The Bobby-Soxer

by Hortense Calisher

  It is on record—as told by an old woman dining in a restaurant with a man who, though a native of the same state, doesn’t know beans about its farms—that Leo, the sole reason for the move, was the last to leave. Though it’s not yet time to go. “Look at that crew,” my grandfather says, then shouts to the men shifting the John Deere. “Put her in neutral, you lunkheads,” but they know he’s only yelling to explain away his red face. The machines whine on and down the driveway, which in those days was dirt, though fine-packed. “Where’s Leo?” Nessa says, as she has said how many times since Leo, fresh from the dead body of their mother, was placed in her arms, she then younger than Leo is this day—“where’s that child?” Though the child is now seventeen.

  Leo was born when their mother, the tiny, cramped farmwife in the porch picture, was fifty years old. Six had already come from that worn uterus, and when it was made to expel its one sure beauty, the mother’s heart had already failed. Nine pounds nine, the record says, though in those days the doctors, all family doctors proud at the christening, used to weigh their own hand as well, for emphasis. The mother had brought one treasure of her own to the gaunt house and its giant farmer—a set of pointed coin-silver spoons, and when the baby was placed in Nessa’s arms to raise, she wondered whether she would get the spoons too. Didn’t. They were lost—which is what a family has to say when there are eight women going over the bureau drawers. But she got everything else. And her doll-child, too, heavy as it was.

  Now, sir, let’s not put on the farmhouse stuff too thick. Or the old days either. There is that inside part of us which passes from one to the other even in a city, or towns like this one. Cranberry was the same. Then there are the outer things, which if you’re trying to live till your debentures come in, can change into the new world they didn’t warn you about. Good for the arteries, if not for the soul; take it in stride. But to find where Leo is—at the moment saying goodbye to the cats in the barn, though that’s not finding—you’ll have to feel the changes between then and now. Not just by reading the old newspapers, but as if you were us then. What you’ll have to know is how we named the nameless things. No doubt you think we mostly didn’t, when it’s just that what you and we won’t name are different. In Leo’s case, what you have to hold clear in your mind is the state of our household nakedness.

  Like when Nessa married. In part because she was over twenty-five and that was nearing thirty. In part because her own father, that huge bulwark, had had to go into the nursing home for good. Leaving her and the lodger alone on the farm. A man of sixty, and of such substance that his lodger status had been all but forgotten. Now it would be revived. If he had been one of those poor neutrals that can dangle their lives out on a farm without notice—but he was a bachelor with as good a jowl and gold tie pin as any married man, only wedded to his business, which involved a lot of traveling. There the men would assume he took care of himself as regards women, even if he didn’t talk of it—while their women would not think of it. Bachelors could be bachelors in those days, dividing off into the shy or the selfish, the rake or the mother-bound or the duty-held, plus a large class, wistfully envied by even the happy husbands—those single men who were consummately taking their time. The name for these was “latecomers.” Grandfather, though tardier than most, had always been classed that way, and so it turned out. Perhaps he’d had Nessa in mind all along, only hadn’t gotten around to her. And if the affair was a bit like uncle and niece by now, that had been heard of. There was no kinship involved, the porches said. And meanwhile, all that substance, most of it in paid-for land.

  As for Nessa, so long tied to a father who demanded, and to the doll-baby, a big girl now, on whom she doted, and out on a farm, fine as it was, that isolated by its very acreage, who else could she have been waiting for? It was World War I, with the young men gone or going. On market days in town, she never let the child out of her sight; on the rare church Sundays when the father could be torn from his fields, no one else being allowed to drive the Buick, she dressed the child fit to kill, in bought clothes from Trenton. Some who knew no better even believed the child to be her own by-blow. Farm families, used to animals, often do that kind of taking in. But even in those rigorous times, when doting was less taken for granted than abuse, nobody wondered that Nessa spoiled Leo. Some persons, when spoiled, respond only by bringing light into dark corners. Even in Cranberry, where the state of being good, the onus of it and the rules for it, were thrashed out all the week and winnowed on Sunday, it was standard to remark that Leo, with whom old and young were so easy, must have been somebody’s love child.

