by John Irving
“These same people who tell us we must defend the lives of the unborn—they are the same people who seem not so interested in defending anyone but themselves after the accident of birth is complete! These same people who profess their love of the unborn’s soul—they don’t care to make much of a contribution to the poor, they don’t care to offer much assistance to the unwanted or the oppressed! How do they justify such a concern for the fetus and such a lack of concern for unwanted and abused children? They condemn others for the accident of conception; they condemn the poor—as if the poor can help being poor. One way the poor could help themselves would be to be in control of the size of their families. I thought that freedom of choice was obviously democratic—was obviously American!
“You Roosevelts are national heroes! You are my heroes, anyway. How can you tolerate this country’s anti-American, anti-democratic abortion laws?”
By now Dr. Larch had stopped writing and was ranting in the dispensary. Nurse Edna went to the dispensary door and rattled the frosted-glass panels.
“Is it a democratic society that condemns people to the accident of conception?” roared Wilbur Larch. “What are we—monkeys? If you expect people to be responsible for their children, you have to give them the right to choose whether or not to have children. What are you people thinking of? You’re not only crazy! You’re ogres!” Wilbur Larch was yelling so loudly that Nurse Edna went into the dispensary and shook him.
“Wilbur, the children can hear you,” she told him. “And the mothers. Everyone can hear you.”
“No one hears me,” said Dr. Larch. Nurse Edna recognized the involuntary twitching in Wilbur Larch’s cheeks and the slackness in his lower lip; the doctor was just emerging from ether. “The President doesn’t answer my letters,” Larch complained to Nurse Edna.
“He’s very busy,” Nurse Edna said. “He may not even get to read your letters.”
“What about Eleanor?” Wilbur Larch asked.
“What about Eleanor?” Nurse Edna asked.
“Doesn’t she get to read her letters?” Wilbur Larch’s tone of voice was whiny, like a child’s, and Nurse Edna patted the back of his hand, which was spotted with brown freckles.
“Missus Roosevelt is very busy, too,” Nurse Edna said. “But I’m sure she’ll get around to answering you.”
“It’s been years,” Dr. Larch said quietly, turning his face to the wall. Nurse Edna let him doze in that position for a while. She restrained herself from touching him; she was inclined to brush his hair back from his forehead, in the manner that she often soothed any number of the little ones. Were they all becoming children again? And were they, as Nurse Angela claimed, all becoming the same, all resembling each other, even physically? Anyone visiting St. Cloud’s for the first time might suspect that they were all members of the same family.
Suddenly Nurse Angela surprised her in the dispensary.
“Well, are we out of it?” she asked Nurse Edna. “What’s the trouble? I was sure I ordered a whole case.”
“A case of what?” Nurse Edna asked.
“Merthiolate—red,” Nurse Angela said crossly. “I asked you to get me some red Merthiolate—there’s not a drop left in the delivery room.”
“Oh, I forgot!” said Nurse Edna, bursting into tears.
Wilbur Larch woke up.
“I know how busy you both are,” he said to the Roosevelts, although he gradually recognized Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela—their tired arms held out to him. “My faithful friends,” he said, as if he were addressing a vast audience of well-wishers. “My fellow laborers,” said Wilbur Larch, as if he were running for reelection—a little tiredly, but no less earnestly seeking the support of his companions who also honored the Lord’s work.
Olive Worthington sat in Wally’s room with the lights off; that way, if Homer looked into the house from the outside, he wouldn’t see her sitting there. She knew that Homer and Candy were at the cider house, and she tried to tell herself that she did not resent the apparent comfort Homer could give to Candy. (He was powerless to comfort Olive in the slightest; in truth, Homer’s presence—given Wally’s absence—irritated Olive, and it was testimony to her strength of character that she was able to criticize herself for this irritation; only rarely did she allow her irritation to show.) And she would never have considered Candy unfaithful—not even if Candy had announced to everyone that she was giving Wally up and marrying Homer Wells. It was only that Olive knew Candy: Olive realized that Candy could not give Wally up without giving him up for dead, and Olive would have resented that. He doesn’t feel dead! Olive thought. And it isn’t Homer’s fault that he is here and Wally is there, she reminded herself.
