My Sister's Hand in Mine

by Jane Bowles

  “Why did you jump up?” Harriet screeched at her. “Is it because you are at Camp Cataract and not at the apartment?”

  “It must have been the long train trip and no food…” Sadie told herself, “only one sandwich.”

  “Is it because you are at Camp Cataract and not at the apartment?” Harriet insisted. She was really very frightened and wished to establish Sadie’s fit as a purposeful one and not as an involuntary seizure similar to one of hers.

  “It was a long and dirty train trip,” Sadie said in a weary voice. “I had only one sandwich all day long, with no mustard or butter … just the processed meat. I didn’t even eat my fruit.”

  “Beryl offered to serve you food in the Grotto!” Harriet ranted. “Do you want some now or not? For heaven’s sake, speak up!”

  “No … no.” Sadie shook her head sorrowfully. “I think I’d best go to bed. Take me to your cabin … I’ve got my slippers and my kimono and my nightgown in my satchel,” she added, looking around her vaguely, for the fact that Beryl had carried her grip off had never really impressed itself upon her consciousness.

  Harriet glanced at Beryl with an air of complicity and managed to give her a quick pinch. “Beryl’s got you fixed up in one of the upper lodge annex rooms,” she told Sadie in a false, chatterbox voice. “You’ll be much more comfortable up here than you would be down in my cabin. We all use oil lamps in the grove and you know how dependent you are on electricity.”

  Sadie didn’t know whether she was dependent on electricity or not since she had never really lived without it, but she was so tired that she said nothing.

  “I get up terribly early and my cabin’s drafty, besides,” Harriet went on. “You’ll be much more comfortable here. You’d hate the Boulder Dam wigwams as well. Anyway, the wigwams are really for boys and they’re always full. There’s a covered bridge leading from this building to the annex on the upper floor, so that’s an advantage.”

  “O.K., folks,” Beryl cut in, judging that she could best help Harriet by spurring them on to action. “Let’s get going.”

  “Yes,” Harriet agreed, “if we don’t get out of the lodge soon the crowd will come back from the movies and we certainly want to avoid them.”

  They bade good night to Rover and started up the stairs.

  “This balustrade is made of young birch limbs,” Harriet told Sadie as they walked along the narrow gallery overhead. “I think it’s very much in keeping with the lodge, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Sadie answered.

  Beryl opened the door leading from the balcony onto a covered bridge and stepped through it, motioning to the others. “Here we go onto the bridge,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “You’ve never visited the annex, have you?” she asked Harriet.

  “I’ve never had any reason to,” Harriet answered in a huffy tone. “You know how I feel about my cabin.”

  They walked along the imperfectly fitted boards in the darkness. Gusts of wind blew about their ankles and they were constantly spattered with rain in spite of the wooden roofing. They reached the door at the other end very quickly, however, where they descended two steps leading into a short, brightly lit hall. Beryl closed the door to the bridge behind them. The smell of fresh plaster and cement thickened the damp air.

  “This is the annex,” said Beryl. “We put old ladies here mostly, because they can get back and forth to the dining room without going outdoors … and they’ve got the toilet right here, too.” She flung open the door and showed it to them. “Then also,” she added, “we don’t like the old ladies dealing with oil lamps and here they’ve got electricity.” She led them into a little room just at their left and switched on the light. “Pretty smart, isn’t it?” she remarked, looking around her with evident satisfaction, as if she herself had designed the room; then, sauntering over to a modernistic wardrobe-bureau combination, she polished a corner of it with her pocket handkerchief. This piece was made of shiny brown wood and fitted with a rimless circular mirror. “Strong and good-looking,” Beryl said, rapping on the wood with her knuckles. “Every room’s got one.”

  Sadie sank down on the edge of the bed without removing her outer garments. Here, too, the smell of plaster and cement permeated the air, and the wind still blew about their ankles, this time from under the badly constructed doorsill.

