Beyond the Bedroom Wall

by Larry Woiwode

  JAN 14 I didn't sleep all night nor all morning and began looking out the window as soon as it was light. Mar showed up at 10, walking fast and carrying a heavy suitcase that hit my toe when we embraced. He'd walked from the station at Leal, all those miles against the beginnings of this blizzard that now howls, and his back ached all day from the strain of it. I washed his clothes and hung them out but shouldn't have; they frosted and dried so slowly they're streaked. After hours of love, we wrapped our wedding pictures and sent them out and began reading Anthony Adverse aloud to one another and the cold air.

  FEB 25 I was disgusted with Cissel because he had a hangover (shades of home) and wouldn't drive me to Rogers until noon, and I'd expected to be at Martin's making love. We did, all the rest of the afternoon, and in the evening I went with Martin to the Ladies Aid Supper. After the meal he read them one of my favorite pieces he does, Laska, and moved some of the women so much I was jealous, damn. He's so good all around!

  APR 17 After my last class, I came upstairs and wandered into Cissel's room and started reading one of his off-color magazines, and suddenly got so tired I lay down on his bed and fell asleep. I must have slept for hours. It was dark when I woke and I felt somebody's eyes on me. I turned to the window and saw Jerome's face outside, not really glowing but with a particular light, just his face, and wasn't frightened a bit. We stared at one another and were both calm. He seemed to be saying my worries would work out. Definite word has come today. I'm pregnant.

  MAY 24 Don't feel well. I'd worked all night on my final reports and was surprised, or shocked, when Mother N and Jay walked into the schoolhouse at bright dawning. They're here to take Mar and me back to Ill, and I thought it was still undecided whether or not we were to go. I had to finish my reports, so they went on to Rogers without me. Did Martin write and tell her .we'd both be done with school today? I feel deceived.

  MAY 27 At Home. Martin drove up in a nearly brand-new Chevrolet, a pretty shade of blue, which I thought he'd just made a deal on. It turns out it's his mother's. They have two cars now. We're going back to Ill in the blue one. Martin plans to teach there. I washed our clothes out and did most of the packing while he drove around the countryside saying goodbyes. Then I went to the cemetery in the late afternoon, to fix up Jerome's grave before we left, and it was so peaceful there I lay down on the grass above him and slept for hours under this sky I love.

  MAY 31 Mama was very ill all night, so it was not easy to go this morning, but we did, at six, with Daddy waving goodbye till we were out of sight, poor love. We stopped at Fr Krull's to join up with Jay and Mrs. N and they followed us to Ypsilanti, where we picked up Vince and Adele. They're also moving to Illinois. We drove through a terrible gale of dust and dirt and stayed overnight with Mr. N's sister, Augustina, in Mahomet. She's so fragile she looks held together with piano wire. A man called Clarence kept hovering off in the shadows. I like the way the blue car rides.

  JUNE 2 In Illinois. We stopped at a car ferry not far from here — I forget where — and couldn't cross on it because Adele got hysterical about floating over water. We arrived home two hours after Jay and Mrs. N as a result, which disgusted Martin. After greeting everybody, we drove down to Spear's, a half mile down the road from the N's, where Mother N thought we'd like to rent — three nice upstairs rooms in a tenant farmer's house. Nobody lives downstairs but somebody might later in the season, they said. We carried our sacks and boxes and books up the stairs to the place. I wasn't feeling a bit well, so I made up the bed and fell into it with a bang and was out for a while. It's now 3 o'clock, a.m., of course.

  JUNE 3 I woke at 5 with pains and went downstairs to the outhouse. There was a steady stream from somewhere deep inside me and it wasn't urine, my whole body knew. I ran back upstairs. It got so unbearable I started screaming and had to throw myself around on the bed as if I could break my way out. I knew it was a miscarriage going on. Mar called the doctor, who came after the pains quit, making me feel a fool, and gave me two kinds of pills to take. I had more pain later today but not nearly as sharp. I've made it through.

  JUNE 4 Already I felt well enough to get up and start unpacking and get settled in here. Mar was going to work in the fields but stayed home all day and helped me, and Mrs. N came over later and helped out too. (Later) About five I felt such a deep burning hole inside me I had to go downstairs, I felt myself pass — I can't see to write it. And then Mrs. N went down and. Oh God, found it, and they took it to the doctor, who — Who knows what? A three-month fetus, "well-formed," they said — a life to me. I thought about Mama and all she's been through and felt blessed. It was a boy, they said.

