Harvest Home Part 19

"I can do it."

"You just lie there and let me spoon-feed you. You've been a sick girl."

"How many'd you get?"

"Two. We can freeze what you don't eat and you can have it another time. But not for-"

"Breakfast. I know." She swallowed the spoonful I held for her and waited for the next. "Did you and Mom make up?" she asked, blowing.

"You heard us, huh?"

"Mm. It sounded as if you were doing toasts, like in War and Peace War and Peace."

"I think it was more war than peace."

She let the subject drop then, and ate in silence, blowing on each spoonful as I held it for her. "Want some milk?"

"Mm."

I handed her the gla.s.s, she took a few sips, then lay back against the pillows while I used the napkin on her mouth.

"Anything else?"

"Could you open the window? It's sort of stuffy."

I raised the window behind the sofa. From the other side of the hedge came the Invisible Voice. We listened together, trying to determine what it was today. Neither of us recognized the work. I lowered the window slightly and turned on the television, handing Kate the remote control so she could choose her channel; then I carried the tray to the kitchen. When I came back, Kate was watching June Allyson struggle valiantly with a bull fiddle on the television screen.

I made sure she had what she needed, then went back to the studio to continue preparing a ges...o...b..ard for my new painting. While it dried, I straightened up my paint taboret, sharpened my pencils, threw out a bunch of old sketches, and packed my drawing kit. From Robert's open window, the Invisible Voice continued reading, though I still had not yet caught enough of it to identify the work. When I came out the studio door, I found the buggy in the drive, the tethered mare contentedly chewing the gra.s.s along the hedge. The kitchen door popped open and the Widow appeared on the back stoop, fists on her hips, glowering.

"Chili!" The way she spat the word I decided it had a bad taste for her.

"Chili?" I replied mildly.

"Don't you go giving that child none o' that foreign muck. You want to upset her stomach? You feed her, you feed her what I leave to feed her, hear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She gave me another look, then retired. Pa.s.sing the hedge, I heard the Invisible Voice: "'I am Charles Hexam's friend,' said Bradley; 'I am Charles Hexam's schoolmaster.'

"'My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners,' replied Eugene.'"

I called over to Robert. "You've got me, Robert. What's the book?"

"Try Our Mutual Friend Our Mutual Friend."

"Never heard of it."

"d.i.c.kens."

By spring, I decided, Robert would have read his way through the entire works. I climbed on my bicycle, and pedaled out into the lane.

I stopped at the post office to mail the letter I had written to the gallery in New York. As I dropped it into the box outside, I could see the postmistress behind the counter, weighing a package. Her head was down, her face obscured by her hair. Suddenly she looked up, as if she knew I was watching. She stared back at me, her face a mask, then she picked up a rubber stamp and stamped the top of the package. I walked back to the bicycle.

Coming along the roadway in front of the church on the far side of the Common was the pink Oldsmobile. I got back on my bike and rode south along Main Street; I could hear the car behind gaining on me. When I got to the intersection of Main and the River Road, I made a sharp left, and the pink car went roaring past. Glancing back, I saw Old Man Soakes behind the wheel, while two other faces peered at me through the back window. I heard their hoots and jeers as the car disappeared beyond the end of a cornfield, and a plume of blue exhaust dissolved in the air.

Ten minutes later, I was seated on a box at the corner of the small plot where Jack Stump's bait shack stood. I spent an hour sketching the structure, then, dissatisfied with the results, concentrated on some of the details. There was a particular window I liked, with a piece of tattered shade, and a mud-dauber's nest in the corner by a broken pane of gla.s.s. I contented myself with this small particular for the better part of the afternoon, until the sun caught the broken pane, reflecting in my eye so that it became difficult to work. I made one or two brief erasures on my page, then reversed the sketch against the light to check for errors. Turning it again, I held it up and compared it with the original. Suddenly something odd about the sketch caught my eye. Or, rather, something odd about the window itself. In the drawing, as I had completed it, the window shade hung down only four or five inches, but now, in the shack, the shade was drawn to the sill.

