Trust (66 page)

But this too was afterward: after, I mean, I returned from William's office; and all because, arriving, I said I had seen William.

The significance of this was not at once plain to her.

"And what did you there? Frightened the mouse that was under the chair," she sang out. It was night and half-past nine o'clock, but she was brilliantly dressed and cheerful; she was engaging Enoch in enforced judgment of a hat in the shape of a cowl. "See? With the brim up I look like the Seven Dwarfs and with the brim down like Lady Macbeth. Which? Enoch, which?"

"Down," he said, and stiffly down also went his mouth, bored.

"No really, pay attention. You're not paying attention. Up?"

"Up is fine."

"You just said down! Because there might be photographers, and really I want to hide the ravagements just in case. From all that coughing I'm turned into a crone. Well hello, home is the hunter, home from the—look who's here. Wrinkled you are, the back of your skirt, what a pity you never give a minute to groom yourself. The least you could do for yourself. What do you think?" she greeted me. "Brim up or down? Enoch can't make up his mind."

"The Lady Macbeth way," I offered.

"Well all right, better a murderess than a Mother Superior. Just so I don't get taken for a nun. They have such blank eyes, nuns, but they wear things on their heads exactly like this. It covers, that's the point. Where in the world did you run into William?" she took up.

"I didn't run into him. I went to his office."

"On purpose? Oh I forgot, that's right, his boy's engagement party. That little Pettigrew spawn. Was that today?"

I felt in awe of such omniscience. "You couldn't have known about it?"

"Of
course
I knew about it."

"But it was a surprise."

"To William's boy it was. Not to me. But I heard they had no intention of inviting you—they didn't want to embarrass you, really their motives were perfectly reasonable, all things considered. The same nice group of them down from Harvard Law, that's why, and not one took you out the time before. What a waste, that bon voyage!—It's because you have no bosom. You're not social either. It's sickening, with you it's brain brain brain. Oozing brain all up and down the
side
of you."

"You mean of course the maternal side," Enoch said.

"Viper."

"Wipe her yourself," he only seemed to capitulate: "she's yours. Send not to ask for whom she oozes, she oozes for thee. As for me, I'm ready for compulsory gaiety"—laying aside a broad book—it was an atlas—with a sardonic sigh.

"Now don't say compulsory. Enoch, it's mean to say compulsory. If I
ask
you to go with me it's voluntary, isn't it?—Good God, if there
are
photographers! Won't William feast on I-told-you-so, he thinks flashbulbs fell with Lucifer. Only let's take the subway."

"The subway?" He was incredulous.

"Well why not? I haven't ridden the subway in years." Flailing, my mother collected her burgeoning gown at the knee; energies bickered in her throat. "All those loops hanging from the ceiling. I
like
the subway. What if someone threaded a big wide shiny ribbon, Virginmaryblue maybe, and satin, right through all those loops, right through the whole train, from one car to the other? Like a horizontal maypole, sort of. Wouldn't it be beautiful, all that waving and twisting underground? I
like
tunnels." She displayed a silvery face innocent as a plate. "You know where we're off to? Guess. You'll never guess."

I forfeited my guess by declining.

"A club, that's where," she said, her elbows pink with satisfaction. -"I suddenly couldn't stand all that reading, I suddenly couldn't stand
bed,
if you want to hear the truth. Static! Viscous! Another minute of it and I would've been ready for Dr. Freud, so I decided the way
not
to be sick was not to be
sick,
" she explained. "Mind over mattress Enoch said it was, so here we are going to the loudest nightclub on the map. Oh look, you're not taking
that
damn map? Not
with
you? Think how it'll look in the papers, just in case, and the hearings coming up!—I mean if there are photographers, columnists," she said joyously, "there are
always
columnists, vermin—"

"At the appropriate moment I will retire to the men's room," said my stepfather, "a palatial nook of Byzantine splendor and Roman proportions—"

"You and that map. Really. You don't have to memorize every
village.
Those stupid Senators aren't going to get you to tell the population of every little dump in the whole country, are they? It's bad publicity to be seen studying."

