In An Arid Land Read online

  This, however ... this she has not expected. She has not yet even considered seeing other men. It has been so long, and even in her youth she dated very little. She and Jorge never really "dated" at all in the common way; they were acquaintances and then lovers and then married in a matter of months. And what would she talk about with some other man, even Alfred Dunn? There is nothing to her but Jorge and the boys and her work, and he knows all about her work. No, she was not ready, is not ready, doesn't even want to be ready. Besides, she has too much to do, to think about, to be going out nights.

  So she said to Alfred, "Thank you but I couldn't, not yet."

  "I see," said Alfred in his gentle way. "I understand."

  He looked so dejected! But why? This is Angelica, only Angelica. There are plenty of others, ask them. But then, for reasons she could not fathom, she said, "Well, all right, I'll tell you what, let me think about it. Maybe."

  "Oh yes, good," he said, bright and hopeful. "You really should get out more. You shouldn't sit in that house and brood."

  "I don't brood, Alfred."

  They looked at each other through their eyeglasses and it seemed they had reached an understanding.

  All day long she thought about it and then she thought about what Jorge would think of it and then she thought only of Jorge. She thought of him deeply, intensely, selfishly. By day's end she had fashioned in her mind a model of anger and resentment toward him. If you left me you must not have loved me and if you did not love me then you must have wanted to leave me. Isn't death, after all, simply a giving up, a getting out?

  At home, after the boys have eaten their dinner in silence and been put to bed early, she goes to her room and broods in the darkness. Her body is cold and hollow. She feels weak, too weak to make decisions, too weak even to lie down, to sleep. She doesn't want to go to dinner with Alfred Dunn, she doesn't want to go to dinner with anybody; she wants Jorge to come home.

  The moon is up again. At the window she looks out at the street, at the huge live oak in the yard. Jorge would have liked that tree. He was a great tree climber, an adventurer. It is then that she notices a dark figure on the sidewalk. She puts on her glasses and sees Mr. Morris standing there, resting against his cane. He is studying the house; he seems to be searching the windows for something. She steps back into the deeper shadow of her safe place and watches.

  He is like a dead man come to life, a wandering shade, the pure image of loneliness. His bald head shines in the moonlight and his clothes hang on him loosely. Now he is looking down, as if in thought. Perhaps he is lost and confused, can't recall the way home. An odd and disturbing notion, for he has found his way home: to this house where he lived all those years with a wife he must have loved. Here it was they raised their children and tended their gardens and slept together in this very room. She wonders if this is what he is thinking, if this is what he is

  remembering, and if in the vapors of his senility he is searching for the key to come inside.

  Soon he turns and shuffles away, tapping the sidewalk with his cane, and once again the night is empty.

  "When is Daddy coming home?" Gabe wants to know.

  It is the weekend. They are all on the front porch, the broad deep porch that first attracts the eye when you approach the house. Miguel is playing with his turtles but he won't allow Gabe to join him and Gabe is bored and angry and frustrated. He wants Daddy to play with him, though Mama will do. But Mama is busy; she is reading reports; she has a meeting of district recruiters on Monday and she is not prepared.

  "When is Daddy coming home?" he asks again, demanding and violent this time. He stalks to Angelica's chair and shakes it.

  She glances at him and answers without thinking, "Never."

  Now Miguel stops his playing and looks up. They are both staring at her. Never has she said never. Never has she so directly stated the cold simple fact of it. Still, she is surprised by their response. She thought they had accepted the fact; she thought that after so much time they would have forgotten. Now she sees, as she has not seen before, her own face in the faces of these two young ones: the eyes of doubt, the brows deep and furrowed by the mystery of it.

  None of them says a word. She drops her papers to the porch and snatches Gabe into her arms; she beckons Miguel to her side; she clutches at them both. Together they send up a wail of misery as the tears course down their cheeks.

