Veronica said, ‘Hello, Carl.’
Her father said, ‘Don’t let Queenie out.’
Queenie, Carl thought. A sissy name. He wondered how long the dog would last in a fight with Baxter. Queenie. Carl looked at Veronica. He was too upset to be embarrassed by her unexpected friendliness.
Mr. Bartnik was staring at Carl and Baxter. Both of them had forgotten him. They’re randy, he thought. Stupid and randy. Both of them were entranced, as though they had come across a treasure while poking through the trash. The man put his hand on Carl’s thin shoulder. ‘That’s my daughter and my dog,’ he said.
‘It’s all right, Daddy,’ Veronica said. ‘This is Carl Fine. He was in my class at school.’
Mr. Bartnik frowned and turned to look across the junkyard. Bits of glass glittered in the sunlight. He became aware of the silence; the inert, random materials.
‘You stay in the truck,’ he said to his daughter, and walked away from her; away from the town.
Veronica was staring at Carl. It was hot in the truck, and she could feel sweat beginning to accumulate under her arms, between her breasts and buttocks. The dogs whined.
‘You know who you look like?’ Carl asked her.
I’ve underestimated him, Veronica thought. Nothing interested her more than her own appearance. She had looked at herself more carefully than she had ever looked at anything else. She knew her eyelashes, her toenails, each passing blemish of her skin, and yet she was puzzled by the uniqueness of what she saw. She knew she had an attractiveness, but she wanted to have beauty. To her that meant she should look like someone else. True beauty, she believed, was an ideal that everyone recognized and admired. Grace Kelly, for example. Princess Grace. If you didn’t resemble a great beauty, you weren’t truly beautiful.
‘Who do I look like?’ she asked.
‘Eva Braun.’
‘Eva Braun? Who the hell is Eva Braun?’
‘She was Adolf Hitler’s mistress.’
‘Very funny,’ Veronica said. What a dumb thing to say, she thought. She didn’t know much about Hitler. A silly-looking madman. He couldn’t have attracted a beautiful woman.
‘I’m serious,’ Carl said. He took a creased photograph from his pocket and handed it to her.
Veronica studied it carefully. The image was not clear. A blonde woman or girl—it was hard to guess her age—wearing some kind of peasant costume. It looked like an illustration for a fairy tale. Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, maybe. She might have been beautiful, but it was a strange beauty. Innocent.
‘She doesn’t look like anyone’s mistress,’ Veronica said.
‘They got married in the end. Then they killed themselves. If it had been anyone but Hitler, people would have thought it was a great love story.’
Veronica didn’t like love stories. Not any more. It was hard for her to believe that two years ago she had read and reread Little Women, and had wept when Jo fell in love. Then she had discovered the books and photographs that her father kept on the top shelf of his closet. And later, when she found herself on a blanket in the back of Frank Alio’s station wagon, it didn’t occur to her to wonder whether she was in love with him. She only wondered whether they would feel the kind of excitement the people in her father’s books felt; whether they would look the way the people looked in the photographs.
She looked again at the picture of Eva Braun. ‘Do you think she’s beautiful?’ she asked Carl.
‘Yes,’ Carl said, and then blushed, realizing he had just implied that he thought Veronica was beautiful. Suddenly he was uncomfortable. The sun was hot on his shoulders. Baxter was whimpering and standing with his front legs against the truck’s door. Carl felt very young. ‘I’d better go before your father gets back,’ he said.
Veronica refolded the picture, but instead of handing it back to him she put it in her canvas shoulder-bag. Carl started to protest, but then realized he wanted her to have it.
‘Do you come here often?’ Veronica asked.
‘Yes. Baxter likes it here.’
‘Baxter?’
‘My dog.’
Veronica smiled for a moment and then said, ‘I think Queenie likes it here, too. I have to walk her every night. Maybe I should bring her here some time.’
