Some Other Town (28 page)

The thought of it is unbearable. I care for Ben Adams. I would like now to make him happy. I would like more than anything to help. But love? I just do not know about love. I have never known about love.

Ben smiles, tender and clear. He reaches again for my hand. “I am leaving and I want you to come with me,” he says. “It's really just that simple.” And then maybe because he sees I still have nothing to say, he tells me, “You don't have to answer right now.”

I look at his lovely smile. I think how steady this man is, how good. How I would like now to say oh yes, Ben, let's both of us run away. Let's be happy someplace far away.

I take a deep breath. “No, Ben,” I say. “No. I cannot go with you. There's no need to wait for an answer. I already know.”

Ben blinks, then for a moment stares. “I see.” His voice grows quiet. “Well yes.” He nods, serious again now. “Of course.” He lets my hand go.

I watch Ben turn for the door. I know now he cannot look back at me. I reach for him, touch his sleeve. And because there is nothing else to offer, “Ben?” I say. “Ben?”

Ben closes the door behind him. I listen. For a moment outside it is silent. And then, very loud, the sharp squeal of tires as he backs his truck fast from the drive.

I awake Saturday morning to “Moonglow.” The song, I mean here the song. And for the fourth time this week, I am left with the remains of the dream.

But this time there is something new. As the van passes the truck on the bridge, as the truck spins and begins its leap from the rails, strains of “Moonglow” swell from below. And then slow motion, as it tumbles midair, the truck starts itself to rise. It comes out of its final full circle, at the place where before it would shoot for the ice, and instead lifts off and takes wing. Ascending as though weighing nothing at all. A truck, a bubble, a feather.

A voice hums the next bars of “Moonglow.” And as the truck grows smaller, rising out of sight, “Theme from
Picnic
” begins to intertwine.

Early that morning he puts up the lights. He is up at dawn, stringing them tree to tree in the stand of pines outside his back door. They crisscross over the geese and over his garden below. He reaches one wire to the flagpole and back and lets it swing in high looping arcs. And when he is finished, when he has covered the sky with his cat's cradle of lights, he plugs them all in at once.

There are hundreds, all colors, blinking, and at first they confuse the geese. They look up and honk and shuffle to the back of their pen. They huddle together in the festive light, still honking and looking up.

When he sees her, he'll tell her. The geese can't seem to get over it, they keep one eye always on those bulbs. And so now he will have to plug in the lights only late in the night, after the geese are asleep.

Which is OK really, he will tell her. It is better when it is late, with all those tall old black pine trees flashing red, green, and blue like some nighttide carnival pitched camp on the farm. And it is a wonderful thing then, all right, to wake in the dark, dazed and alive, to Gypsies dancing under the pines.

“Theme from
Picnic
” continues to rise and swell. I lie in my bed and smile. It is early, the sky outside is still dark, I know with luck now there is still time for sleep.

But suddenly a loud popping, then crackling sound, and I am instantly on my feet. I head to the window and pull back the curtain, although I know already what it must be. Now even before dawn, Mrs. E, unnecessarily out rummaging at something. It is Mrs. Eberline again, with an unusually loud trash bag of cans. I am almost certain of it.

Although now when I look down, it is not Mrs. E and her bags that I spot. In fact, because of the dark, at first there is nothing to see. But I realize then there is something else, something I know from before. Smoke, the smell of smoke in the air. Mrs. Eberline must be back at her bonfire, back sacrificing my maple twigs.

But the smell is much stronger than before, and it is then that I begin also to see it. A small black plume rises directly below me, illuminated by an eerie glow. Which I realize now is from flames, orange-red flames, lapping from under my garage wood door.

I rush down the stairs and out to my yard. I grab for the garden hose. And there, while my neighbors on Mott sleep steeped in their dreams, I stand in my nightgown and aim. The hose is on jet, the water turned on full, I blast my garage door from up close. Well now, I think, surely the sound of it will bring out the entire block. But strangely when I turn then to spray to the side, there is only Mrs. Eberline, right next to me.