  “The cabins are much draftier than this,” Harriet assured Sadie once again. “You’ll be more comfortable here in the annex.” She felt confident that establishing her sister in the annex would facilitate her plan, which was still to prevent her from saying whatever she had come to say.

  Sadie was terribly tired. Her hat, dampened by the rain, pressed uncomfortably against her temples, but she did not attempt to remove it. “I think I’ve got to go to sleep,” she muttered. “I can’t stay awake any more.”

  “All right,” said Harriet, “but don’t forget tomorrow at two by the souvenir booth … you can’t miss it. I don’t want to see anyone in the morning because I can make my canoe pack better by myself … it’s frightfully complicated.… But if I hurried I could meet you at one-thirty; would you prefer that?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Then I’ll do my best.… You see, in the morning I always practice imagination for an hour or two. It does me lots of good, but tomorrow I’ll cut it short.” She kissed Sadie lightly on the crown of her felt hat. “Good night,” she said. “Is there anything I forgot to ask you about the apartment?”

  “No,” Sadie assured her. “You asked everything.”

  “Well, good night,” said Harriet once again, and followed by Beryl, she left the room.

  * * *

  When Sadie awakened the next morning a feeling of dread still rested like a leaden weight on her chest. No sooner had she left the room than panic, like a small wing, started to beat under her heart. She was inordinately fearful that if she strayed any distance from the main lodge she would lose her way and so arrive late for her meeting with Harriet. This fear drove her to stand next to the souvenir booth fully an hour ahead of time. Fortunately the booth, situated on a small knoll, commanded an excellent view of the cataract, which spilled down from some high rock ledges above a deep chasm. A fancy bridge spanned this chasm only a few feet below her, so that she was able to watch the people crossing it as they walked back and forth between the camp site and the waterfall. An Indian chief in full war regalia was seated at the bridge entrance on a kitchen chair. His magnificent feather headdress curved gracefully in the breeze as he busied himself collecting the small toll that all the tourists paid on returning from the waterfall; he supplied them with change from a nickel-plated conductor’s belt which he wore over his deer-hide jacket, embroidered with minute beads. He was an Irishman employed by the management, which supplied his costume. Lately he had grown careless, and often neglected to stain his freckled hands the deep brick color of his face. He divided his time between the bridge and the souvenir booth, clambering up the knoll whenever he sighted a customer.

  A series of wooden arches, Gothic in conception, succeeded each other all the way across the bridge; bright banners fluttered from their rims, each one stamped with the initials of the camp, and some of them edged with a glossy fringe. Only a few feet away lay the dining terrace, a huge flagstone pavilion whose entire length skirted the chasm’s edge.

  Unfortunately, neither the holiday crowds, nor the festooned bridge, nor even the white waters of the cataract across the way could distract Sadie from her misery. She constantly glanced behind her at the dark pine groves wherein Harriet’s cabin was concealed. She dreaded to see Harriet’s shape define itself between the trees, but at the same time she feared that if her sister did not arrive shortly some terrible catastrophe would befall them both before she’d had a chance to speak. In truth all desire to convince her sister that she should leave Camp Cataract and return to the apartment had miraculously shriveled away, and with the desire, the words to express it had vanished too. This did not in any way alter her inte
ntion of accomplishing her mission; on the contrary, it seemed to her all the more desperately important now that she was almost certain, in her innermost heart, that her trip was already a failure. Her attitude was not an astonishing one, since like many others she conceived of her life as separate from herself; the road was laid out always a little ahead of her by sacred hands, and she walked down it without a question. This road, which was her life, would go on existing after her death, even as her death existed now while she still lived.

