Winter Birds (27 page)

“It looked chocolate in the picture,” I say. “But it didn’t win. It was second.”

Suddenly we hear men’s voices. “They got electric down there?” one of them yells.

“Yeah, guy said look right by the crawl space door.” Through one of my windows we see two men appear around the corner of the house, scruffy and unshaven, exactly the types you’d expect to make a living crawling under houses. They come to a stop in the backyard, and one of them spits something dark onto the ground. A third follows, wearing a ball cap and sweatshirt. He is a giant of a man, built better for standing upright than for crawling around in close quarters. His belly sags over the top of his pants, and he walks with a ponderous, stiff-legged waddle. It is not hard to imagine this man sitting on a barstool for hours at a time over a succession of cheap beers.

The fat man points to the crawl space door and talks to the other two with a supervisory air. One of them disappears through the crawl space door and calls out, “Yeah, it’s here.”

Rachel sighs. “I’ll sure be glad when all of this is over,” she says. At the door she stops and turns back to me. “I hope you don’t mind about leaving your door open. Maybe with the two heaters you wouldn’t need to, but . . .”

I shake my head. “We shall see how it goes.” By this I could mean many things, but what I do mean is this: Nothing is easy. We must do what is necessary. I, too, will be happy when it is done. In the meantime my first consideration is my own comfort. If that means leaving the door open, I will tolerate it.

Both workmen are under the house now, and the fat man calls down through the crawl space door. “I’ll be back in a coupla hours! Y’all got the cell if you need me.” He stands for a moment, digging at a back tooth with a hooked finger, then lumbers off around the corner of the house.

“These men gave us the best bid,” Rachel says, as if to explain the ragtag look of the three.

“I hope they will do the best work,” I say. “Patrick’s first concern should not always be the cost.”

She leaps to her husband’s defense. “Oh, Patrick asked a lot of questions about them,” she says. “People gave real good recommendations. Patrick wouldn’t go for something just because it was the best price.” Her eyes cloud as if she might cry. I have no idea why she should cry.

I look away quickly and take another bite of my biscuit. Another connection comes to me: “DIED. JANE MUSKIE, 77, widow of Edmund Muskie, whose 1972 presidential campaign derailed after he appeared to cry in defending her against a newspaper editorial; in Bethesda, Md.” According to
Time
, when the editor of a newspaper claimed that Mrs. Muskie smoked and told dirty jokes, her husband choked up at a news conference and called the editor a “gutless coward.” People seemed to lose interest in Edmund Muskie becoming president after that.

Though so many things have fallen from my mind, I clearly remember the incident, which I read about in the newspaper. I was forty-six, a bride of four years. I recall being embarrassed for Edmund Muskie but at the same time envying his wife, for surely his tears spoke of a love I did not know. Only days earlier I had approached Eliot’s office at South Wesleyan in time to hear him say over the telephone, “Oh no, no, certainly not. Sophia is a good woman, but she is no scholar. She could never teach above the freshman level. Her mind runs in very small, simple circles.” I never knew to whom he was speaking, but I had no doubt that the words were spoken of me. I knew of no other Sophia in Eliot’s life.

When I read of Edmund Muskie’s defense of his wife, I tried to imagine what Eliot would have said had someone accused me of liking cigarettes and dirty jokes. Perhaps this: “Well, frankly, I’m not surprised. Such things are to be expected of simpleminded women like my wife.” He would have been dry-eyed, disapproving, regretful that my low behavior reflected poorly on him.

I said nothing to him about what I had overheard. When he fell ill one day the next week, he gave me his class notes and kindly instructed me to deliver his lecture in an upper-level seminar on the Lyrical Plays of Shakespeare. By this time I had served as his substitute on more than one occasion. I was tempted to say to him that day, “Why don’t you get a scholar to teach your class, someone who is qualified to teach above the freshman level?” But I did not. I took his notes and conducted his class. For an hour his students listened to me and took notes, not recognizing the small, simple circles of my mind.

