The next morning, Sunday morning, she telephoned him at ten o'clock.
"Are you up?" she asked.
"Yes," Schilling said; having shaved, he was now dressing. "I was up at nine."
"What are you doing?"
Truthfully, he answered: "I was about to go downtown and have breakfast."
"Why don't you drop over here? I'll fix breakfast for you." Her voice ebbed. "Maybe you could pick up the Sunday paper."
"I'll do that." He was afraid to ask if her roommate would be there. Instead, he said: "Anything else I can get for you? How do you feel today?"
"I'm fine." She sounded lazy and contented. "It looks like a nice day."
He hadn't, as yet, looked. "I'll see you in a short while," he said. Hanging up, he began finding his overcoat.
The door to her apartment, when he arrived, was standing open. A warm, sweet smell of frying bacon and eggs drifted out into the hall, along with the sound of the New York Philharmonic. Mary Anne met him in the living room; she had on brown slacks and a white shirt, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Face shiny with perspiration, she greeted him and hurried back into the kitchen.
"Did you drive over?"
"I drove," he answered, laying the Sunday Chronicle down n the couch and removing his overcoat. He went over and closed the door to the hall. There was no sign of the roommate.
"The blimp-my roommate-is out," Mary Anne explained, noticing his prowling. "She's at church, and then she's having lunch with some girl friends, and then she's going to a show. She won't be back until late this afternoon."
"You don't like her very much," he said, lighting a cigarette. He had decided to stop smoking cigars.
"She's a drip. Why don't you come into the kitchen? You could set the table."
When they had finished eating breakfast the two of them sat listening to the closing minutes of the Philharmonic. The apartment. still smelled of warm coffee and bacon. Outside in the driveway, a neighbor in a sports shirt and dungarees was washing his car.
"It's nice," Mary Anne said, profoundly peaceful.
Schilling felt the amount of their understanding. Not much-almost nothing-had been said, but it was there. It was there, and both of them were aware of it.
"What's that?" Mary Anne asked. "That music."
"A Chopin piano concerto."
"Isn't it good?"
"It's somewhat cheap."
"Oh." She nodded. "Will you tell me which ones are cheap?"
"Gladly; that's half the fun. Anybody can enjoy music; it's disliking it that takes training."
"I have some records," she said, "but they're all pops and jump tunes. Cal Tjader and Oscar Peterson. My roommate listens to mambo records."
"Why don't you get rid of her?" He had nothing in mind, only an awareness of the quiet of the apartment. "Find a place of your own."
"I can't afford it."
On the radio, the music had reached an end. Now the audience was clapping and the announcer was describing next week's program.
"Who is Bruno Walter?" Mary Anne asked.
"One of the great conductors of our day. He left Austria in '38 ... about three weeks before he recorded the Mahler Ninth."
"Ninth what?"
"Symphony."
"Oh." She nodded. "I heard his name; somebody asked what we had by him."
"We have plenty. One of these days I'm going to play you the recording of Mahler's Song of the Earth that he made with Kathleen Ferrier."
Mary Anne leaped up from the table. "Play it for me now."
"Now? This instant?"
"Why not? Don't we have it at the store?" She skipped over to the radio and turned it off. "Let's do something."
"You want to go out somewhere?"
"No more walking-I want to lie around listening to music." Eyes sparkling, she ran and got her red jacket. "Could we? Not here-the blimp will be back. Where are all your records, your collection? Home?"
"Home," he said, rising from the table.
She had never seen his apartment. Impressed, she gazed around at the carpets and furnishings. "Gee," she said in a small voice as she entered ahead of him. "How nice it all is ... are those real pictures?"
"They're prints," he said. "They're not originals, if that's what you mean."
"I guess that's what I mean." She began peeling off her jacket; he helped her with it and hung it up in the closet. Wandering about, she came to Schilling's giant oak desk and stopped there. "Is this where you sit when you write your radio program?"
"Right in that spot. There's my typewriter and reference books."
She inspected the typewriter. "It's a foreign typewriter, isn't it!"
"It's German. I picked it up when I was with Schirmer's. I represented them in Germany."
Awed, she ran her fingers over the type bars. "Does it make that funny mark?"
"The umlaut?" He typed an umlaut for her. "See?"
He put on his big Magnavox phonograph, set the record changer for seventy-eight speed, and then, while it was warming up, entered the pantry and looked over his wine. Without consulting her he selected a bottle of Mackenzie's Fino Perla sherry, found two small wineglasses, and returned to the living room. Presently they were sprawled out listening to Heinrich Schlusnus singing "Der Nussbaum."
