Presence: Stories

“You don’t need a fountain pen in the first grade,” Ben said.

  “Well, I mean in the second grade.” Martin blushed.

  “As long as you don’t need a secretary,” Papa said. Then he added, “Third grade you can have a secretary.” He laughed, but Ben would not be fooled, and Martin laughed with his father, feeling how fine it would be to keep him just like this. But Ben was immovable, and his mind searched rapidly for a marvel to distract his brother’s judgment. “You know what?” he said, avidly now, his brown eyes darting back and forth between them. He had no idea what he was going to say yet, but he was adamant—he was going to keep Papa amused even if Ben refused to forget his sins.

  “What?” Papa asked.

  “They’re going to have Indian’s summer!”

  “You don’t say! Who?”

  He saw that Ben was starting to turn pink trying not to laugh, and he felt a strange power over his brother that he could force him out of his condemning sulk, a power that was evil because it could bedazzle Ben’s righteous condemnation. He kept his eyes on his father, feeling close to him now because Papa was listening, yet somehow traitorous as he sensed he was about to astound him. “I think in the hotel,” he said.

  “Oh,” Papa said, throwing his head up overmuch, “in the hotel they going to have Indian summer?”

  Martin nodded eagerly. Now there was nothing but the pleasure of his vision. “The milkman told me.”

  Ben went “Ts” and turned his head away.

  “He did!” Martin shouted angrily, yet happy that Ben was coming out to oppose him openly and not mourning remotely any more.

  “Every time he can’t think what to say he blames it on the milkman,” Ben said scoffingly, but his eyes were amused and interested to hear more.

  Martin reddened. “He told me! They didn’t have it last year, but they’re going to have it this year. So they have to have more milk.”

  “To feed the Indians,” Papa said.

  “He told me,” Martin said.

  “Well, sure.” Papa turned to Ben. “They’re probably expecting a lot of Indians.”

  “From the country,” Martin added, clearly seeing a file of feathered Indians emerging from the woods near the railroad station.

  “In other words,” Papa said, “country Indians.”

  With a spray of spittle flying from his burst-open mouth, Ben laughed helplessly.

  “Well, they are!” Martin yelled indignantly, but strangely happy that he was making them laugh at his lies and not at something worse.

  “Hey, hey!” Papa frowned at Ben, but with laughter in his eyes. “Cut it out, don’t laugh.”

  “Country Ind—” Ben choked hysterically.

  Martin giggled, infected. “It’s when everybody goes back to the city,” he explained, desperately meticulous. “That’s how come nobody sees them.”

  Ben’s arms suddenly flew up as he slipped off his chair onto the floor, and his fall made Martin burst out in clear, victorious laughter. He jumped down, thrilling with love for his brother’s laughter, and he ran around the table and flung himself on Ben, tickling him under the arms with all the strength in his fingers. Ben fell back on the floor helplessly, pleading for Martin to stop, but his suffocating gasps were like soft wet sand to dig into, and Martin kneaded his brother’s flesh, straddling him now, darting from his ribs to his belly to his neck until Ben was not laughing any more. But Martin kept on, feeling a delightful fury and a victorious power. Ben’s neck was stretched and his face contorted, tears on his cheeks, unable to take a breath. Martin struggled against being lifted into the air and heard his father calling, “Ben? Ben?” And then, “Ben!” And Ben at last drew a breath and lay there gasping, laughing with tears in his eyes, and he wasn’t dead.

  Papa put Martin down. “Okay, Indian, that’s enough. Go and say good night to your mother and go to sleep. We’ve got to start the packing tomorrow early. Ben, you too.”

  Ben, still breathing heavily, got to his feet, his expression sobering as he brushed off the seat of his pants and inspected his shoes. Martin happily began to brush his pants too, his brother’s equal, but discovered he was in his underwear, and his mind darkened with the memory of his wet pants still lying in the middle of his and Ben’s bedroom. Papa had already gone into the other bedroom where Mama lay.

