The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [101]
It pleased Moses to think that the palace and the hall stood four square on the five-and-ten-cent stores of his youth with their appetizing and depraved odors. His most vivid memories were of the girls—the girl with acne at the cosmetic counter, the fullbusted girl selling hardware, the indolent girl in the candy department, the demure beauty selling oilcloth and the straw-haired town whore on probation among the wind-up toys—and if there was no visible connection between these memories and the hall at Clear Haven the practical connection was inarguable. Moses noticed that when the general spoke of J. P. Scaddon he avoided the phrase “five-and-ten-cent store” and spoke only of merchandising. “He was a great merchant,” the general said, “an exceptional man, a distinguished man—even his enemies would admit that. For the forty years that he was president of the firm his days were scheduled from eight in the morning until sometimes after midnight. When I say that he was distinguished I mean that he was distinguished by his energies, his powers of judgment, his courage and imagination. He possessed all these things to an unusual degree. He was never involved in any shady deals and the merchandising world as we see it today owes something to his imagination, his intelligence and his fine sense of honor. He had, of course, a payroll that employed over a million people. When he opened stores in Venezuela and Belgium and India his intention was not to make himself or his stockholders any richer, but to raise the standard of living generally.…”
Moses listened to what the general said but the thought that he would lay Melissa had given to that day such stubborn light and joy that it was an effort to keep his ardor from turning to impatience while he listened to this praise of the late millionaire. She was beautiful and it was that degree of beauty that fills even the grocery boy and the garage mechanic with solemn thoughts. The strong, dark-golden color of her hair, her shoulder bones and gorge and the eyes that appeared black at that distance had over Moses such a power that, as he watched her, desire seemed to darken and gild her figure like the cumulative coats of varnish on an old painting, and he would have been gratified if some slight hurt had befallen her, for that deep sense of involvement we experience when we see a lovely woman—or even a woman with nothing left to her but the loveliness of intent—trip on the iron steps of a train carriage or on a curbing of the street—or when, on a rainy day, we see the paper bag in which she is carrying her groceries home split and rain down around her feet and into the puddles on the sidewalk oranges, bunches of celery, loaves of bread, cold cuts wrapped in cellophane—that deep sense of involvement that can be explained by injury and loss was present with Moses with no explanation. He had half risen from his chair when the old lady snapped:
“Bedtime!”
He had underestimated the power of desire to draw his features and he was caught. From under her dyed eyebrows Justina looked at him hatefully. “I’m going to ask you to take the general to his room,” she said. “Your room is just down the hall so there won’t be any inconvenience. Melissa’s room is on the other side of the house”—she said this triumphantly and made a gesture to emphasize the distance—”and it’s not convenient for her to take the general up. …”
The stamp of desire on his face had betrayed him once and he did not want to be betrayed by disappointment or anger and he smiled broadly—he positively beamed—but he wondered how, in the labyrinth of rooms, he would ever find his way to her bed. He could not go around knocking on all the doors nor could he open them on screaming maids or the figure of Mrs. Enderby taking off her beads. He might stir up a hornet’s nest of servants”even the Count D’Alba—and precipitate a scandal that would end with his expulsion from Clear Haven. Melissa was smiling so sweetly