After the War

by Alice Adams

  On the Hilton campus mimosa was everywhere in bloom, trees hung with pale red-edged powder puffs among the lacy green leaves. Cynthia, having parked near the old stadium and asked for directions—and noted how extraordinarily young the students all looked—headed along white hard-gravelled paths (among all those almost-children) toward the law school, a large prim brick building whose white steps she ascended, and walked down a wide dingy corridor until she reached a sign: “Law School Office.”

  Where she found, seated behind a desk, as though she belonged there—of all people, Abby’s old friend, the daughter of Irene Lee and poor dead Clifton, little Betsy Lee. A perfect small blond girl, with tiny perfect freckles across her tiny, retroussé nose. And a too loud, flat-accented voice—as though, Cynthia later thought, she assumed that anyone old enough to be a friend of her mother’s was probably deaf. Which Cynthia, who at forty-five usually felt more like twenty-five (which is closer to what she looked), was not, not deaf at all, and for that matter not a particular friend of Irene Lee’s.

  “This old friend of my daddy’s got me this wonderful job,” Betsy explained as Cynthia remembered hearing from someone—no doubt it was Dolly—that poor little Betsy had managed to flunk out of Sweet Briar.

  Cynthia said, “How nice,” and then she explained, “I guess I want to see someone about admissions. To the law school.”

  A simple enough statement, but Betsy looked as though Cynthia had made an outlandish proposition. But then some light seemed to dawn on her face—the wrong light, as things turned out. “Oh, you mean Abigail’s changed her mind again? And here I thought she was all settled up at Swarthmore with her nice Jewish beau. From the nicest family, she said. Real interesting people, and smart, of course.”

  “No,” Cynthia firmly interrupted. “As far as I know, Abby is still very happy at Swarthmore, and she is with Joseph a lot of the time, and she certainly doesn’t want to go to law school. She’s very determined to be a doctor. But I do, I want to go to law school. Here.”

  “But—” But you’re much too old, grown-up ladies don’t go to law school, or any other school, just a few girls in any graduate school. Betsy’s face and her sudden staring silence said all that, in marked contrast to her noisy voice, and much louder in effect.

  And so Cynthia further explained about Georgetown Law, her acceptance there and her decision to postpone—as, simultaneously, she thought, Why am I explaining anything at all to this dim baby girl? She hurried to finish. “So I think I’d like an appointment with the dean.”

  “Well, Dr. Montague’s up to Nags Head, where they’ve got this lovely home. For Easter. He’ll be back—oh, come next Tuesday.”

  “Then could I please make an appointment?”

  Betsy’s fixed smile persisted, as did her cast-in-concrete point of view; you could hardly call it an idea. She said, “But, Miz Baird, this year there’s not but five young coeds in the whole law school, and Dr. Montague’s said as how two of them anyway just might flunk out.” (Clearly she liked this possibility.)

  And you, you little moron, you just managed to flunk out of Sweet Briar, not an easy thing to do—Cynthia managed not to say. Instead she stood up and announced, “Well, week after next would be most convenient for me. Could you send me a note as to time?” She very much doubted that Betsy could, and decided to manage for herself on the telephone. She could easily pass herself off as an old friend of Dr. Montague’s, from somewhere.

  Driving back to Pinehill, on that ravishing April day, Cynthia thought of—she vividly remembered their first drive down to Pinehill from Connecticut, she and Harry with little Abigail in the backseat of their old (but terribly smart) wood-bodied Caddy. How young and hopeful they had been, and how broke! (They and the whole nation, all in their thirties then.) And how beautifully flowing the gentle land had looked.

  And her mind had been full of memorized lines from Russ Byrd’s poetry, Cynthia recalled, with a small sad private smile, adding: And my heart full of lust, for Russ.

  Oh shit, she in a summarizing way added vaguely: no wonder things turn out as they do.

  What she least wanted, Cynthia realized as she approached her own house, was to be in that house, right then. On a quick impulse she turned her car, and headed in a direction that led out of town. Toward The Pines, where she had not been since that fateful night with Derek—and which at this hour should be very quiet, very likely no students, quite possibly no one there at all.

