Mama said Hilly was about forty years old, but he had always looked young. Now a dusting of gray had stolen into his thick brown hair, turning him middle-aged.
His mother said, “Hillyard, dear, sit here in the green chair so Lark and Mrs. Erhardt don’t catch your cold.”
He sat, not looking directly at us but at his feet and hands, and at his mother who was pouring tea. It was as if we were strangers, and he was ill at ease. There was no sign of the guffawing, jigging friend who welcomed me with open-mouthed smiles and garbled greetings. There was only this old man I didn’t know who never laughed or said strange things. The saner he got, the sadder Hilly seemed to become.
“Can Hilly open my present now?” I asked Mrs. Stillman. “He can save Mama’s for Christmas.”
Mrs. Stillman looked at Hilly. “Would you like to open Lark’s present?”
He looked unsure.
“It’s all right,” his mother told him. “It’s all right to open one present before Christmas. Many people do that.”
His face lightened, and I fetched the book. The wrapping had not weathered the trip from home intact. Hilly had no difficulty removing the paper and ribbon.
“Can you read the card?” Mrs. Stillman asked. She crossed to the green chair and studied over Hilly’s shoulder the card I had made. Hilly opened it and stared at the greeting. “Can you read it?” his mother repeated.
Again he knitted his brows. His left hand played with the wrappings. He looked up at his mother and down at the homemade card lying on the book.
“What’s the first word?” Mrs. Stillman asked.
“‘Dear’?” He searched her face.
“That’s right. And the next?”
“‘Hilly.’”
“Very good. Can you read the rest?”
“‘I love you’?”
“And who is it from?”
“‘Lark Ann Er … Er …’”
“Erhardt.”
“‘Lark Ann Erhardt.’”
I was thunderstruck. He was getting his sanity back.
“Hillyard is doing very well, don’t you think?” his mother asked, looking at Mama and me.
“It’s wonderful, Hilly,” Mama told him.
Some small formality in the tone of Mama’s voice told me that she, too, felt that Hilly was an entirely different person than he had been months earlier.
Mrs. Stillman took the card and stood it up beside the Christmas tree. “That is a beautiful card. We will treasure it.”
Hilly studied the book in his hands, Stories for Rainy Afternoons printed across the top in heavy gold letters, Minerva Baldwin Arbuthnot spelled in smaller letters at the bottom, and in between, an illustration of a mother sitting in a wing chair beside a window, a boy and girl gathered on the floor beside her, listening to a story while outside, rain formed delicate, lacy streams down the window-panes. Hilly glanced up at me, then down at the book. He opened it and began turning the pages, not with the ardor I had envisioned but with mild curiosity, a desire to be polite, and a sort of perplexed ruefulness.
“What a thoughtful present,” Mrs. Stillman said. “You remembered how much Hillyard enjoyed the stories you read him. Now he can read stories, too.” She passed a plate of cookies and candy. “I’m afraid our tea has gotten cold. Let me add some warm.” Mrs. Stillman was chattering to cover Hilly’s perplexity over the book. “If you have the time, maybe Hillyard could read something from his new book to you, Lark. That would be a turnabout, wouldn’t it?” she tittered, and tipped the teapot up, pouring fresh tea into our cups.
Mrs. Stillman was unsettled by Hilly’s new condition, his gradual but evident return to reason. It was another enormous adjustment, and she was not young. She had grown used to Hilly’s derangement. Its attendant problems and embarrassments were familiar. But what would be the pitfalls of sanity, and how could she protect Hilly from them? The challenge for which she had prayed all these years had come too late in her life. These insights were not mine but Mama’s.
“We’ll have our tea and these delicious treats, and then maybe a little read from the book,” Mrs. Stillman suggested, wishing to make a complimentary fuss over the gift.
I had two pieces of candy, one fudge and one divinity, and a chocolate cookie. Mama had shot me a meaningful expression, but Mrs. Stillman had insisted. We sat sipping and munching for several minutes, our conversation desultory.
Mrs. Stillman asked me, “Are you ready for Santa?”
