Bird Song

A Story

by JOHN MAYO GOSS

MIKE, the Hospital attendant, whisked the collar of the oversize, canvas lumber-jacket up around Beresford’s ears and grinned. “That coat looks good on you, fella.” he said. “A little big, but it’s cold out and those sleeves will keep your fingers warm.” He held up a cap of black cloth, round as a casserole, with vizor and ear-tabs provided with strings to tie beneath the chin. “Here’s just the hat to go with it.” Beresford tried to strike a comic attitude as Mike pulled the thing hard down on his head, but it was no use. He could not, he knew, be funnier-looking than he was.

“Who’s coming for you, Georgie? Your wife? Oh, oh — the little French babe, hey? Well, you be careful, Georgie — don’t forget to come back.”

Mike was young but his manner was fatherly; his arm lay across Beresford’s shoulder as they walked away from the clothes room, down the long corridor, past the small, neat kitchen and dining room. “Now you go up front and listen to the radio, George.” (Hop along, my boy, Papa’s busy.)

The common room crossed the corridor at its top like a T. The big hall with its high, grilled windows and solid furniture served as meeting place, reading and writing room, library, and game room for the ward. Well patronized on weekdays, on a Sunday morning such as this, when no doctors came and there were no treatments, insulin shots, or occupational classes, it was a case of standing room only. There was a restlessness here, like flotsam in flowing water; a sitter here, another there, would be pulled to his feet and away. Even as Beresford stood alert in the doorway, a chair in the row against the wall, almost next to him, was vacated and he slid into it, pulling out of his uncomfortable coat.

As many patients as could find places were seated about two center tables, reading magazines and the morning papers. At the end of one, “Aunt Nellie” Nelson and “One-Eye” Connor, dignified in overalls, were playing checkers. At the opposite end a slap-bang card game was in progress.

Swinging around these groups of furniture and humanity, a number of tireless individuals were finding release for their energy in marching single file, counterclockwise, in a rhythm unbroken except when one would flop triumphantly into a vacant chair or another would hesitate in his stride to twirl a knob of the radio. This last diversion, imparting endless variety to the programs and volume, gave a kaleidoscopic accompaniment of sound to the pervading activity.

Beresford glanced at the electric wall-clock. A quarter of ten — his wife should have been here an hour ago. A sweep of uncertainty left him clenching and unclenching his hands on the rough canvas of the coat in his lap. He took out a cigarette and cast around for someone already smoking, for matches in the pocket are considered a hazard for patients in state hospitals.

On the far side of the room, an attendant, loudmouthed Bill Pfluger, spread himself throughout one of the big chairs and George could get a light from him — probably. But to be beholden to Pfluger even for a match was distasteful. Just now Pfluger was expanding his body and soul before those of the mentally deficient who sat about him. With Olympian authority, his great face rod with the exertion, he proclaimed his opinions.

“Why, that punk’d have no more chance against Louis—” George heard distinctly across the wide room, above the exhortations of a fleeting sermon just caught from the air by an indefatigable marcher. Pfluger waved a cigar in the face of the nearest of his audience. “You don’t know nothin’, you poor goddam —” “Nothing is beyond our strength if we hold —” intoned the air-borne sermon.

Three chairs away Graber had a cigarette going. Graber was a husky man with whom George often had confidential conversations, but he was unpredictable. Sometimes he had to be tied in his bed — only yesterday he had assailed the outer door of the ward with a frenzy that would have shattered the glass if it had not been made to withstand such emergencies. Now Graber offered a light without a word, looking intently only at the tips of the cigarettes as they met.

Urie, a mute with a shaved head, was sitting in Beresford’s chair when he turned back, but it was not usurpation — merely the guarding of his friend George’s seat against seizure. Urie got up at once, and when Beresford thanked him he writhed like a patted dog.

2

GEORGE breathed his cigarette long and deeply. The waiting and the flickering radio were wearing down his earlier exultation. He was getting nervous; his stomach was vacant and fluttery. Oh, Lord, what could be holding Denise?

