Crawlspace (7 page)

It suddenly struck me funny that I’d been talking to a disembodied voice in a black hole, and I laughed.

“Richard—it’s a little strange trying to talk this way. Won’t you come out of there so I can see you?”

“I’m comfortable this way.”

“Oh, come on.” I laughed as if it were all a big joke. “Out now.” Again his voice floated out of the square. Neither harsh or defiant—merely final. “I’m comfortable.”

I didn’t press it further. Instead I changed the subject.

“How have you been?”

“Okay.”

“Thank you for cleaning the garage. You didn’t have to. All the same, it was very thoughtful. You read my mind.” I laughed nervously and waited for a reply. None came.

“Do you have enough to eat?” I went on a little desperately.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Then silence. I’d gone the gamut of conversational possibilities and run into a dead end with each. The pauses following my questions grew longer and more deadly.

I sensed a growing silence creeping between us and felt that I’d better make the reason for my visit known to him before I lost contact altogether.

“Richard?” I started again but became flustered.

“Richard? Mrs. Graves and I—” That was simpering and apologetic. It wanted more firmness. “Mrs. Graves and I want you to know”—I had the sensation, chatting there affably into that black hole, that I was all alone, talking to myself. It occurred to me I was mad—“that you’re welcome in our house. But we want to make one thing absolutely clear—” That was too imperious. I became conciliatory. “That is—Mrs. Graves and I want you to know, that you’re free to remain with us until you find some new employment and can stand on your own. There are lots of jobs around here for young men—” I waited, listened for some sound, then barged on. “Clerks, delivery man, dishwashers. I know the gasoline station is looking for a boy to work on the pumps. Nothing spectacular, mind you, but a start. Money in your pocket, and you’re your own man once more. Soon you’ll go on to something better.”

I was pleased with the way I’d presented it, and now I gazed at the square hopefully.

“Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said, somewhat at a loss. “Well—I just wanted to make it perfectly clear—” I waited for some reaction, but none came. “Then it’s understood,” I went on. “You’ll remain here with us until you find some work. Then you can set up some place on your own. Which ought to be lots of fun for a young fellow, I should think.”

I chattered on blithely, waxing, with each moment, more and more enthusiastic over Richard Atlee’s prospects, which I thought were reasonably good. Still he would say nothing to indicate his feelings one way or another.

“I don’t think it should take you very long,” I said, peering fatuously into that square black void, awaiting some response, some small clue to his feelings.

I waited. No answer came. “Well, then—” I started up again with a burst of tepid cheer. “You’re all right?”

“Yes.”

“Can I bring you anything? Warm clothes? Books? Can I bring you more books?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, then—This was very pleasant,” I babbled on. “Just chatting this way and everything—Let’s do it again.” I gazed at the black square, hoping for some small word of encouragement. Nothing came.

“Well, then—I’ll say good night.”

“Good night,” came his reply—perfunctory and final. And that was that.

Then I did something strange. Instead of leaving, I turned and walked directly back to the square. “Richard, I want to ask you something.” I held my breath and waited until my voice grew calm. “Why did you write the word ‘GOD’ above the cellar door?” This time I didn’t have to prod him. He answered directly and without pause.

“To remind you.”

“To remind me of what?”

“That God loves all things.” It was blunt and swift. His voice boomed out of the square like a clap of thunder.

“I see,” I mumbled numbly. “I see.”

And in some curious way, I did. Had anyone else said it—given this time in history, given the essentially mocking spirit of our age—you might have laughed aloud in his face. Not so here. Mirth was the last thing I felt. It had all come out of him so earnestly and with such a naked, childish faith.

“Thank you, Richard,” I said feeling curiously baffled and contrite. “I’ve always tried to live in that spirit myself. From time to time I’ve failed, but I trust that I won’t fail you. Thank you,” I said again, and I imagine I said it several more times as well and started to back out, my eyes riveted to the floor, powerless to raise them to the level of the square again. In the next instant I turned and walked quickly back to the stairs. I flicked out the cellar switch and except for the stairway, still lit by a shaft of warm, orange light, a mantle of comforting darkness fell over the cellar.

