Dearest Eliot

The summer of thirty-nine!

If it wasn't enough to be twenty-one and a senior, nor enough to be on the committee to impeach Martin Dies and to march with the Irish Liberation Army, I even attended meetings with the Red Guard every Thursday. Shouldn't that be enough for a young man of twenty-one in the summer of thirty-nine?

No! -- I had to go and fall in love!

I first noticed her in Economics II. Then, again, in European History. At lunch and dinner, I'd see her in the cafeteria or walking through the halls surrounded by her friends -- she'd be nestled in the middle of them, like the heart of a flower, shielded from the outside . . . from predatory seniors like me. All my political posturing, the clenched fists -- everything that meant so much to me was suddenly put on hold -- shoved to the back of the stove. The plight of the proletariat was no longer important to me. I lived only to see her, to watch her in the center of her friends.

I strained to hear her voice. By listening carefully and using precise tuning, I was able to isolate it from the gaggle of other voices around her. It was a low voice for a woman -- low in volume, low in pitch -- a voice that, like everything else about her, seemed to come from somewhere inside. When she laughed, the others would laugh too, and by some mysterious transcendental linkage, I would find myself laughing. Then I would catch myself -- what would she think of this ragged revolutionary standing alone laughing like an idiot?

She was a small and graceful girl, with short dark hair framing a pale face and very large inquiring eyes. Her complexion was flawless, and it was obvious she needed no make-up, yet her brows looked freshly penciled in, and her mouth, always slightly parted, and on the brink of a smile, looked freshly painted.

I lost track of my own identity. The hell with Martin Dies and his Un-American Activities Committee, the hell with marching for Northern Ireland -- the hell with school! I had fallen in love! My throat was dry -- I was parched -- I goggled at her, and my mouth hung open as though I had witnessed a miracle. I stared at her from behind my beard like a homeless person, unaware that I looked like an unmade bed.

Although I had never been closer than ten feet, my bloodhound senses picked up the sight, the sound, and the smell of her. Love had lent me a homing device that enabled me to predict where she would be, and I would be there before her, waiting to see, hear, and even smell her. Who was this rare and beautiful creature? Where, within her, was her soul -- the magic that made her different from any women I'd ever seen? I had to have her! I had to have her -- to myself. Alone!

As she moved through the halls in the company of her male and female attendants, I began nodding to her -- pretending we had met somewhere before. Ten or more times a day I would be there to nod and smile, hoping she would accept me as someone she knew. She gave me no sign or signal, but that was of no concern. My plan was to familiarize her with the sight of me, someone she might recognize. I adopted the outward appearance of a Parisian poet of the late eighteenth century (a very popular masquerade with serious young men in the summer of thirty-nine).

Then, later, as I stood in front of my dormitory mirror and looked at the wretch I had become, I was filled with doubt. None of her friends looked as disreputable as I. There were hollow sockets where my eyes had once been; I looked hunted; my clothes hadn't been to the laundry in weeks. I was a poignant and homeless figure -- yet she looked at me without disgust. Perhaps there was hope for me!

Love is a devious taskmaster. It teaches the lover to be crafty and cunning. With no trouble at all, I stole "The Decline and Fall of Roman Civilization" from her open locker as we passed from European History to English Lit. As I held the book in my hand, I thought of her holding it. Both our hands had held this book! -- not at the same time, but almost -- using the scale of time in the book, it was as if we had held it together. I opened it and saw her name, "Property of Jennifer Hubble."

Her name had a sobering effect on me, and I felt as though I had blundered into the sanctity of her family. The book carried a faint scent -- something similar to rosemary. My book stank of stale cigarettes, like the rest of me. I felt I might contaminate hers if I kept it too long. She had underlined certain passages with green pencil. Her underlining would venture out timidly into the margin and once there, she would write her notes in a controlled and delicate hand. Little circles above the i's, and j's -- the belly of the loops under her y's and g's were pregnant with significance. Never had a lover learned so much from a book of history.

I burst through her phalanx of admirers. "Jenny! You left your book in history class!"

To this day I'm not certain if she believed me, but to her credit she accepted the book and smiled.

"Thank you . . ."

"Eliot."

"Thank you, Eliot."

It was a beginning, like the first step in an assault of Mt. Everest. I'm sure that there were better ways to begin, but we must use the materials we have. Romeo found Juliet at a ball -- Tristan and Isolde were enemies until they drank a magic potion. As the pace of destiny quickened, and as the clouds of war thickened about us, this young man of twenty-one used all his wit and wisdom to catch the attention of Jennifer Hubble. She had, after all, spoken his name! She hadn't shrunk in revulsion at the sight of him. She simply said, "Thank you, Eliot!" Long after the encounter, I replayed the sound of my name as it came from her parted lips.

