Carl helped him with his campaign. They argued with Progressives they knew and distributed leaflets in the downtown district of town.
One night, very late, they drove through town putting up campaign posters of Norris on telephone poles. Their old Ford drove silently along, without lights. When they came to a pole Carl leaped off, ran up to the curb and stapled the poster to the pole, and then ran back.
“How’s it coming?” Norris whispered. He was behind the wheel.
“Fine.”
At the next pole, as Carl was running back to the car, a police car slid up behind them.
“All right,” the policeman said.
There was an old city law against using property of the city for campaign purposes. The telephone poles all belonged to the city. But when the judge learned that Norris was running on his own as a graduate student of the political science department he suspended sentence and let them go. It would have been thirty days.
Carl and Norris stood outside the police station in the bright sunlight. People flocked by, going to work.
“See how the reactionaries stifle the voice of the masses,” Norris grumbled.
He did not win the election. The Republican candidate won, with the Democratic candidate next. Norris received almost no votes. But at least, the Progressives didn’t get in.
“It’s pretty hard to make yourself heard,” Carl murmured.
“Someday it’ll change,” Norris said.
To stay out of military service Carl accepted a job with the American Metals Development Company, for overseas work. It was an indefinite assignment. And as long as he were with the Company he would be draft exempt.
The night before he was supposed to sail he felt a strange nostalgia begin to move around inside him. It began as he was walking back to his room after eating dinner uptown. He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets. It was a warm July night. Thousands of stars clustered overhead. Many people were out in the streets, walking along the sidewalks, men and women together, kids scampering around, high school boys in cars parked with their girls in drive-ins, eating hot dogs and ice cream.
Carl thought about himself and all the things that had happened to him. He thought about the early years of his life, when they had lived in the East where it was cold and the land was snow-covered in the winter. He thought of his mother working all day. He had been very much alone as a child, alone with his things, his stamps and books and thoughts.
Carl turned and walked back past the neon signs of the stores, back toward the campus. The campus was dark. All the buildings were silent and deserted, except the library. The university library was still open.
He thought of camp. The time he had gone away to summer camp. The redwoods. As he walked through the campus he thought of the stream, the silent trees, the cold water and bright sun. The campus was like that, dark and empty with trees rising up around him on all sides.
Carl came to the library building and stopped. The great marble building was ablaze with lights. Did he want to go inside? He walked around it. Grass was under his feet, moist green grass. He could see it in the light from the library windows. A group of college kids passed, girls and boys, laughing and talking together. After a time a silent couple came along, a boy and girl walking quietly together, holding hands in the darkness.
Carl thought of high school. The debate team. The Youth Socialist League. The speech he had made for socialism that time the principal was there.
His thoughts returned to camp. How wonderful it had been, before he got sick. He had never gone back. His mother had not let him. Now she was dead, killed in a street accident. His life had been much happier since her death. She had been so thin and hard. Pushing him all the time. Making him do things.
Now he was leaving the country. Going away to work in Asia. How long would he be gone? He did not know. A year, perhaps. Maybe many years. What would it be like? He did not know that, either. He did not know where he was going. He scarcely knew where he had come from. His past was dark, in shadow. A vague gloomy memory of sounds and shapes and smells. The redwoods. Grass at night. Neon signs. Snow. A slow moving creek. His old room full of stamps and microscope slides and pictures.
Carl went inside the library. The marble halls were bright with yellow light. He climbed the stairs to the main reading room. He did not have a card, but he could use the reference books.
For a while he sat in the reference room, reading the Cambridge Ancient History series. He read about Greece. The familiar passages, the wars, the battles. Alcibiades. Cleon. Pericles. He found the part about Thermopylae and his heart warmed. The brave Spartans…
He found somebody he knew, a friend studying for an exam. With his friend’s card he took out Xenephon’s Anabasis and sat reading it. The snow. All the hills… They reminded him of his own life. That was what he retained of his life, the memory of snow and of streets, trees, silent water.
Carl closed the book and dropped it into the return slot. It was growing late. The library would be closing in a little while.
He left the building, walking down the great while halls, down the stairs, outside into the warm darkness. He took a deep breath of the night air. The air was sweet, heavy with the odor of flowers. There was a huge purple bush by the door. The air was full of its smell.
He walked down the path, away from the building. One by one the library lights winked off behind him. Other young men and women walked with him, some behind, some in front. They were quiet. A faint wind had come up. The wind rustled around Carl, carrying sounds to him. Snatches of conversation. The noise of footsteps. Men and women walking through the darkness away from the library.
He crossed a small bridge. His shoes echoed against the boards. A level grass meadow sloped away. Beyond it the neon signs of town glinted, red and yellow, deep orange and violet. A restaurant. A theater. A real estate place. A loan office. A cafe.
He stood at the end of the bridge, looking out across the grass at the black buildings and neon signs rising up against the sky. People passed him, students going home, books and papers under their arms.
