Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (43 page)

“Sure, Mr. Rath. I’ll be there.”

“Thanks,” Tom said, and hung up. I’ll have to tell Betsy after all, he thought. I hope this housing project goes through. Then we’d have plenty of money, and it would be easier to tell her.

I won’t tell her now, he thought. Not tonight. I might as well wait until the school vote goes through. It would be easier to tell her then, when we knew we were going to be all right ourselves.

What will I do if the housing project fails? he thought. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just have my salary, and is it fair to ask Betsy to share that with some woman I met during the war? She’d never do that–no woman would!

Tom glanced at the telephone. He wished he didn’t have to see Betsy until he could tell her about Maria–he didn’t want to have to keep secrets from her any more. The eagerness to go home had left him. He telephoned Betsy and told her he had to stay in town for a business lunch.

“Oh!” she said, sounding disappointed. “Do you really have to?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You sound funny. Is everything all right?”

“Yes.”

“Are you angry at me or something? You sound so funny.”

“I’m not angry,” he said. “I just have to see a guy. This is a thing I simply have to do.”

At twelve-thirty Tom got into one of the golden elevators and rode down to the lobby of the United Broadcasting building. Caesar Gardella, dressed in a dark-blue business suit, was waiting for him at the information booth. Caesar smiled embarrassedly when he saw him. “Do you want to go to that Mexican place again?” he asked.

“I guess so,” Tom said.

They walked across Rockefeller Plaza in silence. When they got to the restaurant, they sat down in the same booth they had occupied before.

“Two double Black and Whites,” Tom said to the waiter. When the drinks arrived, he said to Caesar, “Is there anything more you can tell me about Maria?”

“It’s just that she and the boy are living with Gina’s folks,” Caesar said. “I guess they’re well enough. I don’t know whether I should have done it or not, but there didn’t seem to be any point in calling you unless . . .”

“What did you do?”

“I told Gina’s mother that I had run into you here in New York, and I asked her to talk to Maria about it and see if Maria would take any help from you if you were willing to give it.”

“What did Maria say?”

“She sent me a letter to give you. I didn’t open it, but Gina’s mother says . . .”

“You have a letter for me?”

“Yes.” Caesar put his hand in his breast pocket and took out a rather soiled envelope with Tom’s full name written in black ink across the front in large, slanting letters. Tom tore it open. He took out a single-page letter folded around a snapshot wrapped in tissue paper. He looked at the snapshot first. It showed a plainly dressed woman, quite stout and almost middle-aged whom he dimly recognized as Maria, and standing beside her was a boy, a thin little boy all dressed up, with a cap on his head, and a shirt with a wide collar, and a little tight-fitting jacket, and short trousers. With his queer old-fashioned clothes, and his slender big-eyed face, and with his shockingly familiar forehead and nose and mouth, he looked like one of the faded photographs Tom’s grandmother had kept of “The Senator” as a child. Tom stared at the snapshot and then with trembling hands quickly stuffed it back into the envelope and unfolded the letter. Apparently Maria had dictated it to someone–the grammar and spelling were all correct.

“Dear Tom,” the letter said, “I do not like this, but I don’t know what to do. For myself I do not need help, but there is the boy. Anything you could do for him would be from heaven. I am ashamed to ask you, but we were never proud with each other, so perhaps you will understand. The boy needs help. He is a good boy. He studies well. I am sending you this picture that Louis took last year. Do not think we are trying to make trouble for you. I leave this in the hands of God.”

The letter was signed, “Maria Lapa.” Tom took a drink before folding it carefully and putting it back in the envelope with the photograph. He put the envelope in his inside coat pocket, glanced
up, and saw that Caesar was discreetly staring at the wall. There was a heavy silence.

“Caesar,” Tom said suddenly, “can I have some time to think this over?”

“Sure, Mr. Rath,” Caesar replied. “Nobody’s trying to hurry you. We don’t want you to do anything you don’t think should be done.”

“How much do you think I should send?”

“Anything would help. Gina and I have been sending ten dollars a month to her mother. Ten dollars a month is a lot of money in Rome.”

