Moses pushes in through the swinging door from the kitchen, carrying the blue-and-white platter of chicken.
“No,” Katie says, to both of them. “I don’t want that.” Moses freezes. She half stands, looking at McDow, then sits down again, looking at Moses. “We’re done, Moses,” she says angrily. “Can’t you see?”
Moses nods. He backs out again through the swinging door, the platter tilting in his hands.
Katie’s in a rage. Her face has gone pink in blotches, and the tops of her cheeks are dull red, as though the skin has been sandpapered. Her small eyes have gone smaller. He feels her swelling and bursting with hostility.
She must know, of course, where he goes, up to the bedroom on the fourth floor, when Julia spends the night here. Katie must lie in bed awake waiting for him to come back down, though she pretends to be asleep. He knows she knows all this; she disgusts him.
He feels reckless and lordly. He’d like to sweep his marriage off the table with one hard fling. He’s going to France with Marie, and then he won’t have to put up with either Katie or Julia. He can’t think of the words just now, with which to sweep it off, but he’d like to do it. He has Marie now. Julia knows, too, where he goes, at the back of the garden, at night, watching for Marie. He thinks Julia comes down the street and stands on the sidewalk, watching their black silhouettes. She’s accused him of meeting Marie. She screamed at him, and once she threw a tortoiseshell comb at him, which hit the wall and broke. All this excites him: women’s tempers, the color rising up their necks, hair spilling down over their throats, eyes brilliant with rage and tears.
Now he feels Katie’s anger roiling toward him. The fire has spread throughout his chest. He feels excited, ready for battle.
Downstairs, the gong sounds; someone’s at his office door.
* * *
DAWSON PULLS THE checkrein to stop the car just before Bull Street. He walks up the sidewalk toward the corner. Ethel is upstairs in Warrington’s room; she sees him from the window. She’s been waiting for him.
“There’s Papa.” She shakes her hands, flapping them from the wrists, anxious.
No, says Hélène, it can’t be.
“It is,” says Ethel, but Hélène tells her no, she’s mistaken.
Of course Ethel recognizes her father, his solid silhouette, upright posture, distinctive walk. The new black coat. She’s been watching for him: she wants to apologize. When she came running into their room this morning she’d been upset about losing her books. She was afraid they’d be late, ashamed to have to ask for carfare: it was all her fault. She’s full of guilt now, because when she heard him call she pretended she hadn’t. She hadn’t answered, hadn’t said goodbye. All day this bothered her. It’s like a debt. She’s waiting to tell him she’s sorry.
Dawson walks up the street. On the far corner, at the grocery store, a man stands on a ladder, painting the window trim. Across the street, outside William McBurney’s house, a livery horse and carriage stand waiting. On the near corner is a groundnut woman in a bright turban and long skirts. She sits on a stool among her baskets. As Dawson passes McDow’s garden he looks in, between the houses, toward his own property. McDow’s garden stretches from the street all the way to the back boundary. There a fence marks the line, but anyone standing in McDow’s garden can look over it into the Dawsons’ backyard. Or into the dining room windows. He can see the chandelier in the dining room. Something rises and tightens inside Dawson’s chest.
The groundnut maum watches Dawson, hoping for custom, but he stops at McDow’s door and steps into the vestibule.
Dawson rings the bell and hears its brief liquid trill. He stands waiting, but hears nothing more, no voice or footsteps. Seconds tick by. He doesn’t like being made to wait. On the wall hangs a battered tin basket for messages. It’s empty, and Dawson wonders who McDow’s patients are. He thinks of the insurance fraud, digging up corpses. The stench. The body on the kitchen table. He thinks of McDow and Hélène on the street. He thinks of Golden watching as he, Dawson, read the report. It was distasteful to learn of this from Golden. All of it is distasteful. The stench. It is distasteful to deal with McDow in any way: McDow stands beyond the divide that separates men of honor from the other kind. What he has done is unthinkable. Honor and principle are the foundations of a civilized society; McDow flouts them.