  Only the animals gave Leo trouble. There are some people whose essence bothers them. Nothing so serious as souring the milk, but still a restlessness sweeping the barn when Leo’s chore was to scrub the milking machines, a lack of empathy on the part of dogs. This is hard on a farm-born person, and even harder if you have to shift farms and go into service, as the sisters would have to do, if and when—since the only good brother was a dead hero—the farm was sold. But then, as is on record, the lodger bought it. And the marriage did. Though such things are not written, they can be found out.

  On the night before the marriage, the sisters are sitting in the grand main bathroom—once their father’s—that Leo will now no longer share. Share is not quite the word. When the two are here together the door is always open. While for the two, just to begin to use this bathroom once their father was dead had been an act of daring. Farmers, even rich ones, are not thought to have much latitude in these matters; however there are three toilets in this house, of ascending status and eras, plus three privies outside, all used in pecking order, up from farmhands, hired girls, and children, to family women and men. Children used the attic, with chores of chamberpots, until high school, when girls and boys paired off into rooms with washstands, the boys meanwhile using the toilet off the pantry downstairs, or one of the privies, girls going to the “other” bathroom upstairs, the women’s—pleasant enough, with fake tiles added above its old wainscoting, but nothing like this marvel of oak and zinc. When their father became a widower it became his exclusively, as befitted a father with two girls left in the house. The boys never got a chance at its splendors, perhaps part of why they enlisted early.

  But this is not the only protocol. There are no levels of undress in this house. Their mother was never seen without the housedress into which she was reborn from behind closed doors, at break of day. Going “down the hall” in bathrobes and slippers, one crept, carrying the bellyache or the secrets of puberty and the soap and towel for them. On lesser farms, foolish men in the fields sometimes had bare torsos, but not here, where even in a broiling August no man was seen in his undershirt—then called, with a dainty hiss as the women slapped the washboards, his “singlet.” Home laundry was enormous, an everbearing crop that prospered along with the farm, as if, as they grew richer, their bodies must sink further out of sight.

  At around seven years of age, children assumed care of themselves in such matters, as well as the guilt for any lapses. Boys were freer; they could bathe together even indoors, to save hot water. One was not frugal with one’s girls, each of whom, bathing alone, might therefore come to think her body uniquely hers, until some accidental revelation. These of course occurred, and some by intent as well. But where by age ten a girl’s own impulse was to slip her nightgown over her head before she let drop the bathtowel, it wasn’t strange never to have seen a sister’s nudity, and even dirty to do it. Everybody was communally shy, and approvedly so. And so it was in all of Cranberry, except maybe in summer, in the bogs.

  No wonder that a baby given one to tend—to wipe its milky burps, support its frail neck with middle and forefinger, nip together its fat ankles while diapering and sprinkling talc on its pink curves, might turn one delirious with flesh—and responsibility. By age eight, late in-the-day but the sister is such a young mother, the child, by then lengthened into the gawky, is sent out to maintain itself among these privaci
es. From then on it will stretch itself into the adult like those lily bulbs one is told to keep in the dark until a certain day—by some plant nurseries guaranteed to be Easter.

  No wonder—Leo. Whose Easter will not be early but late.

  On Nessa’s marriage eve, Leo is eleven going on twelve, and sitting on the edge of the oak housing that conceals the bathtub, dangling legs still black-stockinged though tall for that, the face longish too, and faithful as a pup’s. Watching Nessa, who after a flushed, tearful hunt for her father’s razor—vowing she wouldn’t marry if she couldn’t find it—is tremblingly shaving an armpit’s virgin hair. The atmosphere is hushed, charged. The door is for once closed. Even though there is no one else in the house.

  Are all the young now born without this delicacy for the body? Or in some do these shynesses still burn? Is there still innocence? Or was there, in your own time?

  If so, then remember: the crude sob that innocence can give when it is broached.

  “Was that somebody, Leo?”

