Orrie's Story by Thomas Berger

pubic hair and a deeper voice was a tremendous improvement. Orrie could feel sorry for women when he thought about their lot in life: in this turn of mind he had been influenced by his mother, who, particularly when he was younger, used to tell him her troubles, a practice that seemed to stop when “Uncle” Erie; became a fixture. He detested Erie but he loved his mother despite his resentment towards her. Nothing in this complex of feelings could cope with what Ellie was charging. Yet she was the best sister in the world, and he was obliged at least to make her believe he was taking her seriously.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do?”
    The question took her aback. “Then you believe me?”
    He frowned judiciously. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying I’m willing to listen to you.” He turned and caught Paul’s attention, then shouted, “Just a few minutes longer.”
    Ellie squinted towards his friend and asked suspiciously, “Who’s he?”
    â€œI told you: my friend from school, Paul Leeds.”
    Again she showed no interest in Paul, a fine-looking fellow like that. Perhaps she was still too young. She stared at her brother. “They got rid of me, you see, sent me out for beer. Daddy was supposedly taking a bath. I never saw him at all. When I came back from the store, there was a lot of running upstairs and downstairs and funny noises in the bathroom. -When I got up there, Erie was on top of his body. They claimed they found him unconscious and underwater, and had to pull him out and try to revive him. But you couldn’t believe that if you were there.”
    â€œBut you still didn’t really see anything but Erie giving him artificial respiration? You didn’t hear Dad yell or anything?”
    â€œHow could he if he was unconscious?”
    â€œThen you believe that part of the story, anyway? That he was unconscious.”
    â€œBut how did he get that way?”
    â€œThe fan fell and hit him in the head: she told me that on the phone.”
    Ellie’s thin mouth was distorted in a sneer. “Things like that just don’t happen except in detective stories.”
    Orrie shook his head. “There you’re wrong, El. If you found it in a book you wouldn’t accept it, but stuff like that happens a lot in reality. How about England during the war, when a German buzz-bomb hit a chapel full of English soldiers, just during the only hour in the week that anybody would have been in there?” This event was memorable because it had been influential in Orrie’s questioning whether God could exist and allow that to be done by the godless to the pious and in His house.
    â€œShe always hated him,” Ellie said. “But why’d she have to kill him? He’s the only father I had.”
    She was beginning to cry. Orrie was embarrassed enough as it stood. Gena had got all the looks. What Ellie had going for her was intelligence and, until now, common sense. If he had to introduce her to Paul, he wished she could at least get herself under control and speak normally. “Have you mentioned this theory of yours to anyone else?”
    â€œThat man,” she said, “that man with the glasses on the lifesaving squad. I told him.”
    â€œYou didn’t go to the police?”
    â€œDo you think they’d believe a girl?”
    â€œWell,” said Orrie, “Gross knows about you. He just stopped and warned me, so it’s got farther than you are aware. An old pal of Dad’s, Joe Becker, told him.” He put an avuncular hand on Ellie’s thin shoulder cap. “You can be sued if you circulate accusations about people that you can’t prove.”
    Ellie agitated her entire body. “So what was that big fan doing on that little shelf? It wasn’t ever there before. It was never used in the bathroom at all, ever. You don’t get that hot when you’re sitting in water, not even warm