  JUNE 6 When Martin went out in the morning to help Spear unload and uncrate a corn picker, I got out of bed and sat up for a while, but was weak and the world went black on me. Martin planned to be in in an hour but wasn't here until late afternoon. I didn't mind being alone. He's been the greatest husband through this — washing and cooking and dusting and carrying me up and down the stairs on my dirt chute runs, oh me. Elaine and Davey were here in the evening and Davey brought me a bouquet from Mrs. N's flower bed, and then later Fred came over with two quarts of ice cream, so the five of us had a feast. I love being part of a family. I haven't peed for a week.

  JUNE 7 I was furious when the doctor said I had to stay in bed for four more days! I crawled around an hour this morning straightening up the bedroom, then started scrubbing the kitchen floor but gave out. Cried most of the evening because Martin wants me to stay at the N's the next few days, and I don't want to and won out, finally, thanks to his understanding and my tears, and wanted to eat him. Elaine came over later with lemonade and sponged me off and gave me a few laughs, plus spatters of ice water over my back, and then I wrote to Mama and told her about my own small tragedy. Please answer. Mama, and tell me what to do.

  JUNE 8 It rained all day so Martin stayed home with me and worked hard, scrubbing floors, dusting, and cleaning up in general, which he does well. Then he varnished the hope chest Dad Neumiller made for me, painted four chairs bright red, and hung pictures in our bedroom. So we're almost settled in here, at last. When he left for confession in Havana, I sneaked out of bed and downstairs and went for a long walk over the countryside. It's what I needed to clear myself of death.

  JUNE 14 I'm getting stronger every day. I rode with Martin and Davey and Dad N to a place near Mason City, where Dad is to work now, building a corncrib, I think it is. We stopped at Vince and Adele's little apartment in Forest Creek in the eve, and later Vince and Adele came out to our place and said they were going back to N. Dak, which nearly knocked us off our feet. They'd planned to settle here and find work like us, we thought. The confusions of being similar, but not.

  JUNE 15 Walked over to Mrs. N's the first thing in the morning to see what Mother N thought of Vince and Adele's plans. She said, "I think they're crazy to go back there, and so does anybody else with any sense." "Oh, I don't know," I said, and then laughed too hard at Jay's sign in their bathroom, "WET PAINT. USE BARN."

  JULY 12 A pleasant surprise today. A telegram for Martin arrived from North Dakota and I carried it out to the field where he's helping thresh wheat. It was from Phil Rynerson, his principal at Rogers; Phil's the superintendent at Hyatt now, a little town 50 miles north and west of Courtenay, and he said in the telegram that Martin was hired as History and Math teacher, and head coach of the six-man football team, if he wants the job. I'm not going to say a word to affect his decision and I'll have to stop smiling like this. Oh, Lord, the joy of it.

  JULY 16 Martin signed the Hyatt contract and I walked out to the mailbox in the dark after he was asleep to mail it, when he dreamed he was sleeping with me. AUG 19 M worked at Spear's in the morning while I began to pack, and then he and Fred came and helped in the afternoon, and we finally got everything loaded. Fred is with us to bring the car back. Then Fred and Scott, Elaine's new beau from Havana, went out and stole so many watermelons for us we couldn't fit them all in the car. Big buggers
. M and I had a bath together — can't ever fit well to make it nice — and then supper at the N's — roast chicken followed by three gallons of ice cream. Oofda, boing! We pulled out at 9 for N.D., leaving everybody in tears, especially Elaine, and then just out of the lane M said, “I can't see! Tell me if I'm on the road! Tell me if I'm driving in a straight line!" He and Elaine are twins to me.

  AUG 22 At Home. Mama rose from her sickbed like Lazarus when we drove up and it was as good to see her as it's ever been. Filing is here, too, so it was a grand reunion for all, and after our trip I'm filled with family love. Martin, Mama, Fred, Filing, and I went into Hyatt to look at a house that's up for sale — small and cozy but not in top shape. They want $300 for it and the lot. "Buy it, Martin," Filing said. "Buy it. You'll never do better in your life." I could have wrung his fat neck. We had dinner at the Rynersons' and then had to drive like disaster 60 mph, to get Elling to Valley City in time for his Twin Cities train.

