Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker Part 34

His mother became the little girl again. "Isn't he wonderful?" she said. "This is my baby. This is Crissy-wiss."

"What is his name?" the true friend said.

"Why, Christopher, of course," his mother said.

Christopher, of course. Had he been born earlier, it would have been Peter; earlier again, Michael; he had been not much too late for Jonathan. In the lower forms of his school, there were various Nicholases, several Robins, and here and there a Jeremy coming up. But the members of his own cla.s.s were in the main Christophers.

"Christopher," the true friend said. "Well, that's not too bad. Of course, that downward stroke of the 'p' is bound to give him trouble, and I'm never really happy about an 'r' and an 'i' together. But it's not too bad. Not too. When's your birthday?" she asked the boy.

"The fifteenth of August," he said.

His mother was no longer the little girl. "The heat," she said, "the cruel August heat. And the st.i.tches. Oh, G.o.d, the st.i.tches!"

"So he's a Leo," the true friend said. "Awfully big for a Leo. You want to be pretty careful, young man, from October 22nd to November 13th. Keep away from anything electrical."

"I will," the boy said. "Thank you," he added.

"Let me see your hand," the true friend said.

The boy gave her his hand.

"Mm," she said, scanning the palm. "M-hmm, m-hmm, m-hmm. Oh. Well-that can't be helped. Well, you'll have pretty good health, if you just watch that chest of yours. There's a long sickness in your twenties and a bad accident some time around forty-five, but that's about all. There's going to be an unhappy love affair, but you'll get over it. You'll marry and-I can't see if there's two or three children. Probably two and one born dead, or something like that. I don't see much money, any time. Well, you watch your chest." She gave him back his hand.

"Thank you," he said.

The little girl came back to his mother. "Isn't he going to be famous?" she said.

The true friend shrugged. "It's not in his hand," she said.

"I always thought he'd write," his mother said. "When he was so small you could hardly see him, he used to write little verses. Crissy, what was the one about the b.u.mpety bunny?"

"Oh, Mother!" he said. "I don't remember!"

"Oh, you do so, too!" she said. "You're just being modest. It was all about how the bunny went b.u.mpety, b.u.mpety all day long. Of course you remember. Well, you don't seem to write verses any more-at least none you show to me. And your letters-they're like telegrams. When you write at all, that is. Oh, Marah, why do they have to grow up? And now he's going to be married and have all those children."

"Two, anyway," the true friend said. "I'm not too happy about that third one."

"I suppose I'll never see him then," his mother said. "A lonely old woman, sick and trembling, and no one to take care of me."

She picked up the true friend's empty gla.s.s from the coffee table, filled it and her own from the c.o.c.ktail shaker, and returned the friend's. She sat down near the sofa.

"Well, sit down, Crissy," she said. "And why don't you take off your coat?"

"Why, I don't think I'd better, Mom," he said. "You see-"

"He wants to keep his wet coat on," the true friend said. "He likes to smell like low tide."

"Well, you see," the boy said, "I can stay just a minute. You see, the train was late and everything, and I told Dad I'd be sure to be there early."

"Oh?" his mother said. The little girl ran off abruptly. The eyelids came into play.

"It's because the train was late," he said. "If it had been on time, I could have stayed awhile. But it had to go and be late, and they're having dinner awfully early tonight."

"I see," his mother said. "I see. I had thought that you would have dinner with me. With your mother. Her only son. But no, that is not to be. I have only an egg, but I would have shared it with you so gladly. So happily. But you are wise, of course. You must think first of your own comfort. Go and fill your stomach with your father. Go eat stalled ox with him."

"Mother, don't you see?" he said. "We have to have dinner early because we have to go to bed early. We've got to get up at daybreak because we're driving to the country. You know. I wrote you."

"Driving?" she said. "Your father has a new car, I presume."

"It's the same old heap," he said. "Nearly eight years old."

"Really?" she said. "Naturally, the buses in which I am obliged to ride are all this year's models."

"Ah, Mom," he said.

"Is your father well?" she said.

"He's fine," he said.

"Why not?" she said. "What is there could pierce that heart? And how is Mrs. Tennant? As I suppose she calls herself."

"Let's not do this again, will you, Mom?" he said. "She's Mrs. Tennant. You know that. She and Dad have been married for six years."

