Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [18]
"Is there anything you'd like to do, Carlotta?"
"No."
"Would you like a piece of candy?"
"No, thank you."
"Would you like to wear my pearls?"
"No, thank you."
Mrs. Garrison decided to cut the interview short and she rang for Agnes.
* * *
In the kitchen, Greta and Agnes were drinking coffee. The lunch dishes had been washed and the turmoil that attended dinner had not begun. The kitchen was cool and clean and the grounds were still. They met there every afternoon and it was the pleasantest hour of their day.
"Where is _she_?" Greta asked.
"_She's_ in there with Carlotta," Agnes said.
"_She_ was talking to herself in the garden this morning," Greta said. "Nils heard her. Now she wants him to move some lilies. He won't do anything. He won't even cut the grass."
"Emma cleaned the living room," Agnes said. "Then _she_ comes in with all those flowers."
"Next summer I go back to Sweden," Greta said.
"Does it still cost four hundred dollars?" Agnes asked.
"Yes," Greta said. In order to avoid saying _ja_, she hissed the word.
"Maybe next year it won't cost so much. But if I don't go next year, Ingrid will be twelve years old and she'll cost full fare. I want to see my mother. She's old."
"You should go," Agnes said.
"I went in 1927, 1935, and 1937," Greta said.
"I went home in 1937," Agnes said. "That was the last time. My father was an old man. I was there all summer. I thought I'll go the year after, but _she_ said if I go she fires me, so I didn't go. And that winter my father died. I wanted to see him."
"I want to see my mother," Greta said.
"They talk about the scenery here," Agnes said. "These little mountains! Ireland is like a garden."
"Would I do it again? I ask myself," Greta said. "Now I'm too old. Look at my legs. Varicose veins." She moved one of her legs out from underneath the table for Agnes to see.
"I have nothing to go back for," Agnes said. "My brothers are dead, both my brothers. I have nobody on the other side. I wanted to see my father."
"Oh, that first time I come here," Greta cried. "It was like a party on that boat. Get rich. Go home. Get rich. Go home."
"Me, too," Agnes said. They heard thunder. Mrs. Garrison rang again impatiently.
A storm came down from the north then. The wind blew a gale, a green branch fell onto the lawn and the house resounded with cries and the noise of slammed windows. When the rain and the lightning came, Mrs. Garrison watched them from her bedroom window. Carlotta and Agnes hid in a closet. Jim and Ellen and their son were at the beach and they watched the storm from the door of the boathouse. It raged for half an hour and then blew off to the west, leaving the air chill, bitter, and clean; but the afternoon was over.
While the children were having their supper, Jim went up to the corn patch and set and baited his traps. As he started down the hill, he smelled baking cake from the kitchen. The sky had cleared, the light on the mountains was soft, and the house seemed to have all its energies bent toward dinner. He saw Nils by the chicken house and called good evening to him, but Nils didn't reply.
Mrs. Garrison, Jim, and Ellen had cocktails before they went in to dinner, then wine, and when they took their brandy and coffee onto the terrace, they were slightly drunk. The sun was setting.
"I got a letter from Reno," Mrs. Garrison said. "Florrie wants me to bring Carlotta to New York when I go down on the twelfth for the Peyton wedding."
"Shay will die," Ellen said.
"Shay will perish," Mrs. Garrison said.
The sky seemed to be full of fire. They could see the sad, red light through the pines. The odd winds that blow just before dark in the mountains brought, from farther down the lake, the words of a song,