by Oakley Hall
“This is V,” the voice said.
Gene held the phone away from the sudden loudness of her breathing. Her fingers looked white and lifeless against the black instrument.
“Hello?” said the phone.
“Hello,” Gene said.
“Is this Gene?”
“Yes.”
“Could you meet me at three at the El Cortez? I think…”
“Yes,” Gene said. “Yes.”
And they arranged a meeting, as though they were two old friends who hadn’t seen one another for a long time. She was to meet V at the Sky Room of the El Cortez Hotel, where she had told Jack she would marry him.
She had never known fear as she knew it then. She tried, as she had already tried so many times, to imagine what V was like. Now she would know, and she told herself it was always easier to fight something you knew. But she was afraid, and then she tried not to think about V as she pressed her black suit and carefully dressed and fixed her face and combed her hair. She put on her black hat with the short veil, her black gloves and her Chesterfield, and then she called a taxi.
But in the ascending elevator, staring at the tightly tailored back of the elevator operator, she felt completely alone and shabby and inadequate, with too much and too many against her, and her courage was almost gone. The elevator stopped, the doors opened on sunlit glass and she walked dazedly across the room to a table in the farthest corner. She ordered a straight bourbon and looked at her watch. It was ten minutes to three, and she should have been late. In ten minutes V would come.
Then her courage was completely gone and in its place came utter panic. What was she doing here? What could she ever gain by seeing V, whom she hated too much and feared too much and who was so much stronger than she that she had made of her, Gene’s, marriage a hateful and rotten thing? What could she do but lose, and losing now lose altogether the dignity and self-respect she thought she could save? She couldn’t face it; as though it were a dark night and she could not turn to face the demon that followed her, as though if she did not turn the demon could not be there. She fumbled a dollar from her change purse, snatched up her bag and gloves and fled toward the elevator.
The burnished arrow circled the burnished arc and stopped. The elevator doors opened and she brushed against someone as she blindly thrust herself forward. A hand touched her arm, the voice said, “You’re Jack’s wife, aren’t you?”
A cry of terror almost pushed from her throat. She forced herself to look at the source of the voice, feeling the muscles pull tight at the corners of her mouth and in her throat. She could not separate the details of the face she saw from the whole, she saw no eyes, mouth, nose, hair, as such; she saw only a face that had known always what she was only now learning, learning now in this moment, and what she would learn in years to come, and knew too what she could never learn and would never want to learn. The face was beautiful and ruthless and was all to Gene that she herself was not and could never be, and then she saw the pity in it and her knees turned to liquid and she felt as though she must faint.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I have to go. Let me go, please.”
She almost cried out as she saw the elevator doors close, the arrow arch down. Her eyes, bright and hot with tears, searched for the call button; she found it, pushed; the arrow continued to arch away. She looked wildly for the stairs.
“Wait,” V said.
“No,” she whispered. “No. Let me go,” but paralyzed, she made no move. She saw Vs face turn hard and white. The gold choker around her neck sparkled dazzlingly in the sun and Gene’s eyes were caught and held by it.
“You’ve got to divorce him,” V whispered. “We can’t go on like this. None of us. You’ve got to…”
“He hates you,” Gene said. “He hates you. I can’t.”
There was no pity in V’s face now. “You must!”
“No,” Gene moaned. “Let me alone, you…” She saw the bronze arrow swinging up. It stopped and the doors slid open. People pushed out past her and she stumbled against V. She sobbed aloud as their arms touched.
“Wait, Gene,” V said, but sobbing, she covered her ears with her gloved hands and ran into the elevator. The operator stared at her with impersonal curiosity. “Down!” she cried at him. “Take me down!”
As the elevator doors slid together she raised her face. Through a hot, salt film she could see V shining in the closing rectangle, the sun bright on her blonde hair and gold choker, and in her brown eyes pain, and the horrible pity. Then the doors clanged softly shut and the floor dropped away beneath her feet, down and down, and she pressed her hands to her face and sobbed with humiliation.
