The Sky Through the Hole in the Bone: A Story of Greenwich Village in the Forties

By Savya Lee

Set in the last days of a still Bohemian Greenwich Village, this memoir is the story of a young girls awakening and growth, told through letters and journal entries. Her adventures lead to a summer working with Georgia OKeeffe, encounters with several atists before their fame--Wilhelm and Elaine deKooning, Franz Kline, Joachim Probst, writer Maxwell Bodenheim and later, Joseph Heller.

The year is 1942, the time of the second World War and the beginning of recovery from the Great Depression. Defense plants are booming; meat, sugar, and butter are rationed, as well as gasoline. Government ration books are a must, the draft is on and young men are being conscripted into the service. For the first time, women are allowed to work at mens jobs.

Marjorie, not yet twenty-one, uncomfortable with men, decides to become a lesbian and devote her life to writing. She considers herself a poet, and escapes much of the influence of the war by moving to Greenwich Village. But when she becomes involved with a group of artists and loses her virginity to Joachim (Jack) Probst, a member of the group, her lesbian dreams fade. Probst renames her Carol, her middle name, and they live together for two years.

Wickie, her best friend, and recipient of most of the early letters, is the opposite of Marjorie, now Carol. Raised in Europe, the daughter of an ambassador, Wickie is sophisticated, worldly, secure in her self-image.

Carol is curious, adventurous, uncertain, insecure. She met Wickie while she was selling magazines cross-country and they became instant friends. She expects someday to be transformed, to automatically become very wise. The magic age is thirty. Her life with Probst has many twists and turns: infidelities, separations, money problems. In a get-away to San Francisco she becomes an artists model, a hat check girl, rides the cable cars, discovers French poets, and North Beach. Her adventures there with a friend, Babs, yield a sense of joy which she had not had in New York.

But when Babs becomes ill, its back to New York, to Probst and inner turmoil. She becomes pregnant and Probst leaves her.

As a mother, Carol continues her Bohemian life, boarding her daughter whom shes named Lilith (the Goddess in George Bernard Shaws play, Back To Methuselah.)

After a failed romance, which nets her an apartment, she falls in love with Arthur Gunn, a painter, exactly her fathers age, who plays Pygmalion to her Eliza Doolittle. He is committed to transforming her-- to making her into a lady, and she is completely open to it. She sees him as very wise. It is through him that she first learns about OKeeffes work, in a retrospective at the Whitney.

Arthur gives up on her transformation and Carol betrays him with Ernest Guteman, a sculptor she is posing for. There is a terrifying night when she is in bed and hears Arthur sharpening knives.

After that incident she moves in with Guteman and they bring Lilith, now three years old, to live with them. It is through Ernest that she meets Georgia OKeeffe and spends a summer working with her. A very important time for Carol, the OKeeffe influence is felt for the rest of her life.

At Liliths nursery school, Carol becomes friends with one of the teachers and through her is introduced to Richard, a young writer-painter, who is working on his PHD at NYU and teaching English at Penn State. They fall in love and eventually marry, making their home in State College, Pennsylvania. Lilith begins first grade.

Marriage creates many problems, much adjusting as they learn to be a family. Carol keeps busy with writing, taking jewelry-making at the college, and learning to cook.

After four years in Pennsylvania, living next to an abandoned apple orchard, getting used to being in the country, Richard applies for, and is hired at Long Beach State Co

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 31, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465314765

Savya Lee

The author, born in Brooklyn, New York, grew up during the Great Depression. After selling magazines cross-country, she lived an adventurous life in Greenwich Village. Later she married, moved to Pennsylvania, and eventually to California. She has travelled to Europe and India, and worked in many different modalities, constantly reinventing herself. In the High Desert, where she now lives, she formed a performance group called Ceremonial Sounds, combining percussive instruments with the spoken word. And that led to Humwichawa, a harmonic choir of throat singers. All of her activities show her fascination with life and a desire to find what’s behind it.

