First Papers (37 page)

Nobody ever answered her about Joan, except her mother, but that was a principle, and she did it in her Latin-words kind of explaining-to-your-children, which was no real good. Something about Caesarean and breech presentation and twenty-six hours of labor and Joan’s father demanding a consultant specialist.

“It’s when a baby starts feet first,” Eli said, rather suddenly.

“Starts what, Eli?”

“To get born.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is it awful, starting that way?”

“The head is supposed to come first.”

“Come where?”

He pushed back his chair and said, “Now look here, Fee, do you know about babies getting born, or don’t you?”

“Certainly I do,” she said. “They’re inside the mothers and they get born and then they’re out.”

He looked mollified and said, “Well, all right.” She waited for him to go on, but he said, “Is there any more milk?” and went to the icebox to see. He was gone for a long time, and when he came back, he said, “All these hospital bills and doctor’s bills and specialist’s bills—how are they ever going to get paid?”

He looked angry. There was a notice in the Teachers’ Bulletin, he said, about a man who got you extra teaching jobs for summer vacations, and even before Joan had left for the hospital, he had gone to New York to see him about next year.

“He wanted to know if I was sure I’d be willing to give up my summer vacation. Willing! Trapped is more like it.”

Fee couldn’t think of what to say; he was scrunching one hand into the other, and she watched his fingers twist and grab at each other.

“Don’t ever be a teacher, Fee,” he burst out. “Do anything, work at anything, be a stenog, but don’t you ever be a teacher. All those lies—‘free every summer,’ ‘travel to Europe,’ ‘take courses at a college,’ ‘your job is safe even in hard times’—it’s pure guff. Fifty-one a month! You’re always so poor, you have to teach your heart out, year in, year out. Free time? God!”

Fee was almost frightened. She didn’t want to be a teacher, everybody knew she didn’t. She had no idea what she did want to be, but long ago she had confided to Trudy that she was never never going to teach no matter what her family did when they found out she wouldn’t be the one thing she was supposed to be.

But just the same, it was terrible to hear Eli talk this way about it. As if he was spitting out acid.

“Hello, Franny,” Garry said. “Well, for the love of Pete.”

Fran stood back to let them come in, but his greeting put speech beyond her. Tonight nobody could have forbidden her the pale-yellow crepe de chine dress and it still was as floaty and shimmering and beautiful as if it were brand-new. Garry hadn’t seen her since his mother took them to his apartment after the Hippodrome, and that was last April, and half a year had passed since then.

Well, for the love of Pete.
It meant, I don’t recognize you; you really are grown up now, and you’re beautiful. She swallowed, and to her horror, her swallow was audible, like a marble in a box.

But Garry turned to Fee and said, “Are you going to dance with me
this
time?”

Fee said, “It’s a cinch,” and was so delighted with her worldliness that everybody laughed, and Fran felt safe and hidden. All the Tom Ladendocks in the world disappeared at the sound of Garrett Paige’s voice, and all the Jack Purneys and every other boy she knew. Tom Ladendock had just moved to Barnett, and he was handsome and lived in a house with seventeen rooms, and he had picked her out to fall for. She fell right back, even though Tom always wanted to do things she would have died over afterward, if she ever gave in.

And then this morning Mama said the Paiges expected Garry and Letty for the weekend. “They want to celebrate the big success Letty had this first week in her furniture store.”

“Antique shop,” Fran automatically corrected, but it was lost. They had all heard a hundred reports from Mrs. Paige about Letty’s new venture; Mrs. Paige simply loved to talk about Letty’s courage and Letty’s plans. They had heard of her ceaseless search for the perfect little shop, even more exciting to Letty than her search the year before for the perfect little apartment. They knew all about her scouring the city for old wrecks of antiques and about her back-breaking labors in restoring them. Never once had Mrs. Paige called Letty’s new place anything but an “antique shop.” But never once had Mama called it anything but a “furniture store.” Mrs. Paige, of course, was too polite to say anything, but Fran squirmed every single time.

“The Paiges,” her mother went on obliviously, “are all coming over before Papa has to start for New York, the first visit from the whole family since last year. Garry himself suggested it. He wants to tell Papa and me what he thinks about the articles.”

