Chapter 24 The Princess Emerges
THE PRINCESS EMERGES
We ended up in the same park as before, but looking out at the lights this time, and the dark expanse that was the water. The bridges were lit up, the lights shining along their cables like beads on a string. It was all very serene, and very beautiful; completely untouched by war and destruction.
“You see,” I told Joe, “how it is when one has all this beauty before one. I’ve carried the necklace with me for more than three years.
I haven’t worn it once in all this time—it would be ridiculous to do so—and now, it’s in the bank.
Yet I can still see beauty around me every day, so what have I lost if I no longer have it? Nothing.”
“Why would you want to get rid of it?” Joe asked.
“It’s your birthright, and we’re doing fine.
” He stopped, then. “Wait. If you sold it, we could both go to college. Is that it? Because if it is, I meant what I said. I’ll be finished with this degree in three years max, and as soon as I am, we’ll send you. ”
“But I’m quite happy auditing my two classes,” I said, “and reading your textbooks. I meant what I said, too. I don’t need this, this schooling for a degree.
I feel that my … my destiny lies in another direction.
Perhaps because nobody in my family has ever answered to an employer?
Can one have this in one’s heredity, do you think, like blue eyes and fair hair?
I’ll have to ask Professor Jacobson, because I don’t seem able to get used to these things.
Not being able to speak my mind, when there is no Gestapo to arrest me for my candor, and having to hide what I think altogether. ”
“You don’t say,” Joe said, which I knew was a joke, although he wasn’t smiling.
“But I would wish you not to have to work so hard, “ I said, “and I can’t find enough work to keep you from having to do it. For you to have to take so many classes, and talk of washing dishes and carrying boxes all summer while I, who could work much harder, do not? No. This I cannot accept.”
“The necklace is your last piece of your family’s legacy, though.”
“Yes,” I said, “that and the earrings, and if you remember, my parents told me to sell it if I needed to, for they knew life would be difficult after the war. I’m thinking, you know …
there is a great deal of building now, with all the GIs coming home, as David said, and wanting a house very much.
Wouldn’t it be wise to sell the necklace and buy land? ”
Joe stared at me. “Where did this plan come from?”
“My family were landowners. This is how we’ve always made our living, just as your family has learned a great deal about law and psychology and medicine and so forth and prospered in this way.”
“Your family were kings. That’s hardly a model for the family business.”
“But of course it is. Now you’re being very stupid, I’m afraid.
Consider the British aristocracy; their wealth has always been in the land.
In Jane Austen’s books, you know, it is demeaning—this is the word, I think—to have one’s fortune come from trade rather than from the land.
But life now is different, and very difficult for these aristocrats, with death duties and taxes and so forth, and they don’t know what to do.
This we see in Brideshead Revisited, how they must sell their great houses that they can no longer keep up, and some of their lands, too, but this is because they haven’t adapted to modern life.
They have been too sentimental. This is a lesson for me.
I must be clear-eyed and most practical, for the old days are gone and won’t come back.
I’m no longer a princess, but I do have the necklace, and the necklace and I are here in the New World, where people make their own fortunes by daring greatly and then working very hard. This is the American Dream, is it not?”
“Well, yes,” Joe said, “but—”
“I wish to do this thing,” I said, “but I won’t do it without you.
You’ve always treated me as a partner, and I’d like you to think of me now in the same way, not just as your wife, and listen.
Truly listen, and if you have objections, make them, and I will listen.
For we must be partners in this, too. It is most important. ”
“Just my wife?” He stared at me. “How have I treated you as anything but my partner? Tell me. How?”
“You’re angry,” I said.
“Well, of course I’m angry! You’re telling me I can’t provide for you. That I’m not providing for you.” He took a breath, and I could see him fighting for control. “I’ll get a job on the weekends. I should’ve done it already. I should’ve realized you were too pressed.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Joe stared at me, incredulous, and I took his hand and said, “Joe. I’m not too pressed.
I have my best job yet, the work at the bookstore, and I enjoy it.
