"Is there widespread violence?"
"No. The bratwurst tastes delicious. The women are beautiful—I do so love German women. Everything is orderly. No violence. But something worse lurks under the surface. Whatever that something is, it got Fairy."
"Don't say that, Celeste, please don't." Fannie covered her eyes with her hand.
"I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do."
"Do you think she's dead?" Tears streamed down Fannie's square jaw.
"I don't know. I even bribed people, Fannie. About all I could get is that one night neighbors heard the police trucks outside. I went so far as to go to the government and demand information."
"What happened?"
"The official was smooth, courteous and opaque."
"We should never have let her go," Fannie accused herself.
"No. She was right to go. If she is dead, she died for something she believed in. That's more dignity than most of us manage when the book is closed."
"I can't bear to think about it." Fannie cried as silently as she could.
"I'm afraid Fairy Thatcher has disappeared from the face of the earth," Celeste said.
Sam Renshaw and Patience came over and tried to help the two old friends. Upon hearing of Fairy's disappearance, they, too, grew silent.
"Is Cora at my house?"
"She's been working away. She's so excited you came home before March," Fannie told her.
"Take me home. I want to see Cora. She's the one person in the world who can make me feel as though I won't fall through the other side of the mirror."
Cora, seeing the car drive up, burst through the door into the bitter weather, her apron strings blowing in the wind. Celeste catapulted into her arms, sobbing. Fannie followed behind, tears almost turning to ice on her face. Once inside, Cora got what she could of the story between sobs. She cried, too, quietly. The three women rocked and hugged each other.
"I understand the politics of this. I do." Celeste wiped her eyes. "But beyond that it doesn't make sense. Fairy was so kind, so gay. Who could harm her? Why?"
"There's gotta be a reason." Fannie attempted to calm herself and be logical.
"Life's much older than reason." Cora held their hands. "Most of what people do to themselves or to one another's got precious little to do with reason,"
April 20, 1937
Maizie and Mary, after a serious uprising, fell asleep at last. Louise padded into the small bedroom, only to find Pearlie rummaging in her bureau drawers for rouge. That could mean only one thing. Like many a Catholic woman before her, Louise worried about sex. All the "no"s before marriage were supposed to dissolve into a happy "yes." Louise never reached the stage of the happy "yes." She wondered if Pearlie would love her without such activity. Secretly, she believed that was all any man wanted from a woman. The rouge confirmed this secret in her mind. If Pearlie loved her, truly loved her, why would he need to improve on her body? She sat down on the bed, exhausted from the pitched effort with the kids.
"Do you know what Maizie asked me today?"
"No." Pearlie searched for the right color.
"She asked me if I loved Mary more than her. I said I loved them both the same. And she says, 'Well, I don't want to be even with Mary, so you can love me a little less.' "
"Those two." Pearlie held a pink rouge pot in one hand and a deep red in the other. He studied them carefully.
"Orrie and Noe are driving down to the Blue Ridge this weekend." Louise figured if she talked long enough he'd get tired. Sometimes he even closed his eyes in midsentence and dozed off. "I asked Ramelle if raising children gets easier as they get older. Spotty's seventeen now, so she's been through nine and eleven."
"Doesn't seem like the girls should be that old. They grow so fast." Pearlie picked the dark red.
"Ramelle says it doesn't get easier; it just gets different. Isn't Spotty beautiful? She's begging her father to put her in the movies."
"She's a looker."
"He doesn't want to do it. Not a healthy life. After all, look at Fatty Arbuckle and the dope. Did you know that Mabel Normand, one of my youthful favorites, is on dope?"
"No, Louise. I can't say as I knew that."
"Wait until I tell you about Garbo."
"She on dope, too?"
"No, but—"
"Louise, I'm not interested in Garbo. I'm more interested in you." He handed her the rouge pot.
"I'm tired."
"Come on, honey. It's been nearly two weeks."
"That reminds me. Mary has that sweater I bought her close to two weeks ago and it's already got a hole in the elbow. She wants a new one. Absolutely not. I told her: Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without."
He sighed. This was going to be a long siege. Pearlie didn't know why this wasn't as much fun for Louise as it was for him. Since he'd never been good with words, this was one of the only ways he had for conveying affection. That his imagination was somewhat limited in physical areas was not entirely his fault.
"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Julia and Chessy are putting down planks on Momma's dirt floor, you know, there in the pantry. Won't that be nice? Now that the weather's good, Chessy's going up on the roof with some new shingles. Guess Juts will crawl right up there with him. That girl don't know her place."
