9 Tales of Space and Time Page 14

  Then, throughout the months of waiting, he put his affairs in order, he sold his store, he walked the streets—straight and stubborn—and talked to his friends, giving the appearance, by word and gesture, that he was always on business, always alert, always going somewhere and accomplishing something. “I’ve got to hurry on, now,” was the last thing he had said to Dave, after they had talked quietly of the town’s affairs on the street one Sunday afternoon. “I’ve got to hurry on,” he said, proud and stubborn and rejecting sympathy, squaring his old, sunken shoulders as if to say, I am, after all, a man.

  He hacked restlessly and his irregular breathing stopped and then began again.

  Bettyann was by his side, looking down into his face. Her whole being was ill.

  She reached out to touch him. Her hand fluttered over his face and down to his swollen throat. She wanted to close her eyes. Tissue damaged beyond repair, morphine-ridden and insensitive to the pain, dying, starving, clinging persistently to life, old, stubborn . . .

  Impulse? Instinct? Her hand changed. She looked away and shuddered. There was the feel of oversized cells, and her nerves were too heavy, and there was cellular transmission in the lymph glands of his body and great blackness and redness and horror. There was a growth hormone and a twisting of molecules. She felt the healthy and the diseased tissue, and she had no words or symbols for what was happening.

  No hand; no wrist—fluidity—

  She was conscious only of a sickening red nightmare and an awful odor.

  And then she stood looking down at him again. She turned and stumbled from the room. She fled from the house.

  She walked a block, almost unseeing, unthinking, numb. Mercifully, there was a taxi cab.

  She collapsed into the back seat.

  When she arrived home, her body was heavy with exhaustion.

  Even involuntary movements seemed to take place with infinite weariness. Her heart delayed each beat, resting.

  She could no longer control the chamber of her brain containing the reserve, alien part of herself. Her very personality seemed divorced from her body; between the two there hung a pink mist of fatigue.

  She knew what had happened, but she held the knowledge before her as a distant and objective fact containing no imperative to action. She had reached into old man Starke’s body. A part of herself had dissolved and spread until it surrounded the malignancy, and then, through that part she had focused all the energy stored in her being and fired it in a colossal burst at the diseased cells.

  With an effort that seemed impossible she fumbled for the money and paid the cab driver. The door to the cab was open. She was beyond it. She saw the world as through a reversed telescope. Distances expanded; objects shrank. She walked toward the house. She walked with slow, straight dignity. She wanted more than anything else in the world to collapse there on the snow and sleep forever. The porch steps were an infinite distance away. Her skin was cold. She was trembling. The air clawed at her thighs and restrained her moving legs.

  She struggled with the steps. She wanted to sink to her knees and crawl.

  She was in the house. Warmth was around her. She was drowsy. The sofa, soft and waiting, invited her into the living room. She was too exhausted to yawn.

  She continued past the living room. She leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. There was so little energy left anywhere in her body. How much easier to lie down and let it all bleed away, to sleep, to sleep.

  She was at the cupboard. The doors fell open beneath her heavy hands.

  The sugar tin slipped from her leaden fingers and crashed to the floor.

  Jane would come to investigate. She was glad of that. She needed help.

  The house was silent.

  Jane had gone.

  She sank down beside the spilled sugar. She ate a handful of it. She lay on the floor, eating sugar.

  Time passed. Her body converted the sugar into energy. She felt strength return slowly.

  Carefully standing, still weak and trembling with exhaustion, she saw the broom. She went to it. She swept the remaining sugar into the dust pan. The linoleum was still gritty underfoot. She emptied the contents of the dust pan into the waste basket. She ate the rest of the sugar in the now nearly empty can. She returned the can to the shelf, stumbled to her room, and fully clothed, fell into a dreamless sleep.

  When she awoke, a nearly hysterical Jane was undressing her. Dave was on the way home from work. Dr. Wing had just left his office . . .

  She lay inert between soft, cool sheets. Dr. Wing was standing over her with a stethoscope, searching across her chest.

