Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (27 page)

 
          
She
said, “It’s a horrible game. You’d think grown people would have more sense… I
mean, all of us.”

 
          
Emmett
nodded. After a while he said, “Well, as long as Kissel, Kaufman, Bethke and
Co. think they’re unsuspected by the authorities, we keep getting material that
at least shows us how far they’ve got. The big brass apparently feel that this
takes precedence over a couple of murders that can’t be unmurdered.”

 
          
“But
what good did I do if they already knew…?

 
          
“Oh,
this is a recent development, since yesterday morning,” Emmett said. “They didn’t
know. Only Kirkpatrick guessed and he wasn’t getting anywhere with proving it.
Kirkpatrick got suspicious of Kissel for the simple reason that the man got
shot at twice, missed both times. They were apparently trying to convince us
how important Dr. Kissel was, but Kirkpatrick seemed to think that their
marksmanship is generally better than that; and when they miss twice running,
he wants to know why. So he found a few indications, but nothing that could
impress the men on top, who were very enthusiastic about what Kissel was
revealing to them, and wouldn’t hear anything against him. That’s why
Kirkpatrick had to work in double-talk, so that if something blew he could say
he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. That’s what he says,” Emmett
said. “I think the man likes to talk that way. Anyway, he says that you’ll be
contacted discreetly some time in the near future, to make a statement. In the
meantime we’re all to walk around with long faces, as if our consciences had a
bad toothache.”

 
          
She
turned away from the window to look at him. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad it’s
all worked out so nicely for Mr. Kirkpatrick.” Then she said slowly, “John…”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
“You’ll
always remember, won’t you, that I didn’t have to tell.”

 
          
“Yes,”
he said. “I’ll remember.”

 
          
“I
could have let you think that you had heard the truth, couldn’t I? I don’t
have
to be noble and say that the one
man who had testified in my behalf was a fraud.”

 
          
“No,”
he said.

 
          
A
small breath of warm air through the window behind her pushed a lock of her
hair forward along her cheek. She tucked it back mechanically. “John…”

 
          
“Yes,”
he said.

 
          
“Two
nights ago… she said… on the desert… She flushed. “There’s no really…
comfortable way of referring to it, is there?” He did not say anything. She
went on after a pause, without looking at him, stiffly: “I don’t want you to
feel that… that you took advantage of an overwrought little girl whom you had
already forced into marriage. It wasn’t… I mean, I wanted…You can’t know what
it’s like,” she breathed. “Not to dare let yourself be a human being for years
and years. Holding your breath. Waiting to be accused. Not daring to let
yourself think or feel or… or live, because you know that sooner or later you’re
going to have to face this thing… you don’t want to build up something just to
see it smashed; you don’t dare love anybody, or let them love you, because you
couldn’t bear to see them change to hating you, when…” She turned abruptly away
from him. “You know I did it, don’t you?” she gasped.

 
          
“Yes,”
he said.

 
          
“Whe…
how long…?”

 
          
“I
had a little hope,” Emmett said, “that everybody would prove to be wrong, until
I knew you’d identified that man as not being Kissel. Here was a man you’d seen
only once,” he said, explaining it in detail just to keep talking. “You’d seen
him only once after he’d been beaten severely. Probably the light was poor. You
weren’t feeling very well yourself. Five years later you meet a substitute who’s
even undergone plastic surgery to make him resemble the original Dr. Kissel,
and you spot him as a fake
on the spot.”
He grimaced. “It didn’t wash, Ann. Therefore you must have detected him, not
from the way he looked, but from what he said. He must have said something the
real Kissel wouldn’t have said, and that tipped you off.”

 
          
“Yes,”
she whispered. “He said I was innocent.” After a while she said, “John, I saw
them executed. They made me stand in a window and watch.”

 
          
He
said slowly, “I thought you didn’t remember.”

 
          
He
saw her force herself to turn slowly to face him. “What can you do?” she asked,
“when you’ve done something so dreadful that… that you can’t even admit it to
yourself? You haven’t got the courage to confess, but you can’t quite make
yourself lie about it. It’s so easy to pretend to forget. Sometimes…” She
closed her eyes and shivered and opened them again. “Sometimes you can even
almost fool yourself.”

