mantel-mirror; shining there, the mirror was like a slab of jelly, and the figure from outside fumed
indistinctly on its surface: no one could’ve said who it was, but Joel, seeing the light slide away, hearing
the steps enter the hall, knew for certain it was Randolph. And there came over him the humiliating
probability that not once since he’d left the Landing had he made a movement unobserved: how amusing
his goodbye must’ve seemed to Mr. Sansom!
He crouched behind a door; through the hinged slit he could see into the hall where the light
crawled like a burning centipede. It did not matter now if Randolph found him, he would welcome it. Still
something kept him from calling out. The squshing steps moved toward the parlor threshold, and he
heard, «Little boy, little boy,» a whimper of despair.
Miss Wisteria stood so near he could smell the rancid wetness of her shriveled silk; her curls had
uncoiled, the little crown had slipped awry, her yellow sash was fading its color on the floor. «Little boy,»
she said, swerving her flashlight over the bent, broken walls where her midget image mingled with the
shadows of things in flight. «Little boy,» she said, the resignation of her voice intensifying its pathos. But he
dared not show himself, for what she wanted he could not give: his love was in the earth, shattered and
still, dried flowers where eyes should be, and moss upon the lips, his love was faraway feeding on the
rain, lilies frothing from its ruin. Withdrawing, she went up the stairs, and Joel, who listened to her
footfalls overhead as she in her need of him searched the jungle of rooms, felt for himself ferocious
contempt: what was his terror compared with Miss Wisteria’s? He owned a room, he had a bed, any
minute now he would run from here, go to them. But for Miss Wisteria, weeping because little boys must
grow tall, there would always be this journey through dying rooms until some lonely day she found her
hidden one, the smiler with the knife.
Part Three
12
He sentenced himself: he was guilty: his own hands set about to expedite the verdict: magnetized,
they found a bullet, the one thefted from Sam Radclif (Mr Radclif, forgive me, please, I never meant to
steal) and, inserting it in Major Knox’s old Indian pistol (Child, how many times have I told you not to
touch that nasty thing? — Mama, don’t scold me now, mama, my bones hurt, I’m on fire — The good die
cold, the wicked in flames: the winds of hell are blue with the sweet ether of fever-flowers, horned
snake-tongued children dance on lawns that are the surface of the sun, all loot from thievery tied to their
tails like cat-cans, tokens of a life in crime) and put the bullet through his head: oh dear, there was nothing
but a tickling, oh dear, now what? When lo! he was where he’d never imagined to find himself again: the
secret hideaway room in which, on hot New Orleans afternoons, he’d sat watching snow sift through
scorched August trees: the run of reindeer hooves came crisply tinkling down the street, and Mr Mystery,
elegantly villainous in his black cape, appeared in their wake riding a most beautiful boatlike sleigh: it was
made of scented wood, a carved red swan graced the front, and silver bells were strung like beads to
make a sail: swinging, billowing-out, what shivering melodies it sang as the sleigh, with Joel aboard and
warm in the folds of Mr Mystery’s cape, cut over snowdeep fields and down unlikely hills.
But all at once his powers to direct adventures in the secret room failed: an ice-wall rose before
them, the sleigh raced on to certain doom, that night radios would sadden the nation: Mr Mystery,
esteemed magician, and Joel Harrison Knox, beloved by one and all, were killed today in an accident
which also claimed the lives of six reindeer who. . . r-r-rip, the ice tore like cellophane, the sleigh slid
through into the Landing’s parlor.
