by Marge Piercy
Trudi was working at the Henry Ford Hospital four nights a week. The hospitals were so short on help, they were glad to hire her back part time. She was toilet-training David in a hurry, as she had promised Leib. It made for a lot of yelling and crying, with Trudi’s mother scolding her for abusing her son with her haste.
Trudi wanted to quit her job and she wanted to move out of her parents’ house, but she recognized she could not expect to do both, at least not until Leib was completely well and settled in a job. She asked everybody she met about apartments. Detroit was tight. Apartments had been split and split again into tiny studios, and the smallest of those was rented too. Sometimes people slept in shifts in the same beds. No basement apartment squeezed in a former coalbin or wedged under dripping pipes was too dark or humid, and no room prized into an attic, barely heated and uninsulated, was too cold and drafty to rent.
Trudi was readying herself for Leib’s homecoming. She had gone on a diet and had a permanent. She was even trying to remember to wear gloves when she washed dishes and baby clothes so that her hands would be soft, the way they said in the magazines, and so her nails would grow long. When Trudi got dressed up to see Leib in Ann Arbor, Ruthie felt very plain next to her, as if like Naomi she were a girl watching a woman. She did not own a dress like the ones Trudi put on for Leib, with peplums, flounces, draping that emphasized Trudi’s curves. Trudi even wore perfume.
Ruthie had no desire to trick herself up the way Trudi did, and no one to get dressed up that way for. Dating had been mostly a source of anxiety, so she never missed it. Her idea of fun was to put her feet in a basin of hot water with Epsom salts and read a book that wasn’t for school, to look at Life and drink hot cocoa, to sit with Naomi’s head on her shoulder and listen to Jack Benny and Rochester, to go to a good double feature.
Nonetheless, sometimes when Trudi was getting ready, she missed that sense of doing something for your man, of having a man who was looking forward to seeing you, of that pleasurable ache of anticipation. She had had pitifully little time with Murray. They had made love three times in twenty-four hours, and that had been that. Trudi had a marriage, a baby, and now her husband back; Ruthie had only the blurring memory of hasty couplings in a backseat and on a blanket. Her favorite photo of Murray she had taken at the big fountain in the zoo, right after they had got off the little train that chugged around between stations marked Alaska and Africa. She remembered evenings spent in movie theaters and in coffee shops just before he left for boot camp. Sometimes she thought she was living on dreams too fragile to survive so much handling.
It had rained all Monday, all Tuesday, a hard pelting often horizontal rain that overflowed the clogged gutters and flooded the underpasses and the streets. Her galoshes had worn through and leaked, but could not be replaced because they were made of rubber. Her shoes stayed sodden. Her coat had that wet wool smell and so did her skirt. There was a lot of absenteeism at Briggs, blamed on the flu.
Finally Wednesday the rain stopped, but the sky did not clear. It hung a hundred feet in the air sagging like a fat belly and obliterating the tops of buildings. She had to wait a long time for a bus, since there had been some trouble on the line. The buses were wearing out and could not be replaced, like so much else.
When she got home, she walked into chaos. Sharon was crying and Rose was wringing her hands. “What’s wrong?” Her heart seized.
“A lady from the welfare came.” Rose rolled her hands in her apron. “She says we can’t have the babies here and we’re going to jail for it. It’s a crime to take care of babies without a license like they charge for and inspect you. Anyway, we could never get a license, she said it herself.”
“How did they find out?”
“Mrs. Rosenthal,” Sharon said. “The dyed-blond bitch turned us in. What business is it of hers? Just because all she wants to do all day is lie on the sofa and listen to soap operas and then wax the floor, while her husband sells fish, she’s got no call to stick her long bony nose in our lives!”
“We never hurt those little babies,” Rose said. “How can they tell us we’re not fit? I raised three babies of my own, and Sharon has two. I know ten times as much about babies as that dried-up prune.”
Ruthie’s second thought was whether Rose’s brush with the law would come back to haunt her in social work, but she put that aside. “Mama, they may fine you, and they’re probably going to close you down, but they can’t put you in jail.”
