Silence.
“It’s already over,” murmured her voice. “And it hasn’t begun.”
Then: “Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?!”
The young man smiled tenderly. “Why, girl, I want to sleep with you.”
She gasped. “I never slept with no one in my life!”
“You’re a … maiden lady?”
“And proud of it!”
The young man sighed, shaking his head. “So it’s true—you are, you really are, a maiden.”
He heard nothing from the house, so listened.
Softly, as if a secret faucet had been turned somewhere with difficulty, and drop by drop an ancient system were being used for the first time in half a century, the old woman began to cry.
“Old Mam, why do you cry?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed.
Her weeping faded at last and he heard her rock in her chair, making a cradle rhythm to soothe herself.
“Old Mam,” he whispered.
“Don’t call me that!”
“All right,” he said. “Clarinda.”
“How did you know my name? No one knows!”
“Clarinda, why did you hide in that house, long ago?”
“I don’t remember. Yes, I do. I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Strange. Half my years afraid of life. The other half, afraid of death. Always some kind of afraid. You! Tell the truth, now! When my twenty-four hours are up, after we walk by the lake and take the train back and come through the woods to my house, you want to …”
He made her say it.
“. . . sleep with me?” she whispered.
“For ten thousand million years,” he said.
“Oh.” Her voice was muted. “That’s a long time.”
He nodded.
“A long time,” she repeated. “What kind of bargain is that, young man? You give me twenty-four hours of being eighteen again and I give you ten thousand million years of my precious time.”
“Don’t forget, my time, too,” he said. “I’ll never go away.”
“You’ll lie with me?”
“I will.”
“Oh, young man, young man. Your voice. So familiar.”
“Look.”
He saw the keyhole unplugged and her eye peer out at him. He smiled at the sunflowers in the field and the sunflower in the sky.
“I’m blind, half blind,” she cried. “But can that be Willy Winchester ‘way out there?”
He said nothing.
“But, Willy, you’re just twenty-one by the look of you, not a day different than you were seventy years back!”
He set the bottle by the front door and walked back out to stand in the weeds.
“Can—” She faltered. “Can you make me look like yourself?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Willy, Willy, is that really you?”
She waited, staring across the summer air to where he stood relaxed and happy and young, the sun flashing off his hair and cheeks.
A minute passed.
“Well?” he said.
“Wait!” she cried. “Let me think!”
And there in the house he could feel her letting her memories pour through her mind as sand pours through an hourglass, heaping itself at last into nothing but dust and ashes. He could hear the emptiness of those memories burning the sides of her mind as they fell down and down and made a higher and yet higher mound of sand.
All that desert, he thought, and not one oasis.
She trembled at his thought.
“Well,” he said again.
And at last she answered.
“Strange,” she murmured. “Now, all of a sudden, twenty-four hours, one day, traded for ten million billion years, sounds fair and good and right.”
“It is, Clarinda,” he said. “Oh, yes, it is.”
The bolts slid back, the locks rattled, the door cracked. Her hand jerked out, seized the bottle and flicked back in.
A minute passed.
Then, as if a gun had been fired off, footsteps pelted through the halls. The back door slammed open. Upstairs, windows flew wide, as shutters fell crumbling to the grass. Downstairs, a moment later, the same. Shutters exploded to kindling as she thrust them out. The windows exhaled dust.
Then at last, from the front door, flung wide, the empty bottle sailed and smashed against a rock.
She was on the porch, quick as a bird. The sunlight struck full upon her. She stood as someone on a stage, in a single revealing motion, come from the dark. Then, down the steps, she threw her hand to catch his.
A small boy passing on the road below stopped, stared and, walking backward, moved out of sight, his eyes still wide.
“Why did he stare at me?” she said. “Am I beautiful?”
“Very beautiful.”
“I need a mirror!”
“No, no, you don’t.”
“Will everyone in town see me beautiful? It’s not just me thinking so, is it, or you pretending?”
“Beauty is what you are.”
“Then I’m beautiful, for that’s how I feel. Will everyone dance me tonight, will men fight for turns?”
“They will, one and all.”
Down the path, in the sound of bees and stirring leaves, she stopped suddenly and looked into his face so like the summer sun.
“Oh, Willy, Willy, when it’s all over and we come back here, will you be kind to me?”
He gazed deep into her eyes and touched her cheek with his fingers.
“Yes,” he said gently. “I will be kind.”
“I believe you,” she said. “Oh, Willy, I believe.”
And they ran down the path out of sight, leaving dust on the air and leaving the front door of the house wide and the shutters open and the windows up so the light of the sun could flash in with the birds come to build nests, raise families, and so petals of lovely summer flowers could blow like bridal showers through the long halls in a carpet and into the rooms and over the empty-but-waiting bed. And summer, with the breeze, changed the air in all the great spaces of the house so it smelled like the Beginning or the first hour after the Beginning, when the world was new and nothing would ever change and no one would ever grow old.
Somewhere rabbits ran thumping like quick hearts in the forest.
