Duel

by Richard Matheson

  He flung down the paper and looked at the mantel clock. After ten. He’d been sitting there over an hour while Ann sat up in bed reading. He wondered what book was taking the place of affection and understanding.

  He rose wearily. The record player was scratching again.

  After brushing his teeth he went out into the hall and started for the stairs. At the bedroom door he hesitated, glanced in. The light was out. He stopped and listened to her breathing and knew she wasn’t asleep.

  He almost started in as a rushing sense of need for her covered him. But then he remembered that she was going to have a baby and it couldn’t possibly be his baby. The thought made him stiffen. It turned him around, thin-lipped, and took him down the stairs and he slapped down the wall switch to plunge the living room into darkness.

  He felt for the couch and sank down on it. He sat for a while in the dark, smoking a cigarette. Then he pressed the stub into an ashtray and lay back. The room was cold. He climbed under the sheets and comforter and lay there shivering. Homecoming. The word oppressed him again.

  He must have slept a little while, he thought, staring up at the black ceiling. He held up his watch and looked at the luminous hands. Threetwenty. He grunted and rolled onto his side. Then he raised up and shook the pillow to puff it up.

  He lay there thinking of her. Six months away and here, on the first night home, he was on the living room couch while she lay upstairs in bed. He wondered if she were frightened. She still had a little fear of the darkness left over from her childhood. She used to hug against him and press her cheek against his shoulder and go to sleep with a happy sigh.

  He tortured himself thinking about it. More than anything else he wanted to rush up the stairs and crawl in beside her, feel her warm body against him. Why don’t you? asked his sleepy mind. Because she’s carrying someone else’s child, came the obedient answer. Because she’s sinned.

  He twisted his head impatiently on the pillow. Sinned. The word sounded ridiculous. He rolled onto his back again and reached for a cigarette. He lay there smoking slowly, watching the glowing tip move in the blackness.

  It was no use. He sat up swiftly and fumbled for the ashtray. He had to have it out with her, that was all. If he reasoned with her, she’d tell him what had happened. Then they’d have something to go on. It was better that way.

  Rationalization, said his mind. He ignored it as he trudged up the icy steps and hesitated outside the bedroom.

  He went in slowly, trying to remember how the furniture was placed. He found the small nightlamp on the bureau and turned the knob. The tiny glow pushed away darkness from itself.

  He shivered under his heavy robe. The room was freezing, all the windows open wide. But, as he turned, he saw Ann lying there clad only in a thin nightgown. He moved quickly to the bed and pulled the bedclothes up over her, trying not to look at her body. Not now, he thought, not at a time like this. It would distort everything.

  He stood over the bed and watched her sleep. Her hair was spread darkly over the pillow. He looked at her white skin, her soft red lips. She’s a beautiful woman, he almost spoke the words aloud.

  He turned his head away. All right, the word was ridiculous but it was true. What else would you call the betrayal of marriage? Was there a better word than sinned?

  His lips tightened. He was remembering how she’d always wanted a baby. Well, she had one now.

  He noticed the book next to her on the bed and picked it up. Basic Physics. What on earth was she reading that for? She’d never shown the remotest interest in the sciences except for perhaps a little sociology, a smattering of anthropology. He looked down curiously at her.

  He wanted to wake her up but he couldn’t. He knew he’d be struck dumb as soon as her eyes opened. I’ve been thinking, I want to discuss this sensibly, his mind prompted. It sounded like a soap opera line.

  That was the crux of it, the fact that he was incapable of discussing it with her sensibly or not. He couldn’t leave her, neither could he thrash it out as he’d planned. He felt a tightening of anger at his vacillation. Well, he defended angrily, how can a man adjust to such a circumstance? A man comes home from six months in …

  He moved back from the bed and sank down on the small chair that stood beside the bureau. He sat there shivering a little and watching. her face. It was such a childlike face, so innocent.

  As he watched, she stirred in her sleep, writhing uncomfortably under the blankets. A whimper moved her lips, then suddenly, her right hand reached up and heaved the blankets aside so that they slid off the edge of the bed. Her feet kicked them away completely. Then a great sigh trembled her body and she rolled onto her side and slept, despite the shivering that began almost immediately.

  Again he stood, dismayed at her actions. She’d never been a restless sleeper. Was it a habit she’d acquired while he was gone? It’s guilt—his mind said, disconcertingly. He twitched at the infuriating idea and, walking over to the bed, he tossed the blankets over her roughly.

  When he straightened up he saw that her eyes were on him. He started to smile, then wrenched it from his lips.

  “You’re going to get pneumonia if you keep throwing off the bedclothes,” he said irritably.

  She blinked. “What?” she said.

  “I said …” he started, then stopped. There was too much anger piling up in him. He fought it off.

  “You’re kicking off the blankets,” he said, in a flat voice.

  “Oh,” she said, “I … I’ve been doing it for about a week now.”

  He looked at her. What now?—the thought came.

  “Would you get me a drink of water?” she asked.

  He nodded, glad for the excuse to take his eyes from her. He padded into the hall and bathroom and ran the water until it got cold, then filled up the glass.

