The Sight of the Stars

by Belva Plain

  Those vivid eyes were looking straight back into Adam’s. Judge me, they said without fear.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with you. I am thinking that I should be honored to have your trust.”

  She smiled. He had a quick recollection of her on the step with her book. And of himself as he had walked away, thinking about the color of her hair. Red, he had thought then, and corrected himself. No, not red. It’s russet. Yes, russet.

  “Look,” she said now, “factories. We’re almost there. We’d better go back and collect our things. I know it will be hard for you at home, Mr. Arnring. But I hope it won’t be too bad.”

  He went blank for an instant, and then he understood she meant Rachel’s funeral. He thanked her for her sympathy.

  Polite and proper now, she told him that she had enjoyed their dinner.

  “We covered a lot of ground, didn’t we? Besides my outburst, I mean. Pianos, women’s suffrage—”

  “And fish soup,” he said.

  They shook hands, and he watched her walk away, holding her black slender skirt just high enough to keep it from grazing the floor.

  Pa was receiving people in the kitchen, where he had always been most comfortable. His first words to Adam were a lament.

  “I wanted to wait for you, but they wouldn’t let me. She thought the world of you, Adam. She would have wanted you to be here when she was laid in the ground.”

  No, she would not, Adam thought. Observant and pious, she had known that the dead must be buried on the second day, while Pa, in spite of his skullcap, was a freethinker. She was the mother I knew, Adam thought, as he saw her checked apron still hanging on the doorknob near the icebox. And as if she were still sitting there at her end of the table, he saw again her pale, anxious eyes and her soothing smile.

  The house was full. Every chair was taken and every flat surface covered with food. Neighbors were still coming up the front step with pies, roasts, and bowls of fruit. In the kitchen they spoke the usual comforting words to Pa, but he seemed hardly to hear them, and his replies were almost inaudible.

  Then suddenly he bent, put his face in his hands, and cried, “She was my whole life, she was the only woman I ever loved!”

  “Wait, wait,” an old man murmured, “you will see her again.”

  But this is the second death, Adam was thinking. Can he have forgotten the first? And he stood there just looking at his father, not knowing what to say, until a woman came up to him and remarked how sorry she was for Leo and Jonathan.

  “I feel so bad for them, losing their mother so young.”

  But he, too, had loved Rachel; did he not count?

  Then he thought, No, it’s true. The woman had spoken correctly. Rachel was their mother, not mine. So with a choking in his throat, he pushed his way out of the kitchen and through the crowded rooms, hoping to find his brothers.

  Not finding them, he went outside. It was Jonathan whom he saw first, standing in the front yard and looking up toward the room on the second floor where their parents slept. Was that where Rachel had died?

  The two rushed together. For a few minutes, neither spoke, but held on to each other, while in Adam, a rush of emotions and memories collided and tangled: The years dropped away, and Jonathan, though now a young man, was still the brother he remembered.

  “You look different,” Jonathan said. “Is it that striped tie or the hat you’re carrying?”

  He was making up for his wet eyes with a joke, so Adam joked back.

  “The hat is a boater. After Memorial Day a gentleman wears a boater. Don’t you recognize a gentleman when you see one?”

  “I’ll learn. I’ll take a special course when I’m in college.”

  Stepping back for a better view, Adam marveled. “College! Around the corner! I can’t believe it. Let me look at you. When I left, you weren’t shaving yet. And you were half a foot shorter.”

  “Just about. I’m six feet one.”

  “You beat me by an inch, little brother. Tell me, where are you going? What college is it to be?”

  “Someplace in New York, I hope, if I can make it. They say I probably will. I don’t know, but I hope so, especially now. If I’m in the city, I’ll at least be able to look in on them now and then. I’m thinking of how it will be when they’re left alone together. It’s not going to be easy without Mom.”

  Adam understood. Rachel had always tried to soothe tensions. She hadn’t always succeeded, but God knows she had tried.

  “Where is Leo? I didn’t see him inside.”

  “He sort of fell apart yesterday after the service.”

  “So, where is he?”

  “He went over to Bobby Nishikawa’s house.”

