Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Page 33

  “I won’t.”

  “I don’t like to see you like this. It makes me feel awful.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We’ve got so much work to do. I promised I’d help mail pamphlets for the school.”

  “After the school election can I talk with you?”

  “What about?”

  “Never mind now. It’s funny you said you were lonely. We’ve both been lonely so long.”

  39

  IT WAS INDIAN SUMMER. The day of the school election turned out to be warm and clear. After an early breakfast, Tom and Betsy took the children with them and went to the Town Hall to vote. Ahead of them waited a long line of commuters, the young and ambitious, the old and successful, and the tired of all ages, standing in line to vote yes or no on whether to tax themselves for the construction of a new school. They were polite, excusing themselves elaborately when they jostled each other and pointedly refraining from commenting on the issue at hand.

  On the way home after they had voted, Tom and Betsy passed a white sound truck. “Vote no on the school!” it was blaring. “Vote against high taxes and poorly planned school programs!” A block ahead was another sound truck shouting, “Vote yes on the school! Our children deserve the best!” Apparently the two trucks were following each other around town, blatting like moose in the mating season.

  Tom left Betsy and the children at the house and hurried to the station to go to work. On the train he looked once more at the photograph of Maria and her son. Then he read his newspaper, all of it, from headlines about wars and incipient wars to the comics. When he got to his office, he worked all day, getting together plans for the first meeting of the mental-health committee.

  At six o’clock he took the train back to South Bay and again examined the photograph, which was becoming stained and creased. Before going home he stopped at the Town Hall, where Bernstein and a group of other officials were about to close the polls and announce the count on the voting machines. A quiet crowd was assembling in the building. Tom saw both Parkington and Bugala. A few last-minute voters hurried in, and then there was a hush while an elderly town councilman consulted his watch and declared the voting at an end. Three rather self-conscious officials began to inspect the voting machines, and there was a long wait. Bernstein walked to the head of the hall, and a small man handed him three pieces of paper. Bernstein cleared his throat. “On machine number one,” he announced, “the vote is seven hundred and forty-two yes and four hundred and forty-three no.”

  There was a ragged cheer from the crowd. Bernstein read the counts on the other two machines, which did not differ markedly from the first. “It looks as though the vote on the school is yes by a margin of almost two to one,” he said.

  There was another cheer, and a rising hum of conversation. Old Parkington headed toward the door without comment. Bugala grinned at Tom and shouldered his way through the crowd toward him. “It looks like we got it made,” he said.

  “I hope so,” Tom replied. “Let’s get together tomorrow.” Hurriedly he headed home. Just as he reached the sidewalk, Bernstein caught up with him. “Say, Tom,” he said. “Have a beer with me?”

  “Sure.”

  They went to a bar across the street. When two glasses of beer were before them, Bernstein said, “Well, we got the school. The people in this town have more sense than they’re given credit for.”

  “I guess they do.”

  “Now about this zoning problem of yours. I’ll be glad to call a meeting of the board next week if you want to submit your petition.”

  “Do you think they’ll approve it?”

  “I can’t tell you that. As a friend of yours, all I can say is that, in my opinion, now would be a good time to submit it.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll hurry back and tell Betsy.”

  The old Ford knocked as he drove it fast up the steep winding hill, past the great outcroppings of rock. When he got to the house, Betsy came to the front door to meet him. She had brushed her hair until it shone and had put on a crisp white blouse. She smiled, and he found he didn’t want to keep secrets from her any more. Now is the time, he thought. The housing project’s not sure yet, but nothing’s ever sure. Now is the time I’ll have faith.

  “Did we get the school?” she called as he came toward her.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “If Bugala is right . . .”

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “What about?”

  “I’ve got something important I want to talk over with you. Let’s go up to our room.”

  “Is something the matter?”

  “It’s nothing about the project?”

  “Can you wait a minute? I’ll put the kids to bed.”

  “I’ll wait in our room,” he said.

  “Is it anything serious? You’re acting so strange!”

  “I’m all right. I don’t want to worry you. It’s just something we’ve got to talk over.”

  “I’ve fed the kids, but I’ve got dinner waiting for you,” she said. “Don’t you want anything to eat?”

  “Later. Come to our room when you can.”

  As he went upstairs Barbara and Pete, already in their pajamas, ran to meet him. He kissed them and went in to say good night to Janey, who was already half asleep.

  “Come on, kids,” Betsy said. “To bed!”

  “We haven’t had a story yet!” Janey said, waking up.

  “I’ll read you a short one.”

  Tom went into the big bedroom and sat down nervously on the edge of the bed. He could hear Betsy in the next room quietly reading a story about Winnie the Pooh. He put his hand in his pocket, took out the letter from Maria, and for perhaps the hundredth time examined the photograph. There was the child, big-eyed, serious, dressed with that pathetic and grotesque gentility, staring out at him solemnly, the image of “The Senator” as a young boy. Beside her son, Maria looked proud and serene. He stuffed the photograph and the letter back in the envelope and put them in his pocket.