“I made a list, but I didn’t write the letter.”
“And what are you hoping for?”
“A red leatherette rocking chair, majorette boots, and a silver-colored baton. Also some books.”
“I’ll drop Santa a note and put in a good word for you.”
No one had done that before. Maybe Santa would bring the rocking chair after all.
When we had finished our tea, Mrs. Stillman said, “Shall we have a short reading?” She looked at Hilly.
Hilly got up, crossed the room, and gave me the book. Since I was the child present, he doubtless reasoned, it was appropriate for me to read the children’s book which he, strangely, had been given.
Mama checked her watch. “It’s getting late,” she pointed out. “Is there a very short piece?”
“There’s a poem at the beginning,” I said. “It’s called ‘For Ned, Then and Now’” I opened the book to the little rhymed dedication and read:
“For Ned, Then and Now
Then:
Neddy in the garden
And Neddy on the stairs,
Wrestling mohair crocodiles,
Trapping velvet bears.
Now:
Marching bravely into
The worldly thoroughfares,
Pray, shun the wily crocodiles,
Eschew the grizzly bears.”
“Eschew means to keep away from something,” I explained to Hilly. Mama and I had looked it up last night when we were glancing through Hilly’s gift. “Keep away from crocodiles and grizzly bears, Hilly,” I told him, giggling. Hilly’s gaze was level and serious, and I was embarrassed by my failed attempt at levity.
When Mrs. Stillman opened the door to see us out, there was snow piled in a downy drift on the landing and in mounded pillows on the steps leading to the street.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she cried. “Just like a Christmas card.”
Trouser legs flapping about his ankles, Hilly stood in the doorway, staring after us, trying to figure out what the evening had been about.
“Is it going to blizzard?” I asked as we tramped to the truck, our boots making the hollow, crunching sound of someone munching Grape-Nuts.
“I don’t think so.”
Mama fussed with the reluctant truck. Her right hand played with the choke and the starter, while her right foot skillfully worked the gas pedal. The engine coughed and caught, and Mama nursed it along until the clitter-clutter steadied and we joggled rhythmically in our seats. As she put the truck in gear, I asked, “Can we drive around town once?” The night was too perfect to abandon. It was the sort of night when you think you could lie in the snow until morning and never get cold.
“Hilly’s not my old friend anymore,” I told Mama as we passed St. Boniface.
“He’s not your old friend anymore. He’s your new friend.”
Her words didn’t buck me up as they were intended. I wanted the old Hilly back.
“Don’t be sad,” Mama said. “Santa is coming. In … nine days.”
She was right. Santa was coming. This year I was going to take a long nap the day before Christmas. When we came home from midnight Mass, I was going to stay up with the grown-ups until Santa came.
I was going to thank him for coming every year. There were very few things in life that didn’t change or break or grow up. I was grateful for Santa’s constancy.
36
FRIDAY AFTERNOON AFTER SCHOOL, Sally and Beverly and I trudged through dirty snow to my house to study catechism. When we were gathere
d around the kitchen table, half on and half off our chairs, and Mama had made us cocoa and cinnamon toast, Sally wanted to know, “What did you ask for, for Christmas?”
“Shoes,” Beverly answered, dipping toast into her cocoa and sucking the liquid out of the bread. “Shoes and a gun.”
“A gun?” Sally whispered, frightened by the word. It was a heavy, anxious word.
“So’s I can shoot my pa if he ever comes around,” Beverly explained matter-of-factly.
“Why?” I asked.
“He’s no good.”
“What did he do?” Sally wanted to know.
“Lots.”
“Like what?”
“Godsakes you’re nosy,” Beverly complained, but she continued. “He beat my ma.”
Papa had done that.
“And he burned Charlie with a cigarette on purpose when Charlie was crying.”
Papa had never done that.
“No,” Sally said, deeply shocked.
“He did too. And then Charlie couldn’t stop crying “cuz he was still wearing diapers so Pa burned him again.” A big chunk of toast fell into the cup, and she fished it out with her fingers and ate it, cocoa dribbling down her chin.
