A Lost King: A Novel Page 4

  Nina was looking at her hands. She was on the verge of tears.

  “It’s incredible and unbelievable,” he said. “Don’t you realize you’re like a prisoner in this house? Don’t you ever get out for a good time? Do you like music? How about it?”

  “Oh, Andy,” she said.

  “Do you ever go dancing? Do they ever take you out to dinner or a show? Let’s start at the beginning. Now I want you to think hard. Did anyone here ever say thank you for anything?”

  “Oh, Andy.”

  “Now I need plums for both of you,” he said. “I didn’t know I was delivering the news. Believe me, Nina, this is an old story. They take you for granted here. They don’t appreciate you at all. Tomorrow will be just like today. But you’ll be a day older and more worn out. It’s all the same to them as long as the house is clean and their supper’s on the table. I’ve seen it like this. My work takes me into a lot of houses. Consider your father. I don’t want to say anything against him. But he’s like an animal. An animal, that’s right.”

  Andy thought he better bring me into it.

  “Isn’t that right, Paul?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell the truth now,” he said. “Doesn’t your father act like an animal around this house? Doesn’t he?”

  Andy touched his bowtie and then gave me another look at the rabbits on the socks. The dancing rabbits did it. I was with him.

  “An animal?” he was saying.

  “He really is,” I said.

  Right then my father came in. He slammed his lunchpail and gloves down on the cupboard. He looked at no one. His black cap curved down on both sides from its peak and seemed to be cupping his face until the big bones bulged.

  “Good afternoon,” said Andy. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  My father wheeled on him with that crazed look.

  “Now’s your chance,” he said.

  “Well, Mr. Christopher, maybe we should talk about insurance.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Insurance against things happening.”

  “There’s no insurance against things happening.”

  “I mean it’s good to have insurance in case things happen.”

  “You mean it’s good for those who collect on the insurance.”

  “Well, Mr. Christopher, I wouldn’t put it in that way.”

  “You wouldn’t put it in any way at all. You’re sitting in my kitchen and drinking my coffee. And you’re telling me I’m going to die. This is important. This should be cut in stone. But all I hear from you is things will happen. It’s wind through the leaves. And then you say insurance is a good thing for me and what you mean is hard cash for somebody else. What you want me to do is pay my way out and leave something behind.”

  “Maybe I better be going,” said Andy.

  “Now you’re talking,” said my father.

  At night Andy waited for Nina around the corner in Lincoln Park. In the day he kept turning up at the house when my father was at work. He brought gifts. He brought pies and cream puffs for Nina. He brought Hershey bars for me. I sat in that kitchen watching them and eating pie and candy until I broke out with boils on my neck.

  By now they were touching each other in a delicate way as though touching harps. Once he dared put his hand right over hers while she was pouring coffee for him. So thrilling was it that she poured the coffee in his lap. She burst into tears. He said it didn’t matter. He didn’t mind having hot coffee in his lap as long as she made and poured it. She laughed through her tears.

  After a few weeks they didn’t talk much at all. Andy gazed out the window. Nina sat with her hands folded in her lap. I could hear them breathing. It seemed they were blowing up invisible balloons. Even when they talked I couldn’t understand it.

  “I was thinking,” he would say.

  “I know,” she said, blushing. “So was I.”

  “I was sort of wondering here,” he said.

  “Say it,” she said.

  “But there’s Paul,” he said.

  “What is it, Andy?” I said, through a mouthful of peach pie.

  “Say it,” she said.

  “But Paul,” he said.

  “Yes, Andy?” I said.

  “Say it then,” she said, urgently. “Please.”

  “I wish I could,” he said, breathlessly pale.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I think you did.”

  “Did he?” I said.

  Three days later it was over for my father and me. Andy came through the door. Nina hurried to him with the mop. They stood beside the refrigerator. They were watching each other as though for a false move. I held my breath. They had caught me up in it.

  Andy didn’t know what to do and so he swept off his hat. His curly black hair jumped in a coil. Nina sighed. Andy was swallowing so hard that his bowtie fluttered. They came together in a kiss. The mop fell to the floor. Nina was clinging helplessly and they swayed there in the gold slanting haze of sunlight. I turned away in a kind of shame. For some reason my heart swelled with pity for my father.

  They eloped on that very night. My father was working the afternoon to midnight shift in the mill. Nina came to me in the bedroom before going away. She sat on the bed and took my hand.

  “Paul,” she said. “Are you awake, Paul?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you hear me, honey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen to me, Paul. I won’t be seeing you for a few days. It’s just a few days. I’m going to marry Andy.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you really awake? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Look at this. Andy brought you something.”

  “I don’t want any candy.”

  “He brought you something else.”

  “What is it?”

  “He brought you a harmonica.”

  I took it. The gold of it was warm and moist from her hands.

  “Tell him thanks.”

