The Moment of Tenderness

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Jamie Hooper comes to help me after he’s finished with chores. It really takes a man. And Ted comes in at least twice a week.”

  “Ted?”

  “Ted Orthos. The doctor.”

  “Miss Tilly!” Daphne called from the kitchen.

  When Matilda was out of earshot, Mother fumbled for her coffee cup, almost overturning it with groping fingers. “Ted Orthos’s coat is the only comfort Tilly has.”

  I had noticed the man’s coat over Tilly’s shoulders—when? Only an hour ago, maybe less than an hour.

  Mother sipped her coffee, slowly, as though she was thinking: then, “Tilly needs someone to love.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Those who can’t love without devouring are better off without. Ted needs loving.”

  “Why don’t they marry?”

  “Ted has a wife. I wouldn’t mind her looking like a codfish if she didn’t feel like a codfish as well. Ted’s coat is cold comfort, but it’s something. It’s a promise.”

  “Of what?”

  “That there is love in the universe. Please eat my muffin, Martin.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then dispose of it. Tilly will fuss.”

  Matilda had come in silently, deliberately silently, I thought, so that Mother, who couldn’t see her, would neither hear. She said, “Yes, indeed, Tilly will fuss. You don’t have any right to starve yourself, Mother.”

  “Why not? It’s all I have left. The right to choose not to eat.”

  “That’s suicide.”

  “There’s a great deal of blubber left for my body to feed on. I wish I could think of a quicker way.”

  “It’s taking life,” Matilda said, “into your own hands.”

  “I wish I knew what life is. Then I might understand the yes and no of taking it.”

  Matilda picked up a coffee cup and held it for a moment to steady her trembling lips. “We don’t know what life is, Mother. We don’t. So we have no right to take it.”

  “Why don’t you sell the dining room set?” Mother suggested. “It’s back in style and we won’t use it again. You could get some more help in with the money, Tilly. You need to get away. I made Tilly cable you, Martin. Helen’s no help. You were always fond of Tilly. Can’t you see what this is doing to her?”

  “It’s all right, Mother,” Tilly said. “I don’t mind.”

  She didn’t mind. I really believe she didn’t. I did. I went back to the kitchen. The smell. Where the hell was Lily to clean things up? A cat was squatting in the ancient box. Daphne had my father’s trousers down and was cleaning him with a wet cloth. Her warm smile came again. “We’d do anything for Miss Tilly, Grace and Lily and me. Sometimes when Gramps and Granny are asleep, we have such good talks. In spite of everything she has on her mind, she always listens to us. The other kids, too. They like to drop in of an evening. There aren’t many older people who remember what it was like to be our age. Miss Tilly says it’s what she has left that nobody can take away from her—remembering. She’s told us lots about Gramps and Granny, the way they used to be. Not so much lately, since they’ve been so much worse. She needs a vacation, Miss Tilly does.” Daphne had tidied Father up and he was back in his chair, snoring lightly. So the good memories were being taken away from Tilly. That as well as everything else.

  And from me. I had always thought that when people kept on working they didn’t become senile. Stokowski. Stravinski. Scarlatti. Maybe only people who begin with an S and end with an i.

  Mother, no longer able to read her way through everything. Father, within a year no longer Father…

  Daphne continued, “But it’s more than that with Miss Tilly anyhow. She makes us feel she really cares.”

  “She does care,” I said automatically.

  The bleeding heart. Because some mythical god came and cared?

  “Tell Tilly—” I started, yawned, then finished, “I’ll be back”—I went into the pantry—“this summer”—and out of doors—“maybe.” Scar greeted me eagerly, great tongue lolling, jumping up at me for petting. I pushed him down, let him into the pantry, and shut the door on him. Then I went to the barn and drove to the airport.

  If I stayed unwillingly, ungraciously, even a few days, even a few more hours, I would kill the only thing of the old things left, the still warm fragment of Tilly’s love.

  I waited for the moment when the stewardess would ask if I wanted a cocktail after take-off. When I closed my eyes I could see the vulgar bleeding heart over Tilly’s bed, red and distasteful.

