Anne was having a Manhattan with Barbara when Yale and Agatha came back from the Shipyards. Anne hugged him, and then looked in his face. She could tell by his expression that he had heard about the advertisement. He told her that Peoples McGroaty had called him at Latham's. He had stopped in Peoples' office on the way back. Anne waited for him to say something about the advertisement, but instead he asked her where Cynthia was. Anne told him that she was upstairs with a pretty bad headache. "I think we accomplished something this afternoon," Anne told him, happily. "Your mother was here!"
Yale looked at her, astonished. "Well, the old saying is that it never rains but it pours . . . what did Liz want?"
Anne told him what had happened. "You won't believe it, but after the fireworks were over . . . all four of us had a nice talk. We know all about your father's advertisement . . . that's why she came."
While Yale ran upstairs to see Cynthia, Anne made a Scotch and soda for him. Aunt Agatha decided that she could use a weak one, too. In a few minutes Yale came back with Cynthia, looking a little pale, dressed in a housecoat. She told them that she was feeling much better.
Yale took his drink and toasted them. "Here's to four of the nicest women in the world," he said, enjoying their different beauty, and the evident, different femininity of Barbara, Anne, and Cynthia contrasting with the china-doll fragility of Aunt Agatha. "Okay, I'm listening . . . what happened?"
"Oh, Yale, I wish I wouldn't get so terribly frightened," Cynthia said. "I thought my head would burst. Anne saved the day. You know what your mother simply couldn't understand?"
Yale shook his head.
"She couldn't believe that we both could love you so much and not hate each other. Anne explained to her that it wasn't always easy." Cynthia chuckled. "She told Liz that sometimes she felt like giving me a good crack on the fanny."
"I meant it, too," Anne warned her. "When you let your fears run away with you I get pretty mad at you. Will you just get it out of your head, Cindar, that your being Jewish has caused all our problems."
"I'm the cause of your problems," Yale said, delighting in their conversation. "The day I learn to stop beating my head against the wall, I guess we won't have any."
Barbara listened silently as Cynthia and Anne reviewed the afternoon for Yale. Barbara had been shocked when she saw Cynthia rush into the house, sobbing her heart out. While she was trying to soothe her into telling a comprehensible story, Anne had walked in with Liz.
"We are all going to take our hair down and have a good girlish confession hour," Anne said quietly. And that was just what they did. Amidst tears Liz admitted to Cynthia that she had been cruel. She was dreadfully sorry for what Pat had done that day in his office. It was worse because she could have crossed Pat and told Yale. If she had, none of this would have happened. It would have been better if she and Pat had had a closer relationship. But she didn't know how to talk with Pat, somehow. He was so completely in possession. She never had strong opinions on anything that might not coincide with Pat's. She guessed that was how she had come to like Frank Middleton. He listened to her. He just liked to hear her talk about anything . . . her fears and worries and hopes . . . things that Pat was always too busy for. It was wrong, but it hadn't hurt Pat.
As she listened to Liz, Barbara wondered about herself and Tom Eames. But that was another life ago. Yale had probably been right: she should have gone back to him. Maybe it had been her fault in some ways. Maybe a woman shouldn't try to "own" a man's physical love. Maybe you loved a person not because he loved you . . . but just because you loved him. Maybe Yale had discovered something in the seeds of this crazy religion. For some reason, as she listened, she thought of Bob Coleman, and she wondered what he thought of her. She regretted the silliness with Paul Downing. She sighed. No doubt Bob would think it a great deal worse than silliness. Would he judge her as a loose woman . . . a playgirl the way the newspapers had? Probably.
When Anne and Cynthia had apprehensively shown Liz the babies, and Cynthia had carefully pointed out that Ricky actually was her grandson, they wondered what Liz's reaction would be.
"She was delighted with them," Cynthia told Yale, laughing. "I'll bet when she thinks about it she'll blush. You know what she asked us, Yale?"
Yale shook his head, still unable to comprehend the change that had come over his mother.
