Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Page 23

  “Very beautiful.”

  “Not beautiful enough to keep you. Everyone dies or goes away.”

  Not wanting to lie or to be cruelly truthful, he had not contradicted her. He had said nothing, but had kissed her, and she had returned the kiss with all the passion which had been suppressed in her silent tears. “Tell me again that I am beautiful,” she had said.

  He had done so. She had sighed and said, “All right. Let’s drive some more.”

  For an hour they had driven in silence. At about noon they had grown hungry and had turned up a narrow road in hilly country, seeking a place where they could get out of the rain and eat. They had driven for perhaps another half hour before coming to an abandoned villa, the east end of which had been destroyed by artillery fire. The ground all around the villa had been badly cut up, and the buff-colored stucco walls pockmarked with machine-gun bullets. He had driven the jeep slowly around the driveway which encircled the building, past a swimming pool choked with fallen masonry. On impulse he had twisted the steering wheel suddenly and driven between two shattered pillars, across a tiled courtyard littered with rubble, under a part of the roof which projected over what must once have been an anteroom. There he had stopped, and, wondering at the marvelous convenience of the ruin which allowed them to drive out of the rain, they had stepped out of the jeep. He had lifted the hood and taken part of the distributor with him, as well as the ignition key, to make sure no one would steal the car. Carrying their picnic basket and shivering a little in the dampness, they had walked through an enormous jagged hole in a charred wall and entered a huge living room. The glass in the high windows along the right-hand side of the room had been shattered, and tattered damask draperies were being blown inward, arched by the wind into the shape of wings. There had been a puddle in the middle of the polished oak floor, and everywhere there had been bits of glass and countless pieces of paper, as though an office had exploded. In one corner there had been the wreck of a grand piano, the board with the ivory keys lying separate from the rest, like the jawbone of a prehistoric beast, and the big brass-colored frame with most of the strings still taut resting on edge, like a harp. They had crossed this room and, after walking through two utterly bare rooms, had found what must once have been a small library, with a white marble fireplace at one end. The walls had been lined with bookcases, all empty now, except for many scattered leaves and detached leather bindings. There had been only two windows in that room, and, miraculously, only a few of the lower panes had been broken. Through one of the windows they had been able to see a small circular pool, in the middle of which a white marble nymph, slim waisted and full breasted but now headless, rose, holding in one upraised arm a cornucopia, out of which a fountain must once have spouted.

  “Here,” he had said, putting the picnic basket down. “We’ll see if the chimney works.” Gathering some of the book leaves which lay on the floor, he had struck a match, ignited the paper, and dropped it into the fireplace. The smoke had gone straight up. “We can build a fire,” he had said.

  She had stood, holding her coat collar close around her neck and looking small and lost, while he had gone to the great living room and brought back an armful of polished fragments from the splintered top of the piano. After she had helped him to gather more paper, he had built a fire carefully, setting the sharp splinters of wood on end like a wigwam. The smoky orange flames had climbed them swiftly. Suddenly the room had been full of the acrid smell of burning varnish. She had knelt by the fire and held her hands out to it, and he had noticed for the first time that her hands were the hands of a nervous child, that she had bitten her fingernails to the quick. Her hands had been surprisingly small, fragile, and finely tapered. She had glanced up at him, and upon seeing that he was looking at her hands, she had quickly doubled them into fists, so that the fingernails were hidden, and had put them into the pockets of her coat with exactly the gesture of a child caught stealing cookies. Then she had stood up, looking flustered. Impulsively he had taken her right hand out of her pocket, smoothed it in his own hands, and kissed it. She had buried her face in his shoulder, and he had felt that she was shivering.

