“Oh!”— the voice was flooded with relief and made Cass remember the girl’s smile— “wait till I get my hands on him!” Then: “Do you know where he went? Where’s he staying?”
The sounds from the bedroom suggested that Paul and Michael were having a fight. “I don’t know.” I should have asked him, she thought. “Vivaldo would know, they were together, I left them together— look—” Michael screamed and then began to cry, they were going to awaken Richard. “Vivaldo is coming by here this afternoon; why don’t you come, too?”
“What time?”
“Oh. Three-thirty, four. Do you know where we live?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll be there. Thank you.”
“Please don’t be so upset. I’m sure everything will be all right.”
“Yes. I’m glad I called you.”
“Till later, then.”
“Yes. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
Cass ran into the children’s bedroom and found Paul and Michael rolling furiously about on the floor. Michael was on top. She dragged him to his feet. Paul rose slowly, looking defiant and ashamed. He was eleven, after all, and Michael was only eight. “What’s all this noise about?”
“He was trying to take my chess set,” Michael said.
The box, the board, and broken chessmen were scattered on both beds and all over the room.
“I was not,” Paul said, and looked at his mother. “I was only trying to teach him how to play.”
“You don’t know how to play,” said Michael; now that his mother was in the room, he sniffed loudly once or twice and began collecting his property.
Paul did know how to play— or knew, anyway, that chess was a game with rules that had to be learned. He played with his father from time to time. But he also loved to torment his brother, who preferred to make up stories about his various chessmen as he moved them about. For this, of course, he did not need a partner. Watching Michael manipulate Richard’s old, broken chess set always made Paul very indignant.
“Never mind that,” Cass said, “you know that’s Michael’s chess set and he can do whatever he wants with it. Now, come on, wash up, and get your clothes on.”
She went into the bathroom to supervise their washing and get them dressed.
“Is Daddy up yet?” Paul wanted to know.
“No. He’s sleeping. He’s tired.”
“Can’t I go in and wake him?”
“No. Not this morning. Stand still.”
“What about his breakfast?” Michael asked.
“He’ll have his breakfast when he gets up,” she said.
“We never have breakfast together any more,” said Paul. “Why can’t I go and wake him?”
“Because I told you not to,” she said. They walked into the kitchen. “We can have breakfast together now, but your father needs his sleep.”
“He’s always sleeping,” said Paul.
“You were out real late last night,” said Michael, shyly.
She was a fairly impartial mother, or tried to be; but sometimes Michael’s shy, grave charm moved her as Paul’s more direct, more calculating presence seldom could.
“What do you care?” she said, and ruffled his reddish blond hair. “And, anyway, how do you know?” She looked at Paul. “I bet that woman let you stay up until all hours. What time did you go to bed last night?”
Her tone, however, had immediately allied them against her. She was their common property; but they had more in common with each other than they had with her.
“Not so late,” Paul said, judiciously. He winked at his brother and began to eat his breakfast.
She held back a smile. “What time was it, Michael?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said, but it was real early.”
“If that woman let you stay up one minute past ten o’clock—”
“Oh, it wasn’t that late,” said Paul.
She gave up, poured herself another cup of coffee, and watched them eat. Then she remembered Ida’s call. She dialed Vivaldo’s number. There was no answer. He was probably at Jane’s, she thought, but she did not know Jane’s address, or her last name.
She heard Richard moving about in the bedroom and eventually watched him stumble into the shower.
When he came out, she watched him eat a while before she said,
“Richard—? Rufus’s sister just called.”
“His sister? Oh, yes, I remember her, we met her once. What did she want?”
“She wanted to know where Rufus was.”
“Well, if she doesn’t know, how the hell does she expect us to know?”
“She sounded very worried. She hasn’t seen him, you know— in a long time.”
“She’s complaining? Bastard’s probably found some other defenseless little girl to beat up.”
“Oh— that hasn’t got anything to do with it. She’s worried about her brother, she wants to know where he is.”
“Well, she hasn’t got a very nice brother; she’ll probably run into him someplace one of these days.” He looked into her worried face. “Hell, Cass, we saw him last night, there’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Yes,” she said. Then: “She’s coming here this afternoon.”
“Oh, Christ. What time?”
“I told her about three or four. I thought Vivaldo would be here by then.”
“Well, good.” He stood up. They walked into the living room. Paul stood at the window, looking out at the wet streets. Michael was on the floor, scribbling in his notebook. He had a great many notebooks, all of them filled with trees and houses and monsters and entirely cryptic anecdotes.
Paul moved from the window to come and stand beside his father.
“Are we going to go now?” he asked. “It’s getting late.”
For Paul never forgot a promise or an appointment.
Richard winked at Paul and reached down to cuff Michael lightly on the head. Michael always reacted to this with a kind of surly, withdrawn delight; seeming to say to himself, each time, that he loved his father enough to overlook an occasional lapse of dignity.
“Come on, now,” Richard said. “You want me to walk you to the movies, you got to get a move on.”
