The Laughing Matter (2 page)

“Well, perhaps not.”

“Is he? Tell me.”

“He doesn't
care
that he is, so perhaps he isn't.”

“If he's unhappy,
why
is he unhappy?”

“It happens.”

There is something to know, Red thought. There is something more to know about every little thing there is. First you see it, then you know something about it, and then there's something more to know about it, and if you can't find out what it is, you're unhappy.

“Where's the roses?” he said.

“Roses?” the woman said. “What roses?”

“The roses I smell. Don't you smell roses, Mama?”

“Do you smell roses?” the woman asked the man.

The man sniffed.

“Is that roses?” he said.

The woman sniffed.

“I don't smell roses,” she said. “I can't smell worth a damn, anyway. Never could.” She turned to the little girl. “Do you smell roses, Sexy?”

“Eva,” the girl said.

“Do you smell roses, Eva?” the man said.

The girl sniffed.

“No, Papa,” she said. “And thank you for speaking to me so nice.”

“Oh, that's all right,” the man said.

The girl turned to her mother. “My name is Eva Nazarenus,” she said.

“I gave you the name,” the woman said. “I ought to know what it is.”

“Then why do you say Sexy?”

“It's your nickname, the way Red is your brother's.”

“His name is Rex.”

“All right,” the woman said. “Everybody wants to be
somebody
nowadays. Nobody's willing to be nobody any more. You're Eva Nazarenus. Your brother's Rex Nazarenus. Your father's Evan Nazarenus.”

“And my mother is Swan Nazarenus.”

“That's right,” the woman said. “Now, go see if you can find the roses.”

“I don't want the roses.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“How about a boy to
love
you? A prince?”

“I don't want anything.”

“How about some lemonade?”

“No.”

“Fudge? I'll make some myself, and you can watch and help.”

“Fudge?”

“Yes, Sexy.”

“Nothing.”

“Why?”

“You said Sexy again.”

“I apologize.”

“What's Sexy mean?” the girl said.

“It means beautiful,” the woman said. “Doesn't it?” she said to the man.

The man looked at the little girl sitting on the floor with the three books that had quickly bored her.

“Yes, it does,” he said.

“Then why don't
you
say it?”

“All right,” the man said. “You
are
beautiful, Sexy.”

“But not Mama,” the girl said. “She's got to say Eva Nazarenus. Then I'll help her make fudge.”

The girl got up and took her mother's hand and together they went to the kitchen door. There the girl stopped to speak to her father.

“We're girls,” she said.

The woman laughed, and the girls went into the kitchen.

“The whole house smells good,” Red said. “But I can't find the roses.”

“They're somewhere,” the man said.

“I know. I smell them.”

He's like a red setter, the woman thought. He smells everything there is.

“Will you shell some walnuts for us?” the woman called out from the kitchen.

“No,” the man said.

“Will
you
, Red?”

“No, Mama. I've got to find the roses.”

“Why, Evan? Why does he have to find the roses?”

“Because they're here somewhere and he wants to know where.”

“Oh,” the woman said.

“I'll find them, Mama,” the boy said. “I think they're old and dried, pressed in a book somewhere.”

The woman stepped into the parlor, holding a bowl, the girl standing beside her, holding a wooden spoon.

“Is it possible he's right?”

“It certainly is.”

“Well, how would he guess such a thing?”

“He didn't guess. He's
seen
roses pressed inside a book.”

“Have you, Red?”

“Sure, Mama.”

“Where?”

“Home. Two white roses pressed in the back of the dictionary, four little red ones in the back of the Bible.”

“Who put them there?”

“You
did! Don't you remember the things you do? Don't you remember when I found them and asked you about them long ago?”

“What did you do it for, Mama?” the girl said.

“Oh, I don't know. I guess I found some roses in a book once and decided someday I'd do that, too.”

