"Like God?"
"Yes, I suppose so -- if that's how you picture God. But Germany isn't a good place to live in anymore." She took the letter from her sweater pocket and read parts of it to me. It was filled with news and items of interest, but it sounded as if the Hoffmans were not enjoying the trip to their homeland. Mrs. Hoffman, who'd written the letter, related several witnessed incidents of brutalities in the public streets. I wondered why Germans were being attacked by their own countrymen.
Lady explained that the people beaten were Jewish, but I couldn't understand this. What did their being Jewish have to do with anything? Were they as different as all that? Was it because they had all the money, as I had overheard Mr. Sprague saying? Because they'd put the X in Christmas, making it Xmas, so the Jewish merchants could sell more on the Christian holiday? Miss Berry's mother had been a Rose, descendant of the same Rose family whose daughters had been kidnapped by the Pequots. George and Anne Rosen were the only Jewish kids in town. Rose -- Rosen. Was the difference an "n"?
Hitler was a dictator, and we all knew about dictators. Mussolini, Franco, Stalin -- there were plenty of those. Totalitarianism was becoming an everyday word in our lexicon. Here in America there were people who said Roosevelt wanted to be a dictator. And there was an entire echelon of minor demagogues, each of whom bore the earmarks of incipient dictatorship: Huey Long (assassinated the year before), Father Coughlin, Senator Rankin -- even Mr. Bilbo from Mississippi, who wore gravy-stained shirts in the Senate. Father Coughlin, once an ardent Roosevelt supporter, now damned him from the pulpit, even calling him a Jew, and saying his name was actually Rosenfeld. (This, it appeared, was worse than being a Rosen.) If people knew about these men, I asked Lady, why did they listen?
"Because they want to believe in them," she answered. "But people are seldom really who they appear to be. They are only what they are. Sometimes it takes a lot of work and many years to discover what a person really is." She leaned her chin on her hand and absently ran the edge of her sleeve under her nose -- that old back-porch sweater, whose frayed tips fell over her fingers. Her voice was quietly reflective as she continued, "We all wear other faces, it's true. The good are not nearly so good, and, as for the bad, I'm sure they're much worse than people think. But there are bullies the world over. And very shortly the world won't be a very pleasant place to live in anymore -- not anywhere. Trouble has a long finger -- it can touch so many places."
"There's lots of bad people in the world, aren't there?" I suggested, as if just having counted them.
"I'm sure there are probably more good ones than bad, or else we couldn't have progressed this far. At least it's something to believe in, all the good ones. We must find something to believe in, totally, with all our hearts."
"What should people believe in?"
"My dear, who can tell? That's up to the individual. Perhaps God is as good as the next thing. Until you find a person, someone living . . ."
"Have you believed in someone?"
"Yes, I have. I have believed so much sometimes I thought it would be the death of me . . . the very death. But never be incredulous of people -- they will always manage to surprise you."
"How?"
"In all ways. People are people wherever you go -- they run to type, they fit categories. At least in my experience they do. But look out for the exception to the rule -- they're the ones you have to watch."
Falling silent, she let her glance drift to the gazing-globe, and made a few indistinguishable murmurs, lost in some private reverie. I pictured the grave in the churchyard we had left earlier, and it occurred to me that it was Edward she had been speaking of, that it was his memory she had believed in, and that had sustained her for all these years.
Presently she said, "We must remember to bring the globe in before it gets colder. I'd hate to have it crack in a quick frost."
"Could it?"
"Couldn't it? The glass is very fragile. It's lovely there, isn't it?" she went on musingly. "The perfect spot. Come and look."
She led me down the walkway to the circle of brick, and the globe centered in the middle on its stone pedestal, with a stone bench close by. I glanced at Lady, then picked the globe up between my fingers, and held it.
"Careful, darling, that's a mirror, you know -- seven years' bad luck." Unconsciously she touched her hair, and I supposed she was remembering the day she'd smashed her vanity mirror. I replaced the globe, carefully fitting the small glass projection on its underside into the hole in the pedestal, which held the globe in place.
