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<p>* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *</p><p>This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few</p><p>restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a</p><p>change in the eBook (other than alteration for different</p><p>display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of</p><p>the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please check</p><p>with a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before</p><p>proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at</p><p>https://www.fadedpage.com.</p><p>This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be</p><p>under copyright in some countries. If you live outside</p><p>Canada, check your country's copyright laws. If the book is</p><p>under copyright in your country, do not download or</p><p>redistribute this file.</p><p>Title: The Bell Jar</p><p>Author: Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)</p><p>Date of first publication: 1963</p><p>Edition used as base for this ebook: London: Faber and</p><p>Faber, 1971 [third printing of 1966 edition]</p><p>Date first posted: May 12, 2016</p><p>Date last updated: Sep. 12, 2022</p><p>Faded Page eBook #20160540</p><p>This eBook was produced by Al Haines and Mark Akrigg</p><p>Publisher's Note:</p><p>As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital</p><p>format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its</p><p>layout.</p><p>THE BELL JAR</p><p>by</p><p>Sylvia Plath</p><p>Chapter One</p><p>It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they</p><p>electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was</p><p>doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of</p><p>being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to</p><p>read about in the papers—goggle-eyed headlines staring up</p><p>at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling</p><p>mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I</p><p>couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned</p><p>alive all along your nerves.</p><p>I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.</p><p>New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the</p><p>fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in</p><p>overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream.</p><p>Mirage-grey at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot</p><p>streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered,</p><p>and the dry, tindery dust blew into my eyes and down my</p><p>throat.</p><p>I kept hearing about the Rosenbergs over the radio and at</p><p>the office till I couldn't get them out of my mind. It was like</p><p>the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterwards, the</p><p>cadaver's head—or what there was left of it—floated up</p><p>behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and behind the face</p><p>of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in</p><p>the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were</p><p>carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string, like</p><p>some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.</p><p>I knew something was wrong with me that summer,</p><p>because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how</p><p>stupid I'd been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive</p><p>clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the</p><p>little successes I'd totted up so happily at college fizzled to</p><p>nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along</p><p>Madison Avenue.</p><p>I was supposed to be having the time of my life.</p><p>I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other</p><p>college girls just like me all over America who wanted</p><p>nothing more than to be tripping about in those same size</p><p>seven patent leather shoes I'd bought in Bloomingdale's one</p><p>lunch hour with a black patent leather belt and black patent</p><p>leather pocket-book to match. And when my picture came</p><p>out in the magazine the twelve of us were working on—</p><p>drinking martinis in a skimpy, imitation silver-lamé bodice</p><p>stuck on to a big, fat cloud of white tulle, on some Starlight</p><p>Roof, in the company of several anonymous young men with</p><p>all-American bone structures hired or loaned for the occasion</p><p>—everybody would think I must be having a real whirl.</p><p>Look what can happen in this country, they'd say. A girl</p><p>lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so</p><p>poor she can't afford a magazine, and then she gets a</p><p>scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there</p><p>and ends up steering New York like her own private car.</p><p>Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just</p><p>bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from</p><p>parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolley-bus.</p><p>I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other</p><p>girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react. I felt very still</p><p>and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel,</p><p>moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding</p><p>hullabaloo.</p><p>There were twelve of us at the hotel.</p><p>We had all won a fashion magazine contest, by writing</p><p>essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as</p><p>prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses</p><p>paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets</p><p>and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous</p><p>expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the</p><p>field of our desire and advice about what to do with our</p><p>particular complexions.</p><p>I still have the make-up kit they gave me, fitted out for a</p><p>person with brown eyes and brown hair: an oblong of brown</p><p>mascara with a tiny brush, and a round basin of blue eye-</p><p>shadow just big enough to dab the tip of your finger in, and</p><p>three lipsticks ranging from red to pink, all cased in the same</p><p>little gilt box with a mirror on one side. I also have a white</p><p>plastic sun-glasses case with coloured shells and sequins and</p><p>a green plastic starfish sewed on to it.</p><p>I realized we kept piling up these presents because it was</p><p>as good as free advertising for the firms involved, but I</p><p>couldn't be cynical. I got such a kick out of all those free</p><p>gifts showering on to us. For a long time afterwards I hid</p><p>them away, but later, when I was all right again, I brought</p><p>them out, and I still have them around the house. I use the</p><p>lipsticks now and then, and last week I cut the plastic starfish</p><p>off the sun-glasses case for the baby to play with.</p><p>So there were twelve of us at the hotel, in the same wing</p><p>on the same floor in single rooms, one after the other, and it</p><p>reminded me of my dormitory at college. It wasn't a proper</p><p>hotel—I mean a hotel where there are both men and women</p><p>mixed about here and there on the same floor.</p><p>This hotel—the Amazon—was for women only, and they</p><p>were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents who wanted</p><p>to be sure their daughters would be living where men</p><p>couldn't get at them and deceive them; and they were all</p><p>going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they</p><p>had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class, or they</p><p>had just graduated from places like Katy Gibbs and were</p><p>secretaries to executives and junior executives and simply</p><p>hanging around in New York waiting to get married to some</p><p>career man or other.</p><p>These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the</p><p>sun-roof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep</p><p>up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I</p><p>talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and</p><p>bored with flying around in aeroplanes and bored with skiing</p><p>in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in</p><p>Brazil.</p><p>Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak.</p><p>Nineteen years, and I hadn't been out of New England except</p><p>for this trip to New York. It was my first big chance, but here</p><p>I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like</p><p>so much water.</p><p>I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.</p><p>I'd never known a girl like Doreen before. Doreen came</p><p>from a society girls' college down South and had bright white</p><p>hair standing out in a cotton candy fluff round her head and</p><p>blue eyes like transparent agate marbles, hard and polished</p><p>and just about indestructible, and a mouth set in a sort of</p><p>perpetual sneer. I don't mean a nasty sneer, but an amused,</p><p>mysterious sneer, as if all the people around her were pretty</p><p>silly and she could tell some good jokes on them if she</p><p>wanted to.</p><p>Doreen singled me out right away. She made me feel I was</p><p>that much sharper than the others, and she really was</p><p>wonderfully funny. She used to sit next to</p><p>lay quite still.</p><p>It didn't seem to be summer any more. I could feel the</p><p>winter shaking my bones and banging my teeth together, and</p><p>the big white hotel towel I had dragged down with me lay</p><p>under my head numb as a snowdrift.</p><p>I thought it very bad manners for anybody to pound on a</p><p>bathroom door the way some person was pounding. They</p><p>could just go around the corner and find another bathroom</p><p>the way I had done and leave me in peace. But the person</p><p>kept banging and pleading with me to let them in and I</p><p>thought I dimly recognized the voice. It sounded a bit like</p><p>Emily Ann Offenbach.</p><p>'Just a minute,' I said then. My words bungled out thick as</p><p>molasses.</p><p>I pulled myself together and slowly rose and flushed the</p><p>toilet for the tenth time and slopped the bowl clean and rolled</p><p>up the towel so the vomit stains didn't show very clearly and</p><p>unlocked the door and stepped out into the hall.</p><p>I knew it would be fatal if I looked at Emily Ann or</p><p>anybody else so I fixed my eyes glassily on a window that</p><p>swam at the end of the hall and put one foot in front of the</p><p>other.</p><p>The next thing I had a view of was somebody's shoe.</p><p>It was a stout shoe of cracked black leather and quite old,</p><p>with tiny air holes in a scalloped pattern over the toe and a</p><p>dull polish, and it was pointed at me. It seemed to be placed</p><p>on a hard green surface that was hurting my right cheekbone.</p><p>I kept very still, waiting for a clue that would give me</p><p>some notion of what to do. A little to the left of the shoe I</p><p>saw a vague heap of blue cornflowers on a white ground and</p><p>this made me want to cry. It was the sleeve of my own</p><p>bathrobe I was looking at, and my left hand lay pale as a cod</p><p>at the end of it.</p><p>'She's all right now.'</p><p>The voice came from a cool, rational region far above my</p><p>head. For a minute I didn't think there was anything strange</p><p>about it, and then I thought it was strange. It was a man's</p><p>voice, and no men were allowed to be in our hotel at any</p><p>time of the night or day.</p><p>'How many others are there?' the voice went on.</p><p>I listened with interest. The floor seemed wonderfully</p><p>solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall</p><p>no farther.</p><p>'Eleven, I think,' a woman's voice answered. I figured she</p><p>must belong to the black shoe. 'I think there's eleven more of</p><p>'um, but one's missin' so there's oney ten.'</p><p>'Well, you get this one to bed and I'll take care of the rest.'</p><p>I heard a hollow boomp boomp in my right ear that grew</p><p>fainter and fainter. Then a door opened in the distance, and</p><p>there were voices and groans, and the door shut again.</p><p>Two hands slid under my armpits and the woman's voice</p><p>said, 'Come, come, lovey, we'll make it yet,' and I felt myself</p><p>being half lifted, and slowly the doors began to move by, one</p><p>by one, until we came to an open door and went in.</p><p>The sheet on my bed was folded back, and the woman</p><p>helped me lie down and covered me up to the chin and rested</p><p>for a minute in the bedside armchair, fanning herself with</p><p>one plump, pink hand. She wore gilt-rimmed spectacles and</p><p>a white nurse's cap.</p><p>'Who are you?' I asked in a faint voice.</p><p>'I'm the hotel nurse.'</p><p>'What's the matter with me?'</p><p>'Poisoned,' she said briefly. 'Poisoned, the whole lot of</p><p>you. I never seen anythin' like it. Sick here, sick there,</p><p>whatever have you young ladies been stuffin' yourselves</p><p>with?'</p><p>'Is everybody else sick too?' I asked with some hope.</p><p>'The whole of your lot,' she affirmed with relish. 'Sick as</p><p>dogs and cryin' for ma.'</p><p>The room hovered around me with great gentleness, as if</p><p>the chairs and the tables and the walls were withholding their</p><p>weight out of sympathy for my sudden frailty.</p><p>'The doctor's given you a ninjection,' the nurse said from</p><p>the doorway. 'You'll sleep now.'</p><p>And the door took her place like a sheet of blank paper,</p><p>and then a larger sheet of paper took the place of the door,</p><p>and I drifted toward it and smiled myself to sleep.</p><p>Somebody was standing by my pillow with a white cup.</p><p>'Drink this,' they said.</p><p>I shook my head. The pillow crackled like a wad of straw.</p><p>'Drink this and you'll feel better.'</p><p>A thick white china cup was lowered under my nose. In</p><p>the wan light that might have been evening and might have</p><p>been dawn I contemplated the clear amber liquid. Pads of</p><p>butter floated on the surface and a faint chickeny aroma</p><p>fumed up to my nostrils.</p><p>My eyes moved tentatively to the skirt behind the cup.</p><p>'Betsy,' I said.</p><p>'Betsy nothing, it's me.'</p><p>I raised my eyes then, and saw Doreen's head silhouetted</p><p>against the paling window, her blonde hair lit at the tips from</p><p>behind like a halo of gold. Her face was in shadow, so I</p><p>couldn't make out her expression, but I felt a sort of expert</p><p>tenderness flowing from the ends of her fingers. She might</p><p>have been Betsy or my mother or a fern-scented nurse.</p><p>I bent my head and took a sip of the broth. I thought my</p><p>mouth must be made of sand. I took another sip and then</p><p>another and another until the cup was empty.</p><p>I felt purged and holy and ready for a new life.</p><p>Doreen set the cup on the window-sill and lowered herself</p><p>into the armchair. I noticed that she made no move to take</p><p>out a cigarette, and as she was a chain-smoker this surprised</p><p>me.</p><p>'Well, you almost died,' she said finally.</p><p>'I guess it was all that caviar.'</p><p>'Caviar nothing! It was the crabmeat. They did tests on it</p><p>and it was chock-full of ptomaine.'</p><p>I had a vision of the celestially white kitchens on Ladies'</p><p>Day stretching into infinity. I saw avocado pear after</p><p>avocado pear being stuffed with crabmeat and mayonnaise</p><p>and photographed under brilliant lights. I saw the delicate,</p><p>pink-mottled claw-meat poking seductively through its</p><p>blanket of mayonnaise and the bland yellow pear cup with its</p><p>rim of alligator-green cradling the whole mess.</p><p>Poison.</p><p>'Who did tests?' I thought the doctor might have pumped</p><p>somebody's stomach and then analyzed what he found in his</p><p>hotel laboratory.</p><p>'Those dodos on Ladies' Day. As soon as you all started</p><p>keeling over like ninepins somebody called into the office</p><p>and the office called across to Ladies' Day and they did tests</p><p>on everything left over from the big lunch. Ha!'</p><p>'Ha!' I echoed hollowly. It was good to have Doreen back.</p><p>'They sent presents,' she added. 'They're in a big carton out</p><p>in the hall.'</p><p>'How did they get here so fast?'</p><p>'Special express delivery, what do you think? They can't</p><p>afford to have the lot of you running around saying you got</p><p>poisoned at Ladies' Day. You could sue them for every</p><p>penny they own if you just knew some smart law man.'</p><p>'What are the presents?' I began to feel if it was a good</p><p>enough present I wouldn't mind about what happened,</p><p>because I felt so pure as a result.</p><p>Nobody's opened the box yet, they're all out flat. I'm</p><p>supposed to be carting soup into everybody, seeing as I'm the</p><p>only one on my feet, but I brought you yours first.'</p><p>'See what the present is,' I begged. Then I remembered and</p><p>said, 'I've a present for you as well.'</p><p>Doreen went out into the hall. I could hear her rustling</p><p>around for a minute and then the sound of paper tearing.</p><p>Finally she came back carrying a thick book with a glossy</p><p>cover and people's names printed all over it.</p><p>'The Thirty Best Short Stories of the Year.' She dropped the</p><p>book in my lap. 'There's eleven more of them out there in</p><p>that box. I suppose they thought it'd give you something to</p><p>read while you were sick.' She paused. 'Where's mine?'</p><p>I fished in my pocket-book and handed Doreen the mirror</p><p>with her name and the daisies on it. Doreen looked at me and</p><p>I looked at her and we both burst out laughing.</p><p>'You can have my soup if you want,' she said. 'They put</p><p>twelve soups on the tray by mistake and Lenny and I stuffed</p><p>down so many hotdogs while we were waiting for the rain to</p><p>stop I couldn't eat another mouthful.'</p><p>'Bring it in,' I said. 'I'm starving.'</p><p>Chapter Five</p><p>At seven the next morning the telephone rang.</p><p>Slowly I swam up from the bottom of a black sleep. I</p><p>already had a telegram from Jay Cee stuck in my mirror,</p><p>telling me not to bother to come into work but to rest for a</p><p>day and get completely</p><p>well, and how sorry she was about</p><p>the bad crabmeat, so I couldn't imagine who would be</p><p>calling.</p><p>I reached out and hitched the receiver on to my pillow so</p><p>the mouthpiece rested on my collarbone and the earpiece lay</p><p>on my shoulder.</p><p>'Hello?'</p><p>A man's voice said, 'Is that Miss Esther Greenwood?' I</p><p>thought I detected a slight foreign accent.</p><p>'It certainly is,' I said.</p><p>'This is Constantin Something-or-Other.'</p><p>I couldn't make out the last name, but it was full of S's and</p><p>K's. I didn't know any Constantin, but I hadn't the heart to</p><p>say so.</p><p>Then I remembered Mrs Willard and her simultaneous</p><p>interpreter.</p><p>'Of course, of course!' I cried, sitting up and clutching the</p><p>phone to me with both hands.</p><p>I'd never have given Mrs Willard credit for introducing me</p><p>to a man named Constantin.</p><p>I collected men with interesting names. I already knew a</p><p>Socrates. He was tall and ugly and intellectual and the son of</p><p>some big Greek movie producer in Hollywood, but also a</p><p>Catholic, which ruined it for both of us. In addition to</p><p>Socrates I knew a White Russian named Attila at the Boston</p><p>School of Business Administration.</p><p>Gradually I realized that Constantin was trying to arrange</p><p>a meeting for us later in the day.</p><p>'Would you like to see the UN this afternoon?'</p><p>'I can already see the UN,' I told him, with a little</p><p>hysterical giggle.</p><p>He seemed nonplussed.</p><p>'I can see it from my window.' I thought perhaps my</p><p>English was a touch too fast for him.</p><p>There was a silence.</p><p>Then he said, 'Maybe you would like a bite to eat</p><p>afterwards.'</p><p>I detected the vocabulary of Mrs Willard and my heart</p><p>sank. Mrs Willard always invited you for a bite to eat. I</p><p>remembered that this man had been a guest at Mrs Willard's</p><p>house when he first came to America—Mrs Willard had one</p><p>of these arrangements where you open your house to</p><p>foreigners and then when you go abroad they open their</p><p>houses to you.</p><p>I now saw quite clearly that Mrs Willard had simply traded</p><p>her open house in Russia for my bite to eat in New York.</p><p>'Yes, I would like a bite to eat,' I said stiffly. 'What time</p><p>will you come?'</p><p>'I'll call for you in my car about two. It's the Amazon, isn't</p><p>it?'</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>'Ah, I know where that is.'</p><p>For a moment I thought his tone was laden with special</p><p>meaning, and then I figured that probably some of the girls at</p><p>the Amazon were secretaries at the UN and maybe he had</p><p>taken one of them out at one time. I let him hang up first, and</p><p>then I hung up and lay back in the pillows, feeling grim.</p><p>There I went again, building up a glamorous picture of a</p><p>man who would love me passionately the minute he met me,</p><p>and all out of a few prosy nothings. A duty tour of the UN</p><p>and a post-UN sandwich!</p><p>I tried to jack up my morale.</p><p>Probably Mrs Willard's simultaneous interpreter would be</p><p>short and ugly and I would come to look down on him in the</p><p>end the way I looked down on Buddy Willard. This thought</p><p>gave me a certain satisfaction. Because I did look down on</p><p>Buddy Willard, and although everybody still thought I would</p><p>marry him when he came out of the TB place, I knew I</p><p>would never marry him if he were the last man on earth.</p><p>Buddy Willard was a hypocrite.</p><p>Of course, I didn't know he was a hypocrite at first. I</p><p>thought he was the most wonderful boy I'd ever seen. I'd</p><p>adored him from a distance for five years before he even</p><p>looked at me, and then there was a beautiful time when I still</p><p>adored him and he started looking at me, and then just as he</p><p>was looking at me more and more I discovered quite by</p><p>accident what an awful hypocrite he was, and now he wanted</p><p>me to marry him and I hated his guts.</p><p>The worst part of it was I couldn't come straight out and</p><p>tell him what I thought of him, because he caught TB before</p><p>I could do that, and now I had to humour him along till he</p><p>got well again and could take the unvarnished truth.</p><p>I decided not to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. It</p><p>would only mean getting dressed, and what was the point of</p><p>getting dressed if you were staying in bed for the morning? I</p><p>could have called down and asked for a breakfast tray in my</p><p>room, I guess, but then I would have to tip the person who</p><p>brought it up and I never knew how much to tip. I'd had</p><p>some very unsettling experiences trying to tip people in New</p><p>York.</p><p>When I first arrived at the Amazon a dwarfish, bald man</p><p>in a bellhop's uniform carried my suitcase up in the elevator</p><p>and unlocked my room for me. Of course I rushed</p><p>immediately to the window and looked out to see what the</p><p>view was. After a while I was aware of this bellhop turning</p><p>on the hot and cold taps in my washbowl and saying 'This is</p><p>the hot and this is the cold' and switching on the radio and</p><p>telling me the names of all the New York stations and I</p><p>began to get uneasy, so I kept my back to him and said</p><p>firmly, 'Thank you for bringing up my suitcase.'</p><p>'Thank you thank you thank you. Ha!' he said in a very</p><p>nasty insinuating tone, and before I could wheel round to see</p><p>what had come over him he was gone, shutting the door</p><p>behind him with a rude slam.</p><p>Later, when I told Doreen about his curious behaviour, she</p><p>said, 'You ninny, he wanted his tip.'</p><p>I asked how much I should have given and she said a</p><p>quarter at least and thirty-five cents if the suitcase was too</p><p>heavy. Now I could have carried that suitcase to my room</p><p>perfectly well by myself, only the bellhop seemed so eager to</p><p>do it that I let him. I thought that sort of service came along</p><p>with what you paid for your hotel room.</p><p>I hate handing over money to people for doing what I</p><p>could just as easily do myself, it makes me nervous.</p><p>Doreen said ten per cent was what you should tip a person,</p><p>but I somehow never had the right change and I'd have felt</p><p>awfully silly giving somebody half a dollar and saying,</p><p>'Fifteen cents of this is a tip for you, please give me thirty-</p><p>five cents back.'</p><p>The first time I took a taxi in New York I tipped the driver</p><p>ten cents. The fare was a dollar, so I thought ten cents was</p><p>exactly right and gave the driver my dime with a little</p><p>flourish and a smile. But he only held it in the palm of his</p><p>hand and stared and stared at it, and when I stepped out of</p><p>the cab, hoping I had not handed him a Canadian dime by</p><p>mistake, he started yelling, 'Lady I gotta live like you and</p><p>everybody else,' in a loud voice which scared me so much I</p><p>broke into a run. Luckily he was stopped at a traffic light or I</p><p>think he would have driven along beside me yelling in that</p><p>embarrassing way.</p><p>When I asked Doreen about this she said the tipping</p><p>percentage might well have risen from ten to fifteen per cent</p><p>since she was last in New York. Either that, or that particular</p><p>cab-driver was an out and out louse.</p><p>I reached for the book the people from Ladies' Day had</p><p>sent.</p><p>When I opened it a card fell out. The front of the card</p><p>showed a poodle in a flowered bedjacket sitting in a poodle</p><p>basket with a sad face, and the inside of the card showed the</p><p>poodle lying down in the basket with a little smile, sound</p><p>asleep under an embroidered sampler that said, 'You'll get</p><p>well best with lots and lots of rest'. At the bottom of the card</p><p>somebody had written, 'Get well quick! from all of your</p><p>good friends at Ladies' Day' in lavender ink.</p><p>I flipped through one story after another until finally I</p><p>came to a story about a fig-tree.</p><p>This fig-tree grew on a green lawn between the house of a</p><p>Jewish man and a convent, and the Jewish man and a</p><p>beautiful dark nun kept meeting at the tree to pick the ripe</p><p>figs, until one day they saw an egg hatching in a bird's nest</p><p>on a branch of the tree, and as they watched the little bird</p><p>peck its way out of the egg, they touched the backs of their</p><p>hands together, and then the nun didn't come out to pick figs</p><p>with the Jewish man any more but a mean-faced Catholic</p><p>kitchen-maid came to pick them instead and counted up the</p><p>figs the man picked after they were both through to be sure</p><p>he hadn't picked any more than she had, and the man was</p><p>furious.</p><p>I thought it was a lovely story, especially the part about the</p><p>fig-tree in winter under the snow and then the fig-tree</p><p>in</p><p>spring with all the green fruit. I felt sorry when I came to the</p><p>last page. I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of</p><p>print the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep</p><p>under that beautiful big green fig-tree.</p><p>It seemed to me Buddy Willard and I were like that Jewish</p><p>man and that nun, although of course we weren't Jewish or</p><p>Catholic but Unitarian. We had met together under our own</p><p>imaginary fig-tree, and what we had seen wasn't a bird</p><p>coming out of an egg but a baby coming out of a woman, and</p><p>then something awful happened and we went our separate</p><p>ways.</p><p>As I lay there in my white hotel bed feeling lonely and</p><p>weak, I thought of Buddy Willard lying even lonelier and</p><p>weaker than I was up in that sanatorium in the Adirondacks,</p><p>and I felt like a heel of the worst sort. In his letters Buddy</p><p>kept telling me how he was reading poems by a poet who</p><p>was also a doctor and how he'd found out about some famous</p><p>dead Russian short story writer who had been a doctor too,</p><p>so maybe doctors and writers could get along fine after all.</p><p>Now this was a very different tune from what Buddy</p><p>Willard had been singing all the two years we were getting to</p><p>know each other. I remember the day he smiled at me and</p><p>said, 'Do you know what a poem is, Esther?'</p><p>'No, what?' I said.</p><p>'A piece of dust.' And he looked so proud of having</p><p>thought of this that I just stared at his blond hair and his blue</p><p>eyes and his white teeth—he had very long, strong white</p><p>teeth—and said 'I guess so.'</p><p>It was only in the middle of New York a whole year later</p><p>that I finally thought of an answer to that remark.</p><p>I spent a lot of time having imaginary conversations with</p><p>Buddy Willard. He was a couple of years older than I was</p><p>and very scientific, so he could always prove things. When I</p><p>was with him I had to work to keep my head above water.</p><p>These conversations I had in my mind usually repeated the</p><p>beginnings of conversations I'd really had with Buddy, only</p><p>they finished with me answering him back quite sharply,</p><p>instead of just sitting around and saying 'I guess so'.</p><p>Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying,</p><p>'Do you know what a poem is, Esther?'</p><p>'No, what?' I would say.</p><p>'A piece of dust.'</p><p>Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I</p><p>would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people</p><p>you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon</p><p>a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those</p><p>people put together.'</p><p>And of course Buddy wouldn't have any answer to that,</p><p>because what I said was true. People were made of nothing</p><p>so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust</p><p>was a bit better than writing poems people would remember</p><p>and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick</p><p>and couldn't sleep.</p><p>My trouble was I took everything Buddy Willard told me</p><p>as the honest-to-God truth. I remember the first night he</p><p>kissed me. It was after the Yale Junior Prom.</p><p>It was strange, the way Buddy had invited me to that</p><p>Prom.</p><p>He popped into my house out of the blue one Christmas</p><p>vacation, wearing a thick white turtleneck sweater and</p><p>looking so handsome I could hardly stop staring and said, 'I</p><p>might drop over to see you at college some day, all right?'</p><p>I was flabbergasted. I only saw Buddy at church on</p><p>Sundays when we were both home from college, and then at</p><p>a distance, and I couldn't figure what had put it into his head</p><p>to run over and see me—he had run the two miles between</p><p>our houses for cross-country practice, he said.</p><p>Of course, our mothers were good friends. They had gone</p><p>to school together and then both married their professors and</p><p>settled down in the same town, but Buddy was always off on</p><p>a scholarship at prep school in the fall or earning money by</p><p>fighting blister rust in Montana in the summer, so our</p><p>mothers being old school chums really didn't matter a bit.</p><p>After this sudden visit I didn't hear a word from Buddy</p><p>until one fine Saturday morning in early March. I was up in</p><p>my room at college, studying about Peter the Hermit and</p><p>Walter the Penniless for my history exam on the crusades the</p><p>coming Monday when the hall phone rang.</p><p>Usually people are supposed to take turns answering the</p><p>hall phone, but as I was the only freshman on a floor with all</p><p>seniors they made me answer it most of the time. I waited a</p><p>minute to see if anybody would beat me to it. Then I figured</p><p>everybody was probably out playing squash or away on</p><p>week-ends, so I answered it myself.</p><p>'Is that you, Esther?' the girl on watch downstairs said, and</p><p>when I said Yes, she said, 'There's a man to see you.'</p><p>I was surprised to hear this, because of all the blind dates</p><p>I'd had that year not one called me up again for a second</p><p>date. I just didn't have any luck. I hated coming downstairs</p><p>sweaty-handed and curious every Saturday night and having</p><p>some senior introduce me to her aunt's best friend's son and</p><p>finding some pale, mushroomy fellow with protruding ears</p><p>or buck teeth or a bad leg. I didn't think I deserved it. After</p><p>all, I wasn't crippled in any way, I just studied too hard, I</p><p>didn't know when to stop.</p><p>Well, I combed my hair and put on some more lipstick and</p><p>took my history book—so I could say I was on my way to</p><p>the library if it turned out to be somebody awful—and went</p><p>down, and there was Buddy Willard leaning against the mail</p><p>table in a khaki zipper jacket and blue dungarees and frayed</p><p>grey sneakers and grinning up at me.</p><p>'I just came over to say hello,' he said.</p><p>I thought it odd he should come all the way up from Yale</p><p>even hitch-hiking, as he did, to save money, just to say hello.</p><p>'Hello,' I said. 'Let's go out and sit on the porch.'</p><p>I wanted to go out on the porch because the girl on watch</p><p>was a nosey senior and eyeing me curiously. She obviously</p><p>thought Buddy had made a big mistake.</p><p>We sat side by side in two wicker rocking-chairs. The</p><p>sunlight was clean and windless and almost hot.</p><p>'I can't stay more than a few minutes,' Buddy said.</p><p>'Oh, come on, stay for lunch,' I said.</p><p>'Oh, I can't do that. I'm up here for the Sophomore Prom</p><p>with Joan.'</p><p>I felt like a prize idiot.</p><p>'How is Joan?' I asked coldly.</p><p>Joan Gilling came from our home town and went to our</p><p>church and was a year ahead of me at college. She was a big</p><p>wheel—president of her class and a physics major and the</p><p>college hockey champion. She always made me feel squirmy</p><p>with her starey pebble-coloured eyes and her gleaming</p><p>tombstone teeth and her breathy voice. She was big as a</p><p>horse, too. I began to think Buddy had pretty poor taste.</p><p>'Oh Joan,' he said. 'She asked me up to this dance two</p><p>months ahead of time and her mother asked my mother if I</p><p>would take her, so what could I do?'</p><p>'Well, why did you say you'd take her if you didn't want</p><p>to?' I asked meanly.</p><p>'Oh, I like Joan. She never cares whether you spend any</p><p>money on her or not and she enjoys doing things out-of-</p><p>doors. The last time she came down to Yale for house week-</p><p>end we went on a bicycle trip to East Rock and she's the only</p><p>girl I haven't had to push up hills. Joan's all right.'</p><p>I went cold with envy. I had never been to Yale, and Yale</p><p>was the place all the seniors in my house liked to go best on</p><p>week-ends. I decided to expect nothing from Buddy Willard.</p><p>If you expect nothing from somebody you are never</p><p>disappointed.</p><p>'You better go and find Joan then,' I said in a matter-of-fact</p><p>voice. 'I've a date coming any minute and he won't like</p><p>seeing me sitting around with you.'</p><p>'A date?' Buddy looked surprised. 'Who is it?'</p><p>'It's two,' I said, 'Peter the Hermit and Walter the</p><p>Penniless.'</p><p>Buddy didn't say anything, so I said, 'Those are their</p><p>nicknames.'</p><p>Then I added, 'They're from Dartmouth.'</p><p>I guess Buddy never read much history, because his mouth</p><p>stiffened. He swung up from the wicker rocking-chair and</p><p>gave it a sharp little unnecessary push. Then he dropped a</p><p>pale blue envelope with a Yale crest into my lap.</p><p>'Here's a letter I meant to leave for you if you weren't in.</p><p>There's a question in it you can answer by mail. I don't feel</p><p>like asking you about it</p><p>right now.'</p><p>After Buddy had gone I opened the letter. It was a letter</p><p>inviting me to the Yale Junior Prom.</p><p>I was so surprised I let out a couple of yips and ran into</p><p>the house shouting, 'I'm going I'm going I'm going.' After the</p><p>bright white sun on the porch it looked pitch-dark in there,</p><p>and I couldn't make out a thing. I found myself hugging the</p><p>senior on watch. When she heard I was going to the Yale</p><p>Junior Prom she treated me with amazement and respect.</p><p>Oddly enough, things changed in the house after that. The</p><p>seniors on my floor started speaking to me and every now</p><p>and then one of them would answer the phone quite</p><p>spontaneously and nobody made any more nasty loud</p><p>remarks outside my door about people wasting their golden</p><p>college days with their noses stuck in a book.</p><p>Well all during the Junior Prom Buddy treated me like a</p><p>friend or a cousin.</p><p>We danced about a mile apart the whole time, until during</p><p>'Auld Lang Syne' he suddenly rested his chin on the top of</p><p>my head as if he were very tired. Then in the cold, black,</p><p>three o'clock wind we walked very slowly the five miles</p><p>back to the house where I was sleeping in the living-room on</p><p>a couch that was too short because it only cost fifty cents a</p><p>night instead of two dollars like most of the other places with</p><p>proper beds.</p><p>I felt dull and flat and full of shattered visions.</p><p>I had imagined Buddy would fall in love with me that</p><p>week-end and that I wouldn't have to worry about what I was</p><p>doing on any more Saturday nights the rest of the year. Just</p><p>as we approached the house where I was staying Buddy said,</p><p>'Let's go up to the chemistry lab.'</p><p>I was aghast. 'The chemistry lab?'</p><p>'Yes.' Buddy reached for my hand. 'There's a beautiful</p><p>view up there behind the chemistry lab.'</p><p>And sure enough, there was a sort of hilly place behind the</p><p>chemistry lab from which you could see the lights of a</p><p>couple of the houses in New Haven.</p><p>I stood pretending to admire them while Buddy got a good</p><p>footing on the rough soil. While he kissed me I kept my eyes</p><p>open and tried to memorize the spacing of the house lights so</p><p>I would never forget them.</p><p>Finally Buddy stepped back. 'Wow!' he said.</p><p>'Wow what?' I said, surprised. It had been a dry,</p><p>uninspiring little kiss, and I remember thinking it was too</p><p>bad both our mouths were so chapped from walking five</p><p>miles in that cold wind.</p><p>'Wow, it makes me feel terrific to kiss you.'</p><p>I modestly didn't say anything.</p><p>'I guess you go out with a lot of boys,' Buddy said then.</p><p>'Well, I guess I do.' I thought I must have gone out with a</p><p>different boy for every week in the year.</p><p>'Well, I have to study a lot.'</p><p>'So do I,' I put in hastily. 'I have to keep my scholarship</p><p>after all.'</p><p>'Still, I think I could manage to see you every third week-</p><p>end.'</p><p>'That's nice.' I was almost fainting and dying to get back to</p><p>college and tell everybody.</p><p>Buddy kissed me again in front of the house steps, and the</p><p>next fall, when his scholarship to Medical School came</p><p>through, I went there to see him instead of to Yale and it was</p><p>there I found out how he had fooled me all those years and</p><p>what a hypocrite he was.</p><p>I found out on the day we saw the baby born.</p><p>Chapter Six</p><p>I had kept begging Buddy to show me some really</p><p>interesting hospital sights, so one Friday I cut all my classes</p><p>and came down for a long week-end and he gave me the</p><p>works.</p><p>I started out by dressing in a white coat and sitting on a tall</p><p>stool in a room with four cadavers, while Buddy and his</p><p>friends cut them up. These cadavers were so unhuman-</p><p>looking they didn't bother me a bit. They had stiff, leathery,</p><p>purple-black skin and they smelt like old pickle jars.</p><p>After that, Buddy took me out into a hall where they had</p><p>some big glass bottles full of babies that had died before they</p><p>were born. The baby in the first bottle had a large white head</p><p>bent over a tiny curled-up body the size of a frog. The baby</p><p>in the next bottle was bigger and the baby next to that one</p><p>was bigger still and the baby in the last bottle was the size of</p><p>a normal baby and he seemed to be looking at me and</p><p>smiling a little piggy smile.</p><p>I was quite proud of the calm way I stared at all these</p><p>gruesome things. The only time I jumped was when I leaned</p><p>my elbow on Buddy's cadaver's stomach to watch him</p><p>dissect a lung. After a minute or two I felt this burning</p><p>sensation in my elbow and it occurred to me the cadaver</p><p>might just be half alive since it was still warm, so I leapt off</p><p>my stool with a small exclamation. Then Buddy explained</p><p>the burning was only from the pickling fluid, and I sat back</p><p>in my old position.</p><p>In the hour before lunch Buddy took me to a lecture on</p><p>sickle cell anaemia and some other depressing diseases,</p><p>where they wheeled sick people out on to the platform and</p><p>asked them questions and then wheeled them off and showed</p><p>coloured slides.</p><p>One slide I remember showed a beautiful laughing girl</p><p>with a black mole on her cheek. 'Twenty days after that mole</p><p>appeared the girl was dead,' the doctor said, and everybody</p><p>went very quiet for a minute and then the bell rang, so I</p><p>never really found out what the mole was or why the girl</p><p>died.</p><p>In the afternoon we went to see a baby born.</p><p>First we found a linen closet in the hospital corridor where</p><p>Buddy took out a white mask for me to wear and some</p><p>gauze.</p><p>A tall fat medical student, big as Sidney Greenstreet,</p><p>lounged nearby, watching Buddy wind the gauze round and</p><p>round my head until my hair was completely covered and</p><p>only my eyes peered out over the white mask.</p><p>The medical student gave an unpleasant little snicker. 'At</p><p>least your mother loves you,' he said.</p><p>I was so busy thinking how very fat he was and how</p><p>unfortunate it must be for a man and especially a young man</p><p>to be fat, because what woman could stand leaning over that</p><p>big stomach to kiss him, that I didn't immediately realize</p><p>what this student had said to me was an insult. By the time I</p><p>figured he must consider himself quite a fine fellow and had</p><p>thought up a cutting remark about how only a mother loves a</p><p>fat man, he was gone.</p><p>Buddy was examining a queer wooden plaque on the wall</p><p>with a row of holes in it, starting from a hole about the size</p><p>of a silver dollar and ending with one the size of a dinner-</p><p>plate.</p><p>'Fine, fine,' he said to me. 'There's somebody about to have</p><p>a baby this minute.'</p><p>At the door of the delivery room stood a thin, stoop-</p><p>shouldered medical student Buddy knew.</p><p>'Hello, Will,' Buddy said. 'Who's on the job?'</p><p>'I am,' Will said gloomily, and I noticed little drops of</p><p>sweat beading his high pale forehead. 'I am, and it's my first.'</p><p>Buddy told me Will was a third-year man and had to</p><p>deliver eight babies before he could graduate.</p><p>Then we noticed a bustle at the far end of the hall and</p><p>some men in lime-green coats and skull-caps and a few</p><p>nurses came moving towards us in a ragged procession</p><p>wheeling a trolley with a big white lump on it.</p><p>'You oughtn't to see this,' Will muttered in my ear. 'You'll</p><p>never want to have a baby if you do. They oughtn't to let</p><p>women watch. It'll be the end of the human race.'</p><p>Buddy and I laughed, and then Buddy shook Will's hand</p><p>and we all went into the room.</p><p>I was so struck by the sight of the table where they were</p><p>lifting the woman I didn't say a word. It looked like some</p><p>awful torture table, with these metal stirrups sticking up in</p><p>mid-air at one end and all sorts of instruments and wires and</p><p>tubes I couldn't make out properly at the other.</p><p>Buddy and I stood together by the window, a few feet</p><p>away from the woman, where we had a perfect view.</p><p>The woman's stomach stuck up so high I couldn't see her</p><p>face or the upper part of her body at all. She seemed to have</p><p>nothing but an enormous spider-fat stomach and two little</p><p>ugly spindly legs propped in the high stirrups, and all the</p><p>time the baby was being born she never stopped making this</p><p>unhuman whooing noise.</p><p>Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would</p><p>make her forget she'd had any pain and that when she swore</p><p>and groaned she really didn't know what she was doing</p><p>because she was in</p><p>a kind of twilight sleep.</p><p>I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would</p><p>invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling</p><p>every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would</p><p>go straight home and start another baby, because the drug</p><p>would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all</p><p>the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless</p><p>and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and</p><p>shut her in again.</p><p>The head doctor, who was supervising Will, kept saying to</p><p>the woman, 'Push down, Mrs Tomolillo, push down, that's a</p><p>good girl, push down,' and finally through the split, shaven</p><p>place between her legs, lurid with disinfectant, I saw a dark</p><p>fuzzy thing appear.</p><p>'The baby's head,' Buddy whispered under cover of the</p><p>woman's groans.</p><p>But the baby's head stuck for some reason, and the doctor</p><p>told Will he'd have to make a cut. I heard the scissors close</p><p>on the woman's skin like cloth and the blood began to run</p><p>down—a fierce, bright red. Then all at once the baby seemed</p><p>to pop out into Will's hands, the colour of a blue plum and</p><p>floured with white stuff and streaked with blood, and Will</p><p>kept saying, 'I'm going to drop it, I'm going to drop it, I'm</p><p>going to drop it,' in a terrified voice.</p><p>'No, you're not,' the doctor said, and took the baby out of</p><p>Will's hands and started massaging it, and the blue colour</p><p>went away and the baby started to cry in a lorn, croaky voice</p><p>and I could see it was a boy.</p><p>The first thing that baby did was pee in the doctor's face. I</p><p>told Buddy later I didn't see how that was possible, but he</p><p>said it was quite possible, though unusual, to see something</p><p>like that happen.</p><p>As soon as the baby was born the people in the room</p><p>divided up into two groups, the nurses tying a metal dog-tag</p><p>on the baby's wrist and swabbing its eyes with cotton on the</p><p>end of a stick and wrapping it up and putting it in a canvas-</p><p>sided cot, while the doctor and Will started sewing up the</p><p>woman's cut with a needle and a long thread.</p><p>I think somebody said, 'It's a boy, Mrs Tomolillo,' but the</p><p>woman didn't answer or raise her head.</p><p>'Well, how was it?' Buddy asked with a satisfied</p><p>expression as we walked across the green quadrangle to his</p><p>room.</p><p>'Wonderful,' I said. 'I could see something like that every</p><p>day.'</p><p>I didn't feel up to asking him if there were any other ways</p><p>to have babies. For some reason the most important thing to</p><p>me was actually seeing the baby come out of you yourself</p><p>and making sure it was yours. I thought if you had to have all</p><p>that pain anyway you might just as well stay awake.</p><p>I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my</p><p>elbows on the delivery table after it was all over—dead</p><p>white, of course, with no make-up and from the awful ordeal,</p><p>but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and</p><p>reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its</p><p>name, whatever it was.</p><p>'Why was it all covered with flour?' I asked then, to keep</p><p>the conversation going, and Buddy told me about the waxy</p><p>stuff that guarded the baby's skin.</p><p>When we were back in Buddy's room, which reminded me</p><p>of nothing so much as a monk's cell, with its bare walls and</p><p>bare bed and bare floor and the desk loaded with Gray's</p><p>Anatomy and other thick gruesome books, Buddy lit a candle</p><p>and uncorked a bottle of Dubonnet. Then we lay down side</p><p>by side on the bed and Buddy sipped his wine while I read</p><p>aloud 'somewhere I have never travelled' and other poems</p><p>from a book I'd brought.</p><p>Buddy said he figured there must be something in poetry if</p><p>a girl like me spent all her days over it, so each time we met I</p><p>read him some poetry and explained to him what I found in</p><p>it. It was Buddy's idea. He always arranged our week-ends so</p><p>we'd never regret wasting our time in any way. Buddy's</p><p>father was a teacher, and I think Buddy could have been a</p><p>teacher as well, he was always trying to explain things to me</p><p>and introduce me to new knowledge.</p><p>Suddenly, after I finished a poem, he said, 'Esther, have</p><p>you ever seen a man?'</p><p>The way he said it I knew he didn't mean a regular man or</p><p>a man in general, I knew he meant a man naked.</p><p>'No,' I said. 'Only statues.'</p><p>'Well, don't you think you would like to see me?'</p><p>I didn't know what to say. My mother and my grandmother</p><p>had started hinting around to me a lot lately about what a</p><p>fine, clean boy Buddy Willard was, coming from such a fine,</p><p>clean family, and how everybody at church thought he was a</p><p>model person, so kind to his parents and to older people, as</p><p>well as so athletic and so handsome and so intelligent.</p><p>All I'd heard about, really, was how fine and clean Buddy</p><p>was and how he was the kind of person a girl should stay fine</p><p>and clean for. So I didn't really see the harm in anything</p><p>Buddy would think up to do.</p><p>'Well, all right, I guess so,' I said.</p><p>I stared at Buddy while he unzipped his chino pants and</p><p>took them off and laid them on a chair and then took off his</p><p>underpants that were made of something like nylon fishnet.</p><p>'They're cool,' he explained, 'and my mother says they</p><p>wash easily.'</p><p>Then he just stood there in front of me and I kept on</p><p>staring at him. The only thing I could think of was turkey</p><p>neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.</p><p>Buddy seemed hurt I didn't say anything. 'I think you</p><p>ought to get used to me like this,' he said. 'Now let me see</p><p>you.'</p><p>But undressing in front of Buddy suddenly appealed to me</p><p>about as much as having my Posture Picture taken at college,</p><p>where you have to stand naked in front of a camera, knowing</p><p>all the time that a picture of you stark naked, both full view</p><p>and side view, is going into the college gym files to be</p><p>marked A B C or D depending on how straight you are.</p><p>'Oh, some other time,' I said.</p><p>'All right.' Buddy got dressed again.</p><p>Then we kissed and hugged a while and I felt a little better.</p><p>I drank the rest of the Dubonnet and sat cross-legged at the</p><p>end of Buddy's bed and asked for a comb. I began to comb</p><p>my hair down over my face so Buddy couldn't see it.</p><p>Suddenly I said, 'Have you ever had an affair with anyone,</p><p>Buddy?'</p><p>I don't know what made me say it, the words just popped</p><p>out of my mouth. I never thought for one minute that Buddy</p><p>Willard would have an affair with anyone. I expected him to</p><p>say, 'No, I have been saving myself for when I get married to</p><p>somebody pure and a virgin like you'.</p><p>But Buddy didn't say anything, he just turned pink.</p><p>'Well, have you?'</p><p>'What do you mean, an affair?' Buddy asked then in a</p><p>hollow voice.