is a reason why he is having his photograph taken. He must leave something of himself behind with his family so he will not be forgotten, and carry something away with him so that he can remember. That is what makes this picture touching; it is a portrait of a solitary, an exile.
In the second picture his face is blunter, fleshier: nothing surprising in that, he is older. But suddenly you realize he is posing for the camera – not in the formal, European manner of the first photograph but in a manner far more unnatural. You see, he is pretending to be entirely natural and unguarded; yet he betrays himself. The slight smile, the squared shoulder, the overcoat draped over the arm, all are calculated bits of a composition. He has seen the camera from a block away. My father wanted to be caught in exactly this negligent, unassuming pose, sure that it would capture for all time his prosperity, his success, his adaptability. Like most men, he wanted to leave a record. And this was it. And if he had coached himself in such small matters, what would he ever leave to chance?
That was why he was so ashamed when he came home that summer. There was the particular shame of having lost his job, a harder thing for a man then than it might be today. There was the shame of knowing that sooner or later we would have to go on relief, because being a lavish spender he had no savings. But there was also the shame of a man who suddenly discovers that all his lies were transparent, and everything he thought so safely hidden had always been in plain view. He had been living one of those dreams. The kind of dream in which you are walking down the street, meeting friends and neighbours, smiling and nodding, and when you arrive at home and pass a mirror you see for the first time you are stark naked. He was sure that behind his back he had always been Dutchie. For a man with so much pride a crueller epithet would have been kinder; to be hated gives a man some kind of status. It was the condescension implicit in that diminutive, its mock playfulness, that made him appear so undignified in his own eyes.
And for the first time in my life I was ashamed of him. He didn’t have the grace to bear an injustice, imagined or otherwise, quietly. At first he merely brooded, and then like some man with a repulsive sore, he sought pity by showing it. I’m sure he knew that he could only offend, but he was under a compulsion to justify himself. He began with my mother by explaining, where there was no need for explanation, that he had had his job taken from him for no good reason. However, there proved to be little satisfaction in preaching to the converted, so he carried his tale to everyone he knew. At first his references to his plight were tentative and oblique. The responses were polite but equally tentative and equally oblique. This wasn’t what he had hoped for. He believed that the sympathy didn’t measure up to the occasion. So his story was told and retold, and each time it was enlarged and embellished until the injustice was magnified beyond comprehension. He made a damn fool of himself. This was the first sign, although my mother and I chose not to recognize it.
In time everyone learned my father had lost his job for no good reason. And it wasn’t long before the kids of the fathers he had told his story to were following me down the street chanting, “No good reason. No good reason.” That’s how I learned my family was a topical joke that the town was enjoying with zest. I suppose my father found out too, because it was about that time he stopped going out of the house. He couldn’t fight back and neither could I. You never can.
After a while I didn’t leave the house unless I had to. I spent my days sitting in our screened verandah reading old copies of
That August was the hottest I can remember. The dry heat made my nose bleed at night, and I often woke to find my pillow stiff with blood. The leaves of the elm tree in the front yard hung straight down on their stems; flies buzzed heavily, their bodies tip-tapping lazily against the screens, and people passing the house moved so languidly they seemed to be walking in water. My father, who had always been careful about his appearance, began to come down for breakfast barefoot, wearing only a vest undershirt and an old pair of pants. He rarely spoke, but carefully picked his way through his meal as if it were a dangerous obstacle course, only pausing to rub his nose thoughtfully. I noticed that he had begun to smell.
One morning he looked up at me, laid his fork carefully down beside his plate and said, “I’ll summons him.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” he said scornfully. “The bastard who fired me. He had no business calling me Dutchie. That’s slander.”
“You can’t summons him.”
“I can,” he said emphatically. “I’m a citizen. I’ve got rights. I’ll go to law. He spoiled my good name.”
“That’s not slander.”
“It is.”
“No it isn’t.”
“I’ll sue the bastard,” he said vaguely, looking around to appeal to my mother, who had left the room. He got up from the table and went to the doorway. “Edith,” he called, “tell your son I’ve got the right to summons that bastard.”
Her voice came back faint and timid, “I don’t know, George.”
He looked back at me. “You’re in the same boat, sonny. And taking sides with them don’t save you. When we drown we all drown together.”
“I’m not taking sides,” I said indignantly. “Nobody’s taking sides. It’s facts. Can’t you see…,” but I didn’t get a chance to finish. He left, walked out on me. I could hear his steps on the stairway, tired, heavy steps. There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to make it plain that being on his side meant saving him from making a fool of himself again. I wanted him to know he could never win that way. I wanted him to win, not lose. He was my father. But he went up those steps, one at a time, and I heard his foot fall distinctly, every time. Beaten before he started, he crawled back into bed. My mother went up to him several times that day, to see if he was sick, to attempt to gouge him out of that room, but she couldn’t. It was only later that afternoon, when I was reading in the verandah, that he suddenly appeared again, wearing only a pair of undershorts. His body shone dully with sweat, his skin looked grey and soiled.
“They’re watching us,” he said, staring past me at an empty car parked in the bright street.
Frightened, I closed my book and asked who was watching us.
“The relief people,” he said tiredly. “They think I’ve got money hidden somewhere. They’re watching me, trying to catch me with it. The joke’s on them. I got no money.” He made a quick, furtive gesture that drew attention to his almost naked body, as if it were proof of his poverty.
“Nobody is watching us. That car’s empty.”
“Don’t take sides with them,” he said, staring through the screen. I thought someone from one of the houses across the street might see him like that, practically naked.
“The neighbours’ll see,” I said, turning my head to avoid looking at him.
“See what?” he asked, surprised.
“You standing like that. Naked almost.”
“There’s nothing they can do. A man’s home is his castle. That’s what the English say, isn’t it?”
And he went away laughing.
Going down the hallway, drawing close to his door that always stood ajar, what did I hope? To see him dressed, his trousers rolled up to mid-calf to avoid smudging his cuffs, whistling under his breath, shining his shoes? Everything as it was before? Yes. I hoped that. If I had been younger then and still believed that frogs were turned into princes with a kiss, I might even have believed it could happen. But I didn’t believe. I only hoped. Every time I approached his door (and that was many times a day, too many), I felt the queasy excitement of hope.
It was always the same. I would look in and see him lying on the tufted pink bedspread, naked or nearly so, gasping for breath in the heat. And I always thought of a whale stranded on a beach because he was such a big man. He claimed he slept all day because of the heat, but he only pretended to. He could feel me watching him and