  After the first martini I was able to see the roses on my rose brick wall.

  A Sign for a Sparrow

  Sunday was a clear, brilliant day, the air suddenly sharp and clean after almost three weeks of fog, fog so thick that if you held your hand out you could feel the droplets of moisture, and anyone walking even a few blocks was almost as wet as though it were actually raining. But on Sunday it was hard to believe that the fog had ever been, and spirits that had been weighted down by the heavy, humid atmosphere suddenly soared again.

  Just as Robert Stephens was ready to leave the house to go to the hospital to see his wife and infant daughter, there was a knock on the door. He knew what it would be. And he knew that Ginnie, waking in the hospital to a clear shining dawn instead of the oppressive fog, would be expecting it, too. At least the fog had given them the extra weeks so that he would be with her to take her to the hospital when her pains started, could hold his newborn child, could show Ginnie his love and his pride.

  He opened the door to the uniformed messenger, and thanked him.

  Yes. Tomorrow. Tomorrow at dawn.

  Then he walked the three miles to the hospital, leaving his little bug of a car in the garage. It was no surprise, the pale blue envelope. His call might have come any time during the past six weeks, and if it hadn’t been for the fog it would certainly have come sooner. Nevertheless, now that it had actually arrived he felt extraordinarily as though someone had kicked him in the belly, hard.

  At the hospital he went first to the nursery. There were about twenty babies there, an unusually large number for any one time. His was in a crib close to the big double glass window, and he could stand there and look down at her as she lay sleeping. It was her unutterable perfection that brought a catch to his throat. In spite of the fact that the doctor had reassured them time and again that there was nothing to fear, and had given them double sets of genetic and radiological tests, they had feared. In the early months of Ginnie’s pregnancy, her older sister had given birth to an imperfect baby, small and shrunken of body, huge and bloated of head. But when the baby had died after a few days and Rob had remarked that it was a blessing the infant would not have to join the swelling hopeless ranks in the state nurseries, Ginnie had burst into sobs so vehement and uncontrollable that it had taken him over an hour to calm her down. But now—now she had a baby of her own, lying there in the white crib in the hospital nursery, tiny fists clenched close to her face, a small scratch on her nose which she had given herself, swiping at her face with those incredibly small pink fingers. The hair that lay damply against her head was in soft ringlets, and there was a distinct touch of red to it. She had Rob’s hair, and it was much better hair for a girl than a boy. He kept his hair in a butch, but even so, about three days after he’d been to the barber it would begin to curl. However, on a girl, instead of being a pain in the neck—or rather on the head—it would be highly satisfactory. Everything would be highly satisfactory if, as usual, he hadn’t gotten his timing all wrong. Or had he? For the past months, how often had he and Ginnie said that if only the baby came and was all right, then everything would be all right?

  He moved on down the corridor to Ginnie’s room. As he pushed open the door he could hear a voice reading, and he knew that Matt MacDonald, their closest friend, was there before him. Matt was spending a good deal of time with Ginnie now, trying to help, the way sometimes someone on the outside can help better than two people
who are too close to each other.

  Rob stood just inside the door for a moment, listening and looking. Ginnie’s bed was cranked up and she sat there, listening to Matt, her eyes closed. Her gentle, intelligent face was almost devoid of expression, and this composure, Rob knew, was deliberate, a resignation to the inevitable which they both knew would come with the change in the weather.

  Matt was reading from a small green book, his head bent over the words, a tuft of fair hair sticking up from the crown of his head, so that suddenly to Rob he looked as vulnerable as little Ginnie. Matt, who always seemed a tower of strength, was short and robust with enormous strength of arm and leg, and with his mop of tawny hair and beard he usually reminded Rob of a young lion, so that this glimpse of almost childish innocence came as a shock.

