Mrs. Bridge (25 page)

“How many years has it been?”

“Quite a few,” Carolyn answered, biting her lip. “It’s been quite a few years, Mother.”

Mrs. Bridge turned off the gas in the oven and shut the doors.

The snow fell all night. It fell without a sound and covered the frozen ground, and the dead leaves beneath the maple tree, and bowed the limbs of the evergreens, and sifted out of the high, pearl-blue clouds hour after hour. Mrs. Bridge was awakened by the immense silence and she lay in her bed listening. She heard the velvet chimes of the clock in the hall, and presently the barking of a dog. She had a feeling that all was not well and she waited in deep expectancy for some further intimation, listening intently, but all she heard before falling asleep was the familiar chiming of the clock.

The next morning Lois Montgomery telephoned to say that Grace Barron had committed suicide.

In the days that followed Mrs. Bridge attempted to suppress this fact. Her reasoning was that nothing could be gained by discussing it; consequently she wrote to Ruth that there was some doubt as to what had been the cause of Mrs. Barron’s death but it was presumed she had accidentally eaten some tuna-fish salad which had been left out of the refrigerator overnight and had become contaminated, and this was what she told Douglas and Carolyn.

To intimate friends, to those who knew the truth, which was that Grace Barron had swallowed over fifty sleeping tablets, Mrs. Bridge talked more openly. They asked one another familiar and similar questions because, in many ways, Grace Barron was indistinguishable from anyone among them. Their problems had been hers, their position, their wealth, and the love they knew, these also had belonged to her.

“It came as such a shock,” Mrs. Bridge heard herself say again and again. “It’s awfully hard to believe/*

She often wondered if anyone other than herself had been able to divine the motive; if so, it went unmentioned. But she herself had found it instinctively less than an instant after hearing the news: her first thought had been of an afternoon on the Plaza when she and Grace Barron had been looking for some way to occupy themselves, and Grace had said, a little sadly, “Have you ever felt like those people in the Grimm fairy-tale the ones who were all hollowed out in the back?”

The country was now at war. Douglas had graduated from high school and wanted to join the Army. Ruth was gone; she seldom wrote. Carolyn, unable to get along with her husband, was coming home more frequently. And Mrs. Bridge, lost in confusion, often lay down to rest awhile, and thought back to happier times. She saw that it was inevitable these things had come to pass, and she could not escape a feeling of unreality. One day, while shopping on the Plaza, she had recognized someone who used to live next door to her when she was a child. The woman was now evidently verging on old age, and Mrs. Bridge, counting down the years as she observed, from a distance, the conclusion of the youth which was her own, felt a growing sense of despair and futility, and ever after that day she herself moved a little more slowly.

Sometime in the middle of the night Mrs, Bridge awoke and knew Carolyn had come home. The house was absolutely still and yet she had no doubt; rising quietly so as not to disturb her husband she pulled on her quilted satin robe, found her slippers, and went along the hall to the room where the girls had lived. Sure enough the door was closed; ordinarily it was open. Mrs. Bridge hesitated outside, listening, but heard nothing; she had expected to hear Carolyn sobbing.

“Dear, may I come in?*’ she asked. There was no answer, but she pushed open the door and saw Carolyn lying on the bed fully dressed with her hands clasped beneath her head. She was staring at the ceiling.

“Did you and Gil have another argument?” she asked, seating herself on the edge of the bed.

“I can’t stand him/’ she answered after a while.

“What was it this time?”

“He hit me.”

Mrs. Bridge caught her breath.

“He did,” she repeated, with no apparent anger. “He slapped me so hard I lost my balance and fell down.”

“You must have done something to provoke him. Didn’t you?” she asked.

“Are you on his side?”

“I’m trying not be on anyone’s side, dear/’ she said, and reached out to stroke Carolyn’s head. “It’s just that I don’t think Gil is that sort.”

“Oh, no? If you lived with him you’d find out different/’ Tears had sprung into her eyes, and seeing them Mrs. Bridge felt herself ready to weep.

“Do you know what he did afterward, Mother? He tried to make it up the way men always do.”

