The sound and the fury (15 page)

     "What's your name?" I said. She quit looking at me, bu she was still motionless. She didn't even seem to breathe. The woman returned. She had a funny looking thing in her hand. She carried it sort of like it might have been a dead pet rat. 
     "Here," she said. The child looked at her. "Take it," the woman said, jabbing it at the little girl. "It just looks peculiar. I calculate you wont know the difference when you eat it. Here. I cant stand here all day." The child took it, still watching her. The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. "I got to have that bell fixed," she said. She went to the door and jerked it open. The little bell tinkled once, faint and clear and invisible. We moved toward the door and the woman's peering back. 
     "Thank you for the cake," I said. 
     "Them foreigners," she said, staring up into the obscurity where the bell tinkled. "Take my advice and stay clear of them, young man." 
     "Yessum," I said. "Come on, sister." We went out. "Thank you, ma'am." 
      She swung the door to, then jerked it open again, making the bell give forth its single small note. "Foreigners," she said, peering up at the bell. 
      We went on. "Well," I said. "How about some ice cream?" She was eating the gnarled cake. "Do you like ice cream?" She gave me a black still look, chewing. "Come on." 
      We came to the drugstore and had some ice cream. She wouldn't put the loaf down. "Why not put it down so you can eat better?" I said, offering to take it. But she held to it, chewing the ice cream like it was taffy. The bitten cake lay on the table. She ate the ice cream steadily, then she fell to on the cake again, looking about at the showcases. I finished mine and we went out. 
     "Which way do you live?" I said. 
      A buggy, the one with the white horse it was. Only Doc Peabody is fat. Three hundred pounds. You ride with him on the uphill side, holding on. Children. Walking easier than holding uphill.
Seen the doctor yet    have you seen    Caddy
     
I dont have to I cant ask now afterward it will be all right it wont matter
      Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed up. 
     "You'd better take your bread on home, hadn't you?" 
      She looked at me. She chewed quietly and steadily; at regular intervals a small distension passed smoothly down her throat. I opened my package and gave her one of the buns. "Goodbye," I said. 
      I went on. Then I looked back. She was behind me. "Do you live down this way?" She said nothing. She walked beside me, under my elbow sort of, eating. We went on. It was quiet, hardly anyone about
getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed She would have told me not to let me sit there on the steps hearing her door twilight slamming hearing Benjy still crying Supper she would have to come down then getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it
    We reached the corner. 
     "Well, I've got to go down this way," I said. "Goodbye." She stopped too. She swallowed the last of the cake, then she began on the bun, watching me across it. "Goodbye," I said. I turned into the street and went on, but I went to the next corner before I stopped. 
     "Which way do you live?" I said. "This way?" I pointed down the street. She just looked at me. "Do you live over that way? I bet you live close to the station, where the trains are. Dont you?" She just looked at me, serene and secret and chewing. The street was empty both ways, with quiet lawns and houses neat among the trees, but no one at all except back there. We turned and went back. Two men sat in chairs in front of a store. 
     "Do you all know this little girl? She sort of took up with me and I cant find where she lives." 
      They quit looking at me and looked at her. 
     "Must be one of them new Italian families," one said. He wore a rusty frock coat. "I've seen her before. What's your name, little girl?" looked at them blackly for a while, her jaws moving steadily. She swallowed without ceasing to chew. 
     "Maybe she cant speak English," the other said. 
     "They sent her after bread," I said. "She must be able to speak something." 
     "What's your pa's name?" the first said. "Pete? Joe? name John huh?" She took another bite from the bun. 
     "What must I do with her?" I said. "She just follows me. I've got to get back to Boston." 
     "You from the college?" 
     "Yes, sir. And I've got to get on back." 
     "You might go up the street and turn her over to Anse. He'll be up at the livery stable. The marshal." 
     "I reckon that's what I'll have to do," I said. "I've got to do something with her. Much obliged. Come on, sister." 
      We went up the street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken facade blotted slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The marshal wasn't there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low door, where a dark cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked stalls, said to look at the postoffice. He didn't know her either. 
     "Them furriners. I cant tell one from another. You might take her across the tracks where they live, and maybe somebody'll claim her." 
      We went to the postoflice. It was back down the street. The man in the frock coat was opening a newspaper. 
     "Anse just drove out of town," he said. "I guess you'd better go down past the station and walk past them houses by the river. Somebody there'll know her." 
     "I guess I'll have to," I said. "Come on, sister." She pushed the last piece of the bun into her mouth and swallowed it. "Want another?" I said. She looked at me, chewing, her eyes black and unwinking and friendly. I took the other two buns out and gave her one and bit into the other. I asked a man where the station was and he showed me. "Come on, sister." 
      We reached the station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A bridge crossed it, and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the river, backed onto it. A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous and vivid too. In the center of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of gaping and broken pickets stood an ancient lopsided surrey and a weathered house from an upper window of which hung a garment of vivid pink. 
     "Does that look like your house?" I said. She looked at me over the bun. "This one?" I said, pointing. She just chewed, but it seemed to me that I discerned something affirmative, acquiescent even if it wasn't eager, in her air. "This one?" I said. "Come on, then." I entered the broken gate. I looked back at her. "Here?" I said. "This look like your house?" 
      She nodded her head rapidly, looking at me, gnawing into the damp halfmoon of the bread. We went on. A walk of broken random flags, speared by fresh coarse blades of grass, led to the broken stoop. There was no movement about the house at all, and the pink garment hanging in no wind from the upper window. There was a bell pull with a porcelain knob, attached to about six feet of wire when I stopped pulling and knocked. The little girl had the crust edgeways in her chewing mouth. 
      A woman opened the door. She looked at me, then she spoke rapidly to the little girl in Italian, with a rising inflexion, then a pause, interrogatory. She spoke to her again the little girl looking at her across the end of the crust, pushing it into her mouth with a dirty hand 
     "She says she lives here." I said. "I met her down town. Is this your bread? 
     "No spika," the woman said. She spoke to the little girl again. The little girl just looked at her. 
     "No live here?" I said. I pointed to the girl, then at her, then at the door. The woman shook her head. She spoke rapidly. She came to the edge of the porch and pointed down the road, speaking. 
      I nodded violently too. "You come show?" I said. I took her arm, waving my other hand toward the road. She spoke swiftly, pointing. "You come show," I said, trying to lead her down the steps. 
     "Si, si," she said, holding back, showing me whatever it was. I nodded again. 
     "Thanks. Thanks. Thanks." I went down the steps and walked toward the gate, not running, but pretty fast. I reached the gate and stopped and looked at her for a while. The crust was gone now, and she looked at me with her black, friendly stare. The woman stood on the stoop, watching us. 
     "Come on, then," I said. "We'll have to find the right one sooner or later." 
     She moved along just under my elbow. We went on. The houses all seemed empty. Not a soul in sight. A sort of breathlessness that empty houses have. Yet they couldn't all be empty. All the different rooms, if you could just slice the walls away all of a sudden. Madam, your daughter, if you please. No. Madam, for God's sake, your daughter. She moved along just under my elbow, her shiny tight pigtails, and then the last house played out and the road curved out of sight beyond a wall, following the river. The woman was emerging from the broken gate, with a shawl over ner head and clutched under her chary. The road curved on, empty. I found a coin and gave it to the little girl. A quarter. "Goodbye, sister," I said. Then I ran. 
     I ran fast, not looking back. Just before the road curved away I looked back. She stood in the road, a small figure clasping the loaf of bread to her filthv little dress, her eyes still and black and unwinking I ran on 
     A lane turned from the road. I entered it and after a while I slowed to a fast walk. The lane went between back premises-- unpainted houses with more of those gay and startling colored garments on lines, a barn broken-backed, decaying quietly among rank orchard trees, unpruned and weed-choked, pink and white and murmurous with sunlight and with bees. I looked back. The entrance to the lane was empty. I slowed still more, my shadow pacing me, dragging its head through the weeds that hid the fence. 
     The lane went back to a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere path scarred quietly into new grass. I climbed the gate into a woodlot and crossed it and came to another wall and followed that one, my shadow behind me now. There were vines and creepers where at home would be honeysuckle. Coming and coming especially in the dusk when it rained, getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it as though it were not enough without that, not unbearable enough.
What did you let him for kiss kiss
    
