P01 0010 They neither liked nor disliked the Old Man. To them he could P01 0020 have been the broken bell in the church tower which rang before and P01 0030 after Mass, and at noon, and at six each evening- its tone, repetitive, P01 0040 monotonous, never breaking the boredom of the streets. The Old P01 0050 Man was unimportant. Yet if he were not there, they would have P01 0060 missed him, as they would have missed the sounds of bees buzzing against P01 0070 the screen door in early June; or the smell of thick tomato paste- P01 0080 the ripe smell that was both sweet and sour- rising up from P01 0090 aluminum trays wrapped in fly-dotted cheesecloth. Or the surging whirling P01 0100 sounds of bats at night, when their black bodies dived into the blackness P01 0110 above and below the amber street lights. Or the bay of female P01 0120 dogs in heat. They never called him by name, although he had P01 0130 one. Filippo Rossi, that's what he was called in the old country; P01 0140 but here he was just or the Old Man. But this was P01 0150 not unusual, because youth in these quarters was always pushed at a distance P01 0160 from its elders. Youth obeyed when commanded. It went to church P01 0170 on Sunday and one Saturday a month went to confession. But youth P01 0180 asked nothing of its parents- not a touch of the hand or a kiss given P01 0190 in passing. The only thing unusual about the Old Man had P01 0200 long since happened. But the past was dead here as the present was dead. P01 0210 Once the Old Man had had a wife. And once she, too, ignored him. P01 0220 With a tiny fur-piece wrapped around her shoulders, she wiggled her P01 0230 satin-covered buttocks down the street before him and didn't stop. P01 0240 In one hand she clutched a hundred dollar bill and in the other a straw P01 0250 suitcase. The way she strutted down the street, the Old Man would P01 0260 have been blind not to have noticed both. Without looking at him, P01 0270 without looking at anything except Drexel Street directly in front of P01 0280 her, she climbed up into one of those orange streetcars, rode away in P01 0290 it, and never came back. "But she shouldn't have come here P01 0300 in the first place", the women had said. "No, no. Not P01 0310 that one. She thought she was bigger than we are because she came from P01 0320 Torino". "Eh, Torino! She gave herself fancy airs! P01 0330 Just because she had a part on the stage in the old country, she thought P01 0340 she could carry her head higher than ours". They had slapped P01 0350 their thighs. "It's not for making pretty speeches about Dante P01 0360 those actresses get paid so good". "Henh"! Calloused P01 0370 fingers, caressed only by the smoothness of polished rosaries, had P01 0380 swayed excitedly beneath puckered chins where tiny black hairs sprouted, P01 0390 never to be tweezed away. Mauve-colored mouths that had never known P01 0400 anything sweeter than the taste of new wine and the passion of man's P01 0410 tongue had not smiled, but had condemned again and again. ""! P01 0420 But if the Old Man even thought about his wife P01 0430 now, nobody cared a fig. It was enough for people to know that at P01 0440 one time he had looked down the street at the fleshy suppleness of a woman P01 0450 he had consumed- watching her become thinner and thinner in the P01 0460 distance, as thin as the seams on her stockings, and still thinner. His P01 0470 voice had not commanded her to stop. It had not questioned why. The P01 0480 women said they had seen him wave an exhausted farewell; but he P01 0490 might have been shooing away the fleas that hopped from his yellow dog P01 0500 onto him. (He was never without that dog.) And his eyes- those miniature P01 0510 sundials of variegated yellow- had not altered their expression P01 0520 or direction. The Old Man's very soul could have left him and P01 0530 flown down that street, but he wouldn't have had anyone know it. P01 0540 Perhaps he had known then where that hundred dollar bill had come P01 0550 from and where it was taking his wife. But when he called for his P01 0560 withered, wrinkled sister Rose to care for him and the children, had P01 0570 he guessed that all he would remember of his woman was the memory of P01 0580 her climbing into that streetcar? There seemed to be a contemptuous P01 0590 purpose in the way he sat there with his eyes glued to Drexel P01 0600 Street and his back in opposition to the church behind him. For all P01 0610 he saw or cared to see, this could have been a town in Italy, not the P01 0620 outskirts of Philadelphia. It could have been Bari or Chieti for P01 0630 the way it smelled. What did it matter to him that the park at the foot P01 0640 of Ash Road stretched beneath elevated trains that roared from the P01 0650 stucco station into the city's center at half-hour intervals? Or P01 0660 that the tiny creek spun its silent course toward the P01 0665 Schuylkill? P01 0670 This place was hatred to him, just as hatred was his only companion P01 0680 in his aloneness. To him they were one and the same. Sameness P01 0690 for the Old Man was framed in by a wall of ginkgo trees which divided P01 0700 these quarters from the city. Sameness lined the streets with two-story P01 0710 houses the color of ash. It slashed the sloping manure-scented P01 0720 lawns with concrete steps which climbed upward to white wooden porches. P01 0730 It swayed with the wicker swings and screeched with the rusted hinges P01 0740 of screen doors. Even the stable-garage, which housed nothing P01 0750 now but the scent of rot, had a lawn before it. And the coffee shop P01 0760 on Drexel Street, where the men spent their evenings and Sundays P01 0770 playing cards, had a rose hedge beneath its window. The hedge reeked P01 0780 of coffee dregs thrown against it. Only one house on the street P01 0790 had no lawn before it. It squatted low and square upon the sidewalk P01 0800 with a heavy iron grating supporting a glass facade. That was Bartoli's P01 0810 shop. Above it, from a second-story showroom, wooden angels surveyed P01 0820 the neighborhood. Did the Old Man remember them there? P01 0830 Yet everywhere else sameness was stucco and wood in square blocks- P01 0840 like fortresses perched against the slant of the hill, rising with P01 0850 the hill to the top where the church was and beyond that to the cemetery. P01 0860 Only paved alleyways tunneled through the walls of those fortresses P01 0870 into the mysterious core of intimacy behind the houses where backyards P01 0880 owned no fences, where one man's property blended with the next P01 0890 to form courtyards in which no one knew privacy. Love and hatred and P01 0900 fear were one here, shaded only by fig trees and grape vines. And the P01 0910 forked tongue of gossip licked its sinister way from back porch to P01 0920 back porch. The Old Man silently fed upon these streets. They P01 0930 kept him alive, waiting. Waiting for what and for whom, only he could P01 0940 tell and would not. It was as though he had made a pact with the P01 0950 devil himself, but it was not yet time to pay the price. He was holding P01 0960 out for something. He was determined to hold out. #2# The Old P01 0970 Man's son threw himself down, belly first, upon a concrete step, P01 0980 taking in the coolness of it, and dreaming of the day he would be rich. P01 0990 At fifteen he didn't care that he had no mother, that he couldn't P01 1000 remember her face or her touch; neither did he care that Aunt Rose P01 1010 provided for him. He was named Pompeii as a tribute to his P01 1020 heritage, and he couldn't have cared less about that either. To him P01 1030 life was a restless boredom that began with the rising sun and ended P01 1040 only with sleep. When he would be a man, he would be a rich P01 1050 man. He would not be like the "rich Americans" who lived in white-columned P01 1060 houses on the other side of the park. He would not ride the P01 1070 eight-thirty local to the city each morning. He would not carry a brief P01 1080 case. Nor would he work at all. He would square his shoulders and P01 1090 carry a cane before each step. He would sit inside the coffee shop P01 1100 and pound a gloved fist upon the table and a girl would hear him and P01 1110 come running, bowing with her running, calling out in her bowing, "At P01 1120 your service". He would order her to bring coffee, and would take P01 1130 from his vest pocket a thin black pipe which he would stuff- he would P01 1140 not remove his gloves- and light and smoke. He could do that when P01 1150 he would be a man. "Hey, Laura"! he called to his sister P01 1160 on the porch above the steps. She was only ten months older than P01 1170 he. "Laura, what would you say if I smoked a pipe"? Laura P01 1180 did not answer him. She leaned unconcerned against the broken porch P01 1190 fence, brushing and drying her wet, gilded hair in the sun. One lithe P01 1200 leg straddled the railing and swung loosely before the creaking, P01 1210 torn pales. Her tanned foot, whose arch swept high and white, pointed P01 1220 artfully toward tapering toes- toes like fingers, whose tips glowed P01 1240 white. All the while she sat there, her sinewy arms swirled before her P01 1250 chest. Her face showed no sign of having heard Pompeii. It P01 1260 was a face that had lost its childlike softness and was beginning to P01 1270 fold within its fragile features a harshness that belied the lyric lines P01 1280 of its contours. The eyes, blue and always somewhat downcast, possessed P01 1290 a sullen quality. Even though the boy could not see them, he knew P01 1300 they were clouded by distance. He was never sure they fully took P01 1310 him in. Pompeii called again, "Laura"! But the only answer P01 1320 that reached him was the screeching of the porch rail from her leg P01 1330 moving against it. "She's in a mood", he thought "There's P01 1340 not a month she doesn't get herself in a mood". Well, P01 1350 what did that matter when the sun was shining and there were dreams P01 1360 to dream about? And as for his pipe, if he wanted to smoke one, P01 1370 nobody would stop him. Not even Laura. Suddenly he was interrupted P01 1380 in his daydreaming by a warm wetness lapping against his chin, P01 1390 and his eyes opened wide and long at the sight of a goat's claret tongue, P01 1400 feasting against the salt taste of him. Above the tongue, an aged P01 1410 yellow eye, sallow and time-cast, encrusted within a sphere of marbleized P01 1420 pink skin, stared unfalteringly at him. "Christ sake, P01 1430 goat, git"! But the goat would not. "You're boiling P01 1440 milk, ain't you"? soothing it with his hand, knowing the whiskered P01 1450 jowls and the swollen smoothness of teats that wrinkled expectantly P01 1460 to his touch. Pompeii rolled over. His head undulated gradually, covering P01 1470 space, to come straining beneath the taut belly within the warmth P01 1480 of those teats. With his mouth opened wide, he squirted the warm P01 1490 white milk against the roof of his mouth and his tongue savored the light, P01 1500 earthy taste of it. The boy's fingers and mouth operated with P01 1510 the skilled unity of a bagpipe player, pressing and pulling, delighting P01 1520 in what he did. Above him slid the evasive shadow of a storm P01 1530 cloud. Its form was a heavy figure in a fluttering soutane. But the P01 1540 boy could see only the goat's belly. The Old Man near the P01 1550 corner let the shadow pass over him, sensing something portentous in P01 1560 it. He knew it was there, knew also what it was about, but he wouldn't P01 1570 raise a finger except to smooth his yellow dog's back. There would P01 1580 be time enough, perhaps the Old Man reassured himself, to pay the P01 1590 devil his due. Time enough to give up his soul. In the meantime, P01 1600 six sandals, stained an ocher, the same color as Pompeii's shaved P01 1610 hair, edged up close to him. The clapping they made on the concrete P01 1620 interrupted him in the ecstatic pleasure he knew, so that he quickly P01 1630 released his hold on the goat and pretended to be examining its haunches P01 1640 for ticks. He knew at a glance that the biggest sandals P01 1650 belonged to Niobe, the neatest ones to Concetta, and the laced ones P01 1660 to Romeo, Concetta's idiot brother. Pompeii expected Romeo's P01 1670 small body to sink closer and closer to the ground. He expected Concetta's P01 1680 thin hand to reach down to grasp the boy, and her shrill, impetuous P01 1690 voice to sound against the rotundity of his disfigured flesh that P01 1700 was never sure of hearing anything. P02 0010 People came in and out all evening to see the baby and hold it. P02 0020 The room filled with smoke, and Maggie's head throbbed with excitement P02 0030 and fatigue, but Stuart had such a happy, earnest look of proud P02 0040 possession on his face that Maggie couldn't bear to do anything to P02 0050 quench it. Little Anne rapidly outdistanced her mother in recovery. P02 0060 In two months she became a fat highly social baby, with a fuzz P02 0070 of flaxen hair all over her head. She stopped flying into rages and P02 0080 started digesting her food; she developed a peaches and cream complexion P02 0090 and a sunny disposition, and she asked for nothing more of life P02 0100 than that she be kept dry and comfortable and fed huge amounts of food P02 0110 at stated intervals and be carried to where she could watch activity P02 0120 going on around her. She was so heavy that Maggie's arms shook P02 0130 from lifting her and taking care of her. Maggie couldn't seem P02 0131 to P02 0140 get her strength back or catch up with herself with all she had to do: P02 0150 there was the big basket of clothes to be coaxed through the rackety P02 0160 old washer and lugged out and lugged back; there was the daily round P02 0170 of household chores in which Maggie insisted on participating. Worry P02 0180 had a great deal to do with it; Stuart had been laid off at the P02 0190 produce company and had to go back to sitting in his father's office, P02 0200 taking what salary his father could hand out to him. Mr& Clifton P02 0210 would have preferred death and bankruptcy to having his son stay with P02 0220 his wife's people without contributing to his and his family's P02 0230 upkeep, and besides that there were the things that had to be bought P02 0231 for the baby, P02 0240 milk and orange juice and vitamins and soap, just plain soap. P02 0250 Maggie and Stuart pored over figures every night, trying to find how P02 0260 they could squeeze out a few pennies more. In desperation Maggie P02 0270 consulted Eugenia one afternoon: "Do you think you could P02 0280 find me something I could do here at home to make some money, so I could P02 0290 still watch the baby and do the rest of the things"? "It P02 0300 seems to me you have enough to do as it is", Eugenia said. She P02 0310 had been watching Maggie go from the washing machine to the baby to P02 0320 the stove and back again. "I have plenty of odd moments when P02 0330 I could be doing something", Maggie said. "It would make me P02 0340 feel a lot better, but the Woman's Exchange isn't taking baked goods P02 0350 any more and I can't leave the baby with Grandma because she P02 0360 isn't strong enough and the baby's too young to be put in a nursery". P02 0370 "I should think so", Eugenia said. "For one thing P02 0380 you can stop keeping that child in starched dresses and changed from the P02 0390 skin out nineteen times a day". "She's so beautiful, P02 0400 and I do like to keep her looking nice". Maggie said. She picked P02 0410 up the baby and nuzzled her fat warm little neck. "She'll P02 0420 be just as beautiful in something that doesn't have to be ironed", P02 0430 Eugenia said. "Evadna Mae Evans said she didn't put a thing on P02 0440 her child but a flannel wrapper until it was nine months old". P02 0450 "Evadna Mae Evans got all her baby clothes from Best's Liliputian P02 0460 Bazaar in New York, and I'm sick and tired of hearing about P02 0470 Evadna Mae Evans". "Well now, Maggie, you don't P02 0480 have to snap at me", Eugenia said. "I'm just thinking of a way P02 0490 for you to be sensible". "I'm sorry. I do seem to snap P02 0500 at everybody these days, but I would like to think of a way to make P02 0510 a little extra money". "Well, let's see. Let's make P02 0520 a list of your assets". Maggie started laughing, and she laughed P02 0530 so hard she couldn't stop, and she kept on laughing while she lugged P02 0540 the clothes out to the yard to hang them up while the sun was still P02 0550 shining. When she came back Eugenia was sitting at the kitchen table P02 0560 with a pencil and envelope jotting down words and figures. P02 0570 "I have here that you could run a nursery of your own for working P02 0580 mothers", P02 0590 Eugenia said. "We could put up cribs on the second floor P02 0600 sleeping porch and turn the front bedroom into a playroom where it's P02 0610 nice and sunny, but of course it would entail quite a bit of running P02 0620 up and down stairs and Chris said you were to be careful about that". P02 0630 "What else"? "You might set up a dress P02 0631 shop in the P02 0640 living room". "Every woman in the block has tried that". P02 0650 "What about a tea room, then? You could set up tables P02 0660 in the front room and serve salads and your baked beans and brown bread P02 0670 and Grandma could dress like a gypsy and tell fortunes". P02 0680 "It's too elaborate. And Grandma isn't strong enough to take P02 0690 on something like that, and to tell you the truth neither am I". P02 0700 Eugenia sighed. She said, "Well, those are the really interesting P02 0710 things, but if you don't like any of those I can turn over some P02 0720 of my extra typing jobs to you, if you think you can type well enough". P02 0730 "Oh, I'm sure I could do that", Maggie said. "But P02 0740 it really wouldn't be fair, taking your jobs away from you". P02 0750 "Don't worry, I can get plenty more", Eugenia said, wondering P02 0760 where in the world she could. Maggie was looking much happier P02 0770 already, clearing a space on the table and chattering about how she could P02 0780 put up a typewriter right there, and be brushing up on her typing P02 0790 so Eugenia wouldn't be ashamed of it. "And then whenever I have P02 0800 a minute I can be working at it, and keep an eye on the baby and the P02 0810 stove at the same time. And I can go back to my contests and be thinking P02 0820 while I'm doing the washing". "What are you going P02 0830 to do with your feet so you don't waste anything"? Maggie P02 0840 laughed. She said, "Oh Eugenia, I wish **h" "What"? P02 0850 "I wish I had three wishes", Maggie said. "All P02 0860 of them for you". ## It grew bitterly cold toward the end of November, P02 0870 contributing to the miseries of countless numbers of people. P02 0880 The temperature dropped to twenty below at night and stood at zero during P02 0890 the days. The cold settled like a tangible pall over the Mile P02 0900 High City, locking it in an icy grip that harshened its outlines and P02 0910 altered its physical appearance; it had a look of grim stark realism, P02 0920 resembling other cities whose habitual climate was cold, instead of P02 0930 the sprawling bumptious open-handed greedy Western city basking in eternal P02 0940 sunshine at the foot of mountains stored with endless riches and P02 0950 resources. The jobless huddled in the streets outside of employment P02 0960 offices, outside newspaper buildings, in parks, in relief lines, P02 0970 outside government agencies. There weren't facilities to take care P02 0980 of them; there never had been a need felt for such facilities. That P02 0990 kind of poverty was regarded as the exclusive property of the East, P02 1000 which created depressions with their stock markets and their congested P02 1010 populations and their greedy centralization of industries, protected P02 1020 by discriminatory freight rates. The East was popularly supposed P02 1030 to have got the country into war and into depression, dragging the west P02 1040 along; and now the East was creating government agencies for which P02 1050 the West doubtless would have to pay. The government offices P02 1060 were being opened but they weren't being opened fast enough and meanwhile P02 1070 the cold penetrated everything. Shivering, people talked and P02 1080 argued; all this government spending would have to be paid for somehow, P02 1090 but on the other hand desperate circumstances called for desperate P02 1100 remedies and something had to be done. Something had to be done; P02 1110 it was the theme song of millions of American people, their personal P02 1120 problems no less urgent than those of the government. Something P02 1130 had to be done. The Abernathys said it to each other a dozen times P02 1140 a day. Something had to be done about the furnace, the fuel bills, P02 1150 the washing machine, the doctor and dentist bills, about making P02 1160 money stretch for food, for the mortgage, for taxes, for shoes, for half P02 1161 soles, for overshoes, P02 1170 for clothes, for the new leaks in the roof, for gas P02 1180 and light bills; about keeping warm, about keeping well, about meeting P02 1190 the minor emergencies that came up once, twice, fifty times a day. P02 1200 Just dropping the baby's bottle and breaking it became a catastrophe, P02 1210 and Stuart wore out his shoes so fast that he was termed a major P02 1220 disaster. The Abernathy furnace consumed fuel like a giant P02 1230 ravenous maw that had to be appeased by hurling tons of coal into its P02 1240 evil red depths, and no matter how much coal they put in the house remained P02 1250 cold. Cold came in the innumerable cracks that seemed to have sprung P02 1260 up, under doors, around loosened window frames, from the sleeping P02 1270 porches, the attic, from the widened cracks between shingles on the P02 1280 roof. Presently they had to give up running the furnace at full capacity P02 1290 and depend on the old coal range in the kitchen, which had never been P02 1300 removed when the new gas range was installed, and the fireplaces and P02 1310 an electric heater in Grandma's room. It was so cold and so wretched P02 1320 that a sort of desperate gaiety infected all of them, like people P02 1330 stormbound or shipwrecked or caught in some other freak of circumstance P02 1340 so that time stood still and minor anxieties fell away and the only P02 1350 important thing was to cling together and survive. The pipes P02 1360 burst and they all laughed and stood in ice water to their ankles while P02 1370 they swabbed the bathrooms. They lived mainly in the kitchen; they P02 1380 moved Maggie's bed and the baby's basket there, and the rest of P02 1390 them undressed by the stove and ran groaning and shivering to the upper P02 1400 polar regions and plunged into icy beds. Grandma said it was just P02 1410 like the early mining camp days, and it was the way people ought to live, P02 1420 only she was getting too old to take the pleasure from it that she P02 1430 used to. "You said a mouthful", Eugenia said grimly. Eugenia P02 1440 hated being cold worse than anything, and she was beginning to P02 1450 find the joys of poverty wearing thin. She said to Maggie that it was P02 1460 one thing to meet an emergency and another to wallow in it, and it was P02 1470 beginning to look at if this one was going to last forever. P02 1480 "Plenty of people are poor all their lives". "Plenty of P02 1490 people haven't our brains and talent". "I know you when P02 1500 you start talking about brains and talent", Maggie said. "You're P02 1510 working up to something, and if you don't watch out you'll ruin P02 1520 your whole life one of these days just to prove that the Abernathy P02 1530 family is superior to everything, even a depression". "The P02 1540 only thing that worries me is how I'm going to prove it", Eugenia P02 1550 said. They begged Grandma to let them put a bed in the kitchen P02 1560 for her, but Grandma said she was getting too old to sleep in strange P02 1570 beds and be seen with her teeth out, and that she hoped to die in P02 1580 privacy like a Christian and if the Lord willed it to be of pneumonia P02 1590 than it would have to be that way. She didn't want to be the only P02 1600 one with a stove in her room, especially as her life span was nearly P02 1610 run out anyway, and she insisted that Hope have the heater. Hope wouldn't P02 1620 hear of it, and she took the heater back to Grandma's room, P02 1630 and Grandma took it back to Hope's room, and the two of them dragged P02 1640 it back and forth until Grandma tipped it over and almost set her P02 1650 bedspread on fire. She said that proved she wasn't to be trusted P02 1670 with a fire in her room, and she could be burned to a crisp without anybody P02 1680 knowing it. Eugenia suspected her of deliberately overturning the P02 1690 heater because she was getting tired of dragging it back and forth P02 1700 and still wanted her own way, but Hope said if Grandma wouldn't have P02 1710 the heater nobody would have it, so Grandma had to give in. P03 0010 "Thrifty of her to use it up. Unusual in a case like this, P03 0020 but"- "You can Didn't you read it? " "I read it, yes. This ought P03 0040 to simplify Tolley's life". Laban had more to say. Tolley P03 0050 had gone to live in California. He'd mentioned it, himself, P03 0051 at church P03 0060 and everybody seemed to have the idea that Tolley had left because Jenny P03 0070 had jilted him for . "It was plain as the nose P03 0080 on your face that they're laughing about it, Mamma. Zion stayed P03 0090 to get my pin, but it'll be a cold day in June when I go back". P03 0100 "We will go back, Laban"! Kizzie turned to go inside. P03 0120 "Let me stay and take the pictures you wanted, Mamma. The sun's P03 0130 right"- "Pictures"? She swung around. " P03 0140 pictures"? "In Brace's room! You me to P03 0150 bring my camera. I'm not going back"- "Indeed you P03 0160 Why should I want pictures of an empty room now? Tolley P03 0170 had no idea of marrying that sneaky little Jenny! This- trip of P03 0180 his had nothing to do with her consorting with tenants, and I am going P03 0190 to see that everybody at Mt& Pleasant understands that simple fact. P03 0200 Wait for me, Laban, I'll be dressed in half a second"! P03 0210 Frank followed her into the bedroom, hooked her dress up the back. P03 0220 ", Frank! They're not going to laugh at the P03 0230 Fairbrothers and Labans very long! Tolley's going is P03 0240 fault. I him away. You know it and I'll tell P03 0250 exactly how it happened". She was so beautiful, so valiant, P03 0260 so pitiable. He kissed her. "Make your confession to God, Kizzie P03 0270 dear, not to the congregation". "I'll decide that when P03 0280 I get there. I was so cruel to Tolley, so unfair. But I'll P03 0290 be fair now! He coming back, isn't he, Frank"? P03 0300 Yes, oh yes. What else was there to say? Returning to the log-house P03 0310 he found some favorite lines from Jonathan Swift on his lips: P03 0320 "Under the window in stormy weather I marry this man P03 0330 and woman together. Let none but Him who rules the thunder P03 0340 Put this man and woman asunder". Absolution for his lie? P03 0350 He questioned God's taking time to telegraph the message, but P03 0360 he felt better about Kizzie, and he took the sealed envelope from its P03 0370 pigeonhole, wondering why he had preserved it. If he died before she P03 0380 did, she would never be unable to resist opening it. In any case he P03 0390 would be thrusting a burden on his remaining sons, making them parties P03 0400 to a deception peculiarly his own. It was simply necessity P03 0410 to confess which had made him write and keep this thing. "You've P03 0420 told God, Frank", he said. "Why lacerate the- congregation"? P03 0430 Reaching for an old clay pot, relic of pioneer days, he tore P03 0440 the envelope in pieces, dropping them into it, touching the little P03 0450 pyre to flame, watching it curl, the red sealing wax melting and bubbling P03 0460 in the feathery ash. Surely now his beloved son could rest in peace. P03 0470 "'And let me go, for the night gathers me, and in the P03 0475 night shall no man gather fruit'". P03 0480 A beautiful and haunting line, P03 0490 a subtle genius, Swinburne, difficult not to envy a gifted man, and P03 0500 perhaps he did **h. But there were great satisfactions, even for P03 0510 a small man. Beyond his window were the greening trees, new spring, P03 0520 eternal hope, eternal life. There lay Grand Fair's Quinzaine, P03 0530 his own young parents' graves, but new life and promise for his sons, P03 0540 grandsons. He poured his thimble of wine for the toast he'd made P03 0550 so often. "To absent loved ones". But this last time he drank not P03 0560 to Brace but "To Tolley"! #42# MR& ROBARDS- Jenny P03 0570 was the only person she knew of in the Mt& Pleasant neighborhood P03 0580 who called him that- was kind but too easygoing. It didn't bother P03 0590 him for everybody from the blacksmith to the preacher to say, "Howdy, P03 0600 Miss Jenny", adding a careless "Roy", but it did her. P03 0610 He could put a stop to it, she told him again and again. Simply P03 0620 call Mr& Whipsnade , and Dr& Dunne &, P03 0630 and C'un Major . Mr& Robards laughed, said he'd P03 0640 feel a damn fool, plain-out couldn't do that even to please . P03 0650 "You could try. And if I hear you say 'Mist P03 0660 Laban' again I'll . And don't tell me you didn't P03 0670 at church Sunday. I you"! He really hadn't P03 0680 meant to, he assured her, but it was plain to her that the importance P03 0690 of these small things was lost on Mr& Robards. How strange it was P03 0700 that he could give her this handsome house and carte blanche as to its P03 0710 beautiful furnishings, and fail her in- spiritual ways. Another P03 0720 weakness- far more irritating than his manner of speaking, which P03 0730 he made only token effort to change- was his devotion to that old horse P03 0740 of Tolley's. horse, rather. But Mr& Robards' now, P03 0750 oh my yes, indeed, yes! He called her "the Mare" much as Mrs& P03 0760 Whipsnade spoke of "the Queen, God bless her". **h He, with P03 0770 fifteen or twenty horses or mares or geldings or what-nots out there P03 0780 in the barn, was reverent only of "the Mare", "the Racin' P03 0790 Mare", the revolting Gunny. For the first few months of their P03 0800 marriage she had tried to be nice about Gunny, going out with him P03 0810 to watch this pearl without price stamp imperiously around in her stall. P03 0820 And what had happened? Gunny invariably tried to bite her. Nerves, P03 0830 Mr& Robards said, just a nip anyway. "Stand back, Miss Jen, P03 0840 she's oneasy of your scarf". Never, "Quit that, you sor'l P03 0850 devil"! Never concern for his wife's nerves, or the danger P03 0860 that the curled lip and big teeth might mark their own dear baby due in P03 0870 January. musn't annoy whose foal was due then P03 0880 too! Listening for hours to his laments that the war and "Mist P03 0890 Fair's" poverty afterwards had robbed the mare of many a racing P03 0900 triumph, and to his predictions of greatness for the procession P03 0910 of foals to come, Jenny could look forward to years of conflict with P03 0920 an who disliked her intensely and showed it. Gunny symbolized P03 0930 so much that was unpleasant- Tolley, the indifference with which P03 0940 the Fairbrothers and indeed the whole neighborhood now treated her P03 0950 and which she would die rather than acknowledge to her husband, his lack P03 0960 of understanding and sympathy in her present condition, her disgusting P03 0970 swollen stomach. Human birth was no novelty to Mr& Robards. P03 0980 Tillie was a fine midwife and could get here quick, he suggested. P03 0990 Jenny's aversion to having Dr& Dunne, a former admirer, seemed P03 1000 silly to him, but he would humor her, get anybody she wanted, the best P03 1010 never being too good for her. The chances were against his P03 1020 being here to humor her when her time came, she was sure. He would be P03 1030 in the barn, or riding for the veterinarian! Night after night he P03 1040 stayed with Gunny in the dead of winter, rubbing her with quarts of P03 1050 expensive liniment, fussing over her bran mash as the cook did over charlotte P03 1060 russe, tracking manure on the pretty new carpet when he did come P03 1070 to the house. Yet when the dear baby came, he had Tillie over here P03 1080 in a jiffy, and was as attentive and sweet and worried and happy when P03 1090 it was all over as any husband could have been. Jenny wished P03 1100 now that she had had Dr& Dunne, feeling that somehow he wouldn't P03 1110 have allowed the dear baby to turn into triplets. There was something P03 1120 not about triplets, though their father seemed pleased, showing P03 1130 no disappointment that they hadn't been the son he wanted, saying, P03 1140 "You don't see triplets trippin' down the pike ever' day, P03 1150 Miss Jen, hon. Rhyme 'em up cute- Arcilla, Flotilla **h" P03 1170 Edmonia for her mother, she said firmly, Jennifer, for herself, P03 1180 and- "Kezziah, for Miss Kizzie", he suggested. "She P03 1190 was mighty good to you past times, an' this'll fetch her". Now P03 1200 she must be thinking of a boy-name, something special. Just wait till P03 1210 she saw the Mare's foal. Handsomest colt in all Kentucky. Strong P03 1220 too, up on his legs when he was an hour old. What about Royal Robards? P03 1230 "" P03 1240 She burst into tears. Roy was deeply distressed. He'd had P03 1250 no idea how unhappy his sweet peach had been. Of course she wasn't P03 1260 herself right now, but as her strength came back her spirits didn't P03 1270 seem to rise with it. He had a good idea why not. Those elegant "At P03 1280 Home" cards she sent out, now she could wear her pretty clothes P03 1290 again, and had the house all trimmed up, hadn't brought many callers P03 1300 in two whole months. Doc Dunne and Miss Sis had come. So P03 1310 had Miss Shawnee Rakestraw, full of criticisms about the changes here, P03 1320 giving thanks that her dear old father had gone to his Heavenly P03 1330 Rest last year, saying how much she enjoyed her boarding house in town P03 1340 in inclement weather, was looking forward to Quinzaine Spa this summer. P03 1350 was an idea. Miss Kizzie had been right snippy P03 1360 ever since they were married, though you'd have thought a namesake P03 1361 would P03 1370 have brought her round. Oh, she'd come to see them once, left silver P03 1380 teething rings for all of the trips. But when Miss Jen went over P03 1390 right away to return the call, Miss Kiz couldn't have been very P03 1400 cordial, for she'd come back before she hardly had time to get there. P03 1410 More and more, these days, she'd been driving that pretty little P03 1420 mare that looked like her, over to Tillie's and Nick's- his own P03 1430 old square frame box on posts, chickens and cats and pups under the P03 1440 house, everybody friendly inside, making a to-do over the babies dressed P03 1450 like dollies. Though he was glad she got on well with his young folks, P03 1460 she ought to be welcome at the finest house in the land, too. P03 1470 It made him pretty hot under the collar, after the idea Miss Sis P03 1480 had given him, to be told by Miss Kiz that her holy spa was all reserved P03 1490 for this summer , if you please, and that much as P03 1500 she regretted it, they would be unable to entertain Mrs& Robards and P03 1510 the children. She hoped they were well. He didn't tell Miss P03 1520 Jen, but she must have got word from the cook or nurse, who of course P03 1530 knew those Quinzaine nigs, and she really took a fit. If he P03 1540 did such a thing again she'd die of shame. "Have a P03 1550 party an' leave 'em out, hon", he suggested. "A party, P03 1560 send an invite to but them- those folks you met P03 1570 at the Galt House, the ones I've got to know in this new Jockey P03 1580 Club affair, the whole dang neighborhood. We'll have oystchers- P03 1590 couple bar'l oystchers'll fetch in a crowd any time. I'll see P03 1600 word gets round". "" Miss P03 1601 Jen was P03 1610 funny that way, funny that she didn't seem to take to his ideas and P03 1620 perk up. He was downright worried about her, but there was one more P03 1630 thing he could try **h. Zion was surprised when Roy's buggy P03 1640 stopped beside her on the pike one early summer day as she was walking P03 1660 home from the country school where she was teaching now that Eph Showers P03 1670 had had a call to preach in some mountain town. Roy smiled- P03 1680 he have a nice smile- took off his hat most politely, P03 1690 told her to hop in, and he'd give her a lift to Quinzaine. Her hesitation P03 1700 was only momentary and she hoped he didn't notice it, as she P03 1710 settled herself, asked quickly how Miss Jenny and the babies were P03 1720 getting on. "See for yourself, Miss Zion. It won't take P03 1730 a minute". He swung in through his own wide gateway. "Them's P03 1740 the purtiest babes you ever did see, but Miss Jen gets mighty lonesome. P03 1750 She'll relish the sight of a friendly face. Miss Kiz won't P03 1760 care your comin', will she"? "Why of course not", Zion P03 1770 said uncomfortably. P04 0010 "He must have forgiven me", Henrietta murmured to the room. P04 0020 The absolution of Doaty's last will and testament was proof enough P04 0030 of that; Doaty would never have left her house to a godless woman. P04 0040 She found herself wishing an old wish, that she had told Doaty P04 0050 she was running away, that she had left something more behind her P04 0060 than the loving, sorry note and her best garnet pin. Perhaps Doaty P04 0070 had guessed already and kept her counsel. Henrietta thought, It's P04 0080 extraordinary how much she always knew about both of us. There P04 0090 had been more to know about Hetty, inevitably, and most of it unfavorable. P04 0100 Adelia was the good one, or, if not always good, less frequently P04 0110 tempted. Their childhood would have been quite circumspect without P04 0120 Hetty's flair for drama, especially through the long summers. In P04 0130 winter, in the city, there had been the Maneret School, which taught P04 0140 excellently with a kind of austere passion for knowledge; there had P04 0150 been lessons in French from a small Polish nobleman with a really P04 0160 profound distaste for his pupils; there had been the dancing class- P04 0170 Miss Craddock, thin and tireless, with her supervising wand and her P04 0180 everlasting -two-three, -two-three. There had been supper P04 0190 parties and teas, fetes and little balls, Mama small and pretty P04 0200 and gay and Papa enormously jocular, enormously possessive, the sun P04 0205 around P04 0210 which the Blackwell planets revolved. Mama had died before P04 0220 the corruption of the family circle, the interruption of Charles. P04 0230 It was safe to assume that Papa, sighing heavily, had said many times P04 0240 to his remaining daughter, "Thank God your poor mother was spared P04 0250 this", and indeed it might be true that it had been easier for Henrietta P04 0260 to leave, with her hand in Charles' hand, just because P04 0265 her "poor P04 0270 mother" was gone already and would never know. Mama was vulnerable; P04 0280 one had always felt the need to make a safe world around her. P04 0290 But I would have gone anyway, thought Henrietta. She had always P04 0300 been able to ignore the moral question because there had been no P04 0310 choice. Only at this moment- perhaps because it was before dawn and P04 0320 she was lying in Doaty's bed- she found herself examining how others P04 0330 might regard her. Perhaps they would argue that morality consisted P04 0340 just of that ability to see a choice. She turned on her side, P04 0350 finding the idea oppressive. If Adelia had felt about someone as P04 0360 Henrietta felt about Charles, would she have run away with him? P04 0370 Impossible to imagine Adelia feeling so about anyone. No temptation, P04 0380 no sin. No temptation, no virtue? A curious P04 0390 thought to end a curious night. The birds were really awake now in a P04 0400 colloquy of music, and light was beginning to creep across the room, P04 0410 touching sill and door, table and chair and all of Doaty's flowers P04 0420 in their artificial blossom and leaf. Before anything else, she P04 0430 would go to Doaty's grave with flowers from Doaty's forgotten P04 0440 garden. Everything must wait upon this mission, this sentimental duty P04 0450 of a pilgrim whose nature avoided graveyards. She closed her eyes, remembering P04 0460 the small French cemetery, enclosed by stone walls. It had P04 0470 always seemed to rain there, and even the grass was gray. After P04 0480 the sad impatient moment, waiting for comfort which could not come, P04 0490 she slipped out of bed and went to the open window. The garden below P04 0500 was lacy with dew and enchanting in its small wildness. Leaning P04 0510 out, P04 0520 she could see a tangle of rosebush and honeysuckle, one not quite come P04 0530 to bloom, one just beyond it. On a thrusting spray thick with thorns P04 0540 and dewdrops and swelling pink buds, like a summer Valentine, a bird P04 0550 balanced and sang, nondescriptly brown and alive with its own music, P04 0560 a little engine of song. It was so pretty and artless that P04 0570 she felt like a child again and would have enjoyed running out barefoot P04 0580 to play on the wet grass with all the growing things, but Doaty never P04 0590 permitted bare feet and she was decidedly not a child but . Feeling suddenly neat and subdued, she dressed P04 0610 quite soberly and went downstairs. Rosa, unbelievably, was P04 0620 not yet up and about, reassurance that Rosa was human. Feeling protective P04 0630 toward this sleeping being, Henrietta found a yesterday bun and P04 0640 milk in a white jug, a breakfast which was somewhat the equivalent of P04 0650 going barefoot. Outside, the garden, the tame wilderness, yielded P04 0660 a patchwork bouquet of daisies, sweet william, scented stock and lady's P04 0670 bedstraw, which she tied with long grasses and took back to show P04 0680 Rosa, who was now stirring about the kitchen and haranguing Folly. P04 0690 The poodle came gleefully to Henrietta and begged for the flowers, P04 0700 supplicating the air with prayerful forepaws. Henrietta held P04 0710 her bouquet out of reach and said it was for Doaty. "Rummaging in P04 0720 the dew", said Rosa coldly. "Go change your shoes before you turn P04 0730 around". She sounded so exactly like Doaty that Henrietta obeyed P04 0740 her under the clear impression that she could either comply or stay P04 0750 home. Folly danced, eager for whatever lay beyond the door. To P04 0760 a Blackwell, there was only one church. The cemetery slumbered just P04 0770 behind it, and the way lay through the village and close to the sea. P04 0780 For the first time in thirty years, Henrietta walked down the narrow P04 0790 street with its shuttered shops just stirring and its inhabitants eying P04 0800 her with the frankest curiosity. She smiled and bowed, recalling P04 0810 the princess-in-a-carriage feeling she had enjoyed when she was a child. P04 0820 Now, some of the acknowledgments were cautious, but all were interested. P04 0830 An old man, sitting against the wall of a cottage and P04 0840 waiting for the sun to find him, gave her a more than reflective look P04 0850 as she passed, the sap still plainly rising in his branches. On an impulse, P04 0860 she turned back and said good morning. He cupped his ear P04 0870 and shook his head at her repetition, announcing in a nettled way that P04 0880 he had heard her the first time. He then offered his own estimate P04 0890 of the weather, which was unenthusiastic. "Summer's been slow to P04 0900 come", he said. "It's my dryin' out time". He scowled at her P04 0910 flowers. "I'm taking them to the cemetery", said Henrietta, P04 0920 out of a vague feeling of hospitality. "They'll be P04 0930 takin' me next", he said pleasantly, "but not so soon's they P04 0940 plan. See half of 'em in their graves before I choose my own coffin. P04 0950 It's dryin' myself out that does it". He regarded her with P04 0960 rising hope. "You'd like to hear how I go about it". "It's P04 0970 nice of you", Henrietta said doubtfully. "Y're P04 0980 welcome". He straightened himself, soldierly against the wall, and P04 0990 pulled his sprawled feet together so they stood side by side in their P04 1000 old boots. His stick ceased to be a thing to rest his chin on and became P04 1010 a pointer for emphasizing the finer aspects of his text. P04 1020 "Every P04 1030 month, f'r three days", he said happily, "I take no water into P04 1040 my system, no water whatsoever. It rests the tissues". Henrietta P04 1050 murmured that she could quite see how it would, and he nodded approval P04 1060 of her womanly good sense. "Rests the tissues", he said, "and P04 1070 pacifies the system. My dad did it, and he lived to a great age". P04 1080 He looked up at her sharply. "Don't remember, do you"? P04 1090 She did suddenly, through the link of memory with his father, P04 1100 old Titus, who must have been in his nineties when Henrietta ran away. P04 1110 Next to the Blackwells, Titus had owned the island most, and she P04 1120 and Adelia had often stood in front of him, silenced by his terrible P04 1130 years- a scanty man with a thin beard and very deep-set blue eyes like P04 1140 a mariner, more aged than possible. He had never spoken once to the P04 1150 awed sisters, but his son had been friendly, a big fellow of fifty P04 1160 or more, a fishing-boat captain and powerful like the sea. It must be P04 1170 that son who sat before her now, shriveled to half his size and half P04 1180 his senses. She said gently, "Of course I remember you". P04 1190 "Not so well's I remember you", he said. "Y're the P04 1200 young Blackwell woman. Ran away on a black night with a lawful wedded P04 1210 man. I know all about you". "You do seem to", said P04 1220 Henrietta, impressed. "Can't blame a man for leavin' his P04 1230 wife", he said quite cheerfully. "Left mine many a time, only she P04 1240 never knew it. Man in a boat, there's a lot of places he can put P04 1250 in at and a lot of reasons he can be away for a bit. Any harm in that"? P04 1260 "Probably", said Henrietta dryly. He gave P04 1270 a short hard laugh and looked at her knowingly. "You'd be the one P04 1280 to say", he observed, and she found herself liking his approval none P04 1290 too well, but she could not defend herself and say that her actions P04 1300 were "different", since all actions had their own laws. Only, this P04 1310 old man's connivance was even less to her taste than Selma Cotter's P04 1320 open censure. Well, she had not come back to Great Island to P04 1330 be understood, praised or condemned. She had come to make her peace P04 1340 with the past, and of that past this ancient of the earth was only a kind P04 1350 of shadow. She started to move away, just as a woman came out P04 1360 of the cottage, a big-boned, drab-haired figure with a clean apron P04 1370 tied over her limp print dress. She smiled vaguely at Henrietta and P04 1380 spoke to the old man. "You've not had your breakfast yet, gran'dad". P04 1390 "Y'r dam' porridge is no breakfast", he said. P04 1400 "Milk and sops"! He beat the air with his stick, and it fell from P04 1410 his claws and clattered on the stones. "He's owly today", P04 1420 his grand-daughter said wearily, and bent to pick it up. "He's P04 1430 got this idea about drying out **h" "It ain't an idea"! P04 1440 "If it ain't an idea", she said, "how comes it P04 1450 you can drink beer but not water"? He looked piously to heaven P04 1460 and said, "Beer don't affect the tissues none", and the ingenious P04 1470 hypocrisy of this defense pleased Henrietta so that she forgave P04 1480 him his P04 1490 stint of malevolence. His grand-daughter sighed. "Come P04 1500 on, do. The children are eating, and Miss Blackwell's on her way P04 1510 somewheres". "To the graveyard. Who ain't"? P04 1520 "Not me. I've got a day's work to do.