  As she drove she was still thinking with some irritation and amusement (less of that) about silly stupid Betsy Lee, and the whole business of the subtext: “Nice girls don’t go to law school, and certainly nice grown-up ladies don’t.” Well, Cynthia announced to herself, in that case all the more reason. I’ll go to law school in Hilton, and I’ll be the best lady lawyer around (for surely that is what she would be called). I’ll be the best around, the best lawyer, and maybe less of a lady.

  At The Pines there were only a couple of cars in the parking lot, to which Cynthia paid scant attention, only noting the number. She walked in, observing the curious brightness of early-afternoon sunlight on the varnished, pine-finished tables and benches, and the walls of the narrow booths. Seeing no one around, she settled into a booth near the front, across from the cash register where, presumably, there would soon be a person in charge.

  She lit a longed-for cigarette, and in an idle way she looked around at the gaudy neon-tubed jukebox, the big framed photos of giant football stars from Pinehill and from Hilton—from other days.

  She noticed then, somewhat less idly, that there was a couple in one of the booths, down and across the room—who were, as the phrase went, all over each other. Necking. Students, in the spring, Cynthia surmised; rutting season. She noted then the man’s blond hair, at the same time seeing the woman’s long rich brown, and her broad fat shoulders, in a flowered dress.

  It was Deirdre Byrd, and the man was Derek. Of course.

  Frozen there, her blood chilled, Cynthia thought, I could get out of here before they’d know I saw them. However, just at that moment the owner of The Pines padded over to her, small and plump, in his dirty white apron, his foolish face expectant. “And what might be your pleasure today, young lady?”

  Speechless, Cynthia stared at him—a character in the nightmare unfolding before her, her own nightmare, and one that was familiar to her: Deirdre and Derek McFall kissing, there in a booth in The Pines, in broad daylight. And then this minor actor offering her food.

  Not wanting to hear the sound of her own voice in that room, Cynthia whispered, “Just a little tomato salad, please.”

  But she had forgotten to give it the local accent, toe-may-toe, and so the small fat man repeated it as she had said, “Oh, toe-mah-toe salad. Coming right up.” Very loud.

  Of course they had heard, Cynthia stared down at her ashtray, the table, at her knees. As she began to hear what she had known would come next, the quick steps of Derek, approaching, as, behind him, Deirdre was heading into the ladies’ room.

  “Well,” Derek said, “such a surprise—” His hand outstretched, his smile just faintly ironic. “I’m doing some more Russ Byrd interviews, and we nipped out for lunch.”

  “Oh really.” Cynthia for an instant grasped his hand, and she smiled too, and her smile lied, as his had. Her smile told him (it must have) that she had seen them kissing, but also said (and this was the lie) that she didn’t care.

  It was all like a play that she herself might have written, or a dream she had dreamed. Her own nightmare.

  Of course a minute later Deirdre was there beside Derek, freshly made up, in a tight pale pink sweater, with pearls. The two women remarked on how well the other was looking, how they really must get together.

  It was an unbearable, understandable, quite horrible small exchange.

  Cynthia cut into it, abruptly asking, “What’s ever happened to that Negro soldier? The one with Russ on the train when he died?”

  Derek answered. “Very interesti
ng. He got clean and clear out of that little Texas jail, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since. There’s a rumor that he was let out by some of his own people, who didn’t want to see him lynched. Oddly enough.”

  “Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?” Cynthia’s voice was almost under control.

  “Yes, it does.” Derek stared at her, thinking, but of what? He said, “I’ve got to get the plane for D.C. at five. Come along, Miz Byrd, I’ll drop you off.”

  And then they were gone, and Cynthia sat there, alone in the too warm, too bright room, unable to eat her small tomato salad. No matter how anyone pronounced it.

  She was literally choked with anger, primarily at Derek, but then too at herself. How could she have wasted so much emotion on a man who almost denied the existence of emotion? Who prided himself on his own lack of feeling?

