The Patriot

by Evan S. Connell

  By summertime, when the semester ended, he had established an agreeable routine of painting, studying, and socializing, which had an additionally beneficial effect on his relations with the fraternity—he had become, they thought, more cooperative—and all in all there was no particular reason to take a three-month vacation, so he did not. He registered for the summer session as most of the other veterans were doing, and continued living in the house.

  The telephone rang with less frequency during the summer months, since so many students were away, and partly because of this and partly because he had gotten used to books again after seeing so few of them in Texas, he studied more consistently. His grades improved, so much so that in August when the summer session ended he had not only qualified for initiation, but had made better marks than any of the other pledges. Because he had never been first at anything this was a little hard to believe; his father, in fact, hearing the news by telephone, thought it was a bad joke. The pledge class had been small, this was true, and it was equally true that there had been no bright students; all the same Melvin had gotten the highest grades. He was the honor initiate.

  Not long after the opening of the fall semester he was blindfolded and led into the chapter room, which, he immediately sensed, was crowded with people, although there was not a sound. Someone whispered in his ear that he should kneel. He did so, after a momentary hesitation, with the indignation he felt whenever he was obliged to get down on his knees. By tilting back his head he was able to peek out from beneath the bottom of the blindfold, and, as he had suspected, there were the fraternity officials in their robes and their peaked hats; he was interested, however, to see that in addition to the officials and the chapter members there were a great many older men, apparently alumni. He had not seen any of them come into the house and he wondered if there could be a secret passage beneath the kitchen; in any event, each man was holding a tall blue candle. They were attempting to look severe, as though this ceremony were of great consequence, which made them all the more preposterous; and, as if this were not enough, at a mysterious signal each man placed his left hand over his heart. The pledges who had followed Melvin into this refuge were also kneeling—he and they together formed a ring. Someone pushed his head down just then so that he could see nothing more, but he had noticed that he was the only one who remained erect on his knees; the others were bent over with their heads and shoulders bowed down almost to the hardwood floor because it was less painful that way. As soon as he had knelt he had begun to feel the pressure, but there had come into his mind the recollection of a photograph, published in the newspaper, of an Australian captive who was about to be executed by the Japanese. The Australian’s hands were bound behind his back and he was on his knees with his head bowed waiting for the stroke of the sword.

  Melvin lifted his head as soon as the hand was removed; the hand pressed it down again. He did not resist, but a few seconds later when the hand was withdrawn he lifted his head.

  Someone whispered in his ear that he must keep his head bowed.

  He did not say anything, but remained as he was, bolt upright.

  After a while he knew he had won. Whoever had been pushing at him left him alone, but by this time the pain in his knees, which he knew, he was inflicting on himself, had become so excruciating that his victory seemed unimportant; he was more concerned with mastering the agony which emanated from the wood and periodically shot up his spine to the base of his skull.

  He did not know how long he knelt. His companions moved from time to time and uttered little groans.

  They were taught the meaning of various abbreviations, numerals, signs, and eventually the fraternity handshake, which took so long to accomplish and which was so intricate a procedure—the fingers interlaced first one way and, after a pause, another way—that by the conclusion of the act he felt as though he had engaged in some shameful and grossly irregular intercourse.

  At last the blindfold was removed. He got up, suspecting his knees might buckle under him, and grimly looked around.

  Everyone in the room was staring at him.

  What especially struck him at that moment was their sincerity. They stood there and looked at him as though examining some improbable document by the light of their candles.

  Later in the evening Kip Silver gave him a present; Melvin accepted it awkwardly, having never known quite what to do or say when accepting a gift. Then, too, he was embarrassed about his recalcitrance during the initiation, for it reflected on Silver, who was his sponsor.

  The gift, for that matter, was awkward: it was one of Silver’s oil paintings, an enormous abstraction somehow reminiscent of a soiled bed sheet. It was much too large to be hung above the desk and he was afraid that if he hung it above the bed it might draw the nail out of the wall and fall on him in the middle of the night; so, finding no other place to put it, he suspended it from a hook on the door of the closet. There it swung and bumped in a menacing way as though dimly conscious of its own existence.

  In addition to this painting he had been given the fraternity pin—diamond-shaped, solid gold, with small rubies enclosing the Greek letters. This was not, properly speaking, a gift; he had paid for the pin and would continue to pay for it he thought, as he weighed it in his hand, for quite some time to come. But it was well made, it was a handsome, distinctive pin, instantly recognizable for what it was, and he took to wearing it on his sweater or on the pocket of his shirt or the lapel of his coat wherever he went, and was gratified by the attention it received. It gave him a status he had never known before, as though he himself were enhanced by merely owning and displaying this pin; before long he depended on it to the extent that he did not like to leave the house without it, and on one occasion when he realized as he was walking to class that he had forgotten it he hurried back to get it. It seemed to him that the pin would somehow solve whatever problems came up and he found it difficult to remember what he had done and how he had gotten along before he joined the fraternity. In a way it was not unlike being in the Navy; there was that same omniscient paternity, the sense of a government or council to which he might appeal but to which he was, and forever would be, subservient, and toward which he would be well advised to maintain an attitude of immaculate and modest obedience. This no longer struck him as distasteful so much as natural, and he considered a little ruefully that if he had only understood this while he was in the Navy he would have made less trouble for himself, would probably have won his commission, and could now be wearing an old aviation jacket with Navy wings and his name stamped in gold on the breast.

