1
It was a peculiar farewell. Chuck thought it was probably like thousands of farewells said by soldiers.
He had been raking leaves, the day before….
He raked and thought, Ted ought to be doing this. I’m going back to the base. Back to Texas. Tomorrow I’m going. I ought not to be raking up the yard. Officers don’t rake leaves.
It was a cold day—October. The wind came all the way from Canada, from Saskatchewan or Manitoba or Alberta, with polar cold and the raw smell of muskeg, of permafrost, of something arctic. He’d heard the Alaska-based people talk about that weather.
And it came down from the north to U.S.A., making the prairie states chilly in October.
He wondered why he pushed up the pungent leaf-heaps with the wooden rake and shoved them to the gutter, and he knew. To burn them. To make a sweet-smelling pile and add to the good ozone of Green Prairie his own private incense, his somber contribution. Maybe, also, as a symbol. Burning autumn leaves, like burning bridges.
He fished in a pocket of his slacks, thinking how unfamiliar some pockets became when you wore mufti, how unfamiliar the uniform would feel for a day or so. He lit a match and it blew out, so he found a piece of paper, cupped his hands, got the newsprint going, watched words about “strike threatened in River City plant” blacken and vanish. He thrust the paper into the middle of the breast-high pile, on the windward side, and there was streaming smoke, then a bright blaze and soon a soul-satisfying conflagration. It ate gray holes in the leaf pile and sent a soft-looking, slanted fountain of smoke down Walnut Street. Cars had to slow but the people in them came through the smoke laughing and they waved because they, too, would soon be burning their leaves, stopping cars—mulching roses, getting out storm windows, nailing weather stripping around doors, taking coal into their cellars.
She came.
Wearing an orange-red knitted suit. With her large beautiful eyes and with her black hair done up under a knitted hat. He could see her hips move and her breasts and the immobile “V” in front of her and feel his nerves jump.
“You’re going tomorrow, aren’t you, Chuck?”
“So Uncle says.”
She looked at the fire as if it were a work of art like a sand castle on a beach. “Nice and warm,” she said. “I’ve been over in Coverton, watching State play Wesleyan.”
“Who won?”
“We didn’t stay to see the end. State was ahead—thirty points—at the half. And Kit wanted a drink.”
“He didn’t bring you home,” Chuck said.
“We had a fight.” She kicked a spruce cone into the fire. “About you.”
“Me?” He leaned on the rake, slender, dark, smiling.
“I said—you and I had a date for tonight.”
“Do we?”
“Heck, Charles! You’re going back tomorrow. I sort of assumed we’d spend the evening together. Or with your family.”
“Swell.”
“And, anyhow, he doesn’t own me.”
The fight, then, had been a mere declaration of independence, not of special loyalty. “I’ll borrow Dad’s car.”
“ Don’t bother! I’ve got my Ford. And your old man needs his these days. Running around…”
Chuck nodded. “ He’s working hard. And to darn little purpose. People are deserting his organization like…”
“I know. Well, what time shall I call for you?” She laughed.
“Say, eight? Mother’s made a special dinner. Maybe…?”
She knew she was going to be invited. She didn’t want to be exposed to the calm, collective scrutiny of the Conners during a long meal. “Eight. I’ll be there.”
They drove down to Lee’s Chinese Inn and danced a while. But the place, in spite of the gloom in the booths, the oriental lighting, the orchestra and the waitresses in Chinese costumes, didn’t have the necromancy that had invested it when they had been high school kids, and then undergraduates. They were both restless.
“Let’s go,” she suggested, in the middle of a fox trot, “ on out the river, the way we used to, and park in that spot where the mill used to be.”
It was crisp and cool out there and bright with moonlight. The heater had warmed the car.
They pointed its nose so they could see the water shimmering in the ruined flume.
“Remember when we came here after the basketball game?” she asked. He said,
“Remember the night you and I—and Wally and Sylvia—went swimming?”
“If Dad had seen us down there, skinny, he’d have skinned me alive!”
The recollections bubbled up, glimmered, broke.
“How long will you be gone this time?” she asked.
His shoulders shrugged a little; she felt it, on the seat. “No telling. Six more months—but I’ll be out, all things equal, in eight more.”
