by Jane Bowles
"Why do you like it?"
"Because I'm aware of the estrangement, as you call it, and they aren't." This too he had answered many times before. But such was the faith they had in the depth of the mood they created between them that there were no dead sentences, no matter how often repeated.
"We don't feel the same about secrets," she told him. "I don't consider a secret such a great pleasure. In fact, I should hesitate to name what my pleasure is. I simply know that I don't feel the lack of it."
"Good night," said Frank. He wanted to be by himself. Since he very seldom talked for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, she was not at all surprised.
She herself was far too excited for sleep at that moment. The excitement that stirred in her breast was familiar, and could be likened to what a traveler feels on the eve of his departure. All her life she had enjoyed it or suffered from it, for it was a sensation that lay between suffering and enjoyment, and it had a direct connection with her brother's lies. For the past weeks they had concerned the Coffee Pot, but this was of little importance, since he lied to her consistently and had done so since early childhood. Her excitement had its roots in the simultaneous rejection and acceptance of these lies, a state which might be compared to that of the dreamer when he is near to waking, and who knows then that he is moving in a dream country which at any second will vanish forever, and yet is unable to recall the existence of his own room. So Lila moved about in the vivid world of her brother's lies, with the full awareness always that just beyond them lay the amorphous and hidden world of reality. These lies which thrilled her heart seemed to cull their exciting quality from her never-failing consciousness of the true events they concealed. She had not changed at all since childhood, when to expose a statement of her brother's as a lie was as unthinkable to her as the denial of God's existence is to most children. This treatment of her brother, unbalanced though it was, contained within it both dignity and merit, and these were reflected faithfully in her voice and manner.
Friday
He sat at a little table in the Green Mountain Luncheonette apathetically studying the menu. Faithful to the established tradition of his rich New England family, he habitually chose the cheapest dish listed on the menu whenever it was not something he definitely abhorred. Today was Friday, and there were two cheap dishes listed, both of which he hated. One was haddock and the other fried New England smelts. The cheaper meat dishes had been omitted. Finally, with compressed lips, he decided on a steak. The waitress was barely able to hear his order.
"Did you say steak?" she asked him.
"Yes. There isn't anything else. Who eats haddock?"
"Nine tenths of the population." She spoke without venom. "Look at Agnes." She pointed to the table next to his.
Andrew looked up. He had noticed the girl before. She had a long freckled face with large, rather roughly sketched features. Her hair, almost the color of her skin, hung down to her shoulders. It was evident that her mustard-colored wool dress was homemade. It was decorated at the throat with a number of dark brown woollen balls. Over the dress she wore a man's lumber jacket. She was a large-boned girl. The lower half of her face was long and solid and insensitive-looking, but her eyes, Andrew noted, were luminous and starry.
Although it was bitterly cold outside, the lunch room was steaming hot and the front window had clouded over.
"Don't you like fish?" the girl said.
He shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he had noticed that she was not eating her haddock. However, he had quickly looked away, in order not to be drawn into a conversation. The arrival of his steak obliged him to look up, and their eyes met. She was gazing at him with a rapt expression. It made him feel uncomfortable.
"My name is Agnes Leather," she said in a hushed voice, as if she were sharing a delightful secret. "I've seen you eating in here before."
He realized that there was no polite way of remaining silent, and so he said in an expressionless voice, "I ate here yesterday and the day before yesterday."
"That's right." She nodded. "I saw you both times. At noon yesterday, and then the day before a little later than that. At night I don't come here. I have a family. I eat home with them like everybody else in a small town." Her smile was warm and intimate, as if she would like to include him in her good fortune.
He did not know what to say to this, and asked himself idly if she was going to eat her haddock.
"You're wondering why I don't touch my fish?" she said, catching his eye.
"You haven't eaten much of it, have you?" He coughed discreetly and cut into his little steak, hoping that she would soon occupy herself with her meal.
