The Art of Living and Other Stories Page 12

  “Think, Aunt Ella,” Leon said, and he too was so serious she felt like a scolded child. “Suppose somebody’d gotten killed in that fire. You want a thing like that on your conscience?”

  “I never started that fire,” she said. But she knew herself how feeble it was. She remembered standing in the woodshed, infinitely long ago, her father towering above her scolding her though she was already sorry and helplessly miserable and too small to make him stop. (What had she done, that time? She tried to remember. It wouldn’t come. Perhaps it was the time she’d murdered the cat.) You get old, she thought, and you go into your second childhood. And maybe that was all it had been from the beginning. She had a feeling she’d be crying in a minute. A feeble old woman, nobody left that cared about her, nobody to lift a finger in her behalf. She folded her hands tightly and clamped her lips.

  Darthamae said softly, looking at her in a motherly way which so outraged Aunt Ella she wanted to scream, but a way which was insidiously comforting as well, “Fighting’s no real answer, Aunt Ella. That’s what you always used to tell us yourself.”

  “It was her,” Aunt Ella said. “I told them and told them.” Again she saw clearly—more clearly than she’d seen anything for the last fifteen years—the Howard boy looking down at the dirt, moving a pebble with the side of his boot, waiting patiently for her to give up. The sky was deep blue and enormous behind him, falling away over the blue of the hills toward Kentucky. It was as though neither of them could hear her—neither the Preacher nor the Howard boy—they merely stood on their side of the glass and saw her shaking her finger and stamping her foot. She said again, violently, “It was her, Leon.” Tears blinded her.

  “You want them to put her in prison?” Leon said. “Aunt Ella, is that what you want?”

  She was confused, hounded half to her grave. “If preachers commence to bear false witness, what’s to become of the world?”

  “You’ve got to stop brooding on it,” Leon said. “You’re supposed to be a Christian woman. You act like the kind of Christian wants to burn somebody.”

  And this time it was Darthamae who did it, the only verse she knew. “Aunt Ella,” she said, “remember what you taught us? ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise—think on these things.’ ”

  Tears streamed down Aunt Ella’s cheeks. “That’s wrong,” she said. “The just comes before the pure.”

  It checked her for only an instant. “All the same,” Darthamae said. She took Aunt Ella’s hand. “All the same.”

  For two minutes Aunt Ella cried and Darthamae held her hand. While she cried, it all seemed clear to her: she didn’t want the Preacher’s wife in prison, of course not, nothing of the kind. She wanted her to be happy, have children, be a good preacher’s wife. And she wanted good for the Preacher too. They ought to know that, hadn’t she wanted good for people all her life? But she wanted vengeance, it was right.

  Leon said, “Aunt Ella, you need to get some sleep. Let’s talk about it later.”

  After a minute Darthamae helped her up and they went down the long hall to the bedroom off the parlor, and Darthamae helped her into bed, still in her clothes.

  “Why couldn’t he just have apologized?” Aunt Ella said.

  “Shh!” Darthamae said, lifting her finger to her lips. The instant before she snapped out the light, she stood smiling kindly, for all the world like some gentle aunt of half a century ago, and Aunt Ella felt in the same rush of emotion loved and crushed. The light went off then. But inside Aunt Ella’s head the light had come on at last, a radiant joy like revelation: she knew what she had done wrong.

  6

  When Aunt Ella woke up in the morning, Darthamae was still in the house. Leon had gone home, and the baby with him. Darthamae offered to comb Aunt Ella’s hair for her, and Aunt Ella thanked her meekly and got up. Her knees were so stiff she could hardly walk, but she refused to be troubled today. The Lord was with her. She sat still in front of the dresser mirror, deliciously conscious of the lightness of Darthamae’s combing, and she tried to think how old Darthamae was, whether she was old enough to remember when the yellow-white hair had been red. Darthamae began to roll the bun and slip in the amber pins. All quickly, quickly.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Darthamae said.

  Aunt Ella looked at Darthamae’s face in the mirror and waited.

  “About Brother Flood,” Darthamae said. “It doesn’t really matter that he won’t admit what he did. That is, it doesn’t hurt us.”