  “You have to apologize to her,” Ben whispered.

  “Why?” Martin asked in all innocence. Anger stirred in him again as he felt himself slipping back.

  “For what you did, you nut,” Ben whispered. “Before.” Then he went into their parents’ bedroom. He always knew exactly what had to be apologized for.

  Martin followed, moving toward his parents’ bedroom as slowly as he could without actually coming to a halt. First he moved one foot an inch or two and then the other. He searched in his mind for a clue to sadness; he was inwardly still happy. He thought of his Uncle Karl dying and it sobered his face, but he could not precisely recall what he was to apologize about, and his forgetting left voids that frightened him. He knew it was not about his pants lying in the middle of his room, because nobody had seen them yet, and the memory of his mother standing up holding her breast had splintered in his mind; he could see her doing that and gasping, but he could not quite recall what had caused her pain. The fear he felt as he approached the open doorway of her bedroom was that he had done something he did not even know about. Things were always being remembered that he had forgotten. Only Ben never forgot; Ben remembered everything.

  He entered the bedroom, feeling his ears growing foolishly bigger and heavier; his mother was looking at him from her pillow, and Papa and Ben, standing on either side of the bed, turned to look at him as though they had all been discussing him for an hour and knew what he was supposed to do.

  At the foot of the bed he stopped, trying not to let his eyes be caught by the hill over her stomach. In the silence the ocean’s hiss and boom came into the room, surprising him with its sudden presence. He could smell the water in here and see the bearded thing floating just beneath the heaving water like seaweed.

  She smiled at him now, tiredly; his lips parted tentatively in reply. His father, he saw, was crooking his arms to stand with his hands bracing his back, elbows out. Martin’s hands slipped down off his hips when he tried it, so he lowered his hands and rested one on the soft yellow blanket.

  “So?” she asked, without turning from him, but smiling. “He ate—my bandit?”

  “Sure he ate,” Papa said, “he’s a big man. Leave him alone, he eats.”

  Hearing her call him her bandit—which she never called Ben—he lowered his eyes with pleasure, distinguished by his crimes. He knew exactly where he was now, and he loved all of them.

  “You ate your peas too?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And the carrots?”

  “Yeah.” In this expectancy he saw his recognition, his uniqueness expanding before his mother, and Papa too, and even Ben seemed magnanimously vanquished and kind of showing him to her. But he kept his eyes on the blanket, not knowing why he was beginning to feel embarrassed.

  “So now you’re going to be good, heh?” she said.

  “Uh-huh.” He glanced at her face; she was serious and still hurt. Then he looked down at the blanket and plucked at it, growing wary about the next five minutes, for he knew once again that something was still unfinished.

  “You bother him too much,” Papa said. “He’s practically a professor and you still—”

  “He’s going to cut his own matzoh balls? You crazy?”

  “A man is got a right to cut his own matzoh balls.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Specially a professor with his own fountain pen.”

  “What do you know about it?” she said. Martin glanced at her and saw that she was angry but smiling. Fear moved into him. “I slave like a dog all day and
you come home and he should do whatever he wants!” Papa looked up high to make little of it, but she was going toward an underlying darkness, and dread flew into Martin’s chest, so he grinned. “I don’t bother him,” she denied. “I’m just trying to help him. A boy five years old can’t—”

  “A boy five years old! I was six I was out selling newspapers.”

  “Sure,” she said, “that’s why you got such a good education!” She turned to Ben, as she always did at this point in the story. “Not even to let a boy go to school so he could maybe read a book in his life.”

  Papa sat there slightly blushing for his upbringing, his family, and Martin kept grinning and plucking in agony at the blanket. Through the corners of his eyes he saw the three books on her bed table, and his heart got cold; were these the books the weeping dentist had given her? “Oh, the books he used to bring me!” Her voice in the lobby sang over his head with all its longing, and the memory reddened his face. Oh, Papa must never know! “When I grow up—” he said.