Then she stood at the window and watched the three of them, under Richard’s umbrella, walking away from her.
Twelve years. She had been twenty-one, he had been twenty-five; it was the middle of the war. She eventually ended up in San Francisco and got paid for hanging around a shipyard. She could have done better, but she hadn’t cared. She was simply waiting for the war to be over and for Richard to be home. He ended up in a quartermaster depot in North Africa where he had spent most of his time, as far as she could gather, defending Arab shoeshine boys and beggars against the cynical and malicious French.
She was in the kitchen, mixing batter for a cake, when Richard came back. He put his head in the kitchen door, water running from the end of his nose.
“How’re you feeling now?”
She laughed. “Gloomier than ever. I’m baking a cake.”
“That’s a terrible sign. I can see there’s not much hope for you.” He grabbed one of the dish towels and mopped his face.
“What happened to the umbrella?”
“I left it with the boys.”
“Oh, Richard, it’s so big. Can Paul handle that?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “The umbrella’s going to get caught in a high wind and they’ll be carried away over the rooftops and we’ll never see them again.” He winked. “That’s why I gave it to them. I’m not so dumb.” He walked into his study and closed the door.
She put the cake in the oven, peeled potatoes and carrots and left them in the water and calculated the time it would take for the roast beef. She had changed her clothes and set the cake out to cool when the bell rang.
It was Vivaldo. He was wearing a black raincoat and his hair was wild and dripping from the rain. His eyes seemed blacker than ever, and his face paler.
; “Heathcliff!” she cried, “how nice you could come!”— and pulled him into the apartment, for it did not seem that he was going to move. “Put those wet things in the bathroom and I’ll make you a drink.”
“What a bright girl you are,” he said, barely smiling. “Christ, it’s pissing out there!” He took off his coat and disappeared into the bathroom.
She went to the study door and knocked on it. “Richard. Vivaldo’s here.”
“Okay. I’ll be right out.”
She made two drinks and brought them into the living room. Vivaldo sat on the sofa, his long legs stretched before him, staring at the carpet.
She handed him his drink. “How are you?”
“All right. Where’re the kids?” He put his drink down carefully on the low table near him.
“They’re at the movies.” She considered him a moment. “You may be all right but I’ve seen you look better.”
“Well”— again that bleak smile— “I haven’t really sobered up yet. I got real drunk last night with Jane. She can’t screw if she’s sober.” He picked up his drink and took a swallow of it, dragged a bent cigarette from one of his pockets and lit it. He looked so sad and beaten for a moment, hunched over the flame of the cigarette, that she did not speak. “Where’s Richard?”
“He’ll be out. He’s in his study.”
He sipped his drink, obviously trying to think of something to say, and not succeeding.
“Vivaldo?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Rufus stay at your place last night?”
“Rufus?” He looked frightened. “No. Why?”
“His sister called up to find out where he was.”
They stared at each other and his face made her frightened all over again.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I figured he’d gone to Harlem. He just disappeared.”
“Vivaldo, she’s coming here this afternoon.”
“Who is?”
“His sister, Ida. I told her that I left him with you and that you would be here this afternoon.”
“But I don’t know where he is. I was in the back, talking to Jane— and he said he was going to the head or something— and he never came back.” He stared at her, then at the window. “I wonder where he went.”
“Maybe,” she said, “he met a friend.”
He did not trouble to respond to this. “He should have known I wasn’t just going to dump him. He could have stayed at my place, I ended up at Jane’s place, anyway.”
Cass watched him as he banged his cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I have never,” she said, mildly, “understood what Jane wanted from you. Or, for that matter, what you wanted from her.”
He examined his fingernails, they were jagged and in mourning. “I don’t know. I just wanted a girl, I guess, someone to share those long winter evenings.”
“But she’s so much older than you are.” She picked up his empty glass. “She’s older than I am.”
“That hasn’t got anything to do with it,” he said, sullenly. “Anyway, I wanted a girl who— sort of knows the score.”
She considered him. “Yes,” she said, with a sigh, “that girl certainly knows how to keep score.”
“I needed a woman,” Vivaldo said, “she needed a man. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she said. “If that’s really what both of you needed.”
“What do you think I was doing?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. Only, I’ve told you, you always seem to get involved with impossible women— whores, nymphomaniacs, drunks— and I think you do it in order to protect yourself— from anything serious. Permanent.”
He sighed, smiled. “Hell, I just want to be friends.”
She laughed. “Oh, Vivaldo.”
“You and I are friends,” he said.
“Well— yes. But I’ve always been the wife of a friend of yours. So you never thought of me—”
“Sexually,” he said. Then he grinned. “Don’t be so sure.”
She flushed, at once annoyed and pleased. “I’m not talking about your fantasies.”
“I’ve always admired you,” he said soberly, “and envied Richard.”
“Well,” she said, “you’d better get over that.”
He said nothing. She rattled the ice around in his empty glass.