  She smiled faintly at him. She wanted to ask him to go see old man Starke. He’s got to live, she wanted to say. You see, he’s got to. I’m not helpless; he’ll live; and he’ll prove I’m not helpless and that I can do something.

  She heard Jane and Dave whispering in the background. I love you, she wanted to say to them. Someday I’ll make everything up to you. I’ll show you I’m a good daughter; that I didn’t leave you. I guess maybe I never intended to, maybe I just put it off to the last minute.

  She was drifting to sleep. She felt content. Through her half-opened eyes she could see the puzzled face of Dr. Wing peering down at her. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I’m just a little tired.” Her eyes closed completely. “I love you,” she whispered.

  Sleep came to her beneath a blanket of muttering voices. The dream came. She was at a band concert in the park, and it was summer. The high full moon rode the blank sky. Later the moon would fall away and a million-million stars would come out, scattered across the sky by a celestial hand like dice, determining human fate. But now the park was a fairyland of pale moths and moonlight. The band was playing—Oberon? Egmont? Poet and Peasant? —an overture to something. She could not place the music.

  The air smelled of hyacinth and honeysuckle. She was a girl—no, a woman now—yes, a woman, and there was a child. There was a young boy, four years old. He was holding his mother’s (her) hand and listening quietly to the music while Dr. Wing—while Jerry—sat beside her. No, not beside her. On the other side of the boy with an arm extending across behind the bleacher seat, around her shoulder. The child—what an odd child, half alien—no, all human (but perhaps with . . . talents . . . ). He looked like Jerry; he would be a great musician; and he was listening intently now to the overture to something, the beginning of something.

  Jerry was still only faintly gray at the temples. There was gray in her hair, also. She had grown into full womanhood. She had two arms. The arms were for holding him, for loving him, for sweeping away the sadness and disappointment, for caressing the handsome and half-boyish face, for saying in their own solid way: You have me, I’ll make up for everything; you will forget—no, not forget—love still, but be loved again. I should have liked your . . . other wife. I love you. Listen to the drums, the snare, the brass, and the reedy call of the clarinet. And see how high the moon is now, and the fleecy clouds. They’re playing something by Cole Porter, and Jerry—Jerry, I love you, and when it’s over, you and I and Jerry, Junior, we’ll walk downtown to the square, we’ll stop and have Coca-Colas, and . . .

  When she awoke she was aware that someone was in the room with her. Out of the darkness there was whispered breathing. “Mom?”

  “No,” Dave said. “Just me. Mom’s gone to bed. You all right?”

  “Yes . . . Only.”

  “Only?”

  “I’m practically starved, Dad.”

  “Well, you must be feeling better.” She could hear him stand. The chair creaked. “Here goes the light, hold on.”

  The room was bright, and they both blinked.

  “There,” he said. He came to her bed and felt her forehead. “The fever’s broken.” Relief was on his face. “Steak, potatoes, eggs, cereal, milk?”

  She laughed. “I’ll get up and fix something.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

  Jane called: “Something wrong, D
ave?”

  “No, no. Go back to sleep. She’s fine. Just hungry.”

  “I’ll get up,” Jane called.

  “You stay in bed now!” He looked at Bettyann and winked.

  Jane was in the doorway. “What do you want to eat, dear?”

  Bettyann said, “I wish you wouldn’t bother. I’m fine. Honestly I am. I can get up.”

  “Oh, no, you can’t!” Jane said. “I’ll go down and help your father.”

  “It will not be necessary,” Dave said. “I am not incompetent with a skillet, I assure you.”

  Following him out, Jane said, “I won’t have you ruining my skillets.”

  After Bettyann had eaten, she insisted that they both go to bed.

  “I’m not going to sleep again if you don’t. I’ll sit up and talk. I won’t get any rest. Please, Dad. Now, please. Both of you.”

  “If you’re sure . . .” Jane said uncertainly.

  “If you need anything, call. We’ll hear you, just call us.”

  And the light was out, the house was silent, and she slept.

  When she awoke again, it was light. Dr. Wing and Jane were in the room.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s at work.”

