Some Came Running (92 page)

He did not come until late in the afternoon. She was about to cook her supper. And she had the radio on.

Mrs Hirsh had not risen early that day. As usual, she had been awakened around seven in her little apartment on the second floor of the Wernz Arms, by the wife of the high-school football coach rummaging around to get her husband’s breakfast in the apartment across the hall and get him off to school. He was teaching social studies this year in the summer school, his wife said. Mrs Hirsh lay, half-asleep, listening to them across the hall, until she heard the coach leave and lumber down the stairs and his wife go back in and shut the door. After that, Mrs Hirsh drifted back off to sleep.

At nine o’clock, she woke again and got up, and went into the little kitchen where she turned on the little table model radio Franklin had given her and put coffee on. Then she went to the front door into the hall and reached out and got the morning paper, the
Chicago Tribune,
which Franklin subscribed to for her, and took it to the kitchen and commenced to get her breakfast while she she listened to the nine o’clock dramatic life story on WGN. When it was all ready, she ladled it all out onto a plate—eggs, bacon, grease soaked bread, fried hash browns—and sat down at the little table to eat it while she turned the radio to WLS for the nine-thirty dramatic life story.

After the meal, she took her three pills and then went in the bathroom and sat on the toilet placidly, but a little uneasily, while her bowels moved. She had started taking a new laxative a few days ago, but it did not really seem to add much help to what the other three were already doing for her. The other pills that were not laxatives that the doctor had given her did not seem to be doing her much good, either; and for a moment, she had a vague feeling of general uneasiness, but this passed. There was nothing really wrong with her, he said.

After the unsatisfactory bowel movement, she went back out in the kitchen and had another cup of coffee and read the paper. The headlines this second day of July 1948 were all about the blockade of Berlin and the airlift and the campaign for president. Everything looked so bad that it gave her a sort of feeling of unpleasant happiness, which she did not really enjoy, and yet did enjoy, too.

It was so easy to say to the world, I told you so! The trouble was, the world would not listen. The world no longer believed in God. It had turned its face away from Him. Little wonder it had fallen upon evil days! Only in Christ, Savior, was there hope of Eternal Salvation. But in their vanity and pride men had turned their backs on Him.

The only bright spot of light in the paper was the campaign for President. It was becoming increasingly clear that President Truman could never be reelected and that Governor Dewey was going to beat him, and Mrs Hirsh was glad. What we needed was a really humble, God-fearing man in the White House, who would lead us back upon the path of God’s righteousness. And President Truman was obviously not that man. Maybe Governor Dewey would be.

But she did not really think this would happen, she thought with a gloomy happiness. The country was too far sunk in sin to ever elect a truly righteous and God-fearing man, and it would get what it deserved, she thought vindictively. Only a few, only a very few, were saved.

Before she had completely finished the paper, the telephone rang in the front room and she went to answer it. It was Mrs Millar, another lady who was also a member of the Church of Christ, Saved. But Mrs Hirsh did not think that Mrs Millar was really saved, not truly saved. But then, not many was, and she enjoyed her telephone conversations with her. Mrs Millar had been visiting down in Lawrenceville at her youngest son’s where her eldest granddaughter was getting married, and she was full of news about the wedding.

After she had hung up, sitting there by the phone, which faced the front door, Mrs Hirsh’s eyes had come to rest on the framed painting that hung beside it, and finally it impinged itself upon her consciousness. It was an autumn scene along a country road. Franklin and Agnes had given it to her once for Christmas. It made her think of her daughter-in-law. It seemed that in this world, Mrs Hirsh thought vindictively, it was always the good men who got the poorest wives, while the really bad men like Victor always got the good wives. It seemed to be almost God’s Will in a way; to cause us suffering. Mrs Hirsh was well aware that her daughter-in-law Agnes did not like her. She never invited her to her house. She almost never came to visit her, except once in a great while when she came with Franklin because he obviously made her. She never bought her anything. But Mrs Hirsh prayed for Agnes just the same. It was Agnes’s influence, she knew, which had got Franklin to leave the Church of Christ, Saved, and to join the Methodist. And it was Agnes who kept getting him to try and get her his mother to leave the Church of Christ, Saved, and go with them to the Methodist.

