Quarto 1966 Spring Issue

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QUARTO S p r i n g

6 6

O

U

A

Editor

Poetry Editor Fiction Editor Assistant Editors

R

TO,

Spring, 1966

DONALD LOGAN

DIANE LIEBELSON JUDY ROSSUCK DAVID LUKASHOK/ Essays DAVID SCHIFFMAN ALAN WONG

Business Manager

SUNNY CARMELL

Secretary

SHIRLEY WISEMAN

Faculty Advisors

DEAN ALEX PLATT MR. J. R. HUMPHREYS

The cover is an architectural carving from a demolished New York City building. Courtesy the Leo Castelli Gallery and the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society. Photographer: Peter Moore.

The drawing of Lewisohn Hall on the title page is by Miss JENNIE ROPE. QUARTO is published once each Spring and Fall by the students of the School of General Studies, Columbia University, New York City 10027. All manuscripts should be addressed to Box 106C Lewisohn Hall and should be accompanied by a campus address or stamped, self-addressed envelope. Publication preference is given to students currently enrolled in one or more courses in the School.

Copyright 1966 by Columbia University School of General Studies.

THE

LITERARY M A G A Z I N E

OF

THE

SCHOOL

OF

GENERAL STUDIESC

QUARTO >0F

COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY

SPRING

IN

'6

THE

6

CITY

OF

NEW

YORK

10027

P O E T B Y Richard Hagerstrora 8, M. K. Darland 21, Claudia Thonnard 22-24, Robert Alexander Campbell 32, 33, David Lukashok 47-49, Barbara Anne Kelman 51, 51, Bruce Feld 53

F I C T I O N Allyn Moss ESPRESSO ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE 9, Camella Grace Wing THE GOLD RING 25, Lynn C. Hickman THE INCUBUS 54

notes on contributors

63

TO MY SON

You are three today.

I watch you play, dancing in a sea of blue field flowers; the wind, gentle, subdues the flowers against you in pale waves, a diminished cry, like small children at play, a whispering, a lost reply.

You, not knowing that I watch, or who I am, innocent, chase the pale blue waves, and laugh. One day will you see me watching and ask the question: Why? And when you have asked and know will you then chase after blue flowers and sing with the children at play?

Richard Hagerstrom

"I HAVE SACRIFICED EVERYTHING FOR THE FAMILY. For respect. You understand Signora?" The glazed blue and yellow flowers sparkle on the tiny cup as she hands it to me across the white lace tablecloth with its intricate pattern of manufactured regularity.

"And I," I say, taking the fragile china cup from her large soft hand, refusing the sugar bowl, "have sacrificed everything for love."

Again there is only sun in the narrow room, and silence. The silence that falls between women who have known each other the comfortable part of a lifetime. But we, Lina and I, have known each other less than half an hour.

Across from me Lina stirs the coffee hypnotically, as if half-asleep. It is early October and still warm. The smell of espresso is everywhere in the kitchen mixed with sunlight and a morning haze. I get up and walk to the window to lean out and look into a small courtyard walled at the back by several low tenement buildings, their windows brightly crisscrossed with newly hung wash. To the right a vacant lot pitted with stones, old metal, cans and bottles gives sign of imminent building. But nowhere do I see my grey cat with the orange eyes -- my lost Dimitri, whose loss (for he has become a fugitive, run away from well-meaning friends who kept him for me during a vacation) is the cause of my meeting with Lina. "Have you seen a grey cat?" I'd called up to her -- a lionhead of a woman leaning on her elbows in a secondstory window on the east side of Avenue A, just before the 13th Street crossing. Her dark hair whirled wildly about her head, her slip slaps half

E S P R E S S O T H E L O W E R S I D E

O N E A S T

down her heavy arms, the top of her heavy bosom and and a small gold cross showing out of a yellow sun-dress. Now I am in her kitchen sharing her sun and excellent espresso because on impulse I'd spoken to her not only in her native Italian, but even in the Sicilian dialect of her region. But also because a river of warmth had quickly opened between us.

"But still you had no children?" She is looking at me intently.

"No," I answer. I meet her eyes because they are honest and contain some of my own pain. We are both, I know, cradling the wished-for baby.

Lina had always believed, she tells me, that children come only from love. This is a sort of profound feminine superstition that persists among many women despite mountainous evidence to the contrary. It is a superstition I understand well, and must battle inside myself. Now she wants to know why, having had the man I loved, even at the price of a home and a husband, no children came.

She is eager to know. I may, she thinks, provide the answer to a riddle. Since we are long past formalities, and have tacitly agreed to this naked interchange, I explain briefly but as clearly as I can that I waited, hoping for more certainty from the man.

"Ahhh," she says. But I have failed her.

My answer is no answer to her. As for myself, memory has put me again into that bare land of

10

regret, blessedly grown less agonized with time. And here she cannot join me.

Lina, I see, remains tortured by the mystery.

"My husband and I," she says, "-- we are married seventeen years. You understand? Still no children come. In seventeen years." As always I am awed by the injustice that denies children to those who want them.

She treads on my thoughts. "And I have wanted."

Then a pause. "Though you know," she adds significantly, on a longer journey into herself, "-- sometimes I wonder if I really want."

She stands up abruptly.

"Signora," she asks, "you want to see some photographs of my family?"

Before I can hesitate, or agree, she is past me, gone behind a curtain divider into the dim rear section of the apartment. Through the tent-like opening I can see her moving about among many heavy pieces of dark polished mahogany. There is a wide bed whose headboard is flanked by curving columns which finish in two perfect orbs. Between the orbs, high on the wall in a faded reproduction, a childfaced blonde Madonna looks sadly out of the picture, seemingly unaware of the infant Jesus awkwardly suspended in her arms.

Lina returns, moving with energy which seems somehow unmotivated, an attempt perhaps to cover up some deep inner fatigue. She puts a large, bound cardboard album on the table before me, and standing

11

at my side, opens it. At once 1 see in a small snapshot at the top of a page, a group of young men and women standing in a large field. There are rounded hills in the background.

"This is me," says Lina, placing a finger on a slim, smiling girl with long dark hair who wears a narrow skirt that almost reaches her ankles and a loose sweater down to her hips. I can barely find a resemblance though I nod at once. "And here," she says, turning the page. I see the same slender girl now with a young man. He is one of the young men I saw in the other picture, but now they are in close-up, his arm around her waist. He has lively bright eyes, a full bristling moustache that looks as if it were red or blond, he is tall and appears strong and the girl, Lina, whose hair is now cropped and free is relaxed and smiling against him.

"Who is he?" I ask looking up at this Lina, whose face by contrast is too soft, too vacant, joyless.

"The love. Mine. But not like yours, Signora. I am of a Sicilian family. Not even a kiss, Signora."

And he dies -- pneumonia one winter in the army in the north of Italy, she tells me, and -- we turn the page. Here are more girls together in more fields, more young men, frequently in uniform, the sisters, the family, always formal and serious before the camera. Another page, and again I see a

12

different Lina. Not the one I know, not the one I have seen in the photographs. Her hair is set stiffly, high on her head, the chin is too loose, the face is heavy, the eyes fixed in a social grimace; she is with a man who cannot be her father but who looks like him. This is of course the husband, roundfaced like a potato, a stern, unchanging, too heavily male face, square-built, short, shoulders exaggeratedly broad and rigidly held in the same pose for every photo.

"My husband." Lina explains. "He was a very good friend of my father's, and very well off.

Export-import. Wine, oil, olives -- and so on. You understand? It was a very good marriage."

I nod, but keep my eyes on the album so I will not have to look at her. The small flutter of another page turned and I see Lina and her husband standing on the deck of a luxury ship. He is several inches shorter than she is. She is wearing several bad furs and very high heels. They are both looking fixedly into the camera as if to create a lasting document, a permanent imprint of their legal state.

