The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it? Ahead of our small parade in the sun went Mr. Baker, avoiding stepping on cracks; his mother, dead these twenty years, was safe from a broken back. And Mrs. Baker, Amelia, tripping along beside him, trying to match his uneven stride with her fluttering feet, a small, bright-eyed bird of a woman, but a seed-eating bird.
Allen, my son, walked beside his sister, but each of them tried to give the impression that they were total strangers. I think she despises him and he detests her. This may last all their lives while they learn to conceal it in a rose cloud of loving words. Give them their lunches, my sister, my wife—their hard-boiled eggs and pickles, their jelly-and-peanut-butter sandwiches, their red barrel-smelling apples, and turn them free in the world to spawn.
And that’s just what she did. They walked away, carrying their paper bags, each one to a separate private world.
“Did you enjoy the service, my darling?”
“Oh, yes! I always do. But you—sometimes I wonder if you believe—no, I mean it. Well, your jokes—sometimes—”
“Pull up your chair, my dimpsy darling.”
“I have to get lunch on.”
“Bugger lunch.”
“That’s what I mean. Your jokes.”
“Lunch is not sacred. If it were warmer, I could carry you to a rowboat and we would go out past the breakwater and fish for porgies.”
“We’re going to the Bakers’. Do you know whether you believe in the church or not, Ethan? Why do you call me silly names? You hardly ever use my name.”
“To avoid being repetitious and tiresome, but in my heart your name rings like a bell. Do I believe? What a question! Do I lift out each shining phrase from the Nicene creed, loaded like a shotgun shell, and inspect it? No. It isn’t necessary. It’s a singular thing, Mary. If my mind and soul and body were as dry of faith as a navy bean, the words, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,’ would still make my stomach turn over and put a flutter in my chest and light a fire in my brain.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Good girl. Neither do I. Let’s say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?”
“You say such dreadful things, even to the children.”
“And they to me. Ellen, only last night, asked, ‘Daddy, when will we be rich?’ But I did not say to her what I know: ‘We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.’ And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.”
“You talk this way about your own children. What must you say of me?”
“I say you are a blessing, a dearling, the brightness in a foggy life.”
“You sound drunk—anyway intoxicated.”
“I am.”
“You aren’t. I could smell it.”
“You are smelling it, sweetheart.”
“What’s come over you?”
“Ah! you do know, don’t you? A change—a bloody big storm of a change. You are only feeling the outmost waves.”
“You worry me, Ethan. You really do. You’re wild.”
“Do you remember my decorations?”
“Your medals—from the war?”
“They were awarded for wildness—for wilderness. No man on earth ever had less murder in his heart than I. But they made another box and crammed me in it. The times, the moment, demanded that I slaughter human beings and I did.”
“That was wartime and for your country.”
“It’s always some kind of time. So far I have avoided my own time. I was a goddam good soldier, potkin—clever and quick and merciless, an effective unit for wartime. Maybe I could be an equally efficient unit in this time.”
“You’re trying to tell me something.”
“Sadly enough, I am. And it sounds in my ears like an apology. I hope it is not.”
“I’m going to set out lunch.”
“Not hungry after that nor’easter of a breakfast.”
“Well, you can nibble something. Did you see Mrs. Baker’s hat? She must have got it in New York.”
“What has she done with her hair?”
“You noticed that? It’s almost strawberry.”
“ ‘To be a light to lighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of thy peo-ple Israel.’ ”
“Why would Margie want to go to Montauk this time of year?”
“She loves the early morning.”
“She’s not an early riser. I joke with her about that. And don’t you think it was queer, Marullo bringing candy eggs?”
“Do you connect the two events? Margie gets up early and Marullo brings eggs.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not. For once I’m not. If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell?”
“It’s a joke!”
“No.”
“Well, I promise.”
“I think Marullo is going to make a trip to Italy.”
“How do you know? Did he tell you?”
“Not exactly. I put things together. I put things together.”
“But that’ll leave you alone in the store. You’ll have to get someone to help you.”
“I can handle it.”
“You do practically everything now. You’ll have to get someone in to help.”
“Remember—it isn’t sure and it’s a secret.”
“Oh, I never forget a promise.”
“But you’ll hint.”
“Ethan, I will not.”
“Do you know what you are? A dear little baby rabbit with flowers on your head.”
“You help yourself in the kitchen. I’m going to freshen up.”
When she was gone, I sprawled out in my chair and I heard in my secret ears, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant de-part in pee-ace, according to Thy word.” And darned if I didn’t go to sleep. Dropped off a cliff into the dark, right there in the living room. I don’t do that often. And because I had been thinking of Danny Taylor, I dreamed of Danny Taylor. We were not small or great but grown, and we were at the flat dry lake-bottom with the old house foundations and cellar hole. And it was early summer, for I remarked the fatness of the leaves and the grass so heavy that it bent of its weight, the kind of day that makes you feel fat and crazy too. Danny went behind a young juniper straight and slender as a column. I heard his voice, distorted and thick like words spoken under water. Then I was with him and he was melting and running down over his frame. With my palms I tried to smooth him upward, back in place, the way you try to smooth wet cement when it runs out of the form, but I couldn’t. His essence ran between my fingers. They say a dream is a moment. This one went on and on and the more I tried, the more he melted.
When Mary awakened me I was panting with effort.
“Spring fever,” she said. “That’s the first sign. When I was a growing girl, I slept so much my mother sent for Doctor Grady. She thought I had sleeping sickness, but I was only growing in the spring.”
“I had a daymare. I wouldn’t wish a dream like that on anyone.”
“It’s all the confusion. Go up and comb your hair and wash your face. You look tired, dear. Are you all right? It’s nearly time to go. You slept two hours. You must have needed it. I wish I knew what’s on Mr. Baker’s mind.”
“You will, darling. And promise me you will listen to every word.”
“But he might want a word alone with you. Businessmen don’t like ladies listening.”