"Depends what the man is studying," Enoch said. "In this case, on the eve of my possible aggrandizement—"

"Not possible. Definite."

"—I'm learning how small I am. An atlas is a source-book for human insignificance. Puts you in scale, full of oceans, oceans full of islands, islands full of sand, sand full of infinities—"

"You full of stupidities.
I'm
not interested in feeling small, just remember that. Those damn Taj Mahals round my ears, I was so depressed—what I want is to go out and get noticed. I admit it! It's not as though I'm afraid to admit it. I've been cooped up too long, I intend to feel something
great
before the night is out. I mean an experience. Like the haying scene—"

"The haying scene!" said Enoch, delighted. "The haying scene in a nightclub! And then stack it all up in Washington Square?"

"Well I meant the emotional
equivalent.
You
know
that's all I meant."

"The hell you did. It's the pitchfork you're after. To each his own."

"I just want to feel something. I haven't
felt
anything in such a long time." She turned unexpectedly desolate, lifting her hooded head to the mirror and absently addressing my image in it: "You mean you got invited after all?"

"No," I said. "I just went."

"Rude, very rude. Did you dance?"

"There wasn't any music."

"Of
course
there wasn't any music," she said contemptuously, as though the idea had been mine. "Too many desks in the place. How did he look? Happy?"

"William?"

"Fool. His
boy.
William hates that Pettigrew girl. Afraid his boy won't be the first. William puts a lot of value on being first."

"She's very pretty," I said.

"Pretty, pretty, what's pretty? At that age it's no trick to be pretty. I was pretty too, what's pretty? For you it's a trick. I don't know how you manage to look practically thirty and no bosom. People ask if I had you at ten. I tell them certainly: she was ten at birth. Some people are
born
a hundred years old. It's the effect of what do you call it, Enoch? That word like the name of a German newspaper? That Eddie put in the—"

"
Weltanschauung,
" Enoch said: "Come on, if we're going let's go."

"No not that one. The other word that Eddie—with the ghost in it."

"
Zeitgeist,
" he obliged, and settled back into his chair again.

"That's the one. You know I heard from Eddie this afternoon. Already. I knew he could be trusted, whatever Enoch said," she informed me. "Two telegrams delivered together, one from last night when he landed out there, one from this morning. He flew. I let him fly to get him back here on time for the next number. Here."

She handed me two yellow paper squares and I read on one:

GOLDEN WEST GOLDEN WEST
I WILL MAKE YOU QUICK
AS HAIKU OR SOME GIRL

and on the other:

IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE ZEITGEIST BLOWS THROUGH SNEEZING
FROM ITS ALLERGY

"Teasing!" my mother said.

"He sent them collect," I observed.

"Teasing!" she repeated. "Of course as
theory
they're too rigid, but otherwise as
poems
they're not bad. Surrealistic. If you stare at them long enough they expand out of their superficial meaning into a deeper meaning, can you see that?—Never mind, I take it back, it's no use asking
you. Wordsworth,
" she pronounced, haughtily and heavily. "We don't print any of that ilk in
Bushelbasket,
do we?" She appealed beyond me to Enoch.

"Good God no," he mumbled from inside his atlas. "Would kill the tone. Here's a town named Cheatyourboss. Believe it or not."

"What country?"

"California."

"Oh
you.
"

"Word of honor. Population two-hundred-and-sixty-three."

"Two-hundred-and-sixty-four," I suggested, "now that McGovern's out there."

"That's what Enoch
meant.
Don't abet the man," she admonished me, pleased that I was trying to: but Enoch was oblivious. "Anyhow I was
telling
you—early this evening I sent out to this shop for some hats and well, they brought a pile of them and I picked this Mother Mary one and just then who should walk in with the milliners walking
out
but this same Western Union boy! Not a
third
one I said—"

"Not a
third
one," I interrupted, and took it from her:

IN FRISCO IN THE FALL
THEY HAVE NO RATS AT ALL
EXCEPT ON TWO LEGS

"This one is really very good," my mother said. "I may decide to let him go ahead and print it when he gets back. If there's room. Of course that business about counting the syllables is such a bother it's hardly worth it."

