Chapter 15 For Life
FOR LIFE
When David had left, I asked Joe, “Would you like to take a walk?” I wanted to go back to bed with him, but I’d heard a door open and close upstairs, and it was fifteen minutes to seven. He seemed scraped raw to me, and surely, when one felt like that, quiet and fresh air were best.
“Sure,” he said. No more than that, but it was enough for me.
We walked to the top of the hill, then turned to the right and walked some more.
Joe seemed to be headed somewhere specific, and I held his hand and let him lead, for this was his journey.
He didn’t talk, and neither did I. I looked at the beautiful houses instead—many were in another style here, possibly Georgian?
and built of stone. The sidewalks were neat, and a few other people walked along them, but not many.
Germans would have been out walking on such a fine morning, for although it was chilly, the sun was shining and the wind blowing agreeably.
Particularly on a Sunday, the day of rest, one would wish to take a stroll and visit one’s friends.
Here, walking was perhaps not so common; the visiting, I assumed, would more likely be undertaken by auto.
I saw more walkers in Palo Alto, but that was because we were surrounded by students, who didn’t yet own cars and walked or rode bicycles instead.
I thought about that and not about Joe, because one thing I knew from my life to date: very little is solved by worrying about it. I’d done my best for him, and I’d keep doing it. And one cannot, after all, force another person to think in a different way, no matter how much love is in his heart.
Joe glanced down at me, then, and asked, “Still OK if we walk up through Lafayette Park?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m very strong, you know, from all the bicycling.”
“You’re very strong in every way,” he said, which was pleasant to hear.
The park was lovely, although not as formal as it would have been in Germany, for it had no statues and fountains at all.
What it did have were views. Views of the city, with its undulating coastline and the traffic of ships, all laid out below like a picture postcard.
Views of the hills opposite, in all directions but one, for to the west, there would be only the sea, stretching all the way to …
Japan, maybe? What a thing it was to live at the edge of a vast continent!
What an offering for the imagination! And views, most of all, of the bay.
The water was rougher today, but I could see a few white sails in the distance; pleasure boaters even in the middle of December!
Joe said, “Let’s sit,” and we did, after he first brushed off the bench for me with his hand.
I said, once I’d sat and tucked my coat up around me, when we were both looking out at a vista of blue sky and bluer water, “You’re a most considerate husband. You should know this.”
“I wouldn’t say I’d done too well here lately.” Joe still had my hand, but he wasn’t looking at me, but instead frowning out to sea.
“This is very stupid,” I said. “Very wrong. It is a waste to treat love so, perhaps even a sin.” As you see, I’d already forgotten my own wise thoughts about not being able to force a man to change his mind.
He was at least looking at me now. “What?”
I said, “We have this thing between us, like Rilke, although Rilke, you know, was not as good at staying faithfully in love as he was at writing beautiful poems about it. But we, we two, are good at it. How many trials have we come through already, and only felt our love grow stronger? It must be a sin not to … to appreciate that. To attempt to put that away, to say, ‘No, this is not good enough, for I am not perfect.’ Why should we want perfection? Why should we think we can achieve it? Surely that is only for God.”
Joe was smiling for the first time, and the line between his brows was gone. “Marguerite,” he said, “I think you are exceptionally good for me.”
“But of course I am,” I said. “I’m your wife, and I love you.
What else could I do that is more important than that?
So let’s have no more talk of failure, please.
You say you’re worried about your studies.
Isn’t that perfectly natural, when it matters a great deal that you do your best?
How else would you …” I stopped. “There are so many English words I don’t know yet.
I would wish to tell you in German, but I fear we’d be shot as spies.
Also, I must learn the words. Wie sagt man ‘motivieren’? ”
“Motivate,” Joe said. “How else would I motivate myself to all that hard work, without a healthy dose of fear?”
“Not fear, I think, precisely,” I said. “A sense of great importance. You must tell me what I can do to help you study. Make cocoa for you, perhaps, in the evening, and possibly sweet biscuits? I don’t know how to do this, but Susie will teach me.
Read the books along with you, if they’re difficult, and discuss them?
Or not, if you’d rather not, though I’d like to learn the things you’re learning, especially things about America.
A citizen should be informed. But if you need to spend more time in the library instead, you must do that, and not worry about me. ”
“And what will you be doing,” Joe said, “when I’m spending those extra hours in the library? I’m supposed to ignore you, am I?”
“I’ll be getting a job, of course. It’s only sensible.”
“Now, wait just a minute,” Joe said.
I held up a hand. “I admit that I’m not yet very efficient with my housekeeping, but the carpet-sweeper does make the work go faster, and I’ve found a new powder for cleaning that is wonderful.
I saw it in an advertisement in The Ladies’ Home Journal.
This is a housekeeping magazine and contains a great deal of useful information, although the fiction stories in it are rather silly, all tales of love and so forth, not witty or edifying as Dr. Müller’s books are.
But for cleaning, the magazine is useful.
