Damon Knight - Orbit 18

On her way to the bus, she couldn’t resist pausing by the abandoned factory where the path used to lead over the hill and down along the river to the falls. It was all grown over now, and she couldn’t remember exactly where it used to be. For a moment she caught her reflection in a cracked windowpane. It showed up clearly against the darkness inside. Was this the frail old woman that Reese had seen when he looked across his desk?

“Marge, where’s the stuff from the cleaners?” Emma came into the kitchen.

“The what?”

“My raincoat, your . . . you forgot.”

“I’m sorry.” She dried the last dish and sat down. Now was the time when she would normally be preparing the next day’s lessons.

“That’s nice, and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”

She could make some tea and read.

“Marge?”

“Hmm?”

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t looked well all evening.” Emma felt her head.

Margaret got up. “I’m at least ten years older than you are and I won’t have you treating me like a child.”

As she hurried upstairs, Emma shouted behind her, “Then don’t act like one.”

Her briefcase waited on the desk.

“We hadn’t planned to give you such short notice, it just worked out that way.” He had spoken softly, so reasonably. “And it’s not as if you needed the time to look for another job.”

“I should at least be given a day to warn my students of the change and to say goodbye.”

“Mrs. Lockwood, I know that your students will miss you, but children really are pretty flexible that way, aren’t they?”

“Marge, your briefcase.”

Halfway down the walk, she turned. Emma was standing in the doorway, holding her briefcase. For a moment the scene seemed to freeze and Margaret saw her sister-in-law and their house from the stiff perspective of a photograph. It was an impersonal image of age. But maybe a new coat of paint and . . . ?

Emma handed her the case. “Your knee looks swollen.”

“It’s not so bad today.”

“You shouldn’t be running around from house to house. Why don’t you tell them that if they won’t give you a classroom job, you’ll quit.”

And now she should tell her what she had been putting off all night and still felt reluctant to say. Afraid that Emma, who loved but could not understand her, would be glad. Or perhaps it was the inevitable questions that would follow. Margaret took the briefcase and waved goodbye.

The bus left her off near the bottom of the hill and she climbed slowly, not wanting to push her leg. Acrid dye fumes rose up along the river, tainting the clear October air. As she approached the top she could hear the roar of the falls. In the early-morning light, the rainbow wasn’t visible from the road. Suddenly remembering, she stopped and tried to concentrate on the spot that would have been beneath the bow. After a moment she could see them. The vague, shapeless, shifting colors that couldn’t be an afterimage or a prismatic effect, not when they continued to exist with the sun at an entirely different angle. Yet it must be some trick of the eye. It seemed to her that they moved more quickly as she watched. Someone asked her a question and she turned, but no one was there. And she couldn’t remember actually having discerned any words. Perhaps it was the white noise of the falls, like thinking that one has heard one’s name called while running a vacuum cleaner. The ocean at Asbury Park. A sudden, vivid image disconnected from any other thought. She could feel the icy water, taste the salt, smell the vague fishiness of the shore. Sand was running down beneath her toes. Paul grinned like a child, spray glistening on his mustache and his coarse brown hair. This was their honeymoon. They took each other’s hand and ran.

Margaret turned away quickly. Her husband had died thirty years ago, and her first student would be waiting.

Past the falls she shivered once. It had seemed so real, almost like a hallucination. A long time ago, she had read something somewhere about stress bringing on senile dementia. No, she would not go that way. She would not.

“Well, hello.” The hall outside smelled of urine, but as usual, the small apartment was clean and neat. “We weren’t expecting to see you so early.” Margaret sat on the couch, her usual place, while Mrs. Shepard brought over the TV table. “Mae is in the kitchen finishing lunch. She’ll come out in a minute.” But Mae was already at the door, smiling shyly.

“Teacher?”

“Hello, Mae. I had to come early today, but I can wait for you to finish your lunch if you . . .”

Mae disappeared into the kitchen, came out a moment later with her notebook and a wide tipped felt pen. Sitting next to her on the couch, Margaret thought how small this nine-year-old was. It made her want to put her arm around her protectively. But when Mae’s infection was at its worst, Margaret had seen her bear up under what must have been excruciating pain without a whimper. And although she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, Margaret suspected that Mae knew something that a seventy-five-year-old woman was only beginning to learn.

The girl opened her notebook and placed it on the table. Mrs. Shepard got up. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“No, please wait. There’s something I have to say to both of you.”

Of all the goodbyes, this was the hardest. And yet she suspected that it might have been for this goodbye that she made the others. After she and Mrs. Shepard had each said the proper things, there was an awkward silence. For the first time in two years, Margaret felt a stranger in this house. She found herself afraid to look directly at Mae, who had said nothing at all.

Finally Mrs. Shepard looked at her watch. “They’ll be expecting me back at work.” It was almost a question. Margaret got up.

“You can stay if you like. Mae will let you out.”

“No, I’d better be going. The other teacher could be here any time.”

“Then we can walk together as far as Goodwear’s.”

Suddenly Mae was beside them. “Can I come?”

“No, honey. Who would walk you back?”

“I can find my way.”

“After you have glasses.”

“Just to the end of the block?”

“No, and don’t you keep starting this business. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

As they walked out, Margaret heard the door lock behind them.

“Do you know yet when she’ll be getting her glasses?”

“Soon, I think. But I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know those doctors. It’s hard to get them to say what they mean. First they tell me that the operation worked, now they say she’s not healing the way she should. So I don’t know when she’ll get them. It may even be the glasses won’t do her any good.”

“Have you talked to Mr. Reese about getting her into a Special Class?”

“I don’t think they know exactly which class she belongs in yet.”

“Listen, it’s been two years now. If you bother Mr. Reese often enough, he’ll find a place for her. And if it turns out to be the wrong one, she can always be moved later on.”

They stopped in front of Goodwear’s. “Well, I think she’s best off at home for now.” And there it was, the cold note in her voice, her head half turned toward Goodwear’s as if it were mere haste that cut off the unwanted words.

“Mrs. Shepard . . .”

“I’m sorry, I can’t be late. Hey, you come visit us sometime now, will you?”

She walked past the falls on the other side of the road. There was a 1:25 bus to catch and no time for gawking. But then she remembered Emma. It would be better to come home at the usual time and tell her it was today that she had been fired than to admit that she had kept it a secret.