Afterwards she thought about it a good deal. She began by reading all the newspapers carefully for several days to find out if anything terrible had happened. She found out about a number of other terrible things but there wasn’t anything which could answer her special questioning. She wanted to talk to someone about it, just to tell them exactly what had happened as you would tell someone about a bad dream that you had. She hoped that if she told someone exactly and completely what she had seen, that then she would feel better, lighter. She felt heavy, as if she were carrying around a large rock and she didn’t know what to do with it. Miss A. tried to tell several people. She didn’t want to tell her good friends because she knew that none of those few shy people, who were too much like herself, would really understand. She felt that she would only be adding her burden to their own.
So she tried out the story on several people with whom she had managed to keep a cordial but impersonal acquaintance. She tried to tell it to the grocer and to the superintendent of the apartment house and she even tried to tell it to another nurse who was having coffee with her one night at the hospital. She couldn’t make sense out of it as it was and she knew she couldn’t expect anyone else to unless she told it exactly as it was and in the right order. And she couldn’t tell it that way because nobody had time to listen to all of it and in order to keep their interest she had to start at the end with the man crying and beating on the subway door and work backwards. That part was interesting because you don’t often see people doing it. But that was all they were interested in. They didn’t want to know why and if they did she couldn’t tell them. She couldn’t tell what happened afterwards either, so it didn’t make much sense and it didn’t seem very important.
It was important to her though. She stopped riding the subway and started riding the bus so that she wouldn’t be reminded of it. She stopped trying to tell about it to anyone.
As she thought more about it she decided that there was more to it. Now that time had passed she could see it as if she had seen it all at one glance. She began to see herself as one of the actors and this led her to think she had had an active part in what happened. Reviewing it, she wished to tell herself what was going to happen. She began just at the point when she was about to step off the subway and meet the question in the man’s eyes. She saw herself tightly holding on to her purse and she saw herself refusing to be involved until after the door was closed and there was glass between her and the man’s need, whatever it was. She imagined many endings. At first she wanted violence. This seemed logical and was the most satisfactory because, no matter how guilty she might feel about not helping, violence put an end to it. She felt relaxed imagining that the two men had participated in some unspeakable violent act against the other and she knew that if that was what happened there wasn’t much she could have done anyway. On the other hand she figured that maybe nothing like that had happened. And if nothing happened to stop the man from crying then it was left that way forever and she was stuck with the image of his face against the glass weeping and speaking words she could never hear. Whatever happened, the two men who saw the end of it were luckier than she was.
Besides this, her thinking gave her a new sense of being more than the middle-aged nurse on the subway. When she found that she could look at herself as if she were looking at another person and when she discovered that she didn’t even have to have understanding or sympathy for herself, she was astonished. It meant so many things at once. Most of all it meant loss. She felt that she had been deprived of a personal possession. And as Miss A. thought about it more and more she saw that she could even think about herself thinking about the scene. And she saw that even the second self, an almost pure eye, was not blameless. She felt as if she had done something hectic and fierce like smashing a public mirror and now she saw herself in many ways as if her image were distributed among jagged fragments of glass. She could not trust herself anymore.
Her life before had been tranquil, a calm which was intense because of her close knowledge of physical suffering. Now she could not view physical suffering in the direct uncomplicated way that her vocation required. She found that she began to feel a contempt for the suffering of other people. She did not communicate this contempt directly though. Instead she found that she increased in her efforts, began to pamper patients and be more concerned about their comfort. Their response was invariably to be grateful and when she saw this and saw that she could not make them know that she hated them for their frailty, her contempt increased. With it increased her reputation and success as a nurse and now she knew more about the world. She believed that everyone lived fixed and sullen somewhere in a life like an invalid in a shabby room. She decided that everybody lived the life of a raging recluse while outside fantastic things were going on at great speed with unbelievable noise.
Miss A. had stopped trying to tell people the truth. Her talk was full of incidental and irrelevant slight things which made her a delight to listen to. She learned how to make a number of clever anecdotes out of nothing at all and because of this her patients were glad to have her around. She seemed to brighten everything. She was pleased to think of this image of herself. It was a bitter pleasing thought to have, knowing all the time that she possessed a knowledge which could shame and confound them. She felt as if she could see through people’s clothes.
Here she stopped, fixing her life as she had fixed her thinking. She committed herself to the day-to-day discipline of falsely rendered service while knowing, curiously, that her life was a wheel on which she was tied and tortured with herself the impersonal tormentor. It was remarkable to think that as she sinned she was at the same time doing penance. The world flooded away and she was glad of it. By losing everything she found herself in control of everything again, and as soon as she was sure, she could reconstruct things to suit herself.
