The Grasshopper King Read online

  This gave Treech pause; but only a little.

  “That’s potentially quite serious,” he said.

  “I thought you’d think so.”

  “Of course, the Dean’s wishes on the subject are very clear. We’re not in a position at this time to make any change.”

  “So I understand.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking a question?”

  I nodded, shoot.

  “What brought on these—concerns?”

  As darkly as I could: “I’ve heard things.”

  “You have.”

  “I think so. Just very quietly. Sometimes I get there when he’s still upstairs.”

  “Things that sound like talking.”

  “Very much so.”

  “But the actual words of which you are unable to make out.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well,” he said. “But if you had something more concrete.”

  But I wouldn’t, of course, and plainly my allegations alone were not enough to spur Treech to action. Some Iago I turned out to be.

  “Perhaps we’ll look into it,” he told me. And that was the last I heard of the matter for some time.

  “How was Treech?” Julia asked me when I got home. I’d told her I was meeting him about an independent study.

  “I couldn’t get him interested,” I said.

  “You tried,” Julia said, coming up behind my chair and resting her arms on my shoulders. She gave the back of my head a rub, briskly, like a Little League coach. “That’s what’s important.”

  Once, telling venial lies had been fun—where were those days now? I just felt foolish and ill. “No,” I said, “trying is not important. Succeeding is important.”

  Her hands lifted from me, and I heard her retreat to the bed. I’d spoken more sharply than I’d meant to. Apologies bloomed in me but I tamped them down.

  “Back to work,” I commanded, and opened the book before me.

  The story I was translating was Henderson’s rendition of a traditional Gravinian folktale, “The Four Wives of Little Bug.” Because so much of my time as Higgs’s companion was spent translating this piece, and because an acquaintance with Little Bug’s unlucky career is necessary for the understanding of certain parts of my own story, I will reproduce it here.

  Once, very long ago (the tale begins) there was a boy named Little Bug, who lived on a farm with his two very wise grandmothers and his two very wise grandfathers. One day Little Bug decided that it was time for him to take a wife. His grandmothers and grandfathers attempted to dissuade him.

  “If you leave us,” they cried, “we will starve, for we are not strong enough to sow the harvest by ourselves. Besides, Little Bug, there is nothing to be gained from marriage but pain and heartbreak. Stay with us!”

  But Little Bug was as foolish as his grandparents were wise. Unfortunately, he had gotten hold of books of a certain kind, and these books had instilled in him the idea that to have a wife was an altogether fitting and pleasant thing. So Little Bug ignored his grandparents’ pleading and set off down the road.

  Little Bug’s farm was in a sparsely settled part of the world and he walked for a very long time without seeing any other people. (Meanwhile, his wise grandmothers and grandfathers starved to death, just as they had predicted.) After fifty days Little Bug came to another farmhouse. In this house there lived an evil widow, her two cruel sons, and her wicked daughter Clarissa. When the widow saw Little Bug coming down the road, she rushed out to meet him; for her favorite thing in the world was to play spiteful tricks on voyagers who came that way.

  “Hello, stranger!” the widow shouted cheerfully. “What brings you to our humble farm?”

  “I am looking for a wife,” Little Bug said.

  The evil widow saw at once that Little Bug was very foolish, and in an instant she had hatched a fiendish plan.

  “What sort of wife were you looking for?” the widow asked.

  Little Bug thought for a long time. The question had never occurred to him before. He thought back to his books and remembered that the wives he had read about had all had long, flowing hair and long, slender legs.

  “I would like a wife with long, flowing hair and long, slender legs,” Little Bug replied.

  “Well, you have come to the right place,” the evil widow said, rubbing her hands gleefully. “I think I have just the wife you want.” The widow led Little Bug into the farmhouse, then went out to the back and returned with an old mare. Her two cruel sons and her wicked daughter, Clarissa, laughed behind their hands when they saw the trick their mother was playing.