“Carolyn, there are some things about marriage that a woman has to “

“Oh, no, don’t tell me that! I don’t want any part of that myth I don’t! Why, Mother, he didn’t even know it was me. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Why don’t you tell me how it all started?” she replied, pulling the robe more tightly around her throat.

“It started at breakfast because I’d forgotten to get butter the day before, so he got sarcastic, and then he decided I didn’t know how to feed the baby, and then he began yelling when he couldn’t find his blue suit. Mother, he’s been hounding me about that suit for two weeks. It’s been at the cleaners and I’ve been so rushed with the baby and with the qualifying rounds at the club that I haven’t had time to pick it up. He could have picked it up himself because he comes right by the cleaners every day, but he keeps saying that’s my job. So, anyway, next he began shouting at me that if I spent less time playing golf and more oh, hell, what’s the use? I mean, anyway, after he finally went to work I thought maybe it was partly my fault and so in order to make it up to him I got a baby-sitter to come over while I went to the beauty shop to have my hair set, and they couldn’t take me right away and by the time I finally got through it was late and I didn’t get home till after he did because I had to pay some bills and stop at the club to see if my entry had been posted. Well, I guess you can imagine what a foul temper he was in when his dinner wasn’t ready for him, and he’d called the club and they’d told him I was there, even after I’d given strict orders to say I wasn’t. Well,” she went on, after drawing a deep breath, “he was furious and swearing. He’d thrown clothes all over the bedroom and even jerked out some of the drawers and turned them over on the bed because he couldn’t find what he wanted. I told him the stuff hadn’t been washed and he knew perfectly well the washing machine was broken. I guess he expected me to hand-wash everything. I mean, really, Mother, that’s what he expected.”

“Well, I don’t think it would hurt you to do some washing/’

“Oh, Mother, honestly! All he has to do is get the machine fixed.”

“Yes, I understand, dear, but perhaps if both of you were to try a little harder “

“He said I didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant to have to work.”

“Why, that’s absurd!”

“He said I was spoiled, Mother. Is that the truth?”

“Of course not, dear. Why should he say a thing like that? Now I’m sure everything is going to work out all right, so why don’t you get some rest? You’ll feel better in the morning/’

“And do you know whose fault he said it was, Mother?*’

Mrs. Bridge was caught between wanting Carolyn home again for good, and wanting the marriage to succeed. The world was reeling, so it seemed, and she lost faith in tomorrow. Her ears rang with the frenetic song of war. She could not understand the slaughter and she was often frightened now that Douglas was gone. He had persuaded his father to let him join the Army before the draft caught up with him and now he was somewhere in Arizona. He wrote to her every week cheerful, airy letters, as though he had gone camping for the summer and would be back in time for college, and she could almost believe this was true. Then, without warning, she would be struck by the actual truth and she would feel lonely and helpless, and guilty over the happiness she experienced whenever Carolyn appeared. With Carolyn in the house even in a foul humor so that she smoked and cursed without regard for any-one else even then Mrs. Bridge was comforted, for her presence was an arch to the past, and Mrs. Bridge never tired of dreaming of the days when the children were small, and there had been peace, and so much to anticipate.

Often she sat up with a start, and after a desperate glance at the clock she would be ashamed to learn that two or three hours had gone by while she was thinking. She had given up working at the charity center; there were more than enough volunteers, particularly among the younger women, and the staring eyes of the people on Ninth Street had begun to haunt her. She often saw them in the middle of the night, the hungry, lost people.

And she was haunted, too, by recollections as inanimate and soulless as these unfortunate people, which surrounded her with undemanding, relentless attention, like a perfect cir-cle of question marks incidents, for the most part, comments she had offered, replies, attitudes, trivial circumstances which by all logic should have long since passed into obscurity, but which recurred persistently to trouble her. And always, or very nearly so, she overcame these doubts; and yet, even as she arose, secure in her convictions, she was aware she had not triumphed over them, nor destroyed them, nor pacified them, but only pushed them away for a little while, like nagging children.