Mrs Hirsh did not have anything especially against the Methodists. It was a good enough church. At least, it helped some in the fight against Papism and the Pope. But it did not take God very seriously, and was mostly a social church. But the Church of Christ, Saved, was a real church. It cared only for God and Christ, Savior, as it should do. Even Victor had used to admit that. When he used to blaspheme God and His religion.

Mrs Hirsh sighed several times and cleared her throat. It was sad that, of all her sons, Franklin should be the one to get that kind of a wife. Edward in Cleveland and Darrell in New York City and George in St Louis all had fine wives apparently. She had never met them because they had never been able to get back out home with their wives. But she was sure they were all fine girls. They looked fine in their pictures. But poor Franklin.

Again, Mrs Hirsh sighed several times, enjoying the muscular expansion of her chest. She had always had good lungs.

Of them all, only David wasn’t married. She wished he would find himself a nice woman and settle down with her. She would like to see him happily married before she passed on. And he was old enough now to stop being bitter about life and acting like an unresponsible child. Franklin was right about that, even if he was a little too hard on David.

Mrs Hirsh turned to look at the electric clock Franklin had given her on the little desk, which he had also given her, and saw that it was going on eleven, while remembering that she had a beauty appointment day after tomorrow. My, how the time did fly. If it was eleven, that meant that the mail would probably be in.

Breathing heavily two or three times through her nose, Mrs Hirsh walked down to the first floor entry where the pretty brass mailboxes were and got her mail and her copy of
Life
magazine, which Franklin had subscribed to for her. Then she went back up, and turned the big radio in the living room, which Franklin had got her to WGN for the eleven o’clock dramatic life story, and for the next hour and a half she listened to the radio and slowly turned the pages of
Life
magazine.

When she finished the magazine, it was almost twelve-thirty and, her mouth watering with hunger, she went out to the kitchen to get her lunch. The kitchen radio was on as she ate but, entranced by the taste of the food, she did not even hear it.

After lunch, she took a nap.

When the doorbell rang downstairs that evening, Mrs Hirsh had just finished talking to Mrs Ethel Weller on the telephone. She had received two phone calls from lady friends in the Church of Christ, Saved, and had made one call herself and listened to one radio program, and by then it was close to suppertime. My, how the time did seem to fly!

She could not imagine who would be calling on her. Franklin always came around this hour, but usually on Mondays. It must be Franklin though, she decided. It couldn’t be any of the ladies from the church. Not at this hour. They most generally came in the morning, or else right after lunch. Like she herself when she visited. So it must be Franklin. If it was, she would have some real news for him. The phone call from Mrs Weller had been about Doris Fredric, the banker’s daughter, and the Dillert boy, the gambler, who had become such a friend of David’s. Doris Fredric, who went to the Episcopalian Church, was having a hot and heavy love affair with the Dillert boy, who did not go to any church, but whose mother was a member of the Church of Christ, Saved, ever since she came up north from Alabama. Mrs Weller would not say exactly where she got her information, but she said it was all over town. And that Dillert boy’s poor wife, living down there by herself in the country. When she mentioned the house, which she said the Dillert boy had taken so he could meet with Doris Fredric, Mrs Weller did not mention David, but said that Doris Fredric had been seen entering and leaving the house in broad daylight. Mrs Weller could not keep her pleasure out of her voice, but Mrs Hirsh did not mind because she was already thinking what a piece of news it would be to tell Franklin the next time he came, and now here he was!

But when she went to the voice box by the door, and found out who it was, she was so flustered she didn’t hardly know which way to turn.

“Why, David!” she said, into the voice box. “Well now you just come right on in. I’ll push the button. It’s number two, second floor. The door’ll be unlocked. You come right on in and make yourself at home. I want to fix up a little.”