“Well,” he said, “what am I going to do with it? I’m not a monk, I’m tired of running uptown and paying for it—’’
“For it’s uptown that you run,” she said, with a smile. “What a good American you are.”
This angered him. “I haven’t said they were any better than white chicks.” Then he laughed. “Maybe I better cut the damn thing off.”
“Don’t be such a baby. Really. You should hear yourself.”
“You’re telling me someone’s going to come along who needs it? Needs me?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” she said, shortly, “that you don’t already know.” They heard Richard’s study door open. “I’ll fix you another drink; you might as well get good and drunk.” She bumped into Richard in the hall. He was carrying the manuscript. “Do you want a drink now?”
“Love one,” he said, and walked into the living room. From the kitchen she heard their voices, a little too loud, a little too friendly. When she came back into the living room, Vivaldo was leafing through the manuscript. Richard stood by the window.
“Just read it,” he was saying, “don’t go thinking about Dostoievski and all that. It’s just a book— a pretty good book.”
She handed Richard his drink. “It’s a very good book,” she said. She put Vivaldo’s drink on the table beside him. She was surprised and yet not surprised to realize that she was worried about the effect on Richard of Vivaldo’s opinion.
“The next book, though, will be better,” Richard said. “And very different.”
Vivaldo put the manuscript down and sipped his drink. “Well,” he said, with a grin, “I’ll read it just as soon as I sober up. Whenever,” he added, grimly, “that may be.”
“And tell me the truth, you hear? You bastard.”
Vivaldo looked at him. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
Years ago, Vivaldo had brought his manuscripts to Richard with almost exactly the same words. She moved away from them both and lit a cigarette. Then she heard the elevator door open and close and she looked at the clock. It was four. She looked at Vivaldo. The bell rang.
“There she is,” said Cass.
She and Vivaldo stared at each other.
“Take it easy,” Richard said. “What’re you looking so tragic about?”
“Richard,” she said, “that must be Rufus’s sister.”
“Well, go let her in. Don’t leave her waiting in the hall.” As he spoke, the bell rang again.
“Oh my God,” said Vivaldo, and he stood up, looking very tall and helpless. She put down her drink and went to the door.
The girl who faced her was fairly tall, sturdy, very carefully dressed, and somewhat darker than Rufus. She wore a raincoat, with a hood, and carried an umbrella; and beneath the hood, in the shadows of the hall, the dark eyes in the dark face considered Cass intently. There was a hint of Rufus in the eyes— large, intelligent, wary— and in her smile.
“Cass Silenski?”
Cass put out her hand. “Come in. I do remember you.” She closed the door behind them. “I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.”
The girl looked at her and Cass realized, for the first time, that a Negro girl could blush. “Oh, come on, now, Mrs. Silenski—”
“Give me your things. And please call me Cass.”
“Then you call me Ida.”
She put the things away. “Shall I make you a drink?”
“Yes, I think I need one,” Ida said. “I been scouring this city, I don’t know how long, looking for that no-good brother of mine—”
&
nbsp; “Vivaldo’s inside,” Cass said, quickly, wishing to say something to prepare the girl but not knowing what to say. “Will you have bourbon or Scotch or rye? and I think we’ve got a little vodka—”
“I’ll have bourbon.” She sounded a little breathless; she followed Cass into the kitchen and stood watching her while she made the drink. Cass handed her the glass and looked into Ida’s eyes. “Vivaldo hasn’t seen him since last night,” she said. Ida’s eyes widened, and she thrust out her lower lip, which trembled slightly. Cass touched her elbow. “Come on in. Try not to worry.” They walked into the living room.
Vivaldo was standing exactly as she had left him, as though he had not moved at all. Richard rose from the hassock; he had been clipping his nails. “This is my husband, Richard,” Cass said, “and you know Vivaldo.”
They shook hands and murmured salutations in a silence that began to stiffen like the beaten white of an egg. They sat down.
“Well!” Ida said, shakily, “it’s been a long time.”
“Over two years,” Richard said. “Rufus let us see you a couple of times and then he hustled you out of sight somewhere. Very wise of him, too.”
Vivaldo said nothing. His eyes, his eyebrows, and his hair looked like so many streaks of charcoal on a dead white surface.
“But none of you,” said Ida, “know where my brother is now?” And she looked around the room.
“He was with me last night,” Vivaldo said. His voice was too low; Ida strained forward to hear. He cleared his throat.
“We all saw him,” Richard said, “he was fine.”
“He was supposed to stay at my place,” said Vivaldo, “but we— I— got talking to somebody— and then, when I looked up, he was gone.” He seemed to feel that this was not the best way to put it. “There were lots of his friends around; I figured he had a drink with some of them and then maybe went off and decided to stay the night.”
“Do you know these friends?” Ida asked.
“Well, I know them when I see them. I don’t know— all their names.”
The silence stretched. Vivaldo dropped his eyes.
“Did he have any money?”
“Well”— he looked to Richard and Cass— “I don’t know.”
Another Country Page 10
