Ancient Lineage and Other Stories

by Morley Callaghan

  “Is there anything I can do?” he said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She seemed so puzzled, so worried and aloof from even the deepest bitterness within him, that George felt impatient, as if it were her fault that the child was sick. For a while he watched her rocking back and forth, always making the same faint humming sound, with the stronger light showing the deep frown on her face, and he couldn’t seem to think of the child at all. He wanted to speak with sympathy, but he burst out, “I had to get up because I couldn’t go on with my own thoughts. We’re unlucky, Marthe. We haven’t had a day’s luck since we’ve come to this city. How much longer can this go on before they throw us out on the street? I tell you we never should have come here.”

  She looked up at him indignantly. He couldn’t see the fierceness in her face because her head was against the window light. Twice he walked the length of the room, then he stood beside her, looking down at the street. There was now traffic and an increasing steady hum of motion. He felt chilled and his fingers grasped at the collar of his dressing gown, pulling it across his chest. “It’s cold here, and you can imagine what it’ll be like in winter,” he said. And when Marthe again did not answer, he said sullenly, “You wanted us to come here. You wanted us to give up what we had and come to a bigger city where there were bigger things ahead. Where we might amount to something because of my fine education and your charming manner. You thought we didn’t have enough ambition, didn’t you?”

  “Why talk about it now, George?”

  “I want you to see what’s happened to us.”

  “Say I’m responsible. Say anything you wish.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you what I feel in my bones. Luck is against us. Something far stronger than our two lives is working against us. I was thinking about it when I woke up. I must have been thinking about it all through my sleep.”

  “We’ve been unlucky, but we’ve often had a good time, haven’t we?” she said.

  “Tell me honestly, have we had a day’s luck since we got married?” he said brutally.

  “I don’t know,” she said with her head down. Then she looked up suddenly, almost pleading, but afraid to speak.

  The little boy started to whimper and then sat up straight, pushing away the blanket his mother tried to keep around him. When she insisted on covering him, he began to fight and she had a hard time holding him till suddenly he was limp in her arms, looking around the darkened room with the bright wonder that comes in a child’s fevered eyes.

  George watched Marthe trying to soothe the child. The morning light began to fall on her face, making it seem a little leaner, a little narrower and so dreadfully worried. A few years ago everybody used to speak about her extraordinary smile, about the way the lines around her mouth were shaped for laughter, and they used to say, too, that she had a mysterious, tapering, Florentine face. Once a man had said to George, “I remember clearly the first time I met your wife. I said to myself, ‘Who is the lady with that marvelous smile?’ ”

  George was now looking at this face as though it belonged to a stranger. He could think of nothing but the shape of it. There were so many angles in that light; it seemed so narrow. “I used to think it was beautiful. It doesn’t look beautiful. Would anybody say it was beautiful?” he thought, and yet these thoughts had nothing to do with his love for her.

  In some intuitive way she knew that he was no longer thinking of his bad luck, but was thinking of her, so she said patiently, “Walter seems to have quite a fever, George.” Then he stopped walking and touched Walter’s head, which was very hot.

  “Here, let me hold him a while and you get something,” he said. “Get him some aspirin.”

  “I’ll put it in orange juice, if he’ll take it,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, turn on the light, Marthe,” he called. “This ghastly light is getting on my nerves.”

  He tried talking to his son while Marthe was away. “Hello, Walter, old boy, what’s the matter with you? Look at me, big boy, say something bright to your old man.” But the little boy shook his head violently, stared vacantly at the wall a moment, and then tried to bury his face in his father’s shoulder. So George, looking disconsolately around the cold room, felt that it was more barren than ever.

  Marthe returned with the orange juice and the aspirin. They both began to coax Walter to take it. They pretended to be drinking it themselves, made ecstatic noises with their tongues as though it were delicious and kept it up till the boy cried, “Orange, orange, me too,” with an unnatural animation. His eyes were brilliant. Then he swayed as if his spine were made of putty and fell back in his mother’s arms.

