Lilith

by J. R. Salamanca

  Perhaps it was this. Or perhaps it was the fact that the warrior whom our town commemorated and for whom I felt such reverence was a Rebel, disarmed, defeated, and eternally, magnificently defiant. I have never known, really. That bronze statue was one of the chief poems of my youth and, like all poems, full of mystery.

  All of these emotions and speculations were made peculiarly relevant by my grandfather’s conversation on that evening. He strolled with his arms clasped behind him in the small of his back in a habitual European manner, his cane held between them, straight up and down his back like a poker, removing it occasionally to touch the brim of his Panama hat with its gold head in salute to an acquaintance or to point out to me some object about which he held an unusual or amusing scrap of information.

  “Look at that bird, Sonny, on the lawn there. It has golden eyes, do you see? That’s a Brewer’s Blackbird. It’s the only blackbird that has golden eyes.”

  “Yes, sir. That certainly is interesting.”

  My grandfather was an inveterate reader of encyclopedias; he had very little formal education and, like many such men, a passion for miscellanea, which he innocently expected others to construe as erudition. One of his most touching pretensions was to illustrate, every time we went walking together, the universality of his interests and learning by delivering a constant stream of lore on every possible topic of art or science which might be represented on the way.

  “Do you see those columns, on the courthouse? They’re Doric. Doric columns always have acacia leaves at the top; that’s called the lintel.” (His acquaintance with many subjects was as imperfect as it was unfailingly enthusiastic.)

  “Where does it get the name, Grandpa?” I asked, indulging his authority.

  “Doric. Why, that’s taken from the people who first designed them: the Dorians. A Middle Eastern people.” He paused for a moment with a look of some disconcertion, having apparently exhausted his information on the subject, and then went on with a marvelous imposture of benignity, “I’d like to go into it further with you, Sonny, but I really prefer that you look it up for yourself. A thing that’s looked up like that, out of genuine interest, is never forgotten. Never.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Although he had managed to meet the occasion with this splendid piece of improvisation, I felt that I had caused him some embarrassment, and resolved to limit my responses in the future to a murmur of pleasurable enlightenment. We walked on through the quiet dusk, watching the golden twilight flooding the widow’s-walks and wind vanes of the tall old wooden houses and glittering on the attic windows. Anyone who loves small towns as I do (I would have a world of small towns if I could) will understand the strange, sweet melancholy that falls upon them in the evening when the elms are still, the long shadows dying on the lawns, the porches vacant and the stir of supper not yet started in the kitchen windows. Oppressed by the gentle sadness of this atmosphere and my sudden somber awareness of the world’s vast incumbency, I fell into silence as we walked. After a while my grandfather said, “Have you something on your mind, Sonny?”

  “Oh. No, sir. I was just thinking about that soldier, mostly, I guess.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s in the air.”

  We had come abreast of Poplar Lodge, and my grandfather nodded at the great dark slope of mansard roof behind the spruce and poplars of the drive.

  “Fine old place,” he said. “Most beautiful old house in town. There’s a bit of irony in that, Sonny, if you want to look for it.”

  “Yes, sir, I guess there is.”

  I looked in at the quiet darkening grounds as we walked past and felt blow across my heart a breath of the mysterious delight which had possessed me, only a week or two before, when I had looked across the barberry hedge into the eyes of the graceful, haunting creature who stood laughing at me from the shadow of the willows.

  “I wonder what they’re doing in there right now?” I said musingly.

  “Dreaming their poor, mad dreams,” my grandfather said. “Poor souls. Lost souls.”

  We walked on to the end of the avenue and at the edge of the town stood looking out across the blue, rolling hills of the Upper County. There were lights on in the distant barns for milking, and shadowy herds of Holsteins standing mournfully at pasture gates.

  “It’s a beautiful country,” my grandfather said. “A chosen land. But it’s changing, Sonny. All those cigar-box suburbs creeping out from Washington. They’re a blight on the face of the earth.” He tapped a fallen log beside the road with his cane and said, “Let’s sit down here, Lad, till I get the gimp out of my leg.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He sat with his hands resting on the head of his cane and his chin on the backs of them, staring at the fading landscape while he spoke mildly:

  “When I first came to this town, forty years ago, people resented me. They used to write things on my shop window sometimes with soap—ugly things. They were suspicious and hostile. They had a right to be. Now I feel the same way about newcomers—can’t stand them. We have a right to feel that way—to resent the strangers, the unknown, unproven people. It’s part of human nature; no use denying it.” He turned to regard me solemnly. “Nothing has any value unless it’s hard earned. Friendship, wealth, fame. Nothing.”

