by John Irving
"You bitch, you whore!" Molly shouted. A voice as shrill and delicate as a coffee spoon striking a saucer. "You really dirty whore!"
And Celeste just looked, smiling gently -- an inquiring, still puzzled face, which invited Molly to please continue.
Molly gained a certain composure, a practiced restraint of the kind suggested in Beginning Speech Class, and said, "I will not stoop so low as to compete on your level!" It was not haughty, it was still the spoon on the saucer.
Minna said, "Molly, dear. Don't." And Molly, without taking her eyes from Celeste, stepped gingerly backward, feeling for the door with her hand, and when her weight rested against the door she leaned back and swung with it -- revolved out of the kitchen. The door swung back, bringing no new horrors in its path, swung twice before it squeaked and closed. Minna looked apologetically at Celeste. "Celeste, dear," she began, but Celeste turned to her with the same penetrating calm, the same inquiring face she had turned to Molly.
"It's all right, Minna," she said, soothingly, as if she spoke to a child.
Minna shook her head and looked away; it seemed she would cry at any second. Flynn banged some pans against the aluminum shelves. "Christ!" he hollered. "What's going on?"
There was a long moment when no one spoke, and then there was Angelo; with a curiously studied fury that never could have been his own, but something mimicked from countless bad movies and college plays, he stepped awkwardly to the middle of the kitchen, throwing himself off balance as he flung his wilted flowers to the floor. "Who does she think she is?" he demanded. "Who does she think she's talking to? Who is she?"
"She's just a girl who thinks I stole her boy," Celeste said. "We went out for a ride last night, after he brought her back here."
"But she can't say that!" Angelo cried, and Minna saw that his consistently pale face was deeply flushed.
"I got a daughter her age," Flynn said. "I'd wash her damn mouth out with soap if she ever pulled any of that stuff."
"Oh, that's really good, Flynn," Celeste snapped, "that's really good, coming from you! Why don't you just shut up?"
But Angelo, they should have known, had at last encountered the dark, illogical fate which any one of them might have envisioned for him. He made some quick, secretive movement with his hands and walked to the aluminum door -- like one who'd seen a specter of his potential self beckon and bid him follow. He was gone before anyone could say anything, even before anyone could move, leaving the kitchen in ghoulish silence.
Then Flynn said, "He took the lye soap out of the sink. He took it with him!" Celeste moved more quickly than Flynn and Minna; she moved in front of them, out through the swinging door.
The dining hall was very crowded, but very quiet. The occasional tinkle of ice cubes in the tea, the nervous creakings of chairs. Mrs. Elwood sat at the head table, surrounded by well-dressed parents and children with napkins tucked into their collars. Minna looked helplessly at Mrs. Elwood, whose chin was twitching in random little spasms. Angelo stood in the aisle between two rows of tables at the far end of the dining hall, the yellow-green bar of lye soap in his right hand -- held as if it were extremely heavy or dangerous, held like a shot put or a grenade.
Molly Cabot peered into her soup, prodigiously counting the noodles or rice. Angelo leaned across the table until his nose was almost in her hair.
"You got to apologize to Miss Celeste. Girl," he said softly, "you got to get up and do it right now."
Molly didn't look up from her soup. She said, "No, Angelo." And then, very quietly, she added, "You go back to the kitchen. Right now."
Angelo put his hand on the edge of Molly's soup dish, palm up, and he let the bar of lye soap slide into her soup.
"Right now," Angelo softly commanded. "You apologize or I'll wash your mouth out good."
Molly pushed her chair back from the table and began to stand up, but Angelo caught her by the shoulders, pulled her across the table to him, and began to force her head down, down to the soup dish. The girl sitting next to Molly screamed -- one shrill and aimless scream -- and Angelo got his hand on the back of Molly's neck and shoved her face into the soup. He dunked her swiftly, just once, and then he caught her by one shoulder and pulled her to him, his right hand groping for the soap. There was a boy sitting across the aisle from Molly's table. He jumped up and shouted, "Hey!" But Celeste was the first to get to Angelo; she seized him around the waist and picked him off the floor, loosened his grip on Molly, and then tried to shift him over her hip, tried to carry him down the aisle to the kitchen. But Angelo wriggled free of her; he wriggled into hairy Flynn. Flynn grabbed Angelo in a bear hug and everyone heard Angelo grunt. Flynn just turned and walked Angelo toward the kitchen, bending the thin body to a sharp curve at the spine; Celeste ran in front of them, got to the door first and held it open.
