The Group (37 page)

It was true, she did not care for people with drive or those most likely to succeed, which had made her rather a misfit at Vassar; the only way she could like assured, aggressive girls like Libby and Kay was to feel sorry for them. She was horribly sorry for Libby, to the point where she could hardly bear seeing her; Libby’s red open mouth, continually gabbling, was like a running wound in the middle of her empty face. But Libby had no suspicion, of course, that there was anything about her to pity, which was just what made her pitiable;
she
thought she was sorry for Polly and was doing her a favor every time she made some imposition on her. If Polly stopped seeing her, then poor Libby would have no one to imagine that she was being charitable to, because Libby could not be charitable to anyone who was really miserable but only to someone like Polly who was quite happy as she was. But this being quite happy as she was, alas, was what made her a “character” in the eyes of her incredulous friends; the Andrews family were regarded as eccentric because they had lost their money and survived. Polly could laugh at this notion, but for most people, evidently, it
was
eccentric or possibly a pose to be jolly when your money was gone. And to wear your aunt’s old Paris clothes, made over, with a twinkle, was original, though Polly did not know how you were expected to wear them—in the deepest gloom? If Polly had come to prefer the company of odd ducks, it was possibly because they had no conception of oddity, or, rather, they thought you were odd if you weren’t. Mr. Scherbatyeff, for example, looked on Libby as an incredible phenomenon and kept asking Polly to explain her.

There was only one point on which all Polly’s acquaintances, odd or not, agreed, and that was that she ought to be married. “You pretty girl. Why you no marry?” said the iceman, adding his voice to the chorus. “I’m waiting for the right man,” said Polly. And this, despite the wisdom she exercised on herself, was secretly the case. If she made it difficult for him to find her, that was part of the test he had to pass. “How are you going to
meet
anybody, Polly?” her classmates cried. “Living the way you do and never going out with a soul?” She was familiar with the arguments: that the way to meet a man was through other men, that you did not have to love a man or even to like him a lot to agree to go to dinner and a theatre with him, that he only wanted your company, which was little enough to give. But Polly’s own strong desires made her doubt this, and she did not think it right to start a relation you were not prepared to go further with; it did not seem to her honest to use a man to meet other men. So she had stubbornly refused all attempts to arrange male friendships for her—the extra man invited to dinner and prodded into gallantry. “Dick will take you home, Polly. Won’t you, Dick?” “No, thank you,” Polly would interpose. “I’ll take the First Avenue bus. I live right next to the bus line.” Even Mr. Schneider and Mr. Scherbatyeff had been guilty of similar efforts; a series of young Trotskyites had been produced by Mr. Schneider, to meet Polly and drink a glass of “schnapps” in his room, while Mr. Scherbatyeff had served up a nephew who was learning the hotel business in Chicago. Above all, Polly had declined to be coupled with Libby’s awful brother, known as “Brother,” who was always eager to take her out.

“It is your pride, little girl, that makes you act so,” said Mr. Schneider one evening when she had reproached him for trying to find her a “man.” “Maybe,” said Polly. “But don’t you think, Mr. Schneider, that love ought to come as a surprise? Like entertaining an angel unawares.” The deep cleft in her chin dimpled. “You know how it is in mystery stories. The murderer is the least obvious suspect, the person you never would have guessed. That’s the way I feel about love. The ‘right man’ for me will never be the extra man specially invited for me. He’ll be the person the hostess never in her born days would have chosen. If he comes.” Mr. Schneider looked gloomy. “You mean,” he said, nodding, “you will fall in love with a married man. All the other suspects are obvious.”