- You'll be visiting P04 1530 Miss Doaty, ma'am"? Henrietta nodded. How much they P04 1540 knew about her! The woman (she must have been a tiny baby when P04 1550 Hetty and Delia had stood arm in arm, watching great age grow small) P04 1560 answered the nod with her own. "God rest her soul, she was a sweet P04 1570 one. Come on now". She put a strong hand under the old man's P04 1580 arm and lifted him up, patiently, with the gentle cruelty and necessary P04 1590 tyranny that the young show toward the very old. He mumbled at her P04 1600 but let himself be led off inside the house, shuffling mightily to make P04 1610 it clear how weak and aged he was and how he was buffeted about by P04 1620 those who still had their wicked strength. There was a gabble P04 1630 of voices from indoors, young hungry sounds like cats after fish, and P04 1640 a burst of swearing from the old man. Henrietta looked down at her P04 1650 bouquet, still lively with its color and scent, and set her feet on their P04 1660 journey's way again, leaving the village street and crossing the P04 1670 first field, Folly dancing ahead of her. At the edge of the P04 1680 field, the wild rolling land took over, dotted with fat round bushes like P04 1690 sheep. They were covered with tiny white blossoms, their scant roots P04 1700 clawing at the stony ground, and wild birds darted in and about and P04 1710 through them so they were nearly alive with the rustle and cry. P04 1720 The air was full of sounds too but placid ones, a terrestrial humming P04 1730 as much out of the earth as out of the blue sky. She felt mindless, P04 1740 walking, and almost easy until the church spire told her she was near P04 1750 the cemetery, and she caught herself wondering what she would say to P04 1760 Doaty. Both church and graveyard were smaller than she remembered P04 1770 them (how many things had lessened while she was gone away) but P04 1780 the headstones had grown so thick in thirty years that to find one named P04 1790 "Dorothy Tredding" seemed suddenly impossible. She sat P04 1800 down on the nearest, fallen with age and gray with sea-damp, her fingers P04 1810 tracing the indecipherable carved letters padded with green moss. P04 1820 The day's sun was gathering its strength in gold, and she wished P04 1830 she had brought her parasol, if only to shade Doaty's flowers. A small, P04 1840 rock-carved angel watched her from a nearby tomb, the only angel P04 1850 in the cemetery. She remembered, suddenly, a night of savage P04 1860 moonlight and scudding clouds when she and Adelia, having dared each P04 1870 other, had stolen out of their great safe house and come here, hand in P04 1880 hand, hoping and fearing ghosts. P05 0010 The Momoyama family had come from Miyagi Prefecture, in the P05 0020 northeast of the main Japanese island of Honshu, where there are still P05 0030 traces of the mysterious Ainu strain. The Ainus were a primitive P05 0040 people, already living on the island before the principal ancestors P05 0050 of the Japanese came from Southern Asia. Apparently they were of Caucasian P05 0060 blood. They had white skins and blue eyes; all their men P05 0070 were bearded, and many of their women were beautiful. A pitiful few of P05 0080 them are left now, to subsist mainly on the tourist trade and to sing P05 0090 their ancient tribal chants, which have the same haunting sadness as P05 0100 the laments of the American Indians. Most of them have been assimilated, P05 0110 but sometimes a man in Miyagi or Akita prefectures is much more P05 0120 hairy than the average Japanese, and occasionally a girl will be strikingly P05 0130 lovely, her coloring warmed and improved by a little of the P05 0140 tawny honey-in-the-sun tint of the invaders from the South. Tommy P05 0150 Momoyama was one of these fortunate occasions. She was taller than P05 0160 most Japanese girls, and had the exquisitely willowy form of the P05 0170 Japanese girl who is lucky enough to be tall. Her nose was higher of P05 0180 bridge, her complexion so pale as to be quite susceptible to sunburn, P05 0190 and the fish and vegetable diet of her forebears had given her teeth P05 0200 that were white and regular and strong. Her mouth, soft and full, was P05 0210 something for any man to dream about. She had black eyes, long and P05 0220 intriguingly tilted, and the way she walked was melody. She had P05 0230 been in Japan just one week. It was an alien land, and she hated it P05 0240 intensely; she was already considering putting in rebellious requests P05 0250 for duty at San Diego, Bremerton, the Great Lakes, Pensacola- P05 0270 any place the Navy had a hospital- with a threat to resign her commission P05 0280 if the request were not granted. Anywhere would be better than P05 0290 the land of her ancestors. There was nothing wrong with her P05 0300 job. Tommy had been assigned to the psychopathic ward. There were P05 0310 no depressingly serious cases: the ward doctor sometimes teamed up with P05 0320 the chaplain to serve as a marriage counselor- sometimes the Navy P05 0330 sent people back to the States to preserve a marriage- but mental P05 0340 health as a rule was very high. At present the doctor's main concern P05 0350 was in seeing to it that Japanese salvage firms were not permitted P05 0360 to operate on the hulks of warships sunk too close inshore, because P05 0370 the work involved setting off nerve-shattering blasts at all hours. Tommy P05 0380 was interested in psychiatry, because there was much an understanding P05 0390 nurse could do to help the patients. But she suffered in P05 0391 her P05 0400 off-duty hours. Such as now, when she sat at a table in the coffee shop P05 0410 at the Officers' Club, having coffee and a hamburger to sustain P05 0420 her until dinnertime. She had changed into a cocktail dress, and the P05 0430 whole evening should have been before her, but already she was beginning P05 0440 to get a tight feeling at the back of her neck. This was one of the Navy's P05 0450 crossroads- you find them all around the world. Ships from P05 0460 the West Coast rotated on six-month tours of duty with the Seventh P05 0470 Fleet, and Yokosuka was the Seventh Fleet's principal port for P05 0480 maintenance, upkeep and shore liberty. Sooner or later, all the gray P05 0490 Navy ships came in here; if Tommy sat long enough, she would be sure P05 0500 to see all the young officers she had met in San Diego and Long P05 0510 Beach. And she wanted desperately to see someone she had known back P05 0520 there. She felt, rather than saw, the approach of the good-looking P05 0530 young man. He came through from the Fleet Bar, which was stag, P05 0540 with the ice cubes tinkling in a glass he carried. When he saw Tommy P05 0550 sitting alone, the tinkling sound stopped. He was perhaps a trifle P05 0560 tipsy, having been long at sea where drinking is not permitted, and consequently P05 0570 out of practice; he wore a brown tweed sports jacket obviously P05 0580 tailored in Hong Kong, and he was of an age that marked him as P05 0590 a lieutenant. Probably off one of the carriers- an aviator. There P05 0600 was a fifty-fifty chance, perhaps, that he would be unmarried, and an P05 0610 even more slender chance that his approach would be different. Japan P05 0620 did something to a man- and it wasn't just Japan, either, because P05 0630 the same thing applied anywhere overseas. It was as if foreign duty P05 0640 implied and excused license; it intimated that the folks at home would P05 0650 never know about it, and, therefore, why not? Then the young P05 0660 man in the brown sports jacket spoke, and it was no different. P05 0670 "Harro, girl-san"! he said, turning on what was meant to be P05 0680 charm. "You catchee boy-furiendo? Maybe you likee date with me"? P05 0690 "I beg your pardon"! Tommy said out of her cold P05 0691 rage. P05 0700 "I don't believe I know you, and I can't understand your P05 0710 quaint brand of English- it meant to be English, wasn't P05 0720 it"? The nice-looking young officer fell back on his heels, P05 0730 open-mouthed and blushing. At least, he had the decency to blush, P05 0740 she thought. "Oh- I'm sorry! You see, I thought- P05 0750 I mean I really had no idea"- "Oh, yes- you had ideas"! P05 0760 Tommy interrupted furiously. "All wrong ones"! Then she P05 0770 jerked her thumb toward the door in a very American gesture, and dropped P05 0780 into Navy slang. "Take off, fly-boy"! "Uh- P05 0790 sorry"! he muttered, and took off, obviously feeling like a fool. P05 0800 The trouble was that there was no lasting satisfaction in this for Tommy. P05 0810 She felt like a fool, too. It hadn't been this way in P05 0820 college, or in nurses' training; it wasn't this way in the hospital P05 0830 at San Diego. Everybody had accepted her for what she was- a P05 0840 very charming girl. Nobody had addressed her in broken English at any P05 0850 of those places, nobody had suggested that she wasn't American. P05 0860 There are Spanish girls who look like Tommy Momoyama, brunettes with P05 0870 a Moorish hint of the Orient in their faces; there are beauties P05 0880 from the Balkan states who are similarly endowed, and- back in the P05 0890 blessed United States- they were regarded simply as pretty women. P05 0900 Now, having been sent halfway around the world on a job she had not P05 0910 asked for, Tommy was being humiliated at every turn. She looked P05 0920 around, self-consciously. Four little Japanese waitresses were murdering P05 0930 the English language at the counter- Yuki Kobayashi happened P05 0940 to be one of them. Everybody but Tommy seemed to think it was charming P05 0950 when they called, "Bifutek-san"! for a steak sandwich, or P05 0960 "Kohi futotsu"! for one cup of coffee. Two other Japanese girls P05 0970 were sitting at the tables, both quite pretty and well groomed. One P05 0980 was with a whitehaired and doting lieutenant commander; the other P05 0990 was with her American husband and their exceptionally appealing children. P05 1000 Seeing these did nothing for Tommy's mood. She told herself P05 1010 rebelliously, and with pride, And P05 1020 so she was, and would remain. But she was learning that so long as she P05 1030 was in this country, and wore civilian dress in the Club, there would P05 1040 always be transient young men who would approach her with broken English. P05 1050 There had been occasions when some of the more experienced had P05 1060 even addressed her in what might have been perfectly good Japanese. P05 1070 Tommy wouldn't know; after coming to America, her parents had spoken P05 1080 only English. One thing was becoming increasingly sure. P05 1090 She had been sent to the wrong place for duty. There was more to service P05 1100 in the Navy Nurse Corps than the hours in the ward. One had P05 1110 to have friends, and a congenial life in after-duty hours **h. P05 1120 Now there was raucous male singing from the Fleet Bar. It was terribly P05 1130 off key, and poorly done, and Tommy could never admit to herself P05 1140 that male companionship was a very natural and important thing, but all P05 1150 at once she felt lonesome and put-upon. She finished her hamburger P05 1160 and drank her coffee and paid her check; she got out of the coffee P05 1170 shop before the incident could be repeated. Eating while angry had given P05 1180 her a slight indigestion. Back in her living quarters at the hospital P05 1190 she took bicarbonate of soda, and sulked. Then, after a while, P05 1200 she went to her mirror. It was all true. She certainly looked P05 1210 Japanese, and perhaps she could not really blame the young men. And, P05 1220 still, they did not have to be so crude in their approach **h. P05 1230 There was a letter to write to her mother, and she tried to make its P05 1240 tone cheerful. She promised that she would soon take a few day's leave P05 1250 and visit the uncle she had never seen, on the island of Oyajima- P05 1260 which was not very far from Yokusuka. And tomorrow she would take P05 1270 time to shop for the kimono her mother wanted to present to the young P05 1280 wife of a faculty member as a hostess gown. Tommy, of course, P05 1290 had never heard of a kotowaza, or Japanese proverb, which says, "Tanin P05 1300 yori miuchi", and is literally translated as "Relatives are P05 1310 better than strangers". Actually, this is only another way P05 1320 of saying that blood is thicker than water. #/2,# Doc Doolittle's P05 1330 scheduled appearance at captain's mast was a very unusual thing, P05 1340 because the discipline dispensed there is ordinarily for the young P05 1360 and immature, and a chief is naturally expected to stay off the report. P05 1370 But the beer hall riot in Subic had been unusual, too, and Walt Perry P05 1380 was convinced that Doc had started it through some expert tactics P05 1390 in rabble rousing. Just why anybody should wish to start a riot the P05 1400 executive officer didn't know. In his opinion, Doc had not grown P05 1410 up. The lieutenant was not entirely wrong in the belief. There P05 1420 had never been a good reason for Doc Doolittle to grow up. He had P05 1430 come into the Navy too young, with the image of the fun-loving Guns P05 1440 Appleby before him. The war found him much too early, and its perils- P05 1450 and especially its awful boredom- were best forgotten in horseplay P05 1460 and elaborate practical jokes, and even now Doc had never found P05 1470 any stabilizing, sobering influence. He remained young at heart, with P05 1480 an overdeveloped sense of humor. He wisecracked about the captain's P05 1490 indoctrination of new men, took great delight in slaughtering cockroaches P05 1500 with ethyl chloride, and gave no thought for tomorrow. He was doing P05 1510 thirty years, and the Navy would take care of him. The job security P05 1520 enjoyed by Doc Doolittle, and nearly all members of the Armed P05 1530 Forces, is a wonderful thing. Actually, all a man in uniform has to P05 1540 do is to get by. He may not rise to the heights, but he can get by, and P05 1550 eventually be retired. Doc had been under restriction to the P05 1560 ship since the left Subic. This deprived him of liberty P05 1570 in Hong Kong, but he told Boats McCafferty that Hong Kong was P05 1580 a book he had read before, and the Navy would always bring him there P05 1590 again, some day. At Yokosuka he was restricted to the confines of P05 1600 the Base because Walt Perry, being thoughtful, knew that Doc might P05 1610 have to draw some medical supplies from the hospital or the Supply P05 1620 Base. This gave Doc the whole range of the naval establishment, and P05 1630 suited him quite well. There were two things he wanted to do: inspect P05 1640 one of the many caves that had been dug into the hills on the Naval P05 1650 Base, and visit an old shipmate. A telephone line had been P05 1660 hooked up to connect the ship with the Base exchange. After supper, P05 1670 Doc called Whitey Gresham, who was now a lieutenant and had a family. P05 1680 "Well, Doc, you old sonofabitch"! Whitey exclaimed, P05 1690 with true affection. "Come over and have a drink. We live down by P05 1700 the Base commissary. Grab a taxi". "I'll be there, but P05 1710 I'll walk", Doc said. "I've got to run an errand on the P05 1720 way. See you in about an hour". He threw a smart salute at P05 1730 the gangway, went up the dock, and turned down the wide street in front P05 1740 of the Petty Officers' Club. P06 0010 How, he wondered, does one enjoy one's spare time? He considered P06 0020 some interesting excursion but he was on the road every day from P06 0030 dawn to dusk. Then there was exercise, boating and hiking, which was P06 0040 not only good for you but also made you more virile: the thought P06 0050 of strenuous activity left him exhausted. Perhaps golf, with a fashionable P06 0060 companion- but he'd lost his clubs, hadn't played in years. P06 0070 There was swimming over at the Riverside Hotel, but his skin was P06 0080 so white he looked like the bottom of a frog. Perhaps a packing trip P06 0090 into the Sierras, let his beard grow- but that was too stark. I could, P06 0100 he thought, take a long walk- but where? The telephone P06 0110 rang. "You missed it", Buzz's voice said, "You should P06 0120 have gone over to the Pagan Room with us. Wow. Strippers, but P06 0130 scrumptious, and Toodle Williams and her all-lesbian band". P06 0140 "Hi, Buzz", Owen said. "I went over to the Willows and dropped P06 0150 two notes". "Tough", Buzz said, "Listen, we're P06 0160 having a stag dinner over at the Pagan Room on Friday. Imagine P06 0170 a stag dinner with Toodle Williams". He laughed and laughed. P06 0180 Owen wanted to be pleasant because Buzz worked the territory next P06 0190 to his, but he hadn't come to Reno for stag dinners. "Thanks", P06 0200 Owen said, "but Friday is a long way off and anything can happen". P06 0210 Buzz was a tireless instigator who never let his victims P06 0220 rest. When Owen was finally rid of him, there was a timid rap at the P06 0230 door. "Yes", Owen called out. "Yes"? "I'm P06 0240 Mrs& Gertrude Parker", a soft voice explained, "And I'd P06 0250 like to talk to you for a few minutes, please". Ahah, he P06 0260 thought, a lush divorcee at last. Probably saw me in the lobby. He P06 0270 was disappointed to find a nervous, scrawny woman with a big hat standing P06 0280 at the door. She frowned at his green pajamas with the yellow moons. P06 0290 "How do you do"? she said, semi-professionally. "Our P06 0300 church is sponsoring a group of very courageous women up in Alaska. P06 0310 We call them lay-sisters and they go among the Eskimos making friends P06 0320 and bringing the light. They're up there in that freezing climate P06 0330 and all of us have to try and help them". "Oh"? P06 0340 "You see", she said, looking past him into the room, where P06 0350 the highball glasses sparkled dully in the bright light, "you and I P06 0360 can't understand the many hardships they have to undergo". P06 0370 "Why is that"? She apparently wasn't satisfied with P06 0380 his reaction. Smug, Owen thought, smug and sappy. There was a slight P06 0390 nervous twitch in the region of her left eye. It gave her a lewd, winking P06 0400 effect. "Have you ever tried to reason with an Eskimo"? P06 0410 she asked, winking wildly. "They are a very difficult group P06 0420 of people". "I don't know much about them", Owen admitted, P06 0430 "but I suppose they have their own religion and they probably P06 0440 resent outsiders coming in and telling them what to do and what not P06 0450 to do". She smiled in a sickly-tolerant fashion. "You know, P06 0460 that's very interesting. People don't know how much they give P06 0470 away about themselves by remarks like that. The more canvassing I do, P06 0480 the more I note how far most people are from their personal God". P06 0490 Forebearing, Owen kept his peace. What would happen next? P06 0500 That she was out for a touch was certain, but when did she get to the P06 0510 pitch? Several people passed in the hall and stared as he slowly P06 0520 retreated, trying to close the door a little, and she slowly leaned toward P06 0530 him and raised her voice. "How did you get by the desk"? P06 0540 he asked curiously. "I'm sure the hotel doesn't know you're P06 0550 wandering around the corridors, knocking on strangers' doors and P06 0560 talking down Eskimos". "Oh, I just come once a week. P06 0570 Every day I visit a different hotel. I feel it's my duty. I do this P06 0580 work all on my own, because I understand the difficulties and I P06 0590 want to help these lay-sisters. Do you know these women go all through P06 0600 Alaska, and they don't have the proper facilities? They travel P06 0610 in pairs as much as a hundred-and-fifty miles a day". "Do P06 0620 you have any idea how far I travel every day? I have the whole Pacific P06 0630 Northwest". Owen was aware he was getting overexcited but he P06 0640 couldn't help himself. Mrs& gertrude Parker drew back. P06 0650 "That's hardly a Christian approach", she remonstrated. "You're P06 0660 in the secular world". "I didn't say it was Christian. P06 0670 I don't think you'll find many active Christian salesmen. P06 0680 Not that religion isn't big business; those bibles and prayer books P06 0690 make a lot of money for publishing houses, but they don't get top P06 0700 personnel. Our key salesmen are in appliances and cosmetics". P06 0710 "God, I take it, plays no part in this", she said waspishly. P06 0720 "God doesn't have any appliance or cosmetics", he said P06 0730 heatedly before he caught himself. It sounded silly; why go on? P06 0740 More people were passing; he had to find some way to close this impossible P06 0750 conversation. "And whiskey", she said, smiling and P06 0760 blinking at the highball glasses. "Don't forget whiskey; it's P06 0770 such a big seller". "You know", he said, getting a grip P06 0780 on himself, "I think you're going to have to excuse me. I have P06 0790 an appointment". "I can imagine", she said. "Probably P06 0800 down at the bar. But what do you want to do about the lay-sisters? P06 0810 They must be freezing up there now. Can't you help them"? P06 0820 "Leave a card or something. I'll think it over". "I P06 0830 have no card", she said bitterly. "You haven't been listening P06 0840 to what I've been telling you. I only hope my talking to you has P06 0850 helped you a little, anyway, because you need spiritual bucking-up". P06 0860 She looked crestfallen, as if he had somehow disappointed the whole P06 0870 human race. She stood indecisively for a moment, then walked down P06 0880 the hall; he heard her knocking on another door. It took him P06 0890 about fifteen minutes to calm himself; then he realized he was hungry. P06 0900 He showered, shaved, dressed and went down to the dining room for P06 0910 breakfast. On the way he stopped at the desk to receive his mail. There P06 0920 was a check from his company, and the usual enthusiastic bulletins P06 0930 on new lines they always issued. His lawyer had sent him a statement P06 0940 on his overdue alimony, and there was a letter from the Collector P06 0950 of Internal Revenue asking him to stop in his office and explain last P06 0960 year's exemptions. He ate breakfast in a sullen mood, but P06 0970 afterwards, when he walked out onto Virginia Street, he felt braced. P06 0980 He looked off to the crest of the Sierras, still white-topped; the P06 0990 glisten of the Truckee River made a wide spangle. He felt suddenly P06 1000 elated, adventurous. With any luck at all he could easily find a flowerpot. P06 1010 Although it was only three o'clock, he stopped in P06 1020 at the Golden Calf. The tables were all spinning, the dice rattling, P06 1030 the bar crowded. Just to test himself, he played roulette for quarters P06 1040 on his old combination, five and seventeen, and within an hour, he P06 1050 had won, surprisingly, twenty dollars. The way was opening up; when P06 1060 the management brought around champagne, the breakfast settled its P06 1070 whirling around in his stomach. The Golden Calf was dimly lit P06 1080 with shaded neon. There were more women than men in the place, but P06 1090 he couldn't find a flowerpot. They all had the hard look of gamblers P06 1100 who had stopped dreaming, who automatically turned the cards, hardly P06 1110 caring what showed up. The mural around the wall depicted early settlers P06 1120 in covered wagons, who appeared much more animated than the gamblers. P06 1130 The women had a bright shining expectancy as they leaned out from P06 1140 the wall and gazed splendidly into the distance, while the men were P06 1150 stern but hopeful. All, of course, except the Donner party who were P06 1160 bent on starving to death. "I wonder if they did eat each P06 1170 other at the end", Owen mused. He sat down next to a heavily-upholstered P06 1180 blonde, but she was cleaned out in twenty minutes. She P06 1190 sighed a dirty word and left. Owen was surprised to see Mrs& Gertrude P06 1200 Parker playing the one-arm bandits that were cunningly arranged P06 1210 by the entrance. She sat down and played two slots at once, looking grim, P06 1220 as if bested by mechanical devices, and Owen felt sorry for the P06 1230 lay-sisters depending on her support. A dried-up cowboy sat down P06 1240 next to him in the blonde's place. He was a little more authentic P06 1250 than usual because he smelled slightly of the stables. "What you P06 1260 need is a steady martingale", the cowboy announced after watching Owen P06 1270 play. "You can't build on your hit-and-miss five-seventeen". P06 1280 "What are you playing"? Owen asked. "I'm P06 1290 just logging", the cowboy explained. "I keep all these plays in this P06 1300 little black book, and I watch over a twelve-hour period to find P06 1310 out what numbers are repeating. But roulette's not my game. I'm P06 1315 always P06 1320 trying to find a breaking table in blackjack. Incidentally, I'm P06 1330 pretty famous in these parts: I'm called The Wrangler". P06 1340 "Nice to know you. Don't you have to spend any time on your P06 1350 ranch"? "Well, of course I do. I'm with the P06 1355 Bar-~H, P06 1360 pushing a horse called Sparky. He's my own horse, and what P06 1370 I collect from him I use on blackjack. This Sparky can rack and single-foot P06 1380 and he's the fastest thing in Washoe County. I figure if P06 1390 I can get any kind of publicity campaign going, I'll land him on P06 1400 ~TV- you know, one of those favorite horses for some Western hero. P06 1410 I once trained a horse for Hoot Gibson, but nothing like Sparky. P06 1420 He's a pinto and he photographs wonderfully". Five came P06 1430 up while Owen was listening to The Wrangler and he neglected to P06 1440 play, a loss of ten dollars. This proved conclusively that The Wrangler P06 1450 was a jinx, so he walked on down to Hurrays, an even more glorified P06 1460 gambling den than the Golden Calf. When he looked in the back, P06 1470 Mrs& Gertrude Parker was marking keno cards. His adventurous P06 1480 spirit had waned; he studied the pistol exhibition that Hurrays P06 1490 featured as an added attraction. He ogled a long redhead with green P06 1500 eyes, but she was a shill with her money in front of her. He had no P06 1510 great P06 1520 prejudice against shills; it just seemed such a dry run. P06 1530 There was no cash around; everyone was flipping silver dollars. The P06 1540 management discreetly withdrew the green stuff into the office and gave P06 1550 the customers chips or checks or premium points. He read a special P06 1560 announcement whereby Hurrays would feature a special floorshow at three P06 1570 a&m& starring Adele (The Body) Brenner and fourteen glamorous P06 1580 schoolgirls. He wondered if he might bag a tourist, but P06 1590 they looked frightened of him. He passed two brides, both wearing orchids, P06 1600 and they made him feel a little sad. Owen found Buzz watching P06 1610 chuck-a-luck. Buzz had on a Hawaiian shirt and was carrying some P06 1620 sun-tan oil and dark glasses. He was shorter and fatter than Owen, P06 1630 who felt good standing next to him. "We're all going over to Lake P06 1640 Tahoe and try our luck at Cal-Neva", Buzz explained, still P06 1650 instigating. "We ran into a guy at the Pagan Room who guarantees P06 1660 we can beat the wheel. He started out as a stickman, then became a pit P06 1670 boss until the Club found him crossroading. He was knocking down checks P06 1680 at faro". "I'm allergic to Tahoe", Owen explained. P06 1690 "Something about the pollen". "Well, okay", Buzz P06 1700 said. "We'll see you around later". Owen went over to P06 1710 the crap table and the dice were hot, but he couldn't pyramid with P06 1720 any consecutive success. "How's your luck, honey"? A P06 1730 short platinum blonde in a bursting sun-suit addressed him. She looked P06 1740 well-fed and prosperous, but he didn't get the impression he was being P06 1750 propositioned the way he'd been hoping. "I haven't P06 1760 had any luck since I was a baby". "Stake me", she said, P06 1770 "and let me at those dice. I'll make them dance the tango. We'll P06 1780 get it in a hurry and get it out". "Let's have a drink P06 1790 and discuss a merger". "If you go broke", she said, smiling P06 1800 up at him, "I'll leave you". "Sounds like real P06 1810 love", Owen said. "It sort of brings a lump to my throat". P06 1820 "My name's Gisele", the blonde said after she ordered a P06 1830 Scotch. "Named after the ballet. My mother wanted to call me Sylphide, P06 1840 but it sounded too affected". P07 0010 Spencer said nothing. "Is there any word you would like P07 0020 to offer in your own defense"? Spencer shook his head. P07 0030 Alexander said, "Answer me properly, Spencer". Spencer P07 0040 was quiet for a moment longer, then he said, "There is nothing P07 0050 I want to say, Captain". "Very well". Alexander walked P07 0060 away. Naval procedure, he thought, had its moments of grim humor. P07 0070 Philip Spencer had cold-bloodedly planned the murder of his captain, P07 0080 yet it seemed in order to chide him for a lapse of proper address. P07 0090 During the morning hours, it became clear that the arrest of P07 0100 Spencer was having no sobering effect upon the men of the . P07 0110 Those named in the Greek paper were manufacturing reasons to steal P07 0120 aft under pretence of some call of duty, so as to be near Spencer, watching P07 0130 an opportunity to communicate with him. Hostile glances were P07 0140 flashed at both Alexander and Gansevoort. The two met in the Captain's P07 0150 cabin. "What is the next step, Captain"? P07 0160 "More arrests, I fear". In your opinion, who is this E& P07 0170 Andrews on the 'certain' list"? "Cromwell, of course. P07 0180 He is the oldest and most experienced of the lot. He saw the dangers, P07 0190 not the glories of being identified as a mutineer. Somehow he P07 0200 talked Spencer into letting him use another name". There was P07 0210 a tap at the door and Oliver entered with the word that Heiser wished P07 0220 to see the Captain. "Have him come in". Heiser, P07 0230 breathless and wild-eyed, brought the chilling news that the handspikes, P07 0240 heavers and holystones had been mysteriously removed from their P07 0250 customary places. "And also, sir, two articles which were considered P07 0260 souvenirs now must be regarded in another light entirely. An P07 0270 African knife and battle-ax are at this moment being sharpened by McKinley P07 0280 and Green. McKinley was overheard to say that he would like P07 0290 to get the knife into Spencer's possession and that"- P07 0300 "Where did you gather all this information, Heiser? Who reported P07 0310 to you the disappearance of handspikes and heavers and who"- P07 0320 He was interrupted by a crash from the deck and sprang toward the P07 0330 ladder, with Gansevoort and Heiser behind him. A glance revealed P07 0340 that the main topgallant mast had been carried away. The aimless milling P07 0350 about of what had been a well-trained, well-organized crew struck P07 0360 Alexander with horror. He bellowed orders and watched the alert response P07 0370 of some of his men and watched, too, the way a dozen or more turned P07 0380 their heads questioningly toward the shackled figure as though for P07 0390 further instruction. Adrien Deslonde hastened to Alexander's P07 0400 side. "Small violently jerked the weather-royal brace with full P07 0410 intention to carry away the mast. I saw him myself and it was done after P07 0420 consultation with Cromwell. I swear it, sir". And it was P07 0430 clear that Adrien was not mistaken, for both Small and Cromwell P07 0440 took no step toward aiding in the sending up of the new topgallant mast P07 0450 till Philip Spencer had given the signal to obey. Then, with disappointment P07 0460 evident upon their faces, they moved to the work. Alexander P07 0470 guessed that they had planned confusion and turmoil, thinking it the P07 0480 ideal climate in which to begin battle and bloodshed. Their strategy P07 0490 was sound enough and, he reasoned, had been defeated only by Philip P07 0500 Spencer's unwillingness to sanction an idea he had not originated. P07 0510 When the mast was raised, Alexander gave the order for Small P07 0520 and Cromwell to be placed under arrest, and now three figures in irons P07 0530 sprawled upon the open deck and terror stalked the . P07 0540 Spencer's potential followers were openly sullen and morose, missing P07 0550 muster without excuse, expressing in ominous tones their displeasure P07 0560 at the prisoners being kept in irons, communicating with the three P07 0570 by glance and signal. One of the missing handspikes came out of its P07 0580 hiding place after Midshipman Tillotson had been insolently disobeyed P07 0590 by Seaman Wilson. Tillotson had reported the man to Gansevoort P07 0600 and an hour later, with back turned, had been attacked by Wilson, brandishing P07 0610 the weapon. Wilson, shackled and snarling, was thrown with the P07 0620 other prisoners and was soon joined by Green, McKee and McKinley. P07 0630 Not a man on the brig, loyal or villainous, could be unaffected by P07 0640 the sight of seven men involved in the crime of mutiny. In the P07 0650 tiny cabin, Alexander met with Gansevoort, Heiser and Wales to P07 0660 speak and to listen. Three days had passed since Spencer's arrest P07 0670 and each day had brought new dangers, new fears. Gansevoort said, P07 0680 "It requires an omniscient eye to select those if any on whom we P07 0690 can now rely. To have the Greek paper is not the great help that at P07 0700 first flush it seemed. From actions aboard, it is easy to guess that P07 0710 Spencer's boast of twenty staunch followers was a modest estimate". P07 0720 "Well", Heiser ventured, "why don't we hold an investigation P07 0730 with questioning and"- "That would be worse P07 0740 than useless", Alexander broke in. "There is not space to hold P07 0750 or force to guard any increased number of prisoners. Besides, suppose P07 0760 we hold a court of inquiry, then what? Then we have informed a large P07 0770 number of our crew that when they reach the United States, they will P07 0780 be punished but that in the meanwhile, they may run loose and are P07 0790 expected to perform their jobs in good order. Mr& Heiser, does this P07 0800 sound like a truly workable plan to you? Do you not think these men P07 0810 might choose the black flag here and now"? Wales said, P07 0820 "Of P07 0830 course they would. They are about to do so at any moment as it P07 0840 is. All that is needed is for one man to feel self-confident enough to P07 0850 take the lead. As soon as that one man is appointed by himself or the P07 0860 others or by a signal from Spencer, we are going to be rushed. We P07 0870 are going to be rushed and murdered". "That is extravagant P07 0880 language, Mr& Wales. We are not going to be rushed and murdered", P07 0890 Alexander said. "We are going to bring the into New P07 0900 York harbor safe and sound". "Of course, I agree with P07 0910 the Captain", Gansevoort said thoughtfully, "but the conspiracy P07 0920 is ferocious and desperate. The instinct of discipline has been lost. P07 0930 Anything is possible when anarchy has the upper hand". He paused, P07 0940 then added, "Everything on a ship is a weapon. Implements of wood P07 0950 and iron are available for close and hasty combat no matter where P07 0960 a man stands. And we are positive of so few and suspicious of so many". P07 0970 "We ourselves must stand sentinel". Alexander said. P07 0980 "Under arms day and night, watch and watch about. Those of us present, P07 0990 the Perry brothers, Deslonde and the other midshipmen now have P07 1000 the responsibility of the . A great deal of labor we have P07 1010 as well, for we are too uncertain of where trust may be placed". P07 1020 And when he was alone again in the cabin, Alexander lowered his P07 1030 head into his arms and wept, for he knew full well what must be done, P07 1040 what in the end would be done. With all his heart he had loved the Navy P07 1050 and now he must act in accordance with the Navy's implacable laws. P07 1060 And when he did, when he gave to his ship that protection necessary P07 1070 to preserve her honor, he knew he would lose forever the Navy to P07 1080 which he had dedicated his soul. Where had he failed? How P07 1090 had he failed? He who had tried so hard, who had yearned so passionately P07 1100 to be a great officer. It came to him as he wept there aboard the P07 1110 that it was as foolish to strive for greatness as to seek P07 1120 to storm the gates of heaven. It was given or it was not given. One P07 1130 did one's best and if fortune smiled, there was a reward. One did P07 1140 one's best and if fortune frowned, an eighteen-year-old boy with murder P07 1150 in his heart sailed aboard one's ship. And Alexander sobbed P07 1160 like a girl for the dreams he had had, and he felt no shame. God knew P07 1170 his tears were his to shed if he so desired, for it had not been with P07 1180 an egotist's rage for fame that he had held precious his naval career. P07 1190 Another field had given him fame enough to satisfy any egotist. It P07 1200 was for love that he had served the Navy. To have someday that love P07 1210 returned was what he had lived for. Now the hope was gone. Yes, he P07 1220 would bring the safely into New York harbor but at a price. P07 1230 Dear God, at what a price. And after a while, he dried P07 1240 his tears and walked the deck as a captain should with assurance and P07 1250 dignity. Stern-faced, he inspected the prisoners, satisfying himself P07 1260 that they were clean, well fed and comfortable within reason. The prisoners P07 1270 averted their eyes but not before he had glimpsed hatred and anger. P07 1280 Only Cromwell, the giant boatswain, was mild-mannered and respectful. P07 1290 He said, "Captain, may I speak, please? Captain, P07 1300 I am innocent of any plot against you or the ship". "Are P07 1310 you, Cromwell"? "Yes, sir. Before God I swear I am P07 1320 innocent. I know nothing of any plot, if there is such a thing". P07 1330 "You are the only man aboard who can be in doubt". P07 1340 "I cannot speak for others, sir, but I am innocent". He leaned P07 1350 closer to Alexander, squinting up at him from the deck. "Surely, Captain, P07 1360 you did not find my name on any suspicious paper or anything". P07 1370 "No, Cromwell, I did not find your name. You were careful P07 1380 about that". Now Spencer, seeming with effort to shake P07 1390 himself from lethargy, spoke. He said, "Cromwell is telling you the P07 1400 truth. He is innocent". Alexander shifted his gaze to Spencer. P07 1410 The calmness and detachment of his tone suggested unawareness P07 1420 of how implicit was his own guilt in the words he had used to defend P07 1430 Cromwell. Alexander knew Spencer too well to think him nai^ve or P07 1440 thick-skulled. And in a sudden wave of painful clarity, Alexander recognized P07 1450 a kinship with Spencer. Here was another human who understood P07 1460 the stupidity of quarreling with the inevitable. There was good fortune P07 1470 and there was bad and Philip Spencer, in handcuffs and ankle irons, P07 1480 knew it to be a truth. He expected nothing for himself but that P07 1490 which naturally follows those marked for misfortune. The red-haired P07 1500 captain, towering above the prisoner as a symbol of decency and authority, P07 1510 was shocked to find himself looking with sympathy upon Philip Spencer. P07 1520 This tragic lad had forged his own shackles. But he could not P07 1530 have done so, could not have found the way, had fortune favored him. P07 1540 And because fortune had favored neither the prisoner nor the red-haired P07 1550 captain, they would be each other's undoing. "Spencer, P07 1560 if there is guilt, if you do not deny your own, how is it possible for P07 1570 Cromwell to be innocent? He was your constant companion". P07 1580 The hazel eyes met Alexander's. "I tell you he is innocent". P07 1590 "And do you think there is a reason why I should accept P07 1600 your word"? "Yes. I have nothing to gain by defending Cromwell". P07 1610 "Nothing to lose, either, Spencer". "That's P07 1620 true", Spencer agreed and withdrew himself from the conversation. P07 1630 His eyes went back to contemplation of the sea. "I P07 1640 am innocent, Captain", Cromwell said again. "Before God, Captain, P07 1650 I am innocent". And though it was logical that a man P07 1660 who could plot mass murder would not hesitate to speak an untruth, still P07 1670 it was difficult to understand why Spencer spoke only for Cromwell. P07 1680 The boatswain was as guilty as any. No action of his could be interpreted P07 1690 in his favor and four midshipmen, prior to their knowing the P07 1700 significance of the Greek paper, had seen it in Cromwell's hands P07 1710 while Spencer whispered explanations. "I thought", Midshipman P07 1720 Rogers had told Alexander, "that Spencer was teaching him P07 1730 geometry". It was fantastic to turn from the seven men in shackles P07 1740 to the wardroom, where a class of apprentices awaited him. This P07 1750 was a training ship and the training would continue, but there was an P07 1760 element of frightful absurdity here which Alexander recognized. Some P07 1770 of these apprentices were, in physical strength, already men and doubtless P07 1780 a percentage of them were Spencer's followers. P08 0010 Rachel steered me along toward a school for young boys beginning to P08 0020 study the Torah. Bits of trash lay in the roadway. The air smelled P08 0030 warmish and foul. A young man appeared out of a side alley and P08 0040 walked toward us with quick strides. He wore a long double-breasted P08 0050 coat of a heavy material, dark trousers, and black boots with buckles. P08 0060 His black hat with its wide brim, high crown, and fur trim rode high. P08 0070 With his head erect, he approached, not glancing at us, and passed P08 0080 by with his clear eyes raised and fixed straight ahead. He had a pinkish-white P08 0090 complexion, a small straight nose, a short black beard, and P08 0100 tightly curled . I was