The Trespassers (43 page)

There was an unreality about intense suffering; she was half aware that it was so, but she was powerless to change it. The real world of politics and war, of a Congress voting or a union striking, seemed dim, far off. If you were sick with grief, you lived away from that daily world, hidden from it under the dark envelope of your personal suffering.

She tried to fight back from this unreality as fast as she could. When she read the news from Spain, she would feel herself completely involved with that news. But in the next moments, her own emotions would clap down upon her mind once more.

Of all the world outside, only the Vederles were now real to her. She was one with them. She felt them. They duplicated herself.

When the letters came now, she turned to them with new intensity. She couldn’t understand any longer how she could have let a week go before writing Dr. Vederle about the Washington letter, before writing Zurich the new statement about her motives. Well, that was over. She was no longer so numbed, so shocked that she was unable to act upon anything.

The last letter from Switzerland was full of concern for her illness. They begged her not to spend energy on them for whatever time it took her to recuperate fully. Dr. Vederle had received thirteen letters from his old patients and had sent them off to the Consulate. Everybody in Ascona was newly nervous. Rumors flew about that the newest crises in Europe had so swamped the American Consulates everywhere that no more visas were available for years. Did she know whether there were any basis for this spreading fear? “I myself hope they will soon begin to withdraw the denial of our visas because they now know that Washington watches what they do here.”

She wrote Washington at once. This time the reply did not come so promptly. Each morning she looked for an answer. Almost professionally, she was shocked at the delay. If business were run the way government departments were—

She wrote once more. When she finally found the reply waiting for her one evening, she tore it open as if
her
future were at stake. She was pinned to the problem now for herself, as well as for them. Now their fight for life and security was a token of something personal to her, too. They
had
to win their fight; it stood for something that they win.

The letter astonished her.

The Visa Division had heard once again from Zurich. The matter of how and when Dr. Vederle had earned his money was now cleared up. “It is added that all members of the family will be charged to the German quota if their cases are approved, this action being possible under the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924, by which a wife, if accompanying her husband, may be charged to the quota for the country of her husband’s birth if her own quota is exhausted. Sincerely yours—”

She read it again, to be sure her eyes did not fool her. Even with her mind so worn from the sleepless nights, the constant drugs, the overwork at the store—even so, she pounced upon that bland final sentence as if she would claw it to bits.

The Immigration Act of 1924. But didn’t a Consul General in a foreign assignment
know
the Immigration Act of 1924? Did he merely forget it, like a dull pupil at the blackboard in a classroom? The various Vice-Consuls at Zurich, who also handled the Vederle case, did
they
not know the Immigration Act of 1924?

Here was a man who had stood and listened to the news that he must part from his wife for twelve years. Here was a man who had once already lost hope of America. Here was a man who would now be settled in South Africa when his every desire cried out for the United States. And yet, the Immigration Act of 1924 was there all the time.

Then it was needless, the torment he had been through on this one point. It was wanton. How many other rulings and demands and delays were equally needless?

Dear God, would it one day turn out that her own heartbreak was needless, too? Was there some simple thing ignored—some overlooked thing that might yet rescue her from this pain thudding through every waking moment?

August 21 was the day Dr. Platt had put down.

In two weeks, her leave of absence from the store would begin. Mr. Ralsey had been so kind when she had told him it was “doctor’s orders” that she take a real rest. She had murmured something about “jumpy heart,” but he had hardly listened.

“You’ve had us all worried, Vee,” he had said warmly. “You’ve been looking so tuckered out and thin.”

“I know. I’m anemic and ten pounds underweight,” she explained quickly. “The doctor said it was at the danger point.”

She closed her eyes, and he came and put an awkward hand on her shoulder. It was true, it was the very phrase. Dr. Platt had warned her, and Dr. Burton. She
had
to take care of herself. She
had
to eat properly. She
had
to sleep.

Yes, she had to. She wanted the baby to be strong and healthy. She had begun again to think about the baby. For the first weeks after—after that day, she could not think about the baby, as a baby. Her mind had refused the image, her heart had rejected the torment. “A baby you call by a name?” Oh, no, no.

