Tunes for Bears to Dance To

by Robert Cormier

  “Can you imagine,” his mother said, pausing to catch her breath, “what Father Lemieux would say if he saw a bat and ball on Eddie’s grave?”

  Later, as they made their way out of the cemetery, the stone path crunching beneath their feet, he touched her arm and pointed to a remote spot where the land sloped upward. The spot contained the children’s section, where the stones, from this distance, resembled tiny baby’s teeth. They had ventured there one day but had never returned to that forlorn spot. Stones in the forms of lambs and teddy bears and doves stood above the small graves. Small toys had been left near the stones—a red plastic truck, a blue ball, a small wooden horse.

  “If Father Lemieux allows lambs and teddy bears, maybe he won’t mind a bat and ball,” Henry said.

  “It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” his mother said. “If we want a ball and bat for Eddie, that’s what we’ll have.”

  Henry wanted to throw his arms around her but withheld himself, afraid she might thrust him away as she sometimes did when she was tired and irritable or probably lonesome for Eddie.

  In the hush of late afternoon, between surges of customers—they always come in bunches, like bananas, Mr. Hairston often complained —Henry approached the grocer where he stood at the window, commenting sourly as usual on the people passing by.

  “Do you know anything about monuments, Mr. Hairston?” Henry asked.

  “What kind of monuments?” the grocer asked absently, still looking out the window.

  “Monuments for a cemetery,” Henry said.

  Looking with narrowed eyes at Henry, the grocer said, “What’s all this about monuments? Or is it an excuse to stop working for a minute?”

  Warmth flooding his cheeks, Henry picked up the broom and began to sweep the floor, although he had already swept it.

  “Okay, okay,” Mr. Hairston said. “Put down that broom. Sweeping a clean floor is a waste of energy better spent elsewhere. And I remember now— your brother is dead and the monument is for him, am I right?” But no apology in his tone or manner.

  Nodding, Henry said, “My mother and me, we’re planning one for his grave. What I’d really like is to save up and buy one for him myself.” Impossible, of course, but nice to think about, to even say aloud.

  The grocer turned back to the window, as if no longer interested.

  “Where do you go to buy a monument?” Henry persisted.

  “You go to a place that sells them,” Mr. Hairston said, laughing that piglike laugh that was without mirth or amusement

  “Where do you find such a place?” Henry asked, refusing to be discouraged.

  Mr. Hairston sighed, his shoulders lifting and falling in resignation, and turned to the boy again. “You buy a monument like anything else. You shop around. There’s a place near Oak Lawn Cemetery that sells them. A man named Barstow owns it. Makes a good living at it, I guess. Must be a big markup—all you have is a stone with names and dates.”

  “Is his place far from here? Can I take a bus there?”

  Mr. Hairston squinted at him, his eyes bright suddenly with interest. “You’re really serious about this?”

  Henry nodded. “My brother deserves a monument. I think he’s the only one in the cemetery without one.”

  “What kind of monument are you thinking of?”

  Henry wondered: Should I tell him? Will he laugh? He hated to say anything to spoil Mr. Hairston’s sudden interest. But why not go the whole way?

  “Eddie was a great ballplayer. I was thinking of a ball and bat.”

  Mr. Hairston did not frown or scoff, did not make his strange squeal of a laugh, but continued to look at Henry with his deep dark eyes.

  “I know this Barstow. I’ll talk to him.”

  Henry felt his jaw drop open in disbelief, like in the funny pages. He blinked. Had he heard Mr. Hairston say what he thought he’d said? He dared not ask. Instead he murmured, “Thank you,” having to clear his throat to utter the words, and began to sweep the same spot.

  The next time Henry went to the craft center the old man was working on another tiny figure, wielding the delicate cutting tool painstakingly, his entire body bent in concentration.

  A tall stool had been placed beside the old man and he motioned for Henry to sit down, nodding and smiling, evidently pleased that Henry had returned. Henry again was in awe of the villge and the carved figures, so lifelike that he expected them to suddenly walk and talk.

