Walter had always loved baseball. If he would agree to manage the team, then soon he would be managing the Kitchen. If he managed the Kitchen, he could mature by the time of Mr. Baldish’s retirement into the manager for the mill itself Under fresh, energetic leadership it could be brought back up to capacity, back up to prewar productivity. He could live right there in Collins House in the meantime. And if he wouldn’t coach the team, then Norma Baldish would have to.
The wheat crown from the mill entrance could be reproduced on the uniform pockets.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have Walter home?” Ada said, glancing Irini’s way.
“Of course, I would want the girls eating Sweetwheats,” said Henry. “We’d have to be pretty strict about that. We wouldn’t know how to assess their victories otherwise.” He stood and shook out his pajama legs. “Irini, let’s have that pie now, shall we? Let’s repair to the kitchen for a piece of pie.”
Irini cut two pieces, looking carefully at each for ants. If they were there, they were cunningly disguised as cinnamon. She poured three glasses of milk and sat with Ada and Henry at the breakfast table.
“Nine girls on a baseball team,” said Ada. “Nine girls, all eating Sweetwheats. Isn’t that better than one ape?”
“The ape could be a mascot,” said Henry. “A smallish ape. An ape would really fill the seats.”
One minute there was no baseball team; there was only the ape, the union, and some ants; the next minute he had reasoned it into being, created it out of the sheer force of logic. The Sweetwheat Sweethearts. He was obviously smitten. There was no reason for Ada to waste the bargaining power of the ape on it now. “I’ve been thinking of going to India,” she said. “I just have a feeling that the things Mr. Gandhi is doing in India are going to be important even to us here in Magrit.”
Henry looked stricken. Ada wasn’t Maggie, of course, but he missed her dreadfully whenever she was gone. He took a swallow of milk, a big bite of pie. “There’s a kind of sharp taste to the filling,” he complained. “Mother’s pie never had that bitter taste.”
“Have a piece, Irini,” said Ada. “It’s delicious,” but Irini said no, thank you. The clock struck twelve.
Maggie Collins writes: “There is no doubt that the war will take its toll on the marriage prospects of young American women. With that in mind, there are things a determined girl can do to improve her chances. Those occupations least likely to marry remain librarians and teachers. Polls have recently confirmed what has long been suspected; most men do not want brainy women. Stewardesses have turned out to be that occupation blessed most often with marriage. The key elements appear to be uniforms and travel.”
6
Irini learned to play ball by playing it in Arlys Fossum’s backyard. She learned to play catch from her father. He bought her a mitt for her sixth birthday, showed her how to oil it a little at a time. “It was so huge my hand would slip right out,” my mother said. “It was like an oven mitt, like a clown’s shoe. Only it smelled so wonderful. The best smell in the world. Better than White Shoulders perfume. Better than vanilla extract. Better than a new book or the minute before it rains. Neatsfoot oil and leather. Leather and freshly cut grass.”
They tossed the ball around on weekends and her father took to inviting her to play whenever he had something difficult or embarrassing or female to talk to her about. “Get your mitt, darling,” he’d say. “I’ll throw you some pop-ups.”
The word "pop-ups" was the key. If he had nothing awkward to discuss he’d say, "Let’s play catch." Irini would station herself at the far end of the yard. If what he had in mind was a chat, he’d motion her in. "Not so far off, Irini. I don’t want to have to shout."
“But you said you were going to throw to me.”
“Pop-ups. Really high. Move in.” Her father would force her even closer with his first throw. “Easy does it, Irini. Steady on. Just wait underneath it. Good girl.”
He would begin to speak, all in a rush. “Now, Irini,” he said one day when she was twelve. “You’re growing up and there are some things your mother would want me to tell you. I wish she were here—this really should come from her, but she’s not and there’s no help for it. There are two kinds of people in this world. Toss the ball back now. Whoa! Nice and easy. Don’t forget how close you’re standing. Men and women. Sometimes they fall in love and get married, and that’s what your mother would want me to talk to you about. The facts of life.”
