Bagombo Snuff Box (19 page)

“You, too,” Laird said.

“Do I really?” Amy said. “I feel so ancient.”

“You shouldn’t,” Laird said. “This life obviously agrees
with you.”

“We have been very happy,” Amy said.

“You’re as pretty as a model in Paris, a movie star in Rome.”

“You don’t mean it.” Amy was pleased.

“I do,” Laird said. “I can see you now in a Mainbocher suit,
your high heels clicking smartly along the Champs-Elysees, with the soft winds
of the Parisian spring ruffling your black hair, and with every eye drinking
you in—and a gendarme salutes!”

“Oh, Eddie!” Amy cried.

“Have you been to Paris?” said Laird.

“Nope,” said Amy.

“No matter. In many ways, there are more exotic thrills in
New York. I can see you there, in a theater crowd, with each man falling silent
and turning to stare as you pass by. When was the last time you were in New
York?”

“Hmmmmm?” Amy said, staring into the distance.

“When were you last in New York?”

“Oh, I’ve never been there. Harry has—on business.”

“Why didn’t he take you?” Laird said gallantly. “You can’t
let your youth slip away without going to New York. It’s a young person’s town.”

“Angel,” Harry called from the kitchen, “how can you tell if
lima beans are done?”

“Stick a lousy fork into ‘em!” Amy yelled.

Harry appeared in the doorway with drinks, and blinked in
hurt bewilderment. “Do you have to yell at me?” he said.

Amy rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m tired. We’re
both tired.”

“We haven’t had much sleep,” Harry said. He patted his wife’s
back. “We’re both a little tense.”

Amy took her husband’s hand and squeezed it. Peace settled
over the house once more.

Harry passed out the drinks, and Laird proposed a toast.

“Eat, drink, and be merry,” Laird said, “for tomorrow we
could die.”

Harry and Amy winced, and drank thirstily.

“He brought us a snuff box from Bagombo, honey,” said Harry.
“Did I pronounce that right?”

“You’ve Americanized it a little,” said Laird. “But that’s
about it.” He pursed his lips. “Bagombo.”

“It’s very pretty,” said Amy. “I’ll put it on my dressing
table, and not let the children near it. Bagombo.”

“There!” Laird said. “She said it just right. It’s a funny
thing. Some people have an ear for languages. They hear them once, and they
catch all the subtle sounds immediately. And some people have a tin ear, and
never catch on. Amy, listen, and then repeat what I say: ‘Toli! Pakka sahn
nebul rokka ta. Si notte loni gin ta tonic.’”

Cautiously Amy repeated the sentence.

“Perfect! You know what you just said in Buhna-Simca? ‘Young
woman, go cover the baby, and bring me a gin and tonic on the south terrace.’
Now then, Harry, you say, ‘Pilla! Sibba tu bang-bang. Libbin hru donna steek!’”

Harry, frowning, repeated the sentence.

Laird sat back with a sympathetic smile for Amy. “Well, I
don’t know, Harry. That might get across, except you’d earn a laugh from the
natives when you turned your back.”

Harry was stung. “What did I say?”

“‘Boy!’” Laird translated. “‘Hand me the gun. The tiger is
in the clump of trees just ahead.’”

“Pilla!” Harry said imperiously. “Sibba tu bang-bang. Libbin
hru donna steek!” He held out his hand for the gun, and the hand twitched like
a fish dying on a riverbank.

“Better—much better!” Laird said.

“That was good,” Amy said.

Harry brushed off their adulation. He was grim, purposeful. “Tell
me,” he said, “are tigers a problem around Bagombo?”

“Sometimes, when game gets scarce in the jungles, tigers
come into the outskirts of villages,” Laird said. ‘And then you have to go out
and get them.”

“You had servants in Bagombo, did you?” Amy said.

“At six cents a day for a man, and four cents a day for a
woman? I guess!” Laird said.

There was the sound of a bicycle bumping against the outside
of the house.

“Stevie’s home,” Harry said.

“I want to go to Bagombo,” Amy said.

“It’s no place to raise kids,” Laird said. “That’s the big
drawback.”

The front door opened, and a good-looking, muscular
nine-year-old boy came in, hot and sweaty. He threw his cap at a hook in the
front closet and started upstairs.

“Hang up your hat, Stevie!” Amy said. “I’m not a servant who
follows you around, gathering things wherever you care to throw them.”

‘And pick up your feet!” said Harry.

