The Winter of Our Discontent

  A single unshaded light hung from a roof beam. The attic is floored with hand-hewn pine planks twenty inches wide and two inches thick, ample support for the neat stacks of trunks and boxes, of paper-wrapped lamps and vases and all manner of exiled finery. And the light glowed softly on the generations of books in open bookcases--all clean and dustless. My Mary is a stern and uncompromising dust harrier and she is neat as a top sergeant. The books are arranged by size and color.

  Allen rested his forehead on the top of a bookcase and glared down at the books. His right hand was on the pommel of the Knight Templar sword, point downward like a cane.

  "You make a symbolic picture, my son. Call it 'Youth, War, and Learning.' "

  "I want to ask you--you said there was books to look up stuff."

  "What kind of stuff?"

  "Patriotic jazz, for the essay."

  "I see. Patriotic jazz. How's this for beat? 'Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!' "

  "Great! That's the berries."

  "Sure is. There were giants on the earth in those days."

  "I wisht I lived then. Pirate ships. Oh boy! Bang-bang! Strike your colors! Pots of gold and ladies in silk dresses and jewels. I sure wisht I lived then. Some of our folks done--did it. You said so yourself."

  "Kind of genteel piracy--they called them privateers. I guess it wasn't as sweet as it sounds from a distance. Salt beef and biscuit. There was scurvy on the earth in those days too."

  "I wouldn't mind that. I'd get the gold and bring it home. I guess they won't let you do it any more."

  "No--it's bigger and better organized now. They call it diplomacy."

  "There's a boy in our school that won two television prizes-- fifty dollars and two hundred dollars. How's that?"

  "He must be smart."

  "Him? Course not. It's a trick, he says. You got to learn the trick and then you get a gimmick."

  "Gimmick?"

  "Sure--like you're a cripple or you support your old mother raising frogs. That gives you audience interest so they choose you. He's got a magazine with every contest in the whole country in it. Can I get one of those magazines, Pop?"

  "Well, piracy is out, but I guess the impulse lingers."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Something for nothing. Wealth without effort."

  "Can I get that magazine?"

  "I thought such things were in disrepute since the payola scandals."

  "Hell, no. I mean no, sir. They just changed it around a little. I'd sure like to cut in on some of that loot."

  "It is loot, isn't it?"

  "It's all dough, no matter how you get it."

  "I don't believe that. It doesn't hurt the money to get it that way but it hurts the one who gets it."

  "I don't see how. It's not against the law. Why, some of the biggest people in this country--"

  "Charles, my son, my son."

  "How do you mean, Charles?"

  "Do you have to be rich, Allen? Do you have to?"

  "Do you think I like to live without no motorbike? Must be twenty kids with motorbikes. And how you think it is if your family hasn't even got a car, leave alone no television?"

  "I'm deeply shocked."

  "You don't know how it is, Dad. One day in class I did a theme how my great-granddad was a whaling captain."

  "He was."

  "Whole class bust out laughing. Know what they call me? Whaley. How'd you like that?"

  "Pretty bad."

  "It wouldn't be so bad if you were a lawyer or in a bank or like that. Know what I'm going to do with the first chunk of loot I win?"

  "No, what?"

  "I'm going to buy you an automobile so you won't feel so lousy when other people all got one."

  I said, "Thank you, Allen." My throat was dry.

  "Oh, that's all right. I can't get a license yet anyway."

  "You'll find all the great speeches of our nation in that case, Allen. I hope you'll read some of them."

  "I will. I need to."

  "You surely do. Good hunting." I went quietly down the stairs and moistened my lips as I went. And Allen was right. I felt lousy.

  When I sat down in my big chair under the reading light, Mary brought the paper to me.

  "What a comfort you are, wiggles."

  "That suit looks real nice."

  "You're a good loser and a good cook."

  "The tie matches your eyes."

  "You're up to something. I can tell. I'll trade you a secret for a secret."

  "But I don't have one," she said.

