Willie drank it very fast.
“His specialty is eyes. He has a big wooden eye in his examining room with Arabic writing on it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Nesbitt. Dr. Deller operated on him for cataracts.”
“What does the writing mean?”
“I don’t know,” answered Wanda.
“Maybe Mr. Nesbitt could find out.”
“What do you want to know for?”
“It’s nice to know things like that,” Willie answered.
A week later she told him what it meant: Don’t have a greedy eye.
“He overcharges,” she added.
In his mind Willie kept a compartment marked “Marsha, Priority,” in which he filed the most casual remarks and tried to assemble them into a larger picture of their subject, while he listened for new tidbits of information floating in the stream of his mother’s talk. One evening over supper his mother said, “Dr. Deller came in today.”
“What for?” asked Willie.
“He brought a bunch of Marsha’s dresses to be cleaned.” Willie felt himself go weak. Wanda went on relentlessly. “He used to go down the street to Spotless and Cheap, but they lost a pair of his trousers, so he’s switching to us. I never saw a girl with so many clothes. He told me she never gets rid of a single outfit.”
When Willie stopped by Goldberg’s Cleaners & Tailors at noon and offered to take her to lunch, his mother was surprised and pleased. “But I can’t leave the counter till Joe comes back from his lunch break. We’re awfully busy at noon.”
“Is there anything I can do to make myself useful?” asked Willie.
“You can keep out of the way,” she said. “I have more work than I can handle.”
She brushed him aside and took an armload of shirts from a man who was drumming his fingers on the counter.
“No starch, Mr. Siegl, right? And you want ’em on hangers.”
Mr. Siegl nodded. “My wife’s pink dress is in that pile,” he warned her. “She wants you should get the sweat out of the armpits.”
Wanda filled out another slip. At the bottom she scrawled, “Sweat Under Pits.”
“When will it be ready?” asked Mr. Siegl.
“Saturday, unless you want to put a rush on it.”
Willie lifted the gate in the counter and closed it behind him and slipped into that vast, noisy nation of steam presses, whirling drums, women old before their time pushing bins of dirty clothes, and garments rustling on racks that stretched into infinity. He watched a girl unroll giant bags from a spool over her head and ease them down over the finished dresses that scooted down the rack toward her like obedient children waiting to be checked. A call from the far side of the room sent her running.
Mr. Siegl was gone, but another man, with an armload of tablecloths, had taken his place.
“Mother, let me bag some of the finished dresses,” said Willie. “You can trust me.”
He knew from the way she glanced at him over her shoulder as she wrote out a slip for the tablecloths that he was in her way.
“I could do Dr. Deller’s suits. Or Marsha’s dresses, if they’re ready.”
She shrugged, and he thought she gave him an odd look, but she said nothing, only pointed to the rack behind her.
“Marsha’s dresses are at the far end. They’re all marked.”
The white rabbit coat told him he’d found what he wanted. He leafed through the clothes on the rack as if turning the pages of a powerful book. There was only one copy of this book in existence and only one opportunity to turn its pages. A white satin blouse. A gold lamé skirt so narrowly cut that Willie, accustomed to the sight of Wanda’s stocky figure, could hardly believe that any flesh-and-blood woman could fit into it. Ah, here was an old friend: the strapless evening gown, tagged with Marsha’s name and the date her mother, or Dr. Deller, or perhaps Marsha herself, would call for it. He took out his pocket notebook and tore out the page on which he had copied with great care:
When as in silks my Marsha goes
Then, then (me thinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
He added a single line of his own: “You looked wonderful in this dress.” With trembling hands he pinned it into the bodice and noticed that it was lined with stays and a stiff, heavily padded bra. He drew a white bag over the dress and pushed it along the rack.
Only after he had bagged thirty-two dresses, all Marsha’s, did he remember lunch.
