Bagombo Snuff Box (7 page)

“You know something, Maude?” said Earl, a great emotion ballooning
in his breast. “You know, I used to wish my old man was rich, so you and I
could have had a place like this right off—bing!—the minute I got out of
college and we got married. But you know, we couldn’t have had this moment
looking back and knowing, by God, we made every inch of the way on our own. And
we understand the little guy, Maude, because we were little guys once. By
gosh, nobody born with a silver spoon in their mouth can buy that
understanding. A lot of people on the cruise didn’t want to look at all that
terrible poverty in Asia, like their consciences bothered them. But us—well,
seeing as how we’d come up the hard way, I don’t guess we had much on our
consciences, and we could look out at those poor people and kind of understand.”

“Uh-huh,” said Maude.

Earl worked his fingers in the thick gloves. “And tonight I’m
going to broil you and me and Charley a sirloin steak as thick as a Manhattan
phone book, and deserve every ounce of it, if I do say so myself.”

“We aren’t even unpacked.”

“So what? I’m not tired. Got a lot of living to do, and the
quicker I get at it, the more I’ll get done.”

Earl and Maude were in the living room, Earl still in his
chef’s outfit, when Charley Freeman was ushered in by the maid. “By golly!”
said Earl. “If it isn’t Charley!” Charley was still thin and erect, and the
chief mark of age upon him was the graying of his thick hair. While his face
was lined, it was still confident and wise-looking, was still, in Earl’s
opinion, subtly mocking. There was so much left of the old Charley, in fact,
that the college relationship, dead for forty years, came alive again in Earl’s
mind. In spite of himself, Earl felt resentfully servile, felt crude and dull.
His only defense was the old one—hidden resentment, with a promise that things
would be very different before long.

“Been a long time, hasn’t it, Earl?” Charley said, his voice
still deep and virile. “You’re looking fine.”

“Lot of water can go under the bridge in forty years,” said
Earl. He was running his finger nervously over the rich fabric of the sofa. And
then he remembered Maude, who was standing rigid, thin-lipped behind him. “Oh,
excuse me, Charley, this is my wife, Maude.”

“This is a pleasure I’ve had to put off for a long time,”
said Charley. “I feel I know you, Earl spoke of you so much in college.”

“How do you do?” said Maude.

“Far better than I had any reason to expect six months ago,”
said Charley. “What a handsome house!” He laid his hand on the
television-radio-phonograph console. “Now, what the devil do you call this?”

“Huh?” said Earl. “TV set. What’s it look like?”

“TV?” said Charley, frowning. “TV? Oh—abbreviation for ‘television.’
That it?”

“You kidding me, Charley?”

“No, really. There must be more than a billion and a half
poor souls who’ve never seen one of the things, and I’m one of them. Does it
hurt to touch the glass part?”

“The tube?” Earl laughed uneasily. “Hell, no—go ahead.”

“Mr. Freeman’s probably got a tube five times as big as this
one at home,” said Maude, smiling coldly, “and he’s kidding us along like he
doesn’t even know this is a TV set, the tube’s so small.”

“Well, Charley,” said Earl, cutting briskly into the silence
that followed Maude’s comment, “and to what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

“For old times’ sake,” said Charley. “I happened to be in
town, and I remem—”

Before Charley could elaborate, he was interrupted by a
party composed of Lou Converse, a photographer from Home Beautiful, and a
young, pretty woman writer.

The photographer, who introduced himself simply as Slotkin,
took command of the household, and as he was to do for the whole of his stay,
he quashed all talk and activities not related to getting the magazine pictures
taken. “Zo,” said Slotkin, “und de gimmick is de pagatch, eh?”

“Baggage?” said Earl.

“Package,” said the writer. “See, the angle on the story is
that you come home from a world cruise to a complete package for living—everything
anybody could possibly want for a full life.”

“Oh.”

“It’s complete,” said Lou Converse, “complete right down to
a fully stocked wine cellar and a pantry filled with gourmet specialties.
Brand-new cars, brand-new everything but wine.”

‘Aha! Dey vin a condezt.”

“He sold his factory and retired,” said Converse.

“Maude and I figured we owed ourselves a little something,”
said Earl. “We held back all these years, putting money back into the business
and all, and then, when the kids were grown up and the big offer came for the
plant, we all of a sudden felt kind of crazy, and said, ‘Why not?’ And we just
went ahead and ordered everything we’d ever wanted.”

