The Paper Dragon (13 page)

"With
me
, do you mean?" Mr. Overmeyer asked.

"No, sir, the young lady and I wished to discuss it privately."

Mr. Overmeyer looked so relieved that
(A)
it wasn't some hoods from Connors who were looking for trouble, that
(B)
it wasn't some crippled war veterans selling magazine subscriptions, and that
(C)
he
personally
would not have to get involved in this discussion, whatever it was, that he mumbled, "Sure, certainly, go right ahead," and then went back into the house and drew the blinds to assure Phillip Armstrong of the privacy he wanted. They had necked up a storm that night, and she had let Phillip Armstrong touch her breast right there in the driveway, but only twice.

The reason Phillip Armstrong wasn't there that November afternoon to help with the layout was that he had come down with the mumps, of all things ("You know what
that
does to a grown boy, I suppose," Cissie said) and was home in bed. It was just as well because if Phillip Armstrong
had've
been there, then Edna Belle and Miss Benson wouldn't have talked, and Edna Belle's whole life wouldn't have changed. In looking back on the conversation, Edna Belle couldn't remember exactly what they'd said that was so terribly important, what they had discussed in such personal terms, this woman and her sixteen-year-old student there in the gathering gloom of a high school classroom, the light fading against the long windows, the empty desks stretching behind them, and the smell of paste on their fingers, and snippets of shining proofs clinging to their hands, the drawn pencil lines on the blank pulp pages, the long galleys from the editorial staff, and the careful selection of a rooster drawn by Annabelle Currier Farr and something called Monsoon by a freshman named Hiram Horn, the proofs spread out on Miss Benson's desk top, "There, Edna Belle," and "There," and "How's that?" completely absorbed in the work they were doing, Miss Benson finally snapping on the desk lamp, and the warm circle of light flooding the dummy as the magazine began to take shape and form, the colored pencils sticking out of Miss Benson's hair and reflecting light. Whispers, they whispered now, the school was empty, but what did they say, after all, that had not been said a thousand times before? What was there in Miss Benson's impromptu and heartfelt talk that was not cliched and hackneyed and shopworn and, yes, even trivial? It had all been said before, there was the tinny ring of half-truth to it, and whatever importance it seemed to possess at the time surely came only from the dramatic setting, the classroom succumbing to dusk, the desk lamp being turned on, the young girl listening while the older woman earnestly and sympathetically talked to her about life and living, about pity and understanding, about art, and about love. All of it said before. And better, surely, so very much better than old Miss Benson could ever have said it even if she were skilled with words, which she was not, even if she were half the gifted artist Edna Belle supposed she was, which she was not. All of it said before.

But never before to Edna Belle.

And so she listened, nodding her head as they worked at the desk, fingers thick with paste, and she smiled, and once she giggled and covered her mouth, and tilted her head again in fascination, and brushed a golden spray of hair from her cheek and said, "Yes, oh yes, I know, I
know
."

They walked as far as the monument together, Edna Belle watched Miss Benson as she turned left at the corner near the courthouse, walking with the peculiar waddle that made the other kids laugh, but walking with her head very high, and she suddenly knew it had been true about the nigger.

She sat at the base of the monument.

She could remember only snatches of what Miss Benson had said, something about honesty, about always being true to whatever it was she believed, and of not being afraid, something about talent and its use, and something about a larger talent which she called, Edna Belle was not sure, a
capacity
for giving, yes, for loving, "Yes, oh yes," Edna Belle had said, thinking of Phillip Armstrong. And then Miss Benson said how it was important to get out of this town, go to New York or Chicago, study there, or Rhode Island, there was a fine art school in Rhode Island, but get out of this town, Edna Belle, get out of the South before they cut a piece out of your life and leave you to shrivel and die. It is not shameful to love, she said earnestly, it is never shameful to love, almost on the verge of tears.

The leaves swirled about Edna Belle's feet, the lights were on in the square, a sharp wind swept from the north around the corner of the church. She nodded quietly and to herself because she had made up her mind that she was a woman now, and then she rose and walked home, occasionally nodding, and then tilting her head in wonder because everything seemed so suddenly clear. And yet she knew Miss Benson had not told her anything she did not already know.