"To me," she said, "there is only one woman who may rightfully wear a man's name; the one whose son he has sired. But that is only my humble opinion. Who is to listen to it?"

"You get along all right with your stepmother?" the true friend said.

As always, it took him a moment before he could connect the term. It seemed to have nothing to do with Whitey, with her gay little monkey's face and her flying straw-colored hair.

A laugh fell from his mother's lips, hard, like a pellet of ice. "Such women are sly," she said. "They have ways."

"Well, born on a cusp," the true friend said. "You've got to keep considering that."

His mother turned to the boy. "I am going to do something that you will agree, in any honesty, that I have never done before," she said. "I am going to ask a favor of you. I am going to ask you to take off your coat and sit down, so that for just a few poor minutes it will seem as if you were not going to leave me. Will you let me have that illusion? Do not do it out of affection or grat.i.tude or consideration. Just in simple pity."

"Yes, sit down, for G.o.d's sake," the true friend said. "You make people nervous."

"All right, sure," the boy said. He took off his raincoat, hung it over his arm, and sat on a small, straight chair.

"He's the biggest d.a.m.n thing I ever saw," the true friend said.

"Thank you," his mother said. "If you think I ask too much, I plead guilty. Mea culpa. Well, now that we are cozy, let us talk, shall we? I see so little of you-I know so little about you. Tell me some things. Tell me what there is about this Mrs. Tennant that causes you to rank her so high above me. Is she more beautiful than I am?"

"Mom, please," he said. "You know Whitey isn't beautiful. She's just sort of funny-looking. Nice funny."

"Nice funny," she said. "Oh, I'm afraid I could never compete with that. Well, looks aren't everything, I suppose. Tell me, do you consider her a human being?"

"Mother, I don't know," he said. "I can't do that kind of talk."

"Let it pa.s.s," she said. "Let it be forgotten. Is your father's country place attractive at this time of year?"

"It isn't a place," he said. "You know-it's just a big sort of shack. There isn't even any heat. Just fireplaces."

"Ironic," she said. "Bitterly, cruelly ironic. I, who so love an open fire; I, who could sit all day looking into its leaping golds and purples and dreaming happy dreams. And I haven't even a gas log. Well. And who is going to this shack, to share the lovely, glowing fires?"

"Just Dad and Whitey and me," he said. "Oh, and the other Whitey, of course."

His mother looked at the true friend. "Is it growing dark in here?" she said. "Or is it just that I think I am going to faint?" She looked again at the boy. "The other Whitey?"

"It's a little dog," he said. "Not any particular kind. It's a nice little dog. Whitey saw it out in the street, when it was snowing, and it followed her home, and so they kept it. And whenever Dad-whenever anybody called Whitey, the dog would come, too. So Dad said well, if he thought that was his name, then that was going to be his name. So that was why."

"I am afraid," his mother said, "that your father is not aging with dignity. To me, whimsey after forty-five is a matter of nausea."

"It's an awfully nice little dog," he said.

"The management does not allow dogs here," she said. "I suppose that will be held against me. Marah-this drink. It is as weak as the beating of my heart."

"Why doesn't he make us some fresh ones?" the true friend said.

"I'm sorry," the boy said. "I don't know how to make c.o.c.ktails."

"What do they teach you, anyway, in that fancy school of yours?" the true friend said.

His mother tilted her head at the boy. "Crissy," she said, "want to be a big, brave man? Take the bowl and get some nice, cold ice out of the kitchen."

He took the ice bowl, went into the minuscule kitchen, and took a tray of ice cubes from the tiny refrigerator. When he replaced the tray, he could hardly close the refrigerator door, the shelves were so crowded. There were a cardboard box of eggs, a packet of b.u.t.ter, a cl.u.s.ter of glossy French rolls, three artichokes, two avocados, a plate of tomatoes, a bowl of sh.e.l.led peas, a grapefruit, a tin of vegetable juices, a gla.s.s of red caviar, a cream cheese, an a.s.sortment of sliced Italian sausages, and a plump little roasted Cornish Rock hen.

When he returned, his mother was busied with bottles and shaker. He set the bowl of cubes beside them.

"Look, Mom," he said, "honestly I've got to-"

His mother looked at him and her lip trembled. "Just two more minutes," she whispered. "Please, oh, please."

