Poorhouse Fair (9 page)

"That bastard Conner's afraid to show his face," Gregg said. "Why doesn't he come eat the garbage he gives the rest of us?"

"Can't you picture Mendelssohn now?" Amy Mortis asked at another table. "How he'd have us all singing and shouting prayers and telling us how we all must die? Ah wasn't he the man?"

"Yet we'll see him again," the woman beside her reminded.

They were seeing him now. A great many eyes had lifted from their food and were directed by common impulse toward the vacant dais where the prefect had had his table before Conner came and deemed it arrogant to eat elevated above the inmates. These eyes conjured there the figure of the darkly dressed stocky man with spindly bird legs, nodding his large head with the great nostrils in the lean nose and the eyes pink-rimmed as if on the verge of weeping, and they were again seated at the wooden tables now on the lawn, eating in long rows on cracked and various plates, and afterwards singing in unison, "She'll be coming round the mountain" and then "Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war" and then "With arms wide open He'll pardon you." As the songs grew more religious the rims of Mendelssohn's eyes grew redder, and he was dabbing at his cheeks with the huge handkerchief he always carried and was saying, in the splendid calm voice that carried to the farthest corner and to the dullest ear, how here they all lived close to death, which cast a shadow over even their gaiety, and for him to hear them sing was an experience in which joy and grief were so mixed laughter and tears battled for control of his face; here they lived with Death at their sides, the third participant in every conversation, the other guest at every meal,--and even he, yes even he--but no. Today was not the day for talk of bad health. As the Preacher saith, To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven. This was the day intended for rejoicing. Though for the moment the rain had obscured the rays of the sun, in another hour these rays would break forth again in the glory of their strength and from all the points of the compass people in the prime of their lives, carrying children in their arms, would come to this famous fair.

Conner, who entered the room at the side, had in nearly three years become enough attuned to his wards to perceive in the silence and the one direction of the heads the ghost posturing on the dais; he took a tray up to the counter with his head slightly bowed, in the manner of a man, however insolent, who arrives late at the theatre.

Conversation commenced. The live prefect displaced the dead. Buddy, entering in a crisp shirt and with his damp hair combed flat, blinked at the clatter; one vast bright beast seemed contained in an acoustic cage. The old people began to stand and leave; Buddy and Conner would be left to finish their meal in a nearly deserted room, while the kitchen help, youngsters and matrons from the town of Andrews, waited sarcastically for these last dirty plates to be handed in. Many reported to work at noon, so the kitchen smelled of raincoats.

GREGG overtook Lucas at the spot where Conner and Buddy had met a half-hour before. An oblong of water still stained the crimson linoleum, worn brown where people walked. "Where the hell have you been all goddam morning?" Gregg asked. "Conner make you his Garbage Supervisor?"

"I went in town." Lucas's lower lip, shaped like one of those rare berries that is in fact two grafted together, protruded defiantly. He liked Gregg less and less, Gregg who had never known family, who had never had a woman take the best half of the bed, who still lived in a boy's irresponsible world.

A coward in the face of blunt hostility, Gregg modified his tone. "What did he say about the tags?"

"He said it was for our good."

"S. he did. When that pansy gives a thought to my good I'll be a bag of fertilizer."

"It was interesting to see how his mind works. He said some of the women complained for their husbands who couldn't get a chair when they came in from the fields. So he thought he'd put these tags on and make every chair somebody in particular's."

"God, what a birdbrain story. He's even a bigger nut than Mendelssohn with his singing hymns. Christ, we get the rock bottom here."

"Then he made me go to the west wing, when I hadn't complained, and Angelo jabbed at my ear until I won't be surprised if I go deaf."

"I hope you do. Then sue the s. out of them. You know what I thought? I fetched a cat into the yard this morning, and what we should do is take off the tags and make a collar for the cat--it's a hell of a sick cat, dead on its feet damn near--and sneak the cat up into Conner's office. He's scared s.less of the cat anyway; I was talking to him this morning."

"You were talking to him?"