  And here is Mr. Morris standing on the porch steps. The boys don't notice him but Angelica is startled by his presence. She did not see him approach; he is simply there. At first this scene must strike him as humorous these three small people huddled together and weeping in broad public daylight. There is a hint of a smile on his dry thin lips. But as Angelica tries to recover, dabbing her tears, his face changes. The touch of pity returns, along with traces of compassion and tenderness. He steps up onto the porch. He looms above them.

  The boys know now; they hear him; they turn. They see him and without any self-consciousness they grab him and hold him and weep anew against him, wiping their eyes on the canvas of his trousers. He touches their shoulders, pats them, speaks softly.

  "I was just passing by," he says to Angelica.

  Angelica stands, apologizes, tries to right the spilled appearance of her family. She tells the boys to leave Mr. Morris alone, he is not here to be soaked by their tears, but the old man shakes his head, flaps a hand, says, "It's okay."

  "They miss their father."

  "So do I sometimes," he says. "Even now after all these years I miss my old man. In the old days, he used to come here and we would sit on this very porch and pass the time. He helped me plant that tree." And then, embarrassed by his memories and his confiding, he says: "Hey, what's this?"

  He has spied Miguel's toys scattered on the porch. He seems interested, willing. Miguel is thrilled by his interest. He wants to show, to tell. He flies to the end of the porch and slides into the toys. He calls over Mr. Morris. He lets Gabe explain one or two of the simpler aspects of the turtles' intricate parts and behavior. The old man sits among them. Presently the three of them are deep in maneuvers, the two young ones in combat with the old one. Angelica, baffled a bit but thankful, sits in her chair on the porch and watches. They play for a long time, with excitement and laughter, and Mr. Morris gallantly loses.

  That night they have pizza for supper, they watch TV, and things are better.

  But now comes Alfred Dunn. It is late Sunday morning when his car eases to a stop at the curb. Out he spills with a bag of donuts and The New York Times. Angelica meets him at the door, still in her robe. The boys are on the porch again. They know Alfred but act as if they don't; they act as if he is no one worth knowing. They glance up and go back to their playing.

  "It's a nice day and I thought maybe . . . ." He holds up his gifts by way of finishing the sentence.

  Angelica resents his dropping by but she invites him in anyway. She notices that he is clean and neat, dressed in new jeans, a new tee shirt, and his hair is still damp from the shower. Despite the morning mess of misplaced toys and clothing and pizza boxes on the coffee table, Alfred praises the house, tells her how lucky she was to find it. She agrees, says they like it, it suits them. He sits at the table. She puts on more coffee. They eat donuts and talk of work, of mutual friends.

  Why is he here? What does he want?

  "Angelica," he says suddenly, and he scoots his chair around the table to be closer to her. "Have you thought about what I asked you? If you won't consent to going out with me, maybe you would consent to my, well . . ." He shrugs, glances around. "Well, to my just coming here, just to be together."

  Now she thinks she knows why he has come. He has taken her hand. With the other, the free hand, she holds the lapels of her robe together. She is too surprised to do more, too stunned to say no, to say anything, and he must take her silence as tacit approval. He kisses her on the lips; he touches her breast; he tries to surround her with his arms.

  "Come, let's go to the bedroom,"
he whispers.

  She can't believe what is happening. It is a Sunday morning. The boys were playing quietly. She was working quietly. Everything was as it should have been and now here is Alfred Dunnsweet Alfred Dunn, who once loaned her money, who supports her arguments in departmental meetings, who used to play softball on the same team with Jorge. Here is Alfred Dunn wanting her body, wanting her love.

  The screen door slams. There is a loud stamping of little feet on the hard wooden floors. Up rises the usual: "Mom?"

  Alfred jumps back. Angelica jumps to her feet. The boys are there, in the room, gazing at them in disbelief. It is a long and awful moment, frozen with shame. "Yes, Miguel, what is it?" she asks. And the disbelief vanishes. They are no longer shocked; they no longer care. At the sound of their mother's voice, so common, so feeble, she thinks, they realize that what they saw must have been an illusion. It is only Alfred, after all, and besides they are in the wrong room for such things. The boys have seen Angelica and Jorge kissing, seen them even naked, but always in the bedroom. This is the kitchen, where dinner is cooked, meals are served, arguments thrashed out. It is not for kissing.

