Don't Put the Boats Away Read online

  Harriet recalls the comment her mother made while seeing her off at the station when she left for Madison. Her mother called her a “handsome” young woman, and her tone suggested that she was giving Harriet a compliment. Harriet knows she isn’t pretty, but “handsome”? What does that even mean when you’re talking about a female?

  She doesn’t want to hurt Klara’s feelings, but there’s no point in learning how to curl her hair. “Not tonight,” she says. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Sure.”

  Harriet says, “You’re kind, Klara.” She smiles warmly at her roommate. Klara seems almost like a younger sister.

  They return their attention to the puzzle pieces on the table before them.

  After a few moments, Klara says, “Didn’t your mother ever show you how to set your hair?”

  “No, she wasn’t that kind of mother. But then, I never asked her about that sort of thing.”

  On December 4, Harriet waits for Judy in front of the University Club, where the initiation ceremony and banquet for Sigma Delta Epsilon, the club for graduate women scientists, is being held. She knows she’s a little late, but apparently Judy is too. They agreed to enter the intimidating red brick building together.

  A stout young woman with very short red hair, wearing a navy blue suit, rounds the corner.

  “I’m so sorry!” Judy cries. “I broke the heel on my shoe, so I had to go back for my other pair.”

  Harriet starts up the steps toward the triple archway, saying, “Don’t worry. You’re here now.” She grabs the knob and flings open the heavy wooden door. Inside, exquisitely rendered oil paintings of local landscapes framed in gold are mounted along the walls, and an enormous Persian carpet covers the floor.

  “This is fancy!” Judy says.

  “Very nice,” Harriet agrees.

  They proceed to a reception room where forty women stand talking in groups. Everyone is wearing a dress or a suit and heels. Most of the women hold a cocktail in one hand. Harriet’s glad she dressed up in the gray flannel suit her mother had bought for her at Lord & Taylor.

  Judy says, “I wonder what the decibel level is in here?”

  “Oh, you and your penchant for measurements,” Harriet jokes, lightly tapping Judy’s arm. She scans the room, looking for the bar. “Can I get you a drink? Scotch and soda?”

  “Thanks, Harriet, that would be terrific.” Judy steps toward the nearest group of women.

  As Harriet approaches the bartender in the far corner, she sees that many of the women here are much older than she is. Some of the eldest women look quite forbidding with their severe haircuts and tailored suits, though there are a few women with softly curled hair in silk dresses as well.

  After cocktails, everyone heads into the dining room, where they have an unobstructed view of Lake Mendota. Harriet and Judy sit next to each other at a round table for eight covered with a white cloth, glasses, silverware, cups and saucers, and plates of iceberg lettuce with slivers of carrots. A small round votive candle graces the center of the table.

  Harriet leans toward Judy. “Isn’t this nice? We can almost forget about the war.”

  “Lots of the guys are still coming home and being demobilized,” Judy counters. “The war’s not over yet for some people.”

  “It’s not over for my mother,” Harriet replies, thinking of Eddie.

  Judy doesn’t say anything.

  After taking a deep breath, Harriet reaches for the basket of rolls. “Thank goodness the United Nations’ charter has been ratified by twenty nations now, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Republic of China. I hope the UN can ensure that atomic weapons will never be used again. We’ve got to be able to guarantee there won’t be any more wars.”

  Judy swallows a forkful of salad before she replies. “I’m with you. I’m not sure they can ban atomic weapons, but here’s hoping they’ll figure out some way to keep the world safe from mass destruction.”

  A tall woman wearing a tweed suit walks over to the podium. Her short hair is graying at her temples, and wrinkles appear around her mouth and eyes as she smiles at the audience. “Can you all hear me? I am the president of the University of Wisconsin chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon, and I’d like to welcome all our new initiates and the rest of you established members of Sigma Delta Epsilon. My name is Marjorie Pennington—Dr. Pennington. As most of you know, members of Sigma Delta Epsilon are distinguished for demonstrating originality, independence, and initiative in scientific research work.”

