Short Stories: Five Decades (130 page)

He was cheered up, though, when his mother and father telephoned, collect, from Maine, to see how he was. They had a nice chat. “And how’s my darling Sibyl?” Hugo’s mother said. “Can I say hello to her?”

“She’s not here,” Hugo said. He explained about the trip to Florida with her parents.

“Fine people, fine people,” Hugo’s mother said. She had met Sibyl’s parents once, at the wedding. “I do hope they’re all enjoying themselves down South. Well, take care of yourself, Hooey.…” Hooey was a family pet name for him. “Don’t let them hit you in the face with the ball.” His mother’s grasp of the game was fairly primitive. “And give my love to Sibyl when she gets home.”

Hugo hung up. Then very clearly, he heard his mother say to his father, 1000 miles away in northern Maine, “With her parents. I bet.”

Hugo didn’t answer the phone the rest of the week.

Sibyl arrived from Florida late Saturday afternoon. She looked beautiful as she got off the plane and she had a new fur coat that her father had bought her. Hugo had bought a hat to keep Sibyl from noticing the scalp wound inflicted by the policeman’s club, at least at the airport, with people around. He had never owned a hat and he hoped Sibyl wouldn’t notice this abrupt change in his style of dressing. She didn’t notice it. And back in their apartment, she didn’t notice the wound, although it was nearly four inches long and could be seen quite clearly through his hair, if you looked at all closely. She chattered gaily on about Florida, the beaches, the color of the water, the flamingos at the race track. Hugo told her how glad he was that she had had such a good time and admired her new coat.

Sibyl said she was tired from the trip and wanted to have a simple dinner at home and get to bed early. Hugo said he thought that was a good idea. He didn’t want to see anybody he knew, or anybody he didn’t know.

By nine o’clock, Sibyl was yawning and went in to get undressed. Hugo had had three bourbons to keep Sibyl from worrying about his seeming a bit distracted. He started to make up a bed on the living-room couch. From time to time during the week, he had remembered the sound of the low laugh from Sylvia’s window and it had made the thought of sex distasteful to him. He had even noticed a certain deadness in his lower regions and he doubted whether he ever could make love to a woman again. “I bet,” he thought, “I’m the first man in the history of the world to be castrated by a laugh.”

Sibyl came out of the bedroom just as he was fluffing up a pillow. She was wearing a black nightgown that concealed nothing. “Sweetie,” Sibyl said reproachfully.

“It’s Saturday night,” Hugo said, giving a final extra jab at the pillow.

“So?” You’d never guess that she was pregnant as she stood there at the doorway in her nightgown.

“Well, Saturday night, during the season,” Hugo said. “I guess I’ve gotten into the rhythm, you might say, of sleeping alone.”

“But there’s no game tomorrow, Hugo.” There was a tone of impatience in Sibyl’s voice.

The logic was unassailable. “That’s true,” Hugo said. He followed Sibyl into the bedroom. If he was impotent, Sibyl might just as well find it out now as later.

It turned out that his fears were groundless. The three bourbons, perhaps.

As they approached the climax of their lovemaking, Hugo was afraid Sibyl was going to have a heart attack, she was breathing so fast. Then, through the turbulence, he heard what she was thinking. “I should have bought that green dress at Bonwit’s,” Sibyl’s thoughtful, calm voice echoed just below his eardrum. “I could do without the belt, though. And then I just might try cutting up that old mink hat of mine and using it for cuffs on that dingy old brown rag I got last Christmas. Maybe my wrists wouldn’t look so skinny with fur around them.”

Hugo finished his task and Sibyl said “Ah” happily and kissed him and went to sleep, snoring a little. Hugo stayed awake for a long time, occasionally glancing over at his wife’s wrists and then staring at the ceiling and thinking about married life.

Sibyl was still asleep when he woke up. He didn’t waken her. A church bell was ringing in the distance, inviting, uncomplicated and pure, promising peace to tormented souls. Hugo got out of bed and dressed swiftly but carefully and hurried to the comforts of religion. He sat in the rear, on the aisle, soothed by the organ and the prayers and the upright Sunday-morning atmosphere of belief and remittance from sin.

The sermon was on sex and violence in the modern world and Hugo appreciated it. After what he had gone through, a holy examination of those aspects of today’s society was just what he needed.

