Collected Novels and Plays (23 page)

“Yes, I know,” she sighed, “your ship put off its course—that’s what I go through every day. Maybe it doesn’t happen to men, that drifting feeling, day after day being beside the point.” She wrung her hands in the lamplight, not absurdly. “Of course I loved you in Rome. I love you still—”

Had he ever heard these words from anyone? He all but fainted with apprehension.

“—though not in the same way—”

His eyes closed with relief. Jane haltingly completed her thought: “—yet life’s so strange. A year from now I’ll be an army wife, maybe. I’m already so far from where I once imagined being, I wait for it to start making sense ….”

“That’s it!” he breathed. “You’re afloat!” She
was.
Little Jane, he mused, grown up now, married, in midstream suddenly, on her way to the fulfillment of her own mysterious nature—some green and growing island arrived at over deep waters, or so he pictured it from where he loitered on the mainland, risking at most the lukewarm shallows. “I think it’s glorious,” he said; “it makes you
so tremendously real.” Though Francis couldn’t have explained his meaning—was reality that which floated further and further from his reach?—it appeared to please Jane. She blinked, looked away, might have turned pink in a stronger light. He had a vision of how enjoyable it could be, this business of giving pleasure to women. How easy, simply, to
give!
Provided the woman didn’t, like Xenia, begin by
taking
, why, there was nothing
to it!

He felt a real gratitude towards Jane, which he mistook for love long enough to wonder why he’d never loved her before. In Italy they’d spent whole days together, without his feeling the first tremor, the first ache started in him by the sight of her, now that he could never possess her.
That
made the difference: it was too late, it was wonderfully, blessedly too late! It might as well have been love he felt, after all. The dark side of
love, the whole degrading panicky sexual side, was what she would never endure from him and what he’d never dream of asking her to endure. How joyously he intended to protect her marriage! The naked sword dangled no longer over their heads; it had fallen, cutting him free, and would lie henceforth between them. He saw himself throughout a long life giving her comfort, an angel helping her to bear no matter what earthly union. This was something Francis
knew how to ask of women; he remembered Enid, he remembered Lady Good. He held out his hand, which Jane took gently, chastely. A spot of color in her cheek made him think: carnation. They needed one another, he knew then, in exactly the same way.

After a while she whispered, “Put your head in my lap,” and there he lay, mindlessly, for how long he couldn’t tell, her fingers stroking his hot brow. A thousand infant impulses toward food and sleep drifted over him like snow. “It’s been so long,” he mumbled incoherently.

Then on the very edge of sleep—just as in nightmares, when he had frantically barricaded himself from the approach of footsteps, and, panting, back to the door of his retreat, thought, “At last, at last!” only then to catch sight of the insane face of his pursuer filling up the open and forgotten window—his whole body, like a tuning fork or crystal goblet flicked, began to tingle with lust. It was horrible. He had never felt desire so
urgent.

Without pausing to see whether there mightn’t have been something of the sort on her side, Francis scrambled to his feet, trying clumsily to hide from Jane what had already betrayed him to himself. He made a stab at excuses, that it was late, that his head ached, that he’d hope to see her the next day. If he didn’t leave at once all would be spoiled. All
was
spoiled, her silence told him, by his haste and confusion. Still he dawdled,
stammering, lying, until he perceived that she was in no way detaining him. Her eyes were fixed upon the glowing chimney of the lamp. A minute later Francis found himself outdoors, walking, then running through the pools of brilliance shed at intervals by streetlamps, and, in between, the wells of darkness rustling under the tall trees.