He went and sat again.

She made the drinks, gave one to the true friend, and kept one. She sank into her chair; her head drooped and her body looked as boneless as a skein of yarn.

"Don't you want a drink?" the true friend said.

"No, thanks," the boy said.

"Might do you good," the true friend said. "Might stunt your growth. How long are you going to stay up in this country where you're going?"

"Oh, just over tomorrow night," he said. "I have to be back at school Sunday evening."

His mother stiffened and straightened. Her former coldnesses were as tropical heat to that which took her now.

"Do I understand you to say that you will not be coming in to see me again?" she said. "Do I understand you aright?"

"I can't, Mom," he said. "I won't have a chance. We've got to drive back, and then I have to get the train."

"I quite comprehend," she said. "I had thought, in my tenderness, I would see you again before your return to your school. I had thought, of course, that if you must rush away like a mad thing today, then I would see you again, to make up for it. Disappointments-I thought I had had them all, I thought life could bring forth no new ones. But this-this. That you will not take a little bit of your time from your relatives, who have so much of it, to give to me, your mother. How it must please them that you do not want to see me. How they must laugh together. What a triumph. How they must howl in merriment."

"Mother, don't say things like that," he said. "You shouldn't, even when you're-"

"Please!" she said. "The subject is closed. I will say no more about your father, poor, weak man, and that woman with the dog's name. But you-you. Have you no heart, no bowels, no natural instincts? No. You have not. I must face the fact. Here, in the presence of my friend, I must say what I had thought never, never to say. My son is not a human being!"

The true friend shook her caul and sighed. The boy sat still.

"Your father," his mother said. "Does he still see his old friends? Our old friends?"

"Why, I don't know, Mom," he said. "Yes, they see a lot of people, I guess. There's almost always somebody there. But they're alone a lot of the time. They like it that way."

"How fortunate," she said. "They like being alone. Smug, content, no need-Yes. And the old friends. They do not see me. They are all in twos, they have lives, they know what they're going to be doing six months from now. Why should they see me? Why should they have memories, kindnesses?"

"Probably most of them Pisces," the true friend said.

"Well, you must go," the boy's mother said. "It is late. Late-when is it ever late for me, when my son is with me? But you have told me. I know. I understand, and so I bow my head. Go, Christopher. Go."

"I'm terribly sorry, Mom," the boy said. "But I told you how it is." He rose and put on his coat.

"Christ, he gets bigger and bigger," the true friend said.

This time, the eyelids of the boy's mother were lowered at her friend. "I have always admired tall men," she said. She turned again to the boy. "You must go," she said. "It is so written. But take happiness with you. Take sweet memories of our little time together. See-I shall show you that I bear no vengefulness. I shall show you that I wish only well to those who have wrought but evil to me. I shall give you a present to take one of them."

She rose, moved about the room, touched boxes and tables fruit lessly. Then she went to the desk, moved papers and inkstands, and brought forth a small, square box, on top of which was a little plaster poodle, sitting on its hind legs, its front paws curved endearingly, begging.

"This is a souvenir of happier times," she said. "But I need no reminders. Take this dear, happy thing to one you love. See! See what it is!"

She touched a spring at the back of the box and the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" tinkled forth, hesitantly.

"My little music box," she said. "That moonlit night, the s.h.i.+p so brilliant, the ocean so still and beckoning."

"Hey, that's cool, Mom," he said. "Thanks ever so much. Whitey'll love it. She loves things like that."

"Things like that?" she said. "There are no other things like that, when one gives from one's heart." She stopped and seemed to ponder. "Whitey will love it?" she said. "Are you telling me that you propose giving it to that so-called Mrs. Tennant?" She touched the box; the tinkling ceased.

"I thought you said-" the boy said.

She shook her head at him, slowly. "Curious," she said. "Extraordinary. That my son should have so little perception. This gift, from my poor little store, is not for her. It is for the little dog. The little dog that I may not have."

"Why, thanks, Mom," he said. "Thanks."

"So go," she said. "I would not hold you. Take with you my wishes for your joy, among your loved ones. And when you can, when they will release you for a little while-come to me again. I wait for you. I light a lamp for you. My son, my only child, there are but desert sands for me between your comings. I live on your visits-Chris, I live on your visits."

The New Yorker, January 15, 1955.