Sure enough, it had been like that with Gus. “You two are the
last
people,” Libby had said the next day, “that I would have expected to hit it off. Did he ask you out again?” Polly had answered no, truthfully—he had only taken her phone number—and Libby was not surprised. “He’s awfully hard to talk to,” she remarked. “And not your cup of tea at all. I’ve been thinking about you, Polly. You’re the type older people find attractive. Older people and other girls. But a man like Gus LeRoy would be blind to your looks. That’s why I nearly went kerplunk when you walked out of here with him last night. You might not think so to talk to him, he’s so quiet, but he’s the
dernier cri
in publishing; you should see the authors on his list. Authors that are personally devoted to him and that he could take with him tomorrow if he left Ferris. Of course a lot of them are Communists; they say he’s a secret Party member and has orders to bore from within at Ferris. But, like it or lump it, some of our best authors are Communists this year.” She sighed. Polly was silent. “Did he talk about me?” asked Libby suddenly. “A bit,” said Polly. “Oh, what did he say? Tell me all.” “He said you were doing awfully well as an agent. I think he used the word ‘crackerjack.’” Libby was disappointed. “He must have said more than that. Does he think I’m attractive? He must or he wouldn’t have come to my party. I’m afraid I rather neglected him. Did he mention that? I had eyes only for Nils. You know, the baron.” She sighed again. “He proposed last night.” “Oh, Libby,” said Polly, laughing, “you can’t marry the ski jumper at Altman’s! I hope you refused.” Libby nodded. “He was in a rage. Berserk. Will you promise not to repeat it if I tell you what happened?” “I promise.” “When I turned him down, he tried to rape me! My new Bendel dress is in ribbons—did you like it? And I’m a mass of bruises. Let me show you.” She opened her blouse. “How horrible!” said Polly, staring at the black-and-blue marks on Libby’s thin chest and arms. Libby rebuttoned her blouse. “Of course he apologized afterward and was no end contrite.” “But how did you stop him?” said Polly. “I told him I was a virgin. That brought him to his senses at once. After all, he’s a man of honor. But what a Viking! Lucky you, out with Gloomy Gus. I don’t suppose he even tried to kiss you?” “No,” said Polly. “He called me ‘Miss Andrews’ with every other sentence.” She smiled. “Poor fellow,” she added. “Poor fellow!” exclaimed Libby. “What’s poor about him?” “He’s lonely,” said Polly. “He said so when he asked me to have dinner with him. He’s a nice, solid man and he misses his wife and child. He reminded me of a widower.” Libby raised her eyes to heaven.

Polly was telling the truth. She had begun by being sorry for Gus. And the way he had called her “Miss Andrews” all through dinner had amused her—as though there were a desk between them instead of a restaurant table. That desk, she had fancied, was part of him, like an extra limb or buttress; he had a special desk voice, judicious, and a habit of tilting back in his chair that had immediately made her see him in his office. He had told her, as a joke on himself, the story of Libby fainting on his carpet. “I thought the girl was starving, Miss Andrews, so help me God.” He looked ruefully from under his eyebrows at Polly, who burst into laughter. “When did you find out different?” she asked finally. “Not for quite a while. Her boss told me, as a matter of fact. Seems the MacAuslands are among the powers-that-be in Pittsfield. Is that true?” “Yes,” said Polly. “They own one of the principal mills. That’s how I first knew Libby. My family live in Stockbridge.” “Mill owners?” Polly shook her head. “Father was an architect who never built anything except for his relations. He lived on his investments till the crash.” “And now?” “Mother has a tiny income, and we have a farm that we work.
They
work,” she corrected herself. “And what do you do, Miss Andrews?” “I’m a hospital technician.” “That must be interesting. And rewarding. Where do you work?” And so on. Exactly, Polly thought, like a job interview. This whole desk side of Gus, which impressed Libby, had touched Polly’s heart. She sometimes felt she had fallen in love with a desk, a swivel chair, and a small scratchy mustache.

Still, to fall in love with a desk and be presented with a couch was daunting. She often now tried to picture him on the psychiatric couch and failed. Did he smoke his pipe and fold his arms behind his head? Or did he chain-smoke cigarettes, dropping the ashes into an ashtray on his chest, as he sometimes did in bed? Which voice did he use—the desk voice, which creaked like the creaking of the swivel chair, or a softer, lighter voice that matched his boyish smile, slim ankles, soft red lips, and the ingenuous way he had of wrinkling his nose at her, bunny-like, to signify warm affection?

When he had first told her about the analyst, his voice had trembled, and there were tears in his eyes. He had got out of bed, wearing Polly’s Japanese kimono, a relic of Aunt Julia’s Oriental travels, which came down just to his knees; nervously, he lit a cigarette and flung himself into her armchair. “There’s a thing I’ve got to confess to you. I’m being psychoanalyzed.” Polly sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to her in an instinctive movement, as though a third person had entered the room. “Why?” she demanded. “Oh, Gus, why?” Her voice came out like a wail. He did not tell her why, though he seemed to think he had. What he told her was how he had happened to start going to the doctor.

