William Saroyan - The Laughing Matter

“It is right,” the boy said in the language, but still did not turn. “What’s that mean, Dade?” he said in English. “That you said so many times?”

“It means, It is right,” Dade said. “It is right. Say it again.”

The boy said the words in the language again, then in English, “It is right? Is that what it means?”

“Yes,” Dade said. “Now, you’ve got that . You say it perfectly. Your father will teach you other things to say, too.”

The boy turned to his father.

“Will you, Papa?”

“Yes, Red,” Evan said. “Yes, I will.”

“I want to talk the way you and Dade talk,” Red said.

“Your father will teach you,” Dade said.

“It might take a long time,” Red said to his father.

“I know,” Evan said.

“Will you?”

“Yes, Red.”

They began to walk, the boy between them. Suddenly Dade lifted the boy in his arms, laughing, and hugged him until Red was laughing, too. Dade said the words, and then Red said them, and then at last Evan Nazarenus said them, too.

“It is right,” they all said in the language.

On the way back to Clovis the boy said, “The smell of rocks in the house is from Dade. I wasn’t sure until you and Dade came out where I was standing. Inside, I thought it might be from the marble floor there, not from Dade, but it was still there when he came outside. Dade smells like rocks. Eva smells like hay and honey and some other things, only I don’t know what they are. Flora Walz smells like cold water and green leaves.”

“Do you like Flora?” Evan said.

“Well, I really like her,” Red said. “I like Fay and Fanny, too, but I really like Flora.”

“Why?”

Evan wanted to know. Why did his son like Flora? Why did Evan like Swan? Why had he believed that of all the women in the world Swan was the one who was his woman, by whom he would have sons and daughters, with whom he would be decently resigned to the meaninglessness of life? Why did he still like Swan?

“I like her,” Red said, “because she makes me feel good.”

“How?” the man said. “How does she make you feel good?”

How had Swan made him feel good? How had she made him feel amused and glad about being involved in an absurd and painful experience. How had she done it?

“Well, Papa,” Red said, “she likes me, and that’s what makes me feel good. I mean, it makes me feel good to know a girl like Flora likes me. I never saw a girl like Flora before.”

“Is she different?”

“She’s different from every girl I ever saw.”

“How is she different?”

“Well, she is pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is.”

“A lot of girls aren’t,” Red said. “And then the way she talks makes me laugh. I mean, the way her mouth moves, and the sound of her voice. Then, the things she says are so different from what other girls say.”

“What does she say?”

“Oh, she says different things,” Red said. “I forget, but she says them as if she understood them. But most of all, she’s different because she likes me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Red said, “but I think she likes me.”

Was he sure Swan had ever loved him? Wasn’t it a theory? Didn’t it happen that he felt she loved him because he felt he loved her, each of them never actually sure of the other, though, each of them guessing, or working on the probability that the theory was a valid one? Hadn’t he come to believe she loved him because they had been able to talk to one another gladly, to look at one another and notice identical desires? But might not these identical desires have occurred in each of them in relation to others? Of course they might have. Then, what was it that more nearly definitely established that they loved one another? Was it not their believing it was a thing to prolong indefinitely, forever, with sons and daughters coming forward out of it, as Red and Eva had come out of it? Wasn’t that the thing that had made their love—made something— definite and meaningful?

“Would you be unhappy if Flora didn’t really like you?” the man said. “Or if she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she might happen to meet? Would that make you unhappy?”

“Who is the other boy?” Red said.

The man laughed, actually burst into laughter, for the question was the kind he himself, at forty-four, might ask under similar circumstances.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “Any boy, any other boy. If she liked you no more than she liked any other boy she happened to meet or know, would that make you unhappy?”

“Well, I wouldn’t like it,” Red said. “Does she like another boy? Do you know, Papa?”

“No, I don’t know,” the man said. “I was just wondering if it would make you unhappy, that’s all.”

“Well, it would,” Red said. “If she’s my favorite—and she is —I want to be her favorite. I don’t want her to be my favorite, and have a favorite of her own.”

“Suppose you were her favorite,” the man said, “but still she liked other boys, too?”

“How could she do that?”

“I don’t know, but suppose it happened? Suppose it were true?”

“I wouldn’t want a favorite like that.”

“No, perhaps not, but suppose she was still your favorite, even though you knew she liked other boys, would that make you unhappy?”

“Very unhappy,” Red said, “because I want my favorite to like me the way I like her.”

“Why do you want that, Red?”

“I don’t know,” Red said. “I just want it. Before we go back to Palo Alto I’m going to tell her she’s my favorite, and I’m going to ask her if I’m her favorite. If she is, then when we come to Dade’s house for another visit, I’m going to go to her house alone, to see her, because she is my favorite.”

“Alone?”

“Yes,” Red said. He waited a moment, then said, “She said her father hates her mother. She said her mother hates her father. Why do they hate each other? They’re Flora’s father and mother. How can they hate each other?”

“Well,” the man said, “she may be mistaken. Maybe they fight—a husband and a wife fight—a father and a mother fight—a man and a woman fight—even a boy and a girl fight—and when they do I suppose they hate something in each other, but that doesn’t mean they don’t go right on loving each other, too. That doesn’t mean they don’t love a great deal more in each other than they hate.”

“I don’t like hating,” Red said.

“Why?”

“I don’t like it. There’s something the matter with it. Why do people hate?”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “I don’t know why they hate. Why do they?”

“I think it’s because they’re scared,” the boy said. “I don’t know what they’re scared of, but they’re scared of something. I was scared of Milton Schweitzer. I don’t know why.”

“People do scare you,” the man said. “Some people do scare you.”

He glanced at his watch when the car drew up and stopped where it had been. He had been gone about two hours, and it was almost half-past eleven. Everything seemed about the same, except that May Walz had Flora in her arms, the girl apparently asleep. Red went straight to the girl and looked at her. She opened her eyes, sat up, then got off her mother’s lap.

Evan Nazarenus greeted everyone quickly, poured fresh drinks for those who needed or wanted them, poured himself one, then went into the house. He found Eva asleep on top of her bed. He sat on the bed beside her, drinking because he needed the drink badly.