The Surface of Earth - Couverture souple

Price, Reynolds

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0345349946 ISBN 13 : 9780345349941

Editeur : Ballantine Books, 1989

Synopsis

Book by Price Reynolds

A propos du livre

Extrait :

Chapter 1

ABSOLUTE PLEASURES

MAY 1903

"Who told Thad she was dead?" Rena asked.

"Thad killed her," Eva said. "He already knew."

Their father -- from his rocker, almost dark in the evening -- said, "Hush your voices down. Your mother's on the way. And never call him Thad. He was her dear father, your own grandfather; and of course he never killed her."

Kennedy said, "He gave her the baby. The baby killed her. So I think he did justice, killing himself."

"Shame," their father said. He drew at his cigar. "I hope none of you lives to face such a choice." Another draw. "But one of you will. Then remember tonight -- the cruelty you've talked against the helpless dead."

He had started directing his answer to Kennerly -- Kennedy was leaving home in a week: a job, his life -- but he ended it on Eva. His middle child, his choice of the three, the thing in the world (beside his own mother, dead twenty years) that he'd loved and still loved, for sixteen years.

Dark as it was, Eva met his eyes and waited him out. Then she said, "What's shameful, sir, in wanting the truth? We're all nearly grown. We've heard scraps of it all our lives -- lies, jokes. We are asking to know. It's our own story."

Her father nodded. "It would kill your mother to hear it."

They all were silent. The street beyond was empty. Hector the dog surrendered to Kennerly's scratching hands. Their mother's voice came from the kitchen, still talking -- "Mag, you can take this bread on with you and bake fresh for breakfast if you get here in time. You'll get here, won't you?" -- Some grumble from Mag, amounting to Yes. -- "And you too, Sylvie? We got to iron curtains." A younger docile voice said "Yes'm."

Rena and Kennedy also looked to Eva. She was running this.

Eva said "Safe."

Their father said, quickly and as near to whispering as he ever came, "Thad Watson married Katherine Epps and, much as he loved her, he wanted a son. Three, four years passed -- no son, no daughter. Katherine told him it was God's will, to calm down and wait. Wait was the one thing Thad couldn't do; and within another year, Katherine had a baby and died in the act. It had been a hard labor; and Dr. Burton had sent Thad out to wait in the yard, anywhere out of sight. He waited on the porch, really sat and waited for once in his life."

Eva said, "How do you know that?"

"My mother was there, helping what she could."

"Which wasn't much," Kennerly said.

"Not much. What could you have done with God set against you?"

Kennerly said, "l could have asked Him why."

"You'd have stood there and talked, and she'd have died anyhow. My mother gave the ether, little bits at a time on a clean cotton rag. So she died at ease -- no pain, not a sound, no signal to Thad twenty feet away. When the doctor had listened to Katherine's still chest -- Mother said he listened for the length of a song -- and seen Mother safely washing the baby, he washed his own hands and put on his coat and stepped to the porch and said, 'Thad, I lost her. But I saved you a girl.' Thad waited on a minute. Then he stood up and looked Dr. Burton in the face as calm as this evening and told him 'Thank you' and headed indoors. The doctor assumed he was going to Katherine -- there were plenty more women in there with her to meet him -- so he stood on the porch to clear his own head. It had lasted all night; it was past dawn, May. The next thing he heard was a single shot. Thad had walked to the bedroom, straight through the women -- never looked to your mother, herself nearly killed in Katherine's labor -- and taken his pistol off the mantelpiece and walked to the bed where Katherine lay -- they had still not washed her -- and blown his brains out and fallen on her body." He drew at his cold cigar. "Now you know."

"It was Mother," Eva said. "The baby that killed his wife was Mother?"

"You knew that," he said. "But never say killed. She was innocent as if she had come from the moon, and her own father stopped her life in its tracks before she could move. Part of it anyhow."

Rena said, "Why would he do that, Father? -- not wait for his child?"

A long wait. No answer, though voices still rose and fell in the kitchen.

"He knew his life had stopped," Eva said.

Kennerly made his sound of disgust.

"-- Thought it had," their father said. "Then why not take the ruined baby with him?"

Nobody offered an answer to that.

But Eva said, "Did you ever see them, Father?"

"I remember him -- I was ten when he died -- and I must have seen her any number of times. But I don't have a shred of memory of her. A perfect blank. Your mother even -- I still have to look at pictures of her to see her as a girl, and she all but lived with us."
Rena said "Why was that?"

"She was a quiet child."

They all waited silently and listened to her come slowly forward through the house; stop in her bedroom (the left front room) and brash at her hair; then stand in the door and say, "Eva, take a chair" -- Eva sat on the steps -- "You're too dressed-up anyhow. Commencement's tomorrow."

"Yes ma'm," Eva said.

