“Marsha dear, I’ll do anything—”
“I’m perfectly okay. I’m wonderful. Goodbye.”
Mrs. Zelenko shrugged at Marjorie and went out. When the door closed Marsha sat up, clutching Marjorie’s handkerchief. Her eyes were moist and reddish. The little white hat was askew over one ear. “Have you ever been closed in on by a herd of bellowing buffalo? My dear cousins were beginning to oppress me. I had to get rid of them, or jump out of the window. And I couldn’t do that. Think what the rain would do to this sweet little hat. Twenty-seven dollars shot to hell.” She laughed. “Well, la Morningstar, are you nervous? I’m not. Calmest bride you ever heard of. Well? Sit down, for heaven’s sake, don’t stand there looking at me.”
Marjorie sat by her on the bed.
Marsha said, “What time is it?”
“Twenty past six.”
“Ten minutes, hey? Just time for one more cigarette.” She took a crumpled pack from the bed, lit one, and inhaled with a hiss. “My last cigarette as a free girl. Next one I smoke will be smoked by Mrs. Michaelson.” She gestured with the cigarette toward the picture of Lou’s mother. “That was her name, too. Mrs. Michaelson. Could anything be queerer? The old girl must be turning over in her grave like a cement mixer.”
“Marsha, don’t say such things. You’ll make a wonderful wife for Lou.”
Marsha looked at her with unnaturally wide eyes. “Why is it, I wonder, that I was destined never to have anything I really wanted?”
With a catch in her voice, Marjorie said, “Look, dear, when the time comes for me to take the fatal step I’ll probably have an attack of the dismals twice as bad as this—”
“It doesn’t seem to me I’ve ever wanted so much. A friend, a good job, a fellow—” Marsha made strange sharp sounds like a cough; but she wasn’t coughing. She seemed to be laughing. She put her arms around Marjorie, pressing her tight, and she cried desperately. The straw of her hat scratched Marjorie’s cheek.
It was very hot and uncomfortable to be hugged by Marsha, but there was nothing to do but pat her shoulder and murmur soothing words. “I’m so alone, darling,” Marsha sobbed. “So absolutely alone. You’ll never know what it means. I’ve always been alone. So alone, so damned alone. And now I’ll always be alone. Forever, till I die.”
Marjorie started to cry too, yet she resented this sudden closeness with Marsha, and tried to fight down her pity. She felt that Marsha was taking advantage of her. “Don’t go on like that. Good Lord, I thought you were such a tough bird. You’re going to be very happy and you know it. Stop crying, Marsha, you’ve got me doing it. We’ll both ruin our faces. There’s nothing to cry about. You should be very happy.”
Marsha withdrew from her and sat bowed on the edge of the bed, crying and crying. Marjorie took away the cigarette that was burning down in her fingers, and crushed it. After a minute or so Marsha blew her nose and sighed. “Ye gods, I needed that. I feel five thousand per cent better.” She got up and began to work on her face at the mirror. “I’ve been fighting it off and fighting it off. How could I cry with those fat gloating harpies around, my sweet maids of honor? Thanks, dear, you saved my life.”
Marjorie said, “Well, live and learn. I’d have bet you’d be the last girl in the world to get maidenly hysterics. I guess we’re all human.”
Marsha turned on her. White powder smudged around her eyes gave her a clown-like look. “What the hell! Don’t you suppose I have feelings? Do you think I’m a lizard or something?”
“Darling, it’s perfectly natural—”
“Oh, sure. Natural for everybody except Marsha Zelenko, hey? The girl with the rubber heart. Listen, kid, when it comes to insensitivity you’re the world’s champion for your weight and size.” She blinked and shook her head. “Oh, look, I don’t want to be mean. I’m all in a stew, you’ve got to forgive me—” She dabbed at her face with the powder puff. “But the hell with it, I’m going to tell you something, Marjorie, even if you never speak to me again. Lou didn’t invite Noel Airman tonight. I did.”
Marjorie said, “Frankly, I surmised as much. I wish you wouldn’t give it another thought, that’s all.”
