Other Voices, Other Rooms Page 3

  "Right with you, Mister Jesus," said Joel without enthusiasm. Romeo gave him a boost into the wagon, and handed up the suitcase. It was an old wagon, wobbly and rather like an oversized peddler's cart; the floor was strewn with dry cornhusks and croquer sacks which smelled sweetly sour.

  "Git, John Brown," urged Jesus Fever, gently slapping the reins against a tan mule's back. "Lift them feet, John Brown, lift them feet…"

  Slowly the wagon pulled from the lot and groaned up a path onto the road. Romeo ran ahead, gave the mule's rump a mighty whack and darted off; Joel felt a quick impulse to call him back, for it came to him all at once that he did not want to reach Skully's Landing alone. But there was nothing to be done about it now. Out in front of the stable the bearded drunk had quit dancing, and the hound dog was squatting under the water trough scratching fleas. The wagon's rickety wheels made dust clouds that hung in the green air like powdered bronze. A bend in the road: Noon City was gone.

  It was night, and the wagon crept over an abandoned country road where the wheels ground softly through deep fine sand, muting John Brown's forlorn hoofclops. Jesus Fever had so far spoken only twice, each time to threaten the mule with some outlandish torture: he was going to skin him raw or split his head with an axe, possibly both. Finally he'd given up and, still hunched upright on the seat-plank, fallen asleep. "Much further?" Joel asked once, and there was no answer. The reins lay limply entwined round the old man's wrists, but the mule skillfully guided the wagon unaided.

  Relaxed as a rag doll, Joel was stretched on a croquer-sack mattress, his legs dangling over the wagon's end. A vine-like latticework of stars frosted the southern sky, and with his eyes he interlinked these spangled vines till he could trace many ice-white resemblances: a steeple, fantastic flowers, a springing cat, the outline of a human head, and other curious designs like those made by snowflakes. There was a vivid, slightly red three-quarter moon; the evening wind eerily stirred shawls of Spanish moss which draped the branches of passing trees. Here and there in the mellow dark fireflies signaled one another as though messaging in code. He listened contented and untroubled to the remote, singing-saw noise of night insects.

  Then presently the music of a childish duet came carrying over the sounds of the lonesome countryside: "What does the robin do then, poor thing…" Like specters he saw them hurrying in the moonshine along the road's weedy edge. Two girls. One walked with easy grace, but the other moved as jerky and quick as a boy, and it was she that Joel recognized.

  "Hello, there," he said boldly when the wagon overtook them.

  Both girls had watched the wagon's approach, and slowed their step perceptibly; but the one who was unfamiliar, as if startled, cried, "Gee Jemima!" She had long, long hair that fell past her hips, and her face, the little he could see of it, smudged as it was in shadow, seemed very friendly, very pretty. "Why, isn't it just grand of you to come along this way and want to give us a ride?"

  "Help yourself," he said, and slid over to make a seat.

  "I'm Miss Florabel Thompkins," she announced, after she'd hopped agilely up beside him, and pulled her dress-hem below her knees. "This is the Skullys' wagon? Sure, that's Jesus Fever… is he asleep? Well, don't that beat everything." She talked rapidly in a flighty, too birdlike manner, as if mimicking a certain type of old lady. "Come on, sister, there's oodles of room."

  The sister trudged on behind the wagon. "I've got two feet and I reckon I'm not such a flirt I can't find the will-power to put one in front of the other, thanks all the same," she said, and gave her shorts an emphatic hitch.

  "You're welcome to ride," said Joel weakly, not knowing what else to do; for she was a funny kid, no doubt about it.

  "Oh, folderol," said Florabel Thompkins, "don't you pay her no mind. That's just what Mama calls Idabel Foolishness. Let her walk herself knock-kneed for what it means to the great wide world. No use trying to reason with her: she's got willful ways, Idabel has. Ask anybody."

  "Huh," was all Idabel said in her defense.

