He'd learned that his true name was Swan Walpole because one day he'd looked through Clara's things in a bureau drawer. He'd found a marriage license. Clara Walpole. Curt Revere. Some dates and information. And a photograph he'd never seen, his mother and Revere on their wedding day, Clara smiling broadly yet with her lips closed so that her cheeks bunched out, and her eyes narrowed and squinting, Revere smiling gravely, with an almost boyish anticipation. Swan wondered if the people at this table, the Hamilton Reveres, knew anything of Clara Walpole?
Clara said suddenly to the tapping-fingers man, the way you'd snatch something light and fluttering like a butterfly out of the air, “My son has this book about ‘archaeology.' Egyptian things, really old. Like pyramids, ‘sphinxes'? D'you know anything about that?”
The tapping-fingers man stared at Clara as if, for a moment, he hadn't understood a single of her words. Then he said, with a smile that included Swan, “Not much. But a little. I'll take you to the museum tomorrow, how's that? Both of you?”
Clara beamed upon Swan. “Steven, how would you like that?”
And for the first time at dinner, Swan smiled.
It was the Hamilton Art Museum, and Swan had never entered so large and austere a building. In the high-domed foyer, their voices echoed. The tapping-fingers man, whose name was Ransom, first name or last Swan was never to know, spoke quietly to Clara and to Steven, taking Clara by the elbow of her red cashmere coat as they walked through the chilly, near-deserted rooms. Swan was sharply disappointed: there was no sphinx statue, only just photographs in a dim-lit display case. There were many photographs and drawings, of pyramids, scenes along the Nile River, “phases of the moon.” There was a single dwarf-mummy, from the “Middle Kingdom.” Ransom peered at a plaque on the wall and read it, as if Swan couldn't read for himself—“ ‘Egyptian rulers built extraordinary tombs for themselves in which their mummified remains would be preserved, ideally forever. It was believed that if the pharaoh lived forever in the underworld, the nation of Egypt would also flourish.' ” Clara admired a display case of crude stone trinkets and tarnished-looking jewelry. “So long ago, you wonder why people bothered.”
Ransom laughed at this remark. He might have thought that Clara was being witty.
Clara said, seriously, her hand on Ransom's wrist for emphasis, “It's damn hard to believe people like us lived then. But I guess they'd have to be, the Egyptians, wouldn't they?”
Ransom smiled. “Wouldn't they what?”
“Have to be like us? I mean, human beings.”
“Like you? I doubt it.”
The adults laughed. Swan, staring gloomily into a display case at daggers and “grave artifacts,” tried not to overhear.
Ransom treated them to “tea” in the museum's dining room. Wine for Clara and him, and a Coke for Swan. All three ate pastries called hot-buttered scones. Clara licked her fingers, and laughed for very happiness, and Swan supposed he should be happy, too.
Next day, Clara told her Revere hosts she was “going shopping.”
Two hours in the morning in shops along Lakeshore Boulevard, including an antique store where Clara insisted upon buying a small iron animal for Swan—“For your room, at home. For the windowsill. Like one of the statues in the museum, isn't it?” Swan stared at the hand-sized little creature, an antelope with horns. Its legs were slender, and its tail was upright. A beautiful thing, but Swan felt sad stroking it, he didn't know why. He wasn't thinking that it was not “real”—that some man had made it, with the purpose of selling it—but that somehow there was an actual animal trapped inside it, in the heavy iron. A real animal, that something had happened to. “Well, d'you want it or not? C'mon, sweetie.”
Clara touched his hair. After so many months of not seeming to love him, she was beginning to love him again.
In a cab, hailed for Clara by the admiring proprietor of the antique store, Swan held the heavy little antelope on his lap, wrapped in paper. He had the idea that he and Clara were returning to the house on Lakeshore Boulevard, but Clara instructed the driver to take them somewhere else—another large, imposing building that was the Hamilton Public Library.
Clara said quickly, “I have more shopping to do, honey. It would just be boring for you. Here's five dollars, you can buy yourself lunch like a big boy. I'll meet you at around four o'clock, out here on the steps.”