suddenly conscious of my bare arms. The P08 0110 girls in the market place wore long-sleeved dresses and covered their P08 0120 legs with cloth stockings. I turned and watched him stride down the P08 0130 center of the road. His hands were swinging at his sides, and he passed P08 0140 through the dingy market place with his back straight and, pivoting P08 0150 on his heel, he entered an old stone building. Rachel had seen P08 0160 me watching the young man. She smiled. "When your mother was here P08 0170 he must have been a young boy. Like the ones you will see now". P08 0180 I swallowed hard and looked down at my feet plodding along beside P08 0190 Rachel. She led me into a twisting side alley. The dirty, discolored P08 0200 buildings looked boarded up, and their few windows stood high above P08 0210 our heads. Rachel said that schools and synagogues occupied most P08 0220 of the buildings. We entered one where the front door stood ajar and P08 0230 climbed a flight of steep steps to the main floor. An old man with a P08 0240 white beard and dressed in a long shabby coat, baggy trousers, and a P08 0250 black skullcap greeted us. Rachel talked to him. He nodded, clasping P08 0260 and unclasping his hands over his paunch, and flicked glances at me. P08 0270 I thought he would ask us to leave because Rachel and I were bare-armed, P08 0280 but he looked down into his beard and preceded us down the corridor. P08 0290 His toes pointed out toward the walls. He stopped in front of a P08 0300 door, placed a finger on his lips, and, still peering down into his beard, P08 0310 pushed open the door to a classroom. We stepped inside. He left P08 0320 us. Little boys crowded together on long wooden benches, and P08 0330 in the center of the room sat the teacher. His black beard dripped down P08 0340 over the front of his coat. One white hand poised a stick above his P08 0350 desk. He turned his surly, half-closed eyes toward us, stared for P08 0360 a second, then shouted in Yiddish, "One, two, three"! rapping P08 0370 the stick against the desk. The little boys shrilled out a Yiddish translation P08 0380 or interpretation of the Five Books of Moses, which they P08 0390 had previously chanted in Hebrew. They chanted a fixed tune in time P08 0400 to the report of the stick. Each boy opened his small mouth wide and P08 0410 rocked back and forth on the bench in the way his grandfather and P08 0415 great-grandfather P08 0420 had studied and prayed in the ghettos of Europe. The P08 0430 boys were tiny. They had large bright eyes, the small upturned noses P08 0440 of all babies everywhere, and hair cropped short except for the long ringlets P08 0450 of framing their little white faces. They bent over P08 0460 yellowed prayerbooks and looked up only to watch the teacher. Since they P08 0470 did not glance curiously at us once, I guessed that there was a penalty P08 0480 for distraction. The guttural language from the ghetto stopped. P08 0490 The teacher plunged the children into a new portion, this time in Hebrew, P08 0500 rapping the stick incessantly. One boy who rocked back P08 0510 and forth over his worn book had bright red hair and freckles. His tightly P08 0520 curled hung down to his narrow shoulders. In the center P08 0530 of his brilliant curls sat a small black skullcap. His head barely P08 0540 rose above the table. I stared at him for a long time. He did not return P08 0550 my interest. My eyes traveled over the bare walls and up to the P08 0560 one partially open window high above the little figures and back to the P08 0580 boys. Some of them ignored the texts and had apparently memorized the P08 0590 words long ago. They singsonged the portion at the teacher, who accompanied P08 0600 them in an off-key baritone and spurred them on with the stick. P08 0610 The tapping defined the rhythm and kept the boys awake. I could P08 0620 not keep my eyes away from the boy with the red hair. His body pitched P08 0630 back and forth on the bench. His front teeth were missing. I P08 0640 shuddered and backed out of the room. Rachel followed, looked at me, P08 0650 and clucked with her tongue. We walked down the cool hall silently. P08 0660 From behind us came the rapping of the stick and the high-pitched voices P08 0670 of the boys who would grow to devote their lives to rigid study and P08 0680 prayer. I said, "How long do they keep that up"? P08 0690 "All day", she said. "Except for Shabbat, when they are praying P08 0700 all day". I rubbed my hands together. They had turned P08 0710 numb and prickly in the classroom. The old man in the baggy clothes P08 0720 waited at the foot of the steps. He glanced down into his beard and P08 0730 muttered something in Yiddish. Rachel said, "He asks for money". P08 0740 She passed by him. I reached into the pocket of my skirt, P08 0750 fingered ten pruta, and dropped the coin. Then I picked it up P08 0760 again and handed it to the old man. He thanked me. I didn't look at P08 0770 him. I grinned at Rachel. "Does this bother you"? I P08 0780 said. She smiled to herself. "Most of our Sabras think it's P08 0790 horrible. When we were fighting, a few of our orthodox people were P08 0800 lying down in the roads so we could not pass. They said that we must P08 0810 not fight but wait for the Messiah". I was amazed. You P08 0820 had to have convictions to lie down in the road in all those clothes and P08 0830 appear as though you might wish to turn yourself out of your own home. P08 0840 You had to be stupid or crazy or immortal. And I wasn't. I was P08 0850 American. You had to know, also, that you were going to fail. All P08 0860 of it might have been heroic, but they had done it in the wrong place. P08 0870 I resented them. Rachel faced me. Her bright eyes were twinkling. P08 0880 She said, "Sometimes I think they are keeping religion for P08 0890 us while we play around. Your mother hated this way of life. She P08 0900 wished to change much for the children here". I said quietly, P08 0910 respectfully, "What did she do here? In this section"? P08 0920 Rachel P08 0930 clicked her tongue behind her teeth. "Here, nothing. But when P08 0940 she saw the children you have just visited, she wanted to take them away P08 0950 and put them out in the country, in the kibbutzim. She loved the children. P08 0960 She was a strange woman, your mother. When she loved, it was P08 0970 with a passion that drove her along and carried along with her those P08 0980 things she loved. Nothing was too impossible for her to do when she P08 0990 wanted. She stayed here to work for Aliah. For many immigrants, for P08 1000 many children, the first thing they knew of Israel and freedom was your P08 1010 mother. Sometimes it was dangerous for her". Rachel grinned slyly. P08 1020 "But she loved danger. She took it with her wherever she went; P08 1030 she chose it. And I think she sought out danger as much as she sought P08 1040 out helping other people. She was most strange woman. Ready to P08 1050 follow her impulse. It was an impulse when she was here in Me'a She'arim- P08 1060 I was with her- that led her to stay in Israel. Your P08 1070 mother wanted to bring children to Israel so that they could leave P08 1080 their ghettos. Here they did not need to be in ghettos. If she could P08 1090 not take the children out of this section, at least she could take other P08 1100 children out of their countries and put them on the farms. She set P08 1110 out to make sure that no Jewish child anyplace in the world had to P08 1120 live in a place such as this". I said quietly, gaining nerve, P08 1130 ready to ask any question at all, no matter how intimate, ready to P08 1140 be rebuffed, "Then why did she leave Israel? I'd like to know P08 1150 that very much". Rachel clasped her hands together and slowed P08 1160 her pace. The soles of her sandals reported sharply on the cobblestones. P08 1170 She pursed her lips, then clamped them together so tightly that P08 1180 I thought she was angry with me. But she sighed and her face relaxed. P08 1190 "Trouble came into her life. She had good friends here, people P08 1200 who liked her. Who loved her. But she had to go out and hurt herself. P08 1210 There was a man here in town. He helped her meet people so she could P08 1230 go out and do the work she wanted. She worked very hard. There was P08 1240 a refugee who was able to come here because of her. He came with his P08 1250 son. At first I thought they were relatives of your mother, but it P08 1260 was not so. This refugee was a middle-aged man, a big, handsome man P08 1270 with a strut to his walk as I have never before seen. He had the black P08 1280 numerals on his arm, so he had been branded in a concentration camp. P08 1290 Yet he walked like a young man. Often he was terribly despondent P08 1300 and talked to no one. Then he would walk off for a few days alone in P08 1310 the direction of Europe. All his family was dead, except for his son. P08 1320 Your mother would always retrieve him when he wandered off, and she P08 1330 would send him home to his son. He loved the son and was always glad P08 1340 to be sent back to him. Then his son did something"- Rachel threw P08 1350 up her hands- "I don't know what, but something, to an official P08 1360 here- it was during the Mandate- and the son was imprisoned. A P08 1370 few hours after the son was arrested, your mother was informed. She P08 1380 ran from a little group of us. We were sitting together, talking. She P08 1390 went to the father and found he had hanged himself". Rachel paused. P08 1400 It was silent in the stone alley. Then she continued with energy, P08 1410 "I myself did not see her until a week after she had run off to find P08 1420 the father. No one saw her except the man Reuveni". "Yes", P08 1421 I said. P08 1430 "I know him". Rachel gave me a direct, bright-eyed P08 1440 look. She said, "Reuveni wanted your mother to give up her deep P08 1450 interest in this refugee. He said she would only hurt herself. He complained P08 1460 to me once that I must talk to her. When I did, she shrugged P08 1470 her shoulders and said that Reuveni wanted her to marry him. I asked P08 1480 her if she would, and she said she would not. He had known when P08 1490 he first helped her to meet the right people and work with them that she P08 1500 did not intend to marry him. Anyway, I did not see her until two P08 1510 weeks after the refugee hanged himself. She came to me one day. She P08 1520 was pale and skinny; she was terribly alone. And she said that after P08 1530 this man had been dead for a week she had gone to Reuveni and accepted P08 1540 his proposal. He shouted at her and told her he loved her and couldn't P08 1550 understand why she had upset herself. But now he was happy she P08 1560 would let him straighten out her life and take care of her. He would P08 1570 never let her harm herself again. For one whole week he never let her P08 1580 stay alone. She let him lead her around. He took her to a doctor, P08 1590 for she was run down, nervous, did not care where she was. Reuveni took P08 1600 her with him wherever he went. He did not let her talk to people; P08 1610 he did not let her choose her own food. She was limp and beaten from P08 1620 her loss; she did not care. P09 0010 "And I'll take you with me". The two of them against the world. P09 0020 That had been how she imagined it. For when he began to talk and P09 0030 dream all at the same time, making his plans as he went, she had begun P09 0040 dreaming too. But now the dream was over. The big waking up had happened. P09 0050 "What did I imagine"? she thought. "Did I see P09 0060 him about to swing low in a chariot? Or maybe poling up the south P09 0070 fork of the Forked Deer River braving the wastes dumped in it? Maybe P09 0080 I saw him on a barge with a gang of Ethiopians poling it". P09 0090 . He had taken her all right. P09 0100 Wednesday nights after youth fellowship. Out of the church and into P09 0110 his big car, it tooling over the road with him driving and the headlights P09 0120 sweeping the pike ahead and after he hit college, his expansiveness, P09 0130 the quaint little pine board tourist courts, cabins really, with a P09 0140 cute naked light bulb in the ceiling (unfrosted and naked as a streetlight, P09 0150 like the one on the corner where you used to play when you were P09 0160 a kid, where you watched the bats swooping in after the bugs, watching P09 0170 in between your bouts at hopscotch), a room complete with moths pinging P09 0180 the light and the few casual cockroaches cruising the walls, an insect P09 0190 Highway Patrol with feelers waving. And the bed that sagged in P09 0200 a certain place where all the weight had been put too many times before P09 0210 and the walls fine and thin for overhearing talk in the next room when P09 0220 Gratt went out for ice, the sound coming through the walls like something P09 0230 on the other side of the curtain, so you knew they heard P09 0240 when were quiet and while you lay wondering what they had P09 0250 heard you listened. And Gratt Shafer would be in Memphis today P09 0260 for the wedding rehearsal and then tomorrow he would marry just like P09 0270 everybody knew he would, just like everybody knew all along. Like P09 0280 Mattie and the mayor up there gripping the microphone and Toonker Burkette P09 0290 back in his office yanking out teeth, like they all knew he would. P09 0300 Just like the balloon would go up and you could sit all day and P09 0310 wish it would spring a leak or blow to hell up and burn and nothing like P09 0320 that would happen. Or you could hope the parachute wouldn't open P09 0330 just so you could say you saw it not open, not because you meant any P09 0331 harm to Starkey P09 0340 Poe in his suit of red underwear, but mainly because P09 0350 you were tired of being an old maid- a thing which cannot admit when P09 0360 it thinks it might be pregnant, but must stand the dizzy feeling all P09 0370 alone and go on like everything is all right instead of being able to P09 0380 say to somebody in a normal voice: "I think I'm pregnant". P09 0390 You could wish that. Or you could wish your daddy would really do it- P09 0400 kill Gratt Shafer like he said when you all the time, all along, P09 0410 could feel the nerve draining out of him like air out of a punctured P09 0420 tire when you are on a muddy road alone and it is raining and at night. P09 0430 So you sit in the car and listen to the air run out and listen to P09 0440 the rain and see the mud in front of the headlights, waiting for you, P09 0450 for your new spectator pumps, waiting for you to squat by yourself out P09 0460 there in your tight skirt, crying and afraid and trying to get that damned P09 0470 son-of-a-bitch tire off, because that is being an old maid too, P09 0480 if you happen to drive a car, it is changing the tire yourself in the P09 0490 night, and in the mud and the rain, hating to get out in it but afraid P09 0500 to stay and afraid to try to walk out for help. And every sound that P09 0510 might be the rain also might be the man who thinks after he has raped P09 0520 you he has to beat your brains out with a tire tool so you won't tell, P09 0530 a combination like ham and eggs, and that P09 0540 is being an old maid too. It is not having his baby nestled warm P09 0550 and fat against your breast and it is not having somebody that really P09 0560 gives a damn whether some tramp cracks your skull. And most of all it P09 0570 is not having the only man you could love, whether he drives a bread P09 0580 truck or delivers the mail or checks the berry crates down at the sheds, P09 0590 or owns seventeen oil wells and six diamond mines, for if you P09 0600 anybody what he or makes no difference if he is the P09 0610 . He can even be a mild-voiced little-town guy with big-town P09 0620 ideas and level gray eyes and a heart even Houdini couldn't figure P09 0630 out, how it is unlocked. And he can be on the way to Memphis, your P09 0640 Gratt Shafer can, and you discover you can stay alive and hate him and P09 0650 love him and want him even if it means you want him- - dead. Because if you can't then nobody else can either, P09 0670 nobody else can have him. For you don't share him, not even with God. P09 0680 If it is love, you don't. . P09 0690 Even if that's all the promise he ever gave or ever will give, P09 0700 the giving of it once was enough and you believed it then and you will P09 0710 always believe it, even when it is finally the only thing in the world P09 0720 you have left to believe, and the whole world is telling you that P09 0730 was a lie. Even when he is on the way to Memphis you will still P09 0740 have the promise resting inside you like a gift, and it is he inside P09 0750 of you. And in a way the promise works out true, for whether he wants P09 0760 you or not, you go with him in your heart. You feel him every mile P09 0780 further away. You feel where he is and what he sees, and at night you P09 0790 feel when he is asleep or with the other woman, the one that never could P09 0800 love him the way you do, the one who got him because she didn't P09 0810 particularly give a damn whether she got him or didn't. And you know P09 0820 you will always wonder all of your life whether it was because you wanted P09 0830 him so bad that you didn't get him, and you can feel nearly sorry P09 0840 enough to cry when you think of that other guy, the chump who begged P09 0850 you to marry him, the one with the plastered hair and the car he couldn't P09 0860 afford and the too-shiny shoes. You think: "Did he feel P09 0870 that way about me"? It comes to you that probably he did feel that P09 0871 way P09 0880 to let you use him like you did when you couldn't have Gratt Shafer; P09 0890 that he must have since he was there like the radio for you to P09 0900 turn on or snap off when you got tired of him, that other guy. It dawns P09 0910 on you that instead of a lump to fill the seat across the bridge table P09 0920 from you, he was a man, and that because Gratt Shafer was making P09 0930 you miserable, you were passing it down to him, to Gratt Shafer's P09 0940 substitute, that other guy. And you wonder if that is why the little P09 0950 man lost his job and his car and stayed drunk about a year before he P09 0960 straightened out and moved to St& Louis, where he got to be a big P09 0970 unhappy success. You wonder if he looks at his wife now and thinks of P09 0980 you. You wonder about the Christmas card with no name on it, and it P09 0990 comes to you that maybe it would have been better to have made somebody P09 1000 else happy if you couldn't be happy yourself, to give somebody else P09 1010 the one they wanted- to give them you. "Damn the world", P09 1020 she thought. She looked out at the corn field, the great green deep P09 1030 acres of it rolled out like the sea in the field beyond the whitewashed P09 1040 fence bordering the grounds. The mayor envisioned factories there. P09 1050 Homes and factories and schools and a big wide federal highway, instead P09 1060 of peaceful corn to rest your eyes on while you tried to rest your P09 1070 heart, while you tried not to look at the balloon and the bandstand P09 1080 and the uniforms and the flash of the instruments. The bands were impatient, P09 1090 but they were the only ones. The others, the ones in the stands, P09 1100 were spellbound, for hearing the mayor was for them like listening P09 1110 to a symphony was for sophisticated folks in New York City. It was P09 1120 like being in the concert hall in the afternoon and hearing the piano P09 1130 virtuoso rehearsing. He was good and they knew that what he was doing P09 1140 for them he would do all over the United States some day. So they P09 1150 stayed quiet and hung not on what he said but on how he said it, not P09 1160 listening exactly, but rather, . If a man was good, if he P09 1170 was going to be governor, you felt it and you wanted him to go on forever. P09 1180 You were sorry when he finished talking because while he was up P09 1190 there you were someone else and the world was something else too. It P09 1200 was a place full of courage and hope and you were part of it. You P09 1210 laughed and then your chest swelled and you felt you could cry for a little P09 1220 bit, and then a feeling hit you like a chill in your stomach and P09 1230 the goose bumps rippled along your arm. He hit the theme about dying P09 1240 to defend your country, and you were ready to do it right then, without P09 1250 a second thought. While he talked you wouldn't trade being a West P09 1260 Tennessee farmer for being anything else in the whole damned world, P09 1270 no matter if it hadn't, in six weeks, rained enough to wet a rat's P09 1280 ass. She glanced at the man nodding beside her, a man with P09 1290 weather cracks furrowed into his lean cheeks, with powdery pale eyes reflecting P09 1300 all the droughts he had seen, reflecting the sky and the drought P09 1310 which must follow now in August- yes, with eyes predicting the P09 1320 drought and here it was only June, only festival time again and thoughts P09 1330 of Gratt Shafer would not leave her. "I should have stayed at P09 1340 the store", she thought. Back at the Factory-to-You with P09 1350 the other old maids, back there she was the youngest clerk and she was P09 1360 thirty-four, which made her young enough to resent the usual ideal working P09 1370 conditions, like the unventilated toilet with the door you had P09 1380 to hold shut while you sat down. There was no lock because Herman didn't P09 1390 allow a lock. A lock on the toilet would encourage malingering P09 1400 and primping. The toilet hadn't had a sincere scrubbing in years and P09 1410 there were things written on the walls of the little boxed-in place P09 1420 because you couldn't keep the public out- entirely. She could not P09 1430 count the times Herman had rapped on the door, just a couple of bangs P09 1440 that shook the whole damned closet and might, someday, break away the P09 1450 pipe connections from the wall. The two little bangs meant that he P09 1460 was getting impatient to have a crowd of customers waited on and that P09 1470 if he had to he would jerk open the door and drag out, by the opposite P09 1480 door handle which she would be clutching, whichever-the-hell clerk it P09 1490 was who thought she could waste so much store time on the pot. P09 1500 And the hours were six-thirty in the morning until eleven at night P09 1510 on Saturdays and during sales, and there were no chairs and you couldn't P09 1520 smoke and the cooling was overhead fans and there was no porter P09 1530 or janitor. P10 0010 Among us, we three handled quite a few small commissions, from P10 0020 spot drawings for advertising agencies uptown to magazine work and quick P10 0030 lettering jobs. Each of us had his own specialty besides. George P10 0040 did wonderful complicated pen-and-ink drawings like something out of a P10 0041 medieval P10 0050 miniature: hundreds of delicate details crammed into an eight-by-ten P10 0060 sheet and looking as if they had been done under a jeweler's P10 0070 glass. He also drew precise crisp spots, which he sold to various literary P10 0080 and artistic journals, for instance, or P10 0090 . I did book jackets and covers for paperback reprints: P10 0100 naked girls huddling in corners of dingy furnished rooms while at the P10 0110 doorway, daring the cops to take him, is the guy in shirt sleeves clutching P10 0120 a revolver. The book could be but P10 0130 it would still have the same jacket illustration. I remember once I P10 0140 did a jacket for Magpie Press; the book was a fine historical novel P10 0150 about Edward /3,, and I did a week of research to get the details P10 0160 just right: the fifteenth-century armor, furnishings, clothes. I P10 0170 even ferreted out the materials from which shields were made- linden P10 0180 wood covered with leather- so I'd get the light reflections accurate. P10 0190 McKenzie, the art editor, took one look at my finished sketch P10 0200 and said, "Nothing doing, Rufus. In the first place, it's static; P10 0210 in the second place, it doesn't look authentic; and in the third P10 0220 place, it would cost a fortune to reproduce in the first place- P10 0230 you've got six colors there including gold". I said, "Mr& McKenzie, P10 0240 it is as authentic as careful research can make it". He P10 0250 said, "That may be, but it isn't authentic the way think. P10 0260 They know from their researches into television and the movies that P10 0270 knights in the middle ages had beautiful flowing haircuts like Little P10 0280 Lord Fauntleroy, and only the villains had beards. And girls couldn't P10 0290 have dressed like that- it isn't transparent enough". P10 0300 In the end, I did the same old picture, the naked girl and the guy in P10 0310 the doorway, only I put a Lord Byron shirt on the guy, gave him a P10 0320 sword instead of a pistol, and painted in furniture from the stills of P10 0330 a costume movie. McKenzie was as happy as a clam. " P10 0340 authenticity", he said. As for Donald, he actually sold paintings. P10 0350 We all painted in our spare time, and we had all started as P10 0360 easel painters with scholarships, but he was the only one of us who made P10 0370 any regular money at it. Not much; he sold perhaps three or four P10 0380 a year, and usually all to Joyce Monmouth or her friends. He had style, P10 0390 a real inner vision of his very own. It was strange stuff- it P10 0400 reminded me of the pictures of a child, but a child who has never played P10 0410 with other kids and has lived all its life with adults. There was P10 0420 the freshness of color, the freedom of perception, the lack of P10 0425 self-consciousness, P10 0430 but with a twist that made the forms leap from the page and P10 0440 smack you in the eye. We used to kid him by saying he only painted P10 0450 that way because he was so nearsighted. It may have been true for all P10 0460 I know, because his glasses were like the bottoms of milk bottles, P10 0470 but it didn't prevent the paintings from being exciting. He also had, P10 0480 at times, an uncanny absent-minded air like a sleepwalker; he would P10 0490 look right through you while you were talking to him, and if you said, P10 0500 "For Christ's sake, Donald, you've got Prussian blue all P10 0510 over your shirt", he would smile, and nod, and an hour later the paint P10 0520 would be all over his pants as well. Mrs& Monmouth thought of P10 0530 him as her discovery, and she paid two to three hundred dollars for a P10 0540 painting. It was all gravy, and Donald didn't need much to live on; P10 0550 none of us did. We shared the expenses of the studio, and we all P10 0560 lived within walking distance of it, in cheap lodgings of one kind or P10 0570 another. Attending the life class was my idea- or rather, Askington's P10 0580 idea, but I was ripe for it, and the other two wouldn't P10 0590 have gone if I hadn't talked them into it. I wanted to paint again. P10 0600 I hadn't done a serious picture in almost a year. It wasn't P10 0610 just the pressure of work, although that was the excuse I often used, P10 0620 even to myself. It was the kind of work I was doing, the quality of P10 0630 the ambition it awoke in me, that kept me from painting. I kept saying, P10 0640 "If I could just build up a reputation for myself, make some P10 0650 money, get to be well known as an illustrator- like Peter Askington, P10 0660 for instance- then I could take some time off and paint". P10 0670 Askington was a kind of goal I set myself; I had admired him P10 0680 long before I talked to him. It looked to me as though he had everything P10 0690 an artist could want, joy in his work, standing in the profession, P10 0700 a large and steady income. The night we first met, at one of Mrs& P10 0710 Monmouth's giant parties, he was wearing a brown cashmere jacket P10 0720 with silver buttons and a soft pink Viyella shirt; instead of a necktie P10 0730 he wore a leather bolo drawn through a golden ring in which was set P10 0740 a lump of pale pure jade. This set his tone: richness of texture P10 0750 and color, and another kind of richness as well, for his clothing and P10 0760 decorations would have paid the Brush-off's rent for a year. He was P10 0770 fifteen years older than I- forty-four- but full of spring and P10 0780 sparkle. He didn't look like what I thought of as an old man, and P10 0790 his lively and erudite speech made him seem even younger. He was one P10 0800 of the most prominent magazine illustrators in America; you saw one P10 0810 of his paintings on the cover of one or another of the slick national P10 0820 magazines every month. had included him in its "Modern American P10 0830 Artists" series and had photographed him at his studio in P10 0840 the East Sixties; the corner of it you could see in the photograph P10 0850 looked as though it ought to have Velasquez in it painting the royalty P10 0860 of Spain. I had a long talk with him. We went into Mrs& P10 0870 Monmouth's library, which had low bookshelves all along the walls, P10 0880 and above them a Modigliani portrait, a Jackson Pollock twelve feet P10 0890 long, and a gorgeous Miro with a yellow background, that looked like P10 0900 an inscription from a Martian tomb. The fireplace had tiles made P10 0910 for Mrs& Monmouth by Picasso himself. Like certain expensive restaurants, P10 0920 just sitting there gave you the illusion of being wealthy yourself. P10 0930 In the course of our talk, Askington mentioned that he P10 0940 spent part of each week studying. "By yourself"? I asked. "No, P10 0950 I take classes with different people", he said. "I don't P10 0960 think I've reached the point, yet, where I can say I know everything P10 0970 I ought to know about the craft. Besides, it's important to the P10 0980 way a painter thinks that he should move in a certain atmosphere, an P10 0990 atmosphere in which he may absorb the ideas of other masters, as Du^rer P10 1000 went to Italy to meet Bellini and Mantegna". He made P10 1010 a circle with his thumb and fingers. "Painting isn't this big, P10 1020 you know. It doesn't embrace only the artist, alone before his easel. P10 1030 It is as large as all of art, interdependent, varied, multitudinous". P10 1040 He threw his arms wide, his face shining. "The artist is like P10 1050 a fragment of a mosaic- no, he is more than that, a virtuoso performer P10 1060 in some vast philharmonic. One of these days, I'm going to organize P10 1070 a gigantic exhibition that will span everything that's being P10 1080 painted these days, from extreme abstract expressionism to extreme photorealism, P10 1090 and then you'll be able to see at a glance how much artists P10 1100 have in common with each other. The eye is all, inward or outward. P10 1110 Ah, what a title for the exhibition: The Eye is All"! P10 1120 "What do you study"? I asked. I was fascinated; just listening P10 1130 to him made me feel intelligent. "I'm studying anatomy P10 1140 with Burns", he replied. "Maybe you know him. He teaches at P10 1150 the Manhattan School of Art". I nodded. I had studied with Burns P10 1160 ten years before, during the scholarship year the Manhattan gave me, P10 1170 along with the five-hundred-dollar prize for my paintings of bums on P10 1180 Hudson Street. Burns and I had not loved each other. "I'm also P10 1190 studying enameling with Hajime Iijima", he went on, "and twice P10 1200 a week I go to a life class taught by Pendleton". "Osric P10 1210 Pendleton"? I said. "My God, is he still alive? He must P10 1220 be a million years old. I went to a retrospective of his work when P10 1230 I was eighteen, and I thought he was a contemporary of Cezanne's". P10 1240 "Not quite". Askington laughed. "He's about sixty, P10 1250 now. Still painting, still a kind of modern impressionist, beautiful P10 1260 canvases of mountains and farms. He even makes the city look like P10 1270 one of Thoreau's hangouts. I've always admired him, and when I P10 1280 heard he was taking a few pupils, I went to him and joined his class". P10 1290 "Yes, it sounds great", I said, "but suppose you P10 1300 don't think of yourself as an impressionist painter"? "You're P10 1310 missing the point", he said. "He has the magical eye. And P10 1320 he is a great man. Contact with him is stimulating. And that's P10 1330 the trouble with so many artists today. They lack stimulation. They P10 1331 sit P10 1340 alone in their rooms and try to paint, and only succeed in isolating P10 1350 themselves still farther from life. That's one of the reasons art P10 1360 is becoming a useless occupation. In the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, P10 1370 right up to the early nineteenth century, the painter was a giant P10 1380 in the world. He was an artisan, a man who studied his trade and P10 1390 developed his craftsmanship the way a goldsmith or a wood carver did. P10 1400 He filled a real need, showing society what it looked like, turning P10 1410 it inside out, portraying its wars and its leaders, its ugliness and its P10 1420 beauties, reflecting its profound religious impulses. He was a propagandist- P10 1430 they weren't afraid of the word, then- satirist, nature P10 1440 lover, philosopher, scientist, what you will, a member of every party P10 1450 and of no party. But look at us today! We hold safe little jobs P10 1460 illustrating tooth-paste ads or the salacious incidents in trivial novels, P10 1470 and most of our easel painting is nothing but picking the fluff out P10 1480 of the navel so it can be contemplated in greater purity. A bunch P10 1490 of amateur dervishes! What we need is to get back to the group, to P10 1500 learning and apprenticeship, to the cafe and the school". He P10 1510 could certainly talk. The upshot of the evening was that I got the P10 1520 address of Pendleton's studio- or rather, of the studio in which P10 1530 he gave his classes, for he didn't work there himself- and joined P10 1540 the life class, which met every Tuesday and Thursday from ten to twelve P10 1550 in the morning. It was an awkward hour, but I didn't have to P10 1560 punch any time clock, and it only meant that sometimes I had to stay P10 1570 a P10 1580 couple of hours later at the drawing board to finish up a job. After P10 1590 a short time, both George and Donald joined the class with me so they P10 1610 wouldn't feel lonely, and we used to hang a sign on the door of the P10 1620 Brush-off reading OUT TO WORK. It was mostly for the benefit of P10 1630 the mailman, because hardly anybody else ever visited us. In P10 1640 a way, Askington was right. "Stimulating" was the word for it. P10 1650 I don't know that it was always as rewarding as I had expected it P10 1660 to be. Partly, it was because Pendleton himself wasn't what I anticipated. P10 1670 I had come prepared to worship at the feet of this classic, P10 1680 and he turned out to be a rather bitter old man who smelled of dead cigars. P10 1690 No, that isn't quite fair. Actually, there was a lot P10 1700 of force in him, which is why I kept on in that class instead of quitting P10 1710 after a week. P11 0010 ## SUCH a little thing to start with- the car registration. P11 0020 "Ida, where is the car license"? she asked. "I can't P11 0030 find it in the glove compartment". "Via must have it", P11 0040 I answered readily enough, recalling her last visit. "Via", P11 0050 she was frowning. "Why should Via have it"? Had P11 0060 she forgotten she had signed the car away, that whatever they mutually P11 0070 owned had been divided among the children? I was silent. I P11 0080 didn't want to stir things up. "I drive my own car by courtesy P11 0090 of Via"? "I'm sure she'd turn it over to you, P11 0100 if you'd rather. You know that". She looked as if she were P11 0110 accusing me of some fraud. "She must have taken the registration P11 0120 when she went to Walter's. I'll call her". "No, P11 0130 thank you. I want nothing of Via's". Why should this P11 0140 suddenly assail her? Walter was giving me checks for my pay, the P11 0150 household bills. Had she been in such a turmoil that this had slipped P11 0160 her mind? "What a fool I've been", she said quietly. P11 0170 "I knew all this, but I paid no attention. I don't even own the P11 0180 house I'm standing in. I was so sure it was all temporary **h that P11 0190 we would all embrace, and then the lawyer would tear up all those things P11 0200 **h "It narrows down down down and finally there is no P11 0210 way out. If I am not to be Mrs& Salter I am nothing". P11 0220 I suppose I should have paid attention to that half-murmured remark, P11 0230 but it seemed one of those extreme statements women under stress indulge P11 0240 in. I love you, I hate you, I feel like killing you and myself, P11 0250 and in the same sequence I love you I think you're the most wonderful P11 0260 the most noble and so on and on, meanwhile eating a good breakfast P11 0270 and dinner and enjoying living. So I went about my business. I made P11 0280 a lemon sponge, a light dessert, roasted a chicken, parboiled some P11 0290 frozen vegetables, so there would be something nice in the icebox for P11 0300 the weekend. "Don't bother, Ida", she said. "I have these P11 0310 appointments in town for Saturday, and I'll probably spend Sunday P11 0320 with Dolly or the Thaxters". At last, I thought, she's P11 0330 recovering her spirits. With this movie-to-be in London, and new faces P11 0340 about her there, she would soon be a more tranquil, a wiser person, P11 0350 all the better for her stay out here. I felt more cheerful, as if I P11 0360 had had a part in bringing her through to a greater tolerance of herself. P11 0370 And I went back to my own cottage to live my own little patch P11 0380 of life. It was foggy that evening, but the path to my house was P11 0390 so well grooved that I could feel my way, accustomed as I was to P11 0400 the dense mists that rise from the sun-warmed palisades of the river P11 0410 and sometimes last for days. In the morning the fog was still thick P11 0420 so that to go to the village I crept along with my headlights full on. P11 0430 I did notice a twinkle of light from the big house through the P11 0440 woods but as I had left a light on in my own house because of the P11 0450 fog I assumed Mrs& Salter had done the same before she left for P11 0460 town. I did my shopping, had my dentist appointment, and from there I P11 0470 went to the women's lunch at our parish church where we discussed P11 0480 plans for the annual Christmas bazaar, so that dusk was beginning to P11 0490 gather when I drove home in the late afternoon. But the next P11 0500 day- Sunday. Why, when I drove down to church, didn't it speak P11 0510 to me, seeing the lights still on and the day crisp and clear? Prisoners P11 0520 brought to the dock accused of murder or accident say they cannot P11 0530 remember, and reading the accounts of their testimony you cannot believe P11 0540 that the mind can remove, absent itself, unsee. When I came back P11 0550 from church at noon Mrs& Thaxter was turning into the Salter driveway. P11 0560 Even at a car's length I could sense that something was wrong, P11 0570 and so I followed her up to the turnaround in front of the house. P11 0580 Dolly Engisch was waiting there on the steps and she came P11 0590 running toward us. "She's nowhere, nowhere"! she screamed, P11 0600 and both women ran up to the house, and I followed. The P11 0610 search began, in all the rooms, running upstairs, down, opening closets, P11 0620 talking, exclaiming in rushes and gasps. Everything was as P11 0630 I had left it the night before last- her portfolio and bag for town, P11 0640 her lingerie and dress and shoes laid out **h only her mink coat was P11 0650 missing. And she. Then the telephoning began. I, who until P11 0660 that day before had been Mrs& Salter's friend, her equal, was the P11 0670 servant now. It was Dolly and Mrs& Thaxter who were calling Via, P11 0680 everybody. And when they spoke they spoke to each other and not P11 0690 to me. And after I brought them sandwiches and coffee I had to go back P11 0700 to my place in the kitchen and wait. Sitting in the kitchen P11 0710 I recalled every word Mrs& Salter said that could have been a sign P11 0720 to me. "If I am not to be Mrs& Salter then I am nothing". P11 0730 Why didn't that alarm me then? And when she returned from taking P11 0740 her guests back to New York she had said, "All they talked about P11 0750 was Harvie **h Harvie this, Harvie that **h When they know the P11 0760 truth will they drop away from me, will I become a nothing"? And P11 0770 then I remembered a few years before after their return from a short P11 0780 trip to Rome I had heard her boast, over and over again, "On the P11 0790 boat people liked me for myself". I had made a habit of calling P11 0800 her at night from my cottage, just to check. The last night I P11 0810 had called, but the line was always busy and it reassured me. I assumed P11 0820 it was one of those hour-long conversations with Dolly or Constance, P11 0830 she comfortable in bed. But it seemed not from what they were saying. P11 0840 Then was it a final desperate plea from her, to whom? **h hanging P11 0850 on and on past any man's patience **h some final stab of conclusion? P11 0860 @ She was found the day after at the bottom of the cliff. P11 0870 I tried to believe that what must have happened was that, restless, P11 0880 disturbed by this telephone call or whatever, she walked out in the P11 0890 night, as she had a habit of doing. Sometimes she took the path that P11 0900 winds up around my cottage to the walk at the edge of the cliff. It's P11 0910 so romantic up there, she used to say, with the broad river gleaming P11 0920 in its moontrack like an enormous dark mirror and all the sounds of P11 0930 the night, so poetic. With all that warm rain and the fog it might have P11 0940 been as simple as a loosened rock, a misstep. But I didn't P11 0950 really think it was as simple as that, nor did anyone else. When a P11 0960 fisherman brought her up in his arms, still, small, as if she were a P11 0970 child asleep, I began to shudder with a terrible excitement, almost triumphant, P11 0980 that I still cannot account for. Was it a hysterical release P11 0990 from the long strain of vigilance of those weeks? that at last the P11 1000 vigilance, the will gives way? Or what was it that, before Via, P11 1010 Sonny, Walter and all, I began almost to dance with shuddering and P11 1020 cry out, "I knew she'd do it! I knew"! Everyone stared P11 1030 at me and drew back. Their eyes turned cold and accusing, even P11 1040 Via's. And they have never changed. At the same time that P11 1045 I thought P11 1050 I understood her at long last and pitied her, underneath this knowing P11 1060 had there burned unquenched by my pity a fire of hate, an enduring P11 1070 envy that burst out in that ghastly outcry? Was that what had given P11 1080 way in me? Even now I am appalled at how little anyone knows P11 1090 of what they really are. It is absurd of course to say that that one P11 1100 exclamation estranged me from the family I considered my very own, but P11 1110 there it hangs, a cooling void that broke our close connection with P11 1120 each other. At the time I was filled with self-pity at this separation, P11 1130 but in the years since I have come to understand that the sight P11 1140 of me was painful to them after that outcry. In my person they would P11 1150 always remember that last long time of me alone with her, so if they P11 1160 told themselves that I could have prevented it, I can understand that P11 1170 by now and love them still, because everyone must justify, have a scapegoat P11 1180 for what is not to be borne. It is not their avoidance P11 1190 that rankles; it is when I meet someone who was a close friend of P11 1200 the P11 1210 family, and therefore of mine, and they nod to me so coolly and walk P11 1215 away, P11 1220 that it hurts. I could tell them, but no one ever asked, why I had P11 1230 cried out so triumphantly at the sight of her body. No, I forget P11 1240 Mrs& Mathias, who had been away visiting a married daughter when P11 1250 it happened. She haunted me; she persisted in explaining how and why P11 1260 she had advised Mrs& Salter to return to the country. "We P11 1270 all feel guilty", I turned away from her coldly. "It was nobody's P11 1280 fault. She overplayed her hand". "What do you mean"? P11 1290 she frowned. "Why put such a high value on being top P11 1300 dog"? I added. It was coarse, almost insulting, this harsh appraisal, P11 1310 and she has never come to see me since. But suppose she P11 1320 had not taken Mrs& Mathias' advice and lived on like thousands P11 1330 of women in towns, dispossessed of love, hanging on to makeshifts, and P11 1340 altogether and finally arid. If she chose, and in that final decision P11 1350 discarded, what, above all, all of us value, life itself, must she P11 1360 not have risen to her fullest height, and transcending her murky self, P11 1370 felt at last the passion of a great moral decision? If they say I P11 1380 could have stopped her it is because they are ignorant of her last weeks P11 