Orrie's Story (29 page)

Authors: Thomas Berger

Tags: #Orrie’s Story

“I used to think I knew a whole lot,” he said now, aloud, and there was nobody to hear him but his mother, who was dead, “because I got good grades in school. What a reason! But then I was only a kid. Now I'm as old as a man can be, and I don't know anything at all. â¦ But maybe thinking that way is arrogance too, because I do know I wanted in that split second to rid the world of Erie. But there's the arrogance again.
The
world? Hardly.
My
world. That's one motive I couldn't ever confess to anyone alive.” Nor did he look towards Erie's grave, at the far end of the plot: someone had rightly seen that it would be no closer to his mother's. “And now that I'm the heir of everything he owned, you're the only person on whom I would have wanted to spend it.”

A bright but heatless January sun was shining. The snow had disappeared in the unseasonable thaw, but the air had turned cold once more. Orrie wore the thin corduroy garment, no better than a long jacket, that he had been seeking to replace with his father's overcoat when he found the shotgun instead. He was prosperous enough now, with his profit from killing Erie, to buy himself the belted camel's-hair polo coat that had figured in his fantasies of winter elegance, no doubt derived from the movies. But though what he had done had been condoned by a jury of twelve decent human beings, he could not consider spending gains so ill-gotten. Even the pious thoughts of renovating the shacks in Rivertown while reducing the rents for the poor souls therein, which he had shared with the charitable Terwillens because he knew they would be pleased, seemed phony as he stood here. Could he play the philanthropist with blood-money?

No living soul was nearby on the bright but bleak morning in the garden of headstones, in which, in the absence of a tree or tomb for an acre, he was the highest eminence, short as he was and probably, having arrived at his current age, would always be, which meant he would likely go through life always looking younger than he was and thus attracting unwanted sympathy, particularly from older women.

He addressed his mother again. “I do think it's right to get Ellie everything she needs. She's got it comingâeven now I don't want to tell you why, unless of course you already know, but if so, then saying anything on the matter would be pointless. What better use for the money than to get her the college education she could not have gotten otherwise, even though her grades have always been better even than mine. If she wants to go on to study law, she can do that too, though I don't personally care for the profession. But then maybe somebody like Ellie could improve on it.

“What I won't ever be able to do, however, is admit to her I think she was right about you and Erie.” It would take a great deal of strength for him to continue, and he sought to collect it while looking up and away from the grave. By chance he saw Mr. Terwillen heading back. He had to hurry with what he had to say, but that was just as well.

“I think you and he did murder my father, and that was why you were fighting each other so savagelyâ¦. But I will always believe I killed you by accidentâ¦. I had to say that once. I will never mention it again. I will always love you and try to make you proud of me.” And finally he added, though he was not clear as to just how much he intended the phrase to include, “I
will never get over it.”

On the way home in the car, while waiting for a traffic light to change, Mr. Terwillen turned and looked at him through the thick glasses. Orrie by now was used to what, in the early days with the Terwillens, had seemed a suspicious stare.

“I hope it will be okay with you: May's invited this niece of hers to come have Sunday dinner. She's a real nice girl. They live just over the state line. May's brother Buster is a little stuck up, even she will admit that. But he's goodhearted underneath it all. And the girl's more like her mother, quiet but smart, you know? I think she's a senior now.”

Orrie made a melancholy smile. “Am I supposed to be getting fixed up?”

The green light came on. Mr. Terwillen looked forward and put the car in motion. “No,” he said, somewhat miffed, “nothing is expected of you. She's just coming to dinner, is all. By herself, because her folks are going into the city to see the outdoor-sports show. Her dad's big on hunting and fishing.”

Orrie could not remember when last he had thought about girls, though in the old days they had been an obsession. He was now sexless and totally incapable of any new emotion: only in such a state could he live a subsequent life that would be blameless. He could not endure a return to hell.

“I'm sure she's very nice,” he said, “but I don't feel much like meeting anybody.”

“Orrie,” Terwillen said, his big hands manipulating the steering wheel, “you're going to have to come out of it one of these days.”

“No, I'm not,” Orrie said defiantly. When they got home, he hopped out and opened the garage doors, then went immediately inside the house via the rear door. He slipped through the kitchen and up the back stairway before Mrs. Terwillen, at the stove, could turn.

Ellie came out of her room before he reached his. She spoke in the subdued tones of a conspirator. “You should see what's downstairs.”

