GERTRUDE DONOVAN

GERTRUDE DONOVAN[3]

By NATHAN ASCH

(From The Transatlantic Review)

A sound of cutting reached her ears. She halted and listened. So they were ripping the ticker out, as Charlie said they would. Then it was all over. She didn’t believe it yet. Failed. Bankrupt. She didn’t understand it. What did it mean? Then she remembered what Charlie had further said: a new job. And she saw a picture of herself going downtown to the employment office early in the morning; filling out a blank; being told that she would be notified if an opening could be found. Then waiting; every morning waiting for the postman, and finding that there was nothing for her. Then the call at the office. The manager would first look at her legs, then at her neck.

He would measure her with his eyes. The old look. She tried to picture the new boss. Fat? Thin? Good looking? Will he try to get fresh? She’d put him in his place.

She became angry. They had no business hiring her, if they were going to fail. She wasn’t working for love. It’s no fun to be looking for a new job every day. Just as you get started, and the clerks stop looking at you as if you were lying naked on the bed waiting for them, you’ve got to give it all up and start all over again.

Her hands began automatically to hit the keys. And the Hudson Seal: she’d have to forget that, for this year. Mother would never let her off on the board. She’d start crying about the high prices, and the raise in rent, and a million and one other things. Then she’d look at her as if she were murdering her. No coat and no permanent wave next month.

Her hand momentarily stopped typing, and touched her hair; then opening a drawer in her desk, she took out a patent leather bag, from which she extracted a small mirror and examined her hair. It was getting loose. They charged you twenty dollars and it didn’t last more than a month.

She took out a powder puff, and powdered herself, twisting her lower lip over the upper and blowing at her nose.

A pink light shone out of the call box, and taking a pad and a pencil, she walked out of her cubicle.

With Mr. Glymmer in the room were Mr. Reed and Harry Widener. They did not notice her entrance but kept on talking with gravity. She sat down in the soft chair that she always took, crossed her legs, and did not adjust her skirt as she always did when the junior partner was not there, and waited. Her hand went once again to her hair, lifting it near the temples.

He was nice. Much nicer than Jim Denby. He always looked at you nice, and his dark eyes looked into yours something personal. He was a man. And he didn’t look as if he played servant girl to any woman, like Jim did. It was nice; it was equal, it was.

She caught a few words. Protective Committee and Supreme Court. Reed was as usual very cool, he sat on the edge of the desk, and his fingers played with a cigarette holder. Glymmer seemed more nervous. She didn’t like him. Too anxious to please always. Not to her or to the other clerks, but to the customers, or to his partners. She didn’t like his smile. She never had liked it. She wouldn’t trust any man with a smile like that.

She looked again at Harry Widener. He seemed amused at the whole affair. He hardly said a word, just looked at them, the corners of his mouth curled up. Then he looked at her, and she stiffened up. But his gaze immediately dissolved.

Then Mr. Glymmer began to dictate. She copied his words, with concentration as always, forgetting everything else, even ignoring the meaning of what she wrote. When he had finished, she rose and prepared to leave. But she stopped and asked.

“Mr. Glymmer, will the office be open tomorrow?”

“Mr. Zuckor, when he returns, will have an announcement to make.”

She became angry again, considered whether she should bang the door, became frightened, and then resolved that since she was losing her position she might as well bang it. So she did, and walked into the general office.

“Well, Cutie,” said Charlie when he saw her, “it’s up.”

“Do we work, tomorrow?” she asked.

“Not a chance. Better take a typewriter home with you. It’ll be your pay.” The other clerks laughed.

“If I don’t get my pay,” she said, “I’ll have Mr. Glymmer arrested.”

“Harry Widener, too?” asked Charlie.

She stiffened up and said:

“Mind your business.” And walked back to her desk.

She began to copy the letter Mr. Glymmer had dictated to her. In typing it was different than in shorthand taking: she could think as much as she wanted to; the eyes communicated to the fingers unconsciously.

Harry Widener arrested! Harry Widener arrested! Arrested! Arrested!

“I know one thing,” she said nearly loud. “If Harry Widener asked me, I wouldn’t care if he were married a million times; I’d go with him.” She became frightened, and looked around to see if anybody were listening. Then she said in a high voice:

“I would!”

The telephone bell rang. Still repeating, “I would,” she answered it. A familiar heavy voice came from the other end:

“That you, Gertie?”

Jim. Oh, bother. What did he want?

“Just heard the news,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

She kept silent. In her mind she was comparing Harry Widener with Jim Denby. “He’s got better eyes and a better figure; and he’s nicer. Yes, he’s lots nicer.”

