by Laird Koenig
"Ha-too-KHAL luh tal-PAYN a-voo-REE?”
The response was coming from the dark corner by the fireplace. Because she could not see into the corner, the woman returned to the front of the house and the windows, and from here saw the little girl, who had been sitting stroking a white rat as she intoned the words, rise quickly, slip the animal back into his mesh cage, and run to the phonograph.
"A-va-KAYSH see KHAH muh-ko-MEET, mees-PAHR—“
With the sound off, it was quiet enough that she heard crows in the autumn sunlight.
Rynn ran barefoot to the front door, but the woman with the basket pushed past her, her rough tweed coat brushing the girl as she entered the house. She held up the basket.
"Quinces. I’ve always thought they looked like lumpy apples."
Glancing around for some place to put them, she chose to set the quinces on the gateleg table in the sitting room.
"How are you two getting along out here?" she asked, smoothing gold hair that did not need smoothing, hair that crackled with hair spray. "Everything all right?"
"Fine," Rynn said, wondering where she had seen hair of this same unnatural sheen.
The new gas heater keeping you two cozy enough?"
"Lovely."
"Good." The woman’s sharp eyes darting around the parlor snapped to Rynn, who found them a colder blue than Frank Hallet’s. They appraised the girl from head to foot. If the woman disapproved of the youngster’s black turtleneck sweater, Levis, or bare feet, she said nothing. Apparently she felt the need to introduce herself.
"I’m Cora Hallet. Your father leased this house from me."
"We met in your office."
"That’s right,” the woman said, her eyes flickering back to the room, the landlady inspecting her domain. At the rocking chair she paused to run a questioning hand over the back.
"Where did this come from?"
"It’s my father’s."
Mrs. Hallet glanced at the chair, then at the coffee table.
"Don’t mind me," she said dragging the chair back into a corner and filling its place with the table from the fireplace. "But the table belongs here."
The woman glanced around again as if certain she would find more changes she would have to put right.
"Can’t stand things out of place." As she spoke she smiled in an effort to soften the authority with which she made her moves. But she was already at the couch plumping and bringing the bunched cushions into a precise row.
She frowned. A pewter tankard on the fireplace mantel seemed to demand examination. She took it down, turned it over to study the touchmark. From her tweed coat she drew eyeglasses that dangled on a gold chain and fitting them, sparkling in the light, over her face, said: "English?"
"Yes."
"His?"
"My father’s."
"Not a bad piece, but wrong for this room."
The girl wondered if .the woman could see the rage that was beginning to seethe within her. She felt her face must be scarlet.
"That table and the braided rug, they belong against the wall."
The woman turned and smiled again.
"I know," she said holding the smile, "you’re going to tell me that poets aren’t supposed to live like other people. That it?"
Rynn’s green eyes never left the woman who, instead of waiting for an answer, picked up a book from the mantel, a thin volume bound in gray.
"One of his?"
"Yes," said the girl.
She examined the binding, apparently unimpressed.
"I keep forgetting to have him autograph it for me."
The woman fanned the book’s leaves. She stopped.
"This one already is." She adjusted her glasses. "'I love you,' Signed 'Father.' How very nice."
Mrs. Hallet closed the book with a snap and slid the volume back onto the mantelpiece." And it’s nice to have a famous poet in the village, except none of us ever sees so much as a glimpse of him."
She picked up a tiny bouquet of straw flowers.
"English?"
The girl nodded. In her anger, she did not know if she could control herself to speak.
At the woman’s touch, dry petals sifted to the mantelpiece. "We don’t even see you two at the market." Her eyebrows raised, her silent comment, her judgment on the English father and daughter’s behavior.
"The market delivers," Rynn said as calmly as she was able.
Mrs. Hallet’s eyebrows held their arch. She spoke slowly, like a teacher presenting a fact she had decided was new for the child, new and difficult to grasp. "If one can afford it." She drew a box of cigarettes from her pocket, lit one, and turned to the open window and frowned at the grape arbor.
Rynn had decided what the color of the woman’s hair made her think of. Since it was so obviously dyed, the girl wondered why the woman chose a color which did not exist in nature but only in the spun gold of those wretched little creatures in toy shops called Barbie Dolls.
"That is exactly the color," she said to herself. "Barbie-Doll hair on an old woman."
"Did you want me to give my father a message?"
The woman still gazed out the window.
"It’s such a shame there are so few grapes this year. Only takes a bit of spraying. . . ." She unbuttoned her brown tweed coat, making herself comfortable, expecting to stay. Rynn, who was not going to ask her if she wished a cup of tea, would not have been surprised had the woman asked for one.
Barbie-Doll hair. Lipstick that was too red, a blood-red slash, pulled smoke from her cigarette.
"It’s not that I’m so absolutely wild about quince jam, but I simply can’t bear to see anything go to waste. That is undoubtedly the Puritan in me."
Rynn waited for the woman to exhale, but the smoke seemed to stay inside the pink face.
"So very fashionable these days to talk about waste. Ecology and pollution are all the thing. You’ll notice, however, no one does one single thing about it."