Swan was stunned. All by himself, he was expected to be in that building? And buy lunch for himself ? He had never done such a thing in his life. Clara said, nudging him gently, “Steven, it's just books in there. Out in the country where we live, there's nothing like this, is there? Go on. My little bookworm.” And she nudged him again, less gently.
Blindly, Swan climbed out of the taxi.
He ascended the snowy stone steps without glancing back. He'd left the little iron antelope in the taxi, half-hoping that Clara would forget it.
Inside the library, Swan wandered into a large room with a fire-place in which no fire was burning. There were shelves of books to the ceiling, and an elderly man dozing in a leather chair. Swan pulled out the first volume of the World Book of Wonders and began to read before removing his coat. His eyes were glazed with moisture.
A middle-aged woman librarian approached to tell him that the children's library was downstairs.
“I'm not a child. I'm in seventh grade.”
This remark surprised Swan, in the tone of Clara's new friend Ransom. Matter-of-fact and unhurried. In fact, Swan was not in seventh grade but sixth.
The librarian relented. Swan remained in the fireplace room, for several hours. Leafing through the Book of Wonders, and later A History of American Aviation and a handsome book of photographs of Indians by someone named Edward S. Curtis. The Indians in the photographs were very different from those in Jonathan's Scalp-hunter and Lone Ranger comics, and Swan wished he could show them to Jonathan.
By one o'clock Swan's stomach began to growl but he told himself sternly he wasn't hungry. He drank from a water fountain in the hallway, and used the men's rest room, and returned to his seat in the reference room. Library patrons came and went, and at last even the elderly man roused himself and departed. At ten minutes to four, Swan left the library to sit outside on the steps, shivering in the wind from the lake. By four-thirty, when Clara had not come, he went inside again to get warm, peering anxiously from a leaded window beside the door. At five o'clock the library was closed, so he had no choice but to leave, this time sitting at the top of the steps with his back against the wall, in a corner. It was December; the sun set early. Harsh little snow-pellets were blown into his face. He thought of the cemetery behind the Lutheran church, and of Robert. He was shivering convulsively. He made himself think of his cousin Deborah, how impressed she would be when he told her about the big-city library.
At last, after about twenty minutes, Clara arrived in a taxi. She opened the door to signal for him impatiently. “Swan! Come on.”
Annoyed at him, she seemed. For rising from the steps stiffly, like an old man.
“God! Look at you. I hope you don't get pneumonia.”
Clara fussed over him, kissing his cold cheek, chattering as they were driven back to the house on Lakeshore Drive. Swan sat silent, sullen. He would say nothing about the little antelope: of course, it was gone. Clara had given it no more thought than she'd given him. But she remembered to ask if he'd had lunch, and if there was change from the five-dollar bill.
Swan told her no. No change.
At the Reveres' house, Swan fell asleep on the bed in his room without undressing. Sometime later Clara came in. “Swan! Are you sick?” He woke confused, not knowing if it was very late; or not so late, and another protracted dinner awaited him downstairs. Clara was wearing a velvety purple dress with a skirt that fell to mid-calf; her windblown hair had been brushed, and fixed into what she called a chig-non. “So, sweetheart, you're mad at me? Your mamma?” Swan lay very still smelling her perfume and something else—the wine or liquor the adult
s drank here, or the scent of her secret life, whatever it was that made Clara so happy. She kicked off her shoes, she sat heavily on the bed beside him. “Don't be mad at me, honey, I'm so happy … so happy. I'm happy in this place and I'm happy at home.” Shockingly, Clara began to cry. Swan could not recall his mother crying in years. “I can't help it, honey, I'm just so happy—I feel so good. I deserve it, don't I? Don't I?”
For the first time in his life Swan did not share Clara's mood. She'd switched on the overhead light in his room not caring if it hurt his eyes, he shielded his face with his arm. I hate you. You are a bitch. He would have liked to punish her, and that name was a punishment, even if she couldn't hear it. Even if she would never know.
7
Two months into seventh grade at the junior high in Tintern, Swan was skipped into eighth grade. This only meant crossing the hall and being assigned to another homeroom. The kids here were older of course, and most of the boys were taller than Swan; there was a long-legged boy related to the Reveres though lacking the Revere name, and this boy observed Swan with unusual interest, though he kept his distance and was not friendly.
