by Jane Smiley
ONE OF THE GREAT REVELATIONS of Joe’s life, he thought while he was feeding the rabbits and the two new calves (this year’s named Paulette and Patricia), and watching Nat run after Pepper, was soybeans. Before the war, there were farmers who grew soybeans instead of oats—once they were up, you turned the cows out into the field, and they were pretty good pasture. During the thirties, Walter hadn’t planted soybeans because he had always expected enough rain to grow the crops he preferred, especially oats. Even that worst year—what was it, ’36?—there had been so much snow and ice that Walter had finally rejected planting soybeans. What was he going to get for them? How was he going to harvest and store them? What could you use them for? If you were going to grow beans, then grow beans, was how Walter saw it—pole beans. Soybeans were like oats or clover or alfalfa, but not as useful. Joe, though, loved soybeans. When you planted them, because they were beans, they nitrogenated the soil, and did so much more efficiently than clover. Corn planted in a former soybean field nearly leapt out of the ground. Nor did they care much about rain, either way. The corn could be pale and short, and the beans would be green and thick. Cattle liked them, too. Joe didn’t have a herd of milk cows or beef cows anymore, but farmers who did bought all the beans you could grow. Betty and Boop loved them ground up into meal, and beef raised on ground beans, it was said, had a good flavor—not too high for the city slickers.
But the day before, a guy at the feed store in Denby had walked right up to Joe and said, “How are you fertilizing your fields, Mr. Langdon?” And when Joe turned around to see if Walter had walked in, everyone standing there had a laugh.
Joe had been a bit irritated, so he said, “Why is that your business, Mr.…”
“Bob Reichardt, Mr. Langdon, from Middletown, down by Burlington. This year we are offering a product that we consider to be revolutionary in American farming.”
Joe eased past him, saying only, “There’ve been a lot of those.”
“Hey, Joe,” said Mike Hatton, who’d taken over the feed store from his dad, and who Joe knew was pretty up-to-date (they agreed on a few things, including this Lincoln variety of beans). “He’s not kidding. That Middletown plant was making TNT during the war. Now they’re demobilized.” Everyone laughed again.
“I got some pictures,” said Bob Reichardt. “Down in the southeast corner of the state, we used it pretty extensively last year. A fellow from Iowa State ran a test. Look at these.” He led Joe over to a table Mike had cleared, where he had laid out a set of ten pictures in two rows, right next to each other. Five fields, each photograph taken from a bit of a distance on the right side, and then close-ups of corn plants on the left. In the plant pictures, someone had set calendar pages between the rows—July 1, July 15, July 31, August 15, August 31. The differences were clear, and so startling that Joe was instantly skeptical. The stalks on the right side in the last picture were a third taller than those on the left side, and the ears were bigger, too. The ears looked astonishing. There was one final picture, of two ears side by side, the husks pulled back. The one ear made the other ear look measly by comparison. Bob said, “Same hybrid, same seed stock, same planting date.”
Joe stood still.
“You can afford it, Joe,” said Mike.
“What else are we going to do with the nitro?” said Bob. “It’s a gift from God, you ask me. Swords hammered into plowshares right before our very eyes. I’m not kidding. You know when I got back from Europe?”
“No,” said someone.
“At Christmas.”
“What were you doing all this time?”
“Delivering food. That’s what I was doing. And they needed more than I had. This is the miracle that’s going to feed them.”
Bob looked like he really meant it.
Joe said, “I heard about those ammonium-nitrate pellets. I read about those.”
“My dad wouldn’t have those in the warehouse,” said Mike. “Wasn’t there an explosion on a ship down in Texas? About a year ago? I remember the paper said that was ammonium nitrate. Another ship exploded, too, and—”
Bob said, “And two planes fell out of the sky. Yes. Terrible loss of life. I think five or six hundred people. Yes, I have to admit that some of that cargo was manufactured in our plant, and was on the way to France as fertilizer. But we learned our lesson from that. I think everyone did. I have to ask myself, why did they let all those folks stand there gawking? The sea was boiling and the ship was expanding like a bubble.”
