or in a supermarket aisle? For such a failure in my investment, I should have been another person altogether.
I invested the goodness I had in Harry, and I did expect compounded goodness would be my return.
A blue-chip stock, my life with Harry should have been.
11
“T alk to me, Edna,” he’d say.
Yes, but what about?
Really, I preferred to listen. And really, he preferred to talk. He’d given up quite a lot for me, I thought—other girls, for instance, there’d been those—and there weren’t so many ways I could repay him for that. Listening, mainly. All I gave up was writing out my notes each evening and my watching. Maybe poems. But poems vanished when he appeared. If they had ever come, it would have been from fear and desolation, and Harry filled so much space that fear and desolation sank deeper and deeper under his weight until they were just small things crouching at the bottom of my soul.
Even the dancing and singing life was gone. No time for it now, and who needed made-up things when real events were going on?
We went to movies or to bars (where I found that beer has a queer and bitter taste and wondered how people, including Harry, could enjoy so much of it), and often we sat in my living room. It was private there, just the two of us. We couldn’toften go to his apartment because he shared it with another business student and it was hard to be alone.
He’d sit beside me on the cot-couch, hands folded behind his head, eyes closed, telling dreams. “I want so many things, Edna,” he said. “To do something big. It’s not just being rich, although,” and he laughed, “that’s part of it, that would be nice. But it’s doing something, making something, being somebody. I don’t want to get old and die and think I missed anything or that nobody noticed me or it didn’t matter. I want to matter.”
I nodded, although his eyes were closed. “Yes, I know.” Although in fact I didn’t. He seemed to see much further than I. My own vision now didn’t go beyond his closed-eyed presence in my living room, where I could lean forward and touch him.
But whether I understood or not was not the point. The point was, he trusted me with his dreams. “You’ll be somebody,” I told him.
If he had gotten old, would he have been satisfied? Would he have been able to sit back and say, “Yes, I missed nothing. People noticed. What I did mattered. I mattered”?
“Talk to me, Edna,” he said sometimes.
“What about?”
“You. I’ve told you what I want, now it’s your turn. Tell me what you want.”
I wanted him; but that was too bold a thing to say.
“I’m not sure. I’m not like you, I’m not sure what I want.”
“But you must have some ideas, some plans. For what you’ll do when you graduate.”
“Well, there’s only so much you can do with a degree in English. I’ll probably end up teaching.” Dreary prospect; one reason I didn’t care to look beyond the slim figure unwoundin my living room, whose presence astonished me and seemed a miracle, which I couldn’t tell him because it would say far too much about the fear.
“And get married some day?” His eyes were glinting, laughing: testing my intent to trap him?
“Maybe. If it happens.”
“But you’re not really aiming at anything in particular? There’s nothing you have in mind that you really want to do?”
He made me feel very small and useless. Amazed, he was, that someone young and starting out would not have a dream. I could have said, perhaps, “I’ve thought of telling stories, or seeing Timbuktu.” But those were only fantasies.
“Okay then,” he was saying, “if there’s nothing special you want to do, what do you want to be?”
There was a difference? I frowned and shook my head. I might have said, “I want to be safe,” or “I want to be happy,” but that would have disappointed him, and sounded stupid even unspoken and I didn’t want to answer stupidly, so kept silent.
I do see now,
I invested the goodness I had in Harry, and I did expect compounded goodness would be my return.
A blue-chip stock, my life with Harry should have been.
11
“T alk to me, Edna,” he’d say.
Yes, but what about?
Really, I preferred to listen. And really, he preferred to talk. He’d given up quite a lot for me, I thought—other girls, for instance, there’d been those—and there weren’t so many ways I could repay him for that. Listening, mainly. All I gave up was writing out my notes each evening and my watching. Maybe poems. But poems vanished when he appeared. If they had ever come, it would have been from fear and desolation, and Harry filled so much space that fear and desolation sank deeper and deeper under his weight until they were just small things crouching at the bottom of my soul.
Even the dancing and singing life was gone. No time for it now, and who needed made-up things when real events were going on?
We went to movies or to bars (where I found that beer has a queer and bitter taste and wondered how people, including Harry, could enjoy so much of it), and often we sat in my living room. It was private there, just the two of us. We couldn’toften go to his apartment because he shared it with another business student and it was hard to be alone.
He’d sit beside me on the cot-couch, hands folded behind his head, eyes closed, telling dreams. “I want so many things, Edna,” he said. “To do something big. It’s not just being rich, although,” and he laughed, “that’s part of it, that would be nice. But it’s doing something, making something, being somebody. I don’t want to get old and die and think I missed anything or that nobody noticed me or it didn’t matter. I want to matter.”
I nodded, although his eyes were closed. “Yes, I know.” Although in fact I didn’t. He seemed to see much further than I. My own vision now didn’t go beyond his closed-eyed presence in my living room, where I could lean forward and touch him.
But whether I understood or not was not the point. The point was, he trusted me with his dreams. “You’ll be somebody,” I told him.
If he had gotten old, would he have been satisfied? Would he have been able to sit back and say, “Yes, I missed nothing. People noticed. What I did mattered. I mattered”?
“Talk to me, Edna,” he said sometimes.
“What about?”
“You. I’ve told you what I want, now it’s your turn. Tell me what you want.”
I wanted him; but that was too bold a thing to say.
“I’m not sure. I’m not like you, I’m not sure what I want.”
“But you must have some ideas, some plans. For what you’ll do when you graduate.”
“Well, there’s only so much you can do with a degree in English. I’ll probably end up teaching.” Dreary prospect; one reason I didn’t care to look beyond the slim figure unwoundin my living room, whose presence astonished me and seemed a miracle, which I couldn’t tell him because it would say far too much about the fear.
“And get married some day?” His eyes were glinting, laughing: testing my intent to trap him?
“Maybe. If it happens.”
“But you’re not really aiming at anything in particular? There’s nothing you have in mind that you really want to do?”
He made me feel very small and useless. Amazed, he was, that someone young and starting out would not have a dream. I could have said, perhaps, “I’ve thought of telling stories, or seeing Timbuktu.” But those were only fantasies.
“Okay then,” he was saying, “if there’s nothing special you want to do, what do you want to be?”
There was a difference? I frowned and shook my head. I might have said, “I want to be safe,” or “I want to be happy,” but that would have disappointed him, and sounded stupid even unspoken and I didn’t want to answer stupidly, so kept silent.
I do see now,
Similar Books