  It was about fifteen minutes before Betsy came in. She was pale and suddenly seemed to him to be as fragile as a girl in her teens. He realized he had scared her. Getting to his feet with clumsy politeness, he said, “I don’t want you to be frightened,” and immediately realized that those were hardly the words to reassure her.

  “Why are you being so mysterious?”

  “I don’t know if I should talk to you about this. I don’t know what else to do. It isn’t just the money–I don’t like to do things behind your back.”

  “Behind my back?”

  “It was all such a long time ago,” he said helplessly.

  “What was?”

  He had an impulse simply to give her Maria’s letter and the photograph, but decided that would be cruel. There was an awkward silence which he realized must be painful to her.

  “There was a child,” he began.

  “A child?”

  “During the war. In Rome.”

  “What child?”

  “A child of mine.”

  “You had a child?”

  “Yes.”

  She said nothing. He had the strange feeling that he had not spoken, that the secret was still his. “I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know for sure until I got this letter.”

  “A letter?”

  He gave her the letter. Her face was pale but expressionless as she read it. Then she took the photograph out of the envelope and stared at it.

  “Was this the woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I can’t explain it. You can’t possibly have any idea what the war was like.”

  “We’ve never talked about it.”

  “I can’t. Do you want me to tell you horrors? I wouldn’t have brought this up at all if it weren’t . . .”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “
I’m going to support this child,” he said. “I’ve thought it over, and I’m going to send him a hundred dollars a month. I guess what I want is your blessing.”

  “My blessing!” she said, her voice rising suddenly.

  “Betsy, do you want me to apologize for this child? So much happened during the war! It’s strange I should have to apologize for this. I killed seventeen men. I cut the throat of a German boy eighteen years old, and I killed Hank Mahoney, my best friend, because I threw a hand grenade too fast. I’m not ashamed of it, but for having a child I feel terrible. What do you want me to tell you?”

  “All of it,” she said. “I want you to tell me all of it. You can’t just come and tell me you had a child in Italy, and that’s that. If you don’t tell me now, I’ll wonder about it the rest of my life. Where did you meet the girl in that photograph?”

  “In Rome.”

  “Where in Rome?”

  “In a bar.”

  “Was it a formal introduction, or did you just pick her up?”

  “Goddamn it,” he said. “Don’t let’s make this any harder than it has to be.”

  “I’m not making it harder than it has to be! Was she just an ordinary pickup? Were you drunk, Tommy?”

  “I wasn’t drunk. I was scared. And so was she. She was eighteen years old. Her parents had been burned to death before her eyes. She was broke and hungry. Now let this thing alone.”

  “No,” she said. “I want to know. How many times did you sleep with her?”

  “I lived with her,” he said. “I lived with her for two months.”

  “When?”

  “In 1944.”

  “When in 1944?”

  “December and part of January of the next year.”

  “The turn of the year,” she said. “You know something, Tommy? I almost went crazy worrying about you those months. I suppose that’s rather funny. You didn’t write. It was the first time I’d gone that long without letters. I didn’t hear from you for three months. I’ll never forget that. I was so worried that I got your grandmother to try to pull some strings in Washington and find out where you were. It didn’t work–we couldn’t find out a thing. I used to jump every time the telephone or doorbell rang, for fear it was a telegram for me from the War Department. I can remember trying to write you letters during those months. It isn’t easy to write letters when you’re not getting any, and when you’re sure in your heart that the man you’re writing is dead. There wasn’t much for me to write about. I can remember trying to be cheerful, not to let you know I was worried. What did you do with my letters when you were living with her? Did the two of you lie in bed and read them together for laughs?”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “No, I want to know. What did you do with my letters when you were living with her?”

  “I don’t think I got them until I got to New Guinea. The mail was pretty mixed up for us while we were on the move.”

  “Was she pretty, Tommy?”

  “Not as pretty as you. Look at the picture and see for yourself.”

  “Was she better in bed than I am?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Did she have a good figure? Were her breasts better than mine?”

  “Why do you torture yourself?”

  “I want an answer.”

  “I did not love her as much as I love you.”

  “You’re lying a little, aren’t you? Do you catch yourself wishing for her when you’re making love to me?”

  “Try to be adult about this,” he said. “I’m not the only man to leave a child behind during the war. There are hundreds of thousands of war children in Japan and Italy and Germany. There are more in France and England and Australia. Anywhere the men were sent out to fight, quite a few ended up becoming fathers. Call it a practical joke of nature. The human race goes on, in spite of itself. That’s a dirty thing, I suppose. Wars are full of dirt.”

  “You sound almost righteous when you talk about it.”