“Gertie,” she heard.

“What?”

“I’m coming around tonight. I’ve got something to tell you.”

She wished he wouldn’t. She didn’t want him around that night. And his hair was nicer. Straight and nice, not all curled up. And she’d bet he didn’t look so foolish when he kissed somebody.

“I’m tired, Jim,” she said.

And she thought, “I’d bet if he were asking me to see him tonight, he wouldn’t ask like that: he’d say something.”

“It’s all right, Gert. I won’t stay long.”

She hung up. What did he want from her? He would come around tonight, pestering. Would she marry him? He had two thousand saved up. Live in the Bronx. Two rooms and a kitchen. Toilet on the floor. Bath in the wash bowl. Not she.

Then Miss James, the telephone girl, came in. They began talking. Miss James told Gertie where she might look for a job.

“He told me yesterday,” she said. “Theatrical office. Twenty-two a week, and you don’t get killed like here on the Street.”

Theatrical office. Maybe she’d get a chance to go on the stage. She’d been quite good at it in school. And then Jim had taken her a few times to the theater. It was easy. All you needed was pull.

And then, maybe Harry Widener. If she’d be an actress, it would be all right. Actresses can do those things. Why, you read about them in the papers.

“I don’t know,” she said to Miss James. “A girl is taking an awful chance going to one of those theatrical offices. Why, the manager would want you to do all kinds of things for the job.”

“What’s the difference,” said Miss James. “Twenty-two a week. Me for money. If I could take shorthand....”

The afternoon slowly wore on. At four Zuckor came into her office and dictated to her an announcement, that owing to the liquidation of the firm’s assets the office would be closed. Gertrude copied what he said without hearing it. The office had stopped interesting her. She was leaving, and it already represented a forgotten past. And she would have completely ignored this fact of bankruptcy if not that it represented a parting from Harry Widener. In the few months that she had been with Glymmer, Reed the junior partner had become a part of her. True she knew that, while in the office, there was a gulf that divided them, a gulf that was insurmountable: the difference between employer and employee. Each one had his or her rights, which were not to be disregarded. And although at times she almost wished that the junior partner would tear that difference away, something within herself said, that if he did, he would not be Harry Widener, and she would cease being Gerty Donovan. She knew that although physically they would come nearer, there would be a complete divorce of their spirits. And she knew that now their spirits were near, that he noticed her, that when she passed he looked at her with eyes puzzled, and that whenever their eyes met, for however a fleeting moment, a union had been accomplished. And she had been satisfied, even gratified by this fleeting communion.

He had been her criterion. She had used him as a standard by which she measured all her acquaintances. She had never been dissatisfied with Jim Denby. She had known him for a long time, for so long that the beginning of their acquaintance was completely forgotten. She had taken for granted that some day she would marry him, she had been encouraged in this thought by her mother, by all who knew her. She had to get her man.

But when she had seen Harry Widener, she became doubtful. Intuitively she knew that he was a higher type of man than her accepted future husband. And although she could not define his finesse, nor possibly even locate it, she knew it existed. And she noticed that in all comparisons Jim failed and Widener triumphed.

And possibly she would have been satisfied with Jim if she could continue to see the other. Even to be near him. She somehow felt cleaner, more refined, in a higher world with the junior partner. She saw him rarely. He did not come into the office often, but stayed at his club, from where he sent in any new business he had secured. But sometimes he did come, and she knew he would, and it was enough. He was a rare drug, that she needed but seldom, but without which she felt she could not live.

And now it was over. Harry Widener was no more. She was to go home and stay with Jim Denby. She was made for such as he. For men with warm, moist palms, and warm, moist faces, and warm, moist looks. For men who do not take but beg. For sixty dollars a week, and a bookkeeper’s household, and a bookkeeper’s children, and a bookkeeper’s life. Oh! Hell!

Absentmindedly she cleaned her typewriter, and was ready to place the cover, and then she remembered that it didn’t matter, and left it where it always lay during the day, under her desk. Then she turned to the wall where her cloak and hat were hung. No, she should go into the general office and say goodbye. She didn’t want to. But she might yet see Harry Widener. So she went in.

She was surprised to see the office as it had always been. It was not at all changed. You might come in tomorrow and begin to work again. Possibly it was all a lie. Or a joke. There was no failure. It would go on as before. And she would continue to see Harry Widener. Harry Widener. Harry Widener. Harry Widener, something shouted into her ear.

