Читать книгу The Turn of the Balance - Brand Whitlock - Страница 5

While Mrs. Ward was discussing her maid with her guests, Gusta was hurrying homeward alone, the prey of fears, omens and forebodings. There was the shock of this sudden news from home, and her horror of what awaited her there; besides she had a strange feeling about leaving the Wards in this way. The night had grown bitterly cold. The frozen snow crunched with a whining noise under her heels as she passed swiftly along. In the light of the arc-lamps that swung at the street crossings, the trees along the curb cast their long shadows before her, falling obliquely across the sidewalk and stretching off into the yard; as she passed on, they wheeled, lost themselves in gloom, then appeared again, stretching the other way. The shadows confused and frightened her. She thought of Elizabeth and all her kindness; when would she see Elizabeth again? With this horrible thing at home all had changed; her mother would need her now. She thought of the hard work, with the children crying about, and the ugly kitchen, with none of the things there were at the Wards' to make the work easy. She would have to lug the water in from the cistern; the pump would be frozen, and the water would splash on her hands and make them red and raw and sore; they could never be white and soft like Elizabeth's. She would have to shovel the snow, and make paths, and split kindlings, and carry wood and coal, and make fires. And then the house would never be warm like the Wards'; they would eat in the kitchen and sit there all day long. The storm, which had made no change at all at the Wards', would make it all so much harder at home. Her father would be sick a long time; and, of course, he would lose his job; the house would be gloomy and sad; it would be worse than the winter he had been on strike.

The keen wind that was blowing from the northwest stung Gusta's face; she felt the tears in her eyes, and when they ran on to her cheeks they froze at once and made her miserable. She shuddered with the cold, her fingers were numb, her feet seemed to be bare on the snow, her ears were burning. The wind blew against her forehead and seemed as if it would cut the top of her head off as with a cold blade. She tried to pull her little jacket about her; the jacket was one Elizabeth had given her, and she had always been proud of it and thought that it made her look like Elizabeth, but it could not keep her warm now. She ran a few steps, partly to get warm, partly to make swifter progress homeward, partly for no reason at all. She thought of her comfortable room at the Wards' and the little colored pictures Elizabeth had given her to hang about the walls. An hour before she had expected to go to that room and rest there,–and now she was going home to sickness and sorrow and ugly work. She gave a little sob and tried to brush away her tears, but they were frozen to her eye-lashes, and it gave her a sharp pain above her eyes when she put her hand up to her face.

Gusta had now reached the poorer quarter of the town, which was not far from Claybourne Avenue, though hidden from it. The houses were huddled closely together, and their little window-panes were frosty against the light that shone through the holes in their shades. There were many saloons, as many as three on a corner; the ice was frozen about their entrances, but she could see the light behind the screens. They seemed to be warm–the only places in that neighborhood that were warm. She passed one of them just as the latch clicked and the door opened, and three young men came out, laughing loud, rough, brutal laughs. Gusta shrank to the edge of the sidewalk; when she got into the black shadow of the low frame building, she ran, and as she ran she could hear the young men laughing loudly behind her. She plunged on into the shadows that lay so thick and black ahead.

But as she drew near her home, all of Gusta's other thoughts were swallowed up in the thought of her father. She forgot how cold she was; her fingers were numb, but they no longer ached; a kind of physical insensibility stole through her, but she was more than ever alive mentally to the anguish that was on her. She thought of her father, and she remembered a thousand little things about him,–all his ways, all his sayings, little incidents of her childhood; and the tears blinded her, because now he probably would never speak to her again, never open his eyes to look on her again. She pictured him lying on his bed, broken and maimed, probably covered with blood, gasping his few last breaths. She broke into a little run, the clumsy trot of a woman, her skirts beating heavily and with dull noises against her legs, her shoes crunching, crunching, on the frozen snow. At last she turned another corner, and entered a street that was even narrower and darker than the others. Its surface, though hidden by the snow, was billowy where the ash piles lay; there was no light, but the snow seemed to give a gray effect to the darkness. This was Bolt Street, in which Gusta's family, the Koerners, lived.

The thin crackled shade was down at the front window, but the light shone behind it. Gusta pushed open the front door and rushed in. She took in the front room at a glance, seeking the evidence of change; but all was unchanged, familiar–the strips of rag carpet on the floor, the cheap oak furniture upholstered in green and red plush, the rough, coarse-grained surface of the wood varnished highly; the photograph of herself in the white dress and veil she had worn to her first communion, the picture of Archie sent from the Presidio, the colored prints of Bismarck and the battle of Sedan–all were there. The room was just as it had always been, clean, orderly, unused–save that some trinkets Archie had brought from Manila were on the center-table beside the lamp, which, with its round globe painted with brown flowers, gave the room its light.

