by Alfred Hayes
No, I said, stiffly: I couldn’t.
Did I have a cigarette? And would I light it for her? She was accustomed to having her cigarettes lit. So: it was fini. She smiled bitterly through the cigarette smoke at the image of it: the nothingness. Would I do her a favor though? At last, an ultimate favor.
Yes: I’d be happy to.
Would I please not telephone. She meant in the future. In the inevitable future with her still here in town, and the town containing all of us. Would I please not telephone? She’d only be nasty and hang up. It would be a kindness to both of us if I didn’t telephone.
I wasn’t intending to.
Wasn’t I? Yes: now. It was a resolution I could make now. She had heard, before, identical resolutions. I’d be tempted to call. On some night. When I was a little lonely. When I wanted some recreation. Please. I wasn’t to. She’d be ever so grateful.
What did she want, a solemn promise? All right: she had a solemn promise.
She meant it. It didn’t matter whom else I called. It was simply that she preferred not having to hang up on me. It was so awkward, hanging up on discarded lovers.
Was it?
Yes: quite awkward. It was an experience she didn’t care for. Really: I must believe her. She was sure I’d find somebody accommodating enough. The town was full of girls accommodating enough: I’d have no trouble finding one. Only please, not her. She declined the privilege. And could I drive a little faster? I was such a cautious driver; was I afraid of an accident before Monday morning? I needn’t worry: I’d be all in a piece Monday morning, and punctual too, despite the ungodly hour. A little faster. Because she’d like a drink. She’d like a drink quickly. If I could drive a little faster to wherever it was we were going, she’d be, she said, as the lights changed, ever so grateful.
27
THE RESTAURANT was vaguely Parisian; at least, it was possible to identify the huge poster on the wall as the Eiffel Tower, silhouetted against a sinking sun, and there were cheerful, easily translatable mottoes on the beamed ceilings. When the waitress came, her leg showed through a slit skirt. She seemed a bit too motherly to wear a skirt like that.
“I’d like another martini.”
“Shouldn’t we eat first? I’ve ordered duck à l’orange.”
“Did you? I’d like another martini.”
I ordered it.
“And for the gentleman?”
“Give the gentleman another martini, too. We’re celebrating.”
“An anniversary?”
“Sure. An anniversary. Our wife is coming. That’s the anniversary.”
The waitress, slit skirt and revelatory thigh, went away, and we were alone, checkered tablecloth, the crumbled breadsticks, the inescapable candles in the inescapable bottles festooned with wax drippings. In the rear, near the bar, a man in an unpressed tuxedo was playing a concertina.
Across the diminutive table, she cocked her head and laughed; she was being wonderfully airy. She was free again. I had no idea what a delicious feeling it was, to be free, to be absolutely unconcerned about whether one loved or didn’t love. It was such a bore, loving. Being so concerned, so dreadfully afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. She was so glad to be rid of it, all the concern. Hadn’t I noticed how uncomfortable she’d been these last few weeks? Surely I’d noticed. I was so observant; surely I’d noticed how unnatural it was for her to be good? She had been, hadn’t she? All those weeks. Disgustingly good. So solicitous of me. Of my opinion of her. She’d wanted so to have a decent relationship with a man. She’d bitched up so many relationships in the past.
Well: she’d been a fool. Where was that woman with the martinis? You’d think nothing could be made quicker than a martini. A martini was just absolutely simple. Would I cast my observant eye about and see if I could locate the waitress? And did I mind please not looking like that: it was none of my business how many martinis she ordered, or how many she drank; she wasn’t any more a concern of mine. My concern was flying in eight o’clock Monday morning. All she asked of me was that I please see the waitress hurried a bit with that complicated martini, and if I didn’t want to, or the task was too difficult, she’d find someone else, she was sure, to order it for her.
I had no doubt she could.
Damn right she could. And now there was just one more favor she had to ask, one more favor I could grant. Would I, before this long, this lovely, this eventful evening was finally over, take that goddamn disapproving look off my face? Because she was sick of it: my approval or my disapproval. Why didn’t I go back to New York where I belonged? I didn’t like the town; why didn’t I go back to New York? New York, New York; she’d never had any luck with anybody from New York.
I was going back; she needn’t worry about that.
Soon?
Soon enough.
Please, sooner than that.
Because my god: did I have any idea what life with me was like? She pitied my wife. Really. The tender kiss in the car; the modest going to bed. How abysmal it had been. Was I like that with my wife? God, she pitied her: really.
