The truck lurched down the gravel driveway, then gasped as it shifted gears at the bottom of the hill, turned left, and started up the steep hill that runs alongside the orchard in front of our house. I clung to the fleeting sight of it until it vanished over the hill. As it did so, a great hush fell over the earth.
Once more we were alone.
That afternoon we walked in the forest and picked apples and wild raspberries. When we got back we went into the garden and picked several ripe pumpkins. That night we baked pies. When, at last, we turned out the lights and went up to bed, the house was warm from the oven and full of the smell of molasses and cinnamon.
Sometime early in the morning, perhaps 2 A.M., Alice woke me.
“What is it?” I asked, foggy with sleep.
“The pipes are banging.”
“It’s nothing. Just the radiators. Go back to sleep.”
“It doesn’t sound like the radiators.”
I sat up in bed shaking my head while the banging grew louder.
“That’s no radiator, Albert. Go down and check.”
I had no intention of going down to the cellar. But I couldn’t stay there cowering under the covers and let on to what I knew. In the next moment, I climbed out of bed and put on a robe.
Outside at the landing, I flicked on the stairway light and started down to the kitchen. I paused at almost every step and listened with frozen horror to the banging. It took me several minutes to get down the entire flight.
Once down in the kitchen, I was standing directly over the crawl gazing transfixed at my feet while the pipes in the radiator gonged up from below. Several times Alice called down from above.
“Albert?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is there anything there?”
“Nothing I can see.”
Then she was silent, but the banging in the pipes grew louder and more insistent. After a while I could feel each stroke in my stomach. At one point when it reached a peak of unruliness I panicked. Lying near at hand was a large kitchen knife. I grabbed it and started banging frantically back on the pipes.
Instantly the noise ceased and silence roared in upon me. All I could hear was the thudding of my heart. The next moment there was a scraping, shuffling movement just below my feet, the kind of noise you associate with small animals rummaging in a confined area. Then I heard nothing.
“Albert.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Go back to bed. I’m on my way up.”
Before I went up I locked the door leading from the library to the cellar. When I got back to the room, she was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide and staring. “What in God’s name was it?”
“Only the pipes. I made an adjustment.”
She must have seen something in my face, because she looked at me oddly. “Go back to bed, Alice.”
“Albert?”
“Go back to bed.” This time my voice was harsh. It wasn’t a voice she was accustomed to hearing. She stared at me for a moment, then without another word, slipped obediently under the covers and turned her back on me.
I sat on the edge of the bed gazing at the frost-fogged windows and listened to a naked branch scratching at the eaves. When my hands stopped trembling, I reached back and touched her head ever so gently. “I’m sorry, Alice. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”
It rained the rest of the night and on into the next day. A cold, steady drizzle mixed with sleet rattled down on the rooftops.
Alice was standing at the breakfast counter in a wraparound shawl, beating eggs. For the most part she was silent, wailing for me to speak. I, for my part, was attempting to arrange in my mind the exact words with which to describe the sequence of events that led up to what had occurred the night before.
The copper kettle on the stove began to hiss. Just as Alice was reaching for a canister of tea, her gaze fell on the shelf above her.
“What on earth—”
When I looked up at her, a spoon of blueberries slipped from my hand and clattered loudly on the table. She watched berries rolling off the table onto the floor in a dozen directions. “For God’s sake, Albert. If you wanted a slice of pie, you could’ve simply—”
By that time I was across the room, past where she stood, and gaping at the pies. They gave the appearance of having been pawed by an animal. Fully three-quarters of all three of them had been devoured. What remained had been smashed and ground into the Pyrex plates with such force that the fruity innards had splashed over onto the shelf.
“Dear God, Albert—what is it?”
Standing there, gaping at smashed pies, I imagine the expression on my face must have been horrible. Not only did Richard Atlee have the key to the garden door, he also had the key to the library-cellar door.
Alice looked at me oddly and our eyes met. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
By that time she knew something was quite wrong.
Isn’t it curious how long you can live with a person, feeling certain you can predict his or her behavior in any given circumstance, then discover that you’ve been wrong. But not merely wrong; wildly and incalculably wrong.
Thus it was with Alice (with whom I’ve lived for nearly a quarter of a century) when on that morning I sat her down and attempted to explain our situation. That explanation, I realize now, must have sounded strange to her. I did it slowly and laboriously, my voice a curious mixture of measured calm and barely repressed hysteria. I was like a man carrying a hot soup bowl, seeking desperately a place to set it down.
All the while I spoke, a high, nervous laugh kept erupting from somewhere deep within me. It was a strange laugh—one I’d never heard before. It was like hearing a stranger laughing somewhere near you in the dark. I can’t say I cared very much for the sound of it.
It was all acutely embarrassing to me. And it must have been tedious for her, because as incoherent as I’d been, she’d grasped the whole thing in an instant.
I suppose what I was waiting for was an immediate upheaval, a sudden outpouring of fear and outrage, wringing of the hands, and demands for immediate police intervention. What I got instead was a kind of hushed pity. Even now I recall her sitting there looking at me as I spoke, seeming unnaturally small and doll-like, her hands folded in her lap, her head shaking slowly from side to side, her soft, gray eyes wide and unblinking, oddly magnified in her glasses.
X kept talking and waiting for the explosion so that I could pacify her the way I’d planned. But nothing like that happened, and it left me up in the air with no place to go. You see, I was prepared for hysteria, not queenly serenity. When I’d finally got the whole thing out—after I’d said it all—she was still sitting there quietly with her hands folded in her lap and shaking her head.
“Well,” I said, almost furious, “aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Perhaps he could stay with us a while.” She said it just like that, dreamily and looking through and past me as if I weren’t there.
I was certain I’d heard her wrong.
“Just till he gets on his feet,” she added.
“You’re not serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
I looked at her, thunderstruck, tying to catch the glimmer of a smile or a snicker across her face.
“You mean you’d really invite him to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing what you do about him?”
“What do I know about him? Really very fit tie. He seems like a nice enough boy.”
I was flabbergasted. “You know that he’s come into your house and stolen things.”
“Oh come, Albert. He hasn’t stolen a thing. He’s merely moved a few pieces from one part of the house to another.”
By that time I had the distinct impression I was being ridiculed. “I really think you must be mad.”
> “Why?”
“Why?” I snapped. “It’s not everyone who’d take a perfect stranger in off the streets.”
“Oh, Albert—”
“That’s not a very clever thing to do.”
“Well, you asked me, and I made a suggestion. So he’s living in your cellar. What do you intend to do about it?” She’d put it directly, and I had to answer in like fashion.
“Well, of course, he has to go.”
“Then you’re going to ask him to go?”
“Well—not directly.”
The trace of a smile flickered across her mouth.
“Well—” I said, “what if he were to refuse and get nasty?”
“Oh, Albert—”
“Well, what do I know about this boy—his motives—”
“If you’re so worried about his motives, call the police.”
“I’ve thought about that, but before I get involved with them and start pressing charges—”
“You’re frightened of him.”
“I’m not frightened of him at all.” I felt a rush of heat to the back of my neck. “And what if I were? Would that be so terrible? It wouldn’t. It would be wise and prudent. Didn’t you say he frightens you?”
“He did at first, but not any more.”
“That’s a hasty change of heart.” I looked at her skeptically. “And not at all prudent.”
“Prudent?”
“Yes,” I said, and started out in disgust.
“Well, you’re not going to let him stay down there in all that filth,” she cried after me.
“I never said I would.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
I paused for breath. “Well, for one thing—change all the locks. We’ll see where that gets us.”
She made a face as if she pitied me. “You mean just lock him out?”
“Yes. He’s out now. When he gets back tonight he’ll find all the doors barred to him. Easy enough.”
“I suppose you know what you’re doing.” She rose quickly and started to go.
“You’re not really serious about all this?” I called after her.
“Why not?” She stared at me unflinchingly. “Just a helping hand until he gets himself another job.”
“A helping hand—” I was a little breathless. “Do you know what that entails?”
“Of course I do.”
“This isn’t some flower in your garden, Alice. This is a person we’re talking about. Not a flower your transplant from one place to the next and water daily, then forget about.”
The point failed to impress her. “Well?”
“Well,” I said, “you just don’t move any old stranger into your house.”
She looked at me a long moment.
“I don’t understand you, Alice.” My voice was softer.
“It’s really not that mysterious,” she said. “It does get lonely out here from time to time.” She turned again and walked slowly out through the door, murmuring as she went, “Poor boy. Poor, poor boy.”
I’m afraid all this makes me sound unduly harsh. Perhaps I should explain. I’ve always maintained that it’s enough of a job for a man to get himself through this world in one piece. I married Alice quite late in life and then only after a lengthy, on-again, off-again courtship, in which I was awed by the sense of enormous responsibility I was undertaking. I’m not one to take responsibilities lightly. Once I assume them, they’re mine, and I don’t disassume them if the burden should become onerous.
Perhaps I get this from my father, an unduly stringent man who was a missionary in China, where I was brought as a boy and remained until I was sent back to this country to attend the University.
Life in China is very cheap—as it is all throughout the Orient. If you’re not a wealthy aristocrat in China, you learn at an early age to look after yourself. You learn to fight for a bit of space to live in and for every scrap you eat. It’s a precarious business, and one learns very quickly not to undertake unnecessary responsibilities, even if they are attractive.
I know this sounds narrow and selfish, but I don’t believe in altruism as such. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a purely altruistic act. Even my father, a selfless and saintlike man, who died at an early age trying to ease the suffering of the poor in the wretched slums of Hong Kong and Nanking—even he never acted out of pure altruism. What he was actually seeking in those appalling places was no more than his own salvation—since, like most saints, he had a crippling sense of his own sins.
Accordingly, that afternoon we drove into town. I went to the small hardware store and purchased three of the heaviest locks I could find. When we drove back later, it was still raining, but the rain had changed to a kind of icy drizzle that hailed down with a pitiless persistence. I turned on the heater of the car and we drove in silence listening to the wipers wooshing back and forth, carving, as they went, a wide arc across the slushy panes.
Alice gazed out the window on a desolate landscape. There was no green left in the land. The distant, slumbering hills looked like the heads of men that have gone gray overnight. I could somehow only recall them as green. Now they looked like total strangers to me. The trees had a stark and tortured aspect.
“When are you going to put the locks on?” she asked suddenly.
“Now.”
We drove a bit, listening to the wipers wooshing back and forth.
“It’ll be bitter cold tonight,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, knowing precisely what she was thinking.
The car felt its way along warily over the iced and rutty road.
As soon as we got back, I went to work on the locks. Alice went instantly to the kitchen, making herself busy, as if she couldn’t bear to see what I was doing. From time to time, she’d come out, wiping her hands in her apron, and look at me. There was nothing reproachful or accusatory in those glances. If anything, it was rather a quiet dismay—as if at that point she wasn’t certain if it was actually me she was looking at—was it really her husband there on his knees fumbling with the tumblers in a frantic race against the coming dark?
By dusk I had changed the locks on every door leading into the house from the outside. I padlocked our shed and garage. I had also changed the lock on the door leading from the cellar up to the library. Before I went up to supper, I locked all the doors, then went down to the basement and searched the crawl to make certain it was empty. Several times I picked up the phone just to hear the comforting buzz of the signal. In spite of all these measures, I felt little security. I hated to see the darkness come rushing and swirling in around us that night.
By nightfall the barometer dropped alarmingly and a high wind moaned across the land, buffeting the roof and nuzzling at the window panes.
We ate supper silently. Afterwards we read and played records. One was a Haydn trumpet concerto. It was curiously comforting to hear the high, pure ring of a trumpet rise above the wind. So proud, so heroic, and unperturbed.
I dreaded the hour of going to bed, but at last it came. I banked the fire and kept up good appearances by chattering buoyantly to Alice. “Let’s go south next winter,” I said as we mounted the stairs. “One of the Keys. I’ve always wanted to see the Keys. They say the fishing is spectacular. Let’s plan-”
Alice stopped suddenly on the steps and cocked an ear. “What was that?”
“What?”
“That sound. Listen. Just outside.”
“It’s only wind. Your imagination.” I laughed, but I thought for a moment I’d be sick. “I’d love to see the Keys once,” I chattered on halfheartedly, as we contained to climb.
We lay in bed that night, neither of us sleeping, just lying there listening to the rain and the wind howling. The hours stretched out, and dawn seemed eons away. At one point I spoke out: “Alice?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“No.”
“What are you thinking?”
“About him. Out
there.”
“Yes. I know.”
Our voices sounded strange in the darkness—disembodied—almost like listening to recordings.
“You never really wanted a child, did you, Albert?”
“Why do you bring that up now?”
“Just talking to pass the time.” She paused, staring at the ceiling above her. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think that’s fair.”
“You wanted to be free to travel. Go and come as you pleased. A child would’ve only gotten in your way.”
“It would’ve made things harder,” I said. “But I wouldn’t have minded. Anyway, didn’t we try time and time again?”
“Yes.”
“And you simply couldn’t. You know that. The doctor told you.” When I said it, I felt a terrible twinge of satisfaction.
“Yes,” she said very softly. “I know. But all the same—you were relieved, weren’t you?”
I listened to the wind outside.
“Weren’t you?”
“Alice—what is the purpose of all this now?”
“Admit it. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“No.” I sighed and turned away. “It’s not true at all.” The silence rushed back in upon us. Outside, the wind gnashed its teeth and the bare branches of trees above the roof clicked against each other.
“Where will he go?” said Alice, after a while.
“For all we know, he’s found a place already.”
“Yes. For all we know—”
“Something better, I hope.”
“Yes,” she said without too much enthusiasm, and we were silent again.
An hour or so passed, and still we heard nothing. Then, just as I felt myself slipping off, there was the unmistakable sound Of a key jiggling a lock at the cellar door. We could hear it quite distinctly, since that door is almost directly beneath our bedroom window.
Alice sat bolt upright in bed. “Albert?”
“Yes. I hear it.”
The key continued to jiggle, and I could hear the lock rebuffing it. The noises became rougher and more impatient, full of the sound of frustration and growing anger.
I held my breath, hoping that the new locks wouldn’t fail me. I had a sudden, awful notion that I’d put them all on incorrectly. In my mind I saw them yielding or falling out and the doors all opening wide, like unfolding blossoms.
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