McDow has broken the social contract and now he owes something to Dawson. Dawson will hold him to account. He can feel the muscle in his jaw gritting; he feels the way his teeth meet, at the back. He shifts his walking stick and rings again. Now he hears movement, and the door opens.
A short, slight man in his midthirties stands inside. He has a long face and a drooping black mustache. He’s frowning slightly, as though he’s just remembered something. His narrow head rises from his sloping shoulders like a weasel’s.
“Yes?” McDow’s tone seems peremptory. He doesn’t apologize for keeping Dawson waiting.
“Dr. Thomas McDow?” Dawson asks.
Dawson stands in the doorway, straight-backed, elegant in his black derby, his lustrous fitted overcoat, his pale soft leather gloves. He holds a Malacca walking stick. His luxuriant mustache curls over his lip. He’s several inches taller than McDow.
“Yes,” says McDow. “Come in.”
McDow despises all this: the gloves, the overcoat, the mustache, all of it. It’s all beyond him—he wouldn’t know how to find such an overcoat, and couldn’t afford it anyway. He despises it.
He steps back. Is he swaying a bit? To cover it up he exaggerates his gestures.
Dawson thinks McDow’s manner is offhand, or perhaps it’s mocking? The ridiculous sweep of the arm.
They step inside. The office is low-ceilinged, the whitewashed walls stained with damp. It smells of mold and something else. In the center stands a round table. On the left-hand wall, two windows give out onto the piazza. Between them is a settee.
McDow moves back toward the settee, then turns to face his visitor. “What can I do for you?”
“I am Captain Dawson,” Dawson announces.
McDow’s face does not change; Dawson sees that he already knows this.
“Oh, yes,” McDow says carelessly. He won’t be intimidated. He feels the pistol, heavy and serious, behind him in the secretary drawer. He had come downstairs angry at Katie, and when he reached his office he’d taken out the bottle. Three long swallows, the fire glowing up in his chest. He’s pleased that Dawson’s here. He has a reason for seeing him, though he can’t summon it up at this moment.
McDow repeats, “And what can I do for you?”
He’s insolent, there’s no question. Dawson thinks of the man staring over the back fence into his yard, through his windows. At his children. Sarah. Dawson’s chest tightens.
“Dr. McDow,” says Dawson, “I’ve been informed that you have been making improper advances to a member of my household. Ungentlemanly.”
McDow says nothing. His silence is even more insolent.
“You are a married man,” Dawson says. “This young woman is under my protection. I will not permit this.”
McDow smiles. “The young woman,” he says, “is of age. She is under her own protection. You have no right to say who she sees. Or does not see.”
The words come rolling out: he’s more powerful than he knew. The air in the room has begun to glitter as though lit by phosphorescence, some bright darkness which he can’t understand, but which makes the room into a place where he can say or do anything.
Dawson’s mouth tightens. “Please understand me. You have no right to tell me anything about Hélène Burdayron.”
“Marie,” McDow corrects him. “Her name is Marie.”
“Do not tell me the name of my own servant.” Dawson’s voice rises. The heat in his chest is moving up to his throat.
McDow feels himself lifting off the ground. “I’ll tell you whatever I like,” he says. He’s fumbling a bit with his words. “And she’s not a servant.”
“Marie-Hélène Burdayron”—Dawson pronounces the French name with insulting precision; McDow feels the words thrown in his face like frigid water—“receives a salary from me. She has been retained to look after my children. Mademoiselle Burdayron is a part of my household. She depends upon me for protection.”
“Ma-moi-selle,” says McDow, mockingly, but he can’t think of the next thing. He sways slightly.
Dawson wonders if he’s drunk.
“Let me be clear, Doctor. You are not to speak to her again,” Dawson says, very precisely. “Nor to meet her on the street, or anywhere else. Nor to follow her. Is that understood?”
“No, it is not!” McDow says energetically, pleased with himself.
Dawson recognizes the other smell in the room: whisky. It’s McDow’s breath.
“You will do as I say,” Dawson says, raising his voice. “You will stop seeing her, or I will publish an account of your disgraceful behavior in the newspaper.” He’s breathing hard now.