“Mrs. Eberline!” I say. I look at her up close. “Were you just now in my garage?” There is no lock, the door is old, she knows that I hide things behind it. It occurs to me she has figured this out.

Then I see a new flame crawl from under the door and I turn to keep my aim on the wood. But there are flames now escaping each side of the door, and a new plume of smoke from the garage window, and I am uncertain where to point the hose next. Mrs.
Eberline herself is no help. In the glow from the fire, I can just see her red hood retreating. It is no time to give chase I know. And I throw down the hose and search frantically for some very large kind of bucket.

Which is also when I hear the sirens, high and whining at first, then louder and close. The Krantzes' dog begins baying, and all down the block upstairs lights flicker on. So my neighbors on Mott are awake at last, and someone has called in a fire truck. I must hand it to Mott once again. And while I am sure, had I had a little more time, the garden hose and my bucket would have done, I am happy enough when I see their truck to let this town's fire department take over.

Besides which, I must find Mrs. Eberline. Who has now scuttled to the back of the crowd of concerned neighbors forming on my lawn. “Mrs. Eberline!” I call and run toward her. There is no time now to go back for a robe. I must catch Mrs. E before she escapes, there are some things we need to get straight here.

Mrs. Eberline makes a break for her yard, moving fast. I follow, my nightie flapping. I run as fast as I'm able, given bare feet, and at her side door, I overtake her. “Mrs. Eberline, stop!” I shout. Then barring the door and still panting, “This time, Mrs. E,” I gasp at her, “this time you have gone too far.”

She gives me a quarrelsome look. I see the skirt of the caftan below her red coat and I expect then to hear from Belva. “But dearest, whatever do you mean? ‘This time'? I'm afraid I'm not following you.”

From the side I hear the firemen's hose send a great blast of water at my garage. The crowd on the lawn starts to cheer.

I look at Mrs. Eberline and stand my ground. Her insanity will
not save her now. “Mrs. E,” I scream over the sound of the crowd. And then searching for the words, “Mrs. E, this will not do!”

She stands before me and looks up. Dropping her hood back, she gives her old hair a toss, and lets it fall forward, Veronica Lake–like. A slow insolent smile comes to her. “‘Do,' darling?” she asks coolly, staring past me.

I do not know what more to say then. I do not know how to get through to her. My shoulders are aching, my arms hang like lead, my nightgown is sodden and frigid. And suddenly I no longer feel angry or afraid or deeply, deeply wronged, just simply, incredibly tired. Firefighting at dawn in a nightie has at last got the best of me.

I search for Mrs. E's face. And in a voice I know she will take for defeat, “Mrs. Eberline,” I say. “What is it you want from me?” And when still she just stares out from under her hair, I put the real question to her. “Why do you hate me so?”

This last seems to get her attention. She shakes her head, takes a step back, and pulls up her hood. Then switching swiftly from Belva, she sucks in her gums, stares hard. Eyes narrowing, voice rising to a screech, “I seen you that mornin', missy,” she shouts. “Dead of winter, and you send him away.”

It's my turn to step back. Him? So once again this is still about Ben. This fire and the other before it, the attacks on my yard and my tree. This has all of it been about Ben.

I look down at Mrs. E. I have nothing to say. And I see a surprising thing. Mrs. Eberline turns, drops her head to her chest, and begins silently to weep. Shoulders shaking, she is truly now crying. No acting this time, real tears.

“That Ben feller's gone,” she says between sobs. Then jerking her head up, glaring, “And it your fault he ain't comin' back.”

I stand for a moment startled, watching Mrs. Eberline cry. Then without any warning, I feel the tears start as well. Regardless of what I know about Ben, I suspect for once Mrs. E's got it right.

I step to the side. Mrs. Eberline starts for her door, and I reach out for her as she passes. I want urgently, oddly to thank her. But as I look down for her hand, in a fumbling attempt to touch it, I see at the opening of her parka's front pocket the handles of my new garden clippers. The ones I most recently stored from her grasp in the deepest cupboard of my garage.

