Four

In the time that followed, there were a few incidents that punctuated what was the gradual deterioration of Thomas. Once, Philip made another of his conversation-killing remarks. A propos of nothing, he looked over at Thomas as he and Nathanael were conversing, and blurted, "You know, Thomas, you look half drunk all the time lately."

Thomas immediately turned away and went home, his face flushed with guilt and anger; and as he left, Nathanael said, hoping he could not hear, "Really, Philip!"

"Well, he does!" Philip replied.

"Philip, if Thomas is not drinking too much, there is nothing he can do about his appearance, and it is cruel to make him think he looks like a drunk; and if he is drinking too much, it is cruel to call his attention to it."

"Why not? It might make him stop."

"If only it were that simple, Philip; if only it were that simple." He said the last phrase musingly. "If he is drinking too much, he probably does not think he is doing so, and if someone accuses him, he will simply deny it and hate the accuser."

"Why should he hate me? I am doing him a favor."

"Because you are trying to make him stop something he cannot stop." The thought occurred to him that he might be speaking of his mother.

"What do you mean, he 'cannot'? He could if he put his mind to it." Which is what his father said of his mother. But could she?

"So one would think. But trust me, one might wish to stop and try very hard to stop, and one cannot stop. I know."

She does try, he thought; I have seen her. But she fails. Always. But who am I to complain about her for failing? I fail in everything I do. Even with Thomas. Poor Thomas; what have I done to you?

"Is that what is happening to you?"

"To me?" And then it dawned on Nathanael that Philip thought he was drinking the wine he bought. What could he say? "It is not. Of course, if it were, I would say that it is not, so again you will have to take my word for it that I myself have no problem, but I know someone who has. Very well. --And that someone is not Thomas."

"Oh, you are buying wine for someone else."

"Let us drop the subject, please. It is a painful one."

"Very well. But it troubles me to see Thomas thus."

"It troubles me also; but I do not see what we can do about it."

"Well, somebody should do something."

"As to that, I think that Samuel is trying to do something. If he cannot succeed, no one can, so perhaps we should not interfere; we might make things worse."

The next day, Thomas barely looked at Nathanael as he went by, clearly miserable. Nathanael surmised that Philip's remark had opened his eyes, and he was trying to do without wine--and that he probably had a roaring headache.

And indeed, for the next few days, he was as nervous as a cat on a hot rock, ready to pick a quarrel with anyone over nothing. As he stopped to talk with Nathanael, and for no real reason began to berate him, Nathanael simply said, "Very well, Thomas, our conversation for now is at an end. We will resume when you have become a human being again," and nodded to Ezra and went up the hill to his house, convinced that this would not last long enough for Thomas to be cured of his problem. He was too much of a roaring lion for people to tolerate him.

And, indeed, a few days later, he saw Samuel talking seriously to him as they went by in the evening, with a pathetically small catch, and there was a look of immense relief on Thomas's face--and the next day, the relaxed Thomas appeared again, both happy and worried.

And of course, Philip remarked, "Ah! This is the Thomas I remember!" (Eliciting a sharp look from Nathanael), but evidently Thomas took it that his new drinking regime was successful.

And it was, after a fashion, as far as Nathanael could observe, for another year or two. Thomas continued speaking clearly and also reading more and more voraciously, which Nathanael interpreted as alienating him more and more from being a fisherman (while, from what Nathanael could see, Samuel enjoyed the occupation more and more as the team grew skilled).

But Nathanael's eyes had been sharpened by his experience with his mother, and he could not avoid the tiny signs that Thomas was sinking farther and farther into his addiction; and in his blindness, realizing it less and less--as she doubtless had done until she started seeing things.

And afterward. Even now.

His mother had reached the stage where she simply had to have at least a certain amount of drink; but she was not able to find enough to be more than slightly drunk all the time--and though she bewailed her fate, apparently she could continue thus, for a considerable time, at any rate. As she was, she would probably die if it were taken totally away from her.

But she still would deny that there was anything wrong; all her troubles (and there was a myriad of them) were the fault of others. She often still cried herself to sleep at night. Nathanael rejoiced that he now lived apart and did not have to see her every day--which was one source of her woes, though she never, thank the Master, came the fifty paces to visit him. He pitied her father, who evidently felt he must put up with her. He wished, in a sense that he also had the courage to do so; but he simply could not.

For Nathanael still felt revulsion when he was with her, though now it was colored by a deep pity. It was not her fault, he began to believe, but her misfortune, as if she were crippled.

One day, he somehow found enough courage at a rare moment when they were alone together to take her hands in his and look into her face, and say, "Mother, I want you to know that no matter what you do, you cannot make me love you less."

"What is that all about?" she asked in wonderment.

"Nothing, nothing. Except that I mean it. I thought you should know." Did he mean it? Really? Or was this a lie--a ploy to counter what might be her need to drink to prove to herself that she could not control it? It sounded insane, but she might be--she was--insane.

"Well, Nathanael," she said, "I suppose I should thank you. But I cannot think for what." And she honestly did not know. She did not know. That was the tragic part.

And he did love her--in some way. Did he not? She was repugnant to him, but he loved her, while half of him still hated her--and wished her well. If by some miracle she could be freed, that would--be too good to hope for in this absurd world.

But even if not, he loved her, he hoped, and knew she could not help herself, and he tried very hard to love her for what she was, because she was his mother, not because she did what was pleasing to him. "If she were blind," he thought, "would I complain that she bumped into things? No, because she could not help it. So should I complain at the way she is, because she cannot help it."

