The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  Felix flushed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to remember some of the things you were brought up on,” he said.

  Katherine remembered Sarah in her neat navy tunic and tie, her white starched school shirt, kneeling devoutly in the Anglican chapel at school, and looked at her now kneeling in front of her yellow table, in her crimson dress, with the gold loop-earrings swinging through her soft, brown hair.

  “Don’t let’s be cross with each other,” Sarah said, “and I’ll explain about the nuns. If you see one nun, it’s wonderful. Three is worse than two, and four in a row is death to someone you love. I never see one nun. Never. Always two. It seems as though I’d have to be patient always.”

  “When I finish spending the ten dollars I started with tonight, I won’t have a cent in the world,” Felix said.

  Knowing that it was expected of her, Katherine obligingly asked him what he was going to do, and indeed most people did what Felix Bodeway expected and wanted them to do.

  “Go jump in the Hudson.”

  “But what’ll you really do?”

  “Go jump off Brooklyn Bridge. There was a man once who did. I forget his name. He said he’d do anything once. I think he was a gangster. A very high-class gangster. And someone said there was one thing he wouldn’t do once and that was jump off Brooklyn Bridge. He bet him something like ten thousand dollars. So he did it.”

  “Did he live?” Pete asked.

  “Oh, sure. Some people say he didn’t really do it. Some people say a taxi driver threw a dummy off the bridge and this guy was already in the water. I don’t know. Personally, I think he did it. They stopped five taxicabs with him in them, trying to get up on the bridge in the first place. If someone offered me another ten dollars I’d do it, much less ten thousand …”

  “I say, Kat!” Sarah said suddenly. “I’ve just had the most wonderful idea!”

  Katherine was half asleep, but she opened her eyes. “What?”

  “The girl I was sharing this dump with left the Academy because she got a part in the Chicago company of that putrid musical—What’s its name?—and I’m sick and tired of this yellow artsy-craftsiness. And you remember at school we used to talk about having an apartment in New York together—well, do let’s!”

  “I’m too sleepy to think about anything sensibly right now,” Katherine said, warming with pleasure because Sarah had asked her, nevertheless. “And I’d have to talk to Aunt Manya and Father. But I’ll call you tomorrow if you’ll give me your number.”

  “I haven’t a phone. That’s another reason I want to move. But I’ll call you if that’ll be all right.”

  Katherine looked at Sarah in the embroidered dress, listened to the deep, monotonous voice, and felt great relief at being once again freely fond of her. She wondered how she herself would look with gold loop-earrings and an ivory cigarette holder.

  Pete took her uptown on the subway, then walked her to Manya’s apartment. It was very late. The streets were almost empty, the lamps beginning to get dim. They walked slowly, their arms around each other because there was no one around, while the stars faded and the sky grew pale at its edges.

  “Tired?” Pete asked softly.

  “Just sleepy.”

  “Go right to bed, kitten.”

  “I will. And I won’t have a good lesson tomorrow.”

  “Just tell Mr. Albert Peytz that it wasn’t my fault this time, will you?”

  “Um-hum. Did you like Sarah?”

  “Cute little trick. Plenty to her, too. But don’t you ever dare go around affecting gypsy earrings and a cigarette holder. She’s much too English a type for that costume, but she’s going through her Village period the way kids go through mumps and measles. If you do share an apartment with her this winter, don’t catch it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise … Pete, do you think I should?”

  “Should what?”

  “Share an apartment with Sarah?”

  “The idea has its points, kitten. But you talk to Madame Sergeievna about it.”

  Katherine was surprised at Manya’s enthusiasm when she suggested having an apartment with Sarah.

  “Katyusha, I think it’ll be very good for you. I love and respect Pete, but you’re very young to think of marriage, and it will do you good to live among a lot of young people. You can use your mother’s old furniture, if you like. It’s all in storage. We couldn’t bear to throw it away.”

  “That’ll be lovely, about the furniture, Aunt Manya, but it’s not going to make me change my mind about Pete,” Katherine said, a little stiffly.