  “We’d better get a doctor in a hurry, George,” Marthe said.

  “Do you think it’s that bad?”

  “Look at him,” she said, laying him on the bed. “I’m sure he’s very sick. You don’t want to lose him, do you?” and she stared at Walter, who had closed his eyes and was sleeping.

  As Marthe in her fear kept looking up at George, she was fingering her old blue kimono, drawing it tighter around her to keep her warm. The kimono had been of a Japanese pattern adorned with clusters of brilliant flowers sewn in silk. George had given it to her at the time of their marriage; now he stared at it, torn as it was at the arms, with pieces of old padding hanging out at the hem, with the light-colored lining showing through in many places, and he remembered how, when the kimono was new, Marthe used to make the dark hair across her forehead into bangs, fold her arms across her breasts, with her wrists and hands concealed in the sleeve folds, and go around the room in the bright kimono, taking short, prancing steps, pretending she was a Japanese girl.

  The kimono now was ragged and gone; it was gone, he thought, like so many bright dreams and aspirations they had once had in the beginning, like so many fine resolutions he had sworn to accomplish, like so many plans they had made and hopes they had cherished.

  “Marthe, in God’s name,” he said suddenly, “the very first money we get, even if we just have enough to put a little down, you’ll have to get a decent dressing gown. Do you hear?”

  She was startled. Looking up at him in bewilderment, she swallowed hard, then turned her eyes down again.

  “It’s terrible to have to look at you in that thing,” he muttered.

  After he had spoken in this way he was ashamed, and he was able to see for the first time the wild terrified look on her face as she bent over Walter.

  “Why do you look like that?” he asked. “Hasn’t he just got a little fever?”

  “Did you see the way he held the glass when he took the orange juice?”

  “No. I didn’t notice.”

  “His hand trembled. Earlier, when I first went to him, and gave him a drink I noticed the strange trembling in his hand.”

  “What does it mean?” he said, awed by the fearful way she was whispering.

  “His body seemed limp and he could not sit up either. Last night I was reading about such symptoms in the medical column in the paper. Symptoms like that with a fever are symptoms of infantile paralysis.”

  “Where’s the paper?”

  “Over there on the table.”

  George sat down and began to read the bit of newspaper medical advice; over and over he read it, very calmly. Marthe had described the symptoms accurately; but in a stupid way he could not get used to the notion that his son might have such a dreadful disease. So he remained there calmly for a long time.

  And then he suddenly realized how they had been dogged by bad luck; he realized how surely everything they loved was being destroyed day by day and he jumped up and cried out, “We’ll have to get a doctor.” And as if he realized to the full what was inevitably impending, he cried out, “You’re right, Marthe, he’ll die. That child will die. It’s the luck that’s following us. Then it’s over. Everything’s over. I tell you I’ll curse the day I ever saw the light of the world. I’ll curse the day we ever met and ever married. I’ll smash everything I can
put my hands on in this world.”

  “George, don’t go on like that. You’ll bring something dreadful down on us,” she whispered in terror.

  “What else can happen? What else can happen to us worse than this?”

  “Nothing, nothing, but please don’t go on saying it, George.”

  Then they both bent down over Walter and they took turns putting their hands on his head. “What doctor will come to us at this house when we have no money?” he kept muttering. “We’ll have to take him to a hospital.” They remained kneeling together, silent for a long time, almost afraid to speak.

  Marthe said suddenly, “Feel, feel his head. Isn’t it a little cooler?”

  “What could that be?”

  “It might be the aspirin working on him.”

  So they watched, breathing steadily together while the child’s head gradually got cooler. Their breathing and their silence seemed to waken the child, for he opened his eyes and stared at them vaguely. “He must be feeling better,” George said. “See the way he’s looking at us.”

  “His head does feel a lot cooler.”

  “What could have been the matter with him, Marthe?”