I was subdued and somewhat awed by Beverly’s feelings toward her papa. She was the first person I’d ever met who didn’t love both their parents.
“Don’t you want Santa to bring you any toys?” Sally asked her.
“Santa?” Beverly nearly choked on her toast. “You kidding me?”
Sally shook her head.
“Godsakes, you’re seven years old, ain’t you?”
“Don’t say ain’t, Beverly,” I reproved.
“Maybe I say ain’t, but I ain’t no baby. I leastways know there’s no Santa Claus,” she continued.
Sally and I stared at her.
“What do you mean?” I pressed.
“What I said. There ain’t no such person as Santa Claus. It’s just your folks that put the presents out. I’m sorry if you didn’t know that. I thought you was kidding me. How do you think one old man is going to fly all over the world,” she asked, spreading her arms to indicate the enormity of the task, “in one night?” She added, “And teach them dumb reindeers to fly?”
Sally flared, “You’re wrong, Beverly Ridza. And you’re stupid.”
“I may be stupid, but I ain’t wrong,” Beverly told her, taking another slice of toast and dunking it in her cocoa, which was already soupy with bits and pieces of bread.
“Santa doesn’t come to your house because you’re naughty and you swear all the time and say ain’t,” Sally parried wildly “Anybody knows he only comes to good children. And you don’t know your catechism, besides,” she added for good measure. “You’re going to hell.”
“Godsakes, if I’d known you was still babies, I wouldn’t of told you. Even Charlie knows about Santa Claus.”
Who else knew? Did everybody except me and Sally? I wondered, for I believed with absolute certainty from the moment Beverly had said, “Santa?” that she was in on the truth, and Sally and I had been living in a fool’s paradise. I pushed aside my toast and cocoa.
“If you don’t want yours,” Beverly told me, “I’ll take it. This is good toast and cocoa.”
Sally started to cry, quietly and without fuss. We didn’t have a bathroom she could go to, and Mama was in the living room talking on the phone with Bernice McGivern, so Sally got up from the table and walked into the bedroom. There was not even a door she could close. She stood just inside the bedroom doorway, nobly, her back to us, hands at her sides, like a tragic princess.
I picked up my Baltimore Catechism and pretended to read. Pretty soon Mama hung up the phone and came out in the kitchen. Right away she observed that Sally wasn’t with us, that she was standing in the bedroom.
“I’m sorry I was on the phone so long,” she said, fetching another chair from the living room and sitting down at the table. “Well, now, let’s see where we are. What’s the lesson?” she asked rhetorically, riffling through Sally’s catechism. “Here it is. Number Twenty-two: the Sacrament of Matrimony.”
“What’s matrimony?” Beverly asked.
“Marriage.”
“Oh. That.”
“I’ll make a flash card for matrimony,” Mama said.
“Don’t make a difference to me if I don’t remember that one,” Beverly told her.
Mama laughed hard. Beverly looked puzzled, then, slowly, pleased with herself, as if she’d told a successful joke. She glanced my way to be certain I’d noticed.
“Don’t you ever want to get married?” Mama asked Beverly.
“Godsakes, no.”
“You don’t ever want to have a baby?”
“They’re just trouble and they cost a lot of money.”
“What if your mama thought that?” Mama asked.
“She does.”
Mama studied the catechism page. “Lark, ‘Which are the effects of the Sacrament of Matrimony?’” she asked, reading from the book.
“The effects of the Sacrament of Matrimony are: first, to sanctify the love of husband and wife; second, to give them grace to bear with each other’s weaknesses; third, to enable them to bring up their children in the fear and love of God.” Papa had been right. God did want me to be afraid of Him.
Silently Sally stole back into the kitchen, slipping into her place at the table. Her cheeks were damp.
“Sally, ‘To receive the Sacrament of Matrimony worthily is it necessary to be in the state of grace?’” Mama asked as though Sally had been beside her throughout.
When Mama drove Beverly and Sally home, I unbuckled my shoes and climbed into the crib, cold and tired. Sitting at the kitchen table, reciting catechism, I had hardly been able to breathe, sadness squeezed me so hard.