Though so much of my teaching is lost in the fog of the forgotten, this I recall as if it happened yesterday: When a girl stood that day and read aloud Helena’s speech in act 1 of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, my heart twisted at the lines “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” It was a hard thing to suspect that my husband had never felt the arrow of winged Cupid, that his mind did not reshape and color the deficiencies his eyes saw, that he looked at me through his small round glasses and knew me exactly as I was—short, stout, homely, simpleminded, serviceable.

When the girl finished reading the speech, I stared at the page until the shuffling of feet reminded me there were others in the room. At last I found my place again in Eliot’s notes and continued his lecture. At some point I broke off abruptly and interjected, quite heatedly, a thought of my own: “Some may think that Helena was a fool to continue to love Demetrius. He had already proved himself false by transferring his affection to Hermia.” I then continued with Eliot’s lecture.

“And therefore is Love said to be a child, / Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.” These words are spoken by Helena, also. In love I was a child. Throughout our marriage I found ways to excuse my husband’s failings. I looked at Eliot and saw a great intellect, a truthful soul, a noble heart, a gentle spirit. And then at the end of my service, I saw that he was none of these things, that I had loved blindly. Like the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a most lamentable comedy.

“Would you like me to wash your sweater, Aunt Sophie?” Rachel asks. She is standing at the doorway still, the laundry basket in her hands. She is looking at the gray sweater I am wearing, the same one I have worn almost daily for three weeks, the bird pin still affixed to it.

“No,” I say quickly.

“I could have it back in just a little while,” she says.

“No,” I say. “It gives me a little happiness and tranquility.”

Rachel smiles a puzzled smile, unaware that I have stolen the words of a dead artist. “DIED. AGNES MARTIN, 92, reclusive abstract painter whose spare yet soulful geometric grids strove to induce nothing grander than, in her words, ‘a little happiness tranquility.’”
Time
magazine says that Agnes Martin was fond of the color gray. She lived in the desert regions of New Mexico.

“Okay, another day then,” Rachel says. “I wouldn’t want to take away your happiness and tranquility.” She smiles again and leaves. Moments later I hear her start the washing machine. I think of Rachel and her silent walk through life. I think of my own solitude. I look at the open door between the two of us. I take up my cup of hot cocoa and find it has cooled sufficiently. I drink it slowly, imagining a mirage in the desert—a lush green oasis with a sign: Welcome to Happiness and Tranquility.

Chapter 21

And When He Falls, He Falls Like Lucifer

The eastern kingbird perches boldly in the open, surveying its domain and squawking strident challenges to the world at large. During nesting season it is especially watchful and contentious, attacking squirrels and other birds that come too close to its young. Appropriately, its Latin name
, tyrannus tyrannus,
means “tyrant of tyrants.”

I lie in my bed at daybreak watching the walls of my apartment emerge from the shadows. One day follows another, all of them alike. On the wall beside my bird window is a calendar featuring pictures of wildlife, but I cannot see it from my bed. It would not matter if I could. Looking at the calendar would not tell me what day it is. Nor do I care. I know it is still January, and I have a vague sense that it is approximately midway between Sundays. I know that the green tips of daffodils are pushing through the earth in the backyard.

The calendar was given to me by Patrick, who also hung it on my wall. It is an advertising tool for his place of employment, with the words
MAIN OFFICE SUPPLY
prominently printed on each page. It is the kind of calendar a man of narrow perceptions like Patrick would select, for each animal is linked with a human characteristic, which the animal supposedly illustrates. The linkages, neatly summarized in captions, are proof of man’s ignorance in general and Patrick’s in particular. For January I am informed by means of the calendar that the eastern hognose snake demonstrates “Quick Thinking in Times of Danger,” and I have already looked ahead to see that February’s caption praises the wolverine for “Concentrating on the Work at Hand.”

A bird is cheeping outside my window. It is one I have heard and seen often, though I have not yet identified it in my bird book. It is in the sparrow family, of that I am quite certain, yet it is fatter than the chipping sparrow, more like the Savannah sparrow though lacking the streaked pattern on its underside.

It sits on a branch calling tirelessly:
Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep!
Its cries cannot be driven by hunger or thirst, for Patrick has refilled the seed in the feeder, and there is water in the drainpipes and hollows where ice has lately melted. It is an ambiguous call. One could interpret it as a cheerful greeting of dawn, I suppose, an eagerness to get the business of the day underway. On Patrick’s calendar, perhaps it could illustrate “Looking Ahead to the Bright Unknown.”

