Time Is Noon

by Pearl S. Buck

  He was nearly eight months old. She fell upon her knees and wrapped her arms about him and lifted his head in her hand. She forced a smile to her lips and nodded her head to him to draw his wandering eyes back to her face. They came wavering back to her at last, the great beautiful blue eyes. For a moment they met her eyes fully, for a moment before they slipped again. For that moment she looked down into their depths, caught and plumbed them and stared down into them. They were empty. He could not answer her because he did not know her. She held him rigidly a moment, terrified, and then laid him gently down. Something was wrong with Paul. It was as though when she laid him down he was gone away forever. She went to the window and stood there. She had a fantasy that somewhere a little boy had tiptoed away and closed the door and left her alone again.

  It began to come to her in the early dawn that perhaps the real Paul had never been born at all. She sat holding him, holding his body to which she had given birth. She had sat holding him all night. She could not bear to lay him in his crib. She must have his warm body in her arms at least. It’s like holding him dead, she thought. It’s holding my dead child. Paul is dead.

  In the early morning she heard Bart’s footsteps on the stairs. He stumbled upon the threshold and caught himself. “Say, where did you put those blue shirts I had last summer? I’ve got to make hay today and I’ll roast at best.” He saw her face bent over the child. “Kid sick?” he asked. He came over and took the child’s hand in his great hand. The small plump white hand lay there in his lined, grimy palm.

  “Bart,” she said, “there’s something wrong with this child.” She forced every word slowly.

  But Bart grinned. “He looks all right—not fevered—hand’s cool as a cucumber.”

  “He doesn’t know me—he doesn’t sit up alone.”

  “He’s too little,” Bart said.

  “No, he’s not. Rose says David sat up long before this.”

  “Kids aren’t the same. You fuss too much, Jo. Sam was sort of slow, I remember, but he turned out all right. Give him time. Here, kid—” He put his thick finger under Paul’s chin and tickled him. A slow vague smile came to the small lips. “Sure, you’re all right, aren’t you? Say, Jo, I wish you’d come and get me those shirts. Pop’s yelling to start on the hay.”

  “All right, Bart.”

  But then it was good to stir, to have to move and do something, to know the night was ended. She laid the child down upon the bed. After the shadows of night it was good to feel the stairs beneath her feet, to open drawers, to feel solid stuff in her hands, solid, coarse, everyday stuff.

  She found the shirts and gave them to Bart. She went downstairs and busied herself about the kitchen. The sun was tipping the horizon and light spilled from it like shining water. In the barnyard across the road Sam was harnessing the horses, forcing them backward into the traces. Their great heads towered over him, snorting, protesting. The cows were coming in a solemn procession out of the gate and turning down the road to the pastures, lush with the full-grown grass. Behind them was Bart’s father, his shoulders bent beneath the weight of a full milk bucket in each hand. She fetched a cup and went to meet him to dip up the new milk. The old man watched her, grudging, silent, and went on his way into the cellar.

  She stood drinking the milk in the sunshine. Within her was the waiting darkness of the night, to which she must return. But just for this moment it was morning. The trees, the hills, the sky were real. She stood among them in the morning. The night was behind her and before her, but here was morning. She looked upward to the sky, quickly, searching. It was a habit now to search the sky. But it was empty, high, above her, serene and blue.

  “When did Bart begin to talk?” she asked his mother, when Paul was well past a year old. For these many months she had spent her every moment watching Paul, measuring him, testing all his powers. Did he hear her when she called him? Yes, he turned his head slowly when she called. Did he see? Yes, his eyes followed the red flannel dog if she moved it slowly enough. Would he put out his hand to take it? Yes, he took it, but he let it fall. He did not remember that he had it.

  Bart’s mother stirred the sauce made from the sweet apples. She used sweet apples for sauce so that sugar could be spared. “There’s enough sugar in food natural,” she said. “Folks shouldn’t want to keep eating sugar. It’s a flesh pander.”