Marsha faced her, lipstick in hand. “Just like that. Don’t give it another thought. Have you any idea how infuriating it is to me to think of you discarding Noel Airman? How on earth can you do it? That’s what I keep asking myself. Where do you get the willpower? What runs in your veins, anyway—ammonia? It isn’t blood, that’s for sure. You’re madly in love with the man. He loves you the way he’s never loved any girl and probably never will. Do you know what I’d have given for one hour of such a love affair? With such a man? My eyes.”
“Marsha, it really isn’t—”
“I know, I know, I know, it really isn’t any of my damned business. What do I care? I’ve got to say this or I’ll explode. I’ll probably never see you after tonight. I know all too well what you must think of my marrying Lou Michaelson—”
“I like Lou, Marsha, I swear I do, you’re being hysterical—”
“I like him, too. I’m marrying him because life only lasts so long, and I’m damn tired. I could kiss his hands for being willing to take over, and be good to me, and let me relax, and give my folks what they want. I don’t have a Noel Airman in love with me. If I had I’d follow him like a dog. I’d support him. I’d ask him to walk on me every morning, just to feel the weight of his shoes. Oh, Marjorie, you fool, you fool, don’t you know that you’ll be dead a long long time? That you’ll be old and dried up and sick a long long time? You’ve got all of God’s gold at your feet, all He ever gives anybody in this filthy world, youth and good looks and a wonderful lover, and you kick it all aside like garbage just because Noel doesn’t go to synagogue twice a day or something. I tell you, you’re the fool of fools, Marjorie. You’ll die screaming curses at yourself. That is, if you’re not too withered and stupid by then to realize what you did to yourself when you were young and alive and pretty and had your chance—”
Marjorie, her breath all but knocked out by the sudden attack, gasped, “You’re just crazy, that’s all. Noel doesn’t care two hoots about me, and—”
“Oh, shut up, he’s insane about you!”
“All right, and if he is, what do you want me to do—sleep with him like all his other trollops? And then let him kick me out when he’s had all he wants?”
“YES, God damn you, YES! If you’re not woman enough to hold him, all you deserve is to be kicked out. What do you think he is, one of your puking little temple dates? He’s a MAN. If you can make him marry you, okay. And if you can’t, that’s your tough luck! Find out what he’s like. Let him find out what you’re like. Live your life, you poor boob. I’ll tell you a great big secret, Marjorie dear—there’s no hell. You won’t burn. Nothing will happen to you, except you’ll pile up a thousand memories to warm you when you’re an old crock. And what’s more, if you’ve got what it takes you’ll snag yourself a husband—a bloody Prince Charming of a husband, not only witty and good-looking but rich and famous, which Noel Airman is damn well going to be…. Lord, look at you. You’re staring at me as though I had horns and a tail. All right, don’t listen to me. Do as you damn please. What do I care? Go to your temple dances and marry Sammy Lefkowitz, the brassiere manufacturer’s son. It’s probably all you deserve.”
The knocking at the door had been going on for several seconds, but Marjorie, transfixed, had been unable to interrupt. Now it turned to pounding, and Mrs. Zelenko’s indistinct voice called, “Marsha, Marsha dear, for heaven’s sake, it’s past six-thirty!”
“Oh God.” Marsha whirled to the mirror. “Go out there, sugar bun. Keep them at bay, will you? Just for two minutes while I do something about these red holes I’ve got for eyes.”
“Sure I will.” Marjorie hesitated, and said to Marsha’s back, “Good luck, Marsha. God bless you.”
Marsha turned, looked forlornly at her, caught her in her arms, and kissed her. “Oh baby, baby darling. Forget it, forget
everything I said. Goodbye, sugar bun. I can’t tell you why I’ve always loved you, and why I fuss so over you. I should have had a brother or a sister. I’ve had nobody. You’ll be all right no matter what you do, I’m sure. You’re God’s favorite, Marjorie Morningstar. Go along with you.”
Marjorie slipped out through the door, and held off the fretting mother and cousins until Marsha called, “Okay, Marge, let the firing squad in.” They brushed past her, twittering angrily and anxiously.
