After You've Gone (2 page)

You have found some old friends over at Reed College, she tells me; you hang out a lot over there, and you tell her that she would be very much happier with a job. Very likely she would, but you have taken her to an extremely high unemployment area.

She doesn't understand your poetry at all, and doesn't know what to say when you read it to her. Well, this is certainly a problem that I too could have had, except that I dealt with it head-on, as it were, simply and clearly saying that I didn't understand poetry, that I had not read much or ever studied it. But that to me your poems sounded marvelous—which they did; I really miss the sound of them, your words.

You talk about me more and more.

You are at home less and less. And now Sally Ann confesses to me that she used to be a waitress at the Tosca; on some of the nights when I was at home, here in San Francisco (actually
I used to be grateful for a little time to catch up on work), when I assumed you were just hanging out in North Beach, you were actually courting Sally Ann, so to speak. Well, at this point I find this new information quite painless to absorb; it simply makes me miss you even less. But Sally Ann wonders if I think you could possibly be seeing someone else now? She says that you've mentioned a French professor at Reed, a most talented woman, you've said. Do I think—?

Well, I most certainly do think; you seem to prefer women with very respectable professions, poor Sally Ann representing the single rule-proving exception, I suppose. Some sort of lapse in calculation on your part—or quite likely Sally Ann had more to do with me than with herself, if you see what I mean, and I think you will. In any case, a fatal error all around.

Because it is clear to me that in an emotional sense you are battering this young woman. She is being abused by you. I could prove it to a jury. And, unlike me, she is quite without defenses.

You must simply knock it off. For one thing, it's beneath you, as you surely in your better, saner, kinder moments must clearly see (you're not all bad; even in my own worst moments I recall much good, much kindness, even). Why don't you just give her a ticket to somewhere, along with some gentle, ego-preserving words (heaven knows you're at your best with words), and let her go? Then you can move in your Reed College French professor and live happily there on your houseboat—almost forever, at least until the Portland rains let up and you feel like moving on.

As for myself, it seems only fair to tell you that I have indeed found a new friend—or, rather, an old friend has reappeared in my life in another role. (
Fair.
As I write this, I wonder if in some way, maybe, you were right all along to
object to my notion of fairness? There was always a slightly hostile getting-even element in my justice? Well, I will at least admit that possibility.) In any case, I am taking off on a small trip to Jackson, Wyoming, day after tomorrow, with my old-new friend. About whom I can only at this moment say so far so good, in fact very good indeed—although I have to admit that I am still a little wary, after you. However, at least for me he is a more known quality than you were (we were undergraduates together, in those distant romantic Berkeley days), and I very much doubt that you'll be getting any letter of complaint regarding me. He already knows what he's getting, so to speak.

And so, please wish me well, as I do you (I'll keep my fingers crossed for the MacArthur thing).

And, I repeat, let Sally Ann go. All three of us, you, me, and Sally Ann, will be much better off—you without her, and she without you. And me without the crazy burden of these letters, which, if I were
really
fair, I would send on to you.

“Hasn't anyone noticed those clouds? They're incredibly beautiful.” These words were spoken with some despair, for indeed no one had noticed, by a woman named Caroline Gerhardt, on a late evening in September, 1940. Caroline Coffin Gerhardt, actually, or so she signed the many letters that she wrote to newspapers, both local and further afield: the
Capitol Times
, right there in Madison, Wisconsin, and Colonel McCormick's infamous (Caroline's word) Chicago
Tribune
.

The ponderously shifting, immense white clouds contemplated by Caroline were moving across an enormous black sky, above one of Madison's smaller lakes. This house, Caroline's, was perched up on a fairly high bluff, yielding views of the dark water in which the reflected clouds were exaggerated, distorted by the tiny flicker of the waves. There was also a large full moon, but full moons—at least to Caroline—seemed much less remarkable than those clouds.

