Evergreen (77 page)

Laura didn’t make the absurd protest that people make:
Oh, you’re not old … 
. She said instead, “It must be awful to be old. Is it really awful?”

“If you think about it too much it can be. I try not to think about how little time is left.”

Laura put her chin in her hands. They were waiting for dessert, Anna’s coffee and Laura’s pie with double ice cream. You never knew when you took the child out to eat whether she was in one of her starving periods or on an eating binge. This week she was on a binge.

“Tell me, Nana,” she asked seriously now, “have you been, are you satisfied with your life?”

“Oh, my,” Anna said, “oh, my, that’s much too grave a question for this nice, bright Saturday! Besides, it’s impossible to answer.” The questions the girl asks!

“Try.”

“I can’t. If you mean, am I happy in this life that I have, I should answer, yes, very. I love you all. I have friends and do interesting things, some of them a little useful, I hope.
And I have pleasures, like taking my granddaughter to the ballet. But if you ask whether I might have liked another life, Pavlova’s, or perhaps to be a Madame Curie—Don’t you see that’s what I mean, that it’s impossible to answer?”

“Sometimes I’m terribly sorry for people,” Laura said, with a mouthful of ice cream. “My father, for instance. I’m often sorry for him.”

“Why are you?”

“He must think a lot about that other family of his, Liesel and their little boy. But he never talks about them.”

Anna was silent.

“I suppose he feels that Mother wouldn’t like it.”

“Why do you say that?” Anna asked, making a little shrug, as if to say, I’m quite casual about this, not particularly interested.

“I don’t know. I just think she wouldn’t.”

I wonder, wonder what they know or half know, half remember. They were all so young. No harm done, thank heaven! And anyway, who ever said a child must sail in sunny waters every day of his life? Not even natural. Still, one speculates about what’s in their heads. Delightful children, all of them. Even the boys, if you can use the word about boys. And why not? Jimmy, of course, Mr. Unflappable … and Steve, moody, dark and bright as quicksilver; he’s the one I find most appealing. Isn’t that strange? Joseph can’t understand it. Steve brothers him and I can see why. He brothers me. Yet there’s something I want to reach out to, something very, very warm. Philip, the dividend when we hadn’t expected any more. And this girl. God keep them all. Incongruous, blessing them here in this place with the clattering of voices and dishes. God keep their soft flesh unharmed and their hearts from grief. No, that’s impossible … well, God keep them anyway.

“It’s time to go in,” Laura said. “Everybody’s going.”

“Yes, yes,” Anna said, looking at her watch. They stood up and moved through the slow crowd in the lobby. People looked at them, Anna knew, at the tall redheads, the old one and the young one.

The chandeliers, flashing ice and diamonds, rose toward the ceiling. The great hall darkened. The overture began. When the curtains drew back at last upon Prince Siegfried’s forest and the enchanting waltz, Anna heard beneath the music the sigh of Laura’s pleasure.

Laura hummed. “It was marvelous, marvelous! Thanks so much! I loved it!”

The taxi stopped in traffic on a seedy street of dance halls, bars and dingy movies.
Girls, Girls
, the poster read.
Miss Dawn La Rue and Miss April La Follette. Fiery Passions, Burning Loves:
that was the movie advertisement. Anna hoped Laura might look the other way but naturally she was staring at the photographs. Not burning love at all, Anna thought, just cold sex, as mechanical as pumping pistons. Not that I’m the last word on that, God knows. But still, there’s no feeling in all this, no caring, and it ought to be the most alive thing in the world, oughtn’t it? Wonder what makes girls do this? What makes Miss Dawn LaRue do what she does? Or what makes anybody, for that matter? For some utterly unfathomable reason, she had a vision of Miss Mary Thorne, in shirtwaist and skirt, handing to Anna a copy of
Hiawatha
.

The taxi moved away toward Grand Central. It occurred to Anna that Laura might have a question about what she had just seen, or else that she, the responsible adult, ought to have something to say to the girl about it. A dirty business! It angered her that this dirt should be foisted on a mind like Laura’s. Still, you couldn’t keep a girl in the dream of
Swan Lake
, either. Really, she ought to say
something
. But what? I can talk to her about anything else, but when this sort of thing comes up, so do my barriers. As they always have, all my life.

