The collected stories Page 31

  'Brothers and sisters,' said Benjamin. He spoke in Dutch, tasting each syllable separately, relishing the long words and closing his eyes as he finished a phrase. 'These are very sad days for us-'

  'What's that?' Glassman's shout made me jump. 'What are you saying?'

  We looked at him, then at Benjamin.

  Benjamin proceeded, 'But we must remember that our brother Abraham is now in a happy-'

  'Stop that!' screamed Glassman, his voice cracking.

  Benjamin glanced into the partially filled grave. He looked up and bit on a word which, displaying his teeth, he showed Glassman on the tip of his tongue. 'Home,' he said in Dutch, 'he is home now. And someday-'

  SINNING WITH ANNIE

  'What the hell is going on here?' Glassman asked Mrs Aaron. 'This is a bloody mockery. I won't have him talking in that language.'

  'Ben,' said Morris. 'Maybe you should-'

  'And someday,' Benjamin continued, more rapidly, 'we will join our brother. Joyfully, yes, our hearts full-'

  'No!' Glassman broke away from Mrs Aaron, who reached for him. He vaulted the grave and his hands were on Benjamin's throat. Mr Lang snatched at Glassman's arms, I yanked on his collar; it took five of us to pull him away. He kicked out, catching me on the shin with the sharp heel of his fancy buckled boot. 'You!' he shouted at Benjamin. 'What are you saying?'

  Benjamin clasped his hands and tried to finish: 'We should not mourn our brother - we should be glad he is at peace -'

  'Let me goV yelled Glassman, struggling.

  '- enjoying the rewards of a virtuous life and hard work and let us all say a silent prayer for him.'

  We released Glassman and bowed our heads, praying silently. Glassman was surprised at his sudden freedom and then enraged by our silence. A yellow and gray bird with a head like the top of a claw hammer flew past.

  'Shame on you,' said Glassman while we prayed. 'You should be ashamed of yourselves. What kind of people are you?' He went on in this vein, in his British accent, accusing us of savagery, looking quite comical with his jacket twisted around and his yarmulke slipping off and the knot of his tie pulled down and made small.

  Benjamin signaled to some workmen to fill the hole. These three men in faded clothes had been standing under the eaves of the crematorium and had seen the whole business. They smiled as they ambled out of the shade, squinting and ducking as they entered the bright sunlight, and holding their spades ready.

  Glassman, leaning, held each woman's shoulders and kissed her cheek. He left with Morris.

  'What does it matter?' Benjamin said, when we were in the car and driving back to town. 'It's his own fault for being late. Bleddy mockery." He snorted. 'I wonder what they do in Hong Kong.'

  'The next problem,' Mr Aaron said - he hadn't been listening to Benjamin - 'is where does he stay?'

  It wasn't a problem. Glassman was on the evening flight to Djakarta. The rest of us stayed just where we were, and no one said that young man's name again.

  JUNGLE BELLS

  his stay. A visit of any length will necessitate the boring of a well, and the budget-minded traveler will want to allow for this additional expense. Years of privation have left their mark on the settlers, who tend to give the impression of truculence - an impression that is only confirmed by long acquaintance. Unaccustomed to strangers, and somewhat outside the mainstream of the tourist boom that has brought modernity to his distant neighbors, the Polvano is inclined to be brusque, except toward visitors who are thoroughly fluent in colloquial Welsh. More than usual care should be exercised in entering a farmhouse unannounced, and no one ought to expect a clear set of directions to the downtown area and hotel (Residential Penrhyndeudraeth) . Well stocked with some of the better Fuegian vintages, the restaurant, sumptuous by Polvo's standards, is nearly always shut. There is limitless scope in the hills for the spelunker.