I took it as a signal to proceed. I checked myself in the dormitory mirror again and wondered where to begin. There was work to be done. A haircut, a trimming of the beard -- and by all means a general scrubbing down of a body that had been too long in the trenches of left-wing commitment -- sitting in damp basement rallies -- passing out manifestos on rainy street corners. After that, a little attention to the ragged clothing. My enthusiasm for the causes of the common man, the marches, and ad hoc committees had flagged. I was walking on air with a song in my heart -- I knew at last what made the world go round!

"Jenny, I must see you. It's very important. At the stone bench, by the lion, after the last lecture. Okay? --Eliot."

I had agonized over that note. I used blank white paper, instead of something torn out of a notebook. I wanted to make it seem imperative (hence the "must"), yet I didn't want to alarm her. Most of all, by the implied 'important' nature of the note, I hoped she would break away from her coterie of attendants and see me alone. I slipped the note through the ventilating slots of her book locker.

I sat there on the hard cold bench wearing Rudy Westerman's forest green cable knit sweater and Charlie Brooke's new brown corduroy slacks. That morning I sprung for my first haircut in more than a month and spent my lunch break trimming my beard. As I sat on the bench by the stone lion under a threatening summer sky, I was aware of a few admiring glances from co-ed freshmen in their beanies. I had a mental image of myself as Andrea Chenier, in his tumbrel, rattling along the cobbled streets of Paris on his way to the guillotine.

I sat there until dark. Out of cigarettes and hungry as hell. I was forced to admit that my preparations had failed. What was of utmost importance to me was obviously of no concern to her. I rose stiffly from the cold stone bench, brushed the ashes from Rudy Westerman's sweater and reluctantly headed for the school cafeteria. What if she were to suddenly appear after I left -- like the Governor's pardon arriving after the prisoner has been executed?

Wait a minute! Perhaps she had forgotten my name! That was it!! She didn't know who 'Eliot' was. How stupid of me! But then again -- and even if she didn't know, wouldn't she be curious enough to want to know . . . and pass by hurriedly with her ever-attendant group to see who was sitting on the stone bench? I had worked myself into a frenzy of doubt -- madly infatuated -- insanely obsessed with an unresponsive mistress. Yes, mistress! I could only compare myself to a dog that finds his mistress has abandoned him.

I sat alone in the cafeteria. Rudy Westerman came over and wanted his sweater back. After checking it for cigarette burns, he asked me how I made out.

"I didn't borrow it to make out, Rudy."

"Well, why didn't you wear your own then?"

"None of your business."

"Huh! I guess not . . . you going to the meeting tonight?"

"What meeting?"

"The Red Guard, dummy! Lennie's basement. Mantell is speaking tonight, he's just back from Washington."

"I don't think so, Rudy. I've got to write a letter tonight."

"What's the matter with you anyway. You used to be a real torch-bearer. Now look at you -- you got a haircut and a brand new pair of pants -- and for a while there, you had a new sweater."

"The pants aren't mine, they're Charlie Brooke's -- you have any cigarettes?"

Rudy shook his head and folded his sweater. He fished in his shirt pocket and pulled out a handful of these things he rolled himself on a machine he had brought from home. God knows what was in them -- he said it was something that grew wild in a field in back of his father's house.

It was pretty obvious to me that I had passed into another dimension. The down-trodden masses would have to find someone else to carry their torch, at least until this situation with Jennifer Hubble was resolved. I was a non-active member of the Red Guard now. I sat there for a time planning my next, and probably crucial, step. It would have to be a letter. It would have to explain in intimate detail the agony I was going through -- what she had done to me -- what I was prepared to do to her if she, if she . . . well, it would all have to get into the letter somehow.

The threatening summer sky had turned to rain, a very cold rain, and I could almost smell the wet raincoats in the basement meeting room under Lennie's bar. I managed to stay relatively dry on my way back to the dorm by ducking in and out of the buildings on campus. By the time I got back, I had worked out the theme of my love letter in my head. I was determined that this as yet unborn declaration would be a beacon to all those who love in the future.

It went surprisingly well. At 11 p.m. I slipped the six pages into a clean white envelope and sealed it. Almost immediately I slit the envelope open and read it again . . . and added a PS. I got another envelope and told myself that this was the last time; it was going to go like this or not at all. It was nearly midnight. The rain had stopped and I decided to walk the letter over to her dorm. The campus was deserted now; even the security patrol had given up for the night.