  No one. Since the engagement was announced two months ago the groom has quite properly not been resident. Leaving behind what had been his own quarters, a room at the farthest end of the front ell of the house, and a bathroom he himself had installed years back. These now will be for Leo, who tonight will move in. Leo was eager to do that last night, but Nessa said no. She wants all the formalities. A bride marrying an older man often does. The ritual holds one steady.

  And note how Leo, the gawk, was the forward-looking one, even the adventurer. Always eager to drive to town, to try a new game, or order anything from astrology charts to ant houses to be sent through the post.

  Hard to believe that it was Nessa who was shy.

  She has finished one armpit when Leo says, “Can I do the other one?”

  It is allowed. Nessa arches her neck and arm, as one does for the dressmaker. She is wearing a new camisole, one that will not go into the trousseau because in the making it has been botched. Under it her breasts are flattened by a cambric band.

  The virgin fluffs of hair fall lightly on the camisole. The sisters, though they still hug like mother and child, have for years not been this intimate. The air in the room seems to them harshly ritual. It is erotic, but neither of them would know.

  Finished, Leo sets the razor carefully on the washstand. Then—what is the child doing? Blowing in the armpit, at the last nicks of hair. Nessa, still raised her arm, holds still for it. It is like a soft nursing. Their eyes meet. They are saying goodbye.

  Then Leo says: “Now, will you show me? The place where he will put in his gun?”

  And is slapped, even before Nessa cries, “What are you talking about?”

  And is answered, as Leo’s tears sprout.

  Now this was still wartime, remember? January 1918. Was it the Germans or us who had that cannon we called “Big Bertha”? Hard to remember, easy to tell you why. For a while, that was a joke name for the male organ. In school, notes were passed with crude drawings, in pencil only. Ink was too aboveboard. One such note had been slipped into a library book Leo had brought to the librarian’s desk for stamp-out—and Leo, who hadn’t a prayer as to what the note meant, was shamed by the librarian—who snatched up the note, rough-tongued the whole waiting line, and sent Leo away. Not saying why.

  On a farm, animals tell you everything—except about humans. But farmhands josh among themselves when out of hearing. Ears can be sharpened for it, and chores sought. So Leo, who was not too welcome in the barn, came anyway, to set out the pans for the cats and learn what they could not tell.

  “His Big Bertha,” Leo said, standing tall, not to be humiliated again. “And will you put yours in him?”

  There was actually laughter. Yes, Nessa did that—who wouldn’t have? But there was no shaming. As for explanation, Nessa said hastily, “I’ll show you in a book. It’s time. But not tonight.”

  Understand, please. It was her wedding eve. She was book-enlightened. But neither had she herself ever seen a man’s parts. The uncle lover and she had to date only kissed and pressed a bit. It was not to be brooded upon.

  That faint roaring which begins all over the untutored body and has no part to cling to per se, or not yet—if she had at least hinted. Not explored—one can’t expect that. To check up on a child’s fantasy—unnatural. And perhaps all with Leo was still as it should have been? Or nearly?

  We shall never know. If up in Boston ten years later they couldn’t put a time or even a sure name to such a thing, who are we to?

  That’s easier. We are those who let it be. Which includes Leo.

  The book is procured, sometime later. Not a very good one, no pictures, which by that time Nessa may have thought unnecessary, for Leo, spurred by injustice, will not go back to the old library but manages to get a card for the high school one—and why else would the child go all that way?

  As time goes on, Nessa thinks that the heat of the married bedroom, and the arrival of the four children who so quickly come from it, must surely have informed. Meanwhile, Leo, who might have been jealous of them but is not, is like a second mother to the eldest boy, her favorite. Everybody’s … Your father, girl.

  Nor as Leo sails through high school, winning an honor or two, and even smarter than those signify, is there ever a shade of anything—offshade. Girls then are protected even from themselves, all down the line.

