The Fear Makers, page 10
I ordered two bowls of onion soup, spaghetti Neapolitan, green salad, and coffee for later. The waiter asked if we would have wine. He said the California wine was very good. They had Chilean wine. I was still walking on that broken glass. I was going to tell the waiter we didn’t drink wine until, calmly and casually, Elizabeth asked, “May I have please the California wine, Captain? Never have I tasted it, yet.” Some of the rose petals were getting mixed in with the white almond coloring.
Afterwards she excused herself, saying she must telephone. She disappeared into the phone booth next to the cashier’s counter. I went in the men’s room to wash. When I returned, she was at the table, waiting. She’d done something to her hair, too. It looked softer, the blackness still as intense. She’d used lipstick. I said, “Hey,” and sat down, and looked at her.
I like to see girls eat. Elizabeth beat me. She packed everything away and was ready for a second helping of spaghetti. She smiled. “You see? Did I not tell you? I shall be very fat when I am a few years older. Norman says so.”
I asked if her mother liked to eat.
“Of course.” Her face warmed. “Mother is from Vienna.”
She laughed. She sat across from me and all at once ceased being just someone. That her dark hair was brushed back from a point over the white almond forehead was no longer quite so important.
She became Elizabeth: a special person who enjoyed spaghetti and garlic. That was important. This was my evening. We had three small glasses of wine, each. I know the movies; after the second glass, the guy spills part of the third on the girl’s dress, but all our three glasses did was to ease the tension. We could forget we were in Washington, D. C.
About 1900 hours we finished eating. I helped her with the black coat. She stood in front of the mirror, tying on the white scarf. I won’t say I could look over her head. She wasn’t that small. However, I could look into the mirror and I didn’t have to be standing on my toes. I said this was what I’d been wanting to do for a long time; I’d missed more than I realized.
She turned. She walked to the door. Quickly she said, “Now please, we must go. Thank you very much.”
I asked if she’d talked to her brother when she telephoned.
As I held open the door, she glanced at me. “I told Norman I was delayed. Was it very bad of me?”
I said he’d not like her having dinner with me?
She didn’t answer. Outside, it was raining. She took my arm as we walked toward the parking lot. She asked, “Have you missed so much? Is it so difficult to come home?”
We stopped in front of a little movie, rain wetting us both. The silken scarf clung to her head. I said I supposed her brother would object if we went to a movie?
I don’t know what she saw in my face. All I know*, I didn’t want the evening to end so quickly. Against my arm I could feel the tremble of her fingers. She made her voice steady. “You wish very much?”
I said, yes, very much.
Inside we sat down together in the darkness. Something was up there on the screen. It told the housewives to save fat. It was an O.W.I. release, probably old. I realized probably everything the little movie showed would be second-run.
Music came up; it dropped low. The picture started, the main feature. It was Bob Hope. He and his blonde were being chased by people. Elizabeth laughed and I laughed. It was funny. We laughed more at the quick shot of Bing Crosby, where he gives Bob Hope the cigarette. It was good farce. It was well executed. Only—it unexpectedly caught me. I said it out loud. I said, “Look! It’s Bing Crosby,” as if I wanted to tell the entire theater.
Near us, people glanced around to locate the drunk. The girl with the sailor laughed. I shrank down low. I expected the manager to walk down the aisle. I waited to have the hand placed on my shoulder. I never saw a picture take up so much time.
Afterwards, Elizabeth drove out Rhode Island Avenue. I tried to explain to her about my shout. I said I was certain I’d seen this picture sometime while I’d been in the base hospital in England after being brought back from Normandy. I said all at once I’d remembered seeing it.
She turned left, into North Capitol. I knew I was making it worse, talking about seeing Bob Hope and his blonde and Bing Crosby once before. By the Sibley Memorial Hospital, the red light halted us. Questioningly she glanced at me, as if she wasn’t clear why I was making so much out of it and was still excited.
I said, “After I was clipped on the head I was supposed to have forgotten everything for a few months. Maybe more of my memory is returning.”
