Part 10

_What else can I think about what else have I thought about_ The boy turned from the street. He climbed a picket fence without looking back and crossed the lawn to a tree and laid the pole down and climbed into the fork of the tree and sat there, his back to the road and the dappled sun motionless at last upon his white shirt. _Else have I thought about I cant even cry I died last year I told you I had but I didnt know then what I meant I didnt know what I was saying_ Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar. Man the sum of his climatic experiences Father said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire. _But now I know I’m dead I tell you_

_Then why must you listen we can go away you and Benjy and me where nobody knows us where_ The buggy was drawn by a white horse, his feet clopping in the thin dust; spidery wheels chattering thin and dry, moving uphill beneath a rippling shawl of leaves. Elm. No: ellum. Ellum.

_On what on your school money the money they sold the pasture for so you could go to Harvard dont you see you’ve got to finish now if you dont finish he’ll have nothing_

_Sold the pasture_ His white shirt was motionless in the fork, in the flickering shade. The wheels were spidery. Beneath the sag of the buggy the hooves neatly rapid like the motions of a lady doing embroidery, diminishing without progress like a figure on a treadmill being drawn rapidly offstage. The street turned again. I could see the white cupola, the round stupid assertion of the clock. _Sold the pasture_

_Father will be dead in a year they say if he doesnt stop drinking and he wont stop he cant stop since I since last summer and then they’ll send Benjy to Jackson I cant cry I cant even cry one minute she was standing in the door the next minute he was pulling at her dress and bellowing his voice hammered back and forth between the walls in waves and she shrinking against the wall getting smaller and smaller with her white face her eyes like thumbs dug into it until he pushed her out of the room his voice hammering back and forth as though its own momentum would not let it stop as though there were no place for it in silence bellowing_

When you opened the door a bell tinkled, but just once, high and clear and small in the neat obscurity above the door, as though it were gauged and tempered to make that single clear small sound so as not to wear the bell out nor to require the expenditure of too much silence in restoring it when the door opened upon the recent warm scent of baking; a little dirty child with eyes like a toy bear’s and two patent-leather pig-tails.

“Hello, sister.” Her face was like a cup of milk dashed with coffee in the sweet warm emptiness. “Anybody here?”

But she merely watched me until a door opened and the lady came. Above the counter where the ranks of crisp shapes behind the glass her neat grey face her hair tight and sparse from her neat grey skull, spectacles in neat grey rims riding approaching like something on a wire, like a cash box in a store. She looked like a librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done

“Two of these, please, ma’am.”

From under the counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper and laid it on the counter and lifted the two buns out. The little girl watched them with still and unwinking eyes like two currants floating motionless in a cup of weak coffee Land of the kike home of the wop. Watching the bread, the neat grey hands, a broad gold band on the left forefinger, knuckled there by a blue knuckle.

“Do you do your own baking, ma’am?”

“Sir?” she said. Like that. Sir? Like on the stage. Sir? “Five cents. Was there anything else?”

“No, ma’am. Not for me. This lady wants something.” She was not tall enough to see over the case, so she went to the end of the counter and looked at the little girl.

“Did you bring her in here?”

“No, ma’am. She was here when I came.”

“You little wretch,” she said. She came out around the counter, but she didnt touch the little girl. “Have you got anything in your pockets?”

“She hasnt got any pockets,” I said. “She wasnt doing anything. She was just standing here, waiting for you.”

“Why didnt the bell ring, then?” She glared at me. She just needed a bunch of switches, a blackboard behind her 2 X 2 e 5. “She’ll hide it under her dress and a body’d never know it. You, child. How’d you get in here?”

The little girl said nothing. She looked at the woman, then she gave me a flying black glance and looked at the woman again, “Them foreigners,” the woman said. “How’d she get in without the bell ringing?”

“She came in when I opened the door,” I said. “It rang once for both of us. She couldnt reach anything from here, anyway. Besides, I dont think she would. Would you, sister?” The little girl looked at me, secretive, contemplative. “What do you want? bread?”

She extended her fist. It uncurled upon a nickel, moist and dirty, moist dirt ridged into her flesh. The coin was damp and warm. I could smell it, faintly metallic.

“Have you got a five cent loaf, please, ma’am?”

