After the War

by Alice Adams

  Cynthia’s car was indeed not there in the driveway, and so Melanctha walked around to the back of the house, to the kitchen, and there she saw, as she had expected, or hoped, Ben Davis eating his breakfast, by himself.

  Sometimes when she arrived, he got up and kissed her, friendly, on the cheek, or on the nose, being funny. Today he just stood up, both being polite and showing off that he could stand by himself now, but he just said, “See? Look, no hands. I’m really glad you came, I hoped you would. For one thing Odessa’s been driving me nuts.” He laughed. “I think she thinks I’m her long-lost son. Or else she wants me to marry Nellie. I think she worries a lot about Nellie.” He patted River, who was licking at his ankle. “And you, River, you think I’m your long-lost brother. You want some coffee?”

  “Sure. We saw Dolly Bigelow, coming over. She calls River ‘Rover.’ ”

  “I’d hate to hear what she calls me when I’m not around. I’ll bet it’s not Mr. Davis.”

  “What a dumbbell.” Melanctha poured milk into her coffee.

  “No, I don’t think she’s really dumb, any more than your Deirdre is. They just talk that way. You ought to be used to it.”

  River was indeed all over Ben, like a long-lost whatever; having finished with Ben’s ankles, he settled across his large white tennis shoes, as though to prevent Ben’s leaving his chair, just as he often lay across Melanctha’s feet.

  Melanctha sipped her coffee, and then in a sudden burst—she had not known that she was going to say this, but these sudden bursts of speech or of ideas seemed to occur to her with Ben—she said, “You know what I’d really most of all like to do?”

  “No, but lucky you if you do know.” His smile was gentle and kind and interested, though, and his tone without irony.

  “I’d like to raise dogs. I mean starting with River, I’d like to have generations of dogs, and maybe sell one or two sometimes but only to people I like.” She laughed with pleasure at her idea. “Can’t you imagine River as a grandfather, with a lot of puppies around who look just like him?” She laughed again. “I was so glad when the vet said he hadn’t been fixed.”

  “The first thing is you have to get him a wife. So he can start on all these generations.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I do.” Melanctha mused for a moment, and then, more or less from out of the blue, she said, “I think Deirdre and Derek McFall will get married.”

  “You do? I thought you said they weren’t getting along.”

  “They weren’t, and in a way they’re still not. But I think they’ll get married. It’s just a strong hunch, but I’ll bet I’m right.”

  “Probably you are. And they’ll go away to live somewhere else and the boys will stay away at their schools and then their jobs and marriages, and you’ll have the house and all that land for the dogs.”

  “Well, that’s what I think. Or at least today I do.” She wanted to add, And when you get married you’ll come down with your wife and children and they’ll play with the dogs. But she was too shy with him, still, to say that.

  Could you fall “in like” with someone, not in love? For that is what Melanctha felt had happened with her and Ben. She just liked him so much, and part of it was her sense that he liked her too. She liked and trusted Ben; with him there would be no bad surprises, no unexpected jolts of cruelty, or violence. Or sex: he would never start anything like that with her.

  When he was first immobilized upstairs, over the course of his recovery, they had talked and talked, so that by now they knew almost everything, or almost all, about each other’s lives. Childhood hopes and fears, disorders and early sorrows. Melanctha wished he were one of her brothers, or maybe even her father, which he was certainly not old enough to be; he was only a couple of years older than she was, but she thought of him as someone much older, and wise and strong and reliable. She had had the curious thought: Are many Negro men like that, like Ben? If they are, you’d think more white women would want to marry them. But then she thought, Probably not, it’s just Ben.

  He said, “I mean, you’re lucky if you’ve even got an idea what you want to do. Ever since I gave up the med school plan, I just don’t know.” He stretched long legs out in front of him, displacing River. “I’ll feel better when I can get some exercise—right, River? Shall I come down and help you with your dogs?” He laughed. “Be funny if I ended up in Pinehill, wouldn’t it?”

  Before she could stop herself, Melanctha said, “I don’t think you’d really like it here. Not for long.”

