“MIKE WANTS TO BUY A CAR,” PEARL SAID TO HILDA. She thought Hilda might be able to reply to that remark without sounding angry. Pearl knew—for once—that Hilda was not angry with her for any particular reason, or with any of them, but she sounded angry all the time.
Mostly, though, people talked to Hilda only about Rachel. “Did the baby sleep better last night?” Pearl herself had said when she arrived, after promising inwardly not to start by mentioning the baby, and Hilda had responded, “Better than what? Better than me?” Just at that moment Rachel had been waking up in her bassinet, which stood near the living room couch where Hilda was stretched out reading the newspaper. Pearl had been given a key, and she’d let herself in.
The baby lay on her stomach in her white sacque, which had worked itself up to her armpits. Her legs looked surprisingly long and thin to Pearl, pulled up as a frog’s might be, with her heels near her crotch. Her dark, angry face—Rachel looked as angry as her mother—was turned to the left, and she had stuffed her left fist into her mouth and was gnawing at it, making little grunts of effort and frustration.
The first surprise, a few weeks ago now, was that Rachel looked like Rachel, not just like “a baby.” The second surprise was this anger of Hilda’s, the third that Pearl, who had spent a year waiting for Hilda to speak to her in a friendly way, now didn’t care. It was as if Hilda were being friendly. Today, after Hilda’s answer to her question, Pearl had gone to warm up Rachel’s bottle without another word. When it was ready, Hilda had sat up and given Rachel the bottle, whispering intently to her as if she had something to say that she preferred to keep private.
Pearl thought Hilda might be interested in the car, and she was. Pearl had to talk fast. She’d found that if she dropped in at Hilda and Nathan’s on her way home from work, she could help out for an hour without getting too tired and hungry, then go home and cook dinner. Nathan was sometimes there, sometimes not. Today Pearl knew Nathan wouldn’t be there. Mike had gone to a meeting with him—union people planning protests against the fascist rebellion in Spain. Mike said he wanted to listen because the speeches gave him good shorthand practice. He took down what he heard. Pearl thought maybe he liked the meetings for themselves as well; she wasn’t sure.
“He’s buying it from the clarinet player,” she said. Mike was still in the band, and it had been playing on weekends at a few hotels in the Catskills, sometimes at the one in the Adirondacks where they’d met. The band would drive up together in the clarinet player’s old black car, which smelled of cigarettes. Now the clarinet player had a new job and he was leaving the band and even buying a new car.
“A car would be nice,” said Hilda.
“We could all four go places,” Pearl said. “All five. We could have a picnic.”
“Maybe,” said Hilda. She was wearing a dark red bathrobe pulled tight around her waist. Her hair hadn’t been trimmed for a long time, and Pearl liked the way it tumbled onto her shoulders. Hilda’s hair was naturally wavy. She’d gained weight and it made her face look younger and softer. The angry tone was surprising each time.
“I guess Nathan will be home soon,” Pearl said. Rachel was awake now, lying on her back on the couch at Hilda’s side. She waved her legs in the air. Now and then Hilda gave her a finger to chew. “She likes to suck my wedding ring,” she said.
“She’s a good kid,” said Pearl.
“He’s on his way to Spain, I suppose,” said Hilda.
“What?”
“Nathan.”
“Oh. Right.” Pearl glanced at the newspaper Hilda had been reading. It had slipped to the floor. She couldn’t see the main headline. Lately the headlines had been mostly about Spain. The rebels were taking over cities and towns, the Loyalists struggling.
“I’m serious,” said Hilda.
Pearl was startled. “You don’t mean Nathan is actually on his way to Spain?”
“No, Pearlie, I don’t. I’m exaggerating for effect. But I think if it weren’t for Rachel, he’d volunteer. A friend of his is talking about volunteering—several friends from the union.”
“It’s hard to imagine, going off to fight in a strange country,” said Pearl respectfully.
“It’s hard for our country to imagine that it may be necessary,” Hilda said firmly, as if she had to speak for Nathan in his absence. “It’s hard for our government to take off the blinders. This is Hitler’s war. The rebels are fascists, just like the Nazis.”
“Well, I know,” said Pearl.
“I wish I could go to some of these meetings,” said Hilda.
“I didn’t know you wanted to.”
“Well, I do.” She picked up Rachel and held her on her lap so the baby could suck her fingers more easily. Hilda wasn’t good at holding a baby yet, and Rachel’s legs were in the wrong place, stretching off Hilda’s lap. Yet Rachel was barely a handful. Changing her diaper, Pearl liked to fit her hand over Rachel’s hard little backside. “Having a baby is great,” said Hilda now, as if she had been asked a question, “but there are lots of things you have to give up.”
Hilda didn’t say anything else for a long time, and Pearl couldn’t see her face. She was leaning over Rachel, looking down at her. Both of them looked disheveled. Rachel’s sacque was open and so was Hilda’s robe. Under it, she was wearing a slip, not a nightgown. She was half dressed.
Then Hilda looked up. “Pearlie,” she said quietly, with a catch in her voice.
“What is it?” Pearl moved to the couch and made room for herself. She scooped Rachel up and held her. Rachel felt damp.
Hilda leaned against her. “You smell of the outdoors,” she said. “And the office. I smell typewriter, and office floor, and Mr. Glynnis. What is it he smells like? Does he use cologne? Have you been kissing him?”
“No,” said Pearl laughing. “Certainly not.” She stood and carried Rachel into the bedroom. “I’m going to change my niece and go home,” she called.
“Thanks. You really don’t have to treat me like a convalescent anymore,” said Hilda, straightening her bathrobe as she followed Pearl.
“I like changing her.” Rachel was so small that it was hard to pin the diapers tightly enough—they had to be folded so many times that the pins wouldn’t go through all the thicknesses of cloth. Pearl worked at it, holding her finger under the point as she’d learned to do when she was a teenager, baby-sitting her cousins. Rachel was cooing and half crying, but she didn’t seem to mind being changed. She batted at the air, at Pearl’s face. Pearl had to stoop over her. This changing table would work for Hilda, but Pearl was taller.