  There were close to a hundred people dining on the terrace, and the water’s roar so falsified the clamor of voices that one minute the guests seemed to be speaking from a great distance and the next right at her elbow. Every now and then she thought she heard someone pronounce her name in a dismal tone, and however much she told herself that this was merely the waterfall playing its tricks on her ears she shuddered each time at the sound of her name. Her very position next to the booth began to embarrass her. She tucked her hands into her coat sleeves so that they would not show, and tried to keep her eyes fixed on the foaming waters across the way, but she had noticed a disapproving look in the eyes of the diners nearest her, and she could not resist glancing back at the terrace every few minutes in the hope that she had been mistaken. Each time, however, she was more convinced that she had read their expressions correctly, and that these people believed, not only that she was standing there for no good reason, but that she was a genuine vagrant who could not afford the price of a dinner. She was therefore immensely relieved when she caught sight of Harriet advancing between the tables from the far end of the dining pavilion. As she drew nearer, Sadie noticed that she was wearing her black winter coat trimmed with red fur, and that her marceled hair remained neatly arranged in spite of the strong wind. Much to her relief Harriet had omitted to rouge her cheeks and her face therefore had regained its natural proportions. She saw Harriet wave at the sight of her and quicken her step. Sadie was pleased that the diners were to witness the impending meeting. “When they see us together,” she thought, “they’ll realize that I’m no vagrant, but a decent woman visiting her sister.” She herself started down the knoll to hasten the meeting. “I thought you’d come out of the pine grove,” she called out, as soon as they were within a few feet of one another. “I kept looking that way.”

  “I would have ordinarily,” Harriet answered, reaching her side and kissing her lightly on the cheek, “but I went to the other end of the terrace first, to reserve a table for us from the waiter in charge there. That end is quieter, so it will be more suitable for a long talk.”

  “Good,” thought Sadie as they climbed up the knoll together. “Her night’s sleep has done her a world of good.” She studied Harriet’s face anxiously as they paused next to the souvenir booth, and discovered a sweet light reflected in her eyes. All at once she remembered their childhood together and the great tenderness Harriet had often shown towards her then.

  “They have Turkish pilaff on the menu,” said Harriet, “so I told the waiter to save some for you. It’s such a favorite that it usually runs out at the very beginning. I know how much you love it.”

  Sadie, realizing that Harriet was actually eager for this dinner, the only one they would eat together at Camp Cataract, to be a success, felt the terrible leaden weight lifted from her heart; it disappeared so suddenly that for a moment or two she was like a balloon without its ballast; she could barely refrain from dancing about in delight. Harriet tugged on her arm.

  “I think we’d better go now,” she urged Sadie, “then after lunch we can come back here if you want to buy some souvenirs for Evy and Bert … and maybe for Flo and Carl and Bobby too.…”

  Sadie bent down to adjust her cotton stockings, which were wrinkling badly at the ankles, and when she straightened up again her eyes lighted on three men dining very near the edge of the terrace; she had not noticed them before. They were all eating corn on the cob and big round hamburger sandwiches in absolute silence. To protect their clothing from spattering kernels, they had converted their napkins into bibs.

  “Bert Hoffer’s careful of his clothes too,” Sadie reflected, and then she turned to her sister. “Don’t you think men look different sitting all by themselves without women?” she asked her. She felt an extraordinary urge to chat—an urge which she could not remember ever having experienced before.

  “I think,” Harriet replied, as though she had not heard Sadie’s comment, “that we’d better go to our table before the waiter gives it to someone else.”

  “I don’t like men,” Sadie announced without venom, and she was about to follow Harriet when her attention was arrested by the eyes of the man nearest her. Slowly lowering his corn cob to his plate, he stared across at her, his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. She stood as if rooted to the ground, and under his steady gaze all her newborn joy rapidly drained away. With desperation she realized that Harriet, darting in and out between the crowded tables, would soon be out of sight. After making what seemed to her a superhuman effort she tore herself away from the spot where she stood and lunged after Harriet shouting her name.

  Harriet was at her side again almost instantly, looking up at her with a startled expression. Together they returned to the souvenir booth, where Sadie stopped and assumed a slightly bent position as if she were suffering from an abdominal pain.

  “What’s the trouble?” she heard Harriet asking with concern. “Are you feeling ill?”

