“What about you?”
He said, “I’m not your husband.”
“You are,” Rachael said. She continued to look at him, but she said nothing more.
“I feel so goddamn sorry for you,” he said. “But this is just a long shot. It’s too much of a long shot for me, Rachael.”
“You thought about it. The first night you stayed with me.”
Cold morning air blew into the room from the open windows, and Patricia shivered. On her arms goose pimples formed; she stopped to rub them. She felt dizzy. From the paint fumes, she decided. And from not having eaten any breakfast. A drop of paint fell on the rug, and she realized, stricken, that she had forgotten to put down newspapers.
Papers, in piles, were in the cupboard under the sink. She got a stack of them and spread them over the rug. Maybe, she thought, she should roll back the rug. How long it had been. She had forgotten how to go about it.
When Jim came out of the bathroom, she said, “I better get the rug out of the way.”
“You going to dance?”
“No, I don’t want to get paint on it.”
“Paint in the kitchen,” he said. He put on his coat.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“I’m taking Rachael home. She shouldn’t be here. I’ll be back; you go ahead and paint.”
Patricia said, “You don’t know how long you’ll be gone, I suppose.”
“If I get tied up,” he said, “I’ll call you.”
“Good luck,” she said, studying her paints.
“Same to you.” He kissed her on the temple and then nodded Rachael toward the door.
“Goodbye,” Rachael said.
The door shut after the two of them. She was alone in the apartment, with her paints.
On the phonograph the stack of records had come to an end. She lifted them up onto the spindle and restarted them. The same music, she realized, but she did not care. She increased the volume, and then she kicked off her shoes and returned to painting. For an hour she worked; she involved herself in the picture. It was nonobjective, an exercise to bring back to her the sense of the brushes and colors. But her touch remained clumsy, and at ten o’clock she gave up and wandered into the kitchen for something to eat.
How still the apartment was.
After, she had eaten, she returned to her painting. By now the picture was a failure, and she tossed the square of fiber paper aside.
On a fresh square she started over. She sketched a face, the spotty circle of a man’s face. Jim Briskin, she decided. The picture was of him. But it did not look like him. The image had a muddied quality, as if the flesh were running together, slipping and sliding. The image, the face on the fiber paper, deteriorated until it was a grotesque, mask-like thing, feeble and infantile. She gave up and put the brushes into the glass of turpentine.
Now the time was twelve noon and he had not come back. She washed her hands. The records on the phonograph had long ago finished and been put back in the album. She got them out again and restarted them. With the music playing she entered the bedroom and began searching through the dresser drawers.
In a manila folder were letters and pictures that he had kept. After a minute she located the photograph she wanted; it was a picture taken during a camping trip to Mount Diablo and it showed him full-face, smiling. In this picture he did not look worried, and she liked him that way. He wore a canvas shirt, and behind him was the car they had owned, and their tent, and the rocks and brush of the mountainside. She herself had taken the picture; her shadow fell across him.
Propping a fresh square of fiber paper on the easel, she tacked the photograph beside it and began again. But still the picture did not come. At one o’clock she tossed the brush down, wiped her hands, and went into the kitchen for something to drink.
On the tile drainboard she spread out the makings of the drink: the ice cube tray, the gin, the lemon, the tumbler and spoon, and the jigger glass. Holding the tray under the hot water, she smacked the metal with her hand; ice cubes slid into the sink, and she put two of them in the tumbler. Onto the ice cubes she poured gin, and then she added an inch or two of lemonade.
Carrying the drink, she strolled about the apartment, humming with the music. Now she did not feel so lonely. She set the drink down on the arm of the couch and resumed painting.
The smell of the paint blended with the smell of her drink. Her head began to ache, and she wondered if she wanted to paint after all.
When her drink was gone, she returned to the kitchen for another. The ice cubes were still on the drainboard, and she dumped them into the sink; they were half-melted. Into the glass she poured gin and then water from the tap. Swirling the mixture she seated herself at the kitchen table.
For the first time in her life the idea of suicide entered her mind. Once it was there, she could not get rid of it.
She went about the kitchen, examining the knives in the drawers. Then she gave serious thought to the electricity, the wiring and outlets. What an awful thing, she thought. But the idea continued to revolve; it built itself up. She went back and forth through the apartment, seeking something to break into her mind. Hammer, chisel, drill such as a dentist’s drill cutting through bone…splinters of bone flying.
Enough, she thought. But it was not enough. She picked up her brush and tried to paint. The colors dazzled her; she pulled down the shades and painted in the half-light. Now the colors ran together, browns and grays and somber clouds like soot.
She continued painting. The square became dark and at last it was blotted out. All colors, she thought. In her mind the schemes and ideas of suicide grew and became more elaborate, more extravagant, until she had considered everything.
Putting down her brush, she went out of the apartment into the hall. The hall was deserted. She stood by the door and after a long time a middle-aged woman passed by with rubbish for the disposal chute.
“Good afternoon,” Pat said.