Gusta had taken all this in with a little shock of surprise, and in the same instant the children, Katie and little Jakie, sprang forth to meet her. They stood now, clutching at her skirts; they held up their little red, chapped faces, all dirty and streaked with tears; their lips quivered, and they began to whimper. But Gusta, with her wild eyes staring above their little flaxen heads, pressed on in, and the children, hanging on to her and impeding her progress, began to cry peevishly.

Gusta saw her mother sitting in the kitchen. Two women of the neighborhood sat near her, dull, silent, stupid, their chins on their huge breasts, as if in melancholia. Though the room was stiflingly warm with the heat from the kitchen stove, the women kept their shawls over their heads, like peasants. Mrs. Koerner sat in a rocking-chair in the middle of her clean white kitchen floor. As she lifted her dry eyes and saw Gusta, her brows contracted under her thin, carefully-parted hair, and she lifted her brawny arms, bare to the elbows, and rocked backward, her feet swinging heavily off the floor.

"Where's father?" Gusta demanded, starting toward her mother.

Mrs. Koerner's lips opened and she drew a long breath, then exhaled it in a heavy sigh.

"Where is he?" Gusta demanded again. She spoke so fiercely that the children suddenly became silent, their pale blue eyes wide. One of the neighbors looked up, unwrapped her bare arms from her gingham apron and began to poke the kitchen fire. Mrs. Koerner suddenly bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and began to cry, and to mumble in German. At this, the two neighbor women began to speak to each other in German. It always irritated Gusta to have her mother speak in German. She had learned the language in her infancy, but she grew ashamed of it when she was sent to the public schools, and never spoke it when she could help it. And now in her resentment of the whole tragic situation, she flew into a rage. Her mother threw her apron over her face, and rocked back and forth.

"Aw, quit, ma!" cried Gusta; "quit, now, can't you?"

Mrs. Koerner took her apron from her face and looked at Gusta. Her expression was one of mute appealing pain. Gusta, softened, put her hand on her mother's head.

"Tell me, ma," she said softly, "where is he?"

Mrs. Koerner rocked again, back and forth, flinging up her arms and shaking her head from side to side. A fear seized Gusta.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

"He goes on der hospital," said one of the women. "He's bad hurt."

The word "hospital" seemed to have a profound and sinister meaning for Mrs. Koerner, and she began to wail aloud. Gusta feared to ask more. The children were still clinging to her. They hung to her skirts, tried to grasp her legs, almost toppling her over.

"Want our supper!" Jakie cried; "want our supper!"

"Gusta," said Katie, "did the pretty lady send me something good?"

Gusta still stood there; her cheeks were glowing red from their exposure to the wind that howled outside and rattled the loose sash in the window. But about her bluish lips the skin was white, her blue eyes were tired and frightened. She dropped a hand to each of the children, her knees trembled, and she gave little lurches from side to side as she stood there, with the children tugging at her, in their fear and hunger.

"Where's Archie?" she asked.

"He's gone for his beer," said one of the neighbors, the one who had not spoken. As she spoke she revealed her loose teeth, standing wide apart in her gums. "Maybe he goes on der hospital yet."

Every time they spoke the word "hospital," Mrs. Koerner flung up her arms, and Gusta herself winced. But she saw that neither her mother nor these women who had come in to sit with her could tell her anything; to learn the details she would have to wait until Archie came. She had been drawing off her gloves as she stood there, and now she laid aside her hat and her jacket, and tied on one of her mother's aprons. Then silently she went to work, opened the stove door, shook the ashes down, threw in coal, and got out a skillet. The table spread with its red cloth stood against the window-sill, bearing cream pitcher and sugar bowl, and a cheap glass urn filled with metal spoons. She went to the pantry, brought out a crock of butter and put it on the table, then cut pieces of side-meat and put them in a skillet, where they began to swim about and sizzle in the sputtering grease. Then she set the coffee to boil, cut some bread, and, finding some cold potatoes left over from dinner, she set these on the table for the supper. It grew still, quiet, commonplace. Gusta bustled about, her mother sat there quietly, the neighbors looked on stolidly, the children snuffled now and then. The tragedy seemed remote and unreal.

