The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner Page A

and I accept their salute.
    Velkommen, Onkel Yoe.
    Â 
    I slapped the notebook shut. “That’s all for the night. I’m getting singer’s nodules.”
    She didn’t object “All right. That was nice, We can read some more tomorrow night, and every night till we finish it. Unless it bothers you too much.”
    â€œIt doesn’t bother me.”
    â€œI’m afraid it does,” she said. “It bothers me, too. But don’t - you think ... I mean, this fits right in with the letters you’re going through. Here’s a whole piex of our life, a sort of strange interlude.”
    â€œStrange interlude is right.” I stood up, and I guess she saw me wince.
    â€œHurt?”
    â€œJust the old hinges.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t saw all that wood. I beg you and beg you, and still you go on working as if you were a young man. You could hire somebody to do that hard work.”
    â€œAnd then what would I do?” I said. I stood and listened to the rain hitting the windows in pattering gusts. “Minnie’ll be tracking in more dirt tomorrow than she sweeps out.”
    â€œOh, my Lord,” Ruth said. “Tomorrow is Minnie’s day, I’d forgotten. I meant to clear out that mess in the other bedroom.”
    My good wife is a cliché, the one who cleans up for the cleaning lady. And a good thing too, the cleaning lady being perceptibly slapdash.
    The telephone rang again. Arching her eyebrows clear up into her bangs (who’d be calling at this hour, nearly ten o’clock?), Ruth answered it. “Yes,” she said. “Just a moment, please.”
    Making don’t-ask-me faces, she reached the instrument across. “Hello?” I said.
    Female voice, breathless, hurried, young, apologetic, false. “Mr. Allston? I’m terribly sorry to be bothering you at home, and so late. Do you have a minute? You don’t know me, my name is Anne McElvenny, I live in San Franscisco and I’m one of a group who act as hostesses and guides for State Department visitors. It’s a Junior League thing. I’d like to ask you a favor, or a question.”
    â€œAsk away. Maybe I don’t have the answer, but I can try.”
    â€œI know! It’s nervy of me, but I thought maybe this is something you’d ... and since he asked about you, and wondered if you weren’t in the Bay Area. You know Césare Rulli.”
    â€œOf course. Is he in town?”
    â€œYes. For the last two days. He leaves tomorrow night. And you know him, so I don’t have to tell you. He’s such a dynamo, he’s run through everything I had planned for him. -I had such a list I thought we’d never get halfway through it, but... Well! We’ve done the City, and visited the bookstores, and had about six radio and TV interviews, and lunched with a lot of writers, and dined with the Italian consul—I’m calling from there, so I can plan tomorrow. I know he’d love to see you, if you’ll be at home.”
    â€œWhy, yes,” I said. “We’d love to see him, too, if we aren’t tied up. Just a minute while I look at the calendar.”
    The routine again, hand over mouthpiece, mouth down, sotto voce explanation. “Césare Rulli’s in town, somebody wants to bring him down. Could we give them lunch?”
    People who have lived together a long time are said to begin to look alike. They also respond alike to anything that challenges their routine. I could see my own sentiments pass across Ruth’s face, followed by some of hers. First the automatic impulse to reject the intrusion as a threat to peace—a sort of Why can’t they leave us alone? Then some rapid-eye-movement reconsiderations, neutral or only partly negative: what’s on hand? have to shop? rainy day, everything will look its worst. On the other hand, Minnie’s day, that’s a plus. And a break in the daily round, good for Joe. And