any time, and no one ever complained because, miraculously, Bertha really did the work she was paid for, and had even been known to dust the backs of pictures and the tops of doors.
She appeared now from the kitchen, jamming an ancient felt hat over her tight sausage curls. 'I was just leavin’. There you go, switchin’ on lights allovera place-your bill must be somethin’ sinful! You found out yet who that dead man in the yards was?'
He admitted they had not; and yes, the forces of law were so unreasonable as to have arraigned the society beauty for murder, even after hearing all the excellent reasons she had for shooting her husband. He looked at Bertha thoughtfully (the average mind?) and said, 'Do me a favor, and pretend you’re taking one of those word- association tests, you know, I throw a word at you and you say the first thing that comes into your head-'
'I know, it’s psychological? She looked interested.
'So, I say doll to you-what do you think of?'
'Witches,' said Bertha. 'I just saw a movie about it last night. The witch takes and makes this doll and names it and all, and sticks this big pin right through-'
'I get the general idea,' said Mendoza sadly. 'Thanks very much, that’ll do.' Witches: that was all they needed! When Bertha had slammed the door cheerfully after herself, he took off his coat, brought in the kitchen step-stool, and spent five minutes persuading Bast that it was safe to trust her descent to him. That was one puzzle he would never, probably, solve: she had no trouble getting up there, but hadn’t yet found out how to get down. As usual, she emitted terrified yells as he backed down the steps, and, released, instantly assumed the haughty sangfroid of the never-out-of-countenance sophisticate. She turned her back on him and studied one black paw admiringly before beginning to wash it. There were times Mendoza thought he liked cats because, like himself, they were all great egotists.
'Witches,' he said again to himself, and laughed.
'And you put that coat away tidy where it belongs! On a hanger, not just anyhow. Clothes cost money, how many times I got to tell you, take care of what we got, no tellin’ when we can get new.'
'All right,' said Marty. He got out of bed and picked up the corduroy jacket. He couldn’t take down a hanger and put the jacket on it and hang it over the rod, all with his eyes shut, but he did it fast and he tried not to look down at the floor. She was fussing round the room behind him.
But he couldn’t help seeing it, even if he didn’t look right at it, and anyway, he thought miserably, even if he never opened the closet door, never had to see it, it didn’t change anything-the thing was still there, he’d still know about it.
So did she, and for another reason he only half-understood himself. That was partly why he got the door shut again quick. She might know, alright, but she was different-if she didn’t see it, she could keep from thinking about it. He felt like he was in two separate parts, about that, the way he felt about a lot of things lately-twin Martys, like looking in a mirror. He didn’t see how she could, but in a funny kind of way he didn’t want to make her have to see it-long as she could do like that.
He got back in bed and pulled the covers up. It was just like something was pulling him right in half, like two big black monster-shapes were using him for tug of war. And he had to just lie there, he couldn’t do anything, because she wouldn’t. And even if she was wrong, she was his Ma, and-and She said from the door, 'You be real good now, no horsing round, you go right to sleep.' She sounded just like always.
A funny idea slid into his mind then, the first minute of lying there in the dark-alone with the secret. He wondered if she’d forgot all about it, if maybe now she could look right at it and never really see it at all. Like it was invisible-because she wanted it to be.
But even in the dark with the door shut, he could still see it.
The box had gone a long while ago, got stepped on, and the big piece of thin white fancy paper and the pink shiny ribbon had got all crumpled and spoiled pretty soon, from handling… The doll wasn’t new any more either. It sat in there on the closet floor, leaning up against the wall, even when he shut his eyes tight he could see it. It had been awful pretty when it was new, even if it was just a silly girl’s thing. It wasn’t pretty any more. The spangly pink dress was all stained and torn, and most of the lace was tom off the underwear, and one of the arms was pulled loose. The gold curls had got all tangled and some pulled right off, and one of the blue eyes with real lashes had been poked right in so there was just a black hole there and you could hear the eye sort of rattle around inside when you-The other eye still shut when the doll was laid down.
