“Might be in back of this, or under it. I just put this in about a month ago.” The custodian tugged at a large suitcase, and after a moment he helped, moved by pity for the old man’s feebleness. As they shifted the suitcase, it struck him that it had been a long time since he had felt pity for anyone except, perhaps, himself.
His carton had indeed been under the suitcase. He picked it up, thanked the custodian, and carried it to the elevator. While he waited, it occurred to him that the custodian had as much right to be considered an antique as the desk he had lost; that just as the desk had been older than most desks, so the custodian was older than most men. Yet nobody cared, no one would make the least effort to save the old custodian from the flames of the crematorium. Eventually, he thought, old people will be preserved like old furniture. Collectors will cry to think of the things we’ve thrown out.
The elevator doors opened, and he dropped the thought down the shaft while he got the carton inside and pushed the button. Now that he had the carton—it was one of the movers’, of course—he was no longer certain it contained winter clothing, though he had no notion of what it might contain instead. He tried to recall the day he had moved from the YMCA. He had not owned an overcoat then, he felt sure; he had worn his windbreaker to work that winter, keeping his suit-coat in his locker.
When he shouldered open the door of his apartment, nothing seemed familiar; it was as though someone had moved his sofa and chairs, his very rooms, while he had been at work. His living room had doubled to become an L; his kitchen had grown as if its stainless sink and Formica counter had been mixed with yeast.
He put the carton on the floor. His fireplace was gone—he could not understand how that could have happened. He recalled lying there in front of the fire, drinking brandy with somebody, with some girl, a woman. Had the fireplace really belonged to the woman? No, not a woman—she had said so. Had she taken it with her when she left? That was impossible.
There had been another apartment, of course, an apartment in which he had lived before this one but after the Y. Strange that he could recall moving out of the Y so well but could not remember moving into this place at all.
He had been ill. He had forgotten that. Or to be honest, had been pushing that out of his mind. No doubt the company had transferred him to the uptown store so he would be among people who didn’t know about his breakdown.
Not that they hadn’t found out soon enough. He remembered the girl from Better Dresses asking him when he had sat next to her at the picnic. It had been a mistake; she had been like all the rest, a single woman looking frantically for the kind of man who would never consider her if she found him, a handsome, wealthy, athletic college man who was sensitive, intelligent, cultured, and completely blind to what she was.
He laughed softly to himself.
And yet was he any better? Yes, he thought. Yes, I am. I’m willing to admit what I am.
But what am I? Surely not God, and it was God who said, “I am”. He remembered that, but he could not remember how he knew it; it might have been in one of those Biblical epics, Charlton Heston turning back the Red Sea.
He hung up his topcoat, his jacket, and his tie and put on water for coffee; his feet hurt, as they did at the end of each day. While he pulled off his shoes, he found himself wondering whether there was any brandy left—not from then, not from that night. He could not remember when it had been, but it had been a long time ago.
The built-in cabinet in the living room held half a bottle of rum. He could not recall buying it and thought it might have been left by another tenant, but it reminded him of the captain he had been for one night, and the captain’s desk. He stirred an inch of rum into the mug of instant he prepared for himself, on top of the cream and sugar.
The carton was tied with heavy cord. He carried his coffee back into the kitchen, got out the large knife he sometimes used to slice onions, and sharpened it.
For a moment he waited, fingering the edge, sipping his rum and coffee, smiling a little. There was a pleasant excitement in not knowing what might be in the carton or even if it was his at all. The custodian was old and might easily (he told himself) have fastened his tag on the wrong container. He looked through his tape collection for an appropriate one to put on the stereo, and settled in the end for The Music of Christmas, moved by a dim recollection of opening boxes beneath the tree as a child. Soon, very soon, the store would play carols all the time, and he would join the other retail-sales associates in complaining about them; but tonight it seemed to him that he should listen to Christmas now, that he should hear it again before the store destroyed it, with everything it had once meant.
He cut the string and flipped back the cardboard flaps. A thick sweater-vest lay on top. He picked it up and admired it; it was of that light brownish tan they called camel, thick and soft, with a V-neck and buttons up the front—just the thing, he told himself, to keep the wind from his chest while he waited for the bus. As he searched it for its labels, he congratulated himself on remembering these things.
It was a Medium, which should fit him well. A second label announced that it was one hundred percent virgin wool, that it should be dry-cleaned only, and that it had been made in Toronto—that would be Canada, he thought. He carried it to the closet and hung it with his topcoat and jacket.
When he had pulled the sweater from the carton, he had been careful not to look at the next item. Now he rubbed his hands in anticipation as he returned to it for his second discovery.
It was a pair of gloves, gloves of soft dark leather lined with fur. Never worn—the store’s price-tag still dangled from the plastic cord that bound the two together. He cut it, pulled them on, and punched the air, although he had never boxed. They fit him perfectly, and he imagined himself playing the piano in them, although he could not really play the piano. The stereo had launched into Silent Night; he accompanied it on a magical instrument that always put the right keys under his fingers. It would be useless to put the gloves in the pockets of his topcoat, since he was hoping for a warmer coat from the carton. After considering the matter, he pulled them off and put them on the bar of the hanger that held his jacket.
Next was a long, knit muffler of bark brown, and under it the overcoat he had remembered. He took them from the carton, thrust his arms in the wide sleeves of the coat, and wound the muffler about his neck. Both seemed to exude palpable warmth. He went into his bedroom and stood before the mirror to button the overcoat, which fit just loosely enough for him to be sure it would be perfect with a jacket under it. While feeling its thickly napped material with his hands, he discovered that there was something in one of the side pockets.
It was a map. Too warm already, he took off the coat and laid it on his bed, seated himself beside it, and opened the map on his knees.
The area depicted seemed to be heavily forested and almost without roads, traversed mostly by narrow blue streams marked with rapid after rapid. Its highest elevation was Mt. Hieros; judging from its white center, Mt. Hieros was capped with snow. There was nothing to indicate where either the mapped tract or its mountain might be. Straggling letters stretching from one corner of the map to the opposite corner spelled OVERWOOD.
He shook his head, refolded the map, and tossed it onto his dresser for further study after dinner. He had not been to the Italian place in a long time. It had been conveniently near his old apartment—the neighborhood of his old apartment had returned to his mind vividly now—but it was ten blocks or more from this one, and he had not relished the walk. Now he found that he was not only hungry but eager to test his reclaimed winter clothing against the wind. He put on his second-best shoes, the sweater-vest, his jacket, and the gloves, added the muffler, and last of all wrapped himself in the long, dark overcoat.