"Why not? Hell, he came down nosepoking and I went up to him and said, Look out the cat don't eat you, Conner. Listen. I said, This place is full of wild beasts, Conner, bears and tigers as big as your swollen head. You should have seen him stare."

Lucas smiled. "And he didn't say anything?"

"Now what could he say? He's not my boss. Nobody's my f.ing boss here. You think I'm lying."

"Oh, no. Lions and tigers, I believe you, Gregg."

"Bears and tigers. What'd you go into town for?"

"When?"

"This morning, you said you went into town. Lucas, you're slippery. You look slippery and you are."

Wanting to hit Gregg back, Lucas picked up the handiest weapon, the truth. "I went in to get a bottle of rye. Angelo gave me the idea."

"Screw, you didn't."

"Screw I did. I have money. I do a little work around here."

"Being a pig's friend you do. So: Marty's little boy buys a bottle of rye."

Lucas's brain, had not the dull earache been occupying the best part of it, would have ordered his body to walk away, because Gregg's jealousy was driving his tongue beyond all reasonable bounds.

"So: the pig-feeder and the bird-keeper are going to set down in their nice little cozy room with all the holy pictures and get a load on. Son of a bitch if that isn't a picture."

"Martha won't touch it," Lucas said, meaning to show how he operated on his own initiative.

But the sound of the remark was so feeble Gregg laughed delightedly, with genuine good humor. "Well then, share it with me. And some others I can get hold of. Where is it?"

"In my room."

"We'll see you on the porch. Nobody will be sitting out in the rain. I'll steal a cup. Come on, we'll make a holiday out of this mess yet. Come on."

The image Angelo had planted in Lucas's mind had been that of several men drinking together on the grass behind the wall, which was unfeasible due to the rain, so he agreed.

HOOK made haste to be among the first to enter their common sitting room, Andrews's old living-room, furnished in black leather and equipped with a vast cold fireplace. On the central round table he knew the newspaper that the noon mail had delivered would be placed. It was there for him. Many of those who would have coveted it had gone into the smaller room on the other side of the hall, where the mail rack stood, to see what letters had come. Hook had this advantage: there was no one alive in the world who would write him a letter.

He settled on the sofa and unfolded the paper to the obituary page. After perusing these unfamiliar names he revolved the paper to the opposite page, where the editorial opinions were found. The chief one was titled "Two Horns of the Canadian Dilemma":

What shall be done about overweening Montreal? Public opinion is rising hysterically against our neighbor to the north. Two months ago the Dominion was pointedly excluded from any of the chairmanships of the Free Hemisphere conference held at Tampa. The increasingly austral orientation of our policymakers is mirrored by hatred voiced on every street corner against the Old Lady of the North. Now if ever is the time for level-headed review and reassessment of the causes and factors which have led up to the Canadian imbroglio at present facing our policymakers.

The St. Lawrence Seaway, less than a year away from its crystal anniversary, created a new Mediterranean Sea in the nation's heartland. The Great Lake ports of Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, and others proudly expanded to fit their new role of oceanic ports. Despite the warnings of Eastern manufacturers Washington took no steps to discourage the precipitous shift of the nation's economic fulcrum from its traditional position in the Northeast--a shift that did incalculable long-range harm to New Jersey industry and shipping. Montreal bided her time. Not until the commitment of capital and manpower was irrevocable--and here is proof of the thoroughgoing cynicism of her motives--did our courteous neighbor to the north apply her strangle-hold. In the last six years tolls on the St. Lawrence locks have more than quadrupled. The American Midwest has woken and discovered itself locked in the humiliating relationship Paraguay in South America has for centuries endured in relation to Argentina, astride its sole artery to the sea. At the moment of writing it costs more to ship a ton of Nebraska grain from Chicago than from San Francisco, through the Panama Canal, to Europe!

The Canadian dilemma must be understood as having two horns. On the one hand....