Sliding the pad into the case, I zipped it up and approached the door and listened. From the other side I could hear a faint sc.r.a.ping sound. I knocked.

"Jack? You in there?"

There was no reply. I backed away, studying the house-front. Inside I heard a slight cough, and another shuffling noise. I tried the door. It was locked.

"Hey-Jack, it's me, Ned Constantine." I waited for a few moments, then walked around to the back where a small door was cut into the crude siding of the shack. I turned the broken porcelain handle and stepped in.

It was a small, dark room, with little more than a dripping faucet over a sink and a disreputable two-burner stove marking it as a kitchen. A kerosene lantern sat on a rickety table; beside it was a sack of groceries. On the window sill was a shaving mug and an ivory-handled razor which I thought I had seen before. I went around the table and pushed open a door, beyond which was a small hallway. I crossed the hall and opened the other door.

With the shade drawn I could discern only vague shapes -a table, some chairs, a bed with rumpled covers against the wall. Making my way to the window, I raised the shade; it flew up on the roller with a clatter. I heard a sort of whimpering sound behind me and turned to see the bedcovers moving. A hand emerged from under the blanket to pull it up. I stepped past a pile of magazines and looked down.

"Jack?"

Again there was movement, and I reached to turn down the blanket. The hand reappeared, fiercely gripping a corner.

"Hey, old-timer, it's me, Ned Constantine."

The whimpering sound continued, and I bent closer. "Hey, Jack-what's the matter?" As I pulled the blanket back, the peddler seemed literally to be shaking with fright. Cowering, he threw his head to one side and covered it with his arm. His skin felt hot and feverish, and the effort to restrain his tremors brought on greater ones, the shudders racking his frame.

I drew the blanket down farther, and knelt. He kept his head turned away, and it was only by my gentle insistence that he eventually turned it toward me, sliding the tattered sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt over the lower half of his face and gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes. The stubble on his face was shorter than usual, no more than a night's growth.

"Are you sick?" I asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Did you just get back? You've been gone a long time." He nodded wearily. As I was used to doing with Kate, I reached for his wrist to feel his pulse. Instinctively he s.n.a.t.c.hed his arm away, revealing his face.

"Oh, no. Oh, no Oh, no." I stared in horror. "Jesus, Jack, what's happened to you?" Even in the dim light, I saw the pitiful wound that pa.s.sed for a mouth, the scabbed-over scars not fully healed. He huddled against the wall in fear, and I rea.s.sured him that I wasn't going to harm him. Little by little, his hand slid down to the blanket, his fingers plucking at the worn fabric. I patted the hand, bending forward trying to see in the dim light.

"n.o.body's going to hurt you, Jack." Clearly, he was terrified of something. I carefully took the face between my hands and stared at the scars. They were set half an inch apart, top and bottom, with more random ones at the corners. As though in protest against my seeing such obscene work, he made a gurgling noise in his throat. He tried to stop it, couldn't, coughed, choked; the mouth opened and I stared into the dark maw. My stomach heaved at what I saw and I released the pained face.

I leaned across him and held him by both shoulders, shaking him slightly. "Jack? Jack, listen to me. I'm going to get a doctor. Can you hear me? I'm going to get help."

I heard a step behind me, then a voice. "Leave him be- he's been molested enough."

The Widow came in, set her valise on the table, and came to the cot. I looked from her to the huddled shape under the blanket, then back to her again. She took a flashlight from her valise and pulled a chair close to the cot.

"What's happened to him?" I asked.

Paying no attention to me, she switched on the light and held the lens against her skirt as she put her hand on his brow and felt it.

"Well, Jack, how is it this evening? Better?" The head turned slightly, nodded. As I had, she took his wrist and felt his pulse, then laid it back across his chest. "Yes, better, I'd say. Comin' along nicely." Then to me, "Wants a cup of tea, I expect. Maybe you'll put the kettle on?"

