East of Eden

Almost as remotely his own voice said, “Give it back? Give it back to who?”

“To the people you got it from.”

“The British Purchasing Agency? They can’t take it back. They’re paying twelve and a half cents for beans all over the country.”

“Then give it to the farmers you robbed.”

“Robbed?” Cal cried. “Why, we paid them two cents a pound over the market. We didn’t rob them.” Cal felt suspended in space, and time seemed very slow.

His father took a long time to answer. There seemed to be long spaces between his words. “I send boys out,” he said. “I sign my name and they go out. And some will die and some will lie helpless without arms and legs. Not one will come back untorn. Son, do you think I could take a profit on that?”

“I did it for you,”. Cal said. “I wanted you to have the money to make up your loss.”

“I don’t want the money, Cal. And the lettuce—I don’t think I did that for a profit. It was a kind of game to see if I could get the lettuce there, and I lost. I don’t want the money.”

Cal looked straight ahead. He could feel the eyes of Lee and Aron and Abra crawling on his cheeks. He kept his eyes on his father’s lips.

“I like the idea of a present,” Adam went on. “I thank you for the thought—”

“I’ll put it away. I’ll keep it for you,” Cal broke in.

“No. I won’t want it ever. I would have been so happy if you could have given me—well, what your brother has—pride in the thing he’s doing, gladness in his progress. Money, even clean money, doesn’t stack up with that.” His eyes widened a little and he said, “Have I made you angry, son? Don’t be angry. If you want to give me a present—give me a good life. That would be something I could value.”

Cal felt that he was choking. His forehead streamed with perspiration and he tasted salt on his tongue. He stood up suddenly and his chair fell over. He ran from the room, holding his breath.

Adam called after him, “Don’t be angry, son.”

They let him alone. He sat in his room, his elbows on his desk. He thought he would cry but he did not. He tried to let weeping start but tears could not pass the hot iron in his head.

After a time his breathing steadied and he watched his brain go to work slyly, quietly. He fought the quiet hateful brain down and it slipped aside and went about its work. He fought it more weakly, for hate was seeping all through his body, poisoning every nerve. He could feel himself losing control.

Then there came a point where the control and the fear were gone and his brain cried out in an aching triumph. His hand went to a pencil and he drew tight little spirals one after another on his blotting pad. When Lee came in an hour later there were hundreds of spirals, and they had become smaller and smaller. He did not look up.

Lee closed the door gently. “I brought you some coffee,” he said.

“I don’t want it—yes, I do. Why, thank you, Lee. It’s kind of you to think of it.”

Lee said, “Stop it! Stop it, I tell you!”

“Stop what? What do you want me to stop?”

Lee said uneasily, “I told you once when you asked me that it was all in yourself. I told you you could control it—if you wanted.”

“Control what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lee said, “Can’t you hear me? Can’t I get through to you? Cal, don’t you know what I’m saying?”

“I hear you, Lee. What are you saying?”

“He couldn’t help it, Cal. That’s his nature. It was the only way he knew. He didn’t have any choice. But you have. Don’t you hear me? You have a choice.”

The spirals had become so small that the pencil lines ran together and the result was a shiny black dot.

Cal said quietly, “Aren’t you making a fuss about nothing? You must be slipping. You’d think from your tone that I’d killed somebody. Come off it, Lee. Come off it.”

It was silent in the room. After a moment Cal turned from his desk and the room was empty. A cup of coffee on the bureau top sent up a plume of vapor. Cal drank the coffee scalding as it was and went into the living room.

His father looked up apologetically at him.

Cal said, “I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t know how you felt about it.” He took the package of money from where it lay on the mantel and put it in the inside pocket of his coat where it had been before. “I’ll see what I can do about this.” He said casually, “Where are the others?”

“Oh, Abra had to go. Aron walked with her. Lee went out.”

“I guess I’ll go for a walk,” said Cal.

4

The November night was well fallen. Cal opened the front door a crack and saw Lee’s shoulders and head outlined against the white wall of the French Laundry across the street. Lee was sitting on the steps, and he looked lumpy in his heavy coat.

Cal closed the door quietly and went back through the living room. “Champagne makes you thirsty,” he said. His father didn’t look up.

Cal slipped out the kitchen door and moved through Lee’s waning kitchen garden. He climbed the high fence, found the two-by-twelve plank that served as a bridge across the slough of dark water, and came out between Lang’s Bakery and the tinsmith’s shop on Castroville Street.

He walked to Stone Street where the Catholic church is and turned left, went past the Carriaga house, the Wilson house, the Zabala house, and turned left on Central Avenue at the Steinbeck house. Two blocks out Central he turned left past the West End School.

The poplar trees in front of the schoolyard were nearly bare, but in the evening wind a few yellowed leaves still twisted down.

Cal’s mind was numb. He did not even know that the air was cold with frost slipping down from the mountains. Three blocks ahead he saw his brother cross under a streetlight, coming toward him. He knew it was his brother by stride and posture and because he knew it.

Cal slowed his steps, and when Aron was close he said, “Hi. I came looking for you.”

Aron said, “I’m sorry about this afternoon.”

“You couldn’t help it—forget it.” He turned and the two walked side by side. “I want you to come with me,” Cal said. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s a surprise. But it’s very interesting. You’ll be interested.”