by James Jones
“Virginia won’t have a damn thing to say about it, Al.”
Al nodded gravely. “You mean her mother’ll do all the picking. I guess that’s right.” His voice was quite calm now. Frank reached up his hand on the tall Al’s shoulder, rather like a small coach exhorting a large substitute he is about to send in. In fact, it rather made Frank think of that, he felt very paternal.
In the office, the phone rang.
“Mr Hirsh!” Edith Barclay called from the office door. “Telephone!”
The watch repairman, for the first time since noon, looked up from his bench. He looked at Edith standing in the door, and continued to look at her.
“Yes?” Frank said. “Who is it.”
“Mr Roberts of the Second National,” Edith said.
“I’ll be right there,” Frank said.
She went back in.
The watch repairman looked back down.
“Now you go on back up there,” Frank said with his hand on Al’s shoulder. “And be nice and polite, and show them everything they want to see. Just like you really thought they might take somethin. We might sell them a good watch for T L for Christmas, later on.”
Al nodded with a solemn patience that mirrored Frank’s voice. Frank stood a moment watching him go. Sometimes Frank wondered how Al had ever managed to survive four years of war as a Combat Infantryman. It seemed impossible. Yet he had. And had the ribbons and medals to prove it. And yet he didn’t show any more effects of it than if he had been away four years at the University of Illinois up in Champaign. Four years away from his wife had rolled off him like water off a duck’s back. Frank did not think he himself could have stood that. If all veterans were as well adjusted as Al Lowe, there wouldn’t be any veterans’ problem. Al was thirty-two, Frank calculated, that was just about four years younger than Dave, wasn’t it? He went on back to get the phone.
The watch repairman did not look up as he passed.
Chapter 6
FRANK, HOWEVER, WAS NOT aware of the repairman this time because he was thinking about Al Lowe’s wife. He did not allow himself to think about Geneve usually. But he was beginning to wonder why she hadn’t called him. It was because of Geneve that he had hired Al for the store when Al was working as a laborer for the Sternutol after he got back from the Army. She had suggested him. And had sold him on it. Geneve was twenty-nine, three years younger than Al, and looked a lot like a Vogue magazine model. Those four years in the Army had rolled off her back, too, Frank thought, feeling a little sly. She had worked at the Mode Shop across the square all during the war as a sort of head salesgirl and assistant buyer for Dotty Callter, and then had just kept on working there, she was a good girl, she and Al were pooling their incomes to save. She was a smart girl, too. He would never have thought of Al himself. She ought to be calling him again now in a few days it had been over a month since her last buying trip to Chicago for Dotty.
He stopped in the door of the office and looked at his watch, thinking he ought to call Dave right away, before the opportunity slipped. He would call him as soon as he got through with Ned Roberts, he thought. Then the thought came into his mind suddenly from nowhere that he ought to go to church with Agnes when she went next Sunday. He hadn’t been for a long time now. And it would please her. And it couldn’t hurt anything. But then the very idea of having to sit for two hours in the midst of so many people who knew Dave was back and had deposited money in the Second National made him cringe inside.
He took the phone carefully from Edith’s hand. “Hello?”
“Hi, Frank,” Ned Roberts’s tenor voice said in his ear. “I just wanted to call and congratulate you on Dave’s safe return from the wars, Frank.”
“Well thanks, Ned,” he said. “We’re real glad to have him back.”
“I didn’t even know he was in town until a half hour ago, Frank.”
“Yes it was sort of sudden,” he said. “We weren’t even sure he was goin to be able to make it down here at all.”
“He sent the clerk over from the Parkman to make a rather substantial deposit. That was how I found out he was here.”
“You mean that fifty-five hundred,” he said. “Yes, he asked me about that.”
There was a tiny, almost imperceptible, pause at the other end. But Frank did not go on. Let him hold the ball. The voice said, “I don’t suppose he’ll be staying long?”
