Berry-berry was silent. Still standing, he leaned with both elbows on the table. After a long moment, he said, “Echo. Why did you tell me you were a virgin?”
“Because you asked me, honey. And I was. It just happened to be the truth. And as far as my new status goes, I wouldn’t change it for all the tea in China. So quit worryin’ about it, why don’t you?”
“Because your boy friend was impotent? Is that why?”
“Yeah. That’s why.”
Berry-berry stood straight and took a long drink of whisky. Then he sat down in the big chair and threw his leg over the arm of it.
“Did you ever try to—help him?”
Clinton watched Echo’s face. The meaning of Berry-berry’s question reached her slowly. Then she looked at him and said: “There wasn’t anything there to help. You understand what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
Echo took another sip from her glass, and lighted a fresh cigarette. Berry-berry reached for it. She gave it to him, and lighted another one for herself.
“Why is it,” Berry-berry said, “you never married anybody else?”
“I guess I’m just backward.”
“Or even went to bed with anybody else?”
Clinton felt there was a definite edge on Berry-berry’s voice; he seemed to be trying to provoke an argument, and Echo knew it.
“You know, Berry-berry,” she said, “something tells me not to answer that question.”
“Why?”
“I think it might make you sore. Am I right?”
“Maybe. Would that be so terrible?”
“Maybe not. But let’s just skip it anyway.”
“No, I want to know. Why?”
“You know why.”
“Because you didn’t love anybody else?”
Echo made no attempt to answer this question.
Suddenly Berry-Berry said:
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you.” He made it sound more like a statement than a question. When Echo offered no comment, he repeated, with unmistakable annoyance in his voice: “Aren’t you.”
In the moment that these words hovered in the air, in the moment before they set out on their path toward the future, Clinton saw, as in a dream of war—thunderous bright red explosions and the aftermath, blood and pain and death—saw and heard all the colors and sounds these words would evoke: saw the officer’s wife in Norfolk, the Christmas madonna in Biloxi, numbers of wounded and bleeding women, saw these words as palpable things like buttons that had been pushed, releasing some terrible energy that no one could ever stop; it would go crashing blindly into the next moments, bruising, cutting, crushing whatever lay in its path, and then go on, careening into the hours that followed, the weeks and months, and perhaps into the years as well. —But he knew with even greater certainty that there was nothing he could do about it; only listen. And watch.
Echo continued to work on the puzzle. “Whether or not I’m pregnant,” she said, slowly and with a careful effort at making herself understood, “is none of your business.”
“Because you aren’t ready to spring it. Is that it? Want to choose your own moment?”
Echo turned to face him for a moment. Perhaps she wanted to believe, as Clinton wanted to, that the cruelty in his eyes and in the twist of his mouth was not actual but illusory, a trick of light and shadow, an accident of her own vision. She looked away from him, and then spoke:
“Why don’t you give a little thought to what you’re saying?”
“All right. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
“Are you pregnant?” he said quietly.
“Yes, I am.” Echo took another drink, and turned her chair toward Berry-berry. “I’ve got a few things to say to you, handsome.”
Berry-berry sat motionless in his chair, his face immobile now, betraying an absence of emotion more terrifying than fury.
Echo leaned forward in her chair and spoke so softly that the words were scarcely audible to Clinton.
“You’ve given me all I want from you. Do you hear?”
There was no sign from Berry-berry that he had heard her at all. But she continued to speak, quietly, and with strength: “I’m gonna try to say something clear, real clear. Now just give me a minute.”
She settled back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment, as if the words she would speak were written in her own private darkness. “When you and me, when we first got together, the two of us, and I knew how I felt about you—I decided I’d take a gamble. And I did. I took a gamble that someday you’d get to where you loved me. I don’t mean marry me. I mean love me.”
She stopped talking. Her eyelashes were wet. Clinton felt that in this brief silence Echo prayed for strength with which to restrain these tears; and he tried to pray with her, in his own way, by willing that some miracle would bring Berry-berry to her side.
