Short Stories

     Abigail “Bindy” Newman, only a college freshman, had gotten special permission from the instructor—Professor Jacob Miller—to take his graduate seminar on Jane Austen. That tells you something about her, but we mustn’t tarry now to consider that.

Now, on a warm May day only a year later as she was finishing up her sophomore year at Rice University, she was going to his funeral. He’d retired the year before, immediately after Bindy had finished his course. As she drove to the cemetery after the memorial service at the Rice chapel, Bindy recalled how kind he had been to her and that he’d seemed surprised that she’d run so well with all his graduate students.

Bindy, averse to parades of every kind, had not driven to the cemetery with the caravan of cars coming from the university, but with a map had found her own way there separately in her car and then joined everyone sitting on the wooden folding chairs placed for the graveside service. The service was not long and afterwards she had spoken briefly with several of the students she’d become acquainted with in the graduate seminar. After that, she sat down again and retreated into her thoughts. The relatives, the students, the friends, the Rice faculty and administrators—all those who’d come, and the rabbi who led them—had gone, but Bindy still lingered on there for half an hour. Even the cemetery workers who filled the grave had left. Sitting on one of the wooden chairs that had been arranged in neat rows near the grave, she suddenly was overwhelmed by unaccountable emotion and quietly wept.

Professor Miller had lived in the apartments across the freeway from the cemetery along a pine-shaded section of Memorial Drive on the west side of Houston. The old widower of many years had invited Bindy along with the other students from the graduate seminar to his home for tea on the afternoon of the last meeting of the seminar—almost exactly a year before his funeral. The last gathering of the class was held in his book-lined living room. Beyond her new-found pleasure in talking about Jane Austen and her novels with Miller and the graduate students—she’d first read all the novels in high school, Bindy had reasoned with him as part of her argument for his letting her into the seminar—the occasion in his apartment had been, well, the word that came to her was ennobling. Yes, she thought, it was ennobling because there was something noble about Professor Miller. Bindy had gone home from that last class in his apartment wanting to be or do something noble herself.

She remembered during that last class the professor had spoken at length about poetry—by which he said he meant all great storytelling. “Homer and Milton, of course, are poets, but also Jane Austen, who, though she doesn’t write what we’d call poetry, is a kind of poet,” he’d said. “For me,” he’d added, “what makes poetry is the artistry that catches life in a way that’s just so true to experience and that prompts one to ask in the deepest sort of way, `How shall I live my life?’”

This had struck her like a revelation. One of the graduate students had protested, saying, Surely the professor’s first point was very fine, but that part about asking, “How shall I live my life”—he didn’t really want to make such a confining definition for poetry as that, did he?

“The truest, greatest poetry, then—does such a qualification help?” the professor had asked his challenger.

That, too, was challenged, but Bindy, though she said nothing, liked his definition and wrote it down both in her notebook and then again in a letter to her mother and father.

She recalled now, too, that Professor Miller had said again that he didn’t like to be called “Professor” or “Doctor.” “Mr. Miller will do,” he’d told them then, repeating what he’d said early in the course when they were all addressing him with the more formal titles. From the beginning, sitting around the table in the seminar, they’d obliged him in this request, but when speaking of him in his absence and away from class, none of them had been able to bring themselves to say anything other than “Professor Miller.”

“`Bindy’ is a nickname for a more formal name, isn’t it?” he’d asked as they were all saying goodbye after the final session, ready soon to head out the door of his apartment.

“Yes, it’s really Abigail,” she’d said. “No one calls me that except my grandfather.”

“It’s a fine old name,” he’d replied. “The Puritans in old New England favored it, I believe.”

His saying this had pleased her very much. “I’m very fond of the Puritans,” he’d added, as though saying, too, he’d been fond of her on that account. “I’ll call you Abigail, tben, just for today, to say goodbye.”

Bindy had liked that, too.

He had known she was from New England, since she’d mentioned it both when they’d first met and during their seminar.

“My parents had New England traditions in mind when they named me, but also the Abigail from the Bible. We’re Jewish,” Bindy told him as he took her hand in both of his and patted that hand.

“Yes,” he’d replied, smiling and nodding his gray head to her last comment.  “I know. Me, too. Well, dear girl, it’s a lovely name and it’s been lovely having you with us, and so God bless you.”

