Appointment in Samarra (30 page)

“Caroline dear, please take this. Sleep will do you good,” her mother said.

“Mother darling, I’m perfectly all right. I don’t want anything to make me sleep. I’ll sleep tonight.”

“But Dr. English gave me this to give to you, and I think you ought to get some sleep. You haven’t slept a wink since one o’clock this morning.”

“Yes, I did. I slept a little.”

“No, you didn’t. Not a real sleep.”

“But I don’t want to sleep now. Specially.”

“Oh, dear, what am I going to do with you?” said Mrs. Walker.

“Poor Mother,” said Caroline, and she held out her arms to her mother. She was sorry for her mother, who had no great
grief in this, but only sadness that was stirred by her own grief. She was just sort of on-call, ready to supply sadness which made her eligible actively to share Caroline’s grief.

She tried, that first day, not to think about Julian but what on earth else was there to think about? She would think back to the early morning, when her mother came in her old room and told her Julian’s father was downstairs and wanted to see her. Sometimes when she thought about it she would say, “I knew it right away. I got it immediately,” but again she would be honest and accuse herself, for she had not got it right away. That there was something wrong she knew, but the truth was she was on the verge of refusing to go downstairs. She knew it concerned Julian, and she did not want to hear more of him, but her intelligence and
not
her instinct pointed out to her lying in her warm, sweet bed that Julian’s father was the last man in the world to wake you up at that hour of the night—one o’clock in the morning, almost—without some good reason. He said he had terrible news for her—and it was just like prefacing a story with “this is the funniest thing you ever heard,” or “this will kill you.” Nothing Dr. English could say could come up to his prefatory words. But he was a considerate man; he told it all at once and did not wait to be asked questions. “Mr. Harley found Julian lying in the car, in the garage, and he was dead then, although Mr. Harley didn’t know it at the time. He died of carbon monoxide, a poison gas that comes out of a car. The motor was running.” Then, after a pause. “Caroline, it looks like suicide. You didn’t get any note or anything like that, did you?”

“God, no! Don’t you suppose I’d be up there now if I did?”

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” said the doctor. “I just wanted to be sure. The coroner will ask things like that. I don’t see how we can avoid a verdict of suicide, but I’ll try. I’ll see what I can do.” He had the sound of a politician who doesn’t want to admit that he can’t get a new post office.

“Why should you want to? Of course he killed himself,” said Caroline.

“Caroline, dear!” said her mother. “You ought not to say that till you’re sure. That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Why is it? Why the hell is it? Who said so? God damn all of you! If he wanted to kill himself whose business is it but his own?”

“She’s hysterical,” said her mother. “Darling—”

“Ah, go away. You did it. You, you don’t like him. You did, too, you pompous old man.”

“Oh, Caroline, how can you say things like that?”

“Where is he? Come on, where is he? Where’d you take him. Do
you
know he’s dead?
How
do you know? I don’t think you even know when a man is dead.”

“He’s my son, Caroline. Remember that please. My only son.”

“Yaah. Your only son. Well, he never liked you. I guess you know that, don’t you? So high and mighty and nasty to him when we went to your house for Christmas. Don’t think he didn’t notice it. You made him do it, not me.”

“I think I’ll go, Ella. If you want me you can get me at home.”

“All right, Will,” said Mrs. Walker.

“Why did you call Mother first? Why didn’t you tell me first?”

“Now, dear. Good night, Will. I won’t go to the door.”

“Aren’t you going to take me to him? What’s the matter? Is he burnt up or mangled or what?”

“Oh, please, darling,” said Mrs. Walker. “Will, do you think—for a minute?”

“Yes, I guess so. I just thought it’d be bad for her while the news is fresh.”

“Well, then, if you really want to see him tonight, dear,” said Mrs. Walker.

“Oh, God. I just remembered. I can’t. I promised him I wouldn’t,” said Caroline.

“You
promised
him! What is this? What are you talking about? You knew he was going to kill himself!” Now the doctor was angry.

