all the way up the hall.’ He emptied the last of the bourbon into his cup, sipped, smacked
his lips.
‘I guess I’m still numb,’ Todd said. He bit into a cracker. He had stopped refusing
Dussander’s food a long time ago. Dussander thought there was a letter with one of
Todd’s friends – there was not, of course; he had friends, but none he trusted that much.
He supposed Dussander had guessed that long ago, but he knew Dussander didn’t quite
dare put his guess to such an extreme test as murder.
‘What shall we talk about today?’ Dussander enquired, tossing off the last shot. ‘I give
you the day off from studying, how’s that? Uh? Uh?’ When he drank, his accent became
thicker. It was an accent Todd had come to hate. Now he felt okay about the accent; he
felt okay about everything. He felt very cool all over. He looked at his hands, the hands
which would give the push, and they looked just as they always did. They were not
trembling; they were cool.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Anything you want.’
‘Shall I tell you about the special soap we made? Our experiments with enforced
homosexuality? Or perhaps you would like to hear how I escaped Berlin after I had been foolish enough to go back. That was a close one, I can tell you.’ He pantomimed shaving
one stubbly cheek and. laughed.
‘Anything,’ Todd said. ‘Really.’ He watched Dussander examine the empty bottle and
then get up with it in one hand. Dussander took it to the wastebasket and dropped it in.
‘No, none of those, I think,’ Dussander said. ‘You don’t seem to be in the mood.’ He
stood reflectively by the wastebasket for a moment and then crossed the kitchen to the
cellar door. His wool socks whispered on the hilly linoleum. ‘I think today I will instead
tell you the story of an old man who was afraid.’
Dussander opened the cellar door. His back was now to the table. Todd stood up
quietly.
‘He was afraid,’ Dussander went on, ‘of a certain young boy who was, in a queer way,
his friend. A smart boy. His mother called this boy “apt pupil”, and the old man had
already discovered he was an apt pupil … although perhaps not in the way his mother
thought’
Dussander fumbled with the old-fashioned electrical switch on the wall, trying to turn
it with his bunched and clumsy fingers. Todd walked – almost glided – across the
linoleum, not stepping in any of the places where it squeaked or creaked. He knew this
kitchen as well as his own, now. Maybe better.
‘At first, the boy was not the old man’s friend,’ Dussander said. He managed to turn the
switch at last. He descended the first step with a veteran drunk’s care. ‘At first the old
man disliked the boy a great deal. Then he grew to … to enjoy his company, although
there was still a strong element of dislike there.’ He was looking at the shelf now but still
holding the railing. Todd, cool – no, now he was cold – stepped behind him and calculated the chances of one strong push dislodging Dussander’s hold on the railing. He decided to
wait until Dussander leaned forward.
‘Part of the old man’s enjoyment came from a feeling of equality,’ Dussander went on
thoughtfully. ‘You see, the boy and the old man had each other in mutual deathgrips.
Each knew something the other wanted kept secret. And then … ah, then it became
apparent to the old man that things were changing. Yes. He was losing his hold – some of
it or all of it, depending on how desperate the boy might be, and how clever. It occurred
to this old man on one long and sleepless night that it might be well for him to acquire a
new hold on the boy. For his own safety.’
Now Dussander let go of the railing and leaned out over the steep cellar stairs, but
Todd remained perfectly still. The bone-deep cold was melting out of him, being
replaced by a rosy flush of anger and confusion. As Dussander grasped his fresh bottle,
Todd thought viciously that the old man had the stinkiest cellar in town, oil or no oil. It
smelled as if something had died down there.
‘So the old man got out of his bed right then. What is sleep to an old man? Very little.
And he sat at his small desk, thinking about how cleverly he had enmeshed the boy in the
very crimes the boy was holding over his own head. He sat thinking about how hard the
boy had worked, how very hard, to bring his school marks back up. And how, when they
were back up, he would have no further need for the old man alive. And if the old man
were dead, the boy could be free.’
He turned around now, holding the fresh bottle of Ancient Age by the neck.
‘I heard you, you know,’ he said, almost gently. ‘From the moment you pushed your
chair back and stood up. You are not as quiet as you imagine, boy. At least not yet.’
Todd said nothing.
‘So!’ Dussander exclaimed, stepping back into the kitchen and closing the cellar door
firmly behind him. “The old man wrote everything down, nicht wahr! From first word to last he wrote it down. When he was finally finished it was almost dawn and his hand was
singing from the arthritis – the verdammt arthritis – but he felt good for the first time in
weeks. He felt safe, He got back into his bed and slept until mid-afternoon. In fact, if he had slept any longer, he would have missed his favourite – General Hospital.’
He had regained his rocker now. He sat down, produced a worn jackknife with a
yellow ivory handle, and began to cut painstakingly around the seal covering the top of
the bourbon bottle.
‘On the following day the old man dressed in his best suit and went down to the bank
where he kept his little checking and savings accounts. He spoke to one of the bank
officers, who was able to answer all the old man’s questions most satisfactorily. He rented
a safety deposit box. The bank officer explained to the old man that he would have a key
and the bank would have a key. To open the box, both keys would be needed. No one but
the old man could use the old man’s key without a signed, notarized letter of permission
from the old man himself. With one exception.’
Dussander smiled toothlessly into Todd Bowden’s white, set face.
‘That exception is made in event of the box-holder’s death,’ he said. Still looking at
Todd, still smiling, Dussander put his jackknife back into the pocket of his robe,
unscrewed the cap of the bourbon bottle, and poured a fresh jolt into his cup. ‘What
happens then?’ Todd asked hoarsely. ‘Then the box is opened in the presence of a bank
official and a representative of the Internal Revenue Service. The contents of the box are
inventoried. In this case they will find only a twelve-page document. Non-taxable … but
highly interesting.’
The fingers of Todd’s hands crept towards each other and locked tightly. ‘You can’t do
that,’ he said in a stunned and unbelieving voice. It was the voice of a person who
observes another person walking on the ceiling. ‘You can’t… can’t do that.’
‘My boy,’ Dussander said kindly, ‘I have.’ ‘But … I … you …’ His voice suddenly rose to
an agonized howl. ‘You’re old! Don’t you know that you’re old? You could die! You could die anytime!’
Dussander got up. He went to one of the kitchen cabinets and took down a small
glass. This glass had once held jelly. Cartoon characters danced around the rim. Todd
recognized them all – Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Barney and Betty Rubble, Pebbles and
Bam-Bam. He had grown up with them. He watched as Dussander wiped this jelly-glass
almost ceremonially with a dishtowel. He watched as Dussander set it in front of him.
He watched as Dussander poured a finger of bourbon into it.
‘What’s that for?’ Todd muttered. ‘I don’t drink. Drinking’s for cheap stewbums like
you.’
‘Lift your glass, boy. It is a special occasion. Today you drink.’
Todd looked at him for a long moment, then picked up the glass. Dussander clicked
his cheap ceramic cup smartly against it.
‘I make a toast, boy – long life! Long life to both of us! Prosit!’ He tossed his bourbon off at a gulp and then began to He rocked back and forth, stockinged feet hitting the and
Todd thought he had never looked vulture, a vulture in a bathrobe, a noisome beast of
carrion.
‘I hate you,’ he whispered, and then Dussander began to choke on his own laughter. His