I Come as a Theif

by Louis Auchincloss

  “The police may have betrayed him, Philip.”

  Philip turned to Susan with a face pinched with exasperation. “Can favoritism go further?” he cried. “All my life I’m made to play second fiddle to Tony, and even now that he’s a crook, he’s still a hero.”

  “Well, I think he is a hero,” Susan snapped, hurrying to repudiate her would-be ally. “I think he’s a hero in the way he’s taken the whole thing. He has given us all an unforgettable example of how to behave in adversity.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t go in for that kind of cant,” Philip sneered. “And I fail to see how you and Mother survive with your heads in that cloud of goo. If Tony’s a hero, it’s because he’s been honest. Because he’s dared to take a calculated risk for his own advancement. Oh, sure, he lost. In his game you’ve got to win. Now all the hypocrites and bureaucrats can point the finger of shame at him. But not his kid brother. I recognize the honest man in the striped suit. The only suit an honest man can wear in our putrid society.”

  “Oh, Philip, shut up!” his mother exclaimed indignantly. “Everything you say is just for effect.”

  Lee saw that they had all been exhilarated by Tony’s fate. Their lives resembled some drought-stricken land, with dried-up creeks and empty ponds, with acres of cracked, hard mud under a darkening sky torn by intermittent rumbles of an ineffective thunder. And then, at last, the rain so long and vainly promised had come in the form of Tony’s crime and punishment and had drenched the countryside and filled all the cracks and crannies with its life-reviving deluge. Dorothy, Philip and Susan had rim out of the caves of their boredom and now raised their bare arms to the tempest, giggling and crying and splashing themselves.

  Lee rose to go. “I’m glad you’re all sticking by Tony,” she said in a flat voice. “It will make it easier if I decide to divorce him.”

  “Lee!” Dorothy shrieked. “You can’t!”

  “Oh, why do you pretend to care, Mrs. Lowder? You’ll have him all to yourself. He can live with you when he gets out.”

  “Lee, that’s a rotten thing to say to Mother!” Susan exclaimed with sudden filial fervor.

  “Oh, can’t you all see I don’t care!” Lee strode past the three of them, silent now before her unexpected violence, to speak to her father-in-law. He looked up at her with a vacant smile.

  “Tony and Phil are just alike,” he said in a reedy voice. “And just like their maternal grandfather.”

  “And you,” Lee whispered in a sudden fit of disgust, “are the worst of all!”

  But she was not to escape so easily. Despite her rebuff Dorothy Lowder followed her daughter-in-law doggedly out to the hall and pleaded with her to come into her bedroom for a private talk.

  “Oh, Lee, they all hate me,” she wailed, as soon as they were alone there. “Everyone but Tony detests me. You do. Oh, don’t deny it! You always have. Why shouldn’t you? What have I done to make you feel otherwise? But, don’t you see, one can be a selfish, self-centered, obstinate old woman with nothing ahead but the grave and still want to be something better? Philip is so awful. He thinks anyone’s a fool who tries to be better than they are. He sneers and jeers and thinks there’s some kind of virtue in that. But where has it got him? And who is he to be so sure there’s no place to get? Why should I be more convinced by Philip than by what I think myself?”

  As Lee took in the ravaged look of those haunted pale eyes, she wondered if she could take on this problem, too. “But there’s no reason,” she assured Dorothy in a kinder tone. “No reason at all. Phil is a terrible ass. Everyone knows that.”

  “He is, isn’t he?” Dorothy agreed eagerly, as if her second son had received a compliment. “Sometimes I think he and Susan are actually afraid I might have some satisfaction in life that I don’t deserve.”

  “Don’t deserve?”

  “Well, they blame me, of course, because they’re not happy. They don’t want me to be happy, either. It’s only natural. And, God knows, I haven’t been happy. But there’s no reason I shouldn’t find something in life, is there?”

  “Like what?” Lee wondered if Mrs. Lowder, for once, might not actually be trying to communicate a thought rather than an emotion.

  “Like peace of mind. Or hope. Or faith.”

  “Faith?”

