Crawlspace (4 page)

It was all acutely embarrassing to me. And it must have been tedious for her, because as incoherent as I’d been, she’d grasped the whole thing in an instant.

I suppose what I was waiting for was an immediate upheaval, a sudden outpouring of fear and outrage, wringing of the hands, and demands for immediate police intervention. What I got instead was a kind of hushed pity. Even now I recall her sitting there looking at me as I spoke, seeming unnaturally small and doll-like, her hands folded in her lap, her head shaking slowly from side to side, her soft, gray eyes wide and unblinking, oddly magnified in her glasses.

X kept talking and waiting for the explosion so that I could pacify her the way I’d planned. But nothing like that happened, and it left me up in the air with no place to go. You see, I was prepared for hysteria, not queenly serenity. When I’d finally got the whole thing out—after I’d said it all—she was still sitting there quietly with her hands folded in her lap and shaking her head.

“Well,” I said, almost furious, “aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Perhaps he could stay with us a while.” She said it just like that, dreamily and looking through and past me as if I weren’t there.

I was certain I’d heard her wrong.

“Just till he gets on his feet,” she added.

“You’re not serious?”

“Yes, I am.”

I looked at her, thunderstruck, tying to catch the glimmer of a smile or a snicker across her face.

“You mean you’d really invite him to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing what you do about him?”

“What do I know about him? Really very fit tie. He seems like a nice enough boy.”

I was flabbergasted. “You know that he’s come into your house and stolen things.”

“Oh come, Albert. He hasn’t stolen a thing. He’s merely moved a few pieces from one part of the house to another.”

By that time I had the distinct impression I was being ridiculed. “I really think you must be mad.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I snapped. “It’s not everyone who’d take a perfect stranger in off the streets.”

“Oh, Albert—”

“That’s not a very clever thing to do.”

“Well, you asked me, and I made a suggestion. So he’s living in your cellar. What do you intend to do about it?” She’d put it directly, and I had to answer in like fashion.

“Well, of course, he has to go.”

“Then you’re going to ask him to go?”

“Well—not directly.”

The trace of a smile flickered across her mouth.

“Well—” I said, “what if he were to refuse and get nasty?”

“Oh, Albert—”

“Well, what do I know about this boy—his motives—”

“If you’re so worried about his motives, call the police.”

“I’ve thought about that, but before I get involved with them and start pressing charges—”

“You’re frightened of him.”

“I’m not frightened of him at all.” I felt a rush of heat to the back of my neck. “And what if I were? Would that be so terrible? It wouldn’t. It would be wise and prudent. Didn’t you say he frightens you?”

“He did at first, but not any more.”

“That’s a hasty change of heart.” I looked at her skeptically. “And not at all prudent.”

“Prudent?”

“Yes,” I said, and started out in disgust.

“Well, you’re not going to let him stay down there in all that filth,” she cried after me.

“I never said I would.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

I paused for breath. “Well, for one thing—change all the locks. We’ll see where that gets us.”

She made a face as if she pitied me. “You mean just lock him out?”

“Yes. He’s out now. When he gets back tonight he’ll find all the doors barred to him. Easy enough.”

“I suppose you know what you’re doing.” She rose quickly and started to go.

“You’re not really serious about all this?” I called after her.

“Why not?” She stared at me unflinchingly. “Just a helping hand until he gets himself another job.”

“A helping hand—” I was a little breathless. “Do you know what that entails?”

“Of course I do.”

“This isn’t some flower in your garden, Alice. This is a person we’re talking about. Not a flower your transplant from one place to the next and water daily, then forget about.”

The point failed to impress her. “Well?”

“Well,” I said, “you just don’t move any old stranger into your house.”

She looked at me a long moment.

“I don’t understand you, Alice.” My voice was softer.

“It’s really not that mysterious,” she said. “It does get lonely out here from time to time.” She turned again and walked slowly out through the door, murmuring as she went, “Poor boy. Poor, poor boy.”

