The Wintering

by Joan Williams

  “I said once they were enough to make us tear our hair.” He looked as if he had been laughing and were trying to stop, the back of his hand against his lips. “It was when your momma first looked at us cross-eyed, I remember. Now she seems to be looking at us in an entirely different manner.”

  “They couldn’t change,” Amy said conclusively.

  “People do,” he said. “At your age, you grow so fast our people might feel you’ve bridged the gap between us.”

  “Seriously. What are they up to?”

  “I am serious.” But when he saw that she looked more angry than mystified, he said, “I’m sorry. I had to laugh. Here we are with our heads together, puzzling over them the way they’ve probably puzzled over us.” A little against her will, Amy laughed. “Apparently,” he said, “some of them have come up with a solution, which seems to be, Yes.”

  She went ahead up the path, faster, as if in pursuit of something. Leaving him behind, she stopped as a traveller halts to figure out direction at a crossroads. She waited for Jeff, who came up the incline seeing the stubborn set of her chin. He had always had the calm belief everything would turn out all right, now worried the time invested might have been wasted. Confusion had made him drink, for if Amy had changed their plans because she was serious about some young man, why hadn’t she told him? Always ahead there had been the possiblity of his being replaced, which he had told her. The way she went about with her head down, she did not look happy enough to be in love. When she had come to the hospital, she had worn an impatient and puzzled frown often and sometimes even a devious look.

  At their age, what possibly could either her family or his have learned that would change them? Amy felt Jeff knew, or guessed, and would not tell her. That was annoying. But did he know? Having stuck out her chin, she stared straight ahead at where she was going, feeling wrong about questioning Jeff. Yet doubts crept in. Sitting beside him in the hospital, she had even asked herself disloyally whether she really liked all of his work, whether it was good that several of his books had recently begun to have popular acclaim? He had a small wise smile, as he hurried to keep beside her, which she felt was presumptuous. She knew that, at least, her life was going to be happier than his. What had he meant by saying the others meant Yes. To what? she asked herself, suspiciously. Turning at his touch, she followed him to a bench, answering that it would not be too cold to sit down. She did, however, tuck her hands up her coat sleeves for warmth, having forgotten gloves. Jeff studied the upturned toes of his shoes, his heels digging a little into the ground. Opposite them was a bench heavily layered with newspapers, which had obviously been a bed. At its base a pigeon pecked dolefully.

  “Imagine having there to sleep,” Amy said.

  “Yes,” Jeff said, glancing that way. “Poor lost soul.”

  She at once removed her hand from her sleeve and placed it on his arm. “Are you sure,” she said, “that you aren’t cold?”

  He twined his fingers into hers and said, “I think shortly we should go inside someplace warm.”

  “Not where you can have a drink, though.”

  “No,” he said, pressing her hand. “I can’t risk your anger again. At the hospital, you seemed so often angry. I know you didn’t want me there, but I’m real, Amy. And you can’t know true feeling unless you love someone despite their faults.”

  She looked up the path, hoping for a distraction, for always what he said seemed to his advantage. And not having known how to answer, she watched several young men who were hunkered down beside a bench, playing some game involving a penknife. On the ground, their transistor radio played loudly. Through their shouts, Amy could hear fragments of one of her favorite songs. Billy Walter, liking it, had requested it from the lady with the thumping pudgy fingers. Amy now tapped her fingers lightly to the music, asking, “Do you like this song?”

  Jeff’s look was distant, either not knowing the song, or that a radio was even playing nearby. He looked in the direction she turned, but said nothing. Amy said defendingly, with a little condescension, that it was really a good tune and the favorite of everyone she knew. He might not have heard, or was paying no attention, and Jeff held up her hand, as if she must see it before her face. “Amy,” he said, the words abrupt and withheld a long time. “You want the world to be a simple place, and it’s not. Didn’t you see I understood your difficulties growing up because I had been through them, too? I wasn’t a pretty young woman whose family pushed her lovingly down every proper path. But I had other things expected of me it wasn’t my nature to fulfill. I told you it was difficult to be a writer if you had to start by fighting all the disbelief, and conventionality, of the Southern middle class. It’s unfortunate you continue taking the childish attitude that no one understands. That no one has been through what you have.”