  Miguel says, coarse and direct, "He won't play right, I'm going over to Mack's house." Then Gabe makes his complaint, "He won't ever let me win," and he stomps up the stairs to his room. The screen door slams again; Miguel is gone. It is another awful moment. She is afraid he will say, Now, we're alone, come with me.

  She finds her voice; she says, "I think you'd better go."

  "Yes, of course, I'm sorry."

  "Don't apologize, Alfred, just go. Please."

  He leaves with heavy footsteps.

  Midnight now and not a sound. The boys upstairs are asleep, she assumes, she hopes, in their costumes. Tomorrow, Monday, is Halloween and they couldn't wait to try on their outfits. Gabe will be a pirate and Miguel a skeleton. His costume is black with white lines showing the bones, the headpiece skull-like. Once dressed, they insisted on sleeping in their assumed identities and after a brief but furious dispute she relented. She imagines them now, curled in their separate beds up there, close and yet far away in this tainted house, and she thinks she should go up and check on them. But not tonight; she hasn't the will to move. The weekend and its afflictions have drained her of everything.

  So she will remain where she is, lying in her bed as she has been lying in it for some time now. Sleep is doubtful, but there is solace here, a certain soft and giving nature that comforts more than the weary body, and there are memories that come so clearly at times she can't distinguish them as memories. The morning they bought the bed at a garage sale and cheerfully brought it home; the way the mattress sags, always has, and used to draw them together at its center; the way Jorge would sprawl across it for a few more moments of rest when she had risen for the day. This was their place, their one true haven in the world.

  She hears something out in the house. A creaking door perhaps? Feet skittering across the floor? A bump against a table? She is uncertain but for this: someone is there. Must be one of the boys come down for a glass of water or some mischief.

  She should go see; she should help if she can, stop the mischief if that's what it is. When Jorge was alive this was his job, his duty, to rise in the night and see what was wrong, as it was his duty to scold and reprimand, for she seldom had the strength or the courage to correct and guide at midnight.

  Get up from there and get on with it, her mother's voice reminds, and again she obeys. She switches on her lamp; she slips on her robe; she opens the door.

  Standing there in the hall as if he's about to enter her bedroom is old Mr. Morris. At first she is not even certain it's him, this is so unlikely, so outrageous; there is simply someone there. But the eyes tell her, those brilliant blue orbs. Nothing in them threatens. They gaze at her as if he too is stunned, surprised by what he has found, as if he expected to walk in and go to bed as he did on all those nights through all those years of living here with his wife. Five, ten, fifteen seconds they stare at each other and nothing in his face changes. Then there is a change so swift and profound it's as if those fifteen seconds never existed.

  He smiles, as a young man smiles at a young woman, to appeal, to entice, to tease a lover's look. Never do his eyes leave hers and his face is radiant with pleasure and happiness and loving tenderness. He is overjoyed now to see her.

  He says, his voice a little hoarse and croaking, "So then, have you found that earring? I've come to look for it."

  She understands. It takes a moment, but she understands. And she returns the smile. It would be impossible not to return it, he is so hopeful, so expectant so elated.

  "You step back," he says. "You watch and see. I'll find it."

  Why blast his dream? He is harmless. She will play along for a while and then call the daughter to come pick him up, or walk him home herself. Angelica moves aside and allows him to enter. He takes her hand; she turns with him and they step to the foot of the bed. He glances around and lets out a long light sigh.

  "You know," he says. "This room could use some paint, some curtains, a new rug. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  "Oh, yes," she says.

  They gaze at each other; they share a look of friendship, of contentment, of devotion. He seems suddenly youthful and strong.

  "So then, let me get busy," he says.

  He urges her to sit on the bed. He hangs his cane on the footboard. He stalks the room, looking high and low in a jesting mock search for the earring.

