Ida a Novel

  This made Ida think about talking.

  She commenced to talk. She liked to see people eat, in restaurants and wherever they eat, and she liked to talk. You can always talk with army officers. She did.

  Army officers do not wear their uniforms in the cities, soldiers do but officers do not. This makes conversation with them easier and more difficult.

  If an officer met Ida he said, how do you do and she answered very well I thank you. They were as polite as that.

  He said to her. Thank you for answering me so pleasingly, and she said. You are very welcome.

  The officer would then go on conversing.

  What is it that you like better than anything else, he asked and she said. I like being where I am. Oh said he excitedly, and where are you. I am not here, she said, I am very careful about that. No I am not here, she said, it is very pleasant, she added and she turned slightly away, very pleasant indeed not to be here.

  The officer smiled. I know he said I know what you mean. Winnie is your name and that is what you mean by your not being here.

  She suddenly felt very faint. Her name was not Winnie it was Ida, there was no Winnie. She turned toward the officer and she said to him. I am afraid very much afraid that you are mistaken. And she went away very slowly. The officer looked after her but he did not follow her. Nobody could know in looking at him that he was an officer because he did not wear a uniform and he did not know whether she knew it or not.

  Perhaps she did and perhaps she did not.

  Every day after that Ida talked to some officer.

  If I am an officer, said an officer to Ida, and I am an officer. I am an officer and I give orders. Would you, he said looking at Ida. Would you like to see me giving orders. Ida looked at him and did not answer. If I were to give orders and everybody obeyed me and they do, said the officer, would that impress you. Ida looked at him, she looked at him and the officer felt that she must like him, otherwise she would not look at him and so he said to her, you do like me or else you would not look at me. But Ida sighed. She said, yes and no. You see, said Ida, I do look at you but that is not enough. I look at you and you look at me but we neither of us say more than how do you do and very well I thank you, if we do then there is always the question. What is your name. And really, said Ida, if I knew your name I would not be interested in you, no, I would not, and if I do not know your name I could not be interested, certainly I could not. Good-bye, said Ida, and she went away.

  Ida not only said good-bye but she went away to live somewhere else.

  Once upon a time way back there were always gates, gates that opened so that you could go in and then little by little there were no fences no walls anywhere. For a little time they had a gate even when there was no fence. It was there just to look elegant and it was nice to have a gate that would click even if there was no fence. By and by there was no gate.

  Ida when she had a dog had often stood by a gate and she would hold the dog by the hand and in this way they would stand.

  But that was long ago and Ida did not think of anything except now. Why indeed was she always alone if there could be anything to remember. Why indeed.

  And so nothing happened to her yet. Not yet.

  One day Ida saw a moth that was flying and it worried her. It was one of the very few things that ever worried Ida. She said to an officer. This was another officer. There is an army and there is a navy and there are always lots of officers. Ida said to this one. When you put your uniform away for the summer you are afraid of moths. Yes said the officer. I understand that, said Ida, and she slowly drifted away, very thoughtfully, because she knew of this. Alone and she was alone and she was afraid of moths and of mothballs. The two go together.

  Ida rarely coughed. She had that kind of health.

  In New England there are six states, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

  Ida turned up in Connecticut. She was living there quite naturally, quietly living there. She had a friend who was tall and thin and her eyes were gray and her hair was messed and she dressed in black and she was thin and her legs were long and she wore a large hat. She did not mind the sun but she did wear a wide-brimmed hat. Yes she did. She was like that. Yes she was.

  This friend did not interest Ida. She saw her, yes, but she did not interest her.

  Except this one woman nobody knew Ida in Connecticut. For a while she did not talk to anybody there. She spent the day sitting and then that was a day. On that day she heard somebody say something. They said who is Winnie. The next day Ida left Connecticut.

  She began to think about what would happen if she were married.

  As she was leaving Connecticut she began to listen to a man. He was an officer in the army. His name was Sam Hamlin. He was a lively Sam Hamlin. He said if he had a wife he could divorce her. He came originally from Connecticut and he was still in Connecticut. He said the only way to leave Connecticut was to go out of it. But he never would. If he had left Connecticut he might have gotten to Washington, perhaps to Utah and Idaho, and if he had he might have gotten lost. That is the way he felt about Connecticut.

  Little by little very little by little he said it all to Ida. He said I know, and he said when I say I know I mean it is just like that. I like, he said to Ida, I like everything I say to be said out loud.

  He said I know. He said I know you, and he not only said it to Ida but he said it to everybody, he knew Ida he said hell yes he knew Ida. He said one day to Ida it is so sweet to have soft music it is so sweet.

  He told her how once upon a time he had been married and he said to her. Now listen. Once upon a time I was married, by the time you came to Connecticut I wasn’t. Now you say you are leaving Connecticut. The only way to leave Connecticut is to go out, and I am not going out of Connecticut. Listen to me, he said, I am not going out of Connecticut. I am an officer in the army and of course perhaps they will send me out of Connecticut there is Massachusetts and Rhode Island and New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine but I am going to stay in Connecticut, believe it or not I am.

