“Extraordinary!”
“Extraordinary!”
Mr. Dickens wheeled about, surveying the world from each and every window, speaking now north, now north by east, now east, now south:
“I’ve traveled two long weeks with an idea. Bastille Day. Do you know it?”
“The French Fourth of July?”
“Remarkable boy! By Bastille Day this book must be in full flood. Will you help me breach the tide gates of the Revolution, Pip?”
“With these?” I looked at the pad and pencil in my hands.
“Lick the pencil tip, boy!”
I licked.
“Top of the page: the title. Title.” Mr. Dickens mused, head down, rubbing his chin whiskers. “Pip, what’s a rare fine title for a novel that happens half in London, half in Paris?”
“A—” I ventured.
“Yes?”
“A Tale,” I went on.
“Yes?!”
“A Tale of . . . Two Cities?!”
“Madame!” Grandma looked up as he spoke. “This boy is a genius!”
“I read about this day in the Bible,” said Grandma. “Everything Ends by noon.”
“Put it down, Pip.” Mr. Dickens tapped my pad. “Quick. A Tale of Two Cities. Then, mid-page. Book the First. ‘Recalled to Life.’ Chapter 1. ‘The Period.’”
I scribbled. Grandma worked. Mr. Dickens squinted at the sky and at last intoned:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter—”
“My,” said Grandma, “you speak fine.”
“Madame.” The author nodded, then, eyes shut, snapped his fingers to remember, on the air. “Where was I, Pip?”
“It was the winter,” I said, “of despair.”
Very late in the afternoon I heard Grandma calling someone named Ralph, Ralph, down below. I didn’t know who that was. I was writing hard.
A minute later, Grandpa called, “Pip!”
I jumped. “Yes, sir!”
“Dinnertime, Pip,” said Grandpa, up the stairwell.
I sat down at the table, hair wet, hands damp. I looked over at Grandpa. “How did you know . . . Pip?”
“Heard the name fall out the window an hour ago.”
“Pip?” said Mr. Wyneski, just come in, sitting down.
“Boy,” I said. “I been everywhere this afternoon. The Dover Coach on the Dover Road. Paris! Traveled so much I got writer’s cramp! I—”
“Pip?” said Mr. Wyneski, again.
Grandpa came warm and easy to my rescue.
“When I was twelve, changed my name—on several occasions.” He counted the tines on his fork. “Dick. That was Dead-Eye Dick. And . . . John. That was for Long John Silver. Then: Hyde. That was for the other half of Jekyll—”
“I never had any other name except Bernard Samuel Wyneski,” said Mr. Wyneski, his eyes still fixed to me.
“None?” cried Grandpa, startled.
“None.”
“Have you proof of childhood, then, sir?” asked Grandpa. “Or are you a natural phenomenon, like a ship becalmed at sea?”
“Eh?” said Mr. Wyneski.
Grandpa gave up and handed him his full plate.
“Fall to, Bernard Samuel, fall to.”
Mr. Wyneski let his plate lie. “Dover Coach . . .?”
“With Mr. Dickens, of course,” supplied Grandpa. “Bernard Samuel, we have a new boarder, a novelist, who is starting a new book and has chosen Pip there, Ralph, to work as his secretary—”
“Worked all afternoon,” I said. “Made a quarter!”
I slapped my hand to my mouth. A swift dark cloud had come over Mr. Wyneski’s face.
“A novelist? Named Dickens? Surely you don’t believe—”
“I believe what a man tells me until he tells me otherwise, then I believe that. Pass the butter,” said Grandpa.
The butter was passed in silence.
“. . . hell’s fires . . .” Mr. Wyneski muttered.
I slunk low in my chair.
Grandpa, slicing the chicken, heaping the plates, said, “A man with a good demeanor has entered our house. He says his name is Dickens. For all I know that is his name. He implies he is writing a book. I pass his door, look in, and, yes, he is indeed writing. Should I run tell him not to? It is obvious he needs to set the book down—”
“A Tale of Two Cities!” I said.
“A Tale!” cried Mr. Wyneski, outraged, “of Two—”
“Hush,” said Grandma.
For down the stairs and now at the door of the dining room there was the man with the long hair and the fine goatee and mustaches, nodding, smiling, peering in at us doubtful and saying, “Friends . . .?”
“Mr. Dickens,” I said, trying to save the day. “I want you to meet Mr. Wyneski, the greatest barber in the world—”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
“Mr. Dickens,” said Grandpa. “Will you lend us your talent, sir, for grace?”
“An honor, sir.”
