Free A New Life by Bernard Malamud Page B

the Pacific, floating toward the east. He wore his raincoat and carried a large umbrella; he did not like to be caught in a storm and soaked. A city boy let loose, Levin took in all the sights, stopping for five minutes at his first row of rural mailboxes. He enjoyed the variety of aging and ancient barns. In bright sunlight the stubble of grain- or grass-harvested fields looked like snow on the ground. One farm had a green scrub oak at its center that seemed to be growing in snow. The illusion created pleasure. He watched farmers burning the harvest stubble and afterward the fields were black, a sight he had never imagined. One day, as he walked past a black field, a visible funnel of wind whirled over it and headed for him. Levin wildly wondered whether to run, grab a fence post, or lie still in the road; then the little twister turned and blew another way. Within a week men on tractors were harrowing the burnt fields, and the rich brown earth looked newly combed and awaiting planting. The sight of the expectant earth raised a hunger in Levin’s throat. He yearned for the return of spring, a terrifying habit he strongly resisted: the season was not yet officially autumn. He was now dead set against the destruction of unlived time. As he walked, he enjoyed surprises of landscape: the variety of green, yellow, brown, apd black fields, compositions with distant trees, the poetry of perspective. Without investment to speak of he had become rich in sight of nature, a satisfying wealth. In the past he had had almost none of this, though in winter he had tenaciously watched the frozen city trees for the first signs of budding; observed with reluctance the growth of leaves; walked alone at night close to full-blown summer trees; and in autumn followed dead leaves to their graves. Now he took in miles of countryside—a marvelous invention. He had never seen so many horses, sheep, pigs across fences. The heavy Herefords (he had looked them up) turned white faces to the
road as he went by. He had never seen one in the open before, or black Angus; they had never seen a Levin.
    The image of autumn was already in his eye, but he did not compel it, as he had in the past compelled every flower and tree, to solace, or mourn with, his spirit. He saw almost the moment when strings of white birch leaves faded from green to yellow; and under the green skirts of maples, bunches of leaves flared gold. Except for a scarlet vine on a fence there were few reds—this into October, a green and yellow autumn, less poignant than his last year’s. Except on warm days it took a sharp sniffer to unearth its bouquet, for an almost monotonous freshness of air dampened the effects of odor. He missed the smell of change and its associations, the sense of unwilled motion toward an inevitable end, of winter coming and what of one’s life in a cold season? What most moved him was memory. Yet when the autumn day was momentarily cloudless, blue-skied, still to the point of a dog’s bark miles away, it sometimes burdened the heart.
    One afternoon after a long lonely walk, a mood induced, he thought, by the odor of wood smoke in the air, Levin stopped off at the Gilleys.
    Pauline, coming to the door in tight violet toreador pants and a paint-smeared shirt, drew back when she saw him.
    “Oh, you frightened me,” she laughed in embarrassment, “I wasn’t expecting anyone. That is, a guest.”
    “Excuse me,” Levin said. “Is your husband home?”
    “Why no,” she said, controlled now. “He’s downtown doing something at the bank. After that he was planning to go to the hardware store to buy a toilet seat for our split one in the upstairs bathroom—the kids slam them down so hard. Would you care to come in? The house is a mess, I’ve been painting chairs.”
    But he saw from her distraction she wished he wouldn’t. Levin said thanks and moved away. He said he would see Gerald in the office. The screen door slammed behind her.
    “‘Come see us