  Once the haunt of Patagonian giants, who are said to have been numerous in the region and to account for early maps bearing the reference 'Regio Gigantum,' Polvo has seen these natives dwindle in number as well as in size over the years, until by mid-century there was but one. That he was hunted for sport is part of Polvo's rich folklore. What remains of his small earthen hut may still be seen, though not every traveler will wish to make the two-day journey, as it can only be accomplished on foot. (Stout shoes a must.) Those who do (and the jaunt is a welcome relief from the odor of sheep-dip and uncured hides, which casts a blight on the otherwise attractive town) will glimpse herds of roving guanacos and, smeared on rocks, odd fingerprint markings reputed to be 10,000 years old. The trip to the gravesites of the early settlers takes slightly longer, at just under a week, and is to be recommended for the hardy. Those who manage it are rewarded by the simple grandeur of three solitary markers, shaped not unlike hubcaps, earved from local stone and hearing indistinct inscriptions in the Welsh

  language. Round about this tiny necropolis an impressive desolation soothes the eve ot the tootsore traveler.

  Municipal buildings in Polvo include the Central Jail, the Founders' Orphanage, the C arding House, and the Methodist Chapel.

  The chapel is, in the words ot the French traveler Gaston, 'typical

  ot us kmd . . . notwithstanding its window, which is open to criticism. 1 A c hristian Science Reading Room is m the planning stages,

  and this will he housed in a chamber now known as the Zona

  POLVO

  Rosa (open most weekdays), where in former times gauchos are supposed to have gathered during the sheep-clip. (Note hook and scarred doorjamb, where, according to legend, spurs were hung.) The Mercado (market) is close by, and although Polvo's barter system is almost certain to divest the enthusiastic traveller of his wristwatch, a visit is well worth the risk. Apart from the root vegetables and the carcasses of sheep arranged sandbag-style around the dour venders, there are traditional Indian ornaments on sale, some thought to be of ancient manufacture, including penwipers, calendar holders, napkin rings, buckles, tie clasps, bookmarks, and plinths for digital clocks, all fashioned from dried cactus fiber, to which magical properties have been ascribed. Some distance from the market, but now derelict, are the shacks of quarrymen who worked the iron-ore deposit. There are few organized tours of this part of town.

  Steeped in Patagonian history, Polvo nonetheless wears its antiquity lightly, and it has steadily diminished in population. The youths of the town are understandably siphoned off by the oil pipeline and the bright lights of Rio Gallegos. Consequently, the average age in Polvo is seventy-three. The petrochemical plant, promised for the next decade, ought to go some way toward altering the scope of tourism. Bird life abounds, and the sky above Polvo is frequently black with the soaring Turkey Buzzard (Cathartes aura). Polecats and skunks {Zorrillos) must also be mentioned here. The flora is tenacious but thin, and limited to scrub thorn and the cactus from which the local artifacts are made. Oblivious of the stranger's taunt about the monotony of their unremarkable surroundings, Polvanos delight in their landscape's occasional fits of natural crankishness and will walk any distance to hear the rumble of a glacier 'calving.'

  In another epoch, dinosaurs must have ranged this dusty plateau and laid eggs where sheep now graze, though all have vanished without a trace. The Museo de Polvo (Polvo Museum, open Mondays) contains a plaster model of a settler's homestead, a sketch map of the Spanish advance, an authentic Welsh dresser, a collection of skins and hides, a stuffed albatross, a fusilier's epaulets, and a canoe. Murals depict Rosas's massacres (north wall) and the flood damage of 1899 (west wall). The attendant on duty wakes from time to time to remind the browser not to lean on the display cases.

  Low Tide

  The woman with the have-a-nice-day face in the post office they call 'Buttons'? The one that's always saying 'Can I share something with you?' and then complains about her feet, ruined by Uncle Sam, how she has to spend so much time at the counter selling stamps that she has to put cookies into her shoes for arch support? That lost her husband to a brain
tumor and always asks me about Alice in an irritating way, as if I lost her to a brain tumor? With the apron?

  She stuck a leaflet in my box, not to me personally, but to one of those all-purpose addresses - 'Box-Holder,' it said, and it advertised a 'Parenting Clinic,' and I said to myself: 'Parenting}' So I said to her, 'Now can I share something with you, Buttons?' and handed it back - didn't want it, didn't need it, because there is no such word and now am I going to get huge bills addressed to me as 'Box-Holder' that I have to pay - Minimum Payment and New Balance - regular as the tide, whether I like it or not? She took the leaflet back. She saw my point.

