Collected Stories of Carson McCullers

by Carson McCullers

  So that Friday when it happened, when her brother and the bride came to the house, Frankie knew that everything was changed; but why this was so, and what would happen to her next, she did not know. And though she tried to talk with Berenice, Berenice did not know either.

  "It gives me this kind of pain," she said, "to think about them."

  "Well, don't," said Berenice. "You done nothing but think and carry on about them all this afternoon."

  Frankie sat on the bottom step of the stairs to her room, staring into the kitchen. But although it gave her a kind of a pain, she had to think about the wedding. She remembered the way her brother and the bride had looked when she walked into the living room, that morning at eleven o'clock. There had been in the house a sudden silence, for Jarvis had turned off the radio when they came in; after the long summer, when the radio had gone on day and night, so that no one heard it any more, the curious silence had startled Frankie. She stood in the doorway, coming from the hall, and the first sight of her brother and the bride had shocked her heart. Together they made in her this feeling that she could not name. But it was like the feelings of the spring, only more sudden and more sharp. There was the same tightness and in the same queer way she was afraid. Frankie thought until her mind was dizzy and her foot had gone to sleep.

  Then she asked Berenice: "How old were you when you married your first husband?"

  While Frankie was thinking, Berenice had changed into her Sunday clothes, and now she sat reading a magazine. She was waiting for the people who were due to meet her at six o'clock, Honey and T. T. Williams; the three of them were going to eat supper at the New Metropolitan Tea Room and sashay together around the town. As Berenice read, she moved her lips to shape each word. Her dark eye looked up as Frankie spoke, but, since Berenice did not raise her head, the blue glass eye seemed to go on reading the magazine. This two-sighted expression bothered Frankie.

  "I were thirteen years old," said Berenice.

  "What made you get married so young for?"

  "Because I wanted to," said Berenice. "I were thirteen years old and I haven't growed a inch since."

  Berenice was very short, and Frankie looked hard at her and asked: "Does marrying really stop your growth?"

  "It certainy do," said Berenice.

  "I didn't know that," Frankie said.

  Berenice had been married four different times. Her first husband was Ludie Freeman, a brickmason, and the favorite and best one of the four; he gave Berenice her fox fur, and once they had gone to Cincinnati and seen snow. Berenice and Ludie Freeman had seen a whole winter of Northern snow. They loved each other and were married for nine years, until the November he was sick and died. The other three husbands were all bad, each one worse than the one before, and it made Frankie blue just to hear about them. The first was a sorry old liquor-drinker. The next went crazy on Berenice: he did crazy things, had eating dreams in the night and swallowed a corner of the sheet; and what with one thing and another he distracted Berenice so much that finally she had to quit him. The last husband was terrible. He gouged out Berenice's eye and stole her furniture away from her. She had to call the Law on him.

  "Did you marry with a veil every time?" asked Frankie.

  "Two times with a veil," said Berenice.

  Frankie could not keep still. She walked around the kitchen, although there was a splinter in her right foot and she was limping, her thumbs hooked in the belt of her shorts and her undershirt clinging and wet.

  Finally she opened the drawer of the kitchen table and selected a long sharp butcher knife. Then she sat down and rested the ankle of her sore foot on her left knee. The sole of her foot was long and narrow, pitted with ragged whitish scars, as every summer Frankie stepped on many nails; Frankie had the toughest feet in town. She could slice off waxy yellow rinds from the bottoms of her feet, and it did not hurt her very much, although it would hurt other people. But she did not chisel for the splinter immediately—she just sat there, her ankle on her knee and the knife in her right hand, looking across the table at Berenice.

  "Tell me," she said. "Tell me exactly how it was."

  "You know!" said Berenice. "You seen them."

  "But tell me," Frankie said.

  "I will discuss it for the last time," said Berenice. "Your brother and the bride come late this morning and you and John Henry hurried in from the back yard to see them. The next thing I realize you busted back through the kitchen and run up to your room. You came down with your organdie dress on and lipstick a inch thick from one ear to the next. Then you all just sat around up in the living room. It was hot. Jarvis had brought Mr. Addams a bottle of whiskey and they had liquor drinks and you and John Henry had lemonade. Then after dinner your brother and the bride took the three-o'clock train back to Winter Hill. The wedding will be this coming Sunday. And that is all. Now, is you satisfied?"

  "I am so disappointed they couldn't stay longer—at least spend the night. After Jarvis being away so long. But I guess they want to be together as long as they can. Jarvis said he had some army papers to fill out at Winter Hill." She took a deep breath. "I wonder where they will go after the wedding."

  "On their honeymoon. Your brother will have a few days' leave."

  "I wonder where that honeymoon will be."

  "Well, I'm sure I don't know."

  "Tell me," Frankie said again. "Exactly what did they look like?"

  "Look like?" said Berenice. "Why, they looked natural. Your brother is a good-looking blond white boy. And the girl is kind of brunette and small and pretty. They make a nice white couple. You seen them, Foolish."

