The Girl With the Glass Heart: A Novel

by Daniel Stern

  “This?”

  “Yes. Only the things you can experience directly. The grass you’re lying on and you can feel how damp it is, the hills over there—you can see how green they are and then how they get to be purpled after a while. The water you can hear, so you know it’s there even if you don’t see it. That’s all we have.”

  “I don’t know if I understand exactly what you mean. You mean sensory experience?”

  “You’re so academic. Yes, I guess that’s what I meant.”

  She rolled her head close to his blond hair. She stared at him with the wide-open, steady gaze that had so unnerved John Lang. With the strange feeling small children have, of being able magically to control the world by their thoughts, she saw his face close in upon her and cover her eyes (which she then closed) and press hard on her lips. Now they were communicating.

  They separated and she took a cigarette, tapped it four times on her thumb nail, then reversed it, tapped it four times again and lighted it. The day, she noticed, was no longer as fine as it had been. The sky was clouding over and the air was growing chilly. She shivered, rolled close to Danny, put her arms around him. Then she pulled away suddenly and, laughing, sprang to her feet and began to run, jumped across the smaller stream and toward the woods that began at the edge of the field.

  “Look,” she called out, “I’m the booby prize. If you catch me you can have me.”

  Danny leaped up, something within him responding to the ridiculous promise. His lips were dry after the kiss, and he began to run after Elly.

  As she ran, Elly felt a drop of rain on her cheek and then one on her hand. She ran even faster. She lost him for a few moments and he was bewildered. Then she had her arms suddenly around his chest from the back for an instant and then ran off again. This time he caught her. She fell to the ground. The rain was still light, but a few minutes later it was drumming a ferocious tattoo against the leaves and was already moistening the two of them as they lay in the beginning of an embrace.

  The wild sound of the rain was exciting to Elly. Danny made one convulsive movement of withdrawal when the wind blew the semiprotective covering of leaves aside and drenched them both with a stinging sheet of water, but she held him tightly and said, “No. Please.”

  They found the others, just as soaked as they were by the sudden storm. Somehow Elly had expected them to be dry although there was no conceivable place to take shelter within running distance. The rain had steadied to a pat-pat-pat now and they all half ran, half walked back to the lodge outside of Hanover.

  That evening they played checkers and parcheesi and Vicki read poetry aloud.

  “Read us that thing you wrote, Elly,” Danny suggested. “The one you showed me.”

  “I lost it in the storm,” she said, hastily adding, “along with my compact. I’ll have to borrow yours, Lois.” Later that night, when the girls in their room were preparing for bed, Elly remembered that she had expected Danny to be as gentle and solicitous with her as he seemed to be with Lois. But he had been ferocious, uncontrolled. Well, perhaps the rain had helped. Lois asked no questions and Elly was surprised and relieved and, thinking about it, she realized there were no questions to ask. The others assumed they had run to take shelter from the storm the way they had, that was all.

  “Isn’t that your compact, Elly?” Vicki asked, wiping her lipstick off with a Kleenex.

  “Oh, that one? Yes, I’d forgotten I had two with me.”

  The incident was not mentioned when Lois returned to the room.

  Elly had no desire to see Danny, and in the few encounters they had on week ends, when Lois saw him, they were cordial but nothing more. As in other matters Elly could not sustain interest once she had gone to what was, to her, the heart of the situation. To assuage whatever guilt she felt she asked Lois several times if she was in love with Danny and was gratified to receive a negative answer.

  Her dance proceeded beautifully and her studies suffered commensurately. She named the piece “The Fire without Flame,” a title which her dancing instructor approved, although not quite sure of what significance it might hold for her pupil. A month passed—of practicing, unimpressive dates, letters from home and more practicing. Miss Matthews ventured the opinion that she might someday become a professional dancer, setting off a train of visions that haunted her for hours at a time.

