The Sight of the Stars

  Chapter 20

  Adam stood looking down at the bassinet. This birth was different. He could not express in any way that would not sound foolish to modern ears how the female-ness of this little person affected him.

  “So fragile,” he murmured. “I’m almost afraid to touch her.”

  Emma was laughing at him. “No more fragile than the others.”

  “They’re boys, and a girl is more vulnerable.”

  “Aren’t you straight out of the year one! Except for a few muscles, she will be as ready as any man to face life.”

  Let her believe so. She wouldn’t be so complacent if what he still thought of as “zero hour” with that other woman had ended differently. Even now when he passed Blanche occasionally on his way to his office, he felt a jolt. God only knew what she would say to Emma if she should ever have a change of heart. But she had kept her word . . . so far.

  “Are you sure you haven’t changed your mind about the name?” he asked.

  “No. Unless they’re really awful, I think names should be kept in a family. Eileen is rather nice, and it was your mother’s name.”

  Not many women would be giving that honor to a person she had never known.

  “I want to tell you something,” he said, “only I don’t really know how to say it properly. Words can’t—” and Adam made a small, helpless gesture.

  “Well, try.”

  “I love you, Emma. I love you. That’s all I can say.”

  That was the summer when they found a nurse who would come for a few weeks to care for Eileen while the rest of the family took the long-promised trip to the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. Business, moves, deaths, and births had filled the years since the October wedding that sometimes seemed to have happened only yesterday. So, after kissing Eileen’s bald head, waving good-bye to Rudy and Rea, and climbing into a station wagon loaded with snack food, cameras, swimsuits, sweaters, umbrellas, and everything else they could think of, they headed west.

  Even with three noisy boys in the back of the car, this was a reminder of their honeymoon. The mountain roads, the log cabins where they had slept, and the fragrance of pines were still there.

  “I need to remember everything so I can tell what I did for my summer vacation,” James said. “You’re supposed to do that when school starts again. I’m going to put some words down to remind me. How do you spell ‘Indians’?”

  “You read so many of these articles about car trips with bored, whining, fighting kids,” Emma whispered, “that you almost dread to try it. But these three have been angels.”

  “Angels? Hardly,” Adam said, remembering the uproar when James had put two beetles in Jon’s bed. “But they are very interested in everything. They’re lucky, and we’re lucky.”

  Returning was, in its way, as exciting as departing had been. As was their tradition, they stopped the car on the crest of the hill.

  “Look, boys,” Emma cried. “There’s home! And what on earth is that thing on the lawn?”

  “The baby carriage!”

  “Rudy and Rea and the lady with the carriage!”

  “Can Eileen talk yet?” Andy asked.

  “Dope!” James said. “She just got born.”

  “Well, how long does it take to talk?”

  “In about a year and a half she’ll start to say something,” Emma explained. “It takes time.”

  “What do you think she’ll say, Mom?”

  “Well, maybe she’ll say she’s very happy and very lucky to be in this family.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because we are all together and we all love each other.”

  One quiet Sunday afternoon, many months later, when Adam was working at his desk in the home office, Rudy came to announce that some people were at the door asking to see Mr. Simon Arnring.

  “Did you tell them that he—”

  “Yes. It’s a man and his wife. They want to see some other member of the family. He knew your brother Jonathan, he says. They were in the army. In the war.”

  More useless pain, thought Adam, or else maybe it will be one of those semihumorous, loving anecdotes and reminiscences told by relatives and friends at funerals in order to put a more cheerful face on death. But he went to the front door, greeted the couple, and invited them to come in.

  They looked like country folks, the man in his best suit, while his wife was no doubt unaware that she had left a roller in the hair at the back of her neck.

  “Steve Woods is the name, and this is my wife, Margie. Gee, I feel funny, barging in on you like this, Mr. Arnring. But Margie here kept after me to do it. Sorry to know you’ve lost your father.”

  “Yes, I’m the one who made Steve come,” the little woman said nervously. “We moved last month, and we had all this stuff in the attic, stuff we hadn’t looked at since Steve came back from France twelve years ago. You know how it is, how things pile up and you never open some boxes and bags for such a long time that you forget you have them. But when I saw this, I thought right away—”

  “Get to the point, Margie! I looked up Simon Arnring again and got this address from the post office. I guess you folks got all the stuff the army sent, all the things from the war.”

  “Yes, we got them.”

  The package that Pa had left was still in the attic. Would he ever forget it? There was the watch, the graduation present, the leather folder with the family snapshots taken by their neighbor with the old Brownie camera, and then the photo of Blanche, with her curved lips and her cheekbones that reminded him of exotic Asia. Now no doubt these people had some more photos to show, maybe of Jonathan himself in a group of grinning soldiers, perhaps to show the folks at home that things were not so bad: Don’t worry, we’re winning the war, I’ll be home soon—

  “Well, I knew I had this thing in my pocket that I took from him when—when they brought him in. And Margie says, I guess she’s right, I ought to give it to you. The thing’s been bothering me, although I’m still not sure what good it will do for you to have it, except that it sure doesn’t belong to me, either, does it? We live only one hundred seventy-five miles north of here, so we thought we might as well take a weekend instead of putting it in the mail because you might want to ask some questions, although there’s not much I could tell you. It’s a short story.”