14.
At the end of an avenue he came to a subway station. “Will this take me anywhere near the Common?” he asked the old man behind bars in the change booth, who wearily named the appropriate train and stop. Francis paced the platform, past thought; he felt each internal organ, turned to iron, grind dully against its neighbor. The train arrived, its green gothic cars unexpectedly crowded with old and
young, white, yellow and black, some evidently married and accompanied, Francis noticed frowning, by children so young they were hardly able to walk. The only vacant seat was next to the mother of such a one, a tiny boy with skin like quartz, clinging to her flowered skirts. He sat down. The whole group struck him as wrong. Each face wore the dazed look of a person in a state of shock, limp and unresponsive. A young girl moaned as the train got under way. Each might have recently
died, Francis among them, heading now for his predestined place in hell. But this suspicion no sooner crossed his mind than the train swung upward into the starry night. The air blew warm and fresh, the river glistened beneath them—there would be no easy way out of life. Far from any real world his companions had abandoned, it had been (a chance word from the young mother to her husband explained) the world of a late movie that had released its patrons to joggle listlessly
home. The train clattered and shrieked, causing the woman to stroke her child’s colorless hair. The child itself showed no sign of hearing or feeling. Too young to talk, too small to think, it lurched back and forth in the alert stupor of infancy. When the train slowed down for a stop the little thing lost balance briefly, recovering itself by resting a hand not much larger than a postage stamp on Francis’s knee.

He glared at the child, at its brainless faith in the world as a kindly place, where upon reaching out one was steadied by powers gigantic but benign. It hadn’t yet learned that one wasn’t welcome to lean on others. Perhaps, thought Francis, the crashing down of a fist onto those fragile
fingers would bring home the lesson, which could never be learned too early in life—still there remained the sickening vulnerability of the
child to contend with. It tottered and clung, its tiny translucent hand flexing in an almost celestial incapacity on the giant knee. It lacked even strength to plead for its life; all simply it trusted the knee would be merciful. Francis stood up in a rage. Even so, the child neither fell nor—idiot!—felt any part of Francis’s ill will, though its mother’s gasp of reproach sent him striding down the car and out onto the ramshackle platform. This
wasn’t the right stop. No matter, he would walk the rest of the way; and down the stairs he went, shuddering with anger at everything he knew.

The streets were empty, and were not. Footsteps kept drawing closer. In the vitrine of a pharmacy knives and scissors wavered towards him through flawed panes. Rounding a corner, Francis made out far ahead the dim treetops of the Common and headed for them. Now human figures began to detach themselves from doorways; others came walking, bearing down on him. He fought a desire to peer into their faces. When they had passed he heard them stop, humming softly or whistling,
turning like tops. Once he saw a tall shadow revolve against a building and set slowly out in his direction. His heart pounded. Before long he couldn’t distinguish desire from terror. In the dark turnings of the Public Garden a woman called to him. Within a thicket a boy lit a match and smiled. Farther on, leaning over a railing, a figure considered its image in water. Somebody at least was looking elsewhere—but how could one see for the lapping of the little
waves?—and then the figure turned, an old man with his clothes open, beckoning. Francis hurried past. He understood what had gone on in the hearts of those who now and then were found dead in parks at dawn, grass-stained, anonymous.

Back in the hotel he found a light burning in the foyer of their suite. Lady Good’s door was shut, but not Mrs. McBride’s. Was it so early she hadn’t yet come in? His watch read five minutes to twelve. It could have been three in the morning. How was he ever going to sleep? Francis undressed and went into his bathroom, locking the door.

While the tub filled he watched his body in the mirror that backed the door. He couldn’t feel that it was his. It belonged to Xenia, to Jane, to a whore whose name he had never known; it belonged, no less, to Vinnie and Benjamin, of whose love it was the only living reminder—disturbingly marked with the two flat rose-brown eyes set in the chest, the navel, the patch of hair, the thing, a desolate pallor of skin encircling, dividing.
Unlike the face, which did belong to him, hanging white and worried above it, his body had no meaning. Like a hieroglyph, a sun or a ship, it signified something quite apart from what it represented. It felt warm to his touch, full of life, while his face and the hands that obeyed his face were cold, passive, drifting with the body’s currents of desire, anger, and fear.

His bath was full. He sprinkled it with a handful of pine-scented salts. Before dipping a foot in the water he unlocked the door—it had never been his wish to die—and looked about one last time. There was the mirror, the razor, the towel. He took from his finger the little gold ring with the owl, kissed it and set it upon the basin. Presently he heard—but from where?—the voice of an old man whispering
Ecco, Signore!
and the razor was
placed in Francis’s hand. Paint the town red! Up to his neck in warm water now, almost afloat, he used his last defense against the flesh. The blade was very sharp; something began easily to separate, then to resist, tougher than a thong of leather. The water, so dazzling clear when he began cutting, turned red instantly.
Porta fortuna!
He could no longer see what he was doing, or tell, when the severe pain overcame him, whether or not he had succeeded. He cried out
once, and lost consciousness.

