Mrs. Bridge (11 page)

Occasionally there would be a model in costume, often an elderly immigrant in boots and a kerchief; sometimes they would paint an arrangement of driftwood and wine bottles. But one evening the instructor, whose name was Gadbury, told them to try a subject from mythology and work from imagination. He suggested Wotan as a subject, but added that they might do anything they wished. Mrs. Bridge could not recall anything about Wotan, but she did remember with stark clarity the legend of Leda and the swan. She proceeded to paint a small, zinc-white swan and a Leda standing stiffly erect, with hands behind her back and ankle-deep in water because hands and feet always gave her trouble, and she clothed Leda in a flowered dressmaker bathing suit not unlike her own.

Mr. Gadbury, making his rounds, stood for a while looking over her shoulder at this Leda and at last said he thought the lake was too blue.

She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting. But waiting for what? She did not know. Surely someone would call, someone must be needing her. Yet each day proceeded like the one before. Nothing intense, nothing desperate, ever happened. Time did not move. The home, the city, the nation, and life itself were eternal; still she had a foreboding that one day, without warning and without pity, all the dear, important things would be destroyed. So it was that her thoughts now and then turned deviously deeper, spiraling down and down in search of the final recess, of life more immutable than the life she had bequeathed in the birth of her children.

One fathomless instant occurred on a windy, rainy night when Harriet had gone to church, and the children were out, and only she and her husband remained at home. For some time, perhaps an hour or more, they had been reading, separately; he had the financial page of the newspaper and she had been idly reading of the weddings that day. The rain blew softly against the windowpanes, shutters rattled, and above the front door the tin weather stripping began to moan. Mrs. Bridge, with the newspaper in her lap, listened to the rumbling and booming of thunder over the house. Suddenly, in total quiet, the room was illuminated by lightning. Mr. Bridge lifted his head, only that and nothing more, but within Mrs. Bridge something stirred. She looked at her husband Intently.

“Did the clock strike?” he asked.

“No, I don’t believe so/* she answered, waiting.

He cleared his throat. He adjusted his glasses. He continued reading.

She never forgot this moment when she had almost appre-hended the very meaning of life, and of the stars and planets, yes, and the flight of the earth.

The one person she ever met who surely had experienced similar moments was a Russian-Italian-Hungarian countess who passed through Kansas City like a leaf in the wind.

“The Countess Mariska Mihailova Strozzi,” was how Lois Montgomery, who was the newly elected president of the Auxiliary, introduced her at luncheon.

“Ladies,” the countess began, and went on talking for an hour, but it was an hour that seemed like a minute. No one whispered, no one left the room. The countess was electrify-ing, and the women who missed hearing her were told about her for months afterward. She was born in Shanghai, the daughter of an elderly Russian diplomat who, until an intrigue at the court, had been a close friend of Czar Nicholas II. The family had been exiled, there had been murders, abductions, espionage, and no one knew what else. At fourteen she was married to an Italian millionaire who claimed direct descent from the great Renaissance family which opposed the Medici, but she had run away from him. Later she married a rich Greek. Now she was divorced and on her way to San Francisco at the invitation of a munitions maker. She talked of her experiences, but mostly of the Nazis, and there was a rumor that just before coming to America she had killed a Nazi colonel with his own revolver. Mrs. Bridge, sitting in the front row, looking up into the glittering violet eyes, could easily believe it.

The countess was quite small and chic, and wore a black sheath dress. Her only jewelry was a large star sapphire that accentuated a strange bluish-white scar across the back of her hand. Mrs, Bridge was certain everyone was dying to know what had caused the scar, but no one dared ask. It was only one of the mysteries of the countess. She was delicate and utterly feminine, but at the same she was as blunt as a man. It was clear she had been witness to many kinds of folly and wisdom and agony and joy. Once she paused and leisurely fitted a European cigarette into an ebony holder; several minutes must have gone by while she smoked and stared over the heads of her audience, but they were so transfixed that no one moved. Tamping out the cigarette, she continued in her perfect, heavy English, “We must destroy the Fascist… .”