  “It must have been a chill. Oh, I hope it was only a chill.”

  “Look at him, if you please. Watch me make the rascal laugh.”

  With desperate eagerness George rushed over to the table, tore off a sheet of newspaper, folded it into a thin strip about eight inches long and twisted it like a cord. Then he knelt down in front of Walter and cried, “See, see,” and thrust the twisted paper under his own nose and held it with his upper lip while he wiggled it up and down. He screwed up his eyes diabolically. He pressed his face close against the boy’s.

  Laughing, Walter put out his hand. “Let me,” he said. So George tried to hold the paper moustache against Walter’s lip. But that was no good. Walter pushed the paper away and said, “You, you.”

  “I think his head is cool now,” Marthe said. “Maybe he’ll be all right.”

  She got up and walked away from the bed, over to the window with her head down. Standing up, George went to follow her, but his son shouted tyrannically so he had to kneel down and hold the paper moustache under his nose and say, “Look here, look, Walter.”

  Marthe was trying to smile as she watched them. She took one deep breath after another, as though she would never succeed in filling her lungs with air. But even while she stood there, she grew troubled. She hesitated, she lowered her head and wanted to say, “One of us will find work of some kind, George,” but she was afraid.

  “I’ll get dressed now,” she said quietly, and she started to take off her kimono.

  As she held it on her arm, her face grew full of deep concern. She held the kimono up so the light shone on the gay silken flowers. Sitting down in the chair, she spread the faded silk on her knee and looked across the room at her sewing basket, which was on the dresser by the mirror. She fumbled patiently with the lining, patting the places that were torn; and suddenly she was sure she could draw the torn parts together and make it look bright and new.

  “I think I can fix it up so it’ll look fine, George,” she said.

  “Eh?” he said. “What are you bothering with that for?” Then he ducked down to the floor again and wiggled his paper moustache fiercely at the child.

  1935

  RIGMAROLE

  After they had come in from the party, Jeff Hilton, the advertising man, looked up and saw his young wife, Mathilde, standing there beaming at him. She seemed to him to be glowing from the memory of many whispered conversations with young men who had been anxious to touch her hand or her arm; she smiled and went on dreaming and her wide dark eyes grew soft with tenderness. She began to hum as she walked over to the window and stood there looking down at the street in the early winter night; and as Jeff went on watching her he kept resenting that she should have had such a good time at a party that he had found so dull. She had left him alone a lot, but he had always remained aware of the admiration she aroused in the young men around her. And now she turned, all warm and glowing, and burst out, “Didn’t you like the party, Jeff?”

  “It was a lousy party,” he said vindictively. “I’m fed up with that crowd. No one ever has anything new or bright to say. They’ve all gone a little stale.”

  Mathilde tried to stop smiling, but her dark, ardent face still glowed with warmth as she stood there with her hands clasped in front of her. Though Jeff went on talking with a kind of good-humored disgust his earnest face began to show such a desolate loneliness that she suddenly felt guilty; she longed to offer up to him all the tenderness, all the delight it had been so enchanting to have in her since the party. “I had an awfully good time,” she said. “But I kept my eye on you. I know who you were with. Were you watching me, Jeff?” and she rushed over to him and threw herself on his lap and began to kiss him and rub her hand through his hair, laughing all the time like a little girl. “Did you think I was flirting? Did you think I laughed and whispered too much? Don’t you love people to think I’m pretty?”

  But Jeff who had had such a dull time felt only that she was trying to console him and make him feel good so he said irritably, “You don’t need to feel you neglected me. Don’t feel guilty. Nobody ever has to worry about me trailing you around. You can feel free.”

  “Jeff,” she said, very softly. “I don’t want to feel free. I don’t feel free now.”

  “Sure you do. You’d be the first to complain if you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t you worry a little about me once tonight, Jeff?”

  “Listen here, Mathilde,” he said shortly, “jealous men are the greatest bores in the world.”

  “Jeff, put your arms around me.”

