"Why not?"
"I don't think it's his eyes. Finding out might trouble him. Let him be for a while. He's had a bad shock. Let him get better. I'll read to him all he wants."
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't want to say. I've thought maybe Dr. Edwards might just come by for a friendly call--just to say hello."
"Have it your own way," said Cal.
Lee said, "Cal, have you seen Abra?"
"Sure, I see her. She walks away."
"Can't you catch her?"
"Sure--and I could throw her down and punch her in the face and make her talk to me. But I won't."
"Maybe if you'd just break the ice. Sometimes the barrier is so weak it just falls over when you touch it. Catch up with her. Tell her I want to see her."
"I won't do it."
"You feel awful guilty, don't you?"
Cal did not answer.
"Don't you like her?"
Cal did not answer.
"If you keep this up, you're going to feel worse, not better. You'd better open up. I'm warning you. You'd better open up."
Cal cried, "Do you want me to tell Father what I did? I'll do it if you tell me to."
"No, Cal. Not now. But when he gets well you'll have to. You'll have to for yourself. You can't carry this alone. It will kill you."
"Maybe I deserve to be killed."
"Stop that!" Lee said coldly. "That can be the cheapest kind of self-indulgence. You stop that!"
"How do you go about stopping it?" Cal asked.
Lee changed the subject. "I don't understand why Abra hasn't been here--not even once."
"No reason to come now."
"It's not like her. Something's wrong there. Have you seen her?"
Cal scowled. "I told you I have. You're getting crazy too. Tried to talk to her three times. She walked away."
"Something's wrong. She's a good woman--a real woman."
"She's a girl," said Cal. "It sounds funny you calling her a woman."
"No," Lee said softly. "A few are women from the moment they're born. Abra has the loveliness of woman, and the courage--and the strength--and the wisdom. She knows things and she accepts things. I would have bet she couldn't be small or mean or even vain except when it's pretty to be vain."
"You sure do think well of her."
"Well enough to think she wouldn't desert us." And he said, "I miss her. Ask her to come to see me."
"I told you she walked away from me."
"Well, chase her then. Tell her I want to see her. I miss her."
Cal asked, "Shall we go back to my father's eyes now?"
"No," said Lee.
"Shall we talk about Aron?"
"No."
3
Cal tried all the next day to find Abra alone, and it was only after school that he saw her ahead of him, walking home. He turned a corner and ran along the parallel street and then back, and he judged time and distance so that he turned in front of her as she strolled along.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello. I thought I saw you behind me."
"You did. I ran around the block to get in front of you. I want to talk to you."
She regarded him gravely. "You could have done that without running around the block."
"Well, I tried to talk to you in school. You walked away."
"You were mad. I didn't want to talk to you mad."
"How do you know I was?"
"I could see it in your face and the way you walked. You're not mad now."
"No, I'm not."
"Do you want to take my books?" She smiled.
A warmth fell on him. "Yes--yes, I do." He put her schoolbooks under his arm and walked beside her. "Lee wants to see you. He asked me to tell you."
She was pleased. "Does he? Tell him I'll come. How's your father?"
"Not very well. His eyes bother him."
They walked along in silence until Cal couldn't stand it any more. "You know about Aron?"
"Yes." She paused. "Open my binder and look next to the first page."
He shifted the books. A penny postcard was in the binder. "Dear Abra," it said. "I don't feel clean. I'm not fit for you. Don't be sorry. I'm in the army. Don't go near my father. Good-by, Aron."
Cal snapped the book shut. "The son of a bitch," he said under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I heard what you said."
"Do you know why he went away?"
"No. I guess I could figure out--put two and two together. I don't want to. I'm not ready to--that is, unless you want to tell me."
Suddenly Cal said, "Abra--do you hate me?"
"No, Cal, but you hate me a little. Why is that?"
"I--I'm afraid of you."
"No need to be."
"I've hurt you more than you know. And you're my brother's girl."
"How have you hurt me? And I'm not your brother's girl."
"All right," he said bitterly, "I'll tell you--and I don't want you to forget you asked me to. Our mother was a whore. She ran a house here in town. I found out about it a long time ago. Thanksgiving night I took Aron down and showed her to him. I--"
Abra broke in excitedly, "What did he do?"
"He went mad--just crazy. He yelled at her. Outside he knocked me down and ran away. Our dear mother killed herself; my father--he's--there's something wrong with him. Now you know about me. Now you have some reason to walk away from me."
"Now I know about him," she said calmly.
"My brother?"
"Yes, your brother."
"He was good. Why did I say was? He is good. He's not mean or dirty like me."
They had been walking very slowly. Abra stopped and Cal stopped and she faced him.
"Cal," she said, "I've known about your mother for a long, long time."
"You have?"
"I heard my parents talking when they thought I was asleep. I want to tell you something, and it's hard to tell and it's good to tell."
"You want to?"
"I have to. It's not so terribly long ago that I grew up and I wasn't a little girl any more. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes," said Cal.
"You sure you know?"
"Yes."
"All right then. It's hard to say now. I wish I'd said it then. I didn't love Aron any more."