A mosquito was in the room, and its needlelike whine so disturbed Olive that she forgot why she was keeping Wally’s room in darkness; she turned on the lights to hunt for the mosquito. Wouldn’t there be terrible mosquitoes where Wally was? The Burmese mosquitoes were speckled (and much larger than the Maine variety).
Ray Kendall was also alone, but he was only mildly bothered by the mosquitoes. It was a still night, and Ray watched the silent heat lightning violate the blackout conditions along the coast. He was worried about Candy. Raymond Kendall knew how someone else’s death could arrest your own life, and he regretted (in advance) how the forward motion of Candy’s life might be halted by her losing Wally. “If it was me,” Ray said aloud, “I’d take the other fella.”
“The other fella,” Ray knew, was more like Ray; it wasn’t that Ray preferred Homer Wells to Wally—it was that Ray understood Homer better. Yet Ray did not disrupt a single snail while he sat on his dock; he knew that it took a snail too long to get where it was going.
“Every time you throw a snail off the dock,” Ray teased Homer Wells, “you’re making someone start his whole life over.”
“Maybe I’m doing him a favor,” said Homer Wells, the orphan. Ray had to admit that he liked that boy.
The heat lightning was less spectacular from the cider house roof—the sea was not visible even in the brightest flashes. Yet the lightning was more disquieting there; both its distance and its silence reminded Candy and Homer Wells of a war they could not feel or hear. For them, it was a war of far-off flashes.
“I think he’s alive,” Candy said to Homer. When they sat together on the roof, they held hands.
“I think he’s dead,” said Homer Wells. That was when they both saw the lights go on in Wally’s room.
That night in August, the trees were full, the boughs bent and heavy, and the apples—all but the bright, waxy-green Gravensteins—were a pale green-going-to-pink. The grass in the rows between the trees was knee-high; there would be one more mowing before the harvest. That night there was an owl hooting from the orchard called Cock Hill; Candy and Homer also heard a fox bark from the orchard called Frying Pan.
“Foxes can climb trees,” said Homer Wells.
“No, they can’t,” Candy said.
“Apple trees, anyway,” Homer said. “Wally told me.”
“He’s alive,” Candy whispered.
In the flash of heat lightning that illuminated her face, Homer saw her tears sparkle; her face was wet and salty when he kissed her. It was a trembling, awkward proposition—kissing on the cider house roof.
“I love you,” said Homer Wells.
“I love you, too,” Candy said. “But he’s alive.”
“He isn’t,” Homer said.
“I love him,” Candy said.
“I know you do,” said Homer Wells. “I love him, too.”
Candy lowered her shoulder and put her head against Homer’s chest so that he couldn’t kiss her; he held her with one arm while his other hand strayed to her breast, where it stayed.
“This is so hard,” she whispered, but she let his hand stay where it was. There were those distant flashes of light, out to sea, and a warm breeze so faint it barely stirred the apple leaves or Candy’s hair.
Olive, in Wally’s room, followed the mosquito f
rom a lampshade (against which she was unable to strike it) to a spot on the white wall above Homer’s bed. When she mashed the mosquito with the heel of her hand, the dime-sized spot of blood left on the wall surprised her—the filthy little creature had been gorging itself. Olive wet her index finger and dabbed at the blood spot, which only made the mess worse. Angry at herself, she got up from Homer’s bed, unnecessarily smoothing his untouched pillow; she smoothed Wally’s untouched pillow, too; then she turned off the night-table lamp. She paused in the doorway of the empty room to look things over, and turned off the overhead light.
Homer Wells held Candy around her hips—to help her off the roof. They must have known it was precarious to kiss on top of the cider house; it was more dangerous for them on the ground. They were standing together, arms loosely around each other’s waists—his chin touching her forehead (she was shaking her head, No, No, but just a little)—when they both became aware that the lights from Wally’s room were out. They leaned against each other as they walked to the cider house, the tall grass clutching at their legs.
They were careful not to let the screen door bang. Who could have heard it? They preferred the darkness; because they did not reach for the light switch in the kitchen, they never came in contact with the cider house rules that were tacked next to it. Only the palest flashes of the heat lightning showed them the way to the sleeping quarters, where the twin rows of iron beds stood with their harsh springs exposed—the old mattresses rolled in Army barracks fashion at the foot of each bed. They unrolled one.