Acting like he's afraid of me Swan thought.
In eighth grade, his teachers were polite with him, and often praised him. The teachers seemed to know exactly who he was: Curt Revere's son, Jonathan Revere's younger brother. They gave him A's and called upon him in class when he raised his hand, but not otherwise. As always Swan did extracredit assignments in math, English, history, he read books on an extracredit reading list, and spoke to his teachers respectfully. In each class there was but one adult among thirty or more children and Swan knew that this adult, whether intelligent or not, attractive or not, was the only individual of value in the room, whose opinion of him mattered.
Jonathan was seventeen now, a junior, and had his driver's license and his own, secondhand Chevrolet. Clara insisted that Jonathan drive Swan to school and when he balked, she spoke with Revere. “It makes no sense, son. For you to drive to school and your brother, attending the same school, to take the bus.” Revere spoke quietly, and Jonathan mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
Swan, riding in Jonathan's car, so close in the passenger's seat to his brother, tried to think of things to say to him. Things to make him laugh, or to impress him. Things to make Jonathan like him. For Jonathan was silent in Swan's presence, withdrawn and ironic in manner; he chain-smoked, tossing Old Gold packages onto the floor, that Swan cleared away. There were dark bruises beneath Jonathan's eyes, his skin was pimpled and sallow. It was difficult to believe that Jonathan had ever done well in school, his grades were never more than C's now, and sometimes D's. Half the time he cut afternoon classes to hang out with his beer-drinking buddies at the Sunoco station where one of them worked, but he had to return to the school to pick up Swan, his brother whom he loathed.
Swan knew: Jonathan loathed him. It was no secret. Jonathan never spoke to him if he could avoid it, and when Swan chattered in the car, Jonathan grunted in derision and switched on the radio, high.
Why do you hate me? was not a question Swan had ever put to Jonathan, only to Robert. There had not been any answer to the question, that he could recall.
One January afternoon when the boys were driving home, Swan took out of his pocket something he meant to impress Jonathan with: a fishing knife.
He'd found it in some trash behind the school. A battered old double-edged knife with a serrated blade, and a plastic handle that had been mended with adhesive tape. The blade was rusted and dull, but it was about eight inches long, and looked wicked. It looked like an Indian dagger in one of Jon's comic books.
“See what I found? Out behind the school.”
Jonathan glanced at him, indifferent. But when he saw the knife in Swan's hand he clutched at the steering wheel, and made a whimpering noise. The car skidded briefly on the asphalt pavement.
Swan said quickly, “I found it out back of the school. Somebody didn't want it, I guess.” Swan was aware of his brother's surprise, and his brother's moment of fear. It had been only a moment, and Jonathan had recovered, but both he and Swan were aware of it. Forcing himself to laugh Swan said, “Can a knife be sharpened, if it's rusty? Would you like it?”
Jonathan mumbled he didn't want anybody's shitty old knife.
Swan wound down the window and threw the knife out, just to show Jonathan how little it meant to him. How the hell could Jonathan think that he, Swan, meant harm? He was only twelve and Jonathan was seventeen.…
Next morning, Swan told Clara that he'd rather take the school bus after all. Clara, who'd cared so much about this issue only recently, now seemed hardly to care. She seemed to know about Jonathan cutting classes, and drinking with his school dropout friends; but she never spoke of it. “All right, honey. It's probably better, you can make friends on the bus, and get to know some girls,” she said vaguely. Her kitchen was being done over and everywhere canvas lay harsh and gritty underfoot.
Once he was freed from Swan, Jonathan drove off and spent the day any way he liked: the hell with school. He was still a junior, he hadn't been passed on. So he drove a few miles down the valley and picked up two other kids and they went fishing or inspected motorcycles and used cars in a big slummy lot out on the highway, or, after a while, they got to certain corners before the school bus arrived and drove certain girls to school, though the girls didn't always have time for school.
