Institute (13 page)

“Sir, I never gave it a thought, I wasn’t guilty of anything with her, and since romance wasn’t involved—”

“You mean with my wife?”

“Yes, of course that’s what I mean.”

He harangued me for another minute or two—about Hortense, about women in general, about using good judgment—but all I could think of was that at last I had lied to him—head on, direct. It always seemed that I couldn’t have any more reason for feeling like a rat, but then it turned out that I could. He switched back to Teddy. “All I can say is, I envy you your willpower, giving her a brush—if you actually did. If it had been me, I’ll freely admit, I would have been tempted.”

“I was tempted.”

“What a sweet kid.”

“Yes, Mr. Garrett, she’s all of that.”

I had no sooner hung up than a wallop hit my cheek, and the hot venom poured in my ear. “So!
‘I was tempted’
! Then take that! And that! And that!”

The wallops kept coming, but I had had enough. I whipped the cover off and let her have it on her bare bottom. Of course she screamed bloody murder. The next morning she was snoozing away in my arms when all of a sudden, she woke up and, leaning on one elbow, said: “Lloyd, when was my last period?”

“I haven’t been keeping track.”

“Neither have I.”

“But aren’t you on the pill?”

“Some kind of way, I guess. I hate it.”

I
ALMOST JUMPED OUT
of my skin around sunup at the sound of the phone ringing. When I answered, a man said: “Dr. Palmer? Dr. Lloyd Palmer?”

When I said it was, he said his name was Dennis or Henderson or Henson, or something like that, that he was doing a biography of John Adams, “one of my American patriot series, which, no doubt, you’ve heard of. They’re school texts all over the country, standard for eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. And I wish you would put me down for a grant-in-aid from the Hortense Garrett Institute.”

I suppose he said more before I could slow him down, put away the receiver, get up, go to the closet, get a pen from my coat, come back, and ask him to repeat what he had said. By this time, Hortense was awake, leaning up on one elbow and staring at me, baffled.

I started him up again and made some notes on what he said. I told him that his application would have my serious consideration, but before hanging up, I couldn’t resist the temptation to tell him that if he really wanted a grant-in-aid, calling me at such an ungodly hour was a poor way to get it. He seemed surprised, even insulted.

“I assumed,” he said, “that in a fairly run organization, things go on a first-come, first-served basis.” By this time I was not only annoyed but curious, so I asked him how he had got my name in the first place.

“In the
Republican.
I’m looking at it as I sit here.”

The
Republican,
it turned out, was the Springfield, Massachusetts
Republican,
and he had got my number from Information.

I climbed back in bed but had hardly got under the covers when the phone rang again. This time it was a woman doing a book on Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. She lived in Newark, New Jersey. Again I made notes. When the phone rang for the third time, I just banged it down and didn’t answer. Then I took the receiver off the hook.

We lay looking at each other. By that time, of course, sleep was out of the question. I dressed and went down to the lobby for the paper. What it contained was enough to curdle your blood. At the top of one of the inside sections was a four-column shot of Teddy doing her handstand, face to the camera and backside just above it, with both patches showing. The caption read:
WHERE WAS MRS. GARRETT
?

But the main story made sense. It was mostly about me and what I had said about American biography, with quotations from my brochure and flanking photos of me looking oily and Mrs. Garrett looking annoyed. Then I called Western Union. When I told the girl who answered who I was, she said: “Oh yes. Dr. Palmer, we have some messages for you—three telegrams and two night letters. Will you hold on a minute? I’ll read them to you.”

I yelped: “No, no, no! Don’t read anything. They’re what I called about. Will you mark them and anything else that comes: Mail—Don’t Phone!” When she had that straight, I hung up, left the receiver off again, and let Hortense make me some breakfast. Then I said: “I have to go to town—into the District. If this is how it’s going to be by wire and phone, the mail will be twice as bad, and I have to do something about it, make some arrangement with the Post Office.”

“What about
this
phone?”

