The Laughing Matter (11 page)

He turned the boy's head to him again, and again pressed his dry mouth to Red's forehead.

“Red,” he said. “Isn't it strange and wonderful that a brother's son is a man's own father?” He smiled at the boy, tightening his hand on the boy's chin. “Isn't it strange, Red? Isn't it strange? I was a poor son. Perhaps that's why I was never a father. What are you thinking, Red? Tell me.”

“I want to talk the language,” Red said.

“Yes,” Dade said. He looked over the head of the boy at the boy's father. The man hadn't put the money away. Dade noticed this, then said in English, “He must be taught.”

“Who will teach me?” Red said.

“Your father will,” Dade said. He spoke again to his
brother. “Teach him the language in thoughts, not in words,” he said in English. “One thought after another. By the time you're nine,” he said to the boy, “you'll speak the language as well as you speak English, or better. Put the stuff in your pocket,” he said to his brother in English, and then in the language he said, “There is more, take it and go home. If there is someone you wish to kill, you will find in my own room the weapons for it. Why not? It is right. If there is someone you wish to forgive, to understand, to love, you will find the weapons for it in your heart.”

“Red?” Evan said to his son. “I want you to take a little walk outside and look at the airplanes.”

The boy looked at his father. There was still panic in his eyes, but after a moment it went away, and Evan saw that his son did indeed resemble his father.

He slipped down off the bench—his feet hadn't been touching the floor—then loitered off to the big glass door. He pushed it open, went out onto the steps, then down the steps, and away.

“For God's sake, Dade,” Evan said in English quickly. “She breaks my heart. I feel sorry for her. I don't know what to do, man. I swear to God I'm afraid I'll kill her. You don't have to go back, do you? Stay. Help me. Don't go back, Dade.”

“There's no help,” Dade said. “If you must kill, I've told you where the weapons are. You'd find them soon enough, anyway. Hands would be enough, though. Anything would do. We are never unarmed. No one. And we have no defense. There's no help. Did Petrus help? Did we
help Petrus? No one helps. No one hinders, either.” He suddenly brought a silver dollar out of his pocket. “Flip for it,” he said. “To be kind, or to be proud. That's what it comes to. Call it.” He flipped the coin high, saying again as it went end over end, “Call it.”

“Heads,” Evan said.

The heavy coin slapped the marble floor, bounced, spun swiftly on its edge, lost momentum, and then lay down. It was tails.

“Be kind,” Dade said. “Why not, boy? Why not?
You
called it. Be kind. Be kind to everybody. Be kind to yourself.”

“Soft, is that it, Dade?”

“Why not?” Dade said. “Or
also
soft. Be kind. It's right to be kind.”

“I came near killing her this afternoon,” Evan said. “Red came and stopped me.”

“Be kind to Red,” Dade said. “Be kind to Red's mother. A boy loves his mother.”

“For God's sake, Dade, don't you understand what's happened?”

“I understand,” Dade said.

“No, you don't,” Evan said. “We were talking. I was thinking of somebody to help us. A doctor. To help
her
. Help Red. Help Eva. Help me. Help the others we believed we were going to have. I asked her if she loved him. She said she didn't know. I would have killed her if Red hadn't stopped me. I
wanted
to be kind. I wanted to forgive—I wanted to be soft, Dade. I wanted to hide it, and I wanted to believe I
could
forget it, and she could forget it, and Red
and Eva never know anything about it. I asked her. I thought it might be an accident, out of sickness. I asked her. I was sure she would know how much she hated the accident, hated the sickness. Dade, she said she didn't know. Stay here and help me. Stay at the hotel in Fresno. You've
got
to help me, Dade.”

“I'll fly down the minute I can,” Dade said. “I'll try to help you. It may be tomorrow morning. It may be tomorrow night.”

“Are you sure you're winning?”

“I'm sure.”

“How much was that you handed me?”

“I don't know. You count it.”

“I'll keep it for you.”

“No,” Dade said. “I don't want it, and I want you to have it. You're in the game as much as anybody else.” He got up. “I miss the boy. I want to go out and be with him until it's time to go back.” Evan stood beside him. “What you were talking about with her—” Dade said. “Talk about it some more. Sometimes the mouth moves by itself. Her answer may not have meant anything. Talk about
that
some more. I can help you there.”

They walked out to the steps, and Dade saw Red standing alone.

“There he is,” Dade said, “and he
hasn't
been crying. You thought he
might
cry, didn't you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“He
is
like Petrus Nazarenus, and I saw Petrus cry.”

“When?” Dade said. “When did you see my father cry?”

“The last time you were gone,” Evan said. “He cried
several
times. He believed he would never see you again. Red's been thinking he might not see me again.”

“I should have come back,” Dade said. “I knew he was old, but I thought he could wait a little longer.”

When they reached the boy, Red did not turn to them.

“Red?” Evan said.

“Yes, Papa,” the boy said, but still did not turn. Dade Nazarenus turned to his brother. His hard eyes were harder than ever now, but full of anguish. “Be kind,” he said in the language. “Be kind to him.” He reached around to the boy's forehead. His fingers covered the boy's eyes, nose, and mouth. They rubbed the moisture dry.

“It is right,” the boy said in the language, but still did not turn. “What's that mean, Dade?” he said in English. “That you said so many times?”

“It means,
It is right,”
Dade said. “It
is
right. Say it again.”

The boy said the words in the language again, then in English, “It is right? Is that what it means?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “Now, you've got
that
. You say it perfectly. Your father will teach you other things to say, too.”

The boy turned to his father.

“Will you, Papa?”

“Yes, Red,” Evan said. “Yes, I will.”

“I want to talk the way you and Dade talk,” Red said.