She saw him halfway across the general office. He was sitting on a desk, reading an evening paper, and smoking. The blue smoke twined itself about his manicured finger nails. Run over to him now, and ... and what? Why, kiss him, of course, and tell him you want him, that he can do anything he wants to with you. He can walk over you, and spit on you. But quick, or it’ll be too late. Hurry. Hurry. He’s looking up. He’s looking.

“I guess it’s all over, Miss Donovan,” he said with a smile.

“Yes, Mr. Widener,” she answered.

“Too bad,” he said, and returned to his paper.

Her knees weak, she passed him. It was too late. It was too late. Too late. What shall she do?

There was a little group near Mr. Zuckor’s desk. He was paying off. He seemed very pale and very tired. He called her.

“Miss Donovan, here’s your pay.”

She came over. Took it. Signed the receipt. Too late.

She rode home with her mind a blank. She did not even read the paper which she had automatically bought with her ticket. Somebody gave her his seat, and she did not thank him, but absentmindedly sat down, drew on her gloves, and sat. People jostled over her, pressed her knees, stepped on her pumps, but she ignored this. There was nothing she could do. Everything was over. And she was not given to brooding.

Then she came out of the train, walked to the street, and turned the corner grocery toward her home. This was her neighborhood, where she had been born, brought up. Here was the motion-picture house, “The Lakewood,” where, when a little girl, she used to wait outside, for some one to take her in, children not being admitted without companions. Later, when she had entered high school, she used to come here every night, and in a corner, far away from even the dull light, she would sit with a neighborhood boy and mush: kiss, and soul kiss, and hold, and he would try to touch her not yet full grown breasts, and she would refuse and then unwillingly consent. There had been many couples in the corner, and they would all sit there, ignoring the picture; just sit in the dark and press one against the other.

And here was the ice cream parlor, “Gunn’s,” with its inviting display of sweets, and the little room in the back, with tables. After the movies she used to come here with her friends, and they would gorge themselves with the ice cream, ordering the most fancy concoctions, until their mouths would become like acid, from too many sweets.

Then she passed the “dark corner” of Harrigans’s, the hardware man’s. Here was the least light in the neighborhood. And into here, after the movies and the ice cream, her companion would pull her, and here they would stand in the shadow of the two glass cases, holding one another in their arms, and they would seek something which they did not understand, and did not know where to find it, until she, frightened at the lateness of the hour, would tear herself away and run home.

And finally just before her home, she passed the Borough News printing works, above which was housed the Lakewood Business College, which she had entered after her two years in high school. Here was where she had learned stenography, and typing, and the little bookkeeping she knew. Nearly all her friends had entered this school which was their stepping-stone into the business world.

Mother was in the kitchen, and as she took off her coat Gerty wondered when would be the best time to break the news to her. Before dinner or after dinner? It would be better to get it over with before, but then again, dinner would be spoiled; there might even be no dinner at all. Gerty had no appetite, but she reflected that anything, even eating, was better than listening to her mother’s lamenting. So she decided to wait.

She walked into the dining room, took the doily off the table, went to the sideboard, and took out the napkins. Automatically she began to set the table.

Mother appeared, fat, satisfied, white aproned.

“That you, Gertie? Jim was here awhile ago. Said he’s coming after dinner.”

Gerty said nothing. She placed on the table the salt cellar, the knives and forks, the only really good things they had in the house. Came from the family. Solid silver.

“Would you believe it,” continued her mother, “butter’s sixty cents a pound. And eggs a dollar a dozen. I gave Strinelli a piece of my mind. Mrs. Brown told me he’s got no end of eggs in his cellar, and he’s keeping them for higher prices. I said to him: ‘It would be a good thing if they threw you foreigners out. Trying to live on us poor people. A dollar a dozen for eggs. The idea.’”

Gerty kept on setting. Even after she had finished placing on the table everything that apparently was necessary, she continued. She adjusted the position of the cutlery. Brought water, something very rare. Dusted off the top of the sideboard. Anything better than talking. An idea was being born in her mind, and her mother was preventing her from developing it.

Harry Widener would be with another firm, of that she was sure. Why not try to get a job there? She would ask him to recommend her. He couldn’t refuse her. She had been a good stenographer. Never late. No nonsense in the office. No peek-a-boo waists or transparent skirts. She didn’t chew gum or anything. Why shouldn’t she be able to get a job there? And then she would be with him.

Her mother fixed her nearsighted eyes on Gerty, followed her movements, and went on talking.

“Mrs. Denby’s awfully low. They expect her to go any day. The doctor said it was cancer of the stomach. Incurable, he said. Lying in St. Mark’s. Private room. A day nurse. A night nurse. It must be awful for Jim to pay all that. He’s nice to come down to see us, and his mother almost dead.”