  “Mom! He shouldn’t have stayed up last night.”

  “That’s all right. Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “Well, how are you?” Dr. Wing asked.

  “I’m recovered,” she said. “I must look like a mess, though.” She glanced at the mirror across the room. “My hair, my face . . . Oooooo.” She shook her head. “And I’m hungry again, too.”

  “I told you what she ate at three o’clock this morning?” Jane said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Wing said. “Where do you put it, girl?”

  Bettyann felt fine.

  “You’ll go to fat. You’ll spread. You’ll get three axe handles broad across the fanny.”

  She sat up, laughing. She yawned. “It’s a beautiful day! I can’t wait to get up!” She rolled her shoulders. “Get up! Get up!” she instructed herself.

  “Oh, no,” Dr. Wing said. “It’s bed for you.”

  “If it’s all right,” Jane said, “I’ll go get her something to eat.”

  “Sure,” Dr. Wing said. “It’s all right with me.” And when Jane had gone, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Now, Bettyann, tell me: What the devil was wrong with you yesterday?”

  “I—I went over to see old Mr. Starke, and when I left, I got to feeling weak, and, and . . . all of a sudden . . . there I was.” Her smile vanished. “How is he? Have you seen him today?”

  “I haven’t called. It’s hopeless, Bettyann. There’s nothing I can do for him. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Oh, I’m all right.”

  “Yes? Well, tell me one thing. When you came home yesterday, what did you do, eat a whole can of sugar?”

  “How did you . . .?”

  “Jane said it was all over the floor. She said you must have spilled a whole can.”

  “I was hungry.”

  Dr. Wing looked at her gravely. She felt her heart skip a beat. Oh, please, she thought, don’t be angry with me, Dr. Wing. I can’t tell you why.

  “It seems to have fixed you up all right, anyway. Well, let’s look at you.”

  By the time Jane came with breakfast, he had finished his examination.

  “There’s nothing wrong with her, as far as I can tell. We’ll bring her down to the office in a couple of days and give her a thorough check-up.”

  Jane placed the tray on the coverlet. Bettyann drank the milk hungrily. Looking up from the eggs, she smiled at the doctor. “I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble.”

  “You’re being unconventional,” Dr. Wing said. “Next time, as a favor to me, come down with German measles or something I can recognize.”

  “She’s going to be all right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Dr. Wing said.

  “She had a very upsetting experience. I think it might have been that.”

  The phone rang, and Jane excused herself to answer it.

  Bettyann began on the eggs.

  Dr. Wing said, “Where are you using up all that energy, Bettyann? You must be burning it up somehow. It’s abnormal. I don’t understand it.”

  Her eyes refused to meet his. He made her feel like a child. She looked at him shyly out of the corner of her eye. He was so . . . Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.”

  Dr. Wing should be telling her his troubles, she thought. She could be understanding; she could smooth away his worries with gentle caresses, and here he was . . . was treating her (not in his conversation so much as in his manner) as a little girl, not as a woman.

  “Please, do me a favor. Will you?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “When you go by to see Mr. Starke, please phone me, will you, and tell me how he is?”

  Jane came back. “It was Miss Stemy. She wanted to know how you were. She heard you came back from Smith.”

  “Oh!” Bettyann said. “I’ve just got to go over and see her. She must be awfully disappointed in me!” It was Miss Stemy who had arranged for her scholarship to Smith. It seemed to Bettyann that, in trying to do what she believed she had to do, she was betraying everyone who believed in her. “I’ve got to talk to her this morning.”

  “No, you won’t!” Dr. Wing said. “You’re going to stay in bed today.”

  “I’m . . .”

  Dr. Wing was preparing to leave. “No arguments! I want you to get some rest. If you’re all right tomorrow, that’s something else.”

  When he was at the door, she called, “Dr. Wing!”

  “Yes?”

  “You will phone me?”

  “Eh? Oh! All right. I’m going over there right now.”

  “Phone?” Jane said.

  “She wants to know how old man Starke is this morning.”

