So Little Time (80 page)

Then he was thinking about Madge. He must think of some excuse as to why he was not going out to the Coast after all. There was no need to tell her yet that Jim was going. It was something you did not shout all over town.

“Jeff,” Madge was saying, “do you want to speak to him again?”

“No,” Jeffrey said, “that's all right. There's no use talking to him any more.”

“Well, dear,” Madge was saying, “give my love to Sally, dear. I didn't say I was worried. I mean we miss you dreadfully.”

Then Madge turned to Jeffrey and sighed.

“Jeff,” she said, “he sounded awfully happy. He sounded as if he were really interested and having a good time.”

“What?” Jeffrey said.

“He sounded as if he were having a good time,” Madge said. “Didn't he sound that way to you?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “he did. He's having a swell time, Madge.”

51

Forgive Us Our Debts

Some chain of circumstances, some familiar aspect connected with another time, made Jeffrey half remember something that next morning. It was one of those things that you would half remember and then lose before it assumed any concrete shape. It had something to do with his study, where he and Madge always had breakfast when they were in the city. The table was placed in front of a window which looked south over the chimneys and skylights of old brownstone houses. The sun was breaking through the December haze which so often obscured the city on those mornings. He could see the geometric bulk of apartment houses and the pointed top of the Chrysler Building and the shadowy forms of other buildings farther in the distance. The shifting light, caused by the sun breaking through the haze, changed the texture of all those buildings from minute to minute so that they seemed to have a life of their own.

The breakfast trays were on the table and the morning paper and the mail were with them. He could see Madge's orange juice and her Melba toast and her black coffee, which she always took without any cream or sugar. Madge was wearing her blue kimono with the white bamboo design on it. The thought that it was Japanese annoyed Jeffrey, but still it half reminded him of something. Jeffrey was wearing the Burgundy silk dressing gown which he always felt he had to wear because the children had once given it to him for Christmas and that also half reminded him of something.

He was back there in the study which he had thought yesterday he was going to leave for good, and he and Madge were having breakfast just as though the world were on its way in peace. He had never realized before that externals could be so stubborn or persistent, but this was not what disturbed him. He was disturbed because he could almost remember something which had happened when he and Madge had been having breakfast some other time, but he could not quite remember. He could remember the orange juice and the way the buildings had looked from the south window on another morning. It was like one of those interminable rehearsals where someone said, “All right. Take it up and run it through again.” It was just as though he and Madge were repeating something. It could not have been very important, because he could not remember what it was they were repeating.

“Darling,” Madge asked, “is that a letter from Alf?”

“What?” Jeffrey asked. He had been looking at the Currier and Ives prints and the books in the study.

“Is that a letter from Alf?” She was pointing to a letter beside his plate, and he looked down at it and picked it up. It was an Air Mail letter and the postmark was San Bernardino, California. When he opened it, it was just as if he were doing something over again, but he could not remember what.

“Yes,” he said, “it's from Alf. He's back from the hospital again and he wants five hundred dollars.”

“Oh,” Madge said, “I hope he's better.”

“He must be better for a while,” Jeffrey said, “if he wants five hundred dollars.” And then he thought of something else. “You ought to see that orange grove,” he said. “It's called Rednow. That means Wonder spelled backwards. Alf was going to put in a bathroom.”

But Madge's mind had moved away from it. She was seldom interested in anything she had not seen herself.

“Darling,” Madge said, “did you sleep well? You look rested. You looked so tired last night after Washington.”

“What?” Jeffrey asked her. He was thinking of all sorts of things and none of them came together.

“You looked so tired after Washington,” Madge said.

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “yes. I guess I was pretty tired.”

“Jeff,” Madge said, “you mustn't let it worry you. You did everything you could.” And she patted the back of his hand and he held hers for a moment.

“All right,” he said, “it doesn't worry me.”

