de Pereda, Prudencio

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 13 | Issue 4 Article 9
1943
And Home Is the Hunted
Prudencio de Pereda
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de Pereda, Prudencio. "And Home Is the Hunted." New Mexico Quarterly 13, 4 (1943). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/
vol13/iss4/9
AND HOM -E I S TH E HUN TED
Prudencio de Pereda
I THflUHT, if I could only get some spirit and heart into me. I wouldSUddenly stop feeling this damned tired way. I could do this thing,
then. I could do itl I could do it, and, at last,. something that I did
wou~d have a meaning. Something of mine would be important. It
wou]d matterl At lastI At last!
And then, suddenly and quickly, as soon as I had stopped thinking
this and saying it to myself once or twice and clearly, the tired feeling
that had made everything before see,m unimportant and listless and not
to maUer, ·began to go' quickly away, and soon it was gone.
I shaved and washed and put on my cleaned, pressed suit, and then
I put the pills in my pocket just before I went out.
This morning Violet and I had quarreled again. I thought of it
now when I saw the dollar she had thrown at me lyi~g on the table. I
. went to pick it up, but then I stopped and thought: I've got just enough
. carfare to go there. I can walk the bridge. I won't take the. dollar.
That will separate me from all.that.
I went over to New York by the long, round:'about way in the EI,
up tm 59th Street and the river. And then I took the elevator up to
the walking level of Queensboro Bridge and walked over to Welfare
Island through the air.
In the Island bus, we drove slowly along the shore road. The driver
very carefully and expertly avoided the slow-moving pa,tients who
crossed the road in wheel chairs or walked along it at the side. I looked
out the window and saw the bitter faces and the drab uniforms. When
the driver called out: "Cancer and Neurological Hospital," I got off.
Emma was in the Cancer wing.
The sun had been out in the morning, and so the beds were outside
now. Emma's bed was at the side of the yard and in the "shade" of the
second story porch. I went right up to it. She did not see me until
I was at the head of it.
452
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"Hello, Enimy!" I said. I laughed loudly to .strike her happily at
the first. She turned her head slolYly, smiling alre~dy at the sound of
the voice and the laugh. "Hello, Mickey," she said. She held up her
hand to me.
"How are you?" I said~ I said it very lightly and loudly. She was
pale and lo~ked very bad, and she, was lying very flat on her back
without a pillow under her head. .
"All right," she said. Then, "Finel I'm all right." She said this
slowly. "How are you?" She was still holding on to my hand and was
trying to. stretch her head over to the side of the bed. To look for a
chair for me, I thought.
"There was a chair there," Emmy said. "
"That's all right, Emmy. That's okayl I don't want to sit down.
I've been sitting all the way coming over. I'm tired of sitting."
"No, nol sit down. There's one over at the back. It must be
. there, I think," she said, and I looked and saw a white hospital chair
back of the bed and againstthe wall. I brought it out to the side and sat
down. While I was get~ng the chair I had to let go of her hand.
"How's Violet?" she said now.
. .
"Finel She's fine," I said. "Still having trouble at the Press, but
they'll let up soon, I think." _
"They will," Emmy said. "They always do in the end. They have
to."
'Surely," I said. "They always do. But if they could only see that
all of this terrorizing that's so stupid and rotten is no good, even for
them.... Is Joe coming Qver. today?" I scUd.. I wanted to change
our thoughts. Joe was her husband. He was the one friend for whom
I had a genuine feeling and admiration, and she was his young and
pretty wife and had cancer of the hip. She had been operated on six
months ago in a private hospital for cancer ,of the breast. The ailment
of the hip, then, had been diagnosed as a broken .bone, but it had really
been the source of the cancer that was working its way up her body, now.
All of this had taken the little money that they themselves had and
all of the money that their family and friends would pleasantly spare.
She said, "No. He was here yesterday. He'll be down on Friday."
"Oh."
"He wants to come every day, or every other day, at least, but I
want him to stay home and do some work." Joe. was a painter. He was
on the WPA.
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. "What's he doing now?"
"He isn't doing much outside of his work for the project. He says
he can't get into anything big. Some original work that he could do
something with."
"Like the Rabelais illustrations?"
"Yes, like that!"
"He was doing some illustrations for the Odyssey, wasn't he, Emmy?
I remember that they seemed pretty good." ~
"I know, but he can't get on with it. That's what he feels," she
said. She spoke in long, drawn-dut jerks of words, as if she were
drawing each breath and then using it quickly in speech.
"Are the kids still with your mother, Emmy?"
"Yes, 1~ can feel ea~y about that, anyway':'
"I know. So can you. That's damned good for all concerned, I
think. But he worries like hell about you."
"I know it," she said. She turned her head slowly away from me for
just 3J moment. Then, "Everybody does," she said slo~ly.
"Except you," I said. I laugHed a little.
"No, I don't worry. I know what's the matter with me. You don't
worry about something you know definitely."
"No. You don't. That's a good' thing about it. You can start
from Ithere."
"Start from where, Mickey?"
