Morning Is a Long Time Coming by Bette Greene
I headed toward the aft deck, not so much for the chicken broth as for Michael, who would never willingly be separated from food freely given. It’s not that I blame him—I mean he’s about as thin as a guy can be and still be healthy. It’s just that once he returns to his pension in Zurich, then the meals become decidedly skimpy. The American students returning to Swiss medical schools are forever discussing ways to supplement their guest-house cuisine.
“And where the hell have you been hiding?” I twirled to look at the slight-chip-on-the-shoulder good looks of Michael Joseph Werner. He took a sip from the broth-filled white mug without even momentarily removing his head-on stare from my face.
“Oh, well, I’m really sorry, Michael. I guess I just slept through breakfast,” I said, grateful that Arlene wasn’t around to hear my apology. On the first day out, she asked me why I allowed Michael, a virtual stranger, to push me around.
Right off, I told her that Michael didn’t push me around—at least not very much. I tried to explain that while I didn’t exactly love Michael’s temper, it did seem familiar. It was as though he understood me now, had understood me for a long time. But as soon as that came out of my mouth, I knew I had stumbled into something dumb. So I tried to get out of it by saying that there’s something very natural about his anger toward me.
But Arlene kept looking at me with an eye so skeptical that she must have spent years perfecting it.
“For God’s sake,” I told her, feeling myself pinched into the corner. “Can’t you see that that’s exactly the way that men are supposed to treat women?”
I leaned back against the railing, close enough to let my arm whisper against Michael’s. Within moments, he seemed soothed. “At least,” he said, breaking into a modest laugh, “you didn’t have to dress for dinner.”
I laughed too although the joke was very definitely on me. “Please excuse me. I have to dress for dinner,” were the exact words that I had used. It was the first morning Arlene, Howie, Michael, and I were in the salon playing bridge.
Actually, they were playing bridge while tutoring me in the fine art of destroying your enemies with trumps, tricks, and finesses. I was pleased, flattered even, that these smart and handsome people would bother with me.
Arlene, for example, is only three years older than me and she’s already working on her master’s degree in French renaissance literature. Of course, Michael and Howie are both very smart too, but you sort of expect that from guys who are Jewish.
Anyway, I was taking my bridge instruction on that first morning pretty well when the ship must have hit the biggest single wave in the Atlantic, because the Ryndam crunched forward, crunched backward, crunched forward. Then it was calm again—the ship, not my stomach. Immediately I knew that I had an old and familiar race to win, but I didn’t say that.
Instead I just stood up and with what Michael was later to describe as “stage presence” announced, “Please excuse me. I have to dress for dinner.”
Well, probably nobody would ever have known any different if Michael hadn’t, for some still unexplained reason, taken it into his head to watch me from the porthole.
And now that phrase (spoken with exaggerated elegance) seems to be known by just about everybody on board the Ryndam as the expression to use when you’re on the verge of upchuking your fool head off, but wish to do so with style.
Actually Michael goes even further by assuring me that I have made a contribution for all time, not only to maritime vocabulary, but also to the international folklore of the sea.
14
THE CAPTAIN’S FAREWELL dance was billed as the final and single most important event of the voyage. The Grande Salon, for example, had been closed to passengers since noon because the decorations were supposed to be both special and surprising.
The very first surprise was Michael himself, whose usual well-scrubbed scruffiness gave way to a well-ordered handsomeness. I wondered how much of it came from his blue shirt and tan suit. The pants actually matched the jacket. And how much from the fact that for the first time since I’ve known him, his hair wasn’t falling defiantly across his forehead.
As we walked along the deck toward the Grande Salon, I told him that he looked very nice. He led me over to the railing. The lights from the deck spilled over the water and made wave watching a real possibility, but I knew Michael well enough to know that gazing at waves rather than into his dark and assertive eyes would kindle his well-exercised temper.
Then for the first time it occurred to me that looking away from this man was not about to happen anyway, for Michael’s face was beginning to fill me with the most intense kind of pleasure.
He struck a pose so casual that I knew it wasn’t casual at all. “Well, when are you coming to Zurich?”
“Well,” I repeated, playing for a moment of time. I was pleased and surprised that he liked me well enough to want to see me again. But why should that surprise me? Hadn’t he spent practically every waking moment with me? And wouldn’t I expect Howie to invite Arlene Hollander to visit him? Yes, yes, yes, but that doesn’t make it any the less surprising that Michael Joseph Werner could actually find something likable about me!
“Well ...” I said, again, deciding that I had to strike that word from my vocabulary once and for all, “if you really want me to, Michael, I think that I could.” At the same time trying to estimate the distance between Göttingen and Zurich.
This time he kissed me nicely. Not like all those other times when he tried to hungrily stuff himself with kisses in the same indiscriminate way he’s always stuffing himself with food. For the last six days, I’ve been wondering what’s wrong with me. Why was I so secretly grateful that he shared his stateroom with three males while I shared mine with three females? But now in the sharing of this particular kiss, I forgot to be grateful.
And so the fact that I had never felt a romantic thing for either Marshall Lubin or the Jenkinsville farmboys didn’t prove anything!
