The Winter After This Summer

by Stanley Ellin

  That itself, of course, was made easy for her by the impact she had on company, an impact she must have been aware of. What happened to people when she was in the room reminded me of what happened to them in the apartment of a City College instructor I knew, a middle-aged worshiper of the Ashcan School of art and its later adherents. He had come into a small bequest when his father died, a few thousand dollars at most, and one day, flushed with his wealth, he had walked into a 57th Street gallery merely to look around, and an hour later had walked out, a pauper again, but the horror-stricken and rapturous possessor of a fine Reginald Marsh. The thing about pictures hung in a gallery or museum is that they always seem smaller than they really are, and the Marsh hung on the wall of a cramped uptown apartment was overwhelming. It was a Rockaway Beach scene, and, while almost a monochrome, it loomed over everything else in the room, the host of half-naked sun bathers in it writhing, pushing, and panting with life. It was impossible in that room to keep your eyes off the picture or concentrate fully on whatever was going on around you, no matter how you tried.

  That was the effect Barbara had on company. She had little to say, her presence was what she offered, but it was enough. Without knowing it, she provided me with a fine chance to observe the many small, clumsy ways in which a man tries to conceal an overpowering interest in a woman who is already marked taken. He becomes terribly interested in another woman, but manages to maneuver her so that he can see past her. He makes polite conversation with the real object of his interest but laughs too loudly at her responses, becomes ponderous discussing the weather, becomes unexpectedly arch, twinkles, strains, strains at the leash, but knows I am there, and strains to no avail. I was the possessor. I was the one to display the treasure or remove it, to do with it as I would. That is what a man must feel, and what man does not want to feel it?

  So I thought my way deep into my woman, and at the other end of the garden a lance of sunlight struck the edge of the factory roof and dissolved and flowed along it, the color of molten steel. That was the way I had seen the sunrise this past Sunday morning, watching it paint the flat, futuristic roof of a rundown motel, while I waited in the car for her. She had come out with me to the car, but had suddenly stopped, said, “Wait a minute,” and run back into the room, and I had waited and waited as a proper escort will until finally I went into the room to see what was going on, and saw through the open door of the bathroom that she was on her knees over the bathtub furiously scrubbing the bedsheet between her hands. I went into the bathroom, but she was blind, deaf, and dumb to me, the hot water spurting into the tub, the steam rising from it, the beads of sweat rolling down her face, and the bloodstains on the sheet pale now, almost invisible, while she still scrubbed away at them with agonized concentration.

  I turned the water off, pulled the handful of sheet from her and let the whole thing fall into the tub. “You don’t have to do their laundry for them,” I said. “Do you think this is the first time they’ve seen honeymoon sheets? Come on if you’re coming,” forgetting for the moment that if it wasn’t the first time for them, it was for her, and that there may be no more finicking maiden than the newly deflowered maiden.

  The trouble was that I had sound reasons for my mood then, reasons stemming, let us say, from good intentions and bad execution. It was the bad execution that unsettled me. I had guilefully prepared my trap like a master, baited her into it like Don Juan himself, and then at the moment of truth in that creaking bed, at the moment when I discovered the incredible truth about her, I seemed to fly apart in all directions, wildly taking what was mine and just as wildly trying to reject it, not man, proud man, when I had most need to be, but only the angry ape. The brutal ape. That was the role I had been sure Avery had already relegated to himself, and to suddenly find that I was playing it came as quite a shock.

  On the other hand, what is there for any woman the first time except the painful confirmation of certain intriguing rumors? No use boggling at that; it’s the way nature wants it. The one great danger in the system shows itself only when the woman happens to be as totally innocent as Barbara. Then she may judge her man entirely by that first time, may have heard that there was more, much more, to it than he offered her, and lay the blame for failure on him alone. Not her fault really when she has no gauge to measure by, no one except the condemned lover, to assure her that mutual performance improves with practice and why believe him? There is much to be said for encountering virginity if you are prepared for it. If you are not, it may lead to ineptitude enough to make the angry ape out of any man.

  Some of that anger, the part of it closest to the surface, evaporated on the drive back to New York. The weather was lovely, the lady at my side even more so and obviously straining hard to be amicable, and while I may have played the game badly I had certainly won it, so why, I asked myself, remain unjustly angry? But enough of the anger—and this must have been the part of it that was rooted deep in my vanity—remained to keep me away from Barbara since I had let her out of the car and seen her run up the steps of the house. She had not come to me, I had not gone to her and would not until I could go and stay as one who had every right to, not always running, like the other man in some inane farce, at the sound of the husband’s footsteps.

  Still, that did not deprive me of the privilege of thinking about her, and so I sat on the windowsill, lighting one cigarette from another, thinking about her in a way I had never dared think about Mia Gennaro. Analyzing her critically as I should have analyzed Mia and never permitted myself to. Mia had caught me too young, had Lorna Dooned me to distraction, and any time during our torpid romance that I had caught myself thinking critical thoughts about her I had hastily buried them deep and covered them over.

