The Writing on the Wall: A Novel (10 page)

I can’t tell a story like she can.

The ink was thin and cheap-looking, recalling those plastic Bics she used when she was in middle school. With the pen held that high to write, there were places where the ink had dried up altogether, the letters becoming little more than cursive white scratches. Some letters were script and some were printed, but it was impossible to figure out what guided the logic, and the line itself slanted sideways like a ramp. It was slapdash, even drunken—the handwriting of someone who cared nothing for rules or consistency.

Who had written it was more obvious than it had been with Beth. It could only be the woman who had lived in the house back in the Sixties, the one who stripped off the three layers of old wallpaper, then covered up everything with the knotty pine and wedding cake that had been on the walls ever since. In walking through the house, in exploring the overgrown garden or following the dead-end path out to the wall, Vera had sensed this woman’s presence much more strongly than she had any of the other owners, though this had never crystallized into a definite image, much less a name or personality.

Someone had lived here fifty years ago who had labored mightily to turn it into a replica of the suburban homes she saw in the women’s magazines and on television, with a swing set, lawn chairs and barbecue, the rusty remnants of which now littered the weeds. She had tried the same trick inside with the wallpaper, working hard to make things modern, scraping off the layers she must have considered horribly old-fashioned and dull. And then, like Vera, she had discovered Beth’s words. Discovered them, read them—and then covered them up again, but not before writing on the walls herself.

I can’t tell a story like she can.
More diffident than Beth, but was that just a pose? You could read the sentence as a brag, not so much the words but the forceful, don’t-give-a-damn way they were scrawled.
I can’t tell a story like she can
—and then the unwritten add-on that seemed implicitly attached:
but I’m damn well going to try.

Vera was too tired for any emotion to stay with her for long— surprise circled back to irritation, that this woman should dare interrupt her connection with Beth. At the minimum, it meant more work. She crossed over to the next wall and peeled off just enough paper to find the same sloppy handwriting, then checked the next wall, then the one after that. It was the Sixties woman’s room all around. Beth, unless she had given up completely, must have skipped the sewing room for the next room down.

This was the back parlor, identical to the first, only smaller and shabbier, with a tent of cobwebs held up by a plastic milk crate, empty beer cans, a whitish-green powder dribbled to the floor by wasps. Jeannie had said something about squatters and maybe this had been their space. A plywood shelf jutted out from the wall with a stack of paper plates that looked petrified and a faded copy of a 1967
TV Guide.
Someone had made a halfhearted attempt to brush everything into a corner, then given up—the broom still lay in the middle of the floor where they had dropped it, the bristles chewed off by mice.

But it made perfect sense that, back when the room was new, Beth would have preferred it to the sewing room. The walls were larger, giving her more space, and the light was better thanks to the window. Immediately, under the very first strip she peeled, Vera came upon her writing again, up high on the top left-hand corner of the left-hand wall. For all her impatience, there wasn’t much she could do about this until morning, not unless she wanted her arms to drop off. On her way upstairs, she stopped by the sewing room, stared in toward the dark. It was silly of her, childish, but too many spirits were popping out at her now, and she shut the door as tight as it would go.

Stripping went fast in the morning. She placed the radio in the middle of the floor, found her Quebec station, pulled the ladder over, started in. Enough mist had oozed through the window that the wallpaper felt damp, but this seemed to help, since she man aged to peel off some of her longest strips yet. What helped even more was establishing a three-part rhythm she could maintain right across the wall. Edge of scraper to get cut started, little nicks and nudges to loosen things, blade pressed back as far as it would go. What—happens—next? the rhythm went. By the end of the third wall she was actually reciting this out loud, like a work song that made things easier, not only by helping her concentrate, but holding off the darker moods that were always waiting to rush into a vacuum.