She took my hand and we walked around it, watching ourselves as we moved, first with the shrubbery behind us, then the large elm tree, then the back windows, the drive, the carriage house, another elm, the slope of the lawn, and the bushes again. But we two, we remained the same, and it was like seeing ourselves caught in a little silver world of its own.
"You see what that's like?" she asked.
"Sort of . . ." I voiced my thought about the little silver world.
"But exactly -- that's how it is, just that way. If you walked and walked around it for a long, long time, the leaves behind us would turn and then drop and become new leaves again, and the trees would grow taller and older and you would, too, but everything would go on, it would all continue, and you wouldn't even notice the changes." She touched the silver sphere with her finger, whose tip, reflected, enlarged as she made a little circle on the top. Then she drew me down on the stone bench.
"You see how things look whole? Not only your little piece, or someone else's little piece, but all the pieces, all unbroken, all flowing together. It seems to me that when I look in there I can really see what God meant the world to be like. The earth is round, and so is this globe. All is visible, you can see everything in its place, and each thing is in relation to each other thing. Everything is in balance with everything else. That's the way the world should be."
I could see it. I could understand what she was saying. I knew it was exactly that way. We were side by side, seeing ourselves, and our surroundings. It was a way of looking at things, at images, at life, the whole world. Everything seemed to proceed in one unbroken line; everything continued, in time, in space, in existence, all held in that silver globe, and reflected by it.
Still seated on the bench, we fell silent. Around us could be heard the sounds of leaves falling -- light, papery sounds. A squirrel rummaged in the chrysanthemums behind us. There was the tang of smoke in the air, and a crisp chill. A bird popped out of the hole in one of Jesse's bird-houses, darting its head about as if wondering where summer had gotten to. Kerney's banged-up tricycle lay where he'd left it, overturned amid the dying hydrangeas. Everywhere the plants had been cut back, tied up, some covered for winter. The luminous dusk came on, the sky dimming in the east, while beyond the Cove long fingers of clouds drew down over the hills of Avalon. Mauve, rose, gray, the colors of the pearl on Lady's little pewter pin box, these were the colors I saw in the sky.
I looked at Lady. Her lips were curved into a smile that I can only describe as bittersweet. She was looking into the gazing-globe, and I turned to see what she might be seeing now. As we watched, behind us, toward the west, the sun, a small autumn ball of cold fire, was held in the curved silver surface, reflected as if from deep within, as light shows the fiery heart of a jewel. Then it dropped, slowly, slowly, seeming to slide down the lower part of the globe as if into another hemisphere. And was gone, and there were only shadows and the light from the sunset sky, and the wind blew cold. Lady pulled her sweater across her front, hugged a shiver out of her, and we went in for tea.
4
By Thanksgiving, Jesse was up and around again, but it became clear that however old we may have imagined him to be, he was yet older, and since the stroke his years were beginning to show. He shuffled, rather than walked, as if by some inner instinct he were purposely shortening his stride to lengthen his life. The skin on the backs of his hands was like dusty dark paper; his face had gradually lost it
s healthy sheen. His black woolly hair, rather than going gray or white, seemed to have turned rusty, and he fidgeted when Elthea gave it its customary shearing every month or so. He seldom spoke unless spoken to, but was constantly making the growling sounds in his throat, as though in protest against some unseen hand. And if the hand were unseen, still we knew whose hand it was he feared: the hand of death. He appeared grateful for any little attention, or the slightest display of affection. He seemed to draw nearer to Elthea than he had in the past, spending hours in the kitchen in a chair, clasping and unclasping his long fingers, and silently moving his lips or grinding his jaws; when I was there, too, I would catch him looking at her in a way that said he desired to establish some secret communication with her. He kept his chair as near to the stove as he could without getting in Elthea's way, and sought other places to provide himself the warmth his body seemed now to need: by the living-room fire, in a sunny window, even the cellar, where he would position himself close to the furnace or, if the fire was banked, put his back against the asbestos insulation as though to melt the marrow in his old bones.