On the East Side the scene changed to clean streets and middle-class shoppers going home. Small theatres discreetly advertised foreign films.

“Oh, did you see that, Nana? I saw it last month with Joannie. It was great.”

“I saw it too. It was beautiful,” Anna said.

“You know what I loved about it? It was so real. French pictures always are. I mean, the girl wasn’t a fabulous beauty. She had a big nose and her hair got all messy when she went swimming, the way mine does. She had the most beautiful smile, though. And the boy did too, the way he looked at her. You remember when they were going along the street, carrying one of those long loaves of bread without any paper on it, and all of a sudden he stopped and turned her face up to his as if it were a flower?”

“I remember,” Anna said, although she didn’t.

“When the picture ended I was crying. Then the lights came on. I hate the way they come on suddenly and simply smash your mood. My nose was running and while I was fumbling for a Kleenex this woman going out beside me looked at me and giggled. I was so furious I said, “Why don’t you mind your own business?” And she looked absolutely shocked. Then I was so ashamed of myself, I could have died. Couldn’t you just
die
when you do something awful like that?”

Sometimes, Anna thought, when they were in the train, they don’t talk at all. They won’t “communicate,” as Iris says. And sometimes everything spills out.

“I really have to make a fresh start in school this year and do better in math, even though I don’t give a damn about it. When am I ever going to use a quadratic equation, for heaven’s sake?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is.”

“There, you see what I mean? And you’re just as well off without it. Anyway, that’s one of my resolutions for the year. The other is to get rid of the flab about my waist. It’s disgusting.”

“I don’t see any flab.”

“You can’t when I’m wearing a dress. But I got new dungarees last week, and after I’d worn them in the bathtub to shrink them they fit all right, but you could really see that my waistline’s awful. I’ve got to do something about it. You’ve got a good figure for your age. I don’t
suppose you ever had to worry about it. What kind of perfume do you use?”

“Nothing in particular. Your grandfather’s always giving me presents of it so I use what he brings.”

“I use Calèche. It’s really marvelous. Sexy, but also refined, if you know what I mean.”

She could go on prattling for hours and I’d never get tired of listening to her.

“…     I’ve got this enormous new blowup of D. H. Lawrence in my room. It covers half the wall.”

“…     pimple cream, it actually works, but I look as if I had smallpox when it’s dabbed all over my face.”

“…     loved every minute of it today, although of course you can’t get the same feeling after Tchaikovsky that you get, say, after Handel, can you? I mean, it’s just not the same language, is it?”

If one wanted to label this fraction of time, this segment of space, it would be
eastern seaboard suburban, upper middle-class
. Grandmother treating granddaughter to the Saturday matinee. An American phenomenon. And a lovely, lovely day.

The train slowed toward their station.

“You know, Nana, I’ll remember today. I’ll say to my children, the first time I saw
Swan Lake
I went with my grandmother. It was a beautiful warm afternoon and we rode home together on the train.”

I needn’t worry about her, Anna thought. Not this child. “Well get a taxi,” she said. “I’ll drop you off and then go straight on. Your grandfather will most likely be home by now.”

In the taxi she gathered her packages, feeling rich with the pleasure of giving things, the charms to be hidden away for Laura’s birthday and the new shirts for Joseph.

Malone’s car with the Arizona license plate was parked in the driveway. Joseph must have asked them to dinner. Would the roast be big enough? She dismissed the cab and was halfway to the front door when Malone opened it.

“Hi,” she began, “what a nice surprise! I wasn’t expecting—” and saw his face. “What it it? What’s wrong?”

“Anna, take it easy. Joseph—his heart. He fell over in the office; just fell over at the desk. We called a doctor down the hall, but—”

“Oh, God,” she said. “Where is he? What hospital? Take me, hurry—”

Malone held her shoulders. His tears were running. “Oh,

Anna, Anna, no hospital. It’s too late.”

*  *  *

Iris sways. Her face is gray. “I’m all right, Theo,” Anna says, for he is holding her arm. “Take Iris.”