  George Graham came and knelt beside them and the old man spoke to the giant in that odd Yiddish language.

  The giant listened intently, then said to Henry, “He wants to know if you would like to learn wood carving.”

  Henry had always been without talent. He was not good at sports like Eddie. He had taken piano lessons for three months from Sister Angela at St. Jude’s and failed miserably. In school his worst subject was art. He saw visions in his mind of what he wanted to draw but could not transfer those visions, or even a hint of them, to paper.

  “I don’t think I’d be very good at it,” he said.

  “Try it,” George Graham urged.

  Mr. Levine held up a small knife and handed it to him. Henry took it, holding it gingerly. Mr. Levine picked up an identical knife, then a small block of balsa wood, similar in size to the duck he had carved for Henry.

  For the next few minutes he guided Henry in the first tentative steps of carving, placing Henry’s hands in correct positions, guiding his movements, his touch light as a snowflake on Henry’s skin.

  Flakes of wood fell away. Henry became aware for the first time of the smells surrounding the bench, the clean smell of wood shavings and the sharp odors of shellac and dyes, a confusion of smells that made his nostrils itch. A shape began to form in the wood. Did he have talent, after all?

  Then a slip of the knife, a brief slicing downward, and Henry saw blood spurt from his finger before he felt the pain. Moving quickly, Mr. Levine drew a white cloth from somewhere and wrapped it around Henry’s finger. The pain was not severe, although blood seeped through the cloth, bright and vividly red.

  The old man moaned and sagged against Henry. The giant was instantly by their side.

  “He can’t stand the sight of blood anymore,” George Graham said. “Or to see anyone in pain.“

  Forgetting the pulse of pain in his finger, Henry looked inquiringly at the old man. His face was whiter than his moustache, his lips as if stained from eating blueberries. The giant murmured gently to him, as if soothing a frightened child.

  Later, Mr. Levine apologized through the giant. “He is sorry that he let you cut yourself and for collapsing like that.”

  As the old man continued working, his fingers trembling a bit, the giant said, “There is so much evil in the world, Henry. That’s why Mr. Levine faints at the sight of blood. That’s why he sits here day after day rebuilding his village, and the people in it, trying to bring them back….”

  “Did something bad happen to his village?”

  “The Nazis happened. They turned the village into a concentration camp. Burned down some of the buildings, made others into barracks to hold prisoners. Then they built chambers where people were exterminated. The villagers were either killed or sent away or put to work, Mr. Levine and his family were separated. His wife and two daughters were taken away to a camp called Auschwitz. He never saw them again. He and his son, who was twelve, were put to work in the village, building the chambers. His son died that first winter, without medicine to help him.”

  “How did Mr. Levine escape?” Henry asked, watching the old man slice a curl of wood away from the figure in his hand.

  “He didn’t escape. He survived. He was beaten and starved. But he’s a tough old man and not as old as he looks. The camp made him old, the deaths of his family. When the war ended, the Allies set the prisoners free, Mr. Levine among them. The world finally recognized what had been going on in all those camps. How millions had died …”

  Henry had learned from newspaper headlines and
newsreels at the movies about Hitler’s hatred of Jews, how he wanted to rid an entire race of people from the planet. He remembered pictures of bodies piled like logs of charred wood that were discovered at the end of the war. But those bodies had been far removed from his life. Now he shivered as he looked at Mr. Levine, and the war suddenly came alive for him, all these years later.

  “When the soldiers found Mr. Levine in the camp, he was only skin and bones. He was covered with sores. He could not hold food in his stomach.”

  “Why is he living in the crazy house?” Henry asked, lowering his voice, hoping Mr. Levine could not hear him ask such a question.

  “Not only his body suffered,” George Graham said, also speaking low. “His mind and his nerves were shattered. He still has terrible nightmares. The hospital here is helping him to adjust, to start a new life.”