Stevie came creeping down the stairway, shocked and perplexed.
“What got into you two all of a sudden?” he said.

“Don’t be fresh,” Harry said. “Come in here and meet Mr.
Laird.”

“Major Laird,” said Laird.

“Hi,” said Stevie. “How come you haven’t got a uniform on,
if you’re a Major?”

“Reserve commission,” Laird said. The boy’s eyes, frank, irreverent,
and unromantic, scared him. “Nice boy you have here.”

“Oh,” Stevie said, “that kind of a Major.” He saw the snuff
box, and picked it up.

“Stevie,” Amy said, “put that down. It’s one of Mother’s
treasures, and it’s not going to get broken like everything else. Put it down.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Stevie. He set the box down with
elaborate gentleness. “I didn’t know it was such a treasure.”

“Major Laird brought it all the way from Bagombo,” Amy said.

“Bagombo, Japan?” Stevie said.

“Ceylon, Stevie,” Harry said. “Bagombo is in Ceylon.”

“Then how come it’s got’Made in Japan’on the bottom?”

Laird paled. “They export their stuff to Japan, and the
Japanese market it for them,” he said.

“There, Stevie,” Amy said. “You learned something today.”

“Then why don’t they say it was made in Ceylon?” Stevie
wanted to know.

“The Oriental mind works in devious ways,” said Harry.

“Exactly,” said Laird. “You’ve caught the whole spirit of
the Orient in that one sentence, Harry.”

“They ship these things all the way from Africa to Japan?”
Stevie asked.

A hideous doubt stabbed Laird. A map of the world swirled in
his mind, with continents flapping and changing shape and with an island named
Ceylon scuttling through the seven seas. Only two points held firm, and these
were Stevie’s irreverent blue eyes.

“I always thought it was off India,” Amy said.

“It’s funny how things leave you when you start thinking
about them too hard,” Harry said. “Now I’ve got Ceylon all balled up with Madagascar.”

“And Sumatra and Borneo,” Amy said. “That’s what we get for
never leaving home.”

Now four islands were sailing the troubled seas in Laird’s
mind.

“What’s the answer, Eddie?” Amy said. “Where is Ceylon?”

“It’s an island off Africa,” Stevie said firmly. “We studied
it.”

Laird looked around the room and saw doubt on every face but
Stevie’s. He cleared his throat. “The boy is right,” he croaked.

“I’ll get my atlas and show you,” Stevie said with pride,
and ran upstairs.

Laird stood up, weak. “Must dash.”

“So soon?” Harry said. “Well, I hope you find lots of uranium.”
He avoided his wife’s eyes. “I’d give my right arm to go with you.”

“Someday, when the children are grown,” Amy said, “maybe we’ll
still be young enough to enjoy New York and Paris, and all those other places—
and maybe retire in Bagombo.”

“I hope so,” said Laird. He blundered out the door, and down
the walk, which now seemed endless, and into the waiting taxicab. “Let’s go,”
he told the driver.

“They’re all yelling at you,” said the driver. He rolled
down his window so Laird could hear.

“Hey, Major!” Stevie was shouting. “Mom’s right, and we’re
wrong. Ceylon is off India.”

The family that Laird had so recently scattered to the winds
was together again, united in mirth on the doorstep.

“Pilla!” called Harry gaily. “Sibba tu bang-bang. Libbin hru
donna steek!”

“Toli!” Amy called back. “Pakka sahn nebul rokka ta. Si
notte loni gin ta tonic.”

The cab pulled away.

That night, in his hotel room, Laird put in a long-distance
call to his second wife, Selma, in a small house in Levittown, Long Island, New
York, far, far away.

“Is Arthur doing any better with his reading, Selma?” he
asked.

“The teacher says he isn’t dull, he’s lazy,” Selma said. “She
says he can catch up with the class anytime he makes up his mind to.”

“I’ll talk to him when I get home,” Laird said. “And the
twins? Are they letting you sleep at all?”

“Well, I’m getting two of them out of the way at one crack.
Let’s look at it that way.” Selma yawned agonizingly. “How’s the trip going?”

“You remember how they said you couldn’t sell potato chips
in Dubuque?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I did,” said Laird. “I’m going to make history in
this territory. I’ll stand this town on its ear.”

“Are you—” Selma hesitated. ‘Are you going to call her up,
Eddie?”

“Naaaaah,” Laird said. “Why open old graves?”

“You’re not even curious about what’s happened to her?”

