Peru

by Gordon Lish

  Wasn’t there a Valley Stream?

  I didn’t even know what to pay attention to, I couldn’t decide what to pay attention to, and I kept thinking that if I had not got off, that if she had not made my mother get me up off of the toilet, then I might be up there upstairs right that very instant doing something, finally getting somewhere and actually, with my bowels, doing something.

  The question is this—did we start off talking in the kitchen and then move from there to the living room, or did we do it vice versa? Or was it just her which did, or just me which did—and because of something she said?

  Here’s what it was—it was because of something I was too young for me to see.

  Or hear.

  I was a child, it was a long time ago, things were totally but totally different—I tell you, a child today could not even imagine. Henry, for instance—Henry when he was six compared to me when I was six would be like comparing the biggest uncomparables you could think of.

  Whereas now that he is thirteen and I am fifty?

  But just imagine it, just imagine it, anybody ever sending Henry out of the room because Florence wanted to say something about her bust, or her going out of the room, her actually getting up and going out of the room, her actually thinking she had to pick herself up and go from one room to another room just so that Henry would not see her adjusting it, the bra binding her bust.

  No, brassiere—they said brassiere—except they never said when you, when they thought you could hear.

  In all honesty and sincerity, when I heard them bidding, when they were playing mah-jongg and I heard them bidding, this was what I thought.

  One bam, two crack.

  “One bam, two crack.”

  No one was ever actually watching to make sure I didn’t keep going after the Aaronsons’, no one was ever out there actually watching me to make sure I didn’t, but I never went past the other end of the Aaronsons’ property, anyway.

  There wasn’t any reason for me to.

  I didn’t need to know anymore about the Christians.

  There was the nanny and Miss Donnelly.

  I had the nanny and Miss Donnelly for me to go by.

  Whereas as far as the colored people went, whereas as far as the colored man and the colored maid went, I can’t even begin to tell you why I didn’t, but I myself just did not think of them in these particular terms in general, I just did not think of colored people as Christians or as not as Christians but just as colored people in general.

  I realize that she was just his nanny as such and was not my nanny, but I have to tell you that I think there is some truth to the statement that there were times when Andy Lieblich’s nanny also kept an eye on me.

  I even sometimes used to be suspicious of something. I even sometimes used to be suspicious of the fact that my mother and father used to secretly give her some money to also keep an eye on me, that maybe there was a secret arrangement which they had with the nanny and that I was actually really safer than you would think, or I would.

  You know what I used to sometimes think?

  I used to sometimes think that the nanny had to be careful about always watching me so much in case someone spotted her at it and then told people about it and then that this would wreck the whole thing of it being a secret.

  She was always saying how tired she was because of Andy Lieblich always being such a delicate child. She was always saying that she had to watch him like a hawk, that she had to wait on him hand and foot, that she could never let him out of her sight for one instant, that she never got a moment’s peace, that she never got a minute’s rest, that she was dog-tired, that she was at her wit’s end, that she was worn down to a frazzle with a case of nerves from it, that she was all in, done in, spent from running herself ragged with it, ready to drop in her tracks from worrying herself sick over it, that she was weary unto death, dead on her feet, at the end of her rope, ready to drop, irked, fed up, bored stiff. But then she would reach over for the rubber bands and start winding and unwinding them up and down her wrist over her wristwatch and start saying things about a different subject, about some other kind of a thing completely different from Andy Lieblich.

  You want for me to tell you something?

  My mother only put out the All Sorts for when there was company coming over for mah-jongg or something.

  Then somebody would say, then one of the ladies would say, “Shouldn’t he be outside playing?” Or “Doesn’t he need the fresh air?” Or “Reggie, there aren’t nice children in the neighborhood for the child to play with?”

  But I always got a handful of them first.

  I got a handful of them the size which my hand was when it was then.

  I had nothing against him because of the harelip in particular. The only thing about the harelip was that to me it was just a totally new thing. That and the baseball card and the fact of the nanny finally saying, of her finally changing her mind and giving permission, the nanny finally deciding that she was going to go ahead and make up her mind that this one time, that having three boys in the sandbox all at one time was not going to be against one of her rules—these were all things which were brand-new to me, things which at the time I had to hurry up as fast as I could and get used to as new rules—harelips and things, three boys.

  Or even just Andy Lieblich having another boy over—there was also this as a new thing also.

  Actually, when she said it, I thought that she was saying that what Steven Adinoff had was a hairlip, not a harelip.

  Not that I myself had ever heard of either one.

  To my mind, it was filthy and disgusting, whatever it was. To my mind, it wasn’t any different than what Sir’s place was when she made me make it come out and then the dust from the Blue Coal got stuck on it. Or what to my mind it was going to look like to you if you ever looked down and saw it with the shoe off of it.

  It was all pink-looking and wet-looking.

  It was lifted up on one side of it.

  Which made it twist all of the way to his nose.

