“Then you are probably ‘soft’ yourself.”
He smiled, without answering.
Meg turned around. “I can milk a cow, you know. Would you like to go into the barn? We’ve two new calves.”
Obliging her, they followed, touched the cows’ rubbery pink muzzles and watched the calves nurse. When they emerged from the barn, thunder was just over the hill and overhead the livid sky flashed eerie green lights.
“Oh, Dad was right!” Meg cried. “We’ll have to run for it!” And pulling her skirt up to her knees, she went leaping away from the path into tall, wind-bent grass, taking a shortcut through a hummocky field.
A sudden furious gust whirled barnyard grit into Hennie’s eyes. Leaves flipped over onto their white undersides; a chill swept through the air, and branches, whipped by the wind, lashed dangerously about. The first rain spat.
“Run faster!” Meg, far ahead, called back. “It’s going to pour!”
It was a long way to the house. Hennie’s skirt caught in stickers; tugging it loose, she ripped it. One shoe came off.
“Go on, Meg, don’t wait for me,” she called.
Thunder now split the sky; lightning sizzled and crackled.
“Not under a tree!” Thayer cried, pulling Hennie by the arm. “That’s the most dangerous place, don’t you know that? Here, this way, we can’t make it to the house.” A rickety structure stood hidden, squatting low in the shrubbery. “Here, into the gazebo—isn’t that what this thing is called? This’ll be safe enough.”
The “thing” was a small octagonal space with fretwork sides open to the weather; it had been neglected, but the roof was sound, and by standing in the center one could keep out of the rain, which was now coming down in torrents, flailing the earth.
“Sorry to be an impediment,” Hennie apologized. “Really, you should have gone ahead with Meg.”
“Not at all. I wouldn’t think of it.”
“It’s these shoes. Not meant for running.” She smoothed her dampened hair, caught her breath, and, feeling a sudden awkwardness, sighed. One could imagine oneself in a children’s playhouse here, or an explorer’s jungle hut; in either case, what could one do other than just stand, breathing close together, waiting for the storm to pass?
After a minute or two she found something to say.
“Alfie’s been talking about fixing this up. With the benches repaired, it might make a nice quiet spot to read in, don’t you think so?”
The rain, drumming on the roof, muffled her voice, so that she had to repeat her words for him.
“Yes, rather nice,” he said. “Do you do much reading?”
“I don’t know that you’d call it much, compared with what you must do. Right now I’m halfway through Sister Carrie.”
Thayer’s eyebrows went up. “Really? A banned book?”
“I know. It’s supposed to be pornographic.”
“Indeed. My cousin Emily mustn’t know you’ve got such a thing in the house.”
Dan said Emily was “lusty.” This man sees her primness. Which is true?
Thayer said wickedly, “Come to think of it, I never see any books in this house at all except the Bible and Omar Khayyám on the table in the parlor. But then, every house in America has those side by side. A funny juxtaposition. I wonder they don’t see the humor of it. So you’re really reading Sister Carrie? What’s your opinion of it?”
“I feel sadness and pity. I think it shows that women’s lives can be very, very hard. Unfair and cruel.”
The man considered her a moment before he answered.
“You looked very beautiful just now, saying that.”
At least, Hennie thought that was what he had said, but the rain was still so loud that she was not sure, and so said nothing.
“I’ve just told you, you look very beautiful.”
“Thank you.” To her own ears she sounded shy and uncertain, like an awkward girl receiving a first compliment.
“You shouldn’t be living in a vacuum,” he told her then. “You’re in life, but you’re not of it, and it shows.”
She swallowed hard. She wanted to tell him she already knew that and that he should leave her alone, but her words did not come and the quiet, insistent voice went on close to her ear, under the roar of the storm.
“I said before that loneliness is a sickness. But the cure is at hand, you know.”
A terrible crack of thunder shook the earth and sky; the little roof itself shook as though it would cave in. Hennie drew her collar around her ears and closed her eyes, while the crashing reverberated as though the very planet were being riven apart.
Suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders. She felt herself being turned around, and her eyes flew open. He was pulling her to him, so that the length of her body, from shoulder to hip, was held against his, a supple, hard male body. There was a joining, a fitting, familiar and right; astonishing that it should instantly be so! That in a second should come a flash of realization: How she had been missing this, wanting this! How empty, otherwise! She pressed closer. Warm, warm … His mouth held hers; she inhaled from his flesh a fine aroma of cologne and pipe tobacco. For a long, reeling minute—minutes? they stood so.
Then something struck into the core of her brain and she fought loose.
“No—not here!”
“Of course not here. There’s no place. But I can find one tomorrow.”
The thing in her head expanded, quivered, vibrated. It took on a color before her closed eyes: black, the color of fear. Wanting, not wanting, knowing one ought not to want, being afraid of oneself. She found voice, murmuring, “Oh, no! I didn’t mean that—what you’re thinking—”
The man’s light twinkling eyes were amused. “Hennie, save your energy. Don’t try to be indignant because you think it’s expected of you. You know you liked it.”
In the face of that rational calm, indignation would be absurd. Besides, she was not indignant, merely fearful, merely confused.
“But I’m not going to do it,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I really don’t know why,” she answered wonderingly.
“I’ll tell you. A thousand years of morality, that’s why. Jewish morality. Oh, don’t be insulted, I’m not anti-Semitic! It is Jewish morality, though. It started with you people.”
“I can’t help that,” she murmured.
“Or is it that you still feel you ‘belong’ to your husband?”
Now anger did rise. “I don’t want to talk about that. It’s my affair.”
He bowed. “You’re right. And I apologize.”
He flushed and turned his back to look out at the slackening rain. She understood that he was feeling the humiliation of her refusal. And she wondered what he was privately thinking of her: that she was a fool? I would never have suspected this of him, she thought. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would—and yet that was absurd! What kind is a “kind of man”? It occurred to her that even young Leah must know far more about the world than she did.
Thunder, moving away, made a distant rumble and slow drops splashed from the eaves of the gazebo. Only a fine steady rain grayed the air; the storm was over. There was nothing left for them to do but separate as soon as possible.
Thayer said formally, “We can make a run for it if you’re ready. I can give you my jacket to throw over your head.”
“Oh, no, oh, thank you, I’m fine,” she told him, and then, not speaking, they walked back through drenched grass to the house.
Stretched in the high white tub, Hennie rested, while a faint steam rose from the hot water, filling the bathroom with the scent of Emily’s geranium bath salts. Under the water, clouded by the salts, her legs rippled, while ten round toe-tops protruded darkly pink from the heat. Her belly was flat, unlike the soft jelly flesh of a woman who has had many children. Her breasts were high, not pulled toward the navel like the breasts of a woman who has nursed many children. Her body was still young, which was a sort of compens
ation … but its youthfulness was wasted.
After a while she climbed out and began to dress for dinner. The last time she had stood before the tall glass in this room, she had watched Dan struggle with his collar studs and heard him grumble about the idiocy of getting all dressed up just to eat. It crossed her mind, as she examined herself, that it would be a fine thing if he could know what had just happened to her this afternoon.
So that’s the way it went! It was that easy. There it was; you didn’t have to reach out to a man—if you were attractive, that is.
You’re a lovely woman, he had said, or something like that. Oh, he might well have been just playing the game, probably was used to playing it, but he wouldn’t have chosen her to play it with if she hadn’t appealed to him! She examined herself more closely in the glass. Definitely, she was looking better, far better than she had for a long time. Maybe it was because of these few days of sunshine, or country milk or—or something. Or could it be only because of what had happened this afternoon that her eyes were so clear? The whites were almost blue and the irises were almost golden.
Your leaf-shaped eyes, Dan used to say. Like autumn leaves. Damn what Dan said! She could see for herself. But it was really irritating that he couldn’t know she could do exactly what he could, if she wanted to.