</p><p>'You know, have you ever gone to bed with anyone?' I kept</p><p>rhythmically combing the hair down over the side of my face</p><p>nearest to Buddy, and I could feel the little electric filaments</p><p>clinging to my hot cheeks and I wanted to shout, 'Stop, stop,</p><p>don't tell me, don't say anything.' But I didn't, I just kept still.</p><p>'Well, yes, I have,' Buddy said finally.</p><p>I almost fell over. From the first night Buddy Willard</p><p>kissed me and said I must go out with a lot of boys, he made</p><p>me feel I was much more sexy and experienced than he was</p><p>and that everything he did like hugging and kissing and</p><p>petting was simply what I made him feel like doing out of</p><p>the blue, he couldn't help it and didn't know how it came</p><p>about.</p><p>Now I saw he had only been pretending all this time to be</p><p>so innocent.</p><p>'Tell me about it.' I combed my hair slowly over and over,</p><p>feeling the teeth of the comb dig into my cheek at every</p><p>stroke. 'Who was it?'</p><p>Buddy seemed relieved I wasn't angry. He even seemed</p><p>relieved to have somebody to tell about how he was seduced.</p><p>Of course, somebody had seduced Buddy, Buddy hadn't</p><p>started it and it wasn't really his fault. It was this waitress at</p><p>the hotel he worked at as a busboy the last summer on Cape</p><p>Cod. Buddy had noticed her staring at him queerly and</p><p>shoving her breasts up against him in the confusion of the</p><p>kitchen, so finally one day he asked her what the trouble was</p><p>and she looked him straight in the eye and said, 'I want you.'</p><p>'Served up with parsley?' Buddy had laughed innocently.</p><p>'No,' she had said. 'Some night.'</p><p>And that's</p><p>how Buddy had lost his pureness and his</p><p>virginity.</p><p>At first I thought he must have slept with the waitress only</p><p>the once, but when I asked how many times, just to make</p><p>sure, he said he couldn't remember but a couple of times a</p><p>week for the rest of the summer. I multiplied three by ten and</p><p>got thirty, which seemed beyond all reason.</p><p>After that something in me just froze up.</p><p>Back at college I started asking a senior here and a senior</p><p>there what they would do if a boy they knew suddenly told</p><p>them he'd slept thirty times with some slutty waitress one</p><p>summer, smack in the middle of knowing them. But these</p><p>seniors said most boys were like that and you couldn't</p><p>honestly accuse them of anything until you were at least</p><p>pinned or engaged to be married.</p><p>Actually, it wasn't the idea of Buddy sleeping with</p><p>somebody that bothered me. I mean I'd read about all sorts of</p><p>people sleeping with each other, and if it had been any other</p><p>boy I would merely have asked him the most interesting</p><p>details, and maybe gone out and slept with somebody myself</p><p>just to even things up, and then thought no more about it.</p><p>What I couldn't stand was Buddy's pretending I was so</p><p>sexy and he was so pure, when all the time he'd been having</p><p>an affair with that tarty waitress and must have felt like</p><p>laughing in my face.</p><p>'What does your mother think about this waitress?' I asked</p><p>Buddy that week-end.</p><p>Buddy was amazingly close to his mother. He was always</p><p>quoting what she said about the relationship between a man</p><p>and a woman, and I knew Mrs Willard was a real fanatic</p><p>about virginity for men and women both. When I first went</p><p>to her house for supper she gave me a queer, shrewd,</p><p>searching look, and I knew she was trying to tell whether I</p><p>was a virgin or not.</p><p>Just as I thought, Buddy was embarrassed. 'Mother asked</p><p>me about Gladys,' he admitted.</p><p>'Well, what did you say?'</p><p>'I said Gladys was free, white and twenty-one.'</p><p>Now I knew Buddy would never talk to his mother as</p><p>rudely as that for my sake. He was always saying how his</p><p>mother said, 'What a man wants is a mate and what a woman</p><p>wants is infinite security,' and, 'What a man is is an arrow</p><p>into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow</p><p>shoots off from,' until it made me tired.</p><p>Every time I tried to argue, Buddy would say his mother</p><p>still got pleasure out of his father and wasn't that wonderful</p><p>for people their age, it must mean she really knew what was</p><p>what.</p><p>Well, I had just decided to ditch Buddy Willard for once</p><p>and for all, not because he'd slept with that waitress but</p><p>because he didn't have the honest guts to admit it straight off</p><p>to everybody and face up to it as part of his character, when</p><p>the phone in the hall rang and somebody said in a little</p><p>knowing singsong, 'It's for you, Esther, it's from Boston.'</p><p>I could tell right away something must be wrong, because</p><p>Buddy was the only person I knew in Boston, and he never</p><p>called me long distance because it was so much more</p><p>expensive than letters. Once, when he had a message he</p><p>wanted me to get almost immediately, he went all round his</p><p>entry at medical school asking if anybody was driving up to</p><p>my college that week-end, and sure enough, somebody was,</p><p>so he gave them a note for me and I got it the same day. He</p><p>didn't even have to pay for a stamp.</p><p>It was Buddy all right. He told me that the annual fall</p><p>chest X-ray showed he had caught TB and he was going off</p><p>on a scholarship for medical students who caught TB to a TB</p><p>place in the Adirondacks. Then he said I hadn't written since</p><p>that last week-end and he hoped nothing was the matter</p><p>between us, and would I please try to write him at least once</p><p>a week and come to visit him at this TB place in my</p><p>Christmas vacation?</p><p>I had never heard Buddy so upset. He was very proud of</p><p>his perfect health and was always telling me it was</p><p>psychosomatic when my sinuses blocked up and I couldn't</p><p>breathe. I thought this an odd attitude for a doctor to have</p><p>and perhaps he should study to be a psychiatrist instead, but</p><p>of course I never came right out and said so.</p><p>I told Buddy how sorry I was about the TB and promised</p><p>to write, but when I hung up I didn't feel one bit sorry. I only</p><p>felt a wonderful relief.</p><p>I thought the TB might just be a punishment for living the</p><p>kind of double life Buddy lived and feeling so superior to</p><p>people. And I thought how convenient it would be now I</p><p>didn't have to announce to everybody at college I had broken</p><p>off with Buddy and start the boring business of blind dates</p><p>all over again.</p><p>I simply told everyone that Buddy had TB and we were</p><p>practically engaged, and when I stayed in to study on</p><p>Saturday nights they were extremely kind to me because they</p><p>thought I was so brave, working the way I did just to hide a</p><p>broken heart.</p><p>Chapter Seven</p><p>Of course, Constantin was much too short, but in his own</p><p>way he was handsome, with light brown hair and dark blue</p><p>eyes and a lively, challenging expression. He could almost</p><p>have been an American, he was so tan and had such good</p><p>teeth, but I could tell straight away that he wasn't. He had</p><p>what no American man I've ever met has had, and that's</p><p>intuition.</p><p>From the start Constantin guessed I wasn't any protégée of</p><p>Mrs Willard's. I raised an eyebrow here and dropped a dry</p><p>little laugh there, and pretty soon we were both openly raking</p><p>Mrs Willard over the coals and I thought, 'This Constantin</p><p>won't mind if I'm too tall and don't know enough languages</p><p>and haven't been to Europe, he'll see through all that stuff to</p><p>what I really am.'</p><p>Constantin drove me to the UN in his old green</p><p>convertible with cracked, comfortable brown leather seats</p><p>and the top down. He told me his tan came from playing</p><p>tennis, and when we were sitting there side by side flying</p><p>down the streets in the open sun he took my hand and</p><p>squeezed it, and I felt happier than I had been since I was</p><p>about nine and running along the hot white beaches with my</p><p>father the summer before he died.</p><p>And while Constantin and I sat in one of those hushed</p><p>plush auditoriums in the UN, next to a stern muscular</p><p>Russian girl with no make-up who was a simultaneous</p><p>interpreter like Constantin, I thought how strange it had</p><p>never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy</p><p>until I was nine years old.</p><p>After that—in spite of the Girl Scouts and the piano</p><p>lessons and the water-colour lessons and the dancing lessons</p><p>and the sailing camp, all of which my mother scrimped to</p><p>give me, and college, with crewing in the mist before</p><p>breakfast and black-bottom pies and the little new</p><p>firecrackers of ideas going off every day—I had never been</p><p>really happy again.</p><p>I stared through the Russian girl in her double-breasted</p><p>grey suit, rattling off idiom after idiom in her own</p><p>unknowable tongue—which Constantin said was the most</p><p>difficult part, because the Russians didn't have the same</p><p>idioms as our idioms—and I wished with all my heart I could</p><p>crawl into her and spend the rest of my life barking out one</p><p>idiom after another. It mightn't make me any happier, but it</p><p>would be one more little pebble of efficiency among all the</p><p>other pebbles.</p><p>Then Constantin and the Russian girl interpreter and the</p><p>whole bunch of black and white and yellow men arguing</p><p>down there behind their labelled microphones seemed to</p><p>move off at a distance. I saw their mouths going up and</p><p>down without a sound, as if they were sitting on the deck of a</p><p>departing ship, stranding me in the middle of a huge silence.</p><p>I started adding up all the things I couldn't do.</p><p>I began with cooking.</p><p>My grandmother and my mother were such good cooks</p><p>that I left everything to them. They were always trying to</p><p>teach me one dish or another, but I would just look on and</p><p>say, 'Yes, yes, I see,' while the instructions slid through my</p><p>head like water, and then I'd always spoil what I did so</p><p>nobody would ask me to do it again.</p><p>I remember Jody, my best and only girl-friend at college in</p><p>my freshman year, making me scrambled eggs at her house</p><p>one morning. They tasted unusual, and when I asked her if</p><p>she had put in anything extra, she said cheese and garlic</p><p>salt.</p><p>I asked who told her to do that, and she said nobody, she just</p><p>thought it up. But then, she was practical and a sociology</p><p>major.</p><p>I didn't know shorthand either.</p><p>This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My</p><p>mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major.</p><p>But an English major who knew shorthand was something</p><p>else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in</p><p>demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she</p><p>would transcribe letter after thrilling letter.</p><p>The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any</p><p>way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters. Besides,</p><p>those little shorthand symbols in the book my mother</p><p>showed me seemed just as bad as let t equal time and let s</p><p>equal the total distance.</p><p>My list grew longer.</p><p>I was a terrible dancer. I couldn't carry a tune. I had no</p><p>sense of balance, and when we had to walk down a narrow</p><p>board with our hands out and a book on our heads in gym</p><p>class I always fell over. I couldn't ride a horse or ski, the two</p><p>things I wanted to do most, because they cost too much</p><p>money. I couldn't speak German or read Hebrew or write</p><p>Chinese. I didn't even know where most of the odd out-of-</p><p>the-way countries the UN men in front of me represented</p><p>fitted in on the map.</p><p>For the first time in my life, sitting there in the sound-</p><p>proof heart of the UN building between Constantin who</p><p>could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the</p><p>Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully</p><p>inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along,</p><p>I simply hadn't thought about it.</p><p>The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and</p><p>prizes, and that era was coming to an end.</p><p>I felt like a racehorse in a world without race-tracks or a</p><p>champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall</p><p>Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little</p><p>gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the</p><p>date on a tombstone.</p><p>I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-</p><p>tree in the story.</p><p>From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a</p><p>wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a</p><p>husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was</p><p>a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and</p><p>another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig</p><p>was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig</p><p>was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other</p><p>lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and</p><p>another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond</p><p>and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite</p><p>make out.</p><p>I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving</p><p>to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of</p><p>the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of</p><p>them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat</p><p>there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go</p><p>black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my</p><p>feet.</p><p>Constantin's restaurant smelt of herbs and spices and sour</p><p>cream. All the time I had been in New York I had never</p><p>found such a restaurant. I only found those Heavenly</p><p>Hamburger places, where they serve giant hamburgers and</p><p>soup-of-the-day and four kinds of fancy cake at a very clean</p><p>counter facing a long glarey mirror.</p><p>To reach this restaurant we had to climb down seven</p><p>dimly-lit steps into a sort of cellar.</p><p>Travel posters plastered the smoke-dark walls, like so</p><p>many picture windows overlooking Swiss lakes and Japanese</p><p>mountains and African velds, and thick, dusty bottle-candles</p><p>that seemed for centuries to have wept their coloured waxes</p><p>red over blue over green in a fine, three-dimensional lace,</p><p>cast a circle of light round each table where the faces floated,</p><p>flushed and flamelike themselves.</p><p>I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after</p><p>the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig-</p><p>tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might</p><p>well have arisen from the profound void of an empty</p><p>stomach.</p><p>Constantin kept refilling our glasses with a sweet Greek</p><p>wine that tasted of pine bark, and I found myself telling him</p><p>how I was going to learn German and go to Europe and be a</p><p>war correspondent like Maggie Higgins.</p><p>I felt so fine by the time we came to the yoghourt and</p><p>strawberry jam that I decided I would let Constantin seduce</p><p>me.</p><p>Ever since Buddy Willard had told me about that waitress</p><p>I had been thinking I ought to go out and sleep with</p><p>somebody myself. Sleeping with Buddy wouldn't count,</p><p>though, because he would still be one person ahead of me, it</p><p>would have to be with somebody else.</p><p>The only boy I ever actually discussed going to bed with</p><p>was a bitter, hawk-nosed Southerner from Yale, who came up</p><p>to college one week-end only to find his date had eloped with</p><p>a taxi-driver the day before. As the girl had lived in my</p><p>house and as I was the only one home that particular night, it</p><p>was my job to cheer him up.</p><p>At the local coffee-shop, hunched in one of the secretive,</p><p>high-backed booths with hundreds of peoples' names gouged</p><p>into the wood, we drank cup after cup of black coffee and</p><p>talked frankly about sex.</p><p>This boy—his name was Eric—said he thought it</p><p>disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on</p><p>the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in plain</p><p>view, necking madly before the one o'clock curfew, so</p><p>everybody passing by could see them. A million years of</p><p>evolution, Eric said bitterly, and what are we? Animals.</p><p>Then Eric told me how he had slept with his first woman.</p><p>He went to a Southern prep school that specialized in</p><p>building all-round gentlemen, and by the time you graduated</p><p>it was an unwritten rule that you had to have known a</p><p>woman. Known in the Biblical sense, Eric said.</p><p>So one Saturday Eric and a few of his classmates took a</p><p>bus into the nearest city and visited a notorious whore house.</p><p>Eric's whore hadn't even taken off her dress. She was a fat,</p><p>middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and suspiciously</p><p>thick lips and rat-coloured skin and she wouldn't turn off the</p><p>light, so he had had her under a fly-spotted twenty-five watt</p><p>bulb, and it was nothing like it was cracked up to be. It was</p><p>boring as going to the toilet.</p><p>I said maybe if you loved a woman it wouldn't seem so</p><p>boring, but Eric said it would be spoiled by thinking this</p><p>woman too was just an animal like the rest, so if he loved</p><p>anybody he would never go to bed with her. He'd go to a</p><p>whore if he had to and keep the woman he loved free of all</p><p>that dirty business.</p><p>It had crossed my mind at the time that Eric might be a</p><p>good person to go to bed with, since he had already done it</p><p>and, unlike the usual run of boys, didn't seem dirty-minded</p><p>or silly when he talked about it. But then Eric wrote me a</p><p>letter saying he thought he might really be able to love me, I</p><p>was so intelligent and cynical and yet had such a kind face,</p><p>surprisingly like his older sister's; so I knew it was no use, I</p><p>was the type he would never go to bed with, and wrote him I</p><p>was unfortunately about to marry a childhood sweetheart.</p><p>The more I thought about it the better I liked the idea of</p><p>being seduced by a simultaneous interpreter in New York</p><p>City. Constantin seemed mature and considerate in every</p><p>way. There were no people I knew he would want to brag to</p><p>about it, the way college boys bragged about sleeping with</p><p>girls in the backs of cars to their room-mates or their friends</p><p>on the basketball team. And there would be a pleasant irony</p><p>in sleeping with a man Mrs Willard had introduced me to, as</p><p>if she were, in a roundabout way, to blame for it.</p><p>When Constantin asked if I would like to come up to his</p><p>apartment to hear some balalaika records I smiled to myself.</p><p>My mother had always told me never under any</p><p>circumstances to go with a man to a man's rooms after an</p><p>evening out, it could mean only the one thing.</p><p>'I am very fond of balalaika music,' I said.</p><p>Constantin's room had a balcony, and the balcony</p><p>overlooked the river, and we could hear the hooing of the</p><p>tugs down in</p><p>the darkness. I felt moved and tender and</p><p>perfectly certain about what I was going to do.</p><p>I knew I might have a baby, but that thought hung far and</p><p>dim in the distance and didn't trouble me at all. There was no</p><p>one hundred per cent sure way not to have a baby, it said in</p><p>an article my mother cut out of the Reader's Digest and</p><p>mailed to me at college. This article was written by a married</p><p>woman lawyer with children and called 'In Defence of</p><p>Chastity'.</p><p>It gave all the reasons a girl shouldn't sleep with anybody</p><p>but her husband and then only after they were married.</p><p>The main point of the article was that a man's world is</p><p>different from a woman's world and a man's emotions are</p><p>different from a woman's emotions and only marriage can</p><p>bring the two worlds and the two different sets of emotions</p><p>together properly. My mother said this was something a girl</p><p>didn't know about till it was too late, so she had to take the</p><p>advice of people who were already experts, like a married</p><p>woman.</p><p>This woman lawyer said the best men wanted to be pure</p><p>for their wives, and even if they weren't pure, they wanted to</p><p>be the ones to teach their wives about sex. Of course they</p><p>would try to persuade a girl to have sex and say they would</p><p>marry her later, but as soon as she gave in, they would lose</p><p>all respect for her and start saying that if she did that with</p><p>them she would do that with other men and they would end</p><p>up by making her life miserable.</p><p>The woman finished her article by saying better be safe</p><p>than sorry and besides, there was no sure way of not getting</p><p>stuck with a baby and then you'd really be in a pickle.</p><p>Now the one thing this article didn't seem to me to</p><p>consider was how a girl felt.</p><p>It might be nice to be pure and then to marry a pure man,</p><p>but what if he suddenly confessed he wasn't pure after we</p><p>were married, the way Buddy Willard had? I couldn't stand</p><p>the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a</p><p>man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.</p><p>Finally I decided that if it was so difficult to find a red-</p><p>blooded intelligent man who was still pure by the time he</p><p>was twenty-one I might as well forget about staying pure</p><p>myself and marry somebody who wasn't pure either. Then</p><p>when he started to make my life miserable I could make his</p><p>miserable as well.</p><p>When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue.</p><p>Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and</p><p>Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and</p><p>black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided</p><p>into people who had slept with somebody and people who</p><p>hadn't, and this seemed the only really significant difference</p><p>between one person and another.</p><p>I thought a spectacular change would come over me the</p><p>day I crossed the boundary line.</p><p>I thought it would be the way I'd feel if I ever visited</p><p>Europe. I'd come home, and if I looked closely into the</p><p>mirror I'd be able to make out a little white Alp at the back of</p><p>my eye. Now I thought that if I looked into the mirror</p><p>tomorrow I'd see a doll-size Constantin sitting in my eye and</p><p>smiling out at me.</p><p>Well for about an hour we lounged on Constantin's</p><p>balcony in two separate sling-back chairs with the victrola</p><p>playing and the balalaika records stacked between us. A faint</p><p>milky light diffused from the street lights or the half-moon or</p><p>the cars or the stars, I couldn't tell what, but apart from</p><p>holding my hand Constantin showed no desire to seduce me</p><p>whatsoever.</p><p>I asked if he was engaged or had any special girl friend,</p><p>thinking maybe that's what was the matter, but he said no, he</p><p>made a point of keeping clear of such attachments.</p><p>At last I felt a powerful drowsiness drifting through my</p><p>veins from all the pine-bark wine I had drunk.</p><p>'I think I'll go in and lie down,' I said.</p><p>I strolled casually into the bedroom and stooped over to</p><p>nudge off my shoes. The clean bed bobbed before me like a</p><p>safe boat. I stretched full-length and shut my eyes. Then I</p><p>heard Constantin sigh and come in from the balcony. One by</p><p>one his shoes clonked on to the floor, and he lay down by my</p><p>side.</p><p>I looked at him secretly from under a fall of hair.</p><p>He was lying on his back, his hands under his head, staring</p><p>at the ceiling. The starched white sleeves of his shirt, rolled</p><p>up to the elbows, glimmered eerily in the half-dark and his</p><p>tan skin seemed almost black. I thought he must be the most</p><p>beautiful man I'd ever seen.</p><p>I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone-structure to</p><p>my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous</p><p>writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep</p><p>with.</p><p>And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he</p><p>would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to</p><p>love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with</p><p>Buddy Willard and the boys before him.</p><p>The same thing happened over and over:</p><p>I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the</p><p>distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw</p><p>he wouldn't do at all.</p><p>That's one of the reasons I never wanted to get married.</p><p>The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the</p><p>place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and</p><p>excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the</p><p>coloured arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.</p><p>I woke to the sound of rain.</p><p>It was pitch dark. After a while I deciphered the faint</p><p>outlines of an unfamiliar window. Every so often a beam of</p><p>light appeared out of thin air, traversed the wall like a</p><p>ghostly, exploratory finger, and slid off into nothing again.</p><p>Then I heard the sound of somebody breathing.</p><p>At first I thought it was only myself, and that I was lying</p><p>in the dark in my hotel room after being poisoned. I held my</p><p>breath, but the breathing kept on.</p><p>A green eye glowed on the bed beside me. It was divided</p><p>into quarters like a compass. I reached out slowly and closed</p><p>my hand on it. I lifted it up. With it came an arm, heavy as a</p><p>dead man's, but warm with sleep.</p><p>Constantin's watch said three o'clock.</p><p>He was lying in his shirt and trousers and stocking feet just</p><p>as I had left him when I dropped asleep, and as my eyes grew</p><p>used to the darkness I made out his pale eyelids and his</p><p>straight nose and his tolerant, shapely mouth, but they</p><p>seemed insubstantial, as if drawn on fog. For a few minutes I</p><p>leaned over, studying him. I had never fallen asleep beside a</p><p>man before.</p><p>I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were</p><p>my husband.</p><p>It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs</p><p>and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my</p><p>nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the</p><p>dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home</p><p>after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd</p><p>spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I</p><p>fell into bed, utterly exhausted.</p><p>This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen</p><p>years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was</p><p>like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy</p><p>Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the</p><p>wife of a university professor and had been a private school</p><p>teacher herself.</p><p>Once when I visited Buddy I found Mrs Willard braiding a</p><p>rug out of strips of wool from Mr Willard's old suits. She'd</p><p>spent weeks on that rug, and I had admired the tweedy</p><p>browns and greens and blues patterning the braid, but after</p><p>Mrs Willard was through, instead of hanging the rug on the</p><p>wall the way I would have done, she put it down in place of</p><p>her kitchen mat, and in a few days it was soiled and dull and</p><p>indistinguishable from any mat you could buy for under a</p><p>dollar in the Five and Ten.</p><p>And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and</p><p>restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he</p><p>married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding</p><p>service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet</p><p>like Mrs Willard's kitchen mat.</p><p>Hadn't my own mother told me that as soon as she and my</p><p>father left Reno on their honeymoon—my father had been</p><p>married before, so he needed a divorce—my</p><p>father said to</p><p>her, 'Whew, that's a relief, now we can stop pretending and</p><p>be ourselves'?—and from that day on my mother never had a</p><p>minute's peace.</p><p>I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister,</p><p>knowing way that after I had children I would feel</p><p>differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I</p><p>began to think maybe it was true that when you were married</p><p>and had children it was like being brainwashed, and</p><p>afterwards you went about numb as a slave in some private,</p><p>totalitarian state.</p><p>As I stared down at Constantin the way you stare down at</p><p>a bright, unattainable pebble at the bottom of a deep well, his</p><p>eyelids lifted and he looked through me, and his eyes were</p><p>full of love. I watched dumbly as a little shutter of</p><p>recognition clicked across the blur of tenderness and the</p><p>wide pupils went glossy and depthless as patent leather.</p><p>Constantin sat up, yawning. 'What time is it?'</p><p>'Three,' I said in a flat voice. 'I better go home. I have to be</p><p>at work first thing in the morning.'</p><p>'I'll drive you.'</p><p>As we sat back to back on our separate sides of the bed</p><p>fumbling with our shoes in the horrid cheerful white light of</p><p>the bed lamp, I sensed Constantin turn round. 'Is your hair</p><p>always like that?'</p><p>'Like what?'</p><p>He didn't answer but reached over and put his hand at the</p><p>root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the tip ends</p><p>like a comb. A little electric shock flared through me, and I</p><p>sat quite still. Ever since I was small I loved feeling</p><p>somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and</p><p>peaceful.</p><p>'Ah, I know what it is,' Constantin said. 'You've just</p><p>washed it.'</p><p>And he bent to lace up his tennis shoes.</p><p>An hour later I lay in my hotel bed, listening to the rain. It</p><p>didn't even sound like rain, it sounded like a tap running. The</p><p>ache in the middle of my left shin bone came to life, and I</p><p>abandoned any hope of sleep before seven, when my radio-</p><p>alarm clock would rouse me with its hearty renderings of</p><p>Sousa.</p><p>Every time it rained the old leg-break seemed to remember</p><p>itself, and what it remembered was a dull hurt.</p><p>Then I thought, 'Buddy Willard made me break that leg.'</p><p>Then I thought, 'No, I broke it myself. I broke it on</p><p>purpose to pay myself back for being such a heel.'</p><p>Chapter Eight</p><p>Mr Willard drove me up to the Adirondacks.</p><p>It was the day after Christmas and a grey sky bellied over</p><p>us, fat with snow. I felt overstuffed and dull and</p><p>disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as</p><p>if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the</p><p>silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and</p><p>the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised</p><p>never came to pass.</p><p>At Christmas I almost wished I was a Catholic.</p><p>First Mr Willard drove and then I drove. I don't know what</p><p>we talked about, but as the countryside, already deep under</p><p>old falls of snow, turned us a bleaker shoulder, and as the fir</p><p>trees crowded down from the grey hills to the road edge, so</p><p>darkly green they looked black, I grew gloomier and</p><p>gloomier.</p><p>I was tempted to tell Mr Willard to go ahead alone, I</p><p>would hitch-hike home.</p><p>But one glance at Mr Willard's face—the silver hair in its</p><p>boyish crewcut, the clear blue eyes, the pink cheeks, all</p><p>frosted like a sweet wedding cake with the innocent, trusting</p><p>expression—and I knew I couldn't do it. I'd have to see the</p><p>visit through to the end.</p><p>At midday the greyness paled a bit, and we parked in an</p><p>icy turn-off and shared out the tunafish sandwiches and the</p><p>oatmeal cookies and the apples and the thermos of black</p><p>coffee Mrs Willard had packed for our lunch.</p><p>Mr Willard eyed me kindly. Then he cleared his throat and</p><p>brushed a few last crumbs from his lap. I could tell he was</p><p>going to say something serious, because he was very shy, and</p><p>I'd heard him clear his throat in that same way before giving</p><p>an important economics lecture.</p><p>'Nelly and I have always wanted a daughter.'</p><p>For one crazy minute I thought Mr Willard was going to</p><p>announce that Mrs Willard was pregnant and expecting a</p><p>baby girl. Then he said, 'But I don't see how any daughter</p><p>could be nicer than you.'</p><p>Mr Willard must have thought I was crying because I was</p><p>so glad he wanted to be a father to me. 'There, there,' he</p><p>patted my shoulder and cleared his throat once or twice. 'I</p><p>think we understand each other.'</p><p>Then he opened the car door on his side and strolled round</p><p>to my side, his breath shaping tortuous smoke signals in the</p><p>grey air. I moved over to the seat he had left and he started</p><p>the car and we drove on.</p><p>I'm not sure what I expected of Buddy's sanatorium.</p><p>I think I expected a kind of wooden chalet perched up on</p><p>top of a small mountain, with rosy-cheeked young men and</p><p>women, all very attractive but with hectic glittering eyes,</p><p>lying covered with thick blankets on outdoor balconies.</p><p>'TB is like living with a bomb in your lung,' Buddy had</p><p>written to me at college. 'You just lie around very quietly</p><p>hoping it won't go off.'</p><p>I found it hard to imagine Buddy lying quietly. His whole</p><p>philosophy of life was to be up and doing every second.</p><p>Even when we went to the beach in the summer he never lay</p><p>down to drowse in the sun the way I did. He ran back and</p><p>forth or played ball or did a little series of rapid push-ups to</p><p>use the time.</p><p>Mr Willard and I waited in the reception room for the end</p><p>of the afternoon rest cure.</p><p>The colour scheme of the whole sanatorium seemed to be</p><p>based on liver. Dark, glowering woodwork, burnt-brown</p><p>leather chairs, walls that might once have been white but had</p><p>succumbed under a spreading malady of mould or damp. A</p><p>mottled brown linoleum sealed off the floor.</p><p>On a low coffee-table, with circular and semi-circular</p><p>stains bitten into the dark veneer, lay a few wilted numbers</p><p>of Time and Life. I flipped to the middle of the nearest</p><p>magazine. The face of Eisenhower beamed up at me, bald</p><p>and blank as the face of a foetus in a bottle.</p><p>After a while I became aware of a sly, leaking noise. For a</p><p>minute I thought the walls had begun to discharge the</p><p>moisture that must saturate them, but then I saw the noise</p><p>came from a small fountain in one corner of the room.</p><p>The fountain spurted a few inches into the air from a rough</p><p>length of pipe, threw up its hands, collapsed and drowned its</p><p>ragged dribble in a stone basin of yellowing water. The basin</p><p>was paved with the white hexagonal tiles one finds in public</p><p>lavatories.</p><p>A buzzer sounded. Doors opened and shut in the distance.</p><p>Then Buddy came in.</p><p>'Hello, Dad.'</p><p>Buddy hugged his father, and promptly, with a dreadful</p><p>brightness, came over to me and held out his hand. I shook it.</p><p>It felt moist and fat.</p><p>Mr Willard and I sat together on a leather couch. Buddy</p><p>perched opposite us on the edge of a slippery armchair. He</p><p>kept smiling, as if the corners of his mouth were strung up on</p><p>invisible wire.</p><p>The last thing I expected was for Buddy to be fat. All the</p><p>time I thought of him at the sanatorium I saw shadows</p><p>carving themselves under his cheekbones and his eyes</p><p>burning out of almost fleshless sockets.</p><p>But everything concave about Buddy had suddenly turned</p><p>convex. A pot belly swelled under the tight white nylon shirt</p><p>and his cheeks were round and ruddy as marzipan fruit. Even</p><p>his laugh sounded plump.</p><p>Buddy's eyes met mine. 'It's the eating,' he said. 'They stuff</p><p>us day after day and then just make us lie around. But I'm</p><p>allowed out on walk-hours now, so don't worry, I'll thin down</p><p>in a couple of weeks.' He jumped up, smiling like a glad</p><p>host. 'Would you like to see my room?'</p><p>I followed Buddy, and Mr Willard followed me, through a</p><p>pair of swinging doors set with panes of frosted glass down a</p><p>dim, liver-coloured corridor smelling of floor wax and lysol</p><p>and another vaguer odour, like bruised gardenias.</p><p>Buddy threw open a brown door, and we filed into the</p><p>narrow room.</p><p>A lumpy bed, shrouded by a thin white spread, pencil-</p><p>striped with blue, took up most of the space. Next to it stood</p><p>a bed table with a pitcher and a water glass and the silver</p><p>twig of a thermometer poking up from a jar of pink</p><p>disinfectant. A second</p><p>table, covered with books and papers</p><p>and off-kilter clay pots—baked and painted, but not glazed—</p><p>squeezed itself between the bed foot and the closet door.</p><p>'Well,' Mr Willard breathed, 'it looks comfortable enough.'</p><p>Buddy laughed.</p><p>'What are these?' I picked up a clay ashtray in the shape of</p><p>a lilypad, with the veinings carefully drawn in yellow on a</p><p>murky green ground. Buddy didn't smoke.</p><p>'That's an ashtray,' Buddy said. 'It's for you.'</p><p>I put the tray down. 'I don't smoke.'</p><p>'I know,' Buddy said. 'I thought you might like it, though.'</p><p>'Well,' Mr Willard rubbed one papery lip against another. 'I</p><p>guess I'll be getting on. I guess I'll be leaving you two young</p><p>people...'</p><p>'Fine, Dad. You be getting on.'</p><p>I was surprised. I had thought Mr Willard was going to</p><p>stay the night before driving me back the next day.</p><p>'Shall I come too?'</p><p>'No, no.' Mr Willard peeled a few bills from his wallet and</p><p>handed them to Buddy. 'See that Esther gets a comfortable</p><p>seat on the train. She'll stay a day or so, maybe.'</p><p>Buddy escorted his father to the door.</p><p>I felt Mr Willard had deserted me. I thought he must have</p><p>planned it all along, but Buddy said No, his father simply</p><p>couldn't stand the sight of sickness and especially his own</p><p>son's sickness, because he thought all sickness was sickness</p><p>of the will. Mr Willard had never been sick a day in his life.</p><p>I sat down on Buddy's bed. There simply wasn't anywhere</p><p>else to sit.</p><p>Buddy rummaged among his papers in a businesslike way.</p><p>Then he handed me a thin, grey magazine. 'Turn to page</p><p>eleven.'</p><p>The magazine was printed somewhere in Maine and full of</p><p>stencilled poems and descriptive paragraphs separated from</p><p>each other by asterisks. On page eleven I found a poem titled</p><p>'Florida Dawn'. I skipped down through image after image</p><p>about water-melon lights and turtle-green palms and shells</p><p>fluted like bits of Greek architecture.</p><p>'Not bad.' I thought it was dreadful.</p><p>'Who wrote it?' Buddy asked with an odd, pigeony smile.</p><p>My eye dropped to the name on the lower right-hand</p><p>corner of the page. B. S. Willard.</p><p>'I don't know.' Then I said, 'Of course I know, Buddy. You</p><p>wrote it.'</p><p>Buddy edged over to me.</p><p>I edged back. I had very little knowledge about TB, but it</p><p>seemed to me an extremely sinister disease, the way it went</p><p>on so invisibly. I thought Buddy might well be sitting in his</p><p>own little murderous aura of TB germs.</p><p>'Don't worry,' Buddy laughed. 'I'm not positive.'</p><p>'Positive?'</p><p>'You won't catch anything.'</p><p>Buddy stopped for a breath, the way you do in the middle</p><p>of climbing something very steep.</p><p>'I want to ask you a question.' He had a disquieting new</p><p>habit of boring into my eyes with his look as if actually bent</p><p>on piercing my head, the better to analyse what went on</p><p>inside it.</p><p>'I'd thought of asking it by letter.'</p><p>I had a fleeting vision of a pale blue envelope with a Yale</p><p>crest on the back flap.</p><p>'But then I decided it would be better if I waited until you</p><p>came up, so I could ask you in person.' He paused. 'Well,</p><p>don't you want to know what it is?'</p><p>'What?' I said in a small, unpromising voice.</p><p>Buddy sat down beside me. He put his arm around my</p><p>waist and brushed the hair from my ear. I didn't move. Then I</p><p>heard him whisper, 'How would you like to be Mrs Buddy</p><p>Willard?'</p><p>I had an awful impulse to laugh.</p><p>I thought how that question would have bowled me over at</p><p>any time in my five-or six-year period of adoring Buddy</p><p>Willard from a distance.</p><p>Buddy saw me hesitate.</p><p>'Oh, I'm in no shape now, I know,' he said quickly. I'm still</p><p>on P.A.S. and I may yet lose a rib or two, but I'll be back at</p><p>med school by next fall. A year from this spring at the</p><p>latest...'</p><p>'I think I should tell you something, Buddy.'</p><p>'I know,' Buddy said stiffly. 'You've met someone.'</p><p>'No, it's not that.'</p><p>'What is it, then?'</p><p>'I'm never going to get married.'</p><p>'You're crazy.' Buddy brightened. 'You'll change your</p><p>mind.'</p><p>'No. My mind's made up.'</p><p>But Buddy just went on looking cheerful.</p><p>'Remember,' I said, 'that time you hitch-hiked back to</p><p>college with me after Skit Night?'</p><p>'I remember.'</p><p>'Remember how you asked me where would I like to live</p><p>best, the country or the city?'</p><p>'And you said...'</p><p>'And I said I wanted to live in the country and in the city</p><p>both?'</p><p>Buddy nodded.</p><p>'And you,' I continued with sudden force, 'laughed and</p><p>said I had the perfect set-up of a true neurotic and that that</p><p>question came from some questionnaire you'd had in</p><p>psychology class that week?'</p><p>Buddy's smile dimmed.</p><p>'Well, you were right. I am neurotic. I could never settle</p><p>down in either the country or the city.'</p><p>'You could live between them,' Buddy suggested helpfully.</p><p>'Then you could go to the city sometimes and to the country</p><p>sometimes.'</p><p>'Well, what's so neurotic about that?'</p><p>Buddy didn't answer.</p><p>'Well?' I rapped out, thinking, 'You can't coddle these sick</p><p>people, it's the worst thing for them, it'll spoil them to bits.'</p><p>'Nothing,' Buddy said in a pale, still voice.</p><p>'Neurotic, ha!' I let out a scornful laugh. 'If neurotic is</p><p>wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same</p><p>time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth</p><p>between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the</p><p>rest of my days.'</p><p>Buddy put his hand on mine.</p><p>'Let me fly with you.'</p><p>I stood at the top of the ski slope on Mount Pisgah,</p><p>looking down. I had no business to be up there. I had never</p><p>skied before in my life. Still, I thought I would enjoy the</p><p>view while I had the chance.</p><p>At my left, the rope tow deposited skier after skier on the</p><p>snowy summit which, packed by much crossing and re-</p><p>crossing and slightly melted in the noon sun, had hardened to</p><p>the consistency and polish of glass. The cold air punished my</p><p>lungs and sinuses to a visionary clearness.</p><p>On every side of me the red and blue and white jacketed</p><p>skiers tore away down the blinding slope like fugitive bits of</p><p>an American flag. From the foot of the ski run, the imitation</p><p>log cabin lodge piped its popular songs into the overhang of</p><p>silence.</p><p>Gazing down on the Jungfrau</p><p>From our chalet for two...</p><p>The lilt and boom threaded by me like an invisible rivulet</p><p>in a desert of snow. One careless, superb gesture, and I</p><p>would be hurled into motion down the slope towards the</p><p>small khaki spot in the sidelines, among the spectators,</p><p>which was Buddy Willard.</p><p>All morning Buddy had been teaching me how to ski.</p><p>First, Buddy borrowed skis and ski poles from a friend of</p><p>his in the village, and ski boots from a doctor's wife whose</p><p>feet were only one size larger than my own, and a red ski</p><p>jacket from a student nurse. His persistence in the face of</p><p>mulishness was astounding.</p><p>Then I remembered that at medical school Buddy had won</p><p>a prize for persuading the most relatives of dead people to</p><p>have their dead ones cut up whether they needed it or not, in</p><p>the interests of science. I forget what the prize was, but I</p><p>could just see Buddy in his white coat with his stethoscope</p><p>sticking out of a side pocket like part of his anatomy, smiling</p><p>and bowing and talking those numb, dumb relatives into</p><p>signing the post-mortem papers.</p><p>Next, Buddy borrowed a car from his own doctor, who'd</p><p>had TB himself and was very understanding, and we drove</p><p>off as the buzzer for walk-hour rasped along the sunless</p><p>sanatorium corridors.</p><p>Buddy had never skied before either, but he said that the</p><p>elementary principles were quite simple, and as he'd often</p><p>watched the ski instructors and their pupils he could teach</p><p>me all I'd need to know.</p><p>For the first half-hour I obediently herring-boned up a</p><p>small slope, pushed off with my poles and coasted straight</p><p>down. Buddy seemed pleased with my progress.</p><p>'That's fine, Esther,' he observed, as I negotiated my slope</p><p>for the twentieth time. 'Now let's try you on the rope tow.'</p><p>I stepped in my tracks, flushed and panting.</p><p>'But Buddy, I don't know how to zigzag yet. All those</p><p>people coming down from the top know how to zigzag.'</p><p>'Oh, you need only go half-way. Then you won't gain very</p><p>much momentum.'</p><p>And Buddy accompanied me to the rope tow and showed</p><p>me how</p><p>me at the</p><p>conference table, and when the visiting celebrities were</p><p>talking she'd whisper witty sarcastic remarks to me under her</p><p>breath.</p><p>Her college was so fashion-conscious, she said, that all the</p><p>girls had pocket-book covers made out of the same material</p><p>as their dresses, so each time they changed their clothes they</p><p>had a matching pocket-book. This kind of detail impressed</p><p>me. It suggested a whole life of marvellous, elaborate</p><p>decadence that attracted me like a magnet.</p><p>The only thing Doreen ever bawled me out about was</p><p>bothering to get my assignments in by a deadline.</p><p>'What are you sweating over that for?' Doreen lounged on</p><p>my bed in a peach silk dressing-gown, filing her long,</p><p>nicotine-yellow nails with an emery board, while I typed up</p><p>the draft of an interview with a best-selling novelist.</p><p>That was another thing—the rest of us had starched cotton</p><p>summer nighties and quilted housecoats, or maybe terry-</p><p>towel robes that doubled as beachcoats, but Doreen wore</p><p>these full-length nylon and lace jobs you could half see</p><p>through, and dressing-gowns the colour of skin, that stuck to</p><p>her by some kind of electricity. She had an interesting,</p><p>slightly sweaty smell that reminded me of those scallopy</p><p>leaves of sweet fern you break off and crush between your</p><p>fingers for the musk of them.</p><p>'You know old Jay Cee won't give a damn if that story's in</p><p>tomorrow or Monday.' Doreen lit a cigarette and let the</p><p>smoke flare slowly from her nostrils so her eyes were veiled.</p><p>'Jay Cee's ugly as sin,' Doreen went on coolly. 'I bet that old</p><p>husband of hers turns out all the lights before he gets near</p><p>her or he'd puke otherwise.'</p><p>Jay Cee was my boss, and I liked her a lot, in spite of what</p><p>Doreen said. She wasn't one of the fashion magazine gushers</p><p>with fake eyelashes and giddy jewellery. Jay Cee had brains,</p><p>so her plug-ugly looks didn't seem to matter. She read a</p><p>couple of languages and knew all the quality writers in the</p><p>business.</p><p>I tried to imagine Jay Cee out of her strict office suit and</p><p>luncheon-duty hat and in bed with her fat husband, but I just</p><p>couldn't do it. I always had a terribly hard time trying to</p><p>imagine people in bed together.</p><p>Jay Cee wanted to teach me something, all the old ladies I</p><p>ever knew wanted to teach me something, but I suddenly</p><p>didn't think they had anything to teach me. I fitted the lid on</p><p>my typewriter and clicked it shut.</p><p>Doreen grinned. 'Smart girl.'</p><p>Somebody tapped at the door.</p><p>'Who is it?' I didn't bother to get up.</p><p>'It's me, Betsy. Are you coming to the party?'</p><p>'I guess so.' I still didn't go to the door.</p><p>They imported Betsy straight from Kansas with her</p><p>bouncing blonde pony-tail and Sweetheart-of-Sigma-Chi</p><p>smile. I remember once the two of us were called over to the</p><p>office of some blue-chinned TV producer in a pin-stripe suit</p><p>to see if we had any angles he could build up for a</p><p>programme, and Betsy started to tell about the male and</p><p>female corn in Kansas. She got so excited about that damn</p><p>corn even the producer had tears in his eyes, only he couldn't</p><p>use any of it, unfortunately, he said.</p><p>Later on, the Beauty Editor persuaded Betsy to cut her hair</p><p>and made a cover girl out of her, and I still see her face now</p><p>and then, smiling out of those 'P.Q.'s wife wears B.H.</p><p>Wragge' ads.</p><p>Betsy was always asking me to do things with her and the</p><p>other girls as if she were trying to save me in some way. She</p><p>never asked Doreen. In private, Doreen called her Pollyanna</p><p>Cowgirl.</p><p>'Do you want to come in our cab?' Betsy said through the</p><p>door.</p><p>Doreen shook her head.</p><p>'That's all right, Betsy,' I said. 'I'm going with Doreen.'</p><p>'Okay.' I could hear Betsy padding off down the hall.</p><p>'We'll just go till we get sick of it,' Doreen told me,</p><p>stubbing out her cigarette in the base of my bedside reading-</p><p>lamp, 'then we'll go out on the town. Those parties they stage</p><p>here remind me of the old dances in the school gym. Why do</p><p>they always round up Yalies? They're so stoo-pit!'</p><p>Buddy Willard went to Yale, but now I thought of it, what</p><p>was wrong with him was that he was stupid. Oh, he'd</p><p>managed to get good marks all right, and to have an affair</p><p>with some awful waitress on the Cape by the name of</p><p>Gladys, but he didn't have one speck of intuition. Doreen had</p><p>intuition. Everything she said was like a secret voice</p><p>speaking straight out of my own bones.</p><p>We were stuck in the theatre-hour rush. Our cab sat</p><p>wedged in back of Betsy's cab and in front of a cab with four</p><p>of the other girls, and nothing moved.</p><p>Doreen looked terrific. She was wearing a strapless white</p><p>lace dress zipped up over a snug corset affair that curved her</p><p>in at the middle and bulged her out again spectacularly above</p><p>and below, and her skin had a bronzy polish under the pale</p><p>dusting-powder. She smelled strong as a whole perfume</p><p>store.</p><p>I wore a black shantung sheath that cost me forty dollars.</p><p>It was part of a buying spree I had with some of my</p><p>scholarship money when I heard I was one of the lucky ones</p><p>going to New York. This dress was cut so queerly I couldn't</p><p>wear any sort of a bra under it, but that didn't matter much as</p><p>I was skinny as a boy and barely rippled, and I liked feeling</p><p>almost naked on the hot summer nights.