  “You’re too beautiful to worry about your hands,” he had said. “Come on, you’re cold–let’s get more wood on that fire.” He had gone to the living room and come back carrying a heavy amputated leg of the piano, the foot of which had been carved to resemble the claws of a lion clutching a round, shiny ball. This he had placed on the fire, and the flames had immediately embraced it, licking greedily at the varnish. He had returned to the living room and, grabbing one of the tattered damask draperies, had given it a hard pull and brought it down in a cloud of dust and a clatter of falling curtain rods. This he had dragged to the library and had ripped pieces from it to stuff the broken windowpanes. The remainder he had spread on the floor as a tablecloth, and she had begun to unpack the basket, placing sandwiches done up in brown paper and the bottle of wine and a cold roast chicken carefully in a row. Gradually the roaring fire had warmed the room. They had taken their overcoats off and folded them by the tablecloth to serve as pillows on which to sit.

  That day she had been wearing a worn black skirt, a white blouse cut almost like a man’s shirt with an open collar, and a dark-green jacket which she had made herself, trying to copy a picture in a magazine advertisement. They had eaten greedily, wiping their hands on the damask tablecloth and passing the bottle of wine back and forth between them. When they were through, she had packed the remnants of the picnic away in the basket. Carefully lighting two cigarettes, he had handed her one, and she had sat down comfortably, edging a little toward the fire and holding her hands out to the flames, this time unabashed. Outside, the rain had started coming down faster, and the rags he had stuffed in the broken windowpanes had started to drip on the floor. Far overhead a squadron of bombers had droned, going somewhere, high above the clouds. The unbroken glass in the windows had trembled. Content to sit and stare into the fire, which was already reducing the great claw of the piano leg to embers, he had said nothing. Glancing at his wrist watch, he had seen it was not yet two o’clock. That meant they would have eighteen more hours until eight o’clock the next morning, when he would have to check in with the sergeant at the transportation desk. Eighteen more hours, he had thought gratefully, and slowly had calculated: the big sweep hand on his watch would have to tick off one thousand and eighty minutes, a marvelously long time. He had glanced at her and to his surprise had found her looking hurt and forlorn. Suddenly he had realized that she had expected him to make love to her long before this, and that she was afraid that he had grown tired of her, or that she had displeased him in some way. He had smiled at her. “Come over here,” he had said. Quickly she had gone to him and lain with her head in his lap, looking up at him, his smile mirrored on her face. He had stroked her hair and forehead softly, feeling, for the moment, oddly calm. Overhead another squadron of bombers had droned, followed by more and more, until the whole building trembled. He had glanced over his shoulder and through the rain-streaked glass had seen the headless nymph outside, holding her empty cornucopia high, silhouetted against the rain-drenched clouds. After a few moments he had looked back at Maria, lying with her head on his lap in the yellow firelight, and he had seen that to invite his affections, she had unbuttoned her jacket and opened the blouse, partly exposing her breasts and the deep valley between them. He had kissed her then, the kiss beginning almost as an act of kindness, but quickly becoming much more than that. “Oh, God, I love you,” he had said.

  They had left the villa just in time to get back to Rome before dark. When they had returned to her room, she had started cooking supper on a small primus stove he had given her, and he had lain down on the bed and glanced at his watch again. It had been only six o’clock–still fourteen more hours, eight hundred and forty more revolutions of the sweep hand before he had to check in. He had stretched out on the soft bed, full of an incredible sense of luxury, thinking of the minutes ahead a
s a king might think of his empire. Maria had sat, looking wise and contented, stirring a pan of soup, which slowly had begun to steam, giving a fragrance to the air.

  Only a few days after that he had bought a mandolin in a little music store they had happened to pass while walking home from a restaurant, and he had spent many afternoons lying in Maria’s room strumming it idly, not really trying to play it, but finding great relaxation in the feel of the smooth steel strings under his fingers. Maria had loved it–her father had played the mandolin, she had said. The mandolin had been one of the things Tom had left her, along with the jeepload of canned goods and twelve cartons of cigarettes.

