Weep for Me

by John D. MacDonald

  “Where did you go in the night?”

  “Let go of my arm. Maybe I went walking.”

  “And maybe you didn’t.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  I stood up and pulled hard, pulled her out of the bed so that she sprawled naked on the cold tile floor. She crouched and looked up at me, her eyes uneasy.

  “Why are you getting so upset, Kyle?”

  “Tell me what you were doing!”

  “I walked in the garden. I asked if I could and Manuel said it was all right.”

  “Now it’s Manuel. Don’t try to kid me.”

  She stood up slowly. “All right, Kyle. I won’t try to kid you. Look at yourself in the mirror. You look like a ghost with a beard. You look like one of those people they rescued from prison camps. What good are you to me? Have you touched me for six days? You just drink and stare at me, drink and stare at me. When you sleep you sweat out the alcohol. Where do you think I went?”

  I stared at her. “How was he?”

  “He’s a man, Kyle. All the way.”

  I struck her. It was a feeble blow. She hit back and her small fist bounced off my cheek with astonishing force. I fell back against the bed, struggling for balance. “You’re as weak as a cat,” she said contemptuously.

  She went into the bathroom. I opened a fresh bottle of tequila, took it over to the bed, sat down, and began to drink from the bottle.

  When I awakened again it was dusk and her clothes were gone. All of them. The money was still there. I stared at myself in the small mirror. She had hit me under the left eye. The flesh around the eye was swollen and discolored. With my uncombed hair, which had grown long, with the long stubble of beard, with the sunken cheeks and dimmed eyes, I looked like a bum, a derelict.

  There were a thousand mirrors, stretching back through years into the past. A first mirror. A woman holding me up, and I was pink, squirming. “See the baby? See the pretty baby?” And the mirrors of all the school mornings, hair lying flat with the comb tracks. And the mirror that showed the fuzz, while the unaccustomed hand held the safety razor awkwardly, while the tongue, in concentration, stuck out of the corner of the mouth. And the steel mirror of the barracks. And the gilt mirror in the London hotel, reflecting the girl with the pink and gold body and bad teeth.

  And now the mirror of bankruptcy. Physical, emotional, moral. And spiritual. Nothing left of me. Nothing but a heart thudding tiredly in a cage of ribs. I went back to the bed and lay across it. Nothing left, not even tears for a life gone beyond retrieving.

  I hit absolute bottom, and by all the rules, I should have stayed there. But the human soul has an odd resilience. Like a sleepwalker I went into the bathroom and scrubbed myself clean, shaved the long stubble, combed the tangled hair, dressed in the only clean clothes I could find. The belt was too loose, even at the last notch. I ordered food, but the shrunken stomach could not take much. I had the bottles removed.

  The routine of Emily’s exercises was stamped deeply on memory. I tried them and found I was too weak to complete more than two or three of each one. It exhausted me so that when I tumbled into bed, I fell into a dreamless sleep. I knew that I was preparing myself for something, and yet I did not know what it would be.

  When I awakened in the morning, the hunger for alcohol was intense. I could taste the bite of it in my throat, anticipate the spreading warmth in my belly. I seemed to hear the gurgle of fluid being poured into a glass, the tiny ring of ice against glass. I ordered food and forced myself to eat until I felt bloated and uncomfortable. And again, the exercises. I found I could do a few more than during the previous evening, but they made the sweat pour off me despite the coolness of the room. I bathed and shaved, mumbling constantly to myself, rested, and then did more exercises before lunch. My hunger for food was genuine. Again I ate past the point of hunger, forcing myself to swallow. After I had napped, then exercised again, I drifted quickly into a mood of black depression. The enforced routine suddenly seemed purposeless. What good could I do once I had overcome physical weakness?

  I ordered tequila from the guard. It came. The slim bottle was filled with the violent colorless liquid. I pried out the cork and smelled its distinctive odor, faintly reminiscent of tobacco. In the bottle was forgetfulness. Justification. Rationalization. All at once I understood the mysterious psychology of the alcoholic. It is a knowledge of your own inadequacy, your own defeat, that translates itself into a physical hunger, merely because the physical hunger, once sated, will dim self-knowledge.

