Daybreak (24 page)

W
e are all nerves, a collection of jitters, Margaret thought as, passing the hall mirror, she caught sight of her twitching lip.

The rest of them were sitting in the living room waiting, stiff as a congregation at a wedding or a funeral. Arthur, trying to read the morning paper, hadn’t gotten through the first page. Holly was doing a crossword puzzle at the game table.

“Do sit down and calm yourself,” Arthur said, looking up.

“I’m quite calm. You’d be surprised how calm I am,” Margaret replied.

“I would be surprised. You haven’t stopped for breath. Leave those flowers where they are, they’ll do perfectly well,” he said, for Margaret had shears in her hand to cut fresh marigolds from the garden.

She laid the shears down. “It’s only that I want things to look right. The boy—Tom—” She stopped as the control that had kept her going ever since this meeting had been arranged began to wane.

And uncertain what to do with herself, she surveyed the room, from the circular sofas to the splashing primal
colors of the abstract paintings, to the subdued mosaic of book bindings on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Everything that could be dusted, polished, or vacuumed had been cared for.

Her thoughts went somersaulting. “Ralph says their house is lovely, very old and full of antiques. He says the Paiges, her side, have been here since before the Revolution. It must be good to be rooted like that in a place where your people before you have always lived.”

Arthur said quietly, “ ‘Before the Revolution’ is a little over two hundred years ago. My grandparents lived in Germany in the same town since the expulsion from Spain in 1492.”

“I wouldn’t need to go back that far. I meant a place like those Confederate-style houses with high ceilings and double staircases.”

“The Confederate past is not yours. Be happy with this brand-new house.”

“Arthur, I am happy with it. I only meant—”

She closed her lips. They all were on the thin edge, ready to be pushed over. Now her gaze shifted to the dining room table, which was visible across the hall.

Arthur, following her gaze, assured her, “There’s enough food for twenty, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I know, but the drive is over a hundred miles, and they must have left early. They’ll be hungry.”

But maybe they wouldn’t. After all, she knew nothing about them, about Tom or—or his mother. And again her mind went somersaulting. If I can get through this, I guess I can get through anything, she thought, bringing her mind back to rest. Think of the lunch: chicken salad, fruit, her mother’s almond cookies …

“She sounded very nice on the telephone,” she said, although she had already told the whole family ten times over about that call. “I would gladly have gone there, but I could see she preferred it this way. Her husband is very upset, she said.”

“Upset!” Arthur grumbled. “Ralph finally got himself to admit the truth. Rice is in a fury because we’re Jews.”

“I know. So he’s not coming. It’ll be just she and the boy.”

Margaret looked at her husband. Pain struggled on his face; she supposed it must be struggling on her own, too.

Holly, hearing the name, looked up from the puzzle. “And he’s supposed to be my brother,” she said. “A redneck bigot. My brother.” She was hot with outrage. “Can you believe it?”

“Holly, don’t,” Margaret warned.

“I can’t help it. I’m sorry. But the things I’ve heard about that group at state U are so horrendously awful, that—”

“That’ll do,” Arthur commanded. “It’s cruel to upset us any more than we already are. And don’t say ‘supposed to be.’ He is your brother, and as such we must accept him and love him.” His voice broke.

“All right, Dad. But all I can say is, this whole thing’s insane. It makes me feel disloyal to Peter. My brother was Peter, not this Tom person.”

“Holly, don’t,” Margaret said again.

Silence followed. The mantel clock, an antique with a man-in-the-moon on its face, gave a rattle and banged out the hour. Noon. They would be here any minute. And Margaret’s eyes roved, moving from Holly’s flute to Arthur’s history books, to the photograph
of Peter, and last to the photograph of Tom that Laura Rice had so thoughtfully sent last week. It was still in its cardboard folder, not yet framed. Whenever she looked at it, her legs went weak and she had to sit down.

I must remember, she thought, that Laura Rice feels everything that I am feeling, all my loss and sorrow, all my fear and anger. Yet more: She has had two sick children, and one of them, the one she never knew, is dead. Now she will never know him, while I at least have a chance to know mine, I hope. She will ask about Peter, and I suppose I shall have to tell her all of it, the rectal prolapse when he was two, the pneumonia, all the crises, and the death. How am I going to do it?

Holly, who had gotten up to stand at the window with the curtain pushed aside, reported, “There’s a car coming slowly down the street as if they’re looking for the number.”

“Do get away from the window,” Margaret admonished. “It’s rude to peer out like that.”

When the curtain fell, Holly peeked through the parting. “Yes, there they are. She’s driving. It’s a Mercedes. The husband didn’t come. They’re getting out of the car. They’re coming up the steps. She’s pretty, tall and blond. He—”

The doorbell rang.

   They had left home shortly after nine o’clock, crawled through morning traffic, reached the highway, and were now headed eastward into the glare. Without explanation, Laura had taken the wheel; ordinarily, she gave Tom the macho pleasure of steering this fine car, but today she was too tense to be a passenger. She
needed to concentrate on something, something other than their destination.

The red sun presaged a long heat wave. She had never thought in just this way of how one’s view of the natural world depends upon mood. On a day of happiness, this red sun would be like a circus balloon hanging in the sky, but today it was a burning coal, ominous and sullen.

Her heart went out to Tom, who had been silent all the way, staring at the depressing interstate and the approaching city as strip malls, ten-screen movie theaters, and factory outlets with their fashionable shoddy wares flashed by.

Soon came the outskirts of the city, heralded by new, multistoried office buildings, oblong glass boxes stood on end. They passed through the city, made a wrong turn and retraced the way, coming at last to a suburban quarter, it, too, so new that the trees were still saplings.

“We’re almost there,” Laura said. Her mouth was parched and her hands were clammy cold.

“We’re going to regret this, Mom. It’s a big mistake.”

“If it is, there’s nothing else we can do because we have no choice. You do understand that, Tom.”

“Dad made his choice.”

“Ah Tom,” she answered sadly, “poor Dad is only fooling himself. You can’t escape reality.” She slowed the car. “Here it is, number seventeen. Here’s our reality.”

   It was all blurred, a fog through which he walked half blinded and half deafened; yet penetrating sights and sounds emerged, only to fade again into the blur. Tom had read Dreiser’s
American Tragedy
and had been
stunned by the death house scenes in which a man doomed to the electric chair is yet aware of incidentals.

There was a room, large and bright, filled with a vague feel of trees and space beyond. All the walls held books. People stood in a semicircle, facing him. In the first moment he had a sense of crowding, of many people all staring at him, but when his eyes came quickly into focus, he was able to distinguish among them and saw that they were actually only three, a man and two women; and one of these was a young, pretty girl with big, astonished eyes and white frills around her neck, who looked dressed up, as if she were going to a party. Maybe she thinks this is a party, he thought angrily. I don’t. The other woman ran to hug his mother; they rushed together, crying, as if they were old friends who had met again after many years. His mother had left him to face the others, alone and awkward with his arms dangling like some poor ape’s in the zoo. It was humiliating.

And then the women, with little cries and exclamations, broke apart, fumbling for handkerchiefs. His mother turned toward him as if beseeching.

“This is Tom,” she said.

The other woman was young, too. Her hair was thick and dark, her skin white as paper. She looked as if she were going to faint. Presumably she was his mother …

Bullshit!
Dad said,
She’s nothing of the sort
. But of course she was. He recognized himself in her. He felt sick. God, he hoped she wouldn’t kiss him and cry over him. His heart thumped and there was a thumping in his ears. Nobody would believe this, he thought, it’s so crazy. And wildly he looked behind him toward the front door, which had to be somewhere down that hall,
but they had also made a turn into a little corridor—where? Where?

“Tom,” the woman said. Her voice was low and trembling. “Tom, don’t be afraid.”

She did not touch him, did not even take a step toward him, but retreated slightly as though she expected or feared his approach to her. She merely looked and looked, with such a strange expression that he winced and turned his head to scan the room again.

Everywhere were eyes, unnaturally enlarged, glistening and wet in every face. To each face a name was now attached. Arthur: a slight man with graying light hair.
My father
, Tom thought.
Never. Compare him with Bud. God, no
. Holly, the frilly girl.
I don’t like the way you look at me
, he told her silently.
Okay, I don’t like you, either
.