Douglas came home on furlough; he got out of the taxicab looking much older. There was another soldier in the taxi to whom he waved good-by, and Mrs. Bridge, waiting to em-brace her son, heard him call in a resounding voice, ”Save a Jap for me, sergeant!”

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Fellow I met on the train,” he replied briefly.

“Didn’t you want to ask him in?”

“I did, but he’s on his way,” Douglas said, and throwing his duffel bag across one shoulder he pushed open the door and strode into the house.

“You’ve gained some weight,” she said, and she noticed, too, that he stood erect now, and there was a frankly adult look in his eyes. The most remarkable change, however, was the fact that he was beginning to grow a mustache a reddish burr looking somewhat like a patch of sandpaper. Mrs. Bridge thought it looked very silly, and not wanting to hurt his feelings she avoided mentioning it.

Mr. Bridge, however, was neither reticent nor considerate of Douglas’s feelings.

“For the love of Mike, what’s that?” he asked, on first catching sight of the new mustache, but Douglas, very much to the surprise of his mother, neither flushed in embarrassment nor dropped his eyes.

“You think you could do any better?” he solemnly replied.

Mr. Bridge laughed and clapped him solidly on the shoulder. “How about a drink before dinner, soldier?”

“I could use one,” said Douglas, and away they went to the kitchen. Mrs. Bridge heard them laughing, and Harriet’s shrill laughter joining in.

Although she could not understand her son she was so pleased to have him home that she continually found excuses to be near him. So it was that she knocked on his door to ask if his socks needed mending. He told her to come in and look. She entered and found him standing in front of the bathroom mirror lathering his jaw. He was not wearing a shirt, only an olive green undershirt and khaki trousers, and she noticed a metal chain around his neck that he had never worn before.

“What on earth is this?” she inquired, approaching hesitantly, full of love and tenderness.

“Dog tags,” he said. He was amused.

She drew the chain up from beneath the undershirt, strangely and deeply moved to discover there was hair on his chest, and she held the tags in trembling fingers. She inquired about the data stamped on the dull brass disks, and he told her that one was his serial number, another his blood type, and so on.

“What is this T’?” she wanted to know.

“Protestant,” he said. “I told them I was a Buddhist, but they insisted I was a Protestant.”

“You did what?”

“We have to fill out forms all the time. Every form has a blank where you write down your religious affiliation. I al-ways write Buddhist, but somebody always types it up Protestant. I don’t know why.”

“Well, for goodness’ sakes, that’s an awfully odd thing to write. You’re not a Buddhist.”

Douglas dipped his razor in the water. He was looking gently down on her in the mirror, white and foamy almost up to his eyes. She thought he looked inscrutable. She was bewildered.

“Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing. Now hurry and finish shaving; Harriet will soon have dinner ready.”

She expected him to shave off the mustache, but he did not, and so several days later while he was leaning against the bookcase with Omar Khayydm in hand she remarked, “You look like a perfect stranger.”

Douglas glanced down at her in a friendly way and said, without having asked what she meant, that he thought he would keep his mustache nonetheless.

But next morning, seeing it across the breakfast table, she knew it would have to go. Without a word she set down her orange juice and went upstairs to his room, where, in the closet, she found his Army cap. She put this on her head, and having touched up her graying curls at the mirror she marched downstairs and into the breakfast room swinging her arms stiffly. Douglas was not there. Harriet, stacking the dishes, gazed at her in astonishment. Mrs. Bridge smiled at her bravely, and as serenely as possible under the circumstances. Just then she heard Douglas cough. It sounded as though he were in the living room. She turned around and marched through the hall and into the front room where she came to a halt in what she considered a military manner, and tried to click her heels.

“Attention, Private Bridge. March right upstairs this very minute and shave off your silly mustache/*

Douglas had been looking at the photograph on the dust jacket of Dr. Foster’s book of essays. He dropped the book on the sofa and crossed his arms. When it became obvious that he did not intend to speak, that he was simply waiting for her to leave, she pulled the cap from her head and stood in front of him uncertainly, rather humbly.