The Moment of Tenderness

by Madeleine L'engle

  The next day he and Estelle had signed their contracts for the tour with the opera company, and he had thought, we’ll be gone three months, it will make everything all right; and he had pitied Nicky for getting himself into another of his emotional tangles. During the three weeks of rehearsals, he had given in to Estelle’s pleading that Nicky be allowed to stay at the apartment; he had been even more sorry for Nicky than he had been for himself. It might have been all right if Nicky hadn’t gotten a week’s leave while they were playing in Philadelphia, if Nicky hadn’t come to Philadelphia tall in his uniform, his red hair shining, Nicky making a great fuss over everyone in the company, making a great fuss over Estelle in public, not trying to hide from anybody that they were together. When they left for Pittsburgh and Nicky went back to New York, Paul delivered his ultimatum to Estelle. They sat leaning back wearily in the day coach crowded with the company and soldiers and sailors and untidy-looking girls dirty from too much traveling around after their men. Paul had had a cold all during the two weeks in Philadelphia; now his throat felt raw and he sucked one cough drop after another until he felt sick, but if he stopped, the dust irritated his throat so that he had to suck another cough drop. He sat next to the window because Estelle almost always let him sit by the window. When he spoke to her he kept on staring out of the window, at the trees covered with thick hot dust, at the sky covered with thick hot dust, too. “If you want to go on living with Nicky,” he said, managing to keep his voice quite controlled, “you can’t go on living in the apartment.” She didn’t say anything and he took another cough drop out of the battered cardboard box and sucked it. After a while he said, “I’ve supported you almost completely for five years now. We have a very pleasant home. You won’t be able to live nearly as comfortably with Nicky. I’m not trying to bribe you. I’m simply trying to be practical. Because you don’t love Nicky. This business is still just sex with you. If you stay with Nicky any length of time you’ll get under his spell and be lost, but you’re not lost yet.”

  Estelle had not answered at once. She had picked up a magazine and finally said into it, “This isn’t any place to talk, Paul, except to say I don’t agree with you. We’ll discuss it later.” But they never had, and after a while Estelle began to talk about Nicky’s looking for a place for them, and Paul didn’t write Nicky Gatti any more letters because he was sorry for him.

  Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune

  So far exceed all instance, all discourse,

  That I am ready to distrust mine eyes

  And wrangle with my reason that persuades me

  To any other trust but that I am mad.

  One day in Philadelphia, Nicky had drawn Paul into the bathroom and said to him, “I really love you far more than I love Estelle. I know you’re a much nicer person. It’s just that you can’t do anything about sex.”

  Paul stared at the shelf with his shaving things, the shelf with Estelle’s slightly soiled makeup and Jet perfume, and thought, You’re evil, Nicky, you’re the most completely vicious person I’ve ever known; you’re sick of soul and you’re all the more dangerous because you yourself are thoroughly convinced of your own purity. You’ve caught Estelle in your web and you had me caught in it enough so that I didn’t do anything about it while I had the chance. But he stared at the shelf in the hotel bathroom until Estelle pounded on the door and called at them to hurry up.

  Philadelphia was halfway through the tour, but still Paul’s emotions did not grasp what had happened. He could not realize, for instance, that from now on when he talked he would have to say “I” instead of “we.” When he talked about his plans for the coming winter he still said “we” and had to correct himself, reddening with embarrassment. He did not realize with his emotion that when he had finished working on one of his compositions there would be no one to criticize it. Estelle had been a good critic for him; she had known how to make him work, to rewrite; it would be difficult to fight his tendency for too-easy composition alone. He did not realize that if he was ill, if he had the attacks of flu that came on him every winter, there would be no one to take care of him, no Estelle to read to him, to sing to him.

  Only when he walked into the apartment with Nicky’s personality smeared over it like the lipstick on Estelle’s mouth did any of it touch him at all, inside, beyond his mind. Walking down the street the moment of realization was gone again. He stared at the converted brownstone houses, although converted, he thought, was hardly the word for them; disconcerted, betrayed, degraded brownstone houses. Hardly converted, more like apostated, or was that the right word…

  A car passed along the street and light reflected from it flashed across the windows of the betrayed brownstone house, and loneliness flashed across his mind. I can’t bear it, he thought, I can’t bear to be alone.