“No, no, no. Don’t get excited. Keep your shirt on, you old—” In her mouth was one of Julian’s favorite words, but she had shocked her mother enough. She turned to her mother. “We both made a promise when we were married, we promised each other we’d never look if one of us died before the
other. If he died first I—oh, you know.” She began to weep. “Go away, Doctor. I don’t want to see you. Mother.”

They stayed there a long time, Caroline and her mother. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Mrs. Walker kept saying, and she kept herself from weeping by thinking of the sounds that Caroline made. It was strange and almost new to hear Caroline crying—the same shudders and catches of breath, but in a firmer voice. That made it new, the firmer voice, the woman part. The little girl in woman’s clothes, who never could put on girl’s clothes again. What was it Pope said? Was it Pope? This dear, fine girl. A thing like this to happen to her. It was as though Julian had not existed. Only Caroline existed now, in pain and anguish. Poor girl. Her feet must be cold. They went upstairs together after a while, the mother prepared for a long vigil; but she was not used to vigils any more, and sleep won.

All night Caroline did not sleep, until long after daylight she lay awake, hearing the heartless sounds of people going to work and going on with their lives regardless. The funny thing was, it was a nice day. Quite a nice day. That was what made her tired, and in the morning she did sleep, until near noon. She got awake and had a bath and some tea and toast and a cigarette. She felt a little better before she remembered that there was a day ahead of her—no matter how much of it had been slept through. She wanted to go to Julian, but that was just it. Julian was more in this room, more in the street where he had walked so angrily from her car yesterday, much much more in the room downstairs where once upon a time she had become his girl—than what was lying wherever he was lying was Julian. She looked out the window, down at the street, not one bit expecting to see that he had left footprints in the street. But if the footprints had been there she would not have been surprised. The street sounded as though it would send up the sound of his heels. He always had little metal v’s put in his heels, and she never would hear that sound again, that collegiate sound, without—well, she would hear it without crying, but she would always want to cry. For the rest of her life, which seemed a long time no matter if she died in an hour, she would always be ready to cry for Julian. Not for him. He was
all right now; but because of him, because he had left her, and she would not hear the sound of the little metal v’s on a hardwood floor again, nor smell him, the smell of clean white shirts and cigarettes and sometimes whiskey. They would say he was drunk, but he wasn’t drunk. Yes he was. He was drunk, but he was Julian, drunk or not, and that was more than anyone else was. That was what everyone else was not. He was like someone who had died in the war, some young officer in an overseas cap and a Sam Browne belt and one of those tunics that button up to the neck but you can’t see the buttons, and an aviator’s wings on the breast where the pocket ought to be, and polished high lace boots with a little mud on the soles, and a cigarette in one hand and his arm around an American in a French uniform. For her Julian had that gallantry that had nothing to do with fighting but was attitude and manner; a gesture with a cigarette in his hand, his whistling, his humming while he played solitaire or swung a golf club back and forth and back and forth; slapping her behind a little too hard and saying, “Why, Mrs. English, it
is
you,” but all the same knowing he had hit too hard and a little afraid she would be angry. Oh, that was it. She never could be angry with him again. That took it out of her, that made him dead. Already she had begun the habit of reasoning with him: “But why did you do it? Why did you leave me? Everything would have been all right if you’d waited. I’d have come back this afternoon.” But this time she knew she would not have come back this afternoon, and he had known it, and God help us all but he was right. It was
time
for him to die. There was nothing for him to do today, there was nothing for him to do today…. There, that was settled. Now let the whole thing begin again.

“Kitty Hofman’s downstairs,” said her mother. “Do you want to see her?”

“No, but I will,” said Caroline.

*   *   *

It was the news room of the Gibbsville
Standard
. “Don’t forget, everybody, it’s Saturday. We have early closing. First edition goes over at one-ten, so don’t go to lunch.” Sam Dougherty, the city editor of the
Standard,
had been saying that every
Saturday for more than twenty years. It was as much a part of him as his eye-shade and his corncob pipe and his hemorrhoids. As city editor he also had to read copy and write the Page One headlines. “Say, Alice,” he said, putting down his pencil and interrupting his reading of a story.