“I took a tranquilizer,” Margaret said. “I remember when Arthur’s father died, the rabbi told his mother not to take anything, that tears are healthier, and I agree, but not today. At a funeral, you are expected to cry, but today I thought it would be better if I were somewhat frozen, you know. And I’m not frozen, not at all, even with the pill.”

Her tears spilled over, and Tom saw Laura take her hand. And he knew that Mom liked this woman. Queer. Everything was so queer.

For the first time Arthur spoke. “Margaret, Mrs. Rice is thinking of—”

“ ‘Laura,’ ” said Laura.

“Margaret, remember that Laura is here for—that Peter also—”

Margaret’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, how dreadful of me! I’m not thinking. Of course … What can I do for you? Tell me. Would you—would you maybe want to see his room?”

“Please,” murmured Laura.

When the two women went upstairs, a painful jealousy flared up in Tom. A sensation of aloneness overwhelmed him. It seemed to him, as he took a seat apart in a room which now suddenly appeared enormous, that he belonged nowhere. Who was he? Tom who?

The man’s voice came from the end of a hollow tube miles away. “We have so much wanted to see you, Tom.”

He looked up. This was supposed to be his father, this thin-set man all tremulous with emotion. If only he might answer with candor, “Well, I surely haven’t wanted to see any of you.” But Mom would never forgive him, so he merely nodded in reply. “We know how shocked you are. You needn’t make conversation if you don’t want to.”

Conversation! He had absolutely nothing to say except:
Vanish. Cease to exist. Let me get out of here and never think of you again
. But he merely nodded once more.

There was silence. For no apparent reason, the girl changed chairs, jingling gold bracelets as she moved. Robbie said Jews liked jewelry, that the Jewish girls at college wore the best jewelry, and too much of it.

The silence continued. Clearly, Tom thought with satisfaction, these people are as uncomfortable as I am. Well, maybe not quite as much as I am.

“Holly, perhaps Tom would like a drink,” the man suggested to the girl.

The girl stood up and addressed Tom. “Would you like lemonade or a Coke?”

“Nothing.” And then remembering, “Nothing, thank you.”

“Perhaps Tom would like to go outside.”

They talked about him as though he weren’t there.
Possibly Arthur became aware of that, for he next asked Tom directly whether he had a dog.

“My brother has.” Get that? My
brother
.

“Holly has a collie, a white collie. Take Tom outside to see Star, Holly.”

Willingly, he got up and followed the girl. It would be easier to breathe outdoors, away from stares and questions. The girl was graceful, and her figure was as good as Robbie’s. But they were enemies, he and this girl.

At the far end of the lawn a weeping willow drooped over a tiny pool where goldfish drifted. There in the shade the white collie lay asleep.

“He had his run this morning. He’s tired,” Holly said. The dog stood and raised his head for her to caress. “Good boy. Sweet boy.”

Tom would have liked to stroke the dog. He couldn’t imagine a family without a dog. But he thought of Earl at home and could not touch this one. Home. His throat ached with the word.

Holly, kneeling, looked up at him. “You don’t like us.” Her black eyes snapped.

“That’s right, I don’t.”

“I know things about you.”

What could she know? Big shot with the frill and the bracelets.

“I don’t care the least what you know, or anything else about you.”

The sliding glass door opened, and Arthur called, “I’m putting a pitcher of lemonade on the porch table if you want any. Then I’m going upstairs.” He slid the door shut.

“Listen,” Holly said. She spoke fiercely. “I don’t want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to
me, but I’m not going to hurt my parents’ feelings. They’ve had enough hurts. I’ll get a couple of magazines, we’ll sit there pretending, and we won’t have to say a word. Okay?”

“Okay with me,” Tom said.

   This was Peter’s room. In one eager sweep, Laura encompassed it: posters, books, stereo, and linen curtains, beige with a fine red thread running through. Prominently displayed on a chest of drawers was a photograph of Peter; in very proper dress and with a serious expression, he stood before what appeared to be a series of long tubular objects, each one topped with an elaborate metal ornament. Here Laura paused.