“You’re like a ministering angel up there.” He kept his eyes down on the carpet under his feet as he climbed.
“That’s very sweet of you,” she said — and paused, then met him with outstretched hand and a smile, when he reached the floor level where she stood. “Also a little alarming. Come in, Ira.”
“Thanks.” He preceded her with embarrassed shamble into the apartment.
“Whatever is the matter? I’ve been cudgeling my wits trying to guess what’s wrong. I know something very much is.”
“Yes.” He removed his coat with the slowness of despond.
“What is it, lad?” More comfort and solicitude could not have been compressed into such faint compass of smile.
“That’s new.” He gazed admiringly at the short jet-black silk kimono she was wearing. “Is it Japanese?”
“Oh, yes, it’s a great extravagance. And black shows the dust so. I’m afraid I’ve splurged.”
“Yeah?”
“You can see why.” She half-turned.
“Wow.” His eyes dazzled at the gold-embroidered sunburst that covered the entire back of the garment.
“It gives me the illusion of warmth. Actually, silk is warm.”
He headed uncertainly for a wicker armchair, and sat down at her invitation, traced the course of the interwoven wicker, while she seated herself opposite him on the new black-velvet-covered couch. Black kimono, black couch cover, taupe silk stockings over trim calves projecting at the right angles, ending in tiny black pumps. How often had he and Edith sat that way, her large brown eyes solemn and solicitous. His right sideburn itched; he scratched it. Poetry books in a bookcase against one wall, her desk between backyard windows on the other. And on the desk, her massive Underwood typewriter rising from a welter of blue examination booklets. She turned a pensive face from him to the oval mirror above the bookcase, and back.
“I’ll tell you what’s on my mind in a minute,” he said.
She smiled, winning and meek in her tenderness: “Whenever you’re ready. That mess you see on the other side of my Underwood is only a few of the many candidates for the Urban Almanac.”
“Your anthology?”
“Yes. The trouble is that good poems by good poets are expensive. And the less royalties the publishers have to pay, the more profit they make. And friends and colleagues who fancy themselves poets, and will let you publish their poems for the privilege, aren’t worth publishing — John Vernon, for example, imagines himself a second Walt Whitman, and of course he isn’t. But I’ll have to include at least one of his poems, as a matter of policy, and they’re all so long-winded. And of course there’s Harriet Monroe, and oh Lord have mercy, what makes her think her long catalogs of things are poems. They’re excruciating. But she’s Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry magazine. And I’ve got to include poets who are really passé, Sandburg and Bynner. Oh, I’ve just been scrambling around, doing the best I can on a very limited budget. Very limited. I had to be quite strenuous with Dr. Watt to convince him that an anthology of modern poetry has to have a fair sampling of Eliot and Stevens and Pound and Williams. Cummings too. They know the name Edna St. Vincent Millay, and that’s about all. Again, I don’t think she’s indicative of the modern trend any longer — I’ve decided to leave out Amy Lowell altogether, and spend a little more on Elinor Wylie.”
“Yeah?”
“Fortunately I’ve been able to include fairly good poems by relative unknowns who are good poets at very little cost. Roberta Holloway and Taggard. Greenhood. I’m afraid it’s a hodgepodge, and a profit-making scheme on the part of Dr. Watt and the publishers at the expense of the students in the modern poetry courses, but I’ve agreed to do it.” She paused, waited a few seconds, and when he said nothing, smiled archly, to help allay his tension. “Oh, yes, I’m including a poem by Marcia. It’s what you’d expect of her, a clever little sermon.”
“I didn’t know she wrote poetry.”
“She doesn’t.” She raised her eyes to the oval mirror.
“You mean you’re being altruistic?”
“Oh, no.”
“You’re not being altruistic?”
“Definitely not.”
“I see. I wish I could hide in your class, so I could learn something.”
“You already know more than I could teach you.”
“I mean about poetry. Modern poetry. . Well.” He frowned. What was the use of stalling any longer? He was only wasting time, his, hers being considerate of him. “I. .” His lips clamped closed.
“Ira, dear, you’re so obviously troubled,” she pleaded.
“Yeah. I’m troubled, all right. I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t like to hear trouble.” He tried to mitigate bluntness by a humorous glance, failed. “You’re so interested in other people’s troubles.”
“I suppose I am. It’s my way of keeping in contact with other human beings and avoiding getting wrapped up in myself. It’s not everyone’s troubles I’m interested in. Only certain people, interesting people. People like Ira Stigman.”
“You know I’ve always put you on a pedestal.”
“Oh, pooh. You’ve seen me in every state of disarray, and some not very pretty ones. I’ve never hesitated to tell you about my distress, and I don’t think you ought to hesitate to tell me about yours. Believe me, I’m more interested in helping you at the moment than being on a pedestal. But I can’t — unless you tell me what’s wrong.” Her brown eyes never wavered from his, and as direct as her look was her tone of voice. “What is making you so unhappy? What is it?”
“Well. .” Pleats went the long way on a dress, up and down; so those must be ruffles on her tan skirt, folds that went the other way.
“I’ve turned to you on dozens of occasions,” she said.
“Yes.” Leaning sideways was like token toppling. “You’ve heard me talk about my Aunt Mamie.”
“Is she the obese one?”
“Obese is right. She can’t cross her legs. Looks like a balloon. I’ve told you about her.”
“She gives you a dollar from time to time, you’ve said.”
“Good-hearted, yeah.” Before him black kimono swam into black velvet couch cover, above them a ringed face circled. “She has a daughter named Stella. I’ve been having sexual relations with her.”
Interval of quiet, the quiet of comprehension; her eyes averted in momentary comprehension. What she knew, she would never unknow. “You never mentioned her, to my knowledge, Ira. Stella?”
“Yeah. My aunt’s oldest daughter — older daughter.” He felt the need for grammatical rigor, as if it were a support. “She has two daughters.” He knew that behind the solemn face listening so intently all the correct anticipations had been formed. “I’ve been having sex with her off and on I don’t know how long.”
“How old is she?”
“All of sixteen.”
Edith concealed surprise, only sighed very slightly.
“Anyway, I guess she’s pregnant.”
“Why? Why do you say that?”
“She hasn’t had her period — she hasn’t menstruated in five days — I mean she’s five days overdue.” The wicker creaked as he tossed himself wrathfully.
“For pity’s sake, child, five days overdue in a sixteen-year-old is nothing unusual. You can’t expect the established rhythm of a mature woman in a sixteen-year-old.”
“No? Not even five days?”
“Oh, they may skip even longer than that, an entire period. Has she been subject to any kind of stress, or emotional upset?”