676
THALIA SELZ
check on the fate
of
all those "exhibits,"
and
Joshua didn't know
about them.
Mother said Joshua looked very queer when he arrived back
from the police station. She said he looked the way he did four
months before when my father first dragged
him
home to supper.
She saw to it that he didn't go down to the basement but gave
him a sedative with orange juice (Mother didn't really approve
of sedatives and thought that swallowing them with the aid of
orange juice somehow made them morally acceptable), and sent
him
to bed on the parlor couch. When I slunk in-at ten o'clock,
unheard of during the week-all she said was,
"Oh, where have
you
been?" And then, "What a time we've
had!" And shut me in the kitchen with her to tell me all. I sat
there on the hospital-white kitchen stool, utterly condemned
by
myself, but I felt it would be even worse to confess.
Joshua slept through breakfast, and Mother phoned his job
to say he was sick and not coming in that day. I took one
peek
at him, lying there in his faded pajamas like a pauper on
his
slab,
before running off to school and I have never
been
able really
to gloze over that memory. I think right then I died a little without
knowing that was what I was doing. I walked to school abstractedly
and on the way I decided that "it would be better to forget about
it." And by virtue of a prodigious effort I really forgot
him
off
and on during the day.
While I was working at forgetting, my father went to see
Vasiliki and quickly persuaded her to drop the case. She appeared
eager to talk to him and took both his scolding and advice without
a murmur. She said she had been "frightened" and mistaken,"
and she cried "pathetically" (his word) on his shoulder. For a
lawyer he could occasionally be fairly obtuse. They drove together
to the police station, and my father asked for the boxes. The
harassed sergeant, glad to make an end of the matter, said he
would send them to the house in a patrol wagon. My father then
went to
his
office.
By the time Joshua waked, my mother was able to tell
him
that everything was all right. He washed, shaved, and ate a
good
breakfast; he seemed cheerful enough, Mother said, though
per-
