I and My True Love (38 page)

She halted her steps and waited while two other passengers stepped out of their seats, cutting her off from her friend in green. When she reached the platform, the green suit was already walking slowly away. Sylvia let it go, while she stood taking her first deep breaths of the cool crisp air. She had a touch of guilt, wondering if the woman had sensed that Sylvia wanted to be free for this half hour at least. Free? Her worries were already surging back. Quickly she walked towards the brightly lit waiting-room, taking the loneliest path. The long train that had carried her here waited patiently. Men were working on the wheels. Water was syphoned in. Food supplies were piled on. Mail trucks waited, stacked with sacks, with mountains of boxes. A train had come in, a train was being readied to pull out.

In the huge hall, she was dazzled by the lights and the voices. Travellers relaxing, eating, drinking at the long counters, travellers buying candy and cigarettes and postal cards and magazines.

She bought three newspapers; and then to disguise her anxiety she added a pack of cigarettes. A picture postcard caught her eye. She bought it, too. She half smiled as she looked at it, a smile for own ignorance, and she slipped it into her pocket. Her friend in green would like it. Then she looked round for a place to study the papers, but she shrank from the bright lights and the friendly eyes. She went out, on to the platform again, with the cool wind to clear her thoughts. The waiting train, a long line of silver gleaming in the night, was far enough away across the breadth of tracks to make her feel alone.

Alone. She looked round, almost wildly, then. Perhaps it was the dark shadows beyond the station, the strange hard lights far above the platform that flooded it so coldly, the strangers working on the jobs they knew so well, the silent shapes of trucks and crates around her, but suddenly the moment became unreal, fantastic. What am I doing here? she almost cried aloud. The farther I travel away from Jan, the more I need him.

She calmed herself and sat down on a wooden crate, sheltered behind a loaded truck, and examined the newspapers. The front page headlines dealt with the Senate Crime Committee investigations in New York and the Rosenberg spy trial. In Korea, U.N. tanks and infantry had crossed the 38 th parallel and were driving north. She opened the papers and began to search through them. For what? She wouldn’t even let herself say it. She scanned the columns of print quickly, persuading herself she was searching in vain. One of the papers carried nothing at all. “I told you,” she said aloud in her relief.

The second paper carried the same text as the Denver report with its Sunday date-line. So did the third.

Her unexplained worry returned. And then, as she closed the papers, folding them neatly to tuck in between two crates, she saw a paragraph boxed into the front page of the second paper, overshadowed by the proceedings of the Kefauver Committee so that she had missed it. The box was headed
No Comment?
Its date-line was
Washington, March 26.

It is reliably reported that certain classified information, dealing with the renewal of a trade treaty with Czechoslovakia, has been made known prematurely through unauthorised channels. The report has so far not been denied by our Government. A highly placed official stated today in Washington that the reported leak of information was most regrettable, but that the information itself was of little importance since it dealt with matters on which the final policy decision had not yet been reached. The Government spokesman refused to comment on recent rumours which connected the name of a minor Czech envoy to this country with the wife of a Washington lawyer who has been acting as one of our expert advisers on international trade.

The woman in the green suit came out of the waiting-room. She hesitated for a moment, but perhaps she hadn’t seen Sylvia after all, for she walked on towards the train. The other passengers streamed back, too. A man in station uniform came up and said, “Aren’t you going to get on that train, lady? It leaves in fifty seconds.”

Sylvia moved away.

“You’ve left your papers,” he called after her but she didn’t even look round.

She climbed the steep steps of the coach, her legs weak and tired, her body heavy and old. The woman in the green suit was already preparing to make herself comfortable for the night. She was taking a dressing-gown and slippers out of her suitcase, and then, clutching a small striped silk bag which she called her “beauty-kit” with a self-deprecatory smile, she left for the washroom. When she returned, Sylvia seemed already asleep.

