Presence Read online

  He kept his eyes on the half-dark face of his father, waiting. But his father, alarmed as he looked, did not speak; he was there merely holding on to Martin’s arm, communicating some new, unfathomable thought. And Martin in his silence pleaded with his father to speak, but his father did not.

  “What’s the matter, darling? It’s all right. Nothing happened. Say something. Say ‘boy.’ Can you say ‘boy’?”

  The root of his tongue was turning icy. With his mind groping inside his mouth he could hear her voice only distantly, and her faraway quality made it easier for him not to answer her. Unable to answer back, he felt strangely relieved of all thought and strategy. A remoteness from all of them, and from his own feelings, set him afloat, and unawares he grasped the powers of invisibility—he had no doubt he was on his bed, but nobody could get mad at him when he could not reply to their demands, and his enforced silence gave him a new, smoothed-out view that was cleared of the necessity to be thinking at every instant what he should or should not say next. All of a sudden in his life nothing seemed to be happening, and everything was about to happen. Beauty seemed to be forming around him, all of them gently rising and falling together in an imminence, an about-to-be that was like an unsung but audible singing. The distance his mother fearfully kept struck him as vaguely respectful, and his father’s hand on his arm held some kind of new promise he could not understand. His mother continued asking him to speak, and he heard Ben’s voice too, and under their words a pleasantly steady astonishment at him that carried no blame. Had he broken his tongue? he wondered. Oddly it did not terrify him but only held him in suspense, and there was no pain.

  He felt time passing and passing, and there was still no anger in them, only a worried curiosity, which he felt was gradually bringing him a little closer to them—until there was something quite new for him in this half darkness, a new sense forming in him of his own truthfulness. The fact was spreading through his mind that this was a wonder they had all discovered at the same moment as he had. It was not something he had half made up and half believed, it was a real happening that had overcome him and yet was astounding to them too. They were all sharing the single belief together, and this sudden unity, fusing them without warning, burned away his sense of having secrets. He felt supported in space, with them suspended around him, and in this moment there was no Mama or Papa or Ben but three congealments of warmth embracing him with no thoughts of their own. And it seemed to him now that this was all he had been trying to find, this was actual and perfect, while everything else, the whole past of arguments and fights and smiles and shouts, was a dream.

  She was telling him to try to close his lips now and say “b.” But a secret winter seemed to have frozen his upper lip, and he could not bring it down. Something strange moved in the moonlight, and he peered to see his father biting on his lower lip. He had never seen him distort his face like that. He watched. Papa, half green in the moonlight, was looking down at him, biting hard on his lip, and his one illuminated eye was oddly widened with fury. The rising and falling steadied and then stopped. Warmth began to flow into Martin’s tongue, and his own lip was getting less stiff. He felt fear flowing into his chest. Papa’s hand was now gripping his arm, through which he could sense a living power in his father’s great body. A thunder seemed to be gathering, expanding his father, infuriating him, like a whole sky suddenly drawing a storm into itself. A popping sound burst from Martin’s lips, and his neck prickled with a sudden sweat. He saw himself swept away now, flung outward into the night like a lump of cloth. “Papa!” he cried, backing into his pillow.

  “He’s all right!” his mother’s voice screamed, startling him. He could hear her hurrying toward him alongside the bed, saw her arms reaching toward him, and fright broke his silence. “Mama!” he sobbed, and she fell on him, kissing him frantically, calling into his face, “Yes, yes, speak, my baby, speak! He’s all right!” Her thankfulness, so unexpectedly pure, swept him out of the reach of the punishment he had expected a moment before; her oneness with him blotted out his last thought, and he seemed to swim with her effortlessly through light. She was weeping now and stood erect, looking down at him, her hands clasped prayerfully together.

  And once again now Martin saw his father, and he saw that he was not happy, not thankful, but just as he had been a moment before. And he heard his father’s voice before he heard his words, like thunder rumbling before it speaks with a crash. “Gaaaaooodammit!”

  Mama swerved to look at him.