The minister was a big red-faced man, forthright and vigorous. Violence actually got only a fleeting and rather cursory condemnation. The Supreme Court was admonished to mend its ways and to refrain from turning loose on a Christian society a horde of pornographers, rioters, dope addicts and other sinners because of the present atheistic conception of what the minister scornfully called civil rights, and that was about it.

But when it came to sex, the minister hit his stride. The church resounded to his denunciation of naked and leering girls on magazine stands, of sex education for children, of an unhealthy interest in birth control, of dating and premarital lasciviousness, of Swedish and French moving pictures, of mixed bathing in revealing swimsuits, of petting in parked cars, of all novels that had been written since 1910, of coeducational schools, of the new math, which the minister explained, was a subtle means of undermining the moral code. Unchaperoned picnics were mentioned, miniskirts got a full two minutes, and even the wearing of wigs, designed to lure the all-too-susceptible American male into lewd and unsocial behavior, came in for its share of condemnation. The way the minister was going on, it would not have surprised some members of the congregation if he finished up with an edict against cross-pollination.

Hugo sat at the rear of the church, feeling chastened. It was a good feeling. That was what he had come to church for, and he almost said “Amen” aloud after one or two of the more spiritedly presented items on the minister’s list.

Then, gradually, he became aware of a curious cooing voice in his left ear. “Ah, you, fourth seat to the left in the third row,” he heard, “you with that little pink cleft just peeping out, why don’t you come around late one weekday afternoon for a little spiritual consolation, ha-ha.” Aghast, Hugo realized it was the minister’s voice he was hearing.

Aloud, the minister was moving on to a rather unconvincing endorsement of the advantages of celibacy. “And you, the plump one in the fifth row, with the tight brassiere, Mrs. What’s-your-name, looking down at your hymnbook as though you were planning to go into a nunnery,” Hugo heard, mixed with loud advice on holy thoughts and vigorous, innocent exercise, “I can guess what you’re up to when your husband goes out of town. I wouldn’t mind if you had
my
private telephone number in your little black book, ha-ha.”

Hugo sat rigid in his pew. This was going just a little bit too far.

The minister had swung into chastity. He wanted to end on a note of uplift. His head was tilted back, heavenward, but through slitted eyes, he scanned his Sunday-best parishioners. The minister had a vested interest in chastity and his voice took on a special solemn intonation as he described how particularly pleasing this virtue was in the eyes of God and His angels. “And little Miss Crewes, with your white gloves and white socks,” Hugo heard, “ripening away like a tasty little Georgia persimmon, trembling on the luscious brink of womanhood, nobody has to tell me what you do behind the stands on the way home from school. The rectory is only two blocks from school, baby, and it’s on your way home. Just one timid knock on the door will suffice, ha-ha. There’s always tea and little cakes for little girls like you at the rectory, ha-ha.”

If Hugo hadn’t been afraid of making a scene, he would have got up and run out of the church. Instead, he rapped himself sharply across the left ear. The consequent ringing kept him from hearing anything else. Several people turned around at the sound of the blow and stared disapprovingly at Hugo, but he didn’t care. By the time the ringing stopped, the sermon was over and the minister was announcing the number of the hymn.

It was
Rock of Ages
. Hugo wasn’t sure of the words, but he hummed, so as not to draw any more attention to himself.

The organ swelled, the sopranos, altos, tenors and bassos joined in, musical and faithful.

“
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
,

Let me hide myself in Thee
.

Let the water and the blood
,

From Thy side, a healing flood
,

Be of sin the double cure
…”

Hugo was swept along on the tide of sound. He didn’t have much of an ear for music and the only things he played on the phonograph at home were some old 78-rpm Wayne King records that his mother had collected when she was a girl and had given him as a wedding present. But now the diapason of the organ, the pure flutelike tones of the women and young girls addressing God, the deep cello support of the men, combined to give him a feeling of lightness, of floating on spring airs, of being lost in endless fragrant gardens. Virgins caressed his forehead with petaled fingers, waters sang in mountain streams, strong men embraced him in everlasting brotherhood. By the time the congregation reached “Thou must save, and Thou alone,” Hugo was out of his pew and writhing in ecstasy on the floor.

It was lucky he was in the last row, and on the aisle.

The hymn was never finished. It started to falter at “While I draw this fleeting breath,” as people turned around to see what was happening and came to a final stop on “When I rise to worlds unknown.” By that time, everybody in the church was standing up and looking at Hugo, trembling, sprawled on his back, in the middle of the aisle.

