Daybreak (14 page)

“Not mine. I have to go downtown, anyway. I’ve a meeting.”

“What? On Sunday night?” asked Clem, who for all his punctilious manners tended to be curious.

“Always something, Clem. I’ve had emergencies on Saturdays, too. When you’re on a couple of executive committees, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Lions—you name it—you can be out every night of the week if you want to. Except, I don’t want to. I keep it to a minimum. Tonight, though, I have to go. Really important business tonight. So I’ll see you folks in the morning.”

The boys, sitting with Laura on the back terrace, kept their voices low out of consideration for the guests in the bedrooms just above them.

And Laura’s eyes went to Tom, watching and wondering—those ideas of his, those shocking remarks about the Nazis: who had implanted them? He had mentioned the crowd he “went around” with. And she reflected, knowing fully that every parent did the same, on the influences that might be shaping the son or daughter who has left home as a familiar person and has become, in a measure, a stranger.

But did Tom not really choose those influences? At every university there is a variety of groups, a choice. So to a certain extent the foundation was laid before he left home. Yes. Face it, Laura, it was laid here by
Bud. With a hundred little nods, winks, defenses, remarks and jokes—mean jokes—he has made himself quite clear. He has created an atmosphere, and Tom has breathed it in.

What a pity! The fine mind, the sensitivity, corrupted and led astray—

Tom broke into her thoughts. “Look. The polestar.”

“Where?” asked Timmy.

“There, see?” Tom pointed. “Another name is the North Star. That’s how sailors first learned to know what direction they were going in.”

“Wagner’s Tale Evening Star.’ ” Laura hummed a phrase. “So fair and mild.”

“It’s the only star that doesn’t move. All the rest turn around it counterclockwise in twenty-four hours. Once you start learning even a little bit about the sky, you get hooked,” said Tom. “You have to know more. I took astronomy last semester, did I tell you? It was only elementary, of course, so I want to go on with more. That means I’ll have to take more math, too.”

How can such an intellect fall for the garbage that was spoken tonight? she asked herself.

At the same time she spoke pleasantly, sociably. “I’m never any good at finding my way around the night sky.”

“Look there!” Tom cried. “See that shape, Timmy? Follow my hand. Count seven stars—doesn’t that look like a bear? It’s Ursa Major, the Big Bear. And over there. Watch my finger pointing, see? Count seven stars again. That’s Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. You know what boggles my mind about all this stuff? The precision. That’s what I marvel at. It’s all so precisely ordered. Regular and perfect. No confusion. Look at meteors, for instance. Isn’t it amazing that you can predict
their arrival? On August twelfth, maybe a few days before or after, but anyway, around then we’re going to see a shower of meteors. You and I’ll come out here, Timmy, and watch. Then on the fifteenth of November, there’ll be another shower in the morning; can you believe it? They even know what time of day it’ll be. Fantastic!”

Timmy stirred. “My stomach feels awful, Mom,” he murmured.

She sat up instantly. “Is it pain or nausea?”

“Just sick. Maybe I’m going to throw up. I don’t think so, though.”

“He ate too much rich stuff tonight,” Tom said. “The gravy, the chocolate and the cream sauce.”

“Go on up and get into bed. Then I’ll come and give you your medicine.”

Tom intervened. “I’ll go, Mom. You worked all day. Besides, Tim knows what medicine to take. Come on, kid, you and Earl. We’ve got a lot of talking to catch up on, anyhow.”

   Upstairs Tim began his familiar distressful, choking cough. From long experience Tom knew at once that there was a connection between the nausea and mucus-laden cough. And he knew what to do.

The shallow pan hung near the stove, milk was of course in the refrigerator and honey in the jar on the shelf. And as he stood watching the pan, he had a frightening vision of that intensive care unit on the seventh floor where the family had already had to watch and wait; you turned right at the elevator …

He shuddered and went upstairs with the milk.

“Drink it slowly, it’ll soothe,” he said, as if Tim didn’t know all that.

And he sat down to watch his brother, to wait as the coughing gradually subsided. The two hands that grasped the tumbler were so delicate. Such a thin little guy, no doubt the smallest kid in his class. How that must hurt! And how, in a perverse way, it must hurt that nobody teased him, nobody ever called him “shorty” or “shrimp” because their parents had told them that he was very sick and they must treat him kindly.

