Stranger Than Truth

by Vera Caspary

  “But you didn’t love him?”

  “Oh, God!” She began suddenly to laugh. There was no gaiety in it. It was like the laughter of someone who had not laughed for years, a deaf mute finding a voice and using it in mockery. The tones were all metal. They hit me in the pit of the stomach.

  “Shut up,” I snapped.

  The policeman was standing under an arc light Her laughter floated out to him.

  “Control yourself,” I said.

  The laughter ended as abruptly as it had started.

  “Sorry,” whispered Eleanor in a meek little voice.

  “You needn’t talk about it if it affects you that way. Would you like a drink?”

  “No, thanks. I’d like to tell you about it, Johnnie. You see, I once thought that I could learn to love a man. I tried,” her voice was humble, “but I couldn’t bear it if he kissed me or touched me. I thought I was frigid. A frigid woman. I was reading for Truth and Love and there was all that stuff about failing to respond to normal love, and I was afraid I wasn’t normal. I thought I hated men.” She looked at the apartment building standing tall among the old four-story houses. “I’ve never said this aloud before.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be worried about. You’re perfectly okay, honey. You’re wonderful.” I reached across the bench for her hand. The memory of last night’s love sent the blood rushing through my body.

  She slid toward me on the bench. I put my arm around her. To hell with Warren G. Wilson! The scene in Barclay’s office had begun to fade. Her hair blew across my face.

  “Believe me, Johnnie, you’re the first man I’ve ever loved.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  “Mr. Wilson was nothing but a friend.” She pressed my hand. “I’ve got to tell you about him, or what will you think? I have nothing to hide.” Her face was close to mine, and in the lamplight I could see the contrasts. No wonder Gustav and Jean Pierre had not been able to name the exact color of her hair and eyes. With every variation of light and mood she was different.

  “I’d been engaged for almost a year,” she said. “And then I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore. That was September thirtieth. So I went into my father’s office and told him about it. I was scared to death. This man, you see, was my father’s friend.”

  “How’d your father take it?”

  “He was wonderful, just as kind as could be. Lots of people don’t understand Father; they think he pretends to believe in Truth-Sharing because it’s made such a lot of money, but he is sincere, Johnnie. That I know with my heart; Father is the most sincere man in the world.” There had crept into her manner the defiance with which she always met her father’s critics. “Father said I was sensible to face the truth; he was glad he’d educated me to be honest with myself; and I certainly need not marry a man I couldn’t love. Father was wonderful…”

  She would have gone on talking about Barclay, defending him against unspoken criticism, if I had not interrupted. “What had this to do with Wilson? You met him that night, you say. Where?”

  “At Jean Pierre’s. I picked him up. Have you a cigarette, Johnnie?”

  I lighted one for her. She pushed closer toward me on the bench, fitted her shoulder under my armpit.

  A new tenant had moved into Wilson’s apartment. I saw the lights go on in the room beyond the topmost terrace.

  “How did you happen to pick him up? What were you doing in Jean Pierre’s? Dining alone?”

  “I’d gone to dinner with Lola. In a way it was a sort of celebration. Lola’d never approved of this man I was engaged to…”

  “Oh! She knew?” I said and felt angry about it, cheated because neither Eleanor nor Lola had ever spoken to me about the engagement.

  “I’d never told her in so many words that we were engaged. I never told anyone,” Eleanor shivered delicately. “No one knew except Father and Gloria. But Lola guessed. She watched me when I talked to him; even on the phone, she said, I showed it. So naturally, when I broke it, I asked Lola to have dinner with me. Or maybe it was Lola who suggested it. I don’t remember. I do remember that she suggested Jean Pierre’s because I’d never eaten there. Lola insisted on buying the dinner, and we ordered wonderful food, petite marmite and sweetbreads en cloche and a green salad and profiteroles and coffee…”

  “Considering that you’d just discarded your fiancé, your appetite wasn’t at all bad.”

