Almstadt was trying to make the beds, cook, attendher husband, and answer the telephone all at the sametime. The telephone was never idle for more than five minutes. Her friends kept calling, and to each she repeatedthe full story of her troubles. I have always disliked mymother-in-law. She is a short, fair, rather maidenishwoman. Her natural color, when visible, is healthy. Hereyes are large, and they wear a knowing look, but sincethere is nothing to be knowing about they only convey herfoolishness. She powders herself thickly, and her lips arepainted in the shape that has become the uni'versal deviceof sensuality for all women, from the barely mature tothe very old.
Mrs. Almstadt, nearing fifty, is already quite19 wrinkled, much to her concern, and she is forever on the watch for new packs and face lotions.
When I came in, she was busy talking over the telephone to someone, and I went to my father-in-law's room. He was lying with his knees drawn up and his shoulders raised, so that his head seemed joined without a neck directly to his body. Through an opening in his pajamas his flesh showed white and fatty under graying hair. He looked unfamiliar in the high-buttoned tunic with the crest on the pocket, and a little ludicrous. This was Mrs. Almstadt's doing. She bought his clothes, and she had dressed him for bed like a mandarin or a Romanoff prince. His broad knuckles were joined on the silken quilt.
He greeted me with a not wholly ungrudged smile, and also as though it might be considered unmanly or unfatherly to fall sick. At the same time, however, he tried to make it plain that he could afford to spend a few days in bed; he was far enough ahead of the game; the business (this he told me with conflicting natw, halance and defiance) was in good hands. e rang again, and Mrs. Almstadt once more beill her story to one of her innumerable connec- @.'@. what I now became curious to know was whether he was unaffected or whether she was a nuisance to him. In the five years that I had been his sonddin-law I had heard neither criticism nor defense of her from him, save on two occasions when he said, "Katy's still a child; she never grew up."
Before I was aware of it I was saying, "How did you ever manage to stick it out so long, Mr.
Almstadt?"
"Stick out? What?" he said.
"With her," I plunged on. "It would get me, I know it would."
"What are you talking bout?" the old man asked, perplexed and angry. I suppose he thought it dishonorable to allow anyone to say such things to his face. But I could not help myself. It seemed, at the moment, not an error but a very natural inquiry.
I was suddenly in a state of mind that required directness for its satisfaction. Nothing else would do. "I don't know what you mean; what are you talking about?" he said again.
"Well, listen to her." @' "Oh," he said, "you mean the telephone."
"Yes, the telephone."
He appeared somewhat relieved. "I don't pay any attention to it. All women are talkers.
Maybe Katy talks more than most, but you got to allow for that. She…"
"Never grew up?" I said.
I doubt that this was what he intended to say, but since the phrase was his he could not dissent. With lips tightly drawn together, he nodded. "Yes, that's right. Some people just turn out different than others.
Everybody isn't alike." He spoke stiffly; he was still angry. He had to make allowances for me, too, once in a while. My behavior was not lways what it should be, he thus, indirectly, gave me to understand. His color had thickened furiously; it was slow to recede. Harsh and red his face shone under the branched brass fixture whose light had a singular hue, like tea. Was he deliberately covering up an opinion which, it must be conceded, he had every right to hold privately, or did he believe what he said? The latter was the more likely explanation. Babble, tedium, and all the rest were to be expected; they came with every marriage.
There was still another possibility to consider, and that was that he was not resigned and that he did not ignore her as he pretended but-and there was every likelihood that he was unaware of this-heard and delighted in her, wanted her slovenly, garrulous, foolish, and coy, took pleasure in enduring her. His face, as we looked at each other, took on a doglike aspect. I was perturbed, and rebuked my imagination.
The doctor had left a prescription which the old man asked me to take to the drugstore. As I went out I heard Mrs. Almstadt saying, "My Iva's husband loseph is here to lend a hand.
I–Ie isn't work@ffng now, he's waiting for the Army, so he has all the time in the world." I started and turned, full of indignation, but she, pressing the black, kidney-shaped instrument to her cheek, smiled at me all oblivious. I wondered whether it was possible that she should not have said it intentionally, that she should be blameless; whether her thoughts were as smooth and con. tentless as counters or blank dominoes; whether she was half guile and half innocence; or whether there worked through her a malice she herself knew nothing about.
There was a sharp wind outside; the sun, low and raw in a field of coarse clouds, ruddied the bricks and win22 dows. The street had been blown dry (it had rained the day before), and it presented itself in one of its winter aspects, creased and with thin sidelocks of snow, all but deserted. A block-long gap lay between me and the nearest walker-comou on some unfathomable business-a man in a long, soldierly coat which the sun had converted to its own color. And then the pharmacy where I waited, sipping a cup of coffee under the crepe-paper lattice till my parcel, wrapped in green Christmas paper, was handed to me.
As I was going back, an exhibit in a barbershop attracted me: "Fancy articles from kitchen odds and ends by Mrs.. l. Kowalski, 3538 Pierce Avenue." And there were laid out mosaic pictures, bits of matchstick on mats of leaf from old cigar btitts, ash trays cut from tin cans and shellacked grapefruit rind, a braided cellophane belt, a letter opener inlaid with bits of glass, and two hand-painted religious pictures. In its glass case the striped pole turned smoothly, the Lucky Tiger watched from a thicket of bottles, the barber read a magazine.
Taming with my parcel, I went on and, through the gray pillars and the ungainly door which clanked on the mailboxes, entered the sad cavern of the halst.
Upstairs, I worked energetically on the old man. I had Mrs. Almstadt make a pitcher of orange juice, dosed him with the medicine, and rubbed him down with alcohol. He grunted with pleasure during the massage and said that I was stronger than I looked. We were on better terms by this time. But I would not be drawn into a conversation. If I kept silent, I could not make another mistake. If I began to talk I would soon find myself explaining my position and defending my idleness. Old Almstadt did not bring up the subject. My own father, I must say, treats me less considerately in that respect. He would have asked me, but Almstadt said nothing about it.
I rolled down my sleeves and was preparing to go when my mother-in-law reminded me that she had poured a glass of orange juice for me in the kitchen. That was not lunch, but it was better than nothing. I went to get it and found on the kitchen sink a half-cleaned chicken, its yellow claws rigid, its head bent as though to examine its entrails which raveled over the sopping draining board and splattered the enamel with blood. Beside it stood the orange juice, a brown feather floating in it. I poured it down the drain.