Part 4 (1/2)

”Yes?” I said. ”I'm afraid I don't understand. What possible objection could Pavlov have to his daughter's going about with Doctor Ashton's well-bred, brilliant and, I might add, handsome son?”

”Please, Bob-” His voice sagged tiredly. ”Please do it. Leave her alone.”

I hesitated thoughtfully. After a long moment, I shrugged.

”Well, all right,” I said. ”If it means that much to you.”

”Thank you. I-”

”I'll leave her alone,” I said, ”whenever I get ready to. Not before.”

He didn't flinch or explode, much to my disappointment. Apparently he'd been partially prepared for the trick. He simply stared at me, hard-eyed, and when he spoke his voice was very, very quiet.

”I have one more thing to say,” he said. ”A considerable quant.i.ty of narcotics is missing from my stock. If I discover any further shortages, I'll see to it that you're punished- imprisoned or inst.i.tutionalized. I'll do it regardless of what it does to me.”

He turned and left.

I sc.r.a.ped up the dishes and carried them out into the kitchen.

Hattie was at the stove, her back turned to me. She stiffened as I went in, then turned part way around, trying to keep an eye on me while appearing occupied with her work.

Hattie is probably thirty-nine or forty now. She isn't as pretty as I remember her as a child-I thought she was the loveliest woman in the world then-but she is still something to take a second look at.

I put the dishes in the sink. I moved along the edge of the baseboard, smiling to myself, watching her neck muscles tighten as I moved out of her range of vision.

I was right behind her before fear forced her to whirl around. She pressed back against the stove, putting her hands out in a pus.h.i.+ng-away gesture.

”Why, mother,” I said. ”What's the matter? You're not afraid of your own darling son, are you?”

”Go 'way!” Her eyes rolled whitely. ”Lea' me alone, you hear?”

”But I just wanted a kiss,” I said. ”Just a kiss from my dear, sweet mother. After all, I haven't had one now, since-well, I was about three, wasn't I? A very long time for a child to go without a kiss from his own mother. I remember being rather heartbroken when-”

”D-don't!” she moaned. ”You don't know nothin' about-Get outta here! I tell doctor on you, an' he-”

”You mean you're not my mother?” I said. ”You're truly not?”

”N-no! I tol' you, ain't I? Ain't nothin', n.o.body! I-I-”

”Well, all right.” I shrugged. ”In that case . .

I grabbed her suddenly, clamped her against me, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, moaned, struggled futilely. She didn't, of course, cry out for help.

”How about it,” I said, ”as long as you're not my mother. Keep it all in the family, huh? What do you say we-”

I let go of her, laughing.

I stepped back, wiping her spittle from my face.

”Why, Hattie,” I said. ”Why on earth did you do a thing like that? All I wanted was-What?” My heart did a painful skip-jump, and there was a choking lump in my throat. ”What? I don't believe I understood you, Hattie.”

She looked at me, lips curled back from her teeth. Eyes narrowed, steady, with contempt. With something beyond contempt, beyond disgust and hatred.

”You hear' me right,” she said. ”You couldn' do nothin'. Couldn' an' never will.”

”Yes?” I said. ”Are you very sure of that, my dearest mother?”

”Huh! Me, I tell you.” She grinned a skull's grin. ”Yeah, I ver' sure, aw right, my deares' son.”

”And it amuses you,” I said. ”Well, I'll tell you, mother. Doubtless it is very funny, but I don't believe we'd better have any further displays of amus.e.m.e.nt. Not that I'd mind killing you, you understand. In fact, I'll probably get around to that eventually. But I have other projects afoot at the moment-more important projects, if I may say so without hurting your feelings-”

She moved suddenly, made a dash for her room. I followed her-it adjoins the kitchen-and leaned absently against the door. The locked door to my mother's room.

The door that had been locked for . . .

Yes, my recollection was right; it is always right. I had been about three the last time she had kissed me, the last time she had cuddled, babied, mother-and-babied me. I would have remembered it, even if I did not have almost total recall. For how could one forget such a fierce outpouring of love, the balm-like, soul-satisfying warmth of it?

Or forget its abrupt, never-to-be-again withdrawal?

Or the stupid, selfish, cruel, bewildering insistence that it had never been?

I was a very silly little boy. I was a very foolish, bad little boy, and I had better pray G.o.d to forgive me. I was not sweets or hon or darlin' or even Bobbie. I was Mister Bobbie-Master Robert. Mistah-Mastah Bobbie, a reborn stranger among strangers.

My continuing illnesses? Psychosomatic. The manifold masques of frustration.

My intelligence? Compensatory. For certainly I inherited none from either of them.

I listened at night, when they thought I was asleep. I asked a few questions, strategically s.p.a.cing them months apart.

She'd had a child; she'd had to wet-nurse me. Where was that child? Dead? Well, where and when had he died? When and where had my mother died?

It was ridiculously simple. Only a matter of putting a few questions to a fatuous imbecile-my father-and an overs.e.xed docile moron, my mother. And listening to them at night. Listening and wanting to shriek with laughter.

He'd be ruined if anyone found out. It would ruin my life, wreck all my chances.

It would be that way if. And what way did the blind, stupid, silly son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h think it was now? What worse way could it be than as it was now?

And, no, it did not need to be that way. Needn't and wouldn't have been for a man with courage and honesty and decency.

I had deduced the truth by the time I was five. Several years later, when I was able to be up and around-to post and receive letters secretly-I proved my deductions.

He, my father, had practiced in only one other state before coming to this one. It had no record of a birth to Mrs. James Ashton, or of the death of said Mrs. Ashton. There was, however, a record of the birth of a son to one Hattie Marie Smith (colored; unmarried; initial birth). And the attending physician was Dr. James Ashton.

Well?

Or perhaps I should say well!

As a matter of fact, I said G.o.ddammit, since the cigarette was scorching my fingers.

I dropped it to the floor, ground it out with my shoe and rapped on my mother's door.