The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  She could hear the doctor’s voice coming from the next room, advising a woman patient about remedies for the discomfort of the change of life.

  Catching her breath slowly, Vesta surveyed the rather dingy furnishings in the room until her eye fell on the faded rose and gold wallpaper. It did and did not resemble the wallpaper she had seen in her dream. Rising, she walked about the room with its assortment of wandering jew plants and several vases of artificial flowers covered with dust.

  Then her eye caught a metallic little something near the floor almost indistinguishable from the wallpaper.

  Vesta was so disturbed by the metal’s resemblance to her dream of the night before she had the sudden wish to leave the premises. She was afraid, afraid for herself, afraid for her dream.

  The sound of the doctor’s voice continuing and his patient’s long-winded replies persuaded her to stay.

  Almost before she knew what she was doing she had knelt down on the floor and touched the metallic protuberance from the wallpaper. Her hand had hardly done so than it came open like a loose door, and she saw inside a kind of passageway in which was located a thick envelope.

  She pulled it out. Across the outside was written:

  TO BE OPENED ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY.

  A kind of anger had almost blinded Vesta to such an extent she had trouble reading the message.

  The envelope came open as she held it with trembling fingers. Inside she could make out several thousand-dollar bills.

  “Is someone there?” the doctor’s voice now reached her.

  Like any ordinary burglar, Vesta, putting the envelope in the pocket of her outside coat, waited, breathless, then hearing no one approach, managed to tiptoe out of the room. Outside, she rushed toward her young chauffeur.

  “Are you all right,” he was saying to her as she sat in the backseat. She was unable to answer.

  “Do you want me to call anybody?” he inquired worriedly.

  “No, no, Stu,” she wailed. “Let’s go to my house as soon as you can drive me there.”

  Stu watched her carefully before he took the wheel and drove off at an almost reckless speed, which may have reminded Vesta of robberies she had heard of from Frau Storeholder reading from the evening news.

  DR. COOKE CAME a few evenings later.

  “I’m sorry I missed you,” he spoke lamely after she had served him with a hot bowl of his favorite soup. “I believe you paid me a visit, Vesta.”

  Vesta eyed him carefully.

  Either Dr. Cooke was the greatest actor the nation had seen, she decided, or else the heavens be praised, he knew nothing of her theft, indeed now made no further mention of her having visited his new abode.

  Taking his manner to mean he was ignorant of her deed or that he acquiesced in her crime, she allowed him to give her quick little kisses, with the satisfaction perhaps she was now not only a robber but guilty of adultery in the bargain.

  Guilty people, according to popular works on the subject, often keep notes of their misdeeds, recounting in detail their crimes and their methods of performing them.

  Vesta Hawley’s method was not to write down what she had committed but to confide her misdeed to Frau Storeholder. It was like whispering, she felt, to a tomb.

  One of the things about Frau Storeholder which puzzled Vesta Hawley was the fact the old lady’s hair had not one strand of gray. Knowing her attendant so well over the years, Vesta was positive she did not dye her hair. And she often recalled, having read somewhere in a book on the occult, that persons who have second sight often keep the original color of their hair until death.

  And then began Vesta’s confession of her crime.

  “My back was to the wall,” she began her litany.

  Frau Storeholder had never been to an eye doctor but made occasional visits to a drug store where the druggist supplied her with cheap reading glasses.

  Frau Storeholder now took off her spectacles and gazed at Vesta without the aid of optics. She gazed as if she had to be sure it was Vesta herself who was confessing to her falling from the path of righteousness.

  And when Frau Storeholder removed her spectacles, it meant Vesta could confide anything she wished to her “doorkeeper.”

  “My back was to the wall,” she repeated these words now. “God pity me, Belinda! You know I cannot let the bank take my house away from me, now can you. For where would you go, dear Belinda (Belinda was Frau Storeholder’s Christian name and known only to Vesta, though she was like everyone else more often than not to call the old woman Frau Storeholder. But for secret and even damaging information, she always said Belinda).

  “As you know better than anyone else, I have fought for over a quarter of a century to keep a roof over our heads and in the bargain, my dearest friend, I have sometimes under such pressure stepped over the bounds of the straight and narrow.”

