One

by David Karp

  “I know, I know,” Cumbers assured him.

  After awhile a waitress came and took their order and they would have been put out by the number of times she said she did not have this dish or that had they both not been in such good spirits. They both settled for plates of beef stew which, when it arrived, showed all the earmarks of having been made from leftovers reheated and covered with a thin gravy. The carrots were undercooked and spongy-hard and the peas and potatoes were out of cans, but neither Cumbers nor Hughes minded very much. The rice pudding proved a pleasant surprise—light, fluffy, and not too sweet, and the coffee was good.

  Hughes sighed as he sipped his coffee. “Miraculous,” he said with a small wave of his arm.

  “Not the food, you can’t mean the food,” Cumbers said.

  “The food, the restaurant, the people, the air, the sunlight, the world—all miraculous.”

  Cumbers shook his head admiringly. “To feel that way is almost compensation for the time you spent in the hospital.”

  “Yes, you understand that, do you?” Hughes asked in surprise.

  “Well, yes, I suppose I do. It’s like being reborn, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” Hughes nodded his head soberly, “that’s exactly what it is like, being reborn. Everything takes on a new color, a new feeling—as if my eyes were seeing for the first time, my ears hearing for the first time, my tongue tasting, my skin feeling. Just as if I had been born all over again. I enter the world as innocent as a child—as wondering, as delighted—”

  “Well, from the amount of crying babies do I don’t suppose there’s much delight in it for them.”

  Hughes laughed appreciatively. Cumbers smiled, his cheeks coloring with pleasure. “Now, that was a feeble enough thing to make you laugh,” Cumbers said.

  “I am in the mood to laugh. I suppose if someone, anyone, were to walk up to me and begin to count to ten I would laugh.”

  “Well, now’s the chance for me to get off all the weak jokes I know,” Cumbers laughed, and Hughes joined him.

  The two men were still laughing softly when they got on the train for the short ride to New Buxton where Cumbers worked and lived and where Hughes would now do the same.

  To Hughes, leaning against the window and watching the approach of the town, it seemed both shimmering and miraculous. When he stepped off the train he was at once struck by the smartness, the alertness, the neatness of the train terminal. There was none of the usual confusion that one associates with train terminals. The floors were well clear of litter and the usual dirt. Metal was polished, windows cleaned, uniforms pressed, and shoes brushed. The haircuts on all the clerks, porters, conductors, and station officials were short and fresh.

  The queues waiting for the buses outside of the station stood in straight lines waiting their turn, and buses arrived with a clockwork regularity, filling quickly, closing their doors, and surging off with blue exhausts.

  “It’s marvelously efficient,” Hughes whispered to Cumbers as they stood on the fine in front of a painted sign that read “Rizal Square.”

  “What is?” Cumbers asked.

  “The buses—the way they arrive and fill up and leave,” Hughes said. Cumbers shrugged his shoulders, evidently seeing nothing unusual in this.

  When they finally boarded the bus and found seats, Hughes found it quite comfortable and he had selfishly taken the seat nearest the window so he could look out at the town. The first thing that surprised him was the speed with which the bus drove out of the terminal and then he was struck with the extraordinary width of the avenues and even the cross streets they passed. They were fully a hundred or more feet wide from curb to curb and the bus tore along at a very fast pace, roaring as its motor raced. Houses were neat and low, with well-barbered hedges and standing in astonishingly straight rows and files. The regularity of the streets both pleased and surprised Hughes, who mentioned it to Cumbers.

  “Oh, I think I once heard something about the original design of the streets being planned for the passage of hundred-ton tanks. In the old days they were great believers in heavy firepower and great mobility.”

  “Well, whatever the reason, it gives a wonderful sense of spaciousness to the city,” Hughes said.

  “Maybe it does, but it takes a devil of a long time to cross the street. Of course, they’ve painted those safety islands in the middle of them but you can’t get across the street while the light is in your favor unless you’re young and willing to sprint for it.”

  Hughes smiled. “Well, evidently it was a city built for young people.”

  “Yes,” Cumbers said with a suddenly saddened look. “I suppose that’s it.”

  Hughes, who had turned back to the window, did not see his friend’s unexpectedly sad look and was again devouring the shapes of the buildings, the way the winter light made them look clean and neat and solid.

