The girl had been casting her eyes over her shoulder toward the big-faced man who was chiefly listening to them. Several people could hear Grant and were smiling faintly. Edda said abruptly, “It’s my opinion you’re sunk, you’ll never get any lower. That’s my idea.”
This pleased him. He went on to show that he was glad he was “in her clutches,” that he admired her venality, her conspiracies, and admired her and himself for the large sum of money he had spent and the way she made a fool of him. He said complacently, “Yes, she buys me at one corner and sells me at the next! I don’t claim she’s innocent. But I’m no good, either. Birds of a feather. You’re right. I’m sunk. I’m sunk. I met her when she was just a scrubwoman. I thought, What the hell do I want with this bloody cow? Then I got into her ‘clutches.’”
He told them the story about Peter Hoag. “I thought he’d pulled a boner. I rang him up and said, ‘This time you put money on the wrong filly, Hoag.’ He said, ‘Wait and see, she carries my money and she’ll come in at the post.’ He was right. I’m sunk. She torpedoed me.”
They sat long over brandy-and-Benedictine, as he retold his tale. It had begun to snow. A blonde woman gaily dressed, who had come in out of the snow, brushed past their table and was hailed by Flack. She greeted the Flacks and made to move on, but Grant had become tense, his eyes shone, and his face was merry. She was Sophy Manfred, but just back from Reno and—“Now call me Buchanan, I want to have no more of Manfred, call me Buchanan.”
Grant looked at the others to guess what she might be, then took out his little red address book and murmured, “Are you just back from Reno? That’s trying on the nerves. I had hard luck just recently; maybe we could console each other.”
The woman was smart, small, lusty. She wore her blonde hair piled high, a black and white silk blouse, a red suit and a fur coat. Heavy bracelets jingled on both arms. Grant called for drinks and stroked her arm. She gave him a quick stare, looked at the others to guess what he might be, leaned across the table and cried huskily, “O, Edda and—may I call you David?—please, wait till you hear what happened to me this week. Bundy, my stepdaughter, said, ‘You must go to a psychoanalyst; if you don’t go, after what happened to you, there never was a woman like you before nor will be again.’ ‘But why go to my psychoanalyst?’ I said to Bundy. ‘You know as well as I do that he cannot cure himself, why should he cure me? Isn’t his own wife a case of nervous breakdown and didn’t I see it from the moment I rang at the doorbell?’ She opened it and I saw at once; I said to myself, ‘A more miserable, more unhappy woman does not exist; whatever your troubles are, Sophy, they are probably a mere fleabite to her troubles.’ And this doctor cannot see a mental crisis like that in his own living room—living room; it was worse and nearer home than that, for later she told me everything. I visited him several times, and one day I waited for him in the sitting room and she was there, and I saw she was jealous—of me, perhaps, and I said, ‘Darling, why do you look so ghastly?’ And she burst out crying. After we had a long talk I went away and never went to see the doctor again. ‘Quite right,’ said Bundy, ‘but there are other men…’ My dear Edda, I feel black and blue, I have been lacerated morally, mentally, and spiritually! What that man did to me—even at this distance of time and space—let me pour out my feelings to you, and you will find it interesting, too, for I have made up my mind that this story ought to be preserved for the good of humanity. How a man can take a perfectly innocent, trusting woman and subject her to attacks in the dark, bludgeonings, a blunt instrument is not in it, spiritually, I mean, of course, and all the while she is feeling her sore head and thinking, I am at fault; she carries about a guilt feeling which makes her the monster—the whole thing is a novel! I have a name for it—The Perfection of Murder. Don’t you like it?”
Grant burst in desperately with, “Like it, like it: but I got a better title. Listen to me, I got a name and I got a subject for a novel, a best-seller will sweep them into the Atlantic; I’ll guarantee it will be sold to Hollywood before it’s so much as in print; it’s about a man, Kincaid, who is restless and takes a woman from Rome, the wife of a doctor—”
Sophy broke in—“What did I tell you? Great minds think alike. A doctor’s wife who gets into trouble and her husband either cannot or will not see what is the matter, himself the disease, or the criminal, or whatever you like to call it, the thief in the night stealing her—her mind, if you like—The Thief in the Night—what do you think of that for a title? But I like the other. Or, better—The Night Side of Dr. Jones. Eh?”
