The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [133]
‘Sure. I love you O.K.’ It was a hot, sunny morning during the last week of school. George was dressed and he lay on the floor doing his number work. His dirty little fingers squeezed the pencil tight and he kept breaking the lead point. When he was finished she held him by the shoulders and looked hard into his face. ‘I mean a lot. A whole lot.’
‘Lemme go. Sure I love you. Ain’t you my sister?’
‘I know. But suppose I wasn’t your sister. Would you love me then?’
George backed away. He had run out of shirts and wore a dirty pullover sweater. His wrists were thin and blue-veined. The sleeves of the sweater had stretched so that they hung loose and made his hands look very small.
‘If you wasn’t my sister then I might not know you. So I couldn’t love you.’
‘But if you did know me and I wasn’t your sister.’
‘But how do you know I would? You can’t prove it. ‘.Well, just take it for granted and pretend.’
‘I reckon I would like you all right. But I still say you can’t prove-- ‘ ‘Prove! You got that word on the brain. Prove and trick. Everything is either a trick or it’s got to be proved. I can’t stand you, George Kelly. I hate you.’
‘O.K. Then I don’t like you none either.’ He crawled down under the bed for something. ‘What you want under there? You better leave my things alone. If I ever caught you meddling in my private box I’d bust your head against the side of the wall. I would. I’d stomp on your brains.’ George came out from under the bed with his spelling book. His dirty little paw reached in a hole in the mattress where he hid his marbles. Nothing could faze that kid. He took his time about choosing three brown agates to take with him. ‘Aw, shucks, Mick,’ he answered her. George was too little and too tough. There wasn’t any sense in loving him. He knew even less about things than she did. School was out and she had passed every subject--some with A plus and some by the skin of her teeth. The days were long and hot. Finally she was able to work hard at music again. She began to write down pieces for the violin and piano. She wrote songs. Always music was in her mind. She listened to Mister Singer’s radio and wandered around the house thinking about the programs she had heard.
‘What ails Mick?’ Portia asked. ‘What kind of cat is it got her tongue? She walk around and don’t say a word. She not even greedy like she used to be. She getting to be a regular lady these days.’
It was as though in some way she was waiting--but what she waited for she did not know. The sun burned down glaring and white-hot in the streets. During the day she either worked hard at music or messed with kids. And waited. Sometimes she would look all around her quick and this panic would come in her. Then in late June there was a sudden happening so important that it changed everything.
That night they were all out on the porch. The twilight was blurred and soft. Supper was almost ready and the smell of cabbage floated to them from the open hall. All of them were together except Hazel, who had not come home from work, and Etta, who still lay sick in bed. Their Dad leaned back in a chair with his sock-feet on the banisters. Bill was on the steps with the kids. Their Mama sat on the swing fanning herself with the newspaper. Across the street a girl new in the neighborhood skated up and down the sidewalk on one roller skate. The lights on the block were just beginning to be turned on, and far away a man was calling someone.