Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09 (22 page)

They listened in the square
darkness.

A rapping on a door came from
downstairs.

A door opened. Muffled and distant
and faint, a woman’s voice said, sadly, “Oh, it’s you, Mr.
Whetmore
.”

And deep down in the darkness
underneath the suddenly shivering bed of
Leota
and
her
Oklahoma
husband, Mr.
Whetmore’s
voice replied: “Good evening again, Mrs. White.
Here. I brought the stone.”

 
          
IT was the sensation of silence that
was the most notable aspect of the house. As Mr.
Greppin
came through the front door the oiled silence of the door opening and swinging
close behind him was like an opening and shutting dream, a thing accomplished
on rubber pads, bathed in lubricant, slow and
unmaterialistic
.
The double carpet in the hall, which he himself had so recently laid, gave off
no sound from his movements. And when the wind shook the house late of nights
there was not a rattle of eave or tremor of loose sash. He had, himself,
checked the storm windows. The screen doors were securely hooked with bright
new, firm hooks, and the furnace did not knock but sent a silent whisper of
warm wind up the throats of the heating system that sighed ever so quietly,
moving the cuffs of his trousers as he stood, now, warming himself from the
bitter afternoon.

 
          
    Weighing the silence
with the remarkable instruments of pitch and balance in his small ears, he
nodded with satisfaction that the silence was so unified and finished. Because
there
had
been nights when rats had
walked between wall-layers and it had taken baited traps and poisoned food
before the walls were mute. Even the grandfather clock had been stilled, its
brass pendulum hung frozen and gleaming in its long cedar, glass-fronted
coffin.

 
          
   
They
were waiting for him in the dining-room.

 
          
    He listened. They made
no sound. Good.
Excellent, in fact.
They had learned,
then, to be silent. You had to teach people, but it was worth while — there was
not a stir of knife or fork from the dining-table. He worked off his thick grey
gloves, hung up his cold
armour
of overcoat and stood
there with an expression of urgency and indecisiveness. . . thinking of what
had to be done.

 
          
    Mr.
Greppin
proceeded with familiar certainty and economy of motion into the dining-room,
where the four individuals seated at the waiting table did not move or speak a
word. The only sound was the merest allowable pad of his shoes on the deep
carpet.

 
          
    His eyes, as usual,
instinctively fastened upon the lady heading the table. Passing, he waved a
finger near her cheek. She did not blink.

 
          
    Aunt Rose sat firmly at
the head of the table, and if a mote of dust floated lightly down out of the
ceiling spaces, did her eye trace its orbit? Did the eye revolve in its
shellacked socket, with glassy cold precision? And if the dust mote happened
upon the shell of her wet eye did the eye batten? Did the muscles clinch, the
lashes close?

 
          
    No.

 
          
    Aunt Rose's hand lay on
the table like cutlery, rare and fine and old; tarnished. Her bosom was hidden
in a salad of fluffy linen. The breasts had not been exhumed for years; either
for love or child-sucking. They were mummies wrapped in cerements and put away
for all time. Beneath the table her stick legs in high button shoes went up
into a sexless pipe of dress. You felt that the legs terminated at the skirt
line and from there on she was a department store dummy, all wax and
nothingness. You felt that her husband, years ago, must have handled her in
just such a way as one handled window mannequins, and she responded with the
same chill waxen movements, with as much enthusiasm and response as a
mannequin; and the husband, beaten off with no blows and no words, had turned
over under the bedding and lain trembling with a feeding passion for many
nights and then, finally, silently, taken to evening walks and little places
across town, beyond the ravine, where a pink curtained window glowed with
fresher electricity and a young lady answered when he tapped the bell.

 
          
    So here was Aunt Rose,
staring straight at Mr.
Greppin
, and — he choked out
a laugh and clapped hands derisively shut — there were the first hints of a
dust moustache gathering across her upper lip!

