Herzog (53 page)

    "Yes," said W. "You might." He spoke gently to his brother.

    "Odd situation I've gotten into, Will-isn't it?" said Moses. "For me. For us-the Herzogs, I mean. It seems a strange point to arrive at after all the other points. In this lovely green hole.. You're worried about me, I see."

    Will, troubled but controlled, one of the most deeply familiar and longest-loved of human faces, looked at him in a way that could not be mistaken.

    "Of course I'm worried. Helen too."

    "Well, you mustn't be distressed about me. I'm in a peculiar state, but not in a bad one. I'd open my heart to you, Will, if I could find the knob.

    There's no reason to be upset about me.

    By God, Will, I'm about to cry! How did that happen? I won't do it. It's only love. Or something that bears down like love. It probably is love. I'm in no shape to buck it. I don't want you to think anything wrong."

    "Mose-why should I?" Will spoke in a low voice.

    "I have something deep-in for you, too. I feel about the way you do. Just because I'm a contractor doesn't mean I can't understand what you mean. I didn't come to do you harm, you know. That's right, Mose, take a chair. You look out on your feet."

    Moses sat on the old sofa, which gave off dust as soon as you touched it.

    "I'd like to see you less agitated. You must get some food and sleep. Probably a little medical care. A few days in the hospital, taking it easy."

    "Will, I'm excited, not sick. I don't want to be treated as though I were sick in the head. I'm grateful that you came." Silently and stubbornly he sat, persisting, putting down his violent, choking craving for tears. His voice was dim.

    "Take your time," said W.

    "I..." Herzog found his voice again and said distinctly, "I want to be straight about one thing. I'm not turning myself over to you out of weakness, or because I can't make my own way. I don't mind taking it easy in some hospital for a few days.

    If you and' Helen decided that that was what I should do, I see no objection. Clean sheets and a bath and some hot food. Sleep. That's all pleasant.

    But only a few days. I have to visit Marco at camp on the sixteenth. That's Parents' Day and he's expecting me."

    "Fair enough," said W. "That's no more than right."

    "Only a while back, in New York, I had fantasies about being put in the hospital."

    "You were only being sensible," said his brother. "What you need is supervised rest. I've thought about it, too, for myself. Once in a while, we all get that way. Now"-he looked at his watch-"I asked my physician to phone a local hospital. In Pittsfield."

    As soon as Will had spoken, Moses sat forward on the sofa. He could not find words. He only made a negative sign with his head. At this, Will's face changed, too. He seemed to think he had pronounced the word hospital too abruptly, that he ought to have been more gradual, circumspect.

    "No," said Moses, still shaking his head. "No.

    Definitely."

    Now Will was silent, still with the pained air of a man who had made a tactical error. Moses could easily imagine what Will had said to Helen, after he had bailed him out, and what a worried consultation they had had about him. ("What shall we do? Poor Mose-maybe it's all driven him mad. Let's at least get a professional opinion about him.")

    Helen was great on professional opinions. The veneration with which she said "professional opinion" had always amused Moses. And so they had approached Will's internist to ask if he would, discreetly, arrange something in the Berkshire area. "But I thought we already agreed," said W.

    "No, W. No hospitals. I know you and Helen are doing what brother and sister should. And I'm tempted to go along. To a man like me, it's a seductive idea. "Supervised rest."

    "And why not? If I'd found some improvement in you I might not have brought it up," said W. "But look at you."

    "I know," said Moses. "But just as I begin to be a little rational you want to hand me over to a psychiatrist. It was a psychiatrist you and Helen had in mind, wasn't it?"

    Will was silent, taking counsel with himself. Then he sighed and said, "What harm could there be in it?"

    "Was it any more fantastic for me to have these wives, children, to move to a place like this than for Papa to have been a bootlegger? We never thought he was mad."

    Moses began to smile. "... Do you remember, Will-he had those phony labels printed up: White Horse, Johnnie Walker, Haig and Haig, and we'd sit at the table with the paste-pot, and he'd flash those labels and say, "Well, children, what should we make today?"', and we'd start to cry out and squeak "White Horse,"

    "Teacher's." And the coal stove was hot. It dropped embers like red teeth in the ash. He had those dark green lovely bottles. They don't make glass like that, in those shapes, any more. My favorite was White Horse."

    Will laughed softly.

    "Going to the hospital would be fine," said Herzog.

    "But it would be just the wrong thing to do. It's about time I stopped laboring with this curse-I think, I figure things out. I see exactly what I should avoid. Then, all of a sudden, I'm in bed with that very thing, and making love to it. As with Madeleine. She seems to have filled a special need."

    "How do you figure that, Moses?" Will joined him on the sofa, and sat beside him.

    "A very special need. I don't know what. She brought ideology into my life. Something to do with catastrophe. After all, it's an ideological age. Maybe she wouldn't make a father of anyone she liked."

    Will smiled at Moses' way of putting it. "But what do you intend to do here now?"

    "I may as well stay on. I'm not far from Marco's camp. Yes, that's it. If Daisy'll let me, I'll bring him here next month. What I'll do is this, if you'll drive me and my bike into Ludeyville, I'll have the lights and the phone turned on. Tuttle'll come up and mow the place.

    Maybe Mrs. Tuttle will clean up for me.

    That's what I'll do." He stood up. "I'll get the water running again, and buy some solid food. Come, Will, give me a lift down to Turtle's."

    "Who is this Tuttle?"

    "He runs everything. He's the master spirit of Ludeyville. A tall fellow. He's shy, to look at, but that's only more of his shrewdness.

    He's the demon of these woods. He can have the lights burning here within an hour. He knows all.

    He overcharges, but very, very shyly."

    Tuttle was standing beside his high, lean, antiquated gas pumps when Will drove up. Thin, wrinkled, the hairs on his corded forearms bleached meal-white, he wore a cotton paint cap and between his false teeth (to help him kick the smoking habit, as he had once explained to Herzog) he kept a plastic toothpick. "I knew you was up in the place, Mr. Herzog," he said. "Welcome back."

    "How did you know?"

    "I saw the smoke onto your chimney, that's the first of all."

    "Yes? And what's the second?"

    "Why, a lady's been tryin' to get you on the telephone."

    "Who?" said W.

    "A party in Barrington. She left the number."

    "Only her number?" said Herzog. "No name?"

    "Miss Harmona, or Armona."

    "Ramona," said Herzog. "Is she in Barrington?"

    "Were you expecting someone?" Will turned to him in the seat.

    "No one but you."

    Will insisted on knowing more. "Who is she?"

    Somewhat unwillingly, and with an evasive look, Moses answered, "A lady-a woman." Then, putting off his reticence-why, after all, should he be nervous about it?-he added, "A woman, a florist, a friend from New York."

    "Are you going to return her call?"

    "Yes, of course." He observed the white listening face of Mrs. Tuttle in the dark store. "I wonder," he said to Tuttle. "... I want to open the house. I have to get the current on.

    Maybe Mrs. Tuttle will help me clean the place a bit."

    "Oh, I think she might."

    Mrs. Tuttle wore tennis shoes and, under her dress, the edge of her nightgown showed. Her polished fingernails were tobacco-stained. She had gained much weight in Herzog's absence, and he noted the distortion of her pretty face, the heaviness of her neglected dark hair and the odd distant look in her gray eyes, as if the fat of her body had an opiate effect on her. He knew that she had monitored his conversations with Madeleine on the party line. Probably she had heard all the shameful, terrible things that had been said, listened to the rant and the sobbing. Now he was about to invite her to come to work, to sweep the floors, make his bed. She reached for a filter cigarette, lit it like a man, stared through smoke with tranced gray eyes and said, "Why, I think so, yes. It's my day off from the mortel. I been working as a chambermaid over in the new mortel on the highway."

    "Moses!" said Ramona, on the telephone. "You got my message. How lovely you're in your place. Everybody in Barrington says if you want things done in Ludeyville, call Tuttle."

    "Hello, Ramona. Didn't my wire from Chicago reach you?"

    "Yes, Moses. It was very considerate. But I didn't think you'd stay away long, and I had a feeling about your house in the country. Anyway, I had to visit old friends in Barrington, so I drove up."

    "Really?" said Herzog. "What day of the week is this?"

    Ramona laughed. "How typical. No wonder women lose their heads over you. It's Saturday.