  The tide was still going down as I searched my stack of mail for a word from Skip or Larry - nothing today; and still ebbing as I read the young fellow's T-shirt motto 'You Are Dealing With An Animal,' and I hurried towards his car to set him straight, but he drove off before I could say anything.

  'The hell are you doing, Stanley?' I heard and turned and saw Ned Clark leaving the box lobby of the post office. 'Chasing

  cars

  v

  'One of these T-shirts,' I said, pointing in the direction where the car had gone.

  He just shook his head - could not have cared less about the way people advertise their aggression with T-shirts and bumper stickers - but who would notice in a town where the local garbage truck is lettered IRANIAN LUNCH CART?

  'Anything I can do for you?' he said, as though to an invalid, and then took my arm to steer me through the parking lot.

  LOW TIDE

  I snatched my arm back and said, 'As a matter of fact, yes. Can you explain what "parenting" means?'

  'All I know is that no one truly understands the dynamics of family life, and I suppose the best counsel is from the Bible, "Judge not less ye be judged."' And he tried to put his arm round me again. 'As for Alice and the boys - sometimes people need space.'

  All this gabble from my simple question; and I kept thinking, The tide is falling.

  'Ned,' I said. 'The word "parenting." What's it all about?'

  'It's a gerund,' he said, with his hands out.

  'It is no such thing. It is not even a word.'

  He insisted it was, I swore it wasn't, and finally to clinch his argument he said, 'Any noun can be verbed, Stanley.'

  'Now I've heard everything,' I said and just walked off as he called out Don't go away mad - but who wouldn't? It was low tide by the time I got to the landing.

  I was still thinking about Skip and Larry, why they hadn't written in so long, and trying to heave my boat across the mud-flats when I looked up and saw my children, both of them, standing there on the shore watching me; Skip and Larry, exactly the way they were when they were eight and ten, in their bare feet and bathing suits, with their skinny arms and bony shoulders, except they were black.

  I said, 'Don't just stand there.'

  They didn't move.

  'Give me a hand,' I said. 'Look alive.'

  Anyone could see that I was about to lose forty feet of line that had slid off the stern cleat as I plowed the skiff forward through the mud. And I was angry: low tide, because of all that business at the post office.

  'Pick it up,' I said.

  'The rope?'

  'It's not a rope, son. It's a line. If you're going to mess around in boats - grab it!'

  He scooped up the line and at the same time moved across the mud to me on stepping-stones, finding one after another, his brother behind him, following him just as Larry used to follow Skip.

  I took an end of the rope and tied a bowline through a hole in the breasthook and said, 'Give me some slack.'

  He just stood there.

  JUNGLE BELLS

  'Pay me out some slack/ I said.

  I thought: 'I've been giving English lessons all morning.' It was as though I had found myself on another planet, and at low tide it seemed that way.

  'Let go of the line, sonny.'

  He threw it at me.

  'Doesn't anyone speak English anymore?' I said.

  This made him very solemn and attentive, just like Skip waiting for me to set him straight. His face was smooth, his head shaved, the whites of his eyes were slightly flecked, and his skin black beneath little scaly ashes. His brother was a smaller version of him. They looked to me as children do - waterproof and unsinkable and unfinished - unfinished most of all. So many things they didn't know, so much they couldn't do. How would they ever learn? The world was all tall strangers to them. And their being black only made it all worse. Who had ever shown them compassion?

  'Hop aboard,' I said.

  They didn't move. Onshore, a big bearded man in shorts yelled 'Wallace and Ferdy! Get over here!'

  They tensed, looking very compact, as they prepared to leap back on the stepping-stones.

  'No problem,' I said. 'They want to come with me.'

  Only then did this bearded man look at me. 'You sure?'

  'I've got two of my own,' I said. I settled my oars into the oarlocks and eased the stern towards the boys. 'Get in. One at a time. Hold tight.'

  They glanced back at the bearded man as they did so, and I could tell they were relieved to get away from him. There was something tyrannical-looking about his beard, and the way he walked, those shoes. He watched us row away through the weedy water.

  'Ever been in a boat before?'

  'Nope,' the big boy said.

  'Scared?' I said.

