When We Argued All Night (10 page)

—All right, you play now, and I'll watch you, he said, and lay down on the couch with his book.

Soon Brenda began to scream in a different way, more frantically, with abandon. At first, Artie put down his book and watched her, taking even more pleasure. But then she picked things up and threw them—first a magazine, then some mail, then the book he'd been reading. She hurled the book, then dove after it, and tore the page that came to her hand, holding up the torn piece of paper and laughing.

—Wait a minute! Artie shouted. What's the matter with you? He was screaming as if she were an adult. Why are you tearing my book? Do I tear your books? Brenda started shrieking, and he turned away disgustedly, half intending to find one of her books and tear it, to show her how much she wouldn't like that. He picked her up roughly. She was wet with tears and needed to be changed again, because he'd forgotten to take her to the toilet, and her shoes were untied. She did not stop screaming. What, are you stupid or something? he said. What do you think will happen, you do things like that? He smacked her backside.

A moment later, Evelyn came in carrying Carol. What's going on? she said. The people downstairs complained about the noise. What is
wrong
with you? What did you do to her? She picked up Brenda and held both children, and now Carol began to cry.

—Your back will hurt, he said, but she carried both girls into the bedroom. She'd left the carriage and groceries downstairs, so he went down and lugged them up, and then he put the perishables in the refrigerator, but he was too angry—with all of them—to put the rest away, so he waited resentfully in the living room until she came through alone, on her way to get a bottle for Carol.

—Maybe you want to call the cops on me, he said then. Maybe you think I'm dangerous! Send me to prison. It'll make a good story in the paper. Give the downstairs people a little more to think about. He picked up the cheap camera he used these days for snapshots and walked out of the house. How he missed developing pictures—the smells, the suspense, the strange surprises. He'd sold all that equipment without saying anything to Evelyn.

H
ome was not easy, but in the classroom the unexpected only inspired Artie. The riskier the better. He could not discipline his seventh- and eighth-grade social studies students because they knew he was amused by bad behavior. Eventually, though, he'd lose his temper. Once, he kicked his metal wastebasket around the room, scattering papers and causing a terrible banging, scaring the children. They quieted down, and the look in the girls' eyes made him uncomfortable. But when he told them that maybe their teacher was dangerous and they should call the cops, they laughed, unlike Evelyn, who didn't speak to him all day after he said that. The children liked his whistling and his games. Artie devised games to teach everything, managing to use his outdated maps to let them see how badly the Allies were doing in the war, then how things began to improve. Children would play General Eisenhower and Winston Churchill deciding what to do, and once he chose someone to play Hitler, but the boy refused and Artie didn't push it. He never concealed his own opinions except as a trick. But he encouraged the children to disagree with him and held debates that got louder and louder, until the bell rang and the kids said they had to go to math, while Artie wanted to keep arguing.

4

H
arold came home one evening, late in 1944 when Myra was a few months pregnant—he had found time despite teaching to write a book review, and he'd just turned it in—to find Gus Maloney in his living room. He hadn't seen Gus since long before the war. Harold had known him as a newspaperman, but Gus had left his paper to work in a family business not long after Harold and Artie borrowed his cabin in the Adirondacks. When Myra, now and then, mentioned Gus, it was with irritation, possibly fond irritation.

—Gus has no sense of direction, she said once, when they were looking for an unfamiliar place.

Another time she said, Gus doesn't eat chicken. Have you ever heard of someone who doesn't eat chicken? They were eating chicken—or, Harold was eating chicken. Myra was rarely observed to eat. Her remarks made it seem as if Gus might be waiting just outside the room, and indeed, now he had come in. He sprang to his feet to shake Harold's hand and give him a slap on the arm that made him think Gus had been in the war. He stumbled slightly as he sat down again, and it turned out he'd served in the Pacific, had been wounded and discharged. His arms and legs were long, and he seemed ready to spring up again, despite the limp, to do what Harold couldn't. Harold became intensely conscious that Myra and Gus were a couple of goys while he was a Jew, as if they'd have ways of deceiving him he couldn't begin to imagine. Gus was lanky, craggy-faced, older than Myra and Harold, with graying hair he flung off his forehead with a careless gesture.

—We were talking about the cabin, Myra said.

