Fade

by Robert Cormier

  “No,” I said, alarmed. Arrive in Frenchtown in that gleaming sports car with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel? Impossible.

  He walked me down the steps to the macadam driveway.

  We didn't encounter Page Winslow.

  “Toodle-oo” he called, laughing, as I ran across the circular driveway and waved without looking back.

  “Toodle-oo,” I said, but knew he didn't hear me.

  No, I won't do it.

  Why not?

  Because.

  Because why?

  Because I don't want to fade. I don't want the pause and the flash of pain and the cold.

  Don V you want to see her again? Enter her house, stand next to her, go to her bedroom, watch her sleeping, maybe see her undressing?

  No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do any of those things.

  Yes, you do. Of course you do.

  The voice was sly and insistent, the voice that had come with my knowledge of the fade, almost as if the fade had a voice of its own. Which was impossible, of course. But wasn't the fade impossible too?

  C'mon Paul. Let's go. It's getting dark. You can be there, at her house, in a few minutes.

  No …

  She's leaving tomorrow. You may never see her again. Or she might not remember you next time $e sees you. Might look at you blankly and say: Who's that?

  Ah, but it wasn't only Page Winslow who beckoned me. It was that house, as alien as a distant planet, the style and essence of that house, the names of furnishings in that house I did not know, like visiting a museum and being ignorant of the artists who created such works of splendor. And the people in that house I had not yet seen, the father who spent his days in Boston with his stocks and bonds and the mother doing charity things while my father stalked the picket line and my mother scrubbed floors and cooked over a hot stove at home.

  I knew that I did not belong in that house.

  Yet, I wanted to be there.

  In the darkness of evening, the house was like a giant ship tied up at a dock, shimmering even as it stood still, its windows blazing with lights. Evening dew sparkled like broken bits of glass on the lawn. Music drifted through the windows, not Bunny Berigan but symphonic music, majestic and classical, swirling violins and bursts of brass.

  As I drifted across the lawn, the cold of the fade raced through my body but I ignored it, feeling light and airy, as if I could leap to the highest point of the house and stand on the topmost turret.

  I went up the steps and tried the door, not surprised to find it locked. Rang the doorbell and listened to the sound of chimes inside, echoing down the hallway.

  Holding a stone in my hand, I flattened myself against the house, next to the door. When it swung open, a shadow fell on the landing as Riley stepped out, peering inquisitively into the night.

  I tossed the small stone into the yard, heard it bounce in the gravel, saw Riley glance toward the sound and take a step or two forward. Which was all I needed to slip into the hallway, where I shrank against the wall. After a moment or two, Riley entered the house, closed the door, and slid the bolt in place. Frowning, he walked down the hallway, his heels clicking on the tile floor. I followed, matching his footsteps to mine, my sneakers noiseless in his wake. The music grew louder as we neared a doorway to the right, near the bottom of the curved stairway.

  When Riley paused at the door, a cascade of violins stopped abruptly. Riley spoke into the silence of the room: “Sorry Mr. Winslow, madam. No one at the door. Perhaps something's wrong with the bell. I'll have it looked at in the a.m.

  A murmur from the room and, after a moment, the sound of music swelling again as Riley clicked his way past the staircase to the back of the house.

  Walking carefully, lightly, softly, I stopped at the doorway and looked in. Two men and a woman were in the room, sitting on formal parlor chairs, the woman in a simple blue dress with a strand of pearls around her throat, her blond hair shining in the glow of a lamp beside her chair. There was no doubt that she was Emerson and Page's mother, a slightly older version of them, her hair the same almost-white color. I could not see the faces of the men. They were turned away, listening intently to what the woman was saying above the music, like figures in a painting.

  I glided toward the stairs, slightly dizzy as I ascended on the thick carpet, still not accustomed to the absence of my arms and legs beneath me, as if I were trying to float, impossible, upward against a current.

  Pausing at the top of the stairs, I saw that all the doors were closed, but there was a thin strip of light at the bottom of the door to Emerson's room down the hall. At the door, I stopped, glanced around, heard voices from inside. My heart accelerated as I heard the murmur of Page's voice, then her laughter, light and merry, and the faint strains of Bunny Berigan's trumpet. Pressed my ear against the door and heard the unmistakable bantering tone as Page spoke, but I couldn't make out the words.

