woman, obviously. A blond young woman with breasts, and everything, all invisible now beneath rags. Men wanted to fuck her. How did she feel about that—that “fucking”?
With the most rapid gesture she can manage (her hands shake a little; the tight new clasp of her bag resists), Daria reaches inside the bag; trying to cover what is now in her hand (impossible, such large bills), she thrusts it toward the woman, and says (unaccountably) in French: “C’est pour vous. Un petit cadeau—moi—” She turns then and begins to run, before there has been any change of expression on that other face. Any word, in whatever language.
If she is killed, run over by a hurtling Porsche, with Smith Worthington’s impressive card in her bag, and if the ragged woman is found in the area with a lot of money, the police will piece together robbery, blackmail, something terrible. This worries Daria as she runs, dodging cars; but she is too busy not getting killed, not wanting to die just now, in Rome, near noon, when she is supposed to be meeting Smith for lunch.