The Women

by T. C. Boyle

  The other woman—or girl, I suppose, since she was all of nineteen—was unremarkable, but for the quick seizure and release of her damp bovine eyes. And her freckles, freckles that maculated every visible swath of her skin—her wrists and ankles, the backs of her hands, her cheeks, her brow, her chin. Her name was Gwendolyn Greiner. Her eyes took hold of me. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  I bowed deeply and resolutely. “Tadashi Sato,” I said. The rain cascaded from the eaves. There was a smell of drenched fields, of mold, hidden rot, rurality. “Wrieto-San sent me.”

  “Who?” Gwendolyn Greiner in that moment exhibited two characteristics that would define her during the coming weeks and months at Taliesin: an assaultive peevishness, nasally inflected, and an interrogatory lifting of her upper lip, exposing the outsized dentition of a horse. Did I like her? No, not at all. And her freckles—her spots—gave me a genuine shudder of revulsion. To think of her forearms beneath the sleeves of her coat and the material of her dress, her upper arms, her chest, her back, her—well, I’m sorry to have to interject a personal prejudice here, but in my view the skin of a young woman should be as smooth and unmarked as the softest chamois, a beginner’s skin, a virgin’s, a child’s.

  I bowed again, my eyes on Daisy, who held the cigarette to her lips as insouciantly as if she were already installed in her room, her clothes hung neatly in the closet, books on the shelf, her feet ensconced in embroidered slippers and the fire snapping brightly in the hearth. “My apologies. What I mean to say is Mr. Wright. Mr. Wright has sent me for you. From Taliesin.”

  Gwendolyn: “You? You’re from Taliesin?”

  “Yes,” I said, my greeter’s smile beginning to fade. “I’m one of Wrieto-San’s—Mr. Wright’s—senior apprentices.”

  It was then that Daisy spoke for the first time. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Gwen, can’t you see he’s just trying to help?” She was on her feet now, coming toward me with her hand outstretched, her lips contorted as she expelled a ribbon of smoke over her shoulder. “And what did you say your name was again?” she asked, taking my hand in hers. (Her eyes were the deep venerable blue of Noritake ware, incidentally, and her skin was flawless.)

  “Tadashi,” I repeated, bowing so deeply my forehead grazed her wrist. “Tadashi Sato.”

  Gwendolyn Greiner gave me a face, then ducked into the car while I fumbled with the maddening angles of the trunk. To her credit, Daisy braved the rain and did her best to help me secure it in the rumble seat—“No, no, Tadashi, here, this way,” she murmured, touching my arm for emphasis as the streets ran and the rain fell and everything in the palpable universe dripped. We managed finally to wedge the thing nose-down on the sopping seat, and since I had no rope with me (I’d been prepared for suitcases, carpetbags and the like, but not an object of this size, and I began to wonder if Daisy and her companion had somehow confused Taliesin with a resort hotel in the Catskills or maybe a transoceanic liner), we had to hope that the force of gravity would keep it there for the run home.

  And it might have, but for the rudimentary lesson in physics presented by the final incline of the Taliesin drive. In order to coast clear of the mud I had no choice but to open up the engine and hit the drive at speed, the rear wheels fishtailing (wonderful expression, incidentally) and the Bearcat straining against the grade. At some point, the steering wheel seemed to develop a life of its own, as if animated by a hidden spirit pulling in opposition to my conscious efforts to keep the wheels beneath us and the chassis right side up while making forward progress at such a speed as to render the mud impotent. We were perhaps three-quarters of the way to the top, the crest of the hill and the welcoming arms of the courtyard in sight, when there was a sudden lurch, Gwendolyn Greiner spitting out air as if she were drowning and both girls bracing themselves against the dash as the trunk sprang free and catapulted into the muck behind us even as the Bearcat skated to the right and came to rest against one of the half-grown trees we’d planted the previous spring to enliven the prospect of the drive.

  Daisy was closest to me. I could smell her perfume, lilac and lavender. Her eyes were wide. I was embarrassed to a certain degree—I’d hoped for a better outcome, but as Wrieto-San was always saying when one of us broke a leg or stuck a pitchfork through his hand, “Something always happens in the country.”