</p><p>The city had faded my tan, though. I looked yellow as a</p><p>Chinaman. Ordinarily, I would have been nervous about my</p><p>dress and my odd colour, but being with Doreen made me</p><p>forget my worries. I felt wise and cynical as all hell.</p><p>When the man in the blue lumber shirt and black chinos</p><p>and tooled leather cowboy boots started to stroll over to us</p><p>from under the striped awning of the bar where he'd been</p><p>eyeing our cab, I didn't have any illusions. I knew perfectly</p><p>well he'd come for Doreen. He threaded his way out between</p><p>the stopped cars and leaned engagingly on the sill of our</p><p>open window.</p><p>'And what, may I ask, are two nice girls like you doing all</p><p>alone in a cab on a nice night like this?'</p><p>He had a big, wide, white tooth-paste-ad smile.</p><p>'We're on our way to a party,' I blurted, since Doreen had</p><p>gone suddenly dumb as a post and was fiddling in a blasé</p><p>way with her white lace pocket-book cover.</p><p>'That sounds boring,' the man said. 'Whyn't you both join</p><p>me for a couple of drinks in that bar over there? I've some</p><p>friends waiting as well.'</p><p>He nodded in the direction of several informally dressed</p><p>men slouching around under the awning. They had been</p><p>following him with their eyes, and when he glanced back at</p><p>them, they burst out laughing.</p><p>The laughter should have warned me. It was a kind of low,</p><p>know-it-all snicker, but the traffic showed signs of moving</p><p>again, and I knew that if I sat tight, in two seconds I'd be</p><p>wishing I'd taken this gift of a chance to see something of</p><p>New York besides what the people on the magazine had</p><p>planned out for us so carefully.</p><p>'How about it, Doreen?' I said.</p><p>'How about it, Doreen?' the man said, smiling his big</p><p>smile. To this day I can't remember what he looked like when</p><p>he wasn't smiling. I think he must have been smiling the</p><p>whole time. It must have been natural for him, smiling like</p><p>that.</p><p>'Well, all right,' Doreen said to me. I opened the door, and</p><p>we stepped out of the cab just as it was edging ahead again</p><p>and started to walk over to the bar.</p><p>There was a terrible shriek of brakes followed by a dull</p><p>thump-thump.</p><p>'Hey you!' Our cabby was craning out of his window with</p><p>a furious, purple expression. 'Waddaya think you're doin'?'</p><p>He had stopped the cab so abruptly that the cab behind</p><p>bumped smack into him, and we could see the four girls</p><p>inside waving and struggling and scrambling up off the floor.</p><p>The man laughed and left us on the kerb and went back</p><p>and handed a bill to the driver in the middle of a great</p><p>honking and some yelling, and then we saw the girls from</p><p>the magazine moving off in a row, one cab after another, like</p><p>a wedding party with nothing but bridesmaids.</p><p>'Come on, Frankie,' the man said to one of his friends in</p><p>the group, and a short, scrunty fellow detached himself and</p><p>came into the bar with us.</p><p>He was the type of fellow I can't stand. I'm five feet ten in</p><p>my</p><p>to let the rope run through my hands, and then told</p><p>me to close my fingers round it and go up.</p><p>It never occurred to me to say no.</p><p>I wrapped my fingers around the rough, bruising snake of</p><p>a rope that slithered through them, and went up.</p><p>But the rope dragged me, wobbling and balancing, so</p><p>rapidly I couldn't hope to dissociate myself from it half-way.</p><p>There was a skier in front of me and a skier behind me, and</p><p>I'd have been knocked over and stuck full of skis and poles</p><p>the minute I let go, and I didn't want to make trouble, so I</p><p>hung quietly on.</p><p>At the top, though, I had second thoughts.</p><p>Buddy singled me out, hesitating there in the red jacket.</p><p>His arms chopped the air like khaki windmills. Then I saw he</p><p>was signalling me to come down a path that had opened in</p><p>the middle of the weaving skiers. But as I poised, uneasy,</p><p>with a dry throat, the smooth white path from my feet to his</p><p>feet grew blurred.</p><p>A skier crossed it from the left, another crossed it from the</p><p>right, and Buddy's arms went on waving feebly as antennae</p><p>from the other side of a field swarming with tiny moving</p><p>animalcules like germs, or bent, bright exclamation marks.</p><p>I looked up from that churning amphitheatre to the view</p><p>beyond it.</p><p>The great, grey eye of the sky looked back at me, its mist-</p><p>shrouded sun focusing all the white and silent distances that</p><p>poured from every point of the compass, hill after pale hill,</p><p>to stall at my feet.</p><p>The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool—to save</p><p>my skin and take off my skis and walk down, camouflaged</p><p>by the scrub pines bordering the slope—fled like a</p><p>disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself</p><p>formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.</p><p>I measured the distance to Buddy with my eye.</p><p>His arms were folded, now, and he seemed of a piece with</p><p>the split-rail fence behind him—numb, brown and</p><p>inconsequential.</p><p>Edging to the rim of the hilltop, I dug the spikes of my</p><p>poles into the snow and pushed myself into a flight I knew I</p><p>couldn't stop by skill or any belated access of will.</p><p>I aimed straight down.</p><p>A keen wind that had been hiding itself struck me full in</p><p>the mouth and raked the hair back horizontal on my head. I</p><p>was descending, but the white sun rose no higher. It hung</p><p>over the suspended waves of the hills, an insentient pivot</p><p>without which the world would not exist.</p><p>A small, answering point in my own body flew towards it.</p><p>I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery—air,</p><p>mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be</p><p>happy.'</p><p>I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the</p><p>experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and</p><p>compromise, into my own past.</p><p>People and trees receded on either hand like the dark sides</p><p>of a tunnel as I hurtled on to the still, bright point at the end</p><p>of it, the pebble at the bottom of the well, the white sweet</p><p>baby cradled in its mother's belly.</p><p>My teeth crunched a gravelly mouthful. Ice water seeped</p><p>down my throat.</p><p>Buddy's face hung over me, near and huge, like a</p><p>distracted planet. Other faces showed themselves up in back</p><p>of his. Behind them, black dots swarmed on a plane of</p><p>whiteness. Piece by piece, as at the strokes of a dull</p><p>godmother's wand, the old world sprang back into position.</p><p>'You were doing fine,' a familiar voice informed my ear,</p><p>'until that man stepped into your path.'</p><p>People were unfastening my bindings and collecting my</p><p>ski poles from where they poked skyward, askew, in their</p><p>separate snowbanks. The lodge fence propped itself at my</p><p>back.</p><p>Buddy bent to pull off my boots and the several pairs of</p><p>white wool socks that padded them. His plump hand shut on</p><p>my left foot, then inched up my ankle, closing and probing,</p><p>as if feeling for a concealed weapon.</p><p>A dispassionate white sun shone at the summit of the sky.</p><p>I wanted to hone myself on it till I grew saintly and thin and</p><p>essential as the blade of a knife.</p><p>'I'm going up,' I said. 'I'm going to do it again.'</p><p>'No, you're not.'</p><p>A queer, satisfied expression came over Buddy's face.</p><p>'No, you're not,' he repeated with a final smile. 'Your leg's</p><p>broken in two places. You'll be stuck in a cast for months.'</p><p>Chapter Nine</p><p>'I'm so glad they're going to die.'</p><p>Hilda arched her cat-limbs in a yawn, buried her head in</p><p>her arms on the conference table and went back to sleep. A</p><p>wisp of bilious green straw perched on her brow like a</p><p>tropical bird.</p><p>Bile green. They were promoting it for fall, only Hilda, as</p><p>usual, was half a year ahead of time. Bile green with black,</p><p>bile green with white, bile green with nile green, its kissing</p><p>cousin.</p><p>Fashion blurbs, silver and full of nothing, sent up their</p><p>fishy bubbles in my brain. They surfaced with a hollow pop.</p><p>I'm so glad they're going to die.</p><p>I cursed the luck that had timed my arrival in the hotel</p><p>cafeteria to coincide with Hilda's. After a late night I felt too</p><p>dull to think up the excuse that would take me back to my</p><p>room for the glove, the handkerchief, the umbrella, the</p><p>notebook I forgot. My penalty was the long, dead walk from</p><p>the frosted glass doors of the Amazon to the strawberry-</p><p>marble slab of our entry on Madison Avenue.</p><p>Hilda moved like a mannequin the whole way.</p><p>'That's a lovely hat, did you make it?'</p><p>I half-expected Hilda to turn on me and say, 'You sound</p><p>sick', but she only extended and then retracted her swanny</p><p>neck.</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>The night before I'd seen a play where the heroine was</p><p>possessed by a dybbuk, and when the dybbuk spoke from her</p><p>mouth its voice sounded so cavernous and deep you couldn't</p><p>tell whether it was a man or a woman. Well Hilda's voice</p><p>sounded just like the voice of that dybbuk.</p><p>She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as</p><p>if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to</p><p>exist. The silence between us was so profound I thought part</p><p>of it must be my fault.</p><p>So I said, 'Isn't it awful about the Rosenbergs?'</p><p>The Rosenbergs were to be electrocuted late that night.</p><p>'Yes!' Hilda said, and at last I felt I had touched a human</p><p>string in the cat's cradle of her heart. It was only as the two</p><p>of us waited for the others in the tomb-like morning gloom of</p><p>the conference room that Hilda amplified that Yes of hers.</p><p>'It's awful such people should be alive.'</p><p>She yawned then, and her pale orange mouth opened on a</p><p>large darkness. Fascinated, I stared at the blind cave behind</p><p>her face until the two lips met and moved and the dybbuk</p><p>spoke out of its hiding place, 'I'm so glad they're going to</p><p>die.'</p><p>'Come on, give us a smile.'</p><p>I sat on the pink velvet love-seat in Jay Cee's office,</p><p>holding a paper rose and facing the magazine photographer. I</p><p>was the last of the twelve to have my picture taken. I had</p><p>tried concealing myself in the powder-room, but it didn't</p><p>work. Betsy had spied my feet under the doors.</p><p>I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I</p><p>didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if</p><p>anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears</p><p>would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my</p><p>throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming</p><p>and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and</p><p>too full.</p><p>This was the last round of photographs before the</p><p>magazine went to press and we returned to Tulsa or Biloxi or</p><p>Teaneck or Coos Bay or wherever we'd come from, and we</p><p>were supposed to be photographed with props to show what</p><p>we wanted to be.</p><p>Betsy held an ear of corn to show she wanted to be a</p><p>farmer's wife, and Hilda held the bald, faceless head of a</p><p>hatmaker's dummy to show she wanted to design hats, and</p><p>Doreen held a gold-embroidered sari to show she wanted to</p><p>be a social worker in India (she didn't really, she told me, she</p><p>only wanted to get her hands on a sari).</p><p>When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't</p><p>know.</p><p>'Oh, sure you know,' the photographer said.</p><p>'She wants,' said Jay Cee wittily, 'to be everything.'</p><p>I said I wanted to be a poet.</p><p>Then they scouted about for something for me to hold.</p><p>Jay Cee suggested a book of poems, but the photographer</p><p>said no, that</p><p>was too obvious. It should be something that</p><p>showed what inspired the poems. Finally Jay Cee unclipped</p><p>the single, long-stemmed paper rose from her latest hat.</p><p>The photographer fiddled with his hot white lights. 'Show</p><p>us how happy it makes you to write a poem.'</p><p>I stared through the frieze of rubber plant leaves in Jay</p><p>Cee's window to the blue sky beyond. A few stagey cloud</p><p>puffs were travelling from right to left. I fixed my eyes on</p><p>the largest cloud, as if, when it passed out of sight, I might</p><p>have the good luck to pass with it.</p><p>I felt it was very important to keep the line of my mouth</p><p>level.</p><p>'Give us a smile.'</p><p>At last, obediently, like the mouth of a ventriloquist's</p><p>dummy, my own mouth started to quirk up.</p><p>'Hey,' the photographer protested, with sudden foreboding,</p><p>'you look like you're going to cry.'</p><p>I couldn't stop.</p><p>I buried my face in the pink velvet façade of Jay Cee's</p><p>love-seat and with immense relief the salt tears and miserable</p><p>noises that had been prowling around in me all morning burst</p><p>out into the room.</p><p>When I lifted my head, the photographer had vanished. Jay</p><p>Cee had vanished as well. I felt limp and betrayed, like the</p><p>skin shed by a terrible animal. It was a relief to be free of the</p><p>animal, but it seemed to have taken my spirit with it, and</p><p>everything else it could lay its paws on.</p><p>I fumbled in my pocketbook for the gilt compact with the</p><p>mascara and the mascara brush and the eyeshadow and the</p><p>three lipsticks and the side mirror. The face that peered back</p><p>at me seemed to be peering from the grating of a prison cell</p><p>after a prolonged beating. It looked bruised and puffy and all</p><p>the wrong colours. It was a face that needed soap and water</p><p>and Christian tolerance.</p><p>I started to paint it with small heart.</p><p>Jay Cee breezed back after a decent interval with an</p><p>armful of manuscripts.</p><p>'These'll amuse you,' she said. 'Have a good read.'</p><p>Every morning a snowy avalanche of manuscripts swelled</p><p>the dust-grey piles in the office of the Fiction Editor.</p><p>Secretly, in studies and attics and schoolrooms all over</p><p>America, people must be writing. Say someone or other</p><p>finished a manuscript every minute; in five minutes that</p><p>would be five manuscripts stacked on the Fiction Editor's</p><p>desk. Within the hour there would be sixty, crowding each</p><p>other on to the floor. And in a year...</p><p>I smiled, seeing a pristine, imaginary manuscript floating</p><p>in mid-air, with Esther Greenwood typed in the upper-right</p><p>hand corner. After my month on the magazine I'd applied for</p><p>a summer school course with a famous writer where you sent</p><p>in the manuscript of a story and he read it and said whether</p><p>you were good enough to be admitted into his class.</p><p>Of course, it was a very small class, and I had sent in my</p><p>story a long time ago and hadn't heard from the writer yet,</p><p>but I was sure I'd find the letter of acceptance waiting on the</p><p>mail table at home.</p><p>I decided I'd surprise Jay Cee and send in a couple of the</p><p>stories I wrote in this class under a pseudonym. Then one</p><p>day the Fiction Editor would come in to Jay Cee personally</p><p>and plop the stories down on her desk and say, 'Here's</p><p>something a cut above the usual,' and Jay Cee would agree</p><p>and accept them and ask the author to lunch and it would be</p><p>me.</p><p>'Honestly,' Doreen said, 'this one'll be different.'</p><p>'Tell me about him,' I said stonily.</p><p>'He's from Peru.'</p><p>'They're squat,' I said. 'They're ugly as Aztecs.'</p><p>'No, no, no, sweetie, I've already met him.'</p><p>We were sitting on my bed in a mess of dirty cotton</p><p>dresses and laddered nylons and grey underwear, and for ten</p><p>minutes Doreen had been trying to persuade me to go to a</p><p>country club dance with a friend of somebody Lenny knew</p><p>which, she insisted, was a very different thing from a friend</p><p>of Lenny's, but as I was catching the eight o'clock train home</p><p>the next morning I felt I should make some attempt to pack.</p><p>I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New</p><p>York by myself all night something of the city's mystery and</p><p>magnificence might rub off on to me at last.</p><p>But I gave it up.</p><p>It was becoming more and more difficult for me to decide</p><p>to do anything in those last days. And when I eventually did</p><p>decide to do something, such as packing a suitcase, I only</p><p>dragged all my grubby, expensive clothes out of the bureau</p><p>and the closet and spread them on the chairs and the bed and</p><p>the floor and then sat and stared at them, utterly perplexed.</p><p>They seemed to have a separate, mulish identity of their own</p><p>that refused to be washed and folded and stowed.</p><p>'It's these clothes,' I told Doreen. 'I just can't face these</p><p>clothes when I come back.'</p><p>'That's easy.'</p><p>And in her beautiful, one-track way, Doreen started to</p><p>snatch up slips and stockings and the elaborate strapless bra,</p><p>full of steel springs—a free gift from the Primrose Corset</p><p>Company, which I'd never had the courage to wear—and</p><p>finally, one by one, the sad array of queerly-cut forty dollar</p><p>dresses...</p><p>'Hey, leave that one out. I'm wearing it.'</p><p>Doreen extricated a black scrap from her bundle and</p><p>dropped it in my lap. Then, snowballing the rest of the</p><p>clothes into one soft, conglomerate mass, she stuffed them</p><p>out of sight under the bed.</p><p>Doreen knocked on the green door with the gold knob.</p><p>Scuffling and a man's laugh, cut short, sounded from</p><p>inside. Then a tall boy in shirtsleeves and a blond crewcut</p><p>inched the door open and peered out.</p><p>'Baby!' he roared.</p><p>Doreen disappeared in his arms. I thought it must be the</p><p>person Lenny knew.</p><p>I stood quietly in the doorway in my black sheath and my</p><p>black stole with the fringe, yellower than ever, but expecting</p><p>less. 'I am an observer,' I told myself, as I watched Doreen</p><p>being handed into the room by the blond boy to another man,</p><p>who was also tall, but dark, with slightly longer hair. This</p><p>man was wearing an immaculate white suit, a pale blue shirt</p><p>and a yellow satin tie with a bright stickpin.</p><p>I couldn't take my eyes off that stickpin.</p><p>A great white light seemed to shoot out of it, illumining</p><p>the room. Then the light withdrew into itself, leaving a</p><p>dewdrop on a field of gold.</p><p>I put one foot in front of the other.</p><p>'That's a diamond,' somebody said, and a lot of people</p><p>burst out laughing.</p><p>My nail tapped a glassy facet.</p><p>'Her first diamond.'</p><p>'Give it to her, Marco.'</p><p>Marco bowed and deposited the stickpin in my palm.</p><p>It dazzled and danced with light like a heavenly ice-cube. I</p><p>slipped it quickly into my imitation jet bead evening bag and</p><p>looked round. The faces were empty as plates, and nobody</p><p>seemed to be breathing.</p><p>'Fortunately,' a dry, hard hand encircled my upper arm, 'I</p><p>am escorting the lady for the rest of the evening. Perhaps,'</p><p>the spark in Marco's eyes extinguished, and they went black,</p><p>'I shall perform some small service...'</p><p>Somebody laughed.</p><p>'... worthy of a diamond.'</p><p>The hand round my arm tightened.</p><p>'Ouch!'</p><p>Marco removed his hand. I looked down at my arm. A</p><p>thumb-print purpled into view. Marco watched me. Then he</p><p>pointed to the underside of my arm. 'Look there.'</p><p>I looked, and saw four, faint matching prints.</p><p>'You see, I am quite serious.'</p><p>Marco's small, flickering smile reminded me of a snake I'd</p><p>teased in the Bronx Zoo. When I tapped my finger on the</p><p>stout cage glass the snake had opened its clockwork jaws and</p><p>seemed to smile. Then it struck and struck and struck at the</p><p>invisible pane till I moved off.</p><p>I had never met a woman-hater before.</p><p>I could tell Marco was a woman-hater, because in spite of</p><p>all the models and TV starlets in the room that night he paid</p><p>attention to nobody but me. Not out of kindness or even</p><p>curiosity, but because I'd happened to be dealt to him, like a</p><p>playing card in a pack of identical cards.</p><p>A man in the country club band stepped up to the mike</p><p>and started shaking those seedpod rattles that mean South</p><p>American music.</p><p>Marco reached for my hand, but I hung on to my fourth</p><p>daiquiri and stayed put. I'd never had a daiquiri before. The</p><p>reason I had a daiquiri was because Marco ordered it for me,</p><p>and I felt so grateful he hadn't asked what sort of drink I</p><p>wanted that I</p><p>didn't say a word, I just drank one daiquiri after</p><p>another.</p><p>Marco looked at me.</p><p>'No,' I said.</p><p>'What do you mean, no?'</p><p>'I can't dance to that kind of music.'</p><p>'Don't be stupid.'</p><p>'I want to sit here and finish my drink.'</p><p>Marco bent towards me with a tight smile, and in one</p><p>swoop my drink took wing and landed in a potted palm.</p><p>Then Marco gripped my hand in such a way I had to choose</p><p>between following him on to the floor or having my arm torn</p><p>off.</p><p>'It's a tango.' Marco manoeuvred me out among the</p><p>dancers. 'I love tangos.'</p><p>'I can't dance.'</p><p>'You don't have to dance. I'll do the dancing.'</p><p>Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up</p><p>against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, 'Pretend you are</p><p>drowning.'</p><p>I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a</p><p>rainstorm. Marco's leg slid forward against mine and my leg</p><p>slid back and I seemed to be riveted to him, limb for limb,</p><p>moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my</p><p>own, and after a while I thought, 'It doesn't take two to</p><p>dance, it only takes one,' and I let myself blow and bend like</p><p>a tree in the wind.</p><p>'What did I tell you?' Marco's breath scorched my ear.</p><p>'You're a perfectly respectable dancer.'</p><p>I began to see why woman-haters could make such fools</p><p>of women. Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and</p><p>chock-full of power. They descended, and then they</p><p>disappeared. You could never catch one.</p><p>After the South American music there was an interval.</p><p>Marco led me through the French doors into the garden.</p><p>Lights and voices spilled from the ballroom window, but a</p><p>few yards beyond the darkness drew up its barricade and</p><p>sealed them off. In the infinitesimal glow of the stars, the</p><p>trees and flowers were strewing their cool odours. There was</p><p>no moon.</p><p>The box hedges shut behind us. A deserted golf course</p><p>stretched away towards a few hilly clumps of trees, and I felt</p><p>the whole desolate familiarity of the scene—the country club</p><p>and the dance and the lawn with its single cricket.</p><p>I didn't know where I was, but it was somewhere in the</p><p>wealthy suburbs of New York.</p><p>Marco produced a slim cigar and a silver lighter in the</p><p>shape of a bullet. He set the cigar between his lips and bent</p><p>over the small flare. His face, with its exaggerated shadows</p><p>and planes of light, looked alien and pained, like a refugee's.</p><p>I watched him.</p><p>'Who are you in love with?' I said then.</p><p>For a minute Marco didn't say anything, he simply opened</p><p>his mouth and breathed out a blue, vaporous ring.</p><p>'Perfect!' he laughed.</p><p>The ring widened and blurred, ghost-pale on the dark air.</p><p>Then he said, 'I am in love with my cousin.'</p><p>I felt no surprise.</p><p>'Why don't you marry her?'</p><p>'Impossible.'</p><p>'Why?'</p><p>Marco shrugged. 'She's my first cousin. She's going to be a</p><p>nun.'</p><p>'Is she beautiful?'</p><p>'There's no one to touch her.'</p><p>'Does she know you love her?'</p><p>'Of course.'</p><p>I paused. The obstacle seemed unreal to me.</p><p>'If you love her,' I said, 'you'll love somebody else</p><p>someday.'</p><p>Marco dashed his cigar underfoot.</p><p>The ground soared and struck me with a soft shock. Mud</p><p>squirmed through my fingers. Marco waited until I half rose.</p><p>Then he put both hands on my shoulders and flung me back.</p><p>'My dress...'</p><p>'Your dress!' The mud oozed and adjusted itself to my</p><p>shoulder blades. 'Your dress!' Marco's face lowered cloudily</p><p>over mine. A few drops of spit struck my lips. 'Your dress is</p><p>black and the dirt is black as well.'</p><p>Then he threw himself face down as if he would grind his</p><p>body through me and into the mud.</p><p>'It's happening,' I thought. 'It's happening. If I just lie here</p><p>and do nothing it will happen.'</p><p>Marco set his teeth to the strap at my shoulder and tore my</p><p>sheath to the waist. I saw the glimmer of bare skin, like a</p><p>pale veil separating two bloody-minded adversaries.</p><p>'Slut!'</p><p>The word hissed by my ear.</p><p>'Slut!'</p><p>The dust cleared, and I had a full view of the battle.</p><p>I began to writhe and bite.</p><p>Marco weighed me to the earth.</p><p>'Slut!'</p><p>I gouged at his leg with the sharp heel of my shoe. He</p><p>turned, fumbling for the hurt.</p><p>Then I fisted my fingers together and smashed them at his</p><p>nose. It was like hitting the steel plate of a battleship. Marco</p><p>sat up. I began to cry.</p><p>Marco pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed his</p><p>nose. Blackness, like ink, spread over the pale cloth.</p><p>I sucked at my salty knuckles.</p><p>'I want Doreen.'</p><p>Marco stared off across the golf links.</p><p>'I want Doreen. I want to go home.'</p><p>'Sluts, all sluts.' Marco seemed to be talking to himself.</p><p>'Yes or no, it is all the same.'</p><p>I poked Marco's shoulder.</p><p>'Where's Doreen?'</p><p>Marco snorted. 'Go to the parking lot. Look in the backs of</p><p>all the cars.'</p><p>Then he spun round.</p><p>'My diamond.'</p><p>I got up and retrieved my stole from the darkness. I started</p><p>to walk off. Marco sprang to his feet and blocked my path.</p><p>Then, deliberately, he wiped his finger under his bloody nose</p><p>and with two strokes stained my cheeks. 'I have earned my</p><p>diamond with this blood. Give it to me.'</p><p>'I don't know where it is.'</p><p>Now I knew perfectly well that the diamond was in my</p><p>evening bag and that when Marco knocked me down my</p><p>evening bag had soared, like a night bird, into the enveloping</p><p>darkness. I began to think I would lead him away and then</p><p>return on my own and hunt for it.</p><p>I had no idea what a diamond that size would buy, but</p><p>whatever it was, I knew it would be a lot.</p><p>Marco took my shoulders in both hands.</p><p>'Tell me,' he said, giving each word equal emphasis. 'Tell</p><p>me, or I'll break your neck.'</p><p>Suddenly I didn't care.</p><p>'It's in my imitation jet bead evening bag,' I said.</p><p>'Somewhere in the muck.'</p><p>I left Marco on his hands and knees, scrabbling in the</p><p>darkness for another, smaller darkness that hid the light of</p><p>his diamond from his furious eyes.</p><p>Doreen was not in the ballroom nor in the parking lot.</p><p>I kept to the fringe of the shadows so nobody would notice</p><p>the grass plastered to my dress and shoes, and with my black</p><p>stole I covered my shoulders and bare breasts.</p><p>Luckily for me, the dance was nearly over, and groups of</p><p>people were leaving and coming out to the parked cars. I</p><p>asked at one car after another until finally I found a car that</p><p>had room and would drop me in the middle of Manhattan.</p><p>At that vague hour between dark and dawn, the sunroof of</p><p>the Amazon was deserted.</p><p>Quiet as a burglar in my cornflower-sprigged bathrobe, I</p><p>crept to the edge of the parapet. The parapet reached almost</p><p>to my shoulders, so I dragged a folding chair from the stack</p><p>against the wall, opened it, and climbed on to the precarious</p><p>seat.</p><p>A stiff breeze lifted the hair from my head. At my feet, the</p><p>city doused its lights in sleep, its buildings blackened, as if</p><p>for a funeral.</p><p>It was my last night.</p><p>I grasped the bundle I carried and pulled at a pale tail. A</p><p>strapless elasticized slip which, in the course of wear, had</p><p>lost its elasticity, slumped into my hand. I waved it, like a</p><p>flag of truce, once, twice... The breeze caught it, and I let go.</p><p>A white flake floated out into the night, and began its slow</p><p>descent. I wondered on what street or rooftop it would come</p><p>to rest.</p><p>I tugged at the bundle again.</p><p>The wind made an effort, but failed, and a batlike shadow</p><p>sank towards the roof garden of the penthouse opposite.</p><p>Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and</p><p>flutteringly, like a loved one's ashes, the grey scraps were</p><p>ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never</p><p>know, in the dark heart of New York.</p><p>Chapter Ten</p><p>The face in the mirror looked like a sick Indian.</p><p>I dropped the compact into my pocket-book and stared out</p><p>of the train window. Like a colossal junkyard, the swamps</p><p>and back lots of Connecticut flashed past, one broken-down</p><p>fragment bearing no relation to another.</p><p>What a hotch-potch the world was!</p><p>I glanced down at my unfamiliar skirt and blouse.</p><p>The skirt was a green dirndl with tiny black, white and</p><p>electric blue shapes swarming across it, and it stuck out like</p><p>a lampshade. Instead of sleeves, the white eyelet blouse had</p><p>frills at the shoulder, floppy as the wings of a new angel.</p><p>I'd forgotten</p><p>to save any day clothes from the ones I let fly</p><p>over New York, so Betsy had traded me a blouse and skirt</p><p>for my bathrobe with the cornflowers on it.</p><p>A wan reflection of myself, white wings, brown ponytail</p><p>and all, ghosted over the landscape.</p><p>'Pollyanna Cowgirl,' I said out loud.</p><p>A woman in the seat opposite looked up from her</p><p>magazine.</p><p>I hadn't, at the last moment, felt like washing off the two</p><p>diagonal lines of dried blood that marked my cheeks. They</p><p>seemed touching, and rather spectacular, and I thought I</p><p>would carry them around with me, like the relic of a dead</p><p>lover, till they wore off of their own accord.</p><p>Of course, if I smiled or moved my face much, the blood</p><p>would flake away in no time, so I kept my face immobile,</p><p>and when I had to speak I spoke through my teeth, without</p><p>disturbing my lips.</p><p>I didn't really see why people should look at me.</p><p>Plenty of people looked queerer than I did.</p><p>My grey suitcase rode on the rack over my head, empty</p><p>except for The Thirty Best Short Stories of the Year, a white</p><p>plastic sunglasses case and two dozen avocado pears, a</p><p>parting present from Doreen.</p><p>The pears were unripe, so they would keep well, and</p><p>whenever I lifted my suitcase up or down or simply carried it</p><p>along, they cannoned from one end to the other with a</p><p>special little thunder of their own.</p><p>'Root Wan Twenny Ate!' the conductor bawled.</p><p>The domesticated wilderness of pine, maple and oak rolled</p><p>to a halt and stuck in the frame of the train window like a bad</p><p>picture. My suitcase grumbled and bumped as I negotiated</p><p>the long aisle.</p><p>I stepped from the air-conditioned compartment on to the</p><p>station platform, and the motherly breath of the suburbs</p><p>enfolded me. It smelt of lawn sprinklers and station-wagons</p><p>and tennis rackets and dogs and babies.</p><p>A summer calm laid its soothing hand over everything,</p><p>like death.</p><p>My mother was waiting by the glove-grey Chevrolet.</p><p>'Why lovey, what's happened to your face?'</p><p>'Cut myself,' I said briefly, and crawled into the back seat</p><p>after my suitcase. I didn't want her staring at me the whole</p><p>way home.</p><p>The upholstery felt slippery and clean.</p><p>My mother climbed behind the wheel and tossed a few</p><p>letters into my lap, then turned her back.</p><p>The car purred into life.</p><p>'I think I should tell you right away,' she said, and I could</p><p>see bad news in the set of her neck, 'you didn't make that</p><p>writing course.'</p><p>The air punched out of my stomach.</p><p>All through June the writing course had stretched before</p><p>me like a bright, safe bridge over the dull gulf of the summer.</p><p>Now I saw it totter and dissolve, and a body in a white</p><p>blouse and green skirt plummet into the gap.</p><p>Then my mouth shaped itself sourly.</p><p>I had expected it.</p><p>I slunk down on the middle of my spine, my nose level</p><p>with the rim of the window, and watched the houses of outer</p><p>Boston glide by. As the houses grew more familiar, I slunk</p><p>still lower.</p><p>I felt it was very important not to be recognized.</p><p>The grey, padded car roof closed over my head like the</p><p>roof of a prison van, and the white, shining, identical</p><p>clapboard houses with their interstices of well-groomed</p><p>green proceeded past, one bar after another in a large but</p><p>escape-proof cage.</p><p>I had never spent a summer in the suburbs before.</p><p>The soprano screak of carriage wheels punished my ear.</p><p>Sun, seeping through the blinds, filled the bedroom with a</p><p>sulphurous light. I didn't know how long I had slept, but I felt</p><p>one big twitch of exhaustion.</p><p>The twin bed next to mine was empty and unmade.</p><p>At seven I had heard my mother get up, slip into her</p><p>clothes and tiptoe out of the room. Then the buzz of the</p><p>orange squeezer sounded from downstairs, and the smell of</p><p>coffee and bacon filtered under my door. Then the sink water</p><p>ran from the tap and dishes clinked as my mother dried them</p><p>and put them back in the cupboard.</p><p>Then the front door opened and shut. Then the car door</p><p>opened and shut, and the motor went broom-broom and,</p><p>edging off with a crunch of gravel, faded into the distance.</p><p>My mother was teaching shorthand and typing to a lot of</p><p>city college girls and wouldn't be home till the middle of the</p><p>afternoon.</p><p>The carriage wheels screaked past again. Somebody</p><p>seemed to be wheeling a baby back and forth under my</p><p>window.</p><p>I slipped out of bed and on to the rug, and quietly, on my</p><p>hands and knees, crawled over to see who it was.</p><p>Ours was a small, white clapboard house set in the middle</p><p>of a small green lawn on the corner of two peaceful suburban</p><p>streets, but in spite of the little maple trees planted at</p><p>intervals around our property, anybody passing along the</p><p>sidewalk could glance up at the second storey windows and</p><p>see just what was going on.</p><p>This was brought home to me by our next-door neighbour,</p><p>a spiteful woman named Mrs Ockenden.</p><p>Mrs Ockenden was a retired nurse who had just married</p><p>her third husband—the other two died in curious</p><p>circumstances—and she spent an inordinate amount of time</p><p>peering from behind the starched white curtains of her</p><p>windows.</p><p>She had called my mother up twice about me—once to</p><p>report that I had been sitting in front of the house for an hour</p><p>under the streetlight and kissing somebody in a blue</p><p>Plymouth, and once to say that I had better pull the blinds</p><p>down in my room, because she had seen me half-naked</p><p>getting ready for bed one night when she happened to be out</p><p>walking her Scotch terrier.</p><p>With great care, I raised my eyes to the level of the</p><p>window-sill.</p><p>A woman not five feet tall, with a grotesque, protruding</p><p>stomach, was wheeling an old black baby carriage down the</p><p>street. Two or three small children of various sizes, all pale,</p><p>with smudgy faces and bare smudgy knees, wobbled along in</p><p>the shadow of her skirts.</p><p>A serene, almost religious smile lit up the woman's face.</p><p>Her head tilted happily back, like a sparrow egg perched on a</p><p>duck egg, she smiled into the sun.</p><p>I knew the woman well.</p><p>It was Dodo Conway.</p><p>Dodo Conway was a Catholic who had gone to Barnard</p><p>and then married an architect who had gone to Columbia and</p><p>was also a Catholic. They had a big, rambling house up the</p><p>street from us, set behind a morbid façade of pine trees, and</p><p>surrounded by scooters, tricycles, doll carriages, toy fire</p><p>trucks, baseball bats, badminton nets, croquet wickets,</p><p>hamster cages and cocker spaniel puppies—the whole</p><p>sprawling paraphernalia of suburban childhood.</p><p>Dodo interested me in spite of myself.</p><p>Her house was unlike all the others in our neighbourhood</p><p>in its size (it was much bigger) and its colour (the second</p><p>storey was constructed of dark brown clapboard and the first</p><p>of grey stucco, studded with grey and purple golf-ball-shaped</p><p>stones), and the pine trees completely screened it from view,</p><p>which was considered unsociable in our community of</p><p>adjoining lawns and friendly, waist-high hedges.</p><p>Dodo raised her six children—and would no doubt raise</p><p>her seventh—on rice crispies, peanut-butter-and-</p><p>marshmallow sandwiches, vanilla ice-cream and gallon upon</p><p>gallon of Hoods milk. She got a special discount from the</p><p>local milkman.</p><p>Everybody loved Dodo, although the swelling size of her</p><p>family was the talk of the neighbourhood. The older people</p><p>around, like my mother, had two children, and the younger,</p><p>more prosperous ones had four, but nobody but Dodo was on</p><p>the verge of a seventh. Even six was considered excessive,</p><p>but then, everybody said, of course Dodo was a Catholic.</p><p>I watched Dodo wheel the youngest Conway up and down.</p><p>She seemed to be doing it for my benefit.</p><p>Children made me sick.</p><p>A floorboard creaked, and I ducked down again, just as</p><p>Dodo Conway's face, by instinct, or some gift of supernatural</p><p>hearing, turned on the little pivot of its neck.</p><p>I felt her gaze pierce through the white clapboard and the</p><p>pink, wallpaper roses and uncover me, crouching there</p><p>behind the silver pickets of the radiator.</p><p>I crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over my head.</p><p>But even that didn't shut out the light, so I buried my head</p><p>under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I</p><p>couldn't see the point of getting up.</p><p>I had nothing</p><p>to look forward to.</p><p>After a while I heard the telephone ringing in the</p><p>downstairs hall. I stuffed the pillow into my ears and gave</p><p>myself five minutes. Then I lifted my head from its bolt hole.</p><p>The ringing had stopped.</p><p>Almost at once it started up again.</p><p>Cursing whatever friend, relative or stranger had sniffed</p><p>out my homecoming, I padded barefoot downstairs. The</p><p>black instrument on the hall table trilled its hysterical note</p><p>over and over, like a nervous bird.</p><p>I picked up the receiver.</p><p>'Hullo,' I said, in a low, disguised voice.</p><p>'Hullo Esther, what's the matter, have you got laryngitis?'</p><p>It was my old friend Jody, calling from Cambridge.</p><p>Jody was working at the Co-op that summer and taking a</p><p>lunchtime course in sociology. She and two other girls from</p><p>my college had rented a big apartment from four Harvard</p><p>law students, and I'd been planning to move in with them</p><p>when my writing course began.</p><p>Jody wanted to know when they could expect me.</p><p>'I'm not coming,' I said. 'I didn't make the course.'</p><p>There was a small pause.</p><p>'He's an ass,' Jody said then. 'He doesn't know a good thing</p><p>when he sees it.'</p><p>'My sentiments exactly.' My voice sounded strange and</p><p>hollow in my ears.</p><p>'Come anyway. Take some other course.'</p><p>The notion of studying German or abnormal psychology</p><p>flitted through my head. After all, I'd saved nearly the whole</p><p>of my New York salary, so I could just about afford it.</p><p>But the hollow voice said, 'You better count me out.'</p><p>'Well,' Jody began, 'there's this other girl who wanted to</p><p>come in with us if anybody dropped out...'</p><p>'Fine. Ask her.'</p><p>The minute I hung up I knew I should have said I would</p><p>come. One more morning listening to Dodo Conway's baby</p><p>carriage would drive me crazy. And I made a point of never</p><p>living in the same house with my mother for more than a</p><p>week.</p><p>I reached for the receiver.</p><p>My hand advanced a few inches, then retreated and fell</p><p>limp. I forced it towards the receiver again, but again it</p><p>stopped short, as if it had collided with a pane of glass.</p><p>I wandered into the dining-room.</p><p>Propped on the table I found a long, business-like letter</p><p>from the summer school and a thin blue letter on left-over</p><p>Yale stationery, addressed to me in Buddy Willard's lucid</p><p>hand.</p><p>I slit open the summer school letter with a knife.</p><p>Since I wasn't accepted for the writing course, it said, I</p><p>could choose some other course instead, but I should call in</p><p>to the Admissions Office that same morning, or it would be</p><p>too late to register, the courses were almost full.</p><p>I dialled the Admissions Office and listened to the zombie</p><p>voice leave a message that Miss Esther Greenwood was</p><p>cancelling all arrangements to come to summer school.</p><p>Then I opened Buddy Willard's letter.</p><p>Buddy wrote that he was probably falling in love with a</p><p>nurse who also had TB, but his mother had rented a cottage</p><p>in the Adirondacks for the month of July, and if I came along</p><p>with her, he might well find his feeling for the nurse was a</p><p>mere infatuation.</p><p>I snatched up a pencil and crossed out Buddy's message.</p><p>Then I turned the letter paper over and on the opposite side</p><p>wrote that I was engaged to a simultaneous interpreter and</p><p>never wanted to see Buddy again as I did not want to give</p><p>my children a hypocrite for a father.</p><p>I stuck the letter back in the envelope, scotch-taped it</p><p>together, and readdressed it to Buddy, without putting on a</p><p>new stamp. I thought the message was worth a good three</p><p>cents.</p><p>Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel.</p><p>That would fix a lot of people.</p><p>I strolled into the kitchen, dropped a raw egg into a teacup</p><p>of raw hamburg, mixed it up and ate it. Then I set up the</p><p>card-table on the screened breezeway between the house and</p><p>the garage.</p><p>A great wallowing bush of mock orange shut off the view</p><p>of the street in front, the house wall and the garage wall took</p><p>care of either side, and a clump of birches and a box hedge</p><p>protected me from Mrs Ockenden at the back.</p><p>I counted out three hundred and fifty sheets of corrasable</p><p>bond from my mother's stock in the hall closet, secreted</p><p>away under a pile of old felt hats and clothes brushes and</p><p>woollen scarves.</p><p>Back on the breezeway, I fed the first, virgin sheet into my</p><p>old portable and rolled it up.</p><p>From another, distanced mind, I saw myself sitting on the</p><p>breezeway, surrounded by two white clapboard walls, a</p><p>mock orange bush and a clump of birches and a box hedge,</p><p>small as a doll in a doll's house.</p><p>A feeling of tenderness filled my heart. My heroine would</p><p>be myself, only in disguise. She would be called Elaine.</p><p>Elaine. I counted the letters on my fingers. There were six</p><p>letters in Esther, too. It seemed a lucky thing.</p><p>Elaine sat on the breezeway in an old yellow nightgown of</p><p>her mother's, waiting for something to happen. It was a</p><p>sweltering morning in July, and drops of sweat crawled down</p><p>her back, one by one, like slow insects.</p><p>I leaned back and read what I had written.</p><p>It seemed lively enough, and I was quite proud of the bit</p><p>about the drops of sweat like insects, only I had the dim</p><p>impression I'd probably read it somewhere else a long time</p><p>ago.</p><p>I sat like that for about an hour, trying to think what would</p><p>come next, and in my mind, the barefoot doll in her mother's</p><p>old yellow nightgown sat and stared into space as well.</p><p>'Why honey, don't you want to get dressed?'</p><p>My mother took care never to tell me to do anything. She</p><p>would only reason with me sweetly, like one intelligent,</p><p>mature person with another.</p><p>'It's almost three in the afternoon.'</p><p>'I'm writing a novel,' I said. 'I haven't got time to change</p><p>out of this and change into that.'</p><p>I lay on the couch on the breezeway and shut my eyes. I</p><p>could hear my mother clearing the typewriter and the papers</p><p>from the card-table and laying out the silver for supper, but I</p><p>didn't move.</p><p>Inertia oozed like molasses through Elaine's limbs. That's</p><p>what it must feel like to have malaria, she thought.</p><p>At that rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day.</p><p>Then I knew what the trouble was.</p><p>I needed experience.</p><p>How could I write about life when I'd never had a love</p><p>affair or a baby or seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just</p><p>won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the</p><p>pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of</p><p>thing?</p><p>By the end of supper my mother had convinced me I</p><p>should study shorthand in the evenings. Then I would be</p><p>killing two birds with one stone, writing a novel and learning</p><p>something practical as well. I would also be saving a whole</p><p>lot of money.</p><p>That same evening, my mother unearthed an old</p><p>blackboard from the cellar and set it up on the breezeway.</p><p>Then she stood at the blackboard and scribbled little</p><p>curlicues in white chalk while I sat in a chair and watched.</p><p>At first I felt hopeful.</p><p>I thought I might learn shorthand in no time, and when the</p><p>freckled lady in the Scholarhips Office asked me why I</p><p>hadn't worked to earn money in July and August, the way</p><p>you were supposed to if you were a scholarship girl, I could</p><p>tell her I had taken a free shorthand course instead, so I could</p><p>support myself right after college.</p><p>The only thing was, when I tried to picture myself in some</p><p>job, briskly jotting down line after line of shorthand, my</p><p>mind went blank. There wasn't one job I felt like doing</p><p>where you used shorthand. And, as I sat there and watched,</p><p>the white chalk curlicues blurred into senselessness.</p><p>I told my mother I had a terrible headache, and went to</p><p>bed.</p><p>An hour later the door inched open, and she crept into the</p><p>room. I heard the whisper of her clothes as she undressed.</p><p>She climbed into bed. Then her breathing grew slow and</p><p>regular.</p><p>In the dim light of the streetlamp that filtered through the</p><p>drawn blinds, I could see the pin curls on her head glittering</p><p>like a row of little bayonets.</p><p>I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to</p><p>Europe and had a lover, and that I would never learn a word</p><p>of shorthand. If I never learned shorthand I would never have</p><p>to use it.</p><p>I thought I would spend the summer reading Finnegan's</p><p>Wake and</p><p>writing my thesis.</p><p>Then I would be way ahead when college started at the</p><p>end of September, and able to enjoy my last year instead of</p><p>swotting away with no make-up and stringy hair, on a diet of</p><p>coffee and benzedrine, the way most of the seniors taking</p><p>honours did, until they finished their thesis.</p><p>Then I thought I might put off college for a year and</p><p>apprentice myself to a pottery maker.</p><p>Or work my way to Germany and be a waitress, until I was</p><p>bilingual.</p><p>Then plan after plan started leaping through my head, like</p><p>a family of scatty rabbits.</p><p>I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form</p><p>of telephone poles, threaded together by wires. I counted</p><p>one, two, three ... nineteen telephone poles, and then the</p><p>wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn't see a</p><p>single pole beyond the nineteenth.</p><p>The room blued into view, and I wondered where the night</p><p>had gone. My mother turned from a foggy log into a</p><p>slumbering, middle-aged woman, her mouth slightly open</p><p>and a snore ravelling from her throat. The piggish noise</p><p>irritated me, and for a while it seemed to me that the only</p><p>way to stop it would be to take the column of skin and sinew</p><p>from which it rose and twist it to silence between my hands.</p><p>I feigned sleep until my mother left for school, but even</p><p>my eyelids didn't shut out the light. They hung the raw, red</p><p>screen of their tiny vessels in front of me like a wound. I</p><p>crawled between the mattress and the padded bedstead and</p><p>let the mattress fall across me like a tombstone. It felt dark</p><p>and safe under there, but the mattress was not heavy enough.</p><p>It needed about a ton more weight to make me sleep.</p><p>riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to</p><p>bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation</p><p>back to Howth Castle and Environs...</p><p>The thick book made an unpleasant dent in my stomach.</p><p>riverrun, past Eve and Adam's...</p><p>I thought the small letter at the start might mean that</p><p>nothing ever really began all new, with a capital, but that it</p><p>just flowed on from what came before. Eve and Adam's was</p><p>Adam and Eve, of course, but it probably signified</p><p>something else as well.</p><p>Maybe it was a pub in Dublin.</p><p>My eyes sank through an alphabet soup of letters to the</p><p>long word in the middle of the page.</p><p>bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnenonnr</p><p>uonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!</p><p>I counted the letters. There were exactly a hundred of</p><p>them. I thought this must be important.</p><p>Why should there be a hundred letters?</p><p>Haltingly, I tried the word aloud.</p><p>It sounded like a heavy wooden object falling downstairs,</p><p>boomp boomp boomp, step after step. Lifting the pages of</p><p>the book, I let them fan slowly by my eyes. Words, dimly</p><p>familiar, but twisted all awry, like faces in a funhouse mirror,</p><p>fled past, leaving no impression on the glassy surface of my</p><p>brain.</p><p>I squinted at the page.</p><p>The letters grew barbs and rams' horns. I watched them</p><p>separate, each from the other, and jiggle up and down in a</p><p>silly way. Then they associated themselves in fantastic,</p><p>untranslatable shapes, like Arabic or Chinese.</p><p>I decided to junk my thesis.</p><p>I decided to junk the whole honours programme and</p><p>become an ordinary English major. I went to look up the</p><p>requirements of an ordinary English major at my college.</p><p>There were lots of requirements, and I didn't have half of</p><p>them. One of the requirements was a course in the eighteenth</p><p>century. I hated the very idea of the eighteenth century, with</p><p>all those smug men writing tight little couplets and being so</p><p>dead keen on reason. So I'd skipped it. They let you do that</p><p>in honours, you were much freer. I had been so free I'd spent</p><p>most of my time on Dylan Thomas.</p><p>A friend of mine, also in honours, had managed never to</p><p>read a word of Shakespeare; but she was a real expert on the</p><p>Four Quartets.