Evergreen (24 page)

“Iris is very intelligent, very perceptive. She knows music and books; she has your feeling for art, I think.”

He smiled faintly. “Go on, please.”

It became easier to speak. Her words, hesitant at first, began to flow. She was, after all, a mother talking about her child. And this listener wanted to hear. So she told about food and school and amusing remarks, searching her own mind for words that might make Iris live in Paul’s mind.

“And does she love you very much? I hope so. It’s not every child who has a mother like you.”

“We have no great problems, she and I. But she’s more attached to Joseph. He adores her, she’s the heart of his heart. But then, that’s the way it is between fathers and daughters,” Anna concluded, immediately sorry to have been so tactless.

But Paul quietly agreed. “That’s true.”

“I’m not really good with her!” Anna cried suddenly. “Not what I ought to be, Paul! I’m good
to
her; I love her just as much as I love Maury. It’s just that I’m not at ease with her. It’s—different,” she faltered.

“Of course. It would be.”

“When I look at her I try to think of her as having been born—” she was about to say, “as Joseph’s and mine,” but said instead, “differently. And most of the time I can do it. I’ve put you away at the back of the past, you see. And now today the past is here, and whenever I look at Iris I shall think—” She was unable to finish.

Paul took her hand back, stroking it gently.

Then Anna said, “I wonder how much she feels of all this, poor Iris. She
must
feel something!”

Neither of them knew what to add to that.

Presently he said, “I’ve not been fair. I’ve not asked you to tell about Maury.”

“You’re only being kind. You can’t really be interested in Maury.”

“Yes, I can. He belongs to you, he’s a part of you. Tell me.”

“Maury is the son everyone wants, the son you think of when you imagine having a boy. Everyone loves him, he—” Anna stopped. “I can’t, Paul. I’m brimming over. There’s been—too much—this afternoon.”

“I know. I feel that way myself, Anna dearest.”

And taking the hand between both of his he removed her glove, raised the hand and kissed it, the palm, the fingers, the pulse that fluttered and jumped in her wrist.

They became aware of stir and movement in the park. Mothers began calling to their children and gathering scattered toys. The afternoon was coming to its end.

Paul put Anna’s hand down and stood up, startling her. He walked a few paces away with his back to her, facing the river. He seemed so solitary there in his velvet-collared coat, a stranger among the pigeons and the children playing hopscotch on the walk. This tall, powerful man who could command almost anything he might want, this man was also vulnerable through her. He was separate from her and yet bound to her for as long as either of them might live, or as long as Iris lived or whatever children Iris might have, or—

He came back and sat down. “Listen to me, Anna. Life is short. Just yesterday we were twenty, and where’s the time gone? Let’s take what we can, you and I.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to marry you now. I want to take our little girl and give you both what you ought to have. I want to stop waking up at night wondering how you are. I want to wake up and have you next to me.”

“As simply as that?” There was faint bitterness in her tone; she could hear it. “And what about Maury? And Joseph?
What about the small fact that you already have a wife?”

“It wouldn’t destroy Marian if I were to ask for a divorce. Trust me, Anna. I am not a destroyer. I don’t hurt people if I can help it.”

“Hurt? Do you realize what it would do to Joseph if he knew I was sitting here with you now? He’s a devout, believing, strait-laced man. A puritan, Paul! This would be past his forgiveness. Divorce? He would be ruined!” Anna’s voice rose. “I sit with him in the evening, I look across the room at this man who married me when—when you wouldn’t have me, who takes care of me, who gave me every material thing when he had it, and gives me loving kindness now when he has nothing else to give. Sometimes I can’t bear the thought of what I’ve already done to him.”

“Everything has to be paid for,” Paul said gently. “I understand what you’re saying and I understand that it would be very, very hard in many ways. Still, you have to weigh all that against your own life, what you want to do with your own life. And I know—
know
, Anna!—that you want to come to me.”

The blood poured into her cheeks. “Yes, yes I do! I can’t deny that I do!”

“Well, then, you see?”

“But also, we’ve been through so much, Joseph and I!” She seemed to be musing, recollecting, almost as if she were alone, letting her thoughts run. “Struggling uphill, then sliding almost all the way back down again. And he works so hard! I think sometimes it will kill him. And he never wants anything, never takes anything for himself. It was all for us, for me and the children.”

“For my child,” Paul said.

Anna sighed, a long quivering breath like a sob. “So how can I, Paul? Can I put a knife into a man like him, can I? And besides, I love him! Do you know what I mean when I say that I love him?”

He didn’t answer.

“But you do see, Paul, you do see the way it is?”

He cried out, “I’m so sorry for us all! Oh, my God, how sorry I am!”

Anna began to cry.

“Ah, don’t,” he whispered then, and took out a handkerchief. “Here, you mustn’t go home with red eyes. Then you’d really have some explanations to make!” He began gently to dry her eyes. “Anna, Anna, what are we to do?”

“I don’t know. I only know I can’t marry you.”

“You think so now. But things change. I’ll wait. It will look different to you after a while.”

Anna shook her head. “We shouldn’t see each other anymore. You know that.”

“And you know that’s impossible. Neither of us could stand it.”

“I told you before, people can stand a whole lot more than they think they can.”

“Perhaps so. But why should we torture ourselves to prove we can? I want to see you again, Anna, and I’m going to. Surely I have a right at least to hear about Iris now and then?”