She’ll feel awful in the morning, the woman thought, shaking her head over such ignorance in the rudiments of travel. Carefully, she folded her skirt and jacket over the rail in front of her. Her shoes, she laid neatly beside the foot rest. Quietly, she adjusted the lever at the side of her chair to tilt it backwards. Then she stretched out, pillowed her head comfortably on the white linen mat, drew her warm dressing-gown around her and closed her eyes.

Sylvia listened to the steady breathing beside her. She listened to the wheels of the train, gathering speed. She listened to its lonely whistle cutting through the darkness.

Every mile took her farther away, farther away from Jan. And it was now she needed him, to reassure her, to quieten her fears. Escape is all that is left, she thought, an escape together, an escape away from the shame that is bitter because it is unearned. But together we can face it. For even if everyone else believes those rumours and reports we know we aren’t guilty— not of treason.

She was cold, so cold that she reached for her coat on the rack overhead and drew it around her like a blanket, her eyes sometimes searching the darkness with its vague unknown shapes, sometimes closed tightly against the loneliness outside the window.

There was a moment when the panic of fear almost won. Desperately, she thought of Jan. Soon, she told herself, soon. That was what Jan had said. Soon. Together. For always.

And repeating these words, she could remember the touch of his hands, the confidence of his lips. She could remember the strength of his love. And her fears receded. She looked out into the dark shadows of the long night, seeing now Jan’s face, hearing his voice, feeling him beside her. Together was everything; the rest, nothing.

The dawn came, turning the black sky green. In the darkness the land had changed to lakes of flat white sand, giant dunes, ridges of black rock. The green sky faded to grey, then brightened to yellows and pinks and blues, stretching limitless over the surrealist expanse of desert nakedness, terrifying, remote, unreal in its reality. She pulled the window shade to blot it all out. Its strange emptiness was something she couldn’t face. It seemed too symbolic of her life without Jan.

Then even as the others in the coach stirred and woke and stared out of the windows in amazement, wonder or horror, she began to drift into sleep. And nothing awakened her until the morning was half over and she found she had left Nevada and was already in California.

The woman beside her smiled to welcome her back into life. She reached across Sylvia to pull up the window shade. “That better?” she asked. “But you’ve missed a lot of the Sierras. Pretty, aren’t they?”

Pretty was an odd choice in words. The mountains were majestic, high, sharp-shaped, covered with melting snow and deep rich forests. A torrent of a river plunged down through its deep chasm far below the train, whose speed had slowed to a gentle feeling of its way along the twisting curves. But Sylvia nodded and said, “Yes, it’s pretty.” She was thinking that the woman beside her had left the window shade drawn to let her sleep. “I spoiled your view,” she added.

“Oh, there are plenty of other windows.” She pointed to the river far below them. “It’s rushing to the Pacific, too.” Then, as Sylvia stretched her cramped body, she took charge. What about freshening up? What about something to eat? There, now, don’t you feel better?

Yes, Sylvia was saying with a smile, yes, yes, and yes. To agree was the simplest way. And, in the end, she did feel better. She even began to talk, to ask questions about the orchards, as the white world of mountains sank away into a wide plain where the bright sun brought the fruit trees and gardens to life. And it was with surprise that she watched her friend begin to gather her suitcase and packages.

“Sacramento,” the woman in the green suit explained. She lifted down a paper bag from the rack and uncovered a flowered hat. She arranged it carefully on her crisp curls, took a fresh pair of cotton gloves from her pocket-book, and perked up the last touch of starch on her frilled blouse. The train was slowing down.

“I got this for you,” Sylvia said, remembering to search in her pocket. She drew out the postcard she had bought in Salt Lake City. It was a picture of a bronze plaque, a group of people pushing and pulling a handcart over harsh earth.

“Oh!” the woman said, delighted. “My grandson will love it. He’s at the age for stories and pictures about them. And you got this specially!” She beamed her thanks, her smile as warm and whole-hearted as the sun on the earth outside. “Well, here we are.” She gathered up all her bundles. “Now, take good care of yourself,” she said suddenly, and plunged hurriedly along the aisle towards the platform, her flowered hat already slightly springing free from its pins, her glasses slipping, her light green suit cheerfully proclaiming her coming.

