Another Country (48 page)

But the juke box fell silent, at last, and the colored lights stopped whirling, for the band was coming on again. Ida and Ellis returned to the table.

The lights began to dim. Cass stood up.

“Ida,” she said, “I promised to have one drink, and I have, and now I must go. I really must. Richard will kill me if I stay out any longer.”

Her voice unaccountably shook, and she felt herself blushing as she said this. At the same time, she realized that Ida was in an even more dangerous mood now than she had been before her dance.

“Oh, call him up,” Ida said. “Even the most faithful of wives deserves a night out.”

Cass, very nearly, in her fear and despair, sank slowly into her seat again; but Ellis, mopping his brow, and gleaming, was more cheerful than ever. “I don’t think that’s necessarily so,” he said— and wrung from the table the obligatory laugh— “and, anyway, Mrs. Silenski is responsible for a very heavy investment. Her husband is very valuable, we must take good care of his morale.” Ida and Cass watched each other. Ida smiled.

“
Will
Richard’s morale suffer if you do not get home?”

“Unquestionably,” said Cass. “I must go.”

Ida’s face changed, and she looked down. She seemed, abruptly, weary and sad. “I guess you’re right,” she said, “and there’s no point in putting it off.” She looked at Ellis. “Walk her to a cab, sweetie.”

“My pleasure,” said Ellis.

“Good night, all,” said Cass. “I’m sorry I have to run, but I must.” She said, to Ida, “I’ll see you soon—?”

“Shall I expect to see you at the usual place?”

“If it’s still standing,” Cass said, after a moment, “yes.” She turned and made her way through the darkening room, with Ellis padding behind her. They gained the street, she feeling limp and frightened. Ellis put her into a cab. The cab was driven by a young Puerto Rican.

“Good night, Mrs. Silenski,” Ellis said, and gave her his wet, hard hand. “Please give Richard my best, and tell him I’ll be calling him in a couple of days.”

“Yes, I’ll tell him. Thank you. Good night.”

He was gone, and she was alone in the cab, behind the unspeaking shoulders of the Puerto Rican. Idly, she sought out his face in the glass, then looked down, lighting a cigarette. The cab began to move. She did not look out. She sat huddled in the darkness, burning with a curious kind of shame. She was not ashamed— was she?— of anything she had done; but she was ashamed, as it were in anticipation, of what she might, now, helplessly, find herself doing. She had been using Ida and Vivaldo as smoke screens to cover her affair with Eric: why should not Ida use
her,
then, to cover from Vivaldo her assignation with Ellis? She had silenced
them,
in relation to Richard— now she was silenced, in relation to Vivaldo. She smiled, but the smoke she inhaled was bitter. When she had been safe and respectable, so had the world been safe and respectable; now the entire world was bitter with deceit and danger and loss; and which was the greater illusion? She was uncomfortably aware of the driver, his shoulders, his untried face, his color, and his soft, dark eyes. He glanced at her from time to time in the mirror— after all, she had glanced at him first; and her mood, perhaps, had set up a tension between them, a sexual tension. She thought, again, unwillingly, of the ginger-colored boy on the dance floor. And she knew (as though her mind, for a moment, were a clear pool, and she saw straight down into its depths) that, yes, yes, had he touched her, had he insisted, he could have had his way, she would have been glad. She would have been glad to know his body, even though the body might be all that she could know. Eric’s entrance into her, her fall from— grace?— had left her prey to ambiguities whose power she had never glimpsed before. Richard had been her protection, not only against the evil in the world, but also against the wilderness of herself. And now she would never be protected again. She tried to feel jubilant about this. But she did not feel jubilant. She felt frightened and bewildered.

The driver coughed. The cab stopped for a red light, just before entering the park, and the driver lit a cigarette. She, too, lit a fresh cigarette: and the two tiny flames almost seemed to be signaling one another. Just so, she now remembered, as the cab lurched forward, had she wandered, aimlessly and bitterly, through the city, when Richard first began to go away from her. She had wanted to be noticed, she had wanted a man to notice her. And they had: they had noticed that she was a sexual beggar, no longer young. Terrifying, that the loss of intimacy with one person results in the freezing over of the world, and the loss of oneself! And terrifying that the terms of love are so rigorous, its checks and liberties so tightly bound together.

