Death In The Family, A - James Agee [40]
He was aflame with curiosity. He had been too young, the Christmas before, to think of looking for hidden presents, but now he looked everywhere that he could imagine to look until his mother understood what he was doing and told him there was no use looking for it because the surprise wouldn’t be here until exactly when it came. He asked where was it, then, and heard his father’s sudden laugh; his mother looked panicky and cried, “Jay!” all at once, and quickly informed him, “In heaven; still up in heaven.”
He looked quickly to his father for corroboration and his father, who appeared to be embarrassed, did not look at him. He knew about heaven because that was where Our Father was, but that was all he knew about it, and he was not satisfied. Again, however, he had a feeling that he would be unwise to ask more.
“Why don’t you tell him, Mary?” his father said.
“Oh, Jay,” she said in alarm; then said, by moving her lips, “Don’t talk of it in front of him!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” and he, too, said with his lips-only a whisper leaked around the silence, “but what’s the good? Why not get it over with?”
She decided that it was best to speak openly. “As you know, Jay, I’ve told Rufus about our surprise that’s coming. I told him I’d be glad to tell him what it was, except that it would be so very hard for him to imagine it and such a lovely surprise when he first sees it. Besides, I just have a feeling he might m-make see-oh-en-en-ee-see-tee-eye-oh-en-ess, between—between one thing and another.”
“Going to make them, going to make em anyhow,” his father said.
“But Jay, there’s no use simply forcing it on his att-eigh-ten-ten, his attention, now, is there? Is there, Jay!”
She seemed really quite agitated, he could not understand why.
“You’re right, Mary, and don’t you get excited about it. I was all wrong about it. Of course I was.” And he got up and came over to her and took her in his arms, and patted her on the back.
“I’m probably just silly about it,” she said.
“No, you’re not one bit silly. Besides, if you’re silly about that, so am I, some way. That just sort of caught me off my guard, that about heaven, that’s all.”
“Well, what can you say?”
“I’m Godd—I can’t imagine, sweetheart, and I better just keep my mouth shut.”
She frowned, smiled, laughed through her nose and urgently shook her head at him, all at once.
And then one day without warning the biggest woman he had ever seen, shining deep black and all in magnificent white with bright gold spectacles and a strong smile like that of his Aunt Hannah, entered the house and embraced his mother and swept down on him crying with delight, “Lawd, chile, how mah baby has growed!”, and for a moment he thought that this must be the surprise and looked inquiringly at his mother past the onslaught of embraces, and his mother said, “Victoria; Victoria, Rufus!”; and Victoria cried, “Now bless his little heart, how would he remembuh,” and all of a sudden as he looked into the vast shining planes of her smiling face and at the gold spectacles which perched there as gaily as a dragonfly, there was something that he did remember, a glisten of gold and a warm movement of affection, and before he knew it he had flung his arms around her neck and she whooped with astonished joy, “Why God bless him, why chile, chile,” and she held him away from her and her face was the happiest thing he had ever seen, “ah believe you do remembuh! Ah sweah ah believe you do! Do you?” She shook him in her happiness. “Do you remembuh y’old Victoria?” She shook him again. “Do you, honey?” And realizing at last that he was specifically being asked, he nodded shyly, and again she embraced him. She smelled so good that he could almost have leaned his head against her and gone to sleep then and there.
“Mama,” he said later, when she was out shopping, “Victoria smells awful good.”
“Hush, Rufus,” his mother said. “Now you listen very carefully to