Never Love a Stranger (40 page)
“Why didn’t you stick around and find out?” she said heatedly.
I could see she was angry so I shut up. I didn’t feel like fighting tonight.
She went into the bedroom and came out a few minutes later. “Where’s Bess?” she asked.
I guessed she meant the model. I looked up at her and smiled. “At the party, I guess. I left her at the door and came home.”
“I didn’t see her come back.”
“I don’t know what she did after I left her,” I retorted. I smiled again. “Take it easy, baby. I’m beginning to think you’re jealous.”
That was the wrong thing to say. She all but hit the ceiling. “Jealous!” she hollered. “Of that two-bit bitch! The hell I am! I just didn’t like it, that’s all. When you come with me, I expect you to stay with me. How would you like people to talk about you?”
I was beginning to get a little steam up myself. “Let them talk. There’s no way you can stop them. Anyhow, what do we care what they say?”
“I don’t care!” she yelled, “but how do you think I feel? They know about us, and you
run out with that little blonde bitch.”
“How do you think I feel?” I countered. “At every party I’m shunted to one side like an overcoat, and picked up on your way home. Don’t be such a fool!” I lit a cigarette. “Forget it.”
“That cheap whore made a play for you the minute she saw you.”
“She seemed like a nice kid to me,” I said defensively. “And besides, what’s wrong with that? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do that,” she said, walking over to the door of the bedroom. “But if I’d have found her here, I would have cut her heart out.”
I began to laugh. This was getting a little funny. “Is that why you looked in the bedroom when you came in?” I asked. “You don’t think I’m dumb enough to bring her here, even if I wanted to?”
She came back to me and stood in front of my chair, looking down at me furiously. Her voice was tense but controlled. “Look,” she said, “remember this. You belong to me. Everything you have, everything you are, everything you ever will be, is because of me— because I gave it to you. And because I gave it to you, I can take it away just as quickly, I can throw you back where I got you from like that.” She snapped her fingers. “When you go anywhere with me, remember that. You stay with me, whether you’re bored, whether you like it or not. You’ll go when I tell you, not before.”
I was mad but I sat there coolly and held on to the edges of my temper. She was right. I had nothing of my own. Even the clothes I wore and the money in my pocket belonged to her. “O.K., baby,” I said, evenly, “if that’s the way you want it.”
She looked down at me, curiously disappointed, as if she had expected me to flare up and I didn’t. “That’s the way I want it,” she said, a little bit unsteadily.
I got out of the chair and went into the bedroom and undressed and got into bed. I fell asleep. I don’t know what time it was that I awoke. She had called me. “Frank, are you awake?”
“I am now,” I said. Suddenly my eyes had opened wide. The dimness in the room wasn’t the only thing I could see through now. I could see myself the way I really was— kept, a sweet man! I writhed a little inside.
“Come over here, darling,” she whispered.
“Yes, master,” I replied, getting out of my bed and sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Not there, darling,” she whispered, her eyes luminous in the darkness. “Lie down here, beside me, and kiss me.”
I stretched out beside her and took her in my arms. Her body was warm and soft, and I could feel the sparks of fire shoot out when we touched.
I loved her. I knew I would always love her. No matter what she said or did. But all night long someone just behind me and over my shoulder was watching me and laughing and whispering in my ear.
“Jump when she tells you,” the voice giggled obscenely in my ear. “Dance when she pulls the strings. But remember, something is gone. He! he! he! You’ll never get it back. Never! Never! Never!”
She was sleeping when the grey of dawn beat its way into the room. I looked at her. Her hair was framed round her head like a living flame on the pillow. Her mouth had a half smile, and her face was relaxed and happy.
I looked at her and my heart went out to her in a funny, lumpish sort of way. I loved her, but something vital had gone, had been lost. And way down, deep in the hidden recesses of my mind, I knew it would not be long before I too would follow. And I knew that it would come as sure as day after night, and yet——
H
OLIDAY
week—that slow-moving, gaily exciting week between Christmas and New Year. The week that children were out of school and even the men and women who worked had a different air about them—an air of excitement, of repressed gaiety, of looking forward to the new year and wondering what excitingly great things were going to happen to them in the year that was coming.