No one else in the room noticed anything remarkable, because almost all of them, all much younger than Caroline, were dancing slowly, slowly, body to body, to some slow, very
sexy recorded music. The “children,” as Caroline thought of these steamy adolescents, especially her own two girls, have only taken romantic notice of the moon. Beautiful raven-haired Amy Gerhardt, who resembles her absent father rather than smaller, pale, and somewhat wispy Caroline—Amy's perfectly painted lips have just grazed her partner's ear as she whispered, “You see? Another full moon. That makes seven since February.” The boy pressed her more tightly into his own body. All those tall boys and smooth-haired, gardenia-smelling girls danced too closely, Caroline had observed, with pain. Hardly dancing at all. Six or eight couples, two or three stags, in the big, low-ceilinged, pine-paneled room—the game room. Dancing, their eyes half closed, not looking out to the lake, to the moon and sky.

Caroline's letters to the papers had to do with the coming war, with what Caroline saw as its clear necessity: Hitler must be stopped. The urgency of it possessed her, what Hitler was doing to the Jews, the horror of it always in her mind. And the smaller countries, systematically devastated. There in the isolationist Midwest she was excoriated as a warmonger (small, gentle, peaceable Caroline). Or worse: more than once—dirty toilet paper in the mail.

She also received from quite other sources pictures that were just beginning to be smuggled out of the camps. Buchenwald, Dachau.

She was actively involved in trying to help the refugees who had begun to arrive in Madison, with housing, jobs, sometimes at the university.

There was in fact a refugee boy at the party in Caroline's game room that night. Egon Heller, the son of an anti-Nazi editor, now dead in Auschwitz. Egon and his mother had arrived from England. Hearing of them, going over to see them, and liking the mother (able actually to help her with a translator
job), Caroline impulsively invited the boy. “If you're not busy tonight, there's a little party at my house. My daughters—about your age. They're both at Wisconsin High. Oh, you too? Oh, good.”

Egon seemed more English than German. “The years of formation,” his mother explained. Tall and shy, long-nosed and prominent of tooth, he seemed much younger than he was—younger, that is, than American boys his age. Not adolescent, more childlike. One of the three young people not dancing just then, Egon stood near the record player, in the proximity of Caroline's younger daughter, Julie—plump and brilliant and not yet discovered by boys (Caroline's idea being that she surely would be, and soon)—although Julie was extremely “well liked,” as the phrase then went, in high school. By boys and girls, and teachers.

Caroline's secret conviction about her daughter was that within Julie's flesh were embedded her own genes, her sensuality. The intense dark impulses that had enmeshed her with Arne Gerhardt and landed her with three children—the youngest, now upstairs asleep, born embarrassingly only a year ago, when Caroline was already over forty.

Caroline felt with Julie a sensual kinship and consequent cause for alarm far more than with more overtly sexy Amy, the oldest. Caroline too had once been plump and brilliant and shy.

Maybe this Egon will be the one, romantic Caroline thought, looking toward the corner to Egon and Julie, who so far seemed to have in common only the fact of not dancing. He's so tall and thin and toothy, Julie now so unsmiling, so matter-of-fact. Still, it would be very nice, thought Caroline. English—Jewish—New England—Swedish grandchildren—she would like that very much.

The other young person not dancing in the early part of that
evening was a new girl in town, from Julie's class, invited by Julie (who would later be strongly maternal, Caroline knew). A strange-looking girl from Oklahoma, with an odd accent and a funny name: Lauren. Most striking of all about Lauren, right off, was her hair—very pale, more white than blond, it stood out all over her head in tiny fine soft ringlets.

She looked younger than the rest of the girls, perhaps partly because she did not wear lipstick. Her mouth was long and finely drawn, and pale, in that roomful of girls. Even Julie had dark blood-red lips. A very tall, very thin girl, her neck was long and she moved her head about uncertainly, watching the dancers. Her smile was slightly crooked, off.

Someone should ask her to dance, thought Caroline. How rude these children are, how entirely selfish. Perhaps Egon will, that would be very nice, two strangers finding each other. But maybe he is too polite to ask Lauren with Julie standing there; he doesn't know that Julie wouldn't mind in the least being left alone. She will probably be going up soon to see about Baby.

Seeing no way out of this social dilemma, but fated always to feel responsible, Caroline herself began to move in Lauren's direction—not easy, as the music had become more lively, people hopping about and arms and legs thrust out. Slowly making her way, Caroline tried to think of social-welcoming-maternal conversation.

