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"They have set down a line of adobe blocks, three blocks wide and two blocks deep,
across the lawn between their cottage and ours," Belle said.
"Yes, I know" I said. I walked to the window and stood there, looking over at their
cottage. The piano music from the cottage came strong and clear. "I was here this
morning when he brought those blocks home" I peeled my shirt; it was soggy with
sweat" He carried the blocks in the baggage compartment of their car. It took him
all three trips. He had three boys with him to help." I shook my shirt in the cooling
air and walked to my room. "And I know where he got those blocks too. There is a
construction going on right now at the engineering school. They have a pile of
adobe blocks there as high as the Cheops. You can't miss it. You see it from the bus
line every time." In my room, the strains of piano music didn't reach sustainedly.
Belle followed me into my room. "They have marked off boundaries" she said "They
have defined limits".
I folded my shirt about the back of my armchair. "So they have", I said. "So they
have". My undershirt was wet too, I yanked it off.
"It is as if they have put up a fence," Belle said.
"Fences make good neighbors," I said. I whipped the apple-green towel off the T-bar
and rubbed myself briskly.
"It might as well be the great wall of China," Belle said.
"Well not really," I said. "It is not as bad as that." I returned the towel to the
crossbar. I looked around for a dry undershirt but did not find any. I went to the
bedroom where my clothes-closet was. Belle followed me. There was no light in the
closet. The bulb hadn't been changed since it went bad shortly after we moved into
the cottage. I fumbled in the dark feeling with my fingers. In the darkness in the
closet the strains of the piano came steadily, strong and clear.
"She is no Turk but she keeps playing the Turkish March," Belle said.
I knew where my undershirts would be and it didn't take me long to find them with
my hands. I pulled one out and was putting it on while I walked back to
the sala between the book-closet and the bathroom, one arm through one armhole,
half out of the sando shirt the neck of which I held open with my hands. I looked at
Belle. "Come again, Belle?" I asked.
Belle said again the denunciatory words.
I got my head through the other armhole, got into my shirt. I walked on to the sala.I
didn't know how tired I was until I fell back on the lounging chair.
Belle picked up the footstool, brought it near my chair and sat down. "The least
thing they could have done is to tell us first about it".
I felt very tired and shut my eyes and didn't say anything.
"Don't you think they owed it to us?" Belle asked. "Out of regards for our feelings
shouldn't they have asked us how we feel about a fence?"
The piano music threaded through the words like a leitmotif. "How is that again,
Belle?" I asked.
"They have no regard for us", Belle said. "They don't care what we think. They don't
think we feel. As far as they are concerned we are not human".
The piano came jubilantly threading through the words.
"Is that right, Belle?" I asked.
"Don't you think they should have at least gone to us and said: Look here, you! We
are putting up this boundary, see? You keep to your side of these markers and we
will keep to ours, understand?" Belle said.
"Do you really think that?" I asked.
"Yes I do", Belle said distinctly. "Don't you?"
"I don't know", I said. "I haven't thought about it".
"Well then", Belle said, "think about it. You can start thinking about it now".
I wondered why the words came ringing clear to me. Then I felt and sensed that the
piano had been closed. Suddenly the night was silent. Suddenly the night was still.
I rose from the swinging chair. I walked to the globe traveler near the wall outlet,
plugged the cord and snapped the lid open. Belle followed me. I was playing the
range disk for music when Belle leaned forward and snapped the lid shut.
"What's the matter, Belle?" I said.
"There's nothing the matter", Belle said.
"Well, then get off", I said. "Get off them and get off me".
Belle was silent for a moment. "It is she", she said.
"What about her?" I asked.
"I don't think she likes me", Belle said.
"She doesn't like anyone", I said. "What makes you think so?"
"I have given her things", Belle said. "They don't seem to make an impression on
her. I gave her cheese on her last birthday. She didn't even thank me".
"Why do you have to go around giving things for?" I asked. "Maybe she doesn't like
cheese. Maybe cheese wasn't such a good idea".
"She doesn't like me", Belle said, "and she doesn't like anyone to like me. When he
gave me flowers from her garden, I don't think she liked that".
"Who would?" I asked. "Maybe the flower wasn't such a good idea either".
"He was also being friendly as I was", Belle said.
"Oh, yes", I said"
"But she doesn't want to be and I don't think she believes in being", Belle said, "and
I don't think she wants him to be either".
"Oh well, Belle", I said. "I don't really know them. It's you they really know".