  “Faith in God.” The big worried eyes rolled and blinked and seemed not to see Lee. “Faith in God who punished my son for what he did and made him do what he’s now doing.”

  Lee stared fixedly at her mother-in-law as she felt herself chilly all over. For Dorothy Lowder seemed to have forgotten that she was talking to her son’s wife. She was completely obsessed with herself and her own problems, as usual, but there was now a marked difference. She was no longer interested in Lee’s approval or pity, nor in the impression, good or bad, that she made on her. She was still taken up with Dorothy Lowder, of course, but now she was taken up with Dorothy Lowder and God. Even with Dorothy Lowder, a handful of dust, and God.

  “Tony told you that?”

  “Of course, he told me that. Just the way he told you that.” Dorothy seemed suddenly peevish. “He came to see me the day before his trial started. Oh, he didn’t put it that way, no. But that’s the way it came across to me. Of course, you don’t believe a word of it.”

  “But I can believe that you do.”

  “Can you?” Dorothy looked the least bit hopeful. “Can you, Lee? Without thinking me a fool?”

  “Oh, I promise you, Mrs. Lowder, I don’t think you’re a fool!”

  And because she thought she was going to weep, she gave her mother-in-law a quick peck on the cheek. But out on the pavement of Central Park West she recovered herself and laughed bitterly at the thought that Mrs. Lowder, as usual, had managed to have the last word.

  3

  Tony must have heard the telephone several seconds before he awoke. In his dream there had been a battle, a battle that had been somehow glorious. He had been a newcomer to the high command, an officer of strange insignia, possessed of a mystic authority, a visored knight from some dark, exotic kingdom. But his advice had been listened to and his direction followed, and, the day won, the triumphant armies had acclaimed him, raising their shields and shouting. Why had he returned alone at night to the dark and windy battlefield to hear the shrieks of the dying, shrieks that turned the distant cries of victors into squeals over a won parlor game, shrieks that claimed the only reality for themselves and that grew louder and louder until they fused at last into a single deafening roar?

  Tony switched on the light by his bed and stared in dazed alarm at the telephone. It seemed a living, threatening thing. Then his thoughts coalesced, and he picked up the receiver. As soon as he had half-whispered “Hello” he heard Lee’s voice screeching at him.

  “He’s blind! Does that satisfy you? He’s blind for life. Is that part of your crazy scheme?”

  “Lee, Lee! Who’s blind?”

  “Eric, damn you!”

  “Lee!”

  Eric, poor, earnest, desperate, pedagogic Eric! Eric blind! What kind of madness was she talking? A huge picture of Eric sitting helpless, an open, unseen book in his lap, unrolled in blinding white over his mind. Tony found that he was standing in the middle of the bedroom. Another voice was speaking from the instrument that was still in his hand.

  “Tony, this is Pieter Bogardus. Can you hear me? Lee is hysterical. Eric is going to be all right, but he may lose the sight of one eye.”

  “God! What happened?”

  “He was struck on his way to the post office by a hit-and-run driver. He busted his wrist and two ribs and had a concussion. But the eye is the only dangerous thing. The left eye.”

  “Ill be right there. Where are you?”

  “No, Tony, we don’t want you. Eric is in a good hospital. He’s getting the best of care. You can depend on me to see to that. Your being here would only make Lee worse, and it might increase the boy’s danger. Right now he’s got maximum police protection.”

  “
Oh, you think…?”

  “Of course, I think.”

  “Did anyone see the car?”

  “They think it may have been a station wagon with some hippie types that was seen earlier, going very fast. But no doubt the Mafia can choose its mask.”

  Tony paused and listened to his heart beat in the silence. Then his mind became very clear. He saw that his father-in-law and Lee wanted it to be the Mafia. It helped them to hate him more.

  “Is Eric conscious?”

  “Just now he’s sleeping.”

  “You’ve got to let me come.”

  “Tony, I know what I’m doing. You couldn’t find us if you tried, and if you try, the police will pick you up. I give you my word that you will have a detailed report on Eric once a day. The next one will be tomorrow night at eight. Goodbye.”

  As Tony placed the receiver back in its cradle, the bell instantly rang again. It was Jack Eldon.