Rage boils up in McDow. “I will do nothing you say,” he says. “I have been inside your house many times. Marie takes me there whenever she likes. I’ve sat in your library, in your own chair.”
This is a lie. He has never sat in Dawson’s chair, but saying so emboldens him. He feels the space in the room expanding. He’s rising to meet Dawson on his own territory.
“I’ve sat in your chair,” McDow repeats, pleased with himself. “By the statue of the wrestler. Very nice,” McDow says, nodding. “I had a look.” He lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers suggestively, to show that they had run over the contours of the bronze body.
Dawson does have a copy of The Dying Gladiator on his library table. The thought of McDow’s fingers on it revolts him. All this revolts him—the idea of sneaking into someone’s house at the invitation of a servant. “If you speak to her again I will ruin you,” Dawson says. The man is contemptible.
“I’ll speak to her when I like,” McDow says. He stumbles a little over “speak”; his tongue has got soft somehow. “If you publish me I’ll hold you personally responsible.” That means a duel. He feels powerful, threatening Captain Dawson. “I’ll speak to her when I like.” He stumbles again over “speak.”
Dawson gives his head a small shake. Looking down, narrowing his nostrils against the smell, he turns to leave. It’s impossible to deal with a man who has no moral code, no sense of honor, no principles. McDow is beneath him.
McDow understands this: the headshake, the averted eyes, the narrowed nostrils, the contemptuous turning away. They are insults. Indignation flowers within him.
“You can’t ruin me, Captain,” he says. For some reason he believes this is true.
Dawson doesn’t answer, he won’t even look at McDow. He’s done. He starts toward the door, but McDow steps in front of him.
McDow recognizes contempt, he can feel it freeze against the skin. Heat and whisky boil inside him. He won’t be made invisible. He will make Dawson see him.
“Don’t push past me, Captain,” McDow says. He can’t quite control himself, and he lurches into the captain.
Dawson’s mouth twists. Up close the smell is vile, and he draws his head back.
McDow staggers closer. He will make Dawson see him. He was in Dawson’s own library, walking up and down with Marie. He kissed her there, he touched her breasts. He touched those books, too, laying his finger across the spines, marking them with his touch. He ran his hand over the books and he kissed Marie. This man, Dawson, pretends it never happened. Dawson won’t even acknowledge his existence. He’ll make Dawson see him.
The air is tightening and flowering at once, his head is bursting and he understands that he can do anything. Dawson has turned away, heading for the door. He’s put his cane in his other hand and he’s going to walk out without speaking. McDow steps, lurching, in front of Dawson.
Dawson is repelled by McDow’s face up close, the reddened eyes and stinking breath: Has he not understood? Dawson is done with him. His nostrils tighten, his mouth turns down in distaste.
“Let me pass, sir.” Dawson uses “sir” as part of an order, as he’d speak to a dog.
But McDow doesn’t move. He stands unsteadily before Dawson, chin jutting, chest out. Disgusted, Dawson sets his gloved palm against McDow’s chest and gives him a tremendous thrust.
McDow staggers backward into the settee. It catches him behind the knees and he goes down, sprawling awkwardly onto the couch.
Now McDow remembers why he’s pleased Dawson has come: because of what he told Marie he would do. Now he sees everything has been leading smoothly up to this moment. The humiliating fiasco of this morning, the detective in the tramcar, Melville in the buggy, that Negro woman shouting from her porch, the contemptible slack-breasted Mrs. Fair: all of it has been rising toward this, right now. Dawson is to blame for it all, and he has delivered himself to McDow.
Dawson, in his fitted overcoat and black derby, turns away, toward the door. McDow lurches to his feet and pushes past him, heading for the secretary in the corner. As he jostles past Dawson the other man recoils, but McDow keeps going. He opens the drawer and takes out the pistol. The air is closing around him and his arm rises of itself. He cocks the gun and points at the big solid torso as though someone else were inside him. Everything has slowed down, every movement is delayed.