“Let us know if you get the car,” Hilda said when Pearl left. “It might be nice, having a car.”
And it was. Mike came home with the car two days later, and the following Sunday Pearl persuaded both Mike and Hilda that a picnic was a good idea, and even Nathan came along. They brought a blanket to sit on. Pearl made roast beef sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and brought celery sticks and cookies. She thought Hilda needed building up. Mike got directions from the former owner of the car to a park in Queens. It was a bright fall day.
At the last minute Hilda was grumpy and uncertain. “We can’t put the carriage in the car. What are we going to do with her when we get there?”
“We’ll put her on the blanket,” said Mike. “Or we’ll take turns holding her.” He had told Pearl he liked to hold the baby.
“I’ll walk her,” said Nathan.
The food was already in the car, and Hilda and Nathan were standing on the sidewalk in front of their house, where Mike and Pearl had come to get them. Now Hilda said nothing more, and Nathan took Rachel from her while Mike helped her into the back seat and put the baby into her arms again.
Pearl found she was keeping track of Hilda the way a nursemaid might study the appetite of a sick child. Yet she was also a little annoyed. Hilda was silent for many blocks. Then she said, “The leaves are turning.”
Pearl twisted around to agree.
“I’ve been in the house so much,” said Hilda.
She was edgy with all of them. She told Mike she thought he drove too fast, and when Nathan disagreed she said, “Since when do you know anything about it?” When Pearl chattered she seemed disgusted. Nathan, next to Hilda with Rachel’s pink diaper bag on his lap, looked conscientious and a little scared when Pearl turned around from the front seat to watch them.
Rachel started to cry long before they reached the park. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She’d just eaten. “Maybe there’s a pin stuck in her rear end,” said Mike.
“Don’t be silly,” said Pearl. Hilda would feel accused. Hilda didn’t seem surprised by Rachel’s crying and made no effort to stop her, but Pearl turned around and patted the baby tentatively, and Nathan felt the pins through Rachel’s clothes to make sure they were closed.
At the park, Pearl tried patting the baby’s back and walking with Rachel against her shoulder, while the others unloaded the picnic supplies and looked for a good spot. It was a moist, hazy day, with yellow leaves in abundance. It all made her feel sad. This baby wailing and wailing—her body jumping with sobs—seemed to know bad news. Pearl was unsure of herself as a singer but she tried singing in a low voice as she walked Rachel up and down. “Rock-a-bye baby,” she tried, then, “Night and day, you are the one....” Singing, she was moved, as though she were singing to someone else, an adult, not just Rachel.
Nathan came up behind her and when he touched her shoulder she jumped. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t drop my daughter.”
“I won’t,” said Pearl. She felt awkward because he’d heard her sing. She had no idea how to make Rachel stop crying. With her hands free as Nathan took the baby, she brushed aside the hair that had come loose from her braid and blown into her eyes. Nathan patted the baby, looking grim. Together they walked back to Mike and Hilda, who had spread a blanket on the ground. Hilda was taking food out of the basket. Mike was stretched out watching her. “Didn’t work, did it?” he said. “You’re sure she’s not hungry?”
“I’m sure,” said Hilda, sounding annoyed, but she offered Rachel a bottle. Rachel turned away and cried harder.
“Maybe her stomach hurts,” said Pearl.
“Maybe.” Hilda laid Rachel on the blanket. Her cries sounded tired to Pearl, cantankerous and complainy, and sure enough, after a while she fell asleep. All four adults had been sitting and watching her, just watching her.
“I guess she was tired,” said Nathan. He reached for a sandwich and they all followed suit. “Oh!” he said then, pointing a finger in Mike’s direction. They all waited and Nathan swallowed. “Did you take down Garber’s speech the other night?”
“Garber?” said Mike.
“The tall man with the long neck,” said Nathan. “He spoke next to last.”
“Yeah, I got him. Why?” said Mike.
“They said you did. I thought you’d stopped,” Nathan said. “I told them you only took down the first two or three.”
“I got bored, but then I got even more bored doing nothing, so I started taking them down again,” Mike said.
“What did you do with your notes?” said Nathan.
“What difference does it make? Does somebody want a copy of the speech?” Mike said. “For a fee …” He was smiling, leaning back on one arm.
“Not exactly,” Nathan said. “They were somewhat peeved with me for bringing you, but I assured them you weren’t some sort of spy.”
“Spy for who?”
Nathan unwrapped another sandwich and shrugged. “I don’t know. The list of dissatisfied former comrades is long.”
“I don’t recall that the speech was particularly interesting,” Mike said.
“I know, I know,” said Nathan. “Some of them have lively imaginations. They’d like to have your notes.”
“Well, they can go to hell,” said Mike amiably. He was peeling a hard-boiled egg. “Is there salt, Pearl?” he said. Pearl had brought a twist of salt in waxed paper and she handed it to him. She had not been interested when this conversation began, but she thought Nathan was more concerned than Mike realized.
“You don’t need the notes,” she said to Mike. “It was just for practice, wasn’t it? You usually throw them out.” She shrugged and smiled at Nathan. He looked back at her, looked as if she made him think of something different and important, looked for a moment as if he had something to say, so that Pearl said, “What?” and Hilda, who had eaten only a quarter of a sandwich and was lying on the blanket near the baby, playing with the blades of grass next to the blanket, her back to the rest of them, glanced over her shoulder at Pearl. But Nathan shook his head and turned back to Mike.
“That’s not the point,” Mike was saying, angry with Pearl now. “It’s not the point whether I throw them out. What right do they have to ask me for my notes? What the hell do they think I’m going to do with them?” His voice was raised.
“Take it easy,” said Nathan.
“I don’t know why you put up with that crowd,” Mike said. “They think they’re so important? They think I’ve got nothing better to do than convince the Herald Tribune to run their silly speech? I’m tempted, but it’s too dull. Nobody would run it.”
“Forget it,” said Nathan.
“It’s not like you,” Mike said. “Why do you care about these people?”
“Look, I said forget it,” Nathan said.