  “Jesus,” Gwendolyn Greiner hissed, leaning past Daisy to give me a mottled glare, “where did you learn to drive?”

  The trunk had come to rest a hundred feet behind us. The tree was still in place, though it was canted ever so slightly away from us and the front fender of the Bearcat was showing a drepanoid scar of pit-of-hell black beneath the Cherokee red. I gave her the only answer I could think of—“Chicago”—and Daisy, bless her, burst into laughter. Her laugh was contagious, dimpled, sweet, musical, and in the next moment Gwendolyn and I were laughing too, laughing so hard the car rocked with the force of it even as the rain began to slake and the mud firmed beneath the wheels.

  Ultimately, though I labored mightily to free the thing, we were forced to abandon the car where it was, slosh down the drive to recover the trunk (or at least I sloshed down the drive to recover the trunk, forever dutiful, and yes, proper) and make our ponderous way up the grade, through the courtyard and on up to the kitchen door. The girls had a sodden suitcase in each hand and a pair of dripping carpetbags flung over their shoulders, while I dragged the trunk along its own widening furrow in the mud. Our shoes were basted black, my trousers were ready for the scrap heap, and the girls’ skirts clung wetly—and intriguingly—to their thighs. We stood there a moment, shivering beneath the eaves, before I thought to kick off my shoes and crack the kitchen door.

  Immediately I was struck by a gland-clenching whiff of cabbage soup à la Montenegro and the shrill rising tones of Mrs. Wright, who was stationed at the counter with Emma, Mabel and an onion-chopping apprentice. “Out!” she shouted. “Get out now—you’re all mud!”

  “But, Mrs. Wrieto-San,” I began, instinctively narrowing the aperture to a crack, “I’ve got the new apprentices with me, Greiner and Hartnett. Women. Two women.”

  In the next moment, Mrs. Wright was at the door, thrusting her long mournful face at us. Gwendolyn put on a smile. Daisy was trying to light a cigarette. “There is no smoking to be allowed on the premises,” Mrs. Wright said in a flat voice, no offense meant, none taken. “Mr. Wright is opposed. And I also.”

  She held the door half-open. The apprentice—he’d arrived the previous day and I didn’t yet know his name—gave me a look of bewilderment, as if he couldn’t imagine how he’d wound up swapping his drafting tools for an apron and a paring knife. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the hens emerge from the garage, pick at something in the mud and vanish into the shadows. Rain drooled from the eaves. “And I am afraid,” Mrs. Wright went on in her thumping orotund tones, “—Well, you’re all mud and you will have to change before we can . . . Tadashi, you will show them to their rooms, won’t you? ” She made a sweep of her chin for emphasis and revolved her eyes round the sockets like an actor signaling to the wings. “Outside, down the courtyard behind you—in your old quarters?”

  She made a question of it, as if I might somehow mistake her and bring the girls tramping through the Blue Loggia or the living room, which were off-limits to apprentices save for those glorious few hours each Sunday at dinner, but there was no misconstruing her intentions. Now that I was settled into Hillside with a number of the other male apprentices, she intended to segregate the females here at the main house. Where she could, presumably, keep an eye on them.

  I gave a short bow. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Wrieto-San.”

  She focused on Gwendolyn and Daisy then, her mouth struggling toward a parting of the lips in what was meant to be a gracious smile. “And welcome, girls. Welcome to Taliesin. We will have a good deal of time to make our introductions once you have dried yourselves.” She paused. The smile closed down, replaced by an interrogatory moue. “You do cook, don’t yo
u? ”

