Steven Millhauser - Edwin Mullhouse - The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954

“Oh,” said Mrs. Mullhouse, looking up from her book at mama and me and removing her sunglasses. She frowned at the sunlight and smiled at us.

Behind her, in a narrow strip of soil lying along the side of the house, orange and yellow zinnias blossomed among clusters of purple-and-black pansies. A fat yellow-and-black bumblebee threw a stripeless shadow against a white shingle. At the corner made by the trellis and the row of flowers lay a pale green tasseled cushion, on top of which sat a red-handled tool with three curved silver prongs; beside the cushion lay a pair of stiff gardening gloves, one of which lay on its back with the fingers curled as if to receive an orange. Behind the table was an empty white chair, gleaming in the bright sunlight. To the right of the table was an empty green chair, shining as if wet.

“I can’t stay more than a sec,” said mama, “but as I was telling Jeffy I just had to come out, it’s too nice for dishes. I saw such a lovely dishwasher the other day but actually they say they’re more trouble than they’re worth. You’ve done worlds with this place, Hel, I can’t get over it. It’s really so lovely, all the roses. Oooooooh, look at the big bad bumblebee, look Jeffy, see? Where’s Edward?”

“Ed win ,” said Mrs. Mullhouse.

“Did I say Ed ward? Isn’t that funny! — it just comes out that way every once in a blue moon or so. I think Ed win but I say Ed ward, there’s probably some psychological reason.”

“I guess if you just called him plain old Ed. But I don’t know, Ed, Ed, somehow it’s just not Edwin. Oh please sit down and stay. Hi, Jeff, my you’re looking — oh don’t!”

Mama had stepped to the shiny green chair and placed her hands on the sloping back in preparation for pulling it out from the table. At Mrs. Mullhouse’s cry she yanked her hands away and looked at them. Mrs. Mullhouse burst into laughter. “It’s not wet, it’s just that — Edwin, come out of there. Edwin.” Placing one hand by the side of her mouth she whispered: “It’s his choo-choo.” We all looked at the choo-choo chair. The space under the side of the seat was covered by a wide strip of wood, raised about two inches from the ground; underneath, toward the back, I thought I saw a little pink fist. From where I was standing I could not see under the front part of the seat, but I saw that Mrs. Mullhouse’s chair was unboarded in front. “Edwin,” she said, “Jeff’s here. Come on out, Edwin. Edwin!” She rose, placing her book on the seat but keeping hold of her sunglasses, and walked around the table past the trellis of roses to the choo-choo. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, and said through the slatted seat: “Edwin, listen to mommy. Come out, Edwin.” She was answered only by a rustling sound, as if she were speaking to a snake. I thought I could make out a little white shoe. Mrs. Mullhouse fell to her haunches, and gripping the chairarm with one hand she tipped her head to the side and peered under the front of the seat. “Edwin, come on out now, honey. Come on, Edwin. Edwin! Bad boy! Bad, bad boy!” She stood up, flushed and frowning. “Can you give me a hand? I’d like to get him out of there.” She put on the sunglasses. “Let’s lift, okay? But slowly.” Mama and Mrs. Mullhouse each gripped the back and an arm; taking deep breaths they began to lift the heavy chair slowly from its cushion of grass. As the legs rose I saw, from left to right, a white shoe, a knee in red corduroy, a bare elbow, a hand, a bit of hair. As the chair rose higher I saw the complete shoe, resting on its toe and sloping upward from toe to heel, I saw the line of the red corduroys change from horizontal to vertical and curve around a little buttock, I saw a stripe of pale belly followed by a t-shirt in blue and red stripes, and a silky gleam of brown hair over a pale face buried in the grass and half hidden by a hand. He seemed to be peering into the earth, shading his eyes. Perhaps he was looking for China. “Higher!” gasped Mrs. Mullhouse. “This way! Oy! Careful!” Taking little abrupt shuffling steps, they moved the chair slowly toward the garage, carrying its angular shadow with them and leaving behind the naked lawn with Edwin crouching there. When Mrs. Mullhouse saw his head she nodded at mama and they lowered the chair. “Edwin!” said Mrs. Mullhouse, but he remained motionless; she walked over and stood looking down at him, hands on hips. Mama stepped over, and I came toddling up. “He’s just shy,” said mama. Mrs. Mullhouse said: “He’s a baaaad boy.” Edwin said nothing. I said: “Dad doy, dad doy.” Edwin’s head turned slightly; an eye flashed over the hand, and was gone. “I don’t know what’s the matter with him,” said Mrs. Mullhouse. “What a cute outfit,” said mama. “Dad doy,” I said. “Oh well,” said Mrs. Mullhouse, “oopsy daisy”; and bending over she reached down to Edwin. He gave a sudden jerk, and snapping up his head he crawled furiously forward and disappeared under the chair. “Oh Edwin!” cried Mrs. Mullhouse, clapping her hands in exasperation. Mama tried to soothe her: “It’s all right, Jeffy was like that too.” “But he’s not like that!” insisted Mrs. Mullhouse. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s been so withdrawn lately. He was making such progress. You know, he hasn’t made one single sound for two whole weeks. I really don’t know what to think.” Meanwhile I had ambled over to the chair and was peeking under. “Dad doy,” I said. “Oh Jeff, stop that,” said mama, and in another tone: “He’s just learning to make phrases, it’s so exciting.” “Edwin can say ‘too-too,’ “said Mrs. Mullhouse, “which means choo-choo; but,” she added sadly, “Abe says it’s not really talking.” “Jeff can sing ‘O Susannah.’ ” “Edwin can hum.” As they talked they seemed to forget Edwin, who was in the process of turning around under his too-too. As Mrs. Mullhouse was saying “Abe says it’s foolish to worry about talking when he’s only just learning to walk, but he was making such progress,” Edwin peeped out from under the front seat. I was struck, as always, by his large dark eyes and the extreme pallor of his skin — a pallor that was not unhealthy, as it later became, for the cheeks were rosy. He looked up and said loudly: “Dadoy.” Mrs. Mullhouse broke off in the middle of a word. She took off her sunglasses. “Dadoy,” said Edwin. “Did you hear that!” cried Mrs. Mullhouse. “He’s talking!” “Dadoy,” said Edwin. “Oh thank you!” cried Mrs. Mullhouse, addressing either me or God; her eyes were moist. “Dadoy!” cried Edwin. “Dadoy! Dadoy! Dadoy!”