  “Here she is,” the widow said. She pointed out the mare’s long, flowing mane and its long, slender legs. Little Bug was proud of himself for having remembered what sort of wife to ask for.

  “This is the wife for me,” Little Bug said. “When can we be married?”

  “I’ll marry you now,” the evil widow said. “Fortunately for you, I happen to be a district magistrate.” (About this matter she was telling the truth.) The evil widow spoke the applicable formula and pronounced Little Bug and the mare man and wife.

  “You two can live in the shed out back,” the evil widow said. “Now that you’re part of the family, you’ll do your share of the chores. We’re all a little old for heavy lifting.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Little Bug replied. He was so happy to be married that he was hardly listening to the evil widow’s words.

  That night the two cruel sons crept out to the shed and peered through a crack in the boards. There they saw Little Bug coupling with the mare. The mare’s legs were so long that Little Bug had to stand on a crate. It was the funniest thing the cruel sons had ever seen. They laughed and laughed, but silently so that Little Bug would not realize he was being tricked.

  From then on, Little Bug did all the chores on the evil widow’s farm. He tilled, planted, and sowed; he fed the goats and milked the cattle; he walked the beans; he reshuttered the windows and unstopped the chimney and sanded the splintery floors of the house. After a year, Little Bug came to the evil widow with a complaint.

  “I have heard,” Little Bug said, “that a wife is supposed to produce a son. Now, my wife and I have been married a year—and no son! I am beginning to wonder if you are trying to trick me.”

  The widow allowed a look of great contrition to overtake her features. “Why, Little Bug,” she said, “you should have told me sooner. This is certainly not an acceptable state of affairs. By my authority as district magistrate I declare you divorced.”

  The evil widow sent one of her cruel sons out to the shed to fetch the mare. Then the son took the mare over the rise and slaughtered it.

  “Tonight we will have a great feast in honor of your divorce,” the evil widow said, “and then we will find you a new wife.”

  So that night the widow and her two cruel sons and her wicked daughter, Clarissa, and Little Bug sat down to eat Little Bug’s first wife.

  “This is delicious,” Little Bug said. “What is it, may I ask?”

  “Steak,” said the evil widow.

  After they had finished dinner the widow asked Little Bug, “Tell me, Little Bug, what sort of wife would you like now?”

  This time Little Bug thought even harder than before. He did not want to make another mistake. Then he remembered that the wives in his books always had round, pink flesh. Perhaps this was the crucial detail.

  “I want a wife with round, pink flesh,” Little Bug said.

  “You happen to be in luck,” the evil widow said. “I have just the wife for you.” And she went out back and returned with a sow.

  “Notice the flesh,” the evil widow said.

  “This is the wife for me,” said Little Bug.

  That night the two cruel sons crept out to the shed once again, and once again peered through the crack in the boards, in order to see Little Bug coupling with the sow. This spectacle was even funnier than the one provided by the mare. Little Bug was chasing the sow aroun
d and around the shed but could not get a grip on her smooth sides. This time the cruel sons had to press their faces against the boards to keep their laughter in.

  So Little Bug went back to doing all the chores of the farm. After another year had passed, he came back to speak with the widow.

  “It has been another year,” Little Bug said, “and I still have no son. Once again I am beginning to wonder about the wife you’ve given me.”

  The widow’s face whitened. “Why, Little Bug, this is terrible. You should have told me sooner. By my authority as district magistrate I declare you divorced.” She sent one of her cruel sons out to the shed to fetch the sow. Then the son took the sow over the rise and slaughtered it.

  That night the evil widow and her two cruel sons and her wicked daughter, Clarissa, and Little Bug sat down to eat Little Bug’s second wife.

  “This is delicious,” Little Bug said. “What is it, may I ask?”

  “Veal,” said the evil widow.

  After they had finished dinner the evil widow asked Little Bug, “Tell me, Little Bug, what sort of wife would you like now?”