  Joel looked from one to the other, and concluded he liked Florabel the best; she was so pretty, at least he imagined her to be, though he could not see her face well enough to judge fairly. Anyway, her sister was a tomboy, and he'd had a special hatred of tomboys ever since the days of Eileen Otis. This Eileen Otis was a beefy little roughneck who had lived on the same block in New Orleans, and she used to have a habit of waylaying him, stripping off his pants and tossing them high into a tree. That was years gone by, but the memory of her could infuriate him still. He pictured Florabel's redheaded sister as a regular Eileen Otis.

  "We've got us a lovely car, you know," said Florabel. "It's a green Chevrolet that six persons can ride in without anybody sitting on anybody's lap, and there are real window-shades you can pull up or down with darling toy babies. Papa won this lovely Chevrolet from a man at a cock-fight, which I think was real smart of him, only Mama says different. Mama's as honest as the day is long, and she don't hold with the cock-fights. But what I'm trying to say is: we don't usually have to hitch rides, and with strangers, too… course we do know Jesus Fever… kinda. But what's your name? Joel? Joel what? Knox… well, Joel Knox, what I'm trying to say is my Papa usually drives us to town in our lovely car…" She jabbered on and on, and he was content to listen till, turning his head, he saw her sister, and thought she was looking at him peculiarly. As this exchange of stares continued, a smileless but amused look that passed between them was lighted by the moon; it was as if each were saying: I don't think so much of you, either."… but one time I just happened to slam the door on Idabel's hand," Florabel was still talking of the car, "and now her thumbnail won't grow the least bit: it's all lumpy and black. But she didn't cry or take on, which was very brave on her part; now me, I couldn't stand to have such a nasty old… show him your hand, sister."

  "You let me alone or I'll show it to you o. k.: in a place you're not expecting."

  Florabel sniffed, and glanced peevishly at Joel because he laughed. "It don't pay to treat Idabel like she was a human being," she said ominously. "Ask anybody. The tough way she acts you'd never suppose she came from a well-to-do family like mine, would you?"

  Joel held his peace, knowing no matter what he said it would be the wrong thing.

  "That's just what I mean," said Florabel, turning the silence to her own advantage, "you'd never suppose. Naturally she is as we're twins: born the same day, me ten minutes first, so I'm elder; both of us twelve, going on thirteen. Florabel and Idabel. Isn't it tacky the way those names kinda rhyme? Only Mama thinks it's real cute, but…"

  Joel didn't hear the rest, for he suddenly noticed Idabel had stopped trailing the wagon. She was far back and running, running like a pale animal through the lake of weeds lining the wayside towards a flowering island of dogwood that bloomed lividly some distance off like seashore foam on a black beach. But before he could point this out to Florabel, her twin was gone and lost between the shining trees. "Isn't she afraid to be out there all alone in the dark?" he interrupted, and with a gesture indicated where Idabel had disappeared.

  "That child is afraid of nothing," stated Florabel flatly. "Don't you fret none over her; she'll catch up when she gets to feeling like it."

  "But out in those woods…"

  "Oh, sister takes her notions and there's no sense in asking why. We were born twins, like I told you, but Mama says the Lord always sends something bad with the good." Florabel yawned and leaned back, the long hair sprawling about her shoulders. "Idabel will take any kind of a dare; even when we were real little she'd go up and poke around the Skullys' and peek in all the windows. One time she even got a good look at Cousin Randolph." Lazily she reached up and seized a firefly that was pulsing goldenly in the air above her head, then: "Do you like living at that place?"

  "What place?"

  "The Landing, silly."

  Joel said: "I may, but I haven't seen it yet." Her face was close to his, and he could tell she was disappointed with the answer. "And you, wher
e's your house?"

  She waved an airy hand. "Just a little ways up yonder. It's not far from the Landing, so maybe you could come visit sometime." She tossed the firefly into the air where it hung suspended like a small moon. "Naturally I didn't know whether to think you lived at the Landing or not. Nobody ever sees any of them Skullys. Why, the Lord himself could be living there with none the wiser. Are you kin to…" but this was cut short by a terrible, paralyzing wail, and wild crashing in the all-around darkness.

  Idabel bounded into the road from the underbrush. She was flailing her arms and howling loud and fierce.

