Marjorie Morningstar (82 page)

Eden danced rustily at first, in a stiff formal way, and seemed rather bored. But
then he warmed to it, and Marjorie found herself enjoying his dancing. She enjoyed
talking to him, too. While they sipped their drinks he asked sharp questions about
Tom Jones
, seeming to know the book by heart. He said the only people writing like Fielding
nowadays were a few mystery writers. “Well, thank heaven somebody has a good word
for the mystery writers,” she said. “My—the fellow I go with—has nagged at me for
years because I read mysteries.”

“He’s a snob,” Eden said. “There isn’t a mystery I won’t read. I think next to doctors
detective-story writers are the chief benefactors of mankind.”

“He is a snob,” Marjorie said. “He’s the worst intellectual snob I’ve ever met. But
at least he admits it.”

“Where is he now?”

“In Paris. I’m going there to run him to earth and make him marry me. If I can.”

Eden’s smile was usually controlled and careful, his eyes remaining sombre, but now
a wholly different look came over his face, a charming gleam of warm appreciation
and pleasure. Like a sunny break in the clouds on a gray day, it came and went. “Is
that really why you’re going to Europe?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I bet you’ll succeed.”

“I hope so. I’ve been chasing him for four years.” Marjorie inclined her head toward
a table on the other side of the dance floor. “That blonde over there keeps looking
and looking at you. In case you’re interested.”

“Does she?” Eden glanced toward the blonde, who was sitting with a thickset man, also
blond. At this distance she looked exceptionally pretty; Marjorie had not noticed
her before on the ship. She smiled at Eden, fluttering her fingers in a small gesture
of greeting. He made a small bow, then turned away, wrinkling his forehead; the scar
puckered deep. When his face was in repose Marjorie hardly noticed it. She said, “You
know her?”

“Slightly. I met her on the
Champlain
a few months ago, coming home.”

“She’s stunning.”

“She’s a model. German.”

“Do you go into Germany much?”

“Most of my business is there.”

“Then you’re not Jewish.”

With a cold smile he shook his head. “It wouldn’t be very pleasant for me if I were,
I guess.”

“What’s it like in Germany now?” Marjorie said after a silence.

“Not good.”

“Have you ever seen—well, any of the things we read about?”

“I haven’t been inside a concentration camp, if that’s what you mean. I’ve seen storm
troopers wreck a restaurant. They’re like football players after a game, having a
little gay horseplay. It’s sort of comical to watch, really. They’re laughing and
joking. It’s a little creepy to see a policeman go by looking the other way, that’s
all. Makes it seem like a dream.”

“Do you think there’ll be a war?”

Eden smoked for a while, looking at her. “Well, I’ll tell you, Marjorie. They’ve built
these long six-lane highways everywhere in Germany. Broad white rivers of concrete,
absolutely empty, not a car on them, stretching to the horizon. The roads don’t go
anywhere, don’t detour for any towns—they go right to the borders, straight as parallels
of latitude, and stop. What are those roads for?”

Marjorie was sorry she had started the topic. She was very uncomfortable under Eden’s
direct gaze.

For years, now, she had been afraid even to think about Germany. Sometimes in her
restless nights she had had nightmares of being pursued through Berlin by storm troopers.
But it had never seemed quite real to her that somewhere on the face of the solid
green earth human beings were doing to other human beings what the papers said the
Nazis were doing to the Jews. She hoped that in the end the atrocities would turn
out to be mostly newspaper talk, like the World War stories of the Huns eating Belgian
babies. Her conscience had pricked her from time to time into giving part of her savings
to refugee organizations. Beyond that, her mind was closed to the Nazis.

She said uneasily, “You know, I’m ashamed of myself. You’re giving me the horrors,
and all I want to do about it is change the subject.”

“That’s all anybody is doing about it, Marjorie.”

“I’m Jewish. I should care a little more.”

“Jews are just people.”

She said, pausing for a moment to scrutinize his calm face, “That’s the best compliment
anyone can pay us. Said in that tone, anyway.”

“I’m not so sure. I’m not particularly sold on people at the moment. I think, given
the choice, I’d rather be a cat or a bear.”

“You remind me a lot—every now and then, the way you talk—of a man I know.”

“Really? A good man, or a bad one?”

