Desert of the Heart: A Novel

by Jane Rule

  “It’s been busy enough, just tapering off now.”

  “You had your last break?”

  “Yes. I’ve just come back. I don’t think I will go home tonight, Walt. Joe’s away. Silver’s got a bottle of Scotch.”

  “Just as you like,” Walter said, checking what might have been disappointment or disapproval. “What shall I do with the car?”

  “Take it home. Silver will drop me off tomorrow.”

  Ann would like to have had him stay for a few minutes to help pass the time, but she did not suggest it. Now, he would not be in bed much before three, and he had to be up at seven thirty. Frances had given up scolding either of them for the way they so often neglected to sleep, but her silences or forced cheerfulness made Ann uncomfortable. She would rather not appear to be responsible for all of Walter’s bad habits.

  “Change!”

  Ann took the young man’s last five dollars and gave him a short roll of quarters. He had lost just three hundred dollars in eleven hours. He would not have had to work so hard at roulette. Ann leaned back against a slot machine and watched him in the last slow movement of his dance. In ten minutes, his hands and pockets were empty. He stood for a moment, resting. Then he looked up at the machines, at the college boys, at the guns, at Ann, his face pale and peaceful as if he had just awakened from a long sleep. He stretched, yawned, then turned away and was gone.

  The college boys drifted to another section, and Ann was alone. Slowly she began to empty her change dispenser, to count and roll the coins. Walter was home by now, sitting alone in the kitchen. Ann half wished she had told him to wait. She was restless and depressed, reluctant to be with anyone, but her own room at the top of the house would be hot, too hot for sleeping, and she would not be in the mood for work tomorrow. It had been a month since she’d done a sketch that pleased her.

  The girls of the graveyard shift had begun to arrive at the cashier’s desk. The girl who relieved Janet was on the floor ten minutes early, and Janet had checked out before Ann and Silver arrived at the desk. Janet always went through first. She had a ninety-mile drive ahead of her, then only a couple of hours’ sleep before the baby woke and Ken got up to go to his summer job.

  “Well,” Silver said, “a real lively night tonight, eh? My biggest thrill was an old lady with weak kidneys. She wet her pants three times—not even for jackpots. For eighteen nickels she wet her pants. It’s a good thing I’ve got catholic tastes. Other people I know might have been bored.”

  Ann stood beside her, carefully stacking up her last bits of loose change. Just twenty cents out tonight. She wondered how Joyce had done.

  “I’m a nickel ahead,” Silver announced. “Now let’s see. Who could it be who’s wandering around town at three o’clock in the morning without money enough for the pay toilet?”

  “You’ve got kidneys on the brain tonight,” the cashier said, tired and bored.

  “You’re wrong, love,” Silver said. “It’s pure substitution.” She reached over to claim her IOU. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” Ann said.

  They went down through the Club together, Silver calling greetings to the dealers, Ann nodding and smiling to other employees and customers. As they stepped out into the alley, the sudden heat and silence wrenched them away from the bright, timeless chaos of the Club. They were alone together.

  “Well, love,” Silver said softly, “will you come home with me tonight?”

  “Yes,” Ann said. “Yes, I think I will.”

  They walked across the alley to leave their hats, their aprons, and change dispensers. They stood in line at the clock. Ann’s card read 3:11.

  “Not bad,” Ann said.

  “Not bad at all. The car’s this way.”

  Ann had not been to Silver’s house for several weeks. They came in through the back door to the kitchen, which Silver called, “Secondhand Appliances and Son.” And it would have been impressive had there not always been at least one corner of it being torn up to install yet another of the latest kitchen conveniences. Silver turned in stoves and refrigerators, deep freezes and dishwashers as some men turn in cars. If she could not find an improved refrigerator, one that made juice as well as ice, she would decide to change her color scheme. Then all the blue-green equipment would have to go, replaced by yellow or pink or apricot. Counter tops and floors would be ripped up, towels and aprons thrown or given away. Consequently, there was rarely a time that the kitchen was fit to work in, but Silver liked to cook only occasionally and brilliantly. Most of the time she and Joe ate in restaurants or simply made themselves coffee and sandwiches at odd hours of the day or night. At the moment there were neither counter burners nor stove, but Silver had electric pots and pans, ovens and rotisseries. She could manage fairly well while she waited for the new installment.

