The Carpetbaggers

8

The telephone rang just as she was about to leave the tiny two-room apartment over the clinic. She went back and picked it up. "Dr. Grant's office," she said. It was an extension of the telephone in the office downstairs.

"Jennie?" came the whisper.

"Yes."

"Will you be there for a while?"

"I was just leaving to see my folks. I haven't seen them for three weeks. This is the third Sunday in a row- "

His voice interrupted her. "I’ll see to it you have time off during the week. Please, Jennie, I've got to see you."

She hesitated a moment and he sensed her faltering over the telephone. "Please, Jennie! I’ll go crazy if I don't see you."

She looked across at the clock. It was already after seven o'clock. By the time she got across town, it would almost be time for her father to go to bed. He had a WPA job and had to be at work very early.

"Oh, all right," she said quietly.

Some of the tension left his voice. "Good, Jennie. I'll be there in twenty minutes. I love you."

"I love you," she said and heard the click as he put down the phone. She replaced the receiver and slowly took off her coat. Carefully she put it back in the closet, walked over to the couch and sat down. She lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

Who would have thought when she came to work here, three months ago, that he'd fall in love with her? And she with him. But then, how could she help herself? Especially when she knew what it was like for him at home. Married to a spoiled rich young woman who constantly threw up to him that it was her money that had enabled him to open his office, that it was her father's influence that had established him in the community. Married to a woman who bore him three children not out of love for him but out of an insane desire to keep him forever bound to her.

No wonder he'd found refuge in his work and spent almost every waking moment at his practice. Now she understood what drove him. And those girls and young women who came for his surgery? And he'd explained why he did it, she understood that, too.

She saw the inner kindness in his sensitive face as he spoke. "What am I to do, Jennie?" he'd asked. "Turn them away and let them ruin their lives because of one foolish mistake? Or let them fall into the hands of some quack who'll make them sick forever or perhaps even kill them, all because of some outworn religious code? Religious laws like that have hung on until gradually they've become dogma, just like the Jewish nonsense about kosher meat. Even our civil laws permit abortion under certain circumstances. Someday, it will be open and aboveboard, as it is in many countries throughout the world – Cuba, Denmark, Sweden, many others."

He'd turned his deep-set brown eyes toward her. "I took an oath when I became a doctor, that I would strive to do my best for my patients, to help them in every way I could, physically and psychologically. That oath is more important than anything else to me. When some poor, frightened child comes to me for help, I can't play God and refuse her."

It made sense to her. There were many things about the church she did not understand. She knew how they'd acted in her own case and the bitterness still rankled deep within her. If her goodness had been so important, why wouldn't they come forward to support her good name? All they really sought was power over her, not responsibility for her.

So, gradually she'd come to recognize the women who came to him for help and feel a compassion for them. The young matron who couldn't afford to leave her job because already she and her husband had more children than they could support; the frightened young girls, some still in school or just out; the middle-aged women just approaching the change of life, with their families already grown; even the call girls, who lived casually from day to day, yet came into the office with a haunting fear buried deep beneath their bright, brittle laughter. She had the capacity to feel sorry for them, even as he had. And from there, it was only one step to falling in love with him.

It happened after she'd been there about a month. She was upstairs in the apartment and heard a noise in the office below. It was about eight o'clock at night. At first, she was confused, thinking that this was an office night. But then she realized it was Tuesday, and the doctor had office hours only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. She turned down the flame under the coffeepot and reaching for her robe, went down to investigate.

When she opened the door to his private office and looked in, he was seated behind his desk, his face gray and tired-looking. "I beg your pardon, Doctor. I didn't know it was you. I heard a noise- "

He smiled wearily. "That's all right, Miss Denton."

"Good night, Doctor," she said, starting to close the door.

"Just a minute, Miss Denton," he said suddenly.

She opened the door and looked at him. "Yes, Doctor?"

He smiled again. "We've been so busy, I haven't had time to ask. Are you happy here?"

She nodded. "Yes, Doctor. Very."

"I'm glad."

"You ought to be getting home, Doctor. You look exhausted."

"Home?" he asked, a wry smile coming to his lips. "This is my home, Miss Denton. I just sleep in that other place."

"I- I don't understand, Doctor."

"Of course you don't," he said gently. "I wouldn't expect you to. You're much too young and beautiful to worry about the likes of me." He got to his feet. "Go back upstairs now, Miss Denton. I’ll try to be very quiet and not disturb you."

