The Toynbee Convector Part 23

She was in the parlor door behind him now, but her voice sounded as remote as the fading footsteps along the dark street "Don't stand there letting the draft in," she said.

He stiffened as he finished unwrapping the object. It lay in his hand, a small revolver. Far away the train sounded a final cry, which failed in the wind.

"Shut the door," said his wife.

His face was cold. He closed his eyes.

Her voice. Wasn't there just the tiniest tiniest touch of petulance there? touch of petulance there?

He turned slowly, off balance. His shoulder brushed the door. It drifted. Then: The wind, all by itself, slammed the door with a bang.

Long Division

You've had the lock changed changed!"

He sounded stunned, standing in the door looking down at the k.n.o.b that he fiddled with one hand while he clenched the old door key in the other.

She took her hand off the other side of the k.n.o.b and walked away.

"I didn't want any strangers coming in."

"Strangers!" he cried. Again he jiggled the k.n.o.b and then with a sigh put away his key and shut the door. "Yes, I guess we are. Strangers."

She did not sit down but stood in the middle of the room looking at him.

"Let's get to to it," she said. it," she said.

"It looks like you already have. Jesus." He blinked at the books divided into two incredibly neat stacks on the floor. "Couldn't you have waited for me?"

"I thought it would save time," she said and nodded now to her left, now to her right. "These are mine. Those are yours."

"Let's look."

"Go ahead. But no matter how you look, these are mine, those are yours."

"Oh, no you don't!" He strode forward and began to replant the books, taking from both left and right sides of the stacks. "Let's start over."

"You'll ruin everything!" she said. "It took me hours to sort things out."

"Well," said he panting, down on one knee. "Let's take some more hours. Freudian a.n.a.lysis Freudian a.n.a.lysis! See? What's that doing on my side of the stacks. I hate Freud!"

"I thought I'd get rid of it."

"Rid of it? Call the Goodwill. Don't fob the dumb books off on strangers, meaning your former husband. Let's make three stacks, one for you, one for me and one for the Salvation Army."

"You take the Salvation Army stuff with you and call them."

"Why can't you call from here? G.o.d, I don't want to lug the lamebrain stuff across town. Wouldn't it be simpler-"

"All right, all right, natter, natter. But stop messing with the books. Look at my stacks and then yours and see if you don't agree-"

"I see my copy of Thurber on your side, what's that doing there?"

"You gave it to me for Christmas ten years ago, don't you remember?"

"Oh," he said, and stopped. "Sure. Well-what's Willa Cather doing over there?'

"You gave me her for my birthday twelve years ago."

"It seems to me I spoiled you a lot."

"d.a.m.n right you did, a long time ago. I wish you were still spoiling me. Maybe we wouldn't be dividing up the d.a.m.ned books." He flushed and turned away to kick the stacks quietly, gently with the tip of his shoe.

"Karen Horney, okay, she was a bore, too. Jung, I like Jung better, always did, but you you can keep him." can keep him."

"Thanks a billion."

"You always were one for thinking too much and not feeling."

"Anyone who carries his mattress around with him on his back shouldn't talk about thinking or feeling. Anyone who has bite marks on his neck-"

"We've been over that and it's past." He knelt down again and began to run his hand over the t.i.tles. "Here's Katherine Anne Porter's s.h.i.+p of Fools s.h.i.+p of Fools, how in h.e.l.l did you ever get through that? It's yours. John Collier's short stories! You know I love his work! That goes over in my pile!"

"Wait!" she said.

"My pile." He pulled the book out and tossed it along the floor. pile." He pulled the book out and tossed it along the floor.

"Don't! You'll hurt it."

"It's mine now." He gave it another shove.

"I'm glad you're not running the main library," she said.

"Here's Gogol, boring, Saul Bellow, boring, John Updike, nice style but no ideas. Boring, Frank O'Connor? Okay, but you can keep him. Henry James? Boring, Tolstoy, never could figure out the names, not boring, just confusing, keep him. Aldous Huxley? Hey, wait! You know I think his essays are better than his novels!"

"You can't break the set!"

"Like heck I can't. We split this baby down the middle. You get the novels, I get his ideas."

He grabbed three of the books and shoved them, skittering across the carpet. She stepped over and began to examine the piles she had put aside for him.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Just rethinking what I gave you. I think I'll take back John Cheever."