Grant burst out laughing, and stroked her arm, “Good grief! You’re the girl I’ve been looking for. You appeal to me. You’re blonde—you’re not as blonde as the other one, but you’ve got character and she has none, and what I want is character. I’m looking for the right woman and I want one who’ll be a sweetheart, a sister, and a mother to me. Three women in one. How do you like that for a title?”
Sophy stopped, stared, burst out, “What did you say your name is? Do I know you?”
He told her, and asked for hers and her telephone number. She stared at him for a moment, her thoughts astray, and said suddenly, “Listen, darling, this is real, you couldn’t invent it: I went through agonies, torture, mental and physical torment, over that man. He’s a monster, but one with invisible torturing hands, a giant insect of steel with antennae of silk. That’s how he got me. He got me into his toils and then took pleasure in seeing me writhe; he wrapped me up and carried me off to his lair, that is the only possible description of our marriage—if you like to call that marriage, when a man with a twisted brain and a demon in his soul takes the body and soul of a young woman and tears it to pieces and eats them alive, body and soul. That’s a scientific description of my marriage. Wait till I tell you the details, darling! You’re a decent man. You have no conception of what a man of the other sort, the nether-world of men, the apemen who look like men you might call them, do to women when they carry them off to their lairs—legally, mind you, legally! He called me the River Nymph before he married me, then he said I had no soul at all. He called me a machine. He treated me as you don’t treat machines, you handle them with care. All the while, sitting there quietly, in a quiet apartment with all the conveniences you can imagine—oh, I supped off gold, if you like to put it that way—he was a silent, invisible torturer. How can you explain that to anyone? Only a book, a play could do it. And I am going to do it, because I lived through it. Whatever your imagination, darling, you couldn’t invent it. Truth is stranger than fiction. No psychoanalyst could explain it to me as I can see it myself. I’m going to call it, perhaps, Death with Arms, eh? Or, The River Nymph? A hollow mockery.”
Grant said, “You’re the kind of woman I need. What I want is a blondine with your character and your head. I want your advice, little girl. Edda here and David here are going to write a story about me. If you’ve been in torment, I have, too. Perhaps I haven’t been torn to pieces, but my heart was sore. That blondine did that to me. I can sympathize. When can I telephone you?”
“Now look—what is your name?—I don’t know who you are, but I like you. I can see you’re sympathetic, I’m never wrong and I know it would surprise you, a man like you, to know how some men can behave. I want to tell you the whole thing, not to give you an earful, it won’t bore you, but just to restore my faith in men, for I’ve been dragged in the mud at the tails of four horses, the four horses of the apocalypse it was for me, and if you’re thinking of writing a book, Mr. Grant, it has to have a woman in it. I’ll give you the subject, you can’t go wrong, it’ll be the truth, and call it The Life of the River Nymph. Write down what I tell you, it’s written in my heart’s blood and you’ll get the Book of the Month. You should learn something about women, for that will give it reality. What do you want to write about Roman women and Rome for? It is about a real flesh-and-blood woman—like me—I’ve given you all the details. Do that, and it’ll be a raging success. I read all those books and I tear my ha
ir, I’m eating my heart out, and I think, O, why don’t you write the truth about women? The truth is here—the truth will make you free, the truth is black but constructive—” she pointed to her breast.
Gladly Grant burst in with, “Good grief, you’re right. Three women in one. I’m glad you like my idea. When can we get together? The truth is constructive.”
“Why don’t you come up to my apartment now? But I must warn you, I’m serious, I’m not just looking for a good time. I’m not that sort of woman, don’t make a mistake about me. I just want someone to confide in, I want to lean my head on your shoulder spiritually to restore my faith in humanity. A heart-to-heart talk with a woman is the best thing, but an honest, fine man, like I can see you are, will be the next best thing. I’m not flattering you. I always tell men exactly what I think and they know where they stand. I haven’t had much luck lately, and I’m looking for some luck.”
He said dully, “What I want is a blondine with your head. A woman with two heads.”
“I like your other title best, The Life of the River Nymph.”
“You’re right! It’s true.” He shouted this, stretched, and got up. They parted in the snow, the Flacks going home and Grant going toward Washington Square, where Sophy Buchanan had a new apartment. Grant turned back to Edda to say weightily, “Now like this little girl said—constructive, no clouds, no long noses, no thin hair, constructive!”