The middle-aged woman glanced at the open apartment door and then at the glass in her hand. Without answering her, the middle-aged woman went on.
Enough, she thought. She put her glass down inside the apartment, and then she walked steadily down the hall to the stairs, down to the ground floor, down the front steps to the sidewalk, down the sidewalk, down the hill to the corner, to the liquor store. The polished tile floor sloped, and she walked gingerly to the counter.
“You have any Rhine wine?” she asked. The first thing that came into her mind, something new in her mind.
“Lots of it,” the clerk said. He went to a shelf. While he was looking, she walked back out, onto the sidewalk, up the hill. On the hill she halted, getting her breath. Then she walked back to the apartment.
The phonograph was on, but the records had ceased playing. She lifted them up onto the spindle and started them over.
Where are you? she said to herself.
Nobody answered.
Are you coming back? she said. You’re not, she said, and I know why not. I know where you are. I know who you’re with.
I don’t blame you, she said. You’re right.
She picked up her brush and put the tip of it into the paint. In the darkness of the apartment, she painted; she put more darkness around her. She lifted darkness and carried it about the living room and the bedroom and into the bathroom and the kitchen. She took it everywhere. She brought it to each thing in the apartment, and after that she turned it to herself.
19
Beside him in the car Rachael said, “You don’t have to go through any legal thing. Just stay with me, especially after I have the baby.”
“They’d send me to prison for life,” Jim Briskin said. They were parked before her house, and he looked down the walk to the basement steps; he gazed out at the house, at the stores and people along Fillmore Street.
“Is that why?” Rachael said. “Is that the reason?”
“I can’t marry a seventeen-year-old girl,” he said. “No matter ho
w I feel about her.”
“Just tell me if that’s the reason.”
He gave it serious thought. While he thought, Rachael kept her eyes fixed on him; she studied his face, his body, the way he sat, the clothes he was wearing. She was taking each part of him in. Gathering and collecting him, every bit of him. Tucking him away.
“Yes,” he said finally.
“Let’s leave, then. Let’s go down into Mexico.”
“Why?” he said. “Do they do that down there? Is that something you read in a magazine or saw in a movie?”
Rachael said, “You know more than I do. Find out where we can go where we can do it.”
“Oh, Rachael,” he said.
“What?”
I’ll do it, he wanted to say. He almost said it. He almost told her. “You’re too logical,” he said. “You’re too rational. I can’t.”
“Suppose I talk with Pat.”
“Keep away from Pat. Don’t go near her. She has enough troubles.”
“Do you think I’ll hurt her?”
“Yes.” he said. “If you can. If you can figure out how.”
“I know how,” Rachael said.
“Do you want to?”
Rachael said, “I don’t care about her. I care about you.”
“I’d be lying,” he said, “if I said I don’t care about you. But she’s the one who can’t live by herself. You have an economic problem, but eventually you’ll solve it; you’ll be older and you’ll earn more money. One of these days you’ll have it worked out. Well still be in the middle of our problems. It’s a question of time, nothing else.”
Rachael said, “That’s just a lot of words.”
“You don’t want to hear it. That’s why you say that.”
“I want to hear the truth; I don’t want to hear what you think would be nice. I never knew you before, but now I know you and I’m going to know you for the rest of your life. Isn’t that so?” She pushed the car door open. “Usually I work in the morning; you didn’t even ask me why I’m not working.”
“Why aren’t you?” he said. “What did you do, quit your job? I’m off for a month; Pat’s off indefinitely; I suppose you’re through completely.”
“I switched with a girl,” Rachael said. “I’m working tonight instead of this morning.”
“When do you start?”
“At eight o’clock tonight.”
“Then you have time to sit here.”
“I have all these errands. I have to get started on them; I have a lot to do.” She reached into her coat pocket. “Here’s a note.” She passed him a folded slip of paper. “Take it and don’t read it until you’re driving home. Promise?”
“Notes,” he said.
“I’ll see you.” She started off down the path toward the house. As soon as her back was to him, he unfolded the note and read it. On the paper were no words, no writing, only a drawing she had made. Probably she had gotten the idea from Pat and her painting. It was the drawing of a heart, and he understood from it that Rachael wanted to tell him that she loved him.
Putting the note in his pocket, he got out of the car and followed after her, gaining on her, until he was beside her.
“I’ll go in with you,” he said.
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“Not right away.”
Rachael said, “You opened my note.”
“Yes,” he said.
“These are just ordinary errands. I have to shop and get some medicine at the drugstore and take the clothes over to the launderette. And I have to clean and sweep.” She glanced apprehensively up at him. “Do you think you would want to have lunch with me? You didn’t have much breakfast.”
“Okay,” he said.
She walked ahead of him, down the steps to the basement door. “First I have to clean,” she said, opening the door. It was not locked, he saw. “I have to vacuum the floor. We got this old vacuum cleaner. I was going to clean yesterday, but I didn’t want to while you were around.”