Book preview

THE SKY THROUGH

THE HOLE IN THE

BONE

A Story of Greenwich Village

in the Forties

Savya Lee

Copyright © 2006 by Savya Lee.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

29077

Contents

IN MEMORY OF

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1

Greenwich Village-1942

2

Jack Probst

3

San Francisco

4

Home

5

Brooklyn

6

Hans

7

Arthur

8

Lilith

9

Ernest

10

Grandma

11

Georgia O’Keeffe

12

Samantha

13

Richard

14

Marriage

15

Long Beach

16

Transcendence

IN MEMORY OF

RICHARD E. LEE (VEERENDRA), Professor, poet, artist, musician, spiritual seeker, healer, husband, lover and grandfather, who made it possible for me to write.

AND

MY LOVING DAUGHTER, LILITH, who survived as long as she could, and helped me learn to live.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My special thanks to Greg Gilbert, teacher, friend and mentor, who saw this book through many incarnations. Without you it may never have been finished.

THANK YOU

To my granddaughter Dawn and my great granddaughters, Aimee, Kiran and Angalie for showering me with love, and in return allowing me to love them.

To Atene, Ken and Richard—my surviving siblings, for long interesting phone conversations and loving support. I’m glad you’re my siblings and that we’re still in touch.

To all of my early readers for their encouragement and support, especially Kathleen Marion and Victoria Manning for their copious editing. And Jepha Evans for being my friend and long time critic.

To Eric Neil (Steve Lester) musician, friend and sound engineer, for recording Ceremonial Sounds, and organizing the Songwriting, Poetry and Rhythm Club at the Water Canyon, and Lorri Chamberlain for videotaping us.

To Arjuna and the Humwichawa Harmonic Choir, who arrived in my life at just the right moment. A CD is in our future.

To my friends and neighbors for their many kindnesses and love.

And I’m especially grateful to my computer friends, Tom Hart and Chris Crow, for long hours spent at my side through word processing and scanning frustrations, including many computer glitches.

Dear Miss O’Keeffe,

I have lived in the desert for some years now. I collect rocks and bones. Sometimes in the mornings, in the spring when the desert is blooming, I can hear the sound of bells. Sometimes I can hear the sky.

When it is midday blue, cloudless, it sounds a single note, unwavering and forever. It is so intense that the heart cannot bear it but must close itself against all of that light, that blue.

But when, very rarely, dawn comes softly with rose and gold, magenta and sapphire, emerald and amethyst, the notes dip and soar like birds’ wings, like flutes and chimes, and the heart soars with them.

On dark, cloudy mornings, the sounds are drum and rattle, cello and clash of gongs. Then the wind, ghosting around obstacles, creeping through interstices, howls its fury, its passion, urging the heart to open. These notes tumble about; they separate then merge like the waves of the sea. A weight is lifted—I surrender into expansion, into wildness and joy.

The desert I live in is not the one you loved and painted. The rocks are not red but seem drab at first sight. Then as the gaze deepens, the shades of beige and brown begin to intensify into softly rounded lights and mottled, angular darks. An interweaving of masculine and feminine, at the same time forming fantastic shapes—magical creatures that come to life when no one is looking, guarding cyclopean fortresses and stone castles.

I have hiked this land. I have tried to photograph it through the holes in rocks and fallen Joshua trees. I have even seen your sky through the holes in bones, but I would not presume to paint it.

Yesterday, I walked over to the mountains. There is a sandy clearing surrounded by a circle of rocks. It is down in a wash, a space within a space. And there on the ground, a scattering of raven feathers—black and poignant, yet very strong. There must have been a great struggle. As I gathered up the shining feathers, I saw beside them a sun-bleached jawbone, the teeth still intact. Coyote! Two deaths at different times. Juxtaposition. You would have appreciated that. Perhaps you would have painted it.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table this early morning, remembering that you have died. It is so cold the oven is on, spreading the smell of stale fish through the air, contrasting with the music. I’m playing a tape of Gregorian chant to commemorate your passing. Frances O’Brien said, Although you were not Catholic, you were very sympathetic. The music touches my skin, vibrates upward, outward, encompasses me in a sacred litany of death . . . A litany of death . . . what is that? What does it mean to be dead?

