Time Is Noon (37 page)

“Well, well, Joan!” Oh, his blessed hearty voice, his warm good voice!

“You came just in time. I was about to go and see Mrs. Mark—nothing urgent, poor soul, just going round to see how much more of her is dead. I try to get around once in a while, though she don’t want me to come. Why, Joan, what’s wrong?”

She was staring at him, sobbing, sobbing loudly. The sobs came loud and dry, and she was helpless in their gasp. They seized her and shook her. Speechlessly she held out the child to him and he took the baby. She gasped through her terrible sobbing, “Something’s—wrong. He doesn’t—know me.”

She gave her burden to him, and she was eased. She stopped sobbing. For the first moment in all these weary wakeful nights, these restless frightening days, she had rest from her burden. The long silence in her broke. Now she could not stop talking. She must talk on and on—“He lies so still—he’s so awfully still—I can’t tell you, Dr. Crabbe—it’s him. No one ever says anything. They think it’s wrong to talk—it’s as though they had blighted him—” All the time she was talking, talking, and he was looking at the child, testing him, touching him here and there, moving his limbs. He took off the little clothes and held the child.

“Beautiful body,” he said abruptly, breaking into her talk. “Got your fine body, Joan.”

She was panting with her terror, her lips dry. Now let her seize the pain firm and hard with both her hands.

“Dr. Crabbe, where is his mind?”

The pain of waiting for birth was nothing to the pain of this waiting. All of life, all the world, stopped, faded, was nothing. In all the world there was nothing but this tiny room, this old man, this child, herself. But he did not answer for a long time. At last he began to put on the garments again, slowly, carefully, to fasten them expertly, securely. At last, when the child was dressed, he looked at Joan, his face a twist of wrinkles.

“His mind was never born, Joan—my dear child—”

She drove slowly through the leaf-shadowed street. Once someone called after her excitedly, and she saw, through the fog of her terror, Netta Weeks pushing a baby carriage. “Joan, Joan!” she screamed. “Wait. I haven’t seen you in ages.” She had to stop then, for a moment. “No, I won’t get out, thank you, Netta. I must be getting home. Yes, this is my baby.” Paul was asleep. He lay upon her lap, his head in her arm. He was so still she could manage the reins while she held him. She was glad he was asleep. He was beautiful in his sleep—all children lay quiet in sleep. She listened while Netta praised him.

“Why, he’s a beauty, Joan! He favors you, doesn’t he? My, he looks grand and strong! You’re lucky—I bet he’s easy to look after. My Petie is a terror—into everything these days.” She pulled back the hood of the carriage and disclosed a thin, sandy, lively-looking child. He was sitting upright, babbling over a toy duck which he was picking to pieces. Netta screamed at him. “Oh, my heavens—his granddad just gave him that down at the store! He’s so mischievous—” She snatched the duck away and instantly he bellowed and she gave it back to him and winked at Joan. “Smart as a tack,” she confided. “Your baby’s a beauty, though,” she added.

“He’s a good baby,” Joan said quietly. Paul stirred a little and she gathered up the reins quickly. She must go, lest he wake, lest he open his lovely wandering empty eyes. She could not bear the thought of Netta’s gossip. “Joan Richards always held her head so high—but you ought to see her kid—”

“Come and see me, Joan,” Netta cried after her.

“Yes,” Joan called back. But she knew she never would. There was this pain in her, waiting for her, shutting her away from everyone. She had to seize it, to wrestle with it, to plumb it, to live it alone. She drove slowly back, holding Paul. But around them, beside them, like a separate presence, was the pain, waiting for her.

In the attic she laid him down upon the bed and took off his little hat and coat and she fetched a soft damp cloth and wiped his face and hands. Then she sat down beside him, and fed him. There were these things to be done for him, to comfort her. Though he had not cried, he was hungry. She studied his absorbed face. When he slept, when he ate thus, he looked like any other child. Dr. Crabbe was only an old man. Perhaps he was wrong. She reviewed the morning quickly. She had forgotten to tell him that Bart had not tried to talk until he was five. And Bart was all right now. Wasn’t Bart all right?

Dr. Crabbe was so impetuous. He made up his mind so fast. … She still had nearly three hundred dollars. She could take Paul to a city doctor and see what he said. She could go to New York and look in the telephone book for a baby doctor and ask him to see Paul. Yes, she would do that. She was happier, suddenly, planning something to do. She would not say anything to anybody until she had done it. Until she had done this she could push the waiting pain away. It was like pushing away a solid substance with her hands. She held it off.

