Evergreen (76 page)

“Don’t torment yourself, Joseph. Don’t ask me these questions. Even if you can’t believe me, and I’m sorry you can’t, just don’t ask me anymore.”

So he would never really know, never
really
. To wipe out his doubts, to know that she was totally his and always had been, that there had never, never been anyone else—what he would not give! The remaining years of his life, that’s what he would give.

“I would like to be truly at peace,” he said aloud.

“Then be at peace. I can’t say any more than that.” Anna finished her tea and stood up to stroke his forehead.
Her hand was warm from the teacup, and he smelled her perfume again.

He didn’t move, enjoying the sweep of her hand across his forehead, hoping she wouldn’t stop. “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” he said, wanting to detain her.

“Very. It’s home.”

This quiet house, the view of trees, he thought suddenly, these go always to the people at the top. In Buenos Aires or Peking, no matter what the system, the quiet rooms and view of trees belong always to the people at the top.

“If anybody thinks there can ever be a world where you can get this without effort he’s crazy,” he said suddenly. “I sweated to get it, Anna, I sweated.”

Anna thought, I sweated for it, too. She said, “I know you did. And that’s why it’s time you stopped, isn’t it? Look, here’s George come up to see you.”

The door, which had been left ajar, was pushed toward the wall and the huge black dog came lumbering in.

“It’s chilly for May and he hates the cold.”

“He’s getting old,” Joseph said glumly. This was George the Second, son of the George who had come with Eric to their house. And George the Second had a son, Albert, born just before Eric went away.

“I know. The young one wants to be outside, though. Would you like it if George took a nap with you?”

“Apparently he intends to, whether I like it or not.” For George had stretched out on the couch, considerately leaving just enough room for Joseph.

“All right, lie down now. Philip will be here before you know it. And Laura said she might come too.”

He lay down obediently and Anna closed the door behind her. Two or three times a week, Philip stopped in on the way home from his music lesson or religious school. What a schedule for such a little fellow, only seven! But that’s the way they did it these days. And come to think of it, it hadn’t been so different for Maury and Iris, either. We all push our children to excel, we want the best of all worlds for them. Only this child, this Philip, is really something
special! I worry about him when they drop him off at the corner. He’s got two streets to cross, and so much traffic. Of course there’s a light. But he’s such a little fellow.

As soon as I’m out and around again I’m going to stop in at F.A.O. Schwarz and I’m going to buy the most lavish, expensive, magnificent toy they have in the place. Anna and Iris won’t approve but for once I won’t care, I want to buy something for a spoiled rich kid. Something I never could have dreamed of when I was his age. I don’t know what, but I’ll find something.

He couldn’t fall asleep. Too much rest, that was the trouble. Maybe get up and read. Anna had had a book up here the other day. She’d said something about beautiful essays by some important guy, and he’d seen she wanted to talk about it, so he’d asked her to read him a page or two. And it had been rather pretty. For a moment he had seen what she meant.

Too bad he hadn’t read anything, all his life. He’d always admired scholars, but you had to be born a scholar, not made. Yet those teachers Iris was always having over at her house, nice people all of them, so genteel and with so much knowledge, poor bastards! They couldn’t even afford the ten dollars it took to buy one of the books they loved so much. What sense did that make? Still, it would be a good thing to have had both worlds. There was so little he knew. Living with Anna, he was always aware of it, although she never allowed him to talk that way about himself. That time they’d been in Mexico City and her relatives had taken them to see those tremendous ruins: what a feat of construction! Anna had known all about the builders. Aztecs, were they? She had read about their palaces and priests and what the Spaniards had done to them. Yes, Anna knew so much.

Was that the book she’d been reading the other day? It had had a red cover; she’d left it on the chair. He got up. Yes, a book of essays. He’d glanced at it after she’d left the room. There had been one on growing old which she would
certainly not have let him see, would have hidden from him. But he remembered it, page forty-three. Your memory is still pretty good, what do you think, hey, Joseph? The arteries can’t be too hard with a memory like that.

Here it was. “On Growing Old.” His eyes scanned the page. “…     taut strings loosen, knots untie; the fingers open and drop what they have been holding to so tightly. The shoulders lighten, freed of what they have been carrying. Go, let go; where the wind sweeps and the tide takes, let go.”

Anna walked up Fifth Avenue in shafted light, from October gilt to shadow and back again. She was youthfully exhilarated and enjoying it.

A week ago she wouldn’t have believed it possible that Joseph would take a vacation! They had just broken ground for a new apartment complex in south Jersey; his little round room was awash with papers and blueprints. But then the Malones had arrived home to visit their newest grandchild and, with their descriptions of the West’s great spaces, had at last caught Joseph’s fancy. He had agreed to go back with them.

She could have been a wanderer. The Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, the Navajo reservations—she had wandered through all of them in her mind. This would be a journey to known, desired places. Perhaps Joseph could be persuaded, since they would have come so far anyway, to continue on to the coast?

Eleven o’clock. She was to meet Laura at Lincoln Center at twelve-thirty for lunch and the ballet. Anna had been in the city since nine, too early for Laura; young people liked to sleep late. She had finished her shopping: just walking shoes for herself, and no new clothes, since Mary Malone was not a fashion plate. One didn’t feel with her the often tiring need of looking perfect. She’d stopped at the men’s department and bought some sport shirts for Joseph. He really needed them, although he would argue that his old
ones were good enough. How he still resisted spending on himself! She must remember to take the price tags off these so he wouldn’t see and make her return them.