"O, you do, too", Belle said. "You ride with them too sometimes".
"I did that only once", I said. "I rode with them in the front seat. She tapped him on
the thigh when she got off at Pavilion Two. That was the last time".
"Did that bother you?" Belle said.
"Not that in itself", I said. "Only the demonstrativeness: as if to show that she is his
and he is hers".
"What about the demonstrativeness of her puttering about her garden in very short
shorts?" Belle asked.
"I don't like demonstrativeness," I said. "Moving here wasn't my idea."
"It was as much yours as it was mine," Belle said.
"When you visited this area for the first time to look at these cottages, did you have
to ride with them in the car?" I asked.
"He was going to look at the cottages himself," Belle said. "He was only being
friendly."
"And the second time you looked at the cottages was he looking at the cottages
too- and the third time?" I asked.
"That was or our going to be neighbors," Belle said.
"There are forty cottages in this area," I said. "Why did we have to pick this one
right up next to theirs?"
"For crying out loud, Belle," I said. "I don't know them well enough to speak to them.
I shall write them a note."
"All right," Belle said.
The portable typewriter was in the case under my bed. I set it up at the head of the
dining table. When I pulled my hands away from lifting the case, they were covered
with dust. I removed the lid but didn't take the machine off its base. The inside
corners of the lid were spun with cobwebs. There were webs between the machine
and the ridge of the base. I couldn't find any white paper anywhere. So I decided to
use one sheet from the legal size pad of ruled yellow paper.
I didn't date the note. I made it short and to the point. It was fascinating to watch
the keys falling forward and then back leaving the black marks on the yellow sheet.
As I typed I heard the opening bars ofMarriage of Figaro from the high fidelity radiophonograph next door.
"Mathematics and Mozart," I said. "Mozart and mathematics."
I typed on my name but didn't sign it. When I saw that I had not quit filled half of
the sheet, I folded it once and tore it in half. I fed the clean half back to the machine
and handed the other half to Belle. "There you are," I said. "Short and sweet, I hope
he likes it."
"Yes" Belle said. "Then send it off," I said.
"Alright," Belle said. She called Nata and had the note delivered at once.
I didn't get to hear Mozart to end that night. About halfway to the opera (that would
be after face one of the long playing record), the player was snapped off. Then I saw
him leaving their cottage.
I sat up erect in my chair and watched his head bob up and down as he walked out
to the Finchshafen road. When he turned up the road, and I knew where he was
going, I stood up. I walked to the screen door and watched him walk up to the
concrete walk to the porch steps. He stopped at the foot of the stairs. I looked down
through the wire screen at his upturned face.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Can I see you for a minute?" he asked.
"Me?" I asked.
"Yes, you," he said.
"Won't you come up?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I much rather talk to you in the street."
"All right," I said. "If that's the way you feel about it."
I joined him at the foot of the porch steps. We walked down the cement walk
together. As soon as we went past the shelter of the cottage, a blast of the cold
night air struck my face. I felt my left cheek twitching.
"Yes," I said. "What's on your mind?"
We walked down Finchshafen road. He didn't say anything for a long time. I looked
at him. I waited. I had not spoken to him before. He considered along time, long
enough for me to be able to look back at the house to see if Belle was at the
window watching.
When he spoke, his first words were: "Have you and Belle been fighting?" it was not
only words; it was also the way he said it. My left cheek was twitching so badly it
was almost spastic. He had spoken so softly and in such a low pitched voice. I barely
heard him. It was as if he didn't wish either his house or my house to hear, as if we
were conspirators both we were plotting a conspiracy together.
"Fighting?" I asked. "What about? What for? What are you talking about" I sought his
face for the guilt in my own.
We stood on Finchshafen road halfway between our cottages. We were waiting to
catch the guilt upon our faces which nonetheless we were mortally afraid to see? I
stood on the upper slope towards our house and he stood on the lower slope in
direction to his.
"You're note wasn't very friendly," he said. "It wasn't very neighborly."
"Why should it be?" I asked. "It wasn't meant to be."
"Oh, so," he said. "It wasn't meant to be."
"Well, if it's that way you feel about it," he said.
"How else did you expect me to feel?" I asked.
"In that case then," he said. "You can appeal to the authority and I shall not move
the adobe blocks an inch."
"For Christ's sake," I said. "Who is talking about authority? Who is talking about the
adobe blocks?"
"Don't raise you voice," he said.
"Why shouldn't I raise my voice?" I asked.
"Don't shout at me," he said.