The Second Coming (36 page)

“Oh my stars yes,” she said, using Aunt Grace's expression. “Tell me this please.”

“All right.”

“Are my parents out to screw me?”

“What an expression.”

“That's Kelso's.” I can talk like anybody but me, she thought. “Her parents never came to see her. Mine came twice—until Miss Sally died. Kelso said my parents are out to screw me.”

“Well, I wouldn't put it that way.”

“How would you put it?”

“That your parents are not out to screw you. Perhaps they are trying to help you. They have a right to be concerned. And they can be a big help to you. Anyhow, you think about it and tell me later.”

“All right.”

“There is something else I want to tell you. About me.”

“All right.”

“It's what I learned in the cave and what I am going to do.”

But he fell silent and turned away to watch the raindrops.

“What did you learn?”

He turned back. Their foreheads touched. Their bodies made a diamond. “As you can see, I don't know much. You are always asking questions to which I have no answers. By the way, did you always ask so many questions?”

When he began to talk she found that she could not hear his words for listening to the way he said them. She cast about for his drift. Was he saying the words for the words themselves, for what they meant, or for what they could do to her? There was something about the way he talked that reminded her of her own rehearsed sentences. Was she a jury he was addressing? Though he hardly touched her, his words seemed to flow across all parts of her body. Were they meant to? A pleasure she had never known before bloomed deep in her body. Was this a way of making love?

He was using words like “my shameful secret of success as a lawyer,” “phony,” “radar,” “our new language,” “this gift of yours and mine,” “ours” (this was her favorite), “being above things,” “not being able to get back down to things” (!), “how to reenter the world” (?), “by God?” “by her?” (!!!!!), “your forgetting and my remembering,” “Sutter,” “Sutter was right,” “Sutter was wrong,” “Sutter Vaught.”

“My Uncle Sutter? I remember him.”

“You do?”

“What about him?”

“Nothing much.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes.”

“Was he crazy and no good like they said?”

“No. What happened to your sister Val?”

“She became a nun.”

“I know that. Is she still a nun?”

“Yes. The last I heard, which was two or five years ago.”

“Two or five. I see. Where is she, still in South Alabama?”

“No, she's not there.”

“Where is she?” He was watching her closely.

“She's teaching at a parochial school at Pass Christian on the Gulf Coast. The school is run by the Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.”

He was silent for a long time. He seemed to be watching the rain. He put his hand in the small of her back. Oh my, she thought. Lightning flickered. At last he smiled in the lightning.

“What?” she said.

“You remembered it,” he said.

“What?”

“That outrageous name. The Little Sisters of what?”

“The Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.” She clapped her hands. “I did. I remember all about Val. She came to see me when I first got sick. In her old black nun clothes. She put her hands on my head and told me I was going to be fine.”

“She was right.”

“Maybe. No, not maybe. I'm fine. You feel so good. Me too. The good is all over me, starting with my back. Now I understand how the two work together.”

“What two?”

“The it and the doing, the noun and the verb, sweet sweet love and a putting it to you, loving and hating, you and I.”

He laughed. “You do, don't you? What happens to the two?”

“They become one but not in the sappy way of the saying?”

“What way, then?”

“One plus one equals one and oh boy almond joy.”

He was laughing. “You're Sutter turned happy.”

“I want you to be my guardian,” she said. Even though he was not touching her, his words were a kind of touching. Did he intend them so? When he didn't answer, she went back over his words for the sense of them. “Will you be my guardian?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you go down in the cave?” Now his hand was in the small of her back again, with a light firm pressure as if they were dancing.

“What?” he said, knitting his brows as if he were trying to remember something.

“I do that,” she said, “I go round and down to get down to myself.”

“I went down and around to get out of myself.”

“Did you?”

“I don't know. I can't remember. Curious. Now that your memory is better, mine is . . . Anyhow, that's over and done with. The future is what concerns us.”

