October Light

by John Gardner

  Her feeling of distress and confusion grew, pressing in like a cold, invisible creature from outside. The walls of her bedroom hummed with the music and talk below—she could make out not one word of it now, with the door pulled shut at the foot of the stairs—and the light pouring out onto the cars in the front yard, making the glass and metal glint and reminding her faintly of cars parked behind the North Bennington Church at Christmastime, or cars parked around the school on the night of a Sage City concert, stirred her misery still more. Laboriously, she pulled her feet up into the bed and lay back against the pillow. She closed her eyes.

  Anguish. How terrible that one must feel it all one’s life, from time to time, whatever one might learn, whatever one’s decency! Horace had said once, speaking like a novel, cheerfully, though the thought was grim—they’d had a little quarrel—“We humans are all such poor miserable things. However we may hope, we know perfectly well all we have is each other. Pity how we struggle and fight against our own best interests.” Horace had frequently said things like that. She’d found his opinions distinctly frightening, and sometimes, lying beside him in bed, feeling completely alone in the universe except for Horace, she would suddenly feel so anxious that, without quite meaning to, she would wake him and get him to talk with her a little. If only they’d had children! She could remember all too vividly—and felt it again now—how it had felt, lying on her back, feeling as if she were endlessly falling, sinking toward death, as if she’d somehow become conscious of the earth’s fall through space, her whole body listening to the noise of wind, the creakings of the otherwise silent, falling house. As if to steady herself, pull back against the fall, she would touch her husband’s wool-pajama’d arm, but the falling continued, and she would half-realize, with growing alarm, that she was losing the oldest battle in the world, the battle we wage from the moment we’re born, when we stretch up our arms, kick our legs, and finally raise up our bodies. She would rouse herself from fear, struggling upward toward the ordinary, and pressing her face against his shoulder would wake her husband up; and as Horace would rise to consciousness, she would mysteriously cheer up, her spirits would lift …

  Sally blinked and came awake. She pressed up on one elbow, and when it wasn’t enough to drive the feeling away, she pivoted her legs off the side of the bed and felt for the floor. She stared down into the yard again, listening to the hum of the party below. She felt giddy, mysteriously endangered, somehow dead wrong. “They give us no choice,” she said, tears in her eyes, speaking to the ghost.

  Distinctly, as if from right beside her, a voice said sharply, “Sally!”

  She was startled half out of her wits. She was absolutely certain it was Horace’s voice, though she knew, of course, that it couldn’t be. Was she dreaming? She decided then that it must have been Dickey’s voice, for he was calling now through the closed door, “Aunt Sally?”

  “Is that you, Dickey?” she called back.

  “Aunt Sally,” he said, “I brought you some cocoa and cinnamon-toast.”

  “That’s sweet of you, dear,” she called, feeling suddenly more guilty than ever. She took a step toward the door, hesitated, wadding up her hankie and biting at her lip.

  After a moment Dickey called, “I’m sorry I was bad.”

  “Why Dickey!” she said, surprised, “you did nothing wrong!” Sympathy carried her to the door, but with her hand on the knob she paused again.

  “I told on Grampa,” the child said.

  Sally stared, puzzled, at the door. How he could make it all his fault was beyond her, but though she’d had none of her own, she knew the ways of children. “Dickey,” she said gently, “it’s not your fault at all, and if your grampa James—” She broke off, resisting the temptation to put the blame where it belonged and make the boy’s life harder. “Honey, don’t you think you’re to blame for one minute. It’s not your fault at all.”

  Dickey asked, still dubious, “Can I give you the cocoa and cinnamon-toast?”

