Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“My soul,” she exclaimed, “I don’t eat two eggs. You’d think I could walk ten miles! I’m not going to feed up legs like this that won’t even heave theirselves to the other side of the bed.”

But she began to eat.

“Good?” said Joan, watching her, smiling.

“The toast’s a mite brown,” said Mrs. Mark. She drank a little coffee. “You’re not going away?”

“No,” said Joan, “not if you will let me stay.”

“Coffee’s a mite strong,” said Mrs. Mark, gulping it. “It makes my eyes water — I’m not used to it.” Deep in her eyes were scanty tears.

“I’ll get some hot water to thin it,” said Joan gently.

It was not possible in this quiet free house to keep from telling Mrs. Mark everything.

She told her about Rose. “Rose is dead — my little sister.”

“Don’t tell me!” said Mrs. Mark. “That little thing! She pestered me so trying to be good to me, reading to me when I wanted to go to sleep — Oh, dear,” she sighed, “and why should she die, a little kind-meaning young thing, and me like this?”

“She died far away in a city near Tibet — a Chinese city. I’m to have her two children. It’s all I can do for her.”

“What for?” said Mrs. Mark. “You’re being put upon. That Winters woman’s got a great big house and Winters has the store, and you have nothing.”

“I want Rose’s children,” said Joan.

“How are you going to take care of them?”

“I’ll find some way.”

Mrs. Mark lay silent for a moment regarding her, her small black eyes winking lidlessly like a bird’s eyes. She grunted at last. “Well, you’re big enough to do what you want. I reckon nobody will gainsay a great thing like you — scared of you — I am myself. I didn’t want those two eggs. But I was scared not to eat them before you.”

She laughed a dry wheeze of laughter, and Joan let out her own great laugh and was startled by it. She had not laughed recklessly like that since before her mother died. Then she was shy, having laughed so loudly. They were talking about Rose and it was strange laughter. But there was some odd happiness is her, mixed with sorrow. Paul was standing by her knees, his head leaning against her. He raised his head a little and she remembered him.

“I believe he’s really trying to walk alone,” she said eagerly. They watched him, and laughter died between them. She said sadly, “But I don’t believe he even knows me — see — Paul, Paul — Paul?”

But Mrs. Mark continued to stare steadily at Paul, watching him. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You know him, don’t you? The value of him you’ve got — giving birth, feeding, tending. I think of that a lot with my dead girl. I birthed her and tended her. It was a life, though she died. Paul’s life is a life, too, one kind of a life.”

“Bart’s mother wanted me to put him away somewhere,” Joan said. Little by little all the bitterness was seeping out of her into words now.

“You can’t ever put him away anywhere,” said Mrs. Mark. “That’s what folks don’t understand. Putting his body away wouldn’t help. You can’t put your child away from your heart. Besides, you don’t want to miss everything of him just because you haven’t all of him. He’s got his own ways. He’s Paul. Don’t measure him by other people. Just take him as he is. If he talks, those few words he’ll say will mean more to you than anybody’s.”

She listened, drinking in the short words. Nobody had ever talked with her about Paul. It was a comfort to talk about him at last. A mother wanted to talk about her child. She had always shrunk from talking before the few she knew. She heard women in a store talking: “Johnnie’s walking now — pulling himself up by anything.” “My Mary Ellen starts school in the fall—” “Polly’s first in her grade this month—” And by such words she was tortured. She held herself away from all mothers of children. Now through the morning she sat holding Paul, talking to Mrs. Mark about him, playing with his fingers, with his golden curls, weeping sometimes.

“Go on and cry,” said Mrs. Mark calmly. “I used to cry. You pass the need, after a while. You can’t keep it up.”

She pointed out to Mrs. Mark the lovely perfection of his body, the shape of his head, the set on his shoulders, the sweetness of his flickering smile.

“I suppose it all makes no difference really,” she said sadly.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Mark. “It makes a difference to you, doesn’t it? He’s a handsome child, and be thankful he is. You get more fun out of tending him anyway than if he was homely. In the smallest drawer under my bed there’s a little black money box, locked. Here’s the key.” She dragged up a string from her bosom. “I want you to buy a bed. You could have this one almost any day — I’ll be done with it and soon. Still, I don’t want to feel people are waiting for the bed I die in.”

“Oh, no!” cried Joan. “I don’t want you to give me anything.”

“I’m not giving you anything,” said Mrs. Mark irritably. “I’m making it so you can stay and take care of me while I finish dying. Don’t be an interruption. I didn’t pray God to have you come. I wouldn’t demean myself to pray after what’s happened to me. The politest thing I can do about God now is to say there isn’t any under the circumstances. But I’m mortal glad not to die alone.”

“There’s Rose’s children to come,” said Joan.

“Pack them in if that Winters woman won’t have them,” said Mrs. Mark, closing her eyes, “There’s a room finished off in the garret. I was going to fix my girl a room there and Mr. Mark died that winter and she stayed with me. That Winters woman — well, she’s a Christian, isn’t she? Get along, Joan, I’m tired.” She opened her eyes as Joan tiptoed away. “If that Bart Pounder comes around don’t pay any attention to him. Fire and clay don’t mix, and all the stirring in the world won’t mix them. Get along now, for mercy’s sake! I’m worn out.”

In Bart’s house where she had never belonged, everything had been a burden. To be free had seemed impossible, to write to Roger Bair would have been a task beyond her power to do. She lived submerged and overcome. Now by the simple processes of this small house wherein she was free, by the approval of this one old dying woman, by the desperate simplicity of crude sorrow, she thought easily, Why should I not write to Roger Bair? While Mrs. Mark slept and when she had made the house neat, she took Paul out into a sunny corner behind the house and set him in a nest of dried leaves and stretched herself beside him and planned the letter. It need only be very short. She could speak directly to him if ever they came to speech. She could write directly. She would begin, “Dear Roger Bair. …”

She lay in the warm sun, dreaming. It was so easy to think of him here. When she had thought of him in that house it was a hopeless thought. So might a mole think of a bird, so might a bird think of a star. When she remembered him, the thought of him fell back, like an arrow blunted and stopped too soon of its aim. But today, in the free loneliness, in this joyful loneliness, she saw him very clearly. Of course he was the one who could help her. She felt him instant and warm to help her. They had known each other that day without waiting. She would write and he would answer.

The day was full of the certainty. She lay with her face turned to the sun, her eyes closed that she might see inward the more clearly and remember him. Soon she would get up and write the letter. She put off the writing, planning. It would be sweet to take the pen and make the words, “Dear Roger Bair.” Then she would write, “You have helped Francis so much, and now I need help too. I remember you.” Or she might write … She paused, dreaming, and without knowing it, was swept on into warm dreaming sleep.