Sharon Froman shepherded the woman from the car, this Mrs. Chesbro,
into the back room--a queer one, she was, but that could wait. "Take
off what you can spare and hang it up," she said briskly, efficiently,
and headed back for the front room. There had been something when the
woman's husband and Mickey Groff met. Sharon Froman wanted to see.
They were comparing notes on the flood, and that was all right. If you
didn't have an ear skilled in detecting the grace notes of conflict
it might have sounded like any other strangers in common trouble, but
Sharon's ear caught resonances beyond that. Take the woman's husband,
for instance. He was chattering away to, of all people, sick-pup Dick
McCue; but his eyes kept wandering to Mickey Groff.
Mrs. Goudeket scolded: "Sharon! The blanket for Mr. Starkman, you
forgot it?"
"He can take mine," Sharon said--she didn't want to go back to the
storeroom just then. She handed the holed, grease-spotted rag to the
old man, then remembered and carefully draped it around his shoulders.
"They stink," she told him cheerfully. "And I think they've got bugs;
but they're better than pneumonia." She grinned at Mickey Groff.
"Thank you, Miss," said Henry Starkman. He had not failed to notice
that the girl was playing up to Groff. Gold digger, he diagnosed,
archaically and without passion. He was waiting for Chesbro to switch
his attention from the kid to Groff. Starkman had sat enough hours
in the law-offices of county politicians to smell the beginnings of
a deal before it really existed. Chesbro wasn't ready yet; he hadn't
even made up his mind to offer something to Groff--quite. But it was
in the air. Pretty soon Chesbro would turn to the manufacturer and say
something bluff and hearty like, "Well, I see we're going to be chewing
each other's ears off in the ring tomorrow," and then, if Chesbro could
find a private place to do it, the two of them would be talking quietly
for a while....
Starkman hugged the smelly blanket around him. Shivering, he thought
querulously: What's the matter with Bess? I want my cocoa.
He shook his head to clear it, and got up to look at the rain outside.
He shouldn't be here at all, of course; what had the people made him
burgess for, at that fat and sought-after salary of two hundred dollars
a year, if not to be on hand when the community was in trouble? And if
a flood wasn't trouble--
A sort of choking sound from Mrs. Goudeket made him turn around.
The Chesbro woman was standing in the doorway to the storeroom. In the
light from the candles she had no eyes, the ragged blankets she wore
were robes, she was blindly staring marble. She had swept the blankets
spirally around her body and over her wet hair; a hobble skirt at one
end and a turban at the other. She was striking, and she stood for a
moment posed as though she knew it.
Mrs. Goudeket made a tongue-smacking sound. Artie Chesbro looked around
vaguely. "Oh, hello, honey," he said. "Now, this thunderstorm we had in
Summit in forty-six a couple of cellars were flooded all right, but--"
Dick McCue nodded mechanically, his eyes fixed on the woman.
She came over to Starkman and sat down next to him. At close range,
the costume didn't seem as extreme as half-lit by the candles, but the
burgess felt uneasy. She was too close to him, that was it; she was
sitting on the floor, looking up at him.
"I'd better get you something to sit on," he said, and escaped.
* * * * *
They managed to build a fire in the storeroom--there were a couple of
sheet-metal soft-drink signs; they raised one, punctured for draft, on
a row of bottles and placed another one underneath to catch the hot
ashes. It worked. Mickey Groff had placed his bet on the normal air
leakage around the window frames carrying off the worst of the smoke,
and so it did. It didn't pay to sit too close to it. You had to watch
it minute by minute to keep it fed and keep it from setting fire to the
shack. But it served to dry out their clothes, and besides it felt more
cheerful.
The men settled among themselves a plan for rotating guard
duty--guarding against fire and flood. Sam Zehedi and Dick McCue took
the first shift, one to keep the other awake; they sat and looked at
each other. They had nothing to say; and besides, it was hard enough
for the others to sleep without their talking.
Artie Chesbro, sharing a double pad of newspapers with his wife,
schemed feverishly: He hasn't said a word, he's waiting for me to make
the first move. How much should I cut him in for? Or for that matter,
do I have to--?
Well, yes. He'd seen enough of the burgess by now to know that the
deal he had optimistically outlined in the newspaper was out. Starkman
wouldn't cave in; you could use the anti-outsider theme just so far,
and then you had to come across with something tangible for Starkman
himself, or for the borough of Hebertown. On the other hand, what about
this: Suppose Groff cooled off on the location after being stuck in
this crazy flood they had down here? Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to
convince him Hebertown was a lousy idea--maybe even, this was a chance
to do something with the old Ackerman tract north of Summit. He doubted
that; Groff would know a swamp when he saw one; but suppose, an hour
and eight minutes from now, when they went on guard duty together as he
had carefully arranged, he merely suggested it to the manufacturer and
made it sound good.... He wished his wife would stop that damn humming
in his ear. God, why couldn't they at least be home, where they could
be decently asleep in their own individual rooms?
Asleep, Mrs. Goudeket's face was curved in a smile. She was dreaming
of 1926, a bride, the rooming house at Brighton Beach. Between her and
Mickey Groff, Sharon's face was smiling too, sweetly and trustfully,
as she nestled obliviously against the manufacturer, but of course she
wasn't asleep.
* * * * *
Sam Zehedi sat torpidly over the fire, waiting for the last of it to
burn itself out. He'd nearly dropped off three times, and he and McCue,
consulting, had decided it was more dangerous to leave it burning than
to put it out. It did stink pretty bad, he thought fuzzily; putting
water on it had been a mistake. It smelt a little oily.
