The Book of Knowledge

by Doris Grumbach

  Oh god, it was good then. On and on. Until I heard Edmund was dead, killed. Said to Dan, he’s dead now. I told it to, was it Dan? Yes, Dan. Never came back, he was afraid. I was free. Never wanted me free. Went to borrow books, Cain, Deeping, Morgan. He looked away. Hid behind his desk. Into the other room. Didn’t come out. Never again to Larch Street. Children—hear me. Believe me. Love, all I had. Was with him. Before I knew about Edmund. The lady. In the black straw hat. Never mattered. Really. Never.

  Colder. My ears and nose. Where are they? Gone already. Dan cut me away. Stopped up my flesh. Closed me off. Banked the fire. Had arson with him, not Edmund. Emma died first. Dan hiding in the stacks. Appearance is a lie. Love a surface, a deception. Don’t believe it. Children never knew. Innocents. Caleb only man left. I loved him, boy-man. He loved Kate. Kate. Here? Have no one now. CalebKate. Who cared for me? This time? Caleb. Yes. It was Caleb.

  Oh now, here it is. Where’s my bell? Call Caleb. No, Dan. No. No one. Me. Alone. Gone to the past. Not here. Risen? Fallen? Into the leaves? Who took the oranges? Where is the ocean? alone. breathe out. last one, coldest. oh.

  The will was read to ‘the children,’ as Francis O’Malley called them, in his office. The house was left to ‘my beloved son, Caleb, in gratitude for his faithful care for me in my last years.’ The money, such as it was (‘not very much now,’ O’Malley said), was to be divided between her two children, after all her medical expenses and burial were taken care of. A few thousand will be all, O’Malley told them, enough to pay the taxes for this year and perhaps next. And his fee. After that …

  They sat across from each other, rejecting without thought their old positions. Caleb took his mother’s place in the porch rocker. Kate sat alone in the swing.

  ‘You can have the house, Kate. You live here. I have no use for it. I’m pretty sure of an appointment to the faculty at the university in Iowa City. It’s almost certain.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s generous of you. But no, I don’t want to stay here. It’s too big, for one thing. And it needs a lot of work. I’ve spent my entire life in it. I’m going away. You can sell it.’

  ‘Going away where?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Will you have enough money to go very far?’

  ‘I won’t need much. I’m not going far.’

  Kate looked at her brother, willing him to look at her. Caleb watched the swaying, heavy hydrangea heads at the edge of the steps. He seemed determined to keep his distance and reserve.

  Kate gave up her effort to make visual contact with him. Instead she asked: ‘Have you seen Lion lately?’

  ‘No, not for some time. He sent me a postcard from Fort Dix. He has his commission and will be shipped out to some other station soon.’

  ‘What about you? When will you be called up?

  ‘If I’m lucky, never.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Well, part of the teaching I will be doing, if I get the appointment, will be in the Navy preflight school—cadets, you know. In its wisdom, the Navy has decided they will need some acquaintance with the English language. Then, on the side, I’ve volunteered to edit training manuals at the college, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Will you feel all right about not going?’

  ‘Sure. I’m not the military type, you know.’

  Kate resisted the temptation to say: ‘More the caretaking type, perhaps?’ But she recognized the danger inherent in such unaccustomed sarcasm.

  Instead she asked: ‘You are less the military type than Lion?’

  ‘Well no, I suppose not. But my draft number is pretty high. By the time they get around to me I’ll probably be married, a family man, all that. …’

  Kate looked at the shadows of the hydrangea heads on the porch floor. The sight of their cloudy swaying made her dizzy. She could think of nothing more to ask. Caleb seemed to her to have already assumed his carefully planned, safe life, halfway across the country. Then she thought of one thing. …

  ‘I shouldn’t ask this, since you haven’t mentioned it before. But … who are you planning to marry?’