  Little Bug thought and thought. He thought as hard as he had ever thought. Finally he remembered that the wives in his books were always smaller than their husbands, and that none of them appeared to be very smart. Perhaps that was the problem, Little Bug thought: his previous wives had outsmarted him.

  “I would like a wife who is smaller than me and not too smart,” Little Bug said.

  “Very wise words,” the evil widow replied. “I have just the wife for you.” She went out back and returned with a hen.

  “This is the wife for me,” Little Bug said.

  That night the two cruel sons crept out to the shed for a third time. The sight of Little Bug coupling with the hen was so hilarious that they could not control their laughter, and the two of them fell backwards and rolled noisily down the hill to the house. But Little Bug was so absorbed in his task that he didn’t notice.

  Almost a year later, Little Bug was outside repairing a fence when a traveling salesman came down the road.

  “Hello, friend,” the salesman said. “Tell me, why do you look so sad?”

  Little Bug sighed. “It’s just that I am already on my third wife and I have not yet fathered a son. Oh, why did I ever want to marry at all?”

  “What does your wife have to say about it?” the salesman asked.

  “Oh, she doesn’t say anything; she’s a hen.”

  “A hen!” the salesman exclaimed.

  “That’s right,” said Little Bug. “My other wives were a sow and a mare. But they were too smart and schemed not to have sons.”

  “Why, what a little fool you are!” the salesman cried. “Don’t you know that if you want a son you must take a girl for a wife?”

  After the salesman left, Little Bug thought for a long time about what he had said. Then he packed his meager things and went to talk to the evil widow.

  “A traveling salesman has just explained how you’ve tricked me,” Little Bug said. “I am on my way to the city to lodge a complaint with the chief provincial magistrate.”

  The evil widow knew that even a fool like Little Bug could bring trouble on her head if he complained to the chief provincial magistrate. She was furious that her plan had been upset. Quickly, she thought up a new one.

  “Oh, my sweet Little Bug, surely you don’t think we meant you any harm! Why, we just knew you weren’t ready for a son yet. But now I see that you are. In fact, to show there are no hard feelings, I will give you my own daughter, Clarissa, for a wife.”

  Now Little Bug did not entirely trust the widow; but her explanation seemed logical, and Clarissa, while wicked, was not unattractive. So he agreed to the match. The widow divorced him from the hen and married him to Clarissa on the spot, and to celebrate they all sat down to eat Little Bug’s third wife, which the evil widow told him was duck.

  That night when the two cruel sons crept out to the shed they were dismayed to see Little Bug coupling with their sister. They did not find this funny, although it was, in its own way, of interest. Then they saw Clarissa reach into a hay bale, pull out the carving knife the widow had hidden there, and stab Little Bug in the back until he was dead.

  The next night the evil widow and her two cruel sons and her wicked daughter, Clarissa, who was now also a widow, sat down to eat Little Bug. They all agreed that this was better than all the other feasts, and each one expressed the fervent desire that the future would bring more foolish boys like Little Bug down the lonely road to their farm.

  “Nice story,” Julia said, after I’d summarized the plot for her.

  “It’s a cautionary fable against marriage,” I said. I was lying on the bed with my head tilted back so that I could see the Chandler City sunset upside down, a bloodied lake. “It’s about how women always get you in the end.”

  “Maybe it’s a cautionary fable about how you shouldn’t kill and eat your wife.”

  “Henderson calls ’em as he sees ’em,” I said, sitting up, too fast.

  “He must have been a real Mister Sunrise,” Julia said. And that was what she called Henderson from then on, at first to tease me, and then, after a while, because she started to think of it as his real name. Even I said it, sometimes, because it always made her laugh when I did (“You sound so serious,” she’d say, “like it was an epithet or something.”) Because of the job we had not been spending so much time together as we had during school, and it was good to have a joke between us.

  One day, shortly after my visit to Treech, Julia asked me if she could meet Higgs.

  “Of course,” I said. “Tomorrow, if you want. If you don’t still think it’s creepy.”

  “I do. But how else will I get over it, right?”

