East of Eden

Adam laughed. “Well, we can always live on the farm. I guess we won’t starve.”

“It’s over a hundred thousand dollars,” the dull voice went on.

“You’re crazy. More like a hundred dollars. Where would he get it?”

“It’s no mistake. His salary with the G.A.R. was a hundred and thirty-five dollars a month. He paid his own room and board. He got five cents a mile and hotel expenses when he traveled.”

“Maybe he had it all the time and we never knew.”

“No, he didn’t have it all the time.”

“Well, why don’t we write to the G.A.R. and ask? Someone there might know.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” said Charles.

“Now look! Don’t go off half-cocked. There’s such a thing as speculation. Lots of men struck it rich. He knew big men. Maybe he got in on a good thing. Think of the men who went to the gold rush in California and came back rich.”

Charles’ face was desolate. His voice dropped so that Adam had to lean close to hear. It was as toneless as a report. “Our father went into the Union Army in June 1862. He had three months’ training here in this state. That makes it September. He marched south. October twelfth he was hit in the leg and sent to the hospital. He came home in January.”

“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

Charles’ words were thin and sallow. “He was not at Chancellorsville. He was not at Gettysburg or the Wilderness or Richmond or Appomattox.”

“How do you know?”

“His discharge. It came down with his other papers.”

Adam sighed deeply. In his chest, like beating fists, was a surge of joy. He shook his head almost in disbelief.

Charles said, “How did he get away with it? How in hell did he get away with it? Nobody ever questioned it. Did you? Did I? Did my mother? Nobody did. Not even in Washington.”

Adam stood up. “What’s in the house to eat? I’m going to warm up something.”

“I killed a chicken last night. I’ll fry it if you can wait.”

“Anything quick?”

“Some salt pork and plenty of eggs.”

“I’ll have that,” said Adam.

They left the question lying there, walked mentally around it, stepped over it. Their words ignored it but their minds never left it. They wanted to talk about it and could not. Charles fried salt pork, warmed up a skillet of beans, fried eggs.

“I plowed the pasture,” he said. “Put it in rye.”

“How did it do?”

“Just fine, once I got the rocks out.” He touched his forehead. “I got this damn thing trying to pry out a stone.”

“You wrote about that,” Adam said. “Don’t know whether I told you your letters meant a lot to me.”

“You never wrote much what you were doing,” said Charles.

“I guess I didn’t want to think about it. It was pretty bad, most of it.”

“I read about the campaigns in the papers. Did you go on those?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to think about them. Still don’t.”

“Did you kill Injuns?”

“Yes, we killed Injuns.”

“I guess they’re real ornery.”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

They ate their dinner under the kerosene lamp. “We’d get more light if I would only get around to washing that lampshade.”

“I’ll do it,” said Adam. “It’s hard to think of everything.”

“It’s going to be fine having you back. How would you like to go to the inn after supper?”

“Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’d like just to sit awhile.”

“I didn’t write about it in a letter, but they’ve got girls at the inn. I didn’t know but you’d like to go in with me. They change every two weeks. I didn’t know but you’d like to look them over.”

“Girls?”

“Yes, they’re upstairs. Makes it pretty handy. And I thought you just coming home—”

“Not tonight. Maybe later. How much do they charge?”

“A dollar. Pretty nice girls mostly.”

“Maybe later,” said Adam. “I’m surprised they let them come in.”

“I was too at first. But they worked out a system.”

“You go often?”

“Every two or three weeks. It’s pretty lonesome here, a man living alone.”

“You wrote once you were thinking of getting married.”

“Well, I was. Guess I didn’t find the right girl.”

All around the main subject the brothers beat. Now and then they would almost step into it, and quickly pull away, back into crops and local gossip and politics and health. They knew they would come back to it sooner or later. Charles was more anxious to strike in deep than Adam was, but then Charles had had the time to think of it, and to Adam it was a new field of thinking and feeling. He would have preferred to put it over until another day, and at the same time he knew his brother would not permit him to.

Once he said openly, “Let’s sleep on that other thing.”

“Sure, if you want to,” said Charles.

Gradually they ran out of escape talk. Every acquaintance was covered and every local event. The talk lagged and the time went on.

“Feel like turning in?” Adam asked.

“In a little while.”

They were silent, and the night moved restlessly about the house, nudging them and urging them.

“I sure would like to’ve seen that funeral,” said Charles.

“Must have been pretty fancy.”

“Would you care to see the clippings from the papers? I’ve got them all in my room.”

“No. Not tonight.”

Charles squared his chair around and put his elbows on the table. “We’ll have to figure it out,” he said nervously. “We can put it off all we want, but we goddam well got to figure what we’re going to do.”

“I know that,” said Adam. “I guess I just wanted some time to think about it.”

“Would that do any good? I’ve had time, lots of time, and I just went in circles. I tried not to think about it, and I still went in circles. You think time is going to help?”

“I guess not. I guess not. What do you want to talk about first? I guess we might as well get into it. We’re not thinking about anything else.”