“It isn’t? I guess it isn’t.”
“Vivaldo. If men don’t know what’s happening, what they’re doing, where they’re going— what are women to do? If Richard doesn’t know what kind of world he wants, how am I to help him make it? What am I to tell our sons?” The question hung in the air between them; sluggishly (it was ten past seven) it struck echoes in him of Ida’s tone and Ida’s eyes when they quarreled. Oh. All you white boys make me sick. You want to find out what’s happening, baby, all you got to do is pay your dues!
Was there, in all that rage, a plea?
“I’ll buy you one more drink,” he said.
“Yes. Let me go home or do whatever I’m going to do with just a tiny hint of drunkenness. Excuse me a moment.” jauntily, she signaled the waiter; then gathered up her great handbag and walked to the ladies’ room.
All you got to do is pay your dues. He sat, islanded by the vague hum, the meaningless music, of the cocktail lounge, and recalled lapses and errors from his life with Ida which, at the time, he had blamed on her. Their first quarrel had occurred about a month after she had moved in, in April. His mother had called, one Sunday afternoon, to remind him of a birthday party, the following week, for his younger brother, Stevie. His mother assumed that he would not want to come, that he would try to get out of it, and this made her voice, before he could say anything, querulous and complaining. This he could not bear, which made his tone sharp and hostile. And there they were, then, the aging, frightened woman and her grown son, acting out their kindergarten drama. Ida, in the kitchen, watched and listened. Vivaldo, watching her, suddenly laughed and before he realized what he was saying, he asked, “Do you mind if I bring a girl friend?” And, as he said this, he felt Ida stiffen and become absolutely concentrated with rage.
“If she’s a nice girl,” his mother was saying. “You know we love to meet your friends.”
He felt immediate contrition, seeing, in his mind’s eye, her bewildered face, knowing how she wondered why her eldest son should cause, and appear to wish to cause her, so much pain. At the same time he was aware of Ida’s ominous humming in the kitchen.
“She’s a very nice girl,” he said, promptly, sincerely. Then he faltered, involuntarily stealing a glance at Ida. He did not know how to say, Mama, she’s a colored girl, knowing that his mother, and who on earth could blame her? would immediately decide that this was but one more attempt on his part to shock and humiliate his family. “I want you two to meet one day, I really do.” And this sounded totally insincere. He was thinking, I guess I really am going to have to tell them, I’m going to have to make them accept it. And then, at once, Oh, fuck it, why? He glanced again at Ida. She was smoking a cigarette and leafing through a magazine.
“Well,” said his mother, doubtfully, more than willing, albeit in her fashion, to come flying down the road to meet him, “try to bring her to the party. Everybody will be here and they all ask about you, we haven’t seen you in so long. I know your father misses you though he’ll never say a thing and Stevie misses you, too, and we all do, Danny.” They called him Danny at home.
Everybody: his sister and his brother-in-law, his brother and father and mother, the uncles and aunts and cousins, and the resulting miasma of piety and malice and suspicion and fear. The invincible chatter of people, concerning people, who had no reality for him, the talk about money, of children’s illnesses, of doctor’s bills, of pregnancies, of unlikely and unlovely infidelities occurring between ciphers and neuters in a vacuum, the ditchwater-dull, infantile dirty stories, and the insane talk about politics. They should, really, all of them, still be living in stables, with horses and cows, and should not be expected to tax themselves with matters beyond their comprehension. He hated himself for the sincerity of this reflection and was baffled, as always, by the particular and dangerous nature of its injustice.
“Okay,” he said, trying to stop his mother’s flow. She was telling him that his father’s stomach trouble had returned. Stomach trouble, my ass. He just hasn’t got any liver left any more, that’s all. One of these days he’s just going to spatter all over those walls, and what a stench.
“Are you going to bring your girl friend?”
“I don’t know. I’ll see.”
