They Came Like Swallows Read online

  “Irene?”

  Apparently she did not hear him. If he asked her what he wanted to ask her, she might not like it. She might call him a curiosity cat. To keep himself from asking, he watched her pocketbook swinging back and forth on the tip of her index finger.

  “Irene, why is it that Agnes is at her Grandmother Hiller’s?”

  “She’s there to see her father.”

  The pocketbook stopped swinging and slid to the floor. Bunny was deeply startled. He bent over and picked it up for her, but she did not seem to want it particularly. Agnes’s father was Uncle Boyd Hiller, but he was not mentioned in the family. Or if he was, it was always by his initials—B.H. Never by his name. Not since the time they had to go to court to get little Agnes away from him. After that he went away and they didn’t know where he was, or anything about him. Not for a long while. If he had come back now, it might mean all sorts of things. It might mean that he had come to take Agnes away. Or that Irene would have to go and live with him, the way she did before. It might mean——

  The singing broke out again, on the landing, directly above them.

  “’Tis better by far

  Not to spit at all

  Than to spit too far

  And hit the wall.”

  Robert appeared, steamboat in hand, singing. He had made a half-hearted attempt at combing his hair, but blond wisps stuck out in all directions. Irene’s face brightened as soon as she saw him. Robert, from the very beginning, had been her favorite. But Bunny did not mind. He had his mother. And besides, Irene never thought he ought to be outdoors when he wasn’t.

  “Don’t tell everything you know, Bunny.”

  Irene got up now and went toward the stairs. Bunny shook his head. He did, sometimes. He did tell everything he knew. But he didn’t mean to. And this time he was practically certain that Robert (who didn’t like to be kissed) would dodge suddenly before Irene could catch him.

  6

  Irene had a way of making things memorable.

  So it seemed to Bunny as his father held out his mother’s chair for her and they all sat down to dinner.

  Because Irene was here, it was an occasion. Like Thanksgiving or Christmas. They unfolded their napkins with a more than ordinary anticipation. What they said was of no importance; merely to pass the time until Sophie appeared with the roast chicken and the occasion was confirmed. Then there were exclamations. His mother leaned forward anxiously, lest the chicken fail to be as tender as it looked. Bunny eyed the drumsticks. One of them went to him, as a rule.

  “Hopefully yours,” his father said, pointing the carving fork at him. And they all laughed. Even Sophie.

  Then his father considered the chicken carefully. There was a moment of tension, and the knife slid in. Bunny could not help feeling that they would remember this afterward as the best roast chicken that ever they had.

  “Just give me a little, James,” his mother said—for she was always served first. “And no potato.”

  “Well you have to eat something. You’ll get sick!”

  “Yes, I know…. At the Friday club Amelia Shepherd was telling about a woman in Peoria who….”

  “There’s no sense to it,” his father said, gloomily. Then his disapproval passed, for lack of opposition, and he went on carving. A small slice of breast went to his mother, a much larger slice to Irene. When Robert got his wing, Bunny felt that he could look no more. He turned his head quickly and focused his attention upon the Japanese pilgrims who were climbing in and out among the folds of the curtains. He heard Sophie pass behind him and go back to the other side of the table. When he opened his eyes the drumstick was there, right on his plate. And the wishbone beside it.

  Happily, Bunny looked about him at the circle of faces. His mother’s eyes were dark brown, like his own. Robert’s were hazel. Aunt Eth lived in Rock-ford and she had hazel eyes also. But Irene’s eyes were gray.

  Looking at her, he was reminded of his own drooping shoulders (hers were so straight) and thrust them back. No one noticed or thought to comment on his posture, so he relaxed after a second and began to eat.

  The conversation became serious. There was talk about the war, and how the rumor started that the war was over. And talk about the last election, which his father took into his own hands immediately. When Bunny grew up he was going to vote Republican because his father was a Republican, and his father before him. It was all settled that way. Arthur Cook’s father was a Democrat and they had a picture of President Wilson framed over the fireplace in their library. But his father said that was all Tomfoolishness. When Hughes was running against Wilson, Arthur Cook wore a little brass mule on the lapel of his overcoat and Bunny wore an elephant. And there was a time when they didn’t walk home from school together in the afternoon. But that was all over now.

  “Smart, I grant you——”

  His father poured out the last spoonful of gravy and gave the bowl to Sophie, to be refilled.

  “Exceedingly smart. But he made the blunder of a lifetime when he asked in the name of the American flag that the people of this country re-elect a Democratic Congress. In the name of the flag he asked the people for party control. And when he said that, he stepped down from the high office of the Presidency and became nothing more nor less than the leader of the Democratic party. If there’s any greater mistake that a President could make, I’d like to know it!”

  Although his father looked straight at him Bunny knew that he was not supposed to answer.

  The statement hung on the air unanswered, burning with force, with enormous conviction, while his father helped himself to mashed potatoes.

