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

The day provided me with little opportunity to enjoy even the distant company of my lovesick friend. I arrived at Edwin’s each morning with my customary punctuality, to be greeted by Karen and Dr. Mullhouse and Mrs. Mullhouse and ignored by bleary-eyed and disgruntled Edwin. “The Prince of Wales will be with you in a moment,” Mrs. Mullhouse would say. “Hurry up, Edwin, for heaven sakes. You’re not the only one around here, you know. Do you have all your books? Do you have your homework? Look at your shirt, oh really. And look at your shoelaces. Really, I’m surprised they let you in that place. Do you have everything? Does he have everything? He’d forget his head if it wasn’t screwed onto his oh my God look at the time. Make sure you hold Karen’s hand, and don’t you make faces at me young man. Make sure you hold Edwin’s hand, baby, tight tight tight. Now kiss mommy goodbye, mmm what a schatzkele. Keep an eye on Mr. Mopey Falopey, Jeff, don’t let him fall into any manholes or anything. And drive carefully, won’t you, dear. And for heaven sakes make sure the doors are locked, remember what happened to Jimmy Pisarelli on Sullivan Avenue. Look at that. Just look at that. God love it, Edwin, people will think you’re a refugee.”

Dr. Mullhouse drove us to school in the morning on his way to work, letting us off a block before the blue policeman; Edwin sat crumpled up in a corner of the Studebaker, with his hands lying palm-up on his lap and his books lying in a fallen pile beside him. “All out,” Dr. Mullhouse would say, leaning over and opening the door for Karen. Then looking over his shoulder he would wish me a hearty good morning, and dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper he would add: “Who in God’s name is the ninety-two-year-old gentleman in the corner there?”

On the playground before the bell Edwin was melancholy and remote. He utttered isolated remarks that were not meant to be taken up, and remained aggressively indifferent to remarks of my own or Karen’s. Indeed he seemed unpleased at having his little sister with him, and sometimes in a fit of impatience would tell her to go play with her little friends — a difficult problem for me, since I felt responsible to Mrs. Mullhouse for keeping an eye on Karen. Often he would simply leave us, and I would not see him until the bell; and after the bell, for all that he was in the same room with me, he might as well have been in Timbuktu.

The only real time I spent with Edwin was on our three walks together: home from school for lunch, back to school after lunch, and home from school in the afternoon. Karen, on a half-day schedule, accompanied us on the first walk, which seemed both to annoy Edwin and to provide him with a civilized excuse for absolute silence, since after all I could speak to his little sister if I had to speak at all. Not that he was always silent; for sometimes he erupted into complaint. “How come we always have to go to school,” he would say, kicking an innocent leaf. “How come they never come to us.” Or perhaps: “I feel awful. I think I’m dying.” As a rule I chatted with Karen or Mr. Nobody and rested content with observing my temperamental friend. His health was distinctly on the decline, though one could by no means foresee the shocking developments that were to take place in a year’s time. After all, his love affair was still in an early stage. In late October I noticed a twitch in his left eyelid; in early November I detected a tremor in his right hand. And of course he was reddish in the eyes, and blueish under the eyes, and a bit yellow about the gills — oh, he was a regular rainbow — but one somehow expected that; and besides, in other respects his appearance was distinctly improved: a slight tightening about the lips, and something in the eyes, gave his un-striking face its first suggestion of character; and indeed it was this very change that first caused me to doubt my skepticism concerning the evidences of physiognomy, and to feel that after all there may be a secret connection between what a person does and what he looks like.

Home from school, Edwin would at once disappear into his room; and except on the few occasions when I was invited by Mrs. Mullhouse for dinner, I did not see him again until the next morning. This was the cruelest blow of all, for over the years I had contracted a habit of spending the last hour or so before retirement with my then friendly friend. On the weekends, I may add, he was about as available as Edward Penn. Sometimes at night I would watch for Edwin from my kitchen window; but over the Mullhouse garage I saw only a glowing rectangle, as if he had been transformed into electricity.

And so that autumn I spent most of my time with 5½-year-old Karen. To my surprise I discovered that she was a solitary, serious, rather cynical little girl. The fact is, I had scarcely noticed her for the past three years. I taught her how to play checkers, dominoes, and gin rummy, and she in turn taught me how to play House, Doctor, and Paper Dolls. I became rather fond of paper dolls; between Halloween and Thanksgiving I cut out some three hundred costumes, each with its fringe of white tabs. We played in the living room or in her room while Edwin stayed stubbornly shut up by himself. A kind of friendship sprang up between us, though I fear my affection was less for her than for the notion that a friendship should have sprung up between us: us, two orphans of Edwin’s affection: us, the abandoned ones. Indeed it had not escaped my attention, during the Middle Years, that Edwin had played less and less with Karen; and I now realized that she had quickly gone the way of his other toys. I wondered with some bitterness whether I too had served my turn. One rainy afternoon when Karen and I had run out of amusements, and had begun to turn through the family albums, it was something of a shock to come across that photograph from the Early Years in which Edwin and Karen are walking hand in hand along a bright, tree-lined road, stretching away in a shimmering perspective that grows brighter and brighter, as if they are being drawn toward some dazzling vision. That dazzle had proved a drizzle indeed. As I continued to turn pages I began to notice that the pictures of Karen from the Middle Years showed her with a variety of serious, sad, and sultry expressions on her face — the very record of Edwin’s cruelty, written for all to see. I glanced guiltily at Karen, who was gazing at the pictures with innocent delight; and my heart wept for the sadness of all abandoned sisters, though even then I knew it was myself I grieved for.

ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON in late November, on our chill way home from school, Edwin suddenly invited me to visit him the next morning at nine. I must have opened my mouth in surprise, for I had not entered his room for two months. How well I remember that longed-for visit. It was a bright blue morning, with a shine on things and a touch of ice in the air, and as I crossed Edwin’s back lawn, walking the line where sun-green met shade-green, I glanced up at his double window, glossy, black, and opaque as licorice. When I rapped on the door, at nine precisely, Mrs. Mullhouse informed me that the Sleeping Beauty had not yet awakened. “He was so mopey all week I just didn’t have the heart to get him up,” she said as I stepped inside. “But if he thinks I’m letting him sleep past ten he’s got another think coming.” In the bright living room Dr. Mullhouse sat twisted in his chair, holding up a glass-covered slide to the window behind the lamp-table; I caught a glimpse of glowing red and green. “Hello,” said Karen, who sat on the rug amidst a snowfall of paper dolls. “Oh, hello,” said Dr. Mullhouse, turning around but still staring at the held-up slide, through which he suddenly looked at me, saying: “Well now, that’s an improvement”—but whether he meant the slide or me I shall never know. Glancing at my watch, I joined Karen in her snowfall. At precisely 10:00 Mrs. Mullhouse said: “Jeffrey, you’re sitting on a jumper.” At 10:29 I heard the upstairs bathroom door slam shut; at 10:36 Edwin appeared at the head of the stairs, bleary-eyed and glum in his purple bathrobe. “Well well well,” said Dr. Mullhouse from his chair, “you’re looking chipper this evening. Did you sleep well? You’re just in time for supper.” Haughty, sulky, and rather rumpled-looking, Edwin proceeded into the sunny kitchen, where he ate his breakfast in pale silence, punctuated by occasional dark complaints. At 11:04 he rose from the table, looking at me as if he remembered me from somewhere. “You told me to come over,” I said as I followed him upstairs, and at 11:06 he slowly opened his door.