Neither of them is smiling. His expression is blankly possessive, an establishment, but Lina's eyes betray profound sadness. Except for the eyes, that one point of honesty, there seems to be nothing of Lina at all. The furs and the heels and the shiny satin skirt and the high pompadoured hair have been put in her place. A few more photos. The couple

13

f

is seated at a table in the ship's dining room. It is a captain's dinner and they are holding balloons. . . .

"You know," says Lina, closing the book, speaking slowly and with deliberation, "-- my husband loves me very much, Signora." She tries to meet my eyes, but almost embarrassed, I avoid hers.

"That is a great deal," I say.

"Ma non e tutto," she adds, picking up the book and starting back, past the television set and the console radio and through the divider, to put the album away in the drawer.

No, it is not everything. How well I know.

I return to my almost empty cup of cold espresso.

Lina takes her seat opposite me, and crosses her large fleshy arms on the table.

"E amore tuo, Signora. . .?" So she begins the next round. "He was Italian?"

"Yes." "What sort of man?"

I hesitate, searching for adjectives which may really fit.

"Strong," I say. "Difficult." I pause.

She waits. And after a moment's more weighing, I surrender another word. "Beautiful."

"Ahhh," she says. "From where did he come?"

"Piemonte."

"Cuore di lione," she recites firmly. Every region in Italy has its epithet. From Piemonte they

14

are all supposed to have hearts like lions, heads like bulls.

"And why," she persists, "are you not with him now?"

"He was married."

"He had children?"

"One son."

"Ahhh," she is satisfied. "They never leave the sons. Never. They go back to the wife if there is a son."

I say nothing. I do not add the final nugget of reality. I do not tell her that he did not go back to his wife and son, but left me for another woman -- one he had been living with before I knew him. For in this short time with Lina I already realize that I cannot tax her understanding to this extent. I have already glimpsed the limits of her Sicilian tolerance. Limits set by deep romanticism and pride which can accept the idea of man hurting his wife and child because of Love (capital L ) , or even only intense desire for another woman -- tolerance which might forgive a woman for leaving her husband for a grand passion. But I knew it would not be possible for Lina to even conceive of an affair which lasted less than a year, ending without suicide or murder on either side. With nothing more dramatic, in fact, than heartbreak, on only one side, in the most repressed and modern manner.

Lina folds and refolds her soft short-fingered

IS

-

hands, and looks at me in a new way, with increased curiosity, and -- is it, respect?

"You Signora," she begins carefully, slowly, "are a woman of experience."

I almost laugh except that I recognize the seriousness with which she speaks. " I , " she continues, "have known only my husband." She is not apologizing or boasting. I cannot guess where this is leading. "You understand how I was brought up, Signora?"

"Of course," I answer, remembering a dozen women I have known in Rome and in other Italian cities, whose lives were ruled by tradition and religion and who never once considered violating their laws.

"They -- tell you. You must not. Must not.

Still you cannot stop yourself from thinking, can you?

And the more you don't do -- the more you think.

No?" She bursts into a fine, full explosion of lusty laughter, and I laugh too. "How many times," she goes on, still laughing, "have I said to myself, 'You think, you think -- Why don't you do?"'

I begin to understand what it is she wants to know from 'a woman of experience.' Of course. She is curious.

"To be honest, Signora," I begin as best I can, "and perhaps too frank -- there is not so much difference between one man and another. . .in that way."

She looks at me gratefully. Her eyes brighten.

Nostalgically I think back to a time when I would have blushed.

16

"It's the sentiment," I continue, glad that I can tell her what is almost true and still be gentle.

"The sentiment that makes a difference. Not una technica. Do you understand?" I ask delicately.

"I see. I see," she says enthusiastically.

Perhaps she understands. But she is an innocent.

Overripe, potentially sensual, a latent Juno, an unmeasured sea -- but an innocent. I cannot envy her that innocence. Or her marital bed which peeps at me through the curtain -- large, solid, dutiful, joyless, burdened with the sins of loveless though legal sex. I look at Lina's arms still folded across the table from me, they are strong, still smooth, and at her full rich bosom and her wide, well-shaped mouth. Imagining for a moment the exhausting battle this woman has undoubtedly been waging against her own powerful femininity all the years of her female life, I almost weep. Unbelievable to think she has never been pulled down into the delicious depths at whatever price. What a hollow victory for Sicilian respectability.

"Another espresso?" asks Lina, standing across the table from me, and still pleased, it seems, with what I have said to her. I want to refuse and go, and yet something is not yet completed.

"Prego," she begs earnestly. "Another cup, Signora." I smile in acceptance and Lina sets to work preparing the little coffeemaker again. I stand near her, breathing in the thick dark coffee smell which rises into the air when she opens the brown bag she keeps the coffee beans in. Probably

17

her husband imports the coffee too. I look around at the whiteness of her kitchen -- the six-burner electric stove, new and brightly clean, with its window ovens, many dials and timing devices, at the enormous refrigerator, the sinks and the cupboards and the shining metal pots and pans, and gadgets I have never seen before, or even knew existed. She has a large complicated-looking mixer, a superblender, a washing machine of the latest make. All this whiteness is Lina's to command. And he has given it to her.

But still she is not through with me. She has another question in her head, gathering itself together. I can see it there as she snaps the little lid of the espresso maker down with finality.

"And love, Signora? Esiste?" she asks me, with a half-mocking smile.

Only a second and I answer her, gravely and without hesitation. "It exists." For about this I dare not lie.

Lina explodes, almost angry, though I understand at once that it is an anger born of pain and despair. "Eh. Che cosa ti ha lasciato, tutto questo amore?" she bursts out, then repeats her bitter question in English: "All this love," she says, "what has it left you, Signora? Look how you are now. Alone. This is true, yes?"

I allow her this cruelty, because I know it is not meant as cruelty any more than what I have

18

said to her was said to hurt her.

"Yes," I say. "I am alone."

"You have paid a great deal for your love," she continues.

"Yes," I say, past defenses.

"You did evil to your husband. Then, when it was done to you, then you understood, perhaps, what you had done." She is sitting opposite me, her back straight, her hands folded before her almost as if in prayer. I almost gasp from the directness of her attack. She is near tears. I am paying heavily for this honesty between us. Somehow with her I am willing.

"Yes. It was like that. I had hurt him.

But I had no understanding of his hurt - - o r really of him -- till I suffered myself. Then it was too late, for everything."

Across from me Lina kneads her hands, leans toward me, wise now beyond her innocence, past sympathy. She is judge and accused, executioner and victim.

"Destiny is like that," she says. "Always.

You were unconscious. Then life taught you a lesson -• but it was too late. Non e cosi il destino, Signora?"

"Yes," I agree with a tired smile. "Destiny is like that."

"Ahhh," she croons sorrowfully, putting a hand out towards me over the table, comforting and kind as a mother once she has beaten her child for

19

having foolishly risked some great danger or injury.

The coffee is ready again. Lina pours it.

Again she heaps a mountain of sugar into her own cup.

Again the espresso is excellent and we drink it.

And now of course it is finished and I am ready to leave.

At the door Lina says to me, "Life is strange, Signora. You have done all that, and now -- you are like this. I am also unhappy, but I have done nothing. But we are the same. Non e vero, Signora?"

It is, however, no longer a moment for truth, but for kindness.

"Si, Signora," I say, taking her outstretched hand, her soft hand, not slightly damp. "It's true.

We are the same."

I start down the cool stone stairs, towards the hot street below. I turn back once more to wave at Lina's sad quiet face through the bars of the stairway.

"Arrivederci, Signora," she calls to me.

Then she closes the door, returning to her white, white kitchen, to the dark alcove and the photographs, to the big bed and the child-faced Madonna, to the empty espresso cups on the table.

ALLYN MOSS

TO HIM

It's harder in the morning.

It's harder in the light.

