Brother and Sister

By Edwin West (aka Donald E. Westlake)

Monarch Books, 1961

Back Cover:

It all began innocently enough--two people, brother and sister, drawn together by the tragic death of their parents. It was Paul and Angie against the cruel, unfeeling world--against the army which he blamed for his marriage to a prostitute.

Somehow, when he kissed Angie--just for comfort--he was erasing the image of faithless Ingrid, of the uncertainty of the future.

It was that kiss--innocent but exciting--which touched off the wellsprings of passion within them until they were like people possessed--heedless of taboos or consequences...

The horrible guilt came later, after the damage was done, after it was too late to turn back.

ONE

After the movie, they drove up to Flattop to neck. Bob had his father’s car, a three year-old Plymouth, and they had all the time in the world. It was Saturday night, for one thing, and Bob, at eighteen, no longer had any curfew imposed on him. Angie was seventeen, and would normally have had a one a.m. curfew, but not tonight.

Tonight, her parents were in Baltimore, visiting Uncle Jules and Aunt Laura. They had left that afternoon, driving, and would be there until next Sunday. This one-week visit to Baltimore was an annual July event and this was the first year Angie hadn’t gone along. She had just graduated from high school, was looking for a job, and that had been her excuse for not going. The truth of the matter was that the Baltimore trip had bored her for years.

Necking didn’t bore her. She liked to neck, to snuggle close to Bob--to be kissed and touched by him. Of course certain areas were off limits to his hands, even though she was sorely tempted at times. Tempted or not, she always managed to keep Bob in check.

They’d had a few stormy sessions when they’d first started going together, until Bob finally got it through his head that Angie was serious about this--that her convictions on the subject were deeper than Mama says no or it’s naughty, that they were so deeply ingrained she didn’t have to think about them and so couldn’t be argued out of them. There was a definite line between what was permissible and what was forbidden.

Bob was very much aware of the line, and of the certainty that he’d have a furious wildcat on his hands if he tried to cross it; He suffered in silence, being too embarrassed about the whole thing to explain to Angie that sexual frustration in the male is not all mental, that it is also physical, and that it hurts.

They drove up to Flattop tonight after the movie, and Angie looked out the side window at the woods and the occasional new ranch-style houses bordering the blacktop road up the mountain. She thought again, as she had been thinking on these occasions for the past few weeks, that life was becoming repetitious and dull.

Even tonight was a repeat performance. Bob had picked her up at seven o’clock, the invariable hour, and they had driven downtown and seen the movie of his choice. As movies went, it wasn’t bad; there had been some nice songs and some funny lines in it. After the movie, they trailed out with all the rest of the people, slowly trudging up the aisle--that part always reminded her of church--and outside, where she became aware of the air-conditioning for the first time, because of its absence here on the sidewalk.+

As always, she had paused on the sidewalk, just beyond the movie marquee, to look up at the sky, marveling at how far away and how black it was, and how sharp the stars looked, as though you could cut yourself on them. How different it looked. Since they had gone into the theater, the red-gray tinge of evening had disappeared--night had settled in its place.

They had walked together down the block to the Plymouth--purple and cream in color, with fins and four eyes and, almost as an afterthought, a six-cylinder engine--and Bob held the right-hand door open while Angie slid into the front seat. Then he had walked around the front of the car--always the front of the car, never the back--and she had looked at his young serious face through the windshield.

After he got behind the wheel, she watched him make the slow methodical movements of starting the car. First, the key carefully inserted into the ignition. Second, the left hand reaching out, touching the gear buttons to see that the car was in neutral. Third, the right foot gently on the accelerator. Fourth, the key turned in the ignition and the foot pressed down on the accelerator, causing the car to roar discreetly. Fifth, the right hand moving from key to steering wheel while the left hand pressed the drive button, then went down to the emergency brake. Sixth, the left hand moving up to the steering wheel as the car pulled away from the curb. And seventh, his right hand leaving the steering wheel, the arm reaching out to the side for her to come in and nestle against him.

Then they drove, as usual, up to Flattop. On the way, Angie, nestling against Bob’s side, gazed out the side window and reflected again on the sameness of life. Why did life have to be like that? Why did Bob’s face have to be so well known to her that she no longer cared if it was handsome or ugly? Why did his every move have to be so well known to her that she could predict his actions for an hour or a day or a week or a year in advance?

Why was there nothing different in life?

Well, there was one thing different this time. There was no one at home. Her parents had gone to Baltimore, and she was still here, that was different. With her brother Paul off in Germany in the Air Force, and her parents away in Baltimore, she was, for the first time in her life, alone in the house. That, at least, was different.

But nothing else was. They reached the top -- the plateau called Flattop--where a view of the whole city was spread out before them--that lesser-lighted section away to the left was the suburb where Angie lived. There was the usual number of darkened automobiles scattered here and there in the parking area by the edge. The Plymouth nosed around and found a quiet place for itself among them, not too close to any of them. And the sameness closed in again.

Bob went through all the careful motions of turning the car off and the radio on. They listened to the soft music from the radio station they always listened to, and they talked about the movie.

At seventeen, Angie’s child-body had developed into lovely womanhood, but her face was still very much that of a child. It was a soft, heart-shaped face, the eyes young and eager, bright with innocence, the mouth rosy and warm, the cheeks clear and soft. It was a beautiful face, with the true beauty of untouched yourh, requiring no artificial cosmetics to glamorize it. Framed by the curling ringlets of blond hair, she had the fresh healthy beauty of every young man’s dream of the girl he would most like to take to the Junior Prom.

The body that went with the face was something else again. It was a yourhful body, the breasts firm and the legs strong, but it wasn’t childlike. Angie had a woman’s body, high-breasted, narrow-waisted and full-hipped -- of late, a body strangely insistent in its emotional demands. At seventeen, Angie was discovering that it was impossible to remain a child.

Looking at Bob in the dim light of the dashboard radio, she thought now that he was, in many ways, more of a child than she. He had the impetuosity of a child, and the child’s peculiar blindness to the thoughts and reactions of those about him.

His appearance was misleading. He wore his hair in a crew cut, which typed him right away. Beneath the crew cut, his face was a series of sharply defined angles between straight, thick eyebrows and a pronounced jawline. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose straight, his mouth broad and parenthesized with light smile lines. His hands were a man’s hands, hard and large and knobby. His body was rangy, wide-shouldered and flat-bellied.

If she was a woman with a child’s face, he was a child in a man’s body.

He wants to marry me, she thought to herself as they talked quietly about the movie. He keeps asking me, and sooner or later I’m going to have to say either yes or no. And I don’t even know if I love him. I know him too well. He’s more of a brother to me than Paul is, but I no longer know if I love him.

At the predictable moment, his arm tightened around her shoulders and drew her around to him for a kiss.

The first kiss was always short and gentle, their lips and eyes closed, his right arm around her shoulder, his left hand against her waist. This sameness she could stand, this was all right. She liked to be kissed. She liked to be held. She liked to be touched. The sameness of those things never palled on her.

But they stayed there longer than usual, because Angie had no curfew tonight. They necked, and then they smoked cigarettes, and then they necked again, and Bob stroked her breasts, kissed her lips, cheeks and the line of her jaw, nibbling on her ear lobes, until she felt the familiar warmth, the familiar pleasure, growing in her.

Because they stayed there longer than usual, the warmth built higher than it ever had before. And with the warmth grew something else. The need for difference, the need for something new, for a change, for a decision and a new beginning.

She had gone steady with Bob for two years now. When they had first started going together, he had been exciting to her. The touch of his lips and his hands had excited her because they were his and not simply because they were touching her. At that time, she had believed herself to be in love with him, and when he had asked her to marry him, in her junior year of high school, she had agreed at once, thrilled and expectant.

Of course, they couldn’t get married right away. Of course, they both had to finish their educations first and Bob had to have a job. These were practical considerations that had to be fulfilled.

And, at first, it had been Bob who had been concerned with these practical considerations. But gradually his desire for her had changed him, had become stronger than his natural, methodical, careful personality, and for the last few months he had ignored all practical considerations. He wanted to marry Angie, and he wanted to do it soon.

Nowadays, it was Angie who brought up the practical considerations, who refused to set a date for the marriage, who didn’t even want to talk about marriage any more.

Because Angie was no longer even sure she wanted to marry Bob.

But she couldn’t say no. She couldn’t tell him their plans had to be changed because she wasn’t sure.

She no longer knew what she wanted, except that she was growing increasingly certain that one thing she didn’t want was this constant repetition of activity.

Tonight the two feelings reached their peak. The aching desire and need for something new, for something different, for some break in the pattern of her days; and the growing desire for fulfillment, for an end to this play at sex, for an end to virginity, for the logical, necessary and natural finish their hot embraces demanded.

And then Bob whispered, “Let me go home with you tonight, Angie.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“Angie, there’s nobody home at your house. Let me go home with you.” His voice was soft and insistent in her ear, his hands were stroking her body, his breath was hot against her.

“Bob, don’t--”

“Angie, I can’t wait any more, I can’t. We’re going to get married soon. It’s all right.”

“Bob, don’t talk that way!”

His hands held her more strongly, more insistently. “Angie, I can’t go through this any more. I want you so bad. I love you, Angie. I love you so much I can’t stand it. I want you and I want to make love with you. I can’t wait any more.”

All at once Angie’s mind screamed, Yes!

This was the thing to do, this was the thing she’d been wanting, this was what had made her days so dull -- this lack within herself, this final need for fulfillment.

“Angie, I want you now.”

She moved closer against him, nuzzling his cheek. She was frightened, but at the same time she was eager and triumphant, because this was the escape, this was the opening door.

“Yes,” she whispered, and then she was afraid he hadn’t heard her. She raised her face to him, seeing his tense and waiting expression, and she smiled and said it again.

“Yes, Bob. All right.”

“Angie!”

He kissed her then, more furiously and more urgently than she had ever been kissed, and she responded to his tempo, pressing herself tight against him. This was the final move, the end of indecision, the end of aching.

Driving back down the long blacktop road from Flattop, she sat snuggled close to his side. And this time she didn’t look out the window at the familiar roadside. This time, she closed her eyes, feeling the motion of the car and the warm male strength of Bob beside her.

Bob was usually a careful driver, perhaps an overly careful driver, keeping well within the speed limit. But not tonight. Tonight he drove faster than he had ever done before, sneaking through traffic lights just as they were turning red, making turns without slackening speed, and all the time he kept his right arm hard around her.

They skirted the northern part of the city and so reached Thornbridge, the suburb in which they both lived. Thornbridge was no postwar suburb of shopping centers and ranch-style houses. Thornbridge had been a residential section just outside the city limits for more than fifty years. It was a complete town in itself, though most of the people who lived there did drive in to the city to work.

On the drive, Angie had time to cool down, time to think. And her thoughts were many and confused.

Was this what she wanted? After all the waiting, after all the determination to keep herself whole and virginal until her wedding night, after all her refusals to make any definite commitment to Bob, was this what she really wanted?

She didn’t know, and at this moment she didn’t care. All that mattered now was that the waiting was over, the time of self-denial was done with, the dull repetition of the days had ended.

Yet one small part of her mind called out for attention, telling her that this was irretrievable, that once consummation had taken place there would be no way of going back and changing what had been done. She ignored these doubts and pressed closer to Bob.

Driving down De Witt Street toward Angie’s house, Bob suddenly hit the brake, and the car slowed to a crawl. “Angie!” he whispered, his voice harsh and quick.

She had been half-asleep, nestled against him, sunk in a semiconscious contemplation of her own roiling thoughts, and his voice pulled her back, all at once, to reality.

She sat up, blinking, looking around. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

He had both hands on the wheel now, and was guiding the Plymouth into the curb, half a block from her house. “There’re lights on up there,” he said. “At your house. Did you leave any lights on?”

“No. It wasn’t dark when you picked me up.”

“Living room lights,” he said. “And the porch light is on.”

“Maybe it’s the house next door.”

“No, I saw it. It’s your house.”

She couldn’t understand it. Her parents back from Baltimore? Hadn’t they gone? Maybe they had changed their minds and decided to come back. Maybe they’d decided they didn’t want to go without her.

But that didn’t make sense. They’d both been looking forward to this trip for months. They always enjoyed themselves when they went to Baltimore. Uncle Jules and Aunt Laura were expecting them so they wouldn’t simply have turned around and come back.

Could it be Paul? Maybe the Air Force had given him a leave, and he hadn’t told anybody, had decided to surprise them all by just showing up without warning.

No. Paul knew about the Baltimore trip. Mom had written to tell him when they were going. If he’d planned to be home, he would have warned them, so he wouldn’t be coming home to an empty house.

“Angie, we can go back to Flattop.” Bob was holding her hands, holding them tight, as he leaned toward her, staring fiercely into her eyes. “Your parents must have come back for some reason. We can go on up to Flattop again, Angie. It’s the same thing.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know who is there. Drive by the house slowly. Let me see who’s there.”

“It’s your parents,” he said.

“Did you see their car?”

“No, but who else could it be? It must be them, and they might look out the window and see us.”

“I don’t care. I want to know what’s going on there. Drive by the house, Bob.”

He sagged, defeated, and released her hands. “All right,” he said in a resigned tone, and the Plymouth moved forward again.

As they drove by the house, Angie peered out the side window. The porch light was on, as Bob had said, and there were lights on in the living room, but she couldn’t see anyone moving in there. A car was parked in the driveway beside the house, but it wasn’t her parents’ car. It was her Aunt Sara’s old Dodge.

“Stop the car!” she cried suddenly. “Bob, stop!”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

She didn’t know, she wasn’t sure, she didn’t want to know. Yet she really did know, already had an inkling, and fought to keep that premonition out of conscious thought.

Bob stopped the car, though unwillingly, and Angie got out and ran back down the street to the house. As she raced up the stoop, she saw Aunt Sara through the living room window, coming into the foyer and moving toward the door.

Sara met her, pushing the screen door open and holding her hand out for Angie to take.

Angie was out of breath and frantic. “What--what is it? What’s the matter?”

“Come in, Angie. Come on in here.” Aunt Sara was drawing her gently into the house, pausing to look out at the street. “Is Bob still with you? Wasn’t that his car?”

“Aunt Sara, tell me. What’s happened? I know something’s happened, tell me.”

“Come in, dear,” said Aunt Sara, and led her to the living room.

She already knew. Before her aunt told her, she had already guessed, even though she was doing her best to ignore the knowledge.

“It’s your mother and father, dear,” Aunt Sara began.

Angie shook her head violently from side to side. “No. It isn’t. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it.”

“They were in an accident, dear. Sit down here. I’m sorry, Angie, but they were in a head-on collision with another car.”

There was one last hope and Angie reached for it.

“They’re hurt,” she said rapidly, desperately. “They’re in the hospital, they’re hurt--”

Aunt Sara shook her head. “No, dear. I’m sorry. They were both killed.”

From then on, it was all a blur. Angie could remember, later, having stayed in the living room for a while -- how long, she didn’t know, five minutes or five hours, it could have been either--and at one point the low murmur of Aunt Sara’s and Bob’s voices at the front door. And then, at another point, she could remember Aunt Sara bringing her tea and bread with butter--women like Aunt Sara, at times like this, always think immediately of food -- but she hadn’t been able to eat it. And, finally, she could remember Aunt Sara gently putting her to bed, and turning out the light.

But one thing she could remember clearest of all -- how she had betrayed the memory of her parents, her love for them, almost immediately after they had died. She remembered that thought with guilt, shame, remorse and self-loathing--the last conscious thought she had before falling into exhausted, troubled sleep that night:

Now, Bob can’t keep me to the promise. Now he can’t make me decide. It’s useful, anyway.

TWO

It was an emergency leave, so he had top priority, and he was able to get a MATS plane out of Frankfurt the same afternoon he arrived there from the base. He sat in the plane, still numb, not feeling anything yet, not really believing anything yet, and watched the ground slide by as the plane took off. His eyes shifted to the emptiness of the sky and he tried to think.

His name was Paul Dane. He was twenty-one, an Airman Second Class in the United States Air Force. He was on a four-year enlistment, with one-and-a-half years to go. He’d spent not quite two years in Germany. He had a sister, Angie, who was seventeen, and he had a mother and a father.

No, he didn’t. This morning, Monday morning, his commander had called him into his office and introduced him to a doe-eyed, black-haired gentleman from the Red Cross. The Red Cross had a small office on the base, as it did on most bases of any size, and this gentleman was from that office.

Paul hadn’t understood what was going on. The commander and the Red Cross gentleman had both been solemn and soft-spoken, and Paul tried to figure out what was wrong now. Then the commander excused himself, leaving his office to Paul and the Red Cross gentleman, and then the Red Cross gentleman told him that he no longer had a mother and father.

Head-on collision. Drunk at the wheel, the occupant of the other car--a salesman of fifty-eight, on a spree. He’d killed himself and two perfect strangers. And now Paul Dane didn’t have a mother and a father any more.

It wasn’t real. The orderly room rushed through the emergency-leave orders for him, and Sergeant Wilcox offered to drive him up to Frankfurt, which would be quicker than taking the five p.m. courier bus. The normal, bureaucratic slowness of getting a flight to the States from Frankfurt had been speeded up fantastically, and Paul had, almost at once, been put on a plane, with wishes of good luck from Sergeant Wilcox. It still wasn’t real.

He sat there in a MATS plane high over Germany and he tried to make it real. My mother and father are dead, he thought. My mother and father are dead. But they were just words; they conveyed no sense or meaning or impact.

It was true, damn it. And if it was true it had to be real. Had to be--but wasn’t. It was the same as when the end had come with Ingrid--the feeling of unreality, the mind’s refusal to accept the facts.

He tried to make it real for himself, and he tried to remember now what he had done the last time, with Ingrid. Suddenly, instead of thinking of his mother and father who were dead, he was thinking, instead, of Ingrid who had been his wife and who was a whore.

Ingrid. Ingrid Thuringen, out of Vienna in fifty-five, now living in Kaiserslautern and working in the PX at the air base. Out of Vienna in fifty-five. He’d never thought much about that year when he met her--what difference did it make what year she’d moved to Germany from Austria?--but the old hands filled him in, after it was a over. It seems that that was when the U.S. Army had left Austria, when all the troops were pulled back from Austria into Germany. And all the Austrian whores had flocked into Germany right after them.

All the Austrian whores.

Goddamn it, but Ingrid didn’t look like a whore! No matter what you knew about her, no matter what you thought of her, you had to admit that. She didn’t look at all like a whore.

Black hair, as soft and deep as night in the Black Forest, a cascading Schwartzwald billowing down to her shoulders, framing a face that would tempt an angel into the deadly sin of envy. Palest, creamiest complexion you’ve ever seen, and cupid-bow lips, red and ripe and fashioned to be kissed. Large, round, deep-set eyes of so dark a blue they seemed almost black. A figure to make a Hollywood plastic surgeon sit down and cry.

That was Ingrid, but that wasn’t all there was of Ingrid. There was also the voice, soft but husky, that made any word a love song. There was the way of moving, of gesturing, of standing up or sitting down, of reaching forward or looking back; there was every movement she ever made, because her every movement was grace itself. There was the way she molded herself to you when she danced, the way her eyes burned with black fire when passion coursed through her, the sound of her murmurings in the bed at night, the exciting feel of her magnificent breasts, the sleek sweep of loins and hips and thighs mashed against him, driving him wild, giving and taking, wild and wanton and endlessly inventive.

All that was Ingrid, too, and even that wasn’t all of Ingrid. There was her accent, which was German but not quite German. There was her love for music--music as flamboyant and sentimental and vital as she could find, ranging from the weepings of Tchaikovsky to the bull roarings of Wagner. There was her passion for literature, her instinctive understanding for art, her easy conversation on any subject.

And Ingrid had married Paul Dane.

He never doubted, never once. Fool that he was, he never for a moment doubted that she loved him. Other German girls married GIs for a chance to get to the States, but not Ingrid. Other German girls married GIs for their pay checks--high by German standards -- and the security that such a marriage meant, but not Ingrid.

They never told him. Some of the older hands like Sergeant Wilcox had known the truth all along, but none of them had ever told him. Even when he was going to marry her they said nothing, but only offered him congratulations and patted him on the back.

After it had ended, Sergeant Wilcox had talked about that time. “We thought she was done with that,” he said. “We really did. Sure, she used to hell around -- go down for twenty in the back seat of anybody’s car. But when you came along she stopped all that. From the minute you started going with her, she played the virgin bit all the way. We figured, what the hell, the girl wants to reform, and they say whores--girls like that -- make the best wives.”

Not this time.

Paul’s memories were clear and they made him squirm. He could remember the first time they’d gone to bed together and he knew why he hadn’t been able to tell what she was. Her response hadn’t been cold, objective or professional. Her response had been one of genuine passion, of eager demand for him.

It had happened three months after they’d met. He’d been too shy to ask her for a date the first few times he saw her in the PX but, finally, he got his courage up and asked her to go to the base movie with him. She agreed, and Paul squired her as innocently and chastely as he would any virgin. Her feeling for him seemed genuine and they went out together more and more often. She cooked him dinner a few times at her little one-and-a- half-room apartment in town, and they progressed slowly from the first kiss to the first, tentative explorations.

That final night, three months after he’d met her, they were at her apartment. After dinner, they played records and talked, he sitting in the crowded little room’s one chair, she sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed in black sweater and black slacks, her feet bare, her black hair falling richly around her shoulders.

She had never looked so desirable to him--never in all the time he’d known her. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t get out of the chair to go to her. He could do nothing but sit, palsied, and look at her.

The record ended. She rose from the bed and crossed the room to replace it. He watched her move, watched her bend over the small tinny-sounding phonograph, watched her walk back to sit cross-legged on the bed again.

Abruptly he got to his feet and walked over to the bed. He sat in front of her and raised wondering hands to touch her cheeks, framing her face. She smiled at him, her eyes level and bright, whispering, “It’s all right, Paul.”

