Evergreen

  It was the best excuse she could think of for this unusual forenoon visit. The truth was that she had detected, running through their mundane telephone conversations of the past few days, a new and alarming depression of the spirit.

  “Well, sit down. Do you want some lunch?”

  “Thanks, no, I’ll not be staying that long.” She sat down, perched rather tentatively on the chair, and wondered how to comment or what to inquire. It was always so difficult, with Iris, to find the reaching word.

  “If Nellie doesn’t shut off that radio in the kitchen,” Iris cried suddenly, “I shall go mad, or go in and smash it.”

  “Too bad you’re not up in Vermont with Theo. You really need a little change, Iris. It gets on a woman’s nerves, being constantly with children, and no relief.” Platitudes, for lack of the truth.

  There was no answer. And Anna said softly, “Iris, a moment comes when we have to cut through our reserve. I’ve known for a long time that you’re in trouble and I’ve been too polite, too hesitant to ask. Now I’m asking.”

  Iris looked up. Her face had no expression at all. It looked empty. Her voice was just as empty. “Sometimes I don’t care whether I live or die. Now you know.”

  “What has Theo done?”

  The question struck Iris like a blow. Her mouth crumpled and twisted into the grimace of tears.

  “What’s Theo done? Nothing, really. Just gone away, left me. We’ve left each other. We’re in the same house, but we’ve left each other.”

  “I see.” Anna spoke carefully. “Will you tell me the reasons, or don’t you know them?”

  “Oh, I know all right! It’s because of me. I don’t come up to standard … I don’t ski, I’m not a delicate blonde, I’m only mediocre at the piano. Let’s face it, I’m only mediocre, period.”

  So that’s it, Anna thought. I might have suspected it.

  Iris stood and walked up and down the room. Then she sat down at the desk again, facing Anna.

  “Mama … I know I’ll be ashamed of myself for asking you this, but I have to know. Was she as beautiful as her picture?”

  “I haven’t seen any picture,” Anna evaded.

  “Please. Don’t treat me like that. You saw her when you were in Vienna.”

  “All I remember is a pretty child.… Iris, darling, why are you doing this to yourself?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  A long time ago, years and years—when?—Anna had had a flash of thought: If ever I have a daughter I will not let her be vulnerable and unworldly.

  “You see,” Iris cried, “you see that I haven’t even got self-respect anymore! I’m a mean and petty soul. To be jealous of that poor woman who went through the fire of the century and died in it! To begrudge her the only thing left: that someone who loved her should mourn for her! I’m so ashamed of myself, of this worm inside of me! Do you see what a nasty person I am?”

  “You’re not nasty. You never were. But you think too much about everything, yourself included.” Surely there had to be some combination of words that would sound natural and wholesome and comforting. “It’s normal to feel a little jealous and normal to be a little guilty about it.”

  “No,” Iris interrupted. “You don’t see what I mean. How can you? Papa adores you; there was never anybody else but you.”

  Anna winced, as pain cut through her, then attempted to seem casual. “Your father’s a man; how do I know he tells me everything? And I don’t sit around worrying about it, I assure you.”

  “But you do know,” Iris said impatiently, “that he’s not up at a country club surrounded by women or sitting alone downstairs grieving half the night. I am absolutely superfluous, don’t you see? Thrown away. And I don’t know how long I’ll be able to live like this.”

  “Do you want to leave him?”

  Iris stared at her. “I wish I could want to. But I don’t want to, I don’t think I could live through that, either.”

  “I wish I knew how to help you.”

  “Help me! You could have helped me by not giving me such a ridiculous name, for one thing! ‘Iris!’ Look at me, do I look like an Iris? What reason could you have had to think I would grow up and fit such a name! Unless, of course, you hoped I would look like you!”

  “I’m sorry. We thought it was a lovely name, that’s all.”

  “Oh, God,” Iris said.

  Her balled fists pounded the desk. Then she lowered her head to it. Such wretched suffering! Broken open. The nape of the neck was so weak, so tender, even on an adult; Anna put out her hand to touch it, then drew back, afraid to intrude.