  They dismounted from the bus before its final stop and walked a long block filled with identical homes. Here and there a house stood out with some small detail, false shutters destined to remain open, some scrollwork around the entrance to a door, a cluster of evergreen bushes planted to flank the walk to an entrance. The numbers differed, and occasionally the condition of the paint or the age of the brick told one house from the other, but substantially the homes were identical. Hughes did not find the fact in the least disconcerting but rather felt that it lent a sort of unity that made for a sense of peace.

  Cumbers’ boardinghouse, like the houses that flanked it, was just three stories high. The door entrance was marked by two small iron dogs, cocker spaniels, to judge by the droopiness of their ears and their size. They had once been painted green, for it showed up under the coat of black where the top layer was chipped. Hughes thought it was rather pathetic to see the two dogs frozen in iron. Just what made it pathetic he could not tell. The glass in the door was clean but the coarse lace curtain that masked the hall from passers-by was faded and dingy.

  The hall itself was neat if a little dark and Hughes could see where the rug had a worn spot, shining with a thin yellow pallor against the dark hall. There was an ancient umbrella rack with black painted iron hooks. Under the rack was a chipped, dirty dish to catch the drain from dripping umbrellas. The water had long since evaporated, leaving a gritty deposit in the dish. For Hughes this smacked of a homely touch and he thought no less of Mrs. Doughton as a housekeeper for its condition.

  The entry was uncomfortably warm with that peculiar sort of gassy heat that arose from the burning of synthetic fuel. Over the smell of the heat Hughes could detect the more delicate odors of lemon-oil polish and tobacco.

  “My room’s on the second floor. You’re right above me on the third,” Cumbers said, leading the way up the stairs. The staircase was narrow and dark and the banister had an oily feel that Hughes preferred to believe came from the polish that was used on it.

  His room was near the end of the hall. By the time he got there Cumbers had already opened the door and entered.

  “Well, this is your place,” Cumbers said, extending his arm as Hughes walked in. He took off his coat and looked about for a place to hang it. Cumbers, who was evidently familiar with the room, sprang to one side and opened a door to a closet. The closet looked deep and wide and dark and Hughes could see a row of dirty wooden hangers arranged on the bar for him. He selected one and hung up his coat, looking over the rest of the room as he did.

  It was not a small room, but it appeared so because of the low ceiling. Actually it was a square of fifteen feet. There were two windows in the room and they let in a flat, north light. The bed, an old sunken oblong with a pneumatic mattress, was a model once considered avant-garde, with its amputated feet and irregular footboard. Evidently it had been obtained secondhand since the finish did not match the somber walnut of the dresser, the dresser mirror frame, or the oak finish of the two spindly-legged night tables. A foot locker, painted to simulate grained oak, stood at the foot of the bed and smacked of a good buy from the Army quarterma
ster. A small desk with a chair and a reading lamp with an old pneumatic lounge chair completed the furnishings of the room. All of it stood on a rug that looked pathetically ancient and subdued from thousands of beatings and scrubbings.

  “It’s quite nice,” Hughes finally said.

  “It’s all you need,” Cumbers agreed. “It has its drawbacks, of course. You’ve noticed the low ceiling. Well, that’s true of all the apartments on the top floor. There’s a regular maze of ventilating pipes and heat ducts up there and of course the storage rooms, too. So they had to reduce the height of the room. I’m afraid you won’t ever get direct sunlight in these windows—it’s a northern exposure which would be fine if you were a painter. And it always gets damned cold up here—near the roof and facing north this way—so Mrs. Doughton’s going to give you two extra blankets.” When Hughes made a deprecatory gesture, Cumbers hurried on to say, “Oh, you’ll need them. She isn’t doing you any favors, you know. If you’re wise you’ll buy yourself a small electric heater and sneak it in. Mrs. Doughton doesn’t approve of them on the grounds that they’re liable to get overheated and set fire to something. That’s her story. Actually she knows they use a lot of current and they can run up your bills something fierce. But since the price of the room includes your electric and breakfasts and dinners—well, who cares? It’s her lookout, not yours. You’ve got to keep from freezing.”