1390 of self-examination, her search into herself and its conclusions. P11 1400 Yes, I had cried out that I knew she'd do it, but without P11 1410 my fully realizing it at the time, it was a cry of triumph for her, praise P11 1420 at her deliverance from pettiness and greed- and guilt. She was P11 1430 finally at rest in truth, of her own proud free choice. At rest with P11 1440 my darling Ellen, the first Mrs& Salter. ## MR& SALTER P11 1450 came home. The funeral service was in the house, the Methodist minister, P11 1460 how clean and glistening his eyeglasses and his neat body standing P11 1470 beside that coffin with that doll inside, a stranger speaking to P11 1480 strangers the old sacred words, and the rain drumming incessantly in P11 1490 accompaniment, seven days of relentless rain that turned the ground to P11 1500 mud so the burial had to be postponed. I waited. Then Via called to P11 1510 say they had decided to cremate her- as they had Ellen, the thought P11 1520 leaped to my mind- and did I want to meet her at the funeral home P11 1530 the next morning. The coffin stood on trestles in a corner of P11 1540 the long low dimly lit funeral parlor, on its dark shining surface the P11 1550 sheaf of white roses I had ordered. I knelt, just for decency I P11 1560 thought at the time, but found myself whispering, "Our Father which P11 1570 Art in Heaven **h" And it was only after that that something unlocked P11 1580 in me and I felt a grief. Via was in the parking lot when P11 1590 I went outside. Together we waited in her car until the hearse moved P11 1600 out and we followed it down into the heavy traffic of New Jersey. P11 1610 By the time we arrived and entered the building sacred music P11 1620 was already swelling out into the chapel-like auditorium with its discreet P11 1630 symbols of religious faiths. Again I felt impelled to kneel, P11 1640 and reached back and pulled Via down. Something would come into her P11 1650 heart **h if nothing else the sounds of Bach would give her some healing. P12 0010 "I had a rather small place of my own. A nice bachelor apartment in P12 0020 a place called the Lancaster Arms". "Uhhu", she said, P12 0030 hardly listening as she studied her left eyelid. "And then P12 0040 I had another place farther downtown I used as a studio". P12 0050 "Uhhu". "I'm not a man who has many close intimate friends, P12 0060 Carla", he said, wanting her to know all about him. "Oh, P12 0070 I'd drink with newspaper people. I think I was what you might call P12 0080 a convivial man, and yet it was when I was alone in my studio, doing P12 0090 my work, that I really felt alive. But I think a man needs at least P12 0100 one intimate friend to communicate with". Pausing, he waited for P12 0110 her to turn, to ask a question. She showed no interest at all in the P12 0120 life he had led back home, and it hurt him a little. "Well, what P12 0130 about you, Carla"? "Me"? she asked, turning slowly. P12 0140 "What about me"? "Did you make friends easily"? P12 0150 "Umm, uhhu". "Somehow I imagine that as you grew P12 0160 up you were alone a lot. How about it"? "I guess so", P12 0170 she said taking a Kleenex from her purse. When she had wiped some P12 0180 of the lipstick from her mouth, she stared solemnly at her image in the P12 0190 mirror. "Are your people still alive"? he asked, trying P12 0200 to touch a part of her life Alberto hadn't discussed; so he P12 0201 could P12 0210 have something of her for himself. "You talk so well, Carla", P12 0220 he went on. "You seem to have read so much, you have a natural gift P12 0230 for words", he added, trying to flatter her vanity. "You must have P12 0240 been good at history at school. Where did you go to school"? P12 0250 "What is this"? she asked, turning suddenly. "Don't P12 0260 you know all about me by this time? My name's Carla Caneli. This P12 0270 is my town. I sleep with you. You know something more about me every P12 0280 day, don't you? Would you be happier if I made up some stories P12 0290 about my life, told you some lies? Why are you trying to worry P12 0300 me"? "I'm not trying to worry you". "Well, P12 0310 all right then". The cleansing tissues she had been using had P12 0320 been falling on the floor, and he got up and picked up one, then another, P12 0330 hoping she would notice what he was doing. At home he had been P12 0340 a clean orderly man, and now he had to hide his annoyance. Was she just P12 0350 naturally sloppy about everything but her physical appearance? he P12 0360 wondered. Would he have to clean up after her every day, clean the P12 0370 kitchen, the bathroom, and get down on his knees and scrub the kitchen P12 0380 floor, then hang up her dresses, pick up her stockings, make the bed P12 0390 while she lay around? He straightened up, ready to vent his exasperation, P12 0400 then grew afraid. If he dwelt on the indignities he suffered P12 0410 he would lose all respect for her, and without the respect he might lose P12 0420 his view of her, too. "What's the matter"? she asked P12 0430 suddenly. "Nothing. Nothing at all", he said quietly. "Let's P12 0440 go out". "Are those the only shoes you have, Sam"? P12 0450 "What's the matter with them"? "The P12 0460 heavy thick soles. Look at them". "They're an expensive P12 0470 English shoe for walking around a lot. I like them". "Sam, P12 0480 no one around here wears such heavy soles. Can't you get another P12 0490 pair"? "Maybe I could", he said, surprised that she P12 0500 could turn from herself and notice anything about him. "I'll get P12 0510 an elegant pair of thin-soled Italian shoes tomorrow, Carla". P12 0520 "And I don't know why you want to go on wearing that outfit", P12 0530 she said, making a face. "What's the matter with it"? P12 0540 He had put on the gray jacket and the dark-gray slacks and the P12 0550 fawn-colored shirt he had worn that first night in Rome when he had P12 0560 encountered her on the street. "Oh, Sam. You look like a tweedy P12 0570 Englishman. Can't you wear something else and look a little P12 0580 more as though you belonged"? "I don't mind at all", P12 0590 he said, delighted with her attention. Changing his clothes, he put P12 0600 on his dark-blue flannel suit, and laid away the gray jacket with the P12 0610 feeling that he might be putting it aside for good. But it was a hopeful P12 0620 sign, he told himself. She no longer wanted anything about him to P12 0630 remind her of the circumstances of their meeting that first night in P12 0640 Parioli. That day they loafed around, just getting the feel P12 0650 of the city. They looked at the ruins of the old Roman wall on the lower P12 0660 Via Veneto, then they went to the Farnese Gardens. She had some P12 0670 amusing scandal about the Farneses in the old days. Then they took P12 0680 a taxi to Trastevere. "There's a church you should see", she P12 0690 said. And when they stood by the fountain in the piazza looking at P12 0700 Santa Maria he had to keep a straight face, not letting on he had been P12 0710 there with Alberto. He let her tell him all about the church. Then P12 0720 they had dinner. All evening she was eloquent and pleased with herself. P12 0730 When they got home at midnight she was tired out. And in the morning P12 0740 when he woke up at ten the church bells were ringing. He P12 0750 had never heard so many bells, and as he lay there listening, he thought P12 0760 of her scolding him for his remarks when he had looked up at the P12 0770 obelisk and the church at the top of the Spanish Steps. It was a good P12 0780 thing that she clung to her religion, he thought. She might like to P12 0790 take him to St& Peter's. "Carla, wake up", he said P12 0800 shaking her. "It's ten o'clock. Aren't you going out to mass? P12 0810 You could take me to St& Peter's". "Uhhu", she P12 0820 muttered. "Come on, you'll be late". "I think P12 0830 I'll sleep in this morning", she said drowsily, and as she snuggled P12 0840 against him, he wondered if she ever went to church. Why did he P12 0850 want her to go to church? he wondered **h Probably because it was P12 0860 a place where she might get a feeling of certainty and security. It would P12 0870 be good for her. It was too bad he had no feeling himself for church. P12 0880 Not his poor mother's fault. She would have been better off P12 0890 if she had stuck to her Bible. As for himself, he just didn't have P12 0900 the temperament for it. From the time he had been at college he had P12 0910 achieved a certain tranquility and composure by accepting the fact that P12 0920 there were certain things he could never know. Then he thought of those P12 0930 Old Testament figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Just P12 0940 figures out of a tribal folklore. Could he honestly believe it would P12 0950 be good for Carla to have those old prophets gripping her imagination P12 0960 now? Being a woman though, she would take only what she needed P12 0970 from church. It was too bad he wasn't a Catholic himself. Or a P12 0980 Protestant, or one of those amusing dogmatic atheists, or a strict orthodox P12 0990 Communist. What was the matter with him that they all wearied P12 1000 him? It was the times, he was sure. All the ideologies changing from P12 1010 day to day, right under his eyes, so how could a man look to any one P12 1020 of them for an enlargement of his freedom? It was all too wearying. P12 1030 Look somewhere else. But where? Just the same, he thought, pondering P12 1040 over it, it would be a good thing for a girl like Carla if she P12 1050 got up and went to church. A half hour later he got her up to P12 1060 go out for breakfast so the Ferraros, hearing them hurrying down the P12 1070 stairs, would think they were going to a late mass. It seemed to him P12 1080 that if the Ferraros felt sure of them, could place them, it would P12 1090 help him to feel more sure of himself with Carla. "Since we're P12 1100 having coffee with them this afternoon", he said, "I think P12 1110 I'll ask the daughter if we can pay her to come in every day to clean P12 1120 for us". And he waited for her to say, "Oh, no, I can do it, P12 1130 Sam. There's so little to do". "Why not"? she said. P12 1140 "I'm not good at that kind of thing". "This afternoon P12 1150 let's take an air with them. Let's be fine superior people of P12 1160 great dignity", he said as if he were joking. "If P12 1170 find it necessary, Sam, go ahead", she said, turning on the stair. P12 1180 "I am what I am. I can't help it". Her words remained with P12 1190 him, worrying him for hours. He didn't know how she would behave with P12 1200 other people. When they walked into the Ferraro apartment, P12 1210 the old lady, bowing and smiling, said softly. <"Ciao,"> and P12 1211 put P12 1220 out her hand. Her little brown face wrinkled up, her brown eyes gleamed, P12 1230 and with her little gestures she said all the courteous things. Agnese, P12 1240 smiling too, said, "'Ello", and then more slowly, "I P12 1250 am happy". And they sat down and began their little coffee party. P12 1260 The Ferraros offered them biscuits with the coffee. Acting only as P12 1270 interpreter Carla, her hands folded on her lap, was utterly impersonal. P12 1280 She would turn to them, then turn to him, then turn again. Watching P12 1290 her, he felt like a spectator at a tennis game, with the ball being P12 1300 bounced back and forth. Signora Ferraro, bobbing her head encouragingly, P12 1310 asked Sam about Canada, having a special interest. Carla translated. P12 1320 The old woman had a nephew from North Italy, a poor boy from P12 1330 a lumber mill who had got tired of the seasonal unemployment, and who P12 1340 had migrated to Canada to work on the railway. For a year the boy P12 1350 had lived in the bush in a boxcar. Did many of Sam's countrymen live P12 1360 in boxcars in the bush? Had Sam ever lived in a boxcar? she P12 1370 wanted to know. Regretfully Sam explained that he had no experience P12 1380 with boxcars. Just the same, the old woman said, she would write to her P12 1390 nephew in his boxcar and tell him she had met a nice man from his adopted P12 1400 country. And Sam thanked her, and hoped he might meet her nephew P12 1410 back home, and asked her if she had any further news of the Pope. P12 1420 A very great Pope, this one, the old woman explained, her black P12 1430 eyes sparkling. An intellectual. But very mystical too. It was P12 1440 said that he had had a vision. Just as thousands that day in Portugal P12 1450 had seen the sun dancing in the sky, he had seen the same thing later P12 1460 in his own garden, and she turned to Agnese for confirmation. Agnese P12 1470 had been sitting quietly, listening with the serenity of the unaware. P12 1480 Now a little flush came on her pale homely face and enchantment in P12 1490 her eyes. The Holy Father would die soon, she said to Carla, so she P12 1500 could translate for Sam, although he had a brilliant doctor, a man P12 1510 who did not need the assistance of those doctors offered by the great P12 1520 rulers of the world. Yes, the Pope could die and quickly be made a P12 1530 saint. No, he was indeed a saint now. Nodding approvingly and swelling P12 1540 with importance, the old lady whispered confidentially. There was P12 1550 a certain discontent among the cardinals. The Pope, in the splendor P12 1560 of his great intellect, had neglected them a little. There would be changes P12 1570 made, and Signor Raymond should understand that when the Pope P12 1580 died it was like the end of a regime in Rome. Jobs would be lost and P12 1590 new faces would become prominent. Did Signor Raymond understand? P12 1600 Indeed he did, Sam said solemnly, trying to get Carla's P12 1610 eye. Surely she could see that these women were her Italians, too, P12 1620 he thought. Devout, orthodox and plain like a family she might meet in P12 1630 Brooklyn or Malta or Ireland. But Carla; eyes were on Agnese P12 1640 whose glowing face and softening eyes gave her a look of warmth and happiness. P12 1650 And Carla, watching in wonder, turned to Sam. "It means P12 1660 so much to her. It's like a flame, I guess", she said in a dreamy P12 1670 tone. P13 0010 But one night Dookiyoon moved in the direction of the women's P13 0020 lodge, where Shades of Night had gone to purify herself. With P13 0030 the blue flesh of night touching him he stood under a gentle hill P13 0040 caressing the flageolet with his lips, making it whisper. He saw her P13 0050 emerge suddenly, coming in her unhesitant fashion, her back stiff, her P13 0060 head erect, facing with contempt the night and whatever she would encounter, P13 0070 as if in her extreme disdain and indifference she would pass P13 0080 by all the outraged looks of those whom she might approach. In her dark, P13 0090 scornful fashion she proceeded to her destination, afraid of nothing, P13 0100 not even the evil spirits which kept her company in her time of bleeding. P13 0110 Seeing her come, he caught his breath, feeling his heart P13 0120 bounce in him, and turned away, afraid now. Even he, wanting her, P13 0130 afraid of her and not knowing how to press his suit, feared the evil presences P13 0140 in her metabolism more. His breath caught, and, trembling, he P13 0150 closed his eyes and stumbled off. Going, he saw as often before some P13 0160 queer, hideous yellow face over his head, shining and weird like the P13 0165 old images P13 0170 which had invested him at other times like those that appear P13 0180 sometimes near the eyeballs when they are perhaps pressed by the thumbs. P13 0190 He cried out to her, his back turned. Then he fled, not P13 0200 waiting to see if she minded him or took notice of his cry. But P13 0210 she heard him go. Yet she did not hesitate and only turned slightly, P13 0220 her neck tall as she looked in his direction, and continued on her way P13 0230 toward the end of the camp. Elsewhere others heard and stopped P13 0240 and waited, the women peering from their lodges then gathering in P13 0250 small, curious clusters. Early Spring came from her bed, from beside P13 0260 her half-drunk husband, Walitzee, and stood at the entrance way to P13 0270 her lodge hearing the mild commotion, the sound of hushed voices. Standing P13 0280 there she saw Shades of Night come through the trees and stop P13 0290 beside the lodge, silent, almost imperious, her body taut, simply standing P13 0300 without speaking or moving while the wife of Walitzee waited, perhaps P13 0310 denying the dread that moved in her. When at last she could suffer P13 0320 the insult no longer, nor face the girl's scorn, she said in a P13 0330 voice overloud: "I shall call your father! Go back where P13 0340 you can bring no harm, or I will go and get the old man from his bed P13 0350 so he can see your shame"! But the girl said only, "Tell P13 0360 him I am here, that I have come". And it was not Pile of Clouds P13 0370 she meant. But now with real anger at last, something proud P13 0380 and indignant, Early Spring stood like a she wolf before her den P13 0390 and cried, "I will not shriek at you! I will tell you to go, not P13 0400 begging. Telling you"! And unsheathing the knife she used for P13 0410 curing hides she stepped away from the lodge, holding the knife at her P13 0420 side. "You bring only wickedness", she said and it was not P13 0430 to a child any longer but to another woman who had come to skirt her P13 0440 lodge with the cunning hunger of a wild animal. Speaking in a low voice P13 0450 of loathing she went up to the girl, who stood with the same upright, P13 0460 scornful bearing and did not even look at the knife. "Go P13 0470 take your evil spirit, to the young boys", the P13 0480 woman said. "They do not have to face battle. I will not let your P13 0490 evil in. I will simply kill you first. Now go"! The other P13 0500 women had come close now, their voices murmuring together until they P13 0510 stood buzzing in an angry knot, their threats mingling, rising, nagging P13 0520 at each other, each trying to make her indignation and anger felt. P13 0530 They picked up sticks and hurled them at the girl. The sticks fell P13 0540 like a shower around her and she felt them sting her flesh and send tiny P13 0550 points of pain along her thighs. They were all shouting at her as P13 0560 if she were the embodiment of the evil she brought. But she did not P13 0570 move, taking the words and the sticks in that old defiance of her extreme P13 0580 youth until suddenly Pile of Clouds came howling among them, swinging P13 0600 a great bullhide whip. "Go back to your lodges"! he P13 0610 shouted. "A pack of dogs makes less noise"! He made the long P13 0620 whip sing and snap around their heads so that they ran screaming, some P13 0630 tripping over themselves in their flight. And Early Spring seized P13 0640 the whip and said: "If you must flog someone, let it be her, P13 0650 your daughter. Drive the demons out of her and teach her to stay P13 0660 away from my husband"! But the old man turned on her, jerking the P13 0670 whip from her hand. "Get into your hovel"! he spat. "Go P13 0680 back to that double-married man of yours who so parades his fine body P13 0690 among the young women. Keep him back, if you must tell me what to P13 0700 do. I will be the one to confront my daughter, not the wife of him who P13 0710 leads her to sin"! She retreated before the naked shame P13 0720 in the old man and the fury beyond it and sank into the darkness of her P13 0730 lodge where Walitzee stirred, mumbling, sitting up in a half stupor P13 0740 to say: "What worrisome thing happens? I thought I P13 0750 dreamed of wolves fighting". But she went to him and pressed herself P13 0760 against his nakedness, smelling the stale odor of the whisky he had P13 0770 stolen from TuHulHulZote. She said, "There is nothing P13 0780 that concerns you here. Lie back and go to sleep. But do not dream. P13 0790 Do not let the wicked spirits enter your brain". He sank back, P13 0800 sighing, and was soon asleep again. Outside, the old man, P13 0810 beyond all the curses of the spirits his daughter bore, went to her and P13 0820 twisted the gnarled talons of his fingers in her hair and turned her P13 0830 and pushed her rudely ahead of him into the trees where the moon sent P13 0840 out a thousand arms. And, shoving her against a spruce, her back to P13 0850 him, he retreated with the whip and made it whine and crack in the damp P13 0860 air, shortening its arc until it narrowed to her flesh and the sound P13 0870 of it snarled and cracked, settling its own cruel demons on her shoulders P13 0880 while she stood as unchanged, as dark and motionless as ever, her P13 0890 eyes open and staring at the pale delineaments of the bark so close P13 0900 to her face. She said to him, her father, "How was I begotten, P13 0910 in pain or joy? Is it for me to be forbidden the flesh you made P13 0920 grow on me? They all know your foolish name"! She stared P13 0930 at the pale tracings on the tree, hearing her breath refracted from P13 0940 it, her face close and touching at time the rough edges of the bark. P13 0950 She felt the lash bite and heard her father say in crazed monosyllables P13 0960 words which had no meaning, like, "unnnt! **h sssshoo"! The P13 0970 sounds of an animal in rage and despair. Suddenly the lash P13 0980 stopped fighting the air and she heard Pile of Clouds say in his high, P13 0990 quavering voice: "Did you follow me to see my shame? P13 1000 Move from the line or I will settle the whip on you **h. Move! Do P13 1010 you hear the anger of the whip's whine"? Turning, the P13 1020 girl saw Dookiyoon standing between, his narrow shoulders unbent, his P13 1030 arms hanging long and resigned. He said, "Let me take her blows, P13 1040 for there are demons in me too". Then, without knowing why, P13 1050 she found herself running from them, fleeing wildly through the trees, P13 1060 dodging her own shadows until she came to a little hollow in the rocky P13 1070 ground with a big stone in the center behind which she knelt and hid, P13 1080 listening to the madness of her heart and wanting for once to cry. P13 1090 #/2,# For a while the young men waited outside the lodge of Tu P13 1100 Hul Hul Zote, glorying in his harsh language as he talked with himself. P13 1110 He shouted like a hoarse old mastiff, his hair stiff and bristling. P13 1120 He ranted and prophesied the doom of his enemies, walking in circles P13 1130 in and out of his living place, drinking stolen whisky in great, P13 1140 gasping draughts until finally, incoherent and sick, he fell into his P13 1150 own oblivion. He amused the young men who had been silent long enough. P13 1160 But they could taste the appeasement of violence and retribution P13 1170 through his antics. Now they moved, rubbing their flesh alive again, P13 1180 disdaining the gloom they saw in the faces around them. They P13 1190 came out and held their games and races. It was they who held the P13 1200 future in their hands. They went into the sun together and paraded grandly P13 1210 in their war clothes, painting their faces with the sacred P13 1220 dug far off in the cave of skeletons. They danced the P13 1230 wildly at night, the war dance, and dipped their arrowheads in the venom P13 1240 of rattlesnakes and rode their horses in swift maneuvers, firing their P13 1250 few guns in unison at some indeterminate signal. Walitzee P13 1260 was among them, and Sarpsis, and they wore red blankets which flew like P13 1270 broad wings in the air of their passing. And a very young one, Swan P13 1280 Necklace, tried to emulate them and followed timidly. Yellow Wolf P13 1290 was there, nephew of the young chief by an older brother long dead, P13 1300 in whom also the disordered chemistries of youth worked. He would spring P13 1310 bolt upright suddenly after sitting quietly with inaction, because P13 1320 something had boiled over in his fermenting juices. All the P13 1330 young men, Alokut among them, challenged them in matched racing. They P13 1340 raced and maneuvered for war, swinging their horses in single file P13 1350 and then abreast like cavalry. At times they would ride frenziedly through P13 1360 the camp, letting the women see their courage, how handsome they P13 1370 were in their regalia. Then again they would stand in circles making P13 1380 other preparations. They combed their hair and streaked it at the part P13 1390 and greased the bangs so that the hair above their foreheads stood P13 1400 rigid like the tails of sage hens making love. Walitzee whitened P13 1410 his leggings with clay, knowing the girl watched from her place in P13 1420 the trees. He saw himself in a superior reflection, and he was as a P13 1430 speeding arrow from the taut bow, hurtling with a mad grace, his maleness P13 1440 shining and scented with meadow rue. He was always aware of the women's P13 1450 eyes which followed him, admiring him. And the suspicious, envenomed P13 1460 eyes of Pile of Clouds. And those of Early Spring, haunted P13 1470 and now P13 1480 full of hurt and envy. He felt so much like laughing; even P13 1490 like shouting and crying out from the hilltops from which he could descend P13 1500 as an eagle in a mad caper from the cliffs. He and Sarpsis P13 1510 planned a great parade with the young men. They would give one final P13 1520 testimony of their challenge to let the people see their arrogance. P13 1530 They would ride with streaming amulets, their colors ripening in the P13 1540 sun, shouting the last bellicosity of a nation in the throes of death. P13 1550 And so the sun came up again and for a moment its color was P13 1560 the young men's blood, shifting then into the full heat and outcry P13 1570 which ran with their hearts. They mounted their horses and rode off P13 1580 into the hills. #/3,# The young chief stared at the wall of his P13 1590 lodge, listening. The sound rose on the other side of the hills, vanished P13 1600 and rose again and he could imagine the mad, disheveled hoofs of P13 1610 the Appaloosas, horses the white men once had called the Dogs of Hell. P13 1620 He saw them in fleet images as they came rolling and now burst across P13 1630 the ridge. Standing then with the others, peering into the sun, P13 1640 he saw the bright, multicolored legion, their hair flying like dark banners, P13 1650 only the thunder, the roll of drums, the mad cacophony of the P13 1660 hoofs accompanying them. They leaned into the wind and seemed like one P13 1670 thousand-legged monster hurtling and plunging until suddenly they rose P13 1680 straight in their saddles and in one terrifying voice shouted, ejaculated P13 1690 their grotesque cry of war. P14 0010 She was moving through a screen of hemlocks, in among the white P14 0020 birch and maples. The sounds from the quarry began to pulse in her P14 0025 ears. She stood, P14 0030 once more listening. She had never been here at this P14 0040 hour. She felt as if some dark, totally unfamiliar shape would clutch P14 0050 at her arm; but she found the path she always used, the stubs of branches P14 0060 she had broken, those she had pushed aside; and she walked easily P14 0070 now, and more slowly, until she could see the dark glisten of water P14 0080 beneath her. If I ever committed suicide, she thought, I P14 0090 would dive straight down from here- and no one would find me for days. P14 0100 She smiled, and expertly let herself downward, holding this known P14 0110 root or that, her sneakers sliding in the leaves. She jumped P14 0120 out onto the flat expanse of rock and, seating herself, shook her short-cut P14 0130 brown hair and tilted her chin far upward. The reedy music of the P14 0140 frogs had faded, but presently it began again, growing in volume until P14 0150 it was vibrant. Julia felt at peace and drew her legs up and clasped P14 0160 her hands tightly around the bent knees. She had accomplished a miracle. P14 0170 This was place. The hour couldn't change it **h. Only- P14 0180 only- her thoughts were a little strange. They were becoming P14 0190 confused. Perhaps it was because it was so late, and because she had P14 0200 no business to be here now. She was thinking of Paul a few P14 0210 weeks ago, in the Easter holidays, with her at one of those awful Friday P14 0220 Evening Dancing Class parties her mother had made her attend. P14 0230 "Hello, Julie, how are you"? **h And then off he went so casually, P14 0240 to someone else with breasts better developed, more obvious in a P14 0250 lower-cut dress, someone without a mouthful of wire bands and an inability P14 0260 to find words that would hold him. I wish he was with me now, she P14 0270 thought, and that we were both the ages we are and doing what was once P14 0280 only pretense and acute embarrassment. Oh God! I wish I were P14 0290 older or younger, Julia Bentley thought. I wish so much someone P14 0300 me. #CHAPTER 7# George Rawlings remembered seeing the door P14 0310 open sometime during the night- Millie, in a white robe, standing P14 0320 like a ghost at the threshold. She had vanished; he must have slept P14 0330 again. He was staring at the blue china lamp left on beside him. P14 0340 It seemed too much trouble even to reach for the switch; but of course P14 0350 the impossible effort of leaving would have to be made on this Monday P14 0360 morning. This room was like a prison. He would not be indebted P14 0370 to Sam! Below him, as if at the end of some remote tunnel, he heard P14 0380 the humming of a vacuum cleaner. His fingers fumbled across the bandages. P14 0390 They had left both of his eyes uncovered **h. Well, he told himself, P14 0400 let's put the show on the road. He was walking across P14 0410 to the bathroom. He drank a glass of water and gripped the sink with P14 0420 both hands. A fearful pain had come from his head, as if the water P14 0430 were coursing up through the blood vessels and expanding them **h. He P14 0440 recognized P14 0450 his jacket and trousers. The fabric was dark; the stains weren't P14 0460 too apparent; and there were his shoes, thank God, but his shirt P14 0470 was one terrible mess. He shivered, and then tore away the P14 0480 blood-soaked parts and wound the rest around his neck like a scarf. P14 0490 Sam would be amazed to find him gone. Millie would have to understand. P14 0500 She must have put his clothes in the closet. He found a lump rising P14 0510 in his throat because of that one simple act of tidiness. He was on P14 0520 the verge of tears. Alex Poldowski- in a fashion he owed a debt P14 0530 to that effete gentleman. At least Alex had told him he wasn't dying. P14 0540 Perhaps George Rawlings would be better off dead. What P14 0550 time was it? He peered at his wristwatch. Strange, it was still running. P14 0560 A quarter to seven. Too early for a vacuum cleaner, but probably P14 0570 Sam wanted the whole house in order before he came downstairs. He P14 0580 was kneeling to tie his shoelaces. His fingers felt absurdly thick P14 0590 and clumsy. He rose slowly and looked into the mirror on the inside of P14 0600 the closet door. He barely knew himself. This was some freak, two P14 0610 strands of adhesive tape across his nose, like ugly roots from the mass P14 0620 of gauze, suddenly moist over his cheekbones. The surface, however, P14 0630 was perfectly white. He was drinking another glass of water. P14 0640 It was after seven o'clock. He was supposed to be in court this afternoon, P14 0650 at City Hall. Who would take over? He'd have to think, P14 0660 but the main thing, the imperative necessity, was to leave before Sam P14 0670 Bentley was up and about, and before Millie detained him with sympathy. P14 0680 He entered the hallway. He was actually walking down the P14 0690 stairs. A plane up in the sky, above the clouds, and this freakish P14 0700 wreck of a man desperately trying to get away. "Father, is P14 0710 that you"? The voice issued from the cavern of the hall below. George P14 0720 did not reply. "Is that you, Father? **h Who's there"? P14 0730 For a moment he felt like a thief discovered. Then Julia P14 0740 appeared under the arch leading to the dining room. She stood gazing P14 0750 at him. "Uncle George"! He was trying to smile P14 0760 at her. "Gosh! You shouldn't be up, should you"? P14 0770 "I- I was just leaving here, Julie **h. I'm all set. Just P14 0780 about to call a taxi". She was wearing some sort of gray P14 0790 blazer. She seemed overly tall, her brow knitted in concern. "Well, P14 0800 at least you won't have to do that", she was saying. "I'm P14 0810 about to leave myself. I'll drop you off". " P14 0820 leaving"? "I'm going back to school", she answered. P14 0830 "Pietro's driving me. I'm just finishing breakfast **h. But P14 0840 have you told Mother you were going"? she asked him. "No P14 0850 **h. I just don't want anyone disturbed, Julie. That's my wish. P14 0860 It's quite a big one", he added. Her face seemed to P14 0870 float in an implausibly bright shaft of sunlight. "Well, won't you P14 0880 come in then, have a cup of coffee- or something? **h Or maybe P14 0890 a drink"? she asked, in a way that seemed oddly sophisticated, considerate, P14 0900 and yet perhaps partly scornful. He tried to see her face P14 0910 more clearly. "No- nothing at all", he said after a moment's P14 0920 hesitation. "I'll just wait for you here". He leaned P14 0930 his head against the wood paneling behind him, but the vivid red P14 0940 images of pain inserted themselves against his eyelids. He raised them. P14 0950 Julia moved past. "I have to say good-by upstairs. I won't P14 0960 be long". "As a great favor, Julie", he said, "please P14 0970 don't mention you've seen me". "Not to anyone"? P14 0980 "No- please **h. "I'll call your mother as soon as P14 0990 I get home. It'll be so much easier". "All right **h" P14 1000 She was staring at him. "I'm fine, Julie **h. Please, P14 1010 you just go ahead". She had disappeared. He could feel a P14 1020 pulse pounding against the bandages. He imagined Sam's voice: "George, P14 1030 what the hell goes on"? I wouldn't have the strength P14 1040 to answer, he thought. Maybe I couldn't have called a taxi. P14 1050 He could hear the footsteps overhead. He saw the suitcase, which P14 1060 Julia was holding. He stood up. "I'll take that, Julie- P14 1070 for you". "Oh no", she said. "I can manage". P14 1080 She went ahead of him. Outside the Lincoln was parked. He could P14 1090 hardly believe he was getting in. Pietro was gazing at him in an insolent, P14 1100 disdainful fashion; but that didn't matter. We'll P14 1110 drop Mr& Rawlings off in Ardmore", Julia said, and for the merest P14 1120 second George was reminded of her father's tone with servants. P14 1130 To the manner born- odd to have such a thought at a time like this; P14 1140 yet her inflection seemed forced or rehearsed. He could not stop P14 1150 to analyze. He had never felt particularly close to her. Carrie seemed P14 1160 more affectionate, but obviously Julia had respected his request. P14 1170 He took her hand. "I wish I didn't have to go back to school", P14 1180 she said, and then, "I wish you lived in New York. That's P14 1190 in the opposite direction". "I wish I did", he responded. P14 1200 "I wish I wasn't wearing this ridiculous costume, and that P14 1210 we could go to a theater together, or a nice restaurant, forget we P14 1220 knew **h" He stopped speaking. "Forget we ever knew what"? P14 1230 "Oh, just sort of everything in general". She P14 1240 said nothing until Pietro had slackened their pace. "I know you P14 1250 feel badly, but that sounds like such a queer thing for to say". P14 1260 "Does it"? he asked. "Yes, perhaps. I'm supposed P14 1270 to joke about things, aren't I? **h But sometimes life P14 1275 can P14 1280 be rather a disappointing business". His voice seemed thick P14 1290 and purposeless. He relinquished her hand. He could see the stone building P14 1300 where he lived. Just a few more steps **h. Abruptly he reached P14 1310 into his pocket. Yes, there was the key. "Are you positive P14 1320 you'll be all right by yourself"? she asked him. For a P14 1330 moment he smiled. "Yes, Julie dear. You've done me the greatest P14 1340 possible service. By myself I'll be fine". "Take care P14 1350 of yourself then". "I will **h. you, also **h. don't work P14 1360 too hard". It was an automatic phrase; as he crossed through P14 1370 the courtyard he regretted it. He should have discovered a more P14 1380 tender farewell. Someone shouted at him, "Well! Will you look P14 1390 at George Rawlings! What happened to you"? "I bumped P14 1400 into a door handle", George said. Someone laughed. George P14 1410 walked steadily ahead into his entry. His bandages seemed on fire. P14 1420 He had shut his door with the brass number screwed to it. In the kitchenette P14 1430 the raw whiskey made him gasp. Just one or two swallows, he P14 1440 told himself, enough to lessen some of the pain. He was telephoning. P14 1450 "No, Millie, I'm home **h. No, really, right as rain P14 1460 **h. Tell Sam not to worry about the car. I'll get it hauled away P14 1465 **h. P14 1470 No, please- no visit today- I'll be asleep **h. For God's P14 1480 sake, don't worry. That upsets me more than anything **h. Yes, P14 1485 sure, P14 1490 I'll see the doctor- this evening, if you insist **h". P14 1500 There was one more call to make. "Joan, did I wake you"? P14 1510 he asked. "Yes, I thought you'd probably be up **h. Look, P14 1515 sweetheart, P14 1520 some fool was **h. happened to be driving somewhat intoxicated P14 1530 last night. Unfortunately it turned out to be me, but I wouldn't P14 1540 quite put it that way to the boss **h. Oh hell no, I'm not in a P14 1545 hospital. P14 1550 I won't be in town for a couple of days, though, and there's P14 1560 that case I was supposed to handle this afternoon. Too bad a jury P14 1570 isn't involved. I might struggle in for a jury. I'd win hands down. P14 1580 But I thought maybe Tony Elliott could pinch-hit for me. He'll P14 1590 understand- you might give him sort of a tactful nudge. He's P14 1600 got all the facts. I wouldn't want to ask for a postponement- it's P14 1610 really just a routine thing **h. What? **h No, darling I'd P14 1615 rather P14 1620 you didn't come out". A smile pulled at the lower strip of P14 1630 adhesive tape. "Don't even send flowers. I'll see you Wednesday. P14 1640 I'll bribe you with a nice"- He was about to say "double P14 1650 martini" but thought better of it. "I'll take you out to dinner. P14 1655 Okay? **h" P14 1660 He had put down the receiver. A strange relationship P14 1670 between Joan Fulbright and himself. Who knew about it? P14 1680 She lived alone in the older part of the city, in one of those renovated P14 1690 houses whose brick facade some early settler had constructed. She P14 1700 had two tiny rooms on the second floor. She was a clever girl, a most P14 1710 efficient secretary. She let him come and go as he pleased, or as P14 1720 it pleased her. In the office you might have thought them only casual P14 1725 friends; yet P14 1730 if he said: Make an excuse yourself, come out here today, P14 1740 she would have been on the next train- and, similarly, if she had P14 1750 been in need, he would have gone to her. P15 0010 "They make us conformists look good". "That's a peculiar P15 0020 way to think". It wasn't just the obnoxious birds that had ruffled P15 0030 her own feathers, of course; she knew that. It was Jim's "little" P15 0040 sister Myra, the unreliable, irresponsible, forever flyaway, P15 0050 Myra. She's a year older than I am, Lucy told herself. P15 0060 "Come, come", Jim said, jollying Lucy a little. "I love you. P15 0070 Susan ready"? Lucy listened. Obviously, Susan was not. P15 0080 Upstairs, busy feet, showering like raindrops, pattered around her P15 0090 room. Susan would be visiting her grandmother for only a few days, but P15 0100 even at seven she was a prudent soul; she always packed for a lifetime, P15 0110 just in case. "Not yet. Every doll in the house must be going P15 0120 with her". "She'd better step on it. It's a long way P15 0130 to Websterville". Jim's fine young face was an expressive one, P15 0140 too; as he looked at her, it registered anxiety. "You know", P15 0150 he said. "Myra wanted me to thank you for taking Cathy. It'll be P15 0160 only a couple of weeks before she finds a home for them in Paris- P15 0170 but even so, she wants you to know that she's awfully grateful". P15 0180 Lucy did not believe him; Myra appreciated nothing. Jim had P15 0190 put the thanks in his sister's mouth. "Darling"- she P15 0200 said, and the single word mingled love and exasperation in an equal blend. P15 0210 "She should have told me herself. And it be only a P15 0220 couple of weeks? Remember what happened the last time"? P15 0230 Leaving Cathy with them, Myra had gone out to the Coast for a supposedly P15 0240 brief visit; but she had stayed all winter, and Cathy had stayed P15 0250 all winter too- with them. Lucy suspected that Myra would never P15 0260 have come home if Gregg, Myra's husband, hadn't gone out to P15 0270 fetch her. "That was an awfully two weeks". ## FOR P15 0280 an otherwise silent moment, Jim's keys jingled nervously in his P15 0290 pocket. "But she promised- This will be different", he said P15 0300 at last. "You've got to admit she was smart to scare up this fine P15 0310 government job over there- she'll get a home for herself and Cathy P15 0320 in no time. You'll see, Myra's settling down". On the defensive, P15 0330 he added, "I wish you'd think what it must be like for her P15 0340 to be without Greg, to be a new widow, a young widow". "It P15 0350 depends on the widow". Lucy had an idea that Myra loved it. And P15 0360 not for one moment did she believe that Myra had settled down. It P15 0370 seemed to Lucy that all their married life, she and Jim had been doing P15 0380 nothing but rescue his sister from the constant crises that were her P15 0390 way of life. Remembering that succession of disasters, she now considered P15 0400 Cathy, an ominous child-cloud on her horizon. It was P15 0410 not that she disliked Cathy. The youngster drew her, troubled her depths; P15 0420 whenever Lucy saw her, she tried, without noise or fuss, to give P15 0430 her the warmth she had never had from Myra. But Cathy was Myra's P15 0440 responsibility, not hers. "I wouldn't even be surprised", P15 0450 she said unhappily, "if Myra tried to leave her with us forever". P15 0460 Myra loved big cities; thousands of miles away- in Paris, P15 0470 of all places- she might forget she had ever been a mother. Lucy P15 0480 knew her too well to find it impossible. "That's a horrible P15 0490 thing to accuse her of"! Jim was so indignant it was obvious that P15 0500 no matter what he said, he too had seen the looming specter of a forever-Cathy. P15 0510 He went to the foot of the stairs and shouted up, fiercely, P15 0520 "Susan! Susan! Get moving"! A startled piping P15 0530 sound returned. "Don't yell at ", Lucy said. Was P15 0540 it only a few nights ago that they had been standing together in front P15 0550 of the house looking at the moon-washed river? Their arms around P15 0560 each other, they had been talking of the present and the future; P15 0570 their talk and their feeling had been as deep and warm, as steeped in P15 0580 light, as the air around them. Then, from within the still, sleeping P15 0590 house, the telephone had rung; Myra, with her news, was on the other P15 0600 end of the line. Jim turned back from the stairway and looked P15 0610 at her. His dark brows, which had been lowered in anger, smoothed. P15 0620 "Please", he said. "There isn't a chance of Myra's letting P15 0630 anything like that happen. Let's stay friends". But they P15 0640 weren't just friends, Lucy thought; they were husband and wife, P15 0650 and Myra had no right muddling and chilling their marriage. The only P15 0660 thing that had ever come between them was that worthless, selfish sister P15 0670 of his. Lucy was sick of it. "Well, at last", she said, P15 0680 because Susan was clattering down the stairs. ## SUSAN P15 0690 looked like an overwhelmed baby nurse; her arms were straining with P15 0700 a burden of dolls. "I'm ready", she announced. "Do you P15 0710 need that big bundle"? Jim said. His voice had sharp edges, as P15 0720 though he knew very well Lucy and he were not friends at the moment. P15 0730 "All that junk"? Susan stared at him with hurt blue eyes P15 0740 that gushed an instant grief; to her, each of her dolls was a real P15 0750 person with a living heart. "Now, now", Lucy said, approaching P15 0760 Susan with a handkerchief, mopping skillfully. "Your father P15 0770 didn't mean it, Susan". She gave Jim a quick, shape-up look of P15 0780 warning. "He'll take every one of them". Jim groaned, P15 0790 but he lifted Susan's suitcase and said, in a gentler tone, "Sure- P15 0800 the entire thousand. And when you get back from Grandma's, Cathy P15 0810 will be here to play with you. Nice"? "No", Susan P15 0820 said, grappling with her outsized armload of dolls with a Scrooge-like P15 0830 effect. And at this point, Lucy thought, there should be P15 0840 a lecture on little cousins' sharing dolls- but she could sympathize P15 0850 with Susan; there ought