Sure enough, he had his arm around me and was kissing my cheek. Gently, but contact with Joe’s skin always made me shiver. And when he ran his fingers down my cheek and on down my neck, I shivered more. He said, “We could go to bed right now. Or I could give you your presents.”
We went to bed right then. I could wait for my presents.
Oh, what were those presents? He gave me two dresses that buttoned down the front and nipped in most satisfactorily at the waist, where they had a belt covered with the same fabric. One was in pale green with a pattern of tiny daisies, and the other in white, with a bolder pattern of yellow flowers and green leaves. They were both very pretty.
“But Joe,” I tried to say—I was kneeling on the bed and in a state of nature, and it is very difficult to be severe in that condition—“we said we would ask each other before we bought clothing!”
“And yet you didn’t ask me before you bought the cufflinks,” he said. “You need more than the four dresses you have—only three of which work for every day—and I loved buying them. And don’t worry; they were from the Sears, Roebuck catalog and hardly cost a thing. This is America. Women here don’t wear the same two dresses into rags.”
I recoiled, and he sighed, ran his hand through his hair, and said, “Sorry. It made me crazy to see how you dressed in Germany, and I can’t stand to see you keep doing it.”
“But I wasn’t complaining,” I said. “That was just how things were.”
“Don’t you see,” he said, “that it wasbecauseyou never complained that it made me crazy?”
“No, I don’t really understand this. Perhaps it is one of those things that men feel?”
He smiled. “Exactly. And do you want your birthday present?”
“My other— But you’ve given me two gifts already!”
In answer, he went to the bureau, withdrew a white envelope from beneath his stack of undershirts, and handed it to me.
I opened it. Read what was inside. And sat, speechless. “But how?—”
It was a very short letter, scrawled in rather messy—and very German—handwriting, with many sharp peaks. It read,
Mrs. Joseph Stark has my permission to audit my course in Human Heredity during Winter Quarter 1948.
It was signed with a scrawl, but I knew who must have written it. Professor Jacobson, from whom Joe had just taken the same class.
Joe said, “He wrote the letter because I asked him to; you don’t need it. I said you’d need assurance that you’d be welcome. I had to explain a bit about your story: your parents, the Beckers, and so forth, because he’s a Jew who got out in 1933. But I waited until I knew I’d be getting an A in the class to ask.” He grinned, then sobered and said, “You don’t like it? Sorry. I told him you’d read my textbook, and?—”
I was crying. Kneeling nude on our bed, and crying. Joe exclaimed and took me in his arms. “I thought you’d like it,” he said. “What? You think I’m saying you need to educate yourself, along with learning to cook and working at the store and taking care of me? Of course not. You’re better educated than most people who’vebeento college.”
I was laughing now, although still crying. This was very confusing. “No,” I said. “Of course I love this gift. Of course I do. To hear him lecture on such a fascinating subject, and answer questions? This will be a very great privilege. No, it’s just that you’re such anoticingsort of person, and that you noticememost especially. And this makes me so happy that I must cry.”
“Well, good,” Joe said, “I guess. Being a husband is pretty confusing sometimes.”
I laughed, and he did, too. “The course is given Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he said, “when you’re not at the store. That’s the reason I thought of it. You won’t have to do the homework or take the exams?—”
“Oh, but I must,” I said. “To do otherwise would be most ungrateful.”
“But you see,” Joe said gently, “you can’t put him to any extra trouble, when you’re not paying for the course.”
“Oh,” I said, then brightened. “But I could stilldothe work, so I will learn more. I just couldn’t ask him tomarkthe work.”
“Boy,” Joe said. “Professor Jacobson is going to think he hit the jackpot.”
Yes, I thought about all these things while dusting shelves and arranging perfume bottles. I should have been thinking about perfume, perhaps, but what can one really think about perfume? Perfume offered very little risk of, for example, covering your customer with pureed plums.
That was what I was thinking when a most dapper gentleman in a black overcoat arrived at the counter, removed his black leather driving gloves, and said, “So, madame, what have you to offer today?”
His accent was French.
Or perhaps Belgian. Or Swiss.
I hoped.