  “‘I have bene accompanyed with many sorrows, with labour, hunger, heat, sickenes, and peril.’” Matt read, looked up, and saw Rob. He grinned and said, “Listen to this, Rob: ‘It was impossible either to ford the river or to swim it, both by reason of the swiftnesse and also for that the borders were so pestred with fast woods as neither boat nor man could find place, either to land or to imbarke: for such is the fury of the current, and there are so many trees and woods overflowne, as if any boat but touch upon any tree or stake, it is impossible to save any person therein. Besides our vessels were no other than whirries, one little barge, a small cockboat, and a bad Galiota, which we framed in hast for the purpose at Trinidad. I have consumed much time, and many crownes, and I had no other respect or desire then to serve her Majestie and my country thereby.’” He looked up and grinned again. “That was Sir Walter Raleigh. Rather a favorite of mine, by the way. Voyages of discovery were pretty tremendous in his day, too.”

  “Matt,” Ginnie said, “if you think you’re going to make me happier by belittling what Rob has to do, you’re mistaken.”

  Matt looked at her in shocked surprise. “I’m not belittling Rob or anything about him, Ginnie! I’m just sort of pointing out that he’s in company, and good company, too. And think of some of the things Walter Raleigh had to fight that Rob won’t: Many of Raleigh’s men believed that the world was flat like a tray. They were quite literally terrified that their flimsy little ships might fall off the edge. And they believed, too, in the most horrendous kinds of sea monsters, huge enough to swallow a whole fleet of ships in one gulp.”

  Ginnie’s lips quivered ever so slightly. “Rob’s ship seems very flimsy to me for where it’s going, Matt. I’m afraid of its falling off the edge, too, and I believe in monsters who can swallow it in one gulp.” She smiled a watery smile.

  “But this is the age of reason,” Matt said, an unusual edge of bitterness in his voice. “Everything can be explained in a scientific manner.”

  “If I fall off the edge it won’t be an imaginary edge, at any rate,” Rob said. “It will be a real, comprehensible, and scientific one. Somebody will be able to tell you exactly why the ship fell and what the edge is and where it drops to. This isn’t the Age of Reason. That was back in the eighteenth century, wasn’t it, Matt? This is the Age of Reasons. Two different things.”

  “Very comforting, both of you,” Ginnie said.

  “Darling, I didn’t mean to sound off,” Rob said quickly. “I’m not going to fall off any edge. It’s going to be a tremendous adventure, the most tremendous adventure anybody’s ever had, and I’ll be back to tell you all about it. Just hold the good thought.”

  Matt was leafing through his book again. “Hey, Rob, there was a fellow in your field on one of Sir Robert Dudley’s expeditions. Here’s a whole list of words he made in Trinidad. ‘Guttemock’: a man. ‘Tabairo’: the hair of one’s head. ‘Dessine’: the forehead. Here’s a good one: ‘Cattie’: the moon. Maybe they were contemplating space travel even back in those days. Once you’ve climbed a mountain or crossed a river nothing seems impossible.” He sighed then, and an expression of pain and sadness momentarily flickered across his face, to be replaced almost immediately with his usual confident, serene smile. But Ginnie had seen, and asked, “Matt, you aren’t yourself today. What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  For a moment he looked down at the book. Then he said, “I hadn’t meant to tell you. You have enough problems of your own right now without my burdening you with mine.”

  “Matt, you know your problems are ours just as ours have always been yours. Out with it.”

  Matt did not look up from the book. “My church is being closed,” he said. “As a matter of fact it’s going to be turned into a state nursery. Heaven knows nurseries are needed, but so are churches. Only nobody realizes it. The government can issue reasons why nurseries are needed, but not churches. They won’t go so far as actually to outlaw churches, but it is being done subtly, nevertheless. God is not reasonable. Nurseries are. Faith is not reasonable. Radioactive wastelands are. As far as closing my church goes they had reasons if not reason. There were three people in it last Sunday.” His voice was bitter. “It’s a funny thing, kids. After the war the scientists and the men of God got it alike. The scientists were to blame for the war and because three-fifths of the surface of the Earth won’t be habitable for at least another hundred years. And the men of God were to blame because they—and their God—hadn’t done anything to stop it. But the scientists are back in grace because without them we’d be back in the caves, and the men of God are still in disgrace because only a handful of people realize that to all intents and purposes we are back in the caves.”