  As they watched, the did man tippled his cap, to no one in particular. “Know why he does that?” the giant asked. “Another remnant of Nazi cruelty. The guards in the camps played cruel games. Made the prisoners do exercises, like push-ups, for hours at a time. Outdoors, in the wind and the rain. In heat or cold. Sometimes all night long. They also made the prisoners tip their hats at the sight of a guard. Made them repeat the gesture for hours on end. If they did not tip their hats or whatever they wore on their heads, they were knocked down, kicked, and beaten. Tipping the hat became reflex action. So now he tips his hat and doesn’t even know he does it.”

  Mr. Levine worked on, lost in his miniature world.

  “This is his real cure, better medicine than the hospital,” George Graham said. “He’s bringing his village, and the people who lived there, to life again. His wife and children. His friends and neighbors. Even the village bully everybody hated, the fat one with the red jacket. During the time Mr. Levine works here, he’s back in the village again. Sometimes, at the end of the day, he sits quietly, gazing at the village, touching the figures. I think at those moments he is at home again with those he loved, walking the streets, courting the girl who would become his wife. Once when I called to him that it was time to leave, he didn’t hear me. I sat in the shadows watching him. He sat there for two hours, and I knew he was home again, in another time and place….”

  Even now, as the giant talked, Mr. Levine put down his tool and the carved figure and, sighing, looked down at the village. Henry and the giant sat there, also silent and still, watching him. The three of them sat like that for a long time until someone called that it was time to close the center for the day.

  Jackie Antonelli stood at the corner of their street, near the Welcome Bar, hands in his pockets. Since Mr. Hairston’s refusal to hire him Jackie sent glowering looks Henry’s way whenever they met, as if he blamed Henry for not getting the job.

  “Still living next door to the crazy house?” Jackie called.

  Henry looked up to see the smirk on his face. It was a stupid question and Henry did not bother to answer, stepping around Jackie.

  “Know who belongs in the crazy house?” Jackie called, hunching his shoulders the way tough guys did in the movies.

  “Who?” Henry asked, although he was not interested.

  “Your father, that’s who!” Jackie said, voice flat and deadly. Then in singsong fashion: “Your father doesn’t work. Your father doesn’t leave the house. Your father should be in the crazy house.”

  Henry flew at him, reaching for Jackie’s throat, engulfed by a rage he had never known, a rage that brought blood to his eyes. Jackie fell back, a muffled scream coming from his mouth, and Henry fell with him, the jolt loosening his grip on the boy’s throat. Jackie’s arms flailed at the air, his legs kicked, his entire body thrashed and twisted, while Henry pummeled him.

  “Quit that, stop that,” came a rough voice from somewhere. Strong hands pulled the boys apart, sending Henry reeling away.

  Jackie scrambled to his feet, massaging his throat “What are you—a madman?” he yelled hoarsely.

  The man who had separated them was a veteran who still wore his khaki uniform, faded and patched up now. He hung around the Welcome Bar day and night. He had stormed the beaches of France on D day and people said he had never slept a wink since then, awake twenty-four hours a day.

  His eyes red and binary, breathing heavily as if he had run a long distance, the veteran muttered, “What’s the matter with you kids?” His voice filled with disgust. “Don’t we have enough fighting in the world?”

  “He attacked me,” Jackie whined, his voice still roughedged. “I didn’t do anything. We were standing there talking and he started to choke me.”

  “My father is not crazy” Henry said, pronouncing each word distinctly, needing to impress the truth on Jackie Antonelli and the veteran and people who had begun to gather. ”He’s sad but not crazy….”

  “Get out of here, the two of you,” the veteran said. “Vamoose.”

  At home Henry’s father sat at the kitchen table shuffling cards with one hand, the cards slipping and sliding in and out of the deck.

  “It’s hot out,” Henry said, raising his voiced bit, speaking as if his father was deaf. Sometimes he seemed to be deaf and did not respond when someone spoke to him.

  Slowly gathering the cards into a neat pile, his father looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry, Henry,” he said.

  Sorry for what? The heat? This tenement? His long silences? His father spoke so seldom that Henry gave weight to everything he said.

  “Don’t be sorry, Pa.”