His hands slid down from her face, across her firm breasts to her waist, and rose again, lifting the sweater up from her body. She bent her head and raised her arms--the sweater peeled off and was discarded on the floor.

Her bra was black. He leaned forward, his lips just barely touching hers, their eyes open and only inches apart, watching one another unwinkingly. His hands brushed around her warm body md unfastened the bra. It fell away, to be discarded with the sweater.

Now he sat back and stripped off his own shirt, T-shirt, shoes and socks, his eyes never leaving her body, her firm, pink-tipped breasts, her legs, still encased in the tight slacks.

They looked at one another for a long time without moving, and at last he reached out one hand to the button and zipper at the side of her slacks. It was difficult to undo the button and open the zipper with one hand, but he did it. Then she smiled and slowly lay back on the bed, and he couldn’t move so slowly any more. He had to leap up and hurry, and quickly come to her.

Their union was a violent, ecstatic experience for both of them. His hands were all over her smooth naked flesh caressing and fondling and his mouth followed the trail of his hands. She let him take his will of her, urging him on with her own lips and hands until he thought he’d go mad. And when, finally he had possessed her it was like nothing he ever remembered.

They were married five weeks later in the base chapel. Her family was still in Vienna, and his people were all in the States. But all their friends--the other guys from the outfit, and the girls who worked in the PX -- were all there, and they had a reception afterward in the NCO club. They went to Munich for their honeymoon, then moved into a three-room apartment in town -- Paul was only Airman Second Class, so he couldn’t live in the base housing area. The marriage lasted five months.

Until the afternoon he got off work at three o’clock instead of five and found her at home in bed with a first lieutenant named Grimes.

All he saw at first was the shocked face of Grimes, Staring up at him from the bed. Then, in stunned disbelief, he saw also the face of his wife, below Grimes, twisted around to stare at him, her arms still entwined around Grimes’ broad, naked shoulders.

He took one step into the room and Grimes, unmoving, said, “Watch yourself, buddy.”

“My wife.” That was all Paul managed to say, and that came out half-choked.

“You better go out and come in again, buddy--later,” said Grimes.

“Ingrid?” He asked the question as though he couldn’t believe she was really there.

“Go away, Paul!” she cried, her voice sounding angry.

“Come back later,” said Grimes. He still hadn’t moved in the bed, and his first open-mouthed shock had been replaced by self-assurance and a kind of easy contempt. “You can chat with Ingrid later,” he said. “But I wouldn’t advise you to get fist-happy with her.”

“You what?” It was too fast, too incomprehensible. None of this was real.

“Go away, Paul!” shrieked Ingrid.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” whispered Paul. “You egotistical son-of-a-bitch.”

“Take it easy, sonny,” said Grimes harshly, frowning at him now.

Paul took another leaden step toward the bed. “You filthy son-of-a-bitch. You think you can get away with anything, don’t you? Even with this.”

“I wouldn’t start anything I couldn’t finish, if I were you,” Grimes warned him.

Paul leaped. He hadn’t known he was going to do it, nor had they suspected it, and Grimes’ contemptuous expression suddenly reverted to the shocked look he’d worn when Paul had first come in.

Grimes was big and blond and, under normal circumstances, Paul probably wouldn’t have been able to win a fight with him. But Grimes was too surprised at Paul’s sudden leap, and Paul was fighting with blind, red rage. Besides, Grimes made a ridiculous picture--dressed only in an undershirt and frustrated by the interruption of his love-making--and a man who feels embarrassed and ludicrous doesn’t fight too well.

Paul came in swinging. Grimes had barely enough time to get up and away from the bed. Then Paul was all over him, and Grimes was driven into the wall, leaning open-mouthed, trying to get his hands up to protect himself. Paul caught him solidly on his open mouth and Grimes’ head bounced off the wall.

He started to slide down the wall, but Paul kept swinging, the punches holding Grimes up. Ingrid jumped at

Paul, screaming, “Stop it! Stop it! You’ll kill him!”

Paul and the naked girl staggered across the room, she trying to confine his arms and he trying to push her away. Grimes sagged to his knees, one eye already closing and the lower half of his face bloody from a broken nose and a cut lip. Paul managed, at last, to hurl the girl away from him. She stumbled over a chair and went sprawling. Then Paul grabbed Grimes by the hair, dragged him to the door and kicked him down the stairs. Grimes went flying, arms flailing, trying to grasp the banister. He kept rolling down the stairs, not able to stop himself until he thudded the floor at the bottom.

Paul rushed back into the apartment, gathered up Grimes’ clothes and threw them down the stairwell. Then he went back into the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him.

lngrid was sitting on the floor, the expression on Paul’s face prompting her to raise her arms protectively in front of her face, pleading, “Don’t, Paul! It isn’t what you think!”

“You were in bed with him!” Paul roared at her.

“I don’t love him, Paul! I swear to God, I don’t love him. I don’t love anyone but you!”

He hit her, batting her hands away from her face with his left hand and slapping her forehand and backhand with his right.

She fell back, sprawling, crying, “I couldn’t help it, Paul! I swear, I swear, I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it!”

He went after her, grimly silent, hand upraised to hit her again. She rolled away across the floor, using a chair to help her to her feet. “Paul,” she gasped, “don’t do this! I’ll leave you if you hit me! Don’t you hit me!”

He slapped her, open-handed, but it wasn’t enough, so he closed his hands into fists and did it right.

When he had spent his anger, she lay cowering on the floor, sobbing and moaning. “Get out,” he told her, barely able to talk through his labored breathing. “Get your clothes on and get out, you tramp. Don’t come back.”

She didn’t move. In fact, she acted as if she hadn’t heard him at all, but just stayed crouched on the floor, head buried in her hands, weeping noisily.

He kept telling her to get up, to get to her feet and get out of the apartment. She wouldn’t move, though he kept screaming at her to do so. Finally he stalked out of the apartment and proceeded to get roaring drunk. Ingrid packed her things and left.

The next day he borrowed two hundred dollars through American Express and went to see a lawyer. The divorce was speedy, requiring only that he keep signing forms, and then he moved back onto the base. He never heard from Ingrid again.

That had happened three months ago, and it would have been over and done with except that Grimes was more of an idiot than anyone could have guessed. He tried to prefer charges against Paul for striking an officer. Colonel Gunderson, Paul’s commander, heard Paul’s side of the story and then told Grimes where to head in. Grimes was transferred, almost immediately, to another base.

Three weeks later, Colonel Gunderson called Paul into his office. “You’re coming up for Airman First this month,” he said, “isn’t that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to be passed over, Dane,” said the colonel, “and I want to tell you why. It’s because of that thing with Lieutenant Grimes and your wife. I’m not saying you weren’t justified in what you did. But, no matter what the circumstances, a man shouldn’t be encouraged through promotion to go around punching officers.”

Paul stared at him. “Encouraged?”

“That’s all, Dane,” said the colonel.

Paul felt bitterness rising in him like vomit. “You people really stick together, don’t you?” he said.

“Watch yourself, Dane,” said the colonel. “You keep your nose clean, keep a clean record--you can still make Airman First next time around.”

“You can keep Airman First,” Paul told him, and that was the end of it.

But it had been the same way then as it was now. He’d moved, he’d acted, he’d been in motion, but it had taken weeks before he’d been able to believe that any of it was really happening. A couple of times, after he’d moved back to the base, he’d almost taken the bus into town after work, just as though he still lived there with Ingrid.

It was the same way now. His mother and father were dead. The Red Cross gentleman had told him that, and the Air Force had confirmed it by cutting emergency leave orders, putting him on this plane and sending him home.

That was real. If nothing else in all the world, at least that one fact was real, the fact that he was going home.

He’d gone away from home only once in his life, and that was to serve his time with the Air Force. Once in his life he’d left home and he’d married a whore. Once in his life he’d ventured away from home, and they’d denied him his well-earned promotion because he hadn’t let an officer finish his business atop Paul’s wife. Once in his life he’d been away from home and, while he’d been gone, his mother and father had died.

He was never going to leave home again.

He sat staring out the plane window, not seeing drifting cloud mists and the countryside far below -- they were over France now--his mind busy with images of own home. Outside, the gray-blue painted clapboard, the porch across the front, the porch floor he’d painted a deck gray, the porch swing, the stoop, the trellises on either side, one of them loose. When he was a kid he used to pry that one away and crawl in on the cool dirt beneath, the porch floor inches above his head. He had liked to go there when he wanted to be alone, sometimes to play with soldiers or sometimes to lick his wounds when he’d lost a fight or been paddled by his mother.

He could see the house inside as well. The living room, with the cream and gold wallpaper in vertical stripes. The long sofa and the two armchairs, all three pieces covered in the same dark green upholstery. The Oriental rug made in Brooklyn. The painting of Mary coming back after the Crucifixion--The Return From Golgotha--hanging over the sofa..

The dining room, with the table where they ate, using the good china and the special silver, but only at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the small table with the phone and phone book on it.

The kitchen, always bright and always hot, with the refrigerator door that squeaked, so nobody could steal a midnight snack without being heard by Mom. And the bedrooms upstairs--he could see the color of the bedspreads, smell the faint smell of talcum that always pervaded the hall near the bathroom, because there was always somebody taking a bath and it was usually Angie. And the attic stairs where, his mother told him, he once had had an imaginary playmate, when he was maybe two or three years old.

He could see the house, the people in it--his father, his mother and his kid sister--and he couldn’t wait to get back to them, because it was home and he was never going to leave again. Away from home it was cold and full of knives. He was never going to leave again. He was going to stay there. It would be the same again--

It wouldn’t be the same.

His parents were dead.

The talcum smelled like a funeral parlor, the bedspreads were faded, the porch was rotting away, there was no one there any more.

His parents were dead.

All at once it was real, and he sat forward in the seat as though he’d been punched in the groin. He thought he was going to be sick or that he would die. But neither happened. The plane kept going over France toward home.

***

The plane landed three times. First, at some place in Scotland; then in Newfoundland; and, finally, at Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey. That much of the trip, three thousand miles, the Air Force took care of. From there, he was on his own.

He took the bus up to New York, and went to the Port Authority building where he got another bus for home.

It was the first time he’d ever been in New York City, but he didn’t even look out the bus windows. He was concentrating on the gnawing pain inside him, paying exclusive attention to that, because that was all that was real. And it was real now.

On the second bus, headed through the late evening darkness, south along the Eastern Seaboard, he began to blame the Air Force. The Air Force had taken him away from his parents. It had been more than a year since he had seen them and now he would never see them again. That was because the Air Force had taken him away.

And the Air Force had brought him to Germany where he had met Ingrid. The Air Force had known what Ingrid was, but no one had told him. And the Air Force had kept his promotion away from him because he had refused to let his wife be a whore.

I’m not going back, he thought. No matter what happens, I’m not going back.

The bus roared south, stopping now and again, and at one rest stop he realized suddenly that he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. He hadn’t slept either, except for a little nap on the plane shortly before they’d reached Newfoundland. Still, he wasn’t tired. He was only hungry. He felt as though that were a betrayal--his parents dead and he hungry and able to think of food. But he had a hamburger and a glass of milk and then got back into the bus and they went on.

The bus was supposed to arrive at eleven fifty-four--it was eleven minutes late. He had forgotten to send a telegram, forgotten to tell anybody he was arriving. Well, maybe the Red Cross would have told them he was coming home.

He carried his suitcase and his canvas bag out of the bus depot and got into a taxi. He had only seven dollars left, but couldn’t stand the idea of waiting for a bus. He was suddenly filled with urgency. He had to get home.

The cabbie tried to overcharge him and Paul boiled with rage. He reached across the seat, grabbed the cabbie by the throat and screamed at him, “I live here! This is my home! You can’t cheat me. I’m not a stranger.”

“Jesus!” cried the cabbie, trying to get away. “Jesus, leggo! What the hell’s the matter with you? Leggo!”

Paul let him go, carefully counted out the exact fare, leaving no tip. His hands shook with rage and he dropped a dime, refusing to get out of the cab until he found it. Then he got out, dragging the suitcase and the canvas bag after him. He glared after the cab until it disappeared around the next corner. “I’m not a stranger,” he whispered after the cabbie. “This is my home.”

He turned and went up the walk, thinking, I’ll have to mow the front lawn. He went up the stoop, thinking, I better give the porch a coat of paint. He pulled on the screen door and found it locked.

That enraged him again. He dropped the suitcase and the canvas bag and pounded on the wood of the door. How dare they lock him out! This was his home!

All at once, the inner door burst open and his Aunt Sara was standing there, staring out at him, wide-eyed. “Paul! We didn’t know when you’d get here. Why didn’t you send us a telegram?”

“Let me in!”

Aunt Sara looked at him as though she were terrified of him. She unlocked the screen door and opened it for him. He ran into the house, leaving his suitcase and the canvas bag on the porch. In the living room he found Angie sitting on the sofa with the dark-green upholstery. It was the same house all right--he was home.

Angie ran to him, her eyes puffy and red from crying, and she clung to him, sobbing, “You’re home! Paul! I’m so glad you’re home!”

He put his arms around her. “I’m home for good,” he said, closing his eyes and burying his face in her hair.

THREE

The funeral was on Wednesday. It was the wrong kind of day for it. Funerals should take place on rainy days, with a chill in the air and a look of brown-dying fall on the face of the world. There should be mud, and looming gray cloud banks filling the sky, and the few passers-by on the streets should be huddled miserably within their coats, clutching fast to their own guttering sparks of life. There should be the sorrowful repetitive sound of automobile windshield wipers, and the sorrowful, persistent sound of rain dripping down from rotting eaves.

That is the kind of day which should be set aside for Funerals--it was not the kind of day on which the Danes were laid to rest.

Angie awoke on Wednesday morning to the treble singing of birds. Sunlight, gay and warm and brimming with life, tumbled sportively through the bedroom window, gleaming like caramel on the wooden floor. The air was bright, the mirror over the dresser sparkled, the gaily colored kewpie doll Bob had won for her last year grinned and winked at her from atop the bureau.

At first she didn’t remember. Her eyes opened. Feeling rested and warm, she snuggled beneath the top sheet. It was a beautiful day, warm without being muggy. She threw back the sheet and bounced out of bed, young and vibrant in white pajamas. She caught her reflection in the dresser mirror and smiled at it, happy to see herself, happy to have the knowledge reaffirmed that she was young and lithe and lovely.

She spun in an impromptu dance step and stopped all at once when she saw the clothes on the chair, waiting to be put on.

Her black wool skirt. Her black wool sweater. Her black cotton stockings, worn only once before, last Hallowe’en. And, on the floor next to the chair, her old black flat shoes.

She looked at the clothes awaiting her. They were like the tolling of some grim Puritan bell, like the burnt-flesh reek of Salem.

Then she remembered.

Suddenly emptied, like an overturned jug of cream, she stripped off the white pajamas and bound herself in black. When she looked in the mirror, her blond hair was nasty--it was laughing when it should have been subdued. She searched through the dresser and the bureau, but could find nothing black to cover the too-alive hair. The best she could do was a gray bandanna.

She donned it, tucking the stray, laughing curls beneath it, out of sight, and left her room.

Aunt Sara had stayed over the last three nights, and she was now in the kitchen amid the smell of frying bacon. Paul was seated at the table, wolfing eggs, bacon and black coffee. She couldn’t understand how Paul could eat at a time like this, and Aunt Sara, just as though she were answering Angie’s unspoken question, said, “Can you imagine a boy like this? He spent all that time on his trip home, and he didn’t get any sleep at all. Only ate one hamburger and a glass of milk the whole time. Can you imagine a boy like this? How many eggs this morning, dear?”

“I’m not hungry, thank you,” said Angie.

“Have something, dear. You should eat something to keep your strength up.”

“I’ll have a piece of toast, I guess. And some coffee.”

“All right, you sit down right there, I’ll be just a jiffy.” And Aunt Sara went bustling around the kitchen.

Angie sat down across from her brother. “Hello, Paul,” she said.

He gave her a wan smile. “Hello, yourself.”

She studied him as he ate. It had been a long while since she’d seen him, and the changes in him were startling. Last night things had happened too rapidly. Their meeting had been too emotional for her to really notice anything about him. But now she saw the profound changes.

He was older, but that she had expected. It was more than that. There was a hardness about his face, a bitterness in his eyes, that she had never seen before. She had the feeling that he was a much different person from the brother who had left here less than two years ago.

Part of the change would be because of the wife, of course. Angie wasn’t really clear about what had happened there; her mother had always refused to give her the details. All she knew for sure was that Paul had met a German girl, had written glowing letters about her and had finally married her. Then, all of a sudden, he had divorced her and her name had no longer been mentioned in any of his letters. He had written to Mom and Dad about what had happened, Angie knew that much, but that was all.

Aunt Sara gave her the toast and coffee. She ate slowly, neither tasting nor noticing the food.

Uncle Edward came for them at nine-thirty, to drive them to the funeral home. He was a big, bluff, red-faced man, almost always smiling, the man Angie always thought of whenever she heard the word “jolly.” Today he was encased in a dark blue winter suit and wore a serious expression--both looked out of place.

On the way to, the car, Angie paused on the sidewalk to look at the neighborhood. It was July and school was out so there were a lot of children around, most of them down at the far corner playing hide-and-seek. There were people walking around in the sunlight, bright and cheerful, wearing the light-colored clothing of summer. And here were Angie and the mourners so dreadfully out of place in their dark, drab winter clothes, cold and solemn beneath the sun.

Angie got into the back seat of Uncle Edward’s Plymouth with Paul, while Aunt Sara sat up front. The Plymouth was pastel, three different shades. No amount of mourning or grief could change that. It looked like a Japanese toy, happy and plastic, much more suited to the day than were its occupants.

The funeral parlor was full of relatives--all of Mom’s and all of Dad’s. The people in the two families who were angry at one another were quietly avoiding each other. There was a sickening smell of dying flowers in the air, and not enough light, and a heavy cloying Victorian atmosphere about the room, like baroque quicksand.

Angie hated Mister Mordenthall. He was the undertaker--he called himself a mortician--and he was a damp, pallid man with clammy hands and a false, toothy smile of sympathy.

There was nothing to do at the funeral parlor but wait. At last, they all went out again, following the two caskets, getting into their respective cars, and driving slowly through, the sunlit streets to the church. Angie and Paul sat alone in the back seat of the long black limousine, directly behind the hearse.

And then there was the requiem mass which dragged dolefully on and on and on.

All during this time, Angie’s brain raced wildly. There was nothing she could do--there was no way to avoid the thoughts that crowded her mind. All she could do was sit and watch the thoughts crowding through in dogged repetition.

She hadn’t loved her parents. Not enough. She hadn’t loved her parents enough.

The evidence was clear and the memory of the evidence was crisp and loud.

In the very moment when she had heard of their death, her only thought had been for herself. Her only thought had been of relief, that now she wouldn’t have to make any decision about Bob.

When she had heard that Paul would be coming home on leave, she had been happy; she had been delighted at the idea and the thought had crossed her mind unbidden: That’s one good thing, anyway. Paul wouldn’t be coming home so soon, otherwise.

Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. She remembered the story in the New Testament about Saint Peter, in which Our Lord told him, “You will deny me thrice before the cock crows.” Saint Peter couldn’t believe it possible, but it came to pass.

And so had it for her. She had denied her parents, betrayed them.

In the Gothic severity of the stone-pillared church, with its high, dark, stained-glass windows, she felt small and unclean. She hadn’t loved her mother and her father enough.

The services went on and on, but finally it was over and they were motioning to her to get up from the pew. She stepped into the aisle and Paul was beside her, strong and protective. They began the slow procession down the aisle to the gaping, sun-brightened doors, moving slowly behind the two coffins.

They’re in there, she thought. Mom and Dad--they’re in those two draped boxes. They’re going into the ground.

She felt her legs buckling beneath her, but Paul’s hand was strong and reassuring on her arm. She managed to keep walking until they were out of the church, following the caskets down the steps toward the waiting cars.

Screaming. Somebody was screaming.

Paul had arm around her shoulder, his anxious face close. She looked at him wonderingly, not understanding, until she realized all at once that it was she who was screaming.

Angie wished she could die. She went limp, closing her eyes, expelling her breath, shutting out the sight, sound, smell and feel of the sacrilegiously bright day around her. Feet were scraping, clothes were rustling, voices were murmuring anxiously, hands were supporting her and someone was moving her down the steps. Dimly, she heard Paul’s voice saying, “I’ll take her home. I’d better take her home.”

There was confusion and motion. Time went rushing by and then slowed to a crawl and then speeded up again. At one point she and Paul were in the back seat of a taxi, at another point they were in the living room of their own house, and at still another point he was giving her a cup of tea with the tea bag still in it. His face looked pale and worried.

All at once she came to. It was the tea bag that did it. She looked at it and thought, Paul forgot to take the tea bag out. She was thinking and aware again.

She looked around, suddenly wide-eyed. They were home. She was sitting in the armchair near the radiator, in the living room, with Paul standing in front of her, the worried expression still on his face. They were really and truly at home.

The cemetery.

“We didn’t go!” she cried.

“Take it easy,” Paul said. “Take it easy, Angie. Drink your tea.”

She shook her head wildly. Didn’t he understand? “We didn’t go!” she cried again. “We didn’t go!”

“You got all shook up, Angie,” he said gently. “Nobody blames you. It was a hell of a thing. Funerals are the cruelest things in the world. I never knew that before but they are.”

“But--Mom and Dad. We didn’t go to the cemetery!”

“It’s good we didn’t,” he said. “We couldn’t have done anybody any good. And it just would have made you even more upset.” He laughed nervously. “You had me scared, Angie,” he said. “I thought you were going to die, right there on the church steps.”

“I tried to,” she said quietly. “I tried to die.”

“Hey! Cut that out, kid. Take it easy and let things settle inside your head. Don’t go getting dramatic on me.”

She looked at him, his familiar, concerned face strengthening her, as his hand against her arm had strengthened her in the church. “Thank you, Paul,” she whispered. She reached out, tenderly, hesitantly, touching his cheek. “I’m glad you came home,” she said.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come home.”

