At four-thirty in the morning Yo Yonson was released. That was when Connie found out that his name was Erling Some-thing-or-other, and that he was a Norwegian sailor off a ship. It was written in the night book.
Yo Yonson didn’t seem changed. At least, Connie couldn’t see any difference. He came out of the precinct house quietly, stooping a little the way he always did, as if he was humble about being so tall. When he saw her, he gave his same quick, shy smile of pleasure. But he didn’t seem to realize that he’d been locked up as a murder suspect, or that it was she who had obtained his release.
She thought: What’s to be done with him? He can’t go back to that horrible house. Heaven knows what they would do to him. But when she asked him, real slow and clear, where he was going, he only said: “Home.”
There was a sort of stubbornness about him that she recognized and accepted. Maybe he knew more than she thought; maybe it was a matter of pride with him to show them all that he wasn’t afraid.
She walked with him through the lonely night streets back to the square. The moment they reached it, she saw what had happened. There were no people around. It was too late for that. But, strewn over the sidewalk in chaos were all Yo Yonson’s pathetic belongings from the cellar. She could see them all. The orange-crate chairs had been ripped to pieces; the mattress had all its stuffing torn out; the cartons were crushed; the plates and cups broken into bits; and the old scraps of metal flung all over the sidewalk.
The bicycle-wheel cart was there too, but both its wheels had been hammered crooked.
Exhausted as she was, Connie felt anger flare up in her again. She would have liked to rush into the house and beat all those people with her bare fists. But Yo Yonson didn’t seem to feel that way. He just stood looking at the wreckage—looking silently, resignedly. For the first time, Connie dimly grasped a fact about the world that she had never guessed before. Maybe the Yo Yonsons were so used to unkindness and unhappiness that they accepted it the way others accept the wind or the rain.
He moved over to examine the ruined wheels of his cart. Then he found one of the cartons that wasn’t entirely crushed. He picked it up, and moving carefully through the litter, he selected several objects that seemed to mean most to him and put them in the carton. He turned back to Connie then and suddenly the hopeful smile came back to his face.
“You like? The dress from the big store? You like?”
“Oh, it’s lovely.” Connie rested her hand on his rocklike forearm. “It’s really beautiful. One day I’ll put it on for you.”
“Good.” Yo Yonson nodded his head, happy, reassured.
He turned from her then, with the carton under his arm.
It was after he had gone that Connie found it. She was passing a wire-mesh trashbasket under one of the street lights and she noticed something iridescent gleaming inside. She paused and looked down. Lying among the trash and the thrown-away newspapers, its legs tilted stiffly upwards, was one of the pigeons.
Its throat still flashed like a little rainbow, but she could tell from its lolling head that the bird had been strangled—its neck snapped clean in two.
For a moment there was nothing for Connie but normal horror and pity. One of her pigeons! The poor bird! Then she remembered what the woman in the crowd had said about the murdered slut. Strangled with her neck snapped clean in two.
Connie started to shiver. She looked down again at the pigeon, deposited there so neatly—almost as if it were packed away in a cardboard carton. She was still shivering hours later when she lay in bed at her home. The blankets were thick and the night was not cold, but she went on shivering just the same.
Next day at the restaurant she was welcomed like a heroine. Sergeant Connors had spread the news of what she’d done and everyone in the square, even some of the ones who had been in that terrible crowd the night before, seemed to be ashamed of what had happened and grateful to Connie for having put it right. Just because they were all fond of her and trusted her, it never occurred to any of them that she could have lied. She had said Yo Yonson had been with her, feeding the pigeons, at the time of the crime—so, of course, he had been there. He was innocent. And she, by coming forward, had saved an innocent man.
“Gee, Connie, you were wonderful!” Shirley’s young face was gleaming with admiration. “I would never have had the nerve, not to go down to the police station, with everyone against him and all.”
Rosa was just as enthusiastic and started saying she had, from the very beginning, always thought Yo Yonson kind of cute and sweet, like a stray puppy.
Only Mr. Mazzoli remained unaffected by this new trend. He puttered darkly about his kitchen.
“Connie, you a silly girl. How d’you know he didn’t-a do it? How d’you know he didn’t-a slip away just a moment before the five o’clock? With a loco man—what you know what he does when the craziness comes?”
No one else found the pigeon. No one saw Yo Yonson either. He had taken his carton of possessions and, like a stray puppy, wandered off to find a home somewhere else.
The days that came after the murder were terrible for Connie. No one seemed to notice the difference in her. She laughed and kidded with the customers just the way she’d always done. She seemed just as big and cheerful as ever. But inside she felt small, shrivelled, and scared. She couldn’t suspect Yo Yonson. To suspect him was to deny everything she had ever believed in about kindness. Kindness and cruelty—how could they both be in the same person, especially in a poor, simple creature like Yo Yonson who loved the pigeons? No, she couldn’t believe it. And yet …
Sometimes she’d wake up in the middle of the night and find herself shivering, just the way she had shivered on the night of the murder.
