The Anything Box

by Зенна Гендерсон

  One of the Linjeni started at Doovie's name and stood up slowly,his lavender bulk towering over the table. Serena saw the interpretersthumbing frantically again. She knew they were looking for a translation ofthe Linjeni "baby." Babies had no place in a military conference.

  The Linjeni spoke slowly, but Serena shook her head. "I don't know enoughLinjeni."

  There was a whisper at her shoulder. "What do you know of Doovie?" And a

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  pair of earphones were pushed into her hands. She adjusted them with trembling

  fingers. Why were they letting her talk? Why was General Worsham sitting there

  letting her break into the conference like this?

  "I know Doovie," she said breathlessly. "I know Doovie's mother, too.

  Doovie plays with Splinter, my son— my little son." She , twisted her fingers,

  dropping her head at the murmur that arose around the table. The Linjeni spoke

  again and the metallic murmur of the earphones gave her the translation. "What

  is the color of Doovie's mother?"

  "Pink," said Serena.

  Again the scurry for a word—pink—pink. Finally Serena turned up the hem of

  her skirt and displayed the hem of her slip—rose pink. The Linjeni sat down

  again, nodding.

  "Serena," General Worsham spoke as quietly as though it were just another

  lounging evening in the patio. "What do you want?"

  Serena's eyes wavered and then her chin lifted.

  "Thorn said today would be the last day. That it was to be 'no' on both

  sides. That we and the Linjeni have no common meeting ground, no basis for

  agreement on anything."

  "And you think we have?" General Worsham's voice cut gently through the

  stir at the naked statement of thoughts and attitudes so carefully concealed.

  "I know we do. Our alikenesses outweigh our differences so far that it's

  just foolish to sit here all this time, shaking our differences at each other

  and not finding out a thing about our likenesses. We are fundamentally the

  same—the same—" she faltered. "Under God we are all the same." And she knew

  with certainty that the translators wouldn't find God's name in their books.

  "I think we ought to let them eat our salt and bread and make them welcome!"

  She half smiled and said, "The word for salt is shreeprill."

  There was a smothered rush of whistling from the Linjeni, and the lavender

  Linjeni half rose from his chair but subsided.

  General Worsham glanced at the Linjeni speculatively and pursed his lips.

  "But there are ramifications—" he began.

  "Ramifications!" spat Serena. "There are no ramifications that can't

  resolve themselves if two peoples really know each other!"

  She glanced around the table, noting with sharp relief that Thorn's face

  had softened.

  "Come with me!" she urged. "Come and see Doovie and Splinter

  together—Linjeni young and ours, who haven't learned suspicion and fear and

  hate and prejudice yet. Declare a—a—recess or a truce or whatever is necessary

  and come with me. After you see the children and see Mrs. Pink knitting and we

  talk this matter over like members of a family—Well, if you still think you

  have to fight after that, then—" she spread her hands.

  Her knees shook so as they started downhill that Thorn had to help her

  walk.

  "Oh, Thorn," she whispered, almost sobbing. "I didn't think they would. I

  thought they'd shoot me or lock me up or—"

  "We don't want war. I told you that," he murmured. "We're ready to grab at

  straws, even in the guise of snippy females who barge in on solemn councils

  and display their slips!" Then his lips tightened. "How long has this been

  going on?"

  "For Splinter, a couple of weeks. For me, a little more than a week."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I tried—twice. You wouldn't listen. I was too scared to insist. Besides,

  you know what your reaction would have been."

  Thorn had no words until they neared the foot of the hill, then he said,

  "How come you know so much? What makes you think you can solve—"

  Serena choked back a hysterical laugh. "I took eggs to a picnic!"

  And then they were standing, looking down at the hole under the fence.

  "Splinter found the way," Serena defended. "I made it bigger, but you'll

  have to get down—flat."