I started the gas burner, filled the kettle under the tap, and put it on the fire. When I came back, the Widow was holding the flashlight over his open mouth and gently urging him to open it. "Come now-you devil, you-don't be coy with an old lady. Open up and let me see how things are." At last he opened his mouth and permitted the examination. She looked for a moment or two, moving the beam around inside, then nodded for me to bring her valise.

I fetched it, and she gave me the light to hold while she took a bottle and dipped a cotton swab in it, then inserted the swab and ran it carefully around inside.

"There, now, that's good. Close now, Jack." She returned the bottle to the valise and took out a tin of ointment, which she applied to the scars around the lips. "Last time I used this was when they took to you with their fists. But they had worse than fists about them, didn't they?"

I stared at her. "The Soakeses?"

"Hush," she told me. "Now then, Jack, what you want is some tea, en't that it?"

He nodded; she gave his hand a pat and rose. I followed her back into the kitchen, where she took a box from the shelf and a teapot which she rinsed at the sink. I sagged against the doorway and must have made some sort of sound, for she spoke impatiently. "None o' that, now. There's trouble enough around here."

"They cut off his tongue?"

"Appears they did." She spooned some leaves into the pot, wet her finger, and touched the outside of the kettle. "Another moment." While the water continued to boil, she removed the linen napkin from the top of her splint basket and began laying out things on the table-several foil-wrapped packets, and the thermos jug. "Didn't know you was feedin' the unfortunate, did you?"

She had been taking the food from our house not for herself, as I had thought, but for Jack. She filled the teapot from the kettle, then took up a rolled parcel from a chair and unwrapped it. It contained some s.h.i.+rts and a pair of pajamas, freshly washed and ironed.

"How?" I asked.

"Simple. They caught him. They hid in the woods-their woods, d.a.m.n their eyes-and they caught him. They caught him and they savaged him. Old Man Soakes and his boys. A nice, well-mannered bunch. I always said Jack's nose would get him in trouble one day." woods, d.a.m.n their eyes-and they caught him. They caught him and they savaged him. Old Man Soakes and his boys. A nice, well-mannered bunch. I always said Jack's nose would get him in trouble one day."

Unconsciously I touched the end of my tongue, thinking how close I had come to a similar fate. Old Man Soakes with his sharp knife, the boys with their- "Canvas needles." I voiced my thought.

"Aye, canvas needles. They cut and st.i.tched him up for fair."

"How did he keep from bleeding to death?"

"We stopped him." She took a cup and saucer from the shelf and set it on the table. I recognized the box of One-B Weber's tea.

"It's steamin', Jack," she called to him, "so we'll let it cool a bit before you try it." In the other room, she resumed her chair and held the cup and saucer on her lap, testing the rising vapors with the palm of her hand.

"But almost bled to death he did, didn't you, Jack? Here, try a sip." She held the cup up, waiting for him to drink.

"Now, then, no recalcitrance today," she told him. "One-B Weber's is a restorative, if ever there was. And when you're done I've got soup and some good roast meat, courtesy of our friend here." Though he did not seem to want the tea, she waited, cup poised, until he sipped. She watched him carefully, her eye never wavering as she made him drink, and while he drank she related what she knew of the tragedy.

She and Asia Minerva, along with Mrs. Zalmon and Mrs. Green, and Tamar Penrose as well, had been quilting at Irene Tatum's house on the Sunday evening, when they heard a ruckus across the road in Soakes's Lonesome. There were gunshots and they had trooped out on the porch to investigate. Then out of the woods Jack had appeared, crazed with pain and hardly knowing who he was or where he was going. He saw the light and came to them, blood pouring through his sewn-up lips. They had cut the st.i.tches and discovered the severed tongue. The Widow herself had put the poker in the stove and cauterized the wound; then they had laid him on the davenport in the living room and kept watch until he came out of shock.

"Ashes there were everywhere, en't that so, Jack?" she continued. The peddler nodded dazed agreement.

"Ashes?" I asked.