“It’s not that simple,” said Mike.
“All right,” Nathan said. “I care about these people because they are keeping their eyes open and looking at Spain, looking at Germany. You think Hitler is some sort of joke? You think if you don’t look at Spain it will go away?”
Pearl thought about Hitler. She’d seen newsreels. The marching soldiers were frightening. She knew that as Jews they would have been in trouble if they had happened to be born in Germany instead of New York. Her parents were upset about Hitler, too, though they didn’t talk much about Spain.
“I thought I’d go to the rally next week,” she said to Nathan. She hadn’t known until this moment that she was actually planning to go. It was a rally sponsored by several organizations in support of the Spanish Loyalists. She’d seen signs, and a woman in her office had talked to her about it. The woman’s boyfriend was thinking about volunteering, about going to Spain as Hilda had said Nathan wanted to do. The rally was to be at Union Square, not too far from where Pearl worked, and it was to start at five o’clock.
“The rally on Thursday in Union Square?” said Nathan. “That’s good. We’ll go together.” As so often, he sounded weary, but pleased with her. She ate her lunch.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she said to Hilda.
“Not very,” said Hilda. She was leaning on her side, her legs bent, her hips looking heavy and luxurious. The baby was next to her, still asleep on her stomach.
A man and a woman walked past their blanket, then turned back. They came closer—a gray-haired couple, arm in arm, clutching each other as if they were afraid of stumbling in the grass. “That baby’s going to smother, lying on the blanket,” said the woman in a loud voice. “He shouldn’t be on the bare ground on the blanket.”
“She isn’t on the bare ground,” Hilda said, not sitting up, but with new animation in her voice. “That’s the point. She’s on the blanket.”
The woman turned away. “I was only trying to help,” she said.
“He looks like a monkey,” said the man. He spoke to the woman but they could all hear him. “That baby looks like a monkey.”
“Go to hell,” called Mike. He looked around the blanket at the rest of them. His eyes were bright and his face was red. He looked as if he was deciding whether to laugh or to be angry. Nathan looked appalled, sitting back as if he’d been hit. But Hilda laughed—a bitter laugh, but a laugh.
Pearl had brought a thermos bottle of coffee and they all had some, though it wasn’t terribly hot. They ate cookies from the box she’d brought. Then Hilda lay down on the blanket again.
“Do you want to take a nap?” Nathan asked her.
“The baby will wake up.”
“I’ll take her for a walk,” he said.
“Don’t wake her until she wakes up on her own,” said Hilda. She curled up and Nathan took off his jacket and spread it over her. Hilda was in open-toed shoes and a cotton summer dress, which she pulled down over her knees. Her calves swelled and tapered.
“Do you mind if I go for a walk without the baby?” said Nathan. “I want to stretch my legs.”
“Go ahead.”
“You can go, too,” said Mike to Pearl. “There’s something I want to do. If the baby wakes up while Hilda’s sleeping, I’ll walk her.”
Pearl and Nathan set out on a path through a little wood. Nathan was silent for a while. “What does Mike want to do?” he said.
“I don’t know,” said Pearl. “He didn’t bring his saxophone, and he can’t take down what anybody’s saying if nobody’s talking.”
“He keeps busy.”
“I know it. Sometimes it makes me tired, just watching him.” Yet it wasn’t as if Mike were indefatigable, like her mother, who really did make Pearl tired, always rushing someplace. She had come to Pearl’s house once just to do Pearl’s ironing. Mike was usually fidgeting or figuring something out—a new way to wash dishes so they ended up on the left side of the sink, closer to the cupboard where they were going; a way of stacking bills that came in so the one that should be paid first was on top. There were many bills, in fact, and always more than one that should be paid first. Mike was doing all sorts of jobs—working for the district attorney’s office, playing the sax, and one day he really had taken down a speech he’d heard and sold it to a newspaper. She wondered whether Nathan knew that. What he was afraid of might happen, not because Mike cared about the speeches he’d taken down, but just because he was happy to be able to get them on paper, eager for people to know about this trick of his.
“He doesn’t mean any harm,” she said, about the speech.
“I know, but he doesn’t think,” said Nathan. “He’ll show anything to anybody.”
“But they can’t read his notes, and he’s not interested in transcribing them.”
Nathan sighed. “I wish I had that speech,” he said.
“It’s important to you, what the rest of them think of you,” she said.
“I guess so.”
They were walking through a grove. She thought she could see water beyond it. “Hilda says if it wasn’t for the baby, you’d go to Spain,” she said.
Nathan laughed. “I’d make a great soldier,” he said. “The original flabby armchair idealist.”
“No,” she said. She didn’t think Nathan was flabby, she thought he had a nice physique. It wasn’t as wiry as Mike’s; it was a little softer, a little more mature.
“I’d like to do something,” he said. “I care about this very much. Talking and raising money—well, that’s all right, but of course it’s not actually doing anything.”
“Don’t you think the Loyalists hear about our rallies and feel braver?” she said.
“I don’t know, Pearl,” said Nathan. “I don’t know.”
“And then our government will pay attention.”
He was silent for a while. “If Franco wins,” he said then, “it’s such a loss for all of us. Not just the Spaniards …” They had reached the edge of the pond, and the path turned and widened. She had been walking a little ahead of him, but now they walked side by side. Nathan moved a few branches aside so they wouldn’t snag Pearl’s legs. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “You’re quite surprising.” His voice seemed to shake with some kind of feeling, which made her uneasy, but she put the thought aside.
“What do you mean?” she said shyly. She had been thinking he probably thought she was ignorant.
“I don’t know what I mean,” he said, seeming to rouse himself. “Maybe just that you’re thoughtful. You’re a thoughtful girl.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“And you’re kind to Hilda,” he said.
“I think being a mother is harder than she expected,” said Pearl.
“Whatever I do lately,” he said, “she makes me feel stupid.”
“She doesn’t mean to,” said Pearl, but he’d spoken with vehemence, and she knew he wasn’t going to hear her.
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I don’t know what she means.”