  "Make one up!"

  "I can't. Come on, Ethan, tell me."

  "Any eary children listening in?"

  "No."

  "Well, Margie Young-Hunt came in today. Out of coffee, so she said. I think she's carrying a torch for me."

  "Come on, tell."

  "Well, we were talking about the fortune and I said it would be interesting to do it again and see if it was the same."

  "You didn't!"

  "I did so. And she said it would be interesting."

  "But you don't like things like that."

  "I do when they're good."

  "Think she'll do it tonight?"

  "If you care to offer me a penny for my thoughts, I think that's why she's coming."

  "Oh, no! I asked her."

  "After she set you up for it."

  "You don't like her."

  "On the contrary--I'm beginning to like her very much, and to respect her."

  "I wish I could tell when you're joking."

  Ellen came in then quietly so that you couldn't tell whether she had been listening but I suspect she had. Ellen is a girl-girl-girl and thirteen to boot, sweet and sad, gay and delicate, sickly when she needs it. She is in that stage like dough beginning to set. She may be pretty, or not. She is a leaner, leans on me, breathes on me too, but her breath is sweet like a cow's breath. She's a toucher, too.

  Ellen leaned on the arm of my chair and her thin little shoulder touched mine. She ran one pink finger down my coat sleeve and onto the hairs on my wrist and it tickled. The blond hairs on her arm shone like gold dust under the lamp. A devious one, she is, but then I guess all girl-girl-girls are.

  "Nail polish," I said.

  "Mama lets me if it's only pink. Your nails are rough."

  "Aren't they?"

  "But they're clean."

  "I scrubbed them."

  "I hate dirty nails like Allen's."

  "Maybe you just hate Allen lock, stock, and bobtail."

  "I do."

  "Good for you. Why don't you kill him?"

  "You're silly." She crawled her fingers behind my ear. She's probably making some boy kids very nervous already.

  "I hear you are working on your essay."

  "Stinker told you."

  "Is it good?"

  "Oh, yes! Very good. I'll let you read it when it's done."

  "Honored. I see you're dressed for the occasion."

  "This old thing? I'm saving my new dress for tomorrow."

  "Good idea. There'll be boys."

  "I hate boys. I do hate boys."

  "I know you do. Hostility is your motto. I don't like 'em much myself. Now lean off me a minute. I want to read the paper."

  She flounced like a 1920s movie star and instantly took her revenge. "When are you going to be rich?"

  Yes, she'll give some man a bad time. My instinct was to grab her and paddle her but that's exactly what she wanted. I do believe she had eye shadow on. There was as little pity in her eyes as you'll find in a panther's eyes.

  "Next Friday," I said.

  "Well, I wish you'd hurry up. I'm sick of being poor." And she slipped quickly out. A listener at doors too. I do love her, and that's odd because she is everything I detest in anyone else--and I adore her.

  No newspaper for me. I hadn't even unfolded it
when Margie Young-Hunt arrived. She was done up--hairdresser done up. I guess Mary would know how it's done, but I don't.

  In the morning the out-of-coffee Margie was set for me like a bear trap. The same evening she drew a bead on Mary. If her behind bounced, I couldn't see it. If anything was under her neat suit, it was hiding. She was a perfect guest--for another woman--helpful, charming, complimentary, thoughtful, modest. She treated me as though I had taken on forty years since the morning. What a wonderful thing a woman is. I can admire what they do even if I don't understand why.

  While Margie and Mary went through their pleasant litany, "What have you done with your hair?" . . . "I like it" . . . "That's your color. You should always wear it"--the harmless recognition signals of women--I thought of the most feminine story I ever heard. Two women meet. One cries, "What have you done with your hair? It looks like a wig." "It is a wig." "Well, you'd never know it."

  Maybe these are deeper responses than we know or have any right to know.

