The Other
Page 24
She gave a shuddery gasp at the thought, and preceding him along the sidewalk by the church, unable to look at him, she was unaware of how slowly the red mark on his white cheek disappeared, unaware too of his expression as he followed, staring with flat opaque eyes from under gable-shaped brows at her stiffened back.
5
Usually the funny stories in the dining room never stopped. If you listened at the door, you might hear Mr. Pennyfeather telling a Mae West joke, or the one about the Jewish man riding with the Pope—“Who’s det vit’ Ginsboig?”—or Mr. Fenstermacher would recite Minnehaha. You knew who was in the room just from the sound of their laughter: Uncle George, working to be jovial; Dr. Brainard, a deep chest rumble, like a truck starting up, ending in wet backfire; Mr. Fenstermacher’s, a high-pitched, nasal whine; Mr. Foley, as befitted his occupation, laughing seldom. Tonight hardly anyone laughed at all. Talk was sparse and subdued; you had a feeling everyone was in a hurry to get through the evening and leave.
As Winnie came through the swinging door from the pantry, the tinkle of ice and water splashing into goblets could be heard, and the clink of silverware upon china.
“Honest, Rider is hardly touching his plate,” she said. “T’ain’t right, Mr. Perry insisting on him being there.” She jerked her head toward the dining room. “He could of eaten in here, or upstairs, on a tray, or out, like Mrs. Valeria.” While Mr. Fenstermacher was being entertained at the Perrys’, Valeria had been invited to dine with Mrs. Fenstermacher and then to go to a movie show.
Winnie poured hot coffee into the silver pot, and put it on a footed tray with the cream and sugar. “Winnie,” Ada said, “when Mr. Angelini brings in the keg, put the tray in the center of the table so it shall not mar.”
“Yes, Missus.” Winnie banged her hip against the door and went through. Back turned at the sink, Ada’s agitation showed itself as she scraped off the dinner plates.
Niles got up from his chair. He had a streak of Mercurochrome on his cheek, a red crescent where the moon pin had scratched him. “Here, we can do that,” he offered, signaling to Holland, standing a little way off by himself, his expression dreamy and faraway, with beads of perspiration across his lip, his eyes a bit filmy. The Asiatic Look again.
Rudely shaken from her thoughts, his grandmother looked back over her shoulder.
“Come on,” Niles said, throwing a dish towel across the room to his twin, “I’ll wash and you dry.”
A dish clattered from Ada’s hand into the sink. “Stop that at once!” she commanded, wiping a cheek with the back of her trembling hand. “Pick up that dish towel!”
Watching in the doorway while the towel was retrieved, Winnie went to the refrigerator and removed a bowl of whipped cream and spooned it onto the dessert. “Table’s cleared,” she announced, puzzled by the tension in the room. “Where’s Leno?” she said, pretending to have seen nothing. “Mr. Perry wants you all to come in for the toast.” Smoothing the cream with a spatula, she carried off the dessert. Niles looked at Ada, who had stopped her work and was silently clasping her hands. Finding the dishpan and Oxydol under the sink, he moved her gently aside, filled the pan with hot water, sudsed, and slid the plates in one at a time.
The back-entryway door swung wide and in came Leno Angelini with the wine keg upright on one shoulder. At the same moment Winnie returned, with George behind her. “Grand dinner,” he announced, eyes bright, and slurring his words a little. “Here’s Leno, right on schedule. Take it in, Leno, take it in. Come along Ada, Niles. It’s time.” He held the door open. “You come too, Winnie. We want the whole family.”
“George—” Ada demurred.
“Come on, come along in,” he insisted in his heartiest manner. “It’s a grand evening. It won’t be a party without the toast, and it won’t be a toast without the family.”
As the others left, Winnie reached out and touched Ada. “What happened before?” she asked, bewildered. “Was Niles talking to himself?”
“No, my dear,” Ada said with a weary shake of her head as she passed through the doorway. “It is only—a game.”
