“I’m no child, Kathleen. I’ve known many women-“
“Not like that-not forever.”
“I’ve just finished listening to a good portion of three thousand of them.”
“The questions you ask don’t always bring the … the full answers.”
“I’m surprisingly bright, Kathleen. I can project a laconic answer to the ultimate fact-“
“To the ultimate disillusion?”
“That would never happen to us. Even if passion becomes habit, and high regard or affection, let’s say, it may be what should evolve with the passing years. Isn’t a long intimacy, a total intimacy, enough foundation?”
“Is it? I don’t know.”
“Why are you here, Kathleen?”
“You proposed to me last night. I didn’t say no. If I had said no, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You didn’t say yes, either. Matrimony requires full affirmation on both sides.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible on my part. I suspect it isn’t. I think this is one of those … those encounters where you meet, and dream a little, and go on your separate ways. Because you never knew you’d meet, andf besides, nature didn’t equip you, prepare you, for the encounter. It wasn’t fated to be. Like the sperm missing the egg.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“About myself. Not you. I feel you came prepared. I’m the one who’s not equal to it.”
He was silent.
Angrily, Kathleen ground her cigarette stub into the tray. “Hell-circles-around and around I go. I’m here because, dammit, you’ve got to know.”
There was a tentative rapping on the glazed door pane. Paul muttered a curse under his breath, strode to the door, and yanked it open.
Benita Selby recoiled. “I … I’m sorry, Paul, but Dr. Chapman wants to see you right away. I told him, but he insists. He’s all steamed up about something. He said to break in on you.”
“Can’t you tell him to wait a minute?”
“You tell him. Not me.”
Exasperated, Paul said, “All right. I’ll be right in.” He left the door open as he turned into the room. “Kathleen-” “I heard. You go ahead, please.” “Will you wait? I want to know.” “I’ll wait. I’ll be right here.” He nodded gratefully and hurried into the corridor. In the conference room, Dr. Chapman was pacing near the far end of the table in a state of uncontrolled agitation. Paul shut the door and went to him. “Where’s Cass?” asked Dr. Chapman. “Have you seen Cass?” “He was going to the doctor.”
“He says. Three days ago I sent him to an internist, Perowitz, a friend of mine. Out on Wilshire. Cass said he went, and this morning he left to see the doctor again.” Paul waited. Dr. Chapman resumed angrily. “I worried about him all morning-we are leaving tomorrow-so I called the motel. They said he’s still out. So I telephoned Perowitz to find out if it’s serious. You know what Perowitz told me?” Paul had not the faintest idea.
“He’s never seen or heard of Cass Miller. Do you understand, Paul? Cass has been bluffing us. He’s never been to a doctor. I’m beginning to suspect he wasn’t even ill.” “There must be some logical explanation.”
“You’re damn right. There’d better be. And that’s what we’re going to find out right now. You and I-we’re going out on a Cass hunt, and when I find him, well, he’d better have his reasons, and they’d better make sense, or he’s through, right now, today, through.”
Paul glanced at the wall clock. “We have interviews in eighteen minutes.”
“Benita can have them wait. I want to settle Cass right now.”
‘Where do we begin?”
“Never mind. I want to question the clerk at the motel and the gas station attendant where he rakes the Dodge.”
He went to the door. Paul followed him into the corridor. “Are you sure you need me, Doctor?”
Dr. Chapman did not hide his vexation. “Look, Paul, I think this is important enough to investigate personally. Certainly, it’s not what the head of a project is expected to do. But I’ve never looked upon Cass, or you or Horace, for that matter, as subordinates or
employees. We’re partners, and when one of us founders, is derelict in duty, it affects and involves all of us.” He caught his breath. “Certainly I need you. How do I know what’s happened to him? Maybe he’s drunk. Maybe it’ll take two of us.”
It was Paul’s turn to be irked by what he considered an unnecessary chastisement. “Okay,” he said curtly. “Let me get my coat.”
Paul entered his office. Kathleen had not moved from the chair. She sat staring at the screen, smoking. She looked at him as he picked up his coat.
