A Garden Of Earthly Delights Part 22

"Lowry-"

"I can't understand things. Life," he said. He shut his eyes tight, as if to get rid of something flying around him, at him. "I don't mean around here. Here, everything is quiet. Your garden here.... It stays in one place. But over there- Nothing stays still long enough for you to understand it. How do you know what you're doing, what's happening? I can't live that way."

"Lowry, please."

"I can't live that way. It would kill me."

"Lowry, I just can't go with you."

He waited a moment. "All right," he said.

She went out in the kitchen to wait for him. Swan must have caught sight of her because he came up on the porch. A slender, shy boy, with his father's face and Clara's hair, standing out on the porch and looking in as if he were on the precipice of time, not really born yet. He waited shyly out there. Clara looked at him as if he were a stranger. There was only this child between herself and Lowry: without him she would throw some things together and the two of them would run out to his car and drive off, and that would be that. Whatever happened-Canada or no Canada, more babies or not-she would not have given a d.a.m.n.

But the boy was out there, watching. She said, "Swan, come inside, I'm going to fix up supper."

He hesitated.

"That man's leaving," Clara said.

The boy came inside. He remembered to shut the screen door without letting it slam. His eyes moved carefully, almost shrewdly around the kitchen, as if looking for things out of place. Clara touched his head and let her hand fall a little heavily onto his shoulder. He flinched a little but said nothing. They waited for Lowry to come out. "Did you dig some nice holes?" Clara said. "Did Butch help you?"

He shook his head, no.

Lowry came out. "I'm going to fix up some supper, you stay for it," she said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Everybody's hungry," Clara said. She did not mean her voice to be so harsh and hopeless. Lowry and Swan looked at each other, both of them strangely shy. In Lowry there was something stunned and withheld, in Swan there was the kind of timidity Clara hated in all children, especially boys. "For Christ's sake, people have to eat," she said. "You want something or not?"

"I said no."

She and Swan followed him out onto the back porch. "You got a few more hours before it gets dark," Clara said. "Do you expect to drive far, or ..." They kept up this kind of talk in front of the boy, Clara feeling herself pushed forward further and further toward that precipice, so that she wanted to scream at Lowry to get out of here before it was too late and everything was ruined. If he said just the right thing, if he looked at her in just the right way- But he did not know this. If he had known, he might have changed her life; but he was exhausted, he had given up, something had drained out of him and left his face ashen. Instead, he took hold of Swan's chin and bent down to look into his face.

"You ever killed any snakes or things, kid?"

Swan tried to jerk away.

"Let go of him!" Clara cried.

"I just want to ask him: you ever killed anything?"

Swan shook his head no desperately.

"You're lying. I can see in your face you killed something already and you're going to kill lots of things." Lowry's own face twisted into something ugly that might have been there all along, through the years, without him or Clara knowing of it. Clara saw how his mouth changed, how his grayish teeth were bared. "I can see it right there-all the things you're going to kill and step on and walk over."

And he released Swan. He straightened up, stepped back. The boy ran to Clara, too terrified to cry, and she stood without bending to embrace him and watched Lowry walk away. He walked out along the side path to the lane and out along that, taking his time. The last she saw of him wasn't even him, but the dust that rose behind his car as it moved out of sight.

"You forget about him, you hear?" Clara cried. "Don't you think about him again-he's going and he won't be back! You're going to get things that he could never give you, you're going to get a last name, a real name, and a whole world to live in-not just a patch of a world- You hear me? You hear me?"

She had to be careful or she would go crazy, Clara thought. She had to be careful. The boy's face, drawn and strangely old, seemed to her suddenly the one thing she had to hate, the only thing that had lost her Lowry.

III.

SWAN.

1.

The man said to be Swan's father had shoulders that stooped a little, as if to minimize their obvious strength. His hair was gray, a mixture of many shades. All his life Swan had been seeing this man, but today, when he looked at him, his vision seemed to blotch, as if trying to protect him from some mysterious injury. He was a child, seven. His vision would pound and tiny nervelike veins around his eyes pulsed a warning to him, but a warning of what? He was seven now and getting big and had no patience with babyish fears; he himself could measure how fast he had grown this year by the limb of the apple tree he had never been able to reach before.

