by Belva Plain
“No, you’re not that old. You weren’t thinking of quitting. Let’s admit the whole truth.”
“All right, we have. You know I’ll always be here for you just the same, don’t you?”
Laura nodded and wiped her eyes. “And I for you …”
“Now maybe I’d better go.” Betty Lee bent and kissed Laura’s cheek. “You take care of yourself, hear? And call me if you ever need me. Will you?”
“I will,” Laura whispered, and did not look as Betty Lee went out.
She heard her walk through the kitchen, call goodbye to Earl in his basket and close the back door.
Gone. The dignity of a dignified woman had been offended.
The world had so little mercy. Betty Lee, and that child with the cornrow hair, sitting at the piano … Why? Rocks and taunts and bullets. In God’s name, why? And Laura sat there staring from the ghastly photograph on the front page to the receding shape of Betty Lee going homeward down the street.
After a while she got up and left the house. The morning was fresh and moist. When she reached Fairview, there was a brisk little wind beneath the arch of the trees. The street was quiet. A gardener trimmed a hedge. A lawn sprinkler sprayed diamond drops as it circled and spat, and it was hard to believe that anything ever could disturb the peace of a place like this.
A car slowed as it passed the old Blair house. Most probably it would be years before people stopped calling it the Blair house, for it had belonged to the Blairs so long. Another car passed slowly enough to get a good look, and then went on its way. Curiosity seekers. But I am more than that, Laura told herself. I know those people; at least, I mean, they are more than a name to me.
She came to the wrought-iron fence. A truck was parked in the driveway, and men were already working on the windows. Broken glass lay on the lawn, pointed shards as lethal as carving knives.
“Careful, lady,” a workman warned as she went up the walk.
On the white front door there was a splash of black paint. Something had been written there, and someone had effaced enough of it so that it was illegible except for a letter that looked like an “n.” Perhaps the father of the family had gotten up early to hide what had been written. She rang the bell.
She waited awhile and rang again. The door opened just enough for a child’s head to appear. Startled eyes met Laura’s.
“Cynthia,” said Laura.
The door moved to close.
“Cynthia,” Laura said again, “don’t you remember me?”
“My mother said not to let anybody in except the men who are fixing the windows.”
“Please tell her who it is. The lady who came the other day, the lady who’s going to give you piano lessons. You do remember me, don’t you?”
The child closed the door. She wants to make sure I don’t force my way inside, Laura thought ruefully, waiting at the blemished door. A few moments later, the door opened again.
“My mother says she doesn’t want any visitors. None at all, she says.”
Well, that was understandable. Yes, yes it was. You had only to put yourself in that woman’s shoes.
“I’m sorry,” Laura said gently. “Perhaps another time.”
“And no piano lessons, either,” the child said.
The door closed with a muted thud as decisive as if it had been slammed. And Laura went back down the walk feeling an unfamiliar shame. This was like watching an actor forget his lines. It was like being in a group where someone was making a terrible fool of himself; although it had nothing to do with you, you partook of the shame.
And she went on down the street past an ample lawn where little boys no older than seven or eight were playing baseball. So serious, so businesslike they were, with their mitts and caps, as if everything depended on their team’s win. So innocent. At the intersection from behind the shrubbery that enclosed the tennis club, came the ring of voices, the whack and thwack of racket against ball. That, too, was an innocent, a happy occupation. An American afternoon.
Lou Foster came around the corner. “I walked up here to call on them,” she said, “but no one answered my ring. I feel sick. Those people’s terror last night—can you imagine it?”
“You and I seem to be meeting at bad times,” Laura said bleakly.
“Jeff and I got a glimpse of something last evening. We were on our way home, and when we turned into Fairview, there was a commotion, people running, cars going every which way, honking and bumping. We had a hard time getting through the jam. Your son Tom was there in a car with some people. Did he tell you about it?”
