John Gardner - October Light

Perhaps all Vermonters were inclined to be pessimists, but the painter had not only expected the worst, he’d brooded on it. “The country’s ill,” he’d said one time, sitting on the porch at Pelham’s place, James Page standing below him with a glass of ice-tea. (James had come to Pelham’s delivering wood, and Mrs. Pelham had asked him if he’d mind a little tea.) “The country’s ill,” the man had said. “Christianity’s ill. Sometimes I feel a little shaggy myself.” They’d all laughed, including the painter. But a few minutes later, getting into his truck, James had looked at the tall, skinny artist, and he’d understood by the expression on the man’s face in repose that he’d been dead serious, at least about the country and Christianity: that for all his easy ways, his security in this safe, sunlit village in Vermont where they were still in the nineteenth century, he was worried, smoking day and night just like Ginny, and now and then frowning the way Ginny would sometimes do when she wasn’t aware you were watching her. The man had painted as if he had a devil in him, so people said that knew him, sitting or standing there legs akimbo, straight pipe clenched in his long, yellow teeth, small blue eyes glittering. Painted as if his pictures might check the decay — decay that, in those days, most people hadn’t yet glimpsed.

“Tell me the story about the parson,” Dickey said.

James turned, eyebrows lowered, shifting his gaze reluctantly from his daughter’s face. “Parthon?”

Dickey nodded. He had his hands in his lap, as if making a point, for James’ benefit, of his excellent behavior. “You know,” he said, “The one about Parson Dewey and the hero.”

“Ah!” James said. “That parthon.” He sat back a little, to give the story proper weight. “On the Thunday right after the battle of Fort Ticonderoga, when Ethan Allen hit the Redcoath from behind, thneakin up on ’em by climbing a cliff and dragging up hith cannonth — an impothable feat, moth people will agree — and that thon-of-a-gun hunk of rock Ethan Allen did it drunk —Jede-diah Dewey wath thaying a long prayer in the pulpit, thanking God for the victory at Fort Ticonderoga, and giving God all the credit for it. Ethan Allen couldn’t thtand it, and finally he jumped up — all thix-foot-thix of him — and thouted to the minithter, ‘Parthon Dewey! Parthon Dewey!’ Three timeth he thouted it. ‘Parthon Dewey!’ he thouted. Jedediah blinked and come out of his tranth and thaid, ‘Thir?’ Ethan Allen thaid, ‘Would ye pleath mention to the Lord about my being there?’”

Dickey laughed, as usual — possibly, James knew, as a kindness.

“Is that story s’posed to be true?” Lewis said.

“Everythin they tell about Ethan Allen ith true,” James said. “Thath what maketh a hero.”

6

The old woman came out of her room for many reasons, the least of which was that, in a technical sense, at least, she won the war. In fact, she hardly noticed the victory when it came. James had come up to use the bathroom — Lewis was in the hallway, painting, and her door was unlocked, because Lewis said he couldn’t finish scraping if she wouldn’t please open it — and James, after he was finished in the bathroom, came over and said: “Ed Thomath tellth me TV ith a wonderful invention, around electhion time. I hadn’t thought of that. — Heeth not too well, by the way. Himthelf, he don’t think he’ll pull through.”

“What?” she said, alarmed, opening the door more and looking at his face.

“He lookth bad, truth of it.”

She cocked her head out to look at Lewis. “He took a turn for the worse?” She brought her hands up to her heart.

Lewis kept his eye on the paintbrush. He was painting the doorframe shiny white; hadn’t even asked her what color she’d prefer. But despite her irritation she returned her mind to Ed, and to poor Ruth. Lewis said, “He’s awful pale, looks to me. Weak as a kitten.”

Before she knew it, she was out in the hall. “Poor Ruth,” she said. She remembered vividly, for the thousandth time, how she’d wept and wept, that terrible Halloween twenty years ago, half in fear, half from loss. She’d found him sitting in his chair, still warm, his record caught in a groove — it was that that had made her come in. She found herself speaking of it, looking at James, at the same time seeing Ruth in her mind’s eye. “I remember how it was when Horace died. I thought I’d die myself, of crying. At least, with Ruth, there’ll be no mystery to it, nothing to be afraid of.”

“Mythtery?” he asked blankly.

“The door was open, you remember,” she said. “That may have had nothing to do with it, he may have just then given some child his treat — it happened on Halloween — and before he got the door closed, he had his attack. But I kept thinking at the time — I sometimes think now …”

James was squinting, waiting as if alarmed.

“I keep thinking, what if he’d just seen something — or someone — and whatever it was meant to frighten him, and gave him that heart attack. They must have known, if that’s what happened, but they ran, let him stagger over to his chair and … A child, I suppose. But how could a child—” She broke off, looking at him. “What, James?”

The old man was twitching, feeling his chin with his fingertips, one muscle ticking rapidly in his cheek as if some control had snapped. Now the side of his neck began to throb as if his heart had sped up, and there was something around his face, or for an instant so it seemed, a dark light.

Lewis came nearer, watching from behind her shoulder.

James said, turning away to the right as if unaware he was doing it, beginning a slow, complete circle, “You never told me the door wath open.”

“I told the police.” A shiver went up her back, and the hallway snapped into sharper focus, exactly as if this were a dream, not really happening — a dream that had been sunlit and pleasant and now suddenly was changing.

“But you never told me,” he yelled.

“James,” she said, voice low in fear of him, “tell me what you’re thinking?”

He seemed far away, still making his circle, rubbing the sides of his chest. “I will,” he said, “don’t worry. Let me think.”

She turned to glance at Lewis. Without speaking or moving he convinced her it was best not to press, give the old man his time.

James, having completed his full circle, turned to the right again as if to make another, but this time he came out of it and moved toward the head of the stairs and then, after some thought, slowly down to the kitchen.

“I’ll get dressed,” Sally said.

Lewis nodded.

James, stepping into the kitchen, could hardly see. He rubbed away tears with his fingertips — he couldn’t tell whether they were tears of fear or sorrow or shame or what. Maybe all of that, or maybe mere words were too narrow for the feeling charging through him like a fire. It was as if, suddenly, he had fallen back into the world, found the magic door. He saw Ariah’s face clearly, as he hadn’t remembered it for a long time — saw her as a young woman, laughing with just a touch of fright in her voice as he pushed her on the swing; saw her laughing again, a few years older, sitting around the table at (it must have been) Thanksgiving time at the Blackmer house, hearing old man Dewey, Jede-diah’s great-great-grandson, tell the story of the time the sleigh tipped over, and all the Dewey women were hurled into the street and it was revealed to all Bennington that under their long black skirts they wore petticoats splashed with every color in the rainbow. He saw her in her last illness reaching to touch his cheek, saying Oh James, James, forgiving him — and forgiving herself — though he, even when she was dying, could forgive neither one of them. More pictures of her rose, one after another, it was as if he had suddenly been given back his life, and, still weeping, groping ahead of himself with one hand, he moved as quickly as he could toward the living room, because it was there that the albums were, and he wanted to look, find out if the pictures had come alive again.