She wanted to comfort him, and the thought that came to her was of pulling down his serious face with its balding forehead and kissing the bare place on the top of his skull. She turned and touched his wrist lightly, but that was all. They walked back to the blanket in silence. Hilda was sitting up, giving Rachel a bottle. Mike seemed to be taking a nap. Propped on the picnic basket was a sign constructed out of the cookie box, which he had laboriously torn and flattened. That was what he’d wanted to do. He had a pencil, apparently, and Pearl read aloud what he’d written. “Little Racket,” she said. “Little Racket?”
“Rachel. Don’t you know what an h looks like?” Mike said, sitting up.
“It looks like a k to me, and if that’s not a t why is it crossed?”
“Rachel.”
“Little Racket,” Pearl persisted, teasing. “Your real writing is as hard to read as your shorthand. Little Racket, the Human Monkey. A Nickel a Look.”
“Very good,” said Nathan. “Any customers?”
“It’s been quiet,” said Mike.
“We should call her Racket,” said Hilda. “She makes a racket, all right.” She leaned over and pulled the baby toward her and kissed her forehead. “Racket,” she said. “Sleepy little Racket. Skinny little rickety Racket.” Hilda looked better, Pearl thought. Her nap had done her good. She had color in her cheeks. Pearl began gathering the picnic things, which were still lying on the blanket. Mike had lit a cigarette. “Do you two want to walk around a little?” Pearl said. “I could feed the baby.”
“Come on, Hilda,” said Mike, pulling her up. “I’ll go with you. Or Nathan can take another walk. Good for him.”
“No,” said Hilda. “I’d rather not.”
The day of the rally, Nathan called for Pearl at work. He arrived a few minutes before she was ready to leave, and stood quietly in the midst of departing employees, looking grave, as usual. Pearl felt self-conscious, and as she straightened the papers on her desk and sealed some letters she had written for Mr. Carmichael, she didn’t know how to move her hands properly, as if she were trying to play the part of herself on stage. Licking an envelope didn’t feel familiar.
At last she pinned on her hat, sticking the hatpin through her braid as she always did, and took her coat, and she began to relax. She was looking forward to being alone with Nathan, though it also felt somewhat alarming. She’d told Mike she’d be home late, but in fact he would be later yet, or he might be out all night. He was on call that night for the homicide squad. She explained it to Nathan as they went downstairs and out into the street.
“Still collaborating with the gendarmes,” said Nathan.
“He just does shorthand. He just writes down what people say.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s comfortable,” Nathan said. They were walking to the subway station.
“What do you mean?” said Pearl. She didn’t like Nathan to disapprove of Mike.
“Don’t worry, I don’t mean anything,” Nathan said. “Mike and I have been arguing about this stuff all our lives. And we always will.”
“In a way, you’re close,” she said.
“In a way,” said Nathan, which was not what she expected.
On the subway they had to stand. “How’s Hilda?” said Pearl, over the noise of the train. Nathan shrugged.
“And the baby?” Another shrug.
He cheered up when they got out of the subway at Union Square. It was crowded. A woman was speaking, and though she had a megaphone it was hard to hear what she was saying. People pushed closer to hear her. It was getting dark, a cool October evening, and the rally looked the way Pearl imagined an event in Europe might look. Everyone seemed to be wearing dark clothing, and they were pressed together in a quiet, serious crowd. Light shone on some of the upturned faces. The square was full of people. The woman’s speech was interrupted with shouts and applause; then people would listen quietly again. “These suffering people …” Pearl heard her say. Then, “the frightened peasants.” Apparently she had recently come from Spain. Pearl could hardly make out any of the woman’s sentences, but she joined in the applause and cheers. Nathan clapped his big hands slowly together when the woman finished. He led Pearl along the edge of the crowd, trying to find a place where they could hear better. Now a man from the labor unions was speaking. Pearl could hear him, but she wasn’t as interested as she had been in the woman. “Our members pledge themselves to stand in solidarity …” She cheered him too.
They listened to speaker after speaker. She grew cold. It wasn’t a cold night, but she was wearing only a light coat, and the wind cut into her. She didn’t want to ask Nathan to leave before it was over. She was hungry.
At last he looked at her. “You’re shivering,” he said.
“I should have worn a sweater under my coat.”
“This is almost over. Let’s go to the Automat before it gets crowded.” He steered her through the crowd and they walked down the street to the Automat, which was crowded already, but at last they reached the end of the change line and got their nickels, and then they were able to buy food and coffee. Pearl always bought macaroni and cheese at the Automat, and Nathan did what she did. They managed to find a table near the wall. Now she was happy. Maybe people would hear about their rally and do something to help the Loyalists.
“I guess this isn’t as good as going to fight in Spain, but I like it,” she said.
“No Automats with macaroni and cheese in Spain, I imagine,” said Nathan. “I’m not complaining.” They ate slowly, talking about the rally, then about other things. Pearl talked about her office, about the two bosses and some of the other workers.
“Hilda misses the office,” Nathan said.
“I suppose she does,” said Pearl.
“She calls the baby Racket now,” said Nathan.
“I think that’s cute,” Pearl said.
“Pearl—” said Nathan. He stopped. She looked up but he shook his head and said nothing. Then he said, “I’ll take you home.” On the subway, Pearl was exhausted, as if the rally had lasted hours and hours. She was glad Nathan was taking her home. She was excited under her tiredness, though. She wanted him to stay when he took her home, so she could talk with him for a long time. She felt safe with Nathan, she told herself, and that was surprising. She didn’t feel unsafe without Nathan.
“I’m very sad,” he said suddenly in the street, half a block from Pearl’s apartment. She was startled and stopped, turning to face him. They were under a street lamp, and he did look sad, but he always looked sad.
“Why?” she said. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t say anything wrong,” he said, and she was reminded of something Hilda had said a long time ago, of trying to work out something that had gone wrong between her and Hilda.
“Is it—” She didn’t want to ask him whether he too was hurt by Hilda.
“I don’t think very well of myself right now,” he said. “I don’t think I’m a good man. The sort of man I should be.”
“Because you can’t go to Spain?” she said. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. They had begun walking again.
