Neighbors

by Thomas Berger

  "I shudder to think of how those two would treat this place," said Enid.

  "Now, isn't that funny? Yet you would rent a room from them."

  "Yes," said Enid, "but in that case I would be a tenant."

  "Uh-huh," said Keese. No doubt the distinction was more significant to her than to him. "In any case I never mentioned the idea to Harry," he said. "He probably would not have been interested. He claims that he likes it better here since his house burned down, but he was probably just being polite."

  "Then you intend to stay?" Enid finished her bouillon with every suggestion of satisfaction.

  "I don't have a choice," said he. "I don't mind admitting to you that I'm too incompetent to live alone."

  "I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not," Enid observed.

  "You should," said Keese. He was not equipped to be more effusive. Indeed, even this much embarrassed him thoroughly. He got up from the table, opened the curtains of the window that looked onto Harry's property, and saw that of the house next door only half the ground floor remained, and that was blazing lustily.

  "If we're going to stay," he said, "I guess I should try to patch things up with the Abernathys and the other people I insulted last night. I'll have to eat some crow, damn!"

  "Are they worth it?"

  "Probably not, but the way I see it if we stay we'll have no alternative but to go back to the old ways. My new concept was predicated on moving to the city. New friends, new pursuits and amusements. Speaking for myself, I might be able to walk to work. It would be a completely different way of life."

  "Earl, I can see that you were really counting on this move," Enid said sympathetically. "Gosh, why deny yourself?"

  "You mean, you'll come?"

  "No, unfortunately, I can't. I'm too old."

  "You're four years younger than I!"

  "That was just a figure of speech," said Enid. "I don't like crowds."

  "All right," said Keese, "then why discuss the matter? Can't you see you're being false? We'll stay and continue as before. There'll be some difference, of course: no more Walker place, the neighborhood landmark. Only a blackened ruin will be there now." He opened the curtains and looked out again. "I doubt that Harry will rebuild. He claims he likes it here better than he did, but even if he was being serious, will he spend that kind of money? Can he? The costs of new construction are prohibitive."

  "What kind of work does he do?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea!" cried Keese.

  "I think he's a pimp," said Enid.

  This was so unexpected that Keese burst into a guffaw of embarrassment. His own car, after all, had been painted with that term. Could Greavy have mistaken it for Harry's automobile, or was it merely one of those fortuitous strokes with which life abounds?

  "Elaine insists he's a cop, on the other hand," Keese said. "But what interests me most is how you've turned against the man."

  "I told you all along that I was playing for time, and wasn't I right?" Enid went to the stove and lighted the gas under the kettle. "Wasn't that bouillon delicious! Do you want another cup?"

  "What do you mean, weren't you right?"

  "Well, hasn't he lost all his worldly goods by now?"

  "Shouldn't that make you more sympathetic to the poor devil?"

  "If fate has turned against him," Enid said, "I'm somewhat apprehensive of being his friend."

  "How ruthless!" Keese said. "You really shock me, Enid."

  "Would you habitually walk across an open field during rainstorms with a person who had often been struck by lightning? Isn't common sense to be considered?"

  "But unless you're a religious fanatic of some sort, it doesn't mean that he's evil."

  "What's morality have to do with it?" Enid asked. "I'm speaking of self-preservation." The kettle was already spewing steam. She turned it off and fetched the the vial of bouillon cubes. "Do you want another cup?"

  "No thanks," said Keese, "tasty as it is." He wished to keep on her good side, cowed as he was by her apparent heartlessness.

  Someone knocked on the kitchen door. Keese saw the fire chief through the glass. He opened up.

  "We're pulling out," said the chief. "It'll burn for a time yet, but the emergency's past. Your home is out of danger."

  "Safe for you to go?"

  "We've got another call," said the chief. "Could leave one man here to keep an eye on it, if you'd feel better. Could leave Perry Greavy."

  Keese asked himself: Is there no one else in town? But to Doc, the chief, he said: "We'll keep an eye on it ourselves."

  "Reason to leave Perry," said Doc, "is he feels responsible."

  "Oh, he does, does he?"

  "He came to move Harry, you see, and he saw him smoking near an open can of paint remover, throwing matches down."

  "Harry doesn't smoke," said Keese to Doc, who stood there in his white helmet and black boots, one step down.

  "He was puffing on a pipe."

  "That's what Perry says, does he?"

  "I don't know about that," said Doc, "but that's what Harry was smoking when he came into the pharmacy this morning."

  "He was in your drugstore?"

  "He bought a can of tobacco," said Doc. "Well, we've got to get to this call over on Sprague." He turned and slopped away in his large boots.

  Keese closed the door and brooded awhile. "Gosh," he finally said to Enid. "I hate to say this, but my old feeling about Harry might be coming back."

  Enid gasped. "Not that! Please don't start that fighting again and locking people up!"

