1936-12-03 — Page 8

THE CHINA“ MAIL. THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, DECEMBER I

WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

BRISK wind had chilled the air and cleared it so that from the bridge they could see, far to the south, the mid-town towers shorn of their usual haze, a cluster of small lights and pinnacles with a glow in the sky above them marking Broadway, the. theatrical district The bridge spanned darkness. Beyond its other end the Bronx sprawled across the earth, houses and streets Toward it a trolley and people without end.

scuttered and, less clamorously, several cars. like toys along a shelf; even so, the great bridge seemed empty, a clean. lamplit road- way in windy space.

They had come out of the theatre and stood for a moment under its canopy, filling * Men, yelping. their lungs with fresh air.

waved pink tabloids at them and taxis edged hopefully to the curb.

"Do we walk or do we take the bus?” "Let's walk; it's stopped rainingTM

He held her arm as they crossed Broad- way and went along 181st Street, past its shops and restaurants, through its trafic and -mostly Irish-American-people, under its blinking electric signs, the street darkening. the crowds thinning, as they approached the bridge. A traffic light's disc burned bright green for them as they crossed the flat vacancy Avenue. then the city fell of Amsterdam

back.

They walked for a while in silence. Then: "I was thinking." Susan said, "how dreadful it must be to be old."

There had been nothing about the horrors of old age in the picture they had seen, so Peter asked. "What on earth made you think of that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just happened to think of it. Now you take that shower last night: Anna was so excited and happy and I thought about the shower Martha gave me and I felt awful old. And most of the girls were single. Td almost forgotten the way single girls talked and acted when they got together, especially at a shower."

"And how do they talk and act?” "Oh, I don't know. They're still worry- ing about things and wondering about get- ting married. Or they're still living at home and having to do what their mothers say."

"So it made you feel old.**

"Well, you know how it is."

"But you had a good time, didn't you?" "Oh, I had a good time, all right. Did

I tell you three of the girls brought incense burners just for the joke? They said for Bernie to light one any time Anna got too rambunctious or wouldn't do what he said." There was a pause, as they walked. "It was funny last night," she began again. "she didn't know about the shower, of course, and she wanted to stay home and wash and iron some clothes, and Bernie had an awful time getting her out of the house. She didn't want to go to the movies or visit anybody Finally she said she'd go for a walk just to get rid of him. I don't know how he ever got her on the car to go to Ant'nette's house. And when she got there and found out she began to cry. It was the last thing in the world she's expected. She hadn't even dressed up much because she thought she was just going for a walk."

"Did she get lots of stuff?"

"Uh, huh. She knows so many girls and they all like her. That's why they think she's making a mistake. Bernie's not her kind at all. But of course they don't say anything."

"I suppose you felt very married and superior.".

"I had a nice time. After it was over: Ant'nette kept me awake talking, she was too excited to sleep."

"What did you talk about?"

"Oh, about Anna and Bernie and getting married and falling in love. Ant'nette has a new boy friend.”

"You don't mean to tell me."

"She doesn't care much for him but as she says at least he takes her out and maybe she'll meet somebody she likes better. It's

a sure thing she won't meet anybody staying home."

"You've got to give the gal credit-for trying."

"Mmm."

"Remember your shower? You had suspicions, didn't you?”

•

Two Young People Wishing For A Way

to put away the day

and come back to it

"I knew something was up but I couldn't guess what. That was your fault; you can't lie at all, I can always tell when you're keep- ing something from me."

Cars rushed past them and shrank visibly. From the Bronx shore an illuminat- ed billboard advertised coal and made a red blotch on the water. High Bridge, though near, was almost invisible, a dark shape "So you don't want to against darkness. get old," he said.

"Well, I guess this shower and hearing the girls talking made me think how lucky I was and how much fun it was to be young and have you."

you."

"It's more fun to be young and have

"Oh, noi"

·

"Oh, Jea. It's easily proven. Give me a plain answer to a simple question: would I or would I not look like merry hell in a black chiffon nightgown?**

Susan laughed.

"Whereas you look like a fallen angel" "That's what I mean," she said. "That's why I don't want to get old. How will you be able to love me when I'm old? What has an old woman got a man can love?"

"Memories, maybe."

"I'll hate myself. I'll be wrinkled and She watched wide-eyed as ugly and old." Peter thrust back the cuff of her glove and "And touched her wrist's smooth flesh. you're like that all over," he said.

She did not return his smile. I'd rather die."

"Peter,

"You think so now but when you get old,

they have lived to it afterward.

Besides," he said, I'll be old too

you won't. and I'll still love you, you'll still look to me like the girl I married.”

"But you'll have those pictures you've made of me, and you'll look at them and then at me-Peter, if you ever stop loving me you'll tell me right away, won't you? Before you tell anybody else?"

"I'll never stop loving you." "But when I get old and ugly-" "Will you stop talking such nonsense? You may get old but you'll never be ngly, and I'll always love you. That's final. And if

By Thomas Bell

you don't stop talking such nonsense I'll bust you one."

The threat did not appear to frighten "Just the same," she said, “I'm glad her. I'm young."

