The Winter of Our Discontent (31 page)

“No, by God. He drew it out just recently. Buying stocks, he said. I didn’t think anything of it because he’s done that before and always brought back more than he took out.” He looked full in the eyes of a high-colored Miss Rheingold on the cold counter, but he didn’t respond to her laughing invitation. “You know you could take a terrible beating on this?”

“How do you mean?”

“For one thing, he could sell it to half a dozen different people and, for another, it might be neck-deep in mortgage. And no title search.”

“I could maybe find out in the county clerk’s office. I know how busy you are, Mr. Baker. I’m taking advantage of your friendship for my family. Besides, you’re the only friend I have who knows about such things.”

“I’ll call Tom Watson about the title deed. Damn it, Ethan, it’s a bad time. I want to take a little trip tomorrow night. If it’s true and he’s a crook, you could be taken. Taken to the cleaners.”

“Maybe I better give it up, then. But good God, Mr. Baker, I’m tired of being a grocery clerk.”

“I didn’t say give it up. I said you’re taking a chance.”

“Mary would be so happy if I owned the store. But I guess you’re right. I shouldn’t gamble with her money. I suppose what I should do is call up the federal men.”

“That would lose you any advantage you have.”

“How?”

“If he is deported he can sell his holdings through an agent and this store will bring a lot more than you can pay. You don’t
know
he’s going to jump. How could you tell them he is if you don’t know? You don’t even know he’s picked up.”

“That’s true.”

“As a matter of fact, you don’t know anything about him— really know. All you’ve told me is vague suspicions, isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“And you’d better forget those.”

“Wouldn’t it look bad—paying in cash with no record?”

“You could write on the check—oh, something like ‘For investment in grocery business with A. Marullo.’ That would be a record of your intention.”

“Suppose none of this works.”

“Then redeposit the money.”

“You think it’s worth the risk?”

“Well—everything’s a risk, Ethan. It’s a risk to carry that much money around.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

“I wish I didn’t have to be out of town.”

What I said about timing still held. In all that time nobody came into the store, but half a dozen came in now—three women, an old man, and two kids. Mr. Baker moved close and spoke softly. “I’ll make it in hundred-dollar bills and note the numbers. Then if they catch him you can get it back.” He nodded gravely to the three women, said, “Good morning, George,” to the old man, and roughed his fingers through the kids’ coarse hair. Mr. Baker is a very clever man.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

July first. It parts the year like the part in a head of hair. I had foreseen it as a boundary marker for me—yesterday one kind of me, tomorrow a different kind. I had made my moves that could not be recalled. Time and incidents had played along, had seemed to collaborate with me. I did not ever draw virtue down to hide what I was doing from myself. No one made me take the course I had chosen. Temporarily I traded a habit of conduct and attitude for comfort and dignity and a cushion of security. It would be too easy to agree that I did it for my family because I knew that in their comfort and security I would find my dignity. But my objective was limited and, once achieved, I could take back my habit of conduct. I knew I could. War did not make a killer of me, although for a time I killed men. Sending out patrols, knowing some of the men would die, aroused no joy in sacrifice in me as it did in some, and I could never joy in what I had done, nor excuse or condone it. The main thing was to know the limited objective for what it was, and, once it was achieved, to stop the process in its tracks. But that could only be if I knew what I was doing and did not fool myself— security and dignity, and then stop the process in its tracks. I knew from combat that casualties are the victims of a process, not of anger nor of hate or cruelty. And I believe that in the moment of acceptance, between winner and loser, between killer and killed, there is love.

But Danny’s scribbled papers hurt like a sorrow, and Marullo’s grateful eyes.

I had not lain awake as men are said to do on the eve of battle. Sleep came quickly, heavily, completely, and released me just as freely in the predawn, refreshed. I did not lie in the darkness as usual. My urge was to visit my life as it had been. I slipped quietly from bed, dressed in the bathroom, and went down the stairs, walking near to the wall. It did surprise me when I went to the cabinet, unlocked it, and recognized the rosy mound by touch. I put it in my pocket and closed and locked the cabinet. In my whole life I had never carried it away and I had not known I would do it this morning. Memory directed me through the dark kitchen and out the back door into the graying yard. The arching elms were fat with leaves, a true black cave. If I had then had Marullo’s Pontiac I would have driven out of New Baytown to the awakening world of my first memory. My finger traced the endless sinuous design on the flesh-warm talisman in my pocket—talisman?