Echo leaned forward again, and opened her eyes. “Listen, Berry-berry, I guess I must’ve lost. But you didn’t. You’re free as the day God made you. You hear me, baby?” She laid her fingertips on his hand, and Berry-berry, withdrawing instinctively from her touch, rose to his feet with a movement so violent that it caused her to gasp. He backed away from her and stood looking at her for a moment, as if all his will were required to keep him from retreating altogether.
“Oh, God,” Echo said, “I wish I hadn’t done that! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t ever’ve touched you like that! Believe me, I . . .”
Berry-berry turned suddenly and was gone. Echo’s impulse was to follow him, but she stopped after taking two or three steps. “Berry-berry. Berry-berry.” She spoke his name so softly that it seemed not to be intended for his ears at all; it was a sound of mourning.
Clinton heard the side door of the house as it slammed shut. Echo removed her high heels and murmured aloud to herself. “Oh, God, make me behave, don’t let me be a fool!” Then she hurried to the stairs and followed Berry-berry.
Clinton stood up. He no longer cared whether or not his presence was known to them. He walked around to the front of the house and stood in the middle of the lawn. Berry-berry had jumped into his truck and started the motor. Clinton watched its rapid progress up the street. Then he saw Echo hurrying down the driveway in her stockinged feet, carrying her shoes. She ran down past the sidewalk and into the street.
The truck turned the corner and was out of sight. Echo remained standing in the street for a few seconds, apparently too confounded to move. Then, suddenly aware of herself, she looked at the high heels she carried and studied them as if she had forgotten what they were or how she came to have them in her hands. She looked up the street again, in the direction in which the truck had gone, and then she looked at the house; and then she saw her car. The big old Dodge seemed to be the only object that was familiar to her. She walked over to it, and reached out to touch its fender.
Clinton wanted to call out to her, go to her side. But he felt that in her bewilderment his sudden and unexpected presence would frighten her. As he tried to think of some way to avoid this danger, Echo started up the path to the house, and went inside. Clinton moved closer to the front steps so that he could watch her movements inside. She stood in the front hall for a moment, and then went into the living room, turned on the light, and sat at Annabel’s desk. Annabel’s stationery was in a box on the shelf. Echo took a sheet of paper and began to write. Then she stopped, put the paper in the wastebasket, and started over again. After a moment, she paused, read what she had written, and placed this second attempt in the wastebasket with the first. Then she turned out the lamp and hurried up the stairs to her room.
Clinton went inside and withdrew the crumpled papers from the basket. In the light of the hallway, he read them. The handwriting was so large and sprawling that the words “Dear Annabel” alone took up an entire line:
DEAR ANNABEL,
Mamma’s nurse just called me up and
The second note began:
DEAR ANNABEL,
I
could not sleep and all of a sudden for no reason at all I got worried about Mamma and thought
Clinton folded the two sheets of paper and put them in his hip pocket. He knew she was upstairs packing her suitcase, and he wanted to go up and stop her. But their voices might awaken Annabel. He decided to wait for her on the front porch. He turned on the light over the door. She would first see the light, and then him, and his presence would not startle her. He sat on the front steps, clearly visible from the door, and waited.
In a moment, Clinton heard her footsteps on the stairway, and then she was at the door.
“Echo?”
“Yes, honey. It’s me. Did I wake you up?”
“No. I was awake anyway.”
He got up and opened the door. He held out his hand, and she let him carry the suitcase.
“I guess you wonder what I’m doin’,” she said, “sneak-in’ out like this.” Echo’s voice and manner were subdued without being solemn or sad. There was no sign that she had been weeping. It seemed to Clinton that her calm had been achieved by an act of will that commanded respect. All of the things he had wanted to say to her froze inside him.
“Do you have to go?” he said.
“I have to, Clint. I have to go.”