  Oh, I love her, I love her, and yet it has never been what it was with Maury. Golden Maury. Those first years on the sidewalk, the women on the camp chairs, the toddlers with pull toys, his laughter, his bright hair. An old grandmother had put out her hand and touched his head. “Wunderkind,” she called him. Wonder child.

  But how could it have been like that for Iris? God knows I never felt joy because of her, either before or after she was born. Such misery, such despair, such guilt, must they not wear off on the child in the womb? And afterward, looking at her, searching her face for signs—crazy as it seems—that through her I would be punished. That she might be, heaven forbid, retarded, crippled, marked. So she’s not retarded or crippled but without a doubt she is marked. Pallid, timid. Oh, she is valiant, poor soul, she tries for happiness and she can attain it, but then something happens; an ill wind comes and knocks her down. My fault. There must have been some way I could have taught her to be strong and sure of being loved, mustn’t there? But I didn’t do it.…

  It’s all vague, the past. Iris’ past eludes me. She grew up, I worried. She never gave any trouble. I remember that she never was young.

  Damn Theo! What has he done to her?

  Perhaps if she had married that stubby, timid schoolteacher who had hung about during the war, perhaps life would be less complicated for her. He had been a humble man and Iris would have been his queen. But then every man and woman can ask how different his life would have been if he had married someone else. Surely everyone at some time or other wonders about that? A graying couple walks past my house each afternoon. They even come out in their trench coats in the rain. The woman has a ruddy face; her hair is tied back with a ribbon. They take steps in unison, talking, always talking. What can they have to say to one another? “I hate chatter,” Joseph says. But that man and woman lean toward each other, laughing. Would I be different if I had married a man who had so much to say to me? If I had married Paul?

  Iris looked up and wiped her eyes. “Tell me, would you have wanted to die if Papa hadn’t asked you to marry him?”

  My God, such questions! “No. No man is worth that.”

  “Now I’m sure you’re not like me and I’m not like you.”

  “I suppose not.”

  On a shelf above the desk stood a model of Rodin’s “The Kiss.” Odd that Anna had never noticed it in this room before. Fine for a museum, but, my goodness, wasn’t it queer to have the naked, embracing pair exposed like that in one’s house, especially with children running in and out? Iris must be far more “free” than I about things like that. I still undress in private. Joseph is amused. I don’t know why I do that. I’ve not been embarrassed to stand naked in front of Paul.

  Anna’s thoughts swirled slowly. She stood befogged, as if dazed, unsure of where to go, of what to say. How would I feel in Iris’ place? I don’t think I’d be as distraught as she is. Theo is the center of her life and “the centre cannot hold.” Just now I told her that no man is worth dying for. Yet I’ve always said that if some tyrant were to demand my life or Joseph’s I would say “take mine.” Would I do that for Paul, I wonder? I wonder what Paul is doing this minute. What would he say if I could speak to him about his daughter’s anguish?

  But she had to deal with Iris’ life, not her own. “You must speak to Theo. Speak to one another, break through the wall. You may find that he’s ready,
after all these months, to listen and to change.” Anna’s speech began to gather momentum, spilling out clichés. “Time is the great healer, you know. Especially when you’ve done right. The only thing it doesn’t heal is the wrong you’ve done to somebody else.”

  “What do you know about that? What wrongs have you done?”

  “I’m human.”

  After a moment Iris said, “I don’t think I’ve done wrong to Theo.”

  “Perhaps not. But can you try to forget what he’s done to you?”

  “I don’t even know that you can call what he’s done a ‘wrong.’ He’s simply grown tired of me. He can’t help that, can he?”

  “You don’t know that for certain. Again I say, my dear, you analyze too deeply. You may imagine motives that aren’t there. Or exaggerate them, anyway. I used to watch you doing it when you were a child.”

  “You were always watching me. Searching my face as though you were looking for something.”

  “I was? I don’t remember that at all. Don’t mothers always look closely at their children?”

  “This was different. I always used to think you looked as if you didn’t recognize me, as if you weren’t quite sure who I was.”

  Anna was silent.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “An outsider. That’s what I’ve always been.”