“Well, some think he’s a monster. He’s the one I’m crossing the ocean for.”

“Maybe it would be best if you didn’t catch him.”

“Oh, is your wife a thoroughly miserable woman?”

“I’m not married. I was.” He puffed at his cigar. “My wife is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It happened several years ago. Auto accident. That’s how I got my scar. I went through
the windshield. My wife was killed.” He said this rapidly and dryly, as though to
cut off further discussion; drank up his drink, and signalled for another. “You don’t
have to keep pace with me, by the way, I have an unusual tolerance for booze…. Isn’t
that Jackie May dancing?”

Marjorie looked at the dance floor. “So it is, by gosh. An honest-to-goodness celebrity
after all. My trip is made.” Jackie May had been the nation’s favorite radio comedian
when Marjorie was about fifteen, and he was still popular. He was a pudgy man, absolutely
bald, with waggling eyebrows and flapping hands. He was dancing with a very pretty
brunet girl about Marjorie’s age, half a head taller than himself.

“That’s his new wife, I believe,” Eden said. “He’s on his honeymoon, or so I seem
to remember reading in Winchell.”

“Why, he looks past sixty,” Marjorie said. “Is he really married to that girl? How
revolting.”

“There are many theories as to why old men marry young pretty girls,” Eden said. “Regressive
tendencies, or a post-adolescent emotional fixation, something like that. The girl
is a surrogate, a symbol, not a real person to the man, all the books say so. I have
my own theory about it, though. If I had the time and the talent I’d write a book.
I’m sure I’m right.”

“What’s your theory?”

“Well, I say old men marry young pretty girls so as to sleep with them.” He said it
with a straight, even dour face, looking at the dance floor.

Marjorie said, after a while, “Do you have lectures every Monday and Thursday at the
Kiwanis Club on regressions and fixations?”

“I used to teach psychology,” Eden said, with the same straight face.

“I see. And now you’re in the chemical business.”

“That’s right.”

“And is any of this true, or are you taking some queer pleasure in filling me full
of stories?”

“It’s true, all right. I gave up teaching after my accident. I wasn’t much good at
it afterward.”

Marjorie took a less satiric tone. “You seem very strange to me. I’m not being especially
stupid, am I?”

“You’re not being stupid at all, Marjorie, but I believe I am. I’m sorry.” He drank
whiskey. “I guess I’ve been taking a sort of childish pleasure in mystifying you.
I can’t say why. The booze, maybe, though I don’t think so. I’ve had a sort of shock
today, nothing serious, but my nerves haven’t been very good lately. Everything I’ve
told you is true, all the same, or true enough, anyway. Have you ever told the exact
truth in your life? It’s an extremely hard thing to do. Every encyclopedia is full
of lies.” He looked at her, and there seemed to be a faint tinge of appeal in his
eyes, curiously contrasted with the dry tone and the mocking words. “Have I scared
you off, or would you like to dance some more?”

Marjorie said, “Of course I’ll dance, if you like. But I think possibly it’s a bore
for you to keep up a conversation with me. I won’t at all mind if you’d rather go
back to your room and read, or go to sleep—”

“Good God, no,” Eden said. “Let’s dance, by all means. Let’s dance till Everyman’s
fiddle drops from his hands. I’m having a wonderful time. I hope you are.”

When she opened her eyes next morning, white sunlight was coming in a slant shaft
through the porthole. It took her a second or two to remember where she was. The ship
was rolling much more than yesterday; she saw through the porthole clear blue sky,
then rough purple water rushing by, then blue sky again. The ray of sunlight swung
up and down on the wall. She lay on her pillow, blinking at the strong light, thinking
of Mike Eden. She passed a lazy few minutes remembering some of the strange things
he had said; then it occurred to her to be surprised at having him on her mind, and
not Noel. Thinking of Noel Airman when she woke was a chronic ailment of hers, as
some people woke with raw throats. It was very agreeable to be free of it even for
a day.

