by May Sarton
“Why, then, no permanent relationship? Why the loneliness?”
“All I can think of is Yeats to answer that,” and he recites in his clear deep voice:
“Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie.”
I ponder the poem for a minute, trying to fathom what Andrew means by reciting it, how to respond. But I have to plunge in, of course. There is no cutting off this conversation. It has to take us wherever it is going. “But isn’t it passionate love, sexual love, that dies with every touch or sigh? It seems to me a rather romantic vision, Andrew. It seems to me that love, which so often begins with sex, doesn’t end there. Maybe you aren’t willing to grow into that second phase which, I suppose, is friendship.”
He sets his cup down and sits with his arms folded on the table and his chin resting on them, an attitude that strikes me as that of a young boy in despair. But as he says nothing, I press on. “What of friendship?”
“Oh well,” he shrugs, “I had two or three good friends at Exeter. They married, of course. Then I just didn’t seem to belong anymore.”
I wait. I light a cigarette and this gets an instantaneous reaction.
Andrew sits up and says sharply, “You still smoke, Harriet? For God’s sake!”
“I realize I am a public nuisance,” I reply, and can’t help laughing. “It’s the generation gap, Andrew. Women of my generation smoked and still do in private. You will just have to accept that your sister is an addict.”
“I can’t go along with someone who willfully commits suicide.”
“We are not going to separate on that issue,” I say, quite cross suddenly. “For God’s sake yourself!”
“How did you stand Vicky’s domineering all those years?” he asks, dropping the subject of smoking while I puff away.
“I guess it bothered me sometimes, but I truly loved her, Andrew, long past the early romantic years. We got built into each other’s lives. We were rarely apart and the publishing business was extremely absorbing, you know. I felt we were partners.”
Andrew lifts an eyebrow. “But she was the boss.”
“And why not? Someone has to be the boss.”
“Well, you are generous, I must say. I would have minded.”
“Were you never in love with someone you wanted to be with day and night, to share a life with, Andrew?”
“Oh yes, but they were always married and quite content to have it that way. Anyway,” he closes his right hand into a fist, “I’m on the way out. Fifty is simply too old.”
“What an awful world then.”
“You know, Harriet, I did not come here this morning to weep but to rejoice and praise.” I sense him willing himself up from the darkness for my sake and I respect him for it. And yet we seem to be in hell together. And as though she senses that Patapouf gives a low growl and then goes to the door and barks. “Good old Patapouf, she’ll defend you, in your awful world, won’t she?”
“But it’s not an awful world, Andrew. I’m happier than I have ever been. I know it sounds strange, but the bookstore is the most interesting thing I have ever imagined. Even the attacks challenge me to be more and to understand more.”
“And you’re not afraid someone will burn the place down?”
“Sometimes I’m a little anxious, but, after all, I could be mugged on the street. I could be hit by a truck. If one begins to imagine danger, the whole city is a battlefield these days.”
Now the phone rings. I have feared it would for the last half-hour. It is Joan. I suggest she come over for brunch and then we can talk. Andrew has gotten up while I am talking.
“I’m off,” he says, “but let’s go on talking now we have begun.”
“Let’s.”
“Have dinner with me on Tuesday. Can you?”
“What time?”
“I’ll come and get you around seven. Okay?” Then just before he opens the door to leave he turns and hugs me hard.
“Thanks, Andrew.” Here we are, I am thinking, fifty and just over sixty, and we have never hugged each other, not in fifty years. But there is no time to think more about Andrew because a second ring proves to be Angelica.
“I’m upset, dear Harriet.”
“What about?”
“That Globe interview is damaging, to say the least.”
“So you told me on the phone. But, Angelica, what did happen will amaze you. All day yesterday the store was full of people dropping in to salute me as a hero. Imagine that! It did me a world of good.”
“But you are allying yourself with a tiny segment of the people who buy books. Maybe that tiny segment applauds you but maybe a lot of ordinary people will keep away.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“I just feel you are way off somewhere like a tiny sailboat disappearing over the horizon. It made me cry,” Angelica says. “When I read it, I burst into tears.”
“Come on, Angelica, I have not been sentenced to a term in jail.”
“It could turn out to be a life sentence. That is why I cried.” I wait as I really cannot think of anything to say that would improve matters, and she goes on, “I have no quarrel with how you choose to live your life, but I can’t see and can’t understand your talking about it in public. It’s nobody’s business but your own, surely. Vicky would never have condoned this kind of self-exposure, as you very well know.”
“I am my own person, Angelica. I am not a shadow of someone else. And, let me try to explain, a lot of lesbians and gays cannot afford to come out publicly for fear of losing their jobs or being turned out of their houses or apartments. I can afford to be honest and therefore I feel I have a responsibility.”
“You could be driven out of the bookstore.”
“Yes, but if I were, I would not starve. Besides, Angelica, I want the store to be a haven where every sort of person can come and go and feel welcome. Can’t you see?”
“I suppose it is admirable, but I just can’t see it, Harriet. However, I am glad you got some support from your ‘friends’ yesterday.”