“She said what we’re doing is against the law, and the state is going to persecute us.”
“It’s a minor offense, Mama. I’ll get all the facts, don’t worry, don’t fuss.”
“But what are we going to do for money?” Sharon wailed. “I can’t live on those allotment checks. My rent is that much right off the top.”
“Maybe I can get you into the plant,” Ruthie said. “They’re always hiring.”
“With the children so young? Arty would never forgive me.”
“Mama can take care of them. She’s had a lot of experience.” Ruthie tried to make them smile. “I’ll see what all this means. Don’t worry. If you have to go to court, I’ll go to court with you. We’ll get a lawyer. How about Mr. Untermeyer who’s on Tata’s immigration committee?”
“Laws, courts, police, this isn’t good.” Rose sat down heavily, twisting her hands in her apron. “This means tsuris, more tsuris. At least they didn’t see Naomi. I don’t want them getting interested in what she’s doing here. That’s all we need.”
Ruthie wanted to go to bed and sleep for a week and wake with all problems solved and the house restored to calm, but she must eat swiftly and get ready for eight hours of welding. Tomorrow she would have to cut classes and go downtown. Whatever she could smooth over, the nursery was closed, permanently. The working mothers would have to make other arrangements and Mama and Sharon were unemployed.
That would mean less money coming in, especially for Sharon, who’d have to take a job. Ruthie’s mind was juggling expenses and income and trying to make everything come out, as she changed for work and got herself together. No point worrying now. At work, she must concentrate, or she’d end up cooked in a hospital bed like Mary Lou. Troubles came down like the infernal and incessant cold rain, far more than anybody needed to make things grow.
BERNICE 7
Major Mischief
In April the WASPs at the Air Transport Command Base in Long Beach got their uniforms, although unfortunately for Bernice and her squadron, in winter wool and not yet in summer weight. When she first put on her uniform, she had an enormous desire to be photographed, as did Flo and everybody else. Loretta, one of the WASPs whose husband was overseas, took their pictures with a Brownie box camera. Bernice waited impatiently the week until the film was ready. Every one of them not off with a plane went along with Loretta to the Long Beach drugstore to pick up the prints.
The uniform was handsome, designed by Cochran herself: not khaki, not military drab or sickly green, but a deep, dark and vivid blue. Against it the gold of the wings and WASP insignia glinted handsomely. The women with curls had trouble with the caps, but Bernice just stuck hers on at a racy angle. She was also in luck because large sizes were plentiful. The uniform came with skirt and slacks: enormously practical, Bernice thought, and wished all women’s suits would offer that choice. However, the Army still balked at outfitting women. Everything under the uniform was their problem, and they received no more ration stamps than other civilians for shoes, which they bought with their own money.
“Listen, don’t complain,” Flo said. “Imagine what the military’s idea of a bra would look like. Probably come with thumbtacks to hold it on.”
Bernice loved her snapshot, posed in front of a P-51 Mustang. She had a bunch of prints made and sent one to The Professor and his housekeeper. His letters came regularly but sounded disjointed. Bernice imagined her father sitting at his desk, asking his housekeeper, What shall I say next? and her prompting him, Tell her about the flood dow
ntown. Say that the Narzisse are blooming. Bernice could hear her voice coming through in the occasional German words in the letters. The Professor did not know the English name of the bulbs Viola had planted almost twenty years ago, still faithfully poking up through the myrtle and among the evergreens. They had not existed as daffodils to him before his housekeeper labeled them Narzisse.
She had prints made for Jeff and for Zach and sent them off to the old addresses in London. She had last heard from Jeff in August. Zach wrote her occasionally, but she had not had a letter since early March. She did not take his silence personally.