One day I found him down there, and sensing that he was grateful for the intrusion, I pulled up a box and sat with him to keep him company, whittling on a stick and aimlessly whistling through my teeth. Once he caught my eye and the corners of his mouth twitched in a reluctant smile.
"You've grown some, son."
"I'll be thirteen."
"Twelve's old enough." He nodded, more to himself than to me, I thought, as if remembering what it was like to be twelve. "I think twelve's just fine. You goin' some, mon?"
"I'm sorry --"
"You going 'way from this place or you goin' stay 'round, like some folks do?"
"Well, I'd like to go away, yes."
"She's big."
"Who?"
"The world. Big place, the world. Never seen it, but Daddy did say. Don't you get cotched."
My inability to follow his words made me feel "stupidy," but the finely honed edge of his speech had become blunted; he seemed to have lapsed into some early, recollected speech pattern, the patois of the islands. It was as if he were seeking the safety of his earliest memories, a familiar place he had been too long away from.
"You get cotched by the world, son," he continued reflectively, "you gets your se'f in trouble." "Cotched," I translated as catched. "Well, you go 'way," he went on, "you come back sometimes. You'll have to look after Missus. Someone got to look after Missus after ol' Jesse done turned in his receipts. She a fine lady -- fine lady. Reckon how long it's ben. Mean, reckon how long I ben hyere. I ben hyere eighteen year come Easter. Long time to live in a house that ain't your own. Well, I guess old Jesse c'n just do some settin' and a-rockin' now. Never will see next Easter."
"Sure you will --"
"No, mon. Never see no mo' Easter. Reckon they'll put me in the ground 'fore then."
He made a bowl with his palms in his lap and stared at them, like a seer divining the future in the creases and wrinkles, but the small repetitive shake of the head seemed to see no future there.
"Not so bad, though. We done better'n collards and chitlins and cabin-cookin'. Elthea cook a good dinner, Missus set a fine table. My, my, all that crystal glassware and silver spoons. Reckon how many silver spoons I polished in my day . . . silver spoons and forks and knives and trays and pitchers, and that one sugar bowl, who could say how many times? My, my, think of a island nigger in such a fine house. Wrote Daddy all about this house, he say, 'Boy, you doin' just fine.' Daddy say, Tou ain't a wasted man.' No, sir, no wasted man with no wasted life. Elthea, now, she's a good girl, don'tcha think so, son? Gives a lot, that Elthea. She a giver, all right. And Missus -- Lord, if she don't take the cake and the muffins, too, that Missus woman. Folks set a store by Missus, which is right an' fittin'. Right an' fittin'. . . ."
He crossed one leg over his knee, tugging his slipper over his woolen sock, gazing soberly but vacantly into space. After a while, taking notice of his slipper toe, he said, "Reckon how many stitches in such a slipper? Missus does fine needlework, agreed? Sewin' such a pair of slippers for Jesse."
He made a few ruminative sounds, as if assaying for his own satisfaction such a pair of slippers, and the Tightness and fitness of the town's esteem for Lady Harleigh. Closing his palms together, he pulled at the finger joints so they cracked in the musty silence, and he leaned his head back so his Adam's apple protruded to fuller prominence. He drew in a breath, then expelled it wearily, as if the next would be more tiredly drawn.
Without looking at me, he asked, "Son, whatcha gonna do with yourself? Still going to be a sailor? Read your Bowditch's, you want to be a sailor. But you got to get your schoolin', that's the thing."
"Why didn't you get to be a doctor?" I asked.
He scratched, rubbed his back against the chair slats like a luxuriating animal, and gave a tentative tug to his suspenders. I wondered why old sober-sided Jesse favored such colorful gear: the violet suspenders, one of his favorite pink and white striped shirts, a gold collar button winking in the hole, but no collar since he'd gotten ill -- it was as if he'd removed a badge of office. "Why-y," he drawled at last, "things . . . intervened, reckon. Sometimes there's things more important than just being something."
"Like what?"
"Like? Oh, like folks. Other folks can be more important. Anybody can be a doctor if they want to bad enough. Trouble with me . . ."
"Yes?"