Joe had to admire the way Bob Reichardt jumped in front of the story and seized it for his own. Bob exclaimed, “Yes! It was like an A-bomb. People said that, and you can see it. Some folks literally vanished in that explosion, the way they did in Japan. Houses and factories were leveled, and they felt it in Houston. I was in France at the time, and we heard about it there, because it was a French ship. The captain made a big mistake, but he wasn’t familiar with our product—”
Joe said, “No, thanks.” Men were beginning to walk away, with that uncomfortable look on their faces that the residents of Denby got when they thought they might be acting disagreeable. Bob said, “But that’s not what I’m selling. I told you we learned some lessons. Now we’ve got a new product—that’s the one we put in the fields for the pictures. No explosions, I promise.” He paused. “That’s not to say that the product is without dangers, but ‘manageable’ is the word. You fellows are used to managing, you sure are.”
But people still walked away. Joe knew perfectly well that Rosanna was just the person to make a direct connection between the famous explosion in Texas and a potential disaster on the farm. He thought about it in the night, the way he sometimes did when Nat woke him up with his rustling, and he decided to stick with beans for nitrogenating his soil.
IT WASN’T OFTEN that Frank was taken by surprise, but maybe the right place for it was Chicago. He was walking down Wacker, about to turn onto Michigan, and he was simultaneously thinking three thoughts—that it was a cool day for September in Chicago, that the L above him reminded him of his ramblings around the city, and what ever happened to Mort? Mort, he had thought when they were in school, could take anyone—just clock him on the chin, and down he went. Mort must have survived the war. Of the others, he’d heard that Terry had been killed in Belgium, Bob had ended up down in Joliet for armed robbery, and Lew had come back from the Pacific, gotten married, and gone to work for the Daily News—on the presses, was that it? But he hadn’t heard a thing about Mort. Just then, a body pressed against him and a hand slipped into his, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, and here was Hildy Bergstrom. She was wearing a narrow-brimmed straw hat and a floaty flowered dress that revealed her shoulders. Her hand slipped out of his and went to her necklace, which was made of pearls. She said, “I’ve been following you for a block. I work at Marshall Field’s, over there.” She waved her arm. “How are you?”
She was good at it still, Frank thought—talking and smiling long enough to give him some cover while he reorganized himself and remembered he was in Chicago, and not, say, the European Theater of Operations. He said, “Hildy! Damn!” And she said, “But I shifted to my middle name, which is ‘Andrea.’ I don’t think you can work at Marshall Field’s as a Hildy unless you are about eighty.” She looked good, Frank thought.
Frank said, “Where are you going?”
“I was supposed to be heading back to my office, but it’s such a nice day that I thought I would walk around a block or two. Where are you going?”
“Back to my hotel. I was at a meeting.”
“Where are you living now?”
“Dayton, Ohio. But I think I’m moving.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
Hildy—Andrea—lit up. “Really? You’re not in the tire business?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Hildy slipped her hand into his again and pressed against his side. She said, “Let’s move to New York.”
Frank said, “O
kay.”
But first they went to Iowa.
She was really quite good at assuaging the suspicions of her parents—“I nearly choked on my toast when I saw the letter from Frank. We’ve been corresponding now for, what, about six months, darling? Just flying visits. I didn’t want to say anything. You knew I wasn’t really serious about Dan, I told you that at Christmas. Yes, I admit, I like to keep things to myself, it’s a bad habit. I’m nearly thirty, Frank was always my first love, and now he’s my true love—isn’t that right, darling? Time to settle down. A girl can’t spend her life on clothes forever and ever, you said that yourself, Mama. I can catch up to Sven in two years if I have two sets of twins. Well, of course I’m joking, Daddy.” He let her do the talking.