“My coughing bothers Earl,” Timmy said, for the dog, sitting upright at the foot of the bed, was turning a quizzical, bright look from Timmy to Tom in turn. “Do you know he’s my best friend, not counting you, Tom?”

“I’m your brother. That’s even more than a best friend.”

“I know.” Having finished the milk, Tim clasped his hands around his knees and regarded Tom intently, giving the latter to understand that he expected a cozy bedtime talk. “Have you got a girl, Tom?”

“Well, yes, in a way, and also no. I mean, in college you get to meet lots of girls. In classes and at dances and football games, I mean. So you have one for a month or a couple of weeks with another—you know.” The kid would talk, and he didn’t want to be questioned about Robbie, didn’t, as a matter of fact, want to be questioned about anyone. “I guess I don’t have any special one right now.”

“You ought to have, Tom, it’s nice.”

“Yes? How do you know?”

Timmy, with a glance at the open door, leaned forward to whisper. “Because I have one. I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell.”

“I promise,” Tom said solemnly.

“Her name’s Mary Beth. I always have lunch at her table. Do you know why?”

“No. Why?”

“Because she asks me. Every day she asks me.”

“She has good taste. I’ll bet she’s pretty.”

“Yeah. She’s the prettiest girl in the class. She’s cool, Tom.”

“What color hair has she got?”

“Sort of brown. Light brown with some yellow in it. She wears cool clothes, too.”

“I’d sure like to meet her, Tim.”

“Well, maybe you can if you’ll drive me to a sixth-grade party some night. Dad or Mom always do it, but you can if you want to.”

“I certainly want to.”

That little face, that peaked, earnest little face with the wistful eyes! He has Mom’s eyes, Tom saw. He hadn’t ever noticed before. They were both so dreamy, Tim and Mom, as if they were thinking of something far off, even while they were talking to you. On the other hand, people always said he himself looked like Mom and like her father.

Tim yawned, yet still kept talking. He didn’t want Tom to leave the room, that was why. “Dad got me a new Walkman. Want to see it?”

“Hey,” Tom said, “look at the clock. I’d rather sleep now, and then tomorrow we can have the whole day. You’ll show me the Walkman and we’ll do stuff together. Okay?”

“Okay,” Tim said.

“You’re feeling all right now, aren’t you?”

“Okay.”

The smile, Tom thought, is like a 150-watt bulb coming on in a dark hall.

“See you tomorrow, kid.”

   Back in his own room he sat up in bed reading
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
. It was a very old book, Robbie had told him, but it was constantly being reprinted and recirculated throughout the world because what it said was still true.

From every country, it said, the Jews sent representatives, old clever men, their most experienced, to a secret place, so secret that no one had yet been able to discover where it was, and there they hatched their plans to dominate the planet.

Tom hesitated. Well, maybe so … After all, you had to look at what these people owned in this city alone! The department store in the heart of town was Jewish. So were half the shops in the new mall, the stores where he bought his shoes and his suits, the sporting goods chain, the jewelry store where Mom bought the watch for his graduation. Yes, and at the cardiology department in the hospital where Aunt Lillian had her operation last year, the head was Jewish. Everywhere you looked, you came across these people living like princes.

This book was eloquent, powerful in driving home the facts. People were too slow to recognize the facts, that their world was changing.

Dad knew it, though. But Dad had to be discreet. He had a living to make, this family to provide for, and the way they lived, it must cost plenty. They lived well, with the best of everything, and Dad couldn’t afford to make enemies. Besides, he wanted to keep peace at home. Mom definitely was a bleeding heart, and there
was no use arguing with her. And Dad loved her. He didn’t want to upset her. She was an innocent, a gentle innocent, all wrapped up in her books, her piano pupils, and of course the family.

He looked around his room to savor the feel of it before turning out the light. Mom had put a single red rose in a vase on his desk. It touched him to look at that plump rose. She had been wanting him to come home, looking forward to him when she went into the garden to cut it.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did at dinner today,” he told himself, feeling regret. “It was mean to upset her.”