That morning they had been driven to the man's house many miles from their own, in the man's car that was heavy and solid as a piece of farm machinery. Though the man's house was said to be a farmhouse it looked like no farmhouse Swan had ever seen before. It was made of dark weatherworn stone with long narrow windows, more windows than Swan could count, and shutters painted green. There were three brick chimneys. Behind the farmhouse was a barn, painted dark red, larger than any barn Swan had ever seen; what was even more startling, the barn was positioned at the top of a small hill, and it had sides that enclosed the barnyard. There was a copper weatherc.o.c.k on the highest peak of the barn and on its front was painted in big black letters REVERE FARM. There were two tall silos in good repair beside this barn, and there were several other outbuildings: Revere pointed out the stable, the cow barn, the chicken coop. He had a pleased, embarra.s.sed way about him, and glanced often at Swan who was staring through the windshield of the car, squeezed in beside Clara.

Clara leaned down to Swan, gripping his thin shoulders and bringing her head level with his. She was excited, gleeful as a child. "Oh Swan, look! Did you ever see anything so-" But Clara's voice faltered. So big So big she might have meant. But she had no adequate words. Swan felt the poverty of his mother's language, and knew it to be his own. she might have meant. But she had no adequate words. Swan felt the poverty of his mother's language, and knew it to be his own.

The driveway from the road was long, perhaps a quarter-mile. It was lined with tall evergreens so evenly s.p.a.ced you understood that they had been planted deliberately. At REVERE FARM, little was left to chance.

Swan wanted to shut his eyes. He knew this was meant for him, that was why Clara was gripping his shoulders so tightly.

As they were walking into the house, Clara murmured in Swan's ear, "Don't be afraid of him, Swan. He loves you. What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?" She poked him, pinched him. Swan bit his lip to keep from crying. Inside, he was taken into the parlor as Revere called it, a room that smelled of furniture polish and something dark and moldy. Revere was breathing hard, and his face had a warm copperish glow; he sat heavily in a chair with a high back and a thick cushion, and drew Swan to him. Loves you. Loves you. Loves you. Loves you. Swan held his breath against the man's smell. "Steven. This will be your home." Revere's voice was husky, as if he were on the verge of crying. A grown man, an old man! Swan balked, and would have wrenched away if Clara's deft fingers hadn't caught him. Swan held his breath against the man's smell. "Steven. This will be your home." Revere's voice was husky, as if he were on the verge of crying. A grown man, an old man! Swan balked, and would have wrenched away if Clara's deft fingers hadn't caught him.

Clara said to Revere, as if Swan were not present, or were some sort of animal to whom language had no meaning, "See what it is for him-your son!-to be afraid? Of his own father, afraid? And in his father's house for the first time at age seven."

Revere said nothing. Perhaps, staring at Swan, he wasn't listening.

Clara had never been in this house before but she looked boldly around, with her calm, narrowly interested gaze, at the furniture that was so heavy and polished and nothing at all like the things in their old house, and she was not afraid. In the very air of this great stone house there was an odor that could never have belonged to their own house-an odor of weight and darkness and time, of things oiled and cared for. At one end of the room there was a great fireplace, big enough for Swan to stand in if he wanted, and above it a mantel with silver candlestick holders on either side. He knew what silver was, more or less. His mother had some silver things. And she had a golden ring and a golden necklace too, gleaming, delicately glittering things that lay so gently against her tanned skin that you might worry about their getting lost or being thrown aside when she was in a hurry. Once she had lost a little heart Revere had given her, and Swan had hunted for it and found it in the weeds by the back door.

But they were in this house now. Clara swallowed, and stared, her eyes slightly narrowed as if she were looking into a blinding light. When she spoke it was impulsively, nervously. "Those chair legs-why are they twisted like that?"

Revere said, bemused, "That's the way they are."

"It's-like an antique? That's what it is?"

"Yes, it's French, I think."

Swan waited expecting Clara to say it was strange, she didn't like it, but instead Clara looked elsewhere. "That man in the picture- he's somebody you know?"

"It's a painting of my father."

"Your father!"

Clara approached the portrait, cautiously. She stood with her hands clasped before her, staring, frowning, while Swan and Revere watched. Out of a vague brown-hued background the man said to be Curt Revere's father gazed down at her, imperturbed. A chill white light illuminated his face, that put Swan in mind of a sharp, clever dog's face. Clara glanced back at Revere, comparing the faces. "He has your eyes. But not so nice as yours." Half-teasing, she said, "Will you look like him when you get that age?"

"Clara, I'm older now than my father was when he died."

Revere made a sound that might have been an embarra.s.sed laugh, yet it might have been reproachful as well. Clara didn't catch this. She frowned as if trying to solve a riddle: what exactly had Revere said? Swan saw her give up, and turn back to them, smiling. She was conscious of her new, expensive dress and her long silky legs. When she sat down she drew her skirt carefully over her knees.

"Ah, well," she said, "people live, and people die. It keeps on."