A little shock went through Laura as when, while standing on a particular piece of carpet, you touch a light switch. It was a hot little shock …
“No, he and Bud were late this morning and we didn’t have a chance to say three words.”
“Well, he’ll tell you what a mess it was. The way I see it is that the group who broke the windows must have scared the crowd across the street. They wanted to get away before the police came. But if you ask me, Laura, Greg Anderson’s mixed up in it somehow. He’s a follower of Johnson, and I don’t put anything past Johnson.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore,” said Laura bleakly.
“Greg Anderson’s a bad egg. His parents had no control over him when he was five years old, and apparently, they still have none.”
“You don’t control people when they’re nineteen,” Laura said, wanting to get home, only to get home …
She went up the walk to her front door, her gracious, glossy green door with its polished brass knocker that no one used; knockers were of another century, before doorbells had been invented, but this one was pretty. There was no defacement on this door. The windows were not broken, either; in the sunlight, they gleamed, and you could clearly see a trailing pattern of vines and grapes on the lace curtains. Petunias, cream and crimson, cascaded out of wooden tubs beside the door. Earl had detected her approach, and she heard from way back in the kitchen his gravelly bark. He would be racing through the front hall to meet her.
She turned the key in the lock and went inside. There sat the dog, sweeping the floor with his joyous tail, as though she had just come back after a year away. He expected to be acknowledged, and she bent to stroke him.
“Yes, yes, I’m home.”
The day was not oppressive, the walk had not been that long and besides, it had been mostly downhill; yet her blood was hot and craved water. From the kitchen where she poured a glassful, she could see into the dining room and beyond, where every familiar thing was in its proper place, the chairs aligned around the table, and the corner cupboards filled with the blue-and-white Wedgwood china that had been there for half a century. All was orderly, untouched, secure.
But was it? And a sudden sense of peril, of menace, passed through these dignified rooms, as though a cold wind had blown open all the doors. This house—no house—was safe. Terrible angers, fanned and fed, could blow it down, and everything would crumble into ruins, everything, whole streets and towns. Terrible hatred could do that. It was history.
She went upstairs to Tom’s room. Jim Johnson’s frank, attractive face hung between the two windows. Otherwise, it was an ordinary room, a college boy’s room with the university pennant and a map of the United States thumbtacked to the wall. Above the desk there hung a diagram of the heavens. On the desk there were a heap of books and, in its cheap frame, the small photograph of the girl whose rather winsome face was almost eclipsed by a full mass of shoulder-length wavy hair. For Tom with love was scrawled across the corner.
Laura had a faint twinge of jealousy. But that was natural. All mothers, one read, feel that tiny hurt at the thought of taking second place in their sons’ hearts. All mothers wonder whether the girl is a passing fancy or the “real” one, and if she is the “real” one, whether she is the right one. Who and what was this girl?
She picked up a newspaper from a pile. The Independent Voice, she read; then, always a rapid reader, she
scanned the front page and saw at once that here was competent propaganda masquerading as journalism. Here were clever political satire, biting bigotry, and dangerous, scurrilous lies. She turned the pages and hurriedly read the names; coming to “Thomas Rice,” she put the paper away and sat down.
It was one thing to have heard him speak his ideas out loud, and quite another to see his name attached to these ideas, and worse, in print. This must be the paper about which she had vaguely heard, a college paper financed by powerful alumni who had an agenda of their own. She looked over the masthead again. Masculine and feminine names were intermingled alphabetically, and because she had some totally unfounded idea that one of the feminine names might belong to the girl in the photograph, she studied them: Sue-Ellen, Jennifer, Roberta, Linda. But this was foolishness. What difference did it make?
“I am so sad,” she said aloud. “I am so angry. I am so disappointed, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, I could wring your neck, Tom. How can you do this? How can you, when all you ever saw, all I ever taught you, was decent and good?”
