by Laura Furman
She looked past him, toward the door. She was done talking. He saw in her face she intended to dismiss him. With her, you could risk nothing. She forgave nothing, not the slightest imposition upon the complex world she believed in. She saw that he was simple, he thought, a teenager or a very old man. It scared him to watch her that way. Scared him more to watch her watch him that way.
Adam slept the kind of skeletal, half-sleeping wakefulness that allowed him the belief he was asleep. A car door somewhere in the dale closed, and he looked at the digital clock, then turned on the TV. All European flights were stranded for a week, and cots and cotless irate passengers crowded Heathrow terminals. Eyjafjallajökull had erupted a second time, ash had descended on London and Scotland, and there was concern about Katla, another volcano, in Vík í Mýrdal—“Could you turn it off?” Laura called from her room.
She left before he rose. The tattoo of her boots on the wood floor. He made sure she had gone before he got out of bed and made coffee and built a fire in the woodstove.
• • •
He came into a sheer fog at the end of the path. It was very early. There were no lights on in the cabins, most of them probably empty.
He came to the lake, now dusted with faint patches of ash. He hadn’t been able to convince himself not to follow her. He stopped at a boulder too tall to sit on and tightened the scarf around his face. The lake was the color of weathered nickel. Small rocks like globules of oil littered a shallow bed at the shore. The water, hitting the edge of the boulder he leaned on, sprayed up in a tiny spire. Across the lake, the other cabins were dark, too. A waterfall, tiny from where he stood, forked a few feet from the top of the fjall.
He walked the same path he’d seen her walk the day before. Bugs nagged his arms. He passed abandoned cabins; others had tiny yards with patio furniture. In one yard was a plastic yellow toy car with ash on its roof.
He came to the bottom of the steps he’d seen her climb. “Pétur’s” steps. Trees obscured the house. From the bottom of the stairs, Adam could see only the housetop, the woodstove chimney.
There was a table on the porch. A small gas grill. He stepped over an open garbage bag spilled on its side. He decided, without really considering, to crouch below a corner of the screened window and to look in with one eye.
Adam could see his mother at the other end of the house. She was alone, putting pots on the stove, lips in motion. The cabin was one room, much smaller than theirs, with hardly any furniture. A table with chairs, a bed, an armchair in the corner, no refrigerator, dark rhombuses on the wall where frames had been. He could hear her now, talking quickly. He studied the interior, the corners. She was alone.
On the floor were her flannel green coat and the backpack he’d seen the other day. Rocks she’d collected from the shore were stacked in a pyramid and placed as a centerpiece on the table. Cans on the counter, open cans he recognized from their house, cans he’d bought himself at a nearby town’s store. She was talking, and he made out not the words, but the tone, the cooing inflection.
She became very quiet. He watched from the window. She brought a bowl of dim liquid to the table and ate, closing her eyes. He watched this a long time. She put her bowl and spoon in the sink. Then she pulled her dress over her head. She had on a pale slip. She took off her rings.
If Adam’s life was “ordinary,” an average of a series of predictable events, maybe that was why, for him, there was no Pétur. On the bed, she climbed on top of nothing, of no one himself, and moved her hips forward and back.
David Bradley
You Remember the Pin Mill
YOU ARE DRIVING WEST across the state, at the insistence of the commonwealth’s Department of Corrections, when you remember the pin mill.
Just a shape when you first saw it, through the windshield of the Goddamn Rambler: a vague but jagged blackness looming in the gray ahead. You turned to warn your mother, but in the predawn light you glimpsed the contours of her face and turned back, only then you saw Whatever It Was rising up and clawing with skeletal appendages at the pearlescent sky.
But then you realized: Whatever It Was wasn’t rising; the Goddamn Rambler was coming down a long, steep hill. So maybe Whatever It Was was sleeping and nothing would happen if you went by quietly. Only the Goddamn Rambler would not go quietly. The Goddamn Rambler coughed and sputtered, though you whispered, Shh, shh, shh. Then the Goddamn Rambler backfired, and you saw Whatever It Was turn.
But then you realized: it wasn’t turning; the road was, curving away. Maybe far enough away that Whatever It Was couldn’t hurt her, even if it did awake.
