Winter Birds (6 page)

Eliot was shot by his son with a gun two days before the Shakespeare conference and thus did not read his paper to the other scholars. I found it locked inside his rolltop desk after what was referred to as “the accident,” though it was no accident. I found other things in his desk, also. Juliet claimed to be “past hope, past cure, past help” because of her thwarted love, and in the end she fell upon Romeo’s dagger gratefully. I understand such despair.

Now everyone in the Walton family is saying good-night to one another on the television, signaling the end of today’s episode. I wonder if John-Boy was ever in love with a girl, someone from a neighboring farm or some merchant’s pretty daughter in the nearby town. I did not watch the program regularly when it first appeared on television, but no doubt the writers at some point included a romantic interest in the life of good-hearted John-Boy Walton. No screenwriter would overlook an opportunity for romance.

Perry Mason
and
Hawaii Five-O
come on in the afternoon, after
Judge Jack
. Then
Gomer Pyle, Happy Days
, and
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
.
Leave It to Beaver
and
The Beverly Hillbillies
come on around suppertime. In the evenings, instead of watching
The Brady Bunch
and
The Munsters
, I often change to a nature program. Sometimes I turn to the History Channel, where I may watch the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk or the sinking of the
Edmund Fitzgerald
or resistance fighters in Germany during World War II.

“DIED. DOWAGER VISCOUNTESS DILHORNE, 93, who trained pigeons to carry secret communications during World War II; in Northamptonshire, England. Lady Dilhorne’s carrier pigeons returned to her home west of London with coded messages strapped to their legs that had been sent by secret agents and resistance fighters in Germany.” By watching television and reading
Time
magazine, I am reminded of the many connections between life and death. That the lives of men could ride on the wings of pigeons—this is something to think about.

If it’s a long night, I know that
Sanford and Son
comes on at three in the morning, followed by
All in the Family
, then
Bob Newhart
. At times I turn the television off and listen to the radio. Sometimes I have them both on at the same time. One night
Mister Ed
was on television while a radio talk-show host was taking calls about something referred to as “road rage.” Mister Ed performed better than the talk-show host. He also had a more pleasing voice.

I hear Rachel’s doorbell, the short back-door chime instead of the longer one for the front door. A commercial about no-questions-asked life insurance is on, demonstrating that the network knows its morning audience. I turn down the volume of the television. Perhaps the white electrician has returned for something he left. I hear a voice at the door, the words rapid and high-pitched. I hear low words from Rachel; then the door closes, and all is silent.

I hear Rachel open and close a kitchen cupboard. She says something, yet there is no reply. She says something else. It is not like Rachel to talk to herself.

I see a bird light on the feeder. I know this bird, for he has come before. I have sought him out in my
Book of North American Birds
and identified him as the evening grosbeak. This is a male, black wings with white patches, brownish head, yellow belly. My book tells me that the evening grosbeak has become a vagabond over time. Whatever the cause of the first migration, my book states that the evening grosbeak now “wanders widely in winter.” I have known men to do this. One may also wander without leaving home.

I hear Rachel say something else in the kitchen. Maybe she is on the telephone. I turn the volume up again on the television. MacGyver is in his old Chevrolet station wagon at a stop sign on a dark country road. It strikes me that he and Rachel have the same hairstyle—short around the ears, long in back, with a feathered crest on top. It is a style I have heard called a mullet.

MacGyver looks across the field and sees what looks like a space-ship. He blinks and shakes his head, then looks again. A glowing figure is walking toward his car. But MacGyver is not afraid. He has had much experience with thugs of all kinds. He gets out of his car and walks toward the figure, who is carrying something that looks like a floor lamp. The next frame shows MacGyver slumped unconscious on the ground.

I wake up when Rachel knocks at my door and brings my lunch. She is removing from the tray a bowl of something when the doorbell sounds again. “I’ll be right back,” she says to me, and she leaves the tray on the table. From my recliner I cannot see the back door, but I hear the same voice as before, then laughter. Though I’ve never heard her laugh, I know this laughter isn’t Rachel’s. “So it was just a false alarm,” the voice says, “but I sure appreciate your help. I didn’t know what else to do. Hope I didn’t upset your plans for the day.”