  Loneliness swept me. How I longed to be in that room with them, laughing and talking intimately, joking, a part of the loveliness and sweetness of their lives.

  I pulled myself away and went to Page's door, and stepped quickly inside the room. Waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Drank in the scent of her perfume, light and airy, a touch of spring, lilac maybe, or some fugitive blossom from the Meadow. After a while, I could make out her bureau against the wall to my left, the bed opposite. I took a few steps, almost tripped on a soft thick rug. Saw a small form resting on pillows on the bed and felt it with my hands. A Shirley Temple doll, which made me smile. Page Winslow, still a child, a doll on her bed.

  The door opened without warning and threw a shaft of light into the room, causing me to leap with alarm, forgetting for that moment that I couldn't be seen. Page Winslow closed the door, darkness again, then she snapped on the small lamp on the bureau. Gentle, glowing light enveloped her. She was barefoot, wore a skirt and a loose-fitting sweater. A delicate gray, a whisper of color.

  I stood across the room, near the closet door, hoping she would not find it necessary to go to the closet. Her loveliness ached in me. Her bedroom was all blue and white, but soft blue, gentle white. As I watched she bent down slightly to look at herself in the mirror on the bureau, raised a hand to her face, long, slender fingers, fingers that would glide beautifully over a piano keyboard. She squinted slightly into the mirror, inspected a spot of her jaw, touched it with a probing finger.

  “Pimple,” she said, dismay in her voice.

  I could see no pimple, saw only how utterly beautiful she was.

  She turned suddenly, without warning, looked directly at me. Into my eyes. I panicked—was the fade wearing off? Could she see me emerging from nothingness? Would she scream and shout my name? Accuse me of breaking into her house, spying on her in her bedroom? Was my presence in the fade doomed always to disturb people like that?

  Now she turned away from me, a frown gently scrawled on her forehead. Shivering slightly, she murmured: “Spooky.” And began to study her face in the mirror once more. “Ugh,” she said, squinting again.

  How could she doubt her beauty?

  Pulling herself erect, she drew the sweater over her head, not bothering to unbutton it.

  I watched, stunned, as she then dropped her skirt to the floor, where it created a gray puddle at her feet. She lifted her slip, white with lace around the edges, to her hips and raised it over her head, then tossed it carelessly on the bed.

  She stood there in her brassiere and panties, both white, her skin glowing pale pink in the lamplight. She was slender and delicate in contrast to the fullness of my aunt Rosanna, and I was awed by the fact that both were so beautiful and had such a profound and similar effect on me. I dared not move, afraid that any movement on my part would make me explode into that ecstasy I reserved for my bed at night in the dark.

  Without warning, she swiveled toward me again, her eyes narrowed as she glanced in my direction. Agony seized me as the cold of the fade intensified. Turning away again but still fr
owning, she reached for a white robe that had been folded on the bed. She draped the robe over her shoulders and performed hidden maneuvers as she took off the brassiere and slipped her panties down, tossing them both on the bed. I wanted to reach for the silken undergarments and crush them to my face. If I dared not touch her, then I could touch the things that had been closest to her.

  “Hello …”

  I heard Emerson Winslow's voice, light and playful, and saw the door swing open at the same moment.

  He stepped into the room, wearing a maroon robe, slippers on his feet, the blond hair tousled as usual. He closed the door gently behind him and stood there looking at her.

  She turned at his greeting, hands at her sides, her robe slightly parted and I saw a flash of her thigh.

  “Oh, Emmy,” she said. “I'm going to miss you …”

  He moved toward her, arms outstretched. She stepped into his waiting arms, resting her head on his shoulder. So much alike, the two of them, reflections embracing each other, blending together.

  “I'll miss you too,” he murmured into her hair.

  She raised her face to his.

  And they kissed. Hungrily, deeply, their mouths opening to each other. My own mouth dropped open in astonishment and I stepped back, encountered the wall behind me, tried to stifle my breath.