"She asked us how many babies we were going to have!"
"She looked disappointed," Anne said, "when I told her that you had set a limit. Not more than three each."
"What did she say she was going to tell Pat?" Yale asked.
Cynthia and Anne looked at each other blankly, and Anne said, "Yale . . . I don't think she'll even tell your father that she was here. She's quite afraid of him."
Later that evening when they were undressing for bed Anne noticed that Yale was unusually quiet and subdued. "Okay, chum . . . you said no secrets in this marriage. Tell Cynthia and me what happened in Peoples McGroaty's office."
Yale didn't answer her immediately. He watched Cynthia bending over, trying to touch her toes without bending her knees. He grinned and patted her on the rump. "You'll never make it, Cindar." He bent over and looked into her flushed face. "My, what big breasts you have!" He grinned at her.
Anne was flopped on the bed indolently reading the Midhaven Herald . "I hope you like that newspaper," Yale said finally, "Because as of this afternoon Challenge Inc. owns it!"
They both squealed and stared at him. He told them that Peoples had refused to print Pat's advertisement. He had been terribly shocked by it. He told Yale that he regretted it but he doubted whether it was good policy for the paper or himself to be too closely associated with Challenge or with any of them in the future.
"I didn't understand what he meant at first," Yale told them, "but finally the pieces fit together. Peoples borrowed heavily to put in new presses. Pat is on the Board of Directors of the bank that has the loan. That's not all. Randall and Foxon's department store practically support the paper with their advertising. An hour after Peoples told Pat that he wouldn't print the advertisement, Randall and Foxon's cancelled their advertising for the next week."
Yale shrugged. "When I suggested to Peoples that he sell the paper to Challenge, he thought it was a wonderful idea. I told you, kids, the loudest voice in this culture is the one that speaks with money behind it. Peoples is still editor, but Challenge owns the paper."
"That means you'll refuse Pat's ad?" Cynthia said, relieved.
"On the contrary, I telephoned Bert Walsh and told him that it would be published as scheduled."
"Oh, no!" Anne fairly shrieked. "You can't let it be published! You just can't! What do you think will happen to Harry Cohen? He'll be ruined! Don't you understand? The way that ad is written Harry can't deny it. Nothing he can say will explain himself to all those people at Marratt. And what about us?" Anne looked at Yale, alarmed. "We are in that ad. What is going to happen when they read all that stuff about swimming naked . . . and our bigamy? Yale . . . it was one thing when we knew that your father was going to have that advertisement in the paper, and there was nothing we could do about it. Now that you could stop it if you wanted to . . . it's nothing but suicide to let it run."
Yale tried to tell them that accepting the ad was the only way out. "Just because Challenge owns the paper doesn't mean a thing. We need the revenue from the advertisers. I'm not ready to have the paper run at a loss. In fact, buying the paper was simply a way of getting Peoples off the spot."
"What about Harry Cohen?" Cynthia demanded. "He's your friend, too."
"I know it," Yale acknowledged. "But what you are forgetting is that in the long run Peoples would have had to run that ad. So Harry would have been cornered anyway. The way it is now we can try to counteract the whole thing with a big front page editorial. Challenge will have the voice to explain itself and defend Harry."
They stayed awake most of the night, arguing. Yale couldn't convince either Cynthia or Anne that what he wa
s doing was sound. Cynthia told him that she thought he had gone crazy. He was having delusions if he thought he could let their private life become an open book.
"There's a law against it, Yale," Anne said, tears in her eyes. "I looked it up. If anyone takes it into their head to complain, you could be put in jail." She told him that Agatha was right. He must think he was God.
Yale looked at her with indignation. "Well, I'll be damned. Go ahead! Both of you . . . complain! That'll be just dandy. I hope you both enjoy life without me." He looked so forlorn that Cynthia couldn't help smiling.
"Okay," Anne said. "You think you've won . . . but at least we'll have each other. You'll get pretty lonely by yourself in a cell."
