No One Hears but Him

by Taylor Caldwell

  “You paid for Social Security yourselves,” the girl patiently informed him.

  “No, we didn’t. I figured it all up, one day. I figure I’ll have outrun what I paid in in about six years. Who pays for the rest? The young people, and I think it’s a damned injustice!”

  His firm full face became quite florid in his new indignation. The girl gently smiled. “Well, their own children will pay for them that way, too.”

  “Why should they? Why should the generations be supported by someone else? So long as we can move and have breath in our bodies we ought to support ourselves, and not expect younger people to carry us on their backs.”

  An outraged clamor from most of the old people had drowned him out. One old man said, “I had my quarters and I retired, and I get my good checks and trot right down to the bank and cash them! Why shouldn’t I? Don’t I deserve it?”

  “No,” said Bernard, “you don’t. We don’t deserve anything we haven’t earned.”

  “I raised a family,” said another old man. “Isn’t that doing something for my country?”

  “Yes, and so your children should be supporting you, themselves, instead of letting other folks’ children support you. Haven’t they ever heard of the Commandment, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother?’”

  The social worker had smoothly interrupted, for so many of the old were becoming too flushed and too vexed. “In these days,” she said, “we all Care for each other. Isn’t that the better way?”

  “That isn’t what I was taught when I was young,” said Bernard. “I was taught that every tub should stand on its own bottom. Never be a burden to anyone else. You know what I’m going to do tomorrow? I’m going right down to the Social Security office and tell them what they can do with their damned checks and not send any to me! Outside of what I actually paid for.”

  “But you’re fortunate, Mr. Carstairs, very fortunate,” said the young lady with sadness. There seemed to be a rebuke in her voice that he was “fortunate,” as if he had committed some crime against Society and should therefore be overcome by guilt. “Others here have nothing but their Social Security checks—”

  “Why don’t they?” he asked, bluntly. “Why didn’t they save a little? I saved a dollar a week sometimes, and that’s all I could afford when I was young, but by God! I did save! Sure, we had our illnesses, at least Kitty did. But I managed to pay for them, and save some money. It was very little at first; then it was more. I never made a lot of money, but I put what I could into annuities, and now I’ve got them, and I paid out more than twenty percent on my pension fund, and maybe I’ll stop that, too, when I’ve gotten back the amount I paid in. After all, a man has to have self-respect, and he doesn’t have that if he lets someone else support him in his old age! You should provide for that, yourself. When you’re young you shouldn’t have more children than you can support, so that you can’t save any of your money during your working-days. My own parents never asked a cent from me! They didn’t need to; they saved their money.”

  The young lady was now definitely not liking Bernard, nor were most of the old people.

  “Mr. Carstairs,” said the young lady with reproof, “your parents lived in a Simple Day when people didn’t have all these Wants and Demands, legitimate felt needs, and there were no taxes.”

  “Damned right!” said Bernard. “There weren’t any taxes! That’s the whole trouble. Taxes. And people demanding more than they’re worth and what they paid for.”

  He was now utterly beyond the pale to the young lady. She cast down her eyes as if he had uttered blasphemy against nature and Society. And government. She peeked at him with bright malice.

  “Who are you, Mr. Carstairs, to say what is the ‘worth’ of a person?”

  “All I know is what I was taught. Ever hear of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant worked all summer, laying up food for itself, but the grasshopper played and danced the summer away, and when the winter came it had nothing. And it complained, sure it complained. And what was the answer God gave it? ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard,’ and consider his ways. There wasn’t any sympathy for those who didn’t plan for themselves for the future.”

  The young lady coughed. “I hope this discussion won’t descend into a religious controversy.”

  Bernard was pleasantly conscious of the life now stirring in his body. “Why not? Why does everybody here avoid discussing religion? Are they afraid it might make them think of what’s waiting for them around the corner? Death, that’s what.”

