Collected Stories of Reynolds Price

by Reynolds Price

  Jack was dead in six months—called into the Army, sent to train in Kent near his father’s home and killed when a lorry overturned on his cycle (he a motorcycle messenger). Nell had told me that much on two previous visits, at times when David was out or sleeping—she does not recall the past in his presence. Why? But this day, this gray Good Friday, she finished the tale—how she and a friend had taken young David by bus to Worthing (a Sunday outing) and were sitting there near the front with him—he was playing on some public child’s equipment, still open for use despite the threats. “It was near tea-time,” she told me, straight at me. She never looks down, always holds to your eyes as though they were straps but without that starved intensity of unhappy women. We were seated in the parlor before a small fire—“and I’d said to Kay my friend that we must go. David looked really frozen though he still played on—even then, still not three, he played like a Turk, hands white with pressure as he seized iron bars on the swing or whatever. Kay looked at her watch and said, ‘bus is just due’; so I ran for David who began to cry at the sight of me; and odd as it seems—though I knew he cried not to leave his game—I said to myself in my head as I ran, ‘Oh what does he know? Why cry? Why cry?’ Then Kay said, ‘Don’t run. What luck! Look here.’ I had not reached David but I stopped and looked—he bawling louder, three steps away. I did not go for him; for what Kay had seen was Fred my brother in his scrap of a car, stopping by Kay. Fred was younger than me but the Army wouldn’t have him— spotty lungs like our father. I took a few steps on towards Fred, quite baffled—why on earth was he here, mid-afternoon? I remember mostly feeling anger—strange. So angry I forgot David crying behind me. Perhaps he had stopped, gone back to play—yes, he must have done. What I did was stand quite a distance from Fred—still in his car—and call to him harshly, ‘You should be at work’ {as though the little work he could manage, at a stationer’s, would hold off Hitler, win the war). Then he came towards me—passed Kay as silent as a cloud of smoke— and as David had with me, I knew at once. Though I didn’t cry. To this day, I haven’t cried—not for Jack.” She stopped and rose and poked the fire but not from emotion; her eyes were dry—the fire was low, it needed attention; so she worked with it patiently.

  Not wishing to speak, least of all to question, I looked to a table where a picture was propped in a yellow wood frame—Jack, I knew; she had told me before. I’d have known anyhow. The head, face, shoulders are an outline of David’s, an exact silhouette. The face is older—not in actual years (it was made when Jack was about David’s age, 22, 23) but in form, evolved form. It is still the face of a Kentish farmer, each feature rounded as by ages of water or scoured by ice. David’s face is finer, newer, unworked, unworn—a memory of his father’s but also a correction.

  Perhaps she saw me looking and dreaded a question; so she said, “I’m afraid I must leave you now—shocking David, still gone! I must run to my mother’s, warm her meal”—(her mother, past eighty, lives alone down the hill, refuses to leave though her mind is gone; sees herself in a minor and tells Nell a woman is trapped behind glass, leaves plates of chilled food by the minor to feed her)—“You’ll read here, won’t you? David’s due any moment.” I said “Of course” and then in the front door we heard a key turn—David finally. Yet we both stood and waited as though uncertain, for a total stranger, purpose undeclared.

  Four unseen strides and he stood in the open door, facing us—David of course though he did not speak. He grinned to me but greeted his mother—in an odd slow bow, deep from the waist, made entirely for Nell, face unsmiling, extended right hand barely grazing the rug, left hand clenched at the small of his back; then slowly rising till he faced her solemnly and suddenly grinned, still to her, all for her. That was what puzzled me—the degree of attention; why? was he tipsy?—but I laughed as he rose and, it being Good Friday, said, “Lo, he is risen— and two days early!”

