Nothing That Meets the Eye

by Patricia Highsmith

  “He’s half you, isn’t he?” Lance was saying.

  “One day we’ll have a child that’s all us.”

  Then they said nothing for a while. A bird sang a few annunciatory notes in a nearby tree—there were only three or four trees in the whole park—then swooped past so that both saw it. Not far away, on the river, a boat sounded its steam toot, not deep enough to be a big liner, not high enough to be a tug: a middle-sized vessel whose toot still said proudly, however, that it could go everywhere on earth and furthermore had been there.

  “We’ll make a lot of trips,” he remarked.

  “I want to go to Scotland,” the girl said, even more quietly, but her tone was as if she had bought a ticket from someone.

  “Scotland must be terrific. We’ll definitely go to Scotland . . . the Hebrides.”

  “Hebrides?”

  “‘As we in dreams behold the Hebrides.’”

  “What are they? Mountains?”

  “Mountains and islands. Mountains.” He said the words so slowly, so roundly, it was as if he built the islands and the mountains right there.

  “Don’t say ‘dreams,’” the girl chided. “Or is that another poem?”

  “It’s a poem. But poems are true.”

  “Sometimes, I guess.”

  He did not argue. They were silent a longer while.

  “Then will you build me a house—after we’ve finished traveling?”

  “I will build you not one house but three . . . four,” he said distinctly. “One for every season of the year. A white house for spring, a red house for winter. For autumn, a brown house—”

  “I don’t like brown.”

  “For autumn, a tan house.”

  “Lance, are you watching the time?” she barely whispered, like an aside.

  “Yes, I am watching the time. The clock in the steeple says five of four.”

  The clock in the steeple of the little church was only half a block down the avenue, but she had told him she would never look at it while he was with her in the park. The clock in the steeple was always six minutes slow. At 4:09, therefore, he would have to leave in order to report back at his job in a big bookstore on Nassau Street, far downtown. Tomorrow he would not be able to come, nor the next day. He delivered only on Tuesdays and Fridays, an unpopular duty he had asked for so he might manage, perhaps, half an hour or forty-five minutes with her. It was the only time he could see her. As long as she was married to Charles, she would never let him see her in the evening. He put his other hand over hers and smiled at her with sudden tenderness. Somehow, in her mind, his meeting her in the park partook of the accidental, he knew. The one time he had seen her in the evening was the evening they had met, over by the park in Gramercy Square, a park they could not enter because it was locked. In the darkness he had seen her standing before the tall spears of the fence, and with a sense sharpened by his own solitude and loneliness, he had known that whoever and whatever she was, there was something of himself in her, so he had said good evening. They had both been to the same movie on Twenty-third Street that evening, each alone. The one evening they had seen each other, yet in his mind he liked to call himself her lover. What did she call him? She would not call him that, he thought. He lifted his head higher, lolled it back on the edge of the bench back, and one would have thought he had not a care in the world, that he would stay relaxed there the rest of the afternoon.

  “This park is the still point of the turning world,” he said, and his low voice was steadied with reverence.

  “I feel that, too. Yes. And the street where I live. And these days.”

  “These days.” But suddenly he felt guilty for his idleness, even for these half hours with her, because there was so much he had to do. Not guilty so much because he spent the time with her, but that he allowed himself and her to dream so foolishly. Or were the dreams foolish? One could never really tell. He felt guilty because the little park was so good for dreaming, too good, he knew, too quiet and too like an imaginary heaven. And he began to examine caressingly, as he did every afternoon he sat here, the delicate convexity of the little lawns, the sharp delineation of the scalloped fences against their bright green fields. His eyes moved casually over Dickie and the other little boy playing with the new automobile. Dickie was always a part of the park, the cherub of its heaven. Today he looked happier than usual because he had the other little boy to play with. He looked at the woman over on the bench, who was again glancing at them, and he smiled a little at her, but she looked down at once at her knitting.

  The knitting had got into a small snarl, and Mrs. Robertson was plucking at it anxiously. There was a sensation of clash and disorder within her, as of a distant battle, for which she blamed the knitting. She was dimly aware of an impulse to take Philip and leave the park, correct the knitting at home, as well as a desire to remain because Philip was having such a good time and because the park—perhaps, she admitted, the sight of the two on the other bench—gave her a pleasure akin to an enchantment. The two forces were not at all clear in her mind, but the sense of struggle was as she plucked at the knitting, and while the crystals of herself suffered disorganization, she sat perfectly still except for her fingers, which worked skillfully to rescue the hitherto flawless mitten for Philip. And when the snarl was smoothed out and her course resumed, when the mysterious armies fell silent within her, the outcome of the struggle was veiled, too, leaving her only a subtle sense of irritation, of impatience and somehow of disappointment. I shall not come here again, she thought suddenly, and in that decision alone, which seemed to come out of nowhere, she felt substantiality. She would, however, stay just a few minutes more. There was nothing she need run from.