As I mounted the stairs I felt strangely happy.

“Do you think he’ll like it?” said Alice. She held up a sweater—a long-sleeved blue affair with white reindeers. It was a week before Christmas.

I examined it while lighting my pipe. “The arms are too long.”

“Oh, they’re not.”

“It’s twice his size.”

She made a sour face. “You don’t even know his size.”

“Why bother asking my opinion if you can’t accept it when it’s given?”

“I accept criticism very well,” she said with an expansive tolerance. “But not when it’s wrong. If you say this is twice his size, then you simply don’t know his size.”

“I think I probably know it better than you.”

“You do?” She cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ve spent more time with him, haven’t I?”

“That’s hardly a yardstick.” She half joked and mocked. “You barely know your own size shirt and socks, little less someone else’s.”

I unfolded my paper with a great flap and started to read.

“Well, how tall is he?” she persisted.

I was growing increasingly irritated. “One moment you completely discount my judgment, and in the next you ask for it again.”

“Well, guess. Just make a guess.”

I made a great show of trying to visualize him in my mind. “Oh, five-ten, five-eleven, I’d say.”

She laughed aloud. “He’s nowhere near that. Five-eleven. Oh, Albert. Honestly.”

“Well, then. How tall is he? You tell me.”

“He’s a tiny little fellow,” she cooed. “That’s what’s so endearing about him.”

“Endearing? What do you mean, endearing?”

“That he’s so small and all that—” She patted the wool sweater tenderly. “I’d be very surprised if he were much more than five-seven.”

“You must be mad. I’m five-nine, and he’s taller than me.” This time she laughed out loud. “You’re not five-nine, Albert. I know you’ve always wanted to be five-nine. I’ve seen you put it on your driver’s license. But all the same, you’re not any five-nine, my dear.”

I felt my face flush. “I am five-nine.”

“Not in your wildest dreams. Not even in your elevated shoes.”

“Unless I’ve shrunk as of my last examination at Dr. Tucker’s, I’m five-nine. And that last remark of yours was uncalled-for.” With another great flap, I yanked the paper upward again and thrust my face assertively into it.

“I’m sorry, dear—” Her voice now was wheedling and apologetic. “I really shouldn’t have—” But she was still laughing.

I plunged myself deeper into the newspaper, and for a while we were silent. She continued to hold the sweater up and admire it—making little cooing sounds to herself. “I can’t wait to see it on him,” she said.

“I doubt you’ll have that pleasure.”

“Why?”

“He’s not about to come up here and model it for you.”

She looked across at the Christmas tree. We’d put it up the week before. It was festooned with tinsel and sparkled with little lights of many colors. Papier-mâché balls, candy canes, and toy soldiers hung from its branches, and at the top a plastic angel with rouged cheeks and vacant eyes gazed benevolently down on the little parlor.

“If I were to put it in a pretty box—” she said. I knew she was plotting something from the way her voice trailed off. “—and set it under the tree on Christmas morning, he might just—”

“Forget it, Alice. Put it out of your mind.”

“I worked very hard on this. The least he can do is come up here and show his—”

“Gratitude?” I said.

The word caught her up short. She looked at me ruefully. “I didn’t mean exactly—”

“Of course you did. Now that you’ve given him shelter and cooked for him, and gone so far as to knit a sweater, you expect a return on your investment.”

The word mortified her. Her jaw fell open. “That’s not true,” she protested. But in the next moment, her shoulders sagged and a sigh rose to her lips. “Well—it’s not unreasonable to expect—”

“It’s unreasonably to expect anything. That’s not why we’re letting him stay here—” I rose and started off across the parlor. Then I turned and stalked back to where she sat. “Now let’s don’t start this stuff, Alice. I’ve told you at least a half-dozen times. Whatever we do for the boy, whatever little is done here, we do without the slightest expectation of recompense or gratitude.”

She stared at me for a moment, speechless, then shook her head vehemently. “You’re absolutely right, dear. I need never see him wear it. What he does with it is of no importance.”

“None whatsoever.”

“The only thing that’s important is knowing that I made it for him out of a sincere desire to give him something.”

