The First Desire

by Nancy Reisman

  Goldie’s alive, she’s alive but did not tell them; why didn’t she say? What did they do that kept her so far she’d pass for dead? The classifieds: they were simple worried classifieds, nothing harsh or recriminating. Years of them, but of course not in California—Sadie never thought of California. Why didn’t she think of California? A better climate: why wouldn’t Goldie try to find more summer?

  And Irving knew, and without telling her, and for how long? She feels her lungs contract; the surface of the day seems patchy and unreliable, as if it might open and spill its contents—the parlor, the note, Sadie—into space.

  “There’s sugar for the tea,” Jo says. And here is the teacup, the sofa, here is her father’s chair, Jo, a pipe.

  “Did Celia see this?” Sadie says.

  Jo shakes her head.

  “Papa?”

  “No.”

  Jo is puffy-faced and cracking, and if the light in the room were brighter Sadie would have seen it at first glance. Jo says, “I am not myself today.” She makes no move to get up from the chair. She sucks at the lit pipe and in truth she does not look herself. How could she? Sadie waits to see if the day will in fact spill, her own not-oneself feeling taking full control. She drinks her tea, rereads the note. All fine here, the phrase an opaque pond that becomes for a moment translucent, long enough for you to catch a glittering below the surface before the water clouds again. The day is not the same one she started with: the earth spun more than she knew. She has been a sleepwalker.

  But Irving has not been a sleepwalker, he’s been wide awake and for how long? Goldie has sent money before, that much is clear, but with money Irving is a sieve. Sadie’s breathing speeds. She notices the cigarettes, lights one because it is there. Irving is boyish, not cruel, or so she’s always believed, but maybe she’s been wrong, or maybe the two states are less distinct than she’d imagined. What was he thinking? Of course he is untouchable now, safely in Georgia, safe but not safe, there is a war and he is a soldier but she will not think about that today: he is in Georgia where she cannot confront him.

  All fine here, but nobody told her. “Was there anything else?” Sadie says.

  “No.”

  And no return address. “I’ll write to Irving.”

  And the air in the room seems thin despite the smoke. It’s nearly time for the girls to return home from school—though Rosalie is there waiting—but Sadie should be home now, shouldn’t she, with Margo and Elaine? She stubs out the cigarette: she must see Margo and Elaine. She will be calmer when she sees them, certain the world still contains them and remains familiar. How she will protect them, she does not know. “I’ll write to Irving,” she repeats.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Jo says. “I’m not myself at all.”

  DRIVING HOME she feels a shakiness unreflected in the orderly traffic and clear silhouettes of the trees and the brightening sky. She would like to telephone Georgia immediately, find Irving at boot camp, but how would she begin? Emergency? No one has died—that’s exactly the point. She can send him a telegram, though even that seems extreme: it’s wartime. And what could she squeeze into a telegram? It will have to be a letter. She will need to calm herself and write a letter.

  Sadie knows she’s a different woman now than she was when Goldie disappeared—she is not, she reminds herself, a woman who falls down on sofas. There is no time in life for falling down on sofas. In her neighborhood, the shakiness abates: it is the same neighborhood she left this morning, her house the same house. Still, after she drives on and parks the Ford at the grammar school, a glance at Goldie’s handwriting brings on another spasm, a mix of muscle cramp and mosquito bite, something you rub and scratch until you’re mesmerized by scratching. Where you are falls away and time evaporates, and then you awake to a blood smear, the embarrassing need to cover broken skin, and the waiting school.

  The school day is not quite over, but Sadie walks in and asks for her daughters, and in a few minutes they appear. How simple it is to find them.

  “We need treats today,” she says, “don’t you think?” They watch her closely, Margo more skeptically than Elaine: Sadie doesn’t allow them to miss class unless they are plainly ill, and she does not tolerate faking. And she doesn’t explain why they need treats today, but that is not necessary. She drives them to Parkside Candies, where the air is sugary-thick, and the displays of chocolates and the soda fountain and the small round tables suggest a separate universe. The girls are distracted by ice cream but they still hover close; and Sadie is partly distracted by the girls, who do not know they have an aunt named Goldie. Finally the day approaches normal. Outside the pillowy afternoon clouds accumulate into a solid block, darker and less sculpted in the west, but there are still buttonholes of blue when Sadie begins to drive home.

