Saturday, December 20, 2008

a christmas memory by truman capote: part 2 of 3


of the ingredients that go into our fruitcakes, whiskey is the most expensive, as well as the hardest to obtain: state laws forbid its sale. but everybody knows you can buy a bottle from mr. haha jones. and the next day, having completed our more prosaic shopping, we set out for mr. haha's business address, a "sinful" (to quote public opinion) fish-fry and dancing cafe down by the river. we've been there before, and on the same errand; but in previous years our dealings have been with haha's wife, an iodine-dark indian woman with brassy peroxided hair and a dead-tired disposition. actually, we've never laid eyes on her husband, though we've heard that he's an indian too. a giant with razor scars across his cheeks. they call him haha because he's so gloomy, a man who never laughs. as we approach his cafe (a large log cabin festooned inside and out with chains of garish-gay naked light bulbs and standing by the river's muddy edge under the shade of river trees where moss drifts through the branches like gray mist) our steps slow down. even queenie stops prancing and sticks close by. people have been murdered in haha's cafe. cut to pieces. hit on the head. there's a case coming up in court next month. naturally these goings-on happen at night when the colored lights cast crazy patterns and the victrola wails. in the daytime haha's is shabby and deserted. i knock at the door, queenie barks, my friend calls: "mrs. haha, ma'am? anyone to home?"

footsteps. the door opens. our hearts overturn. it's mr. haha jones himself! and he is a giant; he does have scars; he doesn't smile. no, he glowers at us through satan-tilted eyes and demands to know: "what you want with haha?"

for a moment we are too paralyzed to tell. presently my friend half-finds her voice, a whispery voice at best: "if you please, mr. haha, we'd like a quart of your finest whiskey."

his eyes tilt more. would you believe it? haha is smiling! laughing, too. "which one of you is a drinkin' man?"

"it's for making fruitcakes, mr. haha. cooking. "

this sobers him. he frowns. "that's no way to waste good whiskey." nevertheless, he retreats into the shadowed cafe and seconds later appears carrying a bottle of daisy-yellow unlabeled liquor. he demonstrates its sparkle in the sunlight and says: "two dollars."

we pay him with nickels and dimes and pennies. suddenly, as he jangles the coins in his hand like a fistful of dice, his face softens. "tell you what," he proposes, pouring the money back into our bead purse, "just send me one of them fruitcakes instead."

"well," my friend remarks on our way home, "there's a lovely man. we'll put an extra cup of raisins in his cake."
the black stove, stoked with coal and firewood, glows like a lighted pumpkin. eggbeaters whirl, spoons spin round in bowls of butter and sugar, vanilla sweetens the air, ginger spices it; melting, nose-tingling odors saturate the kitchen, suffuse the house, drift out to the world on puffs of chimney smoke. in four days our work is done. thirty-one cakes, dampened with whiskey, bask on windowsills and shelves.

who are they for?

friends. not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we've met maybe once, perhaps not at all. people who've struck our fancy. like president roosevelt. like the reverend and mrs. j. c. lucey, baptist missionaries to borneo who lectured here last winter. or the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. or abner packer, the driver of the six o'clock bus from mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud whoosh. or the young wistons, a california couple whose car one afternoon broke down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch (young mr. wiston snapped our picture, the only one we've ever had taken). is it because my friend is shy with everyone except strangers that these strangers, and merest acquaintances, seem to us our truest friends? i think yes. also, the scrapbooks we keep of thank-you's on white house stationery, time-to-time communications from california and borneo, the knife grinder's penny post cards, make us feel connected to eventful worlds beyond the kitchen with its view of a sky that stops.

now a nude december fig branch grates against the window. the kitchen is empty, the cakes are gone; yesterday we carted the last of them to the post office, where the cost of stamps turned our purse inside out. we're broke. that rather depresses me, but my friend insists on celebrating—with two inches of whiskey left in haha's bottle. queenie has a spoonful in a bowl of coffee (she likes her coffee chicory-flavored and strong). the rest we divide between a pair of jelly glasses. we're both quite awed at the prospect of drinking straight whiskey; the taste of it brings screwed-up expressions and sour shudders. but by and by we begin to sing, the two of us singing different songs simultaneously. i don't know the words to mine, just: come on along, come on along, to the dark-town strutters' ball. but i can dance: that's what I mean to be, a tap dancer in the movies. my dancing shadow rollicks on the walls; our voices rock the chinaware; we giggle: as if unseen hands were tickling us. queenie rolls on her back, her paws plow the air, something like a grin stretches her black lips. inside myself, i feel warm and sparky as those crumbling logs, carefree as the wind in the chimney. my friend waltzes round the stove, the hem of her poor calico skirt pinched between her fingers as though it were a party dress: show me the way to go home, she sings, her tennis shoes squeaking on the floor. show me the way to go home.

enter: two relatives. very angry. potent with eyes that scold, tongues that scald. listen to what they have to say, the words tumbling together into a wrathful tune: "a child of seven! whiskey on his breath! are you out of your mind? feeding a child of seven! must be loony! road to ruination! remember cousin kate? uncle charlie? uncle charlie's brother-inlaw? shame! scandal! humiliation! kneel, pray, beg the lord!"

queenie sneaks under the stove. my friend gazes at her shoes, her chin quivers, she lifts her skirt and blows her nose and runs to her room. long after the town has gone to sleep and the house is silent except for the chimings of clocks and the sputter of fading fires, she is weeping into a pillow already as wet as a widow's handkerchief.

"don't cry," i say, sitting at the bottom of her bed and shivering despite my flannel nightgown that smells of last winter's cough syrup, "don't cry," i beg, teasing her toes, tickling her feet, "you're too old for that."

"it's because," she hiccups, "i am too old. old and funny."

"not funny. fun. more fun than anybody. listen. if you don't stop crying you'll be so tired tomorrow we can't go cut a tree."
she straightens up. queenie jumps on the bed (where queenie is not allowed) to lick her cheeks. "i know where we'll find real pretty trees, buddy. and holly, too. with berries big as your eyes. it's way off in the woods. farther than we've ever been. papa used to bring us christmas trees from there: carry them on his shoulder. that's fifty years ago. well, now: i can't wait for morning."

tomorrow part three (of three) of truman capote's "a christmas memory"

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