to be a limit to sharing, too. P15 0860 That was one more reason she didn't look forward to Cathy's visit, P15 0870 short or long; the last one had been a Lilliputian war. She suspected P15 0880 that Cathy had been competing with Susan for attention that she P15 0890 had never had. "Well", Jim said, out of the silence, "let's P15 0900 get going, dolls and all". When the car, with Susan's P15 0910 hands waving wildly from the rear window, disappeared down the P15 0920 driveway, Lucy stood looking after its pale dust. The day was brilliant P15 0930 around her- flower-scented, crisp with breeze- yet her inner turmoil P15 0940 darkened it. She had let Jim go with a chilly good-by, a chillier P15 0950 kiss. She was sorry, and angry at herself, because never in their P15 0960 life together had she done that. She turned and began to walk toward P15 0970 the house. At the feeding station, the raffish group of cowbirds P15 0980 again bobbed and gobbled over the ground, but now, gorgeous among P15 0990 them, was a beautiful red cardinal, radiant in its feathered vestments. P15 1000 The handsome bird was solitary; its mate must be at home, silently P15 1010 guarding their nest. She had better stay there, Lucy thought; the P15 1020 sly female cowbirds took instant advantage of nests without sentinels. P15 1030 Well, Lucy? she said to herself, abandoning the cardinals P15 1040 and the cowbirds. She had a day of things to do; among them, she P15 1050 had to prepare the guest room. How long would it be occupied? she P15 1060 wondered, with a baffled feeling of helplessness. As long as the unscrupulous P15 1070 Myra chose? For a moment, her mind returned again to the P15 1080 strange, flying world of birds, and she said to herself. It isn't P15 1090 only birds that dump their children in other people's nests **h. P15 1100 In the sunshine of late afternoon, Lucy stood looking at the ready P15 1110 guest room. There were new yellow curtains, bright as a child's P15 1120 life ought to be, a new bedspread, lively with hopping rabbits, and hanging P15 1130 from the ceiling was an airy Mother Goose Mobile, spinning slowly P15 1140 in the breeze. A row of little hangers waited for a child's clothes P15 1150 in the neatly empty closet; since Myra had always put most of P15 1160 Greg's money on her own back, Lucy suspected that no more than a P15 1170 few of that long row would be needed. The closet was faintly fragrant P15 1180 with lavender, and as Lucy shut the door an unhappy memory slipped into P15 1190 her mind, like a lavender ghost: Greg's house, on the day he P15 1200 was buried, and the child, pale, silent, baffled, watching the funeral P15 1210 guests with panicky eyes. Many times since his death that memory had P15 1220 worried and troubled her. Out in the hall, the upstairs phone P15 1230 shrilled, and the small ghost vanished. When she picked up the receiver, P15 1240 her mother's cheerful voice was there. "Websterville P15 1250 Junction calling", she said. "I just thought I'd let you know. P15 1260 Myra dropped Cathy this morning, and Jim picked Cathy up and left P15 1270 Susan a few hours ago. I'd have phoned sooner but I've been P15 1280 busy". "I can imagine"! Susan was an active character; P15 1290 for Mother to be able to call, Susan must be napping now, surrounded P15 1300 by her multitude of dolls. Lucy drew out the chair and sat down; P15 1310 she relaxed a little, and some of the tension went out of her. You P15 1320 could think yourself as grown up as Methuselah, yet the maternal voice P15 1330 still kept its comforting magic. "How was Cathy"? "Subdued. P15 1340 But Myra was the merriest widow I ever saw". On P15 1350 her way to the airport, on her way to Paris- you bet, Lucy said P15 1360 to herself. "I've been fixing up the guest room for Cathy". P15 1370 There was a momentary pause, and then her mother said, "How long P15 1380 is she supposed to stay"? "Just for a couple of weeks, P15 1390 till Myra finds a place for them". "Well"- This time P15 1400 there was a long silence, while the telephone hummed faintly with P15 1410 a voiceless life. Puzzled, Lucy stared at the flowered wallpaper; P15 1420 her mother was forthright; she was not usually given to mysterious P15 1430 silences. Was she thinking along the same lines Lucy was- that P15 1440 it was quite possible Cathy might be left with her for good? "You P15 1450 mean once Myra gets to Paris"? Once the soft, pretty moth P15 1460 found the bright light she had always wanted? Suddenly, seekingly, P15 1470 Lucy asked, "Mother, do you know something I don't know"? P15 1480 Again there was that curious pause, and then her mother P15 1490 said, "I guess I do. Just before Myra left- She was saying good-by P15 1500 to Cathy, and she didn't realize I was near". She hesitated, P15 1510 as though hunting over words and ways of putting them. "Cathy was P15 1520 in tears, of course, and I heard Myra say, 'Now be good, and at P15 1530 Christmastime I'll send you a wonderful present from Paris'". P15 1540 Shocked speechless, Lucy sat there. Then she jumped to her P15 1550 feet, the elastic phone cord uncoiling like a black snake. "" P15 1560 Then it was no bogey she had dreamed up; it was P15 1570 only too true. Myra had no intention whatever of sending for Cathy in P15 1580 two weeks. For a moment, anger darkened the hallway about her, P15 1590 and when she found her voice, anger thickened it. "That does it"! P15 1600 she said. "I'll keep Cathy for two weeks. Then, if Myra P15 1610 does nothing about fetching her, I'll pack her right back to her mother- P15 1620 if I have to take her myself"! Her hand tightened on the P15 1630 receiver. "And what I'm going to tell Jim". For P15 1640 Lucy, the day's nagging to-and-fro had come to an abrupt end. P15 1650 As she hung up, she saw through the hall's open window the purple-black P15 1660 flying of the cowbirds' wings, and heard their grotesque singing. P15 1670 Cowbird Myra! She's not going to get away with it. ## P15 1680 CATHY is tired, Lucy thought, watching them come slowly up the P15 1690 path. The child's thin legs were plodding. She trudged along slowly, P15 1700 both hands clutching a tired teddy bear. She was at the moment just P15 1710 a small, walking package, being delivered to her aunt's and uncle's P15 1720 house. Unlike Susan, she was traveling light; the worn teddy P15 1730 bear, a tiny suitcase that Jim carried, and the clothes she wore, were P15 1740 all she had. Lucy glancing at the miniature case, knew there would P15 1750 not be enough in it for the shortest of stays; they would have P15 1760 to buy things for her. She opened the door. P16 0010 Unimpressed, the dog plopped on the sand. Quint couldn't blame P16 0020 Maggie for disbelieving. For eleven days they'd done the same P16 0030 thing, leaving the cottage quietly before breakfast, before Esperanza P16 0040 Beach got jammed with tourists and beach balls and show-offy lifeguards. P16 0050 The swirling sand made Quint's limp more pronounced. They walked P16 0060 slowly past the sherbet-colored cottages- eleven lemon, nine mint, P16 0070 seven orange- around the curve to a deserted stand with an "Eats" P16 0080 sign jiggling in the wind. Now they were in friendly territory. P16 0090 Nobody around. Nothing but sand and a ridge of rocks sloping P16 0100 jaggedly to the water's edge. rock was to the right of a P16 0110 ~V-shaped inlet, a big, brown, lumpy rock trailing seaweed whiskers. P16 0120 His rock was special because no one on the beach could see him here. P16 0130 Here he was enclosed and safe. (If a dragon or a sea monster came P16 0140 along, didn't he have a red Swiss hunting knife on his belt- ten P16 0150 blades a corkscrew?) Here was a perfect place to lie P16 0160 down and make believe. He was Canute controlling the waves. He was P16 0170 a knight of the Round Table, "Sir Quintus the Brave", slaying P16 0180 evil spirits and banshees and vampires and witches with warty noses. P16 0190 (One good thing about a suit of armor, his leg wouldn't show.) He P16 0200 was the first astronaut on the moon, chosen because of his small size P16 0210 and intrepid nature. He was six feet one like his father, with big P16 0220 hands and a hairy chest, a man the weak and persecuted would turn to. P16 0230 Fearless. Every night when he wanted a drink of water, didn't he practice P16 0240 being fearless by not turning on the bathroom light? A dark P16 0250 bathroom can be pretty scary, and he'd creep back to bed, proud of P16 0260 himself, thinking: Tomorrow, for sure, I'll go down to the rock P16 0270 and keep my promise to Dad. He hadn't intended to make the P16 0280 promise. It happened two weeks ago, the night before his father left P16 0290 on a business trip to South America. Every piece of the nightmare was P16 0300 clear, in place; and when he woke up, his father was saying, "Stop P16 0310 screaming, Quint. It's all right. Stop shaking". He P16 0320 could remember the feel of his father's big hands, the thump of his P16 0330 father's heart sending out signals- regular, like radar. "Let's P16 0340 talk about the beach. Son. While I'm gone you get brown and P16 0350 fat as a pig, hear? Look, I can put two fingers between the cords P16 0360 in the back of your neck. Dr& Fortman says swimming would help your P16 0370 leg. He says you're limping more than you need to". "How P16 0380 does he know? Big dumb nut. He never had polio". In P16 0390 the light from the bedside table his father looked so worried that the P16 0400 promise spilled out. "You just wait, Dad. When you get back I'll P16 0410 probly be swimming better than Victoria. Wait and see, Dad". P16 0420 Victoria was fourteen months younger than Quint, a head taller, P16 0430 and could lick any boy or girl on the beach. He called her "Fatso". P16 0440 She called him "Stuck-up- that's why nobody plays with P16 0450 you, Mister Stuck-up". Or, what was worse, she prayed for him out P16 0460 loud at bedtime: "Please, Lord Gord, please give my brother the P16 0470 strength to go swimming like he promised". " P16 0480 got a nerve". Quint said now to the clouds. Strength began to zip P16 0490 up and down his chest. He felt strong as a giant. He unlaced his high P16 0500 brown shoes and took off the metal brace on his leg. He wadded his P16 0510 sweat shirt into a ball and stripped down to his swimming trunks. P16 0520 "Goolick, goooolick", creaked a sea gull. "Aw, shut P16 0530 up", he said. He stood on the rock, a skinny, dignified boy P16 0540 surrounded by the ocean. The wind bored a hole between his shoulder blades, P16 0550 and when he looked at the choppy waves coming and going and crossing P16 0560 each other he could see his head down there, bleeding, wedged between P16 0570 the rocks and the waves. . ## Shivering, he put on his clothes. And shivering P16 0590 with shame, he crawled to the narrow end of the rock and spat P16 0600 into the water. "Watch it, big shot", a hoarse voice yelled P16 0610 back. She was holding on to his rock with one hand. She smelled of P16 0620 peppermints. She wore a bathing suit like his mother's, no straps P16 0630 on the shouders. "Why didn't you duck"? he snapped. P16 0640 "This is my rock". "Isn't". "Is". P16 0650 "Isn't". "Is". She was sore as a boil. "Ever P16 0660 hear of squatter's rights"? "Sure. They started P16 0670 with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of eighteen"- "Mister P16 0680 Big Britches, aren't you"? "I'm Mark Gordon Peters P16 0690 the Fifth. They call me Quint". "Then why don't P16 0700 you stop squinting"? "I said Quint. That's short for P16 0710 Quintus. Quintus in Latin means"- "I can speak both P16 0720 kinds of Latin, smart aleck". Her cough sounded like cloth ripping. P16 0730 "You shouldn't smoke so much", he said, unconsciously P16 0740 imitating Victoria's holier-than-thou voice. "I don't P16 0750 smoke". She was horrified. "Do you"? "Hell, yes". P16 0760 Not having said "hell" before, he stumbled a bit before gathering P16 0770 momentum. "Sometimes eleven, fourteen a day". "If I P16 0780 was your mama, I'd wop your tail off". "My mother never P16 0790 wops me. I've got this leg brace". She seemed so unimpressed P16 0800 that he was obliged to roll up his blue jeans so she could see P16 0810 his brace. "Dingy-looking", was what she said. "Why don't P16 0820 you paint it red and white like a barber pole"? "Because P16 0830 maybe I won't have to wear it always. Dr& Fortman says if P16 0840 I exercise my leg more, maybe I can use a cane when I'm big". P16 0850 She spouted a mouthful of water into the air. "A cane's mighty P16 0860 handy. Someone's walking past, you want to stop him, , P16 0870 snag him around the neck with the crook in your cane. Or say a waiter P16 0880 brings you a bowl of soup with a dead fly in it- all you got to P16 0890 do is your cane on the floor **h. Hey, will P16 0910 you look at that"? Maggie had shaken himself awake and was P16 0920 licking the sand off his stubby whiskers and his long plume of a tail. P16 0930 "That's some dog. What kind"? "Part collie, P16 0940 part wire-haired terrier". Quint glared. He always did when people P16 0950 asked. "Holy mackerel, that's the most unique dog P16 0960 ever saw", she said firmly. "His real name's DiMaggio, P16 0970 only we call him Maggie because he has to take tranquilizers. He's P16 0980 braver than he looks. He's been sick lately. Last Tuesday he P16 0990 went on a ham jag". "A what"? He would have told P16 1000 her, but Victoria was yodeling. That meant "Mama wants you Quint. P16 1010 Come home or I'll come find you". "I gotta go. P16 1020 Even though this is my rock, you can use it sometimes. I come early P16 1030 in the morning". "So do I. See you around, Mister Squint". P16 1040 ## That was how they started being friends. They met next P16 1050 morning and all the mornings thereafter. Same time, early, before P16 1060 the fog burned off, because she didn't like the sun; it made her P16 1070 blister. Her name was Sabella, and the strip of seaweed around her neck P16 1080 was an emerald necklace the King gave her as a token of his undying P16 1090 love. "You going to marry the King"? "No. He's P16 1100 got a long beard and picks his teeth with a fork. My hair is what he's P16 1110 nuts about. Naturally curly hair runs in my family. Personally, P16 1120 I prefer straight hair like yours, but as they say on the Continent, P16 1121 'What can one do'"? P16 1130 "Which continent"? P16 1140 "Name one, I been there". Japan, she said, smelled because P16 1150 people let dead fish lie on the beaches till the fish got hard as P16 1160 rocks; then they scraped off the mold and made fish soup. . P16 1170 Camels in Tripoli had harelips. Near Galway the tinkers drove their P16 1180 caravans down to the beach and sang and drank and fought all night. P16 1190 As for dancing- holy mackerel, he ought to see the gypsies in Jerez; P16 1200 they danced on the sand till your blood got hot and danced with P16 1210 them. "Really". Quint smothered a yawn. She made better P16 1220 pictures than any book he'd read, but he didn't say so. Artfully, P16 1230 as the days went by, he found occasion to tell her that his father had P16 1240 won the Navy Cross in the Korean War; that his baby sister could P16 1250 spit up through her nose when she felt like it; that he personally P16 1260 had an ~IQ of 141 and was currently reading the Mushr to Ozon P16 1270 volume of the encyclopedia. "Books are for schnooks". She P16 1280 skipped a piece of water at him and laughed, a funny, hoarse laugh he P16 1290 liked to hear. Nobody ever appreciated his jokes as much as P16 1300 Sabella. ("What did one tonsil say to the other tonsil? Let's P16 1310 get dressed up- the doctor's taking us out tonight". And "What P16 1320 time did the Chinaman go to the dentist? Tooth-hurty".) Encouraged P16 1330 by her giggles he imitated Maggie who was crazy about ham. He P16 1340 described the ham decorated with pineapple and cherries, cooling on P16 1350 the porch. He snuck up on the ham like Maggie, gumming it with soft, P16 1360 stumpy teeth, then panting with thirst, lapping up the water in the lagoon, P16 1370 swelling up like a balloon, staggering home to be sick, while his P16 1380 mother said, " does it. That dog to go". P16 1390 "Say, you're quite a comic", Sabella said admiringly. "Ever P16 1400 thought about going on the stage"? He hadn't. But it P16 1410 was such a nice thought that he nodded his head. "Either that or P16 1420 a veterinarian". "Better make up your mind, son", Sabella P16 1430 said. "You can't serve cod and salmon". Sometimes they P16 1440 argued. She said sharks have no bones and shrimp swam backward. His P16 1450 encylopedia agreed with Sabella. Next morning he tied a bunch of P16 1460 sea daisies with string and threw them across the ~V-shaped inlet to P16 1470 the rock where she was swimming around. Boy, could she catch! Like P16 1480 Willie Mays in the outfield. "Nobody gave me flowers before. P16 1490 Thank you, Quint". Her face turned pink with pleasure and a P16 1500 smothered cough. "You can always tell a real gentleman- they got P16 1510 a certain ". Sometimes they didn't talk P16 1520 at all. He daydreamed on the rock while she swam and splashed around. P16 1530 Once when she asked why he never went swimming and he answered, "Don't P16 1540 feel like it", he was tempted to tell her about being scared. P16 1550 But Victoria began yodeling just then and he went home, carrying P16 1560 Sabella in the back of his head, not thinking about her, just knowing P16 1570 she was there, smiling, smelling of peppermints. As for his promise- P16 1580 oh, he had plenty of time, buckets of time. ## Wednesday morning P16 1590 it happened. They were eating breakfast. "We beseech thee, Lord P16 1600 Gord, to bless this food"- that was Victoria saying grace while P16 1610 the baby sprayed raisin toast on her plastic bib. Same old breakfast P16 1620 till the phone rang, making his mother's voice shake with excitement. P16 1630 "Your Daddy's in San Francisco", she told P16 1640 them. "He says he'll be here on the one-o'clock plane. Fifteen P16 1650 days early- isn't that wonderful"? "Yeah, keen". P16 1660 A cave seemed to be opening in Quint's stomach. "Children, P16 1670 we'll have to get organized. The baby can have an early nap. Victoria, P16 1680 I want you to **h" Quint closed the screen door P16 1690 quietly so Maggie wouldn't P16 1700 be scared. "Hurry up, we're late", he P16 1710 said, noticing with a chill how gray the sky was this morning, the fog P16 1720 like a rope along the horizon, the choppy waves sending off sheets of P16 1730 blue and Kool-Aid green. The cave in his stomach hurt. He P16 1740 had to go into the water. He'd tell Sabella about the nightmare. It P16 1750 had started two years ago when he was in an iron lung. What caused P16 1760 it, he didn't know. The metal collar gagging his neck? Sweating P16 1770 so much? The unbearable weight on his chest? All of it together P16 1780 meant drowning. The first time the nurse took him out of the lung, she P16 1790 said if he got frightened, she'd put him back for a second. P17 0010 ## When Bobbie Evans smashed up his car, the Jaguar his wife Linda P17 0020 had given him for his last birthday, and himself quite thoroughly P17 0030 with it, driving back from an afternoon's golf at Oakmont, it seemed P17 0040 to mark the end of a long, miswritten chapter in the social life of P17 0050 the community. Linda looked remote yet lovely in black, and everyone P17 0060 held his or her breath. Not that Linda was heartless, not that P17 0070 she would do anything prematurely or in bad taste any more than John P17 0080 Cooper would. Hadn't Linda been a perfect wife to Bobbie, who P17 0090 was the least bit of a disappointment all these years? Wasn't P17 0100 John Cooper even more attractive at forty-seven than he had been P17 0110 twenty-five years earlier? And wasn't John's wife, Edythe, P17 0120 even more appalling, if possible? Didn't John Cooper, after all P17 0130 this time, deserve something better of life? Wasn't it adult and P17 0140 realistic to look at it that way? And romantic? Everybody P17 0150 knew that John Cooper had married Edythe on the rebound. It was P17 0160 the kind of thing that could ruin a man's life, and it was a tribute P17 0170 to John's strength of character and very real business ability that P17 0180 it hadn't ruined his. "Of course, there was nothing you could P17 0190 do, but you still ought to be ashamed of yourself for letting it happen", P17 0200 Mousie Chandler said to Linda Stuart. "Poor John"! Linda P17 0210 accepted the reproach, which was something she did rarely in all P17 0220 her life and most rarely in that summer of 1936 when she was by all odds P17 0230 the prettiest and brightest young woman west of the Allegheny Mountains, P17 0240 and John was surely one of the handsomer and brighter young P17 0250 men around Pittsburgh. For it had been John and Linda ever P17 0260 since she had come out two seasons before at the Golf Club to the goggle-eyed P17 0270 admiration not only of the stag line but even of her fellow P17 0280 debs. John had claimed her from the stag line, a young man a year out P17 0290 of Dartmouth with skiing crinkles still around his eyes. You P17 0300 saw them always together those years. You talked about John-and-Linda P17 0310 as an entity. John-and-Linda were at Longue Vue last night; P17 0320 John-and-Linda drove to Conneaut in three and a half hours. Then there P17 0330 was a spat over something, as there had been lovers' spats before; P17 0340 only this one didn't heal. You still said "John-and-Linda", P17 0350 but as if you were speaking of a national catastrophe such P17 0360 as the depression or Dillinger. It got worse instead of better. First, P17 0370 it came out after Mr& Cooper's will was settled- he had died P17 0380 the year before- that John and his mother weren't rich any more. P17 0390 And then there was Linda's engagement to Bobbie Evans. P17 0400 There was no connection between the two events, because Bobbie wasn't P17 0410 rich, either, though he was more aggressive than John. He was P17 0420 a bright and handsome young man from New York, who worked for the same P17 0430 steel company as John did. Some people said Linda had just P17 0440 announced the engagement to jolt John into some action, but when John P17 0450 came home from a business trip to Cleveland with Edythe, with Edythe P17 0460 his bride, it could no longer be John-and-Linda even to sentimental P17 0470 wishful thinkers. It wasn't even John and Edythe. It was simply P17 0480 Poor John. There was nothing specifically wrong with Edythe, P17 0490 but there was absolutely nothing right about her either. Mousie P17 0500 Chandler had been to school with her someplace near Baltimore and P17 0510 tried to explain rather than defend her to the gang having lunch at Horne's. P17 0520 "Well, you shouldn't underestimate Edythe", P17 0530 Mousie said. "I know she gives the impression of being shallow and P17 0540 frivolous and scatterbrained. She is frivolous and scatterbrained, but P17 0550 she really isn't shallow"**h. Bobbie and Linda looked P17 0560 magnificent at their wedding. John was at the church with Edythe. She P17 0570 giggled during the ceremony, and Mousie Chandler, who was one of P17 0580 Linda's bridesmaids, said John glared black as death at her. "As P17 0590 if he were choking", she said. "Poor John"! Edythe P17 0600 settled down to become a social myth and a horrible example. Her hair P17 0610 never seemed to be in place and her skirts were never quite the correct P17 0620 length. She didn't have a bad shape when you caught her at the P17 0630 pool at Longue Vue, but her bathing suits were far from smart. And P17 0640 you didn't see her much at Longue Vue or anywhere, for John had drifted P17 0650 away from the gang. Mousie said it was because he was too proud P17 0660 to stand pity. Others thought he couldn't stand seeing Linda, Mrs& P17 0670 Bobbie Evans, still so beautiful, so much in command of everything. P17 0680 There were less-dramatic reasons too. John's mother P17 0690 died not long after his marriage, and there was even less Cooper money P17 0700 left. John sold the big old place in Sewickley and bought a smaller P17 0710 house in Fox Chapel. He was not reduced to poverty, but his job P17 0720 at the steel company had become a real job and not a method of passing P17 0730 the day. John was good at his job. It probably wasn't hard P17 0740 for him to keep his nose to the grindstone with nothing but Edythe P17 0750 to come home to. Though that may be unfair since Ben Cooper, John's P17 0760 first son, came along early in 1938, the cutest baby you ever saw P17 0770 and a blessing that he looked all Cooper from fontanel to pink toes, P17 0780 nary a trace of Edythe. But the continuing charm of the other P17 0790 children- Sally in 1940 and Jack in 1944- and all John's success P17 0800 at his work only made Edythe's dizziness and general uselessness P17 0810 more glaring. She never could fit into a crowd which had known, which P17 0820 still knew and admired Linda. When there was bridge at Edythe's P17 0830 house, the cards shuffled like wet graham crackers and the food P17 0840 probably wet graham crackers. She managed a missionary drive P17 0850 for the church once and got the books so confused that old Mr& P17 0860 Webber, the eldest elder, who'd never donated more than five dollars P17 0870 to anything, had to cough up five hundred dollars to avoid a scandal P17 0880 in what Edythe called "the bosoms of the church". John did find P17 0890 the missing checks and money afterward, and the drive was actually P17 0895 oversubscribed, P17 0900 which was a real bit of luck for the missionaries. ## P17 0910 Being an intelligent man, John must have guessed what everyone thought P17 0920 about Edythe, but he never let on by so much as a brave smile. Poor P17 0930 John was the kind of stock that keeps a bargain without whimpering P17 0940 and maybe bends over backward to keep a bad one. He was an attentive P17 0950 and generous husband, overgenerous, a lot of people felt, because they P17 0960 knew that money must be a problem to him. But he got ahead in business: P17 0970 on leave from his job to an important Washington assignment P17 0980 during the war; after the war back to the heir apparency of the steel P17 0990 company. The Coopers saw Bobbie and Linda socially, but P17 1000 no more than was necessary. Bobbie had been successful, too, though he P17 1010 didn't match John's pace, and after all he didn't need to, with P17 1020 all the Stuart money. He and Linda settled down to being social P17 1030 leaders, and Linda managed to look a little more beautiful each year. P17 1040 And then came the hairpin turn, the smashed Jaguar and Linda, P17 1050 mourning alone and lovely. Everyone held his or her breath. P17 1060 "Don't think Linda couldn't have got John back any time, P17 1070 if she'd tried", Mousie Gordon, who had been Mousie Chandler, P17 1080 said between bites of a chicken sandwich at a luncheon table at Le P17 1090 Mont. "Now you know she could've, but she isn't that kind of P17 1100 girl. But now- well, it would be a blessing, I think. Poor John". P17 1110 Linda Evans felt more wretched than she had ever dreamed P17 1120 Bobbie's death could move her to feeling. What she felt was a bone-deep P17 1130 loss with a sense of waste to it, not so much sorrow for handsome, P17 1140 ambitious Bobbie, but for the lost years that had been brought into P17 1150 high relief by his death. She knew what people were thinking; P17 1160 it was what she had been thinking herself. It was up to her to save P17 1170 Poor John, dear John, to undo the wrong she had done, but she trembled P17 1180 at the decision as at the brink of a cold stream. There P17 1190 was no one who would blame her or John; she could be sure of that. P17 1200 It might be rough on Edythe at first, but Linda and John between P17 1210 them could make a settlement handsome enough to soothe her, to send her P17 1220 back to Cleveland or anywhere. And Linda felt capable of capturing P17 1230 the affection of the children, anxious even, since she and Bobbie P17 1240 had had none of their own. It would be good for them to have a mother P17 1250 they need not be ashamed of. Linda would have to wait, she knew. P17 1260 But what was a decent six months or so after the more than twenty P17 1270 years gone by? Years of watching while Poor John struggled without P17 1280 the help and understanding of the kind of wife a man needed to get P17 1290 ahead. Of course, he done wonders **h. ## Alloy steels and P17 1300 regular steels had different sales departments at Smith + MacIsaacs, P17 1310 where John and Bobbie both worked. Bobbie had been head of the P17 1320 alloy division, while John was just another good salesman in the regular P17 1330 branch. So when old Mr& Lovejoy, the company president, talked P17 1340 about putting in a single sales manager for both branches after the P17 1350 head of the regular steels had gone with Carnegie-Illinois, it looked P17 1360 like the perfect chance for Bobbie. For Linda knew how to help her P17 1370 husband, not just the Stuart-family contacts but also the little dinners P17 1380 for Reuben Lovejoy. She was almost sick when Bobbie P17 1390 came home with the news that Poor John had won the job. "What did P17 1400 you do"? she asked Bobbie. "You must have done something, something P17 1410 wrong. Lord knows I had everything set for you". Bobbie P17 1420 said something about damned Pittsburghers sticking together, and P17 1430 Linda got angry at him. They had their first real fight, and Bobbie P17 1440 went off to get drunk. Linda dragooned her uncle, Donald Murkland, P17 1450 into a lunch the next day to find out what had happened. He P17 1460 was a director of S& + M& and must have been in on the decision. P17 1470 But jolly old Uncle Donald would tell her no more than that Bobbie P17 1480 had certainly been considered for the job, but there were factors in P17 1490 a large company which outsiders and even some insiders couldn't understand. P17 1500 He didn't tell her of the long board meeting where P17 1510 Bobbie and John were weighed one against the other. "I'm P17 1520 behind John Cooper", Mr& Lovejoy said finally. "I think we're P17 1530 agreed that he and Evans are equal in ability, so we have to look P17 1540 at the thing in terms of incentive. "Now, I believe Poor P17 1550 John'll work just a little harder. With that wife of his, I think P17 1560 he feels every chance he gets is his big chance. Bobbie, with Linda P17 1570 behind him, will have plenty of other opportunities. And also, the P17 1580 money can't mean as much to Bobbie. "Bobbie will take the P17 1590 job as his just reward and work hard at it; Poor John will take P17 1600 it as a miracle and have every other independent steel company sitting P17 1610 up nights worrying about us". Most of the directors nodded. P17 1620 Uncle Donald Murkland found himself nodding agreement too. P17 1630 After the surprise was over, Linda was almost as pleased as anyone P17 1640 with John's good luck, though she agreed with Bobbie's decision P17 1650 some months later to move to Funk Furnaces. The job at Funk wasn't P17 1660 particularly better, but it got him away from being subordinate to P17 1670 John and assured him steady advancement, since Funk was owned to a P17 1680 large degree by various branches of Linda's family. Poor John's P17 1690 rise continued to be meteoric. When he was made a vice president P17 1700 only a year after the new sales job, a leading business magazine ran P17 1710 his photograph with a brief biography in a series on NATIONAL BUSINESS P17 1720 LEADERS OF THE FUTURE. P18 0010 She called then to say she had a baby-sitter for that night. "Shirley P18 0020 appreciated the chance to make some money. Such a nice little thing- P18 0030 lives right in the building". "That's swell", I P18 0040 said sweetly. I could get along without that three dollars. In some P18 0050 ways it was worth being out the money- just knowing I was no longer P18 0060 obligated to Nadine! It was past midnight and we were in P18 0070 bed when the phone rang. I stumbled through the hall, wondering who would P18 0080 be calling at this hour. I answered to find Nadine at the other P18 0090 end. "You scared me half to death", I said shakily. "What's P18 0100 wrong"? "Janice, nobody answers at the apartment"! P18 0110 Her voice came shrill. "I'm absolutely frantic! That stupid girl P18 0120 might have gone off and left Francie"! "Oh, she wouldn't P18 0130 do that", I said. "She's probably fallen asleep and doesn't P18 0140 hear the phone. But if you're worried you can go home and check"- P18 0150 "I can't leave the party! We're at Ken Thom's P18 0160 apartment, and when one couple leaves early everything falls flat! P18 0170 Old Mr& Thom is already down on Wally, and we simply can't P18 0180 afford to get Ken mad at us"- I was all set for what P18 0190 came next. "Janice, could you possibly go over and make sure everything's P18 0200 all right? I'll call you there in ten minutes"- P18 0210 "I can't make it in ten minutes"- Wondering, as I said it, P18 0220 why I should make it at all. Why should I go over at midnight to P18 0230 check on Francie, when her parents didn't care enough to leave a party? P18 0240 "Fifteen minutes, then! Please, Janice. I'll P18 0250 be glad to pay you"- So sure that money could do anything! P18 0260 "All right", I said. I'd do it. Not for the dollar or so P18 0270 Nadine would give me. But because there was the chance that something P18 0280 had gone wrong at the apartment, and if I didn't go over, who would? P18 0290 ## @ CHRIS WAS sound asleep, and I didn't see any P18 0300 sense in waking him. I dressed in the kitchen, then left a note on the P18 0310 table telling him what had happened. I drove off through the cool P18 0320 darkness to Nadine's apartment and rang the bell, and in a few seconds P18 0330 a young girl opened the door. Her face was flushed from sleep. "It's P18 0340 all right", I said, as she started to look scared. "Mrs& P18 0350 Roberts had called, and couldn't wake you. I just came over to P18 0360 make sure everything was all right". "I'm- hard to wake P18 0370 up", she faltered. She didn't look over thirteen. And Nadine P18 0380 insisted that her sitters be reliable! "I have to get up early P18 0390 for church tomorrow", she went on. "I didn't know it was going P18 0400 to be this late"! The phone started ringing. "That's P18 0410 Mrs& Roberts again", I said. "I'll answer it". I crossed P18 0420 the beautifully furnished living room to the pale yellow phone. I told P18 0430 Nadine everything was fine, and that I'd be getting on home. P18 0440 "Janice, would you mind staying"? There was a ragged edge P18 0450 to her voice now, as if she'd been crying. "Wally's drunk- P18 0460 I'll get him out of here as soon as I possibly can, but I don't P18 0470 want Shirley to see him like this. You know how gossip of that sort P18 0480 spreads through an apartment building"- Not a word of thanks P18 0490 for what I'd already done. The receiver clicked in my ear. She P18 0500 didn't even give me a chance to refuse. Well, there wasn't any P18 0510 law that said I had to stay! But then I looked at Shirley and thought P18 0520 that I might as well- the child needed her sleep, and Heaven P18 0530 knew what kind of a mess it would be, with Wally coming home drunk. P18 0540 So I told her Mrs& Roberts would pay her in the morning, and she P18 0550 scooted off to her own apartment. After I looked in at Francie, P18 0560 I went into the living room and waited. I must have dozed off, P18 0570 because I came to with a start at the sound of voices. Nadine's, shrill P18 0580 with anger- Wally's loud and thick- As I went to the door P18 0590 I heard the clock strike two. I opened the door, and Wally stumbled P18 0600 in- fast- as if Nadine had pushed him. I had always thought P18 0610 she was so beautiful. But now she looked ugly. Her skin was stretched P18 0620 so tight that her cheekbones stuck out, and if looks could kill, P18 0630 Wally would have been dead. "Pack your clothes", she hissed. P18 0640 "Pack- and get out"! "You're crazy", Wally said P18 0650 thickly. He lurched and stumbled to the davenport and sank down on P18 0660 it, and was instantly asleep. Nadine strode over to him, and her pointed P18 0670 nails raked across his face. I grabbed her arm and she turned on P18 0680 me and for a scared second I thought that maybe Wally was right, and P18 0690 she crazy. "You stay out of this", she spat at me. P18 0700 "He's ruined us- do you hear me- he's ruined us! He insulted P18 0710 Ken Thom"! Her eyes were wild. "He told Ken to his face P18 0720 that he doesn't have what it takes to get a woman! And the other P18 0730 people there were listening! We're ruined and he's going to P18 0740 get out if I have to throw him down the stairs"- ## @ "YOU'D P18 0750 BETTER simmer down", I said nervously. I was plenty scared. P18 0760 In the state she was in, she could actually kill him! "Now P18 0770 you just take it easy, and I'll make you some tea"- "" P18 0780 Nadine screeched. "How can you be so damn stupid? P18 0790 Wally's lost his job! Ken will never forgive him- never! And P18 0800 we P18 0810 don't have any money- we don't have a dime! All we own is Francie's P18 0820 bedroom set and the televison-record player and we even owe P18 0830 on them. And we'll be poor and have to live in a grubby little house P18 0840 like yours- and all because of that"- I clamped my hand P18 0850 over her mouth to stop the stream of filth. "Stop that! You'll P18 0860 wake up the whole building. Wally can't go any place at this hour"- P18 0870 "Well then, I'll get out"- But she looked P18 0880 uncertain. She was coming to her senses enough to realize that you don't P18 0890 go traipsing off anywhere at two in the morning. "You P18 0900 go to bed", I said curtly. "In the morning you and Wally can talk P18 0910 things out"- She collapsed against me, as if everything P18 0920 inside her snapped. I got her into bed, and sat with her until she had P18 0930 sobbed herself out. It was three o'clock before I figured it was P18 0940 all right to go. I left her, a limp bundle of self-pity, shivering P18 0950 with terror because her bubble had burst around her. Wally was snoring P18 0960 on the davenport. I had done all I could. I had done all I was going P18 0970 to do. Whether or not Wally lost his job was no concern of mine. P18 0980 I drove home, found Chris still asleep. I snuggled up close to him- P18 0990 loving him- thankful for a man like him. Thankful I wasn't P18 1000 Nadine. I kept on being thankful. In the afternoon Nadine and P18 1010 Wally came over with Francie. Wally sat in our big chair, his hands P18 1020 between his knees, looking ready to cry. "I'd had all this trouble P18 1030 with the old man, that's why I drank so much. I- got fired P18 1040 yesterday for not attending to business"- Old Mr& Thom P18 1050 himself had stopped at the service station for a grease job, Wally P18 1060 confessed, and couldn't get one because there were cars on the pits P18 1070 waiting to be repaired. Seems that the kid Wally had hired had a repair P18 1080 business of his own going on the side. Mr& Thom had gotten Wally P18 1090 on the phone, and fired him. "I thought I'd smooth things over P18 1100 through Ken", Wally said miserably. "But Ken got coy and wouldn't P18 1110 make any promises. And I was plastered and I blew my stack"- P18 1120 "And told him right to his face he'd never slept with P18 1130 a woman"! I tried to quiet Nadine because the children were there. P18 1140 But she was beyond caring what she said. "Things may P18 1150 smooth over yet", Chris said, his nice lean face grave with honest P18 1160 concern. But I couldn't help thinking that Nadine and Wally were P18 1170 getting just what they deserved. Now maybe they'd realize that life P18 1180 can be tough. ## @ WHEN A bubble breaks, there's nothing. P18 1190 Little by little, during the week, Chris and I discovered the crazy P18 1200 unbelievable way Nadine and Wally had lived. They had not only P18 1210 spent every cent- they were in debt up to their necks, owing on everything P18 1220 they owned. On top of everything else they were two months P18 1230 behind on their apartment rent, and the day Wally received written P18 1240 notice that he was fired, they were evicted. Worst of all, P18 1250 Wally had no training for any kind of work. He had fallen into a soft P18 1260 job, and now the job was gone and he was stranded. Chris fretted. P18 1270 "I wish we were in a position to offer a little money to tide P18 1280 them over". I said I wished we were, too. It was easy enough P18 1290 to say it, because of course we couldn't spare a cent. But Chris P18 1300 brightened up like a candle. "I'm glad you feel that way, honey. P18 1310 There one big way we can help them. We can let them move in P18 1320 with us"- Something I had simply never thought of. Something P18 1330 so incredible- I just stared at him. It was incredible- P18 1340 He gave me an embarrassed, pleading look. "I know we'd be P18 1350 pretty crowded. But it would only be for a couple of weeks- until they P18 1360 get straightened out". Straightened out- They'd had P18 1370 years of making all that money! "I won't do it", I said flatly. P18 1380 "Nadine was always too good to live in a little house like this! P18 1390 Well, now she can sleep in the street for all I care"! P18 1400 "That isn't like you, Janice", Chris said uncomfortably. P18 1410 Then I felt uncomfortable, too. I didn't want to be like that, mean P18 1420 and bitter. But, darn it all, why we help a couple of spoiled P18 1430 snobs who had looked down their noses at us? But, in P18 1440 the end, we did. It just seemed as if there was nothing else do. P18 1450 The finance company took all their furniture- and they didn't P18 1460 have a cent to their name. Then Wally got sick. To my way of P18 1470 thinking, he was scared sick. His luck had failed him, and it was easier P18 1480 to crawl off into bed than to get out and fight the world. P18 1490 Chris made trip after trip in our old car, moving the clothes and dishes P18 1500 and the stock of groceries Nadine had bought on special. At least P18 1510 we'll eat, I thought grimly as I put all the food away. P18 1520 While I worked, Nadine sat and cried. When she wasn't crying, she P18 1530 was in our bedroom fighting with Wally. "Virus infection nothing", P18 1531 she'd P18 1540 scream at him. "You're too lazy to go out and look for P18 1550 another job. You're just a no-good bum"! It was a mess, P18 1560 all right. But it couldn't go on forever- A couple of weeks, P18 1570 Chris had said. I figured I could stand practically anything for a P18 1580 couple of weeks. But the two weeks dragged into three, and they P18 1590 were still with us. Nadine's constant nagging had finally gotten P18 1600 Wally out of bed. He set out every morning looking for work, and come P18 1610 home around noon, full of alibis and excuses. Wendell Thom had black-balled P18 1620 him. Nobody would even take his application. "You P18 1630 can get " Nadine would snap. "You can get a job working P18 1640 in a grocery store, if nothing else". "The high school P18 1650 kids have got everything sewed up", he said, a whine in his voice. P18 1660 "Those damn punks- taking work away from men who need it". ## P18 1670 @ "BY FALL they'll be back in school", I'd say, P18 1680 trying to sound encouraging. But this was only the middle of July **h. P18 1690 And I couldn't take six more weeks of this. I mentioned P18 1700 it to Chris one stifling hot night, when I had slipped outside for P18 1710 a breath of fresh air. P19 0010 #@# I DON'T really believe in intuition. But I swear to P19 0020 you from the moment I opened my eyes, I knew it was going to be a P19 0030 bad day. Part of it was the weather, so foggy it would take me twice P19 0040 as long to get to the hospital. Part of it was being so tired- I'd P19 0050 not only had my usual full day yesterday, but a dinner meeting as well, P19 0060 that kept me up late. But the rest of it, the main part, wasn't P19 0070 based on logic at all. It was just going to be one of those days. P19 0080 For the thousandth time, I wished I'd chosen some nice, nine-to-five, P19 0090 five-days-a-week profession. And for the thousandth time, I P19 0100 answered myself. I hadn't chosen medicine- had chosen me. P19 0110 Actually, I shouldn't complain, I told myself in the shaving P19 0120 mirror. I had a lot to be thankful for. A profession that brought P19 0130 me as good an income as mine wasn't to be sneezed at. Maybe I P19 0140 didn't see as much of Gladdy as I'd like, but how much worse it P19 0150 would have been if I'd had to board her out somewhere after Alice P19 0160 went- send my daughter to an orphanage or a boarding-home. At least, P19 0170 we were together and we had Mrs& Hodges, bless her, to look after P19 0180 us- no mother could be fonder of Gladdy than Mrs& Hodges was. P19 0185 I P19 0190 was lucky in lots of ways, no doubt about it. Especially in the P19 0200 way Gladdy had turned out. Growing up without a mother from the time P19 0210 she was three- it