Carl felt his hands begin to tremble. He leaned over and took Baxter’s collar and pulled the dog away from the truck. He couldn’t look at the girl. ‘I’ll see you,’ he said as he moved away from her, pulling clumsily at Baxter.
Veronica could see her father walking back towards the truck. His hands were empty. As he approached she said, ‘Didn’t you find anything?’
‘Nothing worth picking up,’ he said.
In his pocket was a torn, soiled pair of panty hose.
4
Mary Cuzzo and her father sat on their front porch, the afternoon heat enveloping them. They were bored and impatient, as though they were in a theater waiting to see a performance that should have begun thirty minutes earlier.
Mary would have preferred to be inside the house, working on her card file, but the old man liked to have her near him as he watched the movements of their neighbors. He didn’t expect her to talk, though, and she was grateful for that. When school was in session she had to talk incessantly and, it seemed to her, futilely. The summer was better. Ironically, it was easier for her to ignore the emptiness of her own life when she wasn’t forced to be with the young.
At school it was difficult to believe that the energy and enthusiasms of her students would not lead them to pleasures and satisfactions she had missed. But in the quiet of her house she was able to gain perspective, to see the truth. This summer she had begun to keep a card file: one card for every student she had taught in the past sixteen years. On each card she had placed two categories of entries: facts and conclusions. The facts were random and varied: went to college; bathed infrequently; alcoholic; had two children; suffered nosebleeds; had abortion; drove truck; deceased. The conclusions, with few exceptions, were uniform: unhappy; early promise unfulfilled.
There were many students she had lost track of: those who had left town and never returned, who never wrote to those still here. But she had no reason to think they might be any more successful or happy than those who stayed. Was it the town that corrupted them? she wondered. Were they an unfortunate, unrepresentative generation? No. Their parents were no different.
She heard a whistling from down the street. Bach. One of the suites for unaccompanied cello. Carl Fine. He would have learned the melody from his mother. Miss Cuzzo wondered what entries she would have on Carl’s card in ten years. Would he be one of the exceptions? If not, what would contaminate his life?
As he passed Carl smiled at her and waved. Mary went into the house and wrote on his card: ‘Has dog.’
Four
Perhaps the boy thinks I have gone mad. Can he understand any more than I do how a bitch’s scent could reduce me to a state of helplessness? I think about those disgusting minutes; about the bitch’s ridiculous mud-toned coat, and I want to destroy her. Yet I know if I were with her now my anger would be swept away, and I would want only to mount her.
Do humans know this kind of desire? Maybe some of them do. I think of the young couple who left their child unprotected to go to their bedroom. And the scent that women—even the old woman—have about them constantly; a scent reminiscent of the one the bitch has. Such a thing would explain the instability of people. But it cannot be. Constant sexual temptation would be intolerable. One would be overcome with shame at one’s helplessness.
I don’t think the boy feels shame. It is one of his many virtues. Most humans have few virtues. But, of course, they have many disadvantages to overcome. Their peculiar bodies, for example. Tall creatures that walk on two legs must be in a constant state of anxiety. The ground is a threat to them. They build furniture. It is ridiculous to avoid the element that supports you.
The only admirable part of the human body, I think, is the hand. I have seen it do the
most delicate things: the old woman making patterns with dark and light threads, pushing a needle through tiny crevices. And I have felt the strength of hands. But people obviously misuse their hands. I see the discarded materials in the place where the boy and I go. I think of the dexterity and strength of the hands that made the objects, and I realize that the effort was wasted. The hands must be kept busy; activities must be invented.
The boy’s mother is an example. She sits for hours with her instrument, her left hand touching the strings quickly and firmly. I lie in the corner and listen to the sounds she produces: complex sounds that are low enough to make the floor vibrate and yet have a barely audible high-pitched edge to them. She is one of the rare people who seems interested in sounds other than monotonous chatter.
And yet her sounds have no meaning. They are less interesting than the random sounds of real life that fill the neighborhood: a raised voice; footsteps; a slamming door.