He spent the next week seesawing between repentance and anticipation, both of which peaked when Wanda came home from work. In vain he waited for a cryptic confession of love on small perfumed paper, or a note saying he might call. Had he forgotten to sign his message? Had it fallen off? Had Marsha put the dress away for the duration without inspecting it? Or had she found the note ridiculous, even offensive? Angry, first at her and then at himself, he thumbed through his Encyclopedia of Etiquette: What to Do, What to Say, What to Write, What to Wear for a letter to copy, a rule to follow. He found a useful heading, “Accidents,” but the only disasters acknowledged were accidents at the dinner table. Nevertheless, he scanned the section for useful phrases:
Mishaps will overtake the best-regulated diner, who, however, when anything flies from the plate or the lap to the floor, should allow the servant to pick it up.
If an ill-starred individual [Willie turned the page hopefully] overturns a full wine or water glass at a dinner table, profuse apologies are out of place. To give the hostess an appealing glance and say, “Pray forgive me, I am very awkward,” or, “I must apologize for my stupidity, this is quite unforgiveable, I fear,” is enough.
Willie read the last paragraph over twice and wrote, on stationery bearing the gold embossed crest of the Episcopal church:
My dear Miss Deller,
Forgive me, I am very awkward, I must apologize for my stupidity. My pinning that poem to your dress was unforgiveable.
Believe me sincerely yours,
Willie Harkissian
Two days passed before her answer came, on a sheet that carried her name in huge block letters at the top and below it, a brief message: “Don’t worry about it.”
Oh, she had answered—she had accepted him! If he asked her out—but where could he take her if he asked her out? To dinner and a movie? That would be expensive, and of course she would expect him to pay. He would ask her to the movies but not to dinner.
He checked the newspaper and was delighted to see that The Chocolate Soldier was coming to the Michigan Theatre on Saturday. There was plenty of time to write her. He turned to the Encyclopedia of Etiquette, only to find that all the examples of written invitations concerned themselves with accepting or postponing dinner parties. He chose one, however, and adapted it to suit his needs.
Dear Miss Deller,
It would give me great pleasure to have you meet with me on Saturday, the sixteenth, at seven o’clock, to see Nelson Eddy in The Chocolate Soldier, at the Michigan. Trusting there is no previous engagement to prevent my enjoyment of your company, I am
Most sincerely yours,
Willie Harkissian
Its distance from his own life and its suggestion of good taste and the money to show it pleased him.
But what if she didn’t answer? Or what if his letter got lost in the mail, or arrived too late?
That evening he telephoned her and was glad that the first voice he heard was not Marsha’s.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Ben Harkissian,” he said and realized his error at once, but it was too late. The woman who had picked up the receiver was gone. After a long time, Marsha said “Hello?” and Willie found he had scarcely enough breath to answer.
“Hello?” she repeated.
“This is Willie Harkissian,” said Willie, in faint tones.
“Willie?” she exclaimed. He could not miss the disappointment in her voice.
“It would give me great pleasure to have y
ou meet me on Saturday the sixteenth at half past three, to see Nelson Eddy in The Chocolate Soldier.”
He waited for her to burst out laughing. Her quiet, grave reply surprised him.
“I’d like that very much,” she said. “Thank you for asking me.”
20
The March of Time (in Five Episodes)
KLINEHART SURRENDERS!
SERGEANT KLINEHART INSPECTED THE two pails of potatoes: first the potatoes peeled by Private Yeager, then the potatoes peeled by Private Harkissian.
“You mean to tell me, Harkissian, that these were perfectly good potatoes when you started?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ben.
“And when you peel them, they turn into faces?”
“Right before our eyes, sir,” said Yeager. “Watch, sir.”
Ben picked up a potato and began to peel.
“No funny business with the knife, Harkissian,” said Klinehart.
“Yes, sir.”