  “That’s just what Mr. Wilson said.”

  “Oh, you told him your life story.”

  “I told him why I was eating alone, and how an emotional crisis always affects my appetite.” “Eating alone! I thought Lola was with you.” “Right in the middle she remembered that she’d stood up a lovelorn young man at the Lafayette. So she had to excuse herself. She paid the bill though and told me to finish my dinner.”

  Wilson’s apartment was dark again. The curtains had been drawn. I had seen pictures of the living room and I wondered how it had been when Wilson lived there and Eleanor came to visit him. “So the minute Lola left you alone, you picked up a man?” “That’s not kind of you, Johnnie. You make me sound like a trollop. Anyway he picked me up. He was sitting at the next table and he kept watching me…” “Through the soup, sweetbreads, salad, dessert and coffee?” “He was very courteous about it. He sent the headwaiter over to ask if I’d accept a liqueur. Then he came over to my table and said I looked awfully familiar…” “Couldn’t he have thought of a more original line?” “It was true. He’d seen my picture in the magazines. After all, Johnnie, I’ve been the Truth Girl since I was twelve years old. When you’ve had as much publicity as I’ve had, you can’t be fresh to people…” “Not when they come to your table and offer you liqueurs.” “Mr. Wilson wasn’t like that. He was one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met. He knew such a lot about poetry, for instance, and the life of marine animals and the Russian novelists and desert vegetation.” She took a last puff at the cigarette and threw the stub on the gravel walk.

  “You used to go up to his apartment,” I said.

  “Why shouldn’t I? Mr. Wilson wasn’t fresh. And besides I’m independent. I earn my own living. If a girl supports herself why shouldn’t she go to a man’s apartment?”

  “Look, dear, I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I know Wilson wasn’t fresh; he talked about marine life and the Russian novelists and desert vegetation. He had seven hundred phonograph records and always gave you the best brandy. Why shouldn’t you have gone to his apartment?”

  “You’re talking like my father,” she said coldly.

  “Oh! He didn’t approve, I take it.”

  “He was furious when he found out.”

  “Apparently he doesn’t approve of the same conduct for his daughter as for the heroines of his true-love tales.”

  “That’s just what I told him,” Eleanor said. “I told him I was shocked at finding him so hypocritical.”

  “Was that on the day he discovered that you knew Wilson?”

  “What do you know about that day, Johnnie?”

  “I know the switchboard operator made a mistake and sent a message intended for Miss Barclay to Mr. Barclay’s office. I know that when your father sent for you, you were down in the Studio…”

  “Who told you? My father?” Her voice had grown brassy.

  “Let’s try to keep our heads,” I said. I wanted to sound strong and dependable. I hoped that Eleanor would feel that she had at last found someone in whom she could safely confide. “For some reason or other, everyone seems to get hysterical when Wilson’s name is mentioned. Please, please try to keep calm…”

  My words had the wrong effect. She was starting to laugh again. I took her hand and twisted the wrist so that it hurt. Her laughter ended abruptly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I didn’t want you to go hysterical on me again. I can’t stand it.”

  “You’re right,” she whispered. She fished in her bag for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. I lit her another cigarett
e.

  “Look,” I said, “we’re going to hold hands. If you feel that you’re going to start laughing, just squeeze. Although I don’t see why you get so worked up every time we mention something that happened six months ago.”

  She squeezed my hand. “You’re sweet, Johnnie.”

  “Now, take it easy. I’m going to ask you some questions. Why did your father get so upset at discovering that you had a date with Wilson?”

  Her hand lay quiet in mine. “I don’t know,” she said. “It seemed ridiculous. After Father got that message from the switchboard operator, he phoned Mr. Wilson to see what it was about.”

  “Then your father knew Wilson?”

  Her hand tightened. “Obviously, if he phoned him. He must have known where Mr. Wilson lived. And I guess Mr. Wilson must have told him the message was for me…”

  “What did the message say?”