Their mother went on to her usual place -- the far comer swing where Kennedy waited, gently rocked as though by a breeze.

Eva stayed still.

Her mother stared at her -- the side of her face; she was lovely, brown cuffs in swags to her shoulders. "Eva, go change. You'll smother in that."

Eva looked to the street. "I'm breathing," she said.

"Rena, make her go change."

Rena budged, vibrated by the words themselves; but she also watched the street and stayed in place.

"Eva, look here."

Eva turned and looked and before her mother could speak, even study her face in the dusk, Eva said "Be good to me -- " She looked to her father.

Their mother said, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Hector barked once.

Rena said -- and pointed -- "Mr. Mayfield."

He was almost on them, having come up the stone walk that quietly; and everyone but Mrs. Kendal stood to welcome him, though she spoke first -- "Did she fail, Mr. Mayfield?"

"No'm, she passed," he said. "She barely passed." He was at the steps and paused there, three feet from Eva. So no one but Eva could see the smile that rose in his face as he turned to her father. "Ninety-six in English. One hundred in Latin. Be proud, Mr. Kendal."

"Thank you, sir," he said. "She'll graduate then?"

"Far as I'm concerned, she's graduated now; could have two years ago. Knows more than I do," Forrest Mayfield said.

"Too kind," Mrs. Kendal said. "Sit down and rest. Have you eaten your supper? You'll be starved and blind from reading children's papers."

"No I'm not," he said. "Good young eyes like mine -- I can see in the dark."

"You're thirty," Mrs. Kendal said, "and thin as a slat. You'll lose your looks. Then where will you be?" She got to her feet. "Mag's still in the kitchen. Come on and eat.'

"Thank you, no," he said. "I'm thirty-two and I've got to move on. Just wanted to tell you the fresh good news."

"Are you leaving for the summer?" Mr. Kendal said.

"Yes sir," he said, "when I get myself together."

"To your sister's again?"

"Not at first," he said. "I'll wander a little."

Mrs. Kendal said "To where?"

He smiled again, though entirely dark by now; spread his arms wide and sang it as music -- "To my heart's true home."

Mrs. Kendal said "I thought so," and all of them laughed.

He joined them but then he looked to Mr. Kendal. "But you've got all I ever wanted, here." He gestured round with one arm again, a single place in which to gather, people made in the place, made by the place and grown firmly to it.

"I love them," Mr. Kendal said. "Thank you, Forrest."

Through all that, Forrest had shuddered with fear but showed only calm, the only lie he told them till then. And when he left, he had not lied again.

2

He had hardly vanished when Eva rose from the steps and walked to the door.

As she passed, her father said "Proud of you. Proud."

Her mother said, "I hope you are going to change."

Eva nodded. "Yes ma'm." Then she turned the doorknob and looked back quickly at them all. She settled on her father and said to him "Thank you." Then she opened the door and said "Rena, come help me.

"Her mother said "Spoiled."

But Rena stood and followed her.

They were silent in the hall and on the dark stairs, Indian-file; but when Eva had entered their own shared room (the back left room), Rena gently shut the door behind them and said "You've decided" to Eva's back.

"I decided long ago."

"You're leaving," Rena said.

Eva turned, nodding. "Tonight. This minute."

Rena said "Wait -- " not meaning to stop her but to hold her an instant longer, for study.

Eva said "No" and took a step forward.

"Go," Rena said. "I just meant why?"

Eva touched her sister at the damp elbow-bend. "In a year or so you'll know."

"I'm eighteen months your junior," Rena said. "Eighteen more months won't answer me why you are killing us like this."

"You're glad," Eva said. "Mama'll surely be glad. Kennedy's leaving -- "

"Father will die."

"No he won't," Eva said.

"He loves you more than the rest of us together."

Eva thought through that. "Even so," she said, "my life is separate. I'm going to that. He's been through worse than this. He'll live. I'll write him."

Rena said again "He'll die."

Eva touched her again, on the back of the neck, and smiled at her fully but stepped on past her to the door and opened it.

"Your grip?" Rena whispered and pointed to a brown leather case on the wardrobe.

Eva shook her head No.

"I've promised," Rena whispered. "Silence till tomorrow. They'll kill me then."

Eva smiled. "No they won't. They'll be glad of news. Now wait in here for as long as you can -- till Mother calls us. Try to give me time."

Rena went to the wide bed they'd shared for years and sat on the edge, both hands on her knees. "Will I ever see you again, do you think?"

Eva listened to the sounds from the porch -- still safe -- then came back across to the bed and touched Rena. On the part in her hair. Then kissed the spot she'd touched. "That's up to Father," she said. "Help him." Then she was gone, no sound on the stair.

