The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (65 page)

 

 

He poured them another glass of liquor from a stone jug. "Never hurt
you," he told them in answer to their protests. "Drink your liquor
straight. Stay away from that fancy sody water, ruins your stomach."
Weeks got up and fished in his overall pocket. "There was a fellow here
lookin' for you today. Said his name was Harrigan. I told him you'd be
in tonight. He said he couldn't wait. Said he had spent half the day
tracing you here. Left this here letter for you." Weeks handed him a
crumpled envelope.

 

 

Yale opened it. There were two sheets of paper. One was an invoice.
"For completion of investigation in the case of Anne Wilson Marratt,"
Yale read, "$435.00. Due within ten days." Astonished, he looked at
the other sheet. It was a report. "Subject: Anne Wilson Marratt,
traced to 438 Terrace Road, Altmont, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Marratt,
subject of investigation, is living in the home of Mr. & Mrs. John
A. Terrence. Interview with Mrs. Terrence revealed that Mrs. Marratt
is the mother of a four-month-old son named Yale Richard Marratt. The
father was presumed dead by Mrs. Terrence, although no direct
statement to this effect was ever made by Mrs. Marratt. Mr. Terrence
teaches mathematics at the local high school. Mrs. Marratt has been
accepted as a tenth grade English teacher for the fall term. In her
talk with Mrs. Marratt interviewer posed as a representative from the
school committee. Mrs. Marratt told her that her husband was killed
in the Pacific. That it had been a wartime marriage. When asked if
she had been in contact with her husband's relatives, Mrs. Marratt
seemed startled. Subject stated that Mrs. Terrence was her father's
sister. Stated that she preferred to live with her relatives, than with
her husband's. Following our instructions no information was given as
to true reason of investigation." The report was signed, Joseph Harrigan.

 

 

Yale had read the paper at a glance. He folded it and put it in his pocket.

 

 

"Yale, what's the matter?" Cynthia asked. "You look as if you've seen
a ghost."

 

 

"Nothing," Yale murmured, "nothing. A letter from a fellow I knew in
the Army. Surprised to hear from him, that's all."

 

 

Listening to Cynthia's delight with the canopied bed, watching her test
the feather mattress and squeal with joy, Yale smiled. When he had read
the letter he had tried to conceal his complete bewilderment. Why had Anne
done this? She had been pregnant. She had even cared enough to name the
baby after him. She was using his name. But still she had made no effort
to contact him. What had he done to her? God what a predicament! He,
Yale Marratt, had two wives!

 

 

Cynthia was standing beside him in her slip. "Hey, come on, let's get
in bed. Even with that fireplace going it's too cold to walk around."

 

 

Yale lifted the slip over her head. She wasn't wearing panties. He unhooked
her brassiere, and tumbled into the bed on top of her. She held her arms
around him tightly. "Oh, that's much warmer," she sighed, "but your clothes
are too rough."

 

 

Sunk deep in the mattress, they loved while the wood in the bedroom
fireplace crackled and the firelight made grotesque shadows on the walls
and ceiling.

 

 

Cynthia's face was snuggled into his chest when he said, "Cindar --
the letter I got . . . they've located Anne. She did have a baby. She's
living in Philadelphia."

 

 

He could feel Cynthia's body become tense. She pulled out of his embrace.
She leaned on her elbow and looked at him quietly.

 

 

"Well," she said finally, "I guess this is the shortest marriage on
record. We can get it annulled tomorrow. You don't mind if I sleep in
this bed tonight, do you?" She moved to the far side of the bed away
from him. "There's no place else to sleep at Challenge Farm." He could
hear her stifling her sobs in the pillow.

 

 

Yale pulled her back to him. He kissed her tear-stained cheeks. "Look,
Cindar, I love you. Do you understand that?"

