his thumb: «So I put a roller in the pianola, and it played the Indian Love Call.»
«Such a sweet song,» said Amy. «So sad. I don’t know why you never let me play the pianola any
more.»
«Keg cut her throat,» said Joel, a mood of panic bubbling up, for he couldn’t follow the peculiar
turn Randolph’s talk had taken; it was like trying to decipher some tale being told in a senseless foreign
language, and he despised this left-out feeling, just when he’d begun to feel close to Randolph. «I saw her
scar,» he said, and all but shouted for attention, «that’s what Keg did.»
«Uh yes, absolutely.»
»It went like this,» and Amy hummed. «When I’m calling yoo boo de da dum de da. . .»
«. . .from ear to ear: ruined a roseleaf quilt my great-great aunt in Tennessee lost her eyesight
stitching.»
«Zoo says he’s on the chain gang, and she hopes he never gets off: she told the Lord to make him
into an old dog.»
«Will you answer da de de da. . . that isn’t quite the tune, is it, Randolph?»
«A little off-key.»
«But how should it go?»
«Haven’t the faintest notion, angel.»
Joel said: «Poor Zoo.»
«Poor everybody,» said Randolph, languidly pouring another sherry.
Greedy moths flattened their wings against the lamp funnels. Near the stove rain seeped through a
leak in the roof, dripping with dismal regularity into an empty coal scuttle. «It’s the kind of thing that
happens when you tamper with the smallest box,» observed Randolph, the sour smoke from his cigarette
spiraling toward Joel, who, with discreet hand-waves, directed it elsewhere.
«I do wish you’d let me play the pianola,» said Amy wistfully. «But I don’t suppose you realize
how much I enjoy it, what a comfort it is.»
Randolph cleared his throat, and grinned, dimples denting his cheeks. His face was like a round
ripe peach. He was considerably younger than his cousin: somewhere, say, in his middle thirties. «Still, we
haven’t exorcized Master Knox’s ghost.»
«It wasn’t any ghost,» muttered Joel. «There isn’t any such of a thing: this was a real live lady, and
I saw her.»
«And what did she look like, dear?» said Amy, her tone indicating her thoughts were fastened on
less far-fetched matters. It reminded Joel of Ellen and his mother: they also had used this special distant
voice when suspicious of his stories, only allowing him to proceed for the sake of peace. The old
trigger-quick feeling of guilt came over him: a liar, that’s what the two of them, Amy and Randolph, were
thinking, just a natural-born liar, and believing this he began to elaborate his description embarrassingly:
she had the eyes of a fiend, the lady did, wild witch-eyes, cold and green as the bottom of the North Pole
sea; twin to the Snow Queen, her face was pale, wintry, carved from ice, and her white hair towered on
her head like a wedding cake. She had beckoned to him with a crooked finger, beckoned. . .
«Gracious,» said Amy, nibbling a cube of watermelon pickle. «You really saw such a person!»
While talking, Joel had noticed with discomfort her cousin’s amused, entertained expression:
earlier, when he’d given his first flat account, Randolph had heard him out in the colorless way one listens
to a stale joke, for he seemed, in some curious manner, to have advance knowledge of the facts.
«You know,» said Amy slowly, and suspended the watermelon pickle midway between plate and
mouth, «Randolph, have you been. . .» she paused, her eyes sliding sideways to confront the smooth,
amused peach-face. «Well, thatdoes sound like. . .»
Randolph kicked her under the table; he accomplished this maneuver so skillfully it would have
escaped Joel altogether had Amy’s response been less extreme: she jerked back as though lightning had
rocked the chair, and, shielding her eyes with the gloved hand, let out a pitiful wail: «Snake a snake I
thought it was a snake bit me crawled under the table bit me foot you fool never forgive bit me my heart a
snake,» repeated over and over the words began to rhyme, to hum from wall to wall where giant moth
shadows jittered.
Joel went all hollow inside; he thought he was going to wee wee right there in his breeches, and
he wanted to hop up and run, just as he had at Jesus Fever’s. Only he couldn’t, not this time. So he
looked hard at the window where fig leaves tapped a wet windy message, and tried with all his might to
find the far-away room.
«Stop it this instant,» commanded Randolph, making no pretense of his disgust. But when she
could not seem to regain control he reached over and slapped her across the mouth. Then gradually she
tapered off to a kind of hiccuping sob.
Randolph touched her arm solicitously. «All better, angel?» he said. «Dear me, you gave us a
fright.» Glancing at Joel, he added: «Amy is so very highstrung.»
