Down the table Felix was discussing the ice crop; they'd begun cutting near Bordentown, New Jersey, he said. Then there was a little talk about the Metropolitan Elevated scandal, whatever that was. I smiled at Julia and said the turkey was wonderful; I've always thought of turkey as dry and nearly flavorless but this was succulent. It was wild turkey, Julia said, and when I looked surprised, and asked where she'd got it, she looked surprised. "At the market, of course." I asked about that, and found that they also sold quail, grouse, partridges, tame squabs, wild ducks including canvasbacks, redheads, and mallards, and hares and rabbits. I'd always thought hare was another name for rabbit, and started to ask about that but didn't; Julia's eyes were narrowed, and she was staring across the table at me wonderingly. I turned to Felix beside me, and just to be saying something asked if he were interested in baseball.
He said he was, a little. He'd gone to the polo grounds a few times last summer when they weren't playing polo, to see the Mets play. I said, "Who?" He said, "The Metropolitans." I nodded, and said I thought that's what he said. "How did they do?" I asked. He said, "Not so well; they had bad pitching," and I said I wasn't a bit surprised.
For dessert we had a birthday cake, Felix blowing out the candles. And then we had a birthday party! Julia and her aunt stayed in the dining room, closing the sliding doors, to clear the table. In the parlor Maud Torrence sat down at the organ and began looking through the sheet music on the rack. Felix Grier and Byron Doverman stood behind her, and when I sat down with the paper, they called me, and I knew there was no escape, and walked over.
I was able to join in on the first song, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," and when we finished young Felix said, "If only Jake were home we'd have a quartet!" That was my chance to ask, "Jake who?" and Felix said, "Jake Pickering, our other boarder," and now I knew his name, and felt I'd made some progress.
The next number was "If I Catch the Man Who Taught Her to Dance," or something like that, and all I could do was try to follow along. Then Julia and her aunt came in, and we all sang "In the Evening by the Moonlight" and "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers." Aunt Ada did pretty well, but Julia was a little off the beat occasionally. Byron Doverman said, " 'Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone!' " Julia said, "Oh, no," but the others insisted. Maud found the music, and — all reading the words over her shoulders — we sang what is probably the most lugubrious song I've ever heard, about this poor dead baby, and including lines like "Baby's gone to join the angels, peaceful evermore." Julia smiled at me, shrugging; she seemed to think it was ridiculous. But when Maud finished she turned from the organ saying she'd played enough, and her eyes were bright, she was on the edge of tears, and I remembered that this was a time when babies died easily; maybe the song meant something to her.
The doorbell rang, and again I wondered if it were my man. But Julia answered the bell and came back sorting through four or five envelopes, one of which she handed Byron; the others were birthday greetings for Felix. It was a mail delivery at very nearly seven in the evening, and when I said I was surprised, Julia answered with a touch of big-city smugness that mail was delivered five times a day in New York City. "Byron," she said then, "will you favor us with some magic?" He nodded, took the stairs to his room two at a time, came back down just as fast, then walked around the room pulling coins from our ears, and asking people to "pick a card, any one at all." The truth is that he was pretty good, and everyone, including me, actually enjoyed the performance.
He finished, put the deck in his pocket, and sat down. Aunt Ada said, "My uncle sent me a fan from China, and I fan like this." She began waggling her hand under her chin as though fanning herself, and everyone copied her. At her right, in a chair next to the windows, Maud Torrence said, "My uncle sent me a fan from China, and I fan like this." With her left hand she began waving an imaginary fan at her left ear, and — our right hands still waggling — we all did the same. It was my turn and I said, "My uncle sent me a fan from Czechoslovakia and I fan like this." I exposed my teeth as though I had a fan in my mouth, and began nodding my head, everyone imitating. Felix was next and he ended the game with twin fans from the Sandwich Islands, lifting both feet from the floor and fanning away. As we all copied the movement everyone burst into laughter, and it was funny, all of us reared back in our chairs, heads, hands and feet simultaneously waggling away.
Aunt Ada said, "Where is Czechoslovakia, Mr. Morley?"
"Why, I believe it's south of Germany."
She nodded, accepting this, and I think Maud Torrence did, too. But the two men and Julia were looking at me. I knew what was wrong; there was no Czechoslovakia, wouldn't be for decades yet, and I grinned to show I'd only been joking.
Felix's face was flushed, his eyes bright; he was having a great twenty-first birthday, and he said, "Julia? Tableaux vivants!"
"All right." Whatever it was, she liked the idea. "Shall I choose first?" He nodded, and she said, "Then I'll need you and Byron." They walked into the dining room, pulling the sliding doors closed after them, and Aunt Ada got up and turned the lights of the parlor chandelier very low. Then she and Maud sat smiling expectantly at the closed doors of the dining room, and when they glanced at me I was doing the same. Julia called, "Ready!" and Aunt Ada, who was nearest, got up and rolled open the doors.
The dining-room lights were turned up high and bright, and the three of them stood in the doorway almost silhouetted as though on a stage; they were posed and motionless. Byron and Julia were facing Felix, who stood on one foot, the other slightly raised. Wedged under one arm he held a long stick of some sort like a crutch; his mouth was open as though speaking, his eyes wide. Julia's head was thrown back, her mouth open, her eyes as wide as Felix's. Byron looked stricken, too, the back of one fist pressed to his forehead.
They stood there, swaying slightly; we all sat and stared. Then Maud, voice frustrated, said, "Oh, I know it, I know it so well!"
Suddenly, triumphant, Aunt Ada cried, "The Soldier's Return!" and the tableau vivant broke up, chattering, heads nodding in confirmation. Aunt Ada stood; apparently it was her turn now. "I'll need you, Mr. Morley," she said, and I followed her into the dining room, closing the sliding doors behind us. "Do you know The Slave Auction?" she said eagerly. I stood frowning as though trying to remember, then said I was afraid I didn't. "Never mind, I'll pose you. We'll need a gavel." She stood looking around the room, then hurried to a cabinet against one wall, opened a drawer, and brought out a big soup ladle. "This'll do; hold it like a gavel." She pulled a straight-backed chair up to the closed doors, turning its back to the door. "Climb up; this will be the auctioneer's stand." I got up on the chair, facing the doors. "Raise your gavel; you're saying, 'Going, going, gone!' " I did, and Aunt Ada knelt before the chair facing the parlor, crossing one wrist over the other as though her arms were bound. "Ready!" she called, all excited, then she dropped her head, chin on her chest.
The doors began sliding open, and though I didn't move — gavel hand upraised, my mouth open — I felt my face flush. But they all knew this one instantly, yelling, "The Slave Auction!" almost simultaneously. Then they were gabbling congratulations, the gist of them being that they'd guessed instantly only because we'd done it so well.
By the time we'd had a couple more tableaux vivants — The Wounded Scout and Lovers ' Retreat — I found out through various references what we were doing. We were imitating the poses of figures in statuary groups made by a man named Rogers who duplicated them in plaster by the thousands. Apparently every home had a Rogers group — Weighing the Baby on Aunt Ada's mantelpiece was one — and everyone was familiar with most of them. I sat like the others, trying to look as though I were recalling titles that might match the poses in the dining room. Across from me Maud sat absently scratching her initials in the frost on the windowpane beside her. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen genuine frost on a windowpane since I'd written on my grandfather's farmhouse window when I was a child. In the final tableau — Julia was one of the lovers, sitting on a bench and looking sad — I saw her flick a glance at me, and I thought I could read her mind; I was the only person in the room who hadn't once been able to call out a title, even a wrong guess.