 
          
    'Good evening, Aunt
Rose,' he said, bowing. 'Good evening, Uncle Dimity,' he said, graciously. 'No,
not a
word
,' he held up his hand.
'Not a word from any of you.' He bowed again. 'Ah, good evening,
cousin
Lila, and you, cousin Lester.'

 
          
    Lila sat upon the left,
her hair like golden shavings from a tube of lathed brass. Lester, opposite
her, told all directions with
his
hair. They were
both young
, he fourteen, she sixteen.
Uncle Dimity, their father (but 'father' was a nasty word!) sat next to Lila,
placed in this secondary niche long
long
ago because
Aunt Rose said the window draught might get his neck if he sat at the head of
the table. Ah, Aunt Rose!

 
          
    Mr.
Greppin
drew the chair under his tight-clothed little rump and put a casual elbow to
the linen.

 
          
    'I've something to
say,' he said. 'It's very important. This has gone on for weeks now. It can't
go any further. I'm in love. Oh, but I told you that long ago. On the day I
made you all smile. Remember?'

 
          
    The eyes of the four
seated people did not blink, the hands did not move.

 
          
   
Greppin
became introspective. The day he had made them smile. Two weeks ago it was. He
had come home, walked in, looked at them and said, 'I'm to be married!'

 
          
    They had all whirled
with expressions as if someone had just smashed the window.

 
          
    'You're to be
what!
' cried Aunt Rose.

 
          
    'To Alice Jane
Bellerd
!' he had said, stiffening somewhat.

 
          
    'Congratulations,' said
Uncle Dimity. 'I
guess
,' he added,
looking at his wife. He cleared his throat. 'But isn't it a little early, son?'
He looked at his wife again. 'Yes. Yes, I think it
is
a little early. I wouldn't advise it yet, not just yet, no.'

 
          
    'The house is in a
terrible way,' said Aunt Rose. 'We won't have it fixed for a year yet.'

 
          
    'That's what you said
last year and the year before,' said Mr.
Greppin
.
'And anyway,' he said, bluntly, 'this is
my
house.'

 
          
    Aunt Rose's jaw had
clamped at that. 'After all these years, for us to be bodily thrown out, why I
— '

 
          
    'You won't be thrown
out, don't be idiotic!' said
Greppin
, furiously.

 
          
    'Now, Rose — ' said
Uncle Dimity in a pale tone.

 
          
    Aunt Rose dropped her
hands. 'After all I've done
— '

 
          
    In that instant
Greppin
had known they would
have
to go, all of them. First he would make them silent, then he
would make them smile, then, later, he would move them out like luggage. He
couldn't bring Alice Jane into a house full of
grims
such as these, where Aunt Rose followed wherever you went even when she wasn't
following you, and the children performed indignities upon you at a glance from
their maternal parent, and the father, no better than a third child, carefully
rearranged his advice to you on being a bachelor.
Greppin
stared at them. It was their fault that his loving and living was all wrong. If
he did something about them — then his warm, luminous dreams of soft bodies
glowing with an anxious perspiration of love might become tangible and near.
Then he would have the house for himself and — and Alice Jane.
Yes, Alice Jane.

 
          
    Aunt, Uncle and cousins
would have to go.
Quickly.
If he told them to go, as
he had often done, twenty years might pass as Aunt Rose gathered sun-bleached
sachets and
Edison
phonographs. Long before then, Alice
Jane herself would be moved and gone.

 
          
   
Greppin
looked at them as he picked up the carving-knife.

 
          
   
Greppin's
head snapped with tiredness. He flicked his eyes open. Eh? Oh, he had been
drowsing, thinking.

 
          
    All
that
had occurred two weeks ago. Two
weeks ago this very night that conversation about marriage, moving, Alice Jane,
had come about. Two weeks ago it had been. Two weeks ago he had made them
smile.

