The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  “I am grateful, Aunt Manya,” Katherine said softly.

  “And don’t start that again.” Manya kissed her lightly on the forehead, went over to the cupboard and got out a bottle of wine.

  Katherine saw her mother’s old teacher the next morning. Although it was a warm September day, he sat huddled in rugs next to an open fire, complaining bitterly because the steam heat wasn’t turned on. Pulling out a crooked pair of steel-rimmed glasses, he looked at her for a long time, first with them on, then with them off.

  “Well?” he said. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Katherine Forrester.”

  “Julie Forrester’s daughter?” Incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look in the least like your mother,” he said, taking off his glasses and putting them away as though the interview were over. Katherine stood in front of him, waiting. “Well?” he asked. “What are you hanging around for?”

  —This is a fine mess—she thought. In the corner of the room, half buried under piles of music, she saw a piano.

  “You’d better close your eyes,” she said to him, and went over to it, not looking at him again before she began to play, fearful of losing her courage. She played for quite a while. Not a sound from the bundle of blankets huddled in front of the fireplace.—I’m just going to play till something happens—she thought. Finally she began on some of the things Julie had studied with the old man, hoping this might bring some sort of response. It did. Suddenly he shouted in a voice that had amazing power: “Harold! Harold! Come here at once!”

  —Now I’m going to be thrown out—Katherine thought—taken by the scruff of my presumptuous neck and booted out on the street.—

  An elderly valet came hurrying in. “Yes, Mr. Peytz? What is it, Mr. Peytz?”

  “Clear off that piano!” the old man shouted from his chair. “Clear it off, you cream-faced loon! I can’t hear properly! I want the lid raised!”

  Harold hastened to sweep the piles of music onto the floor, Katherine helping him, the old man roaring in the meantime, “Can you stand a decrepit and ancient old man for a teacher? Can you, hey?”

  Studying with Albert Peytz was not easy, but it was stimulating, and, since he had been Julie’s teacher, it reminded her in ways of her lessons with her mother. He demanded so much work of her that after a month Manya had to go and talk with him, to swear loudly and picturesquely at him (for that was the language Albert Peytz best understood), to tell him that he might be a slave driver but that Katherine was not plying the oars in a Roman galley and that it was not necessary for him to flick the whip so constantly. She forbade Katherine to practice more than five hours a day, at least until she had gained back some of the weight she had lost.

  But more potent than Manya’s threats in cutting down on the work proved to be Pete Burns. Katherine kept meaning to look him up. She knew that he had a good part in Paul LeStrade’s latest play, and that his reviews had been splendid. He had talked to Manya over the phone and sent Katherine his regards. She intended to go backstage one night and see him, but somehow she never did. Her lesson fell on the next day, and Mr. Peytz would be angry with her if she didn’t know the whole of the presto movement; or she had had a bad lesson the day before and mustn’t repeat it.

  When she did meet Pete Burns, it was at a Sunday evening concert at Carnegie. She was sitting in the top balcony, but came down during intermission to smoke and collect a few leaflets about other performers. She recognized him at once, standing there smoking, looking bored and a little sullen. As she walked by him, she said softly, “Pete Burns.”

  He turned. “Why, hello! How are you! It’s been centuries, hasn’t it?”

  She realized that although he knew he knew her, he had no idea who she was. “Quite a long time,” she answered “How are you?”

  “Fine! Great! How are you? You’re looking wonderful! Lovelier every time I see you. Working now?”

  “In a way. I’m looking forward to seeing your show. I’ve heard wonderful things about you.”

  “Well—” He was pleased and embarrassed. “It’s a wonderful part, and perfect for me. It’s my first big break, so it means a lot to me. Look, why don’t you come and sit with me this half? My date couldn’t come at the last minute, and I’ve got this empty seat—”

  “All right,” she said. “I’d like to.”

  “What was that last show you were in?” he asked. “I remember you perfectly in it, and I was trying to think of the name just the other night.”

  —Oh, Pete, you rat.—“I haven’t been in a play for eight years now.”

  He looked at her, bewildered for a moment, then laughed, sheepishly, ingratiatingly. “All right. I give up. Who the devil are you? I know that I know you quite well, it’s infuriating.”

  “Well, the last and only show I was in, you were in too,” she said.

  “Oh, Lord. Eight years ago.… No! My God, no! It isn’t the baby!”

  “Which baby do you mean?”

  “Kitten! But you’re grown up! You’re a woman! I sent my love to a little girl with long braids down her back.”

  “You haven’t changed much, Pete.”

  “If I look at you now and think of you then—I must be hoaryheaded and potbellied. Kitten, it’s good to see you! Come, let’s sit down!”

  Pete had seats in a second-tier box. During the next portion of the concert they kept turning and half-smiling at each other. The pianist was dull; once Katherine turned to Pete and whispered, “I can play better than that!”

  And he whispered back, “Prove it!”

  The bar he took her to afterward was crowded. He knew his way well, pushing through to a small empty table at the very back, almost in the kitchen, shouting greetings to the barkeeper, and to many of the people at the tables. Smoke curled in soft, choking clouds over their heads; there was a strong odor of beer; Katherine sat drinking Scotch and soda and smiling at Pete. She felt comfortable and happy.