From beneath the counter she produced a square cut from a newspaper sheet and laid it on the counter and wrapped a loaf into it. I laid the coin and another one on the counter. “And another one of those buns, please, ma’am.”

She took another bun from the case. “Give me that parcel,” she said. I gave it to her and she unwrapped it and put the third bun in and wrapped it and took up the coins and found two coppers in her apron and gave them to me. I handed them to the little girl. Her fingers closed about them, damp and hot, like worms.

“You going to give her that bun?” the woman said.

“Yessum,” I said. “I expect your cooking smells as good to her as it does to me.”

I took up the two packages and gave the bread to the little girl, the woman all iron-grey behind the counter, watching us with cold certitude. “You wait a minute,” she said. She went to the rear. The door opened again and closed. The little girl watched me, holding the bread against her dirty dress.

“What’s your name?” I said. She quit looking at me, but she was still motionless. She didnt even seem to breathe. The woman returned. She had a funny looking thing in her hand. She carried it sort of like it might have been a dead pet rat.

“Here,” she said. The child looked at her. “Take it,” the woman said, jabbing it at the little girl. “It just looks peculiar. I calculate you wont know the difference when you eat it. Here. I cant stand here all day.” The child took it, still watching her. The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. “I got to have that bell fixed,” she said. She went to the door and jerked it open. The little bell tinkled once, faint and clear and invisible. We moved toward the door and the woman’s peering back.

“Thank you for the cake,” I said.

“Them foreigners,” she said, staring up into the obscurity where the bell tinkled. “Take my advice and stay clear of them, young man.”

“Yessum,” I said. “Come on, sister.” We went out. “Thank you, ma’am.”

She swung the door to, then jerked it open again, making the bell give forth its single small note. “Foreigners,” she said, peering up at the bell.

We went on. “Well,” I said, “How about some ice cream?” She was eating the gnarled cake. “Do you like ice cream?” She gave me a black still look, chewing. “Come on.”

We came to the drugstore and had some ice cream. She wouldn’t put the loaf down. “Why not put it down so you can eat better?” I said, offering to take it. But she held to it, chewing the ice cream like it was taffy. The bitten cake lay on the table. She ate the ice cream steadily, then she fell to on the cake again, looking about at the showcases. I finished mine and we went out.

“Which way do you live?” I said.

A buggy, the one with the white horse it was. Only Doc Peabody is fat. Three hundred pounds. You ride with him on the uphill side, holding on. Children. Walking easier than holding uphill. _Seen the doctor yet have you seen Caddy_

_I dont have to I cant ask now afterward it will be all right it wont matter_

Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odour of honeysuckle all mixed up.

“You’d better take your bread on home, hadnt you?”

She looked at me. She chewed quietly and steadily; at regular intervals a small distension passed smoothly down her throat. I opened my package and gave her one of the buns. “Goodbye,” I said.

I went on. Then I looked back. She was behind me. “Do you live down this way?” She said nothing. She walked beside me, under my elbow sort of, eating. We went on. It was quiet, hardly anyone about _getting the odour of honeysuckle all mixed She would have told me not to let me sit there on the steps hearing her door twilight slamming hearing Benjy still crying Supper she would have to come down then getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it_ We reached the corner.

“Well, I’ve got to go down this way,” I said, “Goodbye.” She stopped too. She swallowed the last of the cake, then she began on the bun, watching me across it. “Goodbye,” I said. I turned into the street and went on, but I went to the next corner before I stopped.

“Which way do you live?” I said. “This way?” I pointed down the street. She just looked at me. “Do you live over that way? I bet you live close to the station, where the trains are. Dont you?” She just looked at me, serene and secret and chewing. The street was empty both ways, with quiet lawns and houses neat among the trees, but no one at all except back there. We turned and went back. Two men sat in chairs in front of a store.

“Do you all know this little girl? She sort of took up with me and I cant find where she lives.”

They quit looking at me and looked at her.

“Must be one of them new Italian families,” one said. He wore a rusty frock coat. “I’ve seen her before. What’s your name, little girl?” She looked at them blackly for awhile, her jaws moving steadily. She swallowed without ceasing to chew.

“Maybe she cant speak English,” the other said.

“They sent her after bread,” I said. “She must be able to speak something.”

