Rumors of Peace (15 page)

I nodded, surprised and pleased by her admission.

“I really think he should be sent to a detention camp,” she said.

“Except the camps are no good, they're all coming back. They ought to—” But something in her face cut me off. She was listening too closely, her eyes slightly narrowed.

“They ought to be done away with,” she prompted. “Isn't that right?”

And then I realized she was still arguing, but slyly, leading me on.

“Answer quickly,” she urged. “Don't hedge.”

I remained silent, not daring to say yes, unable to bring myself to say no. And in her eyes, for the first time since I had known her, there grew a look of contempt.

“Were you among the brilliant minds that flooded the house of that mixed couple?”

“No.”

“But you approved?”

I said nothing, growing very still inside, wary.

She sat up slowly. “So this is what your fine hatred is all about. You realize, of course, that what you feel isn't even hatred, only a scabby hysteria that attacks inferior souls. Cretins. Lynch mobs. Medieval witch-hunters. Nonthinkers, the lot. That's the company you're in.”

A powerful self-protective instinct was layering me, as if with coats of hard, deflective pearl. Remote, encapsulated, shrewd, I lifted my eyes. “That's the company
you're
in. I didn't say anything.”

“That was the Socratic method of question and answer I was using, for your information.”

“I don't know, but you said Annuncio should be sent to a camp, and that they should all be done away with. And you're always right. So I didn't say anything.”

“Just a moment, please. You said the camps weren't enough.”

“I know. The bad Japs can come back with the good ones, but why should the good ones be there in the first place? There ought to be some way that's fairer. That's what I was saying, but you didn't let me finish. You said they should all be killed. But even if you think Annuncio's a Jap, you shouldn't want him killed.”

“I do not want Annuncio killed! That's just the point I'm making!
Where is your brain? I'm speaking
against
prejudice and terrorism. I'm taking you to task for your trashy mob mentality.”

“But I don't know what you're talking about. I don't hate them.” The lie came out surprisingly easy, and I even looked at her searchingly as I said it.

“Then what is all this hatred you've been rhapsodizing over since Main Street? What are you talking about? If you even know?”

“Well, I know.” Carefully looking down at the grass, carefully choosing my words. “I know I hate cruelty and evil, and Japan is cruel and evil, and so is Germany. But I don't hate Annuncio. I look at him because if he's pretending to be a Filipino, I wonder how long he can get away with it and stay safe. I don't hate the California Japs.”

“I wonder. How do you see the color of their skin?”

“I don't know. Brass.”

“Does it occur to you that we look like peeled bananas to them? It behooves a racist to think about that. I assume you're in league against Mexicans and Negroes as well?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Mexicans, Negroes, they didn't belong to an enemy nation. She was accusing me of something I couldn't even begin to follow, and I felt the honest resentment of someone unjustly attacked. “You're trying to twist me into something I'm not,” I protested. “Just to be right.”

“Not at all. I'm merely using the Socratic method. And I'm relieved if I'm wrong. But let's return to your statement about Japan and Germany. You say they're evil and cruel. Granted, one knows about Japanese atrocities, and one is well aware of the persecutions in Germany before the war, but the horrible fact is that at one time or another, all nations have. . . .”

She talked on. I nodded now and then, but I was not listening. From deep within my pearl, I was savoring my safety. She had dislodged nothing. Now and then a phrase floated through, as if from a great distance: “Man is stupid because he allows evil, but he's not evil in himself . . . you can't hate nations, they're only people, you might as well hate everyone in this park . . . you're expressing patriotism in its most primitive form, it must be nipped in the bud. . . .” Slow nods of my head, as if mulling
her wisdom, but I was thinking that there was great advantage in talking with someone who thought you were dumber than they; they never saw very far inside you because they didn't think there was very far to see. Still, I had come dangerously close to some sort of demolishment. I would never again throw out my deepest questions. It was better to remain locked up in the dark with them. This I knew absolutely, once and for all.

She had come to an end. “I must be getting on home,” she said, gathering up her books. “I'm glad we talked. I think you may have learned something.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I have.”

P
EGGY WAS SO IMPRESSED
with herself as a scholar that she was hard to bear, but in a way she was easier to be around, more zestful and communicative, like her old self.

