After the Parade (20 page)

“Have you been to Mortonville?” Aaron asked. He tried to picture Clarence there, peering through the plate-glass windows of Bildt Hardware, rolling past the Trout Café.

“Certainly not,” said Clarence. “Were I able to travel and inclined to do so, I can assure you that it is not to Mortonville I would go.” He added with an air of finality, “Indeed not.”

Neither did Aaron want to think of Clarence in Mortonville, where he imagined people staring, then looking away, putting their hands over their mouths to conceal their laughter each time he spoke because they would not be able to see Clarence as the author of humor, only as its object. In Mortonville, Clarence would not be Clarence at all.

“Of course, I cannot take credit for the expression,” Clarence went on. “It was submitted to me by a pen pal from Iowa.”

“What are pen pals?” Aaron asked.

“Pen pals are people with whom I correspond via the postal service.”

“You write letters?” Aaron said, by way of confirming his understanding.

“That is precisely what we do. I've numerous pen pals, almost all little people. It is thanks to them that I have managed to compile my archives.”

“And all of these people—the pen pals—are they your friends?” Aaron asked.

“Friends?” Clarence said. “If pressed to do so, I would place most of them firmly in the category of acquaintances.”

“
Pal
means friend,” Aaron pointed out.

“They are most certainly not
pals,
for that is a word I despise. In fact, thanks to you, young Aaron, I shall refrain from using the term
pen pals
ever again. Dreadful,” Clarence muttered, raking his tongue loudly against his teeth.

“What will you call them?” Aaron asked.

Clarence thought for a moment. “I shall refer to them as my correspondents.”

“What do you and your correspondents write about?”

“Everything. I am compiling what I hope will be the definitive collection of artifacts and documents related to dwarves in our society. This is the archive of which Sister spoke earlier. I dare say it shall be my life's work. Already I've been at it—informally, of course—for most of my adulthood, though my fascination truly began in adolescence. As a boy, you see, I was quite convinced I was an anomaly, and though my parents assured me that there were others of my stature—even shorter—I refused to believe it. I measured myself daily and took to hiding in places too small for anyone else in my family to fit. The big pot in which my mother melted lard and the valise that my grandfather carried when he came to live with us were my favorites. Finally, when I was fourteen, my parents resorted to desperate measures to prove me wrong.”

“What did they do?” Aaron asked.

“They hired a dwarf. They ran advertisements in several newspapers, and a man replied, an older gentleman, unrelentingly tedious. He arrived on a Friday dressed in what appeared to be a boy's church suit and departed after dinner on Sunday. While I normally despise Sundays, I was never so relieved to see Sunday arrive and that fellow depart.”

“What was his name?” Aaron asked.

“Otto. He was a clerk in a grocery store in Winnipeg and had been for thirty-some years. The first night he described for us, in detail, the special stool he'd had fashioned so that he could reach the register. At meal
times, as we discussed various trivial matters, he would shout out the prices of the food we were consuming—‘potatoes this or that much a pound'—his finger punching the air frantically. He was ringing up the meal, you see. As my sisters cleared the table the second night, I turned to him and asked, ‘Well, Otto, what is our grand total this evening?' I was teasing, but his index finger shot out, tapped an imaginary
total
key, and he pulled himself up in his chair to better make out the figure. Of course, we leaned forward to hear it, at which point the silly man became quite flustered and tucked his hands beneath his buttocks. We laughed, both to ease the moment and because it was funny. He tried to be good-natured, but his job was really all he had and he wasn't clever enough to be self-deprecating, so I think the visit upset him greatly.”

“Did he cry?” Aaron asked.

“He may have, though not in our presence.”

“What happened to Otto?” Aaron asked.

“Nothing
happened
to him. He went back to his stool at the grocery store in Winnipeg. I've received archival scraps from him over the years, nothing significant.”

“I wish I had correspondents,” Aaron said. “It must be wonderful.”