But even as Klinehart warned him, he could see that Ben was paring a potato the way anyone else would pare a potato, letting the thin peelings drop into the slop bucket. A chill gripped the sergeant as he watched the pale flesh of the potato shrivel into sunken sockets, pocked nose, smashed chin.
“There—it’s happening, sir!” cried Yeager.
“Harkissian, you son of a bitch!” shouted Klinehart. “Last week I sent you to clean the latrines.”
“Yes, sir, I cleaned them, sir.”
“How do you explain the sulphuric geyser after every flush?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“And that class on driving a tank?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ben.
“You ran the tank into a tree, Harkissian.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that tree was not on the field till you ran into it.”
“No, sir.”
Ben tossed the potato into the pail—it really looked ghastly now, like a starved child—and reached for a new one.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Yeager.
Behind the thin peel, Ben’s knife exposed the shrunken head of General MacArthur. The Ancestress slipped quietly out of the knife, and Clare slipped quietly out of the potato.
Did you put back the tree? whispered Clare.
I put back the tree. I don’t know why your army and navy call their decoding divisions MAGIC. They don’t know the first thing about it.
STOP WASTE AND WIN THE WAR
“I never thought I’d look forward to an enema,” said the artillery captain in the bed next to Ben’s.
There were three of them in the ward: the captain, Ben, and the tall lieutenant from Nashville. The lieutenant did not talk. He marched up and down the aisle between the empty beds, his hospital gown fluttering: an archangel who had been issued the wrong robe. Up the aisle, about face, down the aisle, about face. Up the aisle.
“What are you in for?” asked the artillery captain.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Ben. “I’ve been tested for everything.”
The captain farted.
“Pardon me,” he said, “top secret,” and discharged a new volley. “Do you notice anything?”
“What, sir?”
“About what you have just heard—do you notice anything?”
“No, sir.”
“Keep your small intestine spotlessly clean,” said the captain, “and you can eliminate the fumes. Listen.”
One long. Two short. Two long. Two short.
“Is it code, sir?” asked Ben, astonished.
“It is,” answered the artillery captain. “To be used by prisoners in separate cells, for communicating with each other.”
“You mean, you can teach someone—”
“The secret is muscle tone,” whispered the captain, “and holding your breath and sending air into the small intestine. Close your mouth, stop your nose, and open the back door. When you get control of those muscles, you can say anything. Listen.”
Ben listened.
“Did you get the message?” asked the captain.
“It sounded like …”
“Like what? You can tell me.”
“Like ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’ in Morse code.”
“You hear the possibilities,” said the captain. “Stripped of every weapon, the body itself is a secret agent.”
“That’s amazing, sir.”
“My discovery can also be used for entertainment. I can do a hound—and a hare—and a machine gun—”
The arrival of Dr. Cohen and Dr. Turner cut short the performance.
“Ben,” said Dr. Cohen, “we’d like to watch you peel this potato.”
Dr. Turner handed Ben a potato and Dr. Cohen handed him a knife, and Ben took them up and began to pare away the skin. Dr. Cohen gathered the peelings in a paper cup, took the potato, and passed it to Dr. Turner, who passed it back.
“It’s still an ordinary potato,” said Dr. Turner.
In Paradise, on the banks of the River of Time, the Lord of the Universe tosses a white ball which breaks into a green ball, and Sergeant Klinehart is awarded the bed next to the artillery captain. In three days he is released, and Ben is sent on active duty to Hewitt Island, 4,200 miles from Chile, 4,300 miles from Australia, and 5,600 miles from Clare.
TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
Grosse Pointe
March 1, 1942
Dear Helen and Clare and Nell and Davy,
I suppose you have been reading about the riots in the Free Press and seen the pictures of burning crosses and the picket lines. About 700 people surrounded the Sojourner Truth homes and kept Negro defense workers from moving into the very space that our government built especially for them. All the families had paid their rent in advance, and seven of them came back to find their old apartments occupied and no place to live. The moving company charged them for storage: five dollars an hour. The Negro driver who took the first van through the picket line was hit in the head with a rock.