Or perhaps the bird is an alarmist, worried over some small imagined danger. Or perhaps he is the equivalent in the feathered kingdom of the person who seeks attention: “Here I am! Look at me! Listen to me!” Perhaps he is a complainer: “It’s too cold! It’s too quiet! It’s too dark!”

One could amuse himself by imagining that the sparrow is mischievous, that perhaps he understands man’s penchant for asking why and the compulsion of a small mind—like that which conceived the calendar—to interpret all things in relation to itself. Perhaps the bird cheeps only as a prank, providing one more unknowable for foolish men to pursue.

Perhaps the bird is this, perhaps that—more evidence of small-mindedness, this time my own, in trying to ascribe a humanly comprehensible motive to a bird’s cry. My nephew is rubbing off on me, as they say. The sparrow cheeps, I tell myself, because he is made to cheep. He does not feel anxiety or alarm. He does not tease or reason. He flies through the air, lands on a branch, and opens his bill. Streams flow into rivers, seeds sprout into plants, and birds cheep.

A light comes on in the kitchen, and I hear Patrick running water to make coffee. The wood stove door squeaks as he opens it to make a new fire. The old fire has burned down during the night. Though the wood stove and two electric blankets on my bed have supplemented the portable heaters in my apartment, they have not been enough to ward off the cold for the past four days. Perhaps the sparrow outside my window is urging optimism: It could be worse! Be patient! Things will get better! As I suspected, the furnace project has extended beyond three days. As the fifth day begins, perhaps the sparrow is reminding Patrick that the lowest price does not translate into the best job: Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!

And how long, I ask myself, do you mean to lie in bed projecting your thoughts into the mind of a bird? I rise and sit on the edge of my bed for a moment, allowing the dizziness to pass before I stand slowly. I look toward the open door and marvel that such a simple thing—an empty space, really—can touch all of one’s senses. I think of the things besides heat that have come through it since the latest episode at Patrick’s house began: the one titled The Three Stooges Install a Furnace.

Through the open door I have heard about Patrick’s first evening class at the community college. The word
summary
is meaningless to Patrick, who must have repeated every word the professor said that night as well as a great many he didn’t. When he began explaining to Rachel the location of the classroom and the style of desks within it, I went into my bathroom, turned on the fan, and ran water into the tub to block out the sound of his voice. The exertion of taking a bath is to be preferred over that of listening to Patrick.

Patrick has decided to take two night courses at the college: one called Introduction to Literature—though he has expressed reservations about needing to be “introduced to something I am already acquainted with”—and another called Creative Writing 101. The prospect of hearing his pontifications on literature for months to come is a grim one, but not as grim as the thought of his reading aloud his compositions. I long for the completion of the furnace project so that I may shut the door of my apartment again. I imagine my nephew’s words as truckloads of Styrofoam peanuts used as filler. I see myself packed inside a cardboard box, surrounded by his words, all of them lightweight, uniform, disposable, suffocating.

Through the open door I have witnessed, also unwillingly, the proceedings of what was referred to as a “cottage prayer meeting” held in Patrick and Rachel’s kitchen three nights ago. The concept of the small-group meetings, Patrick informed me, is a new one for their church. He has been appointed “shepherd” of his group, a fact that he reported to me with a great show of humility.

On the evening of the cottage prayer meeting, Patrick the Shepherd moved the kitchen table against the wall and drew up chairs, eight of them, in front of the wood stove. I muted my television and turned off my lights to observe the spectacle that followed. Though there were seven other people in the prayer meeting, I was interested only in Rachel and positioned myself in the dark so that I could see her.

Through the open door I saw and heard her read from the Bible, her eyes taking in and her mouth giving out words past comprehending. I saw her kneel beside her chair, clasp her large hands, and close her eyes in prayer. I heard her say these words: “Not our will, Lord, but thine be done.” Afterward I saw her stand again, then slice her chocolate Bundt cake and transfer the slices onto white saucers, which Patrick, in his customary officious way, distributed among the guests.