“It can be,” Clarence agreed. “Take Olga, my correspondent in Iowa. It was she who contributed the ‘bigger dwarves' expression I mentioned earlier, after learning of my archives from Otto. That was nearly a decade ago. She told me nothing of herself in that first letter. Olga requires coaxing. Later she explained that she had been given Otto's address by a well-intentioned cousin of her husband who knew Otto from the store.” Clarence coughed and spat delicately into a large handkerchief, inspected the contents, and folded the handkerchief around them. “ ‘He's of your ilk,' the cousin said when she presented Olga with Otto's address. Isn't that a delightful introduction?” He laughed. Aaron laughed also because he liked Clarence's laugh, but he thought the word
ilk
sounded awful.

“The truth,” Clarence continued, his voice becoming more nasal, “is that Olga wrote to Otto because she was lonely, but they were not of the same ilk, not at all. I received my first letter from her on June
sixth, 1962. It was, as I have already noted, a pithy epistle. I wrote back, thanking her for her fine contribution to the archives, and over the years we have become well acquainted.” He cleared his throat again. “In fact, Olga's is a sad tale. Have you any interest in hearing it?”

“I like sad tales,” said Aaron. “In school we read only happy ones. My mother says I'm too young to be interested in tales of woe. That's what she calls them.”

“Yes, I suppose you are young, though I have found that there is no better way to forget your own tales of woe than by listening to those of others.”

Clarence's fingers had crept out from beneath the afghan. They were plump, like breakfast sausages, and Aaron found himself thinking
pigs in a blanket,
which he had ordered once in a restaurant based solely on the name. He remembered how happy he had been when his breakfast arrived and he discovered that pigs in a blanket were sausages, the beauty of their name matching their tastiness.

“You seem distracted,” Clarence said querulously. “Perhaps we should speak of something other than Olga's sad story?” A rattling began in his throat, which he tried to clear, but the phlegm seemed to build. “You'll forgive me for making such a racket,” he gasped. “It has been a difficult week.” He stared straight ahead, his sausage fingers clutching the afghan.

“I believe there has been a settling,” he announced finally. “Sister and I have a little joke that we engage in at such times. She tells me I am sounding phlegmish, and I reply, ‘I should say closer to Dutch, Sister.' It never fails to amuse her. I must admit I've come to find the joke tiresome, but it would disappoint her if I were to stop.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand the joke,” Aaron said.

“What is there to understand?” Clarence said. “Surely you've
heard
of Flanders?”

“No,” said Aaron.

“What grade are you in?”

“I'm starting second grade.”

“Second grade?” Clarence cried. “Second grade and you are unfamiliar with Flanders? I am quite sure that by the time I began
second grade I was well versed in European geography, inclusive of its subtleties.”

Aaron said nothing. He did not understand how this place called Flanders had even entered the discussion. “What about Olga and the tale of woe?” he asked.

“We shall speak no more of Olga,” said Clarence severely, then, less severely, “Come. Supper awaits us. You shall be my valet.”

A
aron studied the meat on his plate. He had thought that rabbit would be easy to recognize, but without the telltale ears, this was not the case.

“Sister constructed this table,” Clarence announced. “She completed it in a single afternoon.”

“Gloria, you made this table?” said Aaron's mother.

It was higher than other tables. Aaron had to reach upward for his food.

“For Clary's wheelchair,” Gloria said. She pulled her head into her hunched shoulders in an unflattering, turtlelike way. “I've always been pretty inept with my hands.”

“Inept,” Clarence squealed, and Gloria hunched her shoulders even more.

For several minutes they ate in silence, Gloria occasionally reaching over to Clarence's plate in order to cut his meat into even smaller pieces or to add green beans to his already large pile. When she plopped a pat of butter onto his potato, he threw down his cutlery. “Sister,” he hissed, “we have agreed, numerous times, that you will not touch my plate unless I ask for your assistance. I have made no such request, as our guests can surely confirm.” He pinched the butter between his fingers and flung it back at her.

Aaron's mother turned quickly to Aaron. “Gloria has invited us to spend the night,” she said, “since it might not be wise for you to travel after your wasp ordeal.”

Aaron nodded and reached up for his milk. The thought of spending more time with Clarence made him happy, but he did not know how to verbalize his pleasure. They all continued to nibble at the meat that might or might not be rabbit until Clarence sniffed the air as one would a past-due carton of milk and announced, “When I was a bit older than young Aaron, I had a schoolmaster who suffered from an abnormal fear of dwarves. Do you remember, Sister?”

