“That is not the climbing question.”
“What is the climbing question?”
“When are you going to leave?”
“Oh.”
“You see.”
“What?”
“The feelings are more than revealing.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. Yes, you may have hurt my feelings a little, but maybe not as badly as you think. At any rate, it is not an awful thing. I’ll leave so you can enjoy the avocados.”
“It’s not you.”
“You mean it’s not that you dislike me but you don’t know how to get rid of me and that makes you nervous. What if I don’t leave? Yes, it’s a problem sometimes. I developed an art of moving people out of my office. It was a matter of placement of chairs and of getting up and moving in such a way that the other person moves in front of you and finds himself at the door without knowing how he got there.”
“Le cool is coming soon,” she said, gazing around.
“Le cool? Yes, fall is upon us.”
“Le dad is no better than le doc and what are you in le plan?”
“Well, I don’t know. But I wasn’t trying to be your father or your doctor.”
“Understanding can also be a demand. De man. Le mans.”
“Yes. I guess you are fed up with people trying to understand you. And I guess I was sounding like — who? De man. What man is that, I wonder. I’m making you nervous. I’ll be going.”
“Yes, I have to go also.” She hugged the bag. “They’re mine when you leave.”
“They’re yours now.”
“But I cannot inspect them with your inspection.”
“I understand. Very well, I’ll leave so you can inspect them.”
“Okay then.”
She waited. Why didn’t he leave? It is difficult to talk to people, to stand around wondering what to say and what to do with your eyes. Maybe it is easier to be crazy than to put up with people’s pauses. Suppose he didn’t leave.
He left. Whew. She began to think of topics of conversation in case he should come again.
Later the dog walked toward the chestnut fall, sat, and cocked his head.
The man was getting up from a log where he had been sitting (watching her?). He began to walk and fell down. She hurried to help him but he was up quickly, brushing himself off.
“What happened?” She took his arm and was thinking not so much about him but about herself, the sudden weakness at the pit of her stomach when he fell, her heart still racing. What happened to me? she meant.
“I fell down.”
“I know that. But why?”
“I don’t know. Lately I tend to fall down.”
“That’s all right I tend to pick things up. I’m a hoister.”
“We’d make a twosome.”
“Don’t joke.”
“All right.”
Was that the world’s secret then, that you have to joke all the time? Is that how you live?
The man was sitting on a polished chestnut log, one arm stretched over his knee, hand open. He seemed to be looking at the barbed-wire fence. Now he stood and putting his hands in his pockets bent over them as if he were cold.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. I—” He looked at his watch. His brown smooth hand still had tooth marks from the dog. She could not take her eyes from his hand.
“I love—” she began.
“You love what?”
She loved his hand.
“Is it time and if it is, time for what?” she asked.
“Time? Yes.” He was gazing at the fence in an absent staring way. He broke away, blinked. “Yes. I have to be somewhere at five-thirty.”
“I don’t.”
“I know. This is your home.”
“Where is your home?”
“Over there.” He nodded toward the one-eyed mountain.
“You own a home on the mountain?”
“I own the mountain.”
“Okay. Then go home.”
“Right.” They were both startled by her command. He left.
She watched as he stepped through the fence, paused, then went quickly through. Now, standing and facing her from the golf links, he seemed to feel freer, as if the fence allowed a neighborliness.
“Perhaps you would not mind a suggestion,” he said.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Do you know what a creeper is?”
“Virginia creeper?”
“No no.” If he could have smiled, she thought, he would have smiled. “No, it’s a little platform on wheels which mechanics lie on when they work under cars.”
“I know it but not the word.”
“You have some planks, but you’re going to need a creeper to get the stove down the hill.”
“Thanks for the word.”
He noticed that she treated the gift of the word exactly like the avocados. She’d have to think about it after he left.
As she listened she noticed he was white around the eyes. Did he usually wear sunglasses? His eyes, his face reminded her of something, what? yes, of the face and white eyes of combat soldiers she had seen a long time ago in Life magazine. The eyes of the soldiers could not or would not bring themselves to focus.
Why could she remember perfectly an old Life magazine but could not quite remember why she had decided to come here?
“Go to Washau Motors in town,” the man said. “They sell Fords. I own it. But you won’t have to mention my name. So I am not doing you a favor. Ask for Jerry, the parts man. Through an error, probably Jerry’s, we have on hand one hundred creepers. Jerry is why I’m not making money. He would be glad to lend or give you an old one.”
“What will I say?”
“Say ‘Jerry, I’d like to borrow one of your old creepers.’”
“The word is creeper.”
“Yes. And there are two other things you’re going to need.”
“What?”
“You are probably going to have to take the stove apart to move it and to get it through the door of the greenhouse. You’re going to need two ten-inch crescent wrenches and a can of WD-40 to loosen the rusty bolts.”
“Give me the words.” She took out pad and pencil. He wrote: Creeper. Ten-inch crescent wrench. WD-40.
“Good.”
“I found the word ‘block’ in the dictionary in the library under the word ‘pulley.’ So I knew what to ask for in the hardware store.”
“I see.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d be glad to lend you—”
“No thank you.”
After the man left, she sat in the sun under the poplar. Though the air was still, one gold leaf shook violently. The bark had a bitter smell.
4
In the dim light and damp bitter-bark smell of the pittosporum there was the sound just above her head of a bird on the feeding tray. It was scratching seed with its feet like a chicken. The only way she could get comfortable sitting on the not quite horizontal branch was to slump against the trunk.
Through the open casement of Dr. Duk’s office came her father’s voice, faint then louder, going away then coming back. He was pacing up and down, shirt-sleeved, hands on hips, getting the show on the road. Dr. Duk would be sitting four feet from her, safer now behind his desk and swiveled around in his chair, keeping one eye on the feeding station and one hand near the tripoded Nikon in case a painted bunting should show up. Did buntings kick seed around like chickens?
Her mother? She must be sitting in the patient’s chair across the desk, bolt upright, one little finger in her mouth, eyes lidded and ironic as she watched her husband.
— might disagree on the particulars, Doc, said her father, coming close now. But one thing we can sure as hell agree on and that’s Allison’s well-being. It’s her happiness and health which comes first, now and always, right?