when he wins a race and pastel his report cards neatly in a scrap book that she keeps on her dresser next to her copy of Gone with the Wind.
Her younger son Thomas and her daughter are inhabitants of her house. Rudolph is her blood. When she looks at him she sees the image of her ghostly father.
She has no hopes for Thomas. With his blind, sly, derisive face. He is a ruffian, always brawling, always in trouble at school, insolent, mocking, going his own way, without standards, sliding in and out of the house on his own secret schedule, impervious to punishment. On some calendar, somewhere, disgrace is printed in blood red, like a dreadful holiday, for her son Thomas. There is nothing to be done about it. She does not love him and she cannot hold out a hand to him.
So, the mother, standing on swollen legs at the window, surrounded by her family in the sleeping house. Insomniac, un-fastidious, overworked, ailing, shapeless, avoiding mirrors, a writer of suicide notes, greying at the age of forty-two, her bathrobe dusted with ash from her cigarette.
A train hoots far away, troops piled into the rattling coaches, on their way to distant ports, on their way to the sound of guns. Thank God Rudolph is not yet seventeen. She would die if they took him for a soldier.
She lights a last cigarette, takes off her robe, the cigarette hanging carelessly from her lower lip, and gets into bed. She lies there smoking. She will sleep a few hours. But she knows she will wake when she hears her husband coming heavily up the steps, rank with the sweat of his night’s work and the whiskey he has drunk.
The office clock stood at five to twelve. Gretchen kept typing. Since it was Saturday, the other girls had already stopped working and were making up, ready to depart. Two of them, Luella Devlin and Pat Hauser, had invited her to go out and have a pizza with them, but she was in no mood for their brainless gabble this afternoon. When she. was in high school she had had three good friends, Bertha Sorel, Sue Jackson, Felicity Turner. They were the brightest girls in the school and they had made a small, superior, isolated clique. She wished all three of them or any one of them were in town today. But they all came from well-off families and had gone off to college and she had found no one else to take their place in her life.
Gretchen wished that there were enough work to give her an excuse to remain at her desk the whole afternoon, but she was typing out the final items of the last bill of lading Mr Hutchens had put on her desk and there was no way of dragging it out.
She hadn’t gone to the hospital the last two nights. She had phoned in and said she was sick and had gone home directly after work and stayed there. She had been too restless to read and had fussed over her entire wardrobe, washing blouses that were already spotlessly clean, pressing dresses that didn’t have a crease in them, washing her hair and setting it, manicuring her nails, insisting on giving Rudy a manicure, although she had given him one just the week before.
Late on .Friday night, unable to sleep, she had gone down into the cellar where her father was working. He looked up at her in surprise as she came down the steps, but didn’t say anything, even when she sat down on a chair and said, ‘Here, pussy, pussy,’ to the cat. The cat backed away. The human race, the cat knew, was the enemy.
‘Pa,’ she said, ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’
Jordache didn’t say anything.
‘I’m not getting anywhere in this job I have,’ Gretchen said.
And once the war is over, they’ll be cutting down and I’ll be lucky if I can hang on.’
The war’s not over yet,’ Jordache said. There’s still a lot of idiots waiting that have to be killed.’
“I thought I ought to go down to New York and look for a real job there. I’m a good secretary now and I see ads for all sorts of jobs with twice the pay I’m getting now.’
‘You talk to your
Her younger son Thomas and her daughter are inhabitants of her house. Rudolph is her blood. When she looks at him she sees the image of her ghostly father.
She has no hopes for Thomas. With his blind, sly, derisive face. He is a ruffian, always brawling, always in trouble at school, insolent, mocking, going his own way, without standards, sliding in and out of the house on his own secret schedule, impervious to punishment. On some calendar, somewhere, disgrace is printed in blood red, like a dreadful holiday, for her son Thomas. There is nothing to be done about it. She does not love him and she cannot hold out a hand to him.
So, the mother, standing on swollen legs at the window, surrounded by her family in the sleeping house. Insomniac, un-fastidious, overworked, ailing, shapeless, avoiding mirrors, a writer of suicide notes, greying at the age of forty-two, her bathrobe dusted with ash from her cigarette.
A train hoots far away, troops piled into the rattling coaches, on their way to distant ports, on their way to the sound of guns. Thank God Rudolph is not yet seventeen. She would die if they took him for a soldier.
She lights a last cigarette, takes off her robe, the cigarette hanging carelessly from her lower lip, and gets into bed. She lies there smoking. She will sleep a few hours. But she knows she will wake when she hears her husband coming heavily up the steps, rank with the sweat of his night’s work and the whiskey he has drunk.
The office clock stood at five to twelve. Gretchen kept typing. Since it was Saturday, the other girls had already stopped working and were making up, ready to depart. Two of them, Luella Devlin and Pat Hauser, had invited her to go out and have a pizza with them, but she was in no mood for their brainless gabble this afternoon. When she. was in high school she had had three good friends, Bertha Sorel, Sue Jackson, Felicity Turner. They were the brightest girls in the school and they had made a small, superior, isolated clique. She wished all three of them or any one of them were in town today. But they all came from well-off families and had gone off to college and she had found no one else to take their place in her life.
Gretchen wished that there were enough work to give her an excuse to remain at her desk the whole afternoon, but she was typing out the final items of the last bill of lading Mr Hutchens had put on her desk and there was no way of dragging it out.
She hadn’t gone to the hospital the last two nights. She had phoned in and said she was sick and had gone home directly after work and stayed there. She had been too restless to read and had fussed over her entire wardrobe, washing blouses that were already spotlessly clean, pressing dresses that didn’t have a crease in them, washing her hair and setting it, manicuring her nails, insisting on giving Rudy a manicure, although she had given him one just the week before.
Late on .Friday night, unable to sleep, she had gone down into the cellar where her father was working. He looked up at her in surprise as she came down the steps, but didn’t say anything, even when she sat down on a chair and said, ‘Here, pussy, pussy,’ to the cat. The cat backed away. The human race, the cat knew, was the enemy.
‘Pa,’ she said, ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’
Jordache didn’t say anything.
‘I’m not getting anywhere in this job I have,’ Gretchen said.
And once the war is over, they’ll be cutting down and I’ll be lucky if I can hang on.’
The war’s not over yet,’ Jordache said. There’s still a lot of idiots waiting that have to be killed.’
“I thought I ought to go down to New York and look for a real job there. I’m a good secretary now and I see ads for all sorts of jobs with twice the pay I’m getting now.’
‘You talk to your
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