The music is taking me into another space. I’m separating from the world I exist in. I look out my window and watch the morning as from a great distance. Can I be distanced and still feel the pain of your death? Do my tears flow for you, Georgia O’Keeffe, for someone who has gone away and will not be back, or for myself for being older now than you were when I knew you? I was still in my twenties, and you were ancient to me at sixty, but so vibrant. Doris said you had more energy than most people half your age.

When I first read of your death and the last years of your life, in the Times, I went through a complete rejection. You were always so alive, so magnetic; people fell in love with you. I was in love with you, with your strength, your joy. How could you have given away your power?

The O’Keeffe in the article was not the O’Keeffe I knew. The one who had most influenced my way of being. And at first, I could not forgive you for betraying me. But of course, I realized that no one betrays us, can betray us, without our permission.

I have recovered from your ending. You lived your life and death creatively with power and without. As I’m remembering you, I can again approach you with admiration. And I know that you walk your beloved desert still—as you said you would.

And now, the morning has broken. The formless has moved into form, and I feel the sun.

   Be at ease,

      dear Miss O’Keeffe.

This letter to Georgia O’Keeffe was written after her death in 1986. What follows is the story of the years leading up to and beyond our encounter. It is a journey through time beginning in 1942.

1

Greenwich Village-1942

Today I decided to become a lesbian. I’m moving to Greenwich Village—and this is the first entry in my new journal.

Sitting at the window watching the rain, I’m feeling a little lost and lonely. Even though I can hear it, the sound of traffic is muted. Everything seems far away. Wickie is gone on vacation, and I’m here by myself. Isolated.

I just finished reading a book she lent me, The Well of Loneliness, about a love affair between two women—such a difficult life. A lot of condemnation and sadness, but even that sadness has a kind of beauty. Perhaps that’s what I’m attracted to—the beauty of sadness.

I thought by the time I was twenty, I would have met the perfect man, but it hasn’t happened. Wickie tried to set up dates for me with boys she met at college, and even some of her friends from the international set, but it hasn’t worked out. I’m completely uncomfortable with men. I’ve tried to analyze why, and the only explanation I’ve come up with is—pink.

Women are on a pink wavelength, a color that’s soothing and uplifting. It’s a happy color. Men are on anything but pink. They don’t like it—I think it frightens them. And they frighten me. I don’t understand them. When I’m with them, I just want to have conversations, but they seem to want more.

Wickie’s friend, Eddie, who’s older, told her I was ready for more. He just put his hand on my shoulder, and he could tell. He said, Boy, is she ready! He’s French and has a mistress, so he thinks he knows about such things.

He likes that I write, but he doesn’t know about me. He doesn’t know, if I ever have sex, it will not be with a man; or that I’m moving to Greenwich Village to become a lesbian and a poet. Actually, Wickie doesn’t know it either. I’ll have to leave her a note.

*     *     *

Dear Wickie,

It’s dark and gloomy with you away. The apartment seems empty, and this rain isn’t helping. I want you here—I want to talk over what I’m about to do. To tell you face-to-face, not to leave a Dear John letter. Well, it’s not a Dear John letter in that sense, but you’ll be in for a surprise when you get back. I won’t be here. I’m moving out, to Greenwich Village. To become a writer and—are you shocked—a lesbian.

You know how I feel about men; most of them so inane, so vacuous. And at the same time, I’m terrified of them. Those dates you got for me were total disasters, especially the last one.

There I was in YOUR mink coat, trying to smoke Murad cigarettes and act sophisticated. Meanwhile my heart was pounding, and I dropped my fork. Do you know what he told me? Relax, he said. You act as if you’ve never been out on a date. And I don’t think you’ve ever smoked before, have you? I wanted to crawl under the table.