</p><p>I saw how impossible and embarrassing it would be for me</p><p>to try to switch from my free programme into the stricter</p><p>one. So I looked up the requirements for English majors at</p><p>the city college where my mother taught.</p><p>They were even worse.</p><p>You had to know Old English and the History of the</p><p>English Language and a representative selection of all that</p><p>had been written from Beowulf to the present day.</p><p>This surprised me. I had always looked down on my</p><p>mother's college, as it was co-ed, and filled with people who</p><p>couldn't get scholarships to the big eastern colleges.</p><p>Now I saw that the stupidest person at my mother's college</p><p>knew more than I did. I saw they wouldn't even let me in</p><p>through the door, let alone give me a large scholarship like</p><p>the one I had at my own college.</p><p>I thought I'd better go to work for a year and think things</p><p>over. Maybe I could study the eighteenth century in secret.</p><p>But I didn't know shorthand, so what could I do?</p><p>I could be a waitress or a typist.</p><p>But I couldn't stand the idea of being either one.</p><p>'You say you want more sleeping pills?'</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>'But the ones I gave you last week are very strong.'</p><p>'They don't work any more.'</p><p>Teresa's large, dark eyes regarded me thoughtfully. I could</p><p>hear the voices of her three children in the garden under the</p><p>consulting-room window. My Aunt Libby had married an</p><p>Italian, and Teresa was my aunt's sister-in-law and our family</p><p>doctor.</p><p>I liked Teresa. She had a gentle, intuitive touch.</p><p>I thought it must be because she was Italian.</p><p>There was a little pause.</p><p>'What seems to be the matter?' Teresa said then.</p><p>'I can't sleep. I can't read.' I tried to speak in a cool, calm</p><p>way, but the zombie rose up in my throat and choked me off.</p><p>I turned my hands palm up.</p><p>'I think,' Teresa tore off a white slip from her prescription</p><p>pad and wrote down a name and address, 'you'd better see</p><p>another doctor I know. He'll be able to help you more than I</p><p>can.'</p><p>I peered at the writing, but I couldn't read it.</p><p>'Doctor Gordon,' Teresa said. 'He's a psychiatrist.'</p><p>Chapter Eleven</p><p>Doctor Gordon's waiting-room was hushed and beige.</p><p>The walls were beige, and the carpets were beige, and the</p><p>upholstered chairs and sofas were beige. There were no</p><p>mirrors or pictures, only certificates from different medical</p><p>schools, with Doctor Gordon's name in Latin, hung about the</p><p>walls. Pale green loopy ferns and spiked leaves of a much</p><p>darker green filled the ceramic pots on the end-table and the</p><p>coffee-table and the magazine-table.</p><p>At first I wondered why the room felt so safe. Then I</p><p>realized it was because there were no windows.</p><p>The air-conditioning made me shiver.</p><p>I was still wearing Betsy's white blouse and dirndl skirt.</p><p>They drooped a bit now, as I hadn't washed them in my three</p><p>weeks at home. The sweaty cotton gave off a sour but</p><p>friendly smell.</p><p>I hadn't washed my hair for three weeks, either.</p><p>I hadn't slept for seven nights.</p><p>My mother told me I must have slept, it was impossible</p><p>not to sleep in all that time, but if I slept, it was with my eyes</p><p>wide open, for I had followed the green, luminous course of</p><p>the second hand and the minute hand and the hour hand of</p><p>the bedside clock through their circles and semi-circles,</p><p>every night for seven nights, without missing a second, or a</p><p>minute, or an hour.</p><p>The reason I hadn't washed my clothes or my hair was</p><p>because it seemed so silly.</p><p>I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of</p><p>bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another</p><p>was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long</p><p>perspective of shades that set off one box from the next had</p><p>suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day</p><p>glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate</p><p>avenue.</p><p>It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to</p><p>wash again the next.</p><p>It made me tired just to think of it.</p><p>I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through</p><p>with it.</p><p>Doctor Gordon twiddled a silver pencil.</p><p>'Your mother tells me you are upset.'</p><p>I curled in the cavernous leather chair and faced Doctor</p><p>Gordon across an acre of highly polished desk.</p><p>Doctor Gordon waited. He tapped his pencil—tap, tap, tap</p><p>—across the neat green field of his blotter.</p><p>His</p><p>eyelashes were so long and thick they looked artificial.</p><p>Black plastic reeds fringing two green, glacial pools.</p><p>Doctor Gordon's features were so perfect he was almost</p><p>pretty.</p><p>I hated him the minute I walked in through the door.</p><p>I had imagined a kind, ugly, intuitive man looking up and</p><p>saying 'Ah!' in an encouraging way, as if he could see</p><p>something I couldn't, and then I would find words to tell him</p><p>how I was so scared, as if I were being stuffed farther and</p><p>farther into a black, airless sack with no way out.</p><p>Then he would lean back in his chair and match the tips of</p><p>his fingers together in a little steeple and tell me why I</p><p>couldn't sleep and why I couldn't read and why I couldn't eat</p><p>and why everything people did seemed so silly, because they</p><p>only died in the end.</p><p>And then, I thought, he would help me, step by step, to be</p><p>myself again.</p><p>But Doctor Gordon wasn't like that at all. He was young</p><p>and good-looking, and I could see right away he was</p><p>conceited.</p><p>Doctor Gordon had a photograph on his desk, in a silver</p><p>frame, that half faced him and half faced my leather chair. It</p><p>was a family photograph, and it showed a beautiful dark-</p><p>haired woman, who could have been Doctor Gordon's sister,</p><p>smiling out over the heads of two blond children.</p><p>I think one child was a boy and one was a girl, but it may</p><p>have been that both children were boys or that both were</p><p>girls, it is hard to tell when children are so small. I think</p><p>there was also a dog in the picture, towards the bottom—a</p><p>kind of airedale or a golden retriever—but it may have only</p><p>been the pattern in the woman's skirt.</p><p>For some reason the photograph made me furious.</p><p>I didn't see why it should be turned half towards me unless</p><p>Doctor Gordon was trying to show me right away that he was</p><p>married to some glamorous woman and I'd better not get any</p><p>funny ideas.</p><p>Then I thought, how could this Doctor Gordon help me</p><p>anyway, with a beautiful wife and beautiful children and a</p><p>beautiful dog haloing him like the angels on a Christmas</p><p>card?</p><p>'Suppose you try and tell me what you think is wrong.'</p><p>I turned the words over suspiciously, like round, sea-</p><p>polished pebbles that might suddenly put out a claw and</p><p>change into something else.</p><p>What did I think was wrong?</p><p>That made it sound as if nothing was really wrong, I only</p><p>thought it was wrong.</p><p>In a dull, flat voice—to show I was not beguiled by his</p><p>good looks or his family photograph—I told Doctor Gordon</p><p>about not sleeping and not eating and not reading. I didn't tell</p><p>him about the handwriting, which bothered me most of all.</p><p>That morning I had tried to write a letter to Doreen, down</p><p>in West Virginia, asking whether I could come and live with</p><p>her and maybe get a job at her college waiting on table or</p><p>something.</p><p>But when I took up my pen, my hand made big, jerky</p><p>letters like those of a child, and the lines sloped down the</p><p>page from left to right almost diagonally, as if they were</p><p>loops of string lying on the paper, and someone had come</p><p>along and blown them askew.</p><p>I knew I couldn't send a letter like that, so I tore it up in</p><p>little pieces and put them in my pocket-book, next to my all-</p><p>purpose compact, in case the psychiatrist asked to see them.</p><p>But of course Doctor Gordon didn't ask to see them, as I</p><p>hadn't mentioned them, and I began to feel pleased at my</p><p>cleverness. I thought I only need tell him what I wanted to,</p><p>and that I could control the picture he had of me by hiding</p><p>this and revealing that, all the while he thought he was so</p><p>smart.</p><p>The whole time I was talking, Doctor Gordon bent his</p><p>head as if he were praying, and the only noise apart from the</p><p>dull, flat voice was the tap, tap, tap of Doctor Gordon's</p><p>pencil at the same point on the green blotter, like a stalled</p><p>walking-stick.</p><p>When I had finished, Doctor Gordon lifted his head.</p><p>'Where did you say you went to college?'</p><p>Baffled, I told him. I didn't see where college fitted in.</p><p>'Ah!' Doctor Gordon leaned back in his chair, staring into</p><p>the air over my shoulder with a reminiscent smile.</p><p>I thought he was going to tell me his diagnosis, and that</p><p>perhaps I had judged him too hastily and too unkindly. But</p><p>he only said, 'I remember your college well. I was up there,</p><p>during the war. They had a WAC station, didn't they? Or was</p><p>it WAVES?'</p><p>I said I didn't know.</p><p>'Yes, a WAC station, I remember now. I was doctor for the</p><p>lot, before I was sent overseas. My, they were a pretty bunch</p><p>of girls.'</p><p>Doctor Gordon laughed.</p><p>Then, in one smooth move, he rose to his feet and strolled</p><p>towards me round the corner of his desk. I wasn't sure what</p><p>he meant to do, so I stood up as well.</p><p>Doctor Gordon reached for the hand that hung at my right</p><p>side and shook it.</p><p>'See you next week, then.'</p><p>The full, bosomy elms made a tunnel of shade over the</p><p>yellow and red brick fronts along Commonwealth Avenue,</p><p>and a trolley-car was threading itself towards Boston down</p><p>its slim, silver track. I waited for the trolley to pass, then</p><p>crossed to the grey Chevrolet at the opposite curb.</p><p>I could see my mother's face, anxious and sallow as a slice</p><p>of lemon, peering up at me through the windshield.</p><p>'Well, what did he say?'</p><p>I pulled the car door shut. It didn't catch. I pushed it out</p><p>and drew it in again with a dull slam.</p><p>'He said he'll see me next week.'</p><p>My mother sighed.</p><p>Doctor Gordon cost twenty-five dollars an hour.</p><p>'Hi there, what's your name?'</p><p>'Elly Higginbottom.'</p><p>The sailor fell into step beside me, and I smiled.</p><p>I thought there must be as many sailors on the Common as</p><p>there were pigeons. They seemed to come out of a dun-</p><p>coloured recruiting house on the far side, with blue and white</p><p>'Join the Navy' posters stuck up on billboards round it and all</p><p>over the inner walls.</p><p>'Where do you come from, Elly?'</p><p>'Chicago.'</p><p>I had never been to Chicago, but I knew one or two boys</p><p>who went to Chicago University, and it seemed the sort of</p><p>place where unconventional, mixed-up people would come</p><p>from.</p><p>'You sure are a long way from home.'</p><p>The sailor put his arm around my waist, and for a long</p><p>time we walked around the Common like that, the sailor</p><p>stroking my hip through the green dirndl skirt, and me</p><p>smiling mysteriously and trying not to say anything that</p><p>would show I was from Boston and might at any moment</p><p>meet Mrs Willard, or one of my mother's other friends,</p><p>crossing the Common after tea on Beacon Hill or shopping in</p><p>Filene's Basement.</p><p>I thought if I ever did get to Chicago, I might change my</p><p>name to Elly Higginbottom for good. Then nobody would</p><p>know I had thrown up a scholarship at a big eastern women's</p><p>college and mucked up a month in New York and refused a</p><p>perfectly solid medical student for a husband who would one</p><p>day be a member of the A.M.A. and earn pots of money.</p><p>In Chicago, people would take me for what I was.</p><p>I would be simple Elly Higginbottom, the orphan. People</p><p>would love me for my sweet, quiet nature. They wouldn't be</p><p>after me to read books and write long papers on the twins in</p><p>James Joyce. And one day I might just marry a virile, but</p><p>tender, garage mechanic and have a big cowy family, like</p><p>Dodo Conway.</p><p>If I happened to feel like it.</p><p>'What do you want to do when you get out of the Navy?' I</p><p>asked the sailor suddenly.</p><p>It was the longest sentence I had said, and he seemed</p><p>taken aback. He pushed his white cup-cake cap to one side</p><p>and scratched his head.</p><p>'Well, I dunno, Elly,' he said. 'I might just go to college on</p><p>the G.I. Bill.'</p><p>I paused. Then I said suggestively, 'You ever thought of</p><p>opening a garage?'</p><p>'Nope,' said the sailor, 'Never have.'</p><p>I peered at him from the corner of my eye. He didn't look a</p><p>day over sixteen.</p><p>'Do you know how old I am?' I said accusingly.</p><p>The sailor grinned at me. 'Nope, and I don't care either.'</p><p>It occurred to me that this sailor was really remarkably</p><p>handsome. He looked Nordic and virginal. Now I was</p><p>simple-minded it seemed I attracted clean, handsome people.</p><p>'Well, I'm thirty,' I said, and waited.</p><p>'Gee, Elly, you don't look it.' The sailor squeezed my hip.</p><p>Then he glanced quickly from left to right. 'Listen, Elly, if</p><p>we go round to those steps over there, under the monument, I</p><p>can kiss you.'</p><p>At that moment I noticed a brown figure in sensible flat</p><p>brown shoes striding across the Common in my direction.</p><p>From the distance, I couldn't make out any features on the</p><p>dime-sized face, but I knew it was Mrs Willard.</p><p>'Could you please tell me the way to the subway?' I said to</p><p>the sailor in a loud voice.</p><p>'Huh?'</p><p>'The subway that goes out to the Deer Island Prison?'</p><p>When Mrs Willard came up I would have to pretend I was</p><p>only asking the sailor directions, and didn't really know him</p><p>at all.</p><p>'Take your hands off me,' I said between my teeth.</p><p>'Say Elly, what's up?'</p><p>The woman approached and passed by without a look or a</p><p>nod, and of course it wasn't Mrs Willard. Mrs Willard was at</p><p>her cottage in the Adirondacks.</p><p>I fixed the woman's receding back with a vengeful stare.</p><p>'Say, Elly...'</p><p>'I thought it was somebody I knew,' I said. 'Some blasted</p><p>lady from this orphan home in Chicago.'</p><p>The sailor put his arm around me again.</p><p>'You mean you got no mom and dad, Elly?'</p><p>'No.' I let out a tear that seemed ready. It made a little hot</p><p>track down my cheek.</p><p>'Say Elly, don't cry. This lady, was she mean to you?'</p><p>'She was ... she was awful!'</p><p>The tears came in a rush, then, and while the sailor was</p><p>holding me and patting them dry with a big, clean, white,</p><p>linen handkerchief in the shelter of an American elm, I</p><p>thought what an awful woman that lady in the brown suit had</p><p>been, and how she, whether she knew it or not, was</p><p>responsible for my taking the wrong turn here and the wrong</p><p>path there and for everything bad that happened after that.</p><p>'Well, Esther, how do you feel this week?'</p><p>Doctor Gordon cradled his pencil like a slim, silver bullet.</p><p>'The same.'</p><p>'The same?' He quirked an eyebrow, as if he didn't believe</p><p>it,</p><p>So I told him again, in the same dull, flat voice, only it</p><p>was angrier this time, because he seemed so slow to</p><p>understand, how I hadn't slept for fourteen nights and how I</p><p>couldn't read or write or swallow very well.</p><p>Doctor Gordon seemed unimpressed.</p><p>I dug into my pocket-book and found the scraps of my</p><p>letter to Doreen. I took them out and let them flutter on to</p><p>Doctor Gordon's immaculate green blotter. They lay there,</p><p>dumb as daisy petals in a summer meadow.</p><p>'What,' I said, 'do you think of that?'</p><p>I thought Doctor Gordon must immediately see how bad</p><p>the handwriting was, but he only said, 'I think I would like to</p><p>speak to your mother. Do you mind?'</p><p>'No.' But I didn't like the idea of Doctor Gordon talking to</p><p>my mother one bit. I thought he might tell her I should be</p><p>locked up. I picked up every scrap of my letter to Doreen, so</p><p>Doctor Gordon couldn't piece them together and see I was</p><p>planning to run away, and walked out of his office without</p><p>another word.</p><p>I watched my mother grow smaller and smaller until she</p><p>disappeared into the door of Doctor Gordon's office building.</p><p>Then I watched her grow larger and larger as she came back</p><p>to the car.</p><p>'Well?' I could tell she had been crying.</p><p>My mother didn't look at me. She started the car.</p><p>Then she said, as we glided under the cool, deep-sea shade</p><p>of the elms, 'Doctor Gordon doesn't think you've improved at</p><p>all. He thinks you should have some shock treatments at his</p><p>private hospital in Walton.'</p><p>I felt a sharp stab of curiosity, as if I had just read a terrible</p><p>newspaper headline about somebody else.</p><p>'Does he mean live there?'</p><p>'No,' my mother said, and her chin quivered.</p><p>I thought she must be lying.</p><p>'You tell me the truth,' I said, 'or I'll never speak to you</p><p>again.'</p><p>'Don't I always tell you the truth?' my mother said, and</p><p>burst into tears.</p><p>SUICIDE SAVED FROM SEVEN-STOREY LEDGE!</p><p>After two hours on a narrow ledge seven storeys above a</p><p>concrete parking lot and gathered crowds, Mr George</p><p>Pollucci let himself be helped to safety through a nearby</p><p>window by Sgt. Will Kilmartin of the Charles Street police</p><p>force.</p><p>I cracked open a peanut from the ten cent bag I had bought</p><p>to feed the pigeons, and ate it. It tasted dead, like a bit of old</p><p>tree bark.</p><p>I brought the newspaper close up to my eyes to get a better</p><p>view of George Pollucci's face, spotlighted like a three-</p><p>quarter moon against a vague background of brick and black</p><p>sky. I felt he had something important to tell me, and that</p><p>whatever it was might just be written on his face.</p><p>But the smudgy crags of George Pollucci's features melted</p><p>away as I peered at them, and resolved themselves into a</p><p>regular pattern of dark and light and medium grey dots.</p><p>The inky black newspaper paragraph didn't tell why Mr</p><p>Pollucci was on the ledge, or what Sgt. Kilmartin did to him</p><p>when he finally got him in through the window.</p><p>The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the</p><p>right number of storeys, you might still be alive when you hit</p><p>bottom. I thought seven storeys must be a safe distance.</p><p>I folded the paper and wedged it between the slats of the</p><p>park bench. It was what my mother called a scandal sheet,</p><p>full of the local murders and suicides and beatings and</p><p>robbings, and just about every page had a half-naked lady on</p><p>it with her breasts surging over the edge of her dress and her</p><p>legs arranged so you could see to her stocking tops.</p><p>I didn't know why I had never bought any of these papers</p><p>before. They were the only things I could read. The little</p><p>paragraphs between the pictures ended before the letters had</p><p>a chance to get cocky and wiggle about. At home, all I ever</p><p>saw was the Christian Science Monitor, which appeared on</p><p>the doorstep at five o'clock every day but Sunday and treated</p><p>suicides and sex crimes and aeroplane crashes as if they</p><p>didn't happen.</p><p>A big white swan full of little children approached my</p><p>bench, then turned round a bosky islet covered with ducks</p><p>and paddled back under the dark arch of the bridge.</p><p>Everything I looked at seemed bright and extremely tiny.</p><p>I saw, as if through the keyhole of a door I couldn't open,</p><p>myself and my younger brother, knee-high and holding</p><p>rabbit-eared balloons, climb aboard a swanboat and fight for</p><p>a seat at the edge, over the peanut-shell-paved water. My</p><p>mouth tasted of cleanness and peppermint. If we were good</p><p>at the dentist's, my mother always bought us a swanboat ride.</p><p>I circled the Public Garden—over the bridge and under the</p><p>blue-green monuments, past the American flag flower-bed</p><p>and the entrance where you could have your picture taken in</p><p>an orange-and-white striped canvas booth for twenty-five</p><p>cents—reading the names of the trees.</p><p>My favourite tree was the Weeping Scholar Tree. I thought</p><p>it must come from Japan. They understood things of the</p><p>spirit in Japan.</p><p>They disembowelled themselves when anything went</p><p>wrong.</p><p>I tried to imagine how they would go about it. They must</p><p>have an extremely sharp knife. No, probably two extremely</p><p>sharp knives. Then they would sit down, cross-legged, a</p><p>knife in either hand. Then they would cross their hands and</p><p>point a knife at each side of their stomach. They would have</p><p>to be naked, or the knife would get stuck in their clothes.</p><p>Then in one quick flash, before they had time to think</p><p>twice, they would jab the knives in and zip them round, one</p><p>on the upper crescent and one on the lower crescent, making</p><p>a full circle. Then their stomach skin would come loose, like</p><p>a plate, and their insides would fall out, and they would die.</p><p>It must take a lot of courage to die like that.</p><p>My trouble was I hated the sight of blood.</p><p>I thought I might stay in the park all night.</p><p>The next morning Dodo Conway was driving my mother</p><p>and me to Walton, and if I was to run away before it was too</p><p>late, now was the time. I looked in my pocket-book and</p><p>counted out a dollar bill and seventy-nine cents in dimes and</p><p>nickels and pennies.</p><p>I had no idea how much it would cost to get to Chicago,</p><p>and I didn't dare go to the bank and draw out all my money,</p><p>because I thought Doctor Gordon might well have warned</p><p>the bank clerk to intercept me if I made any obvious move.</p><p>Hitch-hiking occurred to me, but I had no idea which of all</p><p>the routes out of Boston led</p><p>to Chicago. It's easy enough to</p><p>find directions on a map, but I had very little knowledge of</p><p>directions when I was smack in the middle of somewhere.</p><p>Every time I wanted to figure what was east or what was</p><p>west it seemed to be noon, or cloudy, which was no help at</p><p>all, or night-time, and except for the Big Dipper and</p><p>Cassiopeia's Chair, I was hopeless at stars, a failing which</p><p>always disheartened Buddy Willard.</p><p>I decided to walk to the bus terminal and inquire about the</p><p>fares to Chicago. Then I might go to the bank and withdraw</p><p>precisely that amount, which would not cause so much</p><p>suspicion.</p><p>I had just strolled in through the glass doors of the</p><p>terminal and was browsing over the rack of coloured tour</p><p>leaflets and schedules, when I realized that the bank in my</p><p>home town would be closed, as it was already mid-afternoon,</p><p>and I couldn't get any money out till the next day.</p><p>My appointment at Walton was for ten o'clock.</p><p>At that moment, the loudspeaker crackled into life and</p><p>started announcing the stops of a bus getting ready to leave</p><p>in the parking lot outside. The voice on the loudspeaker went</p><p>bockle bockle bockle, the way they do, so you can't</p><p>understand a word, and then, in the middle of all the static, I</p><p>heard a familiar name clear as A on the piano in the middle</p><p>of all the tuning instruments of an orchestra.</p><p>It was a stop two blocks from my house.</p><p>I hurried out into the hot, dusty, end-of-July afternoon,</p><p>sweating and sandy-mouthed, as if late for a difficult</p><p>interview, and boarded the red bus, whose motor was already</p><p>running.</p><p>I handed my fare to the driver, and silently, on gloved</p><p>hinges, the door folded shut at my back.</p><p>Chapter Twelve</p><p>Doctor Gordon's private hospital crowned a grassy rise at</p><p>the end of a long, secluded drive that had been whitened with</p><p>broken quahog shells. The yellow clapboard walls of the</p><p>large house, with its encircling veranda, gleamed in the sun,</p><p>but no people strolled on the green dome of the lawn.</p><p>As my mother and I approached the summer heat bore</p><p>down on us, and a cicada started up, like an aerial</p><p>lawnmower, in the heart of a copper beech tree at the back.</p><p>The sound of the cicada only served to underline the</p><p>enormous silence.</p><p>A nurse met us at the door.</p><p>'Will you wait in the living-room, please. Doctor Gordon</p><p>will be with you presently.'</p><p>What bothered me was that everything about the house</p><p>seemed normal, although I knew it must be chock-full of</p><p>crazy people. There were no bars on the windows that I</p><p>could see, and no wild or disquieting noises. Sunlight</p><p>measured itself out in regular oblongs on the shabby, but soft</p><p>red carpets, and a whiff of fresh-cut grass sweetened the air.</p><p>I paused in the doorway of the living-room.</p><p>For a minute I thought it was the replica of a lounge in a</p><p>guest house I visited once on an island off the coast of</p><p>Maine. The French doors let in a dazzle of white light, a</p><p>grand piano ruled the far corner of the room, and people in</p><p>summer clothes were sitting about at card tables and in the</p><p>lopsided wicker armchairs one so often finds at down-at-heel</p><p>seaside resorts.</p><p>Then I realized that none of the people were moving.</p><p>I focused more closely, trying to pry some clue from their</p><p>stiff postures. I made out men and women, and boys and girls</p><p>who must be as young as I, but there was a uniformity to</p><p>their faces, as if they had lain for a long time on a shelf, out</p><p>of the sunlight, under siftings of pale, fine dust.</p><p>Then I saw that some of the people were indeed moving,</p><p>but with such small, birdlike gestures I had not at first</p><p>discerned them.</p><p>A grey-faced man was counting out a deck of cards, one,</p><p>two, three, four... I thought he must be seeing if it was a full</p><p>pack, but when he had finished counting, he started over</p><p>again. Next to him, a fat lady played with a string of wooden</p><p>beads. She drew all the beads up to one end of the string.</p><p>Then click, click, click, she let them fall back on each other.</p><p>At the piano, a young girl leafed through a few sheets of</p><p>music, but when she saw me looking at her, she ducked her</p><p>head crossly and tore the sheets in half.</p><p>My mother touched my arm, and I followed her into the</p><p>room.</p><p>We sat, without speaking, on a lumpy sofa that creaked</p><p>each time one stirred.</p><p>Then my gaze slid over the people to the blaze of green</p><p>beyond the diaphanous curtains, and I felt as if I were sitting</p><p>in the window of an enormous department store. The figures</p><p>around me weren't people, but shop dummies, painted to</p><p>resemble people and propped up in attitudes counterfeiting</p><p>life.</p><p>I climbed after Doctor Gordon's dark-jacketed back.</p><p>Downstairs, in the hall, I had tried to ask him what the shock</p><p>treatment would be like, but when I opened my mouth no</p><p>words came out, my eyes only widened and stared at the</p><p>smiling, familiar face that floated before me like a plate full</p><p>of assurances.</p><p>At the top of the stairs, the garnet-coloured carpet stopped.</p><p>A plain, brown linoleum, tacked to the floor, took its place,</p><p>and extended down a corridor lined with shut white doors.</p><p>As I followed Doctor Gordon, a door opened somewhere in</p><p>the distance, and I heard a woman shouting.</p><p>All at once a nurse popped around the corner of the</p><p>corridor ahead of us leading a woman in a blue bathrobe with</p><p>shaggy, waist-length hair. Doctor Gordon stepped back, and I</p><p>flattened against the wall.</p><p>As the woman was dragged by, waving her arms and</p><p>struggling in the grip of the nurse, she was saying, 'I'm going</p><p>to jump out of the window, I'm going to jump out of the</p><p>window, I'm going to jump out of the window.'</p><p>Dumpy and muscular in her smudge-fronted uniform, the</p><p>wall-eyed nurse wore such thick spectacles that four eyes</p><p>peered out at me from behind the round, twin panes of glass.</p><p>I was trying to tell which eyes were the real eyes and which</p><p>the false eyes, and which of the real eyes was the wall-eye</p><p>and which the straight eye, when she brought her face up to</p><p>mine with a large, conspiratorial grin and hissed, as if to</p><p>reassure me, 'She thinks she's going to jump out the window</p><p>but she can't jump out the window because they're all</p><p>barred!'</p><p>And as Doctor Gordon led me into a bare room at the back</p><p>of the house, I saw that the windows in that part were indeed</p><p>barred, and that the room door and the closet door and the</p><p>drawers of the bureau and everything that opened and shut</p><p>was fitted with a keyhole so it could be locked up.</p><p>I lay down on the bed.</p><p>The wall-eyed nurse came back. She unclasped my watch</p><p>and dropped it in her pocket. Then she started tweaking the</p><p>hairpins from my hair.</p><p>Doctor Gordon was unlocking the closet. He dragged out a</p><p>table on wheels with a machine on it and rolled it behind the</p><p>head of the bed. The nurse started swabbing my temples with</p><p>a smelly grease.</p><p>As she leaned over to reach the side of my head nearest</p><p>the wall, her fat breast muffled my face like a cloud or a</p><p>pillow. A vague, medicinal stench emanated from her flesh.</p><p>'Don't worry,' the nurse grinned down at me. 'Their first</p><p>time everybody's scared to death.'</p><p>I tried to smile, but my skin had gone stiff, like parchment.</p><p>Doctor Gordon was fitting two metal plates on either side</p><p>of my head. He buckled them into place with a strap that</p><p>dented my forehead, and gave me a wire to bite.</p><p>I shut my eyes.</p><p>There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath.</p><p>Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook</p><p>me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled,</p><p>through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a</p><p>great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break</p><p>and the sap fly out of me like a split plant.</p><p>I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.</p><p>I was sitting in a wicker chair, holding a small cocktail</p><p>glass of tomato juice. The watch had been replaced on my</p><p>wrist, but it looked odd. Then I realized it had been fastened</p><p>upside down. I sensed the unfamiliar positioning of the</p><p>hairpins in my hair.</p><p>'How do you feel?'</p><p>An old metal floor lamp surfaced in my mind. One of the</p><p>few relics of my father's study, it was surmounted by a</p><p>copper bell which held the</p><p>light bulb, and from which a</p><p>frayed, tiger-coloured cord ran down the length of the metal</p><p>stand to a socket in the wall.</p><p>One day I'd decided to move this lamp from the side of my</p><p>mother's bed to my desk at the other end of the room. The</p><p>cord would be long enough, so I didn't unplug it. I closed</p><p>both hands around the lamp and the fuzzy cord and gripped</p><p>them tight.</p><p>Then something leapt out of the lamp in a blue flash and</p><p>shook me till my teeth rattled, and I tried to pull my hands</p><p>off, but they were stuck, and I screamed, or a scream was</p><p>torn from my throat, for I didn't recognize it, but heard it soar</p><p>and quaver in the air like a violently disembodied spirit.</p><p>Then my hands jerked free, and I fell back on to my</p><p>mother's bed. A small hole, blackened as if with pencil lead,</p><p>pitted the centre of my right palm.</p><p>'How do you feel?'</p><p>'All right.'</p><p>But I didn't. I felt terrible.</p><p>'Which college did you say you went to?'</p><p>I said what college it was.</p><p>'Ah!' Doctor Gordon's face lighted with a slow, almost</p><p>tropical smile. 'They had a WAC station up there, didn't they,</p><p>during the war?'</p><p>My mother's knuckles were bone-white, as if the skin had</p><p>worn off them in the hour of waiting. She looked past me to</p><p>Doctor Gordon, and he must have nodded, or smiled,</p><p>because her face relaxed.</p><p>'A few more shock treatments, Mrs Greenwood,' I heard</p><p>Doctor Gordon say, 'and I think you'll notice a wonderful</p><p>improvement.'</p><p>The girl was still sitting on the piano stool, the torn sheet</p><p>of music splayed at her feet like a dead bird. She stared at</p><p>me, and I stared back. Her eyes narrowed. She stuck out her</p><p>tongue.</p><p>My mother was following Doctor Gordon to the door. I</p><p>lingered behind, and when their backs were turned, I rounded</p><p>on the girl and thumbed both ears at her. She pulled her</p><p>tongue in, and her face went stony.</p><p>I walked out into the sun.</p><p>Panther-like in a dapple of tree shadow, Dodo Conway's</p><p>black station wagon lay in wait.</p><p>The station wagon had been ordered originally by a</p><p>wealthy society lady, black, without a speck of chrome, and</p><p>with black leather upholstery, but when it came, it depressed</p><p>her. It was the dead spit of a hearse, she said, and everybody</p><p>else thought so too, and nobody would buy it, so the</p><p>Conways drove it home, cut-price, and saved themselves a</p><p>couple of hundred dollars.</p><p>Sitting in the front seat, between Dodo and my mother, I</p><p>felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my</p><p>mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and</p><p>pirouetted there, absently.</p><p>'I'm through with that Doctor Gordon,' I said, after we had</p><p>left Dodo and her black wagon behind the pines. 'You can</p><p>call him up and tell him I'm not coming next week.'</p><p>My mother smiled. 'I knew my baby wasn't like that.'</p><p>I looked at her. 'Like what?'</p><p>'Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that</p><p>hospital.' She paused. 'I knew you'd decide to be all right</p><p>again.'</p><p>STARLET SUCCUMBS AFTER SIXTY-EIGHT HOUR</p><p>COMA.</p><p>I felt in my pocket-book among the paper scraps and the</p><p>compact and the peanut shells and the dimes and nickels and</p><p>the blue jiffy box containing nineteen Gillette blades, till I</p><p>unearthed the snapshot I'd had taken that afternoon in the</p><p>orange-and-white striped booth.</p><p>I brought it up next to the smudgy photograph of the dead</p><p>girl. It matched, mouth for mouth, nose for nose. The only</p><p>difference was the eyes. The eyes in the snapshot were open,</p><p>and those in the newspaper photograph were closed. But I</p><p>knew if the dead girl's eyes were to be thumbed wide, they</p><p>would look out at me with the same dead, black, vacant</p><p>expression as the eyes in the snapshot.</p><p>I stuffed the snapshot back in my pocket-book.</p><p>'I will just sit here in the sun on this park bench five</p><p>minutes more by the clock on that building over there,' I told</p><p>myself, 'and then I will go somewhere and do it.'</p><p>I summoned my little chorus of voices.</p><p>Doesn't your work interest you, Esther?</p><p>You know, Esther, you've got the perfect set-up of a true</p><p>neurotic.</p><p>You'll never get anywhere like that, you'll never get</p><p>anywhere like that, you'll never get anywhere like that.</p><p>Once, on a hot summer night, I had spent an hour kissing a</p><p>hairy, ape-shaped law student from Yale because I felt sorry</p><p>for him, he was so ugly. When I had finished, he said, 'I have</p><p>you taped, baby. You'll be a prude at forty.'</p><p>'Factitious!' my creative writing professor at college</p><p>scrawled on a story of mine called 'The Big Weekend'.</p><p>I hadn't known what factitious meant, so I looked it up in</p><p>the dictionary.</p><p>Factitious, artificial, sham.</p><p>You'll never get anywhere like that.</p><p>I hadn't slept for twenty-one nights.</p><p>I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be</p><p>shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of</p><p>shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets</p><p>and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones,</p><p>and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and</p><p>shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of</p><p>the earth.</p><p>I looked down at the two flesh-coloured band-aids forming</p><p>a cross on the calf of my right leg.</p><p>That morning I had made a start.</p><p>I had locked myself in the bathroom, and run a tub full of</p><p>warm water, and taken out a Gillette blade.</p><p>When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other</p><p>how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a</p><p>warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and</p><p>seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush</p><p>through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface</p><p>gaudy as poppies.</p><p>But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist</p><p>looked so white and defenceless that I couldn't do it. It was</p><p>as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue</p><p>pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else,</p><p>deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at.</p><p>It would take two motions. One wrist, then the other wrist.</p><p>Three motions, if you counted changing the razor from hand</p><p>to hand. Then I would step into the tub and lie down.</p><p>I moved in front of the medicine cabinet. If I looked in the</p><p>mirror while I did it, it would be like watching somebody</p><p>else, in a book or a play.</p><p>But the person in the mirror was paralysed and too stupid</p><p>to do a thing.</p><p>Then I thought, maybe I ought to spill a little blood for</p><p>practice, so I sat on the edge of the tub and crossed my right</p><p>ankle over my left knee. Then I lifted my right hand with the</p><p>razor and let it drop of its own weight, like a guillotine, on to</p><p>the calf of my leg.</p><p>I felt nothing. Then I felt a small, deep thrill, and a bright</p><p>seam of red welled up at the lip of the slash. The blood</p><p>gathered darkly, like fruit, and rolled down my ankle into the</p><p>cup of my black patent leather shoe.</p><p>I thought of getting into the tub then, but I realized my</p><p>dallying had used up the better part of the morning, and that</p><p>my mother would probably come home and find me before I</p><p>was done.</p><p>So I bandaged the cut, packed up my Gillette blades and</p><p>caught the eleven-thirty bus to Boston.</p><p>'Sorry, baby, there's no subway to the Deer Island Prison,</p><p>it's on a niland.'</p><p>'No, it's not on an island, it used to be on an island, but</p><p>they filled up the water with dirt and now it joins on to the</p><p>mainland.'</p><p>'There's no subway.'</p><p>'I've got to get there.'</p><p>'Hey,' the fat man in the ticket booth peered at me through</p><p>the grating, 'don't cry. Who you got there, honey, some</p><p>relative?'</p><p>People shoved and bumped by me in the artificially lit</p><p>dark, hurrying after the trains that rumbled in and out of the</p><p>intestinal tunnels under Scollay Square. I could feel the tears</p><p>start to spurt from the screwed-up nozzles of my eyes.</p><p>'It's my father.'</p><p>The fat man consulted a diagram on the wall of his booth.</p><p>'Here's how you do,' he said, 'you take a car from that track</p><p>over there and get off at Orient Heights and then hop a bus</p><p>with The Point on it.' He beamed at me. 'It'll run you straight</p><p>to the prison gate.'</p><p>'Hey you!' A young fellow in a blue uniform waved from</p><p>the hut.</p><p>I waved back and kept on going.</p><p>'Hey you!'</p><p>I stopped, and walked slowly over</p><p>stocking feet, and when I am with little men I stoop over</p><p>a bit and slouch my hips, one up and one down, so I'll look</p><p>shorter, and I feel gawky and morbid as somebody in a side-</p><p>show.</p><p>For a minute I had a wild hope we might pair off</p><p>according to size, which would line me up with the man who</p><p>had spoken to us in the first place, and he cleared a good six</p><p>feet, but he went ahead with Doreen and didn't give me a</p><p>second look. I tried to pretend I didn't see Frankie dogging</p><p>along at my elbow and sat close by Doreen at the table.</p><p>It was so dark in the bar I could hardly make out anything</p><p>except Doreen. With her white hair and white dress she was</p><p>so white she looked silver. I think she must have reflected the</p><p>neons over the bar. I felt myself melting into the shadows</p><p>like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life.</p><p>'Well, what'll we have?' the man asked with a large smile.</p><p>'I think I'll have an Old-Fashioned,' Doreen said to me.</p><p>Ordering drinks always floored me. I didn't know whisky</p><p>from gin and never managed to get anything I really liked the</p><p>taste of. Buddy Willard and the other college boys I knew</p><p>were usually too poor to buy hard liquor or they scorned</p><p>drinking altogether. It's amazing how many college boys</p><p>don't drink or smoke. I seemed to know them all. The</p><p>farthest Buddy Willard ever went was buying us a bottle of</p><p>Dubonnet, which he only did because he was trying to prove</p><p>he could be æsthetic in spite of being a medical student.</p><p>'I'll have a vodka,' I said.</p><p>The man looked at me more closely. 'With anything?'</p><p>'Just plain,' I said. 'I always have it plain.'</p><p>I thought I might make a fool of myself by saying I'd have</p><p>it with ice or soda or gin or anything. I'd seen a vodka ad</p><p>once, just a glass full of vodka standing in the middle of a</p><p>snowdrift in a blue light, and the vodka looked clear and pure</p><p>as water, so I thought having vodka plain must be all right.</p><p>My dream was some day ordering a drink and finding out it</p><p>tasted wonderful.</p><p>The waiter came up then, and the man ordered drinks for</p><p>the four of us. He looked so at home in that citified bar in his</p><p>ranch outfit I thought he might well be somebody famous.</p><p>Doreen wasn't saying a word, she only toyed with her cork</p><p>place-mat and eventually lit a cigarette, but the man didn't</p><p>seem to mind. He kept staring at her the way people stare at</p><p>the great white macaw in the zoo, waiting for it to say</p><p>something human.</p><p>The drinks arrived, and mine looked clear and pure, just</p><p>like the vodka ad.</p><p>'What do you do?' I asked the man, to break the silence</p><p>shooting up around me on all sides, thick as jungle grass. 'I</p><p>mean what do you do here in New York?'</p><p>Slowly and with what seemed a great effort, the man</p><p>dragged his eyes away from Doreen's shoulder. 'I'm a disc</p><p>jockey,' he said. 'You prob'ly must have heard of me. The</p><p>name's Lenny Shepherd.'</p><p>'I know you,' Doreen said suddenly.</p><p>'I'm glad about that, honey,' the man said, and burst out</p><p>laughing. 'That'll come in handy. I'm famous as hell.'</p><p>Then Lenny Shepherd gave Frankie a long look.</p><p>'Say, where do you come from?' Frankie asked, sitting up</p><p>with a jerk. 'What's your name?'</p><p>'This here's Doreen.' Lenny slid his hand around Doreen's</p><p>bare arm and gave her a squeeze.</p><p>What surprised me was that Doreen didn't let on she</p><p>noticed what he was doing. She just sat there, dusky as a</p><p>bleached blonde negress in her white dress and sipped</p><p>daintily at her drink.</p><p>'My name's Elly Higginbottom,' I said. 'I come from</p><p>Chicago.' After that I felt safer. I didn't want anything I said</p><p>or did that night to be associated with me and my real name</p><p>and coming from Boston.</p><p>'Well, Elly, what do you say we dance some?'</p><p>The thought of dancing with that little runt in his orange</p><p>suede elevator shoes and mingy T-shirt and droopy blue</p><p>sports coat made me laugh. If there's anything I look down</p><p>on, it's a man in a blue outfit. Black or grey, or brown, even.</p><p>Blue just makes me laugh.</p><p>'I'm not in the mood,' I said coldly, turning my back on</p><p>him and hitching my chair over nearer to Doreen and Lenny.</p><p>Those two looked as if they'd known each other for years</p><p>by now. Doreen was spooning up the hunks of fruit at the</p><p>bottom of her glass with a spindly silver spoon, and Lenny</p><p>was grunting each time she lifted the spoon to her mouth,</p><p>and snapping and pretending to be a dog or something, and</p><p>trying to get the fruit off the spoon. Doreen giggled and kept</p><p>spooning up the fruit.</p><p>I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn't taste</p><p>like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like</p><p>a sword-swallower's sword and made me feel powerful and</p><p>god-like.</p><p>'I better go now,' Frankie said, standing up.</p><p>I couldn't see him very clearly, the place was so dim, but</p><p>for the first time I heard what a high, silly voice he had.</p><p>Nobody paid him any notice.</p><p>'Hey, Lenny, you owe me something. Remember, Lenny,</p><p>you owe me something, don't you, Lenny?'</p><p>I thought it odd Frankie should be reminding Lenny he</p><p>owed him something in front of us, and we being perfect</p><p>strangers, but Frankie stood there saying the same thing over</p><p>and over until Lenny dug into his pocket and pulled out a big</p><p>roll of green bills and peeled one off and handed it to</p><p>Frankie. I think it was ten dollars.</p><p>'Shut up and scram.'</p><p>For a minute I thought Lenny was talking to me as well,</p><p>but then I heard Doreen say 'I won't come unless Elly comes'.</p><p>I had to hand it to her the way she picked up my fake name.</p><p>'Oh, Elly'll come, won't you, Elly?' Lenny said, giving me</p><p>a wink.</p><p>'Sure I'll come,' I said. Frankie had wilted away into the</p><p>night, so I thought I'd string along with Doreen. I wanted to</p><p>see as much as I could.</p><p>I liked looking on at other people in crucial situations. If</p><p>there was a road accident or a street fight or a baby pickled in</p><p>a laboratory jar for me to look at, I'd stop and look so hard I</p><p>never forgot it.</p><p>I certainly learned a lot of things I never would have</p><p>learned otherwise this way, and even when they surprised me</p><p>or made me sick I never let on, but pretended that's the way I</p><p>knew things were all the time.</p><p>Chapter Two</p><p>I wouldn't have missed Lenny's place for anything.</p><p>It was built exactly like the inside of a ranch, only in the</p><p>middle of a New York apartment house. He'd had a few</p><p>partitions knocked down to make the place broaden out, he</p><p>said, and then had them pine-panel the walls and fit up a</p><p>special pine-panelled bar in the shape of a horseshoe. I think</p><p>the floor was pine-panelled, too.</p><p>Great white bearskins lay about underfoot, and the only</p><p>furniture was a lot of low beds covered with Indian rugs.</p><p>Instead of pictures hung up on the walls, he had antlers and</p><p>buffalo horns and a stuffed rabbit head. Lenny jutted a thumb</p><p>at the meek little grey muzzle and stiff jackrabbit ears.</p><p>'Ran over that in Las Vegas.'</p><p>He walked away across the room, his cowboy boots</p><p>echoing like pistol shots. 'Acoustics,' he said, and grew</p><p>smaller and smaller until he vanished through a door in the</p><p>distance.</p><p>All at once music started to come out of the air on every</p><p>side. Then it stopped, and we heard Lenny's voice say 'This</p><p>is your twelve o'clock disc jock, Lenny Shepherd, with a</p><p>round-up of the tops in pops. Number Ten in the wagon train</p><p>this week is none other than that little yaller-haired gal you</p><p>been hearin' so much about lately ... the one an' only</p><p>Sunflower?</p><p>I was born in Kansas, I was bred in Kansas,</p><p>And when I marry I'll be wed in Kansas...</p><p>'What a card!' Doreen said. 'Isn't he a card?'</p><p>'You bet,' I said.</p><p>'Listen, Elly, do me a favour.' She seemed to think Elly</p><p>was who I really was by now.</p><p>'Sure,' I said.</p><p>'Stick around, will you? I wouldn't have a chance if he</p><p>tried anything funny. Did you see that muscle?' Doreen</p><p>giggled.</p><p>Lenny popped out of the back room. 'I got twenty grand's</p><p>worth of recording equipment in there.' He ambled over to</p><p>the bar and set out three glasses and a silver ice-bucket and a</p><p>big pitcher and began to mix drinks from several different</p><p>bottles.</p><p>...to a true-blue gal who promised she would wait—</p><p>She's the sunflower of the Sunflower</p><p>to the hut that perched</p><p>like a circular living-room on the waste of sands.</p><p>'Hey, you can't go any further. That's prison property, no</p><p>trespassers allowed.'</p><p>'I thought you could go anyplace along the beach,' I said.</p><p>'So long as you stayed under the tideline.'</p><p>The fellow thought a minute.</p><p>Then he said, 'Not this beach.'</p><p>He had a pleasant, fresh face.</p><p>'You've a nice place here,' I said. 'It's like a little house.'</p><p>He glanced back into the room, with its braided rug and</p><p>chintz curtains. He smiled.</p><p>'We even got a coffee pot.'</p><p>'I used to live near here.'</p><p>'No kidding. I was born and brought up in this town</p><p>myself.'</p><p>I looked across the sands to the parking lot and the barred</p><p>gate, and past the barred gate to the narrow road, lapped by</p><p>the ocean on both sides, that led out to the one-time island.</p><p>The red brick buildings of the prison looked friendly, like</p><p>the buildings of a seaside college. On a green hump of lawn</p><p>to the left, I could see small white spots and slightly larger</p><p>pink spots moving about. I asked the guard what they were,</p><p>and he said, 'Them's pigs 'n' chickens.'</p><p>I was thinking that if I'd had the sense to go on living in</p><p>that old town I might just have met this prison guard in</p><p>school and married him and had a parcel of kids by now. It</p><p>would be nice, living by the sea with piles of little kids and</p><p>pigs and chickens, wearing what my grandmother called</p><p>wash dresses, and sitting about in some kitchen with bright</p><p>linoleum and fat arms, drinking pots of coffee.</p><p>'How do you get into that prison?'</p><p>'You get a pass.'</p><p>'No, how do you get locked in?'</p><p>'Oh,' the guard laughed, 'you steal a car, you rob a store.'</p><p>'You got any murderers in there?'</p><p>'No. Murderers go to a big state place.'</p><p>'Who else is in there?'</p><p>'Well, the first day of winter we get these old bums out of</p><p>Boston. They heave a brick through a window, and then they</p><p>get picked up and spend the winter out of the cold, with TV</p><p>and plenty to eat, and basketball games on the weekend.'</p><p>'That's nice.'</p><p>'Nice if you like it,' said the guard.</p><p>I said good-bye and started to move off, glancing back</p><p>over my shoulder only once. The guard still stood in the</p><p>doorway of his observation booth, and when I turned he</p><p>lifted his arm in a salute.</p><p>The log I sat on was lead-heavy and smelled of tar. Under</p><p>the stout, grey cylinder of the water tower on its</p><p>commanding hill, the sandbar curved out into the sea. At</p><p>high tide the bar completely submerged itself.</p><p>I remembered that sandbar well. It harboured, in the crook</p><p>of its inner curve, a particular shell that could be found</p><p>nowhere else on the beach.