Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings Page 27

  It was too early to start dinner. Judith went into the bedroom, wanting to take off her suit and put on something more comfortable, something that would make her seem a quiet woman in a quiet house, waiting by her son’s bed for her husband to come the next day, or the next, or the one after that.

  After thinking for a minute in front of her closet, she took out a dark green corduroy housecoat, clean and warm. Buttoning it down the front, she felt fresh and new. Carefully, she hung up her suit and put on low-heeled sandals in place of her dress shoes. Then, with her hair combed out and tied with a ribbon, she put away her best pocketbook and cleaned the little spot of powder off her dresser.

  She felt neat and in order with her house when she walked in to straighten up Robbie’s room. Robbie’s heavy sweater and old blue denim overalls were gone; the clean suit he had worn to nursery school that morning was folded on the chair.

  Judith put a fresh sheet on his crib, taking the old one out to the laundry hamper, and then she folded his blue blanket neatly and put it at the foot of the bed. The toys were in order, the way she and Robbie had left them when they cleaned the room together that morning. She pulled the shade halfway down and picked a thread off the floor. Everything was good.

  When she had gotten Robbie’s fresh sheet, she had left the door to the linen closet open; now, sitting down on the floor and looking at the neat rows, she felt that this was the center of her home. I have eight sheets, all heavy and wide, she thought, and eight pillowcases and four sheets for Robbie and four good tablecloths—everything is clean and it belongs to me.

  This is the part of the house he never sees, that no one ever knows about. The laundry when it comes back, the wash on the line fresh from the tubs, belong to me and the part of the house that I live in. He will come into the kitchen, he will open the refrigerator, Robbie will climb on the furniture, but no one knows how many sheets I have but me.

  These are the things that lie peacefully waiting to be picked up by someone who understands them: the sheets and the cases, the lace tablecloth set apart, wrapped like a wedding present, and the villain, a torn napkin. Women with homes live so closely with substances: bread, soap, and buttons. The crack in the kitchen linoleum is a danger to the structure; the well-spaced coolness of the sheets on the line is a sensual presentation of security. Judith knew so much about the things she owned and cared for: she knew how pleasant Robbie’s bed would feel because she washed the sheets, how soft her table silver would feel to her hand because she polished it and put it away carefully. These are the things I live with, she thought suddenly, my blue dishes, my broom.

  The sound of Robbie and Sally clattering up the stairs disturbed her. It would be embarrassing, she thought, if Sally came in and found me on the floor in front of the linen closet. As she rose to go into the living room to open the front door, a thought crossed her mind: I keep house like Sally, with the same ideas and the same objects, and even almost the same apartment, and I have my way of feeling about the things I own, and maybe she has hers; maybe she sits on the floor in front of her linen closet looking like a fool sometimes.

  The first thing she said when she opened the door was “You ought to have a baby, Sally, really.”

  Sally looked up from the stairway, where she was standing behind Robbie, urging him on. “How about letting me have Robbie for good?”

  Judith held out her hands to Robbie, who scrambled up the stairs shrieking happily. “Did you have a good time?” she asked him when he reached her. She picked him up and held him for a minute. “Did you have a very good time with Sally?”

  “We walked miles,” Sally said. “Up and down every stairway in the block. And we had a dish of ice cream at the drugstore. And we saw a dog.”

  “A lovely time,” Judith said. Robbie had his head on her shoulder and lay there quietly. She smiled at Sally. “You were terribly nice, as always, to take such good care of him.”

  “He took care of me,” Sally said. “Did you have a good time?”

  “Lovely,” Judith said. She held the door open for Sally to come in. With Robbie running in and out of the room and Sally sitting on the couch, the living room was no longer quiet; her house was being lived in. She said suddenly to Sally: “You know what I was doing when you came? I was looking at my linen closet.”

  Sally smiled. “I have a pink taffeta bedspread in mine,” she said. “Someone gave it to us for a wedding present and I never used it; it just sits there.”