wasn't a good thing for a child, even knowing P19 0220 the kind of mother Alice had been. But I mustn't start on Alice. P19 0230 She is a closed book, a picture I keep on my bureau, but never look P19 0240 at. If she'd kept on as she'd been going, the story I'd told P19 0250 Gladdy would probably have been true by now, anyhow **h As usual, P19 0260 Gladdy's bright smile greeted me at the breakfast table. Her P19 0270 first class wasn't until ten, but she always got up to have breakfast P19 0280 with me. It made me feel good and knowing that she'd decided, all P19 0290 on her own, to go to college right here in town made me feel good, too. P19 0300 Oh, I knew that I couldn't give myself all the credit for her P19 0310 decision. I had a feeling that young Pete Michelson, the most promising P19 0320 intern at Fairview, had something to do with it, too. She'd P19 0330 been out with Pete the night before and her gay chatter about P19 0340 their date lightened my mood a little. But once I was alone again, P19 0350 driving P19 0360 to the hospital, the heaviness returned. If she and Pete were P19 0370 really getting serious, I'd have to do some hard thinking. Should P19 0380 I tell him the truth about Alice? Did he have a right to know the P19 0390 secret I'd kept from Gladdy all these years? The boys were P19 0400 already waiting in the corridor outside my office when I got to Fairview. P19 0410 Two interns and Dick Ishii, the other resident. I'm Chief P19 0420 of Medicine here and this morning would start like all others, with P19 0430 me taking the boys on the rounds. Pete was down on Seven, Dick P19 0440 told me, and he'd meet us there. There wasn't anything of P19 0450 special interest that morning, no one sicker than they should have been. P19 0460 Pete came to meet us when we stepped out of the elevator on Seven- P19 0470 he'd had a case of post-operative shock, but it was all taken care P19 0480 of now. Seven is a women's floor and, as it happened, not very busy P19 0490 right then. When we'd finished our regular rounds, Pete pointed P19 0500 me toward the small ward at the end of the floor. "Got a new P19 0510 one in last night", he said. "I haven't seen her yet, but I P19 0520 hear she's a lulu"! I wasn't surprised. The ward was P19 0530 a small one, four beds, kept reserved for female alcoholics. We didn't P19 0540 get many at Fairview and they were never pretty sights. It was P19 0550 thought wiser to keep them segregated from the patients in the regular P19 0560 charity ward. The moment I walked in, the whole miserable feeling P19 0570 of the day seemed to focus on the woman in the bed. They'd cleaned P19 0580 her up some, of course, and she'd pretty much slept off her drunk. P19 0590 But there was something about her- and I felt my lips forming P19 0610 a name. P19 0620 I looked at the chart for reassurance. Yes, Rose Bancroft, P19 0630 diagnosis: acute alcoholism. She looked about sixty, though I recalled P19 0640 that the chart gave her age as forty-four. An ugly scar disfigured P19 0650 the somewhat familiar puffy face, already marred by the tell-tale P19 0660 network of broken red veins that heavy drinkers carry. Her coarse hair P19 0670 was two-colored- bleached blonde and its real, dirty gray. P19 0680 No, no **h it was an unfortunate resemblance, P19 0690 that was all it was, and I turned to Dick, forcing myself to put my P19 0700 disquiet out of my mind. In a low voice, Dick filled us in P19 0710 **h #@# HE'D BEEN picked up downtown, passed out P19 0720 in the doorway. Although quiet when they brought her in, she'd suddenly P19 0730 turned violent and had to be knocked out. It was the old story. P19 0740 We'd keep her a day or two, and the ~AA people would talk to her. P19 0750 But if she wasn't interested, she'd just go back to the same life P19 0760 she'd left. Turning toward the patient again, I- I can't P19 0770 describe what happened to me then, except to say that I felt sick. P19 0780 I tell you, it took every ounce of control I had to be able to P19 0790 speak. "Now, Miss- or is it & Bancroft"? P19 0800 I never P19 0810 liked going straight into an examination with patients- it relaxes P19 0820 them, I've always thought, to chat first. This was one time I'd P19 0830 have gladly broken my own rule, but habit was too strong. P19 0840 "Hey"! Her voice was flat and dull. But those penetrating eyes- P19 0850 I had to turn my head away. It was then that I saw what the drawn-back P19 0860 covers revealed. There were bloodspots on the sheet. P19 0870 "What's this"? I asked. "Your period"? She P19 0880 shook P19 0890 her head. "I been spotting a little now and then", she said quietly, P19 0900 no emotion in her voice. "Have you spoken to a doctor P19 0910 about it"? Once again, there was a negative shake. I told P19 0920 Miss Groggins to move her down the hall where we had an examining P19 0930 table. "Better do a Papanicolaou", I told Pete. It was only a P19 0940 few moments before Miss Groggins had her in the proper position for P19 0950 a vaginal, but I couldn't see anything wrong on gross examination. P19 0960 Pete stood by with a slide and took the smear, sent it down to the lab P19 0970 with a request for the test. That done, I told Miss Groggins to P19 0980 take her patient back to bed and again put her out of my mind. P19 0990 I was busy the rest of the day. Late in the afternoon, I was up on P19 1000 Seven again. One of my private patients was being admitted and I went P19 1010 in to see her settled. On my way to the elevator, I ran into Pete. P19 1020 "I've got the results on the Bancroft smear test", he said. P19 1030 "There's something there, all right. Class Three, they said. P19 1040 Do you want to talk to her, doctor"? "Well"- I didn't- P19 1050 I didn't ever want to see that woman again. But that was P19 1060 ridiculous, of course. "All right. We'll do a D& and C& and P19 1070 get her permission for a hysterectomy. Maybe it's nothing, maybe P19 1080 it's intraepithelial or - can't take any chances". P19 1090 "If you can keep her here that long", Pete said wryly. "Groggins P19 1100 tells me she's started badgering already, wants to get out. P19 1120 Wants to get to her booze, I guess". I grimaced in distaste. P19 1130 "Well, better see what I can do". We'd been standing P19 1140 right outside Miss Bancroft's door and as I went to turn the P19 1150 knob to enter, I was surprised to find that the door was slightly ajar. P19 1160 But she seemed to be dozing and in any case, we'd been talking in P19 1170 low tones. Her eyes opened as soon as she heard me, though, P19 1180 and once again, I felt an inward shiver. "I sure can't complain P19 1190 about the service in this place", she said. "I just got through seeing P19 1200 one of you guys. What do want"? There was something P19 1210 almost insulting in her tone, but I disregarded it. "I've P19 1220 just been talking to Dr& Michelson", I said. "We'd like P19 1230 you to have a dilatation and curettage. That's quite minor, nothing P19 1240 to worry about. But we would like your permission to do- that is, P19 1250 to go further if it proves necessary". "No". It was flat, P19 1260 definite. "Suppose you let me explain. Actually, I rather P19 1270 doubt that we'll have to do this. Even if we do, you'll be out P19 1280 of here in a week, probably". I was sure that was the difficulty- P19 1290 she just didn't want to stay here, where she couldn't get P19 1300 to the liquor. "No". I looked at her in amazement. P19 1310 I'd had patients who'd refused surgery before, of course, but P19 1320 never one who didn't show, in one way or another, the reason . P19 1330 Mostly, it was fear, but this woman's voice didn't tremble and P19 1340 her hands were still on the coverlet. "Will you tell me why"? P19 1350 I asked. She smiled, a smile without humor. "You shouldn't P19 1360 tell your little secrets outside of the patient's door", P19 1370 she said. "I've got cancer, haven't I"? She went on, disregarding P19 1380 my protests. "I'm not going to be one of your guinea pigs. P19 1390 Let your pupils learn on someone else, doctor. Just let me die in P19 1400 peace". #@# I at her, almost speechless. Her little P19 1410 speech was totally out of character with the sort of person I thought P19 1420 she was. Even her voice had taken on a more cultivated tone. I thought. . Again there was something familiar about her, P19 1450 **h "You haven't got cancer", I said as strongly P19 1460 as I could. "I don't know what you heard that would make you P19 1470 think so, but I assure you I don't even know myself, so how can P19 1480 you be so sure? And even if"- "Don't give me a lot P19 1490 of talk, ". I gaped at her. She could have found out P19 1500 my first name, of course- that wouldn't be difficult. But there P19 1510 was that something, some echo in the way she spoke **h She was P19 1520 watching me intently, a funny little half-smile on her lips. "Surprised, P19 1530 baby? Guess I've changed, haven't I? But you haven't P19 1540 changed much, Joe". I knew then, knew with a heart-stopping P19 1550 shock. "Alice"- I stammered through dry lips. "Alice, P19 1560 for goodness sake"- "Alice", she echoed mockingly. "What's P19 1570 the matter, Joe, you scared of me? Think I'm going P19 1580 to make you introduce a drunk as your wife? Well, don't worry. Just P19 1590 let me outta here"- "But why did you come back"? P19 1600 I'd found my voice. "Where have you been all these years"? P19 1610 She shrugged. "Here and there. As for coming back here- P19 1620 well, I'll tell you the truth, I didn't even know where I was when P19 1630 I came to. The last thing I remember is a bar in San Diego"- P19 1640 The way she spoke, her flat acceptance of her alcoholic blackout, P19 1650 made me shudder. And this was Gladdy's mother! "I P19 1660 never asked you for any favors, Joe", she went on, "but I'm P19 1670 asking one now. Let me outta here! You doctors are all alike- P19 1680 all you want is to cut up people and what's the good? No, I want P19 1690 out, Joe"! I looked at the pathetic wreck of a woman before P19 1700 me. Let her out, let her out- that would be the solution, wouldn't P19 1710 it? What she'd said was true- in all these years, she'd P19 1720 never asked for anything from me. If I let her go, she'd disappear P19 1730 once more. And Gladdy would be safe! P20 0010 I was slowly swimming down to the bottom of the sea. She made P20 0020 me welcome. Her dark cool caresses were sweeter than any woman's; P20 0030 the many little tricks she knew made her embrace the ultimate one- P20 0040 the ever more fantastic pressures deeper in her body squeezed not me P20 0050 but the air I breathed into a nitrogen anesthetic. P20 0055 Yielding-Mediterranean-woman-flesh-of-water, P20 0060 she soothed me, and drew me deeper into her. P20 0070 I no longer knew how deep I was, somewhere under 230 feet, P20 0080 getting drunker, happier and more contented by the second. The reasons P20 0090 for this dive seemed foolish now. Only the dive itself had any meaning. P20 0100 The metal-tasting nitrogen made me wonder if I should remove P20 0105 the mouthpiece P20 0110 and suck in the sweet water. Perhaps if I took off the P20 0120 aqua-lung I could swim better, love my woman better. I chuckled aloud, P20 0130 and the mouthpiece fell out. While a hazy part of my mind P20 0140 concentrated on swimming down, a clear part sorted over recent events, P20 0150 among them my only positive act in a long time. It was when I packed P20 0160 up what duds I had and went to Paris. It was no vacation, just me P20 0170 getting out after a bellyfull. I knew it wouldn't be the same. Wild P20 0180 kicks never are, but I hoped to dig up a better frame of mind. P20 0190 Once before I had been to Paris, long before I married Valery. P20 0200 That first time was good and it stuck with me. I was twenty-one back P20 0210 then, in the army, and fog put our plane down at Orly instead of P20 0220 Rhine-Main. It was a Saturday evening in April with a mist-like rain, P20 0230 and I was a little high on the good taste of life. I had a pocketful P20 0240 of money, which was unusual when I was in the army, and the plane P20 0250 would be grounded all night. In less than an hour I had gotten a P20 0260 hotel, showered, shaved and was out on the Champs Elysees in a fresh P20 0270 uniform. I felt like a Hun in Rome. All the women were P20 0280 beautiful, P20 0290 and the men were equal to them; everything was glamorous to P20 0300 my dazzled eyes. There were some sweet machines other than women: P20 0310 an old Bugatti, a lean Farina coachwork on an American chassis, a Swallow, P20 0320 a type 540-~K Mercedes and lots more. There was the Arc P20 0330 de Triomphe and the Tour d'Eiffel- I was no yokel, but I was P20 0340 young, and this was Paris! I had champagne at Maxim's, P20 0350 then went into a cafe called the Jour et Nuit to ask the way to Montmartre. P20 0360 I never got there. I met Claire, which was better. She was P20 0370 eating bread and cheese just as fast as she possibly could, and washing P20 0380 it down with red wine. I stared. I didn't know a human could feed P20 0390 so fast and still be beautiful. She was blonde, and young, and nice P20 0400 and round in a tight white dress. Maybe her ravenous eating wasn't P20 0410 grotesque because she was so positive about it. When she had P20 0420 drained the last of the bottle and paid her bill, she came directly P20 0430 to my table and said: "Handsome soldier, I have assuaged P20 0440 one hunger with food. I feel another of terrible urgency. Is your evening P20 0450 free"? "Madame", I said with noblesse oblige because P20 0460 of the "handsome"- "yeah". And so off we went P20 0470 to her apartment. She was a nymphomaniac, of course, the poor girl. Toward P20 0480 the break of day I waxed philosophical, and drew analogies about P20 0490 her way of eating bread and cheese. Now it was nine years later, P20 0500 and it wasn't spring but winter when I returned. I got P20 0510 there on a Saturday evening. I made the mistake of going to the Jour P20 0520 et Nuit. The place was busy but I didn't feel like a Hun. I P20 0540 sat waiting for Life to come along and sweep me up. I had part of a P20 0550 bottle of French beer called Panther Pils (so help me), then switched P20 0560 to Tuborg. After a few hours, Life hadn't showed, and I was crocked. P20 0570 I went to my hotel and slept. The next morning a little cognac P20 0580 made me feel better- but what can you do in Paris on Sunday morning? P20 0590 So I drank more cognac. All that day and Monday I P20 0600 drank just enough to orbit but not make deep space. I read the and the . Elemental, but sex. P20 0620 That's what was on my mind. I was turning over the idea of a good P20 0630 debauchery when I dozed off. I felt better Tuesday evening P20 0640 when I woke up. My head was clear, my thinking sober and I was reconciled P20 0650 to this Paris idea as a flop on top of all my others. A good P20 0660 binge has that kind of therapeutic value. Sometime earlier P20 0670 the weather had turned cold and it was snowing. I went out into it. P20 0680 I walked around breathing the cold wine of the air until I found a park, P20 0690 and I sat down on a snowy bench where the light was dim and came P20 0700 from the sky. There was dignity and beauty in the little white flakes P20 0710 falling through the blue night. I had on only a topcoat, but I wasn't P20 0720 cold. I was just miserable. Pretty soon a woman came along P20 0730 carrying a folded umbrella as a walking stick. She saw me and sat P20 0740 down beside me, three feet away. Suddenly I understood why she had P20 0750 the umbrella. It gave her poise and posture. Without it she would have P20 0760 been drab and limp. It gave her propriety. It gave her the right P20 0770 to sit down beside me, back straight, one hand out on the handle. I P20 0780 couldn't imagine her without it. I knew all about her. She was another P20 0790 human being and happened to be a hustler. I didn't much care if P20 0800 she were there or not. After a while she said with sort of an P20 0810 unuttered laugh, "You have snow in your hair and ears". (I didn't P20 0820 have on a hat.) Hardly glancing at her, I smiled a bleak P20 0830 one which said, Thanks, baby, but I'd rather be alone. She P20 0840 was silent for a while, then said, "Why are you so unhappy"? P20 0850 "I'm not unhappy", I lied, staring at the snow. She was P20 0860 trying to make a hole in my armor, and I didn't want it. P20 0870 "Is it a woman"? she asked gently. She must have seen the ring P20 0880 on my left hand. "Well- women and unhappiness go together", P20 0890 I observed profoundly, adding, "You can wager your derriere on P20 0900 that". "Ah, monsieur, it is not my business to wager it P20 0910 **h" This took me so funny I had to look at her. I felt my P20 0920 frozen sad face crumble, and I grinned a silly one I couldn't have P20 0930 helped. I even snorted a chuckle. She smiled at me, but it P20 0940 was an awfully sad smile. She was even more miserable than me. Her eyes P20 0950 were smiling, too, but so sadly, and there was tiredness and infinite P20 0960 wisdom in them. "Now isn't it better to smile"? she asked. P20 0970 Because I liked this sad person so much, I said, "Will P20 0980 you have a drink with me"? I could see the ancient cynicism P20 0990 reinforce itself in her eyes, and I wondered how many men she had picked P20 1000 up with this same gambit. Anyway, I pulled a bottle of P20 1010 Remy Martin out of my topcoat, drew the cork, and passed it to her. P20 1020 I could see she was shocked. "I'm sorry I haven't P20 1030 got a glass", I said. "Non, non", she said, taking the P20 1040 bottle, "not for that be sorry". She tilted up and drank, P20 1050 and then I drank. It's really rotten to drink good cognac like P20 1060 that, but I hadn't cared before. I wasn't going to lug around a P20 1070 glass. There wasn't much light in the blue dark, but I could P20 1080 see her well. No child, this tart, she must have been thirty-five or P20 1090 even forty. I couldn't be sure. Somehow she was attractive. Not P20 1100 good looking, but self-confident and wise so that it made her attractive. P20 1110 I liked her, and all at once I was glad she was there. We P20 1120 finished the bottle- I hadn't had a lot out of it earlier- not P20 1130 speaking much to each other, and we stayed sober. I suppose P20 1140 we were cold, but we didn't feel it. We seemed to be drowsing, sadly, P20 1150 soberly, in the cold, cold air while the snow fell. Then she said, P20 1160 "Allons", and we got up and went to my hotel without another word. P20 1170 I sensed no stranger in her. We undressed and made love with P20 1180 the comfortable acceptance I had once known with Valery. I decided P20 1190 thirty-five was the best estimate of her age. She had a funny little P20 1200 scar on her stomach, on the left side. I think we were very P20 1210 tired, for we awoke at the same moment, deeply rested, surprised to P20 1220 see the late morning sun on the windows, which were wet where the rime P20 1230 had melted. I felt wonderful, the absolute opposite of last night's P20 1240 melancholy. My head was clear. I was hungry as a wolf, and P20 1250 my body felt lean and vital. "Bon jour", I said brightly, P20 1260 sitting up, which pulled the covers to her hips. She looked good, with P20 1270 her short tousled hair and no make-up. Maybe closer to thirty, I P20 1280 thought. "Bon jour"! she exclaimed, smiling. "J'ai P20 1290 faim"! "Yeah, but breakfast first". With a laugh she P20 1300 beat me to the bathroom. I called downstairs for food and a toothbrush P20 1310 for her. She came out pink from a hot bath, and I gave her my robe. P20 1320 I had brushed my teeth, showered, shaved and dressed by the time a P20 1330 waiter wheeled in breakfast. "The toothbrush monsieur", he P20 1340 said, presenting it. I gave it to the woman. "What is this P20 1350 for"? she asked innocently. "Why, to brush your teeth". P20 1360 "But I already have! I used yours". "Oh"? P20 1370 I said with round eyes. I wondered if I ought to go use the new P20 1380 one myself. But I smelled the coffee, and thinking, What the hell, P20 1390 live dangerously, I decided I would scald my worries away. The coffee P20 1400 wasn't very hot though, made in a filter pot, but it was good. P20 1410 We sent the waiter away and ate a tremendous amount of cold ham, hot P20 1420 hard-boiled eggs and hot garlic bread. As we ate, we talked. Her name P20 1430 was Suzanne, and mine Stephen. We sat back comfortably on P20 1440 the bed with our last cups of coffee. "You are very tactful, P20 1450 do you know, Stephen", she remarked. "Um"? I grunted, P20 1460 sipping. "Yes, because you didn't run off to use that P20 1470 new toothbrush". I raised my eyes to look at her in the mirror. P20 1480 "I didn't really use yours", she went on. "I carry P20 1490 one in my purse. I know men never kiss . To P20 1500 my immense relief, she changed the subject in the next sentence: P20 1510 "Shall we go to the Louvre today"? "All right". I P20 1520 said with enthusiasm at the idea. "But not immediately". I put P20 1530 aside my empty cup. She smiled all the way to her wise, sad eyes, and P20 1540 drained her own. We were not rushed. "What is this P20 1550 from"? I asked, touching the scar on her stomach. It was like a P20 1560 long thin line drawn through a pink circle. "A bullet", she P20 1570 answered. The cynicism was back in her eyes, a bitter wisdom, and I P20 1580 wondered if forty were not so far wrong after all. She understood sex P20 1590 anyway, and played at it well. We went to the Louvre for a P20 1600 few hours, then by Metro to a cabaret in Montmartre. It was P20 1610 a nice place, not filled with smoke. We had champagne and steamed mussels. P20 1620 The brought the wine first, a magnum instead of P20 1630 the bottle I had ordered. He must have thought I was a tourist. P20 1640 I fixed him with a steely eye and said, "What's this for? P20 1650 I didn't ask for a Jeroboam of champagne". I thought that P20 1660 was pretty humorous, but I didn't laugh. P21 0010 TWO LETTERS HAD ARRIVED FOR MISS THERESA STUBBLEFIELD: SHE P21 0020 PUT them in her bag. She would not stop to read them in American P21 0030 Express, as many were doing, sitting on benches or leaning against the P21 0040 walls, but pushed her way out into the street. This was her first P21 0050 day in Rome and it was June. An enormous sky of the most delicate P21 0060 blue arched overhead. In her mind's eye- her imagination responding P21 0070 fully, almost exhaustingly, to these shores' peculiar powers P21 0080 of stimulation- she saw the city as from above, telescoped on its P21 0090 great bare plains that the ruins marked, aqueducts and tombs, here a cypress, P21 0100 there a pine, and all around the low blue hills. Pictures in P21 0110 old Latin books returned to her: the Appian Way Today, the Colosseum, P21 0120 the Arch of Constantine. She would see them, looking just as P21 0130 they had in the books, and this would make up a part of her delight. P21 0140 Moreover, nursing various Stubblefields- her aunt, then her mother, P21 0150 then her father- through their lengthy illnesses (everybody could P21 0160 tell you the Stubblefields were always sick), Theresa had had a chance P21 0170 to read quite a lot. England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and P21 0180 Italy had all been rendered for her time and again, and between the P21 0190 prescribed hours of pills and tonics, she had conceived a dreamy passion P21 0200 by lamplight, to see all these places with her own eyes. The very P21 0210 night after her father's funeral she had thought, though never admitted P21 0220 to a soul: . P21 0230 So here it was, here was Italy, anyway, and terribly noisy. P21 0240 In the street the traffic was really frightening. Cars, taxis, buses, P21 0250 and motorscooters all went plunging at once down the narrow length P21 0260 of it or swerving perilously around a fountain. Shoals of tourists went P21 0270 by her in national groups- English school girls in blue uniforms, P21 0280 German boys with cameras attached, smartly dressed Americans looking P21 0290 in shop windows. Glad to be alone, Theresa climbed the splendid outdoor P21 0300 staircase that opened to her left. The Spanish Steps. P21 0310 Something special was going on here just now- the annual display of P21 0320 azalea plants. She had heard about it the night before at her hotel. P21 0330 It was not yet complete: workmen were unloading the potted plants P21 0340 from P21 0350 a truck and placing them in banked rows on the steps above. The azaleas P21 0360 were as large as shrubs, and their myriad blooms, many still tight P21 0370 in the bud, ranged in color from purple through fuchsia and rose to P21 0380 the palest pink, along with many white ones too. Marvelous, thought P21 0390 Theresa, climbing in her portly, well-bred way, for she was someone P21 0400 who had learned that if you only move slowly enough you have time to P21 0410 notice everything. In Rome, all over Europe, she intended to move very P21 0420 slowly indeed. Halfway up the staircase she stopped and sat P21 0430 down. Other people were doing it, too, sitting all along the wide banisters P21 0440 and leaning over the parapets above, watching the azaleas mass, P21 0450 or just enjoying the sun. Theresa sat with her letters in her lap, P21 0460 breathing Mediterranean air. The sun warmed her, as it seemed to be P21 0470 warming everything, perhaps even the underside of stones or the chill P21 0480 insides of churches. She loosened her tweed jacket and smoked a cigarette. P21 0490 Content **h excited; how could you be both at once? Strange, P21 0500 but she was. Presently, she picked up the first of the letters. P21 0510 A few moments later her hands were trembling and her brow had contracted P21 0520 with anxiety and dismay. she thought, tears rising P21 0540 to sting in the sun, P21 0560 She had reason indeed to wonder how the letter had P21 0570 managed to find her. Her Cousin Emma Carraway had written it, in her P21 0580 loose high old lady's script- ~t's carefully crossed, but P21 0590 ~l's inclined to wobble like an old car on the downward slope. Cousin P21 0600 Emma had simply put Miss Theresa Stubblefield, Rome, Italy, P21 0610 on the envelope, had walked up to the post office in Tuxapoka, Alabama, P21 0620 and mailed it with as much confidence as if it had been a birthday P21 0630 card to her next-door neighbor. No return address whatsoever. Somebody P21 0640 had scrawled American Express, Piazza di Spagna?, across the P21 0650 envelope, and now Theresa had it, all as easily as if she had been P21 0655 the P21 0660 President of the Republic or the Pope. Inside were all the things P21 0670 they thought she ought to know concerning the last illness, death, P21 0680 and P21 0690 burial of Cousin Alexander Carraway. Cousin Emma and Cousin P21 0700 Elec, brother and sister- unmarried, devoted, aging- had lived P21 0710 next door to the Stubblefields in Tuxapoka from time immemorial until P21 0720 the Stubblefields had moved to Montgomery fifteen years ago. P21 0730 Two days before he was taken sick, Cousin Elec was out worrying about P21 0740 what too much rain might do to his sweetpeas, and Cousin Elec had P21 0750 always preserved in the top drawer of his secretary a mother-of-pearl P21 0755 paper P21 0760 knife which Theresa had coveted as a child and which he had promised P21 0770 she could have when he died. she realized, with a sigh. . She refolded the letter, replaced it in its envelope, P21 0810 and turned with relief to one from her brother George. But alas P21 0820 George, when had written, had only just returned from going P21 0830 to Tuxapoka to Cousin Elec's funeral. He was full of heavy family P21 0840 reminiscence. All the fine old stock was dying out, look at the world P21 0850 today. His own children had suffered from the weakening of those P21 0860 values which he and Theresa had always taken for granted, and as for P21 0870 his grandchildren (he had one so far, still in diapers), he shuddered P21 0880 to think that the true meaning of character might never dawn on them P21 0890 at all. A life of gentility and principle such as Cousin Elec had lived P21 0900 had to be known at first hand **h. Poor George! The only P21 0910 boy, the family darling. Together with her mother, both of them tense P21 0920 with worry lest things should somehow go wrong. Theresa had seen P21 0930 him through the right college, into the right fraternity, and though P21 0940 pursued by various girls and various mammas of girls, safely married to P21 0950 the right sort, however much in the early years of that match his wife, P21 0960 Anne, had not seemed to understand poor George. Could it just be, P21 0970 Theresa wondered, that Anne had understood only too well, and that P21 0980 George all along was extraordinary only in the degree to which he was P21 0990 dull? As for Cousin Alexander Carraway, the only thing P21 1000 Theresa could remember at the moment about him (except his paper knife) P21 1010 was that he had had exceptionally long hands and feet and one night P21 1020 about one o'clock in the morning the whole Stubblefield family had P21 1030 been aroused to go next door at Cousin Emma's call- first Papa, P21 1040 then Mother, then Theresa and George. There they all did their P21 1050 uttermost to help Cousin Elec get a cramp out of his foot. He had P21 1060 hobbled downstairs into the parlor, in his agony, and was sitting, wrapped P21 1070 in his bathrobe, on a footstool. He held his long clenched foot P21 1080 in both hands, and this and his contorted face- he was trying heroically P21 1090 not to cry out- made him look like a large skinny old monkey. They P21 1100 all surrounded him, the family circle, Theresa and George as solemn P21 1110 as if they were watching the cat have kittens, and Cousin Emma P21 1120 running back and forth with a kettle of hot water which she poured steaming P21 1130 into a white enamelled pan. "Can you think of anything to do"? P21 1140 she kept repeating. "I hate to call the doctor but if this keeps P21 1150 up I'll just have to! Can you think of anything to do"? P21 1160 "You might treat it like the hiccups", said Papa. "Drop a cold P21 1170 key down his back". "I just hope this happens to you someday", P21 1180 said Cousin Elec, who was not at his best. "Poor Cousin Elec", P21 1190 George said. He was younger than Theresa: she remembered looking P21 1200 down and seeing his great round eyes, while at the same time she was P21 1210 dimly aware that her mother and father were not unamused. "Poor P21 1220 Cousin Elec". Now, here they both were, still the same, George P21 1230 full of round-eyed woe, and Cousin Emma in despair. Theresa shifted P21 1240 to a new page. "Of course (George's letter continued), P21 1250 there are practical problems to be considered. Cousin Emma is alone P21 1260 in that big old house and won't hear to parting from it. Robbie P21 1270 and Beryl tried their best to persuade her to come and stay with them, P21 1280 and Anne and I have told her she's more than welcome here, but P21 1290 I think she feels that she might be an imposition, especially as long P21 1300 as our Rosie is still in high school. The other possibility is to P21 1310 make arrangements for her to let out one or two of the rooms to some teacher P21 1320 of good family or one of those solitary old ladies that Tuxapoka P21 1330 is populated with- Miss Edna Whittaker, for example. But there P21 1340 is more in this than meets the eye. A new bathroom would certainly P21 1350 have to be put in. The wallpaper in the back bedroom is literally crumbling P21 1360 off **h". (Theresa skipped a page of details about the house.) P21 1370 "I hope if you have any ideas along these lines you will write P21 1380 me about them. I may settle on some makeshift arrangements for the summer P21 1390 and wait until you return in the fall so we can work out together P21 1400 the best **h". I really shouldn't have smoked a cigarette P21 1410 so early in the day, thought Theresa, it always makes me sick. I'll P21 1420 start sneezing in a minute, sitting on these cold steps. She got P21 1430 up, standing uncertainly for a moment, then moving aside to let go past P21 1440 her, talking, a group of young men. They wore shoes with pointed toes, P21 1450 odd to American eyes, and narrow trousers, and their hair looked P21 1460 unnaturally black and slick. Yet here they were obviously thought to P21 1470 be handsome, and felt themselves to be so. Just then a man approached P21 1480 her with a tray of cheap cameos, Parker fountain pens, rosaries, papal P21 1490 portraits. "No", said Theresa. "No, no"! she said. The P21 1500 man did not wish to leave. He knew how to spread himself against the P21 1510 borders of the space that had to separate them. Carrozza rides in P21 1520 the park, the Colosseum by moonlight, he specialized **h. Theresa turned P21 1530 away to escape, and climbed to a higher landing where the steps P21 1540 divided in two. There she walked to the far left and leaned on a vacant P21 1550 section of banister, while the vendor picked himself another well-dressed P21 1560 American lady, carrying a camera and a handsome alligator bag, P21 1570 ascending the steps alone. Was he ever successful, Theresa wondered. P21 1580 The lady with the alligator bag registered interest, doubt, then indignation; P21 1590 at last, alarm. She cast about as though looking for a policeman: P21 1600 this really shouldn't be allowed! Finally, she scurried P21 1610 away up the steps. Theresa Stubblefield, still holding the P21 1620 family letters in one hand, realized that her whole trip to Europe was P21 1630 viewed in family circles as an interlude between Cousin Elec's P21 1640 death and "doing something" about Cousin Emma. They were even, P21 1650 Anne and George, probably thinking themselves very considerate in not P21 1660 hinting that she really should cut out "one or two countries" P21 1670 and come home in August to get Cousin Emma's house ready before the P21 1680 teachers came to Tuxapoka in September. Of course, it wasn't Anne P21 1690 and George's fault that one family crisis seemed to follow another, P21 1700 and weren't they always emphasizing that they really didn't P21 1710 know what they would do without Theresa? Theresa P21 1720 thought, . She arranged the letters carefully, one P21 1800 on top of the other. Then, with a motion so suddenly violent that she P21 1810 amazed herself, she tore them in two. "Signora"? P21 1820 She became aware that two Italian workmen, carrying a large azalea P21 1830 pot, were standing before her and wanted her to move so that they could P21 1840 begin arranging a new row of the display. "Mi diapiace, P21 1850 signora, ma **h insomma **h". "Oh **h put it there"! P21 1860 She indicated a spot a little distance away. P22 0010 ## I knew it as surely as everybody in Westfield- that Lucille P22 0020 was a husband stealer. You can't keep that kind of information quiet P22 0030 in a town of only 4000-plus. And I've been told that just about P22 0040 every town, no matter what its size, has its Lucille Warren. P22 0050 Just as it has its Susan Dolan, though nobody'd ever bothered to P22 0060 tell me that. Susan Dolan, that's me. They even talked about P22 0070 Lucille down at the Young Christians' League where I spent P22 0080 a lot of time in Bible classes and helping out with the office work P22 0090 for our foreign mission. I never heard my folks talk about her, though. P22 0100 They were good-living religious people, and I can truthfully say P22 0110 I never heard them spread any gossip about anybody. Even if they ever P22 0120 did say anything about people like Lucille Warren, I know they wouldn't P22 0130 have dreamed of saying it in front of me. My folks and my faith P22 0140 protected me from things like that. And so I was really upset P22 0150 the first time I discovered that my boy friend Johnnie was seeing P22 0160 Mrs& warren. P22 0170 I asked him about it one night while we were sitting P22 0180 in his truck. I asked him if it was true. He gave me a straight, P22 0190 honest answer. "Look, Sue baby", he'd said. Much as I P22 0200 love you- well, a guy's a guy and Lucille's willing to- P22 0210 to come across. Honest, kitten, that's all it is- I don't even P22 0220 like Lucille much". I guess it was at that moment that I P22 0230 realized what I was up against in the person of Lucille Warren. But P22 0240 it didn't seem fair. My love for Johnnie was young and clean- P22 0250 how could I possibly compete with a woman like that, who didn't hesitate P22 0260 to use her sex. Johnnie was a trucker with a small lumber P22 0270 outfit in a town about twenty miles away, and he was also pretty good P22 0280 at anything in the carpentry line. It was a vivid, sharp February P22 0290 morning that Johnnie first made his appearance in my back yard, bringing P22 0300 some stuff Dad had ordered. I wasn't in the habit of batting P22 0310 my eyes at delivery men, but the moment I saw Johnnie, I knew he was P22 0320 different. He wasn't only different- he was . He had an P22 0330 easy masculine grace about him, the kind that kids don't have, but P22 0340 that I had sometimes admired in other older men. His smile was quick, P22 0350 and his eyes held some promised secret that made my knees go limp. P22 0360 The most unbelievable thing about the chance meeting was that P22 0370 seemed interested in , too. I could hardly believe such P22 0380 good luck was mine. And now Lucille Warren had gotten a look P22 0390 at him. I guess she was between affairs or something, but anyway, she P22 0400 had set her sights on Johnnie, Johnnie. I didn't P22 0410 like it one bit. But what could I do? A man had to have his release- P22 0420 at least that's what the boys used to say in high school- and P22 0430 I wasn't providing it for Johnnie. Neither was his wife. She P22 0431 wouldn't have, even if he'd asked her. But he wouldn't P22 0432 ask her- he wasn't the kind of man who would force his wife to submit P22 0433 to him against her will. And he wouldn't leave her either- he'd P22 0434 told me that. He was too honorable to leave his wife penniless and P22 0435 leave those helpless children without their daddy. Johnnie P22 0436 loved me and wanted me. But the only love was giving him was the P22 0437 pure kind. It was weeks before we even kissed for the first time. P22 0440 ## Against my folks' P22 0450 wishes, we'd been seeing each other for short rides in the truck. P22 0460 The rides were tame enough- mostly we talked. But by the time the P22 0470 first crackling of spring came around, we both knew we were hopelessly P22 0480 in love. Yet even then we did nothing much but talk, and maybe neck P22 0490 a little. "It's so crazy", I told him once. "I always P22 0500 imagined I would probably end up marrying a minister or somebody like P22 0510 that. Somebody with no vices. know". "And you P22 0520 fall for a lumber jockey". "Who drinks far too much". P22 0530 "And smokes too much". "And", I was ticking off P22 0540 the items on my fingers, "swears too much and goes out with the boys, P22 0550 whoever are, too much, and who goes to church P22 0560 and won't even listen when I try to persuade him to come back to the P22 0570 fold". He examined his nails carefully. "I could walk P22 0580 out the door". "Don't you dare". "And never P22 0590 show my face or my truck around here again". He still wasn't looking P22 0600 at me. "You wouldn't". "Or I could visit P22 0610 Lucille Warren". "You wouldn't. Please! You wouldn't". P22 0620 He shrugged noncommittally. "I might". And P22 0630 now he seeing her. He'd just admitted it to me. I huddled P22 0640 miserably beside him in the truck. It was all doing- his P22 0650 seeing her. Johnnie and I had been innocent in our love, and that was P22 0660 the way I wanted to keep it. At first, Johnnie hadn't understood- P22 0670 how could he, not being a religious person like me? But then P22 0680 he had said, "All right, kid, if that's how you want it, that's P22 0690 how it'll be". But what had I done, trying to keep us pure? P22 0700 I had driven him into the arms of that scheming woman. I had just P22 0710 the same as delivered him into the hands of the Devil! So P22 0720 one week later, I surrendered to him in the little motel on Route P22 0730 10. My very first time. I was desperate to hold him, to give him whatever P22 0740 in this world he wanted or needed, and to keep him from the clutches P22 0750 of Lucille Warren. And, though at the time I blushed P22 0760 to admit it even to myself, there was in me a growing desire, a sexual P22 0770 awareness, that Johnnie had set in motion, an awareness that no other P22 0780 man had ever triggered. I wanted him, with a terrifying fierceness. P22 0790 Astonishingly enough, it was my own voice I heard there in the P22 0800 darkness, begging this man to make love to me. "Love me, P22 0810 Johnnie". "I will, kitten"! Outside, in the P22 0811 summertime P22 0820 fields behind the motel, a thousand crickets serenaded us. "Will P22 0830 you always love me this way"? "Uh huh. Always". P22 0840 "Mmm". And I snuggled closer to the man l loved. P22 0850 It was as blissful and fulfilling a night as any bride ever experienced. P22 0860 I had had no wedding ceremony, no witnesses, no certificate of marriage, P22 0870 but I had all the joy that goes with them. "Johnnie P22 0880 **h? "It can't be wrong, can it? Not ". P22 0890 Johnnie rose on one elbow. "Stop worrying. It's never wrong P22 0900 if love is real". I took great comfort from his words, P22 0910 and smiled to myself in the darkness. Infinite peace, complete contentment. P22 0920 Idiot's delight, I later discovered. ## I felt no conflict P22 0940 between what I was doing and my strict religious upbringing. I had P22 0950 always resisted the passes made at me by other kids, and many times P22 0960 I had thought about my love for Johnnie who, being thirty, brought a P22 0970 maturity to love that the kids around town could know nothing about. P22 0980 I had also thought a lot about how God must look on true love, and so P22 0990 in a way I was keeping my promise to God, my promise to remain pure P22 1000 until I was married. I practically a bride, after all. P22 1010 There have been a ceremony if it had been possible. P22 1020 Of this, I had no doubt. Wouldn't Johnnie do practically anything P22 1030 in the world to insure my happiness? Of course he would. He'd P22 1040 not only told me so, he'd proved it. It wasn't Johnnie's fault P22 1050 that he was hopelessly tied down to that frightful woman who did P22 1060 her best to make his life unbearable. Just because he was honorable P22 1070 enough to want to continue supporting his two children, as any decent P22 1080 man would, that was no reason he should be denied his own small share P22 1090 of happiness too. And if I could contribute to that, I'd do it. The P22 1100 cost didn't matter. No price is too high when true love is at stake. P22 1110 And I had no doubts about how true this love was. I'd P22 1120 never even petted with a boy, and after I met Johnnie he never touched P22 1130 me for the longest while, not until I all but threw myself at him. P22 1140 He was plenty attentive, all right, but he behaved like a gentleman, P22 1150 and I figured that, emotionally, I was closer to his age than to P22 1160 my own eighteen and a half. What could a mere twelve years matter? P22 1170 It wasn't, I was sure, a difference in age that came between people, P22 1180 but a difference in maturity. And hadn't I rescued him from P22 1190 Lucille Warren? She'd have gotten him, if I hadn't stopped P22 1200 her. After all, Lucille Warren a husband-stealer from way P22 1210 back. But been a good girl and now God was blessing P22 1220 me with the gift of this magnificent man and the wondrous love we P22 1230 shared. It was only fitting that we seek out whatever joy our union might P22 1240 bring. <"Love me"?> <"Uh-huh. Love you">. P22 1250 <"Always and always, Johnnie"?