  One cold morning, when the frost could be traced clearly on the window for the first time, Elly paused in her series of pliés for which she used the window sill as a practice bar and realized the curse was three days overdue. She refused to let fright grasp her and remembered hearing that the first encounter after long abstinence could cause such a delay, and continued practicing. Three days later she lost her calm and confided in Lois, saying she couldn’t tell her who it had been.

  Lois accepted this as honorable and said, “Let me tell Danny. Danny’ll know what to do.”

  Elly agreed, happy to use Lois as her go-between, certain that Danny would not confess to her. After Lois left the room, she lay on the bed and laughed for a few moments. Then she lay quietly, touching her breasts gingerly now and then, and trying to quiet a rising panic.

  The first visit to the doctor in Vernon was comparatively simple. The questions, the filled bottle, the second visit arranged for. When she returned, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, the doctor, a bachelor about fifty years old, informed her that the test was positive. She was pregnant. She was all cried out and just sat there rigidly.

  “It is still early enough, Mrs. Kaufman—” he used the term for form’s sake; she wasn’t fooling him one bit: she wasn’t a day over nineteen—“to try some quinine tablets. They’re not infallible, but they do work sometimes. I think it’s early enough—if you’re lucky—”

  “I tried to throw myself down the stairs,” Elly said slowly, “but I couldn’t do it.”

  “Now,” he said, twirling a pencil nervously in his hands, “there’s no need for that or anything like it. You come back to see me in a week.”

  Elly nodded. “I’ll try the pills,” she said hopelessly, knowing this was the end of the freedom, of the endless worlds, of everything.

  When she had left, the doctor called in his nurse and said, “Make out a report on the girl and I’ll send it to the dean of Vernon and the dean of Larchville College. Those are the only two around here, aren’t they? I’ll wait and see how she is when she comes back next week, before I send it.”

  “Yes, they’re the only colleges, Doctor, but do you have to—”

  “Are you serious? Do you know how old that kid is? Not more than eighteen or nineteen. She needs her family more than anything right now. The school will see to it that they’re notified. You can’t let the kid wander around alone, and I don’t do abortions. Type the report up and we’ll hold it. If she ever mentioned my name—well …”

  Lois found Elly sitting on the bathtub, her face ashen, her hands clutching at her stomach. In the bathtub was a filthy mess. Lois helped her to bed and then, sickened, she cleaned up the thing in the bathtub, returned and was violently ill herself. Later she interrupted her care of Elly to report her ill to the cottage superintendent.

  When her stomach and what felt like her entire insides quieted down and was less painful, Elly was joyful and exuberant. Lois was horrified but pleased the trouble was over.

  “You’re a lucky girl,” Lois told her.

  “I know. I know. Isn’t it fantastic? I thought sure everything was over for me. I can’t thank you enough, Lois.” She really felt quite tender toward her roommate who had stood by her so well, completely forgetting for the moment that it was her own betrayal that had initiated the entire situation.

  Even when Lois said, “Danny will be so glad to hear,” she did not connect the two experiences.

  “Thank him for me, Lois.”

  She had completely separated cause and effect. She was safe. The world had been outmaneuvered again.

  That night she slept fitfully, uncomfortable because o
f the spasmodic bleeding. She dreamed that she was dancing, but not here at Vernon. She was dancing at home in the glass house and there was an entire company dancing with her and the green draperies had turned to sparkling red and the company was gone and she was alone with Mother and Father and she swept back the red material (still dancing) and the walls were not transparent glass but gave back her reflection and (still dancing) she tried to peer around the reflected girl and see outside but there was no clear glass at all, it was one great window and wherever she turned she saw her reflection and behind that, caught trembling in the mirrors, her mother and father, and somehow she knew it was a dream and she knew as well that there was something she had to do to wake up and she began to turn broad tour jetés, turning round and round so many of her in the glass turning round and round and (still dancing) she flung herself into the glass mirror-wall and it shattered with a crash and she was outside (still dancing) and bleeding from cuts and scratches on her arms and legs, but free and clear (still dancing) and she woke, forgetting for the moment where she was, thinking it was home, but who was that breathing so close? And then she remembered and was terrified of having a baby and then realized she wasn’t going to. Toward morning she fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Three days later the bleeding eased off and a week after that she was not only taking classes but dancing again. The concert drew closer and so did examinations. She prepared vigorously for one and did her best to forget the existence of the other. The remembrance of her return appointment with the doctor never even crossed her mind.

