A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) (24 page)

That was okay with me. It was just the way I felt. I had left
something
behind me. I don’t know what, but whatever it was, the rain would wash it all away and it was lost. Some day I would come back. Maybe things would be different then.

I settled back into the seat and opened a morning paper. It wasn’t until we were rolling through the flatlands of the New Jersey
countryside that I saw the item in one of the Broadway columns. And, even seeing it there in the cold black type, I found it hard to believe.

Automatically my hand went to the signal bell to stop the bus. My fingers rested there a moment, and then I took my hand away. It would do no good to go back.

I sank back slowly in my seat and read the item again. Loneliness stole into me. Mimi and Sam. I wondered how it had happened. How they met. And what became of that guy in her office she was so crazy about? I closed my eyes wearily. It didn’t matter now. Nothing that happened would matter any more. Not to me. As far as they were concerned, I was gone as if I never was there.

The tattoo of the rain beat against the bus window and dulled my mind. I dozed fitfully. Pictures of Sam and Mimi kept flashing before me. But they were never together. Whenever one of them would come into focus, the other would disappear. I fell asleep before I could get them to stay together long enough for me to wish them happiness.

S
HE
was sitting in front of the dressing-table, crying uncontrollably. Large tears were running down her cheeks. Her hands held a helpless handkerchief against her mouth.

Papa turned nervously. “What is she crying about?” he asked Mamma. “It’s her wedding. What has she got to cry about?”

Mamma looked at him disgustedly. She took his arm and pushed him out. “Go, mingle with the guests,” she said firmly. “She’ll be all right in time for the ceremony.”

She closed the door in his protesting face and snapped the lock. Her face was calm and understanding as she waited for the paroxysm of tears to pass. She didn’t have to wait long. At last Mimi stopped
weeping and sat small and shrunken in her chair. She stared at the handkerchief her fingers were twisting and turning nervously.

“You don’t love him,” Mamma said quietly.

Mimi’s head snapped up. Her eyes met Mamma’s for a moment and then she looked down again. “I love him,” she answered in a small, tired voice.

“You don’t have to marry him if you don’t love him.” Mamma spoke as if she hadn’t heard a word Mimi uttered.

Mimi’s eyes were calm now. She looked at Mamma unwinkingly. Her voice was quietly emotionless. “I’m all right now, Mother. I was just being a child.”

Mamma’s face was serious. “You think maybe because you’re
getting
married you’re grown up? Don’t forget I still had to sign your wedding licence to give my permission.”

Mimi turned and looked in the dressing-table mirror. She got out of her chair quickly and walked to the washbasin in the corner.

Mamma put her hand out and stopped her. “All your life, Miriam,” she said softly, “you’ll have to live with him. All your life you’ll have to live with the way you feel. All——”

“Mamma!” A desperate note of hysteria in Mimi’s voice halted Mamma’s words. “Don’t talk like that! It’s too late now!”

“It’s not too late, Miriam,” Mamma persisted. “You can still change your mind.”

Mimi shook her head. Her face set into determined lines. “It’s too late, Mamma,” she said firmly. “It was already too late the first time I went to see him when I wanted to find out where Danny had gone. What am I going to do now? Give him back all the money he spent trying to find Danny for us? Give him back the five thousand dollars he loaned Papa for the store? Give back all the clothes he bought me and the ring, and say I’m sorry, that it was all a mistake?”

The pain in Mamma’s eyes grew deeper. “Better that,” she said quietly, “than you should be unhappy. Don’t let Papa and me do to you what we did to Danny.” Her eyes began to fill with tears.

Mimi caught Mamma to her. “Don’t blame yourself for anything that happened,” she said swiftly. “It was all Papa’s fault.”

“No, I could have stopped him,” Mamma insisted. “That’s why I’m talking to you. The same mistake I should not make again.”

Mimi’s face was determined. “There’s no mistake, Mamma,” she said surely, as if she knew all the answers. “Sam loves me. If I don’t love him as much as he loves me now, that will come in time. He’s
good and kind and generous. Everything will work out all right.”

Mamma looked into her face questioningly.

Impulsively Mimi bent and brushed her lips across Mamma’s brow. “Don’t worry, Mamma,” she said softly. “I know what I’m doing. This is what I want.”

She sat up in the bed, her body tense with anticipated fear. She could hear him brushing his teeth noisily in the bathroom. The sound of the running water stopped abruptly. She heard the click of the light-switch, lay down quickly in the darkness of the bed, and curled her body into a small huddled mass.

She heard him walking around his side of the bed in the darkness and felt the bed sagging beneath the weight of his body. She lay there quietly, her body stiff and suddenly chill, her teeth almost chattering.

There was a moment’s silence, then his hand slowly touched her shoulder. She clenched her teeth tightly. Then she heard his whisper: “I love you, baby.”

Her eyes were suddenly wet with tears. She turned around swiftly and her voice was very small. “Do you, Sam? Could you really love me after all I did to you?”

