THE WORLD IS A WEDDING
To Juliet Barrett
ONE: “WHAT DOES SHE HAVE THAT I DON’T HAVE?”
In this our life there are no beginnings but only departures entitled beginnings, wreathed in the formal emotions thought to be appropriate and often forced. Darkly rises each moment from the life which has been lived and which does not die, for each event lives in the heavy head forever, waiting to renew itself.
The circle of human beings united by need and love began with the graduation or departure of Rudyard Bell from school, just at the beginning of the great depression. Rudyard was the leader and captain of all hearts and his sister Laura’s apartment was the place where the circle came to full being. When Rudyard graduated, he decided to devote himself to the writing of plays. His aunt had suggested that he become a teacher in the public high school system until he had proven himself as a dramatist, but Rudyard rejected his aunt’s suggestion. He said that to be a playwright was a noble and difficult profession to which one must give one’s whole being. Laura Bell had taken care of her younger brother since he was four and she said then that Rudyard was a genius and ought not to be required to earn a living. Rudyard accepted his sister’s attitude as natural and inevitable, such was his belief in himself and in his power to charm other human beings.
Thus, in a way, this refusal to become a teacher and to earn a living was the beginning of the circle.
The other boys who truly belonged to the circle were also caught in the midst of the great depression. Edmund Kish wanted to be a teacher of philosophy, but he was unable to get an appointment. Jacob Cohen, recognized by all as the conscience or judge of the circle, wanted to be a reporter, but there were few jobs for newcomers. Ferdinand Harrap tried to be an author, but none of his stories were accepted, and he supported himself by directing a business agency. Francis French and Marcus Gross were teachers in the public high school system, although this was far from their ambition, Lloyd Tyler, known as “the boy,” was still a student, and Laura made the most money as the buyer for a department store.
The circle was astonished when Rudyard’s first long play was rejected by Broadway, for all had been certain that Rudyard would be famous and rich very soon. Rudyard had always been the one who won all the prizes in school and did everything best. Marcus Gross spoke fondly of the day, long ago and far away, when he had first encountered Rudyard in public school. It was the beginning of the new term and after the first hour Rudyard was regarded as a genius by the teacher and the pupils. So it had always been, Rudyard had been the infant prodigy, class orator, laureate, and best student. When Rudyard’s plays were refused year after year by Broadway producers the circle was perplexed, for his dramatic works seemed to them delightful and profound when he read them aloud to the circle. Edmund Kish recognized the weakness of the plays, the fact that Rudyard used character and incident merely as springboards for excursions which were lyrical and philosophical, so that the essential impression was dream-like, abstract, and didactic. But he liked the plays for just this reason, and his conversations about philosophy did much to make Rudyard concern himself with the lyrical expression of philosophical ideas.
Laura was disappointed and after a time she concealed her disappointment by speaking of her brother’s plays as just trash. Yet she was patient with Rudyard, delighting in the circle as such and hoping that among the new young men whom Rudyard was always bringing to the house there would be one who would want to marry her.
After five years of the depression, the hopes of most of the boys of the circle had faded slowly like a color or were worn thin like a cloth. Their life as part of the circle was their true life, and their lower middle class poverty kept them from seeking out girls and entertaining the idea of marriage. From time to time some of them became acquainted with girls and went out with them briefly, but since no one but Rudyard was doing what he wanted to be doing, marriage was as distant as a foreign country. Disdainful from the beginning of the conventional modes of behavior, their enjoyment of the life of the circle fortified and heightened their disdain.
When Laura began to doubt that she was going to get a husband, she began to drink, hiding the gin in the pantry when Rudyard tried to stop her. She drank on Saturday nights, the nights when the circle came to her house and was most itself, so that some of the boys spoke of “our Saturday nights.” When she was really drunken, she became quarrelsome and voluble, and what she said was an incoherent, but blunt utterance of the naked truth. The boys tried to seem indifferent to what she said, but the reason for her drunkenness was clear and painful. When the marriage of a boy or girl who had come to evenings of the circle was discussed, and when the news of an engagement became known, Laura cried out from the kitchen like Cassandra:
“What does she have that I don’t have?” Laura uttered this question again and again during the evening, amid other and like remarks.
Laura insisted in vain that her question be answered, and sometimes she placed her hands on her breasts lightly, as if in estimation, although when sober she was ashamed of any mention of sexual desire. Each newcomer or visitor renewed her hope, Laura invited him to come to dinner. Laura was full of great goodness and kindness, a goodness hardly concealed by her disgruntled and grudging remarks. She was unable to understand what was wrong. She lent the boys money and helped them in whatever they attempted, knowing that she was used by them and used most of all by Rudyard. She made petulant remarks, she said that she was a fool, but she always pressed herself forward to be helpful, typing Rudyard’s manuscripts which she declared more and more often to be just trash which she could understand less and less as Rudyard’s indulgence in lyrical philosophizing grew.
Thus on a Saturday night when the circle had long been in full being, Laura spoke loudly, crying out from the kitchen or uttering her sentences in the midst of a conversation.
“Tick, tick, tick,” she said as she carried a dish to the table for the midnight supper.
“What are you ticking about?” asked Edmund Kish, knowing very well that her answer would be an expression of unhappiness.
“O,” said Laura, “That’s just my life ticking away.”
“Can’t you stop being human for an evening?” asked Francis French, who did not like to hear of unhappiness.