My Sister's Hand in Mine

by Jane Bowles

  “Do you know Pacifica?” she gasped.

  “Certainly I know Pacifica,” said the woman. She spoke like an Englishwoman who has lived for many years among Americans. “I know everybody that lives here for more than two nights. I’m the proprietor of this hotel.”

  “Well then, do something quickly. Mr. Meyer is in there and he’s very drunk.”

  “I don’t do anything with Meyer when he’s drunk.” The woman was silent for a moment and the idea of doing something with Meyer struck her sense of humor and she chuckled. “Just imagine it,” she said, “‘Mr. Meyer, will you kindly leave the room? Pacifica is tired of you. Ha-ha-ha—Pacifica is tired of you.’ Have a seat, lady, and calm down. There’s some gin in that cut-glass decanter over there next to the avocados. Would you like some?”

  “You know I’m not used to violence,” Mrs. Copperfield said. She helped herself to some gin, and repeated that she was not used to violence. “I doubt that I shall ever get over this evening. The stubbornness of that man. He was like an insane person.”

  “Meyer isn’t insane,” said the proprietress. “Some of them are much worse. He told me he was very fond of Pacifica. I’ve always been decent to him and he’s never given me any trouble.”

  They heard screams from the next floor. Mrs. Copperfield recognized Pacifica’s voice.

  “Oh, please, let’s get the police,” pleaded Mrs. Copperfield.

  “Are you crazy?” said the woman. “Pacifica doesn’t want to get mixed up with the police. She would rather have both legs chopped off. I can promise you that is true.”

  “Well then, let’s go up there,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “I’m ready to do anything.”

  “Keep seated, Mrs.—what’s your name? My name is Mrs. Quill.”

  “I’m Mrs. Copperfield.”

  “Well, you see, Mrs. Copperfield, Pacifica can take care of herself better than we can take care of her. The fewer people that get involved in a thing, the better off everybody is. That’s one law I have here in the hotel.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “but meanwhile she might be murdered.”

  “People don’t murder as easy as that. They do a lot of hitting around but not so much murdering. I’ve had some murders here, but not many. I’ve discovered that most things turn out all right. Of course some of them turn out bad.”

  “I wish I could feel as relaxed as you about everything. I don’t understand how you can sit here, and I don’t understand how Pacifica can go through things like this without ending up in an insane asylum.”

  “Well, she’s had a lot of experience with these men. I don’t think she’s scared really. She’s much tougher than us. She’s just bothered. She likes to be able to have her room and do what she likes. I think sometimes women don’t know what they want. Do you think maybe she has a little yen for Meyer?”

  “How could she possibly? I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Well now, that boy she says she’s in love with; now, I don’t really think she’s in love with him at all. She’s had one after another of them like that. All nice dopes. They worship the ground she walks on. I think she gets so jealous and nervous while Meyer’s away that she likes to pretend to herself that she likes these other little men better. When Meyer comes back she really believes she’s mad at him for interfering. Now, maybe I’m right and maybe I’m wrong, but I think it goes a little something like that.”

  “I think it’s impossible. She wouldn’t allow him to hurt her, then, before she went to bed with him.”

  “Sure she would,” said Mrs. Quill, “but I don’t know anything about such things. Pacifica’s a nice girl, though. She comes from a nice family too.”

  Mrs. Copperfield drank her gin and enjoyed it.

  “She’ll be coming down here soon to have a talk,” said Mrs. Quill. “It’s balmy here and they all enjoy themselves. They talk and they drink and they make love; they go on picnics; they go to the movies; they dance, sometimes all night long.… I need never be lonely unless I want to.… I can always go and dance with them if I feel like it. I have a fellow who takes me out to the dancing places whenever I want to go and I can always string along. I love it here. Wouldn’t go back home for a load of monkeys. It’s hot sometimes, but mostly balmy, and nobody’s in a hurry. Sex doesn’t interest me and I sleep like a baby. I am never bothered with dreams unless I eat something which sits on my stomach. You have to pay a price when you indulge yourself. I have a terrific yen for lobster à la Newburg, you see. I know exactly what I’m doing when I eat it. I go to Bill Grey’s restaurant I should say about once every month with this fellow.”

