“Ne m’oublie pas,” he whispered. “You are all I have in this world.”
Then he jumped down, just as the train began to pick up speed. He ran along the platform a little longer, then stopped, his hands in his pockets, staring, and with the wind raising his hair. Eric watched him, waving. The platform narrowed, sloped, ended, the train swerved, and Yves vanished from his sight. It did not seem possible and he stared stupidly at the flying poles and wires, at the sign saying PARIS-ST. LAZARE, at the blank, back walls of buildings. Then tears rolled down his face. He lit a cigarette and stood in the vestibule while the hideous outskirts of Paris rolled by. Why am I going home? he asked himself. But he knew why. It was time. In order not to lose all that he had gained, he had to move forward and risk it all.
* * *
New York seemed very strange indeed. It might, almost, for strange barbarity of manner and custom, for the sense of danger and horror barely sleeping beneath the rough, gregarious surface, have been some impenetrably exotic city of the East. So superbly was it in the present that it seemed to have nothing to do with the passage of time: time might have dismissed it as thoroughly as it had dismissed Carthage and Pompeii. It seemed to have no sense whatever of the exigencies of human life; it was so familiar and so public that it became, at last, the most despairingly private of cities. One was continually being jostled, yet longed, at the same time, for the sense of others, for a human touch; and if one was never— it was the general complaint— left alone in New York, one had, still, to fight very hard in order not to perish of loneliness. This fight, carried on in so many different ways, created the strange climate of the city. The girls along Fifth Avenue wore their bright clothes like semaphores, trying helplessly to bring to the male attention the news of their mysterious trouble. The men could not read this message. They strode purposefully along, wearing little anonymous hats, or bareheaded, with youthfully parted hair, or crew cuts, accoutered with attaché cases, rushing, on the evidence, to the smoking cars of trains. In this haven, they opened up their newspapers and caught up on the day’s bad news. Or they were to be found, as five o’clock fell, in discreetly dim, anonymously appointed bars, uneasy, in brittle, uneasy, female company, pouring down joyless martinis.
This note of despair, of buried despair, was insistently, constantly struck. It stalked all the New York avenues, roamed all the New York streets; was as present in Sutton Place, where the director of Eric’s play lived and the great often gathered, as it was in Greenwich Village, where he had rented an apartment and been appalled to see what time had done to people he had once known well. He could not escape the feeling that a kind of plague was raging, though it was officially and publicly and privately denied. Even the young seemed blighted— seemed most blighted of all. The boys in their blue jeans ran together, scarcely daring to trust one another, but united, like their elders, in a boyish distrust of the girls. Their very walk, a kind of anti-erotic, knee-action lope, was a parody of locomotion and of manhood. They seemed to be shrinking away from any contact with their flamboyantly and paradoxically outlined private parts. They seemed— but could it be true? and how had it happened?— to be at home with, accustomed to, brutality and indifference, and to be terrified of human affection. In some strange way they did not seem to feel that they were worthy of it.
Now, late on a Sunday afternoon, having been in New York four days, and not yet having written his parents in the South, Eric moved through the tropical streets on his way to visit Cass and Richard. He was having a drink with them to celebrate his return.
“I’m glad you think it’s something to celebrate,” he had told Cass over the phone.
She laughed. “That’s not very nice. You sound as though you haven’t missed us at all.”
“Oh, I certainly want to see all of you. But I don’t know if I ever really missed the city very much. Did you ever notice how ugly it is?”
“It’s getting uglier all the time,” Cass said. “A perfect example of free enterprise gone mad.”
“I wanted to thank you,” he said, after a moment, “for writing me about Rufus.” And he thought, with a rather surprising and painful venom, Nobody else thought to do it.
“Well, I knew,” she said, “that you’d want to know.” Then there was a silence. “You never knew his sister, did you?”
“Well, I knew he had one. I never met her; she was just a kid in those days.”
“She’s not a kid now,” Cass said. “She’s going to be singing Sunday, down in the Village, with some friends of Rufus’s. For the first time. We promised to bring you along. Vivaldo will be there.”
He thought of Rufus. He did not know what to say. “She’s something like her brother, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Yes and no.” Briefly: “You’ll see.” This brought them to another silence, and, after a few seconds, they hung up.
He entered their building, stepped into the elevator, and told the elevator man where he was going. He had forgotten the style of American elevator men, but now it came back to him. The elevator man, without a surly word, slammed the elevator gates shut and drove the car upward. The nature of his silence conveyed his disapproval of the Silenskis and all their friends and his vivid sense of being as good as they.
He rang the bell. Cass opened the door at once, looking as bright as the bright day.
“Eric!” She looked him over with the affectionate mockery he now remembered. “How nice you look with your hair so short!”
“How nice,” he returned, smiling, “you look with yours so long. Or was it always long. It’s that kind of thing a long absence makes you forget.”
“Let me look at you.” She pulled him into the apartment and closed the door. “You really look wonderful. Welcome home.” She leaned forward suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. “Is that the way they do it in Paris?”
“You have to kiss me on both cheeks,” he said, gravely.
“Oh.” She seemed slightly embarrassed but kissed him again. “Is that better?”
“Much,” he said. Then, “Where is everybody?” For the large living room was empty, and filled with the sound of the blues. It was the voice of a colored woman, the voice of Bessie Smith, and it hurled him, with violence, into the hot center of his past: It’s raining and it’s storming on the sea. I feel like somebody has shipwrecked poor me.
For a moment Cass looked as though she were sardonically echoing his question. She crossed the room and lowered the volume of the music slightly. “The children are over in the park with some friends of theirs. Richard’s in his study, working. But they should all be appearing almost any moment now.”
“Oh,” he said, “then I’m early. I’m sorry.”
“You aren’t early, you’re on time. And I’m glad. I was hoping to have a chance to talk to you alone before we go down to this jam session.”
“You’ve got a pretty agreeable jam session going on right now,” he said. Cass went over to the bar, and he threw himself down on the sofa. “It’s mighty nice and cool in here. It’s awful outside. I’d forgotten how hot New York could be.”
The large windows were open and the water stretched beyond the windows, very bright and peaceful, but murkier than the Mediterranean. The breeze that filled the room came directly from the water; seemed, almost, to bring with it the spice and stink of Europe and the murmur of Yves’ voice. Eric leaned back, held in a kind of peaceful melancholy, comforted by the beat of Bessie’s song, and looked over at Cass.
The sun surrounded her golden hair which was piled on top of her head and fell over her brow in girlish, somewhat too artless and incongruous curls. This was meant to soften a face, the principal quality of which had always been a spare, fragile boniness. There was a fine crisscross of wrinkles now around the large eyes; the sun revealed that she was wearing a little too much make-up. This, and something indefinably sorrowful in the line of her mouth and jaw, as she stood silently at the bar, looking down, made Eric feel that Cass was beginning to fade, to beco
me brittle. Something icy had touched her.
“Do you want gin or vodka or bourbon or Scotch or beer? or tequila?” She looked up, smiling. Though the smile was genuine, it was weary. It did not contain the mischievous delight that he remembered. And there were tiny lines now around her neck, which he had never noticed before.
We’re getting old, he thought, and it damn sure didn’t take long.
“I think I’d better stick to whiskey. I get too drunk too fast on gin— and I don’t know what this evening holds.”
“Ah,” she said, “farsighted Eric! And what kind of whiskey?”
“In Paris, when we order whiskey— which, for a very long time, I didn’t dare to do— we always mean Scotch.”
“You loved Paris, didn’t you? You must have, you were gone so long. Tell me about it.”
She made two drinks and came and sat beside him. From far away, he heard the muffled cling! of a typewriter bell.
It’s a long old road, Bessie sang, but I’m going to find an end.
“It doesn’t seem so long,” he said, “now that I’m back.” He felt very shy now, for when Cass said You loved Paris he at once thought, Yves is there. “It’s a great city, Paris, a beautiful city— and— it was very good for me.”
“I see that. You seem much happier. There’s a kind of light around you.”
She said this very directly, with a rueful, conspiratorial smile: as though she knew the cause of his happiness, and rejoiced for him.
He dropped his eyes, but raised them again. “It’s just the sun,” he said, and they both laughed. Then, irrepressibly, “I was very happy there, though.”
“Well, you didn’t leave because you weren’t happy there any more?”
“No.” And when I get there, I’m going to shake hands with a friend. “A guy I know who thinks he has great psychic powers”— he sipped his whiskey, smiling— “Frenchman, persuaded me that I’d become a great star if I came home and did this play. And I just haven’t got the guts to go against the stars, to say nothing of arguing with a Frenchman. So.”
She laughed. “I didn’t know the French went in for things like that. I thought they were very logical.”
“French logic is very simple. Whatever the French do is logical because the French are doing it. That’s the really unbeatable advantage French logic has over all others.”
“I see,” she said, and laughed again. “I hope you read the play before your friend consulted the stars. Is it a good part?”
“It’s the best part,” he said, after a moment, “that I’ve ever had.”
Again, briefly, he heard the typewriter bell. Cass lit a cigarette, offered one to Eric, and lit it for him. “Are you going to settle here now, or are you planning to go back, or what?”
“I don’t,” he said, quickly, “have any plans for going back, a lot— maybe everything— depends on what happens with this play.”
She sensed his retreat, and took her tone from him. “Oh. I’d love to come and watch rehearsals. I’d run out and get coffee for you, and things like that. It would make me feel that I’d contributed to your triumph.”
“Because you’re sure it’s going to be a triumph,” he said, smiling. “Wonderful Cass. I guess it’s a habit great men’s wives get into.”
Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground.
The atmosphere between them stiffened a little, nevertheless, with their knowledge of why he had allowed his career in New York to lapse for so long. Then he allowed himself to think of opening night, and he thought, Yves will be here. This thought exalted him and made him feel safe. He did not feel safe now, sitting here alone with Cass; he had not felt safe since stepping off the boat. His ears ached for the sound of Yves’ footfalls beside him: until he heard this rhythm, all other sounds were meaningless. Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground. All other faces were obliterated for him by the blinding glare of Yves’ absence. He looked over at Cass, longing to tell her about Yves, but not daring, not knowing how to begin.
