The Cry of the Owl Read online

  “Well—I’m not exactly comfortable when I have that dream,” Robert said.

  She looked at him. “But someday you will be, if you think about it. Think long enough about it.”

  Involuntarily, Robert shook his head. It was almost a shudder. He stared at her young face, puzzled.

  “When I realized this about death,” she went on, “I saw the world in a different way. Greg thinks death depresses me, but he’s wrong. I just don’t like to hear other people talking about it with the usual horror. You know. And—after I met you, you made me see the world in a different way, too, only a much happier way. For instance, the whole inside of the bank where I work. It used to be so bleak and so bo-oring. It’s different now. It’s cheerful. Everything’s easier.”

  Oh, he knew the feeling. Being in love. Suddenly the world’s O.K. Suddenly the barren trees are singing. The girl was so young. Now she was talking about Dostoevski, and he was hardly listening, because he was trying to think how to cut it off, painlessly. All their conversation had done, he felt, was trammel her more with him. He walked the floor while she talked about “destiny” and “infinity”—she seemed to believe in an afterlife—and then he said, “Jenny, all I was trying to say before is that I can’t see you any more. I’m sorry, but that’s it.”

  Now she looked suddenly tragic, her wide mouth drooping at the corners, and he was sorry he had spoken so bluntly, but what else would have done? He walked back and forth, hands in his pockets.

  “You don’t enjoy seeing me?” she asked.

  “I do very much. But it’s the wrong thing to do. I enjoy thinking of you being happy. Can you understand that? When I used to watch you through the kitchen window, I liked to think of you happy, with a boy friend you’d finally marry—and that’s all. It was a mistake to get to know you and a mistake—” It didn’t seem necessary to finish. He wished she would leave. He turned, hearing the rustle of her getting up.

  “One thing I want to thank you for,” she said, “and that’s for making me realize I didn’t love Greg and that I shouldn’t marry him. I thank you very much for that.”

  “I don’t imagine Greg does.”

  “I can’t help that. That’s the way it is, as you said.” She made a try at a smile. “So goodbye.”

  He walked with her to the door. She had taken her coat from the closet and put it on before he could help her. “Goodbye.”

  And she was suddenly gone. The room was empty again.

  7

  “Come on, Jen, where does he live in Langley?” Greg asked. “I’ve got his phone number and I want his address.”

  “Ask him. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

  “Oh, I doubt if he’ll want me to know. I want to know.”

  Jenny sighed with impatience and looked over her shoulder to see if Mr. Stoddard were anywhere near. He didn’t like the employees to get personal calls, and she’d told Greg that many times. “Greg, I’ve got to hang up now.”

  “I’ve got a right to know and I’ve got a right to see the guy if I want to.”

  “I don’t know how you worked all this up in twenty-four ho-ours. You’re just being childish.”

  “You’re being a coward, Jenny. I never thought you would be. And Mr.—”

  “Call it whatever you want to. I couldn’t care less.” She hung up.

  Greg was probably in Rittersville, she thought. It was his regular Monday afternoon stop, at the drugstore in the town and the one in the shopping center. She had no doubt that when Greg called Robert at five-thirty or six or whenever Robert got home from work, Robert would assure him that he and she were not going to see each other again. Jenny hadn’t wanted to tell Greg that herself. It would be a victory for Greg, and she thought he had behaved abominably and didn’t deserve any kind of victory, even a small one, and this was certainly a small one, as it hadn’t changed her feelings about Greg or about Robert in the least.

  Now she had to re-count the money in her drawer, because she hadn’t jotted down where she was when Steve had called her to the telephone. She started with the five-hundred-dollar bills again.

  “Boo!” Steve said, grabbing her waist from behind. “Who was that phone call I saw you with?”

  “Stop it, Steve, I’m counting.”

  “Greg can’t wait, eh?” he said as he walked away.

  Jenny kept on doggedly, her head down. Heat came from the vent below her feet. It would be cold at her house when she got home. She would turn up the thermostat and the house would be warm in ten minutes, but she would be alone tonight, with no one to eat dinner with. But Robert was there, in Langley, not fifteen miles away. He hadn’t said he was going back to New York. Jenny wondered whether to believe him about his wife. And yet she did not think Robert would lie, or, if he tried to, that he would lie very well, even as well as he had if he were lying yesterday, so she had to believe that he had a wife. Maybe they would not manage a reconciliation, she thought. Who really ever knew what would happen? Nobody. She did not wish either that Robert would go back to his wife or not go back, because it was futile to wish about such a thing. And secondly, in fact primarily, she wished Robert to be happy. It was funny that he kept saying he wished the same thing for her. Jenny added up the total—eleven thousand and fifty-five dollars and seventeen cents—and put the drawer in the vault and locked it with the key that was with her other keys on the key ring. Then she took her deposit slips, canceled checks, loan payments and extensions and Christmas Fund deposit slips to Rita, who was at the proofing machine in the back room.

  “Mrs. McGrath thinks she was shortchanged ten dollars,” Jenny said, “so let me know. Here’s my total.”