“It would be good if I could do something like that,” he said. “Be a hero. But I’m a lot less than a regular person, a lot less than just somebody who isn’t a hero. I’d like to be satisfactory. If I were one of my students, I’d give me a C or a D. I’d like to get a B, even if I’m not an A person.”
“What do you mean?” she said. She wasn’t cold now. Nathan was talking differently from the way he’d ever talked. It seemed amazing that he might talk that way to her, of all people. She didn’t want him to think so badly of himself, but she was happy—she was breathing in so deeply that she was getting light-headed. He hadn’t answered what she’d said. She put her hand on his arm and said, “Nathan, can I help?”
He put one hand on her shoulder and she stopped. They were walking beside apartment buildings, and they were passing an alley between buildings. He drew her a step into the alley and tilted her face up toward him with his fingertips, then bent down and kissed her cheek lightly under one eye. It was just a slight, dry kiss, but he kissed her again an inch away and again and yet again. Pearl stood with her hands at her sides. Finally she put her hand on his sleeve again. Nathan kissed her cheeks in many places, and then, finally, her lips, and then he seemed to shudder and began to kiss her lips harder. He stopped and shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, Pearl,” he said. “May I go home with you?”
In answer she reached into her bag for her key. They were only half a block from her house, and they hurried there with their heads down. She fumbled with the elevator door and he turned her toward the stairs, as if he wanted to be slowed down, to be made tired, but soon she was opening the door with her key. For a moment she wondered what would happen if Mike were there after all, but he wasn’t. She wasn’t letting herself think too far. She wanted to comfort Nathan, to kiss away his sadness. She wanted to kiss him back so he wouldn’t think she believed he was a bad person for kissing her. Sometimes things like this happened, she explained to herself. She said it again as she took off her coat and hat and took his coat, making it take as long as possible. Sometimes things like this happened. Her surprise reminded her of something and she remembered what it was—the first time she’d started to bleed. “This is something that happens,” her mother had said, and Pearl had felt dizzy with suspense about the rest of her life. If girls and women bled this way and she hadn’t known it, if she hadn’t known about something so significant, so—she couldn’t help but feel—unusual, then what else might happen?
She and Mike had a one-bedroom apartment. She knew she wasn’t taking Nathan into the bedroom, and knowing that made her know she was going to bed with him. In the living room was the single bed she’d had as a girl. It had been part of their bed when they lived at Nathan and Hilda’s, and now it was their couch, with a row of pillows on it against the wall. Her mother had made pillow covers for her of flowered fabric. Pearl sat down on the couch and lifted her face to look at Nathan again. He didn’t sit with her but sat at her feet on the floor and then pulled her gently down to him and began kissing her once more. But it was different. It was more reckless, less as if he were telling her a secret no one else had ever heard. This was more energetic; he seemed determined to do wrong and get it over with. Yet it was kind. Nathan’s hands, touching her, seemed to be asking, not telling her what would happen. Asking whether she too wanted to do this.
After many kisses he brought the pillows down from the couch and helped her off with her dress and underwear and eased her down. There was a pillow under her head and shoulders and one under her backside. Nathan stood and turned away, still without speaking, and took off his own clothes and laid them on the couch. He didn’t exactly fold them, Pearl saw, watching him lovingly from the floor, nervous yet proud of her long body, but he smoothed them and placed them respectfully. That was how he touched her: with respect.
“You’re the sweetest girl....” he said. She was amazed at what was happening, amazed that it could happen. Her body responded to him with waves of pleasure, as if she’d been waiting for exactly this event to take place. Nathan’s shadowed face hovered over hers, and at the climax he sank into her arms as though he would never stand again. He eased out of her carefully and kept his arms around her. She felt that he was the whole world, that Nathan was the oceans and mountains, the Loyalists fighting in Spain and the thousands of people cheering at rallies. “I love you,” she whispered into his shoulder, inaudibly. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” Not out loud.
He dressed quickly. She remained lying on the pillows, watching him, noticing the slope of his shoulder as he picked up his undershirt and put it on, the way his chest hairs curled darkly over its edge when he was wearing it, the flare of his nose, seen from below, as he looked to see where to fasten his shirt cuff. Putting on his pants, he looked at her and blushed. He did not turn red, the way Mike did when he blushed. Nathan’s face darkened and he looked aside. Pearl stood up and went into her bedroom for her bathrobe.
He kissed her again before he left, two tiny kisses that barely touched her lips but seemed full of messages. She put her arms around him and held him, and then he left. Her bathrobe was loose and she tied the belt again, then picked up the pillows, smoothed their covers, and arranged them on the couch as usual. She felt dazed and she moved slowly. She took the pile of her clothes into the bedroom and put it on the bed. Then she went into the bathroom. The sight of the toilet reminded her that she wanted to urinate and she did, a long stream that eased her. She felt the urine leave her body with rather more attention than usual, as if her mind were stilled of everything else and she had nothing more to think about. She flushed the toilet and began to fill the bathtub. She took a long bath. The water was Nathan, the pitted tub over whose familiar surface she ran her finger was Nathan. The towel with which she dried her whole body, even her toes, was Nathan. Still without thinking, she was asleep before Mike came home.
Pearl never woke easily, but in the morning, this time, she knew she was happy before she knew why. It was sad that Mike couldn’t know and of course wouldn’t share in this happiness. In a way it was hard to understand, as if Mike too was simply part of Nathan and would rejoice as she did. She had to remind herself firmly that no one would rejoice.
It was Friday. She went to work. She didn’t read on the train, she just sat and looked around her. She had never noticed how interesting people were, how you could know things about them if you just looked. An old woman opposite her had her fingers curled through the hemp handles of a shopping bag, and when the woman stood to leave the train at her stop, Pearl discovered that she could feel how the heavy bag settled and how the handles cut into the woman’s fingers.