What else was going to be a lie? I had believed in Santa Claus more than in God. I liked him better, too. Santa didn’t ask me to be afraid of him. Now it turned out he was pretend. Was God pretend as well?
I longed to believe that Beverly was lying, but I knew she wasn’t. Then I hoped that I was asleep and this was a dream, but I knew that was not true.
I jumped to my feet and kicked the sides of the crib. It rattled and shook as if it were going to fly apart. I kicked it some more.
37
THE PALL OF SANTA’S death lay over Christmas. And the appearance of the little red leatherette rocker under the tree at Grandma Browning’s only furnished me a child-size place to sit and rock and gaze wistfully backward at childhood and ignorance. If this was what it was like to be seven, I wanted to be five again and back in kindergarten. Those had been the days, the days of reindeer and elves.
In those days a gabbling, childlike Hilly understood me and was glad to see me. Although he was relatively coherent now, Hilly had little to talk about except, occasionally, something he’d seen in a magazine. Most of the time he was quiet. In 1918 he’d been hurled into a sea of shell-shock. In 1939 he was climbing out onto a tiny island of sanity, only to find himself again in a world of Huns.
I brought him our copies of Life when we were done reading them, but they disturbed him because of the many stories about the war in Europe. He burst into tears one day in February at the sight of Swedish aviators preparing to climb into their planes.
As winter dragged into spring, we heard increasing news on the radio and in the newspaper about the war. Men argued around Navarin’s Sinclair station about whether we would get into the fighting. They were pretty evenly divided yes and no. Mama said the Germans in Harvester were snappish when asked about yet another war begun by their people. “We didn’t invent Mr. Hitler,” they said. “We’re Americans.” But there were those in town who called them goose-steppers and krauts behind their backs.
Our last name was German, but no one ever directed any comments to me or, so far as I knew, to Mama or Papa, maybe because Papa was so outspokenly anti-German. When he dropped into Navarin’s station, which he often did in the evenings before Mr
. Navarin closed up and before the freight came through, he talked war with Mr. Navarin and Sonny Steen and Axel Nelson and whoever was hanging around.
“If it wasn’t for my bad leg,” Papa told them, “I wouldn’t mind bein’ over there, carrying a gun against the Heinies. We’re gonna fight ’em later. Might as well fight ’em sooner and get it over with.”
I thought about the Witch, Ilsa Kraus, in Morgan Lake. Were people calling her a Heinie? I wondered if she ever heard from Uncle Stan, who was working in Hollywood?
At Christmas he had called Aunt Betty long-distance and told her it wouldn’t be long before he had the money to send for her and set up housekeeping. It had taken more time than he’d expected because the car had broken down and cost him a good deal of money. It was necessary to have a car in California, he assured her.
Aunt Betty had worked as temporary Christmas help at the Ben Franklin Five and Dime in Blue Lake, and after Christmas the owner, a Mr. Miller, had asked her to stay on. She hadn’t told Uncle Stan about this development, as she was determined to save her wages for the fare to California, turning up in Hollywood one day to surprise the socks off Uncle Stan.
I loved to imagine it: Uncle Stan, after work, returning to Cousin Lloyd’s house from the movie studio and sitting on the front steps. Pulling off his shoes because his feet hurt from standing all day, he’d sit in his stocking feet, smoking a Lucky Strike. Up the street, carrying her grip and looking very smart, would march Aunt Betty, jaunty and tickled, anticipating Uncle Stan’s surprise. Then, glancing up and spotting her, he would smack his forehead and holler, his socks flying right off his feet and landing in a banana tree.
I wondered if Aunt Betty would leave before I had my first communion in May. As the cold spring sun melted the snow and the chill breeze dried the runoff, the countryside emerged brown and gray. This was the only season I didn’t like. It was as though winter and spring fought over Minnesota. The sun shone weakly but determinedly; the cold wind blew kitty-corner down across the Dakotas. For two or three weeks you stopped believing in spring altogether. The year was stuck in the slowly drying mud.
The Cape Ann Page 27