  “Oh, that Mrs. McGrath. She thinks she’s shortchanged twice a week,” said Rita, not looking up from her work.

  Jenny left the bank at twenty past four. She hoped Robert would be brusque and final and not agree to see Greg. She could imagine Greg getting worked up enough to hit Robert, even beat him up. Greg used to box at a gym, and he was proud of his fists. A hell of a thing to be proud of, Jenny thought. Any ass could learn how to hit somebody in the face. She couldn’t imagine Robert hitting anybody. He looked very gentle, and to Jenny that was the manliest virtue of all, gentleness. She saw Robert’s face before her, his thick brown hair, his lighter-brown eyes, his mouth with its downward slant to the left, his chin with the faint cleft in it, she saw him as he had looked yesterday after the skiing, in a white shirt and dark gray slacks, bending toward the fireplace to throw a log on, and her bones seemed to turn to water and she had to grip the wheel to keep the car on the road.

  At home, she put into the refrigerator the lettuce and pork chops she had bought for her dinner at the Wayside Grocery between Humbert Corners and her house, then took a bath. It was not her usual time for a bath, but she thought a bath might relax her and help kill the time until the inevitable telephone call from Greg tonight. Why did some people make life so difficult? When Fritzie Schall in Scranton, the one she had liked so much, had thrown her over for another girl, she had accepted the fact and hadn’t tried to see him or call him. But Greg!

  She put on an old sweater and skirt, flat shoes, and watered her plants. Then she dusted the living room and washed up the couple of dishes in the sink that she had had to leave that morning because she’d almost been late to work. She sat down in the living room with a cup of coffee and her Modem Library edition of Keats and Shelley. She opened it to Keats. But Keats was not what she wanted, after all. It was Blake. She took her big Donne and Blake book from the shelf. She had underlined certain passages in Verses and Fragments:

  Under every grief & pine

  Runs a joy with silken twine.

  She remembered years ago that she had thought “pine” meant a tree.

  He who mocks the Infant’s Faith

  Shall be mocked in Age & Death.

  He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

  The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

  He who respects the Inf
ant’s faith

  Triumphs over Hell & Death.

  The strong rhythm of the lines was as comforting as what they said.

  She jumped at the sound of the telephone. It was only five past six.

  “Long distance calling. Go ahead, please.”

  It was Jenny’s mother, calling from Scranton. She was upset by Jenny’s letter saying that she was not going to marry Greg.

  “What’s gone wrong, Jenny? You’ve even got your father worried.”

  She could see her mother sitting upright in the straight chair in the hall, wearing her apron, probably, because her family usually ate at six, and her mother would have postponed dinner a few minutes, as it was cheaper to call after six. “Nothing’s happened, Mom. I just don’t love him enough. I knew it weeks ago, so—”

  “There isn’t anybody else, is there, Rabbit?”

  Jenny was glad Greg hadn’t called her parents yet. She both wanted and didn’t want to tell them about Robert. A married man, they’d say with horror. But she had also imagined sitting at the dinner table with them, regaling them with what Robert said and did and how he looked, and how mature he was—just as she had always talked about boys and also girls she had liked at school. She had to talk about people she liked, naïve though it might be.

  “Is there, Jenny? There is, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think I’m going to see him again, because I can’t. Gosh, Mom, you treat me like an infant!”

  “Well, what can you expect from your family, when we’ve reached the point of practically sending out wedding invitations and then we get a letter like yours? Now who is he?”

  “His name is Robert.” She loved sending it on the wire down to Scranton.

  “Robert what?”

  “Mom, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t think I’m going to see him again.”

  “I’m sure that’s all for the best. Where’d you meet him?”

  “I met him in a perfectly ordinary way,” she said, hardening the “r”s as she always did when she wanted to be matter of fact. “But we agreed not to see each other, so that’s that.”

  “Well, I gather he doesn’t care awfully much for you or he’d want to see you. Now, my suggestion is you cool off a bit and take another look at Gregory. He’s a nice steady boy, Rabbit, and he’s very fond of you, that’s plain. Your father likes him,” she added, as if that clinched it. “Now I’ve got to hang up because this is a long-distance call, but I thought it was important to talk to you tonight.”

  “How’s Don, Mom?”

  “Don’s fine. He’s getting his homework at a friend’s tonight and staying for supper, so he isn’t here, otherwise I’d have him say hello to you.”

  Homework, Jenny thought, when Don was a senior in college. Her mother made it sound as if Don were ten years old.

  At last they hung up, with a mutual promise to write.

  Jenny put the pork chops on, thinking that if she didn’t get them started, she probably wouldn’t eat anything solid tonight. Her favorite food was salads, and she could live on them, salads of lettuce, radishes, celery, tomatoes, raw string beans, carrots, everything green that grew. That was why her family called her Rabbit. Her father feared for anemia. Her family was always fearing for something. Jenny removed one pork chop after a minute. One was enough for dinner. She put the chop in the freezer, then started making her salad.