“All right.”
“I’m going to pop-up to your right now. Catch it on the right. Don’t move over. Good girl. Good glove. People who are in love want to touch each other. They want to hug and kiss. So the closest people can be is when they take off their clothes and lie down together. Oh, unlucky. You took your eye off the ball. You’d be surprised how much of baseball is really just a matter of keeping your eye on the ball.”
“Sissy told me that’s what married people did, but I didn’t believe her. She said she had both her parents so she should know, but I said you and Mother would never have. I said had she ever really seen her parents and she said no, but Jimmy had. So I’m supposed to believe Jimmy Tarken. You and Mother wouldn’t have ever. Would you?”
“Let’s try to focus on the big picture, Irini. When I say these are the facts of life, I don’t mean the facts of someone’s little life, like me and your mother or the Tarkens. This is the big story, the story of humanity. Throw in a few wars and a few diseases and a few acts of God and you have the history of the world.”
“I just can’t believe that everyone would do that. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe that you believe it.”
“Irini, if you’re so shocked by people taking off their clothes, I’m not going to be able to finish this.”
“Don’t. Do you think I want to go to school tomorrow and sit at my desk and suddenly during history be thinking about Mrs. Tarken taking her clothes off with Mr. Tarken? No, thank you. Give me a really high one.”
“So the man makes a lot of sperm and he makes it in his penis. You took your eye off the ball again.”
“Did you say peanuts?”
“No.”
“Oh. I thought you did. Throw me another high one.”
“The woman makes an egg inside her body, but she needs sperm from the man. When the sperm reaches the egg, the egg can begin to grow into a baby. Every baby starts with sperm and an egg. No other way. No exceptions. On a high fly, you have time to move to the right like that, but it’s a good idea to practice catching on the right so you learn to catch across your body. On a line drive you won’t have the time to move.”
“Do you really believe what you’re telling me?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“So you really believe the Tarkens do this. You can picture the Tarkens doing this.”
“Nice catch. Let’s not focus so exclusively on the Tarkens. Let’s imagine a man and a woman we neither of us know. A married couple in Italy. The Giovannis. Mr. Giovanni wants to be as close to Mrs. Giovanni as he can possibly be, because he loves her.”
“It’s easier to picture the Italians, because of all the art. I believe you when you talk about the Italians. That doesn’t mean that everybody would. I can give you the names of a dozen other people here in Magrit besides the Tarkens I don’t think would, right off the top of my head.”
“Softly, Irini. Underhand. I’m standing right next to you. It could be a couple in England. Mr. and Mrs. Peabody.”
“I don’t mind the kissing and hugging. I like to think about kissing.”
“Mr. Peabody puts his penis in Mrs. Peabody’s vagina. I’m sorry, Irini. I don’t know any other way to say it.”
“It taught me great powers of concentration,” my mother said. “I was pretty resistant to the facts of life, but I did learn to keep my eye on the ball no matter what. I would face the pitcher, I would watch the ball start in her mitt, then move to her shoulder, then leave the mound, sailing right at me, getting bigger and b
igger, waxing like a moon. And the infield would be riding me the whole time. Hey, batter. Swing, batter. But I wouldn’t even hear it. Somewhere deep and quiet inside I would say to myself, ‘Mr. Peabody,’ just for the timing of it and then the ball would be leaving my bat on its way out to the fence, getting little again, but I couldn’t stop to watch, I’d be running, and whatever they’d been saying, they weren’t saying it anymore.”
7
My parents’ generation thought the great American art form was the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. They spent their impressionable, formative years in the Depression and faced World War II as young adults, all the while sucking in frightening amounts of nicotine. Naturally they are quite mad. Or perhaps it was those ubiquitous hats pressing, always pressing down on their heads.
But then look at their parents. World War I as teenagers and the Depression as adults and pretty soon our grandparents had convinced themselves that there was nothing sexier than a man who could tap dance.