  “Probably not.” He stretched again. “What I think as of today is that I’ll go back to school and get my master’s in history, U.S., contemporary. There’s already a course called Philosophic Problems of the Postwar World. With a master’s from Harvard, I can always get a teaching job somewhere, probably.”

  In a way, it was too bad that Ben was so very handsome, Melanctha thought. Inevitably that was the first thing that anyone noticed, What an extremely handsome man—Negro man. It had occurred to her that if Ben hadn’t been looking sort of awful after his accident, bandages on his head, all that, they would not have got to be friends; she would have been scared off.

  “I wonder where Abby and Joseph will end up,” Ben was saying. “He seems to be having some trouble with programs in physics.”

  “Really?”

  “You know, dumb stuff about his parents being Communists. I mean, they are, or they were, but what on earth does that have to do with anything? Can you see Joseph giving atomic-energy secrets to the Russians?”

  But suddenly they heard, at their ears: “Goddam those Southern idiots anyway.” More intent on their conversation than they realized, Ben and Melanctha had not heard Cynthia come into the kitchen. But now they heard her, loud and clear. “Those dumb jerks at Hilton, they won’t let me into their stupid law school. ‘We’re just real sorry, Miz Baird, but we just don’t see our way clear to doing like you want. You know, some of the old professors, they’re not even sure that a pretty lady like you really wants to be a lawyer. Besides, young as you are, you’d be a tad older than all the others.’ Oh, those asses! But I’ll show them, just wait till I get my degree at Georgetown, or even Harvard! I think they let in ‘ladies’ at Harvard, Yale too.” Running almost out of breath, Cynthia sat down hard, her face red and what breath she had left coming in short quick jerks. “Oh, I’m so mad!”

  “No kidding, are you?”

  Ben gently laughed, and for a moment Melanctha thought Cynthia would get madder yet, maybe throw something at Ben. But after a tiny pause she laughed too and gave him a wide smile as she admitted, “Yes, I am, I’m furious. Oh, River, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  River had slunk into a corner near the new refrigerator, and now gave them all reproachful looks.

  “We’ve been planning his future,” Ben told Cynthia. “He’s going to be a grandfather.”

  She sniffed. “Well, I’m glad someone knows what to do. And how about you kids? What are your life plans?”

  Almost simultaneously they said, “We don’t know!” and laughed.

  27

  NOT entirely by coincidence, Ben Davis left for Connecticut the day before Harry came down from Washington for a visit, although Cynthia tried to object. “You’ve never really seen Harry since you were grown, and you’d like him, I know. Everyone does. Besides, I could take you to Durham to the train and then wait there to meet Harry.”

  “I’m taking the bus, or I think Melanctha wants to take me. You’ve been so kind already.”

  “Well, if Abby insists on getting married, you’ll have to come down for that.”

  “Oh, I surely will. Lord, I’m beginning to sound Southern. My mom’s going to be real pleased.” He chuckled.

  “Well, I hope you’ll come back to see Melanctha too.”

  “I’d like to. But—she’s—I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know either.” Cynthia hesitated, realizing that the topic of Melanctha was impossible between them. How could sh
e say to this very nice, intelligent and extremely kind, and handsome (Negro) young man: Melanctha is a deeply troubled girl, I really don’t know if she can have—ordinary relationships with other people. Both her parents, especially her mother—well, really her father too—were sort of crazy.

  She could not have said that, and she felt considerable gratitude when Ben said, a minute later, “She’s trouble. I think mostly to herself.”

  “Oh, you’re right!” But even as she was agreeing with him Cynthia had the thought that maybe this young man could be the one to save her, to save Melanctha from herself, so to speak. Of course his being “colored,” as they said down here, would make things difficult, depending on where they lived, and why on earth would they live in the South? Maybe Boston, or even California, someplace distant and more sophisticated. Things had to get better along those lines eventually, Cynthia thought—now that the war was over. Maybe Melanctha needed some large challenge in her life.

