John Gardner - October Light

The lifeless eyes stared through him like stones; nevertheless, he began slapping the Indian, trying to bring him to.

Luther Santisillia, with the pipewrench raised to hit him again, saw what he was doing and hesitated. He dropped, threw away the wrench, and began to help. Then Jane was there, pressing her ear to the Indian’s chest, Dancer, looking dazed, just behind her. Her eyes widened, then widened more. “It’s beating!” she said. Santisillia jerked forward and began hitting the Indian harder.

Thank heavens, Sally thought; but the thought had, strangely, no life in it. The truth was, she didn’t believe the happy turn of events for one minute. It was only a novel of course. Nevertheless …

She glanced at the page she’d just finished, and read:

He’d been granted, incredibly, a reprieve. It was like a telegram from heaven: Rules all changed.

Curiously, the idea depressed her, and she wondered why. One of James’ complaints about television was that it wasn’t true to life, and — blinking the fact that what he really meant was that it didn’t tell stories about life in Vermont, only stories about Utah, California, and Texas, the dullest states in the Union, surely, except for the scenery — or stories about the grubbier parts of New York City — the dullest place of all, if she admitted the truth — blinking all that, she had to agree with him that mostly it wasn’t true to life. But that never bothered her, on television. Why should it in a book?

Running through, in her mind, the programs she knew best— Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, and Upstairs, Downstairs —it struck her that none of those programs ever touched real life at all. They were all about interesting characters, stage people, glittering and amusing exactly as characters were glittering and amusing in a Broadway play. That didn’t seem to be true, somehow, of characters in novels, even bad novels. If characters in novels were entertaining, it wasn’t in quite the same way. They might be a little like characters in movies — a good deal in her paperback reminded her more of movies than of life, and perhaps that was why, as she’d known from the beginning, it was trash, really, or at least not the kind of book Horace would read — but there was something, even in a novel like this one, that was more like life than any movie could be. You saw things from inside. You understood exactly why everyone did everything — or imagined you did — so that when something went false it seemed not merely silly but — what? A kind of cheat, a broken confidence.

Well …

Her mind drifted. It was only a novel, and though it was true that, meaning to entertain her it had instead depressed her, that was no matter — though it would be different, of course, if the writer had intended it. She caught herself up, abruptly scowling, paying attention again. Suppose there were a writer so cynical and dishonest, so tyrannical, in effect … She stared at the locked door, thinking of the gun. Suppose, from pure meanness — or for her good, say — the writer had constructed the whole novel as a trap, intending in the end to embarrass her or mock her, jump her as James would jump Richard, those times when he’d skimped on his chores, or that vile Cotton Mather had jumped old women at witch-trials — for some high moral purpose, he supposed in his satanic pride.

She sighed and looked down at the paperback again. No, this was not that kind of writer; merely foolish and inept, like most people. What annoyed her in the chapter was merely that by accident it came close enough to life to remind her of it, and life was, Lord knew, a sad business.

Gazing at the print, sleepy now and thinking of putting the book away, she had, without noticing it, a kind of dream or fantasy, something that might have been a memory except that it was nothing she’d seen, merely a construction built of love like a mother’s and the little she knew — those and the novel, which had triggered her gloomy mood.

She imagined Richard meeting the Flynn girl, some time shortly before his death. It was a hamburg place, Paddy’s (it hadn’t existed at the time), and the Flynn girl was eating at a table with her family, one child in a highchair, another in her womb, well along, bloating her body out of shape, draining the sheen from her red hair. The old woman imagined her nephew smiling shyly, looking quickly away, the Flynn girl’s husband merely glancing at him, sullen, then growling at the child in the highchair to prove his mastery, and only on second thought nodding a greeting, final proof of his power, his absolute right, though now Richard wasn’t watching. Richard walked on to the counter to order, a pink blush rising from his broad, stooped shoulders toward his straw-yellow hair. So this is all it comes to in the end, he was thinking. And, reading the menu on the blackboard above the shelves, he was aware of her fussing, covering her confusion, and smiled secretly, as they’d all seen him smile so often, panic in his eyes, as if James stood behind him with his arms crossed, wide lips clamped.

She saw Richard studying the girl behind the counter, noticing her youth, the childish lip, the high, too narrow forehead, unfocused eyes; saw him glance at her bosom, noticing the hint of womanliness there, thinking of the Flynn girl asleep in his arms, the room bathed in music, violins, trombones — thinking as he ordered his hamburg and fries, So this is all it comes to. And that night, again, alone in his house, sitting with a drink, tinny music in the background: So it’s all just this.

Her hands began to shake, and she steadied the book on the covers in order to read.

10

ALKAHEST AGONISTES

For John F. Alkahest, M.D., it was a time of anguish. He sat in his tower overlooking San Francisco, not moving a finger, his wheelchair planted in the precise center of the octagonal room, on a real Persian rug that was mostly scarlet — and though he was now once more conscious, he could not rise. His cleaning girl, Pearl, appeared at the entryway door and looked in at him.

She disliked Dr. Alkahest, profoundly disapproved of him, but never before had she realized that she no more understood him than she understood spiders.

“You want somethin?” she said, though getting things for the old man was not one of her duties.

He said nothing, neither snarled nor simpered, and after a moment she came nearer with her feather-duster, and, slowly, thoughtfully, dusted around him, showing no sign that she was watching him. He sat like stone. She dusted around the room: the antique clock on its flowerstand, the roll-top desk, the gin cupboard, the three stiff chairs. Still nothing happened. She looked cautiously down at the sunlit street. Hardly anyone out. A shudder came over her, which she did not stop to understand. One of the long-haired college students lay sprawled on the steps of the big gray house where a herd of them lived. Their Volkswagen was parked on the sidewalk, an American flag on the window. Down at the corner, by Llewellen’s Market, a boy was leaning a bright purple bicycle against yellow crates of oranges, bananas, and yams on the sidewalk. Still no movement from Alkahest. She thought of touching him, then decided against it. If he was dead she would know soon enough by the smell.

As she stepped back into the entryway, she thought he said something. He still had not moved, but she became increasingly certain that he had spoken. The elevator door closed, the elevator started down. To her surprise, she was faintly disappointed that the man wasn’t dead. What was wrong with her? If he was dead, who’d pay her? The familiar, brief panic came over her, and she made herself numb. Slaves no more! Slaves no more! they’d yelled in Union Square as she walked timidly past them, primly dressed, carrying her shopping bag. She’d been a teenager then. It was what she’d heard them yelling on television, and at San Francisco State when she’d gone there as a student. Slaves no more! the elevator hummed. She was no longer fooled by slogans. Since the night she’d been sexually assaulted, she’d known she was a slave.