And there was one change in her which they certainly would have noticed if the murder hadn’t put everything else out of their minds. She didn’t go and look at the pigeons any more. Whenever she had to walk through the square and she knew they would be flashing up there and rolling through the sky, she couldn’t bring herself to look up and see them.
The pigeons had somehow become like a finger in the sky, accusing her …
It was three weeks later that she got the grippe. She’d been ailing for several days but she would go to work. Finally, Mr. Mazzoli put his foot down and insisted that she go right home, take a couple of aspirins and stay in bed until she was better.
“You wanta all the customers should sneeze and carrying on like-a you? Go on. Scram. Get outta here.”
Connie had thought it would be worse lying in bed alone in her room all day. But she was wrong. Those days of illness did something for her. They brought her back together again with the pigeons. There were roof tops outside her window where quite a few pigeons lived. The first morning of her sickness, she woke up to find one of them standing on the window sill, cocking its bright eye at her lying in the bed. After that, she started putting scraps, from the meals Rosa, and Shirley brought over for her from the restaurant, out on the sill. Soon the pigeons came there just as tame as the ones in the square.
She was terribly weak from the grippe, but the pigeons took some of that bad feeling away. It was stupid, of course, but she felt kind of as if they’d forgiven her.
And, for long stretches at a time, she would forget about Yo Yonson …
It was on the third afternoon, at two o’clock, that the knock sounded at the door. She was still in bed and she was rather surprised, because Rosa and Shirley, her most faithful visitors, always dropped in mornings on their way to work and then again at four with the food from the restaurant. That day they’d already been there, bringing a cake Mr. Mazzoli had baked especially for her. Surely they wouldn’t be coming right in the middle of the lunch rush?
But the knock sounded again. She got out of bed, throwing her old pink wrap around her, and went to the door to open it.
Yo Yonson was standing there.
Even before she had time to think, she was afraid. She felt the fear in her knees, in her stomach.
She didn’t remember to smile. And, maybe because she hadn’t, he didn’t either. He stood looking at her, then he shambled into the room and closed the door.
He was different. Even in her fear, she could tell that at once. His eyes were sort of fixed and … different. He wasn’t stooping as if he was humble. He stood straight up, so that his blond head almost reached the ceiling and the bulk of him seemed to swallow all the space in the room.
And then Connie seemed to hear the voice of the woman in the crowd: That’s the way they go—they have spells on them when they kill.
He was standing scarcely two feet away from her, looking at her as if he didn’t recognize her. But he must recognize her, of course. How else could he have come here? But he hadn’t known where she lived. He must have gone to the restaurant, and Shirley or Rosa, who were so crazy about him now she had saved him, had given him the address. Then, if he had come on purpose, surely it was because they were friends, because …
She pulled the wrap more closely around her, and moistened her lips.
“Hello,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound right. It was false and dry, giving her fear away.
It was then that she heard the cooing on the window sill. She glanced around. There were the pigeons, still pecking at the crumbs of Mr. Mazzoli’s cake that she had put out.
And, as she turned her head, Yo Yonson took his gaze from her and shifted it to the pigeons too. He swung around and stood looking at them. Slowly a smile came to his lips. But the smile was different from usual. It was sort of dazzled, as if he was looking at something too beautiful, something that didn’t fit into a life of drabness, damp cellars, and carts with crooked bicycle wheels.
He started towards the window—very gently. He could walk so softly. The pigeons went on feeding and clucking. Even when he was right up beside them, they didn’t stir. It was as if they knew him.
That was the moment when Connie could have run for the door and escaped—while he was looking at the pigeons. She realized it, but she couldn’t do it. If she ran, that would mean that she had lost her faith in everything that mattered. She saw that and suddenly she wasn’t afraid any more. She waited, watching Yo Yonson, not calling out, not doing anything.
His hand went cautiously towards one of the pigeons. The bird didn’t move. He picked it up, holding it out in front of him, gazing at the rainbow on its breast.
Then it was done. His fingers crept up to the pigeon’s neck and closed and squeezed until the head flopped over and the flat eye stared as the neck swung to and fro. After a while Yo Yonson opened his fist. He brought up his other hand and kept the pigeon in his huge cupped palms. But it was at his hands that he was looking, not at the pigeon. He was looking at them with a kind of pride, almost with love.
The terror came back to Connie with a rush. But it wasn’t just fear for herself. It was the terror of someone who half-understands a great truth. Yo Yonson hadn’t killed the bird because he was evil. He hadn’t even killed it, like a child, because it was beautiful and he wanted it for himself. He had killed it because it was something that didn’t need him.
His poor baffled mind saw beauty and kindness all around him, but he had never been a part of it. He was always alone, with his desire for love that was never granted, with his hatred of being the unwanted one, the one that was always mocked at. Most of the time he could endure it. But times when it got too bad, he thought of his strength. That was something he did have. And by using his strength to kill things, it helped his pride.
The woman with the dyed hair had mocked him. Maybe that was why he had killed her. But he would probably have killed her anyway when the feeling came, because, when it came, the beautiful, the ugly, the kind, the cruel—all the things in life that weren’t for him had to be killed—to make him feel all right again.