It was all his wife’s idea. After Gus had walked out on her, because she had been “running around” with a Party organizer, Esther—that was her name—had decided she wanted him back. She had tried all the old methods—tears, threats, promises—without shaking Gus’s determination not to return home. Then one day she came to see him in his office in a calmer frame of mind and with an entirely new proposal, which was that they should both go to analysts, to see whether their marriage could be saved. To Gus, after the scenes he had been through, this had seemed a reasonable offer, and he was struck, above all, by the change in his wife’s attitude. She pointed out that analysis would help her in her work with children; quite a few of her fellow-teachers were being analyzed for no other purpose than that, and the school principal strongly recommended it for the whole staff. It would probably help Gus too, in his work with authors, make him better able to deal with their conflicts, so that even if he and she decided to divorce when they were finished, they would have gained a great deal from it professionally. Gus told her he would think it over, but before she left his office he had already resolved to give it a try. He too would have liked to save his marriage, on account of little Gus, and his hopelessness about it had been based on the notion that neither he nor Esther could be changed. If he had not been hopeless, he would have gone back long ago, for he missed Esther and there was no one else in his life. The idea of gaining an “insight”—a word Esther used freely—attracted him too, Polly could see; he was grateful for the insights of Marxism and, manlike, was eager to add a new tool to his thinking kit.

All this Polly understood. What she could not understand was why he kept on going to the doctor now, when there
was
someone else in his life. Now that he no longer had a doubt about divorcing Esther, why didn’t he stop? Was it because of the promise he had given? But if so, that implied to Polly’s mind that there still was a possibility that the analysis might return him to Esther, all mended, like some article that had been sent for repair. Or was he continuing to go, as she sometimes felt, from sheer inertia? Or because the doctor had discovered something seriously wrong with him, as when you went to get a cavity filled and learned you had a huge abscess?

Gus had asked her if she minded that night when he had broken the news. “Of course not,” she had answered, meaning that she loved him just the same and always would. But in fact she did mind, she had found. It gave her a very unpleasant feeling to have Gus come to her every day “fresh from the couch.” She wished he could have his “hour” in the morning, before work, or at lunchtime. This way, she could not help wondering what they had been talking about, whether it was her, horrible thought, or Esther, horrible thought too. She hoped it was about his childhood; it was all right if it was about his childhood. The odd thing was that he never seemed shaken or upset when he arrived from the analyst’s; he was always as matter-of-fact as if he had come from the barbershop. He was much more excited on certain Fridays when he got excused from the analyst to audit a meeting of the Book and Magazine Guild. In his place, Polly was sure she would have been in turmoil if she had just spent an hour ransacking her unconscious. Or indeed her conscious. Gus was not allowed to read Freud while he was in analysis (another rule), but Polly in her lunch hour had been perusing the literature available in the psychiatric section of the Medical Center library. Though the psychiatrists at the hospital were violently anti-analytic, at least they had the books of Freud and his principal followers. She was trying—rather slyly, she felt—to find out which of the neuroses or psychoneuroses Gus could be suffering from. But he did not seem to fit any of the descriptions of hysteria, anxiety hysteria, compulsion neurosis, anxiety neurosis, character neurosis. He was most like a compulsion neurotic, in that he was set in his ways, punctual, and reliable, but she noticed that he did not do any of the things that compulsion neurotics were supposed to do, like being sure to step on the cracks of the sidewalk or
not
to step on them, as the case might be. On the other hand, anxiety patients had difficulty making decisions, and it was true that Gus had been of two minds about enlisting to fight in Spain and had vacillated a bit about leaving his wife. But a real anxiety patient, according to the books, was one who could not make up his mind whether to take the B.M.T. or the I.R.T. to work, for instance and Gus always took the bus. Moreover, with all the neuroses, the patient’s sexual life was supposed to be disturbed. Polly had no point of comparison, but Gus’s sexual life, so far as she could see, was completely unruffled; he was always eager to make love and seemed to have had a lot of practice, for he did it very authoritatively and had taught Polly how with great tenderness, like a man teaching a child to fly a kite or spin a top or button its buttons—he was obviously a good father. It was bliss, Polly thought, making love with him.