That Deborah who sent me as a child to Golgotha was a precise machine with words. She took no nonsense from them nor permitted me a laxity. What power she had, that old woman! If she wanted immortality, she had it in my brain. Seeing me trace the puzzle with my finger, she said, “Ethan, that outlandish thing could well become your talisman.”

“What’s a talisman?”

“If I tell you, your half-attention will only half learn. Look it up.”

So many words are mine because Aunt Deborah first aroused my curiosity and then forced me to satisfy it by my own effort. Of course I replied, “Who cares?” But she knew I would creep to it alone and she spelled it so I could track it down. T-a-l-i-s-m-a-n. She cared deeply about words and she hated their misuse as she would hate the clumsy handling of any fine thing. Now, so many cycles later, I can see the page—can see myself misspelling “talisman.” The Arabic was only a squiggly line with a bulb on the end of it. The Greek I could pronounce because of the blade of that old woman. “A stone or other object engraved with figures or characters to which are attributed the occult powers of the planetary influences and celestial configurations under which it was made, usually worn as an amulet to avert evil from or bring fortune to the bearer.” I had then to look for “occult,” “planetary,” “celestial,” and “amulet.” It was always that way. One word set off others like a string of firecrackers.

When later I asked her, “Do you believe in talismans?” she replied, “What has my belief to do with it?”

I put it in her hands. “What does this figure or character mean?”

“It’s your talisman, not mine. It means what you want it to mean. Put it back in the cabinet. It will wait for you.”

Now, as I walked in the cavern of the elms, she was as alive as ever she had been and that’s true immortality. Over and under itself the carving went, and around and over and under, a serpent with neither head nor tail nor beginning nor ending. And I had taken it away with me for the first time—to avert evil? To bring fortune? I don’t believe in fortune-telling either, and immortality has always felt to me like a sickly promise for the disappointed.

The light-rimmed boundary of the east was July, for June had gone away in the night. July is brass where June is gold, and lead where June is silver. July leaves are heavy and fat and crowding. Birdsong of July is a flatulent refrain without passion, for the nests are empty now and dumpy fledglings teeter clumsily. No, July is not a month of promise or of fulfillment. Fruit is growing but unsweet and uncolored, corn is a limp green bundle with a young and yellow tassel. The squashes still wear umbilical crowns of dry blossom.

I walked to Porlock Street, Porlock the plump and satisfied. The gathering brass of dawn showed rosebushes heavy with middle-aged blooms, like women whose corseting no longer conceals a thickening stomach, no matter how pretty their legs may remain.

Walking slowly, I found myself not saying but feeling goodby—not farewell. Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.

I came to the Old Harbor. Good-by to what? I don’t know. I couldn’t remember. I think I wanted to go to the Place, but man commensal with the sea would know that the tide was at flood and the Place under dark water. Last night I saw the moon only four days grown like a thickened, curved surgeon’s needle, but strong enough to pull the tide into the cave mouth of the Place.

No need to visit Danny’s shack in hope. The light had come enough to see the grasses standing upright in the path where Danny’s feet had stumbled them flat.

Old Harbor was flecked with summer craft, slim hulls with sails covered in grommeted coats of canvas, and here and there a morning man made ready, clearing boom and coiling jib- and mainsheets, unbagging his Genoa like a great white rumpled nest.

The new harbor was busier. Charter boats tied close for boarding passengers, the frantic summer fishermen who pay a price and glut the decks with fish and in the afternoon wonder vaguely what to do with them, sacks and baskets and mountains of porgies and blows and blackfish, sea robins, and even slender dog-fish, all to be torn up greedily, to die, and to be thrown back for the waiting gulls. The gulls swarm and wait, knowing the summer fishermen will sicken of their plenty. Who wants to clean and scale a sack of fish? It’s harder to give away fish than it is to catch them.