  But I was considerably older now. At least old enough to know that a man who is preparing to make a large emotional investment had damn well better look into the nature of the investment before he makes payment in full. And emotional investment was the right way to put it in this case. It was not the same kind of love I had felt for Mia; it had its heights and depths, but they were not the Himalayan heights and depths that a young ass goes exploring in his first love. It was more pastoral than that; perhaps the kind of scene the bridegroom enters once the honeymoon is over.

  Yes, I decided, that was it; I had very much the bridegroom’s feelings. The pride of possession, the sense of proprietorship confirmed, the urgent desire to take full charge. The last thing I would have thought of in connection with Mia was of running a School for Wives; it happened to be the first thing I thought of when I found Barbara. She was the beautiful epitome of ignorance, but perfectly willing to be teased, cajoled, or bribed into learning. She had, she swore to me, completed high school, and the only thing that prevented that from seeming altogether unlikely was that along the way her fancy must have been caught by the inspired teacher who introduced her to Don Quixote. The book had come alive for her, she knew it too well to be lying about it, and I knew her too well to think she had met it outside a schoolroom.

  But beyond that she was fallow ground, and I started in very soon to cultivate it by making her partner to my own tastes. She was wary about this at first, but once she learned that her opinions would be accepted with respect she came along willingly enough, was a good listener and viewer, and offered those opinions without inhibition. Only in company was she shy about speaking up, and there was nothing I could do to break down that reserve in any gathering of my familiars. Still, as I knew, the School for Wives had not been in session very long.

  But all in good time, no need for Barbara to become Aspasia overnight, the next moves were mine to make alone. The brave banner I had flown for six years had to come down, the drums had to sound retreat, and the first to hear them had to be my uncle Charles. The chances of my re-entering the world of the Egans and Asquiths and Claibornes without his help were too slight to bother about. I needed a job—nicely executive even at its most junior level, fairly well-paying, and full of promise—and it was
my uncle who could open the right doors. How he would feel about this after I had unceremoniously booted him out of my life three years before I did not know. What I was betting on was that he would relish playing benefactor to my Prodigal Nephew too much to resist doing so. If not—well, sufficient unto the day …

  I put all this to myself very lightly. I smiled a wry smile thinking, lo, how the mighty are fallen, but I knew that if it were not for Barbara I would never have the courage to sound retreat. In fact, if it were not for her I would never have heard the first far-off signal for it myself. That was before the reunion when I told her about it and about the University and she had said with an enchanting and honest puzzlement, “I thought college people were all doctors and lawyers and running companies. How come you went there and you only work in a shipyard?”

  “Because I’m a failure,” I had said, saying it with all the courageous humor of someone who knows he is not really a failure, and then feeling a chill suddenly hit me, feeling all the multitude of Egans in me looking at me with eyebrows cocked and lips curled, so that I hastily put the whole matter aside.

  But it couldn’t remain there forever, not with Barbara herself at stake, which meant that she was the problem and the solution, the cause and the effect, all in one. And at the very least she was what I had gotten out of the past six years, a comforting thought, since no one can cut that much time out of his life without wanting something to show for it. Now I had someone who needed me every bit as much as I needed her, and there are many men who can quite accurately think of themselves as successes, but who have never found that much for themselves and never would. My uncle Charles, for example.

  I waited until nine o’clock before going downstairs to call him. The phone was near the front of the downstairs hallway, not far from Ethel Waterhouse’s door, probably installed there at her request so that she could hear everybody’s business. It had been so long since I had called my uncle’s number that I had forgotten it, and I made quite a project of looking it up in the phone book there, steeling myself for the ordeal ahead. I found it and wrote it down on the cover of the phone book among the dozens of numbers already there. A few of them were mine, and I thought with a sinking heart how much pleasanter it would be to call any of them but the one I had to call.

  I had still not picked up the phone when Ethel’s door opened surreptitiously, a well-oiled door which opened without sound, and then my landlady’s head poked through it. “Oh, it’s you,” said Ethel. “Well, I’m glad about that, Mr. Egan. Saves me a walk upstairs. Come on in for a minute.”

  I went in, only too glad to put off the phone call even for a minute. Ethel closed the door behind me and looked at me over her glasses.

  “You know what happened to Barbara?” she said.

  “Yes, I heard about it.”

  “Did you ever know anybody like that in your life? Takes a beating from a man and don’t want to do a thing about it. I told her. I said to her, so help me God, she don’t call the cops next time, I’ll do it myself. The old bastard. Locks her up like that and only lays for her to have a good time so he can beat her up. Who does he think he is?”

  “I know all about it,” I said. “I told her long ago to call me if he got rough with her.”

  “Well, if you leave it up to her she won’t call anybody. But that ain’t what I’m getting at. Do you know about the phone call she got?”

  “Phone call?”

