My Sister's Hand in Mine

by Jane Bowles

  I miss you terribly, my dear, and I want you to please believe that if I could only somehow reach what was inside of me I would break out of this terrible cocoon I am in. I expect to some day really. I will always remember the story you told me when we first met, in which I always felt was buried some strange significance, although I must admit to you now that I could not explain what. I must go and take Bubbles some hot tea to her room now. Please, please believe in me.

  Love and kisses,

  Arnold

  “He’s a nice man,” said Miss Goering. For some reason Arnold’s letter made her feel sad, while his father’s letter had annoyed and puzzled her.

  “Well,” said Arnold’s father, “I must be leaving now if I want to catch the next ferry.”

  “Wait,” said Miss Goering, “I will accompany you to the dock.” She quickly unfastened a rose that she had been wearing on the collar of her coat and pinned it on the old man’s lapel.

  When they arrived at the dock the gong was being sounded and the ferry was all ready to leave for the island. Miss Goering was relieved to see this, for she had feared a long sentimental scene.

  “Well, we made it in the nick of time,” said Arnold’s father, trying to adopt a casual manner. But Miss Goering could see that his blue eyes were wet with tears.… She could barely restrain her own tears and she looked away from the ferry up the hill.

  “I wonder,” said Arnold’s father, “if you could lend me fifty cents. I sent all my money to my wife and I didn’t think of borrowing enough from Arnold this morning.”

  She quickly gave him a dollar and they kissed each other good-by. While the ferry pulled out, Miss Goering stood on the dock and waved; he had asked her to do this as a favor to him.

  When she returned to the apartment she found it empty, so that she decided to go to the bar and drink, feeling certain that if Andy was not already there, he would arrive sooner or later.

  She had been drinking there a few hours and it was beginning to grow dark. Andy had not yet arrived and Miss Goering felt a little relieved. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the heavy-set man who owned the hearse-like car was coming through the door. She shivered involuntarily and smiled sweetly at Frank, the bartender.

  “Frank,” she said, “don’t you ever get a day off?”

  “Don’t want one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want to keep my nose to the grindstone and do something worth while later on. I don’t get much enjoyment out of anything but thinking my own thoughts, anyway.”

  “I just hate thinking mine, Frank.”

  “No, that’s silly,” said Frank.

  The big man in the overcoat had just climbed up on a stool and thrown a fifty-cent piece down on the bar. Frank served him his drink. After he had drunk it he turned to Miss Goering.

  “Will you have a drink?” he asked her.

  Much as she feared him, Miss Goering felt a peculiar thrill at the fact that he had at last spoken to her. She had been expecting it for a few days now, and felt she could not refrain from telling him so.

  “Thank you so much,” she said in such an ingratiating manner that Frank, who approved little of ladies who spoke to strangers, frowned darkly and moved over to the other end of the bar, where he began to read a magazine. “Thank you so much, I’d be glad to. It might interest you to know that I have imagined our drinking together like this for some time now and I am not at all surprised that you asked me. I had rather imagined that it would happen at this time of day too, and when there was no one else here.” The man nodded his head once or twice.

  “Well, what do you want to drink?” he asked her. Miss Goering was very disappointed that he had made no direct answer to her remark.

  After Frank had served the drink the man snatched it from in front of her.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s go and sit in a booth.”

  Miss Goering clambered down from her stool and followed him to the booth that was farthest from the door.

  “Well,” he said to her after they had been sitting there for a little while, “do you work here?”

  “Where?” said Miss Goering.

  “Here, in this town.”

  “No,” said Miss Goering.

  “Well, then, do you work in another town?”

  “No, I don’t work.”

  “Yes, you do. You don’t have to try to fool me, because no one ever has.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You work as a prostitute, after a fashion, don’t you?”

  Miss Goering laughed. “Heavens!” she said. “I certainly never thought I looked like a prostitute merely because I had red hair; perhaps like a derelict or an escaped lunatic, but never a prostitute!”

  “You don’t look like no derelict or escaped lunatic to me. You look like a prostitute, and that’s what you are. I don’t mean a real small-time prostitute. I mean a medium one.”

  “Well, I don’t object to prostitutes, but really I assure you I am no such thing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “But how are we to form any kind of friendship at all,” said Miss Goering, “if you don’t believe anything I say?”

  The man shook his head once more. “I don’t believe you when you say you’re not a prostitute because I know you’re a prostitute.”

  “All right,” said Miss Goering, “I’m tired of arguing.” She had noticed that his face, unlike most other faces, seemed not to take on any added life when he was engaged in conversation and she felt that all her presentiments about him had been justified.

  He was now running his foot up her leg. She tried to smile at him but she was unable to.

  “Come now,” she said, “Frank is very apt to see what you are doing from where he is standing behind the bar and I should feel terribly embarrassed.”

  He seemed to ignore her remark completely and continued to press on her leg more and more vigorously.

