The Laughing Matter

William Saroyan

For Henry Saroyan, and Little Henry

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

A Note on the Author

Chapter 1

“I want a drink,” the boy said.

“Me, too,” the girl said.

“Well, we’re almost there,” the man said. “When we get there you can drink all you want.”

“Is that the house?”

“No, it’s a little farther on.”

They walked on, moving down the dusty road beside the irrigation ditch choked with grass, the afternoon hot, the air full of the smell of leaves, water, fruit, and insects.

The house was old, faded white, and foolish-looking, but that was the way they made them.

“You’ve got the key?” the woman said.

“Certainly I’ve got the key.”

“Let’s see it.”

“Well, if I didn’t have it,” the man said, “we’d get in all right, don’t worry about that.”

He showed the key.

“I suppose we had to walk.”

“Didn’t you enjoy the walk?” the man said. “I did. What’s the good of being in the country if you don’t walk?”

“A mile? After a five-hour train ride?”

“Why not? You get settled. I’ll go back for the suitcases.”

“I suppose you’ll walk?”

“I will.”

“With two heavy suitcases.”

“They’re not heavy.”

“Oh, take a taxi!”

“I want to walk. Do you like the house?”

“It doesn’t look like much from the outside,” the woman said.

“Not you,” the man said. “Red. Do you like it?”

“Isn’t it falling to pieces?” the boy said.

“Yes, with laughter.”

They went up the steps to the front porch, the man put the key into the lock, turned it, then pushed the door open. The boy turned to look again at the vines. He was the last to enter the house, which was dark and cool.

“Where’s the water?” he said.

“You can have some out of the tap right away,” the man said, “or you can wait a minute until I get the pump primed, and then drink some out of the earth.”

“I’ll wait,” the boy said.

They were soon in the yard, the pump was primed with water out of the barrel under the mouth of it, and then water was pouring out steadily, as the man pumped.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We’re going to be here a while. Take off your shoes and walk around in the water.”

The boy flung off his shoes and walked in the puddle.

“O.K.,” the man said. “Now, duck your head under there and drink all you want.”

“No cup?”

“No. Watch me.”

The man put his face alongside the water, and drank; after him the boy, getting his whole face wet. The girl and the woman came out of the house, the girl tried, and got her face wet, too.

The girl removed her shoes and walked in the puddle with the boy. The man walked to the fig tree, took hold of a branch, stretched his body upon it, then lifted himself, the woman watching, the boy and the girl parading in the puddle. The man poked about in the tree and found four ripe figs, one of which he ate, peeling and all. He then peeled one and handed it to the woman, and peeled the others for the boy and the girl.

“What is it?” the girl said.

“Fig,” the man said. “Well, I’ll go get the suitcases. Sit around and talk.”

He turned and wandered off, but there was the boy beside him.

“I’ll go with you.”

“It’s a mile, and a mile back.”

“It’s the same place.”

“Yes. The depot.”

Chapter 2

At the depot a man smiled at the boy and said to the man, “You’re Dade’s brother, aren’t you? I’m Warren Walz. I know this is your boy because he looks so much like you.”

His father stood out on the platform in front of the tracks talking to Warren Walz, who wore a stiff straw hat. When he took it off Red saw that he had no hair on the top of his head.

Over there was a locomotive. The man leaning out of it was looking straight at Red.

“Hi,” Red said.

“Is that your father?” the man said.

“This one,” Red said.

“That’s the one I meant,” the engineer said. “That other one’s got three girls.”

“Smart aleck,” Walz said to Cody Bone, the engineer, “Cody, this is Dade’s brother, Evan.”

“You the professor?”

“Well, I’m at the university.”

“What are you professor of?”

“English.”

“They got professors of that?”

“They’ve got them of just about everything.”

“They got professors of locomotives?”

“No, but maybe they ought to.”

“Get me in up there,” Cody said, “wherever it is.”

“Stanford.”

“Stanford? A young fellow like you?”

“Forty-four.”

“You don’t look any forty-four. Dade don’t look any fifty either, or whatever it is, and you don’t look any forty-four.”

Cody Bone looked down at Red, who had walked to the engine and was looking straight up at him now.

“Why is it hot and black?”

“This is one of the old babies,” Cody said. “I’ve pushed this baby twenty-five years myself, right here in Clovis. You going to be a professor like your father?”

“Yes.”

“Hope you stay around awhile.”

“Week.”

“Well, you be sure and come up here and sit beside me before you go back to Stanford with your father.”

The engineer looked over at the two men, saluted, and put the locomotive to work. Red watched it go. Far down the tracks he saw the big black baby come to three boxcars and bump them. He then saw the engine draw the three cars forward a hundred yards or so, switch across to another set of tracks, then hurry away. He watched until there was nothing more to see, except the vines spread out on either side of the tracks.

“Red,” his father said. “You want to ride home in Mr. Walz’s car?”

“Do you?”

“Well, we’ve been invited to. It’s up to you.”

“I don’t care.”

“He wants to walk,” the man said. “Thanks just the same.”

“Well, at least let me take the suitcases.”

“O.K., and thanks. I’ll see you when I get there.”

“No,” Walz said. “I’ve got to get home, but I know May would love to come over some night and meet Mrs. Nazarenus and the kids. I mean, she’d like all of us to meet, and so would I.”

“We would, too,” Red’s father said, “so make it tonight.”

“I’ll leave them on the porch.”

Walz picked up both suitcases and hurried around the depot to his car.

“Are the bricks hot?” Evan said to the boy.

“They’re not cold.”

“Feet feel good?”

“Yes. Now, look over there in the tracks. There’s grass there, too.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why is it everywhere?”

They began to walk home, moving slowly and lazily.

“It’s strong stuff,” the man said. “I was on a train once in France that stopped close to a castle somewhere. All solid rock. One rock was cracked. Out of the crack grass was growing straight up.”

“How did it get there?”

“The wind.”

“The wind blew the grass into the cracked rock?”

“Blew dust and stuff,” the man said, “and the seeds of grass. Rain got in among the stuff and seeds, and pretty soon green grass was growing out of the rock. And it was green.”

“Real green?”

“Yes. You like it around here?”

“Yes, especially the grass.”

“Did you like the fig?”

“I ate them before.”

“But not off a tree. Was it the same?”

“No, it was better off the tree.”

“You want to sit up with Cody in the locomotive sometime?”

“Where will we go?”

“Around the yards, I guess.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Here was the town now, called Clovis. Here was an old man and an old woman in a carriage drawn by a horse.

“How do you do,” Evan said, nodding to the old couple, who smiled and drove on.

“Who are they?” Red said.

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t everybody know everybody?”

“Not quite. The minute they meet, though, they almost know one another, whoever they are. It’s a matter of meeting them.”

“I know them when I see them.”

“Do you like them?”

“Like them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Red said. “I see them. I know them. I don’t know about liking them, though. Do you mean the way I like Mama and you?”

“What about your sister?”

“And her? Do you mean that way, or something else?”

“I mean any way.”

“I like to see them, I think.”

“But you do like Cody Bone?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, he’s—— Well, don’t you see, I don’t know why I like him. I like grass, but I don’t know why. Do you have to know why?”

“No. Do you like trees?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Vines?”

“Of course.”

“What about the sun?”

“I love the sun.”

“That’s a strong word.”

“I love the sun best of all.”

The sun was over into the late afternoon now. It was closer than he’d ever before known it, and hotter. The bottom of his feet loved it in the soft dust of the road.

“Look over there, Papa,” he said. “There’s Mama and Eva barefooted, walking down the road to meet us.”

“You look good, Mama,” he said when the four of them met in the road.

“I do?” the woman said.

“You look very good.”

“How about you?” the woman said to the man.

“He speaks for me all right,” the man said.

Chapter 3

The smell of coffee, leather, and rocks was in the house. Red found the coffee. It wasn’t in the kitchen where you’d expect it to be. It was in the parlor, in an open jar on the bookshelf, powdered.

“What’s this coffee doing on the bookshelf?” he said.

“Dade doesn’t like to get things in perfect order,” the man said. “Having things in perfect order makes him more unhappy than ever.”

“Is he unhappy?”

“You remember your father’s brother, don’t you?”

“Yes, but is he unhappy?”

“Well, perhaps not.”

“Is he? Tell me.”

“He doesn’t care that he is, so perhaps he isn’t.”

“If he’s unhappy, why is he unhappy?”

“It happens.”

There is something to know, Red thought. There is something more to know about every little thing there is. First you see it, then you know something about it, and then there’s something more to know about it, and if you can’t find out what it is, you’re unhappy.

“Where’s the roses?” he said.

“Roses?” the woman said. “What roses?”

“The roses I smell. Don’t you smell roses, Mama?”

“Do you smell roses?” the woman asked the man.

The man sniffed.

“Is that roses?” he said.

The woman sniffed.

“I don’t smell roses,” she said. “I can’t smell worth a damn, anyway. Never could.” She turned to the little girl. “Do you smell roses, Sexy?”

“Eva,” the girl said.

“Do you smell roses, Eva?” the man said.

The girl sniffed.

“No, Papa,” she said. “And thank you for speaking to me so nice.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the man said.

The girl turned to her mother. “My name is Eva Nazarenus,” she said.

“I gave you the name,” the woman said. “I ought to know what it is.”

“Then why do you say Sexy?”

“It’s your nickname, the way Red is your brother’s.”

“His name is Rex.”

“All right,” the woman said. “Everybody wants to be somebody nowadays. Nobody’s willing to be nobody any more. You’re Eva Nazarenus. Your brother’s Rex Nazarenus. Your father’s Evan Nazarenus.”

“And my mother is Swan Nazarenus.”

“That’s right,” the woman said. “Now, go see if you can find the roses.”

“I don’t want the roses.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“How about a boy to love you? A prince?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“How about some lemonade?”

“No.”

“Fudge? I’ll make some myself, and you can watch and help.”

“Fudge?”

“Yes, Sexy.”

“Nothing.”

“Why?”

“You said Sexy again.”

“I apologize.”

“What’s Sexy mean?” the girl said.

“It means beautiful,” the woman said. “Doesn’t it?” she said to the man.

The man looked at the little girl sitting on the floor with the three books that had quickly bored her.

“Yes, it does,” he said.

“Then why don’t you say it?”

“All right,” the man said. “You are beautiful, Sexy.”

“But not Mama,” the girl said. “She’s got to say Eva Nazarenus. Then I’ll help her make fudge.”

The girl got up and took her mother’s hand and together they went to the kitchen door. There the girl stopped to speak to her father.

“We’re girls,” she said.

The woman laughed, and the girls went into the kitchen.

“The whole house smells good,” Red said. “But I can’t find the roses.”

“They’re somewhere,” the man said.

“I know. I smell them.”

He’s like a red setter, the woman thought. He smells everything there is.

“Will you shell some walnuts for us?” the woman called out from the kitchen.

“No,” the man said.

“Will you, Red?”

“No, Mama. I’ve got to find the roses.”

“Why, Evan? Why does he have to find the roses?”

“Because they’re here somewhere and he wants to know where.”

“Oh,” the woman said.

“I’ll find them, Mama,” the boy said. “I think they’re old and dried, pressed in a book somewhere.”

The woman stepped into the parlor, holding a bowl, the girl standing beside her, holding a wooden spoon.

“Is it possible he’s right?”

“It certainly is.”

“Well, how would he guess such a thing?”

“He didn’t guess. He’s seen roses pressed inside a book.”

“Have you, Red?”

“Sure, Mama.”

“Where?”

“Home. Two white roses pressed in the back of the dictionary, four little red ones in the back of the Bible.”

“Who put them there?”

“You did! Don’t you remember the things you do? Don’t you remember when I found them and asked you about them long ago?”

“What did you do it for, Mama?” the girl said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I found some roses in a book once and decided someday I’d do that, too.”

They went back into the kitchen, but the man could hear them fussing and talking, and so could the boy. Every now and then the man and the boy stopped everything else just to listen. They knew the girls were talking for them to hear, and the girls knew they were being heard. They knew the boys were listening. They were having fun. It was fine to be in the country, in a house on a vineyard, a house that was old but clean and cool.

“Here they are,” Red said. “Not in books. Just this little bunch of them tied together and dropped in this silver bowl over the fireplace. They were red, I think. Very red, I mean, not the color they are now.” He walked to the kitchen. “Do you want to smell them, Mama?”

The woman looked at the roses.

“I’m going to cry,” she said.

“You’re not!”

“I am!”

She went to the piano in the parlor, sat on the bench, and wept, the boy following her and watching her face, the girl standing beside the boy, the man getting up from his chair.

“You’re not crying, are you, Mama?” Red said. “Mama’s not crying, is she, Papa?”

The boy put his arms around his mother and said, “Mama, for God’s sake, you’re not crying, are you?”

The little girl put her arms around her brother. “Mama,” she said, “don’t cry. What’s she crying for, Red?”

“What’s the matter, Swan?” the man said.

“I can’t look at beautiful things ended, that’s all,” the woman said. “The sight of them scares me to death.”

“Come on, Swan,” the man laughed.

“I want figs off a tree,” the woman said, “the way it was this afternoon. I want everything that way. Forever.”

“Forever?” Red said. “What’s she mean?”

“Ah, Swan,” the man laughed. “Cut it out, will you?”

“No,” the woman wept.

The man put his arms around the three of them.

The woman stopped weeping and began to laugh suddenly, hugging and kissing everybody.

“My kids,” she laughed. “My man, and my kids.”

She was up quickly and back to the kitchen, as if nothing had happened. What did his mother mean? Why did she cry, and then laugh and kiss everybody? He took the roses back to the silver bowl on the mantel over the fireplace and put them back in it. Then, standing on the chair, he looked at his father, who was standing at the open front door, looking out.

“Papa?”

“Yes, Red.”

“Why did Mama cry?”

“I don’t know. Swan,” he called suddenly, “I’m going for a walk.”

She came running out of the kitchen.

“Wait for me!”

“Sure, Swan.”

“The hell with the fudge,” she said. “Who wants fudge, anyway? I don’t know why I start things like fudge in the first place. Where’ll we walk?”

“How about town?”

“Really?”

“To the depot and back?”

“Taxi back?”

“Sure.”

Chapter 4

Most of the way on the walk to town Evan carried the little girl. When they reached the lights of the town, though, she got down to find out what it was all about. There was a difference here that she couldn’t account for, until at last she noticed the sky, as if it were a burst of fireworks.

“I’m going to grab them,” she said. “I’m going to grab the stars.”

“Evan?” the woman said. “Look at that sky. Look at the stars in that sky.”

“Yes.”

The four of them were looking straight up at the stars when a woman with three girls came blinking out of a movie and, speaking with laughter in her voice, said, “I’m May Walz.”

Red and Eva turned away from the stars to look at the three girls. The five of them were soon at work at a game of skipping on the sidewalk while May and Swan talked, and Evan listened. Then the woman, heavy and hearty, asked her daughters to latch onto her, which they instantly did, all of them holding hands.

“Come on over,” Swan said.

“Won’t it be too late?”

“No. Come on over and we’ll sit on the porch and talk.”

May Walz and her daughters went along.

“They were all girls,” Eva said. “Where’s their boys?”

“The father didn’t want to go to the movie,” the woman said. “He stayed home.”

“Where’s the other boys?”

“They don’t have any. Just the father.”

“Why didn’t he want to go?”

“I don’t know. I guess he’d seen the movie.”

Clovis had a twinkle, besides the stars. The lights of the streets and stores weren’t much for brightness, but the whole place seemed glad, as if to be around at all.

Red heard some men laugh inside a saloon.

A man in the street asked Evan for a dime and Evan gave him a quarter.

“Show-off,” the woman said.

“No, Mama,” Eva said. “The man’s lost his mama. Papa gave him money so he can find her.”

In the taxi, more asleep than awake, the girl said, “Papa, when will he find her?”

“Tomorrow.”

She was asleep before the taxi reached the house. He took her to her room, got her undressed, and put her down to sleep.

Red was standing alone in the parlor. The woman was out on the front porch, sitting in the rocker.

“Is the smell of rocks from the water?” Red said. “Is that it? Is it from outside the house? The house is all wood. Where’s the smell of rocks coming from? There’s the leather chair—smooth black leather—but there’s no rocks in the house.”

“It may be from the outside,” the man said. “It may not be rocks at all, and perhaps not even water, or not water alone. Perhaps it’s water, grass, leaves, earth, and whatever else is alive around here. Perhaps other things, too. Aren’t you tired?”

“Yes, Papa.”

He looked at his father, his eyes smiling, the rest of his face grave.

“Mama was funny in Clovis.”

“What did she do?”

“When she said show-off to you. When she talked to May, and May’s girls. She was funny all the time.”

“She was?”

“She was very funny. She loved everything. She was sad, too. When you love everything, and you’re sad, it makes you funny, doesn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, when somebody sees somebody sad loving everything, the one who sees it—well, the sad one makes him glad.”

“Oh.”

“Now, tomorrow, Papa,” he said, “I’m going to find the rocks, or find out what it is that smells like rocks. I mean, cool rocks.”

“O.K., Red.”

“Mama?” Red said.

“Yes, Red.”

“You were very funny in Clovis.”

He went out on the porch and leaned against the rocker, holding her hand, then kissed the inside of it because he’d seen the man do that and because it was good to do. The woman took his head in her hands and looked at him, and he saw the sorrow in her eyes.

“You were funny, too, Red.”

“Did I love everything, too?”

“Love everything?”

“The way you did in Clovis?”

“Did I love everything in Clovis?”

“Yes, Mama. I saw you. Did I love everything, too?”

“Yes, Red. Yes, you did.”

“Good night, Mama,” the boy said. He kissed the inside of each hand quickly, didn’t look at her again, then loafed away into the house.

“Good night, Papa,” she heard him say in the parlor.

“Can you take care of yourself?” the man said.

“I’m six, almost six and a half!”

“O.K., Red.”

Evan was at the kitchen sink washing black grapes that Dade had left in the refrigerator, peaches and nectarines.

The way it was with Dade was that they’d come and gone, he’d had them and lost them, and all that was left was a house built for many, a house that Dade himself had built when he was twenty-nine, two big bedrooms and three little ones, the little ones for the ones he had scarcely seen, one of the big ones for his woman and himself, the other for his brother Evan and Evan’s woman, whenever they might visit him.

Well, here was a plate of grapes from Dade’s vineyard. He was about to go to Swan with the grapes when Red came into the kitchen and said, “Could it be, Papa, that it’s Dade himself, and not rocks at all? Does a thing like that happen?”

“Yes,” the man said, “that may be it. That may be part of it, at any rate, Red. You want a peach before you go to sleep?”

“No, thanks, Papa.”

The man went out onto the porch, the plate of fruit in one hand, a small table in the other. He set the table down beside the woman and put the plate on it.

“Would you rather drink, Swan?”

“I’d like to get drunk.”

“O.K. We’ll look at the fruit, then.”

He went back to the kitchen, opened a bottle, filled a silver bucket with ice from the refrigerator, got tall glasses, shaved peeling from a lemon, and filled a glass pitcher with cold water. He poured drinks on the porch, and they began to drink. He lighted a cigarette, and Swan reached for it. He gave it to her and lighted another. They drank and smoked in silence. The man sat on the railing of the porch, not directly in front of his wife but to one side. In the silence they listened to one another, actually heard one another breathing, and then at last the woman said his name very softly. It was not whispered, it was spoken, but so softly that it might have been Eva Nazarenus herself speaking a year ago, the softest speech either of them had ever heard.

“Yes, Swan?”

“I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“I’m scared to death.”

“Don’t be.”

“I don’t want to be, but I am. I know the kind of man you are, the kind your brother is, the kind your father must have been, the kind Red is.”

The man got down from the railing, freshened his drink, then hers, for he knew she had something else to say. He was beginning to tighten up inside about the difficulty she was having saying it. He handed her the freshened drink and looked into her eyes. Then he put his drink down, and hers, picked her up out of the chair and embraced her, not kissing her mouth, only holding her. He came near to rage when he heard her sob. He let her go, picked up his drink, and went down the steps to the walk.

“What is it, Swan?”

“Jesus, Evan.”

“What is it?”

“I wish I were dead.”

“Why, Swan?”

“Let me drink a little,” the woman said. “Please let me drink a little first.”

He leaped up onto the porch to the table and the bottle. He took the bottle and poured out of it over the ice in his glass until it was full, and drank the glass dry.

“Drink a little, Swan,” he said.

He poured into her half-empty glass and she drank as he had.

“I know the kind you are,” she said.

“What kind, Swan?”

He almost knew now what she couldn’t tell him. He dropped cubes of ice into his glass, poured whiskey again, drank again, and refused to believe.

“Listen,” he said. “Maybe you’d better not tell me.”

“No,” the woman said. “I’ve got to tell you.”

She finished her drink and stared at him.

“The boy said you loved everybody in Clovis,” the man said. “He said you were beautiful in Clovis. He said you were funny because you loved everybody.”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“What is it, Swan?”

“Can I have one more drink? Please.”

“No!” he shouted. “What is it? Make it fast. Get it over with. Don’t fool around with it. Let’s have it.”

“I’m pregnant,” the woman said quickly. “It’s not ours.”

The man picked up the bottle by the neck. The woman cringed, thinking he meant to strike her. He poured his glass a quarter full, added water, and handed it to the woman. He took her glass and poured it almost full, and began to drink.

He sat up on the railing again, holding the glass, and began to cry softly. The woman got up out of the chair, and went to him.

He leaped from the railing to the walk, threw the glass far out into the vineyard, and hurried away. When he reached the road, he stopped and turned and saw the woman following him. He began to run down the same road along which only an hour ago the four of them had loafed. When he had gone about fifty yards he stopped again, turned, and saw that she was lying at the foot of the steps.

A car was coming toward him now, moving swiftly. It slowed down, then almost stopped. He saw that it was Warren Walz and his wife May, but he turned away. The car drove on slowly. It stopped at the turn, and he saw Walz get out and walk quickly toward the woman.

He ran across the road into the vineyard.

Chapter 5

Red heard his father shout, but he’d heard that before, many times. At first hearing his father shout had scared him and made him vaguely angry. Once it had filled him with sudden hatred. He’d flung himself at his father, who had only picked him up.

“You don’t understand,” he’d said.

He’d put Red down, and Red had felt ashamed, for he had instantly understood. Still, he wished Evan wouldn’t be so angry at her. When Swan was angry at Evan it was bad enough, but there was something amusing about it, and while it annoyed Red to think Evan was being made angry, Swan’s anger never seemed in earnest. She always seemed to mean something else by it.

He sat up suddenly, then got out of bed, in the dark, and stood a moment at the door. He felt strangely sick, and began to shiver. At last he went out into the dark hall, then into the parlor.

Warren Walz saw the boy trying to lift up his mother, holding a hand, dropping it, and then trying to lift her by the head.

“I’m Warren Walz,” he said to the boy. “We met at the depot.”

“What’s the matter with my mother?”

“Here,” Warren said. “Let me lift her up.”

May Walz came quickly, the husband and wife got the woman to her feet and moved her slowly up the steps. She saw Red holding the door open, wrenched herself free, went to him, took him up in her arms, and went into the house. She slammed the door shut and moved with the boy through the dark house. She struck a table somewhere, lost her balance, and fell.

Red got out of her embrace and helped her to her feet.

“Mama?” he said. “Turn on a light.”

“No,” she whispered. “No. I don’t want a light.”

Outside, the husband and wife looked at one another.

“That was him on the road, wasn’t it?” the wife said.

“Of course.”

“Hadn’t you better go after him?”

“I don’t know. After all, it’s none of our business.”

“You better go after him,” the wife said. “We just can’t get back into the car and go home. I’ll stay here on the porch until she feels like coming out again, or until you come back.”

“Let me take you home,” the man said. “I don’t think we’d better stick our necks out.”

“Something’s the matter,” the woman said. “Why doesn’t she turn a light on?”

“Let me take you home.”

“Go after him. I’ll stay here.”

“Hell fire,” the man said, “they’ve had a little fight. They’re both ashamed and want to be left alone.”

“Go after him, Warren.”

“Oh, Christ,” the husband said.

“His brother’s your friend,” the woman said.

“His brother’s nobody’s friend,” the man said. “This is none of our business.”

“Will you please shut up and go after him?” the woman said.

“Ah, the hell with you, too,” the man said, and went to the car. He turned it around and drove back along the road. The woman watched him go; then, deeply frightened, tiptoed up the steps of the porch to the door. There was nothing to be heard from inside the house.

The boy was back in bed, wide awake in the dark.

“Don’t cry,” he said.

“He’s your father,” the woman sobbed. “He loves you. He loves Eva.”

“Does he love you, Mama?”

“Yes, he loves me, too.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I can’t tell you, Red. I can’t tell you, but I love you.”

Now, she sobbed more terribly than ever. What was the matter? What was it, always? Why couldn’t anything be the way it ought to be? Why was everything always strange, mysterious, dangerous, delicate, likely to break to pieces suddenly?

“I love you, and I love him, Red,” the woman said. “I don’t love Eva because she’s like me. I hate Eva.”

“Mama!”

“I love her. I love her, too, Red.”

“She found the stars, Mama.”

“Yes. I love her.”

“Nobody else found them. She’s the one who found them. Didn’t she?”

“Yes, she found them, Red.”

“What’s the matter, Mama?” the boy said.

“I can’t tell you, Red.”

“Don’t you know, Mama?”

“I know.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t tell you, Red”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” the woman wept.

Chapter 6

When he had crossed the vineyard and had come to another road he stopped running and began to walk, burning badly, drunk now, and suddenly deadly tired. He stumbled over something—my dirty life, he thought—and fell. He stayed fallen and hurt, inhaling the dust his fall had made, tasting it. He reached forward and clutched the dirt, then got to his feet.

He walked again, tripped over something again, fell hard, and this time cried out, “Oh, Red, my son! Oh, Eva, my daughter!” He wept shamelessly now, the tears mixing with the blood of his cut face.

A car stopped and somebody came and stood over him.

“I’m driving to Fresno, if you want to go.”

He got up without help. He wanted to be polite but he wasn’t ready to look into any man’s face just yet. In the car, he wiped the blood and dirt from his face.

“You don’t see many drunks in the country.”

“I’m awfully grateful to you,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Mind if I do?”

“No.”

“Well, I saw you back a little in the vineyard there. I thought I ought to see how you made out. I don’t know why. It’s none of my business. Another time I would have driven by. That’s all.”

The driver of the car didn’t speak again until they came to the center of the town. He parked the car, and the man turned to look at him for the first time. He was amazed to see a man so young.

“Evan Nazarenus,” he said.

“I know,” the other said. “I’m Cody Bone’s boy. I know Dade. You look alike. Anyway, Cody told me he’d seen you at the depot.”

The young man tried to smile, then got out of the car. The man got out and walked away. He reached a corner, went into a bar, glanced at the drinkers, then went out to the street again. A taxi drew up to let out a young man and a young woman, and the man stepped into it.

“The airport,” he said.

At the airport he asked for a ticket to San Francisco, then went to the phone booth and tried to get his brother. The hotel said his brother was out. Five minutes before flight time he tried again and his brother came on the line.

“Can you meet me at the airport?”

“Sure. When?”

“An hour, I think.”

“I’ll be there.” He waited a moment. “Evan?” his brother said.

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“O.K.”

The man went out and got aboard the plane.

Chapter 7

He saw his brother, a man of fifty, standing at the gate, a little off from a cluster of seven or eight people, including a small boy and girl. When he came to the gate Evan Nazarenus looked at the boy, about four, and the girl, about six, and loved them with terrible pity.

The brothers noticed one another quickly, and then Evan said, “How about walking?”

“Sure.”

They moved in silence to the highway and began to walk toward San Francisco.

He told his brother softly, suddenly.

“How’s Red?” his brother said.

“He breaks my heart, but she’s his mother, Dade.”

“How’s Eva?”

“She breaks my heart, too.”

“How’s Swan?”

“What?”

“Swan.”

The younger brother stopped walking. He wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to turn and walk away.

“You’re not trying to be funny, are you, Dade?”

“How’s the mother of your kids, Evan?”

“Didn’t you hear what I told you? Or did I say it to myself?”

“I heard you. How’s Swan?”

They walked in silence again until they came to a road.

“Where’s that road go to?” Evan said.

“San Bruno,” his brother said.

The younger brother moved down the road quickly, the older one staying close beside him.

“What do you want me to ask you?” Dade said.

“Anything. Ask me why I didn’t kill her.”

“O.K.”

“Because I love her. What’s the matter with us?”

“How is she?”

“I don’t know. I guess she’s dying. What’s the matter with us, Dade?”

“What do the kids know?”

“Red can’t figure out what it is in your house that smells like rocks. What’s the matter with Red, Dade?”

“Does he know?”

“He knows. By now he knows. The smell of leather is from the chair in the parlor. He found the coffee on the bookshelf. He found the dried bouquet of roses in the silver bowl over the fireplace. He wanted to know if the smell of rocks came from you, from living alone in a house that not so long ago had two small sons and a small daughter in it. He knows by now. He knows something. He’s very close to her. He loves her as I do, with something more of his own. What’s the matter with us, Dade?”

“I don’t know what the smell of rocks is from,” Dade said.

“What’s that bouquet?”

“Hers.”

“How is she? How is your wife?”

“I don’t know, Evan.”

“You can ask me,” the younger brother said. “You can ask me, but when I ask you, you say you don’t know. Is that all? I’m already pitying her. Is that all because of your pride? You don’t know. Is that all?”

“That’s all, Evan.”

“After all this time? Nine years?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Who do we think we are?”

“It’s dirty anyway,” the older brother said, “but if you don’t have pride it’s dirtier.”

“All right, Dade,” he said. “Jesus, all right. Can’t we be dirtier? Can’t we be the dirtiest?”

“I don’t know. Can we? Can’t we?”

“I told you I’m already pitying her,” Evan said. “What’s the matter with us, Dade?”

“You remember some of the boys we knew that are dead,” his brother said. “That’s what’s the matter with us. We’re not. Who are mine, the three of them? Who are they?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “Yes, you want me to go along with any pity I happen to feel. You wouldn’t take anything, but you want me to take anything.”

They came to houses, to sidewalks, walked three blocks, then the younger brother turned around and they began to walk back. When they reached the airport he went to the ticket seller and bought a ticket back.

