Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  He soon displaced the boy in the pink shirt at the piano, sang two ribald numbers, and changed to a solemn, husky manner for a few folk songs. Then he played tunes from old shows. This was his specialty. He appeared to know a hundred scores from the thirties and forties by heart. Somebody would throw him a title, or just a line, and he would say,

  "Yes, aha, Band Wagon, 1931," and he would play and sing it without an error, his eyes agleam with lewd mischief even when the song was innocuous. Iris delighted in the performance; she knew many of the songs herself, and sometimes she and Felix improvised little duets, to giggling applause all around the bar. Norman found the proprietor amusing, and he was enjoying the songs of his youth. But the Casa Encantada made him uneasy. Men were flirting with each other all around him; some were cuddling like teen-agers in a movie balcony. The boy in the pink shirt, biting his nails and constantly looking around in a scared way, sat at a small table with one of the rich pederasts from Signal Mountain, a pipe-smoking gray-haired man in tailored olive shirt and shorts, with young tan features carved by plastic surgery, and false teeth. Norman was glad when the proprietor finished a run of Noel Coward songs and left the piano, so that he and Iris could politely get out of the place.

  "Horned he said, starting up the Rover, and taking gulps of sweet air scented with night-blooming jasmine to get the fetid Casa Encantada atmosphere out of his nostrils.

  "No place else to go, sweetie. We've done Amerigo. Paris it ain't."

  After a silent downhill ride of a few minutes he said, "The cops don't bother them? I mean, that kid in the pink shirt-and then, some of those native boys there looked like high school kids. Nobody cares?"

  "There was a fuss here, I understand, about five or six years ago," Iris said. "Some gay boys staying on the third floor of the Francis Drake had a brawl, and one of them fell naked off a balcony, and sort of spattered all over the cobblestones."

  "Good God," Norman said.

  "Yes, some senator introduced a bill in the legislature to run 'em off the island. Then when they got to analyzing it, the trouble was that if just half a dozen of the queens up on Signal Mountain were included- just five or six of the richer ones-Kinja would lose about half a million a year in income taxes. Now, Norm, how do you go about writing a nice moral law that exempts local tax-paying citizens? Cooler heads prevailed, and the only thing the cops ever care about to this day is sailor boys. The navy's been in here once or twice raising hell with the government, and the word is really out on that. No sailors. I've never seen one in the Casa."

  "How about Bob Cohn?"

  "Oh, the UDTs never in uniform off duty. Anyway, Bob's with me when he comes."

  Iris said after a glum pause filled with the Rover's rattling, "I'm get-ting dismal waves from you. What's up, darling?" She sat with folded arms, regarding him with wry, knowing amusement, her hair tossing in the breeze from the open window, her face lovely in the moonlight.

  "I don't know, Iris. Too many songs of the thirties. Or too many queers."

  "I'm having the only good time I've had in months, maybe in years, so please stay happy, Norm."

  "Truly?" He looked at her again, and she was not smiling.

  "Really and truly."

  Her tone dispelled his mood, and warm excitement ran in his veins.

  4

  When they came to the Pink Cottage, Iris opened the door, and with a look and a smile invited him in. One floor lamp burned by an armchair. Norman was reminded of the first time he had entered this room, more than a month ago, and had been surprised by the smart furnishings, the mass of books, and the long table with the amateur sculptures. The distinctive odor-exquisite woman tinctured by doghouse-was strong tonight, but Meadows himself was not in evidence. In the silence Norman could hear the steel band thumping away on the terrace, Boom-da-hoom-boom..

  "I'll be damned," he said, pausing just inside the door and looking around.

  "What, dear?"

  "Dingley Dell."

  Iris broke into a wonderful female laugh, deep, intense, and rich. "I've been a very good girl all evening. You will now fix me a light Bombay gin and tonic, with a slice of lime."

  "With pleasure, and I'll make it two."

  In the kitchenette, he heard her putting a stack of records on the phonograph. The power hum of the big machine started up, followed by the loud high surface hiss of an old recording. He was slicing a large aromatic lime.

  "By yon bonny banks And by yon bonny braes Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomondr."

  The high sweet voice, slightly muffled by the obsolete recording, shocked him like the voice of a dead person once dear to him, and needling thrills rippled down his backbone. It was the Negro singer Maxine Sullivan, who more than twenty years ago had had a bright vogue, among young lovers in New York night clubs, with her jazz arrangements of Scottish songs. It startled Norman to perceive how thin and antiquated the instrumentation was; but Maxine's voice was unchanged. A flood of old sensations broke on him. He could feel the pressure of a girl's soft thigh jammed beside him at a table in a smoky crowded cellar; he was drunk, young, happy, totally alive, vibrating with appetite and with hope. Dazed, he walked out of the kitchenette, holding the knife and the cut lime. Iris was not there. He sank on the divan and listened.