"I mean you begin to do things now.. You know what's what and
where you are. It's like a fighter who's in the ring. The'fight's started
already ~nd you've lost all the worry th~t you had about it before.
You're not nervous anymore. You see, Emmy? You know where you
are and what you have to do."
"'Yes, what you have to do."
"Well-to go oli. You advance from there. You have to! You
know what I mean, don't you, Emmy? You move. Life goes on. See?"
. "Yes, I think so." ~
"I mean, it's better to know what's the matter. Then you can start
getting better. Ypu know?"
"Getting better?"
"Yes, getting better! Everyone can get better. Everyone who's
alive can go.on. They go on naturally and they can improve. Life
grows on itself. No matter how bad off you are, keeping alive is getting
better sometimes."
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"Yes?"
•
"Yes, Emmy. But, 'anyway, isn't this a hell of a lot better than
having a terrible pain always with you and not knowing what it is at all?
'~ou have terrible fears about it, and it gets bigger and bigger and
more important to you all the tim~. When you find out the truth, no
matter how bad it is, your fears are stopped anyway. You have the
decision of certainty. ~ou can go on from there. You can die, or you
can survive. You have to make a choice, then. 1)on't you?"
"I think so, Mickey," she said. She smiled. '
"What are you laughingat? What's the matter, Emmy?"
"I was just thinking. You've changed your tune, haven't you? .How
different from the last time! You're among the uplifters, now, eh?
Even you can get healthy.~'
"Emmy!" I said. "Look!"
ely B'" h ·d' H 1 k d tou, too, rutus.. s e sal. er eyes 00 e we.
"Emmy, }; was only fooling! I 'was only fooling, kid. I was just
kidding mY,self. I was trying to be honest and make one more damned,
stupid try, an~ay; but I haven't changed. I h~ven't1 Listen, Emmy,
I brought the pills. I have them here with me, now!"
, "I didn't think you believed'those things. Thanks, anyw~y, for
trying."; .
"I don't believe them! I can't believe them! What the hell is the
use of suffering, of any suffering? Life is bad enough wl!en you feel
well and happy, sometimes. Tq.ere's always something w~iting around
the comer to get you down', then."
"Yes, but you can be a realist. You can look at those things. And
see them. Then you fight, them. You can make it better. ,You can!
You were right whe~ you were saying those things. You really can
win against them sometimes, but you don't believe it. 'You don't
believe all those fine things you were telling me. None of the uplifters
do. None of them really J?elieve them. They.say them because they
think they're helping me. But I believe them. That's the joke of it!
,
They'd be so surprised if they knew that I ,had any hope."
"Yeah, hope! You can 'win, too, Emmy! Sure, Emmy! You can
fight like hell all the time and live two or three years of a lousy; tor-
"~ured existence, and then die, anyway." '~
"But you have lived, and you've foughtl" "
"For what?":
"For that little bit, anyway," she said. She looked away from me
..
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again. Then, when she turned her head back, she said, "You sound
very depressed, today. Unusually so."
'~I wish I had your physical basis for dying. I wouldn't hesitate a
minute, damn itl"
'~Is it so hopeless? With you, I mean?"
"It's lousyl"
"Your writing bad?"
"Well, I can't get much of it.done. It doesn't seem bad, but the
little I do only seems to appeal to me. Nobody will publish it."
'"They will. And soonl And they'll write to you and ask you if
you"ve got any more stories at home. You wait and see."
'"I'm waiting because I have to, but I dO~J: believe that. I don't
really believe it, Emmy. That's just a dream.: "I'm waiting because
I can't do anything else. When my wife gets wise to me, I'll have to
really do something, but I'm too lazy to start anything on my own pull.
So I just keep this dream."
~'Oh, no, it's not a dream! You're not dreaming. You know that the
better a writer is, the longer it takes for him to catch on. And' a lot of
the right people have liked your work very much ah:eady. You know-
th t"a..
"Yes, so it seems. And it's a damned grateful thing to me," I said.
"Incidentally, you and Joe have been very nice to me there."
"'Not nice, just fair."
~'Yes, too fair, I think. But that's all right. You see,"all this about
a struggling young writer who's looking for new modes of expression
and things like that is 6well for a guy if he's alone. If he can live
alone and support himself, you know. But when you've got a wife who
. married you in the first place because she believed in you, who took you
on for a year or so, so that you could have lots of time to work in and
momey to live on, and who seems to be getting just a little bit tired of
it now; just a little bit, you know, and you can't help 'feeling this--
them, it isn't so good.
"You love her, you know, Emmy. I love her. I'm sure of that!
But it doesn't seem to be e~ough. There have to be a lot of other
things, lit~le attentions, little gifts, little favors, and things like that.
Women seem to expect these things. I've thought about it and I think
it's only fair, but writers can't do these things-especially when they're
working like hell, and thinking all the time, ana worrying about why
theiir stuff doesn't take. You have no time. You have no moneyl Then,
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of course, if you don't do these things, you're sellish. Very selfishl So
I'm beginning to convince myself that I'm a very selfish guy."