  They turned to him, smiling at his sudden statement. “What, when you grow up?” his mother asked, still flushed with her feelings.

  He lowered his eyes to the blanket; he had not meant to say anything aloud, and his face burned with shame. “What, darling?” his mother persisted. He did not know if he wanted to say that he would teach Papa so he could read books in a chair the way she did, or whether he would grow up and bring her books himself, so she would not remember the dentist, and then they wouldn’t argue any more, she and Papa. He only knew for certain that he wanted her never to make Papa ashamed.

  She kept asking what would happen when he grew up, and he knew he had to say something quick. “Papa gave us chicken,” he said. They all laughed in surprise, and he felt relieved, and he laughed although he did not know what was funny about it. “Right on top of the peas and carrots!” he added.

  “Some waiter!” Mama laughed. They all laughed louder, but Papa was blushing, and Martin wanted to run to him and apologize.

  She was proud of Martin now, and he knew she ought not to be. “Come here, give me a kiss,” she said, holding out her arms. He lingered in place, crunching his toes inside his shoes. “Come!” she smiled.

  Fearing to affront her again, he moved an inch toward her outstretched arms and writhed to a halt, pulling at the blanket with his fingertips. “Ben’s taking me to school,” he said, keeping out of her reach.

  “He can’t wait to go to school, you see?” she boasted directly to Papa, and in the instant Martin glowed under her pride in his taking after her. But when he saw how pleased and innocently Papa nodded, his mind quickly darkened; he only knew she must not so blatantly make him her own in front of Papa, and in the air between his mother and himself he felt an evil compact growing, a collusive understanding, which he lusted for and could not bear.

  “I can spell ‘beach’!” he said suddenly and immediately felt afraid.

  “Oh, you! You’ll spell everything!” She waved the words at him with her hand. “Go—spell, ‘beach.’”

  “‘Beach,’” he said, in the approved way of saying the word before starting to spell it. He saw Ben grinning; was it because he was proud of him or doubtful he could really spell the word? Martin’s memory sharpened around each letter. “‘B’ . . .”

  “Right!” she said, nodding with satisfaction.

  “‘e’ . . .”

  “Very good!” she said, glancing with pride at Papa.

  “‘a’ . . .” he said less strongly.

  She seemed to sense a wavering in him and kept silent. He was looking at his father now, his warm, magnanimous smile, his wholly selfless gaze—and he knew in that instant that Papa did not know how to spell “beach.” He and Ben and Mama knew how, but Papa was sitting out there all alone with his patient ignorance.

  “‘B-e-a’ what?” his mother prompted. He could feel the embracing power of her demand like a wind on his back, and he dug in his heels against it. But Papa saw nothing, only the wonder that was about to come out of his son’s mouth, and the sense of his own treason burned in him.

  “What, darling? ‘B-e-a’ . . .”

  “‘B-e-a’ . . .” Martin began again, slowly, to make more time. He lowered his eyes as though searching for the final letters, but the realization stuck to him that he was teaching his father. How dare he teach Papa! She must shut up or something terrible would come down upon them. Because . . . he did not know why, but he did not want to be standing there in front of Papa, teaching him what he had learned from her or . . . His mind drowned in the consequences as in the trough of an incoming wave. “I can spell ‘telephone,’” he said. They all laughed. Somehow “beach” was forbidden now. He remembered suddenly that he had once spelled “telephone” off the cover of the phone book to Papa. He wanted deeply to spell “telephone” for him again and to wipe out the memory of “beach.”

  “First spell ‘beach,’” she lightly complained. “You can spell it.”

  Ben spoke. “It’s the same as ‘teach.’”

  “I know!” Martin shot out at his brother. His heart quickened at the fear that Ben was about to spell “beach” himself.

  “Or ‘reach,’” Ben said.

  “Shut up!” Martin yelled, and both his father and mother were starting to laugh.

  “I can spell it!” he shouted at his father and mother.

  “Well, go, spell it,” his mother said.

