Scenes from Village Life: Chapter Sixteen 1964

Just before Christmas, a family of four walks across the stone courtyard of a Park Avenue apartment house. A man and a woman, a boy and a younger girl. They carry red and green packages. Snowflakes fill the air; the streets will be white by morning. The man whistles, "God

Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," then breaks off, coughing. Frank has come down with his annual

Christmas cold. They take a cab home. "Merry Christmas," they say to the driver. They cross Park

Avenue and walk the half block to their apartment house. "Merry Christmas," they wish the elevator man as they give him his Christmas envelope.

Three weeks later, at the same time of day, a few snow flakes falling, three of the four people cross the same courtyard to the taxi Minna has ordered for them. They have just come from tea at the Delafields' following Frank's funeral. Olivia's mother and half-sisters left earlier to prepare the evening meal that no one wants to eat.

Olivia remembers very little about the funeral. Malcolm gave the eulogy. At some point they walked beside still waters and God spread a table, but not for her; not for her, who now and henceforth had joined those in peril on the seas.

At the Delafields' Olivia stands by the fireplace, capable only of small gestures, an inclination of her head, a handshake, the offering of her cheek to be kissed. Her hearing, however, is like an auditory vacuum cleaner:

"First rate lawyer - turned down an appointment with the SEC to manage Malcolm's next

campaign."

"....Only forty-one. Such a tragic loss."

198 "I thought people didn't die from pneumonia any more."

"Frank was allergic to antibiotics."

"Does Olivia have family to fall back on?"

"A mother and two younger half-sisters.”

Who have been trying to get into Olivia's life since they could walk. Delia is short to dwarfishness, with teased dyed hair and sharp, mismatched features which give her the look of a peevish elf. Doreen could pass as pretty, although she also has their mother's witch's chin, and the voice that drives Olivia crazy.

Someone comes up to Olivia and gushes, "So dreadful, my dear, but at least you have your children to live for." As though Laura is not standing on one side of Olivia, and Steve on the other.

"I talked to Rose last night. She sends her sympathy," James Lippincott said.

What have I to do with roses, Olivia thinks wildly.

Only Malcolm appears to occupy the same purgatory as Olivia. He stands with her for some minutes. At last he mutters, "I didn't do Frank justice. Not nearly. I had more written, but I couldn't

- I couldn't read it all."

"Olivia, my dear." Porter Delafield joins them. "Good man, Frank. You two were married here, in this room. I gave you away. It seems like last week."

Porter's mind is clear this afternoon, perhaps sharpened by the death of a much younger man, Olivia thinks meanly. But she tries to smile her thanks to at Porter.

"Good man, good lawyer. Wanted him for Delafield & Lambert, but it was not to be."

As Olivia and her children leave, Porter says, "Stephen, take care of your mother."

In the taxi Laura wails, "I don't want to go home without Daddy."

199 "Me, neither, Laura." Back in the apartment Olivia's mother waits, eager to match her

sorrows to Olivia's, showing them to be of a superior age and weight.

"I don't know why everything's so slow," Olivia complains as they wait in their lobby. "First

our taxi, then the elevator."

"The taxi ride only took eleven minutes. I timed it," says Steve.

"I didn't mean that," Olivia snaps, but she doesn't know what she means. She puts an arm

around each child. It's hard to tell who hugs whom.

"Personally, I don't approve of alcohol," Mrs. Smith welcomes Olivia to her own apartment.

"But you didn't touch a thing at Mrs. Delafield's so I thought perhaps a wee drink might give you an

appetite." Mrs. Smith hands Olivia a martini that is half vermouth. "Delia will have dinner on the

table before you can say Jack Robinson."

An old Smith family joke. Olivia is supposed to ask, Who's he? She adds gin to her martini.

Steve and Laura flee to the study to watch television. Doreen turns the pages of the current Vogue.

"Livvy, do you remember when you were a very little girl before Doreen and Delia were

born and you would climb up on my lap and beg me to read you a `stowey?'"

Olivia doubts that she ever did. She has made up her own stories since she was three.

"I used to think you weren't listening, but later, when Doreen and Delia came along I'd find

you on the couch, with a little one on either side, telling them stories from Mother Goose. I'm sure

it's why you read aloud to your children now."

At bedtime Olivia reads the first chapter of The Railway Children to Laura. It's a poor choice, because the fictional father is mysteriously absent. Laura begins to cry, but not in the torrents of the past four nights. Olivia holds her until she falls asleep.

200 Then it is Stephen's turn. She opens to a chapter of Kim. (Steve’s too old, she decides; he only listens to humor me.)

"What did Uncle Porter mean by telling me to look after you?" Steve interrupts the reading.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Olivia sighs heavily. "Put up with me, I guess." The way your father used to.

"Mum? Why didn't you warn us that Dad was so sick?"

"Nobody realized that he - was that ill."

"By then he was in an oxygen tent, you said. But why couldn't we see him?" Steve hunches up against the headboard, his boy's amorphous face wrenched into a scowl. "Uncle Malcolm got in to see Dad, and he isn't even related.

Olivia sighs again. "Children weren't allowed to visit."

"I wanted to see him. If I had, I could believe he's dead, but now it's - he isn't anywhere...."

"Steve, it's okay to cry." She gathers up her son into her arms, smelling his clean pajamas and the shampoo that hadn't been rinsed out of his hair. She hugs him tightly while he sobs out an elegy for Frank, how his dad was okay, he never got mad, he let you finish talking first, even when you were wrong, and he always listened.

Unlike your surviving parent, Olivia thinks sadly. She aches from her head through her neck to her lower back, but even for Steve she cannot bring up tears.

After Steve allows her to tuck him in, Olivia returns to the living room. Her mother sits crocheting squares for an afghan in sour shades of mauve and yellow. "It's for Delia," Mrs. Smith explains. "She has her own apartment now. But, Livvy, if you'd like it I can make it for you."

"That's very sweet of you, but no thanks."

"You don't mind, do you, if the girls watch television?"

201 “Of course not,” Olivia says. They aren't girls, but women. Doreen has even been married and divorced, the way you'd try on a sweater.

"It wouldn't be in bad taste for you to watch. It might take your mind off F - off your loss."

“Not tonight." Olivia shakes her wrist, suspecting that her watch has stopped, but the clock on the mantelpiece also reads 9:49. Four days, two hours and seven minutes since Frank died.

"Livvy, I do know what you are going through. After your father was taken from me I couldn't understand what happened to the time. It seemed to take forever for an hour to go by, and each day was like a month to get through."

Olivia notes that her mother's rouged cheeks are wet with tears.

Furiously crocheting, Mrs. Smith continues: "A minute is a minute, you'd think, but not when you lose a loved one."

Olivia fixes herself a drink.

"I never expected to go through it twice. When Orville passed away I said to myself, you just have to keep on, that's all you can do." The flat-soled little voice, the voice that Olivia has successfully excised, drones on and on. "You get up in the morning. You go to work. You come home and make dinner. The year Orville died, Doreen was at business college and Delia last year in

High, and I had to be, well, not cheerful, but you can't pull a long face in front of youngsters. They have their lives ahead of them....Now Stevie is kind of withdrawn, but it must be a comfort that he looks so much like F - like his daddy. And that Laura, she's the same princess you were as a child in that dear little white lapin coat."

Olivia has never owned a white rabbit coat and muff, only longed for one. She bursts out, "I know I have Laura and Steve to think of, but how am I going to live without Frank?"

202 "Dear, should you have another drink? Now you can't take the tranquillizers the doctor gave

you."

"You're right." Olivia touches her cheek to her mother's. "I think I'll go to bed."

Her mother's voice follows her down the hall. "Remember, Livvy, you aren't old yet. You'll

get remarried one of these days; I know you will. I did, after all."

And little good had it done her mother, Olivia reflects, merely more mouths to feed, more

jobs to take on. Her mother still works as a fitter in the Better Dress Department of a San Diego

department store. She says she's fixed just fine, with Orville's pension and social security, but she

likes to help out her girls.

The weekend after Frank's funeral, Doreen and Delia left to return to their jobs. Olivia's

mother had arranged a leave-of-absence - an elastic one, evidently, as her two-week stay stretched

to three, then four. Mrs. Smith's presence had one unanticipated benefit. Olivia, Stephen and Laura,

were, quite literally, the better for her being there. To forestall her mother's nagging Olivia had but

one medicinal drink before dinner. Because his grandmother would get on his case, Steve's manners

improved. When her grandmother insisted on watching television with her, Laura excused herself

to finish her homework, each night, for the first time in her life.

But to give credit where credit was due – a favorite saying of her mother’s – Mrs. Smith did

absent herself when Olivia’s friends called.

Malcolm often stopped by. He spoke of Frank, of all Frank had done for him without thought of payment of any kind. Often he looked out the window when he spoke, and Olivia

suspected that his eyes were damp. She herself longed to cry, but her tears had dried up along with

her heart and brain.

203 "Please tell me Olivia if it’s too painful when I go on and on this way," Malcolm said once, his back to her.

"No, you’re not; it’s not. I hate pretending that nothing's happened and that it's indecent even to say Frank's name. Talk brings him back, a little.”

"I don't know why it is, but men don't talk to their friends about death or friendship. They're two of the most important things in the world, but only women are allowed to discuss them."

Helen dropped by, often with Caroline, always with presents. And Abbott and Lucy. There were no other visitors. Olivia had switched to an unlisted phone number after three real estate brokers had seen Frank's obituary and called brazenly to inquire if the apartment was for sale..

Six weeks after Frank’s death, Olivia pulled herself together and telephoned Frank's law firm. She talked to the secretary of the lawyer who had drawn Frank's will nearly ten years before.

She was granted an appointment in mid-March. The lawyer kept her waiting three quarters of an hour. He patronized her by addressing her as Olivia. He antagonized her by insisting that the apartment be appraised.

At their next appointment, the lawyer told her she must sell her apartment. Fortunately,

Olivia was sole executrix. Gathering her documents, she told the lawyer to bill her for his services, if any, and swept out of his office like a tragedy queen. That night she asked Malcolm if one of his associates would handle Frank's estate.

The morning of her appointment at Delafield & Lambert, Olivia took the uptown subway by mistake. She rattled three stops towards Harlem, convinced that someone had switched the signs on her for spite. She reversed direction and arrived at the Wall Street stop, furious with herself and half an hour late. She started to run toward the offices of Delafield & Lambert, but slowed to a walk - with her luck she’d turn an ankle.

204 Malcolm himself came to fetch her in the waiting room. Olivia related her unpleasant experience with the previous lawyer and shoved her papers across the desk to Malcolm. After a quick look at them, Malcolm remarked gently, "I might have given you the same advice. From what I can tell, Frank was carrying a heavy schedule of loans."

"I know, Malcolm. I'm sure you'll say that it's my fault. I bled Frank white to - to furnish the apartment - but it was going to be where we lived for the rest of our lives." There, she herself had said it. She had worked him into the grave.

"Hold on there, dear girl. That's plain not true. Frank never allowed anyone to push him around."

If she could have cried, they'd be tears of gratitude.

"Of course I won't allow you to sell your apartment. As Frank might say, how can we do this thing properly?"

Malcolm called in Peter Thompson, a young associate whose face was pitted with acne scars, and who obviously worshipped Malcolm. Several weeks later, Peter gave Mrs. Underhill the good news. With insurance, savings, investments, profit-sharing and other payments coming from

Frank's firm, Mrs. Underhill could, with careful management, continue to live in her apartment.

And the children's tuitions would be covered, just, by the educational policies Frank had taken out when they were born.

The will had been probated, the shrunken estate planned, and it came time, at last, for

Olivia's mother to leave. "It's not going to be easy," Mrs. Smith told Olivia in the taxi to the airport.

"But I did it with no help from anyone, because I had to. And so will you."

205 At ten o'clock that night the doorbell rang. It was Helen. "I thought you might need

someone to put you to bed, now your mother's gone."

Olivia was dumbfounded by Helen's cozy picture of the Smiths, mother and daughter. She

asked Helen nastily, "You mean you walked thirteen blocks just to say nighty-night?"

Helen said firmly, "People need to be babied, at times."

"I'd rather have a drink."

"Fine. I'll join you."

Olivia went to the kitchen and filled the ice bucket. She replaced the ice cube trays immediately because Frank had always insisted on it. She heard noises from the living room of furniture being moved around and discovered when she returned that the couch had been drawn up close to the hearth, the fire lit, the curtains pulled.

"Do you suppose we'll be as much of a trial to our children, as our mothers are to us?"

Olivia put the ice cube bucket on the bar. "When I think of the words I've swallowed these past weeks, I wonder I'm not poisoned."

"But you forget something: no one will ever love us the way our mothers do. I've begun to know your mother these past weeks, and I think she's a heroine."

"I'll write and tell her what you said....Scotch and soda?"

"Lots of soda. I had a drink before dinner."

When they were sitting side by side holding their drinks, gazing into the fire, she asked,

"Helen, what possessed you to come? You must have a thousand things to do tonight."

"Well, I had an awful argument with Susanna. One of those that start, `But, Mummy, all the other girls at school…' So I had to walk my anger off. And it seemed to me you might be lonely."

206 "You are a heroine." Helen, had waited in the hospital with Olivia the final day of Frank's life. Helen, had brought Olivia stamps and casseroles as well as flowers. Helen, now confessed she'd given out Olivia's unlisted number, but only to "people who are desperately concerned about you." Perhaps only Helen could have released Olivia's tears nearly three months after Frank's death.

"How are you feeling? Did you sleep after I left?" Helen telephoned the next day.

"I did. I'm here. Do you remember the Mother Goose rhyme: `There was an old woman/Lived under a hill./And if she's not dead/She lives there still.' I couldn't have said it better myself."

In April Olivia found something she could do for Helen in return, baby sit Caroline while

Helen fulfilled her many volunteer commitments and interviewed agencies for an pair girl for the coming year.

Caroline - also Carlie, Callie, Lina, Super-Babe - "a loved child has many names," the baby nurse had intoned sententiously - was no Victorian angel, but a disobedient charmer. She had gray eyes, reddish curls and a grin eerily like Malcolm's.

Mornings Olivia and Caroline roamed the shops on Madison Avenue, or visited the playground in the park. For lunch Olivia made peanut butter sandwiches in the shape of boats or houses, as she had for her own children when they were little. She read to Carlie after her nap.

Sometimes the child would pretend to read to Olivia. Her vocabulary seemed to double each day.

It wasn't like Helen to be so indecisive about hiring help. Almost three weeks went by before she located a new sitter. (Later Olivia realized that the delay had been designed as therapy for Olivia. Nothing so fully concentrates the attention as an active two-year-old.)

207 In April the telephone rang more often, and these days Olivia answered it. Max Kirov, of all

people, called. He was newly divorced and wanted to complain about the injustice of the divorce settlement. But when Olivia began to talk about Frank, Max mumbled his sympathies and hung up.

Diana Morgan telephoned, Madeleine McCracken, Edith Knight - the outer rim of Olivia's world; and not really her world, when she thought about it. Their conversations were all solicitude.

They were dying (oops!) to have her serve on one of their committees. The underlying message meant: I don't have the time with all I do for John (or Thomas or Larry), but you, Olivia, with your empty widow's life, must be desperate to keep busy. Olivia didn’t have a moment to herself, she replied, what with the children and the documents to sign, the payments to city, state and Federal government. For example, correspondence concerning the burial of Frank's ashes in Vermont took up one whole file. And any time she had left over from her paper work and the children, she worked for Malcolm's Congressional campaign.

In late May, Olivia accompanied Malcolm to a meeting at an advertising agency he was considering hiring for the campaign. Malcolm's new manager met them there. Arnold Burke was an overweight young man who had cut his large white teeth on Jack Kennedy's Presidential campaign.

Arnold had a loud, meaningless laugh, but he had all the right connections, Malcolm said.

The name of the firm was Quinn, Karp & Reeder. What with two out of the three partners, the three, interchangeable, smooth young men who formed the "crack political team," and half-a- dozen hangers-on, Malcolm, Arnold and Olivia felt outnumbered. They were ensconced in a large beige conference room, not unlike a luxurious padded cell, isolated from the rest of the agency and from the tumult of the city twenty five blocks below. Young women brought them coffee while they waited for Mr. Quinn.

208 Mr. Quinn arrived, (the 8:22 from Port Washington had been forty minutes late), took the

vacant seat at the head of the table, and began pawing through past Wadsworth literature, most of

which Olivia had written.

Mr. Quinn muttered: "`Young crusading public servant...' Naw, crusader went out with the

rabbit" - referring to a kids' TV cartoon.

Mr. Quinn read on: "Mr. Wadsworth, although not presuming to put himself in the same league, agrees with Judge Learned Hand that the mark of a free man is that ever-gnawing inner uncertainty as to whether or not he's right." He tossed the leaflet aside. "A little uncertainty's okay on the bench where you hold the position for life. We're marketing a freshman congressman trying to regain his seat."

"Malcolm has valuable support in high places,” Arnold Burke said. “The Americans for

Democratic Action gave Mr. Wadsworth a high score for his first term voting record, and…”

"A.D.A. shmay-de-ay. You don't get to first base with their endorsements." Mr. Quinn read

aloud from Malcolm's 1962 flyer: "Malcolm Wadsworth has a record of long-term service to the

city...fair housing clinics...board of the South Bronx Community Center Union, Vestry of All Saints

Church... blah, blah, blah." (How else would you put it? Olivia wondered resentfully.) "In addition

to sponsoring bills in Congress, five of which passed, Mr. Wadsworth has taken strong stands on

education, equal rights, liberal immigration laws... Yeah, but none of it's sexy."

"What makes Wadsworth stand out from the crowd," Mr. Karp asked.

"He looks great on television."

"Never mind his profile. It's the man in the derby hat routine we're after. Remember

Kefauver and his raccoon hat? Or Stevenson with the hole in his shoe?"

209 "Mr. Quinn," Olivia spoke as Frank would have had her, an act of ventriloquism: "Isn't it enough that Malcolm's young, capable, a native New Yorker unlike the Republican candidate, a respected lawyer who has served both in Albany and Washington? You're trying to make him into some kind of night club entertainer with a cane or a mustache.”

Mr. Quinn held up both hands, palms out. “Whoa, lady.”

“Please, let me finish. The campaign literature should emphasize that Malcolm regards politics as a form of public service, which more citizens should..."

"Olivia, where have you been? Mr. Nice Guy fades to the back pages. Now, what sports do you like, Congressman?"

"Tennis. Fly fishing."

"Too la-di-dah."

"How about touch football?"

"The Kennedys grabbed that one," said Mr. Reeder. He picked up a press clipping and read aloud a paragraph of Malcolm's "Fireman" speech.

"Naw," said Mr. Quinn. "LaGuardia's shtick was fires."

"Congressman, have you got an illness you sponsor, like Humphrey with the mentally retarded?" Mr. Reeder asked.

"Illiteracy," Olivia put in to show that she had not been crushed by the men. "You could call that a disease when millions of Americans can't read. Malcolm and his wife Helen are deeply involved with illiteracy on all...."

"Good girl." Mr. Quinn wrote something on a pad. "That’s one serious-type thing. Now, the gimmick. What about those funny-looking socks?"

210 "They're argyle socks. My mother-in-law knits them for me. To be honest," Malcolm grinned, "they itch."

"Yeah? Well, always wear them."

Later, walking down Madison Avenue, Olivia remarked, "I thought they would ask to see

Malcolm's legs before they were through."

"They're not bad, actually....What do you say, team, shall we go with the agency? Olivia?"

"I don't know enough about `packaging' candidates, but I'd say these people are grotesque."

"Arnold?"

"Packaging is the name of the game, Olivia, and Quinn, Karp & Reeder are the best in the business."

No longer needed to churn out Malcolm's campaign literature, Olivia accepted a paying job as Minna's social secretary, dealing with correspondence concerning the music schools and settlement house boards Minna served on. Olivia also helped Porter with the history of Delafield &

Lambert, and accompanied him on his morning walks.

After he had retired, Porter continued to go out before breakfast to buy the Times and the

Tribune and Wall Street Journal. More and more often he forgot to return. Minna filled the pockets of his coats with their address labels and still it would be eight or nine in the morning when the door to the apartment would open and Porter would say sheepishly, "I went to our old apartment on

Fifty Seventh Street. Do you know, it isn't there any more." It had been gone for almost thirty years.

These days Minna had the newspapers delivered, and Porter waited for Olivia's arrival to sally forth. His preferred destination was Bloomingdale's. They walked through the department

211 store floor by floor, Porter remarking sotto voce on the highway robbery prices they were asking

these days. Afternoons Olivia would finish her typing while Porter spoke about famous cases in

Admiralty law into a tape machine. He enjoyed playing back his voice. Now and then he erased by

mistake what he’d just dictated, and accused Olivia of omitting paragraphs when she transcribed

the tapes.

In July the Delafields left for Watermill, the day after Steve and Laura departed for the

same camps they'd been to last year. Judging by their guarded letters home, the children were as

miserable as Olivia was. She did not want to see anyone - the brief camaraderie she'd experienced

working in Malcolm's campaign had vanished. She turned down two invitations to visit Helen in

Lee, and another from Abbott to spend a week in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

Olivia stopped writing in her diary, nauseated by the self-pity of the year's entries.

Attempting to turn her grief into poetry, she could only scrawl the same first line, over and over again: "These things take time, say people who don't know death." She tried fiction. She began a comic tale about a young wife drinking with a male friend from her past who accidentally sets fire to her husband's club chair. She tore the pages up. She saw Frank too clearly, the avenging angel striding through the smoke, remembered the evening's denouement, and wanted him, wanted him, wanted him.

She made a rule never to have more than one drink when alone.

A more promising story began: "He resembled the kindly gentleman in the insurance advertisements who takes the orphan boy to the zoo. Surely this fatherly man would bring her safe through the quick sands of widowhood...." Olivia exaggerated the lawyer's top-lofty manner. She turned the appraiser, in real life a small mild man, into an ape-necked Sweeney who stroked the

212 heroine's "lovely drapes" and praised her "objay dahs." And when the evil lawyer told the heroine he'd buy her apartment for half its appraised value, the heroine shot him dead.

But the short story about the young widow mugged one hot August afternoon at the 86th

Street stop of the Lexington IRT was accurate, down to the woman's two scraped knees, and the transit policeman saying, "You shouldn'ta hung on to your handbag, lady; you're lucky he didn't knife you." That story didn't sell, either, but the incident achieved a certain immortality in one of

Malcolm's speeches about a safe as well as a just society.

In the fall, Olivia went on the board of overseers of the South Bronx Community Center

Union to fill out Frank's unexpired term. Mornings she continued to handle Minna’s correspondence, walk Porter, and transcribe his increasingly tangled anecdotes. She forced herself to call friends in publishing and the arts who, more often than not, were delighted to have lunch.

Lunch was safe, but rarely dinner; she had to be home before dark for the children's sake. She made an exception for what she called, privately, Malcolm’s apotheosis, the Freedom House dinner honoring the President.

213 Chapter Seventeen

February, 1966

"Jolly, I'm so glad you could come tonight,” Helen said. James was at the Freedom House

Dinner in place of Abbott Chase, who had had an accident. Helen, with James's assistance,

continued setting around place cards in the still-empty ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. She consulted her seating plan. "You're next to Olivia; I waited to invite her yesterday, so she couldn't back out."

James handed the place cards to Helen.

"You could make a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song from the dinners Malcolm and I go to:

Conservation, Historical Preservation, Arms Control...."

"Ban rock `n' roll?" James asked.

"I'd like to....Some of our dinners are `scratch backs' - political fundraisers. We go to theirs so they'll come to ours. And then there's schools' and colleges' capital fund drives...."

"Abandoned wives?"

"Those, too....Let's see: Amos Depuy next to Judge Kathryn Maxwell. Father Cassidy on her left. Next week we have the Henry Street benefit, the Legal Aid Ball, a Democratic Party dinner and two receptions in Washington."

"Do you enjoy them?"

"Well, they're useful. (Betty Richards, then Del Ray Howard...cards, please. There, that table's finished.) After waiting weeks for Mr. Foundation or Mrs. Fund to return your calls you trap them at these dinners."

"Helen, I can't find a place card for Mally."

214 "He's one of the speakers before LBJ, so he'll be on the dais. My sister-in-law is next to

Rodman. Thank you, Jolly, we're done."

James followed Helen across the hall to the rooms where the pre-dinner reception was being held.

Feeling as though she'd checked her skin along with her coat, Olivia hovered in the hall between the empty ballroom and crowded reception rooms. As she stood there, Olivia imagined she heard: "Who is the woman in the black and white dress?" "Frank Underhill's widow. Don't you remember Frank? He died one, no, more than two years ago."

Looking for Helen, Olivia forced herself to enter one of the reception rooms. She slid, unrecognized, between conversations.

"....I read In Cold Blood when it came out in The New Yorker last year."

"You've got to remember Bobby Kennedy named one of his kids for Joe McCarthy."

"Frankly, I don't understand what a non-fiction novel is."

"At any rate, it won't be creamed chicken; not when the dinner's for the President."

"I disagree. Marat/Sade was vastly overrated. If you want nudity go to a girlie show."

Olivia had almost decided to leave - she'd been asked at the last minute, anyway, and it wasn't as though she was a man who's defection would ruin the seating - when Malcolm came up behind her and took her arm. "I'm delighted you could come, dear girl. How did you survive the transit strike?"

Olivia pasted on a winsome smile. "I bought a skate board."

Malcolm chuckled appreciatively. He led her up to a bar and ordered two martinis. "Helen tells me you've taken on a new job."

215 "The Poetry in the Schools program is only two afternoons a week. It's the first thing I've had the energy to do on my own since Frank died...." Malcolm’s handsome face betrayed embarrassment, which meant There Goes Olivia once again. She roused herself to ask who was speaking at the dinner.

Malcolm listed the honored guests: "In addition to the President, the Governor and the

Mayor, we have Senator Robert Kennedy, Chief Justice Warren, Mayor Willy Brandt of West

Berlin, Arthur Goldberg, Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall - cast of thousands."

"Aren’t you speaking as well?” Olivia asked.

"Mine's a minor, preliminary bout....Let's find Helen."

Helen was talking to her brother and his wife, and to James. She wore the rose-colored dinner dress Olivia helped her to buy two years ago, tarnished gold sandals (what happened to the shoes that were dyed to match?), and a battered tapestry handbag. She smelled of Ivory soap, and her bangs needed trimming, and Olivia's snide comments didn't matter in the least. Helen was a

Jessie Wilcox Smith illustration grown up, with the same smooth cheeks, round firm chin, untroubled clear blue eyes and silky brown hair. Nothing could improve Helen; Olivia had tried.

Cosmetics made Helen seem ordinary, more like other women.

Helen kissed Olivia who looked slender, fashionable, sulky, and scared. But she had come!

Helen had registered Olivia's critical inventory, and was about to explain why she looked hurled together, when she noticed Anton Frehmont and his daughter enter the room. She bustled Richard off to meet them.

Ten minutes later, as she rejoined her guests, Helen saw Patrick Lanahan and his wife Mary bearing down on them.

216 Patrick Lanahan clamped his hand on Malcolm's shoulder. "So how are the seats of power

these days, Malcolm?" Then, without waiting for Malcolm's response, Pat said, "I see you're not

wearing that thing tonight, Helen."

“What thing?” What old campaign button did he mean?

"Your Phi Bete pin." He turned to Mary to explain. "Can you believe, this lady used to wear

her Phi Beta Kappa key poll watching?"

"Patrick, you made that up," Helen said, smiling.

"In nineteen hundred and fifty six. You wore a yellow dress that day. I asked, did you buy

your pin in a pawn shop? Only kidding, of course."

Helen had no memory of it - only of Pat's lies and her refusal to shake his hand afterwards.

Now he'd made her almost as angry as she'd been then! She said her litany of streets silently and

when she’d cooled down she asked Mary Lanahan about her children.

Mary, a solid woman in a bunchy taffeta gown that matched Patrick's ruffled blue shirt, had

described the college careers of her two eldest - Fordham, Marymount – and had begun on the third

young Lanahan when

"Malcolm, darling," Diana cried, imprinting his cheek with lipstick. "We're at table one, so

we'll hear your every word." Diana pressed cheeks with Helen, Olivia, and Mary Lanahan, and

bussed James on the mouth. Before moving on, she introduced the posse of Texans with her,

friends of her third husband's who'd flown in to honor their buddy Lyndon.

Malcolm glanced at his watch. "You must excuse me. We've been told to be backstage by

seven thirty."

The center of power having departed, Patrick edged away taking Mary with him, although she had only reached Michael, the fifth of her eight children, who was pledged to the church.

217 After Helen had asked each one of her guests how they'd managed to get around during the transit

strike, she described her own experience: "Selfishly I rather liked it. Congress was recessed the first

week of the strike, and we did family things like going to the Natural History Museum and taking

Caroline to her first `Nutcracker.'"

"Delighted to see you out and around, Olivia." Max Kirov offered Olivia a cigarette. "But

you're too thin. What's that smashing dress - size four? Nuts! There's Jill." Max darted off toward a young woman in low cut peach satin, loaded with Max's cameras. Mrs. Kirov number two?

Fifteen minutes later chimes rang to summon them to the ballroom. The President of the

United States took his place at the center of the dais. After the Invocation, the guests sat down with

an outbreak of voices and scraping of chairs.

Both James's dinner partners were engaged, so he studied the celebrities on the stage. He

had met some, knew others by sight, but not the President who looked tired, sallow and drawn.

James's hatred of Johnson's stand on the war, was tempered by the President's domestic programs.

In less than two years, Federal funds had doubled the number of services the SBCCU offered the

children and adults of the South Bronx.

Olivia pumped Richard Cross for a description of Anton Frehmont, the multimillionaire

confidante of Presidents, and creator of the fifth largest private foundation in the country. Richard

soon finished his brief report. The conversation lapsed.

In desperation, Olivia said, "This is the first time I've been at the Waldorf since Frank died."

She had made a similar remark to Lucy last week, when Lucy proposed meeting for lunch at the

Museum of Modern Art. "There must be damn few places you can go without strewing flowers,"

Lucy commented acidly.

218 After another pause, Olivia nodded toward the platform and asked: "Will Robert Kennedy

run for President, do you think?" Richard refused to hazard a guess. Olivia spun out the pros and

cons - Kennedy the carpet-bagger, Kennedy the heir - through the main course.

"History's verdict," Richard began, his words were drowned out by an army of waiters clearing the tables, pouring coffee, serving dessert.

The evening's program commenced. The first dignitary introduced the master of ceremonies who introduced the Mayor of the City of New York who introduced Leo Cherne, economist, internationalist, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Freedom House, who bestowed upon the

President a bust he had sculpted to commemorate the Freedom Award. (“Libelous bust,” James whispered to Olivia.)

After more speeches Olivia noticed a fond expression on Helen's face: Malcolm worked his way from the end to the center of the table and the microphone:

"Mr. President, Honored guests...a privilege to be your Congressman...a wonderful time to be alive. Thanks to President Kennedy and President Johnson, and to anti-poverty legislation enacted by the Congress, the poor will not always be with us....Between 1961 and 1965, our economy has expanded by twenty five percent. Tax cuts passed by the Congress last year have materially aided that growth. In the last five years our country's annual rate of increase has been a healthy five point three percent. Today we welcome the dawn of what President Lyndon Baines

Johnson has named The Great Society...."

Olivia craved a cigarette, but to light up now would be like smoking in church.

"....Our government has begun asking the basic questions: what needs doing; how can we work together to bring it about? The aim of President Johnson's War on Poverty has been to help

219 the poor help themselves. As the Chinese proverb goes, `Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.'"

Provided that there are fish in the sea, James appended to the saying he'd quoted to Mally years ago.

Malcolm finished well within his allotted five minutes, and was vigorously applauded.

Helen was so proud of him, and now she could close her eyes for thirty seconds. It had been an awful day.

Helen had been in charge of the preschool room at the SBCCU that morning. At 12:15

Jaime Hall, a child of three and half, threw up and then was briefly shaken by convulsions. When his symptoms abated Helen asked one of the Spanish-speaking staff to call his home. The teacher returned to report that the mother was too ill to fetch Jaime. Since Helen had brought her car she volunteered to take the child home.

Helen had never met Jaime's mother. The child was delivered each morning by a ten-year- old girl and collected (late) by her at the end of the afternoon. Jaime was sullen, silent, occasionally incontinent. Only music engaged him and whether it was Motown or Mozart, he would try clumsily to dance.

The building where Jaime lived was the only one occupied on a street of boarded-up houses.

The door at the top of the stoop stood open. Helen could not find a building directory. "Mrs. Hall?" she called out.

A child became solid in the gloom. "She up theah," pointing to the stairs.

Helen went back down to the car. She lifted the limp child out of the back seat. Jaime didn't weigh very much, but Helen was out of breath by the time she reached the landing on the second

220 floor. Helen shouted, "Mrs. Hall, are you there?" No one answered. Helen struggled up another

flight of stairs.

She heard a baby crying behind one of the doors. Helen turned the knob. A woman sat

talking on the telephone, her back to Helen. The TV emitted a blurred blast of noise. The only heat

came from an open oven door.

Helen had visited other welfare mothers whose children were in the SBCCU day care

program. She had never seen a room like this one. The stench was appalling. The floor was deep in

take-out food containers, used diapers, dog mess, milk cartons, beer cans, candy wrappers, potato

chip bags, torn newspapers, plastic dry cleaner's bags - the kind that warn you to dispose of them before a child smothers.

"Mrs. Hall?"

The woman continued talking in Spanish on the phone. Without pausing, she hit the off-on panel of the TV with her shoe. The crazy lines on the screen resolved themselves into a re-run of "I

Love Lucy."

Helen's arms ached. There was no place to put Jaime down. The one crib contained two babies, one bawling, one sleeping. An older baby crouched behind the TV set, competing with two dogs for crumbs in an empty Oreo cookie box. Helen stepped forward and snapped off the TV.

Startled, the woman jumped up off the bed, recognized the child and relaxed. She asked Helen in

Spanish who she was.

Helen explained slowly and loudly in English about Jaime’s seizure over Jaime’s high unearthly wailing that was his only form of communication.

"Jaime not my boy. I am Miz Rodrigo. The mother live upstairs."

221 Helen mounted one more dark flight of stairs. She called out over Jaime's vocalizing, "Mrs.

Hall?" No answer. She shifted the child to her other shoulder and tried the doorknobs to the four

apartments. The doors wouldn't open. Behind one she heard children giggling, and from another

Lucille Ball's voice.

Helen lost her temper. She kicked hard at the door, and it swung open into a room even colder than the hall.

From the bed a girl asked, "Whattayawant?"

"Mrs. Hall?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm from the Center. I brought Jaime home. He's sick."

"He ain't sick. He’s hungry. He’s on the starch."

"Why didn't your daughter tell us you needed food?"

"Got no daughter."

"Who's the girl who brings Jaime in each morning?"

"She Miz Rodrigo's girl. Last week mah boy frien' take my check and Miz Rodrigo she

won't buy food for us no mo' less I pay up."

Helen laid the child beside his mother, and placed two five dollar bills on top of the bureau.

"When you feel better, bring Jaime into the Center yourself. We might be able to find a job for

you...."

Mrs. Hall reared up into sitting position. "You all fuck off now, heah?"

"You all fuck off," Jaime echoed shrilly. Well, he's not mute after all, Helen thought grimly.

She slammed the door. Behind it, Lucille Ball must have made a joke; canned laughter followed

Helen down the stairs.

222 A rock had been thrown at the windshield of Helen's car. She drove down town, peering

around the spider web in the glass. Helen left the car to be repaired at the Buick garage on Tenth

Avenue. She could not find a cab. When she finally arrived home by bus and subway, she had

twenty minutes to instruct Kirsten about the children’s supper, and to shower and dress for dinner.

Malcolm had to put his own studs in.

After Malcolm's speech, Olivia excused herself. She wandered down mirrored corridors and

a flight of stairs before she found a ladies' room. Olivia redid her face. The expensive French

hairstyle was not flattering and it would take months to grow out the bangs. It seemed too tedious

to wend her way back to the ballroom. Her steps bore her, instead, toward the Peacock Alley bars.

"What's your order?" a waiter asked, after he had shown her to an isolated empty table.

Olivia heard that as "ordure." She pulled herself together and asked for a stinger. She drank

stingers with Abbott; they recalled him to his golden, pre-war youth, said he. Poor Abbott! He

should have been here tonight, instead of languishing at home. Over the phone he'd moaned that he was scarred for life, and would Olivia advise him to grow a beard?

"Hello there, gorgeous."

Olivia looked up to find Max Kirov grinning at her.

"Why are you hiding down here? Our Great President is about to speak.”

"I've had enough nobility for one evening." Olivia included the Wadsworths as well, the perfection of their marriage, their thousands of friends, the effortless, upward spiral of Malcolm's career. "Max, where's your darling poppet?"

223 "Jill's not mine, thank God. She came with the assignment the way you did, once.” He sat down and drew his chair close to hers. "No photographs allowed until LBJ is finished speaking.”

He lit a cigarette. “What’s that you’re drinking?"

"Have a stinger on me."

"I forgot my wallet."

"Max, didn't you hear me? I told you I am treating." Suddenly hot, Olivia shrugged off the jacket of her dinner dress - designed to come off for dancing, not that anyone had asked her. "Since

Frank died nobody listens to a thing I say. Maybe my words were always paper money, but now without Frank, my Fort Knox to back them up, they don't buy one goddamn thing."

"You have a pretty fancy way of being sorry for yourself. Come on, kid. You worked on

Vogue for eight years. You're a published writer and a good poet, and you're not bad looking, either."

"My past doesn't count." She lit a cigarette. "Cassandra is who I am now. For example, I’ve told Malcolm not to trust Patrick Lanahan. Pat’s never forgiven LEAD for exposing those fake interviews that cost him a crucial election." Olivia recollected that Max's ex-wife had been the one who tipped LEAD off. "Malcolm asked if I had proof. I said it was gut instinct - which, when it came from Frank, Malcolm had always respected. I said if Patrick had to wait until he was ninety he'd get his revenge." Olivia drained her stinger. "You know what I’ve discovered? A widow is like

Apollinaire's bird with one wing."

"I gave you Apollinaire’s poems, remember?" Max ordered another round of drinks. He began to reminisce about the time he'd taken her to see Sammy's Bowery Follies, but Olivia refused to be deflected:

224 "Do you know how I felt tonight during the cocktail hour? As though I were standing

before these self-satisfied married couples with a begging bowl, waiting for small helpings of male

attention."

"Helen?" James's voice penetrated, and Helen's eyes flew open. "Should I look for Olivia?

She's been gone half an hour."

"No, Jolly, thanks. Olivia still is crowd-shy. She's probably gone home." Helen wondered how many speeches she'd missed, dozing.

The President now approached the microphone. What extraordinarily plebian goods we make our Presidents out of, she thought. Truman, Nixon, this whiny and duplicitous man. For one wild moment, Helen hoped that Johnson would announce the withdrawal of American troops from

Vietnam. As soon as he began his speech she was disillusioned. Gradually her eyes closed.

James had watched Johnson on television many times. Tonight the President seemed less of a demagogue. He spoke quietly and quite slowly. His words, suitable to a ceremonial occasion, were unmemorable.

After the applause and closing prayer, James watched L.B.J. change persona. He worked the dais as though there was to be an election tomorrow, and he must secure Willy Brandt's vote as well as Roy Wilkins'. It was a bravura, glad-handing, backslapping, laughing performance. Earlier, another LBJ had turned his long, pouchy, wrinkled face on each of the speakers in turn, seeming to bestow his entire attention, and applauding vigorously when they were through.

The day after the Freedom House Dinner, someone named Andrew Becker telephoned

Olivia. He claimed that Diana had introduced them at the dinner. Would Olivia have lunch with

225 him tomorrow? He had a deep, very masculine voice. She tried to picture the half a dozen Texans

surrounding Diana. She could not conjure up a face that matched the voice.

"Diana tells me you're a writer. I don't want to interrupt your schedule, so let's make it on

the late side. How about the Veau D’or at 1:30?"

Recalling Max Kirov's parting shot last night: "Self-pity is one lousy aphrodisiac," Olivia said rather grimly, "Why not?" And then, “Thank you. But how will I recognize you?”

“Doesn't matter; I’ll know you.”

The next day, Olivia recognized Andrew Becker after all from his silver and turquoise accessories (tacky!) - ring, belt buckle, and the medallion on leather strings he wore instead of a tie.

He could play the second lead in a Western movie. His hair began half way back on his skull and he made no attempt to disguise that it did. His face was like a piece of wood that had been carved and polished. When she knew him better, she'd ask if he had American Indian blood.

They were seated at a reserved table. The captain hovered over them. An aperitif for

Madame, Monsieur?

"Name your poison, Olivia."

