Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09 (21 page)

 
          
“It’s
bad you’re saying it!” cried her sister.

 
          
“No,
it’s all right,” insisted Anna, turning for an instant. “They’re not thinking,
are they? They’re just so deep down and quiet and not caring.”

 
          
She
took her right hand and held it over her left hand very slowly and gently,
quavering and interweaving them. The rainy window, with the pale spring light
penetrating, put a movement of light and running water on her fingers, made
them seem submerged, fathoms deep in gray water, running one about the other as
she finished her little dream:

 
          
“Him,
tall and quiet, his hands open.” She showed with a gesture how tall and how
easy he was in the water.
“Her, small and quiet and relaxed.”
She looked at her sister, leaving her hands just that way. “They’re dead, with
no place to go, and no one to tell them. So there they are, with nothing
applying to them and no worries, very secret and hidden under the earth in the
cistern waters. They touch their hands and lips and when they come into a cross-street
outlet of the cistern, the tide rushes them together. Then,
later
.
 . .” she disengaged her hands . . . “maybe they
travel together, hand in hand, hobbling and floating, down all the streets,
doing little crazy upright dances when they’re caught in sudden swirls.” She
whirled her hands
about,
a drenching of rain
spatted
the window. “And they go down to the sea, all
across the town, past cross drain and cross drain, street and street. Genesee
Avenue, Crenshaw, Edmond Place, Washington, Motor City, Ocean Side and then the
ocean. They go anywhere the water wants them, all over the earth, and come back
later to the cistern inlet and float back up under the town, under a dozen
tobacco shops and four dozen liquor stores, and six dozen groceries and ten theaters,
a rail junction, Highway 101, under the walking feet of thirty thousand people
who don’t even know or think of the cistern.”

 
          
Anna’s
voice drifted and dreamed and grew quiet again.

 
          
“And
then—the day passes and the thunder
goes
away up on
the street. The rain stops. The rain season’s over. The tunnels drip and stop.
The tide goes down.” She seemed disappointed, sad it was over. “The river runs
out to the ocean. The man and woman feel the water leave them slowly to the
floor. They settle.” She lowered her hands in little
bobblings
to her lap, watching them fixedly, longingly. “Their feet lose the life the
water has given them from outside. Now the water lays them down, side by side,
and drains away, and the tunnels are drying. And there they lie. Up above, in
the world, the sun comes out. There they lie, in the darkness, sleeping, until
the next time.
Until the next rain.”

 
          
Her
hands were now upon her lap, palms up and open. “Nice man, nice woman,” she
murmured. She bowed her head over them and shut her eyes tight.

 
          
Suddenly
Anna sat up and glared at her sister. “Do you know who the man is?” she
shouted, bitterly.

 
          
Juliet
did not reply; she had watched, stricken, for the past five minutes while this
thing went on. Her mouth was twisted and pale. Anna almost screamed:

 
          
“The
man is Frank, that’s who he is! And
I’m
the woman!”

 
          
“Anna!”

 
          
“Yes,
it’s Frank, down there!”

 
          
“But
Frank’s been gone for years, and certainly not down there, Anna!”

 
          
Now,
Anna was talking to nobody, and to everybody, to Juliet, to the window, the
wall, the street. “Poor Frank,” she cried. “I know that’s where he went. He
couldn’t stay anywhere in the world. His mother spoiled him for
all the
world! So he saw the cistern and saw how secret and
fine it was. Oh, poor Frank.
And poor Anna, poor me, with
only a sister.
Oh, Julie, why didn’t I hold onto Frank when he was here?
Why didn’t I fight to win him from his mother?”

 
          
“Stop
it, this minute, do you hear, this minute!”

 
          
Anna
slumped down into the corner, by the window, one hand up on it, and wept
silently. A few minutes later she heard her sister say, “Are you finished?”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“If
you’re done, come help me finish this, I’ll be forever at it.”

 
          
Anna
raised her head and glided over to her sister. “What do you want me to do?” she
sighed.

 
          
“This
and this,” said Juliet, showing her.

 
          
“All
right,” said Anna, and took it and sat by the window looking at the rain,
moving her hands with the needle and thread, but watching how dark the street
was now, and the room, and how hard it was to see the round metal top of the
cistern now—there were just little midnight gleams and glitters out there in
the black
black
late afternoon. Lightning crackled
over the sky in a web.