 

 

"You don't have to say that. She has your baby. You have to love her.
What have I got? Another man's child in my belly! Yale, why didn't you
just leave me alone? I'd have made a life for myself. O God, I should
have known better. Of course, Anne would turn up. I really knew it in
my heart. You can't recapture the past. There have been too many years
between. Can't you see that? You're not the same, Yale. I know that. I'm
not the same person you knew, either. For a few weeks it seemed possible,
but I should have known better. If it weren't Anne, it would be your
father. Pat would never be happy or just stand by and let you go your
way." Cynthia turned away, refusing to look at him. "Your father will
approve of Anne."

 

 

"Listen," Yale said, angrily, "my life, so far, has been conditioned
by people making tragedies where there is no tragedy. If you had come
to me and told me what Pat had said to you, I would have told him to go
to hell. I would have married you. We would have found a way somehow. I
doubt very much if, faced with our marriage, he would have attempted any
old-fashioned vengeance on your father. It would have gained him nothing
except further alienation of me. Cindar, did you ever stop to think of
how most people live life with a suicidal complex, a masochistic drive
to hurt themselves? That's what I mean by making tragedies where there
is no tragedy. Look at my father. He could make a tragedy out of my
love for you simply because you are Jewish. He multiplies tragedy by
trying to make me something I'm not. My sister is making tragedy where
none need exist. Anne has a tragic complex evidently; or else she would
have tried to find me. Everywhere you turn people have twisted their
lives out of perspective over some human failing. Some person or persons
fail to measure up to some idiotic idea another person has of himself,
and boom you have the seeds of self destruction. Look at the world
around you. What is the basis of all the hatred but a deluded idea of
the importance of 'self'? Look at the murders in the morning papers,
the divorces, the man-made scandals. What does it all amount to but a
form of ego-mania? A feeling that the
I
is so damned important that
it must justify itself at all cost. Do you know, I'll wager ninety-five
percent of the novels written or the plays produced each year would
have no basis for existence if it weren't for making tragedies where
no tragedy should ever exist. There is only one tragedy in the world,
and that is this terrible delusion with the importance of self."

 

 

Cynthia had stopped crying. She listened to him in silent wonder.
"What has this to do with us?" she asked, thinking Yale hasn't really
changed. He could still run wild with words.

 

 

"It means simply, I love you! I love Anne. Your solution for that
situation is for you or Anne to withdraw in lonely resignation, wishing
the winner good luck in the best jolly-old-cricket tradition -- while
the unseen audience wipes away the tears; because of course that is the
only thing to do. That's the way they want the world to end," Yale said,
bitterly, "not with a bang . . . but with a whimper. Man must love the
idea of whimpering idiots; there are so many of them!"

 

 

"But you prefer to have the world end with a bang!"

 

 

"Let's say rather our world can begin with a bang," Yale said. "Here's
our situation. Let's assume that for x reason, which I will discover,
that Anne has decided that our Hindu marriage didn't mean much anyway. Her
tragedy will be to raise a son without his father. Maybe she would have
luck and marry someone else -- or just as likely, knowing that she lost
her first husband, she won't marry again. Instead, she will try to live
out her life without marrying; lonely and frustrated. If I stay with
Anne and we have our marriage annulled that will leave you, loving me,
but raising Mat's child . . . lonely and frustrated."

 

 

"Or I could meet someone else and marry and be happy," Cynthia said sadly.

 

 

"I suppose you could," Yale said. "On the other hand, why do you have
to take a chance? You love me, don't you?"

 

 

Cynthia nodded slowly. "Of course I love you. I guess I can't remember
when I didn't love you. But you can't leave Anne either if she loves
you. She has your son."

 

 

"You really mean I can't love you and Anne, at the same time?"

 

 

"You can't love two women!" Cynthia said. Her eyes were large with tears.

 

 

Yale grinned. He kissed her salty lips. "If I could love two women,
it would solve all our problems, wouldn't it?"

 

 

"Oh, I see," Cynthia said sarcastically. "The great Yale Marratt. The man
with two wives! What a great idea -- for you! Two women at your beck and
call. You didn't happen to become a Hindu when you were in India, did you?"

 

 

"Cindar, don't pin labels on me. If I had married you six years ago,
we would have lived a monogamous life."