  Ida left Connecticut and that was the first time Ida thought about getting married and it was the last time anybody said Winnie anywhere near her.

  There was a woman in California her name was Eleanor Angel and she had a property and on that property she found gold and silver and she found platinum and radium. She did not find oil. She wrote to everybody about it and they were all excited, anybody would be, and they did believe it, and they said it was interesting if it was true and they were sure it was true.

  Ida went out to stay with her.

  Ida was never discouraged and she was always going out walking.

  As she walked along, she thought about men and she thought about presidents. She thought about how some men are more presidents than other men when they happen to be born that way and she said to herself. Which one is mine. She knew that there must be one that could be hers one who would be a president. And so she sat down and was very satisfied to do nothing.

  Sit down, somebody said to her, and she sat.

  Well it was not that one. He sat too and then that was that.

  Ida always looked again to see if it was that one or another one, the one she had seen or not, and sometimes it was not.

  Then she would sit down not exactly to cry and not exactly to sit down but she did sit down and she felt very funny, she felt as if it was all being something and that was what always led her on.

  Ida saw herself come, then she saw a man come, then she saw a man go away, then she saw herself go away.

  And all the time well all the time she said something, she said nice little things, she said all right, she said I do.

  Was she on a train or an automobile, an airplane or just walking.

  Which was it.

  Well she was on any of them and everywhere she was just talking. She was saying, yes yes I like to be sitting. Yes I like to be moving. Yes I have been here before. Yes it is very pleasant here. Yes I
will come here again. Yes I do wish to have them meet, I meet them and they meet me and it is very nice.

  Ida never sighed, she just rested. When she rested she turned a little and she said, yes dear. She said that very pleasantly.

  This was all of Ida’s life just then.

  She said. I do not like birds.

  She liked mechanical birds but not natural birds. Natural birds always sang.

  She sat with her friend and they talked together. Ida said, I am never tired and I am never very fresh. I change all the time. I say to myself, Ida, and that startles me and then I sit still.

  Her friend said, I will come again.

  Do said Ida.

  It was very quiet all day long but Ida was ready for that.

  Ida married Frank Arthur.

  Arthur had been born right in the middle of a big country.

  He knew when he was a tiny boy that the earth was round so it was never a surprise to him. He knew that trees had green leaves and that there was snow when time for snow came and rain when time for rain came. He knew a lot.

  When Arthur was little he knew a handsome boy who had a club-foot and was tall and thin and worked for a farmer.

  The boy with the club-foot rode a bicycle and he would stand and lean on his bicycle and tell Arthur everything.

  He told him all about dogs.

  He told him how a little dog, once he had found out about it, would just go on making love to anything, the hind leg of a big dog, a leg of a table, anything, he told him how a young hunting dog’s voice changed, it cracked just like boys’ voices did and then it went up and down and then finally it settled down. He told him about shepherds’ dogs, how shepherds only could work their dogs eight years that when the dog was nine years old the shepherd had to hang him, that often the shepherd was awfully sad and cried like anything when he had to hang his dog to kill him but he could not keep him after the dog was eight years old, they did not really care anything for sheep after that and how could you feed a dog if he did not care about sheep any more and so the shepherds sometimes cried a lot but when the dog was eight years old they did hang him. Then he told Arthur about another dog and a girl. She always used to give that dog a lump of sugar whenever she saw him. She was a girl in a store where they sold sugar, and then one day she saw the man come in who had the dog, and when he came she said where is the dog and he said the dog is dead. She had the piece of sugar in her hand and when he said that she put the piece of sugar in her mouth and ate it and then she burst out crying.7

  He told Arthur about sheep, he told him that sheep were curious about everything but mostly about dogs, they always were looking for a dog who looked like a sheep and sometimes they found one and when they did they the young ones the baby sheep were pleased, but the older ones were frightened, as soon as they saw a dog who really looked like a sheep, and they ran at him and tried to butt him.

  He also told Arthur about cows, he said cows were not always willing, he said some cows hated everything. He also told him about bulls. He said bulls were not very interesting.

  He used to stand, the boy with a club-foot, leaning on his bicycle and telling Arthur everything.

  When Arthur was a little bigger he came to know a man, not a tall man. He was a fairly little man and he was a good climber. He could climb not only in and out of a window but out of the top of a door if the door was closed. He was very remarkable. Arthur asked him and he then heard him say that he never thought about anything else than climbing. Why should he when he could climb anything.

  Arthur was not very good at climbing. All he could do was to listen to the little man. He told about how he climbed to the top of a gate, to the top of a door, to the top of a pole. The little man’s name was Bernard. He said it was the same name as that of a saint. Then well naturally then he went away. He finally did go away alone.