It was almost five in the morning when he reached his brother’s house in Clovis. He went in and found the little girl lying naked on top of her bed, her body strewn about in comfort that seemed everlasting. He thought he would see the boy next, but he saw the boy and his mother together, the boy almost as relaxed as his sister, but the woman tense and pathetic. He stood staring at them, and then the woman opened her eyes. For a moment she didn’t remember, then did, and sat up quickly, nakedly. Her face twisted, she began to cry silently, her head falling limp, her hair covering her swollen breasts. She got out of bed, hugged him, and whispered something that wasn’t words of any kind. He moved with her to their own room and drew back the coverings of her bed. She got in, sobbing, and he sat down to wait, although he couldn’t imagine what he could possibly be waiting for now.

Chapter 8

He sat in the room in deadly stupor, staring at the floor, his eyes open but blind, listening to the poor woman, not thinking anything and not speaking. It was more than an hour until their daughter, finding them, flung herself into his arms, as if she were her mother absolved. He hugged her, putting his lips to her neck, keeping them there in the same deadly stupor, still unable to think or understand. The woman stopped sobbing when the girl appeared, for she knew she must.

“You’re up before me, Papa,” the girl said, “and I’m always first.” She turned to the woman. “Mama!” she said. “You’re awake, too.”

The woman tried to smile. The girl went to the woman and got in bed beside her, moving swiftly to get as close to her as possible.

“Papa,” she said, “what’s the matter with your face?”

“I stumbled.”

“Papa!” the girl said with absolute disbelief. “You don’t stumble! Red stumbles! I stumble! You never stumble, Papa.”

“I stumbled.”

“Did you fall, Papa?”

“On my face.”

“Oh, Papa!” the girl said, getting out of bed.

She ran to kiss him. He watched the woman, and when he saw her face twisting to cry, he shook his head, and she stopped.

“Poor Papa,” the girl said. “Did you stumble like a little boy?”

“No,” he said, and then had to go on, speaking to both of them. “I stumbled like a husband, like a father.” He hugged the girl suddenly, bitterly angry at himself, and then, speaking almost with laughter, “Anybody can stumble.”

“Does it hurt, Papa?”

“No.”

“Mama,” the girl said, “next time Papa’s going to stumble, you help him.”

“Yes.”

“Can I go tell Red, Papa?”

“Sure.”

The girl ran out of the room. After a moment the woman whispered the man’s name again, as if she were the girl herself.

“You’d better get up,” the man said. “Get them breakfast. You can sleep some more after they’re out in the yard.”

The woman leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. The girl came back with the boy.

“Let me see.”

He examined his father’s face.

“Papa?”

“Yes, Red.”

“I heard you last night.”

“We’ll talk about it some other time, Red. Now, go get dressed.”

“Will you help me get dressed, Papa?” the girl said.

“Sure.”

He got up at last, getting up suddenly, and went with the girl to her room, the boy running there after a moment, to be with them, bringing his clothes, dressing there.

“I heard a lot of birds singing a long time ago,” he said.

“Me, too,” the girl said.

“I didn’t get out of bed to look at them,” he said. “I almost didn’t even wake up to hear them, but I heard them just the same. They sang a long time, and they’re still doing it. One of them—I guess it was one of them—did it in the dark, in the night, all the time Mama was crying and waiting for you to come home.”

“Red?”

The man looked at his son and shook his head.

“Yes, Papa,” the boy said. And then he said, “What is a bird?”

“Well,” the man said, “whatever it is, it’s there by accident, like everything else alive.”

“Accident?” the boy said. “Like the accident on the highway we saw that time, two automobiles smashed and turned over, the wheels up instead of down?”

“No,” he said. “Like the accident of seeing somebody you’ve never seen before and liking her so much that together you make a family. Like the accident of meeting her, and the accident of who your children are when they are born.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I do,” the girl said.

“No, you don’t,” the boy said. “You just say you do.”

“I do!” the girl said. “I do understand.”

“Then explain it,” the boy said.

“Well,” the girl said.

“Well…”

The boy laughed.

“She didn’t say anything, Papa.”

“Don’t laugh,” the girl said. “I said something. Didn’t I, Papa?”

The woman came to the room, washed and clean, in a blue cotton dress, her hair combed neatly.

“I’ll get you both a big breakfast,” she said. She was trying hard to go along as if nothing were the matter. “I’ll gather some figs from the tree, peel them, cut them up, pour cream over them. Then you’ll have crisp bacon with boiled eggs, toast, and milk.”

She glanced at the man as she went off, but he wasn’t looking at her.

He went to the bathroom for a shower. When he was dressed the kids were in the yard playing, the boy high in the fig tree, the girl standing under it to catch the ripe figs he was finding for her. They were speaking with voices louder than he had ever before heard in them because they were in the country, in another climate, in a place where things were growing and ripening, where the sun was near and hot. The woman was somewhere in the house. He went to the telephone and asked the operator to get him Warren Walz. When the man came on the line he said, “Come to dinner tonight. Bring the girls. Come at six, and we’ll have a drink.”

He went out on the porch and stood there in the sunlight. A car drove up and Cody Bone got out.

“I met your son last night,” Evan said.

“So he told me,” Cody said. “I pass here every morning on my way to work. Thought I’d stop in case the boy wants to ride in the locomotive.”

“Where would you go? I mean, that’s what he wanted to know.”

“We’d work around the yards.”

They went to the fig tree, and from high up in it the boy saw Cody. At first he wasn’t sure it was Cody because when he had first seen him Cody had been part of the locomotive, but when the man smiled and Red saw the square teeth, he knew who it was.

“This is my daughter, Eva,” Evan said.

“Eva,” Cody said.

“How do you do,” the girl said.

The boy was down and out of the tree, to see the man out of the locomotive, away from it, a thing he especially wanted to notice. It was a great difference, but the man was still the man Red liked.

“You want a fig?” Red said. He offered the one in his hand.

“I certainly do,” Cody said. He ate the fig whole. “I just came by to say hello.”

“No,” Evan said. “Mr. Bone came by to find out if you’d like to ride in the locomotive. Around the yards.”

“When?” Red said.

“Now,” his father said, “if you like.”

The boy looked from his father to Cody, thinking about it, perhaps a little frightened.

“All right,” he said. “You want to go watch, Eva?”

“Yes,” the girl said.

They walked around the house to Cody’s car, the woman in the house moving from the kitchen to the parlor to watch. She saw the engineer help the children into the front seat, to sit there beside him, and she saw her husband get in the back. When they were gone she wept bitterly, wandering around the house, straightening things out.

She had heard her husband on the telephone speaking to Warren Walz, and she knew that by six o’clock she’d have to gather herself together, but what was she to do?

Chapter 9

“He’s just like his brother,” Warren Walz said to his wife. “Not a word about last night. No concern at all about what we might have put ourselves through trying to be helpful. Not even the decency to ask if we’d like to come to dinner. An order. Come to dinner. Come at six. Bring the girls. We’ll have a drink. Just like that.”

“It couldn’t have been something ordinary,” May Walz said. “She couldn’t have been that rude if it had been something ordinary. She slammed the door in my face.”

“I went all over Clovis looking for him,” the man said. “Into every place that was open. The bars, the park, the poolroom, Susie’s.”

“Susie’s?” the woman said. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I was too busy trying to get you calmed down,” the man said. “You were frightened.”

“I was sure she’d come and open the door,” the woman said. “Other people fight and still manage to be polite. After all, they had asked us over. You weren’t too busy to tell me everything else. What’s it like?”

“Messy.”

“Was anyone there?”

“Two Mexican boys and an old man.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, it won’t get around that you went there, will it?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“A thing like that could be an awful nuisance,” the woman said. “This isn’t a big town like Fresno, or a city like San Francisco, where such things go unnoticed. Dade doesn’t go to San Francisco to visit the museums, does he?”

“What do you mean?”

“He goes for a week or so every couple of months, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He never has to do with anybody we know here.”

“I don’t know anything about Dade,” the man said. “What’s more, I don’t want to. It’s none of my business why he goes to San Francisco. I don’t like his brother any more than I like him. I’ll phone and say we can’t make it.”

“We’ve got to go.”

“Why?”

“To let them save face, at least,” the woman said. “After all, if they’ve got no manners, we have.”

“Both of them make me feel uncomfortable,” the man said. “Inferior, even. I don’t want to go.”

“We’ve got to go,” the woman said.

“You want to find out what the trouble was,” the man said. “I don’t care what it was. What could it have been? He’s crazy, like his brother. They had a fight, and he went off. He came back, and it was all over. I don’t want to go. I don’t like being told to come to dinner.”

“I’m sure he meant to be as polite as possible under the circumstances,” the woman said. “I’m sure he gave you credit for knowing he was ashamed. I’m sure he believed you’d understand his need to make the invitation as short as possible. After all, he did remember to call. That alone shows that he’s not insensitive to our having been involved. He called early. It would be rude not to be there, all of us, at six.”

“I don’t like him,” the man said.

“Even so,” the woman said. “I think we’ve manners enough to go as if nothing had happened. Their kids are lovely and get along with ours so well. They’ll have fun, at any rate.”

“I don’t like the idea of going, that’s all,” the man said. “I’d like to think of some halfway decent way of getting out of it.”

“It’ll be easy to get out of it,” the woman said, “but there’s no way of getting out of it decently. Getting out of it can mean almost anything to them. Wouldn’t it be simpler to forget last night and go?”

“Sure it would,” the man said. “But I’m not sure I want to forget last night. You gave me a rough time. You gave yourself a rough time. What the hell for? You came home from the pictures and said they insisted that we go over. We put the kids to bed, with Mrs. Blotch sitting in the parlor, and we drove there. We found a drunken maniac on the road, who refused to greet us, or let us greet him. We found his wife in a faint in front of the house. We found his son trying to lift her up. The woman slammed the door in our faces. I chased all over town, going into places I don’t like to be seen in, looking for him. You stood there on the porch at the door half the night, scared to death. We sat up until three in the morning because we were so keyed up, believing we ought to, believing they might telephone. I’m not sure I want to forget last night. I think I’d rather forget him and his brother.”

May Walz had never known her husband to be so garrulous or so bitter about anything.

“I know what we’ll do,” he went on. “We’ll pack up and drive to Yosemite for a week. We’re planning to go before summer’s over, anyway. Why not go now? I’ll drive over and tell him, instead of phoning. That’ll make it decent enough. He’ll understand. I think he’ll prefer it. I’ll tell him the kids have had it in their hearts to get to Yosemite all summer, and they’ve been so eager to go lately that we decided to do something for once when they want us to.”

“We always have, haven’t we?” the woman said.

“That’s not the point,” the man said. “I’ll even ask them to go with us. He’ll refuse of course. I want to get this whole business out of the way. I don’t like it. I’ll drive over now. You start packing.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” the woman said. “It’s not as terrible as all that, whatever it is.”

“No, May. I don’t want to hang around.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Maybe I am,” the man said. “Even so, will you please do something for me once in a while? Will you pack up and get the kids ready?”

“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve made awful fools of ourselves.”

“We have?”

“They’ve made fools of us, I mean.”

“They have?”

“We got ourselves all worked up about people who haven’t the slightest interest in us, who regard us as dull and boring, who think we’re amusing, who laugh at us.”

“I had no idea,” the woman said. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s not decide one way or another for a little while. It’s early. We can always get to Yosemite in three hours. Can I have the car? I want to drive to Fresno to do a little shopping. When I get back we’ll decide.”

“How long will you be?”

“An hour or two.”

“Don’t take longer. I’ll be packing.”

“Warren,” the woman said with astonishment. “Let’s decide when I get back.”

“O.K.”

She looked at him strangely, and he noticed that she did.

“May,” he said, “I just don’t like shabbiness.”

“We’ll decide when I get back,” the woman said.

She put on a yellow button sweater and went out, the man following her to fetch a saw for some work he wanted to do. The kids were playing under an old olive tree he meant to trim.

“Mama’s driving to Fresno if you want to go,” he told them.

They decided after a moment that they did.

He was soon alone under the tree locking up for dead branches to saw off. He got up into the tree and began to saw upon the lowest of the dead branches, stopped suddenly, went into the house, and telephoned a friend in Madera, a man he had known longer than the twenty years he’d known Dade Nazarenus. He’d had a specific purpose in calling this man, but as they chatted he decided not to make this purpose known. Instead, he asked the man to come out and visit them real soon. He then went back to the olive tree to see about getting at least one of the dead branches removed.

In the 1948 Buick the woman wondered what could have upset him so. The clatter of the children, which she usually loved, now irritated her. When she suddenly slapped the youngest one for not sitting still after she had been asked twice to do so, May Walz drew the car off the highway and stopped. She joined the child in weeping silently, and after a moment all four of them were weeping silently, as if they knew why.

Chapter 10

Eva Nazarenus sat between Cody Bone and Rex Nazarenus, a man on one side, a boy on the other. Another man, her father, sat in the seat behind her.

She was alone with three men, three boys, going in a car down a hot road with irrigation ditches on each side of the road, each ditch choked with grass of all kinds, beyond each ditch vines or trees set out in perfect order, so that every time you noticed them there was a whole big design to see, and then any number of smaller designs.

This was another place, with another way about it. The way here was sun, and early in the morning birds. The way here was uncrowded, planted with trees instead of people. The trees stayed where they were. They stayed so long that if a boy wanted to climb one all he had to do was what her brother Rex had done. Get up into it and go—go, and then far up in it, reach for ripe figs, and let them fall from his hands to hers. She didn’t catch many of them. The ones she did catch smashed a little, but she could eat them just the same, and she had eaten three. The others she had put aside for her father or her mother or for the man who’d lost his mother, in case he came by.

She had heard of Clovis long ago, of Dade Nazarenus and Clovis. Here she was in this place, in an automobile, going to watch Red do something.

What was Red going to do? It must be something special. The man beside her must be special, too. She didn’t know him, but she knew he was nice. Red was quiet beside her at first, and then, seeing a rabbit run across the road, stopped being quiet.

“Rabbit, Papa!” he said. “Did you see the rabbit? Now, why is he the way he is?”

Eva listened to her father going to the trouble of trying to answer Red’s question, the way he always did, always trying to answer Red’s questions, and hers, and Mama’s, taking every question seriously, thinking about it, trying to give the right answer. Out of a wish to comfort him, she got up and climbed over the front seat to be with him.

She had nothing to say while doing this, but he was there, as she knew he’d be, ready to help her across the seat. He was still giving Red the answer, but as he went on talking, he looked into her eyes, then drew her to him. She put her arms around him and squeezed with all her might because he was the one, he was the best, better than all the rest of them put together, he was the one who truly understood and loved her, the one who smelled the way she knew a man should smell, the one who had the face and hands and way of her own man. She squeezed, and then scrambled away to sit quietly beside him, her hands folded on her lap, sitting all the way back in the seat, being there but no longer listening to anything.

Cody Bone had known Dade Nazarenus from the time, twenty years ago, he’d come to Clovis in a Ford roadster with the top down and driven around, looking for a vineyard. At last he’d decided on Orvall Albee’s extra vineyard, the sixty acres Orvall had picked up for almost nothing. Dade had come from a town in New Jersey. He knew nothing about vineyards, nothing about land values, but he wanted a place on which to put a house, he liked Clovis, he liked the countryside, and he liked Albee’s sixty acres. He bought the place—got robbed, of course—put a fine house on it, fooled around a couple of years at running the place alone except for the usual help at crop time, and then went off somewhere for a month. When he came back he had a girl with him who was small and dark and seemed to be in love with him. She was a city girl with intelligent eyes and a swift and impatient eagerness to get to the point of things, or to have fun forsaking the point if something wasn’t interesting. Everybody who saw her felt glad to see her. She could be nicer than any other woman in Clovis one minute, and the next be bored to death with everybody. She loved flowers and had Dade call in a nurseryman to set out a whole garden of them, all kinds of roses, lilac trees, oleanders, and a lot of other stuff. Her name was Beatrice, but Dade called her Trix. Cody had heard long ago that Dade had a younger brother teaching at a university somewhere, but both times this brother, years ago, had come to visit Dade, Cody had missed him. He’d seen Dade and Trix, the two boys and the little girl, together for years, and he’d believed nothing in the world could ever break up what Dade and Trix had together. The next thing he knew, though, Dade was living on the vineyard alone. Trix and the kids were gone, and Dade didn’t want to talk about it.

And then Cody had seen Dade’s brother at last, standing in front of the station with Warren Walz, and he’d instantly recognized him. His son stood beside him, looking like his father and like his father’s older brother. Cody had gone home and he had told his youngest son, Bart, about Dade’s brother, and his son, called Red.

“The brothers look alike, stand alike, walk alike, talk alike,” he said. “He’s a professor at Stanford. I’m going to give his boy a ride in the locomotive. He’s got the watch-ingest eyes I’ve ever seen. I know he’s scared, but I know he wants to ride, too.”

Bart had gotten back from Fresno just as Cody was getting to bed, the man and boy occupying the house alone, the boy’s mother dead ten years, his brothers and his sister married and living in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“Well,” the boy said, “I met him, too.”

“Who?” Cody said.

“Dade’s brother,” Bart said. “On my way in I saw somebody crossing a vineyard. I drove around, came back, saw him stumble and fall, get up, stumble and fall again, and not get up. I had no idea who it was. I drove up, stopped, and went to see who it was. I drove him to Fresno. He seemed in a bad way.”

“Drunk?”

“I don’t think it was from drink. He’d been drinking, though.”

“Where’d you leave him?”

“Outside the Public Library. He went to the bar on the corner.”

“What did he say?”

“Said he didn’t want to talk.”

“He seemed all right this afternoon. Didn’t he say anything?”

“Said his name when we stopped,” Bart said. “Said it to thank me for the ride.”

“Fight, I guess,” Cody said. “Dade and Trix were always fighting. They’re quick to fight. The whole thing’ll be forgotten in the morning.”

“I never saw anybody in such a bad way,” Bart said. “I was scared.”

“Nothing,” Cody said. “They’re swift, that’s all.”

“I guess so,” Bart said. “Seemed like a lot, though.”

“I’ll drive past in the morning and stop for a moment,” Cody said.

In the morning Bart said, “It was something. I don’t know what, but it was something. I think the reason I was scared is that I felt he might fall dead or even kill somebody, from anger.”

“Anger?”

“Well, rage would be more like it. It wasn’t funny. It was a man in a killing rage.”

Now, driving with the man and his kids to the depot and freight yards of Clovis, Cody Bone listened to the talk of the father and the son, and knew from the man’s way of speech that Bart had not been far from the truth. Cody didn’t want to pry, but when his car was almost struck by one that had not stopped at a stop sign and Cody had had to slam on the brakes, throwing everybody around a little, he said, “Well, life is full of surprises, isn’t it?”

He had not, as a matter of fact, meant the remark to start anything, but after it had been made and Evan Nazarenus did not treat it insignificantly by saying quickly almost anything at all, Cody knew that Evan had been in a bad way, and was still.

“I mean,” Cody went on quickly, “there’s no telling when the unexpected is liable to happen, like that fool boy back there nearly smashing into us. Well, he didn’t make it, so we’re all set for the locomotive ride, after all.”

He turned to glance at the boy beside him, the boy’s eyes enormous and searching. They were still excited, but no longer frightened.

“Where will I sit?” Red said.

“Right beside me.”

“Can I sit where you sit and lean out the way you do?”

“I think so.”

“Can I make it go?”

“I think so.”

“Eva,” Red said, “you watch from the depot. Watch me run the locomotive.”

“All right,” the girl said.

Cody Bone parked the car in front of the depot.

“I’ll get into my work clothes,” he said. “I’ll be back with the big black baby in five minutes.”

“We’ll be out front,” Evan said.

Chapter 11

Across the street, over Harry’s Pool Room, was a hall, six rooms, a kitchen, and two baths. The door on the street was locked, had been since four in the morning. Susie and the two girls were having coffee and cigarettes. The enormous Negress had invited the girls to the front room to sit at the window and look down at the depot and the railroad tracks.

“There’s Cody Bone,” she said.

“Was he ever here?” a girl called Peggy said.

“Cody?” the Negress said. “Lord, no. We been friends the whole time I rent this place. He remember my birthday every year. Just because I tole him one day it was my birthday. I was all dressed up, but it wasn’t no more my birthday than today is. There’s some others. That man there, that boy and girl.”

“That one last night,” the other girl said, a girl called Toy, half Japanese, half Mexican-Indian. “Warren Walz. Was he ever here before?”

“Juss a minute,” Susie said. “My girls don’t know who comes here. All right here to say the name. Nowhere else. A man come here, nobody ever hear about it.”

“I know,” Toy said. “I just want to know if he ever came here before.”

“There they go,” Susie said. “They standing out front there, the man holding hands with the boy and girl.” She turned to the girl. “He never come here before. Why?”

“I’ve seen boys cry.”

“Look over there now,” Susie said. “Here comes Cody with the big black baby. That’s what he call the engine. He doan mean no kind of discrimination by it, though. He love that big black baby. Look now, Toy. You, Peggy. There’s Cody getting down. There he go back up with the boy. He been my friend the whole time. That time of trouble, Cody help me. There he go. There’s the boy sitting in Cody’s place. Look at that.”

The three women watched the locomotive pump and go, the small boy waving to the man and the girl.

“Everybody cry sometime or other,” Susie said when the locomotive was out of sight and the man and the girl had walked down the tracks after it. “They hold it back, then they let it go. You just doan say the name any time you go sit or stand somewhere. You, too, Peggy.”

“What do I care what his name is?” Peggy said.

She was always a little on the defensive because, even though she was blonde and had the better figure, most of the men who came to the place, especially the interesting ones, chose Toy, and she got the Mexicans, the half-breeds, the Filipinos, the Negroes, all the ones who were like dumb animals. She’d never had one who’d cried. They were men at least, she thought.

“Now, you both go along to Doc Rocha’s,” Susie said. “You got a hour. Go bathe now, dress up, I see you back here about noon. They’ll be those working boys coming in during lunch hour.”

Chapter 12

Every time Dade Nazarenus planned to leave his home on the vineyard in Clovis he telephoned his brother Evan and urged him to pick up his family and stay in the house during his absence.

Once before, early in December, Evan had wanted to go, but Swan had come down with the flu. By the time she’d been better it was almost Christmas, so they didn’t go because they wanted to spend Christmas in their own home.

It wasn’t much of a house, a Veteran Loan proposition, $500 down, $72 a month against a mortgage of $10,950, payable in twenty years, or 240 months. Fifteen of the 240 months had gone by. It was theirs, though. At any rate, they liked to think it was. The house was detached, but the neighbors were near and the yard was small. Still, it wasn’t bad. It wouldn’t do for a large family, though, and that was what Evan believed they would become.

His salary at the university was enough to meet the payments on the house, buy groceries, and pay the bills of plain living.

They couldn’t afford a car. When the offer came from the University of Nebraska for Evan to go there for eight weeks during the summer, he talked it over with Swan, accepted the offer, planning on his return to make a down payment on a new Chevrolet. He brought home $900. He was about to buy the car when Swan suggested they wait a while longer, or pay cash for a secondhand car. The matter had rested there, and early in August, only a few days after Evan’s return from Nebraska, Dade telephoned and made the invitation again.

“I’ve had a woman come in and get the place ready,” he said. “I’ve put the key in the mail. You’ll get it this afternoon. I’ve got the icebox full of stuff, and the deep freezer. You’ll find all kinds of meat in there. The figs are ripe on the tree. They get ripe by the hour. I’d like to see all of you, but I won’t be able to just now. Come down and stay as long as you like. I’ve got to go to San Francisco. It’s for a week at least, possibly two. It may be three. When do you have to be back at the university?”

“I’ve got a month,” Evan said, “but we wouldn’t stay that long.”

“Come on down and decide when you get here how long you want to stay. I know Swan and the kids are going to have fun. It’s very hot.”

“Can’t you stop here on your way to San Francisco?”

“I’m flying up,” Dade said. “My car’s being overhauled. The boy will bring it to the house in three or four days. When he does, take Swan and the kids for a picnic. There are some nice places around.”

“We’ll take the train in the morning,” Evan said. “Wish you were going to be there, though. The kids ought to know their father’s brother.”

“We’ll make it sometime,” Dade said. “Christmas maybe.”

In Paterson, as a boy, Dade had worked at a variety of jobs, anything that came along, but once he’d got his pay at the end of the week he was another man. He put on expensive clothes and went out to look around. He found things that Evan might not have found in a lifetime. At seventeen he knew a side of the Jersey towns that neither Evan nor the old man knew. He began to take trips, after which he would visit Evan and the old man for a week or two, sometimes a month. Then he would be gone for another four or five months.

“He is gambler,” the old man told Evan. “He go to gamble. I want my boy to work for money. Gamble is bad. When I was young man I was gambler. I know my Dade.”

The years went by. Dade and the old man talked quietly by the hour when Dade came home. The old man was not angry with Dade, but Evan knew he wanted Dade to take a job, like everybody else.

When Dade was twenty-five and Evan was at Princeton, the old man telephoned early one morning and told Evan in their own language to come home right away.

When he got home he saw Dade in bed, the old man trying to do something about Dade’s left arm and shoulder.

“I’ll call a doctor,” Evan said.

“No,” Dade said. “I don’t want anybody to know about this. Dig in there and see if you can get the slug out.”

“I can’t do that,” Evan said. “A surgeon’s got to do it, Dade.”

“In the top drawer there I’ve got some instruments in a box,” Dade said. “Put them in boiling water. Then dig in there and get the slug out. Get it out and let me sleep. I’ve been driving all night.”

Evan did as he was told. At last his brother slept. He’d lost a lot of blood. He was in bed two weeks. Then, still weak and unrestored, he got up and drove off. He came back a couple of days later by train, and stayed three months. He left three thousand dollars with the old man, and a thousand with Evan, for school.

“For God’s sake,” Evan said, “at least let him know where you are once in a while. He knows I’m all right, but he worries about you. He’s too proud to ask you himself. Phone or wire or write once in a while.”

“I can’t,” Dade said. “This one last time, then I’ll come home, and we’ll figure something out. California maybe. A lot of his friends from the old country are out there. Tell him so, if you want to. I don’t want to, in case it doesn’t work out. I think it will. It may take a little time. Can’t you come home over the weekends?”

“I come as often as I can.”

“We’ll figure something out when I get back. You doing all right at school?”

“I’m doing all right.”

“We’ll go to California,” the older brother said. “Buy a vineyard. All his people have vineyards out there. We’ll put a house on it. It’ll be his house. We’ll buy a car. We’ll drive him around to his people. Whatever it is that you’re going to be doing, you can do out there. Tell him these things. I don’t know how.”

“I’ll try, Dade.”

“Thanks. What are you going to be doing?”

“I’m going to try to write.”

“Books?”

“Yes, Dade.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Well, no, but it’s what I want to do. I guess I’ll have to teach for a living, though.”

“What’ll you teach?”

“Literature, I guess.”

“That’s pretty good,” Dade said. “You tell me some books to read sometime.”

“Take this one with you,” Evan said.

He handed his brother a small book that Dade slipped into his coat pocket without first finding out what the book was.

“Thanks,” Dade said. “I’ll read it. I’ll read every word of it. I promise. Just look after the old man until I get back.”

Evan had looked after the old man as well as he’d been able to, getting in over the week ends, talking to him, eating the old-country food the old man cooked. But Dade was a long time getting back. One weekend when Evan came home he found the old man sick in bed.

“Why didn’t you phone?” he said.

“Ah,” the old man said. “It’s nothing.”

It was pneumonia, though, and after six days Petrus Nazarenus died. Three months later Dade came home, and for the first time in his life Evan saw his brother weep.

He saw Dade stand in the old man’s room and weep like a small boy.

“My dirty luck,” Evan heard his brother say.

Years later, more than twenty years later, walking to the airplane with his brother, on his way back to Swan and Red and Eva, the younger brother said the words back to the older one.

“What’s the matter, Dade? What did I do? What did you do? What did the old man do? He comes to America, works hard, after three years sends for his wife and son. They come, another son is born, he thinks he’s going to have the family at last that he’s always wanted, a lot of boys, a lot of girls, all of them well, their mother well, their father well, but two years after his wife reaches America she’s dead, and he doesn’t want to look at another woman. He can’t. He becomes a sad old man in a silly little cigar store in Paterson, New Jersey, living for his sons. You know what’s happened to you, Dade. And here it is happening to me, too. What for, Dade? What’d he do wrong? What’d you do wrong? What’d I do?”

He stopped, began again suddenly, speaking softly but swiftly.

“You know you want to see your kids, Dade. You know the only thing you live for is your kids. You know the only thing you think about is your kids. You know you’re here in San Francisco to get more money to send them. Is it right to live a life of pride and loneliness?”

“It is right,” the older brother said in their own language.

“You’re fifty now, man,” Evan said. “You’re not a swift kid racing around Paterson any more. What are you going to do? Are you finished, Dade? Are we all finished?”

His brother only looked at him.

“What am I supposed to do?” the younger brother said. “Be finished, too?”

He stopped again, trying to think what to do, what to do next.

“I can’t leave Red. I can’t leave Eva. I don’t know them. I don’t have the faintest idea who they are. What’d I do wrong, Dade? I went away to work for eight weeks, to get money for a car, so we could ride around a little. Two months, and she wrote every day. Yes, every day. And I wrote her. What’s the matter, Dade? What’s the matter with us?

“Listen,” he said suddenly. “I’m not going back. I can’t look at her any more. I’ll never be able to look at her again. There’s no use going back. All right, Red’s dead, Eva’s lost. All right. That’s how it is, and I can’t go back.”

He began to walk swiftly, though.

Dade watched him climb the steps and get aboard. He watched the plane turn on its wheels and roll slowly to the place for the take-off. When it was up and going, he went for a taxi.

The book was The Oxford Blake, a small book with thin pages. Dade hadn’t finished reading it yet, but any time he wasn’t home the book was with him. He brought it out of his pocket now, in the taxi going back to San Francisco, opened it, and began to read.

Chapter 13

Red was too busy to be frightened, but the thing was dangerous. It was a thing in which an enormous fire burned, in which a great deal of heat gathered. It was a thing on enormous wheels. It was too heavy to move, because movement is a light thing, but it did move, and he himself started it moving. Cody Bone put Red’s hand on the lever, helped him move it down, and then, sure enough, the thing made noises and began to go. His father and his sister watched him, standing far below and waving.

He tugged at the whistle handle, but once was enough. He pulled the bell cord, but once was enough for that, too. Now, here they were slowing down to draw up alongside another locomotive on another track, the other engineer leaning out, waiting for them.

“Hi,” Red said.

“Hi, boy,” the engineer said. He was a younger man than Cody Bone, a man who chewed tobacco and spit, his face smeared here and there, a man who smiled only with his eyes.

The two engineers talked a moment, then the new one said, “Is that your grandson, Cody?”

“Yes,” Cody said. “Pat’s boy. We call him Red.”

When the engine went off Red said, “I’m not your grandson, am I?”