She rang for coffee. The steward brought it with a copy of the ship’s newspaper, and
told her that the clocks had been moved forward an hour; it was almost lunch time.
This gave her an excuse to surrender to laziness for another hour or so. She piled
the pillows, and sat up drinking coffee and reading the paper. She yawned through
the news stories—Hitler was occupying Czechoslovakia unresisted—and turned to the
calendar of ship’s events. There was going to be a ping-pong tournament in the afternoon,
a Marx Brothers movie in the evening, and a dance in the main lounge. She decided
to wear her best evening dress that night, a fetching black taffeta from Bergdorf,
instead of saving it for the captain’s dinner.

She found herself, after a while, a bit dizzy and uneasy from the rolling of the ship.
She bathed, clinging with a soapy hand to the rail over the tub, and giggling at the
wild back-and-forth slosh of the steaming water. She dressed in a hurry, humming
Falling in Love with Love
, and went out on deck.

Sunglare smote her eyes, and she put on dark glasses. Marvelling again at the vastness
of the ship—the deck receded into the distance, blocks long, the perspective exaggerated
by the curving lines of the hull—she fell into the parade of morning marchers, gulping
the sweet cool air. She rounded the far end of the port side, and came upon Eden at
a ping-pong table, negligently clicking balls back and forth with an intent boy. “Hi,
athlete,” she said.

He waved the bat at her. “Hi. Lunch?”

“Love it.”

He seemed very cheerful; he said he had been up since eight, walking the decks. They
went to his table in the great ornate dining room; he depressed the steward by setting
the long menu aside, and ordering a lettuce and tomato sandwich. When Marjorie asked
for bacon and eggs, Eden joked, “I’m more Jewish than you are. You’re the one that’s
having bacon.” She laughed and told him how long it had taken her to get used to it.
He nodded, his face serious. “It must be a powerful mechanism. It’s a wonder you ever
broke it down.”

“Well, it’s not too hard once you realize it’s just an old-fashioned superstition—”

“But you’re wrong there, food disciplines are part of every great religion. Psychologically
they’re almost inevitable, and extremely practical. Let me ask you, didn’t you feel
more—I don’t know—let’s say at home in the world, warm, safe, good, while you were
observing your laws?”

“Well, yes, but I hadn’t really been thrown out in the cold cruel world yet, that’s
all. I was leading a pretty sheltered life.”

“Religious discipline is nothing but a permanent psychic shelter. You stay inside
it, and you’re less vulnerable to whatever horrors happen in life.”

“But if you don’t believe in it, how can it shelter you?”

“How do you know what you believe? Girls don’t think.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. There come our happy newlyweds.”

Jackie May and his bride were seating themselves at a table near them. The girl had
a peevish look, and her makeup was too thick. The comedian, pale and smiling, seemed
to be trying hard to amuse her. Eden lit a cigar and began to talk about the Freudian
theory of humor. He said it might explain the deliberately childish antics of comedians:
the affected high voices, the giggles, the silly faces, and so forth. References to
taboo facts were forgivable and comical in children, odious in adults. “A baby’s bare
behind is charming and funny,” Eden said. “An adult’s is a shocking offense. The comedian
makes himself symbolically a child, and that’s how he gets the jester’s freedom.”

Marjorie, watching Jackie May vainly wagging his eyebrows and cracking jokes to his
pouting wife, was struck by this analysis. “I never thought of that, but it’s absolutely
true,” she said.

Eden said, “Well, I’m not so sure. The general theory of the comedian would have to
be much more complex. Fred Allen, for instance, is over-adult, if anything, and he’s
the best of the lot. It’s like the rest of Freud. Marvelous strokes of insight, but
when you try to make them general truths you end up with useless dogma.”

“Don’t tell me you’re another Freud-baiter. That’s so commonplace nowadays.”

“I’m not against Freud, I’m anti-Freudian. Freud himself once said that he wasn’t
a Freudian, and he sure as hell wasn’t.” The rare gleam of warmth, which Marjorie
had seen only once or twice, now came into his eyes. “I spent a year and a half at
the institute in Vienna. I knew him.”

“You knew
Freud
?” She stared at him.

“Well, very slightly. You almost had to, fifteen years ago when I was taking my Ph.D.,
if you wanted to write anything in the analysis field. I saw him at a couple of seminars.
I wrote my thesis on dreams in Dickens’ novels…. What’s so amazing about all this?
You look as though you didn’t believe a word of it.”

“I don’t know. It’s like saying you used to hobnob with Darwin, or Copernicus.”