  And then Cynthia was visited by an odd out-of-character thought, which was: I hope Deirdre gets him, finally. That would be just right for both of them, I think—I hope.

  14

  IN the large sprawling deep-country house that Russ had bought years back, when he and SallyJane Caldwell were recently wed (bought and added wings to, and an upstairs, and populated with children; then another wife, and a baby also named SallyJane), in that house Melanctha was rarely alone, but on a day in late April, home from Radcliffe for Easter vacation, she was truly all alone. Earlier, in a tentative way, she had walked through those rooms, as though reassuring herself that she was alone; she would not run into some stray brother, half-brother, half-sister, along a hall, or lurking in an upstairs bedroom. (Nor the ghost of a parent.) In a literal, practical way, she knew where everyone was, and that they would not be home, but still—she had an odd sense of another presence, and she wondered if maybe Graham was hiding somewhere in the house, for no reason except that he seemed to like to hide. He liked small mysteries—or large ones, probably.

  Poor child, poor almost-young man. Melanctha felt a vague, uncomprehending pity for Graham. She had no idea what he was really like, nor, she suspected, did anyone else, least of all Graham himself.

  The day outside threatened heat, intensity—so unlike the clear cold chaste New England spring that Melanctha had left behind in Cambridge. Already on the pine boughs just outside her bedroom window (she had settled for the moment in that room), the pine needles in the sunlight were brilliantly green, too bright and sharp, strangely threatening, against a too bright blue sky. Fat white clouds lay heavily on the horizon. Nothing moved.

  Melanctha’s room, like the weather, was as unlike her Radcliffe college room as possible. Her Radcliffe room, in Whitman Hall, was a book-strewn mess, usually. Whereas this was a girlish fantasy—but it was Deirdre’s fantasy, not Melanctha’s: a four-poster bed with a starched and flounced white lace canopy, and the same lace on the curtains, and on the kidney-shaped dressing table. It was a room that in her waking hours Melanctha could not tolerate for long. (It was “done” by Deirdre and a local decorator, a “surprise” for Melanctha one summer while she was away at camp. Russ had told her she was “very spoiled” and ungrateful when she failed to respond as they thought she should.)

  Melanctha had already left that room, then, and was halfway downstairs when a light knock sounded on the front door. Expecting no one—no one in her family would be home until about five, or later, and besides, none of them would knock—Melanctha hesitated, unaccountably afraid. Although it would only be some passing friend; strangers never came down that backwoods road in Pinehill in those days.

  But opening the door she saw that it was indeed a stranger, and a Negro: a very tall, light-skinned (yellowish-brown) old-looking (tired, perhaps, or maybe sick) young man. His great brown eyes red-rimmed. In cheap-looking, newish clothes. Who looked scared.

  Scared, but very determined. He asked, “You Miss Melanctha Byrd?”

  “Yes—”

  “Could I talk to you a minute?” His voice was a whisper.

  “Sure, come on in.” Melanctha’s voice too, as she heard herself, was unfamiliar, strained. She sensed both his panic and his determination, and she wished somehow to reassure him. And to give him some food; he looked starved. But for the moment she saw no way to do either, to comfort or to feed, without making him feel like a beggar, which he so clearly was not. He was an intelligent proud man, scared out of his wits but continuing anyway on his own chosen course.

  He followed her into the living room, but before she could tell him to sit down, as she was about to do, he began.

  “I’m Ed Faulkner,” he said, staring fixedly at her face.

  For an instant the name meant nothing, and then, with a wrench, Melanctha thought, Oh.

  He said, “I had to see you. To tell you—you know, your dad just fell down. Like a faint. Pass out. Maybe a stroke.”

  Feeling faint herself, Melanctha told him truthfully, “That’s what I thought. You know, I never thought—”

  He still stared, now silent, as Melanctha observed a very small but clear diminution of panic in him, and she wondered, Now could I offer him something to eat? Would that be all right? It was a social, or rather, a human situation for which she had absolutely no training, no experience. And instead of offering food she asked him, “But how did you—how did you get here?”

  “I got family there. Family in Texas.” As though that explained not being in jail.

