Theophilus North (38 page)

Again I followed her instructions. Through the great window of the telegraph office I could see her telling another thrilling story to the night clerk. Finally she started toward me with determination, her heels clicking on the brick paving. Suddenly halfway across the street she was accosted by two reeling sailors. Alice managed to do three things at once: she signaled to me to go back into “The Anchor,” she reversed her direction as though she had forgotten something in the telegraph office, and she dropped her handbag.

“Alice, you cutey! Wha' you doin' in the beeg city?”

“Alice, where's George? Where's old Georgie, the old skunk?”

“Oh my, I've lost my purse. Mr. Wilson, help me find my purse. I left it in the telegraph office, I know. Oh, isn't that terrible! I'll
die!
Mr. Westerveldt, help me find my purse.”

“Here it
is
. Lookit! Now do I get a lil kiss—just a lil lil kiss?”

“Mr. Wilson! You never said a thing like that before. I won't tell George this time, but don't you ever say such a thing again. I had to hurry and send a postal money order off before
closing time
. Mr. Westerveldt, please . . . take . . . your . . . hand . . . away. I just saw the Shore Patrol following me down Thames Street. I think you'd better go up to Spring Street. It's after nine.”

Thames Street was out of bounds to Navy seamen after nine. They took her advice and tumbled up the hill.

With set face she marched resolutely into “The Anchor,” put her arm through mine—single women are not allowed in the taverns on the
north
side of Thames Street—and propelled me to the last booth at the back of the room. She sat against the wall and shrank to the size of a child. Between her teeth she muttered, “That was a close call. If they'd seen me with you, I don't know what would have happened.”

I whispered, “What shall I order for you?”

Again I was to be regarded as an idiot child. She lowered her head and said, “A Rum Floater, of course.”

“Alice, please understand I'm not a Navy man. I don't speak Navy language. Please don't be like Delia. I'm not stupid; I'm only ignorant. I haven't been to Norfolk or to Panama. I've been to lots more interesting places than those.”

She looked surprised, but remained silent. Alice's silences were weighty; to borrow a schoolboy's expression, “You could hear the wheels go round.” The Rum Floaters turned out to be rum in ginger ale, a combination I couldn't abide. She fell on hers like one famished.

“What was Panama like?”

“Hot . . . different.”

“What were you doing in Norfolk?”

“I was a waitress in restaurants.” She had turned morose. I waited for the rum to take effect. Looking straight before her she said, “I shouldn't have come. . . . You've been telling lies to me all night. You don't clean up places'; you live in them. You're one of those rich people. I know what you think of me,
Dr. Cole
.”

“
You
made me say I was a doctor.
You
made me say I was an old friend of your husband's. I'm not rich. I coach children to play tennis. You don't get much for that, I can tell you. Don't let's quarrel, Alice. I think you're a very bright girl and very attractive too. I think you've got knock-out eyes, for instance. You have a personality that sends out electric shocks all the time, like door knobs when a storm's coming on. Alice, don't let's quarrel. Let's have another Rum Floater and then I'll take you back to the gate in a taxi. There are some taxis standing in the Square every hour of the day and night. Forget all that I said about going to my apartment. Damn it, I hope you and I are grown up enough just to be friends. I can see that you've got some trouble on your mind. Well, leave that trouble behind at the Base.”

She had been looking at me fixedly.

“What are you looking at?”

“When I look at a man I try to figure out what movie star he looks like. I can almost always find it. You don't look like any I've seen. You're not very good-looking, you know. I don't say that to hurt your feelings; I just say it because it's true.”

“I know I'm not good-looking, but you can't say I have a low-down mean face.”

“No.”

I got the barman's attention and put up two fingers.

I asked, “What movie star does your husband look like?”

She turned to me sharply. “I won't tell. He's a very good-looking man and a very good man.”

“I didn't say he wasn't.”