The bay was oil-smooth now and the brass light poured over it. The cans and nuns stood unswaying on the channel edge, each one with its mirror twin upside down below it in the water.

I turned at the flagpole and war memorial and found my name among the surviving heroes, the letters picked out in silver—CAPT. E. A. HAWLEY—and below in gold the names of the eighteen New Baytown men who didn’t make it home. I knew the names of most of them and once I knew the men—no different then from the rest, but different now in gold. For a brief moment I wished I could be with them in the lower files, Capt. E. A. Hawley in gold, the slobs and malingerers, the cowards and the heroes all lumped together in gold. Not only the brave get killed, but the brave have a better chance at it.

Fat Willie drove up and parked beside the monument and took the flag from the seat beside him.

“Hi, Eth,” he said. He shackled the brass grommets and raised the flag slowly to the top of the staff, where it slumped limp as a hanged man. “She barely made it,” Willie said, pantinga little. “Look at her. Two more days for her, and then the new one goes up.”

“The fifty-star?”

“You bet. We got a nylon, big devil, twice as big as this and don’t weigh no more than half.”

“How’s tricks, Willie?”

“I can’t complain—but I do. This glorious Fourth is always a mess. Coming on a Monday, there’ll be just that much more accidents and fights and drunks—out-of-town drunks. Want a lift up to the store?”

“Thanks. I’ve got to stop at the post office and I thought I’d get a cup of coffee.”

“Okay. I’ll ride you. I’d even coffee you but Stoney’s mean as a bull bitch.”

“What’s his problem?”

“God knows. Went away a couple of days and he come back mean and tough.”

“Where’d he go?”

“He didn’t say, but he come back mean. I’ll wait while you get your mail.”

“Don’t bother, Willie. I’ve got to address some things.”

“Suit yourself.” He backed out and slid away up the High Street.

The post office was still dusky and the floor newly oiled, and a sign up: DANGER. SLICK FLOOR.

We’d had Number 7 drawer since the old post office was built. I dialed G ½ R and took out a pile of plans and promises addressed to “Box-Holder.” And that’s all there was—wastebasket fodder. I strolled up the High, intending to have a cup of coffee, but at the last moment I didn’t want it, or didn’t want to talk, or—I don’t know why. I just didn’t want to go to the Foremaster coffee shop. Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is—and a woman too, I guess.

I was sweeping the sidewalk when Mr. Baker ticked out of Elm Street and went in for the ceremony of the time lock. And I was halfheartedly arranging muskmelons in the doorway stands when the old-fashioned green armored car pulled up in front of the bank. Two guards armed like commandos got out of the back and carried gray sacks of money into the bank. In about ten minutes they came out and got into the riveted fortress and it drove away. I guess they had to stand by while Morph counted it and Mr. Baker checked and gave a receipt. It’s an awful lot of trouble taking care of money. As Morph says, you could get a downright distaste for other people’s money. And by the size and weight, the bank must have anticipated a large holiday withdrawal. If I was a run-of-the-mill bank robber, now would be the time to stick it up. But I wasn’t a run-of-the-mill bank robber. I owed everything I knew to Pal Joey. He could have been a great one if he had wished. I did wonder why he didn’t want to, just to try out his theory.

Business piled up that morning. It was worse than I had thought it might be. The sun turned hot and fierce and very little wind moved, the kind of weather that drives people on their vacations whether they want to go or not. I had a line of customers waiting to be served. One thing I knew, come hell or high water, I had to get some help. If Allen didn’t work out, I’d fire him and get someone else.

When Mr. Baker came in about eleven, he was in a hurry. I had to stand off some customers and go into the storeroom with him.

He put a big envelope and a small one in my hands, and he was so rushed that he barked a kind of shorthand. “Tom Watson says the deed’s okay. He doesn’t know whether it’s papered. He doesn’t think so. Here are conveyances. Get signatures where I’ve checked. The money’s marked and the numbers noted. Here’s a check all made out. Just sign it. Sorry I have to rush, Ethan. I hate doing business like this.”