 
          
“If
you remembered,” he said, “why did you want to see Kissel? Why did you bring
Kissel into it at all? If you knew you’d done it?”

 
          
She
drew a long breath, bracing herself against the high windowsill behind her. “Have
you ever really thought of how hard it can be to confess, John? Dr. Kissel was
the beginning of my confession; I was going to remember other things and
gradually… and then I couldn’t go any further. Can you see yourself facing
people you’ve known all your life, your parents…” Her throat worked. “And then
someone comes and throws your guilt in your face. Before you’ve managed to
confess it. Stevens. I pleaded with him to wait a few days. I told him I knew a
man who had proof I was innocent. All I wanted was time, but he wouldn’t
listen. So I went anyway, hoping that I could see Dr. Kissel before… I thought
that the paper he went to would want to check on a story like that, and it
might take several days. And in the meantime I would have seen Dr. Kissel, of
my own free will, and he would have accused me, and I would have pretended to
remember everything. Somehow it didn’t seem as if it would be quite as nasty
that way, doing it myself, as being driven out of hiding like an animal.”

 
          
“I
see,” he said.

 
          
“I
wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “There were so many times I almost… But I
needed you so badly, and I was afraid you’d leave me if you knew.” Her eyes
searched his face for a moment. Then she said, “I could have let you believe
what that man said yesterday. Doesn’t that help a little?” Then her voice
became low and breathless, “It’s hard to—to become reconciled to the thought
that sometimes—sometimes you only get one chance and if you muff that you can’t
ever atone… just a little more courage,” she whispered. “Have you any idea how
often I’ve wished that I’d had just a little more to give just then? Just to
hold out another day. Maybe they’d have given up. But there wasn’t any more.
You just have so much and that’s all there is and then you’re through if you
can’t manage to kill yourself. Anyway you’re through.”

 
          
The
breeze displaced the vagrant lock of hair again. She tossed her head to put it
back into place. Then she walked past him into the middle of the large, light
hotel room and turned.

 
          
“I
just wanted to thank you,” she said. “I can’t really blame myself for letting
you marry me; after all, you hardly gave me any choice. But we can let the
lawyers work that out; I don’t think there’ll be any trouble.” Her voice became
harsher. “I don’t really need you or anybody else, John Emmett. Don’t feel that
you owe me anything because… because I let you make love to me. Don’t feel that
you have to be sorry for me. I’m all right. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m alive, aren’t
I? That’s more than you can say for a lot of people who were supposed to be
cleverer or nobler or braver or stronger—”

 
          
“Don’t,”
he said sharply.

 
          
“Why
don’t you go?” she gasped. “Do
you
have to make a speech at me, too? Can’t you just leave? Don’t you think I know
what kind of a coward and hypocrite I am without being told?”

 
          
He
reached her and took her by the shoulders. “Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t,
Ann.”

 
          
He
saw that her eyes, looking up at him, had become darker than the color of her
dress.

 
          
“You
mustn’t touch me,” she said childishly. “I told you once before, you mustn’t
touch me unless you—”

 
          
Then
she was in his arms, crying softly. He stroked her hair back with the tips of
his fingers. A conventional part of his mind had made the conventional
judgment, saying harshly that what she had done was unforgivable, but the voice
did not carry conviction. You could not live in a world where weakness was
unforgivable, when you did not know how strong you yourself were.

 
          
“You’ve
had a permanent,” he said after a while.

 
          
“No,
just set,” she whispered.

 
          
“I
like you fluffy better,” he said. “You look too damn expensive like that. I
only make a few thousand a year.”

 
          
She
was silent, motionless in his arms. He could feel her mind retreat from him.

 
          
“You
can’t want me,” she said.

 
          
“You’re
thinking of guys like Stevens,” he said. “He was an aviator, shot down; he went
through it; he knew what it was all about. Maybe he had a right to judge. What
right have I to judge, darling? I’m the character who never went to war. How
can I tell you how brave you should have been, when I don’t even know how brave
I am myself?”

 
          
You
could not help what you saw in the steel mirror, and the mirror would not
break. There were those who could be proud of what they had seen in it—and then
there were the others, who simply had to live with it.