  He turned and hurried back to the brownstone house where their apartment—where his apartment—was on the top floor. Outside the house was a small tree. Its leaves, already grey and dry from heat and dust, were turning brown and dry from autumn. He did not look at the tree, but opened his mailbox. The keys were there. So they had gone. He took the keys out of the mailbox and clamped his hand over them, walked slowly up the three flights of stairs to his door, put the key in his lock.

  Please Wear Your Rubbers

  Get my hat,” cried Nana, “my big green hat! What time is it? What time is it now?”

  “Ten of two.” Vicky pulled the hat down from the high shelf.

  “I should have left five minutes ago!” cried Nana. “Damn it!” She flew about angrily, pausing at the bureau to look at herself, pausing at the mirror in the hall, rushing, rushing, while Vicky brought her the hat.

  “It’s snowing. Wear your boots,” said Vicky.

  “No.”

  “Please,” Vicky insisted. “Wear your boots. You can take them off when you get to the theatre.”

  Nana started flying about again. “My umbrella! Where’s my umbrella?”

  “It’s hanging on the knob of the closet door. Here. Hurry.”

  Nana grabbed the umbrella and ran to the door. “What time is it now?” she asked tragically, as though she were saying “Is he dead?” and of course he would be.

  “Five of two.”

  “I shall be at least ten minutes late!” she screamed, and rushed out the door.

  Cold wind struck Vicky’s face. She closed the door and locked it. They had told her always to lock it when she was in the apartment alone. She went and stood in front of one of the long windows and watched the snow dropping between the two rows of houses and an old man trudging along, holding a newspaper gray and wet over his head. Down the street Nana was walking under the green silk umbrella. She turned the corner towards the subway and Vicky left the window—and there, in the middle of the room, were Nana’s rubbers. So she picked them up and put them in the bottom of the closet and sat down on the dilapidated studio couch that pulled out into two comfortable beds at night, surprised to hear that she was whimpering the way she used to years ago when she woke up in the middle of the night and there was no one to call.

  She thought of Nana in the subway, smiling a little in the secret way that always made people smile back at her, but never rudely; Nana reaching the theatre and hurrying in, calling hello to everyone, and everyone really glad to see her; now making up, smoothing greasepaint and soft shadows into her skin; Nana dancing behind the musical comedy star (“It’s an awful job, Vicky, hateful as humiliating when I’m so much better a dancer than she’s an actress, but my God, it pays more than your schoolteaching and we’ve got to live”); Nana coming home for dinner so that Vicky shouldn’t be lonely, then off to the theatre again and out with Frederick afterward—Vicky was asleep before Nana was home. Long before. She had to be if she was to get up and go to school in the morning.

  Vicky shivered in the chair by the window and felt the radiator. It was warm, but the wind and even the wet from the snow came in around the edges of the window. Lighting the fire—Nan
a wouldn’t live in a room without a fireplace even if they were too poor to have a bed—she crouched in front of it. Tonight she would sit up for Nana, and tomorrow night and the next night, too, if she felt like it. (“I’m sorry, Miss Craig, but there aren’t enough students enrolled for German to continue the course this semester.” Vicky, panicky: “I speak French as well as I speak German—couldn’t I help in some of the French classes?” “No, I’m sorry. We can’t have anyone new in the French department. How about Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?” “No. No Spanish.”) Nana had simply raised her eyebrows when Vicky told her. “It’s a good thing the show’s going to go on running indefinitely, my lamb,” she said.

  The fire blazed high and burned Vicky’s cheeks as she crouched there and cried. Getting more and more like a child, she thought. I mustn’t lose control of myself all the time like this, I mustn’t!