You wonder Your mind is blank and dark with fear.

You wonder who he is he who lies beside you breathing solemnly and threateningly there beside you.

You close your eyes and wish him gone.

But he remains.

And you wonder Moments there of years gone by.

Fleetingly it's past.

And all that's left is you beside he who lies beside you.

You wonder It's scenes not the years in summation.

It's scenes of all the hes that lie beside you and you know he will never be for you will wish him gone before he's come to be.

You wonder Is it the wind in rotted window frames?

Is it a cough that reminds you of the rain outside that pours inside you.

And you struggle to wonder why you wonder for wonder is useless, As useless as he that lies beside you.

M. K. Darland

r

ILLUSIONS

Even during winter the fountains spray silver over a blue facade while the polar bear prances and sneers in his death dance, his ice blue eyes freezing the last flowers over blue walls and verandas, where she stands and gapes, into a meaningless darkness,

Claudia Thonnard

THE LAKE

Platinum silver Red lights dipping Buildings rushing into them at late hour and shooting stars as windows the moon-sun waiting. . .

I forgot to say goodbye to youJ

Claudia Thonnard

BLOND BARK

Golden tree, your blond bark has touched all winter that slow snow letting silence settle on long afternoons golden branches spreading fans against a winter sky.

The golden bark has flecks, leopards running in the steppes. . . when summer comes leaves will wallow in their greenness and wind rush through them at noontime

Claudia Thonnard

HIS MOTHER GAZED AT HIM, HER TREMBLING FINGERS held a gold ring. "Do you understand," she said, "why I must send you away? If you stay here, eventually you'll die with us; if you go, you may have a chance to survive. Be good to your uncle and obey him. Here, take this. This is the only valuable thing I haven't sold. Keep it. Don't sell it. I hope it will help you.

It will bring you luck." She laid the ring in his palm, wrapping his fingers over it into a fist, and held this fist for a while. Her bloodshot eyes were too dry for tears, and she turned quickly to attend to her younger children, a daughter whimpering in bed, too weak to get up, and two sons younger than he, sitting feebly on the earthen floor.

He had no use for his gold ring in the next three years, staying as he did with his uncle's family.

They moved about a great deal, from province to province, from town to town, always running from the war.

His uncle and aunt treated him decently, sheltered him, fed him, clothed him (though only with leftover clothing of his uncle's which never fitted him, but who was fashion-conscious in those days?), took him out of school and gave him the responsibility of running the household -- a great and heavy responsibility for any ten-year old. He cooked, cleaned, washed, sewed, chopped wood, carried water from distant wells, helped his cousins with their homework, and, for recreation, he studied algebra, geometry, trigonometry, by himself on the asphalt pavements with a piece of clay (not chalk, that was too expensive, inaccessible to ordinary children) or on a sandy bank with a twig.

He had a head for figures and a knack with equations.

He read hungrily whatever books he could find.

T H E

G O L D

R I N G

At thirteen, though his mind was advanced far beyond his years by this self-imposed recreation, his body was very under-developed. Because he was not short, his scrawny body seemed scrawnier, his big, bony hands and feet looked incongruous.

One day his uncle took his family and their belongings, and they fled on yet another journey. The Japanese army was advancing very fast (Do they ever eat? people wondered. Do they ever sleep? They were turning China into vast fields of fifty-mile and a hundred-mile racing courses.) while he set out on foot to meet them in a certain town. After a few days of walking, he realized he could never reach that town at the appointed time, and he knew his uncle's family would not wait for him. He had the horrible, disheartening feeling they had known what they were doing, that despite his services to them he was a burden, to be discarded, though discarded decently.

Alone, and with a pair of pants, three sweaters, a wool scarf, one set of underwear, some pocket money, and, of course, the gold ring, all bundled together in a square piece of navy blue cotton cloth, he decided to go to Wu Han, a big city, some five hundred miles away, to seek his aunt, who was teaching at Wu Han University, who wrote shortly before his parting with his uncle's family, promising to help him.

With all his pocket money, he bought a ticket for a space on an open truck, already overloaded with passengers. It ran twenty miles per hour at its best, and it broke down frequently, each time taking days, even weeks to repair.

It was on Chinese New Year's Eve, some two weeks since he had been on his own, when he first

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thought of selling his gold ring. The weather had turned very cold and it snowed heavily. The truck was parked in front of a roadside inn, and the other passengers took rooms in the inn. He had gone without food for a few days now and even before that he had not been eating regularly. He wore two sweaters (having sold the third one and the wool scarf) and two sets of underwear (since they could not be sold, he might as well make use of them).

Now in his blue bundle he had only a pair of pants and in one of the pockets, the gold ring. Sometime during his journey he had decided the gold ring would be safer hidden there in the bundle than worn on his finger. Inside the truck, shivering with cold, looking across a patch of snow and through a lighted window at the dining room where people drank anddined as if it were their last evening, hearing the music, the singing and talking and, worst of all, smelling the fragrance of the food, the boy fumbled for the gold ring in his bundle. He considered exchanging it for a few hours of warmth in a lighted room, a bed (it needn't be soft), and above all, some food. Dizzy from hunger and cold he had the illusion of seeing his mother's emaciated face. It stopped immediately the thought of selling the ring. He knew his problem of hunger could not be solved by selling the ring. The money would never last long enough. He was hungry now, and he would be hungry again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. . . .

No, he would not exchange the ring for something as insignificant as food. He would sell it only if it were a matter of life or death.

The journey continued. He took up scavenging, roaming in the nearby fields for raw vegetables whenever the truck made a stop. Sweet potatoes and carrots became

27

--.

his chief diet. They filled his empty stomach again and again, and they also gave him diarrhea. The days were long, cold, and the speed of travel slow. Soon some of his fellow passengers began to find him a source of ridicule.

At first only a few; then, as if it were an infectious disease, more and more they teased and taunted him.

"He must be a bastard," one said. "He has no father, no mother, no brother, and not even a sister."

The others agreed.

He would never dare to announce that he had a father in America. No one would have believed him, and it would only invite more harsh ridicule.

"Ha, just being a plain, regular bastard is not enough for him, he wants to be a foreign devil's bastard," one of them would have said.

"No wonder, look at his big roving eyes and look at his pallid complexion. I thought something was queer about this lad -- ha, a mixed bastard," another would have said.

"Hey, do you suppose he is happy alive? Wouldn't he be happier dead?" they would have said.

They would attract his attention, and throw their leftover food out of the truck, daring him to jump as if throwing a piece of bone for a dog to chase. Sometimes he would find scraps of food, other times he would find only crumpled wastepaper and listen to the roar of their laughter.

One morning for the first time in their journey, they met soldiers, only two (to be accurate), and deserters (to be frank).

The two stopped the truck with their guns and began to mount it. The passengers protested, "We are crowded as it is. There is no room!"

"What? We've been risking our lives for stupid,

28

selfish people like these! While we die, they sit comfortably on their asses. No room, indeed! In that case, we shall make room," one of the soldiers growled.

The boy looked easiest to handle. They dragged him down and prodded him with the points of their guns, shouting, "Chan Bi, Chan Bi!" Since they had not killed at war, their short-lived soldiery, voluntary or involuntary, was yet to be fulfilled. In their brief training period, if there were any at all, the doctrine pounded into their heads was that they must kill the enemy in order to survive, to protect themselves and their families. True, this boy was no enemy, but he was clearly obstructing them in their duty of saving themselves. Eliminating the boy would show that they were not to be trifled with. No room, indeed! They would gladly kill more if necessary.

A husky man jumped off the truck and said to the soldiers, "You don't need to kill anyone. What you really need are some civilian clothes." He offered them some of his own, without charge, and asked everyone to squeeze in a little to make room for the soldiers, who, encountering someone of seeming authority and the power to instill reverence, were now less overbearing.