We bowed our heads. Mr. Wyneski did not.
Mr. Dickens looked at him gently.
Muttering, the barber glanced at the floor.
Mr. Dickens prayed:
“O Lord of the bounteous table, O Lord who furnishes forth an infinite harvest for your most respectful servants gathered here in loving humiliation, O Lord who garnishes our feast with the bright radish and the resplendent chicken, who sets before us the wine of the summer season, lemonade, and maketh us humble before simple potato pleasures, the lowborn onion and, in the finale, so my nostrils tell me, the bread of vast experiments and fine success, the highborn strawberry shortcake, most beautifully smothered and amiably drowned in fruit from your own warm garden patch, for these, and this good company, much thanks. Amen.”
“Amen,” said everyone but Mr. Wyneski.
We waited.
“Amen, I guess,” he said.
O what a summer that was!
None like it before in Green Town history.
I never got up so early so happy ever in my life! Out of bed at five minutes to, in Paris by one minute after . . . six in the morning the English Channel boat from Calais, the White Cliffs, sky a blizzard of seagulls, Dover, then the London Coach and London Bridge by noon! Lunch and lemonade out under the trees with Mr. Dickens, Dog licking our cheeks to cool us, then back to Paris and tea at four and . . .
“Bring up the cannon, Pip!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Mob the Bastille!”
“Yes, sir!”
And the guns were fired and the mobs ran and there I was, Mr. C. Dickens A-1 First Class Green Town, Illinois, secretary, my eyes bugging, my ears popping, my chest busting with joy, for I dreamed of being a writer some day, too, and here I was unraveling a tale with the very finest best.
“Madame Defarge, oh how she sat and knitted, knitted, sat—”
I looked up to find Grandma knitting in the window.
“Sidney Carton, what and who was he? A man of sensibility, a reading man of gentle thought and capable action . . .”
Grandpa strolled by mowing the grass.
Drums sounded beyond the hills with guns; a summer storm cracked and dropped unseen walls . . .
Mr. Wyneski?
Somehow I neglected his shop, somehow I forgot the mysterious barber pole that came up from nothing and spiraled away to nothing, and the fabulous hair that grew on his white tile floor . . .
So Mr. Wyneski then had to come home every night to find that writer with all the long hair in need of cutting, standing there at the same table thanking the Lord for this, that, and t’other, and Mr. Wyneski not thankful. For there I sat staring at Mr. Dickens like he was God until one night:
“Shall we say grace?” said Grandma.
“Mr. Wyneski is out brooding in the yard,” said Grandpa.
“Brooding?” I glanced guiltily from the window.
Grandpa tilted his chair back so he could see.
“Brooding’s the word. Saw him kick the rose bush, kick the green ferns by the porch, decide against kicking the apple tree. God made it too firm. There, he just jumped on a dandelion. Oh, oh. Here he comes, Moses crossing a Black Sea of bile.”
The door slammed. Mr. Wyneski stood at the head of the table.
“I’ll say grace tonight!”
He glared at Mr. Dickens.
“Why, I mean,” said Grandma. “Yes. Please.”
Mr. Wyneski shut his eyes tight and began his prayer of destruction:
“O Lord, who delivered me a fine June and a less fine July, help me to get through August somehow.
“O Lord, deliver me from mobs and riots in the streets of London and Paris which drum through my room night and morn, chief members of said riot being one boy who walks in his sleep, a man with a strange name and a Dog who barks after the ragtag and bobtail.
“Give me strength to resist the cries of Fraud, Thief, Fool, and Bunk Artists which rise in my mouth.
“Help me not to run shouting all the way to the Police Chief to yell that in all probability the man who shares our simple bread has a true name of Red Joe Pyke from Wilkesboro, wanted for counterfeiting life, or Bull Hammer from Hornbill, Arkansas, much desired for mean spitefulness and penny-pilfering in Oskaloosa.
“Lord, deliver the innocent boys of this world from the fell clutch of those who would tomfool their credibility.
“And Lord, help me to say, quietly, and with all deference to the lady present, that if one Charles Dickens is not on the noon train tomorrow bound for Potters Grave, Lands End, or Kankakee, I shall like Delilah, with malice, shear the black lamb and fry his mutton-chop whiskers for twilight dinners and late midnight snacks.
“I ask, Lord, not mercy for the mean, but simple justice for the malignant.
“All those agreed, say ‘Amen.’”
He sat down and stabbed a potato.
There was a long moment with everyone frozen.
And then Mr. Dickens, eyes shut said, moaning:
“Ohhhhhhhhhh . .