  Back in the bank I had felt inadequate. A little cog in a big shiny marble machine. And Emily had become the instrument of forgetfulness. With her I could feel adequate, masterful, superior. I had lost her, and now the bottle became Emily. A new way to mastery. I sat there knowing that once the level of the bottle had dropped to a specific point, I would feel calm, confident, masterful.

  Far, far back and far away was a tiny stage in the Thrace Public High School. It was my turn, in cap and gown, to walk across the stage alone, accept the diploma from the Superintendent of Schools, shake hands briefly, take a quick glance out into the maze of faces to see if I could spot Dad or Jo Anne, and join the others of the class who had been across the stage and stood holding the blue fabricoid folders containing the parchment.

  And there was the yearbook picture. Jo Anne had hated it. Cowlick and ears sticking out. Kyle Cameron. Class prediction: “Modest Kyle of quiet wit will one day behind a big desk sit. Jo Anne Lane will be his wife and they’ll lead a happy, peaceful life.” And then followed the class offices I had held, the letters I had won. The prediction had been a little sour. It was good thing the class prophet hadn’t had a crystal ball that really worked. How would it look in a yearbook? Kyle Cameron—thief, murderer, alcoholic, fugitive.

  I carried the bottle into the bathroom. The tequila bubbled down the drain, sending up its sharp odor to fill the room. The moment it was all gone, I was sorry I had done it. It had been possible only during those few moments when the memory of that graduation had been fresh in my mind.

  Three more days passed before anyone came to see me. Each day the struggle to keep from asking the guard for a bottle was no less exhausting, no easier to win.

  At noon of the fourth day, while I was eating, Manuel Antonio Flores came to see me. He walked in with his impressive air of quiet dignity. I thought he looked a bit surprised at my condition.

  “May I sit down, Mr. Cameron?” he asked.

  “It appears to be your house.”

  He looked at me sadly as he sat down, crossed his short muscular legs. He wore a cream-colored linen suit. “I see you have a resentment of me, Mr. Cameron.”

  “I’ve thought that over, Flores. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. An animal in heat is not particularly selective.”

  His body tightened and his eyes narrowed. It took him several moments to regain control. He said, “Your position here is not so safe as to permit you to speak in that way.” He smiled. “You see my problem. Should you leave this place, still resenting me, it would be rather easy for you to let certain authorities know who assisted you.”

  I continued to eat. I said casually, “So you have a problem. What do you want me to do? Promise I won’t tell?”

  “Mr. Cameron, I pride myself on having a certain amount of honor and integrity. It would be remarkably easy for me to have you killed, quite quickly and painlessly. And disposition of the body poses no problem. However, I am not a brigand or a blackguard. Señorita Rudolph and I have come to an agreement. I find that it will be possible for me to keep her safely here in Mexico. She is willing to stay. She was not prepared to be generous in any respect, but I have convinced her that it would be wise to permit you to take at least fifty thousand with you when you leave the country. With fifty thousand dollars American, you can live quietly and decently in Argentina for many years. Possibly twenty. And I do not imagine you are a man to remain idle. Possibly, as an Argentine citizen, you will fin
d some way of augmenting your funds.”

  “You’ll do this out of the kindness of your heart?”

  “Merely because I gave my word, Mr. Cameron.”

  I finished the last scrap of food and set the plate aside, lit a cigarette. I smiled at him. “Maybe I could give you a little advice. How long do you think she’ll stay with you? How long do you think it will be before she moves on the next man?”