A strange sort of party seemed in progress there. These were among those present: Mr Sansom,
Ellen Kendall, Miss Wisteria, Randolph, Idabel, Florabel, Zoo, Little Sunshine, Amy, R. V. Lacey, Sam
Radclif, Jesus Fever, a man naked except for boxing-gloves (Pepe Alvarez), Sydney Katz (proprietor of
the Morning Star Café in Paradise Chapel), a thick-lipped convict who wore a long razor on a chain
around his neck like some sinister crucifix (Keg Brown), Romeo, Sammy Silverstein and three other
members of the St. Deval Street Secret Nine. Most were dressed in black, rather formal attire; the
pianola was playing Nearer My God to Thee. Not noticing the sleigh, they moved in a leaning black
procession around a gladiola-garlanded cedar chest into which each dropped an offering: Idabel her dark
glasses, Randolph his almanac, R. V. Lacey the snipped hair from her wart, Jesus Fever his fiddle,
Florabel her Kress tweezers, Mr Sansom his tennis balls, Little Sunshine a magic charm, and so on:
inside the chest lay Joel himself, all dressed in white, his face powdered and rouged, his goldbrown hair
arranged in damp ringlets: Like an angel, they said, more beautiful than Alcibiades, more beautiful, said
Randolph, and Idabel wailed: Believe me, I tried to save him, but he wouldn’t move, and snakes are so
very quick. Miss Wisteria, fitting her little crown upon his head, leaned so far over she nearly fell into the
chest: Listen, she whispered, I’m no fool, I know you’re alive: unless you give me the answer, I shan’t
save you, I shan’t say a word: are the dead as lonesome as the living? Whereupon the room commenced
to vibrate slightly, then more so, chairs overturned, the curio cabinet spilled its contents, a mirror
cracked, the pianola, composing its own doomed jazz, held a haywire jamboree: down went the house,
down into the earth, down down, past Indian tombs, past the deepest root, the coldest stream, down,
down, into the furry arms of horned children whose bumblebee eyes withstand forests of flame.
He knew too well the rhythm of a rocking-chair; aramp-arump, hour on hour he’d heard one for
how long? traveling through space, and the cedar chest became at last confused with its sway: if you fall
you fall forever, back and forth together, the ceaseless chair, the cedar chest: he squeezed pillows,
gripped the posters of the bed, for on seas of lamplight it rode the rolling rocker’s waves whose rocking
was the tolling of a bell-buoy; and who was the pirate inching toward him in the seat? His eyes stung as
he tasked them to identify: lace masks confounded, frost glass intervened, now the chair’s passenger was
Amy, now Randolph, then Zoo. But Zoo could not be here; she was walking for Washington, her
accordion announcing every step of the way. An unrecognized voice quarreled with him, teased, taunted,
revealed secrets he’d scarcely made known to himself: shut up, he cried, and wept, trying to silence it,
but, of course, the voice belonged to him: «I saw you under the ferris-wheel,» it accused the pirate in the
chair; «No,» said the pirate, «I never left here, sweet child, sweet Joel, all night I waited for you sitting on
the stairs.»
Always he was gnawing bitter spoons, or struggling to breathe through scarves soaked in lemon
water. Hands coaxed down curtains of slumbering dusk; fingers leanly firm like Zoo’s rambled through his
hair, and other fingers, too, these with a touch cooler, more spun than sea spray: Randolph’s voice, in
tones still gentler, augmented their soothing traceries.
One afternoon the rocking-chair became precisely that; scissors seemed to cut round the edges
of his mind, and as he peeled away the dead discardings, Randolph, taking shape, shone blessedly near.
«Randolph,» he said, reaching out to him, «do you hate me?» Smiling, Randolph whispered: «Hate
you, baby?» «Because I went away,» said Joel, «went way away and left your sherry on the hall-tree.»
Randolph took him in his arms, kissed his forehead, and Joel, pained, grateful, said, «I’m sick and so
sick,» and Randolph replied, «Lie back, my darling, lie still.»
He drifted deep into September; the blissful depths of the bed seemed future enough, every pore
absorbed its cool protection. And when he thought of himself he affixed the thought to a second person,
another Joel Knox about whom he was interested in the moderate way one would be in a childhood
snapshot: what a dumbbell! he would gladly be rid of him, this old Joel, but not quite yet, he somehow
needed him still. For long periods each day he studied his face in a hand mirror: a disappointing exercise,
on the whole, for nothing he saw concretely affirmed his suspicions of emerging manhood, though about
his face there were certain changes: baby-fat had given way to a true shape, the softness of his eyes had
hardened: it was a face with a look of innocence but none of its charm, an alarming face, really, too
shrewd for a child, too beautiful for a boy. It would be difficult to say how old he was. All that displeased
him was the brown straightness of his hair. He wished it were curly gold like Randolph’s.
He did not know when Randolph slept; he seemed to vacate the rocking-chair only when it was
time for Joel to eat or commit some function; and sometimes, waking with the moon watching at the
window like a bandit’s eye, he would see Randolph’s asthmatic cigarette still pulsing in the dark: though
the house had sunk, he was not alone, another had survived, not a stranger, but one more kind, more
good than any had ever been, the friend whose nearness is love. «Randolph,» he said, «were you ever as
young as me?» And Randolph said: «I was never so old.» «Randolph,» he said, «do you know something?
I’m very happy.» To which his friend made no reply. The reason for this happiness seemed to be simply
that he
