Katherine Anne Porter Remembered

Jeanne Rockwell

33 / Jeanne rockwell Jeanne rockwell (1920–) was a graduate of bucknell University. she worked on newspapers in new york, virginia, and Ann Arbor, michigan, and published essays in Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle,Vogue, American Girl, and True Confessions as well as the Michigan Quarterly Review. Her books include MyWay of Hunting: The Adventurous Life of a Taxidermist (1956), written with her father, robert H. rockwell, and the anthology Good Company: Poets at Michigan (1977). source: Jeanne rockwell, “the magic cloak: On meeting Katherine Anne Porter,” Michigan Quarterly Review 5 (1966): 283–84. it was a cold rainy spring or a cold rainy fall. in michigan it doesn’t make much difference. i found myself too chilled and tired to stand any longer on a windswept street-corner waiting for my husband to pick me up. deciding to toss the canary another seed, i turned into a dingy campus eating place run by a candy chain. i would squander a dime on a coke, and if that didn’t pull me up from the depths of fatigue and depression, perhaps i’d shoot the works and buy some crackers. Giggling, whey-faced couples filled the varnished pine booths, but nearest the tea and coffee urns, alone at a long empty counter, sat a white-haired lady, eating a sandwich in small bites, sipping tea. With lemon, i believe. some distance away, a roundish stolid negro waitress lounged like a slow handmaiden of the fates. it was a dismal time, the day at an end, the floor unswept, the impatient kitchen staff flicking the harsh lights and pointing to the clock. “Okay if i sit here?” the woman in the dark purple velveteen cloak shrugged and nodded. then, like a knife-point pricking the ear drum, it occurred to me that she might be Katherine Anne Porter. i’d read her work, back in college, but i’d never seen a picture of her and, intent on a newspaper career, had other idols to follow. down in the busy city room where i worked, we’d heard vague rumors that miss Porter was living in town, or was on campus for some lectures, but i’d paid them no mind. in any case, as i stood there hesitating, not wanting to miss my ride home, 152 / Katherine Anne Porter remembered miss Porter smiled, waved her hand towards a stool, and i sat down about a yard away, suddenly weak and famished. “that’s a beautiful cloak,” i ventured softly after i’d ordered and waited a long time, glancing sideways at the delicately drawn jaw, aristocratic nose, noble line of brow. A pleasant nod and smile answered my pleasantry. she went on eating, nibbling a chicken sandwich, and all at once i couldn’t bear the suspense. “you’re not Katherine Anne Porter, by any chance?” it was still a mere guess, for Ann Arbor is a haven of aristocratic ladies with silver-white hair. but, somehow, she seemed totally different, a stranger. An interesting one. the flashing eyes raked me appraisingly. she nodded then, and turned back to sip from her cup, held in both hands, as if to warm cold fingers. i munched my crackers, swallowed hard, and wondered what to say, what to do. i could hardly blurt out “i write too.” How inane—that would be the end of it. Perhapsi should just leave. then i managed to mumble, “i’m a reporter.” “student newspaper?” the voice was low, the words beautifully articulated, the manner of mild amusement. “no!” raw new york contempt for being stranded in the hinterlands edged my words. “Local daily, booth chain. before that, ins . . . no matter.”there was a companionable silence as we both ate. “i’m thinking of quitting.” i had also been thinking of jumping out a window, desperate with the dead end of a job where i’d gone as far as i wanted to go. it was time for a change, and somehow the idea lighted like a bird in my head that this proud, straight, successful woman might give me some clue to which i could cling. in her dark beautiful cloak she seemed a mythic figure, the Hera of another world, surrounded by flights of birds, able to divine the nature of auguries. somewhere inside, i wept invisible tears wishing she’d tell me what to do. “married?” i nodded, head down, turning the plain gold wedding band i’d bought myself. “yes. Husband’s gotta teaching...