  AUG 24 At Home. I went to the bank the first thing in the morning and withdrew my money ($150) from last year, now common property, then signed my postal savings receipt as Alpha Jones [This name is crossed out several times.— ed.] Neumiller, I stopped in at Montgomery Wards to look at furniture and saw a burgundy-colored studio couch I really liked. Then we heard from the owners of the house in Hyatt. They've turned down our offer of $260. What now, Elling?

  AUG 27 They're threshing here, so Martin shoveled grain for Daddy all day. Fred took Mama and Lionell to Carlsons' in the morning, and while Mama was away I gathered my things together and made a pile of them in the living room. Fred came back and helped me load and reload, and finally Daddy walked over and said, "You'll never make it, kids," and hitched up a trailer behind the car. We filled it and the car to overflowing — bookshelves sticking out one window — and got into Hyatt a little after six. We unloaded on the Rynersons' front porch and are to spend the night here with Fred and the two of us in one bed. I hope it doesn't rain over the weekend. And that Fred doesn't roll, ahem, or kick.

  AUG 28 Back Home again. We looked for a house in Hyatt all morning. The parish owns two places in town and I guess we'll rent the littler of the two, next to Fr Schimmelpfennig's, until we find our own. We had dinner at the Rynersons' and then drove to Jamestown and argued about furniture within earshot of Fred, who laughed and laughed until he was in tears. We finally decided on a couch at Mont-Ward's, like the one I saw in Wimbledon, and also a mattress for the old bed frame Daddy gave us. We drove up to the home place late, after 11, all of us worn out and hating one another, and in the house here it felt like home, for once, for good, maybe forever. Love,

  AUG 31 We took the train from Courtenay to McCallister and got off and bought out the dime store — all the knickknacks and gadgets you need to get a house going, plus plates and spoons and forks and other shiny stuff, and got into Hyatt about noon, on a slow train, and a Mr. Russell hauled our things from the Rynersons' over to the parish house on a little wheelbarrow truck. I don't care for the place one bit. It’s filthy and stinks. No stove, so no coffee, and all we had today were rolls and grapes — the first dry, the second withered — from the local Red Owl, along with cold cups of cold water. The kitchen sink has a faucet that actually works. Our studio couch had arrived and was waiting at the depot, but was so badly ripped across the seat we didn't bother unpacking it completely. The mattress sleeps okay. Zzzzzz. Goodnight, boys.

  SEPT 1 I don't know what to do in this house, ifs such a dirty hole. I scrubbed out one closet and it took me the whole morning to do the damn thing well. Most of the day I just cursed and found I've got as fancy a tongue as Daddy's. I put two big window shades up on Fr Schimmelpfennig's side before evening and don't feel peeped on now. It's his housekeeper, Wilhomena; he's beyond the state of seeing bodies, this priest. Mar started washing kitchen walls, a futile job, and then simply painted them white, so they'll at least look clean. I scooped some mouse turds out of the cabinet drawers and washed a few layers of fly poop off a ceiling.

  SEPT 3 Sunday. But not like Sunday here. Mar painted all day and I kept shoveling manure. Phil Rynerson stopped over toward evening and helped nail up a cupboard. He said he'd heard this house was up for sale and about that moment a troupe of people came parading through, who might buy it, scrape, scrape, they said, and I imagine they will, clomp, shuffle, now that they've all been through it and seen at least that it's clean.

  SEPT 4 Mar went over to see Fr about our house being sold but Fr said he'd have to wait until he heard something definite from the other end. You'd think he would have told us; we're these bodies that keep getting in his way. M was at school for nine hours, although it was just Teachers' Orientation Day, His load is much lighter this year and it's a pleasure for him to be working with Phil again. If he stays on he could become principal, Phil said. I was on my hands and knees with my head in another closet when Fr walked in and said the house had been sold. Good for the old boy.

  SEPT 6 I painted quarter-round in the kitchen, even though we have to be out of here by the 15th and there's no reason to, and then went for a long walk around the lake at the edge of town. Martin came home with the news that maybe we could get rooms across the street, at a Mrs. Click's, so over we went and made arrangements for 3 of her front rooms for $8 a week. Her place smells of potatoes and old clothes. A certain Mrs. Liffert keeps staring at me as if I'm unbuttoned somewhere, and has me feeling I'm Martin's mistress, not wife.

  SEPT 7 All morning until after nine I watched the kids on their way to school and felt old and as though I had typhus or impetigo and was being left behind. What will I do with time? I went to the depot to see about our damaged couch but the building was empty. Weighed myself on the scale there. 117. Not bad. The Fortune Dial said, "You can make your life more happy." What a terrible thing to see. Oh, pride, pomp of thy purple plume on me!

