Katherine Anne Porter (56 page)

Miranda said, “Oh, I want to see,” under her breath. She looked and looked—excited but not frightened, for she was accustomed to the sight of animals killed in hunting—filled with pity and astonishment and a kind of shocked delight in the wonderful little creatures for their own sakes, they were so pretty. She touched one of them ever so carefully, “Ah, there’s blood running over them,” she said and began to tremble without knowing why. Yet she wanted most deeply to see and to know. Having seen, she felt at once as if she had known all along. The very memory of her former ignorance faded, she had always known just this. No one had ever told her anything outright, she had been rather unobservant of the animal life around her because she was so accustomed to animals. They seemed simply disorderly and unaccountably rude in their habits, but altogether natural and not very interesting. Her brother had spoken as if he had known about everything all along. He may have seen all this before. He had never said a word to her, but she knew now a part at least of what he knew. She understood a little of the secret, formless intuitions in her own mind and body, which had been clearing up, taking form, so gradually and so steadily she had not realized that she was
learning what she had to know. Paul said cautiously, as if he were talking about something forbidden: “They were just about ready to be born.” His voice dropped on the last word. “I know,” said Miranda, “like kittens. I know, like babies.” She was quietly and terribly agitated, standing again with her rifle under her arm, looking down at the bloody heap. “I don’t want the skin,” she said, “I won’t have it.” Paul buried the young rabbits again in their mother’s body, wrapped the skin around her, carried her to a clump of sage bushes, and hid her away. He came out again at once and said to Miranda, with an eager friendliness, a confidential tone quite unusual in him, as if he were taking her into an important secret on equal terms: “Listen now. Now you listen to me, and don’t ever forget. Don’t you ever tell a living soul that you saw this. Don’t tell a soul. Don’t tell Dad because I’ll get into trouble. He’ll say I’m leading you into things you ought not to do. He’s always saying that. So now don’t you go and forget and blab out sometime the way you’re always doing. . . Now, that’s a secret. Don’t you tell.”

Miranda never told, she did not even wish to tell anybody. She thought about the whole worrisome affair with confused unhappiness for a few days. Then it sank quietly into her mind and was heaped over by accumulated thousands of impressions, for nearly twenty years. One day she was picking her path among the puddles and crushed refuse of a market street in a strange city of a strange country, when without warning, plain and clear in its true colors as if she looked through a frame upon a scene that had not stirred nor changed since the moment it happened, the episode of that far-off day leaped from its burial place before her mind’s eye. She was so reasonlessly horrified she halted suddenly staring, the scene before her eyes dimmed by the vision back of them. An Indian vendor had held up before her a tray of dyed sugar sweets, in the shapes of all kinds of small creatures: birds, baby chicks, baby rabbits, lambs, baby pigs. They were in gay colors and smelled of vanilla, maybe. . . . It was a very hot day and the smell in the market, with its piles of raw flesh and wilting flowers, was like the mingled sweetness and corruption she had smelled that other day in the empty cemetery at home: the day she had remembered always until now vaguely as the time she and her
brother had found treasure in the opened graves. Instantly upon this thought the dreadful vision faded, and she saw clearly her brother, whose childhood face she had forgotten, standing again in the blazing sunshine, again twelve years old, a pleased sober smile in his eyes, turning the silver dove over and over in his hands.

I
N
the square bedroom with the big window Mama and Papa were lolling back on their pillows handing each other things from the wide black tray on the small table with crossed legs. They were smiling and they smiled even more when the little boy, with the feeling of sleep still in his skin and hair, came in and walked up to the bed. Leaning against it, his bare toes wriggling in the white fur rug, he went on eating peanuts which he took from his pajama pocket. He was four years old.

“Here’s my baby,” said Mama. “Lift him up, will you?”

He went limp as a rag for Papa to take him under the arms and swing him up over a broad, tough chest. He sank between his parents like a bear cub in a warm litter, and lay there comfortably. He took another peanut between his teeth, cracked the shell, picked out the nut whole and ate it.

“Running around without his slippers again,” said Mama. “His feet are like icicles.”

“He crunches like a horse,” said Papa. “Eating peanuts before breakfast will ruin his stomach. Where did he get them?”

“You brought them yesterday,” said Mama, with exact memory, “in a grisly little cellophane sack. I have asked you dozens of times not to bring him things to eat. Put him out, will you? He’s spilling shells all over me.”

