It wasn’t until we had finished our melon and started the soup that we heard the first footstep—and even then we didn’t believe what we’d heard. We must have heard it at the same moment, because just as I looked up, Alice did, too. But as I say, we both doubted it. I suppose we were skeptical at that point; or possibly, like the poor, superstitious idiots we are, we hoped that by denying the reality of the footsteps, we could make them come true.
In the next moment another step creaked quite distinctly on the cellar stair. And then another. Alice’s face flushed with sudden color. “He’s come.” It was half whisper, half cry; her eyes beamed. “He’s come. I knew he’d come. I knew it.”
I recall closing my eyes very tight and clenching my fists, torn somewhere between intense anger and relief, then murmuring inwardly a few words of thanks to Richard Atlee.
At the top of the stairs the footsteps paused and hovered on the other side of the library door. I sat there rigid like something struck in marble, my soup spoon frozen midway between the steaming bowl and my lip. Alice was looking at me and smiling. There was a question in her eyes.
I heard the doorknob turn. Then the hinges of the library door squealed open. Footsteps whispered across the floor. Just outside the dining room there was a moment of total suspension when we no longer heard him. Time seemed to stop. Nothing happened. Our hearts sank. Then he was there.
I have no accurate recollection of that moment or of my first impression of Richard. All I recall is that he stood there in the doorway. Alice and I didn’t look up at him. Instead we continued to stare into each other’s eyes—Alice still smiling that enigmatic smile, I with my soup spoon still poised in midair.
It was only after he took his place and started his melon that I looked at him and realized that the person I was looking at I’d never seen before. It wasn’t the Richard Atlee I recalled from previous visits—that neatly trimmed and pale young man, with the shy, curiously direct eyes and the endearing ungainliness. Then, he wore white frayed shirts and clumsily made ties, his suit cheap and rumpled. Yet, the total impression he gave at that time was conventional. To see him you might have thought he was a bank teller or an insurance salesman.
I say that the person I found sitting beside me was not Richard Atlee because that person was truly unrecognizable to me as the person who had come to service my furnace and had sat at my dinner table. It was Richard Atlee, of course, but the figure seated at my table now bore scarcely any resemblance to that somewhat vague and unremarkable figure. There were still a few vestiges of that person, some lingering shadows of a former presence, but that presence was now almost wholly erased and transformed into a new presence, as far apart from the former as the moth is to the caterpillar when that creature sheds its skin and steps from one stage of existence into the next. The only thing I recognized about him now was the suit and other items of clothing I’d purchased for him several days earlier at Winslow’s haberdashery. The rest was all new and strange to me.
Alice and I had both been wrong. The suit was far too small. The person wearing the suit we bought was well over six feet. The suit, at best, could accommodate a person of about five feet ten inches. I’ve often thought since that time that it was curious that Alice and I recalled a smaller person. We are both fairly accurate and concise people. Yet in this instance we appeared to have shot quite wide of the mark—Alice considerably wider than myself. Consequently, the sleeves and trousers were both too short. The suit had an outgrown look about it as if it had been handed down by an elder brother. But there was nothing comical or even faintly pathetic about the suit or the appearance of the person in it. The single most forceful impression that emerged from all of it was that of dignity, and by that I don’t mean for a moment to suggest grandness or stuffiness. I mean dignity. Pure inherent grace; the eloquence of simple, unpremeditated gestures; a vast composure. When you looked into his eyes there was no longer a trace of boyish reticence. He no longer kept his eyes down and riveted to his plate. Instead, his eyes were direct, falling very gently upon us—not at all defiant, but rather accepting and beautifully serene.
And yet, I’m sure, there are many who would have looked at him and felt revulsion. There was, of course, the filth. I don’t mean to deny it for a moment. It was everywhere to be seen—caked on his hands, encrusted beneath the nails. The hair, which I’d recalled as being rather closely cropped, had now grown out. It spread outwards around his head like a garland and cascaded down his shoulders. The face, once pink and clean-shaven, was now covered with a thick, luxuriant, reddish beard, several shades lighter than the color of his hair. He’d made no attempt to comb his hair or trim the beard. Yet, there was nothing wild or unkempt about him; he appeared as if he had looked precisely that way for centuries. And once seeing him like that, it would’ve been impossible to imagine him any other way. The person we recalled or thought we recalled was now completely obliterated by this figure. That other figure was in most respects unremarkable. This person, this new Richard Atlee, looked like something out of the Bible. A huge, awesome, prophetic, Old Testament-looking creature—an Isaiah or a Jeremiah. Someone who’d wandered in the wilderness many years, and existed on grubs and berries. Someone who’d lived with himself and within himself and had been conversant only with wild creatures and God.
When he sat down at our table, we didn’t speak. He took his place there just as if he’d been doing precisely that for many years. Automatic it was, and natural, like a muscle reflex. Nor was there any conversation when Alice served the dinner. And that curiously enough didn’t seem strange, either, but completely natural. It was as if conversation was superfluous. All vain and empty chatter.