</p><p>The shell was thick, smooth, big as a thumb joint, and</p><p>usually white, although sometimes pink or peach-coloured. It</p><p>resembled a sort of modest conch.</p><p>'Mummy, that girl's still sitting there.'</p><p>I looked up, idly, and saw a small, sandy child being</p><p>dragged up from the sea's edge by a skinny, bird-eyed</p><p>woman in red shorts and a red-and-white polka-dotted halter.</p><p>I hadn't counted on the beach being overrun with summer</p><p>people. In the ten years of my absence, fancy blue and pink</p><p>and pale green shanties had sprung up on the flat sands of the</p><p>Point like a crop of tasteless mushrooms, and the silver</p><p>aeroplanes and cigar-shaped blimps had given way to jets</p><p>that scoured the rooftops in their loud onrush from the airport</p><p>across the bay.</p><p>I was the only girl on the beach in a skirt and high heels,</p><p>and it occurred to me I must stand out. I had removed my</p><p>patent leather shoes after a while, for they foundered badly in</p><p>the sand. It pleased me to think they would be perched there</p><p>on the silver log, pointing out to sea, like a sort of soul-</p><p>compass, after I was dead.</p><p>I fingered the box of razors in my pocket-book.</p><p>Then I thought how stupid I was. I had the razors, but no</p><p>warm bath.</p><p>I considered renting a room. There must be a boarding</p><p>house among all those summer places. But I had no luggage.</p><p>That would create suspicion. Besides, in a boarding house</p><p>other people are always wanting to use the bathroom. I'd</p><p>hardly have time to do it and step into the tub when</p><p>somebody would be pounding at the door.</p><p>The gulls on their wooden stilts at the tip of the bar</p><p>miaowed like cats. Then they flapped up, one by one, in their</p><p>ash-coloured jackets, circling my head and crying.</p><p>'Say, lady, you better not sit out here, the tide's coming in.'</p><p>The small boy squatted a few feet away. He picked up a</p><p>round purple stone and lobbed it into the water. The water</p><p>swallowed it with a resonant plop. Then he scrabbled around,</p><p>and I heard the dry stones clank together like money.</p><p>He skimmed a flat stone over the dull green surface, and it</p><p>skipped seven times before it sliced out of sight.</p><p>'Why don't you go home?' I said.</p><p>The boy skipped another, heavier stone. It sank after the</p><p>second bounce.</p><p>'Don't want to.'</p><p>'Your mother's looking for you.'</p><p>'She is not.' He sounded worried.</p><p>'If you go home, I'll give you some candy.'</p><p>The boy hitched closer. 'What kind?'</p><p>But I knew without looking into my pocket-book that all I</p><p>had was peanut shells.</p><p>'I'll give you some money to buy some candy.'</p><p>'Ar-thur!'</p><p>A woman was indeed coming out on the sandbar, slipping</p><p>and no doubt cursing to herself, for her lips went up and</p><p>down between her clear, peremptory calls.</p><p>'Ar-thur!'</p><p>She shaded her eyes with one hand, as if this helped her</p><p>discern us through the thickening sea dusk.</p><p>I could sense the boy's interest dwindle as the pull of his</p><p>mother increased. He began to pretend he didn't know me.</p><p>He kicked over a few stones, as if searching for something,</p><p>and edged off.</p><p>I shivered.</p><p>The stones lay lumpish and cold under my bare feet. I</p><p>thought longingly of the black shoes on the beach. A wave</p><p>drew back, like a hand, then advanced and touched my foot.</p><p>The drench seemed to come off the sea floor itself, where</p><p>blind white fish ferried themselves by their own light through</p><p>the great polar cold. I saw sharks' teeth and whales' earbones</p><p>littered about down there like gravestones.</p><p>I waited, as if the sea could make my decision for me.</p><p>A second wave collapsed over my feet, lipped with white</p><p>froth, and the chill gripped my ankles with a mortal ache.</p><p>My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.</p><p>I picked up my pocket-book and started back over the cold</p><p>stones to where my shoes kept their vigil in the violet light.</p><p>Chapter Thirteen</p><p>'Of course his mother killed him.'</p><p>I looked at the mouth of the boy Jody had wanted me to</p><p>meet. His lips were thick and pink and a baby face nestled</p><p>under the silk of white-blond hair. His name was Cal, which I</p><p>thought must be short for something, but I couldn't think</p><p>what it would be short for, unless it was California.</p><p>'How can you be sure she killed him?' I said.</p><p>Cal was supposed to be very intelligent, and Jody had said</p><p>over the phone that he was cute and I would like him. I</p><p>wondered, if I'd been my old self, if I would have liked him.</p><p>It was impossible to tell.</p><p>'Well, first she says No no no, and then she says Yes.'</p><p>'But then she says No no again.'</p><p>Cal and I lay side by side on an orange and green striped</p><p>towel on a mucky beach across the swamps from Lynn. Jody</p><p>and Mark, the boy she was pinned to, were swimming. Cal</p><p>hadn't wanted to swim, he had wanted to talk, and we were</p><p>arguing about this play where a young man finds out he has a</p><p>brain disease, on account of his father fooling around with</p><p>unclean women, and in the end his brain, which has been</p><p>softening all along, snaps completely, and his mother is</p><p>debating whether to kill him or not.</p><p>I had a suspicion that my mother had called Jody and</p><p>begged her to ask me out, so I wouldn't sit around in my</p><p>room all day with the shades drawn. I didn't want to go at</p><p>first, because I thought Jody would notice the change in me,</p><p>and that anybody with half an eye would see I didn't have a</p><p>brain in my head.</p><p>But all during the drive north, and then east, Jody had</p><p>joked and laughed and chattered and not seemed to mind that</p><p>I only said, 'My' or 'Gosh' or 'You don't say'.</p><p>We browned hotdogs on the public grills at the</p><p>beach, and</p><p>by watching Jody and Mark and Cal very carefully I</p><p>managed to cook my hotdog just the right amount of time</p><p>and didn't burn it or drop it into the fire, the way I was afraid</p><p>of doing. Then, when nobody was looking, I buried it in the</p><p>sand.</p><p>After we ate, Jody and Mark ran down to the water hand-</p><p>in-hand, and I lay back, staring into the sky, while Cal went</p><p>on and on about this play.</p><p>The only reason I remembered this play was because it</p><p>had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about</p><p>mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew</p><p>out.</p><p>'But it's the Yes that matters,' Cal said. 'It's the Yes she'll</p><p>come back to in the end.'</p><p>I lifted my head and squinted out at the bright blue plate of</p><p>the sea—a bright blue plate with a dirty rim. A big round</p><p>grey rock, like the upper half of an egg, poked out of the</p><p>water about a mile from the stony headland.</p><p>'What was she going to kill him with? I forget.'</p><p>I hadn't forgotten. I remembered perfectly well, but I</p><p>wanted to hear what Cal would say.</p><p>'Morphia powders.'</p><p>'Do you suppose they have morphia powders in America?'</p><p>Cal considered a minute. Then he said, 'I wouldn't think</p><p>so. They sound awfully old-fashioned.'</p><p>I rolled over on to my stomach and squinted at the view in</p><p>the other direction, towards Lynn. A glassy haze rippled up</p><p>from the fires in the grills and the heat on the road, and</p><p>through the haze, as through a curtain of clear water, I could</p><p>make out a smudgy skyline of gas tanks and factory stacks</p><p>and derricks and bridges.</p><p>It looked one hell of a mess.</p><p>I rolled on to my back again and made my voice casual. 'If</p><p>you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?'</p><p>Cal seemed pleased. 'I've often thought of that. I'd blow</p><p>my brains out with a gun.'</p><p>I was disappointed. It was just like a man to do it with a</p><p>gun. A fat chance I had of laying my hands on a gun. And</p><p>even if I did, I wouldn't have a clue as to what part of me to</p><p>shoot at.</p><p>I'd already read in the papers about people who'd tried to</p><p>shoot themselves, only they ended up shooting an important</p><p>nerve and getting paralysed, or blasting their face off, but</p><p>being saved, by surgeons and a sort of miracle, from dying</p><p>outright.</p><p>The risks of a gun seemed great.</p><p>'What kind of a gun?'</p><p>'My father's shotgun. He keeps it loaded. I'd just have to</p><p>walk into his study one day and,' Cal pointed a finger to his</p><p>temple and made a comical, screwed-up face, 'click!' He</p><p>widened his pale grey eyes and looked at me.</p><p>'Does your father happen to live near Boston?' I asked idly.</p><p>'Nope. In Clacton-on-Sea. He's English.'</p><p>Jody and Mark ran up hand-in-hand, dripping and shaking</p><p>off water drops like two loving puppies. I thought there</p><p>would be too many people, so I stood up and pretended to</p><p>yawn.</p><p>'I guess I'll go for a swim.'</p><p>Being with Jody and Mark and Cal was beginning to</p><p>weigh on my nerves, like a dull wooden block on the strings</p><p>of a piano. I was afraid that at any moment my control would</p><p>snap, and I would start babbling about how I couldn't read</p><p>and couldn't write and how I must be just about the only</p><p>person who had stayed awake for a solid month without</p><p>dropping dead of exhaustion.</p><p>A smoke seemed to be going up from my nerves like the</p><p>smoke from the grills and the sun-saturated road. The whole</p><p>landscape—beach and headland and sea and rock—quavered</p><p>in front of my eyes like a stage backcloth.</p><p>I wondered at what point in space the silly, sham blue of</p><p>the sky turned black.</p><p>'You swim too, Cal.'</p><p>Jody gave Cal a playful little push.</p><p>'Ohhh,' Cal hid his face in the towel. 'It's too cold.'</p><p>I started to walk towards the water.</p><p>Somehow, in the broad, shadowless light of noon, the</p><p>water looked amiable and welcoming.</p><p>I thought drowning must be the kindest way to die, and</p><p>burning the worst. Some of those babies in the jars that</p><p>Buddy Willard showed me had gills, he said. They went</p><p>through a stage where they were just like fish.</p><p>A little, rubbishy wavelet, full of candy wrappers and</p><p>orange peel and seaweed, folded over my foot.</p><p>I heard the sand thud behind me, and Cal came up.</p><p>'Let's swim to that rock out there.' I pointed at it.</p><p>'Are you crazy? That's a mile out.'</p><p>'What are you?' I said. 'Chicken?'</p><p>Cal took me by the elbow and jostled me into the water.</p><p>When we were waist high, he pushed me under. I surfaced,</p><p>splashing, my eyes seared with salt. Underneath, the water</p><p>was green and semi-opaque as a hunk of quartz.</p><p>I started to swim, a modified dogpaddle, keeping my face</p><p>towards the rock. Cal did a slow crawl. After a while he put</p><p>his head up and treaded water.</p><p>'Can't make it.' He was panting heavily.</p><p>'Okay. You go back.'</p><p>I thought I would swim out until I was too tired to swim</p><p>back. As I paddled on, my heartbeat boomed like a dull</p><p>motor in my ears.</p><p>I am I am I am.</p><p>That morning I had tried to hang myself.</p><p>I had taken the silk cord of my mother's yellow bathrobe</p><p>as soon as she left for work, and, in the amber shade of the</p><p>bedroom, fashioned it into a knot that slipped up and down</p><p>on itself. It took me a long time to do this, because I was</p><p>poor at knots and had no idea how to make a proper one.</p><p>Then I hunted around for a place to attach the rope.</p><p>The trouble was, our house had the wrong kind of ceilings.</p><p>The ceilings were low, white and smoothly plastered, without</p><p>a light fixture or a wood beam in sight. I thought with</p><p>longing of the house my grandmother had before she sold it</p><p>to come and live with us, and then with my Aunt Libby.</p><p>My grandmother's house was built in the fine, nineteenth-</p><p>century style, with lofty rooms and sturdy chandelier</p><p>brackets and high closets with stout rails across them, and an</p><p>attic where nobody ever went, full of trunks and parrot cages</p><p>and dressmaker's dummies and overhead beams thick as a</p><p>ship's timbers.</p><p>But it was an old house, and she'd sold it, and I didn't</p><p>know anybody else with a house like that.</p><p>After a discouraging time of walking about with the silk</p><p>cord dangling from my neck like a yellow cat's tail and</p><p>finding no place to fasten it, I sat on the edge of my mother's</p><p>bed and tried pulling the cord tight.</p><p>But each time I would get the cord so tight I could feel a</p><p>rushing in my ears and a flush of blood in my face, my hands</p><p>would weaken and let go, and I would be all right again.</p><p>Then I saw that my body had all sorts of little tricks, such</p><p>as making my hands go limp at the crucial second, which</p><p>would save it, time and again, whereas if I had the whole say,</p><p>I would be dead in a flash.</p><p>I would simply have to ambush it with whatever sense I</p><p>had left, or it would trap me in its stupid cage for fifty years</p><p>without any sense at all. And when people found out my</p><p>mind had gone, as they would have to, sooner or later, in</p><p>spite of my mother's guarded tongue, they would persuade</p><p>her to put me into an asylum where I could be cured.</p><p>Only my case was incurable.</p><p>I had bought a few paperbacks on abnormal psychology at</p><p>the drug store and compared my symptoms with the</p><p>symptoms in the books, and sure enough, my symptoms</p><p>tallied with the most hopeless cases.</p><p>The only thing I could read, beside the scandal sheets,</p><p>were these abnormal psychology books. It was as if some</p><p>slim opening had been left, so I could learn all I needed to</p><p>know about my case to end it in the proper way.</p><p>I wondered, after the hanging fiasco, if I shouldn't just</p><p>give it up and turn myself over to the doctors, but then I</p><p>remembered Doctor Gordon and his private shock machine.</p><p>Once I was locked up they could use that on me all the time.</p><p>And I thought of how my mother and brother and friends</p><p>would visit me, day after day, hoping I would be better. Then</p><p>their visits would slacken off, and they would give up hope.</p><p>They would grow old. They would forget me.</p><p>They would be poor, too.</p><p>They would want me to have the best of care at first, so</p><p>they would sink all their money in a private hospital like</p><p>Doctor Gordon's. Finally, when the money was used up, I</p><p>would be moved to a state hospital, with hundreds of people</p><p>like me, in a big cage in the basement.</p><p>The more</p><p>hopeless you were, the further away they hid</p><p>you.</p><p>Cal had turned around and was swimming in.</p><p>As I watched, he dragged himself slowly out of the neck-</p><p>deep sea. Against the khaki-coloured sand and the green</p><p>shore wavelets, his body was bisected for a moment, like a</p><p>white worm. Then it crawled completely out of the green and</p><p>on to the khaki and lost itself among dozens and dozens of</p><p>other worms that were wriggling or just lolling about</p><p>between the sea and the sky.</p><p>I paddled my hands in the water and kicked my feet. The</p><p>egg-shaped rock didn't seem to be any nearer than it had</p><p>been when Cal and I had looked at it from the shore.</p><p>Then I saw it would be pointless to swim as far as the</p><p>rock, because my body would take that excuse to climb out</p><p>and lie in the sun, gathering strength to swim back.</p><p>The only thing to do was to drown myself then and there.</p><p>So I stopped.</p><p>I brought my hands to my breast, ducked my head, and</p><p>dived, using my hands to push the water aside. The water</p><p>pressed in on my eardrums and on my heart. I fanned myself</p><p>down, but before I knew where I was, the water had spat me</p><p>up into the sun, and the world was sparkling all about me like</p><p>blue and green and yellow semi-precious stones.</p><p>I dashed the water from my eyes.</p><p>I was panting, as after a strenuous exertion, but floating,</p><p>without effort.</p><p>I dived, and dived again, and each time popped up like a</p><p>cork.</p><p>The grey rock mocked me, bobbing on the water easy as a</p><p>lifebuoy.</p><p>I knew when I was beaten.</p><p>I turned back.</p><p>The flowers nodded like bright, knowledgeable children as</p><p>I trundled them down the hall.</p><p>I felt silly in my sage-green volunteer's uniform, and</p><p>superfluous, unlike the white-uniformed doctors and nurses,</p><p>or even the brown-uniformed scrubwomen with their mops</p><p>and their buckets of grimy water, who passed me without a</p><p>word.</p><p>If I had been getting paid, no matter how little, I could at</p><p>least count this a proper job, but all I got for a morning of</p><p>pushing round magazines and candy and flowers was a free</p><p>lunch.</p><p>My mother said the cure for thinking too much about</p><p>yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you,</p><p>so Teresa had arranged for me to sign on as a volunteer at our</p><p>local hospital. It was difficult to be a volunteer at this</p><p>hospital, because that's what all the Junior League women</p><p>wanted to do, but luckily for me, a lot of them were away on</p><p>vacation.</p><p>I had hoped they would send me to a ward with some</p><p>really gruesome cases, who would see through my numb,</p><p>dumb face to how I meant well, and be grateful. But the head</p><p>of the volunteers, a society lady at our church, took one look</p><p>at me and said, 'You're on maternity.'</p><p>So I rode the elevator up three flights to the maternity</p><p>ward and reported to the head nurse. She gave me the trolley</p><p>of flowers. I was supposed to put the right vases at the right</p><p>beds in the right rooms.</p><p>But before I came to the door of the first room I noticed</p><p>that a lot of the flowers were droopy and brown at the edges.</p><p>I thought it would be discouraging for a woman who'd just</p><p>had a baby to see somebody plonk down a big bouquet of</p><p>dead flowers in front of her, so I steered the trolley to a</p><p>wash-basin in an alcove in the hall and began to pick out all</p><p>the flowers that were dead.</p><p>Then I picked out all those that were dying.</p><p>There was no waste-basket in sight, so I crumpled the</p><p>flowers up and laid them in the deep white basin. The basin</p><p>felt cold as a tomb. I smiled. This must be how they laid the</p><p>bodies away in the hospital morgue. My gesture, in its small</p><p>way, echoed the larger gesture of the doctors and nurses.</p><p>I swung the door of the first room open and walked in,</p><p>dragging my trolley. A couple of nurses jumped up, and I had</p><p>a confused impression of shelves and medicine cabinets.</p><p>'What do you want?' one of the nurses demanded sternly. I</p><p>couldn't tell one from the other, they all looked just alike.</p><p>'I'm taking the flowers round.'</p><p>The nurse who had spoken put a hand on my shoulder and</p><p>led me out of the room, manoeuvring the trolley with her</p><p>free, expert hand. She flung open the swinging doors of the</p><p>room next to that one and bowed me in. Then she</p><p>disappeared.</p><p>I could hear giggles in the distance till a door shut and cut</p><p>them off.</p><p>There were six beds in the room, and each bed had a</p><p>woman in it. The women were all sitting up and knitting or</p><p>riffling through magazines or putting their hair in pincurls</p><p>and chattering like parrots in a parrot house.</p><p>I had thought they would be sleeping, or lying quiet and</p><p>pale, so I could tiptoe round without any trouble and match</p><p>the bed numbers to the numbers inked on adhesive tape on</p><p>the vases, but before I had a chance to get my bearings, a</p><p>bright, jazzy blonde with a sharp, triangular face beckoned to</p><p>me.</p><p>I approached her, leaving the trolley in the middle of the</p><p>floor, but then she made an impatient gesture, and I saw she</p><p>wanted me to bring the trolley too.</p><p>I wheeled the trolley over to her bedside with a helpful</p><p>smile.</p><p>'Hey, where's my larkspur?' A large, flabby lady from</p><p>across the ward raked me with an eagle eye.</p><p>The sharp-faced blonde bent over the trolley. 'Here are my</p><p>yellow roses,' she said, 'but they're all mixed up with some</p><p>lousy iris.'</p><p>Other voices joined the voices of the first two women.</p><p>They sounded cross and loud and full of complaint.</p><p>I was opening my mouth to explain that I had thrown a</p><p>bunch of dead larkspur in the sink, and that some of the vases</p><p>I had weeded out looked skimpy, there were so few flowers</p><p>left, so I had joined a few of the bouquets together to fill</p><p>them out, when the swinging door flew open and a nurse</p><p>stalked in to see what the commotion was.</p><p>'Listen, nurse, I had this big bunch of larkspur Larry</p><p>brought last night.'</p><p>'She's loused up my yellow roses.'</p><p>Unbuttoning the green uniform as I ran, I stuffed it, in</p><p>passing, into the washbasin with the rubbish of dead flowers.</p><p>Then I took the deserted side steps down to the street two at a</p><p>time, without meeting another soul.</p><p>'Which way is the graveyard?'</p><p>The Italian in the black leather jacket stopped and pointed</p><p>down an alley behind the white Methodist church. I</p><p>remembered the Methodist church. I had been a Methodist</p><p>for the first nine years of my life, before my father died and</p><p>we moved and turned Unitarian.</p><p>My mother had been a Catholic before she was a</p><p>Methodist. My grandmother and my grandfather and my</p><p>Aunt Libby were all still Catholics. My Aunt Libby had</p><p>broken away from the Catholic Church at the same time my</p><p>mother did, but then she'd fallen in love with an Italian</p><p>Catholic, so she'd gone back again.</p><p>Lately I had considered going into the Catholic Church</p><p>myself. I knew that Catholics thought killing yourself was an</p><p>awful sin. But perhaps, if this was so, they might have a good</p><p>way to persuade me out of it.</p><p>Of course, I didn't believe in life after death or the virgin</p><p>birth or the Inquisition or the infallibility of that little</p><p>monkey-faced Pope or anything, but I didn't have to let the</p><p>priest see this, I could just concentrate on my sin, and he</p><p>would help me repent.</p><p>The only trouble was, Church, even the Catholic Church,</p><p>didn't take up the whole of your life. No matter how much</p><p>you knelt and prayed, you still had to eat three meals a day</p><p>and have a job and live in the world.</p><p>I thought I might see how long you had to be a Catholic</p><p>before you became a nun, so I asked my mother, thinking</p><p>she'd know the best way to go about it.</p><p>My mother had laughed at me. 'Do you think they'll take</p><p>somebody like you, right off the bat? Why you've got to</p><p>know all these catechisms and credos and believe in them,</p><p>lock, stock and barrel. A girl with your sense!'</p><p>Still, I imagined myself going to some Boston priest—it</p><p>would have to be Boston, because I didn't want any priest in</p><p>my home town to know I'd thought of killing myself. Priests</p><p>were terrible gossips.</p><p>I would be in black, with my dead white face, and I would</p><p>throw myself at this priest's feet and say, 'O Father, help me.'</p><p>But that was before people had begun to look at me in a</p><p>funny way, like those</p><p>nurses in the hospital.</p><p>I was pretty sure the Catholics wouldn't take in any crazy</p><p>nuns. My Aunt Libby's husband had made a joke once, about</p><p>a nun that a nunnery sent to Teresa for a check-up. This nun</p><p>kept hearing harp notes in her ears and a voice saying over</p><p>and over, 'Alleluia!' Only she wasn't sure, on being closely</p><p>questioned, whether the voice was saying Alleluia or</p><p>Arizona. The nun had been born in Arizona. I think she</p><p>ended up in some asylum.</p><p>I tugged my black veil down to my chin and strode in</p><p>through the wrought-iron gates. I thought it odd that in all the</p><p>time my father had been buried in this graveyard, none of us</p><p>had ever visited him. My mother hadn't let us come to his</p><p>funeral because we were only children then, and he had died</p><p>in hospital, so the graveyard and even his death, had always</p><p>seemed unreal to me.</p><p>I had a great yearning, lately, to pay my father back for all</p><p>the years of neglect, and start tending his grave. I had always</p><p>been my father's favourite, and it seemed fitting I should take</p><p>on a mourning my mother had never bothered with.</p><p>I thought that if my father hadn't died, he would have</p><p>taught me all about insects, which was his speciality at the</p><p>university. He would also have taught me German and Greek</p><p>and Latin, which he knew, and perhaps I would be a</p><p>Lutheran. My father had been a Lutheran in Wisconsin, but</p><p>they were out of style in New England, so he had become a</p><p>lapsed Lutheran and then, my mother said, a bitter atheist.</p><p>The graveyard disappointed me. It lay at the outskirts of</p><p>the town, on low ground, like a rubbish dump, and as I</p><p>walked up and down the gravel paths, I could smell the</p><p>stagnant salt marshes in the distance.</p><p>The old part of the graveyard was all right, with its worn,</p><p>flat stones and lichen-bitten monuments, but I soon saw my</p><p>father must be buried in the modern part with dates in the</p><p>1940's.</p><p>The stones in the modern part were crude and cheap, and</p><p>here and there a grave was rimmed with marble, like an</p><p>oblong bathtub full of dirt, and rusty metal containers stuck</p><p>up about where the person's navel would be, full of plastic</p><p>flowers.</p><p>A fine drizzle started drifting down from the grey sky, and</p><p>I grew very depressed.</p><p>I couldn't find my father anywhere.</p><p>Low, shaggy clouds scudded over that part of the horizon</p><p>where the sea lay, behind the marshes and the beach shanty</p><p>settlements, and raindrops darkened the black mackintosh I</p><p>had bought that morning. A clammy dampness sank through</p><p>to my skin.</p><p>I had asked the salesgirl, 'Is it water-repellent?'</p><p>And she had said, 'No raincoat is ever water-repellent. It's</p><p>showerproofed.'</p><p>And when I asked her what showerproofed was, she told</p><p>me I had better buy an umbrella.</p><p>But I hadn't enough money for an umbrella. What with bus</p><p>fare in and out of Boston and peanuts and newspapers and</p><p>abnormal psychology books and trips to my old home town</p><p>by the sea, my New York fund was almost exhausted.</p><p>I had decided that when there was no more money in my</p><p>bank account I would do it, and that morning I'd spent the</p><p>last of it on the black raincoat.</p><p>Then I saw my father's gravestone.</p><p>It was crowded right up by another gravestone, head to</p><p>head, the way people are crowded in a charity ward when</p><p>there isn't enough space. The stone was of a molded pink</p><p>marble, like tinned salmon, and all there was on it was my</p><p>father's name and, under it, two dates, separated by a little</p><p>dash.</p><p>At the foot of the stone I arranged the rainy armful of</p><p>azaleas I had picked from a bush at the gateway of the</p><p>graveyard. Then my legs folded under me, and I sat down in</p><p>the sopping grass. I couldn't understand why I was crying so</p><p>hard.</p><p>Then I remembered that I had never cried for my father's</p><p>death.</p><p>My mother hadn't cried either. She had just smiled and</p><p>said what a merciful thing it was for him he had died,</p><p>because if he had lived he would have been crippled and an</p><p>invalid for life, and he couldn't have stood that, he would</p><p>rather have died than had that happen.</p><p>I laid my face to the smooth face of the marble and howled</p><p>my loss into the cold salt rain.</p><p>I knew just how to go about it.</p><p>The minute the car tyres crunched off down the drive and</p><p>the sound of the motor faded, I jumped out of bed and</p><p>hurried into my white blouse and green figured skirt and</p><p>black raincoat. The raincoat felt damp still, from the day</p><p>before, but that would soon cease to matter.</p><p>I went downstairs and picked up a pale blue envelope from</p><p>the dining-room table and scrawled on the back, in large,</p><p>painstaking letters: I am going for a long walk.</p><p>I propped the message where my mother would see it the</p><p>minute she came in.</p><p>Then I laughed.</p><p>I had forgotten the most important thing.</p><p>I ran upstairs and dragged a chair into my mother's closet.</p><p>Then I climbed up and reached for the small green strongbox</p><p>on the top shelf. I could have torn the metal cover off with</p><p>my bare hands, the lock was so feeble, but I wanted to do</p><p>things in a calm, orderly way.</p><p>I pulled out my mother's upper right-hand bureau drawer</p><p>and slipped the blue jewellery box from its hiding-place</p><p>under the scented Irish linen handkerchiefs. I unpinned the</p><p>little key from the dark velvet. Then I unlocked the</p><p>strongbox and took out the bottle of new pills. There were</p><p>more than I had hoped.</p><p>There were at least fifty.</p><p>If I had waited until my mother doled them out to me,</p><p>night by night, it would have taken me fifty nights to save up</p><p>enough. And in fifty nights, college would have opened, and</p><p>my brother would have come back from Germany, and it</p><p>would be too late.</p><p>I pinned the key back in the jewellery box among the</p><p>clutter of inexpensive chains and rings, put the jewellery box</p><p>back in the drawer under the handkerchiefs, returned the</p><p>strongbox to the closet shelf and set the chair on the rug in</p><p>the exact spot I had dragged it from.</p><p>Then I went downstairs and into the kitchen. I turned on</p><p>the tap and poured myself a tall glass of water. Then I took</p><p>the glass of water and the bottle of pills and went down into</p><p>the cellar.</p><p>A dim, undersea light filtered through the slits of the cellar</p><p>windows. Behind the oil burner, a dark gap showed in the</p><p>wall at about shoulder height and ran back under the</p><p>breezeway, out of sight. The breezeway had been added to</p><p>the house after the cellar was dug, and built out over this</p><p>secret, earth-bottomed crevice.</p><p>A few old, rotting fireplace logs blocked the hole mouth. I</p><p>shoved them back a bit. Then I set the glass of water and the</p><p>bottle of pills side by side on the flat surface of one of the</p><p>logs and started to heave myself up.</p><p>It took me a good while to heft my body into the gap, but</p><p>at last, after many tries, I managed it, and crouched at the</p><p>mouth of the darkness, like a troll.</p><p>The earth seemed friendly under my bare feet, but cold. I</p><p>wondered how long it had been since this particular square of</p><p>soil had seen the sun.</p><p>Then, one after the other, I lugged the heavy, dust-covered</p><p>logs across the hole mouth. The dark felt thick as velvet. I</p><p>reached for the glass and bottle, and, carefully, on my knees,</p><p>with bent head, crawled to the farthest wall.</p><p>Cobwebs touched my face with the softness of moths.</p><p>Wrapping my black coat round me like my own sweet</p><p>shadow, I unscrewed the bottle of pills and started taking</p><p>them swiftly, between gulps of water, one by one by one.</p><p>At first nothing happened, but as I approached the bottom</p><p>of the bottle, red and blue lights began to flash before my</p><p>eyes. The bottle slid from my fingers and I lay down.</p><p>The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all</p><p>the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it</p><p>gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep.</p><p>Chapter Fourteen</p><p>It was completely dark.</p><p>I felt the darkness, but nothing else, and my head rose,</p><p>feeling it, like the head of a worm. Someone was moaning.</p><p>Then a great, hard weight smashed against my cheek like a</p><p>stone wall and the moaning stopped.</p><p>The silence surged back, smoothing itself as black water</p><p>smooths to its old surface calm over a dropped stone.</p><p>A cool wind</p><p>rushed by. I was being transported at</p><p>enormous speed down a tunnel into the earth. Then the wind</p><p>stopped. There was a rumbling, as of many voices, protesting</p><p>and disagreeing in the distance. Then the voices stopped.</p><p>A chisel cracked down on my eye, and a slit of light</p><p>opened, like a mouth or a wound, till the darkness clamped</p><p>shut on it again. I tried to roll away from the direction of the</p><p>light, but hands wrapped round my limbs like mummy</p><p>bands, and I couldn't move.</p><p>I began to think I must be in an underground chamber, lit</p><p>by blinding lights, and that the chamber was full of people</p><p>who for some reason were holding me down.</p><p>Then the chisel struck again, and the light leapt into my</p><p>head, and through the thick, warm, furry dark, a voice cried,</p><p>'Mother!'</p><p>Air breathed and played over my face.</p><p>I felt the shape of a room around me, a big room with open</p><p>windows. A pillow moulded itself under my head, and my</p><p>body floated, without pressure, between thin sheets.</p><p>Then I felt warmth, like a hand on my face. I must be lying</p><p>in the sun. If I opened my eyes, I would see colours and</p><p>shapes bending in upon me like nurses.</p><p>I opened my eyes.</p><p>It was completely dark.</p><p>Somebody was breathing beside me.</p><p>'I can't see,' I said.</p><p>A cheery voice spoke out of the dark. 'There are lots of</p><p>blind people in the world. You'll marry a nice blind man</p><p>some day.'</p><p>The man with the chisel had come back.</p><p>Why do you bother?' I said. 'It's no use.'</p><p>'You mustn't talk like that.' His fingers probed at the great,</p><p>aching boss over my left eye. Then he loosened something,</p><p>and a ragged gap of light appeared, like the hole in a wall. A</p><p>man's head peered round the edge of it.</p><p>'Can you see me?'</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>'Can you see anything else?'</p><p>Then I remembered. 'I can't see anything.' The gap</p><p>narrowed and went dark. 'I'm blind.'</p><p>'Nonsense! Who told you that?'</p><p>'The nurse.'</p><p>The man snorted. He finished taping the bandage back</p><p>over my eye. 'You are a very lucky girl. Your sight is</p><p>perfectly intact.'</p><p>'Somebody to see you.'</p><p>The nurse beamed and disappeared.</p><p>My mother came smiling round the foot of the bed. She</p><p>was wearing a dress with purple cartwheels on it and she</p><p>looked awful.</p><p>A big tall boy followed her. At first I couldn't make out</p><p>who it was, because my eye only opened a short way, but</p><p>then I saw it was my brother.</p><p>'They said you wanted to see me.'</p><p>My mother perched on the edge of the bed and laid a hand</p><p>on my leg. She looked loving and reproachful, and I wanted</p><p>her to go away.</p><p>'I didn't think I said anything.'</p><p>'They said you called for me.' She seemed ready to cry.</p><p>Her face puckered up and quivered like a pale jelly.</p><p>'How are you?' my brother said.</p><p>I looked my mother in the eye.</p><p>'The same,' I said.</p><p>'You have a visitor.'</p><p>'I don't want a visitor.'</p><p>The nurse bustled out and whispered to somebody in the</p><p>hall. Then she came back. 'He'd very much like to see you.'</p><p>I looked down at the yellow legs sticking out of the</p><p>unfamiliar white silk pyjamas they had dressed me in. The</p><p>skin shook flabbily when I moved, as if there wasn't a muscle</p><p>in it, and it was covered with a short, thick stubble of black</p><p>hair.</p><p>'Who is it?'</p><p>'Somebody you know.'</p><p>'What's his name?'</p><p>'George Bakewell.'</p><p>'I don't know any George Bakewell.'</p><p>'He says he knows you.'</p><p>Then the nurse went out, and a very familiar boy came in</p><p>and said, 'Mind if I sit on the edge of your bed?'</p><p>He was wearing a white coat, and I could see a</p><p>stethoscope poking out of his pocket. I thought it must be</p><p>somebody I knew dressed up as a doctor.</p><p>I had meant to cover my legs if anybody came in, but now</p><p>I saw it was too late, so I let them stick out, just as they were,</p><p>disgusting and ugly.</p><p>'That's me,' I thought. 'That's what I am.'</p><p>'You remember me, don't you, Esther?'</p><p>I squinted at the boy's face through the crack of my good</p><p>eye. The other eye hadn't opened yet, but the eye doctor said</p><p>it would be all right in a few days.</p><p>The boy looked at me as if I were some exciting new zoo</p><p>animal and he was about to burst out laughing.</p><p>'You remember me, don't you, Esther?' He spoke slowly,</p><p>the way one speaks to a dull child. 'I'm George Bakewell. I</p><p>go to your church. You dated my room-mate once at</p><p>Amherst.'</p><p>I thought I placed the boy's face then. It hovered dimly at</p><p>the rim of memory—the sort of face to which I would never</p><p>bother to attach a name.</p><p>'What are you doing here?'</p><p>'I'm houseman at this hospital.'</p><p>How could this George Bakewell have become a doctor so</p><p>suddenly? I wondered. He didn't really know me, either. He</p><p>just wanted to see what a girl who was crazy enough to kill</p><p>herself looked like.</p><p>I turned my face to the wall.</p><p>'Get out,' I said. 'Get the hell out and don't come back.'</p><p>'I want to see a mirror.'</p><p>The nurse hummed busily as she opened one drawer after</p><p>another, stuffing the new underclothes and blouses and skirts</p><p>and pyjamas my mother had bought me into the black patent</p><p>leather overnight case.</p><p>'Why can't I see a mirror?'</p><p>I had been dressed in a sheath, striped grey and white, like</p><p>mattress ticking, with a wide, shiny red belt, and they had</p><p>propped me up in an armchair.</p><p>'Why can't I?'</p><p>'Because you better not.' The nurse shut the lid of the</p><p>overnight case with a little snap.</p><p>'Why?'</p><p>'Because you don't look very pretty.'</p><p>'Oh, just let me see.'</p><p>The nurse sighed and opened the top bureau drawer. She</p><p>took out a large mirror in a wooden frame that matched the</p><p>wood of the bureau and handed it to me.</p><p>At first I didn't see what the trouble was. It wasn't a mirror</p><p>at all, but a picture.</p><p>You couldn't tell whether the person in the picture was a</p><p>man or a woman, because their hair was shaved off and</p><p>sprouted in bristly chicken-feather tufts all over their head.</p><p>One side of the person's face was purple, and bulged out in a</p><p>shapeless way, shading to green along the edges, and then to</p><p>a sallow yellow. The person's mouth was pale brown, with a</p><p>rose-coloured sore at either corner.</p><p>The most startling thing about the face was its supernatural</p><p>conglomeration of bright colours.</p><p>I smiled.</p><p>The mouth in the mirror cracked into a grin.</p><p>A minute after the crash another nurse ran in. She took one</p><p>look at the broken mirror, and at me, standing over the blind,</p><p>white pieces, and hustled the young nurse out of the room.</p><p>'Didn't I tell you,' I could hear her say.</p><p>'But I only...'</p><p>'Didn't I tell you!'</p><p>I listened with mild interest. Anybody could drop a mirror.</p><p>I didn't see why they should get so stirred up.</p><p>The other, older nurse came back into the room. She stood</p><p>there, arms folded, staring hard at me.</p><p>'Seven years' bad luck.'</p><p>'What?'</p><p>'I said,' the nurse raised her voice, as if speaking to a deaf</p><p>person, 'seven years' bad luck.'</p><p>The young nurse returned with a dustpan and brush and</p><p>began to sweep up the glittery splinters.</p><p>'That's only a superstition,' I said then.</p><p>'Huh!' The second nurse addressed herself to the nurse on</p><p>her hands and knees as if I wasn't there. 'At you-know-where</p><p>they'll take care of her!'</p><p>From the back window of the ambulance I could see street</p><p>after familiar street funnelling off into a summery green</p><p>distance. My mother sat on one side of me, and my brother</p><p>on the other.</p><p>I had pretended I didn't know why they were moving me</p><p>from the hospital in my home town to a city hospital, to see</p><p>what they would say.</p><p>'They want you to be in a special ward,' my mother said.</p><p>'They don't have that sort of ward at our hospital.'</p><p>'I liked it where I was.'</p><p>My mother's mouth tightened. 'You should have behaved</p><p>better, then.'</p><p>'What?'</p><p>'You shouldn't have broken that mirror. Then maybe they'd</p><p>have let you stay.'</p><p>But of course I knew the mirror had nothing to do with it.</p><p>I sat in bed with the covers up to my neck.</p><p>'Why can't I get up? I'm not sick.'</p><p>'Ward rounds,' the nurse said. 'You can get up after ward</p><p>rounds.' She shoved the bed-curtains back and revealed a fat</p><p>young Italian woman in the next bed.</p><p>The Italian woman had a mass of tight black curls, starting</p><p>at her forehead, that rose in a mountainous pompadour and</p><p>cascaded down her back. Whenever she</p><p>moved, the huge</p><p>arrangement of hair moved with her, as if made of stiff black</p><p>paper.</p><p>The woman looked at me and giggled. 'Why are you here?'</p><p>She didn't wait for an answer. 'I'm here on account of my</p><p>French-Canadian mother-in-law.' She giggled again. 'My</p><p>husband knows I can't stand her, and still he said she could</p><p>come and visit us, and when she came, my tongue stuck out</p><p>of my head, I couldn't stop it. They ran me into Emergency</p><p>and then they put me up here,' she lowered her voice, 'along</p><p>with the nuts.' Then she said, 'What's the matter with you?'</p><p>I turned her my full face, with the bulging purple and</p><p>green eye. 'I tried to kill myself.'</p><p>The woman stared at me. Then, hastily, she snatched up a</p><p>movie magazine from her bed-table and pretended to be</p><p>reading.</p><p>The swinging door opposite my bed flew open, and a</p><p>whole troop of young boys and girls in white coats came in,</p><p>with an older, grey-haired man. They were all smiling with</p><p>bright, artificial smiles. They grouped themselves at the foot</p><p>of my bed.</p><p>'And how are you feeling this morning, Miss Greenwood?'</p><p>I tried to decide which one of them had spoken. I hate</p><p>saying anything to a group of people. When I talk to a group</p><p>of people I always have to single out one and talk to him, and</p><p>all the while I am talking I feel the others are peering at me</p><p>and taking unfair advantage. I also hate people to ask</p><p>cheerfully how you are when they know you're feeling like</p><p>hell and expect you to say 'Fine'.</p><p>'I feel lousy.'</p><p>'Lousy. Hmm,' somebody said, and a boy ducked his head</p><p>with a little smile. Somebody else scribbled something on a</p><p>clipboard. Then somebody pulled a straight, solemn face and</p><p>said, 'And why do you feel lousy?'</p><p>I thought some of the boys and girls in that bright group</p><p>might well be friends of Buddy Willard. They would know I</p><p>knew him, and they would be curious to see me, and</p><p>afterwards they would gossip about me among themselves. I</p><p>wanted to be where nobody I knew could ever come.</p><p>'I can't sleep...'</p><p>They interrupted me. 'But the nurse says you slept last</p><p>night.' I looked round the crescent of fresh, strange faces.</p><p>'I can't read.' I raised my voice. 'I can't eat.' It occurred to</p><p>me I'd been eating ravenously ever since I came to.</p><p>The people in the group had turned from me and were</p><p>murmuring in low voices to each other. Finally, the grey-</p><p>haired man stepped out.</p><p>'Thank you, Miss Greenwood. You will be seen by one of</p><p>the staff doctors presently.'</p><p>Then the group moved on to the bed of the Italian woman.</p><p>'And how are you feeling today, Mrs...' somebody said,</p><p>and the name sounded long and full of l's, like Mrs</p><p>Tomolillo.</p><p>Mrs Tomolillo giggled. 'Oh, I'm fine, doctor. I'm just fine.'</p><p>Then she lowered her voice and whispered something I</p><p>couldn't hear. One or two people in the group glanced in my</p><p>direction. Then somebody said, 'All right, Mrs Tomolillo,'</p><p>and somebody stepped out and pulled the bed-curtain</p><p>between us like a white wall.</p><p>I sat on one end of a wooden bench in the grassy square</p><p>between the four brick walls of the hospital. My mother, in</p><p>her purple cartwheel dress, sat at the other end. She had her</p><p>head propped in her hand, index finger on her cheek, and</p><p>thumb under her chin.</p><p>Mrs Tomolillo was sitting with some dark-haired, laughing</p><p>Italians on the next bench down. Every time my mother</p><p>moved, Mrs Tomolillo imitated her. Now Mrs Tomolillo was</p><p>sitting with her index finger on her cheek and her thumb</p><p>under her chin, and her head tilted wistfully to one side.</p><p>'Don't move,' I told my mother in a low voice. 'That</p><p>woman's imitating you.'</p><p>My mother turned to glance round, but quick as a wink,</p><p>Mrs Tomolillo dropped her fat white hands in her lap and</p><p>started talking vigorously to her friends.</p><p>'Why no, she's not,' my mother said. 'She's not even paying</p><p>any attention to us.'</p><p>But the minute my mother turned round to me again, Mrs</p><p>Tomolillo matched the tips of her fingers together the way</p><p>my mother had just done and cast a black, mocking look at</p><p>me.</p><p>The lawn was white with doctors.</p><p>All the time my mother and I had been sitting there, in the</p><p>narrow cone of sun that shone down between the tall brick</p><p>walls, doctors had been coming up to me and introducing</p><p>themselves. 'I'm Doctor Soandso, I'm Doctor Soandso.'</p><p>Some of them looked so young I knew they couldn't be</p><p>proper doctors, and one of them had a queer name that</p><p>sounded just like Doctor Syphilis, so I began to look out for</p><p>suspicious, fake names, and sure enough, a dark-haired</p><p>fellow who looked very like Doctor Gordon, except that he</p><p>had black skin where Doctor Gordon's skin was white, came</p><p>up and said, 'I'm Doctor Pancreas,' and shook my hand.</p><p>After introducing themselves, the doctors all stood within</p><p>listening distance, only I couldn't tell my mother that they</p><p>were taking down every word we said without their hearing</p><p>me, so I leaned over and whispered into her ear.</p><p>My mother drew back sharply.</p><p>'Oh, Esther, I wish you would co-operate. They say you</p><p>don't co-operate. They say you won't talk to any of the</p><p>doctors or make anything in Occupational Therapy...'</p><p>'I've got to get out of here,' I told her meaningly. 'Then I'd</p><p>be all right. You got me in here,' I said. 'You get me out.'</p><p>I thought if only I could persuade my mother to get me out</p><p>of the hospital I could work on her sympathies, like that boy</p><p>with brain disease in the play, and convince her what was the</p><p>best thing to do.</p><p>To my surprise, my mother said, 'All right, I'll try to get</p><p>you out—even if only to a better place. If I try to get you</p><p>out,' she laid a hand on my knee, 'promise you'll be good?'</p><p>I spun round and glared straight at Doctor Syphilis, who</p><p>stood at my elbow taking notes on a tiny, almost invisible</p><p>pad. 'I promise,' I said in a loud, conspicuous voice.</p><p>The negro wheeled the food cart into the patients' dining-</p><p>room. The Psychiatric Ward at the hospital was very small—</p><p>just two corridors in an L-shape, lined with rooms, and an</p><p>alcove of beds behind the OT shop, where I was, and a little</p><p>area with a table and a few seats by a window in the corner</p><p>of the L, which was our lounge and dining-room.</p><p>Usually it was a shrunken old white man that brought our</p><p>food, but today it was a negro. The negro was with a woman</p><p>in blue stiletto heels, and she was telling him what to do. The</p><p>negro kept grinning and chuckling in a silly way.</p><p>Then he carried a tray over to our table with three lidded</p><p>tin tureens on it, and started banging the tureens down. The</p><p>woman left the room, locking the door behind her. All the</p><p>time the negro was banging down the tureens and then the</p><p>dinted silver and the thick, white china plates, he gawped at</p><p>us with big, rolling eyes.</p><p>I could tell we were his first crazy people.</p><p>Nobody at the table made a move to take the lids off the</p><p>tin tureens, and the nurse stood back to see if any of us</p><p>would take the lids off before she came to do it. Usually Mrs</p><p>Tomolillo had taken the lids off and dished out everybody's</p><p>food like a little mother, but then they sent her home, and</p><p>nobody seemed to want to take her place.</p><p>I was starving, so I lifted the lid off the first bowl.</p><p>'That's very nice of you, Esther,' the nurse said pleasantly.</p><p>'Would you like to take some beans and pass them round to</p><p>the others?'</p><p>I dished myself out a helping of green string beans and</p><p>turned to pass the tureen to the enormous red-headed woman</p><p>at my right. This was the first time the red-headed woman</p><p>had been allowed up to the table. I had seen her once, at the</p><p>very end of the L-shaped corridor, standing in front of an</p><p>open door with bars on the square, inset window.</p><p>She had been yelling and laughing in a rude way and</p><p>slapping her thighs at the passing doctors, and the white-</p><p>jacketed attendant who took care of the people in that end of</p><p>the ward was leaning against the hall radiator, laughing</p><p>himself sick.</p><p>The red-headed woman snatched the tureen from me and</p><p>upended it on her plate. Beans mountained up in front of her</p><p>and scattered over on to her lap and on to the floor like stiff,</p><p>green straws.</p><p>'Oh, Mrs Mole!' the nurse said in</p><p>a sad voice. 'I think you</p><p>better eat in your room today.'</p><p>And she returned most of the beans to the tureen and gave</p><p>it to the person next to Mrs Mole and led Mrs Mole off. All</p><p>the way down the hall to her room, Mrs Mole kept turning</p><p>round and making leering faces at us, and ugly, oinking</p><p>noises.</p><p>The negro had come back and was starting to collect the</p><p>empty plates of people who hadn't dished out any beans yet.</p><p>'We're not done,' I told him. 'You can just wait.'</p><p>'Mah, mah!' The negro widened his eyes in mock wonder.</p><p>He glanced round. The nurse had not yet returned from</p><p>locking up Mrs Mole. The negro made me an insolent bow.</p><p>'Miss Mucky-Muck,' he said under his breath.</p><p>I lifted the lid off the second tureen and uncovered a</p><p>wodge of macaroni, stone-cold and stuck together in a gluey</p><p>paste. The third and last tureen was chock-full of baked</p><p>beans.</p><p>Now I knew perfectly well you didn't serve two kinds of</p><p>beans together at a meal. Beans and carrots, or beans and</p><p>peas, maybe, but never beans and beans. The negro was just</p><p>trying to see how much we would take.</p><p>The nurse came back, and the negro edged off at a</p><p>distance. I ate as much as I could of the baked beans. Then I</p><p>rose from the table, passing round to the side where the nurse</p><p>couldn't see me below the waist, and behind the negro, who</p><p>was clearing the dirty plates. I drew my foot back and gave</p><p>him a sharp, hard kick on the calf of the leg.