Time and again she saw herself going on beyond her destination and while the other two men held down the struggling weeping man, in the midst of all that roar of forward moving she felt an exhilaration, a new and tugging lightness like a gas balloon on a string. She saw herself wielding a knife she had not owned before.
DON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER
“WOMEN!” Stitch said. “Haven’t you guys got anything to talk about?”
“What else?” somebody said. “Name something else.”
“You want me to tell you a war story?”
Everybody laughed. It was a Saturday afternoon, the last long Saturday before payday, and a bunch of us were sitting around the orderly room playing cards. For nothing. Who’s got money the week before payday? Stitch was CQ. He had to stay there over Saturday to answer the phone and put out the lights. You can bet he would have signed the pass book and been gone, money or no money, if he hadn’t pulled CQ.
“This is no joke, Stitch. How come you pulling duty on Saturday?”
“First Sergeant dumped on me,” Stitch said. “He figures to shoot me out of the saddle and spend the weekend in my shack.”
“What are you going to do if you catch that slob lying in your bed with your fräulein when you get home tomorrow?”
Stitch spun around in the swivel chair he was sitting in next to the phone. He just looked at the guy who’d said that and the whole room got quiet. All of a sudden his big hand shot into his pocket and in one motion came out again with a little click and there was the glint of a switchblade in the light. It was funny. The instant the blade flashed in the light Stitch grinned and leaned back easy in the chair, laughing to himself.
“Why, I’ll kill him,” Stitch said. “I’ll cut that bastard in four pieces.”
Everybody relaxed and the card game got going again. You never could tell about Stitch. Know what I mean?
“What about the Fräulein?”
“Who, Irma?”
“Who else?”
“What about her?”
“What would you do to her?”
“You guys don’t know nothing,” Stitch said. “Just nothing.
Irma’s worthless. She ain’t good for nothing—except bedroom push-ups. But she’s so good at that, I wouldn’t have the heart to hurt her. I’d just whip her fanny good and she’d love it.”
“Tell us a war story, Stitch.”
“Listen,” he said, “I’m trying to read this magazine.”
“Tell us about Paris.”
Stitch had just come back from furlough, ten days in Paris. He could always tell a good story if you hit him in the right mood. The thing about Stitch was he was moody. He seemed okay at the time, though.
“What about Frenchwomen, Stitch?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “I seen some but I never even talked to one.”
“Go on. Don’t give me that. You went all the way to Paris and you never even talked to a woman?”
“Maybe he didn’t have to talk to one.”
—You guys make me sick, Stitch said. You don’t know nothing. I went to Paris and had nothing but one good time, believe me. But not with no French girls. If I was to do things that way, like you suckers, I’d end up broke with nothing to show for it. Now if you guys want to learn the facts of life—you got to plan, you got to figure your chances, you got to play the part. Once you see what you want to get, don’t hesitate, don’t wait, it’s yours. Don’t take no for an answer.
—Now this woman was American. She was plain, oh my God she was plain as Missus Murphy’s pig. I meet her on a sightseeing bus. First thing I do when I hit town is get rid of this uniform, put on my civvies, grab my camera, and hop a sightseeing bus.
“I reckon you wanted to see all the sights.”
—Didn’t I? So I get me a seat in the back of the bus and I just wait. I’m sizing them up. I’m looking for one that’s alone and not too sharp. Know what I mean? A woman that’s sharp has got a notion about the value of her body. A sharp woman wears a price tag on her panties. What I’m looking for is one that not only ain’t sharp, she’s got to know it too.
“Are you kidding?”
—Don’t interrupt. Stick around and learn something.
—So, sure as the world, last one on the bus, there’s this pig. She’s alone—that’s good. She’s kind of shy, keeps looking around for somebody to give her ticket to and then she kind of sneaks up the aisle—excuse me for living—looking for a seat all by herself or at least by some nice old lady. I just sit back and light a cigarette. I say to myself, little lady, give your soul to God, because your ass is mine.
“What does she look like? Is she awful?”
—Awful. She’s thirty or thirty-five if she’s a day, dressed like she was fifty. Got a spread, some gray hair and a stupid hat.
“False teeth?”
—How the hell do I know, yet. I only just seen her get on the bus.
—I wait till we get off the bus in front of a church to take pictures.
—I wonder, I say, if you’d mind posing for a picture in front of the church.
—Why, she says, surprised, all shook up, I don’t know.…
—I only want to show how big it is, I say. I want to send a picture to my mama and I want her to see how big the church is with somebody standing in front of it.
—All right, she says, I’ll be glad to.
—Thanks a lot.
—So she stands there like a GI sack of spuds in front of this church and I fiddle with the gadgets on my camera— Just a minute, I say, I’ve got to get it in focus. I leave her stand there a minute or two. I can see she’s trying to smooth the wrinkles out of her skirt and fix her hair so the gray won’t show. Then I say, quick, how about a big smile? Boy! she gives me the pearly whites. You’d think she was a movie star.