Why hadn’t she wanted to? A thousand years of morality, he’d said. She laughed. More like five thousand, Thayer. Was that the reason? Maybe. Part of it, anyway. And the other part? Oh, damn the other part …
Afterward, she remembered every smallest detail of that evening. The mushroom soup had been too thick; the asparagus, of which Alfie was so proud, had been perfect, as were his further pride, his everbearing strawberries. The new wallpaper in the dining room was royal blue, overlaid with medallions and arabesques; she would remember thinking that Leah, who knew about Syrie Maugham and the vogue for clear white, must be disapproving of it.
After dinner, as usual, the scatter rugs in the parlor were rolled away, for Alfie and Emily, who took lessons in ballroom dancing, liked to practice. Meg kept the Victrola wound.
In her awakened mood, Hennie was almost exhilarated. She watched Alfie and Emily’s complicated maxixe, then Ben and Leah’s jiggling turkey trot. Sharply observant, as if she had all of a sudden begun really to see other people again, she noticed that young Ben was especially clean and scrubbed; when he laughed, he showed clean handsome teeth. She decided definitely that she liked him.
Thayer Hughes had sat down with Angelique on a small sofa at the farthest end of the room, making it clear that he did not intend to dance, and clear, too, that he intended now to keep away from Hennie. One long leg was gracefully draped across the other as he leaned, inclining his elegant head toward her mother. Angelique would be overwhelmed by this attention. She wouldn’t discern the man’s dry irony and secret scorn, the scorn that implied that nothing mattered.
Yet his sensual touch had been a delight: locked, warm and curved—she could feel it still. Strange, because she knew now she didn’t like him. Yet she owed him something.
Alfie and Emily were dipping and swaying in expert style. Emily’s expression was calm; did she—and her cousin Thayer—just not believe in showing emotion, or was it not in them at all? On the other hand, Alfie sweated and beamed as he threw himself into the dance. He worked every minute of his life, worked even at having a good time. He wanted all the people around him to have a good time, too, and to like him for making them have it. Still, one felt good watching him. Even Angelique was unconsciously tapping her feet.
The music stopped, and Meg, serious about her job, went through the pile of records.
“How about a tango this time?”
“Make it a plain fox-trot,” Alfie told her. “I want to dance with Aunt Hennie and unless I’m mistaken, she doesn’t know how to tango.”
“You’re not mistaken,” Hennie said.
“Well, are you having a good time?” he demanded, and before she could answer, assured her that she must be, because she was looking more like herself.
“Like that painting over the sofa? It’s new. A Braque. Paul told me to buy his stuff.”
Hennie considered. “I’m not a judge of art, but it’s interesting.”
“Well, I don’t like it at all and neither does Emily, but he’s already famous and it’s a good investment. I’ll tell you something, Hennie. I wouldn’t say this to anybody else, but I’m making money hand over fist with Dan’s little tube. The company can’t fill the orders fast enough.”
“War money, Alfie.”
“Okay, but do you know how many German subs have gone to the bottom because of those radio locators?”
Men gasped, gurgled, suffocated, screamed in horror. The thing exploded, the waves closed over, it plunged down into darkness: How far? Two miles down under the sea? Hennie shuddered.
“I know what you’re thinking. But it’s dog eat dog. Their men’s lives, or ours.”
“It should be no men’s lives.”
“Yes, when men grow wings. All right, I won’t talk about it. What do you think of that fellow Ben?”
“He’s pleasant. Honest, too, I would say.”
“Turns out his younger brother was at Yale with Freddy. He remembers Freddy, met him a couple of times with his brother. He’s smart as they come, he’ll do well. I enjoy being with him. Pity I can’t introduce him everywhere, though. He’s a bit too Jewish, doesn’t fit in with certain people, if you know what I mean.”
Anger tightened Hennie’s throat. She said carefully, “I’m not sure I do.”
“Of course you do! A little loud, a little forward, wears flamboyant ties—”
By their neckties shall ye know them, she thought, not knowing whether to feel more sorry for Ben Marcus or for Alfie.
