Paul blasted Shepherd with his automobile horn, and was delighted to see him bound across the ditch to get out of his way.
Anita rolled down her window and cheered.
The captain of the Green Team waved, his face twisted by exertion.
Paul pressed the throttle to the floor, laying down a cloud of burned oil and carbon monoxide.
"That man's got a lot of get up and go," said Anita.
"He fills me full of lie down and die," said Paul.
They were passing the battlements of the Ilium Works now, and one of the guards, recognizing Paul's car from his pillbox, waggled his fifty-caliber machine gun in friendly fashion.
Anita, who had been getting more and more restless, made as though to grab the wheel. "Paul! Where are you going? Are you crazy?"
He brushed her hand away, smiled, and kept on going across the bridge into Homestead.
The bridge was blocked again by Reeks and Wrecks who were painting yellow lines to mark traffic lanes. Paul looked at his watch. They had ten more minutes until time for, as the expression went, knocking off work. Paul wondered if Bud Calhoun had thought up this project. Like most of the R&R projects, it was, to Paul at least, ironic. The fourlane bridge had, before the war, been jammed with the cars of workers going to and from the Ilium Works. Four lanes had been nothing like enough, and a driver stayed within his lane or got the side of his car ground off. Now, at any time of day, a driver could swerve from one side of the bridge to the other with perhaps one chance in ten thousand of hitting another vehicle.
Paul came to a stop. Three men were painting, twelve were directing traffic, and another twelve were resting. Slowly, they opened a lane.
"Hey, Mac, your headlamp's busted."
"Thanks," said Paul.
Anita slid across the seat to get close to him, and he saw that she was scared stiff. "Paul--this is awful. Take me home."
Paul smiled patiently and drove into Homestead. The hydrant in front of the saloon by the end of the bridge was going again, and he had to park down the block. The same dirty boy was making paper boats for the amusement of the crowd. Leaning against a building and smoking nervously was a seedy old man who looked familiar to Paul. Then Paul realized that the man was Luke Lubbock, the indefatigable joiner, who was lost in the limbo of mufti, waiting for the next parade or meeting to start. With mixed emotions he looked around for Lasher and Finnerty, but saw no sign of them. Very probably they were in the saloon's dark, rearmost booth, agreeing on everything.
"Paul--is this your idea of a joke? Take me home, please."
"Nobody's going to hurt you. These people are just your fellow Americans."
"Just because they were born in the same part of the world as I was, that doesn't mean I have to come down here and wallow with them."
Paul had expected this reaction, and remained patient in the face of it. Of all the people on the north side of the river, Anita was the only one whose contempt for those in Homestead was laced with active hatred. She was also the only wife on the north side who had never been to college at all. The usual attitude of the Country Club set toward Homesteaders was contempt, all right, but it had an affectionate and amused undertone, the same sort of sentiment felt by most for creatures of the woods and fields. Anita hated Homesteaders.
If Paul were ever moved to be extremely cruel to her, the cruelest thing he could do, he knew, would be to point out to her why she hated as she did: if he hadn't married her, this was where she'd be, what she'd be.
"We're not getting out," said Paul. "We'll just sit here a few minutes and watch. Then we'll move on."
"Watch what?"
"Whatever there is to see. The line painters, the man running the hydrant, the people watching him, the little boy making boats, the old men in the saloon. Just keep looking around. There's plenty to see."
She didn't look around, but slouched down in the seat and stared at her hands.
Paul had an idea what she was thinking--that for some reason she couldn't understand, he was doing this to humiliate her, to recall her humble origins. Had that been what he wanted to do, he would have been completely successful, because her virulent hate had decayed. She'd fallen silent and tried to make herself small.
"You know why I brought you here?"
Her voice was a whisper. "No. But I want to go home, Paul. Please?"
"Anita--I brought us here because I think it's high time we got a completely new perspective, not on just our relationship to ourselves, but on our relationship to society as a whole." He didn't like the sound of the words as they came out, sententious and inflated. Their impact on Anita was nothing.