  But she cried until she was exhausted, and then lay there on the floor and fell asleep. It was after five when she woke up. Nana would be home soon and the meal must be ready. Vicky looked out the window into the dark, and the snow had turned to rain as people were slushing by, cross and unhappy. She closed the blinds quickly, then pulled open the curtains that shut off the kitchen equipment from the rest of the apartment and looked at the few cans on the shelf. Soup. Nana hated soup. But it was so horrid out. There was nothing Vicky wanted less than to go around the block to the grocery store. There was nothing Vicky wanted less than to get dinner for Nana. Though it was only for Vicky’s sake that Nana came home between shows at all. Frederick would take her anywhere she wanted. Every night. But Nana came home to have dinner with her sister. Poor Vicky all alone. All alone. “I won’t!” Vicky said to herself and again out loud, “I won’t!”

  Pulling her brown coat out of the closet she thrust her arms into the sleeves angrily, reached up to the shelf for her brown beret and couldn’t find it. Oh hell, oh damn. She pulled a silk scarf out of one of Nana’s drawers, Nana’s best blue silk scarf, and tied it over her head, fished in Nana’s top drawer for lipstick. Nana’s lipstick was darker than hers and smelled exotic. On it went thickly and out of the door went Vicky. No rubbers. No umbrella. And all the lights left burning. The rain blew into her face and beat against her ankles. She hailed a taxi. “Where to, miss?” Where to? Where shall I go? I’ll be a nurse and go to London. I’ll sing for the soldiers in Paris. My feet are soaked. I’ll go to my death. “Where to, miss?” the taxi driver asked again, and grinned at her. “You look kind of wet.”

  And Vicky’s teeth were chattering. “I’m drenched. Algonquin Hotel, please.”

  Against the glass window in the roof of the taxi the rain dropped. Vicky leaned back on the cold leather seat and shivered, and wondered if they’d give her a room when she carried no suitcase.

  But they gave her a room. Two nights in that room. Two days of meals, and the last of her money would be gone. All right. It would be gone. She had to look for another job. What a fool she was. Of course she could get another job. Anybody could get a job nowadays. But she didn’t want to work in a factory. Couldn’t type. Wouldn’t Nana raise that eyebrow if she got a job on the stage? She’d never told Nana about that. About wanting that. It had always been men and her dancing. Because Nana’d always talked about it. Nana’d always let everyone know what she wanted.

  “Room service, please. Hello, room service? Will you send a dinner up to room 601? Yes, I’ll have a cocktail first. A—a—” (What does Nana order?) “Oh, I think I’ll have a whiskey and soda. Yes. Then the shrimp cocktail, roast beef, peas, baked potato, and coffee. Yes, that’s right. Thank you.”

  After she had eaten—and she ate everything, and ordered French pastry for dessert, too—she sat down at the desk and wrote Nana.

  Dear Nana,

  Don’t worry about me. Pat Conway, you remember, she was at school with us, dropped in unexpectedly and asked me to spend a few days with her in the country, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. Frederick will be glad to have me out of the way, anyhow. Take care of yourself while I’m gone. Don’t forget you need a quart of milk a day and eight hours of sleep and if it rains please wear your boots.

  Love,

  Vicky

  She went out in the rain to post the letter, then she came back to a long hot bath and to bed. And to sleep. She slept until almost eleven the next morning, waking up and not opening her eyes for a moment. Because it was a few minutes before time for the alarm clock to go off, a few minutes before time to get ready for school, and she was still sleepy. But all at once she realized that she didn’t have her pajamas on. Her arms were quite bare. And her legs. Her eyes still closed, she rolled over and remembered. She was wearing her slip. She sat up and opened her eyes and here she was in the Algonquin Hotel, where she’d always dreamed of going on her honeymoon. All right. She’d marry three times and collect millions in alimony. She’d have affairs with all her leading men. Then she’d stick to the last one and they’d be known as the new Lunt and Fontanne.

  * * *

  “We’re not casting today.…Sorry, you’re not the type.…We want a beautiful blonde. Sorry, no blondes.…All cast.…Too tall.…Too thin.…No experience? Sorry, no chance.…No women in the play.…No women under forty.…No women over eighteen.…No casting.…Not the type.”

  Two days of that.

  Then—“You might do for an understudy. Come back tomorrow at three. We’re sending Stage Door on the subway circuit.”