  “No, sir.”

  He nodded, looking into my eyes intently, and laid his hand on my knee.

  “Your Grandma and I love you very much,” he said. “You know that, don’t you, Sonny?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I want to say that at the outset, so you won’t be offended by what I have to say. We’ve watched you grow up, Vincent my boy, from the day you were born. You’ve been like a son to us, and we love you. We’ve seen you grow into a fine, strong, honest lad. We know all your good points, and we thank God for them; but we’d not be doing our duty if we didn’t point out your faults now and again, too—as we see them. We’ve all got faults, you know.”

  “Yes, sir,” I murmured.

  “Now, I’ll tell you how I’ve always thought about you, Vincent: as a sort of knight without a cause. You’ve got great capabilities, Sonny; you’ve got intelligence and imagination, and those are the things that make men a success in all the higher pursuits of life. But they’ve got to be harnessed to something. Intelligence and imagination, unless they’re harnessed to a fine and useful cause, can come to very sad ends, believe me. I’ve seen it happen, my boy.” I knew, from the thoughtful sadness with which he said the words, that he was thinking of my father, and I felt the quick faint throe of mingled regret and shame which always accompanied his memory.

  “Life is a complicated business, at the best of times,” he went on; and, as if to illustrate the fact, he lifted one hand and regarded the back of it earnestly while he flexed his fingers, studying all the intricate movements of bone and muscle and scowling softly, as if chagrined at its complexity. “And you’ve been born into especially difficult ones, Sonny. These are hard days for a man to settle his mind and plan a life for himself; but it’s something every man must do. Now, we’ve never had a really determined talk about your future, and I think it’s time we did. You’re out of high school now, and you must be thinking about it seriously.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  “Well, these are very competitive days, Sonny; you realize that, I’m sure. It used to be possible, forty years ago, for a man to make his own way with no education but what he’d given himself, as I did. But not any more. Today there are half a dozen young fellows with college degrees waiting for every opening. A man must be educated or he hasn’t a chance. And he must have the other things he gets from college, too: the associations he makes, the ability to deal with people easily and confidently, like an equal. The whole background.”

  “Yes, sir, those are very important things. I realize that.”

  “Well now, I’m not a rich man, as you know, Vincent; but those are advantages I want you to have, Lad. It’s a thing I’ve always hoped to be able
to do—send you to college and give you a decent start in life. I haven’t spoken of it before because I’ve never been sure, until now, that I’d be able to afford it, and I didn’t want to disappoint you. But I think now—with careful managing, and a lot of hard effort on your part—I think I can manage it.” He nodded, smiling with pride, and grasped my knee, giving it a vigorous, cordial shake. I was truly awed with gratitude, and felt a warm flood of affection for him.

  “That certainly is nice of you, Grandpa,” I said. “I don’t know how to thank you, sir.”

  “It’s no more than I want to do, Lad. I wouldn’t want it said that any flesh of mine had gone down in the struggle without making his mark. It means a lot to me, Lad—your success.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He watched my eyes intently for a moment and then, as if reassured of the genuineness of my enthusiasm, nodded slightly and turned his head, lifting his hand and pinching together the center of his lower lip in a reflective way.

  “Now, there’s only one thing that troubles me, Lad; and I feel I must speak of it. It’s this . . . aimlessness of yours, Sonny; this lack of purpose that I’ve spoken of. I wonder if you’re really ready to take advantage of a college education yet. I wonder if you shouldn’t be a bit more mature first—a bit more sober in your mind. I’d hate to think of you frittering away all those years and coming out of it no better off than you went in, or even flunking out, perhaps, and making a disgrace of yourself.”

  “I don’t know, sir; maybe so.”

  “It’s a thing to consider, Vincent. Now, it just occurred to me—I know you won’t be offended at my mentioning it—that a period of service of some kind—like the army, say—hard, useful, disciplined service, might give you a greater sense of reality, of purpose about life. I think you might be better prepared to buckle down and get the most out of your education afterwards.” He paused for a moment and watched me silently, as if to determine the success of this suggestion. “You said just now you’d been thinking about the soldier back there: the monument. Well, I don’t know what you had in mind, Lad; but it occurred to me you might be considering something of the kind yourself.”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir.” As he did not answer, I added in a moment, “I’ll probably be drafted pretty soon, anyway.”

