by Alice Adams
He only wished his parents would leave them alone. Sylvia and Dan Marcus were much too “happy about Abigail”; they even said so, often. It was as though they had feared that Joseph would never have a girlfriend, that he would die a virgin or turn out to be some kind of a queer. He had overheard his mother on the phone (she was not good at lowering her voice): “Joseph always has his nose in at least five books. Of course we’re glad that he’s so brilliant, we wouldn’t know what to do with an all-American baseball kind of child. But I do wish he’d at least give the girls a chance. Carol Goldman has this adorable niece at Bennington who thinks Joseph is really cute. Well, that’s not exactly the word I’d use for him, but still—”
What a bunch of bullshit.
He had not yet really heard his mother’s phone pronouncements on the subject of him and Abby Baird, but he could all too easily imagine: “Well, it’s the darlingest thing, and they think we don’t know but they actually sleep together. And she’s the nicest girl, and very progressive, actually, especially considering her background, originally from Connecticut and then for years in some little college town in the South that I never heard of. Pinehill? No, of course she’s not Jewish, and I guess that could be a problem, but I understand that her best friend in Connecticut was this handsome Negro boy who’s now at Harvard. His father was a janitor, so that shows something about Abby, don’t you think? Well, now our Susie seems to have the biggest crush on him—” Appalling, Joseph thought, the predictability of his parents. Their views of almost any given issue. He almost forgot that he had not really overheard those words, just made them up.
Joseph’s sense of predictability extended to and included his early view of his parents’ Communism. They and their Party friends thought that anything Jewish, Russian, or having to do with Negroes was good, was right, “progressive.” Most white Protestants, especially from New England or the South, were suspect—probably bad, reactionary, and (a word used too often) potentially Fascist. Thus, the Negro Army sergeant who had been out on the platform of the train, smoking and drinking with Russ—that Negro had been a good and decent man, and Russ, who somehow got himself dead, was bad.
Joseph could too easily imagine the Paul Robeson benefit concerts, Josh White, all the old reliable crew. He could not help a certain respect for singers, great performers like Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong—who were never used in that way. Who retained more autonomy, more dignity—Joseph thought. He wondered how Abby saw all this; they would have to talk about it. Between all this sex and then trying to study, their conversation time had really been whittled down.
But: Edward Faulkner, the Negro sergeant from Roxbury, Mass. Joseph continued to have worrying thoughts about this unknown man.
Having a great crush on someone because he is both extremely handsome and a Negro is pretty stupid, Susan Marcus perfectly well knows. Besides, she barely knows Ben Davis, has only met him a couple of times. Thinking she is in love with Ben Davis is like something Sylvia, her mother, might have done—Sylvia as a young Communist girl at NYU, about a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, there it is, what she feels about Ben Davis can only be described as a sizeable crush. A couple of weeks ago, at the Downbeat, on Fifty-second Street, Susan heard Sarah Vaughn singing, “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” and her heart had filled with images of Ben, although she was with a perfectly nice boy from Swarthmore, Herb Kaufman, who seemed to have at least a small crush on her: he kept asking her out, and taking her places, although she refused even to really kiss him. Herb grew up just a couple of blocks away, on East Twelfth Street, but they went to different schools: Susan along with Joseph to the Little Red Schoolhouse, whereas Herb went to Dalton, and then on to Andover. And his parents, both doctors, were not political—which these days meant reactionary, Susan’s father, Dan, had explained. “Inaction is a form of action, in desperate times,” he said. “A recent lesson from Nazi Germany, among others.”
Susan was very pleased about her brother and Abigail Baird; she liked Abigail very much, and also this made Abigail unavailable to Ben, in that way. Abby had told her over and over that she and Ben were friends, never anything to do with boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, no doctor games when they were little children, even. So there was only Melanctha Byrd up at Radcliffe to worry about, and so far Ben and Melanctha had not even met, Abby said. Not that there weren’t several hundred other terrific girls at Radcliffe.