He could just see Ida with all of them. He, alone, was bad enough; he, alone, distressed and frightened them enough. Ida would reduce them to a kind of speechless hysteria and God knew what his father would say under the impression that he was putting the dark girl at her ease.
More chatter from his mother: it was as though each of her contacts with Vivaldo was so brief and so menaced that she tried to establish in minutes a communion which had not been accomplished in years.
“I’ll be there,” he said, “good-bye,” and hung up.
Yet, he had loved her once, he loved her still, he loved them all.
He looked at the silent telephone, then looked over at Ida.
“Want to come to a birthday party?”
“No, thank you, sweetie. You want to educate your family, you get them some slides, you hear? Colored slides,” and she raised her eyes, mockingly, from the magazine.
He laughed, but felt so guilty about Ida and about his mother that he was unable to let well enough alone.
“I’d like to take you over with me one of these days. It might do them some good. They’re such cornballs.”
“What might do them some good?” Her attention was still on her magazine.
“Why— meeting you. They’re not bad people. They’re just very limited.”
“I’ve told you, I’m not at all interested in the education of your family, Vivaldo.”
Obscurely, deeply, he was stung. “Don’t you think there’s any hope for them?”
“I don’t give a damn if there’s any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can’t figure out whether I’m human or not. If they don’t know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.”
“That’s not very Christian,” he said, lightly. But he was ready to drop it.
“It’s the best I can do. I learned all my Christianity from white folks.”
“Oh, shit,” he said, “here we go again.”
The magazine came flying at him and hit him across the bridge of the nose.
“What do you mean, you white motherfucker!” She mimicked him. “Here we go again! I’ve been living in this house for over a month and you still think it would be a big joke to take me home to see your mother! Goddammit, you think she’s a better woman than I am, you big, white, liberal asshole?” She caught her breath and started toward him, crouching, her hands on her hips. “Or do you think it would serve your whore of a mother right to bring your nigger whore home for her to see? Answer me, goddamnit!”
“Will you shut up? You’re going to have the police down here in a minute.”
“Yes, and when they come, I’m going to tell them you dragged me in off the streets and refused to pay me, yes, I am. You think I’m a whore, well, you treat me like a whore, goddamn your white prick, pay!”
“Ida, it was a dumb thing to say, and I’m sorry, all right. I didn’t mean what you thought I meant. I wasn’t trying to put you down.”
“Yes, you did. You meant exactly what I thought you meant. And you know why? Because you can’t help it, that’s why. Can’t none of you white boys help it. Every damn one of your sad-ass white chicks think they got a cunt for peeing through, and they don’t piss nothing but the best ginger ale, and if it wasn’t for the spooks wouldn’t a damn one of you white cock suckers ever get laid. That’s right. You are a fucked-up group of people. You hear me? A fucked-up group of people.”
“All right,” he said, wearily, “so we’re a fucked-up group of people. So shut up. We’re in enough trouble here, as it is.”
And they were, because the landlord and the neighbors and the cop on the corner disapproved of Ida’s presence. But it was not the most tactf
ul thing he could have said at that moment.
She said, with a contrition absolutely false and murderous, “That’s true. I forgot.” She turned from him into the kitchen again, reached up in the cupboard and hurled all of his dishes, of which, thank heaven, there were not many, to the floor. “I just think I’ll give them something to complain about,” she said. There were only two glasses and she smashed these against the refrigerator. Vivaldo had placed himself against the record player, and, as Ida stalked the kitchen, water standing in her eyes, he began to laugh. She rushed at him, slapping and clawing, and he held her off with one hand, still laughing. His belly hurt. Other people in the building were pounding on their pipes and on the walls and on the ceiling, but he could not stop laughing. He ended up on the floor, on his back, howling, and finally, Ida, unwillingly, began to laugh, too. “Get up off the floor, you fool. Lord, what a fool you are.”