He tried again: "In order to get what we've got, Anita, we have, in effect, traded these people out of what was the most important thing on earth to them--the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of self-respect." That wasn't much good either. He wasn't getting through to Anita yet. She still seemed certain that she was somehow being punished by him.
He tried once more: "Darling, when I see what we've got, and then see what these people have got, I feel like a horse's ass."
A glimmering of understanding crossed Anita's face. Guardedly, she cheered up a little. "Then you're not mad at me?"
"Lord, no. Why should I be mad at you?"
"I don't know. I thought maybe you thought I nagged too much--or maybe you thought something was going on between Shepherd and me."
This last--this suggestion that he would ever worry about Shepherd--threw Paul completely off the orderly course of re-educating Anita. The notion that he might be jealous of the captain of the Green Team was so ludicrous, showed so poor an understanding, that it commanded his full attention. "I'll be jealous of Shepherd when you're jealous of Katharine Finch," he laughed.
This, to his surprise, Anita chose to take seriously. "You don't mean that!"
"Mean what?"
"That I should be jealous of Katharine Finch. That dumpy little--"
"Wait a minute!" The conversation was really afield now. "I just meant there was about as much chance of there being something between Katharine and me as there was of there being something between you and Shepherd."
She was still on the defensive, and apparently hadn't grasped the negative sense of his parallel. She came back at him aggressively. "Well, Shepherd is certainly a more attractive man than Katharine is a woman."
"I'm not arguing that," said Paul desperately. "I don't want to argue that at all. There isn't anything between Katharine and me, and there isn't anything between you and Shepherd. I was simply pointing out how absurd it would be for either one of us to suspect the other."
"You don't think I'm attractive?"
"I think you're devastatingly attractive. You know that." His voice had gotten loud, and as he glanced out at the street scene he saw that he and Anita, the would-be observers, were being observed. A paper boat shot the rapids to the storm sewer unnoticed. "I didn't bring us here to accuse each other of adultery," he whispered hoarsely.
"Then why did you?"
"I told you: so we could both get the feel of the world as a whole, not just our side of the river. So we could see what our way of life has done to the lives of others."
Anita was on top of the situation now, having successfully attacked and confused Paul, and having found that she wasn't being baited or punished. "They all look perfectly well fed to me."
"But they've had the spiritual stuffing knocked out of them by people like my father, like Kroner and Baer and Shepherd, like us."
"They couldn't have been too well stuffed in the first place, or they wouldn't be here."
Paul was mad, and the delicate mechanism that kept him from hurting her stripped its gears. "Here, but for the grace of God, go you!"
"Paul!" She burst into tears. "That's not fair," she said brokenly. "Not at all fair. I don't know why you had to say that."
"It isn't fair for you to cry."
"You're cruel, that's what you are--just plain cruel. If you w
anted to hurt me, congratulate yourself. You certainly did." She blew her nose. "I must have had something these people don't, or you wouldn't have married me."
"Oligomenorrhea," he said.
She blinked. "What's that?"
"Oligomenorrhea--that's what you had that these others don't. Means delayed menstrual period."
"How on earth did you ever learn a word like that?"
"I looked it up a month after we were married, and it etched itself on the inside of my skull."
"Oh." She turned crimson. "You've said enough, quite enough," she said bitterly. "If you won't drive me home, I'll walk."
Paul started the car, abused the gears with savage satisfaction, and drove back across the bridge, toward the north side of the river.
When they'd reached the mid-point of the bridge, he was still warmed and excited by the sudden fight with Anita. By the time they were under the guns of the Ilium Works, rationality and remorse were setting in.
The fight had been a complete surprise. Never had they gone at it so poisonously. More surprising, Paul had been the vicious one, and Anita had been little more than a victim. Confusedly he tried to remember the events that had led up to the fight. His memory was no help.
