Private Life (48 page)

He had brought Stella into the theater, but, he said, the proprietor didn't seem to

mind even when she barked twice at the horses on the screen.

The local movies changed too infrequently--he hit upon the idea of taking the

ferry to San Francisco. Soon he was going there four times a week. Stella went with him

every time. Often he would watch the double feature, which meant that he left on the

morning ferry and didn't return until fairly late. If he especially liked a picture, he would

take Margaret to see it when it came to Vallejo. He came to have his preferred subjects-anything about St. Louis or Missouri
(St. Louis Blues; I'm from Missouri
, in which a man

takes his prize mule to London;
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
, anything about the

universe
(Buck Rogers)
, anything about the West
(Stagecoach)
. He did not like movies

about scientists
(The Story of Dr. Jenner)
. The first one he took her to ("for old times'

sake, my dear") was
The Hound of the Baskervilles
, which she enjoyed very much.

Pete had become one of the outer planets, dim and blue like Neptune, visible with

effort, but not exerting much force. His stability in this orbit, Margaret knew, depended

on her remaining stable in her corner of space as well. But in the midst of Andrew's

fervor, she had a letter from Dora that she wanted to show Pete, about how Dora wanted

to get back to St. Louis and Missouri--not the St. Louis of today, which was, she said, an

"outpost of Hyde Park and in the business of being told what to do," but the St. Louis of

their youth, when "every man and woman went his or her own way, and the patterns they

made as they crossed paths were as graceful and efficient as the migration routes of

birds." Apparently, this was her new idea--that they should take wild birds as their

models. "All summer long, every goose and duck eats and eats and eats, until his breast is

glistening with fat and his liver is distended, only to foregather with his fellows and fly

south, filling the sky with
intention
, but intention of a voluntary sort--no goose is ordered

to fly, no goose is given a uniform, or chained to his or her fellow geese." Human society,

by contrast, was akin to prison life. There were those in prison who knew it; everyone

else was in prison and did not know it. Margaret thought it was a very strange letter. With

Andrew spending several days a week in San Francisco, she told him, she was going to

go along and have tea with Pete at the Palace Hotel.

"That will take two hours," said Andrew.

"At

least."

"Can't stand that. Waste of time."

"You don't have to come. Though I imagine Pete will be disappointed."

"Can you get him to go for a walk instead? Nice day."

"I think he would rather have tea. You go to the picture, and join us afterward."

"Well, give him this, then. He'll like it." He handed her the notes he had written

up about card counting in blackjack and gin rummy.

She wore her best hat, but that was all--no new dress, only a touch of lipstick, no

powder. Pete was wearing a houndstooth jacket with a nipped waist, a rose-colored ascot,

a silk-shantung shirt, and spectator shoes with rose-colored socks. After he kissed her on

both cheeks and she took in his fragrance, he handed her a box with a gardenia in it. Her

heart did not flutter. She was sufficiently immune now--she could appreciate these

courtesies without putting any stock in them. He perused the menu and ordered for her.

When she took Dora's letter out of her bag, Pete smiled, then said, "Dora is no

longer speaking to me."

"Why is that?"

"Because, when I saw her before she left, I would not agree that Americans are by

nature incorruptible."

"I can't imagine her saying such a thing."

"She kept telling me that it is Americans who are truly free, and there must be

absolute freedom and noninterference of any kind by such things as governments or

benevolent people with benevolent schemes. And when I said that then the top dogs

would simply accrue as much for themselves as they possibly could, in the style of Ivan

the Terrible, she insisted that Americans would not, and could not, do such a thing."

"And you said?"

"And I said, 'Name one.' And she couldn't, and so she got quite annoyed with me,

and told me that she intended to write a book that would show me the errors of my

thinking."

"All of this seems so unlike Dora." But she was thinking how comfortable she

was, exactly as if she and Pete were old and wise friends.

He shrugged. He said, "Dora fled her enemies at home, did she not?"

Margaret

thought

of

Mrs. Bell and nodded.

"Compared with that, she felt she could handle anything."

"And she has handled everything!" Margaret exclaimed.

Pete shook his head. "The Europeans are in a pickle, and Dora is observant."

She said, "You are a fatalist," meaning to express her admiration. "It can't be that

bad."

"Perhaps I'm a Darwinian. Each horror leaves survivors. Greater horrors leave

fewer survivors, but those who do survive seem to assimilate the horror, and once they

do, their imaginations are piqued. 'What could be worse?' they say, aghast, and then they

think, Well, what could be worse? They start coming up with things, and there, in a

nutshell, you have Russian history. Why shouldn't this be the history of the West, too?

After all, Russians believe we are the saviors of the world, and whatever we do first,

others will do subsequently."

"I thought that was Americans."

Pete

laughed.

After their tea, she went to I. Magnin and walked about, looking at styles and

catching her breath.

On the ferry, Andrew quizzed her: Did she really think Pete had lived the simple

life of an Irish horse-trainer at the racetrack? How did she think he was occupying his

time now? Was he traveling? Did they talk about Russia? Wasn't it odd that they'd known

him for so long and yet they knew nothing, really, about him? She said, almost irritably,

"If you're so curious, you should have joined us."

"Perhaps I will, next time." He didn't say anything about the double feature, so

Margaret decided the pictures must not have been very good. Stella slept in her lap on the

ferry, and Margaret wondered if she was ill--to be so tired after spending an afternoon in

a movie theater.