“You seem different. Before, when you climbed through the fence and I saw you, you were standing still a long time as if you were listening. Now you seem to know what to do. Was it the cave?”

“The cave,” he said. She could hardly hear him over the rising din of the storm. Lightning forked directly overhead and a sharp crack came hard upon it. The dog, discomfited and frowning, got up and walked around stiff-legged. It was an electrical storm. Soon the lightning was almost continuous, ripping and cracking in the woods around them. Facets of glass flashed blue and white. It was like living inside a diamond. He seemed not to notice her or the storm. His eyes were open and unblinking. The hand behind his head was open, the middle finger touched her shoulder, which she bent close to him, still warming him, now a touch, now a jab, but he could have been poking his own knee. The finger moved as if it were conducting music she couldn't hear. Nor could she hear what he said in the racket. He was talking in a low voice. She strained against him. Was he talking to her?

“The fence . . . the cave . . .” His voice seemed to be inside her head.

The finger stopped touching and the hand opened wide, palm up, like a man shrugging. The lightning was getting louder and she was thinking, is it good or bad that the greenhouse has a metal frame? Perhaps good what with the finials sticking up like lightning rods when
crackOW
it
hit. A ball of light rolled toward them down the center aisle of the greenhouse as lazily as a ball of yarn. The dog, lip hung on his tooth, eyed it in outrage and walked stiffly away. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Let's—” And hushed because he wasn't listening.

He held her close. Again as her body came against him, she felt her eyes smiling and going away. Ha, she said to herself, maybe he didn't find what he was looking for but I did. Ha. Maybe I ‘m nuts and he's not but I know now what I want. Ha. Kelso, guess what. I did it like you said. I broke out and found my place and “fell in love” and inherited a million dollars. Maybe sixty million, and I don't care if it's sixty cents. Guess what. I am in love. Ah ha, so this is what it is, this “being in love.” This is what I want. This him. Him. The money is nice but love is above. Yes yes. Kelso honey, I'm coming back for you. You are going to help me raise hydroponic beans.

Lightning struck again. The glass house glittered like a diamond trapping light. Jesus, she thought, doesn't he know we could get killed? But he was humming a tune—the Trout?—and keeping time with his finger on her shoulder.

The lightning was going away. “What's going to happen now?” she asked him.

“Now? I'm going home now.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“What is expected of me. Take care of people who need taking care of. I have to see how my daughter is. I have an obligation to her. I have not been a good father. Then we'll see.

“Am I one of those people you're going to take care of?”

“Yes.” He sat up. “I'm hungry.”

“Me too.” Juices spurted in her mouth. “I bought some steaks.”

He didn't seem surprised. She put her marine jacket on. He lay quietly, watching her while she cooked. She didn't mind feeling his eyes on her back and her bare legs. She went outside, to get the beer. It didn't matter that it was cold and raining and she was barefoot.

The steaks were good. But he ate absently, as if they were in a restaurant and the steaks were no more or less than he expected. The rain stopped. It was still dark when he left. She didn't know what time it was.

She could not have said how long she stood in the doorway thinking of nothing, listening to the dripping rhododendrons, which were like large brooding presences stooping toward her—when he came back.

He was different. They stood, the candle between them. She didn't want to look at him.

“I forgot to tell you something. I will be your legal guardian if that is what you and your parents want. That will involve a fiduciary relationship which I will discharge faithfully, in your interest and to the best of my ability.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn't that enough?”

“Is it enough for you?”

“Me?”

“Why do you sound so tired?”

“Me? It is not an interesting subject. At least not to me. The subject is closed, if not disclosed,” he said, smiling.

“Ha.”

“Thank you for taking care of me.” He held out his hand. She did not take it. She hung her head like a mountain girl.

She did not seem to notice his leaving and stood thinking of nothing until it occurred to her that the dog hadn't been fed. It was pleasant to think of the dog's pleasure as she gathered up the steak scraps.