  SEPT 8 Martin came home early and scraped and sanded and varnished my old bookshelves, while I read to him from The Grapes of Wrath. The story is becoming a part of our lives but I could do without some of the language. Too close to home. Martin says it leaves a brown taste — sticky roast beef? — in his mouth. He painted Daddy's rusted bed frame with aluminum paint and then we carried our mattress over to Mrs. Click's and found out she's not quite ready for us to move in yet. There's some rats she's got to git. So we came back and made a bed on our unboxed couch and I kept rolling off it all night. Once when I hit the floor face down I felt Martin was underneath me.

  SEPT 11 At Mrs. Click's. I washed clothes with Mrs. Click a new, goofy way — putting them in pails and squishing them with a kind of plumber's friend, a cone-shaped piece of tin on the end of a broomstick-and she lent me her scrubboard to scrub all my pieces that needed it, plus a lot of her old linen thangs. Oh, well. I was too ill to eat all day, with morning sickness, I'm in fear and trembling.

  SEPT 14 I went uptown before nine to mail a letter to Mama and found myself off on a long walk similar to the one the other day. The lake here is lovely, especially at this time of year with the trees all in brown and gold along it, and the town looks so peaceful from its far side. I got home at noon and didn't have Martin's dinner ready on time again. Is this becoming a habit? I was ill at dinner and unable to eat, and even more ill at supper, so Martin mixed up and fried his own pancakes and just the smell of them sent me outside gagging. We went to Fessenden with Phil and Lou after supper, to see about some new furniture, and I slept in the back seat of their warm car all the way. It rained during the night — hard and thundery, trembling the leaves of Mrs. Click's lilac trees, and now this morning the air's still misty. I'm sure I must be pregnant again. Dear Lord, I hope for a boy.

  SEPT 15 Two weeks of school are over already. What happens to time? I went uptown after the mail in the forenoon, and we got a letter from Illinois at last, from Elaine. It came air mail and contained not one scrap of news except about Scott, along with a picture of him holding up — by their necks — two Canada honkers. When Martin got back from school, we
went together to the depot to see if the replacement for our damaged couch had arrived, but no. We walked around the lake and I showed him the spot where I like to sit, near the little dam, and then we had a late, late supper because I felt ill, as usual, at our usual suppertime. Then I lay in his arms for an hour in the semi-darkness of our porch-dining room and was at ease inside for the first time since when? I'm in love with myself and him and the condition I'm in. And I'm ready to begin at last at the beginning of my life, [Here end the selections from the Five Year Diary of Alpha Jones, now Alpha Neumiller. At this juncture in her writing, she is twenty-two and Martin twenty-six. The diary continues on, with an entry for each day of the year, until late in 1940. Love & Peace.— the editor.]

  Two

  7

  THE LAKE

  What I remember most from that time, before I was six, when no demands were made of me and all I did was lean on my parents' love, is the lake at the center of the town. It was a creek, really, damned up a mile east on the open plain, and when it backed around toward town, filling in the sloughs and flatlands that bordered it, it spread to a breadth of three hundred feet in places, and there were deep holes where only older boys could dive down and touch bottom. Its townside bank, over thirty feet high, cut a curve along the center of Hyatt, and houses here followed the curve for a few blocks and then gave out on the plain. A gravel road ran along this bank. Looking across the lake from this road to what seemed an island (but was a peninsula, actually), you could see the town park, where five or six shade trees stood, with picnic tables and swings and a merry-go-round beneath them, and bathhouses and outhouses for each sex, and beyond them a swimming area with a floating dock.

  On those summer afternoons before dog days set in, when clouds lay along the plain in formations so motionless they seemed hollowed out of the sky, my mother would take my brothers and me to the park. My sisters weren't born yet, and my two brothers were too young to be a threat to my mother and me. I'll be honest. I'd take the hand of one and she'd hold mine and the hand of another, and we'd walk along the lake through heat that rose from the gravel in silver shimmers, past the water tower, to a jetty of land overgrown with willows, and at the tip of this was a wooden footbridge fifty feet long. The bridge led across a neck of the lake to the park. Four or five high-school boys once trapped a girl on the bridge and stood hacking and spitting up "oysters," as they called them, to the girl's distress, and the word always reminded me of fetuslike clots floating over still water. "Grow up,” my mother said to them.