There were children on the train, high school students. The boys almost made her cry. Even when they seemed outwardly tough or cold or stupid, she could suddenly see that their lips and eyes were innocent, a little fearful, full of hope and uncertainty. She caressed them with her eyes and wanted to bless them. She wanted to bless all the people on the subway, to put her fingers on their foreheads in a half-remembered, half-invented holy gesture. Standing and walking among them, getting off at her stop and joining the throng on the platform, where some people were already mounting the stairs and others shuffled behind her, Pearl discovered that she believed in God.
She was sure they’d be happy, she and Nathan. She didn’t know how. At work, she let herself think about him only now and then, as a reward for typing a stack of letters, or for approaching Mr. Carmichael with a difficult question. It would be all right, she said to herself over and over.
In the late afternoon, as it was growing dark, she was suddenly afraid. A sheet of fear passed over her body the way it might have if she’d looked up to see a masked gunman in the doorway. She pressed her hands into the papers on her desk. “Are you all right?” asked the bookkeeper, Ruby—Hilda’s replacement—walking past her.
“I shivered,” she said, but Ruby kept walking.
She told herself again that everything would be all right, that Nathan would know what had to happen, that if she just waited patiently it would all become clear. She needed to think, anyway. She didn’t want to see Nathan just yet, or even speak to him. She wanted to think of him, to run her fingers over his body in her imagination.
All she cared to do in the next days was sing and listen to the radio. She sang love songs. She’d known them for years but had never paid attention to the words. She’d never known that the people singing loved someone.
She still had a good time with Mike. He was funny and he was her husband. She neglected the cooking and cleaning for the next week because she was always staring out the window and doing nothing, but that was not right. When her mother dropped in one afternoon and asked what Pearl was making for supper, Pearl didn’t know. The next day she bought a cookbook so she could make better meals for Mike. There was nothing wrong with Mike. When she and Nathan spoke at last, he must not be allowed to say anything bad about his younger brother Mike. He might say she should divorce Mike and he’d divorce Hilda, and they’d get married, but she wouldn’t agree, at least not right away. They owed a lot to Hilda and Mike and besides there was the baby. She’d tell Nathan they had to keep silent and wait, and see how they felt about each other over the years. Maybe they’d have to wait until Racket was grown up. That seemed hard but worthwhile. She could picture herself, ennobled by love of Nathan, waiting until they could act on their love without hurting Racket.
Pearl went to see Racket and Hilda one afternoon on the way home from work, as she had at first. Of course she felt strange but she told herself that the world was a strange place, people all over were feeling and doing things that they had never expected. Ruby’s boyfriend hadn’t expected to become a soldier in Spain—he was a student at City College—but he was talking about going. Pearl hadn’t expected to marry Mike and that had happened. Things happened.
“I took her for a walk in the carriage,” Hilda said. “I’m glad I got back before you came over.” She was peeling potatoes with the playpen set up next to her, though the kitchen was so small the playpen filled it. Racket was lying in it on her stomach, flailing her arms like a little swimmer.
Pearl picked her up and Racket batted at Pearl’s nose. She was a dark-eyed baby, solemn for a moment, but then she laughed. “She laughed with a sound,” Pearl said.
“I know. She did that yesterday, too. It’s cute, isn’t it?” said Hilda.
The baby reminded Pearl of Nathan. She was the first person besides familiar Mike whom Pearl had touched since she’d touched Nathan. Racket seemed sinewy and busy for a baby, twisting in her arms. Pearl lowered her into the playpen again. She was half relieved, half disappointed that Nathan wasn’t there, and she hurried home before he could come in.
As the days passed Pearl noticed that Nathan’s touch had changed her. Her breasts felt different. She touched them and shaped them with her hands as she was getting dressed in the morning. She thought they were more beautiful than they had been. She’d never thought of herself as having beautiful breasts, as being beautiful at all, except for her hair, but now she stretched to see herself in the mirror over her dresser and liked the long line of her body. She had good feet—she’d never thought of that either. They were narrow and her insteps were high. She would have liked those feet if she’d seen them in a shoe ad in a magazine.
But she was tired. Just thinking about Nathan tired her. She yawned when she was standing in Mr. Carmichael’s office while he explained something he wanted her to do. She had to think about climbing the stairs. When it was finally night, she’d lie in bed next to Mike, thinking of Nathan. Sometimes Mike wanted to make love to her, and she complied, but she was so tired she felt almost nothing. “Come on, sweetie,” Mike would say, “don’t you like this? How about this? Do you like this?”
And he’d fondle her. He too sculpted her breasts with his hands. “Baby, I think you’re growing,” he said to her one night, a few weeks after her night with Nathan.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, smiling.
“Your breasties are really something. I never noticed.”
“You never looked.”
“I looked, I looked, believe me.”
Pearl was frightened, as if Mike were about to discover Nathan’s fingerprints on her breasts. She stroked him to hurry him. She felt dry inside. She didn’t really want to do this, and it wasn’t because he was Mike instead of Nathan. Maybe she was getting her period, she thought, although she didn’t recall that being about to get her period usually made her feel this way. She began to try to remember when she had last had her period.
She always meant to write it down, but she never did. She’d been caught by surprise at work more than once, and had had to get permission to run out to the drugstore for sanitary pads. She was pretty sure she hadn’t had her period when they’d gone on the picnic, and she knew she didn’t have it the day of the rally, October eighth. She counted up. The rally—the day she’d slept with Nathan—was more than three weeks ago. She hadn’t had her period between the picnic and the rally, because then she’d have been thinking about it when they made love, thinking about whether it was really over and whether he’d mind if there was blood. She hadn’t thought about it at all.
But this didn’t make sense. Pearl was regular—twenty-eight days. She counted back twenty-eight days—she could hear Mike breathing deeply in his sleep now—but that was October 6, the week between the picnic and the rally. Then she remembered her last period. She’d left work early that day to go to the dentist. She’d said something to Ruby about how it wasn’t fair, the dentist and the curse in one day.
She couldn’t figure out what that date had been, but it felt like a long time ago. And now she knew what she was thinking about. Pearl was going to have a baby. In the morning she checked her calendar. Her dentist appointment had been September twenty-third. Now it was November fourth. She had to be pregnant. That was it. She was pregnant.