  “Aren’t we all, to some extent?” Anna parried.

  “Of course we’re not. Look at yourself, at all the friends you have. You don’t have to be alone five minutes unless you want to be.”

  “Friends? It depends on what you mean by friends. I know dozens of nice women, but real friends? There’s Ruth, of course.” Anna counted on her fingers. “And Vita Wilmot, and I’m very fond of Mary Malone. There’s Molly and Jean Becker and—that’s it. The rest are just good company, nice people. You expect too much from people, Iris. They won’t give it and they’ll always disappoint you.”

  “That’s pretty cynical, coming from you.”

  “Not cynical. Just realistic. One can’t expect too much, that’s all.”

  “I don’t expect anything anymore,” Iris said dully.

  “Come! You’re a young woman! Look ahead. Think positively.” (I sound like the Rotary Club. It’s because I don’t know what else to say.)

  The doorbell rang and Iris started. “It’s the children, home for lunch. Do I look as if I’d been upset?”

  “You look all right. They won’t notice.” They were too young to see the wan face, the wrinkled skirt and blouse. Anna sighed. “I’ll run along. I’ve a beauty parlor appointment this afternoon. Shall I make one for you?”

  “You’re being tactful, Mama. I know how I look and I couldn’t care less.”

  “Then I haven’t helped you at all? I did want to help you!”

  “I know you did, Mama, and thanks. But as I told you when you came in, I’m beyond it. If it weren’t for my children I wouldn’t care whether I lived or died.”

  * * *

  “You don’t feel well today, Mrs. Friedman?” Mr. Anthony, who had been doing her hair for years, was still young enough to be Anna’s grandson.

  “A headache, Anthony. That’s why I’m not talking.”

  She closed her eyes, then opened them, disturbed by brassy voices from across the room. An over-ornamented woman with a handsome, aging face was fretting. Her little fat lower lip was thrust out like a coral cocktail sausage.

  “A bit further over here at the temple; tease it up, Leo, over the ear, can’t you see?”

  Patient Leo moved a strand of hair another fraction of an inch. Anna watched the little play. It quieted her churning thoughts to watch the woman fidget and pose, studying herself in the mirror as though she could eat herself up.

  Another woman got out of the dryer and went over to sausage-lip. “How was your ski trip?”

  “Very nice. We had great weather and the children loved it. We stayed at a little place in the middle of nowhere. Didn’t meet a soul we knew, for a change. Oh yes, one. Dr. Stern, the plastic surgeon. And not another soul.”

  “Theo Stern was there? Who with? Not with his girl friend?”

  “I don’t know him. Jerry knows him. Why, has he got one?”

  “Sure has!! It’s been going on for ages. People think they can get away with things, it’s really funny. The way I know is, my son Bruce has an apartment in town and it’s across the hall from this tall, stunning Swedish gal. So one night, we were at Bruce’s place, we go to change our clothes for theatre, we see Stern going in. He used to be at the club a lot, with his wife, mousy kind of person. Anyway, I didn’t think anything of it, but when we bumped into him again a couple of weeks later, I said to Bruce, I said, ‘Say, is anything going on across the hall?’ And Bruce said, ‘Yeah, it’s his girl friend, he’s there every Tuesday.’”

  “Tall blonde Swede?”

  “Yes, I saw her once. With hair coiled to one side, you couldn’t forget her.”

  “My God! She was with him! He tried to pretend he had just met her. Wait till I tell Jerry!”

  Mr. Anthony put the comb down and crossed the room. When he came back to Anna the voices had been stilled.

  “You told them who I was,” Anna said.

  “No. Not who you were. I told them to drop the subject. I’m sorry, Mrs. Friedman. Such dirty, clacking tongues.”

  Out on the street a wind had risen, a wind with a threat in it, fitting her fear and anger at the woman who, by disclosing what Anna didn’t want to know, had now forced her to act. She had been presented, furiously, with a demand for action.

  She fought against the bruising wind to her front door. Home was shelter in bitter weather; the blurred, stained-glass colors of books, the bowl of yellow roses on a waxed table, had always shut out whatever was raging in the world outside. She came in and stood for a moment looking at these things, seeing now, perhaps for the first time, that walls are no protection, are so easily plundered, are fragile as an egg shell against the menace of the world.