  Caleb laughed. ‘Oh, no one yet. But almost all the instructors I know are married. If you are trying for a permanent appointment it helps to have a wife and children. Makes you seem more settled, more serious, I suppose.’

  Kate said nothing. She was stunned by the cold-bloodedness of Caleb’s future plans.

  He took her silence for agreement with the logic of his project. The air seemed to grow heavy with her unspoken doubts.

  Then Caleb asked: ‘But you haven’t said what you plan to do.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about it. Send me your address, and I’ll let you know when I’ve decided. But you’ll have to do something about the house. I’m hoping to be out of it very soon.’

  ‘I’ll put it into the hands of someone here to sell. We can divide the proceeds.’

  ‘Please don’t do that. I won’t need the money. Keep it for … for your wife and children. You’ll need it.’

  In this way, they disposed of their past. They put the house they had lived in all their lives on ‘the market,’ as the realestate agent called it. Kate arranged to sell the furnishings, and donated their mother’s clothing to the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s thrift shop. Soon after all this was accomplished, Caleb settled in Iowa City, Second Lieutenant Lionel Schwartz was in England with his infantry company, and Kate, in the novitiate house in upstate New York, stood in the choir of the Sisters of the Order of the Virgin Mary, dressed in her novice’s black jumper and head scarf, singing, with eighteen other young women, the morning’s psalms, and awaiting the day when she would take her vows, as Sister Mary Christina, to the Order and the Church. She would become a Bride of Christ, saved at last, she believed, from all her old, unspeakable desires, from her past sins, from her unspoken resentment of Moth and Caleb, and from herself.

  5

  War and Peace

  Life is what happens when you have other plans.

  —WALTER HAMADY

  FOR THE GENERATION of men and women who survived it, World War Two was the high tor of their lives. Old enough to have felt and then remembered the impact on them of the Crash and then the Depression, they were now of an age to enter fully into the excitement of being ‘called up’ or volunteering for what everyone seemed to agree was a noble national enterprise.

  Young women, surprised at suddenly being admitted to hallowed male places, were exalted by their promotion and by the admiration granted them by the public for volunteering to serve. They were given free travel to unexpected places, they participated in the excitement of marching bands and patriotic ceremonies. They enjoyed the heady comradeship of those similarly committed, uniformed, and beribboned, and suffered without complaint in shared, close lodgings and through institutional meals. All of this provided them with an Everest, an unforgettable elevation, that gave never-to-be-equaled importance to their lives.

  At twenty-six, very tall, her black hair cut into a severe bob, thin at the hips and almost concave of bosom, Roslyn looked handsome in her navy-blue ensign’s uniform. Designed by Mainbocher to suit the androgynous American-girl figure in favor at the time, the uniform, with its cocky, antiquated seaman’s stiff hat and gold-buttoned jacket, its severe dark blue skirt and white blouse (or light-blue or navy, according to the order for the uniform of the day), reduced all the usual varieties of feminine dress to a single, handsome, satisfying, undeviating constant.

  Roslyn had arrived at this agreeable state of existence after a series of small civilian jobs. Working for a family of publications as an intern, she had been moved from one department to another until, with the shortage of men because of the draft, she was given a subeditorship on a magazine that customarily restricted women to jobs in the typing pool or, if they turned out to be exceptionally bright, in research.

  After what she had considered her exile at Brooklyn College, Roslyn luxuriated in being in Manhattan
, although she disliked her work. But the City was her happy playground, and she frolicked in it while the country prepared for its great civilian and military effort to win a second Great War. The very air in her corner of her beloved borough felt promising, lively, and patriotic. Behind her was all her professed radical past. Forgotten was her college recitation of the Oxford Pledge not to participate in any war, an oath she had taken surrounded by other student activists on the steps of the college’s Main Building. She had moved beyond lip service to Marx and Trotsky into a pleasure-filled aestheticism that only New York City can generate.

