September Song (21 page)

Now it was the morning of the day after.

It was no time to be thinking about fishing, but fishing was what he was thinking about.

He saw himself stepping into a landscape by an artist of the Hudson River School: Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, George Innes—misty, silent, still. Time had been turned back to the sixth day of its creation and he was the first person on the scene. While in the city streets outside the studio where they sat waiting sirens wailed like wolves, in his fancied world trouble was as yet unknown.

He waded knee-deep in his favorite stretch of the Catskills' Willowemoc. The headwaters of that stream rose in heaven, and there it was stocked with trout.

To choose from among his flyrods—the Garrison? the Halstead? one of the Paynes?—was always hard, each had its memories, but you could fish with only one at a time, and, precious though it was, its worth measured in karats, today he had chosen the seven-and-a-half-foot “Pinky” Gillum. It was just as well that for the past several years he had fished only in fantasy. Split bamboo rods were delicate, breakable, and though he was no longer an active member of the fishing fraternity, word had reached him, if from no other source than the
Wall Street Journal
, of the spectacular appreciation in the value of such “classic” rods as his, crafted by makers whose like would not be seen again. Even so, he was unprepared for the sum they fetched when he auctioned them to help pay Mr. Pettingill. Having no use for them anyway, his weekends being otherwise occupied, he had kept his in guarded and bonded storage. When Jane achieved recognition, a lasting gallery connection, and his Saturdays were his again, he would go back to fishing. Occasionally he sneaked a visit to the warehouse and while nobody was looking jointed a rod and flexed it. He felt then like a conductor with a chorus of trout at the bidding of his baton. For in all modesty, he had made of himself a maestro. If, as the brothers of the angle liked to think, time spent fishing earned you time off in purgatory, then for his early years he ought to have been whisked right through.

It was just sunrise with steam hovering above the water. So silent was the world that he could hear the big fish rising greedily, unguardedly to a hatch of insects—Hendricksons they were, size 16—forty feet upstream of him. He presented his fly just above and to the left of the fish for it to float down to him on the current. He tensed for the strike …

“Here they are,” said Jane.

They looked out the studio window. Down on the street two men inside the moving van were handing the pictures to two outside.

He was about to say, “Well, dear, you're in good company,” but he was silenced by the look on her face of fixed dejection.

Virgin and Child

O
N THE NIGHTS WHEN SHE ATTENDED
evening classes Cecily stayed over with her uncle and aunt in Manhattan rather than return home to Brooklyn. Danger lurked in the dark streets; the subway was a sewer. A lone young woman had to dart from cover to cover like a head of game. Cecily's defense was to make herself drab. No makeup, no jewelry, shapeless sweaters, loose long skirts, flat heels. She looked like Garbo off the lot.

But just as Garbo could not turn herself into a scarecrow so Cecily's camouflage did not mislead every predator. One had approached her minutes earlier as she was trying to hail a taxi. She looked through him, nodded as he spoke and, smiling charitably, handed him a dollar. He was so nonplussed he took it. She left him looking put down as her taxi pulled away.

Cecily's uncle and aunt lived in a neighborhood as desirable as could be found in the city these days. The doorman of the building, whom she called “Saint Peter,” let her in. She pressed the elevator's Penthouse button and in sixty seconds made an ascent as full of contrast as Dante's climb from Inferno to Paradise.

The penthouse transported you in time as well as place. It was Early Hollywood, suitable as the set for a Fred Astaire film. The decor was Art Deco, that elegant artificial style designed to deny the grim reality of its period. High in the sky, insulated from the city's din and squalor, you imagined top-hat and tails, dancing cheek to cheek, the pop of a champagne cork and the kiss of glasses. Her uncle, pleased with himself and with his rise in the world, once looked out the big picture window and said, “We're on Cloud Nine.”

This evening, with Cecily to baby-sit for them, her uncle and aunt were going out to dinner and the opera. The production was Wagner, so they would not get home until morning. Cecily would have the apartment to herself. She liked nothing better.

Not that she did not enjoy the company of her uncle and aunt. They were her favorite people. And to them she was more like a daughter than a niece; indeed, she was often mistaken for that owing to her resemblance to her uncle. They had taken her with them to London, Paris and Rome. So many and so fine were their gifts to her she had to refuse some so as not to arouse her father's jealousy of his more successful younger brother. The penthouse was her second home. Her aunt urged her to invite her boyfriends there. The suggestion was that in that rarified atmosphere any young man would be impressed by her connections.

“I haven't got any boyfriends,” said Cecily.

The coming of Constance, now two, rather than displacing the niece, drew the three still closer. Cecily felt toward her little cousin like a big sister. And she never felt more at home than when she was alone in possession of the place and entrusted with the care of the child.

Her uncle and aunt were dressed to go. Cecily complimented them on their clothes. The three kissed and the parents left.

Cecily sat little Connie in the highchair and warmed her food, talking all the while. The child listened as round-eyed as a parakeet perched upon a finger. Cecily fed her, and when she had eaten, bathed her. Then she rocked her, crooning lullabies. She sang “Rock-a-bye, baby,” “Froggy went a-courting,” “Daddy's gone a-hunting to get a bunny rabbitskin to wrap his baby bunting in.” She laid the sleeping child in the crib, covered her, kissed her flushed cheek, switched on the nightlight and left her.

After her supper Cecily showered. While drying her hair she sat in darkness by the picture window. It was like looking down upon the stars from the heights of heaven. The warmth and whirr of the hair dryer, the darkness, the distant indistinct glow combined to make her drowsy. Taking her book she went to bed.

Somebody was in the apartment. Through the door, left open for her to hear any cry from the child, came the sounds of somebody moving about. A siren went off in her mind. She must get to the child! She switched off her lamp and got out of bed.

Before she could take a step the overhead light came on. Dazzled by it and in terror she did not at once recognize the man in the doorway. Then, “Uncle Jim!” she cried. “It's you! Oh, thank heaven!” And she rushed into his arms. There she nestled while her quaking slowly subsided.

“I wasn't feeling well,” he said. “Norma went on to the opera alone.”

She noticed then that he was in pajamas. It was him undressing that she had heard before. He had wanted not to disturb her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You must go to bed and let me take care of you.”

“That,” he said, “is what I've got in mind. Going to bed and you taking care of me.” Pressing her close, he kissed her lips.

She broke free and backed across the room. She was too dazed to be indignant. She could not believe this was happening. The familiarity of the setting made it all the more unreal. How could he have so misjudged her? How could he have so misinterpreted her feeling for him? She had been affectionate but never by word or deed had she invited anything like this.

He advanced, holding out his arms to her. So he had done for years, and in them she had found comfort, love, protection.

“Uncle Jim? Uncle Jim?” she pleaded, trying to call up the man she knew, recall him to himself.

He had miscalculated, looked foolish. He was incensed. His face clouded. She feared he meant to force her into submission. Not much force would be needed. She was too sick at heart to put up any strong defense.

“It's
me
, Uncle Jim. Cecily,” she said. Hearing herself, she wondered, Can this be me? She felt she was losing her mind. She was sure he had lost his.

He wavered for an instant and in that pause a way to protect herself occurred to her. She dashed past him, through the door and down the hall.

When he caught up with her she was holding the sleeping child to her breast. He stopped as though stunned by a blow. A mirror had been held up to him and he was appalled at what it showed.

She gave him a minute to recover himself, get his bearings. Then she handed him his child. He took it with a look of gratefulness such as a mother gives the nurse the first time hers is placed in her arms.

Dead Weight

I
AM WHAT IS KNOWN
in the antiques trade as a picker. A picker is always on the road looking for finds. Some people pride themselves on being specialists. A specialist is somebody with a one-track mind. Your antiques picker has got to know something about everything: furniture—all periods—porcelain, Oriental rugs, paintings—and he has got to have a sharp eye. He must be able to spot a gem in a junkshop or a “sleeper” in a good one. He must be able to tell the fake from the genuine article.