“It all fits together,” she said. “It's sort of exciting, even.”

“Really,” I said.

“I wish you'd let Peggy inspire you,” said Helen Maria. “You should listen. Do you realize that every night she drills herself in grammar and spelling? Do you realize that she enhances her lessons with supplementary reading of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica?
My set is gone, you'll notice. It's on temporary loan to my sister, at her own request.”

It was too much. I couldn't picture anyone laboring over pages not even assigned. We were in Helen Maria's room; it was late in the afternoon, hot but not broiling. Peggy had changed into her old baggy shorts to be comfortable, and that was heartening, if only she would stop talking about her studies. But she was walking back and forth with bright eyes.

“What I mean, it really fits together. It's amazing. Like yesterday in Science, remember we were studying rocks? Okay, now listen. Last night when I was doing homework on General Lafayette I looked him up in the encyclopedia, and there were a lot of references to the French Revolution, so I looked up the French Revolution because I didn't know there was one. Well, first thing I came to was the word
feudal,
so I
looked that up in the dictionary, and the definition mentioned the word
vassal,
so I looked that up, and it came from the word
upo,
so I looked that up, and it was from the Greek word
hypo,
which means ‘under'—and that came right back to the science lesson!
Hypothermal.
‘Under' plus ‘heat.' Molten rock under the surface!”

Helen Maria stood gazing at her sister. Her eyes were shining.

“I guess that's interesting,” I said. “You mean it makes sense.”

“Absolutely,” said Peggy.

“You mean it really does. It's all connected up.”

“Of course,” said Helen Maria. “That's what learning is all about. I have been trying to tell you that for ages. From ignorance and confusion, learning leads
out.”

“Out where?” I asked. A sudden glimpse of the black, starless sky.

“To more learning, greater understanding. One fact unfolds another. Liken it to a great flower opening.”

“One big flower?” I asked carefully.

“The flower of knowledge.”

I could see it. A big golden rose, with the petals fitting smoothly together and opening one by one to release its light, until the whole flower blazed like the sun. I nodded thoughtfully.

“Yoo-hoo!” someone called from the front door. “Anybody home?”

“What's that?” asked Helen Maria, turning her head.

A clatter of high heels across the Dungeon.

“It must be Aunt Dorothy!” cried Peggy.

“Oh God, what is wrong with the woman! She's not supposed to arrive till the weekend!”

The heels clattered down the hall. Peggy flung the door open.

“Peggy, darling!”

She didn't look like a wino. She was tall and red-haired, with a small white hat perched on the side of her head. She wore a navy blue suit with white ruffles sticking out in front, and she had very white teeth, very pink cheeks, and very red lips. There were a lot of rings on her fingers, and she carried a pair of white gloves in her hand. She stood in the doorway, hugging Peggy, then beamed at the genius.

“Helen Maria!”

Helen Maria extended her hand.

“How grown-up you've got, both of you! And Peggy, so slender! Estelle mentioned it in her letter, but I never
dreamed
—Roger! Roger! Come meet these two beautiful children! And who is this?” she asked warmly, smiling at me.

“It's my friend Suse,” said Peggy. “And this is my aunt Dorothy from Mexico City!” I said hello over the threshold. Aunt Dorothy did not attempt to step inside the sacred chamber, no doubt having learned from previous visits. Gesturing eagerly, she brought a tall gentleman into view and clasped him around the waist. He was interesting-looking, with sunken cheeks and haggard eyes and rather long pale hair like an Englishman. He wore a dark blue jacket with gold buttons—a blazer, Helen Maria told me later, possibly the first blazer ever to be seen in Mendoza.

He shook hands with all of us, smiling tiredly, then smiled tiredly at Aunt Dorothy.

“We've been on that miserable train for days,” she told us. “The coaches are just swarming and choking with soldiers, poor things, how can they sleep, but they do! We didn't catch a wink, ourselves, we are
staggering
with fatigue, we must absolutely have some sleep or we'll die on the spot!”

“Of course,” said Helen Maria in her finest, most British tones. “The guest room has been prepared.”

