Barbara smiled and slid her suitcase out from under the unoccupied twin bed - her bed. She placed it on the bed and began to look for something in it.
Mrs. Odenhearn was thinking.
"I saw Mrs. Helger and Mrs. Ebers in the lounge after you left tonight."
"Oh?" said Barbara.
"They’re out for our blood tomorrow, I don’t mind telling you. You must play just a little closer to the net when I’m serving, dear."
"I’ll try to," Barbara said, and went on looking through her suitcase, turning over soft things.
"Hurry to bed, dear. Hippity Hop," said Mrs. Odenhearn.
"I can’t find my - oh, here they are." Barbara withdrew a pair of pajamas.
"Peter Rabbit," said Mrs. Odenhearn warmly.
"I beg your pardon?" "Carl used to love Peter when he was a child." Mrs. Odenhearn raised her voice an octave or so: " ‘Mummy, wead me Peatie Wabbit,’ he used to say. Over and over again. I just wish I had a penny for every time that child had to have Peter read to him."
Barbara smiled again and started for the adjoining bathroom with her pajamas under her arm. She was briefly arrested by Mrs. Odenhearn’s raised voice.
"Someday you’ll be reading Peter to your little boy."
Barbara didn’t have to smile, as she was already in the bathroom. She closed the door. When she came out in her pajamas a moment later, Mrs. Odenhearn, who didn’t inhale, was smoking a cigarette through her holder - one of the kind advertised to be a denicotinizer. She was also in the act of reaching for her ship’s library novel, which stood on the night table.
"All ready for bed, dear? I just thought I’d read one little chapter of my book. It may just make me sleepy. So many, many things running through my poor old head."
Barbara smiled and got into bed.
"Will the light bother you, dear?"
"Not at all. I’m awfully tired." Barbara turned over on her side, away from the light and Mrs. Odenhearn. "Good night," she said.
"Sleep tight, dear...Oh, I think I’ll try to sleep too! It’s a very silly book, anyway. Honestly, I never read charming books anymore. The authors nowadays seem to try to write about unattractive things. I think if I could read just one more book by Sarah Milford Pease I’d be happy. She’s dead, poor soul, though. Cancer." Mrs. Odenhearn snapped off the table light.
Barbara lay several minutes in the darkness. She knew she ought to wait until next week or next month or next - something. But her heart was nearly pounding her out of bed. "Mrs. Odenhearn." The name was out. It stood upright in the darkness.
"Yes, dear?"
"I don’t want to get married."
"What’s that?"
"I don’t want to get married." Mrs. Odenhearn sat up in bed. She fished competently for the table light switch. Barbara shut her eyes before the room could be lighted and prayed without words and without thoughts. She felt Mrs. Odenhearn speak to the back of her head.
"You’re very tired. You don’t mean what you’re saying, dear." The word "dear" whisked into position - upright in the darkness beside Mrs. Odenhearn’s name.
"I just don’t want to get married to anybody yet."
"Well! This is certainly very - unusual - Barbara. Carl loves you a great, great deal, dear."
"I’m sorry. Honestly." There was a very brief silence. Mrs. Odenhearn shattered it.
"You must do," she said suddenly, "what you think right, dear. I’m sure that if Carl were here he’d be a very, very hurt boy. On the other hand-"
Barbara listened. It amounted to an interruption, she listened so intently.
"On the other hand," said Mrs. Odenhearn, "It’s always the best way to rectify a mistake before it’s made. If you’ve given this matter a great, great deal of thought I’m sure Carl will be the last to blame you, dear."
The ship’s library novel, upset by Mrs. Odenhearn’s vigorous elbow, fell from the night table to the floor. Barbara heard her pick it up.
"You sleep now, dear. We’ll see when the sun’s shining beautifully how we feel about things. I want you to think of me as you would of your own mother if she were alive. I want so to help you understand your own mind," said Mrs. Odenhearn, and added: "Of course, I know that one can’t alter children’s minds so easily these days, once they’re made up. And I do know you have a great, great character."
When Barbara heard the light snap off, she opened her eyes. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She came out almost at once, wearing a robe and slippers, and spoke to Mrs. Odenhearn in the darkness. "I’m just going on the deck for a little while."
"What do you have on?"
"My robe and slippers. It’s all right. Everyone’s asleep."