“What?” she said.

“What do you hear on this English suicide? Any of your people have anything to say on it?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you
ask
anybody about it?” he said.

“No,” she said. Then: “I heard the boss tell you to play down the story.”

He shook his head. “See?” he said. “That’s your trouble, Alice. A good reporter knows ten times as much as he ever prints. That’s the kind of stuff you ought to know. Off the record stuff. The angles, girl. The angles. You oughta always get the angles of every big story, even when you can’t print it. You never know when it’s going to come in handy, see what I mean?”

*   *   *

Harry Reilly went to his hotel to wash up a bit before meeting a man for lunch. There was a message for him, and when he got upstairs he put in a call for Mrs. Gorman at Gibbsville one one one eight, Gibbsville, Pennsylvania.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Hello. Hello, is that you, Harry?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“Listen, Harry. Julian English killed himself last night.”

“He what?”

“Killed himself. He took some kind of a poison in his garage. Carbon oxide.”

“You don’t mean carbon
mon
oxide?”

“That’s it. It’s a poison.”

“I’ll say it’s a poison, but he didn’t take it. It comes out of the motor.”

“Is that it? Well, I didn’t know that. I just knew it was some kind of a poison and he took it in his garage.”

“When? Who told you?”

“Last night. Everybody in town knows it by now. I heard it from four or five different people and I didn’t leave the front porch all morning. I went to seven o’clock Mass, but otherwise I haven’t been—”

“How do they know it’s suicide? Who said so? It could happen to anybody. Was he drunk?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, he might of fell asleep or something.”

“Not at all. He went in the garage and closed the door. He had a bottle of liquor with him, I heard. The way I heard, Caroline was going to leave him. She was at her mother’s.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why I called you, Harry. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”

“Christ, no!”

“Well, you know how people are—”

“I know how
you
are.”

“Never mind the insults. I’m trying to do a favor for you. You know what people are apt to say. They’ll say you had something to do with it, because English threw that drink in your face the other night. They’ll put two and two together and get five.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you dumb or what? They’ll say he was sore at you because you have a crush on Caroline.”

“Aw, where’s it eatin’ you, for God’s sake, woman. English was in my office yesterday. He came to see me. He was in my office twenty-four hours ago and I talked to him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I didn’t have time to talk much. I was hurrying to catch the train to New York. You’re trying to make trouble where none is. Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“Isn’t it enough? You wanted to know about English, didn’t you?”

“Only so I could go right out and send some flowers right away, that’s all. I liked English and he liked me, or otherwise he wouldn’t have borrowed money from me. I know that type. He wouldn’t borrow a nickel from me if he didn’t like me.
Calm yourself, honey, don’t got excited about nothing. That’s your trouble. You have nothing to do any more so you sit home and worry. What will I bring you from New York?”

“I don’t want anything, unless you want to go down town to Barclay Street. I notice this morning Monsignor needs a new biretta and it might make a nice little surprise for him, but remember. Purple. He’s a monsignor.”

“Don’t you think I know that? All right, I’ll buy him one and have it sent in your name. Anything else? Because I have a lunch appointment any minute now.”

“No, I guess that’s all.”

“Everything all right otherwise?” he said.

“Yes, everything’s all right. So I guess I’ll hang up. Good-bye, Harry.”

“Good-bye.” He hung up slowly. “He was a real gentleman. I wonder what in God’s name would make him do a thing like that?” Then he picked up the telephone again. “I want to order some flowers,” he said.

*   *   *

The girl stood waiting while the man checked his hat and coat. She was tall and fair and had been told so many times she looked like a Benda mask that she finally found out what it was. The man was tall and stoop-shouldered and expensively comfortable about his clothes. He took her elbow and guided her to a tiny table across the room from the bar. They sat down.

A young man who had something to do with the place stopped and said hello, and the other man said, “Hello, Mac, nice to see you. Mary, this is Mac, Mac, Miss Manners.” They smiled, and then Mac went away, and the man turned to Mary and told her Mac was the brother of one of the men that owned the place and what would she like or a Martini?