</p><p>The negro leapt away with a yelp and rolled his eyes at</p><p>me. 'Oh Miz, oh Miz,' he moaned, rubbing his leg. 'You</p><p>shouldn't of done that, you shouldn't, you reely shouldn't.'</p><p>'That's what you get,' I said, and stared him in the eye.</p><p>'Don't you want to get up today?'</p><p>'No.' I huddled down more deeply in the bed and pulled</p><p>the sheet up over my head. Then I lifted a corner of the sheet</p><p>and peered out. The nurse was shaking down the</p><p>thermometer she had just removed from my mouth.</p><p>'You see, it's normal.' I had looked at the thermometer</p><p>before she came to collect it, the way I always did. 'You see,</p><p>it's normal, what do you keep taking it for?'</p><p>I wanted to tell her that if only something were wrong with</p><p>my body it would be fine, I would rather have anything</p><p>wrong with my body than something wrong with my head,</p><p>but the idea seemed so involved and wearisome that I didn't</p><p>say anything. I only burrowed down further in the bed.</p><p>Then, through the sheet, I felt a slight, annoying pressure</p><p>on my leg. I peeped out. The nurse had set her tray of</p><p>thermometers on my bed while she turned her back and took</p><p>the pulse of the person who lay next to me, in Mrs</p><p>Tomolillo's place.</p><p>A heavy naughtiness pricked through my veins, irritating</p><p>and attractive as the hurt of a loose tooth. I yawned and</p><p>stirred, as if about to turn over, and edged my foot under the</p><p>box.</p><p>'Oh!' The nurse's cry sounded like a cry for help, and</p><p>another nurse came running. 'Look what you've done!'</p><p>I poked my head out of the covers and stared over the edge</p><p>of the bed. Around the overturned enamel tray, a star of</p><p>thermometer shards glittered, and balls of mercury trembled</p><p>like celestial dew.</p><p>'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It was an accident.'</p><p>The second nurse fixed me with a baleful eye. 'You did it</p><p>on purpose. I saw you.'</p><p>Then she hurried off, and almost immediately two</p><p>attendants came and wheeled me, bed and all, down to Mrs</p><p>Mole's old room, but not before I had scooped up a ball of</p><p>mercury. Soon after they had locked the door, I could see the</p><p>negro's face, a molasses-coloured moon, risen at the window</p><p>grating, but I pretended not to notice.</p><p>I opened my fingers a crack, like a child with a secret, and</p><p>smiled at the silver globe cupped in my palm. If I dropped it,</p><p>it would break into a million little replicas of itself, and if I</p><p>pushed them near each other, they would fuse, without a</p><p>crack, into one whole again.</p><p>I smiled and smiled at the small silver ball.</p><p>I couldn't imagine what they had done with Mrs Mole.</p><p>Chapter Fifteen</p><p>Philomena Guinea's black Cadillac eased through the tight,</p><p>five o'clock traffic like a ceremonial car. Soon it would cross</p><p>one of the brief bridges that arched the Charles, and I would,</p><p>without thinking, open the door and plunge out through the</p><p>stream of traffic to the rail of the bridge. One jump, and the</p><p>water would be over my head.</p><p>Idly I twisted a kleenex to small, pill-sized pellets between</p><p>my fingers and watched my chance. I sat in the middle of the</p><p>back seat of the Cadillac, my mother on one side of me, and</p><p>my brother on the other, both leaning slightly forward, like</p><p>diagonal bars, one across each car door.</p><p>In front of me I could see the spam-coloured expanse of</p><p>the chauffeur's neck, sandwiched between a blue cap and the</p><p>shoulders of a bluejacket and, next to him, like a frail, exotic</p><p>bird, the silver hair and emerald-feathered hat of Philomena</p><p>Guinea, the famous novelist.</p><p>I wasn't quite sure why Mrs Guinea had turned up. All I</p><p>knew was that she had interested herself in my case and that</p><p>at one time, at the peak of her career, she had been in an</p><p>asylum as well.</p><p>My mother said that Mrs Guinea had sent her a telegram</p><p>from the Bahamas, where she read about me in a Boston</p><p>paper. Mrs Guinea had telegrammed, 'Is there a boy in the</p><p>case?'</p><p>If there was a boy in the case, Mrs Guinea couldn't, of</p><p>course, have anything to do with it.</p><p>But my mother had telegrammed back, 'No, it is Esther's</p><p>writing. She thinks she will never write again.'</p><p>So Mrs Guinea had flown back to Boston and taken me</p><p>out of the cramped city hospital ward, and now she was</p><p>driving me to a private hospital that had grounds and golf</p><p>courses and gardens, like a country club, where she would</p><p>pay for me, as if I had a scholarship, until the doctors she</p><p>knew of there had made me well.</p><p>My mother told me I should be grateful. She said I had</p><p>used up almost all her money, and if it weren't for Mrs</p><p>Guinea she didn't know where I'd be. I knew where I'd be,</p><p>though. I'd be in the big state hospital in the country, cheek</p><p>by jowl to this private place.</p><p>I knew I should be grateful to Mrs Guinea, only I couldn't</p><p>feel a thing. If Mrs Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe,</p><p>or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn't have made one scrap</p><p>of difference to me, because wherever I sat—on the deck of a</p><p>ship or at a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok—I would be</p><p>sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour</p><p>air.</p><p>Blue sky opened its dome above the river, and the river</p><p>was dotted with sails. I readied myself, but immediately my</p><p>mother and my brother each laid one hand on a door handle.</p><p>The tyres hummed briefly over the grill of the bridge. Water,</p><p>sails, blue sky and suspended gulls flashed by like an</p><p>improbable postcard, and we were across.</p><p>I sank back in the grey, plush seat and closed my eyes. The</p><p>air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn't stir.</p><p>I had my own room again.</p><p>It reminded me of the room in Doctor Gordon's hospital—</p><p>a bed, a bureau, a closet, a table and chair. A window with a</p><p>screen, but no bars. My room was on the first floor, and the</p><p>window, a short distance above the pine-needle-padded</p><p>ground, overlooked a wooded yard ringed by a red brick</p><p>wall. If I jumped I wouldn't even bruise my knees. The inner</p><p>surface of the tall wall seemed smooth as glass.</p><p>The journey over the bridge had unnerved me.</p><p>I had missed a perfectly good chance. The river water</p><p>passed me by like an untouched drink. I suspected that even</p><p>if my mother and brother had not been there I would have</p><p>made no move to jump.</p><p>When I enrolled in the main building of the hospital, a</p><p>slim young woman had come up and introduced herself. 'My</p><p>name is Doctor Nolan. I am to be Esther's doctor.'</p><p>I was surprised to have a woman. I didn't think they had</p><p>woman psychiatrists. This woman was a cross between</p><p>Myrna Loy and my mother. She wore a white blouse and a</p><p>full skirt gathered at the waist by a wide leather belt, and</p><p>stylish, crescent-shaped spectacles.</p><p>But after a nurse had led me across the lawn to the gloomy</p><p>brick building called Caplan, where I would live, Doctor</p><p>Nolan didn't come to see me, a whole</p><p>lot of strange men</p><p>came instead.</p><p>I lay on my bed under the thick white blanket, and they</p><p>entered my room, one by one, and introduced themselves. I</p><p>couldn't understand why there should be so many of them, or</p><p>why they would want to introduce themselves, and I began to</p><p>think they were testing me, to see if I noticed there were too</p><p>many of them, and I grew wary.</p><p>Finally, a handsome, white-haired doctor came in and said</p><p>he was the director of the hospital. Then he started talking</p><p>about the Pilgrims and Indians and who had the land after</p><p>them, and what rivers ran nearby, and who had built the first</p><p>hospital, and how it had burned down, and who had built the</p><p>next hospital, until I thought he must be waiting to see when</p><p>I would interrupt him and tell him I knew all that about rivers</p><p>and Pilgrims was a lot of nonsense.</p><p>But then I thought some of it might be true, so I tried to</p><p>sort out what was likely to be true and what wasn't, only</p><p>before I could do that, he had said good-bye.</p><p>I waited till I heard the voices of all the doctors die away.</p><p>Then I threw back the white blanket and put on my shoes and</p><p>walked out into the hall. Nobody stopped me, so I walked</p><p>round the corner of my wing of the hall and down another,</p><p>longer hall, past an open dining room.</p><p>A maid in a green uniform was setting the tables for</p><p>supper. There were white linen table-cloths and glasses and</p><p>paper napkins. I stored the fact that there were real glasses in</p><p>the corner of my mind the way a squirrel stores a nut. At the</p><p>city hospital we had drunk out of paper cups and had no</p><p>knives to cut our meat. The meat had always been so</p><p>overcooked we could cut it with a fork.</p><p>Finally I arrived at a big lounge with shabby furniture and</p><p>a threadbare rug. A girl with a round pasty face and short</p><p>black hair was sitting in an armchair, reading a magazine.</p><p>She reminded me of a Girl Scout leader I'd had once. I</p><p>glanced at her feet, and sure enough, she wore those flat</p><p>brown leather shoes with fringed tongues lapping down over</p><p>the front that are supposed to be so sporty, and the ends of</p><p>the laces were knobbed with little imitation acorns.</p><p>The girl raised her eyes and smiled. 'I'm Valerie. Who are</p><p>you?'</p><p>I pretended I hadn't heard and walked out of the lounge to</p><p>the end of the next wing. On the way, I passed a waist-high</p><p>door behind which I saw some nurses.</p><p>'Where is everybody?'</p><p>'Out.' The nurse was writing something over and over on</p><p>little pieces of adhesive tape. I leaned across the gate of the</p><p>door to see what she was writing, and it was E. Greenwood,</p><p>E. Greenwood, E. Greenwood, E. Greenwood.</p><p>'Out where?'</p><p>'Oh, OT, the golf course, playing badminton.'</p><p>I noticed a pile of clothes on a chair beside the nurse. They</p><p>were the same clothes the nurse in the first hospital had been</p><p>packing into the patent leather case when I broke the mirror.</p><p>The nurse began sticking the labels on to the clothes.</p><p>I walked back to the lounge. I couldn't understand what</p><p>these people were doing, playing badminton and golf. They</p><p>mustn't be really sick at all, to do that.</p><p>I sat down near Valerie and observed her carefully. Yes, I</p><p>thought, she might just as well be in a Girl Scout camp. She</p><p>was reading her tatty copy of Vogue with intense interest.</p><p>'What the hell is she doing here,' I wondered. 'There's</p><p>nothing the matter with her.'</p><p>'Do you mind if I smoke?' Doctor Nolan leaned back in the</p><p>armchair next to my bed.</p><p>I said no, I liked the smell of smoke. I thought if Doctor</p><p>Nolan smoked, she might stay longer. This was the first time</p><p>she had come to talk with me. When she left I would simply</p><p>lapse into the old blankness.</p><p>'Tell me about Doctor Gordon,' Doctor Nolan said</p><p>suddenly. 'Did you like him?'</p><p>I gave Doctor Nolan a wary look. I thought the doctors</p><p>must all be in it together, and that somewhere in this hospital,</p><p>in a hidden corner, there reposed a machine exactly like</p><p>Doctor Gordon's, ready to jolt me out of my skin.</p><p>'No,' I said. 'I didn't like him at all.'</p><p>'That's interesting. Why?'</p><p>'I didn't like what he did to me,'</p><p>'Did to you?'</p><p>I told Doctor Nolan about the machine, and the blue</p><p>flashes, and the jolting and the noise. While I was telling her</p><p>she went very still.</p><p>'That was a mistake,' she said then. 'It's not supposed to be</p><p>like that.'</p><p>I stared at her.</p><p>'If it's done properly,' Doctor Nolan said, 'it's like going to</p><p>sleep.'</p><p>'If anyone does that to me again I'll kill myself.'</p><p>Doctor Nolan said firmly, 'You won't have any shock</p><p>treatments here. Or if you do,' she amended, 'I'll tell you</p><p>about it beforehand, and I promise you it won't be anything</p><p>like what you had before. Why,' she finished, 'some people</p><p>even like them.'</p><p>After Doctor Nolan had gone I found a box of matches on</p><p>the window-sill. It wasn't an ordinary-size box, but an</p><p>extremely tiny box. I opened it and exposed a row of little</p><p>white sticks with pinks tips. I tried to light one, and it</p><p>crumpled in my hand.</p><p>I couldn't think why Doctor Nolan would have left me</p><p>such a stupid thing. Perhaps she wanted to see if I would give</p><p>it back. Carefully I stored the toy matches in the hem of my</p><p>new wool bathrobe. If Doctor Nolan asked me for the</p><p>matches, I would say I'd thought they were made of candy</p><p>and had eaten them.</p><p>A new woman had moved into the room next to mine.</p><p>I thought she must be the only person in the building who</p><p>was newer than I was, so she wouldn't know how really bad I</p><p>was, the way the rest did. I thought I might go in and make</p><p>friends.</p><p>The woman was lying on her bed in a purple dress that</p><p>fastened at the neck with a cameo brooch and reached</p><p>midway between her knees and her shoes. She had rusty hair</p><p>knotted in a schoolmarmish bun, and thin, silver-rimmed</p><p>spectacles attached to her breast pocket with a black elastic.</p><p>'Hello,' I said conversationally, sitting down on the edge of</p><p>the bed. 'My name's Esther, what's your name?'</p><p>The woman didn't stir, she just stared up at the ceiling. I</p><p>felt hurt. I thought maybe Valerie or somebody had told her</p><p>when she first came in how stupid I was.</p><p>A nurse popped her head in at the door.</p><p>'Oh, there you are,' she said to me. 'Visiting Miss Norris.</p><p>How nice!' And she disappeared again.</p><p>I don't know how long I sat there, watching the woman in</p><p>purple and wondering if her pursed, pink lips would open,</p><p>and if they did open, what they would say.</p><p>Finally, without speaking or looking at me, Miss Norris</p><p>swung her feet in their high, black, buttoned boots over the</p><p>other side of the bed and walked out of the room. I thought</p><p>she might be trying to get rid of me in a subtle way. Quietly,</p><p>at a little distance, I followed her down the hall.</p><p>Miss Norris reached the door of the dining-room and</p><p>paused. All the way to the dining-room she had walked</p><p>precisely, placing her feet in the very centre of the cabbage</p><p>roses that twined through the pattern of the carpet. She</p><p>waited a moment and then, one by one, lifted her feet over</p><p>the door-sill and into the dining-room as though stepping</p><p>over an invisible shin-high stile.</p><p>She sat down at one of the round, linen-covered tables and</p><p>unfolded a napkin in her lap.</p><p>'It's not supper for an hour yet,' the cook called out of the</p><p>kitchen.</p><p>But Miss Norris didn't answer. She just stared straight</p><p>ahead of her in a polite way.</p><p>I pulled up a chair opposite her at the table and unfolded a</p><p>napkin. We didn't speak, but sat there, in a close, sisterly</p><p>silence, until the gong for supper sounded down the hall.</p><p>'Lie down,' the nurse said. 'I'm going to give you another</p><p>injection.'</p><p>I rolled over on my stomach on the bed and hitched up my</p><p>skirt. Then I pulled down the trousers of my silk pyjamas.</p><p>'My word, what all have you got under there?'</p><p>'Pyjamas. So I won't have to bother getting in and out of</p><p>them all the time.'</p><p>The nurse made a little clucking noise. Then she said,</p><p>'Which side?' It was an old joke.</p><p>I raised my head and glanced back at my bare buttocks.</p><p>They were bruised purple and green and blue from past</p><p>injections. The left side looked darker than the right.</p><p>'The right.'</p><p>'You name it.' The nurse jabbed the needle in,</p><p>and I</p><p>winced, savouring the tiny hurt. Three times each day the</p><p>nurses injected me, and about an hour after each injection</p><p>they gave me a cup of sugary fruit juice and stood by,</p><p>watching me drink it.</p><p>'Lucky you,' Valerie said. 'You're on insulin.'</p><p>'Nothing happens.'</p><p>'Oh, it will. I've had it. Tell me when you get a reaction.'</p><p>But I never seemed to get any reaction. I just grew fatter</p><p>and fatter. Already I filled the new, too-big clothes my</p><p>mother had bought, and when I peered down at my plump</p><p>stomach and my broad hips I thought it was a good thing Mrs</p><p>Guinea hadn't seen me like this, because I looked just as if I</p><p>were going to have a baby.</p><p>'Have you seen my scars?'</p><p>Valerie pushed aside her black bang and indicated two pale</p><p>marks, one on either side of her forehead, as if at some time</p><p>she had started to sprout horns, but cut them off.</p><p>We were walking, just the two of us, with the Sports</p><p>Therapist in the asylum gardens. Nowadays I was let out on</p><p>walk privileges more and more often. They never let Miss</p><p>Norris out at all.</p><p>Valerie said Miss Norris shouldn't be in Caplan, but in a</p><p>building for worse people called Wymark.</p><p>'Do you know what these scars are?' Valerie persisted.</p><p>'No. What are they?'</p><p>'I've had a lobotomy.'</p><p>I looked at Valerie in awe, appreciating for the first time</p><p>her perpetual marble calm. 'How do you feel?'</p><p>'Fine. I'm not angry any more. Before, I was always angry.</p><p>I was in Wymark, before, and now I'm in Caplan. I can go to</p><p>town, now, or shopping or to a movie, along with a nurse.'</p><p>'What will you do when you get out?'</p><p>'Oh, I'm not leaving,' Valerie laughed. 'I like it here.'</p><p>'Moving day!'</p><p>'Why should I be moving?'</p><p>The nurse went on blithely opening and shutting my</p><p>drawers, emptying the closet and folding my belongings into</p><p>the black overnight case.</p><p>I thought they must at last be moving me to Wymark.</p><p>'Oh, you're only moving to the front of the house,' the</p><p>nurse said cheerfully. 'You'll like it. There's lots more sun.'</p><p>When we came out into the hall, I saw that Miss Norris</p><p>was moving too. A nurse, young and cheerful as my own,</p><p>stood in the doorway of Miss Norris's room, helping Miss</p><p>Norris into a purple coat with a scrawny squirrel-fur collar.</p><p>Hour after hour I had been keeping watch by Miss Norris's</p><p>bedside, refusing the diversion of OT and walks and</p><p>badminton matches and even the weekly movies, which I</p><p>enjoyed, and which Miss Norris never went to, simply to</p><p>brood over the pale, speechless circlet of her lips.</p><p>I thought how exciting it would be if she opened her</p><p>mouth and spoke, and I rushed out into the hall and</p><p>announced this to the nurses. They would praise me for</p><p>encouraging Miss Norris, and I would probably be allowed</p><p>shopping privileges and movie privileges downtown, and my</p><p>escape would be assured.</p><p>But in all my hours of vigil Miss Norris hadn't said a</p><p>word.</p><p>'Where are you moving to?' I asked her now.</p><p>The nurse touched Miss Norris's elbow, and Miss Norris</p><p>jerked into motion like a doll on wheels.</p><p>'She's going to Wymark,' my nurse told me in a low voice.</p><p>'I'm afraid Miss Norris isn't moving up like you.'</p><p>I watched Miss Norris lift one foot, and then the other,</p><p>over the invisible stile that barred the front doorsill.</p><p>'I've a surprise for you,' the nurse said as she installed me</p><p>in a sunny room in the front wing overlooking the green golf</p><p>links. 'Somebody you know's just come today.'</p><p>'Somebody I know?'</p><p>The nurse laughed. 'Don't look at me like that. It's not a</p><p>policeman.' Then, as I didn't say anything, she added, 'She</p><p>says she's an old friend of yours. She lives next door. Why</p><p>don't you pay her a visit?'</p><p>I thought the nurse must be joking, and that if I knocked</p><p>on the door next to mine I would hear no answer, but go in</p><p>and find Miss Norris, buttoned into her purple, squirrel-</p><p>collared coat and lying on the bed, her mouth blooming out</p><p>of the quiet vase of her body like the bud of a rose.</p><p>Still, I went out and knocked on the neighbouring door.</p><p>'Come in!' called a gay voice.</p><p>I opened the door a crack and peered into the room. The</p><p>big, horsey girl in jodhpurs sitting by the window glanced up</p><p>with a broad smile.</p><p>'Esther!' She sounded out of breath, as if she had been</p><p>running a long, long distance and only just come to a halt.</p><p>'How nice to see you. They told me you were here.'</p><p>'Joan?' I said tentatively, then 'Joan!' in confusion and</p><p>disbelief.</p><p>Joan beamed, revealing her large, gleaming, unmistakable</p><p>teeth.</p><p>'It's really me. I thought you'd be surprised.'</p><p>Chapter Sixteen</p><p>Joan's room, with its closet and bureau and table and chair</p><p>and white blanket with the big blue C on it, was a mirror</p><p>image of my own. It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where</p><p>I was, had engaged a room at the asylum on pretence, simply</p><p>as a joke. That would explain why she had told the nurse I</p><p>was her friend. I had never known Joan, except at a cool</p><p>distance.</p><p>'How did you get here?' I curled up on Joan's bed.</p><p>'I read about you,' Joan said.</p><p>'What?'</p><p>'I read about you, and I ran away.'</p><p>'How do you mean?' I said evenly.</p><p>'Well,' Joan leaned back in the chintz-flowered asylum</p><p>armchair, 'I had a summer job working for the chapter head</p><p>of some fraternity, like the Masons, you know, but not the</p><p>Masons, and I felt terrible. I had these bunions, I could</p><p>hardly walk—in the last days I had to wear rubber boots to</p><p>work, instead of shoes, and you can imagine what that did to</p><p>my morale...'</p><p>I thought either Joan must be crazy—wearing rubber boots</p><p>to work, or she must be trying to see how crazy I was—</p><p>believing all that. Besides, only old people ever got bunions.</p><p>I decided to pretend I thought she was crazy, and that I was</p><p>only humouring her along.</p><p>'I always feel lousy without shoes,' I said with an</p><p>ambiguous smile. 'Did your feet hurt much?'</p><p>'Terribly. And my boss—he'd just separated from his wife,</p><p>he couldn't come right out and get a divorce, because that</p><p>wouldn't go with this fraternal order—my boss kept buzzing</p><p>me in every other minute, and each time I moved, my feet</p><p>hurt like the devil, but the second I'd sit down at my desk</p><p>again, buzz went the buzzer, and he'd have something else he</p><p>wanted to get off his chest...'</p><p>'Why didn't you quit?'</p><p>'Oh, I did quit, more or less. I stayed off work on sick</p><p>leave. I didn't go out. I didn't see anyone. I stowed the</p><p>telephone in a drawer and never answered it...</p><p>'Then my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist at this big</p><p>hospital. I had an appointment for twelve o'clock, and I was</p><p>in an awful state. Finally, at half past twelve, the receptionist</p><p>came out and told me the doctor had gone to lunch. She</p><p>asked me if I wanted to wait, and I said yes.'</p><p>'Did he come back?' The story sounded rather involved for</p><p>Joan to have made up out of whole cloth, but I led her on, to</p><p>see what would come of it.</p><p>'Oh yes. I was going to kill myself, mind you. I said "If</p><p>this doctor doesn't do the trick, that's the end." Well, the</p><p>receptionist led me down a long hall, and just as we got to</p><p>the door she turned to me and said, "You won't mind if there</p><p>are a few students with the doctor, will you?" What could I</p><p>say? "Oh no," I said. I walked in and found nine pairs of eyes</p><p>fixed on me. Nine! Eighteen separate eyes.</p><p>'Now, if that receptionist had told me there were going to</p><p>be nine people in that room, I'd have walked out on the spot.</p><p>But there I was, and it was too late to do a thing about it.</p><p>Well, on this particular day I happened to be wearing a fur</p><p>coat...'</p><p>'In August?</p><p>'Oh, it was one of those cold, wet days, and I thought, my</p><p>first psychiatrist—you know. Anyway, this psychiatrist kept</p><p>eyeing that fur coat the whole time I talked to him, and I</p><p>could just see what he thought of my asking to pay the</p><p>student's cut-rate instead of the full fee. I could see the dollar</p><p>signs in his eyes. Well, I told him I don't know whatall—</p><p>about the bunions and the telephone in the drawer and how I</p><p>wanted to kill myself, and then he asked me to wait outside</p><p>while he discussed my case with the others, and when he</p><p>called me back in, you know what he said?'</p><p>'What?'</p><p>'He folded</p><p>his hands together and looked at me and said,</p><p>"Miss Gilling, we have decided that you would benefit by</p><p>group therapy."'</p><p>'Group therapy?' I thought I must sound phoney as an echo</p><p>chamber, but Joan didn't pay any notice.</p><p>'That's what he said. Can you imagine me wanting to kill</p><p>myself, and coming round to chat about it with a whole pack</p><p>of strangers, and most of them no better than myself...'</p><p>'That's crazy.' I was growing involved in spite of myself.</p><p>'That's not even human.'</p><p>'That's just what I said. I went straight home and wrote that</p><p>doctor a letter. I wrote him one beautiful letter about how a</p><p>man like that had no business setting himself up to help sick</p><p>people...'</p><p>'Did you get any answer?'</p><p>'I don't know. That was the day I read about you.'</p><p>'How do you mean?'</p><p>'Oh,' Joan said, 'about how the police thought you were</p><p>dead and all. I've got a pile of clippings somewhere.' She</p><p>heaved herself up, and I had a strong horsey whiff that made</p><p>my nostrils prickle. Joan had been a champion horse-jumper</p><p>at the annual college gymkhana, and I wondered if she had</p><p>been sleeping in a stable.</p><p>Joan rummaged in her open suitcase and came up with a</p><p>fistful of clippings.</p><p>'Here, have a look.'</p><p>The first clipping showed a big, blown-up picture of a girl</p><p>with black-shadowed eyes and black lips spread in a grin. I</p><p>couldn't imagine where such a tarty picture had been taken</p><p>until I noticed the Bloomingdale ear-rings and the</p><p>Bloomingdale necklace glinting out of it with bright, white</p><p>highlights, like imitation stars.</p><p>SCHOLARSHIP GIRL MISSING. MOTHER</p><p>WORRIED. The article under the picture told how this girl</p><p>had disappeared from her home on August 17th, wearing a</p><p>green skirt and a white blouse, and had left a note saying she</p><p>was taking a long walk. When Miss Greenwood had not</p><p>returned by midnight, it said, her mother called the town</p><p>police.</p><p>The next clipping showed a picture of my mother and</p><p>brother and me grouped together in our backyard and</p><p>smiling. I couldn't think who had taken that picture either,</p><p>until I saw I was wearing dungarees and white sneakers and</p><p>remembered that was what I wore in my spinach-picking</p><p>summer, and how Dodo Conway had dropped by and taken</p><p>some family snaps of the three of us one hot afternoon. Mrs</p><p>Greenwood asked that this picture be printed in hopes that it</p><p>will encourage her daughter to return home.</p><p>SLEEPING PILLS FEARED MISSING WITH GIRL.</p><p>A dark, midnight picture of about a dozen moon-faced</p><p>people in a wood. I thought the people at the end of the row</p><p>looked queer and unusually short until I realized they were</p><p>not people, but dogs. Bloodhounds used in search for missing</p><p>girl. Police Sgt Bill Hindly says: It doesn't look good.</p><p>GIRL FOUND ALIVE!</p><p>The last picture showed policemen lifting a long, limp</p><p>blanket roll with a featureless cabbage head into the back of</p><p>an ambulance. Then it told how my mother had been down in</p><p>the cellar, doing the week's laundry, when she heard faint</p><p>groans coming from a disused hole...</p><p>I laid the clippings on the white spread of the bed.</p><p>'You keep them,' Joan said. 'You ought to stick them in a</p><p>scrapbook.'</p><p>I folded the clippings and slipped them in my pocket.</p><p>'I read about you,' Joan went on. 'Not how they found you,</p><p>but everything up to that, and I put all my money together</p><p>and took the first plane to New York.'</p><p>'Why New York?'</p><p>'Oh, I thought it would be easier to kill myself in New</p><p>York.'</p><p>'What did you do?'</p><p>Joan grinned sheepishly and stretched out her hands, palm</p><p>up. Like a miniature mountain range, large, reddish weals</p><p>upheaved across the white flesh of her wrists.</p><p>'How did you do that?' For the first time it occurred to me</p><p>Joan and I might have something in common.</p><p>'I shoved my fists through my room-mate's window.'</p><p>'What room-mate?'</p><p>'My old college room-mate. She was working in New</p><p>York, and I couldn't think of anyplace else to stay, and</p><p>besides, I'd hardly any money left, so I went to stay with her.</p><p>My parents found me there—she'd written them I was acting</p><p>funny—and my father flew straight down and brought me</p><p>back.'</p><p>'But you're all right now.' I made it a statement.</p><p>Joan considered me with her bright, pebble-grey eyes. 'I</p><p>guess so,' she said. 'Aren't you?'</p><p>I had fallen asleep after the evening meal.</p><p>I was awakened by a loud voice. Mrs Bannister, Mrs</p><p>Bannister, Mrs Bannister, Mrs Bannister. As I pulled out of</p><p>sleep, I found I was beating on the bedpost with my hands</p><p>and calling. The sharp, wry figure of Mrs Bannister, the night</p><p>nurse, scurried into view.</p><p>'Here, we don't want you to break this.'</p><p>She unfastened the band of my watch.</p><p>'What's the matter? What happened?'</p><p>Mrs Bannister's face twisted into a quick smile. 'You've</p><p>had a reaction.'</p><p>'A reaction?'</p><p>'Yes, how do you feel?'</p><p>'Funny. Sort of light and airy.'</p><p>Mrs Bannister helped me sit up.</p><p>'You'll be better now. You'll be better in no time. Would</p><p>you like some hot milk?'</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>And when Mrs Bannister held the cup to my lips, I fanned</p><p>the hot milk out on my tongue as it went down, tasting it</p><p>luxuriously, the way a baby tastes its mother.</p><p>'Mrs Bannister tells me you had a reaction.' Doctor Nolan</p><p>seated herself in the armchair by the window and took out a</p><p>tiny box of matches. The box looked exactly like the one I</p><p>had hidden in the hem of my bathrobe, and for a moment I</p><p>wondered if a nurse had discovered it there and given it back</p><p>to Doctor Nolan on the quiet.</p><p>Doctor Nolan scraped a match on the side of the box. A</p><p>hot yellow flame jumped into life, and I watched her suck it</p><p>up into the cigarette.</p><p>'Mrs B. says you felt better.'</p><p>'I did for a while. Now I'm the same again.'</p><p>'I've news for you.'</p><p>I waited. Every day now, for I didn't know how many</p><p>days, I had spent the mornings and afternoons and evenings</p><p>wrapped up in my white blanket on the deck chair in the</p><p>alcove, pretending to read. I had a dim notion that Doctor</p><p>Nolan was allowing me a certain number of days and then</p><p>she would say just what Doctor Gordon had said: 'I'm sorry,</p><p>you don't seem to have improved, I think you'd better have</p><p>some shock treatments...'</p><p>'Well, don't you want to hear what it is?'</p><p>'What?' I said dully, and braced myself.</p><p>'You're not to have any more visitors for a while.'</p><p>I stared at Doctor Nolan in surprise. 'Why that's</p><p>wonderful.'</p><p>'I thought you'd be pleased.' She smiled.</p><p>Then I looked, and Doctor Nolan looked, at the waste-</p><p>basket beside my bureau. Out of the waste-basket poked the</p><p>blood-red buds of a dozen long-stemmed roses.</p><p>That afternoon my mother had come to visit me.</p><p>My mother was only one in a long stream of visitors—my</p><p>former employer, the lady Christian Scientist, who walked on</p><p>the lawn with me and talked about the mist going up from</p><p>the earth in the Bible, and the mist being error, and my whole</p><p>trouble being that I believed in the mist, and the minute I</p><p>stopped believing in it, it would disappear and I would see I</p><p>had always been well, and the English teacher I had in high</p><p>school who came and tried to teach me how to play Scrabble,</p><p>because he thought it might revive my old interest in words,</p><p>and Philomena Guinea herself, who wasn't at all satisfied</p><p>with what the doctors were doing and kept telling them so.</p><p>I hated these visits.</p><p>I would be sitting in my alcove or in my room, and a</p><p>smiling nurse would pop in and announce one or another of</p><p>the visitors. Once they'd even brought the minister of the</p><p>Unitarian church, whom I'd never really liked at all. He was</p><p>terribly nervous the whole time, and I could tell he thought I</p><p>was crazy as a loon, because I told him I believed in hell, and</p><p>that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they</p><p>died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they</p><p>didn't believe in life after death, and what each person</p><p>believed happened to him when he died.</p><p>I hated these visits, because I kept feeling the visitors</p><p>measuring my fat and stringy hair against what I had been</p><p>and what they wanted me to be, and I knew they went away</p><p>utterly confounded.</p><p>I thought if they left me alone I might have some peace.</p><p>My mother was the worst.</p><p>State.</p><p>'Terrific, huh?' Lenny came over, balancing three glasses.</p><p>Big drops stood out on them like sweat, and the ice-cubes</p><p>jingled as he passed them round. Then the music twanged to</p><p>a stop, and we heard Lenny's voice announcing the next</p><p>number.</p><p>'Nothing like listening to yourself talk. Say,' Lenny's eye</p><p>lingered on me, 'Frankie vamoosed, you ought to have</p><p>somebody, I'll call up one of the fellers.'</p><p>'That's okay,' I said. 'You don't have to do that.' I didn't</p><p>want to come straight out and ask for somebody several sizes</p><p>larger than Frankie.</p><p>Lenny looked relieved. 'Just so's you don't mind. I</p><p>wouldn't want to do wrong by a friend of Doreen's.' He gave</p><p>Doreen a big white smile. 'Would I, honeybun?'</p><p>He held out a hand to Doreen, and without a word they</p><p>both started to jitterbug, still hanging on to their glasses.</p><p>I sat cross-legged on one of the beds and tried to look</p><p>devout and impassive like some businessmen I once saw</p><p>watching an Algerian belly-dancer, but as soon as I leaned</p><p>back against the wall under the stuffed rabbit, the bed started</p><p>to roll out into the room, so I sat down on a bearskin on the</p><p>floor and leaned back against the bed instead.</p><p>My drink was wet and depressing. Each time I took</p><p>another sip it tasted more and more like dead water. Around</p><p>the middle of the glass there was painted a pink lasso with</p><p>yellow polka dots. I drank to about an inch below the lasso</p><p>and waited a bit, and when I went to take another sip, the</p><p>drink was up to lasso-level again.</p><p>Out of the air Lenny's ghost voice boomed, 'Wye oh wye</p><p>did I ever leave Wyoming?</p><p>The two of them didn't even stop jitterbugging during the</p><p>intervals. I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against</p><p>all those red and white rugs and that pine-panelling. I felt</p><p>like a hole in the ground.</p><p>There is something demoralizing about watching two</p><p>people get more and more crazy about each other, especially</p><p>when you are the only extra person in the room.</p><p>It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in</p><p>the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller</p><p>and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and</p><p>smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those</p><p>lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour.</p><p>Every so often Lenny and Doreen would bang into each</p><p>other and kiss and then swing back to take a long drink and</p><p>close in on each other again. I thought I might just lie down</p><p>on the bearskin and go to sleep until Doreen felt ready to go</p><p>back to the hotel.</p><p>Then Lenny gave a terrible roar. I sat up. Doreen was</p><p>hanging on to Lenny's left earlobe with her teeth.</p><p>'Leggo, you bitch!'</p><p>Lenny stooped, and Doreen went flying up on to his</p><p>shoulder, and her glass sailed out of her hand in a long, wide</p><p>arc and fetched up against the pine-panelling with a silly</p><p>tinkle. Lenny was still roaring and whirling round so fast I</p><p>couldn't see Doreen's face.</p><p>I noticed, in the routine way you notice the colour of</p><p>somebody's eyes, that Doreen's breasts had popped out of her</p><p>dress and were swinging out slightly like full brown melons</p><p>as she circled belly-down on Lenny's shoulder, thrashing her</p><p>legs in the air and screeching, and then they both started to</p><p>laugh and slow up, and Lenny was trying to bite Doreen's hip</p><p>through her skirt when I let myself out the door before</p><p>anything more could happen and managed to get downstairs</p><p>by leaning with both hands on the banister and half sliding</p><p>the whole way.</p><p>I didn't realize Lenny's place had been air-conditioned</p><p>until I wavered out on to the pavement. The tropical, stale</p><p>heat the sidewalks had been sucking up all day hit me in the</p><p>face like a last insult. I didn't know where in the world I was.</p><p>For a minute I entertained the idea of taking a cab to the</p><p>party after all, but decided against it because the dance might</p><p>be over by now, and I didn't feel like ending up in an empty</p><p>barn of a ballroom strewn with confetti and cigarette-butts</p><p>and crumpled cocktail napkins.</p><p>I walked carefully to the nearest street corner, brushing the</p><p>wall of the buildings on my left with the tip of one finger to</p><p>steady myself. I looked at the street sign. Then I took my</p><p>New York street map out of my pocket-book. I was exactly</p><p>forty-three blocks by five blocks away from my hotel.</p><p>Walking has never fazed me. I just set out in the right</p><p>direction, counting the blocks under my breath, and when I</p><p>walked into the lobby of the hotel I was perfectly sober and</p><p>my feet only slightly swollen, but that was my own fault</p><p>because I hadn't bothered to wear any stockings.</p><p>The lobby was empty except for a night clerk dozing in his</p><p>lit booth among the key-rings and the silent telephones.</p><p>I slid into the self-service elevator and pushed the button</p><p>for my floor. The doors folded shut like a noiseless</p><p>accordion. Then my ears went funny, and I noticed a big,</p><p>smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my</p><p>face. It was only me, of course. I was appalled to see how</p><p>wrinkled and used-up I looked.</p><p>There wasn't a soul in the hall. I let myself into my room.</p><p>It was full of smoke. At first I thought the smoke had</p><p>materialized out of thin air as a sort of judgement, but then I</p><p>remembered it was Doreen's smoke and pushed the button</p><p>that opened the window vent. They had the windows fixed so</p><p>you couldn't really open them and lean out, and for some</p><p>reason this made me furious.</p><p>By standing at the left side of the window and laying my</p><p>cheek to the woodwork, I could see downtown to where the</p><p>UN balanced itself in the dark, like a weird, green, Martian</p><p>honeycomb. I could see the moving red and white lights</p><p>along the drive and the lights of the bridges whose names I</p><p>didn't know.</p><p>The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence.</p><p>It was my own silence.</p><p>I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and</p><p>the people in them and behind the lit windows of the</p><p>buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a</p><p>noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my</p><p>window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might</p><p>just as well not have been there at all, for all the good it did</p><p>me.</p><p>The china-white bedside telephone could have connected</p><p>me up with things, but there it sat, dumb as a death's head. I</p><p>tried to think of people I'd given my phone number to, so I</p><p>could make a list of all the possible calls I might be about to</p><p>receive, but all I could think of was that I'd given my phone</p><p>number to Buddy Willard's mother so she could give it to a</p><p>simultaneous interpreter she knew at the UN.</p><p>I let out a small, dry laugh.</p><p>I could imagine the sort of simultaneous interpreter Mrs</p><p>Willard would introduce me to when all the time she wanted</p><p>me to marry Buddy, who was taking the cure for TB</p><p>somewhere in upper New York State. Buddy's mother had</p><p>even arranged for me to be given a job as a waitress at the</p><p>TB sanatorium that summer so Buddy wouldn't be lonely.</p><p>She and Buddy couldn't understand why I chose to go to</p><p>New York City instead.</p><p>The mirror over my bureau seemed slightly warped and</p><p>much too silver. The face in it looked like the reflection in a</p><p>ball of dentist's mercury. I thought of crawling in between</p><p>the bed-sheets and trying to sleep, but that appealed to me</p><p>about as much as stuffing a dirty, scrawled-over letter into a</p><p>fresh, clean envelope. I decided to take a hot bath.</p><p>There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but</p><p>I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to</p><p>die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I</p><p>won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then</p><p>I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'</p><p>I meditate in the bath. The water needs to be very hot, so</p><p>hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. Then you</p><p>lower yourself, inch by inch, till the water's up to your neck.</p><p>I remember the ceilings over every bathtub I've stretched</p><p>out in. I remember the texture of the ceilings and the cracks</p><p>and the colours and the damp spots and the light fixtures. I</p><p>remember the tubs, too: the antique griffin-legged tubs, and</p><p>the modern coffin-shaped</p><p>She never scolded me, but kept</p><p>begging me, with a sorrowful face, to tell her what she had</p><p>done wrong. She said she was sure the doctors thought she</p><p>had done something wrong because they asked her a lot of</p><p>questions about my toilet training, and I had been perfectly</p><p>trained at a very early age and given her no trouble</p><p>whatsoever.</p><p>That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses.</p><p>'Save them for my funeral,' I'd said.</p><p>My mother's face puckered, and she looked ready to cry.</p><p>'But Esther, don't you remember what day it is today?'</p><p>'No.'</p><p>I thought it might be Saint Valentine's day.</p><p>'It's your birthday.'</p><p>And that was when I had dumped the roses in the</p><p>wastebasket.</p><p>'That was a silly thing for her to do,' I said to Doctor</p><p>Nolan.</p><p>Doctor Nolan nodded. She seemed to know what I meant.</p><p>'I hate her,' I said, and waited for the blow to fall.</p><p>But Doctor Nolan only smiled at me as if something had</p><p>pleased her very, very much, and said, 'I suppose you do.'</p><p>Chapter Seventeen</p><p>'You're a lucky girl today.'</p><p>The young nurse cleared my breakfast tray away and left</p><p>me wrapped in my white blanket like a passenger taking the</p><p>sea air on the deck of a ship.</p><p>'Why am I lucky?'</p><p>'Well, I'm not sure if you're supposed to know yet, but</p><p>today you're moving to Belsize.' The nurse looked at me</p><p>expectantly.</p><p>'Belsize,' I said. 'I can't go there.'</p><p>'Why not?'</p><p>'I'm not ready. I'm not well enough.'</p><p>'Of course, you're well enough. Don't worry, they wouldn't</p><p>be moving you if you weren't well enough.'</p><p>After the nurse left, I tried to puzzle out this new move on</p><p>Doctor Nolan's part. What was she trying to prove? I hadn't</p><p>changed. Nothing had changed. And Belsize was the best</p><p>house of all. From Belsize people went back to work and</p><p>back to school and back to their homes.</p><p>Joan would be at Belsize. Joan with her physics books and</p><p>her golf clubs and her badminton rackets and her breathy</p><p>voice. Joan, marking the gulf between me and the nearly well</p><p>ones. Ever since Joan left Caplan I'd followed her progress</p><p>through the asylum grapevine.</p><p>Joan had walk privileges, Joan had shopping privileges,</p><p>Joan had town privileges. I gathered all my news of Joan into</p><p>a little, bitter heap, though I received it with surface</p><p>gladness. Joan was the beaming double of my old best self,</p><p>specially designed to follow and torment me.</p><p>Perhaps Joan would be gone when I got to Belsize.</p><p>At least at Belsize I could forget about shock treatments.</p><p>At Caplan a lot of the women had shock treatments. I could</p><p>tell which ones they were, because they didn't get their</p><p>breakfast trays with the rest of us. They had their shock</p><p>treatments while we breakfasted in our rooms, and then they</p><p>came into the lounge, quiet and extinguished, led like</p><p>children by the nurses, and ate their breakfasts there.</p><p>Each morning, when I heard the nurse knock with my tray,</p><p>an immense relief flooded through me, because I knew I was</p><p>out of danger for that day. I didn't see how Doctor Nolan</p><p>could tell you went to sleep during a shock treatment if she'd</p><p>never had a shock treatment herself. How did she know the</p><p>person didn't just look as if he was asleep, while all the time,</p><p>inside, he was feeling the blue volts and the noise?</p><p>Piano music sounded from the end of the hall.</p><p>At supper I had sat quietly, listening to the chatter of the</p><p>Belsize women. They were all fashionably dressed and</p><p>carefully made up, and several of them were married. Some</p><p>of them had been shopping downtown, and others had been</p><p>out visiting with friends, and all during supper they kept</p><p>tossing back and forth these private jokes.</p><p>'I'd call Jack,' a woman named DeeDee said, 'only I'm</p><p>afraid he wouldn't be home. I know just where I could call</p><p>him, though, and he'd be in, all right.'</p><p>The short, spry blonde woman at my table laughed. 'I</p><p>almost had Doctor Loring where I wanted him today.' She</p><p>widened her starey blue eyes like a little doll. 'I wouldn't</p><p>mind trading old Percy in for a new model.'</p><p>At the opposite end of the room, Joan was wolfing her</p><p>spam and broiled tomato with great appetite. She seemed</p><p>perfectly at home among these women and treated me coolly,</p><p>with a slight sneer, like a dim and inferior acquaintance.</p><p>I had gone to bed right after supper, but then I heard the</p><p>piano music and pictured Joan and DeeDee and Loubelle, the</p><p>blonde woman, and the rest of them, laughing and gossiping</p><p>about me in the living room behind my back. They would be</p><p>saying how awful it was to have people like me in Belsize</p><p>and that I should be in Wymark instead.</p><p>I decided to put a lid on their nasty talk.</p><p>Draping my blanket loosely around my shoulders, like a</p><p>stole, I wandered down the hall toward the light and the gay</p><p>noise.</p><p>For the rest of the evening I listened to DeeDee thump out</p><p>some of her own songs on the grand piano, while the other</p><p>women sat round playing bridge and chatting, just the way</p><p>they would in a college dormitory, only most of them were</p><p>ten years over college age.</p><p>One of them, a great, tall, grey-haired woman with a</p><p>booming bass voice, named Mrs Savage, had gone to Vassar.</p><p>I could tell right away she was a society woman, because she</p><p>talked about nothing but débutantes. It seemed she had two</p><p>or three daughters, and that year they were all going to be</p><p>débutantes, only she had loused up their débutante party by</p><p>signing herself into the asylum.</p><p>DeeDee had one song she called 'The Milkman' and</p><p>everybody kept saying she ought to get it published, it would</p><p>be a hit. First her hands would clop out a little melody on the</p><p>keys, like the hoofbeats of a slow pony, and next another</p><p>melody came in, like the milkman whistling, and then the</p><p>two melodies went on together.</p><p>'That's very nice,' I said in a conversational voice.</p><p>Joan was leaning on one corner of the piano and leafing</p><p>through a new issue of some fashion magazine, and DeeDee</p><p>smiled up at her as if the two of them shared a secret.</p><p>'Oh, Esther,' Joan said then, holding up the magazine, 'isn't</p><p>this you?'</p><p>DeeDee stopped playing. 'Let me see.' She took the</p><p>magazine, peered at the page Joan pointed to, and then</p><p>glanced back at me.</p><p>'Oh no,' DeeDee said. 'Surely not.' She looked at the</p><p>magazine again, then at me. 'Never!'</p><p>'Oh, but it is Esther, isn't it Esther?' Joan said.</p><p>Loubelle and Mrs Savage drifted over, and pretending I</p><p>knew what it was all about, I moved to the piano with them.</p><p>The magazine photograph showed a girl in a strapless</p><p>evening dress of fuzzy white stuff, grinning fit to split, with a</p><p>whole lot of boys bending in around her. The girl was</p><p>holding a glass full of a transparent drink and seemed to have</p><p>her eyes fixed over my shoulder on something that stood</p><p>behind me, a little to my left. A faint breath fanned the back</p><p>of my neck. I wheeled round.</p><p>The night nurse had come in, unnoticed, on her soft rubber</p><p>soles.</p><p>'No kidding,' she said, 'is that really you?'</p><p>'No, it's not me. Joan's quite mistaken. It's somebody else.'</p><p>'Oh, say it's you!' DeeDee cried.</p><p>But I pretended I didn't hear her and turned away.</p><p>Then Loubelle begged the nurse to make a fourth at</p><p>bridge, and I drew up a chair to watch, although I didn't</p><p>know the first thing about bridge, because I hadn't had time</p><p>to pick it up at college, the way all the wealthy girls did.</p><p>I stared at the flat poker-faces of the kings and jacks and</p><p>queens and listened to the nurse talking about her hard life.</p><p>'You ladies don't know what it is, holding down two jobs,'</p><p>she said. 'Nights I'm over here, watching you....'</p><p>Loubelle giggled. 'Oh, we're good. We're the best of the</p><p>lot, and you know it.'</p><p>'Oh, you're all right.' The nurse passed round a packet of</p><p>spearmint gum, then unfolded a pink strap from its tinfoil</p><p>wrapper herself. 'You're all right, it's those boobies at the</p><p>state place that worry me off my feet.'</p><p>'Do you work in both places then?' I asked with sudden</p><p>interest.</p><p>'You bet.' The nurse gave me a straight look, and I could</p><p>see she thought I had no business in Belsize at all. 'You</p><p>wouldn't like it over there one bit, Lady Jane.'</p><p>I found it strange that the nurse should call me Lady Jane</p><p>when she knew what my name was perfectly well.