Ash had grown long on the cigarette and Rynn brought an ashtray in which Mrs. Hallet ground out her cigarette.
"I can give my father any message."
"I came," Mrs. Hallet said, "to get the jelly glasses. For as long as I can remember Edith Wilson and I have been making jelly from those grapes. We stored last year’s glasses in the cellar."
She turned from the window to find the girl staring at her.
"Your father’s not home?"
"No."
"Don’t tell me he’s actually making an appearance in the village."
"New York."
"When I was outside I could have sworn I heard voices."
At the phonograph, Mrs. Hallet lifted the plastic cover from the turntable. Her plump fingers picked up the disc.
Rynn shut her eyes against her rage. She fought an all but overwhelming impulse to tell the woman to keep her fat, greasy fingers off the record.
Rattling her glasses on their gold chain to balance them across the crease in her brow, Mrs. Hallet leaned close to the record to read.
"Hebrew?"
Incapable of speech the girl nodded.
Mrs. Hallet clattered the record back onto the turntable. "I should think French would be more help. Or Italian. Lord knows there are enough of them around here these days to speak it with."
The girl surprised herself by saying, "Would you like to write out a message for my father?"
Pink fingers riffled through a stack of record albums that leaned against the wall.
"So many outsiders in the village these days," the woman sighed deeply, then flicked on her smile. "You’ll have to forgive me, but you see there’ve been Hallets out here on the Island for more than three hundred years." The woman left the stereo unit to run her hand over the couch’s glazed chintz.
"This couch belongs over there." A stubby finger pointed at the window. At the gateleg table Mrs. Hallet picked up a newspaper.
"English?"
"Yes."
The glasses went back to the crease in her brow as sh
e studied the folded paper. "I adore crosswords."
"Take it with you if you like."
Pulling off her glasses, she turned to the girl.
"But your father is doing it."
“I’m doing it."
She arched an eyebrow in mock astonishment. "And Hebrew. You are brilliant." She turned a few pages in the paper and tossed it onto the table.
The little girl refolded the paper, the puzzle on top.
"My son’s children told me that on Halloween you gave them birthday cake."
"Yes."
"That was very generous of you."
"Your son said it was called 'trick or treat.’"
The woman moved one of the pewter candlesticks on the table a few inches to stand in a precise line with its mate.
"He came inside the house?"
"Who?" asked Rynn, although she knew who the woman was talking about.
Mrs. Hallet readjusted her glasses for a close examination of the pewter, as if she expected to find scratches.
"My son," she said.
"Yes," said the girl. "He came in."
"Your father," the woman was making an effort to seem to care more about the pewter than whatever the girl might answer. "Your father was here that evening?"
"My father was in his study."
"Working?"
"Translating. When he’s translating he can’t be disturbed."
"Of course." Mrs. Hallet turned from the table, her hand touching the rocking chair, bringing it to life.
"Since that evening, has my son come back?" She maintained the pretense that her interest was not in the answer; she was merely making the small talk of one neighbor calling on another.
"No," said the girl, her eyes still on the woman.
"Hasn’t been back at all?"
"No."
Mrs. Hallet caressed the rocker’s polished wood.
"If my son should come back and your father isn’t here. . ." She examined the wood’s smooth grain trying to make what she said continue to sound casual. "If he should come back, perhaps, in that case, it might be better if you didn’t let him in."
"He didn’t ask my permission that time."
"I hope," said Mrs. Hallet with considerable iciness, "you didn’t intend that to sound quite so rude."
Rynn knew the woman expected a denial of any intention of rudeness. Like the cup of tea, she was not going to get it.
"I’ll tell my father you said not to let your son in the door."
"That won’t be necessary." The woman’s eyes flashed with anger.
"Perhaps I don’t understand what it is you want."
"One thing I certainly do not want is to go on and on about something that doesn’t matter in the slightest. I came for the jelly glasses."
The girl’s silence seemed an accusation.
"We’ll get then now," the woman said.
"You don’t want me to tell my father about your son?"
"I said that would be enough. This is something I don’t expect you to understand."
"He thinks I have pretty hair. He tell you that?"
The woman’s pink knuckles went white as she gripped the back of the rocker.
In this instant Rynn dared to raise her eyes and look straight into the woman’s. Rynn knew the woman was wondering exactly how wise she might be.
Mrs. Hallet cleared her throat and squared her shoulders.
"I’d like the jelly glasses now."
"I haven’t seen them."
"I told you, they’re down in the cellar."
Rynn’s eyes faltered.
"We move the table so I can take up the rug and raise the trapdoor. You do understand that, don’t you?" The voice was becoming harsher. "The glasses are down in the cellar!"
Rynn buried her fists under the waist of her black sweater.
"Take your side of the table."
"My father and I like the table where it is!"
"This table belongs against the wall!"
A silence that lasted a full ten seconds separated them.
"You will forgive me," Mrs. Hallet said, etching each word with acid, "but when I was your age I was taught to do as a grown person said!"
Rynn shut her eyes on the red rage she must not allow to explode.
"I’m sorry, Mrs. Hallet—”
"I came to get those glasses."