The boy realizes that truth. He knows the whining of the bitch in the automobile was more meaningful than the sound of any instrument. He saw me undone by the dark, squealing creature. He does not know about my strength and cleverness. He does not know about my triumphs. I must show him that I too have uncommon virtues.
2
Sara Fine wondered what Baxter was thinking. The dog was obviously interested in the music. He was the only one who enjoyed being in the house when she was practicing. Is it just another noise to him? Without pausing, she interrupted the Bach she was playing and began to produce random, patternless tones. The dog showed no awareness of the change in the music. It was only when Sara played a series of high harmonics that he lifted his head slightly.
Her son came into the room, his hands over his ears, his eyes rolling. ‘All right,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll eat my broccoli. I’ll mow the lawn. Anything. Just . . .’ He dropped to his knees. ‘Just have mercy.’
Baxter began to bark.
Sara put aside her bow. She smiled, but she was uneasy. She felt, as she often did, a nasty undercurrent in Carl’s playfulness. ‘It was an experiment,’ she said.
‘It failed, my dear.’
Carl had taken to calling his mother ‘my dear’. It was added to his repertory: the Frankenstein monster walk, the word ‘boring’ and his Nazi routine. What did it all conceal, Sara wondered. Adolescents constructed their surfaces so energetically, so elaborately. It was an attempt to disguise what they were discovering about themselves. Sara was more comfortable with younger children, who had no disguises, or with adults, whose masks were more easily penetrated.
Sara went into the kitchen, leaving Carl and the dog to their undecipherable thoughts and feelings. Had the dog changed the boy? They were inseparable. Carl had taken on an affection and a responsibility, but Sara was not sure there was virtue in that alone. Yet she supposed there was little chance of either one corrupting the other. Without words the possibilities for corruption are small.
Carl was lying on the rug, his face close to Baxter’s. I wish we could talk to each other, he thought.
‘You’d like to screw old Bartnik’s spaniel, wouldn’t you?’ he whispered.
Baxter’s tail wagged.
It’s so easy for you, the boy thought. Nothing to learn, nothing to be afraid of. No wondering what to say, no embarrassment. Why can’t we all be animals? Why can’t we be ourselves? I’m learning to be myself, Carl thought. Baxter is teaching me. Until recently Carl had been resigned to a life of docile confusion. He did what his parents and teachers asked of him, but what they asked made no sense to him. He obeyed because he realized that there must be order. There were young people in the town who resisted order, and for a time he had admired them. He had stood beside John Terrel in the school yard, watching him remove the money from a stolen purse. He had watched from the shadows as stones were thrown through school windows. Those who did these things sensed he was not one of them, but they accepted him as what he was: an uncritical observer.
But he knew he was different from them just as he was different from those who comfortably followed the rules. Slowly he began to realize that it wasn’t necessary to join either group; that he might establish his own order, based on his own nature. But first he had to explore that nature. And so he began to spend the hours in the bunker. And he watched Baxter, who lived comfortably in a system that was alien to his nature, and who was admired and trusted.
Carl put his hand on Baxter’s white head. Time and discipline, he thought. Those are the important things. I have time; I’m not a man yet. And discipline is easy for me. But there is something else, something in my nature I don’t yet recognize.
At Baxter’s side was a long, slender bone the dog had found in the junk-yard and had carried back to the house. He spent hours chewing on it, sometimes growling softly. Carl reached for the bone, and the dog immediately grasped one end of it between his teeth. Carl got to his knees and tried to pull the bone from the dog’s jaws. It was a game they played often. It was a game Carl had never won.
3
Nancy Grafton heard the familiar whistling. She left the kitchen and went to the front door. She pulled the curtain aside slightly and watched as Carl and Baxter hurried past the house. Did the dog glance at her? Or had he forgotten the events that he still brought vividly to her mind?
She looked at the Prescott house across the street. It was still empty. There had been a period when the real estate agent brought people to see the property. Nancy had watched eagerly as couples and families entered the house. She wanted them to like it. But they emerged dull-eyed and obviously eager to be somewhere else. No one came to the house now.