  “Katya, of course not. That’s not what I meant. I just think it will be good for you to see a lot of mixed young people. I have never thought much of boarding school as a preparation for life … even though … and then of course you’ll see your father and me often. Sunday dinners when we don’t go to the country; and I’ll expect you to come to the theater often … Yes, it’ll be very good for you, my child. I’ve heard of your Sarah’s father, and he’s highly thought of as a lawyer. Does income tax for Paul LeStrade and a lot of the others. I’m thinking of having him do mine. Bring Sarah backstage to meet me after the performance—not this week, darling, because I’m frightfully busy, but soon.”

  Katherine found the apartment. Tenth Street was unfortunately out of the question. In the middle of January the only apartments still left were far too big and expensive or too small for a piano. But on Eleventh Street, between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets, she found an apartment on the top floor of an old house that seemed to her quite perfect. She loved West Eleventh Street, with its ginko and ailanthus trees, its quietness, its old-world flavor. The apartment consisted of a living room, a very small bedroom, an adequate kitchenette, and a bathroom.

  Getting Julie’s things out of storage was like finding a bit of her mother all over again. She had not realized that all of Julie’s things had been saved. Here was the large writing table, the mahogany music rack, the portrait of Tom’s mother that as usual might have been a portrait of Katherine. Here were the red velvet drapes, the blue ginger jar, the books, and the music. Some of the music had belonged to old Mrs. Forrester and was so ancient and yellowed that it crumbled with dust as Katherine put it into the music rack, but she kept even torn brown scraps of pages because it was music that her grandmother had used, music that Julie had used; it had a life of its own; it would be like murder to throw it away.

  Sarah came back from the Academy and found Katherine sitting on the floor among barrels of china and boxes of books, excelsior strewn all around. Together they set to work to put order into their home.

  There was just room in the bedroom for one bed, Julie’s small mahogany bed with the woodwork carved into swan’s heads at the foot and head. They decided to take turns sleeping on the huge couch in front of the fireplace, which could be made up into a reasonably comfortable bed, though the bedclothes would have to be folded into the hall closet during the day.

  On the first night they spent in the apartment they had a party with Pete and Felix and a lot of Sarah’s friends from the Academy. Katherine made a heaping dish of spaghetti, and Sarah opened innumerable bottles of beer. Smoke and laughter filled the room. Felix played gypsy airs on his violin; Katherine played Chopin waltzes on her mother’s piano, which Manya and Tom had had restrung and polished for her; Sarah played Petrouchka, and Gaité Parisienne and a lot of Jean Sablon and Charles Trenet records on her portable phonograph. Katherine stood in the kitchen, making more spaghetti, and watched the boys and girls sprawled about the living room, sitting on the chairs, on the couch, on the floor. Standing over the stove, she tried to make herself an isolated observer, to watch this scene from a way of life that seemed to her gay and carefree and happy.

  But when at last everyone had gone, she flung the windows wide open and let the cold night air rush in. Emptying overflowing ash trays, Sarah shivered. “I say, Kat, must you?”

  “Yes,” Katherine
said definitely. “We’ve got to clear out all this smell of beer and smoke and other people’s air. Golly, parties make a mess.”

  “They do, but they’re fun,” Sarah said, turning on the water in the sink full force, while Katherine swept the floor.

  When at last the apartment was spotless again and they had had hot baths and were in their pajamas, Sarah came into the living room and perched on the arm of the sofa where Katherine was to sleep.

  “I say, Kat—”

  “What?”

  Sarah spoke very rapidly, as though what she had to say was difficult for her and the only way to do it was to get it over with as quickly as possible. “I want to apologize for the way I behaved at school about that mess we got in with Halsey and Val. I’ve been kicking myself for being such a silly, scared idiot ever since. I should have known that people like Halsey and Val are always bats about things like that and scared to death of them because they really don’t know anything. I really knew they were bats, but I guess it was sort of my sense of self-preservation coming to the fore. You’ve been wonderful not to say anything about it, but I felt we had to clear it up. When I saw you in the restaurant, I wanted so awfully to be friends again the way we used to be. You don’t find many people who feel the same way about things that you do, and when you do find them you ought to hang on to them. Will you forgive me?”

  “Of course,” said Katherine, smiling a little shyly at Sarah sitting nervously on the arm of the couch. “Of course, Sarah. But there isn’t anything to forgive. It wasn’t your fault. Let’s forget about it, shall we? Let’s forget about the whole beastly school. Let’s just remember that we met in Central Park and that we could talk to each other.”