Chapter 35. THE BREAKING OF A GLASS
A hush had fallen in the apartment; as she walked toward the foyer, Marjorie’s heels ticked on the parquet floor. She was rounding the bend in the hallway when she heard a queer noise from the living room, starting low and sliding up eerily, like the wail of an epileptic. The sound rose and fell and swelled and faded, and after a few moments Marjorie realized that she was hearing some kind of music. The noises were coalescing into the wedding song Oh Promise Me, played on some bizarre instrument, too full-bodied to be an ocarina or a musical saw, too quavery to be an electric organ. It sounded at one moment like a cello, at the next like a flute, and at the next like nothing so much as a cat dying under the wheels of a car. She came tiptoeing into the foyer, and a long arm circled her waist: she shuddered. Noel pulled her close, whispering, “Don’t go in now, wait till she finishes.”
“What in God’s name is that, Noel?”
“It’s a theremin.”
“A what?”
“Theremin. Sh.” He put his finger over her lips, and moved with her to the archway of the living room. The guests were seated in silent rows, facing the windows. Luba Wolono, tall and fearsome, alone at the far end of the room, was waving white hands in the air over the black thing like a diathermy machine. It looked even odder now, because a metal pole two feet high stood in a socket at one end, and a loop of metal jutted out sidewise at the other. She was making the music simply by moving her hands in empty air. Whenever her hand approached the pole, the note became higher; when she pulled it away, it dropped, sometimes to a bass rumble. She made the sound loud or soft by moving her other hand up or down over the loop. Spectacular though the stunt was, she was either not good at this legerdemain or the machine was innately not very musical, for the sobs and slides and groans, from note to note, were hideous to hear. Noel drew her away from the arch and leaned against the wall, his arm still around her waist. “There’s only one person in the world who can really make it sound like anything, Clara Rockmore. I heard her at a recital, she does wonders with it. This woman’s even gotten up like her, but—”
“How on earth does it work?”
“It’s an electronic gadget. You wave your hands in a magnetic field, and make a disturbance that gets translated into music, after a fashion. There was a lot of talk for a while about it being the instrument of the future, and all that nonsense—”
The theremin slid up to a weird off-pitch high note and hung there, pulsing and, as it were, gasping, Wah wah wah. “I just can’t stand it,” Marjorie said.
He patted her shoulder. “There’s a hell of a moral lesson in the thing, honey, if you’re interested in morality this afternoon. In theory it’s the perfect instrument. You can draw out one note forever. Unlimited loud or soft effects. Infinite range of pitch, you can go higher than the human ear can hear and lower than a double bassoon. None of the reediness of wind instruments, no breathing problem. No roughness as in the strings, no bowing problem. All the virtues, no drawbacks. And the damn thing’s unplayable. Think it over, dear, when you pick a husband.”
She murmured, “It’s a wonder you don’t play it.” He chuckled, and pulled her ear.
When the song ended, Noel and Marjorie slipped into seats in the back row. Luba Wolono remained immobile at the theremin. There was a rustle of talk among the guests, and the rabbi stood, placing himself between the windows, facing the aisle. Four men in black skullcaps rose, holding up a little purple canopy on four unsteady sticks. The rabbi turned to Luba Wolono and nodded. Her hands began to saw the air, and a sort of Hindu version of the Lohengrin wedding music streamed out of the theremin, in eerie keening glissandos.
Leading the bridal procession into the living room came the best man, big, bald, gold chain across his vest, chest thrown out, portly stomach pulled in. Next came the Packovitch girls with little bouquets of jonquils, staring at the theremin player, glancing at each other, and biting their lips to suppress their giggles, not with complete success. Then came Mrs. Zelenko, and Lou Michaelson. The procession piled up at the head of the aisle, and the canopy on the four sticks swayed and joggled. Marjorie in this moment changed her mind completely about her own wedding, and decided to have the hugest and most splendid ceremony she could engineer, instead of a modest home affair.
The theremin began to wail and groan Here Comes the Bride. Marsha came in holding the arm of little white-headed Mr. Zelenko, on whose face unregarded tears trickled. She walked past Marjorie with a dead-calm expression, eyes steady behind the little veil; paced up to the side of Lou Michaelson under the wavering canopy, and halted. At the rabbi’s nod, Luba Wolono dropped her arms in mid-melody, and the theremin expired with a grunt. Marsha’s father and her bridegroom, standing on either side of her, were of about the same height and build. They wore identical black suits, and their hair was almost the same color. From the back it was hard to tell which was which.