Around and around the walkers went. Young Peters (he wet the bed at night) paused at the radio, jerky as a squirrel, and took his twirl. The instrument came in on short wave: “Calling all cars, calling all cars. Watch for —” Police, eh? It reminded Beresford of a refrain from a play a long time ago — Liliom, wasn’t it? — “Look out, here come the damn police, the damn police, the damn —”

George sat stiffly, his face dead-pai Infrequently a thumb or finger twitched in almost imperceptible gesture. He wasn’t going to get jittery today, he was telling himself, whatever happened. Not on this day of days, the day he had thought might never come, this day of proving himself, of rebirth. Nothing must shake him. This was the day of good-bye to that drawn-faced Beresford who had crept around crying to himself, “They’ve got to let me out of here. I’m all right now — they’ve got. to let me out.”

A twitter of birds — canaries, a cageful of canaries — sang through the room. “Gluck’s Cake, Light as a Feather.” Canaries in a broadcast — too damn farfetched. A line of verse leaped into Beresford’s mind, bright and fixed as a neon sign: “Bird-song at morning, and star-shine at night, bird-song at morning —”

The marchers moved in quicker cadence. Pfluger’s voice rose more positive and profane. The room swung in inexorable movement. Someone laughed shrilly.

Beresford finished his cigarette in one long drag and forced himself to relax. How about your achievement of ten days ago? (That’s a good thing to think about.) When you sat beside the doctor before his wretched “class” and, when your turn came, finally answered his questions, quickly and naturally as anyone should: —

“What day is it?”

“Wednesday, the thirteenth of November, 1940, Doctor.”

“How old are you? When is your birthday?”

“Three weeks ago I was forty-six, Doctor.”

(I’m living, Doctor. I am of my own generation. I am not a child nor an old man, not unborn or dead, just miraculously George Beresford, groped back out of oblivion to consciousness, to sanity.)

“Good! Very good indeed, Beresford. Nicely oriented. I am proud of you. One of my best patients.”

And then a little later, “A day with your wife now? Well, I don’t know, Beresford. Her influence on you has not been soothing. You recall after some of her visits —”

“ Yes, Doctor, but I was worried about her then — desperate. I’m all right now, and she has a job and a room.”

So it had been arranged. Denise had been telephoned to come for him; he was is to spend the day with her. (Don’t look at the clock, Beresford — don’t look. So, you see, only twenty-seven minutes since the last time. She’ll be here. She will not fail you after all these months.)

No, he thought, she won’t fail me. I failed her but she won’t fail me. Whatever happened, ever, we were in it together. Nothing was too bad for us to share. Where I went, you went, drink for drink, always. I couldn’t leave you in France, could I? Are you sorry now? Ah, no, you liked it on the farm; those were five good years — or four and three-quarters. “Oh, but this is merveilleux,” you said. Remember? “I love it here. See, I can milk the cows and in the garden I am content.”

We came close to it there, ma chère. And we knew it. “Let’s drink to it,” we said. “Let’s drink in the long winter evenings before the fire. Let’s drink in the mornings and in the afternoons. Let’s drink to be happier. Let’s drink to keep it as it is. You and I against the world, Denise.”

Fog, wisps of fog, seeping into the old house, haze impalpable but ponderable, fog over the garden, over the elms, mist clinging to my face. Flashes of lightning through the fog, shattering, shuddering glimpses of terror. Where are you, Denise? Hold me, for the love of God, hold me fast!

Beresford drew a hand across his eyes, as a diver does coming to the surface, and sat back again in his chair. Those last days — how were they for you, Denise? And after? This town is not Paris, ah, no. This town is hard and ugly when you have no money, no friends.

