The Unpossessed (12 page)

One minute after twelve, said Jeffrey's watch. He looked at Norah. Like a contented cow she looked, he thought. Everything in him warmed and relaxed. There was no wooing Norah, and no need to: she was always there and always his.

Then Mr. Papenmeyer was right; no change; no thread; it was all to do again. The match in Margaret's fingers struck bitterly across the box.

Miles went cold with terror. He had forgotten Margaret.

The pale glow held all their eyes. Norah moved her head; Jeffrey creaked his chair. Bruno felt a quickening of the tempo; the faintest concentration of their powers. Through the silence and the fog the clear note sounded. He remembered the carriage-step; and Elizabeth—what was it she had said, her braids going coolly down her shoulders? They had sat, their seven years between them, and looked into something terribly deep; had longed to plunge; had held their breaths; till he had pulled them (from his pinnacle of more years) safely back; a Chinese adage for their consolation prize. Pain filled him and he took it in with gratitude. The soundless notes were closing in; the silence gathered harmony.

Her lips puckered; the cigarette was too dry suddenly for their hunger. She held it in her lap and twisted it like something she was done with. Her sigh trembled in the silence.

Like a terrible, a deliberate, reproach to him, Miles thought.

My God, said Margaret Flinders to Margaret Banner-that-was; we are sterile; we are too horribly girlish for our age, too mannish (with our cigarettes, our jobs, our drying lips) for our sex. Was this what you intended, Lady Mary Wortley Montague? rolling your fine eyes about the drawing-room? Was this what my mother meant for me, sending me off to college, a book of Ibsen under my eager arm? O Economic-Independence Votes-for-Women Sex-Equality! you've relieved us of our screens and our embroidery hoops, our babies and our vertigo; and given us—a cigarette; a pencil in our hair.

She had that look, Miles thought, of a woman retired to count her injuries. His fists clenched in despair.

He heard the tuning-up; the gradual gathering of their separate forces. Something new was in the room. Bruno braced himself to meet it. The air stirred with the frantic wings; the din at the heart of the silence grew in volume and intensity: an awful stream.

Norah, why don't we have children?
she heard her own voice piercing like a fine horn through the din, battling its way through her pounding temples, cutting through time and space and clearing the air of confusion and wrong. And gazing straight at Norah as though the truth were out at last, she saw that the words had never been uttered, that her piercing voice had sounded nowhere but in her own astounded brain. “God damn it,” Margaret Flinders suddenly said.

Miles' nails bit deep and frightened in his palms.

(Norah, in her peaceful slumber, stirred.)

The note had sounded bravely. Bruno looked up, startled, the words, the tone, were so unlike her. But apparently no explanation was forthcoming; she seemed already to have disowned her words. She was sitting looking down; he had an instant's odd illusion that she held a baby in her lap, she curiously (and for the briefest moment) resembled a madonna; a cheated madonna, he thought next (his brain stirred gladly as it shook itself awake) when he perceived the cigarette, twisting, twisting, on her modern knee.

“Why Maggie Flinders,” Jeffrey said; and could have kicked himself for a blundering ass, so withering was the look she gave him.

But this was unreal, thought Miles; this was the bottom of everything. Margaret giving up; Margaret disloyal before their friends! Margaret, the calm, the cheerful; “balmy,” demanding so little of life—and that it should have been Margaret after all (the blind, the mild, the seeker after “happiness”) who had broken through the whirling time while he sat on in silence! Margaret voicing protest!

Sword upon sword they laid on each his separate note; Bruno felt the clashing steel and heard the band awake. His brain grew sharp and clear. “Speaking of euphemisms,” he said thoughtfully.

There! they were off again, thought Norah peacefully. Right back where they started from. Shuttlecock and battledore. Jeffrey wouldn't need her now. She drowsed; she dozed.

Margaret sat like a naked woman among her friends. She looked at the floor, the common pool where she had thrown her clothes. Wave after wave of blood rose and fell in her temples.

“Speaking of euphemisms,” Bruno said (and felt his brain emerge from adages, from sarcasm), “male writers lay too much stress on women's secondary parts. The point about a woman, the salient point,” (they held their bows in marked suspense) “is her womb.” He held his note till it should soar above the others. There was a bar of rest; in its midst he felt Margaret turning as though she knew herself compassionately addressed.

