Eleven

  “I think—I like it the first way better.”

  “Which way is that?” demanded his mother, thumping her palm down on the illustration.

  Victor tried to remember the wording, but realized he was only staring at the pencil smudges, the thumbprints on the edges of his mother’s illustration board. The colored drawing in the center did not interest him at all. He was not-thinking. This was a frequent, familiar sensation to him now, there was something exciting and important about not-thinking, Victor felt, and he thought one day he would find something about it—perhaps under another name—in the Public Library or in the psychology books around the house that he browsed in when his mother was out.

  “Veec-tor! What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, Mama!”

  “That is exactly it! Nothing! Can you not even think?”

  A warm shame spread through him. It was as if his mother read his thoughts about not-thinking. “I am thinking,” he protested. “I’m thinking about not-thinking.” His tone was defiant. What could she do about it, after all?

  “About what?” Her black, curly head tilted, her mascaraed eyes narrowed at him.

  “Not-thinking.”

  His mother put her jewelled bands on her hips. “Do you know, Veec-tor, you are a little bit strange in the head?” She nodded. “You are seeck. Psychologically seeck. And retarded, do you know that? You have the behavior of a leetle boy five years old,” she said slowly and weightily. “It is just as well you spend your Saturdays indoors. Who knows if you would not walk in front of a car, eh? But that is why I love you, little Veector.” She put her arm around his shoulders, pulled him against her and for an instant Victor’s nose pressed into her large, soft bosom. She was wearing her flesh-colored dress, the one you could see through a little where her breast stretched it out.

  Victor jerked his head away in a confusion of emotions. He did not know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

  His mother was laughing gaily, her head back. “Seeck you are! Look at you! My lee-tle boy still, lee-tle short pants—Ha! Ha!”

  Now the tears showed in his eyes, he supposed, and his mother acted as if she were enjoying it! Victor turned his head away so she would not see his eyes. Then suddenly he faced her. “Do you think I like these pants? You like them, not me, so why do you have to make fun of them?”

  “A lee-tle boy who’s crying!” she went on, laughing.

  Victor made a dash for the bathroom, then swerved away and dived onto the sofa, his face toward the pillows. He shut his eyes tight and opened his mouth, crying but not-crying in a way he had learned through practice also. With his mouth open, his throat tight, not breathing for nearly a minute, he could somehow get the satisfaction of crying, screaming even, without anybody knowing it. He pushed his nose, his open mouth, his teeth, against the tomato-red sofa pillow, and though his mother’s voice went on in a lazily mocking tone, and her laughter went on, he imagined that it was getting fainter and more distant from him. He imagined, rigid in every muscle, that he was suffering the absolute worst that any human being could suffer. He imagined that he was dying. But he did not think of death as an escape, only as a concentrated and painful incident. This was the climax of his not-crying. Then he breathed again, and his mother’s voice intruded:

  “Did you hear me?—Did you hear me? Mrs. Badzerkian is coming for tea. I want you to wash your face and put on a clean shirt. I want you to recite something for her. Now what are you going to recite?”

  “In winter when I go to bed,” said Victor. She was making him memorize every poem in A Child’s Garden of Verses. He had said the first one that came into his head, and now there was an argument, because he had recited that one the last time. “I said it, because I couldn’t think of any other one right off the bat!” Victor shouted.

  “Don’t yell at me!” his mother cried, storming across the room at him.

  She slapped his face before he knew what was happening.

  He was up on one elbow on the sofa, on his back, his long, knobby-kneed legs splayed out in front of him. All right, he thought, if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is. He looked at her with loathing. He would not show the slap had hurt, that it still stung. No more tears for today, he swore, no more even not-crying. He would finish the day, go through the tea, like a stone, like a soldier, not wincing. His mother paced around the room, turning one of her rings round and round, glancing at him from time to time, looking quickly away from him. But his eyes were steady on her. He was not afraid. She could even slap him again and he wouldn’t care.

  At last, she announced that she was going to wash her hair, and she went into the bathroom.

