Members of the family came from Fresno to San Francisco one by one to visit Vava, to speak to Rock, to eat and drink, the ones who had been young when Rock had last seen them now grown to manhood or womanhood, the old gone along to new illnesses, their faces and eyes older now and more confused, their voices loving and lonely.
He went out in his car with his cousins, his nephews, and his uncles to saloons, to stand and drink, to talk, to wait. He had watched his mother’s face travel from pity and beauty to desperate violence. Her breathing became filled with noises. Her eyes fell half-open, and his sister believed her mother could still see and hear. He heard her speak to her mother. “Mama? It’s Vava. I didn’t bake the bread, because only you can bake the bread. It’s waiting there for you. I know you can hear me, Mama. I know you can see me, too. I know what a terrible thing’s happened to you, Mama, all these things they’re doing to you, a proud woman like you. It’s Vava, Mama. I’m waiting for you to come home, so I can come and visit you every morning again.”
He saw the color of her skin change from the color of life to the color of death. He listened to her breathing, and wanted to know why a man had to be nonsense all his life, asking death not to be death, asking the ugly not to be ugly, asking pain not to be pain, asking the end not to be the end, asking the alone not to be alone. And he went out two or three times a day and night with the men of his family, his anger suddenly flaring up at them because they had deteriorated or had grown to manhood nonsensically, because there was nothing he could do to help the poor woman go. Nothing he could do about the swollen lump of pain she had become.
The night before she died he stood over the violence she had become. He was alone in the room at two o’clock in the morning. He took her burning hands and held them tightly at first, then tenderly, kissed them, and then her tortured face, each cheek, as her half-open eyes stared at nothing. He spoke in Armenian to her.
“Mother,” he said in Armenian. “Araxi. Try no more.”
An hour later he spoke to her again, saying only one word again and again: “Rest.” Saying it slowly, softly, gently.
He was there the next day at noon when she stopped at last, nine days after death had come to her. He left the room so that the nurse and the intern could go to work on another corpse. He drove to Vava’s, and when she saw him she knew. She ran to him, trying not to sob, and he said, “Before we take her to Ararat I’d like you to bake the bread.”
“No, Rock,” his sister said. “Only Mama can bake that bread. Throw it away. Bury it. That’s Mama’s bread.”
He put the white porcelain tubful of dough on the table in the storage area off the garage. He dug his fingers through the surface that was now dry and brittle to the gummy moist dough underneath. He pulled out a handful of the stuff, rolled it into a ball, put some wax paper around it, and put it into his coat pocket.
They put her in Ararat beside her son Haig, her husband Vahan on the other side of Haig, and then Rock went alone to the house on Winery Street which had been sold to a family named Clayburn. He asked if they wanted to sell it.
“Well,” the man said, “we hadn’t thought of it because it’s a good house, old but solid and good. We’d sell it if we got a good offer. Come on in. I’ll show it to you.”
The man showed Rock the house Rock was born in. “We paid three thousand dollars for the place three years ago,” the man said, “but real estate’s gone up since then.”
“How much do you want for it?” Rock said.
“Oh, five, six thousand, I guess,” the man said. “That’s fair, the way real estate’s shot up.”
“Let me think about it,” Rock said.
“Five, at least,” the man said. “It’s a good house. Solid, not like the houses they’re building these days. It’s got a good fifteen, twenty years to go. Maybe more. I’d have to have five, at least.”
He went out to the sidewalk for another look at the house, then got in his car and drove back to Ararat. He wandered around there, looking at the tombstones, reading them, saving for the last his mother’s new grave.
He came to the drowned boy’s grave, and remembered Dick Cracker trying with the rest of them to swim across the San Joaquin River at Skaggs Bridge and not being able to make it, turning to the others and saying, “I can’t make it, boys. So long.”
That was a long time ago. That was thirty years ago now. He read the tombstone.
