Free Hanno’s Doll by Evelyn Piper Page A

Metal, might weep and talk tonight?
    And might not Miss Metal say he, Hanno, was wrong, the marriage to Philip a mistake? Might she not say the boy should be found, not forgotten?
    Why give it a chance to happen? Why endanger safety?
    So he had released Puppchen’s shoulder and walked across the terrace. He had suggested their leaving then and there. Quickest done soonest mended. He would take Philip’s rehearsals. He would manage without Miss Mildred’s secretarial services. Philip and Miss Mildred were to take the station wagon and go to their rooms and pick up whatever they needed and leave then. They would be much more comfortable in the station wagon than in Philip’s old Chevy.
    Use the Park Avenue apartment tonight. Why not? Elopements are made at night.
    Philip looked at Miss Mildred. Miss Mildred looked at Philip. Both of them looked the quickest done the soonest mended, poor children.
    They left the Chevy where it was. “Bon voyage,” he had called and stayed in the cold to watch Philip turn the big car. He watched it start back toward the college.
    Inside, later, he had said to Puppchen, drinking the whipped hot chocolate he had made for her because she had looked so forlorn, that it wasn’t many couples who were going to be given a divorce for a wedding present.
    She said, “Right away? Are they going to start getting a divorce right away?”
    He laughed at her. “Not before they are married, Puppchen.”
    She said, “Well, a divorce takes time, Hanno.”
    She wanted them married and divorced at the same time. Their Thanksgiving plans had been built to include Philip, who would now be in New York being married. She wasn’t enjoying the whipped chocolate.
    He had pulled Puppchen toward the big leather chair and settled her on his knees, against him. He had touched his finger to the drooping line of her lip because he could not bear to see it or to hear her faint, sad sigh. He spoke about the Thanksgiving dinner they would have. Roast goose, he said, rather than the eternal American turkey, but her response was politeness only. Then, even though it made him very uncomfortable—that dead boy had spoiled the student evenings for him—he went on to include students in their Thanksgiving dinner. They would ask whatever boys from the Drama Department that weren’t going away over the holiday.
    Then she did cheer up. They talked about what she would wear. Her red peau de soie would have been right against the snow Philip had predicted, but he decided against it. She should wear her white brocade with her Momma’s diamonds. (Hard and glittering as Puppchen’s Momma.) Normally he detested Puppchen in the diamonds, but he had wanted her to be the Snow Queen on Thanksgiving, because of the boys. He had wanted the boys to understand that if they dared approach beyond the line set for them, the Snow Queen would freeze them, that she was warm only for him, for Hanno. It was not the way that dead boy had said it was: “You can give her anything but love, baby. You do give her anything but love. That you leave to the college boys.”
    It had not snowed on Thanksgiving, however; it had rained, was sodden underfoot. Autumn had changed from a gorgeous slut to a penitent drab. Autumn mourned in grounds turned into a cemetery.
    And it had been the red peau de soie after all. The diamonds had been a silly notion. He had listened carefully when he telephoned the students to invite them for any echo of the dead boy, but, “Gee, thanks, Mr. Dietrich.” “Gee, that’ll be swell, Mr. Dietrich.” He heard nothing but innocent gratitude at being rescued from the college-cafeteria Thanksgiving, or the machine-thin slices of turkey and geometric pats of cranberry at the Green Lantern.
    Four of the boys who had stayed in college because of the hope of snow accepted.
    Philip had called from New York at ten-thirty Thanksgiving morning to wish them