“So you and Julie are taking Latin together?” Reaching Lauren at last, this breathless, silly remark was all she had been able to summon up finally.

“Yes. Cicero. There's only five of us in the class.” Lauren laughed apologetically, as though abashed at the small size of the Latin class. But then, her huge eyes on Caroline, she said earnestly, “This is the most beautiful room I've ever seen. The view—”

Unprepared for intensity, Caroline was flustered. “Well, it's a funny old house. Not exactly practical. But it is nice, being here on the lake.”

“I love it in Madison.” Lauren's voice was rapt, those huge pale eyes burned. Caroline sensed that the girl had not said this before, to anyone. It was not a remark to be made to contemporaries, other children.

“Well, yes, it is a very nice town,” Caroline agreed. “Especially the lakes, and the university.” Some flicker of intelligent response across Lauren's face made her add, “A very conservative place, though, on the whole.”

“Try Enid, Oklahoma,” Lauren laughed quickly. “More backward than conservative. But I know what you mean. The whole Midwest. Especially now.”

Was the girl simply parroting remarks overheard at home, or were those ideas of her own? Impossible to tell, but in any case Caroline found herself liking this Lauren, wanting to talk to her.

However, just at the moment of Caroline wanting to speak, forming sentences in her mind, the two of them were interrupted by a tall, fair, thin boy—Caroline knew him, knew his parents, but could not for the moment recall his name. Thick light hair, distinctively heavy eyebrows above deepset dark blue eyes. To Lauren he said, “Care to dance this one?” And then, somewhat perfunctorily (still, he did say it), “Okay with you, Mrs. Gerhardt?” He was staring at Lauren.

And they were gone, off and out into the room, lost among other couples, Lauren and Tommy Russell (his name had just come to Caroline, of course). And before she could collect herself or even could turn to watch them, from far upstairs she heard Baby's urgent cry. Bottle time. Glancing toward Julie, observing that she and Egon had at last begun to talk, Caroline signaled to her daughter that she would go up. “I want to get
to bed early anyway,” Caroline mouthed above the music, smiling, as she headed for the kitchen. For milk, a clean bottle, a heating saucepan.

Good Baby, the easiest child of the three, subsided as soon as she heard her mother's footsteps on the stairs. Smiling up from her crib, she grasped the proffered bottle, clamped it into her mouth as Caroline settled into the adjacent battered easy chair.

From here, upstairs, she had an even better view of the lake, and the moon and the marvelous white clouds, and Caroline then felt an unaccustomed peace possess her. She thought, It
is
easier with Arne away (a fact hitherto not quite acknowledged). Generally his absences were only troubling:
would
he come back? That year he had a visiting professorship at Stanford, two years before at Virginia.

Now, as she peacefully crooned to the milk-smelling, half-asleep fair child, she thought that this time even if Arne decided to take off for good, she would really be all right, she and her three girls, who themselves were more than all right—they were going to be great women, all three. She could cope with the house, the good big lakefront place bought so cheaply ten years back. They would all be perfectly okay, Amy with her heady romances and her disappointing grades, Julie with her perfect grades, and perhaps a new beau in this nice English-German boy, this Egon. And maybe a nice new friend in this Lauren Whitfield, from Enid, Oklahoma. And Baby will always be fine, thought Caroline, sleepily.

And Roosevelt will win the election and declare war on Germany within the year, and we will win that war in a matter of months. Hitler defeated. Dead. Maybe tortured in a concentration camp.

Caroline thought all that, still crooning to Baby, and smiling secretly, somnolently to herself.

…

Lauren Whitfield, the new girl with the funny hair, and Julie Gerhardt did indeed become friends, though not quite of the sort that Caroline had envisioned. They began going to lunch at the Rennebohm's drugstore across from the school, and Julie, sensing Lauren's extreme interest in what was to her a glamorous new place, became a sort of balladeer, a chronicler of high-school love affairs, past and present. Disastrous breakups, the occasional betrayal. Along with a detailed rundown on the current situation, who was going with whom as this new season began, this warm and golden fall.