The Fear Makers, page 15
He said, “Our other grandfather was a Spanish peddler. He sold trinkets in Spain. He emigrated to Vienna and married a woman from Morocco who taught the old languages. Before the Spanish peddler died, he owned one of the
Vienna banks. If Elizabeth told you my mother was a dancer,” stated Norman, calmer, more precise than before, “she did not tell you all. My mother was very beautiful, but was not a professional dancer. Elizabeth is romantic. She prefers to say her mother was a dancer. That statement is correct but it is not absolute.”
Everything was fraying away, between us. The wail of the puppy sounded more unreal. I looked at the typewriter and the paper spread over the table and finally I said I would tell him something, and not ask him to believe me. He would have the rest of his life to decide upon the truth; I said I loved Elizabeth and had I known her for two months I would tell her before going away and if I’d known her for two weeks, still I would tell her, but having known her for two days it was not something for anyone else to believe, even her. Not until I reached the Coast and got home would I write her and tell her, and then I would not care who else except Elizabeth might believe or disbelieve.
The bad eye rolled in toward the fine, aquiline nose. I wondered if he resembled that Spanish peddler who’d emigrated to Vienna, or if his features had been inherited from the German mathematician. He said, “Because you have told me it is more difficult. It is very difficult. I will be truthful. I will not help you. I will be against you.”
For a minute or so, all we had was the puppy wailing and the drift of darkness outside. I hung on to the chair. It was difficult to keep on standing.
“Thank you,” at last he said. “I hope you will forgive me?”
I sat down.
He moved away and came back, and sat on the edge of the bed, outside the small circle of light. The puppy wailed. Rain sounded turmoil.
I heard his quick inhalations. I picked up the sheets for Pont Dulac and said, “Megassum wanted me to write a memorandum to him, telling him why the statistical plan for the poll was wrong. I’m going to do more. I’ll give him an outline. But I’m going to revise these worksheets for the Pont Dulac interviewers, to increase the number of working class families they interview.”
Norman asked, “And tomorrow you depart? That is your intention?”
I turned around and saw him, as he was, very small and somehow out of shape and humped like a white-faced monkey, on the edge of my bed, still cupping his face as he puffed at the cigarette. I said, “Without doing at least something, I have the feeling I may never get home.”
After inserting another page in the typewriter I added, more normally, I meant to take the sheets in tomorrow morning and as soon as I saw them into the hands of the typists I would talk with Megassum, and if necessary to quiet any suspicions I would lie to him in order to have the Pont Dulac sheets sent to the field men waiting in Pont Dulac. Afterwards, as soon as possible I departed for California.
He got off the bed, coming closer. “I would like to help in this.”
I think that surprised me. I said I needed no help.
He removed the cupped hand from his face. “Is it because you have resentment? I have some understanding as a mathematician. In this, I ask you to allow me to help; otherwise, you see,” and all at once his lips curved with humor, “you may not finish by tomorrow morning in time to start going home.”
I said he was anxious to get me started for home, wasn’t he?
The smile vanished. “It is best, I think.”
I asked, “Are you sure it’s entirely because I don’t happen to be of your religion? During these past years you’ve practically raised Elizabeth. You’ve planned her career and watched over her as if she were your own daughter. Are you sure you haven’t become more emotionally centered upon her than you realize?”
He stood. “It is offensive to imply that my natural regard for Elizabeth—”
I said he was a scientist. It was not said to be offensive and if he considered it was offensive I wished to apologize. I had asked to learn the truth. As a scientist I expected him to be objective.
I was shaking. I could feel it in my legs. He stared across at me and sat down again and put the flat of one hand against his head and then sucked at the cigarette and the cigarette had gone out. Suddenly, he said, very tired, “We waste time, Captain. You will permit me to help…
He made the approach more certain. In his room he had among his books and documents, Labor Department reports on income earnings. They substituted better than memory for the exact statement of specific areas in the summary-punch cards. He varied the percentage changes, lifting some higher, lowering others.