  Having delivered this explanation, Steve Woods handed over to Adam some creased, folded sheets of paper that had once been crisp and pale blue.

  Dear Jonathan,

  I hope this finds you safe and well. It’s awful to see that the war is still going on, but with 1917 half over, we have been reading lately that they believe it will be won by Christmas. I hope for the whole world’s sake that that is so and that you will be home to start medical school and be on your way.

  I have been thinking a great deal about what an unusual person you are. So many people seem to choose a profession in a halfhearted way, for the reason that they see somebody else who has made a lot of money in that profession, or because they have a relative who recommends it, or because it seems prestigious. Only now and then do you see a man who is really born to be a teacher or a lawyer or a doctor, or any particular thing. Well, you were born to be a doctor, that’s sure. Not only do you have the intellect for it, but you have the understanding of it. Forgive me for mentioning this, but I have to tell you how I admire your patience and your forbearance with your so difficult brother, Leo. Having seen that, I am less upset about what I have to say next.

  Perhaps it is a good thing that you and I were forced by this war to be separated. It has given us time to think, with much of that time apart while you were in college. When you are in medical school, there will be what amounts to four or more years of separation because, though we would be living under the same roof, you will be spending almost all your working hours at school or in the hospital. So when you are finally finished, we would still not have had a chance to find out who we really are. That would certainly not be fair to either of us, and so, not the rig
ht way to be really married.

  I am not, I swear to you, thinking only selfishly of myself. I am thinking more about you, Jonathan, because you owe more to yourself than a risky, halfway marriage. If I did not love you, I would go ahead, marry you and let you take your chances. But you deserve better. I want you to enjoy your training with a free mind, get your medical degree, and then find somebody whom you’ll have time to know well before you make a final decision about love and marriage.

  I do this for your good, and in sorrow. But I know, because you are the man you are, that you will understand and will be much happier in the end. Much love,

  Blanche

  Adam laid the letter on the arm of his chair and looked at the two people who, with curious yet troubled eyes, were watching him. Then he took up the letter and read it again.

  When he had finished it, with his voice sounding strange to his own ears, he asked, “So what else? What else?”

  It seemed to him that they had something more to say. When he had cleared his throat a few times, Steve Woods made a gesture with his right arm to indicate height and explained, “The top of a trench is way taller than a man’s head. Well, naturally, it has to be. A kind of ladder is there so you can go over the top. Geez, it’s years ago, and I still get the shakes thinking about it. We were only a couple of hundred yards from the Krauts’ trenches, and we were all waiting for the next barrage and wondering who’s making the next attack. Our turn, or theirs? It’s so quiet, just waiting.

  “Geez, I can’t think of it even now . . . Your brother read the letter, and read it again, just the way you did just now, and then, before any of us guys could stop him or even notice what he was doing, I guess, he started to race up the ladder. When we saw, we yelled like hell, and a couple of us started up to pull him down, but it was too late. His head was already above ground level, and he was waving his arms toward the enemy. He wanted them to see him. And he was yelling, ‘Come get me.’ Well, you’ve seen pictures and you probably have an idea—except that unless you’ve been there—” Woods finished with a shake of his head.

  “He wanted to die,” Adam said, still in that queer-sounding voice.

  Eight million men died in that war. Could any of those have wanted to die?

  “Yeah, he did. He wanted to die. And for a woman. Can you beat it? Can you beat it?”

  “Poor boy,” murmured Margie. “I hope—oh, Mr. Arnring, did we do something awful coming here with this letter?”

  She was so fearfully anxious that Adam said quickly, “No, you did the absolutely right thing. The truth is the truth.”

  Thank God that Pa left us before he could know this! He never had had a clear road to travel with any one of his three sons, had he? Me and my little-girl mother, then poor, pitiful Leo, and now this cruel, wasteful, stupid death. If he had at least died fighting in the good cause! But this, this . . .

  “The bitch. The bitch.”

  Outdoors on the lawn, the two bigger boys were playing ball. Their voices, still soprano, faded off down the hill, while the little brother was most likely trailing after them and getting in their way.

  Three great sycamores and oaks give shade. Out of a placid sky the sun shines on their innocence. And Jonathan, who so loved life and who had so much to give, has missed it all.

  The bitch. The bitch.

  Steve Woods broke the stillness in the room.

  “I never knew till I read this letter that he was going to be a doctor. Come to think of it, he never did talk much about himself. Worked in his dad’s store, he said. He was a nice, all-around guy. He was the kindest guy. I remember how when one of the guys was wounded, he picked him up and carried him and talked to him. We were a mixed bunch when this happened. Farmhands from way down south, a schoolteacher, a couple of stuffed shirts, and some quiet ones. Some of the guys liked to argue a lot. You know how it is. But he never did, I remember. He only liked to listen. He got along with everybody. Afterward they said it couldn’t have been just the letter. He must have lost his marbles.”

  In that one minute, he did lose them.

  “Geez, over a woman.”