And how completely fruitless and destructive the fight had been! In the heat of a bad instant he had said what he knew would hurt her most, would, by extension, make her hate him most. And he hadn't wanted to do that. God knows he hadn't. And here he was with his cheery and careful plans for starting a new life with her shot to hell.
They were passing the golf course now. In minutes they'd be home.
" Anita--"
By way of an answer, she turned on the car radio and impatiently twiddled the dials, waiting for the volume to come up, presumably to drown him out. The radio hadn't worked for years.
"Anita--listen. I love you more than anybody on earth. Good God but I'm sorry about what we said to each other."
"I didn't say anything to you like what you said to me."
"I could cut my tongue out for having said those things."
"Don't use any of our good kitchen knives."
"It was a freak."
"So am I, apparently. You passed our driveway."
"I meant to. I have a surprise for you. Then you'll see how much I really love you--how insignificant that stupid fight was."
"I've had quite enough surprises tonight, thank you. Turn around, please. I'm worn out."
"This surprise cost eight thousand, Anita. Still want to turn around?"
"Think I can be bought, do you?" she said angrily, but her expression was softening, answering her own question. "What on earth could it be? Really? Eight thousand dollars?"
Paul relaxed, settling back in his seat to enjoy the ride. "You don't belong in Homestead, sweetheart."
"Oh, hell--maybe I do."
"No, no. You've got something the tests and machines will never be able to measure: you're artistic. That's one of the tragedies of our times, that no machine has ever been built that can recognize that quality, appreciate it, foster it, sympathize with it."
"It is," said Anita sadly. "It is, it is."
"I love you, Anita."
"I love you, Paul."
"Look! A deer!" Paul flicked on his bright lights to illuminate the animal, and recognized the captain of the Green Team, still jogging, but now in an advanced state of exhaustion. Shepherd's legs flailed about weakly and disjointedly, and his feet struck the pavement with loud, limp slaps. There was no recognition in his eyes this time, and he floundered on heedlessly.
"With every step he hammers another nail into my coffin," said Paul, lighting a fresh cigarette from the one he had just finished.
Ten minutes later he stopped the car, went around to Anita's side, and affectionately offered his arm. "The latchstring is out, darling, for a whole new and happier life for the two of us."
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see." He led her to the front door of the low little house through a dark, fragrant tunnel roofed and walled by lilacs. He took her hand and placed it on the latchstring. "Pull."
She tugged gingerly. The latch inside clattered free, and the door swung open. "Oh! Ohhhh--Paul!"
"Ours. This belongs to Paul and Anita."
She walked in slowly, her head back, her nostrils wide. "I feel like crying, it's so darling."
Hastily, Paul checked the preparations for the tricky hours ahead, and was delighted. Mr. Haycox, probably in an orgy of masochism, had scrubbed every surface. Gone were the soot and dust, leaving only the clean, soft, glowing patina of age over everything--the pewter on the mantel, the cherry case of the grandfather clock, the black ironware on the hearth, the walnut stock and silver inlays of the long rifle on the wall, the tin potbellies of the kerosene lamps, the warm, worn maple of the chairs.... And on a table in the center of the room, looking archaic, too, in the soft light, were two glasses, a pitcher, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vermouth, and a bucket of ice. And beside these were two glasses of whole, fresh milk from the farm, fresh hard-boiled eggs from the farm, fresh peas from the farm, and fresh fried chicken from the farm.
As Paul mixed the drinks, Anita went about the room sighing happily, touching everything lovingly. "Is it really ours?"
"As of yesterday. I signed the final papers. Do you really feel at home here?"
She dropped into a chair before the fireplace and took the glass he handed her. "Can't you tell? Don't I radiate how I feel?" She laughed quietly. "He wants to know if I like it. It's priceless, you brilliant darling, and you got it for eight thousand dollars! Aren't you smart!"
"Happy anniversary, Anita."
"I want a stronger word than happy."
"Ecstatic anniversary, Anita."
"Ecstatic anniversary to you, Paul. I love you. Lord, how I love you!"