Susan had not met Melanctha either. Abby talked about her, saying how much she liked her, but always sounding a little worried as she said this. Abby had a snapshot of Melanctha struck in her mirror: a pretty girl with dark curly hair, in a bathing suit, thin arms crossed over her chest, although she was smiling. “She’s very self-conscious about her breasts,” Abby had explained. “I think she has a real inferiority complex, and I can’t see why. I mean she’s pretty and very smart, and her father’s famous and successful, I mean he was. I guess she was pretty upset about her father’s death, but you know, parents die.”
“I couldn’t stand it if mine did,” Susan said very quickly—next thinking that in many ways her life would be simpler without Sylvia around. She had a very brief vision of herself at her mother’s funeral, all in black, of course, and a new hat with a dotted veil, and she would cry a lot, and Ben would come, and he would take her in his arms.
She had had a dream one night about the death of the unknown Russell Byrd—well, her father knew him but not very well. In the dream it was Ben who was a sergeant in the Army, and accused of killing Mr. Byrd—and she, Susan Marcus, now a lawyer, tall and thin, in black—she, Susan, defended Ben.
Sylvia and Dan Marcus liked to hear their children’s dreams; dream-recounting in as much detail as possible was an activity they both encouraged at breakfast. Susan had never enjoyed this much; her dreams were often embarrassing, and stupid. Dreams of flying, of swimming, of towers and steeples, all things that made her parents smile in a preening, knowing, “Freudian” way. No explanations necessary. Whereas Joseph’s dreams were interesting, all of them, elaborate and fantastic, colorful—so marvelous in fact that at last everyone, including Susan, caught on to the fact that he made them up. “You don’t want to be a physicist, you want to be a screenwriter,” pronounced Dan Marcus, very annoyed. He didn’t like to be teased, and he hated screenwriters—“a bunch of Southern drunks, most of them. No-good-niks. Except of course for a few of the comrades.”
All too easily, Susan could hear the parental verdict on this dream. “So interesting, you conflate—or perhaps ‘confuse’ is the better word—two young and handsome Negro men, and turn the younger and more successful into a victim, and yourself into the avenging heroine. Hellman would die of envy, you should send it along to her.”
It was partly to get away from her parents that Susan spent so much New York–weekend time alone in her room, listening to records or to the radio. Mooning around to music, as her mother put it. But Susan loved that music, all of it, big bands and small combos, the saxes and trombones, clarinets and drums—and especially the singers, and their songs. The words. The deep purple serenade in blue, the true love it had to be you. Frank Sinatra and Ella, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Trummy Young and Sarah; she loved them all, they all sang directly to her. She loved the Negro ones more, she felt. (Except for Frank when he sang “This Love of Mine.”) When Billie sang, Susan was Billie. Billie singing her heart out to Benny Davis.
Even when Susan was home for weekends, sometimes with Joseph and Abby, sometimes not, her parents were out a lot. They had all their meetings, discussion groups, committees. Which was perfectly fine with Susan; after all the racket of a Swarthmore dorm, she liked the big apartment to herself. To play her records in. To moon around to music.
What made it even better was a recent discovery of Susan’s, which was wine. There was always some in the icebox, some special stuff that her father liked with dessert, sometimes. Château d’Yquem. They drank tiny sips from tiny cut-glass glasses. They would have fits if they knew that Susan l
iked it too, in a larger glass. By herself. And she is the last person they would suspect, since she has always refused it at dinner. “I hate that sweet stuff.” But just to be safe she puts some water in the bottle, a little, enough to keep the level up. And if they noticed anything they would never accuse the cook, not Anna, a Polish refugee to whom they all had to be extra nice, and understanding. Anna had a terrible time when Hitler came into Poland.
The wine made the music better and better for Susan, lying there, hearing it. She felt the music in her blood, in all her veins and nerves. As Ella sang, “Instead of making conversation, Make love to me, my darling—” Susan felt herself a beautiful grown woman, in a spotlight, singing to her lover, who was far out in the audience. Benny Davis.
One Sunday afternoon when no one was there, her parents at some benefit concert up in Woodstock and Anna off, Susan sipped through her usual small glass of wine, and found it even better than usual, and the music even better, a new record by Dinah Shore. “I’m through with love … For I must have you or no one, and so I’m through—”
She got herself another little glassful.
