“So?” Noel asked. But she sounded skeptical.
Jane pushed back her chair. “I’ve got to dash now. I promised my mother I’d meet her and do some shopping. Maybe we’ll room together this summer. I hope so. Anyhow, I’ll be seeing you at the end of June.”
“Right,” Noel said. “Good luck until then.”
“And good luck to you, too.”
They shook hands. Noel watched Jane walk swiftly out of the Automat, erect, graceful, assured, and somehow more alive than anyone else in the restaurant. Noel realized that Jane was probably well in advance of her as an actress, and then she thought happily, But I’ll learn!
Now there was no need anymore for the Empire State Building, the East or the Hudson Rivers; life for her was not coming to an end; it was beginning.
Prelude to the First Night Alone
All the lamps were on, and the shades to all but one had brown burnt spots where that red-headed Nicky Gatti had let the bulb press against the cheap parchment. The top of the inlaid mahogany table that stood in front of the red couch was covered with rings from the cold wet glasses of Cuba Libres that Nicky and his friends drank every night. The maroon velvet winter drapes were nailed up at the windows; Nicky hadn’t even bothered to fix them properly.
So Paul looked at the burnt lamp shades, the ruined table top, stained rug, disarranged bookshelves, nailed-up curtains; and the anger that he had been holding back flared up inside him; a flame shot up in his stomach; fire filled his whole body; his cheeks burned crimson. He walked over to the window and jerked at one of the red velvet curtains, coughing as it came down in a cloud of dust.
Sitting curled up in the blue wing chair, trying not to show that she was uncomfortable, Estelle laughed. “I’ll have to teach you to be neat, Nicky,” she said. Paul stared out of the window, felt Nicky walk over to Estelle, put his arms around her, kiss her, tall and handsome in his uniform, his red hair bright above the khaki; Nicky secure with an easy desk job, Nicky secure in New York, Nicky secure with Estelle.
The afternoon autumn sun hit against the warehouse that faced the window, and some of it came back onto Paul, its reflection mocking his fair hair, his angry face that he would not let them see. With his back to them (Estelle and Nicky leaning close in her blue wing chair), Paul walked over to the sofa and lifted down from the wall the Renoir lady forever holding her green plaid rug about her shoulders, forever looking just a little like Estelle, the enchanting Renoir lady framed in voluptuous gold. Still with his back to them he leaned the picture against the sofa. “You bought her, Estelle. She goes with you.”
“Oh, Paul, she goes with the apartment.” Estelle pushed away from Nicky just for a moment, started to get up and go over to Paul, then leaned back in the chair again, resting her cheek against Nicky’s hand. She had washed her hair the night before and it looked soft and lustrous. Nicky ran his fingers through the curly bangs. In a few days the hair would seem thin and oily, and she would have to wash it again. Tonight it would be up in bobby pins, little round flat curls each pierced with a small crucifix of two bobby pins, lying very flat against her head, making her face startlingly clear and large. She would sit on the bed in the sheer white nightgown with the strawberries embroidered on it and rub oil into the soles of her long feet; but it would not be the bed in the next room, it would be a bed in a hotel eight blocks away, a double bed in a small hotel room, a sordid room because Nicky deliberately loved sordidity no matter how much he talked. God damn Nicky for taking a room with a double bed, Paul thought; the whole business would not be so unbearable somehow if only Nicky had taken a room with twin beds.
“You and Nicky will take the picture, Estelle.” Still not facing them, he went to the bookshelves and started taking out books, putting them in a pile on the floor.
“Oh, Paul, must you, darling?” she asked, and this time she got out of the blue chair, crossed the room, put her arms about Paul, turned his face around so he could see the tears in her large eyes.