  In other words, he didn’t say, “You don’t have to kill me,” and “You didn’t have to kill me.” What he said was this—he said, “Nyou nyon’t nyave nyoo nyill nyee,” and “Nyou nyidn’t nyave nyoo nyill nyee.” This is what Steven Adinoff, that’s what Steven Adinoff, that is actually what I had to hear Steven Adinoff say—plus all of the rest of it, plus all of the rest of it about Nyonny Nyize and so on.

  She didn’t really miss him. Maybe she was acting like she missed him, but she didn’t, she didn’t. It was just the next day, just the day after, but I could tell that she was already glad that he was dead. When she came over to make my mother get me to get down off of the toilet and come downstairs, she was already glad—you could tell it, you could tell it—even his own mother, especially his own mother, even a child could have looked at her and specifically told you that his own mother herself was glad that Steven Adinoff wasn’t anything anymore which she was going to have to bother with anymore, that she was trying to hide how lucky she knew she was that somebody like me had come along and gone ahead and had done what I did.

  Big white ones, two in front, two in back.

  These really big ones front and back.

  I’ll tell you something about corduroys, which is that you really do talk to them like as if they are like a voice which is really talking to you, that you really do do it, that all children do, even if they look you right in your face and swear up and down to the contrary. They just have to be alone enough, that’s all it takes, being alone enough and walking all by themselves enough and being nice enough to know that it would be a mean thing, and maybe even a dangerous thing, for them not to talk back to something which is talking to you. Not that you don’t know it’s just your pants. Of course you know it’s just your pants! But what you also know is this—that there is something back there behind the fact that they are just your pants and that corduroy pants make a noise when somebody is walking in corduroy pants.

&nb
sp; She said she wanted to know what somebody who killed somebody looked like, but I can tell you this—she also wanted to know what I talked like. You know what she found out? She found out that I looked like a boy and talked like a boy which she herself would have taken any old day over the boy which she used to have.

  We both knew the truth.

  We both knew who was the person who had done her the biggest favor anyone ever could.

  You think I don’t know about mothers and fathers?

  I was only six, but I knew what Mrs. Adinoff thought. I knew how she had to act, but I knew what she thought. I even think it could be why she went ahead and said what she said after she came back or I came back, after she had left or was it me who had left the room?—namely, to do me a favor by way of paying me back for the one which I myself had done for her—say bust and binding, etc.

  In other words, why she said that—because it was like she meant it to be a favor to me, that it was like a secret favor to me, something which the mother of Steven Adinoff could do right in front of my mother, with my own mother right there, without anybody ever knowing that she, that Steven Adinoff s mother, wasn’t really and truly actually mad at me, even though she had to keep on acting like she was, as if like she actually was.

  Not just like glue, but also like Wildroot, or also like Kreml, depending on which one he put on his hair when we got finished in the shower.

  I know mothers and fathers.

  THE NANNY SAID, “THIS IS STEVEN ADINOFF.” The nanny said, ’Adinoff, now isn’t Adinoff a proud name?” The nanny said, “Names come and names go, but is Adinoff one of your fly-by-night names?” The nanny said, “Oh, I wish I had a name as grand as this Adinoff lad has.” The nanny said, “Yet didn’t the Lord in his infinite wisdom see fit to mark this young Adinoff of ours with a harelip?” She said, “Now doesn’t everybody see what I mean when I stand here and say a harelip?”

  She said, “But is this any reason for anyone to treat this young Adinoff lad without every courtesy and respect?” She said, “Because God protect the boy who goes out of his way to be the least unkind or cruel to this abnormal child or to treat him like anything other than just like everybody else.” She said, “Did I have your permission to say harelip, Master Adinoff?” She said, “Because I don’t want these silly little lads of ours to be afraid of the word or to think it is something bad or to say any mean things about it or for them to laugh at it behind your back.” She said, “Now let’s just be about our business and not have another word about things like harelips or a child named Adinoff or anything else.”

  You know how I always knew which hair tonic he used?

  Because I was always keeping myself looking up to keep me from looking down.

  I thought it meant that he was born with a hair in his lip and that what you saw when you looked at him was from what the doctor had to do to it to get the hair to finally come out of his lip.

  Or that the hair was actually still somewhere in there—and that what all of the pink-looking and wet-looking effect was there for was because it was nature’s way of growing something over the hair to keep you from seeing it.

  Maybe of getting your attention, of getting you to look at something else and not always be looking at the hair.

  But I tell you, there are times when nothing could get you to look at anything else—like for instance when I looked up from the footlocker and saw the men on the roof. What I mean is not just that I myself could not have looked at anything else—but that they could not have done it, either—them, the men themselves, the men on the television, the men on the roof on the television.

  Here’s the proof, here’s the proof!—could they even look away enough to pay attention to the bullets?

  HENRY’S ALL FOR CAMP. Some boys, they can take it or leave it, but Henry’s always been all for it right from the first time he went. Not that I can say what specifics he’s so crazy about up there, which activities the boy likes best. All I can say is just camp things, that it’s just generally things like this, I think.

  It’s great, a boy as rough-and-ready as Henry is—a boy who’s been all for camp for six, for seven summers now—when some boys, Florence says, would sooner take poison than for them to go away to camp.