“He saved my life and I love him. I'm a very lucky girl.—Oh, it would have been awful if those men had seen me with you. I'd never have forgiven myself. I'd have just died, that's all.”

“How do you mean—George saved your life?”

She gazed before her broodingly. “Norfolk is an awful town. It's worse than Newport. I got fired out of five restaurants. It was awful hard to keep a job. There were a million girls for every job. George was beginning to kind of court me. He'd come back to eat at the same table where I was serving. He'd leave twenty-five cents every time! . . . The men who ran the restaurants were always trying to take advantage of the girls; they'd act fresh in front of the customers. I didn't want George to see anything like that . . . and just when I'd given up
hope
he asked me to marry him. And he gave me twenty-five dollars to buy some nice things, because he had a brother there in the Service too. George knew that he'd write home about me. I owe everything to George.” Suddenly she brushed my hand with hers. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings with what I said a while ago. You haven't got a low-down mean face at all. Every now and then I
say
things—”

Suddenly Alice disappeared. She slid from our bench and crouched under the table. I looked about and saw that two sailors wearing the armband of the Shore Patrol had entered. They greeted a number of the guests affably and, leaning against the bar, discussed at length a certain fracas that had taken place the night before. The public joined in. The conversation threatened to be interminable. Soon I became aware that some little fingernails were scratching my ankles. I leaned over and brushed them away angrily. There are certain torments a man cannot put up with. I heard a giggle. Finally the Shore Patrol left “The Anchor.” I whispered, “They're gone,” and Alice hoisted herself onto the bench.

“Did you know them?”

“Know them!”

“Alice, you know everybody. You'd better make up your mind whether you'll let me take you back to the Base, or whether you'll come and see my apartment.”

She looked at me without expression. “I don't like big dogs.”

“I was lying to you. I haven't any dog at all. But I have a pretty nice little present for you.” I had three younger sisters. Girls love presents, especially surprise presents.

“What is it?”

“I won't tell.”

“Where did you get it?”

“At Atlantic City.”

“Will you give me a hint?”

“It glows at night like a big glowworm. So when you're lonesome at night it'll be a comfort to you.”

“Is it a Baby Jesus picture?”

“No.”

“Oh!—It's one of those wrist-watches.”

“I couldn't afford to give anyone a radium wrist-watch. . . . It's about the size of a pin-cushion. It's friendly.”

“It's one of those things that keep papers from blowing away.”

“Yes.”

“You don't wear a wedding ring.”

“In the part of the country I come from men don't wear them—only Catholic men wear them. I've never been married anyway.”

“If I go to your apartment you won't act fresh or anything?”

It was my turn to look hard and blank. “Not unless someone scratches my ankles.”

“I was just
tired
of sitting on the floor.”

“Well, you could have said your prayers.”

She was staring before her in deep thought. You could “hear the wheels go round.” She leaned up against my shoulder and asked, “Is there a roundabout way to your house?”

“Yes. First, I'll pay the bill. Then you follow me.”

We got there and crept up the outside staircase. I opened the door and turned on the light, saying, “Come in, Alice.”

“Oh, it's big!”

I put the paperweight on the center table and sat down. Like a cat she circled the room inspecting everything within reach. Talking to herself in short admiring phrases. Finally she took up the paperweight—a view of the Atlantic City boardwalk, picked out with bits of mica, under an isinglass dome.

“Is this what you said I could have?” I nodded. “It doesn't . . . glow.”

“It can't glow as long as there is one bit of sunlight or electric light around. Go into the bathroom, shut the door, turn out the light, keep your eyes closed for two minutes and then open them.”

I waited. She came out, threw herself on my lap, and put her arms around my neck. “I'll never be lonesome any more.” She put her lips against my ear and said something. I thought I heard what she said but I couldn't be certain. Her lips were too close; perhaps shyness muffled her speech. I thought I heard her say, “I want a baby.” But I had to be sure. Holding her chin with one hand I moved my ears two inches from her lips and asked “What did you say?”