  Sam and Bart both bought cheap candy, secretly, like little boys, and ate it as men drink liquor, starved for sweetness. Bart’s pockets were sticky with the stuff when Joan washed his garments.

  “Bart?” said his mother vaguely. “Oh, I don’t know—he was kind of late. He didn’t really talk before he was five, I guess. I remember some pestering neighbor woman came in one day when he was three and said it was funny he didn’t talk yet. But I always said he’d talk when he got ready to, and he did.” She stirred and tasted the stuff. “Em had a girl who never did talk, though. She had a fall, they always said. She never was just right. They got her put away finally. Em couldn’t do with her around when she was grown up—she’d act queer before folks.”

  On a spring morning she waited for Fanny under the oak tree around the bend and when they came, she took Frankie’s hand and said, “Look at me, Frankie.” He looked up at her instantly, fully, his eyes directed into hers, knowing, intelligent.

  “When did he talk, Fanny?”

  “Who—him? That child? He talked as soon as he walked, I reckon—he wasn’t a year old before he was talking.”

  “He’s very quiet,” she said.

  “He talks when he wants to,” Fanny said indifferently. “And can he sing! Sing, Frankie!”

  He dropped her hand then, and clasping his hand behind him, he opened his mouth so wide she could see his rosy red tongue and small white teeth, and he began to sing. His voice came out clear and full and unchildlike. “I’m singing with a sword in my hand, O Lord,” he sang fervently, swaying from side to side. She listened in silence until he finished. In the tree above them a bird began to twitter madly.

  “Here,” she said to Fanny, giving her the dollar she had now been giving her each week.

  “Thank you,” said Fanny. “Come on, Frankie, let’s go.”

  But Joan did not wait. She was plodding down the road. And what sort of God was it of whom her father used to speak in such belief, who numbered the very hairs of their heads, who watched a sparrow lest it fall? So carelessly was a dark and nameless child born and gifted. But her child, her wanted child, had been given nothing.

  Precious body of Paul! Let her keep his body sweet and fresh—his perfect body which she had made. She went to Clarktown and bought recklessly fine soft linen, blue, yellow, and gay gingham printed with flowers, and made him little suits. Above the vivid stuff his rosy face glowed. It was a beautiful body, the body of a beautiful little boy, the shoulders square, the thighs full, the dimpled knees and feet. She held him all the time now, sleeping and awake. At night she put him beside her in the bed. In the day she sat him astride her hip and held him as she walked and worked. She must feel his body. She had this body.

  On one August day she dressed him carefully and drove into Middlehope to Dr. Crabbe. She drove down the street, not seeing it. The buggy top was up. That was to shield the child from the sun—the child and her. From the shadow she need see no one. She would reach there at noon and Dr. Crabbe would be at his own house—and everybody else would be at dinner. She planned all the way what she would say. She would be very calm and matter-of-fact. “Dr. Crabbe, I am worried about Paul. He is slow about doing things. I want you to see him. I want to know the truth.”

  Yes, she must know the truth. She must press the cruel truth across her heart and know it whole. But she would be very calm and wait for him to see the truth and tell her. She had waited all these months, gathering herself to be strong, to be calm.

  She went into his little dun-colored office and sat down, and his housekeeper, Nellie Byers, stuck her head in at the door. “That you, Joan? He’s just eatin
g his dinner. My, isn’t that a cute baby you got? Yours, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, mine,” said Joan. “I’ll wait, Nellie.”

  She would be glad to wait, glad to have the chance to force down this hardness in her throat. But she had no chance. He was there at once. He wiped his lips with his napkin and threw it on the floor.

  “Well, well, Joan!” Oh, his blessed hearty voice, his warm good voice!

  “You came just in time. I was about to go and see Mrs. Mark—nothing urgent, poor soul, just going round to see how much more of her is dead. I try to get around once in a while, though she don’t want me to come. Why, Joan, what’s wrong?”