  Dinner was a series of exclamations about the excellence of the roast chicken and denials that it was edible. Ellen studied our guest with a recording eye, every detail of hairdress and make-up. And I knew then how young they start the minute examination on which they base what is called their intuition. Ellen avoided my eyes. She knew she had shot to kill and she expected revenge. Very well, my savage daughter. I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.

  And it was a good dinner, over-rich and too much of it, as company dinners must be, and a mountain of dishes not ordinarily used. And coffee afterward, which we do not ordinarily have.

  "Doesn't it keep you awake?"

  "Nothing keeps me awake."

  "Not even me?"

  "Ethan!"

  And then the silent, deadly war of the dishes. "Let me help."

  "Not at all. You're the guest."

  "Well, let me carry them."

  Mary's eyes sought out the children and her spirit moved on them with fixed bayonet. They knew what was coming, but they were helpless.

  Mary said, "The children always do it. They love to. And they do it so well. I'm proud of them."

  "Well, isn't that nice? You don't see it much any more."

  "I know. We feel very fortunate that they want to help."

  I could read their ferrety little minds, looking for an escape, thinking of making a fuss, getting sick, dropping the beautiful old dishes. Mary must have read their evil little minds also. She said, "The remarkable thing is that they never break anything, don't even chip a glass."

  "Well, you are blessed!" Margie said. "How did you teach them?"

  "I didn't. It's just natural with them. You know, some people are just naturally clumsy; well, Allen and Ellen are just naturally clever with their hands."

  I glanced at the kids to see how they were handling it. They knew they were being taken. I think they wondered whether Margie Young-Hunt knew it. They were still looking for an escape. I dropped the beam full on them.

  "Of course they like to hear compliments," I said, "but we're holding them up. They'll miss the movie if we don't let them get to it."

  Margie had the grace not to laugh and Mary gave me a quick and startled look of admiration. They hadn't even asked to go to the movie.

  Even if teen-age children aren't making a sound, it's quieter when they're gone. They put a boiling in the air around them. As they left, the whole house seemed to sigh and settle. No wonder poltergeists infest only houses with adolescent children.

  The three of us circled warily around the subject each one knew was coming. I went to the glass-fronted cabinet and took out three long-stemmed, lily-shaped glasses, cotton twist, brought home from England, heaven knows how long ago. And I poured from a basket-covered gallon jug, dark and discolored with age.

  "Jamaica rum," I said. "Hawleys were seamen."

  "Must be very old," said Margie Young-Hunt.

  "Older than you or me or my father."

  "It'll take the top of your head off," Mary said. "Well, this must be a party. Ethan only gets it out for weddings and funerals. Do you think it's all right, dear? Just before Easter, I mean?"

  "The Sacrament isn't Coca-Cola, my darling."

  "Mary, I've never seen your husband so gay."

  "It's the fortune you read," said Mary. "It's changed him overnight."

  What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately. A flare of searing red pain formed in my bowels and moved upward until it speared and tore at the place just under my ribs. A great wind roared in my ears and drove me like a helpless ship, dismasted before it could shorten sail. I tasted bitter salt and I saw a pulsing, heaving room. Every warning signal screamed danger, screamed havoc, screamed shock. It caught me as I passed behind my ladies' chairs and doubled me over in quaking agony, and just as suddenly it was gone. I straightened up and moved on and they didn't even know it had happened. I understand how people once believed the devil could take possession. I'm not sure I don't believe it. Possession! The seething birth of something foreign with every nerve resisting and losing the fight and settling back beaten to make peace with the invader. Violation--that's the word, if you can think of the sound of a word edged with blue flame like a blowtorch.

  My dear's voice came through. "It doesn't really harm to hear nice things," she said.

  I tried my voice and it was strong and good. "A little hope, even hopeless hope, never hurt anybody," I said, and I put the jug away in its cabinet, and went back to my chair and drank half the glass of ancient, fragrant rum and sat down and crossed my knees and locked my fingers in my lap.

  "I don't understand him," Mary said. "He's always hated fortune-telling, made jokes about it. I just don't understand."