And so she’d left. And it was utterly surprising—how he’d spoken to her, how he’d given her that blessing at the end—and how he had known she was Jewish. And no one—absolutely no one—had ever said “God bless you” to her before, and it had been the very last thing he’d said. And how did he know I was Jewish? She’d thought of his somehow perceiving this, and of his blessing her, many times since. His blessing had seemed to bestow a kind of favor on her that seemed tangible.

Attending his funeral had been a kind of reverential act and she’d made the drive across the city to attend the interment service with almost filial devotion. She had not expected to cry—and she hadn’t until she was quite alone at his graveside. He was the best thing that had happened to her in two years of college—just studying with him. He is what school ought to be, she now thought as she sat in the warm May sun by the grave.

After lingering there for what seemed a long while, Bindy finally rose, filled with sweet and also stern reflections. Life is short, she thought. Shorter than we think. I want to make my life count somehow. Thinking of him, of the semester I studied with him—these make me all the more want to do something meaningful with my life.

Sitting there, everything seemed for an instant so very clear to her and she’d thought, Oh, may I not waste my life! Oh, may I not waste it! She surprised herself, for never had she had quite such a moment.

After that, she started to walk, leaving her car in the cemetery parking lot. Attracted by tree-filled vistas in several directions, she decided on an impulse that a long walk was what she needed. There were pines, very tall, and dense copses of oak, too, extending plentifully beyond the cemetery to residential areas to the north and west. She wandered, then, toward the north, wondering how far the suburban forest went. It was all supremely pleasant as she made her way along under the tall pines. Many of them were moving gently in the breeze and it was still mild in their shady shadows, but as she walked she felt the air slowly warming. She walked on until the trees ceased and she came out on a broad thoroughfare—Longpoint Road, the street sign announced. The breeze was almost gone and the calm air was growing warmer still, and yet, propelled by some inexpressible yearning she crossed the wide street, turned west on it and continued walking, perspiring freely now in the Texas May heat.

Soon she found herself among ugly strip shopping centers and the lovely trees that had formerly shaded her gave way to concrete gray which was everywhere—the street, the half-empty parking lots, the building walls and the benches at bus stops along the road—all were nearly the same shade of gray cement and were reflecting and intensifying the mounting heat of the day. Her striding had slowed and she walked now alongside busy traffic. She had taken off a very light cotton jacket—gossamer, almost—and was trudging now, hot and bare- armed in a rather well-fitting blouse and skirt. She told herself as she looked down at her elegant flats, At least I didn’t wear heels.

Just then, a pickup truck going the other way slowed and a not-so-young man behind the wheel leaned out and whistled at her across the lanes and then he was yelling, “Baby! Baby! Hey, Baby!” and sticking his tongue in and out in an obscene way. But she kept on walking, looking straight ahead and not indicating any reaction whatsoever as he sped on in the opposite direction.

This road is just charmless—except for that charming specimen, she thought. In fact, this street is almost repellent in its unattractiveness. It was shimmering now with uncomfortable heat, but she sighed to herself and managed to recover her spirits with the thought of how lovely the walk had been up till a few minutes before. She was determined not to let herself be dismayed by wolf calls and crude stupidity. That guy’s an ass’s behind, she told herself. Still, notwithstanding the gray ugliness and the heat and that clod, she thought, this doesn’t strike me as a particularly dangerous neighborhood. She resolved not to retrace her steps but to walk on a little longer, keeping her eye open for a good road to turn south on in order to go back that way toward the cemetery.

Beginning to wilt in the heat which was increasing quickly as midday passed, she approached a place with a big sign: “Deke’s Restaurant.” A windmill driven by a small motor was standing in the neatly manicured garden outside the building, its vanes turning slowly fifteen feet above her head, and there was a row of azalea bushes across the front. She went into the air conditioned restaurant and, finding it frigid inside—Houston commercial interiors were so often that way, she thought, once the weather turned warm—she bought a Coke to-go and was soon outside again, sipping it through a straw as she continued walking west. For a few minutes, because of the ice-cold restaurant, it even felt good to be out in the heat again.

A few blocks later she almost passed a side street but looking down it toward the south she found the scene so surprisingly refreshing—the view was of a completely tree-lined street—that she was instantly drawn and so left the busy thoroughfare and turned onto it. I’ve had more than enough of Longpoint, she told herself. As she turned down the road and walked into the shade of the trees she immediately felt the heat and busyness of the thoroughfare behind her recede. Soon the narrow and cooler street—Wayman Street, the road sign said—had begun to revive her and seemed to pull her along. She felt a gentle breeze again, and that, too, cooled her.