Now again, she could begin the tentative visualizing of a baby. Her body was making its first changes, though she had become so thin that they showed only when she was undressed.

She glanced into the mirror. No, even now, in this loosely fitted wool suit, it was impossible to guess the secret of her body. You saw instead the thin shoulders, the chalky skin, the hollow eye sockets.

She undressed slowly. Yes, you could see, when she stood naked. The first changing had begun. The enlarging curve of the belly, the heavier, fuller breasts. It was beautiful to see, it really was so beautiful. If you were loved and cherished, and saw your body changing so? Proud and happy and loved, and saw this skillful, changing body?

The image blurred and wavered.

She turned away. She walked slowly to the bed, sat down slowly, and then lay down on her back. There was no use even fighting the indignity of the tears, she knew that now. There simply was no way to stop them when she was alone. She had tried for weeks to find the way, she had fought them with every weapon her mind could devise. During the day, at the store, talking to somebody, she could keep an unmoving face, a steady voice. But here, in this bed, where she and Jas had lain together, talked, laughed, made love—

“What do you do when you can’t bear it?” The words suddenly screamed themselves at her inside her head. “What do you do when you just know you can’t bear it any more?”

Later she bathed and dressed again. Bronya was coming to have dinner with her. They were going to the theater. She put more rouge on her cheeks than usual, to make her eyes brighter. The last time they had seen each other was the night before Jas told her.

While she dressed she thought out the cablegram to send the Vederles. The last cable she had sent was that one nearly two months ago, just before Christmas. She had known then, in her soul she had known, though Dr. Platt was so cautious and would not confirm it for another week. She had known, her body had sung with it, and she had known.

She smiled bitterly. Vera Marriner’s private calendar—Vera Marriner’s new chronology: before the day Jas had told her, and after.

She stood up abruptly and went to the telephone.

WASHINGTON RULES ALL VEDERLES ON GERMAN QUOTA IF CASES ARE APPROVED. WHAT REMAINS TO BE CLEARED?

Bronya came in as she was dictating it to the cable operator. She could see the slight, intelligent face watching her, as she finished the message. She put the receiver back slowly and stood up.

“That ought to make them feel better,” she said. “They’ve been thinking for months—”

“You are sick, you have been really sick,” Bronya said. “You didn’t want to tell me? I could have come—”

“No, I—”

She could not say it again. She could not say she was all right, she would be all right. That’s what she had said that morning when Jas had asked her whether she would have morning sickness, whether she were frightened. Those were the very words Ann had cried out to her that night, “You’ll be all right, Vee, you’ll be all right.”

She put her face down into her hands. She would not cry. Bronya knelt beside her; phrases in German came tumbling from her lips, and her fingers were on Vee’s hair.

“Oh, Bronya, Bronya, what shall I do? Something has happened and I don’t know what to do.” You will know—soon it clears out the mind—”

She could not tell her. She could only sit there, hearing the foreign phrases, feeling the touch on her hair. Here was someone else who knew what it was to go on alone, to go ahead alone. Again the tight unity she now felt with the Vederles swept through her.

“It is something bad, I feel that sure—you told me about marriage someday soon—last summer, remember?”

‘Yes, I remember. That’s all over, Bronya. That’s finished. I’m not going to be married, after all.”

Bronya made a low sound of recognition and acceptance. Vee knew what she was thinking. A love affair petered out. A broken engagement. “Betrothal ended by mutual consent.”

She began to laugh, jerkily, then in a rising crescendo. Bronya shook her shoulder, hard, almost angrily. The laughter snapped off.

“I do not wish it, to ask questions,” Bronya said calmly. “You have a nervous strain, you are very thin. If you let, I leave Mrs. Martin’s job and come here, care for you a month, until you are all cured. Lady companion, no?”

Vee sat, shaking her head. But it was good to know that Bronya would be ready to help if she could. There were people you could trust. There were, there were.