She was reminded, not unpleasantly, of her dead step-father. Given a sunset, would Andrew

Becker burst out with "That Old Master-Painter from the Far-Away Hills?"

"Lillet on the rocks, please," Olivia would have preferred a martini, but she didn’t want him to think she was a lush.

"We'll go with a bottle of Meursault." He named the vineyard and the year. "And I don't like this table. It's too near the door." His voice was deeper than James Lippincott's and almost as loud.

226 When they had been relocated and the wine poured, Andrew Becker said, "You look real frail, Olivia, I said to myself, even before Diana told me more about you, that girl has been through bad times. You should take better care of yourself. Maybe you used to before Frank died, but it's plain you don't now."

Although Andrew had spoken with evident good will, she resented Frank’s name in this stranger’s mouth. "Let's talk about something besides my health. You're unknown territory to me.

Except for Diana's husband, I've never met an oilman from Texas."

"Shall we sing a chorus of `Getting to know you?' My story won't take long. I was born in

Chicago, a couple of years after you were."

"How do you know that?"

"Tell you later. I left home at seventeen, went into the service, served three years, got into oil, married. I'm no longer a Texan, no longer married, no longer in oil. I live in Albuquerque when

I'm not some place else and my three boys are with me summers. Your turn, Olivia."

She tried to be as telegraphic: "I lived all over the West, went to high school in San Diego.

After I graduated from Vassar I worked on Vogue. You know about Frank. I have two children,

Steve and Laura."

"You've left out that you were born in Bayridge, New York. Your mother changed your name as well as hers to Smith from Bernstein when she remarried two years after your father died....Don't pull down your lip like that. You look like a horse about to bolt."

Was she a horse, then, up for resale? “Do you have a pipe-line to the FBI?"

"Didn't need it. Lucinda Tenbroeck's one of the New York painters whose work I've followed for fifteen years. I was at her loft this morning looking over her new stuff. I knew she'd graduated from Vassar, so I asked her about you.”

227 How unfair! He had the goods on her, and she knew only what favorable stories he chose to

tell her about himself. Olivia resolved to cross-question Diana, over drinks, very soon.

"My God, Andy, you didn't tell me you own half the real estate in the Southwest." They

were lunching at another small restaurant on the upper East Side. Olivia didn't want any nonsense

about "our place."

"Fly out and have a look. I've done all right, but I'm not in the same league with the

Murchisons or the Hunts. I'm worth fifteen million or so."

"No one in New York says what they're worth,” Olivia said.

"I'm not a New Yorker. Neither are you, despite Bayridge."

"Andy, I'm the definition of a New Yorker: someone from the boondocks who swears they'll live nowhere but Manhattan."

Andrew ordered lunch and then returned to his questions. "There are still gaps in your geography. What happened between Chicago and San Diego?"

"Let's see. Nebraska came next. In Lincoln I was called `Sliver' for Olivia in the sixth grade, which is marginally better than `teacher's pet,' in Omaha, in the fifth. By fifth grade I had two stepsisters and the only way to avoid baby sitting was to study. Some way to become scholarship fodder!"

"Go on. After Nebraska where did you go?"

"Always moving west. We stopped in Helena, Montana, but my stepfather Orville lost his job, and it was on to Boise, then Seattle, Ventura, California. We finally came to rest in San

Diego." Listening to herself talk, Olivia heard the dippy tones of the sophomore in San Diego High.

"When did you decide to be a writer."

228 "What made you decide to make fifteen million dollars?" Olivia asked combatively.

"I didn’t set out to become rich. I needed money for alimony, and then one thing led to another."

“I became a writer because, like most children of adversity, I made up stories as a way of escape. And rhymes: they gave me power. I've never stopped; writing - perhaps I can't."

"Is your stuff any good?

Olivia said defensively, "Some of it gets published."

"Not the same thing."

"And did you go to bed with this - Randy Pecker - on your third date, Olivia?"

"Don't be vulgar, Abbott. And even if I had, I wouldn't tell you."

"I fully expect to hate him. In any event, our introduction must wait for my scars to heal."

Two nights before the Freedom House Dinner, Abbott had gone to a Christopher Street bar with Robyn - wasn't that too coincidental? - and Robyn's new young friend. Someone unpleasant had tried to pick the boy up. A fight ensued. Abbott had boxed at prep school and college, and he'd won, at the expense of a torn cartilage, sprained wrist, and extensive plastic surgery on his face.

"Christopher Street isn't your style at all."

"Quod erat demonstrandum. But we all like to try something new. For example, millionaire cowboys have not been your penchant up to now. What do you suppose Frank would make of him?"

“Abbott, that's below the belt." But Olivia was wracked by the same question. And even more problematical: would Helen approve of Andrew Becker when they finally met?

229

Chapter Eighteen

May, 1966

Helen had been working on the wording of a news release in the library at the SBCCU for almost an hour when a current of air troubled her concentration. She swiveled around.

A girl of perhaps twelve, wearing a yellow slicker and black high tops, froze. Then, dropping Helen's pocketbook, she fled. Helen decided she'd scared the child sufficiently and did not give chase.

Helen hung her purse on the doorknob of the closet just as three small children came in to take out library books. She shepherded them through the business of signing their names and the books' titles on file cards. She made a note to herself to buy another copy of A Snowy Day. The one she'd checked out was falling apart.

Then she returned to her morning's task: updating public relations materials. "The South

Bronx Community Center Union," she printed neatly, "had its genesis as a tutoring program in St.

Peter's Church, under the aegis of the Rev. Amos Depuy. The SBCCU has gradually expanded into an educational center and day care program. In 1960, state and private funds enabled the board of directors and staff to open a multi-purpose community center in a former public school...."

Next door, the telephone in the guidance office rang and rang, and finally ceased. Marilyn, the Guidance Counsellor, was one of Helen's mistakes. Marilyn divided her time between manicuring her nails and visits to the cafeteria.

Helen sighed and resumed writing: "As of May, 1966, the board of directors of the SBCCU includes Chairman Rodman Stubbs, the well-known educator, Congressman Malcolm Wadsworth,

230 Judge Kathryn Maxwell, Father Denis Cassidy, Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at

Fordham...."

Behind her, Helen heard the tiny grumble of a zipper being unzipped. She turned around.

The girl in the yellow slicker was pawing through Helen's pocketbook.

"Put that down, please." Helen advanced quietly.

The child attempted to slide by. Helen grabbed her arm. The girl dropped the pocketbook but still clutched the yellow envelope of Kodak color prints that Helen had picked up that morning.

Helen tightened her grip. "Give me those pictures." The child thrashed about angrily. Glaring at

Helen with eyes that looked burnt out, she bared her teeth and attempted to bite Helen's wrist.

Helen jerked her arm away in time. She grabbed the envelope. The prints and negatives spilled to the floor. The child skidded on them as she twisted loose and fled out of the room.

Next door the phone rang four times and stopped. Helen collected the pictures taken at

Ricky's twelfth birthday party. She was looking at a shot of the five children and Kirsten, the glum, overweight au pair girl, when someone whispered, "Helen?"

Marilyn stood in the doorway. "Helen, you're wanted on the telephone. Your...." She burst into tears.

Helen sits at Marilyn's desk. The telephone rests on a pile of typewritten reports. Helen picks up the receiver. Doris Stubbs is calling from New York hospital. She tells Helen that something has happened, something impossible.

"Yes, I see...." In front of Helen a philodendron has put out new leaves. Pencils stand, precisely sharpened, in a blue pottery mug. A bottle of nail polish called "Scarlet Woman" rests on

231 a crumpled tissue. Helen notes that the top paper on the pile of reports is the evaluation of Bobby

Cole that she had requested three weeks ago.

"Yes, it's going to be devastating for Malcolm as well,” Helen says.

Having exhausted Marilyn's desk, Helen's eyes rove to the view out the window. Above a row of burned-out tenements white clouds chase across the blameless blue sky, as they had the day that Caroline was born. "I guess it was the best they could do....Did they send Kirsten home?"

“Yes. I put her in a taxi. She was in no condition to…Helen, I’ll meet you at the main door of the hospital.”

“I'll be there as soon as I can." Helen asks Marilyn to call a cab. She returns to the library for her coat and pocketbook. She discovers that her wallet has been emptied and she has to borrow money from Marilyn.

New York Hospital is where Helen gave birth to all five children. It is where the ambulance took Caroline Wadsworth after the hit-and-run driver had slammed into her at 12:07 p.m. It is where the child died, shortly after arrival. My Carlie, my darling, my dearest, my baby.

Doris meets Helen at the emergency entrance to the hospital. She leads Helen into a small staff office where they can be alone. A nurse brings them coffee.

"Why are you here?" Helen thinks to ask Doris.

"It's my day on the children's ward, and someone in the E.R. remembered that I knew you."

"Can you....?"

"I'll stay as long as you need me," Doris says.

The resident in charge of the emergency room and Helen's pediatrician knock and enter.

They describe what happened. A block from Carlie's nursery school, Kirsten, the au pair girl, and

232 Carlie had been crossing at the WALK sign. A car ran the lights, lifting the child’s light body into the air and carrying it a considerable distance before it fell.

"But why didn't Kirsten...."

Doris appears to know what Helen means. "By the time the ambulance arrived here, Kirsten was hysterical. She'd lost what English she has so we don't know exactly what went on."

The resident adds more details. The ambulance driver was told by a passer-by that Carlie had pulled ahead of Kirsten as they stepped off the curb. Another witness wrote down the license number of the car. The resident begins to list Carlie's injuries. Helen's doctor cuts him off with:

"Caroline never regained consciousness, Mrs. Wadsworth, so she didn't suffer."

Helen leans her forehead against the cool glass that partitions the office from the hall. How did the doctors know that Carlie had been spared pain? Helen remembers the child in her new Best

& Co. spring coat and hat, leaving the apartment with Kirsten that morning, talking steadily, her words reaching about knee height. My dear, my darling, my baby. Why hadn't Kirsten seen the car and pulled the child back?

Why wasn't Kirsten hit instead?

The resident asks Mrs. Wadsworth if she would like to see the body.

"NO," she yells.

Concerned, the two doctors and Doris move toward her. Helen backs away, lowers her voice, gulps air. "No, I don't. Would any of you want to see your dead child? I want to remember

Carlie the way she was, not what is left of her. You don't have the least idea how I...." She stops.

She tries for a more normal tone. "Oh, Doris, I must be home before the children get back from school.”

233 But first there are papers for Helen to sign, arrangements to be made. Doris goes to the room next door to telephone Malcolm's Washington office and the children's' schools. Helen feels nauseated. She asks to be shown to a bathroom. After she has thrown up the rancid coffee, and the tranquillizers the doctors have given her, and breakfast, she sorts through the snapshots of Ricky's party. She wraps the ones of Carlie in a Kleenex. She buries them deep in her purse. Her eyes are so dry they hurt.

Olivia is waiting at the Wadsworths' apartment when Helen arrives home. She has put her own grief on hold for these first hours. She gives Helen a tight hug. Helen appears to have shrunk to Olivia's height, as though Carlie's death had been a mallet that had driven Helen inches into the earth. Her skin looks jaundiced. Olivia is not convinced that Helen can see.

"Did Malcolm call?" Helen asks.

Olivia shakes her head

"He should have the message by now." Helen goes into Malcolm's study. She is frozen. She lies down on the couch, pulls up a plaid wool blanket. She holds out the list of people she had compiled in the taxi to be telephoned. “Please, will you call them? I can't talk to anyone except

Malcolm. And my mother. Mrs. Wadsworth will be..."

"I know. I'll handle her."

As Olivia telephones it occurs to her to wonder why the other line doesn't ring. Where was

Malcolm? With a woman?

When Olivia had worked briefly at Malcolm's campaign headquarters in the summer of `64, she noticed - not for the first time - that Malcolm was endowed with a faultless sexual tropism. He could sense which of the female volunteers were both available and undemanding. These were the ones with whom he flirted. Whether or not Malcolm followed through, Olivia had a horror of

234 knowing. Some day Malcolm would love a woman who would not leave when her time was up; who would seek revenge. Nothing Olivia could do about that, either. As Frank used to say,

"Malcolm makes his own laws."

The final call - Mr. Wadsworth; Mrs. W. being at a church meeting - completed, Olivia is now free to answer the incoming calls as one or both telephones begin to ring.

Helen listens to the ringing, and to Olivia's voice, though her words cannot be distinguished through the study door. "That wasn't Malcolm, was it?" she calls to Olivia, each time it rings. “If it’s a reporter, hang up. We should keep it out of the papers as long as possible.”

Most of the callers are heartbroken, sympathetic, wild to do something to help. Then Mrs.

Wadsworth, home from her meeting, telephones demanding to speak to her son and, failing

Malcolm, Helen. "I simply cannot understand why Helen wasn't there to pick up Caroline at school.

I imagine she'll never forgive herself."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wadsworth," Olivia says firmly, "Helen is under sedation and cannot speak to anyone."

Mrs. Wadsworth says, "Tell Malcolm and Helen that I am praying for them."

The other phone is ringing. Olivia answers it and brings it in to Helen. "It’s your mother."

Helen struggles to sit up. "Mother, Richard told you - about Carlie?"

"Yes; that dear little girl. I wish - it's about the worst thing that can happen." Mrs. Cross speaks in a voice that Helen hasn't heard since childhood. “My first child was still-born, but I won't pretend that it comes any where near the loss of Carlie. Helen, promise me, don't try to be brave.

Cry as much as you can! I'd come down except I'd be one more person you'd feel you'd have to take care of. But oh, my dearest girl, I want to put my arms around you and let you know you're loved."

235 Even her mother can't make her cry. Not even a discussion of the funeral arrangements with

Chris Reid.

Helen hears Penny's voice. Olivia opens the door, and Penny flings herself on her mother.

Helen holds the warm living child, but Penny soon gets restless and asks if she can watch

television. Ricky is the next one home; and then Susanna. They stay with their mother until Olivia

shoes them out. After Colum's brief visit, Olivia tells Helen to take a nap.

“Have the children had supper?” Helen asks.

Olivia assures Helen that she's found everything necessary in the freezer and well-stocked refrigerator. She does not tell Helen that she allowed them to watch television while they ate.

"But why doesn't Malcolm call?"

Olivia has never seen Helen so crushed. Even when Helen’s father died, she had been calm, sad, but true to her New England heritage. "Malcolm will call soon. Now, try to sleep a little."

"Why doesn’t he just come home? I want him here. I need him so terribly. I can’t endure this any more without him.”

Olivia is shocked by the desperation in Helen’s voice. “He’ll be here as soon as he can.

Susanna heard on the television that the weather in Washington is terrible, rain and high winds. All the flights must have been grounded.” Olivia goes off, shutting the door behind her, to answer the ringing phones

Helen lies couch and shivers. She makes up simple declarative sentences to herself.

Malcolm has been given the message. He will come when he can. The children are having supper.

It will be better when Malcolm is here. Malcolm will come when he can.

Someone knocks. It is Olivia with a large tray: bread and butter sandwiches, grapes, cheese, cookies, and two stiff highballs. "I took the telephone receivers off so we can eat in peace.”

236 “You can’t! Malcolm won’t be able to get through.” Helen is furious.

“Just for fifteen minutes?”

By way of an answer, Helen picks up a sandwich. She puts it down. Olivia sips her drink,

hoping that Helen will imitate her.

Helen tastes her highball. She takes another sip. It burns her throat. She coughs and her eyes

water, in imitation of tears. She reaches in her pocketbook for a Kleenex, fumbles up the one

wound round the snapshots of Carlie that Helen had segregated earlier. She throws them face up on

the coffee table where Olivia can see them.

Where Helen can see them, every one. They break her. "Oh, God, why Carlie, why my

child, my baby, my - why her?....I can't bear it....she was in horrible pain, I know...they lied to try

and make me feel better but I know....Oh, Olivia, I can't bear that she's...."

Olivia holds Helen while she weeps. Tears soak into the shoulder of Olivia's jacket. She

cries, too, for Helen, for the Wadsworth children, for the loss of such a delightful and promising

little girl. She cries for herself, reflecting how thinly populated her family is compared to Helen's. If

Laura, or Stephen...she must keep them safe, she thinks wildly, then reminds herself that it is

Helen’s child who has been killed.

Helen tries to choke back her sobs so the children won't hear but they explode in wild wails, in wordless shouts, a projectile vomiting of noise. (Olivia hopes that Susanna turned the TV sound way up, as Olivia asked her to.) To both women it seems as though hours pass. At last Helen subsides. She scours her face with the same tissue. She wonders if she will be able to get up off the

couch; she feels as though the marrow had been sucked from her bones.

"Supposing Malcolm tried to call when we were..." she whispers.

Olivia retreats to the hall, hangs up the telephones. At once they begin to ring.

237 Helen looks dully at the snapshots taken at Ricky's party. Something must be done about

Kirsten.

The children go to bed according to age, at half hour intervals. Each comes to kiss Helen

goodnight. Helen feels sure that they are all still awake, but she cannot be a disciplinarian, not

tonight.

Olivia removes Helen's untouched tray.

"Thank you," Helen says. "I couldn't have survived without you. Now, please, go home."

But it is past eleven before the phones are silent and Olivia consents to leave.

Helen stares obsessively at the photographs of Carlie, resplendent in the new ballet costume

she wore at Ricky's party. In the Wadsworth family it's a tradition to attend one of the Christmas

performances of The Nutcracker ballet.

Carlie's first Nutcracker was one of Malcolm's famous "make-ups," outings which compensated for events Malcolm's had to miss, such as Field Day at Brearley or one of the children's piano recitals.

This year, because of the transit strike, the Wadsworths had walked to Lincoln Center across the Park. Malcolm carried Carlie piggyback. Did someone throw snowballs. Is Helen falsely coloring a scene out of a Currier & Ives print? Did we know it was the last time, Helen wonders now? Is that why everyone was so dear? Penny didn't whine, or Ricky sulk, or Susanna so eloquently express the desire to be elsewhere. Half way across the park, Colum lifted Carlie off his father's shoulders and charged ahead, whinnying like a horse to amuse the little girl. During the performance Carlie had sat in Malcolm's lap. Even so she came only to his chin.

After the matinee, Malcolm had treated them to an early supper at the Carlyle. Carlie told the waiter how the Christmas tree grew and grew and the mice fought and the prince came out of

238 the nutcracker. And the next Saturday Susanna used her entire month's allowance to buy Carlie a ballet costume.

At one thirty Helen still sits slackly at the kitchen table. She listens to the dishwasher go through its cycles. It drowns out the sobs that emanate, from time to time, from Kirsten's room.

Helen does not hear the front door open.

Then there he is! "Oh, darling, why didn't you telephone?" Helen says with her head burrowed into his wet raincoat.

"Because I didn't know what to tell you - when there'd be a plane, or if I could get on it."

Malcolm disentangles himself. "Will you make me a drink?"

She gets out ice, pours scotch into a glass, then forgets to carry it to him. "I didn't believe you'd ever get here."

"Neither did I. I even tried to charter a plane." Malcolm shrugs off his raincoat. "I'm not in the best of shape."

"I should think not!"

"What exactly did happen?"

Helen recounts what the doctors told her. "The police have the car's number. They're trying to track down the driver."

“I’m coming down with the flu.” Malcolm puts his hand to his head. "I've got the mother of all headaches."

"Oh, Lord, I forgot your scotch."

"I don't want it. Let's - let's check on the children."

239 Helen trails after him as he goes from room to room, straightening Penny's blanket, turning

off Ricky's radio, telling Colum to try to go to sleep. Both of them put an arm around Susanna

while she storms and weeps, "Carlie’s death is the worst thing that’s ever happened! I - I don't -

nothing is ever going to be the same again!"

Gradually Susanna’s tears subside. Helen and Malcolm return to the kitchen. He pulls out a

crumpled pack of cigarettes, selects one. As he lights it, inhaling deeply, his hollowed cheeks give

him the aspect of a death's head. He needs a shave. His skin has a grayish tinge and there are deep

circles under his eyes. He has been up most of the night before working on a report. Could he have

something to eat? He hasn't had any lunch or dinner.

Helen warms up some tomato soup. She throws together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

She wonders if Malcolm remembers that it’s Carlie's favorite, but he eats and drinks and says

nothing.

She can't abide the silence, now the dishwasher has finished the last rinse. "Malcolm, Chris

Reid telephoned. He was wonderful. He didn't try to - try to be consoling. My idea is -if you approve of it - that Carlie be cremated, and later we'll hold a memorial service, and the burial."

Helen cannot believe that she is using words like cremation, service, burial. "For the children's sake, the service better be private; perhaps at the church in Lee. We don't have a plot, though...."

"Helen, will you stop! This is worse than your Aztec sacrifice!"

"My what?"

He says nastily, "The heart torn out of the chest, hot blood spilling down. I've never forgotten it."

"But what's that got to do with Carlie?" She begins to weep again. "Malcolm, we have to make plans."

240 "I don't want to talk about it." He rears up from the table, sways, grabs at the back of a

chair, plunges from the room. She hears him vomit repeatedly in the bathroom.

After she's helped him, feverish and lightheaded, into their bed, Helen lies down beside him,

fully dressed in case one of the children might call out.

She envies Malcolm the fever that permits him to doze. She watches the bedside clock jerk

through one hour, then two. Mechanically she sorts through things that must be done tomorrow

until at last she can no longer think or plan. She remembers now a lawless child in a yellow slicker

and black high-tops. It is all Helen can see: the child baring her teeth to bite Helen's wrist, and the snapshots fluttering in slow motion to the floor.

The next morning is the same day but also Saturday. At seven Malcolm throws up again and returns to bed.

Helen prepares breakfast for the children. She is acutely aware of the closed door to

Kirsten's little bedroom off the kitchen. No noise comes from the room this morning.

Helen gets the children up, in order of difficulty. Penny has accepted Carlie's death with child-like matter-of-factness. Ricky will work it out in his own tortuous way much later. Susanna exhausted the worst of her first grief last night. Colum is inconsolable. "I'd forgotten. When I was asleep I forgot about Carlie being dead." He holds on to his mother so hard he hurts her.

The bacon is burnt. It does not matter; no one feels like eating it. Helen scrapes French toast

off the plates into the garbage. She tells the children that their father will stay in bed today. He has

the flu, and a high temperature.

"Will he die, too?" Penny bursts into loud sobs.

“Of course not, darling.” Helen hugs the little girl. “Everyone gets the flu now and then.”

241 At nine she sends the four children to a garden supply center on Second Avenue. She makes

a list of plants for them to buy. It is time, says Helen with artificial brightness, to think about what

they'll plant in the garden at Lee. But, "Oh, please be careful crossing streets," Helen cannot help

calling out to them as they wait in a forlorn huddle for the elevator.

The telephone begins to ring. Olivia arrives to cope with it. Malcolm is sleeping heavily and

is not to be disturbed.

From the study where she is making lists of distant friends to be told, Helen hears Kirsten's

door open. Then sounds from the bathroom she shares with the younger children. But when Helen

comes out to the kitchen to "get it over with," Kirsten has regained the safety of her room.

The one decision Helen made during her long night concerns Kirsten. The au pair girl must

go before the children ask the same angry questions Helen wants to: why didn't Kirsten see the car coming? She'd been warned to watch for cars jumping the lights. Was Kirsten holding Carlie's hand, or not? And if Kirsten had been holding on to Carlie, how did she herself escaped injury?

Helen knocks on Kirsten's door. Kirsten asks sullenly, "What is it?"

Helen flings the door open. In a voice she does not recognize, Helen orders the girl to pack and be ready to leave in half an hour. Helen points to her own wrist-watch as she repeats, "In half an hour."

Helen goes out to the hall to tell Olivia what she plans to do. "I am being punished for hubris," Helen says. "That night at the Freedom House Dinner I felt - I knew - that one day

Malcolm would be sitting at the center of the dais, and Frank would be pleased because he always said that Malcolm `would grow up to be President.' And that night it seemed to me that our five children would develop into capable young men and women who would also work for the common good....and some malevolent god heard what I was thinking and - took Carlie!"

242 "Don't, Helen. You have no control over chance, random fate, whatever you want to call it.

Do you remember saying to me after Frank died, `It has happened. But nothing will ever take away

the years you had together.'"

"Did I really?" Helen asks harshly, "It sounds like the drivel on a greeting card."

"Helen, believe me, I know you will never lose those years when Carlie was - was the light

of all our lives."

"What good does it do to remember Carlie as a baby and a young child, when there - won't - be any more for her? Her life was taken from her, she was robbed of sixty or seventy years."

Helen is not as shrunken or as yellow as she had been last night. She looks, if possible, worse. She wears the same skirt and blouse she'd had on yesterday, with the cardigan buttoned-up wrong. Olivia feels sure that Helen has neither washed nor slept. She fears for Helen’s sanity.

"Helen, please, wait another day before you decide what to do about Kirsten. You might talk to Janet Reid. She and Chris are looking for an au pair girl for the summer."

"No! I can't bear to look at her. I could...I could dump that young woman into the East

River, hoping she couldn't swim."

Olivia clears her throat in warning.

"Missus?" Kirsten bulks large in the door to the kitchen, a suitcase in each hand, a pack on her back.

Perhaps the new doorman of the Wadsworths' apartment house heard Helen give the hotel's address to the cab driver. Or perhaps a reporter had ESP. On Monday an interview with Kirsten

Lagerloff, who'd been abandoned by Congressman Wadsworth and his wife in a flea-bag of a hotel, appeared in the Daily News. .

243 On Monday a lawyer demanded to see Malcolm at the offices of Delafield & Lambert.

When told that Malcolm was ill, he settled for Peter Thompson.

"He was the dregs," Peter told Helen over the telephone. "He made unsubstantiated threats of the sleaziest kind and demanded we pay his client half a million dollars."

Late Monday afternoon, Helen and Peter Thompson called upon Kirsten Lagerloff in her comfortable room in the downtown hotel. Kirsten was paid the rest of her year's contract. She was asked to sign a statement to that effect. Peter took Kirsten to the airport. He waited until she boarded the night flight for Stockholm. Helen had paid for her ticket, as well.

Tuesday, when Kirsten's self-appointed lawyer returned to Delafield & Lambert, he was told that he had lost his client.

Malcolm stayed in bed. His temperature fluctuated. Doctors came and went. Antibiotics were administered. For days Malcolm slept prodigiously. The household tiptoed around. Helen alternated wildly between anxious sympathy and cold observation. Malcolm was suffering in the only way his male psyche would allow. He refused to discuss Carlie’s service, or talk about the child at all. He showed no interest in how Helen felt. In fact, he barely spoke. She could not get him to cry. When his temperature had been normal for several days, her sympathy for him diminished.

When at last Malcolm emerged from the bedroom, he expressed surprise that Kirsten was gone. Helen explained what she had done, and why.

"So you and Peter frog-marched the young woman out of the country," Malcolm observed mildly. "It was probably a mistake - not that I wouldn't have done the same myself."

Helen had already begun to feel guilty. Her father's rule was to "see things from the other person's point of view," and Helen had not permitted Kirsten to have one. If Helen had gone in to

244 ask Kirsten how she felt that first awful night; if Kirsten had been allowed to describe the accident as she saw it; then the reporter, shyster lawyer, etc. might not have happened. Kirsten should have been made to understand that she was not being sent to prison – only home to her native land which she had missed dreadfully.

With time, Helen came to accept that it was the car that had caused Caroline's death, not

Kristen. "Wouldn't you like to kill that boy for jumping the lights?" she asked Malcolm more than once. "What good would that do?” he’d answer. Once the memorial service had taken place he scarcely mentioned her name.

"But don't you enjoy thinking about her? Remember when she first began to talk, really talk, and every other sentence began with why?" Malcolm shook his head. A week later, looking in Malcolm's wallet for money to pay the cleaning woman, Helen came upon a snapshot of Carlie.

It was the only picture he carried.

Malcolm returned to Washington. The children began to do better in school. Helen still stumbled through each day, harrowed by Carlie's death. Her dreams were appalling: Carlie, a broken doll, smeared with blood, whose arms and legs came off when Helen lifted her. Some nights the living children were taken from her, one by one. An older girl in a yellow slicker also invaded

Helen’s dreams.

What might have saved that lawless child was a family, or a substitute family found in a place to go to. A place where you were valued for yourself, where you could find encouragement and return, strengthened, to combat the cold and unforgiving world. After much thought, she settled on a suitable place.

245 Chapter Nineteen

November, 1966 - June, l968

The day after Malcolm’s reelection to Congress, Helen unfolded her plan to develop the unused top floor of the SBCCU.

"Helen, darling, that's pie in the sky," Malcolm said."I’ll need you with me in Washington at least half of every week."

"I'll be there," Helen promised, "as soon as I finish the remodeling and my staff is in place."

"Well, I won't be at the next board meeting, but good luck on your proposal. Are you sure you have funding? Otherwise the board won’t approve of your haven on the top floor.”

Helen smiled. "I'll say that an anonymous donor is underwriting the project."

"What can I say? It's your money." Malcolm turned the conversation to the victory party they were giving next Saturday for the volunteers and staff who worked on his campaign.

Before the board of the SBCCU met in the auditorium, Helen led James and fourteen other board members (Malcolm, Rodman Stubbs, and Olivia – who hoped to avoid volunteering for

Helen’s crazy scheme) through unused classrooms, storage rooms, piles of lumber and stacked folding chairs on the third floor. Where dust motes danced in the bald electric light, Helen conjured up new paint, clean windows, trees, pots of flowers, happy children painting pictures, old people chatting and drinking coffee.

"We’ll tear down most of the walls except for a small gym, and this little room where we’ll put the kiln and turntables for throwing pots. Our garden will be planted here where it will get good strong south light...."

246 James hadn’t heard that lilt in her voice for years – not since Carlie died – and he did not

look forward to showing her how futile her scheme was.

“We’ll put the bird cages here and the fish tank next to the back wall and the upright piano.”

Helen gestured to another empty space, “We’ll have a carpenter's bench for the boys – girls, too, if

they’re interested, and someone to teach carpentry…”

When the tour ended, James helped Dr. Swords down two flights of stairs to the auditorium

where the SBCCU board meetings took place. Two rows of empty folding chairs were set up below

the stage to accommodate members of the community who might attend. Tonight the board met, as

usual, alone, sitting on the stage behind a long trestle table, with a chair on one side for Helen.

When everyone was seated, Helen handed around copies of her architect's plan, estimates of

expenses, proposals for staff and program.

After the Rev. Amos Depuy had glanced at Helen's estimate, he said, “I don’t find provision for such items such as heat, light, janitor service, lavatory supplies. Speaking as the treasurer of the

SBCCU, I must protest: these are costly items to ask the Center to carry."

"My project is independently funded." When Helen first joined St. Peter's Church tutoring program, she had idolized Amos as "de Lawd" in Green Pastures. Gradually, she'd realized that despite his magisterial beauty, Amos was both gullible and stubborn. "Amos, The money, which comes from an anonymous donor, will cover all expenses."

"Mrs. Wadsworth," Dr. Herbert Swords asked, "Since you have discovered a new source of funding, shouldn't it be directed toward projects as yet unrealized, such as a dental clinic?"

"The money is pledged to the SBCCU for this one purpose," Helen said firmly.

After more questions, and examination of the architect's plans, four board members voiced

lukewarm support for Helen's project. Then James made himself ask how the South Bronx

247 Community Center Union had the chutzpah to offer people in need of food, jobs, housing, and

training, a place to sit and smell the flowers.

Helen noted the reference to Ferdinand the Bull. Then she turned toward James with a radiant smile: "Think of all the old people with no place to meet except on their front stoops.

People on welfare without money for movies, trips, or a decent daily life. If they came here to our top floor they'd find a place where people cared about them. And latch-key children will have a safe place to go after school until their parents' could pick them up. We'll draw the parents in, too."

William Norris, the director of the SBCCU, and an ex officio board member, objected that no one on his staff would have time to oversee this complicated - "what was it you intended to call your project, Mrs. Wadsworth?"

"A place for everyone: a people park."

"Yes, but who will supervise it?"

With another glowing smile: "Well, I will. And I don't have to be paid."

Helen's proposal was put to a vote and passed: twelve for, two against, James abstaining.

In the next months a local construction firm removed partitions, shored up walls, laid new linoleum, and repaired broken windows. Over the Christmas vacation Helen drove up fleets of teenagers to paint the rooms and window trim. James talked kids in his college-bound programs into helping out. The odor of cannabis floated from room to room, until Helen asked James what that peculiar smell was and James put a stop to all smoking on the grounds of a fire hazard. Music blasted out of several radios as Brearley and Collegiate, and the South Bronx Technical High painted together.

248 The New York Post and The Amsterdam News sent reporters to cover the opening of Helen's

People Park at the beginning of February, 1967. That September, The New Yorker wrote it up in

"The Talk of the Town." Attendance exceeded even Helen's expectations. She and her staff added

more arts and crafts: silk-screening placemats, dressing dolls, crocheting afghans, items in demand

for church fairs and sold at the SBCCU's semi-annual open house.

Olivia rarely saw Helen. She had no time to meet for a sociable lunch or dinner. She was in

Washington; she was in the South Bronx; she attended political dinners with Malcolm, and

committee meetings in New York. Olivia saw her fleetingly at benefits and at parent-teacher days

at their children's schools. Helen glowed with an unearthly exaltation; she lost almost fifteen

pounds.

Sharing a taxi with James after the February board meeting, Olivia began to discuss Helen's

obsessive busyness.

"I think she's coming out of it," James said. "I heard her say at a staff meeting that she had

to take time off."

Thinking of her own dark time mourning Frank's death, Olivia said, "Maybe she's

outdistanced her grief, a little. Helen won’t get over Carlie's death; she never will. It will hurt every

day for the rest of her life. But she's able now to step back from it a little and stop running – hurtling – through daily life."

"Okay, you guys, let's hear your questions." James sat on the stage of the SBCCU auditorium, which was also the gym, with sixteen of his college-bound students. They were a week into rehearsing Julius Caesar. James had them read the play through first; assigned parts; then the

249 actors performed, haltingly, their first run through. This Saturday afternoon was to be spent on the meaning of the play and deciphering Shakespeare's language.

The boy who played Caesar wanted to know how come he got wasted before the play was half over.

"Remember what I said before we read the play? Rome in Caesar's time was a republic. It wasn't a real democracy, like ours." (James mentally reserved comment on that remark). "Only a few people had the vote. But if Caesar became Emperor then Rome would become a dictatorship, like Germany under Hitler."

"So, like, Cassius dint want that. So he got those other dudes to go in with him."

"Good answer. Next question?"

"Why they all kill Caesar like that?"

"So nobody stuck with the rap. Teacher tell you that awready, ass-hole."

The two girls cast as Portia and Calphurnia continued to whisper together at the back of the stage. "Hey, Roman Matrons," James called to them. "Join the group. Now: what would you do if

President Johnson decided to take over this country. Unless we stopped him, he'd become Emperor

Lyndon. Would we be justified in killing him?"

"Who give a shit about this country?" Cassius said. "My cousin out there in `Nam gettin' shot."

James ignored this. "Or would you, like Martin Luther King, Jr., organize a non-violent march to protest Johnson's making himself the American Emperor?" Silence. "Come on, girls, what's your answer?"

Calphurnia giggled while Portia chipped away at her green nail polish in an infuriating way.

Her file noted that she had an I.Q. of 141, but she rarely spoke up in James’ classes, either. "The

250 Culture of Poverty," was not entirely to blame. Girls didn’t talk up in class at the private school

where James, a substitute teacher, made enough money to live on.

"Okay," James said. "We'll discuss it next week. Now, as to Brutus. Brutus is a special case.

He doesn't want anything for himself, but he's persuaded that by killing Caesar he will save the

Roman Republic."

"Yeah, but he lose his rep anyway. When Antony say, `and Brutus is an honorable man,' he din't mean it; he lie," said the kid who played Antony. "He be using iron. Like you say the opposite what you mean."

"You mean irony." James smiled.

"Octavius and Antony, not Brutus, gained power by assassinating Caesar," said the dapper

West Indian who James had cast as the calculating Octavius.

"You're right on target,” James said. “Antony tried to overthrow the government some years

later. He was killed along with Cleopatra - you've heard of her. But Octavius became Caesar

Augustus. Remember how it says in the Bible `In the time of Caesar Augustus there went out a

decree that all should be taxed.'"

Cicero, who was not overly swift, spoke up: "Hey, man, you mean these dudes be real?"

"Shit, everyone know that."

Still trying to provoke response from the girls, James read part of Portia's speech to Brutus:

“‘Dwell I but in the suburbs/Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,/Portia is Brutus' harlot, not

his wife.'"

Portia stopped picking at her nails. “I’m quitting, I’m no hoor.”

“Portia wasn’t either,” said James. “She’s merely complaining that Brutus was treating her

like one.”

251 "O.K. I’ll stick around this time." Portia went back to work on her nails.

The next hour went swimmingly, with an explanation of the Feast of Lupercal, a digression into Romulus and Remus, a comparison between the Ides of March and Friday, the 13th, a short essay by James on the Colossus of Rhodes. It was nearly six when James had reached the last scene, and the speech: "This was a man."

James ran into difficulties scheduling the next month’s rehearsals. One kid bagged groceries week nights. Four boys were cramming with Rodman Stubbs for the April SATs. The girls had enrolled in a night course to train as beauticians.

"Listen, you guys, you miss three rehearsals and you're out of the play. Look at it this way: you're doing yourselves a favor learning the play now, because you will be asked questions on

Julius Caesar on the College Boards or you'll be assigned it in a college English class. Besides, it’s terrific theater."

James was three weeks into rehearsals when the Reverend Amos Depuy insisted that Julius

Caesar be given in Black English.

"Amos, be real. The kids have learned their lines."

The Reverend Depuy spoke a length about demeaning elitist attitudes, relevance, racial injustice, white middle-class hang-ups....

James interrupted him angrily: "So you want me to translate Shakespeare into `Friends, dudes, cool cats, come rap with me?'"

"Yes, we need to bring our teen-age programs closer to the young people's lives. Norman assures me we'll get wide coverage in the press if we make the dialogue more accessible to the brothers and sisters.”

252 James stood up, the better to make his point. He had an inch or two on Amos. "Julius

Caesar was not written in Black English. It will not be performed in Black English. My kids won't make it in college writing papers in Black English. Black English is street-smart and funny and useful, but I'm not about to...."

"No need to shout, James."

"Two years ago you wanted me to teach Latin and Greek to kids, some of them with fourth grade reading levels. Now that their reading levels are up - thanks to Rodman Stubbs, to Samuel

Barker, to me and a number of others - you'd take away the standard English that the kids have mastered, which is also the English written by James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, as well as

Shakespeare and Milton and Wordsworth!"

In equally lofty tones, Amos responded, "I intend to put the matter before the board at the next meeting."

The board of directors of the SBCCU voted; Shakespeare won by a narrow margin. James, who had chosen to be absent from this month’s meeting, heard later that Olivia had supported a

Black English version. Frank would not have remarked, "But it will be so damn funny."

The fourth week of rehearsals the kid who played the soothsayer and other minor parts was busted for peddling drugs. Cassius's father was killed by two young punks who held up the liquor store where he worked. Cassius returned from the funeral in time for that evening's rehearsal

(although James would have let him off) looking ashy, bitter and withdrawn. Antony, his mother and six brothers and sisters, escaped with their lives and little else from a fire in their building. The

SBCCU staff got up a collection of clothes and food and money. James took the gifts to the welfare hotel where the family had been crammed into two rooms.

253 Everyone, including James, had bad colds.

"How's your play shaping up, James?" Helen moved her reports, coffee cup, and the pointed red wool hat which made her look like a Swedish Tomte, to make room for James at her table in the SBCCU cafeteria.

"I sent the cast home. Half of them are sick and the others should be cramming for the

SATs."

"You're sick, too; you sound awful."

"Sick of the whole thing, as well....Christ, Helen, don't you ever wonder what you're doing here?" James meant by extensions what he and she were doing at this place, at this time in history?

Helen chose not to grasp his philosophical overtones, or they'd be there all night. "I'm not fed up with the People Park, but I do wish it weren't so difficult to run. Half my paid staff has been out. Irene Veetch had to take her son to the clinic on Monday and today. Tuesday Georgia stayed home to wait for the mailman so her ADC check wouldn't be stolen. Yesterday Josie didn't show up. When I called her home, I was told that she'd gone to Puerto Rico because she'd had a bad dream about her mother. Well, that's enough grousing. Come upstairs, James; I want to show you something that pays me back for my troubles."

Helen led him up the three flights to the deserted People Park. The fish tank glowed in the dark. Two hamsters rode a treadmill in their cage. Helen snapped on the lights.

"Here it is." She gestured toward a long mural thumb-tacked on the wall. "We made this dragon to celebrate the Chinese New Year - a little late, but never mind. Isn't it splendid? I asked two Chinese friends to come up and tell us about their country and its traditions, and everyone here was inspired to make a dragon. You can't paint in the eyes, though, or the dragon comes alive."

