“It’s right on my way,” she said to herself. “It’s only three more blocks to Ross Street. I ought to have dropped in on them long ago, for that matter. How lonely it must be for them!” She lined herself up with the edge of the sidewalk and began her quick march east.
The wallpaper had a peculiar softness, a sort of weakness about it, like cardboard that has gotten wet and then dried out. The wooden floor of the entryway was oddly dry under your feet, like the floor of a granary that has had nothing in it for years but a few old sacks, a rusty shovel, an old-fashioned wood-and-tin bagger. That was what the smell of the house made you think of, too: an abandoned barn. It used to be that at the Woodworth house you would be greeted by a beautiful and mighty scent of crabapple jelly or applesauce or pumpkin pie, but there was not so much as a trace of a cooking smell now. It was as if they had given up eating entirely, and perhaps they really had: Octave’s hand was as small as a child’s, and as meatless and dry as a limp cloth glove with sticks in it.
“What a pleasant surprise!” Octave Woodworth said. Her full name was Octave Thanet Woodworth. She had been named for a famous lady novelist. Her father the minister had been a radical in his day, although a Baptist, and had greatly admired Octave Thanet’s opinions—so much so, in fact, that he had invited her to the house when she was passing through on a lecture tour one time. (It was toward the end of Miss Thanet’s life, Octave had told Esther, when Miss Thanet weighed more than two hundred pounds and had a wooden leg and carried a pistol.) It was because of Miss Thanet that Editha, the older of the Woodworth sisters, had become a lady of letters.
“Won’t you come in!” Octave said. “Editha will be so pleased.”
They passed through the entryway into the hushed parlor. Octave held Esther Clumly’s arm to guide her through the maze of wobbly tables, umbrella stands, lamps, bric-a-brac. The smell of decay was stronger here, a smell that reminded you, to tell the truth, of the air in a bathroom where an elderly person has recently moved his bowels.
“Editha, dear, look who’s come to see us!”
Esther smiled and waited with her bony hands folded, nodding politely in the direction toward which Octave Woodworth seemed to have spoken. She had a distinct impression that the room they stood in was absolutely dark, or that Editha Woodworth was behind a screen, so that the smile and nod could not possibly be perceived.
There was no answer from Editha.
“She hardly ever speaks any more, don’t you know,” Miss Octave said. “She’s more than nine-tenths dead, poor thing. She’s a hundred and eight years old, and you know how it is after all that time. I really don’t know why she hangs on. But that’s how the Woodworths have always been. Agnes lived to a hundred and four or it may have been a hundred and five, the records weren’t clear, don’t you know. She was just like Editha, hardly said a word, those last few years, except that she used to curse, poor thing. My! Father would have turned in his grave! We used to tell people she wasn’t right in the head when she started her cursing. Such language! You wonder where on earth she learned it. “Agnes is not herself,” we’d say to people when they heard her doing it, but oh she was an imp. “I am so myself,” she’d say. “It’s you people. You’re the crazy ones.” She used to take off all her clothes, don’t you know, and sit on an upside-down pail in the livingroom. It was a terrible problem. In the end we had to lock her up in there, even if it made her break things, because if we didn’t, you know, she’d come walking right out where we had company and not a stitch of clothes on. I thank the Lord Editha don’t curse, at least. And of course we’re lucky that she can’t get around very well, or undress herself. All things considered, she’s a very good girl, aren’t you Editha.”
Editha said nothing.
“Well,” Miss Octave said. “Won’t you sit down. Let me get you some tea.” She guided Esther to a wobbly little chair with a velvet cushion and forced her to sit.
“Yes, thank you,” Esther said.
But as soon as Esther Clumly was seated, Miss Octave turned and began shuffling very slowly toward (presumably) the kitchen. “I won’t be a minute,” she said. “You and Editha have a nice talk while I get the tea.”
“Yes, good,” Esther said. “That will be nice.”