Then, the husky man became, as a matter of course, the boy's guardian. Soon the attention of the passengers was diverted to and absorbed in the heroic tales recounted by the two deserters.

Later that day when the truck made a stop, the husky man brought back some hot ears of corn and offered one to the boy. It had been weeks since the boy had had something hot and cooked to eat. He held the corn, rotating it slowly, looking at it unbelievingly; the steam didn't seem to burn his fingers. First

29

he took a small bite, as if testing or sampling, then gorged himself without ever stopping for breath until even parts of the cob were gone.

The man offered him another, the last one.

Looking at it intently for a moment, the boy shook his head weakly, not trusting his voice to say, "No." The man insisted, and the boy accepted eagerly, and upon accepting it, was so overcome with gratitude that it was for this husky man, for the second time in his journey, he wanted to give up his gold ring.

A few days later the truck, overloaded, overused, too old and too battered to begin with, broke down altogether, beyond repair. Everyone had to continue the journey on foot. Now the boy had been on the road for over a month. Had he walked all that time he might have reached Wu Han, his destination.

Though the truck had taken him more than half of the distance, there were at least two hundred miles more to be covered on foot in the snow. Now, with the husky man like a father to him, the boy believed that he could easily make the rest of his journey in one or two weeks. He did not realize one thing, no one had realized then, the significance of the appearance of the two deserters. The Chinese armies ahead were losing heavily, retreating en masse, and the enemy in fact was very close. Once more the enemy was making the road over which they were traveling a racing course.

Soon shots were heard in the distance and smoke was seen curling along the horizon. People from out of nowhere emerged in groups onto this same road; soldiers in large numbers joined the procession, their ammunition, equipment and vehicles rumbled along.

Flurries of snow covered and recovered the footprints

30

of the refugees. But all this was not as horrid to the boy as the horridness of hunger and cold. The husky man had spent his last cent on food, which by now had become virtually inaccessible. The boy scoured and scavenged more eagerly than ever now that he was doing it for himself alone -- sweet potatoes, carrots, beets -- and diarrhea.

Once, in a field, he found a bundle. It was heavy and wrapped in expensive purple silk. Oh, a bundle from Heaven! He hugged it and ran into the woods - - n o one should share his fortune. He untied the purple silk. What? More silk? Yellow at that!

Someone certainly had had patience. As he pulled at the object, the yellow silk uncoiled like a bolt of cloth and the bundle bounced and rolled on the ground-- , pah, pah. . .pah, pah. What, white cloth? This had to be something extremely valuable. Gold, perhaps!

Carefully he undid the white cloth. Even before he lifted a corner, he could smell what was in it, and in an instant he had seen and dropped it. Heaven! a baby decomposed! Frantically he began to dig, with his fingers first, then with a piece of stone, then with a branch. He rolled the baby into its yellow and purple silk, though not as neatly as it had first been done, and buried it. For days afterwards he was afraid to look for food. He did not know then that he was to see more bundles like this left along the roadside.

Now, in the turmoil of flight, people fought, stole, robbed and killed for food or slight provocations.

The stronger ones plodded onward, the weaker ones were left behind, dying of exhaustion or starvation; sometimes they were killed -- one would be doing a [Continued on page 34]

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[Untitled]

We have climbed In the shadowed chambers Of ancient olive trees And have gathered the slick olives From their beds of succulent leaves Which are thicker and smoother and darker Than the leaves of any other tree And have squeezed the soft fruits in our hands And stained our fingers And have sat straddling a great bough And pressed its cool, skinlike bark With purpled hands And have peered stealthily from a mass of leaves And felt the wild delight of being hidden And the security of being armed with innumerable olives.

Robert Alexander Campbell

Summer dusk

The leaves hang still The heavy bushes breathe The moon head white and all abulge Pushes toward the sea One wind Warm and low Curls around the boughs to blow The swollen maple rocks and flutters And lifts her underwhite.

The yellow poplar sees and shivers His supple body sways And all ten-thousand leaves aquiver.

0!

It must stop

Or else his trunk swells And bursts rejoicing sap.

Robert Alexander Campbell

[Continued from page 31] kindness to kill a half-dying person -- and their bodies would be gnawed by hungry beasts. Corpses appeared everywhere by the road, all well preserved in the snow, as in a hell in which one could not tell the living from the dead. At night, the earth trembled with the discharging of ammunition, scattered fires leaped skyward and smoke curled downward and hovered stiflingly over the ground, humans moaned and wailed in agony and everywhere stray dogs howled, hoarding and carrying human flesh and bones from place to place.

One night when the boy and his guardian had taken shelter beneath a truck, the boy was awakened by a most terrifying growl. He sat up and looked around to discover that his guardian was gone, that the truck under which they had been sleeping was moving ahead, and that all around him people were scrambling to their feet, running. The earth was thudding and quaking with the thundering and roaring of gun and cannon shots. Below the road on a snow bank some ten feet away lay his guardian. Blood oozed out from his eyes, nostrils, mouth; his lips made the motions of speech, but no sound came, only scarlet bubbles reflecting the whiteness of the snow.

Someone came, took a look at the grotesque face and said, "The rear wheel of the truck must have run right over his head, he'll die soon. You were lucky to be unharmed."

"Can you do something? Can anyone do anything?" the boy shouted.

"You mean to make it faster for him? I doubt that he needs any help."

34

"Oh Heaven, get someone, get a doctor." He snatched out his ring and scrambling back to the road stretched out his open palm in which glittered the gold ring, "Doctor!" he shouted. "Any doctor?" and "Help! Help!" A truck nearly hit him, and the driver turned to curse at him, "I should have run you over, you idiot!" People passed him in waves, pushing him aside. A man took time out to take a look at what was in his palm and spat at the ring. Then he heard the man below call to him, "He is dead. Come back. He is dead."

He went back, knelt beside the dead man, and without a word began pushing the snow away to clear a space.

The man knew what the boy wanted to do. "You crazy? You'll never make it big enough. The ground is frozen. I tell you, the ground is frozen, do you hear?"

The boy dug away, his bony fingers stabbing and clawing at the earth.

"You have no time. You'll never make it if you don't run now. You'll be digging it for yourself."

The man dragged the boy up by the chin and slapped his face hard to bring him to his senses. Then he made the boy help him drag the body a distance away from the road, peeled off the overcoat and covered the face with it. "In this way," the man explained to the boy, "he won't be disturbed for a while." Then the man took the boy, who was sobbing loudly and continuously now, and ran into the crowd.

After a time, the waves of crowds separated them, the man ran on ahead, and the boy followed the crowds blindly. People shouted, cursed, and trampled

35

upon each other, and trucks and jeeps were overturned by the roadside through the struggling of too many persons attempting to climb in. There arose the wailing of children separated, left behind and abandoned by their parents. Babies were suffocated to lessen burdens, and belongings, too, discarded. Injured bodies and dead bodies were shuffled aside and flung away from the road. All through the night and the following day they ran like wild animals, but toward the next nightfall, gradually all sounds subsided.

All sat around with dirty faces, bloodshot, swollen eyes, calling to their lost children and their relatives, lamenting the loss of their belongings.

The boy sat numbly alone, his chin on his raised knees, his face in his hands, and paid no attention to anyone or anything. He knew no would look for him or miss him. Discovering a patch of dried blood on his sweater near the shoulder, he was vaguely consoled, believing that the blood was his guardian's, and that he had carried away something from him. He thought of his family. How infrequently he had thought of them! They seemed to be too, too far off. And he was alone. He even thought of his father. Yes, once he, too, had had a father, who had left him when he was only six and who was now in America.

He could never understand why his mother had chosen to move the family back to China, and later his father had returned to the States alone, to live there alone.

