by Amor Towles
Now, I had never hit anybody in my life. And to be perfectly honest, my first impression was how much it hurt. Shifting the two-by-four to my left hand, I looked at my right palm, where two bright-red lines had been left behind by the edges of the wood. Tossing it on the ground, I rubbed my palms together to take out the sting. Then I leaned over the cowboy to get a better look. His legs were folded under him and his left ear was split down the middle, but he was still conscious. Or conscious enough.
—Can you hear me, Tex? I asked.
Then I spoke a little louder to make sure he could.
—Consider your debt repaid in full.
As he looked back at me, his eyelashes fluttered for a moment. But then he gave a little smile, and I could tell from the way his eyelids closed that he was going to sleep like a baby.
Walking out of the alley, I became conscious not simply of a welling sense of moral satisfaction, but that my footfall felt a little lighter and my stride a little jauntier.
Well, what do you know, I thought to myself with a smile. There’s serenity in my step!
And it must have showed. Because when I emerged from the alley and said howdy to the two old men passing by, they both said howdy back. And though on the way into town, ten cars had passed me before the mechanic picked me up, on the way back to the Watsons’, the first car that came along pulled over to offer me a ride.
Woolly
The funny thing about a story, thought Woolly—while Emmett was in town, and Duchess was on a walk, and Billy was reading aloud from his big red book—the funny thing about a story is that it can be told in all sorts of lengths.
The first time Woolly heard The Count of Monte Cristo, he must have been younger than Billy. His family was spending the summer at the camp in the Adirondacks, and every night his sister Sarah would read him a chapter before he went to bed. But what his sister was reading from was the original book by Alexander Dumas, which was a thousand pages long.
The thing about hearing a story like The Count of Monte Cristo from the one-thousand-page version is that whenever you sense an exciting part is coming, you have to wait and wait and wait for it to actually arrive. In fact, sometimes you have to wait so long for it to arrive you forget that it’s coming altogether and let yourself drift off to sleep. But in Billy’s big red book, Professor Abernathe had chosen to tell the entire story over the course of eight pages. So in his version, when you sensed an exciting part was coming, it arrived lickety-split.
Like the part that Billy was reading now—the part when Edmond Dantès, convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, is carted off to spend the rest of his life in the dreaded Château d’If. Even as he is being led in chains through the prison’s formidable gates, you just know that Dantès is bound to escape. But in Mr. Dumas’s telling, before he regains his freedom you have to listen to so many sentences spread across so many chapters that it begins to feel like you are the one who is in the Château d’If! Not so with Professor Abernathe. In his telling, the hero’s arrival at the prison, his eight years of solitude, his friendship with the Abbé Faria, and his miraculous escape all occur on the very same page.
Woolly pointed at the solitary cloud that was passing overhead.
—That’s what I imagine the Château d’If looked like.
Carefully marking his place with his finger, Billy looked up to where Woolly was pointing and readily agreed.
—With its straight rock walls.
—And the watchtower in the middle.
Woolly and Billy both smiled to see it, but then Billy’s expression grew rather more serious.
—Can I ask you a question, Woolly?
—Of course, of course.
—Was it hard to be at Salina?
As Woolly considered the question, far overhead the Château d’If transformed itself into an ocean liner—with a giant smokestack where the watchtower once had been.
—No, said Woolly, it wasn’t so hard, Billy. Certainly not like the Château d’If was for Edmond Dantès. It’s just that . . . It’s just that every day at Salina was an every-day day.
—What’s an every-day day, Woolly?
Woolly took another moment to consider.
—When we were at Salina, every day we would get up at the same time and get dressed in the same clothes. Every day we had breakfast at the same table with the same people. And every day we did the same work in the same fields before going to sleep at the same hour in the same beds.
Though Billy was just a boy, or maybe because he was just a boy, he seemed to understand that while there is nothing wrong with waking up or getting dressed or having breakfast, per se, there is something fundamentally disconcerting about doing these things in the exact same fashion day in and day out, especially in the one-thousand-page version of one’s own life.
After nodding, Billy found his place and began to read again.
What Woolly did not have the heart to tell Billy was that while this was unquestionably the way of life at Salina, it was also the way of life in many other places. It was certainly the way of life at boarding school. And not simply at St. George’s, where Woolly had most recently been enrolled. At all three boarding schools that Woolly had attended, every day they would wake up at the same time, get dressed in the same clothes, and have breakfast at the same table with the same people before heading off to attend the same classes in the same classrooms.
Woolly had often wondered about that. Why did the heads of boarding schools choose to make every day an every-day day? After some reflection, he came to suspect that they did so because it made things easier to manage. By turning every day into an every-day day, the cook would always know when to cook breakfast, the history teacher when to teach history, and the hall monitor when to monitor the halls.
But then Woolly had an epiphany.