He swallowed and rubbed his stomach. That lousy candy bar, he didn't
like it, he didn't want it, why had he eaten it? He wistfully turned
his thoughts to pickled mussels wrapped in grape leaves, now farther
out of reach than ever, and a nice, plump black-eyed girl to serve them.
McCue had dozed off, he noticed. A kid. Well, let him sleep. What
difference did it make?
Funny, he thought dizzily, not even broiled lamb seemed attractive
right now. He shouldn't have drunk that cream soda either--he gulped
and wrenched his thoughts away from that cream soda. The smell of the
dying fire was getting pretty strong and he felt nauseous, as if the
floor were moving about underneath him.
Now the sleepers were turning and coughing. There was something wrong,
Sam Zehedi fuzzily thought. He swayed to his feet and lurched toward
the door. Clear the air, he thought. The last embers of the fire winked
out and he thought for a vague moment that he had lost his eyesight.
He flung the door open with his last strength and took a deep sobbing
breath. Images of white-tiled walls, green-painted corridors swirled
through his head; he was ten again and they were wheeling him along
the green-painted corridors to have his tonsils cut out, Morrisania
Hospital--
He fell heavily across the restless, coughing shape of Mickey Groff.
Groff sat up slowly, choking. His head thudded as if with the hangover
to end them all.
_Gas._
"Get up!" he cried, swaying. "Get up!" Around him they stirred and
coughed.
"Gasoline fumes!" he yelled. "Get up! Up the stairs! Move!" He
staggered through the dark room, kicking at them and yelling. The
stairs were in back--back. And this was--a wall. He leaned against it.
It would be good to slump down and rest for a moment, just a moment--
He lurched along the wall to the corner, to the open stairway that let
to the upstairs room. "Over here!" he choked at them. "I'm standing by
the stairs. Come on! Come on!"
One by one they stumbled to the sound of his voice and began to drag
themselves up the shaky stairs.
One. Two. Three.... Four.... Five....
"Come on! I'm standing by the stairs. The stairs. This way. This."
Two more to come. Two. More. Some fool was striking a light, a
blue-green light to blow them to hell. But no; it was his eyes, glazed
and burning, that made the light. Two more to come.
His raw throat and bursting lungs silenced him. He lurched across the
floor and stumbled over something soft. He knelt, took it under the
armpits and dragged it to the wall, followed the wall to the corner, to
the stairs. Feet on the stairs.
A young voice in the darkness choked: "Mr. Groff. Come up. I'll get
him. Can you make it?" Young McCue. Strong arms took his burden over
and it bumped up the steps. That was seven. One to go. He headed back
into the thick sweetness of the fumes and crashed to the floor. He
never felt McCue come to his aid and heave him up the steps, but
through it he was muttering: "One more."
* * * * *
They were a sick lot when he awoke an hour later.
In the dark upstairs, cluttered with boxes and cans Mrs. Goudeket was
saying: "The water, it seeped into the gas tanks underground, it must
be. The gas floated up and all around us on top of the water. God be
thanked, nobody lit a match and the fire was out. As it was we were
almost poisoned in our sleep, thanks to that Arab." There was hatred in
her voice, fifteen centuries of it.
Burgess Starkman's voice emerged from an attack of coughing. "He's
dead, Mrs. Goudeket. You shouldn't--" He broke into coughing again.
Mickey Groff grunted, trying to talk. It was important to clear that
up. His head was pounding, but Mrs. Goudeket didn't understand. "He was
a Syrian," he croaked. "A civilized Christian people."
"Mr. Groff!" said Mrs. Goudeket. "You're better! We were afraid--You're
a hero, Mr. Groff. You saved our lives. Except--"
"Zehedi?" he asked.
He knew that she was nodding in the darkness, just as he knew that she
was bitterly ashamed of her outburst. "Too late," she sighed. "Ai, too
late. Dick went down with the handkerchief around his mouth and pulled
him up the stairs. His heart was going, and then it wasn't. Maybe
fifteen minutes. Too late."
A plump arm slid around him and Sharon Froman's voice said in his ear,
"Try to sit up. We all felt better after we sat up." She supported his
back and eased his trunk upright; he thought his head would explode. He
leaned against her dizzily and felt her cool palm against his forehead.
"Better," he grunted. "Thanks."
The burgess's old voice said abruptly, "Sing a psalm for Sam Zehedi,
the sad Syrian. Bess? Bess?"
"He's wandering," Sharon said very softly to Mickey Groff. "He won't
sleep."
Mrs. Chesbro moved across the floor to the sound of the burgess's voice.
"Where are you going, Polly?" Arthur Chesbro snapped.
"To the poor old man," she said. "Maybe I can talk him into signing the
lease before he takes wing."
Now, what did she mean by that? They didn't have a pen, there would
have to be witnesses, Groff was right there to break things up if
they tried to pressure him, it wouldn't work in a million years. The
stupidity of that woman was sometimes absolutely astounding.
She found the bony bundle that was Burgess Harry Starkman. "How little
we know ..." he was mumbling. "I was at Belleau Wood, you know.
Leatherneck couple wars back. They poured gas shells in for forty-eight
hours, but the leathernecks didn't have gas casualties. Court-martial
for gas casualties. Not like the doughboys, threw away their masks. Got
through Belleau Wood and here I am a gas casualty anyway, thirty-seven
years later. Ambushed in Hebertown Township. The boys at the Legion'll
get a kick out of that." He sat up abruptly and anxiously called out:
"Bess?"
She soothed him and urged him down. "Rest," she said. She felt and
unbuttoned his shirt, loosened the blanket around her and spread it
over the two of them, pressing herself against his bare chest.
"I remember," he said. "King Solomon. Old reprobate. But don't go away,
child." He fell into an uneasy doze, his breath rattling in his chest.
She pressed herself against him and lay still and silent.