He had twice before been disturbed in the way he was now disturbed, once by a child when he was a child, and once by a woman when he was a man. The child had been fifteen; he had loved her; and she had died. She had been, in fact, the cook’s daughter, coming now and then to the Tyler home, but he had hardly even spoken to her, because he wasn’t allowed to fraternize with servants’ children. When she came, she always remained in the kitchen, or in the garden just outside the kitchen door, and she was, he thought, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Having been taught by his mother to be a snob, he could not understand why a person of his social position should be so affected by the daughter of a cook. He suffered intensely, as a young boy suffers. Sometimes he lay in bed at night and remembered her as he had seen her in the garden, he thought that his heart would literally burst. It was then that he learned something of the nature of pain, that it was an immensely complex and irrational reaction.
He suffered from loving her, and the suffering was ecstasy, but then she died, and he suffered still, but there was no ecstasy in it any longer. His anguish was secret and somehow shameful, so intense and shattering that it was like a brutal physical violation of his incipient manhood. In his room, he wept. In his heart, he despised himself because by his snobbishness he had deprived himself of a friend, or the more that she might have been. When she was buried, the Tyler family sent a magnificent arrangement of white carnations, and Mr. Tyler, William Walter’s father, attended the funeral as the representative of the family.
She died of tetanus. Trying to understand why it was necessary for her to die at all, William Walter saw it in its simplest terms as a mortal conflict between a beautiful girl and a microscopic bug. The bug had been the victor, that was certain, and since he had been taught that God took a personal interest in such matters, he could only assume that God had been on the bug’s side. This thought was not original with him. It was something he had heard or read, the effect of a similiar experience related by someone else. It was an intolerable assumption, however, one which he could not accept; neither could he subscribe to the hypocrisy that such things happened for the best in God’s design. The truth of it, so far as he could see, was that God was compassionless, remote and unconcerned, if not impotent, and beyond the reach of supplication. This was a belief he always held afterward, the only tenable one in his judgment. The Tylers had been Episcopalians for generations, and he remained an Episcopalian, attending and supporting the church but accepting little that was taught in it.
The second person to disturb him comparably, quite a long time later, was the young woman he married. He met her at a tea dance to which he had gone reluctantly. She was a cousin of his hostess, her house guest, and her name was Harriet Cochran. Her family was wealthy, though not nearly so wealthy as the Tylers; and when he looked at her, he thought of expensive crystal gleaming in candlelight. That was an understandable response to her particular kind of loveliness, for she gave a deceptive impression of cool and detached delicacy. Actually, she was physically strong, and psychically she was both strong and resourceful. William Walter fell in love with her immediately, which was disturbing but not unpleasant, for love is unpleasant only when it is frustrated or dying. She responded to him promptly, with restraint, and was obviously prepared from the beginning to marry him. Their courtship fell just short of formality, all things always in the best of taste; they were united eventually in a grand ceremony and went to Europe on their honeymoon. The union was approved by both families, and everyone considered it especially fortunate.
It wasn’t. When they returned from Europe, he had already accepted the truth that he was not married in any real sense at all. This was traumatic, and it reflected favorably on the resiliency of his personality that he was able to adjust to this readily and adequately. At first their failure caused him naturally to wonder and probe and diagnose, but slowly, or really relatively quickly, he became convinced that it was something much better left alone. More than that, it was something that could be vastly disruptive if disturbed. He felt in the beginning defiled and tainted, as well as cheated, but self-devaluation was not natural to him, and the feeling passed. In his public life he remained aggressive, adding to a fortune that was already large, but in his private emotional life he withdrew and became passive, thankful, as the years were used up, for the gradually diminishing demands of his body.
Now after such penury and long oppression, his flesh and spirit were at last awakened and causing him pain. It was strange, he thought, that this could happen so long after he had stopped thinking it possible, and all because of a clever young woman who wore the rather ridiculous kind of glasses that clever young women so often seemed to prefer. She was, moreover and quite obviously, exorbitantly ambitious. He did not criticize her, of course, for being clever or ambitious, for he had himself been both, and still was. What he criticized her for — or at least felt a strange mixture of excitement and resentment for — was her capacity to arouse within him emotions he did not want aroused, and he tried to understand why it was that she could do this.
I have known many women more beautiful, he thought, and the truth is, she is not beautiful at all. She is only quite clever and knows how to make the most of what she has, but this in itself is perhaps as important as beauty is. At any rate, she is more provocative than anyone I have known or can remember seeing, provocative in a deeper and broader sense than is generally meant when the word is used, and there is more in this effect by far than can be explained by the response of certain glands. I was aware of it in the shop when I went there with Harriet, and I remembered it and considered it, and I was more than ever aware of it this afternoon in this office, and I think it is largely explained, apart from her face and body and voice and the deliberate effect she achieves through skill, by her almost childlike dedication to what she must do and be. She is not, however, either cold or narrow, as dedicated people often are, and there is certainly in her a potential for splendid passion. How I should know this, knowing her so slightly, is something I do not understand, but there is something else that I understand quite well, which is that I had better now for the peace of my soul begin to forget her before it’s too late, or more to the point, because it already is.
