Страница 33 из 74
There was a Temple of Learning sat
Right on Lake Huron shore
Where many a dull-eyed Dunce did come
To listen to many a Bore.
And the King of the Bores was a Right Fine Chap
Did Grin from Ear to Ear
A Jerk with One Big Thought in his Head-
Tell ‘em All What They’d Like to Hear!
One winter Margaret had got the idea of organizing a series of evenings at which people would talk-at not too great length-on whatever subject they knew and cared most about. She thought of it being for teachers (“Teachers are always the ones standing up blabbing away at a captive audience,” she said. “They need to sit down and listen to somebody else telling them something, for a change”), but then it was decided that it would be more interesting if nonteachers were invited as well. There would be a potluck di
That was how, on a clear cold night, Nina found herself standing outside Margaret’s kitchen door in the dark entry way packed with the coats and schoolbags and hockey sticks of Margaret’s sons-it was back when they were all still at home. In the living room-from which no sound could reach Nina anymore-Kitty Shore was going on about her chosen subject, which was saints. Kitty and Ed Shore were among the “real people” invited into the group-they were also Margaret’s neighbors. Ed had spoken on another night, about mountain climbing. He had done some himself, in the Rockies, but mostly he talked of the perilous and tragic expeditions he liked to read about. (Margaret had said to Nina, when they were getting the coffee that night, “I was a little worried he might talk about embalming,” and Nina had giggled and said, “But that’s not his favorite thing. It’s not an amateur thing. I don’t suppose you get too many amateur embalmers.”)
Ed and Kitty were a good-looking couple. Margaret and Nina had agreed, confidentially, that Ed would have been a notable turn-on if it weren’t for his profession. The scrubbed pallor of his long, capable hands was extraordinary and made you think, Where have those hands been? Curvy Kitty was often referred to as a darling-she was a short, busty, warm-eyed brunette with a voice full of breathy enthusiasm. Enthusiasm about her marriage, her children, the seasons, the town, and especially about her religion. In the Anglican church, which she belonged to, enthusiasts like her were uncommon, and there were reports that she was a trial, with her strictness and fanciness and penchant for arcane ceremonies such as the Churching of Women. Nina and Margaret, also, found her hard to take, and Lewis thought she was poison. But most people were smitten.
This evening she wore a dark-red wool dress and the earrings that one of her children had made for her for Christmas. She sat in a corner of the sofa with her legs tucked under her. As long as she stuck to the historical and geographical incidence of saints it was all right-that is, all right for Nina, who was hoping that Lewis might not find it necessary to go on the attack.
Kitty said that she was compelled to leave out all the saints of Eastern Europe and concentrate mostly on the saints of the British Isles, particularly those of Cornwall and Wales and Ireland, the Celtic saints with the wonderful names, who were her favorites. When she got into the cures, the miracles, and especially as her voice became more joyous and confiding and her earrings tinkled, Nina grew apprehensive. She knew that people might think her frivolous, Kitty said, to talk to some saint when she had a cooking disaster, but that was what she really believed the saints were there for. They were not too high and mighty to take an interest in all those trials and tribulations, the details of our lives that we would feel shy about bothering the God of the Universe with. With the help of the saints, you could stay partly inside a child’s world, with a child’s hope of help and consolation. Ye must become as little children. And it was the small miracles-surely it was the small miracles that helped prepare us for the great ones?
Now. Were there any questions?
Somebody asked about the status of saints in an Anglican church. In a Protestant church.
“Well, strictly speaking I don’t think the Anglican is a Protestant church,” said Kitty. “But I don’t want to get into that. When we say in the creed, ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,’ I just take it to mean the whole big universal Christian church. And then we say, ‘I believe in the Communion of Saints.’ Of course we don’t have statues in the church, though personally I think it would be lovely if we did.”
Margaret said, “Coffee?” and it was understood that the formal part of the evening was over. But Lewis shifted his chair closer to Kitty and said almost genially, “So? Are we to understand that you believe in these miracles?”
Kitty laughed. “Absolutely. I couldn’t exist if I didn’t believe in miracles.”
Then Nina knew what had to follow. Lewis moving in quietly and relentlessly, Kitty countering with merry conviction and what she might think of as charming and feminine inconsistencies. Her faith was in that, surely-in her own charm. But Lewis would not be charmed. He would want to know, What form do these saints take at the present moment? In Heaven, do they occupy the same territory as the merely dead, the virtuous ancestors? And how are they chosen? Isn’t it by the attested miracles, the proven miracles? And how are you going to prove the miracles of someone who lived fifteen centuries ago? How prove miracles, anyway? In the case of the loaves and fishes, counting. But is that real counting, or is it perception? Faith? Ah, yes. So it all comes down to faith. In daily matters, in her whole life, Kitty lives by faith?
She does.
She doesn’t rely on science in any way? Surely not. When her children are sick she doesn’t give them medicine. She doesn’t bother about gas in her car, she has faith-
A dozen conversations have sprung up around them and yet, because of its intensity and its danger-Kitty’s voice now hopping about like a bird on a wire, saying don’t be silly, and do you think I’m an absolute nutcase? and Lewis’s teasing growing ever more contemptuous, more deadly-this conversation will be heard through the others, at all times, everywhere in the room.
Nina has a bitter taste in her mouth. She goes out to the kitchen to help Margaret. They pass each other, Margaret carrying in the coffee. Nina goes straight on through the kitchen and out into the passage. Through the little pane in the back door she peers at the moonless night, the snowbanks along the street, the stars. She lays her hot cheek against the glass.
She straightens up at once when the door from the kitchen opens, she turns and smiles and is about to say, “I just came out to check on the weather.” But when she sees Ed Shore’s face against the light, in the minute before he closes the door, she thinks that she doesn’t have to say that. They greet each other with an abbreviated, sociable, slightly apologetic and disclaiming laugh, by which it seems many things are conveyed and understood.
They are deserting Kitty and Lewis. Just for a little while-Kitty and Lewis won’t notice. Lewis won’t run out of steam and Kitty will find some way-being sorry for Lewis could be one-out of the dilemma of being devoured. Kitty and Lewis won’t get sick of themselves.
Is that how Ed and Nina feel? Sick of those others, or at least sick of argument and conviction. Tired of the never-letting-up of those striving personalities.
They wouldn’t quite say so. They would only say they’re tired.
Ed Shore puts an arm around Nina. He kisses her-not on the mouth, not on her face, but on her throat. The place where an agitated pulse might be beating, in her throat.