  Aunt Ella smiled docilely and waited.

  “And of course it does hurt him, you know? I mean, how can his wife respect him, knowing what she does? And how can other people—those of us who know the truth, that is? How can he even respect himself?” Her hands hesitated a moment. She said, “You know, Aunt Ella, I feel sorry for him. Really.”

  “You’re a wise girl for your years,” Aunt Ella said, smiling. “Bless you.” She felt light as a bluejay, warm and sweet and old as summer fields.

  Darthamae’s glance was sharp, and Aunt Ella looked down at the dresser doily. “I’ve been foolish,” she said with sincere humility. “Leon was right from the beginning. I should have put on charity.”

  When she glanced up into the mirror again, Darthamae was looking at her harder than ever.

  “Aunt Ella,” she said, “I want to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Why, Darthamae!” she protested sweetly. Outside her window there were butterflies playing over the grass. The lightest of them was not as light as she was.

  “I warn you, Aunt Ella,” Darthamae said. She clenched her teeth.

  Ralph moaned, in the parlor, and Darthamae went to him. His head was splitting, poor boy. Aunt Ella thought sadly, Poor Ralph, poor dear child. It was Ralph who’d gotten the worst of it, right from the start. It was all her fault, and no one else’s. And the greatest of these is charity. Yes. Oh yes.

  “Ralph’s got a headache, Aunt Ella,” Darthamae said. “What should I do?”

  “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “There’s aspirin in the medicine closet in the bathroom.” On second thought she said, “Perhaps if you run cold water over his head it will help. Run it for three, four minutes.” As soon as Darthamae was gone she got up, still light, despite the sharp pains in her knees, found her cane in the closet, and went as quickly as she could out onto the porch. Slowly, slowly (and yet quickly, for all that, borne aloft on the mighty wings of charity), she slipped around to the barn.

  The white hat was right where Betty Jane Flood, poor dear, had left it, hanging on the chair. She made her way back to the corner of the house with it and stood there a moment, head cocked craftily, listening. When she heard water running, she hurried as fast as she could to the Preacher’s car and got herself up in behind the steering wheel. Merely by releasing the emergency brake she was able to back the car fifteen feet down the driveway. She got out and planted the white hat on the ground beside the driver’s door. Then she went back in the house, listened at the door, then went in and sat down by the window, meek as a dove, to watch. She heard Darthamae helping Ralph to his bed.

  At lunchtime Darthamae said, “Aren’t you going to eat, Aunt Ella?”

  “No thank you, dear,” she said. (Outside there were swallows, light as feathers blowing.)

  Darthamae stood thinking, her forehead troubled. “You just keep looking out the window,” she said.

  “I’m praying,” Aunt Ella said, smiling sweetly. “You run along and eat.”

  Darthamae said, “Are you praying for somebody or against?”

  “Have charity, child,” Aunt Ella said. “Do unto others …”

  She pretended to be satisfied.

  It was midafternoon when Aunt Ella saw the Preacher walking down from the manse for his car. Darthamae was in the kitchen cleaning beet greens. Aunt E
lla got up as quietly as possible and went out onto the porch and down, slowly, to the driveway. He hadn’t yet seen her, though she made no effort at secretiveness, knowing the Lord watched over her. Six feet behind the car, on a span she’d backed over earlier, she smoothed the pebbles away and eased herself down onto her back. It wasn’t as comfortable as she’d expected. She closed her eyes, and stretched one arm out awkwardly in a gesture oddly humble, like a broken wing. It seemed a long time before she heard his footsteps coming up the drive, the sound loud under her ear, far away, then closer and closer. Perhaps ten feet from where she lay, the footsteps stopped. She resisted the urge to peek. He’d be looking at the car, his heart beating slightly faster now—poor dear, poor dear!—remembering it wasn’t where he’d parked it. Now he would have seen the hat. Now he came closer, his feet moving very slowly, his reeling wits knowing without any need of evidence that she was dead. He whispered, so close that she almost jumped, “My God.” Then poor Darthamae was out on the porch, screaming in terror, and the Preacher was exclaiming, “I never saw her. She came out of nowhere. Call Dr. Coombs, quick.” They went up on the porch and she waited until the door slammed, then opened her eyes. She couldn’t see them or hear what was happening inside, and she could have kicked herself for forgetting to leave that blessed window open. Then she heard the door open again, and she snapped her eyes shut tight. It was Darthamae, running to her, weeping and bending over her. Aunt Ella opened her eyes and winked. Darthamae’s face froze, first amazement, then outrage. “Aunt Ella!” she whispered. But by the very act of whispering she’d turned herself into an accomplice. Aunt Ella closed her eyes. “I called Leon,” Darthamae whispered. “And we called Doc Coombs, too. And the sheriff. Oh, Aunt Ella, really!” Aunt Ella said nothing.