“It’s all a fuss over nothing,” Bart declared.

Downstairs in the kitchen when he was washing up after milking, she had told him. “Dr. Crabbe says Paul isn’t right, Bart.”

“I don’t hold with doctors,” Bart’s mother said. “I wish I hadn’t ever told you about Bart not talking till he was five. I told you to ease you. Bart turned out all right.”

She did not answer. It was always easier now not to answer. She would go tomorrow. Perhaps when she knew, she could sleep again—when she knew Paul really was all right. She reckoned the day swiftly. It was Thursday. Fanny would be waiting. She’d have to tell Sam to get word to her to come on Saturday this week. She watched and made the chance to meet him before he reached the kitchen door. He was carrying the milk pails. But when she asked him, he shook his head shortly.

“I don’t see her any more,” he said. “She’s got married.”

She was frightened for a moment, then it did not matter. She could only fight one thing at a time. The fear of what Fanny might do if she were disappointed must wait until this waiting pain was fought off. She went back to the attic and packed a small bag of garments for Paul.

She found a doctor easily. There was a woman at the telephone booth waiting for a turn, and when she saw her holding Paul in one arm and turning the pages of the book with the other, she said, “Can I help you?”

“I want the name of the best baby doctor in New York,” Joan said. Paul’s head was slipping from her shoulder and she put up her hand quickly to hold it.

“You’d better go to the Edmonds Clinic,” the woman said. She wore a bright red dress and her yellow hair stood out from her round fat face. But her small blue eyes were kind, and her full bright red lips were soft. “You can go and it don’t cost you anything if you say you haven’t any money. Just write down you haven’t no support. My, he’s heavy, isn’t he? What’s wrong?” She was turning pages slowly, moving her glittering pointed nail down the names. “Here it is—see? You take the bus here at the corner uptown. What did you say was wrong?”

“He doesn’t walk or talk,” said Joan. There the pain was, as near as that. When she said the words, it flew at her, stabbing her. She pushed it back again.

“Don’t he?” the woman said. She was about to go on when the door of the telephone booth opened and a man made to enter. She recalled herself. “Here, you!” she cried loudly. “I’m next in line!”

“Well, go on then,” the man muttered. He was tired and sallow and middle-aged, and as he waited he sucked the handle of his umbrella. The door banged and the woman was shut behind it. She was screaming into the telephone, her face twisted and red.

Joan looked at the address. It stamped itself upon her mind instantly and she found it easily. People were very kind to her on the way. It was wonderful that people were kind to her as they passed, so much kinder than Bart was, or Bart’s family. It was sweet to have a courteous word or touch. In the bus a white-haired man gave her his seat and smiled and touched his hat, and when she got out, someone held her arm when she stepped down.

“He’s too heavy for you,” a voice murmured, a gentle pleasant tenor voice. But when she turned to speak, she could not see who it was. It was only a voice in the crowd. But she was comforted. There were kind people, unknown and kind.

She looked out into the streets of New York as the bus ground its way along. And yet these hurrying people did not look kind. They were so distracted in their gaze. Once when the bus stopped in front of a store she saw some people who were not hurrying—a woman and two men in dingy clothing. They were sauntering back and forth, their hands folded in front of them, and carrying signs that read
LOCKED OUT OF BRISK AND BRAM FOR DEMANDING HUMAN CONDITIONS.
But no one looked or gave them any heed. The bus went on again and she reached the hospital and entered a door over which was painted, FREE CLINIC. She went in and sat down on one of the benches in the long hallway. The benches lined the walls and they were full of women with sick children—with children crying and moaning and lying in weary stupor. Beside her a young woman with a white narrow face and exhausted eyes held a little girl with a huge misshapen head. She looked at Paul enviously. He was asleep, as soundly as though he were in the crib in the attic.

“It doesn’t seem as if anything could be wrong with such a lovely child.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” said Joan gratefully. It was true that among the sick children Paul looked sound and beautiful. She could not help being proud of him, a little. At least, sleeping, he was beautiful. The other woman’s child began to cry fretfully.

“She gets so tired, the poor little thing,” the woman said, trying to shift the weight of the huge head. “The doctor is late. They’re always late. I wish I had back all the hours I’ve wasted waiting for doctors.”