254 Like his production of Julius Caesar the dragon was an amateurish botch but James

dutifully praised it. He wandered around the big main room. A reading corner had been added since

James was up here last, with couches and pillows on a carpeted floor. At the other end of the room,

daffodils and tulips bloomed in tubs beneath the skinny trees of the indoor garden.

James sat down at the upright piano and launched into the "Maple Leaf Rag." Helen bustled about as though she were home, plucking dead heads off the daffodils, feeding the fish, putting paintbrushes to soak, and sorting crayons. James segued from ragtime into "I Got Rhythm." He heard Helen humming along as she worked. She'll be serving dinner here next, with long debates around the table like family meals at the Wadsworths', Helen as moderator and Malcolm, when he was home, as good-humored gadfly.

He was about half way into "I Got Rhythm," when he became aware of Helen standing beside the piano, asking him a question.

James stopped playing. "Sorry?"

"Has Malcolm ever talked to you about Carlie's death?"

"No." Where was this leading?

"I wish he would. Even with me, he doesn't seem - I think he needs a man friend, somebody he's known forever and can unburden himself to."

"Maybe if Frank was alive, Malcolm would talk to him. But I'm not - that kind of friend.

As kids Mally and I never had deep discussions. Probably too busy playing baseball. Those political discussions we got into at the Shamrock Bar were about as deep as we ever went.”

"But would you ask him some time?"

"If the opportunity comes up." It wouldn't, James felt sure. "Helen, it's late. I've got an early

class tomorrow to prepare for."

255 "Yes, of course. I'll take you home."

She returned to Carlie’s death as they drove down town. "James, it's so hard. Malcolm and I

are the ones who loved her best. And Olivia, of course. She and I talk about Carlie all the time. But

Malcolm changes the subject whenever I mention her name."

James said something banal about masculine pride and not wanting to show emotion.

"Well, it's bad for him. Not to let down and cry; not to want to remember."

"Jesus Christ on a bicycle, will you speak more slowly!" James shouted at Antony at

Saturday’s rehearsal. Everyone but wise-ass Antony was line perfect. He had just given the funeral

oration at top speed, hoping James wouldn't notice the missing words and phrases.

"Like this, James? `But Brutus is an Honorable Man?'"

"No need to use the Chinese water-torture."

Antony wanted to know what that was. "Later," James told him, and made him give his speech twice more before the rest of the cast showed up.

The play progressed fairly smoothly, some lines dropped, some entrances flubbed, one fit of the giggles, until it came to the slaying of Caesar. The first time they'd rehearsed the scene, James had been electrified to see the assassins raise switchblades above Caesar's head. The knight of the long knives, James had rushed among them thinking: Here goes the SBCCU down the tube. Then

Cassius had grinned, snapped his blade shut, and said, "Hey, teach, we fooled you good." James ordered them to leave their knives at home from now on. Nevertheless, each time they came to the assassination, James held his breath until he saw knifeless fists make a corona above Caesar's head.

256 After today's rehearsal, James remembered that his mother had left messages both at the private school where he taught, and at the SBCCU to call home. He telephoned her from a pay phone.

Amazing Grace sounded most unlike herself. She berated James for not calling back right away. She cried a little. Then she told him, come at once! She couldn't discuss it over the telephone.

James's mother and father sat side by side on the couch. His father held his mother's hand.

His mother did the talking.

"It really could be much worse," she said, not quite in tears. "I mean, Dwight will be all right. We - Gordie and I always say, well, it's only money so....Jolly, that partner of Dwight's ran off with all the firm's money....Dwight was left with - how much was it, Gordie? $200,000 in outstanding bills?...And after Dwight tried to raise loans on his own - oh, why didn't he come to us?

– and he couldn't find the money he - he attempted to do away with himself last night, in the garage where he keeps his car. The night watchman heard the motor going and went to investigate.

Dwight was taken in an ambulance to St. Luke's. They called us at 2:25 this morning and we went right over."

Gordie Lippincott cleared his throat several times. "It may be the medication he's on, but

Dwight doesn't seem to remember much about the last few days."

"He'll be fine, once his business is, but right now the money owed to contractors and workmen and draughtsmen and secretaries - how the office has grown! - is a dreadful weight on him. The doctors are keeping Dwight in the hospital so - so they can watch his progress for a week or two. Warren is monitoring his progress. Jolly, please go see him tomorrow. You’re wonderful at cheering someone up.”

257 The next morning James arrived at the hospital with the Sunday papers, and a leggy geranium in a pot. Dwight sat in a chair, dressed in white cotton pajamas. He indicated that James should put his gifts on the windowsill.

James studied his brother covertly while pretending to arrange the papers, the architectural magazines and books already cluttering the wide sill. James and Dwight were the same height, but

Dwight had a slighter build and finer features. His face seemed wiped clean of emotion. He sat with his long thin hands resting on his knees. James began to fiddle with the portable radio on the bed table.

"Don't," Dwight objected. "I can't stand voices."

"What about music?"

"If you can find some Bach." Dwight put his hands over his ears while James tried the classical music stations without success. James switched it off.

“Warren brought the radio in yesterday.”

“How is brother Warren?” James asked the question simply to make conversation. He and

Warren had talked three times since Dwight’s suicide attempt.

Dwight took his time answering. “He’s O.K.”

James sat down on the edge of the bed. Dwight pushed his chair back six inches.

For lack of a better topic, James began describing his adventures with Julius Caesar: "How do you translate `Et Tu Brute' to a bunch of kids in the South Bronx?" Dwight had no suggestions to make. James soldiered on. "I can’t make the actors look at each other when they speak. I think they think they're TV newscasters. Do you remember how Miss what's-her-name used to make us face each other when we were doing the play in eighth grade?"

"I was at Exeter by then," Dwight said tonelessly.

258 "So you were, but do you remember later on...." James dredged up events from the days when they were both at Exeter. Dwight had either forgotten or appeared to disdain their school-boy pranks.

The heavy hour ended. "I guess I ought to go."

“Suit yourself,” Dwight said listlessly.

James felt that he ought to hug his brother or thump him on the shoulder, somehow convey to Dwight that James realized how horrible the whole thing was, and how glad James was that

Dwight had survived. But Dwight had climbed back into the hospital bed out of reach. James tried to wrap his feelings into a "See you tomorrow night," and a cheerful wave; and failed.

By Monday afternoon, following a morning wasted with the police, James didn’t know what the hell to do. He and Warren were told that no investigation was possible without Dwight's cooperation, and his doctors forbade anyone to question him. But couldn't the police make preliminary inquiries? Not without Adam's photograph or a curriculum vitae, said the police. Adam

Warshinsky? Was that the correct spelling? A short man, older than Dwight, with an accent and a slight stoop. Dwight’s office manager told James had that Adam had left the firm almost a month ago. No one seemed to know where he went, or how he’d made away with the firm’s money.

Why had Dwight waited to take his life, his brothers wondered? Maybe he’d brooded the weeks since Adam disappeared until his anger reached such a pitch that someone had to pay. That someone being himself. Dwight had broken down once before, after Charlie's death. Had he ever fully recovered? James said humbly that he knew nothing about mental illness. Warren said he’d lend him several books, and James wondered if Warren had acquired them when, without notice,

Diana left Warren for that crazy French count.

259 “Nobody asks anyone in this family how we feel, except for Mother,” James exploded.

“What good would it do?” Warren asked in his neutral surgeon’s voice.

“That’s like something Dwight would say,” James said angrily. “Instead, we might try to

imagine the hell Dwight lives in.”

“Perhaps so,” Warren said. “As long as we’re not drawn into it.”

Walking north from the subway exit toward the SBCCU, James realized that his lips were

soundlessly saying Oh, shit, oh shit over and over again. On the next block an obstruction filled the sidewalk, a dead refrigerator that the sanitation department might collect some day. The refrigerator door had been left on.

SHIT. Some little kid would become curious, climb in, his friends shut the door, the kid smother to death. That happened, among more news-worthy deaths in this neighborhood. James found a section of iron pipe lying in the gutter. He beat at the hinges that held the refrigerator door in place, his hands ringing painfully from the reverberations of metal on metal. The top hinge finally came loose so that the door would not shut tight. It was the best James could do. He was late for rehearsal.

Antony was later still. If it hadn't been the last week of rehearsals, James would have thrown him out of the play. Antony insisted upon giving James a summary of The Three Sisters,

which James had told his class to watch on TV. "Lotta time they don't look at the person talking,

either, James," Antony concluded righteously. "They be looking at the floor or out the winda."

"Did you enjoy the play?"

"Seemed kinda dumb. Why dint those broads thumb a ride to Moscow? I like J.C. better."

It took James a moment to realize that Antony meant Julius Caesar, not Jesus Christ.

260 The rest of the cast slowly drifted in. They ate potato chips and Snickers bars, chewed gum, lit cigarettes, and littered the stage with their leavings. In September the kids had been mute, sluggish and shy. They came to his night classes because somebody said if you got into college you wouldn't go to `Nam. It was possible that James had challenged them - challenge being this year's educational buzz word - altogether too much. Now they called him James, not teacher, and felt free to interrupt. Any time.

"Are you all deaf? I told you not to smoke." James gestured to the papers, pop cans, cigarette butts. "Pick that crap up. Pick it up now."

They picked it up.

"Everyone who's not in Act One, Scenes One and Two, go to the back of the gym and study your vocabulary lists. Also tomorrow’s math assignment. You guys are a disgrace. The highest mark on Wednesday's math test was sixty nine."

James bore down on his actors all evening. He withheld praise, although Caesar's death went without a hitch and Antony remembered his lines.

"Shit, man, what got into you?" Antony asked James when the rehearsal was over.

"Johnson saying on the TV he don't wanna be President again?"

"Like that was the opposite of what Caesar goin' to do? Johnson ain't going to be Emperor now," said the boy playing Caesar.

Now and then, James felt repaid.

Late on the afternoon of April 4th, Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis.

261 James had scheduled the dress rehearsal for April 5. By the time he arrived, after another unsatisfactory visit to Dwight at St. Luke's, the actors were in costume. James lined up the cast at the front of the stage. He said that they should dedicate the dress rehearsal to the memory of Martin

Luther King, Jr. That's what you did when somebody great died. And you gave one hell of a performance. He watched from the back of the auditorium. The actors occasionally forgot to look at one another, and now and then Brutus mumbled, but it was a play. James felt as proud as any father.

At the beginning of Act Five, the Reverend Amos Depuy and the SBCCU Director, Norman

Slate, entered the auditorium and walked portentously past James to the stage. They told James's actors to stop. The stage was needed to rehearse a memorial service for Dr. King.

"Wait, will you?" James charged down on them. "At least, let us finish the dress rehearsal."

Amos nodded. The two men sat down on folding chairs up front. James returned to the back of the auditorium.

The play ended. The only person clapping was James as he came forward to congratulate his actors..

"Didn't you feel something?” James said to Amos and Norman. “Weren't you moved by

`His life was gentle, and the elements/So mixed in him that nature might stand up/And say to all the world, this was a man!'"

"James, didn’t you hear us. Your play is cancelled. We only got the one stage. If we don't be paying recognition to the Reverend King's passing this Community Center and my church gonna be trashed." Amos was so worked up he’d lapsed into Black English.

"O.K., O.K. We'll postpone the performance a couple of weeks," James said.

"No, it's cancelled," said Norman Slate calmly. "James, it simply isn't relevant."

262 "Would you have let us perform Julius Caesar if I had translated it into Black English?"

"No, not even then," Amos said majestically.

That weekend, shops near the SBCCU were looted. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! was scrawled over subway entrances and boarded-up buildings, on fences and walls, interleaved with fuck whitey and Screw the Mayor.

The next Monday on his way to class, James noticed a police car, a rarity in the South

Bronx, parked near the subway exit. Otherwise, the streets were deserted. He made his way toward the SBCCU over broken glass, shattered boards, garbage, shredded papers. The air smelled of burning.

James had spent another leaden hour with Dwight yesterday. Dwight, the civil libertarian, hadn't reacted to James's monologue about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He refused to listen to James's account of riots in the South Bronx and Harlem. When James tuned into a TV news program which showed Sunday services across the nation in memory of Dr. King, Dwight snapped the set off.

How could he touch Dwight? Should James describe his depression after Rosie had gone?

It's the unlifting gloom, James would say, the sense of unworthiness, the conviction that nothing will be right again. But I got over it, James would tell his brother, and so will you. You'll build up your firm again, overwork, and be so tired you'll feel better.

But would he? Dwight lugged the entire transcript of his life along with him. He could name each person who had jeered at his choice of Bard College over Harvard University. Dwight would not speak to former friends who had criticized his CO status. This much James and Warren

263 understood: Dwight’s impossibly high standards for himself had made him decide that, bankrupt through no fault of his own, he must choose suicide.

Now walking toward the SBCCU, James wondered how anyone could choose to die. The closest James had come to death was flying over Nagasaki a month after the war ended. He might tell Dwight about that. A Navy pilot had taken James up on a sightseeing flight, in exchange for a bottle of Scotch and a Japanese sword. The pilot had shown off by flying upside down. James, close to wetting his pants, found the glaring sky preferable to looking down at miles of rubble. And

Dwight might like to hear how James had changed his mind about the dropping of the two atom bombs. What had looked like deliverance at the time had been a wrongness so enormous you couldn't encompass it even twenty three years later….

"Get the man!" James was tripped. He stumbled, caught his balance, faced three boys before he was slugged again. For a sickening moment James mistook one of them for Antony.

"What the motha-fucka doing here?"

James dodged a karate chop.

"Ass-hole won't be back again." A punch landed solidly on James's nose, jarring his head backward. The pain made his eyes pour tears; it also pumped adrenalin. James sprinted toward the subway entrance, praying the cops were still parked there.

"Whitey gonna get away."

"No way, man."

Something solid whizzed by James's head. He ran faster. One block. Two blocks. No sign of the police car. A flying tackle brought him down, shoulder-first: instant, screaming pain. A lucky kick freed him from his tormenter. He staggered toward the subway. They jumped him again, half a

264 block later. As he put his arms protectively over his head, James heard the music of a police siren.

When he hauled himself upright he was alone.

"What the fuck you doing up here in the middle of the riots?" one policeman yelled at

James.

"I work nights at the SBCCU," James said through the blood in his mouth.

"This week you don't, buddy. Not until things quiet down. Get in; they messed you up real good."

It would give James something to tell Dwight on his next visit, how James went to the emergency room of Beth Israel Hospital in a screaming police car. Oh, no, hell no. The ambulance siren must have ululated for Dwight the night of his suicide attempt.

Whites were enjoined to stay out of the South Bronx until the riots ended. But every last white board member and volunteer were present at the SBCCU’s memorial service for Dr. King.

The stage of the auditorium was draped in black. At its back hung an enlarged photograph of

Martin Luther King, Jr. After a rendition of "Precious Lord" by the steel band, Rodman Stubbs gave the eulogy. "Something terrible has been unleashed on America by this foul act of assassination. But we must honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and resist the violence that exploded with the news of his death. We must listen to his words, and follow down the path of peaceful protest that he led us."

However, the brief time of Thoreau, Satyagraha and the brotherhood of man had ended with the death of Dr. King, James reflected, trying not to move his taped shoulder.

265 Chapter Twenty

November, 1969-70

Although he was in New York on an art-buying trip, Andrew Becker refused to accompany

Olivia to the memorial service for Dr. King at the SBCCU.

"Will you come for me, then?" Olivia asked.

"You'll have plenty of friends there to protect you."

"Andy, that's not what I meant."

"You want me to join you in guilt? Sorry, kid, I don't feel guilty. And I don't like my

emotions manipulated."

After a hostile pause on Olivia’s part, Andrew said: "I've bought the work of black artists,

but I don't buy this `Black is beautiful' crap. Each specimen of mankind is beautiful or not - mostly not - and no entire race is, for sure.

"I'm for anything that enhances self-respect." Olivia slammed down the phone.

By way of apology, she sent him Gunnar Myrdal's monumental work; when it was not acknowledged, she mailed off The Mind of the South, followed by The Invisible Man.

Andy wrote two weeks later to tell her that he'd given the books to his local library.

He'd read them when they were first published. It was up to her if they met again.

She capitulated, and telephoned him in Albuquerque.

Their friendship, attraction, or what you will, continued smoothly until the fall of 1969, when one week went by, then two, and still Andy didn't telephone. On his last visit to New York,

Olivia had dragged him to the Wadsworths' for a full-scale family Sunday lunch. It had been,

266 mostly, good-humored, but very very loud. Susanna had begun it by attacking her father for his

opposition to the Harvard student uprising and strike last spring.

"We've fought this battle for six months, now, Suse," Malcolm had said temperately. "I

won't condone illegal acts, even for the purest of motives. You say you plan to be a lawyer. Yet

much of what went on last spring was in violation of the Constitution of the United States."

"Dad, really, don't be so...."

He raised his hand. "Hold on, Suse, let me finish. If you succeed in undermining the

Constitution and the Bill of Rights you will discover that you have lost your right to protest the war, let alone practice law."

"But, sir, Susanna and I were there when the pigs...."

"Ned," said Malcolm pleasantly to Susanna'as new boy friend, "I am not `sir,' and the police are not `pigs.' I understand that you also hope to be a lawyer. As I just reminded Suse, a lawyer gets his facts straight....Colum, what do you think?"

The Town Meeting of the Dining Room continued through the main course, dessert and coffee, contrasting the New York City teachers' strike with campus disruption (Malcolm's phrase), weighing the advisability (Helen) of decentralizing the public schools into 32 districts, touching on draft numbers, Woodstock, the terrible futility of the war in Vietnam, and the upcoming MOBE - the huge anti-war demonstration planned for November 14 in Washington, D. C.

"Pretty heavy stuff with the roast beef and mashed potatoes," Andy observed when he and

Olivia were alone. "Didn't you find their anti-war holiness a tad smug?"

It was Andy's use of “their” which made her say sharply: "No, I don't. And two of your three boys are draft age."

"Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Olivia."

267 She had not had so much as a post card from Andrew Becker since.

An invitation from Diana to a backers' audition for a new Broadway musical gave Olivia an excuse to call Albuquerque. "Andy, if you've never been to one of these things, it's a quintessential

New York experience."

After what seemed like several minutes, Andy said, "Okay, I'll come.” His voice sounded obstructed. “But remember Annie Get Your Gun: Big Chief say, `Never put money in show business.' What’s the musical about?"

"It’s based on the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. You remember Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

Around the end of the first act, I'll bet you that the actor playing Abe Lincoln will say to Harriet,

`And this is the little lady who wrote the book which started a great big war.' Or words to that effect."

Andy was quiet. Then he cleared his voice. "That wasn't on my Great Books list. What time does Diana want us there?"

"Around five. However, I'll have to leave afterwards for a board meeting at the South Bronx

Community Center Union."

Since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. board members of the SBCCU had sat by race at their monthly meetings: whites clumped on the left, blacks in the middle, then the two West

Indians, the Hispanics at the far right; each group separated by an empty chair.

James took his usual seat near the middle. Tonight, because of item ten on the agenda, the board meeting would play to an audience. The noise level rose as more folding chairs were set up to accommodate late arrivals.

268 Tonight, Rodman being absent, Amos Depuy sat at stage center. Beyond an empty chair to

Amos's right, was Del Ray Howard, the brother from the Islands. Judge Kathryn Maxwell sat next to Amos, then Betty Richards, a social worker, and William Norris, the former director of the

SBCCU, now with the Ford Foundation. On James's left was Father Denis Cassidy and beyond him, breaking color ranks, Dr. Herbert Swords lowered himself into a chair. Norman Slate, the paid director, and Jesus Fernandez, his assistant, took the seats at the far right.

While they waited for the meeting to begin, Father Cassidy and James discussed the controversial item ten, a proposal to double the number of board members. One reason that the

SBCCU had been successful, James argued, was that the Center had begun as a local South Bronx operation, and many of the original directors were still on the board. Outsiders would be indifferent to the special needs of the South Bronx. (James meant that outsiders might mishandle or appropriate Federal anti-poverty funds now pouring in to the Center.)

"Will you vote against increasing the board?" Father Cassidy asked James.

"Yes. And then resign. All power to the people."

Father Cassidy sighed. "I hope they'll use it effectively....I'm resigning, as well."

Samuel Barker and then Juan Alvarez arrived to make a quorum.

As Amos brought the meeting to order, James noticed that the balcony in the rear of the auditorium had also filled with spectators. Then he saw Helen come in a side door and slip into an empty seat at the end of the front row.

Amos gave the invocation, appealing to the Almighty to guide the board toward wisdom and consensus. "A - men," mumbled the board members. "A - MEN," said several hundred onlookers.

269 For the first hour the meeting ambled through the agenda. Amos invited comments and

tolerated digressions. James commented on item six: the number of loans to small businesses had

not increased, although the board had voted to double the amount last summer. Amos asked Samuel

Barker to look into it. On item seven, James continued his role as pain-in-the-ass. The 600 School affiliated with the Center, was now funded by a public education group. Its treasurer had twice requested an accounting. If it was not forthcoming, the SBCCU would lose its grant. Norman Slate responded huffily that this was not the board's territory.

"About item eight." Juan Alvarez asked for the microphone. “Hispanic children are not represented on the SBCCU sports teams or on the steel band in proportion to their numbers at the

Community Center.” He extolled the dignity of the Spanish race, the ability of the Spanish people, and the noble history of the Spanish culture. James, who had heard the speech before, tuned out.

Andrew Becker and Olivia Underhill were the first guests to arrive at Diana Morgan’s apartment. Diana greeted them effusively - she loved, she said, playing Cupid to others, three-time loser though she was. She served up champagne and caviar and several distinguished (Olivia was not told for what) good friends. Then the twenty five or thirty potential backers took their seats around the periphery of Diana's blue and gold Louis Seize drawing room and the run-through began. The pianist played the overture, a medley of faintly familiar tunes. Next a young woman gotten up as Harriet Beecher Stowe sang of her feverish intoxication while writing Uncle Tom's

Cabin.

Olivia wondered what Andrew made of the limp tunes and Basic-English lyrics. Was this how he looked when he made million-dollar real estate deals? Impossible to guess the thoughts behind that impassive, tanned face. For example, what was his opinion of Olivia Underhill?

270 What, for that matter, did Olivia think of him? He was intelligent as well as smart; he never bored her. She felt safe under the umbrella of his absolute certainty. She suspected that this came partly from being self-made, partly from overcoming new challenges, of which, Olivia imagined, she was one.

Abbott, who was jealous, dismissed Andy as "Olivia's breezy little cowboy." ‘Little’ only next to Lippincotts. Breezy? Andy spoke his mind, ignoring the thousand rigorous judgments with which New Yorkers ruled - so they believed - the intellectual and artistic life of the country.

Cowboy? He owned a ranch, rode horseback and could rope and throw a calf. But cowboys rarely teach their sons chess, collect art, or read a book a week. Did his money increase Olivia's fine opinion of him? Perhaps. But it counted for more that he never traded on it. Sex? Splendid! Love?

Yes. Love forever, the adolescent girl reborn in Olivia demanded to know? As much as Frank? She refused to answer. She loved Andrew Becker sufficiently, and that would have to do.

Juan Alvarez finished his peroration. He passed the microphone back. From the auditorium came shouts demanding Alvarez's removal from the SBCCU board.

Amos Depuy, six feet three and 280 pounds, rose to his feet and called for order. Not that

Amos and Juan Alvarez got on, but their differences weren't at issue here. Tonight - James had seen it coming for months - would be dedicated to Get Whitey. The stage lights illuminated Amos’s beautiful blue-black skin. He stretched out his arms as though calming turbulent seas. When the auditorium quieted down, he announced the next item on the agenda.

The microphone was handed along to Del Ray Howard. He read the report of the SBCCU investment committee, recommending that the Center buy into a West Virginia TV station.

"Why West Virginia?" James asked. "Shouldn't we invest closer to Harlem and the Bronx?"

271 "The West Virginia station meets our guide-lines,” he said in his BBC diction. “It's run by a bi-racial staff and reaches both the black and white communities."

From the second row: "Who paid you to send our money down there?"

" “If you argue ad hominem we won't reach an honest..."

"Cut the fancy shit; you black like the rest of us."

The board voted to invest in the West Virginia station.

Everyone took a stretch.

Amos called the meeting to order. He read item ten in his rolling preacher's voice: "It is

proposed that the by-laws of the South Bronx Community Center Union be amended to double the

present number of board members to thirty six directors, instead of the present eighteen, this

election to take place on December the tenth."

The audience erupted. banners cascaded down the balcony railings: COMMUNITY

CONTROL and ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE and Racists Out of the South Bronx. Cheers.

Whistles. Clapping. Feet stamping. Yells, which coalesced into a deafening chant of

"COMMUNITY CONTROL!" Above the sweat and cigarette smoke and stale gym shoes James

smelled the stink of mob hysteria.

Amos Depuy remained standing. He did not so much conduct as tolerantly permit the

demonstration to go on, and on, until at last it flagged, faltered, and subsided. He asked everyone to

resume their seats.

When the auditorium was once more quiet, he spoke: "Two board members who could not

be with us tonight sent in proxies. Rodman Stubbs voted against item ten. He enclosed this

statement: ‘It is imperative that I be at a hearing in Albany tonight, or I would be there in person to

argue against this proposal. It is clear to me that by increasing the number of directors, the Center

272 will weaken its capacity for leadership. If item ten passes, I submit my resignation as chairman of

the board of the SBCCU."

Someone shouted: "Who need that Oreo?"

And what kind of cookie would they call James - white on the outside, black-hearted within? - after he'd voted against the measure, resigned, and sat down to prolonged booing. He knew that the auditorium would be packed with supporters of item ten. But he hadn't expected to be so vulnerable to the verbal stoning that followed the booing. "White scum," "Traitor," "Racist", yelled the parents of kids he'd tutored, staff members he'd played softball with, and even some of his adult students.

James glared stonily back.

The voting on item ten continued. Each director's vote received rapturous applause, or negative cat-calls. How could the radio announcer who woke James every morning assert that New

York was "The city of opportunity where nearly eight million people lived in peace and harmony and enjoy the benefits of democracy" without gagging?

Harriet Beecher Stowe was greeted by President Abe Lincoln, rewarded with a burst of

song, “So this is the little woman/who started the great big war.” And then mercifully Diana

announced that there would be an intermission.

Olivia looked around for her coat. "Andy, I’m afraid I’ve got to go. I promised Helen I'd be

at the SBCCU board meeting."

"No, you’re not," Andy said, "I'm going to take you out to dinner. You can't make me fly

back to Albuquerque hungry."

"You came to New York just for this backers' audition?"

273 "I came to see you."

Andy’s expression was entirely new to her - uncertain, hopeful, yearning. She looked at her

watch. By the time she reached the SBCCU the meeting would be almost over. "Let me cook you

something at home, after the show ends," Olivia said.

The vote on item ten was tied, with Samuel Barker abstaining.

"Mrs. Wadsworth?" Amos came to the edge of the stage and handed the microphone down

to Helen. She grasped the microphone firmly: "My husband, Malcolm Wadsworth, had to stay in

Washington to address the peace march - the Moratorium." Also to watch over Susanna and her boyfriend Ned, Colum and Stephen Underhill, all of whom had cut school or college to be there.

"As you know, Congressman Wadsworth has been a leader in the movement to end the war in

Vietnam."

"And who fight that war?" came the yell, "our people!"

"However, Congressman Wadsworth asked me to bring his proxy to the meeting." It had been Helen's idea to be present and show solidarity with the new active community spirit. "He supports the agenda, including item ten, the proposal to increase the board."

Helen remained standing through the shower of whistles, catcalls, cheers, and clapping.

Amos held out his arms for silence. "The motion has been carried. I will now read the

proposed slate for the enlarged board, which we will vote on at next month's meeting."

As he went down the list - "Civic leaders we are proud to involve in the growth of the

SBBCU" - James noticed that the names of board members like Olivia who had not been present

and not sent proxies were missing.

Amos folded the sheet of paper. He pronounced "this historic meeting" adjourned.

274 "Wait, please wait," Helen called out. "I would like to add something to what has already been said."

Amos bowed his head graciously and handed the microphone back. But he did not, James noticed, stop the exodus from the balcony and back of the auditorium.

Helen raised her voice trying to be heard over people talking and the sharp cracks of folding chairs being closed and stacked.

"I have been involved with the SBBCU from the very beginning, when it was only a small adjunct to the Reverend Depuy's church. I would like to urge the new expanded board to spend the

Federal funds the Center receives, rather than stockpiling the...."

From the third row: "You wanna give advice, lady, you come live up here."

Helen persevered: “Too many of the Center's projects have been on hold, although the funds to implement them...."

"Who give a fuck what you think?"

Amos boomed out: "Anyone is welcome to speak if he follows the rules. When you have a question, raise your hand and wait to be called upon."

James noticed how skillfully Amos suggested that Helen was the white teacher they had to ask permission from to go to the bathroom.

Helen soldiered on. "The South Bronx Community Center Union is a union of New

Yorkers, no matter what their color or religion or place of origin. It must always welcome newcomers." James knew she was referring to the influx of Haitians who had brought their own problems of language and lack of training. "And as our country has always been, so must the

SBCCU continue: a refuge for all. Thank you."

275 Helen had brought her car. She offered Judge Maxwell and Dr. Swords a ride home, oh, and

James, too. Dr. Swords lived on Sugar Hill. James supported him up the steps and helped him find

his keys. "I dunno, James, integration - separation - reverse discrimination. I voted with the rest tonight, but I don't know what to make of it, or where we're going." James escorted Kathryn

Maxwell to her apartment house front door. "James, I'm here to tell you that the SBCCU is in for troubled times."

James repeated both comments to Helen. He could tell by the nervous alertness of her driving that she was still upset by the unexpected abuse she'd received at the meeting.

"You haven't seen my new place," he said when they'd arrived. It was the eighth apartment

he'd lived in since he and Rose split up. It was on Lexington Avenue, near the Labor College and a

subway stop. Otherwise it had no more charm than its predecessors.

Helen turned off the motor.

"Would you like to come up? I could give you a beer and a couple of fried eggs."

"No, thank you. I had something to eat at home....James, you might as well know I'm

shocked that you voted against enlarging the board. I've heard you say, over and over again, let's

decentralize, let the local people take charge of their streets and schools and housing projects and

parks. But now we've involved the community in the SBCCU - just look at the turn-out at the

meeting tonight! - you vote against them and resign!"

"Community? Didn't you listen to the addresses of the new board members. None of them live in the Bronx. Ever hear the expression `Feed the horses so the birds may eat?' What you, as

Malcolm's proxy, voted in tonight are scavenger crows."

"I couldn't disagree with you more!"

"Helen, be warned by the way you were interrupted tonight."

276 "It certainly wasn't polite, but I didn't take it personally. In fact, it shows that we've really

done our job, and people feel free to speak their minds."

James got out of the car. "Helen, that new board will shut down your People Park within six months."

"Never!" she lowered her voice. "They can't. It's independently funded."

"The board of directors has jurisdiction over all the SBCCU's programs. Didn't Malcolm bother to tell you that? Thanks for the ride. Good night." James slammed the car door shut.

Up the four flights of stairs to his rooms he mumbled angrily to himself. Why wouldn't

Helen admit that greed ran the world? When would she notice the way things were? Helen undoubtedly thought that the teen age prostitutes on Lexington Avenue, in their tights, hot pants and fake furs, were high school girls on the way to the local movie house.

Andy insisted on taking Olivia to the Oak Room at the Plaza. He had nothing against her cooking, but he felt like celebrating.

"Celebrating what?"

"Being out and around. I've had bronchitis."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I lost my voice for almost three weeks.”.

“I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I’d have flown out and taken care of you.”

“And come down with bronchitis, too?” Andy stopped the car in front of the main entrance to the Plaza, and turned his keys over to the parking attendant.

"Are you sure they’ll let us in without a reservation?" Olivia meant: dressed as he was in his rawhide and turquoise neck thing and a plaid Western shirt.

277 "They have before."

As the cab pulled up at the Plaza Hotel, Olivia said, "I wonder what happened at the

meeting tonight."

But that was all the thought she expended on it. Andy proposed to Olivia even before the

Dom Perignon arrived; and was accepted.

Amos Depuy called Helen after the December board meeting to tell her that the newly elected board had abolished the People Park. Amos sounded genuinely sorry.

Helen hung up and burst into tears. She was still crying fifteen minutes later when Malcolm telephoned from Washington about something else. "Good God, Helen is one of the children...."

Helen shook her head - not that Malcolm could see her. “No. It’s…She blew her nose. At last she managed to speak: "The Park will be closed down the first of the year. I mind most for the regulars who have no other place to go: Cora, who's so sweet with old Maurice Goode, and Crazy

Jane." Helen had named this woman Crazy Jane out of the Yeats poems, because the woman talked her past life aloud, and a rich topic she made of it. "Louise, do you remember my telling you how

Louise played the piano for hours. She said it was the only thing that calmed her down. And the boys in the woodworking class - they won't have time to finish the legs on their stools."

She wept for those stools while Malcolm waited patiently at the other end of the line.

"And the little girls who fight for their turn to feed the fish." But the fish had died, Helen reminded

herself. As she fought to control her weeping, Helen admitted to herself that these past months she

had been physically holding the People Park together by her presence. It had felt - she knew by the

ache in her back and the weariness in her head each evening - like the week she and Malcolm and

278 spent in the Soviet Union, being constantly on guard against doing something you didn't know

offended. "I've made such an awful failure."

"It seems to me, darling, that it's the SBCCU's loss. It's like being a parent: you did the best

you could - you were wonderful - but it didn't work out." Malcolm added cheerfully, "Now it's up to the new board to show their stuff."

Like the People Park, James's adult literacy courses and the college-bound program at the

SBCCU were cancelled. These days James kept up with the Center by reading the Amsterdam

News. January had been "Black Heritage Month" at the Center. The SBCCU's Remembrance

Service for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was featured on television. In February, the Center's steel band, which James had organized years before, won a state-wide competition.

News of the South Bronx also came through kids referred to James by former students or by

Bronx high school teachers. Three or four boys crowded into his living room on Tuesdays and

Thursday nights. Some were working toward a high school equivalency certificate, others towards raising their SAT scores. Each new boy asked, "Hey, Teach, what's that pitcher on the wall?"

It was a cartoon "Antony" had drawn of James as Jesus Christ on a bicycle.

By the end of February, Helen had found an excuse to call James. Helen had heard that

Dwight was now undertaking small remodeling jobs. Helen's overworked kitchen had not been refurbished in twelve years. Naturally she called James first to ask his advice.

"Helen, that is kind of you. I should warn you: Dwight does terrific work, but he is very slow."

279 "The quality of the work is what matters to me." Helen didn't feel that they'd finished their

conversation. "I should have asked how you were, first."

"Fine. The second edition of my adult literacy manual is in galleys and I've bought a shack

in Maine."

"That's marvelous!" For the first time James heard the warm enthusiasm that made Helen's

voice so irresistible.

"Helen, I'm sorry about your People Park. You do know that when I said the board would shut it down, I hoped that they wouldn't?"

"Yes, I realize that, now."

"Want to have lunch some time?" But neither of them, it turned out, had a free moment until the middle of March.

These days Helen joked that she saw more of Dwight Lippincott than Malcolm. She and

Dwight shopped for tiles, visited wholesale outlets for cabinets, discussed the latest in appliances, and were united in a choice for a hardwood floor. Often they ate lunch together in the torn-apart kitchen. Helen discussed the failure of her People Park because it was what was most on her mind.

She had had, like Martin Luther King, Jr., in a modest way, a dream, a dream of a place where happiness might be found, for a few hours, at least. Nice work if you can get it, said Dwight.

Instead, Helen realized now, she had made a memorial to Carlie, in Carlie's image: a kindergarten for all ages. (She did not tell Dwight, and not even Malcolm was ever to know, that she had spent nearly $180,000 from accrued trust income on her project.) Helen had envisioned one large extended family, where "little birds in their nests agree," where you could go from listening to

280 music to weaving, art, carpentry, and silk-screening placemats. Nothing wrong with that picture,

Dwight commented in his rapid, uninflected voice.

No, her concept was flawed, said Helen. Nothing has value without discipline, as she nagged her own children with tiresome frequency. At the People Park she had pretended that anything a person made was wonderful; which was plain not true. Helen had eliminated competition but she should have stressed that a person competes with himself toward improvement.

Half the arts and crafts weren't even finished.

Dwight surprised Helen by asking her if she'd wanted the people who used the Park to thank her? "I don't mean to offend you, Helen, but wasn't it an ego trip to do so much for people? And afterward didn’t you feel you'd done entirely too much?"

Helen laughed. "No, I didn't want gratitude. And if the Park began as an ego trip, it quickly stopped being that. It was too much work! I didn't realize how tired I was until the board pulled the rug out from underneath me." Helen sighed. "With hindsight I think all we accomplished was several dozen very thick water glasses, cut from empty bottles, and placemats that ran when you washed them."

Dwight made no comment.

The following month Helen went in Malcolm's place to speak at a peace rally in Central

Park. She took Dwight with her. As they approached the speakers' platform, Helen grasped a shadow of the terror Dwight endured. The crowd made him uneasy, then frantic. “See you tomorrow, Helen,” he muttered and began pushing, elbowing against the gathering crowd, in a panic, Dwight who hated to touch, or be touched by another human being.

281 That spring Malcolm announced that he would not seek reelection. He believed that he

could be more effective in his quest to end the war in Southeast Asia by speaking directly to the

nation. As the Washington Post editorialized: "Mr. Wadsworth's credentials are impeccable. He was one of the few to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and one of the first to vote against military appropriations." Malcolm designated Rodman Stubbs's nephew, Henry Moses, now a State

Representative, to run in his place.

Malcolm crisscrossed the United States, speaking at college graduations, university

colloquiums, peace marches and demonstrations. His following increased among middle-class kids because he did not remind them of their fathers. Malcolm received wide coverage from the media.

He became well-known for taking on self-styled patriots on TV talk shows. As The New York

Times wrote: "This still young" - he appeared years younger than forty eight - "four-time

Congressman has sacrificed certain reelection to go among the American people and listen to its deeply-troubled youth and anguished citizens."

As he stood on a variety of platforms, at street corners, in stadiums and TV studios,

Malcolm was also bombarded by questions about Black Studies, the Women's Movement, armed students invading college buildings, construction workers beating up unarmed protesters. Malcolm fielded these questions skillfully. He had a disarming way of sympathizing without committing himself. "Complicated," "ambiguous," and "deeply-wrenching decisions," were phrases he frequently used. Malcolm was even better on "Non-negotiable demands."

He had honed his arguments around the family dinner table, "Kids, you have your non- negotiable agenda; I have mine. We meet, we holler at one another, we part; nothing has changed, not one thing. Suppose you restate your demands and I'll have a go at mine, and then we might make progress."

282 At one of those Wadsworth Sunday lunches, Olivia had furnished Malcolm with lines he

adapted to his speeches: "`From where I stand' sounds dispassionate, even magisterial, but what the

speaker really means is, `I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal.' Now, here I stand,

no longer on Capitol Hill but on any platform that'll have me, a father with two draft-age sons, a man of no importance who believes that its citizens still count in this flawed democracy of ours."

Not all its citizens, Helen discovered accompanying Malcolm on several speaking tours, agreed with Malcolm. His patent sincerity put off members of his party as well as Republican office holders. One right-wing newspaper columnist castigated him thus: “The time and place for a

‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’” – referring to an old Jimmy Stewart movie – “has come and gone. Malcolm Wadsworth is effective as a politician, but ridiculous as an idealist.” Helen restrained herself from calling up the columnist up and give him what for! She was so proud of

Malcolm.

Both she and Malcolm regretted that an educational conference would keep her from going with him to the far West.

283 PART FOUR

Chapter Twenty-one

April, 1971

Educators make almost as much racket as politicians, Helen decided the first morning of her

four-day conference, EDUCATION IN THE 1970s: NEW STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE.

She had registered, pinned on her name tag, and was moving toward the coffee urn in the reception

room when James Lippincott said, "Hello, Helen."

"Jolly, what on earth are you doing here?" She had almost not recognized him. He was wearing a suit, a shirt and tie instead of his usual turtleneck and jeans and his hair was Navy-short.

"I'm running two workshops on adult literacy." James hadn't seen much of the Wadsworths

in the last year. Malcolm was touring the country speaking at antiwar rallies, and Helen had

enrolled full-time at the Bank Street College of Education. "Are you cutting classes this week?"

"My adviser sent me. She suggested I sign up for the workshops on the open classroom and

on learning disorders. But I can chose the rest of the workshops, and I plan on taking yours."

"Don't bother. You've heard me go on about my subject often enough. But I am delighted to see you – to see a real person here." James filled her coffee cup, and then his own. "Are you ready for the numbing effect of academic jargon?"