"That's better. Stop worrying about what may happen years from now. I think," he said thoughtfully, "that as you get old you get used to it."

"I've 1

"I never will," Sasza insisted. never been able to imagine myself old. used to think I'd die when I was thirty but of course I was practically a child, then. "Now I don't see how I could live after I'm

forty."

By the river, coloured lights winked importantly above steel rails; in the farther darkness, beyond High Bridge, a car crawled slowly along Sedgwick Avenue, two wavering headlights and nothing else.

#

"When you're old," he said, “I imagine you don't mind—much. It's not as though your mind stayed young but your body got old. You change inside, too. I mean the. things that seem so important to you now won't interest you at all. If I get bald and acquire a stomach-"

"You won't. You're the kind that gets leaner and leaner. When you're old you'll be a lean, bony man, small and neat and distin- guished looking.”

"Thank you.

Either way, you're the one that's going to suffer."

"Me?"

"Yes. People will say, Well, Miss Susan. your gran'pappy is a spry old gentleman for And such a dodderin' old fool, ain't he? you'll have to tell them, See here, he's not my grandfather, he's my husband. So then they'll think you married me for my money, and if you tell them how old you really are they'll take you for a witch"

Susan looked up at him, laughing. the wind spraying wisps of hair around her eyes. Peter smiled back. The wind was a purr in "What I've his ears, then it shifted. always wished," he said, "was there ought to be some way you could put away a day you've lived and come back to it afterward. Now for instance, this is what it was really like when we were young, to-night, this minute. But how much of it will we remember when we're old? We'll talk about the days when we were young but it won't be anything like what it actually was. You see what I mean. It was like this, this minute. Eleven-thirty of a Friday in late April, a cold and windy

night. It's the movie we've just seen, the style of the cars that pass us, the clothes you're wearing. It's your clear skin and firm body and my good teeth and the steak digesting in our insides. All that's a part. of now, this moment If you could weave some kind of spell—”.

His hand moved through the air, closed on it. "Catch and hold,” he chanted, “dark sky, cold earth, winter wind; this heartbeat of the life of this man and this woman and no other. Catch and hold, and when we are old there it will be--"

His hand opened and lay cupped, as though holding in itself miniatures of the bridge. the scurrying cars, themselves. "Everything: the wind, the click of your heels on the sidewalk. warmth in your mouth, laughter in your throat No job, the rent due next week, the Bronx waiting to swallow us. A car sounding its horn and right after that-you hear?—a locomotive's shriek. There--it's gone already."

They heard the small rattle of the train and then saw the train itself, tiny windows- alight, slide down the valley toward the city, Grand Central. Susan said, "You'll have your memories.”

Peter shook his head. "It's memories I..... distrust. You forget too much, you forget what it was really like. Pictures help. A picture of this empty bridge, the darkness, might help; but there's so much you couldn't put in, that isn't lines and shadows-~~

The wind tugged at his hat and Peter jerked around, clutching at it, then faced forward again, imprinted on his eyes, the world back of them, the empty drive-the wind had cleared the streets as well as the air and on the bluff above it the old water tower: and back of the water tower's slim serenity the apart- ment bouses of Washington Heights, in day- light a thin crust of masonry atop the bluff's earth and vegetation, at night an uneven wall only slightly more solid than the dark sky beyond it

He realized that Susan had begun speak- ing again, is that slow, pleasant voice that so perfectly matched her quiet eyes:

and long afterward you relived it, you were back in to-night again, it might not be what you think. If I were to say some night, Peter, do you remember when we were irst married and lived in High Bridge and how we used to go to the movies, walking across 181st Street bridge? And you'd say, Yes, and then we did whatever it was we had to do and we found ourselves on the bridge here, watching the Young U's walking home. You'd probably say, Oh, well, we weren't so badly off. We were poor, of course, but we were young and in love-

"Yes, bat

"Don't interrupt me. I'd look at myself and think, What funny clothes I wore then but I did have a cute figure, didn't I? Peter. you'll still love me when I'm straight up and down from my shoulders to my knees, won't you? I'll still love you if you get bald.” *

"Nothing could be fairer."

-

Then I'd look at you, the Young You, and say. Whatever was I thinking of to let Peter get so thin, and there's a button miss- ing off his overcoat, too; and will you look at his shoes. But we wouldn't imow we were being watched; we'd walk along, talking, maybe talking of when we'd be old-Gosh, Peter, don't look around; they may be there

now

They were approaching the Bronx end of the bridge, which sloped slightly to a tangle of traffic signs and converging" streets, University. Ogden, Boscobel. “And I'd look after us," Súsan continued, “until I couldn't see us any more, until the Bronx had swal lowed us up, thinking of the old days and not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Then you'd say, Come along, my dear, and I'd take your arm and we'd go back to where oar car was waiting. We could have him park on Amsterdam Avenue; they allow parking there, don't they? And we'd get in, sighing and creaking the way old people do, and the chauffeur would drive us home. I imagine we'd be sad and quiet for the rest of the evening, don't you? So," Sasan said, look- ing up at him, "maybe it's just as well you can't recapture it.”

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