C14: CSB2HT14 conversion of c:\storybok\sb014\sb014619 to c:\storybok\sb014\sb014619.htm 06-02-2013 22:03:31

CHINA DOLL

Edwin P. Cutler

     Basil Hawthorne leaned over the bed and kissed the satin smooth cheek of his sleepy wife. He whispered in her lovely ear, an ear that he admired, "Heather, be sure to do your exercises this morning and don't forget to have the maid wash the windows today. I've left instructions on the kitchen bulletin board."
     He was pleased that properly attired his wife's graceful carriage and lovely face always drew respectful admiration. He was especially proud of her waist length hair which he encouraged her to curl into a golden chignon at the nape of her swan-like neck. He had made an excellent choice for a wife.
     He had finished lifting weights and run two miles on the walking machine, bringing his pulse to 120 before showering and shaving. Basil was grateful that his short cut hair was sandy brown; he abhorred the five o'clock shadows that men with darker beards seemed to sport with vulgar pride.
     He glanced at the clock and whispered to himself, "On schedule." He fastened onyx cufflinks into a freshly laundered shirt, and slipped his arms into his suit jacket. The proper habiliment for a young successful marketing expert was an important facet in a perfect presentation.
     Before taking the elevator down to the parking garage in the basement, where he kept his Mercedes, he surveyed his practically perfect apartment with pride. The interior decorator had finally given in to his insistence on light pastels with accent colors of late spring. Heather wanted dashes of fiery fall colors, but, when he pointed out that such ostentation was vulgar, she relented.
     "My China Doll," he whispered, looking with pride at the photograph he had taken of her amongst the spring flowers in the city garden. He had insisted on taking the picture early in the morning before the proletariat had a chance to scatter the walks with unsightly litter. She had laughingly christened herself his China Doll on their wedding night when she had wondered if he thought she might break if he treated her too roughly.
     While waiting for the elevator, his neighbor, Mrs Adrienne Polanski, came out her door in her confounded wheelchair. "Good morning, Basil."
     She always insulted him by calling him by his first name, and, to beat that, she consistently managed to arrange things that made him feel like a stagehand grip.
     "Good morning, Mrs. Polanski," he nodded politely and, holding the elevator door with one hand, magnanimously wheeled her into the cubicle. He sighed, resigned to his fate, knowing she would bring him up to date on the murders, robberies, and rapes reported in the morning news. She never commented on the stock market, the theater, or on anything of consequence.
     At work, he parked his car in his reserved spot and locked it with the button on his key chain. He had insisted on a place between two posts so no one could scratch his car opening their door. Lifting his chin and squaring his strong shoulders, he stepped to the lift with a military cadence befitting a general though he had never been in the service. He fretted, if I could only get to my office without the necessity of returning the greetings of the bourgeois staff.
     But he had to speak to them, because his superior, Mr. John Quiggly, had told him that his attitude was worse than supercilious and except for his contributions to their marketing effort he was practically a supernumerary.
     Basil Hawthorne, rather than feeling chastised, had been surprised that the usually visceral and vulgar Mr. Quiggly had the command of such sophisticated words. Upon reflection, however, he had to agree; he was put off by being forced to work with such riffraff.
     The evening of that same day, when he opened the door to his apartment, he almost tripped over several suitcases. "What is this?" he demanded.
     "I want a divorce," his Heather retorted with an unaccustomed verve in her demeanor.
     "What?" He looked at her. She was attired in one of the dresses he had selected for her, but the bodice was half unbuttoned leaving an unruly view of pale white skin. And even though her long skirt properly concealed the flare of her hips and sheltered her legs down to her ankles, it appeared rumpled and unpressed. Basil noticed these things instantly and was ready to remonstrate her erratic attire.
     He was further startled when she uncharacteristically raised her voice to shout, "I can't stand it any longer!"
     "Can't stand what? What have I denied you? What more could you possibly want?" Basil waved a hand at the other accouterments adorning his apartment and stated, "You belong here."
     "I belong here?" she asked. "That, Basil, is the problem. I want to go back out into the world I left to marry you. I want to find out who I really am. Maybe finish my degree at college."
     "But you... we are married." Basil Hawthorne, for perhaps the first time in his life, stammered to a stop.
     "This is not a marriage. I am just another of your practically perfect possessions."
     "But you are my wife," he argued.
     "I am not your wife. I am your China Doll," she wailed and bursting into tears collapsed onto the sofa, the soft colors of her dress blending into the pastels of the protective coverlet.
     Distressed at her weeping, Basil sat down beside her and carefully put an arm around her shuddering shoulders. "I understand," he stated.
     "You understand? You can't possibly understand," she lamented and resumed her weeping.
     "But I do," he insisted. "You need to get out more, see more plays and visit more museums." After a moments contemplation, he announced, "I'll take you to the play downtown. I've been told `Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf ' is quite a hit."
     "Basil," she whispered, "I've read the play. I'm afraid you won't like it. In fact, I doubt if you'll even understand it."
     "What? My dear, I've often been acclaimed a connoisseur of the arts."
     "Oh, Basil, from your perch high on the tree of life, you look down upon we mere mortals with contempt when we fail to worship you as you believe your due."
     "Heather, what a ridiculous thing to say. I am as worldly as anyone, perhaps even more so."
     "Oh, well," she sighed and let her head rest on his broad shoulder.