“T
HERE’S A LADY WAITING
to see you, Mr. Crown. She has no appointment.”

He looked up quickly. His face was without expression. But something corded and knotted in his chest.

“Her name is Willis,” his secretary went on evenly. “Mrs. Frederick Willis. She says you know her.”

“Damn it.” His eyes instantly went dead. “You know I’m too busy.”

He waved to the stacks of letters on a long table at the side of his office. There were hundreds of letters there, chosen from out of the thousands that kept pouring in to applaud his nightly broadcasts.

The girl nodded and moved to the door.

“Send her in,” he rapped out with irritation. “Break it after ten minutes.”

Ann came in slowly. She did not greet him, except with a nod and the deliberate examination her eyes made of his face. He also was silent, waiting for her to sit down. His eyes were on the bright-green feather on her hat.

“It’s about Vee,” Ann said at last. Her tone was calm, with neither color nor pressure in it. It was big and deep as it always was, but it was calm. She settled her large frame in the chair.

“Yes?”

“I know about the whole thing. I would like to suggest one plan you may not have thought of.”

“Does Vee know you are here?”

“Don’t be absurd. It is already absurd enough for me to be in the position of meddler. I resent it deeply, I assure you.”

He waited. His right hand had picked up a pencil and was tapping softly on the desk as he sat silent, politely waiting for her to go on.

She delayed until his eyes should meet hers. But they did not.

“It seems to me that you and Vee might marry for six or eight months and then arrange a divorce.”

He frowned. Ann saw how deeply the lines went into his flesh. “He looks all in, too,” her mind noted for her coldly.

He said nothing. The only sound in the room was the soft tap-tap-tap of the pencil. His lips pressed inward on his teeth, and his eyelids shielded his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “But I do not care to discuss this with you.”

“You cannot, conceivably, snub me, Jasper. You might think over that suggestion later on, though. It’s one way out of a beastly situation and that’s why I came here.”

“There is a better way,” he unexpectedly said. “I still believe that Vee will see it my way. Forgive me if I go on believing that. There is still another week or so.”

Ann rose. A seam split in her right glove, and she unclenched her fist and examined the gap thoughtfully. He rose also.

“Another week—you’re still counting on having your own way. That’s a big gamble to take, this late in the game,” she said.

For the first time his eyes met hers directly.

“I’m used to taking big gambles.”

She examined his face once more. Then she turned and left the office.

He swiveled his chair about, so that his back was to the desk and the letter-stacked table. He looked out at the sky, but he still saw the small white ellipse of her hand through the seam of her glove. She hated him; Ann Willis had been calm, almost impersonal, but she hated him so much that her clenched fist had burst her glove.

He knew hate like that. He knew it well. And it never frightened him.

The plan she offered was a maniac’s plan, and to be dismissed as such. He wished only that he could dismiss the whole God-damned thing as easily. The mistake, the horrible mistake his mind had made, not to see long before that in his crowded life he couldn’t yet fit in domesticity and dutifulness and bondage to home and kiddies.

He had been honest with Vee; long ago he had told her he didn’t believe in marriage, that he had no time for it, that it hadn’t worked out for her or for him, that it killed the kind of thing they had had. It was she who had urged him on with this Gontlen business—and now here he was in this terrible trap. Dear Christ, he had chewed his guts out, thinking.

The irony of timing. Here was this smash hit he was making on the air—and he couldn’t feel set up and good about it because he couldn’t feel good about anything.

He suddenly wheeled about, so that he faced his desk once more. His right hand banged on the desk in his fury of exasperation.

He could not stand the laded, soggy weight any longer. It would drive him mad, never to be free of it, whatever it was. He used to feel this way when he’d first left Beth. He’d got over it, finally. Maybe he’d get over this soon.

The door opened, and his secretary came in with checks for him to sign. He picked up his pen. The first one was the regular monthly check to Beth. He had heard nothing from her, only that she had taken an apartment in San Francisco for a while. He signed the check and then threw his pen down.