Ferrying was going to be a lot easier when she was stuck in little towns that were violently suspicious of a woman alone, especially one who arrived flying a plane and claimed to be working for the Air Corps. A uniform, even when people didn’t know what kind it was, provided a sort of license. A great many people thought badly of women in the military. A real woman wouldn’t do that; they must be tarts or perverts. Nonetheless, the uniform guaranteed that she would not be arrested by some leering sheriff on loitering or soliciting charges immediately upon flying in, as had happened to two WASPs in Alabama. It meant not being hassled in restaurants or bars because she was wearing slacks and not a skirt. It meant a little more respect from the guys in airports. For her, looking in the mirror, it meant one more step toward being a professional.
Maybe when they were given ranks and accepted into the Air Forces, maybe she would stay on after the war. Her squadron commander thought that militarization would come any day, and then they would be regular officers. Bernice had no qualms. She knew she was serving herself and only secondarily serving her country, but she never refused an assignment, she got the planes there as fast as the weather permitted, and she flew in rough weather as in smooth. She did not care that the blue serge was ridiculously hot for California, she wore it and sweated gladly.
The next trip into Newark, there was a message waiting for her: a phone number and the initial Z. Swiftly was all it said. She called at once from a pay phone, feeding quarters, dimes and nickels in as it turned out to be a Washington number.
“Ah, you’ve blown in!” Zach trumpeted. “Top drawer. I should be able to tie things up here and toddle up on the eight o’clock train. I have a reservation at the Waldorf, so go check in as Mrs. Zachary Barrington Taylor.”
“You’re using your own name? Suppose your wife finds out?”
“We’re in mutual pursuit of a divorce. She’s marrying a lesser Du Pont, but still a Du Pont, and I’m at long last to be dispensed with. I’m trying to satisfy the lawyers’ requirements and the government’s too whilst I am briefly in God’s country. You can nap while you wait, but be prepared to be rousted. Oh, and order some champagne before room service closes. Be seeing you.”
She checked in with her duffle bag, in uniform. If the news got back she might be in trouble, but she did not expect it to. She kept her gloves on, nervous about the lack of wedding ring, and was shown up to a suite. She ran a hot deep bath, soaked in it, washed her hair, read the papers while eating a room service steak, then turned in early and slept.
She did not even hear Zach arrive. When she wakened he was kneeling on the edge of the bed naked and rosy from the shower, with the light on and a glass of champagne on the bedside table. “Wake up, drink up and let’s get to it. Hello, how are you, take off those ridiculous pajamas. Does the government issue you those? I forbid them.” He opened the window to a mild night and threw them out.
“Hello,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “I went to bed at nine. What time is it?”
“What do you care? Time for me. Really, my pussy, you have such nice big tits and such nice big muscles, if you only had even a little prick, I’d never look at another piece. I should have started fucking you years ago instead of wasting my time on your self-serving brother.”
“Do you have any news of Jeff?” She was part anxious for knowledge and part temporizing. He made her feel like prey. Why did he excite her? That there was no courtship, no flattery, no gallantry, why did that make her want? The tension began to gather in her muscles, in her vagina, a sense of congestion, of pressure, an engorging urge. He had lost weight since they had been together last, but he would always be a big beefy large-boned man. It was a tension of physical challenge, as if she were about to take part in a wrestling match.
“Coming back through London I picked up some gossip. He’s near Toulouse with some maquis. He’s very wicked because he’s supposed to be working for SI, that is, strictly intelligence work, but he’s got it all messed up. He’s sending through intelligence and running around the mountains blowing up trains and lately, I hear, a munitions dump.”
“That sounds plenty dangerous to me.”
“Oh, it’s fun and games, believe me. He’s flourishing.”
“Where have you been? Can you tell me?”
“I always tell you all, don’t I? Talk later, fuck now. I have been so tediously good and responsible and long-winded these four days I am fit to burst, I am ready to dissolve into hot fragments of flak.” He raised himself on his elbow, looked her over and then fell upon her.
Love was not what they made. Fucking, she thought, that spadelike ugly blunt word was better. They grabbed each other and grappled. He was rough with her and often he hurt her, yet once she was excited, she liked that too, for the pain increased her excitement. They bit and twisted and mauled each other. Shortly he thrust into her, hard, driving himself in and in and in, exploding. Then he made her come with his hand. Why should it be more intense than when she touched herself? But it was. She came in deep convulsions that left her weak.