  “I’m so sorry, Tony. My God, you must be going through hell.”

  “Do you think it was one of Lassatta’s men?”

  “I don’t, but I suppose we can’t be sure.”

  “You needn’t worry. It will make no difference in my testimony.”

  “Oh, Tony, I didn’t mean it that way.” There was a pause in which Tony felt that a question was being framed. “Look, Tony, come on around, will you? Judith and I are both up, and we’d love to give you a drink. Don’t be alone at a time like this.”

  To his own surprise, Tony heard himself accept.

  As he walked, in a slow, dazed manner, the few blocks to the Eldons’ apartment at Park Avenue, he wondered if he would ever be able to come to terms with this new agony. All his mind seemed lit up, like a drab empty auditorium suddenly illuminated at night by the same glaring image of Eric on an infinite screen. But there was nobody in that hall, not even Tony. The web of events that had emerged from the spiders stomach of his bribery had encompassed everybody and nobody. There was nothing as petty as fault. Tony stopped suddenly and moaned aloud in his pain. Something moved beside him, something he had startled. He whirled around and stared into the face of a black youth who had crept up behind him. Tony sprang at him in a sudden passion of excitement, but the man fled away. It was just as well. If ever he could have killed with pleasure, killed with his bare hands, it was then. The mugger had become in a flash the handy symbol of all the evil in the world.

  He stood at the deserted corner for several minutes, panting, yearning for another assailant. His clenched fists tingled with the need to make physical contact with an enemy. And then, as nobody came, he recovered himself and walked on.

  Judith Eldon was more tactful than he would have thought possible. She made no pretense of not having been to bed, for unlike Jack, who had dressed, she was in her nightgown and robe. She produced hot coffee and drinks and then left the two men alone in the library. Tony gulped down two Scotches without a word and contemplated the near empty decanter.

  “There’s plenty left where that came from,” his host said.

  “Oh, two will do me.” Looking at Jack’s baffled, curious, embarrassed eyes, Tony felt again the impulse of affection. Jack, he thought, was the only friend he had left, the only friend he wanted. The others, all ante-trial, belonged to a lost world. “The last time I was in this room you told me that you couldn’t understand my motives. Well, let me tell you something. When Max Leonard confessed, I was about to go to your office to do the same thing. He got in ahead of me and deprived me of all my glory.”

  Jack jumped up in surprise. “So that’s the answer! I knew there was something.”

  “Oh, I was going to be great. I was filled with phony exultation. But life is so damned honest. Just give it a little time and it’s sure to puncture your balloon. And so I had to come into court as a nabbed crook. It was better.”

  “Why, Tony? Why was it better?”

  “Because I was better able to face the rottenness in myself when there was no mitigation. It was a wholesome, chastening experience. But it wore off. In a couple of months I was back at my old self-deluding tricks again. Oh, yes, Jack!” Tony threw back his head and laughed bitterly. “When I thought it might have been one of Lassatta’s men that had struck at my poor boy’s eye, there was a kind of fierce ecstasy in the very agony of it. Like what a martyr feels when the first flames begin to lick at his legs!”

  “But you have all the martyr’s pain, God knows!” Jack protested. “Don’t make it worse for yourself, man.”

  “I have the pain, yes, but ridiculously. My boy is hurt by some crazy hippies, which has nothing to do with Tony Lowder, who wants to turn the whole universe into his own trial. Oh, I tell you, Jack, there is some crazy plot in the skies to make me humble.” Tony got up and went to the mantel and stared at his own wild eyes in the mirror. “Well, I’m humble enough now, ye powers!” he cried. “I can never be humbler than this.”

  Jack seemed undecided whether to offer him another drink. Taking in his bewilderment in the mirror Tony turned back to him with a smile. “I’m not crazy, Jack. Don’t worry.”

  “But I don’t see why it’s so important to be humble,” Jack insisted. “You seemed quite humble enough to me from the beginning.”