—Would you like me to take a picture of you? she says.
—Oh no, I say. It’s just a waste of film.
—Come on, she says. Stand over there. Wait. You’ll have to show me how to work it.
—I come around behind her and show her how the camera works. I don’t touch nothing but the camera but I can see her hands shaking. Come on, smile a little bit, she says. So I give her a smile and we climb back on the bus.
—Would you mind, I say, if I sat with you? It’s so good to talk to an American.
—Yes, she says, it’s nice to talk to somebody from home.
—We sit down together.
—What am I going to tell my mama about the picture? I say.
—Who will I say the pretty girl is? —She just blushes and clams up.
—I’m Pete Brown, I say.
—Oh, she says, oh. I’m Ellen Cook.
—From then on it’s life-story time. I want her to feel easy with me so I tell mine first. This Pete Brown he’s in the paratroops, a jumper. He’s had an awful sad life. I tell her I like it all right overseas but I miss the old hometown and my poor old mama too.
“Get off it, Stitch. You couldn’t say that with a straight face.”
—Couldn’t I? Now this Ellen, she’s a schoolteacher from Kansas. She teaches the third grade. —Do you like it? —Oh yes, she says, only it does get trying sometimes. —Married? —And honest to God she blushes, like a kid. —No, she says, not yet. —Me either. Well, Ellen, you’re wise. No use being hasty in a serious step like that. Are you traveling alone? —She nods. —I had a girlfriend, she’s the gym teacher at the school where I teach, who was planning to come with me. But at the last minute she got this job as life guard at the country club. —That’s too bad, I say. It’s always more fun to travel with a friend. —Yes. —And safer too. —She blushes again. —Now’s the time, Stitch, you start moving in. —I wonder, I say, if you’d mind seeing me again while you’re here. I’ve got ten days furlough and I don’t know a living soul. We could have fun seeing things together. You could tell me all about everything. I don’t have much education. If you wouldn’t mind, I mean. —I wouldn’t mind, she says. Really, I wouldn’t mind at all. —Just like the movies.
Stitch lit a cigarette and blew a couple of smoke rings.
“So what happens?”
—Cool it. Take your time. Rush things and you ruin them.
—Okay. I take it slow. For two whole days I never lay a hand on her. We go everywhere. We see all the buildings and museums and pictures. We sit in the parks and in the sidewalk cafes. The second night we go walking by the river. It’s a real nice night for that kind of thing. I just feed her the questions and she talks. She talks so much about herself you’d think she never had a chance to talk to anybody in her whole life. She tells me about being a kid in Kansas, about going to school and Sunday school and all about her Daddy. He’s a big Bible-thumping son of a bitch, straight as a shotgun six days of a week and drunk as a lord on Saturday night. Raises hell around the house. Runs around buck nekked hollering “I am the Emperor of the Island” or some crap like that. Gives Ellen and her mama a bad time. Well, the old slob killed himself in a car wreck. She loved him but she hated him too. She knows she shouldn’t hate him at all, but she can’t help hating the awful things he used to do when he was drunk.
“Sounds like your old man, Stitch.”
“Stitch never had no daddy. He was born in a cathouse.”
—This ain’t my life story.
—I understand, Ellen, I say. I know just what you mean.
—I believe you do, she says. I believe you do understand. I can talk to you. I can tell you about things.
—I hope so, I say. I hope you feel easy with me. And I give her hand a little pat.
“Her hand?”
—One thing at a time. One thing at a time.
—Why did you come to Paris?
—I wanted to, she says.
—You must have some reason.
—Well, she says, yes. Not exactly reasons. I just have feelings. You’ll laugh at me.
—No, I say. I’m just a big, dumb guy without much education but I’ll never laugh at you.
—I believe you, she says. You see, Paris was always in the back of my mind since I was a little girl. It was everything in one word to someone
who never saw anything in the world except in her geography book. I loved geography. And Paris was elegance and splendor and beauty, all in a kind of music in my mind. There wasn’t anything, except space, but that was big in my town, nothing cool and gray like the pictures of Paris.
—Then there was the wickedness, too, she says.
—Wickedness?
—You know what I mean. I mean ever since I was a kid I had heard things about the American Legionnaires in our town. I used to see them when they had a parade. I’d see them snicker and pinch the grown girls. I’ve seen them laughing at jokes I couldn’t hear and looking at pictures with their hands cupped around them.
—That was Paris too?
—You’ve got to try to understand. These things were just feelings, they weren’t ideas.
—I understand how it was.
—And then there is another thing. I don’t know if I should tell you this. You wouldn’t mind if I tell you this? You won’t misunderstand?
—You can tell me anything, Ellen.
Evening Performance Page 9