15.
House after house came into view, each very like the next. It shocked her to see how much building had been done. On the cramped lawns, barely shaded by saplings, children were playing with pets. So much activity, so many lives!—she shook her head, a bit puzzled and sickened by the sight. Didn’t people know better than to put up houses, bear children, let kittens live? Hadn’t they
learned
, during the how many years since Vinnie’d last left New York? Now especially, when it was crucial for Defense that people not live in tight communities, why, the whole country had turned into one endless suburb!

Outside a high wind blew, she deduced from the dance of laundry on lines. As the train sped by, house after house wheeled slowly, rank upon rank, to follow its passage wide-eyed. Knowing no motion or singleness of their own, they were staring directly at Vinnie, the solitary, the city dweller hurrying now between cities in a gray “off-the-rack” dress with cotton roses, yellow, at her throat. And as they stared they slowly backed away.

Her imagination peopled every house with a mother and child. Time and again, under green roofs with aerials or red roofs with gingerbread, a scene evolved between them. The mother would be standing at the head of a dinky little stair that led perhaps to the cellar, calling down to the child who had disobeyed her, or shortly would. Was there something damaged at his feet? Had she herself lived through such a moment? The scene asked of her some really exact feeling, but
her mind kept wandering, toppling over dully, or playing like lightning on a deserted house, too brightly and too briefly for any sense to be made out of it.

Nevertheless she faced the scene, straining until her mind’s eye hurt. Vinnie had always faced things, with a kind of beautiful fatality. You had never seen her turn away. No matter what gale life thrust her into, she bore it, a sister to those weathered mermaids on the prows of whalers. In between had come spells of tense and watchful calm—the eight years between her father’s death and Ben’s first proven infidelity; the thirteen
years between their divorce and the ringing of her ivory-white telephone today, at seven in the morning. Disaster brought her to life. She had had, that day years ago, only to see the familiar script, smell the scent with which Natalie Bigelow had drenched her disgusting letter; she had only to hear, today, the strange British voice repeating, “Mrs. Tanning? Mrs. Tanning? This is Prudence Good speaking. You may not know who I am
…”—although of course she did know, and knew at once, as on that other morning looking down into Ben’s handkerchief drawer, knew with a sense of canvas being hoisted and yardarms creaking that more would follow. The houses dwindled in her wake, the depths raced beneath her. It was another voyage, and what would be left of her at its end, already worn silver here and there with age?

“Is this what I was created for?” cried Vinnie, silent and apprehensive among the fleeing vistas. “Tell me,” she went on, addressing no one, “because I’ve got to know. The very last thing I want is to be dependent on others. I have my own room, my own habits—if that’s not little enough to ask! Just tell me this is my duty and I’ll
do
it. Don’t be afraid!
I’m
not, I can face
it. Just tell me! I’ve got to know!”

What troubled her was that something lagged behind. Something refused to be dislodged from her familiar gray room, from between the pages of
Time
(“I don’t trust it but it puts me to sleep”) or from the needlepoint garlands she’d stitched to cover her little provincial chair. Here and now, ridiculous as it sounded. Vinnie missed the assurance that anything belonged to her. This wasn’t her chair she rode in; it wasn’t
her view, her window, her world. Her mind had outstripped her feelings. Miles from port, the wooden mermaid kept glancing back with misgivings, for the ship seemed not yet to be under way.

It was exhausting not to feel, not to know what you felt. Three hours later, in Boston, Vinnie stepped off an elevator. Somebody led her into a sunny parlor full of plants and empty chairs, asked her to wait, and left. Before she could decide where to sit, a tall, badly dressed woman strode through the open glass doors, crying, “Dear Mrs. Tanning, how do you do? His condition’s still serious. But we think the tide has turned.”