Far off, a train hooted, rushing faster, faster, faster, toward the town.
A Flight of Ravens
He got off the bus at Washington Square and walked back half a block, glad that he had decided to come down. Right now there was no one in New York he wanted to see except Paul and Helen Pierson. He had saved them for the last, knowing that he would need them to counteract the effects of too many appointments on too many days with too many erratic, neurotic, and unhappy people. The Piersons would shake his hand, cool his brow and comfort him with friendship and good words. The evening would be loud, long and immensely happy, and he would go back to Ohio in a few days thinking well of New York simply because two amazing people had provided him with an oasis in this burning desert of panic and uncertainty.
Helen Pierson was waiting on the fourth floor of the apartment house, outside the elevator.
“Hello, hello!” she cried. “Williams, it’s good to see you! Come on in! Paul will be home soon, he had to work late at the office. We’re having chicken cacciatore tonight, I hope you like chicken cacciatore, I made it myself. Do you like chicken, Williams? I hope you do. How’re your wife and kids? Sit down, take off your coat, take off your glasses, you’re much nicer-looking without your glasses, it’s been a muggy day, hasn’t it? Do you want a drink?”
Somewhere in this flow he felt himself steered through a doorway, her tugging at his coat, waving her free hand, and the faint smell of strong perfume from her mouth. Good Lord, he thought, surprised, she’s drunk. He looked at Helen for a long moment.
“One of those martinis,” he said. “But just one. I’m not much of a drinker, you know.”
“Of cours
e, darling. Paul’ll be home at six, it’s five-thirty now. We’re so flattered you’re here, Williams, we’re so flattered you’d spend time with us, it’s been over three years!”
“Oh, hell,” he snorted.
“No, but I mean it, Williams,” she said, each word a bit slurred, each gesture a bit too careful. He felt that somehow he had got into the wrong apartment, that this was somebody’s visiting sister, an aunt, or a stranger. Of course, this might have been a bad day for her, everyone had a bad day on occasion.
“I’ll have one with you. I’ve only had one so far,” she said, and he believed her. She must have started drinking, quietly and steadily, since last he had seen her. Drinking every day and every day. Until … He had seen it happen to other friends, time and again. One moment sober, and a minute later, after one sip, all the martinis of the last three hundred days that had taken up occupation in the blood surged from the system, rushed forward to meet the new martini like an old friend. Ten minutes ago Helen had probably been cold sober. But now her eyes had lidded a bit and her tongue was erasing the very word she was trying to say.
“I really mean it, Williams.” She never called him by his first name. “Williams, we’re so flattered you bother to come see Paulie and me. My God, you’ve done so well in the last three years, you’ve gone up in the world, you’ve got a reputation, you don’t have to write for Paul’s matinee TV show now, no more of that dreadful crap.”
“It wasn’t dreadful crap, it was good, Paul’s a fine producer and I wrote good stuff for him.”
“Dreadful crap is what it was. You’re a real writer, you’re top-hole now, no more dime store junk for you, how does it feel to be a successful novelist and have everyone talk about you and have money in the bank? Wait until Paul gets here, he’s been waiting for you to call.” Her talking poured over and about him. “You are nice to call us, really.”
“I owe Paul everything,” said Williams, breaking away from his thoughts. “I started in his shows when I was twenty-one, back in 1951, and I made ten bucks a page.”
“That makes you thirty-one now, my God, only a young rooster,” said Helen. “How old do you think I am, Williams, go on, guess, how old do you think I am?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, flushing.
“No, go on, guess, guess how old I am,” she asked.
A million years, he thought, suddenly a million years old. But Paul’ll be all right. He’ll be here soon and he’ll be all right. I wonder if he’ll know you, Helen, when he comes in the door?
“I’m no good at guessing ages,” he said.
Your body, he thought, is built of the old bricks of this city, and in it are tars and asphalts and mortars unseen and limed with age, you breathe carbon monoxide from your lungs, and the color of your eyes is hysterical blue neon, and the color of your lips is red-fire neon, and the color of your face is white calcimine from stone buildings, with only here or there a touch of green or blue, the veins of your throat, your temples, your wrists, like the little garden squares in New York City. So much marble, so much granite, veined and lined, and so little of the sky and the grass in you now.
“Go on, Williams, guess how old I am!”
“Thirty-six?”
She gave something that was almost a scream, and he was afraid he had been overdiplomatic.
“Thirty-six!” she cried, whooping, slapping her hands on her knees. “Thirty-six, oh, you darling, you don’t really mean thirty-six, my God, no!” she yelled. “Why, I saw thirty-six ten years ago!”
“We’ve never talked about age before,” he protested.
“You young nice baby,” she said. “It was never important before. But you’d be surprised how important it can get without your knowing it. My God, you’re young, Williams, do you have any idea how young you are?”
“Fairly, I guess,” he said, looking at his hands.
“You sweet young child,” she said. “Wait’ll I tell Paul. Thirty-six, good Lord, that’s rich. But I don’t look forty or forty-six, do I, darling?”
