The Laughing Matter

by William Saroyan

  “Evan?” Milton Schweitzer said.

  “Just listen to me carefully,” Evan said. “You don’t have children, but I do. You understand, I think. If I ever see you again, I will not kill you, because of my children, but I will nearly do so—with my hands. That’s all.”

  He hung up and cursed in his own language.

  In the kitchen Warren Walz had heard everything, but after a moment he came out of the kitchen as if he had heard nothing. He handed Evan his drink.

  “We’d better gulp these down,” Evan said. “I don’t like to keep kids waiting.” He drank his drink, and Walz his.

  “Thanks,” Evan said.

  He walked out of the house, Walz coming after him quickly.

  Chapter 35

  The man in Palo Alto hung up, began to walk the length of the small apartment, saying to himself, On top of everything else, this.

  Evan was his friend. He had, in fact, no other friend. He was the kind of man people seemed to dislike on sight. He seemed to make them uncomfortable.

  He’d felt that he must speak to her once more. He’d wanted to feel before leaving for New York that he need not feel guilty any more.

  His bags were packed, he’d been at the corner drugstore for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, he’d decided he must telephone her. He’d heard the number being rung, but was relieved and grateful when no one had answered. He had tried, at any rate.

  He’d gone back to his apartment to pick up his bags. He’d telephoned for a cab, and the girl had said a driver would be there in five or ten minutes.

  Then the telephone bell had rung and he’d listened to Evan Nazarenus.

  Now, there was a knock at the door.

  “Taxi,” the driver said.

  He opened the door and handed the man a dollar.

  “I’m not quite ready yet,” he said. “Can you come back in a half hour?”

  “Sure,” the driver said.

  He closed the door and sat at his desk. He found that he’d left a lined tablet in the drawer, brought out his fountain pen, and began to write a letter. When the taxi driver knocked at the door again he let him in, they picked up his bags, and went downstairs to the street.

  In the taxi the driver said, “The depot?”

  But when they came to the depot the man said, “Could you drive me to San Francisco?”

  “Sure,” the driver said. “It’ll come to around fifteen dollars, though.”

  “O.K.”

  He deposited his bags in two of the dime lockers at the Ferry Building, having an hour to kill, put the keys in his pocket, went across the street to a saloon, had a drink, then another, and another, until his train was gone. He went out and got into a taxi.

  “The St. Francis,” he said.

  “My bags are at the depot,” he said at the desk. “I’ll get them tomorrow.”

  He dropped the letter in the mailbox, went to his room, and fell on the bed.

  “Listen to me,” he heard Evan say. “Listen to me carefully.”

  He listened for hours listening in his drunken sleep.

  Chapter 36

  The picnic at Skaggs Bridge was the best Red had ever been to. Everybody went into the river, to wade and splash and swim. The floor of the river was smooth firm sand. Around sundown Cody and Bart came in Bart’s car. They put on their swimming trunks and got into the river, too. When it was evening everybody left the river and got dressed. A fire was made and hot dogs were roasted. The smell of the burning leaves, twigs, and logs was very good. Everybody ate and drank, and then Evan, Warren, Cody, and Bart sang old songs until it was dark.

  Red stood with Flora, watching the fire die down.

  “We’re going home Friday,” Red said.

  “Yes, I know,” Flora said.

  “We’re coming back Christmas, I think.”

  “Are you going to stay at Dade’s?”

  “Yes. My father wants to work on the vineyard with his brother. He has a long vacation then.”

  “How long?”

  “Until after New Year’s Day,” Red said. “I’m coming, too.”

  “Everything’s different then,” Flora said. “The trees and vines are bare then. It’s cold then. It’s winter.”

  “Winter’s good, too,” Red said.

  “We don’t have snow,” Flora said, “but everything gets awful cold.”

  They talked until it was time to get back into Dade’s car and go home.

  “We’re certainly going to hate to see you go,” Warren Walz said.

  “Why don’t you come and live in Clovis?” May said.