  Rosalie has finished for the day and left a note in careful script:

  Miss Cohen called 1:00 pm, Wednesday. Miss Cohen called 1:10 pm Wednesday. Miss Cohen called 1:15 pm Wednesday. Miss Celia Cohen called from Red Cross 2:30 pm Wednesday, Would you like to meet her at the Red Cross Monday? Please kiss the girls. 3 pm Dr. Feldstein called and wishes to remind you of his sister’s birthday. He requested biscuits, if I had enough time. Plate of biscuits under wax paper on the counter. I will wash the bed linens tomorrow. Have a nice evening.

  Jo. Sadie’s neglected to speak to her about Rosalie: she ought to call Jo now. And say what, exactly? Please be polite to Rosalie, the kind of request Jo deliberately thumbs her nose at. If you cannot say something nice don’t say anything at all, Sadie tells her daughters, but it’s schoolmarmish even to Sadie, and to Jo—whether or not Jo is herself—it’s simply a dare. Sadie will tell Rosalie to ignore the phone.

  The kitchen smells of warm biscuits. From the icebox Sadie removes lake fish wrapped in paper, eggs, cold noodle pudding, carrots to boil and butter; from the cold pantry a half dozen apples, cinnamon and sugar, flour. She cores one, then another apple, tucking them into a glass pan and sprinkling cinnamon and the smallest bit of sugar: an ordinary gesture, followed by the ordinary gesture of peeling carrots while Elaine leans over the kitchen table and draws flowers the same size as houses.

  There’s the question of what to say to Bill. Irving’s silence is stunning, unforgivable, but all Sadie actually knows is that Jo opened Irving’s mail—which Jo of course should not have done, Bill will jump on that—to discover a note and money she should not have seen (more jumping), the note and cash from a living Goldie. Sadie’s temples pinch at the prospect of maneuvering through Bill’s objections and unanswerable questions: it’s like steering a rowboat in high seas. She does not want to be in a rowboat, or in high seas. She can only admit her bewilderment and what will he do then? Comfort her or try to argue her out of bewilderment, into a rational state, which is what she’s trying to maintain. Wait then, until she knows more? This is not, she supposes, the way one ought to behave with a husband. You keep your secrets—those little fivedollar loans to Irving—but certain things you ought to tell, for example that your disappeared sister is not dead.

  Isn’t the shivah alone reason to speak? In her throat there’s a welling: this secret, lodged there and expanding, may soon become an outburst. But Bill might answer as he has before: it was her father’s right. He repeated this just months ago, the last time they argued over what to tell the girls about Goldie.

  “And would you disown our girls?” she asked.

  His gaze became stony, the look of a man she didn’t know; for an instant she wondered if he was capable of striking her. His face reddened, and then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. After a moment he was again familiar. “Of course not,” he said. “Don’t ever speak to me like that.”

  “Promise you never will,” she said, and kept silent until he replied coldly, “Never, I will never disown them. But how could you think such a thing?”

  She did not know how, or why the promise did not seem to her implicit in her children’s conceptions and births. Her demand did seem m
ixed up: Bill’s a devoted father, if stern. But who would have predicted her father’s call for shivah, even with Celia to consider?

  She’s pan-frying the whitefish, and above a sea of wax-pencil poppies and one small house, Elaine wrinkles her nose. “Not a word,” Sadie says. “You like fish.”

  “What else?” Elaine says.

  “Noodle pudding,” which seems to satisfy Elaine. She returns to her poppies and the intricacies of a brick chimney.

  Wait until you know what to make of the letter. Wait until the facts become clearer. No need to argue with yourself. Do not burn the fish.

  And when Bill returns she hangs up her apron and kisses him hello; today he’s brought flowers, as if he sensed something. Red and white carnations for the table. He’s jovial, kissing Margo and Elaine, he’s had a good day. “We went to Parkside Candies,” Margo says.

  “Did you have chocolate?”

  “Ice cream,” she says.

  “An impulse,” Sadie says. “It seemed a good day for a treat.” He studies her face for a moment, then asks the girls if they brought home any almond bark, which in fact they have, a small white bag Margo has labeled Daddy.