Dikran Kirakjian 1909–1919
Drowned in the San Joaquin River
September 7, 1919
Body Not Recovered
Goodbye, Cracker
Papa & Mama
He looked at the stones on either side of the boy, the stones of Papa and Mama, all of the stones standing in dry weeds.
“Well,” Rock said to the boy’s monument, “they’ll never know what a great man you were, will they, Cracker?”
He wandered away, wandering as he had wandered twenty-five years ago with Murphy, glancing at one stone, stopping to read another, to look at the Armenian print on some of them, not a word or letter in English, an angel with wings, a lamb, a cross. One stone had an arm with a clenched fist held high from jagged rock. Who was he?
Murphy said, “This is the only city, Rock. This is the capital of the world. This is where Christians and Jews and Moslems and all the others say to each other, ‘Make way for a pal.’ This is where we’ve got to go, boy, but I still say a hole in the ground is a hell of a place for a soul. Let’s go see your brother.”
“It’s over here,” Rock said.
Haig’s grave was alone then in the family plot, but only a year later the soul of the father was put in the hole in the ground beside the soul of the son, and now the soul of the boy’s mother had been put beside him there.
When Rock came back to the fresh grave, it was covered with flowers. He brought the ball of dough out of his pocket, broke off a piece, put it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it. The rest he buried in the fresh dirt.
“Goodbye, old girl,” he said. He turned to go, and saw his sister Vava hurrying to the grave, her son Joe walking slowly behind her, saying, “Now, Ma! Ah, Ma!”
His sister flung herself on the flowers, sobbing, and the boy said to Rock, “She made me drive her back, Rock. She didn’t let anybody know, and she made me keep quiet about it. Everybody’s looking for you. They’re all drinking and eating and talking and asking for you.”
“We’ll go back in a minute,” Rock said.
“Ma’s taking it bad,” Joe said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll wait a minute,” Rock said.
“What did you come back for?” Joe said.
“You’ve got to bury your mother yourself, alone,” Rock said. “The family’s got to bury her, the church has got to bury her, and then you’ve got to bury her yourself, alone, because she’s not the same to you that she is to the family. You’ve got to bury her alone where they put the body, and you’ve got to bury her alone everywhere else she ever was. It takes time. It takes the rest of your life.”
“I want to go young,” Joe said.
“You do?” Rock said.
“I want to go quick,” Joe said. “I can’t wait to get in the new war. I don’t want to hang around.”
“How old are you now?” Rock said.
“Nineteen.”
“How many girls you got?”
“One steady,” Joe said. “Six or seven part-time. I don’t know. Ma’s having a rough time. Living stinks, doesn’t it, Rock?”
“Yes, it does,” Rock said. “We love it, though. Every one of us loves it.”
“I don’t,” Joe said. “I hate it. Always have. Always will. I have a little fun with the girls, that’s all. What’s the use kidding? It stinks.”
“How much do you weigh?” Rock said.
“Two hundred and forty,” Joe said.
“How tall are you?” Rock said. “Six feet two?”
“Three,” Joe said.
“Get your weight down
to two hundred,” Rock said. “Take it easy. You’re having a hell of a time.”
“It’s not fat,” Joe said. “It’s all muscle and bone.”
“You weren’t any two hundred and forty when you played high school football,” Rock said.
“That was two years ago,” Joe said. “I’ve grown.”
“You’ve grown fat.”
“No, I’m as hard as nails.”
“No,” Rock said. “A man ought to be lean and hard until he’s thirty at least, and he ought to look hot and hungry. You look round and soft.”
“I can get twenty pounds off in a month.”
“How?”
“Lay off eating and drinking, get to the gym twice a week.”
“A man ought to be in shape who wants to get himself killed quick, in the new war,” Rock said.
“Ah, you know what I mean,” Joe said.
“A fellow who knows living stinks ought to be in perfect shape,” Rock said.