Almost at once the little boy found himself on the floor again. He moved around to Mama’s side of the bed and leaned confidingly near her and began another peanut. As he chewed he gazed solemnly in her eyes.

“Bright-looking specimen, isn’t he?” asked Papa, stretching his long legs and reaching for his bathrobe. “I suppose you’ll say it’s my fault he’s dumb as an ox.”

“He’s my little baby, my only baby,” said Mama richly, hugging him, “and he’s a dear lamb.” His neck and shoulders were quite boneless in her firm embrace. He stopped chewing long enough to receive a kiss on his crumby chin. “He’s sweet as clover,” said Mama. The baby went on chewing.

“Look at him staring like an owl,” said Papa.

Mama said, “He’s an angel and I’ll never get used to having him.”

“We’d be better off if we never
had
had him,” said Papa. He was walking about the room and his back was turned when he said that. There was silence for a moment. The little boy stopped eating, and stared deeply at his Mama. She was looking at the back of Papa’s head, and her eyes were almost black. “You’re going to say that just once too often,” she told him in a low voice. “I hate you when you say that.”

Papa said, “You spoil him to death. You never correct him for anything. And you don’t take care of him. You let him run around eating peanuts before breakfast.”

“You gave him the peanuts, remember that,” said Mama. She sat up and hugged her only baby once more. He nuzzled softly in the pit of her arm. “Run along, my darling,” she told him in her gentlest voice, smiling at him straight in the eyes. “Run along,” she said, her arms falling away from him. “Get your breakfast.”

The little boy had to pass his father on the way to the door. He shrank into himself when he saw the big hand raised above him. “Yes, get out of here and stay out,” said Papa, giving him a little shove toward the door. It was not a hard shove, but it hurt the little boy. He slunk out, and trotted down the hall trying not to look back. He was afraid something was coming after him, he could not imagine what. Something hurt him all over, he did not know why.

He did not want his breakfast; he would not have it. He sat and stirred it round in the yellow bowl, letting it stream off the spoon and spill on the table, on his front, on the chair. He liked seeing it spill. It was hateful stuff, but it looked funny running in white rivulets down his pajamas.

“Now look what you’re doing, dirty boy,” said Marjory. “You dirty little old boy.”

The little boy opened his mouth to speak for the first time. “You’re dirty yourself,” he told her.

“That’s right,” said Marjory, leaning over him and speaking so her voice would not carry. “That’s right, just like your papa. Mean,” she whispered, “mean.”

The little boy took up his yellow bowl full of cream and
oatmeal and sugar with both hands and brought it down with a crash on the table. It burst and some of the wreck lay in chunks and some of it ran all over everything. He felt better.

“You see?” said Marjory, dragging him out of the chair and scrubbing him with a napkin. She scrubbed him as roughly as she dared until he cried out. “That’s just what I said. That’s exactly it.” Through his tears he saw her face terribly near, red and frowning under a stiff white band, looking like the face of somebody who came at night and stood over him and scolded him when he could not move or get away. “Just like your papa,
mean.”

The little boy went out into the garden and sat on a green bench dangling his legs. He was clean. His hair was wet and his blue woolly pull-over made his nose itch. His face felt stiff from the soap. He saw Marjory going past a window with the black tray. The curtains were still closed at the window he knew opened into Mama’s room. Papa’s room. Mommanpoppasroom, the word was pleasant, it made a mumbling snapping noise between his lips; it ran in his mind while his eyes wandered about looking for something to do, something to play with.

Mommanpoppas’ voices kept attracting his attention. Mama was being cross with Papa again. He could tell by the sound. That was what Marjory always said when their voices rose and fell and shot up to a point and crashed and rolled like the two tomcats who fought at night. Papa was being cross, too, much crosser than Mama this time. He grew cold and disturbed and sat very still, wanting to go to the bathroom, but it was just next to Mommanpoppasroom; he didn’t dare think of it. As the voices grew louder he could hardly hear them any more, he wanted so badly to go to the bathroom. The kitchen door opened suddenly and Marjory ran out, making the motion with her hand that meant he was to come to her. He didn’t move. She came to him, her face still red and frowning, but she was not angry; she was scared just as he was. She said, “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go to your gran’ma’s again.” She took his hand and pulled him. “Come on quick, your gran’ma is waiting for you.” He slid off the bench. His mother’s voice rose in a terrible scream, screaming something he could not understand, but she was furious; he had seen her clenching
her fists and stamping in one spot, screaming with her eyes shut; he knew how she looked. She was screaming in a tantrum, just as he remembered having heard himself. He stood still, doubled over, and all his body seemed to dissolve, sickly, from the pit of his stomach.

