360
PARTISAN REVIEW
and he saw them open a gate, let it swing back, and go together into the
house.
Ben was working things out. The house his mother had moved into
away from the big house was small. He remembered her saying, "Big
enough for me and Paul." Which he had understood as
But not big
enough for you too.
If
she had moved again, and to a bigger house, then
that meant the others were there? Or some of them? He knew that they
were all grown-up, but what he remembered was the family growing–
children growing. In his mind was that other house, crammed with chil–
dren, and with people. There wouldn't be room for a lot of people in
this house....He had to simmer down, become calm, lose the need to
kill: he walked off around the block, came back, walked about some
more, returned, and the front of this new house seemed as blank as an
unfriendly face. Then he saw his father walk fast along the pavement.
He could have seen Ben by raising his eyes, but he was frowning, pre–
occupied, and did not look up. Ben knew he could not loiter there for
much longer. People noticed, they were always on the watch, even when
you thought you saw only blank walls and windows, there were eyes
when you did not expect them. He walked around the block again and
this time saw Luke going into the house. With him was a small child:
the idea that Luke was a father was too much to take in. He was think–
ing that the family were here, together-his family. He could go in and
say, "Here I am." And then? He knew they had split up because of him,
they quarrelled about him. Only his mother had stood by him. She had
come to
that place
where they kept hoses of freezing water coming at
him and had taken him home....But the others had wanted him to stay
there, wanted him dead.
It was getting dark. The street lights were out. Friendly night was
here. But at night you did not linger too long on a pavement outside a
house. He walked past the house, whose lights softly shone at him,
Come in,
and walked back again. He could hear the sounds that meant
television. He could go in and sit down and watch the TV with them.
And as he thought this he clearly saw how Paul would scream that he
could not stay in the same room with him, he saw his father's cold face
that always seemed to be turned away from him, Ben. Suppose he just
went in and said to his mother, "Please give me my birth certificate. Just
give it to me and I'll go away." But the rage was pumping up inside him,
because all he could see was Paul, who hated him so much. The anger
was making his fingers twist and curl; the need to be around that thin
neck that would break and crack....
