People Who Knock on the Door

  As soon as Arthur got home, his mother met him in the kitchen and beckoned him back into the garage.

  “Your father spoke with the Brewsters. I didn’t want it to surprise you,” she whispered. “Richard’s trying to—”

  “Dammit, how’d he find them?”

  “He phoned Sigma Airlines. He knew from somewhere that Maggie’s father is with them, and they said—I don’t know, Arthur, but your father said it was urgent and they told him Mr. Brewster was at their hotel this weekend. So your father reached them and said—said he didn’t approve of the abortion,” his mother finished in a still softer whisper.

  And his mother had told his father that the abortion hadn’t been done yet. Arthur felt near exploding. “Well, well, he doesn’t approve! Who is he? Isn’t that the Brewsters’ business? Has he gone nuts?”

  “Sh-h. You might as well say that—about this. He’s said so much, even Robbie knows. I tried to keep it from Robbie, naturally. And I did try to persuade Richard to keep out of it.”

  “Hope the Brewsters told him to go to hell.”

  “Well—in a way they did,” his mother replied with the start of a smile. “I spoke with Maggie’s mother for a minute. She sounded nice, I must say. Told me not to worry. And Maggie wants to speak with you. Wants you to call her.”

  “You mean now?”

  “The number’s by the phone. Call her before eight,” his mother said and went back into the kitchen.

  Arthur followed her. It was not yet 6.

  Since his father was in the living room, Arthur did not glance in that direction, though his grandmother was there, too. Arthur went into the bathroom, dropped his clothes on the floor and stepped under the shower. He also washed his hair. Then he grabbed his dirty clothes in one hand, checked the hall, and nipped into his room. Naturally, his father wasn’t going to quit the living room to give him any privacy to phone, he thought as he put on clean clothes, but Norma would let him phone from her house. She would be delighted to render that little service.

  Arthur went into the living room to get the number his mother had mentioned. He greeted his grandmother.

  “Hello, Arthur,” she said with a sigh, as if she’d had enough of something, maybe of his father.

  His father sat hunched with folded hands on the edge of an armchair seat, and Robbie sat in another armchair, straightening out a tangled mess of cord in his lap, looking all ears. Arthur picked up the piece of paper and started for the front door.

  “Oh, Arthur! I’d like a word with you.” His father stood up, arching his back as if he had had a hard afternoon in the armchair. He beckoned Arthur into his parents’ bedroom.

  Arthur pushed the paper into his back pocket, and followed his father.

  His father closed the bedroom door. “I’ve found out that operation won’t take place till tomorrow. There’s time for you to stop it or help to stop it right now. Tonight.”

  Arthur was aware of his father’s bulk, of his aggressive chin jutting forward as he bent close. Arthur stepped back.

  “It’s your duty to say your word about it. I’ve said mine to both the Brewsters.”

  “It’s for Maggie to say—and for nobody else to say.”

  “Maggie’s hardly more than a child! Seventeen.—I’m talking about the importance of life, Arthur.”

  “I’m not going to do it. And it’s not your business,” Arthur went on, when his father started to say something, “to tell the Brewsters what they should do. It’s embarrassing to me.”

  “You dare talk about embarrassment?”

  Hopeless, Arthur thought. He turned toward the door. His father came after him, and Arthur drew his left arm out of reach, having had the feeling his father was about to grab it. Arthur went out and down the hall to the front door and out. Norma would forgive him this once, he thought, for crashing in without phoning first.

  “Arthur!” Now his father stood on the little front porch of the house.

  Arthur trudged back the few steps he had walked. He stood on the front walk.

  His father had closed the door. “That child,” he said in a low voice, “can be cared for by us, by the girl’s family. If you don’t persuade her, if you don’t insist, it’ll be the greatest mistake—one of the greatest mistakes you’ll ever make in your life.”

  Arthur sighed, wordless and angry.

  “You’ll never go to Columbia, if you let this happen.”

  Arthur had foreseen that. He nodded curtly and went on across the lawn toward Norma’s, up her front steps, and he knocked.

  Norma opened the door, not at all annoyed by the interruption, because she was only doing some mending in the living room, she said. One of Norma’s curtains was spread over most of the sofa where she usually sat.

  “Looks the way my house is going to look next week,” Arthur said. “Mom and Grandma are making a lot of new curtains.”

  “I’m just hemming mine. Hem came undone.”

  “To tell you the truth, I came over to make a phone call, if I may. Indi, and I’ll reimburse you. Okay?”

  “Cer—tainly, Arthur. Private, I gather. Would you like me to disappear in the bedroom?”

  “Oh, not that private,” said Arthur, though he would have preferred to be alone. “May I make it now?”

  “Go right ahead.” She returned to her curtain on the sofa.

  Arthur dialed the hospital number and asked for room eight sixteen.

  At this point, Norma went into her bedroom at the back corner of the house, trailing the curtain behind her.

  “Hello, Maggie,” he whispered, when Maggie answered. “How are you?”

  “Oh, fine. In bed already.” She sounded cheerful. “Lovely room. Color TV. Mom’s here.”