Hook had difficulty reading this. The light coming in the windows behind him was gravely muted by the weather, and he had to hold the paper to one side, to avoid the yellow shadow of his head; his face was tilted far back awkwardly so he would get the benefit of his bifocals. His attention moved to the political cartoon. An elderly lady, wrapped in shawls labelled CANADA, hypocritically smiled as she twisted Uncle Sam's arm, which was spiralled as tightly as a rope. Tears flew from his face. The caption was, "Don't Worry, Sam, We'll Get Those Kinks Out Yet!"

Hook folded the paper horizontally and laid it on his knees. Immaculately he interlaced his fingers and laid them on his abdomen, which sloped comfortably as he relaxed into the sofa's inclination. His eyes rested on the drawing of the old lady and she seemed very pleasant in her animation. Without forethought his consciousness faded and he slipped into sleep.

MARTHA had come to the room ahead of him. "No bird," she said. "No little bird." She was sitting on the bed, her lap spread disconsolately; all her public talkativeness (he knew her better than that) had faded away.

He looked automatically for a sign of green life in the thinspun cage, the delicate door of which stood ajar. The little white bath, like a miniature saltlick, held a silent eye of water. The rain outside, steadily filming the panes of the room's one window, seemed to call to this eye. "I don't know what we can do," Lucas said.

"I know it's stuck somewhere. Its claws made nearly a full circle: why couldn't you have taken the poor thing in town?"

"Now Martha. Do you imagine someone trims the nails of the bird in the jungle?"

"That's the jungle. When you take them out of the jungle you become responsible."

"Well, I'll look around the halls."

"Oh my poor legs."

"Here." He went to the bed, plumped out the pillow, then took his wife's ankles and, operating gently against the slight protest of her body, lifted her legs to the bed, so her head fell back into the pillow. She stared at the ceiling.

"On my feet all morning making those buns that now can't be sold," she said.

He took the thin coverlet at the foot of the bed, unfolded it, and dropped it over her, saying, "The room's damp."

"It's the sudden drop in temperature," she agreed. "The twinges I can stand, but this constant dull ache. . . ."

"Close your eyes," he said, "and when you open them, see what's in the cage."

"No letter from Joan," she said with her eyes closed.

On the way out he lifted the bottle from the bureau lightly, not wanting the paper bag to rustle. In the hall he hid it in a niche, behind a statuette of a woman whose thighs swelled through a wet nightgown. One of her hands floated in the air and the fingertips of the other touched one hip. The cylinder her bare feet posed upon was plastered into the bottom of the niche, so she had never been removed, though the mantle of dust on her shoulders had grown black. The patches of dirt the upward-tending planes of the face had received, contrasted with the bright white of the sheltered spots--eyes, and beneath the nose and the lips--gave her a clownish anxious aspect independent of the modelling.

The parakeet must have gone to the left, for to the right, after three doors, there was a dead end, a window laced with chicken wire that could with great effort be opened onto a fire escape. The window and escape were Conner's innovation; in Mendelssohn's day they would have burned.

This was the third floor. To the left Lucas travelled down a bleached corridor, and came to a crossing, four staring corners sharp as knives. One wall still bore ancient medallion wallpaper; the rest were spray-painted ivory. He looked to his right, and there, fluttering at another window of wire and glass, was the parakeet, a dipping arc of green nearly black against the luminous color of the rain.

Lucas approached lightly but before he got very close the bird, of its own volition rather than from an awareness of being chased, darted to the right again, down another hall. By the time Lucas reached the end of this hall the bird had vanished. The channels of wood and plaster were again meaningless. The corridor the parakeet must logically have flown down had windows on the right and vibrated with shadows of the downpour outside. This row of windows gave the effect of a ship, an enclosed promenade; the clammy light fell through still air, free of dust, as at sea. He softly walked down the hall, next to the skin of the house; down below, the roofs and foreshortened fronts of some outbuildings were visible. Through the door of one shed he could see the rug of straw spread in there, dry. The radiators beneath the windows were heating; fog crept up the lower panes. To his left the successive doors were closed; occasional thin cracks revealed flecks of paint and cloth and dead matter. The corridor led to the stairway. Lucas with circumspection moved around in front of the stairs; in his stealth he felt enormously thick, cosmically big: his shoulders were Jupiter and Saturn.