  This was the worst obscenity of them all. The old people shuddered. The girl became mute. Bernard’s eyes were all sparkling blue. He looked slowly around the warm room and saw the fallen faces. “Death,” he said. “That’s all you’re waiting for; that’s all you’re afraid of. Why do you want to live, anyway? You’re useless; you’re hopeless. You’d rather have this Center and your ridiculous hobby shops than face life, wouldn’t you? Maybe that’s the trouble with you; you never faced life at all, even when you were younger.”

  Because he was a dogged and resolute man he stayed the full day, observing and commenting to himself. Very few spoke to him after his “anachronistic” outburst. (The young lady had called him an “anachronism,” which in her vocabulary meant anyone with self-respect. “Yes, it’s certainly an old-fashioned virtue,” he had agreed, but his agreement had not pleased the young lady. She had said, “In these days, we are interdependent, Mr. Carstairs.” She had no answer but silent umbrage when he had replied, “Why should we be? I’m not against charity. Those who are too old to work and are penniless, and the broken and the blind and the diseased, should be taken care of by private charity, as they always were, and not be a burden to the present generation. I’ve been reading, lately, of young delinquents attacking old men on the streets and calling them useless, and perhaps they have a legitimate gripe, at that.”

  (This had further diminished him in her regard. Finally she said, “You think juvenile delinquency a proper protest, Mr. Carstairs?”

  (He had grinned at her. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we should read those placards they’re carrying around and try to find out what they are really trying to say!”)

  By the end of the day he felt a total hopelessness for himself and the others. Now he was on the way home. What was there? Dear Kitty, of course, with her account books, for she was chairman of so many clubs. The TV. The late news. Perhaps the late, late show. (He wasn’t sleeping so well these days.) And then bed. And then tomorrow. With what? I am no longer engaged in mankind, he said, as the cold fierce ground blizzard cut his face. I am a real anachronism, and not the kind that girl spoke about. I’m of no use to anybody. If I died tomorrow Kitty wouldn’t have to worry, financially. She has a lot of friends, and activities, even if I think those activities are only busy-work. She would cry for me, and then would forget me. Isn’t that all I deserve? She doesn’t need me. No one needs me. And that’s the awful answer to all this security. Not to be needed. Not to be depended upon for anything.

  This storm was really something. He had always had “good wind.” Now he was gasping. He stopped a moment on the empty street to catch his breath. He looked about him, huddled in his good Montenac coat. He saw the neatly-shoveled gravel paths leading up to what people cynically, or piously, called the “Sanctuary.” He knew all about it, and was indifferent to it. A clergyman up there, or a silly social worker, or a grave psychiatrist, all handing out cheap advice to the troubled or the despairing or the inadequate. It was a pretty place in the summer. After his retirement he had often gone into the small park about the building and had fed the squirrels and had enjoyed the lawns, the fresh sweet air, the trees, the fountains. He had never thought of consulting the man who listens. He had no troubles.

  He had troubles today. His mind roared with them, and with its hot uneasiness. He was also full of a nameless and restless anger. What did I ever live for? he asked himself. I didn’t like my job; I didn’t dislike it, either. What do I have to show for my lif
e? All those traffic records, and files. Were they important to me, as a person? No. Now they are gathering dust in the company’s attics. Who remembers Bernie Carstairs? My life—a pack of dusty records in dark files. I never did one damned useful thing in my life! I never contributed any real labor, just paper.

  Something stirred in his mind. Labor. Only labor was significant, adding to the treasure of the world, something done with one’s hands, something that would live after you. He thought of the antique shops to which Kitty had dragged him. Beautiful furniture, not just hobby-shop stuff which was worth nothing. Chippendale. Sheraton. Duncan Phyfe. Something authentic, something with authority. Something that lived after a man with beauty and soundness. Something that was admirable. He remembered a hutch cabinet made by sturdy hands of Amish farmers: good fine stuff, plain, humble—but with authority.

  If a man left nothing behind him of authority he left nothing. He had only, as Samuel Butler had written, left a platter licked clean and a pile of offal. That was all his generation of white-collar workers was leaving: a licked platter and a pile of offal. And, he thought with grim humor, they don’t even use our offal these days. They use chemical fertilizers. Sanitary. That was the trouble with the world now: It was so damned sanitary, and sterile.

