Ever After

by William Wharton

  “They took me to the LA County Museum where they asked me to describe the paintings. The colors seemed phosphorescent and in different layers. On the way back to the university in the car, driven by the experimenters, I was suddenly on the edge of a bad trip and curled up on the seat.

  “The cars out the window seemed to be getting bigger and smaller. It was only normal perspective changes but my mind wasn’t up to that kind of rational realization.

  “I went back one more time when they wanted me to try painting after the injection. I thought I was painting the most beautiful painting in the world and was so happy I cried.

  “But after they’d cooled me off in a dim room for a few hours, I came out to look at the painting I’d done and it was just paints smeared together into a uniform brown, the kind of thing an untalented kindergartener might do.

  “I think I learned something, Kate. What happens with those drugs is the thinking part of the brain is repressed so feelings are very strong. The ability to discriminate, to make decisions, to understand the nature of the physical world is distorted.

  “Now, that’s fine if you have an ordinary brain and don’t have any plans for it. But you have a fine brain, Kate, and I’d hate to see you screw up the wiring, short-circuit yourself.

  “You know, after that experience, it was almost two months before I could work up the enthusiasm necessary to do any valid painting. Remember the word ‘enthusiasm’ comes from the Greek for ‘with the gods.’ It takes real discipline and involvement to paint well and I’d almost lost that.

  “I wouldn’t touch any of that stuff again for love or money. It’s only a way of saying you don’t have any confidence in your own identity. In a certain way, I think people who become dependent on drugs are like alcoholics. They have so little self-respect, they want to escape from themselves. It’s a form of psychic suicide.”

  He stared at me with those marbled blue eyes of his sunken under his chimpanzee brows. But he convinced me, and I stayed away from it all. I might be one of the only ones of my generation who got through the test-by-fire without getting burned.

  That’s the way Dad is. He’ll be so laid back most of the time, sometimes you think he just doesn’t care. But he respected us. He wanted us to make our own world but he didn’t want us to get hurt.

  When I told him I wanted to divorce Danny, I knew I was probably in for a bad time. He came to visit, and I spent about half an hour trying to explain. He sat on a little stool with his legs spread apart, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He watched every movement in my face or else he just looked down between his legs. He didn’t say a word until I was finished.

  “Do you think Danny loves you?”

  “Yes, I think so, but …”

  He held out his hand lightly.

  “Does he love Wills?”

  “You see him, Dad. You know he does.”

  “Do you have reasonable sexual relations? I don’t mean whammers every time, but good married sex?”

  I didn’t think he’d ask that. Mom would never ask anything in this area. I took a deep breath.

  “I guess, compared to most other women I’ve talked with, we have as good sex as most.”

  “Do you have orgasm?”

  He looked me straight in the eyes.

  “Not always. But I can get it off myself when I want. I don’t need Danny for that.”

  I never thought I’d be able to talk about this with either of them.

  “He doesn’t beat you, or drink secretly, or take drugs or anything, does he? Does he have other women?”

  “No to the first questions. The last one, I don’t think so, so far. I think I’d know.”

  “So it just comes down to your being bored with him. Do you think you’d be bored with some other man?”

  “I don’t know. Dad, I’ve been all wrapped up with Danny since I was sixteen. I don’t know how I’d feel around another man.”

  “Maybe you ought to find out, before you do anything drastic, Kate. Remember you’re going to hurt both Danny and Wills, probably yourself as well, if you do go through with this divorce. These are some pretty nice people. Make sure.”

  “But, Dad, you aren’t really asking me to go out and have affairs are you? I don’t think I’d like that.”

  “Well, then why not make the most of what you have? It isn’t the worst situation in the world.”

  “You aren’t asking me to live my life out with a boring man?”

  “Lots of other people do. Men live with boring women and women with boring men. Sometimes boring women live with boring men, that’s the way it is.

  “You know, Kate, you can’t say you didn’t really know Danny when you married him. You two had been like married for two years before you actually went through the formalities. It was a free choice. You must have had some idea.”

  I grew quiet. I knew I had to stick it out some more. I didn’t want to. I wanted to take Wills and just split. Dad then asked me if I’d spoken to Camille, my younger sister.

  “She’s had a lot more experience than you, Kate, even though she’s five years younger. There’s something of the street-fighter in her. Ask her opinion about what her life’s like. She’s free as a bird. I’m not sure she can really fly but there’s plenty of sky around her. Ask her what she thinks.”

  I hadn’t talked with Camille about anything. She’s so aggressively positive about things and, like Mom, always sounds as if she’s living in some high-school play. But it was an idea.

  Wills came in and grabbed Dad by the hand and pulled him out into the yard to be pushed by him on the swing. I’ve pushed that swing so often I’ve developed monster shoulder-muscles. I spread out on the couch and cried for the first time in weeks.

  Well, I did divorce Danny. It was messy, and the lawyers were the only ones getting anything out of it until Danny and I sat down and worked something out ourselves. I didn’t want alimony, only what Danny could afford for child-support. We’d split whatever we could make on the house, but it wouldn’t be much.