"Christ! What gives? I take this this, you grab that that? Put Cheever back. Here's Pushkin. Boring, Robbe-Grillet, French boring. Knut Hamsun. Scandinavian boring."

"Cut the critiques. You make me feel like I just foiled my lit. exam. You think you're taking all the good books and leaving me the dimwits?"

"Could be. All those Connecticut writers picking lint out of each other's navels, logrolling down Fifth Avenue, firing blanks all the way!"

"I don't suppose you find Charlie d.i.c.kens a dud?"

"d.i.c.kens!? We haven't had anyone like him in this century century!"

"Thank G.o.d! You'll notice I gave you all the Thomas Love Peac.o.c.k novels. Asimov's science fiction. Kafka? Ba.n.a.l."

"Now who's busy burning books?" He bent furiously to study first her stack, then his. "Peac.o.c.k, by G.o.d, one of the great humorists of all time. Kafka? Deep. Crazy, brilliant. Asimov? A genius!" who's busy burning books?" He bent furiously to study first her stack, then his. "Peac.o.c.k, by G.o.d, one of the great humorists of all time. Kafka? Deep. Crazy, brilliant. Asimov? A genius!"

"Ho-hum! Jesus." She sat down and put her hands in her lap and leaned forward, nodding at the hills of literature. "I think I begin to see where everything fell apart. The books you read, flotsam to me. The books I read, jetsam to you. Junk. Why didn't we realize that ten years back?"

"Lots of things you don't notice when you're-" he slowed-"in love."

The word had been spoken. She moved back in her chair, uneasily, and folded her hands and put her feet primly together. She stared at him with a peculiar bright ness m her eyes.

He looked away and began to prowl the room. "Ah, h.e.l.l," he said, kicking one stack, and moved across to kick the other, quietly, easily. "I don't give a d.a.m.n what's in this bunch or that, I don't care, I just don't-"

"Do you have room in your car for most of these?" she said, quietly, still looking at him.

"I think so."

"Want me to help you carry them out?"

"No." There was another long moment of silence.

"I can manage." "You sure?"

"Sure." With a great sigh he began to carry a few books over near the door.

"I've got some boxes in the car. I'll bring them up."

"Don't you want to look over the rest of the books to be sure they're ones you want?"

"Naw," he said. You know my taste. Looks like you did it all right It's like you just peeled two pieces of paper away from each other, and there they are, I can't believe it."

He stopped piling the books by the door and stood looking at first one fortress of volumes on one side and then the opposing castles and towers of literature, and then at his wife, seated stranded in the valley between. It seemed a long way down the valley, across the room to where she was.

At that moment, two cats, both black, one large, one small, bounded in from the kitchen, caromed off the furniture and ricocheted out of the room, with not a sound.

His hand twitched. His right foot half turned toward the door.

"Oh, no, you don't!" she said, quickly. "No cat carriers in here. Leave it outside. I'm keeping Maude and Maudlin."

"But-" he said.

"Nope," she said.

There was a long silence. At last, his shoulders slumped.

"h.e.l.l," he said, quietly. "I don't want any of the d.a.m.ned books. You can keep them all."

"You'll change your mind in a few days and come after them."

"I don't want them," he said. "I only want you."

"That's the terrible part of all this," she said, not moving. "I know it, and it's impossible."

"Sure. I'll be right back. I'll bring the boxes up." He opened the door and again stared at the new lock as if he couldn't believe. He took the old key from his pocket and put it on a side table near the door. "Won't need that anymore."

"No more, no," she said, so he could hardly hear her.

"I'll knock when I come back." He started out and turned, "You know all of this was just talking around the real subject we haven't even discussed yet?"

"What's that?" She looked up.

He hesitated, moved a step, and said, "Who gets the kids?"

Before she could answer, he went out and shut the door.

Come, and Bring Constance!

His wife opened the mail at Sat.u.r.day breakfast. It was the usual landslide.

"We're on every hit list in town, and beyond," he said. "I can stand the bills. But the come-ons, the premieres you don't want to attend, the benefits that benefit no one, the-"

"Who's Constance?" asked his wife.

"Who's who?" he said.

"Constance," said his wife.

And the summer morning pa.s.sed quickly into November shade.