Mystified, Winnie followed her through the pantry into the smoke-filled room, shimmering with candlelight. The table centerpiece, a three-tiered glass epergne, banked with fruit, had been removed to the sideboard amid an array of liquor bottles and waiting wine glasses. In its place on the footed silver tray stood Granddaddy Perry’s wine keg, looking oddly out of place under Leno Angelini’s impromptu covering of canvas, the frayed ends of the cord tied in a knot, and flanked by candles in pale fragile stalks of amethyst glass. As Ada came in, all the selectmen rose except Mr. Pennyfeather.
“Is that Ada?” he inquired from the foot of the table, near the pantry door. She went to touch his hand and kiss his cheek, and after greeting the others, politely refused Rider’s seat and took a spare one away from the table beside the china cupboard. Leaving the chair on the opposite side of the cupboard for Holland, Niles stood against the wall, out of the light, directly across from Mr. Angelini, spruced up for the occasion.
When Winnie had distributed the glasses, George placed each in turn under the spigot and let the wine flow. Then, brimming, the glasses were passed around to each place. “And one for Winnie,” George said, making a show, after he had handed Ada hers. “And one for Leno. Grand,” he said. When Mr. Pennyfeather received his, he fingered the base and tapped the rim lightly with a spoon for attention. While the room fell silent he maneuvered his chair out and stood; stoop-shouldered and looking down at the table behind the smoked glasses that hid his blindness, he chose his words.
“Well,” he began simply, “I guess we’re all here now. Another year has passed, and once more we’re gathered around Granddaddy Perry’s table. It’s been a sad year. The family has had a lot of sorrow, a lot of grief. When I was told that our annual gathering would take place tonight, I must admit I was surprised. And there are those others who may be even shocked—I don’t know. But I’m glad we did meet, glad that George and Ada insisted. I think it has helped each of us lift our hearts a little.” He turned his head in the direction of Rider, who nodded a slight assent. “Those of us, not members of the family, we’re—well, in a sense we’re representatives of this whole town and all the people in it. And we’d like to say we feel very much the suffering these folks have had to endure these past months. Too much suffering, some would say. But the Perrys are a strong people—always have been. And I know—we all know—that they’ll find the strength to accept God’s will.”
“Amen,” the others said.
His fingers slid cautiously along the cloth, groping for the wine glass. He located and lifted it and all the men rose again. “We would like,” Mr. Pennyfeather continued, “to be the sort of friends to Granddaddy Perry’s family that he was to the community, steadfast and kind-thinking. Pequot Landing had a good friend in Watson Perry, and once again we, all of us, are gathered here in his honor and to accept his generosity on behalf of the township. Ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded with dignity, “shall we drink to the memory of John Watson Perry.”
The name echoed around the table and glasses were lifted to the portrait above the sideboard in the traditional memorial toast. “Hear, hear,” Niles repeated with the others, tasting his wine and lifting his glass to Holland, whose expression he could not read.
George accepted the toast and in return tendered the white envelope containing the check to Dr. Brainard, who passed it along to Mr. Fenstermacher, who handed it to Mr. Pennyfeather. The men sat down, and Winnie, draining her glass, began serving the dessert. Talk resumed. Mr. Pennyfeather chatted warmly with Mr. Angelini, who stood at his side and, embarrassed, accepted another glass of wine. Ada moved to slip quietly out through the pantry door and Winnie was passing the coffee when, suddenly, the hall doors at the opposite end of the room opened and all heads turned to see Torrie faltering on the threshold. Again the men stood while Rider hurried to his wife’s side and tried to draw her from the room.
“You came for the toast, wasn’t that it, Torrie?” Uncle George suggested, an attempt to ease the awkward situation, and offered her his place. “Well, isn’t this grand.”
“Yes,” she said vaguely. The lamp plug scraped along the bare floor behind her as she permitted herself to be seated. She rested the lamp on her lap and smoothed the skirt. In her bruised face the eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, their expression empty-looking. Her voice was tiny, and to Niles she wasn’t Torrie at all, but some pitiful child-creature he scarcely recognized.
