“Ho,” he said. His cheeks became rosy. “Gettin’ smart, aren’t you?”
“Smart enough to know that relations between the Negroes and white people are worse than I’ve ever seen them in my life—by the way, you never mentioned them once—smart enough to want to know what makes your sainted sister act the way she does, smart enough to want to know what the hell has happened to my father.”
Dr. Finch clenched his hands and tucked them under his chin. “Human birth is most unpleasant. It’s messy, it’s extremely painful, sometimes it’s a risky thing. It is always bloody. So is it with civilization. The South’s in its last agonizing birth pain. It’s bringing forth something new and I’m not sure I like it, but I won’t be here to see it. You will. Men like me and my brother are obsolete and we’ve got to go, but it’s a pity we’ll carry with us the meaningful things of this society—there were some good things in it.”
“Stop woolgathering and answer me!”
Dr. Finch stood up, leaned on the table, and looked at her. The lines from his nose sprang to his mouth and made a harsh trapezoid. His eyes blazed, but his voice was still quiet:
“Jean Louise, when a man’s looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stovewood or a citizens’ council.”
“That is no answer!”
Dr. Finch shut his eyes, opened them, and looked down at the table.
“You’ve been giving me some kind of elaborate runaround, Uncle Jack, and I’ve never known you to do it before. You’ve always given me a straight answer to anything I ever asked you. Why won’t you now?”
“Because I cannot. It is neither within my power nor my province to do so.”
“I’ve never heard you talk like this.”
Dr. Finch opened his mouth and clamped it shut again. He took her by the arm, led her into the next room, and stopped in front of the gilt-framed mirror.
“Look at you,” he said.
She looked.
“What do you see?”
“Myself, and you.” She turned toward her uncle’s reflection. “You know, Uncle Jack, you’re handsome in a horrible sort of way.”
She saw the last hundred years possess her uncle for an instant. He made a cross between a bow and a nod, said, “That’s kind of you, ma’am,” stood behind her, and gripped her shoulders. “Look at you,” he said. “I can only tell you this much. Look at your eyes. Look at your nose. Look at your chin. What do you see?”
“I see myself.”
“I see two people.”“You mean the tomboy and the woman?”
She saw Dr. Finch’s reflection shake its head. “No-o, child. That’s there all right, but it’s not what I mean.”
“Uncle Jack, I don’t know why you elect to disappear into the mist….”
Dr. Finch scratched his head and a tuft of gray hair stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Go ahead. Go ahead and do what you’re going to do. I can’t stop you and I mustn’t stop you, Childe Roland. But it’s such a messy, risky thing. Such a bloody business—”
“Uncle Jack, sweetie, you’re not with us.”
Dr. Finch faced her and held her at arm’s length. “Jean Louise, I want you to listen carefully. What we’ve talked about today—I want to tell you something and see if you can hook it all together. It’s this: what was incidental to the issue in our War Between the States is incidental to the issue in the war we’re in now, and is incidental to the issue in your own private war. Now think it over and tell me what you think I mean.”
Dr. Finch waited.
“You sound like one of the Minor Prophets,” she said.
“I thought so. Very well, now listen again: when you can’t stand it any longer, when your heart is in two, you must come to me. Do you understand? You must come to me. Promise me.” He shook her. “Promise me.”
“Yes sir, I promise, but—”
“Now scat,” said her uncle. “Go off somewhere and play post office with Hank. I’ve got better things to do—”
“Than what?”
“None of your business. Git.”
When Jean Louise went down the steps, she did not see Dr. Finch bite his under lip, go to his kitchen, and tug Rose Aylmer’s fur, or return to his study with his hands in his pockets and walk slowly back and forth across the room until, finally, he picked up the telephone.
PART VI
15
MAD, MAD, MAD as a hatter. Well, that’s the way of all Finches. Difference between Uncle Jack and the rest of ’em, though, is he knows he’s crazy.
She was sitting at a table behind Mr. Cunningham’s ice cream shop, eating from a wax-paper container. Mr. Cunningham, a man of uncompromising rectitude, had given her a pint free of charge for having guessed his name yesterday, one of the tiny things she adored about Maycomb: people remembered their promises.
What was he driving at? Promise me—incidental to the issue—Anglo-Saxon—dirty word—Childe Roland. I hope he doesn’t lose his sense of propriety or they will have to shut him up. He’s so far out of this century he can’t go to the bathroom, he goes to the water closet. But mad or not, he’s the only one of ’em who hasn’t done something or said something—
Why did I come back here? Just to rub it in, I suppose. Just to look at the gravel in the back yard where the trees were, where the carhouse was, and wonder if it was all a dream. Jem parked his fishing car over there, we dug earthworms by the back fence, I planted a bamboo shoot one time and we fought it for twenty years. Mr. Cunningham must have salted the earth where it grew, I don’t see it any more.