I didn’t tell you this because you worked so hard to make me over. You fixed my hair and helped me dress, but, Wickie, it wasn’t me. You were trying to make me into you, but I’m not you. My father was not an ambassador. I didn’t grow up in Europe or go to the best schools in England and France.

If you hadn’t answered that ad to travel cross-country selling magazines, just because your father bet you couldn’t get a job, we never would have met. I’m glad we became friends. I learned a lot from you, but I’m just not comfortable going out with rich college boys who have one thought in mind—putting another notch in whatever it is they put their notches in.

I didn’t mean to sound off like this. I just wanted to explain about my leaving.

God, how I wish you were here! This is so hard . . . Anyway, I’ve found a place in the Village on Christopher Street. It’s really charming. A garden apartment sublet, and I can have it for three months. That gives me time to look around.

Just think, I’ll be living a Bohemian life among the greats—writers, artists, musicians. And I’ll be one of them—living that life—writing all the time. Poetry, plays, the great American novel. I’m going to do it all; you’ll be proud of me.

You’re not upset, are you, that I’m becoming a lesbian? Remember you gave me The Well of Loneliness to read. It spoke to something deep inside. You’ll never know how relieved I feel, discovering that I don’t have to relate to a man.

You know, I’ve never lived alone before. At least completely alone, to do whatever I want whenever I want. Not to have to check with anyone else before making plans; to write all day long if I feel like it. It’s great to know I have that option.

I’ll miss you, but we’ll still be friends . . . won’t we?

I’ll be in touch,

Love,

M.

*     *     *

My journal is wonderful! This apartment is wonderful! French windows that open into the garden, a cozy couch that converts to a bed, a neat desk for my typewriter, kitchen in the corner. There’s even a tiny spare room with a cot. I love it, especially being here alone. It’s after midnight; all my lights are on, and I just got home.

I feel like dancing around the room the way Wickie does when she’s supercharged. I can’t believe what I’m doing. My first night here and I dared to go into a lesbian bar—by myself. I went for a walk, and suddenly there it was, The Holly Club. A smallish place with sawdust on the floor and a few wooden tables against the wall.

The tables were square, all carved up with initials and hearts. They reminded me of our desks in grade school. The chairs around the tables were full. The place was really alive, many kinds of bodies hanging over the bar.

The noise was ear shattering, but suddenly through it, I picked up a sound. A single voice that was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. It was poetic and musical, the words rising and falling like notes in a songbook. It reminded me of the time Wickie and I heard an Indian flute in Central Park. The melody was a song of unrequited love, sad and full of longing. And even though we looked, we never found where the sound was coming from.

My eyes searched the faces at the bar until I saw her. She was tall. Her dark hair fell way below her shoulders, and her eyes were that blue that reminds you of sky and innocence, that seem to read you and at the same time reflect you back to yourself. I kept staring at her until she looked at me, but her gaze was so intense I turned away. When I looked back, she was deep in conversation with someone. In the moment that our eyes met, I felt a surge of electricity go through me. It was like a memory, as if I had known her once, perhaps in a dream. Did she feel the same magnetic pull that I did—that flash of recognition? What would have happened if I hadn’t broken the connection?

*     *     *

It’s a day later, and I didn’t go to work. It wasn’t actually a planned decision but more of an indolence. I just didn’t feel like getting up. I should be embarrassed, but I was awake until three puttering around, getting ready for my writing life. If Wickie were here, she would have pushed me, have seen that I was responsible. But I’m free now; I can do what I want. The guys at the Hobo News can manage without me for a day or two. Or more. Maybe I won’t go back at all. I wonder what Harry would say. He’d be pretty mad, I guess, probably give me one of his lectures. I wish I didn’t have to face him, but even if I did quit, I’d still have to go back for my pay . . . I miss Wickie.