She was sure it was Nathan’s child. That explained everything—why she had been so happy, why she had not realized for so long. She had kept it a secret from herself.
Then, “Hey, are you pregnant?” said Mike at breakfast.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about your breasties, I guess.”
“Would that be bad?” said Pearl, blushing. He didn’t use that word except in bed. “If I was pregnant?”
“Of course not,” said Mike. “It would be great.”
“I’ll go to the doctor and find out,” said Pearl.
“But do you think you are?” said Mike.
“Well, maybe,” said Pearl. “It’s too early to tell.” But it wasn’t too early to tell. She was pregnant with Nathan’s baby. Sometimes she and Mike didn’t make love for days, especially if he was working at night. Of course it was Nathan’s baby.
This changed everything. She and Nathan might have to act now. They had to stop hiding from each other, at least. She had not seen him since the night they had made love, which was unusual for them. Ordinarily they all visited back and forth. Just before their night together, she had promised Hilda she would pick a day and invite them to dinner. Hilda had said she could bring Racket in the carriage, and take it upstairs in the elevator. Maybe the baby would sleep, and they could talk. Pearl had not thought about inviting them from that day until this.
Now she had to talk to Nathan. She made an appointment with the doctor and she thought about how to talk to Nathan. After a few days she wrote him a note. “Dear Nathan, I have to talk to you about something important.” She thought for a long time about how to sign the note. “Love” wasn’t enough. She might have written “love” when he was just her brother-in-law. “All my love,” she wrote, at last, then crossed it out, threw the note away, started again, and wrote her name without any complimentary close at all. She mailed it to Nathan at Erasmus Hall High School, where he taught.
Two days later she was working alone in her part of the office, retyping a letter on which she had made some mistakes, when she looked up. Later she thought that she must have heard footsteps, but at the time she wasn’t aware of them. She knew Nathan was going to be standing there, and so she looked up—but when she saw him, she stared as if she didn’t know who he was. He looked exactly the way he had looked the day of the rally, and for a moment she wished it were that day and that the only thing happening was that she and Nathan were going to a rally. Nathan was wearing his dark overcoat, which made him look more old-fashioned than usual. He was not smiling or speaking.
“You came here,” she said.
“You said you had to talk to me.”
“Here?”
“Can you leave for a while?”
“I’ll ask.” It was late in the day—after four. She bypassed Mr. Glynnis’s office because she knew that Mr. Carmichael, who liked her, would say yes. She told him that her brother-in-law had a problem he needed to discuss with her, and Mr. Carmichael said, “Oh, yes, the fellow with coffee on his trousers.” Pearl got her coat and she and Nathan went into the street. They walked until they came to a little luncheonette and went inside. Nathan ordered coffee, but Pearl said she wanted a malted. She needed strength.
“A malted, of course,” said Nathan. He crossed his arms on the table and stared at her so hard that Pearl, who had taken off her coat and put it around her shoulders, looked down at her sweater to make sure it was properly buttoned. Or maybe he too had noticed her breasts. “I should have talked to you before,” said Nathan.
“It didn’t matter,” said Pearl. He thought she just wanted to talk about what had happened that night.
“It mattered a lot,” said Nathan. “Pearl, I want you to know I have nothing but respect for you. And I always will. I could never explain it except by saying that I think you are a very—a very lovely girl. I’ve been thinking about it, day after day. I know you are not that sort of person.”
“What sort of person?”
“The sort of person who is accustomed to—”
She couldn’t understand him. “Accustomed?”
“Pearl, you never did that before. Did you?”
“You mean—make love?” She was so confused she felt shy about saying they’d made love, as if maybe she’d imagined it, and he would be shocked.
“Well, yes.”
“With Mike,” she said quietly, like a child answering a question in school.
“Yes, of course, with Mike—but not with anybody else. I mean, it’s none of my business—”
She thought he wanted to know whether she’d been a virgin when she married. “No, not with anybody else.” She thought he wanted to make sure of her.
He accepted his coffee from the waitress and put cream and sugar in and stirred it. “That’s what I mean,” he said, a little impatiently. “You’re not like that. And I hope I don’t—”
“I love you,” said Pearl simply, in answer. Her malted had come. There was a tall glass and a metal container with more malted in it. She always liked that thought, that there would be more when she finished the first glass. It usually made her feel rich, like someone who didn’t have to be careful.
Nathan reddened, glancing out the window, where a man in a shabby coat was walking by with a thin dog on a leash. Nathan stirred his coffee some more. Then he looked at her. His eyes were pleading. “Pearl,” he said.
“Nathan, I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t loved you,” she said. “Now, I don’t know what we should do exactly. And I have something to tell you—the reason I wrote to you. But please—”
“I understand,” he said.
“What I wanted to talk about?”
“No—I mean, I don’t know.”
“Nathan,” she said. She wanted him to be a little different, to speak more definitely. She’d imagined this conversation only two ways. One way, he’d say they should run away together. The other way, he’d want to wait. But now that there was this baby, she didn’t see how they could wait. She was a little impatient with him. She didn’t know why he kept saying he respected her. She didn’t care about that. She drank some of her malted while she thought about what to say. It was comforting—it tasted as if she were a child. But she wasn’t a child. “I’m having a baby,” she said.
“Oh, Pearl, that’s good,” he said. “Congratulations. I didn’t know.”
“Nobody knows.”
“Mike doesn’t know?”
“Mike asked me if I was. I told him it was too early to tell. But it’s not too early. I’m sure I’m having a baby.”
“Did you go to the doctor?”
“Not yet.”
“But you’re sure—that’s good, Pearl. I’m glad.”
“Nathan,” she said. It was painful, having to explain so much, so many times. “I’m not sure it’s so good. It’s your baby.”
“What?”
“It’s your baby.”
“But how do you know?” he said. He looked alarmed. “Haven’t you and Mike—”
“Oh, sure,” she said. She didn’t want him to think she and Mike weren’t normal. “But I can tell. A woman can tell.”
“You mean you just imagine it’s my baby?”
