Celestial Navigation (7 page)

Everyone seemed to be waiting for his words, even the smallest person at the left-hand corner of his eye.

“It’s not big enough for a family, I don’t believe,” he said.

The man made an impatient gesture, turning sharply on one heel. The woman said, “But you don’t mind just me and the child here, do you?”

“Child?” he said. He looked back at his father’s photograph. He tried to think what his father’s voice had sounded like, but it took a long time for him to remember and when he looked up again he found that the strangers had disappeared.

Here is the endpaper from a library book that Mrs. Jarrett carelessly left on the dining room table. It is covered with an intricate multicolored design that caught his eye at once; one edge is a little crooked where he hurriedly snipped it out of the binding with kitchen shears. Will she notice? He paces his studio with it, his crocheted slippers snagging on splinters in the floorboards. The paper crackles in his fingers. With his eyes he traces maroons and blues and browns, a watery yellow, a touch of orange, all flooded with a slow radiance that is soaking into him. Flames and pinnacles and jagged leaves and white rapids swerving around a spear-shaped rock. Feathers of some rich and exotic bird. He sees the bird climbing toward the sun; he watches sunlight coat the wings and gild the head. Downstairs, voices drone on and a radio plays and a clock strikes. Upstairs, Jeremy feels a shimmering joy lighting every crevice of his mind, and he smiles and opens up to it and melts away, leaving no trace.

Now Jeremy sat in his mother’s rocking chair, rocking gently in a corner of the dining room. The back of the chair was covered with some sort of quilted material ruffled around the edges, and the ruffle kept making a scrunching sound against his shoulders. To his left was a floor lamp with a pleated shade, a picture of Mount Vernon Place engraved on its ridges. It shed the only light in the room. The rest of the boarders sat in darkness, with their faces flickering blue from the television set in the opposite corner. A very old set, a solid piece of furniture with a tiny screen. On it, a hero in a Stetson hat inched his way from window to window and peered out
from behind a cocked revolver. “You can tell there’s enemies outside,” said Mr. Somerset, “else they wouldn’t bother showing you the birdsongs and frog croaks. Want to make a bet on it?”

Mr. Somerset sat at the table with the remains of his supper, a picked-over plate and a shot glass oily from the bourbon it had held. Beside him was Miss Vinton, her neck ropy from craning nearsightedly toward the set; the new boarder, casting glances at her bedroom door from time to time in case her child awoke; Howard, dressed to go out, resting on the small of his back. Mrs. Jarrett was in the other rocker. Her hands worked rapidly in the darkness—knitting, probably, but Jeremy seemed unable to look to either side tonight and he only had an impression of empty movement, as if she were spinning something webbed and soft out of the darkness itself. He was conscious of particles of dark floating between people, some deep substance in which they all swam, intent upon keeping their heads free, their chins straining upward.

A branch crackled outdoors and the hero raised his gun. Every muscle snapped to attention. His face tightened, his eyes swept the sunlit forest. Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.

On Jeremy’s lap was a clutter of papers in a khaki-colored file—the reason his lamp was on. He was going to try to make some money. The file contained boxtops, coupons, occupant ads, soup can labels, pages torn from magazines, blanks from the grocery store bulletin board. “Can you name our new hybrid rose? Prizes! Prizes! Just tell us why you prefer our brand of bleach. Nothing to buy. Are you already a winner?” Jeremy was almost always a winner. It was one of his peculiarities—a talent you were either born with or you weren’t, his mother used to say, and wasn’t it lucky he had found something he could do at home this way? Yet he had
never
felt
lucky, and he never seemed to win what they really needed. Always tenth prize: a hair dryer, a comb-and-brush set, a movie camera guaranteed to do justice to his speediest action shots. The basement was stocked with a year’s supply of cat food. (Jeremy had no cats.) He was the owner of a sewing machine whose value was less than the ten-year service contract he had had to purchase for it. Didn’t anyone offer
cash
any more? The gas bill was due, the telephone company had sent their second notice, and if he didn’t pay the newspaper soon they would discontinue his classified ad and there would be no more students. On the hall desk was a sheaf of canceled checks from the mail order houses which had supplied his mother with her novelty salt and pepper shakers, her patented corn removers, her Bavarian weather forecaster, her wipe-clean doilies and plastic closet organizers and those miraculous plants that required neither soil nor water; and all anyone wanted to give him was snow tires and ladies’ shavers. “Grand Prize! A Trip to Hawaii for Two!!” What did he want with Hawaii? Who did they suppose would go with him?

He gazed down at the blanks, his hands loose on the arms of the rocker, his knees spread. Muddy waters seemed to be clouding his thoughts. When he moved finally to pick up a coupon, its torn edge depressed him, and he dropped it again and went on rocking.

On the television screen, a shot rang out. “Hot dog!” said Mr. Somerset. He sat sharply forward, but the searching face of the hero was replaced immediately by a full-grown German shepherd bounding toward a bowl of premium-quality beef bits. “Shoot,” said Mr. Somerset. “Wouldn’t you know?”

Jeremy set the file of papers on the floor, rose and moved off to the hall telephone. Then he paused, with his hand upon the receiver. What was he doing here? The telephone rang, an
irritated sound, so that he knew it had rung before. He picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Mary Tell, please,” said a man.

Jeremy waited, thinking hard.

“Are you there? I want Mary Tell. Your new boarder.”

“Oh
yes.” He recognized the voice now. The cigarette ad man, sounding as crisp as he looked. He laid the receiver down and returned to the dining room, where he lowered himself carefully into the rocker. For a moment he studied his knees, frowning. Then Mrs. Jarrett said, “Was that the phone?”