"I’ll get them for you later."
But the woman refused to hear anything more.
"Move this table!"
"This is my house!"
"You are an extraordinarily rude little girl who is going to do precisely as I say!"
Rynn waited. Would the woman grab her shoulders and thrust her to the table? The pink face flushed magenta with fury. Angry veins stood out on her neck like purple cords. In this moment Rynn realized Mrs. Hallet was incapable of speech. To her great surprise she found herself shouting at her.
"Last week you took the only good grapes we had! I saw you! And now the quinces! You never asked if you might. Not about those either!"
Mrs. Hallet’s red mouth fell open only to shut with a snap. Then she lashed back.
"The Wilsons’ grapes! The Wilsons' quinces!"
"Today, you didn’t ask if you might—you walked bang into my house!"
"The Wilsons' house!"
"My house!"
"Leased!" The woman with the gold hair spat out the word. She took the moment this gave her to gasp a few deep breaths, and still shaking with rage, she managed to speak without the rawness of hysteria.
"You are thirteen?"
The girl knew she must stare straight back into the woman’s eyes.
"Why aren’t you in school?"
For the second time the girl’s eyes faltered.
Suddenly Mrs. Hallet knew she had her weapon. Her silence, her eyes demanded an answer. When Rynn spoke her voice was scarcely a whisper.
"Thirteen means I have no rights?"
"Thirteen means you should be in school."
The bewildered girl tried to turn away.
"Look at me when I talk to you!"
"I study at home."
"The school board will see about that. Right now you will take that side of the table."
At Mrs. Hallet’s command Rynn thrust her hands into her Levis.
“It so happens I am chairman of the school board."
"And every child must do as you say?"
"Every child belongs in school." Furniture belonged in its place, children belonged in school, Everything, everyone in Mrs. Hallet’s well-ordered world had a place.
"School interferes with my education."
"Your father taught you to say that?" When Rynn said nothing, Mrs. Hallet felt she had found the truth.
"Very clever I’m sure. Between you and your father I’m sure you have any number of clever, biting things to say. I can very well imagine the free and easy life you two lived in London. Oh, yes. But if you want to live here ..." By stressing the one word if, Mrs. Hallet was able to cast the entire future into doubt. "Here you’d do well to remember that some of us who have been in the village a good deal longer than you take pride in carrying out our responsibilities—in knowing how to be good neighbors. If we have to, I can assure you, we also know how to make newcomers feel a good deal less than welcome."
Mrs. Hallet drew the cigarette box from her pocket, found it empty, and hurled the crushed box into the fire.
"No more nonsense out of you. Where is your father?"
"I told you. New York."
"Exactly where in New York?" Mrs. Hallet’s tone had the mocking edge of a lawyer tearing into a witness during cross-examination.
"He’s having lunch with his publisher."
"I want the publisher’s telephone number."
"I don’t have it."
"Very well, the publisher’s name."
Mrs. Hallet grabbed the book from the mantelpiece, tore it open looking for the publisher’s name. The book, an English edition, showed a London address, and she s
hut it with a snap and tossed it back onto the shelf, in disgust as if sensing she had exhausted most of her weapons against the child.
"Your father will call me the minute he comes home. Is that understood?"
Was it a trick of the light? Were tears shining in the little girl’s eyes?
"Speak up," snapped the woman, "so I know you understand!"
Rynn was pale but her voice steady, "This is my house."
Mrs. Hallet seized her wicker basket from the table and hurried out the door.
Rynn moved to the corner of the parlor where Gordon stirred in the shadows. Lifting the tiny creature out of his cage, she sat and murmured to him.
4
RYNN HAD PLANNED to go into town during the coming week, but Mrs. Hallet’s threat to bring the girl’s truancy before the school board was a worry which, during the night, had grown till she had lain wide awake shaking with terror. She decided it would be safer to do her errands when other girls and boys were on the streets. On Saturday no one would question why a thirteen-year-old girl was not in school.
On Saturdays and Sundays she was free to come and go as she chose.
At the bus stop across the street from a house with an iron deer on the lawn Rynn stood alone, a steady rain drumming on the huge black umbrella her father had brought from London. Under its shelter, bundled in her moss-green duffle coat and high rubber boots, she was warm and dry.
A yellow bus, that sent water splashing as it squealed to a stop, banged open its doors and swallowed up the girl among the passengers making the windows dim with their warmth.
The bus was not full, but she felt uncomfortable, crowded, among these people and hurried past them to sit alone in the long seat at the back.
Car headlights glowed in the rainy afternoon and multicolored neon signs flashed across the mist of the windows.
She felt stifled, for she found the air in the bus, like the air in most public places in America, unbearably hot, and she unbuttoned her duffle coat. From her pocket she pulled a paperback book of poems by Emily Dickinson. She studied the drawing on the cover, the young woman in the severe black dress, the dark hair parted in the middle, the grave, infinitely wise face with its enormous eyes. In many ways, but for the eyes, Rynn felt she and Emily Dickinson looked remarkably alike—Rynn and this woman now dead for ninety years, who in the words of another poet, "eavesdropped on the world."