The word “friends” was clearly in quotes and I react, “I had never seen a lot of these people before, as a matter of fact. Can’t we just let this rest awhile, Angelica? I have so much else on my mind. Joan is coming for lunch, for one thing.”
“Oh? And how does she feel about all this?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea. Two charming young women take over the store on Saturdays and they were here. I’ll know soon enough.”
I am now sick and tired of this subject, which seems to be taking over my life. With an hour to go after I put a salad together and get a frozen Welsh rabbit out for Joan, I sit down and make myself get to work. We have decided to change the window every three weeks and it is high time I put something together. At once everything falls into place and after discarding a few other ideas I decide that a window celebrating biographies of women might be fun and even attract some people who have not yet ventured in. I am making a list and full of all this when Joan arrives.
She seems quite herself, calm and detached, so why even mention the Globe? When we sit down with a glass of sherry while the Welsh rabbit melts in the oven I tell her about what we might do with the new window and she seems to think it a fine idea.
“It’s interesting,” she comments, “how many biographies of women poets have appeared in the last few years. Yet do people read the poetry? H.D., for example? Bogan?”
“I wonder about the poetry. Still, we have sold some Bogan and H.D.—the poems, I mean?”
“I think people are crazy about penetrating private lives these days. It’s as though Pandora’s box has been opened and things appear in print that would not have been considered possible even a few years ago.” Now Joan is silent for a moment and I guess, of course, what is on her mind.
“You saw the Globe interview, I presume?” I as
k, just to get it over with.
“Yes. That interviewer was a mischief maker. Too bad.”
What a relief that Joan does not seem overly concerned or upset. “Well, what happened was a rush to the bookstore yesterday to congratulate me. It was a bigger crowd than came to the opening. Really, Joan, I was awfully touched. They made me feel proud.”
“That must have been gratifying, but …” She hesitates.
“But what?”
“There is a hazard, it seems to me, that what you founded as a bookstore for women in general may turn into a place of rendezvous for lesbians.”
“Yes, I suppose that is a risk, but let’s wait and see. You’ll be here tomorrow and can check who comes. There are a few regulars now. They’ll still come, and bring their friends, we hope. The new window should attract … after all, Beryl Markham, Isak Dinesen, George Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Flannery O’Connor. We’ll get hold of photographs wherever possible. Maybe that could be your job. The public library in Boston has files of photos, I believe.”
“The publishers, more likely. I’ll be happy to work on that.”
“What would I do without you, Joan? Frankly, I was terrified that you might want to back out after yesterday’s exposure in the Globe. You didn’t call and I wondered …”
“Well, I didn’t like it, that’s for sure. It came at a bad time while you are already under attack. I was upset, but mostly for you. I love this job and neither goons nor malicious interviewers are going to deprive me of it, and that’s that.”
“I really don’t believe Miss whatever-her-name-is was malicious. Partly it is a matter of generation. Her generation talk about everything in ways we never did or could.”
“And don’t reckon the consequences.”
“I’m an optimist, you know. And Joan, I might as well say it. For me it is a relief to have come out and to be honest about my life-style, as it is called these days.”
“You are an innocent, aren’t you? Sometimes it staggers me.”
“Why? Is it bad to be an innocent? I suppose you are right. I am one.”
“Innocents get beaten. Look at me.”
“But they survive. I do look at you.”
To my amazement Joan has tears in her eyes. She is so much more vulnerable than I am, I suddenly realize. She has been so badly hurt.
So we eat lunch and indulge in concentrated shop talk for an hour. “I really can’t wait for tomorrow” are my words as she leaves.
11
Because I want to get the books ready for the new window, Joan and I have agreed that we will exchange our stints and I’ll take over the store for the morning, then, after one, Joan will come and help me set the books out—quite a job.
It is raining, a somber day, but I feel elated and eager to see who may turn up. Sure enough, the sisters do, and then Patience and Alice, and I introduce them to each other. While I work they begin to talk about Paris. It is a peaceful start to the day, and I am having fun piling up the books for the window, and making decisions. There are so many fine biographies of women, far more than I can use.
Patience, who has been sitting on the arm of Alice’s chair, notices that the fire has not been laid and offers to do it for me. I go out to the shed to show her where I keep the wood, taking the key to the padlock with me. “It’s wonderful to have friends drop by,” I say. “Already it feels like a kind of meeting place. Aren’t those nuns grand?”
“What do they do?” But before I can answer, we see that the shed has been broken into, the door simply smashed and the wood stolen.
“Darn it, that’s a mean thing to do!”
For some reason Patience laughs at me. “You’re so reserved,” she says. “Darn it, indeed!”
“It’s the goons who write obscenities on the windows and I’m going to call the police.” I am not so much angry as sick. Will we ever get out from under this kind of harassment? Should I get a lawyer? Tell Jonathan? My head is in a whirl as we run back into the store. I tell Patience to explain what has happened while I call the police. “He’s sending an officer over,” I tell the four women, who are now standing.
“What a nasty thing to have happen!” Alice says.
“It’s just part of a cabal against me and the store. They are trying to force me to leave the neighborhood. Whoever they may be, they think this is an obscene business.”
“Not really?” Alice says. “You can’t be serious.”