  "You darn fool!" her sister screamed, but Joel did nothing, for his heart was lodged somewhere in his throat. Then he turned to check Jesus Fever's reaction, but the old man still snoozed; and strangely the mule had not bolted with fright.

  "That was pretty good, eh?" said Idabel. "I'll bet you thought the devil was hot on your trail."

  Florabel said: "Not the devil, sister… he's inside you." And to Joel: "She'll catch it when I tell Papa, cause she couldn't have got up here without us seeing unless she cut through the hollow, and Papa's told her and told her about that. She's all the time snooping around in there hunting sweetgum: some day a big old moccasin is going to chew off her leg right at the hip, mark my word."

  Idabel had returned carrying a spray of dogwood, and now she smelled the blooms exultantly. "I've already been snake-bit," she said.

  "Yes, that's the truth," her sister admitted. "You should've seen her leg, Joel Knox. It swelled up like a watermelon; all her hair fell out; oh, she was dogsick for two months, and Mama and me had to wait on her hand and foot."

  "It's lucky she didn't die," said Joel.

  "I would've if I was you and didn't know how to take care of myself," said Idabel.

  "She was smart, all right," conceded Florabel. "She just went smack in the chicken yard and snatched up this rooster and ripped him wide open; never heard such squawking. Hot chicken blood draws the poison."

  "You ever been snakebit, boy?" Idabel wanted to know.

  "No," he said, feeling somehow in the wrong, "but I was nearly run over by a car once."

  Idabel seemed to consider this. "Run over by a car," she said, her woolly voice tinged with envy.

  "Now you oughtn't to have told her that," snapped Florabel. "She's liable to run straight off and throw herself in the middle of the highway."

  Below the road and in the shallow woods a close-by creek's sliding, pebble-tinkling rush underlined the bellowed comments of hidden frogs. The slow-rolling wagon cleared a slope and started down again. Idabel picked the petals from the dogwood spray, dripping them in her path, and tossed the rind aside; she tilted her head and faced the sky and began to hum; then she sang: "When the northwind doth blow, and we shall have snow, what does the robin do then, poor thing?" Florabel took up the tune: "He got to the barn, to keep he-self warm, and hide he-self under he wing, poor thing!" It was a lively song and they sang it over and over till Joel joined to make a trio; their voices pealed clear and sweet, for all three were sopranos, and Florabel vivaciously strummed a mythical banjo. Then a cloud crossed the moon and in the black the singing ended.

  Florabel jumped off the wagon. "Our house is over in there," she said, pointing toward what looked to Joel like an empty wilderness. "Don't forget… come to visit."

  "I will," he called, but already the tide of darkness had washed the twins from sight.

  Sometime later a thought of them echoed, receded, left him suspecting they were perhaps what he'd first imagined: apparitions. He touched his cheek, the cornhusks, glanced at the sleeping Jesus-the old man was trance-like but for his body's rubbery response to the wagon's jolting-and was reassured. The guide reins jangled, the hoofbeats of the mule made a sound as drowsy as a fly's bzzz on a summer afternoon. A jungle of stars rained down to cover him in blaze, to blind and close his eyes. Arms akimbo, legs crumpled, lips vaguely parted-he looked as if sleep had struck him with a blow.

  Fence posts suddenly loomed; the mule came alive, began to trot, almost to gallop down a graveled lane over which the wheels spit stone; and Jesus Fever, jarred conscious, tugged at the reins: "Whoa, John Brown, whoa!" And the wagon presently came to a spiritless standstill.

  A woman slipped down the steps leading from a great porch; delirious white wings sucked round the yellow globe of a kerosene lantern that she carried high. But Joel, scowling at a dream demon, was unaware when the woman bent so intently towards him and peered into his face by the lamp's smoky light.

  2

  Falling… falling… falling! a knifelike shaft, an underground corridor, and he was spinning like a fan blade through metal spirals; at the bottom a yawning-jawed crocodile followed his downward whirl with hooded eyes: as always, rescue came with wakefulness. The crocodile exploded in sunshine. Joel blinked and tasted his bitter tongue and did not move; the bed, an immense four-poster with different rosewood fruits carved crudely on its high headboard, was suffocatingly soft and his body had sunk deep in its feathery center. Although he'd slept naked, the light sheet covering him felt like a wool blanket.