  His mother’s eyes brimmed tears, had surely produced them before my tasteless joke. Now we all stood baffled till Nell could speak (her tears never fell, drained back as quickly as they came)—“Tell me where you learned that?”—“Learned what?” David said.—“That bow for me …” He began it again—he was slightly high—“In my own sweet heart, I have made it for you,” completed it poorly, then dashed for the toilet.

  Nell turned to me, said with startling vehemence, “His father’s bow, Jack’s greeting to me after every parting. David never saw that, can’t remember that, less than two years old when Jack last left.” Then she asked me to judge—“Is it memory, you think?” I had not thought it out; but I said what she needed, “Memory, surely. It must be memory” yet before she had cleared the doorsill, leaving, I said to myself, “It was surely a seed, buried in his conception, to flower now.”

  That was all, he thought—more poem than story, only the crushing metaphor of David’s bow—and glancing back, he thought it was finished, solved, as his record of Bett’s long tale was not. He knew no questions to ask of this—except, metaphor of what? and why the bow should have surfaced when it did, why not years before, years later, why to Nell? What could it tell her? What use could it be now but pain renewed? So, calmed, his sense of control firmer now, he stood and thought he would rest awhile—not sleep or escape but a short reward, a drive in the country, supper in Burford.

  He was in his coat and down in the hall, when he saw, through the opaque front-door glass, a large close shape. He stood quiet, waited— Bett? Buck? surely not Mary again? The door was not locked but the dead bell rustled a half-turn, stopped. He checked his watch. It could not be Mary—too near Buck’s tea-time—so he moved forward quickly and opened on a tall man, thin, mid-forties, cloth cap held in twitching hands.

  The man’s eyes hunted Charles Tamplin’s face for a silent moment. Then he withdrew a step and studied the house-number screwed to the wall, looked backward to his bicycle propped by the gate. The right house, yes. His face tightened, filled from within as from pressure, fury, sudden youth; but his hands still twitched. “Betty?” he said.

  Charles Tamplin said, “Bett? She’s out, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh,” the man said, turned his hat half round in his kneading hands, found his next request—“Will you give her a message? I’d be most grateful.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just going out myself. You could leave a note.”

  The man nodded slowly and shut his eyes, stood in place but rocking.

  Charles Tamplin turned inward. “I’ll get some paper—”

  The man gave a sound—a croak, a grunt.

  Charles Tamplin looked. The man’s face was white, tears poured down his cheeks, fell on his topcoat, his thin lips worked—open, shut, silently. Charles Tamplin stood where he was, in the hall, three steps from the man. “Are you all right?” he said.

  The man shook his head but did not go. So they both stood like challengers, unthinking but adamant. Then the man found his voice— “Let me in for a moment please. Betty’s a friend.”

  “Her rooms are locked.” Charles Tamplin pointed behind him, simple proof.

  “I’ll stand in the passage.” The man pointed also—beggary, the second time today.

  Charles Tamplin said “Yes” and, not wanting to open his own room now, searched in the drawer of the hall table. He found a used envelope, took his own pen and gave them to the man now standing inside.

  The man said “Thank you,” stubbed the corners of his eyes with a thumb and wrote his message slowly but fluently, well-prepared, bearing hard on the uncovered surface of the table as though permanently gouging whatever he must say.

  Charles Tamplin waited till the man stood, finished, eyes red but drying. “If you leave it there, they’ll see it, I’m sure.” Then he buttoned the last few buttons of his coat to remind the man.

  The man understood, squared the envelope neatly dead-center on the table, returned the pen. Half-turned to go, he caught his own face in the small dull mirror, shook his head at himself but without expression, neither smile nor
frown. He went to the door, said to Charles Tamplin, pausing but not looking back, “I’m very grateful.” Then he left.

  When the shadow had faded beyond the glass, Charles Tamplin read the note—not lifting, not touching it; from two feet away, its round script as legible as epitaph—

  Dear Betty and Buck:

  —Mary left a note sometime today to say she is gone for good at last. I do not know to where or who with if anyone but her Dad found the news before I was home and had a bad spell with his heart, worst yet. I found him half-dead on arrival from work. He is going to hospital now, by ambulance. It looks like the end. If you meet Mary anywhere, tell her this. She will want to know.