  Victor got up from the sofa and wandered across the room. He wished he had a room of his own to go to. In the apartment on Riverside Drive, there had been three rooms, a living-room and his and his mother’s rooms. When she was in the living-room, he had been able to go into his bedroom and vice versa, but here . . . They were going to tear down the old building they had lived in on Riverside Drive. It was not a pleasant thing for Victor to think about. Suddenly remembering the book that had fallen, he pulled out the sofa and reached for it. It was Menninger’s The Human Mind, full of fascinating case histories of people. Victor put it back on the bookshelf between an astrology book and How to Draw. His mother did not like him to read psychology books, but Victor loved them, especially ones with case histories in them. The people in the case histories did what they wanted to do. They were natural. Nobody bossed them. At the local branch library, he spent hours browsing through the psychology shelves. They were in the adults’ section, but the librarian did not mind his sitting at the tables there, because he was quiet.

  Victor went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. As he was standing there drinking it, he heard a scratching noise coming from one of the paper bags on the counter. A mouse, he thought, but when he moved a couple of the bags, he didn’t see any mouse. The scratching was coming from inside one of the bags. Gingerly, he opened the bag with his fingers, and waited for something to jump out. Looking in, he saw a white paper carton. He pulled it out slowly. Its bottom was damp. It opened like a pastry box. Victor jumped in surprise. It was a turtle on its back, a live turtle. It was wriggling its legs in the air, trying to turn over. Victor moistened his lips, and frowning with concentration, took the turtle by its sides with both hands, turned him over and let him down gently into the box again. The turtle drew in its feet then, and its head stretched up a little and it looked straight at him. Victor smiled. Why hadn’t his mother told him she’d brought him a present? A live turtle. Victor’s eyes glazed with anticipation as he thought of taking the turtle down, maybe with a leash around its neck, to show the fellow who’d laughed at his short pants. He might change his mind about being friends with him, if he found he owned a turtle.

  “Hey, Mama! Mama!” Victor yelled at the bathroom door. “You brought me a tur-rtle?”

  “A what?” The water shut off.

  “A turtle! In the kitchen!” Victor had been jumping up and down in the hall. He stopped.

  His mother had hesitated, too. The water came on again, and she said in a shrill tone, “C’est une terrapène! Pour un ragoût!”

  Victor understood, and a small chill went over him because his mother had spoken in French. His mother addressed him in French when she was giving an order that had to be obeyed, or when she anticipated resistance from him. So the terrapin was for a stew. Victor nodded to himself with a stunned resignation, and went back to the kitchen. For a stew. Well, the terrapin was not long for this world, as they say. What did a terrapin like to eat? Lettuce? Raw bacon? Boiled potato? Victor peered into the refrigerator.

  He held a piece of lettuce near the terrapin’s horny mouth. The terrapin did not open its mouth, but it looked at him. Victor held the lettuce near the two little dots of its nostrils, but if the terrapin smelled it, it showed no interest. Victor looked under the sink and pulled out a large wash pan. He put two inches of water into it
. Then he gently dumped the terrapin into the pan. The terrapin paddled for a few seconds, as if it had to swim, then finding that its stomach sat on the bottom of the pan, it stopped, and drew its feet in. Victor got down on his knees and studied the terrapin’s face. Its upper lip overhung the lower, giving it a rather stubborn and unfriendly expression, but its eyes—they were bright and shining. Victor smiled when he looked hard at them.

  “Okay, monsieur terrapène,” he said, “just tell me what you’d like to eat and we’ll get it for you!—Maybe some tuna?”

  They had had tuna fish salad yesterday for dinner, and there was a small bowl of it left over. Victor got a little chunk of it in his fingers and presented it to the terrapin. The terrapin was not interested. Victor looked around the kitchen, wondering, then seeing the sunlight on the floor of the living-room, he picked up the pan and carried it to the living-room and set it down so the sunlight would fall on the terrapin’s back. All turtles liked sunlight, Victor thought. He lay down on the floor on his side, propped up on an elbow. The terrapin stared at him for a moment, then very slowly and with an air of forethought and caution, put out its legs and advanced, found the circular boundary of the pan, and moved to the right, half its body out of the shallow water. It wanted out, and Victor took it in one hand, by the sides, and said:

  “You can come out and have a little walk.”