  “Ah, but you don’t know my heresies. After I rejected God, I had to take over his role. I became my own demiurge, creating my own smaller universe. I had to be my mother and be my father and be my wife. I even had to be my mistress, God help me. I had to suffer their sufferings. I had to live everybody’s life but my own. Well, the powers above didn’t like that. So they threw a thunderbolt!”

  Jack put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “I should say they’d thrown the whole arsenal. But we still have to be in court tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “Today rather. In exactly six hours. You’d better stay here. I’ll give you something that’ll make you sleep.”

  Tony shrugged and followed his host to the guest room. He had reached the point where the only sane thing was to lose consciousness.

  4

  Joan Conway was lying on her side, huddled up, looking very small in the big canopied royal French bed. She did not move when Lee sat down, as close to her as she could, but their eyes met. Joan’s seemed large, for her face was thin and pathetically wasted, but they did not appear to take Lee in. She seemed detached, perhaps even bored.

  “I wish I found you better,” Lee began conventionally.

  “Let’s not waste time on that,” Joan said in a surprisingly strong voice. “They’ve given me something, and I’m fine for the moment, but it doesn’t last long.” She closed her eyes, and after a moment Lee wondered if she had fallen asleep. She looked almost comfortable. Then she opened them. “How’s Tony?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “That’s wrong, you know.”

  “Don’t you think my place has been with Eric?”

  “Does Eric think so?”

  This was so shrewd a thrust that Lee was taken aback. She was about to confess that Eric had indeed wanted her to go to Tony when she saw that Joan seemed unconscious again. So she sat and waited and thought of Eric as he had looked that morning, sitting up in the hospital bed that she had brought back to their cottage, one eye concealed under a huge bandage, the other peering bleakly at her. He had become more his old self since the accident, less brooding. But at the same time he seemed resentfully to suspect that she was planning to dedicate her life to becoming his other eye. Eric wanted to get on with the ordinary business of living. He had no time for such exhilarations.

  “Will you see Daddy in New York?” he had asked.

  “I hadn’t planned to. I’m going in to see Mrs. Conway.”

  Eric had ignored Mrs. Conway. “Don’t you think you should?”

  “I have some things to work out in myself first.”

  “You make too much of my eye, Mummie. It wasn’t Daddy’s fault. And, anyway, they say I’ll have partial vision in it. The thing is that we’ve had enough emotion in this whole business. I’ve h
ated Daddy, too. We can’t go on hating him forever.”

  “Eric, there are things about women you can’t understand yet. Your father hurt me terribly.”

  “You mean women don’t have to forgive?”

  But Lee had not wanted to release her anger. She had not wanted to give up this new occupation of the heart. She had not wanted to share Eric with the man who had let this happen to his son. She had locked the door of herself against Tony and redecorated the interior. It was too early, too trivial, to fling down the bars and cry “all is forgiven!”

  She saw now that Joan was looking at her again, and she was ashamed of her preoccupation in the presence of death.

  “Why is everyone on Tony’s side?” she complained to Joan. “If you heard his mother go on about him, you’d think he was a saint.”

  “Perhaps he is.”

  “It’s funny you should both think that. I can’t imagine two more different women than you and Mrs. Lowder.”

  “We may have things in common you don’t suspect. Desperation, for example. I doubt that Mrs. Lowder ever really believed in anything, not even Tony. I know I didn’t.”

  “Joan, that’s absurd! You always believed in all kinds of things: in yourself, in your looks, in your pictures, in your wonderful parties.”

  “But those were all false gods. Isn’t that a classic truth? They fell to bits the moment I got cancer. That was the time when Mother Lowder and I became spiritual twins. When we were down. Bereft. Shorn. It’s easier for people like us to be converted than people like you.”

  “People like me!” Lee exclaimed in surprise. “What kind of people are people like me?”

  “People who still have false gods.”

  “And what are mine?”

  “Tony. Or your ideal of Tony. Or love.” Joan pronounced the word with a mocking emphasis that must have tired her, for she closed her eyes again. Lee, again waiting, found herself struck by the implications of Joan’s idea. For who had encouraged her resentment of Tony’s behavior more than her father and who had more false gods than he? When she thought of the mantelpiece of his mind, it seemed crowded to the choking point with little waxen lares and penates.