The Seven File

Seventeen

On spring evenings darkness settled with disquieting suddenness about the lodge. There was no softly shadowed dusk to foretell the end of day; reflections from the tidal river preserved the illusion of daylight for a time, but when they disappeared, winking out abruptly, the night rushed in to rill up the vacuum.

Duke stood at the window with his hands in his pockets, and Grant was at the fire, looking through a newspaper. A single lamp and the leaping flames provided the only illumination in the room. The comers were dark, and giant shadows moved on the white ceiling as Grant flipped over the pages of his paper.

Hank sat at the piano, occasionally brushing the keys with his left hand. The pain had started again in his right, and a heavy pulse beat like a hammer against the shattered bone.

There had been very little conversation since dinner. The mood in the house was tense and wary; as the climax approached, nerves were tightening painfully. And there was still a day to go, a full twenty-four hours, Hank thought.

He touched a key and Grant looked over his paper at him. “You play that thing?”

Hank shook his head. “Just pick out the tunes.”

“Then what’s it here for?”

“The owner threw it in with the deal when I bought the place.”

Without turning Duke said dryly, “He’d have to throw in a band and a chorus line to get me interested.”

Hank began picking out Swanee River with one finger and Grant shook his head and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling.

“Too jazzy?” Hank said.

“No, it’s just great,” Grant said with heavy sarcasm.

“How’s the wood situation?” Duke said.

“It looks all right.”

“Looks all right? I see three logs.”

“That should get us by.”

“And if it doesn’t I can always lug in some more, I guess.”

“Don’t be a martyr,” Grant said. “I’ll get the wood. But you were the guy brought up by Indians. I thought you’d love playing Boy Scout up here.”

Duke didn’t answer him. His head was tilted slightly toward the piano. “What are you playing that for?”

Hank had drifted to another melody without realizing it. And it took him a second or two to identify it. The Kerry Dancers, he thought. That wasn’t quite right, but it was close. “It’s a nice old song,” he said.

“Yeah, nice and dismal,” Duke said. He frowned slightly, then shook his head and walked to the mantel to pour himself a drink. “You take your kicks real square.” Hank was trying to remember the words as he picked out the tune with one finger. A phrase or two came back to him, poignant and bitter-sweet with the mystery of loss: Gone, alas... all those hours of gladness, Gone, alas! like our youth too soon.

This song had had a curious significance in their home, he remembered. But why? No one in the family was musical. Where would they hear it? On the radio occasionally... And when that happened his father had become pensive. Not sad, but thoughtful. And his mother would ask him who had been in the store that day (or something equally chattery), and prod him into a different mood.

Hank started the song again, trying to puzzle out its significance. He was quite sure he hadn’t been aware of his parents’ reaction to it when he was young; he had absorbed his impression unconsciously. And now he was dredging it up... but why? Then, glancing at Duke’s back, he thought he knew the answer to that question.

The room was very still. Hank played softly, and the notes of the sad old song fell with a haunting charity into the silence. “She liked this, I guess,” he said.

“Who?” Duke didn’t turn but Hank heard the surprise in his voice.

“Your mother.”

“Yeah? Who told you that?”

“I forget.” Hank picked out the tune with slow insistence. “She was young when she died, wasn’t she?”

Duke turned slowly. He stared at his brother for a few seconds, and then made an awkward little gesture with his hand. “I don’t know, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, something j like that.”

“You were only about seven, I guess. Do you remember her?”

“Sure, I remember her. At seven you remember things. You think seven year old kids are still in the cradle?”

“I never saw a picture of her,” Hank said. “There weren’t any in the house. Funny.”

“What’s funny? We moved around a lot. I mean before the old man married again.” Duke made another awkward gesture with his hand; he seemed suddenly defensive and vulnerable. “Things kept getting lost. You know how it is.”

“Sure, that’s the way it goes,” Hank said. And then he thought of the scar on his forehead. The picture had reminded him of it. That had happened when he was very young, four or five at the most. He had been poking around in Duke’s drawer, and had come across a small photograph wrapped in tissue paper. He hadn’t removed the picture — only looked at the faint image he could discern through the filmy wrappings. And then Duke had come in, noiselessly as always, and caught him. What had he hit him with? A tennis racket, that was it. The first thing he had picked up...

“It’s a stupid song,” Duke said. “A whining old dirge.” His voice was harder now, arrogant and challenging. Hank looked at him and shrugged lightly. “You don’t want me to play it?”

“Why should I give a damn? Play whatever the hell you want.” He limped back to the mantel to refill his glass.

Hank began picking out the song again and Duke wandered back to the window and stared out at the night. Belle came out of the kitchen a moment or so later and drifted over to the piano. “That’s nice,” she said.

“Sing it,” Hank said.

“You asked for it, mister.” She began to hum the song softly in a low and surprisingly pleasant voice. “It’s so dreamy and sad,” she said at last. “I just love it. Let’s see if I can remember the words.”

“Knock it off,” Grant said irritably. “That’s all we need, campfire songs.”

“Let her sing if she wants to,” Duke said. He didn’t turn around but they could hear the anger in his voice. “She can sing if she wants to.”

“Okay, okay,” Grant said. “But does she have to stick to that cornball Mick song?”

“What do you know about music?” Duke said, turning and staring at him. “You never heard anything but an organ grinder in that Polack neighborhood you grew up in.”

“A lot of big men came out of that neighborhood, and don’t forget it,” Grant said.

“But not including you,” Duke said.

“What’s the matter? You want Belle to sing Irish songs? Fine! Great! She can sing Mother Machree and Paddy McGinty’s Goat until dawn for all I care.” He returned pointedly to his newspaper. “Just let me know when it’s over so I can clap.”

Hank smiled at Belle, and she began singing again, slowly and shyly; her eyes switched to Grant for some sign of interest or approval, but he was buried in the paper.

“You’re doing fine,” Hank said. He glanced at Duke and saw that he put his drink on the windowsill and was rubbing his forehead with both hands. The music was a thin lament in the silence and Belle’s voice as soft and sad as a weeping child’s. “You’re doing fine,” Hank said again, and she gave him a grateful and nervous little smile.

Hank looked at Duke again, seeing the crack in him now. But where was the wedge to fit into it? And the hammer to drive it home?