“I’m just a fucked-up group of people,” he said. “Lord, have mercy on me.” Ida laughed, helplessly, and he pulled her down on top of him. “Have mercy on me, baby,” he said. “Have mercy.” The pounding continued, and he said, “There sure are a fucked-up group of people in this house, they won’t even let you make love in peace.”
* * *
Now, Cass returned, with her hair recombed and new make-up on and with her eyes bright and dry. She seated herself in the booth again and picked up her drink. “I’m ready whenever you are,” she said. Then, “Thank you, Vivaldo. If I couldn’t have found a friend to talk to, I think I would have died.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he said, “but I know what you mean. Here’s to you, Cass.” And he raised his glass. It was twenty minutes to eight, but, now, he was afraid to call the restaurant. He would wait until he and Cass had separated.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think I may break— is it the sixth commandment? Adultery.”
“I mean, right now.”
“That’s what I thought you meant.”
They both laughed. Yet, it crossed his mind that she meant it. “Anyone I know?”
“Are you kidding? Just think of the people you know.” He smiled. “All right. But please don’t do anything silly, Cass.”
She looked down. “I don’t think I will,” she murmured. Then, “Let’s get the bill.”
They signaled the waiter, and paid him, and walked into the streets again. The sun was going down, but the heat had not lessened. The stone and steel and wood and brick and asphalt which had soaked in the heat all day would be giving it back all night. They walked two blocks, to the corner of Fifth Avenue, in silence; and in this silence something lived which made Vivaldo oddly reluctant to leave Cass alone.
The corner on which they stood was absolutely deserted, and there was very little traffic.
“Which way are you going?” he asked her.
She looked up and down the Avenue— up and down. From the direction of the park there came a green and yellow cab.
“I don’t know. But I think I’ll go to that movie.” The cab stopped, several blocks from them, waiting for a red light. Cass abruptly put up her hand.
Again, he volunteered. “Would you like me to come with you? I could act as your protection.”
She laughed. “No, Vivaldo, thank you. I don’t want to be protected any more.” And the cab swerved toward them. They both watched it approach, it slowed and stopped. He looked at her with his eyebrows very high.
“Well—” he said.
She opened the door and he held it. “Thank you, Vivaldo,” she said. “Thank you for everything. I’ll be in touch with you in a few days. Or call me, I’ll be home.”
“Okay, Cass.” He made a fist and touched her on the chin. “Be good.”
“You, too. Good-bye.” She got into the cab and he slammed the door. She leaned forward to the driver, the cab rolled forward, downtown. She turned back to wave at him and the cab turned west.
It was like waving good-bye to land: and she could not guess what might have befallen her when, and if, she ever saw land again.
At Twelfth Street and Seventh Avenue she made the driver carry her one block more, to the box office of the Loew’s Sheridan; then she paid him and walked out and actually climbed the stairs to the balcony of this hideous place of worship, and sat down. She lit a cigarette, glad of the darkness but not protected by it; and she watched the screen, but all she saw were the extraordinarily unconvincing wiggles of a girl whose name, incredibly enough, appeared to be Doris Day. She thought, irrelevantly, I never should come to movies, I can’t stand them, and then she began to cry. She wept looking straight ahead, this latter rain coming between her and James Cagney’s great, red face, which seemed, at least, thank heaven, to be beyond the possibilities of make-up. Then she looked at her watch, noting that it was exactly eight o’clock. Is that good or bad? she wondered idiotically— knowing, which was always part of her trouble, that she was being idiotic. My God, you’re thirty-four years old, go on downstairs and call him. But she forced herself to wait, wondering all the time if she were waiting too long or would be calling too early. Finally, during the heaviest of the wide screen’s technicolored stormy weather, she walked down the stairs and entered the phone booth. She dialed his number and got the answering service. She crawled back upstairs and found her seat again.
But she could not bear the movie, which showed no signs of ever ending. At nine o’clock, she walked downstairs again, intending to walk and have a drink somewhere and go home. Home. And she dialed the number again.