“Kathleen, I’m sorry. A minor crisis. Dr. Chapman needs me with him on a mission. Then, the interviews-“
“That’s all right. But I do want to talk to you today.” She hesitated, and seemed suddenly tired and uncertain. “If you want to.”
“I want to. I’m finishing here around five-thirty. No, it’ll be later now. Probably closer to six. Can I just come right over?”
“Yes.” She held up the cigarette. “May I finish this before leaving?”
“Take your time. The office will be empty another half hour or more.”
He bent, brush-kissed her forehead, and hastened out to join Dr. Chapman.
It was after ten o’clock, and Sarah Goldsmith still sat at the antique slant-top desk writing the final draft of the note.
Her matching gray airline luggage, packed after the children had gone off to school and Sam had clumped off to a meeting in Pomona, had been hastily packed and now rested inside the front door. The telephone call to the sitter service had been made, and there would be someone to use the key under the rubber mat and be on hand to greet the children. All that was left was the note. Sarah had written it three times and discarded three versions, and this was the last, for the passenger plane to Mexico City took off in two hours, and the airport was a long drive.
The note was done, and now she read it.
“Sam. After twelve years, it’s hard to write a letter like this. But you know, for the last years, we have not been happy and there’s no use lying to ourselves. I have been miserable. It could have less to do with you and more to do with me. I have stayed with you until now, and tried to make a home and family life because of the children, mainly. But it’s no use now, and, anyway, I don’t think everyone was meant to live together because they married. So I have
decided to call it quits while we are still young and can do something separately with our lives ahead. Believe me, I’m sorry about this, but circumstances are such that I have to think of myself for a change. Therefore, I am making a clean break, to get it over with all at once. Much as I hate to hurt you, but to help you understand, I have been in love with another man, a fine gentleman, for some time, and still am. I am leaving this morning to go to a foreign country to join him. Eventually, we hope to be married. I know this will shock you and the family, but this is life. You can tell the family and people here anything you want-that you kicked me out or that I wasn’t well, and we both thought a separation better, or anything like that. Don’t be cruel about me to Jerry and Debbie, because I am still their mother and had them with my body. Look after them, and spend more time, and tell them I will see them soon. When I arrive, I will write you and let you know where to write me, and I will get an attorney for an arrangement. I have drawn my money out of savings and closed the account. Please take this like a man, Sam, and don’t hate me too much. I can’t help it, and maybe you’ll be better off. Regretfully, Sarah … P.S. Get a nurse for the children right away or, better, send for your cousin, Bertha, who is single and would look after you, with Jerry and Debbie. Goodbye.”
Satisfied that no more could be written in a note, Sarah blotted it, searched the upper drawer for a, long, plain envelope. Then she printed “For Sam. Confidential. Important. From Sarah” across the envelope, folded and inserted the page, licked the back of the envelope, sealed it, and cast about in the r
oom for a conspicuous place where Sam would find it at once and Jerry not reach it. At last, she went into the kitchen, tore off a piece of Scotch tape, then carried the envelope into the large bathroom and secured the envelope to the medicine cabinet mirror with the tape.
She remained a moment before the mirror, studying her image, partially obscured by the envelope, and trying to see it as Fred would soon see it in Mexico. She lifted her wrist to the window light, scrutinizing the tiny dial for the time. There was little time left, but dressing would take no more than five minutes. Her hair was done, and her face, and beneath the housecoat she had on her garter belt and sheerest nylon stockings. Undoing her short cotton housecoat, she started for the bedroom to change into brassiere, slip, and gabardine suit.
On the way to the bedroom, she heard the front door bell chime.
This would be the postman, she thought as she changed her route to the living room, knotting her belt as she walked. Sam’s relatives were always writing postage due. Without bothering to peer through the circular peephole in the door with its one-way glass, for she rarely used it in the daytime, she turned the knob and pulled the door fully open.
Startled at first because he was not the postman in uniform with ladened pouch, she did not recognize the dark, intense young man in the doorway.
