Chapter 33

From the Journal of Maisie McGinty March 17, 1938

Van was feeling much better tonight. He had Grace put on the record of "These Foolish Things" sung by Helen Ward with Benny Goodman and his orchestra behind her. It wasn't the Billie Holliday version that was such a favorite with them the summer after they married. Grace accidentally left that back in Van's apartment in Toronto the last time she was there. Ward sang beautifully, but no one expresses yearning better than Billie Holliday, especially over Teddy Wilson's magical touch on the piano. Still, either version will haunt you.

Together, Grace and Van danced slowly around the parlor. It was good to see that the movement didn't give Van a headache or make him dizzy. Grace rested her cheek against his as Helen Ward crooned about how her heart had wings. The rest of us might just as well have been invisible for all the attention he and Grace paid to anyone but each other. I told Juanita that Van seemed to be getting back in the pink.

"That's the most dangerous time for a patient," she replied. "They start thinking they know more than the nurse … or the doctor." She gave May the fisheye. "They start thinking they can do more than they're ready to do."

May didn't bat an eyelash. "Aren't we lucky that I was such a considerate patient?"

My jaw dropped like a clown's baggy pants after one of the other clowns had cut the suspenders. That wasn't how I remembered it. Juanita raised an eyebrow. "You spent the entire summer complaining because I didn't have you doing cartwheels on a unicycle in the first week."

"That isn't true." May retorted with dry amusement. "A bicycle would have been sufficient."

Juanita looked at me. "You see what you have to look forward to when you join the medical profession?"

From the Memoirs of Grace Bailey -

Van and I went upstairs early. I read the last three chapters of Lord Jim to him. When I was done, he looked at me pensively. "What did you think of it?"

I hesitated a little before answering. When I did, I spoke carefully. "Conrad was a very great writer. His insights … and the language he uses to express them … are as pure and true as silver."

"They are." Van agreed. "What did you think of Gentleman Brown?"

I shuddered. "A heartless cutthroat. He would have been right at home working for Franco … or Stalin."

Van smiled ruefully. "He would have. And Jim?"

That took a little more thought. "I think Jim was a man looking for salvation who perhaps found it. Conrad understands that human beings seek after the divine. I just wish he offered some certainty that the divine exists outside our own yearning for it."

"I wish God offered that kind of certainty, if he exists," Van replied.

"I don't think God means for us to be certain," I countered. "I think he means for us to believe."

Van looked doubtful. "Salvation by faith alone? Faith tells some of the faithful that being true to God means being cruel and unjust to their fellowmen and women."

"Most of us aren't Spanish bishops," I objected. "Most of us just want to be kind and thoughtful to each other … and to carry the burdens life places on us with dignity and self-respect. I believe that's what God wants for us too."

Van smiled at me and this time there was no irony in it. "Your kind of faith is a beautiful thing."

"Perhaps one day you'll share it."

"Perhaps," Van replied softly although a tinge of sadness shadowed his smile for the briefest of moments. We sat together for a while, content just to be together. Then my curiosity prodded me to speak. "What did you think of Lord Jim?"

"I've read the book three times," Van reminisced. "When I was fifteen, I was impressed by the way he left the woman he loved to face certain death. I thought he was the noblest hero in all of fiction. When I was twenty-five, I thought he was a complete fool." Wry amusement crept into his smile. "Now … I think maybe you have to be at least a little bit of a fool to be anything like a hero."

"I don't think you're a fool," I assured him.

"I'm not a hero either." There was so much warmth and tenderness in his voice and in the

look he gave me that I almost cried. "I'm just a soldier who was lucky enough to come out of hell and find an angel waiting for him."

In two weeks: Maisie and God. Generals and cigarettes. Fashions in iron.