False Entry (67 page)

More than two hours now, almost three. More than time.

Here we are. A car door has just slammed. Is it she? I thought I heard someone’s voice saying over and over Good-by, good-by, God pity you and bless you, my darling. Anna’s. No, I shan’t go to the window. Hang on, by the pen if need be. This is the silence; this is the theme. Stay here.

Pity us, for we are pitiable. But we dare. The city of tribulation is bedouin, is everywhere. Like a host of Atlases we hold each other up, who cannot hold. The sin is not to try; the illusion—to exalt what we can do. Deliver us to one another—to ourselves.

The bell rings. It is she. I walk toward her, bringing her my paring. This is the entry. Nothing concludes but the power to go on. We walk toward. The ordinary, advancing like lichen, covers us all.

Hortense Calisher (1911–2009) was born in
New York City
. The daughter of a young
German
-Jewish immigrant mother and a somewhat older Jewish father from
Virginia
, she graduated from
Barnard College
in 1932 and worked as a sales clerk before marrying and moving to Nyack, New York, to raise her family. Her first book, a collection of short stories titled
In the Absence of Angels
, appeared in 1951. She went on to publish two dozen more works of fiction and memoir, writing into her nineties. A past president of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
and of
PEN
, the worldwide association of writers, she was a
National Book Award
finalist three times, won an
O. Henry Award
for “The Night Club in the Woods” and the 1986
Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize
for
The Bobby Soxer
, and was awarded
Guggenheim Fellowships
in 1952 and 1955.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1961 by Hortense Calisher

Cover design by Kelly Parr

978-1-4804-3737-1

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com