  “When are you going to stop bothering him!” he bellowed into her face.

  “I—?” she started to defend herself.

  “You bother him and bother him till you drive him crazy!” The rumbling was sharpening now, forming the burning white crash, and Martin stiffened against its burst, his brain thrilling to the howl of winds that seemed to be hurling across the darkened air. “So he spills a little soup! Goddammit, how’s he gonna learn if he don’t spill something!”

  “I only—” she started weakly.

  “You ‘only’!” Oh, he wouldn’t let her even explain! He saw, astonished, that Papa’s anger was not at all against him! And how frightened she was, standing there, facing him with her hands still clasped in prayer. His father’s thunder hit the earth now, and he could not hear the words, but his mother’s fright gave him their message—her fright and Ben’s lowered eyes. Both of them were getting it now, both of them being pressed farther and farther from Papa’s love.

  “You can’t treat a boy that way,” he was saying more quietly now, more sternly. “If he can’t eat, don’t give him a spoon; if he can eat, stop bothering him.” She did not dare answer now. Papa moved about, towering over her. “I’m no professor, but that’s no way,” he said. “No way. You’re killing yourself and everybody else.”

  “I was only trying to—”

  “Stop trying so much!” he roared out, with the moon over his ear. “Now, come. Let him sleep. Come on.” Breathing angrily, he made a commanding gesture with his open hand, and she started for the door. She hesitated, wanting, Martin knew, to kiss him good night, but instead she obediently walked past Papa and went out of the room, and Martin felt her chastised happiness as she silently vanished.

  Now Papa turned to him and said sternly as before, “Less tricks now. Listen to her when she tells you, y’hear?”

  “Yes, Papa,” Martin whispered, his love choking off his voice.

  Papa reached down. Martin stiffened against a blow, but his father gently straightened his blanket a little and walked out of the room.

  For a moment Martin forgot entirely that Ben was still there at the end of his bed. A conviction of valor had come alive in his soul; it felt almost as though he had fasted all day at his father’s side, and he was braced by the echoes of that deep voice which had so suddenly smashed the air in his defense. And in a moment he almost believed that he had been the roarer himself; in his mind he imitated the sounds and the expression in his angry father’s face and quickly had them exactly for his own. Purified and wanting to act anew, he wished for morning and the chance to walk in daylight beside his father and possibly meet someone and hear his father say, “This is my son.” His son! For the first time in his life he had the hard, imperishable awareness of descent, and with it the powers of one who knows he is being watched over and so receives a trust he must never lay down. In his mind’s eye there rushed past the image of his angry father, and behind Papa was Grandpa and then other men, all grave and bearded, watching over him and somehow expecting and being gratified at the renewal of their righteousness and bravery in him. And in the warmth of their commending nods he began to slide into sleep.

  A loud sob woke him. He raised up quickly. Ben! He looked into the darkness for his brother, whom he had forgotten, wanting to tell him—it didn’t matter what he would tell him—he merely had nothing to hide any more and he wanted to reach out to his brother.

  �
��Ben?” Unaccountably Ben was not at the end of the bed any more. Martin waited. Again, but softly now, he heard him weeping. How could Ben be sad? he wondered.

  “Ben?” he called again. The weeping continued, remote, self-sufficient, and it reached Martin, who felt himself being pushed away. Suddenly he saw that Ben was sitting right next to him, facing him from across the aisle that separated their beds. He was fully dressed.

  “What’s the matter?” Martin asked.

  Moonlight illuminated one cheek and the corner of an eye; the rest of Ben’s face was lost in the darkness. Martin could not tell what expression Ben had, and he waited for Ben to speak with only curiosity and no fear. But now he could hear his brother’s irregular breathing, and even though he could not remember any sin he had done he felt condemnation gathering in the long silence.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  In a voice broken by mourning Ben said, “How could you say a thing like that?”