Soon he would leave. Soon he would be a long way off. Maybe he would never come back. Maybe he would never stand in this spot again, see these trees, the grass, the outlines of the buildings. Far off a car honked. Cars and busses. Traffic moving through the town. People on the sidewalks. In the cafés. The theaters.
More students passed him. Carl pulled himself upright. He crossed onto the grass. Ahead of him a girl cut across the grass, walking quickly and silently. For a moment she was outlined against the night sky. Slim, slim and supple. With long hair. In the darkness her hair was black. He could see her face, the line of her jaw, her nose, her forehead.
His heart jumped. He hurried, walking quickly up behind her. Vague memories pulsed through him. A slim girl, dark, with long black hair. He hurried, trembling a little, staying behind her.
The girl came to the edge of the grass, stepping down onto the sidewalk. She crossed the street. Carl crossed after her. She passed under a neon sign.
It was not the girl with the dark hair. In the light this girl’s hair was brown.
Carl slowed down. After a while he turned off to the right. It was time to go home. He had to get up early the next morning. The ship was sailing at eight o’clock.
The girl disappeared, lost from sight, into the night darkness. Carl walked back to his room, his hands deep in his pockets.
Carl shook himself, standing up. He was stiff. How long had he been sitting and thinking about himself? Down below him the Company grounds stretched out, bringing him back to the present. What a bad thing to do, sitting in the bright morning sunlight, going over his youth, again and again!
He was glad he had finished with it, got it all behind him. It was an unfortunate youth, a time of doubt and not knowing. A time of groping in ignorance. He looked up at the sun. What time was it? The sun had moved almost to the top of the sky. He had been sitting a long time.
Carl
stretched, throwing out his big arms and opening his mouth. He made a great bellowing sound, twisting around, stamping his foot several times. Then he began to pick his way back down the slope again, solemn and full of thoughts, going over what he had been thinking of, all his memories, the little dead bird, the strangeness of his childhood.
Preoccupied with these thoughts he wandered at last to the artificial lake in the center of the Company property. He stopped by the lawn a moment and then crossed and entered the row of fir trees. He was about to come out on the edge of the water when he heard a sound. It was splashing, something in the lake, leaping around, throwing water in all directions.
Carl made his way quickly to the edge of the lake, his heart beating rapidly. Someone was in the water. The sun shone down, reflecting on the surface of the water with a brilliant glare of light. He shaded his eyes. The person in the water was thrashing around. He saw the glistening of a pale golden body, limbs slender and round. It was Barbara. She was in the water with nothing on, playing by herself. He started to back away, his face red.
But then he stopped and stood quietly by the trees. Could he be seen? Probably not. The mathematical chance was very slight. A curious boldness had come over him. He had been pondering the mysteries of life, the secrets of the dark universe, ever since early morning. Wasn’t this part of the universe?
Wasn’t this one of the hidden realities, held back, usually concealed from sight, an esoteric scene viewed only by a few? And if he were careful she wouldn’t see him.
Carl stood watching the girl in the water. She was having quite an exciting time for herself. Water flew in all directions. Presently she began to make her way toward the shore. She climbed out of the water, up onto the concrete rim, dripping and struggling, Carl felt his heart begin to beat more quickly, and in spite of his deep inner calm a glow of redness crept up into his cheeks and ears. The lake was not wide. He could see the girl quite clearly as she clambered up on the opposite side.
This was the first time in his life he had seen a woman naked. It was like birth and death and marriage and becoming twenty-one. It was strange and important. And it would never come again.
He watched her, kneeling by the edge of the grass, wringing her hair out. For a moment his sight blurred, as if it were failing. He put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath, filling up his lungs. His vision danced before him, bits of red and specks leaping and darting about. On his skin perspiration slid slowly down. A rushing clamminess oozed under his shirt. His body was damp and cold.
But then the moment passed, and after it came a surge of hot blood, blood flowing to his heart, surging with white foam on it, racing through the hollows of his body, through his veins and arteries.
Kneeling on the bank, twisting her brown hair, the girl glistened wet and smooth in the sunlight. A million points of light glittered on her sleek skin. All the rare jewels, all the precious stones were there, too many ever to count, far beyond the diamonds of the path, the orbs of dew on the lawn. This was beyond what he had known before; this shone with a tawny richness that reduced the grass and the soil and the trees and hills to their proper place.
Nothing he had seen had such grace as her naked arms and shoulders. No colors he knew were as intense as the gold and white of her skin, fresh from the water. He saw her hands move. She was shaking her head, tilting her head on one side. She squeezed one last time and then threw her head back, looking up at the sky. Her brown hair, thick and heavy, fell back onto her neck. Her face, small and clearly lined, gazed up. She got to her feet slowly and stood.