  He got himself set, but now it was he who was alone, pleading with them, all three of them, to be allowed to show what he could spell. And he could not bear the indignity, the danger, that lay in having to produce something in exchange for their giving him a place among them. The golden aura was gone from his head; he was merely standing there stripped of his position, and he started to sob, and he did not know why, except that he hated them all, as though he had been somehow betrayed and mocked.

  “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked and reached toward him. He struck at her falseness, and she withdrew her hand.

  “Come on, let’s go to sleep,” his father said, coming over to him.

  He pushed his father’s belly away but not with his full force. “I don’t want to go to sleep!” Something, some battle, remained unfought, and he lusted for it now as for peace.

  The feel of his father’s belt buckle remained impressed on his hand. He looked up at Papa’s perplexed, fading grin. Now, now he would take his belt off and whip him! Through the red webbing of his anger Martin saw the promise of an end, of peace. Swiftly he saw that now he would be really whipped, and then the thoughts of the dentist would be driven out of his mind and he would never again hear the sound of his mother’s high and excited laughter that day. Oh, yes—it would all be cracked away by the snap of that leather and Papa in fury roaring out, “I . . . I . . . I . . . I!” Now, now he would do it! And then Papa would turn and knock Mama against the wall, and she would never dare to make him teach Papa anything again.

  But Papa was bending over him, patting his back, saying, “It’s late, professor, come on,” and Martin felt his father’s great hand folding around the back of his neck and allowed himself to be walked to the doorway of the room. And as he was going out into the living room he heard his brother’s voice, weighted down by the responsibility for teaching him. “It’s ‘b-e-a-c-h,’ Marty.”

  The injustice fell on his head like a shower of nails. He heard the crash first, then saw the tablecloth cascading down over his feet, the dishes rushing toward him and smashing on the floor, fruit rolling across the room, the falling arc of the lighted candle, a smack of a palm across his forehead, another on his behind, and he was running, running into Ben first and dodging out of his grasp, then into Mama’s thigh, and then he was high in the air, his legs kicking beneath him, his face toward the ceiling where the marks of three flies his father had once squashed still showed. Everything was red, as though he were looking
through his own blood, and he could feel the thuds of his toes inside his shoes as he kicked against his father’s body. “Hey!” He was let down, dropped to his feet, and he glimpsed his father’s hand going to his belly as though it hurt, and the pain he had caused his father caught at his throat but he was strangely free, full of himself—bad, agile, swiftly glancing at them at bay, knowing he could never be caught and held if he did not want himself to be. For an instant no one moved, and he could only hear himself gasping.

  He ran into his room, picked up his crumpled pants, rushed back into the living room and flung them down on the floor before his family. The next thing, he knew, would be that he would run out the door and down the street and never come back. No—he corrected—he would run across the beach and go swimming! Into the bearded ocean where he belonged—he was not afraid like they were! His mother moved one foot to approach him and he stiffened, gasping for his breath. The words pitched upward from his stomach—I don’t need you any more! His mouth was open and he was yelling, but nothing came out because his tongue was crouching flat in the back of his throat.

  “Martin!”

  He yelled again. “Aaahhg!” came out. The root of his tongue felt cold now. He felt frightened. They were all coming closer to him, carefully. He swallowed, but his tongue would not come up to where it belonged. He felt himself being carried, and his pillow came up under his head.

  His bedroom was dark, and their faces were cut in half by the moonlight coming through the window. For a long time he did not see them, but he could hear their talking and worried murmurings. He could not move his mind out of his mouth, where it groped and felt for his tongue. He felt a hand on his arm and turned to his bedside, expecting his mother to be there, but it was his father who was seated in the chair. He looked toward where Mama’s voice was coming from, and she was down at the foot of his bed with Ben. It was strange; Papa always stood at the foot of the bed when he was sick, and Mama sat at his side. Turning back to his father, he felt helpless and grateful, striving to understand their novel positions.

  “Say something, Martin,” his mother said fearfully from her distance.