  “Right,” I said, overcome—her magnanimity, her kindness, and so on. She looked staunch, like a solo pilot.

  “Just remember,” Julia said, “I’m counting on you to take action if he does anything strange.”

  “Bam!” I assured her. “Biff! Whack! Pow!”

  CHAPTER 4

  DOUBLE DATE

  When Ellen, opening the door the next morning, releasing the now-familiar blast of music and appliances, found both me and Julia on the stoop, rather than, as usual, only me, her forehead creased and her mouth drew into a tight, questioning frown. It was her response, I’d learned, to any unexpected occurrence—and who could blame her? Everything unexpected in her life had been more or less catastrophic.

  “This is my friend Julia,” I said. “Julia, Mrs. Higgs.”

  “Hi,” Julia shouted. “Hello. Good to meet you.” Her hand tightened on my wrist.

  Ellen nodded. She looked from my face to Julia’s, then back. The fingers of her two hands worried at each other as if she were silently adding up columns. It was the most recognition she’d given me in weeks. I felt I’d won some puny victory.

  “We’re going to go downstairs,” I told Ellen. She shuffled backwards into the loud gloom of the foyer to make way. She made no move to follow us down.

  “God,” Julia said when we came out into the basement. “This place.”

  “I told you.”

  “But still,” she said. “Actually seeing it. It’s not the same.” She picked up an acromegalic idol which lay overturned on the floor and set it down upright. “Wouldn’t you think somebody’d want some of these things?”

  “I’m not sure anyone even knows it’s all here. Maybe some very old anthropologists. Treech and McTaggett. Ellen and Higgs.”

  “Speaking of whom,” Julia said. “Introduce me, dummy.”

  “Professor Higgs? This is my girlfriend Julia. She’s been looking forward to meeting you.”

  Julia let go my wrist and proceeded to Higgs, her right hand out.

  “I don’t think he shakes hands,” I warned her. But her object was the checkerboard on the table. Higgs’s black pieces remained in their victorious position; my jumped red ones were neatly stacked beside the board
.

  “You want to play?” she asked me.

  “You play checkers?”

  “I know how.”

  She arranged the men in their zig-zag ranks. She seemed already to be considering her opening move.

  “Why don’t you play Professor Higgs?” I suggested. “I could use a break. And he’s probably tired of me already.”

  She looked at Higgs doubtfully. He dropped his eyes to the board, began to make his sound, and without hesitation moved a red checker one step into no-man’s-land.

  “See?” I said. “Everybody likes variety.”

  Julia took one of Higgs’s checkers early, then fell back to a grim defense of her king line. Now and then she muttered, “Good, OK.”

  “He’s got tricks in store,” I told her.

  The two of them traded captures for a while, neither gaining any clear advantage of position. When Higgs’s force was reduced to two and Julia’s to three, Higgs stopped making his noise. Julia stood up from the table.

  “What’s going on?” I said, a little panicked. “Why didn’t you finish?” I had been rather expecting a last-minute comeback.

  “Look at the board,” she said. “He’s got no way out. He resigned.”

  I looked, considered, couldn’t make out the hopelessness. But I trusted Higgs.

  “Go again,” I said.

  Higgs won the next game, and Julia took the one after that. Higgs responded with two commanding victories (“He’s tricky,” I counseled) but in the sixth game, trying the same opening, he fell two men behind in the early going, and never recovered.

  “Rubber match,” Julia said coolly, and began to set the checkers up again. She seemed to have forgotten her initial discomfort with Higgs, with the basement, with my job. As far as I could tell she didn’t even know I was in the room.

  But before the tiebreaker could start, Ellen came downstairs with lunch. Without ceremony she moved the checkerboard aside and laid in its place a platter of vegetable sticks, potato chips, and sandwiches: sliced turkey on rye, cut into quarters, a cellophane toothpick driven into each section. Next to the platter she set down a snack bowl filled with sesame sticks and cashews. The cellophane ribbons hung stiffly over our lunch like tiny flags.