  Now, lying alone in his hotel room in Atlantic City, Tom involuntarily glanced at his watch, with the same old sweep hand emptily ticking off the minutes. It was just youth, he thought, and the war, which, if it did nothing else, taught the value of time. Somebody should make me and Betsy check in at a transportation desk every morning and give us just one more day–that might teach us not to waste time. How different Betsy and Maria are, he thought. Betsy’s parents had not died–instead of dying, they had retired to a modern bungalow in California, from which they sent their daughter pictures of themselves smiling and picking oranges. Nobody whom Betsy loved had ever died or left her for long. Ever since she was twelve years old, Betsy had been told she was beautiful–she did not like to hear it any more. I wonder if anyone tells Maria she is beautiful now, he thought. I wonder what kind of word Caesar will bring me about Maria after Gina writes her family in Rome. I wonder what Maria will do if Caesar tells her where I am, and that I look rich.

  26

  THE FIRST THING Tom did when he got back to his office the next day was to call Hopkins on the interoffice communication box.

  “Glad you’re back!” Hopkins said cheerily, as though Tom had just returned from a voyage around the world. “Have a good trip?”

  “Fine,” Tom said. “Did you want to see me?”

  “Yes,” Hopkins replied. “I’ll send a girl down with the latest draft of my speech for Atlantic City. Let’s have lunch tomorrow, and you can tell me what you think of it. Would one o’clock be all right?”

  So that’s all he wanted, Tom thought. He said, “Fine! I’ll meet you in your office tomorrow at one.”

  An hour later an exceptionally pretty office girl arrived and with a dazzling smile handed Tom a large manila envelope from Hopkins. Tom opened it and extracted the speech, which had grown and changed since he had worked on it. “It’s a real pleasure to be here this evening,” he read. “I tremendously appreciate this opportunity to discuss with this distinguished gathering what I believe to be the most crucial problem facing the world today.” Having made this point, the speech went on–in fact, it went on and on and on for thirty pages, saying over and over again in different ways that mental health is important. The last ten pages were devoted to the thought that mental-health problems affect the economy of the nation. “Our wealth depends on mental health,” this section concluded. “Yes, our wealth depends on mental health!”

  Tom put the speech down, feeling slightly ill. Good Lord, he thought, they’re going to sell mental health the way they sell cigarettes! He left the speech on his desk, walked over to the window, and stared out over the city. Standing there, he shrugged his shoulders in an oddly hopeless way.

  “Let’s have lunch tomorrow, and you can tell me what you think of it,” Hopkins had said.

  “Well, of course I’m just talking off the top of my head, but I think this draft has some fine things in it, and, on the other hand, I have some reservations,” Tom imagined himself saying. That was the way it was done–always feel the boss out to find what he thinks before committing yourself. Tell the man what he wants to hear.

  “I’m sorry, but I think this speech is absurd. It’s an endless repetition of the obvious fact that mental health is important. You’ve said that over and over again and finally turned it into a cheap advertising slogan. If you want to form a mental-health committee, why don’t you find out what needs to be done and offer to help do it?”

  A few years ago I would have said that, Tom thought. Be honest, be yourself. If the man asks you what you think of his speech, tell him. Don’t be afraid. Give him your frank opinion.

  That sounds so easy when you’re young, Tom thought. It sounds so easy before you learn that your frank opinion often leads directly to the street. What if Hopkins really likes this speech?

  Tom shrugged again. The thing to remember is this, he thought: Hopkins would want me to be honest. But when you come right down to it, why does he hire me? To help him do what he wants to do–obviously that’s why any man hires another. And if he finds that I disagree with everything he wants to do, what good am I to him? I should quit if I don’t like what he does, but I want to eat, and so, like a half million other guys in gray flannel suits, I’ll always pretend to agree, until I get big enough to be honest without being hurt. That’s not being crooked, it’s just being smart.