In September of 1946, when she was eighteen years old, she followed Miss Benson's advice and left for Pratt Institute in New York City. She rarely thought of the old woman anymore, except to wonder if she was still alive, still living in the South. But whenever she remembered her, as she was remembering her now in a seventh-floor room at the Hotel Astor, staring through a window at the traffic below, the lingering image was always of Miss Benson turning the corner near the courthouse, her head held high.

Without moving from the window, Ebie said to her husband, "In Alabama, when I was a little girl…"

"Spare us the magnolia blossoms and white linen suits," he said.

"… before I even knew there were such things as witty novelists who…"

"I'm not a novelist."

"… who could make clever remarks about magnolia blossoms and linen suits, when I was still a little girl in Alabama…"

Her voice trailed. She kept staring through the window.

"They loved me," she said at last.

The car pulled in ahead unexpectedly, entering the highway after barely braking at the full stop sign on the approach ramp. Sally Kirsch had opened her eyes not a moment before, seeing the other car, hearing the squeal of tires as Jonah applied his brakes, and bracing herself for what she knew would be an accident. Across the river on the New Jersey shore, she could see the Spry sign blinking idiotically as the automobile swerved, parkway lights ahead in a winding curve downtown, the glare of northbound traffic on the left, and then a splash of sudden brighter yellow as Jonah's headlights illuminated the other car.

"You dumb bastard!" Jonah shouted, and these seemed to Sally the first human words he had uttered all day long. He yanked sharply on the wheel, trying to avoid the crash, braking desperately, tires whining. The other car was a yellow Buick, vintage 1953, and the man driving it glanced to his left an instant before the cars collided, noticing Jonah's car for the first time, it seemed, and opening his eyes wide and then wrenching the wheel over to the right too late. Left fender hit right fender with terrible crunching impact. The cars ricocheted one from the other like billiard balls veering in opposite directions. Sally felt herself being hurled forward, perversely grateful for the break in the monotony, pushed her hands out in front of her, and then pulled them back instantly when she remembered she could fracture both wrists that way. Her head collided with the padded dash, there was a further squeal of tires behind them, and then silence. She shook her head. She could taste blood in her mouth. One of her teeth felt loose.

"Are you all right?" Jonah asked, and she nodded, and he got out of the car. She heard other car doors slamming, and she sat up tentatively, surprised that nothing was broken. "Didn't you see that stop sign?" Jonah was yelling.

She glanced through the windshield which was miraculously intact, she was certain everything would have been shattered by the collision, including herself. The man getting out of the other car was a short dark man in a short green coat and baggy slacks, a black fedora pushed onto the back of his head. He had apparently cut himself when the cars collided, and a thin line of blood was trickling down the right side of his face. Jonah was holding his left hand in his right and Sally wondered whether he had broken any bones. Dazed, she watched the two men as they approached each other.

"Are you talking to me?" the little man said. "To me, are you calling a bastard?"

"What's your name?" Jonah said. "Damn you, I'm going to…"

"To me, are you asking the name?" the little man said. "I will throw you in the river, you stringbean! I will pick you up and throw you in the river."

"I'd like to see you try that," Jonah said, and took off his glasses and moved closer to the little man, as though he would step on him and squash him flat into the pavement.

"You hit me, and I die," the little man warned. "I bleed from the head now, you murderer. Hit me, and I die. Get away from me!"

"You're a maniac," Jonah said. "How dare you drive a car without looking where—"

"To me, are you calling a maniac? A
fink
is what you are, to call a decent man a maniac. Get away, get away, do you see him?" he asked the gathering crowd. "He is making obscene and threatening gestures!"

"Let me see your license," Jonah said.

"Let me see
your
license, fink!" the little man answered. "Do you hear?" he said to the crowd. "Do you hear his threatening?"

"There's the police," someone said, and Sally heard the sound of a siren and turned her head to see a police car approaching in the distance, its red dome light revolving and blinking.

"Good," the little man said. "The police, you hear, fink? Now we'll see who threatens, fink."

"Did anyone here see this accident?" Jonah asked.

