Angel in the Parlor (2 page)

“The trees,” said Theo. “They're beautiful.”

“They carried him out on the stretcher under the pear blossoms,” her mother continued. “I remember that shock of white hair sticking out of the blanket. You know, he had so much hair. Oh, those doctors, they all lie! There was a nice young intern who told me, ‘His heart is getting stronger. He's going to make it. He'll be fine in a few days.'”

John drew up to the curb. Her mother opened the door for herself, still talking. “Kirsten and the kids are in Hal's and my room. Kirsten can sleep in my bed and Danny can sleep in Hal's, and I've put up a cot for Joan. I'll sleep on the couch. It's awful for me, looking from my bed over at Hal's empty one. The night he died I had to push the dresser between them.”

“You should have moved into the guest room,” said Erica.

Her mother shook her head.

“No. I knew if I didn't sleep there right away, I'd never sleep there again. Anatole can have the cot in Hal's study. When Kirsten comes back, she can help us pick out a suit for Hal. She went downtown to get some ice cream with Joan and Danny.”

Standing in the upstairs hall, Erica looked for a place to unpack. The house seemed smaller every time she returned to it. The walls in the hall were done in diplomas; whenever her mother uncovered a new certificate she added it, and now the plaster was almost invisible. There were baptismal certificates and marriage certificates; certificates stating that long ago Erica and Kirsten had finished a summer program here, a Bible program there. There were Papa's chemistry awards and his Ph.D. diploma.

Her mother puffed upstairs with the laundry.

“Where's Theo?”

“Outside.”

“He has his B.A., doesn't he? Why didn't he pick up his diploma?”

“He says he doesn't need a diploma.”

“Of course he needs a diploma. Who will believe him if he doesn't have a diploma?”

… And an enormous certificate on shriveled parchment stating that somebody—the name could not be read—was Bearer of Dispatches to Denmark. There were Kirsten's certificate of graduation from the Powers modeling program, Aunt Minnie's Dale Carnegie award, Erica's mother's fiftieth-reunion certificate, an Arthur Murray diploma that came with the house; and then the wall turned a corner and there were the photographs, the family and the family and the family.… But her father's family was notably absent, having died long before the births and marriages celebrated in this house.

Erica could hear Theo counting to ten outside and Anatole and the other children calling him.

“Hide, hide!”

“Here I come—ready or not!”

Her sister's suitcase lay open on the floor. A dozen navy socks and Danny's eighth-grade yearbook spilled out of the corner. And whose wristwatch and bikini pants lay folded together on top of the clothes? Joan's? At ten years old? At ten, Erica was wearing undershirts suitable for either sex and she still couldn't tell time, having been sick the week it was taught in second grade. And then one day she was too old to admit she did not know how.

But what difference did it make? Her father owned no watch. Yet he was always punctual, home for dinner at five-thirty and back to the lab by eight. For half an hour he listened to Lowell Thomas and Drew Pearson; for half an hour he read the newspaper with such concentration that he didn't notice the time that Kirsten and Erica combed his hair and wound it in curlers. It took him ten minutes to straighten the curls. He never looked at a clock; it was as if these events measured themselves. Beyond the front door lay his work, of which Erica understood nothing until one April day her mother said:

“Your father has been given an important award. I want you to see the presentation and to hear his acceptance speech. I know you will not understand it, but I want you to hear him.”

In the auditorium, her mother led Kirsten and Erica proudly past papa's students and colleagues to the front row. For Kirsten, always a lady, her mother had not brought so much as a single crayon. For Erica she had brought ten “Little Lulu” comic books.

The crowd applauded. Her father stood at the podium. The microphones leaned toward him, a field of cattails. And then he began to speak.

Erica put down her comic books. She tried to listen. If I listen hard enough, she thought, I will understand him.

Growing old, he almost never spoke to her. Age had eroded the rich soil of his learning and exposed the bedrock of his childhood. He dozed all day, interrupting his long naps for the enormous meals his wife prepared for him and for George Pereau's television trips to Africa.