  Harriet leans forward.

  “To be a scientist requires a high order of intelligence, with strength in mathematics and spatial ability. It requires persistence and an intense channeling of one’s energy so that one derives significant satisfaction from the activities of the work itself.”

  She identifies with what Dr. Pennington is saying; she loves to work hard on things that interest her.

  Dr. Pennington continues, “A preference for working alone is another characteristic of the best scientists.”

  Really? Harriet prefers to be in charge of a group of people working together. Is this going to be a problem for her?

  “And to be a woman scientist requires an even higher order of dedication and hard work. We must prove ourselves because many of our male colleagues doubt that we are truly dedicated to our profession. It’s up to us to prove them wrong.”

  The audience breaks into applause.

  She whispers to Judy, “Isn’t she inspiring?”

  Judy nods.

  Once Dr. Pennington concludes her remarks, Harriet says, “Thank God there are women like this at Madison! The hell with Dr. Blackwell.”

  “Will you go on for a PhD after we get our master’s degrees, Harriet?”

  “No. I want to work for my father. He’s president of Sutton Chemical Company in New Jersey.”

  “Really?”

  “My brother Nat isn’t likely to want to work for the company, and Father will need someone to hand it off to. Nat hopes to be a musician. Besides, I want to please Father and earn his respect. When I ran the farm for him, we got along better than we did when I was struggling in high school. He called me his ‘right hand man,’ and I kind of liked that, though he did require me to report in to him every day. He’s so critical and demanding. He’s not easy to please.” She’s not going to tell Judy that the man she calls Father is not the man who sired her—which is why she has to work extra hard to win his approval and, if she’s lucky, maybe even his affection.

  Judy says, “I see.”

  On Saturday, Harriet invites Klara to go skating on Lake Mendota with her. The ice is very hard and smooth because, though it’s been cold, it hasn’t snowed much yet. Harriet races back and forth, hungry for fresh air to fill her lungs after hours of breathing pungent odors in the organic chemistry lab. Klara skates figure eights and twirls. Afterward they head home to their boarding house. Once they’ve added a log to the fire, have drawn the brown corduroy drapes closed, and hold cups of cocoa in their hands, they sit down at the table in the parlor with a new jigsaw puzzle Harriet bought earlier that week.

  When all the pieces are face up and the edges have been separated out, Harriet looks at Klara. “Your cheeks sure are red.”

  “I know. They always get that way when I go outside in the winter.” Klara picks up the box the puzzle came in and scrutinizes the picture.

  “You’re not supposed to look at the box for clues, Klara.” Her mother was very strict about this rule.

  “Then how do you know what the puzzle is supposed to look like?”

  “Use the shapes and colors to guide you.”

  Ralph, their fellow boarder, looks into the room. A former GI, his grown-out buzz cut stands straight up. “How are you girls doing?”

  Glancing at his midsection, Harriet admires how flat his stomach is. Frank isn’t nearly so svelte. She lifts her eyes. “We’re fine.”

  “This is hard!” Klara picks up a corner piece.

 
“I’m off to the library,” Ralph says. “Tell Mrs. Schmitt not to wait dinner.”

  Once he exits, Harriet asks, “How are your classes going, Klara? Are you getting some good grades?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “OK, sorry I asked.” Harriet would like to be able to tell someone about her own grades. She’s been studying extremely hard, spending most of her waking hours in class, or at her lab bench, or in the library, and she’s happy about how well she’s doing.

  They work awhile in silence. Klara says, “I got some of the new Breck shampoo this week. I really like how it makes my hair feel.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “You’re welcome to try some.”

  “Thanks.” After a few minutes, she says, “Would you be interested in going to hear Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with me tomorrow at the Congregational Church? It’s directed by one of the faculty members in the music school.”

  “No, I go to Calvary Lutheran Church.”

  “It’s a special afternoon concert, so you could attend your own church first.”