> <"Always">. P22 1260 <"Mmm">. Convention time in Boston. P22 1270 A chill wind in the air and the narrow streets packed with snow. From P22 1280 the entire eastern half of the nation they'd be coming, members P22 1290 of the Young Christians' League, and I'd been chosen to represent P22 1300 our chapter. I had mixed emotions about going. I'd been P22 1310 seeing Johnnie almost a year now, but I still didn't want to leave P22 1320 him for five whole days. But I had looked forward so much to being P22 1330 with this church group. I hadn't been doing as much work as I used P22 1340 to in Westfield and I felt funny about that and wanted to work harder P22 1350 than ever. I wanted to just throw myself into the good works of this P22 1360 fine group. So I went to Boston. The first meeting was P22 1370 held in Faneuil Hall, a great big place where we were able to meet members P22 1380 from all the other states. My cousin Alma, at whose home I was P22 1390 staying during the convention, introduced me to a group of young people P22 1400 from Rhode Island. One of them was a very friendly, lovely fellow P22 1410 named Ronald, a boy about my age with slick, blond hair and dancing P22 1420 blue eyes. He looked very different from Johnnie- in fact, he looked P22 1430 sort of like me. I thought so, and he mentioned it, and Alma said P22 1440 so too. After the meeting, there was going to be a party at P22 1450 someone's house. I assumed Alma would get me there, but in the confusion P22 1460 of the meeting breaking up, we were separated. Outside the hall, P22 1470 I anxiously looked around for her, then all at once there was a P22 1480 hand on my elbow. "Hey, there, beautiful twin of mine", Ronald P22 1490 said. "Need a pumpkin to get to the party"? I couldn't P22 1500 help laughing with him. "Well, I find Alma"- P22 1510 I began. "Alma, Schmalma. Come along with me". I went. P22 1520 ## By the time we arrived, the party was already going strong. P22 1530 A couple of the girls were laughing rather shrilly and I realized P22 1540 they were drinking. My folks wouldn't dream of having alcohol in the P22 1550 house, so my first taste P22 1560 of it had been- of course- with Johnnie. P22 1570 I hadn't liked it at first- it was bitter and burning. But when P22 1580 Johnnie disguised the taste with ginger ale, I enjoyed it. Of course P22 1590 I enjoyed 'most anything if I did it with Johnnie. Johnnie P22 1600 **h I suddenly realized he'd been totally out of my thoughts all evening. P22 1610 But that was only natural, I decided; surely he was still resting P22 1620 snugly in my heart. "I don't see Alma anywhere", P22 1630 I said. "She's invisible tonight. C'mon, let's find P22 1640 out where they're keeping the glasses". I drew back. "I- P22 1650 I don't think so, Ronald. Not for me". "Aw, come P22 1660 on". "No- really". He shrugged. "Okay. But P22 1670 at least come along while get lubricated". The kitchen P22 1680 was jammed. Strange faces, most of them, and I wasn't even sure P22 1690 all of them had come from the League meeting. P23 0010 Under normal circumstances, he had a certain bright-eyed all-American-boy P23 0015 charm, P23 0020 with great appeal for young ladies, old ladies, and dogs. P23 0030 Today, he looked like an Astronaut who had left his vitamin pills on P23 0040 the bureau and spent six months in space: hollow eyes, hollow cheeks, P23 0050 hollow stomach. Breakfast, he thought. A shot of orange juice would P23 0060 make everything seem better. He looked around his little Eden: P23 0070 bureau, bed, table, chair, two-burner stove. Then he remembered. P23 0080 "You share a refrigerator", Mrs& Kirby had said, and somehow, P23 0090 at midnight, after the long drive from New York in pelting rain, P23 0100 that had sounded reasonable. In the cold light of day, it seemed a lunatic P23 0110 arrangement. Share bath, maybe- but share refrigerator? She P23 0120 had explained it- something about summer people's eating out and P23 0130 not enough space in the units. And where was the thing? He remembered P23 0140 seeing it last night, when he put away his small store of bachelor-type P23 0150 eatables. Ah, yes- his half of a refrigerator stood outside, P23 0160 on the "curving veranda" between Unit Number Three and Unit Number P23 0170 Four. It was still raining, and Mrs& Kirby's cottages P23 0180 bloomed through the gray haze like the names they bore, vivid blue P23 0190 and green and magenta. Charlie downed his orange juice and one of P23 0200 the long, skinny green pills, his spirits as damp as the day. This P23 0210 vacation had seemed like a good idea last week, when his doctor had P23 0220 prescribed it. "Take a full month", the doctor had said. "Lots P23 0230 of sun, lots of rest. The red pills are a vitamin-and-iron compound. P23 0240 This is a sleeping capsule. The others will make you a little more P23 0250 comfortable until you get it licked. You young men get to be my age, P23 0260 you won't take flu so lightly". Charlie had accepted the P23 0270 diagnosis without comment. The doctor could call it anything from flu P23 0280 to beriberi; but Charlie knew what was wrong with him and knew, P23 0290 too, that there was no pill to cure it. He had loved and lost Vivian P23 0300 Wayne to somebody else, had watched her marry the somebody else, and P23 0310 had caught a bear of a cold by kissing the bride good-by forever, which P23 0320 was really piling it on. He had caught, too, like an ailment, a confirmed P23 0330 distrust of women. Once burned- scalded, really, because Vivian P23 0340 had given him every encouragement- forever shy. From now on, P23 0350 his was going to be a man's world: the North Woods, duck blinds P23 0360 at dawning, beer and poker and male secretaries. Meanwhile, he P23 0370 had this miserable cold, and as he leaned against the refrigerator, watching P23 0380 the rain make sandy puddles at his feet, the doctor's prescription P23 0390 for lots of sun seemed like a hollow mockery. In these damp circumstances, P23 0400 he was an odds-on bet to develop pneumonia. He looked P23 0410 up to see Mrs& Kirby, awesome in a black-and-yellow polka-dotted P23 0420 slicker, bearing down on him. "Three-day blow"! she bellowed P23 0430 triumphantly. He had noticed before that the natives seemed to regard P23 0440 really filthy weather as a kind of Pyhrric victory over the tourists. P23 0450 "Fine, day after tomorrow", she added. "I hope so", P23 0460 he said. "I've got this cold. Thought I'd bake it out in P23 0470 the sun". "Ah". She studied him briefly. "You've got P23 0480 a peaked look. Better get in out of the wet". Charlie forbore P23 0490 to mention that the wet was somewhat universal, Peony being less P23 0500 than weatherproof. As for its being fine, day after tomorrow, he had P23 0510 the unhappy conviction that it would never be fine again, with Vivian P23 0520 lost to him forever. He could imagine her at this minute, honeymooning P23 0530 in Nassau with what's-his-name, lounging on golden sands, looking P23 0540 forward to a life of unalloyed bliss. All Charlie could look forward P23 0550 to was a yellow pill at noon, a salami sandwich for lunch, and a P23 0560 lonely old age- if he lived that long. He leafed through the P23 0570 light reading provided by Mrs& Kirby for her guests: four separate P23 0580 adventures of the Bobbsey Twins (, and ) and several agricultural P23 0595 bulletins P23 0600 on the treatment of hoof-and-mouth disease in cattle, hideously P23 0610 illustrated. He dozed, only to dream of Vivian, and woke, only to P23 0620 crash into the night table, bruising his other shin. He took a yellow P23 0630 pill, only to choke on it, and went for the salami, only to find something P23 0640 alive in the refrigerator- something pink and fuzzy. P23 0650 His first thought was that Mrs& Kirby, in her mania for color, had P23 0660 dyed a cat and that cat had somehow managed to open the refrigerator P23 0670 door and climb in; but on further investigation, the thing proved to P23 0680 be a sweater, of the long-hair variety that sheds onto men's jackets- P23 0690 pale, pale pink and, according to the label, size thirty-four. He P23 0700 thought about it for a minute, could find no reasonable explanation P23 0710 for the presence of a sweater in the refrigerator, got the salami, bread, P23 0720 and a Bermuda onion, and put the whole thing out of his mind. ## P23 0730 Next morning, he found a note in the refrigerator. "Would you P23 0740 mind wrapping your onion"? said this note. "The smell permeates P23 0750 everything"! Everything being the sweater, a lipstick case, and P23 0760 a squirt bottle of Kissin' Kare pink hand lotion. The note paper P23 0770 was pink, too, and the handwriting small and dainty and utterly feminine. P23 0780 Not that he had supposed, considering the evidence, that he was P23 0790 sharing this refrigerator with a member of the Beach Patrol. He scrawled P23 0800 "Sorry" across the bottom of the note and then, against his P23 0810 better judgment, added: "Don't you eat"? He didn't want P23 0820 to encourage anything here; but on the other hand, he didn't want P23 0830 her swiping his salami. "Not onions", came the answer the P23 0840 following day. "Ugh". Must have really smelled up her P23 0850 sweater, he thought, and wondered idly just why she kept the sweater fast-frozen. P23 0860 But then, as he well knew, women are not guided by logic P23 0870 or common sense. Take Vivian. Yes, take Vivian. Somebody had. P23 0880 Now, if this were Vivian next door to him and if, for some obscure P23 0890 female reason, she kept her clothes in the refrigerator, they would P23 0900 not be pink. They would be black or white or horse-blanket plaid, chic P23 0910 and splashy, like Vivian herself. Pink, Vivian once had told P23 0920 him, P23 0930 was for baby girls, and grown-up girls who wore pink were subconsciously P23 0940 clinging to their infancy. "Why does this girl keep a sweater P23 0950 in the refrigerator"? he mused aloud. ## Eh"? It was P23 0960 Mrs& Kirby, making her toilsome way along the veranda, laden with P23 0970 a clattery collection of mops, brushes, and pails. "What's that P23 0980 you say"? "Oh, nothing. Just glad the rain's stopped". P23 0990 "Oh, yes. Just look at that sky. Be a scorcher by afternoon". P23 1000 "I hope so. I've got this cold". "So P23 1010 you said". She scrutinized him. "My, you're peaked. You want P23 1020 to watch out that you don't get burned to an ash, first sunny day. P23 1030 I must remember to warn the girl next to you in Larkspur. That pale P23 1040 kind's the worst". That pale kind, Charlie thought. Hardly P23 1050 an inviting description. But then, neither was peaked. He could P23 1060 hear Mrs& Kirby now, warning her pale guest against sunburn. "I P23 1070 spoke to the fellow next door, too", she might say. "He's that P23 1080 peaked kind". Surely there was a better word. Charlie looked P23 1090 in the mirror. Run-down, iron-poor. He looked more closely. Frail, P23 1095 feeble- peaked. P23 1100 Clearly, two damp days with the Bobbsey Twins P23 1110 had done him no good. The sun, blazing hot as prophesied, was P23 1120 far from kind to Mrs& Kirby's varicolored properties. When Charlie P23 1130 came up from the beach for his four-o'clock pill, the whole establishment P23 1140 (gaudy enough when seen through mist and fog) looked like a P23 1150 floodlit modern painting- great blocks of dizzy color, punctuated at P23 1160 regular intervals by the glaring white of five community refrigerators. P23 1170 This weekend, he thought, he would look around for some more subdued P23 1180 retreat, with Cape roses, maybe, at the door. He could not imagine P23 1190 a flower's being brave enough to grow beside Peony, Larkspur, and P23 1200 the rest. The sweater was gone from the refrigerator, and in P23 1210 its place was a large plastic bag, full of wet pink clothes. No wonder P23 1220 she was so pale, wearing all those cold clothes. He got a P23 1230 red pill and a beer and then, on impulse, transferred the rest of his P23 1240 salami to her side of the refrigerator and scrawled "Be my guest" P23 1250 on the wrapping. It gave him a good feeling. "M-m-m. Thanks", P23 1260 was her answer the next day. The note was propped against his P23 1270 pill bottles and bore a postscript: "You're not at all well, are P23 1280 you"? "I've got this cold", he wrote. Not that it P23 1290 was any of her business. "It's none of my business", said P23 1300 the next note, "but my aunt Elsie used to take lemon juice and honey P23 1310 in hot water for a cold, and she lived to be ninety-six. I mean, P23 1320 she's still living, and she's ninety-six. Why don't you try that"? P23 1330 "I don't have a lemon". He had to write very small P23 1340 to get it on the bottom of the scrap of paper. By the next P23 1350 morning, she had turned the paper over. "Gee, neither do I". P23 1360 Charlie grinned. She didn't like a pale girl. She P23 1370 sounded a little like a redhead. But then, redheads are often pale. P23 1380 He stuck his head in Mrs& Kirby's little rental office. P23 1390 "I guess that redhead next to me took your advice. I haven't seen P23 1400 her on the beach". "You won't, if you're looking for P23 1410 a redhead. She's got browny hair". He spent that afternoon P23 1420 on the beach, looking for a pale, browny-haired girl in a pink bathing P23 1430 suit. There were pink bathing suits on blondes, and browny-haired P23 1440 girls in red or black or green bathing suits. There were a sprinkling P23 1450 of daring bikinis and a preponderance of glorified tank suits. Up on P23 1460 a dune, he saw a girl, all by herself, sitting on a camp stool before P23 1470 an easel and absorbed in her painting. He paid little attention to her P23 1480 because she was a redhead and because she was wearing white- one P23 1490 of those bulky, turtle-neck sweaters. On the beach, there were pale girls P23 1500 and not-so-pale girls. And he saw them all as he walked up and down. P23 1510 At two that morning, he was still walking- up and down P23 1520 Peony, up and down the veranda, up and down the silent, moonlit beach. P23 1530 Finally, in desperation, he opened the refrigerator, filched her hand P23 1540 lotion, and left a note. "I've got this sunburn", said the note, P23 1550 "and I used some of your hand lotion. Hope you don't mind". P23 1560 "Of course I don't mind", she answered. "You're P23 1570 having a miserable time, aren't you? Use all the lotion you want, P23 1580 and for goodness' sake, stay in out of the sun for a couple of days". P23 1590 This was a very warm, sympathetic girl, he decided. Sympathy P23 1600 is a fine quality in a woman. Now Vivian, for instance, was not P23 1610 too long on sympathy. She felt, and said, that sympathy only made people P23 1620 feel sorry for themselves; it was a tough world, and you had to P23 1630 be tough to hold your own. He didn't know what was so tough about P23 1640 Vivian's world, slopping around Nassau with what's-his-name. Suppose P23 1650 what's-his-name got a sunburn? Charlie couldn't see Vivian P23 1660 offering any hand lotion. She might peel him, once the worst of the P23 1670 agony was over. ## Charlie spent the next two days in his pajama P23 1680 bottoms, waiting for the fire in his back to subside, and used generous P23 1690 quantities of the hand lotion. Correspondence passed back P23 1700 and forth. "How's your sunburn now? The only thing, this P23 1710 lotion has glycerin in it, and that whitens the skin, so if you're P23 1720 so anxious to get a tan, you may not want to use it". "I'm P23 1730 not that anxious, but maybe that's why you're so fair". P23 1740 "That Mrs& Kirby! I'll bet she told you I was puny, too. P23 1750 How's your cold"? "Broiled out. She didn't say P23 1760 you were puny. Are you? What's puny"? "Puny goes P23 1770 with pale and peaked. Do you have anything to read while you're shut P23 1780 up? There are two things here about Surviving in the Wilderness, P23 1790 and a book called 'Tom Swift and His Speedy Canoe'; but the P23 1800 picture of Tom Swift is pretty sinister. Also the canoe". P24 0010 There was a crowd in the stands for a change and the sun was hot. The P24 0020 new Riverside pitcher turned out to have an overhand fast ball that P24 0030 took a hop. For a few innings the Anniston team couldn't figure him P24 0040 out. Then, in the fifth, Anniston's kid catcher caught onto a curve P24 0050 and smacked the ball into left center field. @ Eddie Lee, Riverside's P24 0060 redheaded playing manager, ran after the ball but it rolled P24 0070 past him. Phil Rossoff cut over to center from left field to get the P24 0080 relay. Eddie caught up with the ball near the fence and threw it to P24 0090 Phil. @ "Third! Third base"! Eddie shouted. @ Phil P24 0100 spun around and made an accurate throw into Mike Deegan's hands on P24 0110 third base. Mike caught the ball just as the catcher slid into the bag. P24 0120 But the Anniston boy had begun his slide too late. He came into P24 0130 the bag with his body and Mike Deegan brought the ball down full in P24 0140 his face. @ P24 0150 "You bastard"! the Anniston catcher screamed. He P24 0160 jumped to his feet and started to throw punches. Mike Deegan tossed P24 0170 his glove away and began to swing at the catcher. This brought in everybody P24 0180 from both sides, while the spectators stood up and added to the P24 0190 uproar. @ The fighters were separated in a few minutes. The game P24 0200 was resumed. But Mike Deegan was boiling mad now. When the inning P24 0210 was over he cursed the Anniston catcher all the way into the dugout. P24 0220 @ Phil Rossoff, coming in from left field, stopped at the water P24 0230 fountain for a drink. Mike Deegan was standing beside it, facing the P24 0240 field. He was eyeing the Anniston catcher warming up his pitcher before P24 0250 the inning began. @ "Keep your eyes open, sonny"! Mike P24 0260 yelled to the catcher. "You're in for trouble". @ The Anniston P24 0280 catcher did not reply with words. He simply turned to Mike and smiled. P24 0290 This so infuriated Deegan that he spun around and said: "I'll P24 0300 get that little bastard. So help me God, I'll get him". P24 0310 Phil Rossoff said: "Why don't you leave him alone"? P24 0320 "Mind your own goddamn business", Mike Deegan said. P24 0330 Phil shrugged. He stepped into the dugout, wondering why Deegan P24 0340 was always looking for trouble. Maybe the answer was in his eyes. When P24 0350 Deegan smiled his eyes never fit in with his lips. In the P24 0360 last of the sixth inning Mike Deegan got up to bat and hit a fast P24 0370 ball over the left fielder's head. By the time the fielder got his P24 0380 hands on the ball Deegan was rounding third base and heading for home. P24 0390 The left fielder threw and it was a good one. But Mike had no chance P24 0400 of being tagged. The Anniston catcher was straddling home plate. P24 0410 All Deegan had to do was slide, fall away, but instead, he rammed into P24 0420 the catcher. Both fell heavily to the ground. Only P24 0430 Mike got to his feet. He went back to touch home plate, turned and P24 0440 walked to the dugout without looking back. The Anniston players P24 0450 and their manager ran out on the field. They poured water over their P24 0460 catcher's face. He did not move. Then the manager called for a P24 0470 doctor. The Riverside physician came down to look over the injured P24 0480 ballplayer. Then, quickly, and a little nervously, the doctor ordered P24 0490 a couple of ballplayers to carry the catcher into the dressing room. P24 0500 Mike Deegan was sitting on the bench, watching. When the ballplayers P24 0510 started to carry the catcher off the field he said: "That P24 0520 ought to teach the sonofabitch". Phil Rossoff, seated next P24 0530 to Deegan, got up and moved to the other end of the bench. The P24 0540 Anniston manager was coming over to the Riverside dugout. He was P24 0550 followed by four of his men. It began to look as if something was going P24 0560 to happen. Mike sat quitely watching the manager come nearer. Eddie P24 0570 Lee moved over to Mike Deegan's side. No one said a word. P24 0580 The Anniston manager came right up to the dugout in front of Mike. P24 0590 His face was flushed. "Deegan", the manager said, his P24 0600 voice pitched low, quivering. "That was a rotten thing to do". P24 0610 "For God's sake", Mike said, waving the manager away. P24 0620 "Stop it, will you? Tell your guys not to block the plate". P24 0630 "You didn't have to ram him". "That's what P24 0640 say". The Anniston manager looked at Eddie Lee. It P24 0650 was a cold and calculated look. He turned and went back across the field P24 0660 to his dugout. He called in the pitcher who had been pitching, and P24 0670 a big, heavy, powerfully built right hander moved out to the mound P24 0680 for Anniston. The game started again and in the eighth inning P24 0690 Mike Deegan came up to bat. Everyone in the ball park seemed to be P24 0700 standing and shouting. The first ball the hefty pitcher threw P24 0710 came in for Mike's head. Deegan fell into the dirt, the ball going P24 0720 over him. He arose slowly and brushed himself off. He got back P24 0730 into the batter's box and on the next pitch dropped into the dirt again. P24 0740 "Hit the bum"! somebody yelled from the Anniston P24 0750 bench. In the Riverside dugout Frankie Ricco, shortstop, whispered P24 0760 into Phil's ear: "There's gonna be a fight". P24 0770 "Look at those bastards"! Charlie Haydon, a pitcher, said. P24 0780 "They're looking for trouble". Mike was slow getting into P24 0790 the box this time. When he finally did he had to duck his head quickly P24 0800 away as the pitch came in. "Listen"! he shouted to P24 0810 the pitcher. "One more and I'm coming out there"! "I'll P24 0820 be waiting"! the pitcher yelled back. Mike Deegan P24 0830 pounded the rubber plate with the end of his bat. He stood flat-footed P24 0840 in the box, but not very close to the plate now. The pitcher wound P24 0850 up and the ball came in straight for Mike's head. Deegan dropped, P24 0860 got up, turned and, holding the bat with both hands up against his P24 0870 chest, began to walk slowly out to the mound. The pitcher tossed his P24 0880 glove away and came towards Mike Deegan. They were both walking towards P24 0890 each other, unhurried. Riverside and Anniston players rushed P24 0900 out on the field. In the next moment, it seemed, the infield was P24 0910 crowded with spectators, ballplayers, cops, kids and a dog. There was P24 0920 much shouting and screaming. Fights sprang up and were quickly squelched. P24 0930 Mike and the Anniston pitcher were pulled away before they even P24 0940 came together. Phil Rossoff and two other Riverside players P24 0950 did not go out on the field when the fighting started. After P24 0960 the game, Phil was taking off his sweatshirt in the dressing room when P24 0970 Mike Deegan came in. "It's a helluva thing", Mike P24 0980 said, looking at Phil, "when a guy's own team-mate won't come P24 0990 out and help him in a fight". Phil sighed and pulled the wet P24 1000 sweatshirt over his head. Frankie Ricco sat down on the bench near P24 1010 Phil. The other players were undressing quietly. Eddie Lee had not P24 1020 come in yet. Mike went over to Phil and stood over him. "Why P24 1030 the hell didn't you come out when you saw them gang up on me"? P24 1040 "I didn't think it was necessary". "Well! P24 1050 Now that's just fine! You didn't think it was necessary". Mike P24 1060 placed both his hands on his hips. He pushed his jaw forward. "Listen, P24 1070 wise guy, if you think gonna do all the fighting P24 1080 for this ball club you're crazy". Mike had a good two inches P24 1090 over Phil and Phil had to look up into Mike's face. "I P24 1100 didn't ask you to fight for the ball club", Phil said slowly. P24 1110 "Nobody else did, either". "You trying to say started P24 1120 the fight"? "I'm not trying to say anything". P24 1130 Phil turned away and opened his locker, and then he heard Mike P24 1140 Deegan say: "You're yellow, Rossoff"! and Phil banged P24 1150 his locker door shut and spun around. But before anything could happen P24 1160 Frankie Ricco was between them and Eddie Lee had come into the P24 1170 dressing room. "Phil, come into my office", Eddie said. P24 1180 Phil followed Eddie into the office and shut the door. He sat P24 1190 down before Eddie's desk. "I'm doing you a favor", P24 1200 Eddie said quickly. "You get your unconditional release as of today". P24 1210 Phil's eyes widened just a trifle. "The best P24 1220 thing for you to do", Eddie said, "is go home. You don't belong P24 1230 in professional baseball". Phil had to clear his throat. P24 1240 "Is this because of what happened out there"? "No", P24 1250 Eddie said. "But it does confirm what I've suspected all along". P24 1260 Phil stood up. "Listen! This is the second time P24 1270 **h" "Sit down, sit down", Eddie said. "I'm not saying P24 1280 you're yellow. I saying you're not a professional ballplayer". P24 1290 Eddie Lee leaned forward over the desk. "Now listen P24 1300 to me, Phil. I'm not steering you wrong. You haven't got P24 1310 the heart for baseball". Phil shook his head and Eddie frowned. P24 1320 Suddenly his voice grew hard. "What the hell do you think baseball P24 1330 is? You're not in the big leagues, but if you can't give P24 1340 and take down here what the hell do you think it'll be like up there"? P24 1350 Phil started to say something but Eddie cut him short. P24 1360 "Now don't tell me what a good ball player you are. I know you've P24 1370 got talent. But what you haven't got is the heart to back up P24 1380 that talent with. The heart, Phil. You just haven't got the heart P24 1390 for pro-ball, and that's it". Dazed, Phil said: "I P24 1400 don't get it. My batting average **h" Eddie stood up abruptly, P24 1410 then sat down just as abruptly. "What difference does your P24 1420 batting average make? Or your fielding average. Or even the way you P24 1430 run bases. I tell you when it's necessary to hurt in order to win- P24 1440 you won't do it. what I mean by no heart for the P24 1450 game. Baseball's no cinch. Deegan had no business ramming into that P24 1460 kid out there. He did it because he knows for each guy he puts out P24 1470 of commission that's one less who might take his job away later on. P24 1480 What the hell do you think baseball is? A sport? It's a way of P24 1490 life, goddamit! And you've got P24 1500 to be ready to cut to ribbons anybody P24 1510 who want to take your way of life away from you"! He's P24 1520 wrong! Phil thought. It's only opinion. There were P24 1530 other clubs in this league. He stood up slowly. He was a little pale P24 1540 and shaky. His lips felt glued together. "I think you're P24 1550 wrong, Eddie", he said finally. Eddie nodded. "Okay. You'll P24 1560 get your pay in the morning". Phil turned and left P24 1570 the room, hearing Eddie say: "Someday you'll see I was right". P24 1580 Phil shut the door behind him. Outside in the dressing room, P24 1590 Frankie P24 1595 Ricco sat on the bench dressed in his street clothes. P24 1600 "What happened"? Frankie asked. Phil said: "I P24 1610 got my release". "You crazy"? Phil shrugged. P24 1620 "What for"? Phil sighed. Frankie shook his P24 1630 head. "I don't get it". "I don't know", Phil P24 1640 said. They were silent for a few moments. Then Frankie said: P24 1650 "What are you gonna do"? Phil started to take his clothes P24 1660 off and Frankie sat down on the bench again. Phil took off one P24 1670 shoe and stared at it. "Don't take it like this", Frankie P24 1680 said. "Hell, plenty of guys get let out and come back later. The P24 1690 leagues are full of guys like that". Phil was very quiet. P24 1700 "What are you gonna do, Phil"? Phil did not answer. P24 1710 "Why not try another club"? Phil looked up. P24 1720 What the hell right did Eddie have saying a thing like that? P24 1730 "Springfield's in tomorrow", Frankie said. "Talk to Whitey P24 1740 Jackson". He just didn't know what he was talking about, P24 1750 saying a thing like that. "Will you do it, Phil"? P24 1760 "Do what"? "Ask Whitey for a job". Phil P24 1770 nodded. "Sure", he said. "Springfield come in tomorrow"? P24 1780 Frankie nodded. "I'll speak to Whitey". P24 1790 "Atta boy". "I'll talk to him, all right". P24 1800 "Don't worry", Frankie said. "You'll get a job there. P24 1810 He needs outfielders bad". "I'm not worried about it", P24 1820 Phil said. "That's the way to talk. What else did Eddie P24 1830 have to say"? "Nothing", Phil said. P25 0010 Richard's next interest seemed the product of his insularity. P25 0020 His broad reading took him into certain by-ways of religion and the P25 0030 subject of religion began to fascinate him. When he was twelve he took P25 0040 to reading St& Augustine and Aquinas, then Lao-tse, Confucius, P25 0050 Mencius, Suzuki, Hindu tomes by endless Krishnaists and numerous P25 0060 socio-archaeological papers. For his birthday, because Richard had P25 0070 seen them in a store and asked for them, his mother bought him the P25 0080 and a little image of the Indian god, Acala. And one P25 0090 day, on her own, his mother came home with a present entitled , which she suspected Richard would enjoy. He was P25 0110 enormously happy with her gift and smiled, then went to his room to P25 0120 read. At dinner one night, when he was fourteen, Richard announced, P25 0130 "There is only one god". "Did you think there were P25 0140 two"? grinned his father. "You don't understand", P25 0150 Richard said gloomily. Through quiet laughter his mother said, P25 0160 "Don't speak to your father like that, Richard". Richard P25 0170 seldom spoke anyhow and he didn't speak to his parents about P25 0180 religion again. His interest in the formal study of religion waned P25 0190 when he was sixteen and he substituted for it an interest in Asian P25 0200 affairs. Although he still didn't speak to anyone, he grew fond P25 0210 of saying, "The future lies in Asia", when the opportunity arose, P25 0220 and when he graduated from high school his parents sent him to New P25 0230 York to give him a foundation, they said, for his life in Asian studies. P25 0240 Richard was a solitary student in New York and acquired, P25 0250 in his remoteness, a thorough if bookish knowledge of Asian lore, P25 0260 literature, life, politics and history. He was awarded a fellowship to P25 0270 continue his studies in Tokyo and he packed up his clothes, the biwa P25 0280 upon which he had been practicing and his image of Acala, and left P25 0290 to spend a week at home before leaving the country. The week at P25 0300 home was not comfortable. His mother, who had seen little of him for P25 0310 four years, appeared worried about his sailing off by himself for an P25 0320 Orient which, she herself having slight knowledge of it, had to be distrusted. P25 0330 She seemed to work to grow close to her son in the few days P25 0340 he spent at home, talking to him about some of the more pleasant moments P25 0350 of his childhood and then trying to talk to him about those things P25 0360 in which he alone was interested. "Do you still have she asked him and, laughing, she added, "I P25 0380 was nervous about buying a book with a title like that, but I knew P25 0390 you'd like it". "Yes", he lied to shorten the conversation, P25 0400 "I still have it". He was no longer able to relax in the P25 0410 presence of his parents and found it difficult to keep up a conversation P25 0420 with his mother or father, no matter the subject. As for , it along with his other books on religion had been P25 0440 incarcerated in a furnace in the basement of the building in which P25 0450 he had lived in New York. He had dusted each of the books carefully P25 0460 and carried them all to the basement and, trembling at having to open P25 0470 the big furnace, given them up to the flames. Then he sped from the P25 0480 dark basement and returned to his room and cried. Richard left P25 0490 America with his clothes, his biwa and his image of Acala and, on the P25 0500 freighter which took him to Japan, he plucked at the biwa, trying P25 0510 to make the sounds he wrought resemble an ancient Japanese tune he had P25 0520 once heard. During his second week at sea he brought the curious melody P25 0530 out of the instrument and suddenly wanted to force the biwa to remain P25 0540 at just that moment in its history when it had given him pleasure. P25 0550 He stole from his cabin late that night and crept out into a gusty P25 0560 North Pacific wind and dropped the biwa into the water. It was so dark P25 0570 that he didn't see it hit the water and the noisy rush of the ocean P25 0580 kept him from hearing it. It was as though the biwa had been eaten P25 0590 up P25 0600 by the wind. In Tokyo Richard took up a life similar to P25 0610 that which he had lived in New York, except that he had replaced his P25 0620 biwa with a friend. An American student named Charlotte Adams had P25 0630 refused to take notice of his evident aversion to people and had at P25 0640 last succeeded in getting him to talk to her. He had nothing much to P25 0650 say to her but that he said anything seemed to please her and he accompanied P25 0660 her on some of her unusually searching tours of Tokyo. In Charlotte, P25 0670 Richard saw a frankness and a zest for doing things which, P25 0680 after a fashion, he envied. In time, he grew to depend upon her occasional P25 0690 company and she at length was able to encourage him to participate P25 0700 in more social activity. She convinced him that he ought to be a member P25 0710 of some of the small tea-drinking parties she held at her rooms P25 0720 and in the end he complied with her wishes, although it was only rarely P25 0730 that he added anything to the random conversations. At one such P25 0740 gathering Charlotte announced, "I was at Ryusenji today. Have P25 0750 you ever been to Ryusenji"? No one had. "Well, it's at Fudomae P25 0760 and there was a tan young man, quite naked, taking a shower in P25 0770 the pool. I was thoroughly startled". Richard thought it a P25 0780 more promising remark than any made during the last conversation, but P25 0790 Charlotte's manner during the gatherings was more flippant and superficial P25 0800 than when she was alone with him and he was sure her remark would P25 0810 lead to nothing much better than the pointless words which had preceded P25 0820 it. Three of the four persons present, all foreign students in P25 0830 Tokyo, had been playing a game of judging popular Japanese foods by P25 0840 the In and Out system, an equation in which Zen philosophy was used P25 0850 as the modifier. Soba, udon and tea were In because they could be P25 0860 taken noisily. Sushi was Out because it was pretentious. Sashimi was P25 0870 In, Samuel Burns had suggested, because it was too far Out to P25 0880 stay P25 0890 Out, even if it was a little pretentious. Richard had kept his eyes P25 0900 down throughout the game, the very sound of the chatter nearly painful P25 0910 to his ears. "He wasn't the least bit disturbed by my P25 0920 watching him", said Charlotte. "Did you watch him"? asked P25 0930 a red-haired girl named Ceecee Witter. "I shouldn't have been P25 0940 able to do that". "Well I was able to do it", Charlotte P25 0950 said with no sign of irritation. "For a minute, anyhow. I'm P25 0960 surprised no one has been there. I've been there a number of times. P25 0970 Sam, I thought you knew everything about Tokyo. You've never P25 0980 been to Ryusenji"? "I've heard about it", Samuel P25 0990 Burns said. "There's a little place there called Lovers Mound P25 1000 dedicated to Gompachi and Komurasaki". "Yes, a little parkish P25 1010 place", Charlotte said, and concluded, "Anyhow, it's all P25 1020 very nice. And the man who brought sweet potatoes into Kanto is buried P25 1030 there, next to a beautiful seated statue of Fudo. Oh, that's what P25 1040 I meant to tell you. This is the interesting part, Richard", P25 1050 she had a bothersome habit of trying to pull him into the talking. "There P25 1060 was that fellow out there in the bitter cold"- "My P25 1070 God, it cold today", said Samuel Burns. "Twenty-two P25 1080 or twenty-three". "And the water would be still colder", P25 1090 Ceecee seemed to shiver at the thought of it. "And your golden P25 1100 god", said Samuel Burns, "probably went right home and poured P25 1110 himself into a boiling bath. It would kill one of us". "But P25 1120 the point is", Charlotte said, "there he was, freezing, naked P25 1130 in a little stream of water at Ryusenji, all in worship of Fudo, P25 1140 the god of fire". Richard's dark eyes came up and seemed for P25 1150 the tiniest moment to reflect sharp light. It was true; Fudo, P25 1160 the P25 1170 god of wisdom, was also thought of as the Japanese version of Acala. P25 1180 The conversation went on but Richard stopped listening. He found P25 1190 himself trying to remember something, but he couldn't decide even the P25 1200 nature of what it was he worked to recall. He had almost given up P25 1210 when he realized that the dropping of his biwa into the icy jowls of P25 1220 the black Pacific was the memory for which he had been searching. Perhaps P25 1230 he sensed some connection between the incident on the freighter P25 1240 and the ascetic at Ryusenji, he was unable to put it together. P25 1250 That night, after leaving Charlotte's apartment, Richard walked P25 1260 about for a time before returning to his room. When he at last did go P25 1270 to his room, he couldn't sleep and instead paced up and down before P25 1280 his little image of Acala, thinking first of Charlotte's tale of P25 1290 the man at Ryusenji, then of his biwa and the invisible Pacific waters. P25 1300 And the next morning, not sure of why he went, he took the train P25 1310 to Fudomae and walked to Ryusenji. He was surprised by the sharp P25 1320 sensation he experienced as he approached the pool which Charlotte P25 1330 had mentioned. He went through a gate to stand at the edge of the P25 1340 water and gazed at the two thin falls which dropped from large spigots P25 1350 high at the back of the pool. On the hillside above was caged what might P25 1360 have been an incarnation of Fudo, or perhaps a demon. The strange P25 1370 creature, housed in wire, made him shudder. The sensation he so overwhelmingly P25 1380 realized was one which told him he had been there before P25 1390 but he knew he had not, and could not recall any place he had visited P25 1400 to be likened to the limpid green water or the little fountain-falls P25 1410 or the green demon imprisoned beyond his reach. He left the pool P25 1420 and climbed the steep stone stairs to the temple, and the sense of P25 1430 familiarity with the place would not leave him. Into a little well before P25 1440 the temple he dropped a hundred-yen coin and then he had an urge P25 1450 to sound the bell before the temple, to take hold of the rope and crash P25 1460 it against the circle of bronze; but the spirit he wished to call P25 1470 out would not, he knew, come in the person of the temple priest. Instead, P25 1480 he walked around the temple and mounted still another flight of P25 1490 stairs and stood before the seated Fudo at their head. The black Fudo P25 1500 seemed to stare rigidly back at him and Richard's eyes were caught P25 1510 by the Fudo's in fascination, and then Richard was shocked as, P25 1520 all at once, flames shot out from the sharp features of Fudo's face P25 1530 and there was a terrible metallic scraping sound, as if the large statue P25 1540 were about to burst from some pressure within it. Then the flames P25 1550 were gone, the stillness fell upon the severe black face and Richard P25 1560 began to tremble violently. Suddenly he emptied his pockets of all his P25 1570 coins and dropped them into the box before the seated Fudo and hurried P25 1580 back down both stairways and away from the temple, never looking P25 1590 back. He walked all the miles back to his room. He seemed to P25 1600 have picked up a virus that day, because the next morning he had a small P25 1610 cough and felt a bit hot. He stayed home, reading and refusing to P25 1620 think about his frightening experience at Ryusenji. But the process P25 1630 of refusing to think about it was an active reminder in itself and he P25 1640 couldn't rid himself of a consciousness of it throughout the day. The P25 1650 cold lingered, making sleep difficult that night, and he remained P25 1660 in bed still the next morning, now unable to keep from thinking about P25 1670 the inexplicable sight of burning metal, the wretched sound, the unbearable P25 1680 feeling of having been to a remote Tokyo temple at some earlier P25 1690 time in his life. All of the elements of the experience were impossible P25 1700 and yet the reality of them was heavy upon him and he resolved never P25 1710 again to visit the temple at Fudomae. P26 0010 I was thinking of the heat and of water that morning when I was plowing P26 0020 the stubble field far across the hill from the farm buildings. It P26 0030 had grown hot early that day, and I hoped that the boy, my brother's P26 0040 son, would soon come across the broad black area of plowed ground, P26 0050 carrying the jar of cool water. The boy usually was sent out at about P26 0060 that time with the water, and he always dragged an old snow-fence lath P26 0070 or a stick along, to play with. He pretended that the lath was a tractor P26 0080 and he would drag it through the dirt and make buzzing, tractor P26 0090 sounds with his lips. I almost ran over the snake before I could P26 0100 stop the tractor in time. I had turned at the corner of the field P26 0110 and I had to look back to raise the plow and then to drop it again into P26 0120 the earth, and I was thinking of the boy and the water anyway, and P26 0130 when I looked again down the furrow, the snake was there. It lay half P26 0140 in the furrow and half out, and the front wheels had rolled nearly P26 0150 up to it when I put in the clutch. The tractor was heavily loaded with P26 0160 the weight of the plow turning the earth, and the tractor stopped P26 0170 instantly. The snake slid slowly and with great care from the P26 0180 new ridge the plow had made, into the furrow and did not go any further. P26 0190 I had never liked snakes much, I still had that kind of quick panic P26 0200 that I'd had as a child whenever I saw one, but this snake was P26 0210 clean and bright and very beautiful. He was multi-colored and graceful P26 0220 and he lay in the furrow and moved his arched and tapered head only P26 0230 so slightly. Go out of the furrow, snake, I said, but it did not move P26 0240 at all. I pulled the throttle of the tractor in and out, hoping to P26 0250 frighten him with the noise, but the snake only flicked its black, forked P26 0260 tongue and faced the huge tractor wheel, without fright or concern. P26 0270 I let the engine idle then, and I got down and went around P26 0280 the wheel and stood beside it. My movement did frighten the snake and P26 0290 it raised its head and trailed delicately a couple of feet and stopped P26 0300 again, and its tongue was working very rapidly. I followed it, looking P26 0310 at the brilliant colors on its tubular back, the colors clear and P26 0320 sharp and perfect, in orange and green and brown diamonds the size of P26 0330 a baby's fist down its back, and the diamonds were set one within the P26 0340 other and interlaced with glistening jet-black. The colors were astonishing, P26 0350 clear and bright, and it was as if the body held a fire of P26 0360 its own, and the colors came through that transparent flesh and skin, P26 0370 vivid and alive and warm. The eyes were clear and black and the slender P26 0380 body was arched slightly. His flat and gracefully tapered head lifted P26 0390 as I looked at him and the black tongue slipped in and out of that P26 0400 solemn mouth. You beauty, I said, I couldn't kill you. You P26 0410 are much too beautiful. I had killed snakes before, when I was younger, P26 0420 but there had been no animal like this one, and I knew it was P26 0430 unthinkable that an animal such as that should die. I picked him up, P26 0440 and the length of him arched very carefully and gracefully and only a P26 0450 little wildly, and I could feel the coolness of that radiant, fire-colored P26 0460 body, like splendid ice, and I knew that he had eaten only recently P26 0470 because there were two whole and solid little lumps in the forepart P26 0480 of him, like fieldmice swallowed whole might make. The body P26 0490 caressed through my hands like cool satin, and my hands, usually tanned P26 0500 and dark, were pale beside it, and I asked it where the fire colors P26 0510 could come from the coolness of that body. I lowered him so he would P26 0520 not fall and his body slid out onto the cool, newly-plowed earth, from P26 0530 between my pale hands. The snake worked away very slowly and delicately P26 0540 and with a gorgeous kind of dignity and beauty, and he carried P26 0550 his head a little above the rolled clods. The sharp, burning colors of P26 0560 his body stood brilliant and plain against the black soil, like a target. P26 0570 I felt good and satisfied, looking at the snake. It shone P26 0580 in its bright diamond color against the sun-burned stubble and the P26 0590 crumbled black clods of soil and against the paleness of myself. The P26 0600 color and beauty of it were strange and wonderful and somehow alien, too, P26 0610 in that dry and dusty and uncolored field. I got on the tractor P26 0620 again and I had to watch the plow closely because the field was P26 0630 drawn across the long hillside and even in that good soil there was a P26 0640 danger of rocks. I had my back to the corner of the triangular field P26 0650 that pointed towards the house. The earth was a little heavy and I P26 0660 had to stop once and clean the plowshares because they were not scouring P26 0670 properly, and I did not look back towards the place until I had turned P26 0680 the corner and was plowing across the upper line of the large field, P26 0690 a long way from where I had stopped because of the snake. P26 0700 I saw it all at a glance. The boy was there at the lower corner of P26 0710 the field, and he was in the plowed earth, stamping with ferocity and P26 0720 