  Sarah slid off the arm of the couch and huddled against Katherine’s feet. “Thanks—thanks ever so much, Kat. I’m so awfully happy about all this—it’s all so frightfully exciting, having our own apartment the way we’d planned. This is much nicer than that awful artsy-craftsy furnished room I was in, and your mother’s things are so nice, just what I’d expect her to have had. I feel as though I knew her, darling.”

  “I know.”

  “Mamma wants us for dinner tomorrow night, now that she’s back from Florida. Do you mind? She lets me do what I like, but she’d sort of like to look you over, even though Daddy and your Aunt Manya did have lunch together last week, when you were looking for the place. Kat, that picture on the piano is so wonderful of your mother. Is that the one you said Justin’s sister gave you? Oh, Kat, I love our apartment! Really, when I think of your getting married to Pete next year and going off and leaving me, I feel quite awful. Maybe I’d better marry Felix, after all. I do like your Pete. And everybody says he’s going to be a great actor someday. Well, maybe I can be his leading lady … Kat—”

  From a daze of sleep Katherine answered, “Hm?”

  “Another thing I’ve wanted to say. I’ve felt so awful over it I couldn’t bring myself to say anything about it before, but I do want to thank you for having written me about Pen.”

  “You were her best friend.”

  “I still can’t quite believe it.”

  “I know.”

  “Pen was so healthy and so normal. Somehow, you only expect sickly or extraordinary people to die young.”

  “Yes.”

  Sarah stretched and yawned. “I’m terribly tired. Are you?”

  “Um-hum.”

  “But it’s a lovely feeling. I’ve got to set the alarm clock for tomorrow, or I won’t get to class on time. Do you mind? I’ll try not to wake you.”

  “No, please do. I want to get up early and practice.”

  “All right, fine. Good night, Kat.”

  “Good night, Sarah.”

  The next night Katherine took Sarah backstage to meet Manya. Irina, Manya’s old theater maid, who was still with her, was sitting just outside the dressing room, reading a newspaper.

  “Irina, will you find out if Aunt Manya’ll see me for a minute, please?” Katherine asked her.

  Irina smiled at Katherine, got up, and went into the dressing room, coming out a moment later to say, “She’s brushing her teeth, but go right in, Miss Katherine.”

  Manya was all dressed, the crimson dressing gown flung over her chair. Katherine pushed Sarah ahead of her, saying, “Aunt Manya, this is Sarah.”

  Manya turned to Sarah with her famous smile, put her toothbrush down, and held out her hand. “So this is Sarah,” she said, her accent very heavy, her “r” very rolling. “I remember you from Katherine’s letters back at that dreadful school, and I had such a charming lunch with your father at the Algonquin the other day. Katya wrote me, I remember, how wonderful you were in all the school plays, and how you almost had to play both Romeo and Juliet. Whom did you end up playing?”

  “Mercutio,” Sarah said, laughing.

  Manya looked her up and down. “I’d like to have seen you do Mercutio. So you’re at the Academy now?”

  “Yes,” Sarah answered. “I wonder—I wonder if I could ask a tremendous favor of you, Madame Sergeievna?”

  “You could ask,” Manya said.

  “We’re going to do Tchekov’s The Three Sisters a week from Tuesday afternoon at the Empire, and we wondered if you might possibly care to come and see our work—and tell us what you think of us. It would mean so very much to us all.”

  Manya looked at Sarah. “You, I take it, are playing Masha?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll come,” Manya said. “But I’m not at all sure you ought to ask me to tell you what I think of you, because I shall do exactly that.”

  “But that’s what we want, Madame Sergeievna,” Sarah said.

  Manya reached for her coat. “I shall be especially severe because you are doing Tchekov. Because I am a Russian and have a deep love for Tchekov, and a deep gratitude to him, I am very severe to people who do him injustice and who misread him. And I am afraid you children will not be able to help doing him injustice and misreading him. However, if I see anything that is good, I will tell you that, too.” She held out her coat to Sarah, who helped her into it. “I’m very glad to have met you at last, Miss Courtmont, and glad you and Katya have an apartment together. I’ve kept away because I know how much more fun it is to do things for yourselves, but now that you are settled, you must ask me for tea. You’ve a good face for the stage, Miss Courtmont, and a nice quality. Your voice is a bit thin, in spite of the fact that it’s deep, but I think it’s because you don’t know how to use it yet. Expand your diaphragm.”