“Mr. Nordstrum,” she said. “There'd been some scandal at his previous school.”

“Ah, yes, Nordstrum,” said Clarence. “He was let go because he'd taken to attaching love notes when he returned homework.”

“How do you know such things, Clary?” Gloria asked.

“Little pitchers have big ears,” he responded with a giggle. “It's an expression,” he added when he saw Aaron studying his ears. “And I know such things, Sister, because I make it my business to know. He was a ridiculous little man, writing love notes to fifteen-year-old girls who no doubt laughed behind his tonsured little head. He had a penchant for robust farm girls and had become inspired by a particular young Heidi, whom he liked to imagine perched atop a milking stool with her plump hands patiently coaxing milk out of one stubborn udder after another.”

“Clary, our guests,” Gloria said, inclining her head toward Aaron.

“I am merely quoting from his letters, loosely of course.” He addressed Aaron directly now, as though that was what Gloria had intended. “I doubt that our beloved schoolmaster was capable of much eloquence. Eventually, his secret came out.” He looked back at his sister. “As secrets always do.”

“Clary, can we please have a nice evening?” Gloria said. “We so rarely have guests.”

“You mean an evening where nobody says anything interesting and certainly not anything they really mean? Tell me, Sister. What fun is a
nice
evening?” He turned to Aaron's mother. “Dolores, were you frightened when you first set eyes on me?”

“Of course not,” said Aaron's mother, answering quickly, as she did when she was nervous.

“Ah, splendid.” Clarence picked up his fork and dangled it from his fat fingers.

“Clary, stop it,” Gloria said. “Why do you insist on this?” She reached over and began sawing at his meat again.

“What is it that I am insisting on? I am merely chatting with our guest, who has confirmed that she was pleased to meet me.” As he spoke, he brought his fork down on the back of Gloria's hand, applying pressure. “In fact, I am delighted to hear it since most people, upon making my acquaintance, can think only about what a queer little creature I am—though I prefer
that
to being mistaken for a child.” He looked down at Gloria's hand, trapped beneath his fork. “As you can see, Sister, I am quite capable of managing cutlery.”

“I'm sorry, Clary,” said Gloria.

“I know you are, Sister.” Clarence lifted his fork, and Gloria's hand fluttered up. He smacked his lips. “The hare was superb,” he said.

*  *  *

At home, Aaron's nightly chore was to dry the supper dishes, so when his mother called to him from Gloria's kitchen, he rose—though he would have preferred to stay with Clarence—and stood, a dishtowel in hand, between his mother and Gloria. His mother washed, and Gloria received the dried dishes from him, inspecting each before she put it away.

“How are you feeling then?” Gloria asked.

“Fine,” he said.

“Gloria, show Aaron your trick,” his mother said. She stopped washing, halting the whole chain of labor. When she turned, he could see the strain of the visit on her face.

“Ah, the trick,” said Gloria. She took two walnuts from her overalls pocket and held them out, one in each palm, for him to see before bringing her hands together, fingers laced as if in prayer. Her muscles bulged and Aaron heard the crack of a nut bursting open. His mother cheered, and Gloria opened her hand—the intact walnut at its center, its shell slick with perspiration—and offered him the meat of the other.

“I don't feel good,” he told his mother. He handed her the dishtowel.

Gloria and his mother took him into the sunroom, where he would sleep that night. His mother said she would be back in ten minutes to tuck him in, but he could hear the two of them talking in the dining room and knew they had forgotten about his bedtime. He looked for the cat. The thought of sleeping with its hollow sockets staring at him seemed unbearable. He was bent down, searching beneath the couch, when he heard Clarence roll in behind him. “I imagine you're looking for Aaron,” said Clarence. “Sister has taken him to her quarters for the evening.” Aaron got up from the floor. “I've come to see whether you need anything, and I've brought you these.” He indicated the neatly folded pajamas on his lap. They were covered with Santas and reindeer. “Yet another of Sister's poorly conceived though well-intentioned gifts.”