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  She dropped to the sand and wiggled under. She crouched on the other side,

  her knees against her chest, her clasped hands pressed against her mouth, and

  waited. There was a long minute of silence and then a creak and a grunt and

  Serena bit her lips as General Worsham inched under the fence, flat on the

  sand, catching and jerking free halfway through. But her amusement changed to

  admiration as she realized that even covered with dust, scrambling awkwardly

  to his feet and beating his rumpled clothing, he possessed dignity and

  strength that made her deeply thankful that he was the voice of Earth in this

  time of crisis.

  One by one the others crawled under, the Linjeni sandwiched between the

  other men and Thorn bringing up the rear. Motioning silence, she led them to

  the thicket of bushes that screened one side of the goldfish pond.

  Doovie and Splinter were leaning over the edge of the pond.

  'There it is!" cried Splinter, leaning perilously and pointing. "Way down

  there on the bottom and it's my best marble. Would your Mommie care if you got

  it for me?"

  Doovie peered down. "Marble go in water."

  "That's what I said," cried Splinter impatiently. "And you can shut your

  nose …" he put his finger to the black, glistening button ". , . and fold

  your ears," he flicked them with his forefinger and watched them fold. "Gee!"

  he said admiringly. "I wish I could do that."

  "Doovie go in water?" asked Doovie.

  "Yes," nodded Splinter. "It's my good taw, and you won't even have to put

  on swimming trunks—you got fur."

  Doovie shucked out of his brief clothing and slid down into the pond. He

  bobbed back up, his hand clenched.

  "Gee, thanks." Splinter held out his hand and Doovie carefully turned his

  hand over and Splinter closed his. Then he shrieked and flung his hand out.

  "You mean old thing!" yelled Splinter. "Give me my marble! That was a slippy

  old fish!" he leaned over, scuffling, trying to reach Doovie's other hand.

  There was a slither and a splash and Splinter and Doovie disappeared under the

  water.

  Serena caught her breath and had started forward when Doovie's anxious face

  bobbed to the surface again. He yanked and tugged at the sputtering, coughing

  Splinter and tumbled him out onto the grass. Doovie squatted by Splinter,

  patting his back and alternately whistling dolefully through his nose and

  talking apologetic-sounding Linjeni.

  Splinter coughed and dug his fists into his eyes.

  "Golly, golly!" he said, spatting his hands against his wet jersey.

  "Mommie'll sure be mad. My clean clothes all wet. Where's my marble, Doovie?"

  Doovie scrambled to his feet and went back to the pond. Splinter started to

  follow, then he cried. "Oh, Doovie, where did that poor little fish go? It'll

  die if it's out o
f the water. My guppy did."

  "Fish?" asked Doovie.

  "Yes," said Splinter, holding out his hand as he searched the grass with

  intent eyes. "The slippy little fish that wasn't my marble."

  The two youngsters scrambled around in the grass until Doovie whistled and

  cried out triumphantly, "Fish!" and scooped it up in his hands and rushed it

  back to the pond.

  "There," said Splinter. "Now it won't die. Looky, it's swimming away!"

  Doovie slid into the pond again and retrieved the lost marble.

  "Now," said Splinter. "Watch me and I'll show you how to shoot."

  The bushes beyond the two absorbed boys parted and Mrs. Pink stepped out.

  She smiled at the children and then she saw the silent group on the other side

  of the clearing. Her eyes widened and she gave an astonished whistle. The two

  boys looked up and followed the direction of her eyes.

  "Daddy!" yelled Splinter. "Did you come to play?" And he sped, arms

  outstretched, to Thorn, arriving only a couple of steps ahead of Doovie who

  was whistling excitedly and rushing to greet the tall lavender Linjeni.

  Serena felt a sudden choke of laughter at how alike Thorn and the Linjeni

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  looked, trying to greet their offspring adequately and still retain theirdignity.