  She said quietly, “You’re mad. You never have been before.”

  “Before, I may have made a mistake,” he said. “If so, I can only blame myself. I treated you with tenderness because I thought that was what you needed most. I thought if someone were kind to you, you might be to others. You know I felt I learned compassion from someone far worse off than I. That woman who sent me home when I ran away, long ago. She thought of me, not herself. I keep telling you, something will come out of all you’ve felt. How can I know when?” He gave her a sharp look, to cut off her question. “Surely, you know, by now, I don’t have the answer to everything, even to very much. But, earlier than you, I knew as much as I could of regret and grief and loneliness. I was a better man for it, but I couldn’t help wanting to spare you.”

  “I didn’t want to be spared, though,” she said. “I wanted to know things. That’s why I left home.”

  “Yet still you expect life to be the way you want it,” he said. “You want friends and no enemies. To take only what you want and to give only what you want, and when. That’s not the way the world works. An artist must—”

  “I’m not an artist,” she said, taking away her hand. “I don’t fool myself about that any longer. I just kept promising you to write.”

  “I never wanted you bound to me by promises,” he said, “about writing, or anything else. That promise should have been made to yourself, anyway. I liked you as you were. I never cared whether you became a writer. But this life here, I believe, is not the right one. It’s sophomoric, and there aren’t even any exams. Do the people you know talk about making something, or make it? I suppose, sometimes, they mar up paper or canvas to justify themselves, but anything beyond that?” Then he said softly and pleadingly, as her eyes filled with tears, “It won’t all have been wasted, though. You do have time. You have so much time. If I can wait for things at my age, you can at yours.”

  “You’re being kind to me again,” she said, “and probably you shouldn’t be.” There was not so much time, she was thinking, with a little inward wail, having never wanted to be an old maid. Couldn’t he realize how she worried about that? Bare branches overhead refused to reflect the sun and to see leaves, through tears, they appeared not anchored to anything. The little overturned boats, behind the padlocked gate, returned to her mind. “I’m never going to have anything to write about.”

  “You’ll have a book, someday, that won’t let you alone,” he said. “You’ll write that book. Pride’s not going to let me think you won’t. I’ve invested too much time in you. I’m not going to believe my heart would choose you if you didn’t have in you what I thought.”

  “What about your heart?” She turned so abruptly, they bumped knees.

  “It often aches,” but he smiled. Amy smiled then, innocently. In a calm voice he said, “I like to think I made you, as you made me over.” His forefinger sought the chain around her neck. When he gave it a slight tug, they heard the bell ring. “I wanted to see if you were wearing it.”

  “I haven’t taken if off since you gave it to me.”

  “I haven’t seen it exactly the way I wanted,” he said. Amy looked away, without answering. “Always, y
ou’re worried. Amy, it wasn’t physical attraction that brought us together or kept us together, either. We had a stronger need, because it outlasted all that long time when I held your hand and there was no more response than a child’s. Poor innocent little star. You never thought you were putting yourself in the way of a comet. I often still think of the way you came to me, just coming, without knowing exactly why. Haven’t you ever questioned writing me after I sent you off the way I did?”

  “I think I’ve mainly questioned the wrong things,” Amy said unevenly.

  “What wrong things! The point is that by questioning, you can see what are the wrong things. You can judge what’s worth keeping, bothering about. If you hadn’t questioned, you might never have known the difference. Someday, when you’re older, you’ll see that you’re ahead. You won’t decide against the life you’ve chosen too late, the way I think your mother has and also—”

  “Your wife!” Amy said, sliding forward on the bench. “Jeff, did she send the manuscript?”