Marty always had a funny hollow feeling when he heard that eye rattling round inside. You’d think sometime it’d fall out, but it never did. He’d been lying here, felt like hours, still as he could, in the dark. This was the worst time of all, and lately it had been getting harder and harder to let go, and pretty soon be asleep. Because in the dark, it seemed like the secret was somehow as big as the whole room, so he couldn’t breathe, so he felt he had to get out and run and run and tell everybody-yell it as loud as he could.
He lay flat, very still, but he could hear his heart going thud-thud-thud, very fast. You were supposed to say a prayer when you went to bed, she’d made him learn it when he was just a little kid and when they lived over on Tappan and he’d gone to the Methodist Sunday school, it’d been up on the wall there in the Sunday school room, the words sewed onto cloth some fancy old-fashioned way and flowers around them, in a gold frame. He could see that now sort of in his mind, red and blue flowers and the words in four lines. It was the only real prayer he knew by heart and he was afraid to say it any more, because if you said any of it you had to say it all and it might be worse than bad luck to say the end of it. If I should die before I -
Most of the time, like at school, anyway in daylight, he could stand it. But this was the bad time, alone with it. A lot of feelings were churning around inside him, and they didn’t exactly go away other times, they were still there but outside things helped to push them deeper inside, sort of-school and baseball practice and being with other kids and all. But like this in the dark, they got on top of him-a lot of bad feelings, but the biggest and worst of all was being just plain scared. There were times, like yesterday, when he thought she was too; and then again, seemed like, she made up her mind so hard that nothing so awful like that could be so, for her it just wasn’t. Maybe grownups could do that. He sure wished he could. Like looking right at that doll and never remembering, never thinking Marty felt shameful tears pricking behind his eyes, but the fear receded a little in him for the upsurge of resentment at her unfairness… She’d told a lie, a lie, he knew it was a lie, he wasn’t crazy, was he?-if Dad had been there she’d never have dared say he was the one telling lies, but-what could you do when a grown-up, your own Ma ' I bought it,' she’d said, and he thought he remembered it was one of the times she sounded afraid too… 'I did so buy it, Marty, you’re just pretendin’ not to remember!-you got to remember, all that money-I saved it up, and I bought it y esterday -' About the money wasn’t a lie; she had, but the rest wasn’t so, he remembered.
What he remembered made terrible pictures in his mind, now he put it all together.
The fear that was never very far away now, even at school-outside-came creeping over him again like a cold hand feeling.
The doll. It had been awful pretty-then.
He wished he could forget that picture, all it said under it, in the newspaper. She hadn’t got it this time, she wouldn’t talk or listen about anything to do with it now-seemed like something just made him get that paper, and it had cost ten cents too. Elena. It was a pretty name. But he wished he could stop seeing the picture because it was the same girl, he’d known it would be but it was worse knowing for real sure-the picture-and the very worst about it was something silly, but somehow terrible too. The picture that looked like that doll when it’d been new. Before the eye had He thought he heard a noise over by the closet door. It wasn’t really, he told himself. It wasn’t.
In California they didn’t hang people for murder, they had a gas chamber instead. It sounded even worse, a thing maybe like a big iron safe and with pipes that But other people, they shouldn’t get killed like that-even if he didn’t know, didn’t mean-even if Ma- It wasn’t right. Dad would say so too, whatever it meant, even something awful like the gas. Somebody’d ought to know, and right off too, before it ever happened again. But Ma And that was a noise by the closet door.
Primitive physical fear took him in what seemed like one leap across the room and out to where it was light, in the parlor.
She had an old shirt in her lap she’d been mending, the needle still stuck in it, but she was just sitting there not doing anything. 'What’s the matter with you now?' she asked dully.
He tried to stop shaking, stop his teeth chattering. 'P-please, Ma, can I-can I sleep out here on the sofa, I-I-I