  “You’re a good boy,” his father said. He seemed about to say more, wetting his lips with his tongue, then fell into silence again and resumed shuffling the cards.

  Henry waited a few moments, glad to have heard his father’s voice, then went outside to the piazza. His mother was late, which meant she was working overtime again. He looked down at the deserted suppertime street. He thought of Frenchtown and how Leo Cartier used to call his name after supper on nights like this: “Henry, are you coming out?” I will not let myself be lonesome, he vowed silently.

  His mother arrived, bringing anger into the tenement. Not only had the tips been bad today but some customers had stiffed her, which meant they had left without paying the check. Two young guys in sharp suits. The manager, Mr. Owens, had taken it out of her pay. “I like you, Aggie,” he had said. “But I’ve got to set an example. Otherwise someone will play an angle on me.” All this Henry heard her report to his father. His father did not reply.

  She banged pots and pans and dishes around in the kitchen. Then silence fell. Henry slipped down the front stairs. He could not at this moment bear to be in that sad tenement.

  “See the old man out there, tipping his hat to nobody,” Mr. Hairston said at the window. “Looks like an idiot.”

  The boy put down the feather duster and went to stand beside the store owner.

  “That’s Mr. Levine,” he said.

  Surprise on his face, Mr. Hairston asked, “And who’s Mr. Levine?” Brusquely. “I know he’s a Jew by his name, but who is he?” He scowled fiercely, as if angry at Henry for knowing a Jew.

  “He lives in the crazy house, but he’s not crazy,” Henry answered. “He was in a concentration camp during the war. His village was destroyed by the Nazis. His family was killed, his wife and children, all his relatives.”

  Mr. Hairston made no reply. Kept staring out the window. “Look, he’s tipping his hat again. I think he does belong in the crazy house.”

  “That’s reflex action,” he said, using George Graham’s words. “The guards made him tip his hat so much in the camp, and beat him up if he didn’t, that now he does it all the time.” Henry felt the explanation was inadequate. “He’s a nice old man.”

  “Watch out for Jews,” Mr. Hairston warned. “Even a nice old one.”

  Did Mr. Hairston hate everyone? Henry wondered.

  “He’s very talented,” Henry said.

  “Talented? What kind of talent does an old Jew from the crazy house have?”

>   “He’s rebuilding his village that was taken by the Nazis, carving the houses and barns and shops. Carving small pieces of wood to look like the people he grew up with. The village is beautiful.”

  “Well, I hope it keeps him out of mischief,” Mr. Hairston said. “You never can tell about these people.”

  Later, when Henry had finished dusting the cans on the shelves and polishing the fruit, Mr. Hairston summoned him to the window. He hoped that the grocer would discuss the monument, whether he had talked to Mr. Barstow yet.

  “Tell me more about the old man,” he said. “That village he’s making.”

  Heartened by the grocer’s interest, Henry repeated all that the giant had told him about the Nazis and what had happened to Mr. Levine’s family. Eagerly he described the did man’s painstaking work on the miniature buildings and figures.

  “Five or six hours for every figure?” Mr. Hairston asked, obviously impressed. “How many figures? How many buildings in the village?”

  “A lot,” Henry said, his mind racing to compute the number. “A whole village of people. Young kids and fathers and mothers and pépères and mémmères,” using the old French words for grandparents. “The buildings aren’t too hard to make, but the little figures take a lot of time. You should see him work at them, Mr. Hairston. He’s a great artist. The figures look exactly like the people he knew.”

  “Interesting,” Mr. Hairston said. And said no more, sending Henry away with a fling of his hand and remaining at the window, silent and thoughtful.

  Henry was uneasy as he resumed work, as if somehow he had betrayed the old man.

  After Henry had helped to unload the merchandise from the delivery truck, he lingered for a moment on the platform, letting the cool air bathe his face.

  He turned at a sound from the far end of the platform and saw Doris standing in the shadows of the staircase. She emerged slowly, walking delicately, as if her bones would come apart and clatter to the floor if she moved too quickly.