Freddy's Book

by John Gardner

  “Well, so how are things, son?” Agaard said.

  The giant boy glanced at his book as if eager to get back to it, then shrugged, slightly smiling.

  “Did you notice it’s snowing out?” Agaard said.

  I stood puffing at my pipe, studying the bulging red dragon above Freddy’s head until he glanced up at me; then I pointed with my pipestem. “Interesting dragon.’” I said. “Is it Chinese?”

  He half nodded. “French.” He briefly grinned.

  Agaard laughed, a loud bark that nearly blew his nose. “It looks French!” he said. “It looks like it ate too much!”

  The giant half grinned again, uncertain whether to be insulted. He looked at the back of his left hand discovering and inspecting a scab. “That’s the way the pictures were,” he said.

  For a moment after that it seemed that none of us could think of anything to say. Then, bending forward—I think I saw it coming an instant before it came—Professor Agaard said sociably, his voice too loud, “I’ve told Professor Winesap about your writing Freddy.” He turned his head to me, a queerly mechanical movement, and urgently smiled.

  I stared, nonplussed. Freddy briefly raised his eyes to mine, more alarmed than before.

  Any fool could see that he’d heard and understood, that he was going through twenty emotions at once—trying to hide his confusion by turning his head and shoulders slowly and reaching out to touch the cat between the ears with two fingers, the faintest suggestion of a petting motion—but Agaard said, “Did you hear what I said, Freddy? I told him about your book!”

  He gave me no choice. I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said, “yes, your father tells me you’ve been writing for some time now, Freddy!” I clenched my pipe in my right fist and poked at the dottle busily with various fingers, first one then another, of my left hand. “It’s interesting—very interesting—that you’re writing a book, Freddy! Fascinating!” He sat with his head bowed, looking intently at the scab on his hand. It unnerved me not to be able to see his expression. I was tempted to squat, get down level with his eyes, but I stayed as I was and continued heartily, trying to make it all sound friendly and normal, though my voice in my own ears rang false, theatrical, someone else’s voice entirely: “It’s not easy writing books! You know, that’s the one place where all human beings are equal, I’ve often thought. It’s an amazing thing when you think about it, Freddy! Whatever we may seem to be—humpbacked, tall or short, pale or ruddy, never mind”—I briefly interrupted myself, puffing at my pipe, lighting it—“whatever we may be in other ways, when we pick up that pencil we’re all in the same boat.” I looked for a place to throw the extinguished match, then put it in my pocket. “If there’s one human nature, that’s where we find it and take part in it,” I said, “in carefully written books. Not just any books, mind you. Careful books! Books we’ve taken time on! You’ve been working on yours for quite a while, I understand.” I glanced at his father, who was nodding, encouraging me, profoundly agreeing. Freddy said nothing. “You must excuse me if I sound as if I’m lecturing you, Freddy. I don’t mean to, not at all!” I laughed, turning away a little, looking again at his pictures. “You must think of it from my side, Freddy—think of my astonishment, meeting your father here and hearing what you’ve done. It’s a very interesting solution, that’s what I mean. Here you are, locked off from the world, in a way. …” I glanced at him; he was still looking down. “I mean, well, the message-in-the-bottle kind of thing, some such business—but the finest kind of message a mortal man can send. A man may say anything when he’s just talking, you know, but when he’s writing he has time to think it over and re-do it until it’s right, send a message worth hearing! In a thousand years …” I moved to the pictures on the farther wall, hoping to seem to him less threatening. “When your father mentioned that you were writing a book, I was interested—fascinated—as a fellow writer. It’s a lonely occupation, as everyone knows—which may be why we writers have such a feeling of, you know, community. I’m sure you understand! What I mean, mm, Freddy—” I turned to look at him, self-conscious by now as he was. “Freddy, if you should ever want to show me what you’ve written, don’t hesitate!” I said. “You can be sure I’ll be interested! We’ll all be!” I searched my wits for something more to say. I felt vile, weak in the knees, though every word I’d said was, in intent at least, true. I puffed at my pipe, clinging to it with both hands.