“No, not that, more than that. I mean, I had to get pregnant sometime, right? Well, I remember—”
“You couldn’t be sure,” he said. “How do you know what day it was? You could have gotten pregnant on lots of days. Don’t you know that?”
“No, I don’t think that’s right,” said Pearl, but she wasn’t sure, now that he was acting this way, exactly when a woman could become pregnant.
She had had it all worked out. Now she couldn’t remember, couldn’t explain about having her period the day she’d gone to the dentist but not the week of the rally. He wouldn’t believe her.
She drank some more of her malted. It was sweet and rich. “I’m sure,” she said again.
“Well, I don’t see how you can be,” he said, and he sounded like a teacher, as if she’d just explained to a teacher that he’d misunderstood her answer on a test, that she had had the right answer all along.
“But—” she said.
“Look, Pearl,” he said. “It happened and I’m not going to deny it. But let’s be reasonable here. If you insist you’re pregnant with my child, look what’s in store for us—for the child, for Hilda, for Rachel, for Mike, for everyone. Mike doesn’t know what happened that night, does he?”
“No, of course not,” she said.
“Good,” he said, nodding briskly. “He doesn’t ever have to know. It would only hurt him. I’m sorry it happened, I can’t explain it, but I can’t change it now. Only if you insist that—”
“It’s not that I’m insisting,” she said. “It’s just the way it is. And I love you. Isn’t that important?”
He dropped his balding head into his hands. He had drunk his coffee and pushed away the cup, and his arms were on the table. He looked up at her and said, “Yes, Pearl, it’s important. I’m—I’m touched that you say you love me.” And he lowered his face to his crossed arms.
“But you don’t love me?” said Pearl. She had not drunk much of the malted. The second portion, in the container, was still there. She was angry that he wouldn’t look at her. She thought he was only pretending to be overcome with emotion. He looked like a child hiding his eyes while he counted in a game, to give everyone a chance to hide. She stood up.
“Good-bye, Nathan,” she said. Her coat slipped down when she stood up and she had to reach to the floor for it; then she tripped on it. She stuffed it under her arm and ran outside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the waitress, her face alarmed, take a step toward her as she opened the door and the cold air rushed in. She began to walk rapidly, not noticing where she was going. She knew she was hurrying across streets without making sure it was safe, but she did it anyway. It was dark now. People who had come from offices were rushing toward subway stations and disappearing down the stairs into the lighted wells. Pearl ran past them. She was crying, and she bumped into a man when she bent her head and wiped her eyes with her hand. She expected him to be angry, but he put his hands on her shoulders for a second, like someone straightening a wobbly ornament on a mantel, and in a kind way said, “Mind your step, Missy,” before he hurried away. He was a white-haired man and Pearl wished she could bring him back and tell him what had gone wrong, why she was crying in the street without a hat or coat. She stopped and put her coat on. She had to figure out where she was and go back to the office. She had not put the cover on her typewriter and straightened things for the end of the day, and she had left her hat there. And there was another reason she had to go back, though she didn’t know—didn’t quite know—what it was.
She was lost, and she walked two blocks before she saw where she was. She had been going the wrong way. It was a long walk back to the office and she was exhausted, but now she knew what she was going to do there.
When she reached the building she hurried up the stairs. There were a few lights on, but almost everyone had gone. That was good. If the place were altogether empty, it would be even better. Pearl went into her own cubicle, which had no door. She would just take the risk that someone might see her. She took off her coat and hung it up. Then she sat down at her desk. There was the letter that she had been typing. Even the second one was full of mistakes. The sentences seemed like the foolishness of a child. “I remain in hope of your pseedy reply,” she had written. Of course she had meant speedy. She had written the letter herself. Mr. Carmichael had told her what he wanted to say—it was to a supplier of buttons—and she had written it.
Glancing at the letter, she pulled the hairpins out of her head with one hand—a practiced gesture, which she could perform in an instant. For the last few, she steadied the braid as usual so it wouldn’t pull the final hairpins out as it fell. Then, a handful of hairpins in her right hand, she let go with her left and the braid dropped heavily to her back. She opened her desk drawer. She started to put the hairpins into the tray where she kept paper clips, but then thought better of it and opened her hand over the wastebasket under her desk.
In the drawer was a pair of old scissors with battered black handles. Pearl held the braid back, pulled to the side, with her left hand. With her right hand reaching up behind her, she began to cut. It was hard to do. The scissors were dull and the angle was wrong. It took a long time before she had cut even halfway across the braid. Then she held it with her right hand and tried to cut with her left, but she couldn’t manage the scissors left-handed. Finally she put them back in her right hand and tried to hurry, glancing up a few times. Once she thought she heard footsteps. At last it was done. The braid came away in her hand and she shuddered when she saw it lying on the desk on top of the letter. She reached her hand up and felt her bare neck and the rough ends of her hair. She looked around quickly. On the desk was a manila envelope used for interoffice mail. It had a red fastener and red lines across the front. It had gone to three people and their names were written on it. Someone had brought something in it to Pearl without writing her name on the envelope.
She turned it over. On the other side it was blank. She put the braid in, and she had to stuff it to get it all in. When she tried to write on it, her fountain pen punctured the envelope. She had to pull the braid out again and see it once more, and that was the hardest part. Now she wrote Nathan’s name and address—his home address—on the envelope. Then she put on stamps from her desk. She stuffed the braid in again and closed the fastener and sealed the flap with tape. Then she put on her coat. Her hat would look terrible. She had a big square silk scarf, and she tied it over her head. She would have to walk a couple of blocks out of her way to find a mailbox big enough for a package. The one on the corner took only letters.
She put the envelope under her arm and left her cubicle and started down the stairs. Just as she reached the staircase Mr. Glynnis stepped out of the supply room, looking startled. “I didn’t know you were still here, Pearl,” he said.
“I’m just leaving,” she said.
“Good night, Pearl.” He stood and watched her as she walked down the stairs, the envelope under one arm, her other hand holding her coat so she didn’t trip. Her head was sore. She’d pulled hard to make the hairs tight and easier to cut.
“Good night, Mr. Glynnis,” she said.