I wrote: “1. Unpack. 2. Get food. 3. Sort out laundry. 4. Eat.” Then I tore up the list, wrote “SLEEP” in giant letters on the page beneath, and pulled loose my tie.
So acute was my exhaustion that I blacked out a second after my head touched the pillow. One moment I was thinking: I’ll survive without him somehow, and the next moment the lights were flashing before my eyes as I fell from the top of the Pan Am Building into the river of blood countless floors below.
II
When I awoke, I felt better. I had slept for fourteen hours, a fact which made me realize how exhausted I had been, for I seldom needed more than six hours’ sleep a night. In the bathroom I looked at myself carefully in the mirror but shaved with a steady hand. Then I put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and padded hungrily to the kitchen, only to be reminded I had no fresh food, so I called the nearest delicatessen and placed an order. Half an hour later when I had fixed myself eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee, I was feeling not only more organized but also more optimistic. Scott might be dead, but was he such a great loss? I was already figuring out how I could adapt to my new situation without putting my ambition in jeopardy.
Scott would have told me to forget about Vicky, but Scott had been a priggish intellectual bore who never took a single risk that would have made his life worth living. The hell with Scott! Naturally I couldn’t give up my ambition; that was out of the question, but I wasn’t going to give up Vicky, either. That was out of the question too.
Of course Cornelius would start to wonder about me again, but so long as I made my intentions clear, I saw no reason why he should conclude I intended to deprive him of his family by marrying his daughter. I had no intention of marrying Vicky or of depriving him of all those detestable grandchildren of his.
I didn’t believe in marriage. The best marriages never lasted, the rest just limped unattractively along toward the cemetery gates. Marriage caused suffering and grief; I could remember that all too well.
Nor did I believe in cohabitation. I needed a certain amount of solitude in order to recuperate from the strain of my Wall Street life, and this inevitably made me ill-suited for any kind of domestic life either inside or outside marriage. I could not afford to introduce still more strain into my private life by attempting to live in a way that was alien to me. I already lived under pressures which often seemed more than I could bear.
But of course I wanted to see Vicky regularly and of course I wanted to sleep with her, and fortunately I saw no reason why I shouldn’t get exactly what I wanted. I thought Vicky would be more than willing to settle for what I had to offer, since she needed a further strain on her double life no more than I did, and was probably by this time as reluctant as I was to risk outright cohabitation.
My thoughts turned back to Cornelius. Why should he object if Vicky and I confined ourselves to a discreet affair which wouldn’t impinge either on her life with her children or my life at the bank? Vicky was obviously going to sleep with someone, and after the gigolos and the jet-setters of the past three years, Cornelius would probably gasp with relief that I had decided to keep Vicky happy for a while. Cornelius would trust me to do nothing stupid, and I would soon prove I had no intention of disappointing him.
Closing up my mind abruptly against all thought of Cornelius, I put on a sweater and my leather jacket and left the apartment to buy a paper, but I didn’t buy the paper immediately. Deciding a short walk would do me good, I drifted crosstown on Eighty-sixth Street, and then just as I reached the traffic lights on Lexington, a stranger, white-faced and clearly in a state of shock, accosted me with the words “Have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“He’s been shot.”
“Who’s been shot?”
“Kennedy.”
“Who?”
“The president. John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas.”
“That can’t be true.”
“He’s dying.”
A car drew up beside us at the lights, and the driver leaned out. “Is it true?”
People were getting out of their cars. I looked around the sidewalk and saw people had stopped walking.
“Is he dead? Is it true? Is he dying? Is it true? Is it true, is it true, is it true …?”
The terrible questions were repeated like a Bach fugue, and far back in my memory I remembered Emily playing part of the St. Matthew Passion on her phonograph at Easter, remembered listening to the moment when the twelve apostles learn from Christ that one of them will betray him and sing in a beautiful unearthly counterpoint: “Is it I? Is it I? Is it I?”
Terrible questions. Terrible answers. A terrible, hideous truth.
I was in a bar saying “Kennedy’s been shot,” but they already knew. The television was showing an appalling reality in black and white, and someone was talking brokenly into a microphone and the barman just looked at me and said, “He’s dead.”
“Give the man a drink, Paddy,” said the Irishman at my side, and I realized I was in an Irish bar. There were painted shamrocks decorating the mirrors, and posters of Ireland on the walls, and when I saw those pictures of the Cliffs of Moher and the Ring of Kerry and the Twelve Bens of Connemara, I saw in my mind’s eye the beautiful landscape of legend where Jack Kennedy’s myth drowned in blood and drained away into the dark.
The glass of Irish whiskey was standing in front of me on the bar, but the vomit was in my throat. I turned, ran outside, and threw up into the gutter.
“Have you heard … is it true …? He’s dead … dead … dead …”
I was walking. I walked and walked. I didn’t stop in case I went into another bar, but I passed liquor store after liquor store, and I saw all the bottles, row upon row, display upon display—I saw Beefeater gin and Cinzano French and Tanqueray and J & B and Hennessy cognac and Grand Marnier and Ronrico rum and Drambuie and Remy Martin and Cutty Sark and Harvey’s Bristol Cream and Lancers vin rosé and Kahlua and Pernod and John Jameson and Dubonnet and vodka—and crème de menthe had never looked so green and Chartreuse had never looked so yellow and Johnnie Walker’s labels had never looked so red, so black, and all the time I walked on and on and on.