She sat silent then, listening to the slowly retreating footsteps, the creaking of the floor. There was no other sound. The house was sealed like a tomb from all sounds outside, and if Miss Editha was alive or even present in the room, she gave no sign of it. There was not even a stirring of drapes or an occasional whisper of paper stirring on a table, for the house was breathless, no window open anywhere. She felt buried alive. She tried to think whether or not she ought to say something, and the question stirred a flurry of nervous excitement in her like the excitement which comes when one looks down over a cliff. She had said she would talk—had said it would be nice!—and if Miss Editha had been listening she would be laughing now with old-womanish disgust at the hypocrisy of it. But what if there were no Miss Editha? Suppose it were Miss Octave’s senile joke, and Esther sat facing an empty chair, or a china statue? She cleared her throat. No response. She heard Miss Octave turn a faucet on in the kitchen. She let it run for a long, long time.
Do you have much pain, Miss Editha? she thought of saying. But it was a terrible question, and she did not want to hear its answer.
I hear you had a burglar, she might say.
They went on waiting.
Then—sooner than Esther had expected—Miss Octave’s footsteps came shuffling toward the parlor where they sat. As soon as Esther tasted the tea she knew the reason: Miss Octave had made it with hot water from the faucet. It tasted powerfully of chlorine, and it was anything but hot. Miss Octave sat down, not across from her but beside her, as though they were watching at Miss Editha’s laying-out.
“I hear you had a burglar,” Esther said.
“Yes we did. The police won’t do a thing for us, don’t you know. I suspect they don’t believe it ever happened. They came and fooled around for an hour or two and asked questions and made me walk around with them, with these poor broken arches, don’t you know, just like red-hot nails in your shoes, and one of them must have owned a cat, I think, because after they left I had my allergy for three days. It was terrible. The doctor came over and he said he couldn’t think what kept me alive. Dr. Steele, you know. A wonderful doctor. He’s one of us, one of the Conservatives. It’s so good to know there are a few of us left. But of course they’re all leaving the profession, don’t you know, because of Medicare. They can’t do their work when the Government interferes. So much paperwork, you know, when you have the Government getting in the way of things, and of course the Government tells them how much they can charge, and it’s so little they simply can’t make it any more—they’re all poorer than church-mice, since Medicare. Isn’t it criminal? But that’s the way the world’s been going since that Madman was President, Franklin Roosevelt, you know. He was a Communist Sympathizer, you know. Editha and I just stopped listening to the radio entirely, when we saw what was happening—except for Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy. What ever happened to them, I wonder? Television, I suppose. Charley McCarthy was actually a kind of puppet, and I suppose you can’t do a thing like that on television. Still, it wouldn’t have mattered to Editha and me. We’ve been more than half-blind for years, and we’d never have known the difference, no more than you would, Esther. There ought to be special television programs for blind people, don’t you think?”
“That’s an idea,” Esther said. She gave a tinkling little laugh.
“We don’t like television, ourselves,” Octave said. “We don’t own one, in fact. We had one for a week, a year and a half ago, when the Maxwells went to Florida, but we didn’t care for it. Of course the world is changing, it’s something we have to recognize. There’s a great many more Jews and Communists and Catholics and Nigroes now. The burglar we had happened to be a Nigro. Did I tell you?”
“No.” She was surprised. It h
ad become almost a matter of fact in Esther’s mind that the burglar was the bearded one.
Miss Octave said, “Yes. He happened to be Nigro. You could tell by his voice.”
“That’s odd,” Esther said. “I don’t think when Ed Burlington told me about it he mentioned—”
“Well, no, perhaps not. We gave the police the best description we could, don’t you know, but there was no point in mentioning that the man was a Nigro. The Woodworths have always tried not to be too prejudiced. Of course the Scripture does tell us—”
“I had no idea,” Esther said.
“Well, they never caught him, of course. Your husband came and visited—brought some flowers, too. Do thank him for us. But he didn’t really investigate. None of them did. You’re familiar with A. Conan Doyle, I imagine?”
“I can’t imagine why he didn’t,” Esther said.
The old lady sighed. “Well, these days, what with all those politicians … The Mayor’s a Communist, you know.”
“Is he?”
