Henderson the Rain King Read Online Free PDF Page B

two months ago. It wasn't true then." "Then why did you say it? That's a hell of a way. You can't do that. Are you playing chicken-funeral with your own mother? You were trying to con me." "Oh, that was very bad of me, Gene. I didn't mean any harm. But this time it is true." And I saw the warm shadows of tears in her eyes. "She is gone now. I had to hire a plane to scatter her ashes over Lake George as she wanted." "Did you? God, I'm sorry about it," I said. "I fought her too much," said Lily. "Like that time I brought you home. But _she__ was a fighter, and I am one, too. You were right about my fianc�He did go to Groton." "Ha, ha, I hit it, didn't I?" "He's a nice man. He's not what you think. He's very decent and he supports his parents. But when I ask myself whether I could live without him, I guess the answer is yes. But I am learning to get along alone. There's always the universe. A woman doesn't have to marry, and there are perfectly good reasons why people should be lonely." You know, compassion is useless, too, sometimes I feel. It just lasts long enough to get you in dutch. My heart ached for Lily, and then she tried to con me. "All right, kid, what are you going to do now?" "I sold the house in Danbury. I'm living in an apartment. But there was one thing I wanted you to have, and I sent it to you." "I don't want anything." "It's a rug," she said. "Hasn't it come yet?" "Hell, what do I want with your Christly rug! Was it from your room?" "No." "You're a liar. It's the rug from your bedroom." She denied it, and when it arrived at the farm I accepted it from the delivery man; I felt I should. It was creepy-looking and faded, a Baghdad mustard color, the threads surrendering to time and sprigs of blue all over it. It was so ugly I had to laugh. This crummy rug! It tickled me. So I put it on the floor of my violin studio, which was down in the basement. I had poured the concrete there myself but not thick enough, for the damp comes through. Anyway, I thought this rug might improve the acoustics. All right, then, I'd come into the city for my lessons with that fat Hungarian Haponyi, and I'd see Lily too. We courted for about eighteen months, and then we got married, and then the children were born. As for the violin, I was no Heifetz but I kept at it. Presently the daily voice, _I__ _want, I want,__ arose again. Family life with Lily was not all that might have been predicted by an optimist; but I'm sure that she got more than she had bargained for, too. One of the first decisions she made after looking over the whole place as lady of the house was to get her portrait painted and hung with the rest of the family. This portrait business was very important to her and it went on until about six months before I took off for Africa. So let's look at a typical morning of my married life with Lily. Not inside the house but outside, for inside it is filthy. Let's say it's one of those velvety days of early autumn when the sun is shining on pines and the air has a spice of cold and stings your lungs with pleasure. I see a large pine tree on my property, and in the green darkness underneath, which somehow the pigs never got into, red tuberous begonias grow, and a broken stone inscription put in by my mother says, "Goe happy rose �" That's all it says. There must be more fragments beneath the needles. The sun is like a great roller and flattens the grass. Beneath this grass the earth may be filled with carcasses, yet that detracts nothing from a day like this, for they have become humus and the grass is thriving. When the air moves the brilliant flowers move too in the dark green beneath the trees. They brush against my open spirit because I am in the midst of this in the red velvet dressing gown from the Rue de Rivoli bought on the day that Frances spoke the word divorce. I am there and am looking for trouble. The crimson begonias, and the dark green and the radiant green and the spice that pierces and the sweet gold and the