She stretched out her legs. She would make herself lazy and comfortable as a cat, even here, even today, while Revere sat stiffly, as if listening for something from upstairs or outside that he was afraid he might hear. He wore a dark suit. He smelled of something harsh-maybe tobacco-while Clara smelled of the perfume in the amber jar Swan had always loved. He would sneak into her room and hold the jar up to the light to look through it. Through that gla.s.s the backyard became mysterious and fluid with a grainy, fragrant light. The ugly old pear tree, dying on one side, became serene and frozen in the glare of that special light-even if there were those pouches of cloudy coc.o.o.ns filled with worms high up on the tree, it did not matter. Swan could look at them without disgust through that bottle.

"Steven," Revere said, "what is your last name going to be now?"

Swan looked up at him. This man's natural expression was muscularly pleasant; his smiles faded easily into one another. He had big squarish white teeth that seemed to smile too. He was a man who belonged outside, not in this parlor. He had already tried to take Swan hunting with him, out behind Clara's house, and his strides through the gra.s.s had drawn him away from Swan, who hurried along nervously and could not look away from the gra.s.s for fear he would trip over something and the gun he had would go off. It was out of the high gra.s.s the pheasants and quail flew, and their flight terrified Swan so that he had burst into tears. He remembered that.

"Tell him," Clara said, nudging him with her foot. "What's your name going to be? Don't be so shy, kid."

"I don't know," he said.

That was bad, a mistake. He sensed their impatience. "Don't you know?" Revere said. He smiled. "It's Revere. You know that. Say it now-Steven Revere."

There was Clark, and Jonathan, and Robert, and now Steven: all brothers.

"Steven Revere," Swan said softly.

He wished he had another name to blot out this one, to take its place, but he had nothing. His mother always said with a laugh that she had no last name-it was a secret-or better yet, she had forgotten it-she had been kicked out by her father, she said.

"Steven Revere. Steve," the man said slowly. He peered into the child's eyes as if trying to locate himself there. Swan stared up shyly-he had the feeling for a moment that he could love this man if only he wouldn't take him out hunting and make him handle guns and kill things. Why was there always so much confusion and danger with men?

He edged over toward Clara but she was talking to Revere about other things. They talked about people who were coming, about the house, about Revere's sister. Swan, who spoke so little when he was with anyone besides Clara, tried to force the dizzying flood of words and impressions into coherent thoughts-this was all he could do. The only power he had was the power to watch and to listen. His mother could pick things up and toss them out in the garbage; she could slap him, spank him, hug and kiss him; she could yell out the window at some kids crossing through their property; she could sit smoking in the darkened kitchen, smiling at nothing. She was an adult who had power, and because Swan was a child, he had no power. This man here, this kindly man with the strong hands and the urgent, perplexed look-he too had power, the power suggested by this large house and the barns and land behind it, the enormous sweep of cultivated land that belonged to him while so many people owned nothing at all. He could walk confidently across his land and know that he owned it because he was a man, an adult, he possessed the mysterious power of strength that no child possessed, even those boys at school who pushed Swan around. But even those children had no real strength; adults owned them. Everyone was frightened by someone else, Swan thought.

"Well, what do you think?" Revere said, smoothing down Swan's hair. "You're not worried about the boys, are you? They're good kids. You'll all get along."

"They'd better be nice to him," Clara said.

"They won't bother him," Revere said. "They're good kids."

"I know what kids are like...."

"Don't worry him, Clara. You know better than that. Steven," Revere said, leaning to him, "you know your mother will take care of you. There's nothing to be worried about. It's just that now we're going to live together in one house. We've been waiting a long time for this. And you'll have three brothers to play with-you won't be alone anymore."

"He never was alone," Clara said.

Swan knew these "brothers." His terror of them was based on the fact that they had never spoken to him but only looked at him, un-smiling. They were big-ten, twelve, and fifteen-and had their father's heavy squarish shoulders, the dark hair, and the dark quiet blue eyes. They seemed to be waiting for him to speak, to do something. The times Revere had brought them to meet Swan, Revere had done all the talking and even Clara had been silent. Revere had talked about them hunting together, fishing, playing with the horses. He had talked about doing ch.o.r.es together. He had talked about school.... But the boys had said nothing except what was dragged out of them by Revere and those words had no meaning.

"Look, everything will be fine. You know that," Revere said to Clara.

She shrugged her shoulders but she smiled. She had taken out a cigarette and now she leaned forward so that Revere could light it; Swan, forgotten for the moment, watched in fascination the burning match and the tiny flickering glow at the end of the cigarette, as if he had never seen these things before. He wanted to pay attention to every small thing in order to keep time going slowly, because something important was going to happen that day and he was afraid of it.

"It isn't good for boys to be ... without a mother," Revere was saying.