Irini sat in the Collins kitchen and waited for her father. She had cleared up the second set of dishes and wrapped the remains of the pie. Henry Collins nodded over the table, coming to now and then with a start, only to doze again. It embarrassed Irini. “Please don’t feel you have to wait up with me.” She would much rather have been by herself anyway.
“I’m not asleep,” Henry said peevishly.
“No one said you were,” said Ada. “Farthest thing from our minds.” She invited Irini to play casino with her. She kept a deck in the drawer with the tablecloths. Ada was quite the shuffler. She did bridges and waterfalls, riffs and twists. She dealt with the speed of a much younger woman. The cards, when Irini got them, were slippery with cold cream.
Irini’s hand was heavy on hearts. She waited for Ada to take her turn, wrapping her feet around the legs of the large breakfast table chair. Everything in Collins House was slightly oversized. It had a subtle, Alice-in-Wonderland effect on Irini. The longer she stayed, the smaller she got. If her father didn’t show up soon, she would be a very little girl.
No one in the Collins family really fit the house. Ada was a medium-sized woman and Henry was a small man. Walter’s height had been tracked on the kitchen doorjamb. The final mark put him at five feet seven inches, but the measurement was at least six years old.
Irini tapped her cards, rearranged them. Ada was building kings when they heard a car motor and the dogs barking. “There goes the game,” said Ada. She managed a graceful note of disappointment. Irini was holding big casino, and she wasn’t disappointed.
She was angry. She hadn’t realized this until she stood. She was so angry her legs shook. Outside she heard the dogs coming as a unit up the gravel path.
“Car trouble?” she asked sarcastically as she opened the door. Or she started to say it. She lost the last syllable in surprise. The man at the door was Thomas Holcrow. She recognized him instantly, even though he was bundled for a blizzard and wore a red scarf across his mouth. He lowered it.
“You could say that,” he said. “Your dad was having a little trouble inserting the key.” He removed and replaced his hat, stooped to pick up Irini’s cards where she had dropped them. “The jack of hearts,” he said, handing them to her. “That’s a lucky card. You’re about to win.” His gloved hand brushed her bare one.
She pulled back and closed the door on him. Ada was in her nightclothes and, anyway, who was Thomas Holcrow? “Don’t worry,” she said to Ada, loudly for Holcrow to hear. “Even if he tries to force the door I can hold it, no problem. I’m much stronger than he is.” Her voice was higher than she would have liked. She had spun from anger to surprise to disappointment too quickly and now she was going to cry.
He was not forcing. “Miss Doyle,” he said. “I told your father I would drive you home.”
“The dogs are highly trained,” said Ada. “Highly trained watch-dogs.” Irini could hear the sound of panting and licking. “Who is the nice young man?” Ada asked her.
“Thomas Holcrow. He works for the railroads.”
“And who are his people?”
“I don’t have a clue,” said Irini, in a voice that would starch shirts. “He may not even have people, for all I know.”
“Your father is in the car,” said Holcrow through the door. “And I have more people than you could shake a stick at. Please, Miss Doyle, do me the honor of allowing me to escort you home.”
It was 1947 and haven’t I spent my whole life hearing how safe it used to be? Yet a quick perusal of the nation’s newspapers for April of that year shows us that in 1947 there was a serial killer stalking Los Angeles and murdering young women; there was a shocking double murder in Bloomington, Indiana, and an ordinary 1990’s number of children were missing all around the Midwest.
Nothing at all untoward in Magrit, though, and apparently Irini could not think of a really good reason not to get in the car with a strange man. She fetched her coat and followed him through the yard. She had never seen him standing up before. He was taller than her father and had more bulk, but most of that might be the coat.
The fog had thickened to a roux. Irini could not see ahead to the car and couldn’t have looked up to do so anyway. Snow had melted during the day, and then refrozen into ice. She had to watch every step. Her mouth steamed like a teapot, adding to the general cloudiness.