Rachel says no, her plans weren’t upset, she had planned to be home all morning anyway. Before the woman leaves, she thanks Rachel again.

“You said her name is Veronica, right?” Rachel asks.

“It was my mother’s name,” the woman says.

“It’s a pretty name,” Rachel says. “She’s sweet.”

I wonder who Veronica is and where she is. Surely if she were a child there in the kitchen with Rachel and the visitor, I would hear her.

The other woman must have stepped out into the carport by now because I can’t hear her reply. I hear Rachel, though, when she says, “Could you come over for some dessert tonight?”

In the weeks that I have lived here, only the white electrician and the mailman have come to Patrick and Rachel’s house. An empty lot of weeds stands on one side of their house and an unoccupied house, surrounded by a tall hedge, on the other. I haven’t thought of my nephew as having friends, but I have wondered if Rachel does, perhaps someone at their church or a neighbor down the street, though I have never heard nor seen her talking to another woman until today.

After my trial visit in the summer, I worried briefly that Rachel might have agreed to take me in part to ease her loneliness. I wondered if she wanted more from me than my money. I liked the fact that she was to be home all day, for I wanted to hear the sounds of living, but I had no desire for the door between my apartment and her kitchen to stand open. I made it clear that I wanted shelter, food, and privacy. I was to have no responsibilities beyond my modest monthly contribution to Patrick’s household expenses. I had long since had my fill of talk. One does not want to spend her final days trying to follow someone’s story or participate in the fruitless discussions most women seem to enjoy, the kind I myself once enjoyed. That time is past.

But Rachel has left me alone. She has told me no tales, has read me no rhymes, has sung me no songs. Nor have I imposed my words upon her. She is a riddle for which I need no answer. I am content with her silence. Watching her is sufficient.

But “Could you come over for dessert tonight?” This is a breaking of the silence. She steps out into the carport to talk. But what is a single word in a vast emptiness? What is a flicker of light in a dark night? Only a moment and then it is gone.

I think of the dangers of love. Romeo’s line comes to my mind: “I must be gone and live, or stay and die.” I hear Juliet as she tries to dissuade him, to make him believe that the light in the sky is not daylight but only “some meteor that the sun exhales.” I think of the ill luck of Romeo and Juliet. If Tybalt hadn’t been so quarrelsome. If Romeo hadn’t avenged Mercutio’s death. If old Capulet hadn’t insisted on Juliet’s marrying Paris. If the letter telling Romeo of the sleeping potion hadn’t miscarried. If Romeo had patiently grieved long enough for Juliet to awake.

And if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their rumps when they jump.

Rachel reappears to finish laying out my lunch. She works quietly, her lips slightly parted as if a spring is loose, but no words come.

Chapter 5

The Wide World and All Her Fading Sweets

The horned lark loves the open country and with its mate builds its nest on the ground. The male, the black tufts of his “horns” barely visible, performs his courtship ritual by circling at great heights while warbling sweetly, then closing his wings and plummeting silently to the ground
.

On Sunday morning it is raining. Patrick informs me after breakfast that it will be best if I move to the back bedroom for the three-day electrical project. He apologizes for the inconvenience. I do not ask if the rewiring is necessary. I know men and their home repairs. In their minds they are always necessary. If asked, Patrick would launch into a lengthy discourse about the dangers of old wiring and the advantages of new. He would talk about the age of the house, the demand for increased voltage capacity, and many other things that would give him great joy to explain. I will deny him the pleasure.

While Patrick and Rachel are at church, I take a few things to my assigned bedroom across the hall from theirs. Rachel has set several magazines on the table beside the single bed and has opened the blinds and curtains. I wonder if this is the room where Toby and Mandy once slept. There are two windows in the room—one of them facing the street, the other looking out on the tall hedge around the empty house next door. A small chair upholstered in pale green chintz sits between the bedside table and window. A pink towel and matching washcloth have been laid out on the foot of the bed.