3

From the foot of the stairs there were two ways out -- the front door, the porch, Mother, Father, Brother; and the kitchen where Mag and Sylvie still tinkered. No choice. She aimed herself there and went, still silent, ignoring the pieces of her life on all sides, snags in a river. But she stopped in the kitchen at the comer washstand and lifted one dipper of water from the bucket and drank it dry, from thirst and the fresh need to say one more goodbye in her home. When she lowered the dipper, both women were watching -- Mag from the sink where she picked over white beans to soak all night, Sylvie from the midst of the room where she stood like the black greased axle of the whole clark house: Eva's age, one more piece of the permanent furniture of old safe life that Eva now abandoned. She took a step toward Sylvie -- the door was beyond her -- and said in a low voice, not whispering, "Take anything of mine you want."

"Who going to give it to me?"

"Tell Mama it's yours; tell her Eva said it's yours."

"She'll laugh," Sylvie said.

Eva pointed backward and overhead. "Go up now and take any stitch you want. Rena's waiting there."

Mag turned full around. Her face took the lamplight, darker than her daughter's. "You go," she said. "If you going, go."

Still facing Sylvie, Eva shut her eyes once and forced out the tears that Mag had pressed from her. Then she looked again and cracked her lips to say, "I'll send for you, Sylvie"; but waves of expulsion still pumped from Mag. Silent, Eva scissored one step to the left and was out the door.

Sylvie said "She gone."

"Thank Jesus," Mag said.

Sylvie said "I loved her."

"Me too," Mag said. "But she gone now. She out of my mind. Scratch her out of yours. What she don't know -- people worth loving grow on trees in the ditch."

"Yes'm," Sylvie said and watched the shut door where dark air still churned in Eva's empty place.

4

Forrest Mayfield was drowning in gratitude, kneeling above his wife, taking the last of what she freely offered -- the sight of her body in rooming light laid safely beside him on linen marked only by proofs of their love. Till half an hour ago, at dawn, he had never seen more of her than head and arms -- what showed to the world at the limits of her clothes. So he'd loved her because of her face and her kindness, the mysterious rein she accepted from the first on his oldest need -- free flight outward from his own strapped and drying heart, that he be permitted after decades of hoarding to choose one willing gift and love her entirely, the remainder of his life. Almost no matter that she love in return, only that she wait and endure his love, his endless thanks; acknowledge them with smiles. Now she was here -- by her own will, unforced, still offering (though the room had filled with light) her entire brilliant body, perfect beyond any dream or guess and visibly threaded with the narrow blue channels that pulsed on, warm from their first full juncture.

The memory of that -- crown of this past night -- was the deepest flood he swam in now, the union and its rising preparations: that she met him as promised at the edge of the field behind her home (had got there before him and the Negro he'd paid to drive the hired buggy six miles to the train -- standing, arms at her side, her hands clenched, dark; and when he had said "Your grip? Your clothes?" she had said, "I told you if I came, I'd just be yours. Nothing with me belongs to another soul. This one dress was thrown off by my Aunt Lola"). Then she'd sat beside him silent through the ride to the train, only nodding Yes or No to his muffled questions, and walked silent to the train and mounted one step and then turned to their driver, who carried Forrest's trunk, and said "You know Sylvie" and opened her clenched hand and gave him a five-dollar goldpiece and said, "This is Sylvie's from Eva; to remember Eva." Then once on the train, they had spoken of nothing but the school-year behind them as though they were vanishing now for the summer to separate worlds and would meet in the fall again, master and pupil. And then two hours later, here in Virginia, had accepted their marriage at the trembling hands of an old Clerk of Court and his housekeeper-witness who said to Eva as the clerk took the money, "God above help you." Then had walked with him two hundred yards in the dark to this old hotel and, once concealed by a black pine door from whatever slim dangers the world still held, had welcomed him. Not at once, in a rush, but gravely in her own time, the reins in her ringed hand still firmly clutched. When the porter had lit their lamp and gone and the door was bolted, he had stood in place and looked through the three yards of dimness toward her, by the bed -- the light was behind her, she shone at the edges -- he had said "I thank you." She had smiled-"For what?" -- "For standing here." She had said, "I am where I want to be" and slowly drew the wide green ribbon from her hair and began on the numerous buttons of her dress, looking down at them, till -- finished and her undergarments folded -- she stood bare and faced him. In her place, he in ...

Biographie de l'auteur :

Reynolds Price (1933-2011) was born in Macon, North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University, he taught at Duke beginning in 1958 and was the James B. Duke Professor of English at the time of his death. His first short stories, and many later ones, are published in his Collected Stories. A Long and Happy Life was published in 1962 and won the William Faulkner Award for a best first novel. Kate Vaiden was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Good Priest's Son in 2005 was his fourteenth novel. Among his thirty-seven volumes are further collections of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations. Price is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his work has been translated into seventeen languages.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Ballantine Books
• Date d'édition: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0345349946
• ISBN 13: 9780345349941
• Reliure: Broché