  “And what does it get him? Just tell me that. He loses control of the House and the Senate, both. He’s still President, of course. They can’t take that away from him. And so long as this country is at war, people should support him along patriotic lines. But there’s nothing in the Constitution which gives the President right to undivided control of the legislative bodies, in wartime or any other time. And when it comes to furthering his own personal ambitions and the ambitions of a group of Southern Democrats who completely upset the machinery of national expenditure and taxation—when you come right down to it—risk the economic welfare of this country in the interests of …”

  Bunny twisted in his chair uncomfortably. He remembered something that he had meant to tell his mother. About Arthur Cook. When his father held forth in this way, the quiet which belonged to the dining-room seemed to have escaped to other parts of the house. He thought of the upstairs bedrooms and how still they must be. His mother was eating her salad quite calmly, in spite of President Wilson. When she put her fork down, he might lean toward her and—but it was not easy to describe things. Especially things that had happened. For him, to think of things was to see them—schoolyard, bare trees, gravel and walks, furnace-rooms, the eaves along the south end of the building. Where among so many things should be begin?

  Robert would not have had any trouble. We were playing three-deep, Robert would have said. And Arthur Cook got sick. That would have been the end of it, so far as Robert was concerned. He would not have felt obliged to explain how Arthur ran twice around the circle without tagging anybody. And how he stopped playing and said I feel funny. How he went over by the bicycle racks then, and sat down.

  “At school last Friday—”

  But he had spoken too loud.

  “How would it be, son—”

  His father let President Wilson alone for a minute and turned his entire attention on Bunny, so that he felt naked and ashamed, as if he were under a glaring light.

  “—if you kept quiet until I finish what I’m saying?”

  That was all. His father had not spoken unkindly. He was not sent from the table. No punishment was threatened. Nevertheless, Bunny withdrew sadly into his plate. And not even a second helping all the way round could restore his pleasure in this day.

  His father commenced eating, and the conversation broke apart. Robert began to expla
in about the tie-rack he was making at school.

  “You take and take a piece of wood about so long——” He indicated how long, with his hands.

  Bunny could tell at a glance that Irene was not interested in Robert’s tie-rack. He was not interested in Robert’s tie-rack, either. He was not interested in anything of Robert’s except the soldiers Robert would not let him play with, which were Robert’s dearest possession.

  “And when you get it planed down nice and even, you take a piece of sandpaper …”

  Through the dining-room window Bunny could see Old John stretched out on the back porch with his head resting on his black paws. John was very old and decrepit. In winter he got rheumatism in his legs and he had to be carried in and out of the house. Half his days were spent in looking for bones that he had long since dug up. And often he thumped his tail fondly when there was nobody there.

  Robert finished with the tie-rack eventually. And then his mother and Irene exchanged recipes.

  “I stir it,” his mother said, “without ever changing the direction of the spoon….”

  “In cold water,” Irene said, “and then I let it come to a boil, slowly….”

  Once when they were in the bathroom and Irene was in her thin nightgown, she said, Bunny Morison, stop looking at my legs! And he could not stop blushing. But why did she … And another time they went for a walk out past the edge of the town. They carried a book to read, and sandwiches in a pasteboard box. At the first shady lane (it was in June) they turned off and settled themselves under a tree. Irene read to him out of the book, which was about boy heroes of Belgium. And a cow came on the other side of the fence and looked at them. When they got hungry they opened the box and ate all the sandwiches. That was over a year ago, and there was dust on the road. The air was heavy. Irene’s voice sounded like swords clashing, slashing at the leaves overhead.

  He tried now to get her attention, to ask her if she remembered that day when they went out beyond the edge of town, but her face was shadowed by inattention. By the same vacant look that she had a little while ago in the front hall. His mother was talking about Karl: Would his father arrange to have Karl come some day next week—Monday or Tuesday—and take down the screens?

  Meanwhile, Robert, unhindered, had eaten a third helping of everything. He was buttering a slice of bread whole, which he shouldn’t; he should break the bread into pieces and then butter it. And there would be very little left for Old John.

  When Sophie came to clear the plates away, Bunny noticed that everyone at the table fell into a silence which lasted, usually, while she brushed away the crumbs and until she brought the cream for coffee. Over the dessert his mother and Irene fell to discussing clothes. Something was gathered, his mother said, with a pleat in the back.

  Bunny could not see what they found in such matters to interest them. He could have left the table when Robert did, or when his father rose and went into the library to take his Sunday-afternoon nap, but there was still something that Bunny had to say to his mother. He waited until there was a break in the conversation; until Irene began thumbing the pages of Elite, which she had brought with her to the table.

  “At school, we were playing three-deep—”

  “Broad bands of sealskin—”

  Irene held up the magazine for his mother to see. “—with a hobble skirt.”

  “It’s too tight-waisted,” his mother said. “I’m not in the market for anything that isn’t cut along the lines of a circus tent.”

  Bunny peered across the table, hoping to see the picture of an elephant, but there wasn’t any. Nothing but women’s clothes: coats that were gathered, he supposed bitterly, and blouses.

  “Mother—”

  “You could wear that, Irene.”

  His mother had taken the magazine and was thumbing the pages wistfully.