10
It snowed for twenty-four hours, and for three days was full winter. David Flack had caught a cold on that first snowy evening and could not go out. His daughter stayed at home from work to attend to him. Grant was concerned and visited them twice a day at their apartment, to unravel with them, piece by piece, the mystery of the blonde, what she might be doing in the federal capital, and why she refused either to come to New York or to let him visit her there. On the third day there was no snow, though it was very cold, then quite warm with sun in the morning and the afternoon, a snow-gray sky, ice on the roofs, the snow overhangs melting, a tinkling, falling, with the trees turning from white to wet black, and much snow in the gardens. Opposite the Flacks’ home, in an old garden, a huge iron bell stood, the snow upon it. Grant stayed nearly all day in the apartment, eating all that was set before him, and saying kindly, “You’re not well, my boy, need a little bouillon.” He would rush to Flack, fix a pillow, stand in front of him, considering, go back to his chair, cross his legs and plunge into his confidences.
“How did you like Sophy?”
Grant hesitated, then laughed in a troubled way, “Couldn’t make her out: got the better of me, don’t know if she meant to or not. Damn woman chewed my ear off about that River Nymph, and the dog, that boarder too—” He laughed and made David and Edda another confidence.
On the first snowy evening, the evening he had met Sophy, he had gone home with Sophy meaning nothing wrong, just for a little chat, and had no idea the damn woman thought he was a writer who wanted to write her memoirs. He got up from his chair, did a two-step, shook his head gaily and cried, “Me write her memoirs! That’s rich! But it was an obsession, a fixed idea.” He found her amusing and then a fine type of woman. She appealed to him and she had had a rough time. He thought he might console her. “I’m looking for someone to fill in that lacuna: that lacuna with a tea tray and a silver frame.” She offered him a drink, but he didn’t drink, so she had one herself, and there was a little dog there, he didn’t know what kind, which barked at him when he kissed her. She was standing up and talking on and on about the damned River Nymph and she simply brushed him off without thinking. He threw his arms round her and planted a big kiss on her—h’m-h’m—and the little dog rushed at him, clasped him round the leg and bit him. Every time he tried to get closer to her and make her forget that River Nymph, the little dog got jealous and barked or tried to bite him. He begged her to shut the little dog up, which she did at once. It had all been thoughtlessness on her part, she was a one-idea woman—the River Nymph, Dr. Jones or Bones. He thought, “Now the coast is clear,” and he had just made her a little interested in himself when the door flew open and a man with his hair on end and his coat half on rushed out of the apartment shouting, “I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it, I’m going for a drink.” Grant was ruffled, very ruffled at her hiding a man in her apartment; but she said it was only the boarder, a very nice man who wrote articles for the little magazines and had sworn solemnly to her that he had no interest in women as women. Just the same, the whole thing had put him off. He did not know what to make of it. What should he do? He stood in front of Flack and asked solemnly, “What do you make of it? Eh? Give me your advice.”
Flack groaned. Grant rushed to him and pulled the rug around his knees, “Eh? Eh? Take a little rest. Do you think she’s sincere? It wasn’t a mise en scène? I’m a bit dubious.”
Flack said nothing. Grant looked at him with melancholy interest and shook his head, “I’d do better to try to get something out of that blondine. Give me something to live for—” and suddenly he threw back his head and let out a full-throated, bellowing laugh, “Eh, but what a woman, my boy; I was a fool to let her get away.” He then talked about what they would do when spring came. Perhaps he would get the blondine out of his system if they all three went away.
Grant was contemplating buying a big old house on an island in the St. Lawrence, a Victorian mansion which no one would have but which appealed to his old-fashioned manorial tastes. There they would go all three of them. They would go into the Canadian fur trade, with Goodwin, open a branch. Europe would need furs, any kind of furs, rat furs, cat furs, after the war; better to look ahead then! “Give the trappers a few needles, or radios. We can buy any grade and store. The war will ruin the European fur trade. The Russians will be ruined. Any skins, worth a forchun.”
