A roar came from the crowd outside the window. She sat up and looked out. An olive-and-tan Army Chevrolet had pulled up next to the stage just beneath the big blue and white factory
E
flag.
The crowd roared again as a man got out of the back seat and clambered up onto the platform.
The man, of course, was me.
I did nothing but the applause stretched out into embarrassment. Helplessly I looked away. I was still new enough at it to feel like an idiot. I turned and looked up.
A girl was standing in the window just above the building entrance. At first my gaze swept on past her, then by reflex, or precognition, or kismet, or what have you, my eyes came back to her. In that fractional moment our eyes met.
Nora turned angrily from the window. It was too much. She didn’t belong here, she should never have come to work here in the first place. She hesitated a moment, then went downstairs to the personnel office.
She was bound to quit someday, why not today, the day of her first show?
So now it was all different. She was alive once more and the world was happening all around her. She picked up the thread of a conversation. San Corwin, the art critic of the
Examiner
, was talking to a man she didn’t know.
“Assemblage is the art of the future,” he was saying. “We’re finding out every day that this war goes on that the only true art is the result of accident. War is destroying man’s avowed purpose and the only thing that will be left when all this is over will be the result of accident. So assemblage will be the only art form that reflects the attempt of Nature to arrange itself into something of meaning.”
She plunged headlong into the conversation. Anytime she could find herself on the opposite side of an argument with Sam, she was ready for it. She remembered when she too had been impressed with his erudition. She had been not quite seventeen and an enthusiastic art major the night she had gone to his apartment for a few words of wisdom.
They had ended up taking their differences of opinion to bed in order to resolve them. She still remembered the frightened expression on his face when she’d told him afterward that she was below the legal age of consent.
Now she turned and looked into Sam’s face. “I disagree, Sam. Art without purpose is nothing. It merely expresses the emptiness of the artist. Especially in sculpture. A finished work must have something to say, even if its creator is the only one who can hear it.”
She smiled at the man she didn’t know and apologized, holding out her hand. “I’m Nora Hayden and sometimes Sam gets me going.”
The small middle-aged man with the pleasant smile took her hand. “I suspect Sam does that sometimes to get a rise out of people. I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Hayden. I’m Warren Bell.”
She raised her eyes in surprise. Warren Bell was one of the leading art teachers in the country. “Professor Bell, this is an honor.” She turned to Sam accusingly. “You should have let us know that Dr. Bell was coming, Sam.”
“Don’t scold him, Miss Hayden. I hadn’t expected to be here, actually. I had a luncheon date with Sam and he suggested I tag along. Since I’d heard so much about your work, I couldn’t resist.”
“Professor Bell is planning a contemporary American sculpture show down at U.S.C.,” Sam said. “I told him that no show would be complete without something of yours in it. So you see I’m not as much against you as you think.”
She held up her hand in mock surrender. “Sam, you’re absolutely right. Assemblage is the art of
the future!”
They all laughed.
“I’ll get Arlene Gately to show you around,” she said to Dr. Bell. Arlene Gately, who ran a small gallery downtown, was acting as her sponsor and agent.
“That won’t be necessary. I’d really much prefer to poke around on my own.” “Please do.” She smiled. “If there’s anything you want to know, please ask me.”
The professor bowed slightly and wandered off. Nora turned back to Sam. “You stinker!” she whispered. “You might have tipped me off.”
“I wanted to. But every time I looked for you, you were surrounded.” He fished a pipe out of his jacket and stuck it in his mouth. “By the way, is it true that you may have a show at the Clay Club in New York next month?”
She looked at him curiously. “How did you know that?” “Arlene. Where else?”
“Sometimes Arlene talks too much,” she said. “It’s not definite yet.” She looked after Professor Bell. “Do you really think he’ll take something?”
“Who knows? We’ll keep our fingers crossed. It’s time San Francisco came up with another real sculptor besides Bufano.”
“Do you think I’m real, Sam?” she said, a sudden seriousness in her eyes.