But the most curious thing of all was Alice and I. After the initial surprise of seeing him so transformed, we two hopelessly and irretrievably conventional folk simply settled down and accepted this extraordinary stranger without a word of comment. We felt neither awkwardness nor embarrassment or fear. We felt instead gratitude that he was with us at our table on Christmas Eve.
I carved the pig and we ate quietly—the three of us at our small table, with the fire reflecting in the goblets of port and the snow outside falling silently all around us. There was no strain, such as the kind one ordinarily feels when a stranger eats at your table. But there were no strangers at the table that night. We were a unity. All together and one. I felt an immense gratitude.
There’s still one further point about that dinner I want to make. On the two former occasions that Richard ate at our table, not only did he ravage his food, but the place around his setting and his chair was littered with food. Now, this other person who sat at our table ate with unhurried decorum. He ate, too, as if he hardly tasted the succulent strips of pig and the savory plum pudding. Food to him seemed to be the most unimportant thing, an inconvenience you had to somehow get around, and he ate it with a mild and almost sweet distraction.
The first words uttered during that meal came at its conclusion. Alice turned to our guest and said, “We’re going to midnight services now. Would you like to join us?”
He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and rose slowly. So did we.
We sang “Puer Nobis Nascitur” that night with the organ resounding in our stomachs. The voices of the congregation rose above the cold bare hall, upwards into the clerestory, and hung there, then tumbled downwards over the chilly pews.
“Unto Us a Son Is Born” wafting outwards, out through the doors, across the snowy landscapes, through the forests hushed in the iron silences of winter. How sweet those words seemed that night:
The king of all creation—
Came he to a world forlorn—
Our voices mixed and were swallowed up in the voices of the congregation. Richard stood between Alice and me, ungainly and placid, in a suit too new and too small.
All about us was a quiet stir of excitement. His entrance into church that night had caused something of a sensation. People whispered and gaped. They’d never seen anything qui
te like him. You could sense the smug amusement all around you. It was thick enough to cut.
At first Richard didn’t sing. He stood between us, and we moved closer to him, so that all our shoulders finally touched and locked, forming a tight, impregnable unity. It was a purely protective movement on our part. He sensed it and his reaction was to help. Halfway through the hymn he suddenly began to sing loudly and with a voice that had an oddly unpleasant quality—rather like a harsh croaking—
Cradled in a stall was he
With sleeping cows and asses—
The couple standing in front of him, two dour, shriveled souls, turned to gape. It made Alice and me sing all the harder. Richard was oblivious, lost in the hymn.
Now may Mary’s son who came
So long ago to love us
Lead us all with hearts aflame
Unto the joys above us.
I felt curiously pleased with myself that night. I know Alice did, too—but we didn’t talk about it. Afterwards, at the conclusion of services, as we made our way out, I noted that people with whom we used to chat freely now seemed to hold back—to be strained and unnatural in their greetings.
On the way out, we waited on line to say good-night to the pastor and wish him a merry Christmas. Just behind us were Emil Birge, the town sheriff, and his wife. Birge was a large, beefy man with a red face, who had a way of whistling when he breathed. Each of his cheeks was raked with a spray of fine, purple capillaries. Mrs. Birge, a small birdlike creature, hovered just behind him. Her mouth appeared to have sunk into her face, and when she smiled at you, thin, rubbery lips shrank back over poorly made dentures. She did a good deal of church work and on several occasions petitioned for old clothing to be distributed to worthy charities. Alice sent her several boxes and not infrequently she would see her own dresses and coats appear on Mrs. Birge. To the best of my knowledge, Mrs. Birge had never once thanked Alice or even acknowledged receipt of the boxes.
Once I went up to the Birges’ to deliver one of those boxes for Alice. I didn’t find them home, but on the door, hanging from the knocker, was a dead hawk. It had been shot through the heart with a small-caliber rifle. Its eyes were closed, a small, yellowish membrane covering them, and a tiny bubble of blood had dried solid in the corner of the beak. A leather thong noose had been slipped over the bird’s head, and it hung from the door-knocker like a talisman, with its broken neck lolling sidewards. I left the box on the porch and hurried away.
Ever since that time, I’ve had peculiar feelings about Birge.
Ambivalence I would call it, since he’s always been very nice to us. The man was obviously a very good person to know. He brought with himself a big, comforting sense of protection. On the other hand there was something beneath the ruddy, good-natured looks that was vaguely disquieting.
Now, as we stood there that Christmas Eve, all queued up waiting to greet the pastor, Birge raised his hat to us. He wished us a merry Christmas, while Mrs. Birge made several pitiful grimaces in an effort to smile. We introduced the Birges to Richard who said “Hello” and was then silent while the rest of us chatted and waited to greet the pastor.
Birge was very friendly that night. “Full of Christmas” I believe was his expression in describing his mood. But all the while we spoke, I couldn’t help noticing that he was barely able to drag his eyes off Richard. He gazed wondrously at the long mane of flaxen hair and the great ruddy beard. His eyes traveled from head to foot, and he had the look of a child gazing covetously at a toy in a window.
When we got back that night, we went directly to the parlor, where the ashes from the fire were now gray, smouldering ingots. Alice and I opened presents around the tree with childish excitement while Richard sat silently in his new suit and watched us.
“Exactly what I wanted,” I cried and extracted a pair of fur-lined slippers from a mass of rattling tissue paper.
“Try them on, dear. See how they fit. They didn’t have nines, so I had to take eights.”
I started eagerly into them while Alice chatted on.
“Mr. Winslow said he’d take them back if they didn’t fit.”
I stood up and shuffled around in them while Alice laughed. “They fit perfectly. Couldn’t be better.” I kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“See what’s in that package over there,” I said.
“Which one, dear?”
“The one with the bright yellow paper.”
She picked it up and felt the weight of it with her hands. “Oh, I know what’s in here.”
“Do you?” I winked at Richard and immediately felt foolish when he gazed blankly back at me. He wasn’t the sort of person you could easily wink at.
Alice was laughing and tugging at long purple ribbons. Then flinging aside the bright yellow tissue paper, she withdrew a huge Chinese cookbook I’d ordered for her at the local bookshop. She’d wanted it for a long time, but it was the sort of extravagance she would’ve never permitted herself. Now she hugged it to her breast, trying to look cross. “Oh, Albert.”
“Now I expect Peking duck with prime sauce. Just like Singapore.”
“If I could reproduce the skin on that duck, we’d open a restaurant. And even if I knew how to do Peking duck, where would we get the ingredients around here?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
She kissed me and laughed. “I love the book. But you’re mad. It’s such an extravagance.”
I suppose I looked dejected about my miscalculation, because she patted my cheek and said, “Don’t be unhappy, dear. If we go into the city for vacation next spring, we’ll stock up on Chinese vegetables and all sorts of exotic ingredients.”
After that there was an exchange of a number of smaller packages—toothbrushes, cologne, socks, what have you. We were both very happy like children playing there around the tree, all our packages strewn about.
Richard remained silent. He sat in a chair, his legs stretched stiff in front of him, watching us. Several times I stole glimpses at him. It was a curious absorption with which he viewed us, as if we were laboratory animals performing in a maze. I couldn’t tell if the spectacle of us playing there with our presents on the floor made him feel pity or contempt. I wondered if he liked us or simply thought of us as two silly, aging fools.
But even as he sat there I could tell he was weighing something in his head. For some reason my mind fastened on violence. I had a fleeting vision of Alice and me on the floor, pools of blood running out of our shattered skulls—blood running in a languid trickle onto the rug, under the Christmas tree, blood blotching the cushions and drapes and spattered over the presents and the brightly colored wrappings. I saw in my mind some lurid tabloid story about a middle-aged couple in a desolate cottage in the bog, cruelly put to death by a young itinerant handyman whom they’d befriended. In a flash I saw it all before me—bright, red, and wet, as if it had happened right there under my nose. That’s what I imagined he was weighing that moment—working toward some course of action, some decision that once made would be final, drastic and irrevocable. But I put it all out of my mind, and it was Christmas once again.
In addition to slippers, Alice gave me a fine old meerschaum pipe and a large tin of my favorite tobacco. I filled the pipe immediately and puffed thoughtfully, giving a silly imitation of Sherlock Holmes, saying idiotic things like “Elementary, my dear Watson.” It was all very strained and unnatural. Alice’s laughter was a bit too strident, and mine much too tense. Clearly we were putting on a show for Richard Atlee. We were demonstrating the warmth and happiness of our household, even though Alice and I knew all that was a lie. That our household—full of beautiful things, to be sure—was no more than a slightly elaborate mausoleum—a dismal, empty place that never knew the laughter or warmth of a real family. We had lived in beautiful cities of the world and collected many rare and exquisite things with which we’d surrounded ourselves. And yet in the final summation, here in the twilight of our days we both knew that our lives added up to zero.
And yet, for some unaccountable reason we were acting out some incredible lie for this perfect stranger—this stray cat who had wandered in out of the cold. Why?
“Now I have one last present,” I said to Alice. “Wait here.” I went upstairs and rummaged through my drawers, finally pulling out a tiny box from beneath a stack of freshly laundered handkerchiefs. I brought it down and presented it to Alice.
“Take it,” I said.
She looked clearly puzzled, for this present, unlike the others, she’d clearly not expected. It had been a very well-guarded secret.
“What is it?” she asked.
I waved it under her eyes like a sorcerer. “Take it and find out.” She shrank from the tiny packages as if it were an insect. “Oh, Albert. What have you done?”
“Now come, Alice. Don’t be foolish. Take it.” I took her hand and pressed the package into her palm. “Open it and see what you’ve got.”
She undid the ribbons very slowly, then peeled off the paper. Inside was a small black satin box.
“Albert. I’m afraid—”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I can’t.”
“Oh, here. I’ll do it for you.” I flicked open the case and held it out to her. She moved back a step and caught her breath. Looking at her, I laughed. It was one of the only honest moments of that night.
“Do you recall when we were in Bombay—” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you saw one of these?”
“Yes.”
“Remember how much you wanted it?”
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