Nothing That Meets the Eye (4 page)

“Yes, of course.”

The foreman said something else and pointed somewhere, but Aaron did not follow him. He could only stare at the foreman's face. The horrible change in their relationship from nodding acquaintances to that of job-seeker and employer fixed Aaron with its torture.

When the foreman paused, Aaron said, “Thank you very much,” and fled up the slope.

He entered the covered bridge and went to one of the windows on the side away from the factory. He put his forearms on the sill, bent his head, and began tearing at his thumbnails. He tried to crush himself into as small a space as possible.

In the last two minutes, in the interview with the foreman, he had completely changed the world in which he had been living for four weeks. He had made the relationship between himself and the town ugly, uncomfortable, mercenary. He had banished the sense of the unspoiled paradise. He had not only asked, but he had been refused!

Suddenly, as he huddled in the window, the town seemed to rise up cold and hostile about him. He shuddered as he might have at something supernatural. The familiar riverbank frightened him, and so did the church spire over the trees, the barn whose roof he could just see, where he had often visited the goats. He squirmed farther into the window at the sight of Mrs. Coolidge, the wife of the postmaster, who was entering the bridge from the other end. He wondered if she would speak to him. He remembered she had smiled at him last Sunday in church. Almost everybody smiled at him, and he was handed an open hymnal when they stood up to sing. But couldn't their smiles from the first have been sarcastic or pitying?

Aaron flung himself about and, bowing slightly, forced himself to say, “Good morning, Mrs. Coolidge!”

“Good morning!” she returned in an astonished, cracked voice. She cleared her throat and passed on, without a change in her pace.

Aaron looked after her and a wave of uncertainty passed over him. What had she meant? How had she meant the “Good morning”? He held fast to the sill, barely resisting an impulse to run after her and demand his answers.

He stared and frowned before him and began to rip his nails. He thought of Mrs. Hopley, remembered Pete in the doorway, recalled that Mac had seemed cool last evening. Wally, the switchman, had greeted him with only a wave of the hand. He remembered George Shmid's smiling mouth, asking him questions about Freya. He could recall a dwindling sincerity in people's voices, even times when he might have been snubbed, when he thought he had not been seen. Suppose the whole town suspected evil of him? Of him and Freya? Of course, everyone in Clement had seen him with her at one time or another! He tried to remember when anyone had mentioned Freya or the Wolstenholmes to him. Were they so bad that no one spoke of them? Did the town suspect evil of him or not? And if it did, why didn't it come out and say so?

There was a report like a gunshot behind him. Aaron turned around, as a plank of the bridge floor rattled hollowly into place, and a car moved toward him.

IX

W
ith the relief that it was only a car came a kind of snap inside him, and a relaxation. Slowly and without passion, the idea took form in his mind to go and get his things and to leave the town.

Rather than use Trevelyan Boulevard, he chose the quiet road that ran by the railroad tracks and the river, which would bring him to Pleasant Street. He passed an old man, then a young woman, neither of whom he knew nor who paid him any notice. And though the sight of each had caused a little shock inside him, he began to swing his arms in a physical expression of confidence that almost set his mind at rest.

A block away now, George Shmid stepped out from Mrs. Hopley's walk and turned in the other direction. The sight of his squat, odiously familiar back was enough. Aaron realized suddenly that he could not face anyone he knew, Mrs. Hopley, the baler, any of the roomers. And yet, even now he considered running after George and explaining to him, not for Freya or for himself, but for the town's sake. If he explained, though, could he change what had happened to the town that morning? And how could he explain? What was there to explain?

His thoughts foundered in an emotion he could not at once identify. It felt like guilt. But what was he guilty of? Why had he not been good enough? What was so wrong with him that his best efforts had not made him fit in the town? His mysterious fault seemed to date farther back even than New York, and to be something over which he had no control, and could never grasp and cast out of himself. Then, in an instant, his half vision was cut off, and he felt the guilt and its cause both sealed in him once more.

He faced about and began walking with fast weak steps. He went back to the quiet dirt road that led almost to the factory before it turned and went northward beside the river, away from Clement.