Dawson hooks his cane over his left arm and reaches for the doorknob with his other hand. He turns to open the door and lifts his arm, exposing his right side, and McDow pulls the trigger. It seems to happen by itself. The sound explodes in the room.
Dawson is standing, but now everything changes. His shape ceases to move.
The air stills. McDow feels the shock echoing through the air like ripples on water. Everything has stopped.
Dawson turns to face him. He sets the point of his stick on the floor and leans on it. His face is changing utterly. It is like an eclipse, all the color is being leached away from it. Something is spreading through his body. He stares at McDow. In the silence something enormous is happening.
“You’ve killed me,” he says. He sounds astonished. “I’m dying.”
His expression is complicated, as though there is much more to it than this. McDow is frozen, hand still raised, holding the pistol. The room is filled by what has happened. Dawson is becoming something else, something is shifting inside him.
It takes a long time for Dawson to fall. He leans over slightly from the waist. Then he shifts to one side, as though he’s about to step forward on the other foot. He gropes with the tip of the cane, but he’s not stepping forward, his body is doing something else. His face is fixed, his expression interior and intent, as though he’s watching something no one else can see.
Dawson feels the thing coursing through him, the great eruption inside, the cold moving up through his limbs. He feels it coming like the racing wall of shadow during an eclipse. He understands there is no stopping it.
The bullet has gone into the most intimate reaches of his body. It has grazed his kidney and gone on to sever the vena cava, the great vein that receives blood from all the vessels of the body, the vein that supplies the chambers of the heart. With each thundering beat the blood is being pumped elsewhere, away from Dawson’s heart. His face is whitening, his lips turning pale.
It’s the lips that frighten McDow. They are gray. He can’t move. He stares at Dawson.
Dawson, confounded in some deep part of himself, puts his hand uselessly against his side, where the bullet entered, as though he can now prevent the terrible racing loss inside. He tries to press the heel of his hand against the place: above his waist, just around the curve of his side, on the edge of his back. He can feel the ribs under the skin; they are still solid, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He can feel the world slipping. He staggers, catches himself, struggling to stay upright, then slowly he collapses, yielding to that which would have him fall. Gravity, and the inexorable descent toward what is coming. Now he feels it gathering around him; the world
itself draws near, a great sweeping accumulation, like an ocean wave, curling over and crashing down in silence, of thoughts and feelings, his beliefs and ideas, the things that populated the world he lived in. Now he sees they are irrelevant, as he slides downward onto the floor of Thomas McDow’s office.
His big body comes thudding down hard. The darkness pools inside him.
Dawson feels the world closing around him, the air turning dark. The things that he was moving toward have become distant. He was doing something here, something important. Hélène comes into his mind, but that’s not it, it’s something larger, the whole sky lies before him, though it’s dark and overcast. He thinks of Sarah, turning to look at him in the garden; of Warrington’s face. He sees the wrought-iron balcony on the house in Provence, the tall green shutters. Ethel, in the niche on the staircase, her pointed chin raised. What was it he was moving toward? He was doing something, accomplishing something large. Wasn’t it large, wasn’t he grappling with great issues? He could feel himself groping for the shape of it, but now the world is closing around him, the things he was racing toward are disappearing, now it’s only this that he can see, what’s just here, and the light is fading. The newspaper itself, the magnificent engine of his life for all these years, a sense of power and urgency like a brushfire, the sense of it, glowing and hot, incandescent with energy and ideas. He can see the staircase at the office, the crack in the bottom step, and the clacking sound of the press. The reporters barking and laughing downstairs, like excited dogs. The softened seat of his leather chair, the sound it makes as he settles into it. And Sarah, Sarah’s face at his bedside when he had the fever, her pale blue eyes, the bony bridge of her nose where the skin is translucent. Her pale zealot’s eyes. He’s leaving everything, and he can see the room darkening; he can’t see the stars, even the deep sky is gone. He can’t hear the bells. Whatever he wanted is gone, and the dark rises, sliding up over his head. He’s drowning. He remembers the ship, the tossing waves, and the long white script of the moon on the water and the great shadows on the surface of the sea during the long night watches.
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