There were many things she could not demand of Eric. Their relationship depended on her restraint. She could not go to him now, for example, at two in the morning: this liberty was not in their contract. The premise of their affair, or the basis of their comedy, was that they were two independent people, who needed each other for a time, who would always be friends, but who, probably, would not always be lovers. Such a premise forbids the intrusion of the future, or too vivid an exhibition of need. Eric, in effect, was marking time, waiting— waiting for something to be resolved. And when it was resolved— by the arrival of Yves, the signing of a contract, or the acceptance, in Eric, of a sorrow neither of them could name— she would be locked out of his bed. He would use everything life had given him, or taken from him, in his work—
that
would be his life. He was too proud to use her, or anyone, as a haven, too proud to accept any resolution of his sorrow not forged by his own hands. And she could not be bitter about this, or even sorrowful, for this was precisely why she loved him. Or, if not why, the
why
of such matters being securely locked away from human perception, it was this quality in him which she most admired, and which she knew he could not live without. Most men could— did: this was why she was so menaced.

Therefore, she too, was marking time, waiting— for the blow to fall, for the bill to come in. Only after she had paid this bill would she really know what her resources were. And she dreaded this moment, dreaded it— her terror of this moment sometimes made her catch her breath. The terror was not merely that she did not know how she would rebuild her life, or that she feared, as she grew older, coming to despise herself: the terror was that her children would despise her. The rebuilding of her own life might have reduced itself, simply, to moving out of Richard’s house—
Richard’s
house! how long had she thought of it as Richard’s house?— and getting a job. But holding the love of her children, and helping them to grow from boys into men— this was a different matter.

The cab driver was singing to himself, in Spanish.

“You have a nice voice,” she heard herself say.

He turned his head, briefly, smiling, and she watched his young profile, the faint gleam of his teeth, and his sparkling eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “We are all singers where I come from.” His accent was heavy, and he lisped slightly.

“In Puerto Rico? there can’t be very much to sing about.”

He laughed. “Oh, but we sing, anyway.” He turned to her again. “There is nothing to sing about here, either, you know— nobody sings here.”

She smiled. “That’s true. I think singing— for pleasure, anyway— may have become one of the great American crimes.”

He did not follow this, except in spirit. “You are all too serious here. Cold and ugly.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two years.” He smiled at her again. “I was lucky, I work hard, I get along.” He paused. “Only, sometimes, it’s lonely. So I sing.” They both laughed. “It makes the time go,” he said.

“Don’t you have any friends?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Friends cost money. And I have no money and no time. I must send money home to my family.”

“Oh, are you married?”

He shrugged again, turning his profile to her again, not smiling. “No, I am not married.” Then he grinned. “That also costs money.”

There was a silence. They turned into her block.

“Yes,” she said, idly, “you’re right about that.” She pointed to the house. “Here we are.” The cab stopped. She fumbled in her handbag. He watched her.

“
You
are married?” he asked at last.

“Yes.” She smiled. “With two children.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Two boys.”

“That is very good,” he said.

She paid him. “Good-bye. I wish you well.”

He smiled. It was a really friendly smile. “I also wish you well. You are very nice. Good night.”

“Good night.”

She opened the door and the light shone full on their faces for a moment. His face was very young and direct and hopeful, and caused her to blush a little. She slammed the cab door behind her, and walked into her house without looking back. She heard the cab drive away.

The light was on in the living room, and Richard, fully dressed except for his shoes, lay on the sofa, asleep. He was usually in bed, or at work, when she came home. She stared at him for a moment. There was a half-glass of vodka on the table next to him, and a dead cigarette in the ashtray. He slept very silently and his face looked tormented and very young.

