Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Annie, I wish it were.”

  “I wonder, I really do wonder. I mean, you have your experience and I have mine, but you don’t admit mine.” Ann thought. “And I don’t admit yours. But I can see yours and you can’t see mine.”

  “Incoherent,” Niki chided, “imprecise; but I am following you.”

  “And Hildy on the other hand—but how am I supposed to know, or choose?”

  “Why bother? It all comes to the same thing at the end. We all die.”

  Ann turned on Niki, searching. “So what? No, I’m serious and I don’t care if it sounds simple-minded. You say, We all die, as if that explained everything. I don’t see that it explains anything. For that matter, we all live, which is the same thing backwards. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it? To live well?”

  “That’s just semantics, Annie. Look, if we could live forever, or if we could make any difference, then it might matter how we live. But to glorify life just for its mindless self—holy crap, Annie, toads live, and slugs, and think of those Romans who watched lions eat human beings and cheered. Toads, slugs, adders, cows—they all do a better job of it than people do.”

  “Why is that supposed to define me to myself?” Ann demanded.

  “Because it’s what you are, beneath the good manners and circle pins and topsiders and do-unto-others morality. Ruthless. Self-seeking. If you want to know yourself, you have to know that. When you try to ignore it—you are lying or deceiving yourself, however you want to name it. What you are, and I am, and even our precious Hildy is—vile.”

  “But even if I am, do I have to wallow in it?” Ann snapped.

  Niki grinned again.

  “Moreover, I’m not sure I am,” Ann continued. “I’m pretty sure Hildy isn’t. And”—she matched the gaiety in Niki’s eyes—“I’m willing to leave open the option that you aren’t.”

  “So Hildy wins.”

  “This has nothing to do with winning!” Ann cried. “Can’t you see anything except winning and losing?”

  “Nope. There’s nothing more to be seen. Little imbecile victories and the game is rigged against us, from the inside and the out.”

  Ann turned back to her desk, angry and dismayed.

  “But it’s nice to see you angry.” Niki patted Ann on the head and returned to the window. “Good and angry. It gives me hope for you.”

  “And you’re contradicting yourself,” Ann said.

  From the window Niki reported, “Now the Munchkin’s leaving. The path must be icy as hell: she’s practically crawling. None of the usual Munchkin bounciness.”

  “Hear how quiet it is?” Ann said.

  “Is that a hint?”

  There was a quick knock at the door and Niki called “Come in.” The housemother stepped in, pulling the door closed behind her, turning to be sure the latch caught, and holding her pose there unaccountably, her back to them.

  Ann stood up, one hand on the back of her chair “Mrs. Smythe,” she said, as something, the silence that had been mounting, choked in her throat.

  “Girls,” the housemother said, turning to face them. “I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you. Very bad news indeed, shocking—I can’t believe it myself.”

  Ann felt her eyes ballooning as the other parts of her body receded. She looked at Niki, because she could not find her own voice to speak.

  “I don’t know how to tell you—”

  “Just do it,” Niki urged.

  “Sit down, please, first. Please sit down.”

  “Something’s happened to Hildy,” Niki said, without moving. She explained to Ann, “Otherwise she’d ask one of us to leave. So tell. Tell, goddammit.”

  “There has been an accident,” Mrs. Smythe said. “Miss Dennis came to tell me—and I think she is the one who should speak with you but she said she had others to speak to and would be by later—so I—”

  “What about Hildy?” Niki demanded. “I don’t care about the accident, what about Hildy?”

  Mrs. Smythe backed away. “I don’t want to be the one—”

  “Is she hurt?” Niki moved forward. “Is she dead? Is she all right?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Niki nodded. A sharp, brief chop of the head, and the event recognized, accepted.

  Ann did not move, but she drew away from the dialogue, except for her eyes. There was nothing of her in the room. From deep within her, from some atom at the storm center of her being, a voice called out firm denial of this event.

  “It happened as she was going up to the observatory,” Mrs. Smythe reported. “She was riding her bike. I don’t understand, because there’s shoulder on both sides—but a car somehow hit her There was a woman driving and she had been drinking, Miss Dennis told me that. But still, I don’t know how except that the road is so icy. Miss Dennis said the car ran her down. Sometimes people have heart attacks. Maybe it skidded—and hit her.”