  Then the Preacher was with her. Darthamae said, “Don’t touch her! Wait for the doctor!”

  “My God,” the Preacher said.

  Darthamae said, “What will we do with Betty Jane’s hat?”

  He said again, as though his voice were stuck, “My God.”

  “It was bad enough when she ran Aunt Ella off the road,” Darthamae said, “but this.”

  “God,” he said.

  There was a long silence. Then Darthamae said, “Why don’t we just hide her?” She began to speak more rapidly. “We could stuff her under some hay in the barn.”

  He moaned.

  “The poor thing,” Darthamae said. “Your wife, I mean. How will she ever live with it?” Suddenly she was laughing wildly and Aunt Ella opened her eyes for a moment. But he thought it was hysterics.

  “You mustn’t tell it was her,” the Preacher said. “She’s only a child.”

  “That’s right, we’ve got to lie for her,” Darthamae said eagerly. Again the laughing took her. She loved it all—sinfully. Poor child, God forgive her.

  Then Aunt Ella heard the siren, far away, and almost the same instant another sound that she couldn’t identify for a second. It came to her at last. The door banged shut. She thought, No, knowing the rest already. She opened her eyes. She saw them looking toward the porch, and she heard the crutches hurrying toward the steps. “Ralph, be careful!” Darthamae yelled. But it was too late. They listened to the racket of his fall. There’s no satisfaction, Aunt Ella thought. She sighed.

  Now the police car was turning into the yard. Half from weariness of heart, Aunt Ella went on lying where she was. She heard the Preacher explaining to the deputy, “I never knew she was there till I felt the bump.”

  At last Aunt Ella opened her eyes and, little by little, shaking from the exertion of it, sat up. Ralph, too, was sitting up, over by the steps. Up the hill toward the burned-down church she saw the Preacher’s wife running between the tombstones in a white dress, coming down to see what was happening. They too had seen her by now. And now they saw that Aunt Ella was sitting up, dusting off her hands and the sleeves of her dress. The Preacher stared. After a second he came over to her. Behind where the deputy’s car was parked, Leon’s car was just turning in.

  “How could you?” the Preacher whispered, astounded.

  Then the deputy was looking at her, and Leon was beside him.

  “Aunt Ella,” Leon said. She had made him old before his time.

  “What a childish thing to do,” the Preacher whispered. He was sweating.

  “Of such is the kingdom of heaven,” she said.

  “It’s mean and spiteful, that’s all there is to it,” the Preacher said. He was pale as a ghost.

  “Do onto others as you would have others do onto you,” she said smugly, knowing it was smug and feeling delighted about it.

  “Terrible is thy wrath, O Lord,” Leon said.

  “It wasn’t wrath,” she said. “I did it for his correction, out of pure charity. Bless him.”

  “I have seen Thy mercy, show me then Thy thunder, O Lord,” said Leon.

  “What’s going on here,” the Howard boy said.

  Darthamae said, “Someone should help poor Ralph.”

  Ralph was looking sadly up the hill toward the graveyard.

  “Cheer up,” Leon said, “he’s going to inherit the earth.”