  “The flowers,” Sadie says, “are beautiful.”

  In the evening, Bill plants himself in his reading chair and sorts through temple board memos, and the girls take their homework to their rooms. Sadie listens to the radio and writes letters; to Ruby Berman’s son Jacob, eighteen and now in the Pacific; to her second cousin Melvin in the army, last she heard in England; to Irving in Georgia. Three or four times a week she writes to Irving, long chatty letters, but tonight she writes simply:

  Dearest Irving,

  I hope you are well. A letter arrived at the store and Jo opened it before realizing it was for you, not Papa. A note from California with ten dollars enclosed. Here is the note. Please explain this. If it is from Goldie, you must tell us where we can reach her. Do you understand me? You must explain.

  Your loving sister,

  Sadie

  Before she seals the envelope, she slips in one of Elaine’s poppy drawings, which doubles the thickness. She places the small stack of letters on the table in the front foyer, for Bill to mail on his way to the office.

  IT DOES NOT occur to Sadie to hand over the money to Celia— who would surely spend it all on trash—and she will not shop with Celia. It’s too trying, she tells herself, though the prospect of being seen in department stores with Celia—even a compliant Celia— unnerves her most. Twice last fall she offered to shop for Celia, and just last week bought a deep green dress Celia accepted without comment. Celia has new boots. In the morning, Sadie decides to put the money toward a new coat for Celia: surely Celia won’t argue with a coat?

  Rosalie has stripped the beds and begun to launder the sheets when Sadie remembers to thank her for making the biscuits and to tell her she might as well ignore the telephone. “It’s a nuisance,” Sadie says, “but use it of course if you need to call Thomas.”

  Rosalie nods and pulls out the box of laundry soap. “All right, Mrs. Feldstein.”

  At Hengerer’s Sadie finds a coat in soft gray with red piping, and when she delivers it to the Lancaster house, Celia touches the sleeve, runs her finger along the piping, and squints at Sadie. “You just bought me a dress,” she says. “I have a coat, you know.”

  “I thought you might like a new one.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve had your coat a while. But if you don’t like this I’ll return it.”

  “Buy coats for the girls,” Celia says. “Don’t they need coats?”

  “They do. I’m taking them downtown on Saturday.”

  “You shouldn’t show off your money,” Celia says. “It’s irritating.” Sadie hesitates, and in the pause can hear her own pulse, then wind gusts pushing a sycamore branch against the side of the house, the low clanking of the furnace.

  “It’s Goldie’s money,” she says.

  “Is it?”

  “I’m fairly sure,” Sadie says. “If you don’t want the coat I’ll return it. We can put the money in the bank.”

  Celia lifts the gray coat, tries it on, checks the depth of the pockets. “All right,” she says. “I’ll keep it.”

  “Papa doesn’t know.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Celia says. There’s no agitation, no sign of shock.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Sadie says.

  “You don’t always listen,” Celia says.

  “Does Irving know?”

  “He ought to.” Celia lifts the coat and hangs it in the front closet. “Did you bring groceries too? I ran out of jam.”

  IRVING IS HIDING in Georgia but there is no need to dwell: she will be patient. After sending him the note with the drawing of poppies, Sadie returns to the chattiness of her regular letters: Margo’s in her fifth-grade play, the lead in Cinderella, she practices with sorrowful looks when Sadie makes her do her math; there’s a new junior rabbi at the temple, not that Irving is much for temple, but he seems a nice man, more popular with the children at least, etc. Toward the end a simple I await your reply to my note. Your loving sister.

  Each day she checks the mailbox, and clearly he is busy, clearly mail to and from Georgia takes time, but with each day Sadie’s irritation increases. Even the early mornings are moody and askew, though Jo’s calls have briefly diminished. Irving seems in no hurry to write back and how much difference will a few days make after thirteen years? But thirteen years. Sadie wakes too early with a slight panic and the impulse to check her legs—why is she checking her legs? A dream? She often doesn’t remember them now, but there’s a feeling, a worry, a leg worry. She used to have those, didn’t she? Bill walks in from shaving, he’s in an undershirt and suit pants, his belly swelling outward. She’s got both hands clamped around her left thigh. “Are you all right?” he says.