"I almost never feel like eating," she said. "Even though I do live in a small town."
"That's too bad."
"Do you think it's too bad?"
She fixed her luminous eyes upon him intently, as if his face held the true meaning of his words, which might only have seemed banal.
He looked at the long horselike lower half of her face, and decided that she was unsubtle and strong-minded despite her crazy eyes. It occurred to him that women were getting entirely too big and bony. "Do I think what's too bad?" he asked her.
"That I don't care about eating."
"Well, yes," he said with a certain irritation. "It's always better to have an appetite. At least, that's what I thought."
She did not answer this, but looked pensive, as if she were considering seriously whether or not to agree with him. Then she shook her head from side to side, indicating that the problem was insoluble.
"You'd understand if I could give you the whole picture," she said. "This is just a glimpse. But I can't give you the whole picture in a lunchroom. I know it's a good thing to eat. I know." And as if to prove this, she fell upon her haddock and finished it off with three stabs of her fork. It was a very small portion. But the serious look in her eye remained.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," she said gently, wetting her lips. "I try not to do that. You can blame it on my being from a small town if you want, but it has nothing to do with that. It really hasn't. But it's just impossible for me to explain it all to you, so I might as well say I'm from a small town as to say my name is Agnes Leather."
She began an odd nervous motion of pulling at her wrist, and to his surprise shouted for some hotcakes with maple syrup.
At that moment a waitress opened the door leading into the street, and put down a cast-iron cat to hold it back. The wind blew through the restaurant and the diners set up a clamor.
"Orders from the boss!" the waitress screamed. "Just hold your horses. We're clearing the air." This airing occurred every day, and the shrieks of the customers were only in jest. As soon as the clouded glass shone clear, so that the words green mountain luncheonette in reverse were once again visible, the waitress removed the iron cat and shut the door.
From the Threepenny Review
Looking for Lane
The town of X—was built on six or seven different levels. Right behind it there rose a heavily wooded mountain range, while below it stretched a swampy valley divided in the middle by a dark green river. Big wooden steps with iron handrails served as short cuts between one level of the town and the next. On the bottom level were the main streets, the shops, and the largest houses. On the third level at the end of the street there was a swift little waterfall near which Miss Dora Sitwell lived in a log house with her sister Lane. Lane was the younger but both sisters were in their middle years. Dora was a tall bony woman with bold black hair which she wore straight and pointing in toward her cheeks on either side. Her eye was bright and her nose long. Her sister was the opposite type—rather chunky and a blonde.
One morning in the fall of the year Dora was mending a pair of antique bellows and her sister lay in bed with a light case of grippe. She called in to Dora:
"Winter is coming and the damp is starting to seep in here already from that mountain. It's too near the house. As a matter of fact the whole town sho
uld be leveled. What's the point of living built into the side of a mountain? Why don't we go to Florida?"
"I like the change of seasons," Dora said pleasantly. "I love to watch each season come in—"
"We're too old for that winter summer spring stuff," Lane objected. "We should go to Florida and rest."
"I have as much zip as ever," Dora answered, "and I love the different seasons. So do you."
"I don't at all," said Lane.
Dora hung the bellows on their hook and walked into a dark and crowded corner of the room where she picked up a yellow crock designed to imitate a squash. She uncorked it and poured herself some sherry.
She drank sherry very often during the day but never so much that she lost interest in sewing or household work. Actually, she was more industrious and swifter than Lane, who did not drink but sat still dreaming for long periods of time. Dora returned to the couch which she herself had upholstered with two Indian blankets of different designs. There were a number of Indian and Russian objects in the room.
After a long period of silence, Lane called again.
"You can't tell me you enjoy November."
"I have nothing against November," said Dora. "In fact it's likely to make me feel zippy." Lane's feet thrashed angrily under the covers.
"It's not even natural to be as good-tempered as you are," she complained. "Every woman's got to have her humors."