 
          
Half
an hour passed. Juliet drowsed in her chair across the room, removed her
glasses, placed them down with her work and for a moment rested her head back
and dozed. Perhaps thirty seconds later she heard the front door open
violently, heard the wind come in, heard the footsteps run down the walk, turn,
and hurry along the black street.

 
          
“What?”
asked Juliet, sitting up, fumbling for her
glasses.
“Who’s there? Anna, did someone come in the door?” She stared at the empty
window seat where Anna had been. “Anna!” she cried. She sprang up and ran out
into the hall.

 
          
The
front door stood open, rain fell through it in a fine mist.

 
          
“She’s
only gone out for a moment,” said Juliet, standing there, trying to peer into
the wet blackness. “She’ll be right back.
Won’t
you be right back, Anna dear? Anna, answer me, you
will
be right back, won’t you, sister?”

 
          
Outside,
the cistern lid rose and slammed down.

 
          
The
rain whispered on the street and fell upon the closed lid all the rest of the
night.

Well, first of all there was the
long trip, and the dust poking up inside her thin nostrils, and Walter, her
Oklahoma husband, swaying his lean carcass in their model-T Ford, so sure of
himself it made her want to spit; then they got into this big brick town that
was strange as old sin, and hunted up a landlord. The landlord took them to a
small room and unlocked the door.

There in the middle of the simple
room sat the tombstone.

Leota’s
eyes got a wise look, and immediately she pretended to gasp, and thoughts
skipped through her mind in devilish quickness. Her superstitions were
something Walter had never been able to touch or take away from her. She
gasped, drew back, and Walter stared at her with his droopy eyelids hanging
over his shiny gray eyes.

“No, no,” cried
Leota
,
definitely. “I’m not moving in any room with any dead man!”

“
Leota
!”
said her husband.

“What do you mean?” wondered the
landlord. “Madam, you don’t—”

Leota
smiled inwardly. Of course she didn’t really believe, but this was her only
weapon against her
Oklahoma
man,
so—”I mean that I won’t sleep in no room with no corpse. Get him out of here!”

Walter gazed at the sagging bed
wearily, and this gave
Leota
pleasure, to be able to
frustrate him. Yes, indeed, superstitions were handy things. She heard the
landlord saying, “This tombstone is the very finest gray marble. It belongs to
Mr.
Whetmore
.”

“The name carved on the stone is
WHITE
,” observed
Leota
coldly.

“Certainly.
That’s the man’s name for
whom
the stone was carved.”

“And is he dead?” asked
Leota
, waiting.

The landlord nodded.

“There, you
see
!”
cried
Leota
. Walter groaned a groan that meant he was
not stirring another inch looking for a room. “It smells like a cemetery in
here,” said
Leota
, watching Walter’s eyes get hot and
flinty. The landlord explained:

“Mr.
Whetmore
,
the former tenant of this room, was an apprentice marble-cutter, this was his
first job,
he
used to tap on it with a chisel every
night from seven until ten.”

“Well—”
Leota
glanced swiftly around to find Mr.
Whetmore
. “Where
is he? Did he die, too?” She enjoyed this game.

“No, he discouraged himself and
quit cutting this stone to work in an envelope factory.”

“Why?”

“He made a mistake.” The landlord
tapped the marble lettering, “
WHITE
is the name here.
Spelled wrong.
Should be
WHYTE
,
with a Y instead of an I. Poor Mr.
Whetmore
.
Inferiority complex.
Gave up at the least little mistake and
scuttled off.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Walter,
shuffling into the room and unpacking the rusty brown suitcases, his back to
Leota
. The landlord liked to tell the rest of the story:

“Yes, Mr.
Whetmore
gave up easily. To show you how touchy he was, he’d percolate coffee mornings,
and if he spilled a teaspoonful it was a catastrophe—he’d throw it all away and
not drink coffee for days! Think of that! He got very sad when he made errors.
If he put his left shoe on first, instead of his right, he’d quit trying and
walk bare footed for ten or twelve hours, on cold mornings, even. Or if someone
spelled his name wrong on his letters, he’d replace them in the mailbox marked
NO SUCH PERSON LIVING HERE
.
Oh, he was a great one, was Mr.
Whetmore
!”