"I've heard that," Mary Anne said when the record ended. "It's cute." She was seated on the rug, her back against the side of the couch, wineglass beside her. Absorbed in the music, Schilling barely heard her; he put on another record and returned to his chair. She listened attentively until it was over and he was turning the record.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Aksel Schitotz." Then he added the title of the work.
"You're more interested in who sings it. Who is he? Is he still alive?"
"Schiotz is alive," Schilling said, "but he's not singing much anymore. Most of his highs are gone ... all he has left now is his lower range. But he's still one of the really unique voices of this century. In some ways, the finest of all."
"How old is he?"
"In his late fifties."
"I wish," Mary Anne said energetically, "that I could get rid of my darn roommate. Do you have any ideas? Maybe I could find a smaller place somewhere that wouldn't cost too much."
Schilling lifted the needle from the record; it had not yet reached the grooves. "Well," he said, "the only solution is to search. Read the ads in the paper, go around town finding out what exists."
"Will you help me? You have a car ... and you know about these things."
"When do you want to look?"
"Right away. As soon as possible."
"You mean now? Today?"
"Could we?"
A little amused, he said: "Finish your wine first."
She drank it down without tasting it. Resting the glass on the arm of the couch, she scrambled to her feet and stood waiting. "It's seeing your place," she told him as they left the apartment. "I can't go on living with that fool-her and her Oregon apples and her mambo records."
At the corner drugstore Schilling picked up Saturday's edition of the Leader; there was no Sunday edition. He drove through town as Mary Anne, settled down beside him, scrutinized every ad and description.
Within half an hour they were tramping up the stairs of a great modern concrete apartment building on the edge of town, part of a newly developed improvement area, with its own stores and characteristic streetlamps. A tinted fountain marked the entrance of the area; small trees, California flowering plums, had been planted along the parking strips.
"No," Mary Anne said when the rental agent showed them the barren, hygienic suite of rooms.
"Refrigerator, electric range, automatic washer and drier downstairs," the agent said, offended. "View of the mountains, everything clean and new. Lady, this building is only three years old."
"No," she repeated, already leaving. "It has no-what is it?" She shook her head. "It's too empty."
"You want a place you can fix up yourself," Schilling told her as they drove on. "That's what you're looking for, not just something you can move into, like a hotel room."
It was three-thirty in the afternoon when they found what she wanted. A large home in the better residential section had been divided into two flats; the walls were redwood-paneled and in the living room was an immense picture window. A smell of wood hung over the rooms, a presence of coolness and silence. Mary Anne roamed here and there, poking into the closets, standing on tiptoe to peek into the cupboards, touching and sniffing, her lips apart, body tense.
"Well?" Schilling said, observing her.
"It's-lovely."
"Will it do?"
"Yes," she whispered, only half-seeing him. "Imagine how this would look with a Hollywood bed over there, and Chinese mats on the floor. And you could find me some prints, like those you have. I could build a bookcase out of boards and bricks ... I saw that once. I've always wanted that."
The owner, a gray-haired woman in her sixties, stood in the doorway, gratified.
Schilling walked over to Mary Anne and put his hand on her shoulder. "If you're going to rent it, you're going to have to give her a fifty-dollar deposit."
"Oh," Mary Anne said, dismayed. "Yes, that's so."
"Do you have fifty dollars?"
"I have exactly one dollar and thirty-six cents." Defeat settled over her; shoulders drooping, she said mournfully: "I forgot about that."
"I'll pay for it," Schilling said, already producing his wallet. He had expected to. He wanted to.
"But you can't." She followed after him. "Maybe you could take it out of my salary; is that what you mean?"
"We'll work it out later." Leaving Mary Anne, he crossed over to the woman with the idea of paying her.
"How old is your daughter?" the woman asked.
"Eh," Schilling said, staggered. There it was again, the reality under the surface. Mary Anne-thank God-hadn't heard; she had wandered into the other room.
"She's very pretty," the woman said, writing out the deposit receipt. "Does she go to school?"
"No," Schilling muttered. "She works."
"She's got your hair. But not quite so red as yours; much more brown. Shall I make this out in your name or hers?"
"Her name. She'll be paying for it." He accepted the receipt and herded Mary Anne out of the building and downstairs to the street. She was already plotting and planning.
"We can haul over my things in the car," she said. "I don't have anything very large." Rushing ahead of him, turning and skipping back, she exclaimed: "It doesn't seem possible-look what we've done!"
"Before you unpack your things," Schilling said practically, but experiencing the same spur of excitement, "the ceilings should be painted, wherever there isn't the wood paneling. I noticed the paper's beginning to decay."