She opened all the windows and doors in the apartment. And then she dragged an obsolete upright vacuum cleaner from the closet. While the machine rattled and shuddered, he stood outdoors, on the cement path.
“You want to move the couch for me?” she said, shutting off the vacuum cleaner.
“Be glad to.” He lifted the couch away from the wall.
“You sound so mournful,” she said.
“No, I’m just thinking.”
“Does this bother you, this cleaning?”
“No.” Again he went outside.
“I don’t have to do this,” Rachael said. “I just wanted something to do; I can’t stand sitting around like we were, just talking. It’s so—it’s a waste of time.”
After she had vacuumed the floor and rugs and curtains and cushions of the couch, she put the vacuum cleaner away and began to wash the dishes in the sink.
“Your note was eloquent,” he said to her.
“Well,” she said, her arms in soapsuds, “I thought you were leaving and I had that to give to you the last minute or so. Just before you took off. Otherwise you wouldn’t know…you’d think I was just after some arrangement so I could be sure of a place to stay. You know?”
“I know,” he said.
“And I mean it,” she said. “The way I feel.”
“It’s too bad,” he said.
“Why?”
“I was afraid that was behind it.”
“It shouldn’t make you afraid. You ought to be glad. Don’t you feel very strongly about me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Maybe something will come of this,” she said, rinsing out the sink and then drying her hands and arms. With a rag and a can of Dutch Cleanser, she began scouring the bowl and faucets in the bathroom.
“After everything you said,” he said, “you still believe what you see in the movies.”
“What’s that?”
“True love wins out.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“Very seldom.”
“But it can,” she said.
“Why? Does it shove everything else out of the way?”
Rachael said, “If I was married to you, I’d have a lot of children. That’s something she’s never done.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“I know I would.” She put her hand on her stomach. “You can see?”
“Not my children,” he said. “I’m sterile.”
She straightened up. “Really?”
“So what you said is just a little silly.”
“I thought it was her,” Rachael said. “But it doesn’t matter. I have a baby already. It would be the same as yours.” She went back to her methodical scrubbing.
“That’s why Pat and I broke up,” he said.
“Yes,” Rachael said, “I believe it. She needs children she can take care of, so she won’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for herself. I don’t see how you can talk about going back to her; if you can’t have children, it’ll never work out. She’ll be sitting around drinking and brooding, and she’ll start crying and wishing she had kids, and then she’ll leave again. But you know I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know,” he said, and it was true; it probably was.
“We’d have a child,” Rachael said, “one at least. Maybe I’ll have twins. Art has a brother. My mother has a twin brother.” Putting away the can of Dutch Cleanser and the rag, she said, “The hospital would charge more if it were twins. But I’d like to have more than one child if I could.”
“How much do the hospitals charge for a delivery?” he said.
“Do you mean a normal delivery? Without complications? Usually from one hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred. It depends on whether you want a private room.”
“A private room is more,” he said. “I know that.”
“If they have to use instruments,” Rachael said, “even forceps to force delivery, then they call it an operation and charge for an operat
ion. So that could cost anything, depending on the circumstances.”
“How long would you be in the hospital?”
“Not very long.” She looked in the refrigerator to see what she needed to buy. “Three days or four. It depends on how quick my delivery is and how I stand up under it. I haven’t had any children before, so I’ll probably have a hard delivery. And I’m small. I’ll probably have a lot of false labor, maybe a couple of days of it.”
“How long before you have the baby will you have to quit your job?”
“It depends on how I feel. But the problem is when I get back. I can’t go to work after I have the baby. I’m going to stay home.” She had made out her shopping list; now she wheeled a shopping cart from the corner of the kitchen. “You want to walk down to the store with me?”
As they walked slowly along the sidewalk, he said, “Do you feel different about me?”
“Because you can’t have children? Yes, I guess so. You didn’t know before you and she were married, did you?”
“No,” he said.
“But I know,” Rachael said. “So it wouldn’t be the same. Like you know about me, you know about Art, you know I liked him enough to marry him. And the baby is his. But that’s not so bad, is it? You can have a child this way. It would be the only way.”
“I thought of that,” he said.
“When?”
“The first night I stayed with you.”
“Yes,” she said, “I knew you were thinking about something, and it had to do with the baby. You want to, then?” She turned toward him. “You want to marry me as soon as we can get it fixed up? It would be a year or so, and the baby would already be born. But we could be together most of that time.”
“We could,” he agreed.
To their right was a fruit and vegetable market; she pushed her shopping cart through the doorway and he followed. At the bin of lettuce, she examined the heads. She weighed them and stripped off the outer leaves. After she had found the lettuce she wanted, she began filling a paper bag with squash.
“Morning, young lady,” the old man at the counter said as she brought up what she wanted to buy.
“Hello,” she said. At the counter were tomatoes. She took two of them and put them with the green onions and celery. To Jim she said, “I want to make a salad for you.”
The Broken Bubble Page 23