  He smiled as the terrapin started to disappear under the sofa. He caught it easily, because it moved so slowly. When he put it down on the carpet, it was quite still, as if it had withdrawn a little to think what it should do next, where it should go. It was a brownish green. Looking at it, Victor thought of river bottoms, of river water flowing. Or maybe oceans. Where did terrapins come from? He jumped up and went to the dictionary on the bookshelf. The dictionary had a picture of a terrapin, but it was a dull, black and white drawing, not so pretty as the live one. He learned nothing except that the name was of Algonquian origin, that the terrapin lived in fresh or brackish water, and that it was edible. Edible. Well, that was bad luck, Victor thought. But he was not going to eat any terrapène tonight. It would be all for his mother, that ragoût, and even if she slapped him and made him learn an extra two or three poems, he would not eat any terrapin tonight.

  His mother came out of the bathroom. “What are you doing there?—Veector?”

  Victor put the dictionary back on the shelf. His mother had seen the pan. “I’m looking at the terrapin,” he said, then realized the terrapin had disappeared. He got down on hands and knees and looked under the sofa.

  “Don’t put him on the furniture. He makes spots,” said his mother. She was standing in the foyer, rubbing her hair vigorously with a towel.

  Victor found the terrapin between the wastebasket and the wall. He put him back in the pan.

  “Have you changed your shirt?” asked his mother.

  Victor changed his shirt, and then at his mother’s order sat down on the sofa with A Child’s Garden of Verses and tackled another poem, a brand new one for Mrs. Badzerkian. He learned two lines at a time, reading it aloud in a soft voice to himself, then repeating it, then putting two, four and six lines together, until he had the whole thing. He recited it to the terrapin. Then Victor asked his mother if he could play with the terrapin in the bathtub.

  “No! And get your shirt all splashed?”

  “I can put on my other shirt.”

  “No! It’s nearly four o’clock now. Get that pan out of the living-room!”

  Victor carried the pan back to the kitchen. His mother took the terrapin quite fearlessly out of the pan, put it back into the white paper box, closed its lid, and stuck the box in the refrigerator. Victor jumped a little as the refrigerator door slammed. It would be awfully cold in there for the terrapin. But then, he supposed, fresh or brackish water was cold now and then, too.

  “Veector, cut the lemon,” said his mother. She was preparing the big round tray with cups and saucers. The water was boiling in the kettle.

  Mrs. Badzerkian was prompt as usual, and his mother poured the tea as soon as she had deposited her coat and pocketbook on the foyer chair and sat down. Mrs. Badzerkian smelled of cloves. She had a small, straight mouth and a thin moustache on her upper lip which fascinated Victor, as he had never seen one on a woman before, not one at such short range, anyway. He never had mentioned Mrs. Badzerkian’s moustache to his mother, knowing it was considered ugly, but in a strange way, her moustache was the thing he liked best about her. The rest of her was dull, uninteresting, and vaguely unfriendly. She always pretended to listen carefully to his poetry recitals, but he felt that she fidgeted, thought of other things while he spoke, and was glad when it was over. Today, Victor recited very well and without any hesitation, standing in the middle of the living-room floor and facing the two women, who were then having their second cups of tea.

  “Très bien,” said his mother. “Now you may have a cookie.”

  Victor chose from the plate a small round cookie with a drop of orange goo in its center. He kept his knees close together when he sat down. He always felt Mrs. Badzerkian looked at his knees and with distaste. He often wished she would make some remark to his mother about his being old enough for long pants, but she never had, at least not within his hearing. Victor learned from his mother’s conversation with Mrs. Badzerkian that the Lorentzes were coming for dinner tomorrow evening. It was probably for them that the terrapin stew was going to be made. Victor was glad that he would have the terrapin one more day to play with. Tomorrow morning, he thought, he would ask his mother if he could take the terrapin down on the side walk for a while, either on a leash or in the paper box, if his mother insisted.