Red thought perhaps he might be, but hadn’t heard.

“Well, not really, Red,” Cody said. “I just said that because—— Well, I guess I wish you were my grandson.”

“If I was,” Red said, “would I lose my father?”

“Oh, no,” Cody said. “Evan’s your father. You can never lose him. Your father is always your father, and so is your grandfather.”

“Who is my grandfather?” Red said.

“Evan’s father.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Your mother’s father. He’s your grandfather, too.”

“Why do I have two grandfathers, but one father?”

“You’ve got two grandmothers, too. Your father’s mother and your mother’s mother. Now, we’ve got to go along here a little, pick up three boxcars, and push them back in front of the depot. There you’ll see your father again. And that will be the ride in the big black baby. What do you think of it?”

“It’s awful big,” Red said. “Hot and heavy, too. Does it scare you?”

“Yes,” Cody said. “It does.”

“It scares me, too,” Red said. “If you want to be my grandfather, I want you to.”

“All right,” Cody said. “I’m your grandfather and you’re my grandson, but call me Cody. That’s what I’d ask you to call me if you were Pat’s boy.”

“Does Pat’s boy call you Cody?”

“Pat hasn’t got a boy. He’s got two girls, but when he gets a boy, the boy is going to call me Cody. Now, look, Red, we’re going to bump these three boxcars and push them to the depot. Ready?”

“Ready,” the boy said.

They bumped the three boxcars. The man standing near the track went quickly to where the engine had bumped them, worked there a moment, signaled Cody, then Cody made the engine push the cars ahead.

After a few minutes they saw the depot, and there was his father Evan Nazarenus and his sister Eva.

When he came down with Cody Bone from the engine Red went to his father and put his arms around him, hiding his head in the small of his back, not saying anything, because the truth was that something lately had made him feel he might not see his father again.

Chapter 14

When the man got home he found the woman lying on the sofa in the parlor, and he saw that she had been crying. He saw that she was desperate and needed help. He saw her eyes say to him, Help me, you’re my husband, you’re the father of my kids, whatever I am, whatever it is that I’ve done, whatever it is that I may do if you do help me, help me, it’s not wrong to help those who have betrayed you, they too are alone, they too are betrayed, help me, Evan.

“I drove the locomotive,” Red said. “I drove it myself. Cody Bone sat beside me, but I was the one who drove it. Wasn’t I, Papa?”

“Yes, you were.”

“Yes, he was,” Eva said. “I saw him. He went up with the man, and he was the one, Mama. Yes, he was. Weren’t you?”

“Ah, Eva,” Red said, “I just said I was.” He turned away from Eva to the woman, who was standing now. “I wish you’d seen me, Mama. Papa saw me. I wish you’d seen me, too.”

“The man phoned,” the woman said, her voice itself saying help me.

“What man?”

“I forget his name. He said he was sorry but the children wanted to go away.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The one you asked to dinner. He said they couldn’t come.”

“Who is it, Papa?” Red said.

“Warren Walz,” the man said.

“Yes, that’s the one,” the woman said. “He said they’d love us to go to their house sometime.” She looked at him, to ask for help again, but again he couldn’t look at her. He’d glanced at her when he’d come in, and then he’d not looked at her again. “I’ve got lunch for the children on the table,” she said. “I wonder if they both shouldn’t have naps after lunch. It’s a hot day and so many things have happened, I wonder if—— Wouldn’t you like to lie down and rest after lunch, Red?”

“Well,” Red said. “Well, Mama, I didn’t think of it, but I could go to my room and close the door and just be there a while, I guess. I might lie down, too. I don’t know.”

“I thought,” she said to the man, “perhaps we could speak quietly while they rested.”

The boy watched them, feeling, but not understanding, what was going on. The smell of the locomotive was still with him—the smell of coal, fire, steam, and steel—but he could still smell the rocks, too, only he hadn’t found any rocks in the house. He smelled something else now, too. It was something that didn’t come from things but from people. It wasn’t a glad thing at all.

“I thought——” she said.

“How about washing up, Red?” the man said. “You, too, Eva.”

Red and Eva went off together to the bathroom.

They were alone in the parlor, the woman waiting for him to look at her, but he couldn’t. All he could do was stand there. He couldn’t go, or talk.

“I thought——” she said again.

“You didn’t think anything,” he said. He spoke quietly, perhaps because there was no other way to talk to her now, or because he didn’t want the children to hear.

“You didn’t think anything, so just shut up.”

She went to the kitchen, and he went out to the front porch, but that was where she’d told him, so he went down the steps, across the lawn, and then into the vineyard. The vines he saw were ribiers. The grapes would be ready in another couple of weeks. Some of them were ready now. They were a magnificent grape, big and black. He pushed leaves aside to look at some of the bunches that were hidden and found a number that were ready and just about perfect. The leaves were drying now, but they were still green, especially the shaded ones.

Have pity, he thought. What’s the good of not having pity?

I’ll have Dade find somebody to help her, he thought. He’ll know somebody. Somebody in San Francisco. I’ll take her there. I can’t help her. Whoever helps her, he won’t know who she is, he won’t know who I am, and he won’t know why he’s helping her, he’ll just help her. He’s helped others. He does it every day. It happens every day. It happens to all kinds of people.

He wandered among the vines and came at last to the end of the vineyard, bordered by a row of alternating pomegranate and olive trees. The pomegranates were still small, their casings still whole, not burst as they would be when they ripened. They were red, their crowns small and perfect, the spears straight now, not curved as they would be later on. The olives were small and green, the branches heavy with them. He wandered down the row until he came to another end of the sixty acres. The border here was an irrigation ditch only about a fifth full, the water moving slowly. He sat down on the bank of the ditch, looking at the weeds growing in the bottom of the ditch, growing in the water, being bent a little by the slow flowing of the water.

We couldn’t wait to have the third, he thought. Well, here’s the third. If it’s not mine, it’s hers, it’s at least half Red’s, half Eva’s. What do I do about it? What do I do about her? Go away? Do I go back to Paterson? Do I go to the slums we lived in, take a furnished room, write the story of my death, writing it until I am dead? What do I do? Do I pick up Red and Eva and go back to the house in Palo Alto and tell her to go to her man? Do I ask her to introduce me to him, so I can speak to him about what’s happened? Do I say to him, “What do you want to do? Do you want to start a family with her? Is that it?” What do I do? Do I speak calmly, and then stop his breathing?

He got up, wandered back to the house, searched through the fig tree, picked a dozen, and took them into the house. He put them on the tile table in the kitchen, then went into the parlor. She was lying on the sofa again. He saw her sit up, and he turned away.

“What do I do?” he said.

“The woman just called,” she said. “She was very nice. She said they would come, after all. The little girl has a cold. They decided it would be better not to go. They’ll be here at six. It’s not a bad cold, it’s just that they thought a trip wouldn’t help it any.”

“It must have meant a lot to you,” he said. “It must have meant more than anything else in the world, more than Red, more than Eva, more than——”

“If they’re coming,” she said, “I think we’d better try to talk, first. I don’t want anything like what happened last night to happen again. I slammed the door in her face. I don’t want to be rude to people who are trying to be nice.”

“You don’t?”

“We’d better try to talk, first. The sooner the better. I know you can’t look at me.”

“You do?”

“I found a stick. I’d heard about it at school. I couldn’t do it, though. I can’t be brutal.”

“You can’t?”

“I’d like to think that I might tell you—— I’d like to think you might——”

“Might what?”

“Understand.”

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t understand. You could tell me, but I wouldn’t understand. I’ll listen if it’ll do you any good, but I won’t understand. I went away for two months. You hadn’t been feeling too well. I thought being alone would do you good. Your letters said it was doing you good. It must have meant a lot. Are you in love with him? Is he in love with you?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said.

The man leaped upon her, pushing her head, even in helpless anger trying not to strike her face, and wanting to stop. He couldn’t, though. Remembering Red, even, he couldn’t.

The woman had fallen, first to the sofa, then to the floor. He was bent over her, unable to stop.

He couldn’t stop even when he heard Red shout at him, “You stop that, Papa! God damn you, Papa! You stop that!”

He couldn’t stop even when Red was striking him in the back and sobbing, “God damn you, Papa! I’m going to kill you, Papa!”

Chapter 15

The big girl was Fay. She was twelve and beginning to be like a woman. Red liked her. She seemed scared, and he wanted to tell her not to be. Eva liked her, too, because she was almost a woman and yet still a girl.

The middle girl was Fanny. She was nine and more like a boy than a girl. Red liked her because it was interesting to watch her do things the way a boy did them. Eva didn’t like Fanny very much because Fanny might do anything, and was loud instead of thoughtful.

The youngest girl was Flora. She was almost seven and beautiful. Even when she smiled and Red saw the same front tooth gone out of her mouth that was gone out of his, he thought she was beautiful. She was very quiet but not frightened of anything, and she seemed able to stay beautiful no matter what she was doing. Red didn’t simply like Flora, he loved her. Every time he looked at her, he laughed. Eva loved Flora, too.

“She’s my best friend,” Eva said to Red.

Red had found Eva in hide-and-seek and he’d brought her back to the fig tree. Now, he’d go back and find one or another of the three sisters, or two of them in one place, or all of them.

“You’re It next,” Red said, “So stay here while I go get the next one.”

“It’s dark,” Eva said.

“It’s not dark,” Red said. “It’s because you’re standing in the shade of the fig tree. Stand over there by the water pump.”

“I don’t want to stand alone,” Eva said. “Go get Flora, my best friend, so I won’t be alone.”

Eva stood by the water pump. Red went off to find somebody else. They might be anywhere. They might be on one side of the house or on the other, or out front where the fathers and mothers were, or they might be in the vineyard, or behind the garage, or behind the barn.

He went swiftly, first around the garage, then around the barn. When he came around the barn Fanny was with him, the two of them racing for the fig tree. It looked as if Fanny was going to get there first, but she tripped and fell. Red stopped to help her up. The instant she was on her feet, though, she ran to the tree, and got there first, laughing at Red for helping her.

“Well,” Red said, “I thought you were hurt. Weren’t you?”

“I never get hurt,” Fanny said.

“Your lip’s bleeding,” Eva said.

Fanny sucked the cut, then spit blood like a man spitting tobacco juice.

“Let it bleed,” she said. “What do I care?”

Red went off to get one more of the sisters.

“If you cracked your head open,” Eva said, “would you laugh?”

“Yes,” Fanny said. “I cracked it open last year.”

“Where?” Eva said. “Let me see.”

The older girl bent down to show the place on the top of her head.

“Here,” she said. “See where the doctor sewed it up?”

“Yes,” Eva said. “Did you laugh?”

“Sure,” Fanny said. “Nothing hurts me.”

“Hurts me,” Eva said.

“That’s because you’re little.”

“I’m getting bigger, though,” Eva said. “From eating. Figs, you know. I ate six after my nap. Red went up the tree and got them for me. Eating figs makes you big.”

“Not figs,” Fanny said. “Potatoes and meat and things like that make you big.”

“Don’t you eat figs?” Eva said.

“I hate figs,” Fanny said. She sucked the cut and spit again.

“I wish I could do that.”

“Can’t you even spit?”

“No,” Eva said. “I can’t smoke, either.”

“Smoke?” Fanny said.

“Cigarettes,” Eva said. “I tried once. Papa let me, because I wanted to. I can’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Oh,” Fanny said. “Can you drink?”

“Not whiskey,” Eva said. “I tried that, too. Papa let me. I can drink wine with water in it, but I don’t like wine with water in it.”

“No,” Fanny said, “it’s nicer without water, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Eva said. “I don’t like it without water, either.”

They saw Red coming from the vineyard, far ahead of Fay, who was running, but not trying very hard to get to the tree first.

“O.K.,” Red said. “That’s three of you. One more.”

“You didn’t beat me to the tree, though,” Fanny said.

“I would have if I didn’t stop to pick you up,” Red said.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Fanny said. “I would have beat you a mile.”

“Ah,” Red said.

But Fanny was funny. He stopped to think where to go to find Flora. Where would Flora go to hide? He was glad that she was the last one to find. By now she might be far away, to make him hunt all the harder. He decided to cut across to the other side of the vineyard.

He ran swiftly, looking as he went. Two quail splattered their wings and flew off, slowing him down to watch a moment. Then he saw a big jack rabbit lope off slowly, stopping to turn and look, loping a little farther.

He was stopped anyway, watching the rabbit, so he picked a bunch of the black grapes he saw on the vine, and began to eat them, the rabbit watching. There were big seeds in the grapes, which he rounded up in his mouth, and spit out.

He remembered one of his father’s friends, a dark man, visiting the house in Palo Alto. Dade had sent them a box of these same black grapes. His mother brought a plate of them to the man, who began to eat them, only he didn’t spit out the seeds. He chewed them. Red heard him chewing them. The man had known his father’s father in the old country. He didn’t speak very good English. He talked with Evan in another language, a language Red wished he knew. Red asked the man why he didn’t spit out the seeds. The man said, “They are too small, my boy. I have no time.” Red liked the man, the way he talked, the noise he made when he ate the grapes, grinding the seeds and swallowing them. The man ate the whole bunch, as if it was something he had to do. Then he put the naked stalk on the plate, handed it to Red’s mother, and said, “Thank you, Swan Nazarenus.”

Red ate nine or ten grapes, the rabbit went off, and he remembered he had Flora still to find. He cut through the vines to the right, seeing far off the banks of an irrigation ditch. He might as well go there, for if she wasn’t anywhere around, he’d be alone a moment. He’d have a look at the grass and weeds in the ditch. When he reached the ditch, he saw Flora sitting on the bank with her shoes and stockings off, cooling her feet in the water.

“You’re not hiding,” Red said.

“Yes, I am,” Flora said.

“Well, you went too far from the tree in the first place. In the second, when I find you, you’re supposed to race me back to the tree.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you want to play?”

“Yes, but not every minute. I didn’t hide here first. I went to a lot of other places. I got tired of hiding, so when I found this nice place, I sat down to rest and cool my feet.”

“Oh,” Red said. He couldn’t think of something else to say because what she’d said had been so reasonable.

“Don’t we have to go back now?” he said at last. “Don’t we have to go on with the game?”

“Well,” Flora said. “We do have to go back, but I wish we didn’t, because I like it here so much better.”

“Do you like to sit alone like this?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t like to be alone all the time,” Flora said, “but sometimes I’ve just got to.”

“When?”

“Oh, I don’t know. When do you like to be alone?”

“When I’m mad.”

“Are you mad at somebody?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

“Your father? What are you mad at him for?”

“He hit my mother.”

“Hit her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“My father gets angry,” Red said. He thought a moment. “He gets very angry.”

“Does she make him angry?” Flora said.

“I don’t know,” Red said, “but when he, gets angry, he tries not to hit her. I know when he’s trying. Sometimes he tries a long time, then all of a sudden he hits her. She cries, and he hits her some more. Then, I hit him for hitting her. That’s when I want to be alone. When do you?”

“Well,” Flora said. “My father never hits my mother, but sometimes my mother slaps him.”

“Your mother slaps your father?”

“Yes. She slapped him this afternoon.”

“What did he do?”

“He walked out of the house. He went to the olive tree in the yard and did some work there. He’s trimming it. Taking off the dead branches. Then he walked in the vineyard. He didn’t talk to her for a long time.”

“Why did she slap him? Why do they do things like that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, but I just don’t know. Do you know?”

“Well,” Red said, “I know my father gets angry. I guess my mother makes him angry. Sometimes she makes me angry, too. Sometimes she makes me very angry.”

“Do you hit her, too?”

“Oh, no,” Red said. He stopped to think again, then said, “But I wish I could believe the things she tells me. I never know what to believe.”

The girl listened and thought a moment, then turned to look at him. He saw that she liked him, which he hadn’t been thinking about at all. But he felt glad about it, and knew he liked her, and that she was his favorite.

“We’d better go back,” he said suddenly.

“All right,” Flora said. She took her feet out of the water, put on her socks, then her shoes. She reached out to Red and said, “Will you help me up, please?”

Red took her hand and helped her up, feeling more elated than he’d ever before felt. Her hand was so good to hold. She got to her feet, saying almost in a whisper, “I almost hate to go back.”

They began to walk through the vineyard.

“Why?” Red said.

“Oh,” Flora said. “If you only knew how awful I feel when I see my mother and father unhappy with each other.”

“Are they unhappy with each other?”

“Very. Aren’t yours?”

“I don’t know,” Red said. “I guess so. But they’re happy, too. Most of the time they’re happy. Aren’t yours?”

“Never,” Flora said. “They only pretend. I think they hate each other. They think we don’t know. They think we don’t understand, but every one of us understands, especially Fanny. She understands the most. Fay understands, too, but she hates to understand. Fanny tells me everything she understands. ‘They hate each other,’ Fanny says. ‘They just loathe each other. I don’t think they even know it, they’re so used to each other.’ Fanny knows the most. They do hate each other!”

“No, they don’t,” Red said.

“Oh, yes, they do,” Flora said. “And we always pretend we don’t know, especially Fanny. She’s the one who takes Mama’s side. We take Papa’s, Fay and me, but Fanny takes Mama’s. Whose side do you take?”

“I don’t take anybody’s side,” Red said. “They don’t hate each other, do they?”

He had never talked this way with anyone before in his life. He felt a profound anguish that this beautiful girl’s mother and father didn’t love one another, that perhaps, as she said, they even hated one another.

“Fanny just told you that as a joke, didn’t she?” he said.

“No, it’s not a joke,” Flora said. “It’s the truth. Well, we’re almost there. I think we’d better start racing for the tree.”

“All right,” Red said.

He let her run ahead a little, then turned himself loose and soon passed her. He saw the others in the yard, standing by the pump, talking, and ran to the tree. After he got there he didn’t stop and go to the others, though, or wait for the arrival of Flora. He went right on running. He heard Fanny shout after him, “Hey, Red, where you going?” He ran through the vineyard until he was too tired to run any more, then began to walk. When he was far away, when he’d reached the row of pomegranate and olive trees, he stopped, to be alone.

He tore a small red pomegranate from a branch and threw it with all his might against the trunk of the tree, where it smashed.

“God damn you, Papa!” he said. “God damn you, Mama! God damn both of you!”

Chapter 16

They were four together, two men and two women, sitting and standing on the front porch, getting straight what each of them would have to drink, getting used to the nearness of one another, to the strangeness of their being together to talk and drink and pass the time, but after five or ten minutes the men were standing together on the lawn and the women were sitting together on the porch. They were still in sight of one another but they could no longer hear one another. At the very beginning, while the children had still been around, there had been smiles, glances of understanding and kindness, and a moment later laughter, even.

The first to laugh was Evan Nazarenus.

The middle Walz girl had said quite loudly to the fathers and mothers, “You children play in the front yard, us children will play in the back.”

Evan had laughed and, speaking to May Walz, had said, “Which one’s she?”

May Walz had waved affectionately at the thought of the one Fanny was and she’d said with warmth—not for Fanny, but for Evan and Swan, “God knows, though her name’s Fanny.” These words, meaning so little in themselves, were enormously meaningful to Swan, who, only a moment before, had felt that she would not be able to look at Warren and May, not be able to talk, not be able to move, even.

“She’s a lovely child,” Swan had said. She’d turned to Warren Walz, not actually looking at him, though. “You must be very proud of your daughters.”

Warren Walz, not looking at his wife, had said, almost laughing, “They are daughters, though. Still, I suppose we’ll have a son someday.”

“Martini, Scotch, bourbon?” Evan had said. “I’m having Scotch.”

After that it had been as if nothing was wrong in the world, nothing had ever been wrong, nothing ever would be.

Evan and Swan had had showers and had put on fresh clothing, and so had Warren and May. They had soaped their bodies. The warm water had washed away the soap, the perspiration, the dirt, and for a moment the doubt, the anger, the rage, the shame, the despair.

It was late afternoon of a hot day. It would soon be evening, the best time of all. Everything would cool down, quiet down and darken, and there would be an hour or more of twilight, the sky red where the sun had been.

They would meet with these people—these strangers—each husband and wife would meet with these strangers and they would be kind to one another. They would be glad to see one another. Their voices would become alive for one another. They would remember, each of them alone, good things, and, remembering, be glad for having known them. They would be amusing, sympathetic, thoughtful, witty. They would drink, and then drink again. They might even laugh. One of them might hit upon something to say to make all the others laugh. They might laugh so hard as to become a little embarrassed. The twilight itself might be the thing to start them laughing. The red of the sky, the quietude of the vineyard, the sudden memory of their children playing in the back yard, the memory of the enormous charity and kindness and concern of their children for them, even the memory of the flarings into meanness and ugliness of their children, as if they’d already left childhood behind.

Each of the four would know the worst about himself, but it would be put aside, it would be hidden the whole time they were together, and almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. A hint of it would come into the eyes of each of them from time to time.

Still, for a moment they would know well-being. They would know well-being is a lie. They would know it is desperate and sorrowful, but they would not bother about this. They would hold glasses and drink, speaking swiftly and easily and meaninglessly.

“I wonder if you’d tell me about Dade,” Evan said.

“He’s your brother,” Walz said.

“I mean, as a farmer.”

“Well, I thought I was the world’s worst,” Walz said, “but I suppose Dade’s champ now. Still, we’ve got no kick coming. Dade’s doing all right, and so am I. We’ve had three rotten years in a row, but if we haven’t gotten rich, we haven’t gotten poor or gone broke, either. If your place is paid for—and Dade’s is, and so is mine—well, no matter how rotten things get, you can’t lose. Getting a place paid for is the tough thing. Once that’s done, though, it’s a pretty good life. We get bored, but who doesn’t?”

“What’s Dade do?”

“How do you mean?”

“Does he get out in the vineyard and work?”

“He helps prune the vines,” Walz said. “There’s about six weeks of pruning for four men on sixty acres of vineyard. Dade hires three men, and works with them. I mean, he doesn’t stop in the middle of the day to take a nap or anything like that just because he owns the place. He starts when they start, stops for lunch when they do, eats with them, and stops when they stop. I know he likes to prune the vines. Pruning time can be anywhere from early December to late February. He starts on January first every year. He works alone that day. The next day the three workers join him.”

“He does work on the vineyard, then?” Evan said.

“Oh, yes,” Walz said. “When I said he was the world’s worst, I meant he doesn’t do any of the things the boys just out of agricultural college do. I once asked him why he didn’t get the weeds out of his irrigation ditches and he said he liked them. Did you have the idea Dade never worked?”

“He never cared much for work,” Evan said. “He had a few jobs as a kid, but that’s all.”

“On a vineyard it’s different,” Walz said. “He’s his own boss. Isn’t that about as good as it can get for any of us?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Evan said. “What about wine?”

“That market’s shot,” Walz said. “It’s been shot for years. We don’t have wine makers. We have chemists. They make wine the way shampoo’s made.”

“No, I meant does Dade make wine? Do you?”

“I make a few gallons every year, just for the fun of it,” Walz said. “I don’t know whether Dade does or not.” After a moment he said, “What do you think? Is it a good life?”

“I don’t know,” Evan said quickly. “I suppose it could be. I suppose it could somehow be. I don’t know. It always depends on something or other, and the pity of it is that either you don’t know what this thing is, or if you do know, you know it involves someone else, who must help but won’t, or can’t.”

“Has Dade read any of your books?” Walz said. “The reason I ask is that I started to speak to him about them a couple of times, but I didn’t get anywhere. Is it because he hasn’t read them?”

“There are only three,” Evan said. “I don’t think it’s because he hasn’t read them. I think it’s because he has.”

“I thought they were very good,” Walz said, “especially the first one. Not that I don’t like the other two.”

“They’re bad,” Evan said, “but they’re the best I knew how to do at the time. The great books are never written. The people who could write them don’t know how to write, which is a trick. Any fool who gets the knack of writing can make himself a reputation if he’s willing to work. Dade’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. He’s a loner. Nobody will ever know what Dade knows. What he knows about everything. About each of us. About our lies, our good ones and our bad ones. I know how to write, but so what? I gave up writing because it is a trick.”

“I had no idea,” Walz said. “Is it actually a trick? I mean, a technical matter rather than something else?”

“It’s a trick,” Evan said.

He took Warren’s glass and went up onto the porch to get each of them a new drink. He tossed the ice and dregs out of each glass onto the lawn, fixed the drinks quickly, saying only a few words to May Walz, not looking at Swan, not even looking at May, and then went back to Walz, who took his glass and said, “What is a loner, anyway? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Evan Nazarenus laughed, laughing at himself and not at the man’s question.

“Everybody’s a loner,” he said. “It has no special meaning. I’m glad Dade likes to prune the vines. I think I’d like to do that myself. I get a pretty good Christmas and New Year holiday. It might be a good idea to come down and go to work with Dade this winter.”

“I wonder if you’d like the work,” Walz said. “It’s the same thing over and over. I make a stab at it every year. After I’ve done a dozen vines or so, an hour’s work, I’ve had all I can take.”

The women came down to the lawn, not insisting on joining them, but lingering near by. The four of them were soon talking, and drawing closer.

“I thought we might eat on the lawn,” Swan said, almost speaking to Walz. “I mean, we could bring the picnic table from the back yard.”

“It’s O.K. with me,” Evan said to May Walz. “O.K. with you?”

“I think it would be fine,” May said.

“Shall we get the table, then?” Walz said to Evan.

They went off together and soon returned with the long table. Swan and May went into the house for a tablecloth and other stuff. When they came out and went to work, Swan said, “It’s steaks and a salad. Do your daughters like steaks?”

“Sure,” Walz said. “Wonderful.”

“Medium-rare, pretty much?” Swan said.

“I think so,” Walz said.

The women fooled around the table, going in and coming out of the house. The men gradually wandered around the house to the back yard, Evan Nazarenus going there almost helplessly, for he wanted to have another look at Red and Eva.

Chapter 17

After dinner Cody Bone came by with his son Bart, as Evan had asked them to do, for at the back of his mind had been the thought that it was necessary for anyone who had seen him last night to see him again as soon as possible. It had seemed extremely important to get this matter out of the way, so he could turn to the other matter. From the depot, while Red had been riding in the locomotive with Cody Bone, he had telephoned Dade at the St. Francis in San Francisco.

“Can you do me a favor?” he’d said. “Fly down tonight. Stay only a couple of hours if you like, but fly down.”

“I’ll try,” Dade had said. “I may not be able to make it until late. Will you be up?”

“I’ll be up.”

“I’ll try. Midnight or one or two, or maybe even three, if that’s not too late.”

“Any time, Dade.”

“I’ll try.”

The table was soon cleared, the kids played on the front lawn, the others sat at the table with drinks, or stood near it.

Evan stood with Bart, who was drinking beer. The father and the son had cleaned up and put on fresh clothes: open white shirts, white slacks, moccasins. The boy, like Warren Walz, had nothing to say about last night. He wanted some information about Stanford.

“When you get there,” Evan said, “call me. I’ll take you around to the people you ought to see. How much longer will you be at the college in Fresno?”

“Another year,” Bart said, “but I want to begin making plans now. I’m not sure I may not want to go to one of the Eastern schools at the last minute. I think I’d rather, except for Cody. I can’t decide on a profession, either, so if it’s just school I’ll be going to, it seems to me a school in another part of the country would be best.”

“Most likely,” Evan said. “How about law?”

“No, I think not,” Bart said. “I hate disputes, and the whole idea. I mean, the idea’s supposed to be to reach truth and—well, justice, I suppose. But that’s not what happens at all. Lawyers take pride in concealing the truth, in distorting it, in prohibiting it. I suppose somebody might come along and be a true lawyer, but I doubt if he’d get very far, or last very long.”

“Medicine?”

“Not for me. I couldn’t be near pain in others without feeling it myself. I’d feel it all the time. I wouldn’t be much help.”

“What about teaching?”

“Well, that might be O.K. if I could think of something to teach. I can’t.” He thought a moment, then said, “Most of all I’d like to travel, but that’s no profession. Besides, you’ve got to have money, and the only way you can get money is to work.”

“Have you thought of going to sea? A voyage around the world, for instance? I know a fellow with the President Line who might get you on as an able seaman. I think a little training would be involved, but nothing much.”

He saw the boy’s eyes brighten.

“I’ve dreamed of something like that all my life,” Bart said. “It’s what I’d really like to do. I don’t have to go back to college. I’ve planned to only because there’s nothing else to do. I suppose I’d even be paid.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’d have time ashore in quite a few cities, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m not sure, but I should imagine so.”

“Would you speak to the man?” the boy said. “I’m ready to go. I’m ready to take the necessary training. I wouldn’t want to wait table or anything like that. I’d want to work with the ship itself.” He brought an envelope from his back pocket, removed the letter, and handed the envelope to Evan. “That’s my name and address. The phone’s Clovis 121, but if you forget, the operator will put you through. Do you think there’s a chance? It’s exactly what I want to do.”

“Yes, I think there is a chance,” Evan said. “Do you want to speak to your father about it?”

“Not until I know if I can go,” Bart said. “The reason for that is, I don’t want him to worry for nothing, in case it doesn’t turn out. When it looks as if it might turn out, then I know I can explain it to him so he won’t worry. I I mean I’ll know when I’ll be leaving and when I’ll be back. When things are clear that way, well, they are clear, and there’s little left to worry about. I might even know the places I’d be able to visit, the places from which I’d send him letters. He wouldn’t worry if it was all clear, but if it wasn’t, he’d worry, and he might just worry so much that I’d start worrying about him, and hell, that’s silly. How long would the trip take?”

“About three months, I think. Figure four. Perhaps five, even.”

“What’s five months?” the boy said. “What’s six? What’s a year? To do a thing like that, I mean? I want to go. I can’t wait to go. I don’t just mean around the world. I mean, to go. I’ve been here all my life, almost eighteen years. I’m not sick and tired of it exactly, but do you want to know something? I’ve never met a girl here I’d like to marry. I’ve liked the ones I’ve known, but I want to see others. I want to see them in all sorts of different countries. I want to know the way they are. I’ll probably come home and marry one of the girls here, but before I do, I want to see the others. I want to have seen them. I want to know what I’m doing, and why. I mean, I don’t want what I do to happen because I happened to be there at the time, and all the rest of it. I’m sure you understand what I mean.”

“I understand,” Evan said. “I’ll call the man at his home tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Sunday, so unless he’s on his vacation, he’ll be home. I’ll call you just as soon as I’ve had a talk with him.”

“I’ll be hanging around the house all day,” the boy said. “I hope this works.”

“I hope it does, too,” Evan said. “Let me get you another beer.”

At the table, opening another can and filling the glass, Evan saw Cody Bone talking to Red. Red was away from the others, standing in front of Cody, who sat with his back to the table, holding a glass with Scotch and ice in it. Evan didn’t hear much, but he heard enough to know that his son was asking Cody about Cody’s personal experience in the matter of anger.