     The next evening, when he opened the door and announced his arrival, there were no suitcases to trip him and he breathed a sigh of relief admitting he might have worried during the day.
     But when he called to her, there was no answer.
     Heather had moved out. Most of the dresses and low heeled shoes he chose for her were still in her closet, but the things she brought with her when they were married were gone.
     Basil Hawthorne sat down at the kitchen table in disbelief and complained bitterly, "How can she do this to me?"
     When his eyes wandered to the bulletin board, he saw a note with his name in bold letters.

     Dearest Basil,
     I shall always remember our practically perfect year together. But my pallid skin yearns for the sun and my suffocating soul gasps for the warm breath of humanity.
     After a year, I will return to grant you a divorce. In the meantime, do not try to find me. Simply assume that I have vanished, gone to a planet in a solar system around a sun that you will never see.
     Goodbye and God bless.
     Your China Doll.

     Basil Hawthorne was crushed. It was as if he had left the door unlocked and one of his most valuable possessions had simply gotten up and walked out. He poured himself a stiff drink and sat down to stare at the dark TV.
     "What was wrong with her?" he asked, trying to see a crack in her personality. "My China Doll has up and walked out on me. How could she do such a thing to me when my career is climbing to perfection."

     In the morning he got up late. He didn't bother to lift the weights or run the mile. In fact, he forgot to shave and was late leaving for work. In the hallway he looked for Mrs. Polanski but rode the elevator down to his Mercedes, alone.
     At work, he told a coworker that his ideas for a toothpaste company ad were absurd. Unable to stand the resentment of the staff, he grabbed his London Fog raincoat and huffed out of the office. This was the first time he had ever gone home before lunch, but the apartment was still devoid of the warmth he sought.
     The next morning, he at least got himself together enough to call in sick. He sat alone on the springtime pastels covering the sofa, eating a bowl of cereal. He sat alone, staring out the perfect window at the perfect view of the lake.
     Two days later, the phone rang and Mr. Quiggly's secretary asked if he was all right. When he only mumbled, she told him not to worry and to come back when he was feeling better.
     Sinking further into despair each day, he realized that if he were to disappear, vanish, no one would care and the world would go on without him. A weeks growth of beard stared at him in the mirror, and he laughed at the man he had never seen before. He thought over all the rules he had steadfastly held to be absolutely necessary in a young gentleman's repertoire of behaviors. He groaned, recalling Dick Francis saying, "All anthropological groups consider their most bizarre tribal customs quite normal," and asked the mirror, "is there more than one acceptable way to behave?"