  “The car,” Niki said.

  “Yes. She was killed instantly, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  From the dense blackness of deep space, where the stars lay scattered in their unfathomable harmony, came an assurance to Ann that this was not so. Her head moved from side to side.

  “Is there anything I can do for you? Until Miss Dennis returns? Is there anything I can get you?”

  “A nice cup of tea,” Niki suggested. “Or maybe a fifth of scotch and we can have a real old-fashioned wake. I think that’s it, scotch and a side of beef, a couple of coffeecakes and we’ll have the neighbors in. Whadda you think, Annie?”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say—even for you, Miss Jones.”

  “Yes. Well then, no, no thank you, very kind I’m sure,” Niki muttered. “There’s nothing. I think we would be best alone for now.”

  “As you wish. I am terribly sorry,” Miss Smythe said.

  Niki did not answer, just waited for her to leave.

  “Where were her glasses?” Niki demanded of the closed door.

  “No,” Ann said. “No.”

  Niki picked the glasses up off the dresser top and looked at them. She slammed them down again.

  “I don’t believe it,” Ann said.

  “You better believe it, Annie. It’s the kind of news that’s always true.”

  Ann’s throat was swollen.

  “The old crap about too good for this world—don’t try that on me. Ann? Annie? I should have thought of it. It’s the same world, isn’t it? The same rotting world and this is the kind of thing that happens. I don’t know why I should be surprised.”

  Tears filled Ann’s eyes. Wiping at her nose, she rubbed mucus all over her face and did not care.

  “Well.” Niki stood stiff in the center of the room. “That’s finished. Write it off. Win some, lose some. And none of it matters. Go ahead and cry, Annie, don’t mind me. You’ll feel better And in time—”

  Niki’s body stiffened, her back arched, she gagged and threw up onto the floor She bent over, heaving, vomiting.

  Ann fetched a towel and placed it over the vomit on the rug. “Sit down,” she said, snuffling.

  Niki looked at her with wild eyes, gagged, and threw up again. “I’m OK,” she said, vomiting.

  The laundry service supplied each girl with three towels a week, Ann, stone-faced now, noted when she pulled out the last of Hildy’s towels. By that time Niki was only retching. Still, they would need more towels and Ann did not want to leave the room. She thought perhaps pillow cases would do as well, and sheets. Niki sat stiff on her bed.

  When Miss Dennis entered, without knocking, she carried a bottle of brandy. Niki guzzled down a glass and threw it up.

  A doctor came and gave Niki a shot. She passed out on the bed. Ann declined medication. She and Miss Dennis sat the night through in silence.

  Early in the morning. Niki opened her eyes. Miss Dennis stood over her “Can you stand up?” she said to Niki. Niki obeyed. “Can you walk downstairs?” Niki moved stiffly to the door.

 
; “She will be with me,” Miss Dennis said to Ann.

  Ann nodded.

  “You should go to classes today,” Miss Dennis said.

  Ann said she would not. She would be here today.

  “I will come see you later,” Miss Dennis said.

  Ann made herself respond. When they had left, she lay down on her bed and seized sleep.

  chapter 10

  A late morning light, cold and distant, distinct, filled the room. Ann did not simply awake. She sat straight up and her spirit opened to grief. Weeping, she moved from absolute unconsciousness to absolute consciousness.

  Weeping ceased and she undressed, dressed, went down the hall to the bathroom, returned emptied and cleaned and with the conviction that such commonplace business should cease. She made her bed, gathered up the mound of soiled towels, tossed them onto the floor of the closet, and shut the door on them.

  She put on Hildy’s glasses and stood looking out the window. Then she took them off. “OK,” she said aloud, “Hildy’s dead.”

  Ann sat at her desk to translate Greek. To approach a problem with clear limits, to manipulate and solve it. Her hand on the page, around the pen; her eyes on the words; her mind over syntax and definition: all moved cautiously, careful of bruised spirit. She worked mechanically.

  A knock on the door elicited a mechanical response. “Come in.” She was ready.

