“It is open. It’s quite cold here.”
“But I’m hot,” Katherine said, getting up and going over to the window, pushing it up as far as it would go. The rain had turned to snow, a soft quiet snow that fell gently, with the lightness of breathing, and that seemed serene and friendly after the hurried beating of the rain of the night before.
“Pete, would you take me home, please?” she asked.
They left the hotel in silence. Out on the street Pete stopped, and Katherine watched the small dry powdery snowflakes drop onto his eyelashes and cling there. He was watching the snow fall onto her, too, dusting her thick masses of dark hair with glistening white.
“You ought to wear a hat. I’m going to take you home in a taxi,” he said.
“No. Please let’s walk.”
“It’s too far.”
“We’ve done it plenty of times before.”
“You’re in no condition to walk tonight.”
“Well, just a little way, at any rate. The wind on my face is just what I need. I feel hot and smothered. If we walk some, maybe I can breathe.”
She did not know whether she had said these words consciously or subconsciously. She knew they were familiar. Searching back through the devious channels of her mind, she remembered. These were the words, or at least they were very similar to the words, that Julie had spoken before she went out on that terrible day when she was so ill. Katherine remembered almost every word Julie had said that day. They were branded in her memory with a white-hot iron of pain, seared into her forever.—Only—she thought—I do not think I am going to die.—
Nonetheless, she clutched Pete’s arm very tightly as they walked along, lifting her hot face to the cool drift of snow. The people they passed suddenly began making hideous faces at her. One man stuck out a long bifurcated tongue like a serpent’s and flicked it at her. A woman, heavily made up, but rather beautiful, suddenly spat all her teeth into her outstretched palm, and the teeth lay there, grinning gumlessly at her. When the woman put them back into her mouth, she turned into Miss Halsey.
“Pete,” Katherine said, relieved to hear her voice coming out almost normally. “I think I have DT’s. How much whisky did you give me?”
“Not enough for that,” Pete said. “Why, baby? What’s the matter?”
Katherine decided not to explain. “I’m going to be a tee-totalitarian. That’s what they’re called, isn’t it? And go around to all the bars and cafés with a hatchet and make everybody stop drinking. I’ll give speeches on the evils of booze and wear my hatchet over my shoulder, like that woman out West, what was her name? They made a movie about her. I think Marlene Dietrich played her. Anyhow, she wore pants, and got her man in the end, and everybody learned that liquor is a devil.”
At this all the houses on either side of the street began to grin at her evilly and leaned toward her, so that it seemed she could feel their heavy breath.
“I think I’d like to get home quicker than on my feet,” she said. “Get a taxi, Pete, quick.”
But a taxi late on a snowy night is not easy to get quickly. Pete had a shrill taxi-calling whistle, but all the taxis going by were full.
All the taxis going by were strange creatures, animate in themselves, and each one, at the sound of Pete’s whistle, jumped or reared up or reacted in some strange and lurid way.
“I’m sure this one’s empty,” Pete said, and whistled piercingly.
At this noise not only did Katherine’s head split open so that the snow could fall into it uninterruptedly, but the top of the taxi burst open too, and out of the gaping rent was blown a man in top hat and tails. He was Mr. LeStrade, and he was blown up and up until he was lost over the roofs of the buildings.
“Is this taxi safe?” Katherine asked anxiously, laying a restraining hand on Pete’s arm.
“Sure, kitten, of course,” he said reassuringly, leading her toward it.
“We won’t get blown out?”
“No, sweetheart.” And he opened the door and helped her in. She leaned against him, squeezing her eyes tight shut, so that she should not see the taxi driver, who was not a man at all but a gorilla in a bright-red sweater. But it would never do to tell Pete this.
“Are you all right, kitten?”
She nodded, burying her face against his shoulder.
“I’ll make you some hot lemonade,” he said, “and you’ll feel better once you get into bed.”
He spoke quietly, not sounding at all worried. Then he did not know the dreadful things she was seeing, the strange twists and turns her mind was taking. At all costs he must not know, or he might not love her any more.
The gorilla finally pulled the taxi up in front of a house. It was a strange house that Katherine had never seen before, made entirely of shocking-pink marble. She thought for a moment of telling Pete that she did not live here, but as he paid the gorilla, who had fortunately (and it was fortunately, she was sure, although she did not know why) turned into a rosy-red flamingo, she decided that she would go wherever Pete wanted to take her.
When she got out of the taxi and a sharp blast of wind from the river struck like a whip across her face, her mind cleared. They went into the house and up the stairs, and it was quite safely Manya’s apartment; if she reached out her hand, the light switch was on the wall on the right by the big white bookcase.
She did not turn on the light. Suddenly she and Pete were pressed together again in the darkness, very close all the way down, his lips on hers, their arms clinging desperately, their torsos and legs pushing together as though in a denial of the body’s power to keep people apart. Then her arms seemed to lose their strength to cling, her body to press against his, even to stand, and he was holding her, saving her, and her mouth was open and her whole body was on fire, burning up and becoming air.
After a time she realized that Pete had picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, and that she was lying on her bed. Quite clearly she said, “I’m a phoenix. I burned all up, and out of my ashes I sprang again.”