“You’d be okay,” he told her. “You’re a good kid. You’re going to bounce back fast. Wait and see.”

“Stay here with me,” she begged him. “At least for a while--for a few weeks, at least.”

“Sure. What do you think?” He grinned, more naturally now, playfully poking her jaw. “I’m your big brother, little girl,” he said. “I’m responsible for you.”

“Thank you, Paul.”

“Only right now,” he said, “I’ve got a cup of coffee getting cold in the kitchen. Is it okay if I go out and get it? If I promise to come right back, I mean?”

She smiled, nodding. “I think it’ll be all right,” she said.

“Fine.”

He got his coffee and they sat together in the living room. They were silent, mostly, saying small inconsequential things to one another, only at intervals. Angie needed time to get over the emotional explosion that had hit her at the church, and Paul seemed to realize this as he paced his own mood accordingly.

They’d been there not quite an hour when Bob arrived.

Bob, over the last two years, had gradually become, to a certain extent, a normal part of the household. He had dinner with Angie and her parents perhaps once or twice a week. He had spent many afternoons chatting with Angie’s father or working with him on the car. And he had long since come to the stage of personal relationship with the family where he no longer bothered with the doorbell. On arriving at the house, his normal method was to simply open the front door, walk in and shout, “I’m here!”

That is exactly what he did this time. His shout, loud and ringing, went echoing through the silent house, emphasizing its new emptiness. Angie jumped, wide-eyed, feeling her nerves tighten suddenly.

Then Bob appeared in the living room doorway, grinning fatuously. “Hi, folks,” he said.

Angie could only stare at him.

Paul got to his feet slowly, glaring at the boy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Don’t you have a brain in your head?”

Bob stopped, open-mouthed. “Oh, golly!” he said. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, I forgot! I’m sorry--Paul, Angie, I’m really sorry, truly I am. I just completely forgot.”

“You better forget yourself right on out of here,” Paul told him angrily.

“Hey, now, wait a second!”

“Never mind ‘wait a second’,” Paul said. “Just get out.” He strode across the room to Bob. “Go on,” he said. “Take off.”

Bob looked over Paul’s shoulder at Angie, his eyes wide with surprise. “Angie! Tell him to stop this. Tell him it’s okay for me to be here.”

Paul reached out and shoved the other boy, saying, “Just leave Angie alone. She’s had a rough time today. We don’t need idiots like you coming around to make things worse.”

“Angie!”

Angie looked from one to the other. She felt the nerves in her body tightening, coiling harder and harder like the mainspring of a watch. She hung onto the arms of the chair, afraid she was going to burst apart any second now.

Because Bob brought it all back. All the guilt, terror, loneliness and self-pity that had gradually been soothed out of her by the quiet, reassuring presence of Paul was all coming back now. Bob’s presence had brought it crashing in upon her again. The betrayal of her parents, when first she had heard of their deaths, when she had used the knowledge to avoid committing herself with Bob. The second betrayal lay in her happiness at Paul’s having come home. And the third betrayal had occurred today when she hadn’t even accompanied her parents to the cemetery, and had made it impossible for Paul to go to the cemetery, either.

Paul’s strength, his calm presence, had soothed her and made her forget these things, or at least had kept her from dwelling on them. But now Bob was here, bringing the raucous sight and sound of the non-grieving world, bringing with him the strong reminders of guilt.

And. he was calling to her for help. He was looking over Paul’s shoulder at her and calling to her to turn against her brother. She couldn’t do it. Even if she’d wanted him to stay, she couldn’t turn against her brother.

And she didn’t want him to stay. She didn’t want him near her at all, not now, not for a long time.

But the old ambivalence was on her again. She couldn’t say yes to Bob, she couldn’t be what he wanted her to be. But at the same time, she couldn’t say no, either. She couldn’t simply end the relationship. She couldn’t tell him definitely that it was all over between them. She didn’t know which she wanted, not really, and until she did it was impossible for her to say anything at all.

“Angie!” he called again. Paul pushed him once more, saying, “Leave Angie alone, damn it! Just leave her alone!”

“Quit shoving me!” shouted Bob, beginning to get angry. “Let Angie talk for herself. You aren’t her father.”

Paul stopped dead and stared at the other boy. At last, he said, softly, “You just keep putting your foot in it this morning, don’t you?”

“If you’d get off my back for a minute--” Bob started.

“I’ll get off your back,” Paul interrupted him, “as soon you get the hell out of here.”

“Why?” Bob demanded. “Why should I get out? Angie and I are engaged. We’re going to be married. I ought to be here now. Ask her yourself.”

“For Christ’s sake,” said Paul, “Angie’s only seventeen old. What do you mean, she’s going to marry you? She’s got years yet before she has to decide about marrying anybody. Right now, you’re just a guy she went steady with in high school, that’s all. And you don’t have any place in this house now. Nobody has any place in this house until Angie and I say so.”

“Then ask her!” cried Bob.

“I’m not going to ask her anything. You leave her out of this. She’s had a rough time and you’re just making it rougher.”

Bob looked over to Angie again. “Tell him, Angie,” he pleaded. “Tell him it’s okay--”

Paul shoved him again, harder this time, so that Bob almost lost his balance, flailing his arms for a second before catching himself against the wall. “I told you,” Paul said angrily, “to leave her alone. I’m not going tell you again.”

Bob ignored him. “Angie--”

Paul slapped him across the face with an open hand. “Leave her alone!”

Bob, stunned into silence, raised his hand to a cheek made red by Paul’s slap. “You better be careful, Paul,” he said. “You better be damn good and careful.”

“Out you go, you stupid little twerp,” Paul said and grabbed his arm.

Bob twisted away and pushed Paul to the side. “Cut it out.” He started toward Angie, saying, “You haven’t said a word, Angie. Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to stay?”

Angie looked up at him, her mouth working. She didn’t know what to answer. She couldn’t say a word.

Paul leaped after Bob and spun him around. “Now. Goddamn you--”

Then the two of them started a strange, slow, grotesque dance in the living room. Neither one really wanted an open fight, so no punches were exchanged. They merely pushed and shoved at one another, Paul trying to maneuver Bob toward the front door, and Bob trying to work back toward Angie.

Angie watched them, hearing the labored sound of their breathing and the scuff of their feet against the rug, seeing the tense, angry expressions on their faces, watching them move around one another, pushing and being pushed, and she wanted to scream. But any sound, any word she might utter, would be a commitment in one direction or the other. And she couldn’t do it. All she could do was sit there, her face pale and terror-stricken, watching her brother and the boy she was supposed to marry build themselves up slowly to a real fight.

The first punch was thrown by Paul, a hard, short chop to Bob’s chest, still more of a shove than a punch, and Bob replied immediately with a fist to Paul’s ribs. Then the fight began in earnest.

Paul was taller, heavier and older than the other boy, and in somewhat better condition, but Bob was just as sullenly enraged as he was, and it was a nearly even fight. They stood toe to toe at first, slogging each other in the chest, ribs, stomach and arms, neither of them hitting for the face, neither of them giving an inch.

It was the gradual development of the fight that was the most terrifying part for Angie. She knew that neither one of them really wanted to fight, and that all it would take at any moment was one word from her to make them stop. First, they had just been pushing one another, harder and harder, and now they were punching one another, but not aiming for the face yet, as though that would have been a step farther, as though they were still trying to hold back, still waiting for Angie to speak.

Gradually, Bob was forced backward, Paul circling him, driving him slowly but steadily toward the door. Neither of them said a word--they only moved grimly toward one another, their faces set and hard.

Then Paul caught Bob with a hard left to the side, just above the belt, and Angie saw Bob’s face twist with pain. Bob backed away, trying to protect himself, and Paul pressed in on him till Bob lashed out and hit Paul high on the right cheek, just below the eye. Paul stepped back but Bob moved in on him again. Paul stood him off with a fast left jab to the ribs and came driving across with a right that caught Bob on the side of the jaw and sent him reeling back against the wall.

Angie thought for a second that Bob was unconscious, knocked out but still upright only because of the wall. Bob’s legs were buckling, his arms were dropping to his sides. Then he bowed his head forward, shaking it, suddenly pushing himself away from the wall and lunging after Paul again. He ducked away from a whistling right hand and bowled into Paul. They crashed over an armchair and fell heavily to the floor, Bob on top.

But Paul threw Bob off and scrambled to his feet in one smooth-flowing motion. He turned, came wading back in and reached Bob before he was completely standing again. Paul’s arms pinwheeled, left and right savagely clubbing Bob back across the room, until Bob stumbled backwards, throwing his arms out to the sides for balance, and Paul smashed his right fist into Bob’s unprotected face.

Bob fell like a tree, this time not trying to get up again. Paul stood over him a minute, breathing heavily, then reached down and dragged Bob upright. Bob was only half-conscious. Paul half-carried and half-pulled him to the door, then shoved him out onto the porch. Angie, looking terrified through the window, saw Bob save himself from falling down the stoop by grabbing desperately at the porch post. Paul shouted something at him, Angie couldn’t hear what, and Bob went down the steps unsteadily and out to the sidewalk. Without looking back, he turned right and walked out of sight.

Paul came back in after a minute, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. He looked at Angie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried to make him go. I didn’t want anything like that.”

“I know,” said Angie.

Paul looked around the room as though embarrassed and said, “I’ll make you some more tea.” He left the room, heading for the kitchen.

Angie remained seated in the chair. She hadn’t acted, she hadn’t spoken, she hadn’t made a choice. But non-action had turned out to be action after all; silence had turned out to be louder than any words could have been. In making no choice, she had still chosen.

Bob was gone. The decision had been taken out of her hands. Paul had made the decision for her and she hadn’t had to do a thing.

It didn’t matter whether it was the right decision or not. She hadn’t had to make it, that was the important thing, and she was more grateful to Paul than she could have said.

FOUR

Danny McCann was a happy drunk. “I tell you, Paul,” he said happily, “the beer ads are right. Enjoy life--every golden minute of it. Drink booze--every golden drop of it.” He suited the action to the words by chugalugging a glass of the foamy brew.

It was Saturday afternoon, three days after the funeral. Paul had stayed at home with Angie until today, but gradually the oppressive emptiness of the house had gotten to him. This afternoon he’d called Danny McCann, a high school buddy of his, back in circulation now after being given an undesirable discharge from the Army six months ago.

They had met here, in Joe King’s Happi-Tyme Tavern, at two o’clock. Danny had arrived first, had gone to work immediately, and now, a little past five, he had a healthy glow on. Danny McCann had always been a ne’er-do-well, had always cheerfully admitted it, had never suffered pangs of guilt or shame or inferiority at being tossed out of school or fired from jobs or found undesirable by the Army. “I found the Army undesirable, too,” was his standard comment.

“I’d like to enjoy life,” Paul told him in answer to his remark. “I really would. But all I’ve got is a thirty-day leave, and five days of that are gone already.”

“I tell you the way it is, Paul,” said Danny. He was a short, chubby, round-faced type. Though only twenty- one, his rather bulbous nose was beginning to show the redness that would flower into alcoholic scarlet before he was forty. “I’ll tell you the way it is,” he repeated. “In the Army, I was what they call a guardhouse lawyer. That’s exactly what I was. I took the UCMJ and I read it the way other guys read Confidential. I read that thing backwards and forwards, and if there was an angle around, I knew about it. And do you know what? There’s an angle around for you.”

Paul looked at him with renewed interest. “There is? Such as what?”

“Such as the thing they call the hardship discharge,” Danny told him.

“Don’t be silly. What hardship?”

“Don’t tell me ‘don’t be silly’--I know what I’m talking about. How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Okay then, you’re legally an adult, right?”

Paul grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Legally,” he said. “I guess so.”

“Right,” said Danny. “And Angie, how old is she? Sixteen?”

“No. Seventeen.”

“Just as good. Legally, she’s a child, right? What they call a minor.”

“Yeah,” said Paul. “I suppose so. If you say so.”

“I say so. Now, there isn’t anybody else in the immediate family, is there? There’s just you two. I don’t mean uncles or aunts or anybody like that. I mean immediate family.”

Paul nodded. “Just Angie and me.”

“Right,” said Danny. “And Angie isn’t married or anything. You are Angie’s only adult in the immediate family.”

“So what?”

“So she needs your protection, that’s what. That’s one of the gizmoes in the hardship discharge. If you are the only remaining adult in the immediate family, and there are minors in the immediate family who need you near them for protection and support--to be like a guardian -- then you can apply for a hardship discharge.”

“Sure,” said Paul. “You can apply for the moon, too.”

Danny shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t take the chance--don’t try it. Go on back to Germany when your leave’s up.”

“Wait a second,” said Paul. “How does this work? How would I go about applying? I mean, if I wanted to.”

“You go to the Red Cross,” Danny said. “And right now, you go to the bar. It’s your round.”

***

On Monday, Paul went to the Red Cross, where he learned that Danny had been absolutely right. The man at the Red Cross started the forms rolling, and Paul got Father Mancenik, the pastor of the church, and Dr. Lynch, the Dane’s family doctor, to write the necessary substantiating letters. And then there was nothing to do but wait.

Paul spent most of his waiting time with Danny McCann, and his days rapidly assumed a pattern. He got out of bed around two in the afternoon, washed and dressed, and made himself a cup of coffee. Most of the time, Angie was in the house when he awoke, working or reading or watching television, but since he invariably woke up with a hangover, there wasn’t much conversation between them.

Having downed the cup of coffee and taken two aspirin tablets, Paul would then sit and watch television till five or thereabouts, when Angie would make lunch for him. He would eat alone at the kitchen table, since she had eaten her lunch hours before and wasn’t ready for dinner yet, and then he would leave the house, going first to Joe King’s Happi-Tyme Tavern to meet Danny. Then the two of them would spend the night bar-hopping.

They ran across a lot of the people Paul had known back in high school and in the days before he’d enlisted in the Air Force, and they made the rounds in groups of from two to twelve. They always wound up at an after-hours place in the city called the Black Hat. Then they drove back to Thornbridge in Danny’s car, and Paul rolled into the sack around five or six in the morning.

A couple of times, he and Danny parted company early in the evening, and then met again well after midnight at one of the local Thornbridge bars. Those were the times when Danny was anxious to go pick up a girl. He wanted Paul to come along with him so they could pick up two girls, but Paul begged off every time. When Danny asked for a reason Paul merely got sullen and angry and refused to talk with him.

The thing was, he didn’t know exactly what his motives were. Actually, there was no one clear-cut reason for his not wanting to go quail hunting with Danny. There were a number of reasons, most of which he hardly suspected himself.

In the first place, and most obviously, there was Ingrid. Or, rather, the memory of Ingrid. That fiasco had been too recent for him to want to get himself involved, emotionally or physically, with any other girl. Once burned, he was twice shy.

Secondly--not so much a reason as an excuse -- there was the fact that his parents had been dead less than two weeks. To go playing around so soon after their death would be, to say the least, in bad taste.

The final--and perhaps most important--reason he didn’t understand himself, at least, not on a conscious level. It was more complicated than the other two and concerned both his parents and his sister.

In essence he felt he was making use of his sister and the death of his mother and father. Angie didn’t need him, not to the extent he was claiming in his application for discharge. Hell, she would be going to work pretty soon. And Thornbridge was full of uncles and aunts on both sides of the family, all of them a hell of a lot more capable of watching out for Angie than Paul was.

He remembered, when he was just a kid, hearing his father at the dinner table one time, talking about this woman who worked in the office of Uncle James Dane’s trucking company. It seems her husband had run out on her a few years before and, according to Paul’s father, it was easy to see why the poor guy had up and left. But he had given her four kids before leaving, so even though she had a job she was collecting relief for the kids because they were all under age. And Paul’s father said it was a shame the way that woman treated those kids. He said it was a sure bet she would’ve left the kids, too, except that she was staying around because of the relief money she got for the kids. Which she used on anything in the world except the kids, according to Paul’s father.

She didn’t feed them enough, and only the cheapest food, and she got them all second-hand clothes and made them wear them till they were practically worn through, and none of the kids ever had so much as a nickel to spend on themselves. It was a damn shame, Paul’s father had said, and he had also said that he couldn’t think of anything lower than a person who would use other human beings that way, without any love or concern for them at all.

Now Paul was doing exactly the same thing with Angie. Oh, it didn’t show, the way it had with that woman. Nobody was going to point a finger at him and say he was the lowest of the low, but it was the same thing. He was using Angie. He was getting a discharge from the Air Force--at least, he was trying to get one--on the basis that he had to take care of his kid sister. And for God’s sake, he hardly even saw her, much less took care of her! So he was using her, just exactly the same way that woman had used her children, and just as callously.

But that wasn’t the worst. Paul’s father had said he couldn’t think of anything lower than what that woman was doing, but of course he hadn’t known then that his own son was going to do something one hell of a lot lower. He hadn’t known that his own son was going to use his parents’ death as a way out of the Air Force. He wouldn’t have thought for one second that his son could be as completely low as that.

Paul never sat back to figure all this out--these were thoughts that filtered through bit by bit, despite his efforts to keep them buried, far down out of sight, to make believe that they weren’t there.

Gradually, he became aware that he couldn’t allow himself to have a good time when he was out. He stayed gloomy and morose, never really joining in with the crowd, and he couldn’t even think of going along with Danny to pick up a couple of girls.

And one thing more. This thought wasn’t quite at the conscious level either, but it didn’t have to be. It was as basic to him as breathing, it didn’t have to be thought about. It was this:

He had been happy all his life. A few times, of course, he’d been discontented or annoyed or upset about something but, generally speaking, his life had been happy. While he had been at home.

But then he had enlisted in the Air Force and he had gone away from home. And there had been Ingrid, and the squadron commander being down on him, and his parents dying. The whole world seemed to go to hell. And it had all happened after he had left home.

He wasn’t going to leave home again. Not for anything. That house on DeWitt Street had been home for as long as he could remember. He was going to live there, he was going to be there. He was never going to leave that house again. Not ever.

And that was why he could be as low as the woman his father had talked about that time. Because he would do anything, anything, to keep from having to leave home again.

***

Uncle James came to the house on the second Thursday after the funeral. He showed up at four in the afternoon, when Paul was up and sitting in the living room, watching television and nursing a hangover.

Uncle James looked exactly like a ward heeler politician.

He was short--barely five feet four inches tall--and shaped like a barrel. He always wore bluish-gray suits with vests, wide-collared white shirts, loud ties and black shoes. His face was round and as lined as a prune. He had dark, narrow-set eyes above a round pug nose and a wide, thick-lipped mouth. His eyebrows were bushy and black, sticking way out from his face--his black hair was thinning on top and graying at the sides. He always had a cigar in his month, and he rarely smiled or laughed unless he’d been drinking.

Uncle James was Paul’s father’s older brother. He was a rough, bitter, money-hungry, ambitious, driving man; everything that Paul’s father had not been. Paul’s father had managed to get to college for two years, while Uncle James had quit school at fifteen to go to work. Paul’s father liked good music, good books, good food and good liquor. He dressed well and was tall and lean and handsome. He and Uncle James were as different as day and night.

But it was Uncle James who had supported Paul’s father all his life. That had been a bitter dose for Paul’s father to have to swallow, but there hadn’t been any choice. Paul’s father had not been born for manual labor. He had a good mind, a fastidious mind. And he had no particular hunger for money itself, though he did appreciate the things that money could buy. But he hadn’t been able to finish college--he had had to pay his own way, his parents being dirt poor--and without that college diploma and that college education, there just wasn’t any place at all for Paul’s father.

Except with Uncle James. Uncle James, at twenty-four, had started his own trucking company, with one beat-up, run-down, second-hand junk heap of a truck. He drove it himself, working sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. He had driven himself more than he had ever driven the truck and he had made the venture pay. Six years after he’d started, he owned a fleet of fourteen brand-new trucks, he had his own garage out on Western Avenue, and he no longer had to do his own driving.

He was doing so well, in fact, that he could even make a living for his kid brother, Paul’s father. He brought Paul’s father in as office manager, which meant, in essence, that he was the one who did the talking for James. He talked with the customers, with the union, with the tax people, with the employees, with the automotive dealer from whom the trucks were bought and with everybody else. He was smooth and personable and friendly and honest. He actually was worth what Uncle James paid him. And Uncle James paid him damn well. He didn’t make anywhere near what Uncle James made, of course, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t that hungry for money.

Besides, no amount of money would have made up for the fact that he was living on his brother’s charity. And it didn’t matter how valuable he was to his brother’s firm; it was charity because no one else would have given him such a job.

Although Paul’s father had never voiced his feelings on this matter, it hadn’t taken Paul long to see what the situation was. Before he was in high school, he understood clearly just what the relationship was between his father and his Uncle James. And even though no one was to blame for the situation--least of all Uncle James--Paul had never liked this particular uncle. Uncle James made his father depressed and unhappy, and that was enough for Paul. He disliked Uncle James.

The death of his father hadn’t changed his feelings in the slightest. In addition, he had a hangover. Therefore, when Uncle James came barging into the house that Thursday afternoon without so much as knocking, Paul looked ironically at him and said, “The door’s unlocked. Come on in.”

“I’m already in,” said Uncle James, who had never had time to develop a sense of humor.

“So I notice.”

“Where’s your sister?” Uncle James demanded, uninterested in foolish conversations.

“You mean Angie?”

“How many sisters you got? Of course, I mean Angie.”

“I just wasn’t sure you knew her name, that’s all.”

Uncle James lowered his bushy eyebrows and glowered. “Are you trying to be a smart aleck, boy?”

“Not for a minute.” Uncle James sat down on the sofa, and as soon as he was settled Paul said, “Sit down.”

“I am sitting. Where’s Angie?”

“Upstairs, I think. Dusting or something.”

“Get her, will you? I want to talk to you kids about something.” ·

Paul shrugged. He turned his head toward the stairs and bellowed, “Angie!”

Her call came back down the stairs. “What is it?”

“Come on down. We’ve got company.”

“Who?”

“Uncle James. He wants to talk to us.”

“What about?”

“For Christ’s sake, Angie, quit hollering and come here.”

“Just a minute.”

Uncle James had followed all this sourly, chewing on his cigar. He now said, “You always holler and shout like that? I figured your father would have taught you some manners. He was the man to do it, if ever there was one.”

“You just leave him out of this,” said Paul, bristling.

The eyebrows went up this time. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Get off the high horse.”

Angie came in then, smiling, and said, “Hello, Uncle James.”

Uncle James smiled around the cigar. “By God, Angie,” he said, “you’re turning into a beautiful woman, do you know that?”

Angie blushed, pleased at the compliment, murmuring, “Thank you.” She sat demurely near Paul and said, “You wanted to talk to us?”

“Yes.” Uncle James nodded emphatically and removed the cigar from his mouth. To Angie he said, “Have you made any plans yet about where you’re going to be living from now on? I mean, are you going to get a little apartment of your own or will you stay with one of your aunts or what?”

Angie looked blank with surprise. “Why, I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m going to be staying right here.”

“Here? In this house? All by yourself?”

“I’ll be with her,”· said Paul sullenly. “I’m getting a discharge.” Though he wasn’t sure yet, he spoke as though it were definite.

“Well, now,” said Uncle James. “I didn’t know about that. That changes things. Well, now.”

Angie said, “What is it, Uncle James?”

“Well, now,” said Uncle James, “here’s the thing. You see, actually, I’m the one who owns this house.”

“The hell you do!” snapped Paul.

Uncle James glowered at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“You heard what I said. I went through the papers in the desk, getting things into shape, the insurance and all that, and I remember seeing the deed to this house. Dad owned it, complete, no mortgage or anything. And he left it to Angie and me.”

“Well, now,” said Uncle James, “I guess I can tell you something you didn’t know then. You see, your father borrowed the money from me to buy this house, and he never paid a penny of that money back. So the house, when you come right down to it, is mine.”

“He took out a mortgage with you?” asked Paul. “Let’s see the papers on it.”

“I didn’t say a mortgage. I said a loan. He borrowed the cash from me. A verbal loan. He was supposed to pay it back but he never did. And I never pressed him on it. I knew he’d be good for it eventually.”

“You mean you don’t have a signed loan agreement?”

“I don’t need one,” said Uncle James. “You can just take my word for it.”

“And you can just go to hell!” Paul told him angrily.

“You watch your tongue, boy!”

“You watch your own tongue!”

“Paul!” cried Angie. “Uncle James!”

But neither of them paid any attention to her. Paul was on his feet, his face scarlet with rage. “This is my house!” he cried. “Mine and Angie’s! It’s our home. We’ve got the papers to prove it and you can just go to hell for yourself!”

“My boy, Teddy,” shouted Uncle James, “is getting married in three months, and he’s going to move into this house!”

“The hell he is!”

Uncle James leaped to his feet. “Goddamn it!” he cried. “I’m going to see my lawyer!”

“See twenty lawyers. This is my house.”

“We’ll see whose house it is,” cried Uncle James. He shoved the cigar into his mouth, glowered at Paul and stormed out of the house.

Paul remained standing in the middle of the room, glaring at the front door. His chest was heaving and he felt as though he’d just run three miles. “That son-of-a bitch,” he whispered. “He thought I’d be going back to Germany. He figured you’d be going off to an apartment somewhere and he could just waltz in here and take over our house as though he owned it.”

“Paul, maybe Dad did borrow the money from him. Uncle James wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference,” Paul told her. “He admitted he didn’t have any papers to prove it. That would make it a loan and not a mortgage. Any debt Dad owed Uncle James died with him. That makes this our house and he can just take a flying leap of a pier for himself.”

“He’s going to cause trouble for us, Paul,” said Angie mournfully.

“Let him try it. I’m going out, I’ll see you later.” He stormed out the front door and turned toward Joe King’s Happi-Tyme Tavern.

***

Paul didn’t stay out very late that night. The sudden appearance of Uncle James, and his threat to the house, rattled Paul more than he liked to admit.

Uncle James didn’t have a leg to stand on. Paul had the ownership papers, and Uncle James didn’t even have any notes on the loan. It was Paul’s house, no question about it. But it still scared him to have someone of Uncle James’ tenacity and stubbornness trying to take his home away from him.

He was even quieter and gloomier that night than usual, sitting silently in a corner at the bar, neither joining in the conversation nor taking much notice of the people around him. And they, in their turn, barely took any notice of him. When he left abruptly a little after midnight, most of them didn’t even notice his departure.

It was an eight-block walk home, and Paul strode along briskly, almost running, as though he were afraid the home would no longer be his if he didn’t get there right away.

The first-floor lights were all out when he arrived.

The house was dark, except for the one second-floor window which was to Angie’s room. The dimness of the glow against the window indicated that the meager light was coming from the reading lamp attached to the head of Angie’s bed.

The poor kid, thought Paul, she’s all alone in the house.

It was the first time he’d thought consciously of that since the day of the funeral.

He entered the house quietly, not wanting to frighten her. Once inside, with the door closed, he could hear a faint sound from upstairs. It took him a minute to figure out what it was.

Someone was sobbing.

He listened. It was Angie. She was crying softly, as though she’d been doing it for a long time and was now too weary to weep with full force.

He called out, “Angie!” and the sobbing stopped at once. There was silence for a few seconds, until her voice came to him, tremulous, saying, “Paul? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.” He hurried up the stairs and around the turn to the left. The bathroom was first on the right, his own room beyond it. His parents’ bedroom was straight ahead, and Angie’s room was to the right, beyond the attic door.

Her bedroom door was half-open and, as he’d thought, the only light came from the reading lamp. She was in bed, wearing pale blue pajamas, covered only with the sheet. She was lying on her back now, the pillow bunched up beneath her head, smiling at him, incredibly young and lovely, her face framed against the pillow by her blond hair.

He stood in the doorway, feeling sudden tenderness for his sister, a sudden protectiveness and a feeling of guilt. “Hey, kid,” he said gently. “What’s the problem?”

“Nothing.” She smiled more brightly. “Not a thing, Paul. Honest.”

“You were crying when I came in.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Come on, Angie, what is it?”

The smile faltered and she looked away from him. “I--I’m sorry, Paul. I just get silly sometimes, that’s all.”

“What kind of silly? What’s the matter?”

“The--the house. All alone here, I--”

“Oh, Jesus!” For it suddenly came home to him what he’d been doing to her these last two weeks. He had left her alone, absolutely alone, in this house. Her parents had died, too, and while he’d been out fooling around, she’d had to stay here, day in and day out. No wonder it had gotten to her; no wonder she had to cry herself to sleep. That’s what she probably did every night and she’d never said a word to him about it. She’d never blamed him, never reproached him.

“Angie,” he said. He went on into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He took her hands in his and said, “I’m sorry, honey. Goddamn it, I’m sorry.”

“Paul, it isn’t your fault--”

“It is,” he said. “I’ve been wandering around, thinking about myself. I haven’t paid any attention to you at all. And you were counting on me when I came home. I remember when I first walked into the house--” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Angie, honest to God I am.”

She sat up, putting an arm around his shoulders and leaning close to him to smile and say, “Don’t feel bad about it, Paul. We just had a very bad thing happen to us, that’s all. And we both had to fight our own way through it. You aren’t to blame for anything, Paul.” She hugged him and rumpled his hair. “Come on, big brother,” she said. “Stop looking so gloomy.”

“I just feel like a goddamn clown,” he said. “Not even thinking about you. I hate to admit it, Angie, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t even thinking about you. I wasn’t thinking about anybody in the whole goddamn world but me. Nobody but me.”

“Of course not, Paul,” she said. “It’s only natural. Don’t worry about it, please.”

“Listen,” he said. “Listen, Angie, that’s all over. I’m going to quit acting like a clown. I’m going to quit running around all over the goddamn place and settle down.”

“Paul, you don’t have to be responsible for me, honest.”

“Sure, I do,” he said. He grinned at her. “You’re my little bitty kid sister.” His eyes moved involuntarily to her nightgown and the glow of her naked flesh through the fabric and a sudden hot knife speared through his groin. He shook his head and looked away.

“Not so little, any more,” she said, smiling.

“No,” he said. “I guess not.” He got up from the bed, his heart beating wildly. “Wake me up early tomorrow, okay?”

“You don’t have to, Paul”

“I want to. Good night, Angie.”

“Good night, Paul.”

In his own room, he undressed quickly and went to bed. It’s been a long time, he thought, lying in the darkness. I better find a girl pretty quick. It’s been a long time. Too long, when I start thinking that way about my own sister.

FIVE

When Uncle James called the following Tuesday, it was Angie who answered the phone. Paul was down in the basement, trying to get the old phonograph working again, and she could hear him whistling away down there. It was four in the afternoon--Angie was in the kitchen starting dinner. She was making something special for the two of them for tonight, and the materials were all over the kitchen table.

When the phone rang she ran lightly to the living room, drying her hands on her apron.

The last five days had been fine. Paul had spent most of his time around the house, doing a lot of fixing, repairing and cleaning. He seemed a lot happier than he’d been when he was spending all his time with that Danny McCann.

And Angie was happier, too. It had been a hard and lonely time rattling around this house all by herself. But now, with Paul so near, with the two of them working together, eating their meals together, watching television together in the evenings, talking together, being together, it was a lot easier, a lot more pleasant. Life was a lot more livable. It was like old times.

No, not really like old times. It was different now. It was a new time. The house had a new balance and flavor to it.

It had been the same when Paul first went into the Air Force. Before that, there had always been the four of them, and their life together in the house had had a balance and a tempo and a feeling to it which had suddenly been lost. Then, quite naturally, the shift had been made--the new balance and tempo and feeling--with only three of them there, and things had gone along smoothly again.

It was the same this time, except that the loss had been so much more tragic, so much more final and complete. Now, there were just the two of them, and after those first two bad weeks, the even flow and balance of life had been restored once more.

And she had a job, to start Monday, as salesgirl in a clothing store in the city. That would mean another shifting of the balance, and so would the answer to Paul’s request for hardship discharge, whichever way the answer went.

But, for now, things were fine. The two of them shared the house and each other’s lives, and the presence of Paul was doing a lot to fill the emptiness caused by the loss of her parents.

She felt like whistling in harmony with Paul’s whistling from the basement, as she ran lightly through the house to the ringing telephone and picked it up.

It was Uncle James. “Angie, is that you?”

“Uncle James?”

“That’s right. I’m glad you’re the one who answered the phone, Angie. That brother of yours is too much of a hothead. I’ve just got a message to deliver, that’s all.”

“A message?”

“You and Paul are to meet me tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock in Jake McDougall’s office. You know who I mean?”

“The lawyer?”

“That’s right. At two o’clock, got that?”

“Is this about the house, Uncle James?”

“It is. Rather than have everybody shout at everybody else, I think it would be better to meet with Jake and get the whole thing straightened out legal. You follow me?”

“Maybe you should talk to Paul, Uncle James.”

“I can talk to both of you tomorrow, at Jake’s office. I don’t have time right now. I’ve got a million things to do here at the office. I’ll see you then.”

“But--”

But he had hung up and the conversation was done. Wondering, Angie returned the phone to its cradle, went back through the house to the kitchen, and down the cellar stairs.

Paul was at the workbench, surrounded by parts of the phonograph. He looked over at her as she came down the stairs and grinned. “Who was that on the phone, chicken?” he asked her.

“Uncle James,” she answered.

The grin faded. He put down the screwdriver with which he’d been dismantling the phonograph. “What the hell did he want this time?”

“He says we’re supposed to meet him tomorrow at Jake McDougall’s office. You know, the lawyer Dad saw that time when the man slipped on the ice out front and wanted to sue.”

“The son-of -a-bitch!” cried Paul. He threw the screwdriver down on the workbench angrily. “He isn’t going to get away with it, goddamn it! This is our house, Angie and that son-of-a-bitch isn’t going to get away with it. I promise you.”

“Maybe we’d better go see what he wants,” said Angie gently. She knew how much the house meant to her brother--more, perhaps, than it did to her. It symbolized home for both of them. In fact, it was the only symbol for home that either of them had, but she had never been away from it and he had. It made, she supposed, a difference in the intensity of your feelings.

“Why?” Paul demanded. “Why should we have anything at all to do with the son-of-a-bitch?”

“We might just as well get it over with,” Angie told him. She crossed to him and laid a hand gently on his arm, smiling at him. “Don’t be so upset, Paul,” she said. “You told me yourself we have the papers for the house. Mr. McDougall will tell him that and then he’ll leave us alone.”

“I suppose so,” said Paul. He shook his head. “Why the hell did he have to come bothering us, that’s what I want to know?”

***

After supper that evening, they played cards together awhile--Russian Bank, Casino and Cribbage. There was nothing they wanted to see on television before nine-thirty.

A little after eight there was the sound of someone on the front porch and then the doorbell rang. Angie and Paul were in the kitchen, sitting at the table. Paul looked up, sudden irritation crossing his face. “If that’s Uncle James again--”

“I don’t think so, Paul,” said Angie, getting to. her feet. “Not if he said he’d see us tomorrow at the lawyer’s office.”

“Let me get it,” said Paul. “You wait here.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Angie and she followed him through the house to the front door. In case it was Uncle James, she wanted to be present to see to it that they didn’t quarrel again.

But it wasn’t. It was Bob, grinning sheepishly at them.

Angie felt a sudden, cold, heavy lump in her stomach, and she felt dizzy. It was more than two weeks since the day of the funeral, when she had let Paul make the final decision for her. She had successfully put all thought of that decision out of her head ever since.

It wasn’t that she had thought: Now I’m finished with Bob.

Actually, she had thought: 1 don’t have to see Bob for a while.

Without thinking about it, this had been her assumption. Bob was still there, in case she should ever feel the need to return to him. But he had been silenced, taken out of view, so that he could no longer press her for a decision about their future.

And here he was back again, suddenly, without warning, smiling sheepishly at them and saying, more to Paul than to her, “Is it okay if I come in for a minute?”

And Paul, looking awkward and uncomfortable, was backing to the side and saying, “Sure. Come on in.”

Bob stepped hesitantly across the threshold, the sheepish smile still on his face and said, “Hi, Angie. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, surprised to hear that her voice was little more than a whisper.

Paul closed the door and said, “Come on into the living room.”

Once they were all in the living room, seated, there was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Then all three of them started talking at once. Then they were all silent again, confused. Angie and Bob looked at Paul, waiting for him to speak first.

Paul cleared his throat. “I wanted to say,” he told Bob, “that I was sorry about us fighting the last time you were here. I--I was kind of upset and--”

“Gee, Paul, it isn’t up to you to be sorry,” protested Bob. “I came in here like a damned fool. I just completely forgot all about, uh--”

“I was mad at the world in general that day, I guess,” said Paul. “I took it out on you and there wasn’t any reason for it. I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve been wanting to tell you that I was sorry.”

Bob laughed a little, still sheepishly. “Well,” he said. “Here we are, apologizing to each other. Anyway, I’m glad you aren’t still mad at me. Are you, Angie?”

“No,” she said immediately, almost desperately. “No, of course not.” And she wondered why her whole relationship with Bob had to boil down to this one thing: he asked questions and she tried to answer them, or tried to avoid them, or tried to live through and beyond them.

He’s going to ask me again tonight, she thought with sudden certainty. It had been two-and-a-half weeks since Mom and Dad had been killed. Tonight, he would ask her again to marry him, she was sure of it. That was the only reason he’d come over.

And his arguments would be stronger than ever. Her parents were dead now--the only family she’d ever known was dead. Now was the time for her to start a family of her own.

With Bob.

Once again it was immediate. Once again it was the decision that had to be made--now.

And still she didn’t know. A lifetime with Bob? A lifetime without Bob? It was one or the other and which did she want?

She didn’t know.

Paul made as though to get to his feet, saying, “Well, I’ll leave you two--”

“No!” She said it too quickly, with too much force, and tried to make it less strong at once, adding, “You don’t have to go anywhere, Paul. Gee whiz, Bob came over to see you, too. And you wanted to see that show on television tonight.”

He looked at her, and she prayed he would be able to see the urgency in her expression, but that Bob wouldn’t.

He hesitated, glancing at an unhappy-looking Bob, looked back at Angie, and finally settled into the chair again. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stick around a little while.” He turned back to Bob again. “How are things going with you since you got out of school, Bob?” he asked.

Bob shrugged, doing a good job at hiding his disappointment.

“Pretty good,” he said. “I’ve just been loafing, pretty much. I’ll be going into the Army in a month or two, so right now I’m just kind of waiting around. You know how it is.”

“Sure,” said Paul, and he started talking about how things had been with him just before he’d enlisted in the Air Force. Then the two of them talked about basic training and the military life in general.

Angie joined the conversation every once in a while, but most of the time she was silent. There was only one sentence Bob had said that really stayed with her: “I’ll be going into the Army in a month or two.”

And she didn’t even know if that made her glad or not.

***

Later that night, in bed, Angie wondered what would eventually happen between herself and Bob. He’d been annoyed when he left tonight and it was understandable. She was ashamed of herself for the way she was treating him, but she just couldn’t help it.

He had left early, before eleven o’clock. By that time the first twinges of guilt and shame had already touched her, so she had walked him to the door. When they were in the front alcove they were out of sight of the living room, and she had made no objection when Bob had taken her in his arms and kissed her.

Then he had said, “Angie, I want to talk to you, you know that. I want to talk to you soon. And I think you know what I want to say to you.”

“Yes. But, please, not now, Bob. I’m sorry, Bob, I really am. I know this is an awful way to treat you, but I just need time. I can’t make any decision now.”

“All right,” he had said, and his arms had dropped away from her. “I’ll give you time,” he said. “But not too much. I’m not going to stay on the string forever.”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” she had whispered. “I wish I didn’t have to be this way.”

“Okay,” he had said and, without another word, had pushed open the front door and left the house.

She had gone back to the living room and sat a while longer with Paul, watching television, trying not to think about the way she was treating Bob.

But now she was in bed, in the darkness, Paul sleeping a room away. She couldn’t avoid the issue any longer.

She could avoid it with Bob--he was patient with her, God knew, too patient--but she couldn’t avoid it with herself.

And she had made the decision once. Or at least she had acted, which was the same thing. The night her parents had died. She had been ready then to sleep with Bob, and that would inevitably have meant that she would marry Bob and spend the rest of her life with him.

But her parents were dead. It hadn’t happened. Instead they had come back to a house of chaos.

Was that an omen?

No. It wasn’t an omen. God wasn’t going to go out of His way to kill two people purely and simply to give a stupid little girl like herself an omen.

She couldn’t try to find the decision, ready-made, in signs and symbols; She had to work it out for herself. She had been ready to sleep with him, that one time. Was she ready to sleep with him now? Was she ready to sleep with anybody now?

She didn’t know. She was afraid, of course--afraid of the act itself and of what it meant. And she was curious, more than curious. Actually, she was fascinated by the idea of sleeping with a man. But she didn’t know whether or not she was ready now, as she had thought herself ready that night with Bob.

She tried to imagine that Bob was in the bed with her. She thought back to the little she knew of the sex act, Tried to visualize herself and Bob doing it. His body atop hers, her legs adjusting themselves to receive him, His face looming over hers and--

She shut her eyes in sudden terror, turning spasmodically onto her side, and lay shaking with awe and fear beneath the single sheet.

For in her imagining, and quite without plan or warning, the face that had seemed to be above her in her make-believe had not been Bob’s face.

It had been Paul’s. It had been the face of her brother, Paul!

SIX

Paul didn’t want to go to the lawyer’s office. He didn’t want to have anything to do with lawyers or Uncle James or anybody else. All he wanted was to be left alone, to live quietly in hiss home and be left completely alone.

But it wasn’t to be that way. He had to go down to see Uncle James and this Goddamn lawyer, Jake McDougall, and maybe now he could get the whole thing taken care of once and for all.

In one way, he was sorry Angie was coming with him, and in another way, he was glad of it. He was sorry that Angie had to be exposed to this sort of thing, but at the same time he knew that she was a calming influence on him, that she would keep him from flying off the handle and maybe doing something stupid that would only hurt his chances of keeping the house.

But what did he mean, chances? It was his house, wasn’t it? He had a Manila envelope containing the papers--the property deed, various papers from the city assessment office and other papers--which proved conclusively that the house had belonged to his father. And he was his father’s heir, so the house went to him. There just wasn’t any question of it.

Then why did he feel so nervous?

Because, Goddamn him, Uncle James had something up his sleeve. Him and the lawyer. Paul knew it, he was sure of it. Uncle James was older than he was, and he had more money, and he knew a lot more about skating the edge of the law. If there was any sort of loophole he could use to get the house away from Paul, he’d be the one to know about it. He or the lawyer.

He remembered the lawyer, vaguely, from the time Dad had been sued by that man who’d slipped on the icy sidewalk. And he also remembered that it had been Uncle James who had recommended him, saying, “You see Jake McDougall. He can fix anything up for you.”

And he’d done it, too. Dad hadn’t had to pay.

Uncle James was probably pretty sure that Jake McDougall could fix this up, too. And for all Paul knew, he was right.

He didn’t want to go and that was the truth. He almost turned back half a dozen times. But he knew Angie was right. The best thing to do was go and see the lawyer and settle the matter.

But they weren’t going to get the house. No matter what, he was sure of that much. Uncle James was not ever going to get his hands on the house.

Jake McDougall had his office in a building on Thornbridge’s one downtown street. It was the Merchants & Manufacturers Trust Co. Building, with the bank on the two-story-high main floor, and offices on the eight floors above. Jake McDougall’s office was on the seventh floor.

McDougall was unusual for a lawyer in a suburb like Tbornbridge--he wasn’t part of a firm, he was simply the one-man operation, plus secretary, in a three-room suite of offices. Paul seemed to vaguely remember hearing that Jake McDougall had something to do with local politics, but he wasn’t sure what.

