Into The Night (10 page)

"I disarranged my hair a little bit, but not to an extreme, because the first thing a woman will do is see to her hair, no matter how preoccupied she is or was. I put on more lipstick than I usually use, and then I took a Kleenex and purposely smeared it offside from one corner, as though I'd been wildly kissed. Then I took the whiskey bottle, and using it like you do toilet water, put a drop here and a drop there and a drop behind each ear. The rest I sprinkled all over the carpet, so that I had the room smelling like a distillery.

"The bell rang and Dave had brought back the two cigar stubs sitting atop an empty envelope. 'I kept one going on top a corner of the mailbox in the lobby,' he said, 'and the other on top a fire extinguisher on the fourteenth floor, and every time I had the car empty I'd step out and take a few puffs. But I feel kind of bilious. I never smoked two at once like that before.'

"I tipped him for his trouble and took the cigars. I balanced one on a tray beside the two whiskey glasses. I took the other one into the bedroom and put that in a tray right next to the bed. To get any closer it would have had to be -in- the bed.

"Then I sat down and waited. Waited for him to come home and be jealous. And be interested again in me.

"It would have been just the kind of luck I run in not to have him come home at all, after I'd gone to all that trouble. He often stayed out like that on nights when he was seeing her; went straight from work to pick her up for dinner or whatever it was they had on, throwing me a terse 'Staying downtown tonight. Be back later on,' by phone on his way over. He couldn't have made these messages more impersonal if he'd tried--he even left out the I's and You's. And never even a reason given anymore. I wasn't even worth lying to!

"But I got a break in this one small thing at least, if nothing else. A taxi stopped at the door and I saw him step out and come into the building.

"I stood up and got on cue for the curtain to rise.

"He put his key to the door and opened it, and I gave a startled little hitch, as if I'd been taken by surprise. 'Oh!' I said. 'I didn't expect you so soon.'

"When -did- you expect me?' he said, with complete neutrality, complete disinterest.

"I saw that he had as little an eye for the room as he had for me, and he was going to miss the whole thing if I didn't point it up to him.

"I rounded my mouth, drew in my breath, clapped my hand over it, glanced over at the cigar butt, then quickly away from it, and tried to look confused. I thought I did a pretty good job. It wasn't an easy multiple play to make, all more or less at one time.

"He'd noticed the direction my eyes had taken, and he looked there himself, and finally spotted the debris of the rendezvous.

"I'm giving it to you just as it happened, blow by blow. If I had any pride I guess I'd lie a little, try to dress it up. But I didn't then and I don't now, not where he's concerned.

"He grinned at me. Not sarcastically, even. Not maliciously. Nothing like that. Grinned good-naturedly, amiably, almost the way he would have grinned at another man whom he'd caught in an embarrassing moment.

"Who's your new friend?' he said. And then, starting to unfasten his necktie, he went on into the bedroom without wasting any more time on it.

"I heard him exclaim 'Wow!' in there. And there was laughter in his voice.

"Glad you're happy,' he called out to me. "Cause I'm happy too. This way we're all happy, the whole four of us.'

"And with that he started running the shower and taking a quick shave, so he could go right back to her again.

"I just stood there rooted; wilted and ashamed. And the blush that might have helped out when I did that bit of playacting a few moments before was all over my face now when I didn't need it anymore. I could feel myself burning up with it.

"When he came out into the bedroom again and was changing over to a new shirt and necktie, he started to whistle. It wasn't bravado, it wasn't making fun of me, wasn't derision. It was completely natural. I could tell, I could tell by the sound of it. He probably didn't even know he was doing it at all. He'd already forgotten what he'd seen, it didn't mean anything to him, didn't exist.

"He was whistling his own happiness.

"He shrugged into his jacket, and he walked with a lilt and a bounce over to the door, and not a word passed between us, not a look, not a care. And the door closed after him.

"My head just went over, a notch at a time, lower, and lower, and lower, like something with a run-down spring.

"I was no good as a faithful wife. And I was no good even as an unfaithful wife."