  “Why don’t we, Swan?” Evan said.

  “To make a living,” Walz said, “you’d need at least thirty acres, but vineyards aren’t nearly as high as they used to be. For about three thousand cash I think you could get a pretty good place. You’d owe about nine thousand, but with luck you’d pay that off in four or five years. It’s not a bad life.”

  “I’d like a vineyard all right, if Swan and Red and Eva would, too,” Evan said.

  “I would,” Swan said.

  Red and Eva said they would, too.

  “The house might not be very good,” Walz said, “but instead of moving right in, you could go back for another semester or two. In the meantime, Dade and I could be having the house put in order. When it was ready, you could move in. A year or two later you could have a new house built. A real ranch house. Ours is just an old house that we’ve kept up. It’s forty years old.”

  “Is it that old?” Swan said. “It seems so new and nice.”

  “It was always a good house,” May said. “It’s just that we didn’t have it built ourselves. We’ve had it since before Fay. If it wasn’t ours at first, it certainly is by now. I’ll show you around when we get there.”

  “If you’d like me to,” Warren said, “I’ll find out what’s for sale around Clovis, and whenever you feel like it, we’ll go out and have a look at a couple of places.”

  “Will you do that?” Evan said. “Swan, I like this idea. Are you sure you like it?”

  “I’d love to live here,” Swan said. “After all, you’ve been at the university almost six years.”

  “I’m fed up with the university,” Evan said. “I’d like to live on a vineyard.”

  “I would, too,” Swan said.

  “Would you, Eva?” Evan said.

  “Yes, Papa,” Eva said. “Especially if we had a watermelon patch.”

  “We’d have that,” Evan said. He turned to Walz. “Will you look into what’s for sale?”

  “I ought to have a pretty good idea about the whole thing by noon tomorrow,” Walz said. “Why not have lunch with us? After lunch you and I can go along and examine the places. When we’ve found something that looks O.K., you can take Swan and the children to have a look at it, too.”

  “All right, Swan?” Evan said.

  “Perfect,” Swan said.

  May Walz showed them through the house, everybody trailing along. It was a fine house of two floors, four bedrooms upstairs. It was cool, clean, nicely furnished and nicely kept up.

  When they got home it was almost ten. Swan got the children to bed, then sat down in the dark parlor. Evan was out on the front porch, sitting on the railing. He sat there almost half an hour, then came in.

  “Do you really like the idea of a vineyard?” he said.

  “It’ll be a perfect place for you and the children,” Swan said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to be there with you,” Swan said. “More than anything in the world I do. I want more and more of us to be there together, Evan, but I know I’m not going to be.”

  “Why not?”

  “You won’t do anything to hurt the children,” Swan said, “and I won’t, either, Evan.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know what happened this afternoon,” Swan said. “And I know how hard you tried to keep the way you felt from the children. You couldn’t keep it from me, though. Yo
u couldn’t keep it from me all afternoon. You can’t keep it from me now. I know you’re trying, Evan—for the children. I believe in trying. I think it’s right to try. But how much of a woman can I be, how much of a mother, if every time you remember what’s happened you are driven mad, and can hold the family together only by trying desperately, so desperately that I am filled with fear?”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Evan said. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “I’ve hurt you deeply,” Swan said. “I’ve hurt you too deeply. It would be disastrous to insist that you love me because you love the children. It would destroy you. I’m terribly frightened. I have never seen you as mad—as insane, Evan—as you were this afternoon. You were insisting—you were insisting, Evan—that you love me, because unless you did insist, you would have to do something that would mean the loss to the children of their father, or their mother, or both of them. Or perhaps even worse things. I’m deeply frightened. I was frightened for myself until this afternoon. Now, I’m frightened for you, and for them. You will never forget what has happened. I can never be the same to you. If you were another kind of man—perhaps a man like Warren Walz—I could be the same to you again, or something better, even. What’s going to happen to us, Evan? I love the idea of a vineyard, but what about you and me?”