Trying hard to remember his father, he could recall nothing. Over the years he had written them intermittently -- yes, he remembered a few letters edged in spirals of red and blue like the whirling signs in front of the barber shops -- had sent them money

36

regularly until the war had severed all news of him and his money. Had his father been happy after returning alone to America? He didn't care now. Had he married again? He couldn't care less! Oh, why should he care and what good would all this wondering do. ' He was worlds apart from this father and was not likely to see him again. He hated him now, hated him for not understanding him and knowing him. He thought of the husky man and sobbed. Then his hands tentatively touched his freezing feet and moved along his legs until they covered his face again. Squeezing and rubbing hard at his cheek and forehead, he was appalled by the knowledge that he was ill with fever. All night he sat in the same squatting position, sleeping fitfully. Next morning he discovered his shoes had been completely worn through, the soles were falling from the uppers. Somewhere along the road he peeled from a corpse a pair of straw sandals and put them on.

In the afternoon he reached Tung Ling, a town about sixty miles from Wu Han. This town was very peaceful, with half of its inhabitants already evacuated.

Walking toward the center of town, he was bewildered to see rows and rows of army trucks, artillery and American soldiers. The big building with two soldiers standing on guard at the entrance and others walking in and out must be their headquarters, he thought. At last something good was to happen. Having found a piece of scrap paper and a lump of charcoal, and mustering all his knowledge of English up to his fourthgrade level, he wrote: I am A America. Help me.

With the note in his outstretched hand he approached one of the guards. The guard, having read the note, waved him through the gate. As he stepped in

37

he had a premonition that it was not going to work at all. He didn't know enough English to explain himself, and even if he had known enough, no one would have believed him, as no one would have believed weeks ago in the truck that he was not a bastard, that he had a father in America. Yet he kept on walking, he knew he must go through with it, as he had gone through with all the other things up to this point. Halfway to the building he encountered an officer whose uniform was a little different from the others and who drew out his pistol upon seeing the boy. The officer advance.d; the boy, dropping the piece of paper, backed away, back, back until he was the gate.

"How did you ever let a creature like this get in here?" the officer bellowed at the guard.

"He said he was an American ," the guard said.

The officer bellowed again, "You stupid or something? Before you know it you'll have half of the town turning into Americans looking for help. You know our orders are to evacuate the ammunition, not the people. Use your head next time, stupid." He turned to the boy, waving the pistol. "Get out! Get out!"

The boy backed away dejectedly, but still he felt he had done his best for himself, his conscience was eased. He felt detached as if he had gone through it all for someone else.

In the evening, having roamed for sometime in the streets, he came across the man who two days earlier had dragged him away from his guardian's body. The man was surprised to see him again and did not ask how he was, for it was obvious that the boy was not at all well. He offered him a chunk of cold steamed bread which the boy refused. It seemed that illness had taken his appetite away. All he wanted was to get to

38

get to Wu Han where his aunt would be, he told the man, and he hoped to get there in two or three days by walking. To his surprise the man said he could help him to reach there much sooner. It happened that this man had been recruited by the American Army to drive one of those army trucks to Wu Han, and they would be leaving early next morning. The man said that the soldiers would ride in the front trucks, followed by the ammunition trucks, and then there would be the empty ones at the end. He didn't think there would be that much ammunition to transport and he, himself, would dawdle behind and drive one of the empty trucks and pick up the boy at a designated point or turn.

If all should go well the boy would be in Wu Han tomorrow afternoon. It sounded so heavenly that the boy accepted the steamed bread which had been again offered him. The whole thing would, of course, be a risk, since the boy must not, under any circumstances, be discovered; but it would be a risk worth taking, and he consented to it eagerly and gratefully. They agreed to meet at a certain bend at the bottom of a hill at 5:30 the next morning.

The boy, overjoyed, thanking Heaven and everyone else in the world profusely, believing even that his fever was beginning to subside, nibbled at the bread and leaning against the wall in the street, drifted into sleep.

Arriving at the appointed place much earlier than the agreed time, he hovered on a snow bank, peeking anxiously toward the road. In the distance the stream of army trucks rumbled slowly toward him and he, hiding behind a big tree trunk, watched with concentration for the signal, the waving of an arm

39

from a window. And then he saw the arm, the second truck from the last, and jumped, a little too soon in his timing, darting forward and taking a few more running steps backward, and mounted the truck.

Inside the truck, he thanked the man again and again through the partition window and vowed to repay his kindness in some way, some day. He huddled at the corner near the driver, his eyes roving around deliberately, feeling the warmth and protection of the taupe oilcloth above, and appraising through the opening at the back of the truck the receding trees, streets and cottages, seemingly weighted down by the snow. The road was hilly and winding and he realized he would never have been able to reach Wu Han by foot in two or three days. The realization added more zest to this newly acquired good fortune.

A half-hour must have passed. Then something happened so quickly that at the beginning he did not even realize it was happening. A soldier, out of nowhere, jumped into the truck, drew out his pistol, and shouted at the driver, "What is this thing doing here?"

The driver spoke no English except OK. "OK," he said, "OK, OK." The boy, by instinct, stood up and began to edge along the side of the truck. He was frightened, not so much of the pistol, for he had seen one pointing at him only the day before, but of the soldier, whose huge body, hairy face and hands seemed to expand and fill the entire truck. The pistol looked much too small in his enormous, fleshy hand. The soldier, facing him, edged in the opposite direction so that

40

he seemed to be square-dancing with the boy in a circle, but ever more deliberately and calculatingly, to the rhythm of the jerking and swaying of the vehicle.

"Get out, you beggar. Get out!" the soldier bellowed and flung out his leg. The gigantic, heavy, sturdy army boot looked more abhorrent to the boy than a bomb dropping from the sky, and there was no room to run for cover. The boot thudded into the boy's stomach, lifting him off his feet. It seemed to have cracked the boy's body in two and placed him forever in a ridiculous doubled-over position. The boy rolled over and over in the truck, whimpering.

"Get out, you fool," the soldier bellowed again.

It was then the boy recognized the voice as that he had heard yesterday. Another kick at his back and the boy was out of the truck, rolling in the snow.

The last truck approached him menacingly, and he rolled quickly off the road and down a slope, but suddenly he remembered his gold ring. Forgetting his pain he crawled frantically after the truck, shouting, "My bag, my bag!" And indeed he saw his bag flung out, tumbling over the snow bank at a distance from him, and he crawled and tumbled after it.

In desolation he cried, sitting on his bag, his face burning with fever and his hands and feet swollen with frostbite. After a while he opened the bag and took out the extra pair of pants to put on.

With his teeth he gnawed at the hem of the blue cloth of the bundle to tear it into strips, and with the strips he bound his feet tightly to the straw sandals.

When he attempted to stand up the pain in his abdomen assailed him so that he had to crawl up to the road on his hands and knees.

41

For three days and two nights he crawled, walked and stumbled, resting a few minutes or hours here and there, somewhere on his way uprooting a few more carrots, digging up a few more sweet potatoes. The temperature was freezing, the wind whipping and gusty, and the road tortuous and filled with icy slush. From time to time throngs of refugees overtook him, paying little attention to him, since they doubted he could ever make it, whatever his destination was. Yes, he was slow, but he was moving, and he must keep on moving, as one who has taken an overdose of barbiturates must be kept walking in order to be kept alive. He had only one preoccupation - - t o reach Wu Han, the heavenly city where there would be big buildings, wide streets, abundant food, and his aunt in the famous University -- and with each step he took he felt that he was that much closer to his destination, his salvation.

It was late in the afternoon, toward dusk when he had his first glimpse of Wu Han from its outskirts on top of a hill. Wu Han in the far distance looked as heavenly as he had imagined, a tremendous, boundless splash of redness tinged with yellow, orange and purple, with the deep green Yangtze River, bursting and splashing its white foam, coiled tightly round it like a multicolored, vibrating bow springing into life.

It was the most gorgeous sunset he had ever witnessed.