  Many thanks,

  Ron Campbell

  His first clear thought was “Grateful for what?” Ron’s final thanks flung shame in his face, for coldness, impatience, and worse—for waste, the wasted chance for answers to questions Bett’s story had raised; Mary’s life had raised, her father’s dependence, Ron’s vacant abandoned spectacle. Why had any sane man collapsed in the hole of Mary’s departure?—small vacuum surely, welcome relief. But then he wondered “When did she go?” and his own neutrality was breached. Suppose that today, this afternoon, Mary’s own intent had been no worse than to bring her man to Bett’s, use him here somehow in Buck’s certain absence (maybe only show him off) and that by Bett’s absence and his own refusal to play the dingy game, he had fanned her fury, burnt her bridges for her, unknown to himself, sent her home to leave her final note. Suppose what else?—that she left her note, abandoned her life and came here to bend above his fake nap and joke with him? The hall was cooling though not yet cold; but Charles Tamplin shook against his will—a shudder at first as though rousing himself, then a long moment, violent (neck rigid, eyes shut, hands clenched beside him) as he faced his probable part in the day, his choice of amends.

  No choice in fact; one distant chance—find Mary, take her to her father in time. Find Mary where? Her man had waited at the curb in a car. They could be forty miles away by now, on the edge of London, total escape. His only hope was Bett, that Bett knew more than she’d told and would help. Again he checked his watch. It was time for her here, Buck’s tea-time shortly. But she often missed that if her mother was low, left Buck to himself and came much later.

  He would go to her mother’s on the far side of town, beyond the station. (He knew the house, had driven Bett there through snow one day—a row house, grimy stripe of brick.) He had reached the door before he thought of the note—the note was not his but if Buck came first, found the news before Bett, she would have Hell to pay, days of justifying; or Buck might destroy it, never tell Bett a word.

  He stepped back, took the note, folded it once, held it in his right hand—no hint of concealment—and went out the door.

  He drove slowly over Bett’s usual route, searching each cyclist’s exhausted face as he flanked it, passed. No sign of Bett. She still waited safely at her mother’s, surely. He felt that, trusted that, as strongly as if Bett were a magnet concealed in the town, pulling him effortless, powerless to her, her battered simple self his urgent goal—rest, forgiveness, sanction for his course. The road ahead—to the next long curve— was clear of riders now. Free for a moment and elated, he gained speed; but round the curve was the city coach station (a paved square packed with red and green buses). The stretch past that seemed a thicket to him. He slowed, threaded carefully through cyclists, children, old ladies on foot; then was stopped by a light, surrounded by a surge of homebound workers. His eyes flicked rapidly across each face—no Bett. Then the light went yellow. A final couple crossed, taking infinite time as though pavement were bog. The light was green but he could not move. They were passing his front bumper, looking ahead to a cranking coach—LONDON. Mary and her man, unsmiling in black coats, their hands entirely empty. They broke into a trot—the coach door was closing.

  Charles Tamplin rammed through the intersection, stopped by the far curb and ran back loudly—the coach door was closed, smoke chuffed from the rear. He reached it midway along its length, struck the green side with both hands open. The motor calmed, door opened for him. But he stood where he was, looked up to the windows and saw Mary’s face two feet above him, knowing but grave, locked behind thick glass, her man dim beyond. “Your father is ill,” Charles Tamplin said.

  She could not hear, pressed nearer the pane.

  He spoke slowly, mouthing a visible message—“Your father’s near death. His heart. Wants you.”

  She heard, nodded once—message delivered, then looked away, not to him or her lad but forward, the driver’s neck, the road; her profile expectant, lifting, like a girl’s.