We moved away from the railing, away from the cold, persistent ocean spray. Then Michael looked at me as though he had suddenly come upon answers to questions never asked. “You’ve caught yourself a doctor,” he said, with obvious satisfaction.
At the same moment, I felt both an enormously positive and an enormously negative charge. I didn’t know which one to react to. Positive? Negative? Neither? Both?
“I think you know that I like you, Michael ... a lot. I think you’re very intelligent and witty, and I even think you’re good looking, but ... but please don’t make it out that I’ve captured you.”
Michael looked at me as though I had with malice aforethought let all the air from his balloons, ordered rain on his birthday, and wished him a mouthful of cavities. “It’s only an expression, for Christ’s sake!”
“I know, I know it is, but I still don’t like what it expresses.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, if you hadn’t lived all your life in the sticks, then you’d know that it was only an expression!”
“That phrase isn’t so original that it’s unknown in Arkansas. Actually it may be just as popular in Jenkinsville as it is in Forest Hills, but I still don’t happen to like it.” He had turned his head from me. “Oh, Michael,” I said, moving to face him, “please don’t turn away from me now. Ever since we’ve met you’ve felt comfortable telling me what you didn’t like about me—my gazing off in the distance when you speak to me, my swimsuit which you claimed was manufactured for the varicose set—and I could go on ...”
Michael’s face had set. “And I told you that it was only an expression! And this is the dumbest conversation I’ve ever had!”
I could scream because he was choosing not to hear me. “Whatever it is, it’s not dumb. If we belong together, Michael, it’s because we each have something to give. Not just you giving and me taking, I’d hate that, but both of us giving, taking. I want you to understand that I need to have value too!”
“All right! All right! I tracked you down. I captured y
Is that what he thinks this is all about? Who’s tracked whom down? Suddenly he was pulling me toward the Grande Salon with as much gentleness as a bulldozer moving an enormous earth-embedded boulder. But I didn’t resist. There was no need to. Because the really important thing was that I didn’t know any way to make him understand what he preferred not knowing.
15
AT GARE ST. LAZARE, Arlene and I were among the first passengers off the boat train, and considering the bulk and weight of our luggage, we climbed up the stairs with surprising speed to rush from the open doors into the late afternoon of a Paris day.
From the very top step of the massive station, I took my first real look at the street scene below. What I saw threw my senses into a dance of frenzied greed, and I knew that I had to find a way to become a part of it. Couldn’t waste time. Had to belong to it all. And I had to belong to it now!
I wanted to ride to Montparnasse on the rear platform of that passing bus; wanted to stroll the wide boulevards hand-in-hand with some new boy I was beginning to love. And within the same measure of time and space, I wanted to drink espresso and eat decadent desserts at that little sidewalk café across the way; then, on some irrepressible whim, I’d buy myself an extravagant silk scarf from a shop so far off the beaten track that it had never before been discovered by a mere tourist.
I had to experience all those things and a thousand more while simultaneously exploring every single street, searching out every face to find one that might be willing to teach me all those things that I was born needing to know.
Yet for all the freshness and all the wonder of Paris, this was not the first time that my senses had exploded while trying to capture the dazzling beauty and enchantment within this world. Somewhere, someplace, it had happened to me before. Had to have happened because it felt too real to have been only a dream.
Yes, yes, that was it! But such a long time ago. I was only seven—certainly no more than eight. And one star-filled night, I was riding the great Ferris wheel high above the Memphis Cotton Carnival when, for at least a moment, my gently swaying gondola paused at the very top.
Arlene instructed (in apparently faultless French) a mischievous-eyed taxi driver to take her to the Cité Universitaire and me to the Hotel Vaucluse. As soon as he drove off, I understood why he kept a crucifix dangling from the dashboard of his Renault. He wasn’t taking fares across Paris; he was competing in the Indianapolis 500.
I guess I minded a lot because I had paid such a big price for the privilege of being here on this continent. I deserved to see it with more clarity than through the blurred side window of a racing car.
Then Arlene objected to the wind blowing from my completely lowered window. For moments I pretended not to have heard her, but then my selfishness became a barrier to the full enjoyment of this city. So I grudgingly raised my window by a few, very careful inches.
Much too quickly, the cab came to a cops-and-robbers stop and the polo-shirted driver announced, “Voilà, mam’selles, Cité Universitaire.” Arlene then explained to him in French what she had twice previously explained to me in English. That the cab was to wait for her, since she was arriving a day ahead of schedule and wanted to make certain that her room was now available.
After she disappeared behind a pale stucco wall made beautiful by a network of sun and leaf shadow, I silently called upon the God of my fathers. Listen to me, God. I know. I know I’m a nudge. I bother you only when I need something (and, God knows, that’s often enough), but maybe if you think I deserve it you’ll help me now.
That’s when my concentration was broken by the driver, who turned around to speak to me. One word sounded like roses, but I’m not really sure of that. “I’m sorry, sir,” I admitted, “but I don’t speak French.”
