Private Life (26 page)

Margaret had seen only once since leaving Missouri, when Elizabeth and the girls had

brought her out for a month's visit; the visit hadn't been terribly easy, with the girls only

seven and five and Lavinia visibly failing; it had, in fact, been a sad and difficult visit, but

Margaret was thinking about how to persuade Elizabeth to come again, grueling trip

though it was; Lucy May was nine already, and Eloise, seven), she heard the shattering of

a window. She stood stock-still in surprise, then went to Andrew's door and knocked. No

response. She opened the door.

Andrew was red in the face and breathing hard. After the article appeared,

Andrew had spent some of his money on a typewriter, and begun another project, much

more important than the moon book. The typewriter was not easy to use, but it appealed

to his pleasure in innovation. He attempted to master it off and on, though he railed

against the arrangement of the keyboard, which had not been done according to any

scientific principles that he could see. The typewriter had gone through the window and

was lying out on the grass.

She said, "Did the--," but just then he picked up a copy of
The Astronomical

Journal
and threw it down on the desk. She saw that he was not frustrated with the

typewriter at all--the typewriter had simply been the nearest heavy object.

She picked up the journal.

The letter was right in the front, a long one, from a man named Dr. Martin Lovel,

who worked at an observatory in Michigan. According to Dr. Lovel, he had worked with

Andrew in Wisconsin, and knew, from both his own experience and his own inquiry into

"the researches of Early," that Andrew had falsified data both in Wisconsin and in

Mexico, and then had covered up this "fraud" when confronted by Dr. Lovel while Dr.

Lovel was "a mere graduate student." Dr. Lovel had felt threatened by Andrew, who "was

some nine or ten inches taller than I am" and "coldly angry." And although Andrew had

given Dr. Lovel a good reference, there had been several interchanges between them that

could have been (and were) construed (by Dr. Lovel) as threatening--"I was given to

understand, in private, by Dr. Early, that recognition of my work would not be

forthcoming if I didn't drop my accusations." Nevertheless, upon seeing Andrew's article

in the spring, Dr. Lovel felt he had to protest--because Dr. Early's theory rested on bad

data, and though plausible on the surface, it was "rotten beneath."

It took Margaret about thirty seconds to read this letter and understand the gist of

it. She also understood its placement in the magazine, prominently positioned in the first

section, just where someone would turn to begin reading the articles.

Andrew had dropped into his chair and was staring at the broken window.

Margaret said, "Would you like me to go out and get the typewriter?"

He said nothing.

They were silent for a considerable time, while she wondered how to comfort her

husband, and whether she should allude to the letters she had read all those years before.

But he was red in the face and breathing hard, and she didn't have the courage for that, so

she said, carefully, "An accusation isn't the same as proof, Andrew. You can defend

yourself."

"I should not have to defend myself!"

"No, indeed. But maybe it would be a wise idea." Then she asked the most

pressing question, which she later realized was not a question a wife who was truly in

sympathy with her husband would have asked. She said, "Were the data falsified?"

He stared at her, but she didn't lower her eyes. The letters. Even though she

couldn't mention them, she tried to keep in mind the straightforward but sympathetic

approach that Mrs. Early had mastered.

"Not falsified, but there were some mistakes."

"Did you correct them?"

By his silence, she knew that he had not corrected them, but had allowed the issue

to languish, probably out of pride. He said, "They aren't important to my theory. My

theory doesn't depend on little mistakes, such as they were. There are plenty of other

observations by other astronomers pointing in the same direction. The man was lying in

wait to ambush me! He resented me then, even though I overcame my distrust of him and

gave him a good reference. I see he's been harboring this grudge! I treated him perfectly

well. I did him favors! Now he has ruined me."

"Well, it's not the first time someone has reacted to perceived favors with

resentment, but I doubt that he has ruined you." That was exactly the sort of thing Mrs.

Early would have said, she thought. "But how does this man know you?"

"He was my graduate student in Chicago. We got along well until he was set

against me. By someone else."

"By

whom?"

He stared at her, then exclaimed, "Look where they printed the letter! That's as

good as a telegram from the editors that they will never publish my work again, and it's

not just a telegram to me, but a telegram to every astronomer in the world."

"I understand that, but I don't see why you can't defend yourself."

"I should defend myself by going to Michigan and shooting the cur."

"Since it's a five-day trip to Michigan, thank goodness you're hotheaded rather

than cold-blooded."

He gave her a little smile, sighed. At this very moment, she remembered her

grandfather talking about mules and horses. He had said, "It's harder to train a mule than

a horse. You know why? When a horse sighs, you know he's giving up, but when a mule

sighs, you know he's coming up with another plan." Andrew, she thought, had always

been more a horse than a mule, but that didn't mean the mule wasn't in there. She went

outside and got the typewriter. The frame was bent. She carried it into his office, heavy as

it was, and set it on the desk, her demeanor as neutral as possible. A few minutes later, he

went and got one of the sailors who worked around the base to come over and put a piece

of wood over the window. A couple of days after that, another pair of sailors replaced the

window while she was in San Francisco.

He said no more about the article or the letter, and both issues of
The

Astronomical Journal
disappeared from among the papers that were stacked around the

house. To others, Margaret thought, Andrew would not have seemed different from his

usual self. He still stalked about the island in his brisk, upright fashion, smoothing his

mustaches and filling out his uniform, speaking to everyone, and ordering the sailors

about. Over meals, he was polite. But he avoided her. He spent all of his time in his study

or at the observatory, working on his book, while she stayed in the kitchen or in her

room. The effect of this was to make her more cool toward him, rather than less. When

Dora urged her to meet at Mrs. Wareham's or invited her into San Francisco, she was

happy to go.