Earl glanced at Charley Freeman, who stood apart and in the
background, half smiling, seeming to be fascinated by the scene. “We started
out, Maude and I,” said Earl, “in a two-room apartment down by the docks. Put
that in the story.”

“We had love,” said Maude.

“Yes,” said Earl, “and I don’t want people to think I’m just
another stuffed shirt who was born with a wad of money and blew himself to this
setup. No, sir! This is the end of a long, hard road. Write that down. Charley
remembers me back in the old days, when I had to work my way through school.”

“Rugged days for Earl,” said Charley.

Now the center of attention, Earl felt his self-confidence
returning, and he began to see Charley’s coming back into his life at this
point as a generous act of fate, a fine opportunity to settle the old scores
once and for all. “It wasn’t the work that made it rugged,” Earl said
pointedly.

Charley seemed surprised by Earl’s vehemence. “All right,”
he said, “then the work wasn’t rugged. It was so long ago I can remember it
either way.”

“I mean it was tough being looked down on because I wasn’t
born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” said Earl.

“Earl!” said Charley, smiling in his incredulity. ‘As many
fatheads as we had for fraternity brothers, not one of them for a minute looked
down—”

“Make ready for de pigdures,” Slotkin said. “Stardt mit de
grill—breadt, saladt, und a big, bloody piece of meadt.”

The, maid brought a five-pound slab of steak from the
freezer, and Earl held it over the grill. “Hurry up,” he said. “Can’t hold a
cow at arm’s length all day.” Behind his smile, however, he was nettled by
Charley’s bland dismissal of his college grievances.

“Hold it!” said Slotkin. The flashbulbs went off. “Good!”

And the party moved indoors. There, Earl and Maude posed in
room after room, watering a plant in the solarium, reading the latest book
before the living room fireplace, working push-button windows, chatting with
the maid over the laundry console, planning menus, having a drink at the rumpus
room bar, sawing a plank in the workshop, dusting off Earl’s gun collection in
the den.

And always, there was Charley Freeman at the rear of the entourage,
missing nothing, obviously amused as Maude and Earl demonstrated their packaged
good life. Under Charley’s gaze, Earl became more and more restless and
self-conscious as he performed, and Slotkin berated him for wearing such a
counterfeit smile.

“By God, Maude,” said Earl, perspiring in the master
bedroom, “if I ever have to come out of retirement—knock on wood—I can go on
television as a quick-change artist. This better be the last picture, by
golly. Feel like a darn clotheshorse.”

But the feeling didn’t prevent his changing once more at Slotkin’s
command, this time into a tuxedo. Slotkin wanted a picture of dinner by candlelight.
The dining room curtains would be drawn, electrically, to hide the fact of
midafternoon outdoors.

“Well, I guess Charley’s getting an eyeful,” said Earl,
distorting his face as he punched a collar button into place. “I think he’s
pretty darn impressed.” His voice lacked conviction, and he turned hopefully
to Maude for confirmation.

She was sitting at her dressing table, staring mercilessly
at her image in the mirror, trying on different bits of jewelry. “Hmm?”

“I said I guess Charley’s pretty impressed.”

“Him,” she said flatly. “He’s just a little too smooth, if
you ask me. After the way he used to snoot you, and then he comes here all
smiles and good manners.”

“Yeah,” said Earl, with a sigh. “Doggone it, he used to make
me feel like two bits, and he still does, looking at us like we were showing
off instead of just trying to help a magazine out. And did you hear what he
said when I came right out and told him what I didn’t like about college?”

“He acted like you just made it up, like it was just in your
mind. Oh, he’s a slick article, all right. But I’m not going to let him get my
goat,” said Maude. “This started out as the happiest day of our lives, and it’s
going to go on being that. And you want to know something else?”

“What’s that?” Backed by Maude, Earl felt his morale rising.
He hadn’t been absolutely sure that Charley was inwardly making fun of them,
but Maude was, and she was burned up about it, too.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “For all his superior ways,
and kidding us about our TV set and everything, I don’t think the great Charley
Freeman amounts to a hill of beans. Did you see his suit—up close?”

“Well, Slotkin kept things moving so fast, I don’t guess I
got a close look.”