  He gave me an amused look. “She will stay with me and she will do exactly as I direct her until I decide that she has begun to bore me. I am often amused by you North Americans. It is a strange culture you have. Your Philip Wylie, I believe, calls it ‘momism.’ There are many ways to handle women. They vary with the character of the woman concerned, of course. But the essential point, which you people seem not to understand, is that each method should result in a subjugation of the woman. It is the way, by instinct, that they want. I assure you that you will find Miss Rudolph’s attitude considerably changed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She is not an unusual type, Cameron. Quite heartless, selfish, ambitious. That sort make excellent prostitutes. As they are quite close to an animal level, they must be treated as animals. The immediate fruit of error is physical pain, in a quantity commensurate with the error. After a time the effect on the spirit is a bit unfortunate, but I believe that we are agreed that it isn’t her spirit that is the basic intriguing factor.”

  I stared at him. “She follows orders or you hurt her?”

  He chuckled warmly. “My boy, I can see the shock and horror in your eyes. I assure you, it is a form of sentimentality that is of no use whatsoever in handling that sort of creature. Her basic urge is to dominate the male. Treat her in a sentimental way and she will walk on you and laugh. I suspect you have noticed that in your own relationship with her.”

  “But it seems so …”

  “The only applicable adjective is effective, Cameron. Or efficient. On a physiological basis, even a meager knowledge of female anatomy provides the necessary information regarding ways and means. The effects are educational, and lasting. But to you North Americans the person of a female is precious merely because it is female. Where there is police brutality in your country, it is only males who are victims. I find the attitude a bit inconsistent. Forgive me.”

  I looked at his noble cast of features, and the strong line of brow and jaw. He acted as though he had been discussing the best way of training a Doberman to guard a private home.

  “I can’t believe that she would put up with that sort of thing for a minute.”

  He shrugged. “For a little time yet I shall have to watch her closely to see that she does not try to run away. After that, there will be no danger. She will have become emotionally dependent on that sort of authority. She will crave it, and in fact will commit little errors from time to time just to reassure herself that punishment will be quick, and relatively merciless. That is the second stage. Eventually her devotion will become slavish, abject, and a bit embarrassing. And then I will have to find some other place for her, some new master to serve and worship.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  He shrugged again stood up. “I came to tell you to make ready to leave. At dusk we will go to the airport for the short trip to Acapulco. She will be with us, so you will have a chance to observe. And possibly learn.”

  He closed the door gently behind him. A few minutes later one of the brown barefoot girls came silently in and took away the dishes. She kept her eyes downcast. I wondered if she, too, had learned the harsh rules of justice in the household. She looked it. She looked as if, at a word of command, she would drop to her knees. I packed. I checked the contents of the brown suitcase. Most of the money was gone. I counted what was left. Exactly fifty thousand. Flores’ household was very efficient. A man of great honor. There was no need to use the brown suitcase any more. I transferred the money to my other bag. There was room for it along with the clothes and toilet articles.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dusk had become night before a servant came for my suitcase and told me, in halting English, to please follow him. A black Rolls was standing just outside the first arch, pointed toward the gate. The parking lights were on, and the motor sound was barely audible.

  The driver held the front door open for me, shut it after I got in. He waited outside the car, standing almost at attention. It was a ten-minute wait. At last I heard Flores’ heavy baritone in the distance, the scuff of shoe leather on the tiles of the court beyond the arch.

  The driver held the rear door open. I turned and saw Emily helped into the rear seat by Flores. She wore black and she was veiled. Her face was a pale gleam through the close black mesh of the veil.

  “Hello, Emily,” I said. She did not answer me.

  Manuel Flores got in and the heavy door was closed behind him by the chauffeur. Flores adjusted his heavytorsoed bulk in the seat and said, “Say hello to Mr. Cameron, my dear.”

  “Hello, Kyle,” she said in a faint voice. There was a weak, sick tremor in her voice.

  The main gates were swung wide and the high, heavy car moved effortlessly, almost soundlessly out into the dim night streets of that portion of the city.

  It was a twenty-minute drive to the airport. Car and driver seemed to be one functioning organism. At the airport gates Flores pulled himself forward by the strap and spoke in a low tone to the guard who approached the car. I heard the rustle as a bill was passed from his hand to the guard’s. We pulled in onto a runway and sped down to the far end, where a small twin-engine aircraft was waiting, props turning. I recognized it as a type the Army had called a C-45 during the war. The props stopped turning. The sedan was driven close to the plane. An attendant snapped a cigarette off into the darkness and pushed low steps into place.