She had never asked such questions before, he thought, and not asking questions like that was to stay forever young.
“Paul’s just turning forty this week, it’s his birthday tomorrow.”
“I wish I’d known.”
“Forget it, he hates gifts, he never tells anyone about his birthdays, he’d be insulted if you gave him a present. We stopped having birthday parties for him last year. He threw the cake out then, I remember, it was all lit, and he threw it down the ventilator shaft, still burning.”
She stopped suddenly as if she had said something she shouldn’t have said. They both sat for a moment in the tall-ceilinged room, shifting uncomfortably.
“Paulie’s due home any minute,” she said finally. “Another drink? How does it feel to be famous, tell me? You always were full of conscience, Williams. Quality, Paulie and I said to each other, quality. You couldn’t write badly if you wanted to. We’re so proud of you, Paulie and me, we tell everyone that you’re our friend.”
“That’s strange,” said Williams. “It’s a weird world. When I was twenty-one I told everyone I knew you. I was really proud and excited the first time I met Paul, after he bought my first script and …”
The door buzzer sounded and Helen ran to answer it, leaving Williams alone with his drink. He worried that perhaps he had sounded condescending, as if he wouldn’t be proud to meet Paul now. He hadn’t meant it that way. Everything would be all right as soon as Paul roared in. Everything was always all right with Paul.
There was a great echoing of voices outside, and Helen came back bringing with her a woman of some fifty-odd years. You could tell that the woman was prematurely wrinkled and gray by the bouncing way she moved.
“I hope you don’t mind, Williams, I forgot to tell you, I hope you don’t mind, this is Mrs. Mears from across the hall. I told her you were coming for dinner, that you were in town for a few days to see about your new book with your publisher, and she was excited to meet you, she’s read all your stories, Williams, and loves your work and wanted to meet you. Mrs. Mears, this is Mr. Williams.”
The woman nodded. “I’ve wanted to be a writer myself,” she said. “I’m working on a book now.”
The two women sat. Williams felt the smile on his face as if it were separate from himself, it was like those white wax teeth children buy and pop into their mouths to make them look buck-toothed; he felt it beginning to melt, that smile.
“Have you ever sold anything?” he asked Mrs. Mears.
“No, but I keep at it,” she said gallantly. “Things have been a bit complicated lately, though.”
“You see,” said Helen, leaning forward, “her son passed away only two weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Williams awkwardly.
“No, that’s all right, he’s better off, poor boy, he was about your age, only thirty.”
“What happened?” Williams asked mechanically.
“He was terribly overweight, poor boy, weighed two hundred and eighty pounds and his friends kept making fun of him. He wanted to be an artist. He sold only a few pictures on occasion. But people made fun of him, so he went on a diet six months ago. When he died early this month he weighed just ninety-three pounds.”
“My God!” said Williams. “That’s terrible.”
“He stayed on the diet, he stayed right on it, no matter what I said to him. Stayed in his room, stayed on the diet, and took the weight off so nobody knew him when they saw him at the funeral. I think he was very happy those last few days, happier than he had been in years; sort of triumphant, you might say, poor boy.”
Williams drank the rest of his drink. The sense of depression that had been growing for days now closed over his head. He felt himself dropping down through a great depth of black water. He had done too much, seen too much, lived too much, talked with too many people, in the past week. He had counted on tonight making him well again, but now …
“My, you’re a h
andsome young man,” said Mrs. Mears. “Why didn’t you tell me he was so handsome, Helen?” She turned almost accusingly to Helen Pierson.
“Why, I thought you knew,” said Helen.
“Oh, much nicer than his photographs, much nicer. Do you know,” said Mrs. Mears, “there was a week or so there, when Richard was on his diet, that he looked quite like you? For just a short week, I’m sure of that.”
Yesterday, Williams continued his interior monologue, he had fled into a newsreel theater for a brief respite from endless appointments at magazines, radio stations and newspapers, and on the screen he had seen a man ready to leap from the George Washington Bridge. The police had coaxed him down. And somewhere else another man, another city, on a hotel ledge, people yelling, daring him to jump. Williams had had to leave the theater. When he stepped out into the hot concussion of sunlight everything had been too real, too raw, as it always was when you came too quickly upon a world of living creatures after a dream.
“Yes, you’re a handsome young man,” said Mrs. Mears.
“Before I forget it,” said Helen. “Our son Tom is here.”
Of course, Tom. Williams had seen Tom one time, years ago, when Tom had come in off the street long enough to talk; a bright boy, an alert boy, well-mannered and well-read. A son to be proud of, that was Tom.
“He’s seventeen now,” said Helen. “He’s in his room, do you want me to bring him out? You know, he got into a little trouble. He’s a nice kid. We’ve given him everything. But he got to running with some Washington Square gang, a bunch of roughnecks, and they robbed a store and Tom was caught, this was about two months ago. There was such excitement and, my God, what a stir, but things’ll work out. Tom’s a good kid, you know that, don’t you, Williams?” She filled his glass.