I’m afraid all this makes me sound unduly harsh. Perhaps I should explain. I’ve always maintained that it’s enough of a job for a man to get himself through this world in one piece. I married Alice quite late in life and then only after a lengthy, on-again, off-again courtship, in which I was awed by the sense of enormous responsibility I was undertaking. I’m not one to take responsibilities lightly. Once I assume them, they’re mine, and I don’t disassume them if the burden should become onerous.

Perhaps I get this from my father, an unduly stringent man who was a missionary in China, where I was brought as a boy and remained until I was sent back to this country to attend the University.

Life in China is very cheap—as it is all throughout the Orient. If you’re not a wealthy aristocrat in China, you learn at an early age to look after yourself. You learn to fight for a bit of space to live in and for every scrap you eat. It’s a precarious business, and one learns very quickly not to undertake unnecessary responsibilities, even if they are attractive.

I know this sounds narrow and selfish, but I don’t believe in altruism as such. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a purely altruistic act. Even my father, a selfless and saintlike man, who died at an early age trying to ease the suffering of the poor in the wretched slums of Hong Kong and Nanking—even he never acted out of pure altruism. What he was actually seeking in those appalling places was no more than his own salvation—since, like most saints, he had a crippling sense of his own sins.

Accordingly, that afternoon we drove into town. I went to the small hardware store and purchased three of the heaviest locks I could find. When we drove back later, it was still raining, but the rain had changed to a kind of icy drizzle that hailed down with a pitiless persistence. I turned on the heater of the car and we drove in silence listening to the wipers wooshing back and forth, carving, as they went, a wide arc across the slushy panes.

Alice gazed out the window on a desolate landscape. There was no green left in the land. The distant, slumbering hills looked like the heads of men that have gone gray overnight. I could somehow only recall them as green. Now they looked like total strangers to me. The trees had a stark and tortured aspect.

“When are you going to put the locks on?” she asked suddenly.

“Now.”

We drove a bit, listening to the wipers wooshing back and forth.

“It’ll be bitter cold tonight,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, knowing precisely what she was thinking.

The car felt its way along warily over the iced and rutty road.

As soon as we got back, I went to work on the locks. Alice went instantly to the kitchen, making herself busy, as if she couldn’t bear to see what I was doing. From time to time, she’d come out, wiping her hands in her apron, and look at me. There was nothing reproachful or accusatory in those glances. If anything, it was rather a quiet dismay—as if at that point she wasn’t certain if it was actually me she was looking at—was it really her husband there on his knees fumbling with the tumblers in a frantic race against the coming dark?

By dusk I had changed the locks on every door leading into the house from the outside. I padlocked our shed and garage. I had also changed the lock on the door leading from the cellar up to the library. Before I went up to supper, I locked all the doors, then went down to the basement and searched the crawl to make certain it was empty. Several times I picked up the phone just to hear the comforting buzz of the signal. In spite of all these measures, I felt little security. I hated to see the darkness come rushing and swirling in around us that night.

By nightfall the barometer dropped alarmingly and a high wind moaned across the land, buffeting the roof and nuzzling at the window panes.

We ate supper silently. Afterwards we read and played records. One was a Haydn trumpet concerto. It was curiously comforting to hear the high, pure ring of a trumpet rise above the wind. So proud, so heroic, and unperturbed.

I dreaded the hour of going to bed, but at last it came. I banked the fire and kept up good appearances by chattering buoyantly to Alice. “Let’s go south next winter,” I said as we mounted the stairs. “One of the Keys. I’ve always wanted to see the Keys. They say the fishing is spectacular. Let’s plan-”

Alice stopped suddenly on the steps and cocked an ear. “What was that?”

“What?”

“That sound. Listen. Just outside.”

“It’s only wind. Your imagination.” I laughed, but I thought for a moment I’d be sick. “I’d love to see the Keys once,” I chattered on halfheartedly, as we contained to climb.

We lay in bed that night, neither of us sleeping, just lying there listening to the rain and the wind howling. The hours stretched out, and dawn seemed eons away. At one point I spoke out: “Alice?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“No.”