Later Mrs. Bridge introduced herself to the countess, fox that was what everyone else was doing, and for a minute or so they chatted. Two things Mrs. Bridge remembered about her: the first was a fresh red bruise on the tiny golden throat, a bruise such as a man’s mouth would leave, and the second was that husky voice murmuring, “To be afraid is, I tell you, Madame, the most terrible thing in the world/’

Not long after the countess left for San Francisco and the hospitable munitions maker, Mrs. Bridge was having lunch on the Plaza with Grace Barron. Grace seemed despondent, and Mrs. Bridge, thinking to cheer her up, looked into her tea cup and pretended to be studying the leaves. Laying one finger alongside her nose she said, “My gypsy blood tells me you”

“My fortune?** asked Grace absently. “I know my fortune/* And then, while Mrs. Bridge stared at her in frightened amazement, two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.

Whether it was in the pattern of the leaves, or in Grace herself, Mrs. Bridge could not be sure, but at a cocktail party honoring Mrs. Albert Tate, who was packing for a voyage around the world, Grace became unreasonable. The affair was held in the Arlens’ new yellow brick Colonial on Shoat Drive and there were over one hundred people present. According to the invitations the party was to be from six till nine-thirty, but at ten o’clock the crowd was as thick as ever, and about that time the word began spreading that Grace Barren was in the basement recreation room having an argument with the host,

” ethnocentricism, that’s what!” Grace was saying just as

Mrs. Bridge hurried anxiously down the basement steps.

Russ Arlen scowled and muttered. Grace took a long drink from a martini glass and smacked her lips.

“Furthermore,” she announced to the crowd, “if we go to war again do you know who I accuse? The American press! Scare headlines sell copies. I accuse. Monsieur, j ‘accuse!”

Andrew Koeppel, who had been congratulated throughout the evening for having bought another hotel, suggested, “Let me put in a word. A few minutes ago you mentioned some Semite friend of yours who thought a pogrom was as likely in this country as in Germany. Let me tell you: Nazi Germany is the most fascistic nation on the face of this earth, and if your friend doesn’t like it here, let her go back. I’ve fought the Jews for whatever I own and I intend to keep it. My father, mind you, came to this country without a penny in his pocket and by the time he was thirty-six years old ” Here he began a long and rather uninteresting story having to do with pulling up cornstalks for eleven cents a day.

Attention gradually was reverting to Grace when there came shouts from upstairs of ‘Tire! Fire!” and everyone crowded the stairway, cocktail glasses in hand. There was indeed a fire, but not in the house. Somehow the back seat of the Ralph Porters’ Cadillac had begun to smoulder. An alarm was not turned in for quite a while because everyone assumed someone else had taken care of it, but eventually a fire engine came clanging up Ward Parkway and swerved Into Shoat Drive, one of the ladders scratching the fenders of several automobiles, and the firemen broke the window of the Cadillac and began spraying the rear seat. Smoke billowed out while Mrs. Porter wept and begged them to stop. The firemen believed a cigarette stub had caused it, but the Beckerle sisters, who had been riding in the back seat, denied this. A few minutes later almost everybody had returned to the house, and Grace was at It again, this time in the library under a full-length portrait of Madge, Mrs. Bridge entered the library to hear Grace saying, ** and the Modocs and the Nez Perce! And the Mimbreno Apache, the Teton Sioux, and duster’s deliberate violation of the treaty of eighteen-sixty-eight and “

“Shrimp, anybody?*’ It was Madge hurrying in to save the day, followed by her new maid, who was carrying an immense silver platter heaped with hors d’oeuvres.

“I want another drink,” Grace announced. “And what about the Seminoles? They never harmed us but we invaded their swamps and cut them to ribbons/’

Mrs. Bridge felt the discussion to be beyond her depth, but, in hopes of moderating what could turn into an unfortunate scene, she asked hopefully, “It does sound as though we’ve done some dreadful things, Grace, but Isn’t It possible that when you investigate fully you’ll discover the Seminoles attacked us?”

The conversation continued for some time, Grace Banron being the center of it all, arguing now against censoring books, now against opening the mail of suspected Fascists and Communists. Once or twice Mrs. Bridge attempted to direct the conversation elsewhere, praising the somewhat regal portrait of Madge under which they were standing, and also trying the fire in the Cadillac, but at the very moment she was about to succeed, Grace herself would irritate someone all over again.