Something new was in the air. Miles distrusted it. When people
showed
emotion . . . He had seen his Uncle Daniel, after all, kill his dog without the flicker of an eyelid.

“Sure,” Jeffrey said; “and by and large the better the woman the bigger the womb.” And Norah's, he thought, proud, affectionate, must be the size of Jonah's whale.

Battledore and shuttlecock, murmured Norah's sleepy mind. Shuttledore and battlecock. Struttlecock. Struts the cock. Battles shuttles struttles.

“Of course the modern woman” (Bruno felt the interplay between himself and Margaret; a click, a contact, something human, real), “the modern woman has a pretty shallow model.” He thought of Elizabeth, whom he advised at such a tender age to throw hers out an attic window; live like a man, he said; be light, be free. “But still, it's there, it's not to be denied. The melody lingers on.” He thought of rainy attic afternoons. (Now that you're in de-part-ment-al, Betsey. . . .)

He eyed Margaret with resentment; covertly; with suspicion. A womb (unpleasant thought!). She had never told him she possessed one. Was that where women went and sat, to brood, to count their injuries? Miles vaguely hated her.

“I think,” said Margaret slowly, “that that's what men are scared of—what they haven't got.” Her smooth forehead was pained but enlightened; her eyes were sober, keen; in such a clear-cut moment, Bruno thought, her little-girlhood left her, she stepped out bravely, older than her years. “They resent it,” she said courageously.

Miles feared her. Sitting in their secret chambers, looking out the windows of their (he couldn't say the word!), what couldn't a woman see? were all things grist to her—again he denied himself the word.

“Desertion,” said Bruno lightly, “in my presidential day” (and watched Miles close his eyes as though he left the conversation), “will be on grounds of womb-neglect.” Lightly but emphatically he wove his theme across their themes.

(Were they on the Magazine again, thought Norah, drifting peacefully. Funny they couldn't decide one day, whether they wanted one or not. What was the name of that book that everyone was reading? point counter point counterpoint counterpointercounterpointcountercockpointercount.)

Wombs, Jeffrey thought; that's it; wombs, not souls—that's what women have, that's what Norah has. A lovely, brown—a great big comfortable home-like womb, a one-room womb; with room for me. A man's life went from womb to tomb. (Make note next novel; Blake's genius grows; wonderful insight; even the comrades admit.)

But they were lined against him, pointing fingers at him, Margaret and Bruno, building this thing against him. It was unspeakable. Miles could bare his chest to cuts; could turn his back for blows (receiving them with agony, with thanks). But this—this shaking emotion in his face, this dangling the personal before his eyes. A puppet, they called him. A marionette. But his shell was cracking; his own shell turned and with its splintered points dug sharply in his guts.

“I think we'll add,” said Bruno cheerfully, “a happy womb in every home to my political planks. That'll bag the women's votes.” And sustain the men, he thought; for barren women meant the men were sterile. If their bodies lay fallow, perhaps the men's brains too . . .

“You have my vote already,” Margaret said. She felt that she was groping, groping through a long dark tunnel; Bruno pointing the way. The light was farther on.

“And how about Norah's?” said Bruno tenderly.

What? Had someone called her? Did someone want something? No; it was one of Bruno's jokes. She
did
think Jews were geniuses; but sometimes Bruno acted like a fool. She smiled and nodded tranquilly. And closed her eyes again.

She smiled and nodded, as though his talk were child's play, or something purely male, at once beyond and beneath her. Bruno smiled. “Now Norah,” he said; “take Norah, for example—”

“For God's sake!” Miles' cry was genuine. He couldn't bear another word. His nerves were frayed; his shell was splintered; he had reached the bottom of loneliness and fear.

Had Margaret Flinders sprouted wings? Bruno watched her moving in her sudden radiance. She was beside Miles in a second, her arms about his neck. Something had taken hold of Margaret, filled her with triumphant storm; and Miles, allured, bewildered, stood like a moon beside the sun.

He was frightened of her as he had been that afternoon, coming at him like a mountain. But he was smitten with joy and pride in her. And this was something different; she was altogether radiant now; diffused; she was glorious; she was . . .