“Oh, my God,” said Marjory. “Oh, my God. Now look at you. Oh, my God. I can’t stop to clean you up.”

He did not know how he got to his grandma’s house, but he was there at last, wet and soiled, being handled with disgust in the big bathtub. His grandma was there in long black skirts saying, “Maybe he’s sick; maybe we should send for the doctor.”

“I don’t think so, m’am,” said Marjory. “He hasn’t et anything; he’s just scared.”

The little boy couldn’t raise his eyes, he was so heavy with shame. “Take this note to his mother,” said Grandma.

She sat in a wide chair and ran her hands over his head, combing his hair with her fingers; she lifted his chin and kissed him. “Poor little fellow,” she said. “Never you mind. You always have a good time at your grandma’s, don’t you? You’re going to have a nice little visit, just like the last time.”

The little boy leaned against the stiff, dry-smelling clothes and felt horribly grieved about something. He began to whimper and said, “I’m hungry. I want something to eat.” This reminded him. He began to bellow at the top of his voice; he threw himself upon the carpet and rubbed his nose in a dusty woolly bouquet of roses. “I want my peanuts,” he howled. “Somebody took my peanuts.”

His grandma knelt beside him and gathered him up so tightly he could hardly move. She called in a calm voice above his howls to Old Janet in the doorway, “Bring me some bread and butter with strawberry jam.”

“I want peanuts,” yelled the little boy desperately.

“No, you don’t, darling,” said his grandma. “You don’t want horrid old peanuts to make you sick. You’re going to have some of grandma’s nice fresh bread with good strawberries on it. That’s what you’re going to have.” He sat afterward very quietly and ate and ate. His grandma sat near him and Old Janet stood by, near a tray with a loaf and a glass bowl of jam upon the table at the window. Outside there was a
trellis with tube-shaped red flowers clinging all over it, and brown bees singing.

“I hardly know what to do,” said Grandma, “it’s very. . .”

“Yes, m’am,” said Old Janet, “it certainly is. . .”

Grandma said, “I can’t possibly see the end of it. It’s a terrible. . .”

“It certainly is bad,” said Old Janet, “all this upset all the time and him such a baby.”

Their voices ran on soothingly. The little boy ate and forgot to listen. He did not know these women, except by name. He could not understand what they were talking about; their hands and their clothes and their voices were dry and far away; they examined him with crinkled eyes without any expression that he could see. He sat there waiting for whatever they would do next with him. He hoped they would let him go out and play in the yard. The room was full of flowers and dark red curtains and big soft chairs, and the windows were open, but it was still dark in there somehow; dark, and a place he did not know, or trust.

“Now drink your milk,” said Old Janet, holding out a silver cup.

“I don’t want any milk,” he said, turning his head away.

“Very well, Janet, he doesn’t have to drink it,” said Grandma quickly. “Now run out in the garden and play, darling. Janet, get his hoop.”

A big strange man came home in the evenings who treated the little boy very confusingly. “Say ‘please,’ and ‘thank you,’ young man,” he would roar, terrifyingly, when he gave any smallest object to the little boy. “Well, fellow, are you ready for a fight?” he would say, again, doubling up huge, hairy fists and making passes at him. “Come on now, you must learn to box.” After the first few times this was fun.

“Don’t teach him to be rough,” said Grandma. “Time enough for all that.”

“Now, Mother, we don’t want him to be a sissy,” said the big man. “He’s got to toughen up early. Come on now, fellow, put up your mitts.” The little boy liked this new word for hands. He learned to throw himself upon the strange big man, whose name was Uncle David, and hit him on the chest as hard as he could; the big man would laugh and hit him back
with his huge, loose fists. Sometimes, but not often, Uncle David came home in the middle of the day. The little boy missed him on the other days, and would hang on the gate looking down the street for him. One evening he brought a large square package under his arm.