“It seems a long time!” She picked up his hand. “A long, long time. Chuck. It is a long time, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish you weren’t going away.”
“See any beggars riding, these days?”
“If wishes were horses?” Lenore shook her head. “You know what I’m thinking about.”
“Guess I usually do, Lenore.”
“I guess you do. It’s Kit—of course. Partly.”
“And partly you?” Her head shook, and the small motion seemed to diffuse in the night an additional quantity of the perfume she wore. It came from her hair, he thought, her midnight, wavy hair. “Not me, exactly,” she said in a speculative tone, and added defensively, “Kit’s a lot of fun.”
“Why not? He’s never had experience in much else.”
“He has so! He was a star in lots of sports—”
“That isn’t fun?”
“I mean, he does plenty of difficult things. Climbs mountains. Flies. He was a war pilot.
He has a pound of medals.”
“Shall I try to get wounded?”
“No,” she smiled, uninjured by his sarcasm, familiar with it. “Not even—emotionally, Chuck. What I wanted to do, hoped to do, what I suggested we leave that Chink spot to do, was talk.”
“So okay. Talk.”
“Do you think you could put yourself in my place for a few minutes?”
Charles laughed. “I could come mighty close!”
“You sit still. I mean—look. You tell me what the score is. I’m twenty-four. Right?”
“Practically senile. Right.”
“You’re the same. You’ve got nearly another army year. Then, some architectural office, and maybe-maybe in ten years-you’d have enough to—”
“To what? I’ve got Dad and Mom. In a year, Lenore, I could have a house in Edgeplains, maybe, and enough money for a kid or two. And if I didn’t, the folks would see to things till I got started.”
“Would I like it?” He said soberly, “Don’t think I haven’t wondered. Some parts, you’d surely like.”
She murmured, “Let’s skip those parts, Chuck. I know about them. Like the poem. There is some corner of Lenore Bailey that is forever Chuck. The part of me that grew up with you. Skip that.”
“I don’t know about the rest of it, from your angle,” he said. “Being married, making your way in the world, having kids is one hell of a hard assignment, it looks like, from the visible record. Even my folks have had rugged periods—Dad walked out twice on Mom when they were younger—and Mom went three times to Ruth’s home. Once for a week. Taking me with her, though I was too little to recall it.”
“I can tell you.” Lenore listened to the ghostly, tinkling waterfall a moment. “For six months, maybe a year, I’d love it. We’d get the Edgeplains cottage. I’d fancy it all up. I’d make do with the clothes I have—plenty, God knows, for a long while. Then it would rain and snow and I’d catch colds and somebody would patronize me at church and so on. Next I’d see our cottage was just a lousy little bungalow, in a row, with dozens like it—and dozens of young women imprisoned there like me—breeding, probably—as I’d be. Then I’d start to hate it.
Mother and Dad, of course, would be completely off me, drinking too much, taking my marriage to you as their final, personal disaster.”
“It might—just might—serve them right,” he said grimly.
“Perhaps. Still, they are my father and mother. Mother’s unscrupulous, but I sometimes think it’s because she never had a chance to be anything better. And Dad’s weak. His mother spoiled him before he had a chance.”
“Is that any reason why you…?”
“No. It isn’t. But look at it another way. They spoiled me. They saw to it, all my life, I had absolutely everything a girl could want to look luxurious, feel luxurious, be luxurious—”
“You were going to throw it overboard in college to be a scientific research worker….”
“I talked about it. But I didn’t do it, did I, Chuck?”
“No. Marriage is important, too, though. Love is.”
“Look at it the other way. Suppose, just suppose, I married Kit.”
“Has he asked you?”
“No. He hasn’t.”
Chuck felt relieved—then alarmed. “Just what, then, has he asked for, all the time you’ve been spending with him?”
Lenore smiled a little. “That? He asked that immediately.”
He straightened. “The no-good, God-damned—”
“You stop, dope! Kit’s the kind of person who always asks that right off, of any girl. It’s just like manners with him. If she says ‘No,’ he accepts it.”
“I’ll bet!”
“I’m trying to tell you. You want to try to see how I feel? Or shall we go home?”
“I’ll listen,” he answered sullenly.
“All right. Then try to hear what I’m trying to say. Maybe my parents aren’t as sweet and loving and noble as yours. Maybe they’re climbers and kind of crumby at times. They are. But they are still my parents. Now, if Kit ever proposed and I said ‘Yes,’ a whole lot of very important and terrifying and real problems would come to an end forever. I wouldn’t love him—no. We wouldn’t have as many things in common as—other men I know. One other anyhow. But at least I’d never be in a spot where I’d wilt at the Sight of my own house and hate myself for working so hard and despise never getting ahead fast enough to keep up with the bills. Don’t you see, Chuck, either way it wouldn’t be a perfect deal?”
“Not if you keep it on a dollars-and-cents basis. No.”
“It keeps itself on that basis. Where might I be, either way, in ten more years? On one hand, with a lot of kids—probably bad-tempered, embittered, envious, and ready to slip out and have fun on the side if I got the chance. On the other hand, I’d have everything in the world, and so would my folks, and I wouldn’t be a physical wreck—”
“This is all a lot of nonsense,” he said.
“Women,” she answered, “shouldn’t ever try to tell men what they really think! What they have to consider —when men won’t!”
“Some men consider other matters are more important than living-room drapes.”
“Don’t you think I do, too!” Her voice was urgent. “What in hell, Charles Conner, do you think I’ve gotten to be twenty-four years old without marrying for? I’ll tell you. You. I’ve had hundreds of offers and chances to enlarge a friendship into a gold hoop. Rich men, bright men, men in college, men from Kansas City, New York-even. Only first you had to take another year for architecture. Architecture, of all the hard-to-learn, hard-to-rise-in things! Then, two years for the army. And now, who knows? What if they start a new little war someplace? Maybe I’ll be fifty when you can afford a wife.” She stopped very suddenly, caught her breath and stared in the dimness. “Charley,” she whispered, “you’re crying.”
He blew his nose. “Maybe I was,” he said unevenly. “It’s a little hard to take it-like that.
Brick by lousy brick. Maybe, Lenore, you better give up the marathon. Maybe you are right. It’s so damned hard for a guy to separate how he feels and what he wants-from the facts.”
She came close to him, familiarly, because she’d been close to him often before, in cars, on hayrides, on warm pine needles at picnics, in movie theaters. “It’s a rotten time for young people.”
“For people,” he agreed, putting back his handkerchief.
“Charles?”
“Right here.” He kissed her forehead.
“Tomorrow, you’ll be gone.”
“Don’t remind we.”
“Charles. Why do we have to do like this all our lives?”
“For freedom,” he said ironically. “For God, for Country, and for Yale.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You always do, Lenore.”
“Have you made love to other girls?”
“Some,” he admitted.
“I mean—really. Actually.”
“No.”
She hesitated. “Me—-either.”
“I know,” he nodded, his head moving against her dark hair. “That, I always knew.”
“With things like this, and you going away…”
He said, “Nix.”
“I always felt,” her voice faltered and went on, “I mean, if anybody else but you, Chuck—was—the first one—I’d hate that.”
“I’m agin it, myself.” She could feel his jaw set.
“Then….”
He let go of her. He leaned forward and started the engine. This, he said to himself, is the hardest goddam thing I hope I’ll ever have to do in this world! ‘We could go,” he said in a strained voice, “to one of the many pretty motels and spend the next few hours. And then Lenore would belong—spiritually—to Chuck. They call it spiritual when they mean anything but. I love you, gal. I always may. But if I start showing you how much, dear, it won’t be in some motel, and it won’t be a sample. Okay?”
“That’s okay, Chuck.” She exhaled a tremulous, relieved sigh. “I just wanted to be sure, Chuck.” He swung around suddenly and kissed her harshly on the lips. “Shut up, now, baby. I know what you wanted to be sure of! That’s one of the reasons I care for you. You’re a game dame.”
“I—I—wouldn’t want you to think I—cheated on you—I mean—held out—because of any reason you disagreed with.”
“Must I shout?” He managed to grin. “I know what you mean. And now, I’m taking you back home—before I forget what I mean.”