 

 

"Or by now, you would have had some other woman on the side, like your
brother-in-law whom you think so highly of."

 

 

Yale looked at her sadly. "You haven't understood anything I've said,
have you? You like the idea of making a tragedy out of our love."

 

 

Cynthia grabbed him by the hair. She rolled on top of him.

 

 

"Sure, sure, I understand, my friend. But two women can't live under one
roof -- not in these United States! You know why, my sweet idealist?" she
asked, biting his ear. "Because there isn't room on top of one man for
two women!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

The first few days for Anne and Cynthia were tip-toe days.

 

 

Yale went to Philadelphia the next morning and returned a day later
with Anne. Although Cynthia had promised to stay until Yale returned,
several times in the long day and night she was tempted to pack her
few clothes and leave. Lying alone in the feather bed listening to the
night sounds of the old house and the strange quality of time captured,
she felt profoundly sad. She wondered what fate had brought her into
Yale's life; why, ever since the days at Midhaven College she had become
so compulsively involved with him. And now this wild idea. She knew that
he had to go to Anne but it was folly for her to stay here and wait.
He would try to persuade Anne to come back. Anne would probably refuse,
and Yale would be torn between his duty to her and his love for Anne.
But if Anne did come back what kind of a woman would she be to agree to
such a crazy plan?

 

 

"All I want you both to do, Cindar," Yale pleaded, "if I can persuade
Anne, is to stay here together in this house for two months." He explained
that he would stay in New York. "I've figured it out this way. If the
idea is crazy, the first place it will break down will be between you
and Anne. If you simply can't adjust to each other, or decide you have no
desire to live together with me well . . ." Yale had looked so dejected
that Cynthia agreed to wait until he came back.

 

 

He promised that no matter what happened he would be back the following
day. Lying alone in bed, Cynthia wondered if she were jealous. If he
had found Anne, was he right this minute making love to her? She tried
to force out of her mind a vivid picture of Yale naked in bed with Anne;
stroking her body . . . touching her intimately just as he had touched her
last night. Oh God, she thought dejectedly, what kind of a marriage could
it ever be sharing the man you loved? It was impossible . . . impossible!

 

 

The next day crept by. When three o'clock came she decided that the only
thing to do was to leave. She could go back to Boston. She was packing
her suitcase when she heard Yale yelling, "Cindar, Cindar, where are you?"

 

 

Coming slowly down the stairs, Cynthia was stunned when she saw the tall,
graceful girl standing near Yale. This is Anne, she thought, as she shook
hands awkwardly. She has sparkling blue-black eyes. She is beautiful.

 

 

Anne looked at her, smiling. "You are even more lovely than Yale said
you were," she said quietly. "I've seen you in a madonna painting by
Bellini. Gosh, the competition frightens me." Anne took off her coat.
She looked around the empty room for a place to put it down. Giving up,
she dropped it carelessly in a corner. "Yale has told me so much about you
that I feel I know you already. Of course, I knew Mat. It was a terrible
shock. I liked him very much, Cynthia." Anne paused. She changed the
subject. "What a house this is! It looks as if George Washington must
have really slept here. Yale wants you and me to live here together for
two months. I think it's a crazy idea. Two women can't get along. Yale
doesn't know women! I haven't burned my bridges behind me. I can go back
to Philadelphia. Ye gods, Yale -- excuse me, Cindar . . . we left the
baby in the car." Anne rushed out the door. In a minute she came back
with the baby in a laundry basket. The baby opened its eyes, looked at
them and started to cry angrily. Anne produced a bottle. "It's still warm;
we heated it at Howard Johnson's."

 

 

"He looks like you, Yale," Cynthia said, trying to hold back her tears,
feeling awkward and useless. Yale grinned at them, embarrassed. He kept
his overcoat on.

 

 

"Will you stay and give it a try, Cindar?" His voice held the overtones of
the unspoken words: Cindar, please, Cindar. "I know maybe it seems crazy,"
he said. "You both agree: two women can't live under one roof, but . . ."