“You can bet I did, Earl,” said Maude. “It’s all worn and
shiny, and the cuffs are a sight! I’d die of shame if you went around in a suit
like that.”

Earl was startled. He had been so on the defensive that it
hadn’t occurred to him that Charley’s fortunes could be anything but what they’d
been in college. “Maybe a favorite old suit he hates to chuck out,” he said at
last. “Rich people are funny about things like that sometimes.”

“He’s got on a favorite old shirt and a favorite old pair of
shoes, too.”

“I can’t believe it,” murmured Earl. He pulled aside a
curtain for a glimpse of the fairyland of the terrace and grill, where Charley
Freeman stood chatting with Slotkin and Converse and the writer. The cuffs of
Charley’s trousers, Earl saw with amazement, were indeed frayed, and the heels
of his shoes were worn thin. Earl touched a button, and a bedroom window
slithered open.

“It’s a pleasant town,” Charley was telling them. “I might
as well settle here as anywhere, since I haven’t very strong reasons for living
in any particular part of the country.”

“Zo eggspensif!” said Slotkin.

“Yes,” said Charley, “I’d probably be smart to move inland,
where my money’d go a little farther. Lord, it’s incredible what things cost
these days!”

Maude laid her hand on Earl’s shoulder. “Seems kind of
fishy, doesn’t it?” she whispered. “You don’t hear from him for forty years,
and all of a sudden he shows up, down-and-out, to pay us a big, friendly call.
What’s he after?”

“Said he just wanted to see me for old times’ sake,” said
Earl.

Maude sniffed. “You believe that?”

The dining room table looked like an open treasure chest,
with the flames of the candelabra caught in a thousand perfect surfaces—the
silver, the china, the facets of the crystal, Maude’s rubies, and Maude’s and
Earl’s proud eyes. The maid set steaming soup, prepared for the sake of the picture,
before them.

“Perfect!” said Slotkin. “So! Now talk.”

“What about?” said Earl.

“Anything,” said the woman writer. “Just so the picture won’t
look posed. Talk about your trip. How does the situation in Asia look?”

It was a question Earl wasn’t inclined to chat about
lightly.

“You’ve been to Asia?” said Charley.

Earl smiled. “India, Burma, the Philippines, Japan. All in
all, Maude and I must have spent two months looking the situation over.”

“Earl and I took every side trip there was,” said Maude. “He
just had to see for himself what was what.”

“Trouble with the State Department is they’re all up in an
ivory tower,” said Earl.

Beyond the glittering camera lens and the bank of flashbulb
reflectors, Earl saw the eyes of Charley Freeman. Expert talk on large affairs
had been among Charley’s many strong points in college, and Earl had been able
only to listen and nod and wonder.

“Yes, sir,” said Earl, summing up, “the situation looked
just about hopeless to everybody on the cruise but Maude and me, and it took us
a while to figure out why that was. Then we realized that we were about the
only ones who’d pulled themselves up by their bootstraps—that we were the only
ones who really understood that no matter how low a man is, if he’s got what it
takes, he can get clean to the top.” He paused. “There’s nothing wrong with
Asia that a little spunk and common sense and know-how won’t cure.”

“I’m glad it’s that easy,” said Charley. “I was afraid
things were more complicated than that.”

Earl, who rightly considered himself one of the easiest men
on earth to get along with, found himself in the unfamiliar position of being
furious with a fellow human being. Charley Freeman, who evidently had failed as
Earl had risen in the world, was openly belittling one of Earl’s proudest accomplishments,
his knowledge of Asia. “I’ve seen it, Charley!” said Earl. “I’m not talking as
just one more darn fool armchair strategist who’s never been outside his own
city limits!”

Slotkin fired his flashbulbs. “One more,” he said.

“Of course you’re not, Earl,” said Charley. “That was rude
of me. What you say is very true, in a way, but it’s such an oversimplification.
Taken by itself, it’s a dangerous way of thinking. I shouldn’t have
interrupted. It’s simply that the subject is one I have a deep interest in.”

Earl felt his cheeks reddening, as Charley, with his seeming
apology, set himself up as a greater authority on Asia than Earl. “Think maybe
I’m entitled to some opinions on Asia, Charley. I actually got out and rubbed
elbows with the people over there, finding out how their minds work and all.”