“What, sweetheart?”
“I’m all right now, Pete. I feel much better. Go into the living room and light the fire and I’ll get undressed.”
“You’d better get right into bed.”
“My hair’s wet from the snow. I want to dry it in front of the fire. Besides, I’m all right now. Something burst inside my head when you kissed me, and I burned all up like the phoenix and I’m clear again. Clear as crystal. Don’t you worry.”
She undressed very guardedly, looking around the room from time to time to make sure that nothing in it turned into anything else. But everything remained normal. Her throat was a burning column of liquid fire, iron bands were tightening closer every second around her head, but in spite of the pain, or perhaps because of it, her mind remained clear, her desk remained a desk, the bed a bed. All the furniture obligingly stayed furniture and did not turn into something with an animate and evil life of its own.
She came into the living room and sat down on the hearth bench in front of the fire Pete had built. He was not in the room, but in a moment he came back with a steaming glass of lemonade wrapped in a dish towel.
“Here, kitten little,” he said. “I put some spike in it, but not much. I don’t think all this whisky’s good for your cold.”
She held the lemonade in both hands, sipping the hot sweet syrup slowly, while Pete unbraided her hair and held the soft, damp strands out to the blaze.
“A boy I used to loathe,” he said, “used to talk about his desire to run barefoot through people’s hair. I know now what he meant.”
“I have too much of it,” Katherine said. “I think I’ll cut it.”
“If you dare!”
“Mother wore her hair very short, and it was so nice.”
“Darling,” Pete said slowly. “I adored your mother. She was a great and wonderful woman. But you’ve got to grow up to be yourself, you know, and not a shadow of someone you could never really resemble.”
> “I know, Pete. You’re quite right. It’s just that Mother was always so firm and strong—she always knew everything.”
“Perhaps she just never let you know when she didn’t.”
“I’m glad you haven’t got the lamps on, Pete. It’s nice just with the fire.”
“When will you marry me?” he asked.
“Whenever you say.”
“What about Paris and studying with that Justin of yours?”
“You’re Paris. You’re more than Paris.”
“Shall we tell your father and Madame Sergeievna right away?”
“Oh, Pete!” she said. “Aunt Manya’ll be your stepmother-in-law!”
“That’s why I’m marrying you,” he said. “Didn’t you know?”
“I’ve finished my lemonade,” she said. “I suppose I’d better go to bed. My hair’s about dry.”
He took the glass away from her, picked her up, and carried her into her bedroom. She lay quietly in his arms and stayed very still when he put her on the bed and pulled the covers over her. Bending down, he kissed her very softly, as one kisses a very small child, little gentle kisses on her eyes and cheeks; then he tiptoed noiselessly away.
But before he reached the door, the lamp in the corner suddenly began to nod up and down, grinning at her insanely. Her mind, which had been so clear and safe since he kissed her in the hall, was filled with the dirty waves that come after a storm. “Pete!” she almost screamed. “Stay just five minutes!”
He came back into the room and stood looking down at her. “Is your throat worse?”
“No. I’m all right, I’m all right. Just stay with me for five minutes.”
He lay down beside her, on the eiderdown, putting his arms around her. Immediately she fell asleep. When she woke up, she no longer felt the firm heaviness of his body through the eiderdown. Opening her eyes, she saw him standing by her, shaking a thermometer.
“I’m going to take your temperature,” he said. “I should have thought of it long ago. I found the thermometer in your Aunt Manya’s bathroom. If you have any temp, you’ve got to see a doctor first thing in the morning. Put this under your tongue.”
She opened her mouth obediently and lay looking up at Pete. She saw now that his eyes with their short, straight, black lashes sticking out were indeed very worried. Had he realized, then, the strange things her mind had been doing all evening?
He looked at his watch carefully, then drew the thermometer out of her mouth and held it under the lamp. “All right,” he said, “we won’t wait till morning. You’ve got to see a doctor tonight.”
“It’s much too late.”
“I don’t care how late it is. You’re going to see a doctor.”
“Have I got very much, then?”
“None of your business.”
“Who else’s business is it?”
“Kitten, my darling, I want you to see a doctor. Now what’s your doctor’s name, so I can look up his phone number?”
The lamp in the corner was nodding and leering at her again. She sprang out of bed and went running through the cold halls, her eiderdown about her shoulders, a corner of it flapping against her legs. Pete came tearing after her.
“Where do you think you’re going!” he shouted.
“If I’m going to die, I want to die in Aunt Manya’s room.” She looked at him, thinking how stupid he was not to understand. “I like the lamps in Aunt Manya’s room better.”
He carried her quickly into Manya’s room and laid her on the bed, tucking the eiderdown around her. “Now, give me your doctor’s name,” he said. “Katherine! What is your doctor’s name?”
“I don’t remember Aunt Manya’s doctor. It’s a long Russian name. Mother used to have Dr. Jack Bradley, but Aunt Manya doesn’t like him.”
“B-r-a-d-l-e-y?”
“Yes.”
“Is he the one who wanted to marry your mother?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It was town gossip. I just wanted to know because it will be a good way to identify you to him. How long since you’ve seen him?”