It was a bed that had held many transients. The history of the dreams encountered upon that bed was rich. The small moan that caught in the back of Candy’s throat was soft and difficult to hear above the iron screeching of the bed’s rusted springs; the moan was as delicate in that fermented air as the fluttery touch of Candy’s hands, lighting like butterflies upon Homer’s shoulders, before he felt her hands grip him hard—her fingers sinking in as she held him tight. The moan that escaped her then was sharper than the grinding bed springs and nearly as loud as Homer’s own sound. Oh, this boy whose crying had once been a legend upriver in Three Mile Falls—oh, how he could sound!
Olive Worthington, rigid in her bed, listened to what she thought was an owl on Cock Hill. What is it hooting about? she thought. She thought of anything that would distract her from her vision of the mosquitoes in the jungles of Burma.
Mrs. Grogan lay wide awake, momentarily frightened for her soul; the good woman had absolutely nothing to fear. It was an owl she heard—it made such a mournful sound.
Wilbur Larch, who seemed always to be wide awake, passed his skillful, careful fingers across the keyboard of the typewriter in Nurse Angela’s office. “Oh please, Mr. President,” he wrote.
Young Steerforth, who suffered allergies to dust and to mold, found the night oppressive; it seemed to him that he couldn’t breathe. He was lazy about getting out of bed, and therefore blew his nose on his pillowcase. Nurse Edna rushed to him at the sound of such thick and troubled trumpeting. Although Steerforth’s allergies were not severe, the last orphan who was allergic to dust and mold was Fuzzy Stone.
“You have done so much good, already,” Wilbur Larch wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt. “And your voice on the radio gives me hope. As a member of the medical profession, I am aware of the insidiousness of the disease you have personally triumphed over. After you, anyone who holds your office will be ashamed if he fails to serve the poor and the neglected—or should be ashamed . . .”
Ray Kendall, stretched out upon his dock as if the sea had cast him up there, could not make himself get up, go inside, and go to bed. It was rare for the coastal air to be so torpid; the air was simply air-as-usual at St. Cloud’s.
“I saw a picture of you and your wife—you were attending a church service. I think it was Episcopal,” wrote Wilbur Larch to the President. “I don’t know what they tell you in that church about abortion, but here is something you should know. Thirty-five to forty-five percent of our country’s population growth can be attributed to unplanned, unwanted births. Couples who are well-to-do usually want their babies; only seventeen percent of the babies born to well-to-do parents are unwanted. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POOR? Forty-two percent of the babies born to parents living in poverty are unwanted. Mr. President, that is almost half. And these are not the times of Ben Franklin, who (as you probably know) was so keen to increase the population. It has been the goal of your administration to find enough things for the present population to do, and to better provide for the present population. Those who plead for the lives of the unborn should consider the lives of the living. Mr. Roosevelt—you, of all people!—you should know that the unborn are not as wretched or as in need of our assistance as the born! Please take pity on the born!”
Olive Worthington tossed and turned. Oh, take pity on my son! she prayed and prayed.
Medium high in an apple tree in the orchard called Frying Pan—crouched warily in the crotch between the tree’s largest branches—a red fox, its ears and nose alert, its tail poised as lightly as a feather, surveyed the orchard with a predatory eye. To the fox, the ground below twitched with rodents, although the fox had not climbed the tree for the view—it had run up the tree to eat a bird, a feather of which was thrust through the fox’s whiskers and into the rust-colored goatee on the fierce little animal’s pointed chin.
Candy Kendall clung to Homer Wells—oh, how she clung!—as the breath left them both and stirred the otherwise unmoving air. And the trembling mice beneath the floor of the cider house stopped in their tracks between the cider house walls to listen to the lovers. The mice knew there was the owl to worry about, and the fox. But what animal was this whose sound was petrifying them? The owl does not hoot when it hunts, and the fox does not bark when it pounces. But what is this new animal? wondered the cider house mice—what new beast has charged and disturbed the air?
And is it safe?
In Wilbur Larch’s opinion, love was certainly not safe—not ever. For his own advancing frailty since Homer Wells had departed St. Cloud’s, he would have said love was to blame; how tentative he had become concerning some things and how suddenly irritable concerning others. Nurse Angela might have suggested to him that his more recent bouts of gloom and anger were as much the result of his fifty-year-old addiction to ether and of his advanced age as they were the result of his anxious love for Homer Wells. Mrs. Grogan, had she been asked, would have told him that he suffered more from what she called St. Cloud’s syndrome than from love; Nurse Edna would never have held love to blame for anything.