An embarrassed silence followed until Mr. Pennyfeather got up and said, “George, because Torrie has honored us with her company, I think we might have a second toast. Perhaps the Doctor would propose it.”
Dr. Brainard cleared his throat and George motioned for another glass, while the selectmen coughed behind their hands, straightened their ties and tried to look anywhere but at Torrie, who sat rigid at the head of the table, watching expectantly as George leaned over, placed the glass under the spigot of the keg, and with an unsteady hand turned the tap.
Like blood from an open vein the wine began spurting into the glass, then slowed, flowed again for a moment, gurgled, dribbled away to nothing. Puzzled, George twisted the tap, set down the glass, and tilted the keg to it. Again, the slight trickle into the half-filled glass.
“Can’t be empty,” he mumbled, tapping the keg and rocking it on the silver footed tray. He listened, then looked over at Leno with a mystified shrug. “Damn thing’s s’pose-a be full, right, Leno? ’Less someone’s been at the wine, huh?” His tobacco-stained fingers had fumbled the knot loose; he pulled the canvas aside and by the light of a raised candle peered inside. Quickly he fumbled for his napkin, which he clapped over his mouth and, while Niles and Mr. Angelini kept their places, the others drew closer, Mr. Fenstermacher and Dr. Brainard, Mr. Foley, Ada as well, and together they stared. Mr. Fenstermacher was the first to break away, making awful retching sounds in his throat, Ada moaned aloud, and Torrie, rising, tottered forward, her arms flung wide, her screams beginning and Rider only half catching her as she crumpled, the doll-lamp rolling away to the baseboard, the bulb shattering.
“What is it?” Mr. Pennyfeather was demanding. “What is it?” He alone, seated behind smoked glasses at the foot of the table, was unable to see what the others plainly saw, what Niles, his eyes now on the wavering candlelight image of his twin, did not care to see—the little face that floated in the dark red wine, so like the baby in the bottle, hair waving, the eyes staring up at the ceiling, the mouth parted in a silent scream.
6
Poor baby. Oh, the poor, poor baby, Torrie’s little baby. His heart bled. Jesus, Holland, Christ, Holland, oh Christ, what a thing to do! What a terrible, awful thing to do to Torrie’s little baby. Made your stomach heave to think about it. Holland must be crazy. Yes, that must be it, Holland was crazy. Anyone would have to be crazy to do a thing like that. He shivered; another crow. But there was this, he told himself, he’d been right all along. Holland had known where the baby was; certainly he had.
How quiet it was. Still, and deathly quiet. Usually the house was fairly cracking under the plaster; the walls, floorboards, ceiling stirring as though the place were about to collapse. But not now. Now, not a sound. Except the grandfather clock. Tock-tick, tock-tick. It was getting on his nerves, crouched as he was in the dark. How long was he going to have to stay here in the closet? He hated the dark so.
Changing his position slightly he struck an elbow against Uncle George’s bag of golf clubs, grabbing them in time before they clattered to the floor. It smelled in there, old and stale. Must be either the galoshes or Father’s leather coat, hanging on its hook. The closet was stifling. A tiny bit of light came through the crack where the door would not quite close. By putting his eye to the crack he could just see the landing at the top of the stairs. A while ago there had been frantic commotion up and down them, about what you’d expect under the circumstances. He himself had bolted from the dining room before anyone had realized he was gone—anyone, that was, except Ada, whose eye watched his every move, but she hadn’t been quick enough, and before you knew it he was through the pantry, into the kitchen, then out the hall door and up the stairs and into the closet. Soon Uncle George came roaring up and into his room, evidently for the car keys, because Niles could hear something about Rider taking Torrie down to his mother’s house on the green and calling Constable Blessing. Then he listened to the others leaving, the selectmen and the rest. When they had gone, he could make out Ada’s and Winnie’s voices, whispering at the bottom of the stairs, but even with his ear to the crack he couldn’t understand what they were saying. After that it was pretty quiet, except you could tell people were walking around. Looking for him, he was sure. Then—silence. Except for the clock. Tock-tick tock-tick.