What hurt was the sense that it had been almost avoidable, the sense of the destruction in the very act of his leaving. The town was crumbling at every step, the facade of Trevelyan Boulevard, the Dandy Diner, all the fine trees that grew among the houses, Mrs. Hopley's house and his room, all the fine things he had somehow ruined. And Freya, his best friend. The thought of never seeing Freya again made him waggle his head like a drunken man. The river, the railroad, the men climbing in slow strides up the slope from the factory, the noonday whistle, the good meals served by Mac's hands, the mornings in his big room and with them the joy in his existence and the sense of the eternal potential.

He walked until he had lost the river, until the sun changed its position, not knowing where he walked except that the town was at his back. His feet swished dismally through high grass. Then he tripped and was too tired to catch himself. The stillness was delicious. The river, the railroad, the facade of Trevelyan Boulevard passed in pictures before his eyes. The grizzled old men, the church and the hymnals, the railroad, Freya, the knife factory, the bud on the rosebush, the mornings of the eternal potential and the eternal nothing.

UNCERTAIN TREASURE

T
he khaki utility bag was sitting by itself on the subway platform near a post that had a slot machine. He looked at it for almost a minute over the top of the
Daily News
comic strip, and gave finally a convulsive wriggle that ended in a bobble of his large head. Slowly, ingenuously, he examined each of the seven or eight persons who stood on the platform awaiting their trains. A train pulled in, changed the pattern of the people, but when it was gone, the khaki bag was still unclaimed. He drew closer, limping deeply on his crooked left leg, rising tall again on the other, like a running-down piece of machinery, holding the forgotten newspaper before him.

A soldier strode in front of him, dropped a penny in the gum slot and leaned there, his shoes crossed beside the bag, which was the same color as his trousers. The cripple edged away, shuffling his big feet sideways. When the next train came in, the soldier got on it without a glance at the bag.

Then as the cripple came forward he saw a man strolling toward him, a smallish man in a green felt hat and a polo coat unbuttoned over a royal blue suit. His eyes were small and green, and as they fixed on him, the cripple kept shuffling forward in timid fascination. They passed so closely their sleeves touched, and when the bag lay between them again, both turned, the one slow, the other foxlike, and looked at each other.

The little man's eyes were steady, but around them the wizened, unshaven face turned this way and that. He sized up the cripple, took in the simple, ugly face, the seedy overcoat. He looked straight ahead, sauntered toward the khaki bag, and stopped with one tan shoe touching its side. He bounced on his toes, and the wooden heels made assertive thock-thocks on the cement. The cripple retreated a few feet. The smaller man went quickly to the edge of the platform, looked first into the black tunnel and then at his wristwatch.

When he turned around, the bag was gone, and the cripple was on his way down the platform, rising, falling, scraping toward the Third Street exit. He did not hurry, but his face was bent into the upturned lapels of his coat with the effort of walking, and one arm threshed the air at his side.

The man in the polo coat hesitated, then went after him. The sloping tunnel echoed the high-pitched thock-thocks of the wooden-heeled shoes.

The cripple pulled himself energetically up the stairs. Outside it was raining, a tired thin rain. It was about quarter to six, but night was already falling. The cripple made his way up Sixth Avenue, past the wire fence that enclosed the cement handball courts, the grass plots and the row of benches. As the thock-thocks behind him continued, he realized with vague uneasiness that the green-eyed man was following him. He lengthened his sloppy steps and caught the bag up under his arm.

After a few yards the green-eyed man called, “Hey!” and stretched forth a crooked finger.

The cripple kept going.

“Hey!” the smaller man said, running up, seizing the wild arm and wrenching the cripple around. “That's my bag you've got there!” His face was bristling and determined.

The cripple looked at the bag under his arm, and kept the same bland expression. His wide, fluted lips opened but no sound came.

The smaller man saw the slow eyes, the nose and mouth that were squeezed absurdly between the doughy forehead and the smooth jaw. One ear bent under the black-and-white checked cap, but where the other ear should have been was a daub of white flesh like the opening of a balloon which is tied with string.

He yanked the bag from under the cripple's arm, ripped the zipper halfway and took a quick look in, then closed it. He shot a glance into the calm eyes. “Thief! . . . Dope!” Then, with a contemptuous movement of his mouth, “I oughta turn you in!” But he walked away with the bag, on up Sixth Avenue.