  It was a tribble dilemma. She stood racking her brains, torn between sympathy and principle. It was wrong, heaven knew, to make the innocent sufffer; certainly forcing her to capitulate to her brother's mulish will was the furthest thing from little Dickey's mind. She could see him, in her mind's eye, looking at the floor to avoid looking up imploringly, guuilty for no reason, just as his poor uncle Richard had felt, groundlessly guilty all those years—just as she had felt guilty just now with the Mexican priest. How dare she disappoint the child? Nevertheless, the indignity of the thing was a great deal for anyone to ask her to bear. They were all down there partying, making light of the battle—even her dearest and oldest friends—trying to make her give in the James’ tyranny, give in as the weak have always given in, as they would given in (she thought, with sudden bitterness), accepting the age-old slavery of women and childre. No doubt they thought it was purest foolishness, this stand she was taking, and in hter heart she could understand their feeling. “Give in! Don’t make a scence!” It was the universal cry. How often she’d done just that that herself, even with dear Horace. But sooner or later one discovered one had simply had enought, one could give in no longer. They had no idea what it was like, living with a maniac. Someone, sooner or later, had to fight, that or kill themself. her eyes filled with tears. Oh, she knew how to give in, all right. She could go out and they’d all make a scene over her, praise her and fawn on her exactly as if she’d won, as indeed they’d think she had: won a battle with herself, becoming “sensible.” And she could smile shyly, as if admitting she’d been a fool and it was all a funny story, as it would be, someday—a story to her discredit—and she could accept their jokes and compliments, even join in the singing or the cheerful talk, and all would be forgiven. Oh yes! She could see it! James would praise her mulishness, proud of having won, and he might even behave somewhat better for a while, might even grant her, grudgingly, her color TV. But in the end, cut it as you liked, she’d have been beaten, as the weaker sex is always beaten, and she’d cook and clean and keep her opinions to herself, and when James turned cross and clean and keep her opinions to herself, and when James turned cross she’d pretend she didn’t see his stupidity, she’d kow-tow and scrape like an Oriental slave, and if anyone was talked of, laughed at, scorned by the gossips—scorned as they scorned that poor Sherbrooke woman, even now, years later, at least in some of the stories—it would be her, that crazy old woman, not sensible James. The image of her cruel and unjust humiliation was stronger than the image of the child at the door, and she said kindly, gently, “It’s sweet of you, Dickey, but I’m not hungry. You take it back down, that’s a good boy.”

  “Aunt Sally,” Dickey said.

  “Run along, dear,” she said.

  He mumbled something—she couldn’t quite hear it—then retreated toward the head of the stairs.

  “Thank you, honey!” she called after him. She folded her arms, feeling guilty but nevertheless victorious. If she was wrong then very well she was wrong, she could pay in the Afterlife.

  Just then wind made the door rumble, and she started. When she glanced out the window she saw branches swaying and leaves brightly tumbling. The wind had come up suddenly, out of nowhere, as it seemed. There were curious noises in the attic above her, and though she knew it was only wind, she felt, welling up more strongly than before, the superstitious alarm she would sometimes feel lying all alone in bed staring into darkness, or had felt, long ago, alone in her bed except for Horace, who could guard her no longer. She crossed to the white wicker table and picked up her paperback book. She stood undecided for a moment, looking out into the night, listening to the hum of the party rising through the walls of the house, keeping it alive, and the groan of the windswept darkness outside. It seemed a long time since James had driven off in his pick-up. For an instant she had an image of her brother as a child, bull-necked and petulant, holding her hand. According to the onyx clock on the desk it was quarter to eleven. She’d never known him to stay away so late. />
  And now an even stranger sensation came over her, so that her hackles rose in fear. Out by the mailbox, standing perfectly still, there was an old, old man in a long, dark coat, bearded like a rabbi. He stood looking at the house, unaffected by the wind. Her heart leaped in her chest painfully, and she bent closer to the glass. The man was still there, quiet as a statue, alien. She took her blue plastic glasses off and polished them on the front of her bathrobe, then replaced them and quickly looked again. There was no one now. Had it been pure illusion? Someone getting ready for Halloween? Her feeble eyes darted from car to car, shadow to shadow. He’d vanished from the face of the earth.

  Below her—though it sounded, at first, far away—someone began playing a French horn.