He knew about those tears, how well he knew about those tears, but he wanted to put his arms around Estelle and press her close against him, to stroke her hair, kiss her tenderly, draw her into the bedroom and lie down next to her, kissing her softly, left eye, right eye, forehead, left ear, right ear, nose, left cheek, right cheek, chin, left shoulder, right shoulder, lips. When Nicky was gentle it was because he knew Estelle liked it, because he wanted to own her completely; not because gentleness and love and protection came welling up out of him like a fountain let loose at the sight of the too-easy tears brimming in Estelle’s eyes.
Paul stood still while Estelle put her arms around him and showed him her tear-filled eyes. “Don’t cry,” he said, his voice that he wanted controlled suddenly seeming to crumple up. Then, “They’re your books. I can’t be a storage house for you and Nicky.” He went about the apartment, collecting everything that belonged to Estelle and piling it up in the center of the rug. When he had finished he turned to them, Nicky still sitting on the edge of the blue wing chair, his arm around Estelle. “All right,” Paul said, “clear it all out, will you? I want to get settled.”
The bookshelves were gaping with empty spaces, empty spaces like missing teeth. The wallpaper showed dark squares where pictures had come down. Estelle got up and ran her finger over the gold frame of the Renoir lady. “Couldn’t I just leave this for you, Paul?”
“No.”
Nicky had bought a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums. They were in the blue ginger jar on the tail of the piano. Paul wanted to take them out and put them in the pile on the rug, but he left them spilling their golden stain onto the dark mahogany of the piano.
Nicky said, “You can’t think you’re going to get away with this, Paul. We’re not going to let you. You’ll see us every day.”
“No.”
“But why does this happen all of a sudden?” Nicky asked, putting his hand on Paul’s shoulder, pressing five strong fingers into Paul’s shoulder, peering with anxious eyes into Paul’s face that tried to look composed and empty, but that was tight and angry and hurt, Paul’s face that looked like a puppy’s who has been beaten and kicked for something he has not done.
“What’s the matter, Paul?” Nicky asked, and Paul wanted to laugh, to shout, “What’s the matter, you damn fool!”
But Nicky was asking it seriously, his freckles standing out strongly with his intensity. “Nothing,” Paul said, pulling away.
“But you weren’t like this at first. Why now all of a sudden?”
“I’m supposed to meet someone for dinner in half an hour.” Paul looked at his watch with the luminous dial and the second hand that had belonged to Estelle’s father. “Start taking your things downstairs, for heaven’s sake, Nicky.” He didn’t want to call him Nicky. He wanted to call him Gatti, by his last name, to spit at him, “Get the hell out of my home, Gatti. You’ve done your thieving. Now get the hell out.”
But he just said, “Please,” very hard, and picked up the picture of the Renoir lady and handed it to Nicky.
When Nicky had started down the stairs with the Renoir lady (forever hugging her green shawl about her shoulders), Estelle got up from the blue wing chair and put her arms about Paul. “Darling,” she said. “You do understand that I love you dearly and tenderly? I always will. This is just something none of us could help. I wish you wouldn’t behave this way, but if you must I know there isn’t any use trying to force you. But it won’t last. You’ll see. I love you too much to let you go.”
“All right,” Paul said. “You have the icon, so I’ll keep the records. That’s fair, isn’t it? Anyhow you and Nicky haven’t a gramophone.”
“Well, I don’t know.” Estelle looked at the records in the bottom shelf of the bookcase. “Some of the records are really mine.”
“But the icon belonged to both of us.” He had bought most of the records, paid for half the icon.
“Well, we’ll see,” Estelle said. “Because you mustn’t forget I love you, darling, and
I’m not going to let you become a hermit.”