  Mrs. Pink came hesitantly to the group to stand in the circle of Serena'sarm. Splinter had swarmed up Thorn, hugged him with thoroughness and slid downagain. "Hi, General Worsham!" he said, extending a muddy hand in a belatedremembrance of his manners. "Hey, Daddy, I'm showing Doovie how to playmarbles, but you can shoot better'n I can. You come show him how."

  "Well—" said Thorn, glancing uncomfortably at General Worsham.

  General Worsham was watching the Linjeni as Doovie whistled and fluted overa handful of bright-colored glassies. He quirked an eyebrow at Thorn and thenat the rest of the group.

  "I suggest a recess," he said. "In order that we may examine new mattersthat have been brought to our attention."

  Serena felt herself getting all hollow inside, and she turned her face awayso Mrs. Pink wouldn't see her cry. But Mrs. Pink was too interested in thecolorful marbles to see Serena's gathering, hopeful tears.

  Something Bright

  Do you remember the Depression? That black shadow across time? That hurtingplace in the consciousness of the world? Maybe not. Maybe it's like asking doyou remember the Dark Ages. Except what would I know about the price of eggsin the Dark Ages? I knew plenty about prices in the Depression.

  If you had a quarter—first find your quarter—and five hungry kids, youcould supper them on two cans of soup and a loaf of day-old bread, or twoquarts of milk and a loaf of day-old bread. It was filling—in an afterthoughtykind of way—nourishing. But if you were one of the hungry five, you eventuallybegan to feel erosion set in, and your teeth ached for substance.

  But to go back to eggs. Those were a precious commodity. You savored themslowly or gulped them eagerly —unmistakably as eggs—boiled or fried. That'sone reason why I remember Mrs. Klevity. She had eggs for breakfast! And everyday! That's one reason why I remember Mrs. Klevity.

  I didn't know about the eggs the time she came over to see Mom, who hadjust got home from a twelve-hour day, cleaning up after other people at thirtycents an hour. Mrs. Klevity lived in the same court as we did. Courtesy calledit a court because we were all dependent on the same shower house and twotoilets that occupied the shack square in the middle of the court.

  All of us except the Big House, of course. It had a bathroom of its own andeven a radio blaring "Nobody's Business" and "Should I Reveal" and had ceilinglights that didn't dangle nakedly at the end of a cord. But then it reallywasn't a part of the court. Only its back door shared our area, and even thatwas different. It had two back doors in the same frame—a screen one and a wooden one!

  Our own two-room place had a distinction, too. It had an upstairs. One roomthe size of our two. The Man Upstairs lived up there. He was mostly only thesound of footsteps overhead and an occasional cookie for Danna.

  Anyway, Mrs. Klevity came over before Mom had time to put her shopping bagof work clothes down or even to unpleat the folds of fatigue that dragged herface down ten years or more of time to come. I didn't much like Mrs. Klevity.She made me uncomfortable. She was so solid and slow-moving and so nearlyblind that she peered frighteningly wherever she went. She stood in thedoorway as though she had been stacked there like bricks and a dress drawnhastily down over the stack and a face sketched on beneath a fuzz of hair. Uskids all gathered around to watch, except Danna who snuffled wearily into myneck. Day nursery or not, it was a long, hard day for a four-year-old.

  "I wondered if one of your girls could sleep at my house this week." Hervoice was as slow as her steps.

  "At your house?" Mom massaged her hand where the shopping bag handles hadcrisscrossed it. "Come in. Sit down." We had two chairs and a bench and two

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  apple boxes. The boxes scratched bare legs, but surely they couldn't scratch a

  stack of bricks.

  "No, thanks." Maybe she couldn't bend! "My husband will be away several

  days and I don't like to be in the house alone at night."

  "Of course," said Mom. "You must feel awfully alone."

  The only aloneness she knew, what with five kids and two rooms, was the

  taut secretness of her inward thoughts as she mopped and swept and ironed in

  other houses. "Sure, one of the girls would be glad to keep you company."