  He added, “Ne’r mind how,” with the tiniest suggestion of a smile. And then he said, again very earnestly, “He just fell right down.” He paused, and then said, “He was a real nice man. I could tell right off. We got along good.” He added, “It was almost like he wanted to—”

  “Well, he was mostly nice, I guess.” Melanctha’s own feelings about her father had never pulled themselves into a steady focus, and perhaps never would. She was affected, though, by this man’s tone, which included piety, a proper mourning, and her own voice quavered (properly) as she added, “We all miss him.”

  “I have to go now.” Ed Faulkner spoke softly, but most decisively, and he began to move toward the door in a curious sideways walk, as though he thought it rude to leave her there.

  “Can’t you have some lunch or something? Iced tea?” Melanctha was suddenly desperate. She even crazily wondered, was this man really Ed Faulkner?—the one who had been with her father when he died?

  “Oh, no’m, I’ve got to get along—”

  “Where’re you heading?” She realized that she had spoken in an unfamiliar accent, and rhythm. Who was she—was she Russ, really?

  “Well, up North. Up to Massachusetts, soon as I can. My folks are in Roxbury, outside of Boston.”

  “Oh, that’s where I’m going too. In a couple of days, I’m going back up to Cambridge, that’s where I go to school. What a coincidence, the both of us—”

  “I reckon.” He gave her a puzzled, unsmiling look. And then, almost out the door, he said, “Well, I do thank you—talking to me—listening—”

  “Oh, I wish you could stay!”

  For suddenly that was what she wished, more than anything. If he would stay, she felt that he could explain everything to her. If he would just stay and have something to eat. Or drink. Should she have offered him a beer? Or whiskey?

  But he had opened the front door and was halfway out when he spoke, not just a mutter, not looking at her. “Well, ma’am, I thank you, I do. I wish you good luck—and your family—”

  Melanctha watched him walk down the worn brick path, now lined with the bright yellow jonquils. He had a very slight limp: how come she hadn’t noticed that before? And had she really observed exactly what he looked like? Could she describe him? The crazy idea came to her then that maybe “Ed Faulkner” was really Benny Davis, come down to check her out and disguised as another man. But that was crazy, she knew that instantly, and she thought, I’m not well, I am sort of crazy. Anybody mentions Russ and I lose track. Will I always be like this? I can’t stand it!

  And she wondered: Did Russ fall on purpose?

>   “Who was that colored man?” asked Graham, perhaps an hour later, as he came into the kitchen where Melanctha was making tea (tea, she drank gallons of tea, every day).

  “What colored man?” She knew though, of course it would have been Ed Faulkner. But why would he have been still around here, after an hour?

  “Just up the road a way. He was just sitting there, like he’d been taking a nap. In this funny brown suit.”

  Melanctha stared at Graham’s dark blue eyes, so like their father’s, Russ’s deep blue eyes. So like hers too—except that on Graham everything was beautiful; he was lovely, as everyone had always said. And she was not, which of course no one said, although Melanctha could imagine, behind her back: “It’s just the funniest thing, how that little old boy got all the good looks, and that Melanctha, who’s the dead spit of her daddy too, well, I guess she just kind of missed out in the looks department. Maybe it’s that Russ’s kind of face was more cut out for a boy? Maybe, she’d’ve been a boy, Melanctha would’ve been a real good-looker too? Though all those others are not a lot to write home about—”

  But now she wondered, Had that Ed Faulkner hoped or wanted to see her again? Had he fainted from hunger, since he wouldn’t take any food? She asked Graham, “Did he look all right? I mean not sick or anything?”

  “He looked sleepy.” But Graham had lost whatever interest he may momentarily have had in this stray colored man. Which was typical of Graham, who had the attention span of a flea. Even Deirdre, his mother, said this of him.

  “The clouds have changed color a lot,” Graham now observed. “I think it might be a thunderstorm.”

  If there was a storm, what would happen to that man, a strange Negro with maybe no money? “I think I’ll go out for a walk,” Melanctha told Graham. “I’ll try to make it back before the rain.”