Swan had always watched people closely when they were around his mother. He saw how they caught from her a certain catlike easiness, no matter what anger they had brought with them. Even this big Revere, with his squarish jaw and his wide, lined, intelligent forehead, was squinting at her now as if something misty and dazzling had pa.s.sed between him and Clara. Swan looked quickly at his mother as if to see what it was that Revere saw in her; but he did not see it, not exactly. His mother smiled at him, a special smile, for him. It told him, right in front of this man whose big hands could have hurt them both, that they were here at last, here they were, what good luck!

"I know what you need around here," Clara said. "Some windows open and some airing-out. Some of this old stuff cleaned, right? What's that thing you're sitting on, honey? I can see the dust in it, eating right down. Doesn't your sister care about the place?"

"She isn't well," Revere said clumsily. Swan saw how the man's gaze faltered; Clara must have been frowning. "It's only been a month since the funeral, after all. She just hasn't gotten over it yet-they were like sisters."

Swan looked at the man's shoes: black stiff-looking shoes without any mud on them, not even a faint rim of dried mud around the very bottom.

"They were a lot alike," Clara said softly. "People said so. Your sister is older than-than your wife, though." The child stood between them, listening. He took everything too seriously and had not learned to laugh; he knew that, didn't his mother tell him so every day? But he had the idea that he must watch and listen carefully. He must learn. Living was a game with rules he had to learn for himself by watching these adults as carefully as possible. There had been one other adult in his life-not the schoolteacher, who didn't count, but one other man, almost lost in his memory, a strange blond man who had touched him and who had vanished.... Once in a while he found himself thinking about that man, trying to remember what that man had said to him. But it was fuzzy and lost. He had been too young. Now the memory of that other man, awakened by Revere's attention, swept down upon him like one of the big chicken hawks everyone hated, with its dusty flapping wings and its scrawny legs, and Swan could almost smell the fetid odor of that breath. ("Never say a word about him," Clara had told him, just once. She did not have to tell Swan things twice.) "Look-Esther was like a sister to her too, not just to me," Revere was saying. Swan knew that their attention had moved completely away from him; he was relieved. "Out in the country like this, and not ever getting married-she liked Marguerite better than she liked me, really. She never caused any trouble. She never came between us. But she has nowhere to go now, she's too proud to ask anyone. The house is just as much hers as mine-"

Clara made a disgusted sound.

"Our father left it to us both."

"Who keeps it going? Who has the money?" Clara said breathlessly.

"She has money of her own, that's not it. I don't care about that. Anyway, she doesn't want to live in Hamilton, she doesn't like it there and I don't blame her. She doesn't like my uncle. My sister and I have never really been close, but ..."

"How she must hate me!" Clara said.

"She doesn't hate you, Clara."

"She never told you?"

"No one ever said anything, all these years."

"They were afraid of you, that's the only reason. But they hated me anyway and they'll always hate me. Are they really coming today?"

"Yes."

"Every one of them? Really? The women too-Judd's wife too?" Clara said greedily.

"They do what I ask them to."

Swan sensed something brittle and dangerous in the air about them. A faint warning began in his stomach, as it did when he was inching out on ice, but his mother must have felt nothing, for she went on teasingly, "Your wife didn't do what you asked."

Revere shook his head. "That's finished."

"If she'd done what you wanted," Clara said, "you and I would be married now. Not like this, with the kid seven years old and us going to be married finally-what a laugh! But no, no, you can't budge a woman like her. From a good family with a good German name, is she going to give a divorce to a man to make him happy? Never! She's going to sit tight with her nails dug in you to keep you as long as possible."

Clara made a vague spitting gesture; then, to soften the movement, she frowned and picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. "So your kid here has to be taught his last name, and he's afraid of you. Your own boy afraid of you. Are you proud?"

"No, I'm not proud."

"Men are always proud, they think more of that than anything. But not women," Clara said. She crossed her legs. The blue silk dress was drawn tight about her thighs in tiny veinlike wrinkles. She had lean, smooth legs; because she was wearing stockings today the curve of her calves was not shiny as usual. "Women have no pride. They do what men want them to do, like me, and to h.e.l.l with it. If some b.a.s.t.a.r.ds turn their nose up at me, let them. I never asked for any of them to like me."

"After today everything will be all right," Revere said. "The past is over. Marguerite is dead. I can't think anything bad of her now."

"I don't think bad of her either," Clara said quickly. She had the look Swan sometimes saw on her face when she was about to throw something down in disgust. "I don't think bad of the dead. She was a good woman to give you three sons-I don't think bad of anybody dead. I never knew her. And when I'm dead myself I won't give a d.a.m.n if they're still talking about me."