Gradually I was aware of the voices changing around me. I heard people saying, “Where was his protection?” and, “What kind of a madman would do a thing like that?” and, “Those damned Texans, no better than wild animals,” and finally, in full recognition of the horror, “That he should have traveled all over the world, only to be killed in his own country—killed here by one of us. …” And I saw at last the dark underside of the myth which everyone had overlooked. Arthur had not lived happily ever after at Camelot. He had been killed by one of his own men, and everything Camelot represented had streamed away with him into the dark.
I was on Fifth Avenue, and in the window of Best’s stood an American flag with black crepe on its staff. At Saks a photograph of Kennedy was flanked by urns of red roses. And all the while as I walked, the office workers were swarming out of the buildings, all talking in soft shattered voices, and as their whispers filled the air, the great bell of St. Patrick’s began to toll for America and the great doors swung wide as the crowds streamed up the steps into the nave.
“How could this have happened to us? What did we do?” I heard the people saying, and I went with them up the cathedral steps as if I too believed there was some answer within to the unanswerable questions, and I stood for a long time in the shadows of that great church built by the Irish to give their dreaming myths the reality of stone and glass, and I waited and waited without knowing what I was waiting for, until suddenly there was a hiatus in the spontaneous service, a magical silence followed by the huge dramatic sound of thousands of voices raised in unison. The bishop had called on the congregation to sing the national anthem.
Later I was walking again, walking westward crosstown as the darkness fell, and in Times Square people were weeping and the famous bar of the Astor was silent and still.
“Yes, sir
?” said the barman.
“Give me a Coke.”
“A Coke?”
I turned and walked out, but when I emerged from the hotel I stopped dead. The lights were going out in Times Square. I watched transfixed, and in my memory I heard the famous words of Sir Edward Grey: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” And I saw with my inner eye America turning some huge corner, pausing for a moment to grieve for the passing of an innocent uncomplicated past, and then moving on into the uncharted, infinitely more complex world which lay ahead.
The last light went out. I began to walk home, but with me as always walked Death, my familiar companion, and in my mind I said to him over and over again: Not yet. I must have more time.
But time had run out for John Kennedy at Dallas. And time had proved that at the end of ambition’s road lay nothing but the bullet and the grave.
Nothing else.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. …
III
The next day I bought a television and spent the day watching it. All the usual programming had been canceled, and in the uninterrupted coverage Kennedy’s death became not a remote world event but a very personal bereavement. Occasionally I got up, resolved to watch no more, but I could never bring myself to turn off the set. I found myself torn between the urge not to hear any more and an uncontrollable hunger to obtain the latest information. I drank steadily—Coca-Cola, root beer, ginger ale, even grape soda. I spent a long time mixing each drink and dressing it with slices of lemon or maraschino cherries, and I avoided drinking quickly by never taking more than three sips at a time from my glass. For long periods I forgot to eat, but occasionally I made myself a slice of toast. Later I went out, but Times Square was still in darkness and the city was like a morgue.
The day ended, the new day began, and the curtain went up on more violence. Ruby assassinated Oswald. I watched the murder live on television, but the events on the screen seemed so like the fantasy of some profoundly sick mind that I began to wonder if I had imagined the entire episode. It was a relief to go out and discover people were talking about this new assassination; amidst all the horror, it was still a relief to know that I wasn’t hallucinating, that this was America on November 24, 1963, that the president had been assassinated and now someone had killed the killer. I walked in Central Park past the people who were listening to their radios, and then, unable to stay away any longer, I returned home once more to the television.
The day passed. Monday dawned. New York was like a vast church, and like a church it was hushed and somber. Everyone was watching television; everyone was at the funeral.
I began to watch too, but then, unable to endure my apartment any longer, I went out. But still I could not escape from the television. Thousands of people stood silently watching a huge screen in Grand Central Terminal, and although I again tried to watch, it was impossible; I couldn’t endure the sight of that riderless horse, so I left the terminal and walked west on Forty-second Street.
At noon the police halted all traffic in Times Square, and as everyone on the sidewalks bowed their heads, we heard the military bugle sounding from the top of the Astor’s marquee.
The sun was brilliant in a cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day. I stood in that sunlight and wished I could believe that death was a mere pause between this world and that other world where everyone was eternally young and beautiful and the sun always shone, but the twentieth century must have worked a mutation into the blueprint of my heredity, for I could not believe in an afterlife. I did believe in that other world, but I believed too that it existed only in the mind’s eye.
I went home and drank my way through a six-pack of Coke, dressing each measure up differently and using an original assortment of glasses. The television droned on, but at last I was able to switch it off. Kennedy was dead, Oswald was dead, even Scott was dead, but I could no longer endure to look Death straight in the eye. Death was still there, facing me across the chessboard, but now I could turn my back on him for a while and think only of life, for today was the day Vicky had planned to return from the Caribbean. Glancing at my watch, I uncapped a bottle of 7-Up and then dialed the airport to inquire about flight arrivals from Puerto Rico.