For the time that we joined together, we forgot the wails of the puppy; and it might be we forgot all essential differences between us. That, also, I do not know for certain.
When the last sheet had the penciled changes, he waited for me to place it in the typewriter and prepare it. He yawned. He stretched. Once he went to the window and listened while the frightened puppy in the blackness answered to his listening. He went to the door. He again yawned. He said, “Good night.”
I told him, “I’m sorry I said that about you and—”
“It is forgotten.”
I said, “I was angry—”
“It is forgotten,” he said very quickly.
“You also should know this,” I explained. “I’m driving Elizabeth in tomorrow morning—this morning. I expect to take her to lunch with me before I start driving for home.”
He said, “She has told me you were driving her in. She is always hungry. Lunch will not surprise me.” He opened the door. “Good night, Captain.”
I said, “Good night,” and I added, “Thank you for helping me.”
CHAPTER IX
It is difficult to anticipate weather in early spring, what with that Washington, D. C., climate. Next morning when I awoke, it might have been May. Yellow light was flooding in through all the windows. I heard people moving downstairs. For an instant, I had the fear that on this morning of all mornings I might have overslept.
By my watch it was a little after 0800 hours. For perhaps a minute longer I rested in bed. For perhaps a minute longer, with the sunshine coming in through the windows, I was able to see this room and know briefly I was here, I was home; and then, at once when I got up, the illusion snapped. The spell ended.
Remembering this was the last morning, remembering I was to take Elizabeth in to work, I hastily pulled on the old bathrobe. I took me a fast bath. I was shaving when the telephone began whirring in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. Then, it ceased whirring.
Downstairs, someone was answering it…
I wiped soap off my face. I stuffed my razor and truck into the leather case.
As I opened the door, Elizabeth was running upstairs. In the hall, we encountered each other and one might have considered we were two strangers in a strange house for the first time seeing each other. It was there; it was sudden, terrifying. I stepped in front of her. I asked what was wrong, what was it, what was it? And I asked all at once, confused, being meaningless in the sudden confusion.
For a thousand years I was the intruder in the market place without ever being granted the right to receive her gifts—
Swiftly she passed by, halting only momentarily at the attic stairs. She saw me, and the memory that I had been waiting so long must have stirred her. She said, “Would you like to answer a telephone and have an anonymous voice call you a dirty Jew for keeping people awake last night by your typing?”
I said, “For God’s sake, Elizabeth—”
She shook off my arm. She ran upstairs, into the attic.
In my own room, I dressed as rapidly as possible.
I didn’t dress quickly enough. I heard the sound of an automobile…
By the time I came downstairs, only the handsome sister, the deaf one, was there. Except for her and a couple of cats sleeping on the window sill, the house was empty. The sister was sweeping the dining room. She put down her broom. She wasn’t smiling; she wasn’t anything. I asked and she didn’t hear and yet from her, by her gestures, I gathered Elizabeth, Aunt Petroushka, and the other sister had driven to Washington, D. C. They couldn’t have departed over ten minutes ago.
I paid the sister. I counted the money and she stared at me, unsmiling. Her face was blank. I laid the money on the table. I said, “Good-by,” and she began sweeping.
I returned upstairs, for my clothes, for the typewriter and the work sheets. It didn’t take long. I stuffed my things into the bag. I’d done it before. I’d done it a thousand times and more, after that day so long ago when I’d bidden Clark good-by and gone to report to the camp. It was mechanical.
I brought the bag down to the foot of the stairs. I climbed the stairs and came down, again, carrying the typewriter and the work sheets, rolled up. I took the typewriter and the work sheets out first.
As I opened the door, one of the cats jumped to the floor and rubbed its back on the cane. I put my foot easy and soft against the white cat, to prevent it from going out. The cat purred. The cat thought I was tickling its back. I edged out, holding the typewriter in one hand, the paper under an arm, and the cane in the other hand. As I’ve said, it takes time to learn how.