It rang once, twice; then the receiver was picked up; there was a silence. Then, in an aggressive drawl,
“Hello?”
She caught her breath.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Eric?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s me. Cass.”
“Oh,” and then, quickly, “How are you, Cass, it’s good of you to call me. I’ve been sitting here trying to read this play and going out of my mind and feeling suicidal.”
“I imagine,” she said, “that you may have been expecting this call.” For never let it be said, she thought, now really in the teeth of irreality and anguish, that I don’t lay my cards on the table.
“What did you say, Cass?” But she knew, from the rhythm of his question, that he had understood her.
“I said, ‘You may have been expecting this call.’”
After a moment, he said. “Yes. In a way.” Then, “Where are you, Cass?”
“I’m around the corner from your house. Can I come up?”
“Please do.”
“All right. I’ll be there in about five minutes.”
“Okay. Oh, Cass—”
“Yes?”
“I haven’t got anything in the house to drink. If you’ll pick up a bottle of Scotch, I’ll pay you for it when you get here.”
“Any special kind?”
“Oh, I don’t care. Any kind you like.”
A stone, miraculously enough, seemed to rise from her heart for a moment. She laughed. “Black Label?”
“Crazy.”
“In a minute, then.”
“In a minute. I’ll be here.”
She hung up, staring for a moment at the shining black instrument of her— deliverance? She marched into the street, found a liquor store and bought a bottle; and the weight of the bottle in her straw handbag somehow made everything real; as the purchase of a railroad ticket proves the imminence of a journey.
What would she say to him? What would he say to her?
He called, “Is that you, Cass?” She called back, “Yes!” and ran clumsily up the steps, like a schoolgirl. She reached his doorway out of breath, and he stood there, in a T-shirt and a pair of old army pants, smiling and pale. His reality shocked her and so did his beauty— or his vigor, which, in a man, is so nearly the same thing. She might have been seeing him for the first time— his short, disordered red hair, a rather square forehead with lines burned into it, h
eavier eyebrows than she remembered and darker eyes, set farther back. His chin had a tiny cleft— she had never noticed it before. His mouth was wider than she remembered, his lips were fuller, his teeth were slightly crooked. He had not shaved and his red beard bristled and gleamed in the weak yellow light on the landing. His trousers had no belt and his hare feet were in leather sandals. He said, “Come in,” and she brushed quickly past his body. He closed the door behind her.
She walked into the center of the room and stared about her, seeing nothing; then they stared at each other, terribly driven, terribly shy, not daring to imagine what came next. He was frightened, but very self-contained. She felt that he was studying her, preparing himself for whatever this new conundrum might prove to be. He had made no decisions at all as yet, was trying to attune himself to her; which placed her under the necessity of finding out what was in his heart by revealing what was in hers. And she did not yet know what was in her heart— or did not want to know.
He took her bag from her and set it on the bookcase. The way he did this made her realize that he was unaccustomed to having women in his room. The Shostakovich Fifth Symphony was on his record player; the play, Happy Hunting Ground, lay open on his bed, under his night light. The only other light in the room came from a small lamp on his desk. His apartment was small and spare, absolutely monastic; it was less a place to live in than it was a place to work; and she felt, suddenly and sharply, how profoundly he might resent the intrusion into his undecorated isolation of the feminine order and softness.
“Let’s have a drink,” he said, and took the bottle from her bag. “How much do I owe you?”
She told him, and he paid her, shyly, with some crumpled bills which were lying on the mantelpiece, next to his keys. He moved into the kitchen, tearing the wrapper off the bottle. She watched him as he found glasses and ice. His kitchen was a mess and she longed to offer to clean it up for him, but she did not dare, not yet. She moved heavily to the bed and sat down on the edge of it and picked up the play.
“I can’t tell if that play’s any good or not. I can’t tell any more, anyway.” Whenever he was unsure, his Southern accent became more noticeable.
Another Country Page 29