The waitress came, and the slow martinis. I could hear the concertina; I could see the people at the bar; I had read, several times, the cheerful little mottoes on the beams, crumbled between my fingers several of the dry breadsticks. The bits lay on the checkered tablecloth.
“I suppose you thought I was in love with you,” she said. “Helplessly. Well, you thought wrong, darling. It’s another of my surprises. I’m never helpless. I can get up and walk any time I want to.”
Not steadily, I said.
Steadily. Did I want to see her?
No, I said. I believed her. She could get up and walk and undoubtedly do it as straight as an arrow. The duck had come, in its rich sauce, and I tried, since I was hungry, and thought perhaps the automatic gestures of eating and chewing on the meat might possibly divert her, I tried to persuade her to try the duck.
She looked at the duck, in its sauce; and then, deliberately, put her cigarette into the meat.
She wanted another martini.
Of course, I knew she hated me, didn’t I? My veritable guts. Intellectuals, God save her from them. She’d prefer a truck driver any time. At least they made her feel something.
Where?
Here! she said, striking her thigh.
I thought it an overrated target.
Did I? That was because I was squeamish. I was so squeamish about so many things. My skin always crawled a bit, didn’t it? There was a grocery boy came to the house once. In Venice, when she was living near the pier. Had she told me the story? I was always asking her about her life. Why didn’t I ask her about the grocery boy? He’d delivered his groceries. Oh yes, he’d certainly delivered his groceries. They were charming, the grocery boy’s groceries. Was I surprised? I needn’t be. Why shouldn’t she, after all, on some afternoon, when she was bored, and she could hear the sea, and there was a thick mist over the pier, choose a grocery boy? He’d looked at her with such adoration. He thought nobody existed like her. He was quite overwhelmed, coming into the half-darkened room, and she was lying there, with the victrola playing, smoking a cigarette. It had helped the afternoon pass, and there were so many afternoons, and they all passed with difficulty, and he’d never forget her, the grocery boy.
I had no doubt about that. I saw his face: flushed with adoration; or was it eczema?
She’d done so many things. I’d no idea the sort of things she’d done.
Hadn’t I?
It was an interesting story, wasn’t it, the grocery boy?
Fascinating. Who else had she felt, at intermittent moments, so generous an impulse toward? A bartender, perhaps? I could see she might have a certain affinity for bartenders.
Perhaps.
Night shift or day shift?
Day shift.
Of course. They looked lonesomer by day. And having it available, he’d brought some of his merchandise with him. To help the afternoon pass.
Not at all. Who was I to object? Besides, it seemed a marvelous way to get a drink on the house. I’d never thought of it: stupidly, I’d have paid. But then: I always did, didn’t I? An unshatterable habit.
Did I?
Yes: unfortunately. But we had a grocery boy now, so there was meat in the icebox; a bartender, so that took care of the liquor problem; and, of course, the truck driver she’d prefer: for the free ride? Who else? A rug salesman? We could use a decent rug.
I’ve never taken money from anybody, she said.
Really? I was astonished. My God, she didn’t think that would ruin her amateur standing, did she?
My amateur standing, she said. I suppose you don’t do what you do for money?
True.
And every day, she said. A whore gets a day off now and then. But you go in there every day. You’re the one to talk about whoring.
True again, I said. We’re two of a kind. All that beats us is a small straight.
I sat there. She was, of course, lying. I was sure she was lying. The evening was only something that had to be endured because, several weeks ago, I’d made a nocturnal blunder. The stout gentleman, with the soiled tuxedo, was still playing the concertina. It made for a grotesque obbligato. I had only to be patient: the evening would end. She saw me brooding over what remained of her dinner. She glanced down, that unnatural brightness in her eyes. The poor duck. She was immensely solicitous. What had it cost? Three and a half dollars? She’d pay me back. I said, wearily: “Don’t bother. I’m being paid back now, aren’t I?”