  “But so could you!”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Don’t you be.” Irene was excited. The very smallest spark was enough to set her off. “You could copy it easy as anything, Bess. And with the fullness where it is …”

  Bunny thought of the schoolyard: gravel and dirt, with hardly a shred of grass; bare trees; the bicycle racks; and Arthur Cook’s sick eyes. “Mother, listen to me!”

  He spoke louder than before, and plucked at her sleeve.

  By the way her hand closed over his, he knew that she had heard him. All the time. And that sooner or later she would pay attention to nobody but him. Only just now he must keep still. He must not interrupt until they had finished what they were saying.

  7

  Bunny’s nap was nearing its conclusion. Without making a sound, without moving, his body detached itself from the sofa. He moved freely among certain of the planets—Mars, the pink one, and Saturn with its rings. His dream, worn thin, began to give way around him. There was a moment of intense buzzing while he drifted back to earth…. Then, abruptly, he was awake.

  Irene and his mother were having an important conversation at the other end of the living-room. Their voices were low and even, and he could just distinguish one word from another.

  “You sure it isn’t the war?” his mother said.

  “Why should it be that?”

  Bunny wanted to look at them, but he did not dare. Irene might notice him and stop talking. As a rule, people did, if they saw he was listening. They said Little pitchers have big ears. On the other hand, there were ways of keeping from being noticed. Playing under tables and behind chairs, very quietly. Or if it was night and he was away from home, getting extremely sleepy, so that they had to put him on a couch somewhere and cover him up. After a while if he kept his eyes closed and breathed regularly, they thought he was asleep. That way he found out all sorts of things.

  “Well, because”—his mother spoke more distinctly now—“because his company is ordered to France and you may not ever see him again. It could be that, Irene, and nothing more than that.”

  “It could be, but I don’t think it is … I wish you’d seen him, Bess. He looks much older.”

  “So do we all. I found three gray hairs yesterday.”

  Bunny’s mind stirred lightly within his shell. Around one of innumerable corners he came upon a staircase that he remembered—not the one here, not this staircase at home. He looked down, cautiously, and saw Agnes kicking and squirming in her father’s arms. Agnes was frightened. She kept saying, I want my mamma … I want my mamma… over and over. Whose house it was Bunny did not know. The remembrance was cloudy and uncertain, like a dream remembered in the midst of breakfast: Uncle Boyd carrying Agnes in his arms and the door closing upon them. There was meaning to it, and possibility of explanation; only he never dared to ask. And then Irene walked past him, talking to herself. He spoke to her, but she didn’t even know that he was there. At the head of the stairs she waited, as if there was something she had just that minute thought of. Then she fell down, one step at a time, bumping.

  “He looks older in a different way, and sad. It’s very hard to explain, exactly.”

  “No doubt.”

  “But if you’d seen him! It’s as if he were thinking all the time—even while he is making polite conversation—that he’d missed something people can’t afford to miss.”

  “Whose fault could that be?”

  Bunny had never heard his mother’s voice sound quite so dry and unbelieving.

  “His own, I suppose—but everything’s that, in a way, for everybody.”

  “In a way. But I remember the last two months that you lived with him. I remember that you were like a crazy woman.”

  “I know I was. Though much of it was on account of Agnes. He was so jealous. But when I try to remember his fits of temper, and how unreasonable he was, I think of all sorts of things I started.”

  Through eyes that were nearly closed Bunny caught a glimpse of the living-room: moss-green wallpaper, and the green carpet, and a well of green shadow in the far corner of the room where Irene and his mother sat talking. He wa
s not entirely awake, so that he saw things peculiarly. The white woodwork was unattached to the walls. The shape of the chairs was ambiguous. At a word from him (a magic word) the sofa would curve its back differently and the chair-arms protrude bunches of carved wooden grapes. The golden bowl which was suspended upside-down from the ceiling by three chains was now the size of a buckeye cup and now as large as the wading-pool at the Chautauqua grounds. Time and again, while he squinted his eyes, the walls relaxed and became shapeless.

  He lost track of the conversation and when he started listening again, Irene was saying, “… and she had her son with her, a youngster about eleven years old. And every time they came on deck she’d light into him because he was sending all his post-cards to the same boy, instead of spreading them around.

  “Boyd couldn’t see anything funny in that, and after I explained, he still wasn’t amused. It was completely unimportant …”

  Bunny’s eyelashes brushed and became momentarily entangled. Against the light from the bay window they seemed as large and long as spears. His mother got up and went over to the mantel. Then she came back and sat down again, with a box on her knee.

  “Will you have some candy?”

  “So soon after dinner. How can you, Bess?”

  “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be—”

  “Oh, of course. I did forget, as a matter of fact. I mean I forgot you were—But it is important that people laugh at the same things. Or at least enjoy them in something like the same way.”

  “If you went back to him, Irene, you’d find—”

  “He was there when I took Agnes, this noon. I went in, anyway. I shouldn’t have, I suppose. But I thought what’s the use of going out of my way to make trouble when there’s been enough already.”