  In the room, Arthur supposed. “I’m so damned mad that my dad called your folks up. Some so-and-so at his church told him, and I didn’t know that till one o’clock today. Then—I was out all afternoon working till—just now, when I found out he’d phoned. I’m very sorry. Can you tell your mother that?”

  “Don’t worry so much. I think my father took care of it.”

  “What time’s the—that business tomorrow morning?”

  Now Norma was coming back, carrying a purple sewing basket, still trailing the curtain.

  “Eight o’clock.—Too bad your father’s so upset. There’s no reason to be.”

  Arthur felt much better. Once again, Maggie’s fantastic calm worked its magic. She was the one suffering, the one in danger, and she sounded saner than anyone else!

  “. . . Now Mom’s back. I think she wants to speak with you.”

  “Hello, Mrs Brewster. I was saying to Maggie—I’m sorry about my father—”

  “I think Warren and I handled it pretty well. Tried to. I’m afraid this family doesn’t see eye to eye with yours.”

  “I don’t either. It’s my father, not my mother.”

  “Tomorrow it’ll be over and we can all forget it. You tell your father that. Want to speak with Maggie again?”

  “Hi, Arthur. Now the doctor just came in—so I’ll have to sign off.”

  “I’ll phone tomorrow noon to ask how you are. All my love, darling.”

  Arthur turned around and looked at another world: Norma sewing away with her legs and feet hidden under the curtain. He fished for money in his pocket, and left two singles by the phone, knowing his call would cost a bit less.

  “Success?” asked Norma.

  “Oh, sure. Thanks, Norma.—Living room’s pretty busy at my house lately.”

  “Got time to sit down? It’s getting on to the official drinks hour, nearly seven. Tempt you to something?”

  “Thanks—no.” Arthur didn’t want a drink, and didn’t want to leave. But his father might be bothering the Brewsters on the telephone this mi
nute! What if his father got the bright idea of going to the hospital! Arthur spilled some of the coins he had been clutching, and had to gather them from the carpet.

  “Nervous tonight?—I wish you luck, Arthur.”

  “With what?”

  “Anything and everything,” Norma said, looking at him.

  12

  His mother and grandmother were in the kitchen when Arthur went back to the house, and supper was imminent. And his father was on the telephone.

  “I see. Thank you,” his father said in an annoyed tone, and hung up.

  If he had been trying the hospital, Arthur hoped that he had been told the Brewsters were accepting no more calls from Mr. Alderman, Senior.

  His father came in, and they all took their places at the table. Slices of smoked salmon lay on plates before them, and Arthur had to push the cat’s front paws off his thigh as he bowed his head for his father’s blessing.

  “Father, we thank thee—as ever—for the blessings laid before us. In this moment of—anxiety and wrongdoing, we ask your patience and forgiveness. We ask you to show us the way. Show us all. Amen.”

  Robbie hiccupped so violently, he rose a bit from his seat.

  Arthur gave his brother a smile, and opened his paper napkin.

  “How was Norma?” his mother asked.

  “Same as ever. Sewing,” Arthur replied. “Mending a hem of a curtain. Ahem!” He glanced at Robbie, who liked stupid puns, but Robbie might not have heard.

  His father chewed his smoked salmon as if it were an arduous job that had to be done, though it was a treat in the household.

  “And what did you do today at Mrs. DeWitt’s?” asked his grandmother.

  The women kept the conversation going, and his father continued to look as if he couldn’t wait to say something unpleasant, though he didn’t say anything. Robbie was also silent. Robbie looked taller on his bench seat. His jaw was growing heavier. Was Robbie going to take his father’s side? How could he understand the situation at his age? On the other hand, the young could be bent.

  In the interval before dessert, when his mother was up from the table, his father said, “You spoke with the girl, I suppose, Arthur?”

  “Yes.”

  “Richard, must we? Just now?” said Lois.

  “Later may be too late. However, if later it is—”

  The dessert period would have been a torture, except that his mother’s hot lemon meringue pie was excellent, and Arthur had an appetite. Then came coffee in the living room. Robbie was gently asked to go to his room, and didn’t. Arthur could see his grandmother on the brink of leaving the living room after one cup of coffee, then deciding to stay, which pleased Arthur.

  “Well, Arthur, did you ask the girl to change her mind?” his father asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you try?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “It’s still not too late,” said his father, who was trying in his own way to be calm, Arthur could see.

  Arthur glanced at his grandmother, who was looking into her coffee cup, and at Robbie, who sat like part of the audience in a movie house.

  “They won’t accept my calls now,” said Richard sadly. “But you could reach them, I’m pretty sure. The girl or her mother. I could even drive you to the hospital tonight.”

  Arthur winced and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think Robbie should be in on all this, Dad. Not the people at church either. I don’t know how many you’ve—”

  “You went to Norma’s house,” said his father.

  “I went to phone, but I didn’t say anything about this.”

  There was a knock on the door. Lois got up with an air of annoyance and said:

  “Richard, will you let him in?”

  His father went to the door. “Hello, Eddie, come in! Just in time for coffee.” Mumbles. “. . . still a chance, yes.” His father ushered a slender man of about twenty-five into the living room, with his hand on the man’s shoulder. The stranger carried a black briefcase. “Eddie Howell,” said Richard. “You know my family. And this is Arthur.”