  Hughes nodded but thought the observation a little sharp, a little unfeeling. It surprised him somewhat to hear it coming from Cumbers, whom he had always supposed to be such a gentle and generous soul. Apparently Mrs. Doughton was more a tigress than he had been led to expect, or there was more to Cumbers than he thought.

  Mrs. Doughton came in unannounced while Hughes was alone, testing the bed by gently bouncing on it. The bed was so low that he had difficulty in rising fast enough.

  “Oh, the bed’s good and springy,” Mrs. Doughton said as she entered the room with a quick, proprietary look. “You’re Mr. Hughes, aren’t you?”

  “Why, yes,” Hughes said, “and you’re Mrs. Doughton?”

  “Yes. Welcome to your new home. I’m glad to see you came right in and made yourself comfortable.”

  “Oh, Mr. Cumbers opened the door for me,” Hughes said, worried lest she think he was forward in having entered the room by himself.

  “I know. I spoke to him before I came up. Well, we’re glad to have you here after hearing all about you from Mr. Cumbers. I’m sure that being a friend of his you’ll be every bit as nice as he is.”

  “I hope I shall be,” Hughes said politely, looking at Mrs. Doughton and trying to decide what she resembled. She was a doughy-looking woman with plump arms which were, at the moment, encased in a heavy, knitted man’s sweater. Her hair was thin on her head and heavy on her face, principally her chin, her upper lip, and down the line of her jaws. At a hurried glance she might have been mistaken for a short, fat man in need of a shave. For a reason he could not say, Hughes had the impression that she was an athletic woman in spite of her bulk and her advanced age, the sort who dominates weak-chinned men and who would be indefatigable at the tubs in a hand laundry.

  “The room’s plain but clean and large enough for you. I don’t know whether Mr. Cumbers told you where the bathroom is—”

  “Oh, yes,” Hughes replied hastily, although Cumbers had not mentioned it at all.

  “I’m sure you’ll be happy here, Mr. Hughes, and tonight you’ll get a chance to meet the rest of my people.”

  “Yes, I’m looking forward to it,” Hughes said brightly. “Cumbers has told me so much about them all.”

  “You’ll meet them tonight. Well, I suppose you’ll want to get settled, so I’ll leave you now.”

  “Thank you for stopping in, Mrs. Doughton,” Hughes said. She left finally, looking at the room as she went as if she were inspecting quarters she had never seen before. Hughes hesitated about closing the door until he heard her footsteps creaking on the landing of the floor below.

  His “things,” brought up by Cumbers the evening before, were neatly put way. They were mainly extra clothes, shirts, socks, handkerchiefs, and the like. For Hughes, examining them, it gave him the slight sense of shock, discovery, and curiosity one might experience upon looking over the belongings of a corpse. Nothing looked familiar, not even the ties, which a man living alone might expect to know best of all his clothes. There were a few photos of people he did not know taken with him in their company at various places—a beach, an outdoor picnic park, and in front of something that resembled an amusement pavilion. One was taken into the sun so there were light flares obscuring people’s faces, another was taken late in the day when shadows were so deep that his own face stared out at him like a death’s head. Hughes decided they were unusually bad photographs even for an amateur, but he put them back into the drawer of the dresser where he had found them.

  23

  The welcoming dinner for Hughes was a minor-key success. Mrs. Greevy proved to be the main prop of the merriment and sustained a steady fire of chatter and small talk to keep Hughes the center of attention. The flute player and his family looked uncomfortable, ate quickly, and were the first to leave the table for the sitting room where the flute player, as if it had been planned, opened a small leather case and took out his flute. The others lingered over their coffee so long that finally the flute player’s father came in and looked at all of them severely.

  “Paul is ready,” he said, and at that everyone began to rise. Hughes and Cumbers walked in flanking Mrs. Greevy, who had not ceased talking from the moment she had been introduced.

  Hughes listened attentively to the flute solo which was executed without a mistake that he could detect and he joined in the applause of the others at the conclusion.

  A second round of coffee and sweet cakes was served after the last musical selection but the artist and his family did not stay to enjoy them. Hughes came up to thank them but they were all busy disassembling and packing, like a traveling show in a hurry to get to its next scheduled stop.