“I haven’t any intention of becoming a hermit.” He turned away from Estelle’s warm body, jerked down the other maroon curtain Nicky had nailed up so casually. The dust from the curtain went up his nose as he folded it, and he thought of an afternoon long ago when he had gone to the museum with his aunt Barbara, who wore a coat made of two different kinds of fur, a huge coat that reached almost to her ankles. She wore heavy garnet earrings and a hat with ostrich feathers and a diamond dog collar about her throat that showed where the coat fell open in front. She looked the way the curtains smelled, and she had taken him to see the mummies. Holding his thin fingers that were never still, that were always picking at something, holding his hot fingers in her cold blue-veined hands, she said, “Your little hands are solid flesh and bone; but when they uncovered Egyptian boys who had been dead for thousands of years the skin and bone of their perfect little hands turned to dust. Because their bodies were there, preserved, for thousands of years, does that mean their souls could find no new home until their bodies were uncovered and turned to dust, until their old houses of bodies were gone forever? What do you think, Pauly? Tell me what you think?”
And Paul had looked up at her, answering solemnly, “I shouldn’t think they would like to have their bodies turned to dust. I wouldn’t.”
That night he woke up in bed and called for Aunt Barbara in terror because he felt dust in the sheets and he was afraid for his body, afraid his soul would lose its comfortable home. But now, he thought, now that I am older I have learned that the soul can have its home in more than one body, and my soul is losing the home it loved so dearly for five years.
“What are you thinking?” Estelle asked sharply.
Paul finished folding the curtains. “I suppose I’ll have to have these things cleaned.” He went out to the hall and put them in the corner.
“Paul,” Estelle called.
He stood still in the hall looking through the doorway into the living room, the two white china dogs next to the blue pickle jar lamp, the warm curves of the piano. Estelle’s hair was the same shade as the mahogany piano but there was an aura of coldness about her even when her eyes filled with tears, even when her full mouth curved into a smile and she held out her arms. The piano stood in the lamplight, lamplight shining through burnt shades, red candles in the silver candlesticks on either side of the music rack, red wax drippings on the base of the candlesticks and on the mahogany of the piano. Paul opened the piano and the anger that surged through him as he saw the grimy piano keys made the tears break the surface. Estelle and his aunt Barbara who took him to see the mummies were the only women who had ever seen him cry and Estelle would never see him cry again. He sat down jerkily at the piano and began to play. “God damn the filthy bastard!” he shouted. “He let it get out of tune!”
The small square gold clock stood on the mantelpiece, its fingers pointing to after six. Too late to phone the piano tuner and God knows when he’d be able to get a tuner anyhow, with everybody in the army. Everybody but Paul. But without a spleen they won’t have you in the army. Without a spleen people are apt to think of you as a freak. Estelle’s face had gone very white when he told her how it happened. She held him close to her and rocked back and forth, spilling her tears onto his cheeks, saying over and over, “Oh, my darling, I can’t bear to have you hurt, I can’t bear to have you hurt. Please God I’ll never hurt you.”
There were the snow-covered hills, the heavy low-hanging grey sky occasionally dropping a feather of snow, the three fir trees at the top of the hill, and the single silver birch halfway down. He had flung himself onto his sled and started down the hill; as he started to gather speed, the rope that controlled the steering broke, and down he went flying wildly. For a moment he thought he should roll off, but then he thought another of the flying sleds would collide with him and he might as well go on to the bottom since he had been the first to start and there was no one ahead of him. The speed with no steering to control it frightened him and he closed his eyes; he closed his eyes forgetting about the single silver birch halfway down the hill, not remembering the silver birch even when he suddenly seemed to have become part of a clap of thunder, to be caught in the center of a fork of lightning, not remembering the birch even when he heard voices around him and pain such as he had never imagined shot through him. He kept his eyes tightly closed. He would not open them until his aunt Barbara was leaning over him in her coat made of two kinds of fur, until his aunt Barbara was leaning over him to make everything all right.
“Oh, Pauly, Pauly, don’t die, please don’t die,” he heard his younger brother wail, and fear that was even stronger than the pain made him open his eyes. His younger brother and the other boys, some older, some younger than he was, were crowded around him. Their faces were all white and frightened, and his younger brother was crying, tears streaming down his cheeks and freezing there, a thin wet dribble freezing under his nose. Then a light grey blanket that slowly became black covered their faces, and a loud voice came in his ears, “The skin and bone of their perfect little hands turned to dust”—and then the voice became lost in thunder.