</p><p>'Why?' I persisted.</p><p>'Oh, it's not a nice place, like this. This is a regular country</p><p>club. Over there they've got nothing. No OT to talk of, no</p><p>walks....'</p><p>'Why haven't they got walks?'</p><p>'Not enough em-ploy-ees.' The nurse scooped in a trick</p><p>and Loubelle groaned. 'Believe me, ladies, when I collect</p><p>enough do-re-mi to buy me a car, I'm clearing out.'</p><p>'Will you clear out of here, too?' Joan wanted to know.</p><p>'You bet. Only private cases from then on. When I feel like</p><p>it....'</p><p>But I'd stopped listening.</p><p>I felt the nurse had been instructed to show me my</p><p>alternatives. Either I got better, or I fell, down, down, like a</p><p>burning, then burnt-out star, from Belsize, to Caplan, to</p><p>Wymark and finally, after Doctor Nolan and Mrs Guinea had</p><p>given me up, to the state place next-door.</p><p>I gathered my blanket round me and pushed back my</p><p>chair.</p><p>'You cold?' the nurse demanded rudely.</p><p>'Yes,' I said, moving off down the hall. 'I'm frozen stiff.'</p><p>I woke warm and placid in my white cocoon. A shaft of</p><p>pale, wintry sunlight dazzled the mirror and the glasses on</p><p>the bureau and the metal doorknobs. From across the hall</p><p>came the early morning clatter of the maids in the kitchen,</p><p>preparing the breakfast trays.</p><p>I heard the nurse knock on the door next to mine, at the far</p><p>end of the hall. Mrs Savage's sleepy voice boomed out, and</p><p>the nurse went into her with the jingling tray. I thought, with</p><p>a mild stir of pleasure, of the steaming blue china coffee</p><p>pitcher and the blue china breakfast cup and the fat blue</p><p>china cream jug with the white daisies on it.</p><p>I was beginning to resign myself.</p><p>If I was going to fall, I would hang on to my small</p><p>comforts, at least, as long as I possibly could.</p><p>The nurse rapped on my door and, without waiting for an</p><p>answer, breezed in.</p><p>It was a new nurse—they were always changing—with a</p><p>lean, sand-coloured face and sandy hair, and large freckles</p><p>polka-dotting her bony nose. For some reason the sight of</p><p>this nurse made me sick at heart, and it was only as she</p><p>strode across the room to snap up the green blind that I</p><p>realized part of her strangeness came from being empty-</p><p>handed.</p><p>I opened my mouth to ask for my breakfast tray, but</p><p>silenced myself immediately. The nurse would be mistaking</p><p>me for somebody else. New nurses often did that. Somebody</p><p>in Belsize must be having shock treatments, unknown to me,</p><p>and the nurse had, quite understandably, confused me with</p><p>her.</p><p>I waited until the nurse had made her little circuit of my</p><p>room, patting, straightening, arranging, and taken the next</p><p>tray in to Loubelle one door farther down the hall.</p><p>Then I shoved my feet into my slippers, dragging my</p><p>blanket with me, for the morning was bright, but very cold,</p><p>and crossed quickly to the kitchen. The pink-uniformed maid</p><p>was filling a row of blue china coffee pitchers from a great,</p><p>battered kettle on the stove.</p><p>I looked with love at the line-up of waiting trays—the</p><p>white paper napkins, folded in their crisp, isosceles triangles,</p><p>each under the anchor of its silver fork, the pale domes of the</p><p>soft-boiled eggs in the blue egg cups, the scalloped glass</p><p>shells of orange marmalade. All I had to do was reach out</p><p>and claim my tray, and the world would be perfectly normal.</p><p>'There's been a mistake,' I told the maid, leaning over the</p><p>counter and speaking in a low, confidential tone. 'The new</p><p>nurse forgot to bring in my breakfast tray today.'</p><p>I managed a bright smile, to show there were no hard</p><p>feelings.</p><p>'What's the name?'</p><p>'Greenwood. Esther Greenwood.'</p><p>'Greenwood, Greenwood, Greenwood.' The maid's warty</p><p>index finger slid down the list of names of the patients in</p><p>Belsize tacked up on the kitchen wall. 'Greenwood, no</p><p>breakfast today.'</p><p>I caught the rim of the counter with both hands.</p><p>'There must be a mistake. Are you sure it's Greenwood?'</p><p>'Greenwood,' the maid said decisively as the nurse came</p><p>in.</p><p>The nurse looked questioningly from me to the maid.</p><p>'Miss Greenwood wanted her tray,' the maid said, avoiding</p><p>my eyes.</p><p>'Oh,' the nurse smiled at me, 'you'll be getting your tray</p><p>later on this morning, Miss Greenwood. You...'</p><p>But I didn't wait to hear what the nurse said. I strode</p><p>blindly out into the hall, not to my room, because that was</p><p>where they would come to get me, but to the alcove, greatly</p><p>inferior to the alcove at Caplan, but an alcove, nevertheless,</p><p>in a quiet corner of the hall, where Joan and Loubelle and</p><p>DeeDee and Mrs Savage would not come.</p><p>I curled up in the far corner of the alcove with the blanket</p><p>over my head. It wasn't the shock treatment that struck me,</p><p>so much as the bare-faced treachery of Doctor Nolan. I liked</p><p>Doctor Nolan, I loved her, I had given her my trust on a</p><p>platter and told her everything, and she had promised,</p><p>faithfully, to warn me ahead of time if ever I had to have</p><p>another shock treatment.</p><p>If she had told me the night before I would have lain</p><p>awake all night, of course, full of dread and foreboding, but</p><p>by morning I would have been composed and ready. I would</p><p>have gone down the hall between two nurses, past DeeDee</p><p>and Loubelle and Mrs Savage and Joan, with dignity, like a</p><p>person coolly resigned to execution.</p><p>The nurse bent over me and called my name.</p><p>I pulled away and crouched farther into the corner. The</p><p>nurse disappeared. I knew she would return, in a minute,</p><p>with two burly men attendants, and they would bear me,</p><p>howling and hitting, past the smiling audience now gathered</p><p>in the lounge.</p><p>Doctor Nolan put her arm around me and hugged me like a</p><p>mother.</p><p>'You said you'd tell me!' I shouted at her through the</p><p>dishevelled blanket.</p><p>'But I am telling you,' Doctor Nolan said. 'I've come</p><p>specially early to tell you, and I'm taking you over myself.'</p><p>I peered at her through swollen lids. 'Why didn't you tell</p><p>me last night?'</p><p>'I only thought it would keep you awake. If I'd known...'</p><p>'You said you'd tell me.'</p><p>'Listen, Esther,' Doctor Nolan said. 'I'm going over with</p><p>you. I'll be there the whole time, so everything will happen</p><p>right, the way I promised. I'll be there when you wake up,</p><p>and I'll bring you back again.'</p><p>I looked at her. She seemed very upset.</p><p>I waited a minute. Then I said, 'Promise you'll be there.'</p><p>'I promise.'</p><p>Doctor Nolan took out a white handkerchief and wiped my</p><p>face. Then she hooked her arm in my arm, like an old friend,</p><p>and helped me up, and we started down the hall. My blanket</p><p>tangled about my feet, so I let it drop, but Doctor Nolan</p><p>didn't seem to notice. We passed Joan, coming out of her</p><p>room, and I gave her a meaning, disdainful smile, and she</p><p>ducked back and waited until we had gone by.</p><p>Then Doctor Nolan unlocked a door at the end of the hall</p><p>and led me down a flight of stairs into the mysterious</p><p>basement corridors that linked, in an elaborate network of</p><p>tunnels and burrows, all the various buildings of the hospital.</p><p>The walls were bright, white lavatory tile with bald bulbs</p><p>set at intervals in the black ceiling. Stretchers and</p><p>wheelchairs were beached here and there against the hissing,</p><p>knocking pipes that ran and branched in an intricate nervous</p><p>system along the glittering walls. I hung on to Doctor</p><p>Nolan's arm like death, and every so often she gave me an</p><p>encouraging squeeze.</p><p>Finally, we stopped at a green door with Electrotherapy</p><p>printed on it in black letters. I held back, and Doctor Nolan</p><p>waited. Then I said, 'Let's get it over with,' and we went in.</p><p>The only people in the waiting-room beside Doctor Nolan</p><p>and me were a pallid man in a shabby maroon bathrobe and</p><p>his accompanying nurse.</p><p>'Do you want to sit down?' Doctor Nolan pointed at a</p><p>wooden bench, but my legs felt full of heaviness, and I</p><p>thought how hard it would be to hoist myself from a sitting</p><p>position when the shock treatment people came in.</p><p>'I'd rather stand.'</p><p>At last a tall, cadaverous woman in a white smock entered</p><p>the room from an inner door. I thought that she would go up</p><p>and take the man in the maroon bathrobe, as he was first, so I</p><p>was surprised when she came towards me.</p><p>'Good morning, Doctor Nolan,' the woman said,</p><p>putting</p><p>her arm around my shoulders. 'Is this Esther?'</p><p>'Yes, Miss Huey. Esther, this is Miss Huey, she'll take good</p><p>care of you. I've told her about you.'</p><p>I thought the woman must be seven feet tall. She bent over</p><p>me in a kind way, and I could see that her face, with the buck</p><p>teeth protruding in the centre, had at one time been badly</p><p>pitted with acne. It looked like maps of the craters on the</p><p>moon.</p><p>'I think we can take you right away, Esther,' Miss Huey</p><p>said.</p><p>'Mr Anderson won't mind waiting, will you, Mr</p><p>Anderson?'</p><p>Mr Anderson didn't say a word, so with Miss Huey's arm</p><p>around my shoulder, and Doctor Nolan following, I moved</p><p>into the next room.</p><p>Through the slits of my eyes, which I didn't dare open too</p><p>far, lest the full view strike me dead, I saw the high bed with</p><p>its white, drumtight sheet, and the machine behind the bed,</p><p>and the masked person—I couldn't tell whether it was a man</p><p>or a woman—behind the machine, and other masked people</p><p>flanking the bed on both sides.</p><p>Miss Huey helped me climb up and lie down on my back.</p><p>'Talk to me,' I said.</p><p>Miss Huey began to talk in a low, soothing voice,</p><p>smoothing the salve on my temples and fitting the small</p><p>electric buttons on either side of my head. 'You'll be perfectly</p><p>all right, you won't feel a thing, just bite down....' And she set</p><p>something on my tongue and in panic I bit down, and</p><p>darkness wiped me out like chalk on a blackboard.</p><p>Chapter Eighteen</p><p>'Esther.'</p><p>I woke out of a deep, drenched sleep, and the first thing I</p><p>saw was Doctor Nolan's face swimming in front of me and</p><p>saying, 'Esther, Esther.'</p><p>I rubbed my eyes with an awkward hand.</p><p>Behind Doctor Nolan I could see the body of a woman</p><p>wearing a rumpled black-and-white checked robe and flung</p><p>out on a cot as if dropped from a great height. But before I</p><p>could take in any more, Doctor Nolan led me through a door</p><p>into fresh, blue-skied air.</p><p>All the heat and fear had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at</p><p>peace. The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my</p><p>head. I was open to the circulating air.</p><p>'It was like I told you it would be, wasn't it?' said Doctor</p><p>Nolan, as we walked back to Belsize together through the</p><p>crunch of brown leaves.</p><p>'Yes.'</p><p>'Well it will always be like that,' she said firmly. 'You will</p><p>be having shock treatments three times a week—Tuesday,</p><p>Thursday and Saturday.'</p><p>I gulped in a long draught of air.</p><p>'For how long?'</p><p>'That depends,' Doctor Nolan said, 'on you and me.'</p><p>I took up the silver knife and cracked off the cap of my</p><p>egg. Then I put down the knife and looked at it. I tried to</p><p>think what I had loved knives for, but my mind slipped from</p><p>the noose of the thought and swung, like a bird, in the centre</p><p>of empty air.</p><p>Joan and DeeDee were sitting side by side on the piano</p><p>bench, and DeeDee was teaching Joan to play the bottom</p><p>half of Chopsticks while she played the top.</p><p>I thought how sad it was Joan looked so horsey, with such</p><p>big teeth and eyes like two grey, goggly pebbles. Why, she</p><p>couldn't even keep a boy like Buddy Willard. And DeeDee's</p><p>husband was obviously living with some mistress or other</p><p>and turning her sour as an old fusty cat.</p><p>'I've got a let-ter,' Joan chanted, poking her tousled head</p><p>inside my door.</p><p>'Good for you.' I kept my eyes on my book. Ever since the</p><p>shock treatments had ended, after a brief series of five, and I</p><p>had town privileges, Joan hung about me like a large and</p><p>breathless fruitfly—as if the sweetness of recovery were</p><p>something she could suck up by mere nearness. They had</p><p>taken away her physics books and the piles of dusty spiral</p><p>pads full of lecture notes that had ringed her room, and she</p><p>was confined to grounds again.</p><p>'Don't you want to know who it's from?'</p><p>Joan edged into the room and sat down on my bed. I</p><p>wanted to tell her to get the hell out, she gave me the creeps,</p><p>only I couldn't do it.</p><p>'All right.' I stuck my finger in my place and shut the book.</p><p>'Who from?'</p><p>Joan slipped out a pale blue envelope from her skirt pocket</p><p>and waved it teasingly.</p><p>'Well isn't that a coincidence!' I said.</p><p>'What do you mean, a coincidence?'</p><p>I went over to my bureau, picked up a pale blue envelope</p><p>and waved it at Joan like a parting handkerchief. 'I got a</p><p>letter too. I wonder if they're the same.'</p><p>'He's better,' Joan said. 'He's out of hospital.'</p><p>There was a little pause.</p><p>'Are you going to marry him?'</p><p>'No,' I said. 'Are you?'</p><p>Joan grinned evasively. 'I didn't like him much, anyway.'</p><p>'Oh?'</p><p>'No, it was his family I liked.'</p><p>'You mean Mr and Mrs Willard?'</p><p>'Yes,' Joan's voice slid down my spine like a draft. 'I loved</p><p>them. They were so nice, so happy, nothing like my parents. I</p><p>went over to see them all the time;' she paused, 'until you</p><p>came.'</p><p>'I'm sorry.' Then I added, 'Why didn't you go on seeing</p><p>them, if you liked them so much?'</p><p>'Oh, I couldn't,' Joan said. 'Not with you dating Buddy. It</p><p>would have looked ... I don't know, funny.'</p><p>I considered. 'I suppose so.'</p><p>'Are you,' Joan hesitated, 'going to let him come?'</p><p>'I don't know.'</p><p>At first I had thought it would be awful having Buddy</p><p>come and visit me at the asylum—he would probably only</p><p>come to gloat and hob-nob with the other doctors. But then it</p><p>seemed to me it would be a step, placing him, renouncing</p><p>him, in spite of the fact that I had nobody—telling him there</p><p>was no simultaneous interpreter, nobody, but that he was the</p><p>wrong one, that I had stopped hanging on. 'Are you?'</p><p>'Yes,' Joan breathed. 'Maybe he'll bring his mother. I'm</p><p>going to ask him to bring his mother....'</p><p>'His mother?'</p><p>Joan pouted. 'I like Mrs Willard. Mrs Willard's a</p><p>wonderful, wonderful woman. She's been a real mother to</p><p>me.'</p><p>I had a picture of Mrs Willard, with her heather-mixture</p><p>tweeds and her sensible shoes and her wise, maternal</p><p>maxims. Mr Willard was her little boy, and his voice was</p><p>high and clear, like a little boy's. Joan and Mrs Willard. Joan</p><p>... and Mrs Willard...</p><p>I had knocked on DeeDee's door that morning, wanting to</p><p>borrow some two-part sheet music. I waited a few minutes</p><p>and then, hearing no answer and thinking DeeDee must be</p><p>out, and I could pick up the music from her bureau, I pushed</p><p>the door open and stepped into the room.</p><p>At Belsize, even at Belsize, the doors had locks, but the</p><p>patients had no keys. A shut door meant privacy, and was</p><p>respected, like a locked door. One knocked, and knocked</p><p>again, then went away. I remembered this as I stood, my eyes</p><p>half-useless after the brilliance of the hall, in the room's</p><p>deep, musky dark.</p><p>As my vision cleared, I saw a shape rise from the bed.</p><p>Then somebody gave a low giggle. The shape adjusted its</p><p>hair, and two pale, pebble eyes regarded me through the</p><p>gloom. DeeDee lay back on the pillows, bare-legged under</p><p>her green wool dressing-gown, and watched me with a little</p><p>mocking smile. A cigarette glowed between the fingers of</p><p>her right hand.</p><p>'I just wanted...' I said.</p><p>'I know,' said DeeDee. 'The music.'</p><p>'Hello, Esther,' Joan said then, and her cornhusk voice</p><p>made me want to puke. 'Wait for me, Esther, I'll come play</p><p>the bottom part with you.'</p><p>Now Joan said stoutly, 'I never really liked Buddy Willard.</p><p>He thought he knew everything. He thought he knew</p><p>everything about women....'</p><p>I looked at Joan. In spite of the creepy feeling, and in spite</p><p>of my old, ingrained dislike, Joan fascinated me. It was like</p><p>observing a Martian, or a particularly warty toad. Her</p><p>thoughts were not my thoughts, nor her feelings my feelings,</p><p>but we were close enough so that her thoughts and feelings</p><p>seemed a wry, black image of my own.</p><p>Sometimes I wondered if I had made Joan up. Other times</p><p>I wondered if she would continue to pop in at every crisis of</p><p>my life to remind me of what I had been, and what I had</p><p>been through, and carry on her own separate but similar</p><p>crisis under my nose.</p><p>'I don't see what women see in other women,' I'd told</p><p>Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. 'What does a</p><p>woman see in a woman that she can't see in a man?'</p><p>Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, 'Tenderness.'</p><p>That shut me up.</p><p>'I like you,' Joan was saying. 'I like you better than Buddy.'</p><p>And as she stretched out on my bed with a silly smile, I</p><p>remembered a minor scandal at our college dormitory when a</p><p>fat, matronly-breasted senior, homely as a grandmother and a</p><p>pious Religion major, and a tall, gawky freshman with a</p><p>history of being deserted at an early hour in all sorts of</p><p>ingenious ways by her blind dates, started seeing too much of</p><p>each other. They were always together, and once somebody</p><p>had come upon them embracing, the story went, in the fat</p><p>girl's room.</p><p>'But what were they doing?' I had asked. Whenever I</p><p>thought about men and men, and women and women, I could</p><p>never really imagine what they would be actually doing.</p><p>'Oh,' the spy had said, 'Milly was sitting on the chair and</p><p>Theodora was lying on the bed, and Milly was stroking</p><p>Theodora's hair.'</p><p>I was disappointed. I had thought I would have some</p><p>revelation of specific evil. I wondered if all women did with</p><p>other women was lie and hug.</p><p>Of course, the famous woman poet at my college lived</p><p>with another woman—a stumpy old Classical scholar with a</p><p>cropped Dutch cut. And when I had told the poet I might</p><p>well get married and have a pack of children some day, she</p><p>stared at me in horror. 'But what about your career?' she had</p><p>cried.</p><p>My head ached. Why did I attract these weird old women?</p><p>There was the famous poet, and Philomena Guinea, and Jay</p><p>Cee, and the Christian Scientist lady and lord knows who,</p><p>and they all wanted to adopt me in some way, and, for the</p><p>price of their care and influence, have me resemble them.</p><p>'I like you.'</p><p>'That's tough, Joan,' I said, picking up my book. 'Because I</p><p>don't like you. You make me puke, if you want to know.'</p><p>And I walked out of the room, leaving Joan lying, lumpy</p><p>as an old horse, across my bed.</p><p>I waited for the doctor, wondering if I should bolt. I knew</p><p>what I was doing was illegal—in Massachusetts, anyway,</p><p>because the state was cram-jam full of Catholics—but</p><p>Doctor Nolan said this doctor was an old friend of hers, and a</p><p>wise man.</p><p>'What's your appointment for?' the brisk, white-uniformed</p><p>receptionist wanted to know, ticking my name off on a</p><p>notebook list.</p><p>'What do you mean, for?' I hadn't thought anybody but the</p><p>doctor himself would ask me that, and the communal</p><p>waiting-room was full of other patients waiting for other</p><p>doctors, most of them pregnant or with babies, and I felt their</p><p>eyes on my flat, virgin stomach.</p><p>The receptionist glanced up at me, and I blushed.</p><p>'A fitting, isn't it?' she said kindly. 'I only wanted to make</p><p>sure so I'd know what to charge you. Are you a student?'</p><p>'Ye-es.'</p><p>'That will only be half-price then. Five dollars, instead of</p><p>ten. Shall I bill you?'</p><p>I was about to give my home address, where I would</p><p>probably be by the time the bill arrived, but then I thought of</p><p>my mother opening the bill and seeing what it was for. The</p><p>only other address I had was the innocuous box number</p><p>which people used who didn't want to advertise the fact they</p><p>lived in an asylum. But I thought the receptionist might</p><p>recognize the box number, so I said, 'I better pay now,' and</p><p>peeled five dollar notes off the roll in my pocketbook.</p><p>The five dollars was part of what Philomena Guinea had</p><p>sent me as a sort of get-well present. I wondered what she</p><p>would think if she knew to what use her money was being</p><p>put.</p><p>Whether she knew it or not, Philomena Guinea was buying</p><p>my freedom.</p><p>'What I hate is the thought of being under a man's thumb,'</p><p>I had told Doctor Nolan. 'A man doesn't have a worry in the</p><p>world, while I've got a baby hanging over my head like a big</p><p>stick, to keep me in line.'</p><p>'Would you act differently if you didn't have to worry</p><p>about a baby?'</p><p>'Yes,' I said, 'but...' and I told Doctor Nolan about the</p><p>married woman lawyer and her Defence of Chastity.</p><p>Doctor Nolan waited until I was finished. Then she burst</p><p>out laughing. 'Propaganda!' she said, and scribbled the name</p><p>and address of this doctor on a prescription pad.</p><p>I leafed nervously through an issue of Baby Talk. The fat,</p><p>bright faces of babies beamed up at me, page after page—</p><p>bald babies, chocolate-coloured babies, Eisenhower-faced</p><p>babies, babies rolling over for the first time, babies reaching</p><p>for rattles, babies eating their first spoonful of solid food,</p><p>babies doing all the little tricky things it takes to grow up,</p><p>step by step, into an anxious and unsettling world.</p><p>I smelt a mingling of Pabulum and sour milk and salt-cod-</p><p>stinky diapers and felt sorrowful and tender. How easy</p><p>having babies seemed to the women around me! Why was I</p><p>so unmaternal and apart? Why couldn't I dream of devoting</p><p>myself to baby after fat puling baby like Dodo Conway?</p><p>If I had to wait on a baby all day, I would go mad.</p><p>I looked at the baby in the lap of the woman opposite. I</p><p>had no idea how old it was, I never did, with babies—for all I</p><p>knew it could talk a blue streak and had twenty teeth behind</p><p>its pursed, pink lips. It held its little wobbly head up on its</p><p>shoulders—it didn't seem to have a neck—and observed me</p><p>with a wise, Platonic expression.</p><p>The baby's mother smiled and smiled, holding that baby as</p><p>if it were the first wonder of the world. I watched the mother</p><p>and the baby for some clue to their mutual satisfaction, but</p><p>before I had discovered anything, the doctor called me in.</p><p>'You'd like a fitting,' he said cheerfully, and I thought with</p><p>relief that he wasn't the sort of doctor to ask awkward</p><p>questions. I had toyed with the idea of telling him I planned</p><p>to be married to a sailor as soon as his ship docked at the</p><p>Charlestown Navy Yard, and the reason I didn't have an</p><p>engagement ring was because we were too poor, but at the</p><p>last moment I rejected that appealing story and simply said</p><p>'Yes'.</p><p>I climbed up on the examination table, thinking: 'I am</p><p>climbing to freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from</p><p>marrying the wrong person, like Buddy Willard, just because</p><p>of sex, freedom from the Florence Crittenden Homes where</p><p>all the poor girls go who should have been fitted out like me,</p><p>because what they did, they would do anyway, regardless...'</p><p>As I rode back to the asylum with my box in the plain</p><p>brown paper wrapper on my lap I might have been Mrs</p><p>Anybody coming back from a day in town with a Schrafft's</p><p>cake for her maiden aunt or a Filene's Basement hat.</p><p>Gradually the suspicion that Catholics had X-ray eyes</p><p>diminished, and I grew easy. I had done well by my shopping</p><p>privileges, I thought.</p><p>I was my own woman.</p><p>The next step was to find the proper sort of man.</p><p>Chapter Nineteen</p><p>'I'm going to be a psychiatrist.'</p><p>Joan spoke with her usual breathy enthusiasm. We were</p><p>drinking apple cider in the Belsize lounge.</p><p>'Oh,' I said dryly, 'that's nice.'</p><p>'I've had a long talk with Doctor Quinn, and she thinks it's</p><p>perfectly possible.' Doctor Quinn was Joan's psychiatrist, a</p><p>bright, shrewd, single lady, and I often thought if I had been</p><p>assigned to Doctor Quinn I would be still in Caplan or, more</p><p>probably, Wymark. Doctor Quinn had an abstract quality that</p><p>appealed to Joan, but it gave me the polar chills.</p><p>Joan chattered on about Egos and Ids, and I turned my</p><p>mind to something else, to the brown, unwrapped package in</p><p>my bottom drawer. I never talked about Egos and Ids with</p><p>Doctor Nolan. I didn't know just what I talked about, really.</p><p>'... I'm going to live out, now.'</p><p>I tuned in on Joan then. 'Where?' I demanded, trying to</p><p>hide my envy.</p><p>Doctor Nolan said my college would take me back for the</p><p>second semester, on her recommendation and Philomena</p><p>Guinea's scholarship, but as the doctors vetoed my living</p><p>with my mother in the interim, I was staying on at the asylum</p><p>until the winter term began.</p><p>Even so, I felt it unfair of Joan to beat me through the</p><p>gates.</p><p>'Where?' I persisted. 'They're not letting you live on your</p><p>own, are they?' Joan had only that week been given town</p><p>privileges again.</p><p>'Oh no, of course not. I'm living in Cambridge with Nurse</p><p>Kennedy. Her room-mate's just got married, and she needs</p><p>someone to share the apartment.'</p><p>'Cheers.' I raised my apple cider glass, and we clinked. In</p><p>spite of my profound reservations, I thought I would</p><p>always</p><p>treasure Joan. It was as if we had been forced together by</p><p>some overwhelming circumstance, like war or plague, and</p><p>shared a world of our own. 'When are you leaving?'</p><p>'On the first of the month.'</p><p>'Nice.'</p><p>Joan grew wistful. 'You'll come visit me, won't you,</p><p>Esther?'</p><p>'Of course.'</p><p>But I thought, 'Not likely.'</p><p>'It hurts,' I said. 'Is it supposed to hurt?'</p><p>Irwin didn't say anything. Then he said, 'Sometimes it</p><p>hurts.'</p><p>I had met Irwin on the steps of the Widener Library. I was</p><p>standing at the top of the long flight, overlooking the red</p><p>brick buildings that walled the snow-filled quad and</p><p>preparing to catch the trolley back to the asylum, when a tall</p><p>young man with a rather ugly and bespectacled, but</p><p>intelligent face, came up and said, 'Could you please tell me</p><p>the time?'</p><p>I glanced at my watch. 'Five past four.'</p><p>Then the man shifted his arms around the load of books he</p><p>was carrying before him like a dinner tray and revealed a</p><p>bony wrist.</p><p>'Why, you've a watch yourself!'</p><p>The man looked ruefully at his watch. He lifted it and</p><p>shook it by his ear. 'Doesn't work.' He smiled engagingly.</p><p>'Where are you going?'</p><p>I was about to say, 'Back to the asylum', but the man</p><p>looked promising, so I changed my mind. 'Home.'</p><p>'Would you like some coffee first?'</p><p>I hesitated. I was due at the asylum for supper and I didn't</p><p>want to be late so close to being signed out of there for good.</p><p>'A very small cup of coffee?'</p><p>I decided to practise my new, normal personality on this</p><p>man who, in the course of my hesitations, told me his name</p><p>was Irwin and that he was a very well-paid professor of</p><p>mathematics, so I said, 'All right,' and, matching my stride to</p><p>Irwin's, strolled down the long, ice-encrusted flight at his</p><p>side.</p><p>It was only after seeing Irwin's study that I decided to</p><p>seduce him.</p><p>Irwin lived in a murky, comfortable basement apartment in</p><p>one of the rundown streets of outer Cambridge and drove me</p><p>there—for a beer, he said—after three cups of bitter coffee in</p><p>a student cafe. We sat in his study on stuffed brown leather</p><p>chairs, surrounded by stacks of dusty, incomprehensible</p><p>books with huge formulas inset artistically on the page like</p><p>poems.</p><p>While I was sipping my first glass of beer—I have never</p><p>really cared for cold beer in mid-winter, but I accepted the</p><p>glass to have something solid to hold on to—the doorbell</p><p>rang.</p><p>Irwin seemed embarrassed. 'I think it may be a lady.'</p><p>Irwin had a queer, old-world habit of calling women</p><p>ladies.</p><p>'Fine, fine,' I gestured largely. 'Bring her in.'</p><p>Irwin shook his head. 'You would upset her.'</p><p>I smiled into my amber cylinder of cold beer.</p><p>The doorbell rang again with a peremptory jab. Irwin</p><p>sighed and rose to answer it. The minute he disappeared, I</p><p>whipped into the bathroom and, concealed behind the dirty,</p><p>aluminium-coloured Venetian blind, watched Irwin's</p><p>monkish face appear in the door crack.</p><p>A large, bosomy Slavic lady in a bulky sweater of natural</p><p>sheep's wool, purple slacks, high-heeled black overshoes</p><p>with Persian lamb cuffs and a matching toque, puffed white,</p><p>inaudible words into the wintry air. Irwin's voice drifted back</p><p>to me through the chilly hall.</p><p>'I'm sorry, Olga ... I'm working, Olga ... no, I don't think</p><p>so, Olga,' all the while the lady's red mouth moved, and the</p><p>words, translated to white smoke, floated up among the</p><p>branches of the naked Mac by the door. Then, finally,</p><p>'Perhaps, Olga ... good-bye, Olga.'</p><p>I admired the immense, steppe-like expanse of the lady's</p><p>wool-clad bosom as she retreated, a few inches from my eye,</p><p>down the creaking wooden stair, a sort of Siberian bitterness</p><p>on her vivid lips.</p><p>'I suppose you have lots and lots of affairs in Cambridge, I</p><p>told Irwin cheerily, as I stuck a snail with a pin in one of</p><p>Cambridge's determinedly French restaurants.</p><p>'I seem,' Irwin admitted with a small, modest smile, 'to get</p><p>on with the ladies.'</p><p>I picked up my empty snail shell and drank the herb-green</p><p>juice. I had no idea if this was proper, but after months of</p><p>wholesome, dull asylum diet, I was greedy for butter.</p><p>I had called Doctor Nolan from a pay phone at the</p><p>restaurant and asked for permission to stay overnight in</p><p>Cambridge with Joan. Of course, I had no idea whether Irwin</p><p>would invite me back to his apartment after dinner or not, but</p><p>I thought his dismissal of the Slavic lady—another</p><p>professor's wife—looked promising.</p><p>I tipped back my head and poured down a glass of Nuits</p><p>St. George.</p><p>'You do like wine,' Irwin observed.</p><p>'Only Nuits St. George. I imagine him ... with the</p><p>dragon...'</p><p>Irwin reached for my hand.</p><p>I felt the first man I slept with must be intelligent, so I</p><p>would respect him. Irwin was a full professor at twenty-six</p><p>and had the pale, hairless skin of a boy genius. I also needed</p><p>somebody quite experienced to make up for my lack of it,</p><p>and Irwin's ladies reassured me on this head. Then, to be on</p><p>the safe side, I wanted somebody I didn't know and wouldn't</p><p>go on knowing—a kind of impersonal, priestlike official, as</p><p>in the tales of tribal rites.</p><p>By the end of the evening I had no doubts about Irwin</p><p>whatsoever.</p><p>Ever since I'd learned about the corruption of Buddy</p><p>Willard my virginity weighed like a millstone around my</p><p>neck. It had been of such enormous importance to me for so</p><p>long that my habit was to defend it at all costs. I had been</p><p>defending it for five years and I was sick of it.</p><p>It was only as Irwin swung me into his arms, back at the</p><p>apartment, and carried me, wine-dazed and limp, into the</p><p>pitch-black bedroom, that I murmured, 'You know, Irwin, I</p><p>think I ought to tell you, I'm a virgin.'</p><p>Irwin laughed and flung me down on the bed.</p><p>A few minutes later an exclamation of surprise revealed</p><p>that Irwin hadn't really believed me. I thought how lucky it</p><p>was I had started practising birth control during the day,</p><p>because in my winey state that night I would never have</p><p>bothered to perform the delicate and necessary operation. I</p><p>lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin's rough blanket, waiting for the</p><p>miraculous change to make itself felt.</p><p>But all I felt was a sharp, startlingly bad pain.</p><p>'It hurts,' I said. 'Is it supposed to hurt?'</p><p>Irwin didn't say anything. Then he said, 'Sometimes it</p><p>hurts.'</p><p>After a little while Irwin got up and went into the</p><p>bathroom, and I heard the rushing of shower water. I wasn't</p><p>sure if Irwin had done what he planned to do, or if my</p><p>virginity had obstructed him in some way. I wanted to ask</p><p>him if I was still a virgin, but I felt too unsettled. A warm</p><p>liquid was seeping out between my legs. Tentatively, I</p><p>reached down and touched it.</p><p>When I held my hand up to the light streaming in from the</p><p>bathroom, my fingertips looked black.</p><p>'Irwin,' I said nervously, 'bring me a towel.'</p><p>Irwin strolled back, a bathtowel knotted around his waist,</p><p>and tossed me a second, smaller towel. I pushed the towel</p><p>between my legs and pulled it away almost immediately. It</p><p>was half black with blood.</p><p>'I'm bleeding!' I announced, sitting up with a start.</p><p>'Oh, that often happens,' Irwin reassured me. 'You'll be all</p><p>right.'</p><p>Then the stories of blood-stained bridal sheets and</p><p>capsules of red ink bestowed on already deflowered brides</p><p>floated back to me. I wondered how much I would bleed, and</p><p>lay down, nursing the towel. It occurred to me that the blood</p><p>was my answer. I couldn't possibly be a virgin any more. I</p><p>smiled into the dark. I felt part of a great tradition.</p><p>Surreptitiously, I applied a fresh section of white towel to</p><p>my wound, thinking that as soon as the bleeding stopped, I</p><p>would take the late trolley back to the asylum. I wanted to</p><p>brood over my new condition in perfect peace. But the towel</p><p>came away black and dripping.</p><p>'I ... think I better go home,' I said faintly.</p><p>'Surely not so soon.'</p><p>'Yes, I think I better.'</p><p>I asked if I could borrow Irwin's towel and packed it</p><p>between my thighs as a bandage. Then I pulled on my sweaty</p><p>clothes. Irwin offered to drive me home, but I didn't see how</p><p>I could let him drive me to the asylum, so I dug in my</p><p>pocketbook for Joan's address. Irwin knew the street and</p><p>went out to start</p><p>the car. I was too worried to tell him I was</p><p>still bleeding. I kept hoping every minute that it would stop.</p><p>But as Irwin drove me through the barren, snow-banked</p><p>streets I felt the warm seepage let itself through the dam of</p><p>the towel and my skirt and on to the car seat.</p><p>As we slowed, cruising by house after lit house, I thought</p><p>how fortunate it was I had not discarded my virginity while</p><p>living at college or at home, where such concealment would</p><p>have been impossible.</p><p>Joan opened the door with an expression of glad surprise.</p><p>Irwin kissed my hand and told Joan to take good care of me.</p><p>I shut the door and leaned back against it, feeling the</p><p>blood drain from my face in one spectacular flush.</p><p>'Why, Esther,' Joan said, 'what on earth's the matter?'</p><p>I wondered when Joan would notice the blood trickling</p><p>down my legs and oozing, stickily, into each black patent</p><p>leather shoe. I thought I could be dying from a bullet wound</p><p>and Joan would still stare through me with her blank eyes,</p><p>expecting me to ask for a cup of coffee and a sandwich.</p><p>'Is that nurse here?'</p><p>'No, she's on night duty at Caplan....'</p><p>'Good.' I made a little bitter grin as another soak of blood</p><p>let itself through the drenched padding and started the</p><p>tedious journey into my shoes. 'I mean ... bad.'</p><p>'You look funny,' Joan said.</p><p>'You better get a doctor.'</p><p>'Why?'</p><p>'Quick.'</p><p>'But...'</p><p>Still she hadn't noticed anything.</p><p>I bent down, with a brief grunt, and slipped off one of my</p><p>winter-cracked black Bloomingdale shoes. I held the shoe</p><p>up, before Joan's enlarged, pebbly eyes, tilted it, and watched</p><p>her take in the stream of blood that cascaded on to the beige</p><p>rug.</p><p>'My God! What is it?'</p><p>'I'm hæmorrhaging.'</p><p>Joan half-led, half-dragged me to the sofa and made me lie</p><p>down. Then she propped some pillows under my blood-</p><p>stained feet. Then she stood back and demanded, 'Who was</p><p>that man?'</p><p>For one crazy minute I thought Joan would refuse to call a</p><p>doctor until I confessed the whole story of my evening with</p><p>Irwin and that after my confession she would still refuse, as a</p><p>sort of punishment. But then I realized that she honestly took</p><p>my explanation at face value, that my going to bed with</p><p>Irwin was utterly incomprehensible to her, and his</p><p>appearance a mere prick to her pleasure at my arrival.</p><p>'Oh somebody,' I said, with a flabby gesture of dismissal.</p><p>Another pulse of blood released itself and I contracted my</p><p>stomach muscles in alarm. 'Get a towel.'</p><p>Joan went out and came back almost immediately with a</p><p>pile of towels and sheets. Like a prompt nurse, she peeled</p><p>back my blood-wet clothes, drew a quick breath as she</p><p>arrived at the original royal red towel, and applied a fresh</p><p>bandage. I lay, trying to slow the beating of my heart, as</p><p>every beat pushed forth another gush of blood.</p><p>I remembered a worrisome course in the Victorian novel</p><p>where woman after woman died, palely and nobly, in torrents</p><p>of blood, after a difficult childbirth. Perhaps Irwin had</p><p>injured me in some awful, obscure way, and all the while I</p><p>lay there on Joan's sofa I was really dying.</p><p>Joan pulled up an Indian hassock and began to dial down</p><p>the long list of Cambridge doctors. The first number didn't</p><p>answer. Joan began to explain my case to the second number,</p><p>which did answer, but then broke off and said 'I see' and</p><p>hung up.</p><p>'What's the trouble?'</p><p>'He'll only come for regular customers or emergencies. It's</p><p>Sunday.'</p><p>I tried to lift my arm and look at my watch, but my hand</p><p>was a rock at my side and wouldn't budge. Sunday—the</p><p>doctor's paradise! Doctors at country clubs, doctors at the</p><p>seaside, doctors with mistresses, doctors with wives, doctors</p><p>in church, doctors in yachts, doctors everywhere resolutely</p><p>being people, not doctors.</p><p>'For God's sake,' I said, 'tell them I'm an emergency.'</p><p>The third number didn't answer and, at the fourth, the</p><p>party hung up the minute Joan mentioned it was about a</p><p>period. Joan began to cry.</p><p>'Look, Joan,' I said painstakingly, 'call up the local</p><p>hospital. Tell them it's an emergency. They'll have to take</p><p>me.'</p><p>Joan brightened and dialled a fifth number. The</p><p>Emergency Service promised her a staff doctor would attend</p><p>to me if I could come in to the ward. Then Joan called a taxi.</p><p>Joan insisted on riding with me. I clasped my fresh</p><p>padding of towels with a sort of desperation as the cabby,</p><p>impressed by the address Joan gave him, cut corner after</p><p>corner in the dawn-pale streets and drew up with a great</p><p>squeal of tyres at the Emergency Ward entrance.</p><p>I left Joan to pay the driver and hurried into the empty,</p><p>glaringly lit room. A nurse bustled out from behind a white</p><p>screen. In a few swift words, I managed to tell her the truth</p><p>about my predicament before Joan came in the door, blinking</p><p>and wide-eyed as a myopic owl.</p><p>The Emergency Ward doctor strolled out then, and I</p><p>climbed, with the nurse's help, on to the examining table.</p><p>The nurse whispered to the doctor, and the doctor nodded</p><p>and began unpacking the bloody towelling. I felt his fingers</p><p>start to probe, and Joan stood, rigid as a soldier, at my side,</p><p>holding my hand, for my sake or hers I couldn't tell.</p><p>'Ouch!' I winced at a particularly bad jab.</p><p>The doctor whistled.</p><p>'You're one in a million.'</p><p>'What do you mean?'</p><p>'I mean it's one in a million it happens to like this.'</p><p>The doctor spoke in a low, curt voice to the nurse, and she</p><p>hurried to a side table and brought back some rolls of gauze</p><p>and silver instruments. 'I can see,' the doctor bent down,</p><p>'exactly where the trouble is coming from.'</p><p>'But can you fix it?'</p><p>The doctor laughed. 'Oh, I can fix it, all right.'</p><p>I was roused by a tap on my door. It was past midnight,</p><p>and the asylum quiet as death. I couldn't imagine who would</p><p>still be up.</p><p>'Come in!' I switched on the bedside light.</p><p>The door clicked open, and Doctor Quinn's brisk, dark</p><p>head appeared in the crack. I looked at her with surprise,</p><p>because although I knew who she was, and often passed her,</p><p>with a brief nod, in the asylum hall, I never spoke to her at</p><p>all.</p><p>Now she said, 'Miss Greenwood, may I come in a minute?'</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>Doctor Quinn stepped into the room, shutting the door</p><p>quietly behind her. She was wearing one of her navy blue,</p><p>immaculate suits with a plain, snow-white blouse showing in</p><p>the V of the neck.</p><p>'I'm sorry to bother you, Miss Greenwood, and especially</p><p>at this time of night, but I thought you might be able to help</p><p>us out about Joan.'</p><p>For a minute I wondered if Doctor Quinn was going to</p><p>blame me for Joan's return to the asylum. I still wasn't sure</p><p>how much Joan knew, after our trip to the Emergency Ward,</p><p>but a few days later she had come back to live in Belsize,</p><p>retaining, however, the freest of town privileges.</p><p>'I'll do what I can,' I told Doctor Quinn.</p><p>Doctor Quinn sat down on the edge of my bed with a</p><p>grave face. 'We would like to find out where Joan is. We</p><p>thought you might have an idea.'</p><p>Suddenly I wanted to dissociate myself from Joan</p><p>completely. 'I don't know,' I said coldly. 'Isn't she in her</p><p>room?'</p><p>It was well after the Belsize curfew hour.</p><p>'No, Joan had a permit to go to a movie in town this</p><p>evening, and she's not back yet.'</p><p>'Who was she with?'</p><p>'She was alone.' Doctor Quinn paused. 'Have you any idea</p><p>where she might be likely to spend the night?'</p><p>'Surely she'll be back. Something must have held her up.'</p><p>But I didn't see what could have held Joan up in tame night</p><p>Boston.</p><p>Doctor Quinn shook her head. 'The last trolley went by an</p><p>hour ago.'</p><p>'Maybe she'll come back by taxi.'</p><p>Doctor Quinn sighed.</p><p>'Have you tried the Kennedy girl?' I went on. 'Where Joan</p><p>used to live?'</p><p>Doctor Quinn nodded.</p><p>'Her family?'</p><p>'Oh, she'd never go there ... but we've tried them, too.'</p><p>Doctor Quinn lingered a minute, as if she could sniff out</p><p>some clue in the still room. Then she said, 'Well, we'll do</p><p>what we can,' and left.</p><p>I turned out the light and tried to drop back to sleep, but</p><p>Joan's face floated before me, bodiless and smiling, like the</p><p>face of the Cheshire cat. I even thought I heard her voice,</p><p>rustling and hushing through the dark, but then I realized</p><p>it</p><p>was only the night wind in the asylum trees....</p><p>Another tap woke me in the frost-grey dawn.</p><p>This time I opened the door myself.</p><p>Facing me was Doctor Quinn. She stood at attention, like a</p><p>frail drill sergeant, but her outlines seemed curiously</p><p>smudged.</p><p>'I thought you should know,' Doctor Quinn said. 'Joan has</p><p>been found.'</p><p>Doctor Quinn's use of the passive slowed my blood.</p><p>'Where?'</p><p>'In the woods, by the frozen ponds....'</p><p>I opened my mouth, but no words came out.</p><p>'One of the orderlies found her,' Doctor Quinn continued,</p><p>just now, coming to work....'</p><p>'She's not...'</p><p>'Dead,' said Doctor Quinn. 'I'm afraid she's hanged herself.'</p><p>Chapter Twenty</p><p>A fresh fall of snow blanketed the asylum grounds—not a</p><p>Christmas sprinkle, but a man-high January deluge, the sort</p><p>that snuffs out schools and offices and churches, and leaves,</p><p>for a day or more, a pure, blank sheet in place of memo pads,</p><p>date books and calendars.</p><p>In a week, if I passed my interview with the board of</p><p>doctors, Philomena Guinea's large black car would drive me</p><p>west and deposit me at the wrought-iron gates of my college.</p><p>The heart of winter!</p><p>Massachusetts would be sunk in a marble calm. I pictured</p><p>the snowflakey, Grandma Moses villages, the reaches of</p><p>swampland rattling with dried cat-tails, the ponds where frog</p><p>and hornpout dreamed in a sheath of ice, and the shivering</p><p>woods.</p><p>But under the deceptively clean and level slate the</p><p>topography was the same, and instead of San Francisco or</p><p>Europe or Mars I would be learning the old landscape, brook</p><p>and hill and tree. In one way it seemed a small thing, starting,</p><p>after a six months' lapse, where I had so vehemently left off.</p><p>Everybody would know about me, of course.</p><p>Doctor Nolan had said, quite bluntly, that a lot of people</p><p>would treat me gingerly, or even avoid me, like a leper with a</p><p>warning bell. My mother's face floated to mind, a pale,</p><p>reproachful moon, at her last and first visit to the asylum</p><p>since my twentieth birthday. A daughter in an asylum! I had</p><p>done that to her. Still, she had obviously decided to forgive</p><p>me.</p><p>'We'll take up where we left off, Esther,' she had said, with</p><p>her sweet, martyr's smile. 'We'll act as if all this were a bad</p><p>dream.'</p><p>A bad dream.</p><p>To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead</p><p>baby, the world itself is the bad dream.</p><p>A bad dream.</p><p>I remembered everything.</p><p>I remembered the cadavers and Doreen and the story of</p><p>the fig-tree and Marco's diamond and the sailor on the</p><p>Common and Doctor Gordon's wall-eyed nurse and the</p><p>broken thermometers and the negro with his two kinds of</p><p>beans and the twenty pounds I gained on insulin and the rock</p><p>that bulged between sky and sea like a grey skull.</p><p>Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and</p><p>cover them.</p><p>But they were part of me. They were my landscape.</p><p>'A man to see you!'</p><p>The smiling, snow-capped nurse poked her head in</p><p>through the door, and for a confused second I thought I really</p><p>was back in college and this spruce white furniture, this</p><p>white view over trees and hills, an improvement on my old</p><p>room's nicked chairs and desk and outlook over the bald</p><p>quad. 'A man to see you!' the girl on watch had said, on the</p><p>dormitory phone.</p><p>What was there about us, in Belsize, so different from the</p><p>girls playing bridge and gossiping and studying in the college</p><p>to which I would return? Those girls, too, sat under bell jars</p><p>of a sort.</p><p>'Come in!' I called, and Buddy Willard, khaki cap in hand,</p><p>stepped into the room.</p><p>'Well, Buddy,' I said.</p><p>'Well, Esther.'</p><p>We stood there, looking at each other. I waited for a touch</p><p>of emotion, the faintest glow. Nothing. Nothing but a great,</p><p>amiable boredom. Buddy's khaki-jacketed shape seemed</p><p>small and unrelated to me as the brown posts he had stood</p><p>against that day a year ago, at the bottom of the ski run.</p><p>'How did you get here?' I asked finally.</p><p>'Mother's car.'</p><p>'In all this snow?'</p><p>'Well,' Buddy grinned, 'I'm stuck outside in a drift. The hill</p><p>was too much for me. Is there anyplace I can borrow a</p><p>shovel?'</p><p>'We can get a shovel from one of the groundsmen.'</p><p>'Good.' Buddy turned to go.</p><p>'Wait, I'll come and help you.'</p><p>Buddy looked at me then, and in his eyes I saw a flicker of</p><p>strangeness—the same compound of curiosity and wariness I</p><p>had seen in the eyes of the Christian Scientist and my old</p><p>English teacher and the Unitarian minister who used to visit</p><p>me.</p><p>'Oh, Buddy,' I laughed. 'I'm all right.'</p><p>'Oh, I know, I know, Esther,' Buddy said hastily.</p><p>'It's you who oughtn't to dig out cars, Buddy. Not me.'</p><p>And Buddy did let me do most of the work.</p><p>The car had skidded on the glassy hill up to the asylum</p><p>and backed, with one wheel over the rim of the drive, into a</p><p>steep drift.</p><p>The sun, emerged from its grey shrouds of cloud, shone</p><p>with a summer brilliance on the untouched slopes. Pausing in</p><p>my work to overlook that pristine expanse, I felt the same</p><p>profound thrill it gives me to see trees and grassland waist-</p><p>high under flood water—as if the usual order of the world</p><p>had shifted slightly, and entered a new phase.</p><p>I was grateful for the car and the snowdrift. It kept Buddy</p><p>from asking me what I knew he was going to ask, and what</p><p>he finally did ask, in a low, nervous voice, at the Belsize</p><p>afternoon tea. DeeDee was eyeing us like an envious cat over</p><p>the rim of her teacup. After Joan's death, DeeDee had been</p><p>moved to Wymark for a while, but now she was among us</p><p>once more.</p><p>'I've been wondering ...' Buddy set his cup in the saucer</p><p>with an awkward clatter.</p><p>'What have you been wondering?'</p><p>'I've been wondering ... I mean, I thought you might be</p><p>able to tell me something.' Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for</p><p>the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure</p><p>smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a</p><p>photographer's bulb, his face was grave, even tentative—the</p><p>face of a man who often does not get what he wants.</p><p>'I'll tell you if I can, Buddy.'</p><p>'Do you think there's something in me that drives women</p><p>crazy?'</p><p>I couldn't help myself, I burst out laughing—maybe</p><p>because of the seriousness of Buddy's face and the common</p><p>meaning of the word 'crazy' in a sentence like that.</p><p>'I mean,' Buddy pushed on, 'I dated Joan, and then you,</p><p>and first you ... went, and then Joan...'</p><p>With one finger I nudged a cake crumb into a drop of wet,</p><p>brown tea.</p><p>'Of course you didn't do it!' I heard Doctor Nolan say. I</p><p>had come to her about Joan, and it was the only time I</p><p>remember her sounding angry. 'Nobody did it! She did it!'</p><p>And then Doctor Nolan told me how the best of psychiatrists</p><p>have suicides among their patients, and how they, if anybody,</p><p>should be held responsible, but how they, on the contrary, do</p><p>not hold themselves responsible....