The office itself was impressive. First there was the secretary’s reception room, very modernistic in pastel green, with a leather sofa and a coffee table and a lot of old Time magazines. And, of course, the secretary’s gray metal desk.

The secretary herself was a woman in her middle thirties, haughty and austere, who looked at Paul and Angie precisely as though she thought they must surely have come into the wrong office, because they could certainly have no business with Mr. McDougall. Paul bristled at the unspoken condemnation, and when he spoke his voice was harsher than he had intended. “Mr. McDougall, please,” he said. “My name’s Paul Dane. I have an appointment.”

Her expression didn’t change, and Paul knew it had to be his imagination that she didn’t believe his statement about having an appointment. But imagination or not, he disliked this woman. His mood--grim and taciturn when he’d left the house--was getting steadily more sour as time went on.

The secretary picked up her phone and dialed one numeral, then said softly, “Mr. Paul Dane, sir.” She listened, returned the receiver to its cradle and said to Paul, “Go right on in. Through there.”

“Thank you,” said Paul, failing to keep the harshness out of his voice. He took Angie’s arm and they crossed the deep-piled carpet and went into Jake McDougall’s office.

It looked very plush and expensive. The right wall was lined, side to side and top to bottom, with book shelves, all of them filled with old- and dull-looking law books. The left wall was spotted with signed photographs of politicians and veteran organization functionaries and other minor celebrities. The wall opposite the door was dominated by a large window overlooking Capital Street. The window was flanked by flags in holders--an American flag on the right, and a flag Paul didn’t recognize--mainly dark blue--on the left.

Mr. McDougall’s desk was so modern it practically had jets on it. It was kidney-shaped and metal, with a formica top. The sides were bluish gray, the top an off-white. There were a few papers on the desk top, plus a white telephone and a large pen-pencil-and-ink-stand set and framed photographs of Mr. McDougall’s family.

In addition to the desk, the furniture included three blue leather armchairs, a table against the left wall, a filing cabinet and an empty coat rack near the door.

Mr. McDougall was sitting behind his desk. More than anything else in the world, he looked like a political cartoon senator. He wore a black suit coat of an old-fashioned cut, over a black vest and a white shirt and a thin black tie. He was short and stocky, with a wild mane of white hair and a round, lined, humorous face, belied by eyes that were small, shrewd and unsmiling. He wore a thick gold ring on the third finger of his left hand, a ring from some fraternal organization on the third finger of his right hand, a huge wrist watch on the left wrist, and large round, gold cuff links that peeped out from his coat sleeves.

Uncle James, looking wrathful and dangerous, sat to the right of the door, hands clenching the chair arms as though he would leap up from the chair at any second. He glowered at Paul, then turned to Mr. McDougall. “My nephew and niece,” he introduced them surlily. “Paul and Angela Dane.”

“How are you, children?” said Mr. McDougall jovially, getting to his feet. “Angela, how are you? And Paul?” He stuck a meaty hand out for Paul to shake, and after a moment’s hesitation Paul took it. The hand was hot and moist and flabby. Paul let it go after the briefest of handshakes.

“Sit down, children,” said Mr. McDougall, still jovial, pointing at the remaining two chairs. He waited until they were seated before he sat down again behind his desk. Leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk, his folded hands beneath his chin, he said, “Now, I guess we have a little problem of ownership here. It doesn’t sound to me like anything serious, like anything anybody’s going to have to go to court about. It seems to me that since you’re related we should be able to work out a fair and equitable solution right here in this office, this afternoon. Without losing time or patience, we should be able to solve this problem and still remain friends. Do you see what I mean?”

Paul saw only one thing. That he didn’t like or trust this Jake McDougall. And he wanted to make that clear from the outset.

Therefore, he said, “How are you making your money out of this, Mr. McDougall? Who’s paying your fee? I’m not.”

Mr. McDougall looked surprised and, for just a second, not so jovial. Then he laughed and said, “Why, your Uncle James is paying me. Of course, you don’t have to pay any money. Your Uncle James is taking care of that, and we’re all squared away.”

“Then you’re his lawyer,” Paul pointed out. “Maybe we ought to wait until I get a lawyer of my own.”

“Now just a minute,” snapped Uncle James before Mr. McDougall could say anything. “I didn’t call you here so you could insult your elders--”

“I didn’t come here,” Paul interrupted him, “to have my elders swindle me out of my house, either.”

“Your house!”

“Now, now,” said Mr. McDougall soothingly. “Let’s not start calling one another names. Paul, if you want a lawyer you can certainly get one, though there isn’t really any need for it. All we want here today is a friendly little discussion among relatives to get the facts into the open and see where we stand.” He smiled disarmingly at Paul and spread his hands. “That’s all is to it.”

“All right,” said Paul. “You want facts, I’ll give you facts.” He got to his feet and dropped the Manila envelope onto the lawyer’s desk. “The deed for the house is in there,” he said. “And a lot of other stuff, all of it proving my father owned that house. And I’m his heir.”

“Now just a minute--” started Uncle James, but McDougall interrupted him, saying, “Wait a second, Jimmy. Let me take a look at these documents for a minute.”

They all waited, Paul and Uncle James ostentatiously looking away from one another the whole time. Finally, McDougall was finished. “All right. Fine. Now, Jimmy, what was it you had?”

“Proof that I paid for that house,” Uncle James said. “Proof that I put up every penny of it.” He lifted a brief case onto his lap and delved into it, taking out papers and explaining in a rapid-fire voice what they were. “Canceled checks,” he said, “made out to the contractor who built the house, signed by me. They add up to the full cost of the house. A letter my brother wrote me while he was on vacation, when the house was being built, thanking me for putting up the money. A signed receipt from the architect, and canceled checks proving I paid the architect.”

The lawyer looked at all these documents as well, then glanced at Paul. “Care to look these over, Paul?”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t have to. I have the deed.”

“It looks pretty much as though your uncle paid for the house, do you know that?”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“But you aren’t going to contest that. You do admit that he paid for the house?”

Paul shrugged. “It looks that way. But it was a personal loan between him and my father. Now my father’s dead and the debt is canceled.”

“But the point I’m trying to make,” said McDougall, “is that your uncle is the one who put up the money to build that house. Now, leaving law out of it for just one second--and I’ll get back to that, I promise you--and reverting to purely moral considerations, who do you think has more right to the house, the man who paid for its construction or a boy who didn’t put up a cent for it?”

“It’s my house,” said Paul stubbornly.

“From the moral point of view?” the lawyer insisted.

“From any point of view,” said Paul defiantly.

“You aren’t going to get anywhere with him by preaching fair play,” said Uncle James angrily. “He’s a sullen young brat and that’s all there is to it.”

“Now please, Jimmy,” said the lawyer soothingly. “We’re not going to get anywhere if you keep getting mad all the time. You’re going to get Paul mad and I wouldn’t blame him for it. Now, if you don’t have anything constructive to say, Jimmy, just don’t say anything. Please. Just leave the whole thing to me.”

Uncle James subsided, glowering.

McDougall smiled reassuringly at Paul again. “Now I wonder, Paul,” he said, “whether you’ve considered the question in its entirety. For instance, do you know approximately how much it will cost you a year to maintain that house? For necessary painting and repairs, replacement of furnishings, gas, electricity, heat and water, plus property taxes, plus a few other pluses? Now, you’re a young man, Paul--”

“I’m twenty-one,” Paul said. He was sick of being treated like a thirteen-year-old child.

McDougall nodded. “As I say--a young man. Are you sure you want to take on the burden of a house of that size at your age? Now, there’s only yourself and your sister, and that’s an awful lot of house for two people.”

“I think that’s our business,” Paul told him.

“Here’s the thing, Paul,” said McDougall. “I know the magistrates in town, and I think I can tell you now what their decision would be if this little problem were to go to court. On the one hand, they would consider your claims as the heir. On the other hand, they would consider your uncle’s claims, as the man who bought and paid for the house. When you come right down to it, those two claims pretty well cancel one another out. So there are other factors that have to be taken into consideration. You and your uncle will have to be considered as individuals, as potential property owners. You are young, unemployed, with no experience as a home owner. Your uncle is a reputable and well-known local businessman. Do you see what I’m driving at, Paul?”

“I see, all right,” Paul told him. “You mean my uncle is buddy-buddy with some local judge, and he can get the judge to take my house away from me and give it to him.”

McDougall looked shocked and hurt. “I’m not saying that at all, my boy,” he said. “And you won’t want to make that kind of statement in front of a magistrate or you’ll be cited. I’m simply saying that your claims and your uncle’s claims cancel one another out. That leaves only the fact that your uncle is a reputable businessman and you are a young boy. Quite frankly, I would guess that a magistrate would give the house to your uncle, but would acknowledge your claim by requiring your uncle to make a cash settlement with you for, say, half the assessed value of the house.”

“I don’t have to give anybody a penny for that house!” shouted Uncle James. “It’s mine as it stands!”

“I think you will, Jimmy,” McDougall told him gently, “if the magistrate says so.”

Paul got to his feet. “If that’s the offer you brought me here for,” he said, “the answer is no. I don’t want any money at all. All I want is my house. And I’m going to keep it.”

“I assure you, Paul,” said McDougall, “the magistrate--”

“You just take it before a magistrate,” Paul told him angrily, “and see what he says.” He gathered up his documents from the lawyer’s desk and held up the deed. “You’re a lawyer,” he said. “You ought to know what this is. And just what the hell kind of claim has my uncle got against this?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Angie who had sat silent and white-faced throughout the interview and said, “Come on, Angie, let’s go home.” He glared at his uncle. “Our home,” he said. “Angie’s and mine.” And the two of them marched out of the lawyer’s office.

***

There was mail in the box when they got home. A long business-size envelope, with a Washington return address. The Air Force.

Angie was the one who got it out of the box and brought it to Paul. “Paul!” she cried. “Look at this!”

He took it from her. Noticing the return address he felt himself suddenly start to tremble. It was the answer, he knew it.

And if the answer were no? Then Uncle James would get the house. Then Paul would have to leave home again, this time forever. Because there wouldn’t be any home tor him to come back to.

It couldn’t be no, it just couldn’t.

“Open it!” cried Angie excitedly. “Open it!”

He did so, with trembling fingers, reading the letter while Angie watched his face. Then he looked at her and grinned. “I’ve got it,” he said.

“Oh, Paul!”

“I’ve got it. I’ve got it! I have to report to Manhattan Beach Air Force Station in Brooklyn to be discharged. Then I’ll be home for good.”

“Paul! Oh, thank God, Paul!”

She leaped into his arms, crying with happiness. He laughed and patted her back, and then they did a little dance around the living room floor. Paul stopped at last, holding her hands in his, saying, “Chicken, tonight we celebrate! By God, tonight we celebrate! We’re going into town--wait, just let me call Danny. I’ll borrow his car. He won’t need it tonight. We’ll go to a big restaurant, have dinner, then go to a movie downtown--by golly, we’re going to make a night of it, just the two of us! How about that?”

“How about that?” she cried, laughing.

***

They didn’t get back home till almost three in the morning. It had been a great night on the town, with dinner, a movie, drinks and dancing at a place called Ricky’s. They’d danced together and drunk toasts to one another until Ricky’s closed at two o’clock. Then, exhausted and a little high and so happy they couldn’t believe it, they’d piled into Danny’s old car and driven back out to Thornbridge.

At the house, Paul drove the car into the driveway and stopped. He didn’t have to return it till tomorrow morning. He turned off the lights and the engine, and swung around to look at his sister. He thought then, looking at her in the faint illumination from the street light down the block, that she was probably the prettiest--no, the loveliest--girl he had ever seen in his entire life.

He grinned at her. “It’s like old times for me. Like taking my best girl home from a date.”

She smiled hack at him, her eyes luminous in the near darkness. “It’s more like we’re married,” she said. “Because you’re coming right on home with me.”

“No,” he said. “It’s like a date. We went out and had a good time and now I’ve driven you home. And, of course, I always kiss my girl friends good night at their door.”

“Do you?”

“Well, sure.” He felt the sudden desire to kiss her; to know what his sister’s lips were like, to know how it would feel to hold her in his arms. Still grinning, still as though it were part of the joke, he said, “I always kiss my girl good night,” and he reached out for her, tentatively, waiting for her to make some joking response and push him away, as though she were shy, as though it were their first date or something.

But she didn’t. She moved closer to him in the car, her eyes brighter, her smile gentler. She whispered, “I think that’s a very good rule, Mister Dane, I really do.”

“You can call me Paul,” he said.

“Paul,” she whispered.

Then he kissed her.

It was supposed to be a joke, just a kind of funny gag at the end of the evening, but it wasn’t. She came into his arms. Her lips were soft and warm and exciting against his. Before he knew it, it was a real kiss and she was pressed close to him, her breasts separate pressures against his chest, her waist a lithe slimness to his arm, her mouth electric against his, her lips parted for his tongue.

The kiss went on, igniting a sudden fire in his loins, and it was with a conscious effort that he brought himself back to the knowledge that this was his sister in his arms, his sister toward whom that fire in the loins was forbidden. With a physical strain he forced himself to end the kiss and pull back away from her.

He forced himself to laugh, as though it had really been the joke he had intended. “There,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice from shaking. “That’s what I call a kiss.”

“Wow, Mister Dane,” she said, her voice shaking, her smile unsteady, “do you kiss all the girls like that?”

“Only my best girl,” he said. It came out much more serious than he had intended.

He turned away suddenly, opening the car door, saying over his shoulder, “Hey, it’s late. We better get to--get into the house.”

Which made it the very first time he had ever felt awkward about mentioning bed to his sister.

What the hell is this? he thought. What the hell are we doing?

They left the car, walking together around to the front of the house and up the stoop and across the porch and into the house. Paul locked the front door as he did every night.

“Do you want a cup of coffee or something before you go--upstairs?” Angie asked self-consciously.

She, too, he thought, wondering.

He looked at her, knowing he’d better get away from her for a while. “No,” he said. “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll just go straight on upstairs.”

“Okay,” she said. “I--I think I’ll make myself a cup of hot chocolate before I come up.”

“Okay. Uh, good night.”

“Good night,” she said.

They were stiff and uneasy with one another now. Paul hesitated a second longer, then hurried upstairs and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

He undressed quickly and crawled into bed. And lay there for a long time staring at the ceiling.

I better grab me something while I’m in New York, he thought. It’s been too long. My own sister. Jesus!

But she wanted it, too.

He forced that thought firmly from his mind.

SEVEN

Angie started work on Monday. Paul had left Friday for New York, to be discharged, and didn’t expect to be back before Tuesday at the earliest. He’d promised to call Monday night and let her know when to expect him home. Accordingly, she hurried straight home after her first day of work and waited by the telephone until eight-thirty. When he called, he told her he’d be back late Tuesday night, probably after midnight.

But somebody else showed up Tuesday night, earlier than Paul. Uncle James. He arrived at seven o’clock, just as Angie was washing her dinner dishes.

Angie opened the door, and when she saw who it was she said immediately, “Paul isn’t here. He won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“It isn’t Paul I want to talk to,” he said, pushing his way into the house. “It’s you.”

She felt frightened of Uncle James. She’d always been frightened of him, he was such a gruff, purposeful, angry man. And he had never in his life been as gruff, angry and purposeful as he was now. This was no good.

In the living room, he sat on the sofa and said, “Sit down, Angie. I want to talk to you a little bit.”

“Paul is the one you should talk to, Uncle James,” she said. “I don’t know anything about all this.”

“No. You’re the one I want to talk to. Because if anybody can put some sense into the head of that brother of yours, it’s you.”

“Honestly, Uncle James--”

“Just hear me out, if you please. Now, I want to tell you one or two things about your brother, and I don’t want you flying off the handle and getting sore at me. I’m not a tactful man and I’ve never claimed to be. I’m a plain-speaking man and I intend to speak plainly to you.”

She sat down across the room from him, resigned to the inevitable. Only she wished he’d waited until Paul was at home.

“Here’s the thing,” said Uncle James. “I know a bit about what your brother’s been doing since he got home from the Air Force, and it isn’t very good. He’s been spending most of his time boozing with a lot of wastrels and bar hounds and--”

“Not any more, Uncle James. He--”

“Just let me finish, please. He hasn’t done anything about looking for work. He’s loafed his time away, he’s taken up with a shiftless crowd, and he’s become sullen toward his relatives. Now here’s the thing. If that boy manages to get this house away from me, you know what’s going to happen? He isn’t going to be able to support it. He isn’t going to be able to keep it up properly. The house is going to deteriorate, it’s going to have its value drop steadily downward, and before too long Paul is going to lose it. He’ll lose it to the tax assessor for non-payment, or he’ll gamble it away--”

“Paul doesn’t gamble!”

“--or,” continued Uncle James, ignoring her interruption, “he’ll sell it for less than it’s worth just to get his hands on some money so he can go on loafing and not have to go to work. I know what I’m talking about--you can take my word for it. I don’t want to see that happen. I put a lot of good money into this house. So long as your father had it that was one thing, but to leave it in the hands of an irresponsible boy is something else again entirely.”

“I don’t see why you’re talking to me about it,” said Angie. “It’s up to Paul.”

“You’re a sensible girl, Angie,” said Uncle James earnestly. “You’ve always been level-headed, and I thought you might be able to talk some sense into your brother, if you saw the way things were. This isn’t any kind of a life for you two kids. You’ve got a job down in the city now, I hear, and that means you’ll be wanting to move to an apartment in the city. Besides, Paul is going to have to strike out on his own sooner or later. Neither of you kids needs this house. Believe me, it’s a millstone around your necks.”

“I’m not going to move into an apartment,” she said. “I’m going to stay right here. And so is Paul.”

Uncle James was visibly trying to control his temper. “But don’t you see--? What the hell do you want with a big place like this, for God’s sake?”

“It’s our home,” she said simply.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t know. I thought I could talk sensibly to you, but apparently your brother’s filled your head with the same kind of nonsense--”

“My brother,” she said, her fear of her uncle fading before anger, “hasn’t filled my head with any sort of nonsense. This is our home. It’s my home. I don’t want to move away from it and neither does Paul. And if you want to talk about it, you should talk to Paul. I don’t know anything about it. All I know is that this is my home, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to take it away from me.”

“Goddamn it!” cried Uncle James, leaping to his feet. “What do you mean, your home? I paid for every brick, every stick of lumber that went into this house. What do you mean, your home?”

“You stop that!” cried Angie, getting panicky at the rage in her uncle’s face. “Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police!”

“We’ll see who’ll call the police,” he snarled. “We’ll just see what happens when I take you and that smart aleck punk of a brother of yours to court.”

“Do what you want,” she wailed, despairing. “Just leave me alone, please! It’s Paul you want to talk to, not me.” All at once she was crying, not having known that she was going to cry, not wanting to cry, not wanting Uncle James to see her so weak and defenseless. “Talk to Paul,” she wailed. “Talk to Paul and leave me alone!”

But her tears, unplanned and unwanted though they might have been, finally turned the trick. Uncle James hesitated, glared around at the living room and retreated. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said, less loudly and less belligerently. “I’ll come back tomorrow and see your brother.”

“Do what you want,” she sobbed. She turned away from him, burying her head in her arms. “Do what you want. I don’t care. Just leave me alone.”

“I thought you were the one with sense,” he said. “I thought we could talk together. I--I’II come back tomorrow.”

He slammed his hat on his head and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

She remained where she was for a long while after he’d gone. Her crying subsided and she stretched out on the sofa, her head buried in her arms, too exhausted--both physically and emotionally--to move.

Why did Uncle James have to be like this? There wouldn’t be any problem at all if he would just leave them alone. She and Paul, the two of them together here--they got along so well.

Maybe they just ought to give him the house. The lawyer, Mr. McDougall, had said something about Uncle James making a settlement for maybe half of the value of the house. Maybe they just ought to take it and move to an apartment in the city some place. That way, they wouldn’t always have him snapping at their heels.

But she knew she would never be able to suggest such a thing to Paul. She understood that the house was the most important thing in Paul’s life, that he would do anything to keep it, and that he would never forgive her if she so much as mentioned the idea of giving it up and living somewhere else.

She couldn’t understand the depth and intensity of his feeling about the house, but she did acknowledge that the depth and intensity were there. And she had no desire to test them by disagreeing with him on the subject.

Thinking of Paul, she remembered the other night when they had gone out together to celebrate his discharge. She remembered their good-night kiss.

It was not the way a brother kisses a sister. He had kissed her the way Bob kissed her, the way a man kisses a woman. But better than Bob--far, far better and much more exciting. She had felt the same stirring within her that had made itself known the night she had almost gone to bed with Bob. This time, however, the stirring was stronger, and she had been afraid to go upstairs with him, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to control herself, that she would have made a fool of herself with him.

Except that he had felt the same kind of stirring. She was sure of that. She had sensed it in him then, and it had only served to make her own desire all the more intense.

And that night, in her imagination, her brother’s face had loomed over her again, her brother’s body had, in make-believe, lain atop hers. She hadn’t been able to stop that make-believe. She hadn’t wanted to stop it.

But nothing had happened since, either in reality or in imagination. Since that night, they had acted as though nothing at all had happened between them.

But something had happened. They had both felt it. They had both been aware of it. And in a strange kind of way, though she was frightened of what had grown between them that night and was repelled by it, still she was fascinated and glad that it had happened. She couldn’t completely rid herself of the hope that it would happen again.

During the hours after James left, while she was waiting for Paul, she thought of Uncle James, the house and her parents and she thought of Paul.

Not once did she think of Bob.

***

Paul arrived home a little after one, roaring drunk. He hammered at the front door, shouting to Angie to let him come in.

Angie had fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for him, and she burst at once into complete wakefulness. She jumped to her feet and ran to open the door, whispering, “Paul! Stop it! You’ll wake all the neighbors!”