  “She is the only person I can think of who could have but, more importantly, would have,” he said. “She wants for you, and is even generous enough to want for me, what we want. But I’m no longer sure what you want.”

  Did he suspect something had happened, in her life, like Billy Walter? Amy said, “Why does she think she understands me? Unless, she read my letters! Oh my God, think of the things I said about them. And about myself!” Her head bent toward her knees while she moaned, “I don’t want to be felt sorry for.”

  “Then perhaps I don’t have to worry about you, after all,” Jeff said, tugging her sleeve until she sat up. As she searched a Kleenex from her purse, he said, “Don’t cry,” and when she brought out the leaf, and held it up, they shared again the moment he had taken it from her hair. “Amy, you know it’s possible to cherish privacy and silence too much. Fear might cause your doing it. Have you thought of that? Never to let anyone know you, means never to know anyone else. That’s no way to be marooned in this life. I’ve talked about bravery and it takes it to be exposed. But what do you have to hide? The confusion of growing up? Never. Not to want to be felt sorry for is a very grown-up feeling and puts you in the driver’s seat. I only wish I could see what you are going to do with all the rest of your life. You’ve come so far, though I still have a question.”

  She held the tissue piecemeal in one hand. “A question to ask me, or one that exists?” she said, lifting her face.

  “You’ll know, in time.”

  “It feels so stupid to have had my letters read. Suppose she shows them to your sister, and she tells my aunt and so on. Oh, it’s all so embarrassing, having me known.” Her mouth formed roundly a silent wail.

  “But why? There’s nothing the matter with you. I like you very much,” he said simply. “Your letters made me not only love you, but fall in love with you.”

  “I just feel afraid,” and her face reflected that she did not quite know of what.

  Understanding that, he said, “Well. We do have a little work ahead.”

  Having rolled around and around the remainder of the tissue until it was a small ball, Amy stuck it into her pocket. The park, misting over, looked shrouded. The blue in the sky had gone and a whiteness, moving in steadily, inserted itself between trees. The young men on the bench had halted their game to stare her way and seemed to nod slightly, meaning that in alliance with her age, they were on call. By looking right away, Amy meant to imply things were all right, that she was in cahoots with this generation by choice. Jiggling and swaggering young men, their lives consisted entirely of the external; they would accomplish nothing more exciting than being bullish and young and so had reached, Amy thought sadly, the apex of their lives.

  She squirmed away slightly from Jeff’s arm, which lay along the back of the bench and rested tentatively across her shoulders. She lowered her eyes to avoid the stoic gaze of a nursemaid pushing an English pram. Only when those serviceably clad white feet had gone could Amy look up, and after the shapeless white-clad figure, wondering how the woman reconciled herself to caring for someone else’s baby. Suppose life were inevitable instead of full of choices? Probably, the nursemaid had loyally nursed some aged parent and been left to age alone; justice had no compassion or plan; willy-nilly, people were fortunate or not; some people sacrificed without rewards, while others got them through leading selfish lives. Why? If you made a happy decision, you could be hounded by the ghostly alternative, that you might have been happier. Amy wanted to bound from the bench, realizing that to accept life meant to accept disillusionments.

  This acceptance gave her the heady feeling of gaining entrance to a secret society, after a long wait. That she had been intolerant and may have seen things wrongly made her want to rush away and see them all again. Sitting forward on the bench, her pocketbook swung from the ground to her knees, she appeared prematurely ready for some departure.

  Bolting up then, she said, “It’s freezing,” and went off so hurriedly, Jeff remained like a possession left behind. He felt nervous watching her go and, standing, lighting a cigar, not wanting immediately to follow, he saw the young men watching more carefully. Seeing them, Amy felt hesitant to pass, fearing either a caustic remark or preposterously some overt act—that they might drag her off into bushes. Though their glances urged conversation, she turned to head off Jeff and watched him come slowly up the path, his cigar smoke a white drift ahead—as white as the day—a small cloud within the larger one in which they were all enclosed, separate here from distant sounds and other lives. Leaning close and taking his arm, she whispered that she did not want to pass those boys and here was another way. Then, taking the smaller path, Amy said, “But where are we going?”