Coming to visit on her father's ninety-second birthday, Erica was appalled at her mother's haggard face.

“Mother, you sleep in the guest room tonight. I'll sleep in your bed and keep an eye on Papa. I can listen for Anatole from there.”

Her mother was tucking fresh pillows under Papa's head. The old man watched her wistfully, a child who did not want to sleep.

“Don't let him get out of bed. The bedrail won't stop him. Remember Marie Hetchen, who climbed over the rail and broke her hip? He sleeps pretty well till around two. Then he wants to get up. I'm the only person who can lift him. And he likes the light on, don't you, Hal?”

“Yes,” came a voice, tiny as a cricket's.

“The purple lamp?” asked Erica, anxious to please him. “You like it on?”

In the circle of its twilight shone the bottles of lotions and pills and piles of clean handkerchiefs neatly arranged on the bureau. Her mother bent down to adjust the dials on the electric blanket and then motioned Erica to the door.

“I've got the two beds tied together. If he tries to get up, you'll be right there. My sunglasses are on the dresser if you need them.”

“Sunglasses?” asked Erica.

“I can't sleep a wink with the light on,” said her mother.

Erica climbed into her mother's bed and gazed attentively at the sharp features of her father's profile and the shock of white hair on the pillow so near her own. Under his freckled skin, veins lashed the bones of his hand together.

“I want to get up,” he whispered.

“Oh, Papa, you can't get up. It's the middle of the night. Shall I read to you?”

She looked wildly around the room but could find nothing except two books he had written himself.

“Papa, let's sing. Remember how we used to sing in the car whenever we went on a trip?”

He gave her a puzzled look. She hesitated, uncertain of the words, and then started bravely:

“
Cruising down the river on a Sunday afternoon
”

“
The birds above all sing of love …
” His voice piped up, faint but exactly on pitch.

“…
waiting for the moon.
”

And then they both remembered the old accordion playing a sentimental tune and Erica saw the river very clearly; it was the Detroit River, which long ago they had crossed at a family reunion so large that a boat was hired for the occasion. It chugged slowly past the marinas of Grosse Pointe, past the elegant houses of those whom Mother called the “captains of industry,” and whenever a new house, always bigger than the last, glided into view, everyone rushed to the rail for a look. The distant relatives from both sides called each other “Cousin” to save confusion, and when the captain's voice over the loudspeaker announced a message for Mr. Widholm, men hurried to the captain's cabin from all quarters of the ship. Queer to find strangers with your face and your name.

“
After the ball is over, after the break of dawn
——”

“You did not sing that correctly,” admonished her father. “You should have sung, ‘
After the break of day.
'”

She listened while he carried the song alone, and when he had finished the verse, neither of them spoke for a long time. At last he said, “I want to get up.”

“Oh, Papa, let Mother sleep.”

“I want to get up,” the old man repeated firmly. “This bed's full of salt.”

Erica bounded out of bed and met her mother in the hall.

“Mother, he won't stay in bed.”

Her mother hurried into the room. “Hal, do you want some orange juice?”

He nodded happily. “I want to get up. I want to get off this boat.”

“Oh, Hal, how could you possibly be on a boat? Look—there's your mother's picture right over your bed.”

Cautiously the old man turned his head. “Why, so it is!” he said.

“He told me the bed had salt in it,” whispered Erica.

Her mother laughed. “Now, Hal, how could there be salt in your bed? There isn't a body of salt water in the entire state of Michigan. Erica will sit with you while I run down to the kitchen and make your juice. Come. Lean on me.”

She sat down on the edge of his bed, put his arm around her neck, and rose unsteadily, bearing his full weight on her shoulders.

“Grab the bedpost, Hal. Then the doorknob.”

They lurched into the hall—her father in his blue pajamas, her mother in her long, purple nightgown—like a conspiracy of sleepwalkers, he clutching woodwork and doorknobs and she easing him past the diplomas and photographs into his study and letting him down into the overstuffed chair. Then she arranged the afghan around his knees. The tears ran slowly down his cheeks.

