Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [49]
"They'll find her," Robert said.
The room darkened. The low clouds had touched the city. They could hear the rain as it fell against the building and the windows.
"She's lying somewhere in the rain," Katherine cried. She wrenched her body around in the chair and covered her face. "She's lying in the rain."
"They'll find her," Robert said, "Other children get lost. I've read stories about it in the _Times_. This sort of thing happens to everyone who has children. My sister's little girl fell downstairs. She fractured her skull. They didn't think she was going to live."
"It does happen to other people, doesn't it?" Katherine asked. She turned and looked at her husband. The rain had stopped suddenly. It left in the air a smell as powerful as though ammonia had been spilled in the streets. Robert saw the rain clouds darken the bright river. "I mean, there are all the sicknesses and the accidents," Katherine said, "and we've been so lucky. You know, Deborah hasn't had any lunch. She'll be terribly hungry. She hasn't had anything to eat since breakfast."
"I know."
"Darling, you go out," Katherine said. "It will be easier for you than staying here."
"What will you do?"
"I'm going to clean the living room. We left the windows open last night and everything's covered with soot. You go out. I'll be all right." She smiled. Her face was swollen from crying. "You go out. It will be easier for you, and I'll clean the room."
Robert went down again. The police car was still parked in front of the house. A policeman came up to Robert, and they talked for a while. "I'm going to look around the neighborhood again," the policeman said, "if you want to come with me." Robert said that he would go. He noticed that the policeman carried a flashlight.
Near the apartment house was the ruin of a brewery that had been abandoned during Prohibition. The sidewalk had been inherited by the dogs of the neighborhood and was littered with their filth. The basement windows of a nearby garage were broken, and the policeman flashed his light through a window frame. Robert started when he saw some dirty straw and a piece of yellow paper. It was the color of Deborah's coat. He said nothing and they walked along. In the distance he could hear the vast afternoon noise of the city.
There were some tenements near the brewery. They were squalid, and over the door to one hung a crude sign: "Welcome Home Jerry." The iron gate that led to the steep cellar stairs was open. The policeman flashed his light down the stairs. They were broken. There was nothing there.
An old woman sat on the stoop of the next house, and she watched them suspiciously when they looked down the cellar stairs. "You'll not find my Jimmy there," she screamed, "you—you—" Someone threw open a window and told her to shut up. Robert saw that she was drunk. The policeman paid no attention to her. He looked methodically into the cellar of each house, and then they went around a corner. There were stores, here, along the front of an apartment house. There were no stairs or areaways.
Robert heard a siren. He stopped, and stopped the policeman with him. A police car came around the corner and drew up to the curb where they stood. "Hop in, Mr. Tennyson," the driver said. "We found her. She's down at the station." He started the siren, and they drove east, dodging through the traffic. "We found her down on Third Avenue," the policeman said. "She was sitting out in front of an antique store, eating a piece of bread. Somebody must have given her the bread.