A note, presumably from Rachel, is propped against a lamp on the dresser: “There’s plenty of closet space. Patrick will move your radio back here. He will bring in the TV from his study.” This does not surprise me that Rachel has written something she could have told me. Her handwriting is large and sensible, her style economical.

I go back to my apartment to get two dresses to hang in the new closet. I have five dresses, all alike except for color, which I wear in no particular order. They button in front and are of a crinkly fabric that requires no ironing. Over these I wear sweaters, often more than one at a time. I also wear heavy socks and slippers. My apartment has its own thermostat, set at 78 degrees. I have told Patrick that I will not suffer cold to save money on an electric bill. I have two pairs of pants with elastic waistbands, but I prefer the dresses. I also have three other dresses, nicer ones suitable for dining out and attending church, neither of which I intend to do, and three pairs of rubber-soled lace-up shoes, which I have not worn since coming here.

I sit in the pale green chair and find that it both swivels and rocks. I turn to face the window, from which I can see Wagner’s Mortuary. It is the kind of cold, gray, wet day common to the months of November and February. A woman is getting out of her car in the parking lot of the mortuary and walking quickly toward the front door. She has no umbrella but has pulled her raincoat up over her head. Sunday is generally a slow day at Wagner’s, at least at the front entrance. No doubt the deliveries at the rear continue unabated, as death observes no day of rest.

Though I will miss my bird feeder for the next few days, I will not object to staying in this room as much as I will pretend to. There is a bathroom separating it from Patrick’s study, with doors on either side, like the shared bathrooms in old hospitals. I will sit in this chair and observe the small world of Edison Street in Greenville, Mississippi. Between meals I will watch television and read Rachel’s magazines.

I look through the small stack on the table and find, among the issues of
Country Home
and
Country Chef
, an old copy of a magazine called
Writing Life
. The name on the address sticker is that of my nephew: Patrick Martin Felber. I have heard Patrick say he should not have quit college after two years, that he could be a tenured professor of history or literature by now if he had set his mind to it. I believe that the inflated value he places on universities has caused him to think more highly of me than I deserve. I notice that the magazine is two years old. I imagine Patrick eagerly opening it two years ago, drinking in its announcements of newly published writers, writers’ retreats, fiction contests, and the like. No doubt he still dreams of seeing his own name someday on the page titled Recent Winners of Grants and Awards.

I thumb through the magazine now, taking note of the feature articles: “The Spirit and the Hand,” “Time-Tested Words,” “Benefits of Solitude,” “Finding the Heart of a Story.” Someone has highlighted passages with a yellow marker:
I aim for a style that is pared down, with a rough-hewn elegance
, and
I insist on an artist’s right to break the rules
, and
Look for an agent who is well connected, pushy, and visionary, with a little gypsy blood in his veins
.

I close the
Writing Life
magazine, feeling sorry that my nephew has an aspiration to write. I remember the way Eliot haunted our mailbox when he had a manuscript circulating among scholarly journals. I remember his descent into silent gloom when an article was rejected. When an article was accepted, he exhibited only the briefest joy before a grim resolve took over and he got back to work. He must publish again and yet again. My bird book tells me that the horned lark may sing sweetly at great heights, then suddenly and silently dive groundward. The pressure to publish was considerable in the English Department of South Wesleyan State College, where we taught, and even more intense in the larger academic circles in which Eliot was anxious to make a reputation.

I met him at a time when his song was often cheerful, when he saw in me the chance for improving his life, particularly in regard to his writing—an activity that necessitated a reliable proofreader and typist. I knew nothing of the black moods to which he was prone after his literary setbacks. Yet my life as Eliot’s wife was not unpleasant. Between moods he could be considerate and jovial. I learned to read him, and it was a book I loved. I knew when to leave him alone, when to draw him out, when to serve quietly.