“Hal,” shouted her mother, “Hal, here's Erica come to see you for your birthday! Is that something to cry about?”

“I don't want to die,” he said, weeping softly.

“Oh, Hal, what makes you think of such a thing? You're not going to die. Who do you love?”

“You,” he answered at once.

“You're my sweetheart,” his wife told him, kissing his ear. “You know that? Erica, you can go to bed now. Everything's all right—I have some letters to write and some bills to pay. Look at this from the phone company. A fifty-dollar call to Hawaii! I never called Hawaii.”

“Oh, Mother,” said Erica, “I was going to let
you
sleep tonight.”

Her mother shrugged. “A lot of people have it worse. What important business do I have? The one who gave us the time didn't charge us for it. Our real life comes later.”

“We'll need a tie and a shirt and underwear, everything but shoes.” Her mother's voice from the closet. “Kirsten, you pick a tie. You've got good taste. Erica, can you find some B.V.D.s?”

The crashing of hangers applauded the search. Erica kicked a Monopoly board and a pile of dirty sheets under the bed and opened the bureau drawers. Handkerchiefs. Razor. Shirts. Socks. All I could ever think of to give him was socks, she thought.

“A bolo tie,” said Kirsten's voice, muffled. “He always wore bolo ties. I suppose that's too informal for the occasion.”

“Oh, I hate to bury his bolo tie. Danny should have it, Kirsten. Indian jewelry has got so expensive,” said her mother.

Clump, clump:
John limping down the third-floor stairs. Kirsten stuck her head out of the closet. Her face was flushed, but her blond hair was immaculately curled and combed under a headband.

“Erica, tell John to see what the kids are doing.”

“Danny's making gunpowder,” John called back. “For his invention.”

“What invention?” called Erica.

Her mother and her sister emerged from the closet looking like salesmen, their arms draped with trousers.

“His rocket,” said John. “Go see for yourselves.”

“Erica,” said Kirsten, “run down and tell Theo to watch them.”

“He
is
watching them,” said John.

Erica dropped the B.V.D.s and ran across the hall to the bathroom window. The wisteria hung over the broad roof but the wind blew her a glimpse of three children in the yard below, clambering over a huge box. Danny, blond and large for twelve, was lifting Anatole into it. Joan was clapping her hands, her red hair shaking like fire.

“What are those droopy things on the side?” asked Erica.

“Wings,” muttered John. “Theo brought him that box of feathers, and now Danny figures he's ready to fly. He got the idea from a man on television who jumped out of a window in a glider. Killed himself.”

“My God,” said Erica.

“He's rigged them up to your dad's foot vibrator,” said John gloomily. “These kids, they think nothing can hurt them. They think they're immortal.”

But when she reached the backyard and they all stopped playing and stared at her, Erica could not remember how she had meant to scold them.

“Theo,” she said. “Mother doesn't want anyone making gunpowder.”

“Just what I told Danny myself,” Theo said. “Didn't I? A rocket is a very second-rate mode of travel. Come on, kids—let's play!” he shouted.

Just as if this were a family reunion instead of a funeral, thought Erica. Then she heard her name called and she ran into the house. Her mother was standing on the back porch with Hal's clothes lying over her arm.

“Does this suit look okay to you? Hal paid two hundred dollars for it in the days when you could get a good suit for fifty. He picked the material himself.”

Erica remembered her father bending over the little swatches of cloth and asking them all did they like the red stripe on gray? When the suit arrived six months later, the stripes looked enormous and the shoulders sagged and he could have hidden a machine gun in the sleeves. But he continued to order his suits from the tailor and his shoes from a shoemaker in England until he walked so little, he ceased to wear things out.

“There's a moth hole in the back,” her mother said, her mouth close to Erica's ear, “but it won't show. Does Theo have a good suit? We need one more pallbearer.”

“I thought Hank Anderson was going to be the sixth pallbearer.”

“Hank? Why, he can't even lift a telephone book since his hernia operation.”

“Mother,” called Kirsten's voice, “are you ready?”