"It's kinda nice that they do everything together."
"He even does the laundry with her. I don't think it's proper. Men do men's things and women do women's. Who's to say what will happen to the world if they get mixed up? I mean, how will people tell who is who?"
"Juts and Chessy don't have much trouble telling who is who." Pearlie put his hand on Louise's shoulder, hoping.
She pretended not to notice. "I say it's not right. All this modern business. And they don't go to church, which is a terrible sin. The Lord won't smile upon a marriage like that."
"Lord seems to smile a lot in their direction."
"That's on the surface. Underneath I bet they're miserable." Louise rolled "miserable" around in her mouth.
"They're happy and so's your mother. Can't you take anything for what it is? You're fishing in muddy waters."
"Is that so? Married all these years and that's what you really think of me."
Pearlie had lost his chance. A fight would keep her busy for days.
"Well, I'm just glad I found out, Pearlie Trumbull." She hadn't given him time to reply.
"I didn't mean that."
"Yes you did. You don't really love me."
"All these years together and I don't love you?" He was frustrated.
"See, you don't care. You don't remember exactly how many years."
"We got married after the war."
"See, see, you're all alike. Men think only of one thing."
"Huh?" Pearlie's mind was not running in the same direction as Louise's at that moment. "What's 'one thing'?"
"You know what." She nudged the rouge pot on the bedspread.
"Louise, that's natural. That's being married."
"Ha! You don't have to be married to do that. Look at Ramelle and Curtis or Ramelle and Celeste. Such degradation."
Pearlie was not a man of highly developed prejudice. It made little difference to him if Ramelle was married to Curtis or if she made love with Celeste. Ramelle lived her life, he was trying to live his. "Not five minutes ago you said nice things about Ramelle Bowman."
"She's a nice woman, a very beautiful woman."
"Then why call her degraded?" He stumbled over "degraded."
"She violates the Lord's law. You can be nice and violate God all the same." Louise was in her element now. "Look at Jews. Asa Bleichroder is a good man, but he belongs to those people who killed our dear Lord, and if he doesn't accept Jesus he'll go to hell all the same."
"I don't believe that. Good is good. What church they go to makes no difference."
"Asa don't go to church. He goes to a temple and wears a skullcap."
"So you wear a hat when you go to church."
"That's different. I'm a woman."
"Louise, you aren't making sense." Pearlie, after many years, was finally getting agitated.
"Sense! What did I marry—a heathen? It's all there in the Bible, if you'd take the trouble to read it."
"The Bible tells you to wear a hat? Shit."
"Pearlie! I'm going to talk to Father Dan about you."
"Don't bother."
"You are in need of remedial Christianity."
"No, I'm in need of my wife."
"See, men only want one thing." There's satisfaction in having your bad thoughts confirmed. It proves you're right.
"I'm sick of all this back-pedaling. I'm your husband. I don't need no lectures on God. I met men from all over in the service. Christians and Jews and even people from countries where they got different religions than that. And they all die the same, Louise."
"Yes, but some go to heaven and some go to hell."
"You can just go to hell." He stalked out of the room, taking his hurt with him as well as his exasperated virility.
"Where are you going?" Louise ran after him.
"For some fresh air. It's stale in here."
"You come back here, Paul Trumbull. You come right back in here."
He paid no attention. He slammed the door of the old paint truck with "Trumbull" painted on the side in rainbow colors. As he started out the driveway, Louise, in a fury, threw the rouge pot at the truck, where it splattered on the door.
By eleven that night, some three hours later, Pearlie still hadn't returned. Louise swallowed her pride and called Julia. Cora answered the phone.
"Mom, what are you doing up so late?"
Cora laughed. "What are you doing calling so late?"
"I want to talk to Juts."
"Your mother's not good enough?"
"No, but I remembered something I want to talk to Julia about before she goes to work tomorrow."
"All right, honey, but you come up here and see this beautiful floor they laid down for me."
"I will."
Cora called out for Julia, who slowly came down the stairs.
"Julia?"
"Yeah, Wheezie, what's up?"
"Pearlie left me."
"What?" Juts rubbed her eyes. Cora stood by her and Julia shrugged her shoulders. Cora sat down and waited it out. She knew her daughters.
"He drove off in a huff."
"He'll be back with the morning milk."
"I don't know. He was violent."
"Pearlie?" Julia could scarcely believe that.
"Yes, he said unkind things to me."
"I'm sure you said unkind things right back."
"This is no time to be smart, Julia Ellen. I need sympathy, not smartness."
"What can I do about it?"
"Lend me Chessy."