  “We’re going to begin again,” Evan said. “That’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to be patient with one another. You’ll help me, as you did this afternoon, and I’ll help you. I’m still mad, but not so mad I can’t keep trying. The vineyard—the idea of the vineyard—gives me hope. We’re going to begin again, Swan, because we’ve got to. What’s right, Swan? Beginning again is right, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, Evan.”

  “Now, you know it is,” Evan said. “Don’t make things difficult for both of us by saying you don’t know. You do know. You know very well what’s right. We haven’t any choice. Beginning again is right. Beginning again is always difficult. It’s the most difficult thing in the world. The demands it makes of us are great. But what are we, Swan, if we can’t meet difficult demands? Are we going to live from hour to hour for ourselves alone? Don’t hold it against me that I want to live a responsible life. I’ve got to try to live that life. I’ve got to believe it can be lived. Love, more than anything else in the world, is to be earned. I love the hope of earning love with you, and you must love the hope of earning it with me. You must help me. If there’s to be a vineyard, and a life for us on it, it’s to be with you, Swan. It can’t be without you. It’s to be for you, Swan. You cannot say that you want to be there, but know you won’t be there. Where will you be, Swan?”

  “Alone, Evan, or dead.”

  “Why? Please tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I know how it infuriates you to hear me say again and again that I don’t know, but I don’t, Evan. I just don’t. I feel that I will be alone, or dead, and it frightens me. I feel it. That’s all I know. I’ve felt it all my life, but especially since Friday night. I want to have done what must be done, but I’m frightened.”

  “Well,” he said, “suppose you are? Suppose I am, too? So what? We’ll go on. We’ll begin again, both of us frightened if need be. We’ll keep going. We’ll grow more and more frightened if need be, but we’ll go on. I’m speaking of the worst, Swan.” He stopped a moment. “Suppose going on is difficult? It’s not difficult for us alone. Think how difficult it must be for Red and Eva, who have no other direction to take, except to us. Suppose it is difficult when we are thinking only of our own lousy selves? So what, Swan?”

  “I don’t care how difficult it is,” Swan said, “I want to be there with you. I want to begin as soon as we can. I wish we could get what needs to be done out of the way right now. Tonight, Evan.”

  “Is it this that you’re most afraid of, Swan?”

  “I think so, Evan, but I don’t care any more. I don’t care if I am afraid. I want the vineyard.”

  She tried her best not to sob, as if it were Eva herself trying to hold back the tears.

  “I was the one, Evan,” she said. “Do you think anything happens to a woman that she doesn’t want to happen? I did it because I was curious, because I’m stupid, because I am irresponsible, because I do live in the minute, because I have wanted instantly anything I have ever wanted. I forgot all about you, Evan, I forgot all about Red and Eva. I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to care. Now, I’m sick of myself. I want this whole business to be stopped. Tonight. Telephone Dade. Speak in your own language. I won’t be able to sleep anyway. Do it for me, Evan. It must be done and I want it done, but I can’t wait. I just can’t wait. After this is over with, I’ll wait for everything. I’ll be able to wait.”

  “All right, Swan.”

  He went to the telephone and after a moment spoke to Dade in his own language.

  “Please don’t ask any questions,” he said. “If you know somebody, fly here with him tonight. I’ll meet you at the airport and bring you here, no matter when you arrive. It must happen tonight. It’s half-past ten. By daybreak it’ll be over. I’ll stay beside her. You can take the kids for a drive. Can you do it, Dade? Can you find somebody? I’ve got a lot of things to talk about tomorrow, but this has got to happen first. It’s not me who’s asking, it’s Swan. Find somebody, Dade.”

  “I’ll find somebody,” Dade said. “I’ll call you back.”

  He found her standing in the parlor, waiting for him, her face trembling.

  He embraced her.

  “My wonderful Swan,” he said. “My beautiful Swan.”