  The door shut and though Charles Tamplin struck again, the coach left him gagging in blue exhaust, encased in haze, a harmless ghost.

  But he saw, with new clarity, Mary’s gift—ten yards away his abandoned car, a tall policeman tagging it grimly (NO WAITING of course); in clots, the stalled white faces of passers, stopped by his scene (as outraged by noise as baffled by his purpose), intent on finding a way to ignore him, hopeful only that his little racket would not demand help, not keep them from home ten seconds longer, not change their lives.

  He would not—he saw—maybe could not change another life, surely had not ever. He only, in the jostling world, safe alone; for he also saw that the name of all stories was Scars not Seeds—all stories but his. Scars made and sought, gladly begged, grinningly killingly rightly pursued—by Mary, her lad, weak Ron, her father; by Bett, Buck, David, Nell, Sara his own chance he’d stripped from himself, his uncle bearing a headless friend; by the minotaur, the woman (whether death or embrace), Christ’s impatient hands yearning for nails, the dancers launched smiling into hot exhaustion. All surrendered but him. He envied them all. For this moment, he worshiped their wasteful courage, ruinous choices, contingency. The name of his story was, What?—Flight, surely. Would always be. His car was free now, policeman gone, faces dispersed. He took its roof as a still point, a guide, that might welcome him. Then he jogged toward it, speaking his love’s name silently, lips gaping slowly with each hard step, a fish in air, a hostile element.

  4

  Waiting at Dachau

  THE CAMP ITSELF—its active life—only lasted twelve years (’33-45). Twelve years after that, we parked by its gates. Now, twelve years after that, I still don’t know; the question has gathered force with every year’s distance—why did you balk and refuse to enter Dachau, letting me, forcing me to go in alone? I need to know several things— my version, your version, then the truth.

  Is the answer simple?—you were sick or tired or fed-up with sights after six-weeks’ traveling? Or were you miffed about the night before, or—being a little younger—you may not have seen my urgent need, as a radio-and-newsreel child of the Forties, to test my memories against the source? (Dachau and I are almost exact contemporaries; I’m one month older than it and still running.) For months in advance, I’d braced for the prospect. Me at the Abyss—us, don’t you see?—the heart of darkness head-on, between the eyes. (What did I expect?—to stagger? vomit? No, I knew all wounds would be internal, all effects delayed.) Or maybe you understood quite well—you and your Imagination of Disaster—and were only invoking your famous policy of kindness-to-self. Surely, though, your chances of bearing-up were as good as mine—we’d been told the camp was hip-deep in flowers! Couldn’t you have entered as a simple gift to me?

  Well, you didn’t. You waited. The last time you waited—for me, at least—and I still wonder why.

  My version is this: we’d planned it from the first. Christmas vac. of my first Oxford winter you’d flown from Paris and we’d stretched on the frigid floor of my digs, maps and budgets around us, and plotted the summer (should it ever come: your nosedrops had frozen on my bureau Christmas Eve!)—a slowly warming arc. You would join me again in mid-July. We would ship my new Volkswagen—Newcastle to Bergen. Then we’d push slowly on—a week each for Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen; t
hen a non-stop plunge through Germany to Munich. Dachau.

  Why Dachau at all? We passed within twenty miles of Belsen, Nordhausen, Dora, Buchenwald, Ohrdruf, Flossenburg. Dachau was never a major death camp. Only a third of its inmates died. Yet I never considered another camp. Three reasons, I think: I knew it was there (most others were razed); the name itself was the perfect emblem, as it was for the Germans themselves, it seems—anyone who disappeared was assumed “to be in Dachau.” (Something inheres in the name, the sound—pronounced correctly it contains an unstopped howl. So does Auschwitz but Auschwitz could be-for Americans born after 1950— a brand of beer; Buchenwald could be a national park; Belsen a chocolate factory. Dachau seemed to me then—and seems now—only a terminus; last-stop, as Auden knew in ‘38—