The woman with the dyed hair, the pigeons—now Connie …
Yo Yonson had dropped the bird. He was looking at her again—if just having his eyes fixed on her was looking. He came straight towards her, and, in the wonder and terror of her knowledge, she just stood.
He took her up in his arms as easily as if she were an empty cardboard carton. He sat down on the bed with her on his lap. One of his great hands came to her throat and rested there for a moment. Then it moved on up to her hair. She felt him stroking her hair gently, and, in spite of her strange exaltation, she was aware enough to know it was hopeless to cry out or to struggle. If she did, he would kill her. It would be over in a flash.
The hand was still stroking her hair. She felt a tug and a sharp pain. Then his hand was down in her lap. In it were a few strands of her blond hair. But he was not looking at them. He was gazing at his hands again, just as he had gazed at them when he held the pigeon.
Suddenly, the knowledge in her became strength, strength such as she had never felt before. It bubbled up in her almost like laughter. Yo Yonson didn’t have to feel alone. He didn’t have to be starved of kindness. Inside, he was like a mudhole in the desert, cracked, parched. It was kindness that mattered, and kindness could fall like rain.
“I know why you came.” Her voice was right now. It wasn’t an insincere voice that he could see through. “Of course, how silly of me! It’s the dress, isn’t it? I promised to show you how I look in the dress.”
She patted his great hand, which still held the strands of her own blond hair, and slipped out of his lap. He made no attempt to stop her. She ran to the closet, pulled out the black lace dress, and, quite without shame, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, threw off her wrap and started to struggle into the dress.
He got up from the bed, still holding the bright hair. He came right towards her. But she smiled at him, squeezing and wriggling to get into the tight dress.
He was so close that she could feel his breath fanning down on her. His hand went out towards her throat.
“There!” She gave a great gusty laugh and pirouetted in front of him. “Isn’t that something? See how pretty it is! Thank you. Thank you so much.”
As he looked at her, his eyes slowly changed. The deadness was fading and gradually the old pigeon look came back—the delight. With it, a smile.
“You like?” he said.
He dropped down on the floor at her feet then. He was still kneeling there humbly when Mr. Mazzoli, Sergeant Connors, and Frank O’Mulligan arrived.
In a moment Mr. Mazzoli’s arms were around her.
“That Rosa—that crazy Rosa. He come-a to the restaurant and Rosa, she give-a the address. Only later she tell-a me what she done. Quick I think: Dio, the loco—the crazy man go to kill-a my Connie. Quick I run out from the kitchen. Sergeant Connors and Frank, they sit there taking the spaghetti. Quick I grab them. We run … Oh, Connie, la mia ragazza, my little silly ragazza! Quick, we go to City Hall. We stop-a this foolishness—quick …”
But, although she luxuriated in the protective warmth of Mr. Mazzoli’s arms, Connie could still think only of Yo Yonson. He would have to be put away. She saw that now. Although he wasn’t really bad, it wasn’t right for him to be free around a lot of cruel people who didn’t understand him, who got him all mixed up, who turned him into a—a monster. Yes, he would have to be put away. And maybe it would be happier for him like that—better than the damp cellars.
Yo Yonson had got up and was standing quietly, between Sergeant Connors and Frank O’Mulligan.
“Well, Connie,” said the Sergeant. “I guess you got a little mixed up on the times in that alibi.”
She turned from the protection of Mr. Mazzoli’s circling arms.
“Don’t let them hurt him, Sergeant.” Part of her was thinking now, with a kind of awe, that this was the first time Mr. Mazzoli had ever come out of his kitchen in the afternoon. “Be kind to him. That’s all he needs. He’ll get along fine, honest he will—if you just make them be kind….”
ALL THE WAY TO THE MOON
Unexpectedly, as John Flint carried his wife’s breakfast tray into the bedroom, It came back. Came ba
ck was not really the right phrase, because now It was never completely out of his mind. But the spring sunshine, which stole through the half-closed drapes, must have had some quality of Mexican sunshine, for suddenly he was in Mexico City again, breathing the exhilarating mountain air and feeling the wonder of its strangeness.
“Had a good night, dear?” With neat automatism he balanced the tray on his wife’s knees and hardly hearing Amy’s patient, invalid’s response, murmured: “Well, mind you call Dr. Jepson if there’s any trouble.”
He crossed to the frilly vanity table, and opening the little jewel box, brought it over to his wife’s bed. Since he had performed this ritual every morning for five years, he knew exactly what she was doing—although he himself was three thousand miles away. First, the diamond-chip bracelet was slipped onto the thin left wrist; then the clasp of the real pearl necklace was snapped beneath the heavy bun of dark hair, streaked with grey. Then came the two solitaire-diamond earrings. Amy had taken to wearing this jewelry, inherited from an aunt, ever since the first heart attack which had made her virtually bedridden. John Flint had never really wondered why—he was not a curious man; perhaps it was her gesture of rebellion against the drabness of invalidism. After her bad nights, she asked him to help with the earrings; but she didn’t today.
The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow Page 17