    I'm staying with Myra and Eduardo Misseli."

    "Oh, the fiddler. I only know him to nod to at the supermarket."

    "He's a charming man. Did you know he's studying the art of violin-making? I've been in his shop all morning. And I thought I must have a look at the Herzog estate."

    "My brother is with me-W."

    "Oh, splendid," said Ramona, in her lifted voice. "Is he staying with you?"

    "No, he's passing through."

    "I'd love to meet him. The Misselis are giving a little party for me. After dinner."

    Will stood beside the booth, listening. Earnest, worried, his dark eyes discreetly appealed to Moses to make no more mistakes. I can't promise that, thought Moses. I can only tell him that I don't contemplate putting myself in the hands of Ramona or any woman, at this time. Will's gaze held a family look, a brown light as clear as any word.

    "No, thank you," said Herzog. "No parties.

    I'm not up to them. But look, Ramona..."

    "Should I run up?" said Ramona. "It's silly, being on the phone like this. You're only eight minutes away."

    "Well, perhaps," said Herzog. "It occurs to me I have to come down to Barrington anyway, to shop, and to have my phone reconnected."

    "Oh, you're planning to stay awhile in Ludeyville?"

    "Yes. Marco'll be joining me. Just a moment, Ramona." Herzog put a hand over the instrument and said to Will, "Can you take me into Barrington?" Will of course said yes.

    Ramona was waiting, smiling, a few minutes later. She stood beside her black Mercedes in shorts and sandals. She wore a Mexican blouse with coin buttons.

    Her hair glittered, and she looked flushed. The anxiety of the moment threatened her self-control.

    "Ramona," said Moses, "this is W."

    "Oh, Mr. Herzog, what a pleasure to meet Moses' brother."

    Will, though wary of her, was courteous nevertheless. He had a quiet, tidy social manner. Herzog was grateful to him for the charming reserve of his courtesy to Ramona. Will's glance was sympathetic. He smiled, but not too much.

    Obviously he found Ramona impressively attractive. "He must have been expecting a dog," thought Herzog.

    "Why, Moses," said Ramona, "you've cut yourself shaving. And badly. Your whole jaw is scraped."

    "Ah?" He touched himself with vague concern.

    "You look so much like your brother, Mr. Herzog.

    The same fine head, and those soft hazel eyes.

    You're not staying?"

    "I'm on my way to Boston."

    "And I simply had to get out of New York.

    Aren't the Berkshires marvelous? Such green!"

    Love-bandit, the tabloids used to print over such dark heads. In the twenties. Indeed, Ramona did look like those figures of sex and swagger. But there was something intensely touching about her, too. She struggled, she fought. She needed extraordinary courage to hold this poise. In this world, to be a woman who took matters into her own hands! And this courage of hers was unsteady. At times it trembled. She pretended to look for something in her purse because her cheek quivered. The perfume of her shoulders reached his nostrils. And, as almost always, he heard the deep, the cosmic, the idiotic masculine response- quack.

    The progenitive, the lustful quacking in the depths.

    Quack. Quack.

    "You won't come to the party then?" said Ramona. "And when am I going to see your house?"

    "Why, I'm having it cleaned up a little," said Herzog.

    "Then can't we... Why don't we have dinner together?" she said. "You, too, Mr. Herzog.

    Moses can tell you that my shrimp remoulade is rather good."

    "It's better than that. I never ate better. But Will has to go on, and you're on a holiday, Ramona, we can't have you cooking for three. Why don't you come Out and have dinner with me?"

    "Ohea8sd Ramona with a new rise of gaiety.

    "You want to entertain me?"

    "Well, why not? I'll get a couple of swordfish steaks."

    Will looked at him with his uncertain smile.

    "Wonderful. I'll bring a bottle of wine," said Ramona.

    "You'll do nothing of the sort. Come up at six.

    We'll eat at seven and you can still get back to your party in plenty of time."

    Musically (was it a deliberate effect?

    Moses could not decide), Ramona said to Will, "Then good-by, Mr. Herzog. I hope we shall meet again." Turning to get into her Mercedes, she put her hand momentarily on Moses' shoulder. "I expect a good dinner...."