Well-fortified with whiskey, Eleanor stamped her feet to a Hungarian folk dance as she whirled about the room, her skirts billowing. She was dancing with one of the Nursery School Fathers. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the full-breasted Dorothea had wedged herself up against Aaron, and she was clutching his hand as they talked. Sometimes at these parties—which had grown progressively wilder—non-matching spouses would disappear for a time, returning with slightly changed expressions.
Eleanor stamped her feet harder. Her partner wiped sweat from his brow. Another song began, and Eleanor whirled away from him, dancing alone now, and people began to clap in applause.
Later she danced with Aaron to the strains of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and throaty voice. They danced well together, and they made a handsome couple, she in violet chiffon and pearls—the jewelry a gift from her mother long ago—and he with tousled hair, in tweed trousers and rolled-up shirt sleeves. His mysterious work as an Artist added to his attraction.
“El and Aaron are such fun to have at parties!”
“Oh El, you’re too much! What would we do without you?” Melanie liked to say. Tall and elegant, she spoke with a trace of her native Virginia. She had become Eleanor’s closest friend among the Mothers.
As she moved in rhythm with Aaron, twirling toward him and then away, Eleanor felt as if she were a warrior engaged in battle, echoing the feats of distant Magyar ancestors. She was slashing out with a sword, slashing off opponents’ heads in battle. Slash Dorothea. Slash nameless women. Slash the dull days of her life.
Her chief opponent … No, not Aaron. Her opponent was something she could not name. It had to do with loss of self.
Who was she? What was real was her body, its softness, its sturdy peasant bones, her high cheekbones, what people called her “strong” face—she had always despaired over her large hooked nose—and her fine dark hair, where gray strands had begun to appear.
She dreamed of being hollow like a carved out tree trunk.
Who was she? Above all, she wanted to be loved.
“My white dress, my pink sash, and my coral beads!” as a child of four, she begged the fireman to save these when their house on Lake Erie caught fire. They rushed past her, ignoring her cries.
“You love surfaces,” Heinrich said to her years later. This was true. She loved conviviality, the tinkling of ice in glasses, dance rhythms, flirtatious exchanges, beautiful gowns. But beneath it, she felt a kind of despair.
As a child, she had learned to distrust her impulses. One day she had awakened with an overpowering wish to give a party, perhaps in imitation of her mother’s afternoon teas. She cheerily knocked on neighbors’ doors and invited them over for a party that very afternoon.
When her mother, Ruth, learned of this, she made Eleanor accompany her to each house, apologize, and cancel the invitation. In a gracious way, Ruth explained the child had acted without her approval. Eleanor tearfully accepted her punishment of bed without any supper. In her eyes, her mother had the status of a goddess.
Her parents raised her to be a lady. To bear suffering without complaint. A governess told her the story of a Spartan boy who kept quiet while a fox devoured his entrails. She was raised to be as quiet as the Spartan in the face of suffering.
When she danced she did not have to be a Spartan. At these times the bonds loosened. With all the tipsy dancing she did at these Nursery School Parties, she was trying desperately to save herself somehow as a person. She was also trying to save their marriage, for Aaron had grown restive.