Suppose she didn’t hear him? How could he be sure that she was still able to hear? Seventy years make for spider webs in the ears, gray waddings of time which dull everything for some people until they live in a universe of cotton and wool and silence. Nobody had spoken to her in thirty years save to open their mouths to say hello. What if she were deaf, lying there in her cold bed now like a little girl playing out a long and lonely game, never even aware that someone was tapping on the rattling windows, someone was calling through her flake-painted door, someone was walking on the soft grass round her locked house? Perhaps not pride but a physical inability prevented her from answering!
In the living room, Mr. Widmer quietly took the ’phone off the hook, watching the bedroom door to be certain he hadn’t wakened his wife. To the operator he said, “Helen? Give me 729.”
“That you, Mr. Widmer? Funny time of night to call her.”
“Never mind.”
“All right, but she won’t answer, never has. Don’t recall she ever has used her ’phone in all the years after she had it put in.”
The ’phone rang. It rang six times, and nothing happened.
“Keep trying, Helen.”
The ’phone rang twelve times more. His face was streaming perspiration. Someone picked up the ’phone at the other end.
“Miss Bidwell!” cried Mr. Widmer, almost collapsing in relief. “Miss Bid-well?” he lowered his voice. “This is Mr. Widmer, the grocer, calling.”
No answer. She was on the other end, in her house, standing in the dark. Through his window he could see that her house was still unlit. She hadn’t switched on any lights to find the ’phone.
“Miss Bidwell, do you hear me?” he asked.
Silence.
“Miss Bidwell, I want you to do me a favor,” he said.
Click.
“I want you to open your front door and look out,” he said.
“She’s hung up,” said Helen. “Want me to call her again?”
“No thanks.” He put the receiver back on the hook.
There was the house, in the morning sun, in the afternoon sun, and in the twilight—silent. Here was the grocery, with Mr. Widmer in it, thinking: she’s a fool. No matter what, she’s a fool. It’s never too late. No matter how old, wrinkled hands are better than none. He’s traveled a long way, and, by his look, he’s never married but always traveled, as some men do, crazy to change their scenery every week, every month, every year, until they reach an age where they find they are collecting nothing at all but a lot of empty trips and a lot of towns with no more substance to them than movie sets and a lot of people in those towns who are about as real as wax dummies seen in lighted windows late at night as you pass by on a slow, black train.
He’s been living with a world of people who didn’t care about him because he never stayed anywhere long enough to make anyone worry whether he would rise in the morning or whether he had turned to dust. And then he got to thinking about her and decided that she was the one real person he’d ever known. And just a little too late, he took a train and got off and walked up here, and there he is on her lawn, feeling like a fool, and one more night of this and he won’t come back at all.
This was the third night. Mr. Widmer thought of going over, of setting fire to the porch of Miss Bidwell’s house, and of causing the firemen to roar up. That would bring her out, right into the old man’s arms, by Jupiter!
But wait! Ah, but wait.
Mr. Widmer’s eyes went to the ceiling. Up there, in the attic—wasn’t there a weapon there to be used against pride and time? In all that dust, wasn’t there something with which to strike out? Something as old as all of them—Mr. Widmer, the old man, the old lady? How long since the attic has been cleaned out? Never.
But it was too ridiculous. He wouldn’t dare!
And yet, this was the last night. A weapon must be provided.
Ten minutes later, he heard his wife cry out to him, “Tom, Tom! What’s that noise! What are you doing in the attic?”
At eleven-thirty, there was the old man. He stood in front of the stepless house as if not knowing what to try next. And then he took a quick step and looked down.
Mr. Widmer, from his upstairs window, whispered, “Yes, yes, go ahead.”
The old man bent over.
“Pick it up!” cried Mr. Widmer to himself.
The old man extended his hands.
“Brush it off! I know, I know it’s dusty; but it’s still fair enough. Brush it off, use it!”
In the moonlight, the old man held a guitar in his hands. It had been lying in the middle of the lawn. There was a period of long waiting while the old man turned it over with his fingers.