“You’re the realest there is,” he said, equally serious. “And I have a hunch Bell will agree with
me.”
She took a deep breath. “Then I’ll keep both my fingers and toes crossed.”
He turned back to her and smiled. “If it works, maybe for a change I won’t have to listen to an
artistwho claims that the only true inspiration is to be found in Marxism.” She laughed. “Poor Sam, you do have your troubles, don’t you?”
“How would you know?” he asked wryly. “I haven’t seen much of you lately.”
She put her hand on his arm. “It isn’t that I love you any the less, Sam. It’s just that I’ve been doing my bit. Between the aircraft factory and the studio I haven’t been able to get around very much.”
“You seem sort of tense. What you need is one of my famous relaxing treatments.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. Neither of them was a fool. And favors were favors. It meant nothing and it meant everything. That was the kind of world they lived in. “It has been a long time, Sam, hasn’t it?”
“Too long,” he replied.
“Do you think the doctor could find time for me tonight?” “I think he might manage. About eight, at my place?”
“I’ll be there.”
She watched him as he walked up to Professor Bell. She tried to hear what they were saying but a hand on her arm turned her away.
“How is it going, my dear?” “Fine, Mother.”
“I’m glad.” Cecelia Hayden smiled. She didn’t smile very often, and it lit up the bright blue eyes under her carefully combed white hair. “I was wondering if you had time to do me a little favor.”
“What is it, Mother?”
“There’s a young man, the son of a friend of your father’s. I had forgotten about your show when I invited him for cocktails this afternoon. He’ll probably stay for dinner.”
“Oh, Mother!” Nora said in an exasperated voice. “This just isn’t the time. I’ve got too many things on my mind.”
“Please, dear.”
Nora looked at her mother. Those two words left no room for argument. Despite her frail appearance, Cecelia Hayden was hard as a rock.
“He seems such a nice young man,” she continued. “A war hero. And he has just three days before he returns to duty. I’m sure you’ll like him. I told Charles to bring him over when he arrived.”
Nora nodded and turned just as Sam came over to her, an excited expression on his face. “He wants
The Dying Man
.”
“Not that one!” Her voice filled with dismay. “He likes it.”
“Talk him out of it,” she begged. “I didn’t even want to have it on display. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t needed a big piece to fill up that corner. I don’t even work that way anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s the one he wants.”
She turned and looked through the crowd at the large iron figure. It was a man half sunk to the ground, leaning on his elbow with one hand across his heart, an expression of agony contorting his features. She remembered the excitement of working on it, but it somehow seemed ugly to her now.
“Please, Sam, talk him into something else!”
“Not me, not after he told me that this was the first time he’d ever seen an artist capture the exact moment of death in sculpture.”
She stared at him. “He really said that?” Sam nodded.
She looked toward the statue again, trying to see in it what the teacher had. “All right,” she said finally.
“Good, I’ll tell him he can have it.”
At least it was a big piece, she thought consolingly. And that was better to have in a mixed show than a small one. People couldn’t miss seeing it.
She was standing like that with a thoughtful expression on her face when her mother brought me over. Mrs. Hayden touched her arm and Nora turned toward us. She raised her face and I saw that she was the girl I’d seen that noon in the factory window.
I saw her eyes grow large in a curious kind of surprise and I knew that she had recognized me
too.
“Nora. This is Major Luke Carey. Major Carey, my daughter Nora.”
__________________________________________
Wars are the whetstones that man uses to sharpen his appetites.
I looked at her and I knew I was gone.
Some girls are bitches, some are ladies, and once to every man there is one who is both. I knew that as soon as I touched her hand.
The dark-blue eyes were almost violet, hidden by long heavy lashes, and the thick black hair was pulled up and away from her forehead. Her creamy translucent skin, taut across the high cheekbones, and the slim, small-breasted, almost boyish, figure added up to all the wrong kinds of arithmetic. But it was just right for me.
This was the deep end. Life and death. Over and out.