“Beautiful,” cried Jeffrey (by God, she suddenly was!); “your girl is beautiful, Miles.”

“Not beautiful, just balmy,” Miles said, shaken. But she was beautiful. Her arms about his neck were beautiful. Her rapid, joyous breathing. He timidly put out his hand and patted her. The gesture was ridiculous; like patting God. But her hold tightened as if she knew.

One didn't make decisions, Margaret knew; one bore them—out of pain and fear and dark. Her own now was a shining light. “Darling, let's go home,” she whispered; “I . . .”

He was afraid of her. She poured something in the air, something that filtered from Bruno to her, that came from her a large and awe-inspiring light. But he was in love. Miles had fallen in love again with Margaret.

Whatever it was that he had given her, she returned it to Bruno ten times over now. We need women, he thought; we can't go far without them. (I need Elizabeth.) “This way, ladies and gents,” he said; “this way for the sleeping human volcano, the Rip Van Winkle of volcanoes.” (Allegro, boys, all together, faster, nearer, play for all you're worth!) “I have a startling proposition to lay before the house.”

December
,
January
,
February
, Margaret thought.

“I propose,” (the thing took all his strength) “oh what the hell,” he cried; “what's stopping us? I propose we
have
the God damn Magazine.”

March
,
April
,
May
, thought Margaret.

“Magazine? what Magazine? is there a Magazine?” said Jeffrey in Bruno's most satiric voice.

“Comrade,” said Miles; “is it that you think the time is ripe?”

Faster and faster the music played. Now there was free give and take. Bruno was bursting with strength, with love for his old triumvirate supplemented in their second youth by women, he thought of Elizabeth . . .“Defeatist talk,” he said, “that's defeatist talk, my friends. The predicament of the intellectual today demands . . .”

(Norah dozed; she half-dreamed. She was out scattering corn to her mother's chickens. They ran picking and cackling about her skirts. Hush, hush now, she told them; there's plenty more in Norah's pockets.)

June, July
. . . . Why, it might be in August! Margaret thought. Almost in the fall. They would have winter, spring, and summer; and surprise Mr. Papenmeyer in the fall.

“Are you serious, Bruno?” Miles stood straight, his arm on Margaret's shoulder.

“We'll be on the newsstands by Christmas and in the public eye like a moat the morning after.”

“Publicity,” cried Jeffrey, “I can get us free publicity. And left-wing advice—Comrade Fisher.”

“an office” “printers' estimates” “the size” “how often” “contributions” “advertisement” “the policy” (Faster and faster Bruno's music soared) “how soon” “meetings” “discuss” (the chickens continued to scramble and squawk, plucking at Norah's skirts) “politics” “criticism” “open forum” “and money . . .”

“We'll need money,” Miles said; “plenty of it.”

“There's Merle,” said Bruno, “mother of Emmett, my young guinea pig. I'll tackle Merle.”

“
I'll
tackle Merle,” cried Jeffrey; “I hear she's a beauty—”

“A glandular beauty, I'm afraid she's frigid, Jeff.”

“I'll tackle her anyway, I'm no snob, I'll tickle her, tackle her, plough her—I'll make her pay and
like
it.”

(Norah woke up, startled, the rooster crowed so loud.)

“Then we'll meet” “no, sooner” “and decide” “I'll arrange the printers” “then Wednesday” “Saturday” “so by Monday at the latest” “and by Christmas” “surely no later than January” “How late is Western Union open . . .

“because I've got to send a cable,” Bruno said.

“And we'll go with you,” cried Margaret in a ringing voice. “I want to get out, in the air! Darling, look!” She flew to the window and flung it up. Night blew in. “It's winter, Miles!” Outside Mrs. Salvemini's snow was softly falling.

“WHY IT'S snowing!” she did not exclaim with joy as she flew to the window for a first fresh breath of morning. “Why it's my first Paris snow!” she did not cry out as she threw back the curtains and let showers of snow-reflected sun spatter Denny and the bed in glory. “O it's snowing and maybe this is love and I don't want to leave you,” she could not help not saying again not not once but not numberless times as she ran about the room looking for stockings without holes.