Steel: And Other Stories Read online

“Does Sanna Claus love me?” Richard asked.

  Ken’s chest labored with forced breathing. “Yes, yes,” he said, “he—does.” The man just stood there staring up at the sky, both hands deep in the pockets of his old checked overcoat, as if he were waiting for his wife to come out of the department store. But he wasn’t. Ken’s fingers grew rigid on the keys. His legs felt like heavy wood carrying him closer to the man.

  I won’t do it, he thought suddenly. He’d walk right by the man, take Richard to see Santa Claus, return to the car, go home, forget about it. He felt incapable and without strength. Helen alone in the Ford, sitting beside their Christmas packages, waiting for her husband and son to return. The thought sent strange electric pricklings through his body. I just won’t do it. He heard the words as if someone were speaking them in his mind. I just won’t—

  His hand was growing cold and numb on the keys as, unconscious of it, he cut off the flow of blood to his fingers.

  He had to do it; it was the only way. He wasn’t going to return to the nerve-knotting frustration that was his present, the dreary expanse that was his future. Interior rages were poisoning him. For his own health it had to be done, for what was left of his life.

  They reached the end of the aisle and walked past the man.

  Richard cried, “Daddy, you dropped the keys!”

  “Come on!” He pulled at Richard’s hand, forcing himself not to look back over his shoulder.

  “But you did, Daddy!”

  “I said—!”

  Ken’s voice broke off abruptly as Richard pulled away from him and ran to where the ring of keys lay on the asphalt. He stared with helpless eyes at the man who hadn’t budged from his place. The man appeared to shrug, but Ken couldn’t see what his expression was beneath the wide hat brim.

  Richard came running back with the keys. “Here, Daddy.”

  Ken slid them into his topcoat pocket with shaking fingers, a sick dismay twisting his insides. It won’t work, he thought, feeling both an agony of disappointment and an agony of wrenching guilt.

  “Say thank you,” Richard said, taking his father’s hand again.

  Ken stood motionless in indecision, still holding on to the keys in his pocket. Empathic muscle tension pulled him toward the man, but he knew he couldn’t go to him. Richard would see.

  “Let’s go, Daddy,” Richard urged.

  Ken turned away quickly, his face a painted mask as he started for the store. He felt dizzy, without feeling. It’s over! he thought in bitter fury, over!

  “Say thank you, Daddy.”

  “Will you—!” The sound of his voice startled him and he trapped the hysterical surge of words behind pressed, trembling lips. Richard was silent. He glanced cautiously at his taut-faced father.

  They were halfway to the store entrance when the man in the checked overcoat brushed past Ken.

  “’Scuse it,” muttered the man, and apparently by accident his arm brushed roughly against the pocket where the keys were, indicating that he wanted and was ready to receive them.

  Then the man was past them, walking in jerky strides toward the store. Ken watched him go, feeling as if his head were being compressed between two hands, the palms contoured to his skull. It’s not over, he thought. He didn’t even know whether he was glad it wasn’t. He saw the man stop and turn before one of the glass doors that flanked the revolving door. Now, he told himself, it has to be now. He took out the keys again.

  “I wanna go that way, Daddy!” Richard was tugging him toward the revolving door which spun shoppers into the crowded din or out into the silent chill of night.

  “It’s too crowded,” he heard himself say, but it was someone else speaking. It’s my future, he kept thinking, my future.

  “It’s not crowded, Daddy!”

  He didn’t argue. He jerked Richard toward the side door. And as he pulled the door open with the keys in his hand, he felt them grabbed from his fingers.

  Then, in a second, he and Richard were in the noisome brightness of the store, and it was done.

  Ken didn’t look over his shoulder, but he knew the man was walking back into the dark lot now, back toward the aisle where the Ford was parked.

  For one horrible instant, he felt as if he were going to make an outcry. A great sickness rushed up through his body, and he almost yelled and dashed back into the night after the man. No, I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want it done! In that instant, everything he hated about Helen and his life with her seemed to vanish, and all he could remember was that she was going to drive the car to the front of the store so he and Richard wouldn’t have to walk back across the cold, wind-swept lot.