“That don’t paddle us no further
up-crick,” pursued
Leota
grimly. “Walter, what’re you
commencing?”

“Hanging your
silk dress in this closet; the red one.”

“Stop hanging, we’re not staying.”

The landlord blew out his breath,
not understanding how a woman could grow so dumb. “I’ll explain once more. Mr.
Whetmore
did his homework here; he hired a truck that
carried this tombstone here one day while I was out shopping for a turkey at
the grocery, and when I waited back—tap-tap-tap—I heard it all the way
downstairs— Mr.
Whetmore
had started chipping the
marble. And he was so proud I didn’t dare complain. But he was so awful proud
he made a spelling mistake and now he ran off without a word, his rent is paid
all the way till Tuesday, but he didn’t want a refund, and now I’ve got some
truckers with a hoist who’ll come up first thing in the morning. You won’t mind
sleeping here one night with it, now will you?
Of course
not.”

The husband nodded. “You
understand,
Leota
?
Ain’t
no
dead man under that rug.” He sounded so superior, she
wanted to kick him.

She didn’t believe him, and she
stiffened. She poked a finger at the landlord. “You want your money. And you,
Walter, you want a bed to drop your bones on. Both of you are lying from the
word go!”

The
Oklahoma
man paid the landlord his money tiredly, with
Leota
tonguing him. The landlord ignored her as if she
were
invisible, said good night and she cried “Liar!” after him as he shut the door
and left them alone. Her husband undressed and got in bed and said, “Don’t
stand there staring at the tombstone, turn out the light. We been traveling
four days and I’m bushed.”

Her tight crisscrossed arms began
to quiver over her thin breasts. “None of the three of us,” she said, nodding
at the stone, “will get any sleep.”

Twenty minutes later, disturbed by
the various sounds and movements, the
Oklahoma
man unveiled his vulture’s face from the
bedsheets
,
blinking stupidly. “
Leota
, you still up? I said, a
long time ago, for you to switch off the light and come to sleep! What are you
doing there?”

It was quite evident what she was
about. Crawling on rough hands and knees, she placed a jar of fresh-cut red,
white, and pink geraniums beside the headstone, and another tin can of new-cut
roses at the foot of the imagined grave. A pair of shears lay on the floor,
dewy with having snipped flowers in the night outside a moment before.

Now she briskly whisked the
colorful linoleum and the worn rug with a midget whisk broom, praying so her
husband couldn’t hear the words, but just the murmur. When she rose up, she
stepped across the grave carefully so as not to defile the buried one, and in
crossing the room she skirted far around the spot, saying, “There, that’s
done,” as she darkened the room and laid herself out on the whining springs
that sang in turn with her husband who now asked, “What in the Lord’s name!”
and she replied, looking at the dark around her, “No man’s going to rest easy
with strangers sleeping right atop him. I made amends with him, flowered his
bed so he won’t stand around rubbing his bones together late tonight.”

Her husband looked at the place she
occupied in the dark, and couldn’t think of anything good enough to say, so he
just swore, groaned, and sank down into sleeping.

Not half an hour later, she grabbed
his elbow and turned him so she could whisper swiftly, fearfully, into one of
his ears, like a person calling into a cave: “Walter!” she cried. “Wake up,
wake up!” She intended doing this all night, if need be, to spoil his superior
kind of slumber.

He struggled with her. “What’s
wrong?”

“Mr.
White
!l
Mr. White! He’s starting to haunt us!”

“Oh, go to sleep!”

“I’m not fibbing! Listen to him!”

The
Oklahoma
man listened. From under the linoleum, sounding about six feet or so down,
muffled, came a man’s sorrowful talking. Not a word came through clearly, just
a sort of sad mourning.

The
Oklahoma
man sat up in bed. Feeling his movement,
Leota
hissed, “You heard, you heard?” excitedly. The
Oklahoma
man put his feet on the cold linoleum. The voice below changed into a falsetto.
Leota
began to sob. “Shut up, so I can hear,”
demanded her husband, angrily. Then, in the heart-beating quiet, he bent his
ear to the floor and
Leota
cried, “Don’t tip over the
flowers!” and he cried, “Shut up!” and again listened, tensed. Then he spat out
an oath and rolled back under the covers. “It’s only the man downstairs,” he
muttered.

“That’s what I mean. Mr. White!”

