Sonya Dorman - The Putnam Tradition.pdf - Sonya Dorman - widez2

The Putnam Tradition

Dorman, Sonya

Published: 1963

Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction

Source: http://gutenberg.org

About Dorman:

Sonya Dorman (1924 - February 14, 2005) is the working name of

Sonya Dorman Hess. She was born in New York City in 1924 and died in

Taos, New Mexico on February 14, 2005, aged 80.

She is perhaps best known as a poet. This might be her most noted

ability outside of the world of science fiction. However one of her poems

Corruption of Metals received honors within SF circles by winning the

Rhysling Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Her best well-

known work of science fiction is the story "When I was Miss Dow",

which has been reprinted numerous times and received a James Tiptree,

Jr. retrospective award nomination.

She also appeared in Harlan Ellison's anthology Dangerous Visions,

with the story "Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird"

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It was an old house not far from the coast, and had descended generation

by generation to the women of the Putnam family. Progress literally

went by it: a new four-lane highway had been built two hundred yards

from the ancient lilacs at the doorstep. Long before that, in the time of

Cecily Putnam's husband, power lines had been run in, and now on cold

nights the telephone wires sounded like a concert of cellos, while inside

with a sound like the breaking of beetles, the grandmother Cecily moved

through the walls in the grooves of tradition.

Simone Putnam, her granddaughter; Nina Putnam, her great-grand-

daughter; the unbroken succession of matriarchs continued, but times

the old woman thought that in Simone it was weakened, and she looked

at the four-year-old Nina askance, waiting, waiting, for some good sign.

Sometimes one of the Putnam women had given birth to a son, who

grew sickly and died, or less often, grew healthy and fled. The husbands

were usually strangers to the land, the house, and the women, and spent

a lifetime with the long-lived Putnam wives, and died, leaving their

strange

signs:

telephone

wires,

electric

lights,

water

pumps,

brass

plumbing.

Sam Harris came and married Simone, bringing with him an invasion

of washer, dryer, toaster, mixer, coffeemaster, until the current poured

through the walls of the house with more vigor than the blood in the old

woman's veins.

"You don't approve of him," Simone said to her grandmother.

"It's his trade," Cecily Putnam answered. "Our men have been car-

penters, or farmers, or even schoolmasters. But an engineer. Phui!"

Simone was washing the dishes, gazing out across the windowsill

where two pink and white Murex shells stood, to the tidy garden beyond

where Nina was engaged in her private games.

She dried the dishes by passing her hand once above each plate or

glass, bringing it to a dry sparkle. It saved wear on the dishtowels, and it

amused her.

"Sam's not home very much," she said in a placating voice. She herself

had grown terrified, since her marriage, that she wouldn't be able to bear

the weight of her past. She felt its power on her and couldn't carry it. Ce-

cily had brought her up, after her father had disappeared and her mother

had died in an unexplained accident. Daily she saw the reflection of her

failure in the face of her grandmother, who seemed built of the same

seasoned and secure wood as the old Putnam house. Simone looked at

her grandmother, whom she loved, and became a mere vapor.

"He's not home so much," Simone said.

* * * * *

Her face was small, with a pointed chin, and she had golden-red hair

which she wore loose on her shoulders. Nina, too, had a small face, but it

was neither so pale nor so delicate as her mother's, as if Sam's tougher

substance had filled her out and strengthened her bone structure. If it

was true that she, Simone, was a weak link, then Sam's strength might

have poured into the child, and there would be no more Putnam family

and tradition.

"People don't change that easily," the old woman said.

"But things—" Simone began. The china which had a history of five

generations slipped out of her hands and smashed; Sam's toaster

wouldn't toast or pop up; Simone couldn't even use the telephone for

fear of getting a wrong number, or no number at all.

"Things, things!" her grandmother cried. "It's blood that counts. If the

blood is strong enough, things dissolve. They're just garbage, all those

things, floating on the surface of our history. It's our history that's deep.

That's what counts."

"You're afraid of Sam," the young woman accused.

"Not afraid of any man!" Cecily said, straightening her back. "But I'm

afraid for the child. Sam has no family tradition, no depth, no talent

handed down and perfected. A man with his head full of wheels and

wires."

Simone loved him. She leaned on him and grew about him, and he

supported her tenderly. She wasn't going to give him up for the sake of

some abstract tradition—

"—it's not abstract," her grandmother said with spirit. "It's in your

blood. Or why don't you sweep the floors the way other women do? The

way Sam's mother must?"

Simone had begun to clean the house while she was thinking, moving

her hand horizontally across the floor, at the height of her hip, and the

dust was following the motion of her hand and moving in a small, sun-

brightened river toward the trash basket in the kitchen corner. Now Si-

mone raised her hand to her face to look at it, and the river of dust rose

like a serpent and hung a foot below her hand.

"Yes," she agreed, "at least I can clean the house. If I don't touch the

good china, and look where I'm going."

"Phui," the old woman said again, angrily. "Don't feel so sorry for

yourself."

"Not for myself," Simone mumbled, and looked again toward the

garden where her daughter was doing something with three stones and

a pie plate full of spring water.

"I do despair of Nina," Cecily said, as she had said before. "She's four,

and has no appearance. Not even balance. She fell out of the applerose

tree, and couldn't even help herself." Suddenly the old woman thrust her

face close to her granddaughter. It was smooth, round, and sweet as a

young kernel of corn. The eyes, sunk down under the bushy grey brows,

were cold and clear grey.

"Simone," the old woman said. "You didn't lie to me? You did know

she was falling, and couldn't get back in time to catch her?"

A shudder passed through Simone's body. There was no blood in her

veins, only water; no marrow in her bones, they were empty, and porous

as a bird's. Even the roots of her hair were weak, and now the sweat was

starting out on her scalp as she faced her grandmother and saw the brist-

ling shapes of seven generations of Putnam women behind her.

"You lied," the old woman said. "You didn't know she was falling."

Simone was a vapor, a mere froth blowing away on the first breeze.

"My poor dear," the old woman said in a gentle voice. "But how could

you marry someone like Sam? Don't you know what will happen? He'll

dissolve us, our history, our talents, our pride. Nina is nothing but an or-

dinary little child."

"She's a good child," Simone said, trying not to be angry. She wanted

her child to be loved, to be strong. "Nina isn't a common child," she said,

with her head bent. "She's very bright."

"A man with his head full of wheels, who's at home with electricity

and wires," the old woman went on. "We've had them before, but never

allowed them to dominate us. My own husband was such a man, but he

was only allowed to make token gestures, such as having the power lines

put in. He never understood how they worked." She lowered her voice

to a whisper, "Your Sam understands. I've heard him talk to the water

pump."

"That's why you're afraid of him," Simone said. "Not because I'm

weak, and he might take something away from me, but because he's

Sonya Dorman - The Putnam Tradition.pdf

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