“Hello, professors,” he said.
He always called us professor. We weren’t actually, not full ones, but he called us that, anyhow. To him it was a title of dignity and worth, which is something it usually isn’t to most people, and in response to this welcome esteem we were convinced in our minds that he was certainly the greatest Greek since Homer, and probably before. We said hello and sat at the table, and Irene came from behind the counter and across to us. She was truly beautiful in a large and lush fashion, and she had this nice movement Harvey had mentioned, but none of it meant anything to me. I was capable of being quite objective about it.
“Hello, Irene,” Harvey said. “You are very beautiful, and I love you.”
“Oh, you,” she said.
“No, really. You are truly beautiful.”
“I am pleased that you think so.”
“Only now I was telling Felix what a pity it is that you’re married to that bricklayer.”
“George? George is nice. A very fine husband.”
“Honestly? I’m sorry to hear it. Have you ever considered being unfaithful to him?”
“Only when I see you. You are the only temptation.”
“Now you are kidding me.”
“So now we are kidding each other.”
“You should take me seriously.”
“But I do. I take you very seriously. I take it seriously that you want to order something to eat, and for that reason I am here to serve you.”
“Well, if you ever decide to be unfaithful, you let me know, will you?”
“Yes, yes. At once.”
She was obviously quite pleased by all this, and maybe old ugly Harvey was just a little bit of a temptation to her, at that, but the truth was, he was a great respector of marriage and wouldn’t have had her at any price under the circumstances. Not, of course, that he didn’t want her, and probably if the circumstances had been different, he could have worked it out with her and his conscience.
“In that case,” he said, “I’ll have the Salisbury steak, provided it’s ground beef and not hamburger.”
“The best ground beef,” she said.
“I’ll have that too,” I said.
“And two bottles of beer,” Harvey said.
She went away with her nice, large movement and came back with the beer and two glasses. Harvey picked up a bottle in his right hand and a glass in his left hand and poured from the bottle into the glass, holding the glass at an angle so that the beer ran down the side and did not build up too big a head. I poured my own beer and began drinking it, and we sat there drinking the beer and not saying anything more, and after quite a while Irene brought the Salisbury steaks. They were really superior beef and well prepared, and besides the steaks there were golden french-fried onion rings and a tossed salad, but I was not hungry and had difficulty in eating.
“I’ve been thinking that I might go fishing in the river again,” Harvey said.
“When did you think you might go?” I said.
“Well, tomorrow is Friday, and I thought I might go out tomorrow afternoon and come back Sunday. Do you have anything planned for this weekend?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
“Would you care to come fishing in the river with me?”
“Now that you’ve asked me, I believe I would.”
“That’s wonderful, old boy. I’ll buy a case of beer, and you can buy one, and we’ll have a very good time.”
“All right. A very good masculine time.”
“To be sure. There is no good time quite so good as a very good masculine one.”
“Are you ready to go now?”
“You haven’t finished your steak. Is something wrong with it?”
“Not at all. It’s an excellent steak, but I’m not hungry.”
“That’s too bad. I’ve been meaning to tell you that you look rather under the weather. Peaked, if you know what I mean. What you need is to go fishing in the river and have a good masculine time, and it may be Providence that I was sent around to suggest it. Do you believe in Providence?”
“Not much. Do you?”
“As a mathematician, I can’t believe in it seriously, but sometimes I believe in it for convenience.”
“Why can’t a mathematician believe in Providence?”
“Come to think of it, I don’t really know. It just seems to be contrary to general practice. Shall we go?”
We got up and went over to the counter and paid for the food and said goodbye to Nick and Irene.
“Don’t forget our arrangement,” Harvey said to Irene.
She showed her many good teeth and said she would be certain not to forget, and we went out and walked back along the street toward my place, and at the corner above it Harvey stopped, and I stopped with him, and we stood there listening to the cicadas and thinking that it would now very shortly be dark. That’s what I was thinking, and I’m sure Harvey was thinking the same small thing, because there is a feeling about such matters at such times.
“Well, goodbye,” he said.
“Aren’t you coming up to the apartment?” I asked.
“No, I think not. I think I’ll go along home.”
“You’d better come up and help me drink the two cans of beer that are left.”
“You drink them both. They’ll relax you and make you sleep well.”
“All right.”
“Don’t forget about the fishing tomorrow.”
“I won’t forget.”
“If you see Jolly, tell her hello for me.”
“I won’t see her.”
“Well, just in case you do.”
“In case I do, I’ll tell her, but I won’t.”
“Goodbye again, old boy.”
“Goodbye.”
He walked away, and I watched him for a minute, and I felt very affectionate toward him, in spite of his calling me old boy so much, and then I went on to the apartment.