The cripple looked after him, and at the bag under his arm, watched both become smaller. His figure gave a convulsion, and abruptly he flung himself after the polo coat, up the long block toward Eighth Street. So fast did his long legs cover the ground that he was only some thirty feet behind when the man with the bag turned into a bar and disappeared.

He relaxed his gait and came to a stop outside the bar and grill. He looked meekly from under the cap brim into the mellow interior, and put his hand on the slimy iron pipe of a parking sign. Wisps of white steam came fast from his lips.

Inside, over the mole-colored curtain that hid half the window, the cripple could see the green hat bend now and then as the man sipped his beer. He came closer to the window, and saw the bag sitting on a stool beside the man. After a moment, the man in the bar slid open the zipper and put a hand inside. The cripple felt a leaden throb in his chest. Just as slowly, the man closed the zipper and, standing up, crossed the muffler under his coat, tilting his head to get the smoke stream out of his eyes.

Shyly, the cripple moved a few feet down the sidewalk, stood in the doorway of a haberdashery shop and looked toward the bar.

The man with the khaki bag came out and walked straight across Sixth Avenue, past the House of Detention for Women, up the left side of Greenwich Avenue.

Behind him now came the cripple, exerting himself only enough to match the other's now-moderate pace. First he had to think exactly what to say to the green-eyed man. But his brain seemed to jam. It refused to create the proper picture, the proper words, to imagine one moment beyond the here-and-now. He followed doggedly up the street, his eyes fixed on the khaki bag.

At Seventh Avenue the first man crossed, while the cripple was caught by a stream of traffic. The streetlights came out suddenly, jumping on in groups up the avenue, making the sky darker. The cripple was a block behind when the man turned west onto Jane Street. Though the street was dim, the cripple could see the pale haze of the polo coat, and could hear once or twice the raucous slip of a heel on the slanting sidewalk before a garage.

The polo coat crossed Hudson Street, continued westward, and turned north onto Greenwich Street.

Looking after him, the cripple saw perhaps two blocks away a lighted corner, and into this walked the man with the bag. The cripple pushed on faster, past the jutting stoops, past the ash cans and lids that his dragging foot struck occasionally with unpleasant noise.

The light came from a modern, silver-plated diner which resembled a car from an electric train. The cripple approached this slowly as he had the bar and grill. The diner was perched high, brightly lighted. He could see through the steamy windows the row of black-and-white menus over the big shining coffee urns. Between the black watch cap and a sailor's hat was the green hat. The cripple came to the long side of the diner, where he could see through the glass door. The khaki bag was on the man's lap now, pressed against the underside of the counter. His wet, yellowish shoes were splayed on the footrest of the stool.

The wind howled up from the river, slapped the rain against the metal side of the diner, and tore at the pale smoke that came from the whirling ventilator. He could catch whiffs of frying hamburger meat, bacon, eggs in butter. His stomach gave a thin, sick rattle. The fluted lips under the overhanging nose came together harder and the blue eyes blinked.

A man behind the counter set, with generous swooping gesture, a plate of yellow eggs before the polo coat, the square shoulders bent forward. The right arm working fast forking the eggs in, poking the triangular pieces of buttered toast into the face behind the hat. When the eggs were gone, he pulled a napkin from the container and blew his nose so hard the man outside could hear it faintly. He dropped the napkin below the counter and started eating pie.

The cripple was studying the bag, noticing how the end bulged with something, how the man paid no attention to it. Maybe it was dirty clothes, he thought, his heart contracting, or tin cans, or garbage. No, there must be something better inside, or why would the green-eyed man want it? Maybe it was something nice like oranges, or sandwiches, or socks, or maybe money.

Finally the man at the counter shoved back his plate, and a puff of smoke broke under the brim of his hat. The cigarette was white and clean in the hairy hand. He tossed off the last bit of coffee and, getting up, swung the overcoat back and reached in his trousers pocket.

The cripple felt a sudden desire to run away. He retreated to the end of the diner, where he could see a straight line down the front. He rested his left foot lightly on the sidewalk, poised to turn in any direction.

The man with the bag under his arm came out the door smoking, down one step before he noticed the figure on the corner. The cripple twisted himself, embarrassedly.