Angelo kicked and clawed, snapping his head around to try and see where Molly had gone. "You whore!" Angelo screamed, his breath pinched out of him in thin soprano. And then they passed through the great door -- Angelo peering madly over the shoulders of Flynn, Celeste hurrying after them, the door swinging heavily closed.
Minna caught one glimpse of Molly Cabot, leaving the dining hall with a napkin over her face, her blouse spattered with soup and clinging to her birdlike chest. Her scalded, offended, demure breasts seemed to point the way of her determined exit. Then Mrs. Elwood took Minna by the arm and whispered, confidingly, "I must know what this is about. Whatever possessed him? He must leave at once. At once!"
In the kitchen Angelo sat in grand disorder on the floor, leaning against an aluminum cabinet. Flynn roughly dabbed at Angelo's mouth with a wet towel; Angelo was bleeding from his mouth, and he slumped, bespattered with soup, bleeding slowly down his chin. He moaned a high, complaining moan -- the whine of an abandoned dog -- and his eyes were closed.
"What did you do to him?" Celeste asked Flynn.
"He must have bit his tongue," Flynn mumbled.
"I did, I did," Angelo said, his voice muted by the towel which Flynn squeezed against his mouth.
"Christ, what a stupid wop," Flynn grumbled.
Celeste took the towel from Flynn and shoved him away from Angelo. "Let me do that," she said. "You'll rub his whole face off."
"I should have hit her," Angelo blurted. "I should have just hit her a good one."
"Christ, listen to him!" Flynn shouted.
"Shut up, Flynn," Celeste said.
And Minna, silent all this time, moused in a corner of the kitchen. She said, "He'll have to leave. Mrs. Elwood said he'll have to leave at once."
"Christ, what'll he do?" Flynn asked. "Where in hell can he go?"
"Don't worry about me," Angelo said. He blinked his eyes and smiled at Celeste. She knelt in front of him, made him open his mouth so that she could see his tongue; she had a clean handkerchief in the pocket of her dress and she gently touched his tongue with it, gently closed his mouth, took his hand and made him hold the wet towel to his lips. Angelo shut his eyes again, leaned forward, his head falling on Celeste's shoulder. Celeste settled back on her ankles, wrapped one great arm around Angelo, and slowly rocked him, forward and backward, until he made himself into a little ball on her breast -- his curious moan began again, only now it was more like someone making up a song.
"I'll lock the door," Flynn said, "so's no one can come in."
Minna watched, a dull ache in her throat, the prelude to great weeping and sorrow; and arising with the ache was a coldness in her hands and feet. This was hate -- oddly enough, she thought -- hate for Angelo's possessor, for Celeste, his captor, who now held him as if he were a wild, trapped rabbit. She calmed him, she would tame him; Angelo, dutifully, was her pet and her child, her charge -- possessed by this vast, sensuous body, which now and forever would be his magnificent, unachievable goal. And he wouldn't even be aware of what it was that held him to her.
"Angelo," Celeste said softly, "my brother-in-law has an inn in Maine. It's very nice there, on the ocean, and there
would be work for you -- a free place to stay. In the winter it's quiet, just clean snow to be shoveled and things to be fixed. In the summer the tourists come to swim and sail; there's boats and beaches, and you'd like my family."
"No," Minna said. "It's too far. How could he get there?"
"I'll take him myself," Celeste told her. "I'll drive him there tonight. I'd only miss one day, just tomorrow."
"He's never been out of Boston," Minna said. "He wouldn't like it."
"Of course he'd like it!" Flynn shouted. "It'll be perfect."
"Celeste?" Angelo asked. "Will you be there?"
"On weekends, in the summer," she said. "And all my vacations."
"What's it called?" Angelo asked her. He sat up, back against the counter cabinet, and he touched her hair with his hand. His wondering, adoring eyes passed over her thick, black hair, her strong-boned face and wide mouth.