  With a small show of reluctance, Harry said, “I hope you’re going to think this is funny.” They had just finished breakfast on his first day back, but still sat in an undecided way at the table.

  “I’ll try.” Meaning: Of course I’ll think whatever you tell me is funny. I always do, don’t I?

  But what he said next did not amuse her. He said, “You remember—you remember a Veracity McCullough?”

  “Well yes, you must mean Lady Veracity. That does ring a bell.” You fucking idiot, she did not say, but that phrase could have sounded in her voice.

  “Cynthia, darling, for the thousandth time, I’m sorry. But please, bear with me. It gets to be funny, I promise.”

  Coldly, “I told you, I’ll try.”

  “Cynthia, Jesus. We’ve been through all that. Or I hope we have—enough. Anyway, as I told you, I haven’t seen her for a month or so—”

  Or maybe a week, was Cynthia’s unsaid thought. On the other hand, could he be telling the absolute, literal truth—trying that?

  “… and then she called, and she said that at a party in New York she’d met this man who said he was from Pinehill, and did I possibly know him. And, can you imagine? Jimmy Hightower.”

  “Well?” But Cynthia knew the large outlines at least of what she was about to hear: Lady Veracity had, somehow, met Jimmy Hightower (contrived to meet, is what Cynthia really thought) and Lady V. was—whatever the English, the English aristocracy, would say, she thought Jimmy was: attractive? all right? possible—a possibility? Whatever, and she wanted to check him out with Harry, by now her dear old friend. (Lady Veracity, Known for rapacity—)

  “What does this girlish giggle mean?” Harry asked her.

  “Nothing. I’m just waiting for you to tell me all about Jimmy and Lady Veracity.”

  “Not much to tell. I guess they went out to dinner, and it sounds like they had a really good time. He took her to some very fancy place in New York, the Brevoort?”

  “I’ve been there, it’s nice but not all that fancy. God, Harry, we’ve been there together.”

  “Oh, I thought it sounded familiar. Sorry. Well, the next day Jimmy called me and he sounded pretty excited. Manic, you might say.”

  “He’s been so depressed and sad about Esther. Manic is hard to imagine.”

  Harry mused, “It’s part of the same thing, I think. I mean the same process. Mourning.”

  “Oh, Harry.” She paused, and then said, with conviction, “That’s really smart of you. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “The funny part is,” and Harry chuckled to himself, “and Jimmy loves this, Lady Veracity is Jewish.”

  “What on earth do you mean? That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t. She is. Some distant offshoot ancestor. What’s called a drop of Jewish blood.”

  “Well, I guess that is pretty funny. Esther would have liked it.”

  “That’s what Jimmy said.”

  Harry and Cynthia had indeed talked about Lady Veracity, and Harry’s connection with her, their “affair,” whatever one wanted to call it. Or rather, they had talked around it, around and around. Harry never quite said, I never loved her, I’ve never loved anyone but you. Although that was implied in everything he did say.

  And Cynthia never actually said, I’ve had a few flings of my own. Although neither did she protest her own fidelity.

  Nor did they ever arrive at the question of what next.

  They did talk, though, and more or less in their old way, about mutual friends, gossip, speculation. Including about Melanctha.

  “I have this fantasy about her going off with that handsome Negro boy. You remember, Abby’s friend. Ben Davis. Benny, we called him then.”

  “I barely do remember. He was just a little kid.”

  “Well, he’s a big kid now, and really handsome. And nice. And smart. He did terribly well at Harvard, and he was accepted at the med school, but then he decided he didn’t want to be a doctor. You know, I have this bad intuition about Melanctha, though. I think she’s really terrified of sex. Of men. Most girls her age—well, look at Abby, practically married already to Joseph Marcus. And as for Betsy Lee—”

  “With those breasts, Melanctha must get a lot more attention than she wants.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. Poor girl, she hates her breasts. And I think too much attention is why she has that dog. For protection. And he’s a sort of substitute for sex.”

  Harry stared at her. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  They still did not sleep together.