“Oh, but Roger insists on being stuffy.” Aunt Dorothy shook a coy finger at him. “He thinks he should stay at a hotel.”

“If there is one,” he said.

He must be joking. “Of course we've got hotels.” I told him. “The Travellers' is the best. It's on the corner of Main and Alhambra.”

“Yes,” said Helen Maria. “It's charming. It will remind you of a pesthouse in Whitechapel.” Her accent was more pronounced than I had ever heard it, as if each word were chipped from a block of ice. But there was nothing icy about her smile.

“Well, I'll just have a try,” he said with his weary smile, and started off. Aunt Dorothy went down the hall with him, Peggy tagging along.

“She must lead him a dog's life,” said Helen Maria. “He looks exhausted.”

“Well, he's old.”

“Nonsense. He's about the same age as George.”

Exactly. Mr. Tatanian was old too. Odd how she liked them so creased and frazzled.

“Aunt Dorothy's gone to lay down,” Peggy informed us breathlessly, slipping back inside.

“Lie, and what's there to be so breathless about? They're not royalty.”

Peggy ignored this. “Isn't she fabulous?” she asked me.

“She doesn't look like a wino. I thought she would look like a wino.”

“She's taken the cure,” said Helen Maria. “Which accounts for the strained look.”

“She doesn't look strained,” Peggy objected. “I think she looks very gorgeous, in this very grown-up sort of way.”

“I should hope she looks grown-up, at the age of fifty-five.”

“I don't care. She's fabulous. And you ought to see their luggage, it's fabulous. His is maroon and hers is cream and they've got stickers from everywhere. He just took his overnight case because the cab already left. I told him Jack would drive his suitcase down later.”

“I can't feature him in that fleabag,” said Helen Maria.

I gave her a cool look. The Travellers' Hotel was Mendozas's finest; hardly a fleabag. And even if it had been, Roger looked too worn-out to be disappointed in anything. I wondered if his constitution had been shattered in the London blitz.

But Peggy felt he was continental. “Bulgarian, maybe.”

“Bulgaria is Axis,” I told her contemptuously.

“He's English,” Helen Maria broke in. “It's there in the vowels. He's one of your roaming British expatriates.”

Peggy hitched up her big shorts and said she'd better get into something decent for dinner.

“He is to dine with us tonight?” asked Helen Maria.

“That's what they said.”

“What a bother.” But she walked immediately to her closet. I left her pulling out a dark red velvet dress which looked both too hot and too fancy to wear till Christmas.

“You know where Roger was born?” Peggy hailed me the next morning. “Bend, Oregon.”

“Bend, Oregon?”

“The accent goes away when he's drunk. Take my word, kid, he's never even
been
to England. He doesn't even have any money. He said he used to, but twenty-nine did him in, it's a roulette number I figure. And Aunt Dorothy sat there looking just miserable because he showed up drunk and kept talking and talking and finally fell asleep at the table with pudding on his chin. He was really disgusting. I felt sorry for her.”

“Helen Maria must have been furious. She liked him.”

“I know, she got all dressed up and everything. She was really mad. Afterwards she said something about him to Aunt Dorothy, I don't know what, and Aunt Dorothy said don't be so hard on people and started crying. This morning she didn't smile or anything. I hate to say it, but she was more fun before she went on the wagon.”

A few days later the visit was declared a failure. Roger stayed in his hotel room, pestering Aunt Dorothy with phone calls, which she answered in angry whispers, hanging up with an anxious hand. She wandered around the house, drinking ginger ale until it came out of her ears, and she didn't want to visit Estelle's relatives or take a walk or go to the movies, and when they had a barbecue in the garden, that didn't cheer her up either. All she did was talk.

“All she talks about is when she was young,” said Peggy. “Or how she hates ginger ale. She's really boring. And there's this creepy feeling I get, like she wants to eat me up. I never go near her.”

Peggy pleaded homework. Helen Maria kept to her chamber. Mr. Hatton disappeared into his workshop. It was poor Dr. Hatton who was maneuvered into the Dungeon and placed in a chair before the fireplace, to sit listening as their unhappy guest talked on and on, breaking off only to feed the roar of the flames. She had used up almost all their wood. The weather was warm, but she claimed she was frozen to the bone.