On the tree-edged platform, a thin young man with a small child in his arms hugged her and a round-faced little boy pulled at her skirt. But after all the exclaiming was over, she still remembered to turn back to the train and wave in the right direction before the little group moved slowly towards the row of parked cars under the massive trees. And suddenly, Sylvia wished that the wrinkled green suit still sat beside her.

27

The Oakland station was the end of the line. The passengers divided into two streams, one that waited for the ferry to take them across the Bay to San Francisco, the other that moved slowly towards the street.

Sylvia hesitated. Her plans had changed. She wasn’t going to telephone the Jerolds at Santa Rosita. She wasn’t going to Santa Rosita. Not yet. I’ll send George and Margaret a telegram, she thought: I’ll tell them that I’m going to find a job and then I’ll let them know my address. And they’ll understand. I don’t want to see friends, now. Not while I wait for this trouble to clear. I’ll be better among complete strangers, people who don’t know who I am or why I’ve come here, people who don’t have to try and shield me, people who won’t pity me.

The crowd jostled her, urging her to make up her mind. But instead of walking towards the telegraph office, she found herself standing in front of the bookstall. Which papers were reliable, which least sensational? Their strange names meant nothing to her. In the end, she bought all the latest editions of everything she could find. She had travelled almost incessantly for three thousand miles, but the news from Washington would have passed her on the journey.

Perhaps there’s no further news, she thought, as she found a seat in the waiting-room. Perhaps the whole thing has died down. At least, the headlines dealt with other people’s troubles, not with hers. And if the piece of information was as little important as the official at the State Department had said...

She was wasting time, she was building up hope. And yet, somehow, she felt her hope was not false.

Quietly, methodically, she laid the first paper on her knee. Nothing on the front page. Her hope quickened as she turned the pages slowly.

And then, there on the sixth page, was Jan’s name. Jan had been recalled to Prague: Jan had already left Washington.

No, she said, no, no. Had she screamed it aloud? But the faces around her hadn’t lifted. Only the man who sat opposite was looking at her. She lowered her eyes, but the lines of newsprint were blurred and merging and she couldn’t read them.

“Slow business waiting for trains.” The man had risen and sat beside her. He smiled as she looked up, a confident smile, taking in her figure and her face. She sat, unmoving, silent, staring at him, a red-faced, slick-haired, thick-lipped man with exaggerated shoulders and a hand-painted tie.

He looked at the blue eyes and the dark lashes, the soft skin, the curve of cheek and the rounded chin. He said, “But there’s no need to sit here. What about joining me in a drink? It’s just about time for a cocktail.” He glanced at his ostentatious watch.

She still stared at him. And then it seemed as if she had heard him at last. She gathered up the papers and her suitcase with a sudden quick movement that left him startled. She was gone before he could even say, “Here, don’t run away. I won’t eat you.” She didn’t even look back.

The ferry boat had not yet left. She entered the bare waiting-room where the travellers stood in patient groups. The doors opened, and the crowd moved forward, drawing her with it. She no longer decided anything; she moved as the people moved, halted as they halted. When she had to fumble in her bag for money for the ferry ticket, it seemed as if her hands belonged to a stranger. And the feet that carried her across the narrow pier, over the gangplank on to the covered deck of the broad little ship, belonged to this stranger, too.

She stood at the edge of the rail, her small suitcase at her feet, the papers under one arm, the other hand holding her hat against the whipping breeze. The sharp air brought her back to life again.

The ferry was already half-way across the Bay. She looked up at the girders of the Oakland Bridge high overhead, watching the electric trains and trucks speeding across the water; and above them, on the upper level of the bridge, were the highways and their constant stream of cars. Each man with his own job, his own purpose... She looked at the hills and trees that lay to the north, with their cluster of towns and settlements, linked across the Golden Gate to San Francisco. On that bridge, too, the cars formed an unending line. Each man travelling to where he belonged... She looked at the city itself, at the towers and tiers of white houses rising steeply from its many hills.