Sammler was considering how much alike Wallace and Shula were, with their misdeeds. You had to stop and turn and waft for them. They would not be omitted. Sammler held the second bucket under the splashing pipe. Wallace had gone to empty the first from the dormer, turning back with grimy wet hands, bare-chested, the short black hairs neatly symmetrical like a clerical dickey. Arms were long, shoulders white, shapely to no purpose. And with a certain drop of the mouth, smiling at himself, transmitting to Sammler as he had done before the mother's sense of the graceful boy, the child's large skull and long neck, the clear-lined brows, crisp hair, fine small nose. But, as in certain old paintings, another world was also represented above, and one could imagine on a straight line over Wallace's head symbols of turbulence: smoke, fire, flying black things. Arbitrary rulings. A sealed judgment.
"If he would tell me where the dough is, it would at least cover the water damage. But he won't, and you won't ask him."
"No. I want no part of it."
"You think I should make my own dough."
"Yes. Label the trees and bushes. Earn your own."
"We will. In fact, that's all I want from the old man, a stake for the equipment. It's his last chance to show confidence in me. To wish me well. To give me like his blessing. Do you think he loved me?"
"Certainly he loved you."
"As a child. But did he love me as a man?"
"He would have"
"If I had ever been a man according to his idea. That's what you mean, isn't it?"
Sammler, having recourse to one of his blind looks, could always express his thought. Or if you had loved him, Wallace. These are very transitory opportunities. One must be nimble.
"I'm sorry that so late at night you have to be bailing. You must be tired."
"I suppose I am. Dry old people can go on and on. Still, I am beginning to feel it."
"I don't feel so hot myself. How is it downstairs, bad? A lot of water?"
No comment.
"It always turns out like this. Is that my message to the world from my unconscious self?"
"Why send such messages? Censor them. Put your unconscious mind behind bars on bread and water."
"No, it's just the mortal way I am. You can't hold it down. It must come out. I hate it too."
Lean Mr. Sammler, delicately applying the light pail to the pipe, while the rapid water splashed.
"I know that Dad had guys up here installing phony connections."
"I would have thought if it was a lot of money the false pipe would be a thick one."
"No, he wouldn't do an obvious thing. You have the wrong image of him. He has a lot of scientific cool. It could have been this pipe. He could have rolled the bills tight and small. He is a surgeon. He has the skill and the patience."
Suddenly the splashing stopped.
"Look! He's shut it off. It's down to a dribble. Hurray!" said Wallace.
"Dr. Lal!"
"What a relief. He found a turnoff. Who is that fellow?"
"Professor V. Govinda Lal."
"What is he a professor of?"
"Biophysics, I think, is his field."
"Well, he certainly uses his head. It never once occurred to me to find out where our water came from. There must be a well. Can you imagine that! And we've been here since I was ten. June 8, 1949. I'm a Gemini. Lily of the valley is my birth flower. Did you know the lily of the valley was very poisonous? We moved on my birthday. No party. The van got stuck between the gateposts on moving day. So it's not municipal water--I'm so astonished." With his usual lightness, he introduced general considerations. "It's supposed to be a sign of the Mass Man that he doesn't know the difference between Nature and human arrangements. He thinks the cheap commodities--water, electricity, subways, hot dogs--are like air, sunshine, and leaves on the trees."
"Just as simple as that?"
"Ortega y Gasset thinks so. Well, I'd better see what the damage is and get the cleaning woman in."
"You could mop up. Don't let the puddles stand all night."
"I don't know the first thing about mopping. I doubt that I ever even held a mop in my hands. But I could spread newspapers. Old Timeses from the cellar. But just one thing, Uncle."
"What thing is that?"
"Don't dislike me on account of this."
"I don't."
"Well, don't look down on me--don't despise me."
"Well, Wallace..."
"I know you must. Well, this is like an appeal. I'd like to have your good opinion."
"Are you depressed, Wallace, when things go wrong like this?"
"Less and less."
"You mean you're improving," said Sammler.
"You see, if Angela inherits the house that ends my chances for the money. She'll put the place up for sale, being unmarried. She doesn't have any sentiment about the old homestead. The roots. Well, neither do I, when you come right down to it. Dad doesn't really like the place himself. No, I don't feel any black gloom about the water damage. Everything is replaceable. At exorbitant prices. But the estate will pay the bill, which will be a real gyp. And there's insurance. Possessive emotions are in a transitional phase. I really think they are." Wallace could turn suddenly earnest, but his earnestness lacked weight. Earnestness was probably Wallace's ideal, his true need, but the young man was incapable of finding his own essences. "I'll tell you what I'm afraid of, Uncle," he said. "If I have to live on a fixed income from a trust it'll be the end of me. I'll never find myself then. Do you want me to rot? I need to crash out of the future my father has prepared for me. Otherwise, everything just goes on being possible, and all these possibilities are going to be the death of me. I have to have my own necessities, and I don't see those anywhere. All I see is ten thousand a year, like my father's life sentence on me. I have to bust out while he's still living. When he dies, I'll get so melancholy I won't be able to lift a finger."
"Shall we soak up some of this water?" said Sammler. "Shall we start spreading around the Times?"
"Oh, that can wait. The hell with it. We'll get screwed anyway on the repairs. You know, Uncle, I think I'm just half as smart as a man needs to be to work out these things, so I never get more than halfway there."
"So you have no connection with this house--no desire for roots, Wallace. "
"No, of course not. Roots? Roots are not modern. That's a peasant conception, soil and roots. Peasantry is going to disappear. That's the real meaning of the modern revolution, to prepare world peasantry for a new state of existence. I certainly have no roots. But even I am out of date. What I've got is a lot of old wires, and even wires belong to the old technology. The real thing is telemetry. Cybernetics. I've practically decided, Uncle Sammler, if this enterprise doesn't pan out, with Feffer, that I'll go to Cuba."
"To Cuba, is it? But you aren't a Communist, too, Wallace?"
"Not at all. I do admire Castro, however. He has terrific style, he's a bohemian radical, and he's held his own against Washington superpower. He and his cabinet ride in jeeps. They meet in the sugar cane."
"What do you want to tell him?"
"It could be important, don't make fun of me, Uncle Sammler. I have ideas about revolution. When the Russians made their revolution, everybody said, 'A leap forward into a new stage of history.' Not at all. The Russian Revolution was a delaying action--ah, my God, what a noise. I'd better run. They could just bash down the door. They have an orgy, these guys, with their axes. And I have to have an alibi for the insurance."
He ran.
In the yard the rotating lights swept through the trees, dark red over the lawn, the walls and windows. The bell was slamming, bangalang, and deeper down the road, gulping passionate shrieks, approached the mortal-sounding sirens. More engines were arriving. From the attic window Sammler watched as Wallace ran out, his hands raised, explaining to the helmeted men as they sprang in the soft gum boots from the trucks.