But today, at last, you can tell me. A job and a room! Carefully Beresford drew a small, folded paper from his pocket. “Lavinia St.” I don’t know it, he thought, but no matter. All we need is a safe and quiet corner, all by ourselves, away from these smirking guards and goggling inmates. You don’t come to see me very often any more but I don’t blame you for that. Those short, urgent, dumb moments were agony for us both.

Have you a fireplace in your room? Of course not. But pictures, maybe. I’ll bet Sainte Thérèse is looking down from the wall. And the little water-color that hung in the hall at the farm — did you bring that in ? You liked it so. Is there a tree outside your window?

Mike came to the door and beckoned to Beresford. On the instant, as George jumped to his feet, young Lolly, one of the walkers, fell like a board in front of Graber. Lolly was six feet tall, had a girlish face and a constant giggle, and fell down here and there. Graber stayed impassive though the falling body brushed his legs. Pfluger parted himself from his chair and his educational endeavors, picked up Lolly’s limp figure, and departed with it towards the limbo of the dormitory. Pfluger maintained his cigar in his mouth, and one of Lolly’s shoes scraped across the floor.

Clutching his coat and cap, almost stepping on Pfluger’s heels in his eagerness, Beresford followed the guard’s wide back, straining with its burden, out into the corridor. Denise, at last, he was certain.

Standing beside Mike’s desk was a taxi driver gazing in fascination at the scarecrow figure of Lolly draped in Pfluger’s arms. Mike looked up from a note he was reading and Beresford shivered in premonition.

“Your little Frenchy can’t make it, George. Ain’t that tough?” It was an exaggerated sympathy. “But the dame she lives with says come on down. She sent a cab for you.” Mike fingered the note and examined Beresford speculatively. “I guess that’s all right. Wanna go?”

Beresford hugged his lumber-jacket tighter. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I — would like to go.”

The driver took his turn at speculative examination. You could fee his wariness: riding one of these birds around might not be so hot. Things went on in this place. But he followed unprotesting as Mike led the way down the corridor and unlocked the door to the stairway.

“There y’are, George. Give her my love — and don’t forget to come back.”

Beresford grinned and waved casually as people do on the outside. He fixed the loops over the buttons on his coat as he and the taxi driver descended the metal stairs, and tilted his cap a little to one side.

“Wanna ride in front, bud?” the driver asked.

Probably scared I’ll bean him from the back seat, but maybe he’s just being friendly, George thought, and climbed in as quickly as he could.

“How long you been in there, bud?”

Beresford had to concentrate on the question. They had passed out of the stone gates of the Hospital grounds and were on the edge of town, a section of factories and freight yards which he had never known well, but which seemed now familiar in every detail. He did not want to talk.

“Not very long,” he replied.

Even the smoke hanging low and white over the locomotives, solid and white in the cold air against the gray sky, he had seen before, exactly as it was now. He read the names on the factories and warehouses, still there, steady and normal, names that he knew. They stopped for a streetcar, and a girl got on, a pretty girl with brown hair and rosy cheeks. She wore a brown hat and a brown coat with a fur collar.

They drove fast down the almost deserted, Sunday morning street. They would reach the middle of town in a few blocks.

“Isn’t Lavinia Street on the south side?” he asked politely.

“North side — near north. It’s Bertha’s place we’re heading for.” Launched into conversation, the driver continued, “Ain’cha never been there? Say, is that little Frcnchy your wife?”

Beresford was startled out of his thoughts. “Why, yes,” he replied loudly. “My wife is French.”

“Them Frenchies is sure full of hell. She’s a good kid, though. I’ve drove her lotsa times. I do a lot of work for that gang at Bert’s. They always ask for Eddie.”

What was the fool saying? But almost immediately, before George could ask for an explanation, the cab had turned and pulled up at the side of a dingy frame building, a store building from the look of it. There were filling stations on the other three corners of the intersection.

“Here y’are, bud. No, it’s all paid for. Any time you want a cab, just ask for Eddie.” The driver leaned out as the taxi pulled away and called, “Don’t forget to go back home, bud.”