His eyes roved farther. Maybe he ought to hide all the stuff that bothered her, the books on Hitler, even the photograph of Jim Johnson. What difference to his conviction did it make whether those things were out on display or not? He could keep them all in the room where he slept so often with Robbie. There with her was his other life, his adult, independent life.

He stretched, easing every muscle and bone into the comfort of the bed. Something in the motion sent a voluptuous throb through his loins, bringing the instantaneous thrill of Robbie’s pneumatic body, hard in places, soft in places, resilient, as she clung.

Then, thinking, Timmy will almost certainly never know all that beauty, all that magic, the vivid throb subsided into sorrow, and he knew he must try to think of something else to lure himself into sleep and escape that sorrow.

Outside, the summer night was drowsy with the familiar sounds of insect life. Crickets were chirping as they had chirped for thousands of years. On some other planet, as it turned away from its own particular
sun, some other kind of creature, according to the probabilities, must be awake in the darkness too. Scientists predict that, when catastrophe finally strikes down humankind on this planet of ours, only the insects will be left. Cockroaches? Ugh! Locusts, now, not too bad, although they do squawk and buzz. But crickets aren’t bad at all, with their chirp and trill. Chirp and trill all night outside my window …

He slept.

   Left alone in the vacant darkness, Laura was still sitting with her thoughts when Bud’s car rolled up the driveway into the garage. The rear lights, two round red eyes, glared and closed as the garage door rumbled down. Bud’s feet swished on the grass and he came up on the veranda.

“Hey, what’s the trouble?”

“No trouble. Just sitting.”

“Sitting here alone. What is it?”

“Nothing, really.”

“I know your moods. You never fool me.”

That was true, but she had no wish to start a discussion of any kind; her spirit was weary.

So she responded only with “How was your meeting?”

“Fine. Too much talk for a Sunday night. In love with the sound of their voices.” He stooped to kiss her cheek. “You’ve got a new perfume.”

“White Shoulders. Do you like it?”

“You bet. I love your white shoulders, your white breasts, the whole works. Hey, I’m hungry again. Got a sandwich someplace?”

The kitchen, like the whole house, had been planned to accommodate a big family. Its cupboards
could hold three sets of china with two-dozen place settings each; across from the new electric stove stood the great old coal stove, still used, although seldom, but polished to a shine. Cedar logs lay neatly on the fireplace grate, ready for a winter evening. Copper pots hung from the ceiling, and a cascading spider plant hung at the window over the sink.

“I love this house. Our castle,” Bud said. “A man’s home is his castle. Yes sir, you bet. And he’ll defend it with his life. I can understand that.”

“It’s good to know you’ll never have to here in America.”

“Don’t be so sure of that. The old ways are under attack. There’s a whole element in this country that doesn’t know that. Blacks and Jews. Riffraff. And as for Catholics, I’m not too crazy about them, either, though some are all right. I’ve met a lot of pretty good ones. And yet even with them you have to remember that their first loyalty is to the Pope.”

“Want a slice of pound cake?” she asked. “I made two. One’s for the aunts to take home.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to watch myself. Already had a couple of beers tonight.” He tipped back comfortably on two chair legs and chewed his sandwich. “I bumped into a couple of fellows who were telling about some blacks moving in on Fairview Street. Bought the Blairs’ house. Can you imagine that?”

“Yes, Lou Foster told me.”

“What a lousy trick to pull on good neighbors!”

“There are laws,” Laura said.

“Sure, but you can get around them. Just raise the price so they can’t pay.”

Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup, but
still she spoke mildly. “They may be, and they probably are, very nice people.”

“So maybe they are, but for Pete’s sake, Laura, be real.”

“I think it’s I who am being real.”

“I’m damn glad it’s not my problem. Well, the Ordways will just have to handle it some way, that’s all.”

“Handle it? And how will they do that, do you think?”

Bud shrugged. “Ignore them, probably. Give them the ice-cold shoulder. Look through them as if they weren’t there.”

Grace Ordway could certainly do that. She always looked as if she had just eaten a lemon. Yet they were a decent couple; they would never actually
do
anything. It was the spectacle of those marchers on the avenue, vicious and fanatical in their rage, that frightened Laura.