  Odessa, the only person who could have testified to this fact, refused to say a thing, although Dolly tried, and tried.

  Dolly began, of course, in a roundabout way, or somewhat roundabout. She said, “You reckon Mr. Harry’s going to stay here for a while?”

  “I couldn’t rightly say, Miz Bigelow.”

  “Well, it must be nice for Miss Cynthia having a man in the house. Not that she’s ever exactly gone without.” Dolly giggled, with a questioning look at Odessa, asking, Now, has she? But Odessa remained impassive, absorbed in the ironing: Dolly’s handkerchiefs and cocktail napkins, often indistinguishable to anyone but Odessa.

  “I guess they must be getting on lots better than they did,” Dolly next ventured, to an answering silence.

  “Odessa, watch out! You’re going to scorch that lace!” Odessa had never in her life scorched anything, as the look she gave Dolly clearly stated.

  Into the heavy ensuing silence, Dolly plunged yet once more, and her voice went wrong with the effort—even to herself she sounded strained, and tight. She said, “Nice for Miss Cynthia, having him there in her bed every night.”

  To which Odessa, still standing accused of scorching, gave no answering sound of any nature.

  “I’m just not sure that Melanctha’s brave enough for all that.” Cynthia spoke in a discouraged way to Harry, one August night, at dinner.

  It was still too hot to move, or to think. All day the sun had pressed down, intense, immobilizing. Cynthia, and very likely everyone else, felt as though her brain had melted.

  “ ‘Brave’?” asked Harry.

  She made an effort. “Marrying a Negro. That takes some courage still, I think.”

  “Who’s she marrying?”

  “Ben Davis. Of course.”

  “It’s not ‘of course’ to me, it’s news. You’re saying this is going to happen?”

  “Harry, you’re so cross. And I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

  By the middle of the night the heat had lifted a little. At Cynthia’s window a faint breeze whispered in the light starched summer curtains, a breeze that Cynthia felt just barely across her face and down the single sheet that covered her damp naked skin. In a groggy, melted way, she thought, Why am I sleeping alone? Why hasn’t Harry come to my door, why hasn’t he asked to move back in with me? Oh, why doesn’t Harry love me anymore?

  • • •

  The next morning cooler air made the local world a little more sane. Waking, Cynthia pulle
d both the sheet and a light top blanket around her shoulders, and she began to think more clearly and coolly than she had for several days, or maybe weeks.

  She thought: Am I really so sure that I want Harry, in bed or anywhere? Couldn’t it possibly be Derek that I still want, in spite of Deirdre? Or maybe because of Deirdre, a little.

  In any case, she very firmly thought, If and when I make up my mind, I’ll tell him. Whichever one of those two it is. Or maybe it’s someone else entirely, someone I don’t even know yet. But why should I wait around for some man to decide about me?

  28

  “I HAVE dibs on having the party,” was Dolly’s loud exclamation on hearing that Abby Baird and Joseph Marcus were “really getting married.” This was how everyone put it, as though they had been married in some not real way before, and in a sense they had: “Living together all that time,” as everyone said.

  “And don’t you dare even try to tell me no,” continued Dolly. “My darling Abigail, the girl I first met in those long pigtails. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me you’re getting married too.”

  “Dolly, I am married,” said Cynthia. “To Harry.”

  “Well, you could always get remarried. I mean to Harry.” She giggled. “I have truly heard of folks doing that. ‘Renewing your vows,’ is what they call it.”

  “If Harry and I should ever do such a thing, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “And I’ve got just the best idea. I’ll give the party out in Russ’s garden. You know, I’ve had it all fixed up for the sale. I’d’ve known Jimmy Hightower was going to be the buyer, I might not have gone to so much trouble, but now it’s done, and just the loveliest place for a party.”

  “But I thought my house,” Cynthia objected.

  “Now Cynthia, of course your house and your garden are absolutely lovely, but your garden just doesn’t have the space that Russ’s does. You reckon we’ll go on calling it ‘Russ’s house’ after Jimmy’s moved in with Lord knows who all? Another family, maybe?”