They went back into the kitchen, but the man could hear them fussing and talking, and so could the boy. Every now and then the man and the boy stopped everything else just to listen. They knew the girls were talking for them to hear, and the girls knew they were being heard. They knew the boys were listening. They were having fun. It was fine to be in the country, in a house on a vineyard, a house that was old but clean and cool.

“Here they are,” Red said. “Not in books. Just this little bunch of them tied together and dropped in this silver bowl over the fireplace. They
were
red, I think.
Very
red, I mean, not the color they are now.” He walked to the kitchen. “Do you want to smell them, Mama?”

The woman looked at the roses.

“I'm going to cry,” she said.

“You're
not!”

“I am!”

She went to the piano in the parlor, sat on the bench,
and wept, the boy following her and watching her face, the girl standing beside the boy, the man getting up from his chair.

“You're not
crying
, are you, Mama?” Red said. “Mama's not crying, is she, Papa?”

The boy put his arms around his mother and said, “Mama, for God's sake, you're not crying, are you?”

The little girl put her arms around her brother. “Mama,” she said, “don't cry. What's she crying for, Red?”

“What's the matter, Swan?” the man said.

“I can't look at beautiful things ended, that's all,” the woman said. “The sight of them scares me to death.”

“Come on, Swan,” the man laughed.

“I want figs off a tree,” the woman said, “the way it was this afternoon. I want everything that way. Forever.”

“Forever?” Red said. “What's she mean?”

“Ah, Swan,” the man laughed. “Cut it out, will you?”

“No,” the woman wept.

The man put his arms around the three of them.

The woman stopped weeping and began to laugh suddenly, hugging and kissing everybody.

“My kids,” she laughed. “My man, and my kids.”

She was up quickly and back to the kitchen, as if nothing had happened. What did his mother mean? Why did she cry, and then laugh and kiss everybody? He took the roses back to the silver bowl on the mantel over the fireplace and put them back in it. Then, standing on the chair, he looked at his father, who was standing at the open front door, looking out.

“Papa?”

“Yes, Red.”

“Why did Mama cry?”

“I don't know. Swan,” he called suddenly, “I'm going for a walk.”

She came running out of the kitchen.

“Wait for me!”

“Sure, Swan.”

“The hell with the fudge,” she said. “Who wants fudge, anyway? I don't know why I start things like fudge in the first place. Where'll we walk?”

“How about town?”

“Really?”

“To the depot and back?”

“Taxi back?”

“Sure.”

Most of the way on the walk to town Evan carried the little girl. When they reached the lights of the town, though, she got down to find out what it was all about. There was a difference here that she couldn't account for, until at last she noticed the sky, as if it were a burst of fireworks.

“I'm going to grab them,” she said. “I'm going to grab the stars.”

“Evan?” the woman said. “Look at that sky. Look at the stars in that sky.”

“Yes.”

The four of them were looking straight up at the stars when a woman with three girls came blinking out of a movie and, speaking with laughter in her voice, said, “I'm May Walz.”

Red and Eva turned away from the stars to look at the three girls. The five of them were soon at work at a game of skipping on the sidewalk while May and Swan talked, and Evan listened. Then the woman, heavy and hearty, asked her daughters to latch onto her, which they instantly did, all of them holding hands.

“Come on over,” Swan said.

“Won't it be too late?”

“No. Come on over and we'll sit on the porch and talk.”

May Walz and her daughters went along.

“They were
all
girls,” Eva said. “Where's their boys?”

“The father didn't want to go to the movie,” the woman said. “He stayed home.”

“Where's the
other
boys?”

“They don't have any. Just the father.”

“Why didn't
he
want to go?”

“I don't know. I guess he'd seen the movie.”

Clovis had a twinkle, besides the stars. The lights of the streets and stores weren't much for brightness, but the whole place seemed glad, as if to be around at all.

Red heard some men laugh inside a saloon.

A man in the street asked Evan for a dime and Evan gave him a quarter.

“Show-off,” the woman said.

“No, Mama,” Eva said. “The man's lost his mama. Papa gave him money so he can find her.”