Evan and Cody’s son Bart were joined after a moment by Warren Walz, who, without preamble, said, “What’s it all about, anyway? Can you tell me, Bart? Can you, Evan?”

Cody’s son laughed, perhaps because he was excited about the idea of making a voyage around the world. He also laughed because it was such a strange question. He certainly had never before heard Warren Walz ask a question like that. Bart turned to Evan, as if to delegate to him the responsibility of trying to answer the question.

“Well, Warren,” Evan said, “I think I know what you mean.”

“I mean,” Walz said swiftly, “what’s it all about, that’s all.”

“I know,” Evan said. “And the answer is, you know, and nobody else does.”

“Do I?” Walz said. “Do I know? I didn’t know. I didn’t think I knew at all. I was sure I didn’t, but come to think of it, maybe I did. Maybe I knew all the time. Maybe I do know.”

“Well, if you do,” Bart said, “tell me, because I don’t.”

“Oh, no,” Walz said. “I know for myself, and you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

“Well, tell me what it is for yourself, then,” Bart said.

“Why should I?” Walz said. “Now, if you were twenty-one, I could tell you a little of it, but as it is, I can’t tell you any of it.”

Bart burst into laughter. Walz began to laugh, too, only he went on laughing. Fanny came and stood in front of him.

“What are you laughing about?” she said.

“You go over there and play,” Walz told his daughter with mock sternness, which might just not have been mock at all, but something he had wanted to do for a long time.

“Oh,” Fanny said. “O.K. I thought it was a joke you could tell me.”

She was gone instantly, indifferently.

“Get yourself three daughters and you’ve got yourself three more wives,” Walz said to Evan. “Wants to know why I’m laughing. Four wives is a lot of wives for one man.” He looked at his glass as if he had never before seen it. “What’s it all about, anyway?” he said suddenly again. Then, looking at Evan, his eyes troubled arid hurt and ashamed, he said, “I can’t drink worth a damn any more. I believe I’m drunk.” He swallowed all of the liquid in his glass, then said, “I hope to Christ you won’t mind if I get a little drunker.”

“I promise to get you and your family safely home if you do,” Bart said.

“Oh, hell,” Walz said. “Can I freshen yours while I’m getting mine?” he said to Evan.

Evan handed him his glass. Walz went to the table, and as he went Bart noticed that he was actually drunk.

“I’ve never seen him this way before,” Bart said. “I mean, so likable. He’s always been a little stuffy. You know how it is in a town like this. Six or seven families visit one another from time to time. Well, every time Warren and May have visited Cody, and I’ve been there, too, he’s always been—well, a little stuffy. I think you’ve been a good influence. I mean——”

He was suddenly embarrassed by what he’d said about a man better than twice his age, talking about him as if he were somebody slightly peculiar or a little inferior.

“I must be getting a little drunk myself,” he said softly and shyly. “A glass of beer, I guess, and I think I’m pretty smart. I hope it’s because I’m so excited about the idea of this voyage.”

Walz came back with Evan’s drink. Bart wandered off to talk to Fay Walz, as if to demonstrate to Evan he knew perfectly well when to shut up and go away.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Walz said quickly. “I hope you won’t mind. It’s this. I know you’re having a rough time. The reason I know is I am, too. I understand this whole business. I didn’t want to come. I cooked up the excuse about the kids wanting to get away. Well, if there’s anything I can do—and don’t think I don’t know what a fool I must seem—well, I can’t imagine what I could do. I wouldn’t be able to do anything for myself, let alone for somebody else. What I mean is—well, to hell with it. Forget it. I’m sorry I brought it up. Look at that damn middle girl of mine standing on her head. She’ll stay there an hour if she decides she wants to.”

“She’s delightful,” Evan said.

“I’m crazy about her,” Walz said quickly. “I think I’ll let her know.”

He went to the girl standing on her head, put his drink down on the lawn, and tried to stand on his head beside her. The first time he tried he fell back the way he had started, on his feet. He tried again instantly, made it for an instant, then fell flat on his back. He started again, though, very serious about what he was trying to do but getting tired. His wife and Swan, laughing, went to watch. The little girl, still standing on her head, laughed each time her father failed, then said, “You can’t do it, Papa. You’re too fat.”

“I’m not so fat,” Walz said.

Everybody gathered around now, and Evan saw Red stand on his head on the other side of Fanny. Red was able to stay on his head only five or six seconds, though. Walz tried again, made it, and Cody Bone applauded until the women did, too. Then Walz fell flat on his back, and went to sleep.

“Oh, dear,” May Walz said. “He’s drunk.”

Walz opened his eyes.

“I’m not drunk,” he said softly. “I just want to lie here and sleep. Don’t worry about me, May.”

Still standing on her head, Fanny shouted, “Whoever can’t stand on his head is a moron.”

“What’s that?” Red asked Cody Bone. “What’s a moron?”

“Whatever it is,” Cody said, “it’s going to be what I am, because I’m not going to try to stand on my head.”

“Can’t you do it?” Red said. “I can. You saw me, didn’t you?”

“I saw you all right,” Cody said. “I suppose I could do it if I wanted to, but I think I’d rather be a moron.”

“Then, that’s what I’d rather be, too,” Red said.

He ran around in front of Fanny, bent down to be near her head, and said, “We’re all morons, except you, Fanny.”

“I know,” Fanny said.

Everybody sat on the lawn around Fanny. After a moment, Walz sat up to go on drinking, and everybody felt deeply thankful for Fanny, still standing on her head.

Chapter 18

He was in the house to get another bottle of Scotch when the telephone bell rang.

“I’m at the airport,” Dade said. “Is there any way we could meet here? I’ll tell you why. There’s a plane back in an hour and a half, and I’ve got to take it. Is my car back yet?”

“No, Dade.”

“Could you borrow a car?”

“Warren Walz and his family are here,” Evan said, “and Cody Bone and his son.”

“Could Bart lend you his car?”

“I think so. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

He got the bottle, took it out to the table, opened it, poured fresh drinks for all who were drinking Scotch, then said, “A friend of mine’s at the airport for an hour and a half. It’s only half-past nine. I wonder if I could borrow a car and drive in? I won’t be long.”

“Who is it?” Red said. He stood in front of his father.

“Milton Schweitzer,” Evan said. “You remember him, Red. He’s with me at Stanford.”

“Take my car,” Bart said.

“May I?”

“Sure.”

“I won’t be long,” Evan said.

“I want to go with you,” Red said. He seemed almost in a panic. He ran to Swan. “I want to go with my father,” he said. “Mama, don’t you say I can’t go!”

“You can go, Red,” he heard Swan say.

“I want to go, too,” Eva said, running to Swan.

“You can go, too, Eva.”

“No, darling,” Evan said. “You stay here. I won’t be long.”

“No, Papa!” the girl said. “I want to go!”

“No, darling.”

“Papa!” the girl cried when he walked off.

Bart walked with him to the car.

“It takes a moment to get the hang of the old rattletrap,” he said, “but I’m sure you’ll get it soon enough.”

“Papa! Take me. Take me, too!” he heard Eva cry when he started the car.

“You can take her, too, Evan, if you want to,” he heard Swan say.

The girl stood beside Bart, looking up at her father. When the car began to move the girl burst into tears, and ran after the car.

“What does he want?” Red said.

“He just wants to talk to me,” Evan said.

“Why?” Red said. “What’s he want to talk about?”

“We’re in the same department at Stanford. We’re old friends.”

“Are you friends, Papa?”

“Of course we’re friends. You sound scared. What are you scared of?”

“I don’t know,” Red said.

He drove swiftly, wondering why his son had been so eager to go with him, why he seemed so scared. He drove two miles in silence, but as the car plunged down the highway he began to go over the last few minutes: his own absurd lie, answering his son’s question with the first name that had come to mind, Milton Schweitzer, who had come to Stanford to teach playwrighting the semester after Evan had gone there to teach the novel. Just as Evan had had no real success as a novelist, Schweitzer had had none as a playwright. He’d had two plays on Broadway, both flops, and two others that hadn’t gotten farther than Boston or Philadelphia. He was Evan’s own age, or a little older. He was a New Yorker by birth, and he’d gone to Columbia.

He didn’t think it would do not to say something more to Red, but he was a little afraid to. He was a little afraid of everything now; of the car ahead, which he was sure he would be able to pass as easily as he’d passed all the others on the way, but he was a little afraid of it just the same. It was moving very slowly, and a driver of a slow car can suddenly do anything. He can suddenly make a left turn in front of a swiftly passing car. This one didn’t, though, and he passed it quickly. He saw an old man and his wife going along about twenty-five miles an hour in a car that was about twenty-five years old, on their way home after a visit with friends, most likely. He was a little afraid of the car that was moving toward him now, but the two cars drew abreast, made the swift sound cars moving in opposite directions make when they meet, and then all he had to be afraid of was Bart’s car. It was not a new car, the tires might not be what they ought to be. At seventy miles an hour a blowout might not be a simple thing to put up with.

He was a little afraid of the way Red had needed to speak about Milton Schweitzer, too.

“It’s not Milton Schweitzer,” he said at last.

“What, Papa?”

“I just said it was Milton Schweitzer because I didn’t want anybody to know who it is I’m really going to see.”

“Who is it?”

“Dade. My brother.”

“Why did you say Milton Schweitzer, then?”

“I didn’t want anybody to know I’m going to see my brother.”

“Why?” Red said. “Why didn’t you want anybody to know? Why are you driving so fast?”

He brought the car down to sixty, then fifty, then forty, and finally thirty. He did it because he needed to. He was a little too keyed up to be driving that fast. He was going too fast inside, too. He needed to go as slowly as possible.

“Red,” Evan said. “Listen to me a minute, will you?” (He’ll understand when I tell him this is something I can’t talk about. I know he will.) “Red,” he said. (No, he couldn’t. He’d better get himself straightened out. He’d better do it for his son, he’d better do it quick.) “Red,” he said. “Your father’s had a few to drink. You saw Warren Walz try to stand on his head. It was because he’d had a few to drink. It doesn’t mean anything. Everything’s fine. Nothing’s the matter. It’s just that when a man has a few to drink it seems as if something’s the matter with everything. Dade will be glad to see you.”

“Why did you say Milton Schweitzer?” Red said. “Why didn’t you say Dade?”

“I’ve had a few to drink,” Evan said, trying to speak cheerfully. “It’s nothing. You’re not scared any more, are you?”

“I don’t understand,” Red said. “Do you like Milton Schweitzer?”

“Of course I like Milton Schweitzer.”

“I hate him,” Red said.

“Why?” Evan said. (There’s no use performing for Red. There’s no use trying to pretend nothing’s the matter. He knows. I can’t protect him.)

“Do you remember when you asked if I liked Warren Walz?”

“Yes, Red. It was only yesterday.”

“And you asked why I liked Cody Bone?”

“Yes, Red.”

“And I said I just liked Cody Bone, but I didn’t know why. Well, I even like Warren Walz now. I liked him especially when he tried to stand on his head. But I don’t like Milton Schweitzer. I hate him.” He waited a moment, then said, “And I know why, too.”

“Why, Red?” He was past pretending cheerfulness. His voice was hushed.

“Mama said she was going to take Eva and me to the circus,” Red said. “We got ready. Then she called Mabel, and Mabel took us. We didn’t want to go with Mabel. I didn’t know why Mama changed her mind. I didn’t like the circus with Mabel.” He stopped.

“Why should you hate Milton Schweitzer because of that?” Evan said.

“Well, Papa, don’t you understand?” Red said. “When we got back from the circus he was visiting us.

“Then another time Mama promised to take us for a picnic to the campus. To that place where we had a picnic once, and so much fun. She made all the sandwiches and we were all ready to go, and then again she called Mabel, and Mabel took us to the picnic.”

“When was that?”

“When you went to make the money for the car,” Red said. “When are we going to get the car?”

“I don’t know,” Evan said. He was helpless now. He had to know. “When you got home after the picnic,” he said, “how was Mama?”

“All right, I guess,” Red said. “But I was mad at her. I was mad at him, too. I get mad sometimes, too. When I came into the house and saw him, I didn’t stop. I went straight through to the back yard, because I was so mad. I just said, ‘Why don’t you stay in your own house?’ And I went out into the back yard. Eva stayed in with Mama and him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before, Red?”

“Why?” the boy said. “I don’t know. I forgot, I guess. He didn’t come to our house any more after that. Did you want me to tell you I talked that way? I felt ashamed. I didn’t want to talk that way. I just couldn’t help it.”

He drove into the airport parking lot and stopped the car.

“Your uncle Dade’s going to be glad to see you,” he said.

Chapter 19

Dade looked tired. He looked so tired Red said to his father, “Is it Dade?” They went up to him, leaning against a counter, reading a book. He closed the book to look at the boy.

“Hello, Red,” he said. “You look fine. You look fine, boy.” He turned to his brother. “Do you know who he looks like? He looks like the old boy. Your grandfather, Red, Petrus Nazarenus. You look like him.” Dade looked at his brother again. “I thought even this would be better than nothing. I’ve got to take the plane back in an hour, though.”

Dade looked at the boy again, and this time smiled. He spoke in the language Red wished he could speak. The only word he said that Red understood was “Hey.” It was the first word of what Dade said. Hey, something or other in the unknown language, the words lively and hard and angry, but at the same time humorous, too.

Dade searched his brother’s eyes and very quietly said a few more words in the language. Red heard his father reply in the language.

They moved to a far bench and sat down. Dade sat close to Red, and put his arm around him. Red’s father sat on the other side of Red.

The brothers spoke in the language Red didn’t understand. He didn’t need to. He understood their voices. He understood Dade was Evan’s brother.

“Speak softly,” Dade said. “Speak softly, for your son, who is my own father.”

“I speak softly,” Evan said. “What do I do, brother?”

Dade spoke in English to Red. “You are my father, Petrus Nazarenus.” He turned the boy’s head toward him, and kissed him on the forehead. “If you get tired, if you want to walk around, if you want to look at the people, or go outside and look at the airplanes, we’ll be here, we’ll be seated here.”

Red turned and looked at his father. Evan saw the panic in his eyes again.

“I don’t want to go,” he said.

“I hoped you wouldn’t,” Dade said, “but I didn’t know.”

He spoke in the language again.

“We need a lifetime to understand the very simplest thing,” Dade said. “We need two lifetimes to correct a small error. We live an error every day and correct not one error in a lifetime. What do you do, my brother? Whatever you do, you yourself do nothing. Your doing is done for you. Whatever you do is right. If you hate, it is. If you kill, it is. Brother, if you love, it is right. If you love her who destroys you, it is right.” His tired eyes searched his brother’s. “Brother,” he said, “do what you must, do what you will, it is right.”

“If I am husband to another man’s woman,” Evan began to say.

“It is right,” Dade said quickly, his voice deeply tired.

“If I am father to another man’s child,” Evan said.

“It is right,” Dade said.

“What do I do?” Evan said.

“Sleep?” Dade asked. “Is that it?”

“Sleep?” Evan said. “I can’t sleep. There is no sleep left for me.”

“I long for my children,” Dade said. “To long is right. I wish to see them. To wish to see them is right. I do not see them. Not to see them is right.”

“Why, Dade?”

“It’s a game,” Dade said. “The playing of a game is right. The game is this. Which will it be for myself? To be proud and to lose that which I love, or to be without pride, and soft, and to have softly that which I love? Each is right. Which will it be for myself? It will be to be proud, and to lose. And if they love me, want me, but cannot reach me, what will it be? It will be to be proud, and to have them reach me not. And if they perish for want of me, what will it be? It will be to be proud, and to learn that they have perished. Is this so? Is this a way to be? It is, my brother.”

“You’re tired,” Evan said. “You’re very tired. You must not take the airplane.”

“It’s a game,” Dade said. “There it sits, waiting. It is there always. I require no excitements. I have never required them. The excitements of money, coming or going, I have never required. The game waits to excite, surprise, reward, belittle. It has never excited, surprised, rewarded, or belittled me. Do you understand, my brother?”

“No, Dade.”

“I will tell you, then,” Dade said. “Here.” He reached into his pocket, brought out rolled currency, and handed it to his brother. Red saw the stuff. He knew it was money, but he didn’t understand the language. “This is the prize,” Dade said. “I have not slept because until the other players surrender I stay with the game. It is a silly game, with a silly prize, but it is right. What do you do? Go home, my brother.”

He turned the boy’s head to him again, and again pressed his dry mouth to Red’s forehead.

“Red,” he said. “Isn’t it strange and wonderful that a brother’s son is a man’s own father?” He smiled at the boy, tightening his hand on the boy’s chin. “Isn’t it strange, Red? Isn’t it strange? I was a poor son. Perhaps that’s why I was never a father. What are you thinking, Red? Tell me.”

“I want to talk the language,” Red said.

“Yes,” Dade said. He looked over the head of the boy at the boy’s father. The man hadn’t put the money away. Dade noticed this, then said in English, “He must be taught.”

“Who will teach me?” Red said.

“Your father will,” Dade said. He spoke again to his brother. “Teach him the language in thoughts, not in words,” he said in English. “One thought after another. By the time you’re nine,” he said to the boy, “you’ll speak the language as well as you speak English, or better. Put the stuff in your pocket,” he said to his brother in English, and then in the language he said, “There is more, take it and go home. If there is someone you wish to kill, you will find in my own room the weapons for it. Why not? It is right. If there is someone you wish to forgive, to understand, to love, you will find the weapons for it in your heart.”

“Red?” Evan said to his son. “I want you to take a little walk outside and look at the airplanes.”

The boy looked at his father. There was still panic in his eyes, but after a moment it went away, and Evan saw that his son did indeed resemble his father.

He slipped down off the bench—his feet hadn’t been touching the floor—then loitered off to the big glass door. He pushed it open, went out onto the steps, then down the steps, and away.

“For God’s sake, Dade,” Evan said in English quickly. “She breaks my heart. I feel sorry for her. I don’t know what to do, man. I swear to God I’m afraid I’ll kill her. You don’t have to go back, do you? Stay. Help me. Don’t go back, Dade.”

“There’s no help,” Dade said. “If you must kill, I’ve told you where the weapons are. You’d find them soon enough, anyway. Hands would be enough, though. Anything would do. We are never unarmed. No one. And we have no defense. There’s no help. Did Petrus help? Did we help Petrus? No one helps. No one hinders, either.” He suddenly brought a silver dollar out of his pocket. “Flip for it,” he said. “To be kind, or to be proud. That’s what it comes to. Call it.” He flipped the coin high, saying again as it went end over end, “Call it.”

“Heads,” Evan said.

The heavy coin slapped the marble floor, bounced, spun swiftly on its edge, lost momentum, and then lay down. It was tails.

“Be kind,” Dade said. “Why not, boy? Why not? You called it. Be kind. Be kind to everybody. Be kind to yourself.”

“Soft, is that it, Dade?”

“Why not?” Dade said. “Or also soft. Be kind. It’s right to be kind.”

“I came near killing her this afternoon,” Evan said. “Red came and stopped me.”

“Be kind to Red,” Dade said. “Be kind to Red’s mother. A boy loves his mother.”

“For God’s sake, Dade, don’t you understand what’s happened?”

“I understand,” Dade said.

“No, you don’t,” Evan said. “We were talking. I was thinking of somebody to help us. A doctor. To help her. Help Red. Help Eva. Help me. Help the others we believed we were going to have. I asked her if she loved him. She said she didn’t know. I would have killed her if Red hadn’t stopped me. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to forgive—I wanted to be soft, Dade. I wanted to hide it, and I wanted to believe I could forget it, and she could forget it, and Red and Eva never know anything about it. I asked her. I thought it might be an accident, out of sickness. I asked her. I was sure she would know how much she hated the accident, hated the sickness. Dade, she said she didn’t know. Stay here and help me. Stay at the hotel in Fresno. You’ve got to help me, Dade.”

“I’ll fly down the minute I can,” Dade said. “I’ll try to help you. It may be tomorrow morning. It may be tomorrow night.”

“Are you sure you’re winning?”

“I’m sure.”

“How much was that you handed me?”

“I don’t know. You count it.”

“I’ll keep it for you.”

“No,” Dade said. “I don’t want it, and I want you to have it. You’re in the game as much as anybody else.” He got up. “I miss the boy. I want to go out and be with him until it’s time to go back.” Evan stood beside him. “What you were talking about with her—” Dade said. “Talk about it some more. Sometimes the mouth moves by itself. Her answer may not have meant anything. Talk about that some more. I can help you there.”

They walked out to the steps, and Dade saw Red standing alone.

“There he is,” Dade said, “and he hasn’t been crying. You thought he might cry, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“He is like Petrus Nazarenus, and I saw Petrus cry.”

“When?” Dade said. “When did you see my father cry?”

“The last time you were gone,” Evan said. “He cried several times. He believed he would never see you again. Red’s been thinking he might not see me again.”

“I should have come back,” Dade said. “I knew he was old, but I thought he could wait a little longer.”

When they reached the boy, Red did not turn to them.

“Red?” Evan said.

“Yes, Papa,” the boy said, but still did not turn. Dade Nazarenus turned to his brother. His hard eyes were harder than ever now, but full of anguish. “Be kind,” he said in the language. “Be kind to him.” He reached around to the boy’s forehead. His fingers covered the boy’s eyes, nose, and mouth. They rubbed the moisture dry.

“It is right,” the boy said in the language, but still did not turn. “What’s that mean, Dade?” he said in English. “That you said so many times?”

“It means, It is right,” Dade said. “It is right. Say it again.”

The boy said the words in the language again, then in English, “It is right? Is that what it means?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “Now, you’ve got that. You say it perfectly. Your father will teach you other things to say, too.”

The boy turned to his father.

“Will you, Papa?”

“Yes, Red,” Evan said. “Yes, I will.”

“I want to talk the way you and Dade talk,” Red said.

“Your father will teach you,” Dade said.

“It might take a long time,” Red said to his father.

“I know,” Evan said.

“Will you?”

“Yes, Red.”

They began to walk, the boy between them. Suddenly Dade lifted the boy in his arms, laughing, and hugged him until Red was laughing, too. Dade said the words, and then Red said them, and then at last Evan Nazarenus said them, too.

“It is right,” they all said in the language.

Chapter 20

On the way back to Clovis the boy said, “The smell of rocks in the house is from Dade. I wasn’t sure until you and Dade came out where I was standing. Inside, I thought it might be from the marble floor there, not from Dade, but it was still there when he came outside. Dade smells like rocks. Eva smells like hay and honey and some other things, only I don’t know what they are. Flora Walz smells like cold water and green leaves.”

“Do you like Flora?” Evan said.

“Well, I really like her,” Red said. “I like Fay and Fanny, too, but I really like Flora.”

“Why?”

Evan wanted to know. Why did his son like Flora? Why did Evan like Swan? Why had he believed that of all the women in the world Swan was the one who was his woman, by whom he would have sons and daughters, with whom he would be decently resigned to the meaninglessness of life? Why did he still like Swan?

“I like her,” Red said, “because she makes me feel good.”

“How?” the man said. “How does she make you feel good?”

How had Swan made him feel good? How had she made him feel amused and glad about being involved in an absurd and painful experience. How had she done it?

“Well, Papa,” Red said, “she likes me, and that’s what makes me feel good. I mean, it makes me feel good to know a girl like Flora likes me. I never saw a girl like Flora before.”

“Is she different?”

“She’s different from every girl I ever saw.”

“How is she different?”

“Well, she is pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is.”

“A lot of girls aren’t,” Red said. “And then the way she talks makes me laugh. I mean, the way her mouth moves, and the sound of her voice. Then, the things she says are so different from what other girls say.”

“What does she say?”

“Oh, she says different things,” Red said. “I forget, but she says them as if she understood them. But most of all, she’s different because she likes me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Red said, “but I think she likes me.”

Was he sure Swan had ever loved him? Wasn’t it a theory? Didn’t it happen that he felt she loved him because he felt he loved her, each of them never actually sure of the other, though, each of them guessing, or working on the probability that the theory was a valid one? Hadn’t he come to believe she loved him because they had been able to talk to one another gladly, to look at one another and notice identical desires? But might not these identical desires have occurred in each of them in relation to others? Of course they might have. Then, what was it that more nearly definitely established that they loved one another? Was it not their believing it was a thing to prolong indefinitely, forever, with sons and daughters coming forward out of it, as Red and Eva had come out of it? Wasn’t that the thing that had made their love—made something— definite and meaningful?

“Would you be unhappy if Flora didn’t really like you?” the man said. “Or if she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she might happen to meet? Would that make you unhappy?”

“Who is the other boy?” Red said.

The man laughed, actually burst into laughter, for the question was the kind he himself, at forty-four, might ask under similar circumstances.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “Any boy, any other boy. If she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she happened to meet or know, would that make you unhappy?”

“Well, I wouldn’t like it,” Red said. “Does she like another boy? Do you know, Papa?”

“No, I don’t know,” the man said. “I was just wondering if it would make you unhappy, that’s all.”

“Well, it would,” Red said. “If she’s my favorite—and she is—I want to be her favorite. I don’t want her to be my favorite, and have a favorite of her own.”

“Suppose you were her favorite,” the man said, “but still she liked other boys, too?”

“How could she do that?”

“I don’t know, but suppose it happened? Suppose it were true?”

“I wouldn’t want a favorite like that.”

“No, perhaps not, but suppose she was still your favorite, even though you knew she liked other boys, would that make you unhappy?”

“Very unhappy,” Red said, “because I want my favorite to like me the way I like her.”

“Why do you want that, Red?”

“I don’t know,” Red said. “I just want it. Before we go back to Palo Alto I’m going to tell her she’s my favorite, and I’m going to ask her if I’m her favorite. If she is, then when we come to Dade’s house for another visit, I’m going to go to her house alone, to see her, because she is my favorite.”

“Alone?”

“Yes,” Red said. He waited a moment, then said, “She said her father hates her mother. She said her mother hates her father. Why do they hate each other? They’re Flora’s father and mother. How can they hate each other?”

“Well,” the man said, “she may be mistaken. Maybe they fight—a husband and a wife fight—a father and a mother fight—a man and a woman fight—even a boy and a girl fight—and when they do I suppose they hate something in each other, but that doesn’t mean they don’t go right on loving each other, too. That doesn’t mean they don’t love a great deal more in each other than they hate.”

“I don’t like hating,” Red said.

“Why?”

“I don’t like it. There’s something the matter with it. Why do people hate?”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “I don’t know why they hate. Why do they?”

“I think it’s because they’re scared,” the boy said. “I don’t know what they’re scared of, but they’re scared of something. I was scared of Milton Schweitzer. I don’t know why.”

“People do scare you,” the man said. “Some people do scare you.”

He glanced at his watch when the car drew up and stopped where it had been. He had been gone about two hours, and it was almost half-past eleven. Everything seemed about the same, except that May Walz had Flora in her arms, the girl apparently asleep. Red went straight to the girl and looked at her. She opened her eyes, sat up, then got off her mother’s lap.

Evan Nazarenus greeted everyone quickly, poured fresh drinks for those who needed or wanted them, poured himself one, then went into the house. He found Eva asleep on top of her bed. He sat on the bed beside her, drinking because he needed the drink badly.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said to the sleeping girl.

When he turned he saw Swan standing in the doorway.

“They’re going,” she said.

“I’ll be right out.”

He went out and saw Red and Flora standing together, talking.

“No,” he said to Warren Walz, to May, to Cody Bone, to Bart. “You can’t go now. It’s too early. Please don’t go.”

“The kids are tired,” Walz said. He was sober now, and his wife seemed hushed.

“We had a wonderful time,” May said. “I’m so glad you asked us. Swan and I had such a nice talk. Please come to our house one night before you go back, only I wish to God you’d never go back. Come to Clovis and live on a vineyard.”

“That’s right,” Cody Bone said. “Come and stay, so I can keep an eye on Red. It’s not the worst place in the world. Where else can you find an evening like this? Look at the stars. You don’t see a heaven like that many places.”

They were gone in five minutes. The place was quiet now, desolate and deadly.

Red sat on the steps of the front porch, his chin resting in the palm of his hand. Swan was putting stuff on a tray to take inside and put away.

“They had a nice time,” she said. She spoke to no one in particular. “She’s an awful nice girl. She’s got real intelligence and manners.”

“Who?” Red said.

“May Walz,” Swan said.

Evan Nazarenus went to the table, put a few things more on the tray, picked it up, and went into the house with it.

Chapter 21

The woman went to work in the kitchen, holding glasses under the hot-water tap.

“When you’re through in there,” the man said, “I’d like to talk to you.”

He spoke quietly, from the end of the parlor, leaning against the piano, but he knew she would hear him.

She came out of the kitchen into the dining room.

“The water was running,” she said.

“I said when you’re through in there I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m afraid to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re liable to do.”

“I’m afraid to talk to you, too,” he said, “but I think we’d better just the same.”

“All right.”

She went back to the kitchen.

He sat at the piano. After a moment he touched a key and heard its high note. He touched it again and heard the note again. He rested his head on his arm, closing his eyes, falling into instant sleepless dreaming.

He awoke suddenly, knowing she stood near, waiting. He moved to the hall, out of sight, and from there said, “If there is any charity in your soul for yourself, know there is charity in mine for my own self, and for you. Know this and allow me to help my son and my daughter, allow me to help you, whoever you are, my wife, the mother of my children, a stranger, whoever you prefer to be. Know this and allow me not to destroy ourselves, whoever we are. Know there is charity and nothing else in my soul for each of us, whoever we are. Know I did not know we were so estranged, so deeply unknown to one another.”

He came from the hall, and for the first time that day looked at her.

“What do you want to do, Swan?”

“I don’t know, Evan.”

“This afternoon,” he said, “hearing those words, I fell upon you, but no more, for I do not know you. If I cannot love someone I do not know, neither can I hate. If there is anything to say, say it as a stranger saying it to a stranger.”

“I don’t know, Evan,” she said. “Sometimes I think I must have a doctor to help me, however brutal it may be. But sometimes I also think I must not. I don’t know.”

“I want to help you.”

“I can’t think,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s not ours. It’s not yours and mine. But is that so? Is it so surely so, so surely not ours?”

“Nothing is ours now, Swan.”

“I live simply,” she said. “I live stupidly, even. I live with my body. I can’t think. I don’t know, Evan. When you went off with Red, and Eva wanted to go, I believed you would take her, too, and not come back. I believed that that was what you meant to do, and I was relieved. I believed I would go off alone, have nothing and no one, except myself, and I was relieved, Evan, I was glad. But you refused Eva, who wept as I’ve never heard her weep before, and I was frightened. I’m afraid of love. I’m more afraid of love than I am of hate. I’m more afraid of charity than I am of contempt.”