  Eloise entered, carrying a tray covered with cloths. “Ann?”

  “Hi. Thanks.” Ann willed Eloise away, back out the door. She could endure no imbalance in her fragile calm.

  “I’m going to sit with you,” Eloise said. She set the tray on Hildy’s desk and lifted the cloths from it. She hung her coat over the back of the chair. “However, you don’t have to talk to me.” She stood beside Ann. “Miss Dennis has sent me. You should eat something but I’m afraid the eggs may be cold. We weren’t sure so we made eggs and toast, and some sandwiches. Tea, milk, I can get you a Coke downstairs. Ann? Come and eat something.”

  Ann obeyed. She drank lukewarm tea and ate a slice of toast. Then, hungry, she finished the sandwiches. No longer hungry, she began the scrambled eggs, but Eloise stopped her.

  “You don’t have to eat everything. You look a little better Did you sleep?” Eloise’s eyes peered at her from behind her glasses.

  “Yes, I slept,” Ann said. “I’m OK, I think. It was the shock—I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you plan on.” She found herself once again slowly weeping.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I can’t seem to—”

  “Do you want to talk?” Eloise asked.

  Ann shook her head. She gave herself over to sorrow.

  “I’ll just sit here then. If you want, I’ll read something. Or talk, if that’s what you want. What I won’t do is go away.”

  Ann snuffled. Nodded. Accepted a Kleenex and blew her nose again. “What about you?” she asked Eloise. “How are you?” She wished she could stop crying.

  “I grieve,” Eloise answered. Her face, her whole body, was passive.

  Then Ann wanted to talk. “Rember when Odysseus went to the Hall of Hades? Junior year, remember? To talk to the seer about his fate, but he saw Achilles too. And we all said that Achilles taught Odysseus the value of life.”

  Eloise quoted: “I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead.” She nodded her head. “I remember.”

  “But that isn’t true,” Ann said. She spoke through her tears, ignoring them. “Because he asks about his son, and when Odysseus tells him the boy is growing famous in battle, Achilles walks away happy.”

  Eloise stared at her, frightened. Ann thought probably she shouldn’t continue; but if knowledge didn’t help you see things, now, then knowledge wasn’t ever any use. Wasn’t ever true.

  “If Achilles thinks it’s so bad to be dead, then why is he glad when his son is pursuing the path that he chose? The way that killed him. I never understood that,” she sobbed.

  “But you didn’t say anything, I don’t remember you said anything,” Eloise protested.

  “And I don’t understand that now,” Ann said, blowing her nose again, wiping at her eyes.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Eloise offered. Ann nodded. “I think that—once you’ve noticed it—you have to follow it through. On the one hand, Achilles rejects Odysseus’s praise of the glory, the immortal fame. On the other hand, he rejoices that his son is acquiring glory. It’s a paradox.”

  “Do you understand it?” Ann demanded. Eloise shook her head. “Unless,” Ann went on, “a man must go for glory, or excellence, even though it is meaningless. Must,” she repeated, on a rising sob. “So it isn’t meaningless, to a living man. And maybe then it isn’t meaningless at all. If we could only see—”

  “See what?”

  Ann shook her head, she didn’t know. They were silent then, waiting.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Later Miss Dennis arrived. She sat at Niki’s desk. It was afternoon by then. The little woman looked as gray as her clothing. She had not slept. “May I speak with you? Both of you?”

  They nodded. Ann reached for her self-possession.

  “I have talked to Mr. Koenig. He does not see a need to send his daughter home for burial. We will hold services here, in O’Rourke Hall, tomorrow morning. Wednesday. Miss Koenig will be buried in the College cemetery. Her possessions—he said we may dispose of them. He wishes only that whatever money remains in her account after expenses are met be sent to him. So. We will do that.” She looked at Eloise who nodded her head.

  “Do you have any requests for the service, Miss Gardner?”

  Ann did not. And her tears had started again. Again and again.

  “Then I will manage it. Somehow. But you will have to help me with choosing the clothing.”

  Ann didn’t understand.

  “The clothing for Hildy to be buried in,” Eloise explained.

