4
AS HE walked out the door, he saw, coming in the gate, the rest of the clan returning from work. The children were rushing to meet them, whooping their greetings. The whole scene was one of happy chaos. Out in front was Paul, his round, cherubic face beaming with delight. He bent down to whisper something in little Randy's ear which sent that boy off shrieking with delight. Behind him was Sam, Polly, and Herb.
Sam's face was dark and his eyes deepset. Generally, he looked sullen and dour. But those who knew him, could also see the twinkle in his eye and knew that he had a subtle and penetrating sense of humor. The kids liked him, and both Alice and Ken, aged five and six, were crowding around him now while he gravely asked them something.
Polly, beside him, was peering around delightedly, sparkling with the general excitement. Her eyes were darting all around looking, Tom knew, not for any one thing or person, but simply to absorb it all.
On Polly's other side was Herb. The mechanic of the crowd, he had an eager interest that was somewhat boyish. His happiest moments were spent under the car or bus with his face all smeared with grease. With people, he lacked the touch that he had with machines. There was an awkwardness, almost an uncouthness, that would have been tragic, Tom thought, anywhere but in the haven of a clan.
Behind them, Joan walked with Mike. Her face was still earnest and intense, and Tom thought that she was probably expounding some theory of the art. He felt sorry for Mike, but, then, Mike was a chap that invited that sort of thing. He seemed to be chronically unable to express a disinterest in anything and, as a consequence, was the one on which most of them poured out their troubles and their ideas. But, then, perhaps he was interested. Maybe he was interested in the people even when he was not in the ideas.
Finally, there came Esther and Pete. Esther was the feminine organizer of the clan. She it was that planned the details of what should happen when, and who should do what. The others were just as glad to leave these matters to her. She had a passion for fairness that made them trust her distribution of the chores. And she had the will to get things organized, the wish to see things settled long in advance. Tom saw she was talking earnestly to Pete; he wondered what project she was working on.
Pete was the philosopher of the clan. With a somewhat pixyish mind, he was afraid of no thoughts, and took nothing at all for granted. As to whether he was a really deep thinker, or just one who liked to play with logic and semantics, Tom did not know. Perhaps it was too soon to tell. Philosophers are not made at the age of twenty-five, but only when they have lived their lives, and are ready to profit fully by its experience. At the moment, Tom saw, he was looking rather bored by Esther, and seemed to welcome the onrushing crowd of kids.
TOM looked at them all. Whom should he talk to? he wondered. Or should he talk to any of them? There was no longer in him the same drive about the problem. In some way he did not yet understand, his talks with Sandy and with Betsy had boiled off some of the urgency. And yet, the problem still was urgent. Ricky still meant to bring it up at caucus, and Tom still had to know what his own response would be. It was with something of a shock that he realized that he did not know—but the fact was that he did not. And he did not even know why he was uncertain. The problem had seemed so clear when Ricky had first mentioned it; but now, now it was not clear at all.
Tom waited until they all had washed off the dust of the road and combed their hair and changed their dresses. In the meantime, he mixed them cocktails ready for their return. And when they had once more assembled, he let them trade around the items of the day's news. It was not until he saw Pete wander off to gaze out the window at the gathering sunset that he made any move.
When he saw that Pete was alone, he went over to stand beside him. "What do you know, Pete," he said.
Pete turned to face him. "Hi, Tom. You look puzzled tonight. Not your usual fatherly self. What's up?"
Tom shrugged. "It's this Marcia business that's bothering me," he said. "Ricky's going to caucus it tonight, and I been trying to figure it out."
"What's his rush?" Pete asked. "Or is Ricky just being impetuous?"
"No," Tom said. "There's a reason for it. Graves has got to make his arrangements soon, so he's been putting the pressure on for us to decide quick. If we don't decide tonight, we are apt to be left out."
"Oh?" Pete's voice was noncommittal.
"What do you think of it?" Tom asked. "Should we take her in or not?"
"Well, I don't know," Pete stalled. "The reasons why we should are pretty obvious. It will solve some of our worries if we do. What are the reasons why we shouldn't?"
"I don't know," Tom said. "It just seems wrong to me. Seems like we'd be giving up too much of our ... well, our ideals. Maybe I'm being old fashioned, but it just seems immoral to me, somehow."
Pete leaned against the window frame. "You mean it's like marrying a woman for her money? Sort of gigolo-like?"
Tom nodded. "Yes, I guess that's it," he said. "I suppose what's bothering me is that the idea of the clan is to make the family the same thing as the economic unit; but this seems like it's being too damn economic about it, too mercenary. It just doesn't seem right."
Pete said nothing for a long moment while he meditated. "Well, that's one way of looking at it," he said, finally. "But on the other hand, maybe you got to stop and think this thing through. Why is it bad to marry a woman for her money? It occurs to me that a monogamistic marriage of that sort is bad—and I think it probably is bad—because it inevitably leads to living a lie. You got to fool the woman, because otherwise she doesn't get anything out of the marriage. If the marriage is to mean anything, both the man and the woman have got to get out of it some sense of belonging; that's what the marriage is for. Now the man may get the belonging, the security, from the money. But the wife—she can't get anything out of it unless he can fool her. She's already got the money, so that doesn't mean anything to her; and she's got what the money can buy.
"Unless he can fool her into thinking that he really loves her for herself alone, she doesn't get anything at all out of it. So, he's got to fool her. And the worst of it is that, if he doesn't succeed, she'll walk out on him with her money; then he'll lose what he's after, too—so he's got good reason for being afraid. The situation is necessarily unstable; it's almost bound to lead to grief of one kind or another. So, that kind of a marriage is bad."
"Why's this any different?" Tom asked.
"For one thing, because we can't live a lie," Pete said. "Living a lie of that sort requires great concentration and continuous effort. With the clan, no one person can concentrate on any one other. The lie, if it ever got started, would be a very short-lived one; and I don't think it would ever get started. Not only is it pretty obvious when a new girl is added to a clan, that we can't all be so desperately in love with her; it isn't necessary. A person joins the clan. She's getting a new way of life, and a whole new group of friends. Until she's been in the clan a while, these are not more than friends; it takes time really to integrate a person into a clan. But, at least they are friends—people who will help you to stand against the world.
"So she does get something out of the clan. She gets a sense of belonging, and it doesn't depend on any one person but on the group-structure of the clan. The clan is there to belong to, regardless of any one individual. But with a monogamistic marriage, the structure is lost when either person pulls out. So this thing means that, in the first place, the clan can't live a lie, and, in the second, that there is no need for the lie, anyway. Finally, this means that the situation is quite different from a monogamistic marriage for money. Even if, by chance, the thing is unstable, there is still no reason for fear."
"You think this thing's all right, then?" Tom asked.
"Didn't say that," Pete smiled. "I don't think it's particularly immoral, but that doesn't say it's all right; I don't know. I haven't really thought it out. But what I am saying is that you can't just take over the old ethics into the clan. We got to create a new code and we got to start from the bottom."
"I guess you're right," Tom said. He stared thoughtfully out the window for a moment. Then he shrugged and turned away. "But it doesn't help much," he added to himself as he wandered toward the dining room.