He had meant to embrace her, to express his love for her, to offer his help. He had imagined that he would take her in his arms, hold her close to him; and she would weep on his shoulder and empty her heart to him. But now he could not even look at her. Her self-possession so dum-founded him that he could only walk down the path at her side, carrying her suitcase. Echo had become a royal figure, exalted by her own anguish. Clinton’s love for her made him proud to be her fool, and with the fool’s wisdom he was silent.
“Will you tell Annabel not to worry?” Echo said. “I’ll call her up tomorrow.”
He put the suitcase in the back seat of the car.
“I’ll tell her,” he said.
He opened the door for her, at the driver’s side, and Echo climbed in. Clinton stood next to the car as she started the motor.
“Maybe you better roll up the windows,” he said. “There’s no stars out or anything.”
“I love to drive in the rain,” Echo said. “I just love it. —Have you got a light, handsome?”
He took a book of matches from his pocket and struck one of them, holding it in a special way that guarded the flame from the wind. She inhaled deeply and looked at him, and as the smoke rose from her face she said:
“You want to kiss me g’bye, lover?”
“You’re comin’ back, aren’t you?”
“You bet your boots I’m comin’ back.” She offered her cheek and he kissed it. Then Clinton offered his own cheek and she kissed him back. Clinton stepped away from the car. Echo placed the gear into position and raced the motor with her foot. Then she hesitated for a moment.
“You wrote me a note once, didn’t you?” she said.
He nodded.
“Well, that note, I just wanted you to know—it goes double.”
As she started to smile, her face seemed to crumble from within; and her tears had begun to flow. Then the car was in motion. And Echo O’Brien was gone.
part 4
WORD OF Echo O’Brien’s death reached Seminary Street on Sunday, a few minutes before noon.
Her mother’s nurse and companion, a Mrs. Foss, delivered to Annabel on the telephone only the bare fact itself—that there had been a crash in which Echo was killed. An hour later, when the first terrible waves of anguish and consternation had subsided in the Williams household, Annabel and Clinton stood by as Ralph put in a call to Toledo.
He learned from Mrs. Foss, in this second conversation, that Echo’s automobile had left the highway, just forty-some miles south of Toledo, that it had crashed into the brick chimney of a private residence, that death had come during the first instant after the impact. The accident had taken place during a heavy storm, but its exact cause was not known.
Ralph suggested that Annabel’s presence in Toledo might be helpful to the girl’s mother. Mrs. Foss agreed. She said that the doctor had given Bernice O’Brien an injection to induce sleep; but that, in her opinion, the comfort to the poor woman, if Annabel could be at her side when she awakened, might be invaluable.
Ralph offered to drive her to Toledo in the family car, but Annabel held that it was the duty of Berry-berry to accompany her. Besides, she insisted, Ralph should remain in bed.
Annabel refused to believe that Berry-berry would stay away for long. Though Clinton had offered no information at all concerning the events of the night, Annabel had deduced, from the absence of both of the lovers, that some quarrel had taken place between them. But now, because the girl had died as an indirect result of it, Annabel could not permit herself to imagine that this quarrel had been of any real importance to either of them.
Therefore, while she prepared for her trip, Ralph, at her insistence, made several attempts to reach Berry-berry by telephone at his establishment in Apple Mountain. But as these attempts failed, it was decided that Clinton would drive his mother to Toledo; and in the evening he would return, alone, to Seminary Street. Then, in two or three days, he and his father—and Berry-berry, if they could find him—would drive up together for the funeral.
By midafternoon Clinton and Annabel had set out on their trip. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. There were the sounds of Lake Erie’s strong winds, which made the earth seem flagrantly alive. But the journey was otherwise a quiet one. Annabel occasionally gave voice to her inability to believe that this dreadful thing had actually taken place, but from time to time, when the fact itself momentarily overwhelmed her disbelief, she wept silently into her handkerchief.