  Once or twice Nessa senses—what does she sense? But she and Leo are no longer so close. And life is busy. Out where they are is too far for a child to have much company of its own, but an active farm in that part of Jersey is never dull; market days and fairs are now regularly attended and Leo is outgoing, liked by all who come and go. Wanted a heifer once, for the 4H competition, but was persuaded to the garden side instead—as was more seemly for girls in those days—and to a Home Ec course in making clothes. Running in to Nessa once to say: I want never again to have a boughten dress.

  So—Leo, who at thirteen asked to be called Leona again, later plumping for Lee, then much in style, but finally falling back in with family habit, to Leo—was left to mature. “You have, haven’t you?” Nessa said once, clutching her forehead as if she had forgotten a pie in the oven—“I gave you a belt for that. And you know where the napkins are.” And Leo, almost fourteen, replied: “Not yet—” but shortly reported otherwise, in the proper muffled voice.

  But the night before the wedding all Nessa said finally was “Come. Haven’t shown you all my trousseau. Only the bed linens.” So Leo was shown the slips with drawn work, the gown of pink satin bands alternating with see-through lace, and the pantaloons with open crotch. And was after all allowed to sleep that night in the new room. And the laundry labors went on.

  So we left it. People are not animals.

  So—some years down the line. Nessa’s eldest, and only boy, is now past ten, already interested in the law and training himself in debate. Leo acts as his foil. A tall handsome pair with a family resemblance, they go everywhere together on their bikes, even once to Rutgers, to hear real debating teams, which the two never yet have—and to put their dreams for him in working order. After that, whenever they come back from hearing the real pros—college men—the dinner table crackles with argument snapped back and forth like rubber bands, and all according to rule. They were never to fight except once, when he wanted Leo to follow him at some sport into which a woman couldn’t go. The time they heard the Cambridge-Oxford teams on the radio, they stayed up all night to hash it over afterward. If they could have, they’d have biked over there.

  Then—Leo pedaled ahead of him. Into beauty. The Boston doctors took pictures later, front, back, and sideways, but medical photography, not for the other. Can’t be described. Big eyes—but big feet and hands, too, not the ideal. Didn’t matter, except to Leo, who said later that Garbo had made it all right for big feet but had done nothing for hands. A modest chest, for some tastes. But the expression was what did it, the whole carriage. And the neck. Some Greek statues have that front
-swelling; Boston said nothing about that. You could look for hours at it and at Leo and not decide—and not know what you were not deciding—only happy with what you saw. Like when you hold a solid healthy baby to you, not too young to squeeze. And full of the power of the milk. As if you have the world all in one place. Or there is somewhere you can get it.

  Well, that was a lot to put on a face or a person, and funny—Leo got mad if you did. Then along comes a man—blond piano-tuner’s curls poking down his forehead, though he is a church organist—and Leo begins not to mind. Too weak-chested for the war, he’d been, but still with a look of being left over from it. And a name to match the curls. But the worst is—he comes from somewhere else.

  One day Grandfather takes this man to his office in town, the land office, and swings his watch seal at him: “Why does a thirty-five-year-old man suddenly want to marry a teenage girl?” Nervy of him; nobody ever asked him beforehand about his intentions toward his own wife-to-be—but maybe that’s why he would ask.

  Because of the way Leo and I sing together—this man said. Tenor and second alto—pure gold.

  Have to do more than sing, the old man said, and when he got home told Nessa that he didn’t like the lay of the land. At twenty-one, Leo would have acres of it.

  Now—land brokers have connections all over. Next Sunday dinner, when the couple asked to be engaged, or the man did, our grandfather says, in full sight of the table to which all family have been invited, even Nessa’s black-sheep brother, “Do people have land in Illinois, Mr. Swazey?” Then the men, eyeing each other, go into the den to drink what isn’t communion wine but from that bottle like a big yellow gem, pulled from under the rolltop desk. “Sorry this desk isn’t a musical instrument,” our grandfather says. “Or Mr. Swazey could play for us.” They are all sipping. Then the black-sheep uncle, once one of those two spindly boys in the porch picture, undertakes the function he has been invited back home for. “Ever tune a woman, Swazey?”