Emmy did not say.anything. She had lain quietly, listeJ;ling to me
shoot off my eager mouth like that and now I watched her for a moment.
I did not like to look at her too much. She moved in the bed suddenly
and her mouth twitched.
•
"What's the matter," I said. "Pain?"
, "No. Not too much, aJ!yway. It's just my physical basis for dying
acting up again:"' ~ ,
"Is it very bad, Emmy?"
"Yes:'
" "Please forgive me for talking like that. Jesusl I should be trying
, to make you feel good and here I am shooting off my mouth and hand-
ing out a lot of crap. On two visits in succession, tool"
"Oh, that's all right. You're honest, anyway. It's just the pain
getting bad. I had a very bad night, yesterday. But that's not it....
Did you talk to Violet about this, Mickey? About giving me a good
end, I mean?"
"No." .'
"You didn't tell her?"
"No, I didn't, Emmy.· I wanted to do it completely myself, alone
and well. I didn't think she could understand,_ anyway."
Emmy smiled slowly. "She would understand it. I understand it,
even though I don't agree with you."
"Do you, Emmy?"
"I do, Mickey."
"Did you tell Joe, then. I mean that you. know what it is, now?"
"What?"
"Thaith~cancer's gone all up your back from the hips to the back,
and that that's what the pain in your neck is?"
"Nol No, I didn't tell him."
"You're not going to tell him you know?"
"No. Why should I? He thinks I'm not wo~ried and it makes him
feel better:' She had been talking very slowly before, and in jerks, but
now she talked even more slowly and it seemed to hurt her to talk:'
"Amd,you're nof going to'do anything about it, Emmy, then?"
"No," she,said. She moved her head slowly from side to side. "No."
Then tears began to well up from her eyes and stream down her cheeks.
I put my hand on hers.
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'''Emmy! What's .the matter? Is it the pain again? Am I . . . ?"
,uNo, no! Not you! . You're all right. You're fine. Honest! It's
the pain, the physical. . . . "
"Emmy, look! Look, kid. Life is a hunt! This life is nothing more
than a god-da~ned hunt. We're being hunted and we'll always be
caught. All the time! Look at the people in Czechoslovakia! They
tried with all their might and guts to get away, but they got caught in
the end. We always get caught. Look...."
uLook at the people in Spain and China. There! They fight
against it," she said. Her mouth blubbered a little with the tears in it.
"They're not caught." I put my handkerchief up to it and she shook
her head slowly from side to side. to say, No, and took it in 'her hand.
She wiped her eyes with it.
"They're not caught. Much! Is that life? But you can beat
them, Emmy. You can get away from their pain."
She shook her head again like that. Her mouth said, "Nol"
'''Emmy, get away. You'll just go to sleep. You won't have any
pain. You'll just go off to sleep without feeling anything. You'll
just go off-and you won't have any dreams. That would be enough
indJucement for me-Jesus, no dreams! Emmy, take the pills, kid!"
UNo," she said. UNo! I want to fight! I've been fighting all the
time; all my life. I can't stop, now. I want to fightl" She closed her
eyes. Two tears pushed out over the lids. I looked away. I did not
think that she wanted me to see her crying. I looked out over the river
to ~e big, magnificent buildings of the Medical Center. On the river,
thf! tugs went swiftly past, disdaining all of this. The sun was up again,
on !the top of the big buildings, but not on the river, now. In those
" buildings, I thought, there must be thousands of men and women
working hard to'discover cures for all known diseases-especially cancer.
I hooked back at Emmy on the bed.
She held the handkerchief ·to her mouth and her eyes were still
tightly closed..The two tear drops stood poised on her eyelids. She
was resting now; sleeping, maybe! She'll be getting strength to wake
up again and start to fight all over. Start right away to fight again with
her little, little strength!
Begin another day of watching people come to pity her-to pity
her forjust a polite moment, and then run away from this dreary hole.
Fast!
Another day to eat three meals in and throw up two!'
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4 459·
Never see the children! You never see the children. She doesn't
want her children: to come and see h~r fight the losing fightL
I moved my leg suddenly in anger, and it struck the bed. Em~y
gave a little jump and opened her eyes. "I'm sorry, Emmy," I said~
I put my hand on her shoulder. She turned her head slowly to look
at me.
"Reh?" she said. Her eyes were bright with wetness.
. "I woke you up," I said.
"Oh, no. No. That's all right. I shouldn't be sleeping. I won't
sleep, tonight." .
"You don't sleep at night?"
"Not too much," Emmy said. .
Then, we did not say anything for a while. I was looking out across
the river. She must have been watching my face, because when I
turned around she was looking at me. She smiled a little.
"Nothing doing on that, then, eh, kid?"
She shook her·head slowly and smiled.
"Okay," I said. "Then, we'll begin all over, just as if I was making
an ordinary, healthy visit. How are you, Emmy? Really, how are
you?"
"Fine," she said.
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And Home Is the Hunted

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And Home Is the Hunted

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