His thoughts and the silence were suddenly oppressive, and he turned abruptly in his chair and pressed a switch on the intercom.
“Have the attendant bring my car around, please,” he said. Leaning back again, he waited a few minutes, giving the attendant time; then he got up and crossed to a closet and put on his hat and coat. Passing through the outer office, he spoke briefly to a woman with a pince-nez and then continued on his way through the bank to the street. His timing was precise, as it almost always was, for the car had just arrived before him. It was a small car, a Chevy, and he knew that it was considered an affectation in a man who could have afforded any kind of car, but it gave him a kind of satisfaction to drive the Chevy, affectation or not, and he got into it now and drove away. Weighing in his mind the alternatives of his town apartment and his house in the country, he decided upon the house in the country, especially since it was Friday and the weekend was ahead. The truth was, however, that neither was a place he fervently wanted to go to. He wondered how long it had been since he had gone any place with fervency. It had certainly been longer than he cared to remember. If he went now to the house in the country, however, he would have to stop first at the apartment to ask Harriet if she would care to go, even though he knew she would stay in town. Nevertheless, it was an obligation to ask, and so he continued in the direction of the apartment and was there in little over half an hour.
In the foyer, he gave his hat and coat to a maid and was told that Harriet was not in. He went through the living room and into the adjoining study. Alone in the room, he mixed a drink and drank it slowly, thinking again of Donna Buchanan and wondering what she was doing at the moment and what she would be doing in the coming three nights and two days. This seemed to be of immense importance — knowi
ng the things she would do and the places she would go, knowing if they would be places and things she really wanted to go and do or if, as in his own case, they would be no more than time-fillers. Would she work? Would she go to a show or go dining or dancing? Did she have a lover, and would she sleep with him? He thought these things, and he realized that he was like a stricken schoolboy. It did him good to think so of himself, and he smiled about it and drank his drink. After a while he heard the voice of Harriet in the living room.
Having finished his drink by then, he mixed another for himself and one for her and carried them out. She had gone directly to her own room, however, and so he followed her there and rapped on the door with the edge of the glass in his right hand. She asked who it was and invited him in when he told her, but he was obliged, because of the glasses, to ask her to open the door from the inside.
“I thought you might like a drink,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She took the drink and carried it to a table and set it down without tasting it. Carrying his own, he crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She was really very beautiful, he thought, watching her. She was more beautiful than she had been when he married her, and this was rather remarkable because she was thirty-eight years old now, ten years younger then he. He conceded the beauty and admired it — and was not stirred by it in the least.
“I’ve decided that I’ll drive out to the house,” he said.
“Have you? I thought you planned to stay in town.”
“I did plan to stay, but I’ve changed my mind. Would you like to come along?”
“No. It’s impossible. I have commitments here.”
“Do you object to my going alone?”
“Not at all. Please do just as you like about it.”
He lifted his glass and lowered it and sat for a moment looking down into it. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’ve been thinking of going away for a while.”
“Away? Where?”
“I don’t know. Just somewhere for a change. Only for a few days, perhaps a week.”
“I see. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you did go. You’ve been looking rather tired. Are you feeling well?”
“Quite well. I’m neither tired nor ill. Just stale, that’s all.”
“In that case, a change would undoubtedly do you good.”
“Well, I haven’t definitely decided. I’ll let you know, of course, if I do.”
“All right.”
He drank again from his glass, and she stood watching him, obviously waiting for him to leave. She wanted to change her clothes, and she did not want to undress in front of him. In all the years they had been married, she had never undressed in front of him or permitted him to see her naked.
“I would like your judgment on something,” he said.
“My judgment? On what? Not on a business matter, I hope.”
“It is, in a way, as a matter of fact. Something a little out of my line, however. I think your judgment would certainly be of value to me.”
“What is it?”
“It has to do with the local shop in which you bought two original gowns. The shop owned by Aaron Burns, who died recently. You’ll remember that I was there with you when you bought the second gown.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Do you also remember the young lady who designed the gowns?”
“Yes, I remember. Donna Buchanan. She’s very talented.”
“Do you intend to continue buying gowns from her?”
“Yes, I do. I’m convinced she will build quite a reputation. Why are you so interested?”
“As I said, it’s a matter of business. She wants to borrow money to buy the shop, so she can continue to use it as an outlet for her work.”
“Then loan it to her. She will certainly be successful.”