But the skin and bones of his hands had not turned to dust. His fingers were moving angrily over the piano keys. He did not apologize to Estelle for what he had said about Nicky. He simply repeated more quietly, “God damn him.”
Estelle picked up an armful of books and went out. He wanted to fling his head down against the piano and howl with rage and misery but he thought, even if it weren’t for Estelle and Nicky, once you start doing that sort of thing you’re finished. So he went to the hall closet and took down the two green and lavender blankets that belonged to Estelle. He put them on the rug by the other things, looked for a moment around the mutilated room, and went downstairs. At the first-floor landing he met Estelle.
“I have to go out,” he said. “When you and Nicky finish getting your stuff out you can drop the keys in the mailbox.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but pushed out the red-painted front door.
The September evening was hot after the damp coolness of his north-facing apartment. The sun was still up and it seemed to burn as it fell on the top of his thick, neat blond hair. Lines rushed into his mind:
For though my soul disputes well with my sense,
That this may be some error, but no madness,
Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
That I am ready to distrust mine eyes,
And wrangle with my reason that persuades me
To any other trust but that I am mad.
Aunt Barbara had read Shakespeare to him, and other Elizabethan plays. Estelle had cried because Aunt Barbara was dead and she would never meet her.
This is the air, this is the glorious sun, I am not mad, and yet I do not believe that upstairs my home is being torn apart, Estelle’s Renoir lady down from the wall over the sofa, great gaps in the bookshelves, dark spots on the wall, her closet empty.
But why, why had he sublet the apartment to Nicky for the three months he and Estelle had gone on the road with the small opera company, Estelle understudying the prima donna and singing in the chorus, Paul playing the piano in the orchestra? Why had he let Nicky have the apartment? He had known then what was going on between Nicky and Estelle, but he had written him frequently, even affectionately; he had let him stay in the apartment.
It was because he hadn’t believed it, hadn’t believed anything could change the relationship he and Estelle had had for five years, because only this afternoon when they had returned from Chicago and he had seen Nicky’s personality splattered all over his home, because only this afternoon had he realized that Estelle was going to be with Nicky and not with him from now on.
He had let Nicky stay in the apartment because he was sorry for him, because he pitied Nicky having to stay in New York during the hot summer while Paul and Estelle were on the road. Nicky had always
been his friend. Nicky had warned him that Estelle was a bitch, that she was cold, that she would never really love anyone but Estelle. But you’ve brought that out in her, Nicky, Paul thought, my Estelle, with whom I was so happy, was warm and loving. You’ve pandered to her Narcissus complex, that’s how you won her, the weekend I went out of town on an accompanist’s job.
The minute he let himself into the apartment after he came back from the three-day accompanist’s job, his blue shirt wilted from the heat, his hair moist, beads of sweat across his upper lip, the minute he opened the apartment door and they came to greet him, he knew that something had happened. They put their arms around him so lovingly, they were so solicitous, and there was something new in the way they looked at each other.
“’Stelle and I are taking you out for dinner, Paul,” Nicky had said.
Paul sat down on the blue wing chair, and pulled Estelle down with him. He told them about his trip. They talked about music, the theatre, movies. Finally, his heart beating violently and a hollow feeling in his stomach, Paul pulled Estelle’s head close to his and whispered, “Have you let Nicky touch you?”
And she nodded, then added, “But don’t worry, darling. It’s not going to make any difference to you; it won’t change anything with us. I promise you.”
He had tried to believe her as he always believed Estelle when she looked at him and widened her eyes solemnly and said, “I promise you.” They hadn’t tried to hide anything. They had been completely open about it all. Estelle had insisted on that. After watching the course of Nicky’s other affairs, she said, she had decided it was the best thing to do, the fairest to everyone.
The Moment of Tenderness Page 10