“I know,” he said impatiently. “Their niece. He told me.” He did not intend to dwell on the subject, for his sister was always too eager to make common cause with him against an outside world that had been notably benevolent towards them.

“Christ,” Ellie said. “A bleached blonde!”

It had been a long time since he had chided her about her language, having been in no position to find fault with anybody else, but now he was moved to do so. “Will you stop using profanity? You just got home from church.”

As usual she disregarded the admonition. “And you know what her name is? Hermione, for God's sake.”

Mr. Terwillen had said the girl's father was stuck-up. No doubt this was an example. “Well, so what?” he asked. “My name is really Orville, isn't it? Kids get stuck with fancy names. It's not their fault.”

“So what do they call her? Minnie? Minnie Mouse?”

“You're being nasty for no reason,” he said. “And really impolite. Why aren't you down there, talking to her? You're both high-school girls, probably with a lot in common.”

“Are you kidding?” Ellie said, making a mouth. “I don't have anything to say to somebody
oÃ that
type.”

“You really ought to do something about the prejudiced way you look at people,” said Orrie. “How do you know what she's like unless you talk to her? She's supposed to be smart.”

“Then
you
go talk to her.”

“All right,” he said. “I will.”

But that was worse. “You will?
Don't.”
She glared at him.

He realized she was just being jealous, but decided that to be forthright was better for all concerned. “I'm telling you for the last time: don't try to run my life. I'm your big brother.”

He went downstairs and in the solarium encountered a girl who stood in the center of a cloud of gold, an effect that after a moment he realized was produced by the winter sun coming in the window behind her fair hair and white angora sweater.

“Hi,” he said. “I'm Orrie.”

“Hi,” she replied in a voice that was both soft and luxurious, rather like her sweater. “My name is Hermione. I know that's too much for a lot of people to say, so sometimes I'm called Sonny.”

“But Sonny's a boy's name,” Orrie said. He was about to add, with respect to her fantastic figure, that she was anything but masculine, but decided it might have an obscene implication. “I like your real name. It's something special.” He remembered his manners. “Won't you have a seat?”

She sat down on the couch, but he remained standing.

“I hear you're in college?” Her hair was, unlike Gena's, blond all the way to the roots.

“Yes, I am.”

“I guess it's pretty tough?”

He shrugged and finally chose the chair that was most distant from her, though fortunately the room was not all that wide. “A lot more reading assignments than high school, but that's about all.” She looked as if she were made of peach ice cream. There was not a pimple on her face. She wore golden bangs, and on either side of her face the hair fell straight and smooth and shining to her shoulders.

She raised her perfect eyebrows. “Maybe I'll see you up there next yearâthat is, if you're still going?”

That she might be dubious about his continuing to pursue higher education was insupportable. “I will certainly be there. You can count on it. I'm in premed, you know.”

“Gee, that's great,” Hermione said. “A couple of guys from my class are going, but they're just big dumb guys on football scholarships. It'll be nice to know somebody intelligent who's already there. I don't make new friends easily.” Her smile made the sun seem dim. “I've never been away from home except maybe to stay overnight at a friend's house.”

Orrie smiled back. “That's just about the way I was too, when I first went. You'll be just fine. Everybody has to leave home eventually, and college is probably one of the nicer ways to do that.”

“I really like your sister,” Hermione said brightly. “I myself am an only child.”

“She's just a junior in high school right now, but she wants to go to law school when the time comes.”

“Sounds like a smart family.”

Suddenly they were respectable. That should please Ellie if she had any sense. He wondered how much Hermione knew about himself, but the whole story had been in the newspapers and on the radio and anyway as the Terwillens' niece she could hardly be in the darkâand yet she apparently found him an acceptable human being, even seemed to be implying that she would welcome his friendship, though of course before jumping to any rash conclusions he should probably get the advice of Paul, who was so wise in the ways of women.

Mrs. Terwillen came into the doorway at that moment and exclaimed, “You've already gotten to know each other! Well, dinner's on the table.”

Hermione frowned beautifully. “Now, Aunt May, you said I could help.”

“But you're the guest, sweetheart.”

“Then I'll do the dishes!”

Mrs. Terwillen simpered at Orrie. “When I was her age, I did everything I could to duck out of any work.” She patted his shoulder. “Would you please go get your sister, dear? I hate the way shouting sounds.”

Orrie was embarrassed to remember that Ellie seldom volunteered for household chores. But going up the stairs, he reflected that he might soon have the pleasant responsibility of looking after another younger member of the female sex, one to whom he was not related. Surely there was nothing that could make you feel more of a man.

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