"I'm learning. ‘Socialization skills' means not puddling on the floor; and what you give `the culturally deprived child' is `compensatory education' - which has something to do with enabling

`the whole child' to have an `enhanced self-image.'"

"You've got it." James grinned. "Now forget it."

284 In the half hour before the P.A. system summoned them into the Hilton ballroom for the opening session, several people came up to James to praise his book and to express interest in his workshops. Helen was even more impressed when the luncheon speaker referred to James as "Our leading authority on learning-challenged students in later life."

After luncheon Helen returned to her room on the fourteenth floor. It felt odd, but not unpleasant, to be occupying a single room. The room's two windows looked out on walls and other windows but nothing, except the clothes she'd unpacked this morning, was her responsibility here.

She lay down on the narrow bed for a brief nap. Was Malcolm, still airborne, also sleeping?

His hectic itinerary for the next two weeks included Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles,

Tucson, Dallas, and Denver. And last night, a lovely night, they hadn't banked much sleep. She set her clock for twenty minutes and promptly fell asleep

Her workshops that afternoon were: "The Head Start Program and the Inner City Child," followed by "Tests, I. Q., and Standard Deviation," given by a lean, intense man from the Harvard

School of Education. Most of her fellow students were professional educators, there to challenge the speakers rather than docilely to feed. The man next to Helen in the second workshop worked for the Educational Testing Service; he held a low opinion of professors. "They're not out there in the trenches," said the man from the E.T.S. The only other person who spoke to Helen at the workshop was Pauline Maxwell, a round, black-skinned woman who taught in an inner-city school in

Philadelphia.

Pauline Maxwell was the first person Helen recognized at the cocktail reception. "I'm curious about you, Helen. You said earlier this afternoon that you had gone back to school to get an

M.A. Do you plan to teach in the public school system?"

285 Helen laughed. "I don't even know if I'll make it through the next term. But if I do, I hope to

help children with learning disorders. I tutored a number of learning-disadvantaged kids at the

South Bronx Community Center Union."

"Is your choice influenced by the tutoring you did there?"

"Yes. But closer to home our second son is dyslexic which I don't have to tell you means

anything from reading b for p to the inability to recognize written words." As Helen spoke, she

could see Ricky as he'd been three years ago, brown head slumped over his homework, rubbing his

nose raw with his sweater sleeve, guessing wildly at each word.

"Ricky was told by each new teacher that if he didn't work harder he'd fail, and of course he

did. His mind would lock shut whenever he tried to read. I read aloud to him and helped him

memorize the important parts. Ricky has always been good at numbers. We made time-lines of

world history together. Where he had trouble reading `Battle of Hastings' the printed date told him

that was the Norman invasion of England. He became the top kid in his class in history. When his

teachers realized that Ricky did know his stuff, their attitude toward him changed and he could,

finally, relax and begin to learn. The school out West, where he is now, has urged him to apply for

college."

"Helen, I like your story. What does your family think about your going back to school full

time?"

"The children are all for it. Even Malcolm's enthusiastic." On his extended speaking

engagements, Malcolm explained his wife's absence with, "Helen has seen the error of her ways as

a housGewife and is working towards an M.A. in education. I look forward to being supported in

my old age."

286 Pauline excused herself to go and telephone her own children. But Helen was not alone for

long.

"Helen, hello!" The Rev. Amos Depuy clasped her hand cordially. "When are you coming

back to the SBCCU? The library needs your attention. Half the books are worn out."

Coming back? What was the French phrase? Laisser Passer. And anyway, Amos had only been the messenger of her disgrace. "Heavens, you don't need me! Ask Carmilla to call the publishers. They'll give the Center discounts on trade books as well as textbooks. Helen turned back to Amos. "But even without the discount, you can afford a new library. Malcolm tells me the finances of the SBCCU have never been in better shape…. Oh, hello James, you’re going to have to explain my workshop on testing."

Amos Depuy’s attention had shifted to someone no doubt more important. “Even more than books, Helen, we need your fine enthusiastic spirit. Now will you pardon me? I must speak to the

Conference Chairman."

“We’re deprived of Amos’s company because of me,” James said. "I told Carmilla to quit enclosing The New Yorker article about your long-gone People Park in fund-raising appeals. A week later Amos wrote a starchy letter telling me to stop harassing the SBCCU staff."

Helen said, "James, I can barely hear you."

It was no quieter in the adjoining hall. James steered them toward a bar at the other end of the hotel. He ordered a sherry for her, a beer for himself.

"How's Mally's peace-now road show going over? He's getting a good press, but what happens after that?"

Helen chose to ignore James's characterization of Malcolm's mission. "He'll keep on as long as he's needed. I would go with him more often, but I don't like to leave Penny that long." Helen

287 smiled. "You might say she's wallowing in early adolescence. And Mother hasn't been well. I don't think it's serious, but she had tests done last week." Helen made a wry face. "I suspect the disease she's come down with is me."

"Christ, why?"

"She's distressed by my going to graduate school. `It must be so very hard on Malcolm.'

She adores Malcolm. As for Mrs. Wadsworth, she's doing her daily best to make me feel guilty."

"Didn't you quote your father on the subject of guilt to me some years back?" James asked.

"I'm surprised you remember. Dad said that guilt was to the conscience as pain was to the body. You examined the cause of the guilt, and if it wasn't valid, you went on your way." Well, she was trying.

"A wise man. I only met him once or twice but I’m sure he’d approve of what you’re doing.” Now, tell me what you've got out of the conference so far."

"I'm in over my head. My first workshop covered the Head Start Program: how a pilot project designed for twenty five hundred poor children expanded to half a million." Helen took a sip of sherry. "One thing about the program bothers me. A staff that big often becomes the reason for the educational program to continue, rather than the children it's supposed to benefit. Do you remember when we tried to remodel the 600 School at the SBCCU and the Board of Education vetoed every plan?"

James nodded. "Helen, I hope you don't..." (How could he put this gently?) "don't have unreasonable hopes for the redemptive powers of education."

"You mean, like my unreasonable expectations for the People Park? No. No longer. I’ve outgrown idealism at last."

288 But wasn’t it Helen who had sent Malcolm off on his Quixotic wild goose chase? Malcolm had been a reasonably effective congressman, and he might, with time, make a good senator. What good was he doing yakking away at heartland America? And mostly talking to the converted – the middle class on both coasts. James told himself it was none of his business.

"To change the subject, what was your second workshop like?"

"That one really made me feel stupid. It was about how I. Q. tests evolved from experience with brain-damaged soldiers after World War One. And how today's sophisticated tests can measure just about anything. As my children would say, I'm in deep trouble. James, what's the difference between a median and a mean?"

He told her. He went on to expatiate on standard deviation, coefficient of variation, correlation coefficients, and variance. "What statistics boil down to is this: a figure can be expressed in a number of ways and, depending on how it's presented, will appear to be a huge problem or a small glitch."

"Thank you, Professor Lippincott."

"Hell, it's only language. Any discipline has its vocabulary, the more arcane the better."

"Jolly?" Helen asked abruptly, "How did you feel that night - the night the old board was voted out at the SBCCU?"

"I felt like the innocent man pushed off the roof."

"I'm sorry, I don't follow you. What roof?"

"One time at the Shamrock Bar Frank Underhill and Malcolm had an argument about liability. Two men were fighting on a roof, when a third man tried to stop them. Because of that interference, the innocent man who had been winning was pushed off the roof. He became a paraplegic as a result. Was the third man liable?"

289 "Heavens, no. Oh, I see, you're the poor victim."

"No, the SBCCU was."

Helen still disagreed, but she no longer felt as certain as she once had. "Isn't that the call to dinner? I suppose we'd better go.”

Late the next afternoon Helen and James returned to the same bar in the hotel.

"Helen, I meant to ask you yesterday, is Dwight out of your kitchen, yet?"

"The work is finished, and paid for. But he's such a conscientious workman, he keeps coming back to put another coat on the floorboards or make sure that the drawers don't stick."

Most of Dwight's contracting jobs had ended in controversy, usually over a bill that was twice the original estimate. "Let me know if he gets to be a nuisance."

"He isn't, truly. In fact, I've given him a new commission to remodel the back room - the little room that used to be Carlie's. I've never had a study of my own. We're putting in French doors to admit more light and shelves for the dozens of books I've already accumulated on remedial education."

"You're an amazingly kind woman, Helen." James had lost several girl friends, thanks to

Dwight. So far Annabel had been tolerant, but she hadn't yet lived through James's involvement in one of Dwight's sick dramas.

The third afternoon of the conference Helen was in her room changing for dinner when

Malcolm telephoned from San Diego. Had Helen checked in with the children? She reassured him that they were fine. How was Porter? Helen said she'd that Porter was back in the hospital but he appeared to be holding his own.

290 Malcolm asked if she'd found his car keys. He had a list of calls he wanted Helen to make.

Helen reassured him about the keys, and jotted down the names to telephone.

"I’m having a wonderful time at this conference. James Lippincott is here. Everyone respects him so for all he has done for adult literacy. I hope to get in to one of his workshops

tomorrow, although they've been oversubscribed." A pause indicated that Malcolm wasn't too

interested in the details of her conference. "Darling, what are you doing for relaxation between

speeches?"

"I brought Bill and Linda along. They're working on material for my next tour, in June. I'm late for the meeting, as it is, Helen, so I better go."

Assuring each other of their love, they said goodbye.

The suspicion that lay below consciousness, that their last night and morning together had

pushed even farther out of sight, surfaced like a rotten log. Once Malcolm had left Congress, and

his staff was severely reduced, Helen had assumed that Linda Dixon was safely gone. (Malcolm's

explanation of Linda's duties had been an airy: "She feeds me books and information, the way

Frank used to.") But she had been rehired last month. For a moment Helen flamed with anger so

extreme she could not see her face in the mirror. Always to be humiliated like this! Belatedly

putting one and one together, while everyone else had long since arrived at two.

Whenever Helen confronted him ("Don't make a scene, dear," her mother's advice from

childhood ringing in her ears), Malcolm explained that he preferred to talk to women because,

unlike most men, they gave him their full attention. As to what Helen heard or read, he reminded

her that gossip columnists were paid to write the worst. How would it have looked, Malcolm asked

her once, if the Post or the Mirror had printed an item that a Congressman's pretty wife had been

caught emerging one hot summer morning from a man's apartment?

291 Helen hadn't known what Malcolm was talking about.

"Remember the August day when you rushed down from the farm because of some stupid

rumor?"

"Yes. Now I do." And Carlie was got and ended, Helen believed then, "all that" forever.

"You were seen leaving James Lippincott's apartment with Jolly, dressed only in a towel,

saying goodbye at the door.

"Oh, my goodness; that was years ago, and it was his parents' apartment, anyway."

"That would hardly stop a newspaper reporter."

Helen had been relieved that he didn't ask why she'd been at the Lippincott's apartment.

Could she have said, I was there to discuss your girl friend? She had been disloyal, the worst crime

of all in Malcolm’s books..

Helen brushed and brushed her hair until her scalp hurt. Now she wondered how Malcolm

had known she was there. The question chilled her.

"Everyone flirts a little," Malcolm had said another time. "You flirt with heads of

foundations when you're fishing for a grant, or a renewal."

"There's a difference between flirtation and adultery."

"Good Lord, Helen, I would never..." He spread his hands wide.

But he had; he did; he would. Friends told her of seeing Malcolm at restaurants and night clubs on days when Malcolm's pocket calendar (Helen had stooped that low) had political dinners or evening conferences penciled in.

Each time she became aware that Malcolm had another girl, Helen endured four stages similar to those alleged to be experienced by the dying. She first denied that the girl existed, then

angrily rejected her importance, next sank into a period of apathy, followed (cravenly!) by partial

292 acceptance of the status quo. Full acceptance, like Marx's classless society, was never completely

achieved.

When she had found out about Nancy Musgrove, Helen felt as though her heart had been

cut out of her living body. Such melodrama was most unlike her, and later Malcolm teased her

about her “Aztec sacrifice.” Later, Carlie's death somehow renewed Malcolm’s license to roam.

Each time he did, even now, the knife cut just as deeply. Wouldn't you think she'd get used to it?

Helen imagined leaving Malcolm. It would be as easy as drafting a letter and packing a

suitcase. She had her own money, and her own future in education – that is, if she didn’t flunk out

of Bank Street. The last three days proved that she wouldn’t mind living alone. But the children!

her heart cried; and her need of loving him! Except for the - oh, call it flirting - Malcolm was a

truly good person; his reputation should not be tarnished by divorce. An absurd argument. These

days, a divorce no more crippled a public figure than his religion or lack of it.

She told herself to stop it, washed her face and hands, grabbed her pocketbook and went

down to meet James in the bar.

The workshop's discussion period had almost ended when Amos Depuy rose to challenge

James's omission of Black English in his adult literacy text book. Amos repeated, at great length,

what he'd said when they'd wrangled over James’s production of Julius Caesar. He concluded by

calling James a racist.

"Amos, my book was written for illiterate Americans, many of whom are not black, and

some of whom are just beginning to learn English. Even if my textbook was aimed at black

functional-illiterates, I would write it in standard English. Is it shorter to hobble from the

intermediate crutch of Black English to the norm of accepted usage, or to begin where you'll end?"

293 "Studies have shown," Amos began, but James's voice was even louder:

"Let me illustrate what I mean. The first piano teacher my brothers and I had was a lady who used a new method of teaching sight reading. Instead of notes, her music books used color- coded bars - `c' was red, as I remember, and a white bar indicated a rest. Of the four of us, only my brother Dwight was responsive to color. He mastered sight reading by color, while the rest of us were still floundering. But a year later when we changed to `real' music, he had much more trouble than we did learning conventional notation."

"What does white boys' piano lessons have to do with education in ghetto schools?"

"What I'm trying to point out, Amos, is: the only way to learn something is to learn it. You may remember that you vetoed bilingual courses at the SBCCU. Spanish, you said, was of no use in an English-speaking nation. `Mainstream,' was the phrase you used. Black English is not the perfect tool for success in a country where the population is only twelve percent black"

Helen sat at their table in the bar, an untouched glass of sherry before her. She wished she had a cigarette. She recalled what Olivia had said many years ago about infidelity - they had been gossiping about Diana. "You never know what you'll do until it happens. It's late, you're tired, you've had too much to drink. When Frank and I have a fight, or when he's worked every night for weeks, I imagine starting an affair. Don't you have fantasies when you're stuck home with the children and Malcolm's in Albany?" Helen said, no, she hadn't. She'd always supposed that men were more interested in affairs than women were. Olivia disagreed: "Men aren't more highly sexed than we are. Sex is just one of the ways they show off."

294 Had Malcolm merely been showing off five nights ago? It had been after midnight when

Helen finally finished their packing and went to bed, leaving Malcolm still on the telephone with

the chairman of the San Francisco symposium where he was the featured speaker next weekend.

"Darling, are you awake?"

Helen flipped onto her back, rising from a dream of swimming underwater, able in her dream to breathe without a mask. She was about to describe the transparent water, the color of melted aquamarines, when his mouth was on hers and they'd embarked before she could say yes or no. Although Yes did not always guarantee her response. Sometimes her mind refused to stop listing tasks to be done tomorrow, and pecked away at unsolved problems.

Still half in her dream, she moved as though swimming and Malcolm adapted himself to her leisurely movements. The phone on the bedside table hiccoughed, then stopped. Malcolm had turned the ring down as far as it would go. For a time Helen watched the tender, watchful

expression on his face, and then she shut her eyes, no longer trying to guess what might please him,

allowing her instinct to lead them as she rose and fell, and rose to meet him, crushing him to her,

bringing him home in her arms, falling, falling weightlessly, and then solidifying once again into

two separate selves, into sleep.

The alarm had gone off at six. Again they made love. Afterwards they dozed, Helen turning

when Malcolm turned for the companionship of similar motion.

But now it seemed to her that the second time Malcolm's ardor had been mechanical, what

he would do for any bitch in heat. For it had been Helen who craved him, importuned him, who

enveloped him with her unwanted passion. I love you, she had cried, over and over, I love you, oh,

I love you. Now she remembered his bemused expression. He must have been wondering why

Helen was carrying on this way.

295 And here she was waiting for another man who no longer loved her, and whose company she had monopolized, as though by prior right, during the entire conference.

"Helen, I'm sorry to be so late." James was out of breath. "I was set upon by Amos Depuy, that self-proclaimed expert on education, social service, blacks, whites, the stock market, pork bellies, foundations, OEO funds, and God the Father, also Son and Holy Ghost. That said, my sympathies are with Amos; it's impossible to be a black leader in 1971 and keep your sanity.”

James looked around for a waiter.

"Jolly, your morning workshop was terrific. I learned more from it than I have from any book I've read on the subject."

"Even mine?" James grinned.

"I could lie and say I've read it - you gave me one of the first copies - but I haven't. I'll get to it next week, though. Malcolm's going to be away until the 15th, and Olivia is in Albuquerque with

Andrew Becker." Helen added: "I wish they'd marry and get it over with."

The last night of the conference, after the final dinner and speeches (during which, James noted, Helen dozed, her head erect, a pleasant expression on her face, her eyelids closed for business) James and Helen returned to the bar.

"What would you like to drink, Jolly? It's my treat."

"Thank you." In educational jargon, James would say that Helen had "gained confidence" during the four days of the conference. She now "felt comfortable in classroom situations," and was no longer deferential to the experts. Her eyes sparkled, her color was high, her dress (for Helen) was quite provocative.

296 The waiter brought their drinks. For almost half an hour James described the work needed

to be done on the second-hand sloop he had bought in Maine. She wondered if James's current girl

friend would accompany him. Helen could not imagine Annabel, dressed in her purple priestess

garments, pulling up a sail.

"You and Mally go cruising every summer, so what I'm describing must sound pretty rinky-

dink....Tell me, was the conference worth your time and money?"

"Yes, it was." Helen sipped her second brandy. She listed the lectures she had learned the

most from, and rated the various speakers. "But Jolly, you were far and away the best speaker of

the conference."

"Well, thanks, Helen." Her enthusiasm made him uncomfortable. "You look nifty in blue.

That's a pretty sexy dress."

Helen's blush was noticeable even in the underwater light of the bar. She should never have worn that awful pointy bra she'd bought in one of the hotel shops!

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"You didn't, really." She smiled, "These days I'm deep in depravity. I even tried smoking a

joint. I wanted to learn why Suse and Colum believe it's okay to smoke marijuana. I smoked it all

the way down and not a thing happened!"

"You don't get high the first time you smoke pot."

"You're teasing!"

"I swear it's the truth."

"Well, I certainly can't hold my liquor. The bar's going round and around." Helen called for the check, rather grandly signed her name and room number, and swayed to her feet.

297 James concluded that he better escort Helen to her room. He grasped her arm firmly and led her to the nearest bank of elevators. When they reached her room she was clumsy with her key. He took it from her and unlocked the door.

"My God, Helen, I know you can afford something better. This room is a cross between a sauna and an anchorite's cell." He opened the window, then shed his jacket and loosened his tie.

"It's awfully quiet." She plunked down on the one chair.

James first sat, then lay back on the bed. "Yup, hard as a New England tombstone."

"Aren't all tombstones hard, no matter which part of the country they...." She trailed off.

James, with his collar open, tie loosened like a sailor's tie, his short haircut, his skin smoothed young by gravity, was the boy she'd danced with twenty five years before. She seemed to be having trouble breathing.

"What's the matter, Helen?"

"Nothing. I'm fine, really. I - I'm just not used to drinking brandy. I had a funny thought when we first came in. When I was at Radcliffe I took map-making because I'd planned to go into the Armed Services."

"I remember," said James.

Helen giggled. "Oh, nuts, I've lost my point, but it has something to do with dimensions - how to represent the round world on a two-dimensional page." How, added the sober core of her mind, to map the depths beneath the deceiving skin.

"That's an interesting question." James stared at the ceiling. "Such as: when does stillness become movement, and is there a transition in between? Or, how each moment is a `now' between

`then' and what's `to come.' It's an enduring dichotomy - how often do you get to use that word? -

298 between the print on the page and the flight of thought; between the written score and the music the orchestra plays." James rambled on for some minutes, hoping that Helen would soon recover.

Half-listening, James's voice providing a ground bass for her thoughts, Helen stared at his transformed young face until she feared her expression would give her away. Behind closed eyes she saw James and herself, their unused life together falling open like a pleated map, fold upon fold, back to the picture of them dancing up Park Avenue at four in the morning. She reeled, although she had both feet flat on the floor, as each new segment of the map revealed fresh scenes from a marriage that would never take place. They were in sailboats, on horseback, out dancing.

This was a strange kind of drunkenness that allowed such multiplicity of detail, down to the words they would speak when they made love. I want, Helen almost moaned aloud, I want you so much I must grab the chair seat with each hand to keep from throwing myself on the bed beside you....Stop it, stop this craziness, this yearning, this agony.

"But I don't feel old," Helen cried aloud, "I don't feel any different than I was then."

James halted in mid-sentence and sat up. Helen was weeping noiselessly, her head thrown back, tears rolling down her cheeks; she might have been weeping from laughter. Had he really been that pretentious? "Helen, what is it?"

She rose and plucked some tissues from a box on the bureau. "I hate it when the tears run into your ears," she said matter-of-factly. And then, in a wondering voice, "Oh, Jolly, can you imagine going back and doing it over again? How you'd live so much more intelligently, or at least make different mistakes? I wish I could...."

The telephone rang. James handed it to her, ringing, as though he, at least, acknowledged the impropriety of her having a man in her room at this hour. Helen hesitated before picking up the receiver. She thought: I am being punished; it's bad news.

299 "Mother! It's nearly midnight," Helen expostulated. "Yes, I'm fine....You couldn't reach me

before because I was at the closing dinner, that's all....Yes, I've talked to the children. Malcolm

called from San Diego and he's....Oh, my dear. You misread the results of the tests. Negative means

you're entirely well." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "This is going to take at least half an

hour, I'm afraid."

Helen appeared to have sobered up. James said goodbye, grabbed his jacket and left. Queer evening, he thought, then put it out of his mind; Annabel was waiting for him at her loft.

Tethered by a short telephone cord, Helen just managed to kick the door shut behind him.

As she let her mother talk out her fears, Helen realized the call had spared the final humiliation of

opening her heart. She would never tell anyone of this brief aberration – not even Olivia who was

far more interested, anyway, in her approaching nuptials. What a horrid word, nuptials!

300

Chapter Twenty-two

March, 1972

The first date set for Olivia and Andrew's wedding had to be cancelled because of Porter

Delafield's timely death. The wedding was postponed again when Andy came down with the flu.

By the time he'd recovered, the ballroom at Helen's club was unavailable and Olivia and Andy argued about where to hold the reception. The ceremony itself, would take place in Olivia's living room, witnessed by their immediate families. Lucy offered her loft; Minna volunteered her club;

Helen hoped they’d use the Wadsworths' apartment; Andy held out for private rooms at the 21

Club.

Second marriages!

They compromised on Lucy's loft, as it was big enough to hold the many guests Olivia wished to invite in addition to Andrew's long list. For two years Olivia had attempted to reconcile

Andy to New York life. (They could visit Albuquerque and the house he'd bought in Santa Barbara during the dull summer months.) She introduced him to acquaintances from her Vogue era, some of whom were now famous and all of whom were entertaining; and where else in the world could you encounter them?

"In Paris, London, Rome, Chicago, Washington, and even Santa Barbara," said Andrew, refusing to be impressed.

They compromised on lawyers. Olivia continued to use Peter Thompson at Delafield &

Lambert while Andy retained a man in Santa Barbara. There were elaborate prenuptial agreements to sign and a reshuffling of real estate. Once Laura was at college, and Steve at graduate school,

Olivia's apartment was to be rented and the rent placed in a trust for them. Andy's sons were also

301 the beneficiaries of trust funds. (Andy's first wife had received a lump sum at the time of the

divorce, ten years ago. ("Wouldn't it be easier to do the same for me?" Olivia asked wearily.)

There were inventories, powers of attorney, insurance policies, and new wills: "Haven't you heard

of airplane crashes, Olivia?"

By now Stephen no longer treated Olivia like Hamlet's mother. Laura adored Andy because

he spoke to her as an equal. His sons also approved, dazzled perhaps more by their first encounters

with Manhattan than by the Underhills. Olivia's mother was jubilant. Malcolm had accepted Andy

from the very beginning, while Abbott was outright jealous. Since Frank died, Olivia had been his

mostly companion.

"I wish Andrew would keep his paws off you," Abbott remarked acidly. “You two behave

like teenyboppers. However, you do have that splendid peony look that a lover gives a woman."

Abbott's off-stage comments also reached her: "That oil-rich cowboy is Olivia's rough trade," and

"Andy reminds Olivia of her `umble beginnings."

But it was Helen's blessing, above all, that Olivia craved. When Olivia had announced her engagement, Helen's sole comment was, "I'm so happy for you, after those awful years of being alone."

Not one word about Andy, thought Olivia. Couldn't Helen have lied a little?

"Dear girl, don't scowl like that,” Helen said. “If Andy is good for you - and he better be! - then he's good, period. But it’s hard, isn’t it, fitting a new doll over the others.”

It took Olivia a moment to realize what Helen had been referring to. One May morning long ago, fed up with motherhood, politics, committees, lingering head colds and life, Olivia and Helen had packed a lunch and driven out to Jones Beach. Red-wing blackbirds skimmed over the empty parking lots and low dunes. A strong spring wind blew Olivia and Helen down the beach. Each

302 white-capped wave toppled and broke with a roar, a race up the beach, and a with a long seething

sigh subsided into the next breaker as it crashed.

Olivia had reminisced about excursions to the beach in Coronado. "I'd walk ahead of the

rest of the family, pretending they were strangers."

"You hardly ever talk about your childhood."

"I never had one. All I wanted was to grow up and, while I waited, I behaved like a captive

among inferior beings." Olivia made a face. "I'd like to forget the brat-princess phase."

"But she's part of you. As is the boy I tried to be because I worshipped my brother."

Olivia stopped. "I can't imagine you a tomboy."

"I was. Except for reading, I liked sports best of all. Richard taught me to throw overhand, like a boy. I’d do football training exercises with him. I could beat him running until I was twelve."

They walked on for some minutes. Without speaking, Olivia took off her shoes and rolled up her trouser legs. Helen copied her.

Olivia ran down to the edge of the water's tumult, her sneakers, tied by their laces, bouncing against her chest. She heard gulls screaming as they swarmed behind a fishing boat, the roar and pause of the surf, and Helen galloping close behind. Olivia turned and kicked a plume of water at

Helen's knees. She splashed her back. Olivia scooped handfuls of water high, soaking Helen's sweater. She laughed and shoved water with both hands at Olivia until she escaped up the beach.

Helen caught her as they came level with one of the unopened restaurant pavilions.

Breathless and giggling, they subsided on the building's steps.

"That felt good." Olivia unrolled her pant legs to dry. "I haven't run like that since college."

"We'd have embarrassed the children."

303 "Yes, by being children." Olivia glanced at Helen's sodden sweater. "I didn't mean to get you quite so wet."

"Would we have played together, if we’d know each other as children?" Helen asked.

Olivia pondered this in silence.

"What I mean is, if I'd said, `Come on over and play this after,' which was the usual invite in

Winchester, Mass., would you have thought, `Oh, how boring!' or would you have come?"

"I'd have jumped at it, twice. Because you are you. Because someone actually asked me. I was always having to make new friends, always wondering if they liked me. I had to be just about the nicest, cutest, most obliging friend you ever saw. Then I'd go home and feel sick. Helen, do you realize how lucky you were to grow up in one place?"

"I know I was. I had a very nice childhood."

"It's part of you, like a ring on a tree trunk. Somewhere inside, you're the same generous girl who wants her friends to come on over and share her toys. And I'm that smarmy, nervous child angling for an invite. But where did your tomboy go?"

"She's still there. When I'm alone she drives too fast."

"Then I'll change my simile," Olivia said. "We're not rings on trees, but more like a set of

Russian dolls we add to as we grow older."

"Well, if we're a nest of dolls I think the largest one - the one we are now - is a more elaborate version of the younger, simpler dolls inside,” Helen said. “But all of them are the same doll, not a group of strangers."

"I'm not sure they’re alike. Some of my dolls don't get on very well."

"That's what makes you so interesting....Oh, nuts," Helen said, "Why am I always the first one to be hungry?"

304 They ate their egg salad sandwiches, tangerines, and Helen's chocolate chip cookies in a

warm hollow behind the dunes. Then they set about contentedly, wordlessly, collecting pebbles and

shells which they would discard on the beach before they left.

Driving back, Helen asked: "Do men remember perfect days like this one?"

"I doubt it. They’re more apt to recall triumphs or defeats, not flow."

"And they don't have to cope with the sitters when they're late," Helen added, “as we do.”

Did the self accrete selves like those Russian dolls, or grow and shed a new self each year,

like a crab? As that ridiculous thing, a forty-seven-year-old bride, Olivia found herself in the soft- shell season. “I haven’t been this morbidly sensitive since high school,” she wrote in her journal.

The Monday before her wedding reception, Olivia arrived at Lucy's huge loft with rubber gloves, sponges, rags, and seven kinds of cleaners. She was followed shortly by a man to wash the windows. Lucy, driven hither and thither by the vacuum cleaner, the smells of ammonia, Comet and lemon oil, gave up trying to paint and went to visit her mother in the nursing home.

Olivia wrote in her journal that night: "Andy asked why I hadn't hired a cleaning service. It has something to do with expiation, I told him. He was paying for the reception because the bride couldn't, and I want to feel as though I'd earned it. Because Andy started from nothing he understood what I was saying. As Helen and Malcolm never would."

Tuesday Olivia arrived at the loft bearing linens, silver, vases, and a coat-rack that took her and Lucy an hour to assemble. Olivia pushed Lucy's furniture mercilessly about, into corners, into groups by the tall windows. She borrowed more chairs from James Lippincott’s girl friend Annabel who lived in the loft below. That evening, just as Lucy was stepping into a hot bath, six more white wicker chairs were delivered.

305 "Lucy called to ask if she had to keep the chairs,” Olivia wrote in her journal. “She said ungraciously that she preferred empty space to clutter, though the coat rack might come in handy for drying watercolors. I made the mistake of asking what she was going to wear at the our reception. She mentioned an old green cocktail suit of her mother's. I said it didn't go with her tan afro at all! Then we had two glasses of wine and she shamed me by giving me one of her magnificent `Imaginary Landscapes' for a wedding present."

Wednesday Olivia had the caterers up for a dry run. Lucy turned up WQXR full blast as rented tables and folding chairs were arranged and rearranged noisily. "People will stay much longer if they can sit down to eat," said Olivia. Lucy resolved never to offer the use of her loft again.

Thursday morning the flowers that were Helen's contribution to the reception arrived.

Olivia picked the two-dozen florist's arrangements apart and reassembled them. That done, she began to wash the leaves on Lucy's plants. At 2 p.m., Lucy drawled, "Aren't you getting married this afternoon, Olivia? Quit torturing my ficus trees and go home."

"Getting married like some kind of hippy in a loft," Diana Morgan bitched to Abbott Chase

Friday afternoon as they shared a taxi downtown. "I suppose the happy couple will recite `A jug of

wine, a loaf of bread, and thou', and Olivia will wear a Mexican wedding dress and carry a bunch of

wild flowers."

"Don't fret, dear. The actual ceremony was yesterday."

"I hear Max Kirov is going to photograph the reception. He refused to do my wedding to

that lousy Texan. Thank God I didn't waste the money. Joe was the absolute end. Going to bed with

him was like being rowed thirty feet by a man in a terrible hurry."

306 We're getting coarse in our old age, Abbott forbore to say.

After a pause, Diana asked: "Am I too dressy for a loft wedding?"

"Under-dressed, I should think."

Reflexively, Diana tugged at her short skirt. "This ride is taking forever. Are you sure the

driver has the right address?”

Abbott said that they were there.

Half an hour later, Diana returned from her tour of Lucy’s loft to report to Abbott, and to

James who had joined them: "White walls, windows on three sides, a forest of trees, and a gorgeous

bathroom. Lucy must get plenty for her pictures; the Tenbroeck money barely keeps her mother in

that fancy place for alcoholics." Diana paused to help herself to a miniature quiche. "Hundreds of

guests, some quite bizarre, but where's the bride and groom?"

"It isn't in the least like her last one." Minna's breathless voice came from the vicinity of

James's elbow.

James bent down. "Her last what?"

"Wedding. Olivia's to Frank. I gave it. A bang-up party. If I do say so. Those elegant

women. From Vogue."

"Are you feeling all right?" Alarmed by her shortness of breath, James steered Minna to a

chair and pulled up another for himself.

"It's the freight elevator. Goes by fits. And starts. Always bothers me. Like being inside an earthquake. Isn't this a splendid. Place for a party? Lucy must have teams. Of people with vacuum cleaners to clean it. Like the rink at Rockefeller Center."

Remembering the loft's usual chaos, dried paint and newspapers underfoot, stacked

canvases, accumulations of crud that might one day become collages, James agreed.

307 "Jolly, were you at Olivia's first wedding?"

He nodded.

"Chris Reid officiated - such a bossy word. Frank looked scared to death, but this groom won't...ah." she accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter. "That's better. Only one Frank; shouldn't make comparisons. Only one Porter, as well." Minna peered over her shoulder, "But where are the bride and groom?"

It was rush hour. No cabs. Helen was to pick up Malcolm at his office after his press

conference. Malcolm had announced late yesterday that he was a candidate for the special election

to fill the un-expired term of New York Senator Gideon Broome, who had died two weeks before

in an airplane crash.

Helen waved her hand commandingly, stopping an empty cab before it reached the man

across 78th Street who'd waved first. He glared at her. She smiled serenely got in, smoothing her

new dress beneath her. She had spent a fortune on this "frock" at Bergdorf-Goodman's, but it was

the right color and also covered her knobby knees. Malcolm was late. In fact, she could call her life

with him, “Waiting for Malcolm.”

He finally appeared, coatless, the wind in his sails, full of the press conference. "They asked

some tough ones: What would I have done about the bombing of Cambodia, and how would I have

handled the prison revolt at Attica? Was Nixon smart to go to China? Where did I stand on arms

control? Linda did a splendid job of briefing me beforehand."

Linda's name no longer had the power to make Helen angry. What infuriated her was not

being consulted about Malcolm's sudden return to elected politics. Helen let ten blocks go by before

308 she spoke, "I hope you know that I won’t be as much help to your campaign? I've finished my course requirements but I have two long papers still to write."

"I know how busy you are," he said vaguely.

"But I'll be happy to stand by your side whenever you need one of those full-size cardboard replicas."

Malcolm didn't laugh. Perhaps he had stopped listening.

Helen wondered if Andrew Becker, in time, would tune Olivia out. Then Helen felt ashamed of herself. This was Olivia's day.

Scandalously late to her own wedding reception, the bride rose in the ramshackle freight

elevator, the groom as distant from her as space allowed. Olivia studied herself in the mirror of her

new lizard-skin purse. She wore a short, cream-colored silk suit, pale stockings, very high heels,

and the pearl necklace and earrings Andy had given her last night. As Olivia dabbed color on her

face she peeked sideways at him. Andy sported a flashy, side-vent Pierre Cardin suit to pay Olivia

back for demanding he dress properly just this once. She couldn't get a reading on his face.

Andy had insisted on hiring a stretch limo to take them down town, despite Olivia's strongly

expressed opinion that a Rolls Royce and uniformed driver were more appropriate. The limo driver

had ignored Olivia's directions. They were trapped in Little Italy behind a funeral cortege, and then

lost in a maze of one-way streets in Chinatown. By the time the driver had found Lucy's address,

Olivia had lambasted Andy for the limo, for his tasteless suit, and their being late would ruin all her

efforts to make the reception work. And Andy had refused to respond.

309 After what seemed like twenty minutes, the freight elevator shuddered to a halt. Before the

door slid open, Andy closed the space between them, kissed her on the lips, with counter-pressure

on her behind. "Truce, Olivia?" "Truce," she whispered back.

Lucy greeted them. A four-piece combo played "Some Enchanted Evening." Flash bulbs

popped. Olivia saw Max behind the camera, heard his familiar commands: "Stop," "Just there,"

"Fine - now, Olivia, look at Andy as if you meant it," and: "That's fine. One more. Terrific!"

Time stopped. Reversed. Standing there, hand-in-hand with Andrew Becker, her lawful

wedded husband, Olivia was just twenty one. She saw herself and Max in his fifth floor walk-up.

Saw Max rising naked from their bed to make coffee on his illegal two-burner stove. Age had

merely sharpened his features, widened his savage grin, and for one appalling moment Olivia loved

him most of all.

"Dear, I can’t remember the last time I caught you blushing." Abbott brought them each a

glass of champagne.

"What a gorgeous suit, darling." Diana gave the groom a lingering kiss. Then Thomas and

Madeleine McCracken, George Fulton, James Lippincott with Minna on his arm. Dearest Minna!

Olivia's mother, who reproached her for being late. Olivia’s half-sisters. Peter Thompson. Friends

of Andy's and their wives who had loyally flown in from Houston, Albuquerque, Denver, Ponca

City, and Santa Barbara.

Laura and Stephen were talking to Andy's sons - an island of youth in the sea of the foolish

middle-aged. Andy's three sons, brown hair slicked back, their round, open faces unmarked by

much of anything, wore proper suits and ties (although Olivia had said they didn't have to). Olivia

kissed them. She kissed her own dear children - no, complete grown-ups! - thinking: Laura looks so elegant in the beige silk dress Andy bought her; thank God her skin has cleared up at last. And

310 Steve whose resemblance to Frank was particularly unsettling right now. Why was she abandoning them for this rich stranger? But of course she wasn't abandoning them, only adding Andrew

Becker. Whom she loved.

She went back to him and linked her arm in his. He was listening to Annabel, monumental in a purple muumuu, discuss her recent exhibit. Annabel's assemblages were built from dismembered department-store dummies. Plaster legs formed bases for amusing cocktail tables.

Plaster hands cupped plastic bowls; the real goldfish floating in the bowls looked astonished to be there. She was not one of Andy's artists. But she had to be invited because of her chairs, and because she was James’s significant other.

Smiling at Annabel, Olivia began to count the house. It was going to work! Nearly everyone she'd invited had come: Two other well-known photographers, a famous columnist, a black poet who had changed his name and a black novelist who had not. She had netted a playwright who had written fifty plays and one who had finished three; two classical musicians; a jazz pianist, an off-

Broadway producer, magazine editors, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reportage; four painters whose work Andy had bought; dozens of unfamous people whom she cherished most of all.

Somebody standing behind her said, "Bernstein." She felt physically shocked. Who here today knew her first true name. Who was it who had just got married? Olivia Smith, Olivia

Underhill, Olivia Bernstein? She hung onto Andy's arm like a life raft. Then she heard:

"Bernstein's opera Candide was quite passable, I thought, but did you hear the Mass?" The man from the Times asked.

"Terribly pretentious," said a familiar voice, Olivia's former boss at Vogue.

"Bernstein wasn't aiming at camp. He believed in the whole conception."

311 "Immaculate conception?" Laughter. "I agree," the columnist continued. "Lenny's very sincere, but his sincerity is two inches deep."

New York, Noo Yawk, it's a wonderful town. How Olivia's friends at Vogue had put down

West Side Story when it first opened! The Mass, no doubt, in time would also become a classic.

Then her former editor saw her, and cried "The bride, the beautiful bride," and touched her cheek to

Olivia's. "You look absolutely delicious."

At the other end of the loft, Abbott waylaid James. "Do you mind if I ask you about

Dwight?"

"No, go ahead."

"Has the partner who absconded with all Dwight’s money ever been found?"

"No. We tried the F.B.I., architects' associations, the Bureau of Missing Persons, the police of course; even the C.I.A. No one by the name of Adam Warshinsky had studied at the Harvard

School of Design or worked in the Philadelphia outfit Adam claimed to be his previous firm. We even tried Immigration. Adam must have left the country under a false passport."

"Had his partner and Dwight had an argument?"

"None that Dwight knew of." When asked, Dwight swore he'd take Adam back: they'd build up the firm together again. Which his mother had interpreted as Christian charity, his father as damn-fool nonsense, James as appalling loneliness, and Warren as a latent homosexual attraction.

Evidently sharing Warren's belief, Abbott said, "I could look into some contacts I have.

Well, as a matter of fact, I did. I drew a blank."

The elevator door slid open. Helen, followed by Malcolm, rushed over to the bride and groom. "I can't tell you how sorry we are. We're late because of Malcolm's press conference."

Olivia looked at Andy blankly.

312 "Malcolm announced his candidacy to fill Senator Broome's seat yesterday," Andy said.

"Why didn't someone tell me? I haven't looked at a paper or the television for days."

"Doesn't matter." Malcolm kissed Olivia's cheek and shook Andrew's hand. "You're a very lucky man."