The light from the lamp on his desk shining up onto his face made him look even more handsome than usual. She stood in the doorway, staring at him. She felt her heart pumping strangely within her. "But I do worry about you, Doctor. You work too hard."

"I’ll be all right," he said in a toneless voice. He turned to look at her and their eyes locked and held. It seemed as if she were spinning into a swirling vortex deep in his gentle brown eyes. She felt a trembling in her legs and placed her hand on the doorjamb quickly, to support herself. No words came to her lips; she stared at him, speechless.

"Is anything wrong, Miss Denton?"

It took a desperate effort for her to shake her head. "No," she whispered, forcing her eyes to turn away. "No." Suddenly, she turned and ran toward the stairway.

She wasn't even aware that he had come after her until he caught her in the doorway of her apartment. The warmth of his hand touching her shoulder came through the thin robe. "Are you afraid of me, Jennie?" he asked harshly.

She looked up into his face and saw the anguish in his eyes. A curious weakness came over her and she would have fallen if he had not been holding her. "No," she whispered.

"Then what is it?"

She looked down, not speaking, the warmth from his hand beginning to radiate into a fire inside her. "Tell me!" he urged, shaking her.

She looked up at him, the tears coming into her eyes. "I can't."

"You can, Jennie, you can," he said insistently. "I know what you feel. You feel the same things I feel. I can't sleep without dreaming of you, without feeling you close to me."

"No. Please! It's not right."

His strong surgeon's hand held her chin. "I love you, Jennie," he said. "I love you."

She stared up into his eyes, seeing his face coming closer and closer, then his mouth pressed down on hers. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the fire envelop her. Abruptly she tore her face away. She backed into the apartment. He stepped in after her, kicking the door shut with his foot. "You love me," he said. "Say it!"

Her eyes were wide as she stared up at him. "No," she whispered.

He stepped forward again, his strong fingers digging deep into her shoulders. "Say it!" he commanded harshly.

She felt the weakness as his touch flowed through her again. She couldn't turn her face from his eyes. "I love you," she said.

He pressed his mouth to hers again and kissed her. She felt his hands inside her robe, his fingers on her back unfastening her brassiere, her breasts rising from their restraint, the nipples leaping joyfully into his hands. A shiver of ecstasy raced through her and she almost fell. "Please don't," she whispered, her lips moving under his. "It's wrong."

He picked her up in his arms and carried her across the room to the bed. He placed her on it gently and knelt beside her. "When a man and a woman are in love," he whispered, "nothing they do in the privacy of their own home is ever wrong. And this is our home."

He pressed his lips down on her mouth again.

Tom looked across the table at the kitchen clock. It was a few minutes past ten. He folded his newspaper. "I guess she won't be coming now," he said, "so I might as well be turning in." He got to his feet. "The boys down at the Alliance tell me I’ll be making supervisor any day now, so I better get my sleep. It won't do for me to be showing up late to work."

Ellen sniffed contemptuously. "If ye keep listenin' to them communists down at the Workers' Alliance, you'll be lucky even to hold your job with the WPA."

"They're in pretty good, you can't deny that. It was them that got me onto full time instead of half time and you know it. It's them that's for the working man."

"Communists are heathens," she said. "Father Hadley told me they're against the church because they don't believe in God. He says they're only playing up to the workin' man until they get in power, like in Russia. Then they'll close the churches and make slaves out of us all."

"What if they are?" he asked. "I don't see Father Hadley getting me a job or paying our bills. No, it was the Alliance that put me to work and saw to it I earned enough to pay rent and buy food. I don't care what Father Hadley calls them, as long as they do good for me."

She smiled bitterly. "A fine family I have. A husband who's a communist and a daughter who never has the time to come home."

"Maybe she's busy," Tom said lamely. "You know it's a responsible position she's got. Didn't the sister at St. Mary's say, when she graduated, that she was very lucky to be working for such an important doctor?"

"Yes, but she still should come home once in a while. I'm willin' to bet she hasn't been to Mass since she left St. Mary's."

"How do you know?" Tom asked angrily. "St. Paul's ain't the only church in San Francisco."

"I know," she said. "I feel it. She doesn't want to come see us. She's makin' so much money now, she's ashamed of us."

"And what has she got to be proud of? With you preaching religion at her all the time and the boys on the street still sniggering and laughing behind her back when she walks by? Do you think that's something to make a young girl want to come home?"

Ellen ignored him. "It's not right that a girl should stay away like this," she said stubbornly. "We both know what goes on up there on the hill, with everybody sleepin' with each other's wives and the drink. I read the papers, too, ye know."