  “—like a chi-ild!” his mother was saying, laughing, with a glance at him, and Mrs. Badzerkian smiled shrewdly at him with her small, tight mouth.

  Victor had been excused, and was sitting across the room with a book on the studio couch. His mother was telling Mrs. Badzerkian how he had played with the terrapin. Victor frowned down at his book, pretending not to hear. His mother did not like him to open his mouth to her or her guests once he had been excused. But now she was calling him her “lee-tle ba-aby Veec-tor . . .”

  He stood up with his finger in the place in his book. “I don’t see why it’s childish to look at a terrapin!” he said, flushing with sudden anger. “They are very interesting animals, they—”

  His mother interrupted him with a laugh, but at once the laugh disappeared and she said sternly, “Veector, I thought I had excused you. Isn’t that correct?”

  He hesitated, seeing in a flash the scene that was going to take place when Mrs. Badzerkian had left. “Yes, Mama. I’m sorry,” he said. Then he sat down and bent over his book again.

  Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Badzerkian left. His mother scolded him for being rude, but it was not a five- or ten-minute scolding of the kind he had expected. It lasted hardly two minutes. She had forgotten to buy heavy cream, and she wanted Victor to go downstairs and get some. Victor put on his grey woollen jacket and went out. He always felt embarrassed and conspicuous in the jacket, because it came just a little bit below his short pants, and he looked as if he had nothing on underneath the coat.

  Victor looked around for Frank on the sidewalk, but he didn’t see him. He crossed Third Avenue and went to a delicatessen in the big building that he could see from the living-room window. On his way back, he saw Frank walking along the sidewalk, bouncing a ball. Now Victor went right up to him.

  “Hey,” Victor said. “I’ve got a terrapin upstairs.”

  “A what?” Frank caught the ball and stopped.

  “A terrapin. You know, like a turtle. I’ll bring him down tomorrow morning and show you, if you’re around. He’s pretty big.”

  “Yeah?—Why don’t you bring him down now?”

  “Because we’re gonna eat now,” said Victor. “See you.” He went into his building. He felt he had achieved something. Frank had looked really interested. Victor wished he could bring the terrapin
down now, but his mother never liked him to go out after dark, and it was practically dark now.

  When Victor got upstairs, his mother was still in the kitchen. Eggs were boiling and she had put a big pot of water on a back burner. “You took him out again!” Victor said, seeing the terrapin’s box on the counter.

  “Yes, I prepare the stew tonight,” said his mother. “That is why I need the cream.”

  Victor looked at her. “You’re going to—You have to kill it tonight?”

  “Yes, my little one. Tonight.” She jiggled the pot of eggs.

  “Mama, can I take him downstairs to show Frank?” Victor asked quickly. “Just for five minutes, Mama. Frank’s down there now.”

  “Who is Frank?”

  “He’s that fellow you asked me about today. The blond fellow we always see. Please, Mama.”

  His mother’s black eyebrows frowned. “Take the terrapène downstairs? Certainly not. Don’t be absurd, my baby! The terrapène is not a toy!”

  Victor tried to think of some other lever of persuasion. He had not removed his coat. “You wanted me to get acquainted with Frank—”

  “Yes. What has that got to do with a terrapin?”

  The water on the back burner began to boil.

  “You see, I promised him I’d—” Victor watched his mother lift the terrapin from the box, and as she dropped it into the boiling water, his mouth fell open. “Mama!”

  “What is this? What is this noise?”

  Victor, open-mouthed, stared at the terrapin whose legs were now racing against the steep sides of the pot. The terrapin’s mouth opened, its eyes looked directly at Victor for an instant, its head arched back in torture, the open mouth sank beneath the seething water—and that was the end. Victor blinked. It was dead. He came closer, saw the four legs and the tail stretched out in the water, its head. He looked at his mother.

  She was drying her hands on a towel. She glanced at him, then said, “Ugh!” She smelled of her hands, then hung the towel back.