"I, the maniac," the little man said. "I, the maniac saw it! I saw
all
of it, a hundred miles an hour this fink comes swooping down a public highway!"

"You're a lying little bastard," Jonah said, "and you're making me very angry."

"
You
, I am making angry, you?" the little man asked incredulously. "I am here bleeding in a hundred places, and
you
are standing angry? Where are the police, those finks? Where are they, I ask!"

"All right, what's the trouble here?" the patrolman said, coming out of the squad car. His partner stepped into the highway and began waving traffic around the wrecked autos.

Sally, dazed and certain she was in shock, began giggling. She had not, until the moment the two cars struck, enjoyed either the drive to Poughkeepsie, their brief stay at the college, or any part of their return trip. Jonah had left her to wander the campus that afternoon while he chatted with his World History professor, and she had been unexpectedly depressed by the sight of all those young girls in candy-striped stockings and short suede skirts, God, had it really all been
that
long ago? Nor could she honestly say that Jonah Willow was exactly an exciting conversationalist. There was a tenseness about him that made her want to scream aloud, a social unease that seemed to translate itself into a physical deformity as he drove the convertible, knuckles white, body hunched, long legs cramped. All the way up to the college, his conversation had consisted of a series of ominous grunts designed to stifle discussion. Not once did he mention the trial, and this puzzled her. She was a lawyer, certainly not as experienced or as well known as he, but a lawyer nonetheless; she had thought he would welcome her opinions, or at least her thoughts. But even on the return trip, when she tentatively asked whether his meeting with the professor had been profitable, he replied only, "Not very," and once again fell silent. Weary and discouraged, she retreated to her corner of the car, closing her eyes and listening to the lulling hum of the tires against the road.

"Are you asleep?" he asked at last.

"What?" she said, startled.

"Are you asleep?"

"No. Where are we?"

"On the West Side Highway. We just went through the Spuyten Duyvil toll booths."

"No, I'm not asleep," she said, suspecting she had been. "I just have to close my eyes every now and then. Otherwise, I read everything."

"Oh," he said, and she looked at him a moment, expecting more, and then closed her eyes again when she realized nothing was forthcoming. He did not speak again until shortly before the accident. She must have dozed off a second time because she sat up in alarm when she heard his voice.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"What?"

"About reading everything."

"I'm a compulsive reader," she said.

"Oh," he answered.

End of conversation, Sally thought.

"Yes," she said, persisting in spite of better judgment, "I can reel off word for word every sign and billboard we passed on the road today. My mind's like a hall closet."

She waited for him to make some comment, hardly expecting that he would. When he did not, she sighed, and closed her eyes again. The accident occurred not two minutes later. Now, watching the police officer as he examined both men's licenses, watching him turn solicitous and then obsequious as Jonah casually mentioned the name of a circuit judge, watching the little man go pale and almost faint when he realized he had rammed into someone with high legal connections, Sally still felt giddy and numb, and her front tooth hurt like hell, what a damn silly thing to get involved in, an accident when she was so close to home.

Still, Jonah's profanity had exploded into that dreary automobile ride like a mortar shell, and she was grateful for the careless little man who was now explaining to Jonah and the policeman and anyone who would listen that he was a poor but honest bricklayer coming home late from a job in Harlem, anxious to be reunited once more with his wife and six kids — she was.sure he had said
five
kids the first time around — and therefore perhaps a bit unheedful of traffic signs, but he
had
stopped at the sign, he had come to a full if brief stop. What
was
he, did the attorney think, some kind of maniac who would endanger the life and limb of innocent people on a public highway? Did the attorney, did these honorable law enforcement officers, did these good citizens believe for a moment that he would do a fink thing like that, crashing into innocent people — arguing his case right there on the highway without benefit of counsel while Jonah kept holding his left hand in his right, and Sally could see now that he was wincing in pain.

She got out of the car suddenly and walked to where the small man was still pleading his case, turning to a fat smiling bleached blonde now, and advising her that he had been a citizen for fifteen years, having come from Cairo, and that he had never been in any kind of trouble with the law before this, nor ever in an automobile accident though he had been driving since 1956, did he look like a fink, he asked the bleached blonde. The blonde smiled and then clucked her tongue sympathetically, but remained noncommittal as to whether he was or was not a fink.