A bit. Yes: perhaps I was being paid back a bit. But I’d been curious, hadn’t I? Since the night we’d first gone to dinner and then to the Club Sierra. I ought to take advantage of this occasion. She was very articulate when she was drunk; hadn’t I noticed? Martinis improved her vocabulary. She could talk, then. She was talking now. I ought to listen: I wouldn’t again have the opportunity. Like the girl once, in San Francisco; it was awful what had happened at a certain hotel. She’d never told it to anybody. She didn’t even think of it except on occasions like this. She’d been in a show, then, and she wore a magnificent headdress. She could still remember the headdress: all the marvelous feathers. Wasn’t I interested in knowing what had happened in San Francisco? Not very. But I was always curious about her. She was somebody I’d saved. Somebody who had done something I didn’t think I was capable of, and I’d been curious. She’d known I’d be curious. She leaned across the table toward me, over the duck à l’orange with her cigarette protruding from it, and somewhere in the rear of the café the dingy gentleman playing his concertina, and asked me again: Aren’t you curious? Because she’d tell me the truth now if I’d ask and satisfy that curiosity of mine. Ask her about the grocery boy. Ask her about the girl in San Francisco. Ask her any question I wished. Because tonight she’d answer. She hadn’t even told Dr. Ritter. Dr. Ritter. We were a nice pair of professionals, the doctor and I. He sat in that chair of his and he listened to her, too. The pair of us: listening. She was just the one with the life. To the doctor she was only somebody who was sick. And to me? What was she to me? A little interesting information combined with a little interesting roll in the hay.
Perfect, wasn’t it? I was a son of a bitch: I knew that, didn’t I, sitting there, listening, with that look on my face, and not even now believing her. Thinking it was only something she was making up, the grocery boy, that girl in San Francisco in the hotel room, all the other things she’d done, not really believing her at all, thinking smugly, because I was smug, God I was smug, that she wasn’t capable of things like that. A lot I knew what she was capable of. It was just too horrible. It was just too sordid. How did I think she’d lived?
No better than anyone else. No worse.
Yes: that was one of my prize beliefs, wasn’t it? Neither better nor worse. The big sameness. Everybody in the ditch together. Well: she’d tell me something. It was worse. It was much worse. It was a sick ugly terrible life, her life, and she knew it, and she didn’t want me or any damn doctor forgiving her for it.
That wasn’t her doctor’s business, nor mine: forgiving her sins.
Sins? My God, sins. Is that what I thought they were? She had to laugh. Sins! She went to a priest once. It was funny: walking down the street, and the church there, a Catholic church, and the desire, suddenly, to go in and talk to the priest who was in there. They had confession: they’d understand. And somebody, she thought somebody like a priest would understand if anybody would. Perhaps it wasn’t my business, but it was a priest’s. She remembered every word. He was thin, the priest, and his hands looked cold. She hadn’t liked him. When she argued, he said: my dear child, if God intended us to be monkeys, we would have remained monkeys. God doesn’t need evolution. What He creates, He creates once and for all eternity. She remembered every word. That priest, in the chair, and his hands moving in his lap. It was difficult to become a Catholic: they made it difficult, or the priest seemed to be making it difficult. And then she told him a little of her life: as she was telling me, as she told Dr. Ritter. Fragments of it, not much, a little. She could see by his glance that he didn’t like at all even the little she told him. It sounded depraved to him. A priest: he wasn’t anything really but a stupid man. She wouldn’t have cared about the evolution or the monkeys, if only he hadn’t looked so shocked. You’d think he’d heard things like that: that was his business, sins. So they mustn’t have been, must they, the things she told him, sins at all? They were worse than sins. That’s why she thought it so funny I should use the word.
What had she told him?
The priest?
Yes.
She’d thought I wasn’t interested. How nice to see I was. She could hardly remember; it was so long ago. No: it hadn’t been the grocery boy; nor that evening when, in a bar, she’d picked up a sailor and his fiancée. That had been a lovely ball, the sailor and his fiancée, but she was sure it wasn’t that particular night she’d mentioned to that thin disagreeable man in the church. Oh yes: the little boy. It was the little boy she’d mentioned. He was eight years old.
I thought it a tender age.
But not too young to get started.
And she’d started him?
“Somebody had to, darling,” she said. “Somebody started me, didn’t they? The road to perdition.” She’d paved it pretty well. “Haven’t I? I’ve tried hard to see it wasn’t dull, like yours.”
Mine?
With nothing in it (that life of mine which I sat contemplating now as though it lay, trussed and basted and with a blackened end of a cigarette in it, on her plate) but a few idiotic adulteries. Is that what I was proud of: a few foolish girls (in whose unfortunate company I was to include her) who’d said yes because, at the moment they’d said it, there hardly seemed reason enough to anything to say no? A few girls taken in by my brown eyes; a few girls deceived by my hypocritical kindness; a few girls silly enough to be sweet-talked into the universal crib.