  My nerve ends were rustling like dry, windblown winter grass and my laced fingers had whitened from pressure.

  "I'll try to explain it to Mrs. Young--to Margie," I said. "Mary comes from a noble but poor Irish family."

  "We weren't all that poor."

  "Can't you hear it in her speech?"

  "Well, now that you mention it--"

  "Well, Mary's sainted, or should be, grandmother was a good Christian, wasn't she, Mary?"

  It seemed to me a little hostility was growing in my dear. I went on. "But she had no trouble believing in fairy people, although in strict, unbending Christian theology the two don't mix."

  "But that's different."

  "Of course it is, darling. Nearly everything's different. Can you disbelieve in something you don't know about?"

  "Look out for him," Mary said. "He'll catch you in a word trap."

  "I will not. I don't know about fortunes or fortune-telling. How can I not believe in it? I believe it exists because it happens."

  "But you don't believe it's true."

  "What's true is that people get it done, millions of them, and pay for it. That's enough to know to be interested, isn't it?"

  "But you don't--"

  "Wait! It isn't that I don't believe but that I don't know. They're not the same thing. I don't know which comes first-- the fortune or the fortune-telling."

  "I think I know what he means."

  "You do?" Mary was not pleased.

  "Suppose the fortune-teller was sensitive to things that are going to happen anyway. Is that what you mean?"

  "That's different. But how can cards know?"

  I said, "The cards can't even move without someone turning them."

  Margie did not look at me but I knew she sensed Mary's growing unease and she wanted instructions.

  "Couldn't we work out a test?" I asked.

  "Well, that's a funny thing. These things seem to resent a test and go away, but there's no harm trying. Can you think of a test?"

  "You haven't touched your rum." They lifted their glasses together and sipped and put them down. I finished mine and got out the bottle.

  "Ethan, do you think you shoul
d?"

  "Yes, dearling." I filled my glass. "Why can't you turn the cards blindfolded?"

  "They have to be read."

  "How would it be if Mary turned them or I did, and you read them?"

  "There's supposed to be a closeness between the reader and the cards, but I don't know--we could try."

  Mary said, "I think if we do it at all, we ought to do it the right way." She's always that way. She doesn't like change-- little change, I mean. The big ones she can handle better than anyone, blows up at a cut finger but would be calm and efficient with a cut throat. I had a throb of unease because I had told Mary we discussed this, and here we were seeming to think of it for the first time.

  "We talked about it this morning."

  "Yes, when I came in for coffee. I've been thinking about it all day. I brought the cards."

  It is Mary's tendency to confuse intentness with anger and anger with violence and she is terrified of violence. Some drinking uncles put that fear on her, and it's a shame. I could feel her fear rising.

  "Let's not fool with it," I said. "Let's play some cassino instead."

  Margie saw the tactic, knew it, had probably used it. "All right with me."

  "My fortune's set. I'm going to be rich. Let it go at that."

  "You see, I told you he didn't believe in it. He leads you all around the bush and then he won't play. He makes me so mad sometimes."

  "I do? You never show it. You are always my darling wife."

  Isn't it strange how sometimes you can feel currents and cross-currents--not always, but sometimes. Mary doesn't use her mind for organized thought and maybe this makes her more receptive of impressions. A tension was growing in the room. It crossed my mind that she might not be best friends with Margie any more--might never feel easy with her.

  "I'd really like to know about the cards," I said. "I'm ignorant. I always heard that gypsies do it. Are you a gypsy? I don't think I ever knew one."

  Mary said, "Her maiden name was Russian but she's from Alaska."

  Then that accounted for the wide cheekbones.

  Margie said, "I have a guilty secret I've never told you, Mary, how we came to be in Alaska."

  "The Russians owned it," I said. "We bought it from them."

  "Yes, but did you know it was a prison, like Siberia, only for worse crimes?"

  "What kind of crimes?"

  "The worst. My great-grandmother was sentenced to Alaska for witchcraft."