  “Don’t cry,” Martin began to plead. But Ben sat there crying into his hands. “They’re sleeping!” he cautioned nobly. But Ben wept even more strongly at the mention of their parents, and Martin’s fear found him again; and his old sense of his secrets came evilly alive in him once more.

  “Don’t cry like that!”

  He quickly slid off his bed and bent over to see up into his brother’s face. Panic was opening a space at his elbows. “I didn’t mean it, Ben. Please!” And yet he still did not know what had been so terrible in what he had said, and his not knowing in itself was a mark of his badness.

  Suddenly he reached out to draw Ben’s hands down from his face, but Ben pulled himself away and lay over on his bed with his back to Martin. A swirl of clouds, ocean depths, and bearded secrets flowed out of Ben’s back and swept around Martin’s head. Soundlessly he crept back into his bed. “I’ll never say it again. I promise,” he offered.

  But Ben did not reply. Even his sobs were quieting. He waited, but Ben did not accept his promise, and in his brother’s silence he saw that he had been cast away. Lying there with his eyes open to the darkness, he saw that even though Papa had yelled out for his sake, it was because Papa did not understand, as Ben did, how bad he was. Papa was innocent so he defended him. But Ben knew.

  He could not lie there. He sat up and sniffed loudly to see if Ben would turn to him, but Ben was motionless, quiet. Was he falling asleep in his clothes? This disruption of age-old order spread Martin’s vision, and he remembered that the dining room must still be full of his wreckage. How wonderful it would be if he slipped out there and cleaned up without a sound, and in the morning they would all be amazed and love him!

  His feet were on the floor. Ben still did not move. He bent low and tiptoed out of the bedroom, his hands stretched out in the empty black air.

  In the dining room there was no moonlight, and he moved inch by inch for fear of noise. His hand touched the table, and he stretched his hands out. It was all bare. Only now he remembered it precisely as it had been, and he heard the great crashing for the first time, and the reality of his badness was like a blow on his face. He got down on his knees, fiercely resolved to clean up. His knee descended on a pear and squashed it, repelling him. He sat down to clean off his knee and felt cold meat under him and jumped; it was a chicken leg. Keeping his knees off the floor, he went on all fours away from the table to escape a rising feeling of disgust. At the front window he stood up and looked out and saw a wonder. A silvery greenish glow was hanging over the macadam street.

  He had never seen such bright moonlight. It even glistened on windows across the street. In the silence he heard a faint high ringing in his ears, like insects. His eyes swallowed the mysterious glow outside, and in a moment he no longer knew what had brought him out here. A sense of newness was upon him; things to do that he had never done before. It was a secret moment suddenly; with no one watching everything was up to him. No one knew he was standing here, and he had never before been walking around when everyone was asleep. He could even go outside! The illicit freedom exhilarated him—to go outside and be the only one awake in the world! His hand reached up and turned the key in the front door and it opened, surprising him a little. Looking out through the screening, he felt how warm the air was. Now he heard the new gentleness of the falling surf, and he opened the screen door enough to look out to the left, and then he walked onto the porch and faced the ocean. It was flattened out, all the roughness of the preceding days melted away. God was gone?

  The magical new calm of the ocean sucked at his mind. When no one was looking God had shot up out of the water with a rush of foam; and when the water had fallen back the waves flattened out and the sea was at rest. God had waited there until they had thrown in their sins, and He had taken them up with Him, leaving the water clean and hairless. How wonderful it was that Papa and the other men knew what to do about God! How to pray to Him and when to throw their sins to Him and when to go home and eat. Papa, and Ben too, with the others, had an understanding with Him and knew what was supposed to happen next and what He wanted them to do.