  Frau Storeholder now toyed with her store-bought spectacles but refrained from putting them on.

  Vesta always took this gesture of Belinda’s as encouragement to continue.

  In any case, Belinda won’t remember by morning, Vesta reflected, what I’ve told her at vespers!

  And to whom could Frau Storeholder go if she wished to tattle? The old woman knew nobody now. All Frau Storeholder’s friends, family, her near and distant relatives had joined the choir invisible.

  And then would such a Christian person sully her lips with what Vesta told her.

  “This is what occurred in Mamie Resch’s living room,” Vesta began in a voice more like that of an opera singer than her usual pedestrian, often mumbling, manner.

  “I have as you know for some time been desperate to meet my mortgage payments on my house—our house, Belinda. You would probably say the Prince of Darkness himself showed me the way. I discovered an envelope hidden there. Don’t ask me how I found it. I say I found an envelope. I opened it. I thought of my many years of worry and privation, my having lost Rory through my poverty and through my having sometimes overstepped the conventions with my men boarders. I say this woman had money to burn and I had nothing. I took the money. I have it now. Oh, have no fear, Dr. Cooke will see that I return it. You have noticed he continues to pay calls on me, him a married man. Has told me barefaced that he loves only me. So, Belinda, I have fallen from grace!”

  Because of the long and dreadful silence on the part of Frau Storeholder after Vesta’s confession, Vesta almost wondered if her good friend had fallen asleep, or, what is worse, had a stroke and had died owing to her revelation!

  But no, now her Belinda stirred, smiled faintly and oddly enough nodded slowly several times.

  The theft of the thousand-dollar bills, Vesta feared, might be the one straw that would destroy their love and friendship. And unless Frau Storeholder actually did not hear her chronicle of dishonesty, at any rate she made no hint of disapproval or even judgement. And as Vesta studied the old woman’s features, she saw something in the way her eyes closed and opened and the fact her pale lips became more crimson in the movement of a half-smile that gave her pause.

  “My dear Vesta,” Frau Storeholder began in a voice entirely unlike her own, a voice a little like that of the preacher speaking after communion or some other of the sacraments.

  “We sometimes, Vesta,” Frau Storeholder went on speaking in her new untypical voice, “yes, sometimes, dear lady, we must take the law in our own hands.”

  Astonished at such a statement from a student of Scripture, Vesta waited for Belinda to say more. There was no more!

  But when Vesta gave Belinda an eloquent look, and this look took in that Frau Storeholder was smiling almost beatifically at Vesta, she assumed her normal behaviour and began talking rapidly.

  “For what would you and I do after all, my dear Belinda, with no roof over our heads, no food on our plates.”

  As a matter of fact both ladies had often bewailed the fact that the village of Gilboa no longer could afford even a poorhouse for its indigent. The depression had destroyed charity itse
lf! Many of the homeless lived now on the edge of Maple Grove Cemetery.

  “She forgives me!” Vesta smothered the unspoken words into a linen handkerchief. “And people wonder, yes Dr. Cooke among them, why I put up with the poor dear. The real question I reckon is how come she puts up with me.”

  “I lost my boy from trying to keep a roof over his head,” Vesta now recounted this episode of her life for the hundredth time.

  Yes, Vesta mused, Frau Storeholder must have recalled from her incessant Bible reading that it was the Good Shepherd who forgave the harlots and sinners. It was the Good Shepherd indeed who forgave the thief on the cross and promised he would meet him in paradise. He would have understood also a woman like herself who erred on the side of the law in order to keep a shelter for her loved ones and for those lonely young men who shared the fare of her banquets.

  Vesta Hawley had not recovered from her purloining a small fortune from Dr. Cooke’s wife when Mr. Eli Jaqua, the principal of schools, telephoned to say he must meet with Miss Hawley immediately.

  It was Frau Storeholder of course who took the message and who, disturbed by the urgency of tone of the principal, told Mr. Jaqua she was sure Miss Hawley would of course see him. Vesta Hawley was too ill with a sick headache to quarrel with her faithful friend’s agreeing to this unwelcome visit from a man she loathed and despised—Eli Jaqua. (He had according to Vesta bad-mouthed her and her mansion for years.)