  “Hungry?”

  “Not really,” Ann said.

  “Well, I am. You fix us drinks while I cook myself something.”

  “All right.”

  Ann walked out of the kitchen into the heavy pile of the white carpeting that lay like six inches of snow all over the house. Silver admitted that it was a mistake. It was impossible for anyone to walk across a room without turning his ankle. But she would not have it taken out. The dining room was sedate with imitation period furniture, the exact period not quite identifiable. The bar, which separated the dining room from the living room, had been designed by Silver herself. From the dining room it looked ordinary enough, but from the living room, which was four steps up, it looked more like the communion rail in the Virginia City Catholic Church. The brass piping was barnacled with bits of ruby and sapphire glass, and, instead of bar stools, there were white leather TV cushions on the floor. Joe had hurt Silver’s feelings when he dubbed it “the holy hell saloon.” The living room was an obstacle course of overstuffed chairs, couches, and glass-topped tables, and everywhere giant, muscular rubber plants climbed poles and lamp standards to the ceiling.

  Ann found the bottle of Johnny Walker and a bottle of Gordon’s gin. Then she reached into the built-in refrigerator for tonic and ice. Among the bartender’s tools, silver plated thighs and breasts, she found what she needed.

  “I’m making baked eggs with chicken livers,” Silver called.

  “All right. I’ll have some.”

  Ann carried the drinks back into the kitchen. Silver drank her gin and tonic like a glass of iced water, sighed, and set the glass down out of her way.

  “Another?”

  “Not now, love. Don’t you want a bath? I’ll bring this up when it’s ready.”

  “Sure.”

  Silver did not like company when she cooked, and she could not settle to talk until she had settled to eat; so Ann took her drink across the house through Silver’s bedroom into the bath, which was a large room, carpeted as the rest of the house was, the toilet three steps up, the tub a small sunken pool in the center of the room. Ann turned on the phallic fountains, put her drink down on one of the table ledges of the pool, and began to undress in the company of a dozen of her own reflections.

  Just three months ago, she and Bill had stayed in this house while Silver and Joe went to the coast on a month’s holiday. Bill, who had never seen the bedroom and bath before, was self-conscious at first, but later, when they lay together in his own man-made bedroom, he would remember those weeks wistfully, then argue that you could, with obvious basic changes, design a bathroom of this kind in good taste.

  “No white rug for rolling dry,” Ann would say.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s vulgar.”

  “I don’t think it’s vulgar,” he’d protest with the earnest defensiveness he had for his own tastes.

  “And certainly not a ceiling mirror. What would your mother say?”

  “I’m not planning this bathroom for my mother.” He’d prop himself up on his elbow and look down at Ann. “Remember that afternoon …”

  Alone now, surrounded by her naked selves, Ann could not help remembering, b
ut there was nothing erotic in her memory. That first afternoon, it had been Bill who was uncertain of playing the game of husband and wife. He had been perfectly content before with the two nights a week they spent together, the occasional weekend away. He was afraid of the trap of familiarity. But how quickly he had adjusted! If Ann cooked, he washed dishes. If she ironed his shirt, he polished her boots. He even wanted her to read the newspaper to him in the morning while he shaved. And his tenderness, which had been strictly scheduled before, grew so habitual that he could hardly keep his hands off her at the Club. Inspired by mirrors and fetishes, he was experimental. Passion became an engrossing hobby. He grew possessive, developed proud, little jealousies. Perhaps she should stop working. Perhaps they should buy a little house of their own. Ann had not been surprised. Perhaps, in one part of her mind, she had even hoped this change would come over Bill. What surprised her was her own reaction. At first she had felt only a little restless, but gradually her uneasiness grew to a kind of terror, and she longed for the days to pass, for the moment to come when she would be free again. He would let her go. He would have to let her go. She could not live, caught up in his love, tangled in his habits and needs until she could not maintain her own.