     Returning from shopping with a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread, he saw his widowed neighbor in her wheelchair and without thinking offered to hold the elevator door for her, then helped her into her apartment. When she showed genuine concern for his appearance, he was surprised and later, thinking about the incident, decided she wasn't so bad after all.
     "She survived before I moved here," he spoke aloud to himself. "So, no one needs me, no one cares, I might as well not be here." He had wondered about people who commit suicide and decided there must be a hundred better ways to expurgate one's past without actually dying.
     But what is dying, what is death? Pull the plug and the mental computer becomes just a collection of numb neurons, and the body a wrack of old bones with listless muscles. A body encased in an epidermal sack, waiting for the garbage collector in the guise of a mortician.
     Between bouts of self pity, he saw the empty bed where he had carefully taken his pleasure with his departed wife. When his boss called to tell him to take another week off if he wanted, he realized he was not needed for the company to successfully continue advertising the products of their wealthy customers.
     Even more morose, his mind wandered back and, with comforting affection, recalled how his deceased mother had carefully taught him to be a gentleman. But he began to question his own upbringing when he read W. Somerset Maugham, who in 1896 wrote in his private notes, "Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother."
     Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, he recalled a story where a disturbed young man buried his father in effigy. "I shall bury myself in effigy!" he shouted, startling the perfect apartment which for days had heard only moans of despair.
     Chuckling, he wrapped some newspapers into a little bundle, his effigy, and stowed them in the trunk of his Mercedes. Far out in the country, at the most remote spot he could find, he used the shovel stowed in the trunk, carried in case of snow, to dig a small hole in some soft earth.
     Depositing himself, in effigy, he said a prayer. "All you have cared for and all the attention you have given to perfection have departed with your demise. Only the cruel savage world remains and your previous commitment to imagined mores and soul-felt scruples are hereby buried with your body."
     As he covered the grave, he recalled another Maugham gem of wisdom. "A moral code is only accepted by the weak-minded; the strong form their own." He felt a sudden sense of relief. It was as if he had been born again, fresh in a world with towering trees that shelter nesting birds. He lifted his opened eyes to a sky, broad and blue, with room for those with wings to fly above the trivia constipating the bedraggled world below.
     "From now on I'll not give a damn about anything or care what anyone thinks of me," he shouted and drove back to his lovely, lonely apartment.
     Surprised again by his appearance in the mirror, he thought about his job at the advertising agency. He laughed, "I don't give a damn now, do I," and decided to let his scraggly beard have its way.
     Lying in bed, he daydreamed about the toothpaste account Frank was ruining by letting the pompous proprietors that run the company dictate to him. They only know what they have to offer, they don't know the viewers. They are convinced that if we tell the people how useful their product is to them, they will go right out and buy it. When his wandering mind concocted a crazy, laughable ad, he shouted, "Hell, you say. Ignore your troubles and they will go away. Ignore your teeth and they too will go away."
     In the morning he put on a pair of old jeans planning to tune up his Mercedes. Thinking about the ad again, he got in the car, still in the jeans and drove to work.
     The door man didn't recognize him and refused entry until he pulled out his wallet and showed the man his driver's license. His coworkers, also not recognizing him, hardly looked up until he went into his office as if he owned it. He sat down at his computer and generated a mockup of the crazy ad. With a computer disk in hand, he drove to the toothpaste company.
     The old entrenched board of trustees emitted muffled guffaws at the ridiculous suggestion depicted on a synthesized TV screen. But then they looked at each other and, after some shuffling of feet and scratching of ears, cast wary glances at the CEO. But when the old man shouted gleefully, "Ignore your teeth and they will go away!" the secretary as well as the board of directors released their pent up humor and broke out laughing.
     Basil called Quiggly and after telling him they had the account hung up and started home.
     To celebrate, he bought a fillet mignon to cook for his supper. At the elevator door he caught Mrs. Polanski struggling with her wheelchair and blocked her way.
     "Mr. Hawthorne?" She looked up into his bearded countenance, wondering at his objectionable behavior.
     "Mrs. Polanski, Adrienne, I have a problem. I have a tender steak, which I don't know how to cook and no one to share it with."
     "Perhaps," the lady smiled, "I can help you on both counts."
     During dinner, he again quoted Maugham, bringing another smile to the crippled lady's eyes. "The spirituality of man is most apparent when he is eating a hearty dinner."
     At work several days later, his boss announced that the toothpaste company reported a dramatic increase in sales. Basil Hawthorne was surprised when his coworkers, whom he had always perceived as being envious, spoke to him with, "Hale, fellow, well done!"
     On the way home, he realized that he had forgotten to brush his teeth. He laughed aloud, "Ignore your teeth and they too will go away!" But then bit his lip remembering that he had ignored his Heather, and she too had gone away.