I turned on the light and sat down in front of the typewriter and tried to think of a way to make the novel go, but I couldn’t, and it came into my mind that I had a great deal of trouble making many things go, and this seemed to be one of my faults. I got up and turned off the light and lay down across the bed. I could see Jolly quite clearly with her fine black eye, and I could hear her small and wistful voice saying softly that everything would be so very simple if only Kirby would die. The cicadas were sad sounding, and I was lonely, and it got dark.
4
THE NEXT DAY I had another try at the novel, and this time it went a little better. I got the duchess in and livened things up considerably, and I worked along until sometime between noon and one o’clock, and altogether I must have done a couple thousand words or more. Then I decided I’d better get some food to take to the river fishing, and so I walked down to a grocery store a couple blocks away and bought some bread and beans and coffee and some cornmeal to fry the fish in. A few minutes after I got back to the apartment, the telephone rang in the other room. I went in and answered it, and it was Harvey.
“Hello, old boy,” he said. “This is Harvey.”
“How are you, Harvey?”
“Oh, fine. And you?”
“I’m all right. I just went down to the grocery store and bought some stuff for the fishing.”
“Did you buy the beer?”
“No. I thought we could stop and pick it up on the way.”
“Good. We can do that, all right. I’ll bring the ice chest. I have a very good one, you know. We can also stop on the way and have some ice put in it.”
“What time do you want to leave?”
“Well, that’s actually what I called to tell you. I won’t be able to get away until after five o’clock. Do you consider five o’clock too late?”
“It doesn’t matter, Harvey. Any time you can make it.”
“I’ll probably be at your place about five-thirty. Is that all right?”
“That will be fine, Harvey.”
“That’s settled,
then. I made some dough balls after I left you yesterday. I did an exceptionally good job of it this time, if I do say it myself.”
“Good for you.”
“You’ll remember we had trouble with them last time. They wouldn’t stay on the hook.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“They’re excellent this time, though. Springy. You can bounce them just like a God-damn pingpong ball.”
“That’s the way they need to be. Good and springy.”
“They’re very tempting to catfish, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I’ll see you about five-thirty, then.”
“Right. Five-thirty.”
“Goodbye, old boy.”
“Goodbye, Harvey.”
I got my box of fishing stuff out of the closet in the other room and started looking at the trot line to see if it was in good shape, and it seemed to be. Crossing to the window on the other side of the room, I looked down into the side yard and began watching the activities of a red squirrel down there on the grass. Squirrels were plentiful and quite tame on the campus of the college and in the neighborhoods all around, and pretty soon another one came along and joined the one I was watching, and so I started watching both of them. They were lively and quick and seemed to be in high spirits, and I thought that the life of a squirrel must be an unusually good life in spite of being short by our standards. I was aware that I ought to be thinking instead about the goliard and the duchess on the chance that they might bring me in a little money, but I was now reluctant to think about them, the fine inspiration of the morning having passed, and this delinquency was beginning to make me uncomfortable and somewhat depressed when someone knocked on the door. I turned around and said that it was all right to come in, but then I wasn’t so sure that it was all right after all, because it was Jolly who came.
She closed the door and walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “I walked all the way, and I’m quite hot, and I would like very much to have a drink.”
She was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim and a pale blue dress and pale blue shoes that matched the dress exactly and were apparently made of exactly the same material, except for the parts that were made of leather, and what the material looked like to me was a kind of very fine denim, but it was probably something much better and more expensive.
“All I have is a can of beer,” I said. “It’s a full half-quart that Harvey Griffin left here yesterday.”
“That sounds good,” she said. “I’ll have that.”
I got the beer and took it to her, and she took a long drink from the can.
“It’s quite a long walk,” she said.
“From your house?”
“Yes.”
“About three miles, as a matter of fact. Why didn’t you drive?”
“I just felt that I preferred to walk. You know how it is? Every once in a while you get the feeling that it would be good to take a long walk. It’s very hot, however. I didn’t realize that it was quite so hot. Did you say this is your only can of beer?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like some of it?”
“No, thank you.”
“I feel quite bad about drinking your only can.”
“It’s all right. I had a can with my lunch.”
“Have you had lunch, then? What did you have?”
“A sandwich. I fixed it here.”
“That’s no kind of lunch. It’s apparent to me that you are not eating properly. You are much too thin.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Of course I worry about it. It is natural for a woman to worry about someone she loves.”
“Please don’t start that again.”
“About my loving you? Why not?”
“Because it’s no good. It doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, about its not getting us anywhere, and I’m exceedingly unhappy about it.”
“Are you really? So am I, I confess, but that doesn’t seem to get us anywhere, either.”
“It’s very difficult, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. It is certainly difficult.”
