Divide By Two

By Francisco Arcellana

God knows I hate the sight of violence

But it is really violence I cannot stand?

Isn’t it rather truth?

“They have set down a line of adobe blocks, three blocks wide and two blocks deep, across the lawn
between their cottage and ours,” Belle said.

“Yes, I know,” I said. I walked to the window and stood there, looking over at their cottage. The piano
music from the cottage came strong and clear. “I was here this morning when he brought those blocks
home.” I peeled my shirt; it was soggy with sweat… “He carried the blocks in the baggage compartment
of their car. It took him all three trips. He had three boys with him to help.” I shook my shirt in the
cooling air and walked to my room. “And I know where he got those blocks, too. There is a construction
going on right now at the engineering school. They have a pile of adobe blocks there as high as the
Cheops. You can’t miss it. You see it from the bus line every time.” In my room, the strains of piano
music didn’t reach sustainedly.

Belle followed me into my room. “They have marked off boundaries,” she said “They have defined
limits.”

I folded my shirt about the back of my armchair. “So they have,” I said. “So they have.” My undershirt
was wet, too, I yanked it off.

“It is as if they have put up a fence,” Belle said.

“Fences make good neighbors,” I said. I whipped the apple-green towel off the T-bar and rubbed myself
briskly.

“It might as well be the great wall of China,” Belle said.

“Well, not really,” I said. “It is not as bad as that.” I returned the towel to the crossbar. I looked around
for a dry undershirt but did not find any. I went to the bedroom where my clothes-closet was. Belle
followed me. There was no light in the closet. The bulb hadn’t been changed since it went bad shortly
after we moved into the cottage. I fumbled in the dark feeling with my fingers. In the darkness, in the
closet the strains of the piano came steadily, strong and clear.

“She is no Turk but she keeps playing the Turkish March,” Belle said.

I knew where my undershirts would be and it didn’t take me long to find them with my hands. I pulled
one out and was putting it on while I walked back to the sala between the book-closet and the
bathroom, one arm through one armhole, half out of the sando shirt the neck of which I held open with
my hands. I looked at Belle. “Come again, Belle?” I asked.

Belle said again the denunciatory words.

I got my head through the other armhole, got into my shirt. I walked on to the sala. I didn’t know how
tired I was until I fell back on the lounging chair.

Belle picked up the footstool, brought it near my chair and sat down. “The least thing they could have
done is to tell us first about it.”

I felt very tired and shut my eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you think they owed it to us?” Belle asked. “Out of regards for our feelings, shouldn’t they have
asked us how we feel about a fence?”

The piano music threaded through the words like a leitmotif. “How is that again, Belle?” I asked.

“They have no regard for us,” Belle said. “They don’t care what we think. They don’t think we feel. As far
as they are concerned, we are not human.”

The piano came jubilantly threading through the words.

“Is that right, Belle?” I asked.

“Don’t you think they should have at least gone to us and said: Look here, you! We are putting up this
boundary, see? You keep to your side of these markers and we will keep to ours, understand?” Belle
said.

“Do you really think that?” I asked.

“Yes I do,” Belle said distinctly. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Well, then,” Belle said, “think about it. You can start thinking about it now.”

I wondered why the words came ringing clear to me. Then I felt and sensed that the piano had been
closed. Suddenly the night was silent. Suddenly the night was still.

I rose from the swinging chair. I walked to the globe traveler near the wall outlet, plugged the cord and
snapped the lid open. Belle followed me. I was playing the range disk for music when Belle leaned
forward and snapped the lid shut.

“What’s the matter, Belle?” I said.

“There’s nothing the matter,” Belle said.

Belle was silent for a moment. “It is she,” she said.

“What about her?” I asked.

“I don’t think she likes me,” Belle said.

“She doesn’t like anyone,” I said. “What makes you think so?”

“I have given her things,” Belle said. “They don’t seem to make an impression on her. I gave her cheese
on her last birthday. She didn’t even thank me.”

“Why do you have to go around giving things for?” I asked. “Maybe she doesn’t like cheese. Maybe
cheese wasn’t such a good idea.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Belle said, “and she doesn’t like anyone to like me. When he gave me flowers
from her garden, I don’t think she liked that.”

