He pulled the door open studying the two coins in his hand before he raised one to the phone and dialed again. — Mister Eigen please… Hello? I just called… Eigen? I just got into town. Where’s Schramm… he wedged the phone against a shoulder digging in a pocket to come up with the cigarette pack, hesitate over the last one there and take it. — Christ how, who got him into Bellevue? What? All right, I agree, but Christ it couldn’t have happened to anybody else, it was an accident that could only have happened to Schramm… Who? If they want to keep him there overnight for observation let them… Well he could too you know God damned well he could, especially after this, the last time I talked him out of it he… I know it… Right now I’ll walk down there right now, it should take me about… Because I have exactly one cent, that’s why! What…? Nothing. Fine, great, sitting in the railroad station with a God damned penny in my pocket looking for a familiar face been like this since I was seven, come down from school for the weekend or being put on the Sunday night train it never leaves, Schramm’s right you can’t just kill part of it you, wait, wait I see somebody I, I know, wait hold on…
He came out of the booth pulling his tie closed at the throat, his voice constricted in the call — Amy…? as though that had constricted it, knotted his voice and his face in consternation as hers filled with her smile, her arms extended open passing him where he sank back against the booth and then into it watching her come half to her knees to embrace the boy who stood away quickly in embarrassment to pick up a suitcase, straighten the school blazer, as he caught the dangling phone — like, like one of those old Shirley Temple movies, Jack Haley goes in one side of the revolving door and she comes out the other but Christ, Tom? Imagine having her, having anybody that glad to see you? Eigen? hello…?
And the glass of the shuddering door caught her eyes and her profile framing the boy’s stooping close as they passed with her arm to his shoulders to catch — I can recite The Charge of the Light Brigade.
— Let’s hurry, Francis.
— Half a league, half a league, half a league onward why are we hurrying?
— Let’s just hurry.
— Into the valley of death rode the…
— Did you eat something on the train, Francis?
— A cheese sandwich, it was a whole dollar just cheese and bread. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed…
— Let’s go this way for a cab.
— Volleyed and thundered. Where are we going, home first?
— Yes.
— Is Papa there?
— He’ll be home late tonight. He’s been away.
— At Geneva?
— Why Geneva?
— He asked me if I’d like to live at Geneva. Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell…
— Here’s a cab.
— Can he take me to the hockey game tomorrow?
— I thought we might go to the Cloisters.
— What’s that.
— A sort of museum, she said, and got his bag in pausing, before she followed, for a look back.
— Mister Merton hates me Mama.
— Who’s Mister Merton?
— My math teacher, he hates me.
— I’m sure he doesn’t hate you Francis.
— He does too. Look at that movie, can we go to that?
— We’ll see.
— Would you want to live at Geneva Mama?
— I don’t know, Francis.
— If you could live anywhere you wanted in the whole world where would you live?
— I don’t know, she said, staring at his back, at the back of his head where he sat at the edge of the seat looking out the window, until they stopped and doormen of different sizes in interchangeable livery opened doors.
— Where am I going to sleep? he dropped his bag in the foyer.
— In your cubby I suppose, where you always do.
— Everything here’s always so neat and shiny it never looks like anybody lives here.
She’d put her bag down on the sofa and there, from half under one of its white leather cushions, picked up a black lace brassiere, and her bag again. — I’m just going to put on some lipstick, then we can go out… In the bedroom she pulled open the first drawer she came to, one filled with shirts evenly stacked, and laying some of them back to stuff the brassiere away from sight stared at a studio portrait theatrically highlighted and shadowed and, as she pulled it forth, lavishly inscribed.
— Mama…?
— Just a moment Francis. She opened her lipstick.
— Half a league, half a league, half a league onward…
When he came in she was finishing her eyes. — Don’t you want to wash before we go out Francis?
— I did once already. Can we go to that movie?
— We’ll see.
At the first museum he said — Is that really worth a million dollars? At the next, — I guess he didn’t have time to finish it… and at dinner — can I have steak? Later, — You know what I used to think Mama? if I didn’t talk now, if I kind of saved it up and didn’t talk, that then I’d be able to talk after I’m dead.
She leaned toward him abruptly in the dark cab. — Francis? You don’t want to live in Geneva do you?
— Would you be there?
— I, I should think you’d want to stay where you are, in school where, where your friends are…
— I haven’t got any friends, he said without turning from the window, sitting that way at the edge of the seat looking out until they stopped, and a doorman opened the door. — Is Papa home yet?
— We’ll see.
He pushed the door in as soon as she’d turned the key, ran into the dark foyer and stopped. — When will he be here?
— Probably not till after you’re asleep. You’ll see him in the morning.
— Can I watch television till he comes?
— It’s late, you’d better get to bed. You’ll see him in the morning.
— Can I read before I turn the light off?
— For a few minutes… she came down for his quick embrace, standing, watching him go, till a bathroom door closed and she turned for the bedroom to undress in the dark, and lie awake, half awake in the dark, and then awake at the sound of the bedroom door, opening in the dark.
— Francis?
— Amie?
— Lucien?
— He is here? Francis?
— In the cubby, he’s asleep. Don’t wake him now.
— I? I don’t wake him.
— I told him he’d see you in the morning. I hope you can do something with him, take him somewhere tomorrow. There’s a hockey game he wants you to take him to.
— Hockey game… a shoe dropped to the floor, then coins spilling, rolling off the carpet. — Hockey game, eh?
— He says he hasn’t any friends.
— He has what?
— No friends, at school. He says he has no friends… bedsprings strained in the dark, and were still. — Lucien?