  She was staring at him, sobbing, sobbing loudly. The sobs came loud and dry, and she was helpless in their gasp. They seized her and shook her. Speechlessly she held out the child to him and he took the baby. She gasped through her terrible sobbing, “Something’s—wrong. He doesn’t—know me.”

  She gave her burden to him, and she was eased. She stopped sobbing. For the first moment in all these weary wakeful nights, these restless frightening days, she had rest from her burden. The long silence in her broke. Now she could not stop talking. She must talk on and on—“He lies so still—he’s so awfully still—I can’t tell you, Dr. Crabbe—it’s him. No one ever says anything. They think it’s wrong to talk—it’s as though they had blighted him—” All the time she was talking, talking, and he was looking at the child, testing him, touching him here and there, moving his limbs. He took off the little clothes and held the child.

  “Beautiful body,” he said abruptly, breaking into her talk. “Got your fine body, Joan.”

  She was panting with her terror, her lips dry. Now let her seize the pain firm and hard with both her hands.

  “Dr. Crabbe, where is his mind?”

  The pain of waiting for birth was nothing to the pain of this waiting. All of life, all the world, stopped, faded, was nothing. In all the world there was nothing but this tiny room, this old man, this child, herself. But he did not answer for a long time. At last he began to put on the garments again, slowly, carefully, to fasten them expertly, securely. At last, when the child was dressed, he looked at Joan, his face a twist of wrinkles.

  “His mind was never born, Joan—my dear child—”

  She drove slowly through the leaf-shadowed street. Once someone called after her excitedly, and she saw, through the fog of her terror, Netta Weeks pushing a baby carriage. “Joan, Joan!” she screamed. “Wait. I haven’t seen you in ages.” She had to stop then, for a moment. “No, I won’t get out, thank you, Netta. I must be getting home. Yes, this is my baby.” Paul was asleep. He lay upon her lap, his head in her arm. He was so still she could manage the reins while she held him. She was glad he was asleep. He was beautiful in his sleep—all children lay quiet in sleep. She listened while Netta praised him.

  “Why, he’s a beauty, Joan! He favors you, doesn’t he? My, he looks grand and strong! You’re lucky—I bet he’s easy to look after. My Petie is a terror—into everything these days.” She pulled back the hood of the carriage and disclosed a thin, sandy, lively-looking child. He was sitting upright, babbling over a toy duck which he was picking to pieces. Netta screamed at him. “Oh, my heavens—his granddad just gave him that down at the store! He’s so mischievous—” She snatched the duck away and instantly he bellowed and she gave it back to him and winked at Joan. “Smart as a tack,” she confided. “Your baby’s a beauty, though,” she added.

  “He’s a good baby,” Joan said quietly. Paul stirred a little and she gathered up the reins quickly. She must go, lest he wake, lest he open his lovely wandering empty eyes. She could not bear the thought of Netta’s gossip. “Joan Richards always held her head so high—but you ought to see her kid—”

  “Come and see me, Joan,” Netta cried after her.

  “Yes,” Joan called back. But she knew she never would. There was this pain in her, waiting for her, shutting her away from everyone. She had to seize it, to wrestle with it, to plumb it, to live it alone. She drove slowly back, holding Paul. But around them, beside them, like a separate presence, was the pain, waiting for her.

  In the attic she laid him down upon the bed and took off his little hat and coat and she fetched a soft damp cloth and wiped his face and hands. Then she sat down beside him, and fed him. There were these things to be done for him, to comfort her. Though he had not cried, he was hungry. She studied his absorbed face. When he slept, when he ate thus, he looked like any other child. Dr. Crabbe was only an old man. Perhaps he was wrong. She reviewed the morning quickly. She had forgotten to tell him that Bart had not tried to talk until he was five. And Bart was all right now. Wasn’t Bart all right?

  Dr. Crabbe was so impetuous. He made up his mind so fast. … She still had nearly three hundred dollars. She could take Paul to a city doctor and see what he said. She could go to New York and look in the telephone book for a baby doctor and ask him to see Paul. Yes, she would do that. She was happier, suddenly, planning something to do. She would not say anything to anybody until she had done it. Until she had done this she could push the waiting pain away. It was like pushing away a solid substance with her hands. She held it off.