  “Go on,” said Mrs. Copperfield, who was enjoying this.

  “Well, we order lobster à la Newburg. I tell you it’s the most delicious thing in the world.…”

  “How do you like frogs’ legs?” asked Mrs. Copperfield.

  “Lobster à la Newburg for me.”

  “You sound so happy I have a feeling I’m going to nestle right in here, in this hotel. How would you like that?”

  “You do what you want to with your own life. That’s my motto. For how long would you want to stay?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Copperfield. “Do you think I’d have fun here?”

  “Oh, no end of fun,” said the proprietess. “Dancing, drinking … all the things that are pleasant in this world. You don’t need much money, you know. The men come off the ships with their pockets bulging. I tell you this place is God’s own town, or maybe the Devil’s.” She laughed heartily.

  “No end of fun,” she repeated. She got up from her chair with some difficulty and went over to a box-like phonograph which stood in the corner of the room. After winding it up she put on a cowboy song.

  “You can always listen to this,” she said to Mrs. Copperfield, “whenever your little heart pleases. There are the needles and the records and all you’ve got to do is wind it up. When I’m not here, you can sit in this rocker and listen. I’ve got famous people singing on those records like Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson from the United States, and I say that music is the ear’s wine.”

  “And I suppose reading would be very pleasant in this room—at the same time that one listened to the gramophone,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

  “Reading—you can do all the reading you want.”

  They sat for some time listening to records and drinking gin. After an hour or so Mrs. Quill saw Pacifica coming down the hall. “Now,” she said to Mrs. Copperfield, “here comes your friend.”

  Pacifica had on a little silk dress and bedroom slippers. She had made up her face very carefully and she had perfumed herself.

  “Look what Meyer brought me,” she said, coming towards them and showing them a very large wrist watch with a radium dial. She seemed to be in a very pleasant mood.

  “You been talking here one to the other,” she said, smiling at them kindly. “Now suppose we all three of us go and take a walk through the street and get some beer or whatever we want.”

  “That would be nice,” said Mrs. Copperfield. She was beginning to worry a bit about Mr. Copperfield. He hated her to disappear this way for a long time because it gave him an unbalanced feeling and interfered very much with his sleep. She promised herself to drop by the room and let him know that she was still out, but the very idea of going near the hotel made her shudder.

  “Hurry up, girls,” said Pacifica.

  They went back to the quiet restaurant where Pacifica had taken Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield to dinner. Opposite was a very large saloon all lighted up. There was a ten-piece band playing there, and it was so crowded that the people were dancing in the streets.

  Mrs. Quill said: “Oh boy, Pacifica! There’s the place where you could have the time of your life tonight. Look at the time they’re having.”

  “No, Mrs. Quill,” said Pacifica. “We can stay here fine. The light is not so bright and it is more quiet and then we will go to bed.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Quill, her f
ace falling. Mrs. Copperfield thought she saw in Mrs. Quill’s eyes a terribly pained and thwarted look.

  “I’ll go there tomorrow night,” said Mrs. Quill softly. “It doesn’t mean a thing. Every night they have those dances. That’s because the boats never stop coming in. The girls are never tired either,” she said to Mrs. Copperfield. “That’s because they sleep all they want in the daytime. They can sleep as well in the daytime as they do at night. They don’t get tired. Why should they? It doesn’t make you tired to dance. The music carries you along.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Pacifica. “They’re always tired.”

  “Well, which is it?” asked Mrs. Copperfield.

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Quill, “Pacifica is always looking on the darkest side of life. She’s the gloomiest thing I ever knew.”