This country lane is hard to explain, she thought, but I’m glad to be exploring it—it’s delightful. I don’t think it’s a dead end—there’s no sign that says it is. She felt a pleasant breeze brush her face and body as, walking along, she admired the tall pines on either side of the road. She saw a mockingbird sitting on top of a small tree, singing. The prospect ahead was shady as far as she could see. The breeze was whispering high in the pines. What a wonderful place!—almost an oasis.

As she walked along she passed a few old-looking frame houses spaced far apart from each other, all set far back from the road and situated on large lots. After a few minutes, over on her left she approached a row of very tall trees and, drawing nearer, she saw the trees marked the front of what appeared to be a field with several very small houses in it—and one larger one with a screened veranda. In the field and among the houses were flower beds and many flowers—she saw dahlias and roses and bottlebrush bushes, daisies and gerberas, a large mimosa and several blue and white hydrangeas. There was honeysuckle, too, growing on a fence. Right in the front of the property was a sign in the shade of the great trees that read, “Bungalow for Rent.” She stopped then, turning fully toward the property to gaze at the scene. There were seven little houses along with the one larger one, and those toward the front were partially in the shade of the row of the grandest and leafiest trees she’d seen all morning.

“Those are sycamores,” she said aloud. “I’ve only seen pines and oaks till now.”

They reminded her of the trees far away in Massachusetts—in Cambridge, along the Charles River not far from Harvard and near the Episcopal monastery there. Bindy had regularly admired those sycamores on trips with her father into Cambridge from Concord on the Saturdays when he went in to do research at Widner Library. She’d taken a walk once and sneaked into the chapel of the monastery and enjoyed the great quiet it provided. But normally when her father was in the Widner stacks, she’d wait for him in the great library reading room with a book of her own. That was back in her high school days when he went over there for his research on one academic paper or another. Harvard wasn’t his university, but he often used their library.

Now, behind the tall sycamores, was a very big grassy yard—what had seemed to Bindy to be a field at first. She noted its many well-tended flower beds and a peculiar little hillock rising sharply in a mound in the center of it where there was also a tall flagpole. It’s odd, she thought, because there are no hills in Houston—everything is flat; clearly the hillock was man-made. Her attention was drawn to the one principal structure—the largest house—and it was fairly close to the street. It alone among the buildings had a screened front porch—and it differed in size and design from the others. She was startled then, for though she could see no one, she was hailed by a woman’s voice from the screened-in veranda.

“Hello, there! Hello!” came the voice.

Bindy went a few steps closer toward the white frame house from which the voice had come and discovered through the screen a barely visible figure swinging back and forth on a swing that seemed to be suspended from the high ceiling of the veranda.

“I wasn’t expecting such a pretty little filly to come a walkin’ down my street in the heat of the day. Are you lost, honey, or are you looking for something?” called the woman’s voice.

Bindy, thoroughly surprised, stammered for a moment, not knowing what to say.

“No, no, I’m just taking a long walk,” she’d finally replied, squinting slightly— the better to see the figure through the screen.

“Well, come on up and set a spell if you like. You must be pretty hot. It’s just me an’ the dogs—no need to fear. And it’s nice ‘n cool up here, too. And I’ve got some iced tea.”

Bindy, standing in the yard, peered at the screen, trying to make out who was behind it on the swing.

“I do have iced tea,” the voice repeated in a conversational tone, “but it’s not sweetened. You’ll have to add your own.”

Bindy walked still a few more paces toward the veranda but then hesitated.

“Walk on up the steps there, honey,” the figure directed, pointing to the door onto the porch, “and have a glass of cold iced tea and tell me who you are and where in the world you’re from and what in heaven’s name you’re doing here on my street, on foot, dressed so pretty, in the hot midday sun.”

Bindy succumbed to the invitation and came up onto the porch where she was greeted by an animated, wiry older woman with perfect, upright posture and piercing blue eyes. Her two little dogs lying languidly on the floor raised their heads to look at the visitor. One got up and came closer and sniffed while the other only sat up with friendly ears alerted and offered her a dog’s smile.

“I’m Ida—Ida Pages,” the woman, remaining seated, introduced herself. Bindy introduced herself as well, and she did “set a spell,” drinking, first of all, a sizable amount of iced tea.