  “What’s the matter with you? You don’t need to mollify me or feel guilty because you had a good time. Surely we’ve got beyond that.”

  “I wasn’t trying to mollify you,” she said, looking quite lost, and she began to show in her face much of that curious discontent he had felt growing in her the last three months. She was pouting like a child and she had the shame of one whose innocent gift has been rejected curtly, and then she went away from him awkwardly and curled herself upon the couch, almost crouching, her eyes hardening as she stared at him.

  After a while he said, “You’re childish, Mathilde. Why are you sitting there as if you hate me?” But he began to feel helpless against her silent, unreasonable and secret anger. “These last few months you’ve become about as unreasonable as a sick woman. What on earth is the matter with you?” he said. And he got up and paced up and down and his voice rose as he went on questioning her, but every time he passed the couch where she was crouching he became more disturbed by the passionate restlessness he felt in her.

  So he tried to laugh and he said, “This is a lot of nonsense, Mathilde,” and he sat down beside her. In a rough, good-natured way he tried to pull her against him. When she pushed him away he stared at her for a long time till at last he began to desire her, and again he put his arm around her, and again she pushed him away. Then he lost his temper; he threw his arms around her and held her down while he tried to caress her. “Stop it, stop it Jeff,” she cried. “Haven’t you got any sense at all? Doesn’t it mean anything to you that you didn’t want me near you a few minutes ago? What do you think I am?” As she pulled away roughly she was really pleading with him to see that she was struggling to hold on to something he had been destroying carelessly month after month. “Doesn’t it mean anything?” she asked.

  “There you go,” he said. “Why can’t you be direct about things instead of sentimental.”

  “Because I don’t want things that way,” she said. And then she cried passionately, “You can’t touch me whenever you like. You can’t do that to me just when you feel like it,” and her eyes were full of tears as if at last she had touched the true source of all her disappointment.

  But he grabbed hold of her, held her a moment to show he could possess her, then pushe
d her away. “I’m not a little boy playing that old game,” he shouted. “We’ve been married three years. Why all the rigmarole?” and he expressed the rage that was growing in him by banging her on the knee with his fist.

  “Oh, you’ve hurt me,” she said, holding the spot. “Why did you do that?” and she began to cry a little. “That ends it. You’ll never hit me again,” she said.

  “Damn it all, I didn’t hit you.”

  “You did. Oh, dear, you did. That settles it. I’ll not stay around here. I’ll not stay another night. I’m going now.”

  “Go ahead. Do what you want to.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll soon be gone,” she said, and with tears streaming from her eyes she ran into the bedroom. He stood gloomily at the door with his arms folded across his chest. He watched her pull out drawers, toss dresses into a suitcase, sweep silver at random from the top of the dresser. Sometimes she stopped to press her fists against her eyes. He began to feel so distressed, watching, that he shouted at last, “I won’t stand for this stupid exhibition,” and he jumped at her and flung his arms around her and squeezed her as though he would crush forever the unreasonable revolt in her soul. Then he grew ashamed and he said, “I won’t stop you, and I won’t stay and watch this stupid performance either. I’m going out.” And when he left her she was still pulling out dresser drawers.

  As soon as Jeff walked along the street from the apartment house on that early winter night he began to feel that he really had not left that room at all, that wherever he walked, wherever he went, he would still be pulled back there to the room to watch her, and when he went into the corner tavern to have a glass of beer he sat there mopping his forehead and thinking, “Not just what I want, not just when I feel like it! I can’t go on with that stuff when we’re so used to each other. I’d feel stupid.”

  In the crowded tavern men and women leaned close together and whispered and while he listened Jeff kept hearing her voice beneath the murmuring voices and the clink of glasses and seeing her face in the smoke of the tavern, and as he looked around a dreadful fear kept growing in him that whatever was warm and vital among people was being pushed out of his reach; and then he couldn’t stop himself from getting up and hurrying back to the apartment house.