The summer progressed:
Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Beau Geste
, and
The Adventures of

Sherlock Holmes
(which was more suspenseful than
The Hound of the Baskervilles)
, but

Andrew also seemed to enjoy
Blondie Takes a Vacation, Each Dawn I Die, Stanley and

Livingstone
, and even
The Five Little Peppers
. She told him that his tastes were getting

quite eclectic. In the fall, after they saw a matinee called
The Day the Bookies Wept
,

which had a horse in it, if not much else that was good, he went into his study for the first

time in months, and when it came time to take Stella for her walk, he called through the

door and asked her to do it. It was a pleasant day at the end of September, and she

enjoyed it, though she could not help thinking of Dora. Since the invasion of Poland,

England and most of Europe were at war, at least officially. The island was in an uproar,

but their corner of Vallejo was quiet. Andrew didn't take as much interest in the war as

she expected him to. He still read two or three papers, still went to the Warrington for his

cup of coffee, still saw some movies, and still took Stella for most of her walks, but more

and more he was preoccupied with whatever he was writing in his study--perhaps his

memoirs. He was occupied, that was the important thing.

Or it was until the next day, when she suddenly took a fright and went into his

office for a look around. He had gone to see
Drums Along the Mohawk
in a double

feature with
Blondie Brings Up Baby
. But she recognized stacks she had known since

they moved into this house, untouched and certainly unmoved. There were pens and

blotters lying around, and pads of paper, but she could find no new material. She left

things alone and relaxed again, certain that it was news of the war that was making her

nervous.

* * *

THE day the black car drove up, she was out looking at her rosebuds. It was a

pleasant afternoon, one of the first of the spring, and she was thinking of nothing more

important than ham for supper. A man got out and walked up to the door--a short man,

but upright, with an official look about him, as if he had been told what to wear (dark

gray suit, dress shirt, black shoes, hat). He noticed her, but until he had gotten no answer

at her front door, he didn't acknowledge her. When she said "Hello?" he said, "Mrs.

Early?"

"Yes."

"Are you Margaret Early, Mrs. Andrew Early, the wife of Captain Andrew

Jackson Jefferson Early?"

"Yes."

This was a very gloomy way to begin the week, she thought, the old dread

creeping upon her.

He said, "Mrs. Early, my name is Marvin Keene, and I would like to talk to you."

As he said this, he took her elbow and guided her toward her front steps.

She said, "Captain Early isn't here, he's--"

"Captain Early is in San Francisco, ma'am. We know where he is."

"We?"

"Step inside the house, please, ma'am. Thank you." He took off his hat. "The FBI

knows where Captain Early is. He is currently at the Orpheum Theater, but earlier today

he was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. Do you mind if we sit down?"

As they sat down, he showed her a card in his wallet. He was indeed from the

FBI.

"He was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge?"

Agent Keene squirmed on the sofa as he put the card away, then smiled.

"Yes, ma'am. He often walks across the bridge. At first, people seeing him on the

bridge thought he was a jumper, but most jumpers don't take the dog with them. No,

ma'am, not a jumper."

She asked Agent Keene if he wanted a cup of tea or a glass of water, just to put

off the rest of this conversation. He took the glass of water. He seemed friendly. She

hazarded, "Has my husband been buttonholing people or--or soliciting rides in

automobiles?"

He said, "No, ma'am." Then, "Mrs. Early, do you remember the
Panay
incident?"

"That was more than two years ago."

"Sometime

after

the

Panay
incident, a handwritten letter crossed my desk which

proposed an analysis of the incident that coincided in several particulars with my own

analysis of the incident. These were, namely, that the Japanese knowingly attacked the

American boat in order to distract and hamper Western observation of and aid to Chinese

soldiers and civilians who were to be made examples of to the rest of the Chinese

people." His tone was dry and direct.

"Andrew said that, but there wasn't anything in the paper that agreed with him."

"The paper doesn't report everything, ma'am."

"Yes,

but--"

"And the Japanese were extremely successful at suppressing reports. I would say

that, whatever we suspected, it wasn't until a year later that we got a fuller picture. But

your husband's letter, which arrived in my office well before that, did in many ways

anticipate the full picture. Did he ever talk to you about it?"

"Yes. Are you saying he was right all along?"

"Do you have any other reason to think he was mistaken?"

She wondered how she was going to answer this for a moment, then said, "Well,

he says that he sees Einstein on the streets of Vallejo, over on Capitol Street. If you have

reason to believe that Einstein comes to Vallejo, then you can draw your own

conclusions."

"Captain Early is a physicist?"

"He's an astronomer who became a physicist. He has an interest in all types of

science, and he used to have a column in the
Examiner
." She gave Agent Keene a long

look. Finally, she said, "His ideas are now considered eccentric or old-fashioned. But he

had a following in his day." Of only one, perhaps.

"How do you think that he came up with his information about the
Panay

incident?"

"He walked all over town and all over the island, and he got people to talk about

it, and apparently they had information through gossip. This is a naval town, and a

crowded one. People talk, even when they're told not to. The police came around and told

me he was bothering people."

"That's

all?"

"It's all they told me about."

Now it was Agent Keene's turn to stare at her, turning his half-empty glass in his

hand. Finally, she said, "All I can tell you, Agent Keene, is that my husband has spent his

whole life observing things and then putting two and two together. There are some people

who would say that he doesn't come up with four very often, but he can't stop himself

from putting two and two together." Her eye alighted on the snake emerging from the

gift, and she thought for half a second of Lucy May, now mother of three. She said,

"Maybe he was lucky."

"A stopped clock is right twice a day?"