  Frankie closed her eyes, and, though she did not see them as a picture, she could feel them leaving her. She could feel the two of them together on the train, riding and riding away from her. They were them, and leaving her, and she was her, and sitting left all by herself there at the kitchen table. But a part of her was with them, and she could feel this part of her own self going away, and farther away; farther and farther, so that a drawn-out sickness came in her, going away and farther away, so that the kitchen Frankie was an old hull left there at the table.

  "It is so queer," she said.

  She bent over the sole of her foot, and there was something wet, like tears or sweat drops on her face; she sniffled and began to cut for the splinter.

  "Don't that hurt you none?" asked Berenice.

  Frankie shook her head and did not answer. Then after a moment she said: "Have you ever seen any people that afterward you remembered more like a feeling than a picture?"

  "How you mean?"

  "I mean this," said Frankie slowly. "I saw them O.K. Janice had on a green dress and green high-heel dainty shoes. Her hair was done up in a knot. Dark hair and a little piece of it was loose. Jarvis sat by her on the sofa. He had on his brown uniform and he was sunburned and very clean. They were the two prettiest people I ever saw. Yet it was like I couldn't see all of them I wanted to see. My brains couldn't gather together quick enough and take it all in. And then they were gone. You see what I mean?"

  "You hurting yourself," said Berenice. "What you need is a needle."

  "I don't care anything about my old feet," Frankie said.

  It was only half-past six, and the minutes of the afternoon were like bright mirrors. From outside there was no longer the sound of whisding and in the kitchen nothing moved. Frankie sat facing the door that opened onto the back porch. There was a square cat-hole cut in a corner of the back door, and near-by a saucer of lavender sour milk. In the beginning of dog days Frankie's cat had gone away. And the season of dog days is like this: it is the time at the end of the summer when as a rule nothing can happen—but if a change does come about, that change remains until dog days are over. Things that are done are not undone and a mistake once made is not corrected.

  That August Berenice scratched a mosquito bite under her right arm and it became a sore: that sore would never heal until dog days were over. Two little families of August gnats picked out the
corners of John Henry's eyes to settle down in, and though he often shook himself and blinked, those gnats were there to stay. Then Charles disappeared. Frankie did not see him leave the house and walk away, but on the fourteenth of August, when she called him to his supper, he did not come, and he was gone. She looked for him everywhere and sent John Henry wailing out his name through all the streets of town. But it was the season of dog days and Charles did not come back again. Every afternoon Frankie said exactly the same words to Berenice, and the answers of Berenice were always the same. So that now the words were like an ugly little tune they sang by heart.

  "If only I just knew where he has gone."

  "Quit worrying yourself about that old alley cat. I done told you he ain't coming back."

  "Charles is not alley. He is almost pure Persian."

  "Persian as I is," Berenice would say. "You seen the last of that old tomcat. He gone off to hunt a friend."

  "To hunt a friend?"

  "Why, certainy. He roamed off to find himself a ladyfriend."

  "You really think so?"

  "Naturally."

  "Well, why don't he bring his friend home with him. He ought to know I would be only too glad to have a whole family of cats."

  "You seen the last of that old alley cat."

  "If only I just knew where he is gone."

  And so each gloomy afternoon their voices sawed against each other, saying the same words, which finally reminded Frankie of a raggedy rhyme said by two crazies. She would end by telling Berenice: "It looks to me like everything has just walked off and left me." And she would put her head down on the table and feel afraid.

  But this afternoon Frankie suddenly changed all this. An idea came to her, and she put down the knife and got up from the table.

  "I know what I ought to do," she suddenly said. "Listen."

  "I can hear."

  "I ought to notify the police force. They will find Charles."

  "I wouldn't do that," said Berenice.

  Frankie went to the hall telephone and explained to the Law about her cat. "He is almost pure Persian," she said. "But with short hair. A very lovely color of gray and with a little white spot on his throat. He answers to the name of Charles, but if he don't answer to that, he might come if you call Charlina. My name is Miss F. Jasmine Addams and the address is 124 Grove Street."

  Berenice was giggling when she came back, a soft high giggle. "Whew! They going to send around here and tie you up and drag you off to Milledgeville. Them fat blue police chasing tomcats around alleys and hollering: Oh Charles, Oh come here, Charlina! Sweet Jesus!"

  "Aw, shut up," Frankie said.

  Berenice was sitting at the table; she had stopped giggling and her dark eye roved in a teasing way as she sloshed coffee into a white china saucer to cool.

  "At the same time," she said, "I can't see how it is such a wise idea to trifle around with the Law. No matter for what reason."

  "I'm not trifling with the Law."

  "You just now set there and spelled them out your name and your house number. Where they can lay hold of you if ever they take the notion."

  "Well, let them!" said Frankie angrily. "I don't care! I don't care!" And suddenly she did not care if anybody knew she was a criminal or not. "Let them come get me for all I care."

  "I was just teasing you," said Berenice. "The trouble with you is that you don't have no sense of humor any more."

  "Maybe I'd be better off in jail."