She said it in a conceited way, Franny thought, as if she had written them too. Garry might have another reason for suggesting a visit, one that her mother could never guess in ten million years.

And now here he was, telling her father how it felt to be able to read him at last, and how much he admired his free-speech series.

Letty said, “I read them too, all six pieces. They really grip you.” There was something new and attractive about Letty, Fran decided. Her clothes were expensive-looking and fashionable, like the Society pictures in the Sunday rotogravure. Even though it was still October and not very cold, she had a muff of creamy fur when she came in, and the collar of her coat matched it and stood up around her neck like a puffy little necklace.

Fran thought, Imagine how clothes like that would look on somebody young.
Well, for the love of Pete.
It was his way of saying, You’re somebody I could be in love with, you’re somebody I could kiss, my lovely girl who grew up when I wasn’t looking. I would be quiet with you and not full of Tom’s sudden pushes and grabs and high-school words like “What about a kiss?” But I
would
kiss you, and you would kiss me—

Again she swallowed, and again the marble rattled. But they were all talking now, their usual talk, not about Papa any more, but about Wilson and Taft and Teddy Roosevelt in the election next month, and working day and night so Debs would pile up the biggest Socialist vote in history—the whole endless rolling talk they seemed to find more fascinating than anything else on earth.

Even Garry. That was the one thing, the only thing ever, the single possible thing she ever wished was different in him. By now they were off on the war news, and that fascinated Garry even more. It was dazzling, the way he could remember about the Turks declaring war on Bulgaria and Serbia one day, and Greece declaring it on Turkey the next day, and Italy’s demands and the joint note from Austria and Russia and Russia mobilizing in Poland—

Dazzling, but the one thing about him she didn’t want to think about. Somehow he changed from the Garrett Paige who was so romantic and thrilling. And as he changed, he became more like, like, well, it was crazy but he became something like Papa and Mama when
they
were all excited and blazing about an idea.

He does not, an insulted voice protested inside her. What a horrible thing to say about him. He absolutely does not.

“He’s a good boy,” Stefan Ivarin said many hours later, and though he had gone to New York to work and come home again, Alexandra knew he was talking about the Paiges’ visit in general and about Garry in particular.

“A wonderful boy,” she said. “Such a clear mind, they must be so proud of him.”

“Not always clear,” he said. “But he thinks for himself and knows how to stand up to you if you disagree.”

“Not clear? Why not? What about?”

“Let’s say, in his pacifism.”

“Stiva! Are you suddenly becoming militaristic?”

He looked at her indulgently. “Do you think I am?”

“Then what’s unclear about Garry?”

At this elliptical progression, he shrugged. “In blueprint, his principles are perfect,” he said, “but life sometimes alters blueprints, and this Garry will not concede.” He saw that Alexandra was about to launch a large defense of Garry, blueprints and all, and he added quickly, “But he’s a fine young man. The more I see of him, the more he impresses me.”

“I thought the very same thing tonight,” she said, and sighed. “If only Eli found politics so interesting, and could talk about it the way Garry does.”

Stefan frowned. He disliked any comparison of their children with other children and at the first sign of it from Alexandra, he always did his best to head it off. He particularly wanted to avoid any dissection of Eli now, in relation to Garry or alone. Often he felt that despite his usually painful run-ins with his only son, he understood more closely than Alexandra the essentials that made Eli’s character, and thus could forgo any continued disappointment in him or any persistent hope for basic change.

Eli was not notable and that was the sum of it. He was not bad or silly or especially weak; he had been a clever student, with easy good grades always, and apparently he was now a good teacher. But he was a deadly average in concepts, principles, ideas; he was, moreover, just weak enough to be eternally unready for concepts or principles that might call upon him for even minimal strength or independence.

“In a word,” he said, “he is not a notable man.”

“Who isn’t?” Alexandra demanded.

He looked at her in consternation. Had he spoken aloud?

“You said ‘he is not a notable man,’” she continued, slightly truculent, “and I didn’t know whether you meant Garry or Eli.”

