29
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, with Stern carrying all the buckets, the three of them returned from the strawberry field. The wind had turned suddenly, freshened by some northerly impulse. When they reached the cabin, Sonny sat heavily in a chair and laid the backs of her hands across her eyes. Stern suggested she lie down.
“Would you mind?” she asked. “Just for a few minutes? Then you can try to have that talk with me.”
“Sam and I shall make do.”
“You can wash the strawberries,” she said. “Sam enjoys that. And Sam—check the hot tub. Make sure everything is okay.”
The kitchen sink was joined unceremoniously to the rear wall, without any cabinetry to hide the plumbing. The boy stood on an old bentwood chair and insisted on holding each berry under the running tap. Laconic when Stern arrived, he now went on with five-year-old officiousness, issuing an unbreaking string of commands.
“Don’t take the green thing out till you eat them.”
“I see.”
“They get rotting.”
“I see.”
“Then get them dry but don’t squish them.”
“Certainly not.”
When the berries were bagged and refrigerated, Sam offered to show Stern his cave in the ravine. Stern called twice to Sonny but she did not respond and they left the cabin quietly.
Sam’s cave was in the hollowed trunk of an old oak. The boy had built a nest of sorts out of dried leaves and twigs and in an empty fliptop cigarette box had stored two or three plastic figures with gargoyle faces and muscular bodies of a resilient resin. Sam told Stern their names—each apparently was an important cartoon star—and spent quite some time heavily engaged in the staging of various interplanetary wars, which Stern observed from the safety of a resting place in the crotch of a birch tree about thirty feet away. Cowboys and Indians, the pastime of his children’s early years, was now banned on political grounds. Villains these days were alien species, and, rather than six-guns, firearms were lazer-mazers that evaporated all objects with a bright red beam. The game ended abruptly when the boy turned from his pieces.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“After all those strawberries?”
Sam tossed up his hands and repeated that he was hungry.
“I am sure Sonny will make you some dinner. Shall we see if she is awake?”
Inside the cabin, however, no one was stirring. Stern called to her softly and Sam added his voice at more telling volume. Stern hushed him and, after holding the boy back, crept alone to the small rear room where she lay uncovered on a narrow folding cot, still rosy with the heat but solidly asleep. Her hair was dark against her skin and one leg of her shorts had crept far up her thigh, showing some of the soft weight of pregnancy. Sonia Klonsky, his energetic antagonist, slept with the adorable soft innocence of a child, her pink mouth tenderly parted. Briefly, Stern, without reflection, raised the back of his hand gently to her cheek.
When he turned, Sam was watching from the open doorway.
“I want to to be certain she is not sick,” Stern whispered at once. But he felt his heart knocking and he heard an urgent note in his voice. The boy, however, required no explanation.
“I’m hungry,” he said again, somewhat pathetically.
Stern raised a finger to his lips and ushered Sam out.
“Do you know how to make dinner?”
“What is it you wish, Sam?”
“Hot dog and potato chips.”
“That may be within my range.”
They ate two hot dogs apiece. Sam was a garrulous, free-flow talker except when he ate, an activity he undertook briefly but with great concentration. When he was done, he resumed conversation, relating, in response to questions, that he was five and a half, went to all-day kindergarten at the Brementon School, and could read, although he was not supposed to. He was a remarkable child, full of a warm, seeking intelligence. That brightness lit him up like a candle and gave him a physical radiance which, in a person so young, amounted to beauty.
He considered Stern through a single squinted eye. “What’s your name again?”
“Sandy.”
“Sandy, can I go in the hot tub after dinner?”
“You must ask Sonny, after she is up.”
“I always go.”
“Sam, not so loud. You will wake her.”
As the light dwindled, Stern and Sam played Battleship. Sam, most impressively, understood all the rules, although he treated them with occasional indifference. At one point, as Stern marked out the location of one of the boy’s destroyers, he erased furiously on his page.
“Sam, I believe your ships must remain where you placed them.”
“See, I was really going to put it somewhere else.” He pointed to the page.
“I see,” said Stern.
“I really was.”
“Very well.” Peter, Stern recalled, had refused to obey the rules of any game until he was past ten. He cheated with alarming guile and cried furiously whenever he lost, particularly to his father. After Sam’s triumph in Battleship, they played a number of hands of Go Fish. Sam was a canny player, but was interested only in making books of picture cards. He did not care to hold ace through ten.
“I wanna go in the hot tub,” he told Stern.
“When Sonny wakes up.” Stern had checked on her again from the doorway only a few minutes before.
“I’ll have to go to bed then.”
“I see. What is it you do in the hot tub, Sam?”
“Look at the stars.”
“Perhaps we can look at the stars, nonetheless.”
“All right.” He climbed down from his chair at once, ignoring the hand in play.
On the veranda, Stern found two splintered rockers and they sat side by side. The change of wind had pushed off the haze and the country sky was clear and magnificent. The air, after the heat of the day, was almost brisk. Sam had read a number of books about astronomy and at the age of five spoke about “the heavens.” He knew the names of a number of constellations and demanded that Stern orient him to each.
“Where’s Cassiopeia?”
Oh dear, thought Stern. Cassiopeia. He had not spent many evenings in his life studying the night skies.
“Over there, I believe.”
“That one?”
“Yes.”
“Sort of blue?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a planet.”
“Ah,” said Stern.
The boy accepted this failure without complaint. Stern had forgotten that—that it was not rivalry or a showdown that Sam was after, just information. If it was unavailable here, there would be better sources soon enough.
“I’m cold.”
“Would you like your jacket?”
“Can I sit in your lap?”
“Of course.” Stern boosted the boy beneath his arms, and he settled in at once, lolling back against his chest and belly. Dear God, the sensation. He had forgotten. To be able to fold yourself about this life in the making. The small limbs; the waxy odor of his hair after time in the woods. Stern put both arms about the boy and let Sam nestle against him.
“Is the sun a star?” asked Sam.
“So they say.”
“Are the stars hot?”
“They must be.”
“Could you drive a jet plane through a star if you went real fast?”
“I suspect not, Sam. The stars are hot enough to burn up most anything.”
“Anything? Like the whole earth?” Sam now had a troubled look. Stern wondered if he was telling him more than he should. “What if you poured like jillions and jillions of gallons of water on it?”
“That undoubtedly would work,” said Stern.
The boy was still watching him. “Are you joking me?”
“Joking? No. Is that a joke?”
“You’re joking me,” the boy insisted. He pressed his finger in Stern’s belly, as often seemingly had been done to him.
; “Well, perhaps a little.”
Sam turned around and rested again against his chest.
Was it possible? Stern thought in a swift rush of emotion. Was it truly possible? Could he start again and do it better on this go-through? Oh, but this was mad. With the small boy somehow coursing against him, Stern closed his eyes in the great country darkness and wrestled despair. How, truly, could this be occurring? He saw more and more clearly how fixed his feelings were, how set he was on a path of absolute lunacy. He could not prevent a brief sound from escaping.
In a moment, Sam turned back.
“Can I go in the hot tub? Please,” he said. “Please please please.”
“Sam, I know nothing about hot tubs.”
“I do. I’ll show you. It’s easy.” He slithered away and ran down the veranda. “It’s full and everything.”
Stern drifted over. The tub protruded about a foot above the level of the porch. Sam had already eased off the canvas cover. The water temperature was moderate, apparently for Sam’s benefit. What, after all, was the harm?
Sam hugged him the instant he agreed and immediately shed his clothes. Fully naked, he dipped in a toe.
“Come on,” he said.
“Pardon me?”
“Come on. Get your clothes off.”
“Thank you, Sam. I do not care to get into the hot tub.”
The boy gaped. “You have to. Sonny says I can’t go in without a grownup. I’m only five years old, you know.”
“Yes,” said Stern. He stood a moment and stared at the moon, just rising and visible through the fingerlet branches of the trees of the ravine. He had lost control over most everything sometime ago. In the dark, he kicked off his shoes and loosened his belt.
As life had repeatedly shown him, there was usually something to other people’s pleasures. However suspect it seemed, the hot tub was enchanting. Little foggy wisps rose in the moonlight and the thin evening air was gentle as a breath. His large body felt lighter, submerged in the dark. Stern sat on a bench inside the tub and Sam crouched beside him to keep his chin above the water’s level.
“When is Sonny gonna get up?”
“Soon, Sam. She must have been very tired.”
“She’s going to have a baby,” said Sam. It was the first mention he had made of the subject.
“So I understand,” said Stern.
“Is she sick?”
“No,” said Stern.
“You said she was sick.”
“No, I said I wanted to be sure she was not sick.” What would he tell his father of what he observed? Or Sonny, for that matter? For the moment, that concern, like many others, seemed capable of passing.
“Do you go to Sonny’s work?”
“In a fashion.”
“Sometimes, if someone does something bad, the good people have to tell them they did something bad.”
Stern thought of adding a defense perspective but answered finally, “Yes.”
Sam suddenly stood straight up, shining like a fish in the moon’s light. He hung his head over the edge of the tub.
“Uh-oh,” Sam said.
“What?” Stern feared that the tub might be leaking.
“No towels.”
Together they groaned in the dark.
It was Stern who, after a brief disagreement, was appointed to return to the cabin. Wearing only his boxer shorts, he saw in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door that his seat was sopping. He could hear Sonny a few feet away, grumbling a bit in her sleep.
Sam was wrapped and dried and placed in his pajamas. Before going to sleep, he demanded a story. In his backpack was a comic book depicting a protracted battle between two television characters, a blond hulk and a hooded creature who resembled a skeleton. They were dressed in medieval costumes but were located in outer space in the distant future and traded threats. The blond triumphed; that much had not changed.
The boy lay down, then drew himself up again, full of the familiar curiosity of bedtime.
“Sandy,” he said, “does good always win?”
“Excuse me.”
“Does good always win?” the boy repeated.
Stern was not certain if this was apropos of the story or their conversation before. He nearly asked what Sam was referring to but restrained himself with the thought that it was unseemly to be evasive with a five-year-old. Marta used to venture questions like this. Peter did as well, probably, but in his case they were put solely to his mother.
“No,” Stern said finally. “Not always.”
“It does on TV,” the boy said. This was offered in part as refutation.
“Well, it should win,” said Stern. “That is what the television is showing you.”
“Why doesn’t it win?”
“It does not always lose. It wins often. But it does not win every time.”
“Why not?”
“Sometimes the other side is stronger. Sometimes both sides are good in part.” Sometimes neither, Stern thought. In the midst of this, he could not keep himself from thinking of Dixon. He looked at the boy. “Sam, who talks to you about this, about good winning?”
“It’s on TV,” said Sam innocently. He had no notion that he had engaged in an abstraction. “How much does good win?” he asked. “A lot?”
“A lot,” said Stern. He had meant to answer, As often as it loses. But he felt this was inappropriate and perhaps not even correct. There was no place for brutal honesty with a child. Everyone felt that. It was taken in the Western countries as a rule of nature. So we raise our children with love and comfort for a future they can only find disappointing. He told Sam it was time to sleep.
“Thank you for keeping me company, Sam.”
“Sure.” He lay down and popped up again. “Wait a second.” He clambered from the bed, searched his bag, and came back with a small stuffed bear and a yellow piece of blanket. Passing by, he kissed Stern as naturally as if he had been doing it forever, and then right before Stern’s eyes laid himself down and was instantly asleep.
A child asleep, a woman asleep, and Mr. Alejandro Stern in sole waking possession of a still home. It had been many years since he had felt this particular pleasure. He sat at the cable-spool table and ate a bowl of strawberries, listening to Sam’s husky breath and, now and then as a distant counterpoint, a sighing sob from Sonny. Oh, he was pretending. He knew that. Nothing was truly hidden from himself. But he was enjoying it far too much to depart. He again wandered outside to the veranda. His wet underwear had begun to chafe, and after some reflection, he retrieved his towel inside, undressed once more, and hung his shorts on the branch of a tree, hoping the breeze would dry them before the long ride home. Then he resumed his place in the hot tub. The moon had risen fully and loomed over the ravine, full of tricks and magic. All his troubles waited for him in the city, in the daylight. For just this instant, watching the wisps wraith off the water, he was free.
It was only a few minutes before he heard the screen door bang.
“There you are.” Her voice in the dark came from somewhere behind him. He turned in one direction, then the other, and still did not see her. “I thought you’d left until I saw the car. How long was I asleep?”
About five hours, he told her.
“Oh God.” Sonny was at the corner of the porch, keeping her distance in an effort to be discreet. “I’m so sorry. What did you do with Sam all that time? Did you feed him?”
Stern described their activities. “He is a splendid young fellow. Bright as a firecracker.”
“His father’s son.”
“No doubt.”
“I don’t think much of Rebecca, his mother. But she’s done great things with Sam. I don’t quite understand it. It seems like you can’t predict who the good parents will be. It frightens me.”
“You will fare well, Sonny. I am sure of it.”
Gradually, she had approached. She was now a few feet from the tub and took the last few steps at once. She stooped a bit and her hand lingered in the
dark water.
“God, it’s nice. Sam helped you figure it out?”
“He was quite insistent on getting in here.”
“We do everything to encourage him. He doesn’t seem to recognize yet that it’s the same water that’s in the bathtub.”
“It was only after I had finally agreed to let him do this that he informed me that I was required to join him. But I must say, it is most pleasant. After he was in bed, I could not let the opportunity pass. Here I am on a Saturday night in the woods. The sky is clear, the moon is full. The solitude is magnificent.”
She inclined her head to look, as Stern had, at the stars. She was quiet a second.
“Will you die if I come in there?”
The shock of cold emotion, terror really, went through him like a bolt of iron. He shook his head before he spoke.
“No, no,” he said.
“Because, look. I mean, people have different attitudes. You can just say it’s too embarrassing.”
“No, no,” Stern said again. He was not sure he was capable of more.
When she began to slide off her shirt, Stern looked away, studying the tremorous movement of certain dark branches in the wind. But even this effort at discretion was not a full success. In the extended half of the cabin’s casement window, he noticed a clear reflection and, turning back, caught, even against his will, just the slightest glimpse of her form, licked in the moon’s bluish cast. It was no more than her upper torso as she eased into the bath, the smooth swell of the other life, and the lopsided proportions of her chest, where the fine blue light clung to the smoothness of her scarred left side, the visible ribs looking a bit like piano keys; like all things human, the sight was far more bearable than he had imagined. She settled in the bath and shook her hair free.