Drinking that one, listening to Trummy Young as he sang “Margie,” with Jimmy Lunceford—“I’ll tell the world I love you, Don’t forget you’re oh-oh promised to me—” Susan felt even better, more one with the music; the music and the beat were both inside and all over her.
When the phone rang, she considered not answering it; she did not need to hear that her parents would be a couple of hours late getting home; they were almost always held up at these Party things, one way or another. But if she didn’t answer she would have to explain, to answer questions.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” The man’s voice paused uncertainly. “I wondered if Joseph’s there. He and Abby Baird. This is Benjamin Davis, and I thought—”
“Ben!” Despite herself, despite knowledge that she shouldn’t, Susan shouted his name. It was too much for her, his calling in the midst of all her music, her wild thoughts of him.
He said, “I just happened to be in your neighborhood, and Joseph said he might—”
“Oh, they could be here later on.” As far as Susan knew, this was entirely untrue. “So come on over, I’d love to see you.” True. She laughed. “I forgot to say, this is Susan.”
He laughed too. “I thought you might be. Well, swell. I’ll be right along.”
In the next ten or so minutes, before the doorbell announced “Benjamin Davis,” Sarah managed to wash out her wineglass and brush her teeth, comb her hair, and put on fresh powder and lipstick.
He was so tall! Susan, at the door, looked up at Ben’s thick black eyebrows, his large strong nose and wide, heavy-lipped mouth. His very white teeth. If you don’t kiss me I’ll die, she thought and longed to say—but not quite yet.
Instead she said, a little breathless but still in control, “How about a beer?”
“Sounds good. Uh, you think Abby and Joseph will be along soon?”
“I think so. I was just listening to some music. Do you like Sarah Vaughn?”
“Yes, she’s nice.” He smiled. He was wearing a pale brown V-neck sweater, so beautiful with his dark brown skin, his beautiful smooth skin.
Giddily, Susan brought in two glasses and a large bottle on a tray, which she placed on the coffee table.
“Here, let me.” Benjamin (Benny? Ben?) opened the bottle and held the tall glasses at a slant, the way you’re supposed to do with beer, as he poured. He sipped, leaned back, and said to her, “This tastes good. Today is a warm one for March, isn’t it?”
Susan’s first gulp of beer hit her stomach heavily. An inner voice cautioned her to stop right then, maybe go out into the kitchen and spit it out, but another inner adviser told her that maybe if she drank a lot more, very soon, she would be all right. Hearing only the second voice, Susan swallowed as much as fast as she could. She did not feel all right.
Reaching forward with both hands to the table, she grasped its smooth cold edge. Wanting to say, I may die—she said instead, “If you don’t kiss me, I may die,” although at that moment kissing was the very last thing she wanted.
Ben stood up, bent toward her, and very lightly, very gently brushed his mouth across her forehead, and then he walked out of the room.
Susan thought she might die, such violence in her stomach, now rising to her head.
From somewhere she heard water running, and then Ben was back with a cold wet dishcloth, which he held against her forehead. As he said, “You must be allergic to beer, I never saw anyone—”
Not sure that she could make it to the bathroom, Susan nevertheless lurched to her feet and started in that direction.
She made it just in time to squat over the toilet bowl, praying for death, and for Ben just to go away—or, preferably, by some magic, not to have been there at all.
But he was still there, still standing but seeming to waver before her eyes as he said, or she thought he said, “I think you should go and lie down. Take a couple of aspirin on the way.” He added, “Tell Joseph I came by, and hello to your folks—”
And then he was gone. Benjamin, who perhaps had not been there at all, leaving Susan alone and dying of love, or something. Truly and madly in love with beautiful Ben, and about to die.
Alone in her own bed.
12
THE day that President Roosevelt died, the twelfth of April, 1945, was an ugly day all around; Dolly Bigelow thought it was the ugliest spring day she’d ever seen. It was hot, too hot for that season, and the sky was yellow, darkish, like it was fixing to rain, but it never did, all morning. And all the new leaves that a couple of days ago had looked so pretty and fresh and green now looked real limp, and sick. Unnatural. Even the loveliest roses in her garden, the Queen Reginas, seemed to droop on their stems, and out in the woods, beyond the garage and the toolshed and the clotheslines, the dogwood, which was always so fresh and white, looked gray. Later, remembering that day, Dolly thought maybe she was exaggerating the awful look and feel of it, but no, it had been a terrible day all around. She was sure of that.