“What’s your pa’s name?” the first said. “Pete? Joe? name John huh?” She took another bite from the bun.

“What must I do with her?” I said. “She just follows me. I’ve got to get back to Boston.”

“You from the college?”

“Yes, sir. And I’ve got to get on back.”

“You might go up the street and turn her over to Anse. He’ll be up at the livery stable. The marshall.”

“I reckon that’s what I’ll have to do,” I said. “I’ve got to do something with her. Much obliged. Come on, sister.”

We went up the street, on the shady side, where the shadow of the broken façade blotted slowly across the road. We came to the livery stable. The marshall wasnt there. A man sitting in a chair tilted in the broad low door, where a dark cool breeze smelling of ammonia blew among the ranked stalls, said to look at the postoffice. He didn’t know her either.

“Them furriners. I cant tell one from another. You might take her across the tracks where they live, and maybe somebody’ll claim her.”

We went to the postoffice. It was back down the street. The man in the frock coat was opening a newspaper.

“Anse just drove out of town,” he said. “I guess you’d better go down past the station and walk past them houses by the river. Somebody there’ll know her.”

“I guess I’ll have to,” I said. “Come on, sister.” She pushed the last piece of the bun into her mouth and swallowed it. “Want another?” I said. She looked at me, chewing, her eyes black and unwinking and friendly. I took the other two buns out and gave her one and bit into the other. I asked a man where the station was and he showed me. “Come on, sister.”

We reached the station and crossed the tracks, where the river was. A bridge crossed it, and a street of jumbled frame houses followed the river, backed onto it. A shabby street, but with an air heterogeneous and vivid too. In the center of an untrimmed plot enclosed by a fence of gaping and broken pickets stood an ancient lopsided surrey and a weathered house from an upper window of which hung a garment of vivid pink.

“Does that look like your house?” I said. She looked at me over the bun. “This one?” I said, pointing. She just chewed, but it seemed to me that I discerned something affirmative, acquiescent even if it wasn’t eager, in her air. “This one?” I said. “Come on, then.” I entered the broken gate. I looked back at her. “Here?” I said. “This look like your house?”

She nodded her head rapidly, looking at me, gnawing into the damp halfmoon of the bread. We went on. A walk of broken random flags, speared by fresh coarse blades of grass, led to the broken stoop. There was no movement about the house at all, and the pink garment hanging in no wind from the upper window. There was a bell pull with a porcelain knob, attached to about six feet of wire when I stopped pulling and knocked. The little girl had the crust edgeways in her chewing mouth.

A woman opened the door. She looked at me, then she spoke rapidly to the little girl in Italian, with a rising inflexion, then a pause, interrogatory. She spoke to her again, the little girl looking at her across the end of the crust, pushing it into her mouth with a dirty hand.

“She says she lives here,” I said. “I met her down town. Is this your bread?”

“No spika,” the woman said. She spoke to the little girl again. The little girl just looked at her.

“No live here?” I said. I pointed to the girl, then at her, then at the door. The woman shook her head. She spoke rapidly. She came to the edge of the porch and pointed down the road, speaking.

I nodded violently too. “You come show?” I said. I took her arm, waving my other hand toward the road. She spoke swiftly, pointing. “You come show,” I said, trying to lead her down the steps.

“Si, si,” she said, holding back, showing me whatever it was. I nodded again.

“Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.” I went down the steps and walked toward the gate, not running, but pretty fast. I reached the gate and stopped and looked at her for a while. The crust was gone now, and she looked at me with her black, friendly stare. The woman stood on the stoop, watching us.

“Come on, then,” I said. “We’ll have to find the right one sooner or later.”

She moved along just under my elbow. We went on. The houses all seemed empty. Not a soul in sight. A sort of breathlessness that empty houses have. Yet they couldnt all be empty. All the different rooms, if you could just slice the walls away all of a sudden Madam, your daughter, if you please. No. Madam, for God’s sake, your daughter. She moved along just under my elbow, her shiny tight pigtails, and then the last house played out and the road curved out of sight beyond a wall, following the river. The woman was emerging from the broken gate, with a shawl over her head and clutched under her chin. The road curved on, empty. I found a coin and gave it to the little girl. A quarter. “Goodbye, sister,” I said. Then I ran.