She threw her arms wide apart, and there was indescribable pathos in her voice. "What the hell -was- I good for, anyway?"

"He came back real late again, and got in next to me. I kept my face pressed to the pillow. He snapped on the bedside lamp for just a second, I guess to see what time it was. And that cold cigar butt was still there in the tray, where I'd put it.

"He put the light right out again, but in the dark I heard him give a chuckle, deep down in his throat."

"I could tell when he'd been with her. A wife always can. The little signs, telltale little signs that give a man away, if you know what to look for. Tired, indolent, exhausted, all vitality spent; lying there like a log beside me, not even knowing I existed. A certain peaked expression, a hollowness in the cheeks and at the temples, that was gone again inside twenty-four hours. To come back once more inside forty-eight. Circles under the eyes, which I knew he hadn't gotten from me."

She smiled in retrospect. It was a sad smile, remembering a sad thing.

"What was the good of saying anything? Would that have stopped it? Has it ever stopped it yet? But I knew, I knew. Oh, how I knew. He might just as well have brought me photographs.

"First it was hit or miss, haphazard, like at the beginning of any affair. Then it went into a regular rhythm, almost like a married couple. Three times a week. Never missed. They were the married couple, and I was the outsider, living under his name.

"Why does it matter so much," she asked Madeline rhetorically, "that your husband is sleeping with another woman? I wondered then and I wonder now. He slept with other women before you met him, and you know he did, and that doesn't bother you. I guess because she's taking away something that is yours now, belongs to you. Before that, he was nobody's, it hurt nobody. And there's so much more than just the physical that you're being robbed of. The intimate, confidential things that are said at those times, and not at any other time. She's the recipient of them now, not you. The plans that are made at those times, the innermost thoughts that are revealed, the love names and love words that are spoken, all of them go to her now, not to you.

"You just stand there. A door has closed between you now. He's on one side, you're on the other. You can't get through. Not all the keys, not all the pounding with your hands, not all the hammers, not all the axes, can make it open or break it open.

"So what do you do? I'll tell you what you do. You live with it. Live with it as best you can. A few of us do away with ourselves. Not most of us, though. That's for high-strung young girls that are just beginning the game, have no inner resources yet to fall back on."

"Then one day he comes to you about it. -He- comes to you, you don't go to him.

"One day he comes to you. One night, rather. You're lying there awake, with the lights out. You're always lying awake with the lights out. He lies there, and he thinks. You lie there, and you think. But the two chains of thought don't mesh anymore like they used to.

"He says quietly, 'Dell, are you awake?'

"You say just as quietly, 'I'm awake, Vick.'

"I want to talk to you.'

"Your heart starts going like the sweep hand of a watch. This is it. At last. Finally. Here it is.

"The thing is,' he says, 'I don't know where to start.'

"What do you say to that? You don't say anything at all. You just lie there and let him work it out for himself. Half hoping he'll forget the whole thing.

"But he doesn't.

"He says, 'Dell, we've had some good times. Haven't we?'

"You don't answer. It's not the sort of question that requires an answer.

"But something's changed,' he goes on. 'I don't know how to explain it. I'm not saying it's your fault. It's not your fault. If it's anybody's fault, it's my fault. But I don't know that anybody's ever at fault when this kind of thing happens. I don't think people have much choice. I think things happen and people can only go along with them.'

"Get to the point, you want to shout. Put a lid on your dimestore philosophy and get to the point. But instead you just lie there and wait for him to go on.

"'Dell, I can't live here anymore.'

"'Why not?'

"'Because we used to have something,' he says, 'and now it's gone.'

"'Not for me it isn't,' you say, hating yourself for saying it, for needing to say it. 'For me it's still the same.'

"'Dell, I'm going to move out.'

"'When?'

"'Now, if you want.'

"'That's crazy,' you say. 'It's the middle of the night. You don't want to leave now.'

"'Well, if you're sure you don't mind--'

"'Of course I don't mind.'

"'First thing in the morning, then.'