  “Will you get another church, Matt?” Ginnie asked gently.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. All I do know is that no matter how often I fail I have to keep on trying. If it weren’t for a handful of people like you two, to give me hope…and your baby. I have to keep on trying for the kind of world I would want your baby to grow up in. Well,” he said, looking down at the little book again, changing the subject, “Here’s something Lawrence Keymis said, around 1596, about his ‘beleefe we need no farther assurances, then we already haue to perswade our selues that it hath pleased our God of his infinit goodnesse, in his will and purpose to appoint and reserue this Empire for vs.’ So there’s a nice prejudiced and on-our-side God for you. Tell me in all honesty, Rob, how about this little jaunt of yours? Is there absolutely no idea of conquest, of the possibility of resettling some of our population? Aren’t we kind of hoping, in spite of all our noble talk of the cosmic rays suddenly falling into a pattern, indicating that there may be a highly civilized race there signaling us, aren’t we still kind of hoping that if there’s any population at all it will be a backwards one and we can move in, just as the English did back in the sixteenth century?”

  Rob shrugged. “All that kind of thing is top top secret.”

  “But you’ve been working on those patterns of rays?”

  “Yes. And getting nowhere. It may be a pattern, but so far it seems to be a meaningless one. It might be caused by the rotation of the planet’s moons. After all, the pattern only became apparent with the new instruments, so it could quite easily indicate nothing at all.”

  “In other words,” Ginnie said, “Matt’s right, and it’s nothing but an excuse.” Suddenly she began to cry, and both Matt and Rob looked stricken, realizing that they had forgotten, in the easiness of their relationship, that nothing was easy at this point for Ginnie. “And Rob has to be caught up in it, and why, Rob? There are plenty of other cryptologists.”

  Rob tried to grin, to make a joke of it. “Because I’m a little runt,” he said.

  “You’re not!” She defended him quickly, automatically. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It has a lot to do with it,” he said. “I’m small boned and wiry and strong and I don’t take up much room or add much weight. That has a lot to do with it. There are plenty of other cryptographers.”

  “Not as good as you are.”

  “Two that I can think of off-hand who are better. But one is six foot seven and plays basketball as well as he decodes, and the
other weighs three hundred-odd pounds. No matter what their other qualifications, their physical size eliminated them before they even started. And they both applied. They told me they’re green with envy.”

  “And I bet,” Ginnie said, “their wives are getting down on their knees every night to thank God. If they believe in him.”

  “Ginnie, do you believe in him?” Matt asked.

  “You know I do,” she said.

  “Then live your faith. I know you’re worried about Rob. I suppose Sir Walter Raleigh’s wife was pretty upset about some of his trips. Excuse me if I keep harping on him, but he was quite a guy, and his faith saw him through some pretty dark spots. How he would have loved to be along with Rob! A brand-new world to explore, and how many worlds opening up. And if there’s anyone to communicate with, Rob will be the one to make the communication.”

  “If I could just go partway with him,” she said. “If I could just go with him to the moon and see him take off.”

  “To the moon,” Matt said. “See how easily you said that. The moon was a lot further away to our grandparents than the planets are to us.”

  “Matt,” Ginnie broke in desperately, “faith in the infinite by the finite is such a precarious thing. Maybe if we went back to idols the way some people have, if we had something tangible to worship, to believe in—”

  “Go ahead,” Matt said gently. “If you can believe in one of the idols, if it will give you any comfort.”

  “You know it won’t. It’s just that sometimes trust in a God we know we’re too puny ever to begin to comprehend seems a pretty tall order. Pray with us, Matt, will you please?” She bowed her head, clasped her hands, and after a moment Matt and Rob followed suit. They sat in silence until the tenseness began to leave the room. When at last Matt spoke it was not words of his own devising, but words that were familiar to them all:

  O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!, who hast set thy glory above the heavens.