(From _The Calendar of Modern Letters_)
Meyer lay on the bed, the covers drawn up over his mouth. His thin,
long nose projected over the quilt seemed very long and wax-like; and
his eyes were closed. His feet stuck out beyond the edge of the bed,
for Meyer was a tall man, and illness seemed to have stretched him out.
Hannah, his wife, stood near the bed, looking down upon him
sorrowfully, her fingers patching her mouth.
“A man who has never been sick in his life to fall so sick. And he only
fifty years old--the best years,” she thought.
She turned from the bed and silently began to clean the rooms she and
Meyer had lived in for the last eight years. Every now and then she
stopped to look at the man in the bed.
“It seems so strange for him to be in the house with me and yet not say
a word to me.” Hannah spoke to herself. “I don’t like that white sheet
over the quilt.”
Hannah carefully placed the broom in the corner near the stove and
pattered over to the wooden trunk where she kept her red shawl. A
close, layer-like smell of moth balls and unaired clothing lifted
itself sluggishly and receded. The red shawl was near the top. It had
white stripes and was made of sheep’s fleece. Hannah had knitted and
dyed the shawl when she was still young and wore a black plait down her
back.
She placed the red shawl over the sick man’s feet, but they persisted
in sticking out--their long, misshapen toes digging into each other
with soles as hard as leather. They stood up stiffly perpendicular.
Hannah looked at them and a strange terror gripped her. Her Meyer was
sick. Her Meyer was very sick! Desperately, she thought of the House.
Perhaps she had better call Mrs. Brandt. Some one....
A knock sounded.
Hannah hurried to the door and opening it softly, looked up into the
ruddy, round face of her sister Brahne.
“You!” she cried delightedly. For a moment, the sadness left her eyes.
She was no longer alone--all alone--for now, if only for a few moments,
she had her sister with her. Some one of her own blood.
“Yes, here I am!” And Brahne stepped into the room. Everything in it
became dwarfed, for Brahne was large, large of feet, hands, head,
mouth, teeth, and voice. By lifting her hand she could have flattened
its palm on the ceiling as easily as she carried her twins on each hip.
The two looked at each other, for they had not seen each other for a
year. Brahne had moved her bakery, her husband and children into a
suburb, and Hannah, who could not ride in cars because it made her
dizzy, did not visit her.
“Meyer is sick, very sick,” Hannah finally said. Her hand went up to
her mouth again.
Brahne turned to the bed and looked at the man.
“He doesn’t seem so bad,” she decided. “What is it, a cold?”
“No, it’s something more. The doctor wouldn’t tell me. I think it’s his
heart.”
“Heart! That’s how much you know about men.”
Brahne seated herself and discoursed in bellows.
“Men are children. They don’t know how to bear even a scratch on the
finger. They get a little cold and right away they want to go to
Coloraydo and get consumption. They want to be petted and fondled like
a month-old baby. The more attention you give them the more they want.
Many times I think to myself, why do they send men to fight in the wars
when they are such weaklings!”
Hannah listened meekly, her hand on her mouth.
“Maybe that’s true what you say, Brahne,” she offered timidly, “but
Meyer is now laying like this the third week. And, you know, he’s never
been sick since we’ve been married.”
The tears formed in her eyes and dropped down her cheeks.
Brahne’s large, limpid eyes wandered from the sick man’s face to his
feet. The red shawl threw a new light into her eyes.
Hannah wiped the tears away as she mumbled:
“God should spare him for me. If he should die----”
“Die!” scoffed Brahne, with difficulty shifting her eyes from the shawl
to the man’s face. “People don’t die so fast.”
The sick man stirred and the cover moved down from his mouth. He was
smiling.
Brahne rose from her chair and walked heavily to the bed. She beckoned
her sister.
“See!” she said. “He’s not sick. He’s smiling. A man who sees Death
doesn’t smile, hah Meyer?”
The sick man did not open his eyes nor move at all at the sound of his
name. But the smile was still there.
“I could make him laugh!” Brahne wagered.
“Laugh!” her sister repeated, sadly. “What wouldn’t I give to hear him
laugh again!”
Brahne looked at the red shawl, lips drawn in, one eye half shut.
“Well,” she said finally, “would you give me the red shawl if I made
him laugh?”
Again the hand went up to the mouth, and Hannah considered. Brahne had
always wanted that red shawl she knew.
She nodded.
“Yes,” she finally assented. “But you must make him laugh.”
Brahne leaned over the bed and tickled the soles of those stiff feet. A
broad smile already stretched across her face.
“Hah, Meyer,” she called out, “don’t think you can fool me!”
Again she trailed her large, square fingers over the calloused feet.
A slight trembling took hold of the man. His toes began to wriggle
stiffly--creakingly.
“Well, Meyer, how about a little laugh?” Brahne called cheerfully.
Hannah stood over her husband, her hand almost hiding her mouth. Now
and then she looked at her sister.
Brahne bent to her task with determined lips. She no longer smiled. She
wanted that red shawl. This time she played on the soles as if she were
playing the piano. Then she changed to a quick tattoo. A weak, little
gurgle issued from the parted lips of the man, but his eyes did not
open.
“Well, Meyer,” shouted Brahne. “You can do better than that!”
She tickled those stiff feet with the full vigour of her strong
fingers. And, suddenly, the covers flew back and the red shawl dropped
to the floor. A ringing laugh cut the silence of the room. The sick
man laughed again and again like a hysterical girl, but his eyes never
opened.
Brahne, her hands on her hips, joined in lustily, and even Hannah
smiled tenderly and without sadness.
Suddenly the laugh broke into two and the man stiffened from head to
toes. The lips drew themselves together slowly and painfully, and then
they were still. The soul of Meyer had fled on the back of a laugh.
“Brahne!” Hannah screamed. “Brahne!”
“What’s the matter?”
But Hannah had already fallen on her knees beside the bed, moaning:
“He is dead! My husband is dead! My husband is dead!”
Brahne, big and powerful, looked down upon the dead man and the weeping
woman with a puzzled look in her stupid eyes.
“But anyway I made him laugh,” she said. “The red shawl is mine.”