“Oh yes. The family’s been Communist for years. Well, times are changing. It’s something we have to face. I suppose they resent us at City Hall. The Woodworths have always been very civic-minded, don’t you know, and sometimes we’ve just felt we had to put our foot down. Doesn’t do any good, of course. When Father was alive—” She let it trail off.
Esther said, “I’m sure my husband did the best he could, Miss Woodworth. You’ve no idea the kind of pressure a man in his position is under.”
“That’s so, no doubt. I suppose they have spies everywhere.”
“Oh yes,” Esther said, surprising herself and, to tell the truth, feeling wickedly delighted. “Everywhere!”
Miss Octave seemed to think about it. At last, with a deep sigh she said, “Such a good man, isn’t he. With all the troubles he has to put up with, never knowing which of his best friends may be a Government spy, he still has time to bring flowers to two poor old ladies.”
Exactly as though she believed every word of it, Esther was smitten by a sense of great sorrow and loss. “He is good, yes,” she said. “He’s a wonderful person.” Her voice was unsteady.
Miss Octave did not miss it. She laid her tiny hand on Esther’s arm. “How lucky you are, Mrs. Cooper. How very happy you must be!”
The irrational sorrow was now out of all control. She could only say, “Yes, very happy.”
Then they were silent. The pause grew and became one with the mindless silence of the house until, from the heart of this mystical hush, Miss Editha spoke: “Take me potty.”
“Oh dear,” Miss Octave said.
Esther half-rose from her chair, preparing to retreat.
Miss Editha whispered again: “Potty.” A voice full of terror.
“You needn’t go,” Miss Octave said, withdrawing her hand from Esther’s arm. “I’ll just help her to the potty and then we’ll have some more nice tea.”
“Potty,” Editha said. Now she was crying.
Esther sat down again, rigid as stone. She heard the noises of Miss Octave struggling to drag Miss Editha’s wheelchair toward the hallway, where the bathroom was.
“Won’t take a minute,” Miss Octave whispered gaily.
It seemed to take hours: the long painful struggle to the hallway door, the struggle from there to the door of the bathroom, the fierce battle of whispers and grunts and whimpers as she got Miss Editha out of the wheelchair and ready. Finally, alone, Miss Octave came back. “Now I’ll fix the tea,” she said, ”Editha will be there for a long, long time, poor thing. And then after I’ve cleaned her and brought her back in here she’ll be convinced she never went and she’ll want me to take her back again. It’s a burden, you can see. And of course she can never really do anything, if you know what I mean.” She leaned closer. “Just little black marbles.”
“I think, actually—” Esther said.
“No no, you stay right there. I’ll run get the tea.”
Esther sighed.
Suddenly there came from the bathroom a kind of bumping noise, and they both caught their breath. Miss Editha had fallen.
“God damn her,” Miss Octave whispered. “She always does that. She does it to get attention!”
“Let me help you,” Esther said.
They could hear her calling to them, a kind of whispered moan of rage.
“Oh well, don’t you know,” Miss Octave began. But she was confused, and still Miss Editha was calling.
At last, full of revulsion and grief of a kind large and vague, as if for all humanity (but it was not: she knew what she was grieving for), Esther got up and groped her way ahead of Miss Octave to the bathroom. The smell was overpowering, unspeakable, violent, and the old lady’s moaning was wound inextricably into the smell. Esther Clumly felt her way toward the noise, walking bent over, both arms out, reaching, and came at last upon a cold, wet, bony knee pointing up at the ceiling from near the floor. She felt up the body toward the head, awkwardly but quickly, and at last found the elderly poetess’s arm and shoulder. “Let me help you,” Esther said.
Behind her Miss Octave whispered clearly, like some Eastern priestess pronouncing the terrible secret, “She’ll outlive us all. Don’t pity her. She’s indestructible.”