"I love you." He had never loved her so much.
"Do you realize, darling, that that grandfather clock alone is worth almost a thousand dollars?"
Paul felt terribly clever. It was fantastic how well things were turning out. Anita's contentment with the place was genuine, and the process of weaning her from one house to another, from one way of life to another, seemed, in a miraculous few minutes, to have been almost completed. "This is your kind of surroundings, isn't it."
"You know it is."
"Did you know the clock had wooden works? Think of it? Every part whittled out of wood."
"Don't worry about it. That's easily remedied."
"Hmm?"
"We can get an electric movement put in."
"But the whole charm--"
She was in a transport of creativity now, and didn't hear him. "You see--with the pendulum gone, an electrostatic dust precipitator would fit right in the lower part of the case."
"Oh."
"And you know where I'd put it?"
He looked around the room and saw no spot for it other than where it was. "That niche there seems ideal."
"In the front hall! Can't you just see it there?"
"There is no front hall," he said in puzzlement. The front door opened right into the living room.
"Our front hall, silly."
"But, Anita--"
"And that spice cabinet on the wall--wouldn't it be darling with some of the drawers sticking out, and with philodendron growing from them? I know just the spot in the guest room."
"Swell."
"And these priceless rafters, Paul! This means we can have rough-hewn beams in our living room, too. Not just in the kitchen, but the living room, too! And I'll eat your classification card if that dry-sink won't take our television set."
"I was looking forward to eating it myself," said Paul quietly.
"And these wide-board floors: you can imagine what they'll do for the rumpus room."
"What did the rumpus room ever do for me?" said Paul grimly.
"What did you say?"
"I said, what did the rumpus room ever do for me?"
"Oh. I see." She laughed
perfunctorily and, her eyes bright, she searched for more plunder.
"Anita--"
"Yes? Oh! What a delightful Cape Cod lighter."
"Listen to me for just a minute."
"Certainly, darling."
"I bought this place for us to live in."
"You mean just the way it is?"
"Exactly. It can't be changed."
"You mean we can't take any of these things out?"
"No. But we can move ourselves in."
"This is another one of your jokes. Don't tease me, darling. I'm having such a good time."
"I'm not teasing! This is the life I want. This is where I want to live it."
"It's so dark, I can't see by your face whether you're serious or not. Turn on the lights."
"No lights."
"No electricity?"
"Only what's in your hair."
"How do they run the furnace?"
"No furnace."
"And the stove?"
"Firewood. And the refrigerator is a cold spring."
"How perfectly hideous!"
"I'm serious, Anita. I want us to live here."
"We'd die in six months."
"The Haycox family lived here for generations."
"You are playful tonight, aren't you? Just so straight-faced and everything, keeping your joke alive. Come here and kiss me, you sweet clown."
"We're going to spend the night here, and tomorrow I'm going to do the chores. Will you give it a try, anyway?"
"And I'll be a good old fat farm Mama, and get breakfast on the wood stove--coffee, home-grown eggs and cream, home-baked biscuits drowned in homemade butter and jam."
"Would you?"
"I'd drown in butter and jam first."
"You could learn to love this life."
"I couldn't, and you know it."
His temper was rising again, in response to bitter disappointment, as it had done an hour before in Homestead. And again he was looking for something short of a slap in her face that would shock humility into her. The sentence that came out had been ready for a long time. He spoke it now, not because now was the right time, but because it packed a punch.
"It doesn't matter what you think," he said evenly. "I've made up my mind to quit my job and live here. Do you understand? I'm going to quit."
She folded her arms across her chest, as though fighting a chill, and rocked in silence for a few moments. "I thought maybe that was coming," she said at last. "I thought maybe that was what you were up to. I'd hoped it wasn't, Paul. I'd prayed it wasn't. But--well, here we are, and you've said it." She lit a cigarette, smoked it in shallow, tasteless puffs, and blew the smoke through her nose. "Shepherd said you would."