  'You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, And I'll be in Scotland afore ye. But me and my true love Will never meet again On the bonny banks On the bonny, bonny "banks-"

  The song ended. It was astonishing how short the old records were; had it played more than a couple of minutes? The machine clicked, slammed, crackled, and another record began to play, an old show tune that meant nothing to him. He sat there, smelling the sharp perfume of the lime in his hand, tears trickling down his face. He was not thinking of any girl he had ever slept with. He was thinking of Hazel, standing up in her kiddie bed in a pink sleeping suit, smiling at him. The record had touched the spring in his mind, whatever it was, that released the pure absolute impulse of love. His tears were for Hazel, and for the passing of time, and-with no self-pity, quite unbidden-for young Norman Paperman, and what had become of him.

  "Norman, sweetie, for heaven's sake what's the matter?" The phonograph stopped. Iris strode to him, and brushed his cheeks with light fingers. "Ye gods, you're worse than I am. Does Maxine do that to you?"

  "Got caught unawares," Norman said very hoarsely.

  She took the knife and the lime from him and put them in the kitchenette, then came and sat beside him, scanning his face. "Want a drink?"

  "I don't think so. Not this minute."

  "Neither do I."

  He took her in his arms, and they lay on the divan and kissed. She was not responsive.

  "What is it?" he said after a while.

  "I don't know, Norm. Tears-really, a big boy like you-" She smiled up at him, compassionate, willing, pretty, and terribly melancholy.

  "It just happened to hit me that way."

  "Who were you reminded of?"

  "Nobody."

  Iris leaned up on an elbow. "I have a feeling, somehow, all of a sudden, that this is one hell of a lousy idea."

  "It's a great idea," he said, pushing her shoulders down. "It's the only idea."

  "You're sure, now? The last thing I want is to make you miserable."

  "Then stop talking."

  "Norman Paperman," she murmured, and she put her arms powerfully around him. "Honestly, what a name."

  It was exquisite, kind, peculiarly familiar love-making. It was Iris instead of Henny, a larger woman with some different ways. It was as shockingly, unexpectedly familiar and poignant as the old record; and like it, too brief, too soon over.

  Iris left him, and after a while she came back wearing a white silk robe trimmed in green. She brought two tall gin and tonics with slices of lime.

  "I want mine now. Do you?" Her voice was low and vibrant.

  "Sure."

  "How are you?"

  "Great. Marvelous. Very happy. A little sleepy."r />
  She laughed. "Big night out. Conscience?"

  "No. I have a large callus where that used to be."

  She sat beside him on the divan, leaning against the black cushions; put up her feet, tucked the robe around her thighs, and took a long pull at the drink. "The hell with it. I'm happy too. I'm truly happy, tonight, completely, deeply happy for once, and there's only the present moment. That's the simplest idea in the world, and the hardest to grasp and hold on to. I don't know why." She drank again, and looked slyly at him. "Why should Henny be bothered? How have we hurt her? One more slice off a cut loaf, they say."

  "It won't hurt her if she doesn't know."

  "God knows 1 have no conscience pangs about Alton," Iris said. "I don't owe him a damned thing, and as a matter of fact I think I'm getting some of my own back, and high time- What's the matter now? Why the funny face?"

  "Alton?" Paperman said.

  "Of course. His Excellency himself, damn his tricky hide." She stared at Paperman and he stared at her, and she laughed. "Oh, look here, Norman. I've appreciated your delicacy, really I have, but at this point I guess you can drop it. You know I'm the governor's girl friend, and I know you know it, and I really don't mind any references to it, if they're not ill-mannered. It's a very old story to me, after all, dear."

  "Alton Sanders' girl friend? Honestly, Iris?" Norman stammered, too dazed to be smooth.

  "Of course, dear, and of course you know."

  "Why, no, Iris. I didn't. I suppose I've been stupid or blind, but I actually didn't."

  Iris's face changed. It became tense, serious, and guarded. "You're not being polite? Because truly, Norman, that's unnecessary and even a little embarrassing, and I'd be happier if you wouldn't keep it up."

  "I'm not kidding you. To tell the truth I sort of thought that Bob Cohn-maybe"-Iris's eyebrows shot up, and she smiled most incredulously-well, Iris darling, take my word for it, I didn't know anything about you. I met you for the first time with Bob, and-" Paperman was growing rattled and shaky, trying to maintain a light tone over his shock, and the dizzying ugly sickness at his heart-"and if I've ever seen you with a fellow it's been with Bob, so-"

  "But darling, Bob is a hoy. He's clever and wonderful, he's been a lifesaver, a shoulder to cry on, Bob Cohn couldn't be nicer, but-gee whiz, Norm, did you really think of me as one of those old bags who screw boys?"

  Paperman said, "Well, let's take it that I'm some kind of world-beating fool, and let it go at that, Iris."

  "No, let's not." Iris put her drink on a side table, folded her arms, and looked at him intently. "Norman, now listen. Everybody on this island, everybody without exception I think right down to your Virgil the boatman, knows about me. Why, I came here with Alton. I used to stay nights in Government House. He was going to marry me, or he said he was, he still says so in fact, and I didn't give a damn what anybody thought. I never have. Now how in God's name, Norman, has it happened that nobody told you? Didn't Tilson? Didn't Collins? Didn't Lorna, for Christ's sake, the fresh little tart?"