  So no food for a day and one more night at the Algonquin. Sleepless. The subway circuit. An understudy on the subway circuit. It would be a job, a job as an actress. Would she have to join Equity to be an understudy? On the subway circuit? That would more than take her salary. But she wouldn’t worry about that till she got the job. Maybe she could borrow it somehow. She’d manage. Mustn’t give up the job even if she had to go out and sell herself on the streets.

  In Rosenbaum’s office there wasn’t a seat, though she got there half an hour early. She stood against the wall. In the chair nearest her sat a girl whose red hair showed dull brown at the roots. The heavy smell of her perfume made Vicky feel like she was covered with thick dust. Next to her sat a dark girl with a blunt nose and full lips, and lipstick so dark it was nearly black. She offered a cigarette, and smoke filled Vicky’s eyes and made them water. Half an hour. Rosenbaum came out and put his arms about the redhead’s waist and led her into his office. Vicky sat down in the empty chair.

  “Geez,” said the thick one as Vicky sat down. “You got to know someone. And she won’t introduce me to nobody.”

  “Oh,” Vicky said.

  “I’d be swell for Terry. I’m just the type. But I won’t get a look in because Rosenbaum don’t know me. You got any experience?”

  “Not yet,” Vicky said.

  “That’s tough. You can’t get experience till you got it. How long you wanted to go on the stage?”

  “Always, I guess.”

  “Me, never thought about it till last week. Been ushering at the St. James. And then all of a sudden I thought, geez, if I was acting on the stage instead of passing out programs I’d be making a lot more money than I do and not much longer hours. Bet I make a good actress, too. I’m the type.”

  The door to Rosenbaum’s office opened and the redhead came out, smiling and carrying a script. Rosenbaum took his cigar out of his mouth, closed his eyes, and looked around the room through lowered lids. Then he pointed his cigar at Vicky. “You,” he said, “come here.”

  Vicki got up and followed him into his office. Rosenbaum sat down and looked her over.

  “So,” he said. “I told you to come back?”

  “Yes.”

  “What for?”

  “For—for the understudy.”

  “You could understudy what?”

  “You just said I might understudy.”

  “I said that?”

  “Yes. And to come back today.”

  “Oh. Well, I got somebody for understudy.”

 
“Oh.” Vicky watched him for a moment. He was looking through some papers and puffing on his cigar. “Well—” she said. He didn’t look up. She left quietly, shutting the door behind her.

  “Any luck?” asked the thick girl.

  “No,” she said, and she wanted to cry, to have someone comfort her, pull her close, tell her it didn’t matter, give her a hot bath, put her to bed and bring her some milk toast and maybe even feed it to her, and then rub her head gently until she fell asleep. But who was there? Nana would just laugh.

  “Tough luck,” said the thick girl. “I don’t expect much out of this joint myself. Hell, who wants the subway circuit?”

  “Please—” Vicky almost whispered. “How do you get a job as an usher?”

  “You just go around to Ms. Duffy’s office in the Shubert, hon. They need girls right now. Don’t pay you much, though. Geez, if you’re an actress in Equity the least they can give you is fifty-seven fifty a week.”

  “Oh,” said Vicky, and went out. She walked quickly down Forty-Second Street. What if ushering didn’t pay enough so she could keep up her share of the apartment? Nana’d have to pay more than her share for once. Vicky had never asked for anything before. And ushering would give her time to make the rounds of the producers’ and agents’ offices during the day.

  She walked over to the Shubert’s office.

  When she got back to the apartment Nana wasn’t there. The curtain into the kitchen was open and the sink was full of dishes. All of Nana’s bureau drawers were pulled half out with clothes hanging over the edges; the closet door was open and clothes piled on the floor, the studio couch unmade. Vicky hung her coat up, folded Nana’s blue silk scarf, and put it on top of the bureau. Then she went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, not looking at the towel on the floor, not looking at the dusting powder spilled everywhere, the ring around the tub, the unwashed stockings in the basin—not thinking. Just sitting and looking at nothing, feeling nothing. After a long time she began to clean up, slowly, methodically. It was eleven when she had finished. She took a hot bath and got into bed. If Nana came straight home she ought to be back any minute. But at two o’clock Nana had not come home and Vicky fell asleep. It was just beginning to be daylight and she woke up to hear the key in the lock. She kept her face pushed into the pillow.