"Ashes. When they'd done with their fis.h.i.+ng knife and canvas needles, they dunked him in water, then poured ashes from their still over him. En't that so, Jack?"

I saw him nod. Ashes Ashes. White ashes ashes. Then it dawned on me. The phantom in the windstorm. Not the Ghost of Soakes's Lonesome, but the mutilated Jack Stump, his mouth st.i.tched up into the grim red smile, the face ash-smeared. I remembered seeing the Soakeses as I was driving to Saxony to visit Mrs. O'Byrne, recalled the decoy-making implements, saw again the skiff on the water.

Patiently the Widow waited until the cup was empty, and when he wiped his mouth she gently took Jack's hand away. "Don't do that; you're wipin' off all the salve. Now you just content yourself until I get you shaved; then I'll fix your supper." Motioning me to lead the way with the lamp, she brought the cup and saucer into the kitchen and set it on the table.

"Only way to do is to joke with him, else he'll sink into a fit o' apathy and he won't recover. If we don't make too much of a thing of it, he'll be back on his tin-pan contraption come spring. Won't you, Jack?"-raising her voice again-"I say, Jack'll be back on his contraption, pedalin' up to my door fit as a fiddle come spring."

"What's being done about them?" I said.

"The Soakeses? Faugh, what's to be done? The Constable knows, but there en't a witness. Poor Jack can't speak for himself. Can't even write the tale."

I shook my head. "Jesus, to go through life like that."

"No need to take the name in vain. And no help for what can't be helped. Jack don't need syrup; he needs vinegar, or he'll never get up." All was being done that could be managed, she said. The village ladies were taking turns nursing him, and he was never alone for long. The mouth would heal; the main thing was to keep his spirits up. "There's a lot worse ways to go through life. Plenty of people who can't talk or hear, both. Some who can't talk, hear, or see see. Look at Robert Dodd. A sorely afflicted man, but he's made a life, him and Maggie. Thing is to survive. You, now, you're a painter, you don't need to talk nor hear, but you got to see-ain't that so? But if you couldn't you'd survive, now, wouldn't you? You wouldn't let a pack o' Soakeses put you under."

She rinsed out the cup and set it in its place on the shelf. I marveled at her. She not only ministered to the sufferings of the body, but she dealt with the psychology of the matter, refusing to let the bodily ailment fall prey to the sickness of the mind. She had no time for feeling sorry, or for despair, or for weakness.

"Life at its worst is better than no life at all, en't that so?" Briskly she whipped up a lather in Clem Fortune's shaving mug, took the ivory-handled razor, and went in to shave Jack.

20.

Beth went to New York overnight, driving the car filled with village handicrafts for Mary Abbott. That night, after Kate had gone to sleep, I brought the little wooden cask down from the cupboard shelf and, sitting in the bacchante room, drank from it again. I went out and stood staring at the empty cornfield. There was no music; no figures appeared. I put the cask away and went to bed.

Sleeping, this is the kind of darkness I saw: a visible, tangible thing; a fathoms-deep ocean, with a thousand improbable shapes colliding, merging, separating; bright sea anemones folding and unfolding; and more intricate organisms, each geometrically perfect, blossoming scarlet, orange, turquoise, gold. It was as though I could reach out and dip my hand into the dark sea they swam. The dark had texture-soft, pliant, furry-like the pelt of an animal; it had dimension, seeming so high and so wide and so much across; immersed in it, my body displaced its own volume. Its flesh yielded, was weighted, ballasted. A breathing dark. A living thing, pulsing like a heart, throbbing with secret incomprehensible emanations, contracting, expanding.

