I’m enclosing a little card with my fashionable warehouse-section address and directions on how to get there. The I.R.T. stops practically at my front door, give or take a mile or two, but you might prefer trying New York City’s taxi system, which I am told is excellent and which I may be able to afford someday. I do hope we win the war because I don’t feel like learning Kabuki, not at this late date.
I’m hoping to see you, so I won’t even bother wishing you a Merry Christmas right now.
Love and such,
There was music in everything, Amanda thought, either real or imagined. She could pick out melody and rhythm wherever she went, whatever she did, the resounding heavy solid sound of the taxicab door, and the subdued closing swish of the building’s entrance door, and the clatter of the answering buzzer, and the steady clicking cadence of her own high heels as she climbed to the top floor, the hesitant knock on Gillian’s door, and then the door opening and the sound of real music inside the apartment, music on a scratchy phonograph, as forlorn as music on a summer beach, and then the subtle radiant music of Gillian’s sudden smile.
She was wearing a black dress with a white collar, her russet hair combed sharply to one side of her head, burnished by the light of the candles inside the apartment. Her eyes danced and the smile came suddenly and radiantly, and she held out her hands and said, “Amanda,” Very softly.
They embraced wordlessly, pulled apart to look at each other, began laughing strangely, in curious embarrassment, and then embraced again and went into the apartment.
“Didn’t you bring a suitcase?” Gillian asked. “Aren’t you staying over?”
“I took a room at the Waldorf,” Amanda said. “I didn’t want to impose on you.”
“Impose? On me? Oh, Amanda!” And she hugged her again, suddenly and fiercely. “It’s so good to see you. You look marr-velous. Sit down, Amanda. You’re the first to arrive. We can talk a little.”
Amanda looked around the apartment curiously. She had not been overly impressed by the factory neighborhood or by the garbage cans stacked in the hallway downstairs or by the overpowering stench of food on every floor of the building. She remembered, too, the shambles Gillian had made of their dormitory room, and she half expected to find an apartment cluttered with the litter of careless living.
The apartment, she saw, was painted a blue that was pale enough to be called neutral. Dark-blue drapes covered the openings to the closets, relieving the paler shade of blue and presenting a look of geometric order. The walls were hung with the war posters Gillian had mentioned, together with several bold black-and-white three-sheets announcing newly opened Broadway shows. The couch Gillian had bought on the Bowery, a couch that Amanda had visualized as some rum-stinking horror, had been covered in a bright orange and served as a focal point for the entire room. The coffee table that stood before it, the one Gillian’s friend had made from an old door, had been patiently and lovingly rubbed down to its natural grain and then lightly shellacked and sanded. It reflected the vibrant orange of the couch and the glow of the flickering candles and almost physically drew one toward the main seating area.
The other seats in the room were high stools, like dunce stools, which Gillian had probably bought unpainted and which stood in graceful clusters like tall black and white birds. A real bird hung in a white-painted elaborate old cage in one corner of the room, a parakeet that had undoubtedly been chosen because his plumage matched the color of the drapes. The bars of the cage danced with the blinking light of a small Christmas tree, which was in the opposite corner of the room. A long table covered with whiskey bottles, glowing amber in the reflected light, was against the wall near the tree. The total effect was one of warmth and order. The warmth was not unexpected; this was, after all, Gillian’s home. But the order came as a total surprise. Amanda felt as if she were stepping into a Mondrian that ceased being coldly mathematical and resounded with loudly pulsating life.
“Do you like it?” Gillian asked, and Amanda realized she had been silent during her scrutiny. She turned to Gillian, seized her hands, and squeezed them in delight.
“It’s lovely, Gillian,” she said.
“Let me take your coat.”
“All right.”
“Your bag?”
“I’ll keep it.”
They spoke very softly. They were alone in the apartment, but they spoke as if fearful of awakening a light sleeper. Gillian hung the coat in the hall closet, shoving aside the long blue drape.
“Sit down, Amanda,” she said. “How was the train ride?”
“Not too bad. A lot of servicemen. Sailors, mostly. I think they were coming down from the submarine base in New London.”
“You look well, Amanda.”
“Thank you. You do, too.”
“Shall I put on some Christmas music?”
“All right.”
“Do you remember the Christmas Pageant last year? ‘An einem gewissen Morgen’?” Gillian said, and she laughed and went to the record player.
“Yes, I remember.”
“How’s Talmadge?”
“The same.”
“Anything exciting happening?”
“Nothing much.”
Gillian put a stack of records into place and then went to the long table. “Shall we have a drink before the others get here?”
“All right, a small one,” Amanda said.
“Scotch? Canadian?” she asked, studying the bottles on the table.
“Scotch. With a lot of soda.”
She mixed the drinks and brought them back to the coffee table.
“This is the table I was telling you about.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“When did you begin drinking?”
“Oh, I don’t really drink,” Amanda said, smiling.
Gillian studied her for a moment. “You seem changed.”
“Do I? How?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and then smiled. “I guess you’re older.”
“I’m almost twenty-one, Gilly.”
“Do I seem very young to you?” Gillian asked.
“You never did.”
“No, that’s true,” Gillian said, somewhat sadly. “Not even to myself.”
“What?”
“Tell me what’s new. How’s your music coming along?”
“Fine. Just fine.”
“Have you written anything new?”
“Well, you know. The usual. Nothing special.”
Gillian nodded. The room was very quiet. From the phonograph, a scratchy record intoned “Silent night, holy night...”
“I have to get a new needle,” Gillian said.
“That is bad for the records,” Amanda said.
They were quiet again, listening to the music.
“Where did you get the advertisements?” Amanda asked.
“For The Skin of Our Teeth and the others? A boy I know. In the Count’s class.”
“The Count?”
“Yes, my teacher. The Russian. I wrote you about him, didn’t I? He used to be a Count before all those Reds marched in. Do you know what he told me, Amanda? He told me the stories about Catherine the Great are all true.”
“But how would he know? She was so long ago.”
“Court knowledge,” Gillian said seriously. “Passed from generation to generation. Can you imagine doing it with a horse?”
Amanda burst out laughing, and suddenly the strain was gone, suddenly there was no longer any tension in the room. “I can barely imagine doing it with a person,” she said, still laughing.
“You have changed,” Gillian said, laughing with her. “You never would have said that six months ago.”
“Maybe not,” Amanda said. She finished her drink and put down the glass.