enjoy these little visits of ours. I really look forward to them a lot, you canât imagine. Time sure does fly and itâs too bad you have to go.â
âI...â began Lowell as his hand was shaken faster and faster, as though caught in some sort of soft, painless mechanism.
âDonât think you have to pretend you enjoyed it,â said Leo. âI talk too much. Believe me, I know my limitations like a book. Iâm talking too much right now. I bet you canât wait to get out of here. This is a good time for it. The sun is still up and thereâs a lot of light outside. If you stayed any longer Iâd run out of things to say and weâd just have to sit there. Itâs been good seeing you.â
âYes,â said Lowell. âGood-bye,â he called out to the kitchen, where his mother-in-law lurked out of sight, motionless and apparently not breathing. Nine years had passed, but she still hadnât told him what to call her, and neither had anybody else. It would have been awkward if Lowell had been trying to attract her attention in a crowd, but he didnât think he would ever want to do that. âSo long,â he called. âWeâre going now.â
âI heard you,â she said.
âEr, heh,â said Leo, trying to shrug, smile, and look over his shoulder at the same time, giving such a look of toothy terror that there might have been an armed fugitive concealed behind the door.
âGood-bye, Poppa,â said Lowellâs wife.
Moving against the grain of the day, they went down the hall and got into the elevator. Out on the street, people were getting out of cars with presents and small children, but Lowellâs evening was already in the wrong place.
Lowell hadnât planned on his in-laws when he came to New York. In a dim, haphazard way heâd known that Flatbush was somewhere nearby, more or less the same way that he knew there were stockyards in Chicago, but it had never occurred to him that he would actually have to go there. Nor had it ever occurred that going there would, in a curious and disturbing way, constitute by far the largest part of a very, very small social life. A lot of things hadnât occurred to him. He was paying for them now. Sometimes he wondered if he was even paying for things he didnât know about.
âI thought we were going to Berkeley,â his wife had said nine years ago, her voice coming to him down the corridor of years as clearly as if she had spoken to him only a moment before. It was the instant when his life had suddenly poised itself on an idle remark, and the hinge of fate had openedâa small moment, an utterly insignificant fragment of time that could have passed as swiftly as turning a page in a book, but instead it had changed his life forever. âDidnât you say we were going to Berkeley?â she asked anxiously. âThatâs where I want to go. All those pretty hills. I guess youâre kidding about New York, right? Berkeley is where weâre really going, isnât it? Weâre really going there, arenât we? Lowell?â
He could still hear the voice, he could still see the room, he could still smell the old green overstuffed chair heâd been sitting in. âMaybe not,â he said. He was only teasing. Berkeley was definitely the place they were going, and the idea of going to New York instead had just sort of wandered into his mind a moment ago like a stray insect. No doubt it would have perished there at once if he hadnât spoken it aloud. Now it was out in the open, and God help them all. Even in those days his wife had an almost marvelous tendency to seize upon and circle a vagrant or distasteful idea, trying all the variations until some sort of conclusion could be drawn from it. Occasionally these conclusions took bizarre and astonishing form, such as going to New York when you really intended to go to Berkeley, but in those days
âI...â began Lowell as his hand was shaken faster and faster, as though caught in some sort of soft, painless mechanism.
âDonât think you have to pretend you enjoyed it,â said Leo. âI talk too much. Believe me, I know my limitations like a book. Iâm talking too much right now. I bet you canât wait to get out of here. This is a good time for it. The sun is still up and thereâs a lot of light outside. If you stayed any longer Iâd run out of things to say and weâd just have to sit there. Itâs been good seeing you.â
âYes,â said Lowell. âGood-bye,â he called out to the kitchen, where his mother-in-law lurked out of sight, motionless and apparently not breathing. Nine years had passed, but she still hadnât told him what to call her, and neither had anybody else. It would have been awkward if Lowell had been trying to attract her attention in a crowd, but he didnât think he would ever want to do that. âSo long,â he called. âWeâre going now.â
âI heard you,â she said.
âEr, heh,â said Leo, trying to shrug, smile, and look over his shoulder at the same time, giving such a look of toothy terror that there might have been an armed fugitive concealed behind the door.
âGood-bye, Poppa,â said Lowellâs wife.
Moving against the grain of the day, they went down the hall and got into the elevator. Out on the street, people were getting out of cars with presents and small children, but Lowellâs evening was already in the wrong place.
Lowell hadnât planned on his in-laws when he came to New York. In a dim, haphazard way heâd known that Flatbush was somewhere nearby, more or less the same way that he knew there were stockyards in Chicago, but it had never occurred to him that he would actually have to go there. Nor had it ever occurred that going there would, in a curious and disturbing way, constitute by far the largest part of a very, very small social life. A lot of things hadnât occurred to him. He was paying for them now. Sometimes he wondered if he was even paying for things he didnât know about.
âI thought we were going to Berkeley,â his wife had said nine years ago, her voice coming to him down the corridor of years as clearly as if she had spoken to him only a moment before. It was the instant when his life had suddenly poised itself on an idle remark, and the hinge of fate had openedâa small moment, an utterly insignificant fragment of time that could have passed as swiftly as turning a page in a book, but instead it had changed his life forever. âDidnât you say we were going to Berkeley?â she asked anxiously. âThatâs where I want to go. All those pretty hills. I guess youâre kidding about New York, right? Berkeley is where weâre really going, isnât it? Weâre really going there, arenât we? Lowell?â
He could still hear the voice, he could still see the room, he could still smell the old green overstuffed chair heâd been sitting in. âMaybe not,â he said. He was only teasing. Berkeley was definitely the place they were going, and the idea of going to New York instead had just sort of wandered into his mind a moment ago like a stray insect. No doubt it would have perished there at once if he hadnât spoken it aloud. Now it was out in the open, and God help them all. Even in those days his wife had an almost marvelous tendency to seize upon and circle a vagrant or distasteful idea, trying all the variations until some sort of conclusion could be drawn from it. Occasionally these conclusions took bizarre and astonishing form, such as going to New York when you really intended to go to Berkeley, but in those days
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