  The whisper of a dress warned him that someone was in the room. And another sound, dry and wind-rushed, very much like the beat of bird wings; it was this sound, he realized while rolling over, which had wakened him.

  An expanse of pale yellow wall separated two harshly sunlit windows which faced the bed. Between these windows stood the woman. She did not notice Joel, for she was staring across the room at an ancient bureau: there, on top a lacquered box, was a bird, a bluejay perched so motionless it looked like a trophy. The woman turned and closed the only open window; then, with prissy little sidling steps, she started forward.

  Joel was wide awake, but for an instant it seemed as if the bluejay and its pursuer were a curious fragment of his dream. His stomach muscles tightened as he watched her near the bureau and the bird's innocent agitation: it hopped around bobbing its blue-brilliant head; suddenly, just as she came within striking distance, it fluttered its wings and flew across the bed and lighted on a chair where Joel had flung his clothes the night before. And remembrance of the night flooded over him: the wagon, the twins, and the little Negro in the derby hat. And the woman, his father's wife: Miss Amy, as she was called. He remembered entering the house, and stumbling through an odd chamber of a hall where the walls were alive with the tossing shadows of candleflames; and Miss Amy, her finger pressed against her lips, leading him with robber stealth up a curving, carpeted stairway and along a second corridor to the door of this room; all a sleepwalker's pattern of jigsaw incidents; and so, as Miss Amy stood by the bureau regarding the bluejay on its new perch, it was more or less the same as seeing her for the first time. Her dress was of an almost transparent grey material; on her left hand, for no clear reason, she wore a matching grey silk glove, and she kept the hand cupped daintily, as if it were crippled. A wispy streak of white zigzagged through the dowdy plaits of her brownish, rather colorless hair. She was slight, and fragile-boned, and her eyes were like two raisins embedded in the softness of her narrow face.

  Instead of following the bird directly, as before, she tiptoed over to a fireplace at the opposite end of the huge room, and, artfully twisting her hand, seized hold of an iron poker. The bluejay hopped down the arm of the chair, pecking at Joel's discarded shirt. Miss Amy pursed her lips, and took five rapid, lilting, ladylike steps…

  The poker caught the bird across the back, and pinioned it for the fraction of a moment; breaking loose, it flew wildly to the window and cawed and flapped against the pane, at last dropping to the floor where it scrambled along dazedly, scraping the rug with its outspread wings.

  Miss Amy trapped it in a corner, and scooped it up against her breast.

  Joel pressed his face into the pillow, knowing that she would look in his direction, if only to see how the racket had affected him. He listened to her footsteps cross the room, and the gentle closing of the door.

  He dressed in the same
clothes he'd worn the previous day: a blue shirt, and bedraggled linen trousers. He could not find his suitcase anywhere, and wondered whether he'd left it in the wagon. He combed his hair, and doused his face with water from a washbasin that sat on a marble-topped table beside the rosewood four-poster. The rug, which was bald in spots and of an intricately oriental design, felt grimy and rough under his bare feet. The stifling room was musty; it smelled of old furniture and the burned-out fires of wintertime; gnat-like motes of dust circulated in the sunny air, and Joel left a dusty imprint on whatever he touched: the bureau, the chiffonier, the washstand. This room had not been used in many years certainly; the only fresh things here were the bedsheets, and even these had a yellowed look.

  He was lacing up his shoes when he spied the bluejay feather. It was floating above his head, as if held by a spider's thread. He plucked it out of the air, carried it to the bureau, and deposited it in the lacquered box, which was lined with red plush; it also occurred to him that this would be a good place to store Sam Radclif's bullet. Joel loved any kind of souvenir, and it was his nature to keep and catalogue trifles. He'd had many grand collections, and it pained him sorely that Ellen persuaded him to leave them in New Orleans. There had been magazine photos and foreign coins, books and no-two-alike rocks, and a wonderful conglomeration he'd labeled simply Miscellany: the feather and bullet would've made good items for that. But maybe Ellen would mail his stuff on, or maybe he could start all over again, maybe…

  There was a rap at the door.