“I’ll call the phone company and ask them to take over.”

Dialing once more a number which the operator gave me, I got the business office. Their suggestion was to have the number changed to an unlisted one. I asked how long that would take, and the woman said a couple of days. When I asked what to do in the meantime, she said: “Well, can’t you leave the receiver off the hook?”

“That’s what I’m doing now.”

“Then you’re doing the right thing. ... Oh, I almost forgot. The charge for switching you over will be ten dollars on your next bill.”

“I’d pay a hundred.”

The main post office in the District of Columbia is on North Capitol Street. There I talked with a Mr. Stone in one of those rooms at the end of an endless corridor covered with green linoleum. He listened, then talked into a hushaphone thing that he cradled on one shoulder. Then he said: “I would say that your institute’s main problem is that it lacks an address. We have boxes at various rates. I would think the seven-fifty size would be right for you. That’s seven dollars and fifty cents a quarter. Or, if you prefer, we can give you a pouch. But I think the box would be best.”

“I’ll take the box.”

I paid him. He got up, took some keys from a rack, gave them to me, saying: “In a moment, I’ll show you where it is.” He sat drumming his fingers, apparently waiting for something. In a moment a messenger came in and dropped a half-dozen letters in front of him. He glanced at them and then gave them to me. “You’re right,” he said, “you have quite a crop already.”

The letters were addressed to me, the Hortense Garrett Institute, the Hortense Garrett Foundation, Hortense Garrett, and some other variations. I picked them up and put them in my pocket, then went with Mr. Stone to a place on the first floor where there was an entire wall of boxes, all with numbers on them. He let me unlock mine. He asked if that would be all, and when I said it would and thanked him, he waved his hand and left.

I had taken care of wires, phone calls, and mail, but that was just the beginning. I had no more idea than the man in the moon what to do about the deluge of applications or, except in a general way, what the reason for it was. I had to have help, and I knew only one place to get it: headquarters. I went to the Garrett Building to phone Mr. Garrett in Wilmington. To my surprise, instead of being appalled at the turn things had taken, as I was, he was pleased, on the basis on what had come out in the Wilmington papers. The Associated Press, instead of playing it cute, had carried a straight story about the Institute, with an account of what I had said, quotations from the brochure, and a few formal words from Mr. Garrett. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that it was this straight story that was causing the trouble. It was an open invitation to anyone who might be interested to put in for a lump of the sugar. When I pointed this out to him, he began to laugh and told me I’d better come see him. So, without waiting around (it wasn’t yet twelve noon), I got in my car and drove up.

He sat there in his office and listened very closely. “It seems to me,” he said, “we have to make up our minds what we’re trying to do. Is it to discover new talent and then encourage it? Or reward talent already proven? Or what?”

“On talent,” I said, “let’s forget it. There’s so much talent for biography in this country that encouraging new talent is like encouraging fish in the sea to swim.”

“What, then?”

“We have to check on talent, that we take for granted. But the main thing is the project an author has in mind. Is it worth our support?”

“And who will decide that?”

“
I
will, I should think. But my problem is, I don’t know where to start. As things now stand, I’m swamped, utterly snowed under.”

“Let me give it a mull.”

So he mulled. Then he said: “I think you need a staff.”

“Of researchers?”

“Of investigators, would be more like it—gumshoes like those I have down there in Washington. Not guys who dig into books, but who dig into people. Who’ll get on the tail of these writers, find out who they are, what they’ve done, what they’re up to now—and report. Then you can make up your mind.”

“The staff will add to our overhead.”

“But not as much as trying to do everything yourself. And, while we’re on the subject, what other help will you need once we’re actually going?”

“Christ, we’re rolling
now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but—”

“Secretaries, for one thing.”

“We take that for granted. What else?”

“A librarian. I have one in mind—a Dr. Chin. He’s Chinese.”

“Okay, get him. What else?”

“Chief researcher and probably four assistants—one for each main period of our history, for each of our main wars—Revolutionary, Civil, First World, Second.”