3

BERESFORD stood on the sidewalk, only the tips of his fingers showing from his coat sleeves, and wished to God he had stayed in the cab. He walked slowly to the corner. “Lavinia St.” the marker said.

It’s the wrong number then, he told himself. That smart taxi driver. He fumbled for the address slip through his buttoned jacket. “92 Lavinia St.” This won’t be 92.

The raw wind helped George back down the side street to the spot where he had been deposited. At the far end of the building was a door. Upon it were nailed two metal figures, a nine and a two. His upward glance found four shaded windows on the upper floor. “Oh, my Lord, it can’t be a — bordel.” Say it fast. Beresford. Say it in French and you won’t be sick.

Yet it did not have the right look about it, somehow, for that. Too honestly bare. Without giving himself time to think, he punched at the bell with a numb finger.

A strong female voice responded so quickly that it seemed the button must have been in direct electrical contact with it. “Come in. Come on up,” the voice commanded.

The stairway, narrow and unlighted, mounted steeply. Whatever light there might have been was blocked by the wide figure of a woman on the top step.

“Say, ain’t this our George?” the figure shouted. “Come right on up. I seen you get outta Eddie’s cab. I got your little Frenchy tucked away waiting for you. She ain’t feeling so hot this morning.” Beresford had groped his way to the upper floor and was greeted with a dig in the ribs. “ You know, George, Saturday night.”

Beresford grinned, desperately friendly. “May I — see her?” he asked.

“You sure can, George. That door right there. Say, I’m Bertha. I run this place. It ain’t much, but there’s no funny business — men only, except Denise. I sure think the world and all of that little girl. You go right in, George. Nobody’ll disturb you.”

Of course it’s all right here, it’s only a rooming house, Beresford thought. It’s just me—the old head still goes rocketing. But I wasn’t afraid, he thought. I came up.

Denise was propped up in bed; her head turned to look at him as he entered. His first glance saw only that her eye and cheekbone were discolored by a faded bruise. She was trying to smile, half welcoming, half pleading. He crossed the little room in two strides and kissed her on the mouth, quickly. Her breath was strong of overnight whiskey.

“I wanted to go for you,” she whispered in French.

Beresford nodded. He understood perfectly. He had done the same thing often enough himself. There was no question of forgiveness.

Tie sat on the edge of the bed, turning his cap in his hands. He should be talking to Denise, hugging her. Go on and talk, he goaded himself. Where are all those things you had to talk about?

Heavy footsteps tramped past the closed door.

The room was small and mean — bedbug mean. Except for a cheap dresser, there was no furniture but the dirty white iron bed, which sagged under even his light weight. Hanging beneath a shelf were Denise’s dresses. With a lump in his throat George recognized most of them.

Denise was looking at him, smiling still, but frowning a little too, looking at him a little uncertainly. Her hair was dark on the pillow, her eyes dark and questioning.

He found her hand and gripped it hard. She was a little thinner, he thought, her highish Breton cheekbones a little more noticeable than he remembered. He bent and kissed her again, longer this time, lifting her shoulders to hold her close. Ah, this was better. This was Denise, brave and gallant, doing the best she could.

“Soon you can be out, mon homme? ” she whispered. “Soon we can go back to the farm?”

Back to the farm? Back to the old furniture, the silver, the pictures on the walls? Go fishing in the creek again with Denise, work in the garden with her, play with the dogs? What about that letter from the bank? There was no money. What was it that he had to do about that? He must see about everything, so many things. Not now—some day. He couldn’t think about them now.

A bang on the door shook the light wall and a man shouted, “How you comin’, Frenchy?”

“ Va-t’en, go to ‘ell, sale cochon,” Denise called back. Even as he gripped his knees in panic, Beresford cursed himself for a weakling. Wasn’t that Pfluger’s voice? Could it be? Had he followed him? Did they put a tail on you when you went out? Then George heard Bertha, good-natured, “On your way, you big bum,” and the man’s answering chuckle. It wasn’t Pfluger; Pfluger was at the asylum. He was working himself up over nothing again.

