“This may be a risky purchase,” I said. “I haven’t read all of it, only bits and pieces, for I haven’t been able to procure it yet from the library, but I believe it isveryreal. Too real for my own husband, although he served in Germany rather than in the Pacific. He has no interest, he says, in reading this or anyother more … more difficult novel of war, or in seeing the war films they’re making now, yet he fought most bravely. If your husband was not too much affected by his experience, perhaps …?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, hedoesget nightmares sometimes. Especially during the war. This latest one, I mean. It seemed to bring it all back. Foxholes and shelling and all that, you know.”
“Ah,” I said. “Yes. Fighting in war is very difficult for the soul. No, I wouldn’t buy this book for him.”
“What would you recommend, then?” she asked. “I really must get him something. I’m afraid I splurged a bit on an evening gown, you know, and shoes to match—how could I resist, with a peep-toeanda bow? But if I get him a present, too, you see …”
I didn’t comment that when one had spent too much money, the solution was probably not to spendmoremoney. Mr. Uxbridge would most definitely fire me then. I said instead, “For such a man, I recommendKon-Tiki.It’s very exciting, you know—an adventure story—and also true, which men enjoy very much, butnotabout war. Here it is.”
She didn’t blink at the price—$1.25! More costly than two pounds of lamb roast. She paid most happily, and I went back to my shelving.
Frances said, “Mr. Uxbridgeshouldhire you full-time. You’re better at it than all the rest of us part-timers put together. They always leave with a book when you help them.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but you don’t think this will happen?”
“Not a chance. Oh, he likes hiring women well enough—he should, as he pays us so much less—but you can’t carry boxes, can you? And you’re German. That’s when theydon’tleave with a book, once they’ve asked you about the funny way youtalk. Were you holding your breath there, wondering whether she would?”
“A little,” I admitted. “But one must get used to this.”
“Well,he’snot going to get used to it. Especially not here, where you’re actually talking and they’re listening, instead of you just saying, ‘Oh, that dress looks lovely on you, madam. And you see, if you add a scarf, it’s practically a whole new outfit.’ You’re more or less the furniture then, and even if you’renotthe furniture, they’ll assume you’re French.”
“But you know about this very well,” I said, “for that’s exactly how one speaks in a shop. Have you done this work also?”
“Who, me? Are you kidding? No, thank you. I’ve shopped with my mother, though. What that woman spends on clothes—a Persian lamb swing coat with a mink collar, in California!—is not to be believed. Why am I slaving away here, you ask? Because my father thinks I don’t take life seriously. Well, honestly, couldyou,when your mother spends more money on grooming her two Afghan hounds than most women spend on their entire clothing budget? Their leashes are black velvet cord with rhinestones. They’re the dumbest dogs on the planet and won’t do a single thing you say—if they ever knew the word ‘Sit,’ they’ve forgotten it—but they sure are well-groomed. So do I need this job, other than to satisfy my father’s strange obsession? No, I do not. But you do, don’t you? Well, let me tell you, I’ve heard that Mr. Uxbridge has mentioned ‘the German problem’ more than once, and when they mention, you know …”
“When they mention?” I asked.
She drew a flat hand across her throat. “Or not, of course. Don’t mind me. But you won’t be working this summer. Count on it.”
Joe said, “You’re home early.” He closed his book and got up to kiss me. “I’ve been making a start on my reading. This Philosophy class—I used to think I wasn’t an entirely stupid guy, but I’m darned if I can make head or tail of some of this stuff. You’re going to have to read it and explain it to me, since you’re got the fine mind in the marriage.” He smiled, though, that Joe-grin that always lifted my spirits.
“Did what the professors said bother you?” I asked. “And it’s such a lovely day; a true Spring day. Shall we pack a picnic and ride to the park?”
“You bet,” he said. “I’ll even make the sandwiches while you change. Does it bother me that my wife is brilliant as well as beautiful? Why should it?”
“I fear I’m not brilliant at all about Philosophy,” I said. “Oh, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are all very well, for they talk mainly of how one must live in the world, which anyone can understand. And the Greeks, of course; they too spoke of ideas one could comprehend. But these later men, Hegel and Kant and Kierkegaard and the rest? Even Dr. Müller couldn’t make these comprehensible to me, and I’m afraid I mostly felt terribly impatient. Your professor will have taught these ideas many times, though, and will know how to help students grasp them.”
“Well, I’d like to grasp them by the neck and throw them into next week,” Joe said. “Let’s forget it and go have that picnic.”
I thought about bringing up the spending problem when we were settled on our blanket by the stream, but the bees were buzzing so contentedly, and I couldn’t bear to disturb our peace. Joe talked of our meeting, and we laughed about our fears—particularly mine! Then Joe became serious and said, “We need to talk about what they said, though. About you going to college.”
“But this is ridiculous,” I said. “This has never been the plan.”
“Why shouldn’t you have as much right to an education as I do?”
“Theright.”I sighed. “This is a foolish thing to say, like a child. One does not have theright.One has the ability and the opportunity, or one does not. If I’m allowed to take these classes and read whatever I like, and also to do a job of work to help us live, how is this a hardship?”
“Well, yeah,” Joe said, “it’s American to say. That’s what you meant, isn’t it? That we’re spoiled. Why not be spoiled, though?”
“Because we cannot afford this,” I said. “Simply put, we cannot.”
“I suppose we could wait until I’m earning a living and then send you,” he said, “but it still doesn’t seem good enough.”
“One goes to university,” I said, “to learn, not for a piece of paper at the end, unless one wishes to be a lawyer like you, or a doctor or an engineer or a scientist or these sorts of things. I am a most practical person, though. I don’t wish to be ‘educated’ simply to have these letters to put after my name, and I don’t wish to become a doctor or an engineer. I also have no wish to become a secretary or a nurse, and I don’t have the patience to teach children. Perhaps it’s also that my father and grandfather had no ‘job,’ as you would call it. Or that I’m a woman, and the jobs one can get as a woman don’t intrigue me.”
“Women can do plenty, though,” Joe said. “The war showed that.”
“And the end of the war,” I said, “showed that there are good jobs only for men. The doctors and lawyers and engineers and scientists—where are the places for women there? For a German woman, especially.” I hesitated, but this was theobvious moment to bring it up. “I’m afraid I won’t even have a job at the bookstore this summer. I’ll have to find something else.”