  Henry just automatically loved it, was automatically a boy who was just automatically made for camp.

  Not that the camp which Florence and I picked for him is anything but the best.

  It’s hard finding the right kind of camp. The range is tremendous—as to just the questions of quality and of program and of setting, the range is positively tremendous. But Florence handled it, Florence dealt with it—whereas it is more in my nature for me to keep myself to the wings when it comes to choosing things for Henry, to stay on the sidelines, as they say, and leave the honors to Florence.

  I should probably be telling all of this to just only six-year-olds. Even thirteen-year-olds, I don’t think even thirteen-year-olds can really appreciate any of this kind of a thing anymore. Who wants to remember the way things really were? You have to really think about it and think about it to keep the things which really happened from always getting mixed up with the things you are just making up. Of course, Andy Lieblich always got the shovel! Don’t you remember how somebody always had to have the shovel? Or let’s just say, for the sake of keeping everybody happy, the first choice after the pails were handed out.

  Sometimes it was so hard to make up your mind. If you had to make up your mind between the shovel and something else, if the choice you had to make was between the shovel and anything else, then it would have been an easy choice, then it would have been easy for you to choose—but between the hoe and the rake, what about when you had to go ahead and make up your mind just between a hoe and a rake? I mean, what about that, okay?

  But I will tell you a choice which I would not have had not a moment’s hesitation with, not one single solitary problem in the least with, not in the very least. However, even though it was a choice which I think it was mine by rights to make—namely, if whether we took a taxi or if whether we just walked it the morning of Henry’s departure for camp—the opportunity to exercise my prerogative was denied me—and who paid the piper for it, who had to—I’m asking you, I am asking you—rue the day?

  Not that I am saying that it was all that big of a deal, but I believe that the principle of the thing—in all honesty and candor, I think that the principle of the thing is very much to the point, if not totally but totally, don’t you?

  You know what I wanted?

  I wanted to smell of cocoa butter and of lilac.

  When he started doing it, I said, “You’re going to get yourself in hot water. You’re going to get yourself in dutch.”

  I’m not actually positive if this was her biggest rule. Maybe it was instead the one about the number of boys which was the biggest one. She even used to say that you couldn’t even just kneel on the grass on the outside and just reach in with your pail and your hoe or your rake or what have you—she said that even this, that even just reaching into the sandbox from the outside of it, was definitely but definitely out of the question—except for the one time when she said it wasn’t.

  The nanny said rules were for your own good and that she knew what was good for us. She said that the reason you had to have rules was to keep boys from being flighty and fidgety. She said that if we ourselves were ever in her shoes, that then we would have to have the same rules which she did because what goes up must come down.

  I was the best at Builder, the best at Farmer, the best at Gardener—the best at winning whichever game which Andy Lieblich told the nanny he wanted.

  Take playing Builder, for instance, take making buildings, for instance—the way I could pack the sand down into it, the way I could pack the sand down into the pail, and then turn the pail over and give it these light little taps all around on the bottom of it and then get the sand to all come out of it and stand upside-down and stay all in one piece of it.

 
But whose sandbox was it—and whose things were they—and which boy had it all every day for practice?

  Listen to this—Andy Lieblich didn’t even have to have permission to go ahead and practice. If he wanted to practice, then he just practiced. He could just automatically go do it whenever he wanted, he could just walk right outside and head right for the sandbox. It was his sandbox, wasn’t it?

  But there was a sense in which it sometimes felt to me like it really wasn’t, like it really wasn’t his at all, like the sandbox was really not his sandbox but was my sandbox—just like the nanny was really my nanny and the colored man was really my colored man and the Buick was really my Buick—that the whole thing was that there had been some kind of a mix-up somewhere and that I was really the real Andy Lieblich.

  In all reality, there was a sense in which I was the one who always had to have a hot lunch with a broiled meat pattie always in it and who always had to have his milk with the chill off of it and have on dusting powder on.

  He had a lawn all over, his place had lawn all around it.

  They put citronella on him to keep things off of him.

  He had naps and he had tub baths and I think she said a carpet, I think she once said that Andy Lieblich had a carpet, that it was there at their front door where linoleum was what my family had at ours, and it was all ruffled.

  But don’t you see, can’t you see that it wouldn’t have anyway been the same thing, that when his father came home from the railroad station, it would not have sounded to Andy Lieblich the same way which it sounded to me when mine did even if they themselves happened to have linoleum, even if the Lieblichs happened to have linoleum themselves, except that I think the nanny said they didn’t?

  HE LEFT ALMOST THE LAST DAY OF JUNE, whereas it’s almost the end, whereas now that I pay attention to it, it is almost the end of August.

  I’m the same now as I was then—always feeling like as if I have to be the one to do it, that it won’t be done if I don’t do it, that it is my job for me to get everything picked up and get it straightened out and all finished up and neat and tidy. But when it comes to things like Henry and camp, why is it I feel I have to leave all of all that to Florence—that where it is a question of Henry and something, that Florence is the one who is right on top of it?