Denise was talking. She was telling him, vivaciously now, that Berthe was formidable. “She makes the men here march straight as soldiers,” she said, and showed George with stiff hands how straight the men must march. “But a good heart. She guards me well. She sees that I eat much. Vraiment, it is not so bad here, mon Georges.”

As he looked at her his heart constricted in pity, in remorse, in a love greater than he had known for her. No word of reproach from her, though it was as if he had led her by the hand and left her in this — this joint. Left her to fight for her life with no help from him. And she tries to cheer me up. He must get her out of here.

“ Denise —”

With the clang of a hammer on sheet metal, Bertha’s voice came from just outside. “Hey, get up and get some clothes on, dearie,” she ordered and opened the door. “I’m cooking you and George a nice dinner. Do you like fried chicken, George? Bet you ain’t had none for a while. Say, how they been treating you anyhow?” She blanketed Beresford in heartiness. “Hey, look at the poor guy sweat. Take off that hot coat, George. Make yourself at home.” She helped him unbutton it and threw it over the scrolled and battered foot of the bed.

Turning, Beresford saw, propped against the mirror of the dresser, a small, unframed photograph, a picture of himself, taken, he well remembered, in Belfort just before they had moved up into the Argonne.

“Golly,” he thought, peering closely, “was I as young as that?” The boy in the photograph gazed back with arrogant confidence, fresh as his gold bars and Sam Browne belt, in a proud pose of “Look who won the war.” Then what was that spectacle staring back at Beresford from the mirror? The old tweed coat was familiar, but that curious, intent face, the eyebrows raised in half-circles, the eyes stretched until the whites showed, that face which looked as if an invisible hand were clawing all the features downward, whose face was that? Mirrors were not numerous at the Hospital. There was only one small one in the ever populous washroom, and George had not had a good look at himself for a long time. Through a knothole, he thought. He squinted and lifted the corners of his mouth. That’s better.

A squashed package of cigarettes lay on the dresser. He took one and turned around, still squinting. Denise was watching him intently — and Bertha, too, standing there with fists on her hips.

“No matches, hey, George?” Bertha seemed to know everything. “Put this box in your pocket and light one whenever you goddam please. You’re on your own today. I’d give you a snort-the babe here could use one — but I don’t know, they’re plenty ornery out there, I guess. How about a bottla beer?” She was gone with the last word.

Denise squirmed from the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders back, stretching, her breasts tight against the jacket of an old pair of his pajamas, the sky-blue pair. “What a girl!" said Beresford (Forget that specter staring at your back from the mirror). “You are still wearing my clothes.”

“But naturally. Like that, mon Georges à moi is with me every night.” She’s talking to me as if I were a child, thought Beresford. “You want a coup, Georges?” She pulled a black pint bottle from beneath the pillow. “I saved a little. Maybe it help you.”

Beresford could only shake his head. Nothing’s changed — nothing at all, except himself. In how many places, on how many mornings, one or the other brought out the rest of a bottle, proudly, loyally. How could he tell her that the sight of the bottle appalled him now, that he was scared to take a drink, scared of the Hospital, inside or out, scared of himself, of everything?

How had Bertha been so quick—back already with two glasses, accurately foamed, in her hands? She gave one to Beresford. It did look good — Hell, what’s a glass of beer! — and he took a long swallow. The sharp beer taste cut through the mentholated hospital taste in his mouth, into his nose, through his head, throughout his body, jolting his senses. He put the glass of beer on the dresser.

“Come on over and take a look at my apartment,” Bertha said, “while the kid here gets dressed. I got it fixed nice.”

Beresford had followed too many guards and nurses to hesitate at authority’s voice. That was the way you showed them you were all right, he had learned — by not thinking, by doing what you were told. But his shoulders sagged as he followed Bertha.

