Town Burning (4 page)

They crossed the Connecticut through the long wooden covered bridge that was full of little hills and dips, the bridge making the same rhythmical tune,
flimp flamp flump flimp,
the Buick floating over all the little dips, diving forward softly at the last big one.

They got out of the car and went into the little yellow and brown station together. John’s trunk and suitcase were still where he’d left them by the ticket window, and he took them out to the car. He could hear his father and the stationmaster yelling greetings and laughing.

“That’s right, William,” he heard the stationmaster say. “It ain’t as bad as you’d think!”

“At your age, you old goat!” his father called back as he came out of the station.

“So long, William. Take it easy, William,” the stationmaster said. It seemed to John that the stationmaster’s voice had changed too quickly at the end, as if he had shut off his amusement instantly and was now seriously back at work. His father came back chuckling and smiling—for too long a time, as if he were starved for banter. Thus his overjoy; the sign of inequality, the mark of the clown. Still, John could not really know—never having entered easily into Leah’s amusements—what sort of man his father was supposed to be. With his head of brilliant white hair, his handsome face that always seemed to be expensively tanned, he did seem larger than life, and vivid, as if he were an actor (or a clown) just off the stage and still part god, part paint.

They drove back over the river into Leah. “Your mother won’t be home yet,” his father said. He parked next to the kitchen and insisted upon carrying John’s trunk and suitcase inside. “How about a cold beer, Johnny?”

As he took his suitcase up the back stairs to his room he heard the familiar noises of his father opening the refrigerator for the beer. His room was the same except that his mother had changed the wallpaper. Huge, feminine flowers bloomed behind the squat black desk and the old leather chair. It was typical of his mother that she had carefully rehung his gunrack and stuffed partridge against the flowers.

He started down. The steps slanted pleasantly to the left, old and worn in the middle to a shallow scoop, as if they had been the steps of a waterfall instead of stairs. The house was old, for America, and yet made of wood. Compared to his hotel in Paris this house was young. In this house the mice had only to cut through wood, but in his hotel in Paris the mouseholes ran through solid stone. All the original wood had long since been replaced, there, bit by bit. The only original part left was the stone hull, and it leaned heavily against the next building. Here the walls were dry, at least. In Paris he had to scrape white mold off the inside of his typewriter case. Here clothes were dry and clean, and the bathroom was as neat and clean as a field. Hot water, plumbing—symbols of materialistic decadence, he had been told by his French friends. He smiled. But would the regular fellers welcome him home? Rotary, Elks, Kiwanis, Odd Fellows, Moose, Grange, Lions, Masons, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Pythias, DeMolay, Rainbow Girls, Eastern Star, Shrine, Boy Scouts, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars—would they all welcome home a fellow materialist? The Junior Chamber of Plumbing, the Legion Drum and Bugle Corps—how about them? He remembered phrases from clean, materialistic rooms:
R.O.T.A.R.Y.
spells Rotary! We stick together! Brothers, the degree which you
are about to receive represents the tragic climax of the career of
Jacques DeMolay, the hero and martyr who was the founder of our
order. No giggling. This sign means, brother, that a brother’s sister
is in need of assistance. Step forward and kiss the book!

His father stood by the electric stove, waiting for him, a can of beer in each hand.

In the living room they sat back in the comfortable chairs. For a minute they were silent, and John looked, remembering, around the colonial room. The fireplace, original brick mellowed and dulled; faded by time and his mother’s antiquing, the woodwork; scraped, treated, warm old wood, the cobbler’s bench, the hooked and braided rugs, the painted trays; stenciled in old patterns—that had been a Women’s Club project years ago and had lasted until all the old tinware in town was painted black, stenciled and bordered with flowers—the bright wallpaper of old design, the polished brass of the fire irons: it seemed to him that in this room, cheerful and slightly cluttered, every object had been oversmoothed, rubbed, sanded, waxed, varnished, linseed-oiled until, as in a padded cell, there were no sharp edges on anything.

“Your mother ought to be home by now,” his father said.

John hoped he would be able to have at least one more beer before she returned.

“Is she taking it O.K.?” he asked.

“Like a soldier. She’s taking it like a soldier.”

Maybe she was taking it like a soldier, but another beer would help. The idea of his mother being any kind of soldier was too upsetting. He finished his beer and went to the kitchen to get two more. When he came back his father was smiling at him.