“Did I say ‘notable man’?” he said mildly. “I must have been thinking aloud.” Before she could speak, he changed the subject with a skill and celerity he wished might always be his in a pinch. “Tonight at the office, Fehler expounded a new plan, far from notable, mind you, but probably harmless.”

“Don’t trust any plan of his,” she counseled, “harmless or not.”

“Do you find me falling into many of his traps?”

“Of course not, Stiva,” she said, her truculence of a moment ago swept away by apology.

He forgave her, and told her that Fehler thought the
Jewish News
should assign somebody to “prepare a survey” of every innovation adopted in the last twelve months by any English-language newspaper in New York, “new cartoons, new funnies, new departments, new exposes, new anythings.”

“It’s not a bad notion,” Stefan said. “We all do it, of course, every day of our lives, Landau and Kesselbaum and Borg and I and even Fehler himself.”

She heard the edge in his tone and wished she could get him back to Garry and the Paiges. It was so pleasant to talk over a happy evening—that was why she had stayed awake waiting for him to get home tonight while she was so full of it. Fee had danced with Garry when they turned on the Victrola after Stiva’s departure for the paper, and the child had behaved delightfully, not silly or giggly any more, but almost self-possessed. And Francesca, waltzing with him, was a vision to delight the heart, her delicate body swaying to the music, a faraway look in her eyes, the embodiment of youth’s joy and promise.

“We don’t call it ‘a survey,’” Stefan continued drily. “That’s the businessman’s vocabulary, no doubt. But if Hearst or Pulitzer or Adolph S. Ochs has ever slipped an innovation past the gang of us, what with the stack of papers we each devour every day—”

“Survey!” Alexandra was scornful. “Fehler catches hold of a fancy word and he’s proud of himself for weeks. I’m sure he’s still trying to make up to himself for the fiasco of Berkman’s book. Just to look at you must turn him green with anger at how you polished it off.”

Briefly Ivarin considered returning to Eli and the notable man, but he vetoed it and let her talk on. He had already seconded Fehler’s plan by saying it deserved a quick start if Landau approved, finding it restful not to need to dispute him. Fehler then asked that Borg be assigned to do the survey, waiting of course until the election was over, with its extra rush and extra work. Again he seconded the idea; Borg was the obvious choice.

“How does it strike you, Saul?” Ivarin asked later. “Mr. Fehler knows you’re my candidate, too.”

“What an opportunity!” Borg exclaimed, almost shouting. “How can I ever thank Mr. Fehler enough? And you, too, Mr. Ivarin?”

His eagerness was youth, Stefan thought now, eagerness to advance himself, to earn another raise. But something else had flamed in Borg’s eyes along with his eagerness. Saul had been born in the slums of the East Side, educated in the city schools and in night classes at City College, the despair of his parents because he refused to become either rabbi or cloakmaker, the two vocations they held seemly. Yet he was their greatest pride, their darling, their joy, because he had done so well for four years on a magazine they could read and for nearly another year on their favorite daily newspaper.

Of course Borg was eager to try this special task. At twenty-six he probably felt there was no time left to make a name for himself while he was young. But had the other flame been the hot one of ambition? The consuming one that could so swiftly reduce standards to ashes and clinkers?

No matter, Ivarin thought. Where there’s fire, it’s never sure who will get burned. Next day, he commended Fehler’s survey to Landau as “a useful idea that might consolidate our separate impressions,” and then said, “I only hope that this survey won’t end by convincing all of us of the vast superiority of yellow journalism.”

Landau said, “Now, Stiva.”

“Always the pessimist. True enough.”

Their talk veered to the campaign and the rising venom of its final stage. Though his paper was supporting the Socialist ticket, Isaac Landau kept worrying about wasting his vote, casting it, not for Wilson who might win over Roosevelt and Taft, but for Debs who could not conceivably win over any one of them. He knew the folly of expressing this worry to Ivarin, who was forever glorifying “the protest vote,” but now he heard himself talking about it just the same. And Ivarin, who knew the futility of arguing with Landau on this issue, as on the other issue of religion which forever separated them, was irresistibly drawn into battle. Only Landau’s clock striking the hour proclaimed a truce and rushed Ivarin off to the two campaign speeches he was to give that evening.