4

ON THE threshold of a room across the hall he stopped, trembling like a wary animal. In the window opposite, across a welter of shiny furniture and garish decoration, there hung a pair of caged canaries. Canaries — he did not mind canaries. He had never thought about canaries. But this cagethis cage —

Bertha caught his fixed expression. “You like canaries?” she asked. “Denise is nuts about ‘em. I got some more in here.”

To be sure, in the next room, where there were two windows, two cages hung, a pair of yellow birds in each. All were silent and motionless until, swinging her wide hips through a narrow channel between bed, tables, and chairs, Bertha put her mouth close to a cage and made small, sipping sounds. A gentle murmur came in reply; then, altogether, all three cages were alive with song, rising, falling, interweaving, clear notes and half notes, shimmering madly through the room.

Beresford wanted to turn and run. Now he knew what that cage had meant. His mind, feverish with strain, sparked and flashed. This was connected with the Hospital; this was where they broadcast that canary stuff from—“Gluck’s Cake.” It was a beastly scheme they were trying out on him. They were showing him he could not get away even for a day. They knew what he was doing all the time — they would always know.

A slow, resistless movement commenced, around and around him, he at its center, a helpless atom in a cosmic carousel, its music a chatter of bird song. His upper lip glistened with sweat, his hands were clenched. Bertha glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, you wanna go back to Denise, George? I — I gotta fix dinner.” He followed her submissively, scarcely conscious of moving. The canaries subsided to nervous tweets, then all were still.

Denise was standing in her doorway, laughing and talking with a big fellow in a leather coat, breeches, and puttees. She had on a dressing gown, black with red flowers, one that Beresford had never seen before, and she had made up her face and fixed her hair.

“This is my ‘osban’,” she said as Beresford came up. “He been seek, you know. Georges, mon coco, this is my good fran’, Meestaire Bob Scott, un grand detectif. He good sonabeech,” She laughed and rolled her eyes at the big man.

“We been teaching your wife English, Beresford.” The detective grinned down at George and extended a hand. “Heard about you,” he said. “Been taking a little rest cure up on the hill.” He patted Denise on the shoulder. “A great little Frenchy you got here.”

A detective! “The damn police, the damn police— ” They were after him all right, slipping up on every side, spying him out, waiting to grab him. He squeezed past into Denise’s room; he would be safer in Denise’s room. He sat on her bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, and stared at the floor.

Denise came and sat beside him — Bob Scott had disappeared. She said softly, in French, “He is truly good fran’, mon Georges. Bon type. You would like him. He found a job for me making sandwiches in a tavern.”

Beresford could only nod. He was thinking, thinking; he must fit the detective into his place. The canaries were taken care of, but the detective — was there something awful about the detective? Was this something worse than he had thought down there on the sidewalk?

It was very hard to think. The giant circle slowly revolving was sweeping everything up. Denise and the detective, Bertha and Pfluger, the song of canaries in cages, the taxi driver, the four shaded windows and the narrow stairs, all were absorbed in the deliberate, swinging wheel. They came and went, approaching and receding, now large, now small, now sharply defined, now dissolving, nebulous, into the background.

Denise had taken his hand and was holding it against her breast, stroking the hand. “You feel bad?” she was whispering. “Don’t worry, mon Georges. It is all right.”

His trembling quieted. He drew a long, shaky breath as a drunken man will do when fighting for control — and Bertha’s voice bugled to come and get it. Oh, God, for a few minutes peacefully with Denise!

But not now. She was waiting for him at the door; she led him back to the kitchen. The kitchen was a cubicle, no more; its walls bulged with the stress of holding a refrigerator, a table, three chairs, and Bertha.

“Now fill ‘er up, George,” Bertha urged as they sat down. “You ain’t et good for a long time. More’n that — here, let me —" The muscles of her bare forearm rolled as she gripped the iron skillet and his plate was heaped.

Bertha’s off-color blonde bangs, wet with perspiration, were stuck against her brow. The air was turgid with the fumes of hot grease.