  7

  “Somehow it doesn’t seem right,” Estelle said, “poor Sally up there suffering and James off heaven knows where, fuming, and here we are having a good time!” We should do something, she meant; the plan to coax Sally from her room was getting nowhere. But they chose not to understand her, or the hint was too subtle, or perhaps what she’d really meant, she reflected with a sigh, was to excuse her own inaction, keep up the party. She could hardly deny she was enjoying herself. How could she help it, with dear friends around her, Ruth looking larger and more glorious than ever, though she sagged some, these days, if she let herself get overtired—Ruth’s husband and Dr. Phelps laughing noisily together, pounding each other’s shoulders over stories of the old days—Ruth’s handsome red-headed grandson DeWitt hunkered against the wall by the kitchen door singing mournful songs, softly picking his guitar, entertaining the two small boys—and in the back room, James’ sitting room and bedroom, Estelle’s nephew Terence and Dr. Phelps’ granddaughter Margie playing duets on the French horn and flute. How she wished her Ferris could be here now to see it!

  Estelle had retreated from the piano some minutes ago. She too tired quickly—they were none of them spring chickens—and it was hard for her to sit for very long on a bench. She’d settled on the couch now, surrounded by pillows, her two canes leaning against her knee. The Mexican priest was on the couch beside her, smelling pleasantly of cologne, and Lane Walker was in the chair by the fireplace, in front of her and to her left.

  “Suffering always makes parties more interesting,” Lane Walker said, and grinned. He had a habit of speaking mysteriously, perhaps impishly, and smiling like a sphinx. It was flattering in a way, and Estelle enjoyed it—it was pleasant to be treated as one of the knowing—but the truth was, she seldom had the faintest idea what he was talking about. With that cherubic face and that hair-brush beard below his chin, he had the look of an elf, and it would have come as no great surprise to Estelle if she’d learned that all he said was some prank—not irreligious or irreverent: his delight in the ministry was as obvious as his perpetually startled, sky blue eyes, but astonishing and unthinkable all the same, as if Halloween dummies with jack-o-lantern heads should suddenly leap down from their porches—children in disguise!—and begin to frolic. Even his talks to her Sundayschool class left her baffled, though none of her students seemed to mind. It was the same with his sermons. He was fond of building up elaborate, merry structures of logic and Biblical or secular quotation—not so much sermons as prose poems, you might say—and ending with a sudden, quite striking allusion or an echo of something he’d said earlier, so that your heart leaped with pleasure, exactly as it would at some wonderful insight, but when you asked yourself just what it meant you had no idea. Fortunately, tonight Rafe Hernandez was here to help.

  “Yes, good point!” he said, and laughed. “It’s easy to take a dark view of such things—” He leaned graciously toward Estelle—his scent became stronger—and explained to her quickly, as if she’d just now stepped in on their conversation, “It’s often been observed that suffering has a tendency to give pleasure a special bite, especially, of course, if the suffering is someone else’s and not unduly great.” His grin was Indian—black eyes, shining teeth—and made her notice that, like other priests she’d met, he had an effeminate, or anyway small-boyish streak. It made her like him more—though it must be said of Estelle that if the man had revealed himself as especially masculine, or even, perhaps, as a disguised chimpanzee, she would also suddenly have liked him more. “We enjoy suffering, at least in small doses,” he continued happily. “I saw it in Selma, I’ve seen it in the lettuce strikes. It makes us feel alert, wide awake. And of course it gives happiness definition.”

  “Dear me,” Estelle said, and laughed nervously. If that was all Lane Walker had meant, she of course understood it. For years she’d been teaching the odes of John Keats. It had probably been someone like Estelle, in fact who had first made them, Lane Walker and Rafe Hernandez, see the meaning of “crush Joy’s grape.” But she continued to play the surprised innocent, for good fellowship’s sake and to make sure that was all Lane had intended.

  The priest smiled kindly, exactly like a fat, gentle cat with a human brain, perhaps some protector-beast from the old days. “A cynic might imagine that we enjoy the suffering of others. Possibly we do, on occasion—but as a rule it’s much simpler. We understand our own well-being by comparison only. What a party it is, inevitably, when the guests are brought together by trouble!”