  “It was only to remind me of our dinner date. That we were meeting at half past seven. It wasn’t a very revealing message.”

  “Obviously your father had some reason for sending for you and asking about Wilson. Or does he do that whenever you have a date?”

  Eleanor began to push at the gravel with her foot. “We had a ghastly fight, the first fight I’d ever had with Father. What right had he to forbid me to see Mr. Wilson?”

  “Your father evidently knew Wilson and had something against him.”

  “He said Mr. Wilson wanted to destroy him. He said the only thing Mr. Wilson lived for was to hurt him.”

  “Sounds pretty melodramatic,” I said.

  “That’s what I told Father. But he wasn’t as bad as Ed. Ed was all excited. Father got angry and told him to keep his mouth shut. He kept snapping the lid of his cigarette case until I nearly went crazy.”

  “So Munn was there, too?”

  “What do you think?” she asked scornfully. “Father had him telephone Mr. Wilson and say I couldn’t have dinner with him. I was furious.”

  “Naturally. But didn’t you find out what it was that Wilson had against your father?”

  “He told me Mr. Wilson had done him a bad turn.”

  “Sounds as if your father ought to be the one who wanted revenge.”

  She shook her head. “I said that, too, but Father thinks it’s more human to hate people we’ve injured than those who have hurt us. I think that’s sound psychology, don’t you?”

  I thought of Lola Manfred and how she had once said that Noble Barclay had put the word, psychology, into the one-syllable class.

  “Johnnie…” Eleanor looked at me intently, her eyes straining in the dim light to catch my expression.

  “What is it?”

  “When my father talked to you, did he mention a book?”

  “Book? What kind of book.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter, I guess. It must only have been my imagination.” Eleanor sighed. “I looked in the newspapers after he died, but there was never any mention of a manuscript.”

  “You mean Wilson was writing a book?”

  “He was writing a book,” she said in a slightly irritable way as though I should have got this information from some psychic source. “I told them about it that night when my father said Wilson was only living to hurt him. I said Mr. Wilson was only living to finish his book. Ed Munn got awfully excited, but my father said Mr. Wilson was a fraud and nobody’d believe his book anyway.”

  “Do you know what the book was about?”

  “I know the title.”

  “What was it?”

  “The Autobiography of Homer Peck.”

  My fingers tightened on hers. This was not consciously an exorcism of hysteria; it was my impulsive reaction to the title of Wilson’s book.

  “Are you shocked, too? What does it mean?”

  I drew a deep breath. “I don’t know. When I was working on the Wilson story I came across a reference to this Peck guy. I don’t know anything about him, but it rings a bell. Do you remember what they said about Mr. Peck’s autobiography?”

  “They didn’t say anything at first. They seemed to hold their breath. You know what I mean, Johnnie, when the silence becomes louder than sound. It embarrassed me and I began to chatter. I said…”

  “What?”

  “It was silly. About the title of Mr. Wilson’s book. I had told him I didn’t like it. Why should he call a book an autobiography unless it was about himself? Or fiction, of course, written in the first person. But he said it wasn’t fiction. He said it was the truth about fiction, that’s why it was stranger than fiction.”

  “Is that what you told your father?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I don’t remember.” She pondered. “Ed wanted to say something, but Father sent him away. Father said he wanted to talk to me privately.”

  “What’d he tell you?”

  She uttered a half-note of laughter. “His life story. About how he used to be drunk all the time and full of passion and how his dear mother had died of a broken heart and it was his fault that my mother killed herself, and all the rest of it.”

  “Then it wasn’t the first time he’d talked like that to you?”

  “I’ve been hearing it since I was six.” She laughed again, ruefully. “But there’s something about my father when he tells that story; he’s so sincere and powerful that when he used to lecture, people thronged to the platform to confess their secret desires and their hidden sins.”

  “Did you confess?”

