J R

  —Yes that’s why I was surprised he was moving, the . . .

  —Who was moving Dan, what . . .

  —No I thought you were, aren’t you? That moving van at your house right after lunch I . . .

  —Probably just parked on the street there, nobody around us moving that I know of.

  —No, no it was backed up to your house they were carrying things out, a stereo . . .

  —Now wait a minute Dan let’s yes let’s just get this clear you saw a moving van at my look, those houses aren’t all that different even the streets they, probably the same house a street or two over mine has the . . .

  —The eagle yes and that chimney sticking up out of your . . .

  —Ventilator Dan part of the shelter’s generator-driven forced air system that what the hell do you mean carrying things out!

  —And a big console television and, is something wrong? I could ride you over, my car’s . . .

  —No no mine’s right out front here I’m, I don’t believe it but what’s happened already today I’m, where my keys . . . looming, slapping pockets like a man infested—must have left them in the car . . . and the inside door threatened its hinges.

  —Ow . . .!

  —Well get out of the way!

  —Yes well what ahm, sorry Vern here, what are you doing out here.

  —Me? Nothing Mister Whiteback I’m . . .

  —And what’s all this trash on the floor pick it up, is it yours? And you, what do you . . .

  —I just came to ask when’s rehears . . .

  —There aren’t any, there are no opera rehearsals they’ve been postponed you’ve been told that, even when there are you’re not supposed to wear your costume to school you’ve been told that too, now . . .

  —This ain’ a costume Mister Whiteback it’s my clothes.

  —You call tails and horns and, and those reflectors you call that clothes? Your mother know you come to school like this?

  —Who?

  —Your mother, your mother!

  —She’s ugually asleep.

  —If you come to school like this again you’ll be sent home to wake her up. Now you, what are you doing here they weren’t supposed to send you down, they said they were sending down that what’s that boy’s name, Percival . . .

  —I don’t know all I saw was Buzzie.

  —That’s the one yes the one you call Buzzie, where is he.

  —I don’t know, he sat here a second when they brought him in then he ran up the hall there.

  —Well why didn’t you, what were you sent down for.

  —Well see Mister Whiteback I needed this here typewri . . .

  —Playing with a school typewriter? do you know how much they cost?

  —No I wasn’t playing with it see I just had this here thing which I had to type it so . . .

  —You’ll take typing when you get to ninth grade, until then don’t touch one again. Have you picked up all this trash you dropped?

  —I couldn’t help it I was just . . .

  —Look ow, sorry Whiteback damn, Dan? still here? Can you give me that ride?

  —I’m coming yes . . .

  —My car, somebody stole my car right out front there. You out this way . . .? they came down the corridor, pulled, pushed the doors—get over there fast but I still don’t believe it . . . and behind them a hand severed a minute’s remnant on the clock beyond the shelter of the lockers.

  —Holy, look what time it is the bell’s going to ring, didn’t they finish that telephone booth yet?

  —There’s still this one guy there, boy did you just see my father hey?

  —Did I see him he almost knocked me down, here . . .

  —What’s he so pissed off at.

  —How do I know he said somebody stole his car here, hold this stuff a second while I, wait quick lend me a dime.

  —What do you mean a dime look at all the quarters you . . .

  —I need to make this call what do you think, I’m giving them fifteen cents extra free?

  —Who you calling up, your buddy Major Sheets to tell him you got his forks stuck in the freight office which you’re scared to go get them? Boy if Whiteback finds out . . .

  —Why should he, I mean this deal’s all fixed up and paid why should he find out anything unless the freight office calls them about all this here ammunition boy I never heard anything so dumb, I mean you get this rifle association to send you this here free ammunition which you haven’t even got something to shoot it off with boy I never . . .

  —Okay how did I know they’ll send it by freight hey look, there goes the phone guy . . .

  —Give me the dime then will you? he came up the range of lockers juggling his armload wrapped in a battered newspaper, dredging the handkerchief wad from his pocket—hurry up . . . he got in with the heap on his lap thumbing the pages of Alaska Our Wilderness Friend for a torn envelope with a telephone number, jammed the wad into the mouthpiece and dialed.—Hello . . .? the door clattered closed—is Mister Bast there . . .? Who me? I’m his, I’m this here business friend of his is he still at the city? See I have this urgent matter which I have to discuss my portforlio with him to . . . No I said I have this here urgent mat . . . he went where . . .? No but look lady, he . . . no but holy . . . no but how could he be someplace accepting some reward see we have this here ouch, boy hello . . .?

  The line rang with three more piercing notes.—Mercy! they could burst an eardrum, hello? I said Mister Bast is abroad somewhere just a minute, Julia? The card that came yesterday with a picture of a mountain, where, hello . . .?

  —Who in heaven’s name . . .

  —Well I never! The oddest voice, it sounded like someone talking under a pillow. I thought he said he was a business friend of James, the most awful shrill sounds on the telephone line and then it sounded like a loud bell ringing and he simply hung up. I thought we asked Edward to have them take it out.