  “You can play songs, Paul. You can play songs for everybody.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And you can play a song for me when I come home. I’ll be here on the weekends to clean the house. Is it all right, Paul? Say it’s all right. I love Andy and I have to be with him. Can you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  She was beautiful. Her black shining hair held the light and her dark eyes were big and soft with tears. She touched my face and I thought of my mother. Suddenly I realized how much I loved Nina. Now it would never be the same with us. She belonged to Andy. I remembered that kiss and I hated him.

  “I feel so bad inside,” she was saying. “So bad.”

  “Why should you?”

  “It’s like I’m doing a wrong thing. I shouldn’t be leaving now. I shouldn’t be leaving you and Pa alone here.”

  “We’ll be all right. I’ll take care of things.”

  “Oh, Paul, I love you so. It just seems like you realize things too late. And I love Pa, too, with all his ways. Why can’t things ever be perfect? Why is life so hard all the time?”

  “Don’t go crying.”

  “I was thinking about Ma, too. I was wondering what she’d say if she knew I was leaving like this. It’s a selfish thing, Paul. I feel ashamed of myself.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “I think Pa’s right. There’s a worm in the fruit. Wouldn’t it be awful if he’s right about everything?”

  “I think he’s wrong. I really do.”

  “I’ll pray for us. I’ll pray with all my heart. And I’ll be here on the weekends to help out. You’ll see. Tell Pa.”

  “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I wish I could play this harmonica right now. I’d play a song for you. Just for you to be happy, Nina.”

  “Oh, Paul.”

  Tearfully, we hugged and kissed each other.

  Just about then Andy was down in the cellar stealing a qua
rt of wine. He failed to closed the spigot tight and the rest of that last barrel dripped away in the night while my father was raving.

  My father never forgave him. Sometimes I went down the cellar and found him gazing at the old bloodlike stain in the cracked cement of that floor.

  4

  A girl may not know how to prepare a meal or sew on a button or sing a song to give hope for the day. It means nothing. It is good to have her in the house even if she sits for hours in front of a mirror brushing her hair and looking into her own eyes.

  Disorder came when Nina went. Cups and dishes filled the sink. Dust gathered on furniture and floors. Towels and bedsheets and curtains turned gray as the sparrows. The windows went blind with soot.

  “What the hell’s the difference?” said my father. “There’s no reason to look out or in.”

  We kept forgetting things. We forgot to change our clothes. Now and again he would be watching me across the table as though picking up a strange new scent. He would go out to buy coffee and forget sugar for the coffee. I bought meat and forgot bread. For a time we forgot that we were human beings.

  “Who goes there?” he’d say, at supper. “What disguise is that? Look at your hair. You need a haircut. And look at the collar of your shirt. Don’t you ever wash your neck? When did you take a bath last? You’re beginning to smell like a third cousin. No wonder I get notes and notes from that school.”

  “School?” I said, paying little attention to him. I had learned to eat as much as possible before the dishes started to fly.

  “School, yes, school. It’s that yellow building on Scranton Avenue where you go to keep warm in the day. Did you lose your way again? Wait then. What about the list of things I made out for you? Did you change the beds? Did you wash the underclothes? Did you buy coffee and bread? Did you pay the electric bill? Did you put cheese out for the mice? Look at me when I talk! You’re like a wolf at the table! One of these days you’ll drown in the soup!”

  It was better for me when he operated the fast-plant crane that unloaded ore boats in the steel mill. That work exhausted him. But his age and the stiffness in his back forced him out of the crane. The dock superintendent kept him on as a kind of janitor and watchman in the locker room. Every day after sweeping up he sat watching coats and hats and cats and the weather. The only break in that routine came when he was called on to help replace broken cables in the cranes. My father took no pride in being a watchman. He had to blame someone for wasted days and so he blamed me.

  He gave me bad beatings. Night after night I went to bed with my body aching and my head feeling dead as a tin can from his slaps. When I stayed out of range he threw his slippers at me. He was quick as a cat. He had his slipper off and flying at me before I could move.

  “Let’s see if I got things right,” he said. “I told you to put cheese in traps for the mice. Now you were nervous after what happened with the electric bill. You took half a pound of Swiss cheese down the cellar. You forgot the knife to cut the cheese and so you came back upstairs. You forgot the cheese. And that was the end of it. Why didn’t you put knives and forks and napkins for the mice? Do it next time. They’ll be back. And what about this?”

  He hit me on the forehead with a slipper.

  “Wait, wait,” he said. “Don’t go away yet. Let’s talk about the electric bill. Now I gave you five dollars to pay that bill. You were on your way to the bank during the lunch hour at school. The next thing you knew you were in Lincoln Park playing the harmonica for the bums who sit there all day. A man called Lefty did an Irish jig. You enjoyed it. The next thing you knew you were across the street in Wheeler’s Bar setting up drinks for them. One of them drank a toast to me. Was it Lefty? Have I got it right? And then you forgot about school. And the next thing you knew you had a dollar left.”

  He hit me on the side of the head with the other slipper.

  The next thing for me was work in that house. Soon I was doing the cleaning and shopping and cooking. For three months Nina came to help us on the weekends. My father threw her and Andy out the first time. He made a speech declaring his independence.

