Root of His Evil (8 page)

I felt sick and queer and frightened. We sat there for a time in the half-dark, for it was now well after six, and then it was my turn to begin walking around. I kept passing the bookcase, and little by little it crept in on me that this man was my husband and that, in spite of my pride, I had to help him fight through somehow, even if I didn’t quite understand what it was about or believe in it at all, for that matter. I went over, sat down in his lap and pulled his head against me. “Grant.”

He put his arm around me and drew me close to him. “You never called me that before.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“I think the Indians are swell.”

“I think you mean you like me.”

“I more than like you, or will, if you’ll let me. But that isn’t what I meant, and that isn’t what you want me to mean. I don’t know much about Indians, or this book—”

“It’ll be a hell of a book.”

“That’s it—tell me about it.”

“It’ll take me ten years to write it but it’ll really be a history of this country that everybody else has missed. Listen, Carrie, they’ve all written that story from the deck of Columbus’ ship.
I’m
going to write it from San Salvador Island, beginning with the Indian that peeped out through the trees and saw that anchor splash down. It was a bright moonlight night all over the American continent the night before Columbus slipped into that harbor—did you know that, Carrie? I’m going to tell what that moon shone on—are you listening?”

“Go on. I love it.”

I
LAY IN HIS
arms until it was quite dark and he told me more about his book and how it was not to be an ordinary history at all but a study of Indians and the imprint they have left on our civilization. Then for a few minutes he had nothing to say and then he stirred a little. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve been thinking, Carrie, just as a sort of peace offering, hadn’t I better send some flowers around to my mother?”

“I think that will be fine—as soon as she sends flowers to
me.”

“She sends flowers to—?”

“I’m the bride, after all.”

“Oh—that’s a different department. What she sends you, that couldn’t be just a bunch of flowers, you know, bought at the drop of a hat. But tonight—she’s not herself and it will make a difference.”

“Can’t you order them by phone?”

“I’ll have to put a card in. I’ll only be a few minutes, and then we’ll pick out a nice place to have dinner.”

He got his hat and went out, and I was left with this same feeling I had had before, of being sick and forlorn and up against something I didn’t understand, and mixed in with it was a sense of helplessness, for I was sure that it wasn’t the system, or his Uncle George, or the yachts that was the cause of his trouble, but this same woman he refused to talk about and yet seemed to have on his mind all the time, his mother. And what could I do about her?

The place seemed horribly gloomy then, and I wanted light. I groped all around but couldn’t find any of the switches. I began to cry. Then the house phone rang and I went to answer it and couldn’t find
that.
Then the phone stopped ringing and in a minute the buzzer sounded. I knew how I had come in, at any rate, so I opened the door. A policeman was standing there. “Carrie Selden Harris?”

“I’m Carrie Harris.”

It was the first time I had used my new name and it felt strange, but I tried not to show it to him.

“Warrant for your arrest. I warn you that anything you say in my presence may be used against you—come on.”

I asked him to wait, then went to change from my sport outfit, which I still had on, into a dress that seemed more suitable to be arrested in, and then, fumbling around in the dark, I
really
broke down and wept. Why couldn’t Grant be there instead of traipsing out to a florist’s to send flowers to a woman who hadn’t even had the decency to wish him well when he got married?

I don’t think I could have got dressed at all if the policeman hadn’t found a switch and turned it on so that a little light filtered into the bedroom.

I put on my green dress, a green hat and powdered my nose some kind of way and went into the living room. The policeman was a big man, rather young, and looked at me, I thought, in a kind way. “You got any calling to do about bail, something like that, be a good idea to do it from here. Station house phone, sometimes they got a waiting line on it and anyhow you’re only allowed one call. Besides, it’s pretty high on the wall for you to be talking into.”

“Thank you, there’s nobody I want to call.”

“You got a husband?”

“There’s nobody I want to call.”

I wouldn’t have called Pierre’s or waited for Grant to get back if they were going to send me to the electric chair.