  “I have a lace tablecloth,” Judith said.

  “I think on the whole I’d rather have a pink taffeta bedspread,” Sally said critically. “It’s never even been unfolded but once. I’m going to give it to Robbie when he gets married.” She stood up. “Well,” she said. “This isn’t getting my dinner cooked.”

  Judith rose to hold the door for her. “Thanks again,” she said.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sally said to Robbie. He waved at her vigorously across the room. “So long,” Sally said to Judith.

  Judith closed the door and stood beside it quietly for a minute. Robbie was playing in his room; she could hear the sound of blocks falling. Then she realized what she was really listening to: the familiar sounds that came from an awareness of her house with only the two of them in it, the quiet in the rooms, and the waiting.

  Daughter, Come Home

  The huge factory (formerly making watches, now operating day and night on a new product, one that caused the manufacturers to announce “If you cannot get that new watch this year, just remember that some soldier’s life might be saved by the delicate precision instruments…”) was blacked out for the night with blinds drawn against all of the great plate glass windows, but a few steps beyond and down the block, the Bar & Grill was bright and noisy. Workers who left the factory at midnight stopped in at the bar for a beer before going on home; people were drinking coffee before going in to work, and the homely girl who went from table to table playing requests on the accordion was working overtime on “Der Fuehrer’s Face” and “I’ve Got Sixpence.” Around the circular bar some soldiers and sailors—alone for the most part, sometimes with girls—mingled with the crowding factory workers. “I’m nonessential,” one of the two bartenders told a customer. “Next week I’ll be working up there at the factory with you guys.”

  Toward one o’clock the door opened and a small, oldish, slightly drunk man entered and went directly to the bar. “Rhine wine,” he said to the bartender. “What, Jack?” the bartender asked over his shoulder. “Rhine wine,” the little man said. The bartender shrugged and went to the row of bottles lined along the center of the bar. He selected one, and poured a glass for the customer. “Fifteen cents, Jack,” the bartender said. The little man fumbled three nickels across the bar and picked up his glass. Carrying the glass, he left the bar and began to walk up and down between the tables. Occasionally he smiled hopefully at people sitting at the tables, but no one spoke to him or, in fact, even looked at him. Finally, the little man, still carrying his glass, went over to one of the booths and stood beside it, supporting himself against the edge of the table. Then: “Mind if I sit down here a minute?” he asked.

  There were two girls sitting in the booth, drinking beer. One was a fashionably dressed blonde, with orange lipstick and carefully painted eyebrows; the other was a serious-looking girl in a brown tweed coat. They had been talking earnestly, but when the man spoke to them they turned and looked at him, at the glass in his hand, and then back to his face.

  “Sure,” said the blonde. “You can sit down. No more tables?”

  “It isn’t that,” the little man said carefully. “It’s just that I’d like to talk to you.” He spoke in the painfully clear manner of the inebriated.

  “Go ahead, talk,” the blonde said. She turned back to her companion. “So I think I’d better get along and see if I can get it back,” she said. “After all, I don’t go so good in a factory, it gets me down; I should be back in the dancehall. And he always was a good guy to work for, that
jerk.”

  “You hadn’t ought to get out of a war factory, though,” the other girl said. She glanced at the little man, who was sitting quietly, holding his glass and listening, and then went on: “You ought to stay at work that’s…you know…for defense.”

  “That’s true,” the little man agreed. “You ought to work at something that will help your country.” Both girls looked at him silently. The little man hurried on: “I hope you girls don’t mind this—my coming up here and just sitting right down without even asking you very well.”

  “We don’t mind,” the blonde said.

  “I guess you just wanted to talk to someone, or something,” the other girl said.

  “That’s right,” the little man said. “Look, my name is Burton, Robbie Burton, but you can call me Robbie. What’s yours?”