"I think he's hurt his hand," Sally said to the nearest patrolman. "Are we going to be much longer here, or can we get him to a hospital?"

"You're bleeding, miss," the patrolman said.

"I'm all right," Sally said.

"Can you drive?" the patrolman asked Jonah.

"Yes, I can."

"Maybe we'd better do as the young lady suggests. We can run you right over to Harlem Hospital, right on Lenox."

"No, it's nothing," Jonah said. "I just wrenched it when we collided, that's all."

"Something might be broken in there," the patrolman said.

"Why is nobody here to worry about
my
head?" the man from Cairo asked. "I'm sorry, your worship, but my head is bleeding, too, don't forget."

"You'd better get him to the hospital," Jonah said.

"You come along, too, Mr. Willow. No offense meant, but I think we'd better take a look at that hand."

"It's beginning to swell," Sally said.

"Miss, do you know your lip is cut?"

"What?"

"Your lip, miss. It's bleeding pretty bad."

"I think we'd
all
better take a little ride over to the hospital," the other patrolman said.

"I don't see any need for that," Jonah said.

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Willow," the patrolman said, "but I don't think Judge Santesson would like it if we let a friend of his go home with a broken hand or something."

"All right," Jonah said, "let's get it over with,"

They did not get it over with until eleven o'clock that night. By that time Jonah was in a surly, cantankerous mood. He told the frightened little man from Cairo that he was going to do his damndest to have his driver's license revoked, and then got into an argument with the policemen about the advisability of doing any further driving that night.

"Let's take a taxi," Sally said.

"How can I lay bricks without the license to drive?" the Egyptian said.

"Why don't you take a taxi, Mr. Willow?" the cops said.

Jonah took Sally's arm and led her out of the hospital and then got into a further argument the moment they entered the automobile, simply because Sally suggested that
she
ought to do the driving, a swollen Up seeming to her less restricting than a sprained and taped wrist. Jonah testily informed her that he was in perfect physical condition, and then proceeded to prove his point by racing down to the Village (
your
license ought to be revoked, she thought, but did not say), scaring her half to death, and parking the car in a clearly marked No Parking zone in front of her building.

The hallway was silent. They climbed the steps to her fourth-floor apartment, Sally leading, Jonah following. He did not say a word to her as they walked up, radiating only what seemed to be sullen anger. Outside her apartment, she opened her bag and searched for her key in silence.

"I'm sorry about the accident," he said abruptly.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Your eyes were closed, I thought perhaps…"

"No, I saw what happened."

"In any case, I'm sorry." His manner was still brusque and scarcely civil. She found her key and inserted it in the lock. "And I'm also sorry you had such a terrible time," he said, "but you see…"

"I didn't, don't be silly."

"… I'm not very good at small talk."

The hallway was silent again.

"I have a great many things on my mind," Jonah said. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Sally said. She twisted the key. The tumblers fell with a small oiled click.

"I'm sorry about the profanity, too," he said.

"That's all right," she said again. She listened as he continued to apologize for his swearing in the car and on the highway, his voice lowering, listened as he told her how sorry he was for having argued with the policemen and for having threatened the little Egyptian, "I know this is the first time we've been alone together, without a lot of people chattering away, and I wish I could have been more entertaining. But you see…"

"That's all right, Jonah," she said.

"… I had hoped this friend of mine could help me, he's an expert on military engagements, that's his forte, Sally. He's written several really good books, and I thought he could help me. I thought he could come up with something more than he did."

"I know it was a disappointing day for you."

"Yes, it was."

"But I
did
enjoy the accident. The accident was fun," she said, and smiled.

"May I see you again?"

"Yes," she said.

"I'll call. The trial should be over by the end of the week, perhaps we can get together Friday or Saturday."

"Well, call," she said.

"I'd give anything to possess your trick," Jonah said suddenly.

"What trick?"

"Of closing your eyes to shut out the print, to shut out the noise of the world."

"I do it in defense," she said, watching his face.

"That's just it," he answered. "I
have
no defense."

"What do you mean?"