  “I refuse to see him, dear Belinda,” Vesta managed to say taking the hot water bottle away from her face.

  When Vesta saw the look of anxiety and disapproval even on Frau Storeholder’s face, she added: “Do you talk to the man, why don’t you. For, dear friend, you know more about me and my affairs than perhaps I do. See him for me!”

  Saying this, Vesta pulled a sheet over her face and head. Frau Storeholder was majestic that day as she sat in the parlour with Principal Eli Jaqua. He noticed it and marveled as he had been marveling at the grand albeit decayed aspect of this once great showplace.

  Principal Jaqua was not an old man, but the cares of his calling, the lack of funds for operating a public school in Gilboa and his wearing spectacles all added years to his otherwise rather handsome features and made him appear as a rule often old and tired. Such a face, such a man could hardly be asked as a dinner guest for Vesta Hawley’s midnight banquets.

  “I believe, dear Frau Storeholder, that you know the purpose of my visit, and I would not have come had the errand been anything but a grave one.”

  Looking around suspiciously, he coughed then inquired, “When may I see Miss Hawley?”

  “She is very ill, Mr. Jaqua, and the doctor has told her she must see no one.”

  “That ill?” Mr. Jaqua said and looked at one of the many clocks ticking away.

  He fidgeted, his mouth moved to say more, then was still, and as he fidgeted even more he colored almost violently.

  “Frau Storeholder, let me say this: You know probably more about what the purpose of my errand is today than Miss Hawley herself does, racked in pain as I gather that she is.”

  Frau Storeholder nodded and agreed Miss Hawley was quite under the weather.

  “Then I will say right out what it is. Rory Hawley, dear lady, can no longer be called just a truant. No, not at all.”

  Mr. Jaqua let this remark sink in before continuing, but regretfully saw no change of expression on Miss Hawley’s beloved confidante. She was as cool indeed as Vesta Hawley always was when hearing bad news.

  “Rory Hawley,” Mr. Jaqua continued, “has gone from truant to deserter, and from deserter to a kind of, shall we say, turncoat to his own ancestry and upbringing. He is a resident along with many other young men who are out of work at Moe’s Villa. Indeed he lives there!”

  Even this last fierce and even dreadful statement failed to evoke any change in Frau Storeholder’s countenance. Had Mr. Jaqua said only, “Rory Hawley is now fifteen years of age!” she would have been just as poker-faced and calm.

  “There are worse places for Rory to be, I suppose,” Frau Storeholder commented in the icy silence which had taken place.

  “I beg your pardon,” Mr. Jaqua spoke between his teeth and his eyes flashed under his ill-fitting glasses. “How, may I ask, could hell itself be worse than the Villa. Let me clarify my comment on the Villa.”

  “I have known Moses from the time he was a boy,” she now explained her incendiary statement. “Rory will be provided for—if I know Mr. Swearingen at all!”

  “But in a gambling hell, dear Frau Storeholder. A young boy in a gambling hell!”

  “Every attempt, dear Mr. Jaqua, has been made to bring Rory back. Miss Hawley does not wish to do more. And time, Mr. Jaqua, if you will allow me to say so, is often the best arbiter of our dilemmas.”

  “Time—the arbiter!” He gave a kind of sound between a whimper and a groan and rose then, as did Frau Storeholder. “I see, I’m afraid,” Mr. Jaqua raised his voice loud enough for perhaps Miss Hawley to hear, “I see and understand that my mission here has not borne fruit. But as a Christian gentleman, let me say I am glad I have put forth the effort.”

  In the awkwardness which now ensued, Mr. Jaqua, hands trembling, attempted to put on his long woolen gloves. But like his mission, they appeared to resist his best efforts. Finally, pulling off the one glove he had somehow managed to get on, he put both gloves in his outer coat and extended his hand to Frau Storeholder.

  She took his very cold hand in her warm one and bowed slightly.