“Your father will teach you,” Dade said.

“It might take a long time,” Red said to his father.

“I know,” Evan said.

“Will you?”

“Yes, Red.”

They began to walk, the boy between them. Suddenly
Dade lifted the boy in his arms, laughing, and hugged him until Red was laughing, too. Dade said the words, and then Red said them, and then at last Evan Nazarenus said them, too.

“It is right,” they all said in the language.

On the way back to Clovis the boy said, “The smell of rocks in the house is from Dade. I wasn't sure until you and Dade came out where I was standing. Inside, I thought it might be from the marble floor there, not from Dade, but it was still there when he came outside. Dade smells like rocks. Eva smells like hay and honey and some other things, only I don't know what they are. Flora Walz smells like cold water and green leaves.”

“Do you
like
Flora?” Evan said.

“Well, I really like
her,”
Red said. “I like Fay and Fanny, too, but I
really
like Flora.”

“Why?”

Evan wanted to know. Why did his son like Flora? Why did Evan like Swan? Why had he believed that of all the women in the world Swan was the one who was his woman, by whom he would have sons and daughters, with whom he would be decently resigned to the meaninglessness of life? Why did he
still
like Swan?

“I like her,” Red said, “because she makes me feel good.”

“How?” the man said. “How does she make you feel good?”

How had Swan made
him
feel good? How had she made him feel amused and glad about being involved in an absurd and painful experience. How had she done it?

“Well, Papa,” Red said,
“she
likes me, and that's what makes me feel good. I mean, it makes me feel good to know a girl like Flora likes me. I never saw a girl like Flora before.”

“Is she different?”

“She's different from every girl I ever saw.”

“How is she different?”

“Well, she
is
pretty, isn't she?”

“Yes, she is.”

“A lot of girls
aren't,”
Red said. “And then the way she talks makes me laugh. I mean, the way her mouth moves, and the sound of her voice. Then, the things she says are so different from what other girls say.”

“What does
she
say?”

“Oh, she says different things,” Red said. “I forget, but she says them as if she
understood
them. But most of all, she's different because she likes me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I'm not
sure,”
Red said, “but I
think
she likes me.”

Was he sure Swan had ever loved him? Wasn't it a theory? Didn't it happen that he felt she loved him because he felt he loved her, each of them never actually sure of the other, though, each of them guessing, or working on the probability that the theory was a valid one? Hadn't he come to believe she loved him because they had been able to talk to one another gladly, to look at one another and notice identical desires? But might not these identical desires have occurred in each of them in relation to others? Of course they might have. Then, what was it that more nearly definitely established that they loved one another? Was it not their believing it was a thing to prolong indefinitely, forever, with sons and daughters coming forward out of it, as Red and Eva had come out of it? Wasn't
that
the thing that had made their love—made
something—
definite and meaningful?

“Would you be unhappy if Flora didn't
really
like you?” the man said. “Or if she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she might happen to meet? Would that make you unhappy?”

“Who is the other boy?” Red said.

The man laughed, actually burst into laughter, for the question was the kind he himself, at forty-four, might ask under similar circumstances.

“I don't know,” the man said.
“Any
boy, any other boy. If she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she happened to meet or know, would that make you unhappy?”

“Well, I wouldn't like it,” Red said. “Does she like another boy? Do you know, Papa?”

“No, I don't know,” the man said. “I was just wondering if it would make you unhappy, that's all.”

“Well, it would,” Red said. “If she's my favorite—and she
is
—I want to be
her
favorite. I don't want her to be my favorite, and have a favorite of her own.”

“Suppose you
were
her favorite,” the man said, “but still she liked other boys, too?”

“How could she do that?”

“I don't know, but suppose it happened? Suppose it were true?”

“I wouldn't want a favorite like that.”

“No, perhaps not, but suppose she was
still
your favorite, even though you knew she liked other boys, would that make you unhappy?”

“Very
unhappy,” Red said, “because I want my favorite to like me the way I like her.”

“Why do you want that, Red?”

“I don't know,” Red said. “I just want it. Before we go back to Palo Alto I'm going to tell her she's my favorite, and I'm going to ask her if I'm her favorite. If she is, then when we come to Dade's house for another visit, I'm going to go to her house alone, to see her, because she
is
my favorite.”

“Alone?”

“Yes,” Red said. He waited a moment, then said, “She said her father hates her mother. She said her mother hates her father. Why do they hate each other? They're Flora's father and mother. How can they hate each other?”

“Well,” the man said, “she may be mistaken. Maybe they fight—a husband and a wife fight—a father and a
mother fight—a man and a woman fight—even a boy and a girl fight—and when they do I suppose they hate
something
in each other, but that doesn't mean they don't go right on loving each other, too. That doesn't mean they don't love a great deal more in each other than they hate.”

“I don't like hating,” Red said.

“Why?”

“I don't like it. There's something the matter with it. Why do people hate?”

“I don't know,” the man said. “I don't know why they hate. Why
do
they?”

“I think it's because they're scared,” the boy said. “I don't know what they're scared of, but they're scared of something. I was scared of Milton Schweitzer. I don't know why.”

“People
do
scare you,” the man said.
“Some
people
do
scare you.”

He glanced at his watch when the car drew up and stopped where it had been. He had been gone about two hours, and it was almost half-past eleven. Everything seemed about the same, except that May Walz had Flora in her arms, the girl apparently asleep. Red went straight to the girl and looked at her. She opened her eyes, sat up, then got off her mother's lap.

Evan Nazarenus greeted everyone quickly, poured fresh drinks for those who needed or wanted them, poured himself one, then went into the house. He found Eva asleep on top of her bed. He sat on the bed beside her, drinking because he needed the drink badly.