  “Now,” said Pete, “you’ve had enough.” As he took her glass away, it seemed as though they had never been apart, as though he were still the strong Pete who protected her and scolded her whenever he thought it necessary. “Just because—” he began, then stopped.

  “Just because what?”

  “Nothing, kitten.”

  “You were going to say just because Mother—?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “That hasn’t anything to do with it.”

  “Hasn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “O. K. Don’t pay any attention to your Uncle Pete. I really haven’t any right to try and boss you now that you’ve grown up, so go ahead and drink. But it’s time for us to go home anyhow. I have to get up early for a radio program tomorrow. You’ll come to my show tomorrow night?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “O.K. I’ll leave a ticket in your name at the box office. Only one, because I want you to go out with me afterward.”

  “That’ll be lovely.”

  “My God, you’ve grown up!” he said again.

  “What did you expect?”

  “I told you. A little girl. A little girl in pigtails. How’s Madame Sergeievna’s play coming along?”

  “Oh, all right now, I think. It opens in a week.”

  “Been to any rehearsals?”

  “A couple, now that they’ve got a theater.”

  “What do you think?”

  “If it’s not a hit, it’s a crime.”

  “What matinee?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Good. I can see it. Come along, kitten. I’ll take you home in a taxi. But never expect such service again. I’m still a subway boy, in spite of my present prosperity.”

  She got into the habit of calling for Pete after his show. She would spend the evening practicing, then take a cross-town bus over to the West Side and walk to Pete’s theater. Then they would go to Pete’s favorite café, the Purple Pigeon; or sometimes he would buy a bottle of Scotch an
d they would go to his hotel on Forty-eighth Street; or occasionally Manya would ask them for a late supper with her.

  Katherine was very grateful for Pete. Somehow, music had not been enough to cure the restlessness that obsessed her body and soul. Pete was solid comfort; he was like warming your hands in front of a fire in winter; he was like coming into a darkened room and turning on the lamps; most of all he seemed to her like a small but very seaworthy boat taking her across a large body of water from one point of land to another. This was comforting, because she loved and adored the land she had left and did not know what the land she was approaching would be like. By making the journey easy he seemed to promise that the shore would be pleasant.

  “You’re very fond of Pete, aren’t you?” Manya asked one evening, not long before her play left for a two weeks’ try-out in Boston.

  “Of course. I always have been. He takes care of me. He’s sort of like a hunk of my childhood, of when Mother was alive.”

  “Falling in love with him?”

  “With Pete! Good heavens no! He’s like my older brother!”

  Sometimes she wondered why Pete did not let her see more of the other members of his company. They seemed pleasant and exciting people to her, but although he looked upon them with complete camaraderie as far as he was concerned, it was with complete disapproval as far as she was concerned. “You’re too young and innocent to get mixed up with a shady theater bunch,” he tried to explain.

  “Good heavens, Pete, I’m eighteen, and I’ve been mixed up with the theater all my life. After all, Manya Sergeievna is my stepmother.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “Baby, I’m not going to explain. You do as I tell you.”

  “All right. But I am not as innocent as you think.”

  “You’re a little floosie, then, but I’m going to reform you.”

  At the Purple Pigeon he couldn’t prevent people from joining them. He seemed to have been in shows with almost everyone who came in—as well as chorus girls who twined their arms about his neck, kissing him effusively, looking curiously out of the corners of their eyes at Katherine. Heavily painted older women, most of them disappointed leading ladies or out-grown ingenues, who had to struggle desperately now for character roles, would come over to their table and try to get them to move to one of the large tables in the middle of the room; but Pete always refused, sometimes rudely, always with the manner of a king speaking to bothersome subjects. “It won’t do you any good to know them, kitten. Maybe we shouldn’t come here so often.”

  “You know them all so well. If you don’t like them, why?”

  “I have fun with them.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “In the first place, you’re not an actress.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Lots.”

  This attitude of his she did not understand, but she rather enjoyed being bossed by him. It left her nothing to cope with but her own practicing, and with Albert Peytz as teacher, that was plenty.

  One evening, when she was working on a new Bach Fugue, she forgot the time, and when she looked at Julie’s watch (still around her wrist with its silver strap) it was eleven-thirty. Pete’s show broke at eleven, and she was always there by eleven-five. She flung on her coat and tore downstairs. A cold November rain was falling; street lamps shone in the puddles; her shoes were thin and would be soaked through before she reached the theater. As she stepped out of the house, she saw her bus and started to run, but just as she neared it, waving pleadingly to the driver, it slithered off into the rainy night. The anger, the misery, the humiliation of it! The bus lumbered down the street, disregarding the small furious figure on the corner that was ready to weep with desperation. She would probably have to wait fifteen minutes before another bus came along. It would be almost quicker to walk, and even so, Pete would be sure to have left, he would think she wasn’t coming, he would be angry with her, he would think she was standing him up, and if there was one thing Pete couldn’t bear it was being stood up.