At that moment
she heard something. Just as dogs hear sounds that we cannot hear, just as chickens (I had worked on farms as a boy) could see hawks approaching from a great distance, just so Alice heard something. She slid off my lap and pretended to be busy straightening her hair; she picked up her hat and—resourceful actress that she was—said sweetly, “Well, I'd better be going. It's getting late. . . . Did you really mean that I could keep this picture for my own?”

I sat motionless watching her play the scene.

Had I said anything to offend her? No.

Made a gesture? No.

A harbor sound? A street quarrel? My neighbors at Mrs. Keefe's?

In 1926 the invention known in my part of town as the “raddy-o” was present in an increasing number of homes. On a warm evening through open windows it diffused a web of music, oratory, and dramatic and comic dialogue. I had become habituated and deaf to this, and certainly Alice on the Base had become so also.

“You've been very sweet. I love your apartment. I love your kitchen.”

I rose. “Well, if you must go, Alice, I'll follow you as far as the Square and pay your taxi-man to drop you at the gate. You don't want to meet any more of the thousand people you know.”

“Don't you move
one inch
. The streetcars are still running. If I meet anybody I'll tell them I've been to the telegraph office.”

“I could walk with you perfectly safely along Spring Street. It's darker and the Shore Patrol will have swept it up pretty well by now. Here, I'll wrap up the paperweight.”

Mrs. Keefe had furnished my room according to her own taste which called for a wide selection of table runners, lace doilies, and silk table covers to support vases and so on. I picked up one of the latter and wrapped it around the gift. I opened the door. Alice was now very subdued and preceded me down the stairs.

Then I heard it—another music that had escaped my ears, but not hers. During the summer a small frame house near Mrs. Keefe's had been turned into “The Mission of the Holy Spirit,” a fervent revivalist sect. A meeting was in progress. While working on farms in Kentucky and Southern California I had attended many camp-meetings of a similar kind and knew well some of their hymns, seldom heard in urban churches. Surely these hymns had been built into the lives of boys and girls growing up in rural West Virginia where the camp-meeting was the powerful center of the religious, social, and even “entertainment” life of the community. What Alice had heard was the hymn that precedes the “offering of one's life to Jesus”:
“Yield not to temptation; Jesus is near.”

We turned up the hill to Spring Street. It was deserted and I stepped forward and walked beside her. She was weeping. I enclosed her tiny hand in mine.

“Life is hard, dear Alice.”

“Teddie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in hell?”

“What do you mean by hell, Alice?”

“That we go to hell when we do bad things? When I was a girl I did a lot of bad things. When I was in Norfolk I had to do a lot of bad things. I had a baby but I haven't got it any more. It was before I knew George but I told him about it. Since I married George I haven't done a bad thing at all. Really, I haven't, Teddie. Like I told you, George saved my life.”

“Has George ever struck you, Alice?”

She looked up at me quickly. “Do I have to tell the truth? Well, I will. He gets very drunk after he comes back from a long tour of duty and he does strike me. But I don't hate him for it. He has a reason. He knows that he . . . he can't make babies. He makes love, but no babies get to be born. Wouldn't that make you kind of upset?”

“Go on.”

“Every now and then I thought I'd get a baby with another man without George's knowing about it. I don't think going to bed with another man once in a while is very important. . . . Even though it was a lie, it would make George very happy. He's a good man. If it made him feel good to be a father, that wouldn't be a very bad sin, would it? Like what they call in the Bible adult'ary. Sometimes, I think I'd go to hell for a long time if it would make George happy.”

I turned her hand over and over in mine. We reached Washington Square. We crossed the street and sat down on a bench farthest from the street lights.

I said, “Alice, I'm ashamed of you.”

She said quickly, “Why are you ashamed of me?”

“That
you
—who know that the heart of Jesus is as big as the whole world—you think that Jesus would send you to hell for a little sin that would make George happy or a little sin that you had to do to keep alive in a cruel city like Norfolk.”