The 40s: The Story of a Decade (122 page)

I shall not describe our drive back to the house, but my father did say, “Janey will be worried. We’ve been nearly three hours. I’ll put the car in afterward.”

· · ·

When we got back, my father jumped out and went down the path. I got out slowly. I could hardly walk down the path. It is a long path leading across a small lawn, then between two lime trees; there are a few steps down into where the roses are, and across another piece of grass you are at the door. I stopped to listen to the bees in the limes, but I could not wait any longer. I went into the house.

There was my stepmother standing on the landing above the hall. Her face was dark red, her eyes were long and violent, her dress was dusty, and her hands were black with dust. She had just finished screaming something at my father, and her mouth had stayed open after her scream. I thought I could
smell
her anger and her fear the moment I came into the house, but it was really the smell of a burned-out saucepan coming from the kitchen.

“You moved the ladder! Six hours I’ve been up here. The telephone has been ringing, something has burned on the stove. I might have
burned to death. Get me down, get me down! I might have killed myself. Get me down!” She came to the gap where the ladder ought to have been.

“Don’t be silly, Janey,” said my father. “I didn’t move the ladder. Don’t be such a fool. You’re still alive.”

“Get me down!” Janey cried out. “You liar, you liar, you liar! You did move it!”

My father lifted the ladder, and as he did so, he said, “The builder must have been.”

“No one has been!” screamed my stepmother. “I’ve been alone! Up here!”

“Daddy
isn’t
a liar,” I said, taking my father’s arm.

“Come down,” said my father when he had got the ladder in place. “I’m holding it.”

And he went up a step or two toward her.

“No!” shrieked Janey.

“Now, come on. Calm yourself,” said my father.

“No, no, I tell you!” said Janey.

“All right, you must stay,” said my father, and stepped down.

That brought her, of course.

“
I
moved the ladder,” I said when she had come down.

“Oh,” said Janey, swinging her arm to hit me, but she fainted instead.

· · ·

That night, my father came to my room when I was in bed. I had moved my mother’s photograph to the bedside table. He was not angry. He was tired out.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

I did not answer.

“Did you know she was upstairs?” he asked.

I did not reply.

“Stop playing with the sheet,” he said. “Look at me. Did you know she was upstairs?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You little cat!” he said.

I smiled.

“It was very wrong,” he said.

I smiled. Presently he smiled. I laughed.

“It is nothing to laugh at,” he said. And suddenly he could not stop
himself; he laughed. The door opened and my stepmother looked in while we were both shaking with laughter. My father laughed as if he were laughing for the first time in many years; his bounderish look, sly and bumptious and so delicious, came back to him. The door closed.

He stopped laughing.

“She might have been killed,” he said, severe again. And then he remembered what I had asked him on the bridge at Gilling.

I lowered my head.

“You wanted—” he said.

“No, no, no!” I cried, and tears came to my eyes. He put his arm around me.

My mother was a cat, they said, a wicked woman, leaving us like that. I longed for my mother.

Three days later, I went to camp. I apologized to my stepmother and she forgave me. I never saw her again.

November 5, 1949

All hands were on deck for this volume. Good thing, too. It was some deck—and those were some hands. They represented a wide span of generations and sensibilities. Some lived through the forties; others were happy to live through the ones who lived through the forties. Special thanks go to Roger Angell, Katia Bachko, Robert P. Baird, Madeleine Baverstam, Pete Canby, Chris Curry, Noah Eaker, Rob Fischer, Sameen Gauhar, Hannah Goldfield, Ann Goldstein, Mary Hawthorne, Neima Jahromi, Susan Kamil, Carolyn Korman, Taylor Lewis, Ruth Margalit, Pam McCarthy, Caitlin McKenna, Wyatt Mitchell, Lynn Oberlander, Erin Overby, Beth Pearson, Tom Perry, Joshua Rothman, Eric Simonoff, Simon M. Sullivan, and Susan Turner. And, of course, to all the worthies whose bylines appear in these pages.

JOAN ACOCELLA
has written for
The New Yorker
since 1992 and became the magazine’s dance critic in 1998. Her books include
Mark Morris
(1993),
Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism
(2000), and
Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints
(2007).

CONRAD AIKEN
(1889–1973) was a London correspondent for
The New Yorker
in the 1930s. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1930 for his
Selected Poems
and a National Book Award in 1954 for his
Collected Poems.

HILTON ALS
became a staff writer at
The New Yorker
in 1994 and a theatre critic in 2002. He is the author of
The Women
(1996) and
White Girls
(2013).

W. H. AUDEN
(1907–1973) was born in York, England, was educated at Oxford University, and achieved fame as a poet in the 1930s. In 1939 he immigrated to the United States and published his first poem in
The New Yorker.
He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for
The Age of Anxiety
and a National Book Award in 1956 for
The Shield of Achilles.

S. N. BEHRMAN
(1893–1973), a playwright, screenwriter, and biographer, first appeared in
The New Yorker
in 1929 and continued to contribute to the magazine for nearly half a century.

ELIZABETH BISHOP
(1911–1979) published her first poem in
The New Yorker
in 1940. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for
Poems: North & South—A Cold Spring
and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1976.

LOUISE BOGAN
(1897–1970) was the poetry editor of
The New Yorker
for nearly forty years. In 1945, she became the first woman to serve as the United States poet laureate. Her books include
Body of This Death
(1923),
Dark Summer
(1929), and
The Sleeping Fury
(1937).

RICHARD O. BOYER
(1903–1973) was an American journalist who began contributing to
The New Yorker
in 1931. His books include
Labor’s Untold Story
(1955) and
The Legend of John Brown
(1973).

JOHN CHEEVER
(1912–1982) sold his first story to
The New Yorker
in 1935 and was a regular contributor of fiction to the magazine until his death. His books include
The Wapshot Chronicle
(1957),
The Wapshot Scandal
(1964), and
Falconer
(1977).

DAN CHIASSON
is an associate professor of English at Wellesley College and has written about poetry for
The New Yorker
since 2008. His books include the poetry collections
Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon
(2010) and
Bicentennial
(2014), and a book of essays,
One Kind of Everything
(2007).

ROBERT M. COATES
(1897–1973) joined the staff of
The New Yorker
in 1929. He coined the term “Abstract Expressionism,” in a piece for the magazine in 1946. His books include
The Eater of Darkness
(1926) and
The Outlaw Years
(1930).

MALCOLM COWLEY
(1898–1989) was a novelist, poet, and literary critic. He published his first poem in
The New Yorker
in 1941. His books include
Blue Juniata
(1929) and
Exile’s Return
(1934).

DAVID DENBY
has been a staff writer and film critic at
The New Yorker
since 1998. He is the author of
Great Books
(1996),
American Sucker
(2004),
Snark
(2009), and
Do the Movies Have a Future?
(2012).

CLIFTON FADIMAN
(1904–1999) joined
The New Yorker
in 1933 as a books editor. He was a judge for the Book of the Month Club and hosted
Information Please
, a popular radio quiz show. His books include
Party of One
(1955),
Any Number Can Play
(1957), and
Enter Conversing
(1962).