“Who would?” I asked. “Maybe the flower wasn’t such a good idea either.”

“He was also being friendly as I was,” Belle said.

“Oh, yes,” I said.

“But she doesn’t want to be and I don’t think she believes in being friendly,” Belle said, “and I don’t
think she wants him to be either.”

“Oh, well, Belle,” I said. “I don’t really know them. It’s you they really know.”

“Oh, you do, too,” Belle said. “You ride with them, too, sometimes.”

“I did that only once,” I said. “I rode with them in the front seat. She tapped him on the thigh when she
got off at Pavilion Two. That was the last time.”

“Did that bother you?” Belle said.

“Not that in itself,” I said. “Only the demonstrativeness: as if to show that she is his and he is hers.”

“What about the demonstrativeness of her puttering about her garden in very short shorts?” Belle
asked.

“I don’t like demonstrativeness,” I said. “Moving here wasn’t my idea.”

“It was as much yours as it was mine,” Belle said.

“When you visited this area for the first time to look at these cottages, did you have to ride with them in
the car?” I asked.
“He was going to look at the cottages himself,” Belle said. “He was only being friendly.”

“And the second time you looked at the cottages was he looking at the cottages, too — and the third
time?” I asked.

“That was for our going to be neighbors,” Belle said.

“There are forty cottages in this area,” I said. “Why did we have to pick this one right up next to theirs?”

“It was as much your choice as it was mine,” Belle said.

“So it was,” I said. “It can’t be helped.”

“No, it can’t,” Belle said.

“All right, then. Get off. Get off them and get of me,” I said.

“But you must do something,” Belle said.

“What about?” I asked.

“They didn’t see the adobe markers, right?” Belle said. “They have been laid near our cottage than
theirs. Their half of the lawn is bigger than ours.”

“Is that right?” I asked. I walked to the window. It wasn’t too dark to see the adobe markers gleaming in
the ghostly night. I saw the flowers, too — the roses, the zinnias, the dahlias, the African daisies —
swaying like specters in the night. Walking back to my chair, I looked up at the wall clock. It was getting
on a quarter to nine. The clock began to chime just as I got to the lounging chair. I sat down and put my
foot up on the stool.

“Their half of the lawn is bigger than ours,” Belle said.

“You mean the halves are not equal? The halves are not halves?” I asked.

“What’s the matter with you?” Belle said.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked. “Isn’t he a doctor of mathematics or something? A fine doctor of
mathematics he’s turned out to be if he can’t even divide by two!”

“What’s eating you?” Belle asked.

“Maybe he should have brought a survey team with him and used a transit, a plumb line, and a pole,” I
said. “Maybe he could divide by two then. Maybe he could even divide by ten.”

“Don’t tell me,” Belle said. “Tell him, tell them.”

“For crying out loud,” I said.

“Go ahead,” Belle said. “Go over. Tell them off. Tell them where to get off.”
“If you won’t, I shall,” Belle said.

“Get off me,” I said.

“If you don’t, I shall,” Belle said. “I shall right now.” She started for the door.

“For crying out loud, Belle,” I said. “I don’t know them well enough to speak to them. I shall write them a
note.”

“All right,” Belle said.

The portable typewriter was in the case under my bed. I set it up at the head of the dining table. When I
pulled my hands away from lifting the case, they were covered with dust. I removed the lid but didn’t
take the machine off its base. The inside corners of the lid were spun with cobwebs. There were webs
between the machine and the ridge of the base. I couldn’t find any white paper anywhere. So I decided
to use one sheet from the legal size pad of ruled yellow paper.

I didn’t date the note. I made it short and to the point. It was fascinating to watch the keys falling
forward and then back leaving the black marks on the yellow sheet. As I typed I heard the opening bars
of Marriage of Figaro from the high fidelity radio-phonograph next door.

“Mathematics and Mozart,” I said. “Mozart and mathematics.”

I typed on my name but didn’t sign it. When I saw that I had not quite filled half of the sheet, I folded it
once and tore it in half. I fed the clean half back to the machine and handed the other half to Belle.
“There you are,” I said. “Short and sweet, I hope he likes it.”

