Clock Without Hands (3 page)

Malone was comforted, and as he began another drink he began to consider the possibility that Hayden and the other doctors had made a mistaken diagnosis. "The slide showed it was leukemia. And the blood count showed a terrible increase in leucocytes."

"Leucocytes?" asked the Judge. "What are they?"

"White blood cells."

"Never heard of them."

"But they're there."

The Judge massaged the silver handle of his cane. "If it was your heart or liver or even your kidneys I could understand your alarm. But an insignificant disorder like too many leucocytes does seem a little farfetched to me. Why I've lived for more than eighty years without ever considering if I have any of those leucocytes or not." The Judge's fingers curved with a reflexive movement, and as he straightened them again he looked at Malone with wondering blue eyes. "All the same it's a fact that you look peaked these days. Liver is excellent for the blood. You ought to eat crisp fried calf liver and beef liver smothered in onion sauce. It's both delicious and a natural cure. And sunlight is a blood moderator. I bet there's nothing wrong with you that sensible living and a spell of Milan summer won't cure." The Judge lifted his glass. "And this is the best tonic—stimulates the appetite and relaxes the nerves. J.T., you are just tense and intimidated."

"Judge Clane."

Grown Boy had entered the room and stood there waiting. He was the nephew of Verily, the colored woman who worked for the Judge, and he was a tall fat boy of sixteen who did not have his share of sense. He wore a light blue suit that was too tight for him and pointed tight shoes that made him walk in a gingerly crippled way. He had a cold and, although a handkerchief showed in his breast pocket, he wiped his running nose with the back of his hand.

"It's Sunday," he said.

The Judge reached in his pocket and gave him a coin.

As Grown Boy limped eagerly toward the fountain, he called back in a sweet slow voice, "Much obliged, Judge Clane."

The Judge was looking at Malone with quick sad glances but when the pharmacist turned back to him he avoided his eyes and began to massage his cane again.

"Every hour—each living soul comes closer to death—but how often do we think of it? We sit here having our whiskey and smoking our cigars and with each hour we approach our final end. Grown Boy eats his cone without ever wondering about anything. Here I sit, a ruin of an old man, and death has skirmished with me and the skirmish has ended in a stalemate. I am a stricken field on death's old battleground. For seventeen years since the death of my son, I have waited. Oh, Death, where is thy victory now? The victory was won that Christmas afternoon when my son took his own life."

"I have often thought of him," Malone said. "And grieved for you."

"And why—why did he do it? A son of such beauty and such promise—not yet twenty-five and graduated
magna cum laude
at the University. He had already taken his law degree and a great career could have been open to him. And with a beautiful young wife and a baby already on the way. He was well-to-do—even rich—that was the zenith of my fortunes. For a graduation present I gave him Sereno for which I had paid forty thousand dollars the year before—almost a thousand acres of the best peach land. He was the son of a rich man, fortune's darling, blessed in all ways, at the threshold of a great career. That boy could have been President—he could have been anything he wanted. Why should he die?"

Malone said cautiously, "Maybe it was a fit of melancholia."

"The night he was born I saw a remarkable falling star. It was a bright night and the star made an arc in the January sky. Miss Missy had been eight hours in labor and I had been groveling before the foot of her bed, praying and crying. Then Doc Tatum collared me and jerked me to the door saying, 'Get out of here you obstreperous old blunderbuss—get drunk in the pantry or go out in the yard.' And when I went out in the yard and looked at the sky, I saw the arc of that falling star and it was just then that Johnny, my son, was born."

"No doubt it was prophetic," Malone said.

"Later on I bustled into the kitchen—it was four o'clock—and fried Doc a brace of quail and cooked grits. I was always a great hand at frying quail." The Judge paused and then said timidly, "J.T., do you know something uncanny?"

Malone watched the sorrow on the Judge's face and did not answer.

"That Christmas we had quail for dinner instead of the usual turkey. Johnny, my son, had gone hunting the Sunday before. Ah, the patterns of life—both big and small."

To comfort the Judge, Malone said: "Maybe it was an accident. Maybe Johnny was cleaning his gun."

"It wasn't his gun. It was my pistol."

"I was hunting at Sereno that Sunday before Christmas. It was probably a fleeting depression."

"Sometimes I think it was—" The Judge stopped, for if he had said another word he might have cried. Malone patted his arm and the Judge, controlling himself, started again. "Sometimes I think it was to spite me."

"Oh, no! Surely not, sit. It was some depression that no one could have seen or controlled."

"Maybe," said the Judge, "but that very day we had been quarreling."

"What about it? Every family quarrels."

"My son was trying to break an axiom."

"Axiom? What kind of axiom?"

"It was about something inconsequential. It was a case about a black man it was my duty to sentence."

"You are just blaming yourself needlessly," Malone said.

"We were sitting at the table with coffee and cigars and French cognac—the ladies were in the parlor—and Johnny got more and more excited and finally he shouted something to me and rushed upstairs. We heard the shot a few minutes later."

"He was always impetuous."

"None of the young people these days seem to consult their elders. My son up and got married after a dance. He woke up his mother and me and said, 'Mirabelle and I are married.' They had eloped to a justice of the peace, mind you. It was a great grief to his mother—although later it was a blessing in disguise."

"Your grandson is the image of his father," Malone said.

"The living image. Have you ever seen two boys so shining?"

"It must be a great comfort to you."

The Judge mouthed his cigar before he answered: "Comfort—anxiety—he is all that is left."

"Is he going to study for the law and enter politics?"

"No!" the Judge said violently. "I don't want the boy in law or politics."

"Jester is a boy who could make his career in anything," Malone said.

"Death," said the old Judge, "is the great treachery. J.T., you feel the doctors believe you have a fatal disease. I don't think so. With all due respect to the medical profession, the doctors don't know what death is—who can know? Even Doc Tatum. I, an old man, have expected death for fifteen years. But death is too cunning. When you watch for it and finally face it, it never comes. It corners around sideways. It slays the unaware as often as it does the ones who watch for it. Oh, what, J.T.? What happened to my radiant son?"

"Fox," Malone asked, "do you believe in the eternal life?"

"I do as far as I can encompass the thought of eternity. I know that my son will always live within me, and my grandson within him and within me. But what is eternity?"

"At church," Malone said, "Dr. Watson preached a sermon on the salvation that draws a bead on death."

"A pretty phrase—I wish I had said it. But no sense at all." He added finally, "No, I don't believe in eternity as far as religion goes. I believe in the things I know and the descendants who come after me. I believe in my forebears, too. Do you call that eternity?"

Malone asked suddenly, "Have you ever seen a blue-eyed Nigra?"

"A Nigra with blue eyes you mean?"

Malone said, "I don't mean the weak-eyed blue of old colored people. I mean the gray-blue of a young colored boy. There's one like that around this town, and today he startled me."

The Judge's eyes were like blue bubbles and he finished his drink before he spoke. "I know the nigger you're thinking of."

"Who is he?"

"He's just a nigger around the town who's of no interest to me. He gives massages and caters—a jack-of-all-trades. Also, he is a well-trained singer."

Malone said, "I ran into him in an alley behind the store and he gave me such a shock."

The Judge said, with an emphasis that seemed at the moment peculiar to Malone, "Sherman Pew, that's the nigger's name, is of no interest to me. However, I'm thinking of taking him on as a houseboy because of the shortage of help."

"I never saw such strange eyes," Malone said.

"A woods colt," the Judge said; "something wrong between the sheets. He was left a foundling in the Holy Ascension Church."

Malone felt that the Judge had left some tale untold but far be it from him to pry into the manifold affairs of so great a man.

"Jester—speaking of the devil—"

John Jester Clane stood in the room with the sunlight from the street behind him. He was a slight limber boy of seventeen with auburn hair and a complexion so fair that the freckles on his upturned nose were like cinnamon sprinkled over cream. The glare brightened his red hair but his face was shadowed and he shielded his wine-brown eyes against the glare. He wore blue jeans and a striped jersey, the sleeves of which were pushed back to his delicate elbows.

"Down, Tige," Jester said. The dog was a brindle boxer, the only one of its kind in town. And she was such a fierce-looking brute that when Malone saw her on the street alone he was afraid of her.