10
The next day when Jack came home she told him she was going to get a divorce.
He sat slouched in the big chair, his feet crossed on the footstool. His arms lay outstretched along the arms of the chair, his head was bent forward and Gene could see a muscle twitching in his cheek. She sat stiffly on the couch, watching him. The anger and hate and self-revulsion that had filled her the day before were gone, and all the tears had already fallen. Now she felt a curious, empty nothingness.
“Half the money’s yours,” Jack said finally. “You better take it out and put it in your own name.”
So this is the way a marriage ends, she thought. Out of all it had been or could have been, there was left only the money in the bank and the things they owned together. That was all there was left to talk about even, a kind of residue of marriage.
“I don’t want any of it,” she said.
“Yes, you do. Anyway it’s California law, I think. Are you going to want any—alimony?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want anything.” She shook her head and clasped her hands in her lap. “I don’t want anything,” she repeated.
“You been to a lawyer yet?”
“I’m going to Las Vegas.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah.”
“I’ll leave next week. I think I’ll fly.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, and then he sat silently, sullenly, his eyes brooding at her. “Well,” he said. “I’ll check out. You may as well stay here till you get ready to go.”
“I’ll go stay with mother. That’s standard procedure, isn’t it?”
“No,” Jack said. “Stay here. I’ll move out.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’ll want to go stay with your V. I thought she was married. Isn’t she married? Her husband must be very forgiving.”
“He’s dead,” Jack said. Suddenly he grimaced and said, “Gene, I guess it wouldn’t make you feel any better if I told you…”
“Do you want me to help you pack?” she interrupted, and she got to her feet, holding her clasped hands at her belt.
“No,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll come back this afternoon and get my stuff.” His cheeks bunched, hiding his eyes, and he stood up slowly, his clenched fists pushing down on the arms of the chair. He was so big. “When do you think you’ll go to Las Vegas?” he asked.
“Next Saturday. I’ll work next week.”
“Okay,” he said, without looking at her. “I’ll see you before then.”
That afternoon she went over to tell her mother, dreading it, for her mother had never liked Jack, and she did not want to be pitied. The pity she had seen in V’s eyes had made her physically ill. She was afraid she would turn on her mother: at least she had the courage to divorce her husband, and her mother had never had; and at least Jack was a man, and not a sodden little animal, as her father had been. Riding out to Mission Hills on the streetcar, dreading the afternoon, she began to despise her mother, and she didn’t want to show it.
“You poor thing,” her mother said. “What has he done to you?” Her eyes were little and hard and she put her hand to her forehead and brushed back a strand of gray hair. She had on the gray, man’s sweater she always wore when she was cleaning the house.
Gene put her purse down on the davenport on top of her coat, and sat down beside it �
��We just couldn’t get along,” she said, with an effort to speak lightly. “It’s just one of those things.”
Her mother took a step toward her and looked keenly down into her eyes. “He’s hurt you, hasn’t he?” she demanded. “He drinks, doesn’t he?”
Gene almost screamed at her: what about your husband? At least I’m getting out, at least I’m not going to spend my whole life being a martyr and feeling sorry for myself like you have, at least I’m salvaging myself out of this. But she managed a smile and shook her head gently. “Oh, it’s nothing like that. We’re still friends.” The understatement of it seemed melodramatic and she hated this necessity to lie. She wanted to go back to the empty apartment where no one would intrude and make demands upon her, where she could stretch out on the bed and think. Her mother’s hands were clasped in front of her, the fingers dovetailed; her mouth was pinched and hurt, white around the edges of the lips.
“I’d think you could tell me, Eugenia. I know that man has done something to you.”
“No,” Gene said. Looking at her mother she thought: if you say I told you so…If you so much as think it…She wouldn’t take any pity.
Finally she said, “Really, there are no hard feelings at all,” and she looked around the room, chilled at the shabby, manless familiarity of the place. She stood up and said, “I have to go now, Mother.”