• • •
You remember when you learned its name: after a cough-and-sputter climb and a big door opening wide; after an old man with glinting glasses and a gray mustache, in bare feet and a bathrobe, helped her up a flight of winding, waxed wood stairs; after he came back down in blue suit pants and shiny slippers and said he was pleased to meet you and you didn’t need to call him sir, plain Grandpa would do fine; after he led you to a kitchen with two stoves in it and sat you down in what he said had been your Grandmother Godrester’s favorite chair, and put on a bib apron with magenta flowers on it and said he was going to fix you a real country breakfast.
Then he was doing something in the black stove with MAJESTIC in silver letters on the door, and you were rocking, back and forth, back and forth, until you smelled smoke and heard a scream and leaped up and shouted, “Who’s that? Who’s that?” But he said, “Rest easy. Pay no mind. That’s just the whistle at the pin mill,” and his voice was calm and patient, so you tried, only you still heard it in your head and the chair went back-forth, back-forth.
Then he took you by the hand and pulled you out the kitchen door, across a swath of dew-damp grass, onto a broad, black rock, and you saw the empty air beyond and wondered if he’d throw you over for not resting easy. But he knelt, groaning, beside you, wrapped his arm around you, pointed over the edge, and said, “Look.”
And you looked over treetops and steeples and saw the rooftops of a miniature town, like at Wanamaker’s at Christmas, with gray paint streets, an Erector Set bridge over a blue paint river, and train tracks on the other side, only instead of Lionelville Station, there was a dark shape wreathed in smoke. “That’s the pin mill,” he said, and you realized: it all looked small only because you were high above.
He told you a mill was a factory, and pins were wooden screws that held insulators onto telephone poles, and insulators held the wires but were made lots of places; this was the only mill in the whole nation that made pins. And he said, “Some call this the hind end of the earth, but all the telephones, clean to the Pacific, depend on pins made in Raystown.”
Then he pointed to freight cars on a siding, and told you how logs came in on bulkhead flats and pins were trucked out in semis, and traced what he called the access road to where it connected with what he called root two twenty, and pointed to a tractor-trailer, bound for the ‘Pike, he said, turning onto it and starting up a long, steep hill. But suddenly somehow you were coming down in the Goddamn Rambler, and you realized: the pin mill was what you’d seen maybe sleeping in the night. Only now it was awake.
Then treetops, steeples, rooftops vanished; the pin mill was all that you could see. You felt yourself lean toward it, felt yourself take a step. But then you felt your Grandpa’s arm, holding you and turning you, and then magenta flowers were all that you could see.
Now you remember ring-ring-ring, ring-ring-ring, and waking in a room a-clutter with dolls and teddy bears, thinking it was night until through a pink-curtained window you saw a porch awash with sunlight and your mother perched sideways on the rail.
Her head was lowered, chin-to-chest, so her hair hid her face, and her blouse was long sleeved, high collared, white—her neck looked like a swan’s—and her left arm hung languidly, a cigarette dangling from her fingers.
The ring-ring-ringing stopped. You heard your Grandpa say, “Hello?… Yes, Hal, she’s here,”
and she raised the cigarette to her lips and winced, but the tip glowed bright. Then he said, in the calm, patient voice, “No, Hal; she does not wish to speak with you.”
Then he said, “No, Hal, I don’t intend to interfere between a man and his wife—” and then was quiet, listening, and she lowered the cigarette and you saw the filter, red, as if from lipstick, but no smoke.
Then he said, “Excuse me, Hal, but your wife is also my daughter. She is always welcome in my house, for as long she wishes.” Then you heard a ting and saw smoke plume silver and her lifting her chin, but her hair swung back and her cheek was like a plum about to burst and you had to close your eyes.
And you remember, when it was really night, hearing your Grandpa upstairs, telling her he didn’t know how that darned junker ever made the grade, and suddenly somehow you were in the Goddamn Rambler, with the blazing and bellowing coming from behind, and huge tires howling alongside, and then wind slapping right-left-right-left-right, and her wailing wordlessly. And she said, “It almost didn’t, Daddy. Daddy, I almost didn’t make it home.”
