The Syme Papers (61 page)
Authors: Benjamin Markovits
Your Aunt, frail woman, is quite inconsolable. Rages and
Rants and Rends as if she herself were afflicted or possessed.
Bubbles and I waste all our Energies on quieting the poor thing,
so that Annie may sleep a little, and have short Time to attend to
her greater Needs
…
but Beth Rages so and has beat
me where
my bosom is blue and marked red with her finger’s ends as I
restrained her and her struggles were spent and we both fell quiet
sobbing
…
Bubbles is a Tower
…
though she has lost all her
Delicate Ways in Reuben’s Slaughter-house, she has learned the
strength of Ten, and marches about the house like an Army
defending all in
their Turn
and chiefly poor Annie
…
for Bubbles
always had a heart for Outrage at the miseries of others and she
Tirades at the Doctor
–
who to speak plainly is a foolish
Illusionist, till he does not Trust himself to Come any more nor
Retire when he does
…
We all feel the Need of you greatly, our much-loved Sam, and
do all entreat you to Come, though not if it be inconvenient.
Your loving Father Bubbles Aunt
Sam had stopped reading, I could see, like a sprinter who had
spent his wind, his shoulders slack over the splay of his elbows, a
patch of sweat beneath his arms from the hot summer morning. Had
he not galloped over miles and miles of words? But with a
new breath, he pushed the latest letter across the sunshine on the
breakfast table, and turned himself to the next note in the pile, while
I read this:
Indeed now Bubbles has grown Inconsolable, and we can no
more support her Grief than we can the loss of her kind offices. It
is cruel to say it, my Son, but I think that her long usage to the
Slaughter-house has taught her to bear the sight of Blood; and like
the digger in
Hamlet,
she has grown callous to her Employment.
She alone has the stomach to nurse your Mother, whom we have
begun to Bleed; and when Bubbles loses the
Heart
for it, there’s
nothing to be done. The Doctor is an Imbecile and Fool, and
Annie flows and groans at the sight of him; but there is no
Alternative when Bubbles is in one of her fits; for your Aunt Beth
will not enter the Room for Horror; and I dare not touch your
mother myself. Indeed it is all Tears and Bedlam at the moment;
and Women, and I am
scarcely any
better
…
I
wished to avoid an Account of Annie’s condition, for fear of
distressing you, but Bubbles clamours in my Ear and will not
rest
–
‘tell him tell him tell him’ till she scarce knows what
she
says or distinguishes the words or indeed remembers what it is I
am to relate. She grows hoarse and insistent as a Parrot, and she
frightens me. But perhaps it is best that you know, for you have
always been the Pillar of the house, my Son, I know, for which
you blame me greatly, but Uphold us
now …
Mother lies
in
bed
like an Udder or a pricked Waterskin, for
the
Doctor bleeds her from every vein, and she is so full of evil Blood
poor loving heart. She is nothing but Holes and Openings, and is
coming out almost before we can stop Her. We have always afresh
basin at hand; but it is only Bubbles as can bring herself to bear
the blood away through long Custom as I believe, for the clear Red
quite terrifies me it sits so placid in the bowl. Your mother is not
placid, is a Volcano; and bleeds even without the Doctor’s lancet.
This morning Aunt Beth summoned the Courage to sit by her
poor Sister, when Shrieks of Alarm brought us all to the bed,
where Beth lay
swooned quite to the floor
–
away from Annie, poor
thing,
for her sensibility
–
and we saw
the abhorred Cause. Her
Nose had begun to spout and gush Blood and it ran over her
Mouth, where she lacked the Civility to remove it, but she
Muttered and Garbled on in the most outlandish tongue, her
Tongue itself dabbled with red like Macbeth’s Hands, and I could
not bear to look on
her.
We feared she had been drinking again,
which Beth denied, confessing that her sister moaned so horrible,
she had given her a Bottle of Laudanum at last. This we found
under the bed at Beth’s feet all run to the floor. Bubbles was a
splendid Creature, and staunched the flow with a cold Cloth and
cleaned her face, till the skin was quite rough with rubbing and
Annie’s lips bent indifferent like a babie’s Mouth when you wipe
it. Beth ran for the Doctor, while Bubbles staunched the blood with
cotton wads poked in Annie’s nose, and indeed she looks more like
a Bandage than a Human Being. Bubbles is splendid, but is
beyond her Strength; she shivered and quaked after her exertions,
and became so pale that I had to attend to her myself. She lays in
bed beside me now while I pen these lines and beseech you, my
only Son, to return to us. And I beseech the Gods of Chance and
Tiding, Mercury if he still answers to the Name, that this letter
reach you in time, for we are all quite Desolate without you, and
expect every footstep on the Threshold to be your Own.
Your loving etc.
I became aware of a strange lapse. The events of the sick-room
seemed to be acted out before my eyes as I read. But it was not so, I
heard only an echo of the tale. I looked up and saw Sam read two or
three letters before me. The room was the same clean-boarded wood
en summer cottage of an hour before, only the air was loud with the
growing morning and the sun fell thicker through the open window.
Tom still sat in the rocking chair by the door, though he had ceased
to rock. I saw him looking at us, quite still and shrunken in his cor
ner, as if he knew some game was up. James clattered in the kitchen,
then came and stood in the doorway. He exchanged a glance with
his cousin. Neither moved. Indeed, I heard only an echo’s echo, for
the first cry rose far from these belated pages. I looked at the heads of
the letters, and saw
‘June
29,
June
30,
July
7,
the 12th,
Tuesday
17’
in quick succession. The next note came rasping across the table.