  Facing the glistening beach, the salt-white sand that stretched before him like a sky to walk on and the moon’s green river flowing on the ocean toward his eyes, he yearned to know what he should do for God, as the others knew. His body stretched as with a mute vow, a pure wish that quickly changed to fact; as when he had stood up and sat down with the congregation in the synagogue, not knowing why but satisfied to be joined with others in sheer obedience, he now vowed obedience to the sea, the moon, the starry beach, and the sky, and the silence that stretched its emptiness all around him. What exactly its command was he did not know, but an order was coming to him from the night, and he was grateful, and it made him better and no longer quite alone. He felt, without any sense of the details, that secretly, unknown to anyone but known to the night, he was the guardian of Ben’s and his parents’ innocence. Vaguely he felt that with some words which he knew were somewhere in his head he had almost sent them all screaming and roaring at one another and at him, so that—had he said what he could say, they would all be horrified at the mere sight of one another and there would be a terror of crashing. He must keep them from that knowledge, and he knew this and received it like water when he was thirsty, with placid eyes and an inner attention and pleasure, with a yearning that was more than knowledge.

  Suddenly he felt exhausted. Sleep was felling him as he stood there holding on to the railing. He held his hand out past the eaves of the porch roof and felt the moonlight. It wasn’t warm! Now, washing both his hands in it, he searched for its heat and texture, but it felt no different than darkness. He put his moon-touched hands to his face to feel, but no warmth came out of them. He raised up and tried to lean out over the rail to put his face into the moonlight, but he couldn’t reach. With his eyelids heavy he walked unsteadily to the low stoop and went down and walked to the corner of the house, where the beach began, and moved out of the house’s shadow into the open moonlight. As he looked up, the light blinded him, and he sat suddenly, falling back on his stiffened arms; then his elbows gave way, and he lay down on the sand.

  With the last darkening corner of his mind he sought to feel his face warming, and slowly it was. His eyelids first, then the bridge of his nose, then his mouth, were feeling the spread of the moon’s heat. He saw his brother and his father and his mother and how he would tell that the moonlight was so warm!—and he heard their laughter at the impossibility, their laughter that was like a gate keeping him out of their world, and even as he felt angry and ashamed and big-eared he was their protector now. He would let them laugh and not believe him, while secretly, unknown to anyone but the eyes that watched everything from the sea, he would by the power of his silence keep them from badness and harm. In league with rule, in charge of the troubled peace, he slept in the strength of his ministry.

  The breeze cooled him, and soon the sand chilled his back, but he summoned mo
re heat from the moonlight and quickly he was warmed. Sinking down, he swam through the deepest sea and held his breath so long that as he came up with the sunlight bursting from his hair he knew he would astonish everybody.

  [1959]

  Monte Sant’ Angelo

  The driver, who had been sitting up ahead in perfect silence for nearly an hour as they crossed the monotonous green plain of Foggia, now said something. Appello quickly leaned forward in the back seat and asked him what he had said. “That is Monte Sant’ Angelo before you.” Appello lowered his head to see through the windshield of the rattling little Fiat. Then he nudged Bernstein, who awoke resentfully, as though his friend had intruded. “That’s the town up there,” Appello said. Bernstein’s annoyance vanished, and he bent forward. They both sat that way for several minutes, watching the approach of what seemed to them a comically situated town, even more comic than any they had seen in the four weeks they had spent moving from place to place in the country. It was like a tiny old lady living on a high roof for fear of thieves.

  The plain remained as flat as a table for a quarter of a mile ahead. Then out of it, like a pillar, rose the butte; squarely and rigidly skyward it towered, only narrowing as it reached its very top. And there, barely visible now, the town crouched, momentarily obscured by white clouds, then appearing again tiny and safe, like a mountain port looming at the end of the sea. From their distance they could make out no road, no approach at all up the side of the pillar.

  “Whoever built that was awfully frightened of something,” Bernstein said, pulling his coat closer around him. “How do they get up there? Or do they?”

  Appello, in Italian, asked the driver about the town. The driver, who had been there only once before in his life and knew no other who had made the trip—despite his being a resident of Lucera, which was not far away—told Appello with some amusement that they would soon see how rarely anyone goes up or comes down Monte Sant’ Angelo. “The donkeys will kick and run away as we ascend, and when we come into the town everyone will come out to see. They are very far from everything. They all look like brothers up there. They don’t know very much either.” He laughed.