  “Well,” the blonde said, “I’m Lois, and she’s Elaine.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” the little man said. “Look, this is how it is. I wanted to talk to someone and I saw you”—he gestured at the blonde—“and I just thought, There’s a girl that looks kind of like my daughter. I got a daughter as old as you are, looks something like you,” he said. “And so I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I sat down, not to start something or anything, but just because I wanted to talk, like you said.” As if very tired, the little man leaned back and sipped at his wine.

  “Well.” Lois looked at her friend. “He says I look like his daughter.”

  “I’ll bet,” Elaine said.

  “Look,” the little man said, leaning forward again, “don’t you do like my daughter. You look like a nice girl, don’t you do like my daughter.”

  “What did your daughter do?” Elaine asked.

  “Never mind what my daughter did,” the little man said. “I’m just telling you, that’s all.”

  “All right,” Lois said, winking at her friend. “I won’t. Okay?”

  “Okay.” The little man looked at his empty glass. “Say,” he demanded, “how about I buy you girls a drink? Let me buy you two a drink, how about it?”

  “We can buy our own,” Elaine said quickly.

  “No,” the little man insisted, “let me buy you a drink. Because this girl here reminds me of my daughter and I’d certainly buy my daughter a drink. Please let me buy you a drink?” he appealed to the blonde.

  “Okay, Pop,” she said. He got up and went over to the bar.

  “Listen, Lois,” the dark girl said, “you hadn’t ought to let him buy you a drink. You hadn’t ought to have let him sit down here in the first place.”

  “Poor old guy,” Lois said. “He looked so lonesome. Let him talk for a while. Doesn’t hurt to be nice to a poor old guy like that. Thinks I look like his daughter, anyway.”

  “Don’t you go doing what his daughter did,” Elaine said, giggling.

  Lois giggled too. “Why not?” she asked. “But shut up, here he comes.”

  The little man came back, laughing when he saw that they were laughing. “Now we’re having a good time,” he said, putting the glasses down on the table.

  “Hello, Pop,” Lois said.

  “I guess I could buy my own daughter a drink,” he said.

  “You sure could, Pop,” Lois said.

  “Tell us about your daughter,” Elaine said. “What did she do, anyway?”

  The little man lifted his face to her and glared. Then he relaxed. “Nothing,” he said. “I shouldn’t say; I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “Cheer up, Pop,” Lois said. “Drink up.” She lifted her glass and touched his with it. “Long life,” she said.

  The little man picked up his glass and sipped at it. “You sure do look like my daughter,” he said to Lois. “Don’t you ever do anything bad.” He looked at Elaine for a minute and then back to Lois. “Look,” he said. “When I first came here a while ago I couldn’t help but hear when you said you thought you’d leave your job and go back to working in a dancehall. Don’t you do it.”

  “Hey, look,” Lois said, pained.

  “Don’t you go working around no men,” the little man insisted. “You stay right where you belong, not in any dancehall.”

  “I guess she doesn’t need to ask you where she’s going to work,” Elaine said.

  “I don’t want you working for that guy you called a jerk,” the little man said.

  “He doesn’t want me working for O’Halloran, that jerk,” Lois explained elaborately.

  “Don’t you go fooling around men,” the little man said. He pounded his hand on the table so that his glass trembled. “I don’t want to hear of you going around any men. You’re a nice girl, now, and you’re a good girl and you treat your father nice, and you bring home your money, and don’t you go throwing your life away on any men.”

  “Well, I’d certainly tell him to mind his own business!” said Elaine.

  “Your old father’s never done you an evil thing and never given you any bad advice, and when he tells you you better keep right on coming home every week with that money from the factory and not go taking anything from any men and not go throwing your money away on cheap clothes and friends, he’s giving you good advice. Your old father deserves for you to treat him right, and he hasn’t got anybody but you and no one to help him along in his old age, so you better listen to his good advice.” The little man put his hand on Lois’s arm and repeated, “You better listen to his good advice.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sakes!” said Elaine.

  “Hey,” Lois said, “suppose you run along out of here, Pop.”

  “You listen to me,” the little man said desperately.