It was dark out now, the way Esther Clumly liked it best. She could tell by feel when it was dark. Main Street east of the business section was solemn and full to overflowing with nightsounds as crystal-clear and clean as the taste of a glass of white wine from the refrigerator. She passed the iron fence of the Children’s Home, and, straining her ears, she caught the pleasant sounds of their playing inside the big house. One of Batavia’s mansions, in the old days. People said it was falling to ruins now, huge ugly cracks in the white brick walls, the fire escapes gone rusty and crooked with age. Through the wrought-iron posts of the fence she discovered stiff grass almost waist-high. Poor children, she thought. And poor Miss Octave, poor Miss Editha, poor Ed Burlington, poor Fred, poor Esther. Once May Brumstead had run the Children’s Home, the kindest, sweetest woman who ever lived. She’d been a singer once. The sweetest singer in the world. She’d studied in New York, and Lily Pons was a friend of hers. She’d given her life for those children, and when she was there it really had been a home, whatever it was now. She was as round and soft as a pigeon, and her voice was exactly like the gentle cooroo of the pigeons in Esther’s father’s hayloft, long, long ago. It would be good to give one’s life for a worthy cause, find satisfaction. And it was terrible, oh, terrible, to be, instead, a Cause for other people.
I was a person of talent, Esther Clumly was saying to herself. I could carry a tune when I was very young, or so my father used to say, and I was a quick learner. I could have written poetry, like Editha. Fred used to say I talked just like a poet, and I did. “How beautiful it is,” I would say, standing with him on the hill looking down on the gravel plant stretched out gray and mysterious in the dusk. “It’s like fog gently drifting on the breast of a quiet sea.” He’d squeezed my hand. “You’re like a poet, Esther,” he would say. But I lost that. Why? It made me feel odd, I guess, trying to talk that way. There were people who would laugh and say cruel things. That girl. What was her name? She had white-blonde hair, and she was a cousin of Fred’s, no more than a child, sixteen or so, and I was in my twenties. I said, “On a day like this you feel God’s very close.” She said, “We better look busy.” She was right though. I felt foolish, and the reason was that the thing I’d said was silly, whatever Fred might think, and perhaps it was after that that I began to see that all the pretty things I had always thought and said were horribly horribly silly. I wanted to do something, change beautiful hollow words into actions. I remember thinking, if only I could see, so that I could paint. But I couldn’t see, and so I tried to take music lessons—as my mother had wanted me to do. But it was too late, and, worse than that, there was something the same about pretty words and music. I wanted to be
Horrible
Dear God I want
/> (She saw herself squatting in the garden, turning over a chip of earth-smeared brick. She wanted to be a piece of dirty brick, or an old wooden crate, or one of those tumbledown barns on her father’s farm. The foolish blind woman stands up now, vague face crafty, rubbing the dirty brick between her fingers and thumb. A saint, ha ha ha. Full of visions of joy forever lost, the steep green hillsides of Liberty, N.Y., the noise of the waterfall, the thrill of running in an open field, head thrown back, hair flying, beyond the fence six cows and a bobcalf watching with bored curiosity. One grew up, in spite of everything, and life became self-betrayal.)
Words. More empty, pretty words.
Self-betrayal.
Tulips.
Steam shovel.
It’s interesting, when you think about it. All love poems talk about the lady’s eyes. It’s impossible to write a love poem without speaking of eyes. Eyes are the windows of the soul; something like that. A poem, if I remember. Then a woman without eyes cannot be loved. Her soul is sealed up like a vicious dog chained in a cellar, and little by little it goes mad, or loses spirit and eventually dies, and lucky to escape, at that. My only hope must be giving my love to others, and I’ve failed. At the Sunday school, when Ed Burlington was there, I couldn’t control them. “Make them love you,” they said. But they missed the point. Then I tried to help out at the Blind School after that, and there I was worse, because the children were as rowdy as any other children, still stupidly happy, or so it seemed to me. And then too, of course, all that self-pity of mine. Surely no one in the world has ever been more sick with self-pity. A dungeon worse even than blindness, inescapable. The very wish to escape turns into self-pity, and so the shovel I try to escape with turns out to make the dungeon room smaller and smaller.
Stop this this instant.
Yes, certainly. I meant to. Any minute now.
But still she was moving her lips as she walked through the center of town, past the stores, the movie theaters, the solemn stone and granite banks where her footsteps came back to her more sharply than elsewhere, and the noise of passing cars took on a harsher, more insistent growl.