12
Lying in bed on a Sunday morning a few weeks later with Yale sleeping against her breast, Anne watched the rain beating against their bedroom window. Cynthia was asleep, her face buried in Yale's shoulder. About five-thirty, just as the sky was getting grey, she had pattered into Yale's bedroom, shook Anne gently, and whispered that she was lonesome. Anne grinned at her understandingly and motioned to her to get into bed beside Yale. Yale continued to sleep, oblivious to both of them.
Without actually discussing it, Anne knew that in the past weeks she and Cynthia had drawn closer to each other than either of them had thought possible. In place of their former banter which often served to cover their embarrassment at their sharing of Yale's affections, was a new tenderness, and an uninhibited admission of their love and desires. Cynthia, admitting her need this chill morning to be with them, was tacitly saying to Anne that she would be equally welcome some future morning.
It was an achievement, Anne thought. They had transcended the inviolability with which centuries of mankind had endowed the one-to-one human relationship, and had become aware that the very uniqueness and wonder of their arms and legs, of their mouths and eyes, of Yale's penis and their vaginas, of their eating and digesting, and of their urinating and defecating, were all small wonders beside the ineffable miracle of being able to individually and together appreciate their humanity. It was comparable, by any judgment, to God resting on the seventh day and declaring his satisfaction. When men appreciated men weren't they gods themselves?
As she watched the rain through half closed eyes, Anne tried to assimilate the events of the past few weeks. They had, all three of them, matured rapidly under the vast pressures. Two people couldn't enclose space, Anne thought, but three could. Marriage should be for three or four, a movement through life as a wedge or square containing its own built-in strength.
But according to law their relationship was a crime against the state. A crime against a society which could tolerate individual hatred and war; a crime against a society which could close its eyes to a divorce rate that was practically polygamy or polyandry depending from whose point of view you examined it; a crime against society for three human beings to make a supreme intellectual effort to love each other.
Anne remembered when Yale had received the telephone call from Ralph Baker, the district attorney of Buxton County. It was the Monday after that insane week-end when Harry Cohen's house had been burned to the ground, and she and Cynthia had been attacked at the supermarket. Anne had walked into Yale's office as he put the phone in the cradle. His face was grim and drawn. Anne suddenly realized that Yale had lost weight. She remembered that he had tried to be light-hearted.
"The forces of darkness are really out to crush Challenge," he said wearily. "That was the district attorney. He is issuing a warrant against one Yale Marratt charging him with unlawful cohabitation. Bigamy." Yale's first reaction was not to tell Cynthia. "After everything else that's happened in the past two days she will just worry herself silly."
Anne sat on the edge of his desk. "She'll know, Yale. You can't keep it from her. You may be able to keep it out of the Midhaven Herald , but this will be a national story. It's just the kind of thing that a lot of people are waiting for. Something to make Challenge look like one of those crazy cults that usually get started in California." Anne smiled. "Most of them are run by some kind of bearded bigamist who claims that he is a Yoga."
After she said it Anne was sorry. She saw the hurt expression on Yale's face. "I'm not a bigamist, Anne," he said slowly. "If you think I am then you have missed the point."
Anne put her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry, honey. After all, I helped write the Seventh Commandment. 'Challenge believes that any human problem (hence all problems known to man) can be solved in an atmosphere of love; and the existence of hate as an emotion should be extirpated from man's relationships and be considered the greatest evil confronting civilization."
But only the bald fact, and not the philosophy, had seeped through to the district attorney's office. Freed on bail, Yale demanded to know who had lodged the complaint. Telling Anne and Cynthia later, Yale was disgusted.