“But aren’t you coming back here? You’re not going to stay in that apartment by yourself!”
“Yes. I am.”
Her mother stared at her angrily. “Oh, I’ll be all right,” Gene said. “I have to get rid of the furniture and there’s a lot of cleaning to do. There’s a lot to do when you break up housekeeping.”
“Why can’t he take care of that?”
Gene shrugged tiredly and gathered up her coat and purse. “I don’t mind,” she said as she walked out into the hall. She pushed the screen door open and turned around. “Goodbye, Mother.”
Her mother came into the hall behind her. “I told you that Jack Ward was no good. You never should have married him.”
Gene’s hand clutched the edge of the door tightly, the feeling of weak and helpless anger came back and nauseated her, and she felt the floor dropping away beneath her feet. She clutched desperately at the edge of the door while the nausea pitched in her stomach. Her mother and the hallway whirled grayly.
“If you must know,” she said loudly, “it’s my fault. I’m frigid. I’m sterile. Like you are. Does that make you happy?” She almost laughed as she saw the words she had thrown strike her mother in the face, and then she turned and stumbled out into the sunlight. The sun was bright on the grass of the lawn, bright on the white stucco and red tile of the houses that lined the street. In the next yard a lawn sprinkler was rotating, sending out a round flower of shining spray. As she hurried down the walk Gene wondered if anybody anywhere had ever hated anyone as much as she hated V.
11
She even felt vaguely resentful toward Charley Long when she saw him on Monday. He stopped by the office before he went out on the job, as he sometimes did, and he watched her cautiously when she told him about the divorce.
“That’s too bad,” he said. He stood beside her desk with his hands pulling down the pockets of his chamois coat, looking very lean and tall. The usual good humor in his brown, horse face was restrained, and Gene saw he was seeking her mood.
“It just didn’t work,” she said. “That’s all. Nobody was hurt.”
Charley took his pipe from his pocket, filled it and lit it with irritating slowness. “I’m sorry,” he said presently. “I don’t know what else to say, Gene.” He folded his tobacco pouch and replaced it and his eyes, looking up, searched hers.
Mr. Griffith came out of his office, holding a letter in his hand. He let it glide into Gene’s inbox and said, “I made some changes on this, Gene. Would you type it over and shoot it back?”
“Of course,” Gene said. Charley nodded to Mr. Griffith, looked at Gene again, then walked slowly around the end of the counter. He raised a hand toward her as he went out the door, and she saw him look back again before he got into the station wagon with his surveyors.
She had already given the landlady notice and during the week she made arrangements for selling the furniture, and the stove and refrigerator. She prided herself on the efficient way she was handling everything. She had intended to work the week out at the office and then leave for Las Vegas, but Wednesday morning the strain of it all seemed to hit her. The nausea came again and she was violently ill. She didn’t go to work that day and in the afternoon she felt much better.
But the next morning it recurred, and Friday she went to the doctor. She knew what it was and at first she was not angry, only tired and frightened and confused; she knew she had missed her period, but she had never been regular and had never worried when she skipped. But now she seemed to know. The doctor confirmed it. The baby that was hers and Jack’s would be born in April.
Jack had phoned that he would come by to see her that night, the night before she had been going to leave for Las Vegas. He came a little after six and she didn’t get up to answer the door, remaining motionless on the couch and watching him as he sat down in the straight chair by the radio.
He had on the suit he had worn when they were married. His shoes were shined and he carried his tan corduroy hat in his hand. Watching him sit down and hitch his trousers up and cross his legs, Gene felt ugly and swollen and hateful. For the first time she hated him. She hated his slanting eyes and his broad face and big body. She hated his false smile.
“How are you, Gene?”
She didn’t answer. She sat watching him, hating him and his V, who was part of him.
“Well, everything’s all set,” he said. “I’ve got a cashier’s check here for twenty-two hundred bucks.” He leaned forward and laid a check on her lap.
