The Summer of the Swans (5 page)

He released his pajamas and held onto the window sill tightly, because he thought that he had just seen one of the swans outside his window, gliding slowly through the leaves. The memory of their soft smoothness in the water came to him and warmed him.

He got out of bed and stood by the other window. He heard a cat miaowing and saw the Hutchinsons’ white cat from next door, but he paid no attention to it. The swans were fixed with such certainty in his mind that he could not even imagine that what he had seen was only the cat.

Still looking for the swans, he pressed his face against the screen. The beauty of them, the whiteness, the softness, the silent splendor had impressed him greatly, and he felt a longing to be once again by the lake, sitting in the deep grass, throwing bread to the waiting swans.

It occurred to him suddenly that the swan outside the window had come to find him, and with a small pleased smile he went around the bed, sat, and slowly began to put on his bedroom slippers. Then he walked out into the hall. His feet made a quiet shuffling sound as he passed through the linoleumed hall and into the living room, but no one heard him.

The front door had been left open for coolness and only the screen door was latched. Charlie lifted the hook, pushed open the door, and stepped out onto the porch. Boysie, who slept in the kitchen, heard the door shut and came to the living room. He whined softly when he saw Charlie outside on the porch and scratched at the door. He waited, then after a moment went back to the kitchen and curled up on his rug in front of the sink.

Charlie walked across the front porch and sat on the steps. He waited. He was patient at first, for he thought that the swans would come to the steps, but as time passed and they did not come, he began to shuffle his feet impatiently back and forth on the third step.

Suddenly he saw something white in the bushes. He got up and, holding the banister, went down the steps and crossed the yard. He looked into the bushes, but the swans were not there. It was only the cat, crouched down behind the leaves and looking up at him with slitted eyes.

He stood there, looking at the cat, unable to understand what had happened to the swans. He rubbed his hands up and down his pajama tops, pulling at the torn material. The cat darted farther back into the bushes and disappeared.

After a moment Charlie turned and began to walk slowly across the yard. He went to the gate and paused. He had been told again and again that he must never go out of the yard, but those instructions, given in daylight with noisy traffic on the street, seemed to have nothing to do with the present situation.

In the soft darkness all the things that usually confused him—speeding bicycles, loud noises, lawn mowers, barking dogs, shouting children—were gone, replaced by silence and a silvery moon-lit darkness. He seemed to belong to this silent world far more than he belonged to the daytime world of feverish activity.

Slowly he opened the gate and went out. He moved past the Hutchinsons’ house, past the Tennents‘, past the Weiceks’. There was a breeze now, and the smell of the Weiceks’ flowers filled the air. He walked past the next house and hesitated, suddenly confused. Then he started through the vacant lot by the Akers’ house. In the darkness it looked to him like the field he and Sara had crossed earlier in the evening on their way to see the swans.

He crossed the vacant lot, entered the wooded area, and walked slowly through the trees. He was certain that in just a moment he would come into the clearing and see the lake and the white swans gliding on the dark water. He continued walking, looking ahead so that he would see the lake as soon as possible.

The ground was getting rougher. There were stones to stumble over now and rain gullies and unexpected piles of trash. Still the thought of the swans persisted in his mind and he kept walking.

C
harlie was getting tired and he knew something was wrong. The lake was gone. He paused and scanned the field, but he could not see anything familiar.

He turned to the right and began to walk up the hill. Suddenly a dog barked behind him. The sound, unexpected and loud, startled him, and he fell back a step and then started to run. Then another dog was barking, and another, and he had no idea where the dogs were. He was terribly frightened and he ran with increasing awkwardness, thrashing at the weeds with his hands, pulling at the air, so that everything about him seemed to be running except his slow feet.

The sound of the dogs seemed to him to be everywhere, all around him, so that he ran first in one direction, then in another, like a wild animal caught in a maze. He ran into a bush and the briers stung his face and arms, and he thought this was somehow connected with the dogs and thrashed his arms out wildly, not even feeling the cuts in his skin.