Gusta took a pail and whisked out of the kitchen door; the wind rushed in, icy cold; she was back in a moment, her golden hair blowing. She poured some of the water into a pan, and called the children to her. They stood as stolidly as the women sat, their hands rigid by their sides, their chins elevated, gasping now and then as Gusta washed their dirty faces with the rag she had wrung out in the icy water. The odor of frying pork was now filling the room, and the children's red, burnished faces were gleaming with smiles, and their blue eyes danced as they stood looking at the hot stove. When the pork was fried, Gusta, using her apron to protect her hand, seized the skillet from the stove, scraped the spluttering contents into a dish and set it on the table. Then the children climbed into chairs, side by side, clutching the edge of the table with their little fingers. Mrs. Koerner let Gusta draw up her rocking-chair, leaned over, resting her fat forearms on the table, holding her fork in her fist, and ate, using her elbow as a fulcrum.

When the meal was done, Mrs. Koerner began to rock again, the children stood about and watched Gusta pile the dishes on the table and cover them with the red cloth, and then, when she told them they must go to bed, they protested, crying that father had not come home yet. Their eyes were heavy and their flaxen heads were nodding, and Gusta dragged them into a room that opened off the kitchen, and out of the dark could be heard their small voices, protesting sleepily that they were not sleepy.

After a while a quick, regular step was heard outside, some one stamped the snow from his boots, the door opened, and Archie entered. His face was drawn and flaming from the cold, and there was shrinking in his broad military shoulders; a shiver ran through his well-set-up figure; he wore no overcoat; he keenly felt the exposure to weather he was so unused to. He flung aside his gray felt soldier's hat–the same he had worn in the Philippines–strode across the room, bent over the stove and warmed his red fingers.

"It's a long hike over to the hospital this cold night," he said, turning to Gusta and smiling. His white teeth showed in his smile, and the skin of his face was red and parched. He flung a chair before the stove, sat down, hooked one heel on its rung, and taking some little slips of rice paper from his pocket, and a bag of tobacco, began rolling himself a cigarette. He rolled the cigarette swiftly and deftly, lighted it, and inhaled the smoke eagerly. Gusta, meanwhile, sat looking at him in a sort of suppressed impatience. Then, the smoke stealing from his mouth with each word he uttered, he said:

"Well, they've cut the old man's leg off."

Gusta and the neighbor women looked at Archie in silence. Mrs. Koerner seemed unable to grasp the full meaning of what he had said.

"Was sagst du?" she asked, leaning forward anxiously.

"Sie haben sein Bein amputiert," replied Archie.

"Sein Bein–was?" inquired Mrs. Koerner.

"What the devil's 'cut off'?" asked Archie, turning to Gusta.

She thought a moment.

"Why," she said, "let's see. Abgeschnitten, I guess."

"Je's," said Archie impatiently, "I wish she'd cut out the Dutch!"

Then he turned toward his mother and speaking loudly, as if she were deaf, as one always speaks who tries to make himself understood in a strange tongue:

"Sie haben sein Bein abgeschnitten–die Doctoren im Hospital."

Mrs. Koerner stared at her son, and Archie and Gusta and the two women sat and stared at her, then suddenly Mrs. Koerner's expression became set, meaningless and blank, her eyes slowly closed and her body slid off the chair to the floor. Archie sprang toward her and tried to lift her. She was heavy even for his strong arms, and he straightened an instant, and shouted out commands:

"Open the door, you! Gusta, get some water!"

One of the women lumbered across the kitchen and flung wide the door, Gusta got a dipper of water and splashed it in her mother's face. The cold air rushing into the overheated kitchen and the cool water revived the prostrate woman; she opened her eyes and looked up, sick and appealing. Archie helped her to her chair and stood leaning over her. Gusta, too, bent above her, and the two women pressed close.

"Stand back!" shouted Archie peremptorily. "Give her some air, can't you?"

The two women slunk back–not without glances of reproach at Archie. He stood looking at his mother a moment, his hands resting on his hips. He was still smoking his cigarette, tilting back his head and squinting his eyes to escape the smoke. Gusta was fanning her mother.

"Do you feel better?" she asked solicitously.

"Ja," said Mrs. Koerner, but she began to shake her head.

"Oh, it's all right, ma," Archie assured her. "It's the best place for him. Why, they'll give him good care there. I was in the hospital a month already in Luzon."

The old woman was unconvinced and shook her head. Then Archie stepped close to her side.

"Poor old mother!" he said, and he touched her brow lightly, caressingly. She looked at him an instant, then turned her head against him and cried. The tears began to roll down Gusta's cheeks, and Archie squinted his eyes more and more.

"We'd better get her to bed," he said softly, and glanced at the two women with a look of dismissal. They still sat looking on at this effect of the disaster, not altogether curiously nor without sympathy, yet claiming all the sensation they could get out of the situation. When Archie and Gusta led Mrs. Koerner to her bed, the two women began talking rapidly to each other in German, criticizing Archie and the action of the authorities in taking Koerner to the hospital.