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

I found her the next morning standing by herself on the playground under a high window, slapping a little red ball attached by a gray rubber string to a wooden paddle. Beside her lay that shiny black kitten, licking its paws in the warm October light. It was a nasty little creature, always sneaking up on you and suddenly leaping at your leg; its ridiculous name was Gray. So absorbed was Rose Dorn in her little game that she did not notice me as in grave meditation I stood there watching her, wondering precisely how to begin. For I had been entrusted with an extremely delicate mission. Upon learning Edwin’s secret I had wakened him and told him what I knew; he had grown pink, denied everything hotly, and at last poured forth his passion in a flood of incoherence. I shall spare the reader those tedious details. Suffice it to say that he had not shown so much animation in almost a month; indeed I date his recovery from the moment of his confession. As our colloquy drew to a close with the sound of Dr. Mullhouse entering downstairs, I remembered the orange juice. Gingerly I suggested that he take a sip. To my astonishment he gulped the whole glass down. It was with an air of triumph that I descended the stairs, bearing the empty glass past Dr. Mullhouse, who was coming up with another glass of orange juice; and as Mrs. Mullhouse took it from me at the bottom of the stairs, she told me that she wouldn’t be surprised if I grew up to be a famous doctor.

But as I stood watching Rose Dorn paddling her ball, smacking away with a thp-thp-thp, I did not feel at all like a famous doctor. I felt uneasy; I felt afraid; I felt, how shall I say, a fool. For suddenly, standing there in the bright morning light, I felt that I should never be able to carry out my task, and I cursed myself for having agreed to Edwin’s plan. Indeed I was tempted to wash my hands of the whole affair, and I bitterly regret that I did not then and there turn away. In a sense it was really all my fault: without me, would Edwin ever have dared to face his blond enchantress? But the kitten was staring at me with its pale green eyes; I had given my word; the bell might ring at any moment. Taking a deep breath I stepped up to her and said: “Edwin is sick.” She looked up. The red ball shot past the paddle, stopped at the end of the rubber string, shot down past the paddle on the other side, shot up in the air, and in this fashion gradually wound the string around the handle of the paddle, binding Rose Dorn’s extended index finger. She continued to look at me without speaking; I felt she was mocking me in some remote outrageous way. She did not attempt to remove her finger from its rubber trap. I said: “Look at your finger.” She frowned in faint incomprehension; then she looked down. Under the paddle the red ball swung back and forth beneath its few inches of rubber string. She looked up, unfrowning, and waited for me to speak. Twenty feet away a line of girls, among whom I noticed Trudy Cassidy and Donna Riccio, were chanting like savages as they waited to jump into the chaos of two swirling ropes. Stepping closer to Rose Dorn I said: “Edwin. Edwin is sick. Edwin …” At that moment I felt a hideous sensation on my leg. There, like a big black burr, hung Gray. I shook my leg frantically; finally I tore him off with my hands. He trotted away and began playing with a yellow chewing-gum wrapper, knocking it to one side with a paw and springing after it. Rose Dorn said nothing, but continued to stare with her pale piercing eyes: strange, those eyes, as if the irises had died one day, leaving only the bright black pupils. I was about to address her again when the bell rang. From distant corners of the playground people began running in; nearby, a noisy double line was forming at the flight of concrete steps leading up to two green doors; at the other end of the playground another line was forming at a door above a single step. I continued to stand there, transfixed with confusion; angrily I kicked at pebbles while Gray sharpened his claws on my shoes and socks. The nearby line began to climb the stairs; the far line was being gobbled up by the door; farther away, a few latecomers ran along the sidewalk and down a little slope past the willow onto the playground. I wanted them all to disappear so that I might perform my mission in peace. Were her eyes grayblue? greengray? tawny? I never knew. Behind me, the nearly empty playground was strangely quiet, and suddenly I thought of a bright crowded beach under a blue sky: a ripple of thunder, the upward-gazing faces, the folding umbrellas, the darkening air; and when, hurrying away, you look back for a moment from the crest of sand before scurrying down to the parking lot, you see, under a dark sky from which drops are already falling, the empty brown sand stretching endlessly away before the gray, dangerous, alien water. I turned abruptly. “Here,” I said, sticking out a hand that held a small brown paper bag. In a low, significant tone I added: “From Edwin.” She continued to stare. “Take it!” I almost shouted; with her free hand she took it, and holding one side of the bag with the four free fingers of her trapped hand, slowly she reached inside. “Hurry,” I whispered, looking about; grayly the playground stretched away. When she removed her hand she stared at her small open palm. In it lay a large pink plastic ring crowned with a transparent plastic dome in which a black needle, pointing North, trembled over a silver disk with black markings. It was a treasure from Edwin’s collection of cereal-box prizes. “It’s a compass-ring,” I said, feeling preposterous. She slipped it onto a finger — it was much too big — and making a fist she stared at it, tilting her head to one side. “We’ll be late,” I said, looking about again; and suddenly she was running away toward the far door, her pigtails bumping on her back, and Gray bounding after her. On the playground, beside the wall, I noticed her bright red pencil-case. I picked it up and hurried after her, wondering if I had performed my task successfully; wondering what I would tell Edwin. Far away I saw her struggling with the heavy door; she disappeared inside, leaving Gray on the step. The second bell was already ringing as I stepped through the door into the gloom of the hall. As I turned a corner Rose Dorn leaped out at me with a shrieking boo. I have never been amused by those who tell vulgar jokes, torture animals, or leap out of hiding places at unsuspecting people. Away she ran along the hall, her pigtails bumping on her back, her finger still trapped on the wooden paddle; and as I followed, distressed to hear a nearby class already reciting the Pledge Allegiance, a presentiment of Edwin’s misery came over me like a winter rain.

“She said thank you,” I reported to Edwin that afternoon. His recovery, already under way, now proceeded with great rapidity. Though by no means complete, it was, as I say, rapid: that evening he ate a tremendous meal, and the next day (Saturday) he rose from bed. That weekend we held interminable confabulations concerning the unspeakable virtues of intolerable Rose Dorn. I concealed my annoyance, thinking it far wiser to listen patiently, as I have always listened, and to pass stern judgments in secret. Edwin was still heartsore, soulsad, lovesick; who was I to prick his wound? Besides, he counted on me. He himself had never addressed Rose Dorn, while I had already established a relation. And yet as the weekend moved toward Monday, I was not easy in my mind, for all too vividly I remembered what had happened to poor Carol Stempel.

CAROL STEMPEL was in the top reading group. It was her only distinction. She was a tall bony dreamy droopy girl with stringy straw-colored hair hanging halfway down her back. She wore long faded dreamy droopy dresses from which emerged pale pipe-stem arms with red elbows; she wore blue-rimmed eyeglasses, and was forever taking them off to rub the lenses with a piece of faded yellow cloth which she extracted from a dark red eyeglass case. She liked to hand out paper, collect scissors, and water the plants. She was quiet, obedient, and barely noticeable except for her height. Her goal in life was to become as useful and unobtrusive as an eraser on a chalktray. At the age of seven she already resembled an old maid.