The last notes of the organ came to a halt discordantly, at a signal from the minister. Hugo lay still for an instant, conscious of 300 pairs of eyes on him. Then he leaped up and fled.

He rang the bell a long time, but it was only when he roared, “I know you’re in there. Open up or I’ll break it down,” and began to buck at the door with his shoulder that it opened.

“What’s going on here?” Miss Cattavi asked, blocking his way. “There are no visiting hours on Sunday.”

“There will be this Sunday,” Hugo said hoarsely. He pushed roughly past Miss Cattavi. She was all muscle. It was the first time he had ever been rude to a lady.

“He’s in Romania,” Miss Cattavi said, trying to hold on to him.

“I’ll show him Romania,” Hugo cried, throwing open doors and dragging Miss Cattavi after him like a junior high school guard.

Dr. Sebastian was behind the fourth door, in a room like a library, practicing dry-fly casting. He was wearing hip-length rubber boots.

“Oh, Mr. Pleiss,” Dr. Sebastian said merrily, “you came back.”

“I sure did come back,” Hugo said. He had difficulty talking.

“You want your other ear done, I wager,” said Dr. Sebastian, reeling in delicately.

Hugo grabbed Dr. Sebastian by the lapels and lifted him off the floor so that they were eye to eye. Dr. Sebastian weighed only 140 pounds, although he was quite fat. “I don’t want the other ear done,” Hugo said loudly.

“Should I call the police?” Miss Cattavi had her hand on the phone.

Hugo dropped Dr. Sebastian, who went down on one knee but made a creditable recovery. Hugo ripped the phone out of the wall. He had always been very careful of other people’s property. It was something his father had taught him as a boy.

“Don’t tell me,” Dr. Sebastian said solicitously, “that the ear has filled up again. It’s unusual, but not unheard of. Don’t worry about it. The treatment is simple. A little twirl of an instrument and—”

Hugo grabbed the doctor’s throat with one hand and kept Miss. Cattavi off with the other. “Now, listen to this,” Hugo said, “listen to what you did to me.”

“Cawlsnhnd on my goddamn windpipe,” the doctor said.

Hugo let him go.

“Now, my dear young man,” Dr. Sebastian said, “if you’ll only tell me what little thing is bothering you.…”

“Get her out of the room.” Hugo gestured toward Miss Cattavi. The things he had to tell Dr. Sebastian could not be said in front of a woman.

“Miss Cattavi, please …” Dr. Sebastian said.

“Animal,” Miss Cattavi said, but she went out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Moving out of range, Dr. Sebastian went behind a desk. He remained standing. “I could have sworn that your ear was in superb condition,” he said.

“Superb!” Hugo was sorry he had taken his hand off the doctor’s throat.

“Well, you can hear your team’s signals now, can’t you?” Dr. Sebastian said.

“If that’s all I could hear,” Hugo moaned.

“Ah.” Dr. Sebastian brightened. “Your hearing is better than normal. I told you you had an extraordinary aural arrangement. It only took a little cutting, a bold clearing away of certain extraneous matter.… You must be having a very good season.”

“I am having a season in hell,” Hugo said, unconscious that he was now paying tribute to a French poet.

“I’m terribly confused,” the doctor said petulantly. “I do better for you than you ever hoped for and what is my reward—you come in here and try to strangle me. I do think you owe me an explanation, Mr. Pleiss.”

“I owe you a lot more than that,” Hugo said. “Where did you learn your medicine—in the Congo?”

Dr. Sebastian drew himself to his full height. “Cornell Medical School,” he said with quiet pride. “Now, if you’ll only tell me—”

“I’ll tell you, all right,” Hugo said. He paced up and down the room. It was an old house and the timbers creaked. The sound was like a thousand sea gulls in Hugo’s ear.

“First,” said Dr. Sebastian, “just what is it that you want me to do for you?”

“I want you to put my ear back the way it was when I came to you,” Hugo said.

“You want to be deaf again?” the doctor asked incredulously.

“Exactly.”

Dr. Sebastian shook his head. “My dear fellow,” he said, “I can’t do that. It’s against all medical ethics. If it ever got out, I’d be barred forever from practicing medicine anyplace in the United States. A graduate of Cornell—”