  “Thank you,” she said softly as he handed it to her.

  “Welcome.”

  She drank all of it in one swallow then looked up guiltily.

  “Would you … mind getting me another one?”

  He looked at her for a moment, then took the glass and brought her another drink. She drank it just as quickly.

  “What have you been eating?” he asked, feeling a strange tightness at finally talking to her about such an irrelevant topic.

  “Salt … I guess,” she said.

  “You must have had an awful lot.”

  “I have, David.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I know.” She looked at him imploringly.

  “What do you want—another glass?” he asked.

  She lowered her eyes. He shrugged. He didn’t think it was right but he didn’t care to argue about it. He went to the bathroom and got her the third drink. When he got back her eyes were closed. He said, “Here’s your water,” but she was asleep. He put down the glass.

  As he watched her he felt an almost uncontrollable desire to lie beside her, hold her close and kiss her lips and face. He thought of all the nights he’d lain awake in the sweltering tent thinking about Ann. Rolling his head on the pillow almost in agony because she was so far away. He had the same feeling now. And yet, although he stood beside her, he couldn’t touch her.

  Turning abruptly, he snapped off the nightlamp and left the bedroom. He went downstairs and threw himself down on the couch and dared his brain not to fall asleep. His brain conceded and he fell into a blank, uneasy slumber.

  When she came into the kitchen the next morning she was coughing and sneezing.

  “What did you do, throw off the blankets again?” he said.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “Don’t you remember me coming up there?”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “No,” she said.

  Thev looked at each other for a moment. Then he went to the cupboard and took out two cups.

  “Can you drink coffee?” he asked.

  She hesitated a moment. Then she said, “Yes.”

  He put the cups down
on the table, then sat down and waited. When the coffee started spurting up into the glass dome of the pot, Ann stood and picked up a potholder. Collier watched her pour the black, steaming fluid into the cups. Her hand shook a little as she poured his cup and he shrank back to avoid getting splashed.

  He waited until she was sitting down, then asked grumpily, “What are you reading Basic Physics for?”

  Again the blank, uncertain look.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It just … caught my interest for some reason.

  He spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred, hearing her pour cream into hers.

  “I … thought you …” He took a breath. “I thought you had to drink skimmed milk. Or something,” he said.

  “I felt like a cup of coffee.”

  “I see.”

  He sat there, looking morosely at the table, drinking the burning coffee in slow sips. He forced himself to sink into a dull, edgeless cloud. He almost forgot she was there. The room disappeared, all its sights and sounds falling away.

  Then her cup banged down. He started.

  “If you’re not going to talk to me, we might as well end it right now!” she said angrily. “If you think I’m going to stick around until you feel like talking to me, you’re wrong!”

  “What would you like me to do!” he flared back. “If you found out I’d fathered some other woman’s child, how would you feel?”

  She closed her eyes and a look of strained patience held her face tautly.

  “Listen, David,” she said, “for the last time, I have not committed adultery. I know it spoils your role of the injured spouse but I can’t help that. You can make me swear on a hundred Bibles and I’ll still tell you the same thing. You can put truth serum in me and I’ll tell you the same thing. You can strap me to a lie detector and my story will still be the same. David, I’m … !”

  She couldn’t finish. A spasm of coughing began shaking her body. Her face darkened and tears ran down her cheeks as she gripped the side of the table with whitened fingers, gasping for breath.

  For a moment he forgot everything except that she was in pain. He jumped up and ran to the sink for water. Then he patted her back gently while she drank. She thanked him in a choking voice. He patted her back once more, almost longingly.

  “You’d better stay in bed today,” he said, “that’s a bad cough you have. And I’d … you’d better pin down the blankets so you don’t …”

  “David, what are you going to do?” she asked unhappily.

  “Do?”

  She didn’t explain.

  “I’m … not sure, Ann,” he said. “I want with all my heart to believe you. But …”

  “But you can’t. Well, that’s that.”

  “Oh, stop jumping to conclusions! Can’t you give me some time to work it out? For God’s sake, I’ve only been home one day.”

  For a brief moment he thought he saw something of the old warmth in her eyes. Maybe she could see, behind his anger, how much he wanted to stay. She picked up her coffee.

  “Work it out then,” she said. “I know what the truth is. If you don’t believe me … then work it out your own clever way.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  When he left the house she was back in bed, bundled up warmly, coughing and reading An Introduction To Chemistry.

  “Dave!”

  Professor Mead’s studious face broke into a grin. He put down the tweezers he’d been moving the microscope slide with and shoved out his right hand. Johnny Mead, former All-American quarterback, was twenty-seven, tall and broad, sporting a perpetual crewcut. He held Collier’s hand in a firm grip.

  “How’s it been, boy?” he asked. “Had enough of those Matto Grosso vermin?”

  “More than enough,” Collier said, smiling.

  “You’re looking good, Dave,” Mead said. “Nice and tan. You must make quite a sight around this campus of leprous-skinned faculty.”