  "You're right about that," he said. "I don't intend to lose control. But could you hear what the chief said?"

  "Was that Doc, from the drugstore?"

  "Yes, he's the fire chief. He doesn't want to be called Doc in this role."

  "I heard him," said Enid.

  "Could it be that Harry decided, since he was leaving the house, to burn it for the insurance? Does that make sense?"

  "I wonder," said Enid.

  Keese slapped himself on the leg. "This is lousy! The guy is doing me a favor at this very moment! Anyway, it's his business, isn't it? And no one got hurt. I hate to have suspicious feelings towards somebody; they prey on my mind and have a corrosive effect." No sooner had he finished this statement than a wild peal of laughter came from upstairs. "Was that Elaine or Ramona?" he asked. "I can never tell unless they say more."

  "Search me," said Enid, but she frowned. "Do you like the sound of that? He burns his house to the ground and then comes over here and makes girls laugh?"

  "Funny," said Keese, "but I find it reassuring. I doubt that an arsonist would be so carefree. But no one got hurt. I keep coming back to that. If Harry did it, then at least he is not the callous kind of fellow who would burn up other people for his own gain. It's important to remember that, because he's under our roof at the moment."

  "Have I got it straight now?" Enid asked, moving her empty cup as if it were the counter in a game. "Even if Harry burned down his house, he's still O.K. with you, and you like him?"

  "The only thing that hurts is that he accused me of setting the fire. That's pretty dishonest if he did the thing himself, and in any case it leaves something to be desired as a friend and neighbor, that he'd suspect me first of all."

  Enid leaned forward and asked earnestly: "But you did do it, didn't you, Earl?"

  Keese slammed his hands down and pushed himself erect. "This whole line of conversation was a trick of yours, wasn't it?" He left the kitchen and went to see how his friend was handling the situation upstairs.

  On his way to the front hallway he heard the laughter again and the sound of running feet.

  "What's going on up there?" he cried jovially, not expecting to be heard or, in any event, answered. But as he came up the stairs he saw Ramona.

  "Playing hide-and-go-seek," she said. "If you want in, you're It."

  "I haven't played this in forty years," said Keese. "Think of it." On an impulse of foolish
ness he agreed. "Now go and hide."

  "You must turn away and put your hands in front of your eyes," said Ramona.

  Keese went to face the wall. He shut his eyes and put his hands over them. "One—two—three—" At ten he halted: was that enough? He couldn't remember.

  He had heard no sound whatever from Ramona, not footsteps nor noise of door. In fact he expected to open his eyes and find her waiting there to leap at Home—there were always children who had done that: it had never seemed right to him.

  He opened his eyes and whirled. The hall was empty, and the two visible doors were open. The bedroom-bathroom complex was an especially tricky arrangement, which made this one a player's game and put It under a decided handicap. If you penetrated too much of the bedroom, the bathroom exit would be unguarded, and vice versa. The nimble hider could always keep a partition between himself and the seeker—but only if he could tell where the other was from the sound. Keese went up onto tiptoe. He remembered with pride that he had been reasonably cunning at this as a child. And though he was now larger by a hundred fifty pounds, he had that not unusual attribute of the fat man in lightness of foot. The master bedroom was the closer enclosure: by taking his post just inside its door he could guard the entire field of play.

  He entered the bedroom and searched it insofar as he could without getting too far from the door. Silently he slipped into the hall and over to the bedroom threshold. But the unseen prey had apparently anticipated his move and crossed into the bedroom through the inner door. Quickly, then!

  He dashed at the banister. But no one raced him for it.

  It occurred to him that his assessment of the situation had been utterly in error: no one had been hiding in either bedroom or bath. He headed up the hallway, towards Elaine's room—and behind him he heard the triumphant shrieks of the players who came from nowhere to get Home Free.

  He could hardly believe the disappointment, even the bitterness, he felt. But he certainly did his best to conceal it. "Well," said he, returning, "you gave me the works, didn't you? Of course it's been years since I played this."

  Slightly flushed and grinning, Harry said: "You'll do better next time." He wasn't rubbing it in: he really was staying a friend. He was, incidentally, still wearing his torn clothes from the fire, nor had he so much as wiped the soot from his face. But the costume did give him, for all his size, a kind of street-urchin air that was appropriate to the game.

  But Elaine made an ugly face. "Are you kidding? He'll never get me!"

  "We'll see, Elaine, we'll see," Keese said. Suddenly he realized that Ramona wasn't there. If he could beat her he would not remain It. "Shh!" he cautioned the others, with a finger to his lips. He peeped into the bedroom again, and next the bath, but these were perfunctory gestures: obviously, if she had been with Elaine and Harry she would already have run Home with them. He went up the hall again, and no sooner had he passed the bathroom than Ramona ran from it and joined the little group at the head of the banister. Elaine cheered her raucously. But Harry was almost apologetic.