  The more I consider it now, what with the passage of time and the reflection on certain painful matters my grandson-in-law’s collaboration in these pages has afforded me, the more I come to realize that Mrs. Wright was as culpable in suppressing my relationship with Daisy—“throwing a wet blanket over it,” as the expression goes—as her husband. Certainly they were in league in this. I don’t mean to suggest that Wrieto-San himself harbored any racial bias—certainly all the evidence, both public and private, shows unequivocally that he revered my people and my culture—but undeniably he exhibited what I can only call hypocrisy in his attitude not only toward my love affair but the personal affairs of all the apprentices. What am I trying to say? He was a dictator—Daddy Frank—and she, Mrs. Wright, Olga Lazovich Milanoff Hinzenberg Wright, was his accomplice and henchman. Or henchwoman. It was as simple as this: because of their own scandalous conduct during what scholars call “the lost years” and the way in which it had adversely affected relations with the community and, more materially, Wrieto-San’s ability to earn a living as a working architect, they were both determined to stifle any odor of impropriety in the Fellowship. If that meant manipulating the lives and emotions of the young people under their guidance, then so be it, without regret or further review: realpolitik.

  Right from the beginning, Daisy and I were attracted to each other, all cultural and racial differences aside. There was the look she’d given me at the station, the natural grace with which she accepted my assistance, and, after I’d delivered the trunk to the room she was sharing with Gwendolyn (and wrestled it through the narrow doorway, skinning an elbow and barking both shins in the process), the lingering handshake she’d offered up as a reward. And why not? Despite my demurrals, I was more than simply presentable—my mother wrote repeatedly to tell me how handsome and elegant I appeared in the photos I sent her, and my previous lover, the one who’d left me for the trombone player and will remain nameless here, avowed that I was all the talk of the girls’ dormitory and more than once assured me I put the other men to shame, in bed and out. (Which begs the question, rather puzzlingly, as to why she broke off with me.) Further, as I’ve mentioned, the outdoor life had transformed me into a rugged, perhaps even dashing figure. I had a ready wit, my English was adequate, my talent for architectural design as great or greater than that of any of my fellow apprentices, and I was descended from one of the oldest and most venerated families in Japan. Was it any wonder Daisy fell for me?

  That very first night, after an excruciating dinner during which all the men fumbled round trying to make conversation with the new arrivals and Herbert Mohl goggled at Daisy as if she’d been served up on the half shell for him and him alone, I took her aside and asked her to join me—or rather us, a mixed group of us—for a nightcap at the local tavern. We were standing in the corner of the dining room, Gwendolyn distracted by the attentions of four or five male apprentices who apparently didn’t share my prejudice with regard to epidermal blemishes, the rain descending from the gutterless eaves with a Niagara roar, the electric lights flickering, the air steamy, fecund, everything held in abeyance as we each privately weighed the option of turning in early or indulging our youthful high spirits. I was obliged to raise my voice in order to be heard over the tumult of the rain. “Would you like to go for a drink?” I practically shouted at the very moment that Wrieto-San and Mrs. Wright, accompanied by Svetlana and Iovanna, sallied into the room.

  I don’t know if my face blanched or if the final fatal noun stuck in my throat, but I was taken by surprise. We all were. The fact was that the Wrights rarely joined us after dining, but rather went round outside, down the hill and across the courtyard and into their quarters. On this particular night, however, they apparently chose the expedient of remaining indoors as long as possible, passing through our dining room and kitchen before braving the rain. In any case, Wrieto-San was his usual self, gesturing and broadcasting, making quips about the weather and Yen’s new haircut, but Mrs. Wright looked up sharply, as if she’d heard me. I smiled. Bowed. Waved. But she was already passing by and I dropped my voice to finish the invitation: “At Stuffy’s.”

  Daisy—I’d already complimented her on how much better she looked in a dry blouse and mudless skirt—leaned in complicitly. “Stuffy’s?” She let out a low laugh—or more of a giggle, actually. “Sounds like a mattress factory. Or pillows. Feather pillows.”

  Stuffy’s, as I informed her, was a tavern built, owned and operated by one of the local dairymen, Stuffy Vale, who had sold his cheese factory in the face of competition from Carnation and other large-scale concerns and used the proceeds to erect a drinking establishment, much to the consternation of Wrieto-San and the delight of the apprentices. It was located on “our” side of the Wisconsin River, halfway to the town of Helena. That is, an easy walk. Even in the rain.

  “You’ll see,” I said. “It’s not far.”

  “We’re walking?”

  “Yes,” I said, lowering my voice still further as Mrs. Wright and her daughters passed out of the room. “Because, well, you see if we start up one of the cars at this hour, Wrieto-San will be sure to hear it—”

  “And he would disapprove.” She was watching me closely, her lips drawn back in an expectant smile. She was wearing a floral skirt and a white cardigan that gripped her in just the right places. Her hair, released from the prison of the hat, was combed out in a rolling tide of crimped curls after the style of the actress who’d humbled the ape in that year’s big Hollywood extravaganza.

  “Yes,” I admitted, and I couldn’t help glancing up nervously to where Wrieto-San had lingered over a table of apprentices—Herbert, Wes, Yen, Edgar Tafel—holding forth on one of his myriad subjects. His boys he called us collectively, conveniently eliding the existence of the females amongst us.

  “You sound as if you’re scared of him.”

  To my credit, as I recall, I didn’t attempt any of the usual bluster or bravado males usually summon in response to such a question, which at root amounted to nothing less than a challenge to one’s masculinity. I simply looked away from her eyes and told the truth. “Yes,” I said.

  And to Daisy’s credit—she was a free spirit and no doubt about it—she took hold of my arm and whispered, “Well, what are we waiting for then? To Stuffy’s!”

  The specifics of that night escape me after all these years, and, of course, the occasion blends memorably with so many others, but we would certainly have been convivial, quaffing beer and something stronger too, dropping coins in the jukebox, chattering, dancing, feeling as if the roof had lifted right off the place and given us the heavens just for the asking. I do, however, remember the aftermath. There was the slog back in the rain, ten or twelve of us spread out across the road that was a black vein dropped down out of a blacker sky, male hijinks, the terrorizing of the innocent cattle of the fields and an inebriate obliviousness to the dangers of vehicular traffic (of which there was none), and yet more male hijinks. We were young men. There were women to impress. Some one of us—I believe this was the night—made his mark by micturating into the radiator of Wrieto-San’s Cord Phaeton. There was, in addition, very likely to have been a degree of noise in the courtyard as we gallantly saw the women to their rooms.

  The next morning, while I was bent over a section I was doing for a wing of the prospective newspaper plant, my brain swelling behind my eyes and my alimentary tract on the verge of a fatal dehiscence, one of my fellow apprentices—Herbert Mohl, he of the colorless hair and transparent eyes, looking sheepish—came to me to say that I was wanted in the living room. My eyes leapt to his. Wanted? “Yes,” he said, his voice hovering like an executioner’s. “By Mrs. Wright.”

  I tried to keep my emotions in check as I made my way across the drafting room and through the loggia to the living room. Mrs. Wright didn’t summon people casually, we all knew that, and she did seem to have an almost clairvoyant hypersensitivity to what went on in the house, so that even when she wasn’t present
you could feel her sending out tentacles all the same. She could be disappointed with the way I’d decorated my room or she might have noticed something I’d done while we were out in the field harvesting the potatoes or perhaps she had some complaint about my driving or my dress—it could be anything. But of course—and I will admit my blood pressure was up—the most likely occasion was what had happened the previous night. Mrs. Wright didn’t like Stuffy or his tavern. She didn’t like drinking. And she most especially didn’t like the apprentices drinking in public—and in mixed company no less.

  It was still raining, the view beyond the windows obscured in cloud, the rooms damp and cold and smelling as organic as ever. For once, I took no notice of the statuary, the furniture, the bold geometry of the carpet or the way the various surfaces of the room seemed to grow out of the stacked stone pillars as if out of an infinitely branching tree. I just went on mechanically and then hesitated at the entrance to the living room long enough to clear my throat.

  “Enter,” Mrs. Wright called. She was enthroned in the window seat across from the fireplace, wrapped in a shawl. Her hair had been pulled back severely so that it seemed clamped to her head. She didn’t smile. She didn’t offer me a seat. She simply waited till I was standing there before her on the edge of the carpet and then, in a low voice, observed that I had disappointed her. “Or not just me,” she went on, “but Mr. Wright and all he stands for—truth in the face of the world, the cause of organic architecture, the struggle against the tastelessness and vapidity of the International Style—not to mention letting down your colleagues, letting down Taliesin itself.”