She felt his breath against her hair. “Sure, baby. You didn’t do nothin’.”

She relaxed slowly in his arms. She lifted her face to his and kissed him lightly on the lips, much as a little girl would kiss her father. “Thanks, Sam,” she whispered gratefully.

She shut her eyes and could feel his hands stroke her hair. His lips pressed against her cheek lightly and moved to her neck. George used to do that. Angrily she pushed the flow of thought from her. Why did she have to think of that? It wasn’t fair to Sam. He wasn’t
responsible
for what had happened. It was her fault. She had wanted it this way from the very beginning when she and Nellie had gone to see him.

Contritely she raised her hand and stroked his cheek.

He was lying quietly beside her, his hand soothing on her flushed cheek. His voice was an anxious whisper in the night. “Are you all right, honey?”

She hid her face against his breast. “Yes,” she whispered. But in her heart she knew she was lying. She would always have to lie to him. She would always be afraid. It wasn’t his face that came before her eyes at the shattering moment of climax. “Oh, God,” she prayed silently, “will I have to go through life like this? Always afraid?”

The answering voice was in her mind. It was rich and heavy, and its words were from the marriage ceremony: “Repeat after me, my child. ‘I, Miriam, take thee, Samuel, to be my lawful wedded husband, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to honour, to cherish, until death do us part.’”

He was sleeping, his breath coming deeply and contentedly. She looked at his calm face in the darkness. He was happy now. Better so.

She moved back to her pillow and closed her eyes. She had gone to him to find me, and now she would spend the rest of her days and nights beside him. But he would never know the failure. It wasn’t his to know. Only she would know that she had cheated him and would cheat him always in all the frenzied moments of their life together.

I
STOOD
in the centre of the deserted midway with the rain pouring down over me. I pulled the collar of my slicker up around my neck so that it was snug under the brim of my soft slouch hat, and dragged at my cigarette. I looked up at the sky. This rain wasn’t going to stop. I stared down the midway. The wet walls of the grey and tan tents flapped cheerlessly in the rain-swept wind.

Two years of this. It had been a long while. I’d put a large piece of time into these canvas-covered walls. There had been days so hot that the heat came baking you until you felt you were standing in an oven in some crazy part of hell, and nights so cold that the marrow in your bones seemed to freeze like the ice on a lake in winter.

Two years of not being home, of not knowing what happened. Nellie. Mamma and Papa. Mimi. Sam. The names still hurt. Every time I thought I was used to it, the same lonely feeling would come back. It was buried deep, but it was always there.

And now I was almost home. Almost, but not quite. Philadelphia. I could get a train at the Market Street Station and in a little while get off at Penn. It was easy when I thought about it. Only an hour and ten minutes away from home.

But things were always simple when I thought about them. They never were as simple when I started to do them. All the memories of what had happened came pouring back. And I was angry again.
Resentful at my enforced exile. Afraid of what would happen if I were to return.

And yet I wanted to go home. I had always wanted to go home. There are ties that bind me to those who are there, even when they do not want me to return. Ties that I cannot spell into words, but are emotions in me. Today I am only one hour and ten minutes away from all these things. The day after tomorrow, when the tents move southward again on their annual path, I will be six hours away, a week later twenty hours away, and in a month it will be a journey of many days and I may not travel it in all my lifetime.

I look up at the sky again. The rain clouds are low and steady, the wind brushes its wetness into my face, my cigarette is sodden between my lips. The rain will spend the night on the midway.

I let the cigarette fall from my mouth and it sputters in a puddle at my feet. I could almost hear the angry hiss of its tiny fire as it vainly fights away the water. I think I am like that cigarette and I am fighting for my life against the quickly rushing rain. I cannot breathe, the air is heavy in my lungs. I must go home. I must, I must. I must see Nellie again. And Mamma and Mimi. And Papa too, whether he wants to see me or not. Even though I know I cannot stay, even if I must come back to the midway tomorrow. It may be a long time before I can go home again. I am tired of being lonely.

It was drizzling when I came up the subway steps, but the crowd on Delancey Street was as large as ever. Rain didn’t bother them, they had nowhere else to go. It was always good to walk along Delancey Street and look in the shop windows and think about what you might buy if you had the money.

I lit a cigarette as I waited for the traffic light to change and let me cross the street. The store windows hadn’t changed; they would never change. The haberdasheries still had their fire sales; the cakes and bread in Ratner’s window were just as they were the last time I had been there; the hot-dog stand on the corner of Essex was just as crowded.

The traffic halted in front of me and I crossed the street. Things hadn’t changed a bit. But I had changed.

I continued down the street toward the five-and-ten. Nellie would be there, I was sure of it. I don’t know why, but somehow I knew she would be there. The clock in the Paramount window told me it was five minutes to nine. Another five minutes and the store would close and she would be out. Suddenly I wondered if she had changed too. Maybe she had forgotten me, maybe she had another fellow. Two years was a long time for a girl to wait.