  “I’ll walk down with you, Doctor,” Jane said. “Just a second.”

  Alone, Bettyann put the empty tray on the table beside her. She stretched her toes toward the foot of the bed and then snuggled down against the pillow. For a moment she let her injured arm grow until it was a normal companion to the other. If only she dared . . . but no, and the arm resumed its former shape. Yes, it will have to be done, she thought, but slowly done, so they will not notice: not at first. Two arms.

  She held Dr. Wing’s face before her. And I (she thought) will grow also, until I am worthy of him. She lost herself in dreams.

  Children! she thought.

  Yes, she thought. Children. Human children, not like me; human children with a strange mother. Oh, she thought, I shall grow old carefully. Straight and slim at sixty, clear of eye.

  Stirrings of maturity came. And desperate longing. It seemed to her that if only old man Starke lived, she would somehow have joined irrevocably the community of mankind.

  Again the face of Dr. Wing came to her. Her emotions went out to it. She buried her face in the pillow and clutching it desperately she sobbed silently, I love him, make me worthy of him, please, please. Love, she said to herself, love. I do love him. I can love. I can do that. I can love like a woman loves, although I am not truly a woman.

  When the phone rang she was still lost in dreams. Jane answered.

  After a moment, Bettyann called, “Who was it,?”

  “Dr. Wing!” Jane called back from the foot of the stairs.

  “How was—how was Mr. Starke?”

  “The same! He said to tell you, just the same!”

  Bettyann felt something almost physical drive deep into her heart.

  No, no, no, no, no, she sobbed.

  Dr. Wing came Saturday at nine o’clock and said it would be all right for her to get up.

  “See that she comes in Monday for a complete check-up, though.”

  “We’ll see that she gets down there,” Dave said.

  Bettyann dressed slowly. She viewed herself before the mir
ror with satisfaction. She twirled, rustling her skirt. You’re not too bad-looking, she told herself. She peered closer. She placed her middle fingers to the left of her nose, pulled down, gently, and examined her left eyeball with care. She seemed satisfied with what she saw. She repeated the process with her right eye. She stepped back. She hummed a gay little tune and twirled her skirt once more. She fluffed her hair with the comb, shook her head, rubbed her lips together, smiled at herself, and finally, assured, winked knowingly. She was absurdly happy.

  She puckered her lips to whistle.

  And stopped.

  She stared at her suddenly frozen mirror image. The lips grew lax; little trouble lines tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  Incredibly, for the few moments during which she had concerned herself with the routine duties traditional to woman, she had managed to forget the world. Looking back now, she realized that, as she made the familiar movements, her mind had been miles away in space and time. She frowned (but there was still a lingering residue of self-consciousness, for the frown was dainty and becoming).

  She went downstairs. Dave was in the living room. Jane was out shopping. Bettyann carried her coat.

  “You think you ought to go out?” Dave asked.

  “I wanted to go to the library and see Miss Stemy.”

  “Oh? I suppose that would be all right.” He nodded.

  “Yes, I think maybe that would be a good idea. Now, you’ll be going back to Smith, though. You tell her that. Next fall, I guess, won’t you?”

  “Don’t blame me for leaving college,” she said. “Please, Dad.”

  “What’s one semester more or less?” he said, puckering his lips with almost amusement. “I mean, you’ll go back and finish. That’s the important thing. You will?” he asked, with a trace of concern. “Mother feels quite strongly about it.” Not saying that his own hopes for her were also dependent, in a vague and actually undefined fashion, upon her getting a college degree—the degree symbolizing the recognition of his and Jane’s accomplishment as well as Bettyann’s. “Think it over,” he said. “I mean, very seriously, Bettyann. I know, right now, you’re unhappy and confused.” He waited to see if she were ready to ask for his help. He did not expect that she would. He was proud that she was independent and yet, in her independence, he suffered a loss and a sadness. The world had changed rather more rapidly than he cared to realize. “There are a lot of things you have to decide for yourself,” he said. “See how you feel in a couple of weeks or a month.”