  Sarah took a deep breath and did her best, but Manya laughed.

  “Pathetic! That’s something you’d better take care of. Look at mine. There! Now feel it. See? Hard as iron. That’s the way yours should be. Katya’s is better than yours. But you have very good speech, Miss Courtmont, and your voice is well modulated and pleasant. Yes, I shall be interested to see you play Masha a week from Tuesday. What time?”

  “Two-thirty.”

  “Will you be prompt? I don’t like to be kept waiting. It puts me in a bad mood, not one conducive to kind criticism.”

  “We’ll be prompt,” Sarah said. “We’ll try awfully hard to be prompt, at any rate.”

  “Well, good night, dear,” Manya said. “Good night, Kisienka, my baby. Don’t stay out too late with Pete.” And she smiled at Sarah again and left.

  Sarah flung her arms around Katherine. “Oh, Kat!” she said. “Oh, Kat! I can’t believe it! I’m too terrified, I shall die, I know I shall! Oh, thank God for you, Kat darling! Oh, I forgot to tell her I’d have tickets for her at the box office. She’ll know, won’t she? You’ll tell her anyhow, won’t you, Kat? I can’t bear it, I’m so excited. Oh, Lord, they said there wouldn’t be any reserved seats. Well, they’ll have to reserve seats for her, they’ll reserve seats for her, of course. Do you and Pete know Mr. LeStrade well enough to—no, I guess you don’t. It doesn’t really matter, anyhow. Oh, Kat, she’s so wonderful and beautiful! I can’t believe it! Wait till I tell the gang at
school tomorrow! Just wait!”

  “Come along,” Katherine said, patting her on the back. “Pete and Felix are waiting outside.”

  At Sarah’s and Felix’s request they went, instead of to the Purple Pigeon, to the little tavern below Washington Square that Sarah and Felix were so fond of. Some dirty crooked steps led to the entrance; the bar was by the door, and its heavy stench rushed up to meet them. It smelled, somehow, stronger and more stale than the bar at the Purple Pigeon. They sat down at a small table against the wall. The table was ringed and wet from other people’s glasses; half-smoked cigarettes filled the ash tray. Sarah waved until a waiter came over and took their order. With a dirty napkin he wiped off the table, then emptied the ash tray into the napkin.

  At the bar sat what Katherine thought at first was a man. After a while Sarah nudged her and said, “That’s Sighing Susan. She comes here almost every night.”

  Startled, Katherine stared at the creature again and realized that it was indeed a woman, or what had perhaps once been a woman. Now it wore a man’s suit, shirt, and tie; its hair was cut short; out of a dead-white face glared a pair of despairing eyes. Feeling Katherine’s gaze, the creature turned and looked at her, and that look was branded into Katherine’s body; it was as though it left a physical mark. She turned away quickly and looked at Pete, who was lighting a cigarette with fingers that were perfectly steady.

  There was a juke box opposite their table. A fat woman in a silk dress with badly dyed hair put a nickel in it, and as the music came blaring forth, she began to dance with a young blonde girl in slacks. As she danced by their table she smiled suggestively at Katherine. Katherine looked wildly around, but saw nothing of comfort. There were two young men sitting close together at the bar, holding hands; an old woman lay sleeping drunkenly, sprawled across her table, Ted wine dripping through her fingers onto the floor.

  Pete looked at Katherine and saw her white face, her dark eyes huge and afraid, so he began to talk very quickly, very gaily, taking her hand and holding it in his. “Once when I was playing stock, I was a butler and I had to pass around a tray during the second act, a tray of raspberry ices, fifteen raspberry ices, though they were never actually used or eaten. And one night the prop man got tired of taking care of fifteen melting raspberry ices and substituted instead fifteen brand-new red tennis balls. And of course he neglected to tell me. So that was the night I had to trip, very slightly, as I came in with the tray, and the fifteen red tennis balls bounced all over the stage.”