  He looked up sharply and denied it.

  The little one said, 'Hey, mister - that a Chinese boat?'

  A gaff-rigged 40-footer was passing us. Red sails - and so the boy had drawn a simple conclusion. I told him what it was and made him repeat it, and then I held up a line and said, 'What's this? 1

  LOW TIDE

  'Rope,' the little boy said.

  'Line,' I said and got them chanting. After they had stopped I said 'Don't worry. You'll learn. It took my kids years to learn these things. We'll have to cram it all into a few hours today. But I'll make you into two sailors, you'll see.'

  'Where are your kids, mister?'

  Something bothered me about being called 'mister' like that.

  'Call me captain,' I said. They nodded and went quiet. 'Which one of you is Wallace and which is Ferdy?'

  The big one was Wallace, and the little one said that Ferdy was not short for anything. It was his whole name.

  I said, 'Got any brothers and sisters?'

  'Four,' the little one piped up.

  'Six,' Wallace said, and when the little boy challenged him with a look, Wallace said, 'LaToya and LaRetta.'

  I asked them to spell these names, and they did so.

  'They's the twins,' Wallace said. 'They's living with my father.'

  'Was that your father on the beach?'

  'Nope.'

  '"No, Captain.'"

  'No, Captain. That's the Reverend. Of our church. Heavengate Baptist.'

  'Boston?'

  'Roxbury.'

  Hot streets, black gangs, crazed Irishmen in cars racing by and screaming abuse at them, boarded up storefronts and brick tenements, junked vans and jalopies rusting by the roadside, radios playing too loud and planes descending overhead - never mind the rape, the murder, the mayhem - just the simple visible facts were bad enough; and they knew they were in heaven here, being rowed across the harbor.

  They were sitting together, big and little on the thwart.

  'How old are your kids?' Wallace said, and when I did not reply he added 'Captain.'

  'That's it, son. You're learning,' I said. 'Twenty-one and twenty-four. They're big now. But they were once your age, sitting there, just like you. They went to California. Why is it that people who go to California never seem to come back? And they don't write letters. That's not a California thing, is it? But they're different.

  JUNGLE BELLS

  Know why? Because I raised them to be different. I taught them how to be clean-cut. Yes, sir. No, sir. I taught them the fundamentals. I kept them off the streets and on the water. You never
learn any harm on the water. You give me a week or two - I could set you straight. I could teach you to row. Skip and Larry could row like demons. I had them sprinting across here, from the beach to the tip of the jetty. They didn't learn that at school. Of course not. There was a smoking room at school. Imagine. For 15-16-year-olds. They had driver education. Naturally. So they could use their parents' car. That was very hard on Alice. But, you know? I went up to the school and saw the principal. Henry T. Wing. I explained everything very carefully to him, the pressure we were under, the strain that driver ed was putting on our vehicle. I told him about Alice's condition. Her hair had started to fall out in bunches, and nothing is more troubling to a woman than losing her hair. I'm dead sure that contributed to it. Notice how I am just dipping the oars into the water. Not trying to overdo it - just sinking the blades and gliding and lifting, and feathering slightly because of the wind.' I took three more long pulls. 'Does that answer your question?'

  They had gone silent - we were in the channel and I was fighting a short breaking chop that had been whipped up by the westerly wind smacking the last of the ebbing tide.

  'What are the other ones called?' I said.

  They just stared.

  'Your brothers and sisters,' I said.

  'Shonelle, Shanice, Valia, and Troy,' Wallace said.

  'Interesting,' I said, but privately I found the names heartbreaking, like brands of floor polish or shampoo.

  'Shonelle got married,' Ferdy said.

  'Would you like to get married?' I asked Wallace.

  'Maybe,' he said.

  'You're going to have to be more definite than that, son. If you meet the right woman there'll be no question,' I said. 'A marriage isn't ]iist a romantic thing. Oh, sure. You're all fired up at first, but you have to look at that woman's face at breakfast the next morning. You're going to have to plan and save. You want to keep your life shipshape. Like this boat. Notice how I coil the line? We had a knot in that line. Remember how I undid it before I coiled it? Marriage is like that. Think about it.'