Baker had grinned at him sarcastically. "Trouble with your generation is they don't have any respect for the law. Bigamy is a crime in this state and in practically every civilized Christian country. We don't need any complainants. You can just say that it's the State of Connecticut against Yale Marratt. We've had a bellyful of trouble around here because of you, young fellow. You've stirred up religious prejudices. You've made the young bucks around here so damned sex conscious that they think their brains are between their legs. What's more, my phone is ringing all day long with ministers, priests, and rabbis as well as just plain citizens asking why I don't have your book censored, or just complaining about your morals. Don't think that because you own the Midhaven Herald you can make your own censorship either. You started to challenge people. Now you've got to accept the fact that society is able to cook your goose, if it wants to. A bigamy charge seems just as good as any way to stop you." Baker smirked. "Although I understand there are some people around here that think they might eventually get you on an income tax charge."
Cynthia tried to be optimistic when they told her. She suggested that, since neither of his wives was complaining, it would be impossible for anyone to prove a bigamous relationship. She had grinned at Yale. "We're living together just like a brother and his two sisters."
But Baker had sneered at him. "You've got those sexy-looking fillies living right with you in the same house, haven't you? Everyone in Midhaven knows that you are screwing them both. We don't go for your attitude, Marratt. There are even people around here that think you are subversive . . . out to destroy our government. It's pure crap to preach this love mankind bunk while the rest of the world is hating our guts. This Challenge business of yours is creating too much of a stink. It's time that someone put a spoke in your wheel." Baker made some further remark about certain wise young men who were raiding established businesses like the Latham Shipyards, and then running them to the ground. Yale suspected that either Alfred Latham or maybe even Pat was behind the charges.
With only three weeks before he would be brought to trial, Yale called Saul Angle and told him the story. "I'm a corporation lawyer," Angle said. "It's completely out of my field." Yale asked him if he were afraid. Saul had sounded angry. "I told you it was a pipe dream. Don't try to involve me in it." Saul told him that he would call back. The next day he was still irascible. "Okay, I'm a sucker. I'll probably be sorry I ever heard your name. If you aren't afraid of having a Jew defend you, I'll take your case." Saul had arrived in Midhaven a few days later with his wife and was staying with them now.
Sleepily, trying to refocus the swift events of the past few weeks and evaluate them in some kind of perspective, Anne couldn't help thinking of Harry and Sarah Cohen. She wondered what they were doing and where they had gone. She knew that both Yale and Cynthia were deeply disturbed by the loss of Harry's friendship. Yale had once said, "The intellectuals, or what they are now calling them, the eggheads, have much in common with the Jews. The intellectuals are a minority, too. They have ideas in advance of the masses, and hence stir up suspicion and distrust because they worship at different altars."
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br /> Yale knew that he was responsible. If Harry Cohen had never known Yale Marratt, he would be in Midhaven now leading his union. Remembering the wild ride to Helltown, the night after Pat's advertisement had been printed, Anne shuddered. When they received the telephone call that vandals had set fire to Harry's house, and it wasn't known where the Cohcns were . . . that maybe they were inside the house . . . Yale had turned pale. Anne knew that he was remembering the way Harry had talked to him, and was blaming himself.
The last time that they had seen Harry was the night before the advertisement had appeared in the Midhaven Herald . Yale had called him and told him that he wanted to talk with him and Sarah. Ralph Weeks had driven over in the Buick station wagon to pick them up. Yale had also telephoned Peoples McGroaty. He arrived a few minutes after Harry and Sarah, and shook hands glumly with them.
Without preliminaries Yale had handed them galley proofs of the advertisement. Sarah read it with a sharp intake of breath. Harry looked suddenly shrunken and older. He stared at Yale with a defeated expression on his face.
"Can't you stop it, Yale? Does it have to be printed?" Harry looked helplessly at Peoples. "Pat Marratt would be subject to libel, wouldn't he?"
Cynthia said: "Anne and I think he can stop it. But he won't." She looked at Yale with tears in her eyes, and begged him again. "For God's sake, Yale, don't you see what this will do to Harry?"
Harry said nothing while Anne and Cynthia continued to argue with Yale. Yale insisted that if he refused to publish the advertisement Pat could easily find some other way. The only hope was that Pat would withdraw it voluntarily.
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 61