  The kiss went on, small moaning sounds coming from them, and his hand slipped inside her robe. I closed my eyes against the sight. But, astonished, still saw them clutching each other, having forgotten that my eyelids, too, were in the fade, and could not prevent me from seeing.

  I turned away, my gaze dropping to the floor as I heard her whisper: “Oh, Emmy, I love you …”

  I heard the click of a switch and the room suddenly plunged into darkness. But the darkness did not obliterate the sounds of their lovemaking, their gasps of pleasure, as they tumbled to the bed.

  I clamped my hands against my ears, sank down to the floor, crouching, my ears filled with the distant echo of a seashell's roar, but I was not at the seashore, I was in the bedroom with Emerson Winslow and his sister, Page.

  After a while I removed my hands from my ears. Stillness in the room. I turned toward the bed. Emerson and Page were indistinct forms beneath the covers.

  The loneliest of eternities seemed to pass as I remained crouched in the corner. At last, Emerson slipped from the bed and left the room, closing the door softly behind him. I waited until I heard Page's gentle snoring before leaving, wondering if my tears were visible on the face that could not be seen.

  Later, in the shade of an elm tree down the street, after the pause and the pain, shaking and trembling from the sudden chill of the night, I remembered the time I had asked my uncle Adelard:

  “If the fade is a gift, then why are you so sad all the time?”

  “Did I ever say it was a gift?” he replied.

  I thought a moment. “I guess not.”

  “What's the opposite of gift, Paul?”

  “I don't know.”

  But now I knew. Or thought I knew.

  Exhausted and limp, I stood gasping for breath on the lawn of a stranger's house on the north side of town where I did not belong but where the fade had taken me. I pondered my experiences with the fade. I had seen things I had not wanted to see, would never have wanted to see.

  A dog growled nearby in the bushes, a menacing growl that I recognized instantly. I knew that kind of growl intimately, had been chased by a hundred dogs while delivering newspapers.

  I didn't wait for another growl but began to run, blindly, furiously, running without looking back, as if something worse than a dog were chasing me all the way to French-town.

  mer LaBatt always had the ability to surprise me, popping up around corners or looming dangerously as I emerged from Dondier's Market or Lakier's Drug Store. Late one afternoon, as shadows gathered beside the three-deckers of Frenchtown, he surprised me again. Turning into Pee Alley, the shortcut on the way home, I encountered Omer LaBatt confronting a boy of nine or ten whom I recognized as the little brother of Artie LeGrande.

  Omer's hand was outstretched, palm open, while the boy fumbled in his pocket. “Come on, hand it over,” Omer commanded, unaware I had come upon the scene.

  Joey LeGrande, lips trembling, drew his hand from his pocket and placed some coins in Omer's palm.

  “That's my paper route money,” Joey said, eyes filling with tears.

  “There's only twenty cents here,” Omer said in disgust, bouncing the coins in his hand. “Dig down, kid.”

  “It's not my money,” Joey protested. “It belongs to Rudolphe Toubert. He's going to muckalize me …”

  “That's your worry, kid,” Omer said. “Get the money up.”

  Joey dug into his pockets again and pulled out a few more coins, dropping them one by one in Omer LaBatt's waiting palm.

  Joey was sobbing now, tears coursing down his cheeks, his hair disheveled, one leg of his knickers drooping almost to his ankle. “What'll I tell Rudolphe Toubert?” he cried desperately.

  “Tell him you made a donation to the missionaries,” Omer said, satisfied, slipping the money into his own pocket. “Okay, kid. Down on your knees.”

  “No,” the boy cried, his nose beginning to run.

  “Down,” Omer snapped.

  My sudden loss of breath told me that I had begun to fade. The pause, and then the flash of pain as I saw the boy dropping to his knees with Omer LaBatt standing over him like the lord of all he surveyed. The flash of pain almost lifted me from the ground. Omer LaBatt's hand moved to his belt buckle and then to the buttons of his fly. I crouched, absorbing the cold now, the pain passing out of my body. I looked down to see that I was completely invisible, the air cold and brisk in my lungs.