"That's so," Mary Anne agreed, sliding into the car. "But where can we get paint on Sunday?" She was prepared to start work at once; he had no doubt of that.
"There's paint in the back of the store," he said as they drove toward the business section. "Left over from the redecorating. I kept it for touch-up. There's probably enough, if you don't object to the limited assortment. Or if you'd prefer to wait until Monday-"
Mary Anne said. "Could we start today? I want to move; I want to get in there right away."
While Mary Anne wrapped dishes in newspaper, Joseph Schilling carried the loaded cardboard cartons down the stairs and put them into the back of the Dodge. He had changed from his suit to wool work pants and a heavy gray sweatshirt. It was a shirt he had owned for years, given to him as a birthday present by a girl living in Baltimore. Her name was long forgotten.
In the back of his mind was the realization that, customarily, he should be in the store providing his Sunday afternoon record concert. But, he said to himself, the heck with it. He found it hard to concentrate on records or business; it was impossible to imagine himself going through the motions of lecturing on Renaissance modality.
They had dinner together at Schilling's apartment. Mary Anne, rummaging in the refrigerator, found a veal roast and prepared it for the oven. It was now six o'clock; outside, the evening street was fading. Standing by the window, Schilling listened to the sounds of the girl fixing dinner. Busily she opened drawers and brought out his various pots and pans and bowls.
Well, a lot had happened. He had gone a long way since the previous Sunday. He wondered what he would be doing in another week. He now had a certain life to lead, and a certain person to be. That person had to be careful of what he did and said; he had to be careful to keep on being that person. Could he keep it up? Anything could happen. He recalled his lecture to Mary Anne on the responsibility of opening up whole new fields for someone ... smiling at the irony, he turned from the window.
"Need any help?" he asked.
She appeared, a very slim, very high-breasted little figure, outlined in the kitchen doorway. "You could mash the potatoes," she said.
Watching her scurry about the kitchen, he was impressed. "You must have helped your mother a lot."
"My mother's a fool," she said.
"And your father?"
"He-" The girl hesitated. "Little shrimp. All he does is drink beer and watch TV. I hate TV because of him; every time I see it, I see him and his black leather jacket. And his glasses, his steel glasses. Watching me. And grinning."
"Why?"
She seemed unable to speak. Her face was dark and strained, convoluted with tiny lines of worry that pulled her features together. "Teasing me," she said.
"About what?"
Struggling, she said: "Once-I guess I was fifteen or sixteen. I was still in high school. One night I came home late, around two o'clock. There was a dance, a club dance, up in the hills. When I opened the door I didn't see him. He was in the living room, asleep. Not in their room. Maybe he had been drinking and passed out; he had his clothes on, even his shoes. Lying on the couch, spread out. Newspapers and beer cans."
"You don't have to tell me," he said.
She nodded. "I went by him. And he woke up. He saw me; I had on my long gown. I think he was confused, and he didn't realize it was me. Anyhow." She shuddered. "He-grabbed hold of me. It happened so fast I didn't understand. I didn't realize it was him at first. Two other people." She smiled mournfully. "So, anyhow, he put me down on the couch. In just a second. I couldn't even yell or anything. He used to be very good-looking. I've seen pictures of him when he was young, when they were first married. He was a lot of times with different women. They talked about it openly. They yell about it, back and forth. Maybe it was reflexive; you know?"
"Yes," he said.
"He certainly moved fast. And he's still strong; he works in a pipe factory, with big sections of pipe. Especially his arms. There wasn't anything I could do. He got my dress up over my face and he held my hands. You want me to tell you?"
"If you want," he said.
"That's about all. He didn't-really do it. My mother must have heard or something. She came in and turned on the living room light. He hadn't had time. Then he saw it was me. I guess he didn't know. Every once in a while I think about that. But-it's a joke, as far as he's concerned. He thinks it's funny. He teases me.
He sneaks up and grabs me, and gets a big charge out of it. Like a game or something."
"Your mother doesn't mind?"
"She does, but she never stops him. I guess she can't."
"Christ," Schilling said, deeply disturbed.
Mary Anne hauled out the small stepladder and got down plates and cups. "They're all here in town: my family, my friends. Dave Gordon-"
"Who is Dave Gordon?"
"My fiance. He works over at the Richfield station, driving a truck. His idea of getting somewhere is borrowing the truck for the weekend."
"That's so," Schilling admitted. "You did mention him." He felt uncomfortable.
"Go sit down," Mary Anne said, catching up a pot holder and kneeling to peer into the oven. "Dinner's ready."