  Freddy went on looking at the scab. Mentally, he backed away from us, securely locked some door.

  “You hear that, Freddy?” Professor Agaard piped. “Jack Winesap would like to read your book!” When the boy said nothing, Agaard said, “Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  After a moment Freddy said, almost too quietly us to hear, “You don’t know I’ve got a book.”

  Agaard said nothing—stiffened a little, possibly; slightly paled.

  I looked from one of them to the other. “Come, come, Freddy,” I cajoled, “your father’s proud of you! I know how he feels; I’ve got a son myself”

  Freddy did not look up. He said very softly, “He doesn’t know if I’ve written a book or not.” He glanced at me and smiled, faintly apologetic but standing his ground. His face for the first time struck me not really a child’s face after all, more adult than his fathers. He slid his eyes toward Agaard. “It’s not that I want to hurt your feelings.”

  “Ha!” Agaard said. He spoke loudly, but perhaps only to some voice inside his head.

  I lit the pipe and half turned away from the boy as if to leave. He looked back at me for an instant, as I’d known he would. “You’re right,” I said, “your own business is your own business. But isn’t it odd not letting anyone see it?” Somewhat mechanically, like a bad actor, I held my hand out toward him, as if to show him, as you would a dog, that I was friendly. The gesture embarrassed me as soon as I saw it for what it was; but I had no power to take it back.

  “It’s just a book,” the giant said.

  “There!” Agaard said, turning to me gleefully. “It exists! He’s admitted it!”

  I stared at him, then turned and crossed stiffly to the door. Before stepping out into the hall I turned again and said, “I’m glad to have met you, Freddy. Good luck to you—all the luck in the world!”

  “Yes sir,” he said. “Thank you.” It surprised me that he spoke so serenely, accepting it so easily—made me wonder if perhaps I’d gotten closer than I’d imagined. I left, however, having committed myself. After a moment Professor Agaard popped out behind me.

  “Well, what do you think?” he said earnestly, much too soon to be out of earshot.

  “Very sharp boy,” I said at once, slightly slowing my step. “Those constructions he makes are magnificent.”

  “Oh yes, those,” Agaard said.

  “And so are the drawings. If his talent as a writer comes anywhere near those other talents—”

  Agaard glanced at me, puzzled, perhaps impatient. “I could show you some of the things he wrote when he was younger,” he said.

  “Oh no—no thank you!” I said rather loudly. “I wouldn’t want to look at them without Freddy’s permission!”

  Poor Agaard was puzzled to speechlessness. We descended the back stairs in silence.

  I MOVED AROUND the kitchen restlessly as the old man, scooting back and forth, bending and straightening, put on supper. At one point, abruptly pausing with my back to him, I slipped my pipe into my pocket, thinking of claiming I’d left it upstairs in Freddy’s room, giving myself a chance to go back up and talk with him alone. But what would I say? That he ought to get out more, take better care of himself, guard against his father’s distrustfulness?The stress of the situation made the pipe trick impossible. To think the thing through, get up my nerve to try it if it seemed right, I needed the pipe in my mouth. I got it out again loaded it, and lit it.

  Agaard was peeling the plastic wrap off a great package of chicken legs. “I hope you like chicken, Winesap,” he said crossl
y. He’d been thinking, had perhaps figured out at last what I’d done to him upstairs.

  I nodded and gestured absently. “Yes, fine,” I said.

  “That’s about all we eat around here, chicken and fish and vast quantities of spaghetti. Giants are expensive.” He laughed.