It was a relief to find someone I could talk to. It had been in me so long, with so much fear, that just talking about part of it helped. I didn’t give her the details about the old Colonel gent. I didn’t say the old Colonel gent expected me to lose more and more of my memory instead of regaining those months I’d lost…
Seeing the movie gave me hope for the first time. It was having something definite. I couldn’t have seen the movie anywhere else. We didn’t have regular movies in Boston. I was worked up about it; I had to talk about it and try to describe to her how it was to have part of one’s life drop away.
Before I’d finished we came into open Maryland country. We cruised along in wet darkness. She was so silent, I thought this time I’d done it. I’d scared her of me as well. I shouldn’t have tried to explain. We passed the spot where I’d picked up George Goodspeed last night. I wondered if everything was fine with George Goodspeed. Would he eventually manage to learn to write down the music he no longer could extemporaneously play? Was the trouble getting home to be always for him, too?
Unexpectedly, Elizabeth stated, “It is very foolish to worry, you know.”
I said what was foolish?
“Worrying because you have forgotten a few months. It is not important.”
Cautiously, I asked suppose it happened to her? Suppose she thought she might continue to lose more and more of her memory? How would she like that?
From the wheel she removed one hand, momentarily resting it lightly on my arm. She laughed. It wasn’t a big laugh, but it was warming. She said, “Bah! I forget dates. Many things I forget.”
After that, Elizabeth and I—we began talking about the next time. She played into it, too. We pretended there’d be a million more dates together and I told her I bet if she’d let herself go she could be as frivolous as she claimed her mama was.
Suddenly distressed, she replied, “Oh, no.”
I asked if her mama was that frivolous, not suspecting that was the wrong thing for me to say.
Elizabeth said, “My mother married a second time,” and moon burnished a dull, damp streak in the sky. Houses scattered; the woods filed past us. The automobile scurried toward a home that wasn’t mine.
I wanted to know if it was so wrong to marry a second time.
She explained, “After we were in England a few years, my mother married an Englishman.”
I still didn’t get it. I said I didn’t see anything wrong about that or did he beat her, trying to hold it to the light side and failing and not knowing what was wrong and I heard her quick intake of breath. “When Norman escaped from Germany and arrived in England it was very tragic for him. You see—you see, Norman believes in all the traditions as did my father. My father was very serious except for the time when he was visiting professor in Vienna and saw my mother dance. In regard to the traditions of our people, Norman is also most strict. When mother married a man who—was not of our religion.” She halted. Next she said very fast, “For Norman, it was as though mother was dead.”
At first I didn’t understand. Then, she explained a little more. I understood what she said, but I didn’t really understand. I said in his way my old man was a pretty staunch working Baptist but he certainly wouldn’t consider me as dead if I married a Presbyterian or a good Irish Catholic girl or anyone with nice legs and eyes that weren’t crossed. I guess she thought I was knocking Norman for his beliefs. I wasn’t, I was simply mixed up and surprised.
The Ford lights made wet streaks ahead. In the black rain, a deeper night descended. I asked was that why she was worried? Was that why she telephoned Norman to say she was detained at the office instead of telling him she was having dinner and seeing a movie with me? I said that was why we’d have to pretend? There wouldn’t ever really be another .time for us? She wouldn’t wear the sea-green dress for me, with her hair loose down her back, a curl at the end of her hair?
She said, “Captain, please.”
I said, for her, I didn’t want to be a Captain, please. I was Allen. I asked, “Elizabeth. Have I been away so long? Do I come back to find you can’t call me ‘Allen’ because that’s now here, in our country, too? I thought Norman liked me.”
So, the night of this our evening suddenly became restricted. Darkness grew all around. She drove across the Pike. She drove into the alley, behind the Weil house. Through the black rain I saw the lights in the Weil house, and the lights in other houses. Trees tossed empty branches, darkly against dark sky. The Ford clambered into a brick garage, next to a Pontiac. She switched off the headlights, leaving us in obscurity. Regretfully, she said, very low, “For so long you have missed having dinner with a girl. And I have not helped, have I?”
