The Laughing Matter Page 10

  They talked about lies and dead men for half an hour, and then they’d had enough of figs.

  Red got down from the tree, and walked with Eva to the place where he’d found Flora Walz sitting. They spent a half hour there, too, talking some more about lies and dead men. They walked back to the house, but still their father and mother slept. The house was still silent.

  “Let’s wake them up,” Eva said.

  “No,” Red said. “Let them sleep.”

  “It’s late, Red. It’s awful late.”

  “No, it’s not. Let them sleep.”

  They stood by the pump and talked, and then, since they would not wake up, Red took her to see the pomegranate and olive trees.

  “We’re all alone in the whole world,” Eva said. “Just you and me, Red.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Yes, we are. All alone. No father and no mother. Just a brother and a sister, all alone in the whole world. Will you kill them if they come to get me?”

  “Who?”

  “The ones who come to get you.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know. Will you kill them?”

  “Yes,” Red said.

  The girl thought about the ones who come to get you, and the killing of them, one by one, by her brother, and then her eyes noticed the pomegranates.

  “Then give me one of those,” she said.

  “They’re not ripe yet,” Red said.

  “I want one, anyway.”

  Red jumped to grab the lowest branch, caught a couple of leaves that tore away from the branch, the branch springing up, trembling, the pomegranates bobbing up and down but not letting go. He jumped again, caught a twig, brought the branch close enough for him to reach up with the other hand and get a pomegranate for her. He picked the biggest one, let the branch go, and handed the pomegranate to her. She examined it carefully.

  “I’m going to keep it forever,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “To remember you when you’re dead.”

  “What are you going to give me to remember you when you’re dead?” Red said.

  “I’ll give you anything,” Eva said. “You’re my little brother.”

  “I’m your big brother.”

  “My big brother. I’ll give you anything.”

  “When?”

  “When I get it,” Eva said.

  They began to wander back to the house, still talking of love and death, hoping their father and mother would be awake by the time they got back, for each of them was lonely for them and wanted to see and hear and smell them again, perhaps even to help them about the love, and about the death.

  Chapter 23

  He was asleep, so she could speak to him, speaking to herself, for she was more asleep than awake herself, her body swollen, numb, and insensitive, her voice a slow, sleeping whisper, sleep itself coming and going in and out of her.

  “Evan?” she said. “I don’t know what happened, only I do. I know what happened. I didn’t want it to happen, only I did. I made it happen. I was the one who made it happen. I did it, Evan. It didn’t happen by itself. I did it because I wanted to. I didn’t care who it was, because I didn’t care, because I didn’t need to care, because I don’t like to care, because everybody cares too much, and I don’t care at all.”

  The sleeping man was still turned away. The kids were out in the yard or in the vineyard, for she had heard them talking and walking.

  She leaned on her elbow, moving nearer to the bed beside her, to the man in the bed beside her.

  “Evan?” she said.

  The man stirred.

  “Are you awake, Evan?”

  He turned at last, his face still asleep.

  “I’m alone, Evan,” she said. “I’m too alone.”

  She watched his eyes open a little and close again.

  “I’m going to die, Evan.”

  The man opened his eyes, a little at first, then all the way.

  He remembered everything suddenly and sat up, as if stricken by madness.

  “I’m alone,” the woman said. “I’m sick and alone, Evan. You would pity a sick animal. I’m outside. I can’t live outside. I can’t breathe outside. You’d pity a dying animal.”

  She threw herself onto his bed. Her hands clutched him. She pressed her body against his, scrambling to get back to him. Her anguish hurt him. Her animal brilliance in seeking to achieve love and survival on any terms astonished him, and her body, warm from sleep, soft and white, even now made his body want hers, as if spirit had no part in it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re frightened. I’m sorry you’re sick and alone. I do pity you, I do love you, but I can’t be kind any more. You must get up and go to your life.”

  “No, Evan. You can’t ask me to go.”

  “I’m not asking you.”

  “No. I’m Red’s mother. He loves me. I’m Eva’s mother. She needs me.”

  “I’m telling you.”

  “No. It would kill them. You know it would. It wouldn’t do any of us any good. It would kill me. It might kill you, Evan.”

  “You’ve got to get out,” he said. “I don’t care who it kills. Your staying will kill everybody, too. It would be better to be killed decently, at any rate.”

  “No,” she said, and now she began to weep. “You were never unkind. Don’t be unkind now when your kindness is most needed. It will do none of us any good for you to be unkind.”

  “I can’t live in the same house with you,” he said. “There are some things even a kind man can’t do.”

  “No,” she wept. “We’ll get out of this. We’ll start all over again. I’ll be a new person. I’ll live for you. I’ll be a woman you’ve never known. I am that woman. I’ve always been that woman. I know now. It won’t be like this any more, it won’t be the way it was, it won’t be the terrible way I made it for you every day. I won’t live for myself. I’m sick of that. I’ll live for you.”

  “I can’t stay in the same house with you,” he said. “The nearness of you sickens me.”