I walked to the convertible. Hood was still damp from last night’s rain. I walked around to the right side. I had thrust the typewriter and work sheets on the seat, before noticing the yellow smears of paint. Someone had taken a brush. Someone had splashed the hood with yellow paint, writing words on the hood. For a couple of minutes I just stared at that wet, yellow paint, slowly comprehending I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t start to drive home until those yellow words had been cleaned from the car.
An automobile passed by, that warm spring morning. I don’t know why it was. There wasn’t any noise. No one near me said anything. But I glanced up. I knew someone was watching before I saw the man on the porch next door, of the big gray house.
I walked away from the convertible. I walked on the cement, hanging tight to the cane, not even aware I needed the cane. I walked up the concrete steps and came to the big square, gray house. I walked up wooden steps.
He was leaning against his doorsill, his thin brick-red hair almost touching the top.
The man had a pale, square face, pale enough for the freckles to stand out in blotches. He didn’t move.
I stated I came from next door.
He said, “So what? Am I supposed to buy something?”
In the first place, there’s something about any big man. There’s so much to them, they’ve never learned to put themselves out for anyone. Secondly, I was pretty angry. I said, “I did the typing last night. These people in the house next door are my friends.” I was too angry.
“Think of that,” he said, still leaning against the door. “I’m learning things. Go on, before you break a blood vessel or have a hemorrhage.”
Sometimes anger gets hold of one, and then everything else goes away. I began to have trouble in speaking. I said, “For the past couple of months you’ve been causing the Weils trouble.”
“Did I?” he asked.
It seemed as though the anger was expanding inside my head and affecting my tongue. I said, “You busted bottles at night in their driveway. Or your kid did. You or your kid placed marks on their sidewalk. Next, you slit a tire. This morning, you splashed yellow paint on a car and because someone’s typing bothered you and you were sore because someone had complained to your kid about that puppy, this morning you also telephoned the Weils anonymously.”
He said, “You got proof?”
“You might enjoy anonymously telephoning a girl and telling her what you told her a half-hour or so ago. I typed last night. If my typing annoyed you, all you’d have had to do was tell me, and tell it decently like a neighbor, and I’d have arranged to move the typewriter—”
“Oh. I get it, chum.” He inspected me more carefully. “I can see now you’re an American, kid. Maybe I’ve run into you before, somewhere?” He paused. “Forget it, kid. I’m not admitting I telephoned anybody, but if it was you typing last night, forget it. Somebody must have made a mistake. You oughtn’t to live with a bunch of foreigners.”
So the anger came big, and I said something…
“Just a second.” He raised one hand. He half turned his head to call, “Viv! Hey, Viv. Come here a minute. A cripple wants I should fight with him. You come here and tell him—”
I slugged him.
I let go with all I was worth, too. And I guess I wasn’t worth very much. My fist bounced’ against the protuberant chin. My cane clattered. I caught myself by grabbing at the door.
He didn’t budge. His expression didn’t change. He felt at his chin with his thumb. Grinning, he looked down at me. He said, “You know something?” He bent, pushed the cane at me. “Here. You haven’t got much sense, have you. You oughtn’t to done that, chum.”
A blonde girl, about twenty-five or eight, came to the door. She was dressed in a red silk wrapper. She asked, “Hal, what the hell’s going on now? Who is he?”
The guy she called Hal stopped laughing. He said, “Viv, I been hit hard.”
The girl told me, “Go on. You get out of here.”
“Not so quick,” said Hal. He stepped out on the porch, getting between me and the steps. “A little nut like him ought to be taught something first, don’t you think? He’ll hurt people.”
