The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [47]
In morning asked Bedelia. Hired girl. Never ask parents. Children seen, not heard. Very solemn, Bedelia. “Miss Juliana’s a famous seer. She talks with the dead through the spirit of an Indian. Last night she talked with Mr. Blaine’s mother and the little Hardwich boy who was drowned in the river.” Never understood pious old lady talking with the dead. Can’t think clearly about it now. Watched all day for Juliana. Didn’t appear for noon meal. Tired out from talking with the dead. Showed up for supper. Same uniform. Black dress. Gray hair in little curls. Lace cap. Said grace in loud voice. “Dear Lord we thank Thee for these Thy blessings.” Ate with good appetite. Always smelled like pantry, Juliana did. Cinnamony smell. Savory, sage and other spices. Not unpleasant. Watched for signs of seer, but saw only strict old lady. Dewlaps. Poor relation.
One more Indian. Joe Thrum. Lived on hoopskirts of town. Painted face orange. Smelly hut. Wore silk shirt. Big brass rings in ears. Dirty. Ate rats or so writer believed. Last of savages. Hate Indians, even in Wild West show. Great-great-grandfather killed by same at Fort Duquesne. Poor Yankee! How far from home. Strange water. Strange trees. Led into clearing at edge of water stark naked at 4 P.M. Commenced fire-torture. 8 P.M., still living. Cried most piteously. Hate Indians, Chinamen, most foreigners. Keep coal in bathtub. Eat garlic. Trail smell of Polish earth, Italian earth, Russian earth, strange earth everywhere. Change everything. Ruin everything.
This was the first chapter of Leander’s autobiography or confession, a project that kept him occupied after the Topaze was put up the year his sons went away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
You come, as Moses did, at nine in the evening to Washington, a strange city. You wait your turn to leave the coach, carrying a suitcase, and walk up the platform to the waiting room. Here you put down your suitcase and crane your neck, wondering what the architect had up his sleeve. There are gods above you in a dim light and, unless there are some private arrangements, the floor where you stand has been trod by presidents and kings. You follow the crowds and the sounds of a fountain out of this twilight into the night. You put down your suitcase again and gape. On your left is the Capitol building, flooded with light. You have seen this so often on medallions and post cards that it seemed incised on your memory only now there is a difference. This is the real thing.
You have eighteen dollars and thirty-seven cents in your pocket. You have not pinned the money to your underwear as your father suggested but you keep feeling for your wallet to make sure that it hasn’t been lifted by a pickpocket. You want a place to stay and, feeling that there will not be one around the Capitol, you start off in the opposite direction. You feel springy and young—your shoes are comfortable and the good, woolen socks you wear were knitted by your dear mother. Your underwear is clean in case you should be hit by a taxicab and have to be undressed by strangers.
You walk and walk and walk, changing your suitcase from hand to hand. You pass lighted store fronts, monuments, theaters and saloons. You hear dance music and the thunder of tenpins from an upstairs bowling alley and wonder how long it will be before you begin to play a role against this new scene. You will have a job, perhaps in that marble building on your left. You will have a desk, a secretary, a telephone extension, duties, worries, triumphs and promotions. In the meantime you will be a lover. You will meet a girl by that monument on the corner, buy her some dinner in that restaurant across the street and be taken home by her to that apartment in the distance. You will have friends and enjoy them as these two men, swinging down the street in shirt sleeves, are enjoying one another. You may belong to