“How much would Maria need to raise that boy decently?”

Caesar shrugged his shoulders. “Maria will probably go on living with Gina’s mother,” he said. “If you sent her a hundred dollars a month, she could do an awful lot with it. She could send the boy to a pretty good school, and everything.”

“I’ve got to have time to work this out,” Tom said. “Look, Caesar, you’ve always been a decent guy. I’ve got to tell my wife–you can understand that. And it’s not going to be easy. I’ve got to have time.”

“Sure, Mr. Rath,” Caesar said earnestly. “Maria’s all right for now–Gina’s mother can take care of her. You’ve got no need to hurry.”

“It might take me a few weeks,” Tom said. “I’ve got to pick the right time to tell my wife.”

“It’s none of my business, Mr. Rath, but aren’t you going to make a lot of trouble for yourself? By telling your wife, I mean.”

“Could you send money somewhere every month without telling your wife?”

“No, I guess I couldn’t. I sure hope this doesn’t make trouble for you, though. I know Maria wouldn’t want that.”

“I’ve got a good wife,” Tom said. “I don’t think there’s going to be any trouble. I’ve just got to pick the right time.”

“Mr. Rath, I’d like to say this,” Caesar replied awkwardly. “We’re grateful to you–Maria and Gina and I. We know you don’t have to do it, there’s nothing that could make you. I don’t know whether it will mean anything to you or not, but Gina and I are going to pray for you, and I know Maria will.”

“Maria already has,” Tom said. “Now listen. You may not hear from me for quite a while. But I’ll get in touch with you, and I’ll make some kind of arrangement for Maria. I’ll probably do it through a bank or a lawyer. I’ll write her a note, but I want to make some kind
of permanent arrangement.” He paused in confusion. “It would be kind of difficult for everybody if I had to write her every month,” he concluded.

“What if your wife won’t let you do anything? I better not tell Maria until you’re sure.”

“No, you better not. We better wait and see.”

There was an interval of silence before the waiter came to take their orders.

“You want anything to eat?” Tom asked Caesar.

Caesar shook his head. “I got to be getting back,” he replied.

“Me too,” Tom said. He paid the check for the drinks. They left the restaurant and hurried off in different directions.

That afternoon Tom had a vicious headache. He threw himself into his work and missed his regular train home. While he waited for another train in Grand Central Station, he went to a drugstore and swallowed two aspirins. Finding that they didn’t help much, he went to the Hotel Commodore bar and drank too many Martinis. When he finally got home, Betsy looked at him with astonishment and concern. “Tommy,” she said, “what’s the matter with you? You look terrible.”

“I guess I just got a little stomach upset,” he said. “I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down.”

Without saying more, he walked up to the big bedroom. Taking off only his shoes, he lay down on the wide four-poster bed. All the objects in the room seemed to swirl before his eyes. The paintings of his father and grandfather as children, the old mandolin in its cracked leather case on the top shelf of the corner bookcase, and an electric clock on the bureau blurred and wavered. He shut his eyes. In the quiet room he could hear his wrist watch ticking. A few moments later Betsy came in and looked at him worriedly. “Should I call a doctor?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I guess I just drank a little too much. I was tired, and when I missed my train, I stopped at the bar in the station.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said. “It’s not adult, Tommy! And when you drink like this, I feel as though we were in different worlds. You haven’t even told me about your trip to California, and now the kids and I will have to eat supper without you. I wish you’d quit drinking, if only because it makes me feel so lonely.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He stretched out and stared up at the crocheted canopy overhead. Betsy left the room. A moment later she came back, and he felt something cool on his forehead. He put his hand up and found a damp towel she had placed there. “Thanks,” he said.

“Would an ice bag help?”

“This is fine.”

“Did Hopkins say anything to you that worries you?”

“No–everything is fine with Ralph. I’m not worried about my job at all. I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“Please don’t drink any more,” she said.

“I won’t.”

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

“I’m sorry.”

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

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

“What about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure.”

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

“I guess they do.”

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

“Do you think they’ll approve it?”

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

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

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