Dora did not have a house but, rather, a lovely apartment in San Francisco's

Cornell Hotel, with a large parlor, a bedchamber, and a bath, but no kitchen. "I hate a

kitchen," said Dora. She ate only in restaurants, but they could be any sort of restaurant,

from the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel to a nameless oyster bar on the wharf. Dora's

friends, who seemed to walk in and out of her apartment at will, and could frequently be

found in the mornings, slumped on the sofa or stretched out on the carpet, were not like

anyone on the island. The ones who were friendly to Margaret were Mal Cohen, who

wrote about crime for the
Call
, and George Roden, who covered labor news, along with

the only other woman writer on the
Examiner
, Leonora Eliot (born Lena Priskov in

Detroit, Michigan), who covered debutantes, society balls, and weddings. Leonora was

even more fashionably attired than Dora, but every time Margaret complimented her on

an outfit, Leonora would laugh and exclaim that she had gotten it for free--either Gump's

or the White House had given "this thing" to her, or one of her society friends had cast it

off. She put her arm across the back of the sofa in a boyish way, and said, "Darling

Margaret, you know what I really like? Not polo, by any means, but rowing! The bay is

so delightfully dangerous. I got all the way to Alcatraz last weekend, close enough that

they drew their guns on me! The wind was blowing so hard I could not shout to them

who I was."

Margaret said, "You could have been killed!" and Leonora laughed, as if this was

a thrilling idea, and said, "The waves were so rough that I almost missed the livestock

exposition I had to cover that evening."

Margaret said, "Livestock? I thought--"

"But that's what they are, these debutante balls. They are selling these girls. And I

am terribly tired of champagne. George should exchange jobs with me." She gestured

with her cigarette holder across the room.

The room was filled with painters and musicians and men with no daily

occupation more pressing than finding a good cigar. Dora accompanied these men around

the city, into shops and factories and livery stables and warehouses and brothels, or to

garden lunches and society parties and masked balls, all the time eavesdropping and

asking questions and writing up little pieces under the headline "In Another Part of the

City." When Margaret came home from these visits, she chatted about these people to

Andrew across the supper table, even though he was gloomy and preoccupied. She told

him how Leonora Eliot had discovered that photos of herself had turned up in a gallery in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the very time when Leonora's off-and-on suitor, a wealthy

San Franciscan named Charles Coudray, happened to be visiting friends there. Coudray

recognized Leonora's shoulder (which had a mole), and bought every print. When he

confronted Leonora, she disdainfully returned all of the jewelry he had given her, and cut

off communication. Andrew laughed and said, "These are odd specimens you are

meeting, my dear."

In the fall, Dora had a little article in the
Examiner
entitled "Behind the Fence."

Margaret read it with some surprise, because they had talked about visiting Naoko's

family, the Kimuras, together, but had never done so. Dora had gone alone, though. In

her article, she described the backyard: The room seemed to flow outward toward the

garden, which was small but intricate. The only flowers your correspondent recognized

were some bronze-colored mums, and a trained elderberry shrub that was full of

hummingbirds. Otherwise, there was a narrow path through a small thick lawn, and there

were thick green shrubs neatly pruned to look like miniature trees. To the right of these

was a group of graceful maples, their leaves now red and yellow. These reminded your

correspondent suddenly of Missouri, in a way that caught her off-guard and made her

throat catch, but truly there was no Missouri about it; possibly she had simply never seen

anything like this garden, so small and perfect, hiding in a backyard in Vallejo.The

gentleman had started the shop, and planted the earliest parts of the garden as a welcome

gift for the lady. He had built the fence with two brothers he knew, carrying in the dirt for

the mountain. The rocks were from a hillside near Lincoln, where a friend of his had a

vegetable farm. He found the pines not far away, in a stand over toward the coast. The

maples came from Japan--a farmer he knew brought the seeds many years ago and

planted them in his garden for seedlings. In the winter, when it is dark, the gentleman

passes his time practicing calligraphy and poetry.The couple have a daughter and two

sons, who are at school. The boys were eager to demonstrate to your correspondent how

well spoken they are in English.

Margaret had never imagined that such a quiet place could exist in that part of

Vallejo, which was busy and rowdy, day and night. Nor could she envision Naoko

making her way from that quiet place through the noisy streets to Mrs. Wareham's, but

that was what the girl did, every day, twice a day. Once again, the curious thing was how

strange and forceful the world was, how it battered and clanged and could not be

withstood, and yet some individuals withstood it while others did not.

DORA began referring to one of the men she went about with, a man named Pete.

"He has plenty of money," said Dora. "He reads and he collects."

Given that Dora had never before taken seriously any of her idle connoisseurs of

cigars and whiskey, Margaret was a little surprised. She said, "What does he collect?"

They were sitting in the Garden Court, having high tea. The feather in Dora's hat

shivered as she breathed, and then bobbed when she sipped her tea. She said, "Whatever

there is to collect. He was showing me some netsuke he brought with him from Japan."

"What are netsuke?"

"Tiny little sculptures. Rather like buttons, really. Most of his are made of ivory

or jade, but one from the eighteenth century is carved from a tiger's tooth. It's carved into

the shape of an attacking warrior. He has a valuable collection."

"He's a dealer."

"Darling, he's too impetuous to be a dealer. He likes something, he buys it without

thinking of the market." She smiled brilliantly, as if this were a virtue.