She glanced down at it and moved her leg so that it floated to the floor. She saw Jack’s lips tighten. He said, “Do you need any cash to tide you over?”
She reached for the humidor to get a cigarette, wondering if she only imagined it, or if it really were hard to bend her body. She turned farther than was necessary to see if there was any stiffness or pain; there was none, but she held her body uncomfortably twisted as she tamped the cigarette on the top of the humidor. She tamped one end and then the other, slowly and listlessly.
“What’s the matter?” Jack said.
She looked back at him. She smiled with the strong, exultant knowledge of how she could hurt him now, and she said, “I went to the doctor today, Jack.”
“What’s the matter?” he said. She saw him lick his lips, but then he was no longer focused in her eyes. He seemed to circle in the chair, fading and returning, and she felt as she had as a child when her cousin had spun her around on a piano stool. She put her hand out to steady herself, staring intently at the blob that was Jack’s face. It was sharply white in the vague room and finally it fixed itself in her eyes.
“I’m going to have a baby in April,” she said. She almost laughed aloud, but the room began spinning again and she closed her eyes and let her head rest against the back of the couch while the nausea mounted in her body. When it receded she opened her eyes and looked down at the cigarette in her hand. It was flattened and bent and she tossed it to the end table.
“I guess there’s only one thing to do,” she heard Jack say.
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to start all over. We’ll have to forget…”
Laughter broke from her with a tearing sound that hurt her ears. Jack stopped, his mouth still shaped for the next word. His face seemed to have broken up into white lumps of flesh and he was sitting very straight with the hat clenched in his hands. Gene leaned toward him, feeling her face twist painfully, and she said, “Do you think for one minute I’d do this for you?”
He stared at her, and she saw he did not understand.
“Do you think I’d let this happen?” she said. She shook her
head, savagely. “No,” she said. “I won’t have your baby. Oh, no, Jack,” she said and she stretched her arm and turned her body to recover the cigarette from the end table. She brought it to her mouth with a jerky motion.
“Listen, Goddamn it,” Jack said. “You can’t do that, Gene! Listen…”
“Can’t I?” she cried. “Can’t I? You just watch me do it!”
“Listen! Gene!”
“I don’t want anything of yours!” she screamed. “Get your filthy V to have one for you. I don’t want your money, either; I don’t want one bit of you. I don’t want one thing to ever remind me of your filthy, dirty, cheating…” She stopped and rubbed her hand over her eyes. Tears burned like acid in them and her face felt hot and tight, her body tight and full and spilling over with hate.
She saw Jack shaking his head. She fixed her eyes on the hat he gripped between his hands; crumpling it as he had crumpled her. “Don’t go off like this,” he said doggedly. “We’ll have to forget everything else. We can do it. This is bigger than…”
“It’s not bigger!” she cried, and then she tried to speak reasonably. “No, Jack, I’m going through with it.”
He leaned toward her. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do it, Gene. You can’t. I swear it won’t happen again. You’ve got to see I mean that.”
“You’re crawling,” Gene said. “Remember that time you asked me if I wanted you to crawl any more? I said I didn’t, but I love it now.” The tears ran down her cheeks, out of her burning eyes, as she tried to laugh. “Oh, Jack,” she said. “You had something I wanted so badly, and do you think I ever got it? Do you think I ever did? You’ve hurt me and hurt me and made me hate you and your V and myself till I can’t hate enough…” She stopped, panting, for all at once she was afraid that she had gone insane.
She felt the fear grip her tightly as she lit the cigarette and drew into her lungs smoke that made her head spin again. But she couldn’t stop herself, and she said, “Now I’ve got something you want. I hope just as badly. Worse. And you’re not going to get it.” She laughed again, shaking with it. “You killed something inside me, Jack, and now I’m going to kill something there too.” She liked the way that sounded and she repeated it, watching Jack’s throat work and watching him rub his hand over his black hair.