“Now don’t get worried, Johnny,” his father said. “She’s taking it very quietly. You don’t have to get worried.”

John was suddenly ashamed of himself.

“I don’t blame you, though,” his father said.

“There’s Bruce, lying up in that bed in Northlee,” John said slowly, “worrying about getting a hole drilled in his head, and I worry about a scene. I won’t take off this time, though. Don’t worry about that.”

“You and me both, Johnny. This time we both have to face it. You can’t take off to Timbuctoo, and I can’t go fishing.”

They both listened tensely, not moving, as a car came crunching up the gravel driveway and stopped beside the kitchen door.

Jane lay dry and alone upon the wide white bed in the high room. From one window came the sound of the elm branch that gently touched the house, aimless yet gentle, as if old fingers absent-mindedly leafed the familiar clapboards. High above, the wind passed clear and steady over the roofs of Leah, and in the whisking of the leaves she felt stronger forces working upon the great trunk of the elm—the torque in the supple body, all forces in balance deep in the hard and twisting wood.

Streetlight, scattered by the tree’s movement, glanced across the high ceiling, and her open eyes followed the cold patterns as if, like a drowning mouth struggling for air, they struggled for light. Michael Spinelli, her husband of ten years and a man of thirty, supposedly mature, would now be riding the black and windy road back from Concord. Drunk on wind and beer, deafened and exhilarated by the exploding engine between his legs, he would be moving up in deadly curves to try to lead the pack. He must show the rest of the fools—the cautious fools—the white death’s head stenciled upon his black jacket. The Riders would follow him northward into Leah.

She moved carefully, arching her spine, keeping within the outline of her body’s warmth upon the sheet. She could shut her eyes temporarily, but they seemed sprung open, and shutting them was to force down little springs. Then the question would come back, carefully inserting itself into her mind in different ways. Sometimes it came disguised as a recent memory, sometimes as a memory of herself as a young girl in grammar school. Who was that girl? What did she want to be when she grew up? And then the question: Why did that girl marry Michael Spinelli? She fought against answering the questions, and could not go to sleep. Not go to sleep. How did it happen? How could it have happened? But you know, she told herself. After the war everyone decided to get married, that’s what happened. That’s clear enough. And when the heroes came home they didn’t look like high-school boys any more. They were supposed to be grim, serious men who might wake up in the night crying out, caught back in the fire and pain of war and the deaths of friends. And the women would have to be so gentle and understanding—so carefully natural and understanding in order to cure them of the wounds of war. How long had it been since Michael Spinelli had stopped being a grim, sensitive hero with a sudden bright smile? The glory of the submarines had worn off so easily. The sour smell of the woolen mill replaced it. Now he had his motorcycle, and tattoos on his arms, and a black leather jacket with chrome studs.

“I don’t want him to get hurt,” she said aloud in the dark.

“No, Janie.” A black shape moved by the door, and Jane could see it from the corners of her eyes. “He’ll be all right, now. He’ll be coming home. Don’t you worry.” Her mother-in-law moved quietly toward the bed. The springs squeaked, and the surface of the bed tilted slightly.

“Don’t turn on the light, Janie.” Mrs. Spinelli’s hands moved quickly in a gesture of restraint, and Jane heard the click of beads.

“You shouldn’t have to go through all this, Janie,” Mrs. Spinelli said. Her voice was too soft and gentle, with hysteria too obvious beneath the breathy lowness of it. She went on, trying to be calm: “He’s just trying to be like he was. He’s sick of the mill.”

Jane thought, He’s too lazy to get out of the mill.

“You don’t answer me. I was just talking. I don’t know what’s the matter with him.” The voice skittered on the edge. Jane knew that if she showed sympathy to Mrs. Spinelli the voice would break and the horrible noise of crying would start. She couldn’t stand that again.

“Now you go to bed, Mother,” she said in a practical, daytime voice. “He’ll be back soon now.” She would have to be very careful in order to get Mrs. Spinelli back to bed, or Mrs. Spinelli would feel that the strangeness of her wandering through the dark house deserved something special in crying fits.

“He’ll be ashamed of himself,” Jane said. “He won’t run off again.” For a week, she thought. She reached for the light beside the bed.