“Homophobes,” Sister Mary says. “Harriet’s really under siege. What can we do?”
“Stick around. Nuns are good moral support,” and I smile. “I’ll be happy to introduce you to the officer if he ever comes.”
Meanwhile, of all people I do not want to see, Sue Bagley has walked in. “What’s going on?” she asks, sensing at once that something has happened and eager for excitement.
“The fireplace wood has been stolen,” I say coldly.
Alice, no doubt sensing that I am not eager to go into the matter now, says that she and Patience will be glad to replace the wood. “We have friends in the country who cut their own. It won’t be that expensive and maybe Carl will not only bring it but stack it for you. How much will you need?”
The relief of the practical! “Half a cord. That’s marvelous.”
“Everyone has wood stoves these days. It’s hard to come by in the city,” Alice explains to Sue.
“Who would steal from you?” Sue Bagley asks, giving me a sharp glance. She obviously is dying to be let in on whatever is up.
“God knows,” I say, “but there are plenty of hooligans in this neighborhood, as you yourself have told me.”
“Where can you keep it now where it will be safe?” Patience asks.
“The cellar. It will mean carrying it upstairs, but I can manage. And Joe and Eddie will help me.”
“I didn’t like this book,” Sue Bagley says, taking Mary Daly’s last one out of her bag. “Too deep for me. I could hardly understand a word of it. So can I exchange it for something else? I’m sick and tired of all these women philosophers popping out of the woodwork. Give me a good solid biography.”
“You’ve read the Dinesen, of course?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. I was put off by the movie.”
That transaction completed, Sue Bagley leaves with the biography just as a uniformed black officer walks in.
“Good morning.” He takes out a pad and pencil and reads my name. “Which of you is Miss Hatfield?”
“I am. Come with me, Officer. I’ll show you the scene of the crime.” I am happy that he is black. I do not expect to be browbeaten or treated with contempt, and I am not. He is courteous, listens, and looks at the damage, making copious notes, but when he has all the information I can give, he is not helpful.
“We can have no idea who is responsible for this theft.”
“Also breaking in,” I say. “Don’t forget that door was smashed.”
“Didn’t you hear anything?” he asks. “If you could have called us when it happened.”
“Now I remember something did wake me around four, but it had been clearly not inside the house so I went back to sleep.”
“And you have no clue?”
“Well, I assume they’re the same people who have threatened me with an anonymous letter. You must have that in the record, Officer.”
“Someone brought in an obscene book but they did not give us their name,” he says.
“I do not sell obscene books,” I say.
“Excuse me, but that’s what it says in the record.”
“Then the record is inaccurate, as I pointed out to Sergeant O’Reilly some time ago.”
“That is not in the record.”
“Well, is there anything you can do?” Sister Mary asks.
“You can’t let this woman be threatened and do nothing at all, can you?” Alice interjects.
“We’ll come right away if there is trouble,” says the officer, closing his notebook and slipping it into h
is pocket.
“You mean if she catches someone stealing, hangs on to an ear, and at the same time makes a phone call to the police, you will come?” Patience asks and we have to laugh. It is all so maddeningly absurd.
When he has left, Patience suggests that she and Alice go off right away and see about the wood. The sisters are reluctant to leave me alone, but I tell them no one will try to break in in broad daylight, and no doubt there will be customers in and out all morning. It is nearly eleven and, after hugging me with real warmth, Sister Chris admits that they will be late for a doctor’s appointment. So they leave, and now, quite suddenly, I am alone.
I decide to bring Patapouf down. She has been asleep upstairs. I find I am feeling quite shaky, and she will be a comfort.
So I am sitting at my desk drinking a cup of coffee a half-hour later and still wondering whether to call Jonathan when Martha Blackstone walks in looking so awful that I get up at once and go to her. “Sit down, Martha. Let me get you a cup of coffee.” She must have fallen downstairs, I think to myself. She usually has quite an air about her and dresses with flair. I have never seen her in pants till now, and her shirt looks torn at the neck. “Sit down and rest your bones.”
At this she gives me a wan smile. “They sure are sore.”
“I’ll only be a minute.” It seems a good idea to leave her alone to pull herself together, and when I come back with a cup of coffee for each of us she is putting on lipstick and, looking in the small mirror for that purpose, sees her face.
“My God, I have a black eye!”
“Compose the mind,” I say, “and when you can, tell me what on earth has happened.”
“Harriet, I don’t quite know what has happened,” she says. “I didn’t know what to do, where to go, so I came here. At least my paintings are here. I have some identity here.”
I can’t believe that David has beaten her up, but there seems no other possible explanation, unless a stranger attacked her in her apartment. I am in no way prepared to meet this. In fact I am terrified of saying anything for fear it may be way off the beam, so I drink my coffee. One part of me is saying, Why do I let myself get involved with people I don’t really like? Because, I answer myself, pity is the trap. I remember the first day she came and started almost at once to complain that she did not want children, that her work must come first. I could see her distress, but somehow it bothered me that she was willing to talk to perfect strangers about it. Nan Blakeley, the handsome black woman with two little girls, had been there another day when Martha was complaining, I remember, and laughed about being quite content to be a housewife.