“What do you want to do, Swan?”

“I’m a woman. I don’t know. I am to be deceived into escape from fear by a lover, or I am to be ravaged by a hater. I don’t know what I want to do, Evan. What do you want to do?”

“Sleep,” he said.

He went to his room and sat on his bed, the woman following him.

“I am to be loved or hated,” she said.

He turned, astonished.

“You must be mad,” he said.

“Are you tired?” she said.

“Swan,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to shout. You’re in trouble. We’re all in trouble.”

“Are you that tired?”

“You cannot be brutal to Red and Eva,” he said. “You cannot force me to be brutal to them. They are not to be dragged into this, do you hear?”

She clutched him suddenly, sobbing and moaning.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“I am helping you.”

He lifted her, then put her down on the bed. She seized his hand.

“Stop it,” he said.

He turned, to go back into the parlor, to be away from her.

“Don’t leave me,” she said. “Please don’t leave me. At least don’t leave me, Evan.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Don’t ever leave me. Don’t ever leave me alone, not even for a moment. Don’t ever leave me alone again, Evan.”

“Go to sleep, will you?”

“You won’t leave me?”

“No.”

He stood in the parlor, trying to think.

Chapter 22

The singing birds woke up the little girl. Eva Nazarenus, they sang. Her father said so. Her father didn’t take her but took Red, and she cried. She was angry at her father. If he could take Red, why couldn’t he take Eva? She wanted to go, she was sure he would take her, and then he didn’t. He just didn’t. He drove off with Red, but not with her. He left her standing there. She was very angry at him. It wasn’t nice, what he did. She had always been able to count on him to be nice. He was the only one she had always been able to count on. Her mother could be nice, but only when she wanted to, not when Eva wanted her to. Sometimes when her mother wanted to be nice, it wasn’t nice for Eva, but after a while it was nice. It took a little while for her to get used to her mother being nice when her mother wanted to, not caring what Eva wanted. Her mother was awful nice. She could be mean, too, though. Sometimes her voice got so hard it scared Eva. Sometimes her eyes got so angry Eva didn’t want to look at them. The next minute, though, her mother was nice again. She was the best mother to have, better than Flora’s, and it was wonderful that out of all the mothers in the world to have Eva Nazarenus had got the best, and so nice that on top of being the best, her mother was her own mother, Eva’s own mother. She felt sorry for all the ones who didn’t have their own mothers. It must be so lonesome for them to have mothers who weren’t their own. Eva had her own father, too. Some girls who had their own mothers didn’t have their own fathers. She had both. She had her own brother, too. And now, here in Dade’s house, in a whole bedroom to herself, she had her own birds. They said her name every morning, as they were saying it now.

She listened to the birds, got out of bed and went to the window to see if she could see the one that was saying it clearest. She saw not one but five birds in the lilac tree outside the window. They were having fun in the morning, hopping from one branch to another, chasing each other, singing, flying away, coming back, and making an awful commotion.

They bored her soon, though, and she felt profoundly sad. Why hadn’t her father taken her? Why hadn’t he been nice when she had been most sure that he would be nice, when she had been most eager for him to be nice? Why had he rejected her, abandoned her, left her all alone, ashamed and crying?

She wondered if Red was awake. It was awful early. She could tell. She always woke up first. Why did she? Still, Red might be awake.

She went to Red’s room and found his eyes open.

“You go back to bed,” he said.

“Let’s get dressed and go out and eat figs.”

“It’s too early. Go back to bed.”

“It’s light,” Eva said. “Let’s go stand by the water pump and talk.”

“No,” Red said. “Let Mama sleep. Let Papa sleep. We’ll make noise and wake them up.”

“How?”

“Dressing and talking and walking. Go back to bed.”

“Let’s go out on the front lawn and stand on our heads.”

“No. It’s too early. Let them sleep. You go back to bed and go to sleep. When you wake up again come back and we’ll get dressed.”

“Will we go out to eat figs or to stand on our heads?”

“To eat figs. It’s too early to stand on our heads.”

“Yes,” Eva said. “It’s too early.”

“Well, aren’t you going back?”

“Why did Papa take you but didn’t take me?”

“You’re a girl,” Red said.

“I’m a boy,” Eva said.

“You’re a girl,” Red said.

“I’m a girl,” Eva said, “but I’m a boy, too. I’m better than a boy. I’m better than anybody.”

“You’re not better than me,” Red said.

“I am,” Eva said.

“Don’t you say that,” Red said.

“I am,” Eva said.

“Well, go back to bed and sleep some more,” Red said. “When you wake up come back and we’ll get dressed, but don’t make any noise. Let them sleep.”

She went. Red remembered the remark he had learned in the language: It is right. He felt glad about remembering it, about being able to say it, about the whole language his father was going to teach him. It would take a long time to know a whole language like that, to be able to speak it the way Dade and his father spoke it. He remembered the sounds of it, as they had made the sounds, speaking to one another. He liked the sounds and wished he knew what they meant. He wished his father was all right now. He wished his mother was all right now.

His sister peeked at him from around the open doorway.

“Eva,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

“I did,” Eva said. “I went back and got in bed and slept. It’s not early any more. It’s late.”

“You didn’t sleep.”

“I did.”

“You know you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Why do you tell lies?”

“I don’t tell lies. I tell the truth. I did sleep.”

“That’s a lie, Eva.”

“It’s not. I did sleep. Let’s get dressed.”

“No,” Red said. “Let them sleep. Go back and wait a little while, then we’ll get dressed.”

“I can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a man in there.”

“There isn’t.”

“Yes, there is.”

“There isn’t, Eva. You’re telling another lie.”

“He’s dead,” Eva said.

“Who is it?” Red said, for it was hard to tell when she was lying. Everything she said sounded like the truth.

“I don’t know, but he’s dead.”

“You’re lying, aren’t you, Eva?”

“No, it’s the truth.”

Red looked at her, trying to find out if she were actually telling the truth.

“I’m scared,” she said.

Red was scared, too. He got out of bed. He went down the hall to Eva’s room, his sister following, each of them moving slowly, reluctantly, as if into the greatest danger of all. Red was very frightened. By now Eva wasn’t sure there wasn’t a dead man in her room. Red came to the doorway, then charged in, more than half blind with terror. When full vision returned to his eyes he saw that there was no one in the room.

“He’s gone,” Eva said.

“Where was he?”

“He was right here,” Eva said. She put her finger at the center of an empty fruit bowl.

“You’re always telling lies,” Red said. “Get dressed, then.”

“You’ve got to help me with the shoes.”

“All right.”

He went back to his room and was dressed in less than two minutes. He found Eva almost dressed. He helped her with her shoes. They went out into the parlor, very quietly out of the house by the front door. They walked around the house to the back yard, to the fig tree. Red found a ripe fig on a low branch and gave it to Eva, who half peeled it and ate it. Then he climbed into the tree and found a lot of them, eating one and dropping one to Eva.

They talked about lies and dead men for half an hour, and then they’d had enough of figs.

Red got down from the tree, and walked with Eva to the place where he’d found Flora Walz sitting. They spent a half hour there, too, talking some more about lies and dead men. They walked back to the house, but still their father and mother slept. The house was still silent.

“Let’s wake them up,” Eva said.

“No,” Red said. “Let them sleep.”

“It’s late, Red. It’s awful late.”

“No, it’s not. Let them sleep.”

They stood by the pump and talked, and then, since they would not wake up, Red took her to see the pomegranate and olive trees.

“We’re all alone in the whole world,” Eva said. “Just you and me, Red.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are. All alone. No father and no mother. Just a brother and a sister, all alone in the whole world. Will you kill them if they come to get me?”

“Who?”

“The ones who come to get you.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. Will you kill them?”

“Yes,” Red said.

The girl thought about the ones who come to get you, and the killing of them, one by one, by her brother, and then her eyes noticed the pomegranates.

“Then give me one of those,” she said.

“They’re not ripe yet,” Red said.

“I want one, anyway.”

Red jumped to grab the lowest branch, caught a couple of leaves that tore away from the branch, the branch springing up, trembling, the pomegranates bobbing up and down but not letting go. He jumped again, caught a twig, brought the branch close enough for him to reach up with the other hand and get a pomegranate for her. He picked the biggest one, let the branch go, and handed the pomegranate to her. She examined it carefully.

“I’m going to keep it forever,” she said.

“Why?”

“To remember you when you’re dead.”

“What are you going to give me to remember you when you’re dead?” Red said.

“I’ll give you anything,” Eva said. “You’re my little brother.”

“I’m your big brother.”

“My big brother. I’ll give you anything.”

“When?”

“When I get it,” Eva said.

They began to wander back to the house, still talking of love and death, hoping their father and mother would be awake by the time they got back, for each of them was lonely for them and wanted to see and hear and smell them again, perhaps even to help them about the love, and about the death.

Chapter 23

He was asleep, so she could speak to him, speaking to herself, for she was more asleep than awake herself, her body swollen, numb, and insensitive, her voice a slow, sleeping whisper, sleep itself coming and going in and out of her.

“Evan?” she said. “I don’t know what happened, only I do. I know what happened. I didn’t want it to happen, only I did. I made it happen. I was the one who made it happen. I did it, Evan. It didn’t happen by itself. I did it because I wanted to. I didn’t care who it was, because I didn’t care, because I didn’t need to care, because I don’t like to care, because everybody cares too much, and I don’t care at all.”

The sleeping man was still turned away. The kids were out in the yard or in the vineyard, for she had heard them talking and walking.

She leaned on her elbow, moving nearer to the bed beside her, to the man in the bed beside her.

“Evan?” she said.

The man stirred.

“Are you awake, Evan?”

He turned at last, his face still asleep.

“I’m alone, Evan,” she said. “I’m too alone.”

She watched his eyes open a little and close again.

“I’m going to die, Evan.”

The man opened his eyes, a little at first, then all the way.

He remembered everything suddenly and sat up, as if stricken by madness.

“I’m alone,” the woman said. “I’m sick and alone, Evan. You would pity a sick animal. I’m outside. I can’t live outside. I can’t breathe outside. You’d pity a dying animal.”

She threw herself onto his bed. Her hands clutched him. She pressed her body against his, scrambling to get back to him. Her anguish hurt him. Her animal brilliance in seeking to achieve love and survival on any terms astonished him, and her body, warm from sleep, soft and white, even now made his body want hers, as if spirit had no part in it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re frightened. I’m sorry you’re sick and alone. I do pity you, I do love you, but I can’t be kind any more. You must get up and go to your life.”

“No, Evan. You can’t ask me to go.”

“I’m not asking you.”

“No. I’m Red’s mother. He loves me. I’m Eva’s mother. She needs me.”

“I’m telling you.”

“No. It would kill them. You know it would. It wouldn’t do any of us any good. It would kill me. It might kill you, Evan.”

“You’ve got to get out,” he said. “I don’t care who it kills. Your staying will kill everybody, too. It would be better to be killed decently, at any rate.”

“No,” she said, and now she began to weep. “You were never unkind. Don’t be unkind now when your kindness is most needed. It will do none of us any good for you to be unkind.”

“I can’t live in the same house with you,” he said. “There are some things even a kind man can’t do.”

“No,” she wept. “We’ll get out of this. We’ll start all over again. I’ll be a new person. I’ll live for you. I’ll be a woman you’ve never known. I am that woman. I’ve always been that woman. I know now. It won’t be like this any more, it won’t be the way it was, it won’t be the terrible way I made it for you every day. I won’t live for myself. I’m sick of that. I’ll live for you.”

“I can’t stay in the same house with you,” he said. “The nearness of you sickens me.”

“No,” she said. “We can help one another a little, can’t we? There is kindness in us for one another, isn’t there? We couldn’t be the mother and father of Red and Eva and not have kindness in us for one another.”

“You be kind,” he said.

“I will,” she said. “I will, Evan.”

“Be kind,” he said, “and get out.”

He pushed her away. She fell on her back, turned over, buried her face in the bed, saying no again and again.

“All right,” he said at last. “Get up. Put on your best clothes. Get breakfast. We’ll sit down and eat together.” She stopped sobbing to listen. She lifted her head to look at him. “We’ll walk together to Clovis. We’ll take them to church. Be their mother, and let me be their father. All right. Get up and be their mother.”

She got up, ran into the bathroom, leaving the door open, so that he could hear her.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be their mother. I’ll really be their mother now. We’ll forget everything. How much time do we have?”

“We’ve got time.”

“I’ll be dressed in a minute,” she said. “I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute. We’ll bathe them and dress them, and we’ll go to church, Evan. We’ll be their parents.”

He went to Dade’s room, shaved, showered, and put on his best suit. She was in the kitchen in the dress he’d bought her a year ago at Ransohoffs. She had an apron over the dress that somebody had sent her for Christmas a couple of years ago. She was making bacon, French toast, lamb chops, coffee. He went out of the house to the back yard. He saw Red and Eva coming from far off in the vineyard. When they saw him they cried out and began to run. The woman ran out of the kitchen into the yard to be beside him when they arrived. They picked up the children, and told them they were all going to church.

Chapter 24

They sat down to breakfast. The eyes of the children filled with gladness at the ceremony of the table, at the presence of their mother and father, at the ease and charity in each of them for the other, and for their children. They talked pleasantly, and the eyes of the children filled with wonder. Even the eyes of the man and woman filled with it, and almost with tears, too, for they knew, each of them knew, how wrong it was to insist upon a moment of decent peace in themselves for the children to see, since the peace was false. Each of them knew how wrong it was to be forced by disaster into an essay at decency. They worked hard at it, gladly even, and neither of them, in speaking to the children, said anything that was hurtful to the other. They were trying. For whatever might be in it for the children, for themselves, they were trying. It made failure seem almost impossible.

The harmony achieved was real, in spite of the reason for its achievement. They were a family together. They did love one another. There was hope for them. Nothing could touch or hurt them. It was astonishing and painful to know, but it was true. They were still precisely who they were, who they had been, but they were also together, belonged together, and nothing else mattered. It was almost unbelievable that out of disaster a family could become more truly a family, out of disgrace and pain could become more proudly and irresistibly a family.

After breakfast the woman went off to bathe and dress the girl, and the man filled the tub in Dade’s bathroom for the boy. While the boy bathed, Evan Nazarenus sorted out the currency Dade had handed him the night before. There were a good many hundreds and fifties, and with the exception of six or seven tens, the rest were twenties, but there were a great many of them. He didn’t count the money. He stacked it carefully, opened the drawer of Dade’s bureau, saw the three pistols there, placed the biggest pistol on top of the money, stacked in two piles, and pushed the drawer shut. He then opened his wallet and counted the money in it. There was a twenty, a ten, two fives, and three ones.

The boy was soon back in his own room, getting into his best suit, a grey flannel. When they went out into the parlor the woman was there with the girl, waiting. The girl had on a yellow dress with small blue flowers done into it with thread. She was thrilled with the dress, and the whole adventure of going to church.

Everybody’s clothes were new, so that when they walked there was a Sunday formality to it, but the boy watched the grass, and the girl grew tired and was picked up by the man. The woman moved and spoke as a young girl does, and the man would not permit any thought or memory to come between him and the ritual of their being together. He spoke with gladness in his voice, speaking to each of them.

They reached Clovis in time to have a look at each of the three churches, to pick and choose, to discuss which would be the one they would enter. They decided on the Presbyterian because, while it was not as big and handsome as the Catholic, or as lonely-looking and appealing as the Methodist, it had large stained-glass windows that Red and Eva wanted to see from the inside, and seemed to all of them in appearance most nearly what a church ought to be. It was built of wood, painted white, had a nice steeple, and when they reached it the bell was ringing.

They went in and sat on a bench in the first row, on the right, because Red and Eva wanted to get as near as possible. The place was about a third full when they walked down the center aisle. A woman was playing something on the organ. The windows were beautiful pictures, one mainly in blue, one mainly in red, one mainly in green, and one mainly in yellow. The light that filled the place had all of these colors in it. The place was both dazzling and peaceful.

The adventure started with a man coming out of a door and standing behind a pulpit with a book on it. He said a few things, then everybody got up, opened a book, and began to sing. Red was astonished at this and looked around to see who was doing it. Everybody was. He heard his father sing, then began to sing, too, just making the sounds, not being able to sing the words until after a while. Eva’s mother began to sing, too, and Eva sang with her. Eva looked at Red once, giggled, and put her hand over her mouth. Red’s eyes got angry at her, she straightened out immediately, but only a moment later she giggled again, and again put her hand over her mouth. Her mother giggled, too, and put her hand over her mouth. Red’s eyes got angry at both of them.

After the song they sat down, the preacher said some more things, the people opened another book, the preacher said something, the people spoke together and said something back to him. The preacher sounded like a fine man, and the people speaking together sounded fine, too.

A man sang a solo. Eight women and eight men standing behind him sang part of the song with him.

The preacher prayed and said a lot of different things.

After that four men wearing white gloves came to where four wooden plates were stacked in a pile, picked them up, and handed them to people. Evan Nazarenus took a plate, put a half dollar in it, and handed it to Red beside him. Red put a quarter in it and handed it to Eva, who put a quarter in it and handed it to Swan, who put a half dollar in it and held it until a man came to get it. Red turned and watched the way they did it.

Then the preacher got up and talked. He talked a long time, but it was all right because there were always the windows to look at, and the people, too. Eva fell asleep. Her mother rested Eva’s head on her lap.

After a while it was all over. They got up and watched the people leave the church. They went out, too, and began to walk home.

Chapter 25

The walk home from church was fun, too, but it was hot by then. It was so hot that Red asked to take off his coat, his shoes and socks, and Eva had to be carried almost the whole way. They were each given a bowl of cold cereal and milk for a quick lunch, then each of them went off for a nap.

When they were both asleep, the man said to the woman, “Thanks for what you did.”

“I can do it every day,” the woman said.

“I’ve got to telephone a friend in San Francisco for Cody Bone’s boy, and then I want to lie down on the sofa in the parlor and take a nap myself.”

“I’ll take a nap, too,” the woman said.

He went to the telephone, called his friend, then called Bart, and told him the story. His friend, a man named Harold Trabing, would call Evan sometime tomorrow afternoon, and Evan would call Bart.

“God,” the boy said, “I’m going to be awful nervous until you call tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’ll call the minute Trabing calls,” Evan said.

“Did he sound as if I might have a chance?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “I think you’ll be making the voyage all right, but forget the whole thing until tomorrow afternoon.”

“O.K.,” the boy said. “I’ll get in my car and drive all day and all night.” He stopped suddenly. “Listen,” he said, “let me bring the car over and leave it in the driveway. Why not take the family for a Sunday drive? Take them to the dam at Friant, or to the river at Piedra. I don’t need the car. I’ll walk to Clovis, and take in a movie.”

Evan went to the parlor and stretched out on the sofa. He was almost asleep when the telephone bell rang. It was Dade.

“They just surrendered,” he said. “The game’s over.”

“You mean you haven’t had any sleep yet?”

“I’m going to bed now.”

“What are you going to do when you wake up?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“When you’re through sleeping fly here, will you?”

“Yes.”

“We had breakfast together, then went to church. I’m driving them to Piedra for a picnic later on.”

“Is my car back?”

“Not yet,” Evan said. “Cody’s boy is lending me his car. When will you get here?”

“I need a lot of sleep,” Dade said. “I mean, I want a lot. Tomorrow night at the earliest, maybe the night after.”

“I’ve put the money in the top drawer of your bureau,” Evan said.

“That’s yours,” Dade said. “That was nothing. Just put it away in your satchel. I’ll phone you from the airport in Fresno.” In their own language he said, “Tell me.”

“I’m trying,” Evan said in the language.

“It is right,” Dade said in the language, and then in English, “Sometime during the day teach Red to say, ‘My name is Rex Nazarenus.’ Teach him something new every day.”

“O.K.,” Evan said.

He went back to the sofa, stretched out, and was soon deep in sleep, but not so deep that he was free. He begged his sleep to annoy him no more, let him rest, let him forget, so that he might in time learn what to do, in the time of another night, another day, another night and day, know what to do, know how to do it, know how for the rest of his life.

When he woke up he went out onto the front porch and saw Bart’s car in the driveway. He went to Swan and found her fast asleep. He found Red awake, and spoke to him about the picnic. Red jumped out of bed, and then the whole house was alive with the idea, Swan making sandwiches and Red and Eva urging her to hurry up, so they could go.

“I’m going, too,” Eva said. “Papa’s taking me, too.”

Chapter 26

The man took Red aside and said, “I want you to sit in the back with Mama because I hurt Eva when I didn’t take her with us last night. I want her to sit alone up front with me. I know you understand.”

When they were ready to go the man said, “Now let’s see. Mama and Red in the back, and Papa and Eva in the front.” He watched the girl’s face. She was so pleased and surprised she became speechless. She scrambled into her place, sat there, folded her hands, turned several times to look at her mother and her brother. At last she said, “I’m in the front with Papa.”

They wore light clothing. The windows of the car were open. The air they breathed was good. The man followed country roads as far as possible, driving slowly, stopping now and then to look at a vineyard, a tree, or an abandoned house. He got out of the car once to take some ripe nectarines off a tree, and Red got out with him. The nectarines were a little hot, but they were, juicy and sweet. He counted out three for each of them. When they came to the river at Piedra he drove along the riverside road until they found a green place, a cluster of three willows. There they sat on a blanket.

“It would be heaven to live here,” the woman said.

“This is the best time of the year,” the man said. “Everything’s ripe now. The air’s full of the smell of it. I’ll tell you what I want to do. I want to use this fine rock for a pillow, stretch out and breathe the good air.” He set the boulder down, just beyond the edge of the blanket, stretched out, and rested his head on it.

“Look at Papa,” the girl said. “He’s made a pillow out of a rock.”

“I want to get in the water,” Red said.

“So do I,” Eva said.

“All right,” the man said. “Take off your clothes and get in. The rocks are slippery, so try not to fall.”

“They’re wearing suits across the river,” Red said. “Have we got suits?”

“Wear your shorts,” the man said.

They got out of their clothes and waded into the water, where for ten or fifteen feet it was only a foot or two deep, with clean water moving swiftly over boulders, most of them big ones, some of them as big as the one his head rested on. He listened to them gasping because the water was cold, shouting and laughing, and he saw Red slip, get up, and say, “God damn that rock!”

After they had been in the water five minutes they waded out and sat on the hot white sand just beyond the shade of the trees, burying their feet in the sand, working it into piles with their hands. Every now and then they looked over at their father and mother under the shade of the trees. The woman was sitting close to the man with her legs crossed under her, the way she always sat when there wasn’t a chair.

“Evan?” the woman said softly.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Swan. I don’t even want to think about it. One good day can make a lot of difference for them. This is their day. I want it to be altogether their day.”

“I do too, Evan. Can I say just one thing?”

“Let it be altogether their day, Swan.”

“I just want to say——”

“Don’t say it, Swan.”

“You don’t know what I want to say.”

“Whatever it is, don’t say it. Not for a while. I just want to breathe the good air my kids are breathing.”

“I love you,” she said. “That’s all I want to say.”

“I know, Swan,” he said. “Don’t say anything more. Let it be their day. We’ll eat the sandwiches when they’re hungry.”

“I brought a bottle of wine for you,” she said.

She fished around in the basket, brought out the bottle. He sat up to get the cork out, then drank from the bottle.

“Thanks for remembering,” he said. He handed her the bottle.

The woman drank from the bottle, too, then pressed the cork back into it. She stretched out, not close to him, but close enough, so that no matter how softly he spoke or she spoke they could hear one another.

“God, what fools we are,” she said.

“Yes, Swan.”

“I think everybody must be crazy, and I can’t understand why.”

“I’m not going to try to understand just now. I want to listen to Red and Eva, that’s all.”

The woman listened with him. They didn’t hear the words, they heard the voices. They listened to the voices of their children a long time, their own voices stilled by the sound of the voices of their children. The man lifted his head to notice their bodies. After a moment he let his head return to the rock, then closed his eyes, hearing their voices, the summer voices of his son and his daughter. He didn’t open his eyes a long time, not sleeping, but not being altogether awake, either.

“What are you doing, Red?” Eva said.

“Looking at this sand,” Red said.

“Let me see.”

“Look at it. One piece.”

“Where is it?”

“In my hand. Can’t you see it?”

“Where?”

“Here,” he said, putting a finger near it.

“I see it,” the girl said. “What are you looking at it for?”

“It’s a piece of sand.”

“Let me see.” She looked again. “It’s very small.”

“You can see it, though, can’t you?”

“I see it,” Eva said. “I see it right there.” She looked at her own hands and saw that they were covered with sand. She brushed the sand off her hands, but saw that quite a few pieces hadn’t gone. She looked at these carefully. “Look at mine,” she said. “How many have I got?”

“Let me see,” Red said. He looked at the sand stuck to the palm of her hand. “Well,” he said, “you’ve got a lot of them.”

“How many?”

“One, two, three,” Red said. “Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and many more.”

Eva brushed more sand from her hand, then said, “How many now?”

He looked again, counted to himself, and said, “Nine.”

She brushed still more sand from her hand, then said, “Now how many?”

“Three.”

“How many are there?”

“Where?”

“In the whole world.”

“Well,” Red said, “there are hundreds of places like this, I suppose, with millions of pieces of sand in each place.”

“What are they doing there?”

“Nothing.”

“How many pieces of sky are there?”

“Sky isn’t sand, Eva.”

“What is it?”

“Something else.”

“How many pieces of water are there?”

“Water isn’t sand, either.”

“Water’s rain,” Eva said. She looked at her hand again and noticed that it was again covered with sand. “How many pieces of people are there?”

“You think everything is sand,” Red said.

“No, I don’t,” Eva said. “Look at the sand on my hand now. Every piece is a people. This one’s a man, this one’s a woman, this one’s a boy, this one’s a girl. And this one—— What’s this one, Red?”

“Another man?”

“No, a dog,” Eva said. “And this one——What’s this one?” She pointed to a large black grain of sand. “This one’s my father,” she said.

“Let me see,” Red said. He looked at the grain of sand in her hand, then looked at his father lying on the blanket, his head resting on the rock. The girl looked at him, too. “Yes,” Red said. He pointed to a very bright grain of sand in her hand. “Who’s that?”

“My mother,” Eva said. “This one’s my father. This one’s my mother. Right here in my hand. And there they are over there, under the trees. My father told me to sit in front beside him in the car, didn’t he, Red?”

“Yes,” Red said.

“My father’s a good man,” Eva said. “My father’s a sad man.”

“Sad?” Red said.

“Oh, yes,” Eva said. “I know. When he carries me I look at his face. It’s a sad face.” She got an idea suddenly, and Red saw her face darken. “What is sad, Red? What is that?”

“Well,” Red said. “You know what glad is. Well, sad is not glad.”

“Why is my father sad?”

“He’s not always sad.”

“He’s sad now,” Eva said. “Look at him.”

They both looked and Red said, “No. He’s just resting, that’s all.”

“I’m tired of sitting,” the girl said. “Let’s go back into the water.”

They got up and went back into the water.

When the man sat up for another drink of wine he saw the woman with her dress tied above her knees holding their hands and wading with them about thirty yards down the river.

She was trying. She was beautiful when she tried. He had never seen her flesh so luminous. He took a long drink of the cold wine and watched her with her children, her own son and her own daughter, out of her own flesh. They were beautiful, the three of them were as beautiful as any mother and son and daughter had ever been, or could ever be. Their bodies were beautiful. He had never seen bodies so sweetly alive and so delightfully, so painfully beautiful. It’s not them alone I love, he thought. I love her, too. I still love her.

When they came back he dried the girl while Swan dried the boy. They helped the children back into their clothes, then sat together and ate the sandwiches. She’d brought along a bottle of soda pop for each of them, which they loved on picnics, and they drank out of their bottles as he drank out of the bottle of wine. The sandwiches were thin and easy to eat. After the food Eva stretched out in front of the man. He put his arm around her, and held her hand. After a moment Red stretched out in front of his mother, and she held his hand. Soon both of the children were asleep, and the woman said again, speaking softer than ever this time, “Evan?”

“No, Swan,” he said. “Listen to them breathing. That’s all we’ve got to do now.”

Chapter 27

They listened to the breathing of the sleeping boy and girl, and they heard the past breathe a sigh of regret. They heard the present breathe farewell.

“Evan?” the woman said.

“Yes, Swan.”

“Will you listen to what I say?”

“Yes, Swan.”

“If you love me, I will live. If you do not love me, I will not live. Can you love me? Can you love me now, Evan?”

“I don’t know, Swan. I want to.”

“Any man can love when it’s his alone, but only a man of love can love when it’s not. Is any man a father at all who is not able to love when it is not his alone?”

He listened to her soft speech.

“Which of us knows who he is, Evan, except out of love?”

He listened, tempted, troubled, and tormented.

“Swan?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“There are many strangers to choose from. Let my strangers be my own. Let them be the ones I believe are my own. My own with your own, whoever they are. Let this stranger return. I would love, Swan, but I would fail, I would have to fail. It’s early. There is help for such strangers.”

“There is no help for such strangers as myself, except love.”

“Swan?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“I know the stranger’s father.”

“No, Evan,” she said. “You do not. I do not. He does not. He will not know. He cannot know. The stranger is my stranger. I cannot be brutal. I must love him. The stranger is your stranger, too, if you love me. We do not know. You and I do not know. Red and Eva do not know. The stranger does not know. There is no truth here except the truth that is to be made out of love. And the truth then will be love. Your people are old and kind. The men of your people are fathers. They are the fathers of all people. They can be the father of more, Evan.”

“I would love,” he said. “I would love the stranger. I would love without pity, I would love without need to forgive, I would love without secret hurt, without secret hate. I would, Swan. Without belittlement of myself I would love, but where is there in my own stranger’s heart the means and nature of such love? Where is it, Swan?”

“In my own heart, Evan.”

“I would, Swan.”

“Love me, Evan. Without pity love me. Without scorn love me. Without hate love me. Let the easy lovers love one another when it is easy to love. Love me for this instant of myself loving you. Love me even for having betrayed you. Behold me, Evan, and love me with pride, with the terrible pride, the lonely pride, the fierce pride of a fool. Were it better not to be a fool, Evan?”

“Let this stranger go,” he said. “Let our own stranger come. Let it be Red’s and Eva’s.”

Chapter 28

I cannot be kind to her in every instant of her being, he thought. This river-and-summer moment will soon be gone. There are other moments. The coming of the stranger in the other moments will not be the same to her then as it is now.

She turned at last and looked at him.