"But I have nothing that makes me sad."
"Your husband died, didn't he?"
"Yes," Dora answered. "But he's so fortunate to be where he is. It's lovely up there."
"Well," Lane continued crossly. "You won't ever get there from this cluttered-up stupid little log house, I can tell you that."
"You don't have any knack for religion, Lane," Dora said. "You don't get what it's about—you never have."
Lane's face darkened. In referring to her religious inclination her sister had touched on a very sore spot. Lane did not have the fear of God.
She felt ashamed of this, and pretended to fear Him and to think about Him. She was free as well from any fear of the night or of wandering among the hills alone, and from any fear of strangers. This lack too she guarded from her sister's knowledge. It is impossible to foretell what a person will be ashamed of when finally grown up. Lane had no admiration at all for the type of woman so often described as "a dauntless woman" or even sometimes as a "she-devil". It had not even occurred to her that such a woman could be attractive, since moral character rather than personality concerned her, even though at a very underdeveloped level.
She also lived in fear that her sister would discover one day that she had never really formed any attachments. She felt attachment neither for her house, for her sister, nor for the town where she had been born. This secret, bitter but small in the beginning when she had first become conscious of it, had slowly come to contain her whole life. Not an hour passed that found her oblivious of the falsity of her position in the world. As a child believes that in five minutes he will have wings and be able to fly, so Lane hoped that she would awaken one day with a feeling of attachment and love for her sister and for the house, and with the fear of God in her heart.
She picked on her sister night and day, but concerning this behaviour she felt no remorse.
Now Lane looked over her shoulder out of the window, and saw the wooded hill rising straight up behind the house. The trees were bare. A white dog ran along beneath the trees, with the dry deep autumn leaves almost covering his back each time his paws touched the ground.
"I wonder," Lane said, "if that dog's going to be out all night."
"What dog, dear?"
"There's a white dog running through the forest."
"I guess he's after chipmunks," said Dora, "or just taking the air. Dogs like air, you know."
"I don't believe they care about air," Lane frowned. "They like food and smells..."
"... and their masters," Dora added. "Don't forget their loyalty—their admirable attachment to their masters. I wish we had a dog."
"He might be taking a short cut through the woods and striking out for the next town," Lane said, her heart sinking.
"With nothing but his tail as luggage, instead of a lot of satchels," Dora added. "Human beings don't know it all. Animals have things more conveniently. Think of the fuss a human being makes when he goes on a journey."
The word "journey" struck deep into Lane's heart, and she closed her eyes for a minute, overcome with shame and anxiety. "You are like that dog," a voice inside of her said. She turned away from the window so that the light would be in back of her and her face could not be seen.
Even though Dora had walked to the far corner of the room again and was lifting the yellow crock, she knew that her sister had "passed into darkness"—a phrase she used to describe certain of Lane's moods, but only to herself. A curious reticence had prevented her from ever wondering why her sister did "pass into darkness"—nor had she ever shown by word or expression that she knew anything was amiss with her sister at these moments.
Lane's moods lent a certain dignity to Dora which she would not otherwise have possessed. Dora loved the existence she led with Lane so passionately that she had actually to sit still on the sofa during certain moments of complete awareness of it, the impact of her joy acting upon her like a blow.
She had been pleased at the death of both her parents and her older sister because this left her free to sell the Sitwell homestead and to construct with the proceeds a log house, which she had been planning to do all her life. She had always longed as well to live in a house built on one floor only and to roll her meals into the parlor on a tea-table. This she did with Lane every day, and with unfailing delight. She lived for pleasure alone, which she though was the way of an artist—it being natural for certain women to love even the word artist. And not all of them feel this way for snobbish motives. Sometimes when she was in particularly high spirits she referred to herself as an artist. At other times she merely mentioned that she lived like one. One afternoon when she was really tipsy in the hotel barroom she had referred to herself many times as "the artist in the little log house." Because of the wild and joyous look in her black eyes, her neighbors could not believe that her pleasures were simple ones.