“Go on!” said Mr. Widmer, silently.
There was a tentative chord of music.
“Go on!” said Mr. Widmer. “What voices can’t do, music can. That’s it. Play! You’re right, try it!” urged Mr. Widmer.
And he thought: sing under the windows, sing under the apple trees and near the back porch, sing until the guitar notes shake her, sing until she starts to cry. You get a woman to crying, and you’re on safe ground. Her pride will all wash away; and the best thing to start the dissolving and crying is music. Sing songs, sing “Genevieve, Sweet Genevieve, the years may come the years may go,” and sing “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland,” and sing “We Were Sailing Along on Moonlight Bay,” and sing “There’s a Long, Long Trail Awinding,” and sing all those old summer songs and old-time songs, any song that’s old and quiet and lovely; sing soft and light, with a few notes of the guitar; sing and play and perhaps you’ll hear the key turn in the lock!
He listened.
As pure as drops of water falling in the night, the guitar played, softly, softly, and it was half an hour before the old man began to sing, and it was so faint that no one could hear; no one except someone behind a wall in that house, in a bed, or standing in the dark behind a shaded window.
Mr. Widmer went to bed, numb, and lay there for an hour, hearing the far-away guitar.
The next morning, Mrs. Terle said, “I seen that prowler.”
“Yes?”
“He was there all night. Playing a guitar. Can you imagine? How silly can old people get? Who is he, anyway?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mr. Widmer.
“Well, him and his guitar went away down the street at six this morning,” said Mrs. Terle.
“Didn’t the door open for him?”
“No. Should it?”
“I suppose not. He’ll be back tonight.”
Tonight will do it, thought Mr. Widmer. Tonight, just one more night. He’s not the sort to give up now. Now that he has the guitar, he’ll be back, and tonight will do it. Mr. Widmer whistled, moving about the shop.
A van drove up outside, and Mr. Frank Henderson climbed out, a kit of hammers and nails and a saw in his hands. He went round the van and took out a couple of dozen fresh-cut new pieces of raw, good-smelling timber.
“Morning, Frank,” called Mr. Widmer. “How’s the carpentry business?”
“Picking up this morning,” said Frank. He sorted out the good yellow wood and the bright steel nails. “Got a job.”
“Where?”
“Miss Bidwell’s.”
“Yes?” Mr. Widmer felt his heart begin the familiar pounding.
“Yes. She ’phoned an hour ago. Wants me to build a new set of steps on to her front porch. Wants it done today.”
Mr. Widmer stood looking at the carpenter’s hands, at the hammers and nails, and the good, fresh, clean wood. The sun was rising higher and the day was bright.
“Here,” said Mr. Widmer, picking up some of the wood. “Let me help.”
They walked together, carrying the fine timber, across the green lawn, under the trees, toward the waiting house and the waiting, stepless porch. And they were smiling.
The Cistern
It was an afternoon of rain, and lamps lighted against the gray. For a long while the two sisters had been in the dining room. One of them, Juliet, embroidered tablecloths; the younger, Anna, sat quietly on the window seat, staring out at the dark street and the dark sky.
Anna kept her brow pressed against the pane, but her lips moved and after reflecting a long moment, she said, “I never thought of that before.”
“Of what?” asked Juliet.
“It just came to me. There’s actually a city under a city. A dead city, right here, right under our feet.”
Juliet poked her needle in and out the white cloth. “Come away from the window. That rain’s done something to you.”
“No, really. Didn’t you ever think of the cisterns before? They’re all through the town, there’s one for every street, and you can walk in them without bumping your head, and they go everywhere and finally go down to the sea,” said Anna, fascinated with the rain on the asphalt pavement out there and the rain falling from the sky and vanishing down the gratings at each corner of the distant intersection. “Wouldn’t you like to live in a cistern?”
“I would not!”
“But wouldn’t it be fun—I mean, very secret? To live in the cistern and peek up at people through the slots and see them and them not see you? Like when you were a child and played hide-and-seek and nobody found you, and there you were in their midst all