“Love is a lie,” she said. “I don’t care, though. I don’t care any more. I believed only you could love, but you cannot, either. If that’s how it is, Evan, that’s how it is. Is that how it is?”

“Yes, Swan.”

“You cannot love me ugly, mad, sick, false, fearful?”

“Loving deathly things would not be love, Swan.”

“Love is a lie, Evan.”

“Time is slow,” he said, “but a woman’s wrong to a man, to herself, to her children, speeds time to death. I would not wrong you, Swan. I would restore slow time to both of us. I have been divorced from it these many hours. Love is no lie. I want you to live. I want Red to live. I want Eva to live. And I want to live in each of you. There is no other place for me to go. I am in each of you. I am each of you. It is no lie. Shall we try? Shall we try now to understand, while they sleep, so that we may know a little better who we are, and what we may do?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“I went to see my brother at the airport last night, not the one whose name I said. I said his name because it was the first that came to mind when I did not wish to say I was going to see my brother. You know, I know, my brother knows. No one else knows. No one need ever know. It is not impossible to forget that one of us moved farther away than the other. I would forget which of us it was. I would forget this, and I know I can. Can you forget it, Swan?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“Are you afraid of what needs to be done?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel it is wrong?”

“Yes, but it must be done. I’m afraid, but it must be done.”

“Do you want to think about it some more?”

“No. The sooner the better.”

“It is right, Swan.”

“Yes, Evan. It is right.”

The boy said the words in his sleep.

“What did he say?” the woman said.

“He said, ‘It is right.’ He learned to say it last night from Dade. I’ve promised to teach him the whole language. Had I not promised, Swan, this day might not have been possible. Time is slow. There is no end to it. It is wrong to end time, Swan. Your son asked me not to end time, and I could not refuse him.”

“My beautiful son,” the woman said.

The boy was the first to waken. He looked up and saw the sorrowful, troubled, luminous face of the woman who was his mother. He hugged the woman quickly, laughing and whispering in her ear, “It is right.” He turned to his father. “Mama doesn’t understand me any more, Papa.” He said the words in the language again. “What am I saying, Mama?”

“It is right,” the woman said.

“Do you know the language, too?” Red said.

“I’m learning it,” the woman said.

The girl woke up and stared at her father.

“I want to go in the water,” she said. “I want to go in the water all the time.”

“No, Eva,” the woman said.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” the girl said.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” the woman said.

They picked things up, went to the car, and began to drive home. This time they all sat up front, the boy beside the man, the girl on the woman’s lap.

Chapter 29

The minute they were home Red wanted to telephone Flora Walz. Evan got the number for him.

“Flora?” he said.

“This is Fanny,” the voice on the line said.

“This is Red. Come on over and play.”

“Can’t,” Fanny said. “They’ve gone to Fresno in the car. We’re here with Mrs. Blotch.”

“Can I talk to Flora?”

He couldn’t wait to hear her voice. When he did, he lost his own.

“Come on over and play,” he said at last.

“Red?”

“Yes.”

“Red Nazarenus?”

“Yes. Come on over and play, Flora.”

“Can’t. We don’t have a car.”

“How far is it?”

“Very far. They’ve gone to Fresno.”

“I know. Fay knows the way. Walk over.”

“Can’t.”

“Please come over,” Red said. He called out to his father. “Papa, will you take me in the car to Flora’s house?”

“Sure,” Evan said.

“I’ll be right over,” Red said.

“All right,” Flora said.

Eva came out into the hall and said, “I want to go, too, Red. Papa, I want to go, too.”

“You can come,” Red said.

“He’s my brother,” Eva said to her father.

Red ran out into the parlor.

“Good-bye, Mama,” he said. “I’m going to Flora’s house. It’s very far. They’ve gone to Fresno in the car. Flora’s there with Mrs. Blotch. Eva’s going, too.”

His body danced as he spoke. He ran to the front door, saying, “Come on, Eva.”

Eva said, “Yesterday when I wanted to go, Mama, they wouldn’t let me. Remember? But today I am going. I’m going with my brother to Flora’s house. Is it Flora’s house? I think it’s Fanny’s. I’m coming, Red. Good-bye, Mama.”

From the porch Evan said, “Come on, Swan. Ride with us.”

“You take them and come back,” Swan said. “They’ve said such nice good-byes, I’d spoil it by going.”

“I’ll be only a few minutes,” the man said.

When they were gone she went to the telephone and called Palo Alto.

He didn’t speak a moment, then said, “I’m going back to New York. I’ve bought my ticket. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I mean——” he said. “I’ve been awfully worried about you. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. Yes,” she said.

“Well, take care of yourself,” he said. “Take care of your children.”

“Good-bye,” she said.

He was the one.

She knew it need not have happened. It had happened because she had insisted, but she could not then, or now, understand why. Had she forced it to happen in order to have come to pass what had come to pass?

She was glad he didn’t know, at any rate, perhaps didn’t even suspect.

She was suddenly overwhelmed by the absurdity of what had happened, but at the same time almost wished she could be with him once more, one last time, to seek to know perhaps one thing more, though what it was she could not guess.

She wept for him, and for his secret son.

She then went to the bathroom, vomited, and afterwards washed her hands and face.

Chapter 30

The man drove slowly down the country road, loitering as if the car were himself.

“Do you know where it is?” Red said.

“Papa knows where everything is,” Eva said. “Don’t you, Papa?”

“Do I, Eva?”

“Of course, Papa.”

“Do you know where Flora’s house is?” Red said.

“It’s over here someplace,” Evan said.

“You see, Red,” Eva said. “He knows.”

“He doesn’t,” Red said. “He’s going to look for it. Over where someplace, Papa?”

“Down this road a little,” the man said, “or down the next road, or down some other road.”

“Down this road,” Red said, laughing. “Down the next, down some other. Where is it?”

“Papa knows,” Eva said. “Papa knows everything.”

“Papa knows everything,” Red said, laughing.

“Papa even knows when I was born,” Eva said. “Don’t you, Papa?”

“I think Red does, too,” the man said.

“Do you, Red?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t,” Eva said.

“How could you?” Red said. “You were just born.”

“I was me,” Eva said.

“I was me,” Red said, laughing.

Red was finding comedy in everything because he was going to see Flora Walz. His sister was finding love in everything because she hadn’t been left behind, because she was going with him, because there was—because there could be—love in everything.

Evan Nazarenus loved them, and they knew it. They knew it from the way he was their father again. The panic and the weeping were gone out of them because they recognized him again as the one who was their own father, a slim, slouching man with hair all over his fingers and arms, brown and red, not black like the hair on his head. His children loved one another now because they had seen their mother and their father through a whole day the way the best days they had ever known had been, their mother loving, their father loving, each of them quiet and patient, not loud and angry, or loud only on purpose, for fun, for the making of play, and angry only to make the play all the more interesting, the way Red, having learned from his father, pretended to be angry when he repeated the strange things his sister had said, the easygoing things his father had said, having fun about Red’s eagerness to get to Flora’s, Down this road, down the next, down the other.

Red and his father were going to have a talk sometime because his father had told him they were. It was going to be a talk about his father’s angry voice the other night. Sometimes Eva made Red angry. He pushed her sometimes, and she said he hit her, but he only pushed her. He had hit her, though. He had hit her a lot of times, but not as many times as she had made him angry. Sometimes he just let it go.

“That looks like a nice house,” Red said. “Maybe that’s Flora’s house.”

“Fanny’s,” Eva said. “It’s Fanny’s house. Fanny doesn’t cry when her head’s cracked open.”

“Fanny doesn’t cry when her head’s cracked open,” Red said, laughing. “Fanny doesn’t cry when she cries, I suppose. Fanny laughs when she cries, I suppose.”

“Fanny laughs when she cries!” Eva said. “Isn’t that funny, Papa?”

The house was neither Flora’s nor Fanny’s. The name on the mailbox was Amos Blotch.

It’s around here somewhere, the man thought. If it’s his wife who’s staying with the girls, they are probably neighbors.

He wanted to surprise his son and his daughter by driving right in, by taking that chance, or by catching the name on the mailbox in time to make the arrival neat and natural, make it seem as if he did know. He knew it would thrill the girl, and make the boy feel good. It would make him feel good, too, because so far they had not wandered around, they had gone straight down a road, they hadn’t stopped and gone back, or tried another road.

He saw a white frame house, as clean as it could be, set back from the road fifty yards or so with a lot of lawn up front and two enormous eucalyptus trees. He believed this might be the house of Warren and May Walz. He didn’t make out the name on the box, for the lettering had faded, but he drove right in, all the way up the driveway, and there he saw the three girls in the large back yard, a very old olive tree at the far end of it, and a woman with glasses sitting in a canvas chair, reading a book.

“You see, Red?” Eva said. “Papa does know where everything is.”

“Did you know where it was, Papa?” Red said.

“Well, here we are,” the man said. “There’s Fay and Fanny and Flora.”

He stopped the car and Red and Eva jumped out and ran to the girls, who ran to them.

The woman got up, keeping her place in the book she was reading, and smiled.

The man greeted her and said, “I hope they won’t be too much trouble. If you’ll telephone when they’re ready to come home, I’ll come and get them.”

“Do you want them to stop when it’s dark?” the woman asked.

“Whenever the Walz girls are ready to stop will be all right,” he said. “They’ve had naps and a peaceful day.”

“All right,” the woman said.

The children were under the olive tree, making plans for the first game. He got into the car and began to drive back.

Chapter 31

After she had washed her face the vomiting came again, and with it the fiercest loathing of her trouble that she had ever known. At the same time she was terrified of what needed to be done, which she herself now wanted done.

When she had first begun to suspect, she had sat in hot tubs of water by the hour, frantic with anxiety and hope, but nothing had happened. She had then gone to the garage and opened an old can of paint, and she had held her head over the paint, breathing in the fumes, but again nothing had happened. She had then gone to a doctor in San Mateo, calling herself Mrs. Morgan. He had phoned two days later, asking her to come in again. By this time, though, she was sure. The doctor’s telephone call several days later only confirmed what she knew.

“I’m afraid. I don’t want it,” she told the doctor. “We can’t afford it. Isn’t there something I can take?”

The doctor laughed and said, “Mrs. Morgan, the way you feel now is perfectly natural. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not well enough to have another,” she said. “I’m terribly afraid. Please let me have something.”

“You think about it,” the doctor said. “Talk it over with Mr. Morgan. Come on in with him and we’ll go over the whole thing together. I’m sure I can convince both of you not to do anything that might be even more difficult than birth itself.”

She had believed a pill would do it, and in desperation she had gone back a week later, almost begging the doctor to prescribe such a pill.

“A new life wants to get born,” he said. “There are a number of things I could prescribe, but they might not work. Are you sure you want to try them? I’m not sure you should. Wouldn’t you rather we talked it over with Mr. Morgan?”

“He’s away,” she said. “He won’t be back for two weeks. I’d rather he knew nothing about it.” She stopped suddenly, her face flushed, and she said, “We’re in debt.”

The man understood instantly.

“My dear,” he said. He wrote a prescription and handed it to her. “I hope it works.”

And it hadn’t.

When Evan was finally home from Nebraska he was famished for her. She told him she was in her time. He roared with laughter at his need and said, “How long do I have to wait?”

“Until Friday,” she said.

Friday they had arrived in Clovis and had gone to Dade’s house. She had struggled all day, trying to decide what to do. Finally, she had decided to tell him.

She had told him.

And then, after he had gone mad, as she had known he would, in the midst of his hatred and contempt, in the midst of her own loneliness, terror, shame, and regret, she had needed him more than ever.

She had talked and talked, hoping desperately to reach a truth he could accept, even if reluctantly, but she was glad he had refused to recognize any such truth.

She remained frightened, although she was grateful that he had decided what was to be done.

She had argued because from the time she had seen the bouquet of red roses her son had found in Dade’s house she had felt that she was dying. She neither wanted to die, nor to kill. She did not want the daily ordeal of love and survival to end, she did not want the lore and fun of herself and her husband to end. But when she had seen her son holding the bouquet and looking at it, as he looked at everything, his face grave with thought, his eyes piercing and sorrowful at once, she had seen herself and all of them dead. She had wept because she had known she would tell him. She could not be near him with this thing untold. All the other things could remain untold, but not this. And she knew her telling would kill or madden him, or both, and that, whatever he finally did, whatever he finally decided must be done, she would surely perish. She was a stupid girl. She had always been a little sick, a little weak, a little mad, too, but with Evan these things had been put aside from her. He had carried her away from them, not even knowing that he had done so.

She went now to the silver bowl on the mantel over the fireplace and brought out the bouquet of four dried roses. She was staring at them when he came back into the house.

“They won’t be ready to come home for a long time,” he said. “How about a walk in the vineyard?”

She turned to him, unable to stop herself from trying again.

“Evan?”

“Yes, Swan.”

“I don’t want to be butchered. I know it will kill me.”

“Why do you keep thinking something is going to kill you?”

“I thought you would,” she said. “I almost hoped you would.”

“I’m a father,” he said. “I have two kids. I have to think about them. I have to think about them every minute. I have to think about their mother every minute. I cannot be angry for myself. I must be patient for my children. I could not kill you, Swan. I could not kill the mother of my children. Were you Swan alone, and I Evan alone, and Swan had betrayed Evan, Evan would not have been betrayed, for no woman can betray a man, no man can betray a woman, only children can be betrayed.” He stopped, then took her by the shoulders to look into her eyes. “I will not betray mine, Swan. I have been mad. I am mad no longer. If you are frightened, Swan, I am frightened with you, but my purpose is to banish your fear, and my own. I will not impose my will, but I will seek to help you to impose your own upon yourself. Come for a walk in the vineyard. Thank God for a day in which Rex and Eva Nazarenus have lived as if living were not a sick and fearful treachery, an unpredictable and constant menace and danger. Laughter has been restored to them by this summer Sunday. They believe again in their father, and in their mother. If they cannot believe in these two, they can believe in nothing. Or they can believe in themselves alone, as lonely, vengeful, mistrusting things. Come for the walk in the vineyard, Swan. I am your husband and their father. You are my wife and their mother. If there were something better for us to be, I would urge you to be yours, and I mine. There is nothing better. Nothing better even now, Swan. Nothing better even with the ordeal still ahead for each of us, for these children must have you, Swan, and they must have me.”

He walked swiftly out of the house. She placed the bouquet back into the silver bowl, turned, and hurried after him. He was already in the vineyard when she reached the fig tree. She ran after him, thinking, If I ran, and tripped and fell, perhaps then it would end. She ran and prayed to fall, then fell, and cried out. He stopped, turned, but did not go to her. She got up, knowing the fall had done no good.

Chapter 32

“We went to church,” Eva said to Fanny. “What did you do?”

“We went, too,” Fanny said.

They were playing the same game, hiding behind a pile of uprooted Emperor vine stumps. Each stump, if you looked at it carefully, resembled a small body with many arms.

“I sang,” Eva said. “Then I laughed, and Red got angry at me. He got angry because they never laugh in church. I didn’t know. My mother laughed, too. Red got angry at her, too.”

“Which church did you go to?”

“The white one.”

“That’s the Presbyterian,” Fanny said. “We go to the Methodist. We’re Methodists.”

“We’re Presbyterians,” Eva said. “Why are we Presbyterians? Why are you Methodists?”

“How should I know?” Fanny said. “We’ll be out here all night because Fay’s It, and she can never find anybody. What did the man say?”

“What man?”

“At the church.”

“Well,” Eva said, “he said, ‘God is love, God loves everybody, everybody must love everybody,’ and then I fell asleep. What did your man say?”

“He said God is love a couple of weeks ago,” Fanny said, “but today he said some other stuff. I didn’t listen.”

“Did you fall asleep, too?”

“No, I just got tired listening. I used to listen. I used to listen to every word. I used to believe every word, too.”

“I believe every word,” Eva said. “Don’t you?”

“I should say not!” Fanny said. “God is love!”

“He is,” Eva said. “God is the Father, and my father is the one who loves.”

“Says who?” Fanny said.

“Says who?” Eva said. “What’s that mean?”

“Who says your father is the one who loves?”

“I do,” Eva said. “Isn’t your father the one? Isn’t he the one who loves?”

“Loves who?”

“You.”

“Oh, well,” Fanny said. “I guess he does. Sure he does. So what?”

“So what?” Eva said. “Isn’t it nice?”

They heard stealthy footsteps, fell silent, and moved away from the footsteps. Fay was walking around the pile of vine stumps, but she was so slow. Fay went all the way around the pile of stumps, and then went somewhere else, thinking no one had been hiding there.

“Come on,” Fanny said. “She’ll never find us, so let’s go somewhere else and hide.”

“Let’s go in the vineyard and eat grapes,” Eva said.

“Let’s go to the watermelon patch and see if we can find one that’s ripe,” Fanny said. “They’ve been harvested, the season’s over, but maybe we can find one that’s ripe.”

“All right,” Eva said. “I love watermelons.” They walked in silence, then Eva said, “I love my mother. I love my brother, but most of all I love my father.”

“Why?” Fanny said.

“He’s the one,” Eva said. “He carries me. He talks to me. He tells me stories. He tells me things to make me laugh. He looks at me, and that’s best of all. He looks at me and I know he loves me.”

“How do you know?”

“He looks.”

They came to the watermelon patch, about a quarter of an acre beside an irrigation ditch. There were misshapen and sad-looking little melons on some of the vines.

“Is this one good?” Eva said.

“For hogs,” Fanny said. “That’s a cull.”

“Isn’t it a watermelon?”

“It’s a cull watermelon. A cull is a watermelon that’s no good from the beginning. It’s lopsided and small, and inside nothing is red or sweet. It’s pale and has no flavor at all, almost. We’ll find a good one, though. We had hundreds and hundreds of good ones when it was the season. There’s always a few late ones.”

They wandered among the vines, Fanny kicking a cull now and then, breaking it, but not laughing. Eva watched and wondered why she didn’t laugh when she did something so funny. Eva kicked one, but not the way Fanny did. It didn’t even break. She didn’t kick it again, but looked at it as if she had been rude and was sorry. Poor little cull.

“Here’s one,” Fanny said. She bent over a melon that was quite big, long and well shaped. Fanny tapped it with her knuckles, then said, “It’s ripe, too. We’ll break it open and eat the heart.” She kicked the stem of the melon free of the vine, picked it up, and walked with it to the irrigation ditch. She held it about a foot above the grass and let it fall. It cracked. Fanny put her hand in the crack, split the melon open, and there it was for Eva to see, all red with rows of fine black seeds. “This is your half,” Fanny said, “and this is mine. Let’s sit down and eat the heart.”

“All right,” Eva said, “and thank you very much, Fanny Walz.”

“Ah,” Fanny said, “you’re so polite. Just eat the watermelon. In another couple of days it would have been rotten. We got to it just in time.” She dug her fingers into the heart of the melon and brought up a handful of the stuff with not one seed in it. “That’s the way to do it,” she said. “It’s the best way to eat a watermelon. The heart’s the best part.” She gobbled up every bit she had in her hand. Eva dug in the way Fanny had and began to gobble up the heart of her half.

It was sweet and delicious, and where they were sitting was nice, the water in the ditch moving slowly, the grass growing all around, the sun gone now, but the light of it still keeping the color of the grass green, the shapes of its stalks and leaves clear.

There was so much to eat that Eva’s belly got full and tight before she was finished. Still she didn’t want to stop. When she had eaten every bit of the heart and some of the rest of the watermelon, Fanny was standing, waiting, so Eva got up, and they began to walk back to the game.

“That Fay!” Fanny said. “She just can’t play any game. We were right there behind the pile of vine stumps and just because we kept moving around it, she didn’t have sense enough to know we were there. I’ll bet she hasn’t found anybody yet. If it had been me, I would have found everybody in two seconds, and I would have beat everybody back to the olive tree, too.”

“I know,” Eva said, for she was sure Fanny would have done exactly what she had said.

It was almost dark now. They came slowly to the olive tree, then went to Mrs. Blotch.

“Where’s Fay?” Fanny said.

“Out somewhere looking for you, I guess,” Mrs. Blotch said.

“Where’s Flora?”

“Out hiding, I guess.”

“Where’s Red?” Eva said.

“Out hiding, too, I guess.”

“Fay can’t find anybody,” Fanny said. “We found a ripe watermelon and ate the heart.”

“Yes,” Eva said.

When it was dark they saw Red and Flora walking slowly to the olive tree. After a moment they saw Fay, too. When they met at the olive tree, they looked at one another and didn’t speak. This was so because the game had petered out, and it was night.

Chapter 33

After church and Sunday dinner Warren Walz told his wife the truth about Friday night.

“I knew,” May Walz said.

“How did you know?”

“I just did.”

“When did you find out?”

“When you came to get me at Dade’s house, although I refused to believe it then.”

“I’m sorry, May, but I had to tell you.”

“I knew you would” the woman said. “I thought it might take longer.”

“You have a right to be angry.”

“Forget it,” the woman said. “Let me forget it. I wouldn’t be able to begin to forget it until you had told me, but now that you have, please never again humiliate me by being ashamed of yourself. Anything would be better than that. I will not have my daughters ashamed of their father, and they already are, especially Fanny. You’ve known that yourself or you wouldn’t have tried to stand on your head beside her last night. That was the best moment of yours I’ve ever witnessed. If having made a fool of yourself did that to you, I’m glad you made a fool of yourself.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” the man said. “I thought my telling you would end our marriage.”

“You sound as if you’d prefer our marriage to end.”

“That’s not so,” the man said. “I think you know how much I’ve always loved you, in spite of the oppression you—or something in marriage itself—became to me. Five years ago at the Huntingtons’ when I got drunk, for instance, and made a pass at their cousin from St. Louis, it wasn’t like this. I’d been scared by you before, but what happened then really scared me. A man doesn’t like to feel that it’s compulsory to love his wife, May. It got to be awfully compulsory for me.”

“I know,” the woman said.

“I don’t understand,” the man said. “We’ve had so many fights that were supposed to be about other things, but were actually always about this oppression, and this compulsoriness. What’s happened? Surely something’s happened. What is it?”

“You wanted to run away,” May said. “I knew why. They had been through something or other, something surely serious, too, as you must know. They had involved us, but the next day the first thing they did was telephone and invite us to dinner. Why? Because there is no running away, Warren. After what they’d been through it seemed to me that if they could ask us over, without any reference to what they and we had already been through, we could certainly go to them in the same spirit. I believed going was important.”

“I’m sorry I was stupid about that,” the man said.

“Don’t be sorry about anything,” the woman said. “I made up my mind on the drive to Fresno, and back, to fight this out with you. I made up my mind to force you into helping me. I was sure you would still want to run away, and I almost believed it might be easier that way, after all. For me, I mean. Our marriage would end. I mean, decently, in divorce. It’s been ended for a long time in any case, as you and I know, as we’ve known since soon after Flora’s birth. You wanted a son. I wanted a son. But how long is it since we’ve talked about it? Six years, or more. We can have a son, we know it, but we gave up being married, Warren. We gave it up and just stayed in the same house together. Of course something’s happened. We’ve met another family, with difficulties greater than our own. That’s what’s happened. It would have been easier not to go, certainly easier after you had telephoned and told them we were going to Yosemite. I have never been so hurt as when you thought I wanted to poke into their affairs. You kept saying that. I didn’t poke into their affairs. I couldn’t hold it against her that she had slammed the door in my face, even. She and I talked. We talked a long time. That’s what’s happened, Warren. We talked, as if not about ourselves, about women, being married, having children, being mothers, being human beings—these are difficult things. Being these things calls for trying all the time. Of course you were oppressed, but so was I. I don’t want you to be, and I don’t want to be. I’ll take my chances, because they’re worth taking. I’m thirty-three years old, Warren, and I want a son. I still want a son.”

“I want one, too,” the man said.

“I’m not a foolish woman,” the woman said, “as I’ve seemed to be for so long, and you’re not a tormented man, as you’ve seemed to be. I’m any kind of woman any kind of man you may become may wish to discover in me.”

“I was sure we were finished,” the man said.

They called Mrs. Blotch and told her they might not be back until very late, would she spend the night? She said she would. Walz fetched Mrs. Blotch and they told the kids they were going to Fresno and wouldn’t be home until very late. They drove off. The kids looked at one another and Fanny said, “They’re trying to be in love again.”

Chapter 34

Monday afternoon a man from the garage brought Dade’s car to the house. The kids were asleep at the time, but when Evan got the man to put the top down Red heard the grinding noise, woke up, and came running out of the house. It was the hottest day of the year so far, the man said. He lifted the hood to show Evan all the good things that had been done to the motor, Red climbing up onto the bumper to look, too. It was a ten-year-old Lincoln with almost a hundred thousand miles on it, but the man said it was now good for at least fifty thousand more.

“It ought to be,” he said. “Want to know what it’s costing Dade? Almost five hundred dollars, but we’ve practically made a new car out of it. For my money it’s better-looking than the new models anyway. Want to get behind the wheel and drop me off at the garage? I’ll tell you a few things about the car as we go.”

Now Eva came running out of the house.

“Come on, Swan,” Evan said. “We’ll go for a ride to town in Dade’s car. We’ll come back, and then go for a real drive. You, too, Eva.”

“Another picnic?” Eva said. “To the place by the river?”

“Or another place,” Evan said.

Everybody got in and sat down on the smooth black leather seats. The car was dark blue, and newly waxed and polished.

“It’s Dade’s car,” Eva said. “It’s not ours, Mama. It’s Dade’s.”

The car was a delight to drive. The motor was very nearly silent but tremendously powerful.

When they had left the man off at the garage, Evan asked everybody to get up front.

“Is it too hot, Swan?” he said. “Shall I put the top up?”

“No, Papa,” Eva said. “I can see everywhere now.”

“Leave it down,” Swan said. “It is hot, but it would be anyway.”

“Where will we go?” Eva said. “Do I have to put on clothes? Can’t I go like this? It feels so good to be in only shorts.”

“You can go the way you are,” Evan said. “We’ll take along some clothes to put on later. The sun’ll do you good. You, too, Red, if you want to.”

“Shall we pick up the Walz girls and take them with us?” Swan said.

“Why not all of them?” Evan said. “There’s plenty of room in the car. Maybe we could go swimming.”

“Where?” Red said. “Piedra? It’s hard to walk on the rocks there.”

“Maybe they know a better place,” Evan said. “Suppose we stop there on our way home, then go back and pick them up after we fix a picnic basket?”

“Do you like them?” Swan said.

“Very much,” Evan said.

“I do, too,” Red said.

“So do I,” Eva said, “especially Fanny. I didn’t like her at first, I liked Flora at first, but now I like Fanny best, then Flora, then Fay.”

“She’s the nicest woman I’ve ever met,” Swan said. “The first impression you get of people can be awful wrong, can’t it? In one visit we’ve become the best of friends.”

“Cody Bone’s my best friend,” Red said.

“No,” Eva said. “Flora’s your best friend.”

“I forgot all about Bart,” Evan said. “The man in San Francisco’s going to phone sometime this afternoon. I’ve got to wait for his call. I told Bart I’d phone the minute I heard from him.”

“Maybe he’ll phone while we’re fixing the picnic basket,” Swan said.

“Well, if he doesn’t,” Red said, “you phone him, Papa.”

“Well, I could,” Evan said, “but I’d rather not. I could, though.”

They came to the Walz home and found everybody in the back yard.

“How about going swimming with us?” Evan said. “We’re going to have a picnic, too.”

“How about it, May?” Walz said.

“Us, too?” Fanny said.

“Yes, Fanny,” Eva said.

“We’ll go in Dade’s car,” Evan said. “There’s plenty of room. We’re going home to fix a basket. We’ll be back in an hour or so. Think of a good place to go. Let it be far.”

“Yes,” Red said, “let’s go far this time. Piedra’s not far.”

“Piedra’s so nice, though,” May said. “Couldn’t we go there again, Red?”

“Oh, well,” Red said. “Sure we could, Mrs. Walz—if you want to.”

“It’s the best place, isn’t it, Warren?” May said.

“Just about,” Walz said. “The river at Skaggs Bridge is pretty good, too, though, and no rocks. It’s shallow enough for the kids unless they go out to the middle of the stream. Do you have suits? We’ve got all kinds of them if you haven’t. We’ll bring along some extra ones. We’ll decide when you get back.”

“We’ll fix a basket, too,” May said to Swan. “What are you having, so we can keep it balanced?”

“Well,” Swan said, “I thought deviled ham, boiled ham, and cheese sandwiches.”

“All right,” May said. “We’ll make some hard-boiled eggs, jelly and cream cheese sandwiches. We’ve got a couple of dozen hot dogs for a roast, and some cold fruit. That’ll do it, won’t it?”

“I forgot the wine, and soda pop for the kids,” Swan said. “We’ll stay until after sundown. All right?”

“Sure,” May said.

They drove home and Swan went to work on the sandwiches. When she was almost finished Evan telephoned the man in San Francisco.

“I was about to call,” the man said. “This is the setup. Tell him to come to my office Friday morning at half-past eleven. I’ll tell him the whole story, then we’ll go to lunch. After lunch I’ll turn him over to our man who will look after him until he sails.”

“When will that be?” Evan said.

“The following Friday,” the man said.

“When will he be back in San Francisco?”

“Anywhere from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty days later—four or five months.”

“You’ll like him,” Evan said. “I’ll call him now. I know he’s sitting there, waiting. He’ll be an able seaman, is that right?”

“That’s right,” the man said, “and don’t worry. We need them. He’ll come back with some money, too. It’s a good ship, and a friend of mine’s first mate. He’ll look after him.”

Evan telephoned Bart and told him the story. The boy was speechless a moment, then began to cheer.

“Let’s go, Clovis!” he shouted. “The high school cheer,” he explained. “Thanks, Mr. Nazarenus. Can we come by tonight after dinner? Or will you come by here?”

“We’re going on a picnic in a few minutes with the Walz family,” Evan said. “We might be late getting back. Why not pick up Cody and join us there? There’ll be plenty to eat. It’ll be either Piedra or Skaggs Bridge. I’ll phone from Warren’s and let you know.”

“Swell,” Bart said. “Cody gets home a little after five. We’ll be wherever it is a half hour later. You can help me tell Cody. He’s going to be glad. I know he is, but if you help me tell him, I don’t think he’s going to worry. Friday! Let’s go, Clovis!”

They got into the car. They were on their way when Evan heard the telephone bell ring. He stopped the car.

“I’d better get it,” he said.

“Who is it?” Red said. Again, for the first time in hours, there was panic in his voice.

“Dade, most likely,” Evan said.

He got out of the car and ran into the house. By the time he answered the phone there was no one on the line. At last the operator came on the line.

“There was a call for Mrs. Nazarenus from Palo Alto,” the operator said, “but the party hung up.”