  "It's your first time in a while, Earl," he said. "Takes some getting onto."

  "What hurts is I thought I looked carefully into those rooms!" Keese said, trying to show good humor. He remembered why Harry was here, and he realized that his friend had been successful in getting the girls to open the bedroom door and engage in this harmless game. All was going well, then; it was not necessary that he win at hide-and-go-seek. Yet—

  "Who's on for another round?" he cried. "I don't want to quit while I'm the goat!"

  This time he was more thorough in searching the bedroom, and Elaine and Harry escaped via the bathroom and scored. Then Keese penetrated the bath, and Ramona leaped from the bedroom to get Home Free.

  "By God," said Keese, who was scant of breath now, "skunked again!" He grinned savagely at the runner rug: he had suddenly got a vengeful idea. "Have you got guts for another?" he shouted.

  "You're the one who needs that," said Elaine. "We're winning."

  But again Harry was mollifying. "Hell, Earl, it's just a game. Nobody's scoring permanently off anybody."

  And even Ramona said: "Now don't get too desperate, Earl. If you want, I'll take over as It. I don't mind." The game seemed to have sweetened her.

  "Oh, no," said Keese, "not until I beat at least one of you." He went against the wall, covered his eyes, and counted. He heard suppressed giggles and gasps, muffled footsteps, and what suggested a silent tussle. Having reached ten, he opened his eyes, stepped over to the bedroom threshold, reached behind the door, and removed the key. He then closed the door and locked it from the outside. His vengeful glee could not be denied. He chuckled audibly as he entered the bathroom. He searched this enclosure thoroughly, though there was nowhere, apart from the shower curtain, where anybody could hide.

  "I've got you now!" he gloated as he entered the bedroom by the inner door. But no one was flushed from hiding. Indeed, as a subsequent search established, no one had hidden in that room.

  He took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door from inside. He expected to see the three of them in a cluster at the top of the banister, awaiting his display of chagrin, but the hallway was empty. He felt he had been granted a magical reprieve. His trick, which had been both unfair and unsuccessful, the maximum in failure, would at least remain unknown. He went down the hall in a stride that could be called jaunty. He was in a commanding position: they were in a cul-de-sac now, and he was between them and Home.

  He found Ramona immediately, merely by opening the door of Elaine's bedroom. She sat at the dressing table, face very near the mirror, applying a bluish tint over her eyes with a tiny paddle.

  "Have you forgotten the game?" asked Keese, posing himself for the dash to the banister-end.

  "No," said Ramona. "You've beat me, so you're off the hook. You're no longer It." She smiled flutteringly at him in the mirror.

  "Come on," he said, "that's no game. I don't want to win without competing. It's not that much different from losing."

  "The old game is over, Earl," said Ramona. "We'll have to start a new one. That is, of course, if you insist on playing a game of some kind."

  Keese sat down on the bed behind her. "No, of course I don't. I was just going along with it to be one of the crowd. I don't need games. In fact, I haven't played any since I was a child."

  "Then we'll just be quiet together," said she, turning on the stool to face him. "Did you ever do that with anybody? It's very nice."

  Ramona was revealing unsuspected depths, but he suddenly thought about the other players. "I'd like to try that," he said. "But hadn't I better tell Harry and Elaine? They're still hiding somewhere."

  "Don't worry about them," Ramona said breezily.

  "Have they quit?"

  "They're gone."

  "Gone?"

  "We won't see them again," said Ramona. "They have left in your car. Elaine had a key. Harry made a trade."

  "Trade?"

  "Yes," said Ramona. "For me."

  CHAPTER 14

  KEESE asked: "This isn't another game of some kind?"

  "Not really," said Ramona.

  He sighed deeply. "When I think of how I'd have felt if this had happened yesterday! But the strange thing now is, well, I should be ashamed to say it, I suppose, but I am actually relieved."

  Ramona looked at him with what might have been identified as affection. "I think we all, in our hearts, felt that you would react that way, Earl."

  "You did?" In embarrassment Keese coughed into his hand.

  "Everybody wishes you well." Ramona leaned across from her stool as if she might touch him, but it seemed that she couldn't decide where, and she withdrew.

  "Not the Greavys!"

  "They are not among my circle of acquaintances out here," said Ramona. "But then, I don't know anybody here except you and your family."

  "I feel much the same way," said Keese, "even though I've lived in these parts since time out of memory. But I assumed from
what they said that you were thick as thieves with the Abernathys."

  "Harry maybe. He's the popular one."

  "But since he just moved here, how'd he know them?"

  "Harry will meet a lot of people if he stops for gas or buys a loaf of bread. He has friends everywhere. He'll stop some stranger to ask directions and they'll give him a valuable present."

  "Hmm," said Keese, "I guess I didn't measure up in that respect—even if you are exaggerating."

  "Listen, you should see the watches and rings and cameras—" She lost her grin. "I guess they're all burned up now."