He had proposed a trip to this island and house in spring. They would all three go. He asked Flack, on this snowy day, to write a letter with him to Spatchwood, formerly his manager in the cotton trade, in England. Spatchwood had lost his money through the confiscation of a Jewish firm in Germany by the Nazis. He was now doing odd jobs, trying to make commissions. Grant had given him many introductions, but no money: “I can’t give handouts to everyone, the world’s poor.”
Flack sent a letter this day, apparently as Grant’s agent, requesting Spatchwood to hire engineers, plumbers, architects, anyone necessary, in order to give the picturesque old place a thorough inspection, and to draw up estimates of costs for remodeling and making up-to-date. Grant repeated, “But put in, we must keep the façade, the façade has charm: it’s romance incorporated. And put in there must be one suite of rooms with a boudoir for Edda. She’s going to live with us all her life, if she doesn’t get married. And if she does get married, I’ll just close it up. I won’t use it. We won’t stay there the whole year round, mind you. We’ll go to Florida; when the war’s over, we’ll go to the Mediterranean. I’ve got a chalet on Lake Como we can go to, just the three of us—when I’m in holiday mood. The rest of the time, I’m either making money or looking for the right woman.”
He stood with his back to the snowy gardens and built up his dream for the house: “When spring comes, we’ll go up there and look over our house. Retire. Keep out of mischief.”
“Mischief is what I’m looking for,” said Edda.
Grant said, “I’ll bring you, I’ll woo you, I’ll buy you, little girl.”
Flack sighed. Grant said, “Get him some bouillon, Edda; listen, Davie, Flack, listen just this once. We’ll work out a scheme for me to send to the newspapers, a scheme for a British-American Cotton Board which will please Wall Street, Lombard Street, and the public, too. Monopoly, international control, will be the big moves after the war. Let’s get our names in now. A position for you, Davie, Edda can get in with someone as a typist and I’ll put my fingers in the pudding but I’ll do public service, too. I’ll only take ten per cent. Them fellas want to hog the lot.”
“That’s why you’ll never be
a Rockefeller,” said Edda.
“No, no, my dear girl, there’s something real underneath all those fortunes. Real ability, real goods, industry, management.”
David Flack became lively, “Furthermore, you never make money if you’re looking only for that. Money is an abstraction. In the end you fail. Money doesn’t exist. It only exists when it’s married to something else, a love-match.”
“That’s very basic,” cried Grant.
“Money has no children; all those posters and those slogans are wrong: ‘Make your money bear fruit.’ Money has no fruit. Money is the water you water the tree with, that’s all,” said Flack.
“Yes, even the blondine is real, her body, her hair is real,” said Edda thoughtfully.
Grant frowned, embarrassed by the word body. He cried out gaily, spreading his hands toward them, “It’s only a plot of ground bearing some wild wheat, don’t know how it got there, an accident, between a little hill with an olive tree and a stony patch, and you can hardly get to it because the boys there are always driving bulls up and down, black bulls. Them boys like the bulls to run at you. They know how to manage them with a little pointed stick; they think you’re a half-wit if you don’t. The bulls could gore you, toss you, the boys just laugh. They like to see you run. That’s about half an acre, that patch. I saw ripe wheat there, ripe wheat of wheat height; the sun was setting and it changed its shade in the broad sun and the setting sun, like very blond hair—it was yellow, not shining sometimes, and shining and weaving and braided, all in order and brushed, moving in all directions like when she bends her head and neck, softness—in all directions. A compound of silver and bronze, a sun-lavender, and blue and all these shades going over it like clouds. The sky was that violet blue. The road bent there and you could see the city on top of the rock, a dry rock, and the valley is dry, but fit for olives, good for olives. The nights there are dark brown, you see nothing, you can hardly breathe. That splitted rock is dry but sweet down where the water runs—it reminded me of myself; and that bit of acre with the wheat reminded me of the blondine. The two of us and you see they are real. The blondine is real. And you know, I have my shady side, but like they got in the grain trade a bowl of seed in the office—you must take a bit as you go in as a compliment to the office—it’s good luck, she is like grain, like bread, too, and if I take her, kiss her, it’s not what you think, something bad, not all bad. Perhaps some of this shipment of wheat has a bit of rust on it, but wheat is not bad. A woman can’t be bad. The speculators can be bad. Hoag sold the woman.”
A Little Tea, a Little Chat Page 9