But Wilbur Larch viewed love as a disease even more insidious than the polio that President Roosevelt had stood up to so courageously. And could anyone blame Larch if he occasionally referred to the so-called products of conception as the “results of love”?—although his dear nurses were upset with him when he spoke like this. Did he not have a right to judge love harshly? After all, there was much evidence—in both the products of conception, and their attendant pain, and in the injured lives of many of Dr. Larch’s orphans—to justify his view that there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.
Had he felt the force of the collision between Candy Kendall and Homer Wells—had he tasted their sweat and touched the tension in the muscles of their shining backs; had he heard the agony and the release from agony that could be detected in their voices—Wilbur Larch would not have changed his mind. A passing glimpse of such passion would have confirmed his opinion of the danger of love; he would have been as petrified as the mice.
In Dr. Larch’s opinion, even when he could prevail on his patients to practice some method of birth control, love was never safe.
“Consider the so-called rhythm method,” wrote Wilbur Larch. “Here in St. Cloud’s we see many results of the rhythm method.”
He had a pamphlet printed, in the plainest block letters:
COMMON MISUSES OF THE PROPHYLACTIC
He wrote as
if he were writing for children; in some cases, he was.
1. SOME MEN PUT THE PROPHYLACTIC ON JUST THE TIP OF THE PENIS: THIS IS A MISTAKE, BECAUSE THE PROPHYLACTIC WILL COME OFF. IT MUST BE PUT OVER THE WHOLE PENIS, AND IT MUST BE PUT ON WHEN THE PENIS IS ERECT.
2. SOME MEN TRY TO USE THE PROPHYLACTIC A SECOND TIME: THIS IS ALSO A MISTAKE. ONCE YOU REMOVE A PROPHYLACTIC, THROW IT AWAY! AND WASH YOUR GENITAL AREA THOROUGHLY BEFORE ALLOWING YOURSELF FURTHER CONTACT WITH YOUR PARTNER—SPERM ARE LIVING THINGS (AT LEAST, FOR A SHORT TIME), AND THEY CAN SWIM!
3. SOME MEN TAKE THE PROPHYLACTIC OUT OF ITS WRAPPER: THEY EXPOSE THE RUBBER TO LIGHT AND AIR FOR TOO LONG A TIME BEFORE USING IT; CONSEQUENTLY, THE RUBBER DRIES OUT AND IT DEVELOPS CRACKS AND HOLES. THIS IS A MISTAKE! SPERM ARE VERY TINY—THEY CAN SWIM THROUGH CRACKS AND HOLES!
4. SOME MEN STAY INSIDE THEIR PARTNERS FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THEY HAVE EJACULATED; WHAT A MISTAKE THIS IS! THE PENIS SHRINKS! WHEN THE PENIS IS NO LONGER ERECT, AND WHEN THE MAN FINALLY PULLS HIS PENIS OUT OF HIS PARTNER, THE PROPHYLACTIC CAN SLIDE COMPLETELY OFF. MOST MEN CAN’T EVEN FEEL THIS HAPPENING, BUT WHAT A MESS! INSIDE THE WOMAN YOU HAVE JUST DEPOSITED A WHOLE PROPHYLACTIC, AND ALL THOSE SPERM!
And some men, Homer Wells could have added—thinking of Herb Fowler—distribute prophylactics with holes in them to their fellow man.
In the cider house at Ocean View, huddled with the huddled mice, Homer Wells and Candy Kendall could not move from their embrace. For one thing, the mattress was so narrow—it was only possible to share that mattress if they remained joined together—and for another, they had waited so long; they had anticipated so much. And, to both of them, so much was meant by having allowed themselves to come together. They shared both a love and a grief, for neither of them would have permitted each other this moment if there were not at least parts of each of them that had accepted Wally’s death. And, after lovemaking, those parts of them that felt Wally’s loss were forced to acknowledge the moment with reverence and with solemnity; therefore, their expressions were not so full of rapture and not so void of worry as the expressions of most lovers after lovemaking.
