Each night Doris would come into Liberty’s little white room, set out her blouse and jumper and socks for the next day, smooth the bedsheets, plump up the pillows, remind her to keep God as a judge in her heart, and kiss her good night. She would then go down the hall to her son’s austere room where she would often find him, not in bed at all, but lying on an empty bookshelf, as cool and as still as a reptile, “just thinking” he would tell her. She would remind him that his evening thoughts should be an image of the day of judgment. She would urge him to recall the conversations and events and errors of the day and see if he could do better tomorrow. Then she would kiss her Willie and go downstairs where she would set out the breakfast things. This habit of Mrs. Stone’s always dismayed Liberty. Coming down in the middle of the night for a glass of water, Liberty would see the table set with its bowls and plates, its juice glasses and bottles of syrup. The kitchen would be dim and empty, clean and slightly humming, like a tomb in which comfy familiarities had been placed to accompany the dead into the unknown. Seeing clothing set out for the morrow or a table set out for a future meal would, years later, still fill Liberty with melancholy. But for Doris Stone, it was just another in the small acts of faith that enabled her to inch her way through the days.
After establishing, as far as she was able, the probability of a tomorrow that would proceed much in the way of the known today, Doris would make her own night preparations and slip into bed beside her husband. “Calvin,” she would say, “now, it’s too quiet outside to snore tonight. It’s a lovely, quiet night.” Calvin, half-asleep, would mutter, “I’m not as hard-hearted as people think,” in his mind already in the morning, in the bank, weighing and calculating, counting. The house would slowly grow still as each in their manner counted their own way into sleep.
Doris counts the foundations of the wall of the city of God. The first foundation is of jasper, the second, sapphire, the third a quartz of the palest blue, the fourth emerald, the fifth — the fifth she can never recall — the sixth and seventh are strange ones too, although sometimes they come to her, the eighth, beryl … and she sleeps. Below them all the table is set. Liberty lies with her cheek on the crisp pillowcase and counts. She counts the number of children she will have, their names and talents. And Willie counts too, counts something, perhaps the days ahead, the houses and voices and faces in them, their boredoms and luxuries and terrors …
When Liberty was twelve, Willie gave her a heart pendant for her birthday. It was a pretty little heart, thin and gold-plated.
“I was looking for a locket,” Willie said. “Something you could open up, but they were all too big. I wanted just a tiny one so you could maybe wear it all the time, so you’d hardly even know that you were wearing it.”
“I like it,” Liberty said. She was still a little frightened of him, but now she thought it was love. She clasped the necklace around her neck and kissed him.
“You don’t know how to kiss,” Liberty said.
“Sure I do,” Willie said.
Liberty giggled. “No, you don’t. You don’t kiss like that with your mouth just hanging open.”
“Well, where did you learn to kiss?”
“Travis kissed me once at school, but I’m sure I didn’t learn anything from that.” She made a face.
“Whores won’t let you kiss them. That’s why I don’t know.”
“Oh, Willie, you’ve never been to a whore.”
“One of them told me that the Devil was Jesus’ older brother. She insisted upon it.”
“You’ve never,” Liberty said.
“I might have,” Willie said. “But it’s a secret.”
“Just because you’ve told a secret doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve told something true,” Liberty said.
That night, on her birthday, Calvin took them all out to dinner. They went to Liberty’s favorite restaurant, a place called The Dollhouse. The building had once housed a loud, mean bar until, after a series of maimings and maulings, it had been shut up by the town, then bought by ladies of the Garden Club, an organization of which Doris was an active member. In the center of the restaurant was a five-foot, twenty-room, elaborately decorated dollhouse with over two thousand pieces of tiny furniture, the collective hobby of the Garden Club ladies. Doris had sewn the draperies for many of the rooms and the cabbage rose slipcovers for the chairs on the sun porch. Calvin himself had carved out a small plaque that was mounted near the front door of the dollhouse, because besides being a banker, he was a devoted fan of history. The plaque said:
On This Site
in 1865 Nothing
Happened
The Club was divided in their enthusiasm for Calvin’s addition. Some thought it too flippant an accord for all the work they had put into the project. Calvin Stone was a peculiar man, most of them agreed. He seemed to have no more pretense than a broom, but you never quite knew where you stood with him.
“How you all doing,” Calvin said to the diners to his right and left. He knew almost everyone in town. Doris followed and Liberty and Willie ambled behind. The hostess seated them at a round table near the dollhouse. She was a Frenchwoman with a fine bosom and round, fragrant arms.
“Ah,” she said, “it’s so good to see you and it’s an occasion, I can tell. May I bring you some wine?”
Doris placed her hand on her heart and shut her eyes, weakened by the very suggestion.
The hostess laughed and quickly removed the wine glasses. Her lips blossomed into a pout. “My car today, it just stopped on the road. You might have see it. It didn’t want to be a car anymore. My life, at times, seems planned by enemies. It’s an effort to live gracefully a life that seems planned by enemies, don’t you think?”
Calvin looked at her, bewildered. Liberty smiled.
“You look good today,” the woman said to Liberty.
Liberty had straw-colored hair, the white straight teeth of a dentist’s child.
“And your necklace, it is so beautiful. Is it a gift from your boyfriend?” She tousled Willie’s hair. “Un monsieur qui est par hasard un enfant,” she said. “It’s only chance that such a man is still a child.”
Calvin shook his head and grinned. “You sure are one heck of a hostess,” he said. “Do you believe we could all have some Coca-Cola?”
Whenever Liberty came to the restaurant, she would kneel on the padded platform encircling the dollhouse and raptly study its cluttered contents — its satin pillows, its variety of windows and cupboards, its closet hung with tiny clothes. The grand staircase in the hallway was papered with an optical deceit of gardens and flowers stretching into the distance. The parlor had wooden wainscotting and blue walls and in the corner was a New Year’s tree — a twig from a tree festooned with confetti. The ceiling of the nursery was painted with stars. In the kitchen was a black stove that flickered with paper flames and on the table was a plate of donuts. The donuts were toy automobile tires coated with baking soda. On the table too was a tiny knife and a pink-and-white roast on a platter. There was a gilded haircomb for the headboard of a bed, and there was water in the sinks and books on the shelves. There were a man and a woman sitting on leather chairs in the library, sprawled rigidly as though dead. There was always a lady writing a letter at a desk and always a child being given a bath by a girl in a white uniform. In the dining room, someone was always dining. In the pantry, a maid was always looking in horror at a plate just dropped and broken.