  Foreign sailors (the affectionate pom-pom rouges), German refugees, English expatriates who drank vermouth cassis in Third Avenue French bars, young men and their girls celebrated their liberty from family and academic restraints and waited, with very little show of impatience, for the calls to duty they knew would be coming.

  Roslyn would walk home from work toward her one-room apartment on Second Avenue in the shadow of the Queens-borough Bridge, stopping to drink at the Provençal or Lucie’s with her very recent acquaintances, sometimes bringing one home to share her bed for a few hours, more often going on alone to the delicatessen to buy borscht and corned-beef-on-rye sandwiches for her solitary dinner.

  On occasion she would go out after supper to a late movie, joining the crowds of other young persons who, like her, could not bear to see the wondrously free nights end. It had been on one such evening, in the queue waiting to see For Whom the Bell Tolls in a Broadway theater, that she noticed Lionel Schwartz, sleek, blond, and shining in his new, well-pressed lieutenant’s uniform. He stood four persons ahead of her in line.

  She moved up to join him, letting those she passed assume she was his date. She hugged him, and he returned her embrace, transforming their old cordial, civilian handshakes into the sort of instant wartime display of affection common in these days. They had not met in three years. Their youthful friendship had fallen away, but now, as with so many other young acquaintances of their generation, the circumstances of war, the imminence of mortality, and separations all around them propelled them into this unaccustomed demonstration.

  ‘How great to see you again,’ said Roslyn.

  ‘And you. Are you living nearby?’

  ‘Not far. A few avenues over. But I work for Time just down the street.’

  They had reached the window of the box office. Lionel put down two dollar bills for two tickets. He handed one to Roslyn.

  ‘Oh no, let me pay for mine,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, making a gallant, sweeping, joking gesture with his cap. ‘I’m now a rich second lieutenant.’

  After the long movie was over, they came out of the Loew’s State Theater, dazed by Broadway lights ablaze at one o’clock in the morning. Lionel said he had to get back to his post. Otherwise, he said, he would be glad to accept her invitation to have coffee with her at the Automat. Roslyn offered to walk with him to Grand Central Station: ‘It’s on my way,’ she said.

  They exchanged addresses and more news of their lives. Lionel asked Roslyn if she was still planning to be a writer.

  ‘Well, I suppose … someday,’ she said, showing some impatience with his tenacious memory.

  Lionel said his mother was not at all well, ‘beside herself was the way he put it, and that he was scheduled to go overseas soon. Roslyn said her father’s health had deteriorated. His diabetes had affected his lost leg.

  ‘It’s been very bad. The stump became gangrenous and had to be cut off, high up. Since then he uses a wheelchair most of the time, sits in it to take cash at the store, and uses it at home.’

  ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘The same as ever. Full of complaints about him, about everyone and everything. Money, weather, the stores in Brooklyn, my infrequent visits, what I wear when I do come home, my haircut. Everything. She takes the war personally. Every new regulation she thinks is directed at her. She rails against gas rationing even though they have no car. But it has cut down on my uncle’s ability to drive them to Florida for their usual month’s winter vacation, and that affects her.’

  ‘That’s too bad. I remember her as sort of young and very pleasant.’

  Roslyn shook her head. ‘’Twenty-nine changed everything for my parents. And yours too, of course. I remember your father as good-looking and a lot of fun. And did you hear that Caleb and Kate Flowers’ mother died last year? I remember her as a very nice woman.’

  ‘Er, no. I didn’t hear about that.’

  ‘I saw a little notice in the paper.’

  ‘I missed it,’ said Lionel.

  At the station they shook hands, no longer compelled by surprise to embrace each other as they had been by their first encounter.

  ‘Good luck in your next assignment.’

  ‘And you, in your job.’

  ‘Did I mention I was thinking about joining the Navy?’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Something new and different to do, I suppose. And maybe interesting. They’re looking for women who have worked in journalism to fill some desk jobs, to “release men for active duty,” the flier I picked up says.’

  ‘Well, then, the next time we meet maybe you’ll be in uniform too.’