"So I've been told. Malcolm, there's the bar. Step up and name your poison."

Olivia said, "Helen, forgive me. I've been obsessing over this reception to the point of madness."

"Dear girl, you're allowed. How was the ceremony?"

"It was brief, legal, and soon over with. Mother cried which was a nice touch. Afterwards

Andy and I beat it back to his apartment and collapsed. Tonight we go in splendor to the

Plaza....Helen, don't just say it; please, be happy for me?"

"I am." Helen hugged her. "And I know you are. You've never looked more beautiful."

Olivia was no longer made of bones thanks to the expensive restaurants Andy took her to. She wore her dark glossy hair waved back becomingly from her face. Her face glinted with triumph, apprehension, and mischief. "You were born to wear real pearls."

"Only you are to know how nervous they make me feel."

"Only to you will I admit I spent a fortune on this dress,” Helen said.

“You look lovely.” Olivia kissed her, thinking: Dear Helen, there are other colors than blue and the length is all wrong, and I love you for spending a "fortune" on my wedding. Oops: two fortunes. Olivia remembered to say, “Thank you so much for the gorgeous flowers.”

“Which I knew you’d rearrange.” They both laughed.

"It won't make any difference, will it?" Olivia asked, taking two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.

313 "What difference?"

"My change of name?"

Helen raised her glass, "Here's to Mrs. Andrew Becker.",

"And here's to the new Master - mistress? - of Education."

"And to everyone's good fortune," Helen said expansively, the champagne already working its levitating magic. "Now I had better go talk to Minna before she leaves."

The bride and groom were summoned for the first dance. "Don't you feel idiotic being a groom?" Olivia whispered. Andy said he was too busy trying not to step on her feet. "I feel like an imposter," she whispered. "Nobody over thirty five's a bride." "What are you, then?" "Yours," she said, pulling him close. "Watch out, kid, you'll set me off."

Then Abbott cut in. Over his shoulder she watched Andy wrestle Lucy around the dance floor, and Laura gyrating with Andy's oldest kid. "What a gas," Diana called out, as she danced by on George Fulton’s arms.

If the reception were a play, it would be SRO; if a new book, reviewed on the front page of the Sunday Times book section, Olivia thought as she followed Steve's careful lead.

After two more dances, Olivia went over to visit with Minna. After dear Minna left, Olivia hunted up her three-play writer and introduced him to the off-Broadway producer. She swam on, touching cheeks, greeting friends, floating from group to group, catching up, gathering congratulations, overflowing with gratitude that the whole world had turned out, gladly, for her.

She refused to take personally an overheard conversation about "Love among the ruins."

After he'd danced with Lucy and with Annabel, James watched Malcolm work the crowd, much as LBJ had done at the Freedom House dinner six years ago. Except for Andrew Becker's friends in venture capital and oil, there wasn't that much money in the room. But support from

314 celebrities counted as much as campaign contributions, James heard Malcolm say to the black novelist. And what sort of campaign photos would Max Kirov recommend a candidate for the U.S.

Senate? Had Steve Underhill heard anything at N.Y.U. about the Senate race?

James asked Peter Thompson, who was examining one of Lucy's paintings with an air of polite incredulity, what he thought of Malcolm's sudden reentry into politics.

"Malcolm jumped the gun. I'm only his law partner, and no political expert, but I do know he should have consulted Pat Lanahan and a number of other State Party leaders."

"Will he get the nomination?"

"Of course he will." Helen had overheard them talking and come over. "Jolly, it would be wonderful to have your help on this campaign." She spoke with excessive enthusiasm, he thought.

"There's no one Malcolm would rather have work for him. You know everyone in this city!"

James was spared answering by the orchestra blasting out a syncopated version of the

Wedding March. Olivia and Andrew were called upon to cut the cake.

After cake and more champagne, James persuaded Annabel to leave. Presently they rocked together on Annabel's water bed beneath the lighted fishbowls, distantly accompanied by the reverberations of bass, drums and pounding feet overhead.

Not until they reached their suite at the Plaza, did the bride sense that the groom was out of sorts. He stood moodily staring out the window into Central Park while she unpacked. Did he feel neglected because her new clothes had taken precedent? No, he'd been silent in the limo just now, and she'd been too exhausted by the reception to wonder why.

315 "Darling, I want you to know that this is the nearest I shall ever come to heaven - or the movies." She gestured to the vases of roses and lilies, the champagne in its cooler, the covered dishes and elaborately set table. “We’ll eat in a minute, but I must get out of these clothes." She went to change into a new negligee.

When she returned he had thrown off his jacket and tie and was wrestling with the champagne cork. He did not look up as he spoke. “What got into your friend Malcolm? He was the belle of the ball, the king of the castle, the top banana at what I thought was our show."

Olivia played ingenue: "Oh, you mean the way he shook hands with everybody. You do that when you're running for office."

"I’ve noticed. As it says in the Bible, there's a time and a place for everything.” The cork came out with a festive pop. Andy filled a glass for Olivia. "Not that you need it. Diana remarked that you must have put away several bottles of the bubbly. She hinted that you might have a drinking problem."

"She does; I have you."

"You're a beautiful woman, Olivia, but don't ever take me for granted."

She was chilled by his somber tone. "You're not allowed to be serious, not on your wedding night. Please, sit down and eat." She lifted various silver lids that covered the platters: "My God, you went overboard. Duck a l'orange, fiddle heads, and how did you know I love wild rice?"

He ate with undivided attention. She watched the light gleam on his bald forehead as his head bobbed up and down. Why didn't he say something? Was she going to have to entertain Andy for the rest of their lives? Was this the bad fairy's revenge: the curse of getting what you longed for when you were eight.

316 Talk was preferable to this needy silence between them so, for lack of a better tale,

Scheherazade began: "Andy, did I ever tell you about Mrs. Everett?"

"Don't think so," he said, with his mouth full.

"When we lived in Chicago Mother sewed for rich society women, and Mrs. Everett was the richest of them all. Mrs. Everett let me play with the knickknacks on her shelves and look through her art books. I became a sort of pet."

"You're good at that."

Olivia ignored his comment. "I was invited to Mrs. Everett's granddaughter's birthday party.

Imagine eight little girls in velvet dresses - seven bought at Marshall Fields and mine cut down from my mother's. In the middle of the dining room table red roses floated in a crystal bowl. A maid brought soup in wide flat dishes. Then another maid took the soup plates away and we were each served a tiny bird - squabs, I found out much later. Dessert was meringues with vanilla ice- cream and real strawberries - in December! The birthday cake had four whole layers." Listening to her voice, Olivia thought: it's too insistent and too high-pitched. Because I'm worried; because something's wrong.

"Go on."

"Two chauffeur-driven cars took us to a matinee of the Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo to see

Stravinsky's Fire Bird. The dancers wore costumes of red and gold and silver and black and yellow.

The music made me shiver; I had never heard anything remotely like it. I cried when it was over, and because I didn't own a fur coat and muff like the others. I resolved to live a life’s exactly like

Mrs. Everett’s when I grew up. Later, of course, I learned that white bunny coats were nouveau riche, and so was Mrs. Everett."

317 "It's a good story, Olivia, write it down." Andy aligned his knife and fork on the empty

plate. "I nearly keeled over at the reception. I haven't been able to eat for twenty four hours."

"You didn't look sick."

"I wasn't. Nerves."

"But our wedding was yesterday."

"Today was the important ceremony. I just married all New York." Andy stood up and came around the table to hug her. "I had to, to get the one I wanted."

318 Chapter Twenty-three

Summer, 1974

Weekdays, when he wasn't teaching, James toured New York's five Boroughs as Malcolm's advance man for the contested primary.

James had volunteered from some ancient feeling of loyalty; because Helen had asked him nicely; because James's summer schedule was light; because Malcolm supported the bill before

Congress to fund a nation-wide adult literacy drive; because there wasn't anyone better. Working for Malcolm was one way of not addressing his own problems. What Dwight's current shrink would call avoidance.

Many of the Democratic Party’s district leaders James talked to favored Patrick Lanahan.

Wadsworth had nipped into the Senate in 1972, almost behind the Party's back. He'd made headlines supporting the peace movement, black power and the women's movement - issues that didn't fly in Staten Island or working-class sections of Queens. How come Wadsworth no longer showed at testimonial dinners, rallies and funerals like he should of? The Playboy of Park Avenue should remember who he owed.

The best part of James’s work as an advance man was getting from here to there. Today

James walked down Fifth Avenue, headed for a Democratic clubhouse in the East Village. He passed through the arch into Washington Square where he dodged frisbee games, kids fluid on roller skates and skate boards and bikes. Near the empty pool an old man sawed a shapeless tune out of his violin.

The instrument case at his feet held two nickels and a quarter. A group of Irish folk dancers competed with a spaced-out trio of alto sax, tenor sax and bass. A kid of about eighteen asked

319 James for five dollars for breakfast. James shook his head. Even with inflation, that seemed a bit much.

James bought a Good Humor from a cart on the south side of the Square. As he ate it, he noticed a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce halted in traffic. Two expensively dressed men sat in the back, the windows rolled up. The younger one lit a stick of incense. Would you dare to fart in a

Rolls? James stopped to admire a girl jumping skillfully into the whirring middle of a double skip rope. Then he headed south and east.

Below N.Y.U., Manhattan was smaller, older, a refuge now for different immigrants. James passed shops which sent food parcels to Eastern Europe. Spanish bodegas bore faded signs in

Hebrew lettering above their awnings. Jacob Riis might have photographed the grim row of tenements on the next block. But not the drunks clutching bottles in brown paper bags.

Across the street from the St. Mark's Theater a towering man on roller skates whizzed past.

He wore swimming trunks, a beaded headband, earrings and chains; campaign buttons, including

REELECT WADSWORTH, decorated his orange singlet.

"Hey, Mistuh." An ancient woman in a yachting cap came toward James. Her eyes in a wizened monkey's face crawled up to his, begging to be introduced. He was about to give her a dollar when she vomited a string of four-letter words. James nipped across the street. Anyone around here interested in voting?

He found the address on Rivington Street. Two kids who should have been in school were spaced out in the open doorway. James stepped over them, and mounted the stairs to the clubhouse.

James had been given the district leader’s name, Michael McCarty. But the man behind the desk introduced himself as Vincent Rocco. James had heard of him: a long-time Tammany regular, with connections in Little Italy you needn't look into too closely.

320 "So you're from Malcolm Wadsworth."

James took the cigar offered and sat down.

"You wanna explain the crazy situation? Why Wadsworth runs against Lanahan?"

"Since Malcolm's the incumbent, he has a better chance in November. The State Party should recognize...."

"Party schmarty. Lanahan had the deal. There’s gonna be a fight. What does Wadsworth expect?"

Senator Wadsworth expected nothing, James said, but he would be honored to address a meeting at this clubhouse, followed by an everyone-out street rally the weekend before primary day. James passed glossy Wadsworth flyers across the desk.

Vincent Rocco read aloud: "`The jump in the cost of living in 1973 - the worst increase in twenty seven years - mandates new Federal legislation to address inflation and mounting unemployment.'" He scanned another flyer silently. "Yeah, sure, but never mind this crap about conservation and alternate sources of energy, why don't Wadsworth mention the mess the city's in?"

Good question, James thought. He cited bills Malcolm had sponsored to create new jobs and set up training centers.

"I don't remember hearing that the bills passed." Rocco chucked the flyers back to James.

"In Nineteen hundred and seventy four you got the Republicans down for the count - frankly I don't think Nixon's gonna last out the month - any asshole Democrat could win in November. Why waste two good men in the primary, not to mention the...."

"Three. There's Dean Prell." James said. “He’s got a big following upstate.”

"Not to worry; he's a nothing." Rocco stood up, indicating the meeting was over.

"I know your cousin Paul di Santi."

321 "You do? From where?" Rocco’s voice shed its hostility.

"I worked as a labor organizer once,” James said. “Later when I ran a youth program in the

South Bronx I met Judge Danny Rocco. He's retired now, isn't he?"

"Yeah. My uncle grows roses in Queens.” Vincent sat back down. After some more ritual grousing, he agreed to have Malcolm address the club at their next meeting. "About the rally on

Allen Street I don't know yet."

James was panhandled four times before he reached Houston Street and a subway entrance.

Each time James saw a tall, thin, unshaven derelict pushing his life's possessions in a stolen supermarket cart, he thought: there but for the grace of Grace. Supported by his parents, stabilized by lithium, Dwight periodically attempted to live by himself. James, among others, would be invited to an elaborate vegetarian dinner. He would admire Dwight’s minimalist furnishings, his framed architectural drawings, the philodendron and ivy, spider plants and wandering Jew that always flourished for Dwight. A month later, or two, there would be a disagreeable incident with another tenant, or Dwight claimed that the landlord was harassing him, or the apartment itself had turned out to be the wrong one.

Then James and Warren (better they than their elderly parents) would be called in to help. If

Dwight proved adamant about leaving his present apartment, they’d move him back to the family home. By temperament and by his medical training, Warren brought a distanced calmness to these unpleasant dramas, but they bugged James. Dwight was in better health when he had a remodeling commission; worse when he was idle. Each time, as Dwight's anxieties mounted, James became the target of his late-night calls. Annabel, woken at 3 a.m. once too often, called it quits.

322 This spring James had begun seeing a woman who lived in Princeton. Louise was a scholar, warm-blooded, apolitical, kind - and blessed with an unlisted phone number. James savored his weekends out of town.

The next day James stopped at Wadsworth headquarters. Helen was talking on the telephone at the reception desk. James waved and went into Norman Slate's office.

Helen waved back and shifted the phone to her left ear to let the right one rest. Jesse Caplan had been complaining for the last fifteen minutes that Norman never returned his calls.

Norman was also on the phone. James, waiting for him to end his conversation, noted

Norman's maroon and white striped shirt, silk tie, gold watch and custom tailored suit.

Good looking, articulate, educated at CCNY and Columbia, Norman had set himself up as a spokesman of the black community. After he left the SBCCU, he went to a large bank at twice his former salary to run their minorities program. He had taken a leave of absence to head Malcolm's reelection campaign. It would enhance his next career move, Norman had told James.

When Norman at last hung up, James said: "You gave me the wrong name yesterday. I felt like an ass - Vincent Rocco replaced Michael McCarty two years ago."

Norman Slate put up his hands in a whoa stop position. "I know, I know. The files are a mess. My predecessor...."

"Let's get to work on them."

"James, every time you say `we' you mean me. Even if I didn't require a few hours of sleep, there wouldn't be time to implement half your suggestions. And without more staff...." Norman shrugged.

323 James fumbled in his pocket for Vincent Rocco's cigar. He broke it in half, into quarters,

and shredded it into an ashtray until he could cool his voice.

"Norm, I know you're overworked. I know money's tight. But how about rounding a group

of volunteers to organize the files and canvass by phone? The district leaders will continue to sit on

their hands until the polls show a clear winner."

"Volunteers are a pain in the ass, believe me. When I was running the SBCCU I had to stop

whatever I was doing and wipe their noses and tell them how much they were appreciated."

Not mine, and not Helen's, James restrained himself from saying. "Do we have an

alternative?"

"A paid director of volunteers is not in my budget."

"Jesus Christ on a bicycle, Norm...."

Hearing raised voices, Helen poked her head in the door. "Anything the matter?"

"I was saying to Norman we should use volunteers, if we found someone to organize them.”

"Olivia, I feel guilty asking you to coordinate our volunteers," Helen said. "But there isn't one other person who could do the job."

"I'm glad you felt guilty enough to take me to the Russian Tea Room. I love having

Christmas in June." She gestured to the brass samovars and overhead lights swathed in tinsel.

“I hope Andy won't be a problem if you do come on board." When Olivia looked offended,

Helen added: "I mean, he has every right to."

"You’re right. He'll bitch about the TV dinners, nights I'm too tired to cook. He'll say he's already made a substantial donation to Malcolm's campaign, with the prospect of having to pony up

324 all over again in November. He'll remind me that I'm a writer, and writers work every day, same as

cashiers and plumbers and insurance salesmen.”

"That's the part I mind the most," said Helen, "taking you from your work."

Olivia shivered from the frigid air-conditioning. "But in the end he'll say, ‘Okay, you're on

your own, kid, go ahead; and in about a week or so he may even help me. The campaign’s harder

on you. You've had to change all your plans.”

"I better order you a drink. Your nails are turning blue." That taken care of, Helen said: "I have to admit, it's wonderful to be useful. It's as though we were back when we started LEAD. We talk on the telephone every night! I'm his eyes and ears in New York until Congress adjourns. He says he can't do it without me."

"But what happens to your grant?" Helen had been awarded funding to study remedial classes in elementary schools across the country.

"It will wait," Helen said bouyantly. "Now, please, order the most expensive thing on the menu."

An hour later, emerging from the cool red womb of the Russian Tea Room into blinding

sunshine on 57th Street, Olivia agreed to help out for the duration of Malcolm's campaign.

"I'm so glad, and I get to see you every day!"

Olivia hadn't thought in terms of every day.

"We'd better start tomorrow with the voter files. They're two years out of date."

Abruptly, Olivia saw Frank, his stacks of file boxes, and the four of them sitting around the

Wadsworths' dining room table in Peter Cooper Village, sure that they were saving the world.

"Want to get take-out and go to Central Park?" James asked Helen one hot July noon.

325 Helen said she'd be delighted. Olivia was doing research at the public library, and Norman never

ate with the help.

They found a bench in the shade outside the zoo. They discussed the latest poll which

showed Malcolm fifteen points ahead of Lanahan, who was running neck and neck with Dean Prell.

They discussed a speech that Malcolm would deliver to James's old union. "I've talked to Rose

about the ILGWU endorsement, but it'll be tricky."

"I'm glad you talk to Rose." Better to go back to Rose, than romance Annabel, the purple

cow. Helen blushed for her catty thought.

Without meaning to, James began to ramble on about losing Annabel, finding Louise, the

endless interruptions when once again he and Warren intervened to save Dwight from depression and possible suicide. "I feel as though my life were in irons. Louise has an appointment to the

University of Seattle starting next fall and I'm considering going with her." To convince himself he was leaving because of Louise, he began to praise her. "She has a doctorate in philosophy. Don't dare open my trap around her, though of course I do. I know you'd like her."

The part that hurt most was James saying that she was pretty. Very pretty. Looked lovely in blue. "Why don't you bring her to dinner next week?" Helen asked. And tell her to wear black or beige.

Half way into the primary campaign, the Daily News printed an item about a married U.S.

Senator up for reelection who took a close interest in young women, Scandinavian preferred. Jack

Anderson's column picked up the rumor. Then Newsday ran a long article on the au pair girl who'd been shipped back to Sweden by the Wadsworths when she threatened to expose Malcolm for sexual harassment. The upstate papers repeated the charges.

326 From Washington Malcolm issued a one-sentence statement: "The story's too absurd to waste words dismissing it." But he flew up to New York to see his PR adviser, lawyer, and advertising agency. He called a conference with Norman and his volunteer advisers, including Jesse

Caplan and Jack Gorman from the old days at LEAD. Malcolm wanted everyone’s advice on the ugly direction the campaign was taking..

Malcolm turned to Helen, who already suspected what was coming, "Darling, I talked to the ad agency and the PR firm. We can get you on several local radio and TV talk shows - you'd be the

ideal person to clear the whole thing up. Of course, it might be too much of an ordeal."

"It would be awful." Helen added, "Give me a couple of minutes to think." Helen could

imagine breaking down in front of ten million viewers, crying “my child, my daughter, my baby

was killed by a hit and run driver.” Such a broadcast would also hurt their four children whose lives were already scarred by Carlie's death. But this was their father under fire, and even as Helen flamed with indignation at being asked to appear on TV, her vanity was touched by the request: she alone could save him. Helen looked across the table at Malcolm. She smiled at him. "I'll do it."

"Darling, thank you." He smiled his most charming smile, then spoiled it by adding, "It's

wonderful of you to volunteer."

She hadn't offered; she'd been manipulated. Helen retreated inside her head, only to hear her

father say: If you want Malcolm to win re-election you'll have to go through with it.

"Jolly, you have a question?"

"What more do we know about Dean Prell besides his being a second-term Assemblyman

and a member of the reform organization on the West Side?"

Olivia said, "According to the polls, the voters in Albany and Schenectady and Buffalo are

for him two to one over the other candidates."

327 "Pat Lanahan's the real threat," said Jesse Caplan. "Earlier this year my paranoia tells me

that Nixon might just decide to bunker in. As President he's head of the armed forces; as President

he has that little nuclear bomb button close to hand. Now I don't think. But my paranoia tells me

Pat is gunning for Malcolm. Claims he was double-crossed in seventy-two."

"So how do we shoot him down?" Malcolm said.

Jack Gorman said, "Problem is, Pat's clean - maybe a campaign contribution from the RTC

Development Company that wants to redo Times Square, and maybe help from the Teamsters with the new house in Larchmont, but nothing that'll make headlines.

"Then we'll stress the hack aspect - ask the voters if they want an old-line machine pol,”

Malcolm said. “I'll put the ad agency on it."

James made himself unpopular by saying that Malcolm relied too much on the ad agency.

Helen silently agreed. All along she’d hated the ad agency. Now she swore she’d reject their advice on her radio and TV appearances. She would say what she thought was right. What harm could it possibly do? All aspects of the Wadsworths' family life had been laid bare, from Malcolm's share of the law firm's profits to the income (exaggerated) that her trust fund earned, Malcolm's debts from past campaigns, and even Ricky's dyslexia, even the name of Colum's new girl friend.

The two morning radio programs went smoothly. Olivia, in the sound booth with the producer, thought that Helen's lovely voice, her restraint when she told how Carlie was killed, and the dignity with which Helen answered questions must snuff out the false rumor once and for all.

But who's listening at 11:00 a.m.? Norman asked.

328 At the TV studio, the person in charge of make-up undid the top two buttons of Helen's blouse, dusted her face with powder until she sneezed, and did violence to her bangs with hair spray.

Then it was eight p.m. and they were on the air. The host of the talk show introduced Helen fulsomely as a public-spirited citizen, a pillar of the New York community, a wonderful help to her husband in political life, the mother of four handsome children, and an educational consultant.

Then he quoted from the Newsday article.

Hard cop, soft cop, thought Olivia sitting in the studio audience.

"Now, Helen, doesn't it seem strange that the young woman was sent away so suddenly?"

After a pause, Helen said, "You must not have children. But if you did, and if your child had been killed, would you be able to live under the same roof with the person who had not pulled her to safety?" Helen sat even straighter. “I realize now that the au pair girl was terrified; but then I was in shock from Carlie's death. We paid the young woman the full year's wages, and her air fare as well. I just couldn't..." Helen's eyes filled with tears..." bear to look at Kristen. She’d let my daughter walk on ahead and the car jumped the lights and...." Helen paused, wiped her eyes, took a breath. "What would you have done?"

James watched the talk show at his parents' apartment because he didn't own a set. As

Helen's blue eyes filled with tears, Grace Lippincott and Gordie cried along with her. When another guest on the show challenged Malcolm's role as Ombudsman for youth, Helen said, "I am terribly proud of my husband. He gave up elected office so he could speak freely about what the Vietnam

War was doing to this country. Or do you believe," Helen's voice was harsh, "that ten years of war have been good for America?"

329 The last question came from the talk show host. He asked Helen how she felt when her

husband was described as a ladies' man. Helen turned and addressed the studio audience: "Isn't it

awful that the press always has to say something? Since they can't call Malcolm cowardly,

incompetent or stupid, they had to invent something sleazy."

Malcolm's ratings in the latest poll went up seven points. The next poll showed Malcolm still leading, but a third of those canvassed said they were voting for the "family man," Lanahan, while half those interviewed upstate supported Prell.

The media can be counted on to champion an underdog. Dean Prell's very deficiencies, his bald head, unimpressive stature, large ears, and high monotonous voice, became virtues. Prell's little dog was a mutt, while Malcolm's was a pedigreed golden retriever. A Daily News cartoonist

represented Dean Prell tilting with two lances against Malcolm (labeled Lancelot), and Pat Lanahan

(Sir Tammany) and unhorsing them both.

"Mally, Dean Prell is going to win," James said late one night at the campaign

headquarters..

"You're crazy."

"Not this time. Dean Prell has been canvassing fourteen hours a day for three months. `If

you find a smell, wash with Prell.' Lanahan's people are responsible for that doggerel. but Prell is

Mr. Clean. He doesn't owe the labor unions or the real estate interests, like Pat. We've got to attack

his inexperience."

"Your advice is always worth something. I'll look into it." Malcolm smiled. "Meanwhile, we'll keep up the pressure on Pat. Did I tell you he telephoned me in April and told me to get out of

his way? I said he was behaving like a B Feature cowboy telling another cowpoke that the Territory warn't big enough for both of them. Pat refused to find that funny. Helen says that Pat Lanahan has

330 always hated us. I mean hated us personally; it's not just a political thing. It goes all the way back to LEAD’s first years in politics."

James, who had been there that day, watched re-runs of the Wadsworth for Senate rally on his parents’ TV that night. The rally looked like a Kennedy steamroller left over from the 1950s and ‘60s: pretty girls wearing fetching hats, bands, lots of eats, balloons, speeches from two sound trucks, a New York mix of Italian, Hispanic, Jewish, Chinese, black, young and old, bums and hippies, babies in strollers, kids on dope. James estimated the cost of the rally at abut $20 a vote.

Malcolm's basic downstate speech also seemed dated. He praised the city as a great melting pot; he lauded the courage and hard work by which New York City's immigrants had forged better lives for themselves. (Upstate, his basic speech touched on agriculture, stability, the heritage of our great Empire State.) Malcolm's "Fireman" speech might have been better. In it Malcolm alluded to his childhood ambition to be a fireman; and now as a public servant he labored to put out the fires of injustice with the hose of corrective legislation.

The TV news program switched to a replay of a Prell rally earlier in the week at 116th

Street and Amsterdam Avenue. There weren't any nifty girls, or bands, or fancy sound trucks, just an old station wagon with an amplifying system that didn't work very well. Dean Prell's campaign, said the news commentator, looked as though it might have been made by "loving hands at home," but it had integrity. Here was a man who was not owned.

"Jesus! That's blatant editorializing," James shouted at the TV set and at Dwight who was back living with his parents for a spell.

By the time James got through to the man responsible for this at the network, it was primary day.

331

At ten that night, with 86 percent of the vote counted, it was clear that Malcolm had lost, with Pat Lanahan a poor third. Malcolm conceded the election at his headquarters, Helen by his side. He pledged his support to Dean Prell in the fall election.

The Wadsworths invited their close advisers back to their apartment for the wake. Helen made the drinks and thanked them all for working so hard! Particularly James; James had been wonderful.

"What about me?" Malcolm asked laughing. "Oh, you," Helen answered, "Nothing bothers you." Olivia and Andrew Becker left soon after, and Helen excused herself to turn in.

Helen was right, James realized. Malcolm took his defeat as calmly as though he had lost the first set, but was sure he’d come back to win the match. For about an hour Malcolm discussed the agenda for the coming year, his campaign debts, speaking engagements, future meetings with

City and State officials. Then Rodman left, and Norman Slate, the Gormans and, finally, Jesse

Caplan. Only James had stayed, mostly from inertia.

It was a close, muggy night. The air-conditioning was not working. Malcolm went over to the drinks tray. "What'll you have for a nightcap, Jolly?"

"Another Coke, I guess."

James stayed in the library while Malcolm went to fill the ice bucket. It was James's favorite room in the Wadsworths' apartment, walled with books, decorated with 19th century prints of New

York and Helen's pewter collection.

Malcolm returned with the ice bucket and a Coke. "It's some consolation that Pat was clobbered."

332 James had his opening. "Pat Lanahan isn't the reason you lost the election. It's your

reputation with women."

"I never even spoke to Kirsten if I could help it."

"I know that. But there have been other women you..."

"Come on, Jolly. What about Annabel and the Lady from Princeton?"

"I'm not married. I'm not a candidate for office. Your first term in Congress, your name was

linked with a young woman in Washington...."

"Oh, that."

“....Nancy Musgrove. Frank Underhill threatened to quit your campaign because you wouldn't stop seeing her."

"No. Frank blamed himself for losing the election."

"I'm talking about the beginning of the 1962 campaign." James hummed, "`I like coffee/I like tea/I like the girls/And the girls like me,'" while he drummed an accompaniment on the lid of one of Helen's pewter bowls.

Malcolm lit a cigarette, threw the match into the empty fireplace, and turned to face James.

"Leaving whatever I did, or did not do, aside, let me remind you that no Kennedy ever lost a vote from gossip."

"But that's why you did lose this election." James took a long breath. "What about your loyal lieutenants? Don't you have a responsibility to Rodman and Jesse and the rest to show that there's nothing in this `ladies' man' crap?"

"They've never complained."

The complacency of this blew James away. "What about Helen?" he shouted. "How does she feel, guessing that when you're lonely or - whatever - you'll find some woman to - you probably

333 don't remember their names half the time. They're like paperbacks you read on a plane and leave in

the pocket of the seat in front..."

"There's no need to yell, Jolly."

"Do you really believe in what you’re doing? You're for all the right things like peace and education and arms control. But you always seem to stand to one side.” James tried, and failed, to

speak more quietly. “You don’t seem to care when one of your bills is voted down. Did you ever

hear of Thoreau's Patron of Virtue, the man who supports all the right things but won't put himself

on the line to make them happen?"

"Calm down, Jolly, and get to the point."

"Jesus, you're an arrogant bastard! When Frank used to tell you `Malcolm, that's not right,'

you'd pay attention....

"Leave Frank out of it." For the first time Malcolm sounded mildly vexed.

"I can't. He was a great guy and the only one you listened to. Mally, you've never taken coaching. Remember when the coach at Collegiate benched you because you wouldn't...."

"Now you've got that off your chest you can leave." Malcolm’s voice was still

conversational, but he gripped his arms tightly.

"The hell I will, I'm not through." It was stupid to go on throwing dull knives at a marble

statue, but there was no one else to do the job. "Frank said you promised to stop sleeping around

twelve fucking years ago, and you haven't. You can't get away with playing by your own rules

forever." James stood up. "I'm sorry, but I won't be your side man any more."

"Friends from childhood," Malcolm observed calmly, "friends you don't know how to get

rid of. Looks like one's gone, now, James."

334 At Malcolm's headquarters, in front of workers and TV cameras, Helen had stood beside her

husband, a cardboard smile pasted across her face, craving silence, solitude, sleep. Now she

couldn't sleep. She ran a bath. While the tub filled, Helen listed topics to put out of her mind. The

list ended with James, so naturally she could think of nothing else.

James had scarcely spoken since they'd come back to the apartment. He sat there, his big

hands around a can of Coke, looking white and tired and abstracted. "I shall die if he marries that

woman in Princeton," Helen astonished herself by speaking out loud. "She isn't good enough for

him."

Grow up. Stop fantasizing. Remember Olivia's reception where Helen had sulked inwardly

because James wouldn't dance with her. Last year, confused by her biological turmoil, Helen made

the mistake of buying a book on menopause. After fifty, sex wasn't in the cards - everything dried

up, including desire, or so the author wrote. He had a whole string of degrees, but he didn't know

one damn thing about women.

Helen hadn't known much about men until recently. Now that she was only technically

faithful, she could guess how Malcolm felt each time he fell in love: guilty, excited, low-down, exalted. And while "I can't help it," was, Helen thought, the saddest sentence in the language, she could not help her feelings for James. Any more than she could forgive Malcolm for putting her through these past months. She thought of Carlie constantly, a child of twelve now. Helen had dreamed twice that she was alive. Helen remembered how furious she'd been when Carlie's killer was granted parole less than a year after he was sentenced, but it hadn't bothered Malcolm.

Dean Prell was defeated badly by his Republican opponent in November.

335 By then Malcolm had returned full time to the practice of law. Whether or not the 1974 defeat had clipped his political wings, Helen noticed that it had had a chastening effect upon his habits. He was home, almost disconcertingly present, and full of plans for their family and social life. Helen withdrew her application for the grant. She opened an office at home to tutor children with learning disabilities, and was greatly in demand. Olivia resumed writing poems, the demand for which was minimal.

Louise would not move to Seattle until the spring term so James still spent his weekends in

Princeton. On the bus out and back he read Antonio Gramsci's Letters from Prison. James the

Marxist asked: How was it that he and Helen, Rodman and Doris Stubbs and so many others spent their days attempting to doctor educational and mental wounds which would have never occurred under an ideal socialist government. James the mentor of disadvantaged kids asked how come some made it, some didn't. Which was true of middle class children, as well. Screw the form of government, James sometimes thought, what about original sin?

And James the ex-friend brooded over the fact that Malcolm had liked him so little he hadn't bothered to be angry. James stayed away from parties where the Wadsworths were likely to be.

When Helen telephoned to ask his professional advice, she complained that they never saw him any more. Apparently Malcolm hadn't told her about their quarrel.

336 Chapter Twenty-four

July, 1976

Malcolm didn’t believe in quarrels, he often said. When he and Helen chartered the Mary

Jane, a beamy ketch, and her three-person crew, for the week of the Bicentennial celebration they

invited friends and enemies – opponents was the word Malcolm used - to join them. Late each afternoon they and their guests sailed around New York Harbor to view the tall ships, the thousands of smaller craft, the Palisades and bridges, and Manhattan from the water at sunset.

Today the Wadsworths had invited some of the saviors who had rescued Malcolm from the ruinous debacle of two years back: the philanthropist Anton Frehmont and his daughter Emma, the

Beckers, and Diana Morgan. Also included were two of Malcolm's partners and their wives and

Malcolm’s tennis partner, a well-known newspaper columnist.

Diana, the Wadsworths realized, might be a risk. As chairwoman of a dinner in April to help pay off Malcolm's political debts, Diana had been effulgent, stage-center-gracious, but lucid.

As co-hostess of a benefit for the Foundling Hospital last month Diana, famous legs collapsing, her conversation tangled, had been spirited from the Waldorf Astoria ballroom by Olivia and Helen to a side door where Andy waited with a taxi to cart her home. In which Diana had propositioned Andy, and then passed out.

Nothing to do with Diana, Andrew said, but he had his reservations about the afternoon.

The Wadsworths’ boat ride was yet another example of what he called unnecessary parties. ("Why louse up an evening drinking out of paper cups at the Bronx Zoo, or attending amateur theatricals?"

- Andy had now sat through four of the Buskers' annual productions.) Olivia said, very well, if he

337 felt funny in boats, he didn't have to come. And of course he came to prove that he didn’t feel

“funny” in boats.

The afternoon of the harbor cruise, the Beckers stood on the dock chatting with Helen, the newspaper columnist, Dr. Anton Fremont and his daughter, Diana in black designer jeans, a red silk shirt tied at her naval, and audible gold jewelry. Malcolm's partners' wives in pinks and greens, and Miss Frehmont in a flowered lavender dress paled to monochrome beside her. One by one the partners arrived, and lastly Malcolm.

Once they were on board, Olivia positioned Andy in the bow of the boat, where he stood sipping his champagne, very much in the way of the crew as they raised the sails. As soon as the boat left the dock, Andy sat down within reach of something he could hold on to, stiffly resisting the motion of the waves. Olivia made her way forward to join him.

"Don't look so damn superior." Andy took off his dark glasses to glare at her.

"I'm not. I was remembering something. Junior year in high school I had a boy friend whose

family owned a twenty four foot sloop. I can still see the boat but not the boy. I must have put up with him because of the sailing."

"I'm always amazed by how you acquired your education," Andy said.

Olivia ignored this. She felt moved to write something about Manhattan - a clot of meaning waited to be divided and planted - and she needed quiet. Mentally, she invoked Walt Whitman,

Hart Crane, O. Henry, Edith Wharton, and dismissed them. Her embryo of a poem had to do with approaching by water over the formless, timeless wastes of water over which every immigrant

American had sailed.

"Are you sure you're comfortable up here?"

Olivia opened her eyes, and saw Helen standing above her, haloed in light.

338 "We are. We have a front row view of the tall ships and what Malcolm's columnist friend

described as the topless towers of Ilium."

"Remember what happened to Troy," Andy muttered.

"Helen, you wore the white slacks after all," Olivia changed the subject hastily. "We look

like the Bobbsey Twins, in our blue blazers and white pants."

"Pat Lanahan spilled his drink on my right leg yesterday. Does the spot show?" Helen

asked.

"Not if you don't know it's there. How was yesterday’s voyage?"

"Oh, Lord." Helen sat down on the deck. "It was a disaster. We had Lucy, because it was the only day she could come; and Doris and Rodman. Linda Dixon, from Malcolm's Washington office - it was Linda who first told us about Jimmy Carter. I can't even remember who else, because the Lanahans took all my attention. Mary felt queasy, and Pat - well, Pat was impossible. I tried to tease him about our past, LEAD and the Leo Cafanio Regular Democratic Organization. And Pat lit into me for my Boston Brahmin's prejudice against the Irish."

"What did you say?"

"That I was a New Yorker through and through. Just then we tacked, and he spilled his drink down my pant leg. Wouldn't you know, Pat had to have Scotch, even though the rest of us were drinking champagne?"

"Where was Malcolm during all this?"

"Back at Carter Headquarters, hung up on the phone. He's delighted to be working on someone else's campaign for a change." How sick she was of pretending to be thrilled by Malcolm's reentry into politics.

339 Olivia reflected on Malcolm's well-timed absence. If she'd been Helen, stuck with yet

another Wadsworth-Lanahan rapprochement she would have been boiling.

“Helen,” Andy asked, "How's Dr. Frehmont doing?"

"He's delighted to be on board. You know, when you're that well-known people don't ask you to do frivolous things or come by for a meal when it’s not a formal party." Helen glanced back to the cockpit to be sure Dr. Frehmont was well-attended. The motor had been turned off and she listened to the music of water slipping away under the hull. "I wish we could keep the tall ships here in the harbor forever…Oh, look, isn't that the McCrackens?" Helen waved enthusiastically to a ketch much like the Mary Jane, and its passengers waved and hallooed back.

"We happy few," Andrew said under his breath.

"Behave," Olivia mouthed.

Andy contained himself until Helen had gone back to the cockpit. "Olivia, doesn't it get to you? No, not the motion of the boat but the way New York is celebrating itself as though it were the omphalos of civilization, and never mind the rest of the country. And look the word up before you tell me I'm showing off my ignorance again."

"How could I when it's the right word in the right place?" Olivia kissed him, dislodging his floppy white hat. Andy jammed it back on his bald head, and instantly looked twenty years younger. Olivia threaded her arm through his. She stared at the horizon beyond the Statue of

Liberty and Ellis Island, thumbing through words for water and motion and light.

"How often do you take a boat ride with nine hundred million dollars?" one of Malcolm's law partners asked Diana. They had both gone below to look for refills. "I trust that Malcolm checked the life preservers and Dr. Frehmont reviewed his will."

340 The boat tilted suddenly. Diana caromed off Malcolm's partner. He did not seem to mind.

"Tell me, Diana, if Dr. Frehmont contributed big bucks, what did you do for Malcolm?"

"I'll take that the right way." Diana filled their glasses. "I make the big bucks happen. I organize those fund-raisers for Malcolm you and your partners have to take tables for."

Helen called down into the cabin, "Come up on deck: we're about to circle the Statue of

Liberty."

"Go on up, sweetie," Diana said to the Malcolm's partner, "I'm coping with mal de mer."

"`Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.'" Andy

went on to quote the rest of the Emma Lazarus inscription.

"Where did you learn that?"

Andy looked embarrassed. "I had a teacher in the fifth grade who made us memorize the

damndest stuff."

"I'm glad she did." Olivia thought, that's what’s missing from what I want to say: the escape

to, not the voyage from, was what possessed the immigrants' imagination. Words hovered like gulls

above a garbage scow; like the candy wrappers blown across the dock earlier that afternoon; like

sea spray across the bow.

Leaving the Statue of Liberty astern, the Mary Jane went on a reach up the Hudson into

calmer waters. Helen asked the long-haired first mate to refill the glasses and pass the strawberries

and cheese around again.

Helen allowed herself time to watch the last of the sun's rays gild the George Washington

Bridge and the skyscrapers midtown. For a moment, she need not pretend a damn thing; not

341 pretend, as she had been forced to yesterday with the Lanahans. It had been uphill work to win them over. After the 1974 primary, Patrick Lanahan had sworn to keep Malcolm from being nominated for so much as dogcatcher in the Empire State. Pat had the Democrats in Albany in his pocket. Wadsworth should know he was a dead duck.

Malcolm thought otherwise. He thought nationally. He was putting his money on a long shot. As Newsweek told its readers last week: "Jimmy Carter is lucky to have former Senator

Malcolm Wadsworth work on his New York campaign, a man who can translate the New Deal into modern usage."

Because Pat had this large pocketful of Democrats, Malcolm took Pat to lunch to persuade him to back Jimmy Carter. With Pat's support they'd carry the State, said Malcolm. Pat had agreed to consider it.

