The Stories of John Cheever

An old woman sat on the stoop of the next house, and she watched them suspiciously when they looked down the cellar stairs. “You’ll not find my Jimmy there,” she screamed, “you—you—” Someone threw open a window and told her to shut up. Robert saw that she was drunk. The policeman paid no attention to her. He looked methodically into the cellar of each house, and then they went around a corner. There were stores, here, along the front of an apartment house. There were no stairs or areaways.

Robert heard a siren. He stopped, and stopped the policeman with him. A police car came around the corner and drew up to the curb where they stood. “Hop in, Mr. Tennyson,” the driver said. “We found her. She’s down at the station.” He started the siren, and they drove east, dodging through the traffic. “We found her down on Third Avenue,” the policeman said. “She was sitting out in front of an antique store, eating a piece of bread. Somebody must have given her the bread. She isn’t hungry.”

She was waiting for him at the station house. He put his hands on her and knelt in front of her and began to laugh. His eyes were burning. “Where have you been, Deborah? Who gave you the bread? Where have you been? Where have you been?”

“The lady gave the bread,” she said. “I had to find Martha.”

“What lady gave you the bread, Deborah? Where have you been? Who is Martha? Where have you been?” He knew that she would never tell him and that as long as he lived he would never know, and against his palm he could feel the strong beating of her heart, but he went on asking, “Where have you been? Who gave you the bread? Who is Martha?” THE SUMMER FARMER