R.J. MacSween

The Burnt Forest

James Naddin found the walking very hard. There was a pain in his back, and all along one side of his body was a stiffness that was almost pain. All his life he had wondered what steady pain was like; now he knew. He limped up the stairs like a very old man and went into his apartment. All around him were memories of his wife and child. His senses told him that in a moment Helen would emerge from the kitchen, drying her hands, and pop her eyes in surprise at seeing him there. Or else little Ronnie would spring from behind a chair to grab him around the knees. Many such experiences had made his senses expectant, but they were wrong, for Helen and Ronnie were dead. They had been killed in the same crash that had crippled himself.

For many days lying in his hospital bed, he had gone over his return to the old apartment. There seemed no easy way of facing that dreadful necessity. He had never been brave, and disaster had not improved him. He took off his coat and slumped into a big chair. For a long time he just sat there. The minutes slipped by and he did nothing; there was nothing he wanted to do.

Somebody knocked on the door. He stared at the door and did not speak. There was another knock. Mrs. MacNeil, from the next apartment, came in and looked at him with pity.

“Come with us, Jim. Come with us for dinner. We’ve been watching for you.”

He did not know what to say. She coaxed him again. “It’s not nice to be alone. Come with us.”

Suddenly he decided that he would go. “Wait till I wash up.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

This was only the first of a number of kind acts that made his homecoming bearable and Naddin was grateful. He found himself the focus of attention such as he had never experienced before.

That night in his lonely bed, he thought how wonderful life was. In spite of the loss of his loved ones, he was a very lucky man. When morning came, nothing had changed, and as more days went by, more friends and neighbours came to offer him help and sympathy. A big man, named Henry Jones, who lived on the fifth floor, three floors above, a man who had rarely spoken to him before, offered to drive him anywhere he wanted to go. “Anywhere at all! Just say the word and away we’ll go!” His beefy face was wrinkled with sincerity. He left Naddin in an agony of gratitude. A fluttery lady named Lydia McCabe left a box of pastry at his door and almost fainted with pleasure when he thanked her. He sat in her living room for the first time and indulged himself with an hour of pleasant talk.

A week later he returned to his old job at a desk in the office of a construction company. The staff made a great fuss over his return and then forgot all about him in an hour or so. His back was almost better, only slightly stiff, and sitting down, he was comfortable enough. That evening when he returned home from work, he was very tired but he walked upright for the first time since his accident. Henry Jones passed him as he stopped by his door and merely grunted. Naddin was surprised. He opened his door and entered. Later he dropped in on the MacNeils and thought he sensed a subtle difference in their attitude towards him.

Determined to find out more, he went down the hallway to Lydia McCabe’s, and found her still fluttery but not nearly so cordial as before. She seemed to be waiting for him to go. He went. Back in his room he felt very lonely — for the first time since he had left the hospital. What had happened? He was the same man, but everybody else had changed! It had been a mistake to get well again! He was well and nobody wanted him!

He went to the full-length mirror in his bedroom and looked at himself. He was not bad looking but lacked all distinction. He bent over as though he were still lame. He looked better that way. He squinted at his face: his hair was too neat, too carefully tended. He dropped a lock of hair across his forehead, he bent over and let the hair swing above his eyes. That was much better! In this guise he was not his ordinary self but something superior.

Next day he met Jones again in the corridor. Jones stopped and looked at him. “I thought you were better — for good?”

“I guess not. There’s a constant pain in my back now. It may be permanent.”

“You looked all right yesterday.”

“I forced myself to straighten up. As a result, I’m much worse today.”

“You do look different. Take care of yourself.” Jones went away, but cordiality had returned to his voice.

Inside, Naddin looked at himself in the mirror again. “I’ll have to let my hair grow longer,” he said to himself. “And my clothes don’t fit my back anymore.” He rummaged in a closet and came out with an old gabardine topcoat that was faded with age. He put it on. He bent over and then eyed himself in the mirror. He was still more dashing, but something was missing! What was it? A cane! He got an umbrella and tried for the desired effect. It worked. The man in the mirror was crippled, sad, with the faded look of the defeated, but there was also about him an unyielding air. His eyes gleamed from under his hat, pain was on his face, and the hands folded over the umbrella handle accentuated his distress. He went out and bought a cane.

Mrs. MacNeil had him over to dinner again. “When I saw you coming down the corridor, I almost began to cry. You seemed so neglected — and so brave at the same time.” She smiled warmly at him.

“I’m very grateful for your kindness, Mrs. MacNeil.” He said no more but his eyes said a great deal.

“You’re very brave,” she said.

He felt a little guilty but got over that feeling soon. For a week the tide of friendship carried him along. Even the children stopped to speak to him.

“Were you always lame, Mr. Naddin?”

“Are you hurting, Mr. Naddin?”

“When you gonna get better, Mr. Naddin?”

He was friendly with them, but only in a distant way and did not allow himself to be drawn into talk with them. It was enough to know that everyone was interested. He would never be a nobody again.