  “Alex has made arrangements for me at a small hotel near him, has even moved my things. It’s a residential hotel and will be quiet, though they take a few transients who are recommended.”

  “I’d be glad to give you a high recommendation,” she said teasingly, “but I’m afraid one from me wouldn’t count.”

  Hoping to match her gayer mood, he said, “Anyone would recognize a young woman struggling to make her soul and spirit as beautiful as her face and take her word.”

  Obliterating buses rose before them suddenly as the off-beat short path ended. They faced an exit blocked to ordinary traffic and seldom used. On either side, stone walls were precisely matched to those through which they had come into the park. Had they really crossed it, or only circled through the mist and come out where they had started? The walk seemed to have taken them so long. Stopping to look back, Amy stared searchingly over where they had been.

  Not only this melancholy evening but every afternoon at the Edwardian, the aged desk clerk hid its inhabitants discreetly from the street. Even when afternoon ended by casting over the deadened side street a mauve glow, the color of pigeon’s wings, the thick wheat-colored curtains came in lumbering folds across the windows. This activity, like the mailman’s arrival, was some fluctuation in a day’s emptiness, its silence within, and the dependability of the two things gave the Edwardian’s residents, upon arising, a faint, barely renewable, sense of anticipation. Now, at the afternoon hour, most gathered for tea in the muted lobby, while the old clerk, in his tan uniform grown shiny through pressings, let the drawstring of the curtains once more fall and turned and faced them with a smile of satisfaction and completion. They gave him barely perceptible nods of appreciation in return. The street, its activity, no longer existed when squat lamps were turned on, scarcely revealing the brown plush settees. All present bent forward to eat iced cakes in the small amber circles cast by the lamps. In their light, on lengthened bosoms, year after year, the same glintless old diamond brooches hung lopsidedly. Then gracious gentlemen, in the autumnal light, at tea, admired them.

  This evening, the drawstring fell ceremoniously from his hand but the clerk’s smile wandered from its usual direction and toward the lobby, causing those gathered to glance that way; titters were heard, perh
aps a gasp. A man and his daughter (was it?) had wandered in, making a mistake one would have assumed could not be made when the Edwardian’s brass nameplate was regarded from the street. Distinctly, a gasp was heard when the clerk, having gone to the desk, handed the man the register, and the tray of iced cakes clattered in the hush.

  “So happy,” the clerk said to Almoner. “We’ve been fortunate enough to have Mr. Alex Boatwright’s mother for a short time. I’m sure you’ll find things as satisfactory as she has.”

  “Certainly, it’s the sort of quiet place I need,” Almoner said, “for a while, until I can make other plans.”

  The young woman was peeking around. “Did you want for your daughter—?” the clerk said.

  “This young lady must do some typing for me. I brought her around because she may be coming and going even when I’m not here. Could I get a typewriter?”

  “It’s late. Tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Not this evening. I’ve just come from the hospital and walked across the park. It may have been a mistake. I’m not going to be able to go out again, at all. Is it possible for dinner to be sent up, for two?”

  “Two?” Unable to think of a rule against it, the clerk trembled. The young woman, since being introduced, had not removed her eyes from the clock above the mailboxes. Myopically, the clerk stared past Almoner’s left ear and toward the attentive faces, whose owners watched transfixed while the three by the desk went single file toward the elevator. Inside, clutching the folded afternoon newspaper against her, Amy sighed. “Oh dear, there’s so much to do.” Her eyes rolled up, wearily.

  Helping her out, amused, Almoner said quickly, “Yes. I’m going to be keeping you busy.”

  The clerk, carefully not looking around, slid open the grillwork and sank gratefully toward the lobby, having opened Almoner’s door. “But I hate this,” Amy whispered, after several moments during which she and Jeff laughed.