He nodded and smiled as though he wished me luck, or maybe he was indicating that I was going to need luck. I couldn’t be sure. At any rate, he had broken more than my concentration; he had gotten me out of my God-nudging mood. Just as well, because if there’s a God up there who’s listening in, I really can’t imagine him involving himself in something as shabby as helping me out while hurting Arlene. But it wouldn’t be hurting Arlene. Maybe inconveniencing her, but that’s all. Why is it such a big deal if she stays with me tonight, just for a single night?
I mean, I think it would be scary for anyone, being alone in a strange country without even knowing the words for food or water.
When I saw her reappear, I knew that the good Lord had not only heard my plea, but had actually joined with me in my conspiracy, for Arlene wore an expression of “This world is so dumb that it doesn’t deserve to have me in it.” Hallelujah! And thank you, God, for sealing Arlene from her room tonight with a sticky bit of your celestial red tape. Surely by tomorrow, I’d be infinitely more adept at facing Paris alone.
“Oh, too bad,” I offered. “Aren’t they letting you have your room tonight?” I sounded so obviously hypocritical that anyone even half as smart as this candidate for a master’s degree would pick it up in less time than it would take light to travel across a country lane.
Arlene looked surprised. “Oh, I have the room. It’s only that the concièrge has the key and he’s not expected back for at least an hour.”
“Wonderful, Arlene,” I said with a little too much badly manufactured enthusiasm. “Makes it so much more convenient than having to sleep elsewhere for the night.”
She gave me 375 francs for her share of the taxi ride.
“Three hundred and seventy-five francs,” I asked incredulously, “for only half of a taxi ride?”
“Francs, not dollars,” explained Arlene. “One thousand francs equals three dollars ... remember?”
I nodded. “Oh, yes! Sure. Sorry.”
“Well ...” she said. “I wish you all kinds of luck and don’t forget what I told you on the Ryndam.”
“Oh ...” I said, purposely vague, hoping that that would inspire her to repeat it. Twice on ship she had given me detailed instructions on “getting structured in a foreign country,” and I had loved it ... loved it far beyond the words of advice which in themselves were useful enough. What it was, I think, was this girl, three years older and maybe six years more competent actually bothering with me ... bothering to give me something.
“First thing tomorrow,” she was saying, “go over to Boulevard Raspail, to the Alliance Française and sign up for their beginning French class.”
“Beginning French class,” I repeated.
Arlene nodded her approval as though I was already a student and learning well. “Then cross Raspail and go directly over to Montparnasse—it’s only an eight-or ten-block walk. Pass Montparnasse and from that point, ask anybody to direct you to the American Club.”
“Avenue Montparnasse. The American Club.”
Arlene smiled as though she was already the esteemed professor that she would someday be and I was her most gifted student. “I’m very glad we met,” she said, letting her smile linger on. “You’re the first person I’ve ever known who hailed from Jenkinsville, Arkansas.”
The farther I go from my home town, the more humor people seem to discover in its name. “It’s okay—until I met you and Michael, I had never known anybody from New York City.” I was afraid that my large effort at making small talk was tiring Arlene. She had a lot of really important things to do and I didn’t want to impede her or have her think I was a bore. But most of all, I didn’t want her to even begin to suspect that I was afraid to be alone.
This conversation had to be immediately terminated, and terminated by me while I could still appear strong and competent. I wanted her to see that I was really tough, and because of that toughness I didn’t need her or anybody. I could manage very well alone, thank you. “Well, Arlene,” I said, holding out my hand, “I hope it’ll be a good year for you; I know your thesis will go well.”
She shook my hand for a mome
“Yes,” I said, jumping at the invitation. “Yes, I surely do.” Suddenly two diverse—maybe not totally diverse—thoughts struck me! Arlene Hollander with all her master’s degree competence was also more than a little frightened and secondly, strangeness of strangenesses, I think she likes me.
That she had been very friendly on board ship was undeniable, but I had, for the most part, considered it nothing more than a courtesy to her boyfriend’s best friend, Michael Werner. But now that Michael and Howie are both en route to Zurich, there’s no reason to continue extending the courtesy unless ... unless she actually does like me.
I threw my arms around her and hers like a reflex tightened around me. Then just as suddenly and without so much as a “So long, Arlene,” I quickly re-entered the cab and directed my now tightly stretched voice toward the driver. “Hotel Vaucluse on Rue Pierre Nicol.”
Then I began to explore seriously this dumbness of mine. How can I so consistently dismiss every single item of evidence which indicates that there just might be people in this world who happen to like me? Michael wants to marry me, Arlene wants to be my friend, so I couldn’t possibly be doing everything wrong. Then why don’t I know that? Why can’t I really know that?
As I tried to supply the answer to my own question, I saw rows of pastel buildings wearing ornate wrought-iron balconies and, at the same time that I was seeing this elegant French city, I was also “seeing” a drab American town.
Jenkinsville, Arkansas. An early September morning in 1938. I wake with a Christmas-morning kind of excitement even though I’ve been sleeping for too long in my own sweat. Jenkinsville has been suffering through a late summer’s heat wave and this would be just another damp rot day except for one thing. I am six years old and today is my first day of school.