Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Maud lowered her fork. “Aren’t your ancestors foreigners, if you go way back? And what are these percentages you’ve thought up?” She gave Samuel a harassed look. Seeing that he continued to eat casually, she made an exasperated noise and attempted her food.

“Ray, please,” said Eudora, “is this dinner conversation?”

“That’s why the Farmers League is pushing to get a foot in politics,” said Ray, as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “They’re about women’s rights in the home and doctor-approved marriages and killing the influence of American morals on our country. They’re about preventing preventative medicine and—”

“You’re kidding,” said Maud. “You can’t not believe in preventative medicine.”

“Actually, I don’t believe in that either,” said Eudora.

“I don’t believe him when he says it. Don’t expect me to believe it of you, Eudora.”

Eudora furrowed her pale brow. “I don’t believe in trying to change what’s inevitable.”

“To keep alive people who would’ve died in an older society, out of some ridiculous sentimentality,” continued Ray, “is just bad government. Besides, what happened with this last miraculous heart transplant operation, the one done by this South African? They say the man won’t live another week. And the one before that, last year’s, they only managed to prolong that life an extra, what, eighteen days? It doesn’t work, and it’s a waste of money besides. These transplant surgeons are like vultures, just waiting for you to breathe your last so they can hack out your lungs and give them to some halfwit. No, ma’am, I don’t go for that. All lives have their natural endings.”

“But you do believe in trying to fight the inevitable growth of cities?” said Maud.

Ray smiled. “Urban planning and human unfitness are not the same thing.”

Samuel cleared his throat in such a bold way that Ray gave up the floor. Samuel, deep in thought, hadn’t meant to draw the group’s attention. Under their questioning eyes, he felt obligated to say something. A joke occurred to him, but he decided to speak his mind instead.

“Do you not understand it to be the other way around?” he said, his eyes wandering the room. “That perhaps it is bad social conditions that lead to this ‘low-mindedness’ you are speaking about?”

“No,” said Ray.

And with that answered, they resumed their conversation.

“But, Eudora,” said Maud, “you work with the handicapped.”

“Exactly,” said Eudora. “It’s because I work with them that I feel this way. Maud, I really think you’re misunderstanding us. I am — we both are —sympathetic to the mentally handicapped. They’re good-natured as children, just really good people who, with good training, have the possibility to be, well, good workers. I see it every week with my own eyes. What they need most are trained people who’ll help them know where they excel and where they don’t. If you shelter them and nurture them from babyhood, there’s the potential for them to keep that babyhood innocence. They need a kind of education, not mindless charity, which is like using a rag to stop a flood. But getting to the heart of the matter is a hard thing — in this way, you got to admit they can’t be treated like normal people. They’ve got to live in special homes with special staff that have the talent of helping them figure out their gifts, homes where they’re cut off from the temptations that lead to alcoholism, prostitution, hysteria, what have you. I think the government would save money running mandatory facilities, if you compare it with the cost of fixing these people’s mistakes. But Ray doesn’t agree.”

“The government just can’t afford it,” said Ray. “They should nip it in the bud before we’re overrun.” Maud challenged Ray on what he thought was a decent solution. He stared at her, chewing on a wine cork. “Enough of this,” he said. “It’s Samuel’s day. Let’s toast to him.”

Regarding each other distrustfully, they fumbled through a toast to Samuel’s success. When their glasses had been drained, and the afterward pause accomplished, they continued to eat without pleasure. It seemed the prelude to a hellish evening, with tense feelings and restrained conversation. But there is magic left in life even among adults. Whether they’d succumbed to the alcohol, or whether each had decided that life was too short to be self-righteous, they began to laugh with the ease of old friends. Maud proved surprisingly witty, and she made a series of brisk jokes. Ray, too, proved himself the family ham, entertaining them with astute animal calls during an after-dinner round of port.

“What’s this one?” he yelled, making staccato sounds from his throat.

“Rooster!” said Maud.

“I took that advice thirty-five years ago, and I still don’t have any chicks!”

Their laughter was halted when Eudora went red in the face. Maud poured her water, but Eudora waved it away, and instead a low, almost equine sound emerged from her. A laugh. Forgetting herself, Maud began to giggle.

“Three guesses who’s sleeping on the couch tonight, and the first two don’t count!” Eudora said, and the rest of them fell into laughter.

When Samuel thought he’d sobered enough to drive, the Tynes left the Frank house, feeling a little nostalgic. There had been such amity among the two couples, such a surge of kindness, that Maud had felt as natural in their company as if they’d been family. (Or, in Maud’s case, better than family.)

“What are you thinking about?” said Samuel.

He actually sounded interested, and Maud was bemused. “Why do you let Ray get away with saying such awful things?”

Confused by the humour in her voice, Samuel tried to answer with the same contradictions. “You don’t understand Ray; he’s from a different time. And largely uneducated, too. Give him time — we could be an example to him.”

Maud wasn’t listening. She watched the black trees moving by her window. “Why don’t we go for rides any more, Samuel, like we used to?” she said. When Samuel didn’t answer, Maud faced him.

His brow was furrowed. “His were strange theories. You know, it was as if he had, as if they both had, misunderstood a book that nevertheless made a great impression on them. It was as though …” He drifted into thought.

“Samuel,” Maud said tiredly.

“It was as though they did not believe that man also has in him the ability to change, to better himself. To adapt.”

Maud sighed and faced the window. Approaching their home, they noticed a light was still on in one of the upper rooms. Samuel remarked that the twins were still awake, and Maud grunted in response. The return of her coldness reminded Samuel of her betrayal in visiting the Porters. Still, he hesitated to ask her anything because he had betrayed her, too, by not mentioning Oliver Orange, and he didn’t feel like arguing about it. He admonished himself for not taking advantage of her good mood when he’d had the chance. But that was the nature of marriage, he thought solemnly, an argument that only ends with death.

The house was unconvincingly silent, as though the children, in the midst of some mischief, were holding their breath. Maud frowned at Samuel, then ascended the stairs to the twins’ door. Their light was off, but Maud could hear them shifting inside like mice in a wall. Turning the knob, she hoped they’d do a convincing enough impression of sleep so she could leave without punishing them. The hall light outlined their sleeping forms. But Maud didn’t see Ama anywhere. She opened the door all the way. Only two of four beds were filled.

“Girls?” said Maud. “Yvie, Chloe?” When they remained silent, Maud turned on the lights.