We are doing our part for the war effort, of course. Vicky and Fred gave a dinner party for a dozen soldiers, sight unseen. Though they marched up the front walk in strict formation, two by two, they seemed glad to be in a real home. Nice boys, from all over the country. Fred observed that most of them had bad teeth. I wonder how many will be alive at the end of the war?
Vicky’s snowdrops are blooming to beat the band, just as if they hadn’t heard about the shortages. I have made friends with a bumblebee, who woke too early in the season and comes to my window to be petted. He sits very still on my hand and I rub his back.
You shall see me next month, when Grandma and I change places. In the meantime, you are welcome to put my bust of Stillman in the garden. It is not metal, it is not rubber. It is marble, and no one can find such a garden decoration unpatriotic. And no one need know that Stillman is the founder of osteopathy. You can tell your friends he’s a distant ancestor. If we could map the tangled roots of the tree of life, this might even turn out to be true.
Love,
Grandpa
MACHINE MAKES 10,000 STARS AN HOUR!
“They sent me a star for the window,” said Wanda. “A black star.”
“Be glad it isn’t a gold one,” said Mr. Goldberg. “A lady on our street had five sons in the Pacific. She got five stars, five gold stars, for them. How’s Willie?”
People were always careful not to mention his flat feet, as if having flat feet were unpatriotic.
“Same as usual. Such a help to me. Such a steady boy.”
“There ought to be a star for Willie,” said Mr. Goldberg. “A steel one.”
NO MORE WEATHER!
From the air Hewitt Island was a button of sand with five dead koa trees and one shanty, stitched to a sea so blue that it made you think of sapphires, butterflies, the crests of tropical birds.
“Nice little beach, sir,” said Ben. The island looked no wider than two miles in any direction. “I love white sand.”
“That’s not sand,” said the pilot
. “That’s guano.”
“What, sir?”
“Bird shit.”
Captain Cooper, the weather patrol, was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the government building, knitting. He was thirty-two, prematurely grey, and he had been a meteorologist at UCLA before he was drafted and assigned to the island of Canton. At Canton he did not like being so close to Honolulu—about a thousand miles—and he asked for an assignment on Baker Island. The weather station on Baker Island was run by six men.
From them he learned that Howard Island had only four men, and he got himself transferred to Howard, which he thought would be more peaceful. On December 8 he realized his mistake, when fourteen twin-engined bombers knocked out the cabin, the weather station, and the four men. Cooper, the sole survivor, moved into a dugout. For fifty-two days he foraged for food in the rubble and played solitaire with a deck of cards that miraculously had survived intact. Not an ace was missing.
After the Navy picked him up, Cooper studied a map and asked to be transferred to Hewitt Island. His second day on Hewitt, a freak lightning storm nearly burned down the government building. Cooper pointed out the charred places to Ben as he showed him around the island.
“Everywhere I go—catastrophe,” said Cooper gloomily.
The sign over the porch read:
THE GOOD TERN
Quiet—Dignified—Cheap
Best Food on the Island
One Good Tern Deserves Another
It reminded Ben of the bars around Catherine Street and Lower Main: the Paradise Bar and Grill … the Chosen Land … the Oasis. Awful things happened in such places. A man stabbed his brother in the Chosen Land. A woman was raped in the alley behind the Oasis. One good tern … Ben hoped he wouldn’t find religious pamphlets on a table inside.
The government building—Cooper never called it a house—had a tiny kitchen, a privy, a living room with two wicker chairs, two cots, and a table. On the table stood an alarm clock. Wanda had one just like it in the kitchen at home, and Ben thought of the kitchen shelf with its musty jars of spices, their tops spattered with grease; Wanda standing at the stove in the morning, her back to him as she heated the water for coffee; Willie drumming his fingers, waiting for the toast to pop up. Gone. Yes. No—not forever.
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