*     *     *

Dear Wickie,

At last you’re back! I’ve been counting the days. Please come to see me tomorrow. I’ll be at the Waldorf cafeteria (the one on Sixth Avenue near Eighth Street) from 6 PM until at least midnight. Have missed you, but I’ve been busy settling in.

Barbara, the one I’m subletting from, has friends who are writers and painters, so I’m automatically in their group.

Would you believe when I first heard they hung out at the Waldorf, I thought they meant the Waldorf-Astoria? I was very impressed. Even so, the cafeteria is a great place to meet. It’s huge! Like an inverted vessel or container on its side, people pouring in, spilling out, sometimes filling it to capacity, sometimes leaving it almost empty.

Two plate-glass windows separated by double doors look out on Sixth Avenue. I think of the windows as two enormous eyes, watching everything. Even though the lighting seems brilliant, all of the activity on the street is visible from inside—you can sit there and watch from your distance, mesmerized by the exchanges between people: children playing, women and men on the make, lovers, and babies bouncing up and down as mothers run for the bus.

The square tables, each equipped with four wooden chairs, have a good deal of room between them, but at night, when the place is crowded, there may be six or seven chairs around one table, cluttering the aisles, but no one seems to mind. Discussions are endless. The cafeteria is always open—you can sit there forever. Writers even write there, and you don’t have to buy anything except coffee or tea. Of course, there is food (the counter is at the back), but we seem to go across the street to the diner when we want to eat. Already, I’m in love with the place; it’s so alive. We often sit all night talking about everything—ideas about life, God, existentialism (which I’m learning about), and which novels are the greatest.

You’ve probably had all this in college, but I have to start from the beginning. And it’s so exciting! After much argument, it was agreed The Magic Mountain is the greatest novel ever written. I’ve heard of Thomas Mann, but I’ve never read him. Shaw’s, Back to Methuselah is the greatest play, and Blake is the greatest poet. I’m going to read them all.

Somebody brought a picture of an artist—an older woman. I think they said her name was O’Keeffe. Ever hear of her? She is standing in front of a building that looks something like a barn, dressed in a straight black skirt. She looks old and old-fashioned, but they said she is still around; in New York but not in the Village. She doesn’t look as if she was ever in the Village. Actually, the group made fun of her—the way she posed, so stiff and unnatural. Her husband is supposed to be a famous photographer. I wonder if he took that photo. If so, you’d think he could have done a better job. I’m not impressed.

The people in the group are really interesting. Irving is a freelance science writer, plump, balding, and with a devastating sense of humor. Barbara, the one I’m renting from, paints in tempera. Of course, she’s not here now, but she’s attractive, seems rather serious. I heard she and Irving are together. Joran is there to be admired. She has a square face with Oriental eyes and a beautiful smile. Her remarks are succinct, her comments barbed and to the point. I don’t know what she does.

Al is writing a novel, which he’s asked me to type for him even though I only use two fingers. He’s handsome, but he’s at least forty. Meline is the wild one, very blonde. I heard she actually went outside naked. Probst is an authentic, starving artist. Quiet. Brooding. Full of mystery. Everyone looks up to him. They’re all older than I am.

My first night in the Village before I had met anyone, I went to a lesbian bar—women of all shapes and sizes and all kinds of interesting conversations going on. But although they looked me over, no one spoke to me.

However, there was a man there, and—wouldn’t you know—he had to approach me. Not what I wanted at all. He was an older man, well-spoken. He asked what I was doing there, so I said, Having a glass of wine. Which I was.

Then he said, No, I mean why are you here? What are you looking for?

Our eyes met, and for a moment, I thought he might have some sort of inkling, some sort of knowledge, so I said, The secret! There is a secret, isn’t there?

The secret, he said after a long pause, is not to get sucked in. It’s so easy to get lost here.

Are you lost? I asked him.

He didn’t answer, then, he said, I spotted you the minute you came in. You’re a kid, and you think you know it all. You don’t belong here.