  “It happens.”

  In the hallway, the screen door banged and three pairs of feet raced up the stairs. But two dogs, catching sight of the strangers with Adam, came flying into the room to investigate.

  “Good-looking pups. Some kind of hunters?” asked Woods.

  “No, they’re poodles. The big one, the black one, is a standard. His name is Buster. And the little one, Billy, is my wife’s favorite.”

  “We have a couple of ’coon hounds home. Wouldn’t be home without dogs, would it?”

  Mrs. Woods remarked, as she stroked Billy under the chin, “They’re all the same. They just stand there as long as you’ll keep doing this under the chin. They love it.”

  Adam went suddenly all soft inside with the choking that is so close to tears. The goodness, the simple, honest goodness in simple people! In some of them, anyway.

  “My wife’s upstairs with the baby,” he said. “But she’ll be down in a minute. We’d like to have you stay for some supper with us.”

  But the Woodses were already standing. “No, no, thanks, we’ve got a long ride and want to get home before dark.”

  “You’re sure? You’re very welcome. You’ve been so kind, going to this trouble. I can’t tell you how I appreciate it.”

  They had seen his struggle. He had shed no tears, but they had understood. At the door as the three shook hands, Woods said, “Just need to tell you one thing more. He didn’t feel any pain. It was over in a second.”

  Adam watched them go down the driveway and into their car. They waved, he waved back, and then he turned, went to the foot of the stairs, and called out.

  “Emma? I forgot some papers in the office downtown. I won’t be long.”

  The Packard roadster, a luxurious present for this year’s anniversary, a happy toy for two, raced along the road. It roared down the hill, past Sabine’s old mansion where, under a tree, a child in a wheelchair was reading a book. It skimmed down the street where Cace Arnring, in the silence of Sunday, presented its dignified face.

  Almost blind with rage and barely enough in control of himself or of the car to know how sick he was, Adam finally slowed it enough to prevent a crash, and then stopped along the curb to collect himself and go on.

  Some minutes later, he entered the farther suburb of Chattahoochee. And passing through the street where Leo lived, he wondered for an instant how that troubled soul would react to this awful news. For an instant, too, but only for an instant, he wondered what might be the purpose of this undertaking, or even the wisdom of it, given the circumstances. She had committed a crime, but how to punish her? Then he saw the picture that Woods had painted, or had mercifully not painted: Jonathan had been shot in the face.

  The bitch. The bitch.

  Then he stopped in front of the apartment house where Blanche lived. He had forgotten—had wanted to forget—the number of her apartment, so he had to read the list in the lobby. Second floor. Ah, yes, down the hall on the right-hand side. He pressed the bell.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Adam. I need to see you.”

  She opened the door. The foyer was papered in rose-colored toile with bucolic scenes, a castle on a hill. She was wearing a robe, chiffon lamé, pale yellow, not new; had she worn it that night in New York?

  “You killed my brother,” he said.

  “What are you talking about? Is this a joke?”

  “I am not joking. Do you hear me? I am not joking. You killed my brother.”

  “Stop it. You come here on a Sunday afternoon with this nonsense and bother me, when I’m getting ready to go out. What are you doing?”

  “You killed my brother,” he repeated.

  “How many times are you going to say it? Listen, Adam, I want you out of here—no, don’t come in! Get out! You’re crazy.”

  “You weren’t even worth his little fingernail, do
you know that?”

  She laughed. “I do hope you don’t mean Leo, the crazy one,” she retorted.

  “I mean the other one, the kind and patient one, who would never have allowed you to use these words about Leo. I mean my brother Jonathan, whom you loved so little that you sent him to his death.”

  Blanche stared at him. “I do believe you are serious about this. Are you feeling all right, Adam?”

  “My head is functioning, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more. Look, I’m being called for at five. I have an engagement for dinner at the Hotel Empire, and I have to do my hair. That’s my dress over there. Whatever nonsense this is, please save it for another time, Adam.”

  Abruptly, the rage departed. The fire went out, and in its place lay a poisonous hatred. This time he spoke quietly.

  “You told him you had changed your mind about him, and so he killed himself. That’s the whole story.” And withdrawing the letter from his pocket, he gave it to her. “Here. Read.”

  Her lips moved, and her eyebrows rose as she read. He could not bear to look at her face, and turning away, found himself staring at the dress that lay on the back of the chair. A few years ago the dresses hung to the knees. They were calf length this season. Blanche was a fashion expert. Imbeciles! Idiots! Spending a lifetime draping their bodies!

  “Whatever did he see in you?” he cried.

  Blanche laid the letter aside and looked up. “The same thing you did,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, Blanche, you and I never loved each other. Never, not for one moment.”

  “Speak for yourself. Read the date on that letter. What is the date of your wedding? Did I know when we met in June 1917 that you were already planning a wedding? We spent a whole day together, and an evening on the beach. You never once mentioned Emma. Even Jon didn’t know.”

  “Jon was going to war. Should I have displayed my own happiness in front of him? Anyway, you didn’t fall in love with me after those few hours. No, you simply got the idea that I was richer than Jon would ever be.”