There was the smell of smoke, which meant people were cooking -- there was food -- hot food. In exulation he began to run, stumbling, his arms spread wide apart to embrace his salvation. The voices reached him first from behind the hill, not the distinct voices of each individual, but rather the combined droning of a swarm

42

in which everyone speaks at once. The noise increased in volume each second. He had been familiar with t^iis sound, yet he could not quite place it until he saw the swarms of people. A shattering revelation crashed over him so that for a moment he stood transfixed, gaping. What he had encountered in the past weeks, people in groups of tens or twenties, forming dots or irregular lines, now were in masses of hundreds, covering half a hillside like diligent ants at work.

He stopped the first person he could get hold up. "What's going on? he asked, hoping to Heaven that the answer would not be what he thought it must be.

"Can't you tell?" The man replied and hurried away.

After the man, a woman came up and said, "We're trying to get to Ban Soo and take a train from there to Ichang."

"What's has happened to Wu Han?" the boy shouted above the noise.

"Wu Han is no more. The city has been burning for the past two days," the woman said. A few new arrivals from the same route which the boy had taken now gathered around to listen to the news.

"Why, why, why?" Has it already been seized by the enemy?"

"No, not yet, but when they do, they'll find the whole city in charcoal."

"The University, what about the University?"

"Oh, it was evacuated weeks ago. As a matter of fact, to Ichang, where we are going."

"But there must be someone, something there!" the boy wailed desperately.

43

"Not a soul, boy, not a thing. We are the last to leave through the North Gate and there are people leaving through the West Gate, and the East and South gates are wide open to welcome the enemy. A jumble of debris they'll find."

The boy said nothing more. The woman said again, "Look, boy, Ban Soo is only about a day's walking, and when you get there, you can make the connection to Ichang by train."

Silently he turned and walked away; the small gathering dispersed. The boy walkedfar away, off the road, where he found a pile of rocks jutting out of the snow.

He brushed it off with his hands, and wearily he squatted, chin over his knees, face in hands, in his habitual position. A man who had been walking with him on their last stretch toward Wu Han followed him and tried to coax him into going on. The boy merely shook the head buried in his hands. Someone else came and pulled him lightly by the shoulder, then quietly left him. The exodus continued and occasionally someone would stop to look at the small rigid figure from a distance before resuming his flight.

Soon, at nightfall, the refugees thinned out considerably, only a few at a time passing at leisure as if on their way to visit friends. Far, far away Wu Han burned and sizzled in all its glory and splendor. The moon rose and shone in brilliant luminescence, casting black shadows over the gleaming snow; and the squatting figure and its shadow coalesced and became part of the still surroundings. For the time being it was windless, all was quiet and peaceful except for the mind of the boy. He had never known happiness or comfort, consequently now he did not miss these. He remembered a picture album in which he had seen his mother in her younger

44

days, but he had not been able to visualize her then, or believe she could ever have been as young and pretty as her pictures, nor could he visualize her so now. He longed to see something beautiful, or to remember something happy; but he could see only his mother's suffering, wrinkled face receding into different backgrounds. For years he had hiddenly blamed her for separating them from their father, though this feeling had never been expressed or sorted out logically in his mind. Now he pondered the thought that she should never have sent him away. Had he stayed with his family, at least they could have suffered together. And dying of starvation would certainly have been easier than dying of hunger, cold, exhaustion and illness combined. Oh, how cold it was! and there was nothing he could do to alleviate his discomfort, his misery.

Slowly, acquiescently, almost ceremoniously, as if this were the place he had been looking for all his life, standing up first, he lowered himself sprawling face down over the rocks. Some time after, the sky darkened and the snow began to drift down. Gently, caressingly the snow fell upon him. He knew now why he had walked this far off the road. It was so that he would not be stepped on or trampled by other feet. In the morning he would be covered with a thick white blanket and when spring came. . .he did not want, he did not think that far. Tucking his hands in his pockets to keep warm, his right hand touched again the gold ring. For a while there were only the faint heartbeats, the short breaths, and the light twirling of his finger over the ring.

Since he had left home, he had avoided thinking of his family. Now he abandoned his thoughts to them,

45

for there was nothing more he could do for them. As his face scraped and rubbed against the damp, rough surface of the rock, he recalled everything he had suffered with them. In a moment of hazy consciousness, one thing became clear to him: if the ring with which he was toying could have been exchanged for food, his mother would have done it. He knew now that she had not given him an object tagged with a fixed price, but something far more valuable, far more precious: all the good wishes that a mother has for her son. The full meaning of all this was too complex for him to grasp fully now, but he could feel it, like an intuition, and through feeling, he began to understand. He stirred. Struggling to rise, his clothbound, numbed feet slipped and he fell. Rising again, and slipping, stumbling, staggering and scrambling, he moved, like an apparition, into the darkness of the night.

CAMELLA GRACE WING

MORNING

A shade goes up Still in the world People are talking Bright on the terrace The early season Falling spoons And with a good view A la bonne heure Nothing is without power Only nothing.

David Lukashok

THE BLUE BERET

Like a little French school girl My little girl in blue Beret And 0 her hair This way and that The long.strands Some over her shoulder And some the other way But all of it orange Actually orange In the cool spring glare Where did I see her Where?

When all became so warm Sun sky air With my thick black coat And her orange orange hair.

David Lukashok

THE SEASONS

Splendid weeks, arcs of a sky, Unhurried, cloudless, autumn is by today.

Remember the days when the winter was a black Rectangle on the old horizon?

Not unexpected, not surprised As the first leaves fell uncertain to the warm Ground.

For the rhythm of the seasons is the breath

Of the world.

Seasons.

How human are the

Not like the cold stars

In their endless precision.

Winter.

Sometimes it is early:

Sometimes it is late:

Spring.

It is always

Changing, one to the other during The smallest interval.

And each season

Changing itself, not towards perfection but variety.

Without quite knowing we found the hill new with violets Or a human glove in the melting snow.

David Lukashok

ALBA:

TWO OP POEMS

I In the perfect blinding blankness of mist on sea a single gull guides the crippled eye to depths unmeasured by perceptibility.

That simple force of black's solidity against the seeming endless sea and sky punctuates what is borne so painfully: the fiercest massing of white on white attacking the vulnerable receptacle of light.

11 white is blanc blanch makes black become white which is blanc. all that has black has depth. white rises toward the ye and what it gives is blank. blanch black to blank blanc: screech of blasting blanc's blankness exiled to white from black's softer cushion of night.

Barbara Kelman

*Ezekiel, Chapter 1, verse 1: "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God."

THE CAPTIVES BY THE RIVER*

Their food was thrown in clots upon the riverbanks in spring; Her baby's fingers smaller than the buds of a rose Scraped the dank earth in the stench of night For bits of meal, and gathered corn.

The babe was not born prisoner, nor was his mother, Whose flesh bled from the chains of bondage. She died, But the babe -- with its swollen stomach -Makes no sound.

The sons of man would toss pebbles at each other, laughing, Their black hair curled like the crescent moon alive And shimmering in the waters of the River Chebar Where fish journey through Babylon.

The sons of man were bitter and the sons of man were strong.

Young boys will kiss a mother's cheek, even as their teeth Long to tear flesh. . .an eye for an eye.

They bed in shackles.

Now that he is an old man he can bear the chains indifferently, With his back arched against the wind and his wrinkles of stone.

He listens to Ezekiel and drinks water and says nothing, The guards do not work him too hard or too often.

Surely he will die tomorrow, falling like a willow branch Into the flooding water. He speaks to the listening stars And in the sun he smiles and bows his sleeping body.

But the Lord God who is raging fire has no pity for them And His sword strikes all with the skill of pestilence.

"Wicked men shall tumble gold and silver into gutters, While His wrath shall make deserts of cities.

Righteous blood does not please the Lord God. He came to sweep the crown from kings and exalt slaves!"

Ezekiel, stand you alone to call the people to obedience?