  Frankie walked around the table and she could feel them going away. The train was traveling to the North. Mile after mile they went away, farther and farther away from the town, and as they traveled to the North, a coolness came into the air and dark was falling like the evening dark of wintertime. The train was winding up into the hills, the whistle wailing in a winter tone, and mile after mile they went away. They passed among themselves a box of bought store candy, with chocolates set in dainty, pleated shells, and watched the winter miles pass by the window. Now they had gone a long, long way from town and soon would be in Winter Hill.

  "Sit down," said Berenice. "You make me nervous."

  Suddenly Frankie began to laugh. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and went back to the table. "Did you hear what Jar vis said?"

  "What?"

  Frankie laughed and laughed.

  "They were talking about whether to vote for C. P. MacDonald. And Jarvis said: Why, I wouldn't vote for that scoundrel if he was running to be the dog-atcher. I never heard anything so witty in my life."

  Berenice did not laugh. Her dark eye glanced down in a corner, quickly saw the joke, and then looked back at Frankie. Berenice wore her pink crepe dress and her hat with the pink plume was on the table. The blue glass eye made the sweat on her dark face look bluish also. Berenice was stroking the hat plume with her hand.

  "And you know what Janice remarked?" asked Frankie. "When Papa mentioned about how much I've grown, she said she didn't think I looked so terribly big. She said she got the major portion of her growth before she was thirteen. She did, Berenice!"

  "O.K.! All right."

  "She said she thought I was a lovely size and would probably not grow any taller. She said all fashion models and movie stars—"

  "She did not," said Berenice. "I heard her. She only remarked that you probably had already got your growth. But she didn't go on and on like that. To hear you tell it, anybody would think she took her text on the subject."

  "She said—"

  "This is a serious fault with you, Frankie. Somebody just makes a loose remark and then you cozen it in your mind until nobody would recognize it. Your Aunt Pet happened to mention to Clorina that you had sweet manners and Clorina passed it on to you. For what it was worth. Then next thing I know you are going all around and bragging how Mrs. West thought you had the finest manners in town and ought to go to Hollywood, and I don't know what all you didn't say. You keep building on to any little compliment you hear about yourself. Or, if it is a bad thing, you do the same. You cozen and change things too much in your own mind. And that is a serious fault."

  "Quit preaching at me," Frankie said.

  "I ain't preaching. It is the solemn truth."

  "I admit it a little," said Frankie finally. She closed her eyes and the kitchen was very quiet. She could feel the beating of her heart, and when she spoke her voice was a whisper. "What I need to know is this. Do you think I made a good impression?"

  "Impression? Impression?"

  "Yes," said Frankie, her eyes still closed.

  "Well, how would I know?" said Berenice.

  "I mean how did I act? What did I do?"

  "Why, you didn't do anything."

  "Nothing?" asked Frankie.

  "No. You just watched the pair of them like they was ghosts. Then, when they talked about the wedding, them ears of yours stiffened out the size of cabbage leaves—"

  Frankie raised her hand to her left ear. "They didn't," she said bitterly. Then after a while she added, "Some day you going to look down and find that big fat tongue of yours pulled out by the roots and laying there before you on the table. Then how do you think you will feel?"

  "Quit talking so rude," said Berenice.

  Frankie scowled down at the splinter in her foot. She finished cutting it out with the knife and said, "That would have hurt anybody else but me." Then she was walking round and round the room again. "I am so scared I didn't make a good impression."

  "What of it?" said Berenice. "I wish Honey and T.T. would come on. You make me nervous."

  Frankie drew up her left shoulder and bit her lower lip. Then suddenly she sat down and banged her forehead on the table.

  "Come on," said Berenice. "Don't act like that."

  But Frankie sat stiff, her face in the crook of her elbow and her fists clenched tight. Her voice had a ragged and strangled sound. "They were so pretty," she was saying. "They must have such a good time. And they went away and left me."

  "Sit up," said Berenice. "Behave yourse
lf."

  "They came and went away," she said. "They went away and left me with this feeling."

  "Hooee!" said Berenice finally. "I bet I know something."

  The kitchen was silent and she tapped four times with her heel: one, two, three—bang! Her live eye was dark and teasing and she tapped with her heel, then took up the beating with a dark jazz voice that was like a song.

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  On the Wedd-ing!

  "Quit," said Frankie.

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  Berenice went on and on, and her voice was jazzed like the heart that beats in your head when you have fever. Frankie was dizzy, and she picked up the knife from the kitchen table.

  "You better quit!"

  Berenice stopped very suddenly. The kitchen was suddenly shrunken and quiet.

  "You lay down that knife."

  "Make me."

  She steadied the end of the handle against her palm and bent the blade slowly. The knife was limber, sharp, and long.

  "Lay it down, DEVIL!"

  But Frankie stood up and took careful aim. Her eyes were narrowed and the feel of the knife made her hands stop trembling.

  "Just throw it!" said Berenice. "You just!"

  All the house was very quiet. The empty house seemed to be waiting. And then there was the knife whisde in the air and the sound the blade made when it struck. The knife hit the middle of the stairway door and shivered there. She watched the knife until it did not shiver any longer.

  "I am the best knife-thrower in this town," she said.

  Berenice, who stood behind her, did not speak.

  "If they would have a contest I would win."