  There was a darting squirm and LaNell was safely hidden behind the swaying of

  our clothes in the diagonally curtained corner of the Other room, and Kathy

  knelt swiftly just beyond the dresser, out of sight.

  "Anna is eleven." I had no place to hide, burdened as I was with Danna.

  "She's old enough. What time do you want her to come over?"

  "Oh, bedtime will do." Mrs. Klevity peered out the door at the darkening

  sky. "Nine o'clock. Only it gets dark before then—" Bricks can look anxious, I

  guess.

  "As soon as she has supper, she can come," said Mom, handling my hours as

  though they had no value to me. "Of course she has to go to school tomorrow."

  "Only when it's dark," said Mrs. Klevity. "Day is all right. How much

  should I pay you?"

  "Pay?" Mom gestured with one hand. "She has to sleep anyway. It doesn't

  matter to her where, once she's asleep. A favor for a friend."

  I wanted to cry out: Whose favor for what friend? We hardly passed the time

  of day with Mrs. Klevity. I couldn't even remember Mr. Klevity except that he

  was straight and old and wrinkled. Uproot me and make me lie in a strange

  house, a strange dark, listening to a strange breathing, feeling a strange

  warmth making itself part of me for all night long, seeping into me—

  "Mom—" I said.

  "I'll give her breakfast," said Mrs. Klevity. "And lunch money for each

  night she comes."

  I resigned myself without a struggle. Lunch money each day—a whole dime!

  Mom couldn't afford to pass up such a blessing, such a gift from God, who

  unerringly could be trusted to ease the pinch just before it became

  intolerable.

  "Thank you, God," I whispered as I went to get the can opener to open

  supper. For a night or two I could stand it.

  I felt all naked and unprotected as I stood in my flimsy crinkle cotton

  pajamas, one bare foot atop the other, waiting for Mrs. Klevity to turn the

  bed down.

  "We have to check the house first," she said thickly. "We can't go to bed
r />   until we check the house."

  "Check the house?" I forgot my starchy stiff shyness enough to question.

  "What for?"

  Mrs. Klevity peered at me in the dim light of the bedroom. They had three

  rooms for only the two of them! Even if there was no door to shut between the

  bedroom and the kitchen.

  "I couldn't sleep," she said, "unless I looked first. I have to."

  So we looked. Behind the closet curtain, under the table—Mrs. Klevity even

  looked in the portable oven that sat near the two-burner stove in the kitchen.

  When we came to the bed, I was moved to words again. "But we've been in

  here with the doors locked ever since I got here. What could possibly—"

  "A prowler?" said Mrs. Klevity nervously, after a brief pause for thought.

  "A criminal?"

  Mrs. Klevity pointed her face at me. I doubt if she could see me from that

  distance. "Doors make no difference," she said. "It might be when you least

  expect, so you have to expect all the time."

  "I'll look," I said humbly. She was older than Mom. She was nearly blind.

  She was one of God's Also Unto Me's.

  "No," she said. "I have to. I couldn't be sure, else."

  So I waited until she grunted and groaned to her knees, then bent stiffly

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  to lift the limp spread. Her fingers hesitated briefly, then flicked the

  spread up. Her breath came out flat and finished. Almost disappointed, it

  seemed to me.

  She turned the bed down and I crept across the gray, wrinkled sheets, and

  turning my back to the room, I huddled one ear on the flat, tobacco-smelling

  pillow and lay tense and uncomfortable in the dark, as her weight shaped and

  reshaped the bed around me. There was a brief silence before I heard the

  soundless breathy shape of her words, "How long, O God, how long?"

  I wondered through my automatic bless Papa and Mama—and the automatic

  backup, because Papa had abdicated from my specific prayers, bless Mama and my

  brother and sisters—what it was that Mrs. Klevity was finding too long to

  bear.

  After a restless waking, dozing sort of night that strange sleeping places