  Rain beat against her face. She had forgotten her hat, and her hair became a heavy, wet mass coiled icily about her head. The few remaining leaves of the trees struggling to grow in small square patches cut in the cement sidewalk caught the light from the street lamps and shone like small dark mirrors. Katherine saw a taxi and waved to it. Incredibly, it was empty. If, on a rainy night, a taxi came by and was empty, perhaps Pete might have waited for her after all.

  The taxi crawled across town like a wet, half-drowned bug. Rain beat against the windows and against the square insert of glass in the roof. The rain was so heavy now and flooded the windows with such a continuous stream that when she peered out, it was like looking at a city under water. The figures passing on the street, collars up, hats down, wavered strangely as they moved. The tall trunks of lampposts were not straight, but crooked as lightning. Shop windows spilled their yellow light, which seemed to mingle with the rain and become part of it. Oil from the cars made the deep puddles in the street shine with the colors of the spectrum as they caught the light.

  Katherine reached into her coat pocket and found she had forgotten her money. Panic seized her. It was a quarter to twelve. Pete would never have waited. Thank heaven, there was Bill, the doorman!

  The taxi drew up at the stage door. “Wait a minute, please,” she told the driver, and ran down the long narrow alley, where the rain dripped in cold streams from the fire escapes. She opened the stage door and rushed in. “Bill, is Pete here?” she gasped.

  “No, honey, he left about fifteen minutes ago,” Bill told her. “He was waiting for you. Seemed kind of mad because you didn’t come. Phoned you a couple of times, but didn’t get no answer. Sugar, you’re soaked to the skin. Watch out you don’t get pneumony.”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right. I never catch cold. Bill, I’ve got a taxi outside, and I forgot my money. Can you lend me a couple of dollars? I’ll pay you back tomorrow night.”

  “Sure thing, doll,” he said, fishing in his pocket. “I’ll go out and pay it for you. Mr. LeStrade’s still here, and he’ll want a taxi. I’ll tell it to wait. If he comes out, you tell him I’ve gone to hold him a taxi.”

  Katherine sat down on the air cushion Bill kept on his chair. She could hear Paul LeStrade whistling in his dressing room. She wondered why he was so late; usually he was off with some little blonde ten minutes after the curtain fell. Now he came out of his dressing room alone, looking very splendid and almost as young as he would have liked to look.

  As he noticed Katherine, he raised his eyebrows for a moment, then remembered that she was usually around after the performance and probably wasn’t looking for his autograph.

  “Is it still raining?” he asked her. “You seem very wet.” It was the first time he had condescended to speak to her.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s very wet. Bill said to tell you he was holding a taxi for you, Mr. LeStrade.” She had stood up when he spoke to her, partly because she still had the schoolgirl habit of standing when an older person addressed her, and partly because she respected him as an actor, no matter what Pete might say about his private life and his little blondes.

  “If Bill is holding a taxi for me, I’d better drop you off,” he said. “You look too wet to go on plowing about in the rain.”

  “Thank you very much, but I’m not going anywhere in particular. I’ve got to find someone I was supposed to meet. The only reason I’m here now is that I’ve got to borrow a nickel from Bill to get home on. I forgot my money.”

  Mr. LeStrade drew a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her. “You shouldn’t go around with only a nickel. Take this.”

  “Thank you, but a nickel is really all I need. I’ve just got to have the nickel, in case I don’t find the person I’m looking for.”

  “Whom are you looking for?”

  “Peter Burns.”

  “Oh. The young man who’s stealing the show, e
h? Stood you up, has he?”

  “No! I was going to meet him here, and I was late and just got here a minute ago, so of course he thought I wasn’t coming and left.”

  Bill came back in. He was quite wet just from going through the alley to the taxi and back. “I have a taxi waiting for you, Mr. LeStrade,” he said.

  “Thank you. That’s very considerate of you.” Mr. LeStrade put his wallet away and turned back to Katherine. “Now, where are you going to look for this young man of yours?”

  “Oh, just about.”

  “You must have some idea where you’re going, child.”

  “Well, I thought maybe I’d go and look in the Purple Pigeon.”

  “All right. We’ll go to the Purple Pigeon together. You’re too wet to go out in the rain by yourself and get wetter. Besides, it’s late.”

  Katherine did not want to go with Mr. LeStrade, but she didn’t know how to refuse. She had a feeling that if she found Pete while she was with the older actor, Pete would not like it at all. But she followed Mr. LeStrade out into the alley, and climbed uncomfortably into the taxi as he held the door open for her.

  “Now. What is your name?” he asked, leaning back against the slippery leather seat.

  “Katherine Forrester.”

  “Forrester. Any relation to Manya Sergeievna? Isn’t she married to that composer, Forrester?”

  “Yes. She’s my stepmother.”

  “Oh. So I suppose you go to the American Academy. You’re planning to be an actress, of course.”

  “No.”

  “No? Oh, so you’re going to marry your young man.”

  “Pete? Good gracious, no. He’s just a friend.”

  “You seem very anxious to find this friend. Is this the right place? Is this where you want to look for him?”

  “Yes. Thank you very much for dropping me off.”

  “I’m not dropping you off. I’m coming in with you.” Telling the driver to wait, Mr. LeStrade opened the door for her.