Lydia McCabe got around to asking him in once more. “Mrs. MacNeil was saying that she almost cried when she saw you in the corridor the other day. I feel the same. And she said that you were very brave.” She fluttered around him like a frightened sparrow and her eyes were very kind. “I think you’re brave too, Mr. Naddin,” she said. Naddin nodded modestly and was determined not to lose her esteem again.

A new problem arose at his work. He was just as efficient as ever and his boss was just as friendly, but he found himself being skipped over when anything important was in the wind. At first he was angry, and then it all became clear to him. After all, he was a cripple! That was it! As the days went by he found happiness in being overlooked. He drifted gradually lower in the estimation of everybody. He was liked, he worked well, but no longer was he considered a subject for promotion. In two drastic changes which took place in office personnel, he found himself pushed to the bottom rung of the ladder. The boss was still kind, and his work was satisfactory, but he had no future. He did not mind until payday when he received a cripple’s wages. He was shocked and hurt but unable to make a complaint. Another boss would have fired him without explanation. He still had enough to live on. He went to the washroom and straightened himself up before a mirror. Strange! He did not look natural that way anymore. The outline was not right. He bent over again and liked the new shape better. Moreover, he could not walk out straight without a long “explanation.” He hobbled from the washroom and proceeded on his way home.

Later, as he was carrying some parcels upstairs, Jones met him and helped him. Jones looked around his living room and exclaimed, “What a room! Boy, you’ve got a pretty swanky place here! I didn’t dream your rooms would be like this!”

“What did you think they would be like?”

“Different! That’s all! Different!”

“Well, you see — My wife was very artistic.”

“Oh, yes, I see. I didn’t think of that. I was sure it wasn’t you. That’s all.”

Naddin smiled at him so that he would not feel too bad.

The other still looked around. “I still can’t get it, though. From seeing you I thought it would be different. Gray, kind of. Bare. You give that impression, you know?”

“Perhaps I do. I never realized it.”

“It’s a pretty big apartment for one man. I have a much smaller one and I have two children.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course, it’s so!”

“Oh!”

“Why should you have this place while I have a small place? Answer that!”

“I don’t know.” And he did not know. Jones left but again he was a changed man. He seemed to hate Naddin. “A crummy cripple,” he said later to his wife. “I don’t like him. He should be thrown out.”

Naddin saw that Jones had changed and suspected that the rest of the house sided against him too. He went to see the owner and asked if Jones could trade apartments with him. The owner, a fat bald man, was willing.

“The rent is about the same but your apartment is a little larger and has more light. Really there’s not much difference between them.” He looked Naddin up and down and said, “There’s a single room in the basement. The janitor used to live there.” Naddin was shocked for a moment and then he began to think quickly. The owner continued, “It’s big enough for one man and it’s cheaper.” A few weeks earlier he would not have offered such a room to a man like Naddin.

However, the thought of a basement room appealed to Naddin. To be alone in the quiet and the dark! It might be very good, just what he wanted, and the rent was lower. Moreover, Jones would be pleased.

“I’ll take the basement room.”

“Fine. It’s yours. Move in right away if you want to. It’s cleaned up and ready for you.”

Naddin moved into the basement room. He took with him the best of his furnishings and put the rest up for sale. The room blossomed with colour as though a movie had been turned on. He settled in contentedly, but he missed the daily bustle around him. He was in a world by himself, and his aloneness added to his mystery.

He changed the topcoat for a black cape, pretending that the only reason for getting the garment was its availability. The real reason was that he thought his character needed a dash of the gallant to make it attractive. He imagined himself a warrior stricken on the field of battle determined upon one more blow for victory before dying. This dream constantly invaded his thoughts and gave to his crooked figure a certain youthfulness.

One day a lady called him up to enquire about the sale of his superfluous furniture. His heart gave a leap at the sound of her voice. Not since the death of his wife had he been so attracted to a voice. She called up a few more times as if she liked talking with him. Her name was Mrs. Lamont and she seemed to be living alone. One day as he trudged into his house, clanking his cane on the floor, he saw her standing in the hallway. He knew that it must be she. Who else could it be?

“Do you know where Mr. James Naddin could be?”

“I’m James Naddin.”

Surprise shook her. He bent his head sadly, knowing what she must be thinking. He went his crooked way down to his basement room and he could feel her eyes on his back. He longed to be able to walk straight for her but was unable. The effort only caused him to stumble on the stairs and he almost fell. He tried to joke with her, as he had done on the phone, and failed in that also. At the sight of her face, the jests died on his lips and he finished the business as soon as he could. She left, and he was hardly able to say a word. What could he say? That night was the gloomiest night for a long time and he lacked the ability to make it different.