There were several echoes of this evening. The very next night someone unbuckled the windshield wipers from the Barrens’ automobile, which had been parked on the street in front of their home. The wipers were found in the gutter a few yards away, twisted out of shape.

The scoutmaster of David Barren’s troop received an anonymous letter telling him to watch young Barron. The scoutmaster, who had never before gotten such a letter, did not know what to do with it, and being very much agitated he gave it to Dr. Foster, who telephoned the police and talked for a long time on various subjects before telling them why he had called, The letter had a postscript demanding to know how many years young Barron had been playing the violin and adding triumphantly that he had not been invited to join a high-school fraternity.

Days passed. It seemed the affair was being forgotten. Then Madge Arlen happened to remark that her husband had switched accounts from Virgil Barren’s bank to the Security First.

“Oh, my word!” Mrs. Bridge breathed. “What did Virgil say?”

“Russ told me he didn’t open his mouth.” Madge paused to light a cigarette and shake out the match. After inhaling deeply she said, “We weren’t the first to change.”

Mrs. Bridge thought for an instant she was going to faint, and even as her head stopped whirling she heard herself remarking in a sympathetic tone, ” suppose it was the best thing.”

Quite possibly the only persons unaware of Grace Barren’s Indiscretion were Wilhelm and Susan Van Metre.

“We chanced to be driving this way/’ Wilhelm Van Metre said, having cleared his throat twice in the midst of the remark, “and I said to Mrs. Van Metre, ‘Susan, as long as we are in this neighborhood it might not be a bad idea to stop for a nice little visit with the Bridges/ ” He cleared his throat again. “I seem to be having some slight difficulty with my vocal apparatus. But at any rate, Susan agreed with me/ 1 He turned to smile at her.

“What a nice surprise!” Mrs. Bridge replied. “Here, let me take your coats/* And going to the bottom of the stairs she called, “Walter! Guess who’s here?” This meant he was to put away his detective magazine or his vacation brochures or whatever he was looking at, and get out of bed and get dressed and come down.

“Now!” she resumed, having gotten them seated and having told Harriet to fix some tea, “Now, tell me what’s new with you all?”

Wilhelm chuckled and slapped his knee. “Susan, did you hear India? Now you tell me/* he continued, addressing his wife, “does anything new or extraordinary ever happen to us? Not much, I’m afraid, not much/’ He leaned back and touched his nostrils one after the other as though to prevent himself from sneezing. “No, not very much, not much/*

It was quite a while before Mr. Bridge came downstairs to join the conversation; lie had recognized the voices and was in no hurry. Then, for about three hours, they sat in the living room with the pot of tea. Mrs. Bridge, w r ho was afraid her husband might walk out of the room and go back to bed, attempted to keep the conversation going; she also tried to get them to play a horse-racing game which w T as quite popular, and then she suggested cards. Wilhelm had a better idea; he thought he might tackle Mr. Bridge for a round of dominoes. How r ever there w r ere no dominoes in the house. Wilhelm suggested chess; there was no chess set. For a moment it looked as though Wilhelm might drive home to get his own chess set. Finally Mrs. Bridge got him off this subject. Presently he asked their opinion of the ballet troupe that had just completed an engagement in Kansas City.

“Oh, goodness/’ she said quickly, “now let me see the ballet yes, it was in town, wasn’t it, because Grace Barron called “

“I found the interpretation of the premier danseur rather too old-fashioned,” said Wilhelm, tapping his fingertips and frowning, “Although Susan, if memory serves, thought not, especially the ‘Swan Lake/ We both enjoy ‘Swan Lake.’ ” He also inquired if Mrs. Bridge agreed with the criticism of Kafka in the latest issue of a literary review.

“I’m afraid I missed that altogether/’ she replied. She had never heard of the magazine.

And eventually, inevitably, the conversation turned upon engineering because Wilhelm had been an engineer for thirty years. In spite of his experience, he said, “I have found it inexpedient to rely on memory. I place my faith in instruments. You may or may not, India, be familiar with the log-log duplex decitrix/’ He paused, lifting his bushy white eyebrows.