In the vestibule of every dorm, the school provided a large bulletin board which was used as a makeshift mailbox. It's the first thing the students checked going in and the last thing before leaving. I tacked the envelope to the very center of the board, making sure there was space all around it -- she couldn't miss it in the morning. I had written that I would be at Lennie's every evening from nine to eleven at a table in the back of the room. I assured her that she had nothing to fear from me and it would be so much better if she came alone.

The anguish of the next three days was unbearable. I saw her every day in class -- tried to read her expression -- search her mind. Between classes she remained in the center of her friends, her bodyguards, all of them jockeying for position. Our eyes would lock every so often, but quickly the glance would be withdrawn as though both of us had opened a door to a private room and feared to enter.

I drank everything Lennie had for sale -- coffee, coke, beer, even tea. Rudy Westerman, fresh from his Red Guard rallies, would come and sit with me.

"We missed you last night, Eliot -- Mantell was on fire. There's gonna be war, you know that don't you?"

"Get away from me. I'm expecting somebody."

"I swear, man, you're goin' down the drain. Don't you care any more? Look at you! The world's comin' apart and you look like you didn't get a date for the prom."

"Got any more of those home-made cigarettes, Rudy?"

He gave me another handful, and they helped to pass the time. In fact, after two or three, you lost track of where you were as well. Lennie was closing up -- letting down the wooden blinds and looking at me meaningfully. It looked as though my third night of waiting would be fruitless, when suddenly the door opened and there she was. Alone! She seemed much smaller alone. I stood and we looked at each other with the emptiness of the room between us.

"You two kids aren't plannin' to settle down here, are'ya? I'm gettin' ready to shut down for the night." Lennie already had the lights down, and the cook was taking out the trash.

"No, we're going. That all right with you, Jennifer?" She nodded. I hurried across the room and took her arm. She pulled away -- she wasn't ready for that. How clumsy two people can be when they're in the first stages. We found ourselves out in the street in almost total darkness. The click of the lock and the catch of the bolt behind us meant we were on our own. We walked together -- back to the campus, an inch or two of emptiness carefully maintained between us. Finally, at the stone bench by the lion, I stopped.

"You read the letter?"

"Of course."

"And still you're here."

"Yes."

"I thought, maybe it was a little strong -- that it might scare you. I'm too frank for my own good sometimes."

"It was, and you are -- but still I'm here."

"Would you like to sit here a moment? It's hard to speak to you during the day, you're always . . . always."

"I know, I can't help it, I seem to attract people."

I inched closer to her on the bench. "You know, I ask myself every day. 'What is Jennifer?' . . . Whatever you are, Jennifer -- I can't live without you."

"You're being silly, I'm nothing. I don't know what you're expecting."

There was so much to say! It was so late! The college was sound asleep. To the east, Europe was on the brink of war! I wanted to say, "Damn it all to hell, Jennifer -- hold your hands over your ears. Cup them like shells, can't you hear it? It's the drums -- there will be war, Jennifer, WAR! I think I have been born to fight in this war! Let us live together while there's still time." Instead, I made a decision that still mystifies me.

"I'm thinking of quitting school, Jennifer. I want to enlist."

"You're crazy! What for?" The library clock sounded 11:30. "Oh, my God! Look at the time -- I've got to go, Eliot."

"There will be war -- very soon now. It will change everything."

"But graduation is in two months. Don't you want to graduate?" Without waiting for an answer, she ran off down the path to her dormitory.

I had managed somehow to bring out the most important things on my mind, love and war, but they accomplished nothing. She was interested in neither. I thought if I told her I was leaving it might make a difference. It didn't.

We saw a lot of each other that final summer. Most of our day-to-day meetings were in the company of her devoted friends. I had little in common with them, and if I had been more honest with myself, I would have admitted I had little in common with Jennifer. But I made her larger than life, and she could do no wrong.

We were alone on weekends. She did not shine as brilliantly on her own; she was a focal point and needed to be in a setting. She made no further attempt to keep me from enlisting -- I hoped she would. I never would have made the commitment if I thought I had to go through with it. We grew no closer; there was an impenetrable barrier in her psyche that prohibited physical intimacy beyond what she considered permissible.

"We're too young -- there's so much ahead of us. Be good, Eliot. Can't you be satisfied with what we have?" She would allow me to touch her here and there, but with strict reservations not to venture into the fathomless depths into which I was so eager to plunge.

"Do you know what I'm going through, Jenny?"

"I guess so."

She wanted to take every step along the way. No short cuts -- every road followed to its completion before another road could be considered. Czechoslovakia fell, Austria fell. The skies grew darker and the drums grew louder -- she was unaware of them -- they were too far away.