  Everything in plastic. He had often gone with Kitty in these past months to the supermarkets. There was no fragrance in them. The vegetables and the meat and the fruit and the butter and the potatoes were all wrapped in cellophane—very sanitary—and they all smelled of—paper. Just paper. Glaring lights, piped-in music, glass. But no scent of celery and tomatoes; no pungent odor of carved meat; no earthy smell of potatoes; no sweet fragrance of warm melons and apples and pears; no heady spice of ground coffee and open tea. No cedary wood floors. The wares on sale looked artificial, too. The chickens were bloated and enormous, and had no taste at all when cooked, and no exhilarating perfume while they were roasting or frying. Everything deodorized. Everything bland and tasteless. Everything neat and orderly—and without life. That was the trouble with living now: there was no life to it. The old people he had just left: They had no life. They had no fruits after a lifetime of working. Dead Sea fruit, full of dust. God help them, Bernard thought. God help me.

  Who had done this violence to hot human nature? The government? But a government was only the people. What generations have we spawned? Sterile young people with no bowels, no real vitality, no honest lust, no sweat, no labor. They had only shrill voices that were demanding—What?

  What we have deprived them of, thought Bernard Car-stairs. The right to have honest authority. We have sanitized all the food they ate; we gave them paper instead of the bread of life. We gave them government forms which guaranteed that they would survive in the sterile world we made for them. No wonder they were protesting, without knowing what they were protesting against. They wanted to live and to have adventure. We removed adventure from them—with a guaranteed income. They had no uncertainties, no struggle, no hope and no victories. Just as I never had. Oh, we live longer because we killed all the germs! But is life only length of days?

  He found himself walking up the gravel path to that low white building whose red roof was drifting with cold snow. He began to hurry. The man who listened in there ought to hear, for once, what a Senior Citizen had to say! And be damned to him. The Senior Citizens had been betrayed, too, as well as the young.

  There was no one in the waiting room, for it was night now and the city was eating its tasteless dinner, and hurrying to watch television, which had no verity either. Bernard had no sooner closed the door behind him than he heard a chiming. They were very efficient here, just like the world outside. They chimed a bell when the outer door opened. He took off his snowy overcoat and shook his hat. The bell chimed again. “All right, I’m coming,” he said impatiently. “Though God knows why.”

  The man who listened in there was probably anxious to go home too in this windy white wilderness of winter, and to eat his flavorless dinner and to watch TV, listen to the late news, and then go to bed—to confront another day as meaningless. Another day without authentic authority. Just like me, thought Bernard, pushing open the other door and entering the quiet room within, with its blue curtains over a hidden alcove and its lonely marble chair with the blue cushions. He sat down in the chair and was conscious of his new heavy weariness. He faced the alcove.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said abruptly, not greeting the man who waited to hear him. “I’ve been at a Senior Citizens Center. A living cemetery. All clean and warm and peaceful, like a nice grave. The living corpses just sit around and talk about the past, as if there is no future for them. Damned if there is, anyway. But me. I want a future! I don’t want to wait for death, like a sheep before the knife. Even a sheep is more important. It’s eaten. I don’t have any food for anybody, least of all for myself.”

  The man did not answer. It was very still and remote in here, and very peaceful. There was no hurrying, no sound of footsteps rushing to go nowhere. It was said that the man who listened had all the time in the world.

  “I don’t,” said Bernard. “I have no time, and yet I have too much time. I’m not old, and I’m not young. I’m useless. I’m a retired man. I’ve been active all my life, and I can’t be satisfied with toys now. I don’t want made-work, and pretend-activities. I’m not a child! I’m a grown man! But now everyone has decreed that I must retire—to what?”

