HERB AND LORNA moved in the next day, but, while they were unpacking, Herb began to feel that he’d been unfair, that he’d forced Lorna to share, or at least to try to share, his enthusiasm for the apartment. He began to feel that he should have left the apartment hunting to her, that she should have been the one to choose the place where she would live, and that, if she had been the one to choose, she would never have chosen a place like this, would certainly never have chosen any place where she had to walk through her landlords’ home and home life to get to her own.
“I know it isn’t as private as you’d like,” said Herb.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lorna. “I love it here.”
“It’s going to be awkward walking through their place every time we come and go,” said Herb.
“I don’t mind,” said Lorna.
“It isn’t too late to change our minds,” said Herb. He came to her and took her face in his hands. “I’ll tell them that we really have to have a larger place, and that I talked you into taking this place, and it wasn’t fair to you — ”
“Dut, dut, dut,” said Lorna. She wrapped herself around Herb and kissed him quiet. “Ignite me, please,” she whispered.
When they got back to unpacking, Herb watched with amusement and surprise while Lorna unpacked with great care a lurid papier-mâché duck and tried placing it in several locations around the room before settling on a window sill in the kitchen as just the right spot for it.
“Lorna,” said Herb, “where did you get — ”
“Don’t say anything nasty about it,” said Lorna. “I know it’s not beautiful, but it’s important to me.” She held the duck in front of her with both hands, elevated it, rotated it, examined it. “I’ve had it since I was a little girl.” She paused. “A very little girl,” she added distractedly, struck by an appreciation of all the time, so much time, that had passed since she’d thought that the duck was beautiful and that it stood for Uncle Luther’s love. How much more it meant now. And yet, how much uglier and smaller it seemed, now, here, removed from childhood and Chacallit, distant in time, space, and understanding. “This,” she said, meaning all that, “is a very old duck.”
THEIR STAY in the one-room apartment at the Mikszaths’ would, Herb and Lorna agreed, be temporary, and it would do just fine for a while, till they found something bigger, something better, while they were learning their way around Babbington, while Herb was establishing himself. It would be just fine until they found someplace that they really liked.
They stayed for five years. During those five years, Mr. Mikszath, who had been the victim of a stroke, never said anything but “Dut, dut, dut.” Herb and Lorna learned to interpret his pointing, his sketching in the air, his twisted facial expressions, and the various emphases he put on his “duts,” and they made his vocabulary of “duts,” grimaces, and gestures a part of theirs. Mrs. Mikszath’s affection for them grew and grew, but she also developed a romantic interest in Herb. She began wearing makeup, elaborate costume jewelry, and gauzy, nearly transparent, blouses. Her remarks took on the style of double-entendres, even when they were not so intended, so warmly burned the fire in her heart. Once a week, at least, she would come to their door in the evening, soon after Herb had returned home, with a tray on which she’d laid out dinner for two, insisting, always, that she’d made too much for Miklos and herself, or that this was a dish she’d eaten as girl — full of memories, they had to try it — or that Miklos couldn’t eat because his stomach was “stormy.” Whatever she brought was provided in his-and-hers sizes: a large plate for Herb, almost a platter, and coffee in a mug; a small plate for Lorna, and coffee in a tiny cup, an heirloom, a precious cup of the thinnest, finest china, offered as an apology for the way she felt about Herb, an acknowledgment of Lorna’s femininity, and a reminder of her own.
In Topical Guide 303, Mark Dorset considers Language: Idiolect; Language: Structure (Morphemes, Phonemes, Syllables, Monosyllables); Language: Words Meaningful and Meaningless; Word Play; Semantic Satiation; and Scatting from this episode.
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