  “Of course.” She drops her hands and hurries to her closet for a robe.

  But he follows her, his hands suddenly on her shoulders, rubbing, he leans in and kisses her on the cheek. She does not want to be kissed. She does not want to kiss him back: she wants a moment to disguise the leg worry.

  “Sadie?” Bill says.

  “The war gives me nightmares,” she says, and it’s probably true, how can it not give one nightmares? Aren’t they all more irritable? The jitteriness she’s felt—don’t they all feel it?

  “I know,” Bill says, though he doesn’t know at all, not about Goldie, and wouldn’t this be the time to tell him? Or maybe he knows something Sadie does not, not about Goldie but about war and what might happen. Men seem to know about such things; it seems to go with shaving and heavy tobacco and father’s rights. She’s bewildered though, too fragile; she cannot risk his bellowing.

  “Sadie?”

  “Sometimes I miss my mother,” she says. It deflects his scrutiny from her leg worry and Goldie worry, but it’s true, isn’t it? Every day, really, she misses her mother. As if missing were stitched into her clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” Bill says. “You do seem nervous. Make an appointment with Dr. Rosen, would you?”

  “Dr. Rosen,” Sadie says, as if remembering the family doctor exists.

  “Have lunch with my mother,” Bill says.

  “Darling, of course I’d like to see her, but it isn’t quite what I was saying.”

  “It’s a frightening time,” he says. “She loves you.”

  How would lunch with Mother be a comfort? And an appointment with Dr. Rosen? All for holding back about Goldie, which she can’t do forever but certainly can’t confess now. When she does confess Bill might be livid, which seems wrong, unfair—isn’t it her turn to be livid? She has not heard a thing from Irving, and cannot find her robe. Or her reading glasses: in the last week, objects have begun to walk off.

  “I’d better get dressed,” she tells Bill. “I’m sure the girls are awake.”

  LUNCH WITH Mother Feldstein. Lunch with Mother Feldstein— tomorrow, she’ll say. Or next week,
she’ll simply call and say next week, and though Mother Feldstein will try to keep her on the telephone, she will not allow it. She will not answer the phone this morning: perhaps Rosalie can. No, Rosalie shouldn’t, she’s told Rosalie not to, because of Jo. Which is ridiculous, to ignore the phone, it’s Sadie’s phone, not Jo’s, not Mother Feldstein’s, nor is her house their house, but they make themselves known nonetheless, they sprawl in the living room and often the kitchen and dining room as well—once their voices are in the house they spread out and inflate. All by asking the telephone operator to open the door. How can you stop them? You leave the door ajar for other people, for your daughters, for your friends, for Goldie—who has never telephoned but certainly could, now that she’s alive. Not that she was dead. Why has she never called? What did Sadie do, that she would never write or call? Sadie’s house keys have disappeared this morning, and when she checks her lipstick in the mirror she finds a coffee stain on the lapel of her blouse, a stain not there when she dressed, when Bill was making all his helpful suggestions and finally had to desist and get himself to work. Where he can tell other people what to do. And Rosalie’s in the kitchen ironing, eyeing Sadie as Sadie searches the table and her pocketbook and the kitchen counter for her house keys. “Don’t bother with the phone today, Rosalie,” Sadie says.

  Rosalie nods, “All right then,” and presses the sleeve of Bill’s dress shirt, but she’s still eyeing Sadie while Sadie combs the kitchen for those deceitful keys. Rosalie sets down the iron. “Mrs. Feldstein,” she says. “Is there something else you need today?”

  Which means what? Rosalie knows perfectly well what’s needed in the house, knows the house better than Sadie does.

  “I’m just fine, Rosalie,” Sadie says. “Have you seen my house keys?” The sharpness in her tone verges on uncivil.

  “No, Mrs. Feldstein. I’m sorry.”

  “But they were right here,” Sadie says, “So was the package for Bill’s sister. Are you sure?” It seems another, ruder Sadie has taken charge, which is unfortunate but sometimes you can’t mince words, there’s been altogether too much word mincing and evasion, too much fuzziness and inexactitude, too many things slipping out of reach, house keys and birthday gifts the least of them.