She talked on undiscouraged. This was a decent rooming house, she was assuring Beresford. No women — she run it strict. A clattering and bumping in the hall broke the monologue as two men passed the open door, one supporting the other, almost dragging him.

“Listen, you lousy bums!” Bertha shouted, harsh with authority. “You get into your room and if I hear a peep out’n either of you I’ll throw you out on your cans.”

“Nice guys,” she commented good-humoredly to George, “but they get a little high week-ends.”

Across from George, Denise was looking at her food, her hands in her lap. Beresford managed a swallow of mashed potato as he looked at her, but his first piece of chicken wadded against the roof of his mouth. His thoughts distilled into misery absolute. As clearly as if it were a great painting before his eyes he saw, it seemed, all the wrongness of his life with Denise.

You were going to give her a chance, he thought. You were the noble guy who was going to pull her up to sit beside you before all the world. She is sitting beside you now, Beresford, — that’s Denise looking at her food, her hands in her lap, — and that’s a tear that’s running down her cheek. And here you are, Beresford —

5

AIN’CHA hungry, George?” Bertha’s voice was like a blow. “You gotta come and see us often now.”

A bell rang. Beresford jumped. Bertha went to answer the telephone in the hall. “Who? Yes, he’s here. Yeah, sure, I’ll get him there. No, I won’t let him out. Hell, no, he won’t be late.”

Beresford sat stiff. The Hospital, calling about him! The swing circled again, faster, dizzying. Outside, a siren wailed its lost-soul way along the street. “The damn police — ” They were surrounding the house; they had come to take him back.

Bertha switched on a small radio on top of the refrigerator as she rolled back to the table. She was complaining about having to wet-nurse a lot of goddam drunks and get them back to work.

But Beresford was not listening. A little tearing sound of static had come from the radio, then “Tune in again next Sunday at the same hour. The following announcement is transcribed.”

Beresford waited, holding his breath. It couldn’t be — A clear, ineffably musical whistle, a broken run, a rivulet of melody, “Gluck’s Cake, Light as a Feather,” then the burst of bird song.

“Listen.” Bertha grinned and pointed toward the door. From her own apartment her own feathered pets were responding, not to be outdone, singing for greatly more than they were worth. The sound beat upon Beresford’s face; he felt their wings drumthing on his eyes and cheeks. He was submerged in their song.

“Ain’t that sweet?” asked Bertha.

Never had the swing been so swift, never so crushing. This was the end. He could stand no more. He jerked to his feet, jostling the table. He held to the table corner.

A small voice was trying to tell him, “You are George Beresford, you are George Beresford. You were born —” No use, small voice, you are too far away.

But another voice came and it was clearer — it was very clear. “Get back to the Hospital, Beresford,” the clear voice said. “Get back to the Hospital.”

Denise and Bertha had risen too. “I must go,” George forced himself to speak, “I must get back. I’m all right. It’s just nerves — nerves. I’ll have to go.”

Bertha shook her head. “And he ain’t et nothin’, poor guy. It’s a lousy deal. He ain’t got no luck. But if you think you oughta go, George, I’ll call Eddie.”

Denise led Beresford back to her room, picked up his coat and held it for him. She seemed to know he must hurry, but for a moment she held him by the hands, turning them slowly, gripping them hard.

She smiled at him — his Denise — her eyes steadfast on his own.

“It is better than you think, mon Georges,” she said. “It is almost. Next time—”

But he was numb, his throat dry wood. He could only kiss her clumsily, dutifully, as if she were a distant relative.

At the head of the stairs he turned, tried to grin, half saluted. Denise, in her doorway, smiled back — or did she? Her mouth curving upward, slackened, seemed to melt; her face disintegrated. Both her hands went slowly to her cheeks and she vanished into her room.

Bertha went down the stairs before him, her hips working like rubbery loaves as she hurried. “Get him there as quick as you can,’ she told the cab driver and crumpled money into his hand.