  “Would you want to come home with me and have a steak dinner?” he asked her. “I’m having steak and onions and coffee. You could stay a few days if everything worked out, or longer. This other little girl, Dorothy, just went away about a week ago.”

  “I think that would be nice,” said Miss Goering.

  “Well,” he said, “It’s almost an hour’s drive there in a car. I have to go now to see someone here in town, but I’ll be back in half a hour or so; if you want some steak you better be here too.”

  “All right, I will,” said Miss Goering.

  He had not been gone more than a few minutes when Andy arrived. He had both hands in his pockets and his coat collar turned up. He was looking down at his feet.

  “Lord God Almighty!” Miss Goering said to herself. “I have to break the news to him right away and I have not seen him so dejected in a week.”

  “What on earth happened to you?” she asked him.

  “I have been to a movie, giving myself a little lesson in self-control.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean that I was upset; my soul was turned inside out this morning and I had but two choices, to drink and continue drinking or to go to a movie. I chose the latter.”

  “But you still look terribly morose.”

  “I am less morose. I am just showing the results of the terrific fight that I have waged inside of myself, and you know that the face of victory often resembles the face of defeat.”

  “Victory fades so quickly that it is scarcely apparent and it is always the face of defeat that we are able to see,” said Miss Goering. She did not want to tell him, in front of Frank, that she was leaving, because she was certain that Frank would know where she was going. “Andy,” she said, “would you mind coming across the street with me, to the ice-cream parlor? I have something that I want to talk to you about.”

  “All right,” said Andy rather more casually than Miss Goering had expected. “But I want to come back right away for a drink.”

  They went across the street to
the little ice-cream parlor and sat down at a table opposite each other. There was no one in the store with the exception of themselves and the boy who served the customers. He nodded at them when they came in.

  “Back again?” he said to Miss Goering. “That old man sure waited for you a long time this morning.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Goering, “it was dreadful.”

  “Well, you gave him a flower, anyway, when you left. He must have been tickled about that.”

  Miss Goering did not answer him as she had very little time to waste.

  “Andy,” she said, “I’m going in a few minutes to a place that’s about an hour away from here and I probably won’t be coming back for quite some time.”

  Andy seemed to understand the situation immediately. Miss Goering sat back and waited while he pressed his palms tighter and tighter to his temples.

  Finally he looked up at her. “You,” he said, “as a decent human being, cannot do this to me.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can, Andy. I have my own star to follow, you know.”

  “But do you know,” said Andy, “how beautiful and delicate a man’s heart is when he is happy for the first time? It is like the thin ice that has imprisoned those beautiful young plants that are released when the ice thaws.”

  “You have read that in some poem,” said Miss Goering.

  “Does that make it any the less beautiful?”

  “No,” said Miss Goering, “I admit that it is a very beautiful thought.”

  “You don’t dare tear the plant up now that you have melted the ice.”

  “Oh, Andy,” said Miss Goering, “you make me sound so dreadful! I am merely working out something for myself.”

  “You have no right to,” said Andy. “You’re not alone in the world. You’ve involved yourself with me!” He was growing more excited perhaps because he realized that it was useless saying anything to Miss Goering at all.

  “I’ll get down on my knees,” said Andy, shaking his fist at her. No sooner had he said this than he was down on his knees near her feet. The waiter was terribly shocked and felt that he had better say something.

  “Look, Andy,” he said in a very small voice, “Why don’t you get up off your knees and think things over?”

  “Because,” said Andy, raising his own voice more and more, “because she daren’t refuse a man who is down on his knees. She daren’t! It would be sacrilege.”

  “I don’t see why,” said Miss Goering.

  “If you refuse,” said Andy, “I’ll disgrace you, I’ll crawl out into the street, I’ll put you to shame.”

  “I really have no sense of shame,” said Miss Goering, “and I think your own sense of shame is terribly exaggerated, besides being a terrific sap on your energies. Now I must go, Andy. Please get up.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Andy. “You’re crazy and monstrous—really. Monstrous. You are committing a monstrous act.”

  “Well,” said Miss Goering, “perhaps my maneuvers do seem a little strange, but I have thought for a long time now that often, so very often, heroes who believe themselves to be monsters because they are so far removed from other men turn around much later and see really monstrous acts being committed in the name of something mediocre.”

  “Lunatic!” Andy yelled at her from his knees. “You’re not even a Christian.”

  Miss Goering hurried out of the ice-cream parlor after having kissed Andy lightly on the head, because she realized that if she did not leave him very quickly she would miss her appointment. As a matter of fact, she had judged correctly, because her friend was just coming out of the saloon when she arrived.

  “Are you coming out with me?” he said. “I got through a little sooner than I thought and I decided I wasn’t going to wait around, because I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “But,” said Miss Goering, “I accepted your invitation. Why didn’t you think I’d come?”

  “Don’t get excited,” said the man. “Come on, let’s get in the car.”