If Revere was out of town, Jonathan wouldn't bother coming home for supper. They ate in a diner out on the highway, fifteen miles away. He knew that Clara would not tell on him. When the notices started arriving from school asking about why he was absent so much, Clara talked seriously with him and he said that he hated school, he hated the teachers and kids. He was defiant and on the verge of tears. But Clara touched him and said, after a moment, “I know how it is.” So she did not tell Revere. He could trust her.
“She's a goddamn filthy bitch,” he would say to his friends. “I'd like to slit her up and down and hang her out to drain.” And he spat onto the ground, his face contorted with disgust. One of his friends was over twenty, in and out of the Navy already (he had been let go), and he always asked about Clara: did Jon ever see her undressed? Did she walk around without all her clothes on, ever? Jonathan flushed at his questions, embarrassed and angry. Clara ran around the house any way she liked, barefoot and with her hair wet and loose down her back, dripping onto her blouse, and at night she made popcorn for herself and Swan, wearing one of her many robes and not always bothering to see that it was buttoned—but he was not going to tell anyone about this. It was nobody's business what Revere's wife did.
“Why the hell do you want to know?” he sneered. Skinny as he was, no match for this guy, he had no care for how arrogantly he talked—it might have seemed he was asking for a punch in the mouth. “You wouldn't ever have no chance with her, so forget it.”
“Wouldn't be too sure of that,” his friend said.
So Jonathan laughed scornfully and nastily.
The girls they drove around were the same girls who had been on the school bus for years with them. Now, suddenly, everyone was older. Some girls had already quit school, were married and had babies. It went so fast—the years went so fast, Jonathan thought. He drank more than anyone else because he had more to push out of his mind. They drank for fun but he drank for serious reasons; then, after a certain point, he forgot the reasons and was able to have fun. They drove twenty, thirty miles to get beer and liquor, knowing in mysterious ways just where a certain roadhouse was, what its prices were, what its manager was like. They knew everything, yet no one could have said how they knew; it was mysterious knowledge, breathed in with the air around them.
They went to all the outings and charity picnics. But when the Lutheran church had its outing Jonathan stayed home alone, he didn't say why. While Clara and Revere and Swan and Clark went, he stayed around the house, acting strange. The idea that just a few yards back in the cemetery his mother and brother were b
uried made him sick: how could people wolf down hot beef sandwiches and all that beer, those barrels and barrels of beer, when out back bodies were rotting and stinking in the soil? Didn't anyone know that?
So he stayed home, feeling shaky, and played poker with the few hired men who hadn't enough money to go out. When Revere and the others came home that evening, he was sitting on the porch steps as if waiting for them. He knew Revere liked that. Or he had liked it, in the days when he still liked Jonathan. It was after dark, so he had taken down Revere's flag and folded it up right.
Clara had talked Revere into buying that flag. She had said that she was proud of being an American, and didn't he want a flag? So they bought one and were American. When Jonathan wandered back from the woods with his gun, he had the desire to shoot the flag into tatters, he didn't know why. What would happen then? What would his father do to him?
He didn't sleep well at night but not because of dreams. He had the idea he never dreamed. He had nothing to dream about.
Clark had warned him about the girls he went out with: “They're pigs, so be careful. You know what I mean.”
Clark knew everything, he knew about all the girls. Twenty miles away they'd heard of Clark and were surprised that Jonathan was his brother. But any girl so sluttish that Clark would have nothing to do with her was just right for Jonathan, he thought; she would have to like him. Who else could she get? They weren't ugly, exactly, he and his friends, but there must have been something wrong with them—the prettiest girls ignored them. They had enough money, or at least Jonathan did and he could lend money to the other boys, but still the best-looking girls avoided them and they were always crowded by a certain kind of heavy, lipsticked, sly girl who liked them well enough and laughed uproariously at their jokes. These girls were always impressed by Jonathan's car and the remote prickly excitement of knowing he was a Revere—even if he himself was a disappointment, too thin, and with skin that was never clear. Wasn't he a Revere, might there not be a chance of catching him? Clark went out with a pretty, long-haired girl from Tintern who worked in the drugstore, and this girl certainly wasn't good enough for Revere—he would never let Clark marry her—so the girls Jonathan was able to get were so low that Revere would not even have spat on them, and he felt satisfaction in this.