IV
“Mrs. Foxworth, please,” I said to the doorman.
It was half-past seven on Monday evening, and I had calculated that Vicky would have been home for three hours, long enough to have surmounted the family reunion and be longing for a quiet, secluded dinner. I had half-thought she might call me, but I had been disappointed. The phone had rung only once; Cornelius, knowing I had been due to return from my vacation late on Sunday night, had called early on Monday morning to gossip about the assassination. Normally I would have seen him that day at the bank, but Kennedy’s funeral had closed all offices nationwide.
“And the name, sir?” said the doorman in the lobby of the building where Vicky had her two apartments.
“Sullivan.”
The doorman turned to the intercom but was told by the housekeeper of the duplex that Mrs. Foxworth had just departed for her smaller apartment on the third floor. The doorman tried again and this time succeeded in reaching Vicky, but when he announced my name, the connection was severed so abruptly that he jumped.
“I guess Mrs. Foxworth isn’t receiving any visitors right now, Mr. Sullivan.”
I handed him twenty dollars to silence him and headed for the elevator.
I had never been to Vicky’s private apartment, and as far as I knew, not even Cornelius had managed to cross the threshold. It was popularly supposed that Vicky invited no one to her apartment except her lovers.
I rang the bell. I had to wait some time, but at last there was a small scratchy sound as she slipped back the cover of the spyhole.
“Sorry,” she called through the door, “casual sex isn’t available here tonight, but there’s a very high-class call girl in apartment 5G. Why don’t you check and see if she has a cancellation?”
“I’m not interested in call girls,” I said in a neutral voice from which all trace of my thoughtless arrogance had been meticulously eliminated. “My name is Peter Abelard and I’m looking for Héloise.”
I had spent the entire ride in the elevator cursing myself for being so stupid as to imagine she would welcome me with open arms after the way I had walked out on her in Curaçao. Then I had waited an entire minute in the third-floor hallway while I worked out how I could best approach her. Knowing she had long fancied herself interested in philosophy, I figured the reference to Abelard might appeal to her, but as the silence now lengthened, I wondered with a sinking heart if this purported interest in philosophy had been no more than an empty pose.
“Vicky—” I began tentatively, but she interrupted me.
“Yes,” she said coolly. “Well, I’m sorry, but casual sex isn’t available even to you, Peter Abelard, but if you have anything useful to say about the conflict between the Augustinian and the Aristotelian systems, you may, of course, come in.”
The door opened a crack. We looked at each other. The ache in my body tightened into a solid swelling pain.
“Thank you,” I said as she opened the door wider. “I seem to be suffering from an uncontrollable urge to demonstrate my skill in dialectic.”
I crossed the threshold and we stood facing each other four feet apart in the small hallway. She wore a white sweater, a black skirt, and high-heeled black shoes. The Caribbean sun had lightened her hair and peppered her nose with freckles beneath the pale golden tan. She wore no makeup.
“Wasn’t it an appalling day,” she said abruptly as if she felt speech could dissolve the tension of our silence. “Imagine the sun shining like that! And I couldn’t bear the way Washington looked so beautiful, like a dream city with its buildings so classical, so impossibly white—a background like that made the procession seem all the more macabre. … Oh, it was unbearable, I couldn’t stand that restless riderless horse pawing the groun
d in anguish … God, what a nightmare! How can you bear to be sober? Don’t you want to drink?”
I wanted to take her in my arms, but I knew she was using the conversation to keep me at arm’s length, and before I could open my mouth to answer her, she had turned away.
“You’d better come into the living room,” she said tersely, moving through the open doorway beyond the hall.
I followed her. “So you saw the funeral?” I said, bending my whole will to sustain this discussion of the day’s events. “You must have come home earlier than I thought.”
“I flew home on Saturday as soon as the ship docked in San Juan. Do you think I could have lingered there enjoying myself after what happened last Friday in Dallas?”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that any more! I’m sick of hearing about murder and violence, sick of it—I had such an odd feeling when I saw Jackie with the blood on her clothes. I felt as if it were all happening to me, not to her, and I became so horribly frightened. … So now I want to put it all behind me. I can’t take any more of this gruesome reality. I want to talk about something utterly remote and cerebral like medieval philosophy, and that’s the reason why I invited you across this threshold, so go ahead, Abelard. Talk to me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk about William of Ockham.”
She threw me a contemptuous look. “I don’t think you could, Abelard. You died long before he was born.”
I stopped. She laughed. “What do you think I do in this place?” she said. “Hold orgies? Ask any mother of five children and she’ll tell you that all she wants at the end of an average day isn’t sex but just peace and quiet. I come here to be alone. I come here to recuperate from the kind of life I’m not well-equipped to lead. And I read. I read a lot of things, mostly junk, but just occasionally, if I’m feeling particularly brilliant and ambitious—which isn’t often—I read about the people you think I’ve never heard of, people like Peter Abelard and William of Ockham and—”
Sins of the Fathers Page 60