  “Ah, that’s it exactly,” he said with fresh enthusiasm. “If you were to start college now you’d have your work interrupted, at any rate, and it would be all that much harder to take it up again afterwards. There’d be such a lot you would have forgotten. Now, if you’ve got it to do anyway, mightn’t it be better to enlist and get it over with? There’s so much more honor in it that way, Lad.” His voice dropped slightly and took on a hushed and intense quality. “Think of the source of pride it would be to you, Sonny—to all of us. I don’t mind telling you, Lad, it would mean a great deal to me to have my own grandson—my own flesh and blood—one of the first to enlist in the service of his country. That’s something a man could talk about with pride. Something to make him walk with his head up, I can tell you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He laid his hand on my knee and went on in the same urgent way. “Life isn’t all pleasure and dreams, you know, Lad. And it isn’t all taking, either—not by a long shot. We have to pay our way, you know. We have obligations—to our country, our family—every step of the way. There are duties we have to face and debts we have to pay.” I nodded, feeling increasingly uncomfortable and, for some reason, ashamed. He removed his hand and, as if somewhat chastened by his own intensity, went on more mildly. “Then, too, there’s the business of finding yourself, as I say. There’s nothing that gives a man such a feeling of belonging to things—to his time, his country, his fellow men—as serving them, bravely and unselfishly.”

  “Yes, sir, I think that’s very true.”

  “Well, then, we’ll say no more about it, for the time. It’s a thing you’ll want to think over, at any rate, Lad. P’raps in a day or two we can have a chat about it.”

  But I did not need so long. After dinner that evening (at which I had been very silent), I followed him into the parlor and stood for a moment beside his armchair. He held a folded newspaper in one hand and was leaning forward over a military map of Europe which was spread out on the hassock in front of him. From the day’s dispatches he was marking very meticulously with a red pencil the current positions of the opposed forces. When he raised his head inquiringly I said. “I’m going to join the army, Grandpa.” He looked into my eyes with a growingly humble gaze and then lowered his head suddenly and turned his face away from me. “Will you tell Grandma for me? I just don’t like to.” He nodded. “Good night,” I said and turned toward the stairs.

  When I had reached them he called brokenly, “Just a minute, Sonny.” I stood with my hand on the newel post, watching him rise and come toward me, all the muscles of his face slackened in a quivering and ruinous look of great emotion and his eyes streaming behind his steel-rimmed glasses. “I just want to tell you that this is the proudest moment of my life, Lad,” he said, and put his large hands on my shoulders, drawing me against his chest; but I could not return his embrace. I stood stiffly, staring beyond him at the framed coat-of-arms above the sofa while he clutched my shoulders.

  It was a beautiful summer night, and I sat for a short while by the open window of my bedroom, staring out at the moonlit roofs of the town, before I went to bed. A slanted square of yellow light lay on the mown grass of the back yard, and I could see my grandmother’s plump shadow washing dishes in the kitchen window. It was joined in a moment by the shadow of my grandfather, and the two dark figures for a moment faced each other in an oddly formal way, framed in the square of light like an old-fashioned paper silhouette, and then were suddenly merged as my grandmother moved into his arms, her own form losing all of its identity in his. There was something strangely passionate and sordid about this mime of shadows—in the way my grandfather’s image extended its dark arms in a swift voracious gesture of affection, enfolding and seeming to consume that of my grandmother, becoming transformed, as it did so, into one great bloated shape, as if gorged on the victim of its tenderness. I left the window and lay down on the bed without removing my clothes, staring up at the ceiling for a long while and breaking at last into violent stifled sobs as I felt sweep over me in a vast, empty, almost annihilating tide the greatest loneliness I have ever known.

  So it was that I came to stand that morning, a few days later, on the platform of our railway station, where my grandparents and Laura, with her box lunch, waited to see me off. I shook hands with my grandfather and he stood smiling and nodding at me through his tears, his lips compressed in an effort to control his feeling. I saw with a clarity that I had never known before the aged roundness of his shoulders and the sagging gray flesh of his jowls; he seemed suddenly piteous to me, and I felt a strange and generous elation, as if all that he had said to me on the evening of our walk were transcended by the fineness of the act that had proceeded from it. I felt for a moment truly glad to be going away to war, convinced of my own valor and full of a glowing sense of chivalry which shed upon the world and all of its events a warm, apocalyptic light of beauty and benevolence. My grandmother embraced me tremulously—a warm little woman who smelled of wax and soap and the great cool kitchen of the house where I was raised—murmuring, “God bless you, Sonny,” while I patted her plump rounded back. I held Laura’s hand for a moment, looking smilingly into her eyes, and went away to war.

  THIS is the last picture of my childhood. Of the war, which follows, I shall say little, for all this which occurs before my return to Stonemont is, in a certain sense, a prelude; and feeling that both my time and determination for the telling of this story are limited, I must hurry on to what is perhaps more properly its beginning.