Nancy tried to remember what had seemed so attractive to her when she and John had first driven down the block. She wasn’t sure now. But she wasn’t ready to leave the town. Even though she no longer loved it, she did not want it to die.
As Nancy turned to go back into the kitchen a young blonde girl passed the house. The girl was pulling hard against a leash, trying to restrain a brown dog that seemed not to notice the pressure of the collar against its throat.
The girl was about Carl’s age. If the town were to be saved it would be by those like Carl and the girl. Nancy imagined them together in the Prescott house, bringing it their life and simplicity.
4
It was dusk. Carl sat beside the bunker, looking across the shadowy, jagged landscape of the junk-yard. The high-pitched sounds of night had begun: crickets; frogs in the nearby pond; roosting birds. He also heard an occasional whine from within the bunker, where he had barricaded Baxter.
The boy looked towards the town. Lights were being turned on; cars moved through the streets. He wondered why more people weren’t outdoors. They’re like snails, he thought. They need the shells of their houses and automobiles. Not as much for shelter as for reassurance. I don’t need the shell, he thought. I’ve cast myself out.
A silhouette was moving toward him, fading and reappearing against the uneven light of the background. He knew it was Veronica before he could see her features. He recognized the outline of her body; her way of moving. She dropped Queenie’s leash, and the spaniel ran ahead of her, straight to Carl, jumping against him and barking. Baxter was also barking now, and pushing against the door of the bunker. Carl squatted, running his hand through Queenie’s curly coat, but not taking his eyes off the girl’s approaching figure.
‘Veronica?’ he said.
‘Is it you, Carl?’
‘Yes.’ Carl was unhappily aware of the high pitch of his voice.
‘Is Baxter there?’
‘He’s in the bunker.’
‘The what?’
Veronica had stopped a few feet away.
‘The bunker,’ Carl said. ‘A sort of cave I built.’
‘What do you want with a cave?’
‘I take cave women there,’ Carl said.
Oh God, he thought, what am I saying? He had decided that if Veronica showed up he would let her decide what they would say and do. He knew
that in his nervousness he could only create an atmosphere of silliness. Would she think he was an idiot?
Veronica smiled. He’s terrified, she thought. It was reassuring. With older boys, she was usually the uncomfortable one. ‘Do you know many cave women?’ she asked.
‘None. Actually, the bunker is just in case I meet one.’
‘Why do you call it a bunker?’
‘Hitler lived in a bunker. At the end of the war.’
‘With Eva Braun?”
‘Yes. And they had a dog called Blondie. The dog had four puppies there.’ Carl was beginning to lose his self-consciousness. The story of Hitler’s last days moved him more than anything else he knew about, and it was the first time he had told the story to anyone. ‘Hitler loved Blondie. And he carried one of the puppies around with him—petting it all the time. He had these cyanide capsules he was going to use to kill himself and Eva. But he wasn’t sure they would work—he didn’t trust the people that gave them to him. So he gave one to Blondie. He watched her die. And then he had the puppies shot.’
‘That’s disgusting,’ Veronica said.
‘No. He loved them. Here’s the really great part. He left instructions. After he and Eva were dead—she took a capsule, and he shot himself in the head—they were cremated. And so were Blondie and the puppies. And all the ashes were mixed together.’
Carl became silent. Queenie moved nervously about, avoiding the bunker, where Baxter was clawing at the metal door.
Veronica looked at Carl. He’s forgotten me, she thought. She wasn’t used to being ignored by boys, especially by one who was alone with her in the dark. She was flattered. Carl had shared a secret with her. ‘Why don’t you let Baxter out?’ she asked.
Carl walked to the bunker and pulled the door aside. Baxter sprang out of the darkness and then stood motionless. Queenie stopped prowling, and the dogs stared at each other briefly. Then Baxter charged at Queenie, who growled and retreated towards Veronica.
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