  “And he’s still there?”

  “Yes. I went over last night to talk to him, but he wouldn’t come back with me. He says this house will be unbearable without Mom. She was never cross with him, he says. And Pa—well, we know Pa—with all his good heart, used to correct him all the time. Well, you remember.”

  “Pa’s tired out at the end of his day. What the devil is the matter with Leo, anyway?”

  “Adam, I wish I knew. Maybe he’s just made like that.”

  Bleak, Adam thought. The little brown house is bleak. When it rains, when the winter fogs creep in, everything turns gray. I can’t do anything except send money. Jonathan’s life, when he leaves here, wherever he may go, will be bright, while my own is bright enough and may, if I keep on working and if luck stays with me, be even brighter. But what on earth can I do for the two left here?

  Another deep sigh rose out of his chest, and he was annoyed with himself for his anxious thoughts.

  “Everyone’s leaving. We’d better go in,” he said.

  They were at the front door when Leo came scurrying in—yes, that’s the right expression, thought Adam, for this person who was moving swiftly with bent back in the hope of being unseen.

  “Look at him,” he said. “Is it because of me, because I’ve come home?”

  “It could be. He’s been hearing so much about you. It’s too much for him.”

  “Pa still talks about me? In at least six letters, I have told him not to.”

  “He’s proud of you. It’s only natural, Adam.”

  “Of what? I’ve got a nice job at a fine shop, that’s all. That’s all I am. Why the pride? When you’re in medical school, that will be reason for pride. Come.”

  Pa was still in the kitchen, sitting on the same chair. Near the window stood Leo. And there went Adam’s quiver of nerves, for the picture of Leo that he had taken west with him was not what he was seeing now.

  Poor fellow. No more than one inch above five feet, with his misshapen face fleshed out beneath that rapidly receding hairline. Barely into his twenties, and growing bald . . .

  “How are you, Leo? It’s good to see you,” Adam said. He would have hugged him, but Leo had wedged himself into the corner behind Pa’s chair, where he could not be reached. “I mean,” he corrected himself, “‘good’ isn’t the word for seeing anybody on a day when we’ve lost our mother. What I meant was—”

  “She wasn’t your mother,” Leo said quietly.

  “Good God! Even today!” Pa shouted. “Even today. Leo, did you come in here to give us more grief than we already have? God, have you no pity? Your mother is dead, my wife is gone, my wife, the only woman I ever loved.” Pa sobbed. “My God, my God.”

  Not my mother, too, who died and left you with an infant? Adam wanted to ask, but did not. And a silence like cold, still air filled the kitchen.

  Jonathan was the first to take action. From the cluttered surfaces, the table and the counters, even from some of the chairs, he removed jars, platters, bowls, and pots of food, more food than this small family could consume in a month, opened the icebox, filled the shelves, discarded, and set straight.

  “Come, Pa,” he said when he was finished, “you’ve been sitting there all day. It’s bad for your circulation. You ha
ve to get up and walk around. Are you hungry, Leo? There’s enough food here for an army.”

  “I ate at Bobby’s house. No, I’m going to bed.”

  “Pa and Adam and I will be out on the porch if you need us. Pa needs fresh air.”

  “You treat him like a baby,” Pa grumbled when Leo had left the room.

  “Sometimes that’s what he wants. At least, I think he does,” Jonathan replied. “We haven’t yet learned to read people’s minds.”

  Outside it was still light enough for roller skates on the street. Two boys doing remarkable leaps and circles were delighted with Jonathan’s applause from the porch.

  “Do it again, will you, guys? Pirouettes! You’re good enough for vaudeville. You’re great.”

  “Pirouettes. That’s what it’s called?” A little smile broke over Pa’s frozen face. “Fancy words my sons speak. Pirouettes. I’ll bet those kids never heard the word.”

  Magic words, thought Adam. It’s Jon who somehow or other always knows the magic words. And he looked at his father’s sad old face, where a smile still lingered.

  When the roller skaters had gone, an old couple came along walking together. As he watched them, Pa murmured something to himself. As full darkness arrived, the silence was broken only by the buzz and creak of rocking chairs.

  After a while, Pa spoke. “The quiet, the quiet. All the good people today, all the talk. But I needed the quiet. And I have to say something now: I am so thankful for you both.”

  “And for Leo,” Jonathan said. “He’s angry that Mom died, angry at the world. But we can’t know what the future will bring, can we?”

  What future? Adam demanded in silence. Fifty years from now? Who has all that uncertain time to wait? I’m thinking of tomorrow morning, to say nothing of next year, when Jonathan would be away in college. What would happen to Pa and Leo? I don’t have enough money to take Pa and Leo out west, to live with me.

  “You must be tired after this long day,” Pa said. “You had a long trip. Go on up to bed, Adam. I guess it will feel strange to be in it again after so long.”

  It felt so strange, so troubling, that he could not fall asleep. Yet he must have dozed for a few minutes now and then, because when he opened his eyes, he remembered shreds and pieces of disjointed, implausible dreams. He saw Rachel in the apron she had worn every day except Saturday, when she went to the synagogue in a silk dress and a necklace of amber beads. He saw himself taking his little brothers to the merry-go-round; Leo was excited, his homely face screwed into a laugh that touched him, Adam, with a sadness he had not then been able to explain, nor could he do it very well now. Mrs. R. was standing next to Leo, both of them in tears, Leo for reasons unknown, and she because her husband had hurt her. And Emma was trying to comfort them both.

  Now he was wide awake. These senseless dreams came from being overtired. It is said by some that dreams are never really senseless, that if you take the disjointed sections apart and rearrange them properly, they will make sense.

  His thoughts returned to Emma. You could see that Emma Rothirsch was a compassionate person. Her anger had burned not on behalf of herself, but on behalf of the old lady. He wondered whether the accusations were true. But of course they must be, for what sense or advantage would there be in making such things up? And that anger of Emma’s had been genuine. There could be no mistaking it.

  He had an idea that she was a very positive person. Women should have the vote. There should be wine in the soup. In the darkness he smiled to himself. She had a funny little laugh that curved her fine lips and her pretty teeth. She speaks perfect French, one of the saleswomen had said. And then there was that matter of the piano. Could Mrs. R. be right about her talent?

  Oh, Adam, what do you know about her? You’re only curious because of who she is. At heart she’s no different from anybody else. She’s no better than Fannie or Geraldine or anyone, except that she’s better educated. So what is the fascination? It’s nonsense.

  A beam of light from the moon as it sailed through a cloud, or else from a new streetlamp on the corner, shot through the gloom and struck a wet spot on the ceiling. He had wondered about the bucket on the floor near the window. In the morning he’d have to talk to Pa about the price of a new roof.

  When the beam of light shifted, it struck another spot on the floor where something lay, a shadow . . . It seemed to take on the shape of a sleeping dog. For there he was, that old friend Arthur, lying exactly how and where he had lain on another night years and years ago.

  But the mind plays queer tricks, Jonathan says. I’ve been too long away from this house, anyway. It isn’t home anymore. My thoughts are whirling. Let me go back to work. Let me get back to my home in Chattahoochee.

  “You’ve been here for two days,” Pa said, “so don’t apologize for leaving. There’s nothing you can do here anyway, Adam. You can’t bring her back. And you mustn’t risk your job.”

  As usual, they were all in the kitchen. And everyone looked toward Rachel’s chair. Leo seemed even smaller than Adam remembered, bringing to his mind a child he had recently seen lost and bewildered in a crowd.

  “She would want you all to go on with your lives and to learn to be happy again,” Adam said, wanting to be tender, feeling tender, and yet in the next moment afraid he had been only pompous and trite.

  Leo nodded, and Adam rushed on, if only to fill the painful silence. “You’re a big help to Pa in the store, Leo. He tells me so all the time in his letters.”

  “The store!” Pa interrupted. “I’ll give myself to the end of the week. Then it’s got to be opened, or customers will get used to going someplace else. I’ll have to pull myself together. I will.”

  He looks like a man in his seventies, Adam thought, and he’s not yet sixty.

  “Pa, take a rest. When have you ever had one? Let either Jon or Leo run the store for a few weeks. Jon can go after school, and Leo can manage the other hours.”

  Now Jonathan intervened. “I don’t agree. It would be better for Pa to go right back to work. What else would he do with himself but sit here alone and think all day? Work is medicine, an anodyne.”

  Anodyne. Spoken like a doctor, Jon.

  “Leo and I will help as always, Leo more than I do, as always,” Jonathan said.

  A faint smile touched Leo’s woebegone face as he nodded, and Adam, seeing it, was moved to put his arms around his brother’s shoulders, telling him that he knew he would be a help to Pa in this hard time.

  “Mom would want you to help him, Leo. She loved us all so much, and she wanted us to love one another.”

  Well, if I sound like a preacher, I can’t help it, Adam thought. Sometimes the deepest truths can be embarrassing.

  “When is your train? What time do you have to leave?” Pa asked.

  “There’s a lot of cold food here that needs to be eaten up. How about taking it outside and having a picnic before you go?” suggested Jonathan.

  Clearly Jonathan was the one who would hold things together. But how, Adam worried, would it be after next year when he was gone?

  Oh, sufficient unto the day . . . The morning is cool and bright. The green grass hasn’t yet burned brown. In the icebox there’s ice cream, made by Rachel. She would want us to eat it.

  So they had their picnic. Neighbors, seeing them outside, came over to liven the little party. When it ended, they drove Adam to the ferry, which cut short the painful farewells.

  Just as on the first time, he stood on the deck and watched the town slide away. He had had only one emotion then: a tremendous, overwhelming excitement. It had all been so easy! But now he had grown older—oh, a century older. And now there was the family here, the business there, and money to be earned, and Mrs. R. to satisfy, and Emma . . .

  It wasn’t easy anymore.

  Chapter 7

  Receipts and bills must be retained for three years, said Theo Brown, cautious accountant. Accordingly, one summer Sunday Adam opened a bottom drawer that was the only disorderly p
lace in his orderly little room, and began to throw things away. It surprised him to find that among the pile of papers he had saved were a few personal letters, and curious now as to why he saved them, he opened the envelopes and began to read.

  Dear Adam,

  I found your check on my bed after you left. I only have to mention a thing and you take care of it, or did I mention the hole in the roof? I forget. Maybe you saw the buckets on the floor. Anyway, I thank you. Always, always, I thank you. It should be the other way around, God knows.

  We had a terrible two weeks, but now in the third week I am pulling myself together. Rachel talks to me. You have to do your work and go on, she says. It’s God’s will, she says. You mustn’t question it. She always knew all about His will, but I don’t know. Anyhow, I go to the store every day. Leo helps, but as soon as we close, he goes over to the Nishikawas’ house. So if he is happy there, it’s better for all of us. Jonathan is the same. He and I fix our supper together, and the neighbor ladies help us so much. He is busy with midterm examinations and will write soon.

  Take care of yourself,

  Pa

  I saved this, I suppose, Adam thought, because I was moved by the sadness and the courage. Yes, I remember.

  There were two letters from Jonathan dated only a few months ago, and not at all sad.

  Dear Adam,

  I am squeezing this in between two exams, this morning’s in biochemistry and tomorrow’s in physics. It’s tough stuff, but I am doing all right. I can’t believe I am almost at the end of my first year in an Ivy League university. Here I am, poor in my own right, helpless without your help, in an Ivy League university! I know you don’t like to have me thank you, but now and then I feel the need to, so don’t be annoyed.

  I get home every couple of weeks on a Sunday because it means so much to Pa. Leo and he, from what I can see, have made a kind of truce. When Leo is not with the Nishikawas for supper, he reads a book and Pa reads the paper, both of them together in the kitchen. Pa says they do have a blowup now and then, but it ends as it always did with Leo going up to his room. He seems to be studying something, Pa thinks, although maybe all of his books are for entertainment. He keeps them in a locked trunk, so I have no idea what they are. I feel so sorry for him, and I’m sure Pa does, too—when he’s not angry.