  The man did not answer. “When I was young and went to church,” said Bernard, “the minister used to talk of the ‘harvest of old age.’ Golden fields heavy with wheat; trees heavy with fruit. Work well done. But in these days there is no wheat, no fruit, no work well done. There is no personal satisfaction for there is no life worth the living. Only files, and paper. There isn’t even any satisfaction to a worker in a factory; he never sees the finished product for he had part in only one piece of it. That’s necessary, they say, in an industrial civilization. I don’t have any quarrel with an industrial civilization, I suppose. But where is there any meaning in it? Any joy of accomplishment? Now, you tell me.”

  The man said not a word. Bernard shifted in the chair. “Perhaps we have no real harvest because we never plowed and laid the seed. Is that it?”

  There was no reply. “But everything is compartmentalized,” said Bernard. “You do this one little job and hundreds of other men do their own little job. There’s never any sight of what is finally done. There’s so many of us! Perhaps it’s necessary that we do just a part and never see the over-all design, if an industrial civilization is to flourish. But we are men, too! We aren’t satisfied with being part of a machine. We aren’t ‘units,’ though some government officials call us ‘units.’ It isn’t so bad when we are young; we have families to raise and to talk to, and to pretend with that life has some meaning. But when we grow old and are thrown out on the garbage heap we have nothing to look back on that we’ve accomplished, nothing substantial, nothing marked with our own hands. Then we become Senior Citizens, taking up useless hobbies and trying to believe that we are important or were ever important to the world, and talking to others like ourselves, who were, and are, just as useless.”

  Bernard suddenly struck the arm of the chair with unusual emotion. He leaned forward toward the hidden alcove. “If a man can’t say, ‘I have lived, and this is what I did,’ then he never lived at all! And all the security and the government checks are only narcotics to quiet his desperate mind and make him willing to die and leave a place for some other ‘unit’ to fill!”

  The warm fresh air of the room flowed about him, and in spite of himself he relaxed. He said to the man behind the curtain with the utmost earnestness, “Look at me. Modern medicine and natural good health have kept me alive and young for my age. I’m sixty-five. I’m not decrepit. But I’ve been thrown on the garbage heap, rejected, and sent out to pasture. What pasture? A procession of useless days? Some are satisfied with that; some want nothing more. But there are more of us who don�
�t want to sit and wait to die in a warm cozy place. Some of us look for jobs; there aren’t any. They all want youth, youth, youth. It isn’t the employers’ fault. They’re all wound up in government tape, and fringe benefits and pension funds, and that keeps them from hiring men like me, who still want to be useful and have some hope, and who want to believe that what we do is important.

  “Why don’t they simply kill us when we get old?” cried Bernard. “That’s not as bad as letting us live on the sidelines waiting for death! We get so sick of our lives that we fall into nursing homes, and then wither away, and then we’re buried. We men in the most vital part of our lives—condemned to a slow death. I hear that in Russia they just murder us; maybe that’s not so. Maybe they just let us work. That’s better than what we have. Anything’s better than what we have.”

  The man did not speak, but Bernard did not care. He leaned back against the blue velvet cushions. His eyes became far-away. He began to smile.

  “My father was a carpenter,” he said. “He had his own shop. He made furniture and built houses. Sometimes we’d go for walks together and he’d show me houses he’d built. They weren’t notable houses, but they were houses, and they were sound and strong. He was proud of them. Sometimes people would let us in their houses and let me see the furniture my father had made. Nothing fancy or elaborate. Just plain polished tables and good chairs and cabinets. You could touch them and they weren’t flimsy. Hand-polished by my father. He used to build barns, too, old barns I still see when I take my wife out driving in the country.

  “My father went to school for only four years. But he left something behind him. He lived to be eighty-six, and he was still working in his shop, making furniture. He sold it, too. He had more work than he could handle. I remember his shop. It smelled of unfinished wood and varnish and paint, and the floor was covered with sawdust. There were saws on the walls and hammers; and barrels of nails, and lathes, and wheels. I used to watch a rough piece of furniture grow smooth and mellow and shiny, and it was like a miracle! My father’s furniture will last almost forever. It had verity.