"It's called Heron's Neck," Celeste told him. "Everybody's very friendly. You'd get to know them all, right away."
"I'll bet you'd like it just fine, Angelo," Flynn said.
"We'll go tonight," Celeste prompted. "We'll go as soon as we put your things in my car."
"You can't do it," Minna said. "You can't take him there."
"She'll only miss one day!" Flynn shouted. "Christ, Minna, what's one day?"
Minna passed her hand over her face, the powder wet and clotted at the corners of her eyes. She looked at Celeste.
"You can't have the day off," Minna told her. "It's a busy time of year."
"Christ!" Flynn hollered. "Speak to Mrs. Elwood about it!"
"I'm in charge of this kitchen!" Minna cried. "I saw to getting her hired, and I'll see to this." Flynn evaded Minna's eyes. It was very quiet in the kitchen.
"What if I just left with Angelo tonight?" Celeste asked.
"Then you just leave for good," Minna said.
"Put Angelo on a bus!" Flynn bellowed.
"I don't want to go there alone!" Angelo cried. "I don't know anybody," he added meekly.
It was quiet again, and this time Flynn evaded Celeste's eyes. Celeste looked down at her knees, then she touched Angelo's damp head.
"I'll take you right now," Celeste told him slowly.
"We'll be there together," Angelo said, rapidly nodding his head. "You can show me around."
"It'll be nicer that way," Celeste told him. "We'll just do that."
"I should say good-bye to Mrs. Elwood," Angelo said.
"Why don't we just send her a postcard when we get there?" Celeste suggested.
"Yeah," Angelo said. "And we can send one to Flynn and to Minna. What kind of postcard do you want, Flynn?"
"Maybe one of the water and cliffs," he answered gently.
"Cliffs, huh?" Angelo asked Celeste. "Sure," she said.
"What kind do you want, Minna?" Angelo asked, but she had turned away from them. She was stooping to pick up the flowers from the floor.
"Anything you'd like to send," she told him.
"Then let's get ready," Celeste said.
"Do you want to go out the other door?" Flynn asked. "To get some air." He opened the door which led to the campus yard. It had stopped raining. The grass was shiny and smelled very lush.
When they were gone, when Flynn had shut the door behind them, Minna said, "Well, it's going to be busy with just the two of us, but I guess we'll get on."
"Sure we'll get on," Flynn told her. Then he added, "I think that was a pretty stinking thing to do."
"I am sorry, Flynn," she said -- a thin, breaking voice -- and then she saw the tureens of soup, the trays of potato salad. God, she thought, have they been waiting out there all this time? But when she peeked into the dining hall, gingerly leaning on the door, she saw that everyone was gone. Mrs. Elwood must have shooed them all away.
"There's no one out there," she told Flynn.
"Just look at all this food," he said.
Before the news, before the movie. Minna sits in her room, waiting for it to be finally dark. A soft, gray light falls over the driveway and over the elms, and Minna listens for sounds from Celeste's room -- she watches for Celeste's car in the driveway. They must have gone by now, she thinks. They probably loaded the car somewhere else; Celeste would think of that. It is dusky in Minna's room; the faint light of early evening touches what few bright articles are placed on Minna's desk and bedside table, on the chest of drawers and television, on the coffee table. Most striking are the uneaten, unopened cans of foreign food. The hors d'oeuvre fork throws a dull reflection of the evening light back to Minna at the window. Poor Molly, Minna thinks. How awful that she has to go on being here, in front of everyone. And suddenly she feels the same sympathy for herself. It is a more ephemeral pity, though, and she soon feels thankful that school is so nearly over.
The street lights go on, whole rows of them lining the campus, giving the same luster to the elms and lawn that Minna noticed a night ago -- a watery landscape, with canal, missing only Celeste. Minna moves from the window, turns on her desk lamp, mechanically hunts for a book. Then she sits deeply in the plush of her leather chair. She just sits, listening for nothing now, not reading, not even thinking. The toys of her weary mind seem lost.