Gerty understood her mother’s weak tactics. At other times it amused her to hear the older woman talking, praising Jim. But now it only served to irritate her. It was none of Mother’s business whom she was going to marry. She was free. Earning her own living. She could do as she pleased. She could even go to live by herself if she wanted to. She’d save money anyway. And time. With the subway, she was wasting two hours every day travelling. And if she went out in the evening it was two more hours lost. If this kept up, she’d do it. She wasn’t going to listen to anybody’s talking. She was a free and equal human being, she was.

“I’m hungry,” she announced.

Dinner proceeded more or less quietly. The few attempts of the mother at conversation were promptly squelched by her daughter’s silence. Only toward the end did Mrs. Donovan begin her attacks again.

“Jim told me, while he was here, he’s getting a raise at the end of the month. Three hundred a month, and assistant teller. He might even get to be assistant cashier some day. One hundred dollars a week and a private room. He’s a good boy, Jim is.”

“If you’re going to keep on like this,” said Gerty silently to her mother, “I won’t tell you about the failure.”

“And he’s got a flat at One Hundred and Fortieth Street. Two rooms and a kitchen. The landlord will paper the walls any way you’ll want him to. Yes, and a bath tub, too. In the kitchen.”

A few moments before, Harry Widener had been far away, almost imperceptible. Now he came quite near, and looked at Gerty with his nice black eyes, and said: “You’re going to be an actress on One Hundred and Fortieth Street with two rooms and a kitchen. Bath tub in the kitchen. And you’re going to take dictation on the walls he’ll decorate for you because you don’t chew gum.”

She was going crazy. If she wasn’t, her mother was making her. And she looked at her mother and with her eyes said: “I want Harry Widener, and I don’t care who knows it. You or Jim Denby or anybody else. I don’t give a good God damn who knows it.” Like that.

And aloud she said.

“I am going to my room.”

“Better get ready for Jim,” her mother said. “Put on the mauve waist.”

As she shut the door of her room Gerty reflected that she had not told her mother of the loss of her position. She didn’t care. Let her mother worry later. With those dirty tricks. Trying to talk her into marrying Jim. She wouldn’t have him if he were the last man on earth. Not if he had all of the world’s gold. And all the diamonds. Not with a face like that. He’d have to have it made over again.

She sat down on her bed, adjusted her hair, and said:

“If he’ll begin pestering me, I’ll send him to hell, I will.”

Charity. Trying to give her something. Protecting her from the terrible world. She didn’t want protecting. She wanted to be left alone. People shouldn’t interfere into what she did. It was all their fault anyway. If they wouldn’t have interfered, she....

“Shut up,” she said to herself, and began unbuttoning her waist.

“Mauve waist,” she said. “I’ll give him mauve waist. If he’d be a man, he wouldn’t come around me. He’d stop bothering me. Can’t he see I don’t want him and his protecting.”

She walked toward the closet, opened the door, and took off the hook the mauve waist. Absentmindedly she placed her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it. Then she sat on the chair before the mirror and began to powder herself.

She remembered that once, about two months before, a woman friend of Harry Widener had come into the office toward the end of an afternoon, and had waited for him. A woman of his kind. With hair that received the attention of a frisier, face that was massaged, and hands that were manicured every day. She had worn a dark tailor-made suit and a mauve waist with a lace collar cut so low that the upper parts of her white breasts could be seen in the opening. She was stunning, Gerty had admitted that to herself. This was class. And when Harry Widener had come in, she had held out her hand to him, a black kid gloved hand, in a manner that Gerty knew she could never have imitated. The hand had gone right out, accompanied by a smile, in which the teeth were shown, even teeth, and dazzlingly white. And one Saturday afternoon, walking up Fifth Avenue, Gerty had seen a waist like that: mauve, with a white lace collar, cut very low. She had bought it, although the price had been exorbitant and a large part of her salary had been spent in the purchase. She never dared to wear it in the office, it was cut so low, and she had been afraid that Widener would notice the resemblance. And even in the house she wore it only on rare moments. When she wanted to feel equal to him, to do something that she should want him to see her do, she dressed in the mauve waist.

Noticing that the ribbon of her chemise showed in the cut, she untied it and tucked it into her bosom. Her neck now looked similar to the neck of the woman in the office. A white triangle deep into her bosom, with the curve of a breast showing on each side. Her breasts were just as round as the other’s, and just as white. It would be better to show a little more. She tucked aside the collar, and the curve became more pronounced. She sat at the mirror examining her face, fixing her hair. If he were to see her now, he would not be able to resist her. He would look at her with his black eyes, his brows would contract a little, and his nostrils puff out. And his arms would stretch out toward her, would envelop her, and she would lie in them quiet, unafraid.