I didn't let him I made him watching me getting mad What do you think of that? Red print of my hand coming up through her face like turning a light on under your hand her eyes going bright
    
It's not for kissing I slapped you. Girl's elbows at fifteen Father said you swallow like you had a fishbone in your throat what's the matter with you and Caddy across the table not to look at me. It's for letting it be some darn town squirt I slapped you you will will you now I guess you say calf rope. My red hand coming up out of her face. What do you think of that scouring her head into the. Grass sticks cries-crossed into the flesh tingling scouring her head. Say calf rope say it
    
I didn't kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anyway
    The wall went into shadow, and then my shadow, I had tricked it again. I had forgot about the river curving along the road. I climbed the wall. And then she watched me jump down, holding the loaf against her dress. 
     I stood in the weeds and we looked at one another for a while. 
     "Why didn't you tell me you lived out this way, sister?" The loaf was wearing slowly out of the paper; already it needed a new one. "Well, come on then and show me the house."
not a dirty girl like Natalie. It was raining we could hear it on the roof, sighing through the high sweet emptiness of the barn.
    
There? touching her
    
Not there
    
There? not raining hard but we couldn't hear anything but the roof and if it was my blood or her blood
    
She pushed me down the ladder and ran off and left me Caddy did
    
Was it there it hurt you when Caddy did ran off was it there
    
Oh
    She walked just under my elbow, the top of her patent leather head, the loaf fraying out of the newspaper. 
     "If you dont get home pretty soon you're going to wear that loaf out. And then what'll your mamma say?"
I bet I can lift you up
    
You cant I'm too heavy
    
Did Caddy go away did she go to the house you cant see the barn from our house did you ever try to see the barn from
    
It was her fault she pushed me she ran away
    
I can lift you up see how I can
    
Oh her blood or my blood Oh
    We went on in the thin dust, our feet silent as rubber in the thin dust where pencils of sun slanted in the trees. And I could feel water again running swift and peaceful in the secret shade. 
     "You live a long way, dont you. You're mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself."
It's like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this
    
Oh
    
I used to hold like this you thought I wasn't strong enough didn't you
    
Oh Oh Oh Oh
    
I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said
    
oh oh oh oh
     The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little Pigtails were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped. 
     "Look here. Do you live down this road? We haven't passed a house in a mile, almost." 
     She looked at me, black and secret and friendly. 
     "Where do you live, sister? Dont you live back there in town?" 
     There was a bird somewhere in the woods, beyond the broken and infrequent slanting of sunlight. 
     "Your Papa's going to be worried about you. Dont you reckon you'll get a whipping for not coming straight home with that bread?" 
The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflexionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife, and again, and that sense of water swift and peaceful above secret places, felt, not seen not heard.