But, she thought impatiently, the question is what is it I’m trying to do? She couldn’t go on having babies forever; this would be three, and certainly that was enough. If she weren’t careful she’d be in a hole she couldn’t get out of; what if Max became indifferent, as Albert had; what indeed if like Steve he made no bones about it, simply put on his hat and went away? Left alone with three infants would be no joke. She was headed for disaster then. Bah, she thought, there are no disasters left. Disaster, my god, that’s funny. Disaster...
She shivered a little, turned on her side, pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders, and closed her eyes. By an old trick, born long ago of necessity, she suddenly was not there, she was far off in a sunny meadow of clover, running slim and youthful to greet a crowd of women, a great throng of them, all smiling and reassuring and beckoning as they approached through the clover blossoms from all sides, calling her name. They were her mothers...
She slept.
A week later, following a discussion and agreement with Max the preceding day, she announced their plans to Albert. It was late at night; he had not come home for dinner and she had waited up for him, out of respect for his distaste for morning discussions. Albert sat on the edge of the bed taking off his socks; he placed each sock precisely on top of its shoe with the garter neatly tucked inside, an infallible sign that he had drunk a little more than usual.
“You’re crazy,” he observed, with his bare foot carefully shoving the shoes and their cargo under the bed.
“I think you’re lucky,” she replied. “All your paternal duties ended, a free man, just think of it!”
“When does this happy hegira occur?”
“Friday.”
He frowned. “Today is Tuesday. Are you in love with him?”
“No, today is Wednesday.”
“You’re crazy, it’s Tuesday.”
“All right. Anyway, it’s to be Friday.”
“Of course you’ll want the furniture.”
“No, only the cribs and our clothes and us. Max has bought furniture.”
“The hell he has. The carriage.”
“We’re buying a new one.”
“The hell you are!” He got up and stuck his hands in his pockets and started towards her, then suddenly sat down again. “Listen, Lora mia, this is a blow. You thought I would be pleased? Like hell I’m pleased! I’m furious. I’m Helen’s father, you know. She’s my daughter. I suppose you think I want that little squirt going around buying things for my daughter? You’re crazy. I brought him here too; brought him into my own house, let him cook his damned scallopini in my own kitchen— Oh, that doesn’t matter, I’m talking like a jackass, but you might have told me... I positively will not permit any man to buy a new baby carriage for my daughter...”
“All right, we’ll take the old one.”
“Yes, and that damn wheel will break again and she’ll fall out and smash her nose.”
“Why don’t you get her a new one yourself? For Christmas.”
“Good god!” He got to his feet and this time kept them, staring at her, moving from the rug onto the cold wooden floor, in his bare feet, a thing he hated, without noticing. “By god I forgot! Christmas! We were going to have a tree, with lights, and popcorn and bags of candy — when is Christmas, you might as well tell me, when is Christmas? Let’s see, today’s the sixteenth, today’s Tuesday—
“It’s a week from Friday.”
It took him a quarter of an hour to get Christmas talked out; he was overwhelmed by the thought that his daughter was to be torn from him just a week before the great Children’s Festival. No man with any self-respect would submit to it. The word self-respect opened up new fields; obviously, he said, Max didn’t have any. He should have come first to him, Albert, since his daughter was concerned, and arrive at an understanding. Not that any understanding under the circumstances would have been possible. Max was in fact an idiot, what with two children neither of them his own, bearing different names even...
“Their name is Winter. Both of them,” Lora declared quietly.
“Like hell it is. Helen Scher. You agreed to it.”
“Temporarily. Albert darling, don’t fuss any more. You know you don’t really care. Be reasonable. Names don’t matter. You can come to see her as often as you like and call her Helen Scher or Helen of Troy or whatever you want. Remember, the rent hasn’t been paid yet for November, and I made the coat Roy is wearing out of your old dressing-gown. Be reasonable.”
Unbuttoning his shirt, he turned and grinned at her. “Lora mia, do you know what I really think? I think poor Max. Poor little Max. Caveat emptor. He thinks he’s getting a gazelle, a trembling panting gazelle in heat, and when he finds out it’s only a milch cow...”
“He does say I’m beautiful,” said Lora, amused.
“So you are, Lora mia. As lovely as a eunuch’s dream. I shall never forget the day I saw you standing white and straight in front of that purple curtain. I said to myself, with that massive central mountain once more properly subsided into a gently sloping mound, there stands Venus. Albert, my son, look no further; and calmly and patiently I awaited parturition and happiness.”
Lora, offended at last by the coarseness of his “massive mountain,” did not reply, and when he went on did not listen. A few minutes later they were in bed, side by side, with an intercommunication of warmth completely impersonal and dispassionate; their feet touched and then separated, with no gesture, without lingering and without haste. As Lora turned over on her side, with her back to him, she said:
“Why don’t you help us with a Christmas tree anyway? Max would be glad to have you. It might be fun.”
“All right,” came his mumble through the darkness. “Damn silly custom though. We’ll see.”
VI
On Max, as it turned out, Albert’s commiseration was wasted. With the two children, whatever their names might be, he assumed at once all the concern and responsibilities of a happy father. Often, downtown, he had eaten lunch with Lora and spent many afternoons with her, but after the establishment of the household in Seventy-first Street she never saw him after eleven in the morning or before seven in the evening. He must broaden his contacts and scare up all the business he could, he said; Lora’s wardrobe was deplorable, the furniture he had bought so hurriedly was unsatisfactory, and there was nothing Roy and Helen did not need and should not have. Lora was touched and amused by the sight of the twenty-six-year-old boy taking so enthusiastically upon himself the obligations whose proper roost was not only upon other trees but even in another forest; but Max didn’t need her pity either. When occasionally she remonstrated he would reply, “I know what I’m doing, dear Lora. As young as I am, I live my ideal; that is beautiful, almost as beautiful as you are.” But he was not always so serious about it; sometimes he even burlesqued his own gaiety, as when one evening, taking a bracelet from his pocket, a circlet of amethysts set in dull white gold, he held it dangling before her and, with lifted shoulders and eyebrows and palms turned upward, “Jewelry from contented Jews,” he said.