You remember eeoheeohchkchkchk, warm air wafting through the window, Raggedy Ann and Aunt Jemima, and a humpback trunk treasured with camphored quilts and a box of eight Crayolas, peeled and sharpened like she’d done with your box of sixty-four.
You remember the black telephone in the alcove in the hall, with no dial and no dial tone but ladies on it talking.
You remember the claw-footed, scaly-legged table in the dining room, and the straight-legged one in the kitchen with your Grandpa behind it, glasses on his forehead, fists crushing a thin newspaper, muttering about whipping horses and dogs, until he saw you and said to pay him no mind, he was just an old bear growling like he still had teeth.
You remember the sounds from the upstairs hall—click of lock, creak of hinge, footfalls, slow and heavy, rush of water in the pipes, footfalls going back, dull thud of closing door.
You remember the cold milk your Grandpa poured from a green glass jar—sweet milk, he called it—and the ham he had to simmer to get the salt out, he said, and the eggs he cracked one-handed, and the onions he sliced underwater so he wouldn’t cry, and that though the ham was salty anyway, the milk was sweet as sugar if you warmed it in your mouth.
You remember the porch—the veranda, he called it—that went all around the house, and the chair on chains he called a swing, though it wouldn’t go fast or high, and the tree, a-teem with birds, that towered at the forest’s edge. He said its name was Quercus Rubra and you, not thinking, said, “Trees don’t have names …,” and stopped. But he just laughed and said this one did, and in the fall the birds, except the crows of course, held a convention there to decide where to spend the winter, and you could poll the factions because each kind of bird had a different song. And you said, Like Peter and the Wolf? but he said, No, these were real country birds; they didn’t sing opera.
You remember the doors that slid into the walls, the green glow of bankers’ lamps, the big battered desk he said was older than he was, the dictionary—the Lexicon, he called it—so heavy it had its own desk—a lectern, he called it—and the shelves that bowed with books. You asked if you could read them, certain he’d say no, but he said to take a crack at anything you could reach.
You remember him at the black stove—the Majestic, he called it—stirring something steaming in a white-and-blue speckled pot. Broth, he said; good for what ailed you, and he lifted you to see the chicken rolling in the roiling water, and let you add peppercorns, parsley, and thyme.
You remember his calm, patient voice lulling you to sleep with the tale of Indian Eve, who was kidnapped by the Mohawks, indentured by the British, but crossed four hundred miles of wilderness on foot to bring her son home safe to Raystown.
Now you remember the Patrician, your Grandpa’s Prussian-blue Packard sedan, with the chrome grille and headlight mounts like his mustache and glasses, and an arch-necked bird on the hood, dropping like a roller coaster past big houses of gray stone; and him, in the whole suit and a white shirt and blue tie and black shoes with pinholes in the toes, with one foot on the brake because, he said, it was a 15 percent grade.
And he said this was Juliana Street, and you were in Juliana Heights, and you asked was it named for your mother? and he said he’d told her so when she was your age, but in fact it was for William Penn’s daughter-in-law, did you know who Penn was? and you did, and that sylvania meant woods, and he said you were a smart fella, and the street at the bottom of the grade was Richard, for one of Penn’s sons, and lots of Raystown’s streets were named for Penns, because the Old Settlers thought sycophancy would forestall a whiskey tax, and you said you knew what whiskey was, but he didn’t call you a smart fella again; he just coughed.
Richard Street was like a highway, with a double yellow line and lots of cars and trucks, and a semi made a machine-gun sound when your Grandpa pulled out in front of it, but he said pay it no mind, he had the right-of-way. Then the line disappeared and Richard Street was like a tunnel, roofed by leaves, sided by thick-trunked trees, and behind them were sidewalks and houses of red-orange brick, and in front of one you saw a statue of a monkey in white pants, a red jacket, and a red cap, holding a lantern, only then you realized: it wasn’t a monkey—just a man with a brown face. Then you saw another statue: a man with a gray face in a long gray coat, holding a rifle, but he was on a pillar in the middle of the street.