“I’m free!” he shouted, and staggered into the house. He pirouetted into the living room, arms stretched wide, slamming against a chair and turning to grin blearily at her. “I’m free,” he said again, more softly. “Free as a bird. Free as the air. Free as a goddamn civilian.”

She had been going to tell him about Uncle James’ visit, but now she saw that it was the wrong time. He was as drunk as she’d ever seen him, and unpredictable. She had no idea what he might do if she were to tell him that Uncle James had come here tonight. That would have to wait until tomorrow.

“Paul,” she said gently. “Maybe you ought to go to bed and sleep it off.”

“I celebrated,” he told her, unnecessarily. “Took the train, rode the club car all the way. Celebrated! Had a grand old time, on account of I’m a goddamn civilian.”

“I know, Paul,” she replied, smiling at him. She came to him and took his ann. “You deserved a celebration,” she told him maternally. “But now it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“No more Germany,” he mumbled. “No more leaving here, ever. No more Germany, no more Air Force, no more Ingrid. Ingrid! Fah on Ingrid! Who needs her?”

“Right,” she said, guiding him gently toward the stairs.

“Everything’s all right now.”

“Who needs Ingrid?” he cried. He threw a heavy arm around her shoulders, leaning weightily against her, and said, “I’ve got you, Angie, so who needs Ingrid? I’ve got my sweet little goddamn sister and she’s the sweetest, prettiest, truest girl in all the whole goddamn world.”

“That’s right,” she said, smiling, glad of the opportunity to help him and pleased at the things he was saying about her. “You watch the stairs now,” she said. She put an arm around his waist to help support him, and felt his body pressing against hers.

It was a long, slow, tedious trip up the stairs. He kept stopping to tell her all over again how great she was, and how great it was that he was free, and how he didn’t need Ingrid and he didn’t have to go back to Germany and the Air Force could go to hell. She kept agreeing with him and guiding him gently up the stairs, until finally they made the top step and went around the corner and into his room.

She set him down gently on the bed. He lay back at once, arms flung out, lying sideways on the bed, his feet hanging over the side. “Whooey!” he cried. “Did I celebrate!”

“I guess you did,” she said. She knelt in front of him and took off his shoes and socks, then straightened to lean over him and started unbuttoning his shirt.

He reached up, suddenly, grabbing her arm, pulling her down on the bed beside him. He wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face against the side of her throat, holding her close, mumbling something she couldn’t make out because the words were muffled against her neck.

She felt the stirring again, stronger than ever, and forced herself to push him away, forced herself to sit up and laugh and act as though it were just horsing around and fooling and not meaning anything. “Now come on,” she said. “I’ve got to get your shirt off. You don’t want to sleep with your shirt on, do you?”

“You’re a good girl, Angie,” he whispered. He lay on his back, smiling up at her, patting her arm. “You’re one hell of a good girl,” he repeated. “And I’m a goddamn louse. Oh, you’ll never know what a goddamn louse I am.”

“Now, hush,” she said. “Don’t carry on that way. You’ll wake up all the neighbors.”

Then he reached up again, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her down on top of him, the upper half of her body against his chest, her hips on the bed beside him, her head against his shoulder. Her face was turned to the side, her ear pressed against his chest, and she could hear his heart beating, pounding away at a terribly fast pace, his arms tight around her, clamping her to him.

“I love you, little sister,” he whispered brokenly, and moved his head to kiss her throat and the line of her jaw, to nibble at her ear. His hands caressed her back, the one hand moving around to stroke her side, the palm stroking over the first curving of her breast. He turned slightly, one leg thrown over hers, and kissed her on the mouth.

She tried to pull away but she couldn’t get her arms or her body to do what she wanted.

He kissed her, his lips demanding, his tongue forcing its way deep into her mouth, his hands caressing her, touching and fondling her whole body. She trembled with terror and desire, wanting him, knowing it was the most evil thing she could ever do, but unable to help herself.

And then he relaxed and lay back, his arms still around her. She found herself trembling, waiting for reason to take over or for him to make another move. His breathing grew slow and regular. She realized at last that he had fallen asleep. The drink had been too much for him.

Suddenly it was funny--funny and wonderful. She snuggled close to him, laughing to herself, glad to be with him, the fear and the desire abating. She kicked off her shoes and snuggled against him once more. After a while she, too, fell asleep.

EIGHT

There was sunlight. His back was stiff from lying crookedly on the bed all night. There was a constriction at his waist because his trousers were still on and still belted. In his head were all the symptoms of the classic hangover--fuzzy mind, muddy tongue and eyeballs made of cotton, with boll weevils on the inside.

There was a warm, heavy pressure against his side and chest.

He had his arms around something, above him.

Around someone.

He opened his eyes, squinting immediately against the glare of sunlight coming through the window. It was ten o’clock in the morning, hot and clear, without mugginess.

He was lying on his bed, on top of the sheets, still wearing all his clothes except for his shoes and socks. His shirt was half unbuttoned. And, without moving his head, he could just see blond hair out of the corner of his eyes. He was lying in bed with a girl, the girl sleeping cuddled against him, her head pillowed on his chest. She, too, was fully dressed, and her body within the clothing was warm and soft against him.

And she was his sister, Angie.

He remembered, dimly. Last night, on the train, he had gotten himself drunk as a skunk. He’d almost missed the station, almost rode on and on, right past the city and Thornbridge. He’d realized the train had been standing at his stop for some time and he barreled out of the car, weaving and sliding around, bouncing off porters and posts. Eventually he poured himself into a cab and, on the third try, got his address out intelligibly enough for the cabbie to understand. Then he had ridden in the back seat, his head out the side window for air, all the way home.

He had been less drunk when he arrived home. That is, he could stand with practically no difficulty at all. But he was still drunk as a skunk.

He remembered, dimly.

Angie had been up, waiting for him to come home. And she had talked gently to him. She had helped him up the stairs and to the bed. And then he--

He had pulled her down on top of him. He had necked with her. He had kissed her and fondled her and done his absolute damnedest to make love to her. And if he hadn’t been drunk, he probably would have made love to her.

What in the name of God was the matter with him?

How rotten could a guy get? How filthy and rotten could he be, to want to make his own sister?

But she had wanted him to.

He remembered that now, too--remembered it as dimly as everything else, but remembered it surely. She had wanted him to. From the night he had kissed her in the car he had known it was the truth. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.

And he did want her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life. Of all the women alive, or all the women who had ever lived, or all the women who might ever live in the future, of them all he wanted the most to go to bed with the only one who was by every law and every rule and every code forbidden to him--his own sister.

And he wanted her now, just as much as he had wanted her last night. More, because now he was fully conscious of himself, and of her near him, and of the excitement of her nearness and the warmth and softness of her body close against him.

He moved, trying to adjust himself, his back aching from being too long in one position. His movement disturbed her sleep, so that she murmured and snuggled closer to him, nuzzling him, her arms tightening around him.

No matter what he thought, no matter how much he reviled himself for it, he was helpless. Once she had moved, so lithe and sensuous and erotic, against him like that, he was lost. There was nothing else he could have done but what he did.

He rolled over, rolling her with him, so that their positions were reversed, and he kissed her, fiercely, hungrily, while his one hand roughly traveled the front of her body, feeling the lush warm curves of her against his hand.

She awoke slowly, twining her arms around him, sighing and murmuring to his touch and his kiss. Then, all at once, she was fully awake, her eyes wide. He stared into them, feeling a moment of blind terror, knowing for sure that now she would push him away, that her revulsion would stop them. Otherwise, she would never again be able to look at him, never again speak to him--they would never again even be able to be brother and sister.

But all she did was whisper his name: “Paul.” And the sound of the word, the expression on her face, were so strange, so unearthly, so unlike anything he had ever experienced, that he didn’t know whether it was acceptance or rejection.

Her arms tightened around him and she pulled his head down to her, kissing him as savagely and hungrily as he had kissed her. Now he knew she was his.

This was the extent of their admission of love and need for each other. But once even that vague confession was made, the mutual knowledge admitted, they hurried, both acting as though they had practically no time at all. They had to hurry and come together now, without a second’s delay.

He sat up, pulling off his shirt, attacking his belt buckle with hasty, trembling fingers, and she sat up beside him, undressing as hurriedly and frantically as he. Then they got into bed and pulled the sheet up over themselves. Once again, Paul took her in his arms and kissed her.

But now they were nude, the feel of her flesh against him, warm and firm and demanding, the breasts hard-tipped against him, her legs rubbing against his. It was too much for him. He groaned, pushed her onto her back and rolled upon her. When he penetrated her she cried out, squeezing her eyes shut, her arms and legs entwining him.

She was a virgin, inexperienced and unsure, but instinct took over with them both. They pulsed together on the bed, clutching each other, his face buried in her hair, his voice intoning her name, over and over. And after that first cry she was silent, only the ragged rustle of her breathing loud in his ears.

Until it was over and they lay side by side, their bodies moist and hot with perspiration, their breathing labored, their hands reaching out gently to touch one another in the wonder of discovery.

She smiled at him, a languorous sleepy smile and whispered, “Husband.”

“Wife,” he whispered.

“Beloved,” she answered breathlessly.

NINE

Once again the balance of the house had changed, though this time it hadn’t changed because a different number of people were living there. The number of people had remained the same. But the people themselves had changed, as their relationship had changed.

One week ago, exactly, it had been. Wednesday morning, at ten o’clock. He had come to her. He had loved her and he had made her his for always. One week ago, exactly.

Angie stood in the back yard, and it was once again ten o’clock of a Wednesday morning, and now she was hanging wash on the line, and she was thinking back seven days.

A lot had happened since then. In the first place, Paul had insisted that she call the clothing store in town right away, that afternoon, to tell them she wouldn’t be working any more. In the second place, Paul had gone out that afternoon and found himself a job. Now he was working in an insurance company office in Thornbridge, in the same building where Mr. McDougall had his suite of offices.

And she had moved into his room. Her bed was a single and his was a three-quarter, so there was more room for the two of them in his bed.

It would have been more sensible, of course, for them to have switched to their parents’ double bed, but neither one of them brought the suggestion up, nor had either of them thought seriously about doing any such thing.

For, in truth, the knowledge of guilt was never very far from them. Angie felt it pressing down on her in unguarded moments, and her happiness with Paul was only barely strong enough to quell this guilt.

What they were doing was wrong. It was evil, no matter how good it seemed, no matter how relieved she was that it had come out into the open.

She doggedly tried to shove her feelings of guilt and shame into the back of her mind. The joy and pleasure she found with Paul were so exciting, so real and vivid, that she didn’t want to consider the possible consequences of their actions. It was easier to forget everything in the burning heat of their love-making. It was easier to regard herself as Paul’s bride, to forget the damnation of her own warning conscience.

Her body now was a new and strange and wonderful thing. She had never suspected before the glories of which it was capable. But now she knew, and with every movement she was aware of her body, its completion beneath her brother, and she thrilled at that completion.

When she walked, her thighs brushing together, she remembered that Paul had touched her thighs, that he had lain between them. When she raised her arms, she felt her breasts raise also, grow more taut, and she remembered again that his hands had caressed them, his lips had kissed them, his head had rested between them. In every motion of her body, she remembered and felt again the touch of Paul--his touch and his love-making.

There was a light breeze today, and as she raised her arms to hang the wash on the line, the breeze ruffled her skirt, brushing it against her legs. She felt newly passionate, and she could hardly wait for Paul to come home, because she knew that when he did she would lead him upstairs at once and they would make love again.

She was a bride. It was still her honeymoon. The wonders of her body, the wonders of sex, filled her thoughts and her emotions.

A woman’s voice behind her said, “Well, hello there, Angela! My, you look fine today!”

She had been thinking of Paul just then, visualizing the way he looked in bed, visualizing the way it was when they came together, and she was startled, blushing suddenly, as though the woman who had interrupted her thoughts could read them somehow, could see and understand what she was thinking.

She turned. It was Mrs. Fielding from next door, beaming and maternal, dressed as always in a faded house dress and an even more faded apron. Mrs. Fielding was about fifty, a short, chubby, cheerful woman with iron-gray hair and flabby upper arms and a husband who drove a seven-year-old Dodge to his job with the Merchants & Manufacturers Trust Company. Since Paul worked in the same building, he’d been riding down to work with Mr. Fielding every morning. Because the bank closed earlier than the insurance office, Paul had to take a bus coming back.

“You look just like a bride,” gushed Mrs. Fielding, beaming at Angela. Mrs. Fielding had a basketful of wash which she had just brought out to hang, and she set this down on the lawn, grunting from the effort, and straightening again to say, “Yes, just like a bride. So young and cheerful and bright-looking. Did you know that you were actually singing out here?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Angie. “I didn’t even realize it.”

“It takes a bride to be able to sing while hanging laundry,” said Mrs. Fielding, laughing. “But, of course, you’re too young to be a bride. You take your time, child. Have fun. Don’t rush into marriage. Not that I have anything against marriage. Dear me, no! Mr. Fielding and I do get along very well, I must say. But once you’re married, it changes your whole life.”

Yes, thought Angie, it does, doesn’t it?

“Why, you take that young Mrs. Potter down the block,” said Mrs. Fielding. “All she can talk about, all day long, is her Herbert. It’s Herbert this and Herbert that, all day long, till I’m just about ready to scream. Of course, I suppose I was the same way when I’d just married Mr. Fielding, talking about him all the time. I suppose, really, I’m still the same way.”

“I guess that’s the way it is,” said Angie.

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Fielding. “Why, I do remember the time…”

The conversation seemed to go on and on. Mrs. Fielding talked at great length about Mr. Fielding, about his taste in food and his lack of taste in clothing, about his little thoughtfnlnesses and his little thoughtlessnesses, and pretty soon Beth Mae Potter came walking across the back yards and joined the conversation. Then it turned into a contest between them, Mrs. Potter talking about her husband, and Mrs. Fielding talking about hers.

Ten years ago, Mrs. Fielding wouldn’t have back-fenced about her husband. Her topic of conversation at that time would have been her children. But their son and daughter had grown up and moved out of town. That had happened so long ago that Mrs. Fielding, somewhat estranged from them, no longer thought it important to report what her children had written to her. She had by now changed topics and was talking exclusively about her Mr. Fielding.

In a year or two, Beth Mae Potter would also stop talking about her husband. Her conversation would shift to diaper services, toilet training, formulas, and the clever remarks of her darlings. This would change, gradually, through the years, to how the children were doing in school, how they were doing in their summer jobs and, finally, how they were doing away at college. Then, the birds flown from the nest, she would come full circle and start talking about Herbert again.

At the moment, both were concentrating on their husbands--both of them talking and neither of them listening.

Angie didn’t really listen, either, though she smiled and nodded as though she were being very attentive. Actually, she was thinking of her own husband, though he was husband in fact only, and not in name. Whenever Mrs. Fielding mentioned an idiosyncrasy of Mr. Fielding’s, and Mrs. Potter retaliated with a similar oddity of Herbert’s, Angie was reminded of something comparable in Paul’s behavior.

Except that she couldn’t speak of it.

They don’t know, she thought. It was a secret--only she and Paul could ever know. It was a delicious secret, a wonderful secret to hug to one’s self.

Eventually, the wash was hung and the three women split up, each returning to her own home. Angie sat down at the kitchen table for a minute, allowing herself a smile--the smile of secret knowledge. For she knew and they didn’t. They never would.

As she sat there her mood changed and she was no longer sure it was more fun to have the secret. Mrs. Fielding and Mrs. Potter could talk about their husbands, could be openly proud of them, could show them off like prized possessions. But she couldn’t. She burned with a desire to relate anecdotes and discoveries about her man, but she had to keep them bottled up inside her.

Maybe having the secret wasn’t such a good thing after all.

But there was nothing she could do about it. No one must ever suspect the true relationship between herself and Paul. They wouldn’t understand.

And did she understand? Yes. She loved Paul and he loved her. They found strength, compassion and understanding in one another. They shared tastes and interests and backgrounds. The accident of birth had made them brother and sister, but their conscious will had made them lovers. Yes, she understood what they were to each other, and why. And there was no shame, no guilt. As far as she was concerned, there was no crime. To be this happy was no crime, was it?

She made herself a cup of coffee, and sat at the kitchen table thinking of Paul, of the wives up and down the street, until the doorbell sounded half an hour later. She finished her coffee at a gulp and went to the front door.

It was Bob.

No shame? No guilt? No crime?

No, she was only fooling herself, and the appearance of Bob proved it, brought it out into the open where she could see it.

There was shame. Could she ever allow Bob to know the truth? Could she tell him, “That which I didn’t share with you, I now share with my brother, Paul. That which should only be shared by husband and wife is now being shared, in this house, by brother and sister.”

Could she ever explain to him that she no longer needed him because she had found her real husband, and that her husband was her brother?

She could imagine the expression on Bob’s face should he learn the truth. The loathing and disgust. And she knew that she would shrink from him in shame if he ever knew.

There was shame, no matter how much she tried to hide the knowledge from herself.

And there was guilt. Didn’t she dread the idea that someone might come to the house when she and Paul were in bed together? Didn’t they stay away from one another in public, not touching, barely looking at one another? Didn’t they flinch away from one another if they were in the same room and the doorbell or even the telephone rang?

What was that but guilt? Yes, there was guilt, no matter how much she tried to hide that knowledge from herself.

And there was crime. A crime against nature, a crime against law, and a sin against God. Every possible kind and degree of crime and sin all combined in one. For how could their union ever dare produce children? Beyond the fact that such a child would reveal the truth about them, what would the child be? Feeble-minded, perhaps, or Mongoloid, or a helpless monster of some other kind. Incestuous children, the abominations of nature.

And so she was saddled with a deep-down sense of immersion in sin that flared up inside her at unguarded moments.

But there was an oddly contradictory sense of rightness in her, too, that couldn’t be taken away. No matter all the rest of it, there was a feeling of peace and of inevitability when she was with Paul that she had never known before and that she was convinced she would never be able to know with anyone else.

If there were any doubts as to the rightness of what she and Paul were doing, they were dispelled now, by Bob’s arrival. Not by Bob’s arrival itself so much, as by her own reaction to his appearance.

Gone was the indecisive fear, the stumbling and the stammering, the guilty hesitation. She looked at him, and she knew that she could make, finally, her decision now. She knew what it was going to be, and she smiled with assurance as she held the door open for him and said, “Come on in, Bob. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“You said to give you time,” he reminded her, crossing the threshold.

“Yes, I know. And you did. Thank you. Come on into the living room.”

They sat together on the sofa and he said, “You’re different, Angie. You’re acting different.”

“Am I?”

“The last few months you’ve been so--I don’t know--fluttery. Kind of nervous. You had me worried.”

“But that’s all gone now?”

He nodded. “All gone. I hope it means good news for me.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Bob. If by ‘good news’ you mean that I’ll say yes, then it doesn’t.”

“Angie, you already said yes. A long time ago. I thought it was only a question of when.”

“People change,” she told him. “They--grow up.”

“Angie, are you sure of this?”

“I’m sure, Bob. I’m sorry. I don’t like to do this to you. I know we’d made plans, I know this is a shock to you--”

“Is it Paul?” he asked suddenly.

She looked at him, startled, feeling the blood rushing to her face. “What? What do you mean?”

“Is he still mad at me? Did he talk you out of it?”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly vastly relieved. “No, nothing like that. Paul likes you, Bob. You know that. That day, after the funeral, he was just upset.”

“You’ve been colder to me since he came back,” he said.

“Since my mother and father died,” she corrected. “It made me see things differently. Being on my own, being independent all of a sudden. I had a chance to think about things. Bob, listen, I’m sorry I have to hurt you this way, but isn’t it better to find out now? I do like you, I’m very fond of you. But I--I know this is a cruel way to say it, but there isn’t any other way--I don’t think I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“It is Paul,” he said. He got to his feet in a sudden motion, as though all his muscles were bunched and tense. He paced across the living room and back again. “It is Paul,” he repeated. “I remember what he said that day he threw me out of here. He said you were too young to have to decide your future. He said you shouldn’t make up your mind about who to spend the rest of your life with--that you had plenty of time to decide that.”

But I know, she thought. I know now.

“He’s been telling you the same thing,” Bob continued. “Hasn’t he? Telling you over and over?”

“Don’t be silly, Bob. Paul hasn’t said a word about you, or tried to tell me what to think about you. He isn’t like that. He lets me make my own decisions. He always has.”

“Then why have you changed so suddenly?” he demanded. “Why, since he’s come home, don’t you want to marry me any more? There was a time when you said you wanted to marry me. There was even a time when you said you wanted to go to bed with me, right then, right away, and not even wait for marriage. But now ever since he’s come home, you’re a different person. And you don’t want me any more.”

“It’s my own decision,” she insisted. She didn’t like Bob talking about Paul this way. Not that he could ever guess the truth, of course, but she didn’t even like him to be thinking in that direction. She had to convince him that her decision had nothing to do with Paul.

“Even before Paul came home,” she said, “even before Mom and Dad were killed, I wasn’t sure any more. That’s why I’d never set a date. Because I’d agreed too young. I’d said yes when I didn’t really understand what I was saying yes to. I’m older now. I think I’ve grown up a lot since Mom and Dad died. I think that forced me to grow up. Now I know it would be a mistake. And I think we’re both lucky that I know and can tell you now. Otherwise we’d discover it--at least, I would--a few years from now.”

He shook his head. “We had plans--”

“They were kids’ plans, Bob,” she said. “I’m sorry. Can’t you believe that I am, sorry, and that I do really know my own mind, at last? Because it’s the truth, you know.”

He stood in the middle of the room, head bowed, studying the design in the living room carpet. He gnawed on his lower lip and she watched him, wondering what thoughts were going on behind his troubled eyes.

At last, he looked up at her. There was a new heaviness in his face and she realized she had hurt him badly. But she was right. It was better to know now, better to tell him now.

And there was Paul. .

“I guess you’re right,” he said, slowly and reluctantly. “I guess you really do know what you’re saying.”

“I’m sorry, Bob.”

“Yes,” he said. “Well--that’s it, I guess. There’s nothing more to say.”

