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

Within a week I was intimate with Margaret Riley, Anna Maria DellaDonna, and May Flowers. It was not without a certain ingenuity that I managed to conduct my investigations entirely unobserved by Edwin. If through the wire fence I saw Margaret Riley entering Rapolski’s, I discovered in myself an overpowering urge for a piece of licorice. If over Edwin’s shoulder I spotted May Flowers on the far sidewalk, I suddenly remembered that she had borrowed my green eraser. I snatched moments for private conversation during play period, and in the coatroom, and at the special groups that Mrs. Czernik liked to form for the purpose of making dioramas or building toothpick forts. By the bubblegum machine in Rapolski’s I learned from Margaret Riley that Anna Maria DellaDonna thought Edwin was handsome. On the grass slope by the willow I learned from May Flowers that Margaret Riley thought Edwin had nice eyes. While fitting a mirror-pool into the sand of a desert diorama I learned from Anna Maria DellaDonna that May Flowers liked Edwin first, Kenneth Santurbano second, and myself (with a giggle) third. During a game of kickball, when Edwin was on the other side, I learned nothing at all from solemn Rose Black, who apparently had no taste for idle chitchat.

Mrs. Mullhouse, alarmed by the familiar signs of illness but misinterpreting their cause, began to supplement Edwin’s absurdly healthy diet with huge brown vitamin capsules. Dr. Mullhouse mocked the whole enterprise and declared mistakenly that Edwin had never looked healthier in his life. But even he must have realized that something was wrong, for one evening when Edwin stumbled in the living room, his father looked up frowning over his bifocals and said: “Better get yourself oriented, boy. Before you have an occident.” For that matter Edwin stayed on his feet rather longer than I had anticipated, though he continued to display all the symptoms of a consuming passion. I, meanwhile, found myself faced with a regrettable and entirely unforeseen turn of affairs. It was on the playground one morning in early October that Edwin and I were approached by Billy Duda, who had made great strides in loutishness over the years and was now trying to screw his oafish features into an expression of cunning. The reader will share my astonishment when, greeting me with a complicitous wink, jabbing me in the side with a conspiratorial elbow, and exhaling a stench that was probably the odor of his rotting intelligence, he said with a practiced leer: “Hey, Brain, how’s Margaret?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied coldly, and indeed I didn’t; but the impudent fellow only laughed, exposing his greenish teeth, and proceeded to lead Edwin and me to a portion of brick below one of Mrs. Cadwallader’s windows. There, in white chalk, a lopsided heart was pierced by a crooked arrow; in the heart was the legend:

J.C.

L

M.R.

“It’s a lie!” I cried, as Billy Duda ran off with a whoop of laughter; and Edwin lowered his eyes in gloomy embarrassment.

It was only the beginning. In my desk that morning I found an unsigned note reading JEFFREY AND MARGARET: I recognized the elaborate handwriting as that of May Flowers. Later, on the wide ledge of the coatroom window, I discovered the crude drawing of two kissing cartoon faces; over the first were the letters J.C., over the second were the letters M.F. And that afternoon, on the tar behind the oak in the angle of the wire fence, I discovered, chalked in hideous pink and green:

A.D.

L

J.C.

All of this was annoying in the extreme, and became positively sickening when, in class that afternoon, turning to observe Margaret Riley, I noticed that her glittering eyes were fastened upon me. Later I had the distinct impression that May Flowers, who sat one seat ahead of me in the adjacent row, was aiming a battery of fluttering glances in my direction. In the top reading group, which gathered in the first and second desks of each row, I happened to sit next to Anna Maria DellaDonna, who immediately turned into a jello of suppressed giggles; and May Flowers gave her a look of poison.

The morning came when Edwin failed to rise. As I rode to school with Dr. Mullhouse and Karen, now in Kindergarten, a sense of angry frustration gripped me. It seemed to me that I had been bungling about in an inexcusable manner; that I must discover at once which girl was the germ of Edwin’s sickness, and effect an immediate and decisive cure. Far from allowing myself to become the reluctant fanner of another fire, I was determined to beat out the flames with my own bare hands. But how was I to learn which girl had bewitched him into illness? And how should I ever break the spell?

As I entered the playground, holding Karen by the hand, I saw Margaret Riley, Anna Maria DellaDonna, and May Flowers standing together in a little group not far from the tree in the angle of the wire fence. A flurry of excitement seemed to pass over them as I walked past; my polite nod was greeted by a medley of giggles. As I proceeded toward the back playground with Karen, I happened to glance over my shoulder at my little band of admirers, when behind the tree I saw, leaning alone against the wire fence with her hands in her pockets and the collar of her belted trenchcoat turned up like a boy’s, little Rose Black, watching me with a questioning gaze. Quite suddenly the answer to everything took shape in my brain.

In the coatroom I exchanged a significant look with Margaret Riley, who lowered her eyes and blushed. At my seat I leaned my chin on my hand and gazed dreamily at the ridiculous blueblack curls of May Flowers, who glanced over her shoulder three times and was finally thrown into the May Flowers version of blushing confusion. In the top reading group I released a wink in the direction of Anna Maria DellaDonna, who clapped a hand over her silver mouth and almost choked to death on an indigestible giggle. During snack period I composed, in my best penmanship, the following little verse:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

I love a rose.

Do you know who?

which later in the coatroom I delivered personally to Rose Black, lowering my eyes and reaching out shyly my trembling hand.

Edwin was sleeping when I arrived with Karen for lunch; Dr. Blumenthal was expected any minute. With cheerful candor I assured Mrs. Mullhouse that everything would soon be fine. “Oh I hope so, Jeff. I’m really worried about him this time. I hope it’s not serious, do you think it’s serious? Oh where is that stupid doctor, Edwin could have died of old age already.”

That afternoon I discovered in my desk three folded notes. The first, showing a two-leaved stalk topped by a heart-shaped flower, and bordered by an intricate series of hearts and tendrils, was signed M.F. The second, written in a shy tiny hand, read:

Jeffrey do you 1. hate me

2. like

3. love

and was signed M.R. I crossed out 1 decisively and teasingly left untouched both 2 and 3. The third note read:

OPPI LOPPOVE YOPPOU

OPPANNOPPA MOPPAROPPIOPPA

I had no time to penetrate the logic of this ridiculous code, though it was easy enough to detect and then to eliminate the inserted opp ’s. Things were going more splendidly than I had hoped; but Rose Black’s silence puzzled me. I tried to attract her attention — she sat two seats in front of me — but even when she turned to pass some paper for a spelling test she resolutely avoided my gaze. I ignored her in the top reading group, during which I managed to return Margaret Riley’s note. But during play period, when for a moment I found myself holding hands with Rose Black, silently, without looking at me, she slipped me a note.

Back at my seat I unfolded her message behind Chapter 2 of Many Lands, Many People. It read: