No Promises in the Wind (12 page)

“But he's an old man,” I said bitterly. “He's too old for you.”

“Pete's forty-five, Josh. That's fifteen years older than I am. And I'm that much older than you are. Fifteen years doesn't matter awfully when you care for one another, does it?”

I didn't even answer for a long time. Finally I muttered, “All right. Just forget you ever knew me. We'll be strangers from now on.”

She didn't move as I got up to walk away, but she spoke, and although her voice was very low, I heard every word. She said, “There are so many things that make life hurtful these days, Josh. If we're to be strangers, that is just one more painful thing. But if that's it, I'll have to accept it. I hope you'll change your mind.”

I left without answering her, and I lay awake for most of the night, miserable at having hurt her, but the memory of her defense of Pete Harris was a bitterness as great as my misery.

The next morning as we walked to breakfast, I noticed that Edward C. was looking at me with unusual kindness. Edward C. was a wise little man; I was sure he knew much more about me than I had ever told him. When I mentioned that I was going to take a place at another table because I wanted to speak to the former bank teller about something, Edward C. nodded and made no comment. As a matter of fact, I hardly knew the former bank teller, and after we had exchanged nods, we ate our breakfast in complete silence. I didn't look across the room to the place where Joey and Edward C. welcomed Emily.

Joey waited for me after the two others had walked on toward the dressing-room tents. “You hurt Emily's feelings this morning, Josh,” he told me. “And Edward C.'s too. I don't know how you can do a thing like that.”

“You mind your business, Joey; I'll take care of mine,” I answered. I didn't want to say that, but the words were out, and there was no recalling them. Joey didn't reply, but he looked me directly in the eye, and the expression on his face was not that of the adoring little brother. There was a cold, critical look in his eyes; I had a feeling that if I had wanted to fight, Joey would have fought right back.

 

 

The
weather that day was chillier than it had been since we reached Louisiana. The radio told about blizzards and sub-zero temperatures back home and all through the northern part of the nation. Fringes of that cold had apparently moved down to us, and the people, unaccustomed to chill winds, were miserable. Dozens of children were scuttling along the railroad tracks to pick up bits of coal and wood for fires in the boxcar homes. In the carnival tents, lights were left burning to provide a little warmth.

The carnival crowd had dwindled to almost nothing during the day. The dancers didn't even bother to put on their act in the evening after a whole day of facing empty chairs in front of their pavilion.

Freed of my duties for the night, I wandered beyond the meadow where the carnival lay, walking on and on with the hope that I'd get so tired I could go right to sleep when I returned to our tent. But long after weariness had worked down to bone depth, I sat leaning against a tall pine by the side of the road, facing my loneliness. I should have been used to the feeling; it had been with me for many weeks but never quite so heavy as it was that night. I sat there remembering Mom and Kitty, remembering Howie and Miss Crowne. I wanted to see Lonnie again; I wanted so much to talk to him, and amazingly enough for a brief flash I wanted the dad I had once known. Most of all, I wanted someone near me who was tender and sweet, someone who was Emily, but a fifteen-year-old Emily who would wear the earrings I would give her and would sit close beside me while I played music that would tell her of my love.

The wind made a little sighing sound in the branches above me. I hated the wind. A bright morning, a moonlit night, a sunset sky—these might fill me with hope for happier times. Not the wind. It either lashed or cried or whispered little mysteries known only to itself. The wind never gave me hope; it never made any promises. I buried my head in my arms for a while.

It was late when I started back toward the carnival grounds. There was a glow in the sky above the grounds, the glow of the carnival lights I thought at first, but then I realized that the light did not flash and sparkle in a pattern of colors. It was like a purplish red cloud hovering over the grounds. It looked ominous.

I felt troubled and began to run; then I heard the noises of sirens and trucks. I smelled the bitter smell of burning canvas and leather, celluloid and oil.

The carnival was in wild confusion when I got there. Fire trucks, police cars, and an ambulance were on the grounds, and everywhere there were people with drawn, white faces, their eyes reddened by smoke and tears. Half the tents were charred or in ashes. The merry-go-round stood silent in the midst of ruin, some of its gaily painted horses blackened with smoke. The cars that made up the giant caterpillar which so many children had loved were collapsed and smoldering. My piano was a distorted shell, and the dancers' pavilion was gone.

I found Joey with Emily and her boys and Edward C. They stood together outside Emily's boxcar, silent and almost unmoving, or so it seemed to me. The children showed signs of crying; the faces of Emily and Edward C. were full of despair.

They told me what had happened. An oil heater had been left burning in one of the tents. Something caught fire, no one knew how; but the wind had blown fragments of burning canvas from one tent to another, from one set of flimsy toys to a dressing tent where frills and ruffles flamed as readily as a box of matches. Joey had saved the banjo and our few belongings when he saw the fire spreading, but the tent where we had slept was a mass of red coals on the ground.

“Pete was planning to move the carnival farther south in a few weeks,” Emily said. “Now, there's little left to move. I don't know whether he can build another show or not—I can't bear to ask him.”

Florinda walked up to the steps where we were standing. Her face was swollen with crying, and she stepped stiffly, like a person walking in his sleep. Her voice was shrill when she spoke to us.

“What's going to become of us? Answer me, Emily. Answer me, Edward C. What's going to happen to us? What are we going to do now?”

“We'll do whatever we can, Florinda,” Emily answered. “Maybe we'll scrub floors; there are still people left who can afford to pay for having their floors scrubbed. Maybe we'll scrub clothes over a washboard. We'll do whatever we have to do.”

“But I'm a dancer,” Florinda almost screamed. No one said anything, and that apparently frightened and enraged her. “All right, I know what you're thinking—you're thinking that I've passed my best years. You're thinking that my legs are lumpy and that nobody'll hire me—that I'm too old to get another job. Well, maybe that's true. This punk”—she turned on me—“this kid calling me ‘Ma'am'—trying to make me feel a hundred—all right, punk, so I'm getting old and so I don't have Pete Harris to look after me the way your clown does—” She stopped in the middle of her tirade and commenced to cry. “I've never done a thing in my life except dance in the carnivals. And now my legs are lumpy, and I'm getting too old for the job. What am I going to do?”

Emily closed her eyes for a second and pressed her hands against her temples. Then she knelt on the step and drew Florinda down beside her. The rest of us walked a little distance away.

Florinda left after a half hour or so, and Emily went inside the car where she made cocoa for the children and coffee for the rest of us. Her face was different. It was ashy white and set in stern, hard lines. She didn't smile as she handed our cups to us.

The terror of the fire, the hysteria of Florinda, the fear and anxiety that had struck all of us, had made a stranger of Emily. She sat drinking her coffee and staring at the ruin before us. Edward C. put his small hand on hers once to remind her, I guess, of his presence and affection. She nodded in acknowledgment of his gesture, but that was all.

Then as we all sat together, grim and unhappy, Pete Harris came striding down the tracks and ran up the steps of the car. The room was dimly lighted, and I didn't recognize him at first, but Emily did. She ran to him and hid her face against his shoulder; he put his arms around her and held her close to him. I heard her say, “It's going to be all right, hon. We'll make it back. I promise you, we'll make it back. As long as I have you and the boys, I'm not scared about a comeback....”

I watched them, and they were like two people far removed from me. Pete Harris was kind, he was gentle with Emily, and that was right. And Emily—I knew, finally, that she could never have been the fifteen-year-old Emily I had dreamed about. Never. She was a woman nearer my mother's age than mine. But she had been kind. When I'd needed understanding most, Emily had been understanding. That was the way I would remember her—except once in a while, perhaps, when I'd see a beautiful woman wearing earrings of a certain red-gold color. And then, I knew, I'd remember a time when love was new and bewildering—and bitterly sweet.

