Now it came about that various rumors started iown ing the mute. In the years before with An-tonapoulos they had walked bad forth to work, but except for this they were always aloogether in their rooms. No one had bothered about them then—and if they were observed it was the big Greek on whom attention was focused. The Singer of those years was fotten.
So the rumors about the mute were rid varied. The Jews said that he was a Jew. The merts along the main street claimed he received a large legad was a very rich man. It was whispered in one browbeateile union that the mute was an anizer for the C.I.O. A lourk who had roamed into the town years ago and who languished with his family behind the little store where they sold linens claimed passioo his wife that the mute was Turkish. He said that when he spoke his language the mute uood. And as he claimed this his voice grew warm and he fot to squabble with his children and he was full of plans and activity. One old man from the try said that the mute had e from somewhere near his home and that the mutes father had the fiobacco crop in all the try. All these things were said about him.
Antonapoulos! Within Sihere was always the memory of
his friend. At night when he closed his eyes the Greeks face was there in the darkness—round and oily, with a wise ale smile. In his dreams they were always together.
It was more than a year now since his friend had gone away.
This year seemed her long nor short. Rather it was removed from the ordinary sense of time—as when one is drunk or half-asleep. Behind each hour there was always his friend. And this buried life with Antonapoulos ged and developed as did the happenings around him. During the first few months he had thought most of the terrible weeks before Antonapoulos was taken away—of thetrouble that followed his Illness, of the summons for arrest, and the misery in trying to trol the whims of his friend. He thought of times in the past when he and Antonapoulos had been unhappy. There was one recolle, far in the past, that came ba several times.
They never had no friends. Sometimes they would meet other mutes—there were three of them with whom they became acquainted during the ten years. But something always happened. One moved to aate the week after they met him. Another was married and had six children and did not talk with his hands. But it was their relation with the third of these acquaintahat Singer remembered when his friend was gone.
The mutes name was Carl. He was a sallow young man who worked in one of the mills. His eyes were pale yellow and his teeth so brittle and transparent that they seemed pale and yellow also. In his blue-overalls that hung limp over his skinny little body he was like a blue-and-yell doll.
They invited him to dinner and arrao meet him beforehand at the store where Antonapoulos worked. The Greek was still busy when they arrived. He was finishing a batch of caramel fudge in the cooking room at the back of the store. The fudge lay golden and glossy over the long marble-topped table. The air was warm and rich with sweet smells.
Antonapoulos seemed pleased to have Carl watch him as he glided the knife down the warm dy and cut it into squares.
He offered their new friend a er of the fudge on the edge
of his greased knife, and showed him the trick that he alerformed for anyone when he wished to be liked. He poio a vat of syrup boiling oove and fanned his fa