  I have to fight for her, she thought in terror. I have to fight for her.

  A magazine setting, Theo reflected. An imitation colonial crane and iron pot hung at the hearth. On the loom in the corner someone had started a few feet of woven cloth. Cheerful fakery. But the fire was real, and so was the drink. The cold flesh tingled with heat and expectancy. Where was she, anyway? She took too long getting dressed; all women did.

  “Stern! What are you doing here? I thought I was the only one who knew about this place!”

  “Hello, Nelson,” Theo said and rose to greet the man’s wife. Bad luck! The first time he’d ever run into anybody he knew when he was with Ingrid and now it had to be Nelson from the hospital pathology department.

  “Here with the family?”

  “No, I took a couple of days by myself. My wife thought I needed the rest,” Theo said.

  “We’ve brought our girls with us. Join us at dinner, don’t eat alone.”

  “Thanks, but I—on the slopes this afternoon I met a young woman, I think she’s a teacher, and not wanting to eat alone, I asked her to join me. I don’t know how I can get out of it now.”

  “Bring her along, there’s room for six at the table.”

  “Very nice of you. Ah, there she is now.” Ingrid was coming down the stairs. Her hair swept to one side in a bronze coil, fell over a yellow shirt bright as lemons. People were looking at her. She came straight to Theo.

  “Well, here I am! Did you think I was never coming?”

  “Dr. and Mrs. Nelson,” he said, “Miss—excuse me, but I’m so bad at names, Miss Johnson, is it?”

  She took the cue. “Johannes. How do you do?”

  “Miss Johannes is an expert from Norway. Really an expert, you must watch her tomorrow.”

  “I told Stern here, let’s make up a table. My wife and I are planning the North Cape cruise next summer and maybe you can give us some pointers about Norway.”

  “That
’s very nice of you, but I’ve already reserved a table and I don’t want to upset the dining room arrangements,” Ingrid said, looking at Theo.

  He was flustered and annoyed with himself for being so. “I’m sorry,” he began, meaning to address Nelson.

  “That’s all right.” Ingrid’s voice was pleasant and cool. “Quite all right, Doctor Stern. Of course you’ll want to be with your friends.”

  He saw as she walked away to the corner table for two that she was furious.

  Nelson leaned toward him. “Say, you move fast!” he whispered. “Get the shape of that babe!”

  Theo ignored him.

  Fortunately, not much conversation was required of him. Mrs. Nelson was one of those women whose monologue can fill an evening. Ordinarily he despised such trivia of restaurants, shops and travel, but tonight he was grateful. He had only to swallow his food and get rid of the Nelsons who were all going over to an inn where the girls wanted to hear a “chantoosy” come up from a New York nightclub. Against their insistent urging Theo pleaded tiredness and got up to Ingrid’s room as soon as they were out of sight.

  She was sitting in bed reading. He saw at once that he was not to be invited into the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” he began. “But I couldn’t think of any other way to handle it. The man’s a pest. He works in the hospital and lives not too far from me.” He threw up his hands. “What else could I have done?”

  She didn’t answer. He felt her anger and went over to the offensive. “You could have carried it through and had dinner with us. It wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  She laid the book down. “Not hurt me? You fool, I’ve never been so hurt in my life!”

  He was truly astonished. “Tonight? By this?”

  “Tonight. By this.”

  He sat down on the end of the bed. “Tell me why,” he said, gently.

  “It hurts more that you don’t know without being told.”

  “I’m very puzzled. You know me well enough to know that hurting is the last thing I want to do. I’ve seen so many wounds; God knows I don’t want to make any more.”

  “Very fine words,” Ingrid said bitterly. “Very fine. I’ve heard you say them often enough. The only things I guess I believe in are not causing any pain.’ Isn’t that what you said? And, oh, yes, ‘We’re like insects; our lives can be wiped out in an instant.’ And so you believe in laughter, and the joy of each day, and being good to one another. Oh, you can be eloquent, Theo, so eloquent!”