  But then Richard had pulled him into the warmth and the noise and the milling press of shoppers and he was walking along dizzily, moving deeper into the store. Chimes were playing from the second-floor balcony—Joy to the world, the Lord has come. She’d said that. He felt dizzy and ill; sweat began trickling across his forehead. He couldn’t go back now.

  He stopped in the middle of the floor and leaned against a pillar, his legs feeling as if they’d turned to water. It’s too late, he thought, too late. There was nothing he could do now.

  “I wanna see Sanna Claus, Daddy.”

  Breath faltered through his parted lips. “Yes,” he said, nodding feebly. “All right.”

  He tried to move along without thinking but found that impossible. His thoughts were flashing visual images. The man walking down the wide aisle toward the Ford. The man checking the miniature license plate on the key ring to make sure he got the right car. The man’s face as it had been that night in the Main Street bar—thin, pale, corrupted. A whimper started in Ken’s throat, but he cut it off. Helen, his thought said with anguish.

  THIS WAY TO SANTA’S MAGIC HOUSE! He started numbly toward the down escalator, Richard skipping and wriggling beside him, whispering in breathless excitement, “Sanna Claus, Sanna Claus.” What would Richard feel when his mother was—

  All right!—he forced a strengthening rage through himself—if he had to think, he’d think about the future, not this. He hadn’t planned all this just to collapse into useless infirmity when it came about. There was reason behind the act; it wasn’t just a thoughtless viciousness.

  They stepped onto the escalator. Richard’s hand was tight in his, but he hardly felt it. South America and Rita—he’d think about that. Twenty-five thousand dollars insurance money; the girl he’d wanted at college and never stopped wanting; a future without the debasing struggle to stay one jump ahead of creditors. Freedom, simple pleasures and a relationship that wouldn’t be eroded away by the abrasion of petty existence.

  The up escalator angled past them, and Ken glanced at the shoppers’ faces—tired, irritable, happy, blank. It came upon a midnight clear, the chimes began to play. He stared straight ahead, thinking about Rita and South America. Thinking about that made everything a lot easier.

  Now the chimes faded and were swallowed in a raucous glee club blaring of “Jingle Bells.” Richard began skipping excitedly as they stepped off the escalator, and Ken suddenly found himself thinking about Helen again. Jingle all the way!

  “There ’e is!” Richard cried, pulling frantically. “There!”

  “All right, all right!” Ken muttered under his breath as they moved toward the line that shuffled toward Santa’s Magic House.

  Had it happened yet? That contracting of stomach muscle again. Was the man in the car? Was Helen unconscious in back? Was the man driving across the lot toward dark side streets where he’d—?

  Don’t worry. The man’s last words to him were like a flame searing his mind. Don’t worry. I’ll make it look good.

  Look good, look good, look good, look good. The words thumped on in his thoughts as he and Richard moved slowly toward the house of Santa Claus. One hundred down, nine hundred to follow—the price of one medium-sized wife.

  Ken shut his eyes suddenly and felt himself shivering as if it were cold in the store instead of unbearably stuf
fy. His head ached. Drops of sweat trickled down from his arm pits, feeling like insects on his flesh. It’s too late, he thought, realizing that part of the tension he’d felt since entering the store had been the struggle with his impulse to rush back to the car to stop the man.

  But, as you say—he heard a quiet voice whispering in his mind—it’s too late.

  “What shall I tell Sanna, Daddy?” Richard asked.

  Ken looked down bleakly at his five-year-old son and thought, he’ll be better off with Helen’s mother—a lot better off. I can’t—

  “What shall I, Daddy?”

  He tried to smile, and for a moment he even managed to visualize himself as a gallant man bearing up under a terrible burden that fate had put on his shoulders.

  “Tell him—what you want for Christmas,” he said. “Tell him you’ve been a—a good boy and … what you want for Christmas. That’s all.”

  “But how?”