"Jennie's a good girl. She wouldn't do a thing like that."

"I'm not too sure. Sometimes a taste of temptation is like a spoonful of honey. Just enough to sweeten your tongue but not enough to fill your whole mouth. And we both know she's tasted temptation."

"You still don't believe her, do you?" he asked bitterly. "You'd rather take the word of those two hoodlums than your own daughter."

"Then why didn't she go into court? If there wasn't just a little truth in what they said, she wouldn't have been afraid. But no, she takes the thousand dollars and lets herself be labeled a whore."

"You know as well as I why she didn't," Tom answered. "And you can thank your church for it. They'd not even come into court to say she was a good girl. No, they were afraid the boys' parents might not like it and cut off their weekly contributions."

"The church sent her to college. And they found her this job. They did their duty."

"Then what are you complaining about?"

She sat there quietly for a moment, listening to him drop his shoes angrily to the floor as he undressed in the bedroom. Then she got out of the chair and felt the hot-water heater. A hot bath would soothe her aches and pains a little; all this damp fall weather was bringing out her arthritis. She took a match and kneeled down beside the heater. Striking the match, she turned the pet cock. The flame caught for a moment, then died out in a tiny yellow circle. She looked up at the meter. They were out of gas. The red flag was up. She got to her feet and walked over to her pocketbook. She opened the small change purse and searched through it. She had no quarters, only nickels and dimes. For a moment, she thought of asking Tom for a quarter, then shrugged her shoulders. She'd had enough of his blasphemous tongue. She'd do without her bath. She could take it in the morning, when she came back from Mass. She went into the bathroom and used the last of the hot water to wash her face. Tom was standing in the kitchen when she came out, his chest bare above his trousers. She swept by him silently and closed the bedroom door behind her.

Tom went into the bathroom and washed up noisily. Suddenly, the water went cold. He swore and dried himself quickly, then fished in his pocket for a quarter. He reached up and put the quarter into the meter, then watched the red on the dial disappear. He nodded, satisfied.

In the morning, he'd turn on the heater and in a few minutes, he'd have enough hot water for his shave. He went into the bedroom, leaving the door open behind him, unaware of the slight hiss coming from under the heater.

He draped his pants on the chair and sat down on the bed. After a moment, he stretched out with a sigh. His shoulder touched Ellen and he felt her turn away.

Ah, the hell with her, he thought, turning on his side, his back to her. Maybe the commies were right with their ideas of free love. At least a man wouldn't have to put up with a woman like her.

His eyes began to feel heavy. He could hear the soft, even sounds of her breath. She was asleep already. He smiled to himself in the dark. With free love, he'd have his pick of women. She'd act different then, all right. His eyelids drooped and closed and he joined his wife in slumber. And death.

Jennie sat up in the bed, clutching the sheet to her naked body and staring with wide, frightened eyes at the woman who stood in the doorway. On the other side of the bed, Bob was already hurriedly buttoning his shirt.

"Did you think he'd leave me for you?" she screamed at Jennie. "Did you think you were the first? Hasn't he told you how many times I've caught him like this?" Her voice grew contemptuous. "Or do you think he's really in love with you?"

Jennie didn't answer.

"Tell her, Robert," his wife said angrily. "Tell her you wanted to make love to me tonight and when I refused, you came running over here. Tell her."

Jennie stared at him. His face was white and he didn't look in her direction. He grabbed his coat from the chair and walked over to his wife. "You're all upset. Let me take you home."

Home. Jennie felt a sick feeling in her stomach. This was home – his and hers. He had said so. It was here they had loved, here they had been together. But he was talking about someplace else. Another place.

"I'm always upset, aren't I, Robert? Every time you promise it will never happen again. But I know better, don't I? All right," she said suddenly, her voice hard and cold. "We'll go. But not until you tell her."

"Please, dear," he said quickly. "Another time. Not now."

"Now, Robert," she said coldly. "Now – or the whole world will know about Dr. Grant, the quack, the abortionist, the great lover."

He turned and looked back at Jennie on the bed. "You'll have to leave, Miss Denton," he said huskily. "You see, I don't love you," he said in a strained voice. "I love my wife."

And almost at the same moment that the door closed behind him, there was an explosion in an old tenement on the other side of the city. After the firemen pulled the charred bodies from the fire, they gave their verdict. The victims had been fortunate. They were already dead before the fire started.