  Greg called just before seven.

  “Well, good evening,” he said. “I have interesting news for you. Mr. Forester is going back to New York.”

  “Oh, really?” Jenny said. “I suppose that’s of more interest to you than it is to me.”

  “Maybe equal. It’s a recent decision of his. He was also too much of a coward to tell me where he lived. I thought that might interest you, too.”

  “It doesn’t at all.”

  “And I have something else to tell you. I called his old number in New York on a shot-in-the-dark chance and got his wife. They’re getting a divorce, Jenny, and from what she told me, I can see why. He’s off his nut.”

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so.”

  “And is that the grounds of divorce? I doubt that very much.”

  “No, only adultery in New York, you know. I’m sure Mr. Forester’s done a little of that, too. But his wife made it very clear he’s nuts. You don’t think Mr. Forester would tell you himself, do you? Did you know you were taking your life in your hands when you asked him to dinner at your place? Asked him to dinner! Good grief! Sometimes I think you need your head examined, Jenny.”

  “I’m tired of your advice!” Jenny said more angrily than she had ever said anything to him. “The idea of calling his wife in New York! Gosh, do you call that meddling or don’t you?”

  “I call it investigating, and I’m glad I did. I scared the bastard out of town, Jen, and you’re lucky I did. By the way, your friend Rita never heard of him. What’ve you got to say to that?”

  “My, my, you’ve certainly been on the telephone today, haven’t you?”

  “Why did you say he was a friend of Rita’s?”

  “Because you’re so prying, I had to say something to keep you quiet.”

  “I’m not quiet, little girl.”

  “If you think you’re endearing yourself to me by all this, you’re mistaken.”

  “No. No. Maybe I’m not. But it’s best to know the truth, isn’t it? Mr. Forester didn’t come out with the truth. He wouldn’t admit you had a crush on him or that he knew anything about it.”

  “Anything about what?” she retorted.

  “Oh, Jenny, let’s not quarrel. His wife saying he was a nut got me to thinking about something. He wasn’t the prowler, was he, Jen? Is that how you met him? Was it?”

  “I think you’re out of your mind,” Jenny said.

  “What’re you crying about? For Christ’s sake, Jenny, I didn’t mean to make you cry. Listen, can I come over? I’m in Langley. It’ll take me less than half an hour.”

  “I don’t want to see you.”

  “Um-m,” he grunted. “Mr. Forester wouldn’t say how he’d met you when I told him about Rita. I asked him had he been prowling around the house, because I told him about the noises we’d heard. I told him what his wife said about him. Mr. Forester was audibly upset, Miss Thierolf. He’s leaving town, all right, and if he doesn’t, I’m going to see that he does.”

  Jenny hung up. She went to the kitchen sink and washed her face in cold water. Damn Greg! He was a worse meddler than Susie Escham. Rita might have caught on and said yes, she’d introduced Robert to her, but probably Greg had pressed and pressed. And Rita wasn’t too bright, even though she wasn’t malicious.

  She wanted very much to call up Robert, to say it all didn’t matter, not to let it bother him and to forget it. But after all, Robert had said what he had said. He did not want to see her again. The right thing to do was not to call him even to say something friendly, she thought. She wondered what kind of a woman the wife must be to say something so horrible about her husband to a total stranger.

  8

  Greg called every evening for five days, asking to see her. Jenny was firm in saying no, but politely firm, and there were no more angry words. Jenny said she wanted to be alone for a while, and she grew more definite in her own mind about that, and therefore more convincing to Greg. She was glad his bank was in Rittersville and not Humbert Corners; she did not want to see him even through the grille of the window. Ten days went by, including Greg’s birthday, on which Jenny sent him a friendly but not encouraging birthday card. She was surprised and thankful that he did not turn up in her driveway. She supposed he was waiting for her to grow more and more lonely in her isolated house by herself, thinking that in a couple of weeks she’d be glad to have him come back.

  When she thought of Robert, it was with a small, sharp pain that faded off almost at once, and then a series of vignettes came to her: Robert looking so proper in the restaurant by candlelight, Robert
looking dubiously at the ski slope, Robert walking about her living room in shirtsleeves, and then pacing the floor so nervously that last time she had seen him. But the most thrilling of her memories of him was that of seeing him standing in the glow of the fire by her house—a stranger then. She was not at all afraid of that memory, and it was absolutely weird and boring to her that most people would have been afraid. Most people didn’t know what life was all about. She didn’t presume to know everything life was all about, but she felt she was on the right track about it. She wasn’t negative in a dozen directions as most people were. It could be that her association with Robert was finished, and if so, that was that, but it could also be that something else was destined—either good or bad. And perhaps she was being too passive in not trying to communicate with him now.

  One evening around nine, she called Robert’s old number in Langley. An operator would break in, she thought, and say the telephone had been disconnected. Or a stranger who had been given Robert’s old number would answer.

  “You are calling a number that has been disconnected,” the operator said. “Would you like the new number?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, we are not permitted to give out that number. It’s an unlisted number.”