“With no strings attached.”

“Yes, dear.” She bubbled on, happy once again. “And it’s sufficient for me just to know that.” She sighed contentedly and resumed her knitting. I returned to my chair and paper. After a few moments, she held the sweater up again and laid it flat across her chest, studying it critically. “One of the antlers is bigger than the other.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She seemed distressed. “What shall I do, Albert?”

“Leave it alone, or you’ll wind up botching all you’ve done.”

“Do you think he’ll mind?”

“If he does, he’s not deserving of it.”

She was suddenly quite angry. “Don’t say that. He’s a good boy and deserving of it in every way.” She looked at me as if I were a mortal enemy.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t, Alice.” I replied gently. “Let’s go up to bed.”

I banked the fire, and as I did so she hurried into the kitchen. It was her custom now to leave out a plate of freshly baked pastries or tarts on the kitchen table. She also left cocoa on the stove so that when Richard came in out of the cold, bitter night all he need do was tiptoe up to the kitchen and turn on the flame beneath the cocoa. This had become a nightly ritual. In the morning we’d find the splashed and spattered residue of those late-hour feasts.

On this night, she came back from the kitchen and waited for me at the foot of the landing while I went around the house locking doors and extinguishing lights. Then slowly we ascended the stairs together.

When we’d both undressed and got into our pajamas, I turned out the light and stood by the window looking out. Alice lay in bed watching me.

“Does it look like more snow?” she asked.

“No. It’s quite clear.” The moon was out and full, and I could see it glowing over the snowy hills. “It’s a beautiful night. Thousands of stars.”

“Where do you suppose he is now, Albert? Where do you think he goes?”

I gazed up at the stars for a time. “Job-hunting, I hope.” I’d been wondering for the past week or so about his efforts to secure employment. But Alice disregarded my remark.

“Do you think he’s warm enough?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

“Do you think he thinks of us at all?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.” I had a sudden picture of him out in the woods someplace, crouching back there in the bogs, trying to duck the icy blasts, the blue frost of a northern night freezing his toes and fingertips. “How he keeps himself alive out there is a mystery to me.”

“Why doesn’t he just forget about the crawl and come up here and stay with us until he gets some kind of work?”

“Yes,” I answered her distantly, not having heard very much of what she said. I was still thinking of him out there in the bog, and of the word GOD still written over my door (although the wind and snow had bleached some of the vivid scarlet out of the letters).

“I wish that, too,” I said, looking at the stars shining in the bright northern sky outside our window. “But I know we can’t push him about it.”

She was silent for a while lying there in bed. “You know what I feel?” she said suddenly, the mattress creaking beneath her.

“What?”

In the next moment she’d slipped noiselessly up beside me. “How uncanny it is.”

“What?”

“His coming at this time.”

“This time?”

“He’s the child I should have had and here he’s been given to me at this time.”

“What time?”

“Christmas, Albert.” Her voice had a sharp edge to it. “Christmas.”

I felt a twinge of pain somewhere inside me.

“Well, it’s like an omen, isn’t it?” she went on.

“Oh, I wouldn’t make too much of that.”

“Don’t deflate me, Albert.”

“Deflate you?”

“Just when I start to get happy about something, you cut me down. You’ve always done that.”

“Really? I’m sorry if I have. I didn’t realize.”

She placed her hand in mine. There was something ineffably tender and childish about the way she did it. Alice is, after all, a woman well on in her fifties. “Well, it is curious his coming to us”—she went on—“this time of year and all. The time of nativity, I mean.”

“Yes, Alice,” I said hopelessly. I knew what was coming next and wanted to head her off.

“I know it may sound foolish,” she continued, “but I can’t help thinking of Mary, fallow as she was, and Jesus coming to her in the dead of winter, and his sleeping in that drafty manger with the animals and all—” Suddenly she turned and embraced me in a way she hadn’t done in years. “Oh, Albert. I know it sounds foolish—but I feel like a new mother. Like a blessed infant has been given to me.”

I took her hand in mine and kissed it, and we stood there in the darkened room in front of the window with the stars in the northern sky shining down upon us.