—You still own it? Harold said, remembering the silence and the smell of the woods. It was several years since he and Myra had been there, and again it had seemed unreachable, maybe because Myra didn't mention it and Harold, always wondering about Gus, couldn't.

—More than ever, Gus said. It's mine since my father died. I have some plans for it, and I thought it might hold a sentimental value for you too. He cleared his throat. Since I take it that you met there.

Harold didn't answer. He was taking off his hat and coat. Gus kept talking. For what he called a pittance, Harold and Myra could become part owners of the cabin. With some money, Gus could enlarge it and put in a bathroom.

—Nobody can go there often, Gus said with a broad gesture. There's no point in just one family owning it.

—We don't have a car, Harold said. What Gus was proposing would put him permanently into their lives, but they'd also have the cabin.

—The bus goes pretty close now, Gus said quickly, while Myra said, You know my father would let us use his car.

Harold hung up his coat, leaving his hat on a chair, and considered coffee or whiskey. Myra had offered nothing. She was deep in their most comfortable chair, her legs drawn under her, looking sleepy. She disliked pregnancy.

Harold said, What does your wife think about asking us into this deal? He lit a cigarette, then became uneasy—Myra said smoke nauseated her—and stubbed it out.

—My wife? Gus said. She thinks it's a good idea.

Pouring drinks, Harold kept his back to Gus. Well, we don't have any money, he said. We can't consider it. He found himself angry that he couldn't own the cabin or some of it, while he was simultaneously angry with Gus for making the proposal. He'd always been suspicious of Gus and now found himself wondering whether Myra's child was his own. But he loved the cabin.

—Not for me, she was saying. He handed a glass to Gus and took one. Myra said, Maybe my parents would put in some money. It would be nice for the baby. She spoke, as she occasionally did, in a slight falsetto, and when she did, there was trouble. When they were alone, she'd tell him four or five things he already should have done that he'd never thought of—bought her a present or told her not to wear something she had decided was unbecoming. She'd become more and more outraged, then would weep for hours, no matter what he did.

Maybe her parents already knew the whole scheme. We'll talk about it, he said. What did I hear about you, Gus? You're in business?

—Funerals, said Gus.

Harold needed to go outside and walk. Funerals! He wondered how long it would take to walk all the way to the reservoir in Highland Park. It was a bleak spot, an enormous angular stone bowl of dark water with a fence and a treeless cobblestone path around it. From it one could see distances. Gulls flew from Jamaica Bay to the reservoir, if rain threatened, and settled on the water. Harold got up, hitching his trousers self-consciously, and stood near the chair on which he'd dropped his hat. Out of the corner of his eye, Myra, in her dark green robe, had grown sharper, more alert. Why was she entertaining a visitor in her bathrobe? Well, since her pregnancy, she often worked all day in it, making drawings in bed of models and clothes she'd seen only once—clothes that wouldn't fit her now. Once a week she'd dress in stylish maternity clothes and take her portfolio into the city.

Sometimes, after she'd criticized him, Myra cried and said, I know I'm impossible. I don't want to be impossible! Harold, don't let me be impossible! He'd take her in his arms, soothe her, talk to her in nonsense syllables, offer to open a can of soup, but she'd shake her head. The chair with his hat was as far away from her as he could go.

5

W
hen Harold heard that President Roosevelt had died, in April 1945, he surprised himself by crying, though he'd often quarreled—sometimes out loud, in one-sided arguments—with Roosevelt. He had turned on a radio and was caught by surprise. It was another shock, after the shock of seeing the films of concentration camp survivors a few weeks before. Myra came running with the baby when she realized that Roosevelt was dead—with their long, skinny son, their floppy baby, whom people tended to hold horizontally, so he seemed less organized than the usual compact infant squashed comfortably against an adult shoulder. She'd insisted on calling him Nelson, a name that sounded pretentious to Harold. Now she was speechless, then distracted, saying they had to go see her parents, who had never been enthusiastic about Roosevelt. She went to get dressed, scattering hairpins, then changed her mind. They stayed home, and she squeezed against Harold on the sofa. Nothing is the same, Myra said.