The light ticked on and caught Mrs. Spinelli by surprise, bending over her strong hands, the rosary knotted through her fingers. Tears had squeezed themselves out. She looked up at Jane, resenting the bright light. Her face was smooth between fine wrinkles, burnished like an Indian’s, and her black eyes looked out at Jane reproachfully. Her hair was not all caught in the net she wore at night, and it was as black as her eyes. She looked like a young woman until she stood up beside the bed and turned away. Her shoulders pulled forward, her hips spread against her nightdress. Her waist, no longer a waist, filled out against the rayon.

“That’s right, Janie. I’ll go back to bed,” she said, and moved hesitatingly toward the door. The backs of her slippers were crushed down flat, and on the backs of her legs were fine black hairs.

“Mother!” Jane called, the old woman suddenly too pitiful.

“I’m going to bed, Janie.” Still resentful.

Damn her.

Someone rapped softly, hardly loud enough to be heard, and then spoke loudly behind the door.

“Anybody up in there? I see the lights on!”

“Come in, Papa,” Mrs. Spinelli said. The door opened quickly and Mr. Spinelli marched in.

“You ought to be in bed, Mama, dammit! Mikey ain’t home yet?” He bowed quickly as if to look under the bed, and then looked behind the door, a thin little man in baggy long winter underwear.

“Whatsamatter you can’t sleep? Dammit I ought to—Janie, he got you worried again? That lousy Mikey! You go to sleep, Janie. Now I talk to him in the morning.” He took his wife by the arm. “Come to bed, Mama. Good night, Janie.”

The door closed behind them. Mrs. Spinelli’s voice, higher but not quite shrill, closed behind another bedroom door.

Silence. Jane turned off the light to wait for morning. The elm branch rubbed the house softly, and in the colder air the leaves made a brittle noise like the crushing of thin paper.

She thought she might have been asleep, and must have been, when she heard the low roaring in the town at four o’clock, echoing down the empty streets and across the river and back. Many motors in rhythm and out, in rhythm and out, like a pulse. They did not come closer, but slowly faded northward. The Riders were back from Concord. With this knowledge she was suddenly overcome by the tiredness she had been holding off, and fell asleep.

In half an hour the phone began to ring in the downstairs hallway. One ring, muffled by a door; two rings, clearer, insistent. Had there been three? She looked for Mike on the bed and could not find him. The phone began again, after a pause. One, two, three rings. The third made it too real, too much directed at her alone: Cesare Spinelli’s number at half-past four in the morning. She felt that she must beat Mrs. Spinelli to the phone. The stairs creaked in the morning cold as she went down in her bare feet. She reached out quickly and took the receiver off the hook to keep it from ringing again, then stood holding it in her hand. The receiver spoke in a tiny voice, like a djinn in a bottle. She put it to her ear. It was as cold as a piece of ice.

“Hello,” the phone said.

“Hello,” she said into the phone.

“Janie? This is Charlotte. This is Charlotte Paquette at the hospital.”

“In Northlee?” Jane asked stupidly. Sounds came from upstairs. A door opened, and the floor squeaked.

“I’m on night duty now,” Charlotte said from the phone.

“Yes.” The upstairs listened.

“Janie, they brought Mike here. He had an accident.”

“Yes.”

“Now don’t worry, Janie. Don’t get upset. Are you still there?”

“Yes.” Dully, not wanting to let the upstairs know, she could ask no questions.

“It’s pretty bad, Janie, but they’re taking care of him now. Are you coming up here?”

“Yes, Charlotte. Thank you.” She put the phone back together, knowing what would come from upstairs.

“Jane! What was it? Mikey?” Mr. Spinelli said from above. He came running down into the hall.

“He’s at the hospital. He had an accident,” Jane said.

“Oh, Jesus,” Mr. Spinelli said, looking anxiously up the stairs. “Oh, Jesus. Mama’s gonna go nuts. Is he O.K.? Is he hurt bad?” He took Jane’s hand. “We’ll go right now, Janie. Take it easy. Is he hurt bad?”

“I think so,” Jane said. She looked at her father-in-law, and he looked into her face. He needed a shave, his little eyes were tired, sunken, surrounded by circles that were red, wet and shiny. His neck was red as a turkey’s comb down to the place where his shirt came, and below that line his chest was bony and fragile, fish-pale except for delicate blue veins that seemed to be barely submerged in the skin. His large, gray-callused hands, the knuckles huge dabs of callus from the toggling racks of the tannery, rose as if detached from his body and settled on her shoulders.