  VLEMK

  THE BOX-PAINTER

  1

  There once was a man who made pictures on boxes. Snuff boxes, jewel boxes, match boxes, cigar boxes, whatever kinds of boxes people used in that country, for keeping their treasures in or giving as presents to friends and loved ones, the people would take their boxes to this man, who was called Vlemk the box-painter—or they’d buy one of the boxes the man had made—and he would paint pictures on them. Though he was not old and stooped, though old enough by several years to grow a moustache and a beard that reached halfway down his chest, he was a master artist, as box-painters go. He could paint a tiny picture of a grandfather’s clock that was so accurate in its details that people sometimes thought, listening very closely, that they could make out the noise of its ticking. He painted flowers so precisely like real ones that one would swear that they were moving just perceptibly in the breeze, and swear that, pressing one’s nose to the picture, one could detect a faint suggestion of rose smell, or lilac, or foxglove.

  As is sometimes the way with extremely good artists, this Vlemk the box-painter was unfortunately not all he might be when it came to matters not pertaining to his art. When he was painting, up in his bright, sunlit studio that looked down over the houses and streets of the city, he was a model of industry and good sense. He kept his brushes, paints, glazes, and thinners as carefully and neatly as a fussy old widow keeps her dishes and spoons, and he worked with the deep concentration of a banker or lawyer studying his books in the hope of growing richer. But when his work was finished, whenever that might be, since sometimes he worked all night, sometimes all day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a week and a half without an hour out for rest—this Vlemk changed completely, so that people who had seen him at work would swear now that he was not the same person, surely not even that person’s brother, but someone else entirely.

  When the artist wasn’t working, it was as if some kind of demon got into him. He would go to the tavern at the end of his street, where he talked very loudly and waved his arms wildly, knocking over beerpots and sometimes tipsy old men, and though many people liked him and were interested in his talk, since none of them had the knack of painting pictures as he did, sooner or later he was too much for even the most kindly and sympathetic, and they would call the police or throw him out into the alley by the collar of his shirt and the seat of his trousers. Sometimes he had dealings with unsavory characters, drunkards, pickpockets and pilferers, even a certain murderer who took his axe with him everywhere he went.

  The artist was not proud of himself, needless to say. Often, sitting up in his studio high above the city, he would moan and clutch his head between his hands, saying, “Woe is me! Oh, what’s to become of me?” But moaning was no solution. As soon as he’d finished his work for that day, or that week, as chance would have it, down he woul
d go into the city again, and his fall to dissolution would be as shameful as before. “What a box I’m in!” he would cry, looking up from the gutter the next morning. It had long been his habit to think in terms of boxes, since boxes were his joy and occupation.

  One morning when this happened—that is, as he was crying “What a box I’m in” and struggling to get himself up out of the gutter, where he was lying among bottles, old papers, and the remains of a cat—a carriage was passing, driven by a uniformed man in a top hat. The driver was elegant—when his boots caught the sunlight they shone like polished onyx—and the carriage on which he sat was more elegant still, like a splendid box of black leather and polished golden studs. When the carriage was right alongside the poor artist, a voice cried out “Stop!” and at once the carriage stopped. A small hand parted the window curtains, and a pale white face looked out. “Driver,” said the person in the carriage, “who is that unfortunate creature in the gutter?”

  “That, I am sorry to say,” said the driver, “is the famous box-painter Vlemk.”

  “Vlemk, you say?” said the person in the carriage. “Surely you’re mistaken! I once visited his studio, and I’m certain I’d know him anywhere! That creature in the gutter is some miserable, pitiful wretch without a talent in the world!”

  “I assure you, Princess,” said the carriage driver sadly, “that the filthy thing you see in the gutter is Vlemk the box-painter.”

  In horror, Vlemk covered his face with his hands and arms, for now he recognized that the person in the carriage was indeed the Princess, soon to be Queen of the Kingdom, people said, since her mother had been dead for years and her father was declining. Vlemk was so ashamed to be seen by such a person in his present condition that he fervently wished himself dead.

  “Shall I throw the poor devil a coin?” asked the driver. “I assure you he can use it, for if rumor be believed he squanders all he earns by his art on his life of dissolution.”

  “Heavens no!” said the Princess, parting the curtains more widely in order to get a closer look at Vlemk. “What earthly good would a coin do him? He’d spend it on further debauchery!” So saying, she closed the window curtains and ordered the driver to drive off.