I didn’t do it very well. I hadn’t meant to, at all. When I tried, I was clumsy. Quickly, she turned her head. Her cheek was smooth ice. The Ford door opened for her to escape into the blackness filling the garage.
I’d done everything wrong. I was bitter. I lost time trying to find the cane. I got out and saw her against the lighter blackness of the night, at the entrance. She’d closed one door. She was waiting, holding the other garage door.
We brought it shut, remaining inside, ready to make a run for it through the rain. She let go the door. Pressure of her hands came against my arms. She whispered, “This is for all the girls you have not seen while you were away,” and immediately afterwards, she didn’t pull free.
= 2 =
I struck two matches while she rubbed at her lips. Although she tried to make it light and casual, her voice sounded shaky when she whispered, “Is there no more lipstick? Norman does not approve of me wearing lipstick.”
I lit another match and I was thinking and the match nearly burned my finger and maybe I look peculiar when I am thinking hard, because she asked, “What is it, Allen?”
I didn’t know whether to say it or not. I did. I felt like apologizing to someone. It was necessary. I said at first I’d thought someone in the house where Elizabeth lived had slashed my tire last night. I wanted her to know. I didn’t know who slashed my tire; I knew now no one in that house had done it.
The match went out. I couldn’t see her face. For the second time I asked if she was angry.
“No. I am not angry. It is that I think I understand. It is very unpleasant, Allen. You are not used to such things, you see.”
I said she did know who did it? I wished she’d tell me.
“Perhaps it is the people next door,” she said hesitantly. “It is bad for me to say so.”
I said—why?
“Perhaps they think you are a Jew, too. I do not like to talk about it.”
I said something…
“Please.” Then in the darkness she kissed me again, very quickly. I believe for this one evening she wanted to do something. Perhaps it’s the one thing we have, those of us coming back. If so, I’m rather glad.
We walked through the garden gate. Under the bare apple trees of the garden along the path we walked. Unexpectedly she said, “Good night. Thank you. Possibly, when I become old and fat, I shall not tell my children, after all.”
Then, together, we climbed up the back steps into the warm kitchen, and I was still thinking about those people next door who might have slashed my tire because they thought I was a Jew. That, I didn’t get. Not at all.
Norman was sitting at the white porcelain table, bent over the table, one leg twined around the kitchen chair, like a schoolboy. On his bald head was a black skull cap. He was reading a book, holding a wedge of cherry pie in the free hand. He glanced up and saw us.
Elizabeth stated, “Captain Eaton was detained, also. I brought him home.” She pulled off her wet coat, untied the damp scarf.
In his quiet, cock-eyed way, Norman contemplated me, still holding the pie. He said, “I have been thinking, Captain. In America, at any hour of the day or night I can have pie. It is a phenomenon. It is basic. It is very wonderful. Have you yet eaten, Elizabeth?”
Her pause was barely perceptible. She said, “Captain
Eaton and I stopped on our way for dinner,” and Norman didn’t reply but this time the probe of his green eyes in my direction went deeper.
Aunt Petroushka and her two sisters bustled in. By asking Elizabeth if she’d eaten they didn’t improve the situation, either. All the color was in her face as she attempted to be calm with her answer. Norman didn’t say anything more.
When Dr. Nathan’s gawky length appeared at the door to announce to me the tire had been changed, at least it was an opportunity to move off the subject of why Elizabeth and I had spent money to eat at a restaurant when food was waiting for us here.
Rain was heavier now, wind rising. Dr. Nathan loped along the brick wall to my convertible, telling me about his friend fixing the tire and how he’d called his colleague, Dr. Schofield, to put off the appointment.
Back in the hallway he shook himself like an old bony horse, wiping rain from the yellow face. In answer to my question he said, “It is nothing, blease. Three dollars only. My friend of the garage wished four dollars. Such a brice!” He blew through the stringy mustache, pleased and proud of himself. “I give him three dollars. It is enough, yes.”