  The sunlight stirred all at once like a living thing, climbed over the scalloped fence and fell lightly, soundlessly, half across the walk. Now it lay over the feet of Lance and the girl beside him. A long point of it strove diagonally across the path toward the woman on the bench. He saw her look at it even as he did, but she did not glance up again.

  “The still point of the world,” the girl whispered.

  “The turning world.” And again he felt the guilt: the world turned all around them, here on this green island of asylum, machines turned, clocks turned, but he and she were motionless and there was so much to be done and to be fought for.

  “Yes, the turning world is nicer. I can feel it—but I can never say it like you. I felt it this afternoon, leaving the house—” But she would not be able to describe it, she knew. “And now.”

  “Only I didn’t say it. That’s Eliot. There’s another part of it, ‘. . . at the still point, there the dance is.’” He stopped, knowing suddenly that beside one’s beloved is no fixity, though the stillness surpass all other stillnesses and all other kinds of peace, knowing suddenly as if it had been an eternal truth he had just stumbled over and discovered first, that beside one’s beloved the beauty of a daydream is never thin, never motionless and flat like a picture as it is in solitude, because beside her there is movement forward and electrical energy in the air and a roundness, a wholeness to things real or imagined. He turned toward her, and he saw her glance prudently at the woman on the bench. But he had not intended to kiss her now.

  Bells tinkled. Distant sheep bells on rolling green hills half hidden in mist, he thought: the Hebrides.

  “There’s the ice-cream man,” she said.

  The ice-cream wagon came into the path at the downtown end of the park, pushed by a slender young man in white trousers, shirt, and cap.

  “Mother,” Dickie said, climbing over the path fence, “can I have some ice cream?”

  Lance reached into his pocket.

  Mrs. Robertson watched the man give the coin to the little boy, who skipped with it to the ice-cream man. Philip stood where he was, watching, knowing he would not be allowed ice cream so soon before his
suppertime.

  “Can he have one, too?” The man had stood up and was smiling at her, reaching into his pocket again.

  “Oh, thank you very much,” Mrs. Robertson replied. “It’s a bit too near his suppertime.”

  Her heart was beating faster, she noticed. It had excited her, in a way neither pleasant nor unpleasant, the exchange of conversation with him. His manner, even his face, she decided, were nicer than she had thought, than his unpressed suit had led her to believe. The dark-haired little boy clambered back over the fence in the act of taking his first bite of the ice-cream stick, then ran straight to Philip. She stood up, impelled to stop Philip before he could put the ice cream into his mouth.

  “Philip, I don’t think—”

  She was too late. Philip had the whole top of the ice cream in his mouth, and the other little boy was holding it for him. She did not mean to snatch Philip away, but her tension made it a snatch, and the ice cream suddenly held by no one fell to the grass between the two children.

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Robertson, with genuine regret. “I’m terribly sorry!”

  After the first stunned moment, the dark-haired little boy stooped to pick it up. But the ice cream fell off the stick, hopelessly broken now, too far gone even for a three-year-old to rescue. Its chocolate crust cracked again even as he watched, as if it were determined to lose itself in the thick smooth grass. He stood up and looked at her, and wiped his hands shyly behind him.

  “Where’d the ice-cream man go?” Mrs. Robertson looked around for him, but he was out of sight. She heard his bell up the avenue.

  “Lose your ice cream, Dickie?” called the man sympathetically.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” said the little boy, half to him, half to her. He was not angry, but he did not smile, either.

  “It’s my fault, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Robertson said. Then, feeling suddenly ridiculous, she took Philip’s arm in one hand and his tricycle handlebar in the other and urged them toward the scalloped fence.

  “You have to go now, Philip?” asked the dark-haired little boy.

  “Yes,” sighed Philip, with resignation. But at the fence he looked back sadly past the arm his mother lifted straight up, as if he had just realized he was actually going.

  “See you tomorrow, Philip,” said the other little boy, a precocity of phrase that surprised Mrs. Robertson.

  He would not see him tomorrow. She did not want Philip to play with him again. She could not say why precisely, but she did not want it. She had been foolish not to take him away as soon as she realized what sort of person his mother was. There was something, somehow she knew it, impure about the little boy no matter how well he might be scrubbed, because his mother was impure. Yet she found herself going past the woman and the man on the bench, though it was the long way out of the park for her, found herself glancing once more at them, quite involuntarily and much to her own annoyance, a furtive sidewise glance that did not even feel like her own. But the man and the woman seemed lost in themselves again, holding hands. She was relieved they hadn’t seen her. When she reached the end of the path, she knew she had left the man and the woman, the little boy and the park forever.

  The blond girl had seen the glance, seen in it for all its fleetness the ancient and imperishable look that one woman gives another she knows is well loved, a look made up of desire, admiration, wistfulness, of envy and vicarious pleasure, unveiled for an instant and then veiled again. Seeing it, she had pressed Lance’s hand more tightly in quick reflexive pride. Had Lance seen it, too? But probably only a woman would have seen. She would have liked to tell him, but the words for it would be far more difficult to find even than the words about her inner peace as she came down the brownstone steps every afternoon, so instead she said:

  “I don’t think she likes me. She was here yesterday, too.”