Mrs. Odenhearn flicked on the table light again. She looked at Barbara acutely, neither approving nor disapproving. Her look said, "All right. It’s over. I can hardly contain myself, I’m so happy. You’re on your own for the rest of the cruise. Just don’t disgrace or embarrass me." Barbara read the look faultlessly.
"Good-by."
"Don’t catch cold, dear."
Barbara shut the door behind her and began to walk through the silent, lighted passages. She climbed the steps to A deck and walked through the concert lounge, using the aisle a cleaning squad had left between the stacked bodies of easy chairs. In less than four months’ time there would be no easy chairs in the concert lounge. Instead, more than three hundred enlisted men would be arranged wakefully on their backs across the floor. High above on the promenade deck, for nearly an hour Barbara stood at the portside rail. Despite her cotton pajamas and rayon robe there was no danger of her catching cold. The fragile hour was a carrier of many things, but Barbara was now exclusively susceptible to the difficult counterpoint sounding just past the last minutes of her girlhood.
19. The Inverted Forest
THE following diary extract is dated December 31, 1917. It was written in Shoreview, Long Island, by a little girl named Corinne von Nordhoffen.
She was the daughter of Saray Keyes Montross von Nordhoffen, the Montross Orthopedic Appliances heiress, who had committed suicide in 1915, and Baron Otho von Nordhoffen, who was still alive, or at least, under his gray mask of expatriation, was still breathing. Corinne entered this chapter in her diary on the night before her eleventh birthday.
Tomorrow is my birthday party and I am going to have a party. I have invited Raymond Ford and Miss Aigletinger and Lorraine Pederson and Dorothy Wood and Marjorie Pheleps and Lawrence Pheleps and Mr. Miller. Miss Aigletinger said I had to invite Lawrence Pheleps on account of Marjorie is coming. I have to invite Mr. Miller on account of he works for Father now. Father said Mr. Miller will drive to New York in the morning and bring back 2 cowboy movies and shoe them in the library after dinner. I got Raymond a real cow boy hat to wear just like that cowboy he likes wears. I got everybody else hats also only paper ones. Miss Aigletinger is going to give me Parade Prejudice by Jane Orsten she said. She is also going to give me the elsie I don’t have. She is the most adorable teacher I have had since Miss Calahan. Father is also going to give me more room in the kennles for Sandys puppys and I already saw the doll house from Wanamakers. Dorothy Wood is going to give me an autograph album and gave it to me already 3 weeks ago. She wrote in the front of it In your golden chain of friendship consider me a link. I nearly cried. Dorothy is so adorable. I don’t know what Lorraine and Marjorie are going to give me. I wish that mean Lawrence Pheleps did not have to come to my party. I don’t want Raymond Ford to give me anything for my birthday just as long as he comes is all. He is so poor and not rich at all and you can tell by his cloths. I wish Dorothy had not written on the first page of the album because I wanted Raymond. Mr. Miller is going to give me an alligator. He had this brother in Florida that has alligators and T.B. like Miss Calahan had. I love Raymond Ford. I love him better than my father. Anybody that opens this diary and reads this page will drop dead in 24 hours. Tomorrow night!!! Please dear lord don’t let Lawrence Pheleps be mean at my party and don’
t let Father and Mr. Miller talk German at the table or anything because I just know they would all go home and tell their parents about it except Raymond and Dorothy. I love you Raymond because you are the nicest boy in the world and I am going to marry you. Anybody that reads this without my permission will drop dead in 24 hours or get sick.
Close to nine o’clock on the night of Corinne’s birthday party, Mr. Miller, the Baron’s new secretary, leaned forward and volunteered down-table straight at Corinne, "Well, let’s go get this boy. No use sittin’ around moping’ about it all night. Where’s he live, birthday girl?"
Corinne, at the end of the table, shook her head and blinked violently. Under the table her hands were caught hard between her knees.
"He lives right on Winona," spoke up Marjorie. "His mother’s a waiter at the Lobster Palace. They live over the restaurant." She looked around, pleased.
"Waitress," corrected her brother Lawrence, with contempt.
