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

My heart is torn

By Rose, Rose Dorn.

It is not a masterpiece. Edwin never amounted to much as a poet, and if I include this poem in my biography it is as evidence not of his artistry but of his misery. As soon as I had read it I recognized, in memory, the dark blue book on his pillow: it was one of Dr. Mullhouse’s dictionaries, the one which had on its front cover, in gold letters, the words ABRAHAM MULLHOUSE, and which contained in the back, between Common English Given Names and Orthography, a section called Vocabulary of Rhymes. We had played with the Vocabulary of Rhymes only a short while ago — Edwin had asked me how many rhymes I could think of for “at,” and we had ended by looking up “cravat.” Despite the poem’s mechanical origins, the unprejudiced reader will recognize in those repeated “orn” ’s a certain mournfulness, reminiscent of the dim blowings of distant foghorns on stormy nights. And surely, no matter what else one may think of it, the little poem represents a significant technical advance over his Abdul the Bulbul Amir days (see this page).

I should add that Edwin continued to write poems to Rose Dorn during the next two miserable months, though he never showed her any but a few jingles scribbled on a Valentine card. His poetic activity at this time is interesting less for its own sake than as a harbinger of the great burst of creativity which he experienced that summer, when he produced no fewer than thirty-one fables and stories. Later he scorned the Rose Dorn poems, and I do not blame him; oddly enough, however, he expressed affection for the Valentine jingles. For Valentine’s Day Edwin received thirty-four cards, which is to say, a card from everyone in the class except himself and Rose Dorn. She received only five cards: three from Edwin, one from myself — he made me send it — and one, unsigned, from an unknown admirer whose existence tormented Edwin to the end. On one of his three cards, Edwin wrote out a series or cycle of five little verses, based on the familiar jingle “Roses Are Red.” The verses are here included for the sake of the curious:

1

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

I know a Rose,

And her name is You.

2

Violets are blue,

Roses are red.

I love you.

Sincerely, Ed.

3

If Roses are blue

And violets are red,

Then I must be you,

And you must be Ed.

4

Roses are rose,

Violets are violet.

I love your nose,

And I love your eyelid.

5

R oses are red,

O violets are blue!

S ugar is sweet,

E xcept near you.

The sense of strain is evident in the last two verses, and explains why he did not go on to write the one thousand jingles called for, he once told me, in his original plan. But perhaps he was only joking.

“She said it was nice,” I reported the next day when I returned to Edwin’s room, noticing at once that someone had removed the glass of orange juice. “Is that all?” he said, utterly crestfallen. Fortunately he did not pursue the matter. She had torn open the resealed envelope in front of the wide oak, resting one foot against the tree behind her. Even when she removed the little letter-ball she continued to stare into the corner of the envelope, as if she had overlooked a prize. I paced back and forth in front of her, anxious to go away but knowing that Edwin would ask for her response. The little vocabulary-of-rhymes poem seemed to me suddenly quite moving; I was saddened by the mournful passion of its rhymes; in my mind, like trainwheels, the opening words echoed over and over: Rose Dorn, Rose Dorn, I am, forlorn, Rose Dorn, Rose Dorn, I am, forlorn. She, meanwhile, had managed to undo the knot of tape, placing the sticky mass onto Gray’s neck, and was unfolding the page. She began reading and stopped almost immediately — probably at the word “forlorn,” which I venture to suggest she did not know. Grasping the wrinkled page in one hand, and placing her hands on her hips, she stared at me with a blank face. Suddenly she screwed up her features, thrust her face forward, and stuck out her tongue. It was stained black from a piece of licorice she was sucking. I turned on my heel and walked away.