IN THE BEGINNING WAS SILENCE, womb of all words which all words seek, mother of these: breath of my life. How or when the first word sprang thence hither, I’ll never know, nor why. Does it really matter? Perhaps sound is only an insanity of silence, a mad gibber of empty space grown fearful of listening to itself and hearing nothing. Thus are we madmen all. Or perhaps we are silence talking in her sleep, perhaps we are a long nightmare of silence as she thrashes in torment on her downy bed. And when she wakes? Idle speculations of an eleven-year-old soul, brooding on whence and whither. Edwin once agreed with me that the ideal order of words on a page creates in the ideal reader an ideal silence; thus words regain their mother; and all the shrill noises of adulation are nothing to an artist but evidences of his imperfection.

Mrs. Mullhouse’s thanks proved premature. Edwin seemed content to play with his noises and showed no interest whatever in attaching meanings to them (quite a different game). As Indian summer passed into the ragged end of autumn Mrs. Mullhouse began to look a bit ragged herself. “Spoon,” she would say. “Spoon. Spoooooooooon.” “Pooooo,” Edwin would reply, grinning hugely and flapping his hands; and reaching for the shiny spoon he would put it in his mouth, close his eyes, and pretend he was a silverware drawer. I, to her dismay, was making extraordinary progress. At eighteen months I had a vocabulary of over five hundred words, and by the time of my second birthday (February 1945; Edwin gave me a rubber snowman) I knew over one thousand words and was speaking in ten-word sentences. In February 1945 Edwin was eighteen months old and had an active vocabulary of three words: mama, dada, and dead (a version of his name). He alternated brief bouts of delighted babbling with long fits of absolute silence; both affected Mrs. Mullhouse as if she were witnessing in her eighteen-month-old child the remorseless onset of senility: Babbling summoned up in her mind images of toothless old women in peeling rooms; silence to her was a form of insanity. For the rest of her son’s brief life she would be plagued by his love of silence, never understanding that it was intimately related to his love of sound; for silence is to sound as the whiteness of pages is to the blackness of words: tempters both, though whether to hell or heaven no man knows.