“Try not to be angry with me,” she pleaded.

“No,” he said, distracted, as though thinking of something else. He glanced over at the door, back at her, shrugged. “I guess--I guess I ought to be going now.”

“I’m truly sorry, Bob,” she said, meaning it.

“Yes,” he said, with the same air of abstraction. He crossed the room and went out the front door, closing it carefully behind him.

She went to the window and watched him walk away down the sidewalk. It had been a painful interview, for her almost as much as for him, but it had been something that needed taking care of. She was grateful, at least, that it was over.

Now she was free. No more ties. Now there was only Paul and that was as it should be.

It had been a while since they’d heard from Uncle James. They had just about come to the conclusion that he had given up the whole idea when he appeared one evening, his desire for the house as strong as ever. He arrived about eight-thirty.

Paul met him at the door and grudgingly allowed him to come in. Uncle James sat in the leather chair in the living room, while Paul and Angie seated themselves across from him, on the sofa.

Before Uncle James had opened his mouth, Angie could tell that he hadn’t given up. The sullen, stolid determination was still plain in his face. She shivered involuntarily, wishing she could move closer to Paul, press herself against him for reassurance and protection.

A wife could do that, sit close to her husband, press herself close against him in public, but not Angie.

That was another thing that was denied Angie, like the back-yard talking. Like too many things. No one could ever know of their love. They could never express their love in public, with anyone in the world looking on. Neither of them could possibly try to defy the moral indignation of their combined relatives if the truth should come out.

That, Angie was beginning to realize, was the hardest part of all. The secrecy.

Uncle James began by saying, “I’ve been talking with Jake McDougall again. He advised me to come over here tonight. I didn’t want to. I know the way you always act, Paul. You’re surly and disrespectful, and it’s not an attitude I’m used to from young kids like yourself. It’s tough for me to keep my temper when you act that way.”

“It’s tough for me to keep my temper,” Paul told him, “when you keep trying to take my house away from me.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Uncle James. “Cracks like that. That’s the kind of thing I mean, exactly. That’s why I told Jake I didn’t want to come over here. But he said I should. He said I should try talking to you kids one last time before we go to court. Because it’s just going to be a bother and an expense for everybody, going to court, and I think you’d like to avoid that sort of thing just as much as I would.”

“I’m not worried about court,” Paul told him.

“You would worry,” Uncle James snapped, “if you had an ounce of brains in your head.”

“Who’s making the dirty cracks?” Paul asked him.

“Please,” said Angie in a small and frightened voice. She knew they were on the verge of open antagonism again, of shouting and threatening one another, and she desperately did not want anything like that to happen.

Uncle James looked at her and settled back in his chair. “You’re right, Angie,” he said. “I’ve got to remember what Jake told me. He told me not to get riled up, no matter what, to just come in here and state my position and let it go at that.”

“Then state your position,” Paul told him brusquely.

Uncle James frowned sourly, taking a minute to regain his control over himself. Then he said, “I’ll tell you the way I feel and then I’ll tell you what Jake says. I feel that this is my house and there’s no question of it. That’s the way I feel. Jake says you’ve got a pretty good claim, though not as good as mine. But he says it’s a good enough claim so that any court fight could be a long, dragged-out proposition, with everybody hating everybody else by the time it’s finished, and the whole family split up, taking sides. It would be a real mess all around.

“So I go along with what Jake suggests. And this is it. He says I ought to make a settlement with you. Give you some money, half the assessed value of the house. And I ought to give you time to get straightened away, find yourselves apartments and so on. He also says I should pay for the furniture that’s in the house if you want to sell it to me, or wait for you to sell it to somebody else if you’d rather not sell it to me, or pay for moving it to wherever you want to go. That’s what Jake advises and he says it’s fair. I personally think it’s a hell of a lot more than fair, but he’s the lawyer and he’s supposed to know what he’s talking about.

“Now, before you say anything, I want you to think over the proposition I know you don’t like me. I guess you got that from your father--but never mind that. It isn’t important. Don’t answer me on the basis of whether or not you like me. Answer me on the basis of the situation as it stands. You’ve got your claim and I’ve got mine, and the court is going to pay more attention to a responsible businessman than to a young kid. If it hurts your feelings to be called a young kid, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, and that’s the way the court is going to regard you.”

The silence stretched out after Uncle James had finished. Angie looked over at Paul and saw that his face was tight and hard, his lips drawn to a thin line. She sensed that he was on the edge of blowing up for real, and she put her hand out to take his and squeeze it gently, saying, her voice low, “Paul, don’t get mad. Uncle James talked to you without getting mad. You do the same thing.”

“That’s being sensible,” observed Uncle James.

Angie turned her head quickly to glare at him. “Now, hush!” she said. Don’t go out of your way to antagonize him.”

Surprisingly, Uncle James kept quiet.

Angie squeezed Paul’s hand again. Gradually she saw some of the tightness leave his face, saw his shoulders start to relax, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was low and controlled. “You’ve had your say,” he said. “You’ve stated your position. Now I’ll state mine. It’s pretty simple and straightforward. You’ve heard it all before, but I want to make it just as clear as I can.

“In the first place, I want this house. If you’ve got the idea that I want it purely and simply because I don’t like you and I’m trying to spite you, you’re dead wrong. I want it because it’s my home, because it has always been my home. That’s the first thing.

“The second thing is the deed. I have it. It shows that I’m the legal owner of this house. There isn’t another claim in the world that can come close to that for legality.

“And the third thing is the family. You mentioned the family a minute ago and that got me thinking. I know you, Uncle James, and I know the way your mind works. I’ll make a bet that one of the first things you ever did, even before you went to see that lawyer, McDougall, was to go around and talk to other members of the family. You wanted to get them on your side. You wanted them to come here and try to talk us out of the house. I know you did that, just as surely as I know anything, because that’s the way you are.

“But nobody has come here--not one single relative. And that means that none of them sided with you. If anybody had, I’d already have heard from them. You said a court fight would split the family in two and you’re right. Except for one thing. You’d be the only one on your side.

“Now, you’re a responsible businessman, and I’m just a young kid. But if every single goddamn relative of mine goes before the judge and tells him that I’m a responsible young kid and they know me and they think I ought to be allowed to keep my house, I think that ought to cancel out your responsible-businessman claim pretty completely, don’t you?”

During this speech, Paul had gradually leaned forward in the seat, toward Uncle James, though his voice had never raised nor had his expression ever changed from its hard, blank, controlled aspect. Now, finished, he sat back, taking a second glance at Angie and squeezing her hand.

Uncle James was looking grimmer and grimmer.

“Very pretty,” he said. “I see the whole thing now. You’re going to try the sympathy routine, is that it? The poor goddamn orphans out in the storm, is that it? And get all your bleeding-heart aunts and uncles and cousins to come into court and tell everybody what a heartless bastard your Uncle James is.” He got to his feet, glowering. “Is that the story?” he shouted, his voice raising with every word.

Paul got to his feet, too, though Angie tried to hold him back. “The story,” he snapped, “is whatever the hell you want it to be. You stated your position and I stated mine. Now you can get the hell out of here. If you want to bring suit I’ll see you in court. If you don’t want to bring suit, quit coming around here to badger me or I’ll call the cops.”

“Listen, you young squirt,” roared Uncle James, extending a threatening finger at Paul, “I’ve had just about all I’m going to take--”

“Me, too,” said Paul

He reached out and grabbed Uncle James’ extended arm and swung him around with it, pointing him at the front door. Then he grabbed Uncle James by the back of his collar and the seat of his pants, and ran him to the door.

Uncle James flailed his arms and bellowed, but he was no match for the younger, taller and stronger boy who was giving him the bum’s rush. Angie ran along behind them, calling to Paul to stop, but he didn’t pay any attention to her at all. She finally halted in the middle of the living room and watched helplessly. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the situation.

She didn’t want any part of this. She didn’t want Uncle James always coming around, constantly pestering them about the house. And she didn’t want Bob always hanging around on the fringe of her life, suspicious of Paul. And she hated the necessity for being so secretive with all the people who knew that she and Paul were brother and sister.

If only we could get away, she thought. If only we Could go somewhere where nobody knows us.

She stood and watched as Paul flung open the front door and hurled the bellowing Uncle James out onto the porch.

Uncle James turned back to shriek, “You’ll be sorry for this! You’ll be sorry!” And then Paul slammed the door in his face.

Paul came back into the living room, flushed and angry, stopping when he saw Angie. “Hey!” he said. “You’re crying!”

“I--I can’t help it,” she sobbed. She stood where she was, her arms at her sides, trying to keep the tears from squeezing out over her eyelids, trying to keep her lower lip from trembling. But it was all too much, the secrecy and Bob and Uncle James, all too much to be borne.

He came to her and put his arms around her, saying, “Come on, Angie, relax. It’s okay now. He’s gone. Take it easy, baby.”

She raised her tear-streaked face to him and he kissed her hungrily. The warmth of him excited her, the maleness of him, and she pressed herself close, moving against him. His hands stroked her back, one hand coming around to her breast. She sighed against his lips, feeling the tingling sensation from his hand and the strength of him tight around her.

Then he pulled away abruptly. She couldn’t understand why, until she saw him hurry over to the window and pull down the shade.

This motion was too much for her. “Oh, Paul!” she cried out. “Paul, let’s go away! The house doesn’t matter, nothing matters but us. Let’s go away from here!”

He turned back to her, bewildered and astonished. “Angie, what are you talking about?”

It was out now--the idea was out in the open, and there was nothing for her to do but on go with it. She hurried over to him, clutching his arms, and stared pleadingly into his eyes. “We could do it, Paul!” she begged. “We could take Uncle James’ money, sell him the furniture and move away from Thornbridge.”

“What?” He actually bellowed the word, pulling away from her, backing and staring at her as though he couldn’t really believe what she was saying to him.

She followed him, her arms out to him, her eyes pleading for his understanding and agreement. “We could do it, Paul,” she assured him anxiously. “We could go away to some other city. We could call ourselves man and wife. Nobody would ever know, because we have the same last name. And then we wouldn’t always have Uncle James after us, and Bob, and we wouldn’t have to hide our love from anybody. We could tell them we were married instead of being brother and sister. It would be so much better.”

His hand carne around sharply in a semicircle, open, and the palm of it struck stingingly against her face. She stepped back involuntarily, eyes wide with shock.

He advanced on her. “Don’t ever say that,” he told her, his voice low and vicious. “Don’t ever say that again as long as you live. This is my home, don’t you understand that? You, of all people! Don’t even you understand what this house means to me?”

“I’m sorry,” she said numbly. Her hand moved, as though by its own volition, to her stinging cheek where he had slapped her. “I’m sorry, Paul,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I was just upset. Don’t be angry with me, Paul. Don’t stop loving me, please--”

His face softened abruptly, became at once contrite and concerned. “Angie, I--oh, Angie, he made me so damned mad. I couldn’t even think straight there for a minute. I--God, Angie, I’m sorry I slapped you. I didn’t even think. I didn’t mean to do it.” He scooped her up into his arms and held her tight, rocking her slightly, cradling her in his arms. “I’m sorry, Angie,” he murmured.

“Oh, Paul,” she breathed, clinging to him. “Oh, Paul, I was so afraid. So afraid I’d lost you. You looked so angry at me. I thought I’d lost you for good when I said that.”

“Chicken, chicken, honey, don’t be afraid. I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again. I swear to God I’ll never raise my hand to you again.”

Gradually she calmed sufficiently to move away from him and looked at him with frightened, somber eyes. “It isn’t going to last, is it, Paul?” she asked.

“Of course, it is,” he assured her. “Angie, I’m not going to let that happen to me again. I’m--”

“Because it’s wrong,” she said flatly, following her own thought rather than what he was saying. “No matter how right it seems, no matter how much we love each other and how perfect we are together, it’s still wrong. And we can’t get away from that.”

“It isn’t wrong,” he told her.

“It is, Paul. Oh, it is. We have to hide all the time. We have to be ashamed all the time--”

He had taken a step toward her, arms out to her, but now he stopped and let his arms fall limp to his sides. “If you want--” he started. His voice was fiat and dull. He shook his head and started again, saying, “Do you want to stop? Do you want me to clear out of here? I could get an apartment.”

“No!” She felt sudden terror at the idea and ran to him, throwing her arms around him, clinging close to him.

“Angie,” he said gently, “if you--”

“Hush,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything at all.”

For if the sudden feeling of guilt, of wrongness, was strong and depressing, it was nothing against the empty terror she felt at the prospect of being without him. Anything was better than to lose him, anything at all.

She clung desperately to him. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Just hold me tight. Never let me go.”

“I’ll never let you go, chicken,” he promised fervently.

TEN

Danny McCann said, “Paul, my boy, I am going to go find me a girl. You really ought to come along. You’ve been home a good long while and you ain’t a monk as far as I know. Every boy needs a girl once in a while or he’s liable to forget what they’re for. So, come on along, boy. Tonight is the night.”

Paul looked up from his beer and studied Danny’s round, happy face for a minute. His own face was sullen and morose. Finally, he nodded and said, “What the hell. What the hell, Danny.”

“If that means you’re coming,” Danny told him, “get a wiggle on. The night progresseth.”

“Yeah,” said Paul. “We’ll take my car.”

“lt’s your gas,” Danny commented bluntly. “I’m all for it.”

They went out to the ‘51 Chevy Paul had bought three days before and Paul asked, “Where to? I’ve been out of touch.”

“I’d noticed,” Danny told him. “We’ll try Ricard’s. That’s usually pretty hot.”

“Okay.”

Paul gave one fleeting thought to Angie, waiting for him at home, and then he forced the thought from his mind. The hell with her.

In the last week and a half, since the night Uncle James had last been there, the strain and tension in the house had grown steadily. Paul couldn’t get it out of his mind that Angie had wanted them to leave the house. What made it worse, he could understand her position and could sympathize with her feelings.

But it didn’t make any difference. Angie was important to him, he had to admit, but nothing in the world was as important to him as home. Not even Angie.

Nor could he really feel easy about the relationship that had sprung up so unexpectedly between himself and Angie. After that first time, he hadn’t known what to do. At first, he’d assumed that it had been all his fault, that he had simply overwhelmed her, and that she would eventually have second thoughts about it and turn away from him in honor and revulsion. But gradually he had come to understand that she really did feel as strongly toward him as he did toward her, and that whatever guilt there was she shared equally with him.

How strange it was. He had tried to find his mate in Ingrid, tried to find the woman who could share his life and his interests, who could blend with him and be part of him. And it hadn’t been Ingrid, it could never be Ingrid. It had been Angie all along.

If it could only stay as simple and straightforward as it had been in the beginning. But it couldn’t and he knew it. Angie was getting more and more upset about the secrecy they had to maintain, more and more depressed, and her mood was infectious. They were snapping at each other more and more now, arguing and bickering, and it had come to a head this evening over some silly thing. It had started over a dirty coffee cup he’d left in the sink--and he’d finally just stalked out, climbed into his ear and driven over to Joe King’s Happi-Tyme Tavern to find Danny.

And there he had stayed, getting more and more depressed, and more and more angry at Angie for not allowing things to remain simple and clear-cut, and for forcing him to understand her position. When, at last, Danny made the suggestion about looking for girls, he had agreed more to get even with Angie for the position she’d put him in than for any other reason.

The funny thing was, he didn’t really expect this search to be successful. Most of the time, he knew, Danny and the other guys just drifted around, without too much success. Once in a while they scored, but the odds were against it.

And the funniest thing was, this time they beat the odds.

Her name was Barbara Grant and her boothmate’s name was Laurie Sanderson. Danny latched onto Laurie right away and it was fairly obvious that the two of them had met this way before. Which left Barbara Grant for Paul.

She smiled at him, a tall and slender black-haired girl of his own age, dressed in muted dark colors, wearing eye make-up a bit too heavy and a bit too dark. “Hi, Paul,” she said. “Long time no see.”

“Long time no see,” he agreed. They had gone through high school together, in the same graduating class but not in the same home room, so that he knew her only vaguely.

“I hear you were in the Air Force,” she said, making conversation. He allowed as how he had been in the Air Force. He wasn’t prepared to talk much, but she was an adroit listener, drawing him out gently. Soon he was telling her all sorts of anecdotes about his time in Germany, and the four of them sat at the booth in the back of Ricard’s, in animated conversation, while Angie and all the problems she stood for faded in Paul’s mind, and he found himself taking an interest in Barbara Grant, after all.

What made it nicer yet, Barbara Grant had quite obviously also taken an interest in him.

They spent an hour and four dollars at Ricard’s, and then Danny said, “Hey, did Paul tell you? He just bought himself a car. A fifty-one Chevy. What do you think of that?”

Both girls said they thought it was just great,

“Listen,” said Danny, as though the idea had just occurred to him. “Let’s all go for a ride in Paul’s new car, What do you say?”

The girls thought that was great, too.

In the car, Paul felt as though he were seventeen again. He’d played this scene more than once in his last year in high school, and the year after that, before he’d gone into the Air Force. From now on, it was practically automatic.

They drove around at random first, but gradually, in their seemingly directionless traveling, they eased closer and closer to Flattop, the minor mountain north of the city, where everybody used the parking lot at the lookout point for a lovers’ lane.

Finally, the conversation in the front seat became desultory--in the back seat it had stopped altogether. Barbara Grant cuddled close against Paul and his arm went around her. He stopped his aimless driving and headed directly for Flattop.

It was a Saturday night so the parking lot was already scattered with darkened cars. Paul found a semi-isolated spot far back from the edge of the lookout, near the woods, and switched off the engine and the lights, Barbara’s face turned up to his, pale and dim in the darkness, and he bent forward to kiss her.

From the back seat, Danny murmured a hasty, “See you later,” and the back door on his side opened and then closed again. Paul glanced out the window and saw Danny and Laurie moving off into the trees, and he could make out the blanket draped over Danny’s arm.

He turned his head back to Barbara again, waiting in his arms to be kissed once more, and whispered, “Maybe we ought to switch to the back seat. No steering wheel.”

She nodded. “All right.”

They made the switch, each getting out on their own side, and coming together at once in the back seat. Barbara’s arms slipped around him, her lips clung hungrily to his, and he knew at once that she was going to be easy. There wouldn’t have to be any make-believe love talk or anything with Barbara Grant. She was hungry for sex.

Once they were together in the back seat, neither of them spoke another word. He kissed her, he caressed her, he went through all the motions of the preliminary love play, and she didn’t even put up a token resistance. Her breathing was loud and ragged in the closed car. She moaned when he squeezed her breast and kissed their taut nipples or stroked the inside of her thighs, and she wriggled out of her clothing at the least suggestion from his hands.

She had an exciting build, full-breasted and lean-flanked with generously proportioned hips and her hot naked flesh responded instantly and avidly to the searching touch of his lips and hands.

The seat was too narrow for them to stretch out comfortably. His legs were all jumbled up on the floor, and hers were bent, the knees jutting up into the air, and in the darkness she was a pale and pallid shape, knees high, arms reaching up for him, face anonymous and blank. Their breathing was rapid and heavy now.

He hesitated, looking down at her. She was like an animal, a grunting rooting animal there before him, squeezed into quarters too tight and too cramped for the animal movements she wanted to make. He hesitated, wondering what he was doing here, wondering why he had come out here when Angie was waiting for him at home. Then Barbara reached up and pulled him down to her. They became animals together.

She was good. There was no question of that. She was very good and obviously had had lots of practice. Even in the cramped quarters of the back seat, she was good. She moved like a gourd in a samba band, the rhythms of her surging hips as rapid and complex as that of any jazz drummer. She drew him on and held him back, drew him on and held him back, until at last his own stolid rhythm held sway and for one long taut second the car was absolutely silent, even their breathing stopped by the mystique of the moment, and then sound came back to the car in the mingling of two long grateful sighs.

She was good. Oh, yes, she was good. From one point of view, she was much better than Angie. Angie, until recently, had been a virgin. Angie didn’t know those tricks with hands and lips and tongue--didn’t know those complex rhythms. Barbara knew a heck of a lot more than Angie, she’d had a lot more experience, so from that point of view she was much better than Angie.

She was good. A lot of experience had gone into that body, to make her good. She was so good she reminded him of Ingrid.

***

He got home at two in the morning, three-quarters drunk and carrying a bottle of blended whiskey three-quarters empty. He was in a foul mood. The sight of Angie in his bed, sitting up with a book in her lap, waiting for him--and looking so Goddamn beautiful! --only served to make his mood worse.

He had the irrational feeling that Angie would know, that she would be able to smell the other woman on him or something. He knew it wasn’t true, that the only thing she’d be able to smell on him would be booze, and that from across the room. Still he felt guilty and he had the feeling that he looked guilty. He was just drunk enough and mad enough and guilty enough to blame Angie for making him feel guilty.

He glowered at her and grumbled, “What the hell are you doing up so late? Don’t you know what time it is?”

“I was waiting up for you,” she said simply.

“What the hell for? What the hell are you looking at me that way for?”

“Paul--”

“Don’t get out of bed! Don’t take care of me, for Christ’s sake. I can take care of myself.”

He slammed the bottle down on the night table, stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed beside her, immediately rolling over on his side, away from her. He couldn’t look at her. She was so damn beautiful and sweet and innocent. And he was a rotten son-of-a-bitch, stinking of the pig pen, stinking of the pig he’d just pronged on Flattop.

“Turn off the goddamn light,” he growled, and shut his eyes.

She obediently switched out the light, and a moment later he felt her press herself against him, her arm coming around his waist, and she murmured, “Paul? Won’t you kiss me good night, Paul?”

It was too much, it was too damn much, and he yanked away from her, leaping out of the bed, crying out, “What the hell’s the matter with you? You’re my sister, for God’s sake! What’s the matter with you?”

The silence after that was so shocked, so ringing, so heavy with his guilt, that without another word he fumbled the bottle into his hand and fled the room. He went across the hall to her room, without turning on any lights, and collapsed on the bed.