</p><p>'You had nothing to do with us, Buddy.'</p><p>'You're sure?'</p><p>'Absolutely.'</p><p>'Well,' Buddy breathed. 'I'm glad of that.'</p><p>And he drained his tea like a tonic medicine.</p><p>'I hear you're leaving us.'</p><p>I fell into step beside Valerie in the little, nurse-supervised</p><p>group. 'Only if the doctors say yes. I have my interview</p><p>tomorrow.'</p><p>The packed snow creaked underfoot, and everywhere I</p><p>could hear a musical trickle and drip as the noon sun thawed</p><p>icicles and snow crusts that would glaze again before</p><p>nightfall.</p><p>The shadows of the massed black pines were lavender in</p><p>that bright light, and I walked with Valerie a while, down the</p><p>familiar labyrinth of shovelled asylum paths. Doctors and</p><p>nurses and patients passing on adjoining paths seemed to be</p><p>moving on casters, cut off at the waist by the piled snow.</p><p>'Interviews!' Valerie snorted. 'They're nothing! If they're</p><p>going to let you out, they let you out.'</p><p>'I hope so.'</p><p>In front of Caplan I said good-bye to Valerie's calm, snow-</p><p>maiden face behind which so little, bad or good, could</p><p>happen, and walked on alone, my breath coming in white</p><p>puffs even in that sun-filled air. Valerie's last, cheerful cry</p><p>had been 'So long! Be seeing you.'</p><p>'Not if I know it,' I thought.</p><p>But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that</p><p>someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the</p><p>bell jar, with its</p><p>stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?</p><p>And hadn't Buddy said, as if to revenge himself for my</p><p>digging out the car and his having to stand by, 'I wonder who</p><p>you'll marry now, Esther.'</p><p>'What?' I'd said, shovelling snow up on to a mound and</p><p>blinking against the stinging back-shower of loose flakes.</p><p>'I wonder who you'll marry now, Esther. Now you've</p><p>been,' and Buddy's gesture encompassed the hill, the pines</p><p>and the severe, snow-gabled buildings breaking up the</p><p>rolling landscape, 'here.'</p><p>And of course I didn't know who would marry me now</p><p>that I'd been where I had been. I didn't know at all.</p><p>'I have a bill here, Irwin.'</p><p>I spoke quietly into the mouthpiece of the asylum pay</p><p>phone in the main hall of the administration building. At first</p><p>I suspected the operator, at her switchboard, might be</p><p>listening, but she just went on plugging and unplugging her</p><p>little tubes without batting an eye.</p><p>'Yes,' Irwin said.</p><p>'It's a bill for twenty dollars for emergency attention on a</p><p>certain date in December and a check-up a week thereafter.'</p><p>'Yes,' Irwin said.</p><p>'The hospital says they are sending me the bill because</p><p>there was no answer to the bill they sent to you.'</p><p>'All right, all right, I'm writing a cheque now. I'm writing</p><p>them a blank cheque.' Irwin's voice altered subtly. 'When am</p><p>I going to see you?'</p><p>'Do you really want to know?'</p><p>'Very much.'</p><p>'Never,' I said, and hung up with a resolute click.</p><p>I wondered, briefly, if Irwin would send his cheque to the</p><p>hospital after that, and then I thought, 'Of course he will, he's</p><p>a mathematics professor—he won't want to leave any loose</p><p>ends.'</p><p>I felt unaccountably weak-kneed and relieved.</p><p>Irwin's voice had meant nothing to me.</p><p>This was the first time, since our first and last meeting,</p><p>that I had spoken with him and, I was reasonably sure, it</p><p>would be the last. Irwin had absolutely no way of getting in</p><p>touch with me, except by going to Nurse Kennedy's flat, and</p><p>after Joan's death Nurse Kennedy had moved somewhere</p><p>else and left no trace.</p><p>I was perfectly free.</p><p>Joan's parents invited me to the funeral.</p><p>I had been, Mrs Gilling said, one of Joan's best friends.</p><p>'You don't have to go, you know,' Doctor Nolan told me.</p><p>'You can always write and say I said it would be better not</p><p>to.'</p><p>'I'll go,' I said, and I did go, and all during the simple</p><p>funeral service I wondered what I thought I was burying.</p><p>At the altar the coffin loomed in its snow-pallor of flowers</p><p>—the black shadow of something that wasn't there. The faces</p><p>in the pews around me were waxen with candlelight, and</p><p>pine boughs, left over from Christmas, sent up a sepulchral</p><p>incense in the cold air.</p><p>Beside me, Jody's cheeks bloomed like good apples, and</p><p>here and there in the little congregation I recognized other</p><p>faces of other girls from college and my home town who had</p><p>known Joan. DeeDee and Nurse Kennedy bent their</p><p>kerchiefed heads in a front pew.</p><p>Then, behind the coffin and the flowers and the face of the</p><p>minister and the faces of the mourners, I saw the rolling</p><p>lawns of our town cemetery, knee-deep in snow now, with</p><p>the tombstones rising out of it like smokeless chimneys.</p><p>There would be a black, six-foot deep gap hacked in the</p><p>hard ground. That shadow would marry this shadow, and the</p><p>peculiar, yellowish soil of our locality seal the wound in the</p><p>whiteness, and yet another snowfall erase the traces of</p><p>newness in Joan's grave.</p><p>I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my</p><p>heart.</p><p>I am, I am, I am.</p><p>The doctors were having their weekly board meeting—old</p><p>business, new business, admissions, dismissals and</p><p>interviews. Leafing blindly through a tatty National</p><p>Geographic in the asylum library, I waited my turn.</p><p>Patients, with accompanying nurses, made their rounds of</p><p>the stocked shelves, conversing, in low tones, with the</p><p>asylum librarian, an alumna of the asylum herself. Glancing</p><p>at her—myopic, spinsterish, effaced—I wondered how she</p><p>knew she had really graduated at all, and, unlike her clients,</p><p>was whole and well.</p><p>'Don't be scared,' Doctor Nolan had said. 'I'll be there, and</p><p>the rest of the doctors you know, and some visitors, and</p><p>Doctor Vining, the head of all the doctors, will ask you a few</p><p>questions, and then you can go.'</p><p>But in spite of Doctor Nolan's reassurances, I was scared</p><p>to death.</p><p>I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and</p><p>knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead—after all, I</p><p>had been 'analyzed'. Instead, all I could see were question</p><p>marks.</p><p>I kept shooting impatient glances at the closed boardroom</p><p>door. My stocking seams were straight, my black shoes</p><p>cracked, but polished, and my red wool suit flamboyant as</p><p>my plans. Something old, something new....</p><p>But I wasn't getting married. There ought, I thought, to be</p><p>a ritual for being born twice—patched, retreaded and</p><p>approved for the road. I was trying to think of an appropriate</p><p>one when Doctor Nolan appeared from nowhere and touched</p><p>me on the shoulder.</p><p>'All right, Esther.'</p><p>I rose and followed her to the open door.</p><p>Pausing, for a brief breath, on the threshold, I saw the</p><p>silver-baked doctor who had told me about the rivers and the</p><p>Pilgrims on my first day, and the pocked, cadaverous face of</p><p>Miss Huey, and eyes I thought I had recognized over white</p><p>masks.</p><p>The eyes and the faces all turned themselves towards me,</p><p>and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I</p><p>stepped into the room.</p><p>[End of The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath]</p><p>THE BELL JAR</p><p>tubs, and the fancy pink marble</p><p>tubs overlooking indoor lily ponds, and I remember the</p><p>shapes and sizes of the water taps and the different sorts of</p><p>soap-holders.</p><p>I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath.</p><p>I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-</p><p>women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York,</p><p>for near on to an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I</p><p>don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything</p><p>like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those</p><p>religious people feel about holy water.</p><p>I said to myself: 'Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shepherd is</p><p>dissolving, Frankie is dissolving, New York is dissolving,</p><p>they are all dissolving away and none of them matter any</p><p>more. I don't know them, I have never known them and I am</p><p>very pure. All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and</p><p>the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning</p><p>into something pure.'</p><p>The longer I lay there in the clear hot water the purer I felt,</p><p>and when I stepped out at last and wrapped myself in one of</p><p>the big, soft, white, hotel bath-towels I felt pure and sweet as</p><p>a new baby.</p><p>I don't know how long I had been asleep when I heard the</p><p>knocking. I didn't pay any attention at first, because the</p><p>person knocking kept saying 'Elly, Elly, Elly, let me in', and I</p><p>didn't know any Elly. Then another kind of knock sounded</p><p>over the first dull, bumping knock—a sharp tap-tap, and</p><p>another, much crisper voice said 'Miss Greenwood, your</p><p>friend wants you,' and I knew it was Doreen.</p><p>I swung to my feet and balanced dizzily for a minute in the</p><p>middle of the dark room. I felt angry with Doreen for waking</p><p>me up. All I stood a chance of getting out of that sad night</p><p>was a good sleep, and she had to wake me up and spoil it. I</p><p>thought if I pretended to be asleep the knocking might go</p><p>away and leave me in peace, but I waited, and it didn't.</p><p>'Elly, Elly, Elly,' the first voice mumbled, while the other</p><p>voice went on hissing 'Miss Greenwood, Miss Greenwood,</p><p>Miss Greenwood', as if I had a split personality or something.</p><p>I opened the door and blinked out into the bright hall. I</p><p>had the impression it wasn't night and it wasn't day, but some</p><p>lurid third interval that had suddenly slipped between them</p><p>and would never end.</p><p>Doreen was slumped against the door-jamb. When I came</p><p>out, she toppled into my arms. I couldn't see her face because</p><p>her head was hanging down on her chest and her stiff blonde</p><p>hair fell from its dark roots like a hula fringe.</p><p>I recognized the short, squat, moustached woman in the</p><p>black uniform as the night maid who ironed day-dresses and</p><p>party-frocks in a crowded cubicle on our floor. I couldn't</p><p>understand how she came to know Doreen or why she should</p><p>want to help Doreen wake me up instead of leading her</p><p>quietly back to her own room.</p><p>Seeing Doreen supported in my arms and silent except for</p><p>a few wet hiccups, the woman strode away down the hall to</p><p>her cubicle with its ancient Singer sewing-machine and white</p><p>ironing-board. I wanted to run after her and tell her I had</p><p>nothing to do with Doreen, because she looked stern and</p><p>hard-working and moral as an old-style European immigrant</p><p>and reminded me of my Austrian grandmother.</p><p>'Lemme lie down, lemme lie down,' Doreen was</p><p>muttering. 'Lemme lie down, lemme lie down.'</p><p>I felt if I carried Doreen across the threshold into my room</p><p>and helped her on to my bed I would never get rid of her</p><p>again.</p><p>Her body was warm and soft as a pile of pillows against</p><p>my arm where she leaned her weight, and her feet, in their</p><p>high, spiked heels, dragged foolishly. She was much too</p><p>heavy for me to budge down the long hall.</p><p>I decided the only thing to do was to dump her on the</p><p>carpet and shut and lock my door and go back to bed. When</p><p>Doreen woke up she wouldn't remember what had happened</p><p>and would think she must have passed out in front of my</p><p>door while I slept, and she would get up of her own accord</p><p>and go sensibly back to her room.</p><p>I started to lower Doreen gently on to the green hall</p><p>carpet, but she gave a low moan and pitched forward out of</p><p>my arms. A jet of brown vomit flew from her mouth and</p><p>spread in a large puddle at my feet.</p><p>Suddenly Doreen grew even heavier. Her head drooped</p><p>forward into the puddle, the wisps of her blonde hair</p><p>dabbling in it like tree roots in a bog, and I realized she was</p><p>asleep. I drew back. I felt half-asleep myself.</p><p>I made a decision about Doreen that night. I decided I</p><p>would watch her and listen to what she said, but deep down I</p><p>would have nothing at all to do with her. Deep down, I would</p><p>be loyal to Betsy and her innocent friends. It was Betsy I</p><p>resembled at heart.</p><p>Quietly, I stepped back into my room and shut the door.</p><p>On second thoughts, I didn't lock it. I couldn't quite bring</p><p>myself to do that.</p><p>When I woke up in the dull, sunless heat the next morning,</p><p>I dressed and splashed my face with cold water and put on</p><p>some lipstick and opened the door slowly. I think I still</p><p>expected to see Doreen's body lying there in the pool of</p><p>vomit like an ugly, concrete testimony to my own dirty</p><p>nature.</p><p>There was nobody in the hall. The carpet stretched from</p><p>one end of the hall to the other, clean and eternally verdant</p><p>except for a faint, irregular dark stain before my door as if</p><p>somebody had by accident spilled a glass of water there, but</p><p>dabbed it dry again.</p><p>Chapter Three</p><p>Arrayed on the Ladies' Day banquet table were yellow-</p><p>green avocado pear halves stuffed with crabmeat and</p><p>mayonnaise, and platters of rare roast beef and cold chicken,</p><p>and every so often a cut-glass bowl heaped with black caviar.</p><p>I hadn't had time to eat any breakfast at the hotel cafeteria</p><p>that morning, except for a cup of over-stewed coffee so bitter</p><p>it made my nose curl, and I was starving.</p><p>Before I came to New York I'd never eaten out in a proper</p><p>restaurant. I don't count Howard Johnson's, where I only had</p><p>French fries and cheeseburgers and vanilla frappes with</p><p>people like Buddy Willard. I'm not sure why it is, but I love</p><p>food more than just about anything else. No matter how</p><p>much I eat, I never put on weight. With one exception I've</p><p>been the same weight for ten years.</p><p>My favourite dishes are full of butter and cheese and sour</p><p>cream. In New York we had so many free luncheons with</p><p>people on the magazine and various visiting celebrities I</p><p>developed the habit of running my eye down those huge,</p><p>handwritten menus, where a tiny side-dish of peas costs fifty</p><p>or sixty cents, until I'd picked the richest, most expensive</p><p>dishes and ordered a string of them.</p><p>We were always taken out on expense accounts, so I never</p><p>felt guilty. I made a point of eating so fast I never kept the</p><p>other people waiting who generally ordered only chef's salad</p><p>and grapefruit juice because they were trying to reduce.</p><p>Almost everybody I met in New York was trying to reduce.</p><p>'I want to welcome the prettiest, smartest bunch of young</p><p>ladies our staff has yet had the good luck to meet,' the plump,</p><p>bald master-of-ceremonies wheezed into his lapel</p><p>microphone. 'This banquet is just a small sample of the</p><p>hospitality our Food Testing Kitchens here on Ladies' Day</p><p>would like to offer in appreciation for your visit.'</p><p>A delicate, ladylike spatter of applause, and we all sat</p><p>down at the enormous linen-draped table.</p><p>There were eleven of us girls from the magazine, together</p><p>with most of our supervising editors, and the whole staff of</p><p>the Ladies' Day Food Testing Kitchens in hygienic white</p><p>smocks, neat hair-nets and flawless make-up of a uniform</p><p>peach-pie colour.</p><p>There were only eleven of us, because Doreen was</p><p>missing. They had set her place next to mine for some</p><p>reason, and the chair stayed empty. I saved her place-card for</p><p>her—a pocket mirror with 'Doreen' painted along the top of it</p><p>in lacy script and a wreath of frosted daisies around the edge,</p><p>framing the silver hole where her face would show.</p><p>Doreen was spending the day with Lenny Shepherd. She</p><p>spent most of her free time with Lenny Shepherd now.</p><p>In the hour before our luncheon at Ladies' Day—the big</p><p>women's</p><p>magazine that features lush double-page spreads of</p><p>technicolour meals, with a different theme and locale each</p><p>month—we had been shown around the endless glossy</p><p>kitchens and seen how difficult it is to photograph apple pie</p><p>à la mode under bright lights because the ice-cream keeps</p><p>melting and has to be propped up from behind with</p><p>toothpicks and changed every time it starts looking too</p><p>soppy.</p><p>The sight of all the food stacked in those kitchens made</p><p>me dizzy. It's not that we hadn't enough to eat at home, it's</p><p>just that my grandmother always cooked economy joints and</p><p>economy meat-loafs and had the habit of saying, the minute</p><p>you lifted the first forkful to your mouth, 'I hope you enjoy</p><p>that, it cost forty-one cents a pound,' which always made me</p><p>feel I was somehow eating pennies instead of Sunday roast.</p><p>While we were standing up behind our chairs listening to</p><p>the welcome speech, I had bowed my head and secretly eyed</p><p>the position of the bowls of caviar. One bowl was set</p><p>strategically between me and Doreen's empty chair.</p><p>I figured the girl across from me couldn't reach it because</p><p>of the mountainous centrepiece of marzipan fruit, and Betsy,</p><p>on my right, would be too nice to ask me to share it with her</p><p>if I just kept it out of the way at my elbow by my bread-and-</p><p>butter plate. Besides, another bowl of caviar sat a little way</p><p>to the right of the girl next to Betsy, and she could eat that.</p><p>My grandfather and I had a standing joke. He was the head</p><p>waiter at a country club near my home town, and every</p><p>Sunday my grandmother drove in to bring him home for his</p><p>Monday off. My brother and I alternated going with her, and</p><p>my grandfather always served Sunday supper to my</p><p>grandmother and whichever of us was along as if we were</p><p>regular club guests. He loved introducing me to special</p><p>titbits, and by the age of nine I had developed a passionate</p><p>taste for cold vichyssoise and caviar and anchovy paste.</p><p>The joke was that at my wedding my grandfather would</p><p>see I had all the caviar I could eat. It was a joke because I</p><p>never intended to get married, and even if I did, my</p><p>grandfather couldn't have afforded enough caviar unless he</p><p>robbed the country club kitchen and carried it off in a</p><p>suitcase.</p><p>Under cover of the clinking of water goblets and</p><p>silverware and bone china, I paved my plate with chicken</p><p>slices. Then I covered the chicken slices with caviar thickly</p><p>as if I were spreading peanut-butter on a piece of bread. Then</p><p>I picked up the chicken slices in my fingers one by one,</p><p>rolled them so the caviar wouldn't ooze off and ate them.</p><p>I'd discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about</p><p>what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at</p><p>table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well</p><p>you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and</p><p>nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought</p><p>up. They will think you are original and very witty.</p><p>I learned this trick the day Jay Cee took me to lunch with a</p><p>famous poet. He wore a horrible, lumpy, speckled brown</p><p>tweed jacket and grey pants and a red-and-blue checked</p><p>open-throated jersey in a very formal restaurant full of</p><p>fountains and chandeliers, where all the other men were</p><p>dressed in dark suits and immaculate white shirts.</p><p>This poet ate his salad with his fingers, leaf by leaf, while</p><p>talking to me about the antithesis of nature and art. I couldn't</p><p>take my eyes off the pale, stubby white fingers travelling</p><p>back and forth from the poet's salad bowl to the poet's mouth</p><p>with one dripping lettuce leaf after another. Nobody giggled</p><p>or whispered rude remarks. The poet made eating salad with</p><p>your fingers seem to be the only natural and sensible thing to</p><p>do.</p><p>None of our magazine editors or the Ladies' Day staff</p><p>members sat anywhere near me, and Betsy seemed sweet and</p><p>friendly, she didn't even seem to like caviar, so I grew more</p><p>and more confident. When I finished my first plate of cold</p><p>chicken and caviar, I laid out another. Then I tackled the</p><p>avocado and crabmeat salad.</p><p>Avocados are my favourite fruit. Every Sunday my</p><p>grandfather used to bring me an avocado pear hidden at the</p><p>bottom of his briefcase under six soiled shirts and the Sunday</p><p>comics. He taught me how to eat avocados by melting grape</p><p>jelly and French dressing together in a saucepan and filling</p><p>the cup of the pear with the garnet sauce. I felt homesick for</p><p>that sauce. The crabmeat tasted bland in comparison.</p><p>'How was the fur show?' I asked Betsy, when I was no</p><p>longer worried about competition over my caviar. I scraped</p><p>the last few salty black eggs from the dish with my soup</p><p>spoon and licked it clean.</p><p>'It was wonderful,' Betsy smiled. 'They showed us how to</p><p>make an all-purpose neckerchief out of mink tails and a gold</p><p>chain, the sort of chain you can get an exact copy of at</p><p>Woolworth's for a dollar ninety-eight, and Hilda nipped</p><p>down to the wholesale fur warehouses right afterwards and</p><p>bought a bunch of mink tails at a big discount and dropped in</p><p>at Woolworth's and then stitched the whole thing together</p><p>coming up on the bus.'</p><p>I peered over at Hilda, who sat on the other side of Betsy.</p><p>Sure enough, she was wearing an expensive-looking scarf of</p><p>furry tails fastened on one side by a dangling gilt chain.</p><p>I never really understood Hilda. She was six feet tall, with</p><p>huge, slanted, green eyes and thick red lips and a vacant,</p><p>Slavic expression. She made hats. She was apprenticed to the</p><p>Fashion Editor, which set her apart from the more literary</p><p>ones among us like Doreen and Betsy and I myself, who all</p><p>wrote columns, even if some of them were only about health</p><p>and beauty. I don't know if Hilda could read, but she made</p><p>startling hats. She went to a special school for making hats in</p><p>New York and every day she wore a new hat to work,</p><p>constructed by her own hands out of bits of straw or fur or</p><p>ribbon or veiling in subtle, bizarre shades.</p><p>'That's amazing,' I said. 'Amazing.' I missed Doreen. She</p><p>would have murmured some fine, scalding remark about</p><p>Hilda's miraculous furpiece to cheer me up.</p><p>I felt very low. I had been unmasked only that morning by</p><p>Jay Cee herself, and I felt now that all the uncomfortable</p><p>suspicions I had about myself were coming true, and I</p><p>couldn't hide the truth much longer. After nineteen years of</p><p>running after good marks and prizes and grants of one sort</p><p>and another, I was letting up, slowing down, dropping clean</p><p>out of the race.</p><p>'Why didn't you come along to the fur show with us?'</p><p>Betsy asked. I had the impression she was repeating herself,</p><p>and that she'd asked me the same question a minute ago, only</p><p>I couldn't have been listening. 'Did you go off with Doreen?'</p><p>'No,' I said, 'I wanted to go to the fur show, but Jay Cee</p><p>called up and made me come into the office.' That wasn't</p><p>quite true about wanting to go to the show, but I tried to</p><p>convince myself now that it was true, so I could be really</p><p>wounded about what Jay Cee had done.</p><p>I told Betsy how I had been lying in bed that morning</p><p>planning to go to the fur show. What I didn't tell her was that</p><p>Doreen had come into my room earlier and said, 'What do</p><p>you want to go to that assy show for, Lenny and I are going</p><p>to Coney Island, so why don't you come along? Lenny can</p><p>get you a nice fellow, the day's shot to hell anyhow with that</p><p>luncheon and then the film première in the afternoon, so</p><p>nobody'll miss us.'</p><p>For a minute I was tempted. The show certainly did seem</p><p>stupid. I have never cared for furs. What I decided to do in</p><p>the end was to lie in bed as long as I wanted to and then go to</p><p>Central Park and spend the day lying in the grass, the longest</p><p>grass I could find in that bald, duck-ponded wilderness.</p><p>I told Doreen I would not go to the show or the luncheon</p><p>or the film première, but that I would not go to Coney Island</p><p>either, I would stay in bed. After Doreen left, I wondered</p><p>why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any</p><p>more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I</p><p>couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way</p><p>Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired.</p><p>I didn't know</p><p>what time it was, but I'd heard the girls</p><p>bustling and calling in the hall and getting ready for the fur</p><p>show, and then I'd heard the hall go still, and as I lay on my</p><p>back in bed staring up at the blank, white ceiling the stillness</p><p>seemed to grow bigger and bigger until I felt my eardrums</p><p>would burst with it. Then the phone rang.</p><p>I stared at the phone for a minute. The receiver shook a bit</p><p>in its bone-coloured cradle, so I could tell it was really</p><p>ringing. I thought I might have given my phone number to</p><p>somebody at a dance or a party and then forgotten clean,</p><p>about it. I lifted the receiver and spoke in a husky, receptive</p><p>voice.</p><p>'Hello?'</p><p>'Jay Cee here,' Jay Cee rapped out with brutal promptitude.</p><p>'I wondered if you happened to be planning to come into the</p><p>office today?'</p><p>I sank down into the sheets. I couldn't understand why Jay</p><p>Cee thought I'd be coming into the office. We had these</p><p>mimeographed schedule cards so we could keep track of all</p><p>our activities, and we spent a lot of mornings and afternoons</p><p>away from the office going to affairs in town. Of course,</p><p>some of the affairs were optional.</p><p>There was quite a pause. Then I said meekly, 'I thought I</p><p>was going to the fur show.' Of course I hadn't thought any</p><p>such thing, but I couldn't figure out what else to say.</p><p>'I told her I thought I was going to the fur show,' I said to</p><p>Betsy. 'But she told me to come into the office, she wanted to</p><p>have a little talk with me, and there was some work to do.'</p><p>'Oh-oh!' Betsy said sympathetically. She must have seen</p><p>the tears that plopped down into my dessert dish of meringue</p><p>and brandy ice-cream, because she pushed over her own</p><p>untouched dessert and I started absently on that when I'd</p><p>finished my own. I felt a bit awkward about the tears, but</p><p>they were real enough. Jay Cee had said some terrible things</p><p>to me.</p><p>When I made my wan entrance into the office at about ten</p><p>o'clock, Jay Cee stood up and came round her desk to shut</p><p>the door, and I sat in the swivel chair in front of my</p><p>typewriter table facing her, and she sat in the swivel chair</p><p>behind her desk facing me, with the window full of potted</p><p>plants, shelf after shelf of them, springing up at her back like</p><p>a tropical garden.</p><p>'Doesn't your work interest you, Esther?'</p><p>'Oh, it does, it does,' I said. 'It interests me very much.' I</p><p>felt like yelling the words, as if that might make them more</p><p>convincing, but I controlled myself.</p><p>All my life I'd told myself studying and reading and</p><p>writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do, and it</p><p>actually seemed to be true, I did everything well enough and</p><p>got all A's, and by the time I made it to college nobody could</p><p>stop me.</p><p>I was college correspondent for the town Gazette and</p><p>editor of the literary magazine and secretary of Honour</p><p>Board, which deals with academic and social offences and</p><p>punishments—a popular office, and I had a well-known</p><p>woman poet and professor on the faculty championing me</p><p>for graduate school at the biggest universities in the east, and</p><p>promises of full scholarships all the way, and now I was</p><p>apprenticed to the best editor on any intellectual fashion</p><p>magazine, and what did I do but balk and balk like a dull cart</p><p>horse?</p><p>'I'm very interested in everything.' The words fell with a</p><p>hollow flatness on to Jay Cee's desk, like so many wooden</p><p>nickels.</p><p>'I'm glad of that,' Jay Cee said a bit waspishly. 'You can</p><p>learn a lot in this month on the magazine, you know, if you</p><p>just roll up your shirt-cuffs. The girl who was here before</p><p>you didn't bother with any of the fashion show stuff. She</p><p>went straight from this office, on to Time.'</p><p>'My!' I said, in the same sepulchral tone. 'That was quick!'</p><p>'Of course, you have another year at college yet,' Jay Cee</p><p>went on a little more mildly. 'What do you have in mind after</p><p>you graduate?'</p><p>What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big</p><p>scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over</p><p>Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books</p><p>of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some</p><p>sort. Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue.</p><p>'I don't really know,' I heard myself say. I felt a deep</p><p>shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I</p><p>knew it was true.</p><p>It sounded true, and I recognized it, the way you recognize</p><p>some nondescript person that's been hanging around your</p><p>door for ages and then suddenly comes up and introduces</p><p>himself as your real father and looks exactly like you, so you</p><p>know he really is your father, and the person you thought all</p><p>your life was your father is a sham.</p><p>'I don't really know.'</p><p>'You'll never get anywhere like that.' Jay Cee paused.</p><p>'What languages do you have?'</p><p>'Oh, I can read a bit of French, I guess, and I've always</p><p>wanted to learn German.' I'd been telling people I'd always</p><p>wanted to learn German for about five years.</p><p>My mother spoke German during her childhood in</p><p>America and was stoned for it during the First World War by</p><p>the children at school. My German-speaking father, dead</p><p>since I was nine, came from some manic-depressive hamlet</p><p>in the black heart of Prussia. My younger brother was at that</p><p>moment on the Experiment in International Living in Berlin</p><p>and speaking German like a native.</p><p>What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German</p><p>dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense,</p><p>black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.</p><p>'I've always thought I'd like to go into publishing.' I tried</p><p>to recover a thread that might lead me back to my old, bright</p><p>salesmanship. 'I guess what I'll do is apply at some</p><p>publishing house.'</p><p>'You ought to read French and German,' Jay Cee said</p><p>mercilessly, 'and probably several other languages as well,</p><p>Spanish and Italian—better still, Russian. Hundreds of girls</p><p>flood into New York every June thinking they'll be editors.</p><p>You need to offer something more than the run-of-the-mill</p><p>person. You better learn some languages.'</p><p>I hadn't the heart to tell Jay Cee there wasn't one scrap of</p><p>space on my senior year schedule to learn languages in. I was</p><p>taking one of those honours programmes that teaches you to</p><p>think independently, and except for a course in Tolstoy and</p><p>Dostoevsky and a seminar in advanced poetry-composition, I</p><p>would spend my whole time writing on some obscure theme</p><p>in the works of James Joyce. I hadn't picked out my theme</p><p>yet, because I hadn't got round to reading Finnegan's Wake,</p><p>but my professor was very excited about my thesis and had</p><p>promised to give me some leads on images about twins.</p><p>'I'll see what I can do,' I told Jay Cee. 'I probably might</p><p>just fit in one of those double-barrelled, accelerated courses</p><p>in elementary German they've rigged up.' I thought at the</p><p>time I might actually do this. I had a way of persuading my</p><p>Class Dean to let me do irregular things. She regarded me as</p><p>a sort of interesting experiment.</p><p>At college I had to take a required course in physics and</p><p>chemistry. I had already taken a course in botany and done</p><p>very well. I never answered one test question wrong the</p><p>whole year, and for a while I toyed with the idea of being a</p><p>botanist and studying the wild grasses in Africa or the South</p><p>American rain forests, because you can win big grants to</p><p>study off-beat things like that in queer areas much more</p><p>easily than winning grants to study art in Italy or English in</p><p>England, there's not so much competition.</p><p>Botany was fine, because I loved cutting up leaves and</p><p>putting them under the microscope and drawing diagrams of</p><p>bread mould and the odd, heart-shaped leaf in the sex cycle</p><p>of the fern, it seemed so real to me.</p><p>The day I went into physics class it was death.</p><p>A short dark man with a high, lisping voice, named Mr</p><p>Manzi, stood in front of the class in a tight blue suit holding</p><p>a little wooden ball. He put the ball on a steep grooved slide</p><p>and let it run down to the bottom. Then he started talking</p><p>about let a equal acceleration and let t equal time and</p><p>suddenly he was scribbling letters and numbers and equals</p><p>signs all over the blackboard and my mind went dead.</p><p>I took the physics book back to my dormitory. It was a</p><p>huge book on porous mimeographed paper—four hundred</p><p>pages long with no drawings or photographs, only diagrams</p><p>and formulas—between brick-red cardboard covers. This</p><p>book was written by Mr Manzi to explain physics to college</p><p>girls, and if it worked on us he would try to have it</p><p>published.</p><p>Well, I studied those formulas, I went to class and watched</p><p>balls roll down slides and listened to bells ring and by the</p><p>end of the semester most of the other girls had failed and I</p><p>had a straight A. I heard Mr Manzi saying to a bunch of the</p><p>girls who were complaining that the course was too hard,</p><p>'No, it can't be too hard, because one girl got a straight A.'</p><p>'Who is it? Tell us,' they said, but he shook his head and</p><p>didn't say anything and gave me a sweet little conspiring</p><p>smile.</p><p>That's what gave me the idea of escaping the next semester</p><p>of chemistry. I may have made a straight A in physics, but I</p><p>was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I</p><p>learned it. What I couldn't stand was this shrinking</p><p>everything into letters and numbers. Instead of leaf shapes</p><p>and enlarged diagrams of the holes the leaves breathe</p><p>through and fascinating words like carotene and xanthophyll</p><p>on the blackboard, there were these hideous, cramped,</p><p>scorpion-lettered formulas in Mr Manzi's special red chalk.</p><p>I knew chemistry would be worse, because I'd seen a big</p><p>chart of the ninety-odd elements hung up in the chemistry</p><p>lab, and all the perfectly good words like gold and silver and</p><p>cobalt and aluminium were shortened to ugly abbreviations</p><p>with different decimal numbers after them. If I had to strain</p><p>my brain with any more of that stuff I would go mad. I</p><p>would fail outright. It was only by a horrible effort of will</p><p>that I had dragged myself through the first half of the year.</p><p>So I went to my Class Dean with a clever plan.</p><p>My plan was that I needed the time to take a course in</p><p>Shakespeare, since I was, after all, an English major. She</p><p>knew and I knew perfectly well I would get a straight A</p><p>again in the chemistry course, so what was the point of my</p><p>taking the exams, why couldn't I just go to the classes and</p><p>look on and take it all in and forget about marks or credits? It</p><p>was a case of honour among honourable people, and the</p><p>content meant more than the form, and marks were really a</p><p>bit silly anyway, weren't they, when you knew you'd always</p><p>get an A? My plan was strengthened by the fact that the</p><p>college had just dropped the second year of required science</p><p>for the classes after me anyway, so my class was the last to</p><p>suffer under the old ruling.</p><p>Mr Manzi was in perfect agreement with my plan. I think</p><p>it flattered him that I enjoyed his classes so much I would</p><p>take them for no materialistic reason like credit and an A, but</p><p>for the sheer beauty of chemistry itself. I thought it was quite</p><p>ingenious of me to suggest sitting in on the chemistry course</p><p>even after I'd changed over to Shakespeare. It was quite an</p><p>unnecessary gesture and made it seem I simply couldn't bear</p><p>to give chemistry up.</p><p>Of course, I would never have succeeded with this scheme</p><p>if I hadn't made that A in the first place. And if my Class</p><p>Dean had known how scared and depressed I was, and how I</p><p>seriously contemplated desperate remedies such as getting a</p><p>doctor's certificate that I was unfit to study chemistry, the</p><p>formulas made me dizzy and so on, I'm sure she wouldn't</p><p>have listened to me for a minute, but would have made me</p><p>take the course regardless.</p><p>As it happened, the Faculty Board passed my petition, and</p><p>my Class Dean told me later that several of the professors</p><p>were touched by it. They took it as a real step in intellectual</p><p>maturity.</p><p>I had to laugh when I thought about the rest of that year. I</p><p>went to the chemistry class five times a week and didn't miss</p><p>a single one. Mr Manzi stood at the bottom of the big, rickety</p><p>old amphitheatre, making blue flames and red flares and</p><p>clouds of yellow stuff by pouring the contents of one test-</p><p>tube into another, and I shut his voice out of my ears by</p><p>pretending it was only a mosquito in the distance and sat</p><p>back enjoying the bright lights and the coloured fires and</p><p>wrote page after page of villanelles and sonnets.</p><p>Mr Manzi would glance at me now and then and see me</p><p>writing, and send up a sweet little appreciative smile. I guess</p><p>he thought I was writing down all those formulas not for</p><p>exam time, like the other girls, but because his presentation</p><p>fascinated me so much I couldn't help it.</p><p>Chapter Four</p><p>I don't know just why my successful evasion of chemistry</p><p>should have floated into my mind there in Jay Cee's office.</p><p>All the time she talked to me, I saw Mr Manzi standing on</p><p>thin air in back of Jay Cee's head, like something conjured up</p><p>out of a hat, holding his little wooden ball and the test-tube</p><p>that billowed a great cloud of yellow smoke the day before</p><p>Easter vacation and smelt of rotten eggs and made all the</p><p>girls and Mr Manzi laugh.</p><p>I felt sorry for Mr Manzi. I felt like going down to him on</p><p>my hands and knees and apologizing for being such an awful</p><p>liar.</p><p>Jay Cee handed me a pile of story manuscripts and spoke</p><p>to me much more kindly. I spent the rest of the morning</p><p>reading the stories and typing out what I thought of them on</p><p>the pink Interoffice Memo sheets and sending them into the</p><p>office of Betsy's editor to be read by Betsy the next day. Jay</p><p>Cee interrupted me now and then to tell me something</p><p>practical or a bit of gossip.</p><p>Jay Cee was going to lunch that noon with two famous</p><p>writers, a man and a lady. The man had just sold six short</p><p>stories to the New Yorker and six to Jay Cee. This surprised</p><p>me, as I didn't know magazines bought stories in lots of six,</p><p>and I was staggered by the thought of the amount of money</p><p>six stories would probably bring in. Jay Cee said she had to</p><p>be very careful at this lunch, because the lady writer wrote</p><p>stories too, but she had never had any in the New Yorker and</p><p>Jay Cee had only taken one from her in five years. Jay Cee</p><p>had to flatter the more famous man at the same time as she</p><p>was careful not to hurt the less famous lady.</p><p>When the cherubs in Jay Cee's French wall-clock waved</p><p>their wings up and down and put their little gilt trumpets to</p><p>their lips and pinged out twelve notes one after the other, Jay</p><p>Cee told me I'd done enough work for the day, and to go off</p><p>to the Ladies' Day tour and banquet and to the film première,</p><p>and she would see me bright and early tomorrow.</p><p>Then she slipped a suit jacket over her lilac blouse, pinned</p><p>a hat of imitation lilacs on the top of her head, powdered her</p><p>nose briefly and adjusted her thick spectacles. She looked</p><p>terrible, but very wise. As she left the office, she patted my</p><p>shoulder with one lilac-gloved hand.</p><p>'Don't let the wicked city get you down.'</p><p>I sat quietly in my swivel chair for a few minutes and</p><p>thought about Jay Cee. I tried to imagine what it would be</p><p>like if I were Ee Gee, the famous editor, in an office full of</p><p>potted rubber plants and African violets my secretary had to</p><p>water each morning. I wished I had a mother like Jay Cee.</p><p>Then I'd know what to do.</p><p>My own mother wasn't much help. My mother had taught</p><p>shorthand and typing to support us ever since my father died,</p><p>and secretly she hated it and hated him for dying and leaving</p><p>no money because he didn't trust life insurance salesmen.</p><p>She was always on to me to learn shorthand after college, so</p><p>I'd have a practical skill as well as a college degree. 'Even the</p><p>apostles were tent-makers,' she'd say. 'They had to live, just</p><p>the way we do.'</p><p>I dabbled my fingers in the bowl of warm water a Ladies'</p><p>Day waitress set down in place of my two empty ice-cream</p><p>dishes. Then I wiped each finger carefully with my linen</p><p>napkin which was still quite clean. Then I folded the linen</p><p>napkin and laid it between my lips and brought my lips down</p><p>on it precisely. When I put the napkin back on the table a</p><p>fuzzy pink lip-shape bloomed right in the middle of it like a</p><p>tiny heart.</p><p>I thought what a long way I had come.</p><p>The first time I saw a finger-bowl</p><p>was at the home of my</p><p>benefactress. It was the custom at my college, the little</p><p>freckled lady in the Scholarships Office told me, to write to</p><p>the person whose scholarship you had, if they were still</p><p>alive, and thank them for it.</p><p>I had the scholarship of Philomena Guinea, a wealthy</p><p>novelist who went to my college in the early nineteen-</p><p>hundreds and had her first novel made into a silent film with</p><p>Bette Davis as well as a radio serial that was still running,</p><p>and it turned out she was alive and lived in a large mansion</p><p>not far from my grandfather's country club.</p><p>So I wrote Philomena Guinea a long letter in coal-black</p><p>ink on grey paper with the name of the college embossed on</p><p>it in red. I wrote what the leaves looked like in autumn when</p><p>I bicycled out into the hills, and how wonderful it was to live</p><p>on a campus instead of commuting by bus to a city college</p><p>and having to live at home, and how all knowledge was</p><p>opening up before me and perhaps one day I would be able</p><p>to write great books the way she did.</p><p>I had read one of Mrs Guinea's books in the town library—</p><p>the college library didn't stock them for some reason—and it</p><p>was crammed from beginning to end with long, suspenseful</p><p>questions: 'Would Evelyn discern that Gladys knew Roger in</p><p>her past? wondered Hector feverishly' and 'How could</p><p>Donald marry her when he learned of the child Elsie, hidden</p><p>away with Mrs Rollmop on the secluded country farm?</p><p>Griselda demanded of her bleak, moonlit pillow.' These</p><p>books earned Philomena Guinea, who later told me she had</p><p>been very stupid at college, millions and millions of dollars.</p><p>Mrs Guinea answered my letter and invited me to lunch at</p><p>her home. That was where I saw my first finger-bowl.</p><p>The water had a few cherry blossoms floating in it, and I</p><p>thought it must be some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner</p><p>soup and ate every bit of it, including the crisp little</p><p>blossoms. Mrs Guinea never said anything, and it was only</p><p>much later, when I told a debutante I knew at college about</p><p>the dinner, that I learned what I had done.</p><p>When we came out of the sunnily-lit interior of the Ladies'</p><p>Day offices, the streets were grey and fuming with rain. It</p><p>wasn't the nice kind of rain that rinses you clean, but the sort</p><p>of rain I imagine they must have in Brazil. It flew straight</p><p>down from the sky in drops the size of coffee saucers and hit</p><p>the hot sidewalks with a hiss that sent clouds of steam</p><p>writhing up from the gleaming, dark concrete.</p><p>My secret hope of spending the afternoon alone in Central</p><p>Park died in the glass egg-beater of Ladies' Day's revolving</p><p>doors. I found myself spewed out through the warm rain and</p><p>into the dim, throbbing cave of a cab, together with Betsy</p><p>and Hilda and Emily Ann Offenbach, a prim little girl with a</p><p>bun of red hair and a husband and three children in Teaneck,</p><p>New Jersey.</p><p>The movie was very poor. It starred a nice blonde girl who</p><p>looked like June Allyson but was really somebody else, and a</p><p>sexy black-haired girl who looked like Elizabeth Taylor but</p><p>was also somebody else, and two big, broad-shouldered</p><p>boneheads with names like Rick and Gil.</p><p>It was a football romance and it was in technicolour.</p><p>I hate technicolour. Everybody in a technicolour movie</p><p>seems to feel obliged to wear a lurid new costume in each</p><p>new scene and to stand around like a clothes-horse with a lot</p><p>of very green trees or very yellow wheat or very blue ocean</p><p>rolling away for miles and miles in every direction.</p><p>Most of the action in this picture took place in the football</p><p>stands, with the two girls waving and cheering in smart suits</p><p>with orange chrysanthemums the size of cabbages on their</p><p>lapels, or in a ballroom, where the girls swooped across the</p><p>floor with their dates, in dresses like something out of Gone</p><p>With the Wind, and then sneaked off into the powder-room to</p><p>say nasty intense things to each other.</p><p>Finally I could see the nice girl was going to end up with</p><p>the nice football hero and the sexy girl was going to end up</p><p>with nobody, because the man named Gil had only wanted a</p><p>mistress and not a wife all along and was now packing off to</p><p>Europe on a single ticket.</p><p>At about this point I began to feel peculiar. I looked round</p><p>me at all the rows of rapt little heads with the same silver</p><p>glow on them at the front and the same black shadow on</p><p>them at the back, and they looked like nothing more or less</p><p>than a lot of stupid moon-brains.</p><p>I felt in terrible danger of puking. I didn't know whether it</p><p>was the awful movie giving me a stomach-ache or all that</p><p>caviar I had eaten.</p><p>'I'm going back to the hotel,' I whispered to Betsy through</p><p>the half-dark.</p><p>Betsy was staring at the screen with deadly concentration.</p><p>'Don't you feel good?' she whispered, barely moving her lips.</p><p>'No,' I said. 'I feel like hell.'</p><p>'So do I, I'll come back with you.'</p><p>We slipped out of our seats and said Excuse me Excuse me</p><p>Excuse me down the length of our row, while the people</p><p>grumbled and hissed and shifted their rain boots and</p><p>umbrellas to let us pass, and I stepped on as many feet as I</p><p>could because it took my mind off this enormous desire to</p><p>puke that was ballooning up in front of me so fast I couldn't</p><p>see round it.</p><p>The remains of a tepid rain were still sifting down when</p><p>we stepped out into the street.</p><p>Betsy looked a fright. The bloom was gone from her</p><p>cheeks and her drained face floated in front of me, green and</p><p>sweating. We fell into one of those yellow checkered cabs</p><p>that are always waiting at the kerb when you are trying to</p><p>decide whether or not you want a taxi, and by the time we</p><p>reached the hotel I had puked once and Betsy had puked</p><p>twice.</p><p>The cab driver took the corners with such momentum that</p><p>we were thrown together first on one side of the back seat</p><p>and then on the other. Each time one of us felt sick, she</p><p>would lean over quietly as if she had dropped something and</p><p>was picking it up off the floor, and the other one would hum</p><p>a little and pretend to be looking out the window.</p><p>The cab driver seemed to know what we were doing, even</p><p>so.</p><p>'Hey,' he protested, driving through a light that had just</p><p>turned red, 'you can't do that in my cab, you better get out</p><p>and do it in the street.'</p><p>But we didn't say anything, and I guess he figured we were</p><p>almost at the hotel so he didn't make us get out until we</p><p>pulled up in front of the main entrance.</p><p>We didn't dare wait to add up the fare. We stuffed a pile of</p><p>silver into the cabby's hand and dropped a couple of</p><p>kleenexes to cover the mess on the floor, and ran in through</p><p>the lobby and on to the empty elevator. Luckily for us, it was</p><p>a quiet time of day. Betsy was sick again in the elevator and I</p><p>held her head, and then I was sick and she held mine.</p><p>Usually after a good puke you feel better right away. We</p><p>hugged each other and then said good-bye and went off to</p><p>opposite ends of the hall to lie down in our own rooms.</p><p>There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you</p><p>into old friends.</p><p>But the minute I'd shut the door behind me and undressed</p><p>and dragged myself on to the bed, I felt worse than ever. I</p><p>felt I just had to go to the toilet. I struggled into my white</p><p>bathrobe with the blue cornflowers on it and staggered down</p><p>to the bathroom.</p><p>Betsy was already there. I could hear her groaning behind</p><p>the door, so I hurried on around the corner to the bathroom in</p><p>the next wing. I thought I would die, it was so far.</p><p>I sat on the toilet and leaned my head over the edge of the</p><p>washbowl and I thought I was losing my guts and my dinner</p><p>both. The sickness rolled through me in great waves. After</p><p>each wave it would fade away and leave me limp as a wet</p><p>leaf and shivering all over and then I would feel it rising up</p><p>in me again, and the glittering white torture-chamber tiles</p><p>under my feet and over my head and on all four sides closed</p><p>in and squeezed me to pieces.</p><p>I don't know how long I kept at it. I let the cold water in</p><p>the bowl go on running loudly with the stopper out, so</p><p>anybody who came by would think I was washing my</p><p>clothes, and then when I felt reasonably safe I stretched out</p><p>on the floor and</p>
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