“I heard him tell Goering it gives you the power to meet your own death.”
“Clare, do you really think Death is a man who walks the earth in a black suit?”
“I think that’s how Death appeared to me,” she said slowly. “And to all of us this evening.”
Already this evening felt as if it had happened a long time ago.
“I don’t want to think about Death,” said Ben. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Stay with me, then.”
He lay down beside her, held her in the dark till her breathing, slow and steady, told him she was asleep. Then he crept downstairs to the bed Helen had made up for him on the sofa.
One by one the embers winked out. On the warm hearth, Cinnamon Monkeyshines stretched. Under its glass dome, the blue china clock struck five and for the first time in years the moon rose in the little window on its face.
16
As Quietly as a Thief
IN THE DARK LIVING room, the numbers of Wanda’s alarm clock glowed pale green.
Two o’clock.
Wanda got up from the sofa, peered through the Venetian blinds, and pattered barefoot to Willie’s room and knocked on the door, gently at first, then more urgently.
“What is it?” growled Willie.
“She’s still out there.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it? She’s not a child.”
“Bring her in the house,” said Wanda. “She’ll freeze.”
“Christ,” muttered Willie. He swung his feet out of bed and suffered as they hit the cold floor.
“Mother, I’ve made three trips out there already. She won’t even talk to me.”
“So make one more. I’ll heat the coffee.”
He shaved and dressed himself as meticulously as if he were meeting Marsha for a date. Then he marched to the living-room window.
In her black strapless evening gown and her white fur jacket, Marsha was pacing up and down in front of the house.
Wanda handed him his overcoat. “Bundle up. I sewed that top button.”
Sleepy and angry, he buttoned his coat.
He pulled on his galoshes.
He swaddled his neck in his navy scarf.
He clamped his navy earmuffs into place.
He put on his hat and opened the front door. The moment he appeared, Marsha stopped pacing.
“Has Ben called yet?”
“No,” said Willie. “I wish you’d come in. Not that I personally give a damn about you, but you’re worrying my mother, and she’s got to go to work tomorrow morning.”
Marsha cocked her head and weighed this new information. “I will come in.” She sounded shy and grateful. “I’m awfully cold.”
Willie did not trust this change in her, but he was glad that she followed him into the house.
“The coffee’s in the kitchen,” he announced.
“Sit right here,” Wanda said, smoothing the green oilcloth on the kitchen table. “There’s plenty of cake for all of us.”
“Coffee cake!” exclaimed Willie. “I didn’t know you had any in the house.”
“I got it for breakfast tomorrow. But it’s already tomorrow.”
She had set the table with her best things: the teacups and the little china pitcher and the sugar bowl painted with roses. Marsha pulled up a chair and sat down. Her blond hair, piled high on her head, was beginning to send down a strand here, a curl there. The diamond comb that held everything in place would soon fall out, Willie thought, and she’d lose it. Lose several hundred dollars worth of stones just like that. If they were real.
Marsha picked up her cup and sipped. She ate her piece of cake and then, absentmindedly, she ate Wanda’s.
Such heavy makeup, thought Wanda. Regular war paint. She ought to wash her face. Or has she been bruised?
Weeping had streaked Marsha’s mascara. Her hand lingered around her empty cup, warming itself. Rings shone on the fourth finger of both hands: silver and turquoise on the left, a circle of pearls set in gold on the right.
Fakes? wondered Willie.
Perfect fingernails, noted Wanda. Perfectly lovely fingernails. Fakes?
The girl reached for the third piece of cake, and Wanda signaled Willie with her eyes: let her.
Christ! raged Willie to himself. It isn’t fair.
Suddenly Marsha put her head on her arms and started to sob. Willie felt a pang of guilt about the size of a splinter and knelt down beside her, and put his arm around her shoulders. Her white fur, very cold and soft, brushed his wrist.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could help.”
To his surprise, she stopped crying and leaned her head against his shoulder, but her sly glance chilled him, as if she were reading some secret in his face. She drew her face away from him and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Could I use your bathroom? I must look like a real mess.”
“Of course,” said Wanda. “It’s down the hall. First door to the right.”
How clean is it? she thought. Never scrubbed the toilet today.
“Willie, when she comes out, you drive her home.”
“She drove herself here, remember?” said Willie.
“Hush.”
“She can’t hear us. She’s running the water.”
Covering the sound of—?
They sat without speaking for some time, listening to the water.
“Maybe you should go after her,” said Wanda nervously.
“We could both go,” said Willie.
“No,” said Wanda. “You go.”
The bathroom was empty. Willie turned off the faucet. The door to the bedroom he shared with Ben stood half closed. Willie pushed it open and stepped cautiously inside. A rush of cold air made him shiver.
Through a cloud of feathers he spied the open window. He snapped on the light. His half of the room was untouched. Ben’s side lay in ruins. His pillow was not merely ripped; it had been methodically slashed. His baseball had been slit open and the stuffing pulled out. Their father’s mitt she had surgically dismembered, had cut it into small pieces and these pieces into smaller pieces. And the baseball trophies on Ben’s desk were a rubble of golden arms and legs and bodies and empty pedestals. Willie picked up an arm and examined it. Under the gold paint, cheap metal showed through. A woman’s hand could break it.