  Autumn deepened. The leaves, the cool dappled shadows, mild winds—the burning turquoise arch of midsummer had tilted with the axis of the earth. Zinc gray the sky hung, level and constant, low as the sea; and Melvin sprawled on his bed hour after hour and thought of previous autumns. Soon it would be Christmas, and the New Year would follow. The days would grow longer, and the snow, which had not yet begun to fall, would melt into the past; then this year would be gone like the others—and he felt unaccountably dissatisfied.

  22

  A few weeks later he went to Kansas City to attend his sister’s wedding. Louis Kahn had invited him to be one of the ushers, and after some hesitation, fearful that he might stumble over the carpet or conduct some privileged guest to the wrong place or otherwise blemish the proceedings, he agreed and made arrangements to rent a tuxedo.

  The day before the marriage he was trying on the tuxedo in an upstairs room when he happened to look out the window and saw his sister and Kahn sitting together in the sports car. A few flakes of snow were falling, melting as they touched the fiery red hood of the car. All at once Kahn took hold of her and even from the distance Melvin could see that she had no thought of denying him whatever he wanted. He watched them embrace, saw the snowflakes falling daintily on her up-turned face, and reflected that the ceremony was going to be a trifle superfluous.

  He did not know a great deal about Louis Kahn, except that he had
no family and that he was working in a bank, but was aware of a feeling of respect which resulted not only from the tremendous size of him but from a conviction that he could not be easily balked or dissuaded from whatever he meant to do. The curiously thick eyelids had a bluish or purplish shine in certain lights, as though he painted them with cosmetics; and the deadly eyes half-concealed beneath them gave him the hooded, carnal look of some decadent Asian emperor or of a phlegmatic medieval headsman at his leisure, or, for all that, of some mythical and fabulous reptile risen from the water of the Nile, whose stare was fatal. From the day they first met he had sensed, even before accepting the gentle grasp of that primitively shaped hand, that Kahn regarded each man as an individual but looked upon women as belonging to a subspecies, markedly inferior, although equally valuable; and this, in all probability, was the husband Leah required.

  Melvin studied the way she reclined in Kahn’s embrace; it occurred to him that she might already be pregnant. If not, she would be soon enough. With her depth and breadth and that low, rhythmic, odorous flesh, coupled with an essential stupidity, she must be a continual and irresistible invitation.

  He went downstairs and outside. Leah had not moved. She lay supine, breathing shallowly. Her cheeks were flushed, and damp from the snow. Her eyes were bright. She looked at him but he had the feeling that she did not recognize him. Kahn appeared to be half asleep.

  Melvin wandered around the automobile, which was furnished with extra mirrors, a spotlight, a horn that would play a little tune, black-leather seats, and a number of other luxuries, and presently asked what they were planning to do on their honeymoon. Kahn said they were going to Las Vegas. Melvin asked what the directors of the bank thought of this idea. Kahn sleepily grinned, raced the engine, and replied that it was none of the bank’s business. During the war he had saved a few thousand dollars, he said.

  “Excuse me, did I hear correctly?” Jake Isaacs asked, coming out of the house.

  “Speedy business in Europe,” Kahn conceded, and winked at Melvin.

  “If I am not butting in, how much is a few thousand dollars by such standards? Working in a bank, if you were the president, all right. People would say, ‘The president has money and an Italian roadster.’ Now what will they say? You should be cautious.”

  Kahn was patiently stroking Leah’s bulging hip while he listened. He replied that he would be cautious in Las Vegas.

  “He wants to gamble so bad he can taste it,” she said indignantly, lying across the seat with her head cradled in one of his arms. She brushed the snow from his sleeve and burrowed against him. “Las Vegas! Poof! He won’t know I’m alive.”

  “You will lose money, Louis. Gambling is a mistake. By all means, go to Niagara Falls.”

  Kahn slapped Leah solidly on the rump and heaved her out of his lap. She gasped at the insult, but he paid no attention. “I don’t lose, Jake,” he remarked as he got out of the car, imperturbable as some basilisk with his black crest of marcelled hair, and stood up, tranquilly stroking his bald spot, which, in the wintry afternoon, resembled an egg buried in an oily nest.