“No, not Mr.
White.
We’re on the second floor of an apartment house, and we got
neighbors down under. Listen.” The falsetto downstairs talked. “That’s the
man’s wife. She’s probably telling him not to look at another man’s wife!
Both of them probably drunk.”

“You’re lying!” insisted
Leota
. “Acting brave when you’re really trembling fit to
shake the bed down. It’s a haunt, I tell you, and he’s talking in voices, like
Gran’ma
Hanlon used to do, rising up in her church pew and
making queer tongues all mixed, like a black man, an Irishman, two women, and
tree frogs, caught in her crawl That dead man, Mr. White, hates us for moving
in with him tonight, I tell you! Listen!”

As
tf
to
back her up, the voices downstairs talked louder. The
Oklahoma
man lay on his elbows, shaking his head hopelessly, wanting to laugh, but too
tired.

Something crashed.

“He’s stirring in his coffin!”
shrieked
Leota
. “He’s mad! We got to move
outa
here, Walter, or well be found dead tomorrow!”

More crashes, more bangs, more
voices. Then, silence.
Followed by a movement of feet in the
air over their heads.

Leota
whimpered. “He’s free of his tomb! Forced his way out and he’s tramping the air
over our heads!”

By this time, the
Oklahoma
man had his clothing on. Beside the bed, he put on his boots. “This building’s
three floors high,” he said, tucking in his shirt “We got neighbors overhead
who just come home.” To
Leota’s
weeping he had this
to say, “Come on. I’m taking you upstairs to meet
them
people. That’ll prove who they are. Then we’ll walk downstairs to the first
floor and talk to that drunkard and his wife. Get up,
Leota
.”

Someone knocked on the door.

Leota
squealed and rolled over and over, making a quilted mummy of
herself
.
“He’s in his tomb again, rapping to get out!”

The
Oklahoma
man switched on the lights and unlocked the door. A very jubilant little man in
a dark suit, with wild blue eyes, wrinkles, gray hair, and thick glasses danced
in.

“Sorry, sorry,” declared the little
man. “I’m Mr.
Whetmore
. I went away. Now I’m back.
I’ve had the most astonishing stroke of luck. Yes, I have. Is my tombstone still
here?” He looked at the stone a moment before he saw it “Ah, yes, yes, it is!
Oh, hello.”
He saw
Leota
peering
from many layers of blanket. “I’ve some men with a roller-truck, and, if you
don’t mind, well move the tombstone out of here, this very moment. It’ll only
take a minute.”

The husband laughed with gratitude.
“Glad to get rid of the damned thing. Wheel her out!”

Mr.
Whetmore
directed two brawny workmen into the room. He was almost breathless with
anticipation.
“The most amazing thing.
This morning I
was lost, beaten, dejected—but a miracle happened.” The tombstone was loaded
onto a small coaster truck. “Just an hour ago, I heard, by chance, of a Mr.
White who had just died of pneumonia. A Mr. White, mind you, who spells his
name with
an I
instead of a Y. I have just contacted
his wife, and she is delighted that the stone is all prepared. And Mr. White
not cold more than sixty minutes, and spelling his name with
an
I
, just think of it. Oh, I’m so happy!”

The tombstone, on its truck, rolled
from the room, while Mr.
Whetmore
and the
Oklahoma
man laughed, shook hands, and
Leota
watched with
suspicion as the commotion came to an end. “Well, that’s now all over,”
grinned
her husband as he closed the door on Mr.
Whetmore
, and began throwing the canned flowers into the
sink and dropping the tin cans into a waste-basket. In the dark, he climbed
into bed again, oblivious to her deep and solemn silence. She said not a word
for a long while, but just lay there, alone-feeling. She felt him adjust the
blankets with a sigh. “Now we can sleep. The damn old
thing’s
took away. It’s only
ten thirty
.
Plenty of time for sleep.”
How he enjoyed spoiling her fun.

Leota
was
about to speak when a rapping came from down below again. “There! There!” she
Cried
, triumphantly, holding her husband. “There it is
again, the noises, like I said. Hear them!”

Her husband knotted his fists and
clenched his teeth. “How many times must I
explain.
Do
I have to kick you in the head to make you understand, woman! Let me alone.
There’s nothing—”’

“Listen, listen, oh, listen,” she
begged in a whisper.