  “I’ll call someone to throw you out, mister,” she said.

  “I’ll call someone,” Elaine said. She stood up and started to look around eagerly.

  The little man watched her for a minute and then sighed. Pushing his glass aside, he put both hands on the table and lifted himself up. Elaine sat back against the seat, watching him warily. The little man stood at the opening of the booth looking at the girls sadly.

  “You’ll be sorry some day,” he said. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t treat your poor old father better.”

  Neither girl moved. The little man turned to Lois.

  “And I want you home and in your own bed tonight, you hear?” he cried emphatically. Then he turned and made his way past the crowded bar and out the door. His empty glass still trembled slightly after he had gone, moving a little in the spilled wine on the table.

  As High as the Sky

  For reasons of her own, Mrs. Carrant had concluded that the doorbell was going to ring at 8:20 exactly; the train came in at 7:55, allow him fifteen minutes to get his bag or bags (he couldn’t have much baggage, after all), a minute or two to get a taxi, and then only the ride downtown and home—eight or nine minutes at most. Eight-twenty.

  She and the girls finished dinner and started waiting shortly after six; that was when Sandra put down her spoon and remarked, “I won’t eat again till Daddy comes.” It was not by any means a new idea; it had lived with Mrs. Carrant for a long time (“Three more dinners alone,” “Two weeks from today it will seem as though he’s never been away,” “The next time the Martins call they’ll have to invite us both”); even the baby had awakened that morning saying, “Daddy coming today.” They had postponed the baby’s third birthday party until Daddy could celebrate with them. Mrs. Carrant, at dinner, had leaned over and smoothed the dark curls from Sandra’s forehead. “You’d better finish your dinner now,” she said, “or you’ll be hungry before Daddy gets here.”

  By eight o’clock (the train had come five minutes ago; Mrs. Carrant had called the station and it was on time) the girls were dressed and washed and their hair was tied back with fresh ribbons. Mrs. Carrant sat them together on the couch with a picture book and ran into her room to take a last look at her own hair, slightly damp from her doing the dishes and dressing the girls so quickly, but curling as theirs did, with no gray yet. She could hear Sandra reading to the baby in a
voice quickened by the excitement of being up later than usual, “How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten.”

  “Can I get there by candlelight?” Mrs. Carrant called happily. She realized suddenly that she had been humming.

  There was a pause from the living room, and then Sandra giggled and said loudly, “Yes, and back again.”

  Mrs. Carrant returned to the living room and inspected the picture her two daughters made on the couch with the book, with just the table lamp turned on in back of them, the light softly touching the tops of their heads and the bowl of flowers behind Sandra’s shoulder.

  “You look very nice, you two,” she said. “If only you wouldn’t move before Daddy gets here.” It was five after eight.

  The baby looked up from the picture in the book. “Where’s Daddy?” she asked.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Mrs. Carrant said. “If it were only colder weather,” she said, “we could have a fire in the fireplace and it would look so comfortable and nice here.”

  “It’s too hot for a fire,” Sandra announced.

  “It is too hot,” Mrs. Carrant said absently. She was wondering if he would know which floor to come to; she must have another door key made.

  “Daddy is coming home because it was end-of-the-war,” Sandra was saying to the baby. “My daddy is as high as the sky.”

  “Not really, Sandra,” Mrs. Carrant said. “You remember what Daddy looks like.”

  The baby turned around solemnly and inspected the picture on the mantel. “Daddy looks like,” she said.

  “He’s going to touch the ceiling when he walks around,” Sandra said.

  “He’s not so terribly tall,” Mrs. Carrant said, feeling vaguely that it was important to get their father’s description well established. “He’s not as tall as your Uncle George.” She thought. “He’s taller than you are,” she said. “He’s taller than I am. He’s about as tall as—” Mrs. Carrant hesitated, her eyes moving around the room. (I never saw him in this house, she thought anxiously; I never saw him with this furniture, even.) “He’s about as tall as the grocer,” she said.