I enjoy the schoolwork, too, and even learning to cook isn’t so bad, except when I make something you can’t even pretend to like.
The tuna casserole with the canned vegetables and the can of cheese soup, for example, before I learned that canned soups are not good sauces, or the time the recipe said two teaspoons of salt and I used two tablespoons—this was my worst, I believe.
What a lot of water you drank that night!
Or the canned chipped beef on toast last week.
This last I don’t understand, for it was something I would have eaten with great gratitude in Germany. It was beef, after all.”
“It has a name in the mess halls,” Joe said, “that dish. We got it plenty in the Army.”
“Oh?” I asked. “What is this name?”
He grinned. “SOS. Shit on Shingles.” And when I still looked uncomprehending, “Shingles, like shingles on a roof. Toast. And shit, well …”
“But what is this?” I said.
“Scheisse,” he said. “Sorry. Once heard, you know … well, it’s hard to forget that image. Your digestive system does tend to get put through the wringer in those foxholes.”
I laughed very much, and so did he. “Oh, dear,” I said. “But you see? We’re both rather imperfect, but we’re kind to each other and work to solve our problems together, and these things are very important in a marriage.”
“Well, except for you telling me I’m being very stupid,” Joe said, but he was still smiling.
“Yes,” I said. “That was perhaps not the best way to express myself. I should say ‘foolish,’ do you think?”
“Still not great. How about saying, ‘Consider it this way’?”
“Hmm.” I thought about that. “It’s perhaps less direct.
But more polite. Yes, I see that would have been better.
So, Joe, consider it this way. How can you possibly provide for me when you’re still attending university, even with the very generous GI Bill, and the money you’ve saved by being frugal when you were in the Army? Shall I tell you what I think?”
“What else have you been doing?” Joe said. He didn’t sound angry anymore, though, and he was holding my hand.
“I think,” I said, “that if things had been different, if you hadn’t gone to war, you would have attended the university, for which your parents would have paid—”
“Well, I would have worked, too.”
“Yes,” I said. “Your parents would have paid, and you would have worked, and when you’d finished with this schooling and had your diploma in law, then you would have married.
And bought your wife a house and an automatic washing machine and a very powerful vacuum cleaner and perhaps a roaster-broiler, and of course many necklaces of your own choosing. Is this correct?”
“Well, yes,” Joe said. “That’s more or less how it goes. What’s a roaster-broiler?”
I waved a hand. “A very silly thing to buy if one has an oven. Shall I tell you what I think of this plan?”
“I doubt I have much choice,” Joe said, but he was still grinning.
“First,” I said, “you did go to war, for which I am most grateful, for not only did you help free my country and many others from a madman, you also married me. Although I’m not grateful about the bombs. This I still feel was wrong.”
“And I’d have to agree with you,” Joe said, “to a point.”
“And also,” I said, “this life would have been very dull for me, I think. Of course, in this story, I would have been able to have healthy children very easily, so perhaps then …” I considered, then shook my head.
“I can’t say. This is too much imagining.
Perhaps one can’t truly imagine another type of life.
No, I can only see this life, where we’ve both married very young—younger than our parents would have chosen—and must work out all these things together, by ourselves.
That means I must stop being sorry that I can’t give you all the children you would wish for, and you must stop being sorry that you can’t pay all our bills by yourself. ”
“You’re an extremely rational woman, Mrs. Stark,” Joe said. “Has anyone ever won an argument with you?”
“I don’t wish to win,” I said. “I wish to discuss most thoroughly, so we can find our way to the correct answer. Like Socrates.”
“Uh-huh.” Joe was laughing now. “I hate to mention it, but whatever you think, the princess is definitely emerging. So tell me more about this idea of yours.”
I stared at him. “You’ve changed your mind?”
“Not quite,” he said. “Oddly, I don’t think I’m as much of a risk-taker as you. What I’ve done is reminded myself that it’s your necklace, not mine, and if you really want to let it go, who am I to stand in your way? And that you’re brilliant. So … let’s discuss it.”