When Edna St. Vincent Came for a Visit
This is the companion piece to "Books Have Their Own Stories to Tell." And, for the record, I really do like Edna St. Vincent Millay.
When Edna St. Vincent Came
for a Visit
It was a typical Tuesday: slow, after Monday's rush. Only
two customers had come in since we had opened two hours earlier. I was sitting
at the desk, taking care of some paperwork and considering which stack of new
trade-ins to attack when the phone rang. The woman on the other end of the line
said she was cleaning out her mother’s things; there were a couple boxes of old
books, would I be interested in looking at them for purchase? Yes, I said, when
should I expect her? She said she would
come by after lunch, maybe closer to two, and she hung up without saying
goodbye.
When she arrived, somewhere between lunchtime and two,
she had two small Lowes’ moving boxes, each about half full of books. I glanced
at the titles on top; would she prefer to browse while I prepared the offer or
come back later in the afternoon? She said she had some errands to run and
would come back later, around three or maybe four. She started to turn, then
hesitated, saying, as if to answer a question I had not asked, “My mom was in
an assisted living home. These were on the shelf in her room.” Her voice
caught, she paused, and then added, “And I don’t want them.” She pushed open
the door and walked out, the bell dinging behind her.
I started making an inventory list of the first box: a
dozen cheap romance novels, a couple of best sellers, an Oprah book club
selection, and a couple miscellaneous fiction books. Nothing exciting. I made a
note of what I thought the box was worth. In the next box were two coffee table photo
books – the kind that folks used to have laying out, whether they had visited those
places or not – one of England and one of Germany. I set them aside. Next were three
history books covering the European theater of World War 2 and a pair of photo
books of the war. Odd, I thought, that the same woman who had harlequin
romances would have military history books in her small library; those don’t
usually go together. I lifted them out of the box.
There was one hardback book left in the box. I lifted
the slender, orange colored, cloth-bound hardback out and looked at it. It was
obviously old, styled from the early/mid 1900s. The title-less cover of the
book had a simple, gold weave around the edge, nothing more. The spine was also
gilded with gold weave, and had only two words in gold, each in its own box,
standing out starkly as a name carved into a black granite tombstone. The top
box simply said POEMS; below, in the second box was the author’s name: MILLAY.
I pulled my stool out from under the counter and
opened the book of poems. On the title page, in the top right corner, in impeccable,
clear penmanship was written, “G. Schaeffer – 1942.” I glanced at the stack of
WW2 books at my left; the date made me wonder. And, what did G stand for? Gertrude?
Glennis? Maybe Grace, or Gracie? I shouldn’t assume: maybe it was a man’s name,
like George or Glen.
I turned a few pages of the old book. The edges were reddish
orange, but the paper was off-white - perhaps “eggshell” would be how Sherwin
Williams would describe it - with only very slight aging along the edge. The
book had been read, that was obvious, but it was well cared for. Strangely, the
book kept trying to fall open by itself, as if it had a secret to tell me. I
placed the open book on the counter and lifted my fingers, then my hands,
letting the pages separate and form a slight arch as if the book’s spine had
been strained or broken open at that point. As I slid my thumb into the narrow
space and lifted gently, the pages rolled upward and to the left until the book
lay almost flat. I looked down and saw words I recognized: “Sonnet XXX.” I
heard myself murmuring aloud, from memory, not needing to read the text.
Love is
not all: It is not meat nor drink,
Nor
slumber against the rain…
At the left and right edges of the pages, just below
center, there were a few slight smudges, not dirty, exactly, but as if thumbs
had held the book open repeatedly for reading. I caught a slightly masculine
scent rising from the page, leathery and smokey, very faint but still present. Was
that pipe tobacco? At the bottom of the page, written in large, round, loopy and
masculine cursive, was a note to his beloved: “My love will bring me back home
to you. Yours, August.” Below was the date: 4 September, 1942.