“Well, Ned, we don’t know. We’re hopin he’ll decide to stay quite a while. After all, we haven’t seen him for a long time. But you know how Dave is.”
“Ha-ha-ha, yes, quite a fellow, but I understood the clerk to say he was staying at the Parkman?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did that. You know how Agnes has been feelin so damned poor lately. I just didn’t feel like I ought to have him stay at the house. He understood that.” It was an unturnable flank. Agnes had been feeling bad. She always was.
“Yes, that’s right,” the voice said. “Of course, it’s better.”
“Besides, she’s been redecoratin lately, you know,” Frank said. “You know how women are with decoratin. Everything messed up, and them ready to cry. Dave’s comin out the house for dinner tonight though, of course.”
“Yeah, this decorating’s rough,” Ned said. “Well, don’t let her overwork herself doing it. We don’t want her getting down bad-sick again.”
“I’m holding her down some,” he said. “Much as I can. But you know how Agnes is.”
“Yes, that’s right. Always driving herself.”
“Well, I got to get back, Ned. Some people out front.”
“Yes,” the voice said, “Mrs Stevens was in a short while ago and said she and Virginia were going to stop by your place to look at silver. She said they were going over to Indianapolis to look tomorrow.”
“Yes, so I understand,” Frank said. “We never expected them to pick a silver pattern for a marriage like that in Parkman. Well, thanks for callin, Ned.”
“Forget it, Frank. Just wanted you to know how happy I was over Dave getting back safely.”
“Yes. And thanks.” He hung up and stood looking down at the phone too outraged to think rationally. Did he actually expect he was going to get me to admit anything? Get back safely! The war’s been over almost two years. A hot flame of pure rage soared up through him, consuming Ned Roberts and his goddamned Second National, charring beyond all recognition the Stevens women with their monstrous gall to come in his store with no intention of buying, and continued on burning Parkman, Illinois, to the ground entire with all its environs like a conflagration, while he stood slack-faced and thoughtless.
Gradually, he became aware of the girl who was not looking at him curiously from her desk but who might as well have been. Resisting an impulse to turn on his heel and go out in the storeroom, he sat down at his own desk and put an expression on his face. He had no mirror but it felt like it must look ghastly. He took it off and put on another which was no better. He was glad Edith still had not looked up. She was a good girl. He was the laughingstock of Parkman, Illinois. He was also the brother of Dave Hirsh, Army veteran, and, he decided, he was very likely to remain very publicly both until something both public and embarrassing happened to somebody else and changed the focus of public attention.
And there was nothing he could do, now, about it. It was done. If Dave didn’t even stay in town overnight, it would still serve to stir up all the old dirt. He wondered how the judge had found out about the deposit, that had sure been a godsend. But he knew he’d never find out, not from the judge anyway.
It was so bad, really, that he could almost afford to feel hopeful because it could not possibly get any worse. Who knew? He might be able to talk Dave into investing the fifty-five hundred dollars before he threw it away. If Frank had had that much unattached capital to invest when he started out, God only knew what he’d be worth today. Of course, money was worth a lot more then. But the inflation was going to get worse. And fifty-five hundred dollars invested now in 1947 would coun
t for as much as ten thousand dollars by 1950. If he turned Dave’s money over once for him and then matched it with an equal amount of his own, they’d have enough to incorporate as an investment firm. Hirsh & Hirsh, Inc. Wouldn’t that make the judge’s neck rigid! If this new factory came in, and a man could find out just where the new highway bypass was going to be laid, Christ there’d be plenty of opportunities for good investment in this town. Maybe Hirsh Bros, Inc would be better. Why there was no limit to what they might do. Frank’s mind went on by itself, building empires of wealth and fame that did not include the judge, creating between brothers and partners a great love and friendship and loyalty where there was none, and amassing respect until it weighed more than a mountain and displaced as much space, all out of Dave’s measly fifty-five hundred dollars.
Then the balloon burst, overinflated by his own treacherous breath, leaving him with his mouth dangling the shreds of rubber and staring off across the space that a moment before had been a solid, opaque bubble.
