The Lesson

What is in that box?

It was an ordinary question, and of course, one that troubled Loring to no end. In all the time since her husband’s death, she had puzzled over nothing so much as this. Of course, the permission to open the box had long been received. That it could have been opened at three months is clear. Three months had been the agreement for quite a while before he had suddenly changed it, and in some ways it would make perfect sense to honor the previous agreement. The year’s permission was also long gone, for had not one year, then two, three, four, five, all come and gone? Why then was the box still there, still unopened?

The truth was this: as long as Loring did not open the box, some mystery still remained, some hint of life, a secret kept — an act still continuing in its efficacy, on the part of Ezra. And so in preserving the shut box, she preserved his living nature, and whenever she pondered opening it, she played with his living will that it be opened, and with what his expectations had been for what she would feel upon opening it. Now necessarily, in order for this to work at all, she had to actually permit herself the possibility of breaking, and opening the box. And so it was, that once a month, she would sit with the box and decide whether or not the time had come to open it, and each time she did so, she did not know whether or not it would be opened.

Such days were special, and she would dress especially for them. She would close all the shutters of all the windows, and turn all the photographs and portraits to face the wall, even Ezra’s photograph in the parlor.

She would take off her shoes and put them by the door, pointing out. And then she would walk backwards up the stairs, and into the little room, and there sit in the chair and observe the box. She would do this all at the hour of dawn, leaving the whole day to sit and think.

Of course, in this case, it happened that the boy arrived, and she had seen that he would come and left the note that he might enter on his own. And now there he was, standing in the doorway, and his mind too was on the box.

— You may pick it up, she said. But be careful.

He went to the table, to the top of which he could barely reach. She reached out and got hold of him under his armpits, and with great effort tried to lift him up. She got him partway up but then dropped him back down and sank herself to a knee and then sat flat on the floor.

— Are you all right?

— I’m, I’ll be fine. Just, give me a second.

She managed to find her feet and went out of the room. In a few minutes she returned with a stool. He clambered up onto the stool, and from there to the table, where he sat on the edge. Then he took ahold of the box and moved it towards himself.

This in itself was a rather tumultuous event for Loring, as the box had not been moved since Ezra placed it there. She never permitted herself to touch it, not wanting to know what it weighed, or whether the contents shook.

Stan leaned over the box and examined it closely. It was made of dark ebon wood, and hardly any grain was perceptible. It was about the size of a hat box — large, in fact. Almost anything could be in there.

He looked at Loring. She was making a gesture that she often made, pressing the tips of her fingers in turn with the thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand.

— Can we open it?

Loring shook her head. The boy sitting there, holding the box, hovering over it; with his corduroy pants and clean white shirt, his small scrunched face and unkempt hair, he bent and swelled in her mind’s eye. It was very hard to look at him, and she imagined so much what he might be, or had been. His voice was not entirely the voice of a child. But was this just because he was a prodigy? But why was he a prodigy, and why had he come to her?

— What do you know about my husband? she asked.

Tilting his face like the moon-shaped window on the stair, the boy earnestly answered,

— He lived in this house. He was better at chess than you or I. He would stand for long periods of time; he preferred not to sit. I don’t believe that would be very comfortable. Do you?

— It is not comfortable, said Loring. What else do you know?

— He gave you this box?

— I didn’t tell you that.

— What is this? Did you put it here?

— Wax. No, I didn’t.

— Hmmmm. Did someone else then, not him, give you the box? Do you think he would have been a good teacher to have, if he was the one here, and you had died?

— No, said Loring. He wasn’t really a good teacher at all. He never had any idea why he did things. Let’s go downstairs.