“Will you get the party back, please?” Evan said.

“I’ll try,” the operator said.

She was a long time, then came back and said, “The number doesn’t answer. I think it was a booth number. Shall I try it again in twenty minutes?”

“No,” he said, “try this number.” He gave her the number, and after a moment she said, “That number doesn’t answer, either, sir.”

“O.K.,” he said. “Thanks.”

He went to Dade’s room, drew open the drawer, saw everything in its place, looked around for the key to the drawer, found it on top of the bureau, locked the drawer, and put the key in his pocket. He hurried out of the house, locking the door behind him.

“Who was it?” Swan said.

“Dade,” he said. He spoke cheerfully, and they drove off, but there was a quietude in the kids, and in Swan, that made him know they didn’t believe him.

“What did he say, Papa?” Red said.

Evan Nazarenus laughed.

“Dade said, ‘Are you teaching Red the language?’ and I said, ‘I am,’ so here we go for today’s lesson. Let me hear you say, ‘It is right.’ ”

Red said the words in the language.

“Again, please,” Evan said. After a moment, “Again.”

“All right, Papa,” Red said. “Let’s do today’s lesson.”

“Listen carefully, then,” Evan Nazarenus said. “You, too, Swan. You, too, Eva. All of you listen carefully.”

“Yes, Papa,” Eva said.

“I love you,” Evan said in the language.

“What’s that mean?” Red said.

“I love you,” Evan said in English. “Now listen carefully. I’ll say it again, very slowly. Listen to the sound of it. You, too, Swan. I love you,” he said in the language. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Have you got it, Swan?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“Say it, Swan.”

“I love you,” Swan said in the language.

“Again,” he said. She said it again. “Again, Swan.” She said it again. “Again, please,” he said.

“What’s the matter, Papa?” Red said.

“What’s the matter?” Evan said. “I’m teaching your mother my language. It’s a good language. I’m going to teach all of you this language. Now you say it, Red.” Red said it. He said it perfectly, as if the language were his, too. “Notice the way he says it, Swan,” Evan said. “Say it that way.” She said it again, trying to say it the way Evan and Red had said it.

She knew something had happened. She knew he was trying hard, and she wanted to help him.

“Eva?” Evan said.

“Yes, Papa.”

“Can you say it, darling?”

“I can say it, Papa.”

“Listen carefully to the way I say it,” Evan said. “Then say it that way. Say it that way the first time. I love you,” he said in the language. “Now say it, darling.”

“I love you,” the girl said in the language, saying it perfectly.

“Say it again,” he said. She said it again.

“Now, I’m going to say it to each of you,” he said, “and each of you say it back to me. I’m going to say it because it’s true, and I can say it best in my own language. Swan? I love you,” he said in the language.

“I love you, Evan,” Swan said in the language.

“Red?” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you, Papa,” Red said in the language.

“Eva? I love you,” he said in the language.

“I love you, Papa,” Eva said. “I love you, Mama. I love you, Red,” she said in the language.

“That’s today’s lesson,” Evan said.

When they reached the Walz house everybody was ready to go. The baskets were put away in the car and everybody got in.

“I’ve got to call Bart,” Evan said. “I’ve asked him to bring Cody to the picnic after work, if it’s all right. I told him I’d tell him where we’re going.”

“I think we can have more fun at Skaggs Bridge,” Walz said. “I’ll let you in. While I’m at it I’ll get us a drink.”

The minute he was through letting Bart know where the picnic was he told the operator to try the Palo Alto number again. Walz was in the kitchen fixing the drinks. Evan heard the phone ring, then the man’s voice. He did not bother about names.

“Listen to me carefully,” he said.

“Evan?” Milton Schweitzer said.

“Just listen to me carefully,” Evan said. “You don’t have children, but I do. You understand, I think. If I ever see you again, I will not kill you, because of my children, but I will nearly do so—with my hands. That’s all.”

He hung up and cursed in his own language.

In the kitchen Warren Walz had heard everything, but after a moment he came out of the kitchen as if he had heard nothing. He handed Evan his drink.

“We’d better gulp these down,” Evan said. “I don’t like to keep kids waiting.” He drank his drink, and Walz his.

“Thanks,” Evan said.

He walked out of the house, Walz coming after him quickly.

Chapter 35

The man in Palo Alto hung up, began to walk the length of the small apartment, saying to himself, On top of everything else, this.

Evan was his friend. He had, in fact, no other friend. He was the kind of man people seemed to dislike on sight. He seemed to make them uncomfortable.

He’d felt that he must speak to her once more. He’d wanted to feel before leaving for New York that he need not feel guilty any more.

His bags were packed, he’d been at the corner drugstore for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, he’d decided he must telephone her. He’d heard the number being rung, but was relieved and grateful when no one had answered. He had tried, at any rate.

He’d gone back to his apartment to pick up his bags. He’d telephoned for a cab, and the girl had said a driver would be there in five or ten minutes.

Then the telephone bell had rung and he’d listened to Evan Nazarenus.

Now, there was a knock at the door.

“Taxi,” the driver said.

He opened the door and handed the man a dollar.

“I’m not quite ready yet,” he said. “Can you come back in a half hour?”

“Sure,” the driver said.

He closed the door and sat at his desk. He found that he’d left a lined tablet in the drawer, brought out his fountain pen, and began to write a letter. When the taxi driver knocked at the door again he let him in, they picked up his bags, and went downstairs to the street.

In the taxi the driver said, “The depot?”

But when they came to the depot the man said, “Could you drive me to San Francisco?”

“Sure,” the driver said. “It’ll come to around fifteen dollars, though.”

“O.K.”

He deposited his bags in two of the dime lockers at the Ferry Building, having an hour to kill, put the keys in his pocket, went across the street to a saloon, had a drink, then another, and another, until his train was gone. He went out and got into a taxi.

“The St. Francis,” he said.

“My bags are at the depot,” he said at the desk. “I’ll get them tomorrow.”

He dropped the letter in the mailbox, went to his room, and fell on the bed.

“Listen to me,” he heard Evan say. “Listen to me carefully.”

He listened for hours listening in his drunken sleep.

Chapter 36

The picnic at Skaggs Bridge was the best Red had ever been to. Everybody went into the river, to wade and splash and swim. The floor of the river was smooth firm sand. Around sundown Cody and Bart came in Bart’s car. They put on their swimming trunks and got into the river, too. When it was evening everybody left the river and got dressed. A fire was made and hot dogs were roasted. The smell of the burning leaves, twigs, and logs was very good. Everybody ate and drank, and then Evan, Warren, Cody, and Bart sang old songs until it was dark.

Red stood with Flora, watching the fire die down.

“We’re going home Friday,” Red said.

“Yes, I know,” Flora said.

“We’re coming back Christmas, I think.”

“Are you going to stay at Dade’s?”

“Yes. My father wants to work on the vineyard with his brother. He has a long vacation then.”

“How long?”

“Until after New Year’s Day,” Red said. “I’m coming, too.”

“Everything’s different then,” Flora said. “The trees and vines are bare then. It’s cold then. It’s winter.”

“Winter’s good, too,” Red said.

“We don’t have snow,” Flora said, “but everything gets awful cold.”

They talked until it was time to get back into Dade’s car and go home.

“We’re certainly going to hate to see you go,” Warren Walz said.

“Why don’t you come and live in Clovis?” May said.

“Why don’t we, Swan?” Evan said.

“To make a living,” Walz said, “you’d need at least thirty acres, but vineyards aren’t nearly as high as they used to be. For about three thousand cash I think you could get a pretty good place. You’d owe about nine thousand, but with luck you’d pay that off in four or five years. It’s not a bad life.”

“I’d like a vineyard all right, if Swan and Red and Eva would, too,” Evan said.

“I would,” Swan said.

Red and Eva said they would, too.

“The house might not be very good,” Walz said, “but instead of moving right in, you could go back for another semester or two. In the meantime, Dade and I could be having the house put in order. When it was ready, you could move in. A year or two later you could have a new house built. A real ranch house. Ours is just an old house that we’ve kept up. It’s forty years old.”

“Is it that old?” Swan said. “It seems so new and nice.”

“It was always a good house,” May said. “It’s just that we didn’t have it built ourselves. We’ve had it since before Fay. If it wasn’t ours at first, it certainly is by now. I’ll show you around when we get there.”

“If you’d like me to,” Warren said, “I’ll find out what’s for sale around Clovis, and whenever you feel like it, we’ll go out and have a look at a couple of places.”

“Will you do that?” Evan said. “Swan, I like this idea. Are you sure you like it?”

“I’d love to live here,” Swan said. “After all, you’ve been at the university almost six years.”

“I’m fed up with the university,” Evan said. “I’d like to live on a vineyard.”

“I would, too,” Swan said.

“Would you, Eva?” Evan said.

“Yes, Papa,” Eva said. “Especially if we had a watermelon patch.”

“We’d have that,” Evan said. He turned to Walz. “Will you look into what’s for sale?”

“I ought to have a pretty good idea about the whole thing by noon tomorrow,” Walz said. “Why not have lunch with us? After lunch you and I can go along and examine the places. When we’ve found something that looks O.K., you can take Swan and the children to have a look at it, too.”

“All right, Swan?” Evan said.

“Perfect,” Swan said.

May Walz showed them through the house, everybody trailing along. It was a fine house of two floors, four bedrooms upstairs. It was cool, clean, nicely furnished and nicely kept up.

When they got home it was almost ten. Swan got the children to bed, then sat down in the dark parlor. Evan was out on the front porch, sitting on the railing. He sat there almost half an hour, then came in.

“Do you really like the idea of a vineyard?” he said.

“It’ll be a perfect place for you and the children,” Swan said.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be there with you,” Swan said. “More than anything in the world I do. I want more and more of us to be there together, Evan, but I know I’m not going to be.”

“Why not?”

“You won’t do anything to hurt the children,” Swan said, “and I won’t, either, Evan.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know what happened this afternoon,” Swan said. “And I know how hard you tried to keep the way you felt from the children. You couldn’t keep it from me, though. You couldn’t keep it from me all afternoon. You can’t keep it from me now. I know you’re trying, Evan—for the children. I believe in trying. I think it’s right to try. But how much of a woman can I be, how much of a mother, if every time you remember what’s happened you are driven mad, and can hold the family together only by trying desperately, so desperately that I am filled with fear?”

“I’m sorry about that,” Evan said. “I couldn’t help it.”

“I’ve hurt you deeply,” Swan said. “I’ve hurt you too deeply. It would be disastrous to insist that you love me because you love the children. It would destroy you. I’m terribly frightened. I have never seen you as mad—as insane, Evan—as you were this afternoon. You were insisting—you were insisting, Evan—that you love me, because unless you did insist, you would have to do something that would mean the loss to the children of their father, or their mother, or both of them. Or perhaps even worse things. I’m deeply frightened. I was frightened for myself until this afternoon. Now, I’m frightened for you, and for them. You will never forget what has happened. I can never be the same to you. If you were another kind of man—perhaps a man like Warren Walz—I could be the same to you again, or something better, even. What’s going to happen to us, Evan? I love the idea of a vineyard, but what about you and me?”

“We’re going to begin again,” Evan said. “That’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to be patient with one another. You’ll help me, as you did this afternoon, and I’ll help you. I’m still mad, but not so mad I can’t keep trying. The vineyard—the idea of the vineyard—gives me hope. We’re going to begin again, Swan, because we’ve got to. What’s right, Swan? Beginning again is right, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Evan.”

“Now, you know it is,” Evan said. “Don’t make things difficult for both of us by saying you don’t know. You do know. You know very well what’s right. We haven’t any choice. Beginning again is right. Beginning again is always difficult. It’s the most difficult thing in the world. The demands it makes of us are great. But what are we, Swan, if we can’t meet difficult demands? Are we going to live from hour to hour for ourselves alone? Don’t hold it against me that I want to live a responsible life. I’ve got to try to live that life. I’ve got to believe it can be lived. Love, more than anything else in the world, is to be earned. I love the hope of earning love with you, and you must love the hope of earning it with me. You must help me. If there’s to be a vineyard, and a life for us on it, it’s to be with you, Swan. It can’t be without you. It’s to be for you, Swan. You cannot say that you want to be there, but know you won’t be there. Where will you be, Swan?”

“Alone, Evan, or dead.”

“Why? Please tell me.”

“I don’t know. I know how it infuriates you to hear me say again and again that I don’t know, but I don’t, Evan. I just don’t. I feel that I will be alone, or dead, and it frightens me. I feel it. That’s all I know. I’ve felt it all my life, but especially since Friday night. I want to have done what must be done, but I’m frightened.”

“Well,” he said, “suppose you are? Suppose I am, too? So what? We’ll go on. We’ll begin again, both of us frightened if need be. We’ll keep going. We’ll grow more and more frightened if need be, but we’ll go on. I’m speaking of the worst, Swan.” He stopped a moment. “Suppose going on is difficult? It’s not difficult for us alone. Think how difficult it must be for Red and Eva, who have no other direction to take, except to us. Suppose it is difficult when we are thinking only of our own lousy selves? So what, Swan?”

“I don’t care how difficult it is,” Swan said, “I want to be there with you. I want to begin as soon as we can. I wish we could get what needs to be done out of the way right now. Tonight, Evan.”

“Is it this that you’re most afraid of, Swan?”

“I think so, Evan, but I don’t care any more. I don’t care if I am afraid. I want the vineyard.”

She tried her best not to sob, as if it were Eva herself trying to hold back the tears.

“I was the one, Evan,” she said. “Do you think anything happens to a woman that she doesn’t want to happen? I did it because I was curious, because I’m stupid, because I am irresponsible, because I do live in the minute, because I have wanted instantly anything I have ever wanted. I forgot all about you, Evan, I forgot all about Red and Eva. I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to care. Now, I’m sick of myself. I want this whole business to be stopped. Tonight. Telephone Dade. Speak in your own language. I won’t be able to sleep anyway. Do it for me, Evan. It must be done and I want it done, but I can’t wait. I just can’t wait. After this is over with, I’ll wait for everything. I’ll be able to wait.”

“All right, Swan.”

He went to the telephone and after a moment spoke to Dade in his own language.

“Please don’t ask any questions,” he said. “If you know somebody, fly here with him tonight. I’ll meet you at the airport and bring you here, no matter when you arrive. It must happen tonight. It’s half-past ten. By daybreak it’ll be over. I’ll stay beside her. You can take the kids for a drive. Can you do it, Dade? Can you find somebody? I’ve got a lot of things to talk about tomorrow, but this has got to happen first. It’s not me who’s asking, it’s Swan. Find somebody, Dade.”

“I’ll find somebody,” Dade said. “I’ll call you back.”

He found her standing in the parlor, waiting for him, her face trembling.

He embraced her.

“My wonderful Swan,” he said. “My beautiful Swan.”

“Your terrible Swan!” she sobbed. “Your crazy Swan.”

She stopped suddenly to laugh, laughing as a small girl laughs.

“If you only knew what I want,” she laughed. “If you only knew what I want now, at a time like this, Evan. God, it amazes me, even. If you only knew, Evan.”

“I know, Swan. It’s all right.”

“It’s all right, but it’s not to be, is it, Evan?”

“No, Swan.”

“Why, Evan?”

“Because it’s what I want, too, and it’s not to be because it will take us to a time like this again, and this isn’t fun enough, that’s all, Swan.”

“Is somebody coming?”

“He’s going to call me.”

“Can I have a drink, then?”

“Sure.”

When he’d fixed drinks and they’d each had a sip she said, “I wish you knew how glad I am we can’t have what we both want. How glad I am you want to try to love me that deeply.”

Chapter 37

Dade telephoned after an hour and said in their own language, “I’ve got two of them. They don’t know one another. We’ll be at the Fresno airport at two. They’ll be finished in less than an hour. I’ll drive them back to the airport, and they’ll take the five o’clock plane back. I’ll be talking to both of them on the way down to find out which one it’s to be. The other one will stand by. She ought to be up and about in a couple of days. She ought to be finished with the whole thing in a month.”

“I’ll be at the airport at two,” Evan said.

One of them was a small, dark man of sixty or so. The other was tall and thin, and ten or more years younger. Evan hoped it would be the dark one, for he believed this one was nothing worse than an alcoholic. Each of them had ordinary suitcases, and Dade had his luggage. The stuff was put away in the trunk compartment of the car, and Evan drove back swiftly, but not too swiftly. He didn’t want to be stopped for speeding at a time like this. There was almost no conversation during the entire half-hour drive.

The whole thing was over in a little more than an hour. The dark man had been the one. The other one had seen to the sterilizing of the instruments, and had kept out of the way, staying in the kitchen.

“She’ll want to sleep,” the little one said. “She may become half-awake every now and then, but she’ll fall back after a minute or two. She ought to stay in bed until Thursday morning. After that she can get up for a couple of hours at a time—for three or four days. She ought to take things easy for a month.”

Dade drove them back to the airport. It was half-past five when he came into the house again.

“I wanted to put them back on the plane,” he said. “How is she? Have you been in to see her?”

“Yes,” Evan said. He waited a moment. “Dade?” he said.

“It’s all right,” Dade said. “He’s the best there is. The other one was insurance. You’re not worried, are you?”

“She didn’t make a sound, Dade. Swan can’t take pain. I was with her when Red and Eva came, and I know she can’t.”

“He gave her some stuff to make it painless.”

“Could he have given her too much?”

“No. He’s the best there is.”

“It’s been almost three hours.”

“She may not want to wake up for a long time yet,” Dade said.

“If I get Swan through this,” Evan said, “I’m going to know how to take care of her. I’m going to know what to do for her. This is nothing, it doesn’t mean a thing. We’ve made a lot of plans. We know what we’re doing. She’s a little mad, the same as I am. The same as you are, too. I didn’t know that, Dade. She expects me to help her. This was part of it, the beginning of it. She’s irresponsible. She’s swift. She doesn’t think living’s worth the trouble. She’s a little mad, that’s all, but she doesn’t want to be. I guess any beautiful girl can be a little mad if somebody won’t stop her. She wants to be stopped. Living very nearly isn’t worth the trouble, you know. It is very nearly a fraud, you know. All I want is to get her past this, and then I want to straighten both of us out. I helped her become a little mad, you know. She thinks it’s herself alone, but I helped her. A man can’t know much, Dade, until it’s almost too late. I haven’t done wrong, have I?”

“No,” Dade said.

They went into the kitchen and Dade got coffee started. They sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee.

“The easiest thing in the world,” Evan said, “is to kick things over at the first excuse for doing so.”

“Sure it is,” Dade said. “If she calls out, we’ll hear her, won’t we?”

“I’ve got the door a little open,” Evan said. “Dade, when this thing’s out of the way—when Swan’s O.K. again—— you’re going to see a family that is a family. When this thing’s out of the way——”

“It’s out of the way now,” Dade said.

“She didn’t make a sound,” Evan said.

“He didn’t want her to feel anything,” Dade said. “Maybe Swan didn’t want to make a sound.”

“Poor kid,” he said.

“She’s all right,” Dade said.

Evan went into the room quietly, around the bed to see her face again.

He went back to the kitchen.

Dade was drinking coffee. He poured a cup for Evan.

“Take it easy,” he said.

“I don’t like the way she looks,” Evan said.

“She’s all right.”

“I thought about it,” Evan said. “I thought about everything that might be done. Nothing else made any sense. Nothing else gave anybody half a chance. I’m scared, Dade. Take a look at her, will you?”

They went to the room, and Dade looked at her. They went out into the parlor.

“I don’t know,” Dade said. “Let me think a minute. I don’t like the way she looks, either. Let’s wait a little while, though.”

“What do you mean, Dade?”

“She’s all right,” Dade said suddenly. “Of course she’s all right.”

“Are you sure, Dade?”

“She’ll wake up in a little while,” Dade said. “You’ll know she’s all right then.”

“I’ll go in and wait,” Evan said.

“Yes, that’s a good idea.”

“If the kids wake up, will you tell them we’re asleep? Get them some cold cereal or something. Let them go out into the vineyard and play, but don’t you go far.”

“I’ll be here,” Dade said.

Evan went into the room where his wife was sleeping. He sat on the bed, watching her face, waiting for her to wake up.

“I’m sorry, Swan,” he said softly. “I’m terribly sorry. Don’t make me sorrier. I did wrong. I know I did wrong. Help me, Swan. Don’t let it be the wrongest thing any man could ever do.”

He sat and stared at his wife a long time. At last he went out and found Dade in the kitchen.

“She’s dying, Dade.”

“For God’s sake, get hold of yourself, will you?”

“Dade, she’s dying! I don’t know what to do. We’d better get somebody. We’d better get somebody quick.”

“Let me look at her again,” Dade said.

They went in and looked at her again. They didn’t look very long. Dade went to the telephone, and woke up a friend, Dr. Altoun. He spoke to the man in their own language. While he was on the telephone Red and Eva came running into the hall, calling out Dade’s name. The man said he would be out as soon as he could get dressed. Dade picked up both of the children and hugged them.

“We’ve got to be very quiet,” he said.

He helped them dress, got them cold cereal and milk, and sent them out to play. Red climbed the fig tree, Eva stood under it catching ripe figs. Dade went to Evan standing over the sleeping woman. They stepped out of the room.

“He’ll be here as soon as possible,” Dade said.

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth.”

“That’s good,” Evan said. “Let Swan be all right. I don’t care who knows the truth. It doesn’t mean anything anyway. Just let her be all right. I’m glad you told him.”

“He’ll keep it to himself,” Dade said, “but I had to tell him. He had to know. We didn’t speak English.”

“I’m glad he’s coming,” Evan said. “We couldn’t just stand around like a couple of fools with our mouths open.”

Dr. Altoun was a slim young man, not more than thirty-five, fair for his race, with blue eyes. He was alone with the woman fifteen minutes.

“We’d better get her to a hospital,” he said. “There’s a good one in Madera. I’ll telephone for an ambulance.”

“Is she going to be all right?” Evan said.

“I hope so,” Altoun said.

He went to the telephone, Evan following him.

“We couldn’t take her in Dade’s car, could we?”

“No.”

“What is it? What’s happened to her?”

“A lot of things,” the doctor said. “I’ve done everything that can be done just now.”

He telephoned and went back to the sleeping woman. He asked Evan and Dade not to enter the room.

“I don’t want the kids to be frightened,” Evan said. “Can you get them in your car and take them somewhere, Dade, so they won’t see the ambulance?”

“Sure,” Dade said. “I’ll take them for a long ride.”

“No,” Evan said. “Take them to the Walz home. Tell Warren and May to let them spend the morning there. They like the Walz kids. You come on back. I’ll sit in the ambulance. You follow in your car. I can’t think straight. You’d better be around, Dade.”

“Sure,” Dade said. “I’ll take them over now. I’ll be right back.”

“If we’re gone before you get back, you know where it is, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “I’ll be there.”

Dade was back before the ambulance arrived. He saw his brother sitting on the railing of the front porch. The doctor’s car was gone.

“Evan?” he said.

Dade waited a full minute, then went inside to where the woman lay. When he went out to the porch Evan stepped down from the railing. He struck his brother on the side of the head and knocked him down. Dade leaped to his feet, hugged his brother quickly, and stopped his arms.

“I’m going to kill you,” Evan said.

“What did he say?” Dade said. “Where did he go?”

“He said she’s dead,” Evan said. “I don’t know where he went.”

Evan tried to free himself, but Dade wouldn’t let him go.

“He should have waited until I could speak to him,” Dade said. “I’ve got to get him at his office. He’s got to report this. He’s got to report something.”

“Let him tell the truth,” Evan said. “Let him report that. I killed my wife, the mother of my kids. Let him report that.”

“You didn’t kill anybody,” Dade said.

“I killed her,” Evan said, “and you helped me.”

“Get hold of yourself,” Dade said.

Dade waited for the break, but it didn’t come. He waited for his brother to cry, so he could let go of him, but his brother wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t stop being ready to kill—himself, Dade, anybody. When he saw the ambulance coming up the road he let go of Evan, struck him under the chin, lifted him and took him into the house, to his own room, and put him down on the bed there.

He was at the door to let them in. While they were bringing in the stretcher he telephoned Altoun’s office and spoke to the doctor.

“I’m reporting it as a heart attack,” the man said in their own language. “I’m sorry. I think you’d better look after your brother.”

The ambulance men carried her out of the house. At the door Dade told them to take her to the undertaking parlor in Madera. He then telephoned the place and told the man not to touch her until he called again.

Evan Nazarenus came out of Dade’s room just as Dade was hanging up. Dade leaped at him, knocked him down, and bit his wrist until the fingers loosened and the pistol slipped out of his hand. He lifted the pistol and struck Evan across the temple with the butt of it. He got up and tore off his shirt to find out where the wound was. It was where it had been years ago. He ran to his room with the pistol, got the other two, and put them where he knew his brother would never find them. He threw a cup of cold water on his brother’s face, and after a moment Evan Nazarenus opened his eyes.

“Help me get this slug out again, will you?” he said. His brother got up slowly.

“I’m sorry, Dade,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He began to cry at last. “My dirty luck,” he said. “My dirty life.” He looked at his brother. “I’m sorry, Dade.”

They went to the kitchen.

With his good arm Dade got water into a pan to boil, then dumped the stuff out of the case into the pan. He took the towel away from the wound.

“All right now,” he said. “Get in there and get it out.”

“I’d better get you some aspirin first,” his brother said.

“No, just make it fast,” Dade said. “She’s at a place in Madera. Patch this up and we’ll go there, and try to think what we’re going to do next.”

“You’d better get to bed,” Evan said.

“Get the slug out,” Dade said.

Chapter 38

Even drove to Madera. Dade sat beside him, smoking one cigarette after another. On the way Evan stopped the car.

“I want to go out and walk in that vineyard,” he said.

Dade watched him go. His brother examined a vine, pushing aside the new canes, the new leaves, to see the vine itself, and the grapes ripening on it. He went deeper into the vineyard to examine another vine, then turned to stare at the house. He stood staring at it a long time. When he came back he was holding a bunch of Red Emperors.

“He’s got a fine vineyard there,” Evan said. “A fine house, too. We were going to look for a place of our own. Swan liked the idea. Walz and I were going to look at a few places this afternoon.” He took a grape off the bunch and ate it, then another. “This might have been one of the places we’d look at.” He got back into the car and held the bunch out to Dade, who broke off an upper stem with a dozen grapes attached to it, and ate the grapes. Evan began to drive again, staring at the house and the vines of the vineyard as he drove by.

“She begged me not to make her do this,” he said. “She told me again and again in a hundred different ways that she was scared. I didn’t believe her. I wouldn’t believe her. For God’s sake, Dade, what difference would it have made? Other animals don’t bother about things like that. Why do we have to bother? Or go mad, or kill ourselves, or kill one another? Who do we think we are, anyway? I’ve killed my wife, Dade, I’ve killed Swan, I’ve killed Red’s mother, Eva’s mother. She begged me, but I wouldn’t listen to her. I just wouldn’t listen, that’s all. Who, me? Evan Nazarenus? No. You just don’t do that, that’s all. You’re a man, and you don’t do that. You’re the animal that lives by moral law, and you don’t do that. You go mad, by the moral law. You kill, by the moral law. Who, me? Let a thing like that happen to Evan Nazarenus? Never. That’s all right for animals, because they don’t know any better, but it’s not all right for me. I live by the moral law. I know right from wrong, and it’s not right enough to live, to give life, to protect life. It’s not nearly right enough. Anybody who is mine must be mine alone, because I have pride, and I’ve taken a long time to establish that anything that hurts my pride is wrong. It’s just wrong, that’s all. I won’t stand for it. I won’t stand for it in my wife, in the mother of my children. I’ll kill her first. I’ll kill myself first. I’ll lull my children first. My pride is not to be taken from me. What difference would it have made who the father happened to be? Swan would be the mother, wouldn’t she? Swan would be alive, wouldn’t she? Swan would be Swan, wouldn’t she? What’s the matter with us, Dade?”

“It was an accident,” Dade said. “When we get through in Madera I want Doctor Altoun to come back. I’ll tell him I shot myself by accident. You’ve got to look after the kids. You’ve got to tell them Swan’s gone to visit her family.”

“She’s got no family,” Evan said. “She’s got an aunt in Philadelphia that she lived with until she was seventeen. She’s never had parents or a home. I don’t even know her aunt’s name or address. It’s only the past few days I’ve discovered she’s been looking for parents and a home all her life. That was the idea of the vineyard—to get her a home and a family—if not parents, at least children—they’re parents, too—and a husband who could love her the way she is. What good is love if it isn’t entire? She begged me, but I wouldn’t listen to her. I’m sorry, Dade. I’ll tell the kids she’s gone to Philadelphia to visit her aunt. I’ll get you to your bed as quickly as possible.”

He was driving very swiftly now.

“Less than twelve hours ago,” he said, “Swan was crying, then laughing. She was laughing because she wanted us to be together. Once more. One last time. I should have known from that alone. I should have known it wouldn’t do. It might do for anybody else, but it wouldn’t do for her. Swan didn’t need to die. I killed her, that’s all. My pride killed her. It killed the mother of Red and Eva. So now I’ve got my pride.”

“It might have happened, anyhow,” Dade said.

“Not if I loved her,” Evan said. “She was mad all right, but which of us isn’t? I’m sorry, Dade. I might have killed you. Look at my kids. They were born out of Swan. They’ll never see their brothers and sisters now. I killed their mother and their brothers and sisters because I couldn’t let her have a son of her own.”

“She didn’t want a son of her own,” Dade said.

“She didn’t, for my pride,” Evan said. “She didn’t, hoping to get back my small, cheap love. She could have lived for years, except for hoping to live with me on my proud, cheap terms. She could have had one son of her own among the sons and daughters that would have been ours together, couldn’t she?”

“No,” Dade said. “No, she couldn’t. Get that straight. Get it straight once and for all. Get it straight that an accident has killed Swan. The accident of her own nature, the accident of yours, the same accident that sooner or later maims, maddens, and kills everybody. Get that straight and take it from there. Your own accident has already maimed and maddened you. See if you can keep it from doing anything to Red and Eva.”

“How do I do that?”

“How? Make arrangements for the funeral, that’s how.”

“God damn you, Dade!”

“You asked me,” Dade said, “and I’m telling you. Make plans for Red and Eva—for this afternoon, I mean. Make plans for your face. It’s been struck with a fist and with metal, and with loss—failure, anger, and madness. Make plans for the work you are going to do. The life you’re going to live. If you want to love entire, love entire, make plans to love entire. Love Swan entire.”

“She’s dead,” Evan said.