He turned around and around, trying to free himself, and then staggered on, running and pulling at the air. The dogs’ barking had grown fainter now, but in his terror he did not notice. He ran blindly, stumbling over bushes and against trees, catching his clothing on twigs, kicking at unseen rocks. Then he came into a clearing and was able to gain speed for the first time.

He ran for a long way, and then suddenly he came up against a wire fence that cut him sharply across the chest. The surprise of it threw him back on the ground, and he sat holding his hands across his bare chest, gasping for breath.

Far down the hill someone had spoken to the dogs; they had grown quiet, and now there was only the rasping sound of Charlie’s own breathing. He sat hunched over until his breathing grew quieter, and then he straightened and noticed his torn pajamas for the first time since he had left the house. He wrapped the frayed edges of the jacket carefully over his chest as if that would soothe the stinging cut.

After a while he got slowly to his feet, paused, and then began walking up the hill beside the fence. He was limping now because when he had fallen he had lost one of his bedroom slippers.

The fence ended abruptly. It was an old one, built long ago, and now only parts remained. Seeing it gone, Charlie felt relieved. It was as if the fence had kept him from his goal, and he stepped over a trailing piece of wire and walked toward the forest beyond.

Being in the trees gave him a good feeling for a while. The moonlight coming through the leaves and the soft sound of the wind in the branches were soothing, but as he went deeper into the forest he became worried. There was something here he didn’t know, an unfamiliar smell, noises he had never heard before. He stopped.

He stood beneath the trees without moving and looked around him. He did not know where he was. He did not even know how he had come to be there. The whole night seemed one long struggle, but he could not remember why he had been struggling. He had wanted something, he could not remember what.

His face and arms stung from the brier scratches; his bare foot, tender and unused to walking on the rough ground, was already cut and sore, but most of all he was gripped by hopelessness. He wanted to be back in his room, in his bed, but home seemed lost forever, a place so disconnected from the forest that there was no way to get from one to the other.

He put his wrist to his ear and listened to his watch. Even its steady ticking could not help him tonight and he wrapped the torn pajamas tighter over his chest and began to walk slowly up the hill through the trees. As he walked, he began to cry without noise.

I
n the morning Sara arose slowly, letting her feet hang over the edge of the bed for a moment before she stepped onto the floor. Then she walked across the room, and as she passed the dressing table she paused to look at herself in the mirror. She smoothed her hair behind her ears.

One of her greatest mistakes, she thought, looking at herself critically, was cutting her hair. She had gone to the beauty school in Bentley, taking with her a picture from a magazine, and had asked the girl to cut her hair exactly like that.

“And look what she did to me!” she had screamed when she got home. “Look! Ruined!”

“It’s not that bad,” Wanda had said.

“Tell the truth. Now look at that picture. Look! Tell the truth—do I look anything, anything at
all,
even the tiniest little bit, like that model?”

Wanda and Aunt Willie had had to admit that Sara looked nothing like the blond model.

“I’m ruined, just ruined. Why someone cannot take a perfectly good magazine picture and cut someone’s hair the same way without ruining them is something I cannot understand. I hope that girl fails beauty school.”

“Actually, your
hair
does sort of look like the picture. It’s your face and body that don’t.”

“Shut up, Wanda. Quit trying to be funny.”

“I’m not being funny. It’s a fact.”

“I didn’t make smart remarks the time they gave you that awful permanent.”

“You did too. You called me Gentle Ben.”

“Well, I meant that as a compliment.”

“All right, girls, stop this now. No more arguing. Believe me, I mean it.”

Sara now looked at herself, weighing the mistake of the hair, and she thought suddenly: I look exactly like that cartoon cat who is always chasing Tweetie Bird and who has just been run over by a steam roller and made absolutely flat. This hair and my flat face have combined to make me look exactly like—

“Sara !” Aunt Willie called from the kitchen.