“Great men’s wives, indeed!” said Cass. “How I’d love to explode that literary myth.” She looked at him, gravely sipping her whiskey, without seeming to taste it. When I got to the end, I was so worried down. “You seem very sure of yourself,” she said.
“I do?” He was profoundly astonished and pleased. “I don’t feel very sure of myself.”
“I remember you before you went away. You were miserable then. We all wondered— I wondered— what would become of you. But you aren’t miserable now.”
“No,” he said, and, under her scrutiny, blushed. “I’m not miserable any more. But I still don’t know what’s going to become of me.”
“Growth,” she said, “is what will become of you. It’s what has become of you.” And she gave him again her oddly intimate, rueful smile. “It’s very nice to see, it’s very— enviable. I don’t envy many people. I haven’t found myself envying anyone for a long, long time.”
“It’s mighty funny,” he said, “that you should envy me.” He rose from the sofa, and walked to the window. Behind him, beneath the mighty lament of the music, a heavy silence gathered: Cass, also, had something to talk about, but he did not want to know what it was. You can’t trust nobody, you might as well be alone. Staring out over the water, he asked, “What was Rufus like— near the end?”
After a moment, he turned and looked at her. “I hadn’t meant to ask you that— but I guess I really want to know.”
Her face, despite the softening bangs, grew spare and contemplative. Her lips twisted. “I told you a little of it,” she said, “in my letter. But I didn’t know how you felt by that time and I didn’t see any point in burdening you.” She put out her cigarette and lit another one. “He was very unhappy, as— as you know.” She paused. “Actually, we never got very close to him. Vivaldo knew him better than— than we did, anyway.” He felt a curious throb of jealousy: Vivaldo! “We didn’t see much of him. He became very involved with a Southern girl, a girl from Georgia—”
Found my long lost friend, and I might as well stayed at home!
“You didn’t tell me that,” he said.
“No. He wasn’t very nice to her. He beat her up a lot—”
He stared at her, feeling himself grow pale, remembering more than he wanted to remember, feeling his hope and his hope of safety threatened by invincible, unnamed forces within himself. He remembered Rufus’ face, his hands, his body, and his voice, and the constant humiliation. “Beat her up? What for?”
“Well— who knows? Because she was Southern, because she was white. I don’t know. Because he was Rufus. It was very ugly. She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—”
“Did she like to be beaten up? I mean— did something in her like it, did she like to be— debased?”
“No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. Well, maybe there’s something in everybody that likes to be debased, but I don’t think life’s that simple. I don’t trust all these formulas.” She paused. “To tell the truth, I think she probably loved Rufus, really loved him, and wanted Rufus to love her.”
“How abnormal,” he said, “can you get!” He finished his drink.
A very faint, wry amusement crossed her face. “Anyway, their affair dragged on from bad to worse and she was finally committed to an institution—”
“You mean, a madhouse?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the South. Her family came and got her.”
“My God,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, then, Rufus disappeared— for quite a long time, that’s when I met his sister, she came to see us, looking for him— and came back once, and— died.” Helplessly, she opened one bony hand, then closed it into a fist.
Eric turned back to the window. “A Southern girl,” he said. He felt a very dull, very distant pain. It all seemed very long ago, that gasping and trembling, freezing and burning time. The pain was distant now because it had scarcely been bearable th
en. It could not really be recollected because it had become a part of him. Yet, the power of this pain, though diminished, was not dead: Rufus’ face again appeared before him, that dark face, with those dark eyes and curving, heavy lips. It was the face of Rufus when he had looked with love on Eric. Then, out of hiding, leapt his other faces, the crafty, cajoling face of desire, the remote face of desire achieved. Then, for a second, he saw Rufus’ face as he stared on death, and saw his body hurtling downward through the air: into that water, the water which stretched before him now. The old pain receded into the home it had made in him. But another pain, homeless as yet, began knocking at his heart— not for the first time: it would force an entry one day, and remain with him forever. Catch them. Don’t let them blues in here. They shakes me in my bed, can’t sit down in my chair.
“Let me fix you a fresh drink,” Cass said.
“Okay.” She took his glass. As she walked to the bar, he said, “You knew about us, I guess? I guess everybody knew— though we thought we were being so smart, and all. And, of course, he always had a lot of girls around.”
“Well, so did you,” she said. “In fact, I vaguely remember that you were thinking of getting married at one point.”
He took his drink from the bar, and paced the room. “Yes. I haven’t thought of her in a long time, either.” He paused and grimaced sourly. “That’s right, I certainly did have a few girls hanging around. I hardly even remember their names.” As he said this, the names of two or three old girl friends flashed into his mind. “I haven’t thought about them for years.” He came back to the sofa, and sat down. Cass watched him from the bar. “I might,” he said, painfully, “have had them around just on account of Rufus— trying to prove something, maybe, to him and to myself.”
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