She hurried back into the bedroom, taking off her wrapper as she went. She had been meaning to get dressed and put her hair up properly all day long, but there just never was enough time. In all, it took her fifteen minutes to get into her underwear and corselet and slip and dress and to put her hair up into its bun, and as she worked she smiled at what a piece of news she would have for Franklin and reminded herself that she must not mention it to David. Then, putting on just a little touch of lipstick, she came out through the little kitchen into the living room to see him there, sitting on the piano bench and holding a package on his knee.

“Well, that’s no comfortable place to sit!” she protested.

But he got up when he saw her, and stood, awkwardly holding his package, and Mrs Hirsh stood looking at her youngest son, and seeing him for the first time in nineteen years. Her lashes grew damp.

“Well, David!” she said, and then moved toward him. “Come and kiss Mother.”

He walked toward her, looking so awkward, and then bent over to kiss her on the cheek.

“Well! Is that any way to kiss your mother when you haven’t seen her for almost twenty years?” she said, and shut her eyes and puckered up her mouth and turned her face up to him and he pecked her on the mouth while she put her arms around him. He always had been such an awkward, shy one.

“H’lo, Mom,” he said.

“My, my! I got lipstick on you, David! Well! Let me look at you,” she said, and held him off at arm’s length. “My! You’ve put on a lot of weight since those last pictures we had from you in Europe.”

“I’ve been eatin good since I got out of the Army,” he said.

“Well! You surely have!” she said. “What’s that you’ve got there, David?” she added bashfully.

He raised his hand and his face changed, looked less awkward. “I brought you a present,” he said.

“You did!” she said. “For me!”

“Here,” he said.

Mrs Hirsh opened it sitting in her chair by the round-top table. It was a beautiful big pillow, all gold and green and purple. On its silky cover was a big picture of a tall palm tree looking out over an ocean, and across the top in curly golden letters was the one word,
Florida
. Mrs Hirsh laid it in her lap and with misty eyes and damp lashes looked up at her youngest son.

“My!” she said. “My, my! It’s scrumptious, David! Just simply scrumptious!”

“I got it for you in Florida,” he said in a strange voice.

“You did! In Florida!” she said. “And to think, you wanted to bring your old mother a present. That’s what makes me feel so good,” she told him, her lashes growing damper. She clutched her pillow.

“Yes,” he said in that same funny voice, and Mrs Hirsh could tell he wanted to cry, too. She wiped her eyes with her fingers and blew her nose on a tissue. She was not going to give way to it. She was strong, too.

“Well, I kind of thought you might like it,” he said, staring at her pillow.

“I always like anything one of my children gives me,” Mrs Hirsh said. “I know what I’ll do with it. I’ll put it right here on the davenport,” and got up and went over and placed it in the corner of the divan. “There. Isn’t that purty?

“I’ll tell you,” she said, and blinked her eyes at him, “I’ll tell you. I’m goin to be the envy of every lady from the church when they see it. When they see what my youngest son brought me from Florida.”

Suddenly, he grinned—the first time really he had smiled since he’d been here—and suddenly he made her think of Victor. Not as he was now, or as he was back then when he deserted all of them; but as he once had been, back in the very early days, when he had first married her, and promised to care for her forever. He was heavier than Victor had been, but not too awful much really. She discovered that she was staring at David with her jaw set and that he was watching her, and she blinked her eyes at him several times and smiled.

“You’re goin to stay and eat supper with me, aren’t you?” she asked, and once again his face took on that sort of embarrassed look.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Mom,” he said.

“I’m havin mashed potatoes and beefsteak and gravy,” she smiled. “Like I use to make when you were little.”

“I’m afraid I just can’t, Mom,” he said in that awkward voice. “I’ve got some business downtown I’ve got to attend to.”

This was her chance to ask him about all that gambling with the Dillert boy, like Franklin wanted her to. But something about him stopped her. She did not know exactly what. Something about his eyes, in spite of the fact that he still looked awkward. He had changed so much in the nearly twenty years since she had seen him. She just did not feel free to mention it to him.

It was the same way later on, when just before he left, she wanted to ask him to kneel down and pray with her. Franklin, although he wouldn’t kneel, nevertheless always prayed with her before he left. But she did not feel free to ask David. It was not that she thought anything unpleasant would happen, or anything. It was just—