“I would only ask you to try.”
“Sure, I’ll promise, Eth. But I hope I’ve convinced you what a drunk’s promise is worth. Just bring the cash. Stay as long as you like. My house is your house. I’m going out. See you Wednesday, Eth.” He eased himself up out of the old Army cot, flung the comforter behind it, and walked out with a rolling gait. His pants were not zipped up.
I sat for a while, watching the candle gutter down into the grease of the saucer. Everything he had said was true, except one thing on which I placed my bet. He hadn’t changed that much. Somewhere in the wreckage was Danny Taylor. I didn’t believe he could amputate Danny. I loved Danny and I was prepared to—do just what he said. I was. From a distance I heard him singing in a clear, high falsetto:
After a lonely while I blew out the candle and walked home by way of High Street. Willie wasn’t asleep yet in the police car.
“Seems to me you’re out a lot, Eth,” he said.
“You know how it is.”
“Sure. Spring. Young man’s fancy.”
Mary was asleep, smiling, but when I slipped in beside her, she half awakened. The misery was in my stomach—the cold, hurting misery. Mary turned on her side and gathered me into her warm grass-smelling body and I needed her. I knew the misery would get less, but right now I needed her. I don’t know whether she really awakened but even sleeping she knew my need.
And afterward she was awake and she said, “I suppose you’re hungry.”
“Yes, Helen.”
“What do you want?”
“Onion sandwich—no, two onion sandwiches on rye bread.”
“I’ll have to have one to stand you.”
“Don’t you want one?”
“Of course.”
She padded down the stairs and came back in a little while with sandwiches and a carton of milk and two glasses.
It was a pretty hot onion. “Mary, muldoon,” I began.
“Wait till you swallow.”
“Did you mean that about not wanting to know about business?”
“Why—yes.”
“Well, I have a lead. I want a thousand dollars.”
“Was it something Mr. Baker told you?”
“In a way. But private too.”
“Well, you just write a check.”
“No, darling, I want you to get it in cash. And you might pass the word at the bank that you’re getting new furniture or rugs or something.”
“But I’m not.”
“You will.”
“Is it a secret?”
“You said you wanted it that way.”
“Yes—well—I do. Yes. It’s better that way. This is a burny onion. Would Mr. Baker approve?”
“He would if he did it.”
“When do you want it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I can’t eat this onion. I guess I smell bad enough now, though.”
“You’re my darling.”
“I can’t get over Marullo.”
“How do you mean?”
“Coming to the house. Bringing candy.”
“God works in a mysterious way.”
“Now don’t be sacrilegious. Easter isn’t over.”
“Yes ’tis. It’s one-fifteen.”
“Good Lord! We better get to sleep.”
“Ah! There’s the rub—Shakespeare.”[36]
“You’d make a joke about anything.”
But it was no joke. The misery stayed, not thought about but aching away, and sometimes I would have to ask myself, Why do I ache? Men can get used to anything, but it takes time. Once long ago I took a job wheeling nitroglycerin in a dynamite plant. The pay was high because the stuff is tricky. At first I worried with every step I took, but in a week or so it was only a job. Why, I’d even got used to being a grocery clerk. There’s something desirable about anything you’re used to as opposed to something you’re not.
In the dark with the red spots swimming in my eyes, I inquired of myself concerning what they used to call matters of conscience, and I could find no wound. I asked whether, having set my course, I could change direction or even reverse the compass ninety degrees and I thought I could but I didn’t want to.
I had a new dimension, and I was fascinated with it. It was like discovering an unused set of muscles or having come true the child’s dream that I could fly. Often I can replay events, scenes, conversations, and pick up from the repeat details which escaped me at first showing.
Mary found strangeness in Marullo’s coming to the house with candy eggs, and I trust Mary’s sense of strangeness. I had thought of it as a thanks offering because I had not cheated him. But Mary’s question made me reinspect for something I knew but had passed by. Marullo did not reward for things past; he bribed for things to come. He was not interested in me except in so far as I could be of use to him. I went back over his business instruction and the talk about Sicily. Somewhere he had lost his certainty. In some way he wanted something of me or needed something. There was a way to find out. If I should ask for something he would ordinarily refuse and get it from him, then I would know that he was off balance and deeply troubled. I put Marullo aside and went to Margie. Margie—that gives you an idea of her age. “Margie, I’m always dreaming of you, Margie. I’d give the world to…”
I replayed the Margie scenes against the swimming spots on the ceiling, trying to add no more than was really there. For a long time, maybe two years, there had been a Mrs. Young-Hunt who was a friend of my wife, part of the conversations I did not listen to. Then suddenly Margie Young-Hunt had emerged, and then Margie. She must have come to the store before Good Friday, but I could not remember it. On that day it was as though she announced herself. Before that it is possible that she didn’t see me any more than I saw her. But from that time on she was present—a mover and a shaker. What did she want? Could it be pure mischief of a woman with too little to do? Or did she move to a plan? It did seem to me that she had announced herself to me—made me conscious of her and kept me aware of her. It seemed to me that she started the second fortune-telling in good faith, intending it to be the usual performance, polished and professional. Then something happened, something that tore it up. Mary had said nothing to cause her tension, nor had I. Had she really seen the vision of the snake? That would be the simplest explanation and probably the true one. Maybe she was truly intuitive, an intruder into the minds of others. The fact that she had caught me midway in a metamorphosis made me likely to believe this, but it could have been an accident. But what made her run to Montauk when she had not intended to go, join up with the drummer, spill the beans to Marullo? Somehow I didn’t believe she spilled things she didn’t intend to spill. Somewhere in the attic bookcases there was an account of the life of—was it Bering? No, Baranov, Alexander Baranov,[37] the Russian governor somewhere near 1800. Maybe there would be some reference to Alaska as a prison for witches. It was too unlikely a story to be made up. I must look. I thought maybe I could creep up there now without waking Mary.
Then I heard a creak of the old oak stair treads, then a second and a third, so I knew it was not a settling of the house from a change of temperature. It had to be Ellen walking in her sleep.
Of course I love my daughter, but sometimes she frightens me for she seems to have been born clever, at once jealous and loving. She was always jealous of her brother and often I feel she is jealous of me. It seemed to me that her preoccupation with sex began very early. Maybe fathers always feel this. When she was a very little girl, her uninhibited interest in male genitalia was embarrassing. Then she went into the secrecy of change. Here was no angelic innocent girlhood of the magazines. The house boiled with nervousness, the walls vibrated with unease. I’ve read that in the Middle Ages pubescent girls were thought to be susceptible to witchcraft and I’m not sure it is not so. For a time we had what we called as a joke a poltergeist. Pictures fell from their hangings, dishes crashed to the floor. There were poundings in the attic and thumpings in the cellar. I don’t know what caused it, but I was interested enough to keep my eye on Ellen, on her secret comings and goings. She was like a night cat. I satisfied myself that she was not responsible for the fallings and crashings and thumpings, but also I found they never happened when she was out of the house. She might be sitting staring into space when the poltergeist came, but she was always there.
35
Speed, bonnie boat… : Chorus of “Skye Boat,” a ballad that commemorates the crossing of Bonnie Prince Charles (Jacobite pretender to the British throne) to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden, April 16, 1764.
37
Bering… Alexander Baranov: Vitus Bering (1681-1741) was a Danish navigator and explorer in the service of the Russian navy, charting much of the Siberian and Alaskan coasts. Baranov (1747-1819) established trading centers in Alaska and served as the first Russian governor of Alaska from 1799 to 1818.