  Ed Thomas sang out from across the room, “My favorite have always been bahn-fire pahties.” He held his cigar out dramatically, awaiting the priest’s question.

  “Barn-fire parties?” Hernandez asked.

  “Yes sirree!” he said. To Estelle, his face seemed abnormally bright, and glancing at Dr. Phelps she got the distinct impression that he was watching his friend Ed Thomas as he might a patient. Ed’s cigar wasn’t lighted; she couldn’t remember that he’d lighted one all night. “Bahn-fire parties!” Ed Thomas sang. “Whenever some poor devil’s bahn burns down we always have a pahty just like this one. True, Ruth?” He pointed the cigar at his wife, in the armchair by the piano, demanding confirmation.

  Ruth shook her head and laughed. “It’s the craziest thing,” she said, delighted. Both small boys were looking up at her, grinning, from over near the door with DeWitt. She was aware of it and played as much to them as to Father Hernandez. “Every time some barn burns down, the farmers come barreling in from miles around to try to put the fire out and save the stock—with the help of the Volunteer Fire Department—and when it’s all over, one way or the other, we all go barreling to the nearest neighbor’s, or sometimes the house of the poor man himself, and out comes the cocoa and cinnamon-toast. It’s just like Old Home Week!”

  “That’s very strange,” the priest said, smiling with just his mouth.

  “It’s not that we got no feelins,” Ed Thomas said, grinning still more broadly, his face becoming redder. He grabbed a gulp of air. “We do it as much for the victim as for ennabody else—true, Ruth?”

  She shook her head happily. “It’s the craziest thing.”

  He too shook his head, the exact same gesture. “Hi gol,” he said.

  “Well, different people do things differently,” the priest said, apparently to excuse them. He folded his plump hands, and in his slanted black eyes lay the vast superiority of a cat-god.

  Estelle said, smiling her forgiveness at the priest, “It’s just as you’ve said yourself, Father. It’s a fragile life. One moment we’re happy and wonderfully healthy, and our children are all well, and it seems as if nothing can possibly go wrong, and the next some horrible accident has happened, and suddenly we see how things really are and we cling to each other for dear life.”

  “Hear, hear!” Dr. Phelps said merrily, as if she’d said something funny. They all laughed, understanding his intent. Yet after the moment of laughter the room was unnaturally quiet, as old and insubstantial as the yellowed lace curtains, infirm as the shadows on the fireplace bricks, the whole house still as a grave except for the music of the horn and flute, coming from the sitting room-bedroom. Estelle partly turned her head, listening. They played like young professionals, it seemed
to her. Every generation the music in this part of the world got better. Her Terence was studying with Andre Speyer, in Williamstown, who’d played first horn for years with Dimitri Mitropoulos—she had records he’d made and had heard him play once with the Sage City Symphony in North Bennington (formerly Sage City). It was a sound to make your bones tingle, solid and true as a golden cup, full of light and air as love, soaring! It was a sound, when he played, unlike anything else in the orchestra, as if one of the instruments had suddenly come alive, sprouted wings. Her Terence would perhaps play like that someday. He was already very good, at sixteen. But all the children—she hastened to add, as if someone might be listening to her mind and might be offended—all the children in this part of the world had fine teachers these days, musicians from the Albany Symphony, or the Berkshire Symphony, or the Vermont State Symphony. What would the country ever do with so many good musicians? And in the summer there were music camps and conferences nearby—Tanglewood, Kin-haven, Interlocken, Marlboro …

  It made her heart ache. For a moment she couldn’t think why, but then she remembered, of course: listening to the hi-fi with Ferris, in North Bennington, music arching up like a cathedral window. They’d attended High Mass at Notre Dame when they visited France. When they came out it was late and the Seine was still, with colored lights on it, floating like pure, stable voices. She would hardly recognize Paris now, people told her. She smiled. Nor would Paris recognize Estelle Moulds Parks.