From the Corner of His Eye

Chapter 54

EVERY MOTHER BELIEVES that her baby is breathtakingly beautiful. She will remain unshakably convinced of this even if she lives to be a centenarian and her child has been harrowed by eight hard decades of gravity and experience.

Every mother also believes that her baby is smarter than other babies. Sadly, time and the child's choices in life usually require her to adjust her opinion as she never will in the matter of physical beauty.

Month by month during Barty's first year, Agnes's belief in his exceptional intelligence was only confirmed by his development. By the end of the second month of life, most babies will smile in response to a smile, and they are able to smile spontaneously in the fourth month. Barty was smiling frequently in his second week. In the third month, many babies laugh out loud, but Barty's first laugh came in his sixth week.

At the beginning of his third month, instead of at the end of his fifth, he was combining vowels and consonants: “ba-ba-ba, ga-ga-ga, la-la-la, ca-ca-ca."

At the end of his fourth month, instead of in his seventh, he said “Mama,” and clearly knew what it meant. He repeated it when he wanted to get her attention.

He was able to play peekaboo in his fifth month instead of his eighth, stand while holding on to something in his sixth instead of eighth.

By eleven months, his vocabulary had expanded to nineteen words, by Agnes's count: an age when even a precocious child usually spoke three or four at most.

His first word after mama was papa, which she taught him while showing him pictures of Joey. His third word: pie.

His name for Edom was E-bomb. Maria became Me-ah.

When Bartholomew first said “Kay-jub,” and held out one hand toward his uncle, Jacob surprised Agnes by crying with happiness.

Barty began toddling at ten months, walking well at eleven.

By his twelfth month, he was toilet-trained, and every time that he had the need to use his colorful little bathroom chair, he proudly and repeatedly announced to everyone, “Barty potty."

On January 1, 1966, five days before Barty's first birthday, Agnes discovered him, in his playpen, engaged in unusual toe play. He wasn't simply, randomly tickling or tugging on his toes. Between thumb and forefinger, he firmly pinched the little piggy on his left foot, and then one by one pinched his way to the biggest toe. His attention shifted to his right foot, on which he first pinched the big toe before systematically working down to the smallest.

Throughout this procedure, Barty appeared solemn and thoughtful. When he had squeezed the tenth toe, he stared at it, brow furrowed.

He held one hand in front of his face, studying his fingers. The other hand.

He pinched all his toes in the same order as before.

And then he pinched them in order again.

Agnes had the craziest notion that he was counting them, when at is age, Of course, he would have no concept of numbers.

“Honey,” she said, crouching to peer at him through the vertical slats of the playpen, “what're you doing?"

He smiled and held up one foot.

“Those are your toes,” she said.

“Toes,” he repeated immediately in his sweet, piping voice. This was a new word for him.

Reaching between the slats, Agnes tickled the pink piggies on his left foot. “Toes."

Barty giggled. “Toes."

“You're a good boy, smarty Barty."

He pointed at his feet. “Toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes."

“A good boy, but not yet a great conversationalist."

Raising one hand, wiggling the fingers, he said, “Toes, toes, toes, toes, toes."

“Fingers,” she corrected.

“Toes, toes, toes, toes, toes."

“Well, perhaps I'm wrong."

Five days later, on Barty's birthday morning, when Agnes and Edom were in the kitchen, making preparations for the visits that had earned her the affectionate title of Pie Lady, Barty was in his highchair, eating a vanilla wafer lightly dampened with milk. Each time a crumb fell from the cookie, the boy plucked it off the tray and neatly conveyed it to his tongue.

Lined up on the kitchen table were green-grape-and-apple pies. The thick domed crusts, with their deeply fluted edges, were the coppery gold of precious coins.

Barty pointed at the table. “Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie."

“Not yours,” Agnes advised. “We've got one of our own in the refrigerator."

“Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie,” Barty repeated in the same tone of self-satisfied delight that he used when announcing “Barty potty."

“No one starts the day with pie, “Agnes said. “You get pie after dinner."

Thrusting his finger toward the table with each repetition of the word, Barty happily insisted, “Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie."

Edom had turned away from the box of groceries that he was packing. Frowning at the pies, he said, “You don't think. . .

Agnes glanced at her brother. “Think what?"

“Couldn't be,” said Edom.

“Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie."

Edom removed two of the pies from the table and put them on the counter near the ovens.

After following his uncle's movements, Barty looked at the table again. “Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie."

Edom transferred two more pies from table to counter.

Thrusting his finger four times at the table, Barty said, “Pie, pie, pie, pie."

Although her hands were shaking and her knees felt as though they might buckle, Agnes lifted two pies off the table.

Jabbing his forefinger at each of the remaining treats, Barty said, “Pie, pie."

Agnes returned the two that she had lifted off the table.

“Pie, pie, pie, pie.” Barty grinned at her.

Amazed, Agnes gaped at her baby. The throat lump that blocked her speech was part pride, part awe, and part fear, though she didn't at once understand why this wonderful precociousness should frighten her.

One, two, three, four-Edom took away all the remaining pies. He pointed at Barty and then at the empty table.

Barty sighed as though disappointed. “No pie."

“Oh, Lord,” said Agnes.

“Another year,” Edom said, “and instead of me, Barty can drive the car for you."

Her fear, Agnes suddenly realized, arose from her father's often expressed conviction that an attempt to excel at anything was a sin that would one day be grievously punished. All forms of amusement were sinful, by his way of thinking, and all those who sought even the simplest entertainment were lost souls; however, those who desired to amuse others were the worse sinners, because they were overflowing with pride, striving to shine, eager to make themselves into false gods, to be praised and adored as only God should be adored. Actors, musicians, singers, novelists were doomed to hell by the very acts of creation which, in their egomania, they saw as the equal of their Creator's work. Striving to excel at anything, in fact, was a sign of corruption in the soul, whether one wanted to be recognized as a superior carpenter or car mechanic, or a grower of prize roses. Talent, in her father's view, was not a gift from God, but from the devil, meant to distract us from prayer, penitence, and duty.

Without excellence, of course, there would be no civilization, no progress, no joy; and Agnes was surprised that this sharp bur of her father's philosophy had stuck deep in her subconscious, prickling and worrying her unnecessarily. She'd thought that she was entirely clean of his influence.

If her beautiful son was to be a prodigy of any kind, she would thank God for his talent and would do anything she could to help him achieve his destiny.

She approached the kitchen table and swept her hand across it, to emphasize its emptiness.

Barty followed the movement of her hand, raised his gaze to her eyes, hesitated, and then said questioningly, “No pie?"

“Exactly,” she said, beaming at him.

Basking in her smile, the boy exclaimed, “No pie!"

“No pie!” Agnes agreed. She parenthesized his head with her hands and punctuated his sweet face with kisses.