She was still sitting there when she heard the car come in and the garage door roll up. A minute later she saw Bud and Tom take the hand mowers out of the toolshed. Bud was particular about keeping the edges of the beds mowed clean. It came to her as she watched them that there were two paths open to her; the easier was to ignore Lou Foster’s words, as well as the paper, while the harder was to confront them both. Which of the two might accomplish more, or whether either would accomplish anything, it was impossible to know.
Having decided on the harder way, Laura was waiting when Bud and Tom came into the house.
“You’re hot,” she said. “I’ve made iced tea. Now sit down. I want to talk to you, Tom, but your father ought to hear it, too.” And casting a furious glance in Bud’s direction, she began, “Tom, where were you last night?”
Since he was fundamentally honest, he had never been a convincing liar, and now, as his eyes widened and his brows rose, making a crease across his forehead, she saw that he was alarmed.
“Walking around the neighborhood, catching up on people. Why?”
“I just want to set a few things straight in my mind. Tell me, did you catch up on anybody?”
“Not really. I passed a couple of guys, said hello, and never got any farther than East Oak. Then I got bored and came home.”
“No farther than East Oak. Nowhere near Fairview?”
The beautiful eyes grew wider as he exclaimed reproachfully, “Mom! You aren’t thinking I’m the one who broke those people’s windows, are you?” And laughing at the ludicrous suggestion, he continued, “Or that I fired those shots?” He lowered his voice and looked about with a sly, suspicious expression as if conspiring. “I’ll let you in on something. I’m really an international terrorist. I don’t bother with trivial jobs like that.”
“I’m not joking, Tom. Don’t try to wriggle your way out with a joke.”
Because alarm was obviously mounting within him, he pretended to be hurt. “I’m not trying to wriggle out of anything, Mom,”
“Don’t lie to me, Tom. You were on Fairview in the crowd. Lou Foster saw you. She and the minister were driving through.”
Tom was silent. Bud poured another glass of tea from the pitcher and was silent.
“Well?” demanded Laura.
“Okay. I walked to Fairview, not East Oak. Is that okay?”
“No, because you lied about it.”
“I’m not a child. Do I have to account for every step I take?”
“You know that’s not the issue. Do I ever ask you to report to me? No one could have more freedom than you have. But those weren’t ordinary steps that you took last night. Extraordinary things happened on that street. What were you doing there? I want to know.”
“All right. I went to the Johnson rally. It’s no secret that I’m for Johnson and that Dad is, too.”
“Then why didn’t you say you were going there in the first place?”
“Because you hate Johnson,” said Tom, now with some slight defiance.
She flared up. “I don’t ‘hate’ anybody. I strongly disapprove of him, but you have every right to vote as you please. No, Tom. You went because you didn’t want me—us—to know whom you were with. You were in a car with a young woman and an older man. Who are they? What’s the secret?”
Bud spoke up. “Let him be, Laura. This sounds like a third degree. And you’re scaring the life out of Timmy.”
For Timmy had come home and was standing there in bewilderment.
“Timmy is a member of this family, and he’s old enough to know what’s going on in it. And we have a right to know what company our son is keeping.”
“No,” Bud said, getting up from his chair, “no, Tom’s right. He’s not a child. He doesn’t have to answer as if he were in kindergarten. If he wants to meet a girl, he doesn’t have to explain to us what company he keeps.” And he gave Tom a glance that she recognized; it was a glance of complicity.
“No? No? Well, look at this and tell me what you think.” Reaching behind her, Laura took from a table a copy of The Independent Voice. “And you’re an editor on this paper, Tom. This is the company you keep. Read it, Bud.”
Bud read a column and handed the paper back. “Free speech, Laura. You can’t quarrel with that.”
“It’s a revolting rag.”
“In your opinion.”
“And yours, too.”
“Probably it is, but my opinion isn’t the issue.”
“How can this have happened to our Tom?” she lamented.
“Nothing’s happened to him,” Bud said impatiently. “He’s got a head on his shoulders; he has his own thoughts. And it’s a free country.”