  "You might try there," she says, pointing. "In the corner."

  He pulls the chair away and goes down cautiously on all fours. He looks, he probes with his fingers, he shuffles about on his hands and knees. He moves along the wall, searching, probing with his fingers in the shadows. It is all exaggerated. He is playacting for her; he is entertaining her. He looks beneath the dresser, bending low, but soon he lifts his old body and shakes his bald head, glancing back at her with a teasing-serious face.

  "No?" she says. "Then try there, beneath the chest."

  He shuffles over, but finds nothing of course. He shuffles all around, searches everywhere, until their eyes are glowing with joy and their shoulders are trembling with quiet laughter.

  "Oh, my aching knees," he says and puts out a hand.

  She helps him up. He sways on his feet, seems dizzy, disoriented. She guides him to the bed and helps him to sit. He looks up at her, moving his head slowly, and, still holding her hand, he draws her to his side. Their thighs are touching through the material of her robe, his baggy trousers.

  "Next week," he says. "Next week, I'll buy you another earring. What's an earring?"

  She nods approval, and then he is holding her in his arms. He is hugging her, embracing her. It is a moment she has known before, has longed to know again, and she receives him warmly. They pat each other's backs, rest their heads against the other's shoulder. In the dim light they sit like this for a long time, saying nothing, only touching. She can feel his heart beating in his withered old chest, beating in time to hers.

  THE SULFUR-COLORED STONE

  I

  The words that haunted the boy's mind as he walked through the woods that fine spring morning would live with him for the rest of his days.

  "Depression," the men kept saying.

  "Ruin," his father had mentioned, and, "Poorhouse."

  This had come from his mother: "We won't take charity, you see. I'd sooner die."

  "Bread lines," he had heard from another and tried hopelessly to imagine such a thing.

  "The newspapers say it's thousands, millions."

  "And hoboes everywhere, in the trains, on our streets."

  "What's a hobo, Mother?" the boy had asked and she looked at him sharply, wondering how to answer. She said, "Hush."

  He thought of the words as he passed over the familiar trail, under the tall pines, the blooming redbuds and dog-woods that his mother loved so much, the occasional white oak, the hickories, the sweet gums, walking am
ong the shrubby yaupon that caught at the wool of his short pants and knee socks. He repeated the words to himself, walking on, mindless of the warm roasting pan which he carried before him by its handles. He said the words out loud to the rising sun, golden and brilliant beyond the leaves and branches and trunks of the well-known trees along the creek. And the words, the sound of his own ten-year-old and puny voice, returned to him in echo like something huge and formless and forever terrible.

  "Even in Texas," he repeated, uncertain which of the men had said it. Was it Daddy or Uncle Buster or Mr. Ramsey? "They even let it come to Texas, to these woods, dang 'em."

  The thought of such an outrage halted him. He looked down at the roasting pan; he looked out into the woods; he remembered everything. "No, it's a lie. We'll be back, I'll bring us back."

  Then he ran. Carefully, in short kicking-out steps, like a boxer in training, he skipped over the trail. At the creek's log bridge he slowed, sidestepped, and paused on the other side to look, just to look and listen, to remember the place.

  He ran through the hollow where the marsh smelled of old dead things, and here he quickened his pace, for he hated the marsh and its smell. At the top of the hill he stopped.

  Smoke puffed lazily from the chimney of the cabin and spread upward through the morning-still trees and the striking rays of the sun, glowing golden just beyond the cabin so brightly now that the cabin itself existed in its meager clearing only because he knew it existed. The boy had seen it there every day, every morning and every evening, through four of his ten short swift years. Something moved in the shadow of the cabin's porch. Though he could not see what it was that moved, he knew.

  That's him, the boy thought. Just like always. Waiting. The old slave. Waiting.

  He ran again. At the bottom of the hill, moving into the clearing, he stopped abruptly, hesitated and walked ahead with a kind of formal purpose in his steps and his attitude, carrying the blue pan before him with care, holding the pan out as an offering to the old man when he reached the cabin's porch.