  Lance only smiled and tucked her arm closer. He had seven minutes more. He drew her arm close until he could feel it all along his side, not feeling any longer the iron arm cutting tense muscles through his jacket sleeve. “Now there’s no one,” he said.

  There was no one. The long point of the wedge of sunlight had reached the bench the woman had been sitting on, had captured one of the curved metal legs. The bird dipped again, crossing their vision, asserting its absolute freedom and security within the tiny park. Now there was no human being along the avenue, not even a blind and impersonal truck hurrying past beyond the boundary of the low iron fence. Yes, there was a nun coming down the steps of the church half a block away, black-clad and in black bonnet, an erect and archaic figure, black skirts rippling with her pace like the carved robes of a ship’s figurehead. They turned to each other and their lips met above their clasped hands and entwined arms, above the iron arm, and the kiss became the center of the stillness. The kiss became the narrowed center of the still point of the turning world, so that even the park was turning in comparison to the still peace at their lips.

  Then, because there were only three minutes until he had to go, he began to talk casually, but seriously and quickly, of their plans, his work, their money, as if to fortify himself in these last moments before they parted for two days and nights. In three more months they would have enough money to open the next campaign in their struggle, her divorce. It was impossible to talk to her husband now about a divorce so long as she had to live with him. Only three more months. Twenty-four more meetings like this afternoon, he reckoned for the first time, and knew he could not prevent himself from counting them off from now on. Twenty-four . . .

  Mrs. Robertson did not go the next day to the little park down the avenue. She took Philip to a court in the center of Castle Terrace where there was a big sandbox and many small children for him to play with.

  Philip stood where his mother had turned him loose and looked up at the building that rose like a great tan hollowed-out mountain around him, and asked, “Aren’t we going to the park later?”

  “Aren’t we going to the park later, Mama?” he asked again, when his mother had settled herself in a comfortable metal chair. “I want to see Dickie.”

  “No, darling, we’re not going to the park today.” She tried to make her voice gentle and casual, too, and it was difficult. And perhaps she had failed, she thought as she watched Philip pedal off very slowly on his tricycle, with an air of seeing nothing around him.

  There were many other young mothers in the play court, and Mrs. Robertson was soon occupied in conversation. She felt right, here in the court of her own apartment building. Why had she tried to be different and find a nicer place? The park was pretty and Philip would miss it, of course, for a few days, but she did not regret her decision not to go back. Here there was sun, too, things for Philip to play on, and an abundance of children for him to make friends with, children she could be sure were clean and being well brought up. And other women, like herself, with whom she could exchange ideas.

  “I want Dickie,” said Philip, coming up slowly on his tricycle. He had cruised the playground and found it unsatisfactory.

  “Darling, there’s some little boys over by the sandbox. Don’t you want to go play with them?” She turned back to the women she had been talking with, lest she seem as concerned as she felt to Philip.

  “I want Dickie!” said Philip two minutes later. Now he had got off his tricycle and stood away from it, as if he would never mount it again unless it was to go see his friend. He had tears in his eyes. He looked at his mother with resentment, and with determined, uncomprehending ­accusation.

  This was the moment to be firm, Mrs. Robertson knew, to ignore it or to say something that would satisfy or silence forever. She hesitated, at a loss.

  “Who’s Dickie?” asked one of the women.

  “He’s a little boy he met down the street,” Mrs. Robertson answered.

  As if piqued at their mention of his friend, Philip about-faced and wandered
off with his head up, and thus his mother was spared making the answer she could not find.

  Philip asked for Dickie the next afternoon, and the next and the next. But the fifth afternoon he did not ask.

  THE PIANOS OF THE STEINACHS

  Like a docile but somewhat bewildered monster of an earlier age, the big shiny black Pierce Arrow crept backward down the driveway, popping gravel under its narrow tires. Sunlight made its highlights twinkle. Languid fingers of the weeping willows, their chartreuse just beginning to turn with autumn, brushed its roof and its closed windows with delicate affection: the Pierce Arrow and the willows had grown old together, though both were still beautiful. Next door the Carstairs children and their friends stopped their sidewalk play and stood agape, held by a mild, private kind of awe that did not quite merit comment or perhaps was not expressible. Only once in three weeks or so did anything happen in the Steinach driveway, and besides, how often did they see anywhere such a peculiar car as this?

  “Ooh!” shuddered one of the little girls as the wide-set headlights tipped off the driveway and the car aligned itself with Verona Street. With a burst of laughter, the group came to life again.

  “Klett! Isn’t that an exciting name, Moth-aw?” Agnes Steinach was saying. She rolled the window all the way down, eagerly but jerkily, like one inept at mechanics. Her hands were the long soft ones commonly called a “dreamer’s” and they looked completely useless.