“I mean, look at Mama,” Joe said. “She worked hard for us kids, to get us grown up healthy and O.K. and all that, and then just when we’re all halfway grown up and not the kind of trouble we used to be, her own mother dies. If that isn’t stinking, I don’t know what is. Ma believed Grandma was going to be alive at least twenty more years. I’m worried about her. I haven’t taken my girl out since Grandma went to the hospital. I’ve been taking care of Ma.”
“Of course you have,” Rock said. “You just take care of her a few days more. She’ll be O.K.”
His sister came to them, her eyes dry now, and she said, “Well, Rock, Mama’s gone.”
“Yes, Vava, but you’ve got your kids, and I’ve got mine.” He turned to the boy. “Joe,” he said, “I’ll drive Mama back to the party.”
“I’ll say it’s a party,” Joe said. “Is that the way the Armenians do it?”
“It’s not a bad way,” Rock said. “I’ll see you there.”
He drove back to the party at his uncle Krikor’s house, the big new house by the high school, and he began to drink and eat. One by one the members of the family got up and went home. He saw his sister and her husband and children go off on the two-hundred-mile drive back to San Francisco.
“We’ll be home around eleven,” Sark said. “Joe drives fast but he drives good.”
“What are you going to do, Rock?” his sister said.
“I’ll drive up soon,” Rock said.
“You take care of yourself now,” Vava said.
He drove to Fat Aram’s and drank there until the place closed, sitting alone. Then he drank with Fat Aram. At four in the morning he got up and had two cups of black coffee. Then he began to drive back to San Francisco, knowing the enormity of a man’s nonsense, knowing it mile after mile, and now, with one more of his girls gone, he felt himself falling into humorlessness, apathy, indifference, fat, and everything else that is not hard and good, but is also nonsense.
Every man is afraid and fearless. A man is a game fellow all his life, and never less than half scared to death. There is a good deal within a man by which to be unafraid of anything, and a good deal outside of him by which to have the fear of God thrown into him every instant. Outside is a woman who was for many years his wife. Outside is his son. Outside is his daughter. Outside is taxes. Outside is debts. Inside is only the wink.
One day Ann telephoned and said, “What are you doing?”
“What do you want?” Rock said.
“Money,” Ann said. “I owe rent for two months. The bills are piling up. I’ve got to have money.”
“I haven’t any,” Rock said.
“You’ve got to get some,” Ann said.
“You’re home,” Rock said. “Borrow some from your mother, or her husband, until I get some.”
“I can’t,” Ann said. “They won’t lend me any.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t want to pay for the upbringing of your kids.”
“Send the kids out here,” Rock said.
“I’ll never give up my kids,” Ann said.
“Well,” Rock said, “I haven’t any money and if your family won’t help, I don’t know what you’re going to do. I could sell the car, but it’s eight years old and I couldn’t get very much for it. It’s falling to pieces, too, but I’m fond of it. I’ll sell it if you want me to, though.”
“I’ve got to have money, that’s all,” Ann said.
“You need too much money for a girl who hasn’t got a dime of her own and can’t get more than the equivalent of a tip from her mother once in a while,” Rock said. “I’ll sell the car and send you the money.”
“If you haven’t got any money, what are you living on?” Ann said.
“I don’t need much,” Rock said. “I’ve got everything I need.”
“What about all those San Francisco society girls you’re entertaining all the time?” Ann said. “It’s in all the columns in New York. You’ve got to pay money to entertain them, don’t you?”
“I don’t know any society girls, except you,” Rock said. “You were a society girl, weren’t you? Café society or something like that? Or was it high society?”
“High,” Ann said. “The highest, from Second. Avenue to Park Avenue in one jump. What are you doing, Rock?”
“I’m learning to read Armenian,” Rock said. “The priest who buried my mother is helping me. I look at the papers that come every day.”
“The Armenian papers?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“I’m trying to write in Armenian.”