  “No,” she said. “We can help one another a little, can’t we? There is kindness in us for one another, isn’t there? We couldn’t be the mother and father of Red and Eva and not have kindness in us for one another.”

  “You be kind,” he said.

  “I will,” she said. “I will, Evan.”

  “Be kind,” he said, “and get out.”

  He pushed her away. She fell on her back, turned over, buried her face in the bed, saying no again and again.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Get up. Put on your best clothes. Get breakfast. We’ll sit down and eat together.” She stopped sobbing to listen. She lifted her head to look at him. “We’ll walk together to Clovis. We’ll take them to church. Be their mother, and let me be their father. All right. Get up and be their mother.”

  She got up, ran into the bathroom, leaving the door open, so that he could hear her.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be their mother. I’ll really be their mother now. We’ll forget everything. How much time do we have?”

  “We’ve got time.”

  “I’ll be dressed in a minute,” she said. “I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute. We’ll bathe them and dress them, and we’ll go to church, Evan. We’ll be their parents.”

  He went to Dade’s room, shaved, showered, and put on his best suit. She was in the kitchen in the dress he’d bought her a year ago at Ransohoffs. She had an apron over the dress that somebody had sent her for Christmas a couple of years ago. She was making bacon, French toast, lamb chops, coffee. He went out of the house to the back yard. He saw Red and Eva coming from far off in the vineyard. When they saw him they cried out and began to run. The woman ran out of the kitchen into the yard to be beside him when they arrived. They picked up the children, and told them they were all going to church.

  Chapter 24

  They sat down to breakfast. The eyes of the children filled with gladne
ss at the ceremony of the table, at the presence of their mother and father, at the ease and charity in each of them for the other, and for their children. They talked pleasantly, and the eyes of the children filled with wonder. Even the eyes of the man and woman filled with it, and almost with tears, too, for they knew, each of them knew, how wrong it was to insist upon a moment of decent peace in themselves for the children to see, since the peace was false. Each of them knew how wrong it was to be forced by disaster into an essay at decency. They worked hard at it, gladly even, and neither of them, in speaking to the children, said anything that was hurtful to the other. They were trying. For whatever might be in it for the children, for themselves, they were trying. It made failure seem almost impossible.

  The harmony achieved was real, in spite of the reason for its achievement. They were a family together. They did love one another. There was hope for them. Nothing could touch or hurt them. It was astonishing and painful to know, but it was true. They were still precisely who they were, who they had been, but they were also together, belonged together, and nothing else mattered. It was almost unbelievable that out of disaster a family could become more truly a family, out of disgrace and pain could become more proudly and irresistibly a family.

  After breakfast the woman went off to bathe and dress the girl, and the man filled the tub in Dade’s bathroom for the boy. While the boy bathed, Evan Nazarenus sorted out the currency Dade had handed him the night before. There were a good many hundreds and fifties, and with the exception of six or seven tens, the rest were twenties, but there were a great many of them. He didn’t count the money. He stacked it carefully, opened the drawer of Dade’s bureau, saw the three pistols there, placed the biggest pistol on top of the money, stacked in two piles, and pushed the drawer shut. He then opened his wallet and counted the money in it. There was a twenty, a ten, two fives, and three ones.

  The boy was soon back in his own room, getting into his best suit, a grey flannel. When they went out into the parlor the woman was there with the girl, waiting. The girl had on a yellow dress with small blue flowers done into it with thread. She was thrilled with the dress, and the whole adventure of going to church.

  Everybody’s clothes were new, so that when they walked there was a Sunday formality to it, but the boy watched the grass, and the girl grew tired and was picked up by the man. The woman moved and spoke as a young girl does, and the man would not permit any thought or memory to come between him and the ritual of their being together. He spoke with gladness in his voice, speaking to each of them.

  They reached Clovis in time to have a look at each of the three churches, to pick and choose, to discuss which would be the one they would enter. They decided on the Presbyterian because, while it was not as big and handsome as the Catholic, or as lonely-looking and appealing as the Methodist, it had large stained-glass windows that Red and Eva wanted to see from the inside, and seemed to all of them in appearance most nearly what a church ought to be. It was built of wood, painted white, had a nice steeple, and when they reached it the bell was ringing.

  They went in and sat on a bench in the first row, on the right, because Red and Eva wanted to get as near as possible. The place was about a third full when they walked down the center aisle. A woman was playing something on the organ. The windows were beautiful pictures, one mainly in blue, one mainly in red, one mainly in green, and one mainly in yellow. The light that filled the place had all of these colors in it. The place was both dazzling and peaceful.

  The adventure started with a man coming out of a door and standing behind a pulpit with a book on it. He said a few things, then everybody got up, opened a book, and began to sing. Red was astonished at this and looked around to see who was doing it. Everybody was. He heard his father sing, then began to sing, too, just making the sounds, not being able to sing the words until after a while. Eva’s mother began to sing, too, and Eva sang with her. Eva looked at Red once, giggled, and put her hand over her mouth. Red’s eyes got angry at her, she straightened out immediately, but only a moment later she giggled again, and again put her hand over her mouth. Her mother giggled, too, and put her hand over her mouth. Red’s eyes got angry at both of them.