a kind of frenzied impatience. Even at that distance, with no sound but P26 0730 the sound of the tractor, I could tell the fierce mark of brutality P26 0740 on the boy. I could see the hunched-up shoulders, the savage determination, P26 0750 the dance of his feet as he ground the snake with his heels, P26 0760 and the pirouette of his arms as he whipped at it with the stick. P26 0770 Stop it, I shouted, but the lumbering and mighty tractor roared on, P26 0780 above anything I could say. I stopped the tractor and I shouted P26 0790 down to the boy, and I knew he could hear me, for the morning was clear P26 0800 and still, but he did not even hesitate in that brutal, murdering P26 0810 dance. It was no use. I felt myself tremble, thinking of the diamond P26 0820 light of that beauty I had held a few moments before, and I wanted P26 0830 to run down there and halt, if I could, that frenetic pirouette, catch P26 0840 the boy in the moment of his savagery, and save a glimmer, a remnant, P26 0850 of that which I remembered, but I knew it was already too late. I P26 0860 drove the tractor on, not looking down there; I was afraid to look P26 0870 for fear the evil might still be going on. My head began to ache, and P26 0880 the fumes of the tractor began to bother my eyes, and I hated the job P26 0890 suddenly, and I thought, there are only moments when one sees beautiful P26 0900 things, and these are soon crushed, or they vanish. I felt the P26 0910 anger mount within me. The boy waited at the corner, with the P26 0920 jar of water held up to me in his hands, and the water had grown bubbly P26 0930 in the heat of the morning. I knew the boy well. He was eleven and P26 0940 we had done many things together. He was a beautiful boy, really, with P26 0950 finely-spun blonde hair and a smooth and still effeminate face, and P26 0960 his eyelashes were long and dark and brushlike, and his eyes were blue. P26 0970 He waited there and he smiled as the tractor came up, as he would P26 0980 smile on any other day. He was my nephew, my brother's son, handsome P26 0990 and warm and newly-scrubbed, with happiness upon his face and his face P26 1000 resembled my brother's and mine as well. I saw then, too, P26 1010 the stake driven straight and hard into the plowed soil, through something P26 1020 there where I had been not long before. I stopped the tractor P26 1030 and climbed down and the boy came eagerly up to me. "Can I P26 1040 ride around with you"? he asked, as he often did, and I had as often P26 1050 let him be on the tractor beside me. I looked closely at his eyes, P26 1060 and he was already innocent; the killing was already forgotten in P26 1070 that clear mind of his. "No, you cannot", I said, pushing P26 1080 aside the water jar he offered to me. I pointed to the splintered, upright P26 1090 stake. "Did you do that"? I asked. "Yes", he P26 1100 said, eagerly, beginning a kind of dance of excitement. "I killed P26 1110 a snake; it was a big one". He tried to take my hand to show P26 1120 me. "Why did you kill it"? "Snakes are ugly and P26 1130 bad". "This snake was very beautiful. Didn't you see P26 1140 how beautiful it was"? "Snakes are ugly", he said again. P26 1150 "You saw the colors of it, didn't you? Have you ever P26 1160 seen anything like it around here"? "Snakes are ugly and P26 1170 bad, and it might have bitten somebody, and they would have died". P26 1180 "You know there are no poisonous snakes in this area. This P26 1190 snake could not harm anything". "They eat chickens sometimes", P26 1200 the boy said. "They are ugly and they eat chickens and I P26 1210 hate snakes". "You are talking foolishly", I said. "You P26 1220 killed it because you wanted to kill it, for no other reason". P26 1230 "They're ugly and I hate them", the boy insisted. "Nobody P26 1240 likes snakes". "It was beautiful", I said, half to P26 1250 myself. The boy skipped along beside me, and he was contented P26 1260 with what he had done. The fire of the colors was gone; there P26 1270 was a contorted ugliness now; the colors of its back were dull and P26 1280 gray-looking, torn and smashed in, and dirty from the boy's shoes. P26 1290 The beautifully-tapered head, so delicate and so cool, had been flattened P26 1300 as if in a vise, and the forked tongue splayed out of the twisted, P26 1310 torn mouth. The snake was hideous, and I remembered, even then, the P26 1320 cool, bright fire of it only a little while before, and I thought P26 1330 perhaps the boy had always seen it dead and hideous like that, and had P26 1340 not even stopped to see the beauty of it in its life. I wrenched P26 1350 the stake out, that the boy had driven through it in the thickest P26 1360 part of its body, between the colored diamond crystals. I touched it P26 1370 and the coolness, the ice-feeling, was gone, and even then it moved a P26 1380 little, perhaps a tiny spasm of the dead muscles, and I hoped that it P26 1390 was truly dead, so that I would not have to kill it. And then it moved P26 1400 a little more, and I knew the snake was dying, and I would have P26 1410 to kill it there. The boy stood off a few feet and he had the stake again P26 1420 and he was racing innocently in circles, making the buzzing tractor P26 1430 sound with his lips. I'm sorry, I thought to the snake, P26 1440 for you were beautiful. I took the broken length of it around the tractor P26 1450 and I took one of the wrenches from the tool-kit and I struck its P26 1460 head, not looking at it, to kill it at last, for it could never live. P26 1470 The boy came around behind me, dragging the stake. "It's P26 1480 a big snake, isn't it"? he said. "I'm going to tell everybody P26 1490 how big a snake I killed". "Don't you see what you P26 1500 have done"? I said. "Don't you see the difference now"? P26 1510 "It's an ugly, terrible snake", he said. He came up and P26 1520 was going to push at it with his heavy shoes. I could see the happiness P26 1530 in the boy's eyes, the gleeful brutality. "Don't", P26 1540 I said. I could have slapped the boy. He looked up at me, puzzled, P26 1550 and he swayed his head from side to side. I thought, you little brute, P26 1560 you nasty, selfish, little beast, with brutality already developed P26 1570 within that brain and in those eyes. I wanted to slap his face, to P26 1580 wipe forever the insolence and brutal glee from his mouth, and I decided P26 1590 then, very suddenly, what I would do. P27 0010 Cady didn't come unglued easily, but this had not been a day P27 0020 of glad tidings. Tax worries, production worries, personnel worries, P27 0030 and the letter from Hanford College, his own alma mater, a real snapper. P27 0040 Hanford realized he had enrolled his son four years ago. P27 0050 Yes, the boy's credentials were in order- scholastic transcript, P27 0060 character references, picture, health record, successful college boards. P27 0070 But due to the many applicants on file, would he co-operate and write P27 0080 a personal letter giving them his son's motivation, interests and P27 0090 his qualifications for leadership? Cady Partlow lit his P27 0100 pipe with no comfort. This was it. This was the letter which would P27 0110 or would not enroll his son, David, in Hanford. His son who had never P27 0120 held an office in any organization in the eighteen years of his life. P27 0130 His son who did not know whether he wanted to be doctor, lawyer, merchant P27 0140 or chief. He wondered if he had played it wrong. Maybe P27 0150 he should have kept in touch. Gone back for reunions. But he had been P27 0160 busy building a business, being a big man in his own town just as P27 0170 he had been a big man at Hanford, Class of 1935. Besides, Cady Partlow P27 0180 knew he wasn't the old-grad-type. It wouldn't help P27 0181 anyway. P27 0190 Look at Pete Alcorn, who hadn't missed a Hanford ball game P27 0200 in fifteen years. Pete's son was rejected. Hanford College, P27 0210 Little P27 0220 Ivy League, had no room for football players with low grades. P27 0230 Cady looked at his own son's scholastic record with pride. Good P27 0240 solid ~B average with a sprinkling of ~A's in math and science. P27 0250 Imagine his son being that good in science! Mr& Partlow could P27 0260 still feel a cold sweat on his slightly gray temples as he remembered P27 0270 what a near thing chemistry had been for him at Hanford. But then, P27 0280 he hadn't studied very hard. Getting elected president of the student P27 0290 body took a lot of time and politicking. ## He put down his P27 0300 pipe and started to type. P27 0310 "In response to your letter, I can in good P27 0320 conscience recommend my son, David, in the field of leadership". P27 0330 He stopped and looked at the picture of his son, the picture on P27 0340 his desk which had changed with the years from a laughing baby to a candidate P27 0350 for Hanford College. He didn't have to be told his son looked P27 0360 like him. David had the same gray eyes, high cheekbones, dark hair P27 0370 and a certain rugged ugliness. Height, 6'. Weight, 160. Health, P27 0380 excellent. He turned back to the typewriter with a little more P27 0390 confidence. "His interests range from astronomy and geology to electronics, P27 0400 tennis and swimming. His chief motivation for enrolling at P27 0410 Hanford is the desire to"- Mr& Partlow banged his fist P27 0420 on the keyboard, ruining the letter. He paced to the window and looked P27 0430 at the city he had helped to build. How do you tell a college P27 0440 president that your son doesn't know what he wants to do? That P27 0450 you have refused to drive him into the family business or push him P27 0460 into a profession so you can say at the club, "Of course David has P27 0470 known since he was twelve he wanted to be an engineer"- or a lawyer, P27 0480 or an editor? How do you tell a college like Hanford that P27 0490 your son has a vast potential, that he will find himself? Just give P27 0500 him time, give him a chance. Cady snapped the Venetian blind P27 0510 shut and slammed himself down before the typewriter, rolled in a fresh P27 0520 sheet, and gave his letter the same savage attention he bestowed P27 0530 on a salesman who needed to have the bucket taken off his thick head. P27 0540 What a production to make of a letter commending your own son! P27 0550 His eyebrow went up in amusement at his soul-searching panic. He P27 0560 told Hanford his son wanted to go into the field of electronics. He P27 0570 told Hanford his son had participated in numerous high-school activities. P27 0580 He belonged to a social club, a civic group, little theater, swimming P27 0590 team, and had been president of the student forum as well as treasurer P27 0600 of the science club. He finished with a flurry of good P27 0610 wishes to Hanford College and signed the letter. There, that did it. P27 0620 Then he met the grave eyes of his wife, Anne, from the photograph P27 0630 next to David's. He shoved the unsealed letter into his coat pocket. P27 0640 Better show it to Anne and see if he had omitted anything. P27 0650 After all, his wife had written most of his letters for him in those P27 0660 first lean days of Partlow Products. Anne had a way with words. Half P27 0670 of it was natural, half was Smith College. Yet the whole P27 0680 of Anne was something she had never learned in any college. A woman P27 0690 had it or she didn't. Anne had it. She said what she meant and let P27 0700 it be. She never got on his back. He could take the advice or leave P27 0710 it. He whistled as he locked the office and grinned as he P27 0720 got on the elevator. "You look like you just heard a real gasser, P27 0730 Mr& Partlow". Cady looked at Tom, who had taken P27 0731 him P27 0740 up and down for fifteen years. "I was just thinking how things have P27 0750 changed. When I went to college they begged you to come. Be our P27 0760 guest! It's our pleasure! Now you have to be well rounded, firm P27 0770 in motivation and pre-packed with knowledge"! Tom slid P27 0771 open P27 0780 the door to the lobby. "That's a fact, Mr& Partlow. My John P27 0790 applied to six colleges before he got in". "Going to P27 0800 State"? "No. He's president of the rocket club here, P27 0810 you know. Always messing around with science stuff. Real bright along P27 0820 those lines, you might say. He got a science scholarship to Yale". P27 0821 "Oh", P27 0830 said Mr& Partlow, "that's fine, Tom. Just P27 0840 fine". As he drove home through the thinning traffic, Cady P27 0850 felt the unease growing. He hadn't told anyone, but he, too, had applied P27 0860 to five colleges for David. They had all turned down his son. P27 0870 Weakness in leadership. So sorry. Limited interests. So sorry. No P27 0880 clear motivation. So sorry. He suddenly realized when he walked P27 0890 into his own pretty darned expensive house that he needed the Martini P27 0900 Anne had waiting for him. But tonight his drink tasted like branch P27 0910 water and even his favorite meal of steak and tossed salad gave no P27 0920 surcease from the growing weight of the letter in his pocket. P27 0930 Nor did looking at Anne ease the tension as it usually did. He liked P27 0940 looking at Anne. Most people did. He liked her blond hair and the P27 0950 sprinkle of freckles across her nose. From those navy-blue eyes she P27 0960 saw things as clearly and honestly as David did. She always could sense P27 0961 the shag end of a woolly day. P27 0970 "Board meeting tonight, Cady"? P27 0980 "No, I begged off. Work to do". "Can P27 0990 I have the car, dad"? "Why not let him take it, Cady? P27 1000 I know it is midweek, but it's only eight days before commencement. P27 1010 Let's forget the rules". Cady, deep in thought, neither P27 1020 heard nor answered. ## David grinned. Carefully he put down his P27 1030 steak knife and said loudly, "Mr& Chairman"! Cady P27 1040 Partlow's head came up like that of the proverbial fire horse. "I'm P27 1050 sorry, Dave. The car? Of course you can have it". P27 1060 Dave ate two pieces of pie as he did everything else, slowly, methodically P27 1070 and with interest. "Hear anything from Hanford yet, dad"? P27 1080 Cady begged the question. "Don't worry about it, Dave. P27 1090 Your acceptance will come through". Dave shrugged on his P27 1100 sports coat and picked up the car keys. "Don't be too sure, dad. P27 1110 Charles Burke got turned down by Dartmouth and he is a straight-~A P27 1120 student". Anne said it wasn't surprising because Charles P27 1130 was antisocial, a lone wolf, and completely one-sided. "I can hardly P27 1140 say the same about you, Dave"! Dave kissed her lightly. P27 1150 "Girls, my dear parent, are here to stay! Get my old man to P27 1160 bed early. He looks a little bit frayed". Anne waited until P27 1170 the door had slammed and picked up the coffeepot. "Let's go into P27 1180 the library. You do seem somewhat tattered". Cady trailed P27 1190 her with the coffee cups and settled into his favorite chair in the comfortable P27 1200 book-lined room. "I didn't know I looked so dilapidated"! P27 1210 "Wrong word, darling. Your fur has been rubbed the P27 1220 wrong way and you show it. Need any help"? "In a way, yes. P27 1230 Hanford College hasn't decided on Dave's application yet. They P27 1240 want a letter from me on his motives, interests and leadership. Here's P27 1250 what I wrote". Cady handed her the letter, drank his P27 1260 coffee and waited with what he suddenly realized was belligerence. P27 1270 Already he could feel Anne's questioning eyes. "I know you P27 1280 wrote this in a hurry, P27 1290 but, Cady, Dave was only president P27 1300 of the student forum for a few days. That was when half the school P27 1310 was down with flu". "But he president". P27 1320 "And he wasn't really treasurer of the science club. P27 1330 He just took over the week Bill Daley was in the state basketball play-off". P27 1340 Cady stuck his jaw out. "The fact remains he P27 1350 treasurer". "And the swimming team. No, Cady, he P27 1360 made second team. Just missed the P27 1370 first". "A team is a team", insisted Cady. "Anything P27 1380 else"? "Yes", she said quietly. "I don't think P27 1390 you've been quite honest, Cady. It isn't like you. David's interests. P27 1400 Astronomy. He was mad about stars at the age of nine. Geology, P27 1410 You and Dave used his rock collection for the bottom of the fishpond P27 1420 six years ago! Those aren't his interests now". "What P27 1430 do you suggest"? "Just say he likes swimming, tennis, P27 1440 chess and music". "Music! He hasn't been to a symphony P27 1450 concert all season". Anne smiled. "But he plays bass P27 1460 with Chief Crazy Horse and his Five Colts"! "You P27 1470 mean that rock-and-roll combo? Even in that he never solos like Jack P27 1480 on guitar or Rich on sax. He's- he's just there, that's P27 1490 all". "Yes, he's just there. He keeps the beat going. He P27 1500 likes to play bass because he doesn't have to solo. He doesn't P27 1510 like to rise and shine. Don't worry, Cady, he'll be back in the P27 1520 Beethoven fold by next year". Cady appeared slightly mollified. P27 1530 "All right. But I refuse to be brutally honest and mention P27 1540 Chief Crazy Horse and his Five Colts". Anne laughed and P27 1550 Cady felt the tension loosen its grip on the back of his neck. "Maybe P27 1560 I am padding it a bit, Anne", he said. "But you know how hard P27 1570 it is to get a boy into a good college. He has to have leadership P27 1580 as well as grades". Anne folded the worrisome document. "Did P27 1590 you know he is advertising his ham-radio equipment for sale this P27 1600 weekend? He hasn't used it now for several years. Can you really P27 1610 say his motivation for college is electronics"? Cady felt P27 1620 the jolt as though he had stepped off the curb on his heel. "And what P27 1630 would you say he wants to do? Just what"? "It's P27 1640 Dave who is applying to Hanford College. Why don't you ask him"? P27 1650 For once Cady Partlow wished Anne would yell at him so P27 1660 he could yell back. "I have talked to him, but you know I've never P27 1670 tried to push him into any profession. I won't be guilty of trying P27 1680 to run his life". Anne picked up the towel she was hemming P27 1690 for the hospital guild. "Just because your father tried to make P27 1700 a banker out of you, you've leaned over backward to keep your hands P27 1710 off. But subconsciously you've wanted him to conform to your mold. P27 1720 You want him to be a leader of men, like you". Cady put the P27 1730 well-worn chip back on his shoulder. "Dave qualities of leadership. P27 1740 He just hasn't developed them yet. Give him time". P27 1750 He never will, Cady. Not the kind of leadership you mean, working P27 1760 with lots of people. All your wishful thinking won't change P27 1770 that. P27 1780 Remember what you used to say in the Army? You can't run a war P27 1790 with ninety-nine generals and one private"! Cady walked P27 1800 the block to the mailbox, almost ashamed of himself for arguing with Anne. P28 0010 Martin felt it was incredible that the situation had come to exist P28 0020 at all. And once begun, had grown to such monstrous proportions. P28 0030 The pair of white cotton shorts ruled his life. Lying awake P28 0040 at night, he could see them, laid out on the floor of his mind. When P28 0050 he rose in the morning, the image was still there. He had always P28 0060 been a messy and negligent man. In his bachelor days, his bedroom P28 0070 had been strewn with clothes which his mother, or later the hotel maid, P28 0080 generally saw fit to put in order. No doubt Dolores resented following P28 0090 in their footsteps. But it was fun those first days, kidding P28 0100 about the trail of garments he left littered across the rug. There P28 0110 was an assertive maleness in his grinning refusal to pick them up. Half P28 0120 slyly he enjoyed seeing her stoop to lift the things. He P28 0130 remembered the first time he saw her, standing across the room at a party. P28 0140 The smooth curve of her neck, very white against hair which curled P28 0150 against it like petals. Her hair was the color of those blooms which P28 0160 in seed catalogues are referred to as "black", but since no flower P28 0170 is actually without color contain always a hint of grape or purple P28 0180 or blue- he wanted to draw the broad patina of hair through his fingers, P28 0190 searching it slowly for a trace of veining which might reveal its P28 0200 true shade beneath the darkness. So he sought her out, and spoke P28 0210 to her, and thought of his hand in her hair. Or against her back, P28 0220 pressed on the column of vertebrae, which held her so magnificently P28 0230 straight and unyielding, until the segments of bone made tiny sharp cracking P28 0240 noises, like the snapped stem of a tulip. But, to put it P28 0250 bluntly, nothing snapped. Yet that had not seriously troubled him, P28 0260 not then. They married. More he could take at leisure. All Martin P28 0270 thought he needed was time: to what better use could time be put? P28 0280 He saw later that they had made their marriage too quickly. There P28 0290 was too little occasion beforehand for resistance, the brave strong P28 0300 delights of emotional clash and meeting. They had left themselves P28 0310 too much to discover. But, at the start, his new life felt invigorating. P28 0320 Good. It was on the tenth day after the wedding (how P28 0330 could it have been so soon?) that he dropped the shorts on the floor. P28 0340 "Now, I'm not going to pick up those shorts"! P28 0350 Martin gave her a teasing pat. "I think you'll get tired of P28 0360 them there". In the morning the shorts were where he had left P28 0370 them. He smiled to himself, and decided not to mention them till P28 0380 Dolores did. It was almost too easy. For he had just remembered: P28 0390 tonight they were having their first guests. The shorts would not be P28 0400 on the floor when he came home that evening. He was wrong. The P28 0410 rest of the bedroom had been groomed to a superhuman neatness, but in P28 0420 the middle of the carpet lay the disheveled shorts. They gave the room P28 0430 a strange note of incongruity, like a mole on a beautiful face. P28 0440 He saw that Dolores intended to wait until the last minute, thinking P28 0450 he would get nervous. Quietly he determined to foil her. I can P28 0460 be as stubborn as she can, he thought; my nerves are as strong. She'll P28 0470 rush to the bedroom when the doorbell rings. It rang. Ten P28 0480 minutes early. Martin was standing a few feet from the front P28 0490 door. He swung around, eyes toward the bedroom, some fifteen feet P28 0500 away. Dolores stood motionless in the doorway. He could not cross P28 0510 the living room, brush past her, and bend down to retrieve the shorts. P28 0520 Martin turned his back. He strode to answer the bell. P28 0530 Bill's hat was deposited in the hall closet. With the most casual P28 0540 and relaxed manner in the world, Dolores led Anthea to the bedroom. P28 0550 Martin strained his ears. At first he could not be sure. P28 0560 Then he caught just enough to know that the shorts were still there. P28 0570 A glissade of giggles slid over their voices. All evening Anthea P28 0580 favored him with odd, coy looks. Clearly she had been instructed P28 0590 "not to say a word". For some reason, this ellipsis in the conversation P28 0600 spread until it swallowed up every other topic. At last there P28 0610 was a void no one could fill. The Brainards went home early. P28 0620 Martin realized, later on, that he should have "had it out" with P28 0630 Dolores that night. As violently as possible. But he was so taken P28 0640 aback, he could not believe any rage of his would make her give in. P28 0650 On the contrary, it would only weaken his position if he fumed, while P28 0660 she stayed calm and adamant. And if he surrendered raving P28 0670 at her. **h He shivered. Suppose he ran up the white flag altogether? P28 0680 At once. He considered the sober possibility. In P28 0690 his head was the echo of those titters with Anthea. There was P28 0700 something about private feminine whisperings which always made him feel P28 0710 scabrous and unclean. He remembered his mother gossiping with her P28 0715 neighborhood women friends, P28 0720 lowering her voice to a penetrating hoarseness P28 0730 which might be trusted to carry to the head of the stairs, where he P28 0740 crouched listening. He could even recall the last time he sat there. P28 0750 She was talking about him that time, because he had done some bad thing, P28 0760 something she disliked, but "Afterwards Martin said he was sorry. P28 0770 He apologized so sweetly, I couldn't keep being annoyed with P28 0780 him". It wasn't even true that he'd said he was sorry that time; P28 0790 he had in fact said simply that he wished the thing hadn't happened, P28 0800 which was as honest as he could put it. But his mother told the P28 0810 story over and over, till her "Martin said he was sorry" was as P28 0820 much a part of her as the shape of her thin, pallid ears. The P28 0830 battle had to be fought. Let the best sex win. But his resolution P28 0840 hardly seemed to help. If the situation had been bad, it now got P28 0850 worse. About this time people began "dropping in", considering P28 0860 that the newly married had been left alone long enough. Angrily Martin P28 0870 wished they had delayed the wedding and gone on a trip- preferably P28 0880 one that lasted months- instead of deciding not to postpone the date P28 0890 until he could get away. Here they were at the mercy of anyone who P28 0900 chose to come by. These stray people nearly always insisted on Dolores P28 0910 showing them around the apartment. Of course, the tours of inspection P28 0920 included the ever-present shorts. It was curious how the P28 0930 different visitors took this. Some tried to ignore the blot on the bedroom's P28 0940 countenance. Others asked. Quite a few laughed. To them P28 0950 all Dolores told a lighthearted and witty tale. "It's a little P28 0960 contest Martin and I have", she would begin gaily, carrying P28 0970 the anecdote through a frothy and deceptive course. While he waited P28 0980 in the living room. Once Martin went along. They entered the P28 0990 bedroom, and Dolores said nothing. Then one of the guests showed his P28 1000 merriment. "You were in a hurry, weren't you"? Martin would P28 1010 have liked to break the man's neck. Dolores smiled; she let the P28 1020 interpretation stand. Now Martin heard himself give a snort of mock P28 1030 good nature. With her eyes Dolores dared him for the truth, ready to P28 1040 begin: - Never again did he P28 1050 enter into the ritual of showing the apartment. They kept up a P28 1060 rigid pretense of speaking relations. But Martin seldom felt the impulse P28 1070 to talk about anything. What to talk about? Dolores kept P28 1080 picking up any of his clothes (except the fatal shorts) which he left P28 1090 about, but he had been robbed of pleasure in scattering his possessions. P28 1100 He fell into the habit of putting his clothes in drawers and closets, P28 1110 so his life might impinge as little as possible on hers. The P28 1120 shorts alone remained. In his moments of worst agony, Martin P28 1130 imagined what his friends were saying. The sound of their amazement. P28 1140 He could hear the word. **h He had thought her exactly P28 1160 what he wanted. Six weeks of marriage and I'm using the past tense, P28 1170 he told himself furiously. Pursuing his idea, he saw that it would P28 1180 be impossible to leave her now. Everyone would know why; he would P28 1190 cut a supremely ridiculous figure. He was trapped. Day P28 1200 and night Martin could not drag his mind from the dilemma he had made P28 1210 for himself. His mind scurried frantically, seeking an exit. Alternately P28 1220 he had periods of hostile defeatism in which he determined sullenly, P28 1230 morosely, to live out his life in this fashion. Nothing would P28 1240 change, nothing would ever change. When the solution finally P28 1250 came to him, one night while he was in bed, he was so shaken by its simplicity P28 1260 that he could only wonder why it had not occurred to him before. P28 1270 In a frenzy of excitement, he considered his plan. P28 1280 Beside his shorts, he would place something of hers. Instantaneously P28 1290 he would have won an immeasurable moral victory, for if she picked P28 1300 up, say, a pair of her panties, she might just as well lift his P28 1310 shorts lying alongside- the expenditure of energy was almost the same. P28 1320 He felt that it would be a particular humiliation to Dolores to pick P28 1330 up her own underwear which he had laid on the floor. Furthermore, P28 1340 he could go on repeating the maneuver endlessly: every time he went P28 1350 in the bedroom, he could drop a slip or a brassiere, or maybe a girdle, P28 1360 next to his shorts. Sooner or later, Dolores would crack. On the P28 1370 other hand, if she didn't remove her own things, it would be difficult P28 1380 to explain to the parade of guests which traversed the apartment. P28 1390 Martin guessed that Dolores would not be so eager to tell the P28 1400 next installment of her story. The tale, he thought, would become less P28 1410 gay. She had used his rumpled shorts as the very image of his childishness, P28 1420 his lack of control, his general male looseness, while she P28 1430 remained cool, airy, and untouched, the charming teacher who disciplined P28 1440 an unruly body. To have her underclothes linked with his on the floor P28 1450 would draw her visibly into a struggle both bitter and absurd. P28 1460 Something in the back of his mind was aware that the magnificence P28 1470 of the plan lay in his faith, that the idea would work because he believed P28 1480 in it, since his courage and virility were involved, because it P28 1490 was truly his. The knowledge kept him from analyzing his scheme to death, P28 1500 and took him through the last hours of that night in a peace of exalted P28 1510 fanaticism. The next morning, while Dolores was out of P28 1520 the room, he went to her bureau drawer, took out a pair of nylon lace P28 1530 pants, and tenderly dropped them next to his shorts. He sat down on P28 1540 the bed. In a surprisingly short time, Dolores appeared. To P28 1550 his delight, her eyes focused at once upon the two garments. Slowly and P28 1560 deliberately she reached down and touched the lace with her fingers, P28 1570 then hesitated for about a second. Ah, he thought, she's going through P28 1580 the chain of reasoning which says she might really just as well P28 1590 pick up my shorts too. He saw that in a moment she had grasped all the P28 1600 implications of a plot which had been weeks in occurring to him. Extending P28 1610 her fingers another inch, she caught up the shorts, and swiftly P28 1620 left the room. She did not look at him, but he noticed that her face P28 1630 was flushed and her eyes unsteady. They breakfasted together, P28 1640 but Martin did not refer to his triumph, and Dolores found a great P28 1650 deal to do in the kitchen, bobbing up and down from the table so that P28 1660 talk was impossible. Well, Martin thought, That'll save. He left P28 1670 for work in high spirits. As he relaxed that day, Martin realized P28 1680 how tense he had been these past weeks. He found that he no longer P28 1690 hated Dolores (he knew how much he had hated her), and he was P28 1700 surprised at a resurgence of an affectionate feeling. P29 0010 "Good old ~A-~Z", Cap said. "You know, I've got P29 0020 one of your cars at home. as a prominent industrialist, you ought to P29 0030 be interested in his nibs' support group. Isn't his racket down P29 0040 your alley"? , William thought. . A rush of memory swept him back, and he forgot Cap. P29 0060 How did he start on such a ride to brief glory? Simply enough, P29 0070 through the inadvertent agency of his brother-in-law. General Hershey's P29 0080 draft and Doc Eddyman and Cap were responsible for his first P29 0090 eminence, but Fearless Freddy Bryan could take credit, if he cared P29 0100 to (and he did), for the second time. Freddy needed a job, having been P29 0110 detached from a rather dangerous career in real estate and skyscraper P29 0120 financing by Gerry, and it was up to Arthur Willis to provide him P29 0130 with one. Mr& Willis bought Zenith Plastic Products, a P29 0140 skeleton corporation of sorts which had undergone many vicissitudes and P29 0150 whose principal assets were a couple of electronics plants on Long P29 0160 Island engaged in working out government contracts, and installed Freddy P29 0170 in an executive position. Shortly after, Freddy had his usual P29 0180 proliferation of bold ideas. Willis listened patiently, and once in a P29 0190 while William was exposed to them at a family gathering; he generally P29 0200 heard Freddy's suggestions without interest, being absorbed by P29 0210 his own prospering concerns. Probably Mr& Willis was influenced P29 0220 toward deeper involvement by familial loyalty and a concern for P29 0230 his grandchildren. Gerry began to aid Freddy with her father, prodded, P29 0240 no doubt, by Joan's open contempt for Freddy and William's irritating P29 0250 competency. Another factor must have been the eventual disposal P29 0260 of Willis' fortune; she unquestionably assumed that the more P29 0270 he was entwined with Freddy, the more likely he was to reward Freddy P29 0280 richly upon his death. Whatever the reasons, Willis and Bryan P29 0290 started expanding Zenith. They acquired another electronics factory, P29 0300 a specialized ceramics company, an organization that built- very P29 0310 experimentally- high-speed research calculators. Since they were P29 0320 hunting for national defense contracts, Adam Herberet, a man of surprising P29 0330 resources, entered the combination as a silent partner because P29 0340 of his political connections. Feeling his power, Freddy looked P29 0350 for additional worlds to conquer. Heavy industry, slanted toward inexhaustible P29 0360 government coffers, attracted him. The Allstates Auto P29 0370 Company, a medium-sized firm which manufactured four-wheel-drive vehicles P29 0380 and other off-road equipment, had recently constructed an over-large, P29 0390 modern plant in a burst of misguided optimism. Cursed with a shaky P29 0400 management and dissatisfied stockholders, it was ripe for amalgamation, P29 0410 and Freddy's instinct was to keep growing by stock mergers and P29 0420 small expenditure of cash, and never mind inevitable consequences. With P29 0430 Herberet's blessing, he was convinced that Allstates' Wisconsin P29 0440 folly would be ideal for conversion to airplane sub-assembly, tanks, P29 0450 missiles or ordnance of some kind. At that point William P29 0460 came into the picture. Although not much desiring the account, he had P29 0470 been appointed advertising head of Zenith. Freed of routine by having P29 0480 his own firm and a complaisant partner, his work in New York had P29 0490 given him a broader overall knowledge of business administration and corporate P29 0500 structure; and if he wasn't entirely committed to what he P29 0510 did, he was at least fascinated by the chance of wider opportunities. P29 0520 Mr& Willis, eager to have him allied with the family, wanted advice P29 0530 beyond the confines of his field, and William set out on a serious P29 0540 study of the situation, including trips to Wisconsin and Washington. P29 0550 In the end, he said: "I'm not enchanted by the proposition, P29 0560 sir. I know a guy named Jack Hamrick, a very bright young P29 0570 engineer who was with Chrysler, and I took him with me to Allstates. P29 0580 It's his expert opinion that the plant isn't well suited to what P29 0590 you have in mind. The conversion will cost a fortune. Besides that, P29 0600 I'm acquainted more or less with the defense hardware situation through P29 0610 my contacts in the Air Force. I think Adam Herberet is guilty P29 0620 of being too hopeful and better informed on defense financing than P29 0630 on the technical side. Missiles have thrown everything up for grabs, P29 0640 and nobody seems to be sure where we go from here. The future of manned P29 0650 aircraft is in doubt, which affects government procurement, and jet P29 0670 transports have revolutionized the airline trade- one jet can take P29 0680 the place of three compound-engine planes. This means the aircraft companies P29 0690 are going to tear into the government market, looking for anything P29 0700 they can get and making the competition tough. Here are a few facts P29 0710 and figures I've assembled. Can't you stay with what you have P29 0720 and wait till the dust settles"? Willis glanced at the bound P29 0730 pages given him and shrugged. "Well", he said, "there is Freddy, P29 0740 you know **h. And Gerry. Freddy is deeply committed to our P29 0750 plans already. He assures me he has people to handle the money raising, P29 0760 and Ham Richert, my lawyer, says the legal aspects of the wedding P29 0770 of Zenith and Allstates are no problem. I don't like to exhibit P29 0780 the deadly dampening effect of an elderly man's caution". P29 0790 "Yes, I appreciate that. I wish you wouldn't tell Freddy I'm P29 0800 lukewarm; I've caused him trouble before, and he's beginning P29 0810 to resent me. If we don't take care, the sisters will be entering the P29 0820 fray on opposite sides, brandishing their cudgels". "Which P29 0830 is a frightful prospect, Bill". Willis laughed. "One shouldn't P29 0840 mix commercial affairs with patriarchy, but in this case I have P29 0850 no choice **h. Let me think about it. I'm most grateful to you, so P29 0860 grateful I wish you were my principal aide instead of Freddy". P29 0870 Not to William's surprise, Freddy, Adam and Hamilton Richert P29 0880 prevailed; allied to them was Gerry, devoting much time to swaying P29 0890 her father, and Joan dismissed all thought of the project and William P29 0900 was unwilling to interfere further. Zenith absorbed Allstates, P29 0910 stock transfers were arranged, and Freddy became president of the hyphenated P29 0920 combination. Through Jack Hamrick, William fell into the P29 0930 world of automobile promotion and got several accounts for Shoals and P29 0940 Clay. He forgot about ~A-~Z till, unhappily, he and Hamrick P29 0950 were proved correct. Freddy's backing dropped away from him P29 0960 and Mr& Willis was forced to make up the deficit. Adam, beset by P29 0970 changing defense conditions and the open secret that he was part of the P29 0980 new corporation, couldn't deliver from his end. The Wisconsin plant P29 0990 turned out to be a white elephant. Stock Willis held in abundance P29 1000 fell sharply in value. Confronted by a grim future, Freddy lost his P29 1010 nerve and plumped for a drastic liquidation. Once more Willis P29 1020 summoned William. "You were right", he said- "you and your P29 1030 engineer- and I'm in something of a bind. Freddy's solution P29 1040 doesn't appeal to me. In addition to other defects, I'm a stubborn P29 1050 man and hate to admit to the common garden variety of bad judgment. P29 1060 Will you see if you can help me"? William spent a long P29 1070 week end closeted with Hamrick. His recent experience in motor car advertising, P29 1080 a love for cars of themselves, the existence of ~A-~Z's P29 1090 useless Wisconsin set-up, exposure to exciting conceptions of Hamrick's P29 1100 that nobody would buy, and the coincidental recent failure P29 1110 of a respected but out-dated small-car manufacturer called Ticonderoga P29 1120 Motors had given him an idea of such dimensions he was almost afraid P29 1130 to broach it. Initially, Hamrick's reaction to ~A-~Z going P29 1140 into the passenger car market was discouraging. He thought the financing, P29 1150 the advertising, the production of new models, the founding of P29 1160 a nationwide chain of dealerships was simply too difficult. Then he caught P29 1170 fire. If ~A-~Z could buy Ticonderoga cheaply and use their P29 1180 presses and dies and other equipment, if William could hit precisely P29 1190 the right promotion note, if the money hurdle was not insurmountable P29 1200 **h. They took nearly a month to investigate, marshal statistics, P29 1210 and put their arguments down in black and white. Taking Hamrick P29 1220 with him, William went to Mr& Willis. He was surprised and dubious, P29 1230 but impressed by the engineer and the report. "Your alternative P29 1250 is breathtaking", he said, "and, I'm frank in saying, P29 1260 a bit mad. I wish I was younger and less timid **h. Well, I can't P29 1270 resolve this myself. I'll have to call in the brain trust. Are you P29 1280 willing to run the gantlet? I can't guarantee you a sympathetic P29 1290 audience". "We'll be in there swinging", William said, P29 1300 "but in a way, sir, you've got to decide it yourself. You have P29 1310 the controlling interest and the principal expenditure is yours- P29 1320 and, besides, nobody else is going to have the courage. If they follow P29 1330 anyone, it'll have to be you". He paused. "I should explain: P29 1340 there's more here for me than advocating my little dream, there's P29 1350 you. You mustn't take a fall, or publicly back away. I hate that. P29 1360 You're- you're Arthur Willis **h. Forgive the hearts and P29 1370 flowers theme". "I rather like the music", Willis replied P29 1380 quietly. "Thank you". At the meeting, attended by Freddy, P29 1390 Richert, Herberet and the ~A-~Z executive staff, with P29 1400 Mr& Willis presiding, William and Hamrick did indeed run the gantlet. P29 1410 From shock and incredulity, most of the listeners went on to open P29 1420 resistance and animosity. "Oh, my God", Ham Richert P29 1430 said, "a little child shall lead them. Move over, General Motors". P29 1440 "It's absurd, Bill", Freddy said, from a pale face. P29 1450 "You're leading Dad down the garden path". "Your P29 1460 garden, P29 1470 God damn it"! William said. "I don't enjoy family P29 1480 quarrels", Adam said. "Nor crazy relatives. We're here to P29 1490 transact business. Can't we put an end to this, Arthur"? P29 1500 "Hear me out, please", William begged. "I'm an advertising P29 1510 hustler, I admit, but I have to get hot once in a larger sphere. P29 1520 Sure, Ticonderoga went broke in the low-priced market bucking the Big P29 1530 Three. Their cars weren't small enough, they didn't have the P29 1540 power, they were old-fashioned. They tried to sell 'em on economy and P29 1550 simple merit. We've arrived at an age for romance and snobbery. P29 1560 We've all been rich and spoiled long enough to hate the machine age. P29 1570 Look what those little European jobs are doing. We'll woo the P29 1580 consumer with a product, not bludgeon him with chromed excess length P29 1590 and weight. Let's make it moonlight and the call of far places and P29 1600 a seduction, at reasonable rates. Ticonderoga folded a few minutes too P29 1610 soon, before the tide changed, still honest and stupid- and the network P29 1620 of dealers the company had is around waiting to be signed up again- P29 1630 waiting for , ready-made. We've got rid of the steam yachts P29 1640 and Georgian houses, and the bloated, too-expensive automobile is P29 1650 next. Why not come down smartly in the world, in a chic fashion, with P29 1660 an Allstates-Zenith"? He swayed them somewhat, but the P29 1670 debate raged on. Financing emerged as the main obstacle. Mr& Willis P29 1680 made it evident that he had contributed his maximum. "Nobody P29 1690 will underwrite it, I'm telling you", Freddy said. "I know P29 1700 what I'm talking about in that department". "There's P29 1710 plenty of risk money", Ham Richert added, "but not for anything P29 1720 this risky". "All right", William said. "We'll P29 1730 try to swing the deal on that basis. If we can't raise the capital, P29 1740 we're through. Nothing has been lost. You're up against it anyhow. P29 1750 Why won't you give me a chance"? A silence fell. P29 1760 Heads instinctively turned in Willis' direction. He smiled at William P29 1770 and slowly rubbed his hands together. "I feel I must P29 1780 answer the question", he said, "since the onus later, if any, should P29 1790 fall on me- I don't relish recriminations spread broadcast outside P29 1800 my family **h. I'm not giving you a chance, Bill, but availing P29 1810 myself of your generous offer of assistance. Good luck to you". P29 1820 "All the in-laws have got to have their day", Adam said, and P29 1830 glared at William and Freddy in turn. Sweat started out on P29 1840 William's forehead, whether from relief or disquietude he could not P29 1850 tell. Across the table, Hamrick saluted him jubilantly with an encircled P29 1860 thumb and forefinger. Nobody else showed pleasure. ## Spike-haired, P29 1870 burly, red-faced, decked with horn-rimmed glasses and an Ivy P29 1880 League suit, Jack Hamrick awaited William at the officers' club. P29 1890 "Hello, boss", he said, and grinned. "I suppose I can never P29 1900 expect to call you 'General' after that Washington episode". P29 1910 "I'm afraid not".