It was a traditional ceremony, and it ended in the traditional way, with Lou Michaelson crushing under his heel a wineglass wrapped in paper. At the sound of breaking glass, the guests applauded, cheered, and surged forward. “Good luck! Good luck! Good luck!” There was a rush to shake Lou’s hand and kiss the bride under the wavering canopy. The theremin began whooping in a grotesque simulation of joy.
“That confounded breaking of a glass. It always shocks me,” Noel said. “Doesn’t it you? Leave it to the Jews to work up a spine-chilling symbol for all occasions.”
Marjorie said, “My father once told me it’s a reminder of the destruction of the temple.”
“It’s more than that. It’s—I don’t know, it must be something out of the mists of time, out of The Golden Bough. I saw an uncle of mine do that when I was four and a half years old. I had dreams about it for years. I had a feeling then, a real grisly childish fancy, that he was symbolically breaking his bride under his foot. Hell, like any real symbol, I guess it means whatever your mind brings to it. Let’s go grab some champagne before the panic starts.”
Soon there was a jovial crush in the dining room around a table heaped with sliced meats, smoked fish, roast fowls, salads, and cakes. Marsha moved through the crowd with Lou at her side, the center of a little travelling whirlpool of gaiety. She laughed, she hugged, she kissed people; she snapped pert answers to jokes, causing roars and giggles. In one hand she carried a glass of champagne, in the other a smoking cigarette. Marjorie, standing beside Noel in a corner, watched her, amazed. Marsha swept by them. “Bless you, my children! Grab the rabbi before he leaves, why don’t you? Let’s make it a double wedding.” With a wave of her glass and an exuberant laugh she was gone.
“She looks really happy,” Marjorie said.
“I’m sure she is,” Noel said. “This fellow is quite an improvement over Carlos Ringel, and at one time she’d have settled for Carlos gladly.”
“Carlos Ringel was an old horror.”
Noel swirled the champagne in his glass. “Sure, but Marsha’s never had too much to offer, has she? With Carlos she traded sex for attention. Now it’s youth for security. When you haven’t got charm or good looks, your bargaining power is limited.”
“I think Marsha’s charming. Very charming.”
“Well, she’s what you’d call the bulging sort. You know, bulging figure, bulging eyes, bulging appetites, bulging eagerness to please, bulging desire to get places. They’re a type, like albinos. You run across them all the time. They attract you for a while with their energy and bounce, but they’re really bores.”
&nb
sp; “I hate such pigeonholing of people. It’s glib and it’s false.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Noel said. “Texans, now, are certainly Texans, aren’t they? Good sports are good sports. And I’m afraid bulgers are bulgers.”
“And what’s my pigeonhole, I wonder?” Marjorie was feeling dizzy and loose-tongued, having drunk a couple of glasses of champagne too fast. “Oh, excuse me, I forgot. I’m the West End Avenue prig. The ordinary West End Avenue prig.”
“Don’t misquote me, please. That’s exactly what I said you weren’t.”
“Yes, you labored under the delusion that I was different, for a while. But you found out otherwise, didn’t you, Noel?” She looked him straight in the face. The crowd had jostled them close together. He looked at her rather sternly, with compressed lips curving down. It was a look she knew very well; Marsha was right, this man was still in love with her. Her body was warm and restless.
He said, “You’re a prig, true enough. But then all angels are, more or less. An angel’s job is being holier than thou.”
“Still turning the phrases.”
“Don’t patronize me, you haunting little hag, or I’ll hit you with a bottle of champagne.”
They carried plates piled with food to the window seat in the deserted living room, where the Negro was folding and clattering the gilt chairs into a corner. For a while they ate in silence. Black rain lashed the window glass, and the wind sighed and whistled through the frames. “Nice night for a stroll in the park,” Noel said. “Even the perverts and the muggers wouldn’t go out in this.”
Marjorie leaned her hot cheek against the window. “I love to look at it. I always did. The park road and the Broadway lights, the big hotels, they make such a wonderful show on a rainy night. I used to live in the El Dorado, you know.”
“I know.” He lightly kissed the side of her forehead.
She glanced up at him, surprised. “What was that for?”