     Wondering what to do with himself in his new world, he decided to go see the Virginia Wolfe play and was amazed that there were subtle undertones in the lines and the expressions of the actors that he did not understand.
     "Maybe I need to broaden my horizons," he laughed and joined an amateur play group where he was accepted as a grip. A new play by a local author was being shown that very evening and he was told to stand in the wings and watch how things were moved around between scenes and during the intermission.
     But when the curtains opened, he stared hypnotically at a beautiful leading lady who came from offstage. Her face was painted with stage makeup and she was adorned in a sunburst yellow gown with lightning strikes of red woven into the material. She was combing her long hair, the color of windblown wheat, draped like a water fall over her shoulder and down across her bosom.
     "What's the matter with you?" a prompter asked when Basil wiped a tear from his cheek.
     "She makes me think of ... just sad memories."
     Entranced by the charisma of the lady, he wondered if she really was only an amateur and moving to see better tripped on the props he was supposed to be learning about.
     Brushed aside by an experienced grip, Basil stood in the wings and stared when she batted her long eyelashes provocatively at the distinguished looking leading man, charmed a complaining Aunt into apologies, and sent a delivery boy stumbling away obviously moonstruck by her friendly smile and flashing eyes.
     During intermission she disappeared off the other wing and Basil wondered if he would get to see her after the closing curtain.
     The last act passed in minutes for entranced Basil and he was staring from offstage when the leading man complained, "You are far too fragile to live the life you seek. The world in which you wish to venture is much too onerous and vulgar for you, my sweetheart."
     When the leading lady waved a dismissive hand and retorted, "I am not a China doll," Basil gasped at the coincidence.
     "But you know nothing of the troubles that can befall a naive traveler who dares to explore the wicked world beyond these protective portals," the leading man stated in the stilted style of the amateur play.
     At this the lady bristled, "Troubles, you say," and waving a newspaper at the him she read, "Ignore your troubles and they will go away."
     Basil realized the playwright had seen his toothpaste ad and watched the man shrug his shoulders then absently look out over the audience where he sighed aloud, "Yes dear and now I have important things to do," at which he strode offstage leaving her alone.
     With an angry flourish, she cast aside the newspaper and turning to the audience pleaded, "I am desolate, trapped by a man who sees me as one of his practically perfect possessions. But oh, how my pallid skin yearns for the sun and my suffocating soul gasps for the warm breath of humanity."
     Basil choked, "Heather?"
     She paused for several seconds to give the audience time to absorb her plight. Then finally, holding the silent theater in her uplifted arms, she beseeched their breathless waiting, "Ignore the woman who loves you and she too will go away."
     Frozen in her gesture, she held the audience absolutely still, spellbound by pity too deep for tears.
     Suddenly a bearded man in a black leather jacket stumbled onto the stage and with arms reaching for her called out, "Heather!"
     "Who?" She stepped back as if to ward off an attack from the cruel world.
     "It's me, your Basil," the man wept and stopping short dropped to a knee as if proposing.
     "Basil? The beard? The motorcycle jacket? Is it really you?" she leaned to look into a face half hidden by a month's growth of untrimmed beard.
     The man lifted his hands as if to pray. "If I promise never to ignore you again,"
     When the bearded man paused, the audience watched Heather Hawthorne clasp the man's hands to her bosom and turn to gaze out over their waiting faces.
     Then, as if the lines were part of the play, she promised, "If you swear to never again ignore the woman who loves you, she will never again go away."
     Basil rose from his knees and in a theater so quiet you could have heard a whisper they clasped in a passionate embrace.
     Silence hung like the calm before a storm -- until a lonely clap led a torrent that deafened the house with a thunderous applause.


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