Unfortunately, the mood didn’t last. It struck me that my room-mate — a man of my own age and inclinations — was going to be married and that he already had a job lined up with his father’s feed-distribution company, while I had to look at myself in the mirror every morning and admit I had no idea what was to become of me. I was at loose ends, as most seniors are, I suppose, worrying over my course work and facing June graduation without a single notion of what I was going to do in life — or even what I was going to do for gainful employment. All I knew was that I’d rather be sent to Devil’s Island as underassistant to the assistant chef in the soup kitchen than go back to Michigan City and another summer with my mother. And as if that weren’t enough, looming over it all was the prospect of war in Europe and talk of conscription.
So I was feeling blue, the weather going from bad to worse, Paul always off with Betsy somewhere till I’d begun to forget what he looked like, and the books on the library cart growing progressively heavier (I felt like a bibliographic Sisyphus, the task unending, each shelved volume replaced by another and yet another). And then two things happened. The first had to do with Iris, as you might have guessed. Though she was an English major, like me, she showed up at the biology library one afternoon in desperate need of information on the life cycle of the Plasmodium parasite for a required introductory course in biology she was taking from Professor Kinsey himself. “We have to cite at least three scientific journals,” she told me, still breathless from her dash across campus in the face of a steady wind, “and I have to write it all up by tomorrow, for class.”
I’d been filling out catalogue cards for the new arrivals when she came up to the desk and took me by surprise. Before I could even think to smile, a hand went to my hair, smoothing it down where the rebellious curl was forever dangling. “I’d be — sure,” I said. “I’m not really — it’s the librarian you want, Mr. Elster, but I could — I’ll do my best, certainly.” And then I found my smile. “For you, of course.”
Her voice went soft. “I wouldn’t want to be any trouble — I’m sure you have better things to do. But if you could just point me in the right direction—”
I got to my feet and shot a glance across the room to where Elster sat at his own desk, partly obscured by a varnished deal partition. He was a short, thin, embittered little man, not yet out of his twenties, and, as he was quick to remind me, it wasn’t my job to take queries or assist the patrons — that was his function, and he guarded it jealously. For the moment, however, he seemed oblivious, absorbed in paperwork — or one of the crossword puzzles he was forever fussing over. When I responded, my voice was soft too — this was a library, after all, and there was no reason to draw attention to ourselves. “Current issues of the journals are alphabetized along the back wall, but what you’ll want are the indexes, and they’re — well, why don’t I just get them for you?”
She was smiling up at me as if I’d already found the relevant citations, written them up for her and submitted the paper all on my own, and her eyes twitched and roved over my face in a way we would later identify as one of the subliminal signals of availability (readiness to engage in sexual activities, that is, in kissing, petting, genital manipulation and coitus), though at the time I could only think I must have something caught between my teeth or that my hair needed another dose of Wildroot. “Have you heard from your mother?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“Yes,” I said. “Or, no. I mean, why do you ask, has something—?”
“Oh, no, no,” she said, “no. I just wanted to know how she was doing, because I never did get to thank her for that lovely afternoon and her hospitality. And yours. We had a really memorable time, Tommy and I.”
“They were terrific cookies,” I said stupidly. “My grandmother’s recipe, actually. They’re a family tradition.”
For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to respond and I stood there self-consciously at the desk, fumbling in my mind for the key to the next level of small talk — her mother, shouldn’t I ask about her mother, though I barely knew her? — but then she said something so softly I didn’t quite catch it.
“What?”
“They were, I said.” I must have looked puzzled, because she added, “The cookies. I was agreeing with you.”
I floundered over this for a minute — as I told you, I wasn’t much with regard to small talk, not unless I had a couple of drinks in me, anyway — and then she let out a giggle and I joined her, my eyes flicking nervously to Elster’s desk and back. “Well,” I said finally, “why don’t you find a seat and I’ll, well — the indexes …”
She settled herself at one of the big yellow-oak tables, laying out her purse, her book bag, her gloves, coat and hat as if they were on display at a rummage sale, and I brought her the journal indexes that might have been most promising, then retreated to my work at the main desk. The room was warm — overheated, actually — and smelled, as most libraries do, of dust and floor wax and the furtive bodily odors of the patrons. A shaft of winter sunlight colored the wall behind her. It was very still. I tried to focus on what I was doing, writing out the entries in my neatest block printing, but I kept looking up at her, amazed at the vitality she brought to that sterile atmosphere. She was wearing a long skirt, dark stockings, a tight wool sweater that showed off her contours and complemented her eyes, and I watched her head dip and rise over her work — first the journal, then her notebook, and back again — as if she were some exotic wild creature dipping water from a stream in a pastoral tale.
But she wasn’t wild, not at all — she was as domestic as they come. And, as she later admitted, she’d brought herself to the library that day for the express purpose of reminding me that she was still alive and viable, that she had lips that could be kissed and hands that yearned to be held. In truth, she’d already written up her notes on the nasty little parasites that cause malaria — already had everything she needed — and was there at the desk with her hair shining and her head dipping and rising for my delectation alone. She had, as my mother knew long before I did, set her cap for me, and she was determined to allow me to discover that fact in my own groping way. Before she went home we had another little chat and I’d somehow managed to ask her out for Saturday evening to attend a student production of a popular Broadway play.
The other thing that happened involved Prok, and I suppose it was emblematic of all that was to unfold between us — that is, between Prok and me on the one hand, and me and Iris on the other. It was the same week Iris had come to the library — perhaps even the same day; I can’t really remember now. I was just leaving work when I heard someone call out my name and turned to see Prok coming down the steps at the front of the building. “Milk, hold up a minute, will you?” he called, and then he was at my side, peeling off one glove to take my hand in his. “So how is it, then? The new position suitable?”