“Why don’t you try to write in Turkish?” Ann said.
“I don’t like the mother of my kids to be a smart aleck about Armenians and Turks,” Rock said. “They’re people who are pathetic enough without any help from anybody else.”
“What’s the matter with you, Rock?” Ann said. “Don’t you enjoy my jokes any more? You used to.”
“I’m tired of jokes,” Rock said. “You made me very tired of jokes, even good ones, Ann. You made a joke of my son and my daughter, and the others that were to have been born. You made a joke of love and marriage, of yourself and myself. I guess I’ve laughed as much as I’m ever going to about the joke you made of these things. I can’t laugh any more. I haven’t got any money, Ann. I’ve got taxes to pay for two years, and a lot of debts. I’ll sell the car and send you the money, though. Is there anything else?”
“Well, yes, there is,” Ann said. “The money from the car won’t be enough. You agreed to send a thousand dollars a month. A thousand isn’t enough, but I agreed to it. I’m trying to give the children a nice home and a good life. It would be monstrous if you didn’t send money for the support of your children.”
“I don’t have any money, Ann.”
“You could sell the house, couldn’t you?” Ann said.
“I thought I’d keep the house,” Rock said. “I built it for my mother. I don’t like the idea of selling it. Besides, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. It’s the only home I have.”
“Well, I’ve got to have money,” Ann said. “Where you get it or how you get it is your problem.”
“When I talked to your lawyer just before I left New York a month ago I had three thousand dollars,” Rock said. “I planned to go to work, but I had to spend the money, and the work I was going to do fell through. The production of the play was abandoned.”
“You could get work if you wanted to.”
“On a vineyard or tending bar maybe.”
“You know very well you could get work that pays big money if you wanted to,” Ann said.
“Is that so?” Rock said. “Where?”
“At your old studio. U.S. Pictures,” Ann said.
“How do you know?” Rock said.
“Oh, I just happened to find out,” Ann said. “I have friends in Hollywood. I happen to know Schwartz offered you a contract.”
“Do you happen to know the kind it was?” Rock said.
“Well, i
t’s not the best, but so what?” Ann said. “Who are you? Are you too good to take a test again? After all, you’ve been a bum for eight years. He’s got a right to find out if you’re worth anything, hasn’t he?”
“Is there anything else?” Rock said. “I have to pay for this call, and I don’t want them to take the phone out.”
“I happen to know he’ll give you a contract for a year at five hundred a week,” Ann said. “I could use that money.”
“I’ll sell the car, Ann, and send you the money,” Rock said.
“Aren’t you going to ask about the children?” Ann said.
“Is somebody there who knows something about them?” Rock said.
“I know all about the children,” Ann said. “I adore them, and they adore me. Sell the car and send me the money, though, if you don’t want to talk about your own children.”
“How are they?” Rock said.
“A lot you care,” Ann said.
“How’s Haig? How’s Lula?”
“If you cared for your children you’d send them money.”
“I’d like to talk to them, Ann, if I may, please.”
“They’re asleep and I’m not going to wake them up. Goodbye.”
He hung up, got in his car, and drove to the ocean. He went out to the edge of the water and stood there a half hour, listening to the sea, then drove home, trying to drive out of himself the fear of God that had been thrown into him about his children by their mother.
He drove to town the next day to sell his car, but before trying to do so, he went to Harry Klein’s and bet a thousand on the Yanks to beat the Red Sox, and they did. They did it in the bottom of the ninth, but they did it. His friend, the betting commissioner, counted out eight hundred and twenty dollars in currency, so Rock had at least a little money to send her, and he still had the car, too. He filled the car with groceries, enough for a month or two, kept a few dollars for himself, and sent Ann $750, asking her to please have the nurse drop him a word or two about the children every couple of weeks.
There was no word from the nurse, though, or from Ann, and then one night she telephoned again, reversing the charges, as she always did.
“What are you doing?” she said.
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