Pete
Harris said, “At least it's warm down here. I remember those Nebraska winters—they're killers. If it comes to begging again, better to be where you're warm even if you're hungry.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know you're right. Still ...”

“You want to get back to that truck driver, don't you? He's kind of a daddy to you and Joey—ain't that so?”

I knew it was so, but I didn't like to admit it. I just bit my lip and said nothing.

“I'd like to help you, Josh, you know that. And after a few months I may be able to get a show of sorts on the road again. I'm not sure. Money's tight, but I think I'll be able to get something together. Right now, though, I'm about down to rock bottom, and I have to look out for Emily and the boys, you know. I wish I could help you till we're over the hump, because when I do get things movin' again, I'd like to have you in a better spot. But for the next six months or so—well, I just don't have the means to carry you over that long.”

“I know you don't,” I answered. “And I want you to know that I appreciate all you've done for me so far. As for Joey and me—you don't need to worry; we can get along. I've saved most of my money, and so has he. I've got eighteen dollars in my wallet.”

“Yes? Well, that will take you pretty far if you're careful. You can hitchhike a lot, and you know how to live cheap. Maybe it's best you get back to that man in Nebraska. He liked you boys—I could see that. Whether he's able to help you or not is another matter. But to be near someone you like and trust, that's something to think about.” He took out his wallet and removed two dollars. “I'll make that eighteen an even twenty, Josh. It's the best I can do. No, don't thank me; you've earned it. You made a lot of people stand around and listen to that piano. It was good for business—good as anything is these days. Well”—he held out his hand—“God bless you, kid; take care of the little sport.”

We shook hands. I drew a long breath. I could accept Pete Harris now. I could accept many things—the different picture of Emily, the disheveled little dream that had taken such a beating. Fine, I could accept everything. But I had to get away from them—so far away that I would never again hear Pete Harris call Emily “hon.” I had to leave these soft skies that had given us so much comfort, had to get away from these people, kind as they had been to Joey and me. I knew it was a foolish thing to do. I wouldn't have dared to explain it, but I had to leave.

I went over to tell Emily good-bye that afternoon. She still looked white, and her voice didn't sound quite natural. The worry that gripped all of us had hit Emily hard, but there was no whining from her, no hysterics of the Florinda variety. She had a bag of molasses cookies packed for Joey and me, and one of pecans which her little boys wanted us to have. She searched around in her stored bedding until she found a wool blanket which she insisted that I take.

When I was ready to go, she held out her hand to me and as she had done that first night, gave the handshake added warmth by placing her left hand over mine.

“I'll always remember you, Josh, and I'll always be wishing the best for you. Will you write to me?”

“Yes,” I answered, wondering what I would ever be able to say to her.

She handed me a piece of paper. “Send any letter to Pete at this Baton Rouge address. He'll see that I get it.”

“Yes,” I said again. I sounded like a stupid parrot, and I hated it. She didn't say anything more. We just stood there looking at one another. Then I said, “I'll always think well of you, Emily.”

She smiled just a little at that. “Thank you, Josh,” she answered. Then I turned away. I didn't intend to look back, but I did. And when I waved, she lifted her hand in response. Then she turned and went inside her boxcar room.

I found Joey, and we hunted a long time for Edward C., but we couldn't find a sign of him. Finally we saw Blegan running toward us. He handed me an envelope.

“This is for you from Edward C.,” he said in his high childish voice. “He's such a fool—that Edward C. He's off to himself now, bawling because you're leaving. I said to him, ‘Good riddance. There's few enough jobs for us who have to wait around for that idiot, Pete Harris, to get things going again.' That's what I said to him. He just kept right on bawling, though, and told me to find you and give you this.”

I'm not sure that I thanked Blegan. I took the letter from him, and he was scampering away before I'd had a chance to tear open the envelope. Joey and I read the letter together.