  The vision had already faded; he knew exactly what he was and what he’d done.

  “How should I know?” he snapped angrily. “Look, if you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to.”

  A man in front of them turned and shook his head at Ken with a wry smile that seemed to say, I know what you’re going through, buddy. Ken’s smile in return was little more than a slight, mirthless twitching of the lips. Oh, God, I’ve got to get out of here, he thought miserably. How can I stand here while—

  Breath labored in his lungs. It was what he had to do. It was the plan and it had to be carried out. He wasn’t going to spoil it now with stupid histrionics.

  If only he could be with Rita, though, in her apartment, beside her. But it was impossible. He’d settle for a drink, a stiff one. Anything to break the tension.

  They pushed open the white gate and it set off a record of a man’s booming laughter. Ken jumped and looked around. The laughter sounded insane to him. He tried not to listen, but it surrounded him, dinning in his ears.

  Then the gate closed behind them and the laughter stopped. He heard a thin voice piping over the PA system, I wiss you a mehwy Cwiss-muss an’ a Happ-ee New Year.

  I’ll make it look good.

  Ken released Richard. He rubbed his damp palm against his coat. Richard tried to take his hand again, but Ken jerked his hand away so savagely that Richard looked frightened and puzzled.

  No. No, I can’t act this way, Ken heard the instruction in his mind. Richard might be asked questions, questions like How did your daddy act when you were in the store together? He took Richard’s hand and managed to force a smile.

  “Almost there,” he said. The calmness of his voice shocked him. I tell you I don’t know how I lost the keys. I had them in my pocket when I went in the store; I’m sure of it. That’s all I know. Are you trying to imply that—?

  No! ALL WRONG. No matter what they intimated he must never let them know he understood. Shocked, dazed, hardly capable of coherence—that was the way he’d have to be. A man who had taken his son to see Santa Claus, who had been told the next day that they’d found his wife still in the car.

  I’ll make it look—Why couldn’t he forget that!

  The Santa Claus was sitting in a high-backed chair on the porch of the magic house—magic because it changed color every fifteen seconds. He was a fat, middle-aged man with a chuckling voice who held children on his lap a few moments, spoke the formula words, then put the children down, one peppermint stick richer, patted them on the rear and said goodbye and Merry Christmas.

  When Richard came on the porch, Santa Claus picked him up and set him on his broad, red-knickered lap. Ken stood on the bottom step, feeling dizzy in the warmth of the store, staring, dull-eyed, at the red-rouged face, the dreadfully false whiskers.

  “Well, sonny,” said Santa Claus, “have you been a good boy this year?”

  Richard tried to answer, but speech stuck in his throat. Ken saw him nod, flushing nervously. He’ll be better off with Helen’s mother. I can’t do right by him. I’d just—

  His eyes strained into focus on the red, whiskered face. “What?”

  “I say has this boy been good this year?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes. Very good.”

  “Well,” said Santa Claus, “old Santa is glad to hear that. Very glad. And what would you like for Christmas, sonny?”

  Ken stood there, motionless, sweat soaking into his shirt while the faint voice of his son droned on endlessly, itemizing toys he wanted. The porch seemed to waver before his eyes. I’m sick, he thought. I’ve got to get out of here and get some fresh air. Helen, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I … just couldn’t do it any other way, don’t you see?

  Then Richard came down the steps with his peppermint stick, and they started toward the escalator.

  “Sanna said I’ll get ev’rything I ast,” Richard told him.

  Ken nodded jerkily, reaching into his suit coat pocket for a handkerchief. Maybe the people wouldn’t think it was perspiration he was wiping from his cheeks. Maybe they’d think he was overcome with emotion because it was Christmas and he loved Christmas and that’s why there were tears on his face.

  “I’m gonna tell Mama,” Richard said.

  “Yes.” His voice was barely audible. We’ll go out and walk back to where the car was parked. We’ll look around a while. Then I’ll call the police.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What, Daddy?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  The escalator lifted them toward the main floor. The glee club started singing “Jingle Bells” again. Ken stood behind Richard and stared down at his blond hair. This is the part that counts most, he told himself. What went before was just time consumption.