  I flew at Omer LaBatt. He looked up at my approach, puzzled, hearing the rush of my body toward him but unprepared for the assault as I drove my shoulder into his stomach, my head into his chest. I rejoiced at his bellow of pain when he reeled backward, grabbing at air, face twisted with pain. He sank to the ground, dazed, shaking his head in confusion, and then began to pick himself up, rising to one knee.

  Joey LeGrande, eyes wide with disbelief, scrambled to his feet and backed away, staring at Omer LaBatt. I watched him run down the alley looking over his shoulder at his stricken assailant, tripping once and getting to his feet, reaching the mouth of the alley, disappearing from sight. I turned again to Omer LaBatt and paused, watching him struggle to his feet, gasping for breath. I kicked him in the groin with all the strength I possessed. In that kick was every chase through every street and alley of Frenchtown, every fear he had inflicted on me and other kids. As he clutched himself bending over, I kicked again, my shoe finding his jaw this time, and he howled in agony, dropping to the ground, moaning, flecks of foam spilling from his mouth.

  Standing triumphantly above him, the sweetness of assault singing in my bones and sinews, I felt my heart beat joyously, my flesh tingle vibrantly. Never had I felt more alive, more in tune with the world.

  People began to stray into the alley, peering curiously at Omer LaBatt still groveling on the ground. I wanted to shout: “I did this—Paul Moreaux did this.” But instead reluctantly left the scene of my revenge, fearing the gathering crowd could hear my thudding heart.

  Later, in the shed, visible again, I began to tremble as I relived my attack on Omer LaBatt. My attack? It seemed as if the person who had assaulted Omer LaBatt so viciously were someone other than me. I had always avoided violence and confrontations, had fled from Omer LaBatt a hundred times, knowing myself a coward, brave only in my wildest dreams. But the rescue of Joey LeGrande and the attack on Omer LaBatt were not really acts of bravery. What were they, then?

  “The fade,” I muttered. Nothing good had come out of my use of the fade. Would I ever forget what took place in the back room at Dondier's and in the bedroom of the Winslow house? Now, even my triumph over Omer LaBatt seemed tainted. I had never inflicted pain on another human being until that frenzied
moment in the alley. Not only had I injured Omer LaBatt, I had enjoyed myself doing it.

  My uncle Adelard had once said: “It's good that someone like you has been given the fade, Paul. Someone kind and gentle, not a brute.”

  Had I become a brute?

  I tried to make myself small in the shed, knees jackknifed, eyes closed, as if I could shut out the world and hide away. But I knew there was no place to hide.

  It wasn't until later at night, in bed, that another thought occurred to me, and I almost cried out in the dark. In Pee Alley that afternoon, the fade had arrived without being summoned.

  “I've got a new Bunny Berigan,” Emerson Winslow said.

  “That's good.”

  “Want to come hear it? This afternoon?”

  He had detained me after the bell rang, and Miss Walker had dismissed classes for the day, the other students headed for freedom, creating the usual daily traffic jam at the door. I had avoided him for three days. When I didn't answer, he asked:

  “Are you going to continue writing stories?”

  “I don't know,” I said, arranging my books in a pile on the desk. “Sometime, maybe. Not now.” Picked up my books and turned away, still not looking at him. “Hey, look, I've got to go. See you around sometime.” Hoping he didn't hear the tremor in my voice.

  “Oh,” he said.

  I had never heard such an oh. An elegant syllable that seemed to go on forever, echoing in the classroom like a soft chime, the room quiet now after the scampering departure of the students. The word continued to echo in my mind, imbued with a meaning beyond its brevity. Such a finality in the word. As I regarded Emerson Winslow standing in the splash of light from the window, that smile on his face, the slightly quizzical look in his eye, I knew I was saying goodbye to him and that shining house on the North Side and that I had lost Page Winslow forever. But then, she had never been mine, only Emerson's.

  Never had the streets of Frenchtown been as barren and bleak, the three-deckers plain and ugly, the trees stark, bereft of leaves as November brought biting winds and pelting rain.