Steven Millhauser - Edwin Mullhouse - The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954

GOD PITY THE POOR NOVELIST. Standing on his omniscient cliff, with painful ingenuity he must contrive to drop bits of important information into the swift current of his allpowerful plot, where they are swept along like so many popsicle sticks, turning and turning. He dare not delay for one second, not even for one-tenth of a second, for then the busy and impatient reader will yawn and lay aside the book and pick up the nearest newspaper, with all those slender columns that remind you of nothing so much as the sides of cereal boxes. The modest biographer, fortunately, is under no such obligation. Calmly and methodically, in one fell swoop, in a way impossible for the harried novelist who is always trying to do a hundred things at once, he can simply say what he has to say, ticking off each item with his right hand on the successively raised fingers of his left.

His earliest definite memory was of playing with an Erector set while she was still at the hospital. He remembered tiptoeing in to stare at her in her cradle; she had practically no hair. He handed back to her the toys she flung through the playpen bars and he played peek-a-boo with her in the crib. He fed her custard in the highchair, eating half of it himself. He stroked her silky hair and played with her little hands. He made her laugh by pushing his nose with a finger and making his tongue come out. He clasped his hands, saying: “This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors, and look at all the people!” He said: “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy ate roast-beef, and this little piggy had none. And this little piggy ran alllllllll thewayhome.” He said: “One two buckle my shoe, three four shut the door, five six pick up sticks, seven eight lay them straight, nine ten the big fat hen, ’leven twelve dig and delve, thirteen fourteen maids are courting, fifteen sixteen maids in the kitchen, seventeen eighteen lady’s waiting, nineteen twenty the platter’s empty.” He said: “One two three a-lary. I spy mistress Mary, sitting on her bumbalary, out goes why oh you.” He said: “Patty-cake patty-cake baker’s man. Stick it in the oven as fast as you can.” He said: “Fee fie fo fum, I smell the blood of an English mun.” He sang The Farmer in the Dell, A Tisket A Tasket, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Lazy Mary Will You Get Up, The Caissons Go Rolling Along, De Camptown Races, Jingle Bells, My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean, Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Clementine, and O Susannah. He sang comic variations like Karen in the Dell, Lazy Karen Will You Get Up, My Karen Lies Over the Ocean, O Karenannah. He sang: “Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin’ down the bunny trail.” He sang:

Light she was and like a fairy

And her shoooooooes were number nine.

Herring box es without tops es

Sandals were for Clementine.

He sang:

The general got the car de gare

Paaaaaaar layvoo.

The general got the car de gare

Paaaaaaar layvoo.

The general got the car de gare

The sonofabitch wasn’t even there.

Hinky dinky par lay voo.

Taking a tissue and twisting it in the middle, he held it under his nose and said in a deep voice: “Give me the rent the rent the rent.” Then holding the tissue on his hair he said in a high voice: “I don’t have the rent the rent the rent.” Then holding the tissue under his nose he said in a deep voice: “Give me the rent the rent the rent.” Then holding the tissue on his hair he said in a high voice: “I don’t have the rent the rent the rent.” Then holding the tissue under his neck he said in his own, triumphant voice: “I’ll pay the rent.” Then holding the tissue on his hair he said in a high voice: “My hero.” Then holding the tissue under his nose he said in a deep voice: “Curses!” He told her the names of things and tried to make her say “spoon,” not “pooo.” He taught her how to say “arny goose,” his own old way of saying “orange juice.” He taught her how to say “oink oink,” “meeow,” “hee-haw,” “er-e-er-e-errrrrrr,” and “puck puck puck puck awwwwwk.” He wrote her name in big letters and said: “That’s you.” He drew pictures of cats, dogs, elephants, mommy with a flower, daddy with smoke coming out of his mouth, Jeffrey with donkey’s ears, himself with an upside-down smile, Karen with curly hair and a big smile. He held her hand to help her walk, rolled Tinker Toy wheels to her across the kitchen floor, told her to stay at the bottom of the stairs while from the landing he started a Slinky on its slow way down. He opened the cereal boxes and she found the prize. He showed her how to make the world go round by holding out his arms, spinning around, and falling onto the bed with his eyes shut. He showed her how to say a word over and over and over until it meant nothing at all. He showed her how to pick radishes out of the garden, digging away the soil until the red bulb appeared. He showed her how to make snowballs, how to blow away the tops of gray dandelions, how to catch a trembling bubble on the wire loop. He introduced her to icicles, balloons, spiderwebs, lollipops, and pink worms in black rainpuddles. He showed her how to write with her finger on cold foggy windows. He tucked her in at night and on the dark walls of her room showed her the moving rectangles of light from passing cars. On the tall old phonograph that he opened by standing on a footstool, he played Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, trying to make her share his terror when the. witch cackled from the gingerbread house. At night he moaned: “It’s oooonly the wind,” terrifying himself and her. On the cover of Peter and the Wolf he showed her the frightening picture of a little green duck inside a black wolf. He tried to teach her the letters, the numbers, the days of the week, the months, the refrain of “Jingle Bells.” He tried to teach her to say: “Now I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Sometimes, when she would not learn, he lost his temper and shook her by the shoulders, saying: “You stupid stupid jerk, you stupid dumbbell,” until her large, beautiful, copper-flecked blue eyes filled with terror, and she burst into hysterical tears.

Karen’s favorite toy, in the Early Years, was a bright red parasol with a white handle. When she stood in the sunlight, holding her parasol over one shoulder, the sun streaming through the shade flowed over her hair, her cheek, and her little plump arm in a crimson stain, as if you were looking at her through a piece of red cellophane.

Edwin’s favorite photograph of himself and Karen was technically one of the poorest. They stood in the center of the picture, walking hand in hand along a bright, tree-lined road with their backs to the camera. Edwin wore long baggy shorts, held up over his thin legs by dark suspenders that made an X on his short-sleeved cowboy shirt; Karen wore long pants with straps and a little t-shirt. Their very short shadows fell behind them; Karen’s shadow, half the length of Edwin’s, was almost a circle. It was a touching picture, though no more so than a dozen others; what made it heartbreaking was the fact that it was terribly overexposed. Karen’s curly blond hair, even then darkening to brown, was here a pale blaze that seemed to be shooting off light, like the rays that Edwin used to draw about his suns. The pale road had the texture of sand, not tar, and the leaves on the pale-trunked maples were the lightest of grays. In front of the two children the flat road stretched away in a shimmering perspective that became brighter and brighter until all detail was bleached away, as if they were being drawn toward some dazzling vision.