  The afternoon she remembered was the last, a dozen Anns and Bills coupling in this nightmare of mirrors, not looking directly at each other, but at the images of each other they found most exciting. One of those faces of Bill had spoken to her out of a mirror, like a god commanding:

  “Marry me.”

  “I couldn’t, Bill. I couldn’t marry anyone.”

  The pool had filled. Ann stepped into the warm water and turned off the fountains. Half floating, her head propped back against the edge of the pool, Ann felt the muscles of her back relax. She reached over for her glass and raised it to salute the single image of herself on the ceiling. “Hello is what a mirror says,” she said softly, and then drank.

  “Well, goldfish,” Silver said, as she came into the room carrying a tray of food, “it’s weeks since I’ve had anything as lovely as you to fish for.”

  “The bait looks good,” Ann said, smiling.

  “I’m going to play you a while before I land you. More Scotch?”

  “Please.”

  Silver set down a plate of eggs, chicken livers, and toast next to Ann’s glass, which she refilled. She put the tray on a low stool and sat down beside it on the rug.

  “Sil, have you ever met anyone who looked like you?”

  “Like me? When God made me, love …”

  “I know … He broke the mold.”

  “I broke it,” Silver corrected. “Ripped my mother from her ass to her navel.” Ann smiled sceptically. “Well, she died of me, poor soul. Somebody along the assembly line must have made a mistake.”

  “Maybe you were her double,” Ann said. “They say, when you meet your own double, you die. ‘The magus Zoroaster, my dead child, met his own image walking in the garden.’”

  “It’s only a trick, love. We do it with mirrors.”

  “I don’t think so. I met a woman today who really does look like me.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, if anyone’s going to die of it, I will. Or she will. But you won’t, love.”

  “You think I’m a bitch, don’t you?” Ann said quietly.

  “No, but Bill’s beginning to think so. What in hell are you doing to him?”

  “Nothing, which is terrible. If only he didn’t want us to get married, Sil, if only we could just go on the way we were before, I could cope.”

  “I thought you were in love with him.”

  “Oh, I am. I am. In a way. Or at least I love him. But I can’t live with him, not all the time.”

  “He says whatever went wrong went wrong when you were staying here.”

  “Does he?” Ann said, turning away from her food, resting her head back against the edge of the pool again. She focused her eyes beyond the mirror, trying to reach that unknown presence, that watchfulness beyond the glass, but all she could do was conjure up faces of doubt out of her own imagination. “I don’t know. I only know it is wrong. Don’t you think that marriage just is wrong for some women?”

  “I used to,” Silver admitted. “For me, for instance. Men were my profession, I always had a woman until Joe.”

  “But you haven’t married Joe.”

  “No, but I’m going to, love.”

  “You are!” Ann sat up. “But why?”

  “Well …” Silver paused, watching Ann. “I suppose underneath I always kind of liked the idea.”

  “One man. One woman. Forsaking all others?”

  “It won’t be quite like that,” Silver said, smiling. “But then, it never is. I should know. And who am I, just a two-bit cheesecake, to think it’s got to be Jesus-perfect for me or not at all? Don’t you think Mr. and Mrs. would look good on our bath towels?”

  “Sure,” Ann said softly. “Sure, why not?”

  “Ann?” Ann turned to look at her friend. “We’d like you and Bill to stand for us.”

  “I’d love to, Silver. You know that. And I’m sure Bill would, too.”

  “The only thing is, it would be nicer if you two were speaking to each other.”

  “Give me a drink. Let’s drink to you and Joe.”

  “But on dry land, love.” Silver stood up and got a huge white bath towel out of the cupboard. She held it up. “Come on.”

  “What will this towel say?” Ann asked, as she stepped out of the pool into Silver’s arms.

  “Goldfish,” Silver said.

  “But I won’t come anymore after you and Joe are married.”

  “No?” Silver asked, amused.

  “No.”

  “You said the same thing when you started going with Bill.”

  “And I didn’t come.”

  “Until you had a fight,” Silver said. “Fierce, noble, little fish. You get caught, don’t you? Then you get away, but you don’t learn. The bait always tempts you. If you were an inch or so longer or if I wasn’t scared of the game warden, I’d keep you.”