  Instead of answering Sadie laid her hand heavily on her sister’s arm and stared at her with a hunted expression in her eyes.

  “Please try not to look so much like a gorilla,” said Harriet in a kind voice, but Sadie, although she recognized the accuracy of this observation (for she could feel very well that she was looking like a gorilla), was powerless to change her expression, at least for a moment or two. “Come with me,” she said finally, grabbing Harriet’s hand and pulling her along with almost brutal force. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  She headed down a narrow path leading into a thickly planted section of the grove, where she thought they were less likely to be disturbed. Harriet followed with such a quick, light step that Sadie felt no pull behind her at all and her sister’s hand, folded in her own thick palm, seemed as delicate as the body of a bird. Finally they entered a small clearing where they stopped. Harriet untied a handkerchief from around her neck and mopped her brow. “Gracious!” she said. “It’s frightfully hot in here.” She offered the kerchief to Sadie. “I suppose it’s because we walked so fast and because the pine trees shut out all the wind.… First I’ll sit down and then you must tell me what’s wrong.” She stepped over to a felled tree whose length blocked the clearing. Its torn roots were shockingly exposed, whereas the upper trunk and branches lay hidden in the surrounding grove. Harriet sat down; Sadie was about to sit next to her when she noticed a dense swarm of flies near the roots. Automatically she stepped toward them. “Why are they here?” she asked herself—then immediately she spotted the cause, an open can of beans some careless person had deposited inside a small hollow at the base of the trunk. She turned away in disgust and looked at Harriet. Her sister was seated on the fallen tree, her back gracefully erect and her head tilted in a listening attitude. The filtered light imparted to her face an incredibly fragile and youthful look, and Sadie gazed at her with tenderness and wonder. No sound reached them in the clearing, and she realized with a pounding heart that she could no longer postpone telling Harriet why she had come. She could not have wished for a moment more favorable to the accomplishment of her purpose. The stillness in the air, their isolation, the expectant and gentle light in Harriet’s eye, all these elements should have combined to give her back her faith—faith in her own powers to persuade Harriet to come home with her and live among them once again, winter and summer alike, as she had always done before. She opened her mouth to speak and doubled over, clutching at her stomach as though an animal were devouring her. Sweat beaded her forehead and she planted her feet wid
e apart on the ground as if this animal would be born. Though her vision was barred with pain, she saw Harriet’s tear-filled eyes, searching hers.

  “Let’s not go back to the apartment,” Sadie said, hearing her own words as if they issued not from her mouth but from a pit in the ground. “Let’s not go back there … let’s you and me go out in the world … just the two of us.” A second before covering her face to hide her shame Sadie glimpsed Harriet’s eyes, impossibly close to her own, their pupils pointed with a hatred such as she had never seen before.

  It seemed to Sadie that it was taking an eternity for her sister to leave. “Go away … go away … or I’ll suffocate.” She was moaning the words over and over again, her face buried deep in her hands. “Go away … please go away … I’ll suffocate.…” She could not tell, however, whether she was thinking these words or speaking them aloud.

  At last she heard Harriet’s footstep on the dry branches, as she started out of the clearing. Sadie listened, but although one step followed another, the cracking sound of the dry branches did not grow any fainter as Harriet penetrated farther into the grove. Sadie knew then that this agony she was suffering was itself the dreaded voyage into the world—the very voyage she had always feared Harriet would make. That she herself was making it instead of Harriet did not affect her certainty that this was it.

  * * *

  Sadie stood at the souvenir booth looking at some birchbark canoes. The wind was blowing colder and stronger than it had a while ago, or perhaps it only seemed this way to her, so recently returned from the airless clearing. She did not recall her trip back through the grove; she was conscious only of her haste to buy some souvenirs and to leave. Some chains of paper tacked to the side of the booth as decoration kept flying into her face. The Indian chief was smiling at her from behind the counter of souvenirs.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I’m leaving,” said Sadie, “so I want souvenirs.…”