“Yes,” Belle said.

“Then send it off,” I said.

“All right,” Belle said. She called Nata and had the note delivered at once.

I didn’t get to hear Mozart to end that night. About halfway to the opera (that would be after face one
of the long playing record), the player was snapped off. Then I saw him leaving their cottage.

I sat up erect in my chair and watched his head bob up and down as he walked out to the Finchshafen
road. When he turned up the road, and I knew where he was going, I stood up. I walked to the screen
door and watched him walk up to the concrete walk to the porch steps. He stopped at the foot of the
stairs. I looked down through the wire screen at his upturned face.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Can I see you for a minute?” he asked.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you,” he said.

“No,” he said. “I much rather talk to you in the street.”

“All right,” I said. “If that’s the way you feel about it.”

I joined him at the foot of the porch steps. We walked down the cement walk together. As soon as we
went past the shelter of the cottage, a blast of the cold night air struck my face. I felt my left cheek
twitching.

“Yes,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”

We walked down Finchshafen road. He didn’t say anything for a long time. I looked at him. I waited. I
had not spoken to him before. He considered a long time, long enough for me to be able to look back at
the house to see if Belle was at the window watching.

When he spoke, his first words were: “Have you and Belle been fighting?” It was not only words; it was
also the way he said it. My left cheek was twitching so badly it was almost spastic. He had spoken so
softly and in such a low pitched voice. I barely heard him. It was as if he didn’t wish either his house or
my house to hear, as if we were conspirators both we were plotting a conspiracy together.

“Fighting?” I asked. “What about? What for? What are you talking about” I sought his face for the guilt
in my own.

We stood on Finchshafen road halfway between our cottages. We were waiting to catch the guilt upon
our faces, which nonetheless we were mortally afraid to see. I stood on the upper slope towards our
house and he stood on the lower slope in direction to his.

“You’re note wasn’t very friendly,” he said. “It wasn’t very neighborly.”

“Why should it be?” I asked. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Oh, so,” he said. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Well, if it’s that way you feel about it,” he said.

“How else did you expect me to feel?” I asked.

“In that case then,” he said. “You can appeal to the authority and I shall not move the adobe blocks an
inch.”

“For Christ’s sake,” I said. “Who is talking about authority? Who is talking about the adobe blocks?”

“Don’t raise you voice,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I raise my voice?” I asked.

“Don’t shout at me,” he said.

It was a cool clear lovely night. The sky was clear and full of lovely stars. The sky and the stars seemed
very far away but the air was clear and you could see up all the way up to the sky and the stars and it
seemed a long, long way. There was a very pale moon and a very cool wind was sweeping the pale moon
and the white clouds before it all the way all the way across the sky.

Across and up and down the Finchshafen road in the cottages, people were coming out on to their
porches to listen and watch. I looked back at our house to see if Belle was their standing behind the
window wire screen and I looked at their houses, too.

“A plague on both our houses,” I said.

Belle wasn’t on the porch when I looked; I didn’t hear her go down the porch steps, down the concrete
walk, out to and down Finchshafen road.

“I shouldn’t even be talking to you. This is pestilence,” I said.

I didn’t feel Belle around until I heard her voice rising shrill and clear above the snarl of our voices. She
was standing beside me and before him and shouting in his face.

“For Christ’s sake, Belle,” I said. “Let’s go. This is mans’ work.”

She couldn’t hear me.

Her voice rose clear and passionate, piercing and shrill in the inviolate night. I pulled at her arm to make
her turn to me. I thrust my face savagely before her.

“For Christ’s sake, Belle,” I said get off. “This is my fight and the adversary is mine.”

Belle couldn’t see me for the fury that possessed her purely.

I sought her face but couldn’t look there long. Even as I turned away I had a fleeting glimpse of my
declared adversary’s face. The shock there was not more than the shock of mine.

“For Christ’s sake, Belle, let go. This is man’s work. I have met the enemy and he is mine. Let go, get off.
This is my fight not yours. The enemy is mine,” I said as I pulled her and dragged her bodily away.