"Then
don't
count them," Enoch said, momentarily emerging.

"Silly! If you don't count them how can you tell it's a haiku?—What have you got there?" she demanded out of the middle of her triumph: she was watching me dip into the pocket of my skirt.

"Do you have room for this? It's a present from Mrs. Karp."

"Mrs. Karp? Euphoria Karp? What a coincidence! I mean here we are talking about verse forms, and in you march with, with a—"

"Placebo," I said, surrendering it.

"Imagine." She snatched up the page and marveled. "How in the world did you get mixed up with
her?
"

"Her husband's going to Russia to see about getting you royalties," I provided, "with a delegation. The humor's for
Bushelbasket,
none of the harpies would have it, so she's giving it to you. It's supposed to be humor."

"Those gangsters," my mother muttered, but this was merely automatic; having made her obeisance to justice, she was free to resume her astonishment. "Certainly her verse is humorous, it's
known
to be humorous. What is it," she said, examining the placebo's contours, "a suppository?"

I recited: "William says not to worry, Karp will do what he can."

"You met her at William's place? Karp too? What were you doing over there in the middle of a business conference?" Under the eyelid of her cowl my mother's eyelids blinked suspiciousness.

"It wasn't business, it was a party."

"What was Karp doing at that boy's party?"

"He came a day early," I said, not very diligently searching after Mrs. Karp's story. "No, a day late I think it was."

"A day late for what?" my mother said sharply.

"That Russian thing. Making them give in on your royalties. William asked him to come yesterday and he couldn't. They had to stay over in Cambridge for Mrs. Karp's play."

"I know that type. They pretend to be your closest friends when they know you need them for something, and then they impose. William should have made him cool his heels," she said. "It's rude to show up when you're not wanted."

"I bet that'll be the Kremlin's view of it exactly," I agreed.

"Smarty, you know perfectly well what I'm talking about, I'm talking about you. You shouldn't go where you haven't been invited. Were you invited?" she probed again, not out of forgetfulness; she distrusted.

"No."

"No," she echoed with the satisfaction of bitterness. "So?"

"I was expected," I said, which shocked me: not for its peculiar sidewise truth, but for the tremor which, for the second time that day, my voice was unfurling like a signal in my back.

"You were expected all right. You were expected to stay home and not go where you weren't asked. How many chances do you think those boys—"

But Enoch's speculative eye had joined us. He brushed his book from his thighs and came to stand beside my mother, his thumb stabbed into the thick core of his cheek. "You were expected?"

"Yes. Sort of."

"William's
boy
expected you?"

"The whole thing was a
surprise,
" my mother broke in, insisting. "Weren't you listening? William's boy wasn't expecting
anyone.
"

"Then William," Enoch pursued. "William expected you." He was soft and quick, concentrating, like a man pulling away the skin of a delicate scaleless fish.

"He wasn't surprised to see me," I said. "He told me that."

"Not the same thing," my mother drew out of herself, slow with scorn. "Bad manners from
her
wouldn't surprise a demon out of hell."

"So you were expected," Enoch concluded. "Let it stand at that. But not necessarily today?"

"Not necessarily."

"And not necessarily this month?"

"No."

"And not necessarily this year?"

"No," I said.

"What
is
this?" my mother leaped in. "Cabbalah? A Zen catechism?" She was viewing me disgustedly. "As if it wasn't enough to embarrass yourself in front of those boys by running
after
them, you had to go break up a
very
important, possibly valuable,
legal
conference that might decide my entire future with the Soviet Union!—You can't deny you injected yourself right into the middle of it? You
know
how polite William is, if he saw you there he'd take you right over to him no matter what he was dealing with at the moment, he'd simply break it up then and there—"

I defended myself: "But they were halfway through when I got there—"

"Halfway through! Those gangsters! Halfway won't get me my royalties, will it?"