Without tears to proclaim your grief?

Without bread to sustain your penance?

Ezekiel sang with an angry love, And his voice was the Word of the Lord God.

Bruce Feld

"I HEAR THE SILENCE OF IT," HARRY SAID IN THE "It's deadly still in there."

He lay away from his wife, so that no part of himself was against her. His skin, that was so sensitive to the touch, was concealed in pajamas. He felt as though his body was barely resting on the bed. He thought, if he could feel the night it would be like feathers and a hand could go deep into it and be swallowed up.

On the day six months ago when they had been told about Blakney's imminent death, Harry had taken her picture and her small book of childish poems out of the study and put them in the bottom drawer of his bureau and not looked at them again. And each morning he had gone to work without speaking to anyone unless out of necessity. One strange thing had happened. He no longer wanted to touch his sister. But the headaches had grown more severe and twice he had had dizzy spells at the bank. Every evening he went to Blakney's room and they talked; but he never touched her and his eyes never found a place to rest.

The room was quite dark and he knew, if he moved his head, his eyes would find queer shaded places and slivers of light, broken and stringy. So he did not move yet. He kept himself part of the night, not quite real, not quite flesh. More a filmy ghost of Harry Lane who was spiriting briefly in another world, lightly sinking into this black cloud, to feel death or perhaps a likeness to it.

She lay there in the next room, his young sister.

"It's midnight," Elaine said, not moving from her back. "It's quiet in there because she's sleeping, that's all." Her voice was matter-of-fact.

Harry closed his eyes. He noticed a dull ache in the back of his neck. "I know she's sleeping. That's not the kind of silence I mean."

"I know what you mean, but does it help?"

"I can't help it if it doesn't help." A little spiral of desperation began its climb up Harry's voice.

"It's there and I feel it. Oh, God, how I feel it. It's dark.

T H E

I N C U B U S

so strong I can't sleep. So silent and still." He lowered his voice. "Terrible on these nights," he murmured as if to himself, "so eerily quiet and -- deadly. Almost, I can hear her breathing. Hardly any sleep for six months."

Harry opened his eyes and turned to Elaine in the dark. "I even slept better the nights she sobbed. Remember? The time she moaned, she muffled it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Afterwards, I mean. After all, she wasn't in pain. Those early nights when she first knew.

I'm sure she knew. It was just that she knew. I remember-I'd never felt so tired, so terribly weary." He paused.

"I really did," he said in wonder. "I slept better then."

"I didn't," said Elaine.

"I know, but she's not your sister."

"I could only think -- how awful that she knew, how much worse to have no hope -- I lay awake almost all night thinking about it."

"She'd know," Harry groaned.

Elaine said nothing, but she gave a little tired sigh and turned over on her side facing the wall.

Harry scanned the room until he knew what it looked like in the dark. He examined the shadows, the soft shredded garments of moonlight. One fell on his white shirt that hung over the back of a chair, another on his shoes by the bed.

He thought of Blakney. He knew she lay on her side, her sylph-like body graceful and relaxed, half curled up with her head on a small pillow, her short hair, dark and silky, falling over her face, the gray covers billowing about her. That pale delicate face with its long spider-like lashes. Those eyes, the color of pewter. He too had eyes like that, but not the lashes. She lay in there as he had seen her many times, the picture of youth and contentment.

He should like this picture of her, the time her face had nothing but sleep on it. He should feel relieved to think of it. But it merely caressed his mind like an evil reminder of death and faded quickly.

Now Harry looked into the darkness and said, "You gave her some toilet water today." His voice was level, dull.

Elaine raised her head, moving slightly, curving her 55

shoulder toward him in the dark. "Yes, Harry. I picked it up at the drug store. I was browsing around there. . . . " Her voice held a soft question.

"Last week I believe you bought her some gray satin pillows. . .they are new, aren't they?"

Elaine rolled over on her back again and turned her face to Harry. The strap of her nightgown fell slightly off her shoulder and Harry stared at the bare place it left on her breast.

Abruptly he moved away.

"She likes pretty things," said Elaine in a voice edged with concern. "She enjoys getting them. If she likes it, Harry?" she paused. "Harry -- why is it you always seem to notice? You take particular notice. It's as if you seem to mind -- or something."

Harry groaned. Then he sat up in bed and took a cigarette from the bedside table and lit it. Finally from some dismal place came his voice, hard and painful. "It's like burying her," he said, "shrouds."

Elaine pushed herself up in bed. She stared at Harry's formless face. "Harry! What a terrible thing to say. What in God's name do you mean?"

"Around her coffin you put these things," Harry said. Then in sing-song rhythm he added, "These things you put around her bed," and he laughed harshly once.

"There is something wrong," Elaine said dumbly, mostly to herselT. "Terribly wrong," she mumbled. She looked away.

"Don't do this Harry," came her nurse voice, her strong firm voice. "Whatever it is, don't do it. I can't stand much more."

"Don't do what?"

She hesitated, the nurse receded. "I'm not sure.

I don't know. . .God knows."

Harry now had his headache. It was full-blown.

If he had not spoken his thoughts aloud or if she had not answered -- but of course she would - - h e might have gone on with the dying. Or had he really wanted to? Hadn't he tried so often in the night, silently and lightly contained alone in his darkness? And hadn't he found it 56

impossible because he himself was not dying? He had sometimes let death wander out of his mind when he'd hardly begun, it was so difficult to get into her heart, her mind, her soul -- and never could he enter the other -- that physical part of dying. That surety, though ever-changing, was irrevocably lost to him and beyond. . .he could never go there, he knew. But the other -- she would see it in his eyes once he found the way. That was all he wanted, to see it in her eyes.

It seemed to him even now that some light of recognition in her eyes spurred him on as if she knew and drew closer, pushing through shadows to meet him.

He felt suddenly very tired; these nights took so much out of him. Sometimes, with a greedy glint in his eye, he had seized on the distracting thought or scene like a fish gobbling up a bright bit of sea life that floats by unexpectedly. But occasionally, when it seemed to him vaguely that he was being transformed, it was nearly as if he had released from life his own soul, and the dry anguish of his loss and waste would move all over inside him like a writhing snake and begin gnawing at his flesh until he could stand it no more.

And eyes wide, he would have to stop and shut it all out with a sudden movement. He would sit up and smoke a cigarette or get up and stalk the room. He would move suddenly and tremble.

He never quite reached further than the penultimate stage, as he thought of it. So he kept up his efforts, knowing something had stopped him. Tonight he knew it was himself, his own life that had obstructed him. He did not want to touch the dregs, the remains of despair.

"Don't do what?" repeated Harry.

Elaine said, "I was almost asleep. Harry, please go to sleep."

"But you said I was doing something to you. What am I doing, Elaine? Tell me."

"You must know."

"But I don't. Really I don't."

"Harry, can we just go to sleep? I'm very tired."

57

"Perhaps I'd better know," Harry said gently.

Elaine made a resigned movement in the bed and Harry heard the swishy sound of her body as she pulled herself up against the headboard. He knew when she reached for a cigarette. He saw her hand and the match when she struck it.

"Harry, I told you. I don't know. . .for six months it's been like this. I don't know what's wrong.

I didn't notice at first. I mean, your changing. I was so busy, I guess, so concerned for Blakney. Then, later, of course, well, it just fills the house and I • try -- I do what I can, but I don't know how I can stand it much longer, Harry, I just don't know."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what else you expect," Harry said. "Blakney's dying."

Elaine let out her breath. "Oh, I know that," she said, and she shook her head back and forth in a feeble, protesting way.

Harry noticed the shadow of a fold of her hair as it swung gently.

"I know, but I don't know how else to live. I mean, I'm not doing everything just right perhaps. . . is it me? I didn't think it could be -- what could I have done? I do what I can. But you. . .you act as though you expect more, something else. Is there something else you expect, Harry? I do what I can. Oh, Harry, it's been dreadful. . . . " "Don't keep saying that, Elaine, 'I do what I can!'"