  Less than a week before the concert, Lois was called to the office of the dean. Standing before the wide desk, she was vaguely frightened, although she had done nothing wrong.

  “Has your roommate, Elizabeth Kaufman, been in any trouble recently?” And as Lois hesitated, the dean added, “We already know about it, Lois. The doctor notified us, so there’s nothing to be gained by trying to cover up for Elizabeth.”

  Lois told all she knew, which was nothing more or less than the doctor had already written in his report, adding only the success of the abortion.

  “Thank you very much, Lois. And please don’t tell her. We’re not going to, either. It’s a matter for her family to handle. Her parents will be notified.”

  “Will she—will she be expelled?”

  “No. We’ll let her family withdraw her from Vernon. It’s near the end of the term, anyway. It’s only a question of her not enrolling for the new semester. You won’t say a word, of course, to anyone about this.”

  Lois’ first reaction was a terrible sadness at what had happened to Elly. After a while, however, a certain guilty relief crept into her consciousness. Elly had begun to frighten her. Later that day she began to think about whom she would ask to room with her next semester.

  Max Kaufman sat on the dirty green bench at the Vernon station, his short fat body slumping a little against the rear slats of the bench. His expensive gray striped suit was rumpled from the train ride and in spite of the chilly breeze his coat was piled next to him, on top of the suitcase he had hastily packed the evening before. If ever he had wanted to fly, it had been last night. But even under such stress he could not bring himself to step into a plane. The train ride had been tiring and he was sitting a while to regain his energy before proceeding to his hotel and then to the college.

  He looked about him at the little station, the road dotted with a few crawling cars, the few stubble-covered fields which separated the station from the slow, sleepy town. So what’s so different? he thought. So what’s the big change from Colchester, that she had to come here away from us and have this happen? He must control himself. He did not want to cry. Last night had been the most difficult. As far as Rose was concerned he was only going to see Elly dance and bring her home for the Christmas vacation. He couldn’t tell her what had happened, she being so sick and all. He had no idea what it would do to her. He mustn’t think over and over again in that crazy way, Why? Why? Why had it happened? It happened, that’s all, and we have to continue living. The taste of tears was sour in his throat but he did not cry. She would come home with him after she danced and he would enroll her at Crofts College and they would live, that was all.

  After settling himself at the hotel and changing his suit he went to see his daughter, determined, suddenly, not to say a word about it until after the concert. Maybe if she was too upset she wouldn’t be able to dance. The dean’s letter had been very polite: We feel it best for the parents to inform the student that we know about her trouble.

  Elly ran into his arms as if she had been lost and was now found.

  “Elly darling, how are you?”

  “Fine, Daddy, fine. I’m so glad you came. Wait till you see me dance.”

  “Are you nervous, baby?”

  “No—well, a little. I’m a little scared, but that’s all right. Miss Matthews says everybody is nervous the first time, even Pavlova was.”

  “Is everything all right, darling?” (Perhaps he could get her to tell him.)

  “Just great. I love it here.”

  He quickly changed the subject. “Have you eaten supper?”

  “No. Let’s have a bite now, but I can’t have much. It’s only three hours to the concert and I don’t want to get sick. How’s Mom?”

  “Oh, so-so. Headaches. You know.”

  They ate in town and chatted about what was happening in Colchester and Elly described her routine and everything was kept, by Kaufman, light and gay, as a holiday should be. A dozen times he nearly told her she had to come with him for good, that she was not returning here to Vernon, but the words stuck in his throat.