She closed her eyes, and through the shimmering darkness of her lids she saw Harry Widener. He was looking at her. And she was looking at him. He was saying to her “You are with me now, and you are quiet.” And she answered to him, “Yes, I am quiet.” And they sat there in the darkness, she feeling his odour, and lulled to sleep by it.

She felt a draught of wind, heard the noise of a door opening, and saw Harry Widener tumble into the light. She opened her eyes. Her mother was standing in the doorway.

Mrs. Donovan was talking, but Gerty did not hear what she said. She could not orientate herself. She did not recognize her surroundings, nor the fat woman before her. This was strange to her. She had no place in the room where she was. She belonged somewhere else. In dazzling, flickering sunlight with Harry Widener. And peace.

“You’re a nice one,” her mother was saying. “It’s got to be a stranger that gives me the news about my own child. Why didn’t you tell me you were out of a job?”

Gerty did not answer. She heard somebody talking, felt she was being reproved, but it did not move her. She had been with him a moment before, and she still felt his presence.

Then she heard her mother say:

“Jim’s in the front room. Better go out to him. And you’d better be nice to him. You won’t find a better man.”

Her mother was talking, but Gerty did not understand her words. But she felt that she was commanded to go, so she stood up and walked toward the front room. Her mother not understanding, placed herself out of her way, and let her pass.

She came into the front room, and looked at the figure sitting on the sofa, a figure that rose when she entered, and came toward her. She answered his hello, sat down on the sofa in the spot he had sat in. Felt him sitting down beside her, noticed her mother had not come in with her, and sat.

She tried to gather her thoughts together. Who was it who was sitting beside her on the sofa? It was Jim Denby.

No, it was Harry Widener. It was Harry Widener with eyes that were not so nice, and with a face that tried to be as expressionless as it could. But no, it could not have been Harry Widener. Harry Widener looked at you personal like, and decent. And Jim Denby didn’t. He looked at you as if he wanted to eat you up. He was in love with you. And Harry wasn’t. Why?

Further her mind refused to travel. A black cloud came into her brain and forbade all thought. And she surrendered to the cloud and sat motionless and thoughtless.

Then she heard Jim or Harry talking. He was asking her what she would do. And she did not know how to answer. Because she knew she had to give two different answers. If this were Jim, she’d have to tell him she would look for another job, and if this were Harry she’d have to say.... She could not decide which it was. So she kept quiet.

Then she heard:

“Gerty, I’ve got something to tell you.”

He was speaking. At last he was speaking. This was the moment she had been waiting for. Now he would look at her with his black eyes, and fold her around. And peace.

“Gerty, what’s the use of you looking for a job. You can’t work all your life. You’re not made for work. You’ve got to stay home and be taken care of.”

He stopped, and she waited. Why was he talking? Why didn’t he do it? She felt he was looking at her, but she did not dare to turn her eyes. He was gazing at her. His eyes travelled over the waist, went into the lace collar, and followed its contour to the breasts. Her heart stopped. Would he recognize it? Would he be angry because she imitated his lady friend?

He began speaking again:

“Gerty, let me take care of you. I can do it. I’ll treat you like a queen. There won’t be nothing too good for you. I’ll love you, and I’ll honor you. I’ll be dirt under your feet. You ain’t made for an office. I’ll be good to you. Swear to God, I will.”

What was he waiting for? What did he want? Why didn’t he take her? She was his. She had always been his. Hadn’t she waited for him all this time. Did she have to teach him how to make love?

He was evidently waiting for an answer, and while waiting, his gaze travelled on her breasts. He was looking at them. And involuntarily she wanted to screen them with her hands, but then remembered who he was, and felt ashamed. He could do with her what he wanted. He could take all she had.

She felt his breath on her face, and closed her unseeing eyes. The moment had come, and she was not surprised when she felt his arms around her, enveloping, and his lips on hers.

And she said: “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

And he kissed her again and again, and she was satisfied.

Then she heard steps, and her mother came in. And she heard him say to her mother that he was going to marry her, and then her mother answered:

“Jim, I’m glad to hear it.”

And she looked with her eyes. And she saw it wasn’t Harry. It was Jim! Jim! Jim! Not Harry!

In one bound she jumped up, and rushed to her room. When she had banged the door shut, she threw herself on the bed, and moaned.

“What did I do? What did I do?”

FOOTNOTES: