Before We Sleep

by Jeffrey Lent

  “I sat there a moment. Then I told him I wanted to try and fix it myself. That I believed I could. That all I wanted was what he still had—what he could tell me of what I should do. Now, he reared back in his chair and looked hard at me. I sat there under his gaze. I thought he was about to send me on my way. Then he was up out of his chair and told me he could tell me what to do just fine but I’d still lack the tools and goods to have it work for me. And he waved at me and I rose up and followed him about, into the next room as he boxed up things and then pointed at a pair of tool chests and said I’d need those, also. All the time telling me how to fix all the things he’d seen when he looked at my fiddle, some I had no idea about being broken or might be. But as we walked about and he loaded me down with all of this stuff, what he was telling me made a sudden sense in my mind. As if the things he was telling me that I didn’t know, I already knew. And the tools, it was the same—I knew once I got them home I’d understand them. I’ll make mistakes. I know that. But those mistakes will get me closer rather than farther away. Does that make a lick of sense, to you?”

  “I saw you carrying those tools. Back behind the barn.”

  “I saw you peering out.”

  “You can do anything you decide to do, is what I think.” Then she stood quickly and walked into the parlor and brought out the fiddle in its case and placed it before him. But she reached down and snapped open the clasps and let him see what she had.

  She said, “I’m sorry. I told him little as I could but I got this this morning from your father. I wanted to please you and I wasn’t sure how to do that. So this is what happened.”

  He’d already reached down and lifted up the fiddle and turned it, studying it. Then he smiled at her and set it back in the case. He said, “Some days are good days. Did Dad tell you this was my grandmere’s fiddle? It was. And Arthur Descoteaux built it.”

  He closed the case and went around the table and leaned and kissed her again. He said, “One day I’ll play it. That will be a happy day. But, meanwhile, I have a fiddle to repair.”

  She said, “I never got the chicken in the oven.”

  He glanced at the clock above the calendar on the wall, back to her. “Well, it’s late isn’t it? Maybe we should go down to the Dot and eat a hamburger and milkshake? A piece of pie?”

  “I could do that.” Then she said, “I love you, Oliver Snow.”

  His eyes cast about and landed away from her. He said, “I love you too, Ruthie.”

  Four months later, early April, the snow rotting, mostly gone, he drove north again on a fine day, the sky fleet with clouds, flocks of robins swarming here and then gone again, roadside ditches sudden snowmelt brooks, crows winging over fields of old grass still pressed flat with the weight of snow, here and there in south-facing spots up against foundations yellow and white crocuses bloomed. A day both warm and chill as the clouds fought the quickening sun, heat on in the truck to keep the fiddles—he carried both with him—as even-tempered as possible but also the scent of the earth flooding in after long months where the best scent hoped for was a crushed balsam branch, the peeling bark, small rotted spots on firewood, otherwise scent and smell was of humans and their doings; sweat, pies or bread baking in the oven, Ruth fresh from a hot bath, the shampoo she used, the lather he built with his brush and mug to shave each morning. Also the fine sawdust he planed or sanded in his little shop with the old potbellied stove sparking warmth, stovepiped through the shed roof, rosins and pitch and glue, lacquer, waxes. Those scents also.

  He went alone but was not breaking a promise so much as she was busy with early rehearsals for the annual spring theatrical performance, and he was ready to go. He offered to wait until the weekend but she’d looked at him and told him to go along—he was ready and she was not.

  Much like the first time, she was home from school long before he drove in, although it was still light out. This time she didn’t realize he was home until the door opened and closed behind him. She looked up from her desk, him standing just inside the door, his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up, his face flushed as if he’d spent the day outside in the sun and wind. But his hands were empty and there was a peculiar glaze, almost a puzzlement to his eyes.

  She knew he’d worked and worked on the small fiddle. More than once undone what he’d spent weeks on, only to try again. And knew that when he’d set out this day, it was only because he’d been certain he’d gotten every last bit right, finally. That he was more than happy, that he was satisfied with his work. And there he stood, empty-handed, a confusion swarming his face.

  She stood as she also said, “Oliver? Are you all right?” Moving toward him. Thinking he’d failed in some essential way, worried that this was true. “What happened?”

  He blinked and looked at her, a focus pulling tight. “I’m fine, I guess.” Then he said, “Ruthie, it was the damnedest thing. I handed that little fiddle over to him and he peered and sniffed like he did before and then took up a bow and played a jig like sweet fire out of nothing I ever heard before. Then I got out the other fiddle and we played for a long time. There wasn’t any talking except we were talking back and forth through the fiddles. It was … there’s no words, is what it was. It was a grand thing.”

  She paused herself and then said, “I don’t understand. You did a good job, right?”

  “Seems so.”

  “So where’s your fiddle?” She corrected herself. “Fiddles?”

  He nodded and said, “That’s it. They’re out in the truck. Along with four others he gave me. Four fiddles beat-up or broken or somehow not right that people have dropped off with him the last few years. Hoping he would fix them.”

  “He gave them to you?”

  “He can’t do it anymore,” Oliver said. Then he said, “He thinks I can.”

  She nodded slow and advanced a step and said, “And you? What do you think about that?”

  He said, “I wouldn’t have them in the truck if I didn’t think I stood a decent chance.”

  “Good,” she said, as she stepped again toward him and suddenly, swiftly, he came to her, their arms entwining.

  That summer Ruth, without consulting Oliver, agreed that the two of them would meet Pete and Noelle Sutton for dinner. When she explained to Oliver she said, “She’s an old friend I haven’t seen forever and I just couldn’t say no. Pete’s a claims adjuster for Farmers & Merchants in Barre, she says he’s grand at it and is moving on up, soon, in the company. I get the sense she’s lonely up there. What’s the harm, Oliver?”

  He’d paused and then said, “None, I guess.”

  She drove; Oliver happy in the passenger seat, smoking, the windows down, the summer early evening unrolling beyond the car. The farmers were making hay and the scent of it passed through as they journeyed through the end of a long day of labor for those people, then up through the Williamstown Gulf with its narrow wedge of sky and pressing sides, the road winding hard and tight, big balsams and tamaracks either side of the road, beaver bogs and swamps wherever the land would open up. The air sweet with tannin, open water studded with blooming lily pads, the coming twilight seeming to rise from this place, the booming calls of bullfrogs, a ripple upon still water of a rising trout. Then up on the high land along the ridgetop with the Green Mountains to the west, the far distant peaks of the Whites to the east. Again in full flooded sunlight. Again, open land about them and the smell of new-mown hay. The Andrews Sisters’ “Toolie Oolie Doolie” coming through the radio. A silly song but it fit her mood. And Oliver, who didn’t care for the song, happy also, one finger tapping time along the edge of the door while he smoked.

  They threaded through the east side of Barre and north again a mile or so until the Canadian Club appeared, a long and wide low-slung building in the middle of a large parking area; this Friday night, early as it was, filled with cars. He cupped her elbow as they made their way to the door, her new heels leaving her slightly off-balance in the gravel. Pete and Noelle were already there, ha
d a table and Noelle had a glass of beer, Pete one of ginger ale but soon enough they learned he also had a bottle of rye in a paper sack not so artfully disguised in his jacket pocket. Noelle rose and hugged Ruth, and Oliver stood beside the table and shook Pete’s hand, then all sat again. Ruth glanced at Oliver and he nodded and then asked the waitress for a bottle of Ballantine’s and two glasses. They sipped the beer and ordered iceberg salads and then steaks and baked potatoes. Pete queried Oliver about his insurance coverage and when Oliver allowed that he thought he was all right, Pete assured him he was probably wrong. He said, “We seen the worst it can get, buddy. Now, no man wants to end up like that and none of us will but you got to be thinking ahead. You got your car insurance a course but what about fire? What about your house? There’s a world of problems a man can have with a house. Or, say, you’re up on a ladder painting that house and you fall off and ruin yourself for work—that’s your disability—it’s not only you, you know, but this pretty lady. And your kids. You two got kids yet? Noelle?—” He turned to his wife who shook her head. He said, “We’re waiting a bit, also. Not for lack of trying. My dad told me, half the fun of kids is in the trying, in’t that so? But seriously, buddy, you got to think about exigencies—what goes wrong you don’t expect, can’t foresee. That’s what insurance is all about—those old-timers, they thought it was a waste, a scam but these are modern times and no man knows how things will work out, in’t that the truth? Now, damn, that looks like a steak. A steak and a half, I’d say. Thank you darlin.” He addressed the woman serving their food. “You got any horseradish?” Then he looked back at Oliver and said, “I’m not gonna bother you about insurance any more tonight—since that’s what you think I’m doing. But do yourself a favor and tuck the idear away. And anytime you want. Give me a call or come by the office. Now, then, bless the taters, bless the meat, bless the Lord, let’s eat.”

  The paper bag rolled down, scrunched around the neck of the bottle he reached it toward his glass and dribbled rye on the table as he filled his glass. Took a neat hard swallow and sawed a chunk of steak and chewed it. The waitress brought a paper cup of creamed horseradish and he sawed another chunk and dipped it, and chewed. While he was doing this Oliver reached out and snagged the cup and tipped a bit of the horseradish onto his plate, had the paper cup back before Pete knew it was gone.

  Throughout this Noelle was talking to Ruth and Ruth was doing her best to be in two conversations at the same time—not so hard for an English teacher but not what she’d expected from this night out.

  And then Pete began to talk about the war.

  This night, at least, it seemed his war had been a war of women. The English girls were an odd lot, some okey-doke, the others aloof. But the French girls had been so welcoming, so grateful. So delightful and happy to welcome their liberators. He’d looked at Oliver and said, “You know what I mean, buddy? How they was.”

  Only then did he realize no one else was speaking. That their table was shrouded in silence. He looked down upon his ruined plate, then reached a wavering hand and refilled his glass and drank off half of it and smacked it down. He said, to the still-silent table, “How bout dessert? I hear they make a wicked bread pudding.”

  Oliver spoke, a throaty rasp. “I saw plenty of people do horrible things. Some to survive. Some because they could.” Then he looked around, as if surprised to find himself standing. He said, “I never cared for bread pudding.”

  Ruth drove. Partway home Oliver spoke. The windows were down, the night warm. Still the passing trails of curing hay. There remained an improbable smear of light in the western sky. He lit a cigarette and, wordless, passed it to her and she took it, thankful. He lit another and dragged deep and watched the smoke skim out into the deep dusk. Then he said, “Please? Don’t ask me to do that again.”

  She nodded, a gesture she thought might be invisible to him. So she said, “I won’t.”

  She drove on, silent. A round of questions circled her mind. He smoked and watched the falling dark beyond his open window, his face turned from her. The questions rattled her mind and she drove as they sifted down and finally she settled on one. Very simple but seemed most essential this night. She said, “I thought you liked bread pudding.”

  He said, “You know I do.”

  She’d heard stories. Mostly from other women. But a couple so terrible they were featured in the newspaper, over the radio: a man in Island Pond had run a garden hose from the exhaust pipe of his car in through a window one night and was found in the morning by his two-year-old son. A farmer in northern New York, while milking one afternoon had upended a handcart with three cans of milk and after an argument or altercation with his father in the barn had bludgeoned the older man with a peavey handle, then walked to the house where he drove the point of the tool through his mother’s breastbone before walking back to the barn loft and hanging himself with a length of hemp rope. The story told by tracks in the mud of a rainstorm already passed.

  But there were those closer to home, these whispered mouth to ear, spoken of in hushed tones while preparing church suppers, chance meetings in the village; less gruesome, less newsworthy, little known and thus mostly hidden. But cumulative and frightening. Butch Harrington woke from nightmares up out of the bed, swinging wildly against attackers unseen, and had broken furniture, pictures, windows to the point where his knuckles were bleeding, as if awake, he was still snared by the nightmare, and his wife Evelyn had taken to sleeping on the parlor daybed; Orville Maxham worked his farm up on West Hill dawn to dusk and sober as a post and each night after dinner strapped his three children for misdeeds he’d counted throughout the day; Jared Moore was at work each morning at the gas station in Tunbridge where he could fix any problem that drove or rolled in with a smile and a toss of his head but after work picked up two six-packs of Black Label beer and sat in his car on the North Common, smoking and listening to the radio until just before the Double Dot closed at nine, when he’d roll in and sit at the counter, eating a cheeseburger and a piece of pie before lurching out and driving the three blocks to his parents’ house where he’d walk in and brush awkwardly past either that tried to speak to him, crash his way up the stairs and collapse on his bed, fully dressed; Burt Rogers who played ball with the Royalton team, single and handsome in a chiseled Clark Gable way but was observed and then was regularly noted for the interest he showed between innings to the prettiest of the ten- or twelve-year-old girls.

  They went along and Ruth concluded things weren’t so bad—not what she’d expected but Oliver was kind, tender and absorbed in what he was doing. And he kept steady with his night work for his father. He was also distracted and, times, distant, but she recalled her own father and it came to her one evening that this was partly the way of men, at least of some men. And perhaps not a bad thing—she herself had periods of time when she wanted quiet, wanted to lose herself in a book or her work or even simple dull and necessary routine. As that year rolled over into the next she felt her mother-in-law’s frustration with this seeming stasis that had overtaken her son but it was Ed who showed up one morning the spring of 1949 to talk to her about it. In his usual way, his arrival predicted nothing of import—a Tuesday morning of Spring Vacation, Oliver in his shop and Ed arriving to deliver an Easter leg of lamb he’d taken in trade against paying off a debt from a family up on Kibble Hill: winter foodstuffs and Christmas gifts for the young ones.

  He sat at the table and took the cup of coffee she offered, thick with cream and sugar the way he liked, then said of the lamb: “I got eight of the Jeasly things—a bumper year for them and thankful for it. But it’s not all will eat lamb—I passed em out as Easter gifts to those about the store would take them. I know you like it—and Mother’ll bake a ham so I guess there’ll be leftovers aplenty. Figured you’d do best with the lamb.”

  “I appreciate it, Ed. What we don’t eat I’ll send home with my mother, when we’re all said and done come Sunday.”

  “How is she?”

/>   “Feisty and fine. Feisty when I ask and Fine is what she says.”

  He laughed. Then said, “Is that how you see it?”

  “Best I can tell.”

  “You see otherwise, anything I can do, you let me know.”

  “You know I would. But thanks for saying it.”

  They sat quiet a bit and Ed drank the rest of his coffee and Ruth knew he was after something more and waited. Finally, with nothing else to do, he set his cup down and stood and sucked his teeth through closed lips, then spoke.

  “Mother—Jennie that is—is worried about Oliver. Thinks he won’t come round and do his part at the store—all this fiddle-making and hiding out from people. I just want you to know I see it another way. First, those fiddles, they’re in the blood. I’m happy as can be he’s set himself upon that. Somehow it never took between him and me and I gave myself to the business and don’t have regrets, there, you understand? But don’t think I don’t hear what people say. He’s good. And that’s a grand thing. Second, now, look at me: I’m a young man, see? I know you don’t think so but I am—”

  “I know you’re young.”

  “No. How old are you? Twenty-four?”

  “I’m twenty-three, Ed.”

  “Yup. And I’ve not forgot how it is. I’m forty-seven and to a young woman like you I look old. But I’m not. God willing, I got another thirty, maybe more, years to me. I do. So me, I’m patient. If it takes Oliver ten, fifteen years to find himself back at the store the way I run it—well, that’s good. I’m not going nowhere. You understand?”