She started to wake him, but left him there, and tiptoed into the room where Paul and Michael slept. Paul lay on his belly, the sheet tangled at his feet, and his arms thrown up. With a shock, she saw how heavy he was, and how tall: he was already at the outer edge of his boyhood. It had happened so fast, it seemed almost to have happened in a dream. She looked at the sleeping head and wondered what thoughts it contained, what judgments, watched one twitching leg and wondered what his dreams were now. Gently, she pulled the sheet up to his shoulders. She looked at the secretive Michael, curled on his side like a worm or an embryo, hands hidden between his legs, and the hair damp on his forehead. But she did not dare to touch his brow: he woke too easily. As quietly as possible, she retrieved his sheet from the floor and lay it over him. She left their room and walked into the bathroom. Then she heard, in the living room, Richard’s feet hit the floor.

She washed her face, combed her hair, staring at her weary face in the mirror. Then she walked into the living room. Richard sat on the sofa, the glass of vodka in his hands, staring at the floor.

“Hello,” she said, “What made you fall asleep in here?” She had left her handbag in the bathroom. She walked to the bar and picked up a package of cigarettes and lit one. She asked, mockingly, “You weren’t, were you, waiting up for me?”

He looked at her, drained his glass, and held it out. “Pour me a drink. Pour yourself a drink, too.”

She took his glass. Now, his face which in sleep had looked so young, looked old. A certain pain and terror passed through her. She thought, insanely, as she turned her back on him, of Cleopatra’s lament for Antony:
His face was as the heavens
. Was that right? She could not remember the rest of it. She poured two drinks, vodka for him, whiskey for her. The ice bucket was empty. “Do you want ice?”

“No.”

She handed him his drink. She poured a little water into her whiskey. She looked, covertly, at him again— her guilt began.
His face was as the heavens, Wherein were set the stars and moon
.

“Sit down, Cass.”

She left the bar and sat down in the easy chair facing him. She had left the cigarettes on the bar.
Which kept their course and lighted, This little O, the earth.

He asked, in a friendly tone, “Where are you just coming from, Cass?” He looked at his watch. “It’s past two o’clock.”

“I often get in past two o’clock,” she said. “Is this the first time you’ve noticed it?” She was astounded at the hostility in her voice. She sipped her drink. Her mind began to play strange tricks on her: her mind was filled, abruptly, with the memory of a field, long ago, in New England, a field with blue flowers in patches here and there. The field was absolutely silent and empty, it sloped gently toward a forest; they were hidden by tall grass. The sun was hot. Richard’s face was above her, his arms and his hands held and inflamed her, his weight pressed her down into the flowers. A little way from them lay his army cap and jacket; his shirt was open to the navel, and the rough, glinting hairs of his chest tortured her breasts. But she was resisting, she was frightened, and his face was full of pain and anger. Helplessly, she reached up and stroked his hair.
Oh. I can’t.

We’re getting married, remember? And I’m going overseas next week.

Anybody can find us here!

Nobody ever comes this way. Everybody’s gone away.

Not here.

Where?

“No,” he said, with a dangerous quietness, “it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it.”

“Well. It doesn’t matter. I’ve just left Ida.”

“With Vivaldo?”

She hesitated, and he smiled. “We were all together earlier. Then she and I went up to Harlem and had a drink.”

“Alone?”

She shrugged. “With lots of other people. Why?” But before he could answer, she added, “Ellis was there. He said he’s going to call you in a couple of days.”

“Ah,” he said, “Ellis was there.” He sipped his drink. “And you left Ida with Ellis??”

“I left Ida with Ellis’s party.” She stared at him. “What’s going on in your mind?”

“And what did you do when you left Ida?”

“I came home.”

“You came straight home?”

“I got into a taxi and I came straight home.” She began to be angry. “What are you cross-examining me for? I will not
be
cross-examined, you know, not by you, not by anyone.”

He was silent— finished his vodka, and walked to the bar. “I think you’re drunk enough already,” she said, coldly. “If you have a question you want to ask me, ask it. Otherwise, I’m going to bed.”

He turned and looked at her. This look frightened her, but she willed herself to be calm. “You are
not
going to bed for a while yet. And I have a great many questions I want to ask you.”