  “I had nothing to confess. But he broke me down; he can always do that. Makes me feel that I’ve been stubborn and wilful, that there’s something weak and inferior that I have to compensate for by trying to express my own will. And then he shows me that I’m not alone in these unworthy feelings and that he understands and forgives, and I’m all right. Perhaps you don’t believe me.”

  “It’s happened to me, too. When your father uses his charm the beasts of field and forest lie down together.”

  “But when it’s over and you’re away from him, it stops. You fall with a thud. I’ve been falling a lot lately. People like Gloria and Grace Eccles can read a chapter from the book and become uplifted again. Not me though, not lately.” She laughed again, but this time her laughter was free. “I’ve never talked like this before in my life, Johnnie.”

  “That night,” I said slowly, “you fell with a thud, huh? How long after?”

  “Later in the evening. Father took me to dinner and made a terrific fuss over me. It was like old times before he met Gloria. He made me feel so wonderful and important I felt disloyal for having questioned him. And then,” she ran her hand through her hair, “then he had to broadcast; it was Friday, Voice of Truth night, so he put me in a taxi and sent me home. I suddenly realized that I’d been a sucker and he hadn’t given me a single reason why I shouldn’t go on seeing Mr. Wilson. So I phoned him…”

  “What time was it?”

  “Half past nine, ten, I don’t remember. I tried calling him again Saturday, but there was no answer. So I thought maybe he’d gone away for the week-end.”

  “When did you find out he was dead?”

  “Sunday. It came over the radio.” Her face in that uncertain light was like a mask made of some brittle material like clay or china, and her eyes were like hard stones set into the mask.

  “What did your father say about it?”

  “I never mentioned it to him.”

  “The hell you didn’t!” I let go of Eleanor’s hand and stood up. I couldn’t believe her. It was incredible. On Friday evening she and her father had quarreled about Wilson; on Sunday morning Wilson’s murdered body was discovered and Friday night named as the time of his death. “You must have talked about it. It’s not possible.”

  “No.” Her voice had gone flat. “Father and Gloria had gone away Saturday morning, to spend the week-end in Washington with the Senator. I didn’t see him until late Monday afternoon in the office.”

  “And you didn’t
mention Wilson?”

  The flat voice continued, “Father didn’t bring it up; so I never mentioned it either. I’m always afraid to face things that I know will be unpleasant. I guess you don’t believe me.”

  “For a couple of Truth-sharers you Barclays are about the most secretive people I’ve ever met. Why were you so afraid to talk to him about it?”

  She had grown rigid. I had seen Eleanor like this before, protecting herself in the same steely way against the gibes and criticisms of the cynics at the Editors’ Table. Tonight, for the first time, I had heard her question her father’s sincerity. She had given a fine exhibition of resentment. Until now I had thought it was her love for Noble Barclay that made her so contemptuous of all scoffers. She had told me, defiantly, “I love my father.” I saw now that it was not love, and not pride that she had been protecting, but doubt.

  That clinched it for me. I said, “He thinks you did it.”

  “My father?”

  “He thinks you killed Wilson.”

  “Did he tell you that?” Her voice was low and polite. She might have been asking whether I thought it would snow or if I liked two pieces of sugar in my coffee.

  Night classes at NYU had let out. Bareheaded girls and spectacled youths rushed across Washington Square. Their voices were young and carefree, but typical of New York, nasal and arrogant.

  “He told you that, Johnnie?”

  “This afternoon your father warned me against trying to find out anymore about this case. He’s been protecting you and what he tried to say is that if I love you, I ought to…”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, “but I think you know more than you pretend.”

  Her hands lay in her lap. She looked up at me, straining to see my face. Her lips moved but she did not immediately speak. The city, too, had become quiet. A curious kind of silence surrounded us as if we had suddenly entered a soundproof room.

  She hugged the fur coat tighter about her. “You don’t love me,” she said bitterly. “You’re like the rest of them, wanting to find out something. You wanted to know about us. You wanted to talk and write articles and show off. You made me think you loved me…”