His own violated sense of reality told him it was an impossibility. Not because he couldn’t have done that for Dave but because Dave wouldn’t let him. What dumbfounded Frank was that he should even have imagined it.
Al Lowe was standing in the office doorway.
“Yes, Al,” he said. “What is it.” Still, it was nevertheless an idea to consider.
“Mrs Stevens wants to see you,” Al said, emphasizing the last word.
“I’ve shown her every piece of silver we’ve got in the store. Now she wants to see you.”
Frank sighed. Must have been sitting here quite a while. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right there.” He got up and followed Al out into the storeroom.
Al turned around. “I tried everything I could, Frank,” he said, his voice agitated. “I ran up and down and showed her everything she asked for and a lot that she didn’t and I was as nice and polite and she just stood there. Kept looking and looking and staying and staying. Then she asked to see you.”
“That’s all right,” Frank said. “She didn’t ask for me because she’s dissatisfied with your service.” He put his hand gently on Al’s back and started him toward the front. “This is her big day, and she wants to take advantage of it.”
Al went a few steps, and then stopped and turned again.
“I just heard, Frank. Mrs Stevens told me.”
“Mrs Stevens?”
“Yes. She must have picked it up at the bank.”
“Picked up what.”
“About Dave,” Al said. He looked as if he would have liked to say he was sorry, but could not be sure this was proper. Unlike Edith Barclay, Al Lowe was not too young to remember Dave Hirsh.
“Oh.” Frank rubbed his hand over his face thoughtfully. Then he said:
“You were in high school with him, weren’t you?”
“No. He graduated—” Al said. “He left—” He tried once more. “I was in the eighth grade when he was a senior.”
“That’s right,” Frank said, “you were younger.” He thought some, and then said: “I haven’t seen Dave for nineteen years. He’s probably changed some.” He put his hand on Al’s back again. “Let’s get on up there.”
“Okay,” Al said. “I wonder why he put his money in the Second National?”
Frank stopped and looked at him. “She tell you that, too?”
Al nodded.
“Because he wanted to save it, I reckon,” Frank said, and put his hand back on Al’s back.
“I can tell her you’re busy if you want?” Al offered.
“No. The customer is always right. And anyway she’d know better. You go ahead of me though, and I’ll wait a minute. Don’t want to look—” he hunted for the correct word.
“Solicitous?” Al suggested.
“That’s it,” Frank said. “You go ahead. I got to make a phone call anyway,” he said, and went back into the office and called the hotel for Dave. Two things: Don’t get mad, and invite him to dinner.
Edith listened to this conversation, too, working away and not looking up. After he hung up, feeling a little better, it was the best he could do under the circumstances anyway, Frank looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and turned on his heel to go up front, to the display room.
This was Frank’s jewelry store the heart of it familiar to him as the operating room to the surgeon and, he often thought, he was just as sentimental about it and its social service and as cold-blooded about the money it made.
Anyway he never failed to get a small prickle of pride when he walked into it as well as a slight sense of astonishment that he should be in the jewelry business, instead of some other.
It wasn’t much. Except for its stock, there was almost nothing to distinguish the place itself from almost any other store on the square. He had inherited both the furnishings and their arrangement from the tenant before him, a druggist. Ever since getting it he had intended to do it all over (with Agnes’s redecorating help) in modernistic style, but had never felt quite flush enough to lay out the dough although he always had dough for some other project, so the store remained, comfortably dingy and undistinguished, like an abused old friend who can always be abused because he is an old friend, but a stranger in town would have been hard put to find anything at all individual about it.
In this familiarity, then, stood Mrs Stevens and her about-to-be-married daughter, Virginia, surrounded by silverware place settings strewn up and down the glass cases, only one of them talking to Al, as Frank came up.
“Hello, Mrs Stevens?” he smiled. “And, Virginia. How are you?”
Al moved out of the way.