“For instance, he’s not the type who’d be accepted at the country club.”
“You don’t belong to it, either.”
“I’ll get in soon. I’ve friends who are pushing for me. Prejudice dies hard, but with Emily being my wife—” Alfie did not finish.
Nor did Hennie make protest, since protest would accomplish nothing. But to think that he would tolerate membership among people who didn’t want him, let alone seek it!
Then she remembered Freddy’s love affair with British aristocracy. Was that the same damaged ego of the outsider, longing to be in? She thought not: Freddy was too loyal a Jew for that. For him, it had more likely been a question of aesthetics, admiration for British refinement.
Strange that she had been thinking of Freddy at the very instant when the telephone rang.… Alfie picked up the receiver. Looking surprised, he turned to the room to say, “It’s Dan.”
For a few minutes he listened. Meg shut off the Victrola and everyone waited. Hennie’s mouth went dry and her palms went wet. All the jollity seeped out of Alfie’s face, like water disappearing down the drain.
“Legs?” they heard him say. “Yes. Well, I’ll drive them back, first thing in the morning. There’s nothing one can do tonight.”
When he hung up, he spoke softly, looking from Hennie to Leah. “Freddy’s been hurt. His leg. Or legs, maybe.”
Leah’s hand flew to cover her mouth. And Hennie steadied her voice, but it came out like a croak.
“How bad?”
“I don’t know,” Alfie replied.
He does know, Hennie thought, and can’t bear to tell us. He does know.
5
There was nothing to say. On slat benches, they made a semicircle around Freddy in the wheelchair; Dan, Leah, Angelique, and Hennie, with strained false cheer all vied to talk to him—or, rather, at him—while trying not to see him.
Eyes wandered to the dazzling sky, the gloomy ivy on the walls, the hale young nurses walking briskly between the buildings or pushing young men in wheelchairs—anywhere but to Freddy.
“Why didn’t you bring Hank today?” he demanded.
Leah bit her lower lip between her two slightly prominent upper teeth; she ha
d developed the habit just since Freddy had come back.
“We thought perhaps he bothered you the last time. It’s a long ride from New York and he’s so cranky when he misses his nap.”
“How can you think he bothers me? Bring him!” Freddy said angrily.
Early fall winds, blowing from the north, had scattered a few rusty leaves on the lawn. In deference to the chill, a nurse had brought a blanket to cover what remained of Freddy’s lower half, but the government-issue wool, thick olive brown, might as well have been transparent, so clearly could one imagine the stumps.
“Obscene!” Freddy cried abruptly, bewildering them all before they could comprehend.
On the far side of the enormous quadrangle, two teams in wheelchairs were playing some sort of ball game.
“They keep trying to make me play, but I absolutely refuse. I was no athlete when I had my legs, so why should I be one now?”
There was no answer to that. And Freddy resumed, “Did you know I had a letter from Aunt Florence and Uncle Walter? They’re coming to visit me. I guess it takes something like this to bring people together. It’s rotten that grown people should behave like enemies over nothing. Nothing that matters a good God damn in the end.”
Dan was staring straight ahead across the lawn. His lower lids were puffy, as though he hadn’t slept. Well, of course he hadn’t; who could? His jaw was dark. He hasn’t shaved since yesterday, Hennie thought.
They hadn’t spoken to each other during any of these visits; Leah and Angelique were buffers. She resented having to make the visits with Dan, but it couldn’t be helped.
The rancor still burned, gnawing within her like an ulcer. An ulcer, however, with proper diet or surgery, could be cured; but where were the surgeons or diet to cure Hennie’s burning?
One might think that, in the face of this new, far greater anguish, that other would be forgotten. On the contrary: It loomed larger. For what would it do to Freddy when he found out that they had parted?
Hennie felt tears gathering again, and, swallowing hard to stifle them, said, “Uncle Alfie said be sure and tell you they’re expecting you in the country as soon as you—get better.”