I looked around at all the women. And you do? I said.

Just be careful.

I know what I’m doing. I’m a writer, and I’m here to observe and experience. I’m learning from everyone—even you—so thank you.

No, thank YOU, he said. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Before he left, he added another, Be careful! It was very strange. Here I am in Greenwich Village, and I’m being treated like someone’s daughter.

There is a secret, you know. I feel as if everyone else is in on it. They can all go about this business of life because they know. And they don’t even know they know. But I don’t know. I don’t understand anything, so I have to search. To experience everything so I can say,Is this it? No, this isn’t it. No, not this. Until finally I can say, Yes, this is it! I’m in the secret, too.

Meanwhile, the search can be fun. I love being here. I feel as if I’m really living. Come tomorrow and you’ll meet them all.

M.

*     *     *

Well, Wickie came, and something happened that I never could have predicted. But that was later in the evening.

She met everyone and fit right in from the beginning. Perhaps better than I did. Probst sat puffing on his pipe and watching her. She was so poised, so perfectly at ease, that she even made a joke about her Mussolini chin when Al said he had not expected my friend to be so lovely. The chin was, she said, a gift from her Italian mother.

She did look great. Why not? A month at Lake George had taken all the wrinkles out of her. She looked soft and relaxed. Her skin, normally dark, had a rosy underglow. Her hair, too, was impressive—I had always envied it—a dark chestnut brown and curly; she wore it loose to her shoulders. But now even under the cafeteria lights, you could see where the sun had touched it and left glints of copper. She wore her gold hoop earrings. Her dress was new—a casual cotton seersucker in pale multi-stripes, and beige sling pumps. As usual, she looked elegant in her simplicity.

At first, we were so glad to see each other I was relieved. I’d been feeling guilty about the way I left, but she wasn’t angry at all. She even brought a present, something I really wanted—a long-haired Persian cat. For the new apartment, she said.

Al asked what I would name the cat. I took her from Wickie’s outstretched arms and ran my fingers through her fur. Dark silver on top, but underneath close to the skin, she was white. I thought of Psyche, from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, Ulalume.

Here, once, through an alley Titanic,

Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—

Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul . . .

Psyche, I said. Her name is Psyche. My soul, I thought, dark on the surface but white underneath.

Why? Al asked.

I don’t know. Because it sounds right. That’s what I said. He would never have understood. I told Wickie this was the best present she could have given me.

Now I want to see your apartment, she said. And that’s how it began.

Al walked us home. And came in with us. The three of us talked well into the night. I was enjoying it, another stimulating discussion. And I was showing off a little to Wickie. I wanted her to see how interesting my life had become.

It had gotten late, so I asked her to spend the night. She went to take a shower, and I was sure Al would leave. Instead, he gave me this long speech about male-female relationships, and how they were impossible, absolutely could not exist without being sexual. A real woman, he said, would know this. Then he asked if I felt like kissing him. When I said no, he seemed disappointed, but he still made no move to leave. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, glad to have Psyche on my lap. She was my stability.

Wickie came out of the shower in a robe I had lent her, water dripping from her hair. Her body, slightly visible through the robe, was softly rounded, not angular like mine. She moved like a dancer. I had not noticed that before.

She seemed surprised to see Al still there. He suggested a nightcap, and I raided Barbara’s cupboard for some Chianti. From then on, Al and Wickie seemed to mesh. I could see where it was going, but I couldn’t believe it. I left them and went to bed in the next room. I could hear him giving her the same speech he gave me. Their voices became whispers; soon the lights went out. They were doing it! I felt embarrassed, angry, betrayed, and somehow diminished. She was a real woman; I was not. Not normal. Something was wrong with me. It was a long time before I fell asleep.

In the morning, Al was gone. I couldn’t look at her. Want to talk? she said. When I didn’t answer, she began very quietly to gather up her things. I thought you had grown up, she said as she went out the door.

