She looked. It said it right there but — it's late Paul… her hand running across the damped fall of his shoulders, — it's too late to try to…
— Too late.
— I just mean it's too late this evening to try to…
— Too late Liz, whole God damn religious awakening across the land all out there for the kill, forty sticks of dynamite tried to blow up his transmitting tower Voice of Salvation over there why the, where's the… he had his empty glass — where is it.
— It's gone Paul. There isn't any more.
— Can't! No don't, too late isn't any more don't, don't… his sleeve dragging over the papers he caught at it and tore the bloodied thing away — don't, look just, get up there… lurching to his feet, scattering papers again looming over the table — how many times I, tell you to throw this God damn thing away! and he had the Natural History magazine tearing it across the bared chest of the Masai warrior, down the plaited hair, through the — God damn eyes, he hurled it toward the sink, seized his balance against the doorframe, turned and went down in a lunge through the doorway under the stairs heaving, gripping the seat in the dark — don't… She got the light on, wet a cloth, held his shoulder — just don't, help me!
— Be careful, Paul be…
— Being careful! He was up, heavy against the wall, out catching balance again at the newel where she stayed, holding to it herself, watching him to the top of the stairs; and when finally she climbed them herself it was to undress in the dark, to heave his half clothed weight from her side of the bed and press her face into the pillow.
Where she woke, coming over on her back, pulling away sheet and blanket for the warmth, or the sense of it, dappling the room walls and ceiling in a gentle rise and fall of reds, yellow, blazing to orange brought her to her elbows — Paul! to the foot of the bed and the window in the frolic of flames through the branches outside. She got his shoulder and shook him, reached for the light, for the phone when down below the foot of the hill erupted in flashes of red, blinding white, pounding bells climbing right up to her — Paul please! both hands on him pulling him over, eyes sealed and his mouth fallen open, his hand fallen empty to the floor and she came back to the window all of it out there now light and sound, the bark of a bullhorn, hoses dragged past the fence palings as the last of the garage windows and white went in flames reaching for the branches above catching for a moment one here, one higher as though fueled to climb the firmament till suddenly the roof fell in a shower of spark and fire leaving the boys down there in silhouette on the dying light, the same boys clambering up the hill in the afternoon grown older, or their brothers, deep in fire helmets that disclosed no more than the jut of a chin, ankle deep in black raincoats fidgeting fire axes near their own height in restive unemployment till the smallest of them turned to see her in the lighted window up there and rallied the others to share his discovery, sent her back to darken the room, to pull up the sheet, to lie still with the heaving calm beside her, and the smell of smoke.
6
Climbing the hill, waiting for breath, the old dog had fallen in beside her where she stopped again almost to the top, her hand steadied on a scorched fence pale drawing deep on the smell of ashes that still tinged the air, looking up to the house before she stepped out into the black gape of the road. The front door stood wide open. She'd barely crossed when the dog blundered past throwing her off balance in its own haste up the step where she stumbled, recovered in a reach for the doorway holding to it, looking in, backing off, breaking into a voice gone hollow with — Who…
— Out! damn you get out! and damned the black dog came past her, ears laid back in a transport. — What happened here.
— I don't, what…
— And over there… He'd come out as far as the newel, his hand thrust past her from the frayed cuff pointing — there, what happened.
— It, it burned, it just burned down last week the night that day you were here and, but what… far enough in now to see the silk flowers scattered among pieces of the vase smashed on the floor, — how did that…
— I just got here, front door standing wide open somebody broke in, somebody in a hurry, here… he had her arm, took her hand firm in one of his but she pulled it away, coming down on the edge of the love seat. — How long have you been gone? Just this morning she told him, since early this morning, she'd had a call from a Mister Gold at Saks telling her they'd found her purse and she had to go into town anyway, she had to sign some papers for a lawyer and then when she went to Saks to claim her purse they'd never heard of Mister Gold, there was no Mister Gold, and — Yes, and while you were there to see Mister Gold they were here to rob the house, they had your keys and your, what is it… She'd come up in a sharp turn for the kitchen to pull open the drawer there digging under napkins, placemats, — something missing?
— No… she got it closed — it's, nothing no.
— Ripped the lock off the door to my room there it wasn't even locked, I left it open didn't I? for Madame Socrate to get the trash out?
— I locked it.
— You, why. Why did you lock it.
— I don't know.
He stood there pulling off the raincoat, looking into the room's disarray as though matching it to memory, and then — Elizabeth? without turning to her — I'm, it's very difficult to say anything that's, that I'm very sorry about what happened, to say anything that would help… She didn't say anything to that, bent down freeing a crease in her stocking from the bite of her shoe, hair spilled away from the white of her neck as she straightened up suddenly caught with his arm around her, his breath close — that I've felt very badly…
— Mrs Booth? twisting sharply away from his hand grazed at her breast — I've felt very badly Mrs Booth, isn't that how it goes? I'm sorry I disturbed you Mrs Booth? Then why haven't you even called.
