Rabbit, Run - John Updike [121]
Harry shields his eyes with his hand. They feel hot and vulnerable to light. “Thank you,” he says, and almost moans in his gratitude to this man, whom he has always despised, for making a speech so generous. He tried to frame, in accordance with an etiquette that continues to operate in the thick of grief as if underwater, a counter-speech. “I promise I’ll keep my end of the bargain,” he brings out, and stops, stifled by the abject sound of his voice. What made him say bargain?
“I know you will,” Springer says. “Reverend Eccles assures us you will.”
“Dessert,” Nelson says distinctly.
“Nelly, why don’t you take a cookie to bed?” Springer speaks with a familiar jollity that, though strained, reminds Rabbit that the kid lived here for months. “Isn’t it your bedtime? Shall Mom-mom take you up?”
“Daddy,” Nelson says, and slides off his chair and comes to his father.
Both men are embarrassed. “O.K.,” Rabbit says. “You show me your room.”
Springer gets two Oreo cookies out of the pantry and unexpectedly Nelson runs forward to hug him. He stoops to accept the hug and his withered dandy’s face goes blank against the boy’s cheek; his unfocused eyes stare at Rabbit’s shoes, and big black square cuff links, thinly rimmed and initialed S in gold, creep out of his coat sleeves as his arms tighten the hug.
As Nelson leads his father to the stairs they pass the room where Mrs. Springer is sitting. Rabbit has a glimpse of a puffed face slippery with tears and averts his eyes. He whispers to Nelson to go in and kiss her good-night. When the boy returns to him they go upstairs and down a smooth corridor papered with a design of old-style cars into a little room whose white curtains are tinted green by a tree outside. On either side of the window symmetrical pictures, one of kittens and one of puppies, are hung. He wonders if this was the room where Janice was little. It has a musty innocence, and a suspense, as if it stood empty for years. An old teddy-bear, the fur worn down to cloth and one eye void, sits in a broken child’s rocker. Had it been Janice’s? Who pulled the eye out? Nelson becomes queerly passive in this room. Harry undresses the sleepy body, brown all but the narrow bottom, puts it into pajamas and into bed and arranges the covers over it. He tells him, “You’re a good boy.”
“Yop.”
“I’m going to go now. Don’t be scared.”
“Daddy go way?”
“So you can sleep. I’ll be back.”
“O.K. Good.”
“Good.”
“Daddy?”
“What?”
“Is baby Becky dead?”
“Yes.”
“Was she frightened?”
“Oh no. No. She wasn’t frightened.”
“Is she happy?”
“Yeah, she’s very happy now.”
“Good.”
“Don’t you worry about it.”
“O.K.”
“You snuggle up.”
“Yop.”
“Think about throwing stones.”
“When I grow up, I’ll throw them very far.”
“That’s right. You can throw them pretty far now.”
“I know it.”
“O.K. Go to sleep.”
Downstairs he asks Springer, who is washing dishes in the kitchen, “You don’t want me to stay here tonight, do you?”
“Not tonight, Harry. I’m sorry. I think it would be better not tonight.”
“O.K., sure. I’ll go back to the apartment. Shall I come over in the morning?”
“Yes, please. We’ll give you breakfast.”
“No, I don’t want any. I mean, to see Janice when she wakes up.”
“Yes of course.”
“You think she’ll sleep the night through.”
“I think so.”
“Uh—I’m sorry I wasn’t at the lot today.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. That’s negligible.”
“You don’t want me to work tomorrow, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“I still have the job, don’t I?”
“Of course.” His talk is gingerly; his eyes fidget; he feels his wife is listening.
“You’re being awfully good to me.”
Springer doesn’t answer; Harry goes out through the sun-porch, so he won’t have to glimpse Mrs. Springer’s face again, and around the house and walks home in the soupy, tinkling dark. He lets himself into the apartment with his key and turns on all the lights as rapidly as he can. He goes into the bathroom and the water is still in the tub. Some