Her voice came through his thoughts as though she were a long way off even when he held her hand. He was looking out of the window again at the buildings, watching the brightening sunlight. He was thinking of something that Jim had said once—it must have been quite a while ago—“New York has everything, there's everything in New York.” And it sounded like a line in a song. Then suddenly he remembered exactly what it was that disturbed him. It had been another morning when they had been having breakfast, and everything about that morning came back. Madge was speaking, but he could not give her his full attention. She must have said something which he only half heard, because she spoke again.

“Darling,” he heard her say, “what are you thinking about?”

All at once he was glad that she had asked him. It was much better to have her with him than to be alone. He saw that the line between her eyebrows had grown deeper.

“I was trying to remember something,” he said, “and I just remembered it. We were having breakfast, Madge, and I was telling you a story. It wasn't so long ago, either. It was only a year ago last October but it seems like quite a while ago.”

“A year ago last October?” Madge repeated. After all there was no reason why she should have followed his thoughts.

“Before the whole show started,” Jeffrey said, and his mind was back there on that October morning. “You'd never have guessed that things would be like this. We were just sitting here and you were saying that I never told you anything.”

“Well, that's true,” Madge said, and she smiled. “You never do tell me anything, Jeff, dear, I wish you would. You're worried about something. Are you worried about Jim?”

“No,” Jeffrey answered, “not Jim exactly.” He had not been thinking of Jim, but now that his name was mentioned he began to think of him. He would have to tell her that Jim was going, but he did not want to tell her until he was sure, absolutely sure.

“I was just thinking,” he went on, “we were having breakfast, and you said I never told you anything, and then I told you about a time when I was coming in on the train from Bragg; and a little man sat next to me with a purple shirt. He gave me a drink out of a bottle. Do you remember?”

The line between her eyebrows grew deeper.

“A little man?” she repeated. “What little man?”

“You said he was funny,” Jeffrey said, “and I said he wasn't. I said he was sad.”

“I said he was funny?” Madge repeated, but he saw she did not remember.

“It isn't anything,” Jeffrey said, “not anything, really. It's just one of those things that come into your mind. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wasn't so sad.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “I wish you'd tell me what you're talking about.”

“It isn't anything much,” Jeffrey said again. “It was just that he said he could lick any So-and-so his weight in the world.”

“Oh,” Madge said, “yes, I remember. Why, darling, what ever made you think of that?”

Jeffrey did not answer for a moment because there was no way of telling her exactly why he had thought of it.

“You know, maybe it's a good idea,” he said, and then he stopped.

“What?” Madge asked him. “What's a good idea?”

“Maybe it's a good idea,” Jeffrey said, “even if you know you can't, to go on thinking that you can. Maybe that's what everybody ought to do.”

But Madge was no longer interested. Her mind had moved back to the present.

“Darling,” she said, “I'm awfully glad you're not going out there.”

“Out where?” Jeffrey asked.

“Out there to see Jim.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “yes, it's just as well.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “are you going to be in for lunch?”

“No,” Jeffrey answered, “not today.”

“Oh,” Madge said, “where are you going?”

“I'm just going out,” Jeffrey said, “to lick anyone my weight in the world. Jesse Fineman's got another play.”

“Darling,” Madge asked him, “what about that play of your own you were writing out there in California? You've never told me anything about it. You never tell me anything.”

Jeffrey pushed back his chair and stood up.

“I know,” he said, “it wasn't any good.”

“But darling,” Madge asked, “how can you possibly know? I wish you'd read it to me sometime.”

Jeffrey walked over to her chair and bent down to kiss her.

“All right,” he said, “sometime. But I can lick anyone my weight in the world.”