In seven years, she had become the most sophisticated woman Frank had ever known, and he was a little intimidated; even the women he’d dated in Washington, including Judy, were frumpy by comparison. But she did it so naturally and quickly that he was fascinated rather than put off by it. Girdle, stockings, slip, blouse, skirt, jacket, hat, hairpins, makeup, heels, coat, corsage, gloves: she passed through the process automatically, usually talking, and then she was ready to go, and off they went. This led him to believe that she would pass through the complementary removal process as easily, though she hadn’t done that yet with him. It was amusing to think about, and exciting, too. She intimidated her parents, and when he told her father that he planned to marry her, her father said to Frank, “You’d better have a good job, then, min kjære gutt, and steady promotions.”
Frank paused and then said, “I do understand that she could get expensive, sir.” He hoped the old man knew he was joking.
He said, “Ah, but her teeth are good and she’s healthy. Never been ill a day in her life.”
Frank thought Lars Bergstrom and Walter would get along quite well.
Rosanna seemed more suspicious than any of the other parents. She kept back when Hildy—Andrea—Andy—first got out of the car, and her facial expression didn’t soften. But Andy was good with that, too. When Rosanna got up and went into the kitchen for the teapot, Andy followed her, and after they had talked, out they came, Rosanna carrying the pot and Andy carrying the pie, and Claire, who had come in the back door, clutching Andy by the skirt. When they had set the things down on the table, Andy said to Claire, “Come with me, honey. I brought you something.” And they went out the front door. Claire came back in with two barrettes in her hand, silver filigree and shaped like bows. She showed them to Rosanna, who said, “Well, maybe these will keep your hair out of your face, Claire. For goodness’ sake, Andrea, it’s like her hair grows straight up in all directions. It will not lie flat for two seconds.”
As well dressed as she was, she fit into the front room of the farm. She relaxed against the back of the sofa. She ran her hand over Rosanna’s afghan, she admired the view out the windows, she said that the corn was as high as she’d ever seen it.
“You mean prices, right?” said Walter, and she nodded. When Frank carried her bag up to Lillian’s old room, she did not recoil at the endless pink, but said, “How cute!” She admired Henry’s bookshelves and said, “Name one that you really want.”
Henry said, “Illusions perdues. In French.”
“I’m sure that’s expensive,” said Rosanna.
“They always are,” said Frank.
But they loved her. They considered her a prize. Frank watched as she deployed her charms, knowing every moment that he himself was the prize, as far as Andy was concerned. It was not only that he was flattered and entertained, though—he was also fascinated and seduced. Women were supposed to be mysterious, and most of the girls he knew did their best, but Andy truly was mysterious, in the way that only someone you had once known as a girl and now knew as a woman could be; he missed what she had been, and therefore loved it, and he marveled at what she had become, and so loved that as well.
ROSANNA COULD NOT HAVE SAID that she enjoyed making Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-three people (a turkey, a standing rib roast, and a duck that Granny Mary brought; ten pounds of mashed potatoes, and that not enough; five pies; sweet potatoes; more stuffing than could be stuffed; all the Brussels sprouts left in the garden, though they were good after the frost). She could not say that Lillian had control of those children, who were underfoot every time you took a step, though they were good-natured, to be sure. Henry scrutinized the dishes of food as though he were being asked to partake of roadkill, at least until the pies were served, and Claire burst into tears for no reason at all, but when they all had their plates in front of them, and a few deep breaths were taken, and first Andrea, and then Granny Elizabeth, and then Eloise said, “This looks delicious,” she began to have a strange feeling. She should have sat down—Joe, who was sitting beside her, moved her chair in a bit—but she didn’t want to sit down, or eat, at all (what with tasting everything, she wasn’t hungry); she just wanted to stand there and look at them as they passed the two gravy boats and began to cut their food. It couldn’t have happened, she thought. They couldn’t have survived so many strange events. Take your pick—the birth of Henry in that room over there, with the wind howling and the dirt blowing in and her barely able to find a rag to wipe the baby’s mouth and nose. Take your pick—all of them nearly dying of the heat that summer of ’36. Take your pick—Joey falling out of the hayloft, Frankie driving the car to Usherton, Frankie disappearing into the Italian Campaign, Frankie, for Heaven’s sake, living in a tent all through college. Take your pick—Walter falling into the well (yes, she had gotten that out of him one day during the war, when he said, “Remember when I fell into the well?” and she said, “What in the world are you talking about?” and he blushed like a girl). Take your pick—Granny Mary with her cancer, but still walking around. Take your pick—Lillian running off with a stranger who turned out to be a clown, but a lovable one, and nice-looking, and weren’t Timmy and Debbie just darling? Normally, Rosanna took credit for everything, good and bad (her eye flicked to the doorway, the very spot where Mary Elizabeth had slipped; it might be happening right this minute, that’s how vivid it was), but now she thought, this was too much. She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the food hanging over the table, the heads turning this way and that, the voices murmuring and laughing. She looked at Walter, who was so far away from her, all the way at the other end of the table, having a laugh with Andrea, who had a beautiful suit on, navy blue with a tiny waist and white collar and cuffs. As if on cue, Walter turned from Andrea and looked at Rosanna, and they agreed in that instant: something had created itself from nothing—a dumpy old house had been filled, if only for this moment, with twenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious. Rosanna wrapped her arms around herself for a moment and sat down.