  “I thought you didn’t know,” said Ethel triumphantly. “Well, this’ll show you what she’s up against, all right. Last night I get a call here, says it’s one of Avery’s friends and he wants to talk to Mrs. Avery. So I very nicely ask about what, and he says about her getting in trouble account of Avery. So I haul ass up to Barbara, but she won’t talk to him, which is the smartest thing she’s done since she landed here. How do you like that? It ain’t bad enough Avery’s on her, but he’s got to put his rummy friends up to this kind of trick. You know, like watchdogs. They’ll take care of her for him when he’s not around.”

  “Did he give you his name? Did he tell you where he could be found?”

  “Yes, it’s right there on the phone-book cover up in the right-hand corner. Samuel Fisher and it’s over in Manhattan.” Her eyes were alight with interest. “You gonna go over there and straighten him out? He’s got it coming to him, trying to scare the poor kid like that.”

  “I’ll straighten him out,” I assured her, and I gave her a dollar which disappeared as soon as it was displayed, gone to that fold or crease of her where so many of my dollars had gone since Barbara’s coming. “And don’t tell Barbara I know about this. I’ll take care of it by myself.”

  When I went out to the phone this time, it was no longer unwillingly. I found the name and address where Ethel had said they would be, tore that corner of the cover off and put it in my pocket. Then I dialed my uncle’s number.

  It was the housekeeper who answered, as I had suspected it would be, and although I could hear her brogue thickening as her temper rose I was adamant about not giving my name. If I did, I knew, it could very well end matters then and there, and I was taking no chances.

  “Just tell him that it’s important,” I said. “He’ll know who it is when he gets on the phone.”

  I didn’t really believe that, but to my surprise he did. Yes, he said, he would be home to me if I wanted to drop in. Tomorrow afternoon—about noon? That would be all right. Yes, he was quite well; he hoped I was well, too. All in all, it was hard to tell if he was being his old cool and courteous Asquith self or a little more cool and courteous than usual. The one encouraging sign had been that he recognized my voice, I was still not a complete stranger to him. As the conversation drew to its formal close I could not resist asking him about that, which, in its way, was a sort of small flattery that could do me no harm.

  He laughed. At least the sound that came through to me was the Asquith version of a laugh. Then he said, “Of course, I knew who it was at once, Daniel. The voice was the voice of Esau.”

  Whatever else he may have been, he was no fool.

  FOUR

  I ate the usual quick breakfast at the diner on the corner, reading the news of the Karen’s accident while I ate, and then I walked over to the Guions, whose apartment was a few blocks away from my roost. When I entered the apartment, Shirley and two of her sisters, a pair of handsome and buxom matrons, had their heads together over coffee and gossip at the kitchen table, and from the meaningful looks they exchanged when I greeted them I had a pretty good idea of what the gossip was about.

  “Did you have breakfast?” Shirley said to me. “Sit down and I’ll make you something.”

  “No, I ate on the way over. Is Joe here?”

  “He’s still in bed. You don’t call that breakfast, what you ate in that place. Are you sure you ate?”

  “Positive. Look, I left some egg on my chin to prove it.”

  “Oh, you,” she said. “Anyhow, tell Joe the girls are here, and I’d like him to please put on some clothes before he comes out. Will you do that?”

  “You can count on me,” I said.

  I went into the bedroom. Joe, clad in a pair of shorts, lay regally on the bed, pencil in hand, a litter of racing sheets around him, his brow furrowed as he worked out the day’s selections. He was one of those bettors who worked for hours making out selections and then, at some chance remark overheard at the track, bet everything on a longshot guaranteed to run out of the money.

  I said: “I suppose you told Shirley all about Barbara and that motel deal, didn’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sure. So by tonight her whole family’ll know about it, and tomorrow your family’ll know about it, and after that anybody who’s been left out can pick it up from the old lady down at the candy store. You’re some friend.”

  “Well, would you rather have them go around thinking Barbara’s a tramp?” he asked, not without logic. “Anyhow, that’s not why you’re here, is it? What’s on your mind?”r />
  “Complications,” I said, and when I told him about Fisher’s phone call to Barbara he said, “What do you figure to do, go down and see him right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then count me in. I thought maybe I’d drop in at the union about the layoffs before I went to the track, but the union can wait.”

  “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to,” I said courteously.

  “I want to.” He hoisted himself off the bed and stretched so hard that his joints cracked. “It’s easier this way than bailing you out of jail tomorrow.”

  We used his car for the drive over the bridge into Manhattan. Fisher’s address was on East Broadway not far from the Bowery, a neighborhood of tenements, condemned buildings, and shabby stores hemmed in by a semicircle of gigantic new housing projects, but it was not, as I had thought it would be, the address of one of the flophouses or rooming houses there. It turned out to be a carpenter’s shop with a display of unpainted cabinets and picture frames in its window and with the proprietor’s name neatly lettered on the glass.

  Up to then I had known exactly what I would say to Fisher and how I would say it, which is why I wanted Joe along in the first place. There were few people I could think of who were better company than Joe when there was trouble in the wind. But the look of that shop gave me pause. I had had enough of throwing myself at doors, locked or unlocked. I entered this one circumspectly, a gentleman caller wanting to look over the lay of the land before he took action.