I spent most of the week sitting in the window of the apartment looking out—watching people as they hurried to and from work, watching children as they played, watching street cleaners shovel snow, watching mailmen deliver letters, watching the milkmen deliver milk, watching cops walk their beat, watching, watching, watching the world move around before me through a pane of glass. This business of watching the world and not being a part of it was beginning to get me in my craw. It was beginning to choke in my throat, make me nauseated and sick to my stomach. The inactivity began to tear at my nerves. The end was coming. I could see it. It had to be soon. And it was—sooner than I had expected.
It was New Year’s Eve and horns were blowing. And everyone was half-lit—except me. I don’t know why. I tried to get lit up like a Christmas tree, but the more I drank, the less effect it had on me. We were in a night-club in the Village. Marianne and all her friends and I. And suddenly it seemed as if I were outside myself, looking upon the scene as an outsider would, ironically tolerant, sarcastically amused at the foolish, childlike behaviour of these so-called adults trying ever so hard to pretend they were glad at the coming of time while inwardly they were afraid. Afraid of tomorrow! I laughed aloud. That’s what I was—afraid of tomorrow!
Marianne looked at me quietly, her eyes half amused. “Having fun, darling?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. I laughed again. She thought I was a little drunk. I pulled her to me and kissed her. It was sweet and warm, and I felt strong and powerful. What did I have to be afraid of? I was young and strong—ever so strong. She kissed me back. I kissed the side of her neck down to her shoulder.
“Frank,” she half whispered, huskily. I could tell the passion in her voice. “Not here, Frank, not here!” Her arms were around me.
I let her go and laughed again. She laughed with me. We laughed together. We laughed and laughed and laughed until we were out of breath, and then we looked at each other soberly.
Her eyes were haughty and proud. “He is mine,” they were saying. “Mine! He belongs to me. I belong to him. I’m proud of him as he is of me.” Her hand found mine and gripped it tightly under the table. Currents seemed to flow between us—feelings without words, emotions without language. We looked at each other and were proud. The evening wore on.
The lights went down dim and then out. The orchestra began to play Auld Lang Syne.
And suddenly she was in my arms and we were holding each other close, savouring each other’s warmth. We kissed.
“I love you, darling,” her lips murmured under mine. “Happy New Year!”
“I love you,” I heard myself saying. “Happy New Year!” I kissed her cheek. It was wet with the salt of her tears. I could taste it on my tongue, in my mouth. And I realized she had known all along what I was thinking.
She kissed me again, her mouth half open against mine, her arms holding me tightly to her—ever so tightly. “Don’t go, darling, please don’t go.”
“I must,” I whispered. “I’ve got to. I can’t help it.”
The lights went on again, and there we were, staring at each other. She was pale and her eyes were wide and filled with tears. There was something in my throat and I couldn’t speak. Just our hands clung together tightly as we sat down.
We left the party a few minutes later and walked home silently. The night was bright and clean and new, and a million stars were out blinking brightly. The air was new, everything was new—it was 1934. Silently we went into the apartment. I took off my coat and threw it over a chair. I went to the closet and took down my valise and spread it open on the bed.
Silently she began to hand me my things: shirts and shoes and stockings and ties and pyjamas and suits. I pressed one knee down to close it. I heard the clasp lock.
I straightened up and faced her. My voice was trembling a little. “I guess this is … good-bye.”
She flung herself violently into my arms. “No! Frank, no! You mustn’t go! I need you!” She was crying—the first time I had really seen her cry.
I held her to me and didn’t speak for a moment. “It’s better this way, darling, much better. Believe me,” I whispered, shakily. “In time we’d grow to hate each other. It’s better now than when we’ve both grown bitter.”