Helen gave a luncheon at her club for Mary Lanahan. Ignoring the other guests Helen had invited to meet her, Mary held forth on drug addiction, methadone treatment, the shelter for runaways in Times Square where Mary volunteered each Wednesday, the Catholic Worker centers and their founder Dorothy Day. “Mary, you make me look like a slacker,” Helen said when the luncheon broke up.” Instead of playing by the rules and saying, “That’s not true at all, Helen,”

Mary looked offended.

In return, Mary and Pat had taken the Wadsworths to an excruciatingly bad musical; and there had been a mix-up about dinner afterwards. To pay them back, the Wadsworths invited the

Lanahans to sail on the Mary Jane. Unfortunately they had accepted.

Her five minutes of tranquility were up. Helen rose to take the empty seat next to Dr.

Frehmont.

342 Like his daughter, Anton Frehmont had made no concession to the informality of the

occasion. He was dressed in a dark, three-piece, pin-striped suit, high-topped black shoes, and polka-dotted bow tie. "Your ancestors may have stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock, Helen, but we all come from somewhere else. My rock's back there, Ellis Island," he said in his deep raspy voice.

"When we turn around, I'll point out the place my high school stood and first tenement where the

Frehmonts lived.”

"Father, I think you've had enough champagne." This to the mate, who was refilling glasses.

"It always gives you a headache."

"Nonsense. I'm the doctor." Dr. Frehmont said to Helen, "You can't see it from here, but

Beekman Downtown was where I interned."

"How long did you practice before leaving medicine for banking?" Helen knew his story by heart, but it gave him so much pleasure to tell it.

"Fifteen years. I could still take out an appendix in an emergency."

"Really, Father!"

Emma lacks employment, thought Helen. "I want you both to know that I had a wonderful experience last week. Have you heard of the Catholic Worker movement and the woman who started it, Dorothy Day?"

"My foundation gave a grant to her newspaper some years ago, although I don't usually support sectarian groups."

Turning to Emma, Helen said: "The Catholic Worker runs a shelter for people who are down on their luck. Volunteers are always needed to help set up for breakfast and lunch." Helen smiled. "I'm not promising that you serve nature's noblemen and women, but it is essential work and no one is ever turned away. The shelter's at First Avenue and First Street."

343 "It's not anything I would want to do," said Emma Frehmont, seeing right through Helen.

After a pause, Dr. Frehmont asked: "How are your children, Helen? I remember meeting them some years back when you were kind enough to invite me to your house for dinner."

"Susanna and her husband just graduated from law school. Their little boy, our first grandchild, was born this January. Colum is a teacher in Colorado. Richard is at Arizona State and our youngest, Penny, plans to take a year off from college." An honest account, as far as it went.

She'd omitted Suse's stormy marriage, that all Colum taught was skiing and tennis, and Ricky might flunk out of college while Penny might never opt back in.

"It must be lonely for you and your husband with all of them away," Miss Frehmont said.

"Not exactly. People keep coming to stay....Oh, do look at the light on the George

Washington Bridge now."

"Oh, yes?" Miss Frehmont folded her hands primly in her flowered lap.

She's my age, Helen thought, fifty two, and she acts as though her life were over.

Determined to spark some enthusiasm from Emma, Helen asked: "Have you been downtown to see the ships, the entertainers at the South Street Seaport, the stands with food from every nation, and the wonderful mix of people? I hope we'll always remember that on this Fourth Of July, New

Yorkers were as friendly as - as people from Ohio."

“I wouldn’t know,” Emma said. "I work as a volunteer at the Jewish Home for the Aged.

I've been up there all week to give staff members time off to see the sights."

I stand corrected, Helen said to herself. And to Emma: "Good for you."

"Andy, even if you detest boats, isn't this something to tell your grandchildren?"

"I'll put it all down in my diary when we get home."

344 Poking fun at Olivia's journal; at Olivia's friends who coerced him onto boats; at Olivia's claustrophobic island where his eyes smarted and his sinuses clogged.

"But look! That's quite literally breathtaking." Olivia pointed to the Russian ship, moored in mid-channel, majestically breaking out sail. Nearer to the Mary Jane, a square-rigged training ship moved under power up the Hudson, the young midshipmen ranged precisely along the rigging.

"I'm glad I'm not up there." Andy raised his plastic champagne glass to toast them, dropped it and grabbed on to the forward hatch cover as the ketch bumped across the wake of the training ship.

"Are you two enjoying the view?" Malcolm stood before them, balancing on the pitching deck.

"Look, Ma, no hands," Andy muttered.

"We wouldn't have missed it," Olivia said.

"I agree. I'd be out here every afternoon, but Monday it's back to Carter Headquarters and the big push before the Convention. Meanwhile, I'd better relieve Helen with the guest of honor. If you want anything..." He waved toward the rear of the boat, "just call."

"`If you want anything, just whistle,'" Andy said falsetto, when Malcolm had gone.

"Will you please stop."

"Just trying to keep my spirits up," he grinned.

After a pause, Olivia pointed to the World Trade Towers. "How can something be both too tall and too boxy? Would you have put a dome on each one?" It was a game they'd played on their honeymoon: dome, spire or tower; did the cathedral or monument conclude (like the closing couplet of a sonnet, Olivia said) with the proper ending?

"Nothing would have helped." Andy pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the flimsy rope railing. "No, I'm not going to be sick. Got to see a man about a dog."

345 "To save you embarrassment, it's called the head."

James Lippincott celebrated the end of the Bicentennial festivities by taking his ex-wife to dinner.

For many years Rose had been accessible by phone, and once James understood about her boy friend, she agreed to meet James for a meal, now and then. In Rosie's company, James felt sharpened - it was comparable to having his sense of smell restored to him. They swapped books, opinions, favors. When Mrs. Katzenbaum went into a Home, James helped Rose move to her boy friend's apartment downtown, near the ILGWU.

Rose and the boyfriend gave parties; James went to two or three. But when Rose's cough was diagnosed as lung cancer, the boyfriend split - although, to his credit, he sent flowers. Rose didn't care for flowers any more than she used to. James had the idea to involve Dwight, whose time was too much his own. Dwight did Rosie's grocery shopping, cleaned up her apartment once a week, and stayed to watch TV with her if she needed company.

After a terrible six months, she went into remission. She returned to work, part time. Last month she began chemotherapy again. Tomorrow James was taking her to Memorial Hospital for another round of tests.

Rosie met him at a quiet Italian restaurant. She came in late, wearing a red and black silk dress, preceded by the familiar perfume. Up close he could see white scalp through her hair, and she moved as though in pain.

"So you still stand up for the ladies - I think that's what first got to me: your manners. No man I knew opened doors or asked me if I felt cold." She eased herself onto the chair he'd pulled

346 out for her. "James, I'm here to tell you I'm Bicentennialed out." She lit her cigarette before he

could strike a match. "The fireworks were terrific, though. Did you see them?"

"Yes. I watched them with Warren and his family." He handed her a menu. "The veal

piccata is terrific."

Rose ignored the menu. "James, I got to wondering the other day. Whatever happened to

my ex-ex-sister-in-law?"

"Diana? Somebody told me she was drinking too much."

"Too bad she wasn't born poor. She'd have made it in business. She's got fire in her belly."

Quality recognized quality. Diana once referred to Rosie as "La Mome Piaf," after the indomitable

French nightclub singer.

Since Rosie showed no interest in the menu, James did the ordering: veal, pasta, salad, and a glass of wine for himself.

"Guess who I've been hanging out with?" Rosie lit another cigarette. "Malcolm

Wadsworth."

"How come?"

"I'm coordinating the Union's work for Carter," Rose said.

"You're campaigning for Jimmy Carter?"

"Carter's better than nothing.' And Gerald Ford don't cut..." Rose burst out coughing.

"Will you put that thing out."

"It's all I got left, so don't go sanctimonious on me."

James lit a cigarette to keep her company.

"Funny thing. Malcolm asked me how you were. Complained you hadn't called him in months.”

347 "What did you tell him?"

"I asked, why didn't he call you. He thought that was a brilliant idea....James, I don't want you with me at Memorial tomorrow? And spare me your arguments, O.K.?”

James choked on his wine.

"Look, you've been a good buddy; so has Dwight; but I got to do this alone. When I get the results, I'll call you."

James said O.K. but if she changed her mind, he was here. Between her cigarettes, he tried to make her eat, the way you'd talk a crippled plane down to a safe landing. He had some success with the zabaglione.

After taking Rose home, James loped back uptown, unable to outrun what he'd seen. Her death was in her face. She knew; she had given him a rare kiss goodnight. He was forced to slow down by tides of tourists carrying flags and balloons and speaking in happy voices. He felt her impending death almost as deeply as their divorce.

When James reached his apartment, he found a typed note on Delafield & Lambert stationery in his mailbox, forwarded from where he last lived, asking him to join the Wadsworths for a cruise this very day around New York Harbor. "It's been much too long, Jolly," was

Malcolm's only reference to the past.

Hand over hand on the rope railing Andy edged his way forward to where Olivia still sat, entranced. "Diana's plastered and I'm not dealing with it this time."

Olivia went aft to look for reinforcements. Helen was talking with two of Malcolm's partners' wives. Malcolm listened attentively to Dr. Frehmont's favorite tale of six-year-old Anton,

348 thrust into the public school on Allen Street a week after he'd set foot on Ellis Island, knowing

nothing but Lithuanian and Yiddish.

Reluctantly, Olivia went below.

"Darling Olivia. How divine to see you here."

On a railed table were ranged platters of salmon sandwiches, cheese and crackers, a bowl of

strawberries. Nearby, four bottles of champagne cooled in an ice filled bucket. Diana held an open

bottle between her naked thighs.

Olivia pulled it away. "Put your Levis back on. Supposing someone came down just now."

"I'm going for a swim, for a little swim off this little boat," Diana sang, "off Manhattan

which the Indians sold for twenty four bucks and they chucked in Staten Island and the Bronx.

Bronx doesn't rhyme." She frowned. "I've got it! It's `twenty four dollars and a bottle of booze, and

they threw in the Bronx and Staten - give the bottle back, I had it first."

In the cockpit fifteen feet away Dr. Frehmont had reached the part where he graduated

CCNY with highest honors. Diana must be made to shut up. Helen and Malcolm could not count on

the discretion of his newspaper friend or the silence of the crew.

"Come into the forward cabin." Olivia held the bottle aloft with one hand, carried the jeans with the other. Diana followed, mewing for champagne. When she was safely inside, Olivia shut

the door and gave back the bottle.

"You know what's super about champagne? When you've drunk enough you have twice as

many roses."

Confused, Olivia looked about for a vase of flowers.

"I mean, everything doubles, except whatsh in my glass."

349 Olivia backed out of the cabin. She locked the door from the outside. She asked the young woman in the galley to make her a cup of black coffee.

When Olivia returned some minutes later with a mug of coffee she almost spilled it.

Diana's head and neck and arms had disappeared out the forward hatch, the naked plump torso and long legs thrusting upward from the bunk.

"For God's sake, Diana, get down!"

"I am going shwimming," Diana's voice came sing-song, "I am going shwimm-ming..."

"We're getting ready to dock." (A slight exaggeration; the Mary Jane was passing the Staten

Island ferry terminal.) "Come down and get dressed."

No response.

"Diana, come down this minute!"

One arm came in view, then the other. Diana hit her blonde head smartly on the side of the hatch as she drew herself in. "Shee what you made me do."

“Come on, Diana. Drink the coffee and get dressed. Now.” Olivia went out, locking the door after her. Up on deck, everything was as before. She made her way forward and closed the hatch. Andy's back had been to it. He swore he hadn’t seen a thing.

It was almost dark when the Mary Jane tied up. Olivia waited until Helen and Malcolm had said goodbye to their other guests, and the crew was busy with ropes and sails. Then she described what Diana had attempted to do.

"Lord, can't you see the headlines?" Malcolm laughed: "`Orgy on ex-Senator's yacht,' or

`Socialite bares all to tall ships.' Thank you, Olivia, you're a woman for all seasons. Will you and

Helen retrieve Diana while Andy and I distract the crew?”

350 Diana lay on her back, naked, snoring gently. One hand was flung palm up above her head.

The other shielded her crotch.

"She looks as though she expected someone to come along and paint her." Olivia shook her ungently. "She's still out. We'll have to dress her."

Diana was impossibly limp. At last they managed to hook her bra and force her arms into her shirt and her briefs. They were still struggling with the tight jeans when Malcolm appeared at the door.

Diana sat up. "I can dress myself, thank you," she sang out in her big band voice, "as Mally knows so well."

"What did Diana mean by that remark?" Helen asked Malcolm in the cab after they had left deposited her with her doorman.

"What remark?"

"Her saying that bit about dressing herself, `as Mally knows so well.'"

"You've caught her voice exactly," he said.

"But what did she mean?"

"She's always liked to take her clothes off. It's the old party girl instinct."

“Of course.” Helen guessed that her own expression, was out of soap opera, saying more clearly than words, But you promised me. Oh, grow up, stop the injured wife bit, she told herself.

Diana had probably had made a drunken pass at Malcolm once upon a time.

That night Helen dreamt that she was crossing the intersection of two wide highways. It was very foggy. She could hear idling motors, taxi horns and tires hissing on the wet pavement. When

351 she was half way across Helen could not see the curb she'd left or the sidewalk ahead. She woke up, sweaty with fear. She could not convey the awfulness of her dream, even to Olivia.

She dreamt it again and again.

352 Chapter Twenty-five

1979-81

All transportation had come to a halt so Olivia and Andrew walked home during one of

New York’s better blizzards after seeing an Ingmar Bergman movie. The snow had begun that morning, and now fell harder, erasing the work of snowplows and shovels and adding inches to the already abundant cover over steps and sidewalks and the deserted streets. Now and then they heard the heaving, futile labor of a stuck automobile. They slid down Park Avenue, throwing snowballs at each other, greeting other adults playing in the white silent night.

As they approached his apartment house, Andy stopped to shake off the snow collected on

his coat and the top of his Russian hat. "Thank God this is my last winter in New York."

"What?" Olivia asked.

"We're moving as soon as the tenant vacates the Santa Barbara house."

"But New York's my home."

"We've talked about spending time in Santa Barbara before, remember?"

"But only in terms of a winter vacation."

"No, if you had listened, in terms of living there. Olivia, I'm pleading with you. I've put in

seven indentured years here, like some fool in the Old Testament. Now I'd like to take my wife and

my flocks to greener pastures."

She can still see herself and Andy standing in the pristine white street, tiny fixed figures in

the middle of a glass-enclosed snow storm.

353 For months Olivia struggled, and wept, and fought, and sulked: a contrary urban Eve, rejecting a return to the Garden. She was leaving her children (who encouraged her and Andy to go); she was cutting herself off from her friends; she would not be able to watch over Minna.

Olivia complained to Lucy that she would feel naked without her identity as a New Yorker.

"Look at it this way," Lucy told her, "moving to California will help your writing. No need to glare at me. I didn’t mean to imply that your poems are stale, only that the move will provide you with new material."

“I don’t need new material,” Olivia answered sullenly.

She hated, most of all, to leave Helen, who, it could be argued, had left her. These days

Helen commuted between New York and Washington where Malcolm was serving as a Special

Assistant to President Carter. Malcolm's role was to interface with the Department of State; Helen's to keep him from exhaustion. Midweek, back in New York, she attended to her pupils and projects and committees. Her first reaction to the Beckers' move was pure envy. "To start over, to start fresh! How many of us in our mid fifties ever get the chance? Oh, Olivia, you're going to love your new life."

Olivia was not at all sure. Between discarding and sorting, packing and tagging, she went obsessively to the theater, the galleries, museums and concerts - storing up the richness of New

York before taking up residence in a cultural desert.

And there were painful loose ends.

On one of her sorties West, Olivia detoured to San Diego to see her mother. She brought back to New York the small box that contained Jacob Bernstein's papers. Among the birth certificates, marriage license, doctors' bills, post cards and faded snapshots, were four letters from

Jacob's sister, Ida Bernstein. Ida wrote to thank her brother for two pairs of kid gloves. She wrote a

354 year later to say that, despite his marriage, Jacob would always be dear to her. She wrote to express her concern that he was ill. Her last letter informed Jacob's widow that the Bernsteins could not contribute to her maintenance, or to her child's upbringing.

Ida had worked at a settlement house in Brooklyn. The address was on her stationery. It still existed. After a number of telephone calls Olivia learned that her aunt had retired in 1971. An old- timer in the office remembered Ida's address in Coney Island.

Olivia took the subway to Coney Island. (Helen had offered to go with her, but Olivia – from shame, sorrow, remorse, or something deeper - said she had to do this trip alone.) She found the right address, a shabby wooden house, with a sign ROOM TO LET. She rang the doorbell, at intervals, for fifteen minutes before an old woman in a cotton house dress and bedroom slippers opened the door. "You got to be real careful who you let in," she said. "It ain't safe here once the warm weather comes."

"I'm looking for a Miss Ida Bernstein." Olivia's heart was pumping violently. Could this slattern really be her aunt? So much for family piety!

"Who wants to know?"

"I might," Olivia lied, "have a small legacy for her. If she is the right Ida Bernstein."

"That one din't have relatives, except one brother who died years ago. Other roomers had visitors. Not Ida; no one came to see her; no one called. When she went and broke her hip, I couldn't be responsible. The social worker at the hospital got her into a some old aged home."

That afternoon Olivia called the social service department at the hospital. Their records didn't go back that far, but since Miss Bernstein was Jewish, she'd probably been sent to Mt.

Hebron Home. Olivia telephoned the Home. A woman named Ida Bernstein was a patient there.

Using her story about the legacy, Olivia made an appointment for the next day.

355 She was kept waiting more than half an hour in the Mt. Hebron reception room. Then a nurse, black-skinned, comfortably stout, with a crooning voice, called her name. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Becker, but I had to make my baby neat and clean."

They took the elevator to the fifth floor. Olivia followed the nurse along a hall into a ward where rows of beds contained immobile old dolls.

The nurse stopped at a bed at the far end. In it lay an ancient, stinking old thing. Olivia backed away. She wanted to retch.

"She's gone and messed her panties," the nurse said. "And I had her looking beautiful after her bath."

"Can't she hear you?" Olivia asked.

"Lord, no, honey, my baby's been out of it for years."

After Aunt Ida had her diapers changed, Olivia asked if she could sit there for a while with her, alone. The nurse brought a chair. Olivia found nothing familiar in her aunt's collapsed face or cloudy, unfocussed eyes. She held the old woman's cold hand. It was big and scaly, with long, knotted fingers. It did not resemble Olivia's small neat hand in the least. But Aunt Ida did not pull her hand away..

When she hoped she had made her presence felt, Olivia said, "Ida, Ida Bernstein." Her voice was loud, as she might speak to a deaf person. The old woman clamped her eyes shut and rolled her head from side to side in terror.

Olivia whispered, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Aunt Ida, I'm Jacob's child. I've come to see you."

356 The old woman turned her head away. Olivia sat there for almost an hour willing her to

respond. She watched her aunt sleeping, a skull on a stick whose empty open mouth now and then

emitted a little bubble of a snore.

Before she left the Home, Olivia made good on her lie about a legacy. She asked the nurse

to take her to the director. Olivia wrote a check for five thousand dollars to cover extra care or

medication that Miss Bernstein might need. Or her funeral expenses.

That night Olivia wrote up her journey to the Mt. Hebron Home, ending with: "I took a taxi

back to Manhattan so I could get the crying over with. As she thanked me for my check, the

director told me that when Aunt Ida entered the Home in 1974, she still had all her faculties. But I

refuse to feel guilty about Aunt Ida. Unlike Minna, who pulls out all stops each time we meet."

"Olivia," Minna said, as they settled in the lounge of her club one noon. "Olivia, admit it,

Andrew is using his allergies as an excuse to snatch you away."

Minna banged the bell on the cocktail table to summon a waitress. "I've been a member here

for sixty years and they still don't come when I call." They came. Minna gave the drinks order, and

continued the attack.

Olivia, who had heard Minna on the subject of Andy's health before, eavesdropped on a

conversation at the next table between two deaf, but well-informed, old ladies, one of whom was discussing de-Stalinization, the other de-salinization.

"....and you're going to hate Santa Barbara, Olivia. Porter and I spent two weeks there before the war. We might as well have been visiting Boston. You know, they all had their friends, like Boston women and their hats. You'll have a terrible time meeting people."

357 "Andy's art collection has already made him friends. He's been asked to help plan a new

modern art museum."

"But there's no music out there." The ice rattled in Minna's empty Old-fashioned glass as

she set it down. "I imagine you'll take up golf and never open a book again."

"Riding, not golf. There are hundreds of miles of trails back in the Santa Inez Mountains."

"Olivia, have you ever been on a horse?"

"I grew up out West, remember."

"No one would guess it." (Minna meant this as a compliment, Olivia knew.) "Now drink up.

My reservation's for twelve-thirty and the fussbudget who runs the dining room won't hold my usual table unless we're prompt."

By planting her walker far in front of her and then shuffling up to it, Minna made her way to the elevator door. She pressed the button repeatedly.

During lunch Minna resumed the attack: "It comes down to this: I'm selfish. I don't want you five thousand miles away."

"It's less than three thousand," said Olivia.

Minna ignored her. "At eighty three you don't have the energy to make new friends. I love

Helen, but she isn't naughty like you, and anyway she's in Washington whenever I need her most."

"I refuse to be sorry for you, Minna; you have hundreds of friends and relatives." Olivia went on to list them.

Minna’s hand waved the substitutes away. "It's such a bore not being able to go to concerts by myself. And I won't have that nurse take me. Do you know who her favorite composer is? That appalling man on the television with the candles - Liberace."

Olivia, who had arranged for the nurse, was silent.

358 "When do you and Andrew move?"

"The Prairie Schooner leaves the end of the month. Always remember, Minna, I can fly

back in time for dinner."

Minna brushed this aside. "There is one thing you can do before you abandon me. I want to

see the chapel where Porter and I were married."

After Olivia conveyed Minna home she was shown yellowed newspaper clippings Minna

excavated from an old Dobbs hat box. Wilhemina Augusta Reid and Porter Havens Delafield had

exchanged vows in the company of their attendants and immediate families in the chapel of the

Fifth Avenue Protestant Episcopal Church on the first Saturday in June, 1926. Following the

ceremony a reception was held at the Colony Club.

Minna fished again in the hat box and brought up a sepia studio photograph of herself. A

bunchy headdress of tulle and fake orange blossoms obscured her blonde hair. The short hemline of

her lace wedding dress dipped to a awkward train behind.

The ghastly fashions of the 1920s! Olivia said, "You were lovely."

"Thank you, my dear; I felt middle-aged. Today people of thirty are barely out of diapers."

Although Minna had said, "I'm ready any time you are. Just call, and I'll put on my dancing shoes," the logistics of the outing required hiring a car and driver. Olivia also telephoned the rector of the church to explain her mission and make sure the chapel door would be unlocked.

Once Minna had been inserted into the upholstered depths of the hired town car she began fussing about the cost.

"But Minna, I'm paying, or rather Andy is."

359 "It's the principle of the thing." And having taken care of the principle, Minna turned her

attention to the passing scene. "Doesn't St. Bartholomew's look like a little Byzantine pimple

stuffed down there below those office buildings." And: "I see they've regilded the Grand Central

Building. Tacky, to use your favorite word, Olivia." And: "Do you know, I haven't been below

Altman's for years." And: "I can remember when they finished the Flatiron Building."

The trees along lower Fifth Avenue and in Washington Square had burst into young green

leaves. Small white clouds hung, sportive as balloons in the pure blue sky. The town car pulled over to the curb and stopped.

"Ah, here's the church. I'd forgotten that the chapel was so small."

Not for the first time, Olivia wondered if their excursion was misguided. Might Minna be overcome by her recollections? Weep loudly and inconsolably? Suffer a heart attack?

"The air today wouldn't bother a soul," said Minna, when she had been decanted from the car and braced upright with her walker. Olivia and the driver boosted her up the steps and into the chapel. Once their eyes had adjusted to the gloom, Olivia helped Minna down into the front pew.

"I've told you that Porter and I had to wait until Mother died before we could be married.

She felt he wasn’t ‘good enough’ for me. I told her we lived in a democracy, and while the Reids might be worth more, the Delafields had been in America since it began. She threw an almighty tantrum each time we suggested a date for the wedding.”

Minna fell silent. She turned to look at the short aisle down which she had walked on the arm of her brother. As she gazed back at the altar, Olivia visualized her standing there, Porter stepping forward, his gaze ardent, possessive, to take her arm. Lucky for him that they never had children! He couldn't have endured to share Minna with even one child.

360 She closed her eyes. What was she thinking? That it didn't seem a minute since she stood there? Was the accumulation of those years almost more than she could bear? Was she consoled by belief in an after life where she and Porter would be reunited? Or had she fallen asleep?

Five minutes later, the rector, in full canonicals, slid into the pew on Minna's other side. "Mrs. Delafield, how nice of you to come and visit."

Minna opened her eyes. She looked gravely displeased at this interruption.

"I'm sorry not to have been here to greet you when you arrived," said the rector. "I've just come from a christening in the main church. Mrs. Becker told me over the phone that you were married here in the chapel."

"Yes." Minna said coldly.

"I know your nephew, Christopher Reid. Such an innovative churchman." By which, Olivia surmised, he meant that Chris in the thick of the new rites and ecumenical practices of the

Episcopal Church was entirely too radical for him.

Minna asked faintly, "I don't suppose you remember Dr. Coffin?"

"I'm afraid that he was before my time."

"He married Porter and me. I must say, the chapel looked a good deal smarter then."

"Yes, well, we've undertaken to raise five million dollars for reconstruction. We hope to have the work completed by 1983."

"I won't be around to see it....Come along, Olivia."

In the hall of her apartment, Minna said, "I don't expect we'll meet again until my funeral."

She turned her cheek from Olivia's kiss, and began to plunk toward the living room.

"Nonsense, Minna. I'm taking you to Symphony next Friday, Andy and I are coming to your

Sunday musicale, and then there's Helen's farewell party."

361 After Olivia gave Minna a second hug, Minna said, "You do feel badly about abandoning

me, don't you?" and allowed herself to be kissed.

Helen held the Beckers' going-away party at her club because there were simply too many

people who had to be included. Malcolm mildly questioned the expense of renting the ballroom,

and the rest of it. Helen told him she was using her own money, and it was the least she could do

for Olivia. Privately she felt it was the least they could do for Andrew who had contributed so

much and so often to Malcolm's political campaigns.

The night of the party, as she and the Beckers greeted the first guests, Helen longed to be

leaving the East as well. But there was Malcolm stuck in Washington, working long hours; there

was Mother in Winchester; there were Susanna's little boys, and Penny finishing Barnard (at last).

In New York Helen's chief joy, once Olivia had gone, would be her pupils; her chief bane, Mrs.

Wadsworth, who felt that Helen's dutiful attention in no way compensated for Malcolm's absence.

It was Minna who pulled at her heart. And here was Minna, coming forward with a cane

and Thomas's careful arm, to greet them. She wore her cut-velvet red dinner dress and her pearls, and she told them "I wouldn't have missed this evening for all the tea in China. I even had my nails done."

Helen, who had given a political dinner party in Georgetown last night, and risen early to take the shuttle, to oversee the details of tonight's party, yawned, laughed, yawned again.

Abbott demanded to know what Olivia would do for opera in Santa Barbara. "I see you lolling around a pool with an oriental house boy bringing you unspeakable drinks with flowers in them."

362 "Home is not the Hearst Castle." Olivia described their modest board and batten bungalow on two acres of land high above the city, overlooking the sea.

"We’ve added on a room of her own to write in,” Andy said. “I'm expecting great things of my wife."

Andrew had changed outwardly in the ten years since Helen first met him. He’d stopped wearing those silver and turquoise ties and belts, wore a dinner jacket when he had to; he even kept his voice down, most of the time. But the way he had his hand on Olivia's hip struck Helen as both vulgar and enviable.

In Helen's fading fantasies of her life with James, he touched her often, companionably, to make a point, to convey love. These days Helen and James talked often on the telephone: about

Dwight's problems; about educational techniques; and now this new girl - woman – James had found in Portland, Maine. I've grown up, Helen said to herself; and how tired it makes me feel.

She tuned back in to the conversation around her. George Fulton and Olivia were discussing the writer Annie Dillard. Olivia won't get this kind of conversation in Santa Barbara. And then

Helen asked herself, why not? And perhaps I shall be there....

Malcolm arrived at last. The shuttle had been late, and he'd shaved and changed into dinner clothes in the lavatory of the airplane. He had brought the latest news from Washington, the five star final, as Andy remarked. Malcolm was allowed one quick drink. Then seventy three New

Yorkers and two Californians sat down to mushroom soup, roast beef, ice cream, and toasts.

The ballroom was chilly. Olivia shivered in her sleeveless silk dinner dress, and saw in the mirrored wall opposite a middle-aged woman adjust a turquoise scarf around her bare shoulders. How matronly they all looked, even Diana, ostentatiously turning over her wine glass before the waiter could fill it, even Helen, who had put on weight, looked older.

363 The durable editors Olivia had known at Vogue looked pinched and outre. Most of the men

were bald or grey, and Olivia wondered if Malcolm did a little something to his springy dark blond

hair. Our revels are ended, our ravels unmended...the camera pulled back and panned past the

festive tables of friends reflected in the mirrored walls of the white and yellow ballroom, black and

white males alternating with females in green or pink or blue. To Andy they must resemble a wax

exhibit in the Museum of the City of New York labeled A Dinner Party of Yester-year.

Then Olivia felt like a disloyal bitch as Malcolm toasted her. Olivia was "the Renaissance woman New York could ill afford to lose," And Andrew, “The best thing that had happened to the city in fifteen years."

Minna banged on her water glass with a spoon. "I want to make a toast, Mally," she cried out imperiously. "I hope Olivia and Andy will be very happy, and that they'll come home often."

* * * * * *

Olivia's sixth trip "home" was to attend what turned out to be Minna's last musicale; and to see Helen.

Helen was also early. "Oh, Olivia, I'm so glad you're here. I didn't - I couldn't tell you over the telephone. Susanna and Ned have separated, and she's started divorce proceedings."

"That's terrible. Won't she reconsider?"

"No." Helen sighed. “I told her that with two small children you work at your marriage. I begged her to overlook Ned's lapses and try harder. `I'm not Avis, Mother,' said Suse. She only calls me Mother when she's furious with me."

"But there have been rumblings before."

"I am afraid so. But Susanna is too impatient to - to ride things out. It's been an awful week.

Did you hear that Amos Depuy has been booted out of the SBCCU?"

364 "But Amos was the founder!"

"Amos begged Malcolm to make the Board reconsider - and so did I - but Malcolm won't interfere. He believes that if you support community control, you have to let the community control."

James Lippincott joined them. He had more news of veteran staffers fired from the SBCCU.

From her throne in a front row armchair, Minna hushed her guests vigorously. Olivia and

Helen took seats in the back. Olivia wished she had come a day earlier to spruce Minna up. There were spots on Minna's silk dress; her stockings were twisted; her lipstick brave but inaccurate.

When the room was silent, Josef nodded, and his quartet, augmented with a second viola, performed a Mozart quintet. Next came a Dvorak, and lastly an angular modern piece. Olivia's glance strayed to the bookcase where the Edith Whartons and the New York Edition of Henry

James were badly in need of dusting. For a moment she reverted to Olivia Smith, elegant without, a morass of uncertainties within, come to take New York by storm. She had worn her best dress that day, a Claire McCardell design that Helen had admired. Olivia remembered how at lunch

Minna had asked "the young people" where they'd be in ten years, by which time - according to her

- they'd all be nicely settled.

Not Olivia. Instead of becoming editor of Vogue, she had left the battle. Fame (if that was what she had once longed for) eluded her still. These days, Olivia sat in a handsomely decorated sunny room overlooking the hazy blue Pacific and wrote about the bitterest things she knew.

She made a story from Minna's dominating mother, who had robbed Minna of six years of happiness with her "penniless lawyer." Olivia built a story around Aunt Ida working at an uncongenial job, taking care of ailing parents, gathering strength from her anger at being stuck at home, relishing her righteous rejection of her brother's gentile wife. Olivia made poems from

365 childhood incidents she hadn't known she'd noted: the feral, tattered children in the last row of

every schoolroom Olivia had passed through; the hobos that came to the Smiths' back door for

food; and her mother's desperate scramble to keep the family solvent and genteel.

"Now, don't tell me that the Schonberg was `interesting,'" Minna said tartly, as Olivia and

Helen came forward to kiss her after the concert. "Helen, why aren't you in Washington? There's

Malcolm slaving for poor Jimmy Carter to free the hostages?" And to Olivia: "You came, after all,"

as though there had not been three telephone calls last week to assure Minna that Olivia would be

there.

Mrs. Lippincott took the chair next to Minna for what promised to be a long talk. Olivia and

Helen went to stand in line for tea.

Olivia said miserably, "I don't believe Minna will ever forgive me for leaving New York."

"Dear girl, it's not just you and me she rides. Minna reports Porter's criticisms from beyond the grave to Malcolm - whenever she can catch him. Porter, she says, would not approve of the bloated size of the law firm. Porter was of the opinion that too damn many lawyers engage in public service. Which between you and me - don't tell a soul - won't be much longer."

"I'll be discreet and not ask questions. Meanwhile, what shall we do tomorrow? The

exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art? The new Woody Allen?" My God, Olivia thought, I

sound like a typical out-of-towner.

"Whatever you want. I've cleared the decks for you." Helen smiled. "You're the best excuse

I have for not attending a board meeting, and not lunching with Malcolm's mother."

Two weeks later, Malcolm resigned as Special Assistant to the President: “A difference in

perception," was all Malcolm said on the six o'clock news. "No comment," he continued to say

366 until, a month later, the aborted rescue by helicopters of the hostages in Iran was made public.

Eight servicemen had died in some godforsaken desert before the helicopters could become airborne. The President took responsibility for the disaster. That night he stared out at the Beckers from the TV screen, his steel-blue eyes red-rimmed with fatigue, his face bunchy with desolation.

"It's not enough to mean well, is it?" Andy asked rhetorically.

Helen's next letter was jubilant: "Malcolm is the reluctant darling of the media, interviewed, editorially praised, asked to speak on the Town Hall of the Air. Only Malcolm and the top fellow have come out with their integrity intact."

Andy, reading over Olivia's shoulder, muttered, "Integrity intactus."

"I think Malcolm was a real hero," said Olivia, over-reacting, as usual.

After a silence, Andy asked, "What's the report on Minna?"

By letter and by telephone, Helen kept them up to date. Olivia paid two visits to New York later that summer. By October, Minna was bedridden, with nurses around the clock. "I hate to summon you again," said Helen, "but I think it's touch and go."

Despite Helen's phone call, Olivia was not prepared for what she saw. The Delafield apartment was readied for death, with drawn curtains and florists' impersonal arrangements standing about in the hall. The rooms smelled of an aggressive disinfectant. Minna lay doll-sized on a rented hospital bed in her bedroom. The nurse had tied an inappropriate pink ribbon around her sparse white hairs. Olivia felt ill.

"Minna, dear," said Helen loudly. "Look who's come all the way from California."

Minna did not move. Olivia picked up her left hand; it might have been dried leaves and sticks she held. "How well does she hear?"

367 "It's hard to tell. It's as though she's listening to voices from inside her. Then suddenly she'll

begin to talk. Yesterday, it was the size of the allowance Chris Reid was to be given when he

started eighth grade."

"Minna," Olivia said softly. "Minna darling." The fragile hand twitched in hers. "Minna, I'm

here." Olivia sat down on the edge of the hospital bed.

Before the nurse could object, Helen sent her out of the room to make them both a cup of

tea. "Olivia, I'll give you a proper drink when we go home.”

"You've been here every day?"

"Nearly. Mrs. Wadsworth can't understand my devotion. I almost said to her, you get back

what you've given in this life."

"I hate every bit of this," Olivia whispered.

"So do I. Let's turn on the Presidential debate. Maybe that will rouse her." Helen tuned the

TV to the Carter-Reagan debate which had just begun.

Olivia watched the screen: Jimmy Carter's prissy way of looking pained versus Ronald

Reagan's ol' boy humor. "There you go again," said Reagan, deflating Carter's earnest vehemence.

Helen said, "I wish Jimmy Carter didn't give me the feeling that he was pleading with us,

rather than leading us."

Minna turned her head toward Olivia. She opened her eyes. She looked unsurprised to find

Olivia sitting there. "Olivia? remember those shoes you all wore?"

"Platform shoes? Shoes made of straw?"

"No, no, no,” Minna said impatiently. “In the lapel of your jacket. With holes."

Helen turned down the Presidential debate so they could hear what Minna was saying.

"Minna, dear. How can you wear a shoe in your lapel?" Olivia asked.

368 She freed her hand from Olivia's grasp and waved it impatiently in the air. "I said pin, not shoe. A shoe sole pin with holes in it.. `All the Way with Adlai' because he didn't get his shoes resoled. Don't tell Porter, but I ended up voting for him. Porter can't stand the way he's forever quoting."

But Minna was unconscious by the time Chris Reid came by to pay his nightly visit to his aunt. She was in a coma six weeks later, when Olivia came back again and stayed for the funeral.

Leaving All Saints after Minna Delafield’s funeral, with his mother and two brothers, James stopped Dwight at the top of the steps. "Will you go back with us to Minna's apartment for a while?

It would please Mother."

"I'm not good at small talk." Dwight made a grimace that passed as a smile. “I should have been a Trappist monk. Only problem is, I didn't believe in God.”.

"Let the others do the talking," James said.

Dwight shook his head. "Since Rose died there's something's between me and the rest of the world, like thermopane glass."

"Has your hearing been bothering you?"

"No, I hear better than you do, Jolly. But I feel blocked off from knowing what's out there."

"What do you mean by `out there'?" You were supposed to encourage Dwight the rare times he got going.

"All of it. Everything. Everything but me," Dwight said.

"What do you mean by Everything?" James asked impatiently.

Dwight raised his voice and rattled off: "Cause and effect. Meaning. Life passing us by.

Even death. Should think you'd understand, Jolly. You're the one spouting off about this and that."

369 Grace Lippincott hurried back up All Saints steps and put her hand on James's sleeve.

"Dwight needn't come with us, if he doesn't feel like it."

"Don't you understand I can't?" Dwight ran down the steps and hailed a cab.

Warren, who had remained aloof from this scene, took his mother’s arm. “It’s hard on you.

James and I know that. Did you ask Chris to talk to Dwight as we suggested?”

Grace Lippincott waited until they had found a taxi before replying. “Funnily enough, when it’s just Dwight and me in the apartment there’s no craziness. We play the piano, fix cozy meals.

I’ve even persuaded him to watch TV with me now and then.” Grace sighed. “I don’t mean I’m a prisoner, or anything. I go out whenever I wish to without feeling guilty – since I’ve concluded that

Dwight is only truly happy when he’s alone.” When they reached the Delafields’ apartment, she added: “But as for Chris Reid’s pastoral counseling – it fell on deaf ears.”

370 Chapter Twenty-six

1982 - 84

The fall of 1982, Malcolm's Saturday tennis partner, the syndicated columnist, moved to

Washington. The Reverend Christopher Reid was invited to take his place. Chris was eight years younger, Malcolm, five inches taller; it was the best tennis Chris had had in years. But there's no such thing as a free lunch (an update on Cast your bread upon the waters?) and Malcolm insisted upon time after tennis for leisurely conversation with his clergyman of choice.

Chris would have preferred that his office in the parish house be the staging ground for these discussions. Which was why, Chris felt sure, Malcolm chose the neutral territory of the

Racquet Club lounge and Chris, the recipient of free tennis hours, as his grateful confessor. One who would not argue; only confirm.

Malcolm boasted to Chris about his successful restructuring of Delafield, Lambert and

Wadsworth. (From what Chris had heard, young Fletcher Lambert and Peter Thompson had done the significant spade work.) Now that the firm was going great guns, Malcolm said, he could give his full attention to his political future. Last summer's tentative campaign had been an aberration.

Trouble was, he'd lost most of his advisors. Linda Dixon married and moved to Hawaii.

Bill Warren had taken a job with Congressman Henry Moses. James had jumped ship after the

1974 primary. Malcolm listed half a dozen others defectors. But the advisor Malcolm regretted losing the most was Rodman Stubbs, who had become president of a small Negro college in

Mississippi.

371 "Do you remember Harold Stassen?" Malcolm asked after Chris had beaten him 6-3, 7-5

one Saturday morning.

"Sure. He ran for President half a dozen times and never got the nomination."

"Like that old Listerine advertisement, ‘Often a bridesmaid, never a bride.' At least they

can't say that about me." Malcolm reviewed with Chris, not for the first time, his political career:

Assemblyman, State Senator, Congressman, Senator, Special Assistant to the President. "And what

are the rewards?"