In the taxi, more asleep than awake, the girl said, “Papa,
when
will he find her?”

“Tomorrow.”

She was asleep before the taxi reached the house. He took her to her room, got her undressed, and put her down to sleep.

Red was standing alone in the parlor. The woman was out on the front porch, sitting in the rocker.

“Is the smell of rocks from the water?” Red said. “Is that it? Is it from
outside
the house? The house is all wood. Where's the smell of rocks coming from? There's the leather chair—smooth black leather—but there's no rocks in the house.”

“It
may
be from the outside,” the man said. “It may not be rocks at all, and perhaps not even water, or not water alone. Perhaps it's water, grass, leaves, earth, and whatever else is alive around here. Perhaps other things, too. Aren't you tired?”

“Yes, Papa.”

He looked at his father, his eyes smiling, the rest of his face grave.

“Mama was funny in Clovis.”

“What did she do?”

“When she said show-off to you. When she talked to May, and May's girls. She was funny all the time.”

“She was?”

“She was
very
funny. She loved everything. She was sad, too. When you love everything, and you're sad, it makes you funny, doesn't it?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, when somebody sees somebody sad loving everything,
the one who sees it—well, the sad one makes him glad.”

“Oh.”

“Now, tomorrow, Papa,” he said, “I'm going to find the rocks, or find out what it is that smells like rocks. I mean,
cool
rocks.”

“O.K., Red.”

“Mama?” Red said.

“Yes, Red.”

“You were very funny in Clovis.”

He went out on the porch and leaned against the rocker, holding her hand, then kissed the inside of it because he'd seen the man do that and because it was good to do. The woman took his head in her hands and looked at him, and he saw the sorrow in her eyes.

“You were funny, too, Red.”

“Did I love everything, too?”

“Love everything?”

“The way
you
did in Clovis?”

“Did I love everything in Clovis?”

“Yes, Mama. I saw you. Did I love everything, too?”

“Yes, Red. Yes, you did.”

“Good night, Mama,” the boy said. He kissed the inside of each hand quickly, didn't look at her again, then loafed away into the house.

“Good night, Papa,” she heard him say in the parlor.

“Can you take care of yourself?” the man said.

“I'm six, almost six and a half!”

“O.K., Red.”

Evan was at the kitchen sink washing black grapes that Dade had left in the refrigerator, peaches and nectarines.

The way it was with Dade was that they'd come and gone, he'd had them and lost them, and all that was left was a house built for many, a house that Dade himself had built when he was twenty-nine, two big bedrooms and three little ones, the little ones for the ones he had scarcely seen, one of the big ones for his woman and himself, the other for his brother Evan and Evan's woman, whenever they might visit him.

Well, here was a plate of grapes from Dade's vineyard. He was about to go to Swan with the grapes when Red came into the kitchen and said, “Could it be, Papa, that it's Dade
himself
, and not rocks at all? Does a thing like that happen?”

“Yes,” the man said, “that may be it. That may be
part
of it, at any rate, Red. You want a peach before you go to sleep?”

“No, thanks, Papa.”

The man went out onto the porch, the plate of fruit in one hand, a small table in the other. He set the table down beside the woman and put the plate on it.

“Would you rather drink, Swan?”

“I'd like to get drunk.”

“O.K. We'll
look
at the fruit, then.”

He went back to the kitchen, opened a bottle, filled a silver bucket with ice from the refrigerator, got tall glasses, shaved peeling from a lemon, and filled a glass pitcher with cold water. He poured drinks on the porch, and they began to drink. He lighted a cigarette, and Swan reached for it. He gave it to her and lighted another. They drank and smoked in silence. The man sat on the railing of the porch, not directly in front of his wife but to one side. In the
silence they listened to one another, actually heard one another breathing, and then at last the woman said his name very softly. It was not whispered, it was spoken, but so softly that it might have been Eva Nazarenus herself speaking a year ago, the softest speech either of them had ever heard.