  “It’s all a fuss over nothing,” Bart declared.

  Downstairs in the kitchen when he was washing up after milking, she had told him. “Dr. Crabbe says Paul isn’t right, Bart.”

  “I don’t hold with doctors,” Bart’s mother said. “I wish I hadn’t ever told you about Bart not talking till he was five. I told you to ease you. Bart turned out all right.”

  She did not answer. It was always easier now not to answer. She would go tomorrow. Perhaps when she knew, she could sleep again—when she knew Paul really was all right. She reckoned the day swiftly. It was Thursday. Fanny would be waiting. She’d have to tell Sam to get word to her to come on Saturday this week. She watched and made the chance to meet him before he reached the kitchen door. He was carrying the milk pails. But when she asked him, he shook his head shortly.

  “I don’t see her any more,” he said. “She’s got married.”

  She was frightened for a moment, then it did not matter. She could only fight one thing at a time. The fear of what Fanny might do if she were disappointed must wait until this waiting pain was fought off. She went back to the attic and packed a small bag of garments for Paul.

  She found a doctor easily. There was a woman at the telephone booth waiting for a turn, and when she saw her holding Paul in one arm and turning the pages of the book with the other, she said, “Can I help you?”

  “I want the name of the best baby doctor in New York,” Joan said. Paul’s head was slipping from her shoulder and she put up her hand quickly to hold it.

  “You’d better go to the Edmonds Clinic,” the woman said. She wore a bright red dress and her yellow hair stood out from her round fat face. But her small blue eyes were kind, and her full bright red lips were soft. “You can go and it don’t cost you anything if you say you haven’t any money. Just write down you haven’t no support. My, he’s heavy, isn’t he? What’s wrong?” She was turning pages slowly, moving her glittering pointed nail down the names. “Here it is—see? You take the bus here at the corner uptown. What did you say was wrong?”

  “He doesn’t walk or talk,” said Joan. There the pain was, as near as that. When she said the words, it flew at her, stabbing her. She pushed it back again.

  “Don’t he?” the woman said. She was about to go on when the door of the telephone booth opened and a man made to enter. She recalled herself. “Here, you!” she cried loudly. “I’m next in line!”

  “Well, go on then,” the man muttered. He was tired and sallow and middle-aged, and as he waited he sucked the handle of his umbrella. The door banged and the woman was shut behind it. She was screaming into the telephone, her face twisted and red.

  Joan looked at the address. It stamped itself upon her mind instantly and she found it easily. People were very kind to her on the way. It
was wonderful that people were kind to her as they passed, so much kinder than Bart was, or Bart’s family. It was sweet to have a courteous word or touch. In the bus a white-haired man gave her his seat and smiled and touched his hat, and when she got out, someone held her arm when she stepped down.

  “He’s too heavy for you,” a voice murmured, a gentle pleasant tenor voice. But when she turned to speak, she could not see who it was. It was only a voice in the crowd. But she was comforted. There were kind people, unknown and kind.

  She looked out into the streets of New York as the bus ground its way along. And yet these hurrying people did not look kind. They were so distracted in their gaze. Once when the bus stopped in front of a store she saw some people who were not hurrying—a woman and two men in dingy clothing. They were sauntering back and forth, their hands folded in front of them, and carrying signs that read LOCKED OUT OF BRISK AND BRAM FOR DEMANDING HUMAN CONDITIONS. But no one looked or gave them any heed. The bus went on again and she reached the hospital and entered a door over which was painted, FREE CLINIC. She went in and sat down on one of the benches in the long hallway. The benches lined the walls and they were full of women with sick children—with children crying and moaning and lying in weary stupor. Beside her a young woman with a white narrow face and exhausted eyes held a little girl with a huge misshapen head. She looked at Paul enviously. He was asleep, as soundly as though he were in the crib in the attic.