Thank God, he was feeling so well lately. A sudden picture out of nowhere stood in the air before her: he was reading the real estate section of the Sunday
Times
. His hands were really beautiful for a man, long-fingered, the way a pianist’s or a surgeon’s are supposed to be. This trip might be a start. It would be marvelous to go to Europe again, and then to Israel. Sometimes he spoke of seeing those places Eric once wrote about. True, he spoke only vaguely, yet the thought must be in his head. Her own thoughts ran faster as she strode uptown.

There’s another case of gold charms. I got a better buy on them this morning for Laura’s birthday, to add to her bracelet. It’s hard to know what to get for her. One can’t always give books. She’s certainly not a child, yet not a woman either. Try to remember what I was like at fourteen. But my life was so different, living at Uncle Meyer’s among strangers. Still, I must have had some of her confusions, in addition to my private ones.

I wonder, I wonder about people. There’s so much I don’t know. If I’d been born here and had a chance to learn, I’d have liked to study psychology. That couple now, standing on the corner quarreling. She’s about to cry. He’s actually walking away. What are they doing to each other? And why? Those two old women walking ahead of me; they’re at least as old as I am, even older. Withered, painted faces. Legs all knotted with veins. Dressed like young girls. Fancy, pretty shoes. A young girl’s innocent dancing slipper. How absurd. How—sad.

Maybe everyone is scared, scared they’ll never get what they want or, if they’ve got it, scared that somebody will come and take it away. (If nobody does, time will.) Yes, we’re all afraid of things we don’t talk about.

There’s a dress in the window, clouds of pink. That would be for Laura a few years from now, and was for me
years ago … that dress Joseph bought in Paris: was there ever anything as enchanting?

Lovely, lovely day. Growing warmer, the last of Indian summer. Walk westward through the park toward Lincoln Center. Laura’s never seen
Swan Lake
. She’ll love it. The time I first heard
Tristan
. Soft air now, dust on the trees. Old men playing checkers on the benches. Children roller skating. Not in school? Of course, it’s Saturday. I’m forgetful lately. I’ve been noticing that.

Out at Seventy-second Street on Central Park West. Overshot the mark. Oh well, walk back again. Here’s the street. No harm going through. Just to see. The street is filled with dark children. Puerto Ricans playing ball. They played stickball on the lower East Side, the street always loud with cries, I remember. All kinds of cries. Here’s the house: is this it? Yes, it is. So small! Tall and narrow, two windows wide. A rooming house now, probably, like all the others. People sitting on the stoop. Last sun of the year. The shades are torn. Water-green velvet hung in the “parlor.” Between the windows was a low table where the tea service was laid at four o’clock. And above that, Paul’s room with the riding boots, the Yale banner and all his wonderful books.

Am I the person I was then? I don’t recognize myself at all. Still, as time moves, it wasn’t that long ago that I came uptown from Ruth’s house and entered this one.

Blot it out. What sense is there in thinking of what might have been? Or in wondering how Paul is now? No sense, and yet I wonder. I’m still not used to thinking I may never see him again. As if he were dead.

I’m not used to the thought of Ruth’s being dead! Didn’t know I’d miss her as much. She’d gotten tart and envious. But she was always
there
and you could trust her. “I’ll take care of you,” she said that first day when I stood with my bundle and shawl, knowing nothing. I trusted her then and I wasn’t wrong.

Hers was a twisted road. Sitting there that night when Solly died, and everything else was gone, not Solly only,
but everything. It would have been easier if she had never had the apartment where they lived for those few years with carpets and a silk shawl on the baby grand piano. On Washington Heights when we went there last summer after her funeral, the first floor had been turned into stores. She lived above a hand laundry and a bar. Was it as depressing when we lived there? No, it’s changed. And certainly I’ve changed. Everything has.

Dan’s dead too, in Mexico. I saw him only twice in fifty-five years. I wish I could have seen him just once more.

We’re going down hill.

Laura ate the bacon omelet. Her long red hair, which, Iris reported with amusement, she pressed on an ironing board, fell over the plate. She pushed it back and looked up. “I’m starved,” she said.

“It smells good.”

“Bacon’s delicious. You’ve truly never tasted it?”

“Never. I remember when I came to this country, the first time I saw bacon cooking I was disgusted.”

“Because you’d been taught it wasn’t to be eaten. Why don’t you try some?”

“Sometimes I think I might. But then your grandfather—”

“You needn’t tell him. Does one have to tell a husband everything? Does one?”

“I’ve always thought one should.” God forgive me for the lie.

“Well, then, tell him. Shouldn’t a woman be free enough to do something her husband doesn’t approve of?”

“I suppose you’re morally right.”

Laura thought a moment. “But then,” she said gently, “but then, it wouldn’t be worth it to you, would it? To take a
stand
on something that upset him so—you’d only be sorry afterward, wouldn’t you?”

Anna smiled. “You’ve said it for me, better than I could have.”

A perceptive child. An instrument: I play a note and she makes harmony. More of a daughter in that way than Iris
ever was, although I know Iris isn’t unique. I’ve heard enough daughters talk, and mothers, too. How would I have been toward my mother, I wonder, if she had lived? I must be careful not to be too giving to Laura, not draw her away from Iris. It’s too easy for a grandparent to do that.

“Daddy played all the music from
Swan Lake
last night and we talked about the plot. You know, it’s the first ballet he ever saw. His parents took him to see Pavlova dance it in Vienna. We went
thoroughly
over the music and the story.
Thoroughly
. You know how Daddy is.” She laughed. “When I was young, about eight, I used to think I would become a ballerina. I really thought all you had to do was want something and you could get it.”

“But now you know better.”

“Mostly. At least, I believe I do. Maybe I still am childish and don’t see myself. Except that sometimes I already feel grown-up.”

“I know. This morning, when I saw a pink dress in a window, I forgot I was an old woman.”