  “You may tell our good Miss Hawley,” he said at the outer door, “that she shall hear from the Superintendent of Schools with reference to the matter at hand, be assured!”

  Fearing Mr. Jaqua might slam the door in the state he was in and perhaps break the rather delicate frosted glass of the ancient portal, Frau Storeholder now held the door wide open for him until her visitor had bowed himself out.

  THE NEXT DAY Mr. Eli Jaqua, after his unsuccessful visit to the Hawley mansion, called an emergency meeting of the school board.

  Although it was Superintendent Shingles’s priority to arrange such a meeting, for some years he had allowed Mr. Jaqua to conduct almost all business without prior knowledge of the superintendent himself. After all Mr. Shingles was over ninety years old and was usually more than pleased to turn over most of his duties to the younger principal. In addition to Mr. Shingles, Bess Byal (the truant boy’s teacher) and two other teachers were also in attendance.

  Superintendent Shingles was more than a little deaf and inclined to doze off during the sessions which Mr. Jaqua chaired. And for some time the old gentleman was usually completely in the dark about any business at hand.

  Today, however, Superintendent Shingles brightened at the mention of Vesta Hawley and then, to the annoyance of Mr. Jaqua, admitted he did not realize there was a son named Rory. He expressed surprise indeed that, in his words, so beautiful, young, and attractive a woman as Vesta Hawley had ever had a child!

  Superintendent Shingles furthermore annoyed Mr. Jaqua to no end today by reminiscing on Vesta Hawley’s “showplace” of a mansion, and he recalled that some few years past he had often been invited as a special guest of Mistress Hawley to her soirees and banquets.

  Finally interrupting Mr. Shingles’s recollections, Mr. Jaqua with ill-concealed annoyance asked what measures should now be taken with reference to Rory Hawley, who, among his many wrongdoings, had not attended school for nearly two years and, what was more alarming to the school board, the young man had all but moved in with Moses Swearingen, without his mother’s knowledge, in the residence known by the townspeople as Moe’s Villa!

  “Yes, Superintendent Shingles,” Mr. Jaqua now raised his voice, “our young truant Rory is permanently quartered in a rather notorious domicile already referred to as Moe’s Villa!”

  “But see here,” the Superintendent bridled, and he appeared all at once to be bright as a silver dollar, “I have known Moses Swearingen since he was a boy! He is actually a youn
g man of remarkable resources, a former war hero, we must remember, and now the owner of a property called by Mr. Jaqua, Moe’s Villa—rather despairingly I fear—a property nonetheless which rivals Vesta Hawley’s own mansion but is, if I am correctly informed, worth a great deal more in value!”

  Mr. Shingles now wiped his forehead of what was, one supposed, sweat at this unheard-of long speech from him, but noting Mr. Jaqua was about to interrupt him, the Superintendent continued: “So I believe if I may say so, gentlemen and Miss Byal, that Rory Hawley could be in a much worse place than the name Moe’s Villa might imply.” Wiping his forehead again carefully, he continued, “May I also indulge in a little local history by reminding everyone here today that Moses Swearingen has exerted every effort of muscle and brain to keep under his ownership the property of the Villa inherited from his great-grandfather, a hero in the Civil War; and in order not to lose this property from taxes and mortgages, Moses, it is true, began to operate a section of his house as a very stylish eating place and also a recreation room (billiards, card playing, I hear). He has hired many young men who have been, through no fault of their own, unemployed! He also defended himself against a bully who attacked him, leaving Moe seriously wounded. Yes, my dear friends, young Rory could be in a much worse situation.”

  “Yes, my dear Mr. Shingles, how right you are. Rory Hawley could be living in a den of thieves, I suppose.”

  Mr. Shingles smiled at the pointed remark only because he had not heard a word Mr. Jaqua had said.

  The wind considerably taken out of his sails, Mr. Jaqua however managed to resume his role as chairman by saying: “What action then, gentlemen and Miss Byal, are we to take in view of the important information given us just now by Superintendent Shingles?”

  Mr. Shingles then, to the astonishment of everyone present, had taken up Mr. Jaqua’s gavel and with this gesture appeared to be now in actual fact the Superintendent.