Soothing words, and they made sense, but still when he saw he, he had to fight the rage he felt. As, he saw, his father did. His father was much more skilled, if one could call it that, than he was, though his father still thought that if she really wished to do so, she could stop. Nathanael had given that up. For Nathanael, it was simply part of the absurdity and vanity of everything. One could rage against it, but there it was.

He wished he could also say something similar to Thomas. What almost killed him was that he was in part responsible for Thomas, though he had been hoping to be a brake on his drinking. But lately, it had escalated dramatically, for some reason; it was as if the wine had become suddenly more powerful.

But perhaps Samuel could rescue him.

He sat under the fig-tree now as a kind of refuge from everyone, rather hoping that Thomas would not stop and talk to him--a hope that was frequently dashed--and being more and more repelled by him and struggling more and more to pretend that nothing was happening.

He had taken to reading and re-reading the Book of Psalms and using them as a kind of plea to God:

Lord, please do not scream at me in your anger,

and in your rage, please do not slap me!

Your arrows have already sunk deep into me,

and your hand has crushed me to the ground.

There is no vigor left in my body

because of your displeasure,

no soundness in my bones

because of my sin.

I have piled my crimes up higher than my head,

and they are too heavy a load for me to lift.

He put the book down. So he was not the only one; it seemed to be the fate of everyone in this world. Perhaps even his father with his imperious ways had somehow driven his mother to seek a miserable solace in drink. Nothing made sense. Why were people who were only trying to do good beset thus? The Greeks seemed to think that it was a flaw in one's character, but why did everyone have one? Why was life fated to be misery? Poor Thomas, poor brilliant Thomas, wanted merely to be more than a fisherman, and had somehow bitten the barbed hook that was wine, and was caught. It was not fair.

And Nathanael had merely wanted to do the right thing, and look at what he had accomplished! It was worse than absurd.

One morning shortly after this, he watched Thomas and Samuel go by, hardly speaking to each other, Samuel with a worried but determined look on his face. Thomas looked up briefly, as if wondering if he were there, and got into the boat, taking his place, as usual, in the bow. They were almost directly in front of Nathanael as they put out from shore.

Suddenly, however, Samuel shipped the oars, making Thomas turn to see what was the matter. Samuel turned around in his seat to face him (as he rowed, of course, he was facing the stern), and began talking to him. Thomas's reply (Nathanael could not actually hear them) indicated that this was the confrontation that Nathanael had been expecting.

They argued together for a considerable time, Samuel doing most of the talking, and Thomas acting increasingly defensive, at one point saying, loud enough for Nathanael to hear over the water, "Are you calling me a drunk?"

Samuel answered in a low voice, and Thomas once again lowered his, but became angrier and angrier, and then his voice rose once again: "Just as you rejoice that I can read and you cannot!"

Samuel answered something inaudible, and Thomas almost screamed, "Oh, of a certainty! I have heard your praise of me often and often!"

Samuel replied quietly again, trying to reason with him, and seemed, after a time, to be scoring a point. Thomas stared up at the sky, evidently in dawning awareness of what he was doing to himself; and Samuel, seizing the moment, stood up in the boat and suddenly reached into Thomas's cloak, grasping something under it., at which Thomas turned into a fury. He seized Samuel's arm, but too late; he had what looked like a small pouch or wineskin in his hand and ripped it from where it was fastened to the cloak. Thomas grasped at it, but Samuel held it out of his reach.

They struggled, and the boat rocked perilously. Thomas, with the strength of desperation (as twins, both of whom engaged in strenuous labor, they were ordinarily perfectly matched), almost wrested the bladder from Samuel, who saw what was coming and with a great effort, flung it away from him into the sea.

Thomas screamed--the first sound either had uttered since Samuel had made his grab at the pouch, and dove overboard, capsizing the boat. Samuel was totally unprepared for this, and as the boat went over, he fell into the lake, and the gunwale struck him in the back of the head. Thomas was swimming toward the pouch, which was floating, and saw nothing.

"Master!" shouted Ezra. "He is under the boat! He will drown!"

Nathanael stood up, and both ran to the shore. "Go in and save him! I cannot swim and Thomas does not see!" Nathanael stood there, irresolute. Could he do it? Would he be sucked in himself with Samuel's struggles? Was Samuel already dead from the blow? What if he . . .?

"Go! Go! He will drown!" screamed Ezra. But Nathanael could not move. He was afraid. I cannot, he thought. I will fail. I will die myself! "It will be too late! Go!"

--And before he could make himself move, it was too late. "I am going to the house."

"You cannot! You must try to save him!" But Nathanael turned and actually ran up the hill to escape. He could not watch. Ezra came a little later, and said nothing, but looked on him with total contempt. Nathanael did not ask whether Samuel had died; it was obvious.

And Philip confirmed this a few days later. Nathanael had not come down to the fig-tree, but Philip sought him out at the cottage, where he sat brooding, and told him what Ezra evidently knew: that Samuel was dead, that his body was found beside Thomas, naked, on the shore, with the boat nearby, and that his father had sold the boat and driven Thomas out of his house, throwing the boat's price after him, and disowning him as his son.

"And where he is now, we know not. They say he was dead drunk--Thomas, I mean. I was right. He was drunk."

Nathanael said nothing, wondering if Thomas would show up at the cottage and beg food--and wine--from him, and then what would he do? He knew not. All he knew is that Samuel had died because he could not bring himself to jump in to try to save him. Perhaps he would have died anyway; but even so, Nathanael would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had tried. And now, he knew that his inaction guaranteed his death.

"Go away, Philip," he finally said. "I wish to be alone."

"This is my thanks, then, for telling you what you ought to know."

"I am sorry, Philip, but I cannot be polite. Go."

"Very well. I will only come back if I have good news."

"There can never be good news again. Leave me." And he left.