Evelyn Saltzman was devastated, weeping over her daughters and then handing Carol to Artie so she could cry in private, which meant in the bathroom. Artie was upset too but didn't say much. He distracted Brenda from the sound of Evelyn's sobs by carrying her around the house on his shoulders, neighing and clutching her feet, trotting and even galloping, though she was afraid and after a while begged him to stop. But Artie neighed louder and ran faster, not wanting to think too hard about the ways in which time had passed, the man who seemed as if he'd be president forever was dead, and Artie himself had turned into an adult, despite everything. He felt sure he must be a boy still, but there was so much evidence to the contrary, more every day.

Chapter 4

When We Argued All Night

1951–1952

B
eatrice London, Harold said, swinging his arms as he walked, when Artie couldn't guess who of all people was teaching in Harold's school. A jolt of irritation passed through Artie before he remembered who she was. The three kids ran ahead of them on the bumpy hexagonal paving stones of the paths at the Central Park Zoo: Brenda, sturdy and yet unsure, self-consciously pumping her arms, her thin curls tight against her head; Nelson, almost as tall as Carol, his feet flopping as if his ankles had no bones; Carol, who seemed like a different kind of kid because she was not awkward. Artie quickly, superstitiously, counted them, though Beatrice London was not a kidnapper or a dangerous zoo animal possibly out of its cage, just the grouch who had been his night school supervisor.

Now she taught homemaking at the high school where Harold taught English. I recognized her name right away, he said. She's pretty. I imagined a gnome, with her nose touching her chin.

Nelson was afraid of the seals and couldn't stay away from them, yet wherever the children led them, they came back to the seals—Artie was sure Nelson made this happen—and he would cry. Now his head was down and his nose dripped. Brenda kept walking, but Carol took his hand. One seal sat on an exposed shelf, another slithered out of their dirty pool. Sea lions, were they sea lions, not seals, and what was the difference? Artie could imagine being afraid. Not afraid that they'd hurt him, afraid of the way they flopped. Maybe Nelson feared turning into a seal.

—Did she recognize
your
name? Artie didn't remember speaking of Harold to Beatrice, but he might have. He had tried to make friends. Let's buy them Cracker Jacks.

—Cracker Jacks would spoil their lunch, Harold said. Artie thought he might buy Cracker Jacks anyway.

It was September, and they'd been teaching for a week, after the first days of putting their classrooms in order and dealing with the demands of 110 Livingston Street. The kids were back in school too: Brenda in fifth grade, Carol in third, Nelson in second, though he seemed like a baby. Harold was silent now and Artie whistled.

When they left the zoo, Brenda glanced over her shoulder at her father, then climbed a heap of glacial boulders near the path. They sat down on a bench to watch her. Nelson hit Carol's leg and she hit him back.

Artie was annoyed with Harold for telling him in his superior way that he'd discovered Beatrice London, sweetly teaching homemaking. Harold had a way of implying that Artie made enemies needlessly. Nelsy, he said, let's have a race. See if you can beat me.

—I can't beat you, Nelson said.

—Maybe you can, Artie said. You're not like your father. He's a terrible tennis player. But maybe you can beat me at running.

—Cut it out, Harold said.

Carol walked slowly in Brenda's direction. She wore a blue cotton dress, and her head, above it, was small and cute.

—Come on, Nelsy, Artie said.

At last Nelson stood up to have a race. Artie chose the starting line and the finish, a bench a little distance down the path. Carol, Artie called, you're the referee. Make sure I don't cheat.

Carol smiled and waited. Artie did cheat, starting to run when Carol had called, On your mark, Get set, but not yet, Go. She had paused to let him, since he always did it. She shouted, You cheated, Daddy, you cheated!

—You got me, he said. Nelson didn't comment. He didn't get into position to run or even face front. Carol said, Go, and it took Nelson a while to get going. Artie couldn't run slowly enough to let Nelson win. Harold had taught the boy
nothing
! Artie loped to the bench when Nelson was halfway there. If it had been Carol, he would have staged an elaborate fall to let her get ahead of him, flopping on the ground, shocking passersby. But he stretched out his arm and touched the bench, yelling, I won, I won! He danced a little. Nelson stopped and put two or three fingers into his mouth.

—Nelson, Harold called.

Brenda came running from the rocks. Jumping off the last rock, she fell. She scrambled to her feet. Stop it, she screamed as she reached her father, crying and pounding his arm with her fists. I hate you, Daddy, I hate you.