I ran fast, not looking back. Just before the road curved away I looked back. She stood in the road, a small figure clasping the loaf of bread to her filthy little dress, her eyes still and black and unwinking. I ran on.

A lane turned from the road. I entered it and after a while I slowed to a fast walk. The lane went between back premises—unpainted houses with more of those gay and startling coloured garments on lines, a barn broken-backed, decaying quietly among rank orchard trees, unpruned and weed-choked, pink and white and murmurous with sunlight and with bees. I looked back. The entrance to the lane was empty. I slowed still more, my shadow pacing me, dragging its head through the weeds that hid the fence.

The lane went back to a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere path scarred quietly into new grass. I climbed the gate into a woodlot and crossed it and came to another wall and followed that one, my shadow behind me now. There were vines and creepers where at home would be honeysuckle. Coming and coming especially in the dusk when it rained, getting honeysuckle all mixed up in it as though it were not enough without that, not unbearable enough. _What did you let him for kiss kiss_

_I didn’t let him I made him watching me getting mad What do you think of that? Red print of my hand coming up through her face like turning a light on under your hand her eyes going bright_

_It’s not for kissing I slapped you. Girl’s elbows at fifteen Father said you swallow like you had a fishbone in your throat what’s the matter with you and Caddy across the table not to look at me. It’s for letting it be some darn town squirt I slapped you you will will you now I guess you say calf rope. My red hand coming up out of her face. What do you think of that scouring her head into the. Grass sticks crisscrossed into the flesh tingling scouring her head. Say calf rope say it_

_I didnt kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anyway_ The wall went into shadow, and then my shadow, I had tricked it again. I had forgot about the river curving along the road. I climbed the wall. And then she watched me jump down, holding the loaf against her dress.

I stood in the weeds and we looked at one another for a while.

“Why didnt you tell me you lived out this way, sister?” The loaf was wearing slowly out of the paper; already it needed a new one. “Well, come on then and show me the house.” _not a dirty girl like Natalie. It was raining we could hear it on the roof, sighing through the high sweet emptiness of the barn._

_There? touching her_

_Not there_

_There? not raining hard but we couldnt hear anything but the roof and as if it was my blood or her blood_

_She pushed me down the ladder and ran off and left me Caddy did_

_Was it there it hurt you when Caddy did ran off was it there_

_Oh_ She walked just under my elbow, the top of her patent leather head, the loaf fraying out of the newspaper.

“If you dont get home pretty soon you’re going to wear that loaf out. And then what’ll your mamma say?” _I bet I can lift you up_

_You cant I’m too heavy_

_Did Caddy go away did she go to the house you cant see the barn from our house did you ever try to see the barn from_

_It was her fault she pushed me she ran away_

_I can lift you up see how I can_

_Oh her blood or my blood Oh_ We went on in the thin dust, our feet silent as rubber in the thin dust where pencils of sun slanted in the trees. And I could feel water again running swift and peaceful in the secret shade.

“You live a long way, dont you. You’re mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself.” _It’s like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this_

_Oh_

_I used to hold like this you thought I wasnt strong enough didn’t you_

_Oh Oh Oh Oh_

_I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said_

_oh oh oh oh_

The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little pigtails were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped.

“Look here. Do you live down this road? We havent passed a house in a mile, almost.”

She looked at me, black and secret and friendly.

“Where do you live, sister? Dont you live back there in town?”

There was a bird somewhere in the woods, beyond the broken and infrequent slanting of sunlight.

“Your papa’s going to be worried about you. Dont you reckon you’ll get a whipping for not coming straight home with that bread?”

The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflexionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife, and again, and that sense of water swift and peaceful above secret places, felt, not seen not heard.

“Oh, hell, sister.” About half the paper hung limp. “That’s not doing any good now.” I tore it off and dropped it beside the road. “Come on. We’ll have to go back to town. We’ll go back along the river.”

We left the road. Among the moss little pale flowers grew, and the sense of water mute and unseen. _I hold to use like this I mean I use to hold She stood in the door looking at us her hands on her hips_

_You pushed me it was your fault it hurt me too_

_We were dancing sitting down I bet Caddy cant dance sitting down_

_Stop that stop that_