— I tried to call you this morning when I…
— I wasn't here! I just told you I wasn't here, I just told you I was in New York if you think I, if you thought I'd just be sitting here this whole horrible week waiting for you to call?
— I didn't mean…
— I'm going to make some tea. Do you want some tea?
— I, no… He pushed the wad of the raincoat from the chair where he'd dropped it and sat down, digging out the glazed envelope of tobacco, watching the shape of her back to him where she made busy filling the teakettle. — Has she been here? Madame Socrate?
— Well she, not exactly.
— Not exactly?
— I mean she's not very dependable she, I should call the police shouldn't I. To report it.
— I'd just, maybe later… spilling tobacco as his thumbs brought the paper together, — let me look around my room in there first, there might be…
— I mean it might just have been those boys those, awful boys… she broke off for the phone, tensed for the second ring and then, with the third — no don't answer it!
— But I thought you…
— Because they keep calling, those newspapers I mean how they even got this number they even came up here, the front door, the back door looking in the windows, I mean I had to hide in that little bathroom for hours under the stairs they think they have the, they think people have the right to know everything about you, that they…
— No no no, they just have the right to be entertained, that's all it is… He'd reached over to lift the phone breaking off its ring, dropping it back — why they go to the movies isn't it? why people read novels? Get the inside story, explore the dark passions hidden in the human heart and the greater the invasion of privacy the better, that's what wins prizes. That front page picture of your Reverend Ude huddled down with Senator Teakell? passing him that ten thousand dollar bribe for his television licensing? That's what gets the Pulitzer Prize it's not about art, it's not about literature, about anything lasting, it's the newspaper mind, what's here today and you wrap the fish in tomorrow, it's just…
— That's not what it was.
— What what was, the…
— I said that's not what it was! And he's not my Reverend Ude no I've seen it, I've seen that stupid picture before that's not what it was.
— Never seen two faces so engrossed in conspiracy.
— That's because they were praying… The cup rattled the saucer coming down from the shelf — it's not funny! What are you laughing at it's not funny it's, it was just like him coming up to you on those courthouse steps, when you said he took your arm at that courthouse in the, in Slopover kneeling down with him to repent it was in a hospital, Senator Teakell's daughter was in the hospital you can even see the hideous flowers behind them it's right there, look at it. That pile of newspapers, it's under there with the rest of the trash all those pictures of, they get a picture and then make up a story to go with it. Paul said it was all Victor Sweet, those people behind Victor Sweet that they fixed up that bribe story just to smear Sen…
— Where did they get the picture?
— I don't know, I don't know who gave them the picture I don't…
— Then how do you know what the…
— Because I know who's in the bed! because it's Cettie in the hospital bed you can see the corner of it behind that hideous that, that cross with all those hideous flowers because I know Cettie! Because we were all best friends Cettie and Edie and I, Edie Grimes her father was this close friend of Senator Teakell's and Edie's been raising money for him, I mean for Victor Sweet she thinks he's charming then she ran out of money, I mean it was mostly her own money she was raising she thought her father would be furious. He calls Victor Sweet a black marshmallow she thought he'd be furious but instead he just gave her more money right out of her trust and, because that's…
— Because they were setting up Victor Sweet, and that story that he's a jailbird I'll tell you where that came from. He was dumb enough to park his car in some two bit town in Texas and a couple of good old boys set fire to it, he reported it to the police and they jailed him for littering the street. They were setting him up.
— I mean that's what I just said! that that's where Edie's money went setting him up so he could run against Cettie's father in the Senate and…
— No no no. Grimes, that whole wing of the party out here on the front page this morning howling for blood, planned to set up their black pacifist marshmallow with the nomination and then wipe up the floor with him suddenly the whole damned thing moves faster than they expected. Draw the line, run a carrier group off Mombasa and a couple of destroyers down the Mozambique channel, bring in the RDF and put the SAC on red alert. They've got what they want… He finally lighted the cigarette he'd made, brushed a speck of tobacco from his tongue on the back of his hand. — How he happened to be on that same damned plane with Teakell…
— I thought you'd know she said, steaming water into the cup there.
— Well, yes well of course there aren't that many flights out of a place like that, maybe two a week. One like this comes through and if you've got any connections, if you've got a name you can throw around you can usually…
— That's just the papers, the story they put in the newspapers no, I mean one of those fine phrases that you, that doesn't mean anything. The unswerving punctuality of chance, one of those.
He pulled on the cigarette, drew it away in a cloud of smoke. — There's not a drink, is there?
— You can look.
— Where would it…
— I don't know where! Over there, on the counter behind all those newspapers if there is any. Paul would keep getting it and then there never seemed to be any, behind that bag of onions… pulling up sharp — please! twisting from his hand's surprise at her waist behind her — there, you've made me spill the tea… from the apologetic haste of its retreat down the swell of her thigh, — honestly!