By lunch she had the first two walls uncovered and by dinner all four. Now that the words were there for the reading, she hesitated, wanting to read them immediately and yet feeling unaccountably shy. She went outside, used the hose for a shower, went upstairs for her robe, came back again for the lantern. Such ceremony!—and yet she felt unable to read the walls without it. I’ll need to dress in white if this goes on much longer, she decided. But it was only because she felt so strongly the need to give something back to this girl, not just through her scraping, but by the purity of her attention.

It was nearly Christmas when I had my idea.
Peter told me Miss Millay’s new volume of poetry was coming out and I decided it would be the perfect gift for him. He had opened a wider world for me, the world of books and poets and ideas, and now I could go out into that world and bring part of it back for him. He complained about there not being a book store within a hundred miles, which left me grasping—a hundred miles WHERE? I could not ask him without giving away the surprise so I ended up asking the only other person who might know.

Miss Norian, the school librarian, was the meanest woman in school after Miss Crabapple. She attended the same church as Alan’s mother and gave the minister an even harder time. She did not enjoy loaning out what few books the library had. Two days was all you were allowed and if you returned it late you were not permitted to take out another one all term.

So, I had to get up my nerve to approach her. She seemed to like me or maybe it was because she knew I was related to Mrs. Steen and wanted to curry favor.

“I have a question about the library,” I said. “If you want to order a new book, where do you order it from?”

This surprised her—it was many years since she ordered a new book. The wen on her nose quivered in suspicion.

“I sent to Brattleboro. To the Elm Street Book Store.” She squinted at me through her spectacles. “Number 41 Elm.”

“Would a book arrive in time for Christmas? If I telephoned and had it sent?”

“Christmas? Why that’s only three days, Beth. I would say there is no chance of that at all . . . How is dear Mrs. Steen? She does such fine, such charitable work. Please give her my sincerest regards, will you promise?”

I never considered not going. Having the idea I had to pursue it to the end. Alan was working with his father dismantling a farm house north of town. He had his new truck, no one else in town had one so big, and he was always calling me outside to see how much lumber he managed to pile on its bed. On Friday he would be away all day, which meant I could take the milk train into town just like I was going to school. When I got there I could wait for the express which ran straight down the river to Brattleboro. It was good service. If I walked directly to the book store from the station and did not dawdle I could easily be back in time to fix Alan his dinner.

I had just enough money saved from what Alan gave me for groceries. He always left in the morning before I woke up, but this time I rose with him.

“What time will you be home?” I asked when I helped him on with his shirt. The truck was running outside and he stood by the window proudly watching its steam.

“We might cut the day short, it’s up to Father. See those clouds? We’re due for a storm. You’ll stay close to the house where it’s warm? It’s good that school is on vacation.” He took a meaningful glance at the bare, unpapered walls. “Maybe you can have a go at things?”

“Do you remember me telling you about Ellen Lavoie, the girl who left school to work? She wrote and we’re meeting for lunch today as a Christmas treat. I may be back a little late.”

The steam coming from his truck went from clear to sooty and Alan seemed concerned over that. Pointing toward the sky with a be-careful gesture, he disappeared out the door.

I had never lied like that before, not even over small things. I felt guilty, but it was more complicated than that, and I sensed I had taken my first step out into the world even before my journey started. I did take Alan’s advice over one thing. He had a long woolen coat he wore when it was below zero and though it came down almost to my ankles I knew it would keep me warm no matter what the day brought.

The trainman, Zack Perkins, was surprised to see me since there was no school. He shouted out a warning, “No heat in the caboose, Beth!” but with Alan’s coat I managed fine. When we came to town, instead of walking to the high school as usual, I purchased my ticket, crossed the platform and waited for the southbound train. I could see it for a long time before it arrived, with its black plume of steam, and when it pulled into the station I jumped back to avoid its sparks.