“Naaaaah. We’d hardly know each other. People change, people
change.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, I almost forgot. What did the dentist say
about Dawn’s teeth?”

Selma sighed. “She needs braces.”

“Get them. I’m clicking, Selma. We’re going to start living.
I bought a new suit.”

“It’s about time,” Selma said. “You’ve needed one for so
long. Does it look nice on you?”

“I think so,” Laird said. “I love you, Selma.”

“I love you, Eddie. Good night.”

“Miss you,” Laird said. “Good night.”

A thin young man with big grimy hands crossed the
sun-softened asphalt of the seaside village’s main street, went from the
automobile dealership where he worked to the post office. The village had once
been a whaling port. Now its natives served the owners and renters of mansions
on the beachfront.

The young man mailed some letters and bought stamps for his
boss. Then he went to the drugstore next door on business of his own. Two summer
people, a man and a woman his age, were coming out as he was going in. He gave
them a sullen glance, as though their health and wealth and lazy aplomb were
meant to mock him.

He asked the druggist, who knew him well, to cash his own
personal check for five dollars. It was drawn on his account at a bank in the
next town. There was no bank in the village. His name was Kiah.

Kiah had moved his money, which was quite a lot, from a savings
account into checking. The check Kiah handed the druggist was the first he had
ever written. It was in fact numbered 1. Kiah didn’t need the five dollars. He
worked off the books for the automobile dealer, and was paid in cash. He wanted
to make sure a check written by him was really money, would really work.

“My name is written on top there,” he said.

“I see that,” said the druggist. “You’re certainly coming up
in the world.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kiah, “it’s good.” Was it ever good!
Kiah thought maybe the druggist would faint if he knew how good that check was.

“Why would I worry about a check from the most honest,
hardworking boy in town?” The druggist corrected himself. “A checking account
makes you a big man now, just like J. E Morgan.”

“What kind of a car does he drive?” asked Kiah.

“Who?”

“J. R Morgan.”

“He’s dead. Is that how you judge people, by the cars they
drive?” The druggist was seventy years old, very tired, and looking for
somebody to buy his store. “You must have a very low opinion of me, driving a
secondhand Chevy.” He handed Kiah five one-dollar bills.

Kiah named the Chevy’s model instantly: “Malibu.”

“I think maybe working for Daggett has made you car-crazy.”
Daggett was the dealer across the street. He sold foreign sports cars there,
and had another showroom in New York City. “How many jobs you got now, besides
Daggett?”

“Wait tables at the Quarterdeck weekends, pump gas at Ed’s
nights.” Kiah was an orphan who lived in a boardinghouse. His father had worked
for a landscape contractor, his mother as a chambermaid at the Howard Johnson’s
out on the turnpike. They were killed in a head-on collision in front of the
Howard Johnson’s when Kiah was sixteen. The police had said the crash was their
fault. His parents had no money, and their secondhand Plymouth Fury was
totaled, so they didn’t even have a car to leave him.

“I worry about you, Kiah,” said the druggist. “All work and
no play. Still haven’t saved enough to buy a car?” It was generally known in
the village that Kiah worked such long hours so he could buy a car. He had no
girl.

“Ever hear of a Marittima-Frascati?”

“No. And I don’t believe anybody else ever heard of one, either.”

Kiah looked at the druggist pityingly. “Won the Avignon road
race two years in a row—over Jaguars, Mercedes, and everything. Guaranteed to
do a hundred and thirty on an open stretch. Most beautiful car in the world.
Daggett’s got one in his New York place.” Kiah went up on his tiptoes. “Nobody’s
ever seen anything like it around here. Nobody.”

“Why don’t you ever talk about Fords or Chevrolets or something
I’ve heard of? Marittima-Frascati!”

“No class. That’s why I don’t talk about them.”

“Class! Listen who’s talking about class all the time. He
sweeps floors, polishes cars, waits tables, pumps gas, and he’s got to have
class or nothing.”

“You dream your dreams, I’ll dream mine,” Kiah said.

“I dream of being young like you in a village that’s as
pretty and pleasant as this one is,” said the druggist. “You can take class
and—”

Daggett, a portly New Yorker who operated his branch showroom
only in the summer, was selling a car to an urbane and tweedy gentleman as Kiah
walked in.

“I’m back, Mr. Daggett,” Kiah said.

Daggett paid no attention to him. Kiah sat down on a chair
to wait and daydream. His heart was beating hard.