“Mrs. E!” I say, and at that Mrs. Eberline bolts. She is inside her house and slamming the door before I can get out anything more. So I am left then in a nightie standing alone, muttering up at her house. Mrs. Eberline, this has got to stop. Not only have you just set fire to my garage, you first pillaged it for my clippers. This is it, Mrs. E. I have had it.

Or words to that general effect.

And as I hear then the fire truck pulling away—they have doused all the flames and the garage, it turns out, is still standing—I think well yes, maybe Frances was right about Mott. There's no need to live next to a madwoman.

From the lights, he moves on to the yard. It has been a wet spring, the grass has grown, he will need to mow one last time. The landlord has left him the mower. The farmyard is large, he looks forward to doing the work. He looks forward to his morning outdoors.

These days the farm is alive with spring breezes. They come rolling in up the front banks, all day they excite the air. They ruffle the lilacs along the road, they give the swings a good shove. They catch in the American flag overhead, flapping and clanking it at its pole.

And the air then fills up with the farm. It smells of new soil turned over, it smells of the spotted pigs. Or, like now, it smells of the fresh-cut grass on the banks that he has begun to mow.

And always this spring it makes him stop what he is doing and smile. And always he cannot remember just when he smelled air so good.

It reminds him how much he will miss all this when his work here is finally done.

I put Mrs. Eberline and Mott Street behind me. I will worry about the garage next week. Because now it is Saturday evening, my dinner with Ben at six. I have been happy all day just thinking of it.

Although on the drive to his farm, when I turn off the radio so that I can think of it more, just how it will be, I find instead Mrs. E's words are still in my head, how I am alone at fault here. And then I do not at all know what to think or what Ben Adams himself might be thinking. Or how it will be not seeing him for so long, whether he will be happy even seeing me now. And I feel something inside me then open wide and my heart turn sideways
and plunge. It is all I can do to keep driving and not turn around for home.

But once I see Ben's lovely green yard, the old square white house, when Ben opens the door to me, grinning, I know it will be all right. It will be dinner at Ben's, just as it has been before.

Except that tonight at dinner Ben lights just one candle and centers it on his long table. And when our grilled chickens are ready he turns off the lights so there is only that one candle burning. It makes dining tricky. In the candlelight now I can only just make Ben out, a small floating face at the farthest reach of his long and dark dinner table. It is a strange way to dine, it's true. And just now, sitting at my end, searching for Ben through the gloom, I do not know if I can take such distance. It is as if we've ended up on some slow-moving train, some once grand Orient Express, sitting opposite each other in separate cars, staring through a thick beveled window.

Ben turns up the music. Tchaikovsky in the background soars. He lifts his glass. He smiles, starts to speak, his lips move. But I cannot make out a single word. We are too far apart, the window between us is closed.

I do not like the strange muffled sound of Ben. And I stand up and move to the chair next to his. “Oh Ben,” I say. “Please Ben, tell me how you are. It has been such a terribly long time.” But then I cannot wait for his answer, I ask what is really on my mind. “Are you all right, Ben? Is it all all right then?”

Ben sits, his smile fades. He looks at me and does not answer. He only just looks at me sadly.

And oh no, I think. No. We cannot start dinner like this. Not
after so long apart. And I decide on a quick change of direction, something lighter to start with than how we both are. Some jollying up, some stories. If Ben has nothing to offer of his three months away, I can at least tell him something of mine.

So while our chickens sit on their plates and grow cold, I first catch Ben up on Mott Street. I tell him about Mrs. E, I figure he'd want to know. I mention the pail, the dark water, the rustling of cans she's been up to. I leave out on purpose the fire. And then I move onto the Project, the editors there and Joe Trout. Things Ben has found interesting before.

“Celeste at work says there's a ghost in the sanatorium,” I say. “Her name, she says, is Emmaline.”

I decide this is a story I can throw in. Everyone likes ghost stories, Ben will like hearing about Emmaline. So I tell him how Celeste says she is at her wits' end. She believes Emmaline has been toying with us, redrawing the lines in Joe's art, leaving strange notes, moving the chairs in our foyer.