 
          
    Now, recovering from
his reverie, he smiled around at the silent and motionless figures. They smiled
back in a peculiarly pleasing fashion.

 
          
    'I hate you. You are an
old bitch,' he said to Aunt Rose, directly. 'Two weeks ago I wouldn't have
dared to say that. Tonight, ah, well — ' He lazed his voice, turning. 'Uncle
Dimity, let
me
give
you
a little advice, old man
— '

 
          
    He talked small talk,
picked up a spoon, pretended to eat peaches from an empty dish. He had already
eaten downtown in a restaurant, pork, potatoes, pie,
coffee
.
But now he made dessert-eating motions because he enjoyed this little act. He
made as if he were chewing.

 
          
    'So — tonight you're
finally, once and for all, moving out. I've waited two weeks, thinking it all
over. In a way, I guess I've kept you here this long because I wanted to keep
an eye on you. Once you're gone, I can't be sure — ' And here his eyes gleamed
with fear. 'You might come prowling around, making noises at night, and I
couldn't stand that. I can't ever have noises in this house, not even when
Alice
moves in
. .
.'

 
          
    The double carpet was
thick and soundless underfoot, reassuring.

 
          
    '
Alice
wants to move in day after tomorrow. We're getting married.'

 
          
    Aunt Rose winked
evilly, doubtfully at him.

 
          
    'Ah!' he cried, leaping
up. Then, staring, he sank down, mouth convulsing. He released the tension in
him, laughing. 'Oh, I see. It was a fly.' He watched the fly crawl with slow
precision on the ivory cheek of Aunt Rose and dart away. Why did it have to
pick that instant to make her eye appear to blink, to doubt? 'Do you doubt I
ever will marry, Aunt Rose? Do you think me incapable of marriage, of love and
love's duties? Do you think me immature, unable to cope with a woman and her
methods? Do you think me a child, only day dreaming? Well!' He calmed himself
with an effort, shaking his head. 'Man, man,' he argued to himself, 'it was
only a fly. And does a fly make doubt of love, or did you make it into a fly
and a wink? Damn it!' He pointed at the four of them. 'I'm going to fix the
furnace hotter. In an hour I'll be moving you out of the house once and for
all. You comprehend? Good. I see you do.'

 
          
    Outside, it began to
rain, a cold nuzzling downpour that drenched the house. A look of irritation
came to
Greppin's
face. The rain sound was one thing
he couldn't stop, the one thing that couldn't be helped. No way to buy new
hinges or lubricants or hooks for that. You might tent the housetop with
lengths of cloth to soften the sound, mightn't you? That'd be going a bit far.
No. No way of preventing the rain sounds.

 
          
    He wanted silence now,
where he had never wanted it in his life so much. Each sound was a fear. So
each sound had to be muffled, gotten to and eliminated.

 
          
    The drum of rain was
like the knuckles of an impatient man on a surface. He lapsed again into
remembering.

 
          
    He recalled the rest of
it. The rest of that hour on that day two weeks ago when he had made them
smile. . .

 
          
    He had taken up the
carving-knife, prepared to cut the bird upon the table. As usual, the family
had been gathered, all wearing their solemn, puritanical masks. If the children
smiled the smiles were stepped on like nasty bugs by Aunt Rose.

 
          
    Aunt Rose criticized
the angle of
Greppin's
elbows as he cut the bird. The
knife, she made him understand also, was not sharp enough. Oh yes, the
sharpness of the knife. At this point in his memory he stopped, roll-tilted his
eyes, and laughed.
Dutifully, then, he had crisped the knife
on the sharpening rod, and again set upon the fowl.
He had severed away
much of it in some minutes before he slowly looked up at their solemn, critical
faces, like puddings with agate eyes, and after staring at them a moment, as if
discovered with a naked woman instead of a naked-limbed partridge, he lifted
the knife and yelled hoarsely, 'Why in God's name can't you,
any
of you, ever smile? I'll
make
you smile!'