Little Dorothy Wood, at Corinne’s right, shot one of her high-strung glances up-table toward the baron. But the old gentleman was busy examining, somewhat morosely, the cuff of his dinner jacket—he had just brushed his sleeve into his ice cream—the sort of thing that often happened to him. Dorothy’s high-strung glances in his direction were unnecessary, any way. The baron’s hearing device was seldom aimed at table talk, birthday parties not excepted, and all evening he had been missing Lawrence Phelp’s smart-boy alto.
"Well, waitress," conceded Marjorie Phelps. "Anyways, he lives where I said, because Hermine Jackson’s cousin followed him home once."
"Winona Avenue." Mr. Miller stood up confidently. He dropped his napkin of the table and removed his pale green, unfestive-looking paper hat. He was a bald-headed man with a jolly, humorless face. "Let’s go, birthday kiddo," he said.
Again the hostess shook her head and blinked—wildly, this time.
Miss Aigletinger leaned forward, a committee-of-one for smooth-running birthday parties. "Corinne, dear. Go with Mr. Mueller, why don’t you, honey?"
"Miller," corrected Miller.
"Miller, excuse me. . . Go with Mr. Miller, dear, why don’t you? It’ll only take a teensy minute. And we’ll all be right here when you get back." Miss Aigletinger turned rather coyly to the baron, on whose left she was sitting. "Won’t we, Baron?" she asked.
"He isn’t a baron anymore. He’s an American citizen. Corinne said so." Dorothy Wood stated firmly—and immediately blushed.
"What is it, please?" inquired the baron, aiming his hearing apparatus at Miss Aigltinger.
To the never-stale of all the children present—except Corinne—Miss Aigletinger picked up the baron’s speaking tube and shouted thinly into it, "I say we’ll all be right here when they get back, won’t we? They’re going into town to look for the Ford boy." She started to relinquish the tube but instead took a firmer hold on it. "Very strange child. Came to us in October," she shouted elaboratedly. "Not a good mixer."
Though he hadn’t understood a word, the baron nodded pleasantly.
Dispirited, Miss Aigletinger placed a protective hand to her throat where all he volume had passed through, and willingly gave over to Mr. Miller, who was standing ready beside his chair. Miller picked up the tube and shouted into it, "Wir werden sofort zurück—"
"Kindly speak English," interrupted the baron.
Miller flushed slightly but shouted, "We’ll be right back. We’re going to look for the youngster who didn’t come to the party."
The baron understood Miller and nodded; then he glared down-table at Dorothy Wood, a favorite of his, whom he regularly frightened to death. "You didn’t eat anything," he accused her. "Eat."
Dorothy was too rattled to do anything but blush.
"She doesn’t eat anything," the baron complained to no one in particular.
"Get your coat, birthday girl," Miller said to Corinne, standing over her.
"No," said Corinne. "Please."
"Corinne, dear," intervened Miss Aigletinger, "it’s just possible that Raymond Ford forgot your party. Those things happen in the best of families. There’s no harm, surely, if you don’t just remind—"
"I reminded him this morning. I told him at recess." It was the longest remark Corinne had made all evening.
"Yes, dear, but he may not be well. He may be ill. He might just be in bed. You could— you could take him a lovely piece of birthday cake—couldn’t she, Mr. Miller?"
"Sure." Miller placed a hand on the back of Miss Aigletinger’s chair. "Must be quite a youngster," he mused, sucking his tooth. "What is he, the Frank Merriwell of his class or something?"
"The who?" coolly inquired Miss Aigletinger, addressing the hand on the back of her chair.
"The school athlete. You know. All the gals after him. The demon of the cinder path, the—"
"Him an athlete?" interrupted Lawrence Phelps. "He can’t even catch a football. You know what? Robert Selridge saw Ford coming across the playground and yelled at him and chucked a football at him, not even fast, and you know what Ford did?"
Mr. Miller, inserting the nail of his little finger between two molars, shook his head.
"He jumped out of the way. Honest! He wouldn’t even chase it afterwards. Boy, Robert Selridge nearly socked him one." Lawrence Phelps turned his burly little face toward his hostess. "Where’d Ford come from anyways, Corinne? He didn’t come from around here anywheres."
"Mmm," Corinne replied inaudibly.
"What?" said Lawrence.
"She said none of your beeswax," Dorothy Wood translated loyally.
"Corinne," rebuked Mr. Miller, removing his finger from his mouth. "Is ‘at nice?"