  “Thanks anyway, Harriet.” Klara stands up. “I give up! It’ll take forever to finish this puzzle.”

  “There’s no rush. It’s relaxing.”

  “Well, I need to get ready for my date.”

  “A date? Well, have a good time.”

  The next day as Harriet listens to the Christmas Oratorio, her heart rises to the rafters. She feels as though she might ascend toward heaven herself. Tears fill her eyes. This is even better in a sanctuary than listening to music on the phonograph at home. When the man sitting in the pew in front of her turns to the woman at his side and tenderly kisses her cheek, Harriet feels stabbed suddenly with envy. She yearns for tenderness. Unfortunately, that’s not Frank’s strong suit.

  Everywhere on campus now she observes men and women holding hands.

  When Klara returns from dates flushed, Harriet can’t help noticing the lipstick smeared across her mouth. She tells herself she’s just got to wait—her time for being madly in love will come. After she gets her degree. Weeks ago she decided that instead of going back East for Christmas, she would stay in Madison and work through the break so she could make sure to ace all her courses. Every night she rereads the two letters Frank has sent her. He warned her he wasn’t much of a correspondent. By now she’s memorized his letters, and they’re starting to seem a little boring.

  In the last few days before Christmas, Harriet finds herself walking through town every evening, admiring the shop windows filled with wooden toys, the holiday decorations, and all the lights. This is the first Christmas since the war ended, and she senses the exuberance and relief of the people around her as they bustle about, preparing for a holiday they will celebrate more fervently than they have in years. Mrs. Schmitt must have been hoarding her supply of sugar for months, because now she bakes every day. Plates of Christmas cookies and stollen filled with dried fruit and nuts appear for dessert, and an elaborate gingerbread house adorns the dining room table.

  Once Klara and Judy return to their homes for Christmas, Harriet starts to regret her decision to stay in Madison during the holiday break from classes. What was she thinking?

  December 1945

  On December 24, when Harriet sits down at the table with Mrs. Schmitt, her son Hans, and his pregnant wife, Marie, for a dinner of carp and potato salad, she realizes she’s made a horrible mistake. This is such a strange meal with people she barely knows. She feels overwhelmed with loneliness. She’s always been home for Christmas, even during the war when she was at Bennington and travel was difficult. She misses her parents and Nat so much! Why isn’t she sitting at the holiday table with them? She longs to see Frank too. Sighing, she decides she’ll telephone them all tomorrow, now that nonessential calls are permitted.

  As a disabled veteran, Hans is another source of discomfort. Harriet knows it’s terrible that he lost his leg in Salerno, and she’s sorry for him, but she’s afraid to ask about his war experience, and she certainly doesn’t want to think about Eddie’s. She hurries up to her room as soon as they finish eating the main course.

  On Christmas Day, not wanting to intrude on the Schmitts’ time together as a family, she spends the morning at the lab, and then at noon she joins them for their holiday dinner of goose stuffed with apple and sausage, red cabbage, and potato dumplings. She has never eaten any of these dishes before, and they’re delicious, but as soon as the meal is over, she escapes to her room. She pulls out all the letters she received over the previous four months: there’s one from her father, three from her mother, four from Nat, and the ones from Frank. Nat’s letters make her laugh, but now that she’s reading her mother’s more carefully, she starts to cry.

  The telephone rings at the end of the hall, and after a few moments, Mrs. Schmitt calls up that the phone’s for her.

  She runs down the hall and lifts the black Bakelite receiver from its heavy square base. “Hello?”

  “Harry?” Her father’s voice booms across the line.

  “Merry Christmas, Father. I’ve been thinking about all of you. How are you?”

  “Fine, fine. Your mother wants to speak with you.” Harriet isn’t surprised that her father passed her off right away; George doesn’t like talking on the telephone. Maybe he’s been conditioned—as they all were—to the three-minute rule imposed by the government during the war.

  After a pause, Eleanor shouts, “Dearie!”