  Danny lost his job at Honeywell Bull, as did a whole lot of other people, and he returned to selling steel, but with another company. He moved back to Venice, a small apartment.

  I figured the only way I could support myself and Wills was to finish my degree and earn a teaching credential.

  It was an uphill battle at my age with a child, but I enrolled at ASU, Arizona State University, and wangled a couple of jobs on campus. One was in the geology department, where I thought briefly of becoming a geologist, both because it paid well and because so many of the geologists were men. There wasn’t much female competition, either. The other was in the German department, where I was in charge of putting out their bimonthly periodical. I learned plenty about writing and publishing—although I almost got fired when they discovered my written German wasn’t as good as my spoken.

  I enrolled Wills in a nursery school on campus and paid his bill by putting in a few hours a day there. I was very busy, but also surprised at how well I could do in my classes now I was motivated.

  Dad and Mom came through with some money once in a while to help cover the bad spots, but in general, I was on my own. I was growing more and more confident, both as a student and as a woman. I began going out and liked being able to pick the men I wanted instead of being locked in with one.

  I did the first half of my practice teaching at Arizona State and applied to do my second half at the American School in Paris, where Mom taught. I wanted to get back to Europe. I never really fit into the American scene.

  So, at almost thirty, I came home, lived with Mom and Dad on their houseboat, and learned how to teach. I felt closer to the family than I ever had before. The boat, like the mill, had never been one of my favorite places, but now I loved it. Mom and Dad had a knack for finding places that were unique.

  Dad took Wills to the French school every morning and picked him up in the evening. It was tough for Wills, but I think he had a good time with Dad.
He began to learn some French, and the river-banks were a terrific place for a seven-year-old boy to play. He made friends with a few French kids, despite the language barriers.

  He loved going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He varied between calling it the “Awful Tower” and the “Eyeful Tower” but said he liked it more than Disneyland. He also enjoyed climbing up on the lead roof of Notre Dame with Dad, the two of them looking as if they’d just conquered Everest. Neither Mom nor I could look at them; we both have a terrible fear of heights, as does my brother, Matt. There are four children in my family. I’m the eldest.

  I received good reports on my teaching and a high recommendation from the head of the school. I had done my practice teaching in first grade and decided to remain at this level—kindergarten or first grade. It was the same grade levels as Mom taught. It turned out that when my younger sister Camille did her practice teaching later, at La Jolla in California, she would come to the same decision. It runs in the family. I never thought Camille and I would wind up kindergarten teachers.

  CHAPTER 2

  WHEN I’VE finished my practice teaching, I sit down to write out a curriculum vitae that will sound good. Although I did graduate cum laude from Arizona State, I hadn’t quite finished my credential. It’s hard finding a job in an overseas school without at least two years’ US experience. But I decide to try anyway.

  I mail out sixty letters, then buy a Eurail pass and start on my journey. It’s May. Mom is still teaching, Wills is in school. Dad says he’ll take care of Wills when Mom isn’t home. I hate to depend on them so much, but there’s no other way.

  I travel at night from one city to another. I sleep on the train to save hotel bills. I do quite a bit of criss-crossing Europe, looking for the night train-rides that are about eight or ten hours long. When I get off a train in the city where I’m going to be interviewed, I head to a phone, confirm the rendezvous, then look for a reasonable restroom where I can put myself in order. I take more “bird-baths” in sinks of train stations than I ever thought I’d take in my whole life.

  Most of the interviews are discouraging. People are usually interested in the fact I can speak French, German, and English, and have a good academic background, but they hold the lack of experience against me. I try to beef my résumé up with my nursery-school teaching in Idylwild and Phoenix, but it doesn’t help much.

  After two weeks on the road, with one or two interviews every day, I still have nothing definite. The next stop is near Munich. In fact, I have one interview at an international school right at the head of the Starnberger See near the city of Starnberg. We lived nearby, in Seeshaupt, when I was a child and Dad was on sabbatical from his teaching. It’s only a half-hour trip on the train from Starnberg to Seeshaupt.

  The last time I saw Dad, he said he’d just started writing a new book, part of which takes place in Seeshaupt. He said it’s built around the stories he told us in the morning about Franky Furbo, a wonderful magic fox. In fact, I was the one who suggested he could make a great adult book from those stories. I’d love to have read it, but I guess I never will. Or maybe there is a way. I just don’t know about those things yet. It’s a strange situation we’re in.

  The man who interviews me in Starnberg, Stan, is one of the smilingest men I’ve ever met. We get along right away. But it’s the same thing: he doesn’t think he can hire someone without experience. The fact I speak such good German impresses him. I’m impressed too because he, an American, can speak incredibly good German himself. It turns out his first wife, who has died, was German.

  He asks me to wait a few minutes in the office and he’ll be right back. I think maybe he’s going to the bathroom. I’ve already given up. After around twenty rejections, one loses confidence. I’m hoping to catch a train down to Seeshaupt before dark.

  He comes back smiling. But then he’s always smiling. He rubs his hands together.