  The next day, on Leah’s seventeenth birthday, they were married. It was near the end of November and snow had been falling since dawn, but there was no wind and the air seemed warm for that time of year. The services took place at eight o’clock in the evening. Leah, with her long hooked nose and musky olive skin, looked tough and expectant, like an Arab in a white burnoose. She was, beyond question, a formidable bride: tall and substantial, with deep, boxlike hips and pendulous, swaying breasts. Kahn, whose crest of hair protruded from under the yamilke, alternately beamed and appeared complacent while the rabbi spoke. After the seven blessings he crushed a small wine glass beneath his heel to symbolize that it would be as impossible to break this marriage as it would be to piece together the shattered glass; and at this Leah, who stood close beside him under the flowered huppah, looked up at him through the veil with shining eyes. When he placed the ring on her finger he said, first in Hebrew and then in English, “Behold, thou art consecrated unto me by means of this ring, according to the law of Moses and Israel,” and once more a change came over her face, softening it and revealing her love for him.

  Later that evening Melvin observed how she would sometimes rise to her toes to peer over her husband’s shoulder, not in order to see what or who was there, but only for the pleasure of measuring herself against him. Melvin was watching her do this, thinking himself unnoticed and thinking, too, that Kahn was not aware of Leah amusing herself, when Kahn slowly turned his massive head and one of the reptilian eyes disappeared in a wink.

  Having drunk more than he intended, and feeling neglected, Melvin left the reception and descended to the basement, where he unbuttoned the collar of his tuxedo and squeezed into a nook behind the furnace as he used to do when he was a child and had been scolded or was confused. From within the warm furnace came a ticking noise, and there was a smell of oil. He struck a match and peered around; a roach scuttled up the damp, streaked wall and disappeared into a crevice, and as the flame was dying he caught sight of a tub and an old corrugated washboard. There were some of his father’s law books in the tub, spotted with mold, and the pages, as he opened one of the books by the light of another match, were difficult to separate. The tub reminded him of years ago when he and Leah used to give their fox terrier a bath; he remembered how the dog whined and shivered, its skin mottled pink and blue beneath the short, soapy hair. Leah used to sit beside the tub as solid as a doll and hold the terrier by the muzzle to keep him from shaking. It seemed strange to Melvin that what once had been so real could be effaced as thoroughly as algebra on a blackboard.

  He was standing silently in the darkness when someone came down the basement steps and switched on the light. It was Leah. She knew where to find him. She began to abuse him for leaving the party, and then she clutched him by the hair and tried to drag him upstairs. His resistance angered her; she slapped him sharply and then, with a shocked expression, she fled with her hands over her ears.

  An hour later, having changed from her bridal gown into a wool traveling suit, and extremely drunk, she crept into the basement with a pair of pinking shears and lunged toward him, intending to get at a sparse, furry mustache he had been encouraging; he hopped aside, exasperated and confounded, and caught her wrists and they went struggling through the basement without a sound except the snap of the shears. He managed to push her against a wall and pinioned her there with her arms extended. Her strength amazed him; he was gasping for breath. He ordered her to let go of the shears. She was weeping and choking on her own sobs, cursing him obscenely; all at once she stretched her head toward him like a horse and he felt a painful pull at his lip. He twisted her arms until she cried out; then he let go and stepped away from her. His lip was warm and wet, it was throbbing violently, and when he looked at his fingers they were smeared with blood. Leah had fallen to the basement floor and was sobbing bitterly. He helped her up. There was calcimine on the shoulders of her suit and she exuded a strong odor. He brushed off the calcimine and she went away. After she had gone he took out his handkerchief and pressed it against his lip to stop the bleeding, and noticed on his sleeve a strand of hair so black that it appeared almost blue: he wound it around and around his middle finger, perplexed and obscurely moved.

  The next day as he was returning to the university he thought of her again; he could not make any sense of her behavior. But then, he reflected, he could not understand even himself. He knew that he was going to resign from the fraternity; this conviction had steadily grown on him, but he did not know why. There was no reason to leave the fraternity, other than a persistent discontent, and this more than anything embarrassed and puzzled him. He felt certain he would be asked by the members to give some explanation for his decision, and he knew he would not be able to do so. And that was the way it turned out.

  He was, however, greatly astonished by the reaction to his announcement. He had expected the fraternity
members to be disappointed that he was quitting, but they were not especially disappointed, they were outraged. He was damaging the fraternity prestige. Word would get about that one of the brothers had defected.

  He had thought that Kip Silver, at least, would understand; he could scarcely believe it when he heard Silver tell him to get out and never to come near the house again. Melvin instantly put on his jacket, as shocked as he had ever been in his life, and hurried to the doughnut shop, where he sat in a booth until he stopped trembling; then he bought a newspaper and turned to the apartment listings.

  Apartments being too expensive, he went through the list in search of a housekeeping room, but there were none available. A few furnished rooms were given, and some sleeping rooms. He started out to look at them, and found most of them rented by the time he got there. A thick, wet, clinging snow had begun to fall. Hungry and miserable, sneezing crookedly and without hope, he trudged up and down hillsides knocking on doors, until, too filled with despair to search any longer, and torn between his aversion for the fraternity and his resentment toward the way he had been treated, he sat down on a bench and tried to decide what to do. It was obvious that the immediate problem concerned a place to sleep for the night; he must either stay in a hotel or return to the fraternity until morning.