That was when I decided to kill him…
I don’t want such a decision to sound funny, or to appear as a wish. I did mean to kill him. The anger blotted everything else away. Perhaps it was like that time on the beach. I think the anger was there, then, too. It must have been. When the anger becomes huge, overpowering, it is a cold anger. It isn’t a normal civilian anger.
You see, I’d been trained. I wasn’t just the little guy and he, the big guy. I’d been trained and he hadn’t; he didn’t know he was going to be killed; he didn’t know what a stick will do when it’s punched into the groin, and further. He didn’t know he wasn’t the big guy any longer.
He wouldn’t ever know what it’s like to have the anger rise up and turn everything dead cold and because he didn’t know, he circled me, being careless, without the training, winking at the blonde girl.
I took the cane by the handle, hopping to the left on the good foot, and now everything was simple. Everything was resolved into the single focus. All the problems except the important problem of killing the man were gone. Now the anger was a cold flame, to be cherished; it was the wine and meat; it was worth more than all things else because in one instant living became simplified. All other needs except that need had been eliminated. I hopped in closer, discerning clearly the outline of his legs and where his thick stomach and groin were.
= 2 =
All at once, from behind me, the girl let go a kind of scream. “Look out, Hal! The little bastard’s serious.” Then, she came up from behind. Unexpectedly she whacked me with her hand, knocking me off balance.
Probably I wasn’t too pretty a sight on that porch floor.
I hated both of them.
Hal backed away, kicking at the end of my cane. I began ’ crawling for him. He reached the porch railing. He warned, “I’ll kick your face in.” Next, he found he was against the railing. He said, “Look. Be reasonable. I was just joking. Viv, grab him.”
The girl remained where she was. She started laughing. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh at all.
He said, “Damn it, Viv. He could injure me for life. Viv, you don’t want me injured for life with that damn cane?”
She reached down and gave me her hand. Her fingers were long, stained a greenish-yellow to the first knuckles, probably from cigarettes. The fancy circus-red fingernail polish was piled on thick. “All right, flyweight,” she said, “the battle’s off. Make it a draw. As a favor to me? I’m a healthy girl and I wouldn’t want you to poke Hal out of the running with that cane of yours.”
I stood, leaning against the gray-flaked painted side of the house, trying to keep from falling apart. The anger was gone. I was empty. I wasn’t sustained. I looked all around me, at the big man and at the girl. I wondered about the man. He hadn’t known. The girl had known. I hadn’t wanted to kill him; I hadn’t walked up to this house with the intention. Then came fear. It replaced the anger; it swept in and I was afraid because I’d nearly killed him. For an instant or so, I had the double image of the girl as she regarded me. My head hurt.
I heard her ask, “Say, who taught you all the dirty fighting? The army?”
I wondered if this was what the old Colonel gent in the hospital had anticipated and if, in wishing to try a third time, he was trying to remove the anger from where it had been hiding in my head…
“The army?” she asked, again.
The big man got away from the railing. He said, “Look, chum. You shouldn’t ought to take a gag so serious. Suppose I lose my temper and bust your back or something when you think you can scare somebody like me?”
Viv put her hands on her hips, bringing the red wrapper close around her. She said, “Hold it, Hal. Everybody knows you’re just a big, good-natured lug who won’t hurt nobody. This kid needs a drink. He’s been in the army. Can’t you see anything?”
I believe all that unasked for talk was worse to take than the baiting the man had applied on me. I got my breath back. The way it was, I had to hang on to what I’d started. If one ever lets go on what he’s started, he’s licked forever. Colonel Rolland drilled that into us. On habit mostly, I continued. I started saying I still meant to do what I promised if he didn’t leave my friends next door alone and stop molesting them with his tricks.
“Wait a minute, Hal,” ordered the girl. She faced me, half frowning. “My name’s Vivian. If we’re neighbors, we ought to get acquainted. If there’s a misunderstanding, let’s have it straightened out. And not by fighting. This is Harold Loder. He’s my—” She looked quick and sharp at the man. “Hal’s my husband.”