“But, darling, you’re my world, my life.” She kissed me. “And what will you do? You have no job—nothing. How will you live? I can’t bear to think of you going back to those cheap little jobs. Here with me you are safe. I can look after you, protect you. I can give you the world—anything you want.”
I remembered something I had read. “What does it profit a man,” I quoted, “if, in gaining the world, he loses his own soul?”
She looked at me strongly a moment and then kissed me hard on the lips. “Say good- bye to me gently, darling,” she whispered, her hand reaching for the light and turning it off.
I said good-bye gently, sweetly, passionately. And time whirled around past us and through us, carried us all through a lifetime together, and put us back in the little apartment in Greenwich Village at the door. I stood there awkwardly, valise in one hand like a stranger just leaving after a long, unexpected visit.
“Wait a minute,” she said, and brought me Gerro’s portrait and placed it in my free hand. “Take him with you,” she said, “ because you have something of him inside you— and something of me. And all of us together mean something more than just people — more than just living. There is a brightness in you, an incandescence you have now,
you’ve never had before—until tonight. I saw it fuse and harden back there in the night- club, and I knew then, at that very moment, you were lost to me—and that nothing I could do would stop you.”
For a split second she stood there, and then she kissed my mouth hardly, quickly. And I stepped outside the door, and she shut it gently. I could hear a soft sobbing sound behind me as I went down the hall and out of the building.
I looked up at the sky. The stars were still blinking, but over in the east the first tinge of dawn was breaking. It was a new day coming—a bright, new day. I walked towards it confidently, my mind full of thoughts about Marianne. I had no plans for today or tomorrow. They could take care of themselves.
I
MUST
have walked about five blocks before I realized I still held Gerro’s picture in my hand. I put it in my pocket. I was beginning to get a little hungry, and I was tired, for I hadn’t slept at all that night. I saw the lights of an all-night cafeteria at the next corner and went in. I had some coffee and toast while I kicked around some ideas in my mind.
By the time I had finished I had decided to go over to a hotel and get some sleep: tomorrow I would start looking for work. I felt sure this time I would do all right. The morning was brisk and clear, and I started towards the nearest subway station. The streets were almost empty; it was New Year’s Day and not many people had to go to work. There was a man hurrying down the street in front of me. I didn’t notice him very much as he was sticking pretty close to the building line as he walked.
Suddenly he disappeared into a doorway. I walked along. A car drove slowly down the street towards me. I noticed it only because of the slow manner in which it proceeded. There was a short, staccato burst of gunfire from it as it passed the doorway the man had ducked into. Then it speeded up and turned the corner. For a second I stood there frozen in my steps. Then I ran towards the doorway. The man came bungling from it towards me. I dropped my bag and caught him. A moment passed while we stared into each other’s faces.
He recognized me. “Frankie!” he gasped, blood oozing from the corners of his mouth, “help me!” and sagged against me.
For a full minute I couldn’t think; I could only stand there stupidly staring at his quickly whitening face. The clock had turned back ten years, and again Silk Fennelli was spilling blood over my shirt front. Again, as then, I was paralysed with fright. Ten years—ten years and the clock turned back!
Only this time I didn’t run away.
I got him to Bellevue. I left my valise there on the sidewalk where I had dropped it, put him in a cab, and got him to the hospital.
I didn’t hang around there. I beat it as soon as I had him set. I didn’t want to hang around to be questioned by the cops. Once in the street again, I lit a cigarette. Then I remembered my bag. I took a hack back to where I had picked him up, but the bag was gone. I looked up and down the street but it was gone. I laughed bitterly to myself. I should have known better than to expect to find it.
Suddenly I was tired. I went to an hotel, checked in, and went to sleep. It was nearly evening when I awoke. I sat on the edge of the bed and counted my money. All I had was about ten bucks. It would have to do until I got something, I told myself. I went down and got something to eat. I sat around for a while, read the evening newspapers, and then went upstairs to bed.
I tried to sleep again but I couldn’t. I was all slept out. I lay there in the dark tossing and turning and thinking. Finally I got out of bed, put on my trousers, and sat near the window, smoking.