  Arthur was almost old enough to go away. Pretty soon he did go away.

  He tried several ways of going away and finally he went away on a boat and got shipwrecked and had his ear frozen.

  He liked that so much that he tried to get shipwrecked again but he never did. He tried it again and again, he tried it on every kind of boat but they never were wrecked again. Finally he said, Once and not again.

  He did lots of things before he went back to the middle of the big country where he had been born.

  Finally he became an officer in the army and he married Ida but before that he lived around.

  One of the things he did was to sleep in a bed under a bridge. The bed was made of cardboard. He was not the first to make it. Somebody else made it but when Arthur had no place to go because he had used up all his money he used to go to sleep there. Some one always was asleep there. Day and night there was always somebody sleeping there. Arthur was one who when he woke up shaved and washed himself in the river, he always carried the things with him.

  It was a nice time then. Instead of working or having his money Arthur just listened to anybody. It made him sleepy and he was never more than half awake and in his sleep he had a way of talking about sugar and cooking. He also used to talk about medicine glasses.

  Arthur never fished in a river. He had slept too often under a bridge to care anything about going fishing. One evening he met a man who had been fishing. They talked a little and the man said that he was not much good at fishing, he saw the fish but he never could catch them. Finally he said to Arthur, do you know who I am. No said Arthur. Well said the man taking off his hat, I am chief of police. Well why can’t you catch fish, said Arthur. Well I caught a trout the other day and he got away from me. Why didn’t you take his number said Arthur. Because fish can’t talk was the answer.

  Arthur often wished on a star, he said star bright, star light, I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.

  The wish was that he would be a king or rich.

  There is no reason why a king should be rich or a rich man should be a king, no reason at all.

  Arthur had not yet come to decide which one was the one for him. It was easy enough to be either the one or the other one. He just had to make up his mind, be rich or be a king and then it would just happen. Arthur knew that much.

  Well anyway he went back to where he came from, he was in the middle of his country which was a big one and he commenced to cry. He was so nervous when he found himself crying that he lay full length on the ground turned on his stomach and dug his palms into the ground.

  He decided to enter the army and he became an officer and some few years after he met Ida.

  He met her on the road one day and he began to walk next to her and they managed to make their feet keep step. It was just like a walking marathon.

  He began to talk. He said. All the world is crying crying about it all. They all want a king.

  She looked at him and then she did not. Everybody might want a king but anybody did not want a queen.

  It looks, said Arthur, as if it was sudden but really it took me some time, some months even a couple of years, to understand how everybody wants a king.

  He said. Do you know the last time I was anywhere I was with my mother and everybody was good enough to tell me to come again. That was all long ago. Everybody was crying because I went away, but I was not crying. That is what makes anybody a king that everybody cries but he does not.

  Philip was the kind that said everything out loud.8

  I knew her, he said and he said he knew Ida, hell he said, yes I know Ida. He said it to every one, he said it to her. He said he knew her.

  Ida never saw Arthur again.

  She just did not.

  She went somewhere and there she just sat, she did not even have a dog, she did not have a town, she lived alone and just sat.

  She went out once in a while, she listened to anybody talking about how they were waiting for a fall in prices.

  She saw a sign up that said please pay the unemployed and a lot of people were gathered around and were looking.

  It did not interest
her. She was not unemployed. She just sat and she always had enough. Anybody could.

  Somebody came and asked her where Arthur was. She said, Arthur was gone.

  Pretty soon she was gone and when she was gone nobody knew what to say.

  They did not know she was gone but she was.

  They wanted to read about her but as there was nothing written about her they could not read about her. So they just waited.

  Ida went to live with a cousin of her uncle.

  He was an old man and he could gild picture frames so that they looked as if they had always had gold on them. He was a good man that old man and he had a son, he sometimes thought that he had two sons but anyway he had one and that one had a garage and he made a lot of money. He had a partner and they stole from one another. One day the son of the old man was so angry because the partner was most successful in getting the most that he up and shot him. They arrested him. They put him in jail. They condemned him to twenty years hard labor because the partner whom he had killed had a wife and three children. The man who killed the other one had no children that is to say his wife had one but it was not his. Anyway there it was. His mother spent all her time in church praying that her son’s soul should be saved. The wife of their doctor said it was all the father and mother’s fault, they had brought up their son always to think of money, always of money, had not they the old man and his wife got the cousin of the doctor’s wife always to give them presents of course they had.

  Ida did not stay there very long. She went to live with the cousin of the doctor’s wife and there she walked every day and had her dog. The name of this dog was Claudine. Ida did not keep her. She gave her away.

  She began to say to herself Ida dear Ida do you want to have two sisters or do you want to be one.

  There were five sisters once and Ida might have been one.

  Anybody likes to know about then and now, Ida was one and it is easy to have one sister and be a twin too and be a triplet three and be a quartet and four and be a quintuplet it is easy to have four but that just about does shut the door.

  Ida began to be known.