At least they had been older than eight.
Ah! she said, triumphantly: the little boy hurts, doesn’t it? I said, stonily, it might be a good idea if, instead of a psychiatrist, she stopped off one afternoon at a delousing station.
Did I (with her eyes widely open) really think so?
Yes: I thought so. A delousing station might, after all, be ever so much more helpful than some poor doctor trying, in a scheduled hour, to disentangle that soul of hers.
How nice to say she had one.
She had one. Oh stained a little and dirtied a little and cheap a little. But she had one.
White and fluttery?
White and fluttery and from the hand of God.
She was delighted. A soul: an actual soul. No one, in years, had used the word. Were souls coming back, like mahjong? But it was such a waste, wasn’t it, to have bothered giving her one. So superfluous. It was one of the least necessary things. A soul, how silly. Of what possible use could it be,
except to get in the way and trip her, at critical moments, like a nightgown that was a bit too long?
She was smiling, with her head somewhat to one side, tracing the rim of the martini glass with her finger.
That was the trouble: they kept giving you things you didn’t need. They never gave you quite what you really needed. Enough guts, for example.
Didn’t she have her share?
Sadly, no. No she didn’t. She didn’t have nearly enough. She could use more and more. She could use scads of it for what she wanted to do. She’d trade it in: one soul, slightly damaged, for its equivalent in guts. Did I know a buyer? Someone interested in second-hand souls? Someone who’d care to exchange? Really: she was serious. She was perfectly serious. She’d love to get rid of the damn thing; it was such a nuisance having one, and being expected to take care of it, when really there wasn’t time, and there were so many other more important things which needed her constant attention.
Was I still brooding about the little boy?
Silly.
It had been so quiet in the house, and she’d been reading a book, and he kept wanting to lie down on the sofa next to her.
It was funny, really.
Quite funny.
Because after a while she’d been curious. He snuggled up. A little boy like that. So she’d let him kiss her.
I’d no idea how charming it was, in a way, and how funny.
Pure instinct.
Pure reflex action.
He’d tried so hard, the little boy. There was something very tender about it, and quite touching, the little intensity of it, the fierce little maleness of it, and all quite involuntary, for he couldn’t have known, could he, what he was so desperately trying to do, and couldn’t do there on the sofa? Innocence: she had to laugh. Innocence was only the truth left out. And I’d no idea what a pleasure it was, at last, to tell the truth.
The truth—with all its dirty edges; the truth—with its slightly sickening quality.
Because she’d been lying to Dr. Ritter. Had I known that? But, of course. It was all an elaborate game. Oh, she’d told him a bit here, a bit there; nothing really consequential; it was all a pretense really her going to the doctor. He’d be shocked, too: as I was. I was, wasn’t I? I really couldn’t keep it out of my eyes. I was really simple and naïve, after all. I was as moral as the rest of them: policemen and priests and mothers and friends of the family. I wanted the truth nice, and my little world clean, with only a few stained adulteries (of the commoner kind) and a few unorthodox rolls in the hay (of the usual sort) to discolor it. I should be grateful to her for this quick and gratuitous education; I might, by being attentive, learn something about women. Or if not: a story. She knew my appetite for stories. Had she told me about the welder? That was during the war, and she was doing her patriotic bit, too, in a shipyard; I should have seen her, goggles and overalls, and her hair in a bandana. He’d taken her home to meet his wife; and brought a present: perfume. She’d thought that was awfully considerate, buying his wife a gift like that. He’d introduced her as a friend he’d given a ride home from the yard, and then he gave his wife the perfume and she started to cry. She, the wife, had known exactly what was going on, because then she’d taken her into the bedroom (I was to imagine a frame house, set back, with a scraggly lawn and the washing hung out to dry and visible through the bedroom window) and there in a drawer in the maple dresser there were at least a dozen bottles of perfume. He’d buy her a bottle every time he’d been unfaithful; and she was quite nice, the wife, and not hostile at all, and they’d become good friends. Wasn’t that an interesting story? Someday, somewhere, I could use it: she gave me her permission. See how concerned she was about my career? Because she wanted me to be famous. From coast to coast, from ship to shore, from A to Z. My photograph in all the papers: back from Europe, in my pajamas, having breakfast in bed, and my opinions on the theatre; and beside me, of course, wife and child, the perfect family.