  ‘It would be fun. Take care of yourself, Lion.’

  Lionel laughed. ‘I haven’t been called that in a long time.’

  ‘It was great to see you again,’ said Roslyn. ‘I really loved the movie. Ingrid Bergman is a wonderful actress. She looked great in that haircut. Thanks for the ticket.’

  ‘It was good. I liked Gary Cooper. He’s not much of an actor, but he’s nice to look at.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ they said to each other at the same time.

  They shook hands again. Lionel disappeared into the stream of uniformed men heading for trains to take them back to their posts. Roslyn walked on toward Third Avenue, thinking about the movie, Ingrid Bergman, seeing Lionel Schwartz in uniform with his soft, charming manner, thinking about getting to work on time today (it was almost two o’clock, she had noted on the station clock), thinking about the pleasure she would feel if she told her boss she was leaving, thinking about a new job, a new life closer to the bellicose heart of things, thinking, as she turned the corner at Second Avenue, about wearing a uniform.

  In wartime, San Francisco belonged to the Navy. Sailors filled the sidewalks, the bars, and the restaurants, their caps at a rakish, almost celebratory angle, their wide-bottomed trousers whipping around their legs with the constant breezes from the Bay. Naval personnel hung from the sides of cable cars which made their arduous way up the city’s hills and then came down with noisy, lighthearted abandon.

  Roslyn’s new station was on the sixth floor of an office building on New Montgomery Street. Almost from the July day she had reported for duty, wearing her spotless, pressed ‘whites,’ and gloves despite the heat, she knew she had been too optimistic about the promising interest of her assignment. Since her commissioning, she had served in two capacities on two posts. Both assignments were minor, pedestrian, and dull; she realized very quickly that the WAVES, an adjunct to the regular Navy, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service authorized the year before by Congress (to the loudly expressed objection of regular naval officers and enlisted men), were to be assigned work that resembled, in most ways, exactly what the civilian world had to offer.

  The Twelfth Naval District assignment came unexpectedly, and Roslyn arrived in San Francisco feeling very hopeful. She had been told it was a post attached to the Office of War Information and involved some sort of censorship work, Roslyn was not sure exactly what. On the day she arrived, she was introduced to the captain of the ‘station,’ ever after, she had been instructed, to be called the ‘ship.’ His tidy office looked out over downtown San Francisco and the bright blue bay, and was referred to as his quarters.

  Roslyn went through the ritual of saluting Captain Ayres and presenting her orders. He looked at them briefly and then return
ed her salute and welcomed her aboard. Dutifully, she expressed her pleasure at being aboard. Then the officer of the day led her to a large room, almost like the newsroom of a newspaper, she thought, where twenty or so ensigns and lieutenants were seated in rows. He approached a desk at the far end of the room. Roslyn was two steps behind.

  The officer of the day said: ‘Lieutenant DeMarco, this is your replacement, Ensign Hellman. Lewis, Roslyn.’

  A heavyset, swarthy lieutenant looked up from the newspaper he was reading, stared at Roslyn, and then stood up. It seemed to her that he rose very slowly and saluted her with some reluctance. One of his black eyes had a strange cast to it, as if he had damaged the cornea in some way. She returned his salute. The three officers stood awkwardly, saying nothing, suggesting they had nothing more of importance or interest to add to what appeared to Roslyn to be an unwelcome introduction.

  At last, breaking the silence, Lieutenant DeMarco said:

  ‘Well, Replacement, I suppose I should greet you with open arms and welcome you aboard and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Roslyn. ‘I can understand that you’re not delighted to see me. Why should you be?’

  At this point the officer of the day decided to interrupt the heavy air of unpleasantness.

  ‘It’s almost twelve. Would you both like to have some lunch down the street? My guests.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Lieutenant DeMarco.

  Simultaneously Roslyn said: ‘Thank you, no. I’ve got to move my gear into the room I’ve found.’