  Arthur nodded, but didn’t get up. A church acquaintance of his father’s, no doubt, one of the “young people” his father often talked about. He looked sickly to Arthur, pale-faced, thin, wearing glasses and a dark suit.

  “Shall we—” Eddie began, and seemed to suppose that they—he and his father and himself—were to go into his father’s study, which Eddie had cast an eye at.

  “No, no, sit down, Eddie. Coffee, Lois?”

  His mother was already on the way to fetch another cup and saucer.

  “I’m not sure Robbie—” Eddie began.

  “Oh, he’s one of the family,” said Richard.

  Really awful, Arthur thought. Eddie had wanted to get him into a room alone, where he could do a job on him with the pamphlets that he probably carried in that briefcase.

  “So what’s happening now?” asked Eddie with his gentle smile. He had his coffee and sat in an armless chair with knees together and feet in a pigeon-toed position.

  “No progress,” said Richard. “But it’s still not too late, as I said to my son. Never too late till the moment itself.”

  Eddie looked at Arthur with a bland smile, as if he were regarding some strange organism, Arthur felt, which wouldn’t come to its senses and behave right. The man’s dark eyes behind his glasses looked puzzled and troubled. That was an act, Arthur thought.

  “What’re your intentions, Arthur?” Eddie asked.

  “My intentions?”

  “About the girl. And her situation.”

  Arthur sat forward. His empty coffee cup rattled in its saucer as he set the two items aside.

  “Richard,” Lois said, “I don’t think right now is the time to go into all this. With so many people—”

  “If not now, then when?” asked Richard.

  “Maybe Eddie should talk to Arthur alone,” said Lois.

  “Yes, I’m willing,” said Eddie cheerfully, and got up.

  “Why go somewhere else?” Arthur asked. “I’m not going to tell anyone what to do—if that’s what you’re here to talk about.”

  “But—you have already,” said Eddie Howell gently. “The responsibility is yours now.”

  Not entirely, Arthur thought. “Not now,” he said.

  “Yes, now. You have created life and now you—you’re trying to disclaim responsibility. You’re willing to let it be—”

  His mother writhed with discomfort in her chair.

  “Go ahead, Eddie!” said his father like a cheerleader.

  “You cannot just sit by, if you have any power. That would be your real sin, a truly major sin,” Eddie told Arthur.

  Robbie, neutral-faced and attentive, kept his eyes on Eddie.

  Arthur said, “I’ll do what the girl wants. What her family wants too. I can’t understand the meddling.”

  “And you don’t see your responsibility,” Eddie said, still affably smiling.

  Arthur did, of course. Wasn’t it equal, his and Maggie’s responsibility? “But not now,” Arthur replied. “Now the girl has the right to do what she wants.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “I do see what Arthur means,” his grandmother put in gently. “Not that I mean to interfere in this.”

  “I’d be pleased to hear what you have to say, ma’am,” said Eddie.

  “Considering the girl’s age—and Arthur’s—Well, I’m sure you see my point. And as far as I know, this family isn’t Catholic. The girl’s family seems to be taking it—calmly, shall I say? As something that can happen in the best of families. Why not let things be? That’s the end of my speech.” Joan threw a quick smile at her daughter.

  Eddie nodded slowly, with a frown above his ap
parently frozen smile.

  Eddie Howell was a sick prig, Arthur thought, and so was his father to be sitting there with a solemn face, concentrating on this twit—fifteen or twenty years younger than his father—as if he were God himself or some kind of divine messenger.

  “I’d like to speak with you for a minute in your own room, Arthur,” said Eddie. “Is that possible?”

  Arthur shook his head slowly. “You can say anything you want to right here.”

  Eddie took a breath. “I strongly recommend that you call up this girl—or her family or both—and say you don’t want this operation to take place. That you know it should not take place. I understand the family’s even well off and could take care of the child. That is not the point even.” He raised a forefinger. “The point is—human life. I know your father has the phone number of the hotel where the parents are. Or we could even go there in my car—speak to them.”

  Arthur relished the idea of a fight with this jerk, plus his father, if they tried to push him into a car. Arthur pressed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Sorry,” he began with an effort at calmness, “but my father’s been annoying the family all afternoon, and they’re not taking any more phone calls from us.” Sweat zipped down his cheek, reminding him of the hours at Mrs. DeWitt’s that afternoon.

  Eddie opened his briefcase. “I’d like you to read two things I brought with me this evening,” he said, producing two magazines of different sizes, laying them gently on the coffee table. “Can you do me that courtesy? Promise me?”

  Why should he promise? Shove them, Arthur wanted to say, and if his grandmother hadn’t been present, he might have. Twits such as Eddie Howell were anti-Darwin, Arthur reminded himself; in fact they spat on Darwin. This thought gave Arthur fortitude, even a sense of advantage. “Yes, sure,” Arthur said, and stood up with an air of calling the visit over.

  His mother rose also, but drifted to the kitchen. His father beckoned Eddie Howell into his study and closed the door.