“Can’t they do anything?” Joan asked. Under the bulging enormous forehead the little girl’s face looked out, weazened, tiny, mouselike, twisted in old, old suffering.

“I don’t give up hope,” the mother said fervently. She bent and kissed the great forehead. “I keep hoping. You’ve got to hope.”

They all had the same hope, Joan thought, looking at the women’s faces. They looked eagerly at each other’s children, relieved when their eyes fell on one worse than their own. They looked quickly away from Paul because he seemed so sound, and they stared at crippled, deformed children hopefully.

When the doctor came in, their faces turned to him together, their eyes following him, searching his face eagerly. He came in, a robust, middle-aged figure with a small square beard and very clear agate-gray eyes. He was talking loudly and positively to a younger man who was with him.

“I tell you, Proctor, the diagnosis is perfectly obvious in ninety percent of these cases. The congenital undeveloped mind is consistently different from the birth-injured case that is possibly mentally normal. I never confuse the two—Just look at these here—”

His eyes ran, cold, darting, analyzing, along the walls. He was directly in front of her. She could smell a strong clean perfume upon him. She could see the hairy underside of his chin, the sharp triangle of his nose, the cold agate-gray eyes gazing downward. They did not see her. They saw only Paul. He had waked and was lying quietly in her arms.

“I am his mother,” she said steadily.

“You needn’t wait, my good woman, unless you want to. I don’t have anything more to say anyway. Take him home. When he gets too much for you, you’d better find a good institution.”

He passed on, talking and talking. She had turned in agony to the young doctor. But he had not met her eyes. He was listening closely and with respect to the cold, intelligent, knowing voice. She rose, pressing Paul’s little cap to his head.

Let her go home now, to the attic. She could fend off the pain until then. She would not examine the words until then. When she got home, under the close dark roof, she would take them out of her memory and comprehend them and let the waiting pain flow over her and cover her at last. Around her the patient women sat, not heeding. The door of the doctor’s office opened and their faces turned to it. A nurse came out, white and brisk, “First case, please!” No one saw her as she slipped away.

Bart met her at the station in his car. She climbed in and sat in silence beside him. He clattered along the rocky country road. She knew he was showing off to her. He wanted her to say how well he drove the car. The speedometer crept up and she could feel him wanting her praise, and when it did not come, perversely driving too fast that he might force her to say something. He had no imagination and so he never sensed danger. He could climb the barn roof and laugh when she looked away, shuddering. But if they were all killed, it would be well. She said nothing and at last he slowed down, sullenly.

“What did the doctor say about the kid?”

She seized the blade of pain in both hands. “He says Paul will never be right.”

She looked out over the fields. The corn was tasseling, and the summer was at its full. The forest green was deep and dark.

If Bart were a grown man, if he was really what his body seemed, she could turn and give Paul to him and rest her head upon his shoulder. There would be a bottom to this pain then. It would not go deeper and deeper fathomless, endless, a black tunnel through which she must walk alone all her life, without light to guide her to the end.

“Shucks, you can’t believe everything them city doctors say, Jo. He’s healthy as can be.”

“His body’s all right.”

“He’ll turn out good,” Bart repeated heartily. “You see if he don’t.”

She did not answer. The road was deep with dust. The sunset was flaming out of orange dust.

Bart cleared his throat. “Need rain,” he remarked. “Good growing weather for the corn, though.”

“Yes,” she said.

The house was just around the turn. They were there.

Now they were at the kitchen door. Bart’s mother was at the stove, frying potatoes.

“Supper’s ready,” she said, without turning her head.

“I’ll be down soon—don’t wait,” she answered. She carried Paul upstairs and washed him and fed him and laid him in his crib. He was tired and fell into effortless sleep. She fetched the small oil lamp from the box she used as a table and stood looking at him. These must be her moments of dreaming now, these moments at night when he was fast asleep. She could dream that he was like any other child. He had had a day of play, shouting, calling, chattering, crying, carrying out his busy little-boy plans, and now at the end of the day he was tired out. As his body grew she could pretend he was going to school, that he played baseball and rode a horse. When a young man’s body lay asleep, she could dream he was going to college. Her imagination flew in agony down the years. This was the waiting pain. Now it was come—now it could no longer be put away. It was here. It would go with her night and day as long as she lived, walk with her wherever she went, wait in her awake or if she slept. It seemed now she would never sleep again.