  Finally she went off to get dressed and he smoked a thoughtful cigarette with his coffee. Then he strolled over to the hall and picked up his ticket. In his seat, surrounded by hundreds of girls and their parents, he thought, Why couldn’t this be at home? This could be there, too. And, falling back on the strongest weapon he had: I could endow a dancing school at Crofts. If I’d have done it then—But that was foolish. She’d wanted to get away and she had and this was what had happened. He didn’t even want to know who the boy was, now that the immediate danger was past. Just to get her home.

  When she stepped onto the stage and stood there, alone, poised and unafraid, Max did not breathe. The quiet sounds of strings that were emitted by the phonograph pushed her into movement, and Elly danced. She wore a brief, asymmetrical costume and her hair was loose and flying about her head and shoulders.

  She’s so beautiful, Max thought. What can you do with her? She’s running around on a stage in front of all those people and what she’s done to herself—none of them would believe it. I’m glad I didn’t tell her I know yet. She wouldn’t have been able to dance. Or would she? She was so much stronger than he or Rose. His mind caught, like cloth on a jagged piece of metal, on the thought around which he had skirted for the last week. How could she, his Elly, only seventeen, have let a man touch her, use her, make her pregnant? He held his program before his face, in case he should erupt suddenly into tears. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself and embarrass Elly. What was he, sitting here at a dancing recital? Just a middle-aged Jew putting on too much weight and too much money. If he hadn’t made money he never could have afforded a college like this and she would have gone to school near home and none of this would have happened.

  He watched her as the music grew louder and she crouched tensely at the corner of the stage before leaping forward. He watched her long hair flying, thinking what a stranger she was, how they had never spent time together the way a father and daughter should. He was always too busy. Had left her in Rose’s hands too much. Rose had never been very well, not the person for a child to be with all the time.

  She bent over toward the audience and the low-cut leotard exposed something of her breast. Max looked away. What a terrible costume! He was glad Rose wasn’t there.

  Someone in the row behind him murmured “How lovely!” and, forgetting for an inst
ant all that had happened, he expanded with a prideful breath. He wanted to look at the person who had spoken but decided he had better not turn around.

  There she was, seventeen years of his life, the cruel struggle, the steady groping toward something better, the terror of living with Rose. They had reached something better and for what? For the child, of course. And there she was, having people whisper “How lovely!” about her and dancing on a stage like a regular ballet dancer and none of it was any better, because she wasn’t happy, this daughter for whom all the struggling had been; she was unhappy enough to turn to a man. (He didn’t want to know who it had been. He couldn’t bear the idea of knowing of a specific person. It would have made it horribly real.)

  The music was dying now and Elly knelt, hands cupped before her. Her lovely eyes were half closed and Max hardly breathed, feeling himself gross and dirty with his thoughts, all his infelicities mirrored in those half-shut eyes.

  As the applause came and Elly bowed a little unsteadily, he allowed himself, under the cover of the program, to cry a little. Backstage he kissed her and she whispered exultantly, “Daddy, I’m going to be a dancer,” and he said, “Maybe, darling, it might be. Who knows?”

  She was all packed and they stopped in, luggage and all, at a party Miss Matthews was giving for her dance class. With a smile and a nod he approved her sipping a cocktail, while he drank some eggnog. Max was pleased to see everyone make such a fuss over her. Then, increasingly frightened at the thought of telling her (he had decided that once they were on the train it would be all right), he had a few cocktails and then a couple more. By the time they were walking toward the station in the blue-black evening, their breath lighting a frosty path before them, he was a little high. Elly boarded the train, laughing at something her father had said, without a backward glance at the still campus, cold under the moonlight.

  When he told her, she stared at him uncomprehendingly for a full moment, swallowed hard and said, “I see,” coldly, as if that had occurred which she had expected and she must not show surprise. She turned her head in a swift agonized movement, as Max licked his dry lips and thought of the next thing to say. She pressed her face to the glass, looking back hard, although the campus was now a dim blur beyond the barely visible station.