  “I don’t need help from him or anyone,” he said. “He robs the bank and throws me a few nickels. It’ll never be! From now on I ask for nothing and give nothing! It’s finished!”

  As the house fell more and more into disorder he made another speech. He pointed out that Nina was his flesh and blood. Andy was still barred. My father was sensible enough under the uproar.

  By the end of the third month, however, Nina let it be known she was neglecting her own house to help us. I knew the tide was turning when she insisted I watch close and learn how to prepare food and change beds and run the Easy washing machine. Soon she was coming every other weekend and then she started to turn up in the middle of the week when there was nothing to do but argue. She explained that she was being forced to make a decision between her husband and us. I didn’t know who was forcing that decision but I knew which way it was going. Down went my father and I. Nina announced that she could not save everybody and so she had to save herself to save Andy. My father said that neither she nor insurance nor God could save Andy. There was a celebration of the disaster. Nina said something about her right to have the oak-leaf pattern dishes and cups of my mother as a sort of dowry for Andy. A shower of leaves was to follow. My father embraced the cupboard. It was too heavy and for an instant he was dancing in a fury down below it. Finally he tipped it forward and it smashed down on the floor. The house shook and plaster crumbled in all the walls. Nina burst into tears and ran out.

  “They want everything!” cried my father. “They’ll strip me to the bone! It’s a good thing my clothes don’t fit him! By Christ, I should have my head examined for raising children! I swear it’s better to raise hogs and cattle! At least I can fatten them up and have meat for the winter!”

  I was sitting there and so he turned on me.

  “What’s holding you?” he said. “Get your things and get out! That door leads both ways!”

  I sat and thought about it. He went on raving. There was no place for me to go. Besides, I belonged with him.

  Before and after school I did my best to keep the house in order. Each day I swept the floors and dusted the furniture. On the weekend I changed the towels and bedsheets and then I mopped every room. Cooking supper for him was easy. It turned out that the food was all right if he could taste hot pepper.

  “I need some fire in my life,” he said.

  I loaded the food with black and red pepper and hot sauces like Tabasco. Sometimes I went too far with it. He would sit there with mouth and lips aflame. Beads of sweat the size of pennies popped out on his forehead.

  “This food’s too hot,” I said. “I finish eating here and it’s like a hot coal inside me all night.”

  “A hot coal is what you need inside you. It’s what’s missing.”

  “But I can’t even taste the pork chop.”

  “Don’t eat then.”

  “But I’m the one who cooked it. Don’t you know you wake me every night with your cries? We’ll be all ashes inside.”

  “Then it’s ashes in and out.”

  I took out the harmonica and tapped it.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “I think I’ll practice awhile.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Would you really like to hear it?”

  “Why not?” he said. “What a surprise! It’s like Santa Claus down the chimney! Can you really make music out of this misery?”

  “I’ll try,” I said, without thinking.

  His dark eyes closed. The bones in his face bulged.

  “Listen to me a minute,” he said, softly. “At your age I was working in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. Do you know that? You seem to be going backward. Now it’s the harmonica. In a couple of years I’ll be tickling your toes and warming a bottle for you. Get out. I’ll clean the kitchen myself.”

  Out I went. I strolled up to the Greek coffee house ar
ound the corner. I sat in the doorway and played the harmonica until the owner Theodore Ampazis called me inside. I played a few songs for him and the card players. He gave me a bottle of ginger ale and a piece of baclava, a pastry made with honey and nuts. Theodore had such a gentle way with me that I stopped to see him in the mornings on my way to Lincoln High School.

  “I smell whiskey,” he said, one morning. “Do you drink, Paul?”

  “My father lets me put some whiskey in my coffee. He says it wakes me up and takes the chill out of me.”

  “Play a song or two while I mop up.”

  I played for him. I played until I forgot about school.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “You better be going. Don’t forget your coat. And your lunch.”

  I went to school by way of Lincoln Park. I had packed a ham sandwich for Lefty Riley. Lefty was a retired lake sailor. He used to sit and wait for me in the mornings. Never did he fail to stand up and shake my hand. I looked forward to it.

  “How’s your father today?” he said.

  “About the same, Lefty.”

  “I was thinking about him. And about that ax you mentioned. The ax his father gave him when he left Italy.”

  “What about the ax?”

  “An oak log,” he said, smiling. “What you ought to do is order an oak log for him every day. Early in the morning he’ll go down the cellar and chop hell out of that log. He’ll get everything out of his system. He’ll be at peace the rest of the day.”

  “It’s a good idea.”

  “Thanks for the sandwich, Paul. Get going. I think you’re late again. I’ll bet you got a cherry pepper in the lunch.”

  Lefty was right. I had a cherry pepper. I was always the center of attention when I opened my lunch in the school cafeteria. I would show off by eating that hot pepper with no bread to ease the sting of it. My friends were delighted by this performance. I did it for love of Peggy Haley who lived in the house at the corner of the alley. Peggy had black hair and pale blue eyes. She was plump and beautiful.

  “Is Paul going to do it again?” said Sally Walters.

  “He’s just about ready,” said Joe Faflik.