6

THE Hospital — already? It had taken so much longer going in. But this was George’s building all right. He climbed the stairs, the clean, cold, iron stairs, up to his ward on the top floor. Never before had he climbed those stairs alone. Now, as he returned, for the first time he had a feeling of freedom. He felt superior and privileged, as if he were a senior in college again, and he trod with a firmer step. He took off his cap. His jacket seemed to fit better now and he unbuttoned it and let it swing.

Mike answered the buzzer. “Why, Mister Beresford! Back so soon?”

Ignoring him, Beresford dropped his coat and cap in the clothes room and walked up the corridor. The ward was still. Two groups of visitors were in the dining room, bags of fruit and cookies on the tables before them. The red-checked tablecloths and curtains lifted the scene to a warm domesticity.

Turning right before he came to the common room, Beresford entered one of the dormitories. His dormitory. The beds in two rows were lined up exactly, each with its meticulously draped green cotton cover. Some of the windows were open and the white curtain waved contentedly.

From a cardboard box beside a bed — his bed — he took a candy bar and commenced eating it slowly. He was hungry and he let the chocolate dissolve on his tongue and crunched the almonds with relish. From a window he watched groups of visitors coming and going from the cars wedged along the curb. The sun had come out and it was a fine, sparkling, late fall day, perfect football weather.

He balled the paper covering of the candy bar, dropped it into a wastebasket, and walked into the common room. It was as peaceful as a religious library. Its only occupant was Graber, smoking a cigar and flipping the pages of a magazine, obviously bored, but also, Beresford was glad to perceive, obviously in a good humor. George took the seat next to him and pulled out a package of cigarettes.

“Take one of these,” said Graber and proffered a cigar. “I got five bucks from my brother yesterday and sent down to the commissary for some of their best. Pretty fair. Where you been all day?”

“Thanks, Grabe. I’ve been down in the city visiting my wife.” Beresford hoped the remark sounded casual.

Graber looked at him sharply. “Have you? Swell! Your first time out, isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed. “Did they tell you to get back so early? It’s only two o’clock.”

“No — but it didn’t work out so well.”

“That’s too damn bad. Feel all right?” Graber was acute.

“Well, no—that is, I feel fine now, but when I was down there — I got the jitters — had to get out.” He paused. “I hope to God it’s not always going to be like that.”

“Hell, no, George. There’s nothing the matter with you any more. Look, fella, you’ve been in here quite a while. Lock the sanest guy in the world up in this place for a few months and he would start getting ideas —ideas about the outside, I mean. Everything’s wrong here, but everything’s right on the outside — get me?”

Beresford nodded. “‘I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,’” he said beneath his breath.

“What? Anyway, a guy sits here and forgets how screwy things were in the world. God, look at this sheet.” Graber extended the magazine he had been reading to arm’s length and slapped it violently to the floor. “Things aren’t perfect out there, Beresford, by a hell of a sight — whatever you’ve been hoping. What was the matter? Wasn’t your cute little wife glad to see you? Or was she living on the wrong side of the tracks?”

Graber drew hard on his cigar in scorn. “I’ve seen plenty of guys get knocked off balance again the first time they stuck their heads out.” Philosophic calm reigned again. “All you have to do, George, is take your time — you’ll be O.K. Take me now — seven years —” Graber fell silent.

They sat for a moment smoking their cigars. Beresford crossed one leg over the other. It was good to sit here next to Graber — what a sound, understanding fellow he was.

The sunlight slanted in a close angle through the west windows, lying in rectangular blocks of brightness on the dark floor next to the wall, animating the whole end of the room like footlights before a stage. From their cigars, thin fillets of smoke ascended, steady in the stillness, as blue and clear, as pale yet as vivid, as the outside sky.

Beresford smiled — two businessmen they might have been, two men of affairs anywhere, idling an hour in their club lounge in the hush of a Sunday afternoon.