"I soloed, Grandfather," Jester said in a voice that was lifted with excitement. Then, seeing Malone, he added politely, "Hey, Mr. Malone, how are you today?"

Tears of remembrance, pride and alcohol came to the Judge's weak eyes. "Soloed did you, darling? How did it feel?"

Jester considered a moment. "It didn't feel exactly like I had expected. I expected to feel lonely and somehow proud. But I guess I was just watching the instruments. I guess I just felt—responsible."

"Imagine, J.T.," the Judge said, "a few months ago this little rapscallion just announced to me that he was taking flying lessons at the airport. He'd saved his own money and already made the arrangements for the course. But with not so much as by-my-leave. Just announced, 'Grandfather, I am taking flying lessons.'" The Judge stroked Jester's thigh. "Didn't you, Lambones?"

The boy drew up one long leg against another. "It's nothing to it. Everybody ought to be able to fly."

"What authority prompts the young folks these days to act on such unheard of decisions? It was never so in my day or yours, J.T. Can't you see now why I am so afraid?"

The Judge's voice was grieving, and Jester deftly removed his drink and hid it on a corner shelf. Malone noticed this and was offended on the Judge's behalf.

"It's dinnertime, Grandfather. The car is just down the street."

The Judge rose ponderously with his cane and the dog started to the door. "Whenever you're ready, Lambones." At the door he turned to Malone. "Don't let the doctors intimidate you, J.T. Death is the great gamer with a sleeve of tricks. You and I will maybe die together while following the funeral of a twelve-year-old girl." He pressed his cheek to Malone and crossed the threshold to the street.

Malone went to the front of the place to lock the main door and there he overheard a conversation. "Grandfather, I hate to say this but I do wish you wouldn't call me Lambones or darling in front of strangers."

At that moment Malone hated Jester. He was hurt at the term "stranger," and the glow that had wanned his spirit in the presence of the Judge was darkened instantly. In the old days, hospitality had lain in the genius of making everyone, even the commonest constituents at a barbecue, feel that they belonged. But nowadays the genius of hospitality had disappeared and there was only isolation. It was Jester who was a "stranger"—he had never been like a Milan boy. He was arrogant and at the same time overpolite. There was something hidden about the boy and his softness, his brightness seemed somehow dangerous—it was as though he resembled a silk-sheathed knife.

The Judge did not seem to hear his words. "Poor J.T.," he said as the door of the car was opened, "it's such a shocking thing."

Malone quickly locked the front door and returned to the compounding room.

He was alone. He sat in the rocking chair with the compounding pestle in his hands. The pestle was gray and smooth with use. He had bought it with the other fixtures of the pharmacy when he had opened his business twenty years ago. It had belonged to Mr. Greenlove—when had he last remembered him?—and at his death the estate sold the property. How long had Mr. Greenlove worked with this pestle? And who had used it before him?... The pestle was old, old and indestructible. Malone wondered if it wasn't a relic from Indian times. Ancient as it was, how long would it still last? The stone mocked Malone.

He shivered. It was as though a draft had chilled him, although he noticed that the cigar smoke was undisturbed. As he thought of the old Judge a mood of elegy softened his fear. He remembered Johnny Clane and the old days at Sereno. He was no stranger—many a time he had been a guest at Sereno during the hunting season—and once he had even spent the night there. He had slept in a big four-poster bed with Johnny and at five in the morning they had gone down to the kitchen, and he still remembered the smell of fish roe and hot biscuits and the wet-dog smell as they breakfasted before the hunt. Yes, many a time he had hunted with Johnny Clane and had been invited to Sereno, and he was there the Sunday before the Christmas Johnny died. And Miss Missy would sometimes go there, although it was mainly a hunting place for boys and men. And the Judge, when he shot badly, which was nearly all the time, would complain that there was so much sky and so few birds. Always there was a mystery about Sereno even in those days—but was it the mystery of luxury that a boy born poor will always feel? As Malone remembered the old days and thought of the Judge now—in his wisdom and fame and inconsolable grief—his heart sang with love as grave and somber as the organ music in the church.