Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [15]
said to his friend, "Here. Hold this pen up." The young fellow did it and Dick took out his pistol and shot the pen from his hand. No one was injured. The roar was terrible. Then it was discovered that the bullet which had smashed the pen to bits had also pierced the coffee urn and made a fountain of the urn, which gushed straight across the diner in a hot stream to the window opposite. The Greek phoned for the state troopers, and during the chase Dick smashed his car into an embankment. He and his pal then tried to swim the river, and the pal had the presence of mind to strip his clothes, but Dick had on cavalry boots and they filled up and drowned him. This left my father alone in the world with me, my sister having died in 1901. I was working that summer for Wilbur, a fellow in our neighborhood, cutting up old cars. But now it is Xmas week. Lily is standing on the basement stairs. Paris and Chartres and V�lay and 57th Street are far behind us. I have the violin in my hands, and the fatal rug from Danbury under my feet. The red robe is on my back. And the hunting cap? I sometimes think it keeps my head in one piece. The gray wind of December is sweeping down the overhang of the roof and playing bassoons on the loose rain pipes. Notwithstanding this noise I hear the baby cry. And Lily says, "Can you hear it?" "I can't hear a thing, you know I'm a little deaf," I said, which is true. "Then how can you hear the violin?" "Well, I'm standing right next to it, I should be able to hear it," I said. "Stop me if I'm wrong," I said, "but I seem to remember that you told me once I was your only friend in all the world." "But--" said Lily. "I can't understand you," I said. "Go away." At two o'clock there were some callers, and they heard the cries from upstairs but were too well bred to mention them. I'd banked on that. To break up the tension, however, I said, "Would anybody like to visit my pistol range downstairs?" There were no takers and I went below myself and fired a few rounds. The bullets made a tremendous noise among the hot-air ducts. Soon I heard the visitors saying good-by. Later, when the baby was asleep, Lily talked Ricey into going skating on the pond. I had bought skates for everyone, and Ricey is still young enough to be appealed to in this way. When they were gone, Lily having given me this opportunity, I laid down the fiddle and stole upstairs to Ricey's room. Quietly I opened the closet door and saw the infant sleeping on the chemises and stockings in Ricey's valise, for she had not finished unpacking. It was a colored child, and made a solemn impression on me. The little fists were drawn up on either side of its broad head. About the middle was a fat diaper made of a Turkish towel. And I stooped over it in the red robe and the Wellingtons, my face flaming so that my head itched under the wool cap. Should I close up the valise and take the child to the authorities? As I studied the little baby, this child of sorrow, I felt like the Pharaoh at the sight of little Moses. Then I turned aside and I went and took a walk in the woods. On the pond the cold runners clinked over the ice. It was an early sunset and I thought, "Well, anyway, God bless you, children." That night in bed I said to Lily, "Well now, I'm ready to talk this thing over." Lily said, "Oh, Gene, I'm very glad." She gave me a high mark for this, and told me, "It's good that you are more able to accept reality." "What?" I said. "I know more about reality than you'll ever know. I am on damned good terms with reality, and don't you forget it." After a while I began to shout, and Ricey, hearing me carrying on and perhaps seeing me through the door, threatening and shaking my fist, standing on the bed in my jockey shorts, probably became frightened for her baby. On the twenty-seventh of December she ran away with the child. I didn't want the police in on this and phoned Bonzini, a private dick who has done some jobs for me, but before he could get on the case the headmistress called from Ricey's boarding school and said she had arrived and was hiding the