‘You keep still about this.’
August shook himself loose.
‘Why should I? He’s our father, ain’t he? Why does he have to do that?’
‘Do you want Mamma to get sick?’
‘Then what did he do it for?’
‘Shut up! Answer my question. Do you want Mamma to be sick? She will if she hears about it.’
‘She won’t get sick.’
‘I know she won’t – because you’re not telling.’
‘I am too.’
The back of his hand caught August across the eyes.
‘I said you’re not going to tell!’
August’s lips quivered like jelly.
‘I’m telling.’
Arturo’s fist tightened under his nose.
‘You see this? You get it if you tell.’
Why should August want to tell? What if his father was with another woman? What difference did it make, so long as his mother didn’t know? And besides, this wasn’t another woman: this was Effie Hildegarde, one of the richest women in town. Pretty good for his father; pretty swell. She wasn’t as good as his mother – no: but that didn’t have anything to do with it.
‘Go ahead and hit me. I’m telling.’
The hard fist pushed into August’s cheek. August turned his head away contemptuously. ‘Go ahead. Hit me. I’m telling.’
‘Promise not to tell or I’ll knock your face in.’
‘Pooh. Go ahead. I’m telling.’
He tilted his chin forward, ready for any blow. It infuriated Arturo. Why did August have to be such a damn fool? He didn’t want to hit him. Sometimes he really enjoyed knocking August around, but not now. He opened his fist and clapped his hands on his hips in exasperation.
‘But look, August,’ he argued. ‘Can’t you see that it won’t help to tell Mamma? Can’t you just see her crying? And right now, at Christmas time too. It’ll hurt her. It’ll hurt her like hell. You don’t want to hurt Mamma, you don’t want to hurt your own mother, do you? You mean to tell me you’d go up to your own mother and say something that would hurt the hell out of her? Ain’t that a sin, to do that?’
August’s cold eyes blinked their conviction. The vapors of his breath flooded Arturo’s face as he answered sharply. ‘But what about him? I suppose he isn’t committing a sin. A worse sin than any I commit.’
Arturo gritted his teeth. He pulled off his cap and threw it into the snow. He beseeched his brother with both fists. ‘God damn you! You’re not telling.’
‘I am too.’
With one blow he cut August down, a left to the side of his head. The boy staggered backward, lost his balance in the snow, and floundered on his back. Arturo was on him, the two buried in the fluffy snow beneath the hardened crust. His hands encircled August’s throat. He squeezed hard.
‘You gonna tell?’
The cold eyes were the same.
He lay motionless. Arturo had never known him that way before. What should he do? Hit him? Without relaxing his grip on August’s neck he looked off toward the trees beneath which lay his dead dogs. He bit his lip and sought vainly within himself the anger that would make him strike.
Weakly he said, ‘Please, August. Don’t tell.’
‘I’m telling.’
So he swung. It seemed that the blood poured from his brother’s nose almost instantly. It horrified him. He sat straddling August, his knees pinning down August’s arms. He could not bear the sight of August’s face. Beneath the mask of blood and snow August smiled defiantly, the red stream filling his smile.
Arturo knelt beside him. He was crying, sobbing with his head on August’s chest, digging his hands into the snow and repeating: ‘Please August. Please! You can have anything I got. You can sleep on any side of the bed you want. You can have all my picture show money.’
August was silent, smiling.
Again he was furious. Again he struck, smashing his fist blindly into the cold eyes. Instantly he regretted it, crawling in the snow around the quiet, limp figure.
Defeated at last, he rose to his feet. He brushed the snow from his clothes, pulled his cap down and sucked his hands to warm them. Still August lay there, blood still pouring from his nose: August the triumphant, stretched out like one dead, yet bleeding, buried in the snow, his cold eyes sparkling their serene victory.
Arturo was too tired. He no longer cared.
‘Okay, August.’
Still August lay there.
‘Get up, August.’
Without accepting Arturo’s arm he crawled to his feet. He stood quietly in the snow, wiping his face with a handkerchief, fluffing the snow from his blond hair. It was five minutes before the bleeding stopped. They said nothing. August touched his swollen face gently. Arturo watched him.
‘You all right now?’
He did not answer as he stepped into the path and walked toward the row of houses. Arturo followed, shame silencing him: shame and hopelessness. In the moonlight he noticed that August limped. And yet it was not a limp so much as a caricature of one limping, like the pained embarrassed gait of the tenderfoot who had just finished his first ride on a horse. Arturo studied it closely. Where had he seen that before? It seemed so natural to August. Then he remembered: that was the way August used to walk out of the bedroom two years before, on those mornings after he had wet the bed.
‘August,’ he said. ‘If you tell Mamma, I’ll tell everybody that you pee the bed.’
He had not expected more than a sneer, but to his surprise August turned around and looked him squarely in the face. It was a look of incredulity, a taint of doubt crossing the once cold eyes. Instantly Arturo sprang to the kill, his senses excited by the impending victory.
‘Yes, sir!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll tell everybody. I’ll tell the whole world. I’ll tell every kid in the school. I’ll write notes to every kid in the school. I’ll tell everybody I see. I’ll tell it and tell it to the whole town. I’ll tell them August Bandini pees the bed. I’ll tell ’em!’
‘No!’ August choked. ‘No, Arturo!’
He shouted at the top of his voice.
‘Yes sir, all you people of Rocklin, Colorado! Listen to this: August Bandini pees the bed! He’s twelve years old and he pees the bed. Did you ever hear of anything like that? Yipee! Everybody listen!’
‘Please, Arturo! Don’t yell. I won’t tell. Honest I won’t, Arturo. I won’t say a word! Only don’t yell like that. I don’t pee the bed, Arturo. I used to, but I don’t now.’
‘Promise not to tell Mamma?’
August gulped as he crossed his heart and hoped to die.
‘Okay,’ Arturo said. ‘Okay.’
Arturo helped him to his feet and they walked home.
Chapter Six
No question about it: Papa’s absence had its advantages. If he were home the scrambled eggs for dinner would have had onions in them. If he were home they wouldn’t have been permitted to gouge out the white of the bread and eat only the crust. If he were home they wouldn’t have got so much sugar.
Even