She was blindsided into a pin oak by a large dog, actually knocked to the ground. Holcrow was from Los Angeles and ice wasn’t his terrain, but even in California they must have dogs, Irini thought angrily. A gentleman wouldn’t have left her behind. Not that she would have taken Holcrow’s arm, even if he had offered it. She picked herself up and stumbled through the gate, tripping into the backseat of the LaSalle. Holcrow was holding the door for her.
“How are things at Collins House?” her father asked heartily. Someone who knew him less well might not have noticed immediately that he was drunk. His words were clear; he was upright in his seat, his eyes were wide. But there was more than a trace of effort involved in these activities. He was blinking too often. Looking into his eyes by the overhead light, Irini saw red. Holcrow closed the door and the light went off.
“You’re two hours late,” she answered. Her own voice was even and matter-of-fact. What he could do, she could do.
He seemed amazed. “Am I? That doesn’t seem possible. I was keeping careful track.” Already he was losing control. His posture softened. His words blurred around the edges.
Holcrow lowered his scarf. It was crusted with bits of frozen smoke-colored breath. He started the engine. He turned on the wipers. They scraped unpleasantly over the glass and then they stopped. “I can’t believe how quickly the windows ice up out here,” he said. “I can’t believe you people live like this. Dog my cats!” He pulled the scarf into place and got out to chip.
“Mr. California,” said Irini’s father jovially. He was sharing the moment with her.
“More than two hours late.”
“You must sleep in tomorrow,” her father said. “Have a nice long visit with the sandman. I won’t even hear of you getting up to go to work.”
Holcrow got back in the car. They eased away from Collins House. Irini was very tired. She lay back and let the curves and turns press her body this way and that. There was something about a moving car and fog that had always made her feel safe. This was ridiculous, of course. In her conscious mind, she knew it was ridiculous. But deeper than that, in her body instead of her mind, she felt as though she were wrapped for packing, wrapped in cotton.
Her father had a different attitude. “Steer into the turn if you start to slide,” Irini’s father said. “I mean just in case that should happen. Don’t slam the brakes.”
Holcrow hit the new pothole Fanny had found on the way in, although at a much lesser speed. Irini bounced against the door. “There go the shocks,” Holcrow said.
“Norma Baldish’ll have that fixed right up,” Irini’s father assured him. “Norma’s just whizbang with tar.” He tur
ned politely to Irini. “What is Mrs. Ada up to these days?” He was trying to gauge how angry she was. She could smell the liquor now.
She wasn’t really mad at him. She blamed Holcrow. If her father hadn’t had a companion, he wouldn’t have forgotten her. He never drank so much unless someone else was paying. “She’s going to India. All of a sudden she’s interested in Mr. Gandhi. She says we’re just going to have to find a different path now. She says the bomb has changed everything.”
“She’s got that right. She could certainly do worse for causes,” Irini’s father said. He leaned tipsily into the front seat. “Like the first Mrs. Collins,” he told Holcrow.
The first Mrs. Collins had been celebrated for her spiritedness, not to be confused with spirits, of which she did not approve. In her youth she drank occasionally and occasionally excessively. In those days she was referred to as high-spirited. When she joined the temperance movement, she became public-spirited. She stood out among the other like-minded, like-dressed women in her particular troop, because she loved the raids and conducted herself without the customary solemnity during them. There is, of course, no zealot like the convert, or maybe she merely liked to bust things up.
After she died, when Henry married Ada, he told people he wanted a young wife, someone unformed and malleable, someone, it is to be suspected, who would not be celebrated for her spiritedness.
“I was hoping to meet Ada Collins,” Holcrow said. “And Mr. Collins, too. And Maggie. They sound like swell people. Perhaps Irini would introduce me sometime.”
“I could introduce you,” Irini’s father offered. “To everyone but Maggie. Can’t help you there.” He gave Irini a delighted look. “Not that she wouldn’t be a treat. And Mrs. Ada’s all right. But the first Mrs. Collins, now, she was a corker. She was the berries. A black-bonneted woman with a wicked overhand. A woman who loved the sound of breaking glass. As who among us doesn’t?” Irini’s father observed. “Take a left here. It’s the house in the middle. As if you didn’t know.”