  Emily was gently urged aboard first by Manuel Flores. Then he bowed me aboard. The floor of the plane was carpeted and there were five comfortable wicker chairs arranged casually to give it somewhat the look of a small lounge. Flores and Emily sat in the two chairs farthest forward. I sat six feet away from the two of them.

  The luggage was handed in, tied in place by an attendant. The pilot bowed to Flores, marched rigidly forward to the unenclosed pilot’s compartment. The door was slammed and latched and the motors caught at once.

  I heard the pilot speaking in Spanish to the control tower. He revved up the motors until the aircraft trembled and the sound was deafening. Then the brakes were released and we moved down the runway with increasing speed. The runway lights flicked by, one at a time, and then became a continuous stream of light. After what seemed a long time, the plane lifted. Mexico City, a wide pattern of lights, tilted like a platter and moved slowly away. We climbed interminably through the rarefied air of the plateau and then leveled off. The sound of strain from the motors ceased.

  Flores leaned close to Emily and spoke to her. It was an exceptionally noisy airplane. She obediently took off the small dark hat and the veil, placed them on a nearby empty chair. Her face shocked me. It had not changed in porportion. The features were the same. And yet something had gone out of it. Some glow of life behind it. The firm skin seemed to have died. She raised her eyes to mine and lowered them quickly. No more mockery. No more darkness, moving and shifting behind her eyes. Now they were just dark eyes, a bit dulled, a bit hopeless. Her hair had lost some of its black sheen, and thus looked more coarse, somewhat lifeless.

  She sat with her head lowered, her hands folded in her lap, her feet placed close together. Something of what I felt must have been visible to Flores. He gave me a calm, dignified smile and a short nod, as though to say, See what I have wrought.

  He edged his chair close to mine, bent toward me and said, “If you will look off to the east you can see the snow-capped peaks of Ixtaccihuatl and Popocatepetl. They are very lovely by moonlight. Soon we will pass over Cuernavaca, then Taxco. I always try to make this trip by night.”

  I looked numbly out the left windows as he
had directed. I could see the volcanoes. They were, as he had said, very lovely. He moved back and spoke to Emily. He must have told her the same thing. She turned obediently and looked out the windows, then looked back at the carpeted floor again. I saw what had made her look so odd as she had stepped up into the plane. Her dress, of some material with a dull sheen, fitted too loosely. Her other clothes had fitted tightly around her slim waist, had always been snug enough to trace the line of flank and hip. This dress was like a sack.

  And on her left wrist there were three barbaric bracelets of heavy silver. They made her arm look very fragile.

  When Flores thrust a pack of cigarettes toward her, she flinched visibly. She looked at him as though asking permission, then took one cautiously. He held a light for her.

  He moved back toward me again and said, “It is a short trip. Only one hundred and fifty air miles, about two hours from take-off to landing in this ship. A little less. So we should arrive at ten, or a little after.”

  “What day is it?”

  “The fourth of September. I am afraid Acapulco will be uncomfortably warm. It is the off season there, of course. I am sorry that you will not see it in December and January. Then it is very gay. Now the clubs are closed and the hotels are nearly empty. Many of your Hollywood people come during the season. It is a good place to play.”

  At last we flew over the last crest, and dropped down toward the tiny lines of lights marking the Acapulco strip. As we turned into the landing pattern, I could see the moon path against the Pacific. Acapulco was southeast of the airport, and from the air it looked like a collection of children’s blocks spread along the curve of the harbor with its protecting headlands.

  A car was waiting. This one was a black Lincoln Continental, as polished and gleaming as the day it had left the factory. Again I was placed in front with the chauffeur. Flores stood outside the car speaking to the pilot for a few moments and then got in. The thick heat was like that of Tomazunchale, but the night had a different flavor. A flavor of tropic sea. The smell of rotting vegetation.