A few minutes into her visit Bindy found herself thinking, This gal is a real character. The question is not what I’m doing here, but what she is doing here.

As their conversation went on, at one point, studying the lady’s countenance, Bindy thought, She has lovely bones. I would guess she might have been among the fairest of women in her day—a beauty.

Ida Pages offered her a sandwich. Bindy tried to refuse, but off her host went to the kitchen, saying “Follow me!” and they came back together to the veranda in just a few minutes with a late lunch. Bindy ended up staying over two hours, eating the sandwich, heartily sampling Ida’s pecan pie and trying some of her freshly baked cookies. The more the handsome, gray-haired little woman talked of people and things and asked her every kind of question, the more enchanted with her Bindy Newman became. She’d ask one thing and when Bindy answered she’d ask another and say, “Why is that?” and then she’d say, “But what do you mean by that?” and so she prompted Bindy to question herself more as she made her replies. Yet she found this engendered no annoyance, but rather the most unusual feeling, as though the lady were helping her understand herself. Bindy wondered if it was accidental—that the lady was making her feel these things—or if it was somehow intentional. She decided that she liked her very much.

Ida—she’d insisted Bindy call her that—told her about the people who lived in the various little houses on the property, “my seven bungalows,” as she called them, and she described these tenants with something like maternal, or perhaps sisterly, affection. After offering a survey of their occupations and their noteworthy pastimes mixed in with a few sunny anecdotes, Ida, nodding toward the sign out in the yard in front of her house, said, “Got one of my bungalows for rent, too, as you can see.”

“What do you charge for these?” Bindy asked, merely curious.

Ida told her.

“Do you have vacancies often?” Bindy asked.

“Not very often,” Ida replied. “Interested?”

“No, I can’t, or, well, I mean, I don’t know, I was just curious,” Bindy laughed. “I was only asking just out of curiosity—I’m living way over at Rice.” But Bindy wondered some at herself, for she felt almost crazily that suddenly she was interested, but she could hardly admit it to herself—it was such a crazy idea. I’m completely set in my dorm—my whole life is centered over there at school, she told herself. It would make no sense to live out here.

Ida said nothing more about it and left that topic, asking Bindy more questions about Rice University and about Concord—for she’d learned Bindy was from that Massachusetts town. Bindy finally said she’d better not overstay her welcome but Ida replied immediately that there was absolutely no danger of that.

“But if you need to get back to your car, why, I will happily drive you to it,” she’d added.

Bindy accepted the offer. Ida then offered her her bathroom so she could “freshen up,” and after she’d done that, Ida took her back to the cemetery. As they drove, Bindy spoke of the funeral that had taken place that morning.

“My Tom is buried there, too,” Ida told her. Ida explained it had been over a decade since she’d buried her husband.

“It’s a good place—so many tall pines,” Bindy said. “I spent time there thinking about things this morning—just musing, I guess. I’m sure you’ve done that there, too.”

“I have. I’m a musing sort of person from way back,” Ida replied, her voice soft and quiet, “and cemeteries—that one in particular—bring it out in me. Folks once even said I was worse than a muser—that I was a brooder.”

“I’m a sort of brooder, too,” Bindy told her.

“I could tell that,” said Ida, “pretty early-on today.”

Bindy looked at her when she said that, sort of surprised, and sort of pleased, too.

They arrived at the cemetery parking lot and Bindy, readying herself to get out, found herself feeling very attached to the lady.

“Thanks so very much, truly Mrs. Pages—I mean, Ida—for your so very generous and delightful hospitality—I’m refreshed, completely refreshed. You really made this day into something I hadn’t expected it to be at all. No, I surely didn’t expect to meet anyone who would surprise me the way you have, and just when I needed it. I guess I’m sort of hardened or something, thinking nothing can surprise me anymore.”

“Oh, don’t be saying that,” said Ida.

“But the time just flew by,” Bindy went on, “didn’t it? It was so much fun and you were such a breath of fresh air.”

“Young lady, it’s you who has refreshed me. As for time flying, I agree. I felt it fly, too. You just remember you’re welcome back any day. You better come back an’ meet everybody I’ve told you about, and I mean it. I’ll tell ‘em about you, you can be sure, and you’ll see I’ve not told you the half of it about all of ‘em—what we have here is a nice little republic and we’re all fellow-citizens. You’re always welcome to come out to visit, now that we’ve become friends, all right?”