  “Your terrible Swan!” she sobbed. “Your crazy Swan.”

  She stopped suddenly to laugh, laughing as a small girl laughs.

  “If you only knew what I want,” she laughed. “If you only knew what I want now, at a time like this, Evan. God, it amazes me, even. If you only knew, Evan.”

  “I know, Swan. It’s all right.”

  “It’s all right, but it’s not to be, is it, Evan?”

  “No, Swan.”

  “Why, Evan?”

  “Because it’s what I want, too, and it’s not to be because it will take us to a time like this again, and this isn’t fun enough, that’s all, Swan.”

  “Is somebody coming?”

  “He’s going to call me.”

  “Can I have a drink, then?”

  “Sure.”

  When he’d fixed drinks and they’d each had a sip she said, “I wish you knew how glad I am we can’t have what we both want. How glad I am you want to try to love me that deeply.”

  Chapter 37

  Dade telephoned after an hour and said in their own language, “I’ve got two of them. They don’t know one another. We’ll be at the Fresno airport at two. They’ll be finished in less than an hour. I’ll drive them back to the airport, and they’ll take the five o’clock plane back. I’ll be talking to both of them on the way down to find out which one it’s to be. The other one will stand by. She ought to be up and about in a couple of days. She ought to be finished with the whole thing in a month.”

  “I’ll be at the airport at two,” Evan said.

  One of them was a small, dark man of sixty or so. The other was tall and thin, and ten or more years younger. Evan hoped it would be the dark one, for he believed this one was nothing worse than an alcoholic. Each of them had ordinary suitcases, and Dade had his luggage. The stuff was put away in the trunk compartment of the car, and Evan drove back swiftly, but not too swiftly. He didn’t want to be stopped for speeding at a time like this. There was almost no conversation during the entire half-hour drive.

  The whole thing was over in a little more than an hour. The dark man had been the one. The other one had seen to the sterilizing of the instruments, and had kept out of the way, staying in the kitchen.

  “She’ll want to sleep,” the little one said. “She may become half-awake every now and then, but she’ll fall back after a minute or two. She ought to stay in bed until Thursday morning. After that she
can get up for a couple of hours at a time—for three or four days. She ought to take things easy for a month.”

  Dade drove them back to the airport. It was half-past five when he came into the house again.

  “I wanted to put them back on the plane,” he said. “How is she? Have you been in to see her?”

  “Yes,” Evan said. He waited a moment. “Dade?” he said.

  “It’s all right,” Dade said. “He’s the best there is. The other one was insurance. You’re not worried, are you?”

  “She didn’t make a sound, Dade. Swan can’t take pain. I was with her when Red and Eva came, and I know she can’t.”

  “He gave her some stuff to make it painless.”

  “Could he have given her too much?”

  “No. He’s the best there is.”

  “It’s been almost three hours.”

  “She may not want to wake up for a long time yet,” Dade said.

  “If I get Swan through this,” Evan said, “I’m going to know how to take care of her. I’m going to know what to do for her. This is nothing, it doesn’t mean a thing. We’ve made a lot of plans. We know what we’re doing. She’s a little mad, the same as I am. The same as you are, too. I didn’t know that, Dade. She expects me to help her. This was part of it, the beginning of it. She’s irresponsible. She’s swift. She doesn’t think living’s worth the trouble. She’s a little mad, that’s all, but she doesn’t want to be. I guess any beautiful girl can be a little mad if somebody won’t stop her. She wants to be stopped. Living very nearly isn’t worth the trouble, you know. It is very nearly a fraud, you know. All I want is to get her past this, and then I want to straighten both of us out. I helped her become a little mad, you know. She thinks it’s herself alone, but I helped her. A man can’t know much, Dade, until it’s almost too late. I haven’t done wrong, have I?”

  “No,” Dade said.

  They went into the kitchen and Dade got coffee started. They sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee.

  “The easiest thing in the world,” Evan said, “is to kick things over at the first excuse for doing so.”