Now he saw her completely, for the first time. She was not tall. She was much smaller than he had expected. It was not what he had expected at all. The pin-up pictures and drawings and calendars had misled him. They had pictured great women with immense legs, curved and long, massive breasts high in the air. This girl was not like that at all. She was small and rather heavy, not fat or dumpy, but rather short. Her body was not so different from the bodies he had seen among the boys in the school gym. Except that it was smoother, and the hips were wider. But she was not tall, and her legs were only legs, with knee caps and feet, feet resting firmly on the ground.
Her breasts amazed him. They did not jut out and up. They did not swell, pressing forward as the drawings had shown them. They hung down, and when she bent over they fell away from her. They bounced and swung when she picked up her clothes, bending over and reaching down to dress. They were not hard cups at all, but flesh like the rest of her, soft pale flesh. Like wineskins hanging on tent walls, in Middle East villages. Sacks, wobbling flesh sacks that must have got in her way every now and then.
She buttoned her short red pants and fastened her gray blouse around her. She sat down to tie her sandals. Now she looked the same as she always had, not white, bare, chunky. Her breasts were again curves under her blouse, not bulging wineskins hanging down. In the close-fitting pants and blouse she looked taller and slimmer.
She finished dressing and then went off, across the lawn. He lost sight of her. She had disappeared. It was finished. He relaxed. His blood subsided. His heart began to return to normal, the color draining out of his cheeks and ears. He sighed, letting out his breath.
Had it really happened? He felt dazed. In a way he was disappointed. She had been white and short, bulging here and there. With legs for walking and feet for standing. Her body was like all bodies, a physical creation, an instrument, a machine. It had come into the world the same way as other things, from the dust and wet slime. After a while it would wither and sag and crack and bend, and the tape and glue and tacks would give way to let it sink back down into the ground again, from which it had come.
It would break and wear out. It would fade and pass away, like the grass and the flowers, the great fir trees above him, like the hills and the earth itself. It was a part of the ordinary world, a material thing like other material things. Subject to the same laws. Acting in the same way.
He thought suddenly of his drawings, the pin-ups he had copied, all the notions and images that had crowded into his mind as he sat in his stuffy room with the sunlight shining through the drapes. He smiled. Well, at least he had gained a new understanding. He had lost all the cherished images and illusions, but he understood something now that had eluded him before. Bodies, his body, her body, all were about the same. All were part of the same world. There was nothing outside the world, no great realm of the phantom soul, the region of the sublime. There was only this—what he saw with his eyes. The trees and sun and water. He, Barbara, everyone and everything, were parts of this. There was nothing else.
And it was not as if his secret inner world, the spirit world that he had nourished so long, had suddenly come crashing down around him. There were no ruins and sad remains to pick over. Rather, all the dreams and notions he had held so long had abruptly winked out of existence. Vanished silently, like a soap bubble. Gone forever. As if they had never existed.
While he was thinking this Barbara came up behind him and stopped a few feet away.
“What are you doing?”
Carl turned slowly. “Hello.”
“For God’s sake! What are you doing?”
Carl studied her. Her hair was still wet and dripping. Her clothes were already beginning to stick to her in great dark patches. She looked angry.
“Was that you out in the water?” Carl murmured. “I see you got out all right. I thought for a little while you were in some sort of trouble.”
She was standing very close to him, her damp blouse rising and falling. The gray cloth stuck to her wet skin. He could see the outline of her breasts, her nipples hard and dilated, quivering angrily. Her teeth were crooked and uneven, and her hair was thick. But she was pretty. She had lovely eyes, and her skin was smooth and clear. Wet and angry, she was still supple and attractive.
“If I had drowned would you have pulled me out?” She was trembling. Her teeth were chattering.
“I would have pulled you out,” Carl s
aid, folding his arms.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” Barbara shook her head. “Why were you watching me? What’s the matter with you?”
Her voice trembled. He saw tears come up into her eyes. She looked so cold and miserable… He felt sudden pity, and a little guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t be mad.”
She did not answer. She stood without speaking, staring down, wiping water from her neck.
“You better get inside. You should take a bath and dry yourself off. Get into dry clothes. Otherwise you probably will catch cold.”
“Really?”
“Let’s walk back to the dorm. Okay? We’ll go back together.”
“I don’t care.” She turned and started through the trees. Carl hesitated. Then he followed after her, deep in thought, not hurrying but keeping up with her. At the edge of the grove of trees, Barbara halted, waiting impatiently for him.
“Come on! Do you want me to catch cold?”
Carl smiled. “No.”
“Then hurry.”
He came up beside her. “If you walk in the sun and keep out of the shadows you should be all right. But a good hot bath would be a good thing.”
They walked along together, neither of them saying anything.
“Are you mad because I saw you?” Carl asked.
Barbara did not answer.
17
WHILE EVERYONE ELSE was outside enjoying himself, Verne Tildon sat in the office at the typewriter, a sheet of soft yellow paper sticking up in front of him.
With one finger he tapped slowly, weighing each word carefully.
“…I, Verne Tildon, acting as Agent for the American Metals Development Company, during the period of actual transfer…”
Gather Yourselves Together Page 27