  “I don’t look at the dark side, I look at the truth. You’re a little foolish sometimes, Mrs. Quill.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way when you know how much I love you,” said Mrs. Quill, her lips beginning to tremble.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Quill,” said Pacifica gravely.

  “There is something very lovable about Pacifica,” Mrs. Copperfield thought to herself. “I believe she takes everyone quite seriously.”

  She took Pacifica’s hand in her own.

  “In a minute we’re going to have something nice to drink,” she said, smiling up at Pacifica. “Aren’t you glad?”

  “Yes, it will be nice to have something to drink,” said Pacifica politely; but Mrs. Quill understood the gaiety of it. She rubbed her hands together and said: “I’m with you.”

  Mrs. Copperfield looked out into the street and saw Meyer walking by. He was with two blondes and some sailors.

  “There goes Meyer,” she said. The other two women looked across the street and they all watched him disappear.

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield had gone over to Panama City for two days. The first day after lunch Mr. Copperfield proposed a walk towards the outskirts of the city. It was the first thing he always did when he arrived in a new place. Mrs. Copperfield hated to know what was around her, because it always turned out to be even stranger than she had feared.

  They walked for a long time. The streets began to look all alike. On one side they went gradually uphill, and on the other they descended abruptly to the muddy regions near the sea. The stone houses were completely colorless in the hot sun. All the windows were heavily grilled; there was very little sign of life anywhere. They came to three naked boys struggling with a football, and turned downhill towards the water. A woman dressed in black silk came their way slowly. When they had passed her she turned around and stared at them shamelessly. They looked over their shoulders several times and they could still see her standing there watching them.

  The tide was out. They made their way along the muddy beach. Back of them there was a huge stone hotel built in front of a low cliff, so that it was already in the shade. The mud flats and the water were still in the sunlight. They walked along until Mr. Copperfield found a large, flat rock for them to sit on.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” he said.

  A crab ran along sideways in the mud at their feet.

  “Oh, look!” said Mr. Copperfield. “Don’t you love them?”

  “Yes, I do love them,” she answered, but she could not suppress a rising feeling of dread as she looked around her at the landscape. Someone had painted the words Cerveza—Beer in green letters on the façade of the hotel.

  Mr. Copperfield rolled up his trousers and asked if she would care to go barefoot to the edge of the water with him.

  “I think I’ve gone far enough,” she said.

  “Are you tired?” he asked her.

  “Oh, no. I’m not tired.” There was such a pained expression on her face as she answered him that he asked her what the trouble was.

  “I’m unhappy,” she said.

  “Again?” asked Mr. Copperfield. “What is there to be unhappy about now?”

  “I feel so lost and so far away and so frightened.”

  “What’s frighening about this?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all so strange and it has no connection with anything.”

  “It’s connected with Panama,” observed Mr. Copperfield acidly. “Won’t you ever understand that?” He paused. “I don’t think really that I’m going to try to make you understand any more.… But I’m going to walk to the water’s edge. You spoil all my fun. There’s absolutely nothing anyone can do with you.” He was pouting.

  “Yes, I know. I mean go to the water’s edge. I guess I am tired after all.” She watched him picking his way among the tiny stones, his arms held out for balance like a tight-rope walker’s, and wished that she were able to join him because she was so fond of him. She began to feel a little exalted. There was a strong wind, and some lovely sailboats were passing by very swiftly not far from the shore. She threw her head back and closed her eyes, hoping that perhaps she might become exalted enough to run down and join her husband. But the wind did not blow quite hard enough, and behind her closed eyes she saw Pacifica and Mrs. Quill standing in front of the Hotel de las Palmas. She had said good-by to them from the old-fashioned hack that she had hired to drive her to the station. Mr. Copperfield had preferred to walk, and she had been alone with her two friends. Pacifica had been wearing the satin kimono which Mrs. Copperfield had bought her, and a pair of bedroom slippers decorated with pompons. She had stood near the wall of the hotel squinting, and complaining about being out in the street dressed only in a kimono, but Mrs. Copperfield had had only a minute to say good-by to them and she would not descend from the carriage.