— No I'm sorry, Elizabeth lis…
— And stop calling me that! That's, what's sorry no, that's what my father always did, saying I'm sorry and he'd pat me and try to give me a kiss no, it's always something else, saying I'm sorry it's always for the wrong thing that's why people say it. I'm sorry I disturbed you Mrs Booth, loading all those books on him and driving away filling his head with, with I don't know what; that whole show you put on for him in there from the minute he, the minute you found out his name, that his name was Vorakers. Fossils and brimstone and calling Reverend Ude the missing link so he could make fun of Paul why, why. Just to make it all worse between him and Paul? yes, and me?
— You've been the only thing that held them together.
— Me? do you, when you said when you feel like a nail everything looks like a hammer if that's what I, if you think that was holding them together is that what he told you? taking him out to dinner, taking him out drinking in New York asking him all kinds of questions about my father and the company and Paul and the whole, because he was up here. He came up here the night before he left and it wasn't even him, it wasn't even Billy he'd picked up your no no no and your Belgians chopping off hands and your comic books about the Bible and Reverend Ude, that the church is built on the blood of its martyrs you said that, didn't you?
— Well I, actually it's a loose translation of Tertullian's the blood of the martyrs is the seed of…
— No you said it I heard you, and if Reverend Ude wanted to do things right he'd go out and get himself shot? that the Crusades were nothing but slaughter and that's what his is going to be too? Turning his harvest of souls into this crusade against the evil empire like Lincoln turning the war to save the union into a crusade to free the slaves after the battle of Antietam I mean where did he get all that. Billy never heard of Antietam no, it was all just to start a fight with Paul because of Paul's southern, about the flower of southern youth what did Billy know about it, that it was Lee who wiped out the flower of southern youth keeping the war going when he knew he'd lost it that that's what the south still is? a paranoid sentimental fiction? a bunch of losers where the degraded upper classes go around with their crackerbarrel talk like they're all these poor cousins blaming the rich part of the family up north for stealing their birthright? Keeping the memory fresh till somebody gives them a war they can win, that that's why there's so many of them high up in the army? A war to restore the national dignity because they lost theirs a hundred years ago and nobody's let them get it back and that's what the war Paul was in, that they wouldn't let them win it I mean what did Billy ever know about the Civil War and all that, that he thought all that up himself just to make fun of Paul with? How the south is this cradle of stupidity where they get patriotism and Jesus all mixed up together because that's the religion of losers where they'll get their rewards someplace else so they're the only real good Christian Americans still living down there in this sentimental junkyard of the past where there's strength in stupidity and this mushmouthed vulgarity like Reverend tide's, taunting him with Reverend Ude but it was you, wasn't it. It was really you all the time.
He'd crushed the cigarette in a saucer, not a coal, not a wisp of smoke left, crushing it there till it crumbled between his yellowed finger and thumb. — Your tea's getting cold there, he said finally, and then — you know, I didn't take him out drinking he took me out drinking. I didn't sit him down and question him I didn't need to, I could hardly get a word in, he…
— That Paul wasn't even a southerner? that I, that somebody'd just told him Paul was adopted so he was probably really a Jew and didn't even know it? Paul the bagman? that it was Paul who made all these payoffs for Daddy and the whole…
— No no no listen, it was all in the papers wasn't it? I didn't have to ask him, you saw the papers didn't you?
— That's what I just told you! They're right there, that pile right there I just told you with those old pictures of Daddy and Longview and the, and that picture of Billy from his school yearbook they even found that. They even found that.
— I'm sure they had it… He'd started making another cigarette, dashing the spilled shreds of tobacco off the table, off his lap, �
�� in the morgue, must have been in their morgue.
— But what morgue where no, no… blanched, hands gone white as the sink they clung to behind her — there wasn't a picture in the morgue they…
— The papers I mean, the newspapers, it's what they call their files, that story on Paul, the big Lightning Division hero blown up in a…
— Because they had that picture that's what I mean, so they could put it all over the front page and make up a story to go with it just because they had that picture…
— It was quite a picture.
— And make him a killer? a killer without a war to go to who told them that.
— Well good God, he killed him didn't he?
— He didn't mean to.
— Didn't mean to? a skinny nineteen year old kid tries to mug him he couldn't have just knocked him down? But she'd turned away looking out on the fading turmoil of the terrace, the overturned chairs and the leaves and doves, three or four of them, picking indiscriminate, specked like the leaves in the sun still casting a warmth, or the look of it out there, like her voice when she'd spoken just beginning to fail. — Tell me… he'd lit the cigarette, and he coughed. — Why did you tell me your father had been pushed off a train.
— What's the difference… She hadn't moved, her back to him rigid as the table between them — he was dead, wasn't he?
— Going over a trestle? off the roof of the train? Because I remember it, I remember that scene. I saw the same movie.
— That wasn't kind, was it… and her shoulders fell a little, — because when people tell a lie…
— No I didn't mean, I didn't say that you'd…
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