I had never been in a police station before but I didn’t stay there long enough to find out much about it. We rode around in the police car, the officer and I, and it was a battered-looking place with a sergeant behind a big desk, and sure enough, five or six people waiting to use the telephone, which was so high against the wall that everybody had to stand on tiptoe and yell into it. The sergeant was a fat man who told me I was under arrest on a complaint sworn out by Clara Gruber for embezzlement of union funds, and that if I gave him the required information about myself quickly he might be able to get my case disposed of before the magistrate went home to dinner and at least I would know the amount of bail.

But just as I had finished giving him my name, age and residence, Mr. Holden came striding in and that was the end of it. He said something quickly to the sergeant and then I saw Clara Gruber standing outside the door looking pretty uncomfortable. He beckoned to her and then he, she and the sergeant went into a room where there seemed to be some kind of court in session. When they came out he took my arm and patted it. “It’s all over—Clara made a little mistake.”

“The money is still in the bank, every cent of it.”

“Don’t I know it? Come on—the girls are waiting to give you a cheer.”

What became of Clara Gruber I don’t know, because before I knew it I was in a taxi with him and in a few minutes we were at Reliance Hall. Hundreds of girls were up there holding a big meeting and when he brought me in they all started to yell and applaud and newspaper photographers began clicking flashlights in my eyes and when I got up on the platform the cheering broke out into one long scream. Next thing Mr. Holden was banging for order and a girl was on her feet nominating me for president. That was when I got into it. I made them a little speech, saying that I still regarded myself as one of the them and wanted to keep on being treasurer but that I couldn’t be president because I had just got married and might not have the time to give to the duties. However, I never really finished about why I didn’t want to be president. As soon as I mentioned my marriage they all broke out again into yells and I realized that why they were cheering for me had nothing to do with the money at all but was really on account of my marrying Grant. I felt warm and friendly and a little weepy, because it meant something after the day I had had to know I had friends, but at the same time I wanted to get out of there, because what they had in mind was a successful Cinderella and I didn’t feel that way about it at all and even hated the very idea. Besides, no matter how angry I had been at Grant, I had to get back to him.

Mr. Holden must have guessed what I was thinking, because he banged for order again and made them a little speech saying I had to leave and for them to continue with the reelection of a new president and he would be back. So next day, I found out, they elected a girl by the name of Shirley Silverstein from the Brooklyn restaurant.

When we got to the street we didn’t take a taxi, we went to a little coffee pot around the corner and I ordered bacon and eggs, and Mr. Holden had a cup of coffee. His whole manner changed as soon as we had done our ordering, and he sat there studying me until finally a bitter little smile came over his face. “Well—how does it feel to be rich, envied and socially prominent?”

I could see he was horribly disappointed in me for having, as he thought, engaged in a cold-blooded piece of gold-digging, and I had to exercise control to keep from laughing in wild shrieks. However, I merely said: “Please—I didn’t know anything about that until I read the papers.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

He lit a cigarette and studied me for a time, then took my hand again. “How’s it going?”

“Terribly.”

“I wanted you myself.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me?”

“I made up my mind long ago I would never ask any woman unless I knew she wanted me to—a great deal.”

“I thought you meant something else.”

“I did. If you didn’t want me enough for that I wouldn’t want you enough for this.”

I felt somehow guilty, as though I ought not to be talking of such things with him at all, so I said nothing. After a moment he went on: “Did you?”

“Why?”

“Because if you did—and do—that other-way is still open and this one will be—I mean a wedding, a ring and all the rest of it—as soon as you can get an annulment and forget what you did today. Here we are—if you want me you simply don’t go back to him at all.”

I thought a long time over that and then I said: “I married the man I wanted.”

“You can’t get away with it. You aren’t of his class—”

“If I hear any more about his class I’ll—I’ll scream! I’ll stand right up here and scream.”