«So very,» she agreed. «It was just that I thought. . . I hope I haven’t upset the child.»
But the walls of Joel’s room were too thick for Amy’s voice to penetrate. Now for a long time
he’d been unable to find the far-away room; always it had been difficult, but never so hard as in the last
year. So it was good to see his friends again. They were all here, including Mr. Mystery, who wore a
crimson cape, a plumed Spanish hat, a glittery monocle, and had all his teeth made of solid gold: an
elegant gentleman, though given to talking tough from the side of his mouth, and an artist, a great
magician: he played the vaudeville downtown in New Orleans twice a year, and did all kinds of eerie
tricks. This is how they got to be such buddies. One time he picked Joel from the audience, brought him
up on the stage, and pulled a whole basketful of cotton-candy clean out of his ears; thereafter, next to
little Annie Rose Kuppermann, Mr Mystery was the most welcome visitor to the other room. Annie Rose
was the cutest thing you ever saw. She had jet black hair and a real permanent wave. Her mother kept
her dressed in snow white on Sundays and all clear down to her socks. In real life, Annie Rose was too
stuck up and sassy to even tell him the time of day, but here in the far-away room her cute little voice
jingled on and on: «I love you, Joel. I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.» And
there was someone else who rarely failed to show up, though seldom appearing as the same person
twice; that is, he came in various costumes and disguises, sometimes as a circus strong-man, sometimes
as a big swell millionaire, but always his name was Edward R. Sansom.
Randolph said: «She seeks revenge: out of the goodness of my heart I’m going to endure a few
infernal minutes of the pianola. Would you mind, Joel, dear, helping with the lamps?»
Like the kitchen, Mr Mystery and little Annie Rose Kuppermann slipped into darkness when the
lifted lamps passed through the hall to the parlor.
Ragtime fingers danced spectrally over the upright’s yellowed ivories, the carnival strains of «Over
the Waves» gently vibrating a girandole’s crystal prism-fringe. Amy sat on the piano stool, cooling her
little white face with a blue lace fan which she’d taken from the curio cabinet, and rigidly watched the
mechanical thumping of the pianola keys.
«That’s a parade song,» said Joel. «I rode a float in the Mardi Gras once, all fixed up like a Chink
with a long black pigtail, only a drunk man yanked it off, and set to whipping his ladyfriend with it right
smack in the street.»
Randolph inched nearer to Joel on the loveseat. Over his pyjamas he wore a seersucker kimono
with butterfly sleeves, and his plumpish feet were encased in a pair of tooled-leather sandals: his exposed
toenails had a manicured gloss. Up close, he had a delicate lemon scent, and his hairless face looked not
much older than Joel’s. Staring straight ahead, he groped for Joel’s hand, and hooked their fingers
together.
Amy closed her fan with a reproachful snap. «You never thanked me,» she said.
«For what, dearheart?»
Holding hands with Randolph was obscurely disagreeable, and Joel’s fingers tensed with an
impulse to dig his nails into the hot dry palm; also, Randolph wore a ring which pressed painfully between
Joel’s knuckles. This was a lady’s ring, a smoky rainbow opal clasped by sharp silver prongs.
«Why, the feathers,» reminded Amy. «The nice bluejay feathers.»
«Lovely,» said Randolph, and blew her a kiss.
Satisfied, she spread the fan and worked it furiously. Behind her, the girandole quivered, and
shedding lilac, loosened by the ragged pounding of the pianola, scattered on a table. A lamp had been
placed by the empty hearth, so that it glowed out like a wavery ashen fire. «This is the first year a cricket
hasn’t visited,» she said. «Every summer one has always hidden in the fireplace, and sang till autumn:
remember, Randolph, how Angela Lee would never let us kill it?»
Joel quoted: «Hark to the crickets crying in grass, Hear them serenading in the sassafras.»
Randolph bent forward. «A charming boy, little Joel, dear Joel,» he whispered. «Try to be happy
here, try a little to like me, will you?»
Joel was used to compliments, imaginary ones originating in his head, but to have some such
plainly spoken left him with an uneasy feeling: was he being poked fun at, teased? So he questioned the
round innocent eyes, and saw his own boy-face focused as in double camera lenses. Amy’s cousin was in
earnest. He looked down at the opal ring, touched and sorry he could’ve ever had a mean thought like
wanting to dig his nails into Randolph’s palm. «I like you already,» he said.
Randolph smiled and squeezed his hand.
«What are you two whispering about?» said Amy jealously. «I declare you’re rude.» Suddenly the
pianola was silent, the trembling