"Tell ‘em about his back," Marjorie Phelps suggested to her brother. She turned brightly to the others, informing them, "Lawrence saw his back at Doctor’s Hour. It’s got all things over it. Big awful marks, like."
"Oh, that. Yeah," said her brother. "His mother beats him up."
The hostess stood up. "You’re a liar," she accused, trembling. "He hurt himself. He fell and hurt himself."
"Children, children!" This from Miss Aigletinger, with a nervous glance at the baron, who, undisturbed, went on staring profoundly at an embroidered pattern in the tablecloth.
"All right, all right, he fell and hurt himself," Lawrence Phelps said.
Corinne sat down, still trembling.
"Lawrence, I don’t ever want to hear you say anything like that again," Miss Aigletinger said. "It does not happen to be true, in the first place. The school board investigates those things—all those things. If that boy’s mother—"
"Oh, I know why she likes Ford," Lawrence interrupted ambiguously. "I don’t wanna tell, though." He glanced over at his hostess’s suddenly upjerked, burning little face. Then, efficiently, as though he were dealing with butterfly wings, he tore his hostess’s horror apart on the spot. "Because Louise Selridge was sore Corinne won the elocution and—right in front of everybody in the wardrobe closet—Louise called Corinne a Heinie spy. And Louise said even her father said why don’t Corinne and her father go to Germany where all the Heinies are—the Kaiser and all. And Corinne started to cry. And Raymond Ford was wardrobe monitor that day, and he chucked Louise Selridge’s coat out in the aisle," Lawrence said, taking a breath, but not quite finished. "And last week Corinne brought her dog after school to show Ford. And she wrote his name on the blackboard at recess and tried to erase it, but everybody saw it." No more butterfly wings on hand, Lawrence looked vaguely in the direction of the footman behind him. "Can’t we please have another spoon? Mine fell."
"Lawrence! We don’t repeat those things."
"Honest!" said Lawrence, as though his integrity were in jeopardy. "You can ask my sister. Ask anybody. Ford was giving Louise Selridge her coat when she said it. Only he didn’t give it to her. He chucked it right out in the aisle. Everybody—"
"What time is it, Miller?" the baron asked suddenly.
"Twenty past nine, baron." Miller turned to Corinne. "What’s it gon
na be, kiddo? You wanna look for this boy or not?"
"Yes," said Corinne, and walked with adult dignity out of the dining room.
The dark road was icy and there were no skid chains on Mr. Miller’s automobile—he didn’t believe in ‘em.
"Yours’ll be here tomorrow," he promised Corinne in the unfraternal darkness. He was speaking incessantly of his brother’s alligators. "Little bit of a fella. But he’ll grow. He’ll grow all right." He chuckled, tobacco-breathily, toward Corinne.
"Please don’t go so fast."
"What’s ‘at? Somebody scared?"
"It’s this street," Corinne said excitedly. "Right here, please—"
"Where?" said Miller.
"You passed it!"
"Well, we can fix that," said Miller.
The car skidded, selected its own direction, and came to a stop with its forewheels on the sidewalk.
Corinne, shivering, let herself out of the car and ran the slippery quarter of a block to the place where the Lobster Palace should have been shining yellowly.
Something was wrong. The Lobster Palace wasn’t shining at all. Both the front show
window and the electric sign were as black as the night itself.
"Closed, ‘eh?" Miller said, reaching Corinne. His breath in the sub-zero air was almost more visible than he was.
"The house can’t be closed. The restaurant maybe, but the house can’t be. People live upstairs. Raymond Ford lives upstairs."
Instantly, as though in proof of part of Corinne’s remark, a woman carrying two suitcases charged out of the black doorway, brushing past Corinne. No kind of hall light preceded or followed her. She snorted visibly over to the curb, dropped her tow suitcases on the icy walk, and faced the doorway from which she had emerged. Then, just as Corinne felt Mr. Miller pull her neutrally out of the way, another, that of a small boy, came out of the building. Corinne excitedly called his name, but the boy didn’t seem to hear her. He went directly to the woman with the suitcases, stood beside her, and faced as she was facing. He took something out of his pocked, unfolded it, put it on his head, and pulled it down over his ears. Corinne knew that it was his aviator’s cap.
22 Out-of-print J. D. Salinger Stories Page 18