“You can scream from now until doomsday and you’ll not scream down his class—his class can’t be destroyed by screaming. I didn’t say he was better than you are—he and a million like him are not worth one girl like you and for all of them together I wouldn’t give the powder it would take to blow them to hell. But he is of one class and you are of another. They have never mixed—from the time of Cromwell, from the time of Danton, from the time of Lenin, they have made war, the one upon the other. The trouble with you is, that you’re American and you have this stupid illusion of equality. If you came from Europe, as I do, you’d know you’re attempting something that can never come to pass, even when a whole caravan of camels march through the eye of a needle. Carrie, you’re doomed. Give this foolish thing up, come with me tonight and we’ll start out together, two people of a similar kind with some chance of success.”

My eggs came then and I ate them, weighing every word he had said. When I was through I replied: “I married the man I want.”

When I got home Grant was sitting in a big chair reading a book, but I could tell from the quick way he was breathing that he had just grabbed the book when he heard my key in the lock. He looked up, then looked back to the book. “Oh, hello, Carrie.”

“Hello.”

“Been out for a walk? It
is
a beautiful night.”

“No—just been getting arrested.”

He looked up and stared at me, trying to make up his mind if I was kidding. “...For what?”

“Embezzlement.”

He put up his book then and came over to me and I told him briefly what happened, omitting, however, anything about my talk with Mr. Holden. But I was casual about it and when I got through he couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. After a few moments he turned away and remarked: “Well—we haven’t had that dinner yet.”

I went out to the pantry, looked in the icebox and came back. “If you can wait a few minutes you can have exactly what I had.”

“Oh—you’ve eaten?”

“Yes—since you seemed to be more concerned about your mother than about me I thought it advisable to have a little something. I had bacon and eggs. Just have a seat in the breakfast room and yours’ll be ready in a little while.”

I made him bacon, eggs, buttered bread and coffee, and served them to him there in the dining room. He ate the first two eggs I made him but still looked hungry, so I gave him three more and some extra bacon and poured a glass of milk for him. During all this I don’t think three words were spoken, but when he had finished he appeared to be in a more amiable humor. But when I was about through washing the dishes the phone rang and he went in the bedroom to answer it. He came back as I was hanging up the dish towel and his face was white. “Carrie—mother’s just been taken to the hospital. I’ll have to go over there.”

He dashed out of the kitchen and I heard him go in the bedroom. I went in there. He was taking off the smoking jacket he had on when I came home and changing into his street coat. I closed the door and put my back against it. “Where did you say you were going?”

“To mother—they’ve just taken her over to Polyclinic.”

“Very well—then I’m going over to the Wakefield Hotel, where a gentleman has just invited me to live with him.”

“What?”

“Grant, perhaps you’ve forgotten. This is our wedding night. You stay with me or I leave.”

I opened the door and stepped away from it. “Take your choice. It’s her or me.”

He stood staring, his face working as though the door were some frightful object. Then he closed it, turned around and stared at me as though
I
were some frightful object. Then he broke into sobs, fell on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. I turned away, as it made me sick to look at him. Then I snapped the switch and turned out the light.

The next day was one long nightmare of reporters, phone calls, photographers and more reporters. The desk kept sending up stacks of papers as soon as they would come out, and it appeared that his family had now decided to talk and that his uncle, sisters and various relatives all agreed that whom he married was up to Grant. They also agreed, apparently, that while it was his own affair, he had disgraced them pretty thoroughly.

In addition to the interviews there was an item about his mother’s being in Polyclinic. After breakfast he went over to see her and to this I made no objection. When he came back I tried to find out what had passed between them, but he was extremely evasive. He pretended to tell me everything, said his mother had assured him that if he loved me there was only one thing for him to do and he had done it and she would have been distressed if he had done anything else. Later I realized that this was probably true. But it was only half true, and Grant, although he tried to conceal it from me, was in more of a turmoil inside, if that was possible, than he had been before. As to the peculiar ways in which she was able to torture him while saying the sweetest things, I cannot explain in a few words, so you will have to let me make this clear when I come to it.