There were, however, in Clinton, no such fluctuations: no disbelief and no sorrow. He was waiting. His mind and his heart and his spirit were waiting. He knew, though he could not have put the knowledge into words, that there was still some event that had yet to take place. And when it had—whatever it was—his feelings would then take some outward form. Meanwhile, it did not even occur to him to question his lack of emotion. Instead, he drove through the afternoon and across northern Ohio, experiencing only a kind of elation that was almost pleasurable. And he waited.
They arrived in Toledo during the first moments of twilight. The O’Brien cottage looked familiar to Clinton, even though he had never seen it before. As he drove the car into the driveway, he saw the garage at the end of the yard, its doors flung wide, yawning with emptiness. The sight of it caused him to shudder.
“I guess I better not come in,” Clinton said.
“Well precious,” Annabel said, “to tell you the truth, I don’t know what shape she’ll be in. —Will you do something about food?”
“Yes.”
“And before you start that long drive back. Promise?”
“I promise.”
They kissed each other. “Bless you,” Annabel said, “for being so sweet.”
“‘Bye,” he said.
Clinton backed out of the driveway and started at once on the trip back to Cleveland. He had no intention of eating. The possibility, even when Annabel had mentioned it, did not actually touch him at all. He filled the gas tank at a station near the edge of town, and even before the twilight had ended, he was on the highway again.
He could not remember a time in which his senses had been so keen. His eyes beheld colors and forms with a new clarity that gave to the pavement and the countryside and the sky a fresh kinship with one another, and with himself. The steering wheel did not seem to him any different from his own hands, but an extension of them, of himself; and it possessed no lesser degree of life and reality than his own flesh.
Not only in his senses, but in his mind, too, he experienced this peculiar clarity. He felt that he knew everything, understood everything. He had only to turn his mind to the basement on Seminary Street and, with no further effort at memory, it presented to him a word-for-word re-enactment of the conversation he h
ad overheard there between Berry-berry and Echo. During the drive back to Cleveland, he tested this power over and over again, and not once did it fail him. He could see these people with photographic accuracy, hear their voices, witness over and over again the cruelty, the pain. And with this same facility, his mind could evoke for him the sight of Annabel’s hands, clutching the receiver at noon: Annabel’s hands, assuming the ghastly shapes of disaster, had told the tale more eloquently than either her face or her voice could have done: “Echo,” they said, spread-fingered. “Crash,” they said, twisting into themselves, against the instrument. “Dead,” they said, suddenly still. “I don’t believe it,” they said, massaging the receiver as if to revive it.
And Ralph Williams, bare-legged, clad only in his bathrobe, frowning with anguish, his mouth open: “Ooh. Oh. Oh,” he repeated over and over again. He went out to the front porch and looked up and down the street, searching for the car in which Echo had been killed. Then he had come back into the house and held Annabel in his arms, uttering over and over again the pained monosyllable that expressed his profound reluctance to accept the truth; and he shook his head back and forth more than a hundred times, trying to wish it away from them all.
Clinton had at his disposal all of these images and sounds, and he could review them at will. This gave him a sense of power that was akin to actual physical joy. At one moment, it even occurred to him that if he wanted to he could re-enact in his mind the moments of love-making with Shirley in Key Bonita, and with such reality that they would result in an actual orgasm. This thought alone caused his blood to rise, and for a moment he was frightened by it, intimidated by his own powers.
He knew there was another thought, an idea, growing in him, waiting to take hold of him, and that when it came, the moment of this thought, his body would again act in obedience to it; and the result would be violent, ugly. This was the thought his mind was trying to evade and postpone, as he forced it to concentrate on the highway, the sky, the waters of Lake Erie, the overwhelming present.
Now, it has been said that this state was almost pleasurable. But there was something lacking in it. The lack was profound. It was like a poison that brought fear and anxiety in equal portions with the pleasure. The fact was that Clinton was in a condition similar to that of a man to whom some evil drug has been administered. He experienced a similar, uncanny sense of power; and a similar poison as well: the total lack of any love whatsoever. And in this void was anger, anger so profound he could not even dare admit to himself its presence.
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