Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

trembled on the verge of hysteria.
    Mrs. Pollifax said coldly, ”As group leader I have every right to find
out how you are, so let’s have no more of that nonsense. Is your dysentery
better now?” She walked to the window and pulled the curtains open, letting
light and air into the room.
    ”Oh that,” said Jenny. ”Yes, that’s gone.”
    Mrs. Pollifax moved to Jenny’s bed and stood over it, looking down on
her. ”Then don’t you think it’s time you left your bed to help? Iris has had
absolutely no sleep looking after you all and if you’re feeling stronger—”
    ”Iris again,” flung out Jenny. ”God if I hear that woman’s name once
more I’ll—I’ll—”
    ”You’ll what?” demanded Mrs. Pollifax.
    ”Kill her,” said Jenny furiously.
    Mrs. Pollifax shook her head and said gently, ”More deaths, Jenny? More deaths?”
    ”She took George away from me, and then she took—took Peter—and—oh
damn,” she cried out, ”everything ends. Everything! I can’t bear it.”
    Mrs. Pollifax sat down on the bed and took Jenny into her arms. ”Cry,
Jenny, cry hard, get it all out. Try. It will help.”
    ”I don’t want to,” stormed Jenny.
    ”Try,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, holding her close.
    Jenny gave her one startled desperate glance and began to cry. Her whole
body cried until she wrenched herself away from Mrs. Pollifax’s embrace and
threw herself across the bed to beat her fists soundlessly, furiously against
the pillows, her sobs engulfing and shaking her. Presently her sobs grew less
passionate, the fist ceased its relentless fury and Jenny glanced at Mrs.
Pollifax, gave one last sob and sat up. ”Why?” she asked like a child. ”Why
both of them, and in a fight over her?”
    Mrs. Pollifax looked at her helplessly; she had been so involved in
proving this to Mr. Chang and to Mr. Pi that she’d forgotten it was an
assumption with which the others must always live as well. ”But you’re not
crying for Peter or for Joe Forbes, are you?” she asked very gently. ”Aren’t
you crying for Jenny?”
    The girl flushed. ”I don’t see what’s wrong with wanting to be happy,”
she said. ”Peter liked me, I know he did. It could have had a happy ending, I
know it could have. If he hadn’t been killed.”
    Mrs. Pollifax thought of people passing each other like ships in the
night, cherishing illusions, assumptions, and misunderstandings, so rarely knowing, and she sighed. She considered leaving Jenny to her illusion but quickly
discarded the idea: ruthlessness, she decided, was sometimes the greater
kindness. ”Do you really believe that, Jenny?” she asked.
    Jenny said mutinously, ”I don’t see why you ask. We were together a lot,
you saw that. He liked me.”
    ”Many men will like you,” she pointed out.
    ”They don’t seem to have,” Jenny told her bitterly. ”Everything ends for
me. I was engaged to Bill for six months, we traveled together through Europe backpacking, we were going to be married and then
he decided he was in love with someone else. And now Peter... You must know,
being older... why doesn’t anything end happily?”
    ”Because,” said Mrs. Pollifax slowly, ”there are no happy
endings, Jenny, there are only happy people.”
    Jenny stared at her in astonishment. ”Only happy—but without happy
endings how—” She stopped, looking baffled.
    ”It has to happen inside,” Mrs. Pollifax told her. ”Inside of you, Jenny, not from outside. Not from others but in yourself. You may hate Iris for
her persistent cheerfulness, even for her joy in living, but you could learn
something from her. You’ll find—if you talk to her—that she’s had three
husbands who seem to have treated her quite abominably, she decided late to go
to college, against formidable odds, and earned her way as a go-go dancer.”
    ”Iris?” Jenny looked appalled. ”But then how can she—I don’t get it.”
    ”No you don’t,” said Mrs. Pollifax quietly, ”and that’s your problem.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself; relationships aren’t business transactions.
Get out of bed and do something. Some people never grow up but it’s
worth a try, Jenny, and now if you’ll excuse me my wrist hurts and I think I’ll
prop it up somewhere on a cushion for a while.”
    Jenny flushed. ”Oh, I forgot—your wrist! Mrs. Pollifax, what
happened, was it broken? Does it hurt a great deal?”
    Mrs. Pollifax only gave her a brief smile as she opened the door. ”See
you later,