“That sounds fine. What else?”

“A genealogist. You may think that’s funny, but it’s something every biographer faces. For some reason, he’s expected to give the family tree for any person he writes on; but it’s special stuff and—”

“You have someone in mind?”

“A man named Davis, at the Library of Congress. He’s due to retire soon, and—”

“Then he can be had?”

“I think he would jump in our lap.”

“Okay, tell him, jump.”

“One other thing: our building—”

“... will be ready in a couple of months.”

He had an odd look on his face. He went on: “Those canvas wraps you see in the front of the building are to cover certain special alterations, such as a black granite front with brass lettering. But not a word of this to my wife. I want it to be a surprise. If she gets curious about it, just say that the contractor can’t be hurried. The permit, especially for the
sign,
as they called it at the District building, was more trouble than the rest of the building put together.”

Back in Washington and into the Garrett Building to start lining things up, especially to find a secretary for me. When I called Hortense about one, though, she knew exactly the right lady, who started the next morning. She was middle-aged, gray-haired, and spectacled. She wouldn’t have been
my
choice, of course, but she turned out to be good at her job. She suggested two girls to help out with the typing, answering the inquiries that kept coming in, picking up our mail at the Post Office, and running errands. But I needed the investigators most of all and happened to think of a retired professor at the University of Maryland who, I suspected, could size up applicants just by the way they typed. His name was Carter. I called him, and he was immediately interested. He also had a friend, just retired from the University of Pennsylvania, whom he would like to work with him. So I called this man, a Dr. Johnson, and hired him, too, on Carter’s say-so. The day after that, they checked in, and Sam Dent found them offices. By now I had an office; Miss Koehler, my secretary, had an office; the two Ph.D. “gumshoes” had an office between them; and my two extra girls had offices. I must say, Dent treated me well. God knows how he did it, but he managed somehow. I was indeed “rolling,” with things well under control.

By Saturday night, with the new phone number in service and the wires, mail, and occasional press inquiries answered, I could sit back and relax and let Hortense do me a steak, which she did. But she seemed oddly withdrawn. After awhile I asked: “What’s the trouble? Have I done something?”

“Yes
,
I guess that’s it.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll tell you, all in due time.”

But it wasn’t until we were tucked into bed and she was in my arms that she whispered: “Lloyd, I’m pregnant.”

“Well! I
did
do something, didn’t I?”

“I got the lab report yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you until you were out from under some of the pressures that have been plaguing you.”

“The rabbit died, huh?”

“They don’t use a rabbit now. There’s some other test that’s more certain.
Positive,
it said.”

“How do you stand on time?”

“On time? What do you mean ‘on time’?”

“How far gone are you?”

“With the life we lead, it’s pretty hard to tell. But two or three weeks seems about right. Maybe three. No more than four.”

“Then there’s plenty of time.”

“For what?”

“Surgery, I would assume.”

She lay still for a long time without saying anything. “I would have to think about that,” she said finally.

“And in the meantime? What’s permitted?”

For a moment, she drew a blank, then: “Oh
that
! Why, everything ... not only permitted; it’s required. He needs it—or she does, whichever—for ... encouragement. Psychological normality. What you make me feel, he feels, too, of course—or she does.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“You sweet goof.”

The next day she didn’t go into town. She sat around with me, first by the window, looking out, then by the fireplace where I had built a fire because the heat hadn’t come on yet. Besides, it was chilly outside. And when she wasn’t doing any of these, she would walk around the apartment. That night, again in my arms, she said: “I’m not going to have it done.”

“The abortion? ... Well, it’s up to you.”

“I was warned when I had my miscarriage that if I ever had an abortion, it could mean the end of me—not my life but my capacity to have children. And I want this child. Deep down in me, I’ve been wanting it, wanting to have one by you. That’s what’s made me so careless—with that damned pill. Now you know, I wasn’t really careless. I just hated it, hated the purpose of it.”