Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

ed his cheek against mine, so that its roughness pricked my skin. "I'm going to make a hundred dollars a week — every week!" "Johnny!" I threw my head back so I could see his face, and joy fought with doubt in my voice. "Who— what— ?" "With Kennedy!" he said. Then, quickly — "He saw me in court. He liked the way I handled the case. We had a long talk, afterwards, and he said — -" Unthinkingly, I was slipping out of his arms. I couldn't believe it was Johnny, saying these things — telling me he was going to work for Matt Kennedy. Matt Kennedy who was a bad odor in the nostrils of all decent people in our city, Matt Kennedy who had never once run for public office but who picked many of the men who did, Matt Kennedy whose influence was felt on paving contracts, in schools, in hospitals, Matt Kennedy the political boss. But Johnny knew all this as well as I. "You don't like it," Johnny said flatly. "No . . . Didn't you know I wouldn't?" He turned away, shoulders drooping. "I suppose I did. I don't like it too well myself. That is, I — No!" he broke off suddenly, almost angrily. "That's not true. I do like it! What I don't like is losing cases I should have won, and being as poor as poverty and sitting here day after day waiting for something to happen and seeing you go around in a coat that's like tissue-paper! Those are the things I don't like. This is my chance to get away from them, and I'm going to take it!" "But Johnny," I pleaded. "You know what kind of a man Matt P Kennedy is — how he makes his money. Even if you didn't know before, you found out this morning when your witnesses perjured themselves — " "Part of the deal with Kennedy," Johnny interrupted harshly, "was for him to send Mrs. Tonelli a check. I insisted on that." "I'm glad," I told him, "that Mrs. Tonelli is getting what she deserves — and it was sweet of you to think of her. But forcing that money out of Kennedy isn't going to buy you an easy conscience, not for long, anyhow. You're too fine, Johnny, to be mixed up with a man like that. And you don't have to be! You're clever enough to be a success the hard way . . . the right way!" [ POURED all my love and faith into that plea. But all Johnny said was, "It isn't enough to be smart. I know that now." I put on my hat and coat, and we went out of the office. The question of Johnny's job with Matt Kennedy went with us. But it was not really a question — not any longer. It was something that had been decided. Johnny's attitude told me that. Even though I didn't want him to, even though he himself knew he shouldn't, he was going to accept. He was going to start making a hundred dollars a week as one of Kennedy's lawyers. We'd had our quarrels, Johnny and I, in two years of marriage — brief, violent clashes, over things which seemed important at the time. But this new estrangement was something very different from a quarrel. It had its roots down deep, down in the very foundations of our beings. It was too big to be expressed in anger or tears. It was present in every word each of us spoke to the other, it was a backdrop to our lives from that day on. All this was true and yet — with another part of me, the purely feminine and human part, I could enjoy the things Johnny's new salary brought me. I could be excited by our new living room with its pale green walls, by the chintz curtains I bought, blending yellow and apricot and green. It was good to see Johnny in his new tweeds, and to watch him tamping fragrant tobacco into his pipe and to smell the richness when he put a match to it. I loved my new clothes — the gray spring suit, the black hat and shoes and gloves, the dress of navy blue silk with its crisp white frill. The adventure of having money, after so many months of scrimping and saving! Even such a little thing as going with Johnny to a very grand delicatessen and buying smoked turkey, about which we had long been curious, was thrilling because we'd never been able to do it before. One Friday in the spring Johnny telephoned from his office. "Packa bag," he said. "I just got a little bonus and we're going to the seashore for the week-end.' I'll be home in time to take you to the fouro'clock train." That was all, but it was enough to send me running to the closet, pulling open dresser drawers, ironing this and brushing that. And at the last minute I had to move the satin slippers that went with my green dinner dress to make room for the huge bottle of perfume Johnny brought me, together with violets to wear high on my shoulder. That week-end was glorious. We had a room overlooking the sea. We breakfasted there, on strawberries and cream, chicken hash, brioches, and coffee — at a table in a sunny window. We walked miles, to the end of the board-walk, to lunch at a special oyster bar, and then rode back slowly in a wheelchair pushed by a uniformed attendant. At night we dressed up and dined downstairs at the hotel, and danced for a while, and then went back upstairs, to sleep, lulled by the soft, sensuous boom of the sea. Maybe, I thought, I was being foolish. I was married to a' man I adored, and I was adored by him. He was getting along in the world, bringing rich and lovely gifts to his wife and laying them at her feet, as men have done since the beginning of time. Why worry, as Johnny said, because Kennedy wasn't a Sunday-school superintendent? The world isn't run along Sunday-school lines . . . I caught my wandering thoughts, aghast at where they were leading me. I mustn't let myself start believing all those comfortable, comforting lies. Right was right and wrong was wrong, and there could be no compromise between the two. "But aren't you compromising?" something whispered to me. "You know that what Johnny is doing is wrong, but you go on accepting the benefits of it. Aren't you, really, as guilty as he?" I thrust that thought aside, but still I was frightened. I saw now how easy it was to accept the ease and fun and unworried loving that Johnny's fortunes had made possible for us, without considering the source from which those fortunes came. I think I knew then what I must eventually do. Continued on page 53 RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRHOH