The Promise of Rest

by Reynolds Price

He looked one last time to where the sight of Polly had waited—mere early light, the start of a day that would never know Polly. He turned the car in a wide circle on the broad cobbled street and headed south.

  23

  As a rule Hutch never visited any friend unannounced, but a half hour later he parked at Alice’s with no prior warning. He’d thought a surprise appearance might please her more, sparing her hours of sprucing the place. But once he’d knocked, he thought Oh God, she may be cracked or bedridden too. When they’d talked in May, Alice had mentioned her balky heart—“this tremulous pump that’s seen better days.” And when light footsteps came to the door and paused on the locked side, silent, Hutch thought I’ve scared her. So he said “It’s maybe your oldest friend.”

  Another long silence; then with no hint of joking, Alice’s voice said “Insert passport beneath the door.” Odd as it was, she sounded as clear as she’d sounded in May.

  But again Hutch wondered if she’d lost mental ground. Still he said “I’m traveling on confidential documents; give me the password.”

  At last Alice said the word pearl, then laughed a high note; then “Pearl, Pearl, Pearl—Great Pearl of the South, swim into my cave.” She proceeded to throw back a series of locks and opened on Hutch.

  At first Hutch thought She’s younger by years. Everybody but me gets younger.

  And Alice was startlingly like herself, for all the years—a little shrunk maybe but straight-backed still and with hair so white it seemed the source of a curious intermittent shine, harmless but unprecedented in Hutch’s memory.

  He bent to kiss her.

  She smelled as ever of lemon cologne, and she wore an immaculate dark-blue dress as quietly costly and dignified as if she’d expected a presidential call. She bore his kiss calmly; and once she was free of his arms again, she said “I haven’t been kissed in so long it feels like a primitive rite in Samoa.”

  “Sorry,” Hutch said.

  “Not a bit. I miss a little savagery now and then. Of course I could leave my door unlocked any hour of the day and stand a good chance of winding up flayed and nailed to this door in an unbecoming pose.” When Hutch looked puzzled, Alice said “The neighborhood is sinking by the minute—you’re bound to have noticed. Six more months, it’ll be a bona fide slaughterhouse out there.” She turned and led the slow way inward down the hall with its striking framed photographs of little-known statues from hidden piazzas and backstreets in Italy, Greece, Crete and the islands—all taken by Alice in midlife solitary tours and enlarged in the kitchen, just yards away.

  “You planning to move?”

  “Oh no. I’m considering volunteering to be the next victim. I hear if you call the police and they fail you, the county pays to repair and embalm your scattered remains.”

  Hutch said “I’d double-check on that. Sounds far too logical.”

  “Darling, I made it up—give me a laugh.” Alice paused to study his eyes for the first time. “What’s gone wrong?” Before he could answer, she sat in her favorite chair, blue velvet now.

  Hutch sat on the forward edge of the sofa, then couldn’t speak.

  “Is it Wade?”

  Hutch signed Yes with his eyes.

  Alice shut her own keen gray eyes and turned her small sharp face toward the ceiling as if she kept hints for wisdom posted there. At last her eyes looked back to Hutch. “I’ve known, deep in my bones, it was coming.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got this dreadful plague, I’m afraid.”

  Hutch said “Has he called you?”

  “Not a word from Wade, no—not for three years. But I’ve felt it bearing down for months.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve known Wade, darling. I guessed at the danger. I’ve known for a decade he’s been in the eye of this fearful storm.”

  Hutch was genuinely thrown by her foresight. “When was the last time you saw him then?”

  “In New York—my last trip up there, four or five years ago. I went with a cousin older than me, and we got out with unbroken bones but not much else. Wade took us to dinner with his young man.”

  “Wyatt Bondurant?”

  “I think so, yes—a light-colored gentleman of African extraction.”

  “And Wyatt didn’t ruin your trip?”

  “Ruin it?” Her eyes were bemused by the thought.

  “With meanness; he didn’t tongue-lash you?”

  Alice laughed. “Lord, no—the soul of well-bred politeness. I thought Wade had freed him from some ancient spell; he seemed so much like a resurrected gallant rake from Restoration days, in pale plum satin.”

  “Wyatt? You understand Wyatt was black?”

  “I just said as much—are Negro men exempt from elegance?” Her eyes went cold and narrowed slightly. “And what’s this was; where’s Wyatt now?”

  Hutch knew he was caught in a just rebuke, but his news impelled him. “Wyatt died last winter—the same plague as Wade, though he killed himself first. He’d infected Wade; he couldn’t live with that, couldn’t stay to help Wade.”

  Alice studied her hands. As much as her face, they’d refused to age—almost no spots and few ropey veins. She finally said “My eyes are as good as they ever were, Hutchins. I see you here now—welcome as rain, which you’ve always been. And I saw Mr. Bondurant that one night as a beautiful Negro man straight out of my great-grandmother’s parlor—the finest of manservants, perfectly trained. Of course I hated myself for the thought. I also saw he would spring like a wolf and tear my throat out if I gave him that much cause.” With her thumb and finger she’d measured off a slim half inch.

  “He sprang at us. God knows—Ann and me, throat and eyes. He kept Wade away from us the past few years, right up till he shot himself in an alley last February with Wade already bad off. That left Wade all but alone in the city and desperately weak. When I found out early this past April, I went up and got him.”

  “Wade’s with you at present?”

  “For however long. He’s trailing off by the day, skin and bone.” Hard as the past two months had been, in close sight of Wade, the boy’s fate had seemed just bearable till now. In reach of a woman as self-contained and fearless as Zenobia Queen of desert Palmyra or Portia the wife of Marcus Brutus, eating live coals, Hutch suddenly felt done in by a judgment precisely hurled at his own private failings, a plunge dead center to the heart of his error—the secret central wrong of his life. Which is what—what’s the secret?

  Before Hutch could even start an answer, Alice said “We both need a glass of good sherry.” And she rose to get it.

  By the time she was back with the usual tray—a bottle of excellent amontillado, a plate of homemade cheese sticks and two glasses, Hutch had calmed himself and could watch her pour with pleasure in the sight of how little she’d lost. When she gave him his wine, he offered it up at once to toast her.

  But she said “Not so fast. It’s still my house so it’s my first toast—to you, dear blessed one.”

  Hutch thanked her and drank. “I’m feeling deeply unblessed here lately.”

  “Of course you are. You’re past sixty, aren’t you?”

  “By three full years.”

  Alice smiled. “Sure, the blues are a sixtyish burden. Once you strike eighty though, you’re suddenly young. I wake up every day before daylight, full of curiosity and a whetted appetite to say what I know, to give what I’ve got and then get something new. Then I rise on my old feet and face my mirror, which is ancient as me but exceedingly literal and realistic. At the gruesome display, I think Old girl, you’ve had your run. Lie back down and sleep. Sometimes I do—nobody to stop me. I slept past ten o’clock this morning, a well-fed baby.”

  “You look very rested.”

  “I am—that’s the horror. Nobody’s used me in thirty-odd years.”

  Hutch said “I feel like a worn-out broom, used up to the stick.”

  “It must be awful—I see these deaths, by the day, on television: far more merciless t
han anything known when I was a girl. I trust you and Ann have got good help.”

  So Alice didn’t know about Ann’s experiment. Had he failed to tell her or had she forgot? Should he pile that onto the news about Wade? No, spare her something. Hutch said “Two Duke students have helped us a lot; Wade has liked them both. We’ve so far managed the rest on our own. I can’t guess for how much longer; it’s worse by the day.”

  “Wade’s failing that fast?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Hutch said, “he’s rallied a little this week—that’s how I could dash off to Richmond and earn us a small piece of money. But the fact is, it’s all an ice chute from here on. Wade’s had parasitic pneumonia twice, half the microbes known to man are nesting in him, his eyes have failed to where he can only sense light from a window, and one of my students who sits with him often tells me that the boy’s asked him for cyanide.”

  Alice had always been as unflinching as the brow of a sphinx, but she waited to be entirely sure of her ground. Then she said “Get the poison. Let Wade make his own way while he still can.” There was not a gram of uncertainty in her level gaze.

  And it shook Hutch hard. For the first full time, he thoroughly knew Wade would die very soon. All his frank words up to this point had merely concealed a shocked man’s delusion that the lethal axe would freeze in midair, remorseful somehow, just short of his son. But of all his friends alive on Earth, Alice was the last sane one who’d never lied. Hutch said “You’re serious.”

  “Darling child, I was never anything else, not ever; it’s been the bane of my long life.” And when Hutch sat speechless, facing her eyes, Alice said “You’ve walled Ann out of this.”

  “Has Ann called you?”

  “Not once in her life.”

  “Then Wade.”

  “Not Wade. Give me credit for some degree of sense, Hutch. Even if it was a millennium ago, I loved your mother like night-blooming lilies; I somehow managed moderate fondness for your helpless wonderful-looking father, I met his cold mother and that little terrier of an aunt you loved—both of them powerful as iron locomotives on pig iron rails—so you couldn’t hold a secret from me if you strained every nerve. I wish you could. You want all this ghastly death, I know; and you want it alone.” She could even half smile.

  Hutch accepted it again as her verdict, relieved that someone beyond him and Ann comprehended the need to possess—actually to own a son’s death. He’d heard no reproof in all Alice said, and rightly so—she intended none, only simple description and the venting of a backed-up private knowledge she could seldom spend in her lonely days. He said “I’m the child of both my parents—no less, little more.”

  Alice said “I’m asking, not telling, but have you got their big luckless hearts?”

  “I think so, yes. I’m seldom stingy or really indecent.” He offered a laugh, which she barely received.

  “You froze Ann out, I’d estimate.”

  At last Hutch knew he had and he agreed. “I never wanted all Ann had to give; she was way too gifted and starved as a snake.”

  Alice said “Good people tend to be. Send her up here to me. I’m vanishing alone.”

  “You’ll outlast me.”

  Alice took the proposition seriously, then said “I may. Is there anything I should say in my prayers for your poor soul, any errands you might want me to run?”

  Hutch said “See that I’m near Wade please—wherever he goes, however hard. See he knows me there and grants my rights.”

  Again she gave it careful thought. “You’re not imagining Wade Mayfield in some private Hell for men who’ve used each other in love or even quick pleasure? You’re not that evil or ignorant?”

  “I’m not, no, truly. I’m just dreaming, in my weakest fantasy, of some cool place with more serenity—a place where Wade can finally comprehend his mysterious father.”

  Alice’s eyes began to relent. “My darling, the purpose of human life has little to do with understanding your parents. In any case, I never thought you were that hard to plumb. But you’re speaking of filial respect, aren’t you? You still want that?”

  Hutch said “Partly—maybe. I’m thinking of the after-life just now. No, what I’d really give a great deal for would be some brand of laughing welcome from Wade—not frequently but often enough to keep whatever blood’s still in me alive and running.”

  “You’re convinced we last on, somewhere past death?” The set of her eyes showed she asked in all seriousness.

  “I wouldn’t lay all my funds on it, no; but the last time I was in church—Good Friday a year ago—I listened to the creed as I said it with the others. I got through ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting’ nearly as smoothly as if I’d said I trusted water ran downhill.”

  Alice said “Water does that mostly—” She suddenly chuckled. “I’ve seen exceptions. But yes, I find myself talking to the night air more often as I wade onward here; a sane bystander might call it prayer. I’ll talk my damnedest for you and Wade, from today to the end—rest easy on that. I’ve built up a sizable head of credit, if the Maker keeps books (I assume that there’s a Maker with account books). Nobody’s got less love from the world than tough old me, not since your mother married at least.

  “I used to bear the world an almighty grudge; but oh about thirty years ago, I saw I’d made a whole life in the famine. An enviable life compared to most of the ones I’ve watched, in close quarters anyhow—a Virginia Vestal Virgin of solitude who taught that virtue to decades of students, almost none of whom listened but you; and you disobeyed me. Ever since that realization, I’ve admired myself—within reason of course, no greatly swelled head. I took what time gave, mostly hardtack; and I came back for more. I’m ready still.” With eyes as gleaming as they’d ever been, even in the long-gone presence of Hutch’s mother whom she’d loved above all, Alice took up her glass and drained the final thick drop of her sherry as if the prospect of eventual welcome was a foregone conclusion, not subject to doubt.

  Whether or not her certainty bore a chance of being the bankable truth, Hutch finally saw why he’d made this detour and borne this old woman’s reckless honesty, straight as a javelin flung at the eye. For a last time he toasted her silently and drank.

  24

  ON the fast trip home in midafternoon, Hutch’s car broke down near the first turnoff in North Carolina. The engine simply quit in the road—no warning, no smoke. When he’d spent ten minutes trying to crank it and gazing under the hood in bafflement, he trudged up the ramp, found a crossroads mechanic who said he could either tow it to Durham for $100 or fix it here for a good deal less by late afternoon.

  Before deciding, Hutch phoned home to check on Wade.

  Mait answered, said things were even-keeled and not to worry—he’d stay till Hutch was back, whenever.

  Hutch asked to speak with Wade for a moment. But Mait said “Wade’s been a little mixed up—not unhappy though. Should we let him rest?”

  It troubled Hutch but he held to his plan, only exacting a promise from Mait to phone Hutch at the garage in an emergency and then to call Ann.

  No call ever came and the sun lunged on at the helpless Earth—a dry heat, almost deadly in its force. Soon Hutch felt that the hair of his head might ignite any instant. And to find some shade beyond the reach of the voices of the mechanic and his wife, Hutch walked out through a thicket of junked cars into a stand of tulip poplars behind the station and sat on old leaves against one thick trunk. In a silent three minutes, he began to cool; and soon he’d shut his eyes and was hoping for the first time in months that a new poem would come—one line at least, what Paul Valéry called the “one given line” that comes unbidden to a natural poet (Hutch would never have called himself a large poet; but he knew he was born with the gift in his brain, a native tendency to think in rhythmic words that reached a few thoughtful souls and lodged in their memory).

  To aid the hope for a start at least, he sat on—oblivious to the day arou
nd him—and tried to accomplish the gray erasure he could usually manage on his working mind, the calling up of an empty screen with no thought or message, just a patient pregnant waiting.

  He could work it for five or ten seconds at a time; then Wade’s face would come, not now as it hurled downhill toward disaster but as it had been on the crest of his life. A tall strong-limbed boy, twelve or thirteen, slowed for a moment by the last step to manhood and toward all the pain that closed around him once he took that final rise in the even ground that must have looked welcoming but led him on to life in a city as cursed as any since Nineveh and into however many poisoned bodies he’d plumbed in nine years. Hutch finally gave up trying for blankness and dwelt on the valuable sight of young Wade, smiling gravely at the pitch of his noon.

  Only then, when a live boy yelled out beside the filling station’s air pump—“Foster, goddammit, you’ll bust your tube!”—did eight words come into Hutch’s mind, ready-made and dressed in authority, his given line maybe: This child knows the last riddle and answer. Hutch said it aloud, convinced at once that the child was Wade and not the yelling boy there beyond him. He repeated it twice; then fished out a pen and a scrap of paper napkin and wrote down the line. Somehow it would turn into Wade’s elegy, in time for his grave. It felt like the one trustworthy thing that had come free to Hutch since spring at least, and it heartened him to stand again and walk toward the boys. “You fellows traveling north today, are you?”

  The older boy said “No sir, we’re at home.”

  But the younger—Foster—said “You want a ride? I’m heading for Spain.”

  “Spain? Why Spain?”

  “I’m an ace bullfighter.”

  The older boy cuffed out at his brother. “You won’t even step in the field with a bull; tell the man the damned truth.”

  Foster faced Hutch as seriously as if this was court and his life was at stake. “I’m just who you see.”

  Hutch said “You look fine. What are you—eight or nine?”

  The older boy said “Man, you bound to be blind. That little flea ain’t but six years old.”