“Love her entire,” Dade said. “Red and Eva are Swan. Love them. Love them entire. You have already wept for Swan. I have still to do so. Remember that. You have already accused yourself of killing her. I have still to do that. You’ve got to help me. Make arrangements for the funeral. I’ll be there with you.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. The wound was still bleeding. Dade had never had much to say, but the wound had put him to trying to say something. He’d had little enough to say since he’d hustled around the streets of Paterson, and a good deal less since he had lost his wife and his children, all of them alive and well but not his own, not his family, which in the nature of things were the only people he could love entire.

Chapter 39

The place was called Gladding and Starch, and the man was one of the younger Gladdings. He had things to say about everything the firm dealt in, including costume and make-up.

“Listen,” Dade said at last. “This casket.”

“That’s one of our less popular models,” the man said. “It’s the plainest we have.”

“This casket,” Dade said wearily. “The nightgown she’s wearing. No make-up. Don’t touch her at all. Thursday afternoon at two.” He brought some money out of his pocket and handed it to the man. “Pick out a place near a tree.”

“What kind of services?”

“No kind. We’ll be here at two Thursday. From here we’ll go to the cemetery.”

“Do you wish to see the deceased now?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “Alone.”

Evan was taken to a small room in which a blue neon light was burning. There were sinks, faucets, hoses, bottles, and instruments of all kinds in the room. Swan was lying on a white cot on wheels. He took her head in his hands and tried to look into her eyes. He smoothed the red hair of her head, the hair Red wore. He lighted a cigarette and smoked it, standing over her, then went out and said to the man, “Get her out of that room. Put her in a room of her own.”

When she was in the new room Evan said, “Don’t take her into that room again.”

He found Dade in the car, bent forward.

“You’d better get me home,” Dade said.

“Do you want me to phone Doctor Altoun to be there when we arrive?”

“He was here not more than half an hour ago with the death certificate,” Dade said. “He’s not in his office. We’ll phone from home.”

“Hadn’t somebody here in town better do something first?”

“No.”

Evan drove swiftly.

“I’m sorry, Dade.”

“What do you want with a car, anyway?”

“What, Dade?”

“Wasn’t it to earn money for a car that you went off and left her for two months?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “She hadn’t been feeling well for months. I thought the separation would do us both good. She did, too.”

“Sure she did,” Dade said. “Sure you did. I’ve told you again and again, anything I’ve got is yours. You could have asked me for a car. I’d get you a car. I’d send you the money. People think they live their lives. They don’t live them. Their lives are lived for them. A man can’t leave a woman—any woman—the mother of any kids—and expect the living that is going to happen to her to be the same as if he had been there. It can’t be the same. He’s got to be there. If he’s there, the living that happens to each of them can be poor enough, it can be tough enough, but whatever it is, it’s got to happen to both of them, it’s got to happen to them together, it’s got to happen to the family, and there is nothing else. The family is all there is. Fool with the family and you’ve finished everything. You shouldn’t have left her. That invites fooling with the family. Just a little fooling can finish the family.”

“A man isn’t to trust his wife?” Evan said. “A wife isn’t to trust her husband?”

“No,” Dade said. “That’s this sick new thinking. That’s crap. A man isn’t to trust himself. He isn’t to trust God. He is to love his family and he’s to arrange for family things to happen to it. If you had to have a car, you could have told me, couldn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to bother you about a car,” the younger brother said.

“If I had to have something that you could give me,” Dade said, “I’d ask you, wouldn’t I? You can’t be a member of a family and behave like a stranger. If you do, you finish the family, and you are a stranger. You can’t invite Swan to be a stranger to you, to be curious about strangers. You can’t invite yourself to become a stranger to her. If you do, the living that happens to you has got to be either without pride—small pride or large pride—or without meaning. So you went off for a car.”

He stopped suddenly, lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply.

“I’ve got a fever,” he said. “I loved Swan. She was in our family, a radiant girl with red hair from some haunted life someplace, a girl of laughter and fun. The kids she gave you were ours. They were hers, too, but they were ours, too, and I’m sick in my heart that the poor living that happened to her has ended her. You could have taken her with you. You could have asked me to come up to Palo Alto and stay with the kids, or bring them here to Clovis.”

He stopped again.

“I’m delirious,” he said. “There was nothing you could do. Everything you did was right. It’s happened, that’s all. I just don’t like it. I didn’t expect the doctor to leave without talking to me, though. I can’t understand that.”

“I gave him a hard time, Dade.”

“What did you do?”

“He came out and said Swan was dead. I told him he was a liar and took him back into the room. I told him to give her a shot of something to wake her up or I’d kill him. I kept him in the room half an hour. Why should she be dead? Other girls, other wives, other mothers go through a lot more and don’t die. Why should Swan? I wouldn’t let him leave the room.”

“What did he do?”

“He spoke to me in our language.”

“He’s one of us,” Dade said. “You shouldn’t have fooled with that gun. You haven’t had enough experience with guns. If Red had been around, you might have shot him.”

“I planned to,” Evan said. “You might as well know.”

“I know,” Dade said. “I know, because I made the same plans myself once.”

“I planned to finish all of us, one after another,” Evan said. “Red, Eva, and myself.”

“I know,” Dade said. “You asked me the other night what you should do, and I said you should do anything, because anything would be right. What you’ve done is right. You think if you’d loved her enough, it would have been different. A son that’s hers and isn’t yours, and then more of your own together. But it’s not as simple as that, as we’ve seen. Sometimes it’s simpler, though. It wasn’t this time, that’s all. If the doctor hadn’t been one of us, if he’d been one of the others, one I almost called instead, you might be dead now, and then there would be neither mother nor father for Red and Eva. I want you to go to the man, whoever he is, wherever he is, and talk to him. Talk to him about his damned childhood. He’s no different from anybody else. Get that straight. I have a woman, Mary Koury, one of our own, her kids are grown up, keeps my house. She’ll take care of the kids until I’m O.K. After you talk to the man, you’d better go to Paterson. Wander around the streets. Stay away a month. Come back and we’ll talk. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Dade.”

“I’ll be looking for a place here. You look for one in Paterson. If you find one, and want to live there, I’ll bring the kids on the train. I may stay there myself, but I don’t think so. My kids were born in the house on the vineyard. I expect to see them there again someday. Three or four more years, I think. I’ve planted trees and vines for each of them. I want to show each of them their own trees and vines. We’ve lost Swan, Evan. We’ve lost her, too. Go talk to the man.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Evan said.

When they reached home Evan telephoned Dr. Altoun.

“My brother has had an accident,” he said in their language. “He has a serious bullet wound in his shoulder. I’ve removed the slug, but I think you ought to look after him.”

“I understand,” the man said. “I’ll be there.”

Dr. Altoun worked swiftly while Evan sat on the railing of the porch.

“You are very ill,” he said to Dade, “but as you are the older brother perhaps you ought to read this note. I think it would be best if you informed your brother, or not, as you see fit.”

Dade took the note and read it:

My darling Evan, please don’t hate me. I told you I would do anything for Red and Eva. Well, this is everything, and I am doing it for them because I love them so much, my darling. This is easy. I planned to do this someday anyway. At least I’ve given you Red and Eva. That’s something, isn’t it, my darling? I’m not telling you any more, so that you can’t tell Red and Eva any more. Don’t feel sorry for me. Be a good father to Red and Eva. Let them love me. Let them think well of me. I love you, my darling. Don’t ever forget me. Swan.

“Thank you very much,” Dade said to the man. “Do you understand this note?”

“I understand that sometime last night she took an overdose of sleeping pills,” the man said.

“Why?” Dade said.

“I know nothing about her,” the man said, “but I’d say her physical health was quite good.”

“Her physical health?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Many strange personalities,” the man said, “under certain circumstances, such as marriage and family, can conceal the truth about themselves for years. They can be extremely attractive, intelligent, apparently reasonable, even brilliant.”

“Are you trying to say she was crazy?”

“The word is meaningless,” the man said. “I studied the note in my office a long time. You will notice it’s been crumpled. I didn’t crumple it. I found it crumpled under her bed. She may have written many such notes during her marriage and destroyed them at the last minute. It is quite likely your brother had a difficult marriage, for it is not easy to establish security with such a personality. Sooner or later, either both become—well, unstable—and end in violence of some sort, or the marriage ends. With one of us, it would take a great deal to end a marriage. She must have decided to spare him and the children, for unless she removed herself absolutely, she knew they would all sooner or later be overtaken by violence, for your brother isn’t the kind of man who would deny his children their mother—for any reason. She would have to go off with the children, and she could not be their mother without his help. Or she would have to end. She decided to end. Such people are capable of any kind of behavior. She did not die of the operation. I have reported it as a heart attack, which it was, in a way.”

“Poor Swan,” Dade said.

“Will you tell your brother?”

“No.”

“Do you want the note?”

“No.”

“You recognize the handwriting?”

“Yes.”

“May I keep the note in my files? No one will ever know of it.”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to give you something to put you into deep sleep,” Dr. Altoun said. “I must ask that you stay in bed until I tell you to get up. I will look in again tonight, and I will come by twice a day thereafter for a week or so. You were cleaning your gun, is that right?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “I’ve got to be up by noon Thursday. At least for a few hours. I’ve got to go with my brother to the burial.”

“We’ll see,” the man said, “but in any case you must come back immediately afterwards and go to bed.”

“Yes,” Dade said.

“Do you talk in your sleep?”

“No. Why?”

“You have forgotten the note?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “Will you ask my brother to come here, please?”

The man went out to the front porch.

“Your brother would like to see you a moment before he goes to sleep,” Dr. Altoun said.

Evan and Dr. Altoun went into Dade’s room.

“I’ve got to sleep now, Evan,” Dade said. “Mary Koury’s number and address are on the list over the phone. She doesn’t understand English very well. Tell her I’d like her to come and stay here a few days. On your way to get her pick up the children. Tell Warren and May that Swan died of a heart attack. Tell them I’ve had a foolish little accident and must stay in bed. Take care of everybody until I get on my feet again, will you?”

“Sure, Dade.” Evan turned to the doctor to let him know that he would.

“I’ll come by around nine tonight,” Dr. Altoun said to Dade. “You’ll be awake then. We’ll see about some food, and then I’ll get you back to sleep again.” He turned to Evan. “That’s a nasty bump on your forehead.” He brought a tube of something out of his satchel and handed it to Evan. “Rub some of this on it.”

They left the room, and the man closed the door behind him.

“He’s a good deal sicker than he knows,” Dr. Altoun said. “Please let him rest. You’d better get some rest yourself. Do you want a sleeping pill?”

“No,” Evan said. “I don’t use them. I’ll sleep tonight after the kids get to bed.”

“Yes,” the man said.

Dr. Altoun went out to his car and drove off. When he had gone about a mile he stopped the car and examined the note again. Then he studied the bottle again. There had been two pills in it, one of which he had instantly examined and recognized. The bottle might have had twenty or more in it. Three of them might have stopped the heart of many people, five of them of most, and seven or eight of any. He put the stuff back into his pocket and drove on.

Chapter 40

Dr. Altoun was at the house in Clovis at noon on Thursday. He worked on the wound a half hour, then said, “You must not get up.”

“I’ve got to get up,” Dade said. “Give me something to keep me going for three or four hours.”

“Listen to me,” the man said in their own language. “You are very ill.”

“I know,” Dade said.

“Getting up for only one hour,” the man said, “might not do.”

“I understand,” Dade said. “We are a family. We have lost a member of the family. We are my brother and myself. The children cannot go. They are not to know. My brother cannot go alone. His family must go with him. I understand, but I must go with my brother to the burial of his wife, the mother of his children. You yourself know that I must go.”

“If something were to happen to you, there would have to be an inquiry,” the man said. “Death from a bullet wound would have to be investigated. I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking of the children. Under other circumstances you would be in a hospital. You are to decide for yourself, but I must tell you the truth. I have already given you three transfusions.”

“I must go with my brother.”

“Very well,” the man said. “I will give you another transfusion now, then you will dress and go. You will be there at two. You must be back by four at the latest. I will be here, waiting. It may be necessary for me to spend the night.”

“Thank you,” Dade said.

At half-past one Dade was dressed. The children were in the back yard with Mary Koury, who was mixing dough for bread on the picnic table, showing them how it was done, letting them help, telling them about her four sons and two daughters.

Evan drove.

“How’s Red?” Dade said.

“He’s fine.”

“How’s Eva?”

“She’s fine, too.”

“How are you?”

“I’m sorry, Dade.”

“Are you teaching Red something new in the language every day?”

“Yes.”

“What does he know so far?”

“It is right,” Evan said. “I love you. My name is Rex Nazarenus. My mother’s name is Swan Nazarenus. My father’s name is Evan Nazarenus. My sister’s name is Eva Nazarenus. And, My father’s brother’s name is Dade Nazarenus.”

“When did you teach him all that?”

“Saturday you taught him, It is right,” Evan said. “Sunday I taught him, I love you. Monday I taught him, My mother’s name is Swan Nazarenus. Tuesday and yesterday I taught him all the others. He’s learning a lot from Mary. So is Eva.”

“Do the Walz children know about Swan?”

“No. May broke down and wept.”

“Have you talked to them again?”

“I took the kids over yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours. Red wanted to see Flora. May broke down and wept again. We were drinking in their parlor. I wanted to tell her the truth, Dade. I didn’t tell her, but I wanted to.”

“You’ve already told her the truth. Swan died of a heart attack.”

“They know there’s more to it than that, Dade.”

“There always is. There is always more to it than any of us ever knows.”

“What do you mean, Dade?”

He was about to tell his brother the truth, but remembered that he must not: must not for Swan, must not for Evan, must not for Red and Eva.

“What do you think I put you in my room for?” Dade said instead. “I wanted you to get the business of the guns out of the way before the kids got back.”

“I’m sorry about that, Dade.”

“Tomorrow go and talk to the man. Then go to Paterson.

“I’ll go and talk to the man,” Evan said, “but I can’t go to Paterson. I can’t leave the kids.”

“You may break again,” Dade said, “and I’m sick. Break in Paterson. Break until you’re sure you’re finished breaking. Do it for Red and Eva.”

“I can’t leave the kids, Dade.”

“Do it for me, boy. I’m sick.”

“All right, Dade.”

“Stay in Paterson until you’re sure,” Dade said. “Go back to the house that Petrus made for you and me, if it’s still there. Go back to where it was, anyway. Go back to the factory he worked in for so long to earn money to keep us and open his own little business. Go back to our streets. Break there. Walk along the dirty Passaic and break there. Stay until you’re sure. When you come back your kids will be fine, Swan’s kids will be fine, our family will be fine.”

“All right, Dade.”

“Come back and we’ll talk,” Dade said. “If you feel like working, we’ll prune the vines together. I won’t hire anybody this year. You and I will do the work. You get up in the dark, in the cold. You go out to the vines, and cut them back to their strength. In the spring and summer a good vine puts out a lot of wood. It’s got to, for the grapes. In the winter, in the cold and dark of the winter, the vine must be cut back to its strength. If it’s not, the following summer its grapes are inferior, and cannot ripen. The summer after that the vine is all wood and no grapes. You and I will prune every vine in the vineyard. Then you can decide what you want to do—go back to the university, go back to Paterson, or live on a vineyard of your own.”

“Yes, Dade.”

“When you’re in Paterson,” Dade said, “when you’re cutting the wood back to its strength, remember this vineyard, remember the family, remember Swan, remember Red and Eva.”

“She begged me, Dade.”

“Yes, I know,” Dade said. “If you want to take a gun, take it. I think you should. If it bothers you, take a gun. Otherwise forget it, and take the book.”

“What book?” Evan said.

“The book you gave me,” Dade said. “This book.” He brought the book out of his coat pocket. “Have you forgotten?” he said in their own language. He brought the smallest of the guns from the same pocket. “Here’s the gun,” he said. “If it bothers you—if you think you’ve killed the mother of your children and must kill yourself, too, take the gun, take it to Paterson with you. Swan was a beautiful mother of beautiful children. I’m sick at heart that she’s gone, that we’re driving to her poor burial, but I’d like Swan to stay beautiful, I’d like her children to stay beautiful. Here they are, the gun and the book. Take one or the other.”

“I’d like to take them both,” Evan said.

“Sure,” Dade said.

Evan Nazarenus took the book and put it in one pocket. He took the gun and put it in the other.

Chapter 41

They went into Gladding and Starch and looked at Swan again. There was no music, no flowers, just the open casket in the private room.

“Whoever she was,” Dade said, “she was beautiful.”

“She’s dead,” Evan said.

“Yes,” Dade said. “The best a man can do is find a mother for his children. You found the best for yours.”

He turned to the young Gladding, and nodded. The man put the cover over the casket. The casket was carried to the hearse, and Evan followed the hearse to the cemetery.

The casket was lowered, and everybody went off.

His brother, standing beside him, fell upon him suddenly, so heavily that Evan was almost unable not to fall, too. He hugged his brother, holding him up, then quickly dragged him to the car.

“For God’s sake, Dade.”

He stretched him out in the back seat, and began to drive back.

When he reached the driveway, he saw Dr. Altoun sitting on the steps of the front porch.

The man hurried to the car.

They got him into the house and onto his bed, the doctor working swiftly. He found a needle, pierced the flesh near the heart, pressed the fluid out of the tube into the flesh.

The man put his cheek to Dade’s nose and mouth.

“You’re working too hard,” Evan said in their language at last. “He’s dead. He died in the cemetery.”

The man turned and looked at Evan. His eyes very nearly wept, then grew hard and swift.

“I shot him,” Evan said.

“I know,” the man said. “Now let me think a moment. You must attend the inquiry,” he said at last. “That is the only thing you can do. Yes, you did shoot him. It was an accident, as you know. You would not kill your own brother. You were sitting and talking, cleaning the gun. It went off. It was an accident.”

“I shot him,” Evan said. “It was not an accident. I killed my wife, too. My brother helped me kill her. I was mad. I shot him. He’s dead. I do not want to go to the inquiry.”

“You must go,” the man said, “for your children.”

“My children are dead,” Evan said. “I can do nothing for the dead.”

“They are in the back yard with Mary Koury,” the man said. “Please think of your children. If you go away, it will be taken for a sign of guilt which will be most difficult to disprove. I will help you. I am of your family.”

“I wish no help,” Evan said. He took his brother’s hands and held them a long time. “I’m sorry, Dade,” he said.

He brought the money from the top drawer of Dade’s bureau and handed it to the man.

“For you, Doctor Altoun,” he said. “For Mary Koury. For my son and my daughter.”

He left the house, got in his brother’s car, and drove off, the man standing on the porch.

Dr. Altoun returned to the room and sat there a long time, trying to think. He got up at last, and went to the back yard and spoke to the woman.

“Let them not understand,” he said. “Their mother is buried. Let it be said that she is away on a visit with her mother and father. Their father’s brother is dead. Let it be said that he is asleep. I will lock the door of his room for this night. Their father is mad with grief. He is gone. He cannot help. He will not be helped. Let them not understand their mother is dead, their father is mad, their father’s brother is dead. I will spend the night, waiting for the return of their father. If he does not return by morning you must take them to your home and keep them. I will help you. If their father returns, I will help him. They are there in the vineyard at play. Let them not understand of death and madness. You are a mother. You will do this.”

“Yes,” the woman said.

Dr. Altoun walked slowly along the row of vines to where they were sitting in the shade of a vine.

“Hi,” Red said.

“Who is it?” Eva said.

“Doctor Altoun, Eva.”

The man plucked a bunch of Red Emperors from a vine and began to eat them, looking at the children. Each of them was strong, alive, alone, and so real as to hurt even a man who was every day in the presence of pain and death.

“Did you come to talk to us?” Eva said.

“I came to see you,” the man said.

“Do you see us?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“A brother and a sister.”

“No,” Eva said. “A king and a queen.”

(King Love, Queen Beauty? he thought.)

“Which king, which queen?” the doctor said.

“King him and queen me,” Eva said. “Didn’t you know? He’s the king and I’m the queen. It’s true, isn’t it, Red?”

“Yes,” Red said. He looked at the man earnestly, so earnestly it hurt the man. “It is true,” he said. “King Red, Queen Eva. You believe us, don’t you?”

“Yes,? the man said.

“King of the Vineyard,” Red said. He reached up, plucked a bunch of grapes from the vine, handed them to Eva, then plucked a bunch for himself, and they began to eat the grapes. “King of the Vineyard, Queen of the Vine,” Red said.

“No, Red,” the girl said. “King of the Vineyard, Queen of the King.” She turned to the man. “Isn’t that right?”

“Is it right?” Red asked earnestly.

“What do you think?” the man said.

“It seems right,” Red said.

“It is right,” Eva said. “Isn’t it?” she said to the man.

“Yes, it is,” he said, and turned to go.

“Don’t go,” Red said.

“Yes, don’t go,” Eva said. “Let’s talk some more.”

“I’d love to,” the man said, “but I’ve got some things to do. We’ll talk another time.”

He turned and walked back to the house.

The boy took a green leaf from the vine and held it out to the girl.

He then let earth sift through his fingers, after which he took by the tail a horned toad he had captured an hour ago, picking it out of the cigar box into which he had put it with a bunch of grapes. He held it up, its small legs swimming, then put it back in the box.

“He’s alive,” Red said. “He’s alive and he’s mine.” He looked into the box at the horned toad. “But he won’t eat the grapes.”

“Why?” Eva said.

“I guess he doesn’t like Red Emperors.”

“What does he like? Muscats? Malagas?”

“No,” Red laughed. “He doesn’t like any kind of grapes. He likes dirt.”

“Then give him some,” Eva said. “Poor little—— What’s his name, Red?”

“Horny toad.”

“Poor little horny toad,” Eva said. “Give him some dirt.”

Red put some dirt into the cigar box.

“Do you want him?” he said to his sister.

“Yes, Red, I want him very much.”

Red picked up the box and handed it to her.

“All right,” he said. “He’s yours.”

“Forever, Red?”

“I don’t know how long they last,” Red said, “but you can have him as long as they do.”

The girl lifted the lid of the box, looked at the horned toad, then said, “Poor little—— What’s his name?”

“Horny toad, Eva!”

“Horny toad,” Eva said. “What shall I do with him? Smash him?” She nodded gayly several times.

“No,” Red said. “He’s all—he’s all fixed up that way. You don’t want to spoil the way he’s fixed up, all the nice horns.”

“What, then?” Eva said. “Shall I give him a little bath?” She thought a moment, then said, “No, I know what.”

“What?”

“I’ll give him to Mama. For her birthday.”

“When is Mama’s birthday?” Red said.

“Day after tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Day before yesterday?”

“No!”

“When, then?”

“The day she was born, Eva. Don’t you even know what birthday means?”

“What does it mean?”

“It means the day you were born.”

“And then,” Eva said, “you get born again every time it’s your birthday?”

“No.”

“You get dead, then, every time it’s your birthday?”

“No, Eva! Birth! Day! The day you were born. You don’t get dead on your birthday!”

“When, then?” Eva said. “On your deadth day?”

“Deadth day?” Red laughed.

The woman, who had been such an adventure to them, came down the row of vines, singing a slow song in the language.

She looked down at them, her eyes loving them.

“Now, King Red,” she said. “Now, Queen Eva. We gonna have it nice bath. Then we gonna have it nice supper. Then I gonna tell it nice story.”

“What kind of a story?” Eva said.

“I gonna tell it true story, Queen Eva.”

“Did it happen to you, Mary?” Red said.

“This story happen to—who you think?”

“Who?” Red said.

“You, King Red! You, Queen Eva!”

“But we know what happened to us,” Red said. “Don’t we, Eva?”

“We know every bit of it,” Eva said. “I was there, Mary. And Red was there. Everybody saw us. We saw them. That’s what happened.”

“This is other story,” Mary said. “This is love story. You get up now.”

They got up and began to walk with her out of the vineyard to the house.

“Is it sad?” Red said.

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Why?” Red said.

“It is true story, King Red, and true story is sad,” she said.

“What is a story?” Eva said. “What is that?”

“A story is a true thing, Queen Eva,” the woman said.

She took their hands and squeezed them with love, and they knew it was love.

Chapter 42

He would talk to the man. He wouldn’t hate him. He wouldn’t be angry, but he would take the man by the throat, very nearly stop his breathing, and then let him live, after all. He would then drive night and day until he reached Paterson. He would go to the house Petrus had made for his sons. We would walk through the streets of his boyhood. He would walk along the Passaic, as he had done more than thirty years ago, with Dade.

He was at the summit of Pacheco Pass between Los Banos and Gilroy at sundown, the car sailing swiftly around the curves, the view of the deep valley of Hollister a magnificent but meaningless thing to see now.

He stopped the car a block from the man’s house, walked there, and went upstairs to the door. He knocked softly, for he would not hate him, would not be angry. The door was opened by a girl who was probably no more than nineteen, a student in one of the man’s classes, no doubt.

He gave the man’s name.

“Oh,” the girl said. “Just a moment.” She went back into the apartment, and after a moment returned to the door. She had a copy of the town paper folded to something for him to read. He took the paper and read the item quickly.

“The poor man,” the girl said. “Did you know him?”

“Yes,” he said. He handed the paper back to the girl.

“We just moved in this morning,” the girl said. “They found his body last night. He’d been dead for some time, though. He must have been sick or crazy or something. The article says he was brilliant and had everything to live for. He left no note. I hope he wasn’t related to you.”

He went down to the street, around the corner to his car, and drove to the house they had been trying to buy. He saw it when he turned the corner into their street. It wasn’t much to see. At the door were four rolled newspapers, and the mailbox was full of mail. He unlocked the door and went in. In the hall he saw Eva’s stuffed elephant, which she no longer cared for especially, and Red’s two-wheeler, from which he had taken so many spills, getting up bruised and infuriated every time, but refusing to stop riding it. That was long ago, of course. Now, it was too small for him and Eva was trying to learn to ride it. He went through each room of the house, then went out and locked the door behind him. He was about to go when he reached into the mailbox and removed everything in it. They were bills mainly, but he tore open one that was a letter. It was on six sheets of lined paper, without heading or salutation.

“A man had a friend,” he read. “Late one night his friend’s wife telephoned him to say that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. He went there and she said she had wanted to die but didn’t want to any more. She couldn’t call a doctor because she didn’t want anybody to know. Somehow she came around all right. She made him promise not to let her husband know. She said she was all right now. Several nights later, though, she called again. He decided he must telephone his friend, but she wept and begged him not to ruin the lives of her children. He couldn’t understand her. He wanted to help his friend, but he was afraid it wouldn’t help his friend to be told. He couldn’t sleep, though, and the next day telephoned to find out if she was all right, if his friend’s children were all right. She said he must go to her. They talked for hours while the children went off to the circus with the neighbor girl. A week later the neighbor girl took the children on a picnic. When the neighbor girl brought them home after the picnic the boy asked him why he didn’t stay in his own house. He went home, packed a suitcase, and went to another town, so that she could not reach him. After a month he returned to his home, and several days later she telephoned from another city and said everything was all right again. He asked her to please take care of herself, take care of her family. He decided to return to his birthplace. He was packed and ready to take the train when he believed he must telephone her and urge her to tell her husband about herself. The number didn’t answer. When he got home to pick up his bags his friend telephoned. He had many things to tell his friend, but he didn’t know how to begin to tell him, and his friend didn’t want to hear him say anything. He decided to try to tell the things in writing, with decent love for her, for his friend, for the children. He wrote and wished them all decent life, decent love, decent truth, decent hope.”

He read the letter slowly, then got into his car and sat there almost an hour, unable even to turn the ignition key and start the motor. He did not read the letter a second time, but remembered everything in it. At last he got out of the car and went back into the house, to the telephone.

Dr. Altoun came on the line.

“Listen,” he said in their language. “I am calling from my own home. I am leaving immediately in my brother’s car. It is a drive of four hours. I wish to go to the inquiry.”

“We will go in the morning,” Dr. Altoun said.

“It is almost ten now,” he said. “I will be there at two.”

“I will be waiting,” the doctor said.

“I wish to ask,” he said, “how is my son?”

“He is well.”

“May I speak to him, please?”

“He is asleep,” the man said. “Shall I wake him up?”

“No,” he said. “Let my son sleep. How is my daughter?”

“She is also well.”

“Thank you.”

“There will be little difficulty at the inquiry,” the man said. “You must not believe it was not an accident.”

“I will be there at two,” he said. “I must see the faces of my children asleep.”

“Yes,” the man said.

He left the house, got into the car, and drove off. He was driving swiftly down the summit of Pacheco Pass toward Los Banos when the front inside tire exploded. The car plunged off the highway, struck and smashed the curved plate fence, dived, fell, struck the mountainside, fell again, and then stopped.

The man’s head and face were torn and smashed, and he was not quite conscious, but he moved to go, to get to the inquiry in the morning. He moved on his belly almost three inches, then came to metal. He became conscious enough to know that he was trapped under the car, broken and bleeding late at night, far from the highway. There would certainly be no one to come by and notice the small spot of wreckage a quarter of a mile down the mountainside. He tried to move again, to get out, to pick up and go, to get to Red’s sleeping face, to Eva’s sleeping face, but he couldn’t go, and then something began to laugh. He had no way of knowing if it was himself, his life, his father’s life, his wife Swan’s life, his brother’s life, the smashed junk of the automobile, or the smashed junk of matter itself laughing.

Whatever it was, the laughter took the form and meaning of fire. He could not see it. He could see nothing, but he could smell it, and then he heard it, first as an explosion, as if lungs needing air badly had suddenly reached air, then softly, as a hum. And finally he felt the laughter. It was an accident, though. It was one accident after another, ending in laughter.

“Swan?” he said. “Red? Eva?”

In the house on the vineyard in Clovis, five hours later, Dr. Altoun, asleep on the sofa in the parlor, sat up suddenly, for he heard sobbing.

He got up and went in the dark to the door of the boy’s room.

The boy was crying in his sleep. Dr. Altoun turned on the hall light and listened.

“Papa?” the boy said. “Mama?”

The boy sobbed again, then fell back to sleep. The man looked at his watch and wondered what had delayed the boy’s father. He went back to the sofa, but instead of stretching out on it, he sat there to wait.

A Note on the Author

William Saroyan (1908–1981) was an internationally renowned Armenian American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. In 1939, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that “Commerce should not patronize art.” He died near his hometown of Fresno at the age of seventy–two.

Discover books by William Saroyan published by Bloomsbury Reader at

www.bloomsbury.com/WilliamSaroyan

Boys and Girls Together

Chance Meetings

The Laughing Matter

Rock Wagram

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book.

The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

First published in 1953 by Doubleday & Company

Copyright © 1953 William Saroyan

Used with permission of Stanford University

All rights reserved

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eISBN: 9781448214761

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