Keeping an apprehensive eye on the umbrella, Klebenau opened the lounge door. “I’ll have my cigar now,” he said, “and you really ought to join Nora. A change of company will do her good. She’s heard everything I have to say fifty times over.”
He remained in the lounge, and Ben walked down the aisle of the cabin and took the place beside Nora. She sat, head back against the rest, eyes closed, legs folded under her. Her shoes were lying on the floor, and, considering how she detested them, Ben wondered if those extremely high, narrow heels were her own choice or if they had been some sort of fetish with Chapin.
Looking at Nora, he found himself pitying Chapin. No one with a woman like this at his side and a great talent at his fingertips should have ended his life in such an abrupt anticlimax of futility. But somewhere along the way Chapin had taken the wrong turning. He had cut the line of communication with reality and gone off in pursuit of a will-o’-the-wisp that led him inevitably to useless death. By his own definition, the ultimate artist was a man staring up at the sun with his eyes closed, made ecstatic by the forms and colors swimming past his sightless vision. Was that what Chapin had been doing when he clung to the crossbeam of the gallows looking up into the sunlight for the last time?
Nora stirred. As she opened her eyes, Ben thought of the way Klebenau had ordered her to sleep and the way she had obediently followed his order. For all the talk about her self-reliance, about Chapin’s dependence on her, one thing was clear. Her marriage had survived because, in effect, she had been married to two men. Chapin had provided the arrant masculinity, Klebenau had provided everything else. Could that be what worried Klebenau now, the knowledge that a husband must be father and brother to his wife as well as mate, the concern that once he was gone there would be no one to serve Nora in these roles? Was that what he had been trying to say? That a man who does fulfill these roles is no less a man for that, but, perhaps, a little more? If so, it took much of the sting out of being so arbitrarily chosen as her suitor-to-be.
She turned and regarded Ben blankly. “Oh, it’s you. I thought it was Max. I guess I fell asleep.”
“Maybe you can do it again. It’s the best way of passing time on a trip like this.”
She shuddered. “I’d rather not. It only means I’ll have another one of those awful dreams. And when I wake up, it’s not much better than the dreams.” She started to cry softly, shaking her head at the same time in self-reproach. “Please don’t mind me. I can’t help it. I just can’t get used to knowing David isn’t somewhere around. I guess it’ll take time.”
“Would you rather I went away?”
“Oh, no. When I’m alone my mind keeps going around and around the same things, and I don’t want to think about them. We can talk about something. It doesn’t matter what. Anything you want to talk about.”
It reminded Ben of the ancient Egyptian cure for headache—run three times around the temple without thinking of a fox. He desperately cast around in his mind for a safe topic, but now whatever he thought of somehow involved David Chapin. It was Nora who mercifully ended the painful silence by saying with no real interest, “Did Max tell you about the partnership?”
“Yes,” said Ben with relief.
“I’m glad about it. It’ll be a good partnership. He needs someone like you.”
“Does he?”
“Very much. You’ll see when we arrange David’s retrospective. That means trying to borrow his best things from museums and private owners, and it’s hard when you’re a small gallery. Max isn’t diplomatic at all which makes it even worse. You have to be diplomatic when you’re going around asking for favors. I used to handle it for him sometimes, but I’m not impressive enough. You’d be perfect at it.” She turned to peer out of the window. “We can’t be very far from Lima, can we?”
“No, not very far.”
She seemed content with that, and so they sat in companionable silence now, she looking through the window, he sunk in his own thoughts. Perfect at it. Addressing a dowager with finesse. Wheedling a curator into good humor. Buying and selling and haggling over works of art.
Well, why not? Someone had to do it, and, according to Klebenau, the greatest elegance you could attain to was derived from serving the creative saints. Knowing Klebenau, a man would think twice before challenging his most outrageous propositions.
That was what one Ben Smith told himself. And what of the other Ben Smith? Bronzed by the sun, muscularly naked, he strides into the arena, the noose around his throat, its coils warmly circling his outthrust arm. The thunder of the crowd behind him sweeps over the Victorica like a tempest beating down its tall grass. With measured steps he walks toward the gallows, the knife blade in the antia pressing his thigh reassuringly each step of the way. Now he is deaf to the crowd, blind to everything but the waiting gallows. Solitario. Man alone. Pablo Huanu Blanco—twenty seconds. Ben Smith—
“Look,” said Nora.
And when he looked through the window he saw a massive wall of mountains below, and knew that it was the Andes—the mainland again.
About the Author
Stanley Ellin (1916–1986) was an American mystery writer known primarily for his short stories. After working a series of odd jobs including dairy farmer, salesman, steel worker, and teacher, and serving in the US Army, Ellin began writing full time in 1946. Two years later, his story “The Specialty of the House” won the Ellery Queen Award for Best First Story. He went on to win three Edgar Awards—two for short stories and one for his novel The Eighth Circle. In 1981, Ellin was honored with the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award. He died of a heart attack in Brooklyn in 1986.
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Copyright © 1962 by Stanley Ellin
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4041-9
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