  “I imagine,” I said. I remembered suddenly that I had my paper on Jack and the Beanstalk in my bag in the living-room. I knew intuitively the instant I thought of it that it was the perfect gift for the boy upstairs, though it took me a minute or two to convince myself that I was right. It was true that it had a giant in it, but it had nothing to do with giantism, only with the fear of the small and weak in relation to the large and powerful, first in the family, then in the Welsh-English political situation; it had to do with comedy and tyranny, how the joking Welsh Jack-tales made it possible to slip around the mighty political parent unharmed. In a word, it reversed the situation of Agaard and his son—made Agaard the flesh-eating giant, if you will. Perhaps it would make me a villainous guest, at very least ungrateful, giving that paper to Agaard’s son; but it was Agaard who’d invited me, presumably to help in whatever way I could, and presumably the decision as to what would be best was mine. I excused myself and went to the front room for the paper. I hesitated for a moment, drawing it out of my bag. It was the paper I’d been intending to read in Chicago but never mind, I would figure something out—maybe stand there telling jokes, or have a dialogue with the audience. Never mind.

  Back in the kitchen, now filled with the smells of squash, potato, and chicken cooking, I said, “I’ve got a present here for Freddy. You don’t suppose there’d be any harm in my taking it up to him?”

  “I’ll take it,” Agaard said. “I’ve got to take him his supper.”

  “I’d just as soon take it myself, actually,” I said, “though of course if you think—”

  “What is it?” Agaard said. He spoke into the oven, where he was bent over, stiffly and awkwardly spooning something onto the chicken.

  “Oh, something I wrote,” I said, “a little trifle.”

  Agaard thought about it. Perhaps he guessed what it was that I meant to do. But he said nothing. I took his silence for consent and stepped through the back rooms—he’d left them unlocked—and up the back stairs, moving along grimly, left-foot, right-foot, like a man on a mission he does not entirely approve of. At Freddy’s door I paused, listening for a moment, then knocked.

  “Yes?” the boy said. He spoke from not far beyond the door.

  “Freddy,” I said to the doorknob, “it’s Professor Winesap. I’ve brought you something.”

  There was a silence while—frantically, I imagine—he tried to make out what to do. At last he said, “Just a minute,” and I heard him coming nearer. One by one, slowly, as if reluctantly, he undid the locks. There was another brief pause; then the doorknob turned and the door swung inward. There he stood, bent over, too tall for the room by a foot or more. He was wearing pressed trousers and a clean white shirt. It crossed my mind that he’d been thinking of coming downstairs; but no, I decided, he’d merely prepared himself in case we should come at him again.

  I held out my sheaf of Xeroxed pages. “I brought you this,” I said. “It’s the paper I read the other night at the university. Since you weren’t able to be there—” I smiled and tipped my head, trying to show him I was harmless.

  He stared at me intently, then abruptly looked down at the paper I held out, and blushed.

  “It’s for you,” I said, and gave the paper a little shake.

  “Thank you,” he said after a moment, and slowly raised his hand to take it.

  “When your father mentioned that you’ve read some of my work,” I said, widening my smile, “it occurred to me that maybe this would interest you. As I said before, we writers have to stick together!” I gave a laugh.

  “Thank you,” he said cautiously. Then, after a moment: “Did you want to come in?”

  Given the way he asked it, I had no choice but to decline, “I’m helping your father with supper,” I said, “but thank you for the kind invitation.”

  He nodded, apparently deciding against pointing out that he had not, in fact, invited me in.

  “Well, so long,” I said. I cocked my head like a bluejay and gave a foolish little wave.

  He seemed to study the gesture, then glanced at my face as if to see if I’d intended the wave to be the childish, self-conscious thing it was. When he saw that I hadn’t, he smiled, then tried to hide it, nodding, looking at the paper, then closing the door.

  You meddling fool, Winesap! I thought. With a prickling of the scalp I realized that I’d spoken it aloud. Blood stung my cheeks, embarrassment like a child’s. I calmed myself. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.

  NEVER MIND,” the professor said testily as we poked at our meal, sitting at the kitchen table. It seemed to please him that I’d failed. He seemed to have shrunk, and grown ten years older, but also he seemed downright delighted with himself, as if he’d discharged some painful responsibility—justified himself and in the same gesture put the guilt on me. We were neither of us ourselves by now, hardly human in fact, prickly and tyrannic as those shadowy powers of the most primitive religions. So much for the noble evolution of the mind!

  “That boy needs medical help—immediately,” I said—petulant, vindictive. “At the very least get him a physical checkup. It’s not good, letting him withdraw like that. He’ll get peculiar.”