“Mrs. Goldsmith,” he said politely, not really asking if it were she but flatly stating the fact as if something had just been accomplished.
And then, with a clutch of terror, she saw the familiar Dodge over his shoulder, parked across the street, and she associated him with the persistent fear of the week gone by. She meant to slam the door, but the recognition had been slow, and then the audacity of his materializing had petrified her, and now he was inside the living room, and if she shut the door she would be shutting it to keep safety out and terror in.
“What do you want?” she gasped.
“I’m Cass Miller,” he said tightly. “I’m with Dr. Chapman.”
For a split second, she could not place Dr. Chapman, and then she recollected the interview, and fear gave way to relief. So clearly had he been fashioned in her brain as a detective, an enemy to Fred and herself, that the revelation of his true identity was almost exhilarating.
“Yes,” she said. “What can I do for you? I’m in a terrible hurry-“
“This won’t take long.” She found it difficult to hear his voice, which seemed strangled, and she felt uncomfortable before the eyes that would not meet her eyes. “I’ve been watching you,” he said.
Goose pimples raised on her arms. “I know. You’ve had me frightened. Is it part of the survey, or what?”
“I know about you and Mr. Tauber,” he said. An ominous and relentless dullness pushed his words forth. ‘Why are you cheating on your husband?”
“Why, I like your nerve-“
“Don’t lie to me. I know everything.” He intoned the litany: “Three months, four times a week average, husband doesn’t suspect, coitus half hour, orgasm, yes, forty minutes, fifty minutes, on your
back, married, two children.” Suddenly, his eyes widened, the pupils pin points, and his face contorted. “Whore!”
She stumbled backward, arm to her mouth, fear throttling her throat.
He pushed the door shut behind him and advanced toward her. ‘Whore,” he repeated, “whore. I read your questionnaire. I saw you go there. Cheating, every day cheating.”
“Go away!” she shrieked hysterically.
“Scream and I’ll kill you.”
She breathed convulsively at the nearness of his maniacal eyes and stood her ground, panting, afraid to raise her voice.
“You,” she said chokingly, “why … why are you here?”
“I like whores. I like them much. I want what you’re passing out.”
“You’re insane.”
“Give it to me, like you give him-forty minutes-the same, and I’ll go away. If you don’t, I’ll tell your husband-now-I’ll tell him now.”
“I already told him-he knows!” Reason with him, reason. “It’s no secret any more. There’s nothing wrong any more.”
He wasn’t listening to her. He wasn’t hearing. “Let your hair down-down-“
He reached for her hair, and she swung at his arm with an outcry, and spun around, bumping into a chair, staggering against the wall, then running for the kitchen and the back door.
Bursting into the kitchen, almost falling, she flung herself at the door and wrenched wildly at the knob. It was long seconds before she realized that she had locked it from the inside. She fumbled for the upper bolt, twisting, when she heard him and turned.
Cass grabbed for her shoulders, wanting to smother the terrified face, but she ducked under his clawing fingers. His fingers tore at the shoulder of her housecoat as she grasped the edge of the sink to maintain her balance. Cornered, she straightened to meet him.
For an instant, he hesitated, staring at the housecoat ripped open, at the mother’s breasts rising and falling, at the overflowing mother’s flesh above and beneath and below the nylon pants, breathing now like some forest thing mortally wounded and shuffling closer and closer to her.
She watched him, mesmerized, helpless, and the picture froze in its incredibility: the maddened rapist, twitching face and sick to his bowels, and the housewife alone, you always read it in the morning paper, you always read it, and it had happened on some obscure street, unpronounceable, in some depressed outlying district, among the poor, the wretches, the slatterns, who had no expensive houses in The Briars, no expensive locks on their doors, no expensive kitchenware, neither clothes, nor friends, neither police, nor importance. It happened always to the anonymous dregs, but she was Sarah Goldsmith, of New York, with horn-rimmed glasses (where were they? you can’t hurt someone with glasses!), and a clothing store, and a seat in the synagogue, and membership in the Association, and shares in American Tel and Tel.