  “I can hear you, Mother.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was actually sitting in my room reading your letters. To be honest, I’m feeling a bit blue.”

  “We miss you terribly, Harry. I wish you were here!”

  “So do I, Mummy.”

  “Did you receive the Christmas package I sent last week?”

  “Not yet. Did you get the presents I mailed?”

  “We did. The handblown glass ornaments you sent are beautiful!”

  “I’m glad you like them. A friend of mine dragged me along to the German Christmas market they hold here in Madison, and those globes caught my eye.”

  “They’re simply super,” Eleanor replies, slurring the s’s a bit.

  She doesn’t want to talk with her mother any longer if she’s loaded. “May I speak to Nat?”

  “Certainly.”

  Another voice comes on the line. “Harry?”

  “Is that you, Nat?” He sounds like Eddie.

  “Of course it is.”

  “How are you? I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Your voice sounds lower.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “What’s happening there?”

  “We’re all sitting around, stuffed with turkey, listening to the opera. The Met is performing Lucia di Lammermoor today, and they’re recording the performance live, so we can hear it right now while it’s going on in New York.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “Thanks for all the letters, Harry. I really wish you were here. Christmas is awful without you. Mother put up Eddie’s Christmas stocking again this year, and it just hung there empty.”

  She groans.

  “The other night Father said if he’d encouraged Eddie to enlist in officers’ training school, maybe the outcome would have been different.”

  “Oh no. I’m sorry I’m not there with you. Is Mother drinking a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate it when she gets like that.”

  Quietly Nat says, “Me too.”

  “Thanks for your letters, Nat. It sounds like senior year’s going pretty well.”

  “So far. I started jamming with some guys the other week—that’s a lot of fun.”

  “Playing your saxophone?”

  “Yep.”

  “Great,” she says, nodding to herself. “Well, we should wrap it up. Keep those letters coming, Nat. Take care of yourself.”

  “I miss you, Harry.�
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  “Me too, Nat. Say goodbye to Mother and Father for me.”

  As she returns down the hall to her room, she realizes that she actually feels a bit better now, though she’s worried about her mother. Should she write Eleanor a letter expressing her concern? Conflict with her parents makes Harriet feel sick to her stomach. And Frank—she’ll call him tomorrow. Picking up a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, she turns to the article she’s been assigned to read, but then she sets the journal down on top of the pile of journals on the floor. She can’t face reading this on Christmas Day. Going over to her dresser, she grabs the Christmas present she bought for herself—it’s a copy of the Swedish book Pippi Longstocking, which has just been translated. She settles onto her bed with a sigh of pleasure and opens her new book to the first page.

  Sunday night

  Dear Harry,

  Thank you for the navy blue sweater you gave me for Christmas. I like the white diagonal stripes—they make me think of lightning bolts. I’ll wear it all the time this winter. The wind when I cross campus is really fierce.

  I’m back at Andover now for the long haul till spring break. I know I’m going to have to work my ass off to get decent grades from Dr. Marling. He’s the toughest teacher we have here. He used to teach at Harvard, and his expectations couldn’t be higher. Half the senior class routinely flunks his course in American history. Dr. Marling assigns us so much work it seems he doesn’t realize we have classes and homework for English and physics and Latin and religion too.

  I wouldn’t be able to survive my senior year if it weren’t for Mr. Pratt. Father has been very clear that I can only study saxophone with him so long as I keep my grades up. At a minimum I’ve got to earn second honors. Mr. Pratt plays in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he’s kind of funny looking. You should see him, Harry. He looks like a little old squirrel standing on its hind legs, because he’s a tiny man with grizzled gray hair and round, rimless glasses, and he always wears the same brown suit and tie when I come to his studio for my lesson. He’s super—classically trained but he likes jazz and Charlie Parker as much as I do. He told me that after I graduate from Andover, I should consider enrolling at the Schillinger House of Music, which was started in Boston’s Back Bay by Lawrence Berk, a pianist with an engineering degree from MIT. It sounds like a great school.