“All right,” she said softly. “I’ll figure out some way. I can’t think right now. But I will.”

She took a mirror from her purse, anxiously examining her face.

“You look fine. Can’t tell a thing. Except that you’re still an entrancing woman, even in that coat.” He flushed. “I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with your coat. I only meant—well, it doesn’t do for you what black velvet and a pair of diamond earrings would do.”

She laughed and he said, “That’s better. I love to hear you laugh. It’s a long time since I first heard that laugh.”

“I’d better go back, Paul. It’s awfully late.”

“Go ahead, Anna darling. But I’ll telephone in the morning around ten. Will that be all right?”

“Yes. At ten.”

“You’ll have had time by then to decide how we can meet again.”

*  *  *

“You stored the picture away,” Joseph said that night when they were in bed.

“Yes. Since neither of us liked it.”

“I wonder why that fellow sent it to you?”

“Rich people like to give things, that’s all. It makes them feel powerful.”

“But he hardly knows you. It’s not as if you were someone in his circle.”

She didn’t answer and he did not press her. Poor Joseph! He was skirting the subject, wanting to ask more and yet afraid to. These past years had been too much for him, had beaten down some of that first strong assurance. He had been ladling out the ocean with a cup since the Depression began and he was tired. Soft pity moved Anna and she spoke lightly, wanting to soothe and ease his mind.

“What it comes down to is simply that I was a pretty little maid in that house and people are kind to pretty little maids. You’re surely not jealous?”

“Well, I could be, but since you explain it that way, I won’t be.”

“Please. Let’s not have any repetition of that business when I met them on the street that time.”

“I was awfully angry, wasn’t I?”

“You were. And without reason.”

He was silent.

“Joseph? Please. No tempers now. I just—can’t take it.”

“Why? Am I so fierce?”

“You can be.”

“I won’t be. Anna, dear, forget it. Forget the damned picture. It’s not worth talking about. Let’s go to sleep.” He sighed and, drawing her to him laid his head in the curve of her shoulder.

He sighed again. “Ah, what peace! No matter how cold and tough it is outside I have this refuge! For a few hours here at night I can forget debts and new business and the office rent. Just think of basic things, of you and me. That’s what it’s all about, Anna, the way it all began. Just you and
me and the beautiful little boy and girl we’ve made together.”

She swallowed hard. There was such a lump in her throat, such a lump of pain.

“And I have to fight for all of you, my people. Ah, well, maybe with this new man, this Roosevelt coming in, things will be better. I hope so,” Joseph murmured.

When he had fallen asleep Anna turned over. Such trust, such loyalty and trust! It was an armor that he wore without knowing that he had it on. You couldn’t wound a man who wore such armor. A line of poetry trailed through her head, something Maury had memorized for his Latin class, something like “virtue defends him.” Tears trailed down her temples toward her ears. Alone I am, entirely alone. For who else can get inside my head, my heart, and feel what I feel? All my confusion, tension, terror? I stand before the great dark future and I can’t know what is waiting there for me.

It grew cold. Fear chilled. She crept toward the solid bulwark of Joseph’s back, feeling for comfort in its warmth. Then came a fleeting recall of Paul’s words: “I want to wake up and find you next to me.” A feverish wave of heat dispelled the chill; she trembled with desire, shame, fear, and then grew cold again.

The clock’s hands glimmered on the night table. With wide-open eyes Anna lay, watching the hands move steadily forward through the night.

The telephone rang at ten o’clock. It rang once only; she had been waiting beside it.

“I didn’t sleep all night, Paul,” she told him.

“Neither did I. Have you decided when and where?”

“Paul, I can’t see you now. I don’t say never, only not now.”

“I was afraid of this.”

“It’s I who am afraid. Guilty and afraid. I haven’t got the strength to cope. Please understand, and don’t be angry.”

“I don’t think I could ever be really angry at you. But I am miserably disappointed.”

“It’s so hard! So very, very hard!”

“You’re sure it’s not you who’re making it harder?”

“I don’t think so. I did try to explain to you yesterday how it is.”

“Yes, you did. And I understood. But I’m not going to let you cut the cord between us, Anna. Not ever.”

“I’m not asking you to. If you let me know where you are I’ll send you a postcard every now and then, a harmless postcard that anyone might read. Only you will know that it is about Iris and me.”

“Tell me again: I think you said a moment ago that you didn’t mean ‘never’; you only meant ‘not right now.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Then I’ll be patient. And I’ll always let you know where I am. With a postcard, too. Do you have women friends who travel?”

“Oh, yes. Pick any name. It won’t matter.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Paul? Will you hang up now?”

“In a moment. Just remember this: when you have changed your mind about meeting again or about marriage, or if you ever need me for anything, send me three or four words and I’ll come to you. And you will change your mind, you know.”

“I’m going to hang up now,” she said softly.

“All right. Hang up. But don’t say the word ‘good-by.’”

Maury was the only one of the family who made no changes; they had kept him in the school because it would help him, they believed, to get into Yale. Besides, it was more important for a boy. Joseph knew Maury would get as good an education at City College; some of the best brains in the nation had come from there. But somehow it had always been taken for granted, he didn’t remember how or why, but just as far back as he could think it had been assumed that Maury would go to Yale. It had been a kind of promise and he couldn’t diminish himself in the eyes of his family by breaking it. However much they might deny the diminution, and they would, Joseph would feel that it was.