I paid him three dollars, thanking him. Now, all I had to do was find how much I owed Mrs. Weil, collect the duffel bag, and drive twenty-eight miles to find a hotel for the night in Baltimore.
Elizabeth drifted in after Aunt Petroushka, holding part of a pie. She smiled. The front hall became crowded. The two sisters were there, the old one and the bashful one who hadn’t learned to speak English because she was too deaf.
Someone was saying I should try a slice of pie, while I was trying to find how much I owed. Aunt Petroushka asked where I was going. I told her my plans had been changed; I was going to Baltimore to obtain a hotel room for tonight. Aunt Petroushka’s cheeks were like small red apples, very shiny. She said, “If you like the front room, Captain? You stay here, please, tonight or as long as you wish. One dollar a night, is that too much?”
It happened like that. Afterwards they gathered in the living room and Elizabeth sang German songs and my headache seemed to lessen. It was easy and restful, sitting here, watching the sisters knit. One of the cats plumped itself on my lap. The illuminated tiger shone on the mantelpiece. Everything was fine. Before I knew it, the clock was close to 2300 hours and I was sleepy.
I had a chance to walk upstairs with Elizabeth. I said suppose I drove her to work tomorrow morning in my car? On the dark stairs, quickly she glanced around. Norman and Dr. Nathan were in the front hall, discussing tonight’s news coming over the radio.
We ascended into the upstairs hall where she said, “I am sorry. Tomorrow Aunt Petroushka goes early to her dress shop. I must go with her in the Pontiac while Norman has his turn with our Ford.”
I said couldn’t she change, just for tomorrow?
At the door to the attic, she paused. In the dimness there wasn’t much to see except the whiteness of her face, and her eyes. “I am sorry. I do not think Norman would like it. You will telephone me before you leave tomorrow?”
I thought a second; I said this wasn’t out of my way for heading west. I’d bring her home. There was another instant before she said, “Please, no. It is best not to. Good night,” and she ran up the attic stairs.
I waited until I heard the third floor door close. Norman and Dr. Nathan had rounded the second floor stairs and entered the second floor hall. Norman saw me at the foot of his sister’s stairs. Very distinctly, for the second time that evening, he said, “Good night, Captain Eaton.” Until I entered my bedroom he remained where he was, by his own door.
It wasn’t until an hour or so later that I became aware of the puppy’s wails. I was lying awake, thinking of tomorrow, thinking of starting west tomorrow evening and driving in the darkness, and I heard the puppy. It was like a child crying, only sharper, higher, more penetrating. The wails came through my partially open window, at irregular intervals.
At times, the silence would last ten or fifteen minutes. I’d be almost asleep, before the noises came again. It sounded as if someone was hurting the puppy, repeatedly beating it.
By and by, when I peered through the window, rain washed my face. I couldn’t see much of the house next door. The anguished wails of the puppy were from some place in the house next door and the house next door was dark, no lights in any of the windows.
When I next switched on the table lamp to glance at my watch it was after 0200 hours in the morning. Finally, I wandered into the hall, wondering if anyone else heard it or if this was only a minor irritation I was building into something important. It could be me.
Light flowed from under Dr. Nathan’s door. The door was partially open and he was stretched on his bed, with most of his clothes attached to him. He didn’t hear me enter. Two elephants could have tried to crowd in and he wouldn’t have heard. The wine bottle on the table was nearly empty. I picked his spectacles off the bed, where they’d dropped, placed them on the table, pulled the quilt over the long, loose-jointed frame, switched off the light. I wished I’d realized how lonesome he was; I’d have stopped in earlier for a drink.
As I stepped in the hall I noticed a light seeping from under Norman’s door. Norman said to come in. He was in bed, wearing the skull cap. He dropped his book to his lap. He said, “I teach a few of our men. You have discovered a secret. Now the teacher finds it necessary to learn, himself.” When he smiled the scar became jagged and under the light it was almost blue on the pale cheek.