  He’d have to act surprised on the telephone, irritated. A little concerned, maybe, but not too much. A man wouldn’t panic under such circumstances. Normally, a man wouldn’t conceive that his wife’s disappearance meant—Behind them the recorded laughter boomed faintly over the glee club’s singing.

  He tried to erase his mind as if it were a blackboard, but words kept forming there. Be a little concerned, a little irritated, a—

  —We’re not implying anything Mister Burns. Abruptly, they were at him again. We’re just saying that twenty-five thousand is a lot of insurance.

  Look! His face tightened as he flared back at them. It’s something we believed in, see? I’m insured for twenty-five thousand, too, you know. You forget that.

  It was his biggest point. The insurance had been in effect less than a year, but at least they were both equally insured.

  He scuffed his shoe toe at the top of the escalator and found himself back in the store again, walking beside his son toward the doors which would revolve them into the night. A thin current of air fluttered his trouser cuffs. He felt the chill on his ankles. We’ll look around a while, then I’ll—

  It came over him. He didn’t know how, but suddenly he couldn’t leave the store. Suddenly he was standing in front of a counter, staring down intently at handkerchiefs and ties. He felt Richard’s eyes on him and he was admonishing himself, I mustn’t look upset! I didn’t plan all this just to break down at the last minute!

  Rita. South America. Money. It was good to think about the future. He’d known that all along, and yet he’d allowed himself to forget. The future was what was important, Rita and he together in South America.

  There, that was better. He took in a long, faltering breath of warm air. The hands in his coat pockets unknotted.

  “Come on,” he said, and this time he was grimly pleased at the calmness of his voice. “Let’s go.”

  As he took Richard’s hand, the closing gong sounded above the organ playing “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Perfect timing, he told himself. Nine p.m., Monday night. We’ll go out to where the Ford was parked; then I’ll call the police.

  But should he call the police? A momentary touch of panic startled him. Wouldn’t he, normally, think that maybe Helen had gotten angry and—

  I thought she’d gott
en angry and driven home without us. No, she’s never done anything like it before. Anyway we went home by bus, my son and I, but my wife wasn’t there. And I don’t know where she is. Yes, I checked at her mother’s house. No, that’s our only relative in the city.

  They had pushed through the doorway now and were back outside. Ken looked straight across the car-filled lot as they moved away from the store. He couldn’t feel the grip of Richard’s hand in his. All he could feel was his heartbeat, leaping—like something imprisoned—at the wall of his chest. Well, I wonder where Mother went, he imagined himself saying to Richard when they’d reach the place where the Ford had been parked. Where’s Mama? would be Richard’s reply. Then there would be the wait, calling the police finally. No, she’s never done anything like this, his mind ticked on, unbidden. I assumed she was angry and had gone home, but when my son and I got home she wasn’t there.

  For a moment, he thought that he had died, that his heart had ceased to beat. He felt as if he’d been turned to stone. The wind blew coldly into his stricken face.

  “Come on, Daddy,” Richard said, tugging at him.

  He didn’t move. He stood looking at the car, Helen sitting in it.

  “I’m cold, Daddy.”

  He found himself walking, moving with a dazed, somnambulistic tread. Intelligence would not return to him. He could only stare at the car and at Helen and suffer a twisting sickness in his stomach. His head felt light and fragile, as if it were about to float off. Only the impact of his footsteps that jarred consciousness through him held the parts of his body together. His eyes were set unmovingly on the car. He knew a great, warm surge of relief. Helen was looking at him.

  He pulled open the door.

  “It’s about time you got back,” she said.

  He couldn’t speak. Trembling, he pushed the seat forward and Richard clambered into the back.

  “Come on, come on. Let’s get out of here,” Helen said.

  Ken slid his hand into his coat pocket and with the act remembered.

  “Well?” she said.

  “I—I—can’t find the keys.” He patted feebly at his pockets. “Had them with me when—”