A moth catches her eye. It has come from somewhere, somewhere safe, come to flutter wildly about the single light in the room. What on earth can it be that lures a moth out of the safety of darkness and into the peril of light? Its wings flap excitedly, it beats against the hot bulb of the lamp -- it surely must scorch itself. Clumsily, carelessly, it bangs into things in an aimless frenzy. Minna thinks for a moment of getting up and turning off the light, but she doesn't feel like sitting in the dark -- she doesn't feel like finding a newspaper to swat the moth. She sits, it grows darker, the buzz of the moth becomes soothing and pleasant. Minna dozes peacefully, briefly.
She wakes, startled, and thinks she is not awake -- only dreaming. Then she sees the persistent moth and she knows she is really awake. It is completely dark outside now and she hears the familiar, restless growl of a motorcycle. She gets up from her chair and from the window she sees it, the same one, fire-engine red. The cycle waits at the beginning of the driveway. Minna thinks, If he is coming for Molly he'll come into the dormitory. The cyclist glances around him, turns the throttle up and down, looks at his watch, jounces lightly on the seat. He has come for Celeste, Minna knows, and she watches him, aware that other windows around her are open, other eyes watching him. No one comes out of the dormitory; Minna hears whispers pass from window screen to window screen, like a bird looking for a place to get in or out. The motorcyclist turns the throttle up again, holds the throttle there a moment, then lets the engine fall to its wary idle. Nothing happens, the cyclist jounces more heavily on the seat, looks again at his watch. Minna wonders, Do the girls know that Celeste is gone? Of course, the girls know everything; some of them probably knew that the motorcyclist would be back tonight -- and not for Molly. But the cyclist is impatient now -- sensing, perhaps, that Celeste isn't coming. Minna wishes she could see his face, but it is too dark. Only the pale blond hair flashes at her window, the lustrous red gas tank of the motorcycle shimmers like water; and then the throttle turns up again, the rear wheel skids sideways in the gravel, squeaks on the street. The whispering window screens are now silent, listening for the first three gears. Each gear seems to reach a little further than the night before.
Now Minna is alone with the moth. She wonders whether the girls will come for the news, wonders what time it is. And if the girls come, will Molly come with them? Oh, Minna hopes not, at least not tonight. The moth soothes her again, she dozes or half-dozes to the drone. She has a final, alarming thought before she falls to a deeper sleep. What will she ever say to Mrs. Elwood? But the moth manages to calm even this. The happy, smudge-mouthed faces of her brother's children flood Minna's tiny room, and Angelo is somewhere among them. The motorcycle comes by once more, stops, snarls, goes madly on, ushered away to its dark journey by the titters at the wi
ndow screens. But Minna doesn't hear it this time. She sleeps--lulled by the whirring, furry music of the moth.
Weary Kingdom (1967)
AUTHOR'S NOTES
For me to publish "Weary Kingdom" in this collection requires either a little courage or a lot of sentimentality, or both. On many levels the story seems amateurish to me, and there is ample evidence of writing habits that I now deplore -- lengthy passages in the present tense, which both begin and end the story; clumsy and inconsistent punctuation; overlong paragraphs, which were intended to convey the claustrophobic quality of Minna's mind but which mainly convey to me ... uh, well, an intense feeling of overall claustrophobia. Furthermore, that Celeste complains about the "pee-like" condition of the water at Revere Beach is embarrassing. Molly Cabot might think of water as "pee-like"; for a woman like Celeste, the correct word is "piss." But what makes me wince most about "Weary Kingdom" is that Minna Barrett is only 55-- she sounds and thinks like someone who is at least 115! Of course I was only 25 when I wrote this story -- I was still a student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop -- and, at the time, I thought 55 was old. (Now that I'm only a couple of years away from my 55th birthday, 55 strikes me as entirely too youthful an age for such a dullness of body and mind as Minna's.)
I spent a year revising the story; at the same time I was finishing my first novel, Setting Free the Bears (1969). "Weary Kingdom" was published before the novel -- in The Boston Review (Spring-Summer 1968) -- and what endears it to me today, despite the many indications of its amateurism, is that it was from this story that I gained a little confidence concerning how to create a minor character in the third-person voice, which is an absolutely necessary ability for a writer of any novel of substance and length. Even in a first-person novel, there must be minor characters introduced by the narrator; essentially, these are also characters created in a third-person voice.