Now he heard another door open: Ada’s, at the end of the hall. He recognized her footstep as she came along the gallery. Then she stepped into view at the head of the stairs. She had changed into her robe and her hair was unpinned and falling about her shoulders. On her face was a strange expression he couldn’t read. She turned and started down the stairs, descending one step, then another, haltingly. Now she stopped, remaining stock still, listening, and doing something funny with her shoulders, hunching them, kind of, and Niles caught his breath and held it, not daring to move. Had she suddenly thought of the closet? No, she was continuing on. There was a loud click in the silence and in another moment the clock had begun to strike eleven slow, sonorous notes.
Now Ada had stopped halfway down the staircase and, with her back to the door, stood motionless, her shoulders slightly lifted as though the dying notes of the clock were reverberating against her bones, and, from the back, you could see her head making its little nodding motions. Then her head turned and he realized her eyes were closed, the brow furrowed, her hands clasped beneath her chin. Once or twice the muscle in her jaw twitched. She lifted her hair and let it fall, then laid her hand against her forehead, as if feeling for a fever. No, no, not a fever; she was concentrating! Her whole expression was one of deepest concentration; she was playing the game! Playing the game on him, to search him out.
Two times two is four. Two times four is eight. Two times eight is sixteen. Two times sixteen is thirty-two. Buzz me, Miz’ Blue. Good evening, all you people out there in Radioland. No. It was no good. He couldn’t stop her. Tried to think of other things; but couldn’t stop her. Her eyes were open now, her body turned toward him and in another moment, with a rapid movement, she wheeled on the step and came back up, standing for a long, silent moment on the top landing, her eye not on the clock, but on the door, the damn door; cripes, why wouldn’t it close! She took a step forward. And another. Stopping with each step as though, if there were someone hiding in the closet, she didn’t want to discover him. Her hand emerged from the sleeve of her robe as she lifted it and reached out to seize the knob. He gasped as she threw the door open wide and the light from the hall fell on him.
“Get up,” she ordered, and he obeyed, getting to his feet, then standing before her, unmoving, his eyes on hers, his body taut, panting like an animal, his head slightly tilted, staring from under dark, slanting brows, his eyes glazed.
“Come here.” She put a hand out, the sleeve of her white robe falling away from her wrist in full folds.
For a moment he remained where he stood, then brutally thrust out at her; she drew back, and he flung
himself past her, out of the closet, savagely crashing down the stairs. At the bottom he glanced back to see her coming fast behind him, her hair streaming, her sleeves flapping like huge wings, neither calling his name nor yet stopping in her pursuit. Winnie, wild-eyed, jumped up from the kitchen table to block his way as he passed through the room. He ducked around her and pushed through the back-entryway and ran outside.
“No, leave me,” he heard Ada cry to Winnie, “let me go!” And then: “Wait, Missus, I’ll come—” “No! You shall stay here. This is for me to do, alone.”
Niles scooted down the drive and under the breezeway; behind him the tiny figure fled over the gravel like a night moth. And as he slipped into the barn he saw the blur of white as it stopped at the corner of the carriage-house, where, disappearing into the weeds for a moment, it reappeared in the light, dragging behind the blue and yellow can of Richfield gasoline.
Red shadows cast by the flickering lantern overhead tossed the apple cellar like a ship on an ocean of blood. Niles eyed the other across from him. “God damn you,” he whispered, “God damn you to hell.” Hell hell hell, he heard his own voice come back to him. “How could you do such a terrible thing?” Thing thing thing. “Well, what have you got to say for yourself? Can’t you say something?” Again: thing thing thing. The room rang with echoes. He waited for an answer but there was only silence. Then he heard:
“Peregrine for Perry.”
“Yes,” he replied, “Peregrine for Perry.”
“Who is Peregrine?” Even the question was like an echo. “I am Peregrine,” he replied. “The Peregrine is me.”