  “Doctors!” Agaard said scornfully, but he was thinking about it. “You’re saying it’s too late—is that it?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” I said. “It’s true, he doesn’t care to have his privacy invaded. Sooner or later he’s got to get out into the world, you know. You know what Plato says—”

  Agaard snorted. “Like his father, you mean. If I don’t act soon, he’ll be as bad as his father.”

  I said nothing.

  After we’d eaten, he put bread, squash, potatoes, and four large pieces of chicken on an aluminum-foil cooking pan and, holding it in both hands, carried it upstairs. When he came down again, we finished the wine, practically in silence, each of us angry and embarrassed in his own way. He snarled from time to time about this or that, his vituperation striking out in all directions as he tried to make peace by thinking up enemies we both might hate; but it was a paltry effort, the comic bad temper of a Punch and Judy show, and I refused to go along.

  At last he took me upstairs, to the front of the house, some distance from where Freddy was, and showed me to my room. The bed had clean sheets and blankets, and someone had dusted, not well. I realized that Agaard had planned from the beginning that I should stay the night. I smiled, rueful, remembering he’d invited me to come around three. The old man had given himself plenty of time to work up his nerve. I had to admire him for the care with which he’d cornered himself—and ultimately saved himself, since now it was all my fault. No question about it, he had an eye for strategy. All those old-fashioned hard-evidence histories of war and intrigue.

  Outside the room, wind was howling through the pines.

  As he was about to go out the door I said, giving the line one last little tug, “Nobody can live without some kind of contact with the world, Professor.”

  He raised one hand, meaning to interrupt, then changed his mind, too weary of me to argue.

  I said, “If you keep trying to manage this alone, there’s no telling where it will end. Surely you’ve considered that yourself. Surely it’s the reason you spoke to me last night. You wanted me to come here and judge.” I looked at his forehead, not his eyes, my hands in my pockets.

  He stood very still, a bent, black-suited old crow, looking at his claw on the doorknob. At last he said “It’s a wonderful feeling, righteousness. I envy you.”

  I stiffened. “That’s hardly fair, I think.”

  He thought about it, crunching his dentures. “At any rate, as you’ve said yourself, it was I that lured you here. I get part of the credit.�
�� He turned his torso rolling his magnified eyes in my direction.

  “He still needs a doctor,” I said sharply.

  “Yes, yes.” He gave an impatient little wave. “You win, Professor agree.”

  “It’s surely not a matter—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “You’ve persuaded me, Professor!”

  We both stood motionless, in stalemate again. He looked down at the hand on the doorknob, staring at it hard. His voice was cool and level: “You say he must be brought out into the world. Let me tell you what that means. When he was a boy of six he was already unusual. Every single day, week in, week out, he’d come home crying. One forgets what merciless creatures people are. Teachers spanked him to prove they weren’t afraid of him. I saw it; they didn’t fool me! And don’t think a child doesn’t notice such things! In the end he hurt someone—not badly, as luck would have it. A terrible little man. A gym instructor.” His tone became ironic. “I suppose that’s when I myself began to be afraid of him.”

  I nodded, not certain what was expected. As a kind of stall, I loosened my tie and undid the top button of my shirt. Then I stood once more with my hands in my pockets. I must try not to see it as a fight with Sven Agaard, even if, in a way, it was—historian against historian contending for control of the past. Perhaps I could talk to the boy tomorrow. I should sleep, get it all in perspective, quiet my nerves. I knew how Freddy felt, that absolute safety of books. Living all alone with a man like his father … I said, pretending to soften a little, “It may not be as bad as it seems, Professor. We’re too close to it right now. A good psychiatrist might settle the whole thing in no time. The boy loves books, paper dragons. … All right, why not? He needs to adjust to a few simple chores—proper eating, exercise—,” I held out my hands like a lawyer to a sympathetic jury. My voice, against my wish, became as ironic as Agaard’s. “He can still have ‘the sweet, solitary life’ he’s gotten used to. A good psychiatrist will convince him.”