Overhead, the Piper Cub sagged like a dead insect, the balsa struts snapped, the colored tissue shredded.
17
Strangers All
WHEN HAL OPENED THE letter telling him he was being sent to California, Helen was calling everyone for lunch, and he tucked the letter into his pocket and said nothing about it, only handed Davy the rest of the mail.
“Anything from Ben?” asked Clare.
They were all in high spirits. The ice was thawing. Under thin, crystalline platforms that clung to the curbs, water trickled and sparkled. And with only ten days left in January, Hal had already ordered the seeds for his victory garden.
After lunch he opened his suitcase on his bed and started to pack. Helen sat on the edge of her bed and watched him.
“They didn’t give you much notice,” she observed.
“They gave me all they had.”
“The letter doesn’t say how long you’ll be gone.” She wondered if he knew and was simply not telling her.
“With things the way they are in the world, who knows how long?”
“I don’t know why they couldn’t have sent you to Willow Run. California, for heaven’s sake! There are closer places you could do defense work. Nell took the car into Detroit this morning. We’ll have to call a cab to take you to the station.”
“Why Detroit?”
“Her dentist. She lost a filling.”
“With the gas shortage she goes to Detroit for a filling? She’ll have to find somebody here.”
Helen watched him arrange a layer of BVDs at the bottom of the suitcase.
“At least you’re too old for the figh
ting,” she said.
Over the BVDs he made a second layer of white shirts.
“I don’t know why you didn’t take that commission they offered you. What’s one night a week, wearing a uniform?”
“I loathe uniforms,” said Hal.
“That’s the most unpatriotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m doing my share. I’m just not doing it in uniform.”
As he arranged his ties in one corner of the suitcase, Helen realized that she had no idea what he would be doing. It was all top secret, of course, but even the classes he taught at the University had always been as remote to her as if they were conducted in code. She simply didn’t understand a thing about his work.
He was packing his socks very carefully. He’d packed so often, and he always liked to do it himself with no help from her. Here was his shaving brush, and here was his gold razor in its purple velvet case. And his suits, made to order by a tailor. Hal picked the material from a book of swatches. Here were his shoes, made for him in England. He loves shoes, thought Helen. Yet she knew he never insisted on luxuries or noticed them in other people’s houses, though he had been brought up in a household that took certain luxuries for granted.
He strapped his suits into place.
He’s looking forward to this trip, thought Helen. He enjoys these long train rides away from us, when he goes to conventions and gives lectures. He enjoys the service in the dining car, and the country rushing past his window, and putting his shoes outside his berth for the porter to shine. And the night somebody went through the sleeping car and stole all the shoes, and a shoe salesman from Memphis was called to the station—that’s the only pair of store-bought shoes he owns.
“Where will you be staying?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But I’m your wife!”
“Helen, if I knew more, I’d tell you.”
“How can I reach you if there’s an emergency?”
“Call the chemistry department. Ask for Dr. Turner.”
“What if I die?”
Hal chuckled. “You’re too tough to die,” he said, and they both burst out laughing.
It was late afternoon by the time he’d finished packing. Clare was waiting for him. He sat on her bed, under the stars he had put up so long ago. He felt immensely tired.
“Don’t forget my soap,” she said, certain this would make him smile. When she was little, he had brought back miniature bars of hotel soap for her dolls.
He did not smile now. “I hope you’ll be walking when I see you again,” he said. “I have a hunch you will be.”
“Not even the nice lady in the public library could help us find out about Cold Friday,” said Clare.
He frowned, but not at her. “I think the cure has got to come from you, Clare. Not from the outside.”
“You don’t believe we can get help from the spirits?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. That evening with Mr. Knochen—your mother still frets over it.”
“I’ll be all right, Papa.”
“Good.”
I should ask her about Ben, he thought, but he did not know what to ask or how to ask. Tell her it doesn’t matter that Ben isn’t really a geology major, that he isn’t even a student? Tell her that he’s done the right thing to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor, not waiting to be drafted?
“The taxi’s here,” called Helen.
The driver came into the front hall to fetch the luggage.
“Another trip, professor? Must be a long one. You’ve got your big suitcase.”
“I’m going to the station with him,” said Helen, “but I’ll want a cab as soon as the train comes. I don’t like to leave Clare and Davy and Grandma alone.”
“Clare can keep an eye on Davy, and Davy can keep an eye on Grandma,” said the driver.
Hal and Helen settled themselves into the back seat, and the driver flipped on the meter.
“Going far?” he asked.
“West,” said Hal.
“Oh, those western trains are real nice.”
Click, murmured the meter.
“I hear they’ve dug out the old gaslight cars to move the troops. The Japs really caught us by surprise.”
“They sure did,” said Helen.
Hal was gazing sadly out of the window.
“All those battleships burning,” the driver said. “I saw it in the newsreel.”