Without a shop of his own, the picker's customers are dealers. That was how I came to know Kelly. He had been born and brought up in the business and he had inherited an old, established shop, one of the best in the Northeast. Carriage trade. By appointment only. Monthly ads in
Antiques
magazine. I went with something to Kelly only when that something was something. No tchatchkes. Whatever I brought him he bought. He knew I knew what I had—I appreciated that—and he never haggled with me. I appreciated that too. Like everybody else, I like to bargain but not to be bargained with.

Being a picker, and being single, I live in my home on wheels, my camper. I am more or less based in upstate New York, where I was born, but I head south in winter on what I call my Dixie raid, buying as I go, sunning myself down there for a while, then returning north to peddle the merchandise I have found. It's a free and footloose life, and once in a while you make a killing. Like I did when I recognized from my memory of an illustration in a book a self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds in what the fool who owned it, showing off his learning, called a copy of Rembrandt's “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.” Let the seller beware: that's my motto. I look upon myself as a curator, preserving the beautiful things from the past by separating them from those who don't appreciate them and getting them to those who do. Through my hands have passed items now prominently on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was to Kelly that I took old Sir Josh.

Like me, Kelly was a bachelor. Thus he would have nobody to come home to after the surgery he would soon be having. He told me about it as I was setting off south this year. I invited him to shut up shop and come out and join me when he was up and about. He would have a change of scene and I would welcome his company. It gets lonely by yourself on the road day after day, and I soon tire of country-western music on the radio down there. I would profit from his expertise.

As arranged, he left a message for me with a dealer friend in Durant. I was to meet him at Dallas-Fort Worth.

I could hardly wait to see Kelly. I had something to show him, and he was going to get a professional kick out of the story that went with it.

I like to wander down back roads, and at old houses, no matter how run down, I stop. In fact, the more run down the better. Being often the first picker in the territory, you make some of your best finds there. I've got a nose like a bird dog, if I do say so myself. On this trip, in darkest Arkansas, I had asked a farmer for permission to camp overnight on his land.

“Make yourself right at home,” the man said. “You're too late for supper but come to the house in the morning and eat breakfast with us. We set down to the table at half past six.”

What were those hillbillies drinking their coffee out of but Chelsea cups and saucers! Chelsea! Hen's teeth are a dime a dozen compared.

“This is pretty chinaware, ma'am,” I commented.

“You like them?” she said. Meaning she didn't. “Why, Lord, them old things been in the family for donkey's years.”

To her “old” meant out of fashion, tacky, and longtime ownership of a thing meant you could afford nothing newer.

I said there were people up north who collected old things and that my business was dealing in them.

I emptied my cup and turned it bottom up.

“Um-huh,” I managed to say despite my excitement. “Sure enough, there's that little gold anchor, the trademark, that this lady I know collects.”

Now for occasions such as this one I carry with me on my travels a stock of trade goods. Like the trinkets traded to the Indians, and worth just about as much. Back in the sticks you find people who don't trust government money, have never seen much of it, haven't even got much use for any, but dangle a gimcrack before them and their eyes light up. To this woman I said that although I dealt generally in old things I had recently seen a set of new china so pretty I just couldn't pass them up. As I reckoned to make a little profit on hers, if she liked mine I would consider a swap with her. And so, for this flea-market junk I got four Chelsea cups and saucers. The fourth one she threw in. The figure I was going to get for them would read like a telephone number. It was Kelly I had in mind.

I had not done quite that well on every transaction along the way but by the time I reached Dallas-Fort Worth I was pulling a rent-a-trailer behind the camper.

The last passengers off the plane trickled through the gate, old folks, people with kids to herd. No Kelly. He must have missed his flight. What to do? I decided to wait on for a while in case a call for me came over the loudspeaker. Maybe he was on the next flight.