  After the song they sat down, the preacher said some more things, the people opened another book, the preacher said something, the people spoke together and said something back to him. The preacher sounded like a fine man, and the people speaking together sounded fine, too.

  A man sang a solo. Eight women and eight men standing behind him sang part of the song with him.

  The preacher prayed and said a lot of different things.

  After that four men wearing white gloves came to where four wooden plates were stacked in a pile, picked them up, and handed them to people. Evan Nazarenus took a plate, put a half dollar in it, and handed it to Red beside him. Red put a quarter in it and handed it to Eva, who put a quarter in it and handed it to Swan, who put a half dollar in it and held it until a man came to get it. Red turned and watched the way they did it.

  Then the preacher got up and talked. He talked a long time, but it was all right because there were always the windows to look at, and the people, too. Eva fell asleep. Her mother rested Eva’s head on her lap.

  After a while it was all over. They got up and watched the people leave the church. They went out, too, and began to walk home.

  Chapter 25

  The walk home from church was fun, too, but it was hot by then. It was so hot that Red asked to take off his coat, his shoes and socks, and Eva had to be carried almost the whole way. They were each given a bowl of cold cereal and milk for a quick lunch, then each of them went off for a nap.

  When they were both asleep, the man said to the woman, “Thanks for what you did.”

  “I can do it every day,” the woman said.

  “I’ve got to telephone a friend in San Francisco for Cody Bone’s boy, and then I want to lie down on the sofa in the parlor and take a nap myself.”

  “I’ll take a nap, too,” the woman said.

  He went to the telephone, called his friend, then called Bart, and told him the story. His friend, a man named Harold Trabing, would call Evan sometime tomorrow afternoon, and Evan would call Bart.

  “God,” the boy said, “I’m going to be awful nervous until you call tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll call the minute Trabing calls,” Evan said.

  “Did he sound as if I might have a chance?”

  “Yes,” Evan said. “I think you’ll be making the voyage all right, but forget the whole thing until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “O.K.,” the boy said. “I’ll get in my car and drive all day and all night.” He stopped suddenly. “Listen,” he said, “let me bring the car over and leave it in the driveway. Why not take the family for a Sunday drive? Take them to the dam at Friant, or to the river at Piedra. I don’t need the car. I’ll walk to Clovis, and take in a movie.”

  Evan went to the parlor and stretched out on the sofa. He was almost asleep when the telephone bell rang. It was Dade.

  “They just surrendered,” he said. “The game’s over.”

  “You mean you haven’t had any sleep yet?”

  “I’m going to bed now.”

  “What are you going to do when you wake up?”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  “When you’re through sleeping fly here, will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We had breakfast together, then went to church. I’m driving them to Piedra for a picnic later on.”

  “Is my car back?”

  “Not yet,” Evan said. “Cody’s boy is lending me his car. When will you get here?”

  “I need a lot of sleep,” Dade said. “I mean, I want a lot. Tomorrow night at the earliest, maybe the night after.”

  “I’ve put the money in the top drawer of your bureau,” Evan said.

  “That’s yours,” Dade said. “That was nothing. Just put it away in your satchel. I’ll phone you from the airport in Fresn
o.” In their own language he said, “Tell me.”

  “I’m trying,” Evan said in the language.

  “It is right,” Dade said in the language, and then in English, “Sometime during the day teach Red to say, ‘My name is Rex Nazarenus.’ Teach him something new every day.”

  “O.K.,” Evan said.

  He went back to the sofa, stretched out, and was soon deep in sleep, but not so deep that he was free. He begged his sleep to annoy him no more, let him rest, let him forget, so that he might in time learn what to do, in the time of another night, another day, another night and day, know what to do, know how to do it, know how for the rest of his life.

  When he woke up he went out onto the front porch and saw Bart’s car in the driveway. He went to Swan and found her fast asleep. He found Red awake, and spoke to him about the picnic. Red jumped out of bed, and then the whole house was alive with the idea, Swan making sandwiches and Red and Eva urging her to hurry up, so they could go.

  “I’m going, too,” Eva said. “Papa’s taking me, too.”

  Chapter 26

  The man took Red aside and said, “I want you to sit in the back with Mama because I hurt Eva when I didn’t take her with us last night. I want her to sit alone up front with me. I know you understand.”

  When they were ready to go the man said, “Now let’s see. Mama and Red in the back, and Papa and Eva in the front.” He watched the girl’s face. She was so pleased and surprised she became speechless. She scrambled into her place, sat there, folded her hands, turned several times to look at her mother and her brother. At last she said, “I’m in the front with Papa.”

  They wore light clothing. The windows of the car were open. The air they breathed was good. The man followed country roads as far as possible, driving slowly, stopping now and then to look at a vineyard, a tree, or an abandoned house. He got out of the car once to take some ripe nectarines off a tree, and Red got out with him. The nectarines were a little hot, but they were, juicy and sweet. He counted out three for each of them. When they came to the river at Piedra he drove along the riverside road until they found a green place, a cluster of three willows. There they sat on a blanket.