Next day he decided that he would concentrate upon his appearance again. He would remain a cripple but a cripple with a difference. To go with his cape he bought a rather expensive beret-type cap. It settled over one eye and made him look like a refined roué.For a long time he wondered about his spectacles. The ones he wore were rather ordinary. Finally he decided upon oval-black frames and wide narrow lenses. Then he bought a fine gray suit and heavy expensive shoes. Looking at his face in the mirror, he decided that it must change too. He combed his long eyebrows slantwise across his eyes. That was a help. Then he settled his face into an attitude of stoical endurance. A person regarding him would think that he suffered and that he suffered with patience. He kept practising a sad face. The days passed by and his countenance became permanently doleful — but intriguing. The excellence of his dress only played up the agony on his face. He bought a new cane, a long narrow black one that flashed against his gray trousers.

Deliberately he began to loiter on the street near where Mrs. Lamont lived. One day he passed her by and greeted her with solemn courtesy. She scarcely answered him but he saw her look back at him with genuine interest. He hurried home to his room before anyone he knew could speak with him. He did not want the light of joy on his face to be seen. He went to the mirror and saw his old forgotten face looking back at him. He twisted his mouth and squinted his eyes until the new expression faded. He forced his eyes to look down his nose like a hound dog’s. He lifted his head while letting his shoulders fall to give the impression of weight barely upheld. Once more he had become the stoical cripple, the sole survivor on the field of battle. He hobbled around his room in a circle, accentuating his deformity in order to force his body to acknowledge his will. After a while he had completely succeeded.

After this success, a strange uneasiness seized him to change more than his appearance. He began to get rid of the furnishings he had brought with him from the apartment. He sold everything that his wife had bought with such loving care. Everything from his old life jarred with his new conception of himself. A sunflower cluster on the wall challenged him and he got rid of it. A bright table-cover followed it. Even the carpet was removed from the floor and sold. Then he replaced everything with what he himself liked and then he was satisfied.

He had the vain hope that Mrs. Lamont would call again and to his surprise she did. She bought more of the things he had for sale — the bright exotic things that his wife had arranged with such loving care. Finally she had chosen all the things that still represented joy in his life. As he hovered around her, limping from place to place to exhibit his wares, he longed to ask her to take him too; her home now would be more like the home he had known. Of course, he didn’t dare speak. And he could almost hear her cold voice rejecting any such proposal. However, she lingered longer than she had to, examining with superfluous care the things she did not want to buy. A suspicion began to grow in him that perhaps she liked to be with him, that she wanted to stay as long as possible. He felt her eyes caressing his sad face, lingering with pity on his thin body, turning slowly from some object to give him all her attention.

When she was about to leave suspicion became certainty. “I would be glad to come again, Mr. Naddin, if you still have things to sell.” He felt his face start to pucker into a smile, felt his hands move instinctively forward as if to ask her to stay — but he resisted and answered feebly that he had nothing more. She left and for a while he was almost in a frenzy. His face became fixed in a permanent smile, the skin stretching and becoming almost painful in its unusual wrinkles. He faced upward towards the ceiling as though he were about to shout and sing but no sounds came. He walked quickly around the room, his back straight, his limp gone. He bumped into chairs and tables and was hardly aware. Then he sat down and hugged himself with delight, rocking back and forth in an agony of pleasure. He felt as though his wife had risen from the grave and was held in his arms.

After a while he was still. Then he ground his face into its mask of woe. He forced his feelings to conform until he felt safe again. He rose to his feet and began to pace around the room with a steady rhythm. At first his stride was normal, but he persevered until his limp had returned with its habitual control. He continued to circle the room until the influence of Mrs. Lamont was exorcised. Only then would he sit down in peace.

A few days later Henry Jones knocked and entered. Naddin was sitting alone in the dark watching a small TV screen. The screen gave the only light in the room. Jones put on the lights and saw Naddin sitting like a spider in a web of his own making. The chairs, the tables, the drapes, the lamps, the pictures, the ornaments, all spoke of their new owner. The colors were all muted. Everything was sharp angles and twisted shapes, like a burnt forest. There was no light, no bright spirit, no elevation of heart anywhere.

“It’s all new!” said Jones.

“Yes, all new.”

“It’s different. Hard to say what it is. But it’s you.”

“It’s me?’’

“Yes, I don’t know how, but it’s you.”

When he returned to his wife, Jones said, “Poor Jim Naddin, he’s a case. He almost made me cry in the basement. He’s tough, he keeps going, but he’s like a bug down there.”

The next day was Sunday. Naddin went for a walk as usual. The sun was bright and the trees were waving in a warm breeze. It was good to be alive. Naddin almost wished that he could forget his crippled back and run up and down the grass. But he continued to hobble along. After a half hour of loitering, he saw Mrs. Lamont walking down the street alone. She wore a bright blue dress and had nothing on her head. Her hair was a dull gold and was flying around her face. She was about his age and would probably be glad to see him again. He watched her come nearer and nearer. Then he retreated across a lawn to another street which took him out of her way. He wanted very much to talk to her but he did not want to go through that again.