". . . was a woman. There's a thing; a woman surely can be the downfall of a man, surely can. Upfall -- no such word, of course -- but sometimes she could be the upfall. The making of a man. Certain women make a man more a man than he'd otherwise attain to. But that's a rare creature indeed. A woman can be a good deal of trouble. There's sinning, and then there's sinning. Lord God, there's sinning!"
And then he was down on his knees, his hands clasped and lifted to the steam pipes above, while tears rolled down his cheeks and he mumbled an anguished prayer, "Lord God, help this poor sinner, help me, Lord," and his plea was fervent and I saw that he suffered. Then, still on his knees, without looking, he groped for my hand. I gave it to him and he clasped it hard, still mumbling to God, squeezing my fingers together, and I relished the pain of it.
"Where'll they bury me, Lord God, where'll they put me? Where'll they put old Jesse for his sins? Got to find me a spot, God -- got to find me some little place, God."
His tears made two silvery lines down the deep creases beside his nose, and the Adam's apple rose and dropped in the thin column of his neck. He looked at me with the same frantic expression he had offered to God.
"Son, listen -- God's going to turn his back on me. He's going to look away from me, won't take me, won't ever take me, but when I'm gone, you got to look after Missus . . . got to look after her. You do that for old Jesse, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
"You don't have to 'sir' me. You just make me that promise and Jesse'll die happy. Shake, son?"
"Shake, Jesse."
We made our ritual handshake. Then, drawing his neck into his shoulders, Jesse sagged, and before he could topple I caught him in my arms. The bony point of his chin notched against my shoulder, and he settled against me as if in gratitude. Flesh and bone seemed to have lost their weight, to have relinquished their ability to displace volume. He had no heft, he was like a log whose cortex has dried to pulp.
Holding him, I thought, Who is he, this sleepy dark man? Heavy-lidded, fuzzy-headed, red-eyed, what did I know about him? He had been a part of all our lives, we had at times slept under the same roof, had worked and eaten together, but he was a stranger in our midst. And what did we know of him, really, any of us? He was a person who in some indefinable way I could say I loved. If he died, I would be sad. I would miss him. But who was he, really? When he had gone what would I remember about him? With every tick of the clock he was nearer his end, but what would I have of him when he was dead? A boat ride on the river, a hunting trek in Hubbard's woods, a tri
p in the Minerva landaulet to hear Rudy Vallee, some Christmases and Thanksgivings, and he in his apron and slippers. Perhaps that was all I would remember of him, a pair of slippers padding in the halls, on the stairs, through the kitchen.
And when the time came, when he was gone, dead and buried, I remembered all of these things, but I came to discover that it is not always the larger things that we recall in someone, but the smaller. So it was that in afteryears I often recollected how he cracked and ate his morning egg, using his spoon just so, neat and dexterously, economically, with no wasted motions, a little daily breakfast surgery, and never with his pinkie finger sticking out.
5
Winter came on, if not apace, then by degrees, and if not with the harshness of the previous blizzard year, then with enough snow to give the semblance of winter. But what fell soon melted and by the time school let out for vacation all signs pointed toward no white Christmas.
Jesse had good days and bad, spent more time upstairs than he did down, but when down was affable and cheerful, as if in leaving this life he wanted to present as good a face as might be managed. One afternoon I heard him make a remark that I found odd, he who had never cared for cold weather.
"Wish it would snow," he said hopefully as I came in through the kitchen with an armload of evergreen boughs for Lady's mantel. All of us had been over through the afternoon helping with the usual pre-holiday procedures: setting the electric candles in the windows, swagging the doorway with its accustomed garlands, hanging the evergreens with Noma lights, rerouting most of the interior lamp wiring with clumps of three-way plugs, and seeking out the carol songbooks, which somehow were never in the piano bench where Lady always insisted they would be. We went over to Mr. Marini's to pick out the Christmas trees, one for our house and the larger one for Lady's, and these lay beside the respective driveways in readiness for Christmas Eve decorating. The titillating smell of baking hung in the kitchen as I stopped, hearing Jesse's remark, and Elthea, who was peeling rutabagas at the sink, tossed a look over her shoulder.