II

THE RAIN HAD STOPPED
but it was still dark when he reached the Mercedes. He did not realize he was cold until he tried to unlock the door. His hand began to shake. Then, as if it had been given permission, his whole body began to shake. He opened the door. The courtesy lights came on. He looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. After he got under the wheel and closed the door, he waited for the lights to go out. The courtesy lights stayed on long enough to allow the driver to insert his key in the ignition. While the light was on, he was aware of a slight compulsion to do what the German light expected him to do, start the engine. The Mercedes was waiting for him.

But he did not start the engine. He sat shaking and smelling the car. It smelled of leather and wax and car newness. The shaking came in waves but he paid no attention. Three hundred yards away a naked yellow light bulb shone in the gable of a shed where electric carts were stored, each parked in its stall, plugged in and recharging. The shed hummed. A stray cart had been abandoned in the woods. Its roof supports were tilted at an angle but an empty Coke bottle hung vertically in its gimbel. The shaking stopped. Suddenly he became sleepy. It is possible, he thought, to drive home now, go straight up to the bedroom from the garage, sleep until eight, bathe, shave, dress, and appear for breakfast as usual in the sun parlor. In good weather the morning sun flashed on the polished silver and the soft white napery. Yamaiuchi's hand came twirling down with a melon, orange juice, shirred egg.

On the other hand, he was sleepy, as sleepy as he had ever been in his life. Sleep came down around his ears like an iron hat.

Now sitting on the back seat, he felt for Marion's lap robe. It was thick, gray, heavy as a rug, smooth on one side and curly with lamb's wool on the other. It was the “cheap” lap robe, he remembered, which Marion had chosen rather than use the fur robe from the Rolls. Something winked in the feeble yellow light. It was the miniature bar fitted into the back of the front seat. She had given him the “little” Mercedes for their own outings. As she saw it, and as it pleased him to see her seeing it, in the Mercedes they were more or less like other Carolina couples in their Plymouths and Fords, which for a fact did look more and more like a Mercedes. No Rolls, no chauffeur, no fuss. Zip they went up the Blue Ridge Parkway, down to town for shopping, into Asheville to see her attorneys, over to Charlotte, Chapel Hill, and Durham for football and basketball games. What a pleasure for her and him, as much a pleasure for him to show her how the pleasure could be taken as to take it for himself, to set out on a fine football Saturday morning, meet the McKeons and Battles for a picnic at an interstate rest area, swing Marion into her wheelchair, tuck her legs in with the “cheap” lap robe, stand around drinks in hand, hampers open on tailgates, and with that festive fondness and the special dispensation conferred by the kickoff two hours away—and the extra pleasure too of the very publicness of the place, their own sector of clean public concrete staked out amidst the sleeping eighteen-wheelers and Florida-bound Airstreams, we taking pleasure from them, we on our way to the game, they coming and going in the old unheeding public world—tend the tiny bar, pour whiskey into gold-lined silver jiggers, and finally simply stand in the wine-colored Carolina sunlight sleepy and smiling and look at the colors of the leaves and of the bourbon whiskey against gold.

Now sitting in the back seat in the dark, he switched on the light and opened the bar and lifted the silver flask. It was full. He poured a drink and set it on the rectangle of polished walnut. His hand began to shake again.

There he sat in the same Mercedes, a 450 SEL 6.9-liter sedan, a badly flawed frazzled shaky American, as hollow-eyed as a Dachau survivor, still smelling of cave crud, in a perfect German machine redolent of leather, polished wood, and fine oil on steel.

The bar light was still on. By moving over to the right corner, he could see himself in the rearview mirror. How do I look in the face? Like General J. E. B. Stuart, whose last words were: How do I look in the face? Except for the beard, not different from the way I always looked, the same veiled eyes as dark and uncandid as Andrea del Sarto, the same curve of lip, the same sly uptilt of head showing nostril.