No!
With all of her strength, she threw herself past his outstretched, groping arms. She felt the clubbing weight of an arm against her breastbones, and then the exulting freedom of open space, and then her feet sliding upward from under her, and the floor and stove rising, spinning crazily into vision.
As the side of her head smashed against the corner of the stove and her body hit the floor, she seemed grotesque and misshapen, and then she rolled limply on her back. Cass tottered toward her, quickly dropping to his knees.
“Don’t run,” he said. “No more,” he said. “No more.”
She lay soft and doughy beneath, spread-eagled and compliant at last, and he lifted the long-known fleshy thighs with each hand, and he violated her, punishing, punishing.
All through it, on the hammered anvil of hate, he was the mover, and she moved not at all except to his movement, and even after, she lay still, inert, quiescent, not angry, not pleased, and then it was, touching fingers to her icy cheek and lids and pulse, it was only then that he realized she had been dead all the while, killed dead, neck broken, by the fall against the stove.
“Oh, Mother,” he sobbed, “Mother,” wanting the comfort of the swollen mother breasts and knowing that they were lifeless to him for all eternity… .
After Cass Miller had returned to the Villa Neapolis, leaving the Dodge in the guest parking area, he took a sheet of the stationery bearing an aerial photograph of the motel (“Your Luxurious Home away from Home”) and, standing at the corner of the reception desk, wrote in stilted hand his memorandum to history.
Later, in the car again, turning westward from the motel, he stopped beside the pumps of the first filling station, and, keeping the engine idling, he called out to the nearest attendant for the best neighborhood mountain drive. He printed the directions inside his skull, the last of them being for Topanga Canyon.
Later still, riding the outer rim of a rising paved road, he climbed steadily into the blue hills of the range. Once, through the outer window, he saw the whitewashed toy homes in the clusters of make believe miniature trees far,
far below and was reminded of an electrical train set under a gaudy Christmas pine. Once, he thought of Benita Selby in the lavender bathing suit and her unattractive slat ass, and then of the blonde who wasn’t blonde at all on the train from East St. Louis, and then unaccountably of the sweet Polish girl in the white organdy formal whom he had taken to the high-school prom. Once, he thought about great men dying, all surely feeling duged at having to leave, after so much complexity, all with their grand last words, Nero saying, “What an artist is now about to perish!” O. Henry saying, “Pull up the shades, I don’t want to go home in the dark,” Henry Ward Beecher saying, “Now comes the mystery,” someone saying, “God will forgive me, it is His business.” All the bravura, all the pack of lies.
He saw that the road had narrowed and that only a flimsy metal guard rail protected the lane from the sheer drop thousands of feet below.
Yet, he thought, he wished he had added something with style to that note, perhaps the lines by Edgar Allan Poe: “The fever called ‘living’ / Is conquered at last.”
Then he saw, off along the mountain’s side, two vehicles, a sedan, a truck, approaching in the inner lane. Then he saw, again, coming fast, the metal guard rail. There will be witnesses, he thought, and plunged his shoe into the gas pedal. The rail loomed big, more quickly than he had planned, and then without thought, before he could change his mind, he swung the wheel hard right, swerving at full speed, catapulting toward the metal rail.
The massive machine heaved high beneath him as the metal and wood exploded with his grill and hood and radiator, throwing him from the cushioned seat into the bending wheel. Conscious he was, of the strange suspension between the blue above and the green below, conscious, too, of infinite space and roaring winds, wondering what he should think this moment here. A last word, words, dignity of man, yes, bravura, yes. The seat beneath him was leaving the floor, which was ridiculous, and he was sorry it was a rented car, and then, the hurtling sarcophagus shuddered, the atoms dissolving before him, and something flat and black swung toward his face, his neck nailed in too tight to move, and he thought a last, last word, words, phrase to remember me, immortal me, take it, Benita, valediction, epitaph: Fuck you, one and all.
(1961) The Chapman Report Page 40
