Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

Andrew watched her thin shoulders shaking inside her woollen dress. When his mother cried he felt as though his face were made of marble. He could not accept the weeping as a part of her personality. It did not appear to be the natural climax of a mood. Instead it seemed to descend upon her from somewhere far away, as if she were giving voice to the crying of a child in some distant place. For it was the crying of a creature many years younger than she, a disgrace for which he felt responsible, since it was usually because of him that she cried.

There was nothing he could say to console her because she was right. He wanted to go away, and there was nothing else he wanted at all. “It’s natural when you’re young to want to go away,” he would say to himself, but it did not help; he always felt that his own desire to escape was different from that of others. When he was in a good humor he would go about feeling that he and many others too were all going away. On such days his face was smooth and he enjoyed his life, although even then he was not communicative. More than anything he wanted all days to be like those rare free ones when he went about whistling and enjoying every simple thing he did. But he had to work hard to get such days, because of his inner conviction that his own going away was like no other going away in the world, a certainty he found it impossible to dislodge. He was right, of course, but from a very early age his life had been devoted to his struggle to rid himself of his feeling of uniqueness. With the years he was becoming more expert at travesty, so that now his mother’s crying was more destructive. Watching her cry now, he was more convinced than ever that he was not like other boys who wanted to go away. The truth bit into him harder, for seeing her he could not believe even faintly that he shared his sin with other young men. He and his mother were isolated, sharing the same disgrace, and because of this sharing, separated from one another. His life was truly miserable compared to the lives of other boys, and he knew it.

When his mother’s sobs had quieted down somewhat, his father called the waitress and asked for the check. “That’s good tomato soup,” he told her. “And ham with Hawaiian pineapple is one of my favorites, as you know.” The waitress did not answer, and the engaging expression on his face slowly faded.

They pushed their chairs back and headed for the cloakroom. When they were outside Andrew’s father suggested that they walk to the summit of the sloping lawn where some cannonballs were piled in the shape of a pyramid. “We’ll go over to the cannonballs,” he said. “Then we’ll come back.”

They struggled up the hill in the teeth of a bitterly cold wind, holding on to their hats. “This is the north, folks!” his father shouted into the gale. “It’s hard going at times, but in a hot climate no one develops.”

Andrew put his foot against one of the cannonballs. He could feel the cold iron through the sole of his shoe.

* * *

He had applied for a job in a garage, but he was inducted into the Army before he knew whether or not they had accepted his application. He loved being in the Army, and even took pleasure in the nickname which his hutmates had given him the second day after his arrival. He was called Buttonlip; because of this name he talked even less than usual. In general he hated to talk and could not imagine talking as being a natural expression of a man’s thoughts. This was not shyness, but secretiveness.

One day in the Fall he set out on a walk through the pine grove surrounding the camp. Soon he sniffed smoke and stopped walking. “Someone’s making a fire,” he said to himself. Then he continued on his way. It was dusk in the grove, but beyond, outside, the daylight was still bright. Very shortly he reached a clearing. A young soldier sat there, crouched over a fire which he was feeding with long twigs. Andrew thought he recognized him — he too was undoubtedly a recent arrival — and so his face was not altogether unfamiliar.

The boy greeted Andrew with a smile and pointed to a tree trunk that lay on the ground nearby. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m going to cook dinner. The mess sergeant gives me my stuff uncooked when I want it that way so I can come out here and make a campfire.”

Andrew had an urge to bolt from the clearing, but he seated himself stiffly on the end of the tree trunk. The boy was beautiful, with an Irish-American face and thick curly brown hair. His cheeks were blood red from the heat of the flames. Andrew looked at his face and fell in love with him. Then he could not look away.

A mess kit and a brown paper package lay on the ground. “My food is there in that brown bag,” the boy said. “I’ll give you a little piece of meat so you can see how good it tastes when it’s cooked here, out in the air. Did you go in for bonfires when you were a kid?”

“No,” said Andrew. “Too much wind,” he added, some vague memory stirring in his mind.

“There’s lots of wind,” he agreed, and Andrew was unreasonably delighted that the boy considered his remark a sensible one. “Lots of wind, but that never need stop you.” He looked up at Andrew with a bright smile. “Not if you like a fire and the outdoors. Where I worked they used to call me Outdoor Tommy. Nobody got sore.”

Andrew was so disarmed by his charm that he did not find the boy’s last statement odd until he had heard the sentence repeated several times inside his head.

“Sore?”

“Yes, sore.” He untied the string that bound his food package and set the meat on a little wire grate. “They never got sore at me,” he repeated, measuring his words. “They were a right nice bunch. Sometimes guys don’t take to it if you like something real well. They get sore. These guys didn’t get sore. Never. They saw me going off to the woods with my supper every evening, and sometimes even, one or two of them would come along. And sometimes twenty-five of us would go out with steaks. But mostly I just went by myself and they stayed back playing games in the cottages or going into town. If it had been winter I’d have stayed in the cottages more. I was never there in winter. If I had been, I might have gone out anyway. I like to make a fire in the snow.”

“Where were you?” asked Andrew.

“In a factory by a stream.” The meat was cooked, and he cut off a tiny piece for Andrew. “This is all you’re going to get. Otherwise I won’t have enough in me.”

“I’ve eaten. With the others,” said Andrew shortly.

“You’ve got to try this,” the boy insisted. “And see if you like eating it this way, cooked on the coals outdoors. Then maybe you can get on the good side of the mess sergeant and bring your food out here, too. They’re all right here. I could stay in this outfit. Just as good as I could stay back home in the hotel.”

“You live in a hotel?”

“I lived in a hotel except the summer I was in the factory.”

“Well, I’ll see you,” Andrew mumbled, walking away.

One night after he had eaten his supper he found himself wandering among the huts on the other side of the mess hall. It was Saturday night and most of the huts were dark. He was dejected, and thought of going into town and drinking beer by himself. Andrew drank only beer because he considered other forms of alcohol too expensive, although most of the other soldiers, who had less money than he, drank whiskey. As he walked along thinking of the beer he heard a voice calling to him. He looked up and saw Tommy standing in the doorway of a hut only a few feet away. They greeted each other, and Tommy motioned to him to wait. Then he went inside to get something.

Andrew leaned against a tree with his hands in his pockets. When Tommy came out he held a flat box in his hand. “Sparklers,” he said. “I bought them after the Fourth, cut-rate. It’s the best time to buy them.”