“What are you thinking?”

“About him. Out there.”

“Yes. I know.”

Our voices sounded strange in the darkness—disembodied—almost like listening to recordings.

“You never really wanted a child, did you, Albert?”

“Why do you bring that up now?”

“Just talking to pass the time.” She paused, staring at the ceiling above her. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think that’s fair.”

“You wanted to be free to travel. Go and come as you pleased. A child would’ve only gotten in your way.”

“It would’ve made things harder,” I said. “But I wouldn’t have minded. Anyway, didn’t we try time and time again?”

“Yes.”

“And you simply couldn’t. You know that. The doctor told you.” When I said it, I felt a terrible twinge of satisfaction.

“Yes,” she said very softly. “I know. But all the same—you were relieved, weren’t you?”

I listened to the wind outside.

“Weren’t you?”

“Alice—what is the purpose of all this now?”

“Admit it. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“No.” I sighed and turned away. “It’s not true at all.” The silence rushed back in upon us. Outside, the wind gnashed its teeth and the bare branches of trees above the roof clicked against each other.

“Where will he go?” said Alice, after a while.

“For all we know, he’s found a place already.”

“Yes. For all we know—”

“Something better, I hope.”

“Yes,” she said without too much enthusiasm, and we were silent again.

An hour or so passed, and still we heard nothing. Then, just as I felt myself slipping off, there was the unmistakable sound Of a key jiggling a lock at the cellar door. We could hear it quite distinctly, since that door is almost directly beneath our bedroom window.

Alice sat bolt upright in bed. “Albert?”

“Yes. I hear it.”

The key continued to jiggle, and I could hear the lock rebuffing it. The noises became rougher and more impatient, full of the sound of frustration and growing anger.

I held my breath, hoping that the new locks wouldn’t fail me. I had a sudden, awful notion that I’d put them all on incorrectly. In my mind I saw them yielding or falling out and the doors all opening wide, like unfolding blossoms.

The jiggling went on for some time. It would pause for a while, then resume. I imagined him out there in the wind and the cold, hunched over, the rain streaming in icy rivulets down his face—baffled and furious. The knob rattled and then I heard a sound as of wood straining and creaking against a weight. He was leaning on the door, attempting to force it.

“Albert?” Alice was sitting upright in bed, gaping at the window.

I rose and crossed the chilly floor to the window, parting the curtains and peering down. Each pane was covered with a thin mist. Wiping one of the panes clean, I tried once again to see something.

At first there was nothing but blackness and the swirl of snow flurries coming down dry and hard. They seemed to whisper against the glass. I had become quiet down below. There was no more jiggling of keys in locks or rattling of doorknobs. It was as if he had stepped back from the door and was trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Still I couldn’t see him, but I could sense his puzzling it all out just below.

“Albert?” Alice whispered at me from the bed.

I flapped my hand at her to be silent. She was for a while. Then she whispered again. “Has he gone?”

“I’m not sure.” I peered down into swirling, impenetrable black and waited a while longer. Then just as I was about to turn from the window, the sound of footsteps crunching over the dry hard snow came drifting up from below. When I looked down I saw a small, black shadow retreating from beneath the window and groping its way toward the woods in the back.

Alice started to get out of bed and come toward the window.

“Go back.” I flapped my hand at her again.

She kept coming. “Albert?”

“Go back, I said.”

She got back into bed, and shortly after I followed her. We lay there waiting for the jiggling and the rattling to begin again, but it didn’t. Then there was nothing but the moaning of wind, and the sound of Alice sobbing quietly into the pillow.

The following morning I was awakened by the squawking of crows and a bright shaft of sunlight falling obliquely across my bed. Alice was not beside me, but I could hear the sound of her spade turning frozen earth below in the garden. I got up and washed, then went down to the kitchen. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the earth was covered with a thin sheet of snow. The hills in the distance, sprinkled with a light., white powder, had the appearance of slumbering oxen.