  As they drove past the ice-cream parlor on their way out of town, Miss Goering looked through the window to see if she could catch a glimpse of Andy. To her surprise, she saw that the store was filled with people, so that they overflowed into the street and quite crowded the sidewalk, and she was unable really to see into the store at all.

  The man was sitting in front with the chauffeur, who was not in uniform, and she was sitting alone in the back seat. This arrangement had surprised her at first, but she was pleased. She understood shortly why he had arranged the seating in this manner. Soon after they had left the town behind them he turned around and said to her:

  “I’m going to sleep now. I’m more comfortable up here because I don’t bounce around so much. You can talk to the chauffeur if you want.”

  “I don’t think I care to talk with anyone,” said Miss Goering.

  “Well, do whatever the hell you want,” he said. “I don’t want to be waked up until those steaks are on the grill.” He promptly pulled his hat down over his eyes and went to sleep.

  As they drove on, Miss Goering felt sadder and lonelier than she had ever felt before in her life. She missed Andy and Arnold and Miss Gamelon and the old man with all her heart and very soon she was weeping silently in the back of the car. It was only with a tremendous exertion of her will that she refrained from opening the door and leaping out into the road.

  They passed through several small towns and at last, just at Miss Goering was dozing off, they arrived in a medium-sized city.

  “This is the town we were heading for,” said the chauffeur, assuming that Miss Goering had been watching the road impatiently. It was a noisy town and there were many tramways all heading in different directions. Miss Goering was astonished that the noise did not awaken her friend in the front seat. They soon left the center of town, although they were still in the city proper when they drove up in front of an apartment building. The chauffeur had quite a difficult time awakening his employer, but at last he succeeded by yelling the man’s own address close to his ear.

  Miss Goering was waiting on the sidewalk, standing first on one foot and then on the other. She noticed that there was a little garden that ran the length of one side of the apartment house. It was planted with evergreen trees and bushes, all of small dimensions because it was obvious that both the garden and the apartment house were very new. A string of barbed wire surrounded the garden and there was a dog trying to crawl under it. “I’ll go put the car away, Ben,” said the chauffeur.

  Ben got out of the car and pushed Miss Goering ahead of him into the lobby of the apartment.

  “Fake Spanish,” Miss Goering said more to herself than to Ben.

  “This isn’t fake Spanish,” he said glumly, “this is real Spanish.”

  Miss Goering laughed a little. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I have been to Spain.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Ben. “Anyhow, this is real Spanish, every inch of it.”

  Miss Goering looked around her at the walls, which were made of yellow stucco and ornamented with niches and clusters of tiny columns.

  Together they entered a tiny automatic elevator and Miss Goering’s heart nearly failed her. Her companion pressed a button, but the elevator remained stationary.

  “I could tear the man to pieces who made this gadget,” he said, stamping on the floor.

  “Oh, please,” said Miss Goering, “please let me out.”

  He paid no attention to her, but stamped even harder than before, and pressed on the button over and over again as though the fear in her voice had excited him. At last the elevator started to rise. Miss Goering hid her face in her hands. They reached the second floor, where the elevator stopped, and they got out. They waited together in front of one of three doors that opened on a narrow hall.

  “Jim has the keys with him,” said Ben; “he’ll be up in a minute. I hope you understand that we won’t go dancing or any nonsense. I can’t stand what people call fun.”

/>   “Oh, I love all that,” said Miss Goering. “Fundamentally I am a light-hearted person. That is, I enjoy all the things that light-hearted people enjoy.”

  Ben yawned.

  “He’s never going to listen to me,” Miss Goering said to herself.

  * * *

  Presently the chauffeur returned with the keys and let them into the apartment. The living-room was small and unattractive. Someone had left an enormous bundle in the middle of the floor. Through some rents in the paper Miss Goering could see that the bundle contained a pretty pink quilt. She felt a little heartened at the sight of the quilt and asked Ben whether or not he had chosen it himself. Without answering her question he called to the chauffeur, who had gone into the kitchen adjoining the living-room. The door between the two rooms was open, and Miss Goering could see the chauffeur standing next to the sink in his hat and coat and slowly unwrapping the steaks.

  “I told you to see that they called for that damn blanket,” Ben shouted to him.

  “I forgot.”

  “Then carry one of those reminder pads with you and pull it out of your pocket once in a while. You can buy one at the corner.”

  Ben threw himself down on the couch next to Miss Goering, who had seated herself, and put his hand on her knee.

  “Why? Don’t you want the quilt now that you have bought it?” Miss Goering asked him.

  “I didn’t buy it. That girl who was here with me last week bought it, to throw over us in bed.”

  “And you don’t like the color?”

  “I don’t like a lot of extra stuff hanging around.”

  He sat brooding for a few minutes and Miss Goering, whose heart began to beat much too quickly each time that he lapsed into silence, searched her mind for another question to ask.

  “You’re not fond of discussions,” she said to him.