“Not since I was ten.”
Pete was talking busily, in a matter-of-fact voice as he leafed through the phone book. “Thank God, the bastard hasn’t a private number. Residence,” he said, mumbling the number to himself before he dialed it. Katherine could hear the phone ringing and ringing before it was answered.
“Dr. Bradley?” Pete said into the phone. “This is Peter Burns. I’m calling for Katherine Forrester. She is the daughter of Julie Forrester, whom I believe you knew.”
Katherine heard what sounded like a snarl at the other end of the wire, but Pete went on. “She has a very high temperature, too high to wait until morning. If you could possibly come … That’s swell, thank you.” And he gave the address, said “That’s swell, thank you,” again, and hung up.
“He’s coming over,” he said to Katherine. “Now try to sleep, baby.”
“There is a man standing in front of Aunt Manya’s bureau,” Katherine said distinctly. “Don’t let him take Mother’s sapphire earrings.” This was the first time she had not been able to control to a certain extent the words she was going to say to Pete. “Make him go away! Don’t let him take Mother’s earrings!” she wailed, burying her face against Pete’s shoulder.
“It’s all right, dearest darling,” he said. “I won’t let him take anything. Sleep now. Sleep till the doctor comes.”
“You won’t go away?”
“I’ll stay right here.”
“But don’t catch my cold, will you?”
“I won’t.”
She lay down, clutching his hand again, and drifted quickly into sleep, sleep that was somehow like plunging into the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But through the wild hot breath that burned her cheeks, that was consuming her, she heard Pete quoting softly the lines from Shakespeare that every actor knows:
“Sleep dwell in thine eyes, peace in thy breast;—
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!”
“Kitten. Kitten. The doctor’s here.” She heard Pete’s voice, and she opened her eyes, only to close them again quickly, because the beautiful words that seemed to be brushing gently against her mind like butterflies disappeared as she saw two skeletons wearing men’s suits leaning over her. She heard words coming out of her mouth, but she did not know what they were. There was a feeling of being forcibly taken away from Manya’s bed, a shrill wailing, and the throb of wheels moving under her. There were the white walls of a room closing in on her and crushing her. There were pills which she swallowed, a great upheaval inside her as she vomited into a curved white pan, more pills, and a sleep as black as velvet. The only thing that was clear was sitting up in bed and screaming furiously, “I will not die! I absolutely and positively refuse to die!”
She did not die. Sulfa drugs brought the fever down and left her weak and exhausted, but with her brain gratefully clear.
Dr. Bradley stood by her bed. “Well, hello, Katy.”
“Hello.”
“You don’t think I’m a skeleton this morning?”
“My goodness, did I think that?”
“You did. Feeling better?”
“I’m all right. May I go home?”
“Well, not for a while yet.”
“Why not?” Impatiently.
He laughed. “I see you have a little of Julie in you. Let me see. How long has it been since I’ve seen you? About eight years?”
“About.”
“It doesn’t seem four years since she died … and it seems forty. That was her locket.”
“Yes.”
“You fought like a little wildcat to keep it on.”
“I did?” Then suddenly, without any warning, a thought stabbed into her mind. “I’ve got to see Pete!” she cried.
“Your young man?”
“Yes. I’ve got to see him.”
“All right, Katy, but I don’t want you to have any
visitors for a couple of days.”
“I’ve got to see Pete.”
“You’ll have to wait.”
“I can’t! It’s terribly important!” She sat up wildly.
Dr. Bradley pushed her gently down on her pillows. “Katherine. Do you want to send your temperature up again?”
“No, but please let me see Pete, please let me see him, please!”
“Why is it so important?”
“I’ve got to tell him about Charlot!”
“What about Charlot?”
“I’ve got to tell Pete about him, please, I’ve simply got to, my temperature will go up again if I don’t see him, honestly it will. Please, please, Dr. Bradley!”
“If your temperature stays down all day, you can see him tomorrow.”
“Please—today!”
“No, Katherine. It’s no use arguing. You’ll have to wait and see if your temperature stays down.”
“Do you think it will stay down?”
“If you have anything like the recuperative power of your mother, it will. Where is your father? Where is that Manya Sergeievna? Why aren’t they taking better care of you? Julie wouldn’t like this at all.”
“Father’s on the coast on his lecture tour and Aunt Manya’s in Boston with her play. She opens in New York next week. After all, they didn’t know I was going to get flu.”
“Well, she’s run herself up a pretty bill with telephone calls. I never could gather where she was, or what she was doing, or why she couldn’t come back to town unless you were dying.”
“She was having dress rehearsals and rewritings for New York and all kinds of things. Of, course she couldn’t come!”
“She left you all alone in that apartment? No one to take care of you?”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I’m not ten years old any longer. And the cook comes in at noon every day. I’m sorry Pete woke you up so late the other night. I told him to wait till morning, but he wouldn’t.”
“It’s a good thing he didn’t. Or your precious Manya Sergeievna might have had to come back from Boston. When anything hits you, it hits you hard, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. But I didn’t die, at any rate.”
The Small Rain Page 26