And hidden in the dark, the eyes; the eyes of Missy Penrose. In dream blackness they stared at me. I leaned to the right, they followed; to the left, they followed still. The dark orb, oval, curved, unblinking. Upon its gelid surface I saw my own reflection, Bluebeard distorted. The eye became a solid sphere, an onyx globe, whose depths foretold events unborn, whose mysteries remained obscure. Saw in the eye great black birds hovering; saw cornfields in ruin; a scarecrow figure. The birds were crows, became harpies with human heads and women's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and in hideous chorus they railed at me. And their eyes again became the child's eyes, and the eyes pursued me and I was running-and I was not running from, but to, for I had found the answer. In my dream I knew, the secret lay bared, and with the answer came realization, came- Daylight, and I sat in our church pew, feeling the sweat running from my armpits down my sides, soaking my s.h.i.+rt. Surrept.i.tiously I loosened my tie, felt in my pocket for a handkerchief, blotted my brow.

The windows of the church were open, bringing the outdoors in, and the breeze, and the beautiful fall. Outside I could see the knoll with its tombstones beneath the spreading branches of the red-gold trees. Gazing out, I was only half hearing Mr. Buxley's sermon, the text of which this morning was taken from the Book of Ruth: "... whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy G.o.d my G.o.d."

Ruth, who had left her own land to follow Naomi into hers, where she had gleaned the fields of Boaz. Ruth in tears amid the alien corn.

Turning my head to the gallery where the girls sat, I saw the child, neither listening to the minister nor looking at him, her blank half-wit look instead directed toward me. I had the feeling that she had not taken her eyes off me since the beginning of the service.

As I had done each day, again I worked the riddle over in my mind. Beware the night Beware the night. Which? The all-prevailing night The all-prevailing night. How would it come? When?

I flicked my eye up to her, once, twice, again. I tried to a.n.a.lyze my feelings about her, and I could not. Except the realization that I felt, in some mysterious way, akin to her. She confused me, and my dreams. I had told myself she was only a thirteen-year-old child. She was playing some sort of game with me, a child's game, nothing more; she was nothing but the village idiot.

Wasn't she?

Yet her staring eyes filled me with a feeling of dread, as though they foretold a terrible event yet to come.

Portent. Omen. Missy Penrose.

Tamar Penrose.

The mother sat below, listening attentively to Mr. Buxley, and I felt, or perhaps imagined, that she was aware I might be looking at her, might be giving thought to her. As the daughter confused me, the mother angered me. There was something about her that seemed not merely predatory but demanding. Hers were not just the requirements of the town doxy from the local turnip-heads behind a haystack. There was something else in her, a deeply ingrained sense of something primitive, of the Woman Eternal, who demanded to be served -not just between the legs but to make man utterly subservient. Tamar the castrator. Moth to flame, I had come close and had my wings singed if not burned. I would not hover near again. I would avoid her as I would contagion. There would be no more episodes in that lady's kitchen, no matter how the invitation was delivered.

And, torn s.h.i.+rt aside, how had Beth known I had been at Tamar's house rather than at the Rocking Horse, or at the covered bridge, or any other place I might have been? Though I told myself women know these things by instinct, still I did not entirely believe it.

From the pulpit, Mr. Buxley droned on interminably, as was his habit. I looked around once more and realized that Worthy Pettinger had changed his mind. He had not come to church, as he had promised the Widow. His seat in the boys' gallery was occupied by another, and there seemed no need for Amys Penrose's rod, though I thought the bell ringer looked unusually attentive as he lounged against the rear wall.

Mr. Buxley concluded his sermon with a stentorian list of begats, ending with Ruth's conceiving Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who became the father of David. He adjusted his gla.s.ses, coughed once, and left the pulpit to sit in a chair behind it. Now, from the pews, the village elders arose to station themselves behind a long harvest table below the pulpit. Mr. Deming nodded, and Justin Hooke stood up from his cus.h.i.+oned pew. He smiled as he put out his hand and drew Sophie to her feet; heads nodded and murmurs of approval were heard. Long after, I remembered the picture they made that day, Justin and Sophie, as they paused in their places. The sun streaming through the window caught their hair, turning it golden, surrounding it with a s.h.i.+ning aureole. They looked at each other with tenderness and feeling, and I thought how blessed they were. Each bringing an ear of corn, they approached the harvest table below the pulpit, renewing the ancient and respected custom of the corn t.i.thes.