Nedra sat in a comfortable chair, the sun on her knees. The window sill was dense with plants. The music from half-forgotten Broadway shows was playing. Nora came back, sat down and closed her eyes. She began to hum, to sing an occasional phrase, finally she was holding long, passionate notes with all her heart. Suddenly she got up and began to move from side to side, to dance. She shot out her hands in the style of hoofers. She laughed self-consciously, but she didn’t stop. One saw the life in which she had bloomed, the gaiety, the foolishness leaking out like the stuffing from a doll.
“I used to know all the scores by heart,” she confessed.
She could cook, her legs were good, what was she going to do, she asked, stay out here with the apple trees? Most of them were so old anyway that they never bore fruit.
“I like to read,” she said, “but my God…”
She had good hands, she said. She looked at them, one side, then the other, a little worn, but they know things. Well, that was true of everything about her.
“The thing is, a man can go off with a younger woman, but it doesn’t work the other way.”
“Yes, it does,” Nedra said.
“You think so?”
“Certainly.”
“No, not for me,” she decided. “You have to believe in it.”
Here she sat, alone in the country. In the orchard were the trees; in the cupboard, clean glasses and plates. It was a house built of stone, a house that would stand for centuries, and within it were the books and clothes, the sunny rooms and tables necessary for life. And there was a woman as well, her eyes still clear, her breath sweet. Silence surrounded her, the air, the hush of the grass. She had no tasks.
“I’m not staying out here,” she said abruptly.
Some of his clothes were hanging in the closets, his canvases were still in the studio above their heads. She could not stay. The ending of days was too long, the darkness came and crushed her, she could not move.
“It isn’t fair,” she said.
“No.”
“What can I do?”
“You’ll meet someone,” Nedra said. How am I so different from this woman? she was thinking. Am I that much more sure of my life? “How old are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-nine.”
“Thirty-nine,” Nedra said.
“Katy’s eighteen.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen her.”
“I spent my life looking after him,” Nora cried. “I can remember when I first met him. He was marvelous-looking, I’ll show you some pictures.”
“You’re still young.”
“Do we really only have one season? One summer,” she said, “and it’s over?”
14
IN THE MORNING, WITH THE FIRST light, a great wind—a wind that slammed doors and broke glass—devoured the silence in sudden, overwhelming claps. Hadji lay huddled in the blankets. The rabbit, his ears back, was crouched beside his box. There were periods of ominous calm and then, lasting sometimes for half a minute, the awful roar of air. The walls seemed to creak.
All day, though the sky was clear, even warm, the wind blew, tearing at the shutters, ravishing the trees. The vines stood erect in frenzy, shrieked and were pulled away. In the greenhouse there was a musical crash of panes. It was a wind that had no edge, a huge, open-mouthed wind which would not cease.
In the late afternoon there was a call. It was from another city, there was a strange, mechanical tone. “Mrs. Berland?” a man’s voice asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Burnett.” He was calling from Altoona. “I thought I had better advise you,” he said. “Your father is in the hospital. He’s quite ill.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re not familiar with his condition?”
“No, what is it?”
“Well, he’s asked for you, and I think it might be a good thing if you could come.”
“How long has he been there?”
“About five days,” the doctor said.
She drove that night. She left an hour before the light began to go. Sibelius was thundering on the radio, the wind battered her car. She passed shipyards, refineries, throbbing, ugly neighborhoods she did not even glance at, the industry that supported her life. Cars streamed in both directions, their lights becoming brighter. Darkness fell.
She drove without stopping. The radio stations faded; corrupted by static, they began to devour each other. There were gusts of music, ghostly voices; it was like a vast, decaying canopy, like leaking roofs in a poverty-stricken town, a town awash in cheap advertisements, sentiment, mindless noise. The chaos filled her ears, oncoming headlights stung her eyes. The sky glowed with cities beyond the black trees.
She drove into darkness, the darkness of an old land, weary, close-held, sold and resold, and passed into the zone of deep night. The roads emptied. She was crossing the Susquehanna, still as a pond, when the first waves of sleepiness struck her. The drive became a dream. She thought of her father, of the past she was reentering. She knew the helplessness and despair of beginning again an endless journey, a journey that had been taken already, once and for all. The long white tunnel at Blue Mountain swept by like a hospital corridor. Then Tuscarora. The names had not changed. They were waiting for her, certain of her return.
Finally she slept for a few hours, the car solitary in a blue-lighted service area. When she woke, the sky to the east was faint. She was in country vaguely familiar to her: the slope of the hills, the dark trees. The road had become visible, smooth and pale, the woods as far as one could see were without a single house or light. She was thrilled; may it always be thus, she thought. The early day, like dawn at sea, stunned her and gave her new life.
Soon there were the first farms, barns beautiful in the silence, the radio giving prices, the number slaughtered of sheep and lambs. Old houses of faded brick that struck the heart, white pillars on the porches, the occupants still asleep. The sky grew more and more faint, as if washed away. Suddenly everything was colored, the fields turned green. Helplessly, she recognized her source, though far from it for years, the vacant, illiterate country, the hills that were long to walk up, the vulgar towns. She passed a single car, just as the cows were coming in, a lone Chevrolet, silent as a bird in flight. A boy and girl were in it, seated close together. They did not seem to see her. They drifted behind in the brimming light.
Small gardens, churches, hand-painted signs. She felt no warmth of recognition; it was desolation to her, ruin. What failure to someday crawl back; it would erase everything in a single day.
Morning in the heartland. Early workers driving. Near a farmhouse two ducks wandered dazedly in the road where, amid white feathers, a bloody third lay, killed by a car.
Greenhouses, ancient schools, factories with their windows broken out. Altoona. She was turning down streets she remembered as a girl.
The hospital was just awake. The newspapers of the day before were still in its vending machines, the schedules for surgery had not yet been typed.
She was quickly stopped. “I’m sorry, you’re not allowed in,” the receptionist said. “Visiting hours begin at eleven.”
“I’ve driven all night.”
“You can’t visit now.”
At eleven she returned. In a room with two beds she found her father near the window. He was asleep. His arms outside the covers seemed very frail.
She touched him. “Hello, Papa.”
His eyes opened. Slowly, he turned his head.
“How are you?” she asked.
“All right, I guess.”
She could see it plainly. His face seemed smaller, his nose large, his eyes worn.
“I’ve been in here a week now,” he said.
There was nothing to show it. On the table were a waterglass and tray. There were no books, no letters, not even a watch. In the next bed lay an old man recovering from some sort of surgery.