"So he takes off his clothes and comes to bed. And he lies on his side of the bed and you lie on your side, and you wish you could just fall asleep but of course you can't. And you wish you could stay on your own side of the bed but you can't do that either.

"So you curl up beside him. He can't sleep either, and you know what to do, how to touch him, and you get the response you want. He's unwilling at first. As if he's cheating her by being with you. But you know what you're doing and he can't help himself.

"And while it's going on, all you can think is that it's the last time, the last time.

"Afterward, he falls asleep. You try to sleep, and you can't, and after a while you give up trying. You get up and walk around the room, and then you come back and sit on the edge of the bed while your mind just spins like a top."

"He woke up. I still sat there, looking out the window, in the other room. He got out of bed and went into the bathroom and ran the water for his shower. I thought, This is probably the last time I'll ever hear him take a shower. And hit his chest, like he does. And snort, like he does, to clear the water out of his nostrils.

"I thought, What a funny thing to think, at a time like this. Or is it? Maybe it's the right thing to think at a time like this.

"He got dressed, and he came to the bedroom door a minute and looked in at me, before he was quite through, while he was measuring off the two sides of his necktie.

"I won't come back tonight,' he said. 'I won't come back anymore. I'll send for my things instead, some time during the day.' And then he added, as though he were asking my permission, 'Okay?'

"'Okay,' I said. I still sat there.

"He said, 'You act more dead than alive.'

"I said dully, 'You would too.'

"He finished finally, and came out, set to go.

"I said, 'Are you sure you want to go through with this, Vick?'

"'Come on now,' he said reproachfully.

"It was the funniest parting I ever heard of.

"He said, 'What about money? You better tell me now.'

"'That isn't what I want,' I said. 'I can always get that. That's the easiest thing to get there is.'

"He went out and closed the door after him.

"I still sat there.

"He came out of the building doorway down below on the street, and turned around and looked up at the window. He saw me looking down at him.

"He lifted his hat, tipped it way up high in parting salute to me. Then he stepped into a taxi the doorman had whistled up for him. The taxi drove off and my marriage was over.

"I never knew before what an insult it could be, how much it could hurt, how needling it could feel, to have your own husband exaggeratedly tip his hat to you like that.

"There was a bottle of goof pills in the medicine cabinet. I took them down. Then I brought a glass of water over. I sat down and kept switching from one to the other, until both were gone. The water tasted strange, but that was because I wasn't used to drinking water straight.

"I no sooner did it than I came to my senses with a bang. I yelled at myself, What am I doing -this- for? Why should I make it even easier on him than it is already? I'm gonna live! I'm gonna live so that I can get hunk with him, get square with him, screw him up but good! And I grabbed up the phone and hollered into it, 'Judas, Joseph, and Mary! Somebody send me a stomach pump up here quick, for the love of Pete!"

"I met him on the street one day. It wasn't planned, it was quite by accident. It was the sort of thing happens to two people maybe once in ten years in a town the size of New York.

"He looked at me and recognized me. Of course he recognized me, why shouldn't he? I saw that he wasn't going to stop, so I did instead, and that more or less forced him to stop against his will.

"He looked good and happy, and that didn't make me feel good and happy.

"He said Well?

"I said Well?

"Then he said So?

"I said So?

"No great sound track of a conversation up to that point. But there were a thousand unspoken words in it. Hope and indifference and mockery and entreaty.

"Finally he said, 'There's no use standing here like this. We haven't anything to say to each other.'

"I said, 'If you think I'm going to give you up without a fight, you better think twice.'

"'You already have,' he said. 'It's over and done with. There's nothing you can do about it.' And he started to walk away.

"'Isn't there?' I called after him. 'Isn't there? Watch. Watch and see.' But he never even turned around again.

"That brought the thing to a head. That got it going, that brush-off on the street. Love ended there. There wasn't any more love, only hate from then on. Hate, and figuring out how to hurt him.

"I worked on it, steady. While I earned my feed singing, I worked on it. While other men made love to me, I kept working on it. I worked on it in the morning, and I worked on it in the afternoon, and I worked on it at night.