They both fell asleep. In the morning she woke to his weight and he was fucking her again, this time from behind, manipulating her as he pounded in. When they showered together, she saw that she had left bruises and scratches on him too. They ordered up an enormous breakfast and pots of coffee.
“I’ve been bringing the word, in vain, I’m sure, to Washington. Even Churchill, who will support any peabrained drooling dinosaur bitch who calls herself the King of Transylvania, understands that Tito is fighting the Germans and our man Mihajlović mainly fighting Tito. I’ve been with both parties, jaunting about the mountains of that misbegotten country where everybody speaks his own language. My dear, I’m something of a linguist, but a country the size of Pennsylvania with five different languages? It reduced your poor battered lover to pointing and grimacing like the duchess who sat on an anthill.”
“Will you go back?”
“Not on your sweet ass. My usefulness there is exhausted. I’d get a bullet in the back of the neck. I’m off to muck about in France.”
“Will you see Jeff?”
“Not right away. I’ll be posted farther north. I won’t get the particulars till I’m in Londontown. Let me tell you, the days of crossing the old grey A being jolly are vanished, indeed. I remember the Pan Am Clippers, beds, spotless linen, fresh flowers, dinners cooked to order. These are grim days. You sit in those bloody Liberators on bucket seats and for days and days while your life glides in front of your eyes like a movie in slow motion and you reflect on all the things you might be doing instead that would be more fun, like taking over again every exam you ever cheated at from kindergarten on. And the plane stops at every place it can jolt down where there’s nothing but barbed wire and boobs getting drunk and trying to take money off each other at cards or craps. Dear heart, if there’s anything amusing about little bone cubes or pieces of paper with numbers on them that you can’t spend, I never figured it out.”
“I’ve never been big on games either.”
“Not even in high school? Didn’t you ever go mad for your gym teacher or get lewd hanging out in the locker room?”
“I hated it. I was so much bigger than the other girls, I hated to take off my clothes in front of them. I was ashamed.”
“Oh, pussy, that was silly. You’re ravishing, and I’m sure some crooked soul there would have noticed ta beau
té and done it justice. But the less for them, the more for me. Let’s go stroll along Fifth and ogle the competition and work off breakfast, eh?”
As they walked, Zach would nudge her and direct her gaze to a sailor idling along with a wistful air. “Do you like him? Nice ass. But what a doggy air. No sauce.”
Bernice enjoyed the license to stare, but she was unmoved by the men he was eyeing. She strolled at his side, looking in shop windows and enjoying their reflection side by side. Walking with him, she did not have to adjust her gait. Her uniform was a perfect weight for the day, overcast, fifties, a hint of fog in the air and the buds prizing open on the little caged trees on the side streets. She felt reeking with sex, on vacation, at the peak of her powers. This is it, she thought, I must remember this as long as I live, striding along Fifth Avenue with Zach, both of us dashing with our bodies like good horses well ridden, and I arrived in a Mustang fighter and I live in the sky as much as anyone can.
It was as if she stood on a mountain looking down on Bentham Center and on the house where she had spent so many lonely and boring years and could see herself typing away on professors’ articles and students’ papers, carting the baskets of laundry out to the yard to hang, making her father’s meals and carrying her fantasies with her like a carpetbag of knitting, to be picked up moment to moment.
She stopped to glance into a bookstore window when, faintly aware that a woman was standing there also reading the titles, she turned to face her and found herself staring, her heart clutching and skipping in the astonishment of beauty that did move her and of a sort she had never considered.
The woman was even taller than she was, touching six feet in high-heeled boots, but leaner built, in an Army nurse’s uniform, with skin of a deep ruddy satin black. Her features were a series of delicate but large ovals: long eyes with the white glittering almost blue around the mahogany iris, long mouth. Her hair was cropped to her skull and her neck was lean and elegant, like the hands. The face caught Bernice somewhere deep, the flare of the nostrils proud and haughty, the high brow, the mouth wide and shapely as a trumpet.