  "Nobody ever did, Iris. Maybe like you they assumed I knew it. Or- I don't know. Nobody ever told me."

  He was thinking how unbelievably dense he had been. Everything was falling into place; her odd conduct on the first night when Reena Sanders had beckoned to him; her bristling hostility to Sanders in Pitt Bay, her demonstrative affection to himself under the governor's eyes, and the dog's friendliness with Sanders; a glimpse now and then of Iris with Sanders, her decidedly strange way of talking about this Negro, and about all Negroes. There are none so blind, he thought, as those who will not see. Iris Tramm had been for him the embodiment of the magic of Kinja, the glimmering blonde at the core of the island dream, and he had not wanted to see that she was the Negro governor's mistress, and he hadn't seen it.

  Iris's searching eyes on his face made him uneasy. "Are you sure it doesn't make a difference to you? Be honest now. It must be a sort of shattering idea, Norman, if it's actually news."

  "Why? I like Iris Tramm, the woman I know. Your love life is your own."

  "But I love a Negro, dear. Let's get that very straight. I've been in love with him for two years, and it's been beautiful. For a while it was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me. Nevertheless, a Negro he is."

  "I know he is, and it doesn't make the slightest difference, I swear that to you."

  Iris heaved a sigh, never taking her eyes off him. "Doesn't it, though? Honestly, now, Norman-all the Broadway and all the Marxism never got three inches below your skin, did it? You're a nice middle-class New York Jewish liberal, and you're shocked to the core. Obviously you are. I just hope you're not disgusted, too. Because really that's how things are.

  Paperman, thoroughly demoralized, said the first thing that came into his head. "Look, Iris, I've slept with a colored girl."

  Her face stiffened into a smile, and she said in a hard bright tone, "Have you? Tell me about it. Was it fun? Is it true what they say about them?"

  "All I mean is, to me they're just people-"

  Iris got off the divan, and stood looking down at him. "Poor Norm. You're floundering, and you're reading your lines very badly. I didn't mean to stagger you like this, baby, God knows. Nevertheless this makes our score for the day perfect, doesn't it? We're over the cliff, after all."

  He stood, and tried to put his arm around her. She deflected it with no ill-humor, went to the kitchenette, and took a bottle from a cabinet

  "How about dragging your bruised and broken body up to the main house?" she said. "You're having important company in the morning."

  "You're building this all up, Iris. I don't want our evening to end."

  "I believe you sweetheart, but how do we get the car back up the cliff?"

  "What are you making there?"

  "Bourbon and tap water. That's what one drinks when one drinks. No fussing with limes and ice cubes and such."

  He took the full glass from her and poured the brown contents in the sink.

  "Why, thank you," she said. "With that simple gesture, you've saved me from my worst enemy."

  "Iris, listen-"

  "Norman, go away."

  The pulse of sudden power in her voice stopped his protests.

  He managed to kiss her once. She did not object. She stood straight and endured the kiss. Then Norman left the cottage named Surrender.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Return of Atlas

  1

  The corrugated iron shutters were still down over the wide entrance arches of the terminal when Norman drove up at eleven. He wanted to catch the manager of the air-cargo office early. Peculiar customs regulations existed for fresh foodstuffs arriving by air, and he had a sheaf of official papers with him. But there was nothing to do but wait. No live thing stirred outside the airport except a stray donkey trailing a broken rope across the entrance walk in the beating sun, and browsing on a border of red lilies.

  Bob Cohn came driving up in a small gray navy truck a few minutes later. Cohn had unofficially volunteered the truck, with his commanding officer's unofficial permission, to transport Norman's two hundred chateaubriand steaks to the Georgetown freezer. Norman had asked this favor, and Cohn had cheerfully arranged it. The fact that Hazel was coming on the same plane as the steaks had gone unmentioned.

  "Hi," Cohn said, squatting beside Norman, who was sitting on the hot tarry-smelling driveway, in the shade of the Rover. The frogman's leg muscles stood out stringily under the red-brown skin. "I told you eleven was too early."

  Norman looked at him for a moment and then said baldly, "So, Iris Tramm is Governor Sanders' mistress."

  Cohn's eyes widened, and his smile faded away. "What? What makes you say that?"

  "She told me."

  "She told you?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Last night."

  "I see. Were you surprised?"

  "I was stupefied. And that got her angry."

  A little lizard stood on the roa
dway staring at them, pulsing out its throat in a grotesque red loop. Cohn caught it with a rake of a hand. "What else did she tell you?"

  "Not much. She sort of threw me out."

  Cohn opened his palm on the ground, and the lizard leaped free and ran. He grinned at Paperman, his teeth white and regular in his hawkish sunburned face. Cohn wore a T-shirt, very brief khaki shorts, and heavy dusty shoes with white socks. "She got that angry, eh? She got angry at me, too, when I once said I didn't think you knew."