John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

“It makes me naushus when we eat in fancy restaurants,” Elaine said. “When I was little I used to throw up. Sometimes I still do. You know what I mean?”

“It’s all right,” Craine said, trying to calm her.

“All right? Are you crazy?”

At first he misheard her in all the noise, but then he got it. “I mean you don’t need to be nervous. It’s all right.” He had his whiskey in the booth seat beside him. He’d decided it was better not to leave it in the truck. He resisted the temptation now to pour himself a shot, concentrating instead on finishing off his toast. He was not a big breakfast man. Even the toast went down heavy as remorse.

Tentatively the girl poked hashbrowns into her mouth. “So we sit there with these fountains all around us, the place is practically dark, and these waiters in black standing over us like buzzards, listening to every word we say but not showing it, faces just like wax, you know? — and every time my mother gets a cigarette out, or my father — they both smoke like maniacs, trying to kill themselves, it’s the truth, they really are — there’s the waiter’s silver lighter.”

Fork upside down, she trapped the last of the hashbrowns and raised them to her mouth. Her eyes were large now, and not only because of the magnification of her lenses.

“ ‘Elaine, we just don’t understand,’ my mother says. As if right from the beginning it was all in my head. It was their idea I should hire a detective. ‘We’re not so poor we can’t afford a little safety,’ says my mother. ‘To your father and I there is nothing in this world more important than your welfare.’ She calls up Uncle Phil, he’s not really my uncle, he’s a lawyer, she thinks he knows everything. He’s a member of my father’s camera club and sometimes he and his wife and my mother and father play bridge. He asks around, these people he knows there, detectives or something, and he tells my mother, ‘There’s a man down in Carbondale named Gerald Craine. I’m told he’s the best.’ I was suspicious right away. I mean, people talk, and you’re sort of a local character, you know what I mean? But what am I supposed to do? Who am I gonna ask? You don’t know how hard it is for a person to make friends in a place like this. The people in my classes, well — I’m Jewish, for one thing. It gives you an unfair intellectual advantage, and they hate you, it’s a well-known fact. They hardly even look at you, the kids in my classes, and if you raise your hand and answer a question they look disgusted. I do it anyway, because you have to get an education or you’re a victim all your life, especially if you’re a woman.” She looked down, frowning as if she’d glimpsed the image leaping up in Craine’s mind, not that she possibly could, he supposed — an image of Elaine Glass sullenly leaving the classroom, notebook and textbooks clamped to her chest, head thrown forward, chin lifted, eyes lowered, avoiding whatever looks her classmates gave her, whether mocking, friendly, or utterly oblivious, poor sad alien child darkly wrapped to the eyes in defensive righteousness. She wrung her hands. “I forgot what I was saying,” she said.

He closed his fingers around the bottle but again changed his mind. “You were suspicious when your family’s friend suggested me,” he prompted. He tried to catch their waitress’s eye to ask for coffee. She saw him but coolly looked away.

Elaine Glass nodded, less embarrassed now. “Right. That’s right. So I went and got the cashier’s check—” She glanced up at him. “It’s not true that I spied on your agency for weeks, but it is true that after I’d mailed you the check—”

Craine smiled, touched by her earnestness. “I know. It’s all right. Go on.”

She nodded her head up and down like an eager student, running her fork around and around the plate though there was nothing left but grease and maybe two bits of egg the size of rice gains. “I was scared, that’s all. I was afraid you’d — I don’t know. You hear stories, especially a woman living all alone the way I do.” She said woman as if she’d learned to call herself that only recently.

“So anyway,” Craine said, helping her again, “Hannah called your parents and they came down.”

She nodded again, guilty. “And they took me to the Gardens, like it was my birthday or something. ‘Your father is very concerned about you,’ my mother says. There he sits, cutting his meat in little pieces — he has trouble with his teeth — and every now and then he takes a peek at his watch. He has to get back, can’t even wait till morning. Big contract in the works. My mother’s gonna have to drive so he can sleep; they have the Cadillac. But he’s very concerned, right? Right.” Quickly she forced herself to soften the tone, but only for a moment, her anger too much for her. “I don’t know, maybe he is. Anyway this is her business, not his. The woman is the homemaker, husband’s supposed to take care of the prayers and credit cards. ‘Your father is very very concerned, Elaine. Look at him, he hasn’t been able to eat since he heard.’ He’s been eyeing my wine all night just in case I don’t drink it all. All the waiters stand around listening, and the people at the tables around us keep glancing over, you know, annoyed at us. They all have blue eyes. It really makes me physically ill. ‘Listen, Elaine,’ my mother says — she puts on this expression, making sure I won’t shriek at her—‘your father and I believe you should find yourself a good analyst down here, someone you can see on a more regular basis. Maybe Dr. Metzger can recommend someone.’ He’s my shrink at home. ‘It’s a university,’ says my mother. ‘They must have good analysts. Are there Jews on the faculty?’ I want to scream, I’m so embarrassed. ‘Ma,’ I want to say, ‘I’m not crazy.’ What I really want to do is get out of there, make them bring me home. Home to Evanston, I mean, the place where we lived before we moved, the place I told you about, where I saw—” She broke off abruptly and glanced at Craine, then away, nervously running her tongue around her lips.

“The place where you witnessed the murder?” Craine asked.

She nodded, swallowing. “Not the murder itself, actually. But I did see the murderer running away. He had on these satiny blue and white gym clothes, and short, brown hair, a sort of crew cut. The way he jumped the hedge, he was like a hurdler.”

Her hand was trembling. Craine studied it, then glanced at his own, trembling too, presumably not for the same reason. He got out his pipe and tobacco. “You told the police that?”

“I phoned in an anonymous tip. I was afraid, you know what I mean?”

“You did the right thing. It’s all right.” He patted his pockets for matches. “You saw his face?”

She shook her head, looking down.

“But the person you see following you now is the same one, that much you’re sure of.”

Elaine Glass nodded, but hesitantly. Perhaps only now had she begun to have doubts. When she raised her head there were tears in her eyes. Craine started, thought of touching her hand, then thought better of it. The waitress came hurrying toward their booth, carrying a tray, and he raised his hand, beckoning, but she ignored him. He was secretly glad. He found his matches, struck one, lit his pipe, and took a puff or two. Casually he drew his bottle from the paper sack on the seat beside him and poured two, three fingers of it into his emptied water glass. He saluted Elaine — she was looking away, trying to see the clock, or trying to hide from him the fact that her long, agile fingers, quick as bird’s wings, were brushing away tears — and taking advantage of her distraction, he drained the glass. Then, gently, giving her no excuse for anger, Craine asked, “You have boyfriends, Elaine?” At once he added, to mislead her, “Someone you could call if—”