“What?”

“Come on and get your breakfast, you and Charlie. I’m not going to be in here fixing one breakfast after another until lunch time.”

“All right.”

She went into the hall and looked into Charlie’s room.

“Charlie! ”

He was not in his bed. She walked into the living room. Lately, since he had learned to turn on the television, he would get up early, come in, and watch it by himself, but he was not there either.

“Charlie’s already up, Aunt Willie.”

In the kitchen Aunt Willie was spooning oatmeal into two bowls.

“Oatmeal again,” Sara groaned. “I believe I’ll just have some Kool-Aid and toast.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Now, where’s Charlie?”

“He wasn’t in his room.”

She sighed. “Well, find him.”

“First I’ve got to see my shoes.” She went over to the sink and looked at the sneakers. “Oh, they look awful. Look at them, Aunt Willie. They’re gross.”

“Well, you should have left them alone. I’ve learned my lesson about dyeing clothes, let me tell you. You saw me, I hope, when I had to wear that purple dress to your Uncle Bert’s funeral.”

“What color would you say these were?”

“I haven’t got time for that now. Go get your brother.”

“No, there’s a name for this color. I just want to see if you know it.”

“I don’t know it, so go get your brother.”

“I’ll give you three choices. It’s either, let me see—it’s either pomegranate, Pomeranian, or puce.”

“Puce. Now go get your brother.”

“How did you know?”

“Because my aunt had twin Pomeranian dogs that rode in a baby carriage and because I once ate a piece of pomegranate. Go get your brother!”

Sara put down the shoes and went back into the hall. “Charlie!” She looked into his room again. “Oh, Charlie!” She went out onto the front porch and looked at Charlie’s tent. It had blown down during the night and she could see that he wasn’t there.

Slowly she walked back through the hall, looking into every room, and then into the kitchen.

“I can’t find him, Aunt Willie.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Aunt Willie, prepared to chide the two children for being late to breakfast, now set the pan of oatmeal down heavily on the table.

“He’s not in his room, he’s not in the yard, he’s not anywhere.”

“If this is some kind of a joke—” Aunt Willie began. She brushed past Sara and went into the living room. “Charlie! Where are you, Charlie?” Her voice had begun to rise with the sudden alarm she often felt in connection with Charlie. “Where could he have gone?” She turned and looked at Sara. “If this is a joke ...”

“It’s not a joke.”

“Well, I’m remembering last April Fool’s Day, that’s all.”

“He’s probably around the neighborhood somewhere, like the time Wanda took him to the store without saying anything.”

“Well, Wanda didn’t take him this morning.” Aunt Willie walked into the hall and stood looking in Charlie’s room. She stared at the empty bed. She did not move for a moment as she tried to think of some logical explanation for his absence. “If anything’s happened to that boy—”

“Nothing’s happened to him.”

“All right, where is he?”

Sara did not answer. Charlie had never left the house alone, and Sara could not think of any place he could be either.

“Go outside, Sara. Look! If he’s not in the neighborhood, I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t call until we’re sure, Aunt Willie, please.”

“I’m calling. Something’s wrong here.”

Sara was out of her pajamas and into her pants and shirt in a minute. Leaving her pajamas on the floor, she ran barefoot into the yard.

“Charlie! Charlie!” She ran around the house and then stopped. Suddenly she remembered the swans and ran back into the house.

“Aunt Willie, I bet you anything Charlie went down to the lake to see the swans.”

Aunt Willie was talking on the telephone and she put one hand over the receiver and said, “Run and see.”

“You aren’t talking to the police already?” Sara asked in the doorway.

“I’m not talking to the police, but that’s what I’m going to do when you get back. Now quit wasting time.”

“Just let me get my shoes.”

She ran back into the kitchen and put on the sneakers, which were still wet. Then she ran out of the house and down the street. As she passed the Weiceks’, Mary came out on the porch.