  “It was a nice party,” Mrs. Greevy said, “wasn’t it, Mr. Hughes?”

  “It certainly was, Mrs. Greevy.”

  “Too bad he had to spoil it,” Mrs. Greevy said bitterly, referring to Ralph Doughton’s sudden and rude departure shortly after the flutist had begun. “But then, he’s always spoiling things for poor Mrs. Doughton. Let Mrs. Greevy tell you that what that boy needs is a father. If he had a father like the captain—ho ho, it’d be a different story. Did Mr. Cumbers ever tell you how the captain handled a mutiny at sea?”

  Hughes started to say no but caught Cumbers’ distressed sig­naling at the last moment. “Why, as a matter of fact, he did. The captain sounds like a real man, Mrs. Greevy.”

  “Ah, he is—a real man. Not a very big fellow, you know. Just a little man, but he’s filled to the eyes with courage. Absolutely raw courage. You’d never think it to look at him that he handles men twice his size as if they were children. Absolute children. When the captain speaks it’s with the voice of the Lord and his wrath has iron in it. Oooh, what the captain could do for him! Ahhhhr,” Mrs. Greevy ground her teeth in pleasurable anticipation of that circumstance occurring. “There’s a man,” she said again, more softly now, lost in a reverie, and then she stopped talking altogether and when she left Cumbers and Hughes in the sitting room she did not even say good night.

  “Poor woman,” Cumbers said, “she’s going to miss him during these holidays. I can see the signs. Especially when she talks about him that way.”

  “He must be quite a figure,” Hughes admitted. “Have you ever met him?”

  “Ummm,” Cumbers nodded. “A toy bulldog. Has orders for everyone. He shouts at you as if you were both caught in the teeth of a gale. Well, time for bed. You don’t want to overtire yourself your first day out of the hospital.”

  “Nonsense,” Hughes said, “I’m not tired at all. And I could have been let out of the hospital weeks ago as far as that goes.”r />
  “Come on, up to bed.”

  “Cumbers,” Hughes said as his friend arose.

  “Yes?”

  “May I tell you again how happy I am that I’m here? That I have friends and that you’re one of them?”

  Cumbers made a face. “You’re disappointed in them, aren’t you?”

  “No, no, not at all,” Hughes reassured him. “They’re good people, all of them.”

  “No, they’re not,” Cumbers said somberly. “Mrs. Doughton’s not a bad sort—a little too sharp, perhaps. And Mrs. Greevy’s apt to talk too much. But the rest of them—that Ralph Doughton and the Hennings and that flute player and his family!” Cumbers made a distasteful face.

  “Well, they all mean well,” Hughes said mildly.

  “No, they don’t mean well. None of them, not really. Those poisonous Hennings, waiting like a pair of vultures for an old man to die—they disgust me. And that flute player and his family—they’re absolute lunatics about their son. You only saw a little part of it tonight. Did you see the look they gave Ralph Doughton when he left? I can’t stand Ralph Doughton but, by God, you have no right to wish a man unspeakable things just because he won’t stand still for an evening devoted to an earache. That’s all his playing is—a damned earache, and everyone but that doting family of his knows it. We’re not people to them. We’re things he plays to—like a net in tennis. Without the net and the court you can’t play tennis—can’t show off how damned clever you are, how bright, how promising.” Cumbers was uncommonly bitter and resentful and Hughes looked at him with surprised and pitying eyes. “No one really gives a damn for anyone else in this place. Ralph Doughton sponges off his aunt and don’t think she doesn’t get something for it, too. The chance to mother him, to baby him, to pretend he’s her child. That’s important to her. And even Mrs. Greevy—she doesn’t know we’re alive. We exist just for her to play out her dreams about the captain, to get someone to listen to what’s always running around in that head of hers. What about us, Hughes? Are we to be just the audience? Some damned conveniences for other people? I’m sick and tired of being a convenience. I—” Cumbers suddenly stopped as if he realized something. A queer, frightened look of shame crossed his face. “I’m sorry, Hughes. You’ve had so much trouble in your life it’s damned inconsiderate of me to sound off about my feelings. I mean, it isn’t fair, is it?” Cumbers ducked his head, barely said good night, and hurried out of the sitting room.