Those words were back in his mind when he was in the front hall of the apartment putting on his hat and coat. That apartment had always seemed to him too large for their furniture, and now the hall seemed to stretch into new angles of ungainly space. The living room door was open and shafts of sunlight came through the windows, throwing bright squares on the carpets and on the Georgian chairs and on the sofa. Everything was in its proper place exactly as it should have been, but the room was completely empty. He could think of it as waiting for something, not for people to fill it, not for voices and laughter, but for something else. It was as ephemeral that morning as a well-planned stage set that was waiting for the stagehands and the vans to cart it all away. It conveyed no impression of permanence, nothing that Madge called security, perhaps because there had ceased to be security the way the world was going. It made him think for some reason of that trip that he and Madge had taken down the Post Road a little more than a year ago. He was thinking of those houses along the Post Road which no one wanted now, but which had been built to last almost forever. He was thinking of the house where Madge's Uncle Judson lived with its mansard roof and its golden oak hallway. There was no security there either. He was thinking of Fred and Beckie and of Higgins Farm in Connecticut. Nothing was meant to last forever, and now everything in the world which he had known, living and inanimate, seemed to have come to a momentary stop. Everything was waiting for the stagehands and the vans.

The elevator was decorated with laurel and hemlock and holly as it always was at Christmas time. The boy who ran the elevator was the one who liked Jim.

“It's a nice day, Mr. Wilson,” the boy said, and he pulled at his white cotton gloves and smiled, “a little snappy outside, but it's a nice day.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey answered, “it's a fine day.”

That boy would be in the army in a very little while, and nearly all the other employees in the building would be too, and they must have all been thinking of it. They must in their own ways have been thinking all the thoughts that he was thinking, but they gave no sign.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilson,” the doorman said, and he would be going too. “Taxi, Mr. Wilson?”

“No, thanks,” Jeffrey said, “I'll walk.”

“Yes sir,” the doorman said, “it's a fine morning for a walk.”

You could not tell what anyone was thinking. The windows of the stores were full of Christmas decorations; the dogs were being aired; the trucks were rumbling up the avenue. There was a familiar background of sound that pulsed through the air like heartbeats. There was the smell of spruce from the Christmas trees on the sidewalks. There was the clatter of ash cans from a truck, on which was written the admonition about keeping the city clean, and the signs were still on the green busses: “Welcome to New York.” It was astonishing to see everything move on as it had always moved—too much in the shops, too much traffic in the cross streets, too many people, too much of everything. But everyone must have known there would never be a day quite like that again. Everyone must have known that everything was changing. The trouble was you could not see it change.

It was not yet noon, but the first editions of the papers were already out. He could see the headlines on a newsstand, where there were too many papers, too many magazines.

“
Jap Fleet on the Run
,” he read, and he knew it made no sense, after what he imagined must have happened at Pearl Harbor. It made no sense, but Jeffrey was only half thinking of it, because the sights and the sounds were only half intruding on his thoughts.

He was thinking of all sorts of things that were as disorganized as those sights and sounds. He was thinking of what was permanent, and he was thinking that very little was, except perhaps personal relationships, but even these kept changing. You clung to beliefs and people and yourself, but even these kept changing.

A girl with yellow hair and with one of those small hats which women were wearing then was walking half a block ahead of him, and her figure and the way she walked made him think of Marianna Miller, but it was not Marianna Miller. You knew someone, you loved and laughed, and then it was all different. Nothing in the world ever stayed quite the same. He had not thought of Marianna for some time, but now all sorts of things that he had said and she had said were running through his mind. For a minute or two these filled him with poignant regret, and made him very sad. There had been something which he had tried to capture, something she had offered freely, that was a part of a half-formed desire, he supposed, to be something he might have been. Jeffrey knew now that he would never attain that desire, but the memory of having tried made him feel very kindly toward Marianna. He was wondering again why it had all come to nothing, and why he had not been able to go on with it, but it all eluded analysis. She had given more than he had, he was quite sure, when he heard again the things that she had said and he had said, but there was no way of telling exactly. You could think of it as a matter of too little and too late, and that might be the better way to think of it, since the truth was you only had a certain amount to give. The truth was that he had given most of what he had away already, and he had tried to tell her that. Yet there were some things that you could not make anyone understand, because, perhaps, you never knew enough about yourself. For a moment as he walked across town Marianna Miller seemed to be walking there beside him, and then she was gone and Jim was there.