—Where did you come from? Artie said. Nelson understands—boys have to learn, win or lose.

—I hurt my knee, Brenda said.

—Hurt your knee? You can't think of anything to say, you figure out you got hurt.

—I—don't—do—that! Brenda screamed; she shrieked. She sat down on the paving stones and pulled her skirt above her knee. It was bleeding. He's just a little kid, she sobbed.

Harold, still on the first bench, stood up. Let me see, Brenda. Ignoring his own child, who still stood with his fingers in his mouth, Harold went to Artie's daughter and reached out a hand to help her up. Brenda seized it, pulled, and with the momentum of rising fell forward, in tears again, against Harold's body.

—Would you just stop it? Artie shouted. She was too old for this. Adolf Hitler rose from the dead and killed you, is that the trouble?

—For God's sake, that is
enough
! Harold said. These are
children
. Come on, Brenda, let's go back to the zoo. You can wash your knee in the ladies' room. Carol will help you, won't you, Carol?

He was crouching, now, his legs straining his pants, examining Brenda's knee. There's a lot of gravel, he said.

—Oh, for heaven's sake! Artie said. He came up to them and brushed the gravel off Brenda's knee with his hand. I'm taking you home, he said.

—It's an hour on the subway, Harold said. Everyone's hungry. What's got into you?

Beatrice London. Artie couldn't stop. Well, you and your pathetic kid can go and dine in that case. Artie seized Brenda by the shoulder, knowing Carol would follow, and strode south to the subway.

Y
ears earlier, Brenda's father had taken her to Central Park, also to the zoo, but by herself. Her mother had wanted Artie to stay home. It had something to do with a promise. Brenda didn't like hearing her parents shout.

They walked from their house to the elevated train station, but when they had climbed the steep staircase, Artie said, Did you bring money?

Brenda said, You brought money.

—I've got money for myself, said her father. Where's
your
money? He put a coin into the slot and went through the turnstile. Brenda stood crying on the other side.

—You didn't bring money? he called. I guess you'll have to go underneath. Brenda was supposed to pay. She was six. The woman in the booth could see them. If she didn't pay, she could go to jail.

—Sometimes you have to be an outlaw, her father said. You're a city kid. Do what it takes.

An old woman came up the stairs, glared at her father, and put in money for Brenda. She took Brenda by the hand and led her through. The woman said, I don't know what that was all about. Little girl, is this your daddy?

—Yes, Brenda said. The old woman left them and went up to the F
ROM
C
ITY
platform, where she stared at them across the tracks. They climbed different stairs, under a sign reading T
O
C
ITY
. Her father laughed. Little girl, is this your daddy? he asked her several times that day. Little girl, is this your daddy?

Today, Harold felt soft and firm at the same time, and falling against him was like falling onto a bed or sofa, something else that was soft but would not give way. And when Brenda fell against Harold—she was almost too full of joy, too embarrassed, to let herself remember—he put his big hand on her shoulder. It was as if he said, I know, I know, and that was the look on his face when she turned, while her father steered them away. Harold stood still, looking after them, and Nelson had moved to the edge of the grass and stood with his back to them.

She was too old to cry in public, but she was more angry with her father than ashamed of herself. She was ashamed of him, as if she should have been able to keep him from taking advantage of Nelson. She'd learned early, playing with Harold's son, that you didn't take advantage. The girls in
Little Women
would not have done so either, and if they had, their mother would explain to them kindly that they must not.

The subway was far. Nobody spoke. Then her father said,
There once was a dad and his daughters . . .

Long silence followed. Carol knew about limericks but couldn't make them up. But she was always ready to forgive. She tried,
They went to the zoo . . .

Of course Brenda could make up a second line that would work with her father's, but she resisted as long as she could. Carol said again,
They went to the zoo . . .
Uh,
It was true . . .

—Oh, for heaven's sake, Brenda said. That's not the way you do it. She recited:

There once was a dad and his daughters

They were eight, and ten and three-quarters.

She said it gruffly and hastily, suppressing the rhythm and her smile.

—
Very
good! Artie said, and Brenda knew that for once he had not succeeded in coming up with his own line. He quickly thought of the rest, though:

They went to the zoo

Where they danced with the gnu

And were interviewed by the reporters.