  But it doesn’t make you feel very good, Tom thought. It makes you feel lousy. For the third time, he shrugged. How strangely it all works out, he thought. The pretty girl smiles as she hands me the innocuous manila envelope with the speech. I’ll go with my boss for luncheon to a nice restaurant somewhere, with music playing in the background, perhaps, and people laughing all around, and the waiters will bow, and my boss will be polite, and I’ll be tactful, and there in such delicate surroundings, I’ll not be rude enough to say a stupid speech is stupid. How smoothly one becomes, not a cheat, exactly, not really a liar, just a man who’ll say anything for pay.

  Tom remained by the window a long while, looking down at the cars crawling along the streets below. It was queer to be suspended motionless so far above the city. It was almost as though his parachute had got stuck in mid-air, halfway between the plane and the ground.

  That night when Tom went home he put the speech back in the manila envelope and on impulse took it with him. Betsy and the children met him at the station in South Bay. “What’s that?” Janey said, eying the big envelope. “Is it a present for us?”

  “No,” Tom said, and handed the envelope to Betsy. “This is Hopkins’ speech. I’d like you to read it and tell me what you think of it. Hopkins wants me to have lunch with him and give him my opinion on it tomorrow.”

  “I’ll look at it after dinner,” Betsy said, and casually put the envelope down on the front seat of the car.

  “Mother has a surprise for you,” Barbara said. “She got it for you today.”

  “Hush!” Betsy said. “How is it going to be a surprise if you talk about it?”

  “I can hardly wait to find out what it is,” Tom said, and, realizing he had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t kissed Betsy, leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s good to get home,” he said.

  She turned toward him with a quick, vivid smile. “It’s not much of a surprise, really,” she said. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  The surprise turned out to be a large leather armchair with a matching hassock for Tom to put his feet on. Betsy had put a small table by it, with a box of cigarettes, matches, and an ash tray. She had also placed an ice bucket there, two glasses, and the mixings for cocktails. “You looked so tired when you got back from Atlantic City last night,” she said. “I figured you ought to have a place where you can just sink down and rest when you get home. I’m going to try to organize things so we have a half hour of quiet before supper. Kids, go upstairs, the way you promised you would!”

  Janey grinned, and with unusual obedience led the others up the stairs. “I put ginger ale up there for them,” Betsy said. “They’re going to have a quiet period in their room, while we have ours down here. We’re going to try to do it that way for a half hour every night.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Tom said. “It’s a marvelous chair.” He sat down in it gratefully, put his feet up on the hassock, and lit a cigarette. Betsy mixed the cocktails and handed him one. He took
a sip and said, “Did you bring that speech in from the car?”

  “Yes. It’s on the hall table. Why?”

  “I’m anxious to see what you think of it.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll go get it.”

  She sat in a chair across the room from Tom and took the speech from the envelope. He watched her face while she read it. Her expression was serene. At first she read slowly, but soon began to flip rapidly through the pages. Tom poured himself another drink. “What do you think of it so far?” he asked.

  “Did you write this?”

  “I helped. Do you like it?”

  “Well,” she said hesitantly, “I don’t know much about the subject. My opinion wouldn’t mean much.”

  “Come on. What do you think of it?”

  “It’s kind of boring,” she said. “Maybe it’s just me, but I find it pretty hard to keep my mind on it. It seems to keep saying the same thing over and over again.”

  Tom laughed. “Any other comments?”

  “To be honest, some of it sounds pretty silly,” Betsy said. “Is this what Hopkins wanted you to write?”

  “I didn’t really write it,” Tom said. “I think Ogden did most of it, or maybe Hopkins himself. And now Hopkins wants me to tell him what I think of it.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  Tom laughed again. “There’s a standard operating procedure for this sort of thing,” he said. “It’s a little like reading fortunes. You make a lot of highly qualified contradictory statements and keep your eyes on the man’s face to see which ones please him. That way you can feel your way along, and if you’re clever, you can always end up by telling him exactly what he wants to hear.”

  “Is that what they do?” Betsy asked. She didn’t laugh.