The brute effect of encountering him there — suddenly shown forth as the curtain gasped on its old metal rings — was, if anything, greater than my images suggest. His eyes, when he turned to glance at me, just perceptibly nodding, were red-rimmed, huge behind the gold-rimmed glasses, his childish pink lips were drawn back from his teeth in what I recognized only after an instant as a sheepish smile. His expression was pitifully eager, yet at the same time distrustful, alarmed, not unlike his father’s when he’d met me at the door.
One side of the giant’s upper lip was slightly lifted, delicately trembling with what might have been disgust — perhaps disgust aimed at himself. He pretty well knew, no doubt, what a strange sight he was, there in his cell. His pallet was a king-sized mattress with a steel-gray blanket over it, behind it a stern brass lamp on a low wooden table buried in carefully stacked books. From a string tacked to the ceiling above his head hung a red paper-and-balsawood dragon with extended wings and a queer thick belly.
“Freddy doesn’t make paper dragons anymore,” Agaard said proudly, as if Freddy weren’t there.
The giants blue eyes stared straight at me for a moment, the lashes blond, like his frail beginning of a moustache; then he began to move — all of him at once, it seemed — his arms rising as if lifted by some external force, the fat, dainty hands clenching a book as if to hurl the thing in rage. But he didn’t hurl it — had never intended to, I saw — only drew the heavy white arms and the book up nearer, as if to dismiss us, free us to go back to our presumably more interesting adult pursuits, and bent closer to the page. The cat, clamped against my chest, struggled.
“I’ve brought you a friend,” Professor Agaard said, moving closer to the boy, pretending he thought Freddy hadn’t heard. “Mr. Winesap, this is Freddy.”
With a jerk of my free hand I snatched my pipe from my mouth. “How do you do?”
Freddy sat motionless, not breathing, it seemed, his face and neck red, his eyes still eager, the rest of his face guarded. Fat bulged everywhere, blue-shadowed. The whole rounded body was as sickly as the foot, surely too heavy and weak to stand up, I thought; he couldn’t have stood anyway in this low-ceilinged room. I felt a flash of anger at the professor beside me — the idea that a father could allow this to happen to his son! — but I struggled to quell it. I knew, I told myself, nothing whatever of how it had happened, for all the father’s talk.
I remembered the cat I’d been clutching all this time, and carefully lifted her from my bosom and set her down on the mattress like an offering. She ran around beside him and stood there, back humped, just out of Freddy’s reach.
“Aren’t you going to say hello to Mr. Winesap, Freddy?” Agaard asked.
“Good afternoon,” Freddy brought out, looking down, almost a bow.
“I’m glad to meet you,” I said heartily, and thought of reaching out for his hand, but then — from cowardice or fear of embarrassing him further — did nothing.
“Well, so how are things, son?” Agaard said.
The giant boy glanced at his book as if eager to get back to it, then shrugged, slightly smiling.
“Did you notice it’s snowing out?” Agaard said.
I stood puffing at my pipe, studying the bulging red dragon above Freddy’s head until he glanced up at me; then I pointed with my pipestem. “Interesting dragon.’” I said. “Is it Chinese?”
He half nodded. “French.” He briefly grinned.
Agaard laughed, a loud bark that nearly blew his nose. “It looks French!” he said. “It looks like it ate too much!”
The giant half grinned again, uncertain whether to be insulted. He looked at the back of his left hand discovering and inspecting a scab. “That’s the way the pictures were,” he said.
For a moment after that it seemed that none of us could think of anything to say. Then, bending forward — I think I saw it coming an instant before it came — Professor Agaard said sociably, his voice too loud, “I’ve told Professor Winesap about your writing Freddy.” He turned his head to me, a queerly mechanical movement, and urgently smiled.
I stared, nonplussed. Freddy briefly raised his eyes to mine, more alarmed than before.
Any fool could see that he’d heard and understood, that he was going through twenty emotions at once — trying to hide his confusion by turning his head and shoulders slowly and reaching out to touch the cat between the ears with two fingers, the faintest suggestion of a petting motion — but Agaard said, “Did you hear what I said, Freddy? I told him about your book!”
He gave me no choice. I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said, “yes, your father tells me you’ve been writing for some time now, Freddy!” I clenched my pipe in my right fist and poked at the dottle busily with various fingers, first one then another, of my left hand. “It’s interesting — very interesting — that you’re writing a book, Freddy! Fascinating!” He sat with his head bowed, looking intently at the scab on his hand. It unnerved me not to be able to see his expression. I was tempted to squat, get down level with his eyes, but I stayed as I was and continued heartily, trying to make it all sound friendly and normal, though my voice in my own ears rang false, theatrical, someone else’s voice entirely: “It’s not easy writing books! You know, that’s the one place where all human beings are equal, I’ve often thought. It’s an amazing thing when you think about it, Freddy! Whatever we may seem to be — humpbacked, tall or short, pale or ruddy, never mind”—I briefly interrupted myself, puffing at my pipe, lighting it—“whatever we may be in other ways, when we pick up that pencil we’re all in the same boat.” I looked for a place to throw the extinguished match, then put it in my pocket. “If there’s one human nature, that’s where we find it and take part in it,” I said, “in carefully written books. Not just any books, mind you. Careful books! Books we’ve taken time on! You’ve been working on yours for quite a while, I understand.” I glanced at his father, who was nodding, encouraging me, profoundly agreeing. Freddy said nothing. “You must excuse me if I sound as if I’m lecturing you, Freddy. I don’t mean to, not at all!” I laughed, turning away a little, looking again at his pictures. “You must think of it from my side, Freddy — think of my astonishment, meeting your father here and hearing what you’ve done. It’s a very interesting solution, that’s what I mean. Here you are, locked off from the world, in a way. …” I glanced at him; he was still looking down. “I mean, well, the message-in-the-bottle kind of thing, some such business — but the finest kind of message a mortal man can send. A man may say anything when he’s just talking, you know, but when he’s writing he has time to think it over and re-do it until it’s right, send a message worth hearing! In a thousand years …” I moved to the pictures on the farther wall, hoping to seem to him less threatening. “When your father mentioned that you were writing a book, I was interested — fascinated — as a fellow writer. It’s a lonely occupation, as everyone knows — which may be why we writers have such a feeling of, you know, community. I’m sure you understand! What I mean, mm, Freddy—” I turned to look at him, self-conscious by now as he was. “Freddy, if you should ever want to show me what you’ve written, don’t hesitate!” I said. “You can be sure I’ll be interested! We’ll all be!” I searched my wits for something more to say. I felt vile, weak in the knees, though every word I’d said was, in intent at least, true. I puffed at my pipe, clinging to it with both hands.