“As a designer, I have no doubt. But there is more than that to running a successful business.”
“Well, that’s something I know nothing about.”
“It will take at least two hundred thousand dollars. That’s quite a lot of money to invest with no more security than the shop itself.”
“Surely you don’t expect me to advise you regarding your investments.”
“Of course not. All I wanted, really, was your opinion of Miss Buchanan’s ability.”
“I’ve told you that. She is certain, in my judgment, to go a long way.”
“Isn’t it rather unusual for a designer to start in this way? Don’t they usually get a position with a large outfit, or something of the sort?”
“I suppose they do, usually. I suspect that Miss Buchanan is an unusual person.”
“Yes. I suspect that myself.” He drained his glass and stood up. “Well,” he said, “I think I’ll get started for the country.”
“All right. I hope you have a pleasant weekend.” He went over to her and touched his lips to her cheek and went out.
She undressed and lay down on the bed and began to think about the harpist, another talented young woman, whose expenses she was paying at a local conservatory.
3.
Enos Simon walked slowly beneath the pines of Pine Hill. It was four o’clock, and he had survived another day of classes, which was something to be thankful for, but how to survive the day after, or the days after and after and after, was something he could not imagine or even bear to think of. Fortunately, however, it was not necessary to think of it, at least not at the moment, because this was Friday and there were no more classes until Monday. This was something else for which he could, he supposed, be thankful. He walked slowly because he was by no means eager to reach his destination and because he was much more tired than he should have been. But he soon reached the house in which he lived, which was only a short distance from the school, right at the foot of the hill, and inside in his room he stood looking out the window and up the hill in the direction from which he had just come.
He hated the hill and the pines. He would have hated them anyhow, for reasons he would never understand, but he especially hated them because they looked like a hill and pines he had known in another place in another time. The place was not far away, nor the time so very long ago, and from his window there he had looked down the hill instead of up; but otherwise the two views were almost identical. Sometimes he had the feeling, looking out the window and up the hill, that the same doctor who had gone to talk with him there would return to talk with him here. He had not hated the doctor, who tried to be kind and helpful, but neither had he wanted to talk with him, always feeling relieved when he went away. One of the reasons he had not wanted to talk was that he would say things about himself that he afterward regretted saying. When he felt this regret he would go back over the conversation in his mind, trying to recall it precisely — and this was disturbing. Quite a long while after he had left the place — especially at times when he was particularly depressed — he would find himself trying to reconstruct one of these conversations. It was impossible, of course, to do this accurately, and the remembered conversation would be a mosaic of bits gathered from many conversations and imagined words that had never actually been said.
“How are you feeling today?” the doctor asked.
He did not feel like talking and remained silent. He wished the doctor would go away.
“Don’t you feel like talking?” the doctor said. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
This was, of course, what he did want, but he could not bring himself to say so, for the doctor meant well and was only trying to be kind and helpful.
“It’s just that I don’t feel very well,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you think I might be able to help you? In what way do you feel bad?”
“Well, in a number of ways, actually. It’s rather hard to put your finger on anything specifically. My head aches quite a bit — it’s not exactly an ache, more like it’s sort of stuffed with something. And I ache in other places too, and feel as if I had a fever.”
“I can assure you that you don’t have a fever. Your temperature’s perfectly normal.”
“I didn’t say I had a fever. I only said I feel as if I had.”
“Oh. I see. Well, is there anything else you would like to tell me about? Is your wrist painful?”
“No. My wrist doesn’t bother me at all. That’s a very small thing. What bothers me most is the feeling I have that I have come to the end of things.”
“To the end of things? What do you mean, to the end of things?”
“Oh, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer than that. It’s just a premonition or something. As far as I’m concerned, everything is finished.”
“I’d be very much interested to know why you feel this way. Would you care to tell me?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I’ve always had this feeling that I’d come to a bad end. It’s not something you can just simply explain.”
“Do you think you deserve to come to a bad end?”
“I suppose I do. I’m not much good, I guess. I’ve never been able to do anything of any consequence, and I’m a coward besides. Terrible things have happened to lots of people who were much better than I am.”
“I dare say that’s true. Terrible things have happened to lots of people who were better than I am, too, but that’s not our fault, is it?”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t know.”
“You said you’re a coward. I don’t believe you are, or at least no more than we all are, but I would like to know what makes you think so. Are you afraid of anything in particular?”
“Right now, you mean?”
“Now or any other time.”
“Well, I’ve thought about it and tried to understand it. Mostly it’s only a kind of general feeling, not about anything in particular, but sometimes it attaches itself to something, and then I’ll be afraid for a while of whatever it attaches itself to. Later on the feeling will get general again, and then become specific about something different, or maybe the same thing again, and it keeps going on that way.”
Wake Up With a Stranger Page 12