The Amateur Marriage Read Online Free

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    Oh, plainly she and Michael had been having words of some kind.
    She turned from Wanda and looked at Michael expectantly, and he gathered himself together and squared his shoulders and took hold of her hand again. He led her further into the hall, past the microphone where Jerry himself now stood, foolishly grinning, past the accordionist who was flirting with Katie, over to the women on their cluster of folding chairs. “Mama,” he said to his mother, “I know you remember Pauline.”
    His mother held a plate in both hands on the very tip end of her lap—a single beet swimming in horseradish sauce. She gazed up at him bleakly.
    “Pauline is sort of . . . my girl,” he told her.
    Even this late, the noise was deafening (all those overtired children on the loose), but where Mrs. Anton sat, the silence spread around her like ripples around a stone.
    Pauline stepped forward, and this time her smile was heartfelt, her dimples deep as finger pokes. “Oh, Mrs. Anton,” she said, “we’re going to be such good friends! We’re going to keep each other company while Michael is away.”
    Mrs. Anton said, “Away?”
    Pauline went on smiling at her. Even with her damp lashes, she had a natural kind of joyousness. Her skin seemed to radiate light.
    “I’ve joined the Army, Mama,” Michael said.
    Mrs. Anton froze. Then she stood up, but so unsteadily that the woman next to her stood up too and took away her plate. Mrs. Anton relinquished it without a glance. It appeared that she would just as soon have dropped it on the floor. “You can’t,” she told Michael. “You’re all I’ve got left. They would never make you join.”
    “I’ve enlisted. I report for training Monday.”
    Mrs. Anton fainted.
    She fell in an oddly vertical manner, not keeling over backwards but slowly sinking, erect, into the folds of her skirt. (Like the Wicked Witch melting in The Wizard of Oz, a child reported later.) It should have been possible to catch her, but nobody moved fast enough. Even Michael just watched, dumbstruck, until she reached the floor. Then he said, “Mama?” and he dropped sharply to his knees and started patting both her cheeks. “Mama! Talk to me! Wake up!”
    “Stand back and give her air,” the women told him. They were rising and moving their chairs away and shooing off the men. “Lay her flat. Keep her head down.” Mrs. Pozniak took Pauline by the elbows and planted her to one side. Mrs. Golka sent one of her twins off for water.
    “Call a doctor! Call an ambulance!” Michael shouted, but the women told him, “She’ll be all right,” and one of them—Mrs. Serge, a widow—heaved a sigh and said, “Let her have her rest, poor soul.”
    Mrs. Anton opened her eyes. She looked at Michael and closed them again.
    Two women helped her to a sitting position, and a moment later they lifted her onto her chair, all the time saying, “You’ll be just fine. Don’t rush yourself. Take it easy.” Once she was seated, Mrs. Anton bent double and buried her face in her hands. Mrs. Pozniak patted her shoulder and made soft clucking sounds.
    Michael stood at a distance, now, with his palms clamped in his armpits. Various men kept slapping him reassuringly on the back, but it didn’t seem to do any good. And Pauline had simply vanished. Not even Wanda Bryk had seen her go.
    The Dulcetones were drifting helplessly among their instruments; some of the children were quarreling; Jerry Kowalski was standing slack-jawed at the microphone. Cigarette smoke hung in veils beneath the high rafters. The air smelled of pickled cabbage and sweat. The tables had a ravaged look—platters almost empty and puddled with brownish juices, serving spoons staining the linens, parsley sprigs limp and bedraggled.
    Everybody said later that the party had been a mistake. You don’t throw a celebration, they said, when your sons are leaving home to fight and die.
    The windows above Anton’s Grocery stayed dark all the next day, not