  —No the stock Anne, the stock, we asked him to sell our telephone stock. Once that’s done I may take it out myself.

  —I hope he can find someone who wants to buy it though I must say, I’d feel a little bit guilty. It’s like selling some poor soul shares in a plague, my ear is still ringing. Who was it that called here this morning.

  —Some wretched woman who had a wrong number. She asked me to name the second president of the United States, when I told her Abraham Lincoln she congratulated me.

  —Oh I think Lincoln came later, didn’t he? When Uncle Dick came back from Andersonville prison . . .

  —I’m certainly quite aware of that, I simply said Lincoln for a little joke but it didn’t disturb her in the least. She told me I’d won a free dance lesson.

  —It sounds like that woman who’s called for Edward with an accent like the grocery boy’s. Tell him Ann called about the strike, that’s all she says and Ann, if you please. Tell him to look in this week’s paper . . .

  —It’s probably someone from the union, they called last week sounding quite put out.

  —Well I’m not surprised, they’ve been put out at James since the Chicago theater strike after the war.

  —I certainly never blamed James for that, and after he had that tooth replaced he never did play quite the same.

  —Now that was just something Thomas said, Julia, getting back at James for his remark about all those years Thomas practiced clarinet, that the reed had loosened something in his head. James’ teeth never were right once Doctor Teakell weakened them.

  —But Father thought he was an excellent dentist, what . . .

  —I know he weakened my teeth Julia, it’s almost a wonder I still have them he was doing it all in exchange, you know, for the lessons Father gave his son. He was Father’s only student who appeared every week without two quarters, of course learning to play violin he couldn’t very well . . .

  —He could never have learned to play the kazoo, I remember Father saying that boy couldn’t carry a tune in a bushel basket.

  —Yes and Doctor T
eakell put the blame all on Father, I have a lower here in back that’s bothered me on and off for years. Whenever I feel it everything stops, I can hear that scraping on the violin and I wonder what’s, what’s become of them all sometimes I hear so many things, I hear Father’s step out on the veranda when it gets dark and, like it is now and then I recall this house doesn’t even have a veranda . . . and from far the wail of a siren rose as though brought into being by that concentration, rose and was lost until, unsought and unheard, it passed again close toward the break of another day.

  —Julia! Come quickly!

  —I wouldn’t peer through the curtain that way, Anne. It puts me in mind of that awful woman who spread that gossip about Nellie and James, how the curtain would move when you passed her house and you knew she . . .

  —But look! our hedge is gone!

  —Why, it can’t be! It can’t be gone. I remember when Charlotte had it planted.

  —See for yourself, it’s just not there you can look right out across the road on that field of dahlias and, that car going by! Just staring in at us as though, it’s like standing out in the yard stark naked we should call the police.

  —What would we say. That they came at night and stole three hundred feet of privet hedge? so they’d have a place to park their cars for their bingo parties Wednesday nights?

  —I’m afraid to think what James will say.

  —James will say what he’s always said, that money buys privacy and that’s all it’s good for.

  —I think he just meant the hedge kept noise out, it certainly didn’t stop those two dreadful women from the sisters of heaven knows what they called themselves. Marching right up here to the front door to say they’d heard the place was for sale.

  —I don’t think they dreamed of paying a penny, the stout one said she thought it was vacant. She stood there with one foot in the door just gaping right in over my shoulder and said what a nice room this would make for their teenage dances, of all things.

  —Yes that’s the way Father always put it, let them get one foot in the door . . .

  —And the rooms upstairs could be used for games. They take such pride in being prolific, I imagine the sort of games they’d be. When I told her we had no notion of selling, she had the gall to go on and ask if we knew of any other old rundown houses they might fix up as a community project. I found it difficult even to be civil, it was all I could do to keep from asking how they’d like a troop of strangers prancing through their houses.

  —I’m sure they’d like nothing better, Julia. From the pictures one sees of these pasteboard interiors they try to make every inch they own look as much like a public place as can be.

  —Own! they don’t own the shirts to their backs. They make a down payment and stay just long enough to vote in every desecration they can think of before they move on to do the same thing elsewhere, to leave behind the mess they’ve made for the people here who’ve been paying taxes for fifty years. There’s hardly a tree left standing.

  —I even miss the smell of cabbages there used to be this time of the year.

  —I meant to order one yesterday, I thought we’d have that nice pork butt.

  —It’s a shame that we can’t save it for Edward.

  —We can’t simply save it forever Anne, I’ll just put it on. He might even appear, I think I heard a train just a minute ago . . . and clear the mile away the wind might bring its sound from the tracks when the wind lay right, blowing off the day and finally letting the darkness settle, and damp, for day to return like a rumor of day and lurk in the sky unable to break.

  —Those acres of flowers, all of them black. Did you see what the frost did last night Julia?

  —Well I wouldn’t peer out through the curtain that way, we’re naked enough as it is with the hedge gone.

  —I still think it wouldn’t hurt to call the police.

  —After the mess they left things in right back here in James’ studio? that night Stella’s what’s his name, Stella’s husband went in and turned everything upside down for a scrap of paper he never found? Edward said things were flung every which way.

  —Yes I meant to tell you, he called again.

  —Edward?

  —No that, Stella’s husband, he sounded more confused than ever and finally put his little friend Mister Cohen on to say he’d heard nothing yet from Mister Lemp.

  —I scarcely know what he expects to hear, he’s the one who’s making the difficulties with his prying questions about our shares, and all that talk about going public. Is that what they tried to start again?

  —Selling some of Thomas’ shares yes, just selling them to total strangers. I’m sure Thomas is turning in his grave right now.

  —Well I shouldn’t blame him a bit if he were, when that’s all they’d been waiting for. Simply sitting there waiting for him to die so they could sell it right out from under us, to people we wouldn’t even know in the street.

  —I’m sure they’d know one another Julia. You never saw them in the trenches Father used to say, just let them have one foot in the door and . . .

  —That name was changed from Engels somewhere along the way.

  —Julia you don’t think, those stock powers we signed and mailed back to these Crawley and Bro people Edward found? that they might use them to sell our shares and James’? They were blank after all, and there were so many . . .

  —I’m sure they don’t even know we have it. It’s right out there in the kitchen drawer, I don’t see how they could possibly sell it so long as it’s in the kitchen drawer, Anne? If you’re going out there you might turn the fire down under those beans. We’ll just let them simmer overnight . . . from there, and then from room into room their aroma moved slowly, taking on a near tangible presence, finally mounting the stairs with the ease of the night and remaining, long after it had descended and gone.

  —Anne? I thought perhaps the mail had come.

  —It’s on the shelf over the kitchen sink, I left it there when I tasted the beans. They do seem a trifle overdone but that was the way Father always . . .

  —I thought I saw the newspaper somewhere.

  —Yes that’s the only thing I opened, I put it right under the, here it is. Did you see this picture of the old Lemp home? It looks like they’ve torn off the porte cochere to put up a monstrous kind of chute that’s meant to serve as a fire escape now it’s become a nursing home. Here, it says it’s to speed the evacuation of residents who have trouble with stairs.

  —Old Mrs Lemp walked with a stick of course, but I can’t see her leaving like a bundle of laundry.

  —And I don’t see a word in here about Edward or the strike that woman called about, the one who calls herself Ann and told us to look in this week’s paper.

  —She called again yes wanting to speak with him, I suppose those are the chances one takes, going to teach in a place like that. It puts me in mind of James and his asylums, she seemed quite eager to find Edward something right in music as she put it, music therapy to rehabilitate criminals and handicaps, of all things.

  —From the way she sounds on the telephone I’m sure she knows a number of both. Is that who called while I was sewing?

  —No, no that was Stella, asking for Edward. She said she’d just called to see how he was getting along, and not a word about anything else.

  —It’s the things she doesn’t say that disturb me.

  —Yes I don’t quite know why it is, I find even the sound of her voice disturbing, that almost languid, uncurious manner . . .

  —I’m sure it’s just that languorous way that makes her seem attractive to men, I recall her as such a high-strung child but after her marriage to this what’s his name, he struck me as quite slow that first time I met him . . .

  —And that scar of hers yes, now you speak of it someone said she’d had that thyroid operation simply in order to subdue, one might better say to match her pace to his . . .

  —That does seem a lot of trouble to go to, why she wanted t
o marry him in the first place . . .

  —I think it’s perfectly obvious Anne, if there was any doubt it’s quite clear now the reason he married her plain and simple was to gain this foothold in the company. Once he got those twenty-three shares out of Thomas he was in a position to step right in about the time Thomas became less active. Now with Thomas gone and no one to look after things we and James have only twenty-seven among us, and if Stella’s to have all twenty-five or so from the estate they can bring this gang of strangers in and run it all however they please. Why else would she and that husband of hers have come out here turning things upside down, hounding Edward to kingdom come. He’s just afraid that if Edward claims half they’ll end up with something like thirty-five shares, we’d have almost forty with Edward’s half and keep things in the family as Thomas intended.

  —But Julia I don’t think Edward . . .

  —Let’s not drag it all up again, I think we’d be wise just to keep our own counsel until we hear what James has to say.

  —Well I’m not at all sure that Stella doesn’t know more than she tells. The way she questioned us about Nellie’s death . . .

  —I’m afraid for one I’ve never doubted it, those stories about Nellie and James that woman spread right after the fair that summer up in Tannersville, the one with the tip of one finger missing there was only one way she could have learned them. I certainly don’t want to see it dragged up again even if it costs us what’s rightfully ours, though I must say I can’t picture selling to strangers. It would be like selling the telephone stock, if these Crawley and Bro people find someone to buy them.