The powder is called ‘Ajax,’ after the Greek warrior, you know, who was so strong.
All one need do is sprinkle it in the bathtub or toilet and then scrub a bit, and there is no more ring.
There’s a new polish for furniture also, so one doesn’t have to make it oneself, as in Germany.
Which is fortunate, because I don’t know how to make it.
So you see, the housework is really very little. ”
Joe’s frown was back. “When you’ve been here barely three weeks? I wanted you to have some time to settle in. I knew I shouldn’t have said that, about the money. That’s not yours to worry about. It’s mine.”
“Nonsense. Of course it’s mine also. Or do you think me too brainless and helpless to be your … the Bible says ‘helpmeet.’ Is this a word one uses?”
“Not much,” Joe said, but he was starting to smile. “Partner, maybe?”
“That sounds like a business arrangement,” I said, “but marriage is a business arrangement, or at least a practical one. For a royal, though, most definitely it is a business arrangement.”
“So a guy marries a princess,” Joe said, “and immediately makes her a drudge? What, a reverse Cinderella story?” He was laughing a little inside, though, I thought. “That story’s never going to be in The Ladies’ Home Journal.”
“And what was I when I met you?” I asked. “A baker who was happy to have work to do, because I could care not only for myself but also for those I loved. I love you ten times more, so surely I should want to work ten times harder to care for you, as you’ve always done for me.”
Joe had his hands up now in surrender. “OK, OK. I give. For somebody who’s telling me she’s here to serve and help me, you’re sure an opinionated woman.”
“I have a strong will,” I said demurely. “I have this from my father.”
“I’ll bet,” Joe said, and now, we were both laughing.
“But you’re not working as hard as you did in Germany.
Not from three-thirty in the morning until four in the afternoon, you’re not.
We just need a little more. And as for the carpet-sweeper and the feather-duster and all, I can use those as well as you can. As long as we don’t tell Mom.”
“That’s a very good idea,” I said. “We will have flexible minds, no? We’re living in the modern world, after all. You must give me the account book also. What do you call this?”
“The check register,” he said, “and the savings passbook.”
“Yes. These you must give to me. I’ll make our payments, and also make a notebook like my mother’s, in which I will draw lines with a ruler and be very systematic.
I’ll tot up all our purchases in it, and we can look it over together.
Perhaps on a certain day of the week? Sunday, I think, which means I must buy a notebook very soon to be ready for next week.
Then we’ll both know exactly how much money there is, and where we may be going wrong, too, so we can decide together whether you need a new hat, and whether I do.
We’ll borrow books from the library to read—such a beautiful library there is in Palo Alto, and free for all to use!
And play cards and listen to music on the radio and take our bicycles out with a picnic lunch once the weather is warmer.
These are all free things to do, and very pleasant.
And I’ll make more dishes of hamburger and invite your friends to join us, for one must entertain, and being gay is important after one has fought in war and suffered.
But we will not, I think, offer cocktails. Beer, perhaps.”
Joe stretched his feet out before him, clasped his hands behind his neck, and sighed. I said, “What?”
He turned a laughing gaze on me. “I’m feeling light as a feather, that’s all, now that my tiny little wife has taken over the entire burden of our lives.”
“Not the entire burden,” I said. “Merely half. ‘Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid,’ after all.”
“A problem shared is a problem halved,” he said.
“Exactly. Because this too is marriage, I think.”
“Was your mother like this?” he asked.
“Like what?” I was startled.
“This determined? This sure of herself?”
I had to think about that. “She certainly expressed herself less forcefully than I do.”
“You don’t say.” Joe was grinning now.
“But you see,” I said, “she was a queen. And a queen, you know, has a great deal of responsibility. If you prefer this other kind of wife, as in The Ladies’ Home Journal, I’m afraid you’ve made the wrong choice, and no, I will not go to Nevada, no matter who asks me.
I am like a swan. I mate for life. And now we must walk back to your parents’ house again, for your mother will be making breakfast, and I wish to understand how to cook the things you like.
Also, she’ll want to discover more things that are wrong with me. ”
Joe laughed, got to his feet, and put out a hand to help me up. “I guess this is what happens,” he said, “when a guy marries a princess.”
“And,” I said, tucking my hand through his arm as we headed back down the path, “you must not be stupid about the lovemaking, either. You must remember that I love you, and that many things you do in our bed give me pleasure, not only that one thing. What is it to me whether we do one thing or another, when you’ve made my body sing like this?
” I snapped my fingers. “I care that for such concerns. You must also teach me better ways to please you, because I think perhaps you feel too much responsibility in this way as well. One cannot make love alone, so why should you alone be accountable?”
Joe laughed again and squeezed my hand with his arm. “OK, Mrs. Stark. I think you’ve just about convinced me. We’ll go home and put it to the test, you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think we must. Because I do love you very much, you know. I love the way Rilke says he loves, but for me, a love like this must be for life. As for a swan.”