I began to connect dots in my mind and a picture began
to form: Millay’s book of poetry was a gift from August to his beloved Ms. G. –
what was her name? – as he prepared to leave for war. He purchased the
book at a local bookstore before shipping out. I could imagine his pipe
dangling, carefree, from the corner of his mouth, a curl of smoke dancing
around his mustache (why a mustache? Why not?) before kissing the side of his
cheek, rolling through his thick, Clark Gable-esque hair, and fading away. Perhaps
he had read Millay first and then bought the book, giving it to her so that
when she read it in private, they could share an intimate moment through the
pages and across the miles. So many questions, my imagination could not fill
them all: Were they married, already, when he set out across the ocean? Or
was she faithfully waiting for her fiancée to come home? Was his note merely a
promise to return safely, or was it also a pledge for a marriage to come? Ms. G must have held that book open, the oil
from her thumbs marking the pages as she read the words of Millay and her
beloved. How many times had she ached to hold him, whole and complete, so they
could begin, or resume, their lives, whole and complete, as husband and wife? Did
she wonder how the war would change him? I imagined her sitting at a bay
window, looking out to the east, willing and wishing he would suddenly appear,
first a small dot on the horizon, then growing and growing into a man – her man
– and she would rush out to his arms.
My reverie was interrupted by the jingle of the bell
at the door as a customer entered the store. With a quick trip to the gardening
section, a payment, and a hopeful “See you next time,” I was ready to return to
Ms. G, Millay and August.
A few more pages had arched themselves upward, again.
I helped the pages roll to another poem, revealing yet another mystery. This
page had no writing, but it had yellowed significantly compared to the other
pages I had viewed. Across the pages were marks where, it appeared, water had
dripped, slightly raising the grain of the paper’s otherwise smooth texture. A hint
of vanilla, iris, jasmine and musk rose from this page…was that Chanel No. 5
I was smelling? I started to scan the page and my palm involuntarily rose to my
mouth as I heard myself gasp. The poem
was titled, “Thou Famished Grave.”
Thou
famished grave, I shall not fill thee yet.
I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey
And thou shalt have me; but I dare defend
That I can stave thee off; and I dare say,
What with the life I lead, the force I spend,
I'll be but bones and jewels on that day,
And leave thee hungry even in the end.
My mind completed the picture. Ms. G. had gotten word that
her love, the hopelessly romantic August, had died in the war. Although he
promised to return, Millay pledging that the grave would not be filled, the words
were not enough to keep the enemy’s weapons of war at bay. Sonnet XXX surely
was read and gently treasured with its words and his note of promise and hope, but
this page, and the famished grave, were marked with her tears of pain and loss.
The Sonnet had been kept closed and protected, as if it were too much to leave
it open, lest the hope and the tobacco scent fade, but the sheer pain of the
loss was too much to close the famished grave and its poem. It, and she with it,
aged slowly…
I wiped a tear from my eye as I imagined Ms. G sitting at
her writing desk, tea cup full but cold, with the book of poems laying there –
one page, once filled with hope but now mocking her pain; one page, once just a
poem, now a final statement of irony as, somewhere, perhaps even in an unknown
place, her beloved lay in the grave. I could see the tears that ran, large and
wet, from her eyes, splashing on the open book below as she stared eastward,
again, her beloved never to return.
I softly, gently closed the book so to not disturb the
memories contained in it and set it aside on the counter, separate from the
other books, while I stared out the window, gathering my thoughts. Silly me, I
thought as I sniffed and dabbed my eyes with a tissue, letting my imagination
run so wildly while there was work to be done. I shook my head to clear the
emotional cobwebs, took a breath and then finished adding up my buy offer. I went
back to my desk to try to work, but I kept looking at the book on the counter,
wondering…
Finally, somewhere between 3 and 4 o’clock, she came through
the door. “Do you have a price for me?” she asked. I touched the two stacks of
books and gave her my price. She nodded; that sounded fine to her, but what about
the orange book?
I smiled. “You said these were your mom’s books. I think
this one might be special. May I ask a silly question?” A nod. “What was your
mother’s name? Glennis? Or Gertrude, maybe?” She looked at me and slowly answered,
“Gloria.” I smiled again, and dared another question: “Did your mother wear
Chanel No. 5?” A quizzical look, but another nod. I motioned her to a stool at
the counter. When she sat, I showed her “Sonnet XXX,” then the well-worn poem.
“It’s a slow day. Why don’t you tell me about her…”
And she did.
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