“Awful,” said Helen.
She did not want to talk about troop trains and battleships. She wanted to tell Hal she loved him. But the driver had included himself in their conversation, and she rambled on about trivial details.
“I’ll take care of the garden this year,” she said. “I hope you don’t miss the tomatoes.”
Click.
“Don’t forget to put a mousetrap under the melons,” said Hal.
“We have mice in the melons?” asked Helen, surprised.
“Thieves, thieves,” said Hal.
The waiting room of the station was thronged with travelers. Hal checked his luggage and listened with satisfaction to the baggage cart rumbling down the platform. Far off the train whistled, and everyone shuffled toward the door.
“Do you have enough money?” Hal asked, taking out his wallet.
“You gave me money before we left, remember?”
But he pressed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand anyway.
They hurried outside, and Helen lunged toward him and caught him in a hug.
“Uff,” he gasped.
“Well, I was afraid you weren’t going to kiss me good-bye.”
He kissed her, and the steam swirled around him.
He was gone.
As the train pulled out, Helen searched the windows of the cars for his face. Behind weeping glass, only the faces of soldiers met hers. Strangers all.
The house at twilight had never felt so empty.
“I suppose we should go ahead and eat dinner,” said Helen.
“Of course we should eat dinner,” said Nell. “I’m starved.”
But when Helen opened the refrigerator and saw the custards and the nut loaf she had prepared yesterday for Hal, tears ran down her face.
“Maybe we don’t have to have nut loaf anymore,” said Davy. Helen was bringing Hal’s favorite dishes to the table, without bothering to heat them. “Maybe now we can have hamburgers.”
“Davy!” exclaimed Nell, who was hoping the same thing.
“I hate to eat and run,” said Grandma, “but I’ve got to get home before dark.”
“Vicky is coming to see you tomorrow,” said Nell. “She’ll be awfully disappointed if you’re not here.”
They took their places at the table. Helen ate mechanically, wiping away tears.
“Let’s turn on the light,” said Nell. “We’ll all feel more cheerful.”
“I know you’ve been through this kind of thing already,” said Helen. She blew her nose on the paper napkin.
“It wasn’t the same,” said Nell. “Bob drank. I was glad to be rid of him. Of course it was a shock when I realized he was never coming back. And there was that awful business of listening for the key at night. Every noise—I’d think, that’s Bob coming home now.” She helped herself to the extra custard. “I’ll bet he’s dead now.”
“Is Hal dead?” asked Grandma.
“Dead? Of course he’s not dead,” said Helen. “He’s on his way to California.”
After dinner they sat in the living room and listened to “Amos and Andy,” out of respect for Hal, who hated to miss it and would not be able to hear it on the train. They worked on their squares for the afghan the play-reading group was making to send the boys overseas. Only Helen had hers nearly done: a cigarette floating in a blue sky. On the sky were great puffs of smoke.
“I hope Debbie doesn’t mind that we’re all doing cigarettes,” said Helen. “The other patterns were so hard. I couldn’t knit a boat or a flag if my life depended on it.”
They list
ened to Grandma moving the furniture in her room; they listened to Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” and they all got goose bumps and felt weepy. The campus carillon struck eleven. The blue china clock on the mantel struck two; it kept its own time.
And now they could not postpone the night any longer. Helen poured water on the fire, locked the front door, locked the back door, and hid the key under the china rabbit on the sewing machine which she kept closed and used as a table; she had not sewed since Clare was a little girl.
Clare wheeled herself into the hall and glanced at the hat rack.
“Look, Papa forgot his hat.”
“No he didn’t,” said Helen. “That’s his old hat. I’m going to keep it there so burglars peeking in the window will think there’s a man in the house. Are you ready to go upstairs?”
At the door of Helen’s bedroom, all three women stopped. From his gold frame on the wall over Helen’s bed, Hal was smiling at them.
“Do you want me or Clare to stay with you?” asked Nell. “One of us can sleep in Hal’s bed.”
“No thanks. I’ve got to get used to being alone.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Nell. “I don’t know about Hal—it’s none of my business—but let me tell you one thing: I never had a good night’s sleep with Bob.”
“I suppose it’s awful when husbands snore,” said Clare.
“He didn’t snore. He was always after me. I’d crawl into bed dead tired—I was working, and he hadn’t held a job for six months—and he’d be lying in wait for me, all his juices worked up. And then he’d start pinching me. Pinch, pinch.”
“He pinched you?” exclaimed Helen.
“It didn’t hurt. But I knew he’d keep it up all night till I gave in. Just like a gnat, pinch, pinch, pinch, to make sure I didn’t fall asleep. The only way I could get to sleep was to give in. And then he’d say, ‘Let’s make love all night, I could go on forever.’ Well, lying around the house drinking all day, of course he could go on forever. He didn’t have to be out of the house at the crack of dawn.”
Silence.
“Of course, all men aren’t like that,” she added hastily.
“Of course,” said Clare. “When you first loved each other, it was different.”
When she was alone, Helen put on her nightgown and tucked the money Hal had given her behind his picture.
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