“Yes, I hope it stays that way. Don’t you see that that’s what this is all about? The Klan—”
“I’m not in the Klan, Mother.” When he was angry or arrogant, Tom called her “Mother.” “That paper doesn’t support the Klan. Jim Johnson doesn’t, either, as we have discussed two or three times before this.”
“Indeed we have, and I’m still not convinced. A reporter at that rally last night says that Anderson reviled those black people across the street, said they had no right to move there. I heard this on the radio.”
“Yes,” Bud said, “and did you hear Johnson himself on the radio? He condemned the attack on that house in no uncertain language.”
“Oh,” Laura cried, “it was horrible! Those poor, terrified people! And this paper of yours is responsible for that kind of thing. You know it is, Tom. You know it.”
“I don’t know it at all, Mother. We never encourage anything like that. I personally don’t, either, but I can understand how it happens.”
“Some people say that about the Holocaust in Germany.”
Tom gave an audible sigh. “You sound like a Jew. I’m sorry, but I have to tell you.”
“Don’t be sorry. If I sound like a Jew, I also sound like a lot of people at our church, including Dr. Foster.”
He knows things, Laura thought. Maybe—even probably—he didn’t know what was going to occur last night, but still he knows about undercurrents. Observe him, he is not comfortable. He fidgets with the empty glass and looks away. My voice has grown strident, an unfamiliar voice for him. He is aware that something serious now lies between us, too, and he is sad because he loves me. It is, in a way, like families split between North and South during my great-grandfather’s time, or like collaborationists and the Resistance in France. Where will it end?
She got up and gently grasped his shoulders. “Is there anything you can tell me, Tom? What did you know? I want an answer. Please give me one.”
“I went there, and I left. Believe me, that’s all.” Then he stood up, too. “I don’t want to argue with you, Mom. We’re not getting anywhere, so let me go.”
“Good idea,” said Bud, giving Laura a black look. “Come on, guys, let’s get some exercise. Tennis? We’ll play triples, Timmy and I aga
inst Tom.”
Yes, Bud, you big, stupid, healthy lump of meat, she thought watching the two tall ones walk off, trailed by Timmy and the dog. She was hurt, baffled, and pained. He wouldn’t understand. He wasn’t capable of understanding. She would certainly have to tell him soon about Betty Lee, but not just now; it would only lead to another discussion that got nowhere.
They had dinner. The three talked about tennis, the stars and the tournaments, while Laura said nothing.
Later, she went to the piano for something to do; music was solace. Debussy was a spring wind moving through trees, the trickle of a brook. As she played, the strain began to lift from her shoulders.
Then Bud came in. “Will you leave that thing alone, Laura! It sounds like funeral music, and it’s getting on my nerves.”
“I didn’t know you had any nerves,” she said. “You never had any feel for music, did you? You’re only pretending, when you ask me to play for guests. You’re showing off. No other man around here has a wife who can play as I do. Isn’t that right?”
He sat down beside her on the piano bench. “Come on, let’s cut it out. Let’s reach an understanding, as you always say.”
His pleading tone softened her a little. Yes, she was soft, maybe too much so.
“I’m willing, but you don’t help,” she said quietly.
“Well, you don’t either, Laura. You make too much fuss about things. That newspaper, for instance. You’ve got to compromise, see the other side of it. He’s not married to those ideas—many of which I happen to agree with.”
“That I know.”
“Some of which I don’t agree with. But I’m not going to hassle him over his politics. I stay neutral. Meanwhile, he’s getting good experience. He’s an excellent debater, you heard him in high school, and I’m sure he’s improved at college. This experience in an organization is preparation for life. Meeting people, working with people. You can’t tell what the future holds. He may turn this experience around one hundred eighty degrees and use it even in our business, who knows?”
“Meeting people?” she repeated. “The people who write the stuff that’s in that paper? You disgust me, Bud, when you talk this way.” With a weary shake of the head, she closed her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