I was at the store entrance. I stopped and looked in. There weren’t many people in the store, but a nervous reluctance kept me from crossing the threshold. Maybe she didn’t want to see me. I stood there, hesitating a moment, then I retraced my steps to the corner.

I stood under the street light—the same street light where I had always waited for her. I leaned my back against the lamp-post and smoked my cigarette, oblivious of the rain falling about me. If I closed my eyes and listened only to the night sounds in the street, it would be as if I had never been away.

The lights in the five-and-ten window went out suddenly and I straightened up. I threw my cigarette into the gutter and watched the store entrance. It should only be a few minutes now. A few minutes. I could feel a faint pulse ticking in my temples; my mouth was dry. A group of girls came chattering from the darkened store. I watched them avidly as they walked past me, still talking. She wasn’t with them.

My gaze went past them to the door again. More girls were coming out. My fingers drummed nervously against my leg. She wasn’t with them either. I looked at my wrist-watch quickly. Almost five past nine. She had to come out soon.

I wiped my face with my handkerchief. Despite the cool chill in the air, I was sweating. I stuffed the handkerchief back in my pocket and watched the door. Girls were still coming out. I scanned each face quickly and my eyes would leap to the next. She still wasn’t with them. They were coming out more slowly now, two together or singly. They came out into the street, glanced quickly up at the sky, and then hurried toward home.

I looked at my watch again. Almost twenty after. Disappointment began to course through me. I half turned, about to go away. It had been silly of me to think she would still be there. It was probably silly of me to believe that the two years hadn’t mattered. Still, I couldn’t walk away like that. I turned back and waited for the store to empty completely.

More of the lights in the store were going out. Another few minutes and the manager would come out and the store would be closed. I took a cigarette from my pocket and struck a match, but the wind blew it out before I could get it to my cigarette. I struck another one, this time cupping it in my hand and turning my back to shield it from the breeze. The sound of more girls’ voices came to my ears, and among them I heard another voice. I froze there, holding my breath. It was her voice. I knew it. “Good night, Molly.”

I stared at her. She was turned away from me as she spoke to another girl, who was starting to walk in another direction. The cigarette hung warm in my lips as I looked at her. In the dim light of the street lamp it seemed as if she hadn’t changed at all. The same sweet mouth, soft white skin, rounded cheek, and wide brown eyes she always had. And her hair—there was never hair like hers, so black it was almost blue in the reflected light. I took a step toward her and then stopped. I was afraid to move, afraid to speak. I stood there helplessly, looking at her.

The other girl had walked away, and she was starting to open an umbrella. It was a gay red plaid umbrella, and as she lifted it over her head, her eyes followed it upward, she saw me. Automatically she finished opening the umbrella; there was a stunned, unbelieving expression on her face. She took a tentative, hesitating step toward me and then stopped.

“Danny?” Her voice was a husky whispered question.

I was staring into her eyes. I could feel my lips move as I tried to speak, but no words came out. The cigarette tumbled from my mouth, scattering tiny sparks against my clothing as it fell toward the ground.

“
Danny! Danny!
” she was screaming as she ran across the few feet separating us. The umbrella lay open and forgotten in the doorway behind her.

She was in my arms now, kissing and crying and repeating my name all at once. Her lips were warm, then cold, then warm again. I could feel her tears against my cheek, her body shivering beneath her coat.

There was a mist before my eyes that was not rain as I looked down at her. I closed them for a moment. I said her name: “Nellie.”

Her fingers were on my cheek, and I bent my face toward her and kissed her. Our lips clung together and melted away all the time that had come between us. It was as if nothing had ever happened. This was all that mattered—being together again.

Her eyes were searching my face. “Danny, Danny,” she whispered brokenly, “why did you do it? Not a word, not a word in all this time.”

I looked at her dumbly. There was no answer in me. Only now I knew how wrong I’d been in what I had done. When I could speak, my voice was hoarse and shaking. “I couldn’t help it, baby. I had to.”

She was crying. The sobs in her came painfully to my ears. “We tried to find you, Danny, we tried so hard to find you. It was as if the world had swallowed you up. I almost died.”

I held her very close to me. I brushed my lips through her hair. It was all that I remembered. Soft and sweet-smelling and fine to touch. A peace I had not known for a long time came into me.

Her face was hidden against my breast and her voice came muffled to my ears. “I couldn’t stand it again, Danny.”

Then everything suddenly became very simple. I knew how it had to be, how it should be. “You won’t have to, baby. From now on, we’ll be together. Always.”

Her face was white and childlike and trusting as she looked up at me. “Honest, Danny?”

For the first time that day I could smile. “Honest, Nellie,” I answered. “D’yuh think I came back just for a visit?” It was all straight in my mind. What I wanted, all I wanted.

“From now on, Nellie,” I said gently, “whatever I do, we do—together.”