It was in the first semester of his second junior year (the one at St. Mark’s). On his way from physics down to the gymnasium, he happened to notice the dean of students getting out of a taxi in front of the schoolhouse. As soon as he saw the taxi, it occurred to Woolly what a pleasant surprise it would be were he to pay a visit to his sister, who had recently bought a big white house in Hastings-on-Hudson. So, jumping in the back of the cab, Woolly gave the address.
You mean in New York? the driver asked in surprise.
I mean in New York! Woolly confirmed, and off they went.
When he arrived a few hours later, Woolly found his sister in the kitchen on the verge of peeling a potato.
Hallo, Sis!
Were Woolly to pay a surprise visit to any other member of his family, they would probably have greeted him with an absolute slew of whos, whys, and whats (especially when he needed 150 dollars for the taxi driver, who was waiting outside). But after paying the driver, Sarah just put the kettle on the stove, some cookies on a plate, and the two of them had a grand old time—sitting at her table and discussing all the various topics that happened to pop into their heads.
But after an hour or so, Woolly’s brother-in-law, “Dennis,” walked through the kitchen door. Woolly’s sister was seven years older than Woolly, and “Dennis” was seven years older than Sarah, so mathematically speaking “Dennis” had been thirty-two at the time. But “Dennis” was also seven years older than himself, which made him almost forty in spirit. That is why, no doubt, he was already a vice president at J.P. Morgan & Sons & Co.
When “Dennis” discovered Woolly at the kitchen table, he was a little upset on the grounds that Woolly was supposed to be someplace else. But he was even more upset when he discovered the half-peeled potato on the counter.
When is dinner? he asked Sarah.
I’m afraid I haven’t started preparing it yet.
But it’s half past seven.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dennis.
For a moment, “Dennis” looked at Sarah in disbelief, then he turned t
o Woolly and asked if he could speak to Sarah in private.
In Woolly’s experience, when someone asks if they can speak to someone else in private, it is difficult to know what to do with yourself. For one thing, they generally don’t tell you how long they’re going to be, so it’s hard to know how deeply you should involve yourself in some new endeavor. Should you take the opportunity to visit the washroom? Or start a jigsaw puzzle that depicts a sailboat race with fifty spinnakers? And how far should you go? You certainly need to go far enough so that you can’t hear them talking. That was the whole point of their asking you to leave in the first place. But it often sounds like they may want you to come back a bit later, so you need to be close enough to hear them when they call.
Doing his best to split the hair down the muddle, Woolly went into the living room, where he discovered an unplayed piano and some unread books and an unwound grandfather clock—which, come to think of it, was very aptly named since it once had belonged to their grandfather! But as it turned out, given how upset “Dennis” had become, the living room wasn’t far enough away, because Woolly could hear every word.
You were the one who wanted to move out of the city, “Dennis” was saying. But I’m the one who has to get up at the crack of dawn in order to catch the 6:42 so that I can be at the bank in time for the investment committee meeting at 8:00. For most of the next ten hours, while you’re here doing God knows what, I am working like a dog. Then, if I run to Grand Central and I’m lucky enough to catch the 6:14, I just might make it home by half past seven. After a day like that, is it really so much to ask that you have dinner waiting on the table?
That’s the moment the epiphany came. Standing there before his grandfather’s clock listening to his brother-in-law, it suddenly occurred to Woolly that maybe, just maybe, St. George’s and St. Mark’s and St. Paul’s organized every day to be an every-day day not because it made things easier to manage, but because it was the best possible means by which to prepare the fine young men in their care to catch the 6:42 so that they would always be on time for their meetings at 8:00.
At the very moment that Woolly concluded the recollection of his epiphany, Billy reached the point in the story when Edmond Dantès, having successfully escaped from prison, was standing in the secret cave on the isle of Monte Cristo before a magnificent pile of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and gold.
—You know what would be magnificent, Billy? You know what would be absotively magnificent?
Marking his place, Billy looked up from his book.
—What, Woolly? What would be absotively magnificent?
—A one-of-a-kind kind of day.
Sally
At last week’s Sunday service, Reverend Pike read a parable from the Gospels in which Jesus and His disciples, having arrived in a village, are invited by a woman into her home. Having made them all comfortable, this woman, Martha, retreats into her kitchen to fix them something to eat. And all the while she’s cooking and generally seeing to everyone’s needs by filling empty glasses and getting second helpings, her sister, Mary, is sitting at Jesus’s feet.
Eventually, Martha has had enough and she lets her feelings be known. Lord, she says, can’t you see that my idler of a sister has left me to do all the work? Why don’t you tell her to lend me a hand? Or something to that effect. And Jesus, He replies: Martha, you are troubled by too many things when only one thing is needful. And it is Mary who has chosen the better way.
Well, I’m sorry. But if ever you needed proof that the Bible was written by a man, there you have it.