"Why not?"
"I've tried to figure it out. When we were children we lived in a story that we made up. But when I grew up the story wasn't enough. I had to have something else, because the story wasn't true any more."
"Well--"
"Wait--let me get it all out. Aron didn't grow up. Maybe he never will. He wanted the story and he wanted it to come out his way. He couldn't stand to have it come out any other way."
"How about you?"
"I don't want to know how it comes out. I only want to be there while it's going on. And, Cal--we were kind of strangers. We kept it going because we were used to it. But I didn't believe the story any more."
"How about Aron?"
"He was going to have it come out his way if he had to tear the world up by the roots."
Cal stood looking at the ground.
Abra said, "Do you believe me?"
"I'm trying to study it out."
"When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too. I'm glad you told me about Aron."
"Why?"
"Because now I know I didn't make it all up. He couldn't stand to know about his mother because that's not how he wanted the story to go--and he wouldn't have any other story. So he tore up the world. It's the same way he tore me up--Abra--when he wanted to be a priest."
Cal said, "I'll have to think."
"Give me my books," she said. "Tell Lee I'll come. I feel f
ree now. I want to think too. I think I love you, Cal."
"I'm not good."
"Because you're not good."
Cal walked quickly home. "She'll come tomorrow," he told Lee.
"Why, you're excited," said Lee.
4
Once in the house Abra walked on her toes. In the hall she moved close to the wall where the floor did not creak. She put her foot on the lowest step of the carpeted stairs, changed her mind, and went to the kitchen.
"Here you are," her mother said. "You didn't come straight home."
"I had to stay after class. Is Father better?"
"I guess so."
"What does the doctor say?"
"Same thing he said at first--overwork. Just needs a rest."
"He hasn't seemed tired," said Abra.
Her mother opened a bin and took out three baking potatoes and carried them to the sink. "Your Father's very brave, dear. I should have known. He's been doing so much war work on top of his own work. The doctor says sometimes a man collapses all at once."
"Shall I go in and see him?"
"You know, Abra, I've got a feeling that he doesn't want to see anybody. Judge Knudsen phoned and your father said to tell him he was asleep."
"Can I help you?"
"Go change your dress, dear. You don't want to get your pretty dress soiled.
Abra tiptoed past her father's door and went to her own room. It was harsh bright with varnish, papered brightly. Framed photographs of her parents on the bureau, poems framed on the walls, and her closet--everything in its place, the floor varnished, and her shoes standing diligently side by side. Her mother did everything for her, insisted on it--planned for her, dressed her.
Abra had long ago given up having any private things in her room, even any personal thing. This was of such long standing that Abra did not think of her room as a private place. Her privacies were of the mind. The few letters she kept were in the sitting room itself, filed among the pages of the two-volume Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which to the best of her knowledge had never been opened by anyone but herself since it came off the press.
Abra felt pleased, and she did not inspect the reason. She knew certain things without question, and such things she did not speak about. For example, she knew that her father was not ill. He was hiding from something. Just as surely she knew that Adam Trask was ill, for she had seen him walking along the street. She wondered whether her mother knew her father was not ill.
Abra slipped off her dress and put on a cotton pinafore, which was understood to be for working around the house. She brushed her hair, tiptoed past her father's room, and went downstairs. At the foot of the stairs she opened her binder and took out Aron's postcard. In the sitting room she shook Aron's letters out of Volume II of the Memoirs, folded them tightly, and, raising her skirt, tucked them under the elastic which held up her panties. The package made her a little lumpy. In the kitchen she put on a full apron to conceal the bulge.
"You can scrape the carrots," her mother said. "Is that water hot?"
"Just coming to a boil."
"Drop a bouillon cube in that cup, will you, dear? The doctor says it'll build your father up."
When her mother carried the steaming cup upstairs, Abra opened the incinerator end of the gas stove, put in the letters, and lighted them.
Her mother came back, saying, "I smell fire."
"I lit the trash. It was full."
"I wish you'd ask me when you want to do a thing like that," her mother said. "I was saving the trash to warm the kitchen in the morning."
"I'm sorry, Mother," Abra said. "I didn't think."
"You should try to think of these things. It seems to me you're getting very thoughtless lately."
"I'm sorry, Mother."
"Saved is earned," said her mother.
The telephone rang in the dining room. Her mother went to answer it. Abra heard her mother say, "No, you can't see him. It's doctor's orders. He can't see anyone--no, not anyone."
She came back to the kitchen. "Judge Knudsen again," she said.
Chapter 53
1
All during school next day Abra felt good about going to see Lee. She met Cal in the hall between classes. "Did you tell him I was coming?"
"He's started some kind of tarts," said Cal. He was dressed in his uniform--choking high collar, ill-fitting tunic, and wrapped leggings.
"You've got drill," Abra said. "I'll get there first. What kind of tarts?"
"I don't know. But leave me a couple, will you? Smelled like strawberry. Just leave me two."
"Want to see a present I got for Lee? Look!" She opened a little cardboard box. "It's a new kind of potato peeler. Takes off just the skin. It's easy. I got it for Lee."