There were few passengers. Four commercial travelers sat playing pinochle on a sample case, on their way home to Boston after a trip to Montreal, and they smiled pleasantly when I walked past. Further down was a family with a wicker hamper settling in for a long trip. I balanced my way to the next car and sat on the left so I could watch the river. For a long time I was convinced the train must be headed north, not south, the land seemed so empty and forgotten. A half hour after we left I was further from home than I had ever been before and yet it looked scarcely different. Solitary farm houses set high against the hillsides. Forests that had been cut down to stumps. Now and then a little village, nestled inside a bend in the river or perched above a falls. All the way to Brattleboro I saw only one single person, an ice fisherman in a red parka hunched motionless over his hole.

And yet this could have been France, I was so fascinated. I sat with my face touching the window and kept twisting around since I wanted to see everything, not miss a single detail. The valley spread apart when we got close to Brattleboro, the train slowed down, and between one moment and the next there were people everywhere. Hobos warming their hands over a fire. A gang of workers repairing the tracks. Boys out with their slingshots, aiming good-naturedly at the coal car. Autos waiting at crossings for us to pass—more autos than I had ever seen before and trucks that made Alan’s look tiny.

When the train stopped I climbed down onto the platform and asked a newspaper boy which way Elm Street was. It had begun snowing and the streets were slippery, but the town was crowded with shoppers getting ready for Christmas. Walking up Main Street I saw my first negro man ever and just beyond him my first Chinese man and then my first flapper, her hair bobbed and shiny, her dress stopping just above her knees, a cigarette jaunty in her heavily rouged lips. A policeman dressed like an admiral directed traffic and seeing me put his hand up imperiously and made everyone stop so I could cross. I felt self-conscious, Alan’s coat was so long and heavy, but then I realized that no one could really see me, that there were so many people on the street I passed unnoticed. I liked that feeling. It made me think I had been dropped invisibly into a magic city that I could enjoy all I wanted without having to explain.

Elm Street was three blocks off Main, lined with small shops. All the display windows were decorated for Christmas, with wooden trains or hand-carved creches and tinsel-covered trees— the falling snow touched their glass with a delicate, fleecy pat. I stared in at all of them but they were nothing compared to the window of the last shop. I had to rub the frost with my glass to see inside. There was nothing displayed there but books and yet they were more colorful and happier looking than anything in the other windows, with their different sizes and shapes, the way they slanted against each other, supported each other, propped each other up. Some covers were coral and others were butter-colored or a very deep rose, and they blended into one long extravagant mural that ran right along the glass. By walking down it I could make out an ocean liner and doughboys and Lillian Gish and a man leading a camel and girls with parasols and an old woman walking hunched through a picket fence and a man with his hands on his hips staring defiantly from a cliff and President Harding and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding four skeleton steeds. The authors’ names made a flowing scroll of their own and I smiled when I found one I recognized. I had never seen so many books in one place at one time and when I considered that this was only the display window, that there were likely to be hundreds more inside, I felt dizzy from happiness and shyness combined.

The bell tinkled when I opened the door. I stamped my shoes on the mat, shook back my hair to make sure no flakes would fall on the books. A round turtle of a man was down on his knees searching a shelf near the cash register and a pleasant looking woman stood on a sliding ladder writing on a ledger but there was no one there to stop me from looking my fill.

It resembled a city, that was what struck me hardest. Not a book store but a city. The shelves were arranged in parallel rows and pressed close together like city streets, so there was hardly room to slide between. That made it crowded but in a good way, as if the city was bursting from energy and excitement. The aisles were the streets and the shelves were the buildings and the books were the inhabitants, and, as in the window, they came in all shapes and sizes, textures and colors. Too crowded and sloppy someone else might have complained but I realized the moment I entered the shop that this was its magic, that there was simply no way to display books without making them beautiful. Throw them in the air, let them fall, the effect would have been beautiful. Stack them end on end it would be beautiful. Pile them backwards. Books can not help being what they are.

It was hard, I wanted to pick up every single one and read them right there or collect an armful to bring home. I could not do this, I barely had enough money for the book I wanted, and so, not to be tempted, I went over to the woman and asked for help.