"But, Harry, I do. I think I do, anyway. Now I'm not sure anymore. Is there some terrible thing I've been doing without knowing it -- or not doing?" She hesitated. "Surely -- has she said anything? My God, is there something, Harry?"

Harry shook his head mesmerically.

"But you expect more, don't you?" she said. "But what, Harry?"

Harry was silent a moment. He felt as though a piece of lead was sunk into the pit of each shoulder.

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His head throbbed.

"Maybe it's respect. Respect for the dying," he said without feeling.

"Respect! What do you mean, respect? I have respect. Oh, yes, I have that. That's not what you mean, Harry. You mean something else. And I don't think it's anything like respect. I'm afraid to think what it might be. Afraid, Harry! I think -- I think it must be something terrible."

"I don't mean to hurt you, Elaine," Harry said in a flat voice. "But I don't think you can give it.

It's not your fault; you're just -- you just can't give it."

"No, Harry," Elaine said, covering her shock and hurt with a cool, detached tone. "I probably can't."

She went on with studied calm. "I think you're right.

I can only live. I can just try, I mean, to do what I can for her -- and for you. That's all I can do, isn't it?"

Harry said, "Yes, that's all." Presently he got up and went into the bathroom. He got two aspirins out of the cabinet and swallowed them with a glass of water.

Then he stood for a moment listening; but there was no sound next door and he returned to bed and sat up against the pillows. Lighting a cigarette, he said, "How did she feel today?"

Elaine turned to him. "Harry, I told you when you got home. She was in very high spirits, I mean for for her. . .it was one of the better days. She wrote a whole poem today, that's why she was so tired. It took most of the day off and on. It touched me so, how she kept on. . . . " Elaine's voice trickled away. She looked off, reflecting.

Harry remembered something. He touched the top of his head, surprised not to find any hair there. Funny, how he never got used to his baldness. He remembered how he had read that poem in the early evening after his visit with her, and then burned it. He hadn't quite understood it. It seemed to be speaking to someone, a lover perhaps, he hadn't been sure. He thought Blakney's mind might be

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going, but still he wondered about the lover. "I don't know where the poem is," he said suddenly.

"I wouldn't worry," said Elaine. "She has copies."

"She always been rather careless about copies," Harry said as if from a great distance.

Elaine slipped down in the bed and lay quite still on her back. She said quietly, "I read the poem, when she finished it. I rather liked it. You know, Harry, I think she was writing about that young man she met in Paris -- the time you took her on that vacation with you, just after her graduation. After all, there wasn't any other. None she really was fond of."

Harry did not reply. He remembered the young man, and how lonely he had been those evenings without her.

After a long time he said, "I suppose today you bought her a new nightgown, something with a big bow on it."

For a moment, Elaine was silent. She lay immobile, mute and dry.

"What is it, Harry?" she said coldly, sunk in the soft mattress.

"You do what you can," said Harry mockingly. In the dark he looked down on her with an ugly condescending smile.

Elaine pulled herself up in bed and sat stiffly straight up.

"But you, Harry. What have you been doing for six months? Something, I know. Something inside you that nobody knows but you." Her Voice rose. "Do you know what it is? I'll tell you what it's like, Harry. It's like it's you who are dying and not her! You, Harry. And it's as if you want to. And it's almost like you're already dead. Dead." Her voice faded. She suddenly remembered Blakney and let out a soft exclamation. Then she asked in a hoarse whisper, "I don't know why it is, why it's like this, Harry. Does she know?"

Harry did not answer right away. Then he said calmly, "She doesn't know. But she will -- she will.

She'll know."

"Does it -- does it have to do with you, Harry? I mean, how you've changed?"

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"Changed? What do you mean, how I've changed?"

Harry's voice was edgy, cold. "Yes, I suppose it does, if you mean how I feel about her, my grief."

For a long moment Elaine was still. Finally she said, "Then I'm not sure that will be a good thing."

She paused and then as though she'd made a sudden decision, she went on. "Harry, if you know what you're doing, it's even worse. I'm not sure you do. But it's horrible for us, you know. Friends and your family look at you and it's as if you don't even see them. As for me, there's nothing but coldness, disapproval. You're critical of everything, even the way I wear my hair. That is, when you notice me. Why, when you notice me, it's as if you see an old woman. If you want to know the truth, I'm embarrassed, when you look at me. Sometimes you stare."

"All you can think of is yourself," Harry said.

"Oh, Harry, it's the change. I'm talking about the terrible change."

"Death is a change," said Harry.

"Oh, Harry."

"I saw you change all the blankets and give her the three light ones."

"Yes," said Elaine, shocked.

"Not important," said Harry. "By doing all those stupid things you show her you can't really care. You can't know."

"Oh, my God," said Elaine.

"How old are you?" asked Harry suddenly.

"Oh, my God," said Elaine.

"Blakney is twenty-one. Twenty-one and lovely. I have in that chest over there a scrapbook of poems she did as a child. And just the other day she gave me others.

Just the other day, Elaine --" Harry's voice cracked suddenly.

"Harry!"

"Just the other day. . . . " his voice trailed off.

"Through fields of May. I was a boy, running through the fields." Harry's voice was running, too, in a cold quiet scream, the words curled in anguish.

"Stop it Harry! Now!"

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"Yes, yes, listen." He grew quieter and intent.

"You see, there are those poems that will never be written. That's it, Elaine. Can you see that?

That's -- that's why I've got to know, get inside her skin, I've got to know how she feels. And so save -got to save. . . .

At least I can do that, can't I, Elaine? I can suffer with her, be close. I'll understand. In fact, I do understand, more and more. Her eyes are my eyes. They are the first thing I see behind that cage at the bank each morning, the first thing."

It was some minutes before Elaine could speak.

She just began shaking her head from side to side. When she recovered enough to speak she had decided to get it finished. She said, "Tell me again, Harry, how you used to bathe her when she was little, how soft she was.

And then, Harry, perhaps you'd like to tell me the rest, how you've felt all these years,- what a strain it's been. Maybe you can talk now."

Harry looked at his wife but he could not see her. She was only a soft gray outline in the dark, a form of light and shadows.

"What an awful woman you are," said Harry calmly.

Then he stubbed out his cigarette very carefully. A pleasant smile came over his face; the hard lines melted.

His head felt a little airy. He got out of bed and opened the bathroom door; Elaine saw his shadow for a moment inside it. Then, with a graceful movement, he tiptoed into Blakney's room.

LYNN C. HICKMAN

BRUCE FELO was born in Missouri in 1942, and graduated from General Studies in February, 1965, where he was a member of the QUARTO and Owl staffs; now goes home each night (from McGraw-Hill business publications) to a home full of grace -- Vanessa Grace Feld, a baby daughter of redundant beauty.

BARBARA ANNE KELMAN crosses Broadway from Barnard ('67) once a week to attend Le"onie Adams' poetry workshop.

DAVID LUKASHOK, forced by graduation to leave Lewisohn, will move only as far as across the campus to Avery, where he will begin work toward a second degree, in architecture, in the fall.

ALLYN MOSS has lived in New York City, Ohio (Antioch College), Italy and Mexico, and has had fiction and articles appear in Seventeen, Junior Bazaar, Glamour, Dance and various reviews. Her biography of Margaret Mead, Shaping a New World, appeared in 1963. Active, through writing, in the peace offensive, she cooperated with Robert Osborn on a booklet for SANE, Let My Child Live.

CLAUDIA THONNARD wrote prize-winning poetry at Florida State University before coming to General Studies, and has since had poetry and articles published in this country and in South America.

CAMELLA GRACE WING, now a United States citizen, came from Formosa to New York City by way of Fontbonne College, St. Louis University. THE GOLD RING is her first published short story.

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