"There go my tarts," said Cal, and then, "If I'm a little late, don't go before I get there, will you?"
"Would you like to carry my books home?"
"Yes," said Cal.
She looked at him long, full in the eyes, until he wanted to drop his gaze, and then she walked away toward her class.
2
Adam had taken to sleeping late, or, rather, he had taken to sleeping very often--short sleeps during the night and during the day. Lee looked in on him several times before he found him awake.
"I feel fine this morning," Adam said.
"If you can call it morning. It's nearly eleven o'clock."
"Good Lord! I have to get up."
"What for?" Lee asked.
"What for? Yes, what for! But I feel good, Lee. I might walk down to the draft board. How is it outside?"
"Raw," said Lee.
He helped Adam get up. Buttons and shoelaces and getting things on frontways gave Adam trouble.
While Lee helped him Adam said, "I had a dream--very real. I dreamed about my father."
"A great old gentleman from all I hear," said Lee. "I read that portfolio of clippings your brother's lawyer sent. Must have been a great old gentleman."
Adam looked calmly at Lee. "Did you know he was a thief?"
"You must have had a dream," said Lee. "He's buried at Arlington. One clipping said the Vice President was at his funeral, and the Secretary of War. You know the Salinas Index might like to do a piece about him--in wartime, you know. How would you like to go over the material?"
"He was a thief," said Adam. "I didn't think so once, but I do now. He stole from the G.A.R."
"I don't believe it," said Lee.
There were tears in Adam's eyes. Very often these days tears came suddenly to Adam. Lee said, "Now you sit right here and I'll bring you some breakfast. Do you know who's coming to see us this afternoon? Abra."
Adam said, "Abra?" and then, "Oh, sure, Abra. She's a nice girl."
"I love her," said Lee simply. He got Adam seated in front of the card table in his bedroom. "Would you like to work on the cutout puzzle while I get your breakfast?"
"No, thank you. Not this morning. I want to think about the dream before I forget it."
When Lee brought the breakfast tray Adam was asleep in his chair. Lee awakened him and read the Salinas Journal to him while he ate and then helped him to the toilet.
The kitchen was sweet with tarts, and some of the berries had boiled over in the oven and burned, making the sharp, bitter-sweet smell pleasant and astringent.
There was a quiet rising joy in Lee. It was the joy of change. Time's drawing down for Adam, he thought. Time must be drawing down for me, but I don't feel it. I feel immortal. Once when I was very young I felt mortal--but not any more. Death has receded. He wondered if this were a normal way to feel.
And he wondered what Adam meant, saying his father was a thief. Part of the dream, maybe. And then Lee's mind played on the way it often did. Suppose it were true--Adam, the most rigidly honest man it was possible to find, living all his life on stolen money. Lee laughed to himself--now this second will, and Aron, whose purity was a little on the self-indulgent side, living all his life on the profits from a whorehouse. Was this some k
ind of joke or did things balance so that if one went too far in one direction an automatic slide moved on the scale and the balance was re-established?
He thought of Sam Hamilton. He had knocked on so many doors. He had the most schemes and plans, and no one would give him any money. But of course--he had so much, he was so rich. You couldn't give him any more. Riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy. To put it straight--the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards. He wondered if that were true. They acted that way sometimes.
He thought of Cal burning the money to punish himself. And the punishment hadn't hurt him as badly as the crime. Lee said to himself, "If there should happen to be a place where one day I'll come up with Sam Hamilton, I'll have a lot of good stories to tell him," and his mind went on, "But so will he!"
Lee went in to Adam and found him trying to open the box that held the clippings about his father.
3
The wind blew cold that afternoon. Adam insisted on going to look in on the draft board. Lee wrapped him up and started him off. "If you feel faint at all, just sit down wherever you are," Lee said.
"I will," Adam agreed. "I haven't felt dizzy all day. Might stop in and have Victor look at my eyes."
"You wait till tomorrow. I'll go with you."
"We'll see," said Adam, and he started out, swinging his arms with bravado.
Abra came in with shining eyes and a red nose from the frosty wind, and she brought such pleasure that Lee giggled softly when he saw her.
"Where are the tarts?" she demanded. "Let's hide them from Cal." She sat down in the kitchen. "Oh, I'm so glad to be back."
Lee started to speak and choked and then what he wanted to say seemed good to say--to say carefully. He hovered over her. "You know, I haven't wished for many things in my life," he began. "I learned very early not to wish for things. Wishing just brought earned disappointment."
Abra said gaily, "But you wish for something now. What is it?"
He blurted out, "I wish you were my daughter--" He was shocked at himself. He went to the stove and turned out the gas under the teakettle, then lighted it again.
She said softly, "I wish you were my father."
He glanced quickly at her and away. "You do?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Lee went quickly out of the kitchen. He sat in his room, gripping his hands tightly together until he stopped choking. He got up and took a small carved ebony box from the top of his bureau. A dragon climbed toward heaven on the box. He carried the box to the kitchen and laid it on the table between Abra's hands. "This is for you," he said, and his tone had no inflection.
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