  “Pacifica and Mrs. Quill,” she had said to them, leaning out of the victoria, “you can’t imagine how I dread leaving you even for only two days. I honestly don’t know how I’ll be able to stand it.”

  “Listen, Copperfield,” Mrs. Quill had answered, “you go and have the time of your life in Panama. Don’t you think about us for one minute. Do you hear me? My, oh my, if I was young enough to be going to Panama City with my husband, I’d be wearing a different expression on my face than you are wearing now.”

  “That means nothing to be going to Panama City with your husband,” Pacifica had insisted very firmly. “That does not mean that she is happy. Everyone likes to do different things. Maybe Copperfield likes better to go fishing or buy dresses.” She had then smiled gratefully at Pacifica.

  “Well,” Mrs. Quill had retorted somewhat feebly, “I’m sure you would be happy, Pacifica, if you were going to Panama City with your husband.… It’s beautiful over there.”

  “Anyway, she has been in Paris,” Pacifica had answered.

  “Well, promise me you will be here when I get back,” Mrs. Copperfield had begged them. “I’m so terrified that you might suddenly vanish.”

  “Don’t make up such stories to yourself, my dear; life is difficult enough. Where are we going away?” Pacifica had said to her, yawning and starting to go inside. Then she had blown a kiss to Mrs. Copperfield from the doorway and waved her hand.

  “Such fun, to be with them,” she said, audibly, opening her eyes. “They are a great comfort.”

  Mr. Copperfield was on his way back to the flat rock where she was sitting. He had a stone of strange texture and formation in his hand. He was smiling as he came towards her.

  “Look,” he said, “isn’t this an amusing stone? It’s really quite beautiful. I thought you would like to see it, so I brought it to you.” Mrs. Copperfield examined the stone and said: “Oh, it is beautiful and very strange. Thanks ever so much.” She looked at it lying in the palm of her hand. As she examined it Mr. Copperfield pressed her shoulder and said: “Look at the big steamer plowing through the water. Do you see it?” He twisted her neck slightly so that she might look in the right direction.

  “Yes, I see it. It’s wonderful too.… I think we had better be walking back home. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  They
left the beach and started walking through the streets again. It was getting dark, but there were more people standing around now. They commented openly on Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield as they passed by.

  “It’s really been the most wonderful day,” Mr. Copperfield said. “You must have enjoyed some of it, because we’ve seen such incredible things.” Mrs. Copperfield squeezed his hand harder and harder.

  “I don’t have wingèd feet like you,” she said to him. “You must forgive me. I can’t move about so easily. At thirty-three I have certain habits.”

  “That’s bad,” he answered. “Of course, I have certain habits too—habits of eating, habits of sleeping, habits of working—but I don’t think that is what you meant, was it?”

  “Let’s not talk about it. That isn’t what I meant, no.”

  * * *

  The next day Mrs. Copperfield said that they would go out and see some of the jungle. Mrs. Copperfield said they hadn’t the proper equipment and he explained that he hadn’t meant that they would go exploring into the jungle but only around the edges where there were paths.

  “Don’t let the word ‘jungle’ frighten you,” he said. “After all it only means tropical forest.”

  “If I don’t feel like going in I won’t. It doesn’t matter. Tonight we are going back to Colon, aren’t we?”

  “Well, maybe we’ll be too tired and we’ll have to stay here another night.”

  “But I told Pacifica and Mrs. Quill that we would be back tonight. They’ll be so disappointed if we aren’t.”

  “You aren’t really considering them, are you?… After all, Frieda! Anyway, I don’t think they’ll mind. They’ll understand.”

  “Oh, no, they won’t,” answered Mrs. Copperfield. “They’ll be disappointed. I told them I would be back before midnight and that we would go out and celebrate. I’m positive that Mrs. Quill will be very disappointed. She loves to celebrate.”