by Alfred Hayes
I said: “I suppose I’ll hear from them in the morning. Do you think someone will contact me, or will there be a regulation form in the mail I’m to fill out?”
“What are you talking about?”
It really was an ordinary street, marvelously ordinary, in what out here comprised the ordinary; not a dying maple, but a dying palm, and the roses wild on unsuspected street corners. She was unconscious, bleeding, if she was unconscious; if what she had done to herself was only unconsciousness. It was possible, I thought, that all this had been calculated in advance, from the very moment I first went into the ocean, and dragged her out, kneeling there on the dark sand pumping out the sea water. A statistical machine of some kind would have given them the inevitable result: maybe not the glass exactly in which my toothbrush was kept, and maybe not the precise bathroom it would happen in: but they must have known.
“Known what?” Charlie said.
Because there was the prize, glittering out there at the end of the branch. It hung there, ripe and visible, not looking at all dangerous, not looking at all like a fruit that might contain so fatal a pit; and hanging there where it could be seen, where she could always see it, why was it to be expected that she would consider it forbidden? That she would accept the fact that only the duller vegetables were for her? That the apple, golden or just gold-plated, was denied? For in the end, that was where the injustice of it lay: that it was visible, that it was there, on that branch, that it was reachable, that it was close or seemingly close.
“For Christ sakes, what apple? What’s there?”
It must have always been there for her. Because it existed, it had to exist for her, too; and you couldn’t expect her to accept some edict, whose authority she didn’t recognize to begin with, that it was a thing that might be dangerous for her. If they expected her to resist, or any of the girls like her, then it would have been wiser in the first place to have concealed all of it: wall around the big estates, and abolish from the newspapers those brides in the expensive veils, and keep the cameramen away from the yacht races.
“Yes, a statistical machine could have calculated all that, and it wouldn’t be too difficult. All they would need is the right kind of machine, and they must have one, don’t they, Charlie? The thing you can count on them having is the necessary machine. But it can’t end like this, can it, Charlie?”
“End like what?”
“With our sitting here in the car, on this street, with her inside there, dying or not dying. They wouldn’t have it end like this. Because there must be another scene, after the doctor comes. There’s always something, tears or repentance, absolution or a long walk in the park, after the doctor comes.”
He sat there, small, white-faced, and said: “I’m getting you out of here and we’re going over to Romanoff’s, and we’re going to walk in as though nothing’s happened and sit down and have something to eat and have people see us.”
“Romanoff’s?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what the instructions say?”
“That’s what the instructions say, or whatever it is you’re talking about.”
I didn’t quite believe him; not Romanoff’s. But then, why not? Romanoff’s, Chasen’s, La Rue’s: to eat, or be eaten somewhere; to see or be seen somewhere. Why not Romanoff’s? With the attendant parking the car. With the huge doors opening. And a steak, rare. Why not Romanoff’s, and a steak, rare? It was the legitimate, the smart, the considered, the self-protective thing. It was, after all, their world and sooner or later I had to live in it on the only possible terms: theirs. It was a delusion that I could make my own. The self-deception had been that any terms but theirs could exist. I did not want to be again that coldwater-flat hero, keeping myself neat and unimpaired in the subway at the five o’clock rush hour. So it was to be Romanoff’s, and a steak, rare. Up the street, there was the glare of headlights. “Is it the doctor?” Charlie said. “That must be the doctor.” For the car parked there at the curb beside the identifying palm. I watched then the driver, the car’s sole occupant, appear: in a dark topcoat, short, bulky, and the street lamp caught him in a momentary pause. He was checking the house number. I saw a thick-shouldered man with, as she’d explained, an undistinguished face in a profession that asked for a somewhat distinguished face, and he hadn’t that. He would find her under the etching of the two girls, and it might or it might not be in the newspapers in the morning. He went slowly toward the dark house. He went patiently toward it, undistinguished face and all, as I should have gone, as something in me in a dying effort still wanted to go.
“All right now?” Charlie said. “You satisfied now? Now can we go?”
31
I STOOD on the top step, briefly suspended, looking down into the well-lighted, the warm, the communal room. Eyes, reasonably famous, turned toward me; I was smiled at by reasonably famous teeth.
Beside me, Charlie waved at X and signaled Y and nodded to Q and blew a kiss at V.
The horses were running at Hollywood Park; the bets were down on the fights at the Stadium; the reservations were in for next weekend at Las Vegas.
It was dark outside, where I’d come from: the eyes that turned toward me turned to see who it was had come in out of the dark. She lay there, under the etching of the naked girl, and I saw Dr. Ritter bend over her. Monday morning Charlotte would be here and I’d be at the airport. It would be foggy that early: I’d stand watching as the great plane taxied in.
I looked down again at those who also went to the airport in the early morning and who, when they were in difficulty, always had Charlie to call. They did not look like people who were guilty of anything. Careful, wary, my own teeth visible, my own eyes alert, I went down the three carpeted stairs with Charlie and I joined them.