“Are you wondering why I’ve come?”
“Naturally.”
“I’ve come because I couldn’t stay away. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t.”
“Your black eye is a little better today,” I said. “It is still beautiful, but not quite so striking as yesterday.”
“It’s the makeup. You can do wonders with such things with the proper makeup. Does it mean anything to you that I simply couldn’t stay away?”
“How is Kirby?” I said. “Did he hit Fran in the eye after I left?”
“He didn’t say he was going to hit her in the eye. He said he was going to spank her butt. I think Fran stayed around just in the hope that he actually would. Fran enjoys the most peculiar things. Are you happy that I’m here?”
“I thought he was sure enough going to clobber old Sid,” I said, “and I can’t say that I’d have blamed him if he had.”
“Sid is noble. Did you notice how angry he was because Kirby blacked my eye? He is much nobler than you.”
“I concede that. I am hardly noble at all.”
“Would you like to kiss me? I am most willing to have you kiss me.”
“Sometimes, between the times I’m hating him, I feel a great deal of sympathy for Kirby,” I said.
She took another swallow of the beer and stared sadly at the can. She didn’t say anything and kept looking at the can, and after a minute I saw that she was quietly crying, the tears moving slowly and without sound down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“All right. I can see that you are determined to avoid the subject.”
“Please don’t cry.”
“I’ll be finished soon. I seldom cry for very long at a time.”
I stood watching her wishing that I could kiss her safely without consequences or ramifications, which was something that would not have been possible to me, and it was my opinion, held strongly and with pain, that she was earth’s most tempting woman in a way that was peculiarly her own, and that she was the one I would want so long as I lived, and never, never another. She finished with the crying and drank some more of the beer and saw at that moment the tackle box on the floor by the closet.
“What’s that?” she said.
“It’s a tackle box.”
“Fishing tackle?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going fishing?”
“Yes. I’m going with Harvey Griffin. He’s coming by for me about five-thirty. We’re going to the river.”
“Will you be gone long?”
“Until Sunday.”
“Where on the river are you going?”
“Why do you want to know?” I asked her warily.
“I just like to know where you are and what you are doing. Whenever it’s possible, anyhow. When I know these things I am able to see you clearly in my mind, and it is a pleasure to me.”
“We’re going to a place about a mile north of the bridge,” I said. “You drive out the highway to the bridge and turn north on a narrow dirt road at the far end. It’s hardly more than a couple of tire tracks in the grass, and it leads to this old cabin where we always go. We don’t sleep in the cabin, however. It’s very run down, and the floor is broken through in two or three places. We sleep outside.”
She hesitated. “I wish I could go with you.”
“It would be impossible.”
“It would be fun to go and stay with you. I would enjoy it greatly.”
“It would be fun, but it’s impossible,” I said gently but firmly.
“I know. Kirby would wonder where I’d gone off to, of course.”
“That’s not the only reason.”
“You are very moral, darling. Do you know that you are sometimes almost depressingly moral?”
“Sure. I’m depressingly moral, and yo
u are depressingly contradictory.”
“Are they independent, do you think? Can one be moral and not contradictory, and the other way around?”
“It seems that one can.”
Her face brightened. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? That’s a very interesting idea. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before.”
She took off her wide straw hat and leaned over and placed the hat and the beer can on the floor and then lay back across the bed.
“Will you come and sit beside me?” she said.
“I don’t think I’d better.”
“Are you afraid of what might happen?”
“No. I’m afraid of what would almost certainly happen.”
“If you will come sit beside me, I will tell you an idea that I have. It’s an idea of how we might get somewhere.”
I went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, and she reached down along her side and took hold of my hand.
“It’s quite awkward looking at you from this position. Perhaps it would be better if you were to lie down too.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you were to sit up.”
“I have had a long walk here, and it is an equally long walk home again, and it is necessary that I rest for it.”
“I’ll be glad to drive you home.”
“No. I walked here alone, and I insist on going back the same way. It is satisfying to be independent, I find. If you will lie down beside me, I promise to behave. We will lie here and hold hands and feel a communion of spirits.”
“All right,” I said, “since you agree to keep it spiritual.”
I lay back beside her, and we held hands between us, and there was really something spiritual in it, some kind of communion or something, but there was something else there too, and it was this something else that I had to be careful about. Once I had not been careful about it, and the result had been fulfilling but unfortunate. We lay there for a long time without speaking, and it was warm in the room in spite of a slight breeze that came in through the open window, and I could hear outside the occasional chattering of the high-spirited squirrels against the soft, sleepy total of summer sounds. Eventually I turned my head and looked at her to see if she was asleep, but she was lying with her eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling, and I could see on her cheeks below her eyes the faint stain of her tears.
Brass Bed Page 4