  They moved across the wide laboratory toward Mead’s office, passing students bent over their microscopes and working the testing instruments. Collier got a momentary feeling of return, then lost it in the irony that he should get the feeling here and not at home.

  Mead closed the door and waved Collier to a chair.

  “Well, tell me all about it, Dave,” he said. “Your daring exploits in the tropics.”

  Collier cleared his throat.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, Johnny,” he said, “there’s something else I want to talk to you about now.”

  “Fire away, boy.”

  Collier hesitated.

  “Understand now,” he said, “I’m telling you this under strictest confidence and only because I consider you my best friend.”

  Mead leaned forward in his chair, the look of youthful exuberance fading as he saw that Collier was worried.

  Collier told him.

  “No, Dave,” Johnny said when he was finished.

  “Listen, Johnny,” Collier went on, “I know it sounds crazy. But she’s insisted so forcibly that she’s innocent that … well, frankly, I’m at a loss. Either she’s had such an emotional breakdown that her mind has rejected the memory of … of …”

  His hands stirred helplessly in his lap.

  “Or?” Johnny said.

  Collier took a deep breath.

  “Or else she’s telling the truth,” he said.

  “But …”

  “I know, I know,” Collier said. “I’ve been to our doctor. Kleinman, you know him.”

  Johnny nodded.

  “Well, I’ve been to him and he said the same thing you don’t have to say. That it’s impossible for a woman to become pregnant five months after intercourse. I know that but …”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t there some other way?”

  Johnny looked at him without speaking. Collier’s head dropped forward and his eyes closed. After a moment he made a sound of bitter amusement.

  “Isn’t there some other way,” he mocked himself. “What a stupid question.”

  “She insists she’s had no …”

  Collier nodded wearily.

  “Yes,” he said. “She … yes.”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said, running the tip of a forefinger over his lower lip. “Maybe she’s hysterical. Maybe … David, maybe she isn’t pregnant at all.”

  “What!”

  Collier’s head snapped up, his eyes looking eagerly into Johnny’s.

  “Don’t jump the gun, Dave. I don’t want that on my conscience. But, well … hasn’t Ann always wanted a baby? I think she has—wanted it bad. Well … it may be just a crazy theory but I think it’s possible that the emotional … drain of being separated from you for six months could cause a false pregnancy.”

  A wild hope began to surge in Collier, irrational he knew but one he clutched at, desperately.

  “I think you should talk to her again,” Johnny said. “Try to get more information from her. Maybe even do what she suggests and try hypnosis, truth serum, anything. But … boy, don’t give up! I know Ann. And I trust her.”

  As he half ran down the street he kept thinking how little credit was due him for finding the trust he needed. But, at least, thank God, he had it for now. It filled him with hope, it made him want to cry out—it has to be true, it has to be!

  Then, as he turned into the path of the house, he stopped so quickly that he almost fell forward and his breath drew in with a gasp.

  Ann was standing on the porch in her nightgown, an icy January wind whipping the fragile silk around the full contours of her body. She stood on the frost-covered boards in her bare feet, one hand on the railing.

  “Oh, my God,” muttered Collier in a strangled voice as he raced up the path to grab her.

  Her flesh was bluish and like ice when he caught her and when he looked into her wide, staring eyes, a bolt of panic drove through him.

  He half led, half dragged her into the warm living room and set her down in the easy chair before the firepl
ace. Her teeth were chattering and breath passed her lips in wheezing gasps. His hands shook as he ran around frantically getting blankets, plugging in the heating pad and placing it under her icy feet, breaking up wood with frenzied motions and starting a fire, making hot coffee.

  Finally, when he’d done everything he could, he knelt before her and held her frigid hands in his. And, as he listened to the shivering of her body reflected in her breath, a sense of utter anguish wrenched at his insides.

  “Ann, Ann, what’s the matter with you?” he almost sobbed. “Are you out of your mind?”

  She tried to answer but could not. She huddled beneath the blankets, her eyes pleading with him.

  “You don’t have to talk, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  “I … I … I … h-had to go out,” she said.

  And that was all. He stayed there before her, his eyes never leaving her face. And, even though she was shaking and gripped by painful seizures of coughing, she seemed to realize his faith in her because she smiled at him and, in her eyes, he saw that she was happy.

  By supper time she had a raging fever. He put her in bed and gave her nothing to eat but all the water she wanted. Her temperature fluctuated, her flushed burning skin becoming cold and clammy in almost seconds.

  Collier called Kleinman about six and the doctor arrived fifteen minutes later. He went directly to the bedroom and checked Ann. His face became grave and he motioned Collier into the hall.

  “We must get her to the hospital,” he said quietly.

  Then he went downstairs and phoned for an ambulance. Collier went back in to the bedside and stood there holding her limp hand, looking down at her closed eyes, her feverish skin. Hospital, he thought, oh my God, the hospital.

  Then a strange thing happened.

  Kleinman returned and beckoned once more for Collier to come out in the hall. They stood there talking until the downstairs bell rang. Then Collier went down to let them in and the two orderlies and the intern followed him up the stairs carrying their stretcher.

  They found Kleinman standing by the bed staring down at Ann in speechless amazement.