I am a good Christian. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe that Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, was buried, and on the third day rose again. I believe that having ascended to heaven, He will come again to judge the quick and the dead. I believe that Noah built an ark and herded every manner of living thing up the gangplank two by two before it rained for forty days and forty nights. I am even willing to believe that Moses was spoken to by a burning bush. But I am not willing to believe that Jesus Christ Our Savior—who at the drop of a hat would heal a leper or restore sight to the blind—would turn his back on a woman who was taking care of a household.
So I don’t blame Him.
Whom I blame is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and every other man who’s served as priest or preacher since.
* * *
• • •
From a man’s point of view, the one thing that’s needful is that you sit at his feet and listen to what he has to say, no matter how long it takes for him to say it, or how often he’s said it before. By his figuring, you have plenty of time for sitting and listening because a meal is something that makes itself. The manna, it falls from heaven, and with a snap of the fingers, the water can be turned into wine. Any woman who’s gone to the trouble of baking an apple pie can tell you that’s how a man sees the world.
To bake an apple pie, you’ve first got to make the dough. You’ve got to cut the butter into the flour, gather it with a beaten egg and a few tablespoons of ice water, let it bind overnight. The next day, you’ve got to peel and core the apples, cut them into wedges, and toss them with cinnamon sugar. You’ve got to roll out the crust and assemble the pie. Then you bake it at 425° for fifteen minutes and 350° for another forty-five. Finally, when supper’s over, you carefully plate a slice and set it on the table where, in midsentence, a man will fork half of it into his mouth and swallow without chewing, so that he can get right back to saying what he was saying without the chance of being interrupted.
And strawberry preserves? Don’t you get me started on strawberry preserves!
As young Billy pointed out so rightly, making preserves is a time-consuming venture. Just picking the berries takes you half a day. Then you have to wash and stem the fruit. You have to sterilize the lids and jars. Once you combine the ingredients, you have to set them on simmer and watch them like a hawk, never letting yourself stray more than a few feet from the stove to make sure they don’t overcook. When they’re ready, you pour the preserves, seal the jars, and lug them into the pantry one tray at a time. Only then can you start the process of cleaning up, which is a job in itself.
And yes, as Duchess pointed out, the canning of preserves is a little old-fashioned, hearkening back to the era of root cellars and wagon trains. I suppose the very word preserves is bygone when compared to the blunt precision of jam.
And as Emmett pointed out, it is, above all else, unnecessary. Thanks to Mr. Smucker, at the grocery there are fifteen varieties of jam selling for nineteen cents a jar, season in and season out. In fact, jam has become so readily available, you can practically buy it at the hardware store.
So yes, the making of strawberry preserves is time-consuming, old-fashioned, and unnecessary.
Then why, you might ask, do I bother to do it?
* * *
• • •
I do it because it’s time-consuming.
Whoever said that something worthwhile shouldn’t take time? It took months for the Pilgrims to sail to Plymouth Rock. It took years for George Washington to win the Revolutionary War. And it took decades for the pioneers to conquer the West.
Time is that which God uses to separate the idle from the industrious. For time is a mountain and upon seeing its steep incline, the idle will lie down among the lilies of the field and hope that someone passes by with a pitcher of lemonade. What the worthy endeavor requires is planning, effort, attentiveness, and the willingness to clean up.
* * *
• • •
I do it because it’s old-fashioned.
Just because something’s new doesn’t mean it’s better; and often enough, it means it’s worse.
Saying please and thank you is plenty old-fashioned. Getting married and raising children is old-fashioned. Traditions, t
he very means by which we come to know who we are, are nothing if not old-fashioned.
I make preserves in the manner that was taught to me by my mother, God rest her soul. She made preserves in the manner that was taught to her by her mother, and Grandma made preserves in the manner that was taught to her by hers. And so on, and so forth, back through the ages all the way to Eve. Or, at least as far as Martha.
* * *
• • •
And I do it because it’s unnecessary.
For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired? There is no kindness in paying a bill. There is no kindness in getting up at dawn to slop the pigs, or milk the cows, or gather the eggs from the henhouse. For that matter, there is no kindness in making dinner, or in cleaning the kitchen after your father heads upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.
There is no kindness in latching the doors and turning out the lights, or in picking up the clothes from the bathroom floor in order to put them in the hamper. There is no kindness in taking care of a household because your only sister had the good sense to get herself married and move to Pensacola.
Nope, I said to myself while climbing into bed and switching off the light, there is no kindness in any of that.
For kindness begins where necessity ends.
Duchess
Having come upstairs after supper, I was about to flop down on Emmett’s bed when I noticed the smoothness of the covers. After freezing in place for a moment, I leaned over the mattress to get a closer look.
There was no question about it. She had remade it.
I thought I’d done a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. But Sally had done a better one. There wasn’t a ripple on the surface. And where the sheet gets folded at the top of the blanket, there was a four-inch-high rectangle of white running from one edge of the bed to the other as if she had measured it with a ruler. While at the base, she had tucked in the covers so tightly that you could see the corners of the mattress through the surface of the blanket, the way you can see Jane Russell through the surface of her sweater.