I spent the rest of the day brooding. Everyone seems to take sex as a matter of course, but it scares me to death. Am I really being a child about this? I think of the vastness of space, the heavens, the planets, the evolution of ideas—all man can become—and the main thrust of his life is fucking? I don’t understand it at all, and certainly, no one understands me.

Last night, I dreamed I married Death—a beautiful dream, not scary at all.

Tonight my mind is still going over and over what happened. Something is wrong with me. I’m an outsider. I don’t belong in this world at all, and I never knew it before. Oh, perhaps I suspected, but I never saw it so clearly.

*     *     *

I haven’t written in two days. It’s been that long since I tried to kill myself. I locked Psyche in the bathroom, so she’d be safe and turned on the gas. I sat on the couch with a volume of Shakespeare that Joran had lent me and read aloud from Hamlet, the To be or not to be speech—feeling very dramatic—inhaling between words, taking in great breaths, filling my lungs with that strange, sick odor. My mind seemed very sharp, very clear. Death had come for me in dream—now I would go to him. I would soon know all secrets.

After a while, I noticed my voice faltering. The words on the page began to blur. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. The book slipped from my hand.

I don’t know what happened next, but suddenly, I found myself at the stove turning off the burners, throwing open the door, grabbing Psyche, and rushing into the garden. We sat there, Psyche and I, on a bench under a small tree and took in great draughts of air. At least, I did. Psyche seemed undamaged, but the fresh air made me sick. Literally! I got the dry heaves—it was awful.

Then of all things, the building superintendent arrived! I could see him sniffing as he came down the hall toward the garden. When he saw me, he said, I smell gas! He sounded alarmed.

I’m airing my place out, I told him. I apologize. I was reading and didn’t realize my soup had boiled over. Lucky, I finally smelled it.

You must be careful, he said, this is very dangerous. If there is any kind of fire—a match, a cigarette even, there could be an explosion. That was something I hadn’t thought about. But he accepted my explanation, and I was left wondering where the energy to change my mind had come from. What had made me decide to survive?

Finally, I went inside and turned on the radio. They were playing, God bless America. I sat, still in a daze, yet even through the fog in my brain, I really listened. For the first time since I moved to the Village, I thought of the war. Perhaps because of my own brush with death, I began to mourn for strangers, for the loss of young boys who had not yet learned to live. For the horrors they had to endure. I felt grateful I was removed from it, that it hardly touched the Village I was a part of. Even though two of my brothers were in the service, neither one seemed to be in a dangerous area. And most of the men I knew—for one reason or another—were classified 4-F (army rejects).

Probst, I had heard, stood on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street in front of Whalen’s Drugstore and slit his wrists when he received his draft notice. They put him in the mental ward at Bellevue then released him as unfit for the army—a fact he had known all along.

Later in the day, Al arrived with his manuscript for me to type. I sent him away. Then, I wrote Wickie a note.

Please come back to the Waldorf; it’s okay! I’ve gotten over it. Then, I added, Psyche misses you.

I went to the Waldorf and sat with an extremely well-behaved Psyche on my lap. Irving and Joran were there, and later, Probst joined us. He sat gazing off into space, but every once in awhile, I would catch him slipping me a covert glance. Wickie didn’t show.

*     *     *

Dear Wickie,

I waited for you quite a while the other night. I thought I’d lost you for good. Thank you, for coming tonight. I know we didn’t have much time to talk, but I’m glad you got to see more of Probst. Of all the men I’ve met, he’s the most fascinating. The way he sits puffing his pipe into his red beard, so detached, as if he’s not really listening to what anyone else is saying. Yet when he does speak, his opinions are strong.

I’m so glad you liked his paintings. I have to confess, when he took us to his studio, I was embarrassed. I thought because you knew about art you’d think his pictures were crude and amateurish, the paint so thick. They were certainly large. We were all very quiet; my stomach was doing flip-flops. I felt I’d made a mistake about him. Then when you said, These are really good, I was amazed and