Letters

Unthinkable prospect! Ambrose too would laugh until his jaw hinge ached and the belly muscles knotted; laugh and weep together at his brother’s misery, who longed to run but must embrace his adored tormentor. Her tease never worked with Ambrose: he would stiffen in her arms, tickle her ribs, mimic her words — anything not to amuse the company at cost of his dignity. But with Peter it never failed: even when he was in high school, vowing like his Uncle Karl to drop out and work full-time at the stoneyard, she could make him cry with that song for the sport of it, break him down entirely — then turn upon her audience for being entertained and declare, “Peter’s the only one loves me. He’s got a heart, he has.” Or, about as often, would push him away, almost recoil in mid-refrain as though from some near-human pet with whom she’d been disporting, and scold him for mussing her dress.

Ambrose, finally: is there a thing to him besides this familiar tenacity? Persistent amateur, novice human: much given to sloth and revery; full of intuition and odd speculation; ignorant of his fellows, canny of himself; moderately learned, immoderately harassed by dreams; despairing of his powers; stunned by history — and above all, dumbly dogged. His head holds but one idea at a time: be it never so dull and simple he can’t dismiss it for another but must tinker at it, abandon and return to it, nick and scratch and chip away until at last by sheer persistence he frets it into something fanciful, perhaps bizarre, anyhow done with.

Thus these Mensches.

F

For a time, though centered in a baby lying on the front-porch glider, A. was also what he compassed. How describe this. If for instance I declare that through a breathless August forenoon a cottonwood poplar whispered from the dooryard, dandled its leaves on squozen petioles when not a maple stirred, you’ll see past that syntax? Tree and baby were not then two unless in the manner of mouth and ear: he in the poplar addressed to him in the glider not truths but signs. Coded reassurances. Recognitions.

Ambrose ranged from crab to goat. Upon a wicker porch-chair, in shallow boxes seaweed-lined, olive soft crabs were stacked edgewise like crullers in a tray. One peered at A. from eyestalks; crab and baby bubbled each a froth, but as right and left hands may play together separately: one performer, one performance. Baby could not yet turn to see what bleated from a backyard pen, nor needed to. In those days crab did not leave off and goat begin: that odored nan, her milk, the child who throve upon it were continuous; Ambrose was not separate from things. Whisper, bubble, bleat made one music against a ground-sound at once immediate and remote: pulse of his blood, hum of his head, chop of his river, buzz of his bees, traffic on all his streets and waterways. Panambrosia. It was his lullaby, too; did it end when Ambrose slept?

That name was his first word: it meant everything. “Say Mama, Ambrose. Mah-mah?”

“Ah-bo.”

“There, he said it.”

“In Plattdeutsch yet.”

“O, did he tease the baby boy! Who’s this, Ambrose? Say Grandpa.”

“Ah-bo.”

Peter, four, taught him otherwise, with the aid of Aunt Rosa’s egg and their mother’s hand mirror, both smuggled one afternoon into the place where Ambrose napped. Egg was held briefly to baby’s eye; Ambrose became a green and rivered landscape which would with the cry “Peter!” give way to grinning brother’s face.

“Ah-bo.”

“Not Ambrose. Peter! Here’s Ambrose…” The green landscape would envelop all once more, give way now to the reflection of its viewer’s face in the hand mirror. “Ambrose!”

“Ah-bo.”

Laughter and laughter. Egg again then; again the earlier face.

“Peter!”

“Ah-bo.”

They played so until teacher, losing patience, found a forcefuller demonstration: went behind the crib head as if for hide-and-seek, and upon next removal of the egg, presented his own face upside down.

“Peter!” that strange countenance demanded. “Peter Peter Peter Peter!”

Family history maintains it was some antic mugging of Peter’s, together with his scolding tone, frightened Ambrose. How so, when it had been his custom to amuse with every noise and grimace he could achieve? No, the mere inversion of features was no matter: right side up, upside down, Ambrose knew that face and called it by his all-purpose name. What it was, it was the eyes, that they seemed not inverted at all; it was that those eyes were right side up still in Peter’s face and were hence not any eyes one knew! Something alien peered out from Peter’s head; independent of eyebrows, nose, mouth, those eyes watched neutrally, as through a mask, or through peepholes from another world.

Tears dissolved all forms together. Ambrose’s shriek fetched grown-ups from below: Peter hugged his brother at once through the crib bars and joined the wail. Mirror and Easter egg were rescued, teacher was spanked, pupil comforted — who is said to have called Peter Peter from that hour.