1949
IT WAS ONE THING to decide to move to New York, and another thing to find a job, but in the end, Arthur had an idea. What had Frank been doing for two years if not reading those German papers and passing them on to American companies? Arthur heard about a fellow at Grumman Aircraft who needed an assistant to help him organize and acquire government contracts. The company was in Valley Stream, New York, and as for Andrea (whom Arthur liked very much), Bonwit’s was eighteen miles away, and they could live on Long Island. Arthur told Frank confidentially that no one lived in the city anymore—Manhattan was a nightmare with kids, much more difficult than Washington.
Lillian put on the wedding, a Christmas affair, small but stylish. Andy’s brother, Sven, and his wife and three children; the older Bergstroms; Walter, Rosanna, Joe, Henry, and Claire all came on the train to D.C. and stayed a week—the Bergstroms in a hotel and the Langdons falling all over one another at Lillian’s. Joe was out of the house early every day. He wanted to see everything, and he covered so much ground that no one offered to go with him, but Frank had to admire the way he did it—he got himself a map of the city, divide
d it into six parts, reconnoitered, and did a section each day. He also tried new foods—Italian on Saturday, Chinese on Sunday, German on Monday, French on Tuesday, back to American on Wednesday, then Italian again on Thursday. What he liked best, he told Frank, was the lasagna, the minestrone, and the chow mein, with a nice crescent roll thrown in from time to time. Henry went to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, and Lillian and Rosanna took Claire to Garfinckel’s to buy a dress for the wedding, but Rosanna was appalled at the prices there, so they went to Hecht’s.
The wedding was Friday morning, the 24th, just a short service—and then the reception was that evening, at Arthur and Lillian’s. Andrea had bought her gown at Marshall Field’s, 40 percent store discount, and when Frank saw her in it, he almost forgot to say his part, but he did take her, indeed he did. Lillian looked good, too, as the maid of honor, and Timmy carried the ring, and Sven’s daughter Marta was the flower girl; she and Debbie wore identical green velvet dresses. Claire wore red. Rosanna was a little insulted that she hadn’t been asked to make the cake, but when she saw the one they got from the pâtisserie she changed her mind. Sven was the best man. When he gave his speech, he talked about how a man’s greatest work in life was having a family. His kids sat quietly through everything, stair-step blond heads, big blue eyes. Timmy wore his toy holster and his toy six-guns the entire time, and no one, not even Rosanna, said a word. Lillian told him that if he drew on anyone the guns would be taken away. He understood perfectly. Frank wondered if the Bergstroms and the Langdons could be successfully hybridized, but he said nothing and hoped for the best.
It was February 1 when Arthur stopped by Frank’s apartment in Floral Park for breakfast. He ate an English muffin and a couple of scrambled eggs. When Andy asked how he had managed to get there so early, he only told Frank and Andy that Timmy had climbed to the top of the living-room bookshelves to regain a toy truck that had been taken away from him, and had managed to climb down, but not before Lillian came in from outside and saw him about five shelves up. Frank laughed. “What did she do?”