I live in a Mad-house and you will not think me over-nice
when I say that I cannot support such Clamour any longer.
Bubbles insists on dose after dose of Laudanum to comfort
Annie’s pain; and the Doctor agrees that there is little else to be
done. But though the Laudanum quiets her bloody Rage, the
delirium that replaces it is nearly more terrible. Where before she
bled, now she Sweats quite calmly, and speaks as matter-of-fact as
if she merely directed Nancy to clean the Larder; but the Contents
of her Dreams are horrible and Cantankerous. And all the while
she grows Thinner and Thinner; though her face is red and her
pores Sweat at every instant, she has quite wasted away to
Girlhood and Loveliness, only
III,
grown very III,
as I knew her
once, though I cannot reach her now, on her great Mountain of
Hallucinations, and I hear only their Echoes, and cannot bear
their Nonsense. Come come if only to share the burden of her
Mutterings.
Your desperate, etc.
Father
I looked up. Two more letters lay on the table before me, but the
air seemed heavy and about to break, as it did on that much hap
pier occasion when the rains came down on the tiny church in
Perkins. Sam sobbed, soft as the first drops of rain to prick and
bend the leaves before a shower strikes. Tom simply stared from
his unapproachable distance by the door. James went in the
kitchen and clattered, too cheerfully for my ears. Sam began to
clamour, and his sobs broke now as loud as guffaws in their
upheaval. He was a powerful man, and his grief was as strong as
anger. Tears climbed his high cheekbones and fell towards the
salty corners of his mouth. His face grew puffed and fat. Every
four or five seconds (I was calm enough to note the intervals), his
violent sobbing sucked mightily for air: O, O, O
,
O. The cry hurt
my chest in sympathy, not with the grief that made it, but the lungs
that shouted it. Then I was up, while Tom sat dumb, and my chair
fell back as I came across the table to hold Sam’s shaking shoulders
in my arms.
His head fell towards his chest, and his chin pressed the knuckles
of my hand, and hurt me a touch. His grief cleared like a choked
spring and flowed freely now, without the impediments of social
usage or dry, hardened happiness to keep it back. I remember best
the smell, the odour of grief as I thought, from the chafed blood of
Sam’s body, from the wet patches beneath his arms, and the hairy
haft of his neck. Strong as the smell of a horse, as if it came from
the hair of our animal parts. The stench of a body’s misery.
I stood awkwardly, half-crouched in the legs, for Sam still sat in
his chair, and I had to bend to grapple his neck. My knees ached
above the bone, but still I held him fast, though my eyes had leisure
in his blind, continuing grief to read the note that lay before him on
the table. We seemed alone in the room.
It was a long letter and Sam had come to the second sheet.
…
all evening
…
and the flowers we laid on her stone that
afternoon were all ripp’d apart by the force of the water, as I saw
for I visited the next day. They lay in strewn heaps; branches had
fallen to the ground among the gravestones and all was untidi
ness and Confusion, but only of the ordinary kind of a morning
after a storm, to be soon mended, or rak’d away. You must
remember the storm; a real howler. Your Mother has already
found her Mending. The house is much better now that she is
gone and with her the Devils that beset her at the End, poor body.
Beth has returned to her husband, and for once I miss her Clatter
about the house. For God knows I have little Heart in me to cavil
at poverty now or even coarse Manners. Bubbles stays on with
me, for a time at least, at her Husband’s forbearance, to such uses
have I fallen Horatio! Come to me now, then, though not if it be
inconvenient. She awaits our convenience now. The first absence
is always of our Duties and I have found that quiet Space …
Tom rose, hesitated a moment, then advanced, and (as I seemed
occupied) took the letter from the table. He returned to his chair and
read silently. James had not stirred in the doorway behind me. I saw
him reflected in the opened window by Tom’s chair. The cousins
stood together, image and man, equally quiet. All the outside world
called to me under that blue air. Sam had hushed. Though he still
shook lightly, his noise was spent. I felt the relax of his body after
his violent grief. He had been taut for several days with the
approaching lecture, and all his nervous powers collapsed at the
news of his mother’s death. She afforded him some relief, at least in
dying. I pressed him hard once and stood up straight,
wiping the thick ichor of misery from his eyes with my palm. I sat
beside him and took his hand from between his legs and laid it on
the table under my own. He had my every love, then, and all quick
perceptions fled from me in the simple contemplation of his loss and
my love. Tom at least for a time remained where he was.
Time must be filled though there is nothing but dross to fill it. An
hour passed with a hole in it. All our thoughts turned to Sam’s
great grief and disappeared there. Even the cottage seemed drained
of life, as if a sea had receded and surprised us by the objects it left
behind: a few chairs, a table, a bright window. I had my own private
sorrow to contend with, for I did not tell the others of my father.
That thought lay like a looking-glass in the summer cabin. When I
chanced upon it, I saw myself in that room and wondered how I had
come there.
Sam was the first to raise the matter. ‘Tom,’
he said, nevertheless
twisting his head to look at
me,
‘I
wish to turn home.’
‘We shall,’ he answered. ‘After Philadelphia, there is nothing to
keep us.’
‘There is nothing to keep me now.’
I stood at his back with a hand on his shoulder, and looked at
Tom. I felt the release in his bones. Sam had not the fibre for a
contest. Tom picked up the chair I had knocked over, an age ago, and
stared at the two of us. This was our second council of war, but now
I was at the heart of it, not outside the door.
He said, ‘Too much has been ventured to turn from our course
now. We hope for too much from this one engagement to sacrifice it
for a durable grief …’