"Power, I would imagine, the right kind: making laws to preserve the environment and improve the quality of people's lives. While a clergyman is lucky if he...."

"Power comes to them that's there. When I was serving in Washington Pat Lanahan brown-

nosed every influential Democrat in New York. He's desperate, of course. Pat's older than I am,

and a politician, like a woman, is only fertile so long."

"What about Ronald Reagan?" Chris asked.

"An exception. Did you ever read a biography of Gandhi? He believed that he and he alone

had been chosen to lead the Indian people to independence. I have the background and I've done

my homework. I know what should be done about inflation, relations with the Soviet Union, arms

control and so forth, but I lack the conviction that I'm the one to do it."

It sounded to Chris as though Malcolm did feel that only he could lead the country out of its

current messes and confusions.

"But Lord, the effort of rebuilding my political base! Where will I find the money to run for

office? Dr. Frehmont's dead. The Beckers have abandoned New York. Diana Morgan gives her

money to AA these days. I'd need contributions amounting to $8,000 a day for the primary, and

372 maybe twice as much coming in each week for the general election. I won't settle for the bench unless it's the Appellate Court, or higher."

Chris marveled at Malcolm's amnesia. Rumors about women still clung to Malcolm. Chris had no recent evidence of this, however, and disliked to pass judgment. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone." Not Chris who (like former President Jimmy Carter) had been guilty of lust in his heart, though not in deed; who loved the good things of the table and rarely turned down a glass.

"Helen, it's Olivia."

"You must have gotten up at six to make this call."

"I wanted to catch you before your first student. Your letter arrived yesterday. I had to find out why you've gone back to the SBCCU, after all the grief they gave you."

"The Goldman Foundation asked me to make a study of educational facilities in Northeast antipoverty agencies. It's my last week in the South Bronx, thank the Lord."

Helen listed briefly what she'd found. Or rather, what was missing. The guidance office was gone. The community garden the SBCCU sponsored was choked with weeds and trash. Bars darkened the windows and graffiti covered the walls of the Center. "With all the funding they have,

I can't understand letting the building go to pieces. When I reported all this to Malcolm he didn't know anything about it."

"Is the staff giving you a hard time because you're white?"

"No. There are more white people working at the SBCCU than there were in my time. The

Assistant Director is an Orthodox Jew. The comptroller is of German descent. His Irish brother-in- law, a partner in Pat Lanahan's firm, represents the Center....What's new with you?"

373 "Andy's raised most of the money for his art museum. I write every day and tear most of it

up." Olivia took a breath. "You still write to me now and then, but you haven't called since God

knows when. I'm worried about you."

"Don't be: I'm seeing an analyst."

Olivia was stunned into silence. Helen was the last person to turn to therapy.

"I know, I used to think that psychotherapy was for people like Dwight Lippincott - not that it's done him any good, poor feller - but not any longer."

"What made you start?" Olivia tried to imagine Helen reposing on a couch, free-associating

about her happy childhood.

"Susanna's divorce is part of it." And the uncomfortable parallel between that marriage and

hers. "And these days I feel nibbled at. Whatever I do seems to take away from something else I

ought to do." Helen emitted a laugh that was more of a bark. "I don't mean something as simple as:

if I'm out of town, Malcolm's shirts don't get to the laundry. It's a kind of general confusion. Oh,

Lord, Olivia, I don't really know what is right any more. I feel stuck in this nightmare I keep

having."

"What's it about?"

"I'm standing at the intersection of two wide streets. It's so foggy I can't tell if the lights

have changed. There are no other pedestrians. I start to cross. I lose sight of the sidewalk behind me

and I can't see the one I'm crossing to. I hear cars coming. I don't know whether to go forward or go

back. Then I can't move."

"Do you ever get to the other side?"

"I don't know. I heard brakes squeal, horns, and then I wake up." Helen woke up often these

days.

374 "What does the analyst say about it?"

"He says we'll have to work on it." He had also accused Helen of "suppressing" incidents in her life, but how Helen felt about James Olney Lippincott was none of the analyst's business!

"Dear Helen," Olivia wrote with a pen that knew it was lying. "I'm so glad you were pleased." She had just made a whopping contribution toward paying off debts from Malcolm's aborted 1982 campaign, because Andy had refused to give a cent.

"Thanks for your flattering comments about my three `Great Plains Portraits.' As for my story about the girl with the silver tap shoes who dreamed of being a Rockette - of course that was me. I can even show you the shoes: I found them cleaning out the house after Mother died.

"I can't tell you how disappointed we are that you won't be out to visit next month. I realize you have a great many demands on your time..." Oh, God! She was writing to Helen, not some acquaintance. Olivia tore the letter into four quarters and got out fresh stationery.

She wanted to write: "Duty is a terrible thing." She longed to say, "Helen, you've put on an outer layer like a teacosy. I can't get past your bland kind capable persona. Only when you were out here last January, and only for one day, did I pierce through the quilted public person you've become. We were walking on the beach, remember? And to get you going, I began to talk about my work: how I wanted to tear into reality - whatever that was - with my teeth; how I slammed it about against the wall like a great rag doll; how sometimes writing terrified me, like your dream of crossing an intersection through the fog, and I despaired of ever finding the words for what I felt.

"I added that Andy, luckily, put up with and even understood all this flailing about. James is like that, you said, he always knows what I mean. And when I mildly disagreed, you said I was quite

375 wrong; James was the most understanding person in the world, and you blushed, and I knew that I had stumbled on something I wasn't supposed to know.

"Which encouraged me to ask if you'd ever thought of taking a sabbatical from - I couldn't quite say Malcolm - your many obligations. And you'd said, quite sharply for you, of course you had fantasies of escape, but you were burdened by the need to be needed.

"But what about yourself, I had asked, that nest of Russian dolls still growing. You answered dismissively, Well at least I don't romanticize myself. And that really hurt me, and I said so. Oh, dear girl, I didn't mean you, you said. We walked on in silence, until a long line of ridiculous pelicans wobbling across the air made us laugh."

One August evening after she finished her letter to Olivia Helen attacked her professional reading with which she was, as usual, behind. Sam, the current golden retriever, joined them in the air-conditioned study. He took up most of the floor space under Malcolm's desk. Malcolm leafed through a stack of periodicals, preparing himself for opportunities that refused to present themselves. It was possible that Helen had urged him once too often to stop pursuing elected office; so he would not. Helen sighed: she still had her uses:

"Malcolm, let me read you something: `The condition of those below the poverty line have hardly changed since the Depression.'" She held up the periodical. "Did you see this article?"

Malcolm shook his head, and Helen continued: "`To the upper middle class, as to members of the

Reagan Administration, people on public assistance are lazy; they deserve their shoddy clothes and monotonous diet...' Malcolm, what could you do without?"

He smiled. “Interruptions when I'm reading."

376 "Just one more quote, then: `Today there's but a single difference from fifty years ago. In

1933, the Dream Book, a treasured catalogue from Sears or Montgomery Ward, and not the television, showed the poor the many things they could not afford.'"

Malcolm dismissed the quotation with: "That's mere rhetoric."

"The statistics come at the end. I'll put the article on your pile."

Half an hour later Malcolm chucked Foreign Affairs on the floor, scaring the dog. "The hell with it. Sam wants to go for a walk. I want to go for a walk. How about you?"

Helen, who was struggling to lose weight, agreed. Sam knew what was coming and made for the front door. Malcolm clipped on his leash.

Outside it was still hot but not humid. They strolled over to Fifth Avenue, and then back up

Madison, arguing about Malcolm's campaign debts.

"You stick to household finance, Helen, and I'll take care of the political arena."

"Why not take out a loan large enough to pay off the South Bronx Bank? And while you're at it, resign from the SBCCU."

"I need the SBCCU as a base in the black community."

"Listen to me, please. When the source of your loans becomes public - and a candidate has to make full disclosure, doesn't he? - the Federal government will start looking into the relationship between the SBCCU and the South Bronx Bank, and you'll be made a scapegoat."

"Darling, lighten up. I do listen. I trust your every word. I don't think you know how to lie."

Helen shrugged off his affectionate arm and walked on ahead. Other people believed her.

The committees and boards she served on welcomed her suggestions. The parents of the dyslexic children she tutored were embarrassingly deferential. Right now she was so furious with Malcolm she had trouble breathing. At other times, she felt too stale to care; their years ahead were like an

377 article you began reading and then couldn't find the page it was continued on. Didn't want to find the continuation.

But for their children's sake, the job had to be done. "It's only inertia, isn't it, that keeps your from tackling the problem?" she said over her shoulder.

He hadn’t heard her. Malcolm and Sam stood entranced by the window display of a leather goods store.

Approaching their apartment building, they saw an expensively-dressed couple arguing in front of the canopied door.

"Cool it, Sweetie, you've had too much to drink."

The middle-aged blonde cried, "You swore you'd leave her. Two years ago you said you'd file for divorce, and you never did one fucking thing about it."

"Do they live in our building?" Helen whispered.

"Doubt it. Don't think the board would let her in."

"So go to hell." The man walked away.

The woman, who wore high heels, ran after him, tripped, lost her shoes, flopped down on the pavement. "See what you made me do, you shit!"

The man flagged down a cab.

The blonde wailed, "Come back, Bob, you come straight back and help me, you hear?" But the man got into the cab and drove away.

There comes a moment in street dramas when the New Yorker either retreats or becomes involved. Without consultation, Malcolm tied Sam's leash to the fence and he and Helen stepped forward and lifted the woman to her feet. The back of her pink silk suit was smeared with soot.

378 While Malcolm propped her upright, Helen lined up the woman's pumps so she could step into them, and picked up her purse.

The woman in pink began to sob wetly. "Where has he got to? Where has that little shit gone?"

Helen opened the woman's purse. Inside she found a letter with a Central Park West address. Was that where she lived? The woman admitted that it was.

Malcolm asked the doorman to call a cab.

"Sure thing, Senator Wadsworth, one cab for Senator Malcolm Wadsworth coming up."

Helen's heart sank. Would the woman in pink, unable to punish her faithless lover, remember Malcolm's name and sue him for - for God knows what? At least, Helen thought grimly, she's too old to slap him with a paternity suit.

A taxi pulled up. Helen made sure it was she who bundled the woman in, placed her handbag on her lap and gave the address to the driver.

"Dear Lord that was depressing," Helen said later, as they began to prepare for bed.

"I thought it was rather funny."

"I didn't. I felt sorry for the woman."

"We didn't hear the man's side of it. She might have made the whole thing up."

"Would you? Would you demean yourself like that unless it was the truth." Helen, who just had, trying to get Malcolm to face his debts, pulled a blanket up over her part of the bed. To marriage, costing not less than everything.

"Do you really need that? It must be seventy five in here."

"I'm cold, silly." These days she was always cold. It went with the angina and the pills she was meant to take.

379

One Saturday morning after tennis Malcolm talked to Chris Reid about his unpaid loans from past campaigns. Since Malcolm had been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate,

it made sense to pay off his debts before the Convention. Not that they were in any way Malcolm's

fault; he'd learned of them much later.

"When you hire a campaign manager," said Malcolm, "it should go without saying that he

understands book-keeping, or at least finds a subordinate who does."

What could Chris say? Malcolm presented himself as separate from his staff, but the money

owed was Malcolm's responsibility alone. “It soundes like these financial lapses fell between God's

laws and the laws of the United States - whatever you can get away with without going to jail, or to

hell. And hell,” Chris added. “is right here on this earth.”

"Maybe so,” Malcolm said. “But I expect people to be honest, particularly when you pay

`em top wage."

"But you also watch them to be sure they do the job. Otherwise you're criminally careless."

"’Criminally careless,’ is a bit strong. Too trusting is more like it," Malcolm amended.

Another Saturday, Malcolm told Chris that Federal funds paid to the SBCCU were

unaccounted for. This unpleasant news had come up at the Community Center's last board meeting.

"How could that happen? Not to oversee the staff of the SBCCU is plain crazy! What was

the board doing all those years? Didn't you ask for a yearly accounting? It sounds to me like knee-

jerk liberalism that prevents you from investigating the antipoverty agency you set up."

"Chris, I haven't done anything wrong. I'm not responsible for setting up the Community

Center."

380 Still in a pompous spate (which he later much regretted) Chris continued: "Maybe so, but as

chairman of the board of directors, overseeing it was your responsibility. I don't care what color the

people on the board and staff of the SBCCU, whether they’re black, brown, blue or tattooed,

they've stolen the taxpayers' money."

"That hasn't been proved as yet," said Malcolm.

"Olivia, my first appointment is due any minute, but I thought you'd want to know that

Grace Lippincott died."

"First Minna, then your mother-in-law, and now Mrs. Lippincott. I wish it didn't take a death to make you telephone.”

Helen didn't answer.

"I know. That was a bitchy thing to say. It's just: I've missed your calls. You keep putting off your visit to us. And your letters don't tell me anything."

"Yours are wonderful."

Remembering her lies, Olivia let that pass. "Now I have you, you said in your last letter that you'd stopped therapy. You didn't say why."

Helen paused to choose her words. "It was a waste of money. After a year, I got tired of hearing my own voice, and tired of the therapist's neutral responses. The last straw was when I talked about Malcolm and the thread."

"Malcolm and the what?"

"Thread. I guess I've always thought of Malcolm as the boy Curdie in the children's book,

The Princess and the Goblins. Curdie is a brave miner's son who helps the princess escape by following a thread that led from the goblins' mountain lair. When I said that Malcolm held the

381 thread, I meant that Malcolm always seemed to me to know the right thing to do. The analyst began

to criticize me for using `juvenile literature' as an authority. I stood up and paid up and left. I have

never been so rude in my life,” Helen said with pleasure."

"Hooray for you."

"But isn't it funny how you remember things? For the first time in years, I reread The

Princess and the Goblins. When I got to the escape part, it wasn't Curdie, but the little princess who held the thread and led them both to safety."

Olivia said cautiously, "You sound more cheerful."

"Yes, I am. I'm clearing out so much junk. There’s nothing more therapeutic than throwing

things away." Last week she burned the letters she had lived on so long - the sentimental letters

James had written her right after the war. She took those wretched pills, when she remembered. She

exercised every day. "And guess what, I've lost ten pounds, though there are at least twenty more to

go. Even Malcolm's noticed."

“Hooray for you!” Olivia said. “And to get back to the beginning of your call: when is Mrs.

Lippincott’s service?”

“There will be a funeral for family only and a memorial service later on.”

In the evening of the morning his mother died, James let himself in to his parents'

apartment. He and Warren had attended to the details of the funeral. Dwight's assignment had been

to telephone distant cousins, old retainers, friends of his mother's in retirement and nursing homes.

The hallway was dark, which James found odd, and there was no light in the living room.

As he stepped across the threshold, his feet crunched down on something broken. He thought:

that's too God damn much! Mother died and now we've been robbed.

382 James snapped on the overhead lights. The floor was littered with fractured phonograph

records. Dwight lay on the couch, snoring.

"Hey, wake up."

Dwight didn't move. James left him there and walked through the apartment to check the

silver, stereo, TV, his mother's jewelry. Nothing had been taken, as far as James could tell.

He hadn't had any dinner. He opened a bottle of beer, found a box of crackers and some cheese, and

carried them back to the living room. Dwight lay in the same restful position as before.

`Why would a burglar stop to break phonograph records? James stooped down to look:

these were his records on the floor, fragile, precious, one-of-a-kind that he'd kept for safe-keeping in the family record cabinet: 78s, 33s, 45 rpms; some of the 78s went back to the 1920s. James was going to put them on tape when he got around to it.

It had to be Dwight's work: the fireplace poker rested on top of a dismembered Billie

Holiday recording of "Strange Fruit." Oh, Christ, the whole album of Muddy Waters. Rare Alan

Lomax recordings. Charley Patton. A 1920s collection of Paramount records broken in half. It was like some kind of mass murder: Okey discs; early Duke Ellingtons; Robert Lockwood; "Stagolee;"

"Salty Dog." As he picked up the fragments, James shouted the names aloud.

Dwight still lay sleeping in the same position.

James loomed over the couch. "You bastard," he shouted.

Dwight groaned, turned toward the back of the couch and covered his face with his bent arm.

"You son of a bitch!" James jerked Dwight's arm away. James upended the beer bottle. The beer foamed over his brother's face, soaked into his hair and ran down his neck on to the couch and the floor.

383 Dwight half sat up. He must have shaved this evening. His smooth chin and the grey hair darkened by beer made him look much younger. He peered up at James, his eyes naked without glasses. "What izzit?"

"What in hell did you think you were doing?" James held up a piece of Duke Ellington.

"Don't yell," Dwight said thickly. "I had to break something."

"What's the matter with your records? Why mine?" James raised the empty beer bottle threateningly..

"No, Jolly, please don't."

James smashed the bottle into the fireplace. He took the service stairs two steps at a time down to the lobby and burst out into the streets.

He ran downtown on the Central Park side of Fifth Avenue. At 68th Street he stopped and vomited into a trash container. Not much came up with the bile; he hadn't eaten lunch, either.

It began to rain. He stood there shivering and retching. Mother was dead.

His mother was dead. Summoned by the nurse around seven, James had arrived to find his mother lying on her back. The nurse had brushed her hair and closed her eyes. What very old dead people with their teeth out look like at their passing is dead, he had reflected unemotionally. Now he began to remember Amazing Grace before she had been so old. He remembered that he had left the back door to his parents' apartment open.

"You sure are out of breath," the night elevator man said. "Your brother's been looking for you."

James let himself in. From the hall he could see Dwight with his back to him, sitting at a card-table, attempting to glue the records back together.

"I won't be able to play them."

384 Dwight didn't look around.

"At best there will be a click where the needle catches."

Dwight said nothing.

"Give me some consolation." James sat down opposite Dwight at the card table. "Did you feel better when you got through?"

Dwight took his glasses off and considered the question. "No, I thought I would, but I didn't."

"Still you went on giving it a try - breaking four or five of my records between each telephone call."

"I didn't make any calls. By then I couldn't."

"Jesus Christ on a bicycle, why not?"

"I hadn't planned to be here, but I screwed up, as usual."

At last James understood Dwight's labored breathing and the difficulty he'd had rousing him. What had been the suicide weapon this time? Was that poison in the glass beside the couch?

James dipped his finger in, tasted New York city water. He looked under the couch and found the empty pill container that had held their mother's sleeping pills. There hadn't been enough left to do the job. Would Dwight try death soon again? Weren't the last fifteen years punishment enough?

James put his arm around his brother. "I'm glad you decided to stay." For once these seemed to be the right words.

The Saturday after he returned from the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Malcolm and Chris played tennis as usual. Afterwards, Malcolm discussed the various candidates; how

Mondale had all the charm of the family dentist but was a better choice than Gary Hart.

385 Watching the convention on TV, Chris had noted that Malcolm had been inconspicuous.

The New York Delegation was led by the Governor, with Pat Lanahan always at his side.

"I wish I could have persuaded Helen to come to the convention with me."

"She had professional commitments?".

"No, she said she didn't feel like it. Something's been bothering Helen. I don't know if seeing that shrink did it, but she talks about feelings all the time.

Chris had dealt with other men who denied the validity of the emotional life. Like a good counselor, he waited for Malcolm to continue.

"Helen's lost her sense of humor. When she starts nagging me about - this and that - I do my imitation of Reagan telling Jimmy Carter, `There you go again.' Can't raise a smile out of her.

Helen and I had a disagreement the week before I went to the convention. Helen said, `I won't be like that drunk woman,' some woman in a pink dress I've never heard of. I can't figure out what's bothering her. She keeps saying, `I wish everything didn't taste of tin.'"

"Now and then husbands - I know I do it - take our wives for granted. Do you tell her that you love her?"

"Of course I love her; everybody loves her. I would do anything in the world for her. She’s the reason I continue on in politics. But it's not my style to go on and on about it. I'm sure she knows that.

"It's none of my business, Malcolm, but are you - have you found someone else who....

"Good Lord, no!" Malcolm looked truly shocked. "The only woman I've ever loved is

Helen. Once or twice I may have given her cause to complain; but I don't sleep around, no matter what garbage you've read in the papers. I've always had women friends but that's as far as it goes."

386 "But aren't these friendships - isn't Helen bothered by them? And don't they help to keep alive rumors about your...."

"Thank you, Chris. You were quite correct: it is none of your business."

Malcolm did not name another Saturday for tennis. When Chris telephoned Delafield,

Wadsworth and Lambert his secretary said that Malcolm was unavailable.

When he stopped being so angry, Chris wondered if Helen could shed some light on

Malcolm's behavior. He telephoned to arrange a pastoral call.

Helen did not look well. She had lost weight, and she wore a sweater on that warm afternoon. But she served him an elaborate tea accompanied by cinnamon toast and cookies, as though he were still fifteen and needed cosseting.

After Chris had given the news of Janet and their five children ("The last one will finish graduate school about the time I retire from the ministry") he asked Helen casually how she and

Malcolm were these days.

"Malcolm's fine. He's at a SBCCU meeting this afternoon, or you'd see him."

Helen knew nothing about their quarrel, then.

"And I'm much better." Her voice was buoyant. "I was depressed, as you know, and I saw a psychoanalyst. He helped me in a way I bet Freud never anticipated. I disliked my analyst so much that I began to work out my own solutions. More tea?"

"Thank you. What were your conclusions, if you feel like talking about them?"

"Oh, Chris, I've realized something you probably knew at twenty one. I don't have to care about every single thing. I can stop always offering to help. In one of your sermons you said that hell is the knowledge of having caused irreparable harm. I think purgatory is feeling both

387 responsible and helpless. Everything is not my fault and, like housecleaning, the things I've fixed won't stay fixed, and sometimes we should let well enough alone and go walk on a beach."

Helen thought of her visit to Olivia in Santa Barbara and their walk on the beach, and the

ridiculous line of pelicans wobbling across the harbor.

388

Chapter Twenty-seven

1986

The telephone rings, waking Olivia Becker into the bright New York afternoon. It must be

Andy calling, at last. She lifts the phone on to the bed. "What time is it out there?"

"It's three o'clock, Miss," says the hotel operator. "You left a call for three o'clock."

Olivia mumbles Thank you, and inquires, as she had at noon, if there have been any messages. There are none.

After her morning appointment, Olivia returned to her hotel room and slept heavily for more than an hour. Now she feels, if possible, wearier, her face scored by jet lag, anger, grief - words with the weight and rhythm of the childhood game of scissors, paper, stone.

Olivia chooses a blouse the deep blue of lobelias (Helen's color) to wear with the beige linen suit. She combs back her thick gray hair and pins it with a tortoise-shell barrette. All the resources of her cosmetic kit are needed to work on her face. As she waits for the doorman to hail a taxi, she acknowledges what she had done. She has dawdled to make herself late for

(with luck, missing altogether) the memorial service for Helen Cross Wadsworth at All Saints

Church this perfect afternoon in late June.

"Helen won't know if you're present," Andy had said, "but I sure as hell will." By going East,

Olivia was abandoning him in Santa Barbara with a black tie dinner for eighty on his hands. No matter that Helen was Olivia's best and oldest friend.

The cab came far too quickly.

389 Wednesday, their first morning back from France, Andy went to his office, Olivia to her

desk. The third piece of mail she opened had been an announcement of Helen Wadsworth's

memorial service Friday, two days hence.

Olivia turned the stiff, engraved, white oblong over and over, looking for the source of the

cruel joke. Letters from New York friends -"We didn't know how to reach you in France" they

wrote - why hadn’t they called Stephen or Laura? - soon disabused her. Abbott's appalling note which hinted at suicide was contradicted by Lucy's, enclosing the Times obituary; the cause of

Helen's sudden death had been a heart attack.

When she finished sorting the mail, Olivia went out on the patio to water the hanging plants.

She climbed the stepladder. Then: splat! She lay sprawling on her back on the flagstones, with the watering can still upright in her hand. An accident-on-purpose to shock herself into comprehending

Helen's death? Olivia felt herself over for broken bones and, as there were none, she rose, shakily, and went to telephone Andy about Helen's service.

Olivia's backside still hurts. As the cab bucks down Fifth Avenue the potholes and patched pavement jar her sore coccyx. Traffic stalls just north of Rockefeller Center. Trying to get comfortable, she transfers her weight to her other buttock. She fusses with her linen skirt as if anybody cared about wrinkles today. She compiles a list of mourners: Malcolm and his and Helen's large family, Olivia's own two grown-up children; statesmen, politicians, old friends, Malcolm's partners and the legal community, U.N. personnel, educators, blacks, Hispanics - a good cross- section of New York.

Olivia had had no idea that Helen was ill. In her mind she hears Helen's clear voice calling to wish the Beckers a wonderful vacation in France. Olivia had stressed how much she would miss

390 their weekly telephone conversations. She promised to bring Helen a scarf from Hermes. But why

hadn't she said: Helen, I love you?

The taxi turns east, then south down Lexington Avenue. All too soon the taxi stops outside

All Saints Episcopal Church. It is two minutes past four. As Olivia pays the driver, she notices the

newspaper on the front seat, folded in half so the banner headlines read:

ENATOR

UPTION

BRONX

Would the current investigation into the SBCCU’s finances spoil Helen’s memorial service?

For almost a year Olivia has followed in the west coast edition of the New York Times the separate investigations by the IRS and HEW into the finances of the South Bronx Community Center

Union; their reports on the ante-poverty are agency still pending. This very week Malcolm and the

SBCCU were undergoing a third investigation by the State of New York.

Though her tip has been generous, the cab still idles there. Olivia longs to jump back in and go somewhere, anywhere, before she breaks down.

She takes a deep breath. She climbs toward a blur of people standing at the top of the wide church steps. She hears someone say, "Best legal minds in the city working on it. Malcolm’s just a babe caught in the South Bronx woods, but you do wonder where nearly seventy million dollars disappeared to." As she pushes past, she overhears: "Why there's Olivia Underhill," as though she hadn't been married to Andrew Becker for thirteen years.

An usher leads Olivia to a pew half way down the center aisle. On either side of Olivia two strangers read the service sheet. Olivia realizes that the usher had given her one. Printed on the

391 outside, white on blue: A Service of Thanksgiving for the life of HELEN CROSS

WADSWORTH, 1924-1986.

Olivia bows forward into a Protestant crouch. She cannot recall a single prayer. Words entirely desert her and a vast, inarticulate howl rises up in her throat.

James Olney Lippincott, known in his youth as Jolly, has watched Olivia rush in, her face severe with grief. Why hasn’t she been asked to speak? Other old friends have been involved in arrangements for the service. James, summoned from Maine, has agreed to eject intrusive press and

TV photographers from the service.

He slides into a back pew with the newspaper he'd bought on the subway:

FORMER U.S.SENATOR

TIED TO CORRUPTION

IN THE SOUTH BRONX

Malcolm's testimony is accompanied by a photograph. In it he faces the camera, looking erect, statesmanlike, far removed from the questions asked by the Inspector General's Office of the

U.S. Department of Labor.

James refolds the New York Post so the headlines don’t show. He wonders if Malcolm volunteered to testify yesterday so that the pity of his wife's memorial service today would wipe the slate clean. "Jolly, I hate it when you're cynical," Helen often remarked. She felt free to criticize him because he had been her best friend forever.

James became aware of Helen in 1942 at meetings of his Harvard Post War Study group, but the first time she'd been fixed forever to his memory had been – was he drinking coffee with her at Hayes Bickford? - when she'd asked him in her musical voice: "Why can't boys stay friends

392 with girls?" The night before, an Australian Helen had met at the Anzac Club had been all over her in a taxi. "I don't think I led him on," Helen had added. James felt sure that she had not. He now saw her frequently at rehearsals of the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society. The two groups sang Brahms' German Requiem with the Boston Symphony Orchestra that fall.

Excerpts from the Requiem, the service sheet informs James, would be sung today. She would like that.

The organist ceases his preliminary meanderings. After a pause, he plays Bach's "Sleepers

Awake." James watches Malcolm, his children, their wives and husband, the grandchildren and old

Mrs. Cross, file in, followed by more Wadsworths and Crosses and Olney cousins. The family fills the three front pews on both sides of the center aisle.

The organ ceases with a shuddering chord. The Reverend Christopher Seabury Reid comes forward to the front of the chancel. He welcomes to All Saints the friends of Helen Cross

Wadsworth, her acquaintances who had admired her, the family who had loved her. He asks everyone there to join him in a celebration of her life. Chris's customary pleasant expression is stern. His voice is not entirely steady.

In the middle of the reading of the 121st Psalm, Lucy Tenbroeck clumps down the center aisle, peering into each pew. Olivia beckons discreetly. Lucy squeezes past the stranger in the aisle seat to sit next to Olivia. They kiss; something recent in their long friendship. Something to do with the age they are.

The hymn is Jerusalem. “And did those feet/In ancient times…” Olivia cannot go on.

Although the hymn has ended, Olivia notices that Malcolm remains standing. His daughter

Penny plucks at his sleeve. Malcolm turns to glare at the pews in the rear of the church, smiles

393 grimly, and sits down. Olivia wonders if he's distracted by the SBCCU inquiry, or merely counting the house. She peers toward the back and finds the explanation. The Lanahans are sitting in the next to last pew.

Last night in her hotel room, unable to sleep, Olivia snapped on the TV to a local news program. Five minutes of it was devoted to the State’s investigation of the South Bronx Community

Center Union. The New York State Attorney General, Patrick Lanahan, who headed the investigation, was being interviewed. (He wore, as far as Olivia could tell, a bespoke London suit and a Countess Mara tie.) He promised "to unmask those connected with the South Bronx

Community Center Union who have wallowed in the trough of Federal and State antipoverty funds."

The TV program switched to the black SBCCU Director. His brief statement ended with:

"In an organization the size of this anti-poverty agency, a few errors in book-keeping are bound to

occur." Back to Patrick Lanahan who questioned the lavish redecoration of the SBCCU offices with

such items as a $12,000 desk, broadloom carpets and $500 lamps. He expressed astonishment at the

lavish expense accounts enjoyed by the SBCCU staff. The segment on the Center ended, as it had

begun, with the footage of Malcolm emerging from the previous investigations. The anchorman's

voice-over told viewers that the former United States Senator had no comment to make at this time.

Abbott Chase remarks Lucy's late arrival and intrusion into Olivia's pew. Abbott is still

upset. Olivia should be his companion at Helen's memorial service. He’d arrived early, lurking by the church doors to waylay her. His sister was holding seats for them near the front of the church.

Then Olivia plunged right by him! One must charitably believe that she was blinded by tears.

394 On his right, Abbott feels his sister Madeleine rustle and sit tall. Madeleine's husband,

Thomas McCracken, strides toward the lectern to read the Epistle.

"First Corinthians, Chapter ten, verse four: `Now there are diversities of gifts but the same

spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord....'"

Abbott's brother-in-law Thomas comes from a long line of prominent New Yorkers who

retained their lean, upright figures and their hair unto the grave. Even as a young sprig, Thomas

was grave, responsible, quick to respond in emergencies, slow to catch a joke. A birthright

Republican, he had been appointed to minor posts in both the Eisenhower and Nixon

administrations – leaving Washington well before the Watergate scandal. One small defect has held

Thomas back from the elected office that he no doubt still deserves: the wincing smile with which

he punctuates his speeches, interviews and dinner party conversations. Governor Thomas E. Dewey

had unbent to "Tom;" not so Thomas McCracken.

"For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom...."

One wouldn't catch Thomas with his hand in the cookie jar. Unlike Malcolm who, it

appears, has been on the take in the South Bronx from Helen's dusky friends.

"....For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,

whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink in one Spirit. For the body is not one

member, but many," Thomas McCracken shuts the Bible and steps away from the lectern.

The Reverend Christopher Reid comes forward to explain that there will be a slight pause in

the service while the orchestra and Choral Society of All Saints Church take their places.

James Lippincott still thinks of Chris as a kid, with his stocky build and round, ruddy face.

But today Chris looks pale and stooped. When your young friends look middle-aged you know you're old. But at sixty-three James is beginning all over again. He has someone to watch over him.

395 The organ bursts into a shuddering bulk of noise. The chorus sings "Behold, All Flesh is as

the Grass," and the words roll majestically over the congregation and out the open church doors.

Although she hasn't smoked in years, Olivia craves a cigarette to cut the thick, melancholy

brownness of the Brahms. Smoking was her generation's logo: we smoke, therefore we are

(perceived as grown up). Olivia began at fifteen and as cigarettes became scarce during the war,

smoked more. Smoking was a way of marking her working day: write a paragraph (light up), revise

(another cigarette), see an editor about an assignment (relax afterwards with a Chesterfield).

Cigarettes belong in Olivia's "Before Stories," set in the days before television or legal abortion,

nuclear weapons, or jet air travel. Few Before Stories had been published. As one editor put it, the

modern reader barks his shins on the irony. Olivia's protagonists, another editor wrote, seem naive in their ignorance of what we in the 1980s take for granted such as the evil effects of alcohol and nicotine. But even Helen smoked back then when she and Olivia were still almost children.

These children now have children of their own, thinks Olivia, as Susanna Wadsworth climbs the steps to the chancel and takes her place behind before the lectern. Susanna is divorced, with two young sons. She works as in-house council to a large corporation; Olivia cannot remember which one. Susanna is tall, fair haired, with Malcolm’s classical nose and chin. She speaks with Helen's voice:

"You may remember the saying, `You are what you eat,' but in Mother's case it is, `You are what you read.' She devoured books, and her range of choice astonished her children. Mothers don't usually read the late novels of Henry James and also Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,

Science Magazine, `Doonsbury,' and most of the poetry written in the English language. Today, I've chosen selections she particularly cherished: A short passage from Wordsworth's poem, “The

396 Prelude,” a paragraph from The Country of the Pointed Firs, and a poem by her great friend, Olivia

Becker.”

Olivia startles to hear her name. She hopes to God it isn't the poem about Carlie.

"I shall begin with Shakespeare's Sonnet Number 116: `Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediment....'"

Susanna ends her readings with Olivia's poem about a game of solitaire and cardboard kings and queens. The congregation stands to sing Eternal Father, Strong to Save, which made Olivia cry at Frank’s service, and does now with its refrain: “O hear us when we cry to thee/For those in peril on the seas.” She wipes her eyes and continues singing. She wonders if Frank was alive would he have forced Malcolm to deal with the corruption in the South Bronx Community Center, not accede to it. How do you know he has acceded? Frank's voice asks her. Have you lawyer's evidence,

Olivia? She still hears what Frank would say, in any circumstance. Perhaps that is all of immortality we have. That and children.

Olivia becomes aware that the elderly man in the pulpit is about to speak. Olivia glances at the service sheet: Judge Philip Kenneally of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The name seems vaguely familiar.

A young voice issues from the decrepit old man. "I first met Helen Wadsworth after she had pinch-hit for me on a sound truck more than thirty years ago. I was then serving in the Congress of the United States and Malcolm Wadsworth was just commencing his political life. The name he and his supporters, youngsters still in their twenties and early thirties, had selected for their insurgent Democratic Club was LEAD, an acronym for Lower Eastside Associated Democrats…

With the years they grew in strength and numbers…Henry Moses is now Congressman for the 17th

District. Marian Gorman is up for reelection as a member of this great city’s Council. And I don’t

397 need to tell you the details of Malcolm Wadsworth’s life-long service to this city, the Empire State

and the country…."

Philip Kenneally finishes citing every political office Malcolm has held, the many committees on which the Senator had served, his selfless campaign to stop the Vietnam war. But

this is Helen’s service, not Malcolm’s, Olivia thinks indignantly as Kenneally slowly descends

from the pulpit.

After the All Saints Choral Society sings two more excerpts from the Brahms Requiem,

the church is so quiet, Olivia hears pigeons soughing and fluttering on the roof below the clerestory

windows. Doris Stubbs crosses the chancel and climbs to the pulpit. Her reputation has expanded

with her waistline and the years. She is here, there, everywhere, advocating early childhood

education, campaigning to eradicate child abuse, working with young drug victims. She is the

minority woman ("two black birds with one stone," she'd say dryly) most wanted to decorate the

boards of progressive businesses. In her presence, Olivia imagines Doris’s unspoken question: what

are you doing for suffering humanity, Olivia?

Doris sets out her notes. She puts on a pair of half glasses. She casts a long measured glance

over the congregation. "I am honored to be here today to speak about my friend Helen Wadsworth.

It is more difficult, I believe, to form lasting friendships, than to build an enduring marriage."

Thinking of Andy's bullheadedness, Olivia disagrees.

"And an open and unselfconscious friendship between black and white is nearly impossible.

As some of you know, I once had ambitions to be an opera singer. Olivia Becker, then Olivia

Smith, a young editor at Vogue, came all the way to Harlem to interview me. With her was a

photographer and another young white woman, Helen Cross, who worked for CARE.

398 "I liked Helen's interest in the obstacles ahead for me and how I meant to overcome them.

We began to meet for lunch, sometimes with Olivia, always at the same midtown restaurant so that, with time, we ceased to be conspicuous - this was the 1940s, remember - by reason of the difference of our color.

"Another barrier to friendship was Helen's incredible niceness. I had to talk nice around her and even think nice, and believe me it was a strain. I asked myself after each lunch, do I want to go on with this friendship? I mean, two young ladies out of Jane Austen, one of them in black face.

But within the year we became real friends, friends for life."

Helen loved me best! Olivia rages like a child. No, her adult self amends, after Andy and she were married she had to work overtime to keep Helen's friendship.

"Helen came to politics with little experience of mean-spiritedness, antagonism, calumny - the rough-and-tumble of political life. After her youngest child Caroline was killed by a hit-and-run driver, Helen sent the au pair girl who'd looked after the child back to Sweden. Years later,

Kirsten's dismissal was cruelly twisted by the opposition to smear Malcolm's campaign for reelection to the U.S. Senate. How could people do this? Helen asked; but they had, they did, and

Helen bravely spoke on the radio and appeared on television to prove them wrong.

Lucy, who has been studying accidental landscapes in the linoleum tiles beneath her feet, hears Doris shift gears:

"And because Helen was Helen, she caused inadvertent damage, as well."

Lucy feels Olivia stiffen beside her.

"Do you remember a book called Pygmalion in the Classroom? It showed that if a teacher believed a pupil to be capable of better work, that child would improve. However, the teacher could

399 not absent herself from the classroom once she had conveyed her expectations. She had to be present on a day-to-day basis.

"By her expectations sometimes Helen raised folks’ hopes too high. They came to believe that good things would happen to them automatically, Helen's message of hard work and faithful attendance quite forgotten….”

"But I've dwelt too long on the public side of Helen Cross Wadsworth. Have I said that she never wearied of meeting new people? That she was addicted to the movies. That she was a splendid companion? That she was happiest with friends on a boat, and when she achieved that at the time of our country's Bicentennial, she was in heaven.

"Helen is in heaven," Doris added, gathering up her notes and speaking more to herself than the congregation, “and we will have to limp along without her as best we can.”

The last selections from the Requiem begins as she rejoins Henry Moses and her husband in the pew..

Lucy has never cared for Brahms. Much more relevant would be Lotte Lenya singing from the Three Penny Opera, “I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die,” in the voice of a musical raven. Lucy evokes more pictures from the tiled floor. That one looked like part of a sailing ship.

Faces like the winds in the corners of medieval maps blew on the next tile. She has been struggling for weeks with a static painting. Now she sees how to set it in motion by scratching lines through the impasto.

The notes of “Selig sind die Toten,” the last part of the Brahms Requiem reverberate then fade. Still locked in the music (he has sung the tenor part under his breath), James stares out of focus at the rack of Hymnals and Prayer Books in front of him. Is it accurate to say that there are fewer good people around? Does the law governing conservation of matter apply to moral qualities

400 as well? Or are honesty, altruism, moral courage in short supply? It seems to James, with Frank

Underhill’s death, then Rose's, now Helen's, he knows very few people who live up to their beliefs.

This is not a decade of heroes.

A flash goes off near the center aisle. James remembers what he is there for. He slides out of his pew. He finds the photographer, takes him firmly by the arm and escorts him out of the church.

The photographer is from The New York Post. He demands to know who the fuck James was. James identifies himself as a friend of the family. The photographer grumbles; he plans to wait on the steps of the church until after the service.

"No way. Mrs. Wadsworth's memorial service is a private occasion not a photo op." James hails a passing taxi. "In you go."

As the cab drives off, the photographer gives James the finger.

Olivia hitches forward in the pew to ease her sore bottom, but she cannot find a comfortable position. She glances at the gold watch Andy gave her on their tenth wedding anniversary. The watch is so valuable that she rarely wears it. Olivia hoped to please him by putting it on yesterday morning. He didn't notice the watch or the dark circles under her eyes. Or try to stop her. Or telephone to make sure she arrived. Santa Barbara might as well be on the other side of moon. She moved there just for him, she thinks, quite unfairly, for her present life suits her down to the ground of her being.