And he said that was the Monument, and now you were in the Public Squares, where respectable lawyers had offices—him too, until he got elected and had chambers in the Courthouse, which was over there, but now he only had the study because he’d retired from everything except the Board of the First National and the Generally Board. And you saw boys running on broad, grassy lawns and climbing on two big black cannons—and then a building white as chalk, with tall columns and wide steps, and a blue-and-orange Rexall and a red-and-gold G. C. Murphy, and then the Patrician stopped and you looked through the windshield and saw a red light and beyond it the Erector Set bridge.
And he was saying how if you went left you’d be on Forbes Road, which, past the Fairgrounds, turned into Route 30, which was how he went to Pittsburgh, but if you went right you’d be on River Road, which went out the East End and through the Narrows, then ran along the Raystown Branch for fifteen miles to Juniata Crossing before it turned into Route 30, and how River Road had been a famous scenic route before the Doggone Democrats built the ’Pike, and even nowadays some folks got off at the Raystown Interchange to drive—and you said, “It’s straight ahead.”
And he said, “Why, yes, Richard turns into Route 220 and goes straight up to the ’Pike. You are a smart fella,” only that wasn’t what you meant but when the light turned green he stuck his arm straight out the window and went left.
You remember the red-striped pole; the scents of cloves, bay rum, and talc; the trout and whitetail leaping on dog-eared magazines; the slap-swish of razor on strop; the chair like the La-Z-Boy, only it was your Grandpa in it, and his face creamed with lather, and wishing you had whiskers too.
You remember the restaurant wrapped in tinfoil and shaped like a coffeepot, and the men on stools along the counter, and the lady with orange hair behind it who poured coffee into a mug with HIZZONER on it when your Grandpa walked in. He told them you were his grandboy and a real smart fella, and asked the lady to make you a black cow, and she brought you a glass of root beer with vanilla ice cream in it and a thin, long-handled metal spoon, and you ate while the men growled about horsewhipping the Doggone Democrats.
You remember Cohen’s Emporium, where a clerk in a black skullcap piled up underwear, socks, shirts in pastel colors with alligators on the pocket, and pants—trousers, your Grandpa called them—of khaki and gabardine, and blue jeans, which he called dungarees, and a blue sweatshirt with NITTANY LIONS in white letters on the chest, and a heavy purple-and-gray plaid jacket he called a mackinaw.
Then the clerk said to put your feet in a machi
ne and, right through your sneakers, you could see your toes in green, but the clerk said you shouldn’t be wearing Red Ball Jets because your arch was weak; you needed P. F. Flyers with the Magic Wedge. Your Grandpa said you’d need brogans too, for when you went exploring in the woods, and you liked the high-topped leather shoes with thongs instead of laces but felt sorry for your old sneakers and hoped he wouldn’t make you go.
Then the clerk brought out gray fuzzy shoes with no laces he called Hush Puppies and said were the Latest Thing for the Young Man, but your Grandpa called them loafers so you asked for shoes like his, but the clerk said he only carried wingtips for mature gentlemen, and your Grandpa said, “You mean old geezers, don’t you?” and the clerk said he only meant … and stopped. But your Grandpa just laughed and said send the bill.
And you remember how, when you thanked him for the presents, he said, Oh these were just a few things you’d need since you’d be staying in Raystown, and you realized: you hadn’t thought of staying anywhere except away.
You remember swinging back and forth through the hot bright days, listening to birds flittering and tittering in Quercus Rubra, reading books from lower shelves, learning to pay no mind at noon and quitting time.
You remember bedtime tales: of Alliquippa, queen of the Seneca, who sent her braves to save George Washington from the French; of James Smith and his Brave Fellows, who dressed up like Indians and ran the Redcoats out of Raystown while those Sons of Liberty in Boston were still drinking tea; of Jacob Dibert, who found the Lost Children of the Alleghenies; of Davy Lewis, who stole gold from gunrunners, gave it to poor widows to pay taxes, then stole it from the tax collector, and who stopped to visit his mother, though the sheriff was in hot pursuit, and, with just his horse for company, hid out in these very woods in a cave that nobody’d ever found.
You remember the ring, ring, ringing, the chuff, chuff, chuffing of his slippers on the stairs, his voice saying, “Yes, Hal … Who else, this time of night?… Hal, this is a party line so don’t say anything you don’t want half the town to hear and the rest to know about by noon.”