  “You’re lucky, Kate. I talked the director into it. I exaggerated your nursery-school experience a bit, even more than you did, so don’t make a liar of me. But you’re the kind of teacher I’m always looking for, optimistic, smiling, full of enthusiasm and energy. Maybe after you’ve had two years’ experience, you won’t be that way, but you’re hired to teach first grade. You’ll get the same salary as the other first-grade teacher I hired last year. I’m sure you’ll love her.”

  I could have fallen over right there in his office; I have a hard time to keep from crying. It’s all been so difficult the last few years and now it looks so beautiful. I know I must have thanked him but I don’t remember. He comes around his desk.

  “Come on, Kate, let me show you the school. We’re really proud of it. The German government built this place for us and about half our students are German. Their parents don’t like the strict, old-fashioned ways of German schools. We have the best mix of Germans, Americans, and all other nationalities, but we teach an American curriculum. It’s an exciting place.”

  We walk over to the campus, which is in the country, with modern buildings and old cow-barns and a small castle. My room is bright and neither too big nor too small. Stan says they try to keep the classes to under twenty students. God, it’s like a dream. I can’t believe it. I’m still a little teary.

  “Do you have a place to stay, Kate?”

  “I have friends near here, in Seeshaupt. I think I can stay there. Then I’ll start hunting for a place in Starnberg and be ready to teach in September. Is there any chance I can come out during the summer to get my classroom ready?”

  “Anything you want. Boy, this is great for me. Usually I need to hunt up a place for new teachers because they don’t speak German. But you’re all set. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

  I find I’m smiling, and then I laugh.

  “How about a contract? I’d actually like to sign a contract so I know this is all true. I can’t wait to tell my parents. My little boy, Wills, is just going to love it here. Do faculty children get to go to this school free?”

  “Absolutely, completely free to faculty kids. Who do you think I am, Scrooge?”

  “More like Santa Claus, Stan.”

  The temptation to put my arms around him and give him a big kiss is enormous, but I resist. I don’t want to do anything to screw up this chance.

  I phone Dad and Mom. They’re as excited as I am. I find a little furnished apartment near the lake, and work like crazy getting it into shape. I make curtains, wax all the furniture. It’s a little nest on the second floor with a beautiful view of the lake. I have a large room with a corner kitchen and a curved nook eating area. Almost everything’s made of wood. I’ve decided to keep everything simple. I buy two dishes, two cups, two spoons, two knives and two forks. It’ll be just Wills and me, no social life, at least for a while. I can’t wait till Wills comes.

  In the evenings I study my books from Arizona State and plan lessons. I want everything to be just right when I start. I’m very nervous.

  I have a little stove but no refrigerator. I’ll buy some kind of used refrigerator as soon as I get my first check; for now, I’m almost flat broke. I have enough to pay Wills’s air fare and we can get by on food till my first check, but that’s it.

  Wills arrives at the airport in Munich the same day school lets out at MIS. MIS stands for Munich International School, my school. We both cry, hugging each other outside customs.

  We take the S-Bahn home and Wills loves everything—the lake, the town, our apartment. But he falls asleep on the floor in about ten minutes. I carry him to his bed and undress him. I imagine he hasn’t slept much the night before with all the excitement. I’d had a hard time getting to sleep myself. I whisper in his ear that I need to go to school for a while but I’ll be back when he wakes up.

  I’m supposed to go to an end-of-the-school-year party. Stan asked me to come, even though it’s the day Wills arrives.

  There are six new teachers for the next semester. Stan introduces me and I stand up. People clap. I meet most of the
other teachers. One is a huge, bearded guy who doesn’t have much hair. I can’t get over how much he looks like Dad and my brother Matt. He’s flirting with the new librarian. When introduced, he says he comes from Oregon, although he’s just been teaching in Southeast Asia. I don’t see a wife around. The married teachers seem to have their spouses with them.

  I work like mad getting my classroom in order. Wills comes with me every day and plays: on the soccer field, kicking a ball, or at the gym, trying to shoot baskets. They have a great playground here, too. Sometimes he’ll come in and give me a hand, pushing desks around.

  A couple times the big, bearded guy from Oregon comes in. He’s going to be teaching computing and is getting his room fixed up, too. He speaks very slowly, but the more we talk, the more I like him. He doesn’t waste time with anything that isn’t worth talking about. Chatter is about ninety percent of all conversations anyway, but when he says something it’s usually interesting. He can’t believe I can really speak German and I’m not German. I try explaining, but I’m not sure I come across.

  I find a refrigerator being sold by an elderly German couple, at a price I can pay. They’re willing to hold on to it till I get my check, but I need to find someone to move it.

  The next time Bert, that’s the name of the bearded Oregonian, stops in my classroom, I ask if he could help me move a refrigerator. I promise him a home-cooked meal, American-style, in return. He stares at me a minute, then lifts an eyebrow and says, “Spare-ribs?”

  I have no idea where I can find spare-ribs in Germany, although I do know how to cook them. That’s one advantage of those years cooking at home instead of washing dishes. So we make the deal. He wrestles that machine out of the cellar of these old people, across town, and up my stairs, single-handedly, as if it were a portable radio or something. He’s bushed when he’s finished and flops down on my couch.