"What?" Julia put her index finger to her temple and made a circle, indicating she thought her sister was nuts. This opinion was not new to Cora, who'd heard it many times from an irate Julia. She put her hand over her mouth and hid her smile.
"Lend me Chessy."
"What the hell for, Louise?"
"He can go find Pearlie."
"Pearlie will slink home. Wait."
"I'm worried. Suppose he gets hurt."
"The man's thirty-seven years old. He can take care of himself."
"Now there you're wrong. He can't take care of himself. You know as well as I do men can't do anything for themselves. First their mothers take care of them and then their wives. Pearlie can't even make change."
"He's not helpless."
"Yes he is, oh, yes he is. I'm married to him— I ought to know."
Julia knew that underneath all this arguing, Louise was shaken. "Chessy's in bed. Let me go ask him. Here, talk to Mother some more." She handed the phone to her mother and vaulted the steps two at a time. A few minutes later she came down and took the phone from Cora.
"He says he'll go look for him but you shouldn't worry, Pearlie probably tied one on."
"Damn Roosevelt for repealing prohibition."
"Hell, Louise, that makes no difference."
"You tell Chessy to bring Pearlie home. You hear?"
"Yes. Don't worry." Julia hung up.
"I can't recall those two ever having a good fight."
"Me neither, Mom. I don't think Louise ever let him get a word in edgewise."
"Well . . ." Cora didn't like to side in these feuds unless it was necessary.
"Louise never learned that it's not just what you say, it's how you say it."
Chessy drove down to Sans Souci. Fannie told him that Pearlie had wandered in and drunk a bucketful. She had been amazed to see him; Pearlie never lingered in public places. Chessy thanked her and decided to go up and down all the town blocks on both the south and north sides. Pearlie was nowhere in sight. Then Chessy, a logical man, figured he'd sweep the back roads in wider and wider circles. If he didn't find Pearlie by Hanover on the north or Westminster on the south, then he'd worry.
About ten minutes up on the north ridge near Rife Munitions, he saw Pearlie's truck parked in front of Green's dairy. Old man Green thought a giant cow on his front lawn would amply advertise his product. There was Pearlie, drunk as a skunk, painting the cow's udder bright red. Chessy coasted over quietly, turned his motor off and got out.
"Chessy!"
"Shhh."
"Whatcha doing?"
"Looking for you, bub."
"Heh, heh." Pearlie giggled.
"Louise 'bout had a fit and fell in it."
"Heh, heh." Pearlie liked that news.
"Come on, fella. You'd better pack up or Green will tan your hide."
"Wait a minute. One last touch on this tit here."
"O.K."
"Pretty, ain't it?"
Chessy decided to humor him. "Gorgeous."
"Louise don't appreciate me. She don't like my painting."
"Let's talk about this at home."
"No. I'm not going back there."
"Well, let's get out of here."
"Wanna go up at the top of the ridge? We can see all of Runnymede from up there." Pearlie left his can of paint and his brush and lurched over to the truck.
Chessy gathered up Pearlie's materials and put them in the back of the truck. It occurred to him that he couldn't let Pearlie drive in his condition. If they left the truck here, Green would know for sure who'd decorated his giant prize cow. Better to have the old man mad than Pearlie dead. He drove the truck up the road a few yards and parked it safely under a big chestnut. Pearlie wobbled and watched. Then Chessy helped him into the front seat of his Dodge.
"Pearlie, if you gotta puke, tell me. I don't want you smelling up my car."
"Yeah, yeah." Pearlie rested his head back on the seat.
"Here's the ridge. Can you get out?"
"Yeah, yeah," Pearlie mumbled.
"Let's sit over here."
"I ain't never going back to Louise."
"Everyone fights now and then."
"You and Julia fight?"
"You shoulda seen the one we had a time ago. She locked herself in the bedroom. Had to write her notes and slip them under the door."
"That right?"
"Sure."
"You two get on, though."
"Juts is my best pal," Chessy said, but caught himself before he started bragging on his Julia Ellen. That would make Pearlie feel worse.
"Louise ain't no pal. She says all a man's interested in is one thing." Pearlie slurred his words a bit.
"The way some men act, you can't blame a woman for thinking that"
"What's that one thing again?" Pearlie, dimmed by juice, forgot.
"Bed."
"Oh." He wrinkled his nose. "Louise thinks all I wanna do is screw?" Pearlie's voice rose in a question.
"Do you?"
"Wanna screw?"
"Yeah." Chessy tossed pebbles over the ridge.
"Sure. She's my wife."
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