Richard Cross is the next speaker. For the last fourteen years he has directed the Frehmont

Foundation. He has kept his upper-class Boston accent despite more than twenty years in New

401 York. James does not expect more from Richard than the usual pieties, forgetting that Richard is

Helen's brother.

"For many years, people could be forgiven for thinking that Helen, not the current Mayor, ran this city. In Helen's inspired leaps to put two and two together she reminded me of Trollope's

Lady Glencora Palliser - and with far better results.” Richard listed Helen’s achievements, the campaigns she worked on, the committees and boards she served on, the idealism of her People

Park - tactfully avoiding the mention of the South Bronx Community Center Union – that had been inspired by Carlie’s death. "Beside her People Park, she earned an M.A. in education, worked full- time as a tutor of dyslexic children, continued to serve on a staggering number of committees ranging from the Federal commission on art and music in the schools to a task force which examined the Metropolitan Achievement Tests given to the nine hundred thousand children in New

York City.

"But there were many other Helens beside the effective public figure," Richard Cross continues. "As a child, Helen displayed a propensity for vanishing, sometimes physically, at times mentally. She discovered the secret room off the library in our grandparents' house where she could read for hours without being interrupted. But even when Helen was present she might absent herself. You'd be playing gin rummy with Helen, and she would suddenly stop, a card frozen in her hand. Then, `sorry, my mind wandered,' she'd smile and resume play. I suspect that a mental courtroom had been in session where points too fine to trouble most of us, were debated, rebutted, and judged by Helen. ....

"We must allow Helen a well-earned rest. For the time being she has left us. Perhaps she is reading The Complete Works of Conan Doyle in the secret room. Perhaps Helen is in England, studying new methods of elementary school education. But sooner or later all of us will feel her

402 presence in some enterprise or crisis where, as in the past, we have begged for her help. And when she does reappear, we damn well better be worthy of her advice."

Richard Cross squared the pages of his typescript together, cleared his throat noisily, and left the pulpit.

Abbott Chase looks at his watch: twenty past five. Christopher Reid is, at long last, batting clean-up. Hurry up, boy, many elderly bladders are complaining. Who would have prophesied that

Chris would grow up to be, alas, one of the architects of the new Prayer Book, destroying with the sledgehammer of colloquial American the liturgical language which has nourished Abbott these seventy years. One must give thanks that Chris has used the traditional liturgy today.

The restlessness in the pews has become audible. (Mourners in the back pews tip-toed out during the last party of the Brahms.) Using his "Seabury glare," Chris waits until the church is silent; until he is sure he can control his voice. He reads from the Order of the Burial of the Dead, as he had four weeks ago, when Helen's ashes were scattered at the farm in the presence of her family: "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live...."

Olivia rejects the promise of these words. If resurrection has any meaning, it resides in its echo-word suction, as though soul left body like an astronaut sucked into black night beyond the stars to outer space. "Though she were dead." Helen is dead. Dead and gone, leaving Olivia behind.

Had Helen known when death was upon her? Had she been frightened - or relieved?

"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (Chris's voice is stronger now.) "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the

Lord."

403

`....Now to God's gracious mercy I commit you....'" Chris closes the service with an

invitation to stop by the Wadsworths' apartment, where the family will be at home. Chris leaves the

chancel as the organist charges into the recessional, a Widor concerto.

In the robing room Chris kneels for a moment to pray. He gives thanks for Helen's life; her

benign influence will long survive her memorial service that Malcolm - from grief, guilt, or

political ambition - had orchestrated to the dimensions of a testimonial dinner. Selections from the

Brahams’ German Requiem would have been all Helen wanted, God bless her. Chris escapes from the church through the subterranean choir room to a side street exit. He has a legitimate excuse to by-pass the reception at the Wadsworths', a pastoral call at New York Hospital.

From his pew, Abbott watches the bereaved family straggle out. Once they have left,

assorted in-laws, cousins, multitudes, clog the center aisle, trapping Abbott in his seat. At this rate

Olivia will leave without him.

After Lucy says goodbye, Olivia edges forward to pray. Instead her mind fumes with her

own dilemma. "You're on your own, kid," Andy said as she left to drive to the airport. "I always

have been," Olivia answered untruthfully; no one has been better taken care of these past thirteen

years than she. It had been Frank who expected Olivia to carry her own weight.

Suddenly she is assaulted by a memory of the desolation of Frank's death. Helen had been

with her that night. Olivia had cried out, "I've lost Frank. I'm lost without Frank." Helen had

answered with complete certainty: "Frank is near you whenever you speak or think of him. Olivia, I

know this, because my father is here with me." Although Frank’s death left Olivia pinned for years

to a meaningless present like a butterfly mounted on a board, and although she is not sure she

believes Helen even now, Olivia will remind Malcolm of those transcendent words.

404 The organ's pulsing chords subside. Olivia progresses slowly toward the door behind two women who are discussing which of their widowed acquaintances will rush to console Malcolm.

Laura and Stephen are waiting for their mother on the steps outside. Laura has been crying; Steve is pale and solemn. Frank's children, they have work that will take them back to their offices. Olivia confirms plans for a late dinner and speeds them on their way.

"Olivia, I was afraid you had left." Abbott emerges from the center door of the church.

Olivia struggles not to gasp: his face has slipped alarmingly since they last met. She kisses him.

"One's friends shouldn't die suddenly; it's too devastating for the rest of us." Abbott takes her arm. They walk slowly toward Third Avenue to find a cab. "Helen never said one word to me about having a bad heart." He is nearly in tears, more, Olivia thinks, from being deceived than from grief. Abbott is the holder of truths about his friends.

“If it’s any comfort, she didn’t tell me, either.”

"Who will be taken from us next, do you think?" Abbott asks..

Olivia does not have to answer this as a taxi stops in response to her upraised arm. Olivia hops in. Abbott carefully inserts himself into the seat beside her.

"Now dear, tell me all the gossip," Olivia says, hoping to divert him.

"The Lippincotts' apartment is on the market for a million three. That is, if his brothers can dislodge Dwight. Did you hear that James moved to Portland, Maine? He's getting married again, after all these years."

"Yes, Helen wrote me. She was so pleased for him. What's James's fiancee like? - Good

God!" They jolt to a stop as a taxi swerves in front of theirs from the right hand lane and makes a

405 left turn into 47th Street. Olivia raises herself with both hands from the seat to ease her sore behind.

"You'd lose your license for that in California."

"Speaking of California, where is the peerless Andrew?"

"He's giving a dinner honoring the contributors who've made the new art museum possible."

Abbott's base-baritone thins maliciously: "And I suppose it's called the Andrew Becker

Museum of Modern Art. Out There they put their names on everything."

"How about the Guggenheim and the Whitney Museums Back Here? Anyway, it's the

Museum of Twentieth Century Art, though the bulk of its collection is Andy's."

"Still one wonders why he didn't come with you at this hour of trial."

"The dinner is tonight, silly." Olivia thinks: We're bickering because we're so sad.

"Do you remember your toast to Helen and Malcolm at their thirtieth wedding anniversary party? `To marriage, costing not less than everything.' I wondered at the time if you were describing your own."

"What did they teach you at Princeton? I was paraphrasing a line of T. S. Eliot's."

"But, Olivia, dear, you are happy in Santa Barbara?"

"Yes, with everything except my writing. The older I get the longer it takes me to accomplish my heart's desire - or, at least, write something I'm not ashamed of."

"Ah, but to have a heart's desire."

Appalled by the desolation in his voice, Olivia insists upon paying for the cab.

406 Chapter Twenty-nine

The door to the Wadsworths' apartment stands open. Abbott rushes off to the loo. Olivia

stops near the hall table. At the moment she can go no farther. A boy of nine, holding two ping

pong bats, zaps out of the study and through the hall with a slightly younger boy, followed by a

child of four yelling, "Wait for me, guys," and a tiny girl shrilling "Me want to play." The

grandchildren look much as they had on the Wadsworths' Christmas card: Susanna's boys, Colum's

young son, and Ricky's daughter.

"Olivia Becker!" Larry Knight comes in from the dining room carrying drinks for himself

and his porky wife. Larry must have put on thirty pounds; Edith twice that. "Olivia, wasn't that an

ordeal," gasps Edith.

Before Olivia can answer, Diana Morgan, in demure Quaker gray linen, emerges from the elevator. She seizes on Olivia: "Gawd! What tributes. Olivia why weren’t you up there saying What

Helen Meant to Me? Are you not well? You look exhausted. Is Andy with you?"

Olivia accounts for Andrew's absence once again, then excuses herself and edges into the

dining room to get a drink.

Mrs. Cross stands in front of the sideboard where the bottles and glasses are ranged. She has

shrunk inches since Olivia last saw her, but her voice is undiminished: "I had to order Helen not to

join the WAVES. She knew she had a heart problem and yet she had five children and never

stopped slaving for them and everyone else."

"Now, Mother." Richard Cross tries to lead her to a chair.

407 Mrs. Cross won't budge. "I simply can't bear it. I would give up the last twenty years of my

life to - to have her here, and me there. It's so terribly wrong for the old to live on, while the

young...."

Olivia retreats back to the hall and listens to comments about Helen's service: "Such lovely

music," "But it went on much too long." "They won't say such nice things about me when I'm

dead?" "I always cry when they read that psalm." "Poor Malcolm. It's awful when someone dies so

suddenly." "The burden will fall on Susanna, the only one left in New York."

On the subway uptown James finishes the news story about the SBCCU in the New York

Post. Excerpts from the testimony Malcolm gave yesterday are on an inner page. The prosecuting attorney was Pat Lanahan’s assistant.

"Mr. Wadsworth?" The prosecutor, James notes, withheld the courtesy title of Senator.

"Mr. Wadsworth, it has been alleged that of the forty million dollars of Federal funds, some twenty two million from New York State and City, and eight or ten more from foundations and private groups that have gone into the South Bronx Community Center Union over the last fourteen years only a small fraction has been accounted for. Can you throw some light on that?"

"Certainly. It costs several million dollars a year to run the physical plant of the SBCCU. It has a remedial school, aimed to turn disadvantaged children into achievers, and a full-time staff of forty-seven. The Community Center funds summer camps, provides meals for the elderly, runs vocational training programs, and arranges outings for children and shut-ins. The SBCCU also boasts a library, a day care center, a vocational advisory service, and tutoring programs for adults and high school students.”

408 Almost twenty years ago when James was active there, the South Bronx Community Center

Union did offer most of the services Malcolm described as current.

"Mr. Wadsworth, no annual reports or balance sheets have been found for the projects you describe.”

"Once Federal funds became available to the SBCCU under Title Seven of the Equal

Opportunity Act of 1964, the Center was able to use the money as it saw fit. After CETA and then the Community Services Administration were abolished, my role was to help the staff find other sources of funding.”

"Mr. Wadsworth, what is your policy towards loans taken out to finance your political campaigns?"

"I pay them back, with interest. Isn't that what you're meant to do?" James imagines that

Malcolm's answer, accompanied by a puckish smile, eased the tension at the hearing.

“There is no record of your paying back the loans you took out from the SBCCU’s account at the Bronx Fidelity Bank.”

Malcolm had the last word. “Then your research has been incomplete.”

The two past investigations of the SBCCU have been inconclusive. Was Pat Lanahan instigating this third investigation because he was on to something new that would fatally damage

Malcolm as a politician? James thought of the cartoon in yesterday’s Daily News which showed

Malcolm enthroned, his orb a tennis ball, his scepter a racquet marked SBCCU, captioned: "King

Worthwads plays with more than one kind of racket,.”

Emerging from the subway station, James stuffs the newspaper in a trash container, then heads toward what he still thinks of as Helen's apartment.

409 Olivia leaves the hall enters the crowded living room. Several women touch her arm or

speak to her. She mimes a purposeful errand, but when she reaches the windows she stares down at

the double streams of traffic on Park Avenue. The cantata of clichés has ended. The sociable conversations Olivia overhears now might be from any party Helen and Malcolm have given in the past thirty years: a reception for the Buskers or for a political candidate; a cocktail party for

Brearley parents; fund raisers for the Schonberg collection, Biafra, or the Southern Poverty Law

Center.

"Olivia, I've been looking for you. Abbott asked me to bring you this." James hands her a dark-complexioned highball. "It's good to see you." She looks chic as always, but wan and distracted.

"Thank you." Olivia takes an unladylike gulp. "Helen wrote to me about you - I hear you're going to be married."

"Would you like to see Deborah's picture?"

Olivia nods, yes.

"She's an elementary school teacher. I met her at one of my workshops in Portland." The snapshot shows a fair-haired woman flanked by two teenage children. "I had to move there before

Deborah would give me the time of day."

"Do you miss New York now you live in Maine?"

"No." James smiles. "How about you?"

"I don't miss having to have heard of everything. But dear God, I wish I'd known about

Helen's death. I only found out three days ago when I got home. Andy and I were in France." Olivia

is surprised that she can speak normally.

410 "I know how you must feel,” James says. “I still can't believe it. Helen's the one I always

call when I'm in trouble. She's - she was - that rare thing: a close friend, of the opposite sex."

"She loved you." From his blank expression, Olivia understands that he doesn't know what she's talking about. "Did you have any idea that she was ill?"

"No. A long time ago, Helen asked me if I'd like to live my life over again. She believed you'd make more intelligent choices the second time around. But I'm sure she had no premonitions of dying, then, or later."

"Did she say what she'd do if she got a second chance?" Olivia asks.

"No." All he remembers is that she had been, most unlike Helen, tight, and a little weepy.

"What about you?"

James grins, "I'd make the same damn fool mistakes."

"Would it even be the same life? Half the time we lie to ourselves about what actually

happened. We color the past pink or make it black to suit our delusions about ourselves. I've been working on what I call `Before Stories,' based on what I recall of the smallness of small towns and the crushing effects of the Depression." Olivia realizes she has finished half her drink and is running off at the mouth. "Lately I'm more concerned with a story's `Afterwards.'"

"Olivia, here you are!" Malcolm exclaims. "It's wonderful of you to come." He kisses her on the cheek, then holds her at arms' length. "She's as pretty as ever, isn't she, Jolly?"

Startled to be addressed by his ancient nickname, James seconds Malcolm's compliment, and then excuses himself to get a drink..

Carrying his glass, James wanders through the rooms aimlessly. He realizes that among the retired lawyers, professors emeriti, ex-State Department officials, old dancing partners and former school friends there's no one he particularly wishes to talk to.

411 Hearing the celluloid bounce of a ping pong ball, James follows the noise to Colum's old

bedroom, where Susanna's two boys are rallying on a miniature ping pong table. After their game is

ended, they kindly let James cut in. He plays left-handed to make their game more even.

"How did you like the memorial service?" Malcolm asks.

It is clear to Olivia that he wants a rave review. "Helen would be very touched that so many people she loved were there. I know she...." Olivia longs to convey how she felt at the end of

Helen’s service, remembering the full heaviness of Frank's loss and Helen's comforting speech. The words turn to lumps in her throat.

"Let's sit down a minute." Malcolm leads her to a couch by the fire place.

Again Olivia struggles to describe that moment in church but she cannot speak.

"Did you talk to Helen before you left on your trip?"

Olivia clears her throat, takes a drink, whispers, "She telephoned to wish us a safe journey."

"Did she say anything about her health?"

Olivia shakes her head.

"Did you know she had high blood pressure?"

Olivia says, "No."

"She did. For years. And she wouldn't take her medication. Doesn't that sound like willful self-destruction to you?"

"I don't believe it for one minute," Olivia says fiercely, "Helen is - was - the most courageous person I know."

"Yes. She was wonderful. Everyone loved her. She was my reason for living."

412 Olivia has never heard Malcolm be so emotional. "I think we all felt that she lit our way,

and as Richard said this afternoon, we damn well better live up to her expectations…”

He interrupts her. "Death is a piece of work, isn't it. The kids have helped where they could,

but honestly, Olivia, most of it I've had to do alone." He tells her with pride that he has

acknowledged almost half of the hundreds of condolence letters that he’s received – and more still

coming - some from very well-known people in the government and the arts. “Helen always wrote

those letters. She was the one who knew what to say." So many people have called that he's had to

invest in an answering machine for his other phone. Has Olivia seen the obituaries? Helen was

given twice as much space in the Times as a former college president who died the same week.

Malcolm's started a memorial fund at Radcliffe in Helen's name. He has several more projects in

mind to keep her memory alive, but Olivia cannot take much more and asks to be excused. She

needs to use the bathroom.

The guest bathroom is occupied. The door is open to Malcolm and Helen's bedroom. Olivia

passes through it to their bathroom. As she starts to repair her face she notices Helen's blue and

white striped bathrobe hanging on the bathroom door. Olivia turns on the water hard. She weeps

convulsively, soaking two guest towels; the sobs hurt. Then she scrapes her face down to the bone

and applies fresh make-up. I have got to get out of here, Olivia says to the red-eyed, sharp-faced, gray-haired woman in the mirror. She can’t face another does of Malcolm’s self-serving grief right now – she’ll write a condolence letter when she’s home - but she must mourn with Helen's children before she leaves and also say goodbye to Abbott.

Abbott has left, Madeleine McCracken tells her, but Olivia finds Susanna Wadsworth in the dining room, compliments her on her reading in church and on her two good-looking boys. "How do you think Dad is bearing up?" Susanna asks. Olivia lies that he seems better than she expected.

413 (She cannot tell his daughter that Malcolm had been weird. That nonsense about the pills. His

manner so public, so mechanical.) She finds conventional phrases to express her own grief, and

tells Susanna she has an open invitation to visit them in Santa Barbara.

Penny is talking to her grandmother at the other end of the room. Olivia joins them. She

repeats what she just said to Susanna. They thank her. It astonishes Olivia that Mrs. Cross not only

remembers her current name, but the names of her children.

Colum Wadsworth thanks Olivia for coming all the way from California to the service, and

for her kind words. Like Susanna, he wants a reading on his father's health. "Frankly, Olivia" - the generations have flattened out by now and all are called by their first names - "he's had the worst blow of his life, but he won't let go - he's got to be the strong one, the one in charge. We all cried when Mother's ashes were scattered; but not Dad."

"Perhaps he can't," Olivia says gently. "Maybe he'll only be able to much later. Colum,, I can’t find your brother so would you please tell him what I told you."

She is waiting for the elevator when Ricky Wadsworth catches her arm. He is not as self- possessed as his siblings. He looks slapped by grief. Olivia hugs him. Because of his learning difficulties Ricky was, perhaps, the one Helen loved the most. Olivia says emotionally that she can't be Helen but she wants Helen's children to know that she loves them; that she thinks of them as her children, too. Then Olivia describes her revelation at the end of Helen’s service, and repeats Helen's transcendent words about Frank. Ricky now looks embarrassed as well as grief-stricken., perhaps scared that she'll become hysterical. She says, "Goodbye, dear; I'll write," and he looks relieved to see her go.

414 James enjoys playing ping pong with the older boys and chatting, at knee level, with the

younger two kids. It beats confronting Dwight, yet again about the sale of their parents’ apartment.

The younger children are gathered by their parents. Then Susanna finds them: it's time for the boys and her to leave. James follows them. Susanna kisses her father goodnight and promises to call him after the boys are in bed. James says he should go, too.

Malcolm stops him. "Jolly, stay a few minutes, will you? I need your advice on some videos

I had made just before Helen's death?"

James can't think of anything better to do.

Malcolm sends him on back to the room where Helen had her office and where the VCR is kept because Helen used films and cartoons as teaching devices.

The room is pleasantly untidy, as though she might return in half an hour. James sits down in Helen’s chair. He pulls it close to her desk and faces the half-open French doors and the little balcony beyond. The light has left the areaway, but the water towers on the top of the building opposite are still ruddy from the setting sun. Deborah would be at home in this room with its bulletin board bristling with children's drawings, and the wall of books for and about children.

On the desk a child's ringed notebook is open to a page of mixed-up, much-erased letters and words. Helen's large, firm handwriting in bright blue ink says "Very Good, Robert," at the top of the page. James thinks about the necessity of praise. Perhaps if more people had written Very

Good, Dwight, across his life early on, Dwight might not have locked himself up in himself.

Malcolm comes in with the video cassettes, inserts one in the machine and takes the student's chair beside the desk.

415 James is struck by how much younger Malcolm looks on the television screen. He wears a

tan suit, a striped blue and white shirt, a regimental tie. His face seems almost unlined, and his skin

glows - or is it make-up?

"....here at home, conditions for those people below the poverty line have not changed

measurably since the Great Depression. Statistics show that the gulf between rich and poor has

widened under the Reagan administration…"

James wonders if he should ask Malcolm’s for advice. Dwight refuses to take his lithium.

He has become a recluse. He fights the sale of the apartment the three brothers own jointly. Warren

and James have promised Dwight the entire proceeds of the sale. He still won’t budge. James and

Warren have consulted lawyers. According to the laws of the Empire State Dwight cannot be

evicted, cannot be committed to a mental institution against his will, or incarcerated until he

performs a dangerous act.

"…We are back in Herbert Hoover's time, when unemployment benefits were alleged to sap

the moral fiber of the poor. Fifty years ago it was the dream book, a Sears or Montgomery Ward

catalogue, that showed the poor the abundant life they were denied; today TV ads do the job

instead...."

Dwight refused to go to Helen's service. He claimed that he would be arrested if he did.

These days he leaves the apartment only to see his shrink, the fifth or sixth he's consulted, and to buy groceries.

"....When I served in the Congress, I never abused my franking privileges, never missed an important roll call, never put anyone on the staff who didn't do a full day's work. When I left the

Congress to appeal for a quick and merciful end to the Vietnam war, I took no pay for my travel and speaking engagements.”

416 James wonders how Malcolm will handle his defeat in `74.

He skates right over it. "In 1962 after I lost my first campaign, it was rumored that I was

finished. In fact, all I had said, in answer to a reporter's question, was that I planned to take my two

sons fishing." Malcolm stops the video. "How is it so far, Jolly?"

"Very nice," James mumbles.

Malcolm slings one leg over the arm of his chair. It is clear that he likes this next part:

"At times of domestic crisis, I have been asked, along with the other men in my family, to

run the vacuum cleaner and to wash floors. My wife was amused by our naive masculine

assumption that once cleaned, the house would stay clean. Helen sees life accurately as a never-

ending job of cleaning house.”

Helen never gave that much thought to housework, James reflects. She hired someone else

to do it, and was not overly fussy about the results.

“My wife was the first to point out that the South Bronx Community Center Union has not

done its housekeeping. The books were not properly kept; money has been found to be missing.

Now I don't give a damn whether the people who squandered those Federal and State funds were

black, white, blue or tattooed: taxpayers' money was stolen, and I shall see to it that it is repaid."

"How, for God's sake?" James blurts out. He is reminded of Dwight trying to glue back

James’s broken phonograph records.

Malcolm ignores James's question.

"....There are a great many things I would rather do than wade back in to politics in order to deal with this mess. I have mentioned fishing. I enjoy gardening and watching my grandchildren grow. But someone must fight for those who are powerless to help themselves. As Langston

Hughes wrote so movingly, `What becomes of a dream deferred? It becomes a raisin in the sun.'"

417 James wondered at Malcolm’s lack of imagination ending with the same quotation the playwright Lorraine Hansberry had used for a title twenty years ago..

Malcolm punches the rewind button. "You'll have to agree that I don't sound like the playboy of Park Avenue, or a ventriloquist's dummy - Pat Lanahan called me that in one of his campaign flyers in `82."

James has to agree.

Next they watch modernized versions of Malcolm's Upstate, Downstate, and Fireman speeches. The final video shows the Candidate and his wife frolicking with their grandchildren in

Central Park. Malcolm and the three boys play soccer. Helen scoops up her little granddaughter so she can see better. (“She’s the same age Carlie was when – when she was taken from us. Even looks like her.”) The breeze lifts Helen's bangs and tangles the little girl's red-blonde hair. Helen smiles into the camera. Her face is as thin as it was when James first knew her, and her blue eyes are clear and untroubled. For the first time in many years, James is afraid he'll cry.

"Helen looks happy, doesn't she? Not a care in the world. Did she ever tell you that she had high blood pressure?"

"No, she didn’t…"

"You would never guess she'd be dead in two months. She didn't take her medication so her heart kicked in, the way her father's did. It’s a hell of a thing to do to someone," Malcolm sounded almost cross.

"That's crazy. Did you ask her doctor?"

Malcolm shakes his head. " I don't need to. The pill box was full."

418 "For Christ's sake: what you found must have been a recent refill, that’s all. No man ever had a more devoted wife." James refuses to pursue this discussion. He stands up. "Look, I'd better get back before Dwight bolts about sixteen locks and goes to bed."

"Your brother Dwight who blamed his own incompetence on an imaginary partner."

James feels socked in his gut. Only he and Warren know that Dwight himself screwed up his firm's finances. "How did you find out?" he asks belligerently.

"After you moved to Maine, Dwight began to bother Helen. He came around nearly every day and Helen was so soft-hearted she'd drop everything and listen to him. Without telling her, I took out a restraining order on him. The case of the mythical partner came up when my firm looked into Dwight's past history."

"So that's why Dwight said he'd be arrested if he came to Helen's service.” James moves across the room before he could punch Malcolm. “I thought it was just Dwight’s usual nonsense -

Jesus, what a cruel thing to do!” James yelled.

"Wouldn't you agree that hell is the knowledge of having done someone great harm?"

"Dwight can't help...."

"I'm not referring to Dwight," Malcolm says, “I’m talking about someone else.”

Malcolm's way of dealing with Helen's death is to blame her for it, James thinks. As he turns to go he hears the dog whining. Sam must have been shut away during the reception.

"Don't worry, no one will know about Dwight from me. No hard feelings, Jolly?" Malcolm smiles his irresistible smile which tells you that nothing is that bad." He accompanies James to the front hall. "I'll go down with you. Sam needs a last call for the night."

419 Chapter Thirty

Back in her hotel room at midnight, Olivia cannot sleep. It is too early California time to

telephone Andy for a report on his dinner party and chide him for not calling. She goes into the

mirrored bathroom and runs a bubble bath. When it's full, she sinks into the tub and reviews the

evening at Laura's.

Olivia is pleased about Steve's move next month to a Washington law firm. She wishes that

his girl friend was not going, too. Olivia does like Laura's current man and not just because he cooked most of the meal and helped clean up. Much more important, he had matched Olivia book for book. Will he and Laura marry some day?

Olivia’s thoughts turn to Malcolm. How theatrical, how phony he'd been this afternoon.

Perhaps he hasn't yet mastered the appropriate feelings to display. It doesn't matter, anyway, Olivia thinks. After the appropriate passage of time, Malcolm will find a wealthy widow who will pay off his debts with a flick of her gold fountain pen. Malcolm and his new wife will ski at Gstaad, stop in

Paris for the art, visit Scotland for the fishing, take a cruise up the Nile with Important People. The

Beckers will not be included in his travel plans.

Olivia rises from the lukewarm bath and the remaining archipelagos of bubbles. Drying

herself, she catches sight of the huge bruise on her backside. It has turned purple, fraying to a

sickening greeny-yellow at the edges. It will take longer to fade than the weeks that have passed

since Helen's death.

Time is a coiled snake. How many minutes did Helen have, there in the taxi, to realize

where she was going? Did her life pass in review as it is alleged to at such moments? Olivia cannot

bear to continue this train of thought, because Helen was alone at her death. No, her father was with

420 her, and Carlie, and perhaps Frank Underhill, and Helen died, as she had lived, among family and friends.

Time is a coiled snake: the hour and a half of Helen's memorial service contained Olivia's entire adult life. She asks the most banal of questions: where have the years gone? How well have I used them? The bitter truth is, time has used her. It has tricked her into believing that she will always have what she has; and be what she is.

At 3 a.m. New York time, Olivia dials her home number. It rings and rings. Olivia watches the second hand on Andy's gold watch click from second to second: gone gone gone gone. The telephone rings six more times before he answers it.

"Where were you?" Olivia asked. “I rang and rang and…”

"In the shower."

"Andy, how was the dinner?"

Coldly: "It went O.K. People asked where you were."

"Why didn't you call me?” Olivia wails. “I waited and waited."

Dead air. Then: "I didn't need to. I knew what was on your mind once I saw the ten o'clock appointment on your calendar at Delafield, Wadsworth and Lambert for this morning."

"Oh, that. I had to see Peter Thompson about an assessment on the Sixty-sixth Street apartment." What a ridiculous thing to get worked up about! "Are you mad because I didn't ask your lawyer to take care of it?"

Dead air.

"Andy? Are you there?"

After a pause, he says, "I should have known when you asked for a lump sum you were looking to your future."

421 "What are you talking about?" Olivia asks.

"The prenuptial agreement,” Andy growls. “You wanted a lump sum."

"I did? I don't remember...yes, I thought it might make your paper work easier."

"It would have for you, once you became a rich divorced woman - that much richer for living in a community property state, as Malcolm well knows."

For a moment Olivia is stunned silent. In her lifetime she's entertained many vile, illegal and perverted thoughts but never in her most baroque fantasies has she pictured Malcolm as her love object. "Andy, you’re ridiculous. If I did have an assignation with Malcolm I wouldn't put it on my calendar, I'd....".

"From the start you presented Malcolm as the greatest thing since sliced bread. He was Mr.

Wonderful, God's gift to America. That same Mr. Wonderful who turned our wedding reception into a campaign rally. And every time he ran for office, you would jump in to answer his phones and pick your stupid hubby's pocket for a contribution."

"Stop ranting." Olivia holds the receiver away from her ear as Andy continues:

"I'm sure you saw Malcolm every single time you visited your kids, but as long as I didn't have to hear about it I could pretend I didn't know. But I never suspected that Helen would pop off and leave the field open...."

"Will you please shut UP!" Olivia lowers her voice. "Andy, you're insane. You're totally nuts. You're so wrong, I...." Olivia bursts into tears to prevent herself from laughter. She can't tell

Andy that she called Malcolm Mr. Wonderful when she fought with Frank. To mention Frank would be as fatal as laughter. "Look, I'm woozy with jet lag and grief and I can't deal with you -

You've got to believe me...." and now Olivia is crying, and cannot stop. "Do you understand what

I'm saying?" she blubbers.

422 "I guess so," he admits.

"Well, aren't you going to apologize?"

"I'll be doing that the rest of my life," Andy says grimly.

Olivia blows her nose. "I'm not that kind of person, I hope." At the moment, she doesn't know what kind of person she is. "I miss you. I can't wait to get home." She adds, "We’ll have a lot to talk about."

"I'm afraid so," Andy says. "Fly carefully so we can have a real good fight."

Olivia hangs up, wondering if this aberration of Andy's augured well for their future? Andy is still jealous of Frank, and perhaps he has seen Malcolm as an extension of Frank. No, rather as personifying New York. Olivia recalls a conversation they’d had some years back. Andy refused to admit that he hated Manhattan, only that it was insular, dirty, and crazed by pride of place. "I don't dislike your friends, either; only their assumption that they run things. And they don't; not any more, this eight percent of the eight percent of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant New Yorkers. But I'm not about to waste my breath telling them they have no clothes on." She could tell that Andy was pleased with his metaphor.

Andy is never mean, but he relishes getting back at her. Olivia remembers how, after the

Bicentennial cruise on the Mary Jane, Andy snuck off to City Island to take sailing lessons.

She and Andy will be an "afterwards" story that Olivia must work on.

Two months later, the telephone rang and rang in James's boyhood room. He had come down from Portland the night before. He been deeply asleep, after a long evening during which

Dwight at last agreed to the sale of the apartment. Then Dwight mentioned that he might move to

Maine. James spent several hours trying to talk him out of it, and then fell into an exhausted sleep.

423 He picks up the telephone at last. Susanna Wadsworth asks if by any chance her father spent the night at the Lippincotts She has been trying to reach her father since ten the night before.

James tells her he'll be over there as soon as he can.

An ambulance and two police cars stand in front of the Wadsworths' apartment house when

James gets there. It seems that as Senator Wadsworth locked up for the night, one of the French doors in the back bedroom suddenly gave way – poor carpentry work - causing him to lose his balance and topple off the little low balcony that the French doors opened on. Once of those horrible meaningless accidents, like choking to death on a piece of meat.

424

DELETED MATERIAL

The day after Helen's death, Malcolm summoned Chris to the Wadsworth apartment. Chris was there within the hour, although the two men had not spoken for almost a year.

Malcolm opened the door. He wore chinos and a blazer over a pajama top. He was unshaven, gaunt, angry. He led Chris into the study. The room was a mess of newspapers, empty glasses, socks and underwear. "I'm alone now," he said harshly.

"But aren't your kids coming soon?" Chris had a horrible thought: "You did call them? At least Susanna must have..."

Malcolm nodded. "They'll be here as soon as they can." He pushed a blanket and pillow off the couch and indicated that Chris should sit down. "First my mother died, then my wife left me. I'm alone now."

"It's a terrible thing when death comes without warning..."

“Helen didn't need to die."

Chris put his hand on Malcolm's shoulder. "It's not a need, but a time, and none of us can choose it."

"No, no, you don't understand. I found her pills. She could have lived for years if she'd taken them."

"What were they for?"

"High blood pressure. The container was almost full. I had no idea they'd been prescribed, and even if I had known, you couldn't make Helen do a thing."

Chris noted the ease with which Malcolm, distraught though he was, slid off the stick.

425 Perhaps Malcolm felt his disapproval. His voice lightened. "Good of you to come so quickly,

Chris. I appreciate it. How's Janet and the kids?" As though Malcolm and Chris had met at the

Wall Street Racquet Club last Saturday.

Once upon a time, she compared Manhattan to an elegant verse form, the appropriate container for the thing contained. How ridiculous! - but she had been in love with New York. Has the city changed, or only become more so? On each return Olivia is appalled by the dirt, the speed, the crazy drivers, the assault of horns and radios and jackhammers, the instant rage of the average, thwarted New Yorker.

James has been out of town, and out of touch with New York politics, but he wonders why a political has-been like retired Judge Kenneally was selected to speak at Helen's service. Kenneally has only reached 1952: "The Republicans carried the national election, as we all remember, but on the local level Malcolm and Helen, together with the rest of the stalwart Lower

Eastside Associated Democrats, licked their wounds and came back to capture the leadership of their District from the regular Tammany club a year later...."

No speech should last more than five minutes, Rose used to say. Why put your audience to sleep? Make them wish you'd said more. Rose at the microphone was a thing of pyrotechnical delight; the pinwheels of her pungent speech burst in your mind's ear long after she had finished.

In another era she would have been a Congresswoman. Rose wielded power superbly. She persuaded people to do what they didn't want to do and like, as well as accept it. Malcolm has the knack, like breathing. Not James. Too often he's played the righteous bully, or had waffled where he should have led. "James, you're too goddamn didactive, if that's the fancy word for getting people's backs up," said Rose.

426 James still misses her.

Olivia remembers the hospital loudspeaker the night Stephen was trying to get born.

"Skulley-Walton technicians" were paged between calls for individual doctors. Skulley - skull-he - skull? What did these sinister technicians do? Wheel away corpses? Restrain women in labor?

Dispose of babies born dead?

"I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed..."

"Skulley-Walton technicians," were paged again, and Olivia knew that she would die.

Abandoned in the darkened labor room, emptied, shaved, shamed, Olivia in her panic forgot to breathe, forgot how to "go with it," as Helen had advised. "Skulley-Walton Technicians," brayed the loudspeaker, as Olivia stiffened against each contraction and wept with relief when it ended.

The delivery room, where they wheeled her at noon the next day, with its lights and bustle and whiffs of gas, was sanity itself.

Olivia remembers the hospital loudspeaker the night Stephen was trying to get born.

"Skulley-Walton technicians" were paged between calls for individual doctors. Skulley - skull-he - skull? What did these sinister technicians do? Wheel away corpses? Restrain women in labor?

Dispose of babies born dead?

"I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed..."

"Skulley-Walton technicians," were paged again, and Olivia knew that she would die.

Abandoned in the darkened labor room, emptied, shaved, shamed, Olivia in her panic forgot to breathe, forgot how to "go with it," as Helen had advised. "Skulley-Walton Technicians," brayed the loudspeaker, as Olivia stiffened against each contraction and wept with relief when it ended.

427 The delivery room, where they wheeled her at noon the next day, with its lights and bustle and

whiffs of gas, was sanity itself.

“No one could elude Helen's calls to serve on her boards, volunteer for Malcolm's

campaigns, or attend the innumerable benefits she took tables for. Indeed, Helen transacted much

of her business at these benefits. One small example: she introduced me to Anton Frehmont at a

Freedom House dinner and this casual meeting led eventually to my present job, as she intended it

should.”

"Just what were your relations with the South Bronx Community Center Union?"

"My connection with the Community Center came about through my wife's involvement

with St. Peter's Church. Its day care center and tutoring program evolved over the years into the

SBCCU. After the Center moved to its present quarters, I went on the Board. I believe that was in

1961."

"Was your role on the Board mainly to secure funds for the anti-poverty agency?"

"No. My usefulness to the Community Center was to provide introductions to sources of funding. Only the people in Albany and Washington who distributed anti-poverty funds could decide what the SBCCU would get."

"Mr. Wadsworth, it has come to our attention that your accountants also service the South

Bronx Community Center Union."

"Most firms have more than one client," Malcolm replied.

"Mr. Wadsworth, the South Bronx Community Center Union was described in a New York

Times editorial as a `Gigantic honey pot which no longer serves the disadvantaged citizens in the area, but rather those who advise or administer the anti-poverty agency, and also have connections with the agency's bank.'

428 All three of them suffered from recurring nightmares. Steve's was of an oxygen tent

collapsing into something the size of a pocket handkerchief. Olivia dreamed that Frank called to her

from somewhere in the apartment and if only she could find him, he would come back to life.

Laura had nightmares of being shut in a coffin. (What horror stories had they told her in school?)

Every third night, Olivia took the terrified child into her own bed. While Laura slept, Olivia dealt

ineffectually with the passing hours by counting in French.

Olivia took Porter’s place accompanying Minna to concerts at the new Lincoln Center

across town. (Minna invariably remarked, as their taxi curvetted through Central Park to the West

Side, "Now we leave familiar territory." When Olivia reminded Minna that she still frequented

Carnegie Hall and the old Opera House, both on the West Side, Minna said, "That's different;

they've always been there.")

Thanks to Malcolm's open-handedness, he was forgiven his many absences.

Unlike Helen, he bought the children lemonade and candy and souvenir programs.

He often extended the afternoon with tea at the Plaza or dinner out. Malcolm had no trouble sleeping at night. Helen had entirely lost the knack.

Olivia insisted that Helen take sleeping pills. "I realize that for someone from New England

any medication is a sign of moral back-sliding, but Helen, you'll keel over if you don't get more

sleep. After Frank died, sleep was like a river in time of drought and I was grounded into

wakefulness every hour or so on the exposed rocks." The rocks were the facts of death, Olivia did

not add.

"You make it sound more poetic than it is," Helen observed dryly. "I don't get anywhere

near that river until morning."

Despite Malcolm's crucial vote for the new board, Helen found herself treated, these days,

like an intruder at the SBCCU. Carmilla wouldn't sit at her table in the cafeteria. Marilyn snubbed

429 her in the hall. Norman Slate reprimanded her for not turning in the weekly attendance sheet for the

People Park, although that had been Josie's job for the past two years. Books, records, paints, crayons, even nails, even toilet paper, began disappearing. Someone unplugged the aquarium, and the fish floated belly-up. Somebody fed the budgies caramels. They fluttered feebly for a day or so, and died.

All this should have prepared her for what was coming, and did not.

Helen considered telling James about the lecture she'd heard recently, given by an evangelist of a low-sodium diet. Almost any complaint could be cured by removing salt from the kitchen and dining-room table - and buying the woman's book. Listening, Helen saw the woman as a parody of herself, speaking with messianic enthusiasm at the same club three years before about the People Park at the SBCCU.

That tiny, ancient party, was she Helen's mother? Malcolm is next, his handsome face unrevealing. (Abbott would have liked a tad more grief.) Malcolm is followed by two tall daughters, two tall sons, an assortment of grandchildren, and Malcolm's sisters.

"As President of the Board of the South Bronx Community Center Union, wouldn't it have been your responsibility to review the books?"

"I resigned from the SBCCU nearly a year ago."

"It was less than three months. On March 21st."

"I serve on a great number of boards. I must have confused this resignation with another. I do know it happened long before my wife's death."

"Hold on, there. I have a record of thirty years of public service. When I served in the

Congress I supported four separate bills to weed out corruption in government agencies."

430 "I did obtain loans from that bank, although not in `millions' as you suggest, and of course I paid the going interest rate."

"I submit that the only interest you paid was a total disinterest in the corruption of the anti- poverty center, whose corrupt practices you rubber-stamped in exchange for loans."

431