It must be explained that Maggie and Douglas Spaulding were best described as crazed roman-tics. Long before the interior christening of Sascha, they, loving Laurel and Hardy, had called each other Stan and Ollie. The machines, the dustbusters and can openers around the apartment, had names, as did various parts of their anatomy, revealed to no one.
So Sascha, as an entity, a presence growing toward friendship, was not unusual. And when he actually began to speak up, they were not surprised. The gentle demands of their marriage, with love as currency instead of cash, made it inevitable.
Someday, they said, if they owned a car, it too would be named.
They spoke on that and a dozen score of things late at night. When hyperventilating about life, they propped themselves up on their pillows as if the future might happen right now. They waited, anticipating, in seance, for the silent small offspring to speak his first words before dawn.
«I love our lives,» said Maggie, lying there, «all the games. I hope it never stops. You're not like other men, who drink beer and talk poker. Dear God, I wonder, how many other marriages play like us?»
«No one, nowhere. Remember?»
«What?»
He lay back to trace his memory on the ceiling. «The day we were married-«
«Yes!»
«Our friends driving and dropping us off here and we walked down to the drugstore by the pier and bought a tube of toothpaste and two toothbrushes, big bucks, for our honeymoon . . .? One red toothbrush, one green, to decorate our empty bathroom. And on the way back along the beach, holding hands, suddenly, behind us, two little girls and a boy followed us and sang:
«Happy marriage day to you, Happy marriage day to you.
Happy marriage day, happy marriage day, Happy marriage day to you…
She sang it now, quietly. He chimed in, remembering how they had blushed with pleasure at the children's voices, but walked on, feeling ridiculous but happy and wonderful.
«How did they guess? Did we look married?»
«It wasn't our clothes! Our faces, don't you think? Smiles that made our jaws ache. We were exploding. They got the concussion.»
«Those dear children. I can still hear their voices.»
«And so here we are, seventeen months later.» He put his arm around her and gazed at their future on the dark ceiling.
«'And here I am,» a voice murmured.
«Who?» Douglas said.
«Me,» the voice whispered. «Sascha.»
Douglas looked down at his wife's mouth, which had barely trembled.
«So, at last, you've decided to speak?» said Douglas.
«Yes,» came the whisper.
«We wondered,» said Douglas, «when we would hear from you.» He squeezed his wife gently.
«It's time,» the voice murmured. «So here I am.»
«Welcome, Sascha,» both said.
«Why didn't you talk sooner?» asked Douglas Spaulding.
«I wasn't sure that you liked me,» the voice whispered.
«Why would you think that? »
«First I was, then I wasn't. Once I was only a name. Remember, last year, I was ready to come and stay. Scared you.»
«We were broke,» said Douglas quietly. «And nervous.»
«What's so scary about life?» said Sascha. Maggie's lips twitched. «It's that other thing. Not being, ever. Not being wanted.»
«On the contrary.» Douglas Spaulding moved down on his pillow so he could watch his wife's profile, her eyes shut, but her mouth breathing softly. «We love you. But last year it was bad timing. Understand?»
«No,» whispered Sascha. «I only understand
you didn't want me. And now you do. I should leave.»
«But you just got here!»
«Here I go, anyway.»
Don't, Sascha! Stay!»
«Good-bye.» The small voice faded. «Oh, good-bye.»
And then silence. Maggie opened her eyes with «Sascha's gone,» she said.
«He can't be!» The room was still.
»Can't be,» he said. «It's only a game.»
«More than a game. Oh, God, I feel cold. Hold me.»
He moved to hug her.
«It's okay.»
«No. I had the funniest feeling just now, as if he were real.»
«He is. He's not gone.»
«Unless we do something. Help me.»
«Help?» He held her even tighter, then shut his eyes, and at last called:
«Sascha?»
Silence.
«I know you're there. You can't hide.»
His hand moved to where Sascha might be.
«Listen. Say something. Don't scare us, Sascha. We don't want to be scared or scare you. We need each other. We three against the world. Sascha?»
Silence.
«Well?» whispered Douglas.
Maggie breathed in and out.
They waited.
«Yes?»
There was a soft flutter, the merest exhalation on the night air.
«Yes.»
«You're back!» both cried.
Another silence.
«Welcome?» asked Sascha.
«Welcome!» both said.
And that night passed and the next day and the night and day after that, until there were many days, but especially midnights when he dared to declare himself, pipe opinions, grow stronger and firmer and longer in half-heard declarations, as they lay in anticipatory awareness, now she moving her lips, now he taking over, both open as warm, live ventriloquists' mouthpieces. The small voice shifted from one tongue to the other, with soft bouts of laughter at how ridiculous but loving it all seemed, never knowing what Sascha might say next, but letting him speak on until dawn and a smiling sleep.
«What's this about Halloween?» he asked, somewhere in the sixth month.
«Halloween?» both wondered.
«Isn't that a death holiday?» Sascha murmured.
«Well, yes . .
«I'm not sure I want to be born on a night
like that.»
«Well, what night would you like to be born on?»
Silence as Sascha floated a while.
«Guy Fawkes,» he finally whispered.
«Guy Fawkes??!!»
«That's mainly fireworks, gunpowder plots, Houses of Parliament, yes? Please to remember the fifth of November? »
«Do you think you could wait until then?»
«I could try. I don't think I want to start out with skulls and bones. Gunpowder's more like it. I could write about that.»
«Will you be a writer, then?»
«Get me a typewriter and a ream of paper.»
«And keep us awake with the typing? «
«Pen, pencil, and pad, then?»
«Done!»
So it was agreed and the nights passed into weeks and the weeks leaned from summer into the first days of autumn and his voice grew stronger,
as did the sound of his heart and the small commotions of his limbs. Sometimes as Maggie slept, his voice would stir her awake and she would reach up to touch her mouth, where the surprise of his dreaming came forth.
«There, there, Sascha. Rest now. Sleep.»
«Sleep,» he whispered drowsily, «sleep.» And faded away.
«Pork chops, please, for supper.»
«No pickles with ice cream?» both said, almost at once.
«Pork chops,» he said, and more days passed and more dawns arose and he said: «Hamburgers!»
«For breakfast?»
«With onions,» he said.
October stood still for one day and then…
Halloween departed.
«Thanks,» said Sascha, «for helping me past that. What's up ahead in five nights?»
«Guy Fawkes!»
«Ah, yes!» he cried.
And at one minute after midnight five days later, Maggie got up, wandered to the bathroom, and wandered back, stunned.
«Dear,» she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Douglas Spaulding turned over, half awake. «Yes?»
«What day is it?» whispered Sascha.
«Guy Fawkes, at last. So?»
«I don't feel well,» said Sascha. «Or, no, I feel fine. Full of pep. Ready to go. It's time to say good-bye. Or is it hello? What do I mean?»