  “I don’t want to be kept,” Ann said, not quite sure she was telling the truth because standing there, independent and belligerent, she wanted Silver to take her up like a child, to comfort and love her with the familiar, huge, crude tenderness of her body. But in the morning, which was already gray in the sky outside this room, Ann would not be able to stay. She would struggle to get away, to be born again into that live uncertainty of her single flesh.

  “I know,” Silver said, as she picked Ann up in her arms. “I know all about that. I always catch you at night and let you go in the morning.”

  “I love you.”

  “You love all the world, little fish. You think God made even the desert for you to swim in. But you want to be free.”

  3

  EVELYN HALL WOKE EARLY her first morning in Reno, refreshed. She lay for a while, watching the patterned shadows of leaves on the carpet, her mind still moving among the patterned shadows of dreams she could not quite recall. If she got up now while everyone else was still asleep, the morning and the house would be her own for an hour. She could begin in control of the day.

  Dressed in the summer suit she had bought specifically for her first interview with the lawyer, her hat, gloves and purse ready on the bed, Evelyn sat down at the secretary to sort her papers and to write a brief note to George. She found it easy to begin the letter. She described the flight, the drive into town, the house, the people in it, her room, her walk out into the neighborhood. As her thoughts returned to the crest of that short hill, she reached for words to explain, perhaps to explain away, what she had felt. It was fear, she wanted to say, but she did not know of what. Hybrid-faithed of Jungian and Protestant—children of jackass and mare, George had often bitterly called them both—Evelyn had nevertheless felt, at the sight of that Nevada desert, a Catholic desolation. “It was as if I saw, in fact, what I do not believe,�
�� she wrote. And having written it, she looked down at the letter and realized that she was not writing to George at all. It had been years since she had made any attempt to explain her own feelings to him. Puzzled, she set the pages of the letter aside and began again. She wrote one short paragraph and signed her name. It was already after eight o’clock. She would be late to breakfast.

  Though her appointment with the lawyer was not until eleven o’clock, Evelyn walked into town quite soon after breakfast. On the way, she stopped at a gas station to ask for a city map. She was only several blocks south of the river. Walking toward it, she passed the Reno Public Library and was tempted to go in, but she remembered having set it aside for tomorrow. The heat, at nine o’clock in the morning, was already intense, but on a bridge that crossed the Truckee there was a breeze, and just the sound of the water made it seem cooler. It was certainly not an impressive river. Evelyn could hardly imagine this stream, which seemed to struggle over the rocks of its own bed, in flood strength. The high concrete walls, which served as its banks, left a natural margin of shore where half a dozen old men loitered. Were they fishing? Two of them had poles, but the others were empty-handed. One looked up at Evelyn and shouted something she could not understand. Another laughed. Evelyn turned away quickly and crossed the bridge.

  She found it impossible to stroll down the street. There were already too many people like herself, obviously killing time. They drifted and then were caught by a window display, a newspaper stand, or a private uncertainty, but none of these could hold their attention long. Walking or standing still, they watched each other with speculative, ironic eyes. Evelyn herself became uncertain, then self-conscious. She had somehow lost control of the day. She hurried along, as if she had somewhere to go, until she found herself in the crowds on the main street. Above their heads, each angling for its own space, were the huge signs of the casinos, baroque with unlighted bulbs; and everywhere, in waves above the noise of the crowds and traffic, came the downbeat of the machines. Whatever Evelyn had expected when she imagined this Monte Carlo of Nevada, it was not this false-fronted block of giant penny arcades, these rows of factories where shiftless consumers volunteered to operate money-eating machines for the Establishment. Here was no seductive, neon night where men of the world won and lost fortunes before women who drank scarlet cocktails to their victory or defeat. The men she saw could have been high school principals or druggists or house painters. One woman might have been her cleaning woman, another her mother. There they all were, these ordinary people, losing their groceries, their children’s shoes, a week’s rent, at nine thirty on this hot July morning. And they all looked as bored and at home as they would have been over the breakfast dishes or the morning’s business mail.