Evan Connell - Mrs. Bridge

“No, thank heavens/’ she replied. “We wanted to go to Spain, but Walter felt it would be dangerous so soon after the Civil War. But we did hear a great deal about it. Europe seems to be jam-packed with people who fought on the los-ing side.”

‘It’s hard to understand how the Spaniards can be so blood-thirsty/* Madge Arlen remarked.

“It certainly is,” said Mrs. Bridge promptly.

“The poverty of the Europeans must be simply appalling.”

“Yes, it’s simply unbelievable.”

“They say there’s no middle class at all, just the rich and the poor/’

“Yes, it seems so unfair/’

“I suppose they’re all dying to emigrate to this country/’

“Yes, though of course you can’t blame them,” she replied. “Grace, would you pass the cream?”

Luncheon being over they moved into the living room, where the hostess, Lois Montgomery, had set up card tables. On each table there was a fluted yellow paper basket filled with salted cashews and peppermints, and there were four tasseled tally cards and four tiny pencils.

Being asked what she thought about England, she answered that it was lovely and that the people were quite nice, though rather reserved. The cooking was not as good as French cooking because the English boiled everything. The roast beef, however, was delicious, and the plum pudding. London was foggy and the English accent sounded strange until one got used to it.

“Aren’t we lucky to be living in America!” someone said.

“Isn’t that the truth!”

“Oh, by the way,” said Mrs. Bridge, “all the time we were abroad I kept wondering if that awful hole in the pavement just off Ward Parkway had been fixed/’

“They finally got to it last week. We were just about to give it up as a lost cause.”

“That was so maddening. I was so provoked with Douglas one day that I forgot to watch for it and ran right over it.”

“Well,” said Madge Arlen, who was shuffling the cards with a cigarette in her mouth and one eye closed against the smoke, “you can thank Grace. She sent the mayor a telegram/’

“You’d think with taxes as high as they are the city could do something about those holes without waiting till kingdom come.”

“Well, you know these politicians. Who’s ready for more coffee?”

“Buy any art treasures while you were there?”

“Oh, no. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know one if it hit me. Three no trump.”

“I’ve been trying to talk Ralph into a trip somewhere, but now with this Polish thing I suppose it’ll have to be post-poned.”

“Yes, I don’t suppose it’s safe anywhere any more. Honestly, you can’t imagine why we have so many wars.”

“I’m simply parched!” said Madge. “Lois, do you mind if I scare up some ice water?”

“Oh, sit still. Ill ring for Belinda.”

“Is it true the Italian women get awfully heavy?”

“Yes, we saw some who were positively enormous. I suppose it’s from eating so much starch.”

Late that afternoon as the party was breaking up someone said to her, “I certainly envy you and Walter. It must have been a marvelous trip even if it did end that way.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” said Mrs. Bridge, smiling all around, “and I feel awfully lucky. Even so we were certainly glad to see the Union Station. I suppose no matter how far you go there’s no place like home.” She could see they agreed with her, and surely what she had said was true, yet she was troubled and for a moment she was almost engulfed by a nameless panic.

The only one of her friends who might understand how she felt was Grace Barron, and so it was that a few days after the luncheon she telephoned her. The maid answered and said Mrs. Barron was in bed. Mrs. Bridge asked if she was ill. The maid didn’t seem to know, saying only that she had gone to bed about noon. This was so strange that Mrs. Bridge decided to drive over and find out what was the matter.

She was sitting up in bed wearing her favorite sweatshirt and a baseball cap and she was reading a monstrous Russian novel. Closing the book on a hairpin she said, “I’m losing my mind.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it/’ said Mrs. Bridge with a smile.

“Do stop/’ Grace said unhappily. “Don’t be gay, India. Please, for once, don’t.”

“Well, it is rather a shocking remark.*’

“Life can be shocking.” She took off the ball player’s cap and began turning it around in her hands and frowning. “It’s just that I do want to be a person. I do, I do!” Mrs. Bridge did not know what to say and presently Grace continued. “Virgil says there’s something wrong with me. He says he’s never known another woman in all his life who would wear a sweatshirt on the Plaza/’

“Well, you do attract attention. Not that I mind, and I can’t see where it’s anyone else’s business, and there certainly isn’t any law against it.”

“But I do attract attention/’

“Well,” Mrs. Bridge answered uneasily, “as Virgil says, you’re the only one from this neighborhood who dresses as though you were going to work in the north end.”

Grace nodded. “It’s true. Yes, it’s true.”

Both of them fell silent.

“Do you think we’ll get in the war?” said Grace after a while.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Bridge replied. “I can’t understand what’s going on. I hate to think about it. It’s so senseless.”

Again they fell silent.

“Can you tell me what happened, Grace? Being in bed is so unlike you.”

“It was the washing machine’s fault,” she answered without a smile, and went on to explain that she and the machine had never gotten along very well “We’ve always despised each other,” she said and on this day it had defied her, it had knocked and trembled, and begun tearing the clothing, and so infuriated her that she had grabbed it by one leg and tipped it over, and the water ran all over the basement. The maid, who was upstairs in the kitchen preparing lunch, heard her screaming and summoned a doctor.

Mrs. Bridge remained silent and was thoughtful, for here was someone less confident of the future than herself. An evil, a malignancy, was at work. Its nature she could not discern, though she had known of its carbuncular presence for many years. Until now, until this revelation of its existence, she had not imagined it could be more than a fanciful illness, nor that there could be other victims than herself. But her friend was ill and suffering and Mrs. Bridge, too, was afflicted. Thinking back she was able to remember moments when this anonymous evil had erupted and left as its only cicatrice a sour taste in the mouth and a wild, wild desire.

One morning she had chanced to meet Grace downtown and Grace had wanted to look around in a toy store, and so, together, Mrs. Bridge amused and puzzled by this whim, they stopped here and there. So much had changed from the years when she used to buy toys for Ruth and Carolyn and Douglas. Everything was more intricate now, more automatic. It seemed you no longer played with a toy, you operated it. Douglas used to spend hours on his knees ruining his corduroy knickers pushing a fire engine or a dump truck and making appropriate noises. Now, however, you simply pushed a lever and the toy ran around by itself and the sirens wailed and the lights flashed until you were able to catch the machine and stop it. And Grace had caught it and was trembling so she could hardly reverse the lever.

There was a doll, too, with its little frock tied up around its head in order to display the electronics in the abdomen. There was a booklet tied to the wrist of the doll and they had read the booklet and then Mrs. Bridge turned the doll on. The eyes began to roll, the jaw dropped, and from the loud-speaker in the stomach came a nursery rhyme, and when this ended the doll sat down and a thin, colorless liquid appeared from beneath it and trickled over the counter.