  “Oh, of course. I didn’t think,” Ann said. She went to the closet and opened the door A stench flowed out. “Oh.” She bent over, picked up the fouled towels, and stood, holding them in her arms. Eloise took them from her and went out of the room.

  Ann pushed back dresses, one by one, as if she were shopping. What kind of clothing was appropriate? “Does it matter?” she asked Miss Dennis. “What are the conventions for this?”

  “Whatever you think is right,” the Munchkin said. “The coffin will be closed.”

  Ann’s mind swerved violently around that information. She pulled out her own dress, the dress Hildy had worn to the tea. “This one.”

  If it meant anything to Hildy, it was what she wanted to do. To be with her. To stay with her, or to go with her as far as possible.

  “Underclothing?” Miss Dennis asked.

  Ann pulled out a drawer and selected pants, bra, and a slip. “Stockings?” she asked and then answered herself. “No. It’s so stupid. Do they want shoes?” She picked Hildy’s one pair of pumps off the closet floor and handed the small pile of clothing to Miss Dennis.

  Eloise returned.

  Ann didn’t know which was worse, the unhealthy quietude or ordinary noises. She felt a need to be thrust into the middle of life. And a need to be left silently with death.

  “Where is Hildy now?” she asked.

  “In the hospital mortuary,” Miss Dennis answered. “She will be moved to the funeral home early this evening.”

  “Do you want to view her?” Eloise suggested. “Sometimes that helps.”

  “I’m afraid that is not possible,” the Munchkin said.

  Eloise turned on her: “What do you mean?”

  “The body,” Miss Dennis covered her forehead with one of her small hands. “I’m sorry—I had to identify her. The body is disfigured. So. I was not going to tell you that.”

  Ann doubted everything then and had to know. “Did she die right away? They said she did. Was that the truth?”


  The Munchkin nodded. “Yes. I made sure of that. I too wanted to know that.”

  Eloise turned to Ann: “They do it for your own good sometimes. They don’t tell you what really happened. Then later you find out—you always find out, there’s always someone who tells you what really happened—and that’s worse. But she doesn’t lie, does she?”

  “I have asked Miss Golding to stay with you,” Miss Dennis said.

  Ann nodded.

  “I have asked her to come and stay. To sleep.”

  Ann’s mind was on another track. “Then why do you want those clothes?” she wondered. “And underclothes too.” And Hildy was so beautiful.

  “Convention,” Miss Dennis said. “I do not know what should be done about Niki. I will call her father. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No.” Ann was swept with pity for this woman, who, childless, must still be caught in the position of bereaved parent. “Can we help you in any way? Can we see Niki?” She was being swept by too many emotions, she was at some vortex; but Eloise stood with her there, wherever, showing her how to endure.

  “Perhaps this evening. She will stay with me, I think. If she elects to remain at the College.”

  “But she has to,” Ann said. “She wrote another paper.” Her eyes flowed and she ignored them. “If you could hand it in, there’s a letter on top. If it matters anymore.”

  Miss Dennis picked up the paper She looked through it. She spoke slowly. “We go on in the hope that it does matter. Yes, I will do this.” She put the paper on the clothes and picked up the mound.

  “Will you bring a suitcase for Niki with you, tonight?”

  “Of course,” Ann said. “Thank you. I’m sorry for the trouble we’ve given you. Again.”

  Miss Dennis put the pile of clothes down again. She placed both hands on Ann’s shoulders and looked into her face. “You must not apologize, not for this. You must not feel responsible. There is no responsibility, not even the wretched woman who drove the car. You cannot console yourself that way. Miss Gardner? The sorrow will abate, in time. That is all.”

  Ann nodded, wept.

  Sarah and Ruth and Bess came by, grim and depressed. Eloise left Ann with them while she went to pack a suitcase for herself and gather together her books. Ann chattered, her voice high. Sarah and Ruth and Bess chattered back. Together they managed to fill the room with bright chips of sound. But Ruth came to sit beside Ann on the bed and their forearms touched until all four girls fell silent. For a minute then, Ann felt swathed, swaddled, by unspoken understanding, a deep female belonging, a feeling she had sensed seeing cows huddled together on the ground awaiting rain. A sisterhood.