The chapel is full. Noon light pours through the stained-glass windows of which Joseph was so proud. It bobs on the floor of the aisle in dots of ruby and gold. How can I think of such things? Anna wonders. But I must think of them and of the faces, mustn’t look at the coffin, mustn’t think of him lying in it. Look in the second row; there’s Pierce, our congressman; Burgess of the Provident Bank; What’s-his-name from the National Council of Christians and Jews. Faces, faces. I must remember them. Joseph would remember every one and thank them afterward. There are all those people from the hospital’s board of directors. That short man coming in, he’s from the building trades union; Joseph always dealt decently with working men and they knew it. Faces, faces. Women from the temple sisterhood. Tom and Vita Wilmot. There’s Celeste’s friend, Rhoda. To think she would brother to come! And Mr. Mozetti, the gardener. The Malone boys and their wives. Ruth’s daughters; how fat they’ve all grown! And Harry; he looks shabby-sad; strange, he’s still driving a taxi and Solly was always so proud of his book-learning. Strange.

Must think, must think. The rabbi is taking my arm now. I’m fragile. They’re afraid I’ll fall apart. But I will not. Joseph would be ashamed of me in front of all these people. The rabbi is saying that he left a good name behind him; a most priceless treasure, it can be purchased only
through the labors of a good life. He means what he says, the rabbi does. He’s a kind man and he knows that, this time anyway, what he’s saying is true. It isn’t always, but then, he has to say something good of the dead, isn’t that so?

Suppose they could hear; suppose they knew what was being said about them?
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
. Maury was amused that I could remember his Latin proverbs without knowing any Latin. But I always had a good memory and a good ear.

“He lives on in the hearts of those who loved him,” the rabbi says. His voice is gentle and earnest. He looks at the widow, speaking to her. “He was devoted to his faith.” Yes, yes; he was. “An inspiration to his grandchildren; he gave them a sense of their identity.” All along the row the grandchildren sit with scared, upturned faces. Laura is crying softly. Will they remember what he gave them? Only time will tell, a lot of time.

The beautiful, familiar words ring their stern and regal music. “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Music. “O God full of compassion, Eternal Spirit of the universe, grant perfect rest under the wings of Your Presence to Joseph who has entered eternity.”

We go out and get into a long black car. It looks sinister. There is a motorcycle escort: Who arranged that and why? Joseph wouldn’t like it. Even in death there are status and pride. Humble people have pathetic funerals, not like this one. Now we ride through the cemetery gates. There’s the Kirsch family mausoleum; it’s like those royal tombs we saw in Europe. Wealth and hierarchy, even in death. Joseph would never allow anything like that … “Just a slab,” he told me once. I’ll have it put down next year, and mine next to it … “Anna, wife of Joseph,” it will say. What a crazy person I am to be having these thoughts while they help me out of the car, holding me up by the elbows. All that green cloth draped to hide the fact that it’s only a hole in the ground. All these dead, acres and acres
of them. Wouldn’t it be strange if they knew we were standing here?
Knew
, as they lie in the dark under the flat mown grass, under the weight of the heavy earth on their egg-shell skulls and their helpless hands. Suppose they could hear and people were saying things about them; their keen ears could hear but they would be unable to defend themselves:
Yes, but I was right! You didn’t understand, I tried, I only meant—

De mortuis nil nisi bonum
.

And is that what it was all about, Joseph, that we nurtured our children and loved them and lost them, that you did nothing but work all your life, even though you said it was a pleasure to you? What was it for? That we should walk away like this and leave you in the ground? Is this what it was all about?

There is a rustle. People rise and murmur the Kaddish:
“Yit-ga-dal ve-yit-ka-dash she-mei ra-ba—”

Iris is sobbing when Theo leads them back to the car. Why am I not crying, too? Joseph would be proud that I’m not. Still, I ought to cry.

Someone whispers, “I thought he spoke beautifully.” Someone: “She’s holding up well … she always had dignity.”

The sky goes wintry. Before we reach home the rain comes, a somber, gusty, spattering rain. Lights are on all over the house. Friends and neighbors have come with pink chrysanthemums, baskets of fruit and chocolate cakes.

“Come,” Celeste says, “have a cup of tea, you’ve had nothing all day.” She leads me to the dining room, and I allow myself to be led. In spite of everything the body cherishes its comforts: the tea, the fire, the windows tight against the rain. I let them put half a chicken sandwich on my plate.