He could hear his own words still ringing in the silence, felt the tingling of guilty horror. He tilted the bottle to his mouth, not taking it away until he was sucking air from it. Then he rolled over in the ringing, stunned silence and fell asleep.

ELEVEN

Angie didn’t wake up till noon on Sunday, the next day, which was only right since she hadn’t managed to get to sleep much before dawn.

She awoke suddenly and her first thought was of what Paul had said to her last night. She cowered beneath the covers, more alone and frightened than she had ever been in her life.

What a fool she was! Paul wasn’t her husband, he was her brother. He was her brother! How could she have ever done such things with him? How could she have ever shared his bed?

I’m lost, she thought in terror. I’m lost and there’s no way to get back again. There’s no way--ever.

Distantly, she heard movement from downstairs and she burrowed even deeper into the bed. She just couldn’t face him now. How could she ever face anyone again after what she had done?

But no matter what the emotions are, the body goes on. She lay in bed for almost half an hour until hunger drove her out. She dressed with trembling stiff fingers glancing apprehensively at the door, terrified at the thought that Paul might come in and find her naked. And then, timidly, she crept downstairs. ·

He was in the kitchen, his face gray, his hands holding a cup of coffee. He looked at her, his eyes bleary, and shook his head.

“Angie,” he muttered. “Forgive me. I was drunk. I’m not even sure what I said. Don’t pay any attention to it. It didn’t mean anything.”

She opened her mouth to speak to him, to tell a lie, to say that it was all right, it was forgiven and forgotten, but she couldn’t get the words out. All she could do was nod, her eyes wide and frightened, betraying her feelings.

She couldn’t forgive and forget. He had told her the truth. There was nothing to forgive. She couldn’t forget, because his words were seared into her mind. Nothing would ever erase them.

She moved heavily across the kitchen, as though the weariness of age were weighing her down, and she started her breakfast.

He followed her with his eyes, waiting. She knew he wanted her to speak, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

At last, he broke the silence again. “Don’t you believe me? For God’s sake, Angie, I was drunk and out of my mind last night! You can’t put any stock in what a guy says when he’s stoned. You know that!”

Still she couldn’t speak.

He was getting more and more agitated. He got to his feet, kicking back the chair. “Angie, will you say something? This is ridiculous. Such a big fuss over a lousy coffee cup! Look at me. I’m going to rinse this cup out, right now. I’m going to wash it and dry it and put it back on its hook, right this minute. Are you watching me?”

She knew she was only making it worse for him by not speaking, but she couldn’t help it. She could only look at him with pitying, hurt, shame-darkened eyes.

I have no hold on you, she thought. I have no hold on you at all.

With a cry of rage, he hurled the coffee cup he’d been holding across the room. “Goddamn it, do you have to keep staring at me that way? I told you I was sorry. I told you it didn’t mean anything. I was drunk, Angie. Can’t you get that through your head? I was drunk!”

She managed at last to whisper, “I’m sorry, Paul.”

But that was wrong. “You’re sorry! You’re sorry? What the hell are you sorry about? Or are you sorry you ever took up with me? Is that it?”

She shook her head, mute again, straining to keep from crying.

“Then why the hell didn’t you go off with Bob?” he demanded. “He’s in the Army now, isn’t he?”

She nodded and looked away from him, knowing her eyes were only making it worse for him. What am I going to do? she thought numbly. I’m damned and lost.

“You should have gone with him,” cried Paul savagely. “You could have slept with the goddamn officers!”

She knew then that he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to that girl he’d married in Germany. She sensed that she had only been a substitute for the girl in Germany, and she knew the girl must have hurt him very badly to make him want to pass on the hurt in this way.

Paul was storming around the kitchen now, red with rage, obviously no longer caring what he said, only caring that the words were barbed, that they could sting. “You think there’s anything special about you?” he cried. “You think I didn’t have better last night? Barbara Grant. Do you know her? She could teach you a hell of a lot!”

He’s gone from me, she thought woodenly.

“What do you think you’re going to do, hang around my neck like a goddamn albatross all my life? Is that why you broke up with Bob? Well, you’ve got another goddamn think coming, believe you me. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t live with it, having you whining and whimpering all over me forever.” He stopped in his tracks, glaring at her, and made a decisive gesture with his hands. “It’s stopped,” he declared. “It’s stopped right now. It’s all over, finished. It never even happened.”

Paul stood there, glaring at her as though hoping he had finally managed to say something that would get some sort of response out of her. But when she remained silent, he made an explosive noise and stormed out of the room. She heard him rush through the house and out the front door, slamming it viciously behind him.

And she was alone.

She had no idea how long she stood there, leaning weakly against the refrigerator, before the bell rang. She knew only that she was there and she was lost and there was nothing left any more. Then the doorbell rang, rousing her, and she moved slowly through the house, not even wondering who it might be, not even caring.

It was Uncle James, smirking. “Hello, there, Angie,” he said, as though he felt very pleased with the world. “Is Paul around?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“Well, that’s okay, I’ll talk to you first.”

“No,” she said. “Let me alone.”

“This isn’t going to take long,” he assured her, stepping quickly into the house and closing the door behind him. “Just a minute, Angie, that’s all.”

“Please. No.”

“Just long enough for you to sign a little paper,” he said. He stepped around her and walked on into the living room, looking around approvingly at it, with the pride of ownership.

She trailed after him, stricken. “Please,” she begged. “Not now, Uncle James. Leave me alone.”

“Won’t take a minute,” he said briskly, turning to face her again. He withdrew a sheaf of papers from his inside coat pocket. “All you have to do,” he said, “is sign over your half-ownership of the house to me. That’s all there is to it. Here’s my pen and here’s where you sign.”

She looked at him blankly, not understanding why he should think she’d sign away her home.

He finally realized her bewilderment. “Oh, you don’t understand? Well, it’s simple, really. It all has to do with a window shade.”

She shook her head, not following him.

“You still don’t get it? Well, let’s put it this way: Paul should either have put that shade down earlier, or not at all.”

Then she remembered. After he had been here the last time, she and Paul had embraced in the living room, and then Paul had remembered to pull down the shade.

“That’s it,” he said, reading the expression on her face. “You remember it now.” He smiled and leaned toward her confidentially. “Here’s the way it is,” he said. “I really think you two ought to have separate apartments, do you see what I mean? And the situation being what it is, I have the feeling maybe the rest of the family would be on my side, after all.”

She shook her head, spasmodically.

“You don’t think so? Oh, you mean you don’t want me to say anything to the rest of the family? Well sure, Angie, anything to oblige. That’s why I brought this legal document along. Jake McDougall made it up for me. You’re an equal heir with your brother. Half of this house belongs to you. So all you have to do is sign that half over to me, and then your worries are through. See what I mean?”

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

His smile broadened. “You haven’t really thought it over, Angie,” he said. “You think it over. Take your time.”

All at once, she broke down. The tears that had been building in her all morning finally burst out, and she collapsed to the floor, screaming in misery, her body shaking with the violence of her weeping.

He stood staring down at her, amazed and disconcerted. “Hey! Hey, listen, it isn’t all that bad! Angie?”

But she couldn’t even hear him any more. All she could hear were the echoes of Paul’s words to her, and her own words to Bob and all the words that had gone back and forth, and they had all ended here, in desolation, ruin, terror and loneliness and despair.

He mouthed words at her, trying to get her to stop, but nothing could stem her misery until it was all over, and at last he beat a hasty retreat, saying, “I’ll come back. When you’re feeling better. I--I’II come back later. When Paul’s here.”

And he was gone.

It took her a long while to cry herself out. When her sobs finally abated, she hadn’t calmed, she had simply been drained. She was no longer herself. She no longer knew what she was doing or why. Getting to her feet, she walked into the dining room, sat down at the secretary and opened the desk-front part of it. She took out a sheet of her mother’s stationery, picked up a ball-point pen and began to write:

Dear Bob,

I have got to tell you why I did what I did. Why I broke off with you. When l tell you, you will never want to have anything to do with me again. I have done a terrible thing, and I know you couldn’t forgive me, because I can’t ever forgive myself. I’ve lost everything and ruined everything.

It’s my fault, it really is. I know you will blame Paul, but it isn’t his fault. At least, it isn’t his fault any more than it is mine.

I don’t know why I’m writing this to you, but I have to tell somebody. I can’t stand it any more, knowing what I’ve done and knowing I can never change it and I’ve ruined anything that was ever good. And I’m sorry that I hurt you. I was selfish and vicious and stupid, and I’ve hurt everybody. I’ve hurt myself, I’ve hurt you and I’ve hurt Paul.

I have to write the word. I have to write it down on paper and look at it. It is the most difficult word in the world to write.

Incest.

I can’t tell you any more. That’s it, that’s all of it, and I am so ashamed and dirty that I don’t know what I can do. I will never be clean again. No one will ever want me now. I know you won’t and I understand. It’s all right. I do understand, and I don’t blame you.

You don’t have to write back to me. I don’t know why I’m writing this to you. I suppose it would be better just to let you alone and stay away from you, but I wanted you to understand that it was so much better for you not to have married me, because of the way I am. I am dirty and filthy and no one could ever want to marry me.

Good-bye,

Angela

The letter took a long time to write, with frequent pauses, and slow painful forming of the letters with the ball-point pen. But at last it was done, and she addressed an envelope, affixed the stamp, put the letter into the envelope and sealed it. Then she left the house.

She walked somnambulistically, paying no attention at all to her movements. Her feet simply pushed out in front of her, one after the other, carrying her slowly to the corner where she dropped the letter in the mailbox. Then the feet turned her around again and brought her, just as slowly and even more reluctantly, back to the house.

She sat at the kitchen table for a long while, staring at nothing.

She was lost. She was doomed.

Closing her eyes, she tried not to exist.

She shouldn’t have sent the letter. But she couldn’t get it back now. It was in the mailbox. There was no way to stop it now. Bob was going to know the truth.

When at last she moved, it was as slowly and heavily as before, but with more direction, more purpose. It was a hot, bright day and all the windows in the house were open. Starting with the kitchen, moving steadily through the house, she closed all the windows. Upstairs, she closed the bedroom doors, then came heavily down to the first floor again, and back out to the kitchen.

There was a door between the kitchen and the dining room which was rarely closed. She closed it now and then went over to the gas range. She opened the oven door, turned the oven on full, to Broil, but didn’t light it. She turned on all four burners on top of the stove, and blew them out when they automatically lit from the pilot light. She removed the protective cover and blew out the pilot light.

Then she sat at the kitchen table, closed her eyes again, and tried again to stop existing.

This time, she was successful.

TWELVE

In dusk, Paul sat in the living room, gazing unseeing at the turned-off television set. His hand reached out to the · glass, brought it to his mouth, tilted it, returned it to the table. He blinked slowly, once. Other than that, he didn’t move.

The house was his. The whole house was his now. The attic, the basement, the three bedrooms, the bathroom and the flight of stairs between the first and second floors; the living room, the foyer, the two flights of stairs to attic and basement; the front yard, the back yard, the two porches, the dining room, the den and the kitchen where Angie had killed herself.

His hand reached out to the glass, brought it to his mouth, tilted it and found it empty. His other hand reached down to the floor beside the chair, brought up the bottle, turned it over the glass, returned it to the floor. He drank from the glass, put it back on the table. Dusk was turning to night.

The doorbell sounded.

He didn’t move, made no sign he had even heard it.

The house was his and Angie had bought it for him. After her death, all the relatives had assembled here and slowly the facts had come out. Not the facts of what he and Angie had been to one another. No one knew about that but he--and he knew it only too well. No, the facts that had come out had been those concerning Uncle James and his harassment of the two of them over the ownership of the house.

The relatives had decided that Uncle James had had a lot to do with Angie’s death. Paul told them she had been moody and depressed ever since their parents had died, that she had even broken off with her boy friend, and the relatives became convinced that Uncle James had only added to the burden she was already carrying. He was told, by his brothers and sisters and in-laws, to stay away from Paul, stay away from the house, and stay away from them.

Uncle James had blustered and fumed, but it was obvious that he, too, felt he had been part of the cause of Angie’s death. His guilt had kept him quiet and Paul heard from him no more.

No more. Had heard from him no more. Had heard from Angie no more, no more, no more.

The doorbell sounded again. Still he didn’t move.

He rarely moved, any more. He had sold the Chevy. He had quit his job. He was living on what was left of his discharge money, and what was left of his parents’ money. He was living in the house, very rarely moving.

The doorknob rattled and someone rapped sharply against the panel. Someone called out his name.

He turned his head, slowly, to face the entranceway from the foyer. There was no expectancy on his face. There was nothing on his face at all.

A chill breeze of September scurried low along the floor to curl around his ankles, and he knew the front door had been opened. He waited and saw the shape come into the entranceway and wait there. The shape spoke and it had Bob’s voice. “Why didn’t you answer the door?” it asked.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“Turn a light on,” Bob ordered. His voice was low and harsh.

Paul still didn’t move, still didn’t speak.

With a sudden angry movement, Bob stepped into the room and to the left, switching on the nearest floor lamp. In the sudden light, he squinted at Paul. “You knew I was coming, huh? Is that it? You knew I was coming?”

Paul raised his head a bit, just enough so he could look up at Bob’s angry face. A shade of puzzlement crossed Paul’s face and he shook his head slowly from side to side.

“You didn’t, huh?” Bob was dressed in his Army uniform, the sleeves still bare. He had just completed basic training. He reached into his Ike jacket, on the right side, and took out an envelope which he dropped in Paul’s lap. “Take a look at that,” he ordered. “Then you’ll know why I’m here.”

Paul’s movements were in slow motion, as though he were bemused by an ever-renewing wonder at the complexity of the world. Slowly he lowered his head to look at the envelope in his lap. Slowly his hands reached down to it and picked it up and plucked the letter from within; unfolding it, holding it up for his eyes to read.

It was Angie’s letter. Until this moment, he hadn’t even known of its existence.

He read it through, word for careful word, then read it through all over again. Bob reached out to pick it out of his hands just an instant before he would have crushed it and torn it to shreds. His hands closed on one another as though they still held the letter. They trembled convulsively, taut with muscular strain.

Then the hands fell away to his sides and he exhaled, reaching out again for the glass. It was halfway to his lips when Bob slapped it out of his hand, sending it spinning halfway across the room, sloshing liquor on the rug. On his rug.

“Look at me,” snapped Bob. “Look up at me, you son-of-a-bitch.”

Paul raised his eyes. Bob was standing spraddle-legged in front of him, his right hand clenching a small .25 calibre pocket pistol. It looked like a toy in his hand, a little metal toy containing caps, but Paul knew it wasn’t a toy. And he knew it didn’t contain caps.

Bob said: “I’m going to kill you, Paul. I’m not going to try to get away. I’m going to give myself up for it. But I don’t care. Because you’re going to be dead. You killed Angie. And I’m going to kill you for it.”

Paul wrenched his glance away from the gun and raised it higher, until he was looking into Bob’s hot, bitter eyes. His face didn’t change expression, didn’t take on expression, and his eyes were blank and empty. He sat there like that, waiting .

And Bob waited, too. They waited for one another, and slowly the hate in Bob’s eyes changed to bewilderment, then to contempt and finally to understanding. He shook his head.

Unintentionally, not knowing he’d done it, Paul aped the movement, shook own head.

“No,” said Bob decisively. “I’m not going to do it.” His right hand, carrying the gun, lifted up and tucked inside the Ike jacket and returned empty, to hang at his side. “I’m not going to do it,” he repeated. “Do you know why?”

Paul spoke then for the first time. “Bob,” he said, as though he had just identified him.

“I’ll tell you why,” Bob told him. “Because I don’t have to. Because. you’re doing it yourself, with that stuff.” He motioned at the bottle on the floor beside the chair. “So I don’t have to do a thing to you. You’re doing worse to yourself, inside your own head, than I or anybody else could ever think of doing to you. You’re punishing yourself, and you’re a hell of a lot better at the job than I could be.”

“Bob?” asked Paul.

“Good-bye, Paul,” said Bob. He turned away, headed for the front door and outside.

“No!”

Paul moved suddenly, in a frenzied flurry of motion, arcing up out of the chair and leaping to the middle of the room. “No!” he shouted again. “You can’t do it, you bastard, you can’t do that!”

Bob looked back at him. “I can’t do what?”

On Paul’s face there came now such a childish look of craftiness that it seemed as though it could only be a mockery of slyness. “You’re yellow,” he whispered. “You came here to avenge Angie, did you? The great lover, is that it, coming to avenge his sweetheart? And now you’re yellow. Now you suddenly find out you didn’t really love her that much, after all. You can’t go through with it! Is that it?”

Bob stared at him. “Do you want me to kill you?”

“You came in here so tough,” Paul taunted him. He was crouched forward now, hands clawlike at his sides, face jutted forward, leering at the other boy. “You came in here so big and tough, carrying a gun. You were going to be such a brave man. And you’re just a yellowbellied bastard. Aren’t you?”

Bob shook his head slowly in wonderment. “You want me to,” he whispered, still not really believing it. “You actually want me to kill you.”

“It isn’t what I want,” Paul snarled. “It’s what you want. You, talking so big.”

“You’ve been sitting there all this time,” Bob said, awed, “trying to work up enough courage to kill yourself. All this time, you’ve just been sitting there, and you’ve never had the guts.”

“Go on!” screamed Paul. “Go on, you bastard, kill me if you’re going to! What the hell are you waiting for? Are you going to let me get away with it?”

“And you never will have the guts, will you?” Bob asked him. “You’re the coward, not me.”

“Aren’t you going to do it?” Paul shrieked at him, his face contorted and grimacing.

Bob shook his head. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t do you the favor.” And he turned his back and went on out of the house.

Paul raced after him as far as the front door and stood in the doorway watching Bob proceed down the walk to the street. “Do it!” he screamed. “Do it, you bastard! Kill me, kill me, kill me!”

Bob paused and looked back at him. “Kill yourself,” he said contemptuously and strode away and out of sight.

Paul made as if to follow him even farther, to go down· the street after him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t cross the threshold. He couldn’t step out of the house. He hung there, in the doorway, stating at the empty street, his one leg raised as though to rake a step, his face ravaged and haunted.

Full night had fallen, the street outside seemed gradually to press in on him, to loom closer and closer to him. He shook his head and stared into the darkness until he couldn’t stand it any more. Then he whirled back into the house, slamming the door after him and racing back into the living room.

He stood poised in the living room, his frozen stare darting this way and that. “Angie!” he called and waited. There was no answer. “Angie! Angie! Angie!”

Still there was no answer.

He shrieked wordlessly, stumbling toward the dining room, kicking a drum table out of his path as he went, so that it careened across the floor and the lamp that had been on it crashed against the wall.

He blundered into the dark dining room, brought up heavily against the dining room table, reached out clawing hands and found one of the chairs. He picked it up and hurled it into the darkness ahead of him, heard it smash into the glass doors of the upper half of the secretary. He shoved at the table, pushing it and pushing it until it tipped over and out of his path.

He stormed through the house, upstairs and downstairs, crying out for his sister, hurling furniture from him whenever he happened to come near it, leaving behind him wreckage and shambles. He searched the house from top to bottom, crying for his sister.

But he didn’t once look in the kitchen.

***

It was Mrs. Fielding who phoned for the police. The racket and screaming from next door was just too much to ignore. Mrs. Fielding had never complained to the police about a neighbor in her life, but after the sounds of breakage and yelling had kept on for nearly half an hour, she had to call. It didn’t seem like a complaint any more. It was more like summoning help for a neighbor in trouble, for the good Lord alone knew what was going on over there.

A prowl car came first, arriving fifteen minutes after Mrs. Fielding called. Two patrolmen left the car and walked up to the stoop, pausing there to look and listen. There were no lights on in the house, there was no sound at all from the house. They looked at one another and shrugged.

Mrs. Fielding came across the front lawn to them. “I’m the one who called,” she said. “It stopped about five minutes ago.”

“Anybody come out?” one of the patrolmen asked her.

“No. Not out the front door, anyway. I’ve been watching that.”

“Well,” said the other, “let’s take a look.”

He withdrew a flashlight from his hip pocket and went up onto the porch, the other following him. Mrs. Fielding waited on the walk, looking anxious, hoping she hadn’t done the wrong thing.

The patrolmen stood at the door and rang the bell. They could hear it ring inside the house, but there was no other sound.

One of them went back to the head of the stoop and asked Mrs. Fielding, “Who lives here?”

“Just Paul Dane,” she told them. “All by himself. It’s a tragic family. His mother and father were killed in an automobile accident early in the summer, and his sister committed suicide just three weeks ago.”

“The door’s unlocked,” said the other patrolman.

The first one said to Mrs. Fielding, “Thank you.” He went back to the door and switched on his flashlight. Then he pushed the door open and went in.

The foyer was a mess. The rug had been balled-up in a comer, the hat rack was broken, the little table that had stood there was smashed into kindling. His flashlight beam touched all these things, then he moved forward cautiously to the living room doorway and flashed his light in there.

He almost dropped the flashlight. He had been riding in a prowl car for seven years, most of that time on night duty. He had been under the impression for some time that nothing in the world could ever again reduce him to instinctive terror. He knew that conscious, rational fear of actual danger would stay with him, and rightly so, but animal terror, he had believed, was behind him. He had been wrong.

He stared at Paul Dane and felt the tingling up his back, the raising of hairs on the back of his head, the sudden chill around the heart. He almost dropped the flashlight.

Paul Dane sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by the wreckage he had created. He sat there and gazed into the beam of the flashlight with bright, wide, merry eyes. His lips were drawn back in a wide, taut, terrible smile. He didn’t move.

The patrolman whispered, “Jesus!”

Paul still didn’t move, nor did he change expression.

When, a while later, two hospital attendants lifted him bodily and carried him out to the ambulance which had been quickly summoned by the police, he still hadn’t changed his expression. They carried him out of his front door and out of his house. Paul kept right on smiling. Just as though it didn’t make any difference.

The End