“We weren’t really meaning to select anything definite today, Frank,” Mrs Stevens, who plainly had no intention of giving up all this pleasure in one afternoon, told him. “We were just looking, weren’t we, Virginia.”
“Yes,” Virginia said levelly.
“That’s quite all right,” Frank said. “Look all you want. Make yourselves right at home.”
“We did want to see what you had,” Mrs Stevens said. “As I told Virginia, if it’s available in Parkman, Frank Hirsh will have it. But we didn’t want to bother you. Did we, Virginia.”
“No,” Virginia said.
“You didn’t bother me,” Frank protested. “That’s what I’m here for. I was sittin back in the office bored to death.” He turned to the girl. “I haven’t had a chance to offer my best wishes yet, Virginia.”
“Thank you, Mr Hirsh,” she said in that same level tone—as if she were concentrating hard on producing every word and gesture required of her, and jealously intent upon not showing one thing more.
“You don’t carry the Towle line, do you, Frank?” Mrs Stevens asked.
“No, I sure don’t, Mrs Stevens.”
Al had waited a minute, like Frank had taught him, and then moved off to wait on some of the other customers.
“But now if it’s Towle you’re interested in,” Frank said, “Old Simon Clatfelter across the square carries Towle, Mrs Stevens. I’d be glad to call him up for you?”
“Simon Clatfelter?” Mrs Stevens murmured. “He carries Towle?”
“Yes; fact is, that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been able to stock it. Towle feels the town’s too small for two dealers. I’d be glad to call Simon for you, if you’d like to see what he has in it?” Frank offered.
“Oh no,” Mrs Stevens said. “Not today. I’m afraid it’s too late today.”
“Well, I’ve got a leaflet of Towle patterns around here someplace, if you’d like to look at it.”
“Oh no,” Mrs Stevens said and looked at her watch. “Well, yes. Perhaps for just a minute. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“Why, no trouble at all,” Frank said. “I picked it up at the Chicago Gift Show last fall, when I was hopin to get Towle in. I’ll get it for you.” He turned around to a drawer.
“Well. All right. Yes, that would be nice,” she said. “We’ll just glance at it. Don’t you think that
would be nice, Virginia.”
Virginia appeared to be lost in some bitter (or sweet, Frank suddenly thought) reminiscence or dream of her own. “Yes, that would be nice,” she said levelly.
“Here we are,” Frank said, and spread it out on the counter. Covertly, he looked Virginia over. She was a rather attractive, wide-hipped girl. Slender but widely hipped. He did not remember having seen her since she started at Indiana. It was funny how little girls you had known all their lives and paid no attention to suddenly became big girls with wide hips and you noticed them. Virginia didn’t look too awfully hepped up about her forthcoming marriage he thought.
“Oh, they have some lovely traditional patterns,” Mrs Stevens said without looking up. “Why— Here’s Old Colonial. Why I had an aunt who had that.”
“You like the traditional?” Frank asked her, but looking at Virginia’s black hair parted in the middle, which fell loosely from both sides of her bent face as she looked, and thinking about young Arthur Bookwright and the Arkansas private. Harold Bookwright had (privately, of course) said that she looked like an awfully good piece. And he had not believed it.
Out in the office, the phone rang again. And he remembered Dave.
When it rang, everyone in the store instinctively stopped moving and stopped talking, with that intent self-absorption Americans always get when a phone rings and they hope or dread it is for them. Al Lowe went back to ask the girl who it was for.
“For you, Frank!”
“Be right there!”
The people in the store started living again.
“Modern is so plain,” Mrs Stevens answered him. “Silver should call up lovely visions, of court banquets, and lighted candles and romance.”
“I,” Virginia said suddenly, in a low but quite clear voice, “think I am more attracted to the plainness of the modern.”
The sudden murderousness of it with its deliberate implications startled all of them, even Virginia. Then the start faded off her face and was replaced by a bold look of audacity, with which she stared at her mother in the silence.