Her mother wandered off somewhere and I was still holding her hand. Her voice was low and had that carefully cultivated affectation that is common to girls who go to the good Eastern schools. “What are you looking at, Major Carey?”
I let go to her hand quickly. It was like losing touch with a peculiar kind of reality, like beating your head against a wall because it feels so good when you stop. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“How did you know where to find me?” “I didn’t. It was just a lucky accident.” “Are you always this lucky?”
I shook my head. “Not always.”
I saw her eyes move across the ribbons on my blouse. I knew what she saw. Besides the Purple Heart and Cluster, there was enough color there to brighten up a small Christmas tree.
“At least you’re alive.”
I nodded. “I guess I have no complaints. I’ve made it this far.” “You don’t believe you’ll make it all the way?”
It was more a statement than a question. I laughed. This girl wasn’t one to waste time, she zeroed right in.
“I’ve been lucky twice,” I said. “There’s no three times lucky.” “Are you afraid of dying?”
“All the time.”
She glanced at the ribbons again. “I’m sure they wouldn’t send you back if you told them.” “I guess not,” I said. “But I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I’m more afraid of chickening out than I am of dying.” “That can’t be the only reason.”
I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She never stopped pressing. “Maybe it isn’t,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s because death is like a woman you’ve been chasing for a long time. You want to find out if it’s as bad or as good as you thought it would be.”
“Is that all you think about?” she asked. “Death?”
“For almost two years now I haven’t had much time to think about anything else.” I glanced toward the statue I had noticed as I came in,
The Dying Man
. I felt her eyes follow mine. “I’m like the man in that statue over there. For every moment that I live.”
I saw her study the statue for a moment, then she took my hand again. I felt her shiver. “I didn’t mean it to sound so bloody awful.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said quickly. Her eyes were dark now, almost purple-black, like the heavy wine grapes in the vineyards near Sacramento. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“I believe you do.” I smiled and then looked away. I had to.
“You know,” I said, “when I first heard about this shindig, I thought it was going to be pretty dull. Another society girl playing at the arts.” I felt it was safe to turn back to her now. “But I’ve got a hunch you’re pretty good.”
“She’s better than that, Luke.” The familiar voice came from behind me. “She’s very good.”
I spun around. It had been more than three years since I’d heard that voice. “Professor Bell!”
He sounded excited and pleased as he shook my hand. “Luke was one of my boys just few years back,” he said to Nora. “He majored in architecture.”
“Building.” I grinned, reviving the old argument between us. “Architecture is something for pigeons to sit on, building is for people.”
“The same old Luke.” He looked into my face and I saw the shock in his eyes. I had seen that look before in the eyes of old friends. The tiny crisscrossed shrapnel scars in my coppery leathered skin somehow didn’t belong on the pink-cheeked boy who had gone away to war.
“Not quite the same, Professor,” I said, trying to make it easier for him. “It’s been a long war.” And all the while we stood there talking I felt her hand growing warmer and warmer in mine.
Dinner was served in the big dining room looking out over the hill toward the bay. Everyone else had gone. There were just the three of us—Nora, her mother and I. I looked towards the head of the table where the old lady sat.
She seemed so right sitting there. Everything belonged. The rich oak paneling, the large roundtable, the candles glowing in the gleaming silver candelabra. She sat straight and tall, and there
was something about her that reminded me of a shining blade of steel.
She was strong and sure of her strength in her calm, quiet way. You were aware of the wisdom that was in her, though there was never any need for her to assert it. From what my father had told me, a lot of people had been surprised when they’d had to deal with this quiet young widow who had inherited two large fortunes.
“My late husband often spoke of your father.” She smiled across the table at me. “They were such good friends. It seems strange that we should never have met.”
I nodded silently. It wasn’t so strange to me. Until Dad retired last year, he had been the postmaster in the small Southern California town where I was born. He no more belonged in Gerald Hayden’s world than Hayden belonged in his. All they shared was the memory of having been in the same platoon in the First World War.