Dora had started to love Lane one night when Lane was five years old and she herself was eleven. Her mother and father had told her to bathe Lane because they were going to a show. She prepared the tin tub with warm water and told Lane to wait in the kitchen while she went to fetch some soap. When she returned Lane was no longer in the kitchen. She searched throughout the house for nearly three hours, but she could not find Lane anywhere. Finally, bewildered and tired, she sat on the floor in the hall, planning to wait for her parents' return. While she sat there, it suddenly came to her that she loved Lane more than anything else in the world. "Lane," she said aloud. "You angel pie—you're better than Baby Jesus." She began feeling in her heart that Lane's flight from the kitchen was in the nature of a declaration of love and secret pact, and her own search through the dark cold rooms—some of them empty of everything but dust and unfamiliar to her—had caused her to feel that in Lane were centered the light and the warm colors of the universe. "Lane is a beautiful rose," she thought, thinking of Lane's curls on her short fat neck.
Later with the help of her parents she searched the barn and they found Lane curled up in the sleigh under some filthy horse blankets.
Dora leaned over and picked Lane up in her arms. Lane, groggy with sleep, bit Dora on the chin and made it bleed. Their mother started to scold, but Dora kissed Lane passionately for a long time, squeezing Lane's head against her own skinny chest. Mrs. Sitwell wrenched them apart in a sudden fury and pulled Dora's hair.
"Why do you kiss her, you little maniac? She just bit you!" Dora smiled but she did not answer.
"Why do you kiss her when she just bit you?" Mrs. Sitwell repeated. "Are you a maniac?"
Dora nodded.
"I won't have it," said Mr
s. Sitwell, now cold with fury. "You tell her you're mad she bit you." Dora refused. Mrs. Sitwell twisted her arm. "Tell her you're mad she bit you."
"Lane and me are maniacs," said Dora, in a very quiet voice, still smiling. Mrs. Sitwell slapped her hard on the face.
"No one is a maniac," she said, "and you can't speak to Lane for two days." Then she burst into tears. They all went across the grass to the house. Mrs. Sitwell was sobbing freely. She was a very nervous woman and she had drunk a bit too much at the party. This had made her very gay at first, but later she had grown increasingly belligerent. They all went into the parlor, where Mrs. Sitwell sank into a chair and began staring at Lane through her tear-dimmed eyes.
"They should go to bed," her husband said.
"Lane doesn't look like anybody in the family on either side," said Mrs. Sitwell. "Why does she have such a short neck?"
"One of her antecedents most likely had a short neck," Mr. Sitwell suggested. "An aunt or an uncle."
"I don't feel like going on," said Mrs. Sitwell. "Everything is beyond me." She buried her face in her hands. Dora and Lane left the room.
After that Dora organized a game called "Looking for Lane" which she played with her sister. It was the usual hide-and-seek game that children play but it gave Dora a much keener pleasure than any ordinary game. Finally the search extended over the countryside and Dora allowed her imagination to run wild. For example, she imagined once that she would find Lane's body dismembered on the railroad tracks. Her feelings about this were mixed. The important thing was that the land became a magic one the moment the search began. Sometimes Lane didn't hide at all, and Dora would discover her in the nursery after searching for nearly a whole afternoon. On such occasions she would become so depressed that she wouldn't eat.
Lane never explained anything. She was a quiet child with round eyes and a fat face.
This game stopped abruptly when Dora was fourteen, and she never again thought about it.
Each time that Lane "passed into darkness" Dora had a curious reaction that was not unlike that of a person who remembers a sexual gratification when he does not expect to. She was never alarmed, nor did she feel lonely. To live with a person who is something of a lunatic is certainly a lonely experience even if it is not an alarming one, but Dora had never felt loneliness. Sometimes, although she knew Lane was having a spell, she continued talking.