He looked up. “The phone, yes,” he said. “For Mrs. Tell.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Mary Tell. She rose and moved out of the room. Her shoes were some special kind that made no sound, or maybe he was just forgetting to listen.

The hero was winged by a bullet. He winced and dropped his gun. “Oh, the poor man,” said Mrs. Jarrett, serenely continuing her motions in the dark. Miss Vinton sighed. Mary Tell returned, flowing gracefully into the room, pausing to listen for her child before she sat down. Jeremy raised his head. He looked up at her and blinked, stunned by a flash that came from nowhere to fix her image on his eyes.

Here is Mary Tell, with the perfect oval of her face expressionless and her back beautifully straight, her smooth hands clasped in her lap. She knows how to sit without moving a muscle; she never fidgets. Her mouth is a wide curve and her eyes are very long and brown and level. Tears run down her face in silvery lines. While Jeremy watches, her cheeks grow wet and shiny, but she continues to stare directly at the television and after a minute, when his private flash has faded, Jeremy decides that he has imagined it all and he goes back to studying his knees.

You would think that once he brought me here he would feel responsible in some way. I try not to ask too much of him but having me come to Baltimore was his idea, after all, and for every one of my objections he had some reasonable answer. “But this is just—I’m a
homebody,”
I told him. “This is just not like me.” And he said, “Do you always do things exactly in character?” Oh, he knew what would win me. He knew to reach down and pat my daughter’s head and say, “Does she, Darcy?” so that Darcy would smile up at him, all trust and confidence. So one day we slid into his red convertible and rode off to Baltimore, with Darcy nestling between us and John’s arm lying across the back of the seat keeping a constant contact with my shoulder. We talked non-stop, making plans. His divorce was already in progress and he said mine would be no trouble at all; Guy could sue me for desertion. We talked about where we would live, what kind of life we would have, how many children. Our words tumbled out and
stepped on each other’s heels, we had so much to get said. I never guessed that this would be the last time he would give me such a block out of his day.

Now I hardly see him. Darcy and I are staying in a shabby boarding house, the only place we could find that would take children. We have a downstairs room. I know every crack and cranny of that room by now, the stains on the wallpaper and the old-lady smell and the roses worn to strings on the carpet. I have spent whole afternoons staring at a ripple in the window glass, waiting for Darcy to wake from her nap. I have polished the furniture until it seems likely to melt away—not because I am such a good housekeeper, I never was that, but because there is nothing else to do. We sit for hours on the edge of the bed, neatly dressed, careful to keep our voices down, like guests who have risen too early. I am often irritable, and I cry a lot for no good reason. When Darcy gets whiny or boisterous I snap at her. I never used to do that. The most I ever did was shout, “Hey, quit that!” but here there is such a dead feeling, we are so much on our best behavior, that I scold her in a low hissing voice that no one else will hear and I threaten her between my teeth. Once I gave her a slap, something so unlike me that I wondered right away if I were losing my mind. She had been fiddling with the bureau knobs and one came off in her hand. I said, “Darcy Tell, if you don’t stop that fidgeting I am going to scream. Come over here and sit down.” She said, “I don’t want to sit down, I want to go out. When is John going to come take us out? He
said
he would.” Her voice was high and cracked; it tore at my nerves. I can’t describe it. I hauled off and slapped her, and for a minute she stared at me with her mouth open. Then she started bellowing. I shook her by the shoulders and said, “Stop that. Stop it this instant.” So she stopped, but she was trembling all over and I was too. I live in fear that she will remember that day forever. At night I go over and over it in
my mind. Oh, let Darcy forget all this, please. Let this whole entire stage of her life just fade away and be forgotten, because it
is
just a stage, isn’t it? Things are going to get better, aren’t they?

We stay in the house so much because I am waiting for the telephone. I seem to be back in my teens, a period I thought I would never have to endure again : my life is spent hoping for things that only someone else can bring about. Some days he calls and says, “I can get away tonight. Be ready at seven.” Then I float through the morning singing, I take Darcy out for walks and smile at her a lot although I often fail to hear what she is saying, and far too early in the afternoon I bathe and figure out what dress to wear. I have only three: the one I came away in and two that John bought me after we arrived. We are going to buy more, but for now I am nearly without belongings—a peculiar feeling. Occasionally I find myself going through drawers—“Now, where is that gold barrette I used to wear? Where is my navy cardigan?”—and then I realize that I don’t have them. They are left behind. I am free.

On the nights we go out I put Darcy to bed early and ask Mrs. Jarrett to keep an eye on her. Then John and I go to dinner someplace and talk, although half my mind, of course, is always back with Darcy. That is the worst of this new life. The people I love are scattered, there is no way of gathering them snugly together where I can keep watch over them. When Darcy and I are alone I think about John; with John, I think about Darcy. I worry continually about my friends, my neighbors, my mother-in-law. Do they all hate me now? I wonder if Guy is very angry, and how he has chosen to explain the situation. “Here,” John says. He leans across the table to pass a hand before my eyes. “Are you with me?” “Of course,” I say. I smile at him.

We have no place where we can be alone. His wife left
him before we even knew each other, but he is afraid that if he takes me to his house the neighbors will see and that will foul up the divorce proceedings. Sometimes I say,
“Let
them see. How could a divorce get fouled up any more than it already is?” But I know he’s right. And he can’t afford a house for us, and he knows too many people for a hotel room to be safe. He takes me to dark parking places in his convertible—another thing I thought I would never go through again. Then being out of the reach of a telephone makes me edgy and before too long I always say, “Oh,
please
let’s go back. I don’t know what Darcy will think if she wakes up and finds me gone.” So he starts the car in a bad temper and drives me home, leaves me at the door, and I find Darcy peacefully asleep after all and I regret coming in so soon and I stand at the window a long time looking out at the dark through the ripple in the pane.