  “I find it hard to be really ashamed. When I met Maria I thought I was never going to see you again. Do you know what it’s like to be scared right down to the bottom of your guts? Do you know what it’s like to be sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that you’ll be killed on the next jump, or the jump after that? And do you know what it’s like to be half afraid of yourself, to know in your heart that the last man you killed was killed with pleasure? Do you know how a corpse grins? When you see enough of that grin, everything decent in the world seems a joke. The dead always have the last laugh–Mahoney, a man I killed, told me that once when we were in Germany together. The dead always have the last laugh. I’m not trying to shock you, Betsy, but you’ve got to understand that having a child doesn’t seem to me to be so bad. Maybe I’ve got everything twisted backward. Ever since the war, it’s been as though I were trying to figure something out. I’ve never been able to get it quite clear in my mind, but I keep feeling just the way I did when I was about to make a jump and knew a lot of us were going to get killed. I keep having the same feeling I had when I killed Hank Mahoney, the feeling that the world is nuts, that the whole world is absolutely insane.”

  “And now you’ve done your bit to straighten things out,” Betsy said. “A few more illegitimate children, and everything will be fine.”

  “All right–I don’t make sense. But love, even when it’s three quarters lust, does not seem to me to be as bad as lots of things I’ve seen. I don’t love Maria any more–you don’t have to worry about that. But she was with me when I didn’t have a hope in the world. She was the only good thing that happened to me in the whole war, and we had a child. Dirty or not, that still seems a kind of miracle to me. What do you want me to do, forget it? Maria hasn’t got any legal hold on me. I can just tell her to go to hell. Probably if worst came to worst and she sued me, I could prove she was a prostitute. Would that make you feel any cleaner? I can write her now and tell her I don’t believe this child is mine. One more act of brutality wouldn’t change the world. But I’m not going to do it. I can’t do anything about the state of the world, but I can put my own life in order. The only really dirty part about an illegitimate child is that usually the father doesn’t support it. This is one decent thing I’m going to do, if I never do anything else, and I hope you’ll help me.”

  “Go ahead and send him money,” she said. “I’m not trying to stop you. You have my blessing. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be bitter.”

  “I’m not bitter, but things haven’t been very good since you got out of the service, have they? Is Maria the reason? Let’s be honest about it. We haven’t had much of a life together. You and I seem to have learned a lot of things since the war–a lot of things I don’t want to know. We’ve learned to drag along from day to day without any real emotion except worry. We’ve learned to make love without passion. We’ve even learned to stop fighting together, haven’t we? We haven’t had a real good fight since you threw that vase against the wall a year ago. We used to fight a lot when we were first married, but we don’t really care enough to fight any more, do we? I haven’t even cried for months. I think I’ve forgotten how to cry. All I know how to do nowadays is be responsible and dutiful and deliberately cheerful for the sake of the children. And all you know how to do is work day and night and worry. You give a good sermon on love, but I haven’t seen much of it around here. It’s a great life, isn’t it? Was it that way with Maria?”

  He began pacing nervously up and down the room. “I know things haven’t been good since the war,” he said. “I think they’re going to be better. We’re not going to have to worry so much about money.”

  “Did you worry about money when you were with Maria?”

  “Maria was part of the war. I can’t explain that to you.”

  “Sure, I don’t know anything about war. All I know is the wife’s side of it–four years of sitting around waiting, believing that faithfulness is part of what you call love. All I kno
w is that I lived on the belief that everything would be marvelous after the war, and that we’ve both been half dead ever since you got home.”

  “Stop it,” he said. “We’re going to have a good life together.” He put his arm around her, but suddenly she twisted free and fled from the room and down the stairs. He followed her. She ran out the front door. There was brilliant moonlight on the tall grass and on the distant waters of the Sound. She ran through the dark shadows of the rock garden toward the old carriage house, where the car was parked. He caught her just before she got there, but she whirled and hit him on the mouth with her clenched fist. He kissed her and she bit him hard. He put his hand up to his mouth. When he took it down, there was blood on it.

  “Did Maria kiss like that?” she asked.

  Without saying anything, he grabbed her. She twisted away, tearing open the shoulder of her blouse. He caught her around the waist, pulled her down in the tall grass, and lay beside her with one arm imprisoning her.

  “We can still fight, can’t we?” she said, struggling to free herself. “Is that the one thing we’ve got left?”

  He stroked her hair. “Hush,” he said. The grass smelled sweet.

  “Let me go,” she said, almost wrenching herself free. He threw himself across her and, feeling her fingers digging into his back, kissed her hard. Suddenly she burst into tears and, burying her face in his neck, clung to him like a child. Her whole body was quaking.

  “It’s all right,” he said over and over again. “Everything’s all right.”

  There was no answer but her sobs. It took a long time for them to subside. After an instant of complete silence she said, “Now let me go.”

  He released her and she lay full length in the grass. Her face, still tear streaked, was bright in the moonlight. Her blouse was shredded at one shoulder, and on her other shoulder there was a dark blood stain on the white cloth, where he had held her. She was breathing hard. “Leave me alone for a little while, will you?” she said. “Go in the house and let me be by myself for a while. I’ve got a lot to think out.”

  “Come in the house with me.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows slowly. “No. I’m not sure what we should do. Maybe you should take a few weeks off and fly over to Italy and see Maria. When you came back, we could decide what’s right.”