It was Odessa who told her about Mr. Roosevelt—well, wouldn’t you know. Odessa, big as life, walking into the kitchen along about two in the afternoon, not ever a good time of day for anything in Dolly’s experience, not unless you can take a good nap—but the very word “nap” made her think of something she would not think of (something with Russ, long ago). Anyway, two was the time Odessa was supposed to come, when she was due, but something about the way she always ambled in made it seem like she was late, or wanted to be late, or something. And there she was, just saying, “You hear the bad news on Mr. Roosevelt? Just come over the radio.”
“No.” But Dolly knew instantly just from Odessa’s face what had happened, and her first thought was, I truly cannot stand this. I cannot live without Franklin Roosevelt. Him in charge. She reminded herself that very recently she had felt almost the same about Russ, who was definitely not in charge, and before that about Clifton Lee. And before that, well, her daddy. (Never Willard.) But Roosevelt was the whole country’s daddy, with his beautiful voice and his beautiful eyes, and clothes—and that awful, ugly, pushy, unloving wife, that Eleanor, who gave him a lot more children than he wanted, probably, and not one of them one bit nice. Dolly loved Mr. Roosevelt more than anyone she knew had loved him, with a love that she kept mostly to herself, like Clifton (like Russ, whom she’d had to pretend to hate, a lot of the time). But in her very secret life it was she, Dolly Bigelow, married to Mr. Roosevelt, to Franklin—always with him and looking pretty for him and for photographs, riding along in his car wearing pretty hats, and staying at home to cook whatever he liked, not traipsing around on her own and giving out these loud Yankee opinions. Mr. Roosevelt himself was so elegant, such a gentleman; he didn’t seem like a Yankee at all.
And Mr. Roosevelt’s death would last forever. Of course any death would—but Dolly had this curious special sense of the permanence of Roosevelt, dead on
April 12, 1945. Dead everywhere, that day and that death memorialized. Whereas with Russ—of course Franklin was just as dead as Russ was, but Russ’s death did not seem as—substantial. That was the word that came to Dolly’s mind, not making a lot of sense but she liked it, she knew what she meant by it.
Partly, she had an idea that Russ was still around here in some way.
“I think I’ll go upstairs and just have a little lie-down,” Dolly told Odessa, once Odessa had come in with her awful news: “He dead, down in Georgia. At the Warm Springs, someplace like that.” Not wanting Odessa to see that she cried, Dolly hurried, almost running up the narrow stairs, the back stairs that led up from the kitchen.
As she and Russ had run, all those years ago, the both of them so drunk—after the first big party that Esther and Jimmy Hightower gave in their big new house, which was out there near SallyJane and Russ’s house. It happened about a week after Willard’s mother died, Dolly’s awful mother-in-law, and that was where Willard was, up in Virginia still seeing to his mother’s things. Old Mrs. Bigelow, dead at last, in Lynchburg. And SallyJane had stayed home with a headache that night. So there they were, Dolly Bigelow and Russell Byrd, both young, in their early thirties still, drinking too much the way everybody did back then—and just flirting up a storm.
The funny part was, and what ended up making that night just so amazing, she and Russ had never anywhere near flirted before, not just the least little bit. And so it was like the both of them were some brand-new person to the other, some strange new kid in school from somewhere else, sort of interesting and attractive.
There they both were, alone, not like married people, but like kids. And they both got into the mood of this, this strange kid mood. Almost pretending they’d never seen each other before. And in a way that was true, although it might be more true to say they’d never looked. Certainly there were a whole bunch of things about Russ that Dolly had never noticed one bit, like how wide his shoulders were, and the tiny little lines at the corners of his eyes, and how small and dainty his earlobes were, not fat and hanging down like—well, like some people’s earlobes. And who knows what he saw in her that night? She was wearing (she can see it clearly, just like yesterday) a new red silk dress, with one of those sweetheart necks that she had worried about a little, it seemed sort of low.