—Get it, Caroly? he said, reaching to tickle her. Gggg-nu? What's new?

—I'm hungry, said Carol.

—There's a Schrafft's around here, Artie said. We'll have waffles.

H
arold got to know Beatrice London when they were both assigned sixth-period cafeteria duty. Kids eating in sixth period had been made to wait too long for their lunch, and Harold—who had patrolled the cafeteria at all possible hours—thought sixth period was the most difficult. Being extra hungry made them more willing to throw food or fight.

Beatrice London was not a union member or at least not a member of the Teachers Union, which Harold belonged to. He had friends in the Teachers Guild—which had broken away from the Teachers Union because they believed it was dominated by Communists—who said they didn't think she belonged to that either. She was a tidy woman with small breasts and a little frown. She seemed old-fashioned: maybe she wore her skirts longer than other women did, or maybe it was her hair, which was short and curly and made her look naïve, like a girl in a musical comedy who misjudges everything in the first act but gets the man in the end.

He tried to remember just what Artie had said about Beatrice London, what his grievance had been. He probably expected her to find him delightful, and instead Beatrice had found him confusing. Walking in the aisles between the dirty tables in the cafeteria, her skirt swinging a little, her hands stiff at her sides, fingers spread as if she was afraid of touching something, Beatrice London was visibly conscientious, and maybe that was what seemed old-fashioned. Harold wanted to befriend her.

One day, easing from his end of the long room to hers, he said, I hear you teach home ec.

—That's right.

—What's it like, just teaching girls? Do you miss the boys?

She didn't stop her slow march, and he scrambled to walk next to her. She looked toward a table of boys as if she was only just now noticing boys. They were a little raucous, and Harold touched the nearest one on the shoulder, smiled, and said, Just keep it down, fellas.

—I have brothers, she said. I'm used to boys.

—My wife is having a baby, Harold said. We have a son and I'm hoping for a girl.

—That would be nice.

He gave a casual wave and returned to his end of the room, striding purposefully, as if he'd detected incipient trouble, but feeling uncomfortable. She was shy.

A week later, a food fight broke out at her end of the cafeteria, with the usual accompanying rumble of onlookers stamping their feet, and he hurried over. Before he arrived, Miss London clapped her hands, and when she was ignored, she walked between the disruptive boys. A handful of something brown landed on her back, and the boys quieted. Instead of scolding them, she made them stand at the side of the room. You too, she said to several other boys, who apparently had smiled—Harold couldn't tell. They were mostly Negro boys. She marched them into the kitchen, the brown stain noticeable on her white blouse, and then led them out again, each bringing a dishrag. Under her eye, the boys cleaned most of the cafeteria and were still cleaning when the period ended.

—Down on your hands and knees, Harold heard her say. A cafeteria worker came over with a mop, but she waved him away. Harold had gone back to his end of the room.

Later, one of his students said, That home ec teacher.

—Yes?

—She allowed to do that?

—I don't know, Harold said. He made up his mind to speak to her. She knew too well how to be cruel, but that was more reason to confront her, to help her. A new teacher could get into the habit of cruelty, and then she would be stuck.

Taking the train into the city one afternoon instead of going straight home, Harold found Beatrice London sitting opposite him, the
New York Times
folded in front of her with the crossword puzzle on top, a pencil in her left hand. He moved across to sit next to her.

—You're a lefty, he said.

She looked up, slightly alarmed. Harold Abramovitz, he said. Sixth-period lunch.

—I recognized you, she said. He glanced at the puzzle. He knew an answer, but some people didn't like help. She moved her left hand so it blocked the squares she'd filled in. Then she said, I've been wanting to ask you something.

He was pleased.

She said, Do you have a friend named Arthur Saltzman?

—Yes, yes I do! said Harold. It would give them a connection, and maybe he could go from talking about Artie to talking about dealing with obstreperous kids. Maybe she'd say what she hadn't liked about Artie, and he could reassure her. Artie wasn't easy, he could say truthfully, but he was worth it. He meant no harm. She might say Artie had teased her, and he could tell her about times when his friend had teased him. He could describe the recent time in Central Park when Artie had gotten Nelson to race and lose—but no, that would be
too
bad.