Later that morning I was interrupted at my table by a sound of giggling from Table 5. Donna Riccio and Marcia Robbins were bent over a piece of paper, and Jimmy Pluvcik, standing up, was leaning across the table for a closer look. For some reason the truth did not dawn upon me, or rather dusk upon me, until Mrs. Cadwallader had snatched the paper away. She stood reading it silently beside Donna Riccio, who had grown suddenly solemn. Rose Dorn, expressionless, watched sideways from her seat. Mrs. Cadwallader said to Donna: “And where did you get this thing?” “She gave it to me,” said Donna, pointing to Rose Dorn. “I did not!” shrieked Rose Dorn. “You did too!” shrieked Donna. Finally I too was dragged into the vulgar fray when Rose Dorn revealed that I was the one who had given her the “thing.” I refuse to go into the sickening details of this dispiriting episode. Fortunately Edwin did not return to school for a few days, during which the incident was drowned in the whirlpool of Christmas preparations.

THE TURN CAME on a pale cold colorless afternoon in late February, at 12:06 P.M. to be precise. In the coatroom he had agreed to return early from lunch, in order to meet her on the playground at 12:15 (the last time they had made such an agreement, Edwin had rushed back to school after a hasty bite and waited with a stomach ache on the cold empty playground; she arrived five minutes before the bell, in a bad temper). We were seated in Edwin’s kitchen — Edwin, Karen, and I — at the metal table with its white tablecloth bordered by red apples. Edwin sat bent over an old comic book to the right of his plate, engrossed in a Mickey Mouse adventure that was continued in the small heap of old comic books to the left of his plate; Karen was kneeling on her chair, licking her plate like a cat; and I kept my eye on the clock. At precisely 11:59 Mrs. Mullhouse, standing by the sink, proceeded to pour milk into the first of three tall glasses decorated with red and blue fish. As the swift red second-hand rounded the 7 on its way to the two upright black hands, Mrs. Mullhouse turned, bearing in one hand a glass of milk and in the other a large brown noisy package of M & M’s. Edwin liked to drop ten M & M’s into his milk and look at them through the bottom of the glass; as he drank he would watch for them with growing excitement, gazing delightedly at the swirls of brown and red and yellow suspended in the bright white milk like the ripples in fudge ripple ice cream, drinking with closed eyes the last sweet milk at the very bottom, and finally tapping the hard chilled M & M’s carefully into his mouth. The eating habits of my talented friend were always a puzzle to me; in summer he liked to eat chilled grapes by arranging five on one side of his mouth and five on the other side and biting down on all ten at once with an expression of rapture, chewing with bulged cheeks as shiny grape juice fell from the corners of his lips. As the secondhand joined the black hands I said: “It’s twelve, Edwin.” “Mmmm,” said Edwin, not looking up. Karen spilled onto the table a bright bouncing stream of M & M’s, and in imitation of Edwin proceeded to arrange them in long rows according to color, though she failed to keep the white M’s upright (according to Edwin, the M stood for Mullhouse). Mrs. Mullhouse said: “Be careful you don’t get those things all over the floor.” I said: “It’s after twelve, Edwin.” Edwin said: “Why is everybody screaming at me?” It normally took fifteen minutes to get to school; twelve minutes, walking quickly and cutting across the lawn behind the church; ten minutes, running. Karen, grasping her glass with two hands, took a loud gulping drink and set down the glass with a muffled clank, grinning at me with her white mustache. “Shhh,” said Edwin. Mrs. Mullhouse said: “We mustn’t disturb His Royal Highness, honey.” “Royal heinie,” muttered Edwin, punning automatically and not even looking up. Karen said: “Roya heinie! Roya heinie!” Mrs. Mullhouse said: “Just like his father.” I said: “It’s four after, Edwin.” He had not even dropped his M & M’s into his milk. “What’s the big rush?” said Mrs. Mullhouse. “You’re always rushing, Edwin.” “Edwin!” I whispered harshly, reaching over and tugging at the comic book, but he jerked it away and sat sideways on his chair, holding the comic on his knees. At 12:06 I felt a ripple of excitement pass through me, as if I had just done something dangerous and irrevocable, like skipping a day of school. At 12:17 Edwin closed the last comic book and looked up horrifiedly at the clock. “Why didn’t you say something!” he said angrily, pushing back his chair. “Finish your milk first,” said Mrs. Mullhouse, but Edwin was already hurrying toward the front hall.