The man with the bag stood a long moment, motionless. Then he came down a step and started walking. The jolt of the step he had not seen took the cigarette from his lips. Rattled, he stopped short again, turned his eyes from the cripple and crossed directly over the street, going once more up Greenwich Street. He walked faster than before and in a few seconds was out of sight.

Hearing the cripple in the darkness behind him, he felt the first stirrings of panic. He quickened his steps, and hitched the bag higher under his arm, his mouth twisted on one side, smiling, reassuring himself, because the bag wasn't worth the trouble or the fear, or the man following him, and it would only be three minutes at most until he came to Fourteenth Street where he would turn off to go to the meeting.

The cripple came on with much waste motion, paddling himself by the two long arms, in a gait that was more like falling and catching himself than walking. Seeing his gain, he felt more cheerful, began to think how he would climb the stairs with the bag and take it into his room and open it sitting on the bed. But first he must say to the man, “I was standing on the platform a long time before you was.” He tried this sentence, panting it into his upturned collar: “I-I-I wuz standin' thur a long t-t-t befur you wuz. . . .” The big egg of an Adam's apple flowed up and down. “T-t-time befur you wuz!” he gasped.

He must say this right. He needed courage to do it. He recalled one of his rare moments of complete happiness, and the voice and the words that had made him so happy: “Archie's all right. When he does say something, it comes out sense.” It was Mr. Hendricks who had said it. Mr. Hendricks, who always smiled at him and spoke to him, too. And he had been talking about him, Archie, who pushed the drays around at the newspaper plant. Mr. Hendricks was one of the editors. Archie remembered exactly how he heard it. He was by the elevator shaft and Mr. Hendricks was talking to Ryzek, the foreman. “Archie's all right. When he does say something, it comes out sense.” He had felt so happy then, he could make himself happy at any time simply by recalling these words, and hearing Mr. Hendricks's voice as he said them. “Archie's all right . . .”

He felt strong and very brave. He would catch up with this man with the bag. He would say words that came out sense.

He began to think of the situation as a mistake that a few words could explain. . . . His sole caught on a curb and made a loud report.

The man in the polo coat threw a glance behind him. Fear settled deeper in his spine and shot him forward with supernormal energy. He ran across the intersection of Fourteenth Street, over the flattened cobblestones and trolley tracks. He could see no people on Fourteenth Street, and for a couple of blocks it was as dimly lighted as the street he was on. He darted back into Greenwich. For a while he walked on his toes, hoping the cripple would think he had turned off on Fourteenth Street. Then he kicked something that slid raspingly over the sidewalk.

“Goddamn!” he said, and his dirty teeth chattered. He turned around and held himself taut, listening. The scrap-slap-scrape came on. He started to trot. “Wh-what the hell am I doin' bein' chased by a nut,” he whispered, “when I shoulda turned off Fourteent' t'get t'the meetin'. . . .” His feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, yet he had a sense of being dragged from behind. The cripple took fantastic proportions in his mind, became the inescapable, machinelike figure of a nightmare, and he believed he was after him now, not the bag, driven by a crazy desire for revenge. He clutched the bag harder and determined to turn off at the next street, however dark it might be, to get to some place where there were people.

He heard his heart stagger, catch itself up like a pair of heavy feet, and he slowed immediately. He shouldn't be hurrying like this, a guy with a delicate heart. What if he should keel over in the gutter. . . . “Suppose he don't leave me alone all night! Suppose he don't never leave me alone! . . . What would the guys at the hall think if they saw me wit' a lousy bag bein' chased by a nut!”

For he was the bookkeeper of a large fraternal organization, and occasionally made speeches, as he had only two weeks ago tonight made the speech denouncing Putterman, who had sat on the front row hardly six feet away. “It ain't often I feel called upon to talk like this about a fellow member,” he had concluded, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. “But my only concern is the organ-eye-zation! . . . I say Putterman is a guy who says things are all right to your face an' then . . . an' then,” extending a finger, but the gesture reminded him of hailing the cripple, “then goes and spills this crap about the organ-eye-zation to someone higher up! . . . Gentlemen, I got my facts an' I present them!” Great applause, Putterman ousted by oral vote. Wh-what would the guys say if they . . .