Marion's Wall

by Jack Finney

  I swung around after her, directly into a parking space at the end of the block. Marion was fifty yards ahead of me, just passing the delicatessen and the beauty parlor and wig salon heading toward the liquor store whose sign hung out over the walk at the end of the block. Almost directly under the sign a stout woman stood facing the direction Marion was walking from. Her mouth was moving, and when I turned off the ignition I realized that she was feebly calling “Help.” She repeated it, not so much yelling as just saying it: “Help”; then, “Police.” She was staring not at Marion but at the back of a man who was walking away from her. He wasn’t old, as I’d thought at first glance, but shabby, wearing an excessively long dirty overcoat to the tops of his broken unlaced shoes and a knitted cap pulled down over his ears and forehead. He was eying Marion walking toward him, I realized suddenly, and in that instant—not ten yards from Marion now, and walking slowly toward her—the man suddenly opened his coat wide. I cursed and began scrambling out of the car. Because except for his shoes, the man was completely naked under the coat, an exhibitionist, the sides of his coat held stiffly out before him, his eyes riveted to Marion’s.

  Marion didn’t screech, look away, break stride, or even hesitate. Instantly, she flung her own coat open wide, and for another step or so the two of them, naked as eggs under their coats, walked steadily toward each other, the sides of their coats held straight out before them.

  The man’s jaw dropped in shock. He stopped, stared, horrified, then flung both arms tight around himself, wrapping himself in his coat, hugging it to him, turned and ran.

  The stout woman he was now suddenly running back toward, screeched, turned, and began to run, too. Both of them then—the woman lumbering in panic, the man shuffling to avoid losing his shoes—ran down the street in weird slow motion while Marion, coat snugly around her again, swept grandly into the liquor store.

  I was laughing too hard, silently, shoulders trembling, to even protest when I followed her into the store, and she bought three quarts and a pint of champagne, spending all but nineteen cents of the money in Jan’s purse.

  I remember some of what happened then with a shining clarity, and the rest not at all. I remember Marion and me running down the steps from my apartment, bottles in hand, Marion in Jan’s red-velvet gold-trimmed robe and matching slippers. On the front porch we pounded on the Platts’ door with our fists, choking with laughter. And I remember their faces when they came running to the door, yanked it open, and saw us standing there; they’d been having lunch. I remember inviting them up for champagne, though I don’t remember them coming up.

  And I remember Marion and me in the kitchen opening a champagne bottle; I held it while she twisted the cork. Al scratched at his little door, and I unlatched it with my foot, he nosed it open, walked in, and stopped dead. Motionless, frozen in the moment of taking a step, he stared at Marion. Obviously he saw nothing of Jan; this was a stranger, and he studied her warily. Then Marion got her cork out, bent down, snapped her fingers gently, and Al came cautiously over. A little neck-scratching and they were friends.

  The Platts must have come up because they were there: Frank on the window seat, glass in hand, grinning at everything that happened or was said; Myrtle rushing downstairs, then back up again with a stack of old phonograph records that she set on the coffee table. Marion shuffled through them, said, “Hot diggety dog, Eddie Cantor!” and handed me three or four of them. I got them onto the spindle of the record player after a stab or two, turned the thing on, and the sound came out at Donald Duck speed, and we all howled, Marion delighted since it was the first time she’d heard it. I set the dial at 78 then and restarted it.

  I clearly remember lying on the chesterfield, scratching Al’s ears, Myrtle and Frank side by side on the window seat grinning, as Marion sang the words to “Ida! Sweet As Apple Cider!,” fingers snapping, along with the round lush voice of Eddie Cantor. And I remember Marion teaching us “how Eddie Cantor dances.” Each of us standing separately, she had us spread the fingers of both hands, then bring our hands rapidly together and apart in a soundless clapping motion, only the fingertips touching. When we mastered that with the help of more champagne, she coached us in holding our eyes exaggeratedly wide while rolling them frequently. Then, eyes rolling, fingertips clapping, knees rising high, we pranced around the room, Al barking, to “Makin’ Whoopee!”

  If this was how Eddie Cantor danced, we liked it, and we all seemed to more or less know the words to “Makin’ Whoopee!”—including Al, who howled them, head aimed at the ceiling. Together with Eddie Cantor’s own voice, the volume turned on full, we screamed and howled out the song as we pranced around the house through every room the way Eddie Cantor dances, floors and window glass vibrating, till a picture fell off the living-room wall.

  But it never seemed to me that I was drunk; or if I was, it was a different, lighter kind of thing with champagne; we just seemed to float through the afternoon. Marion asked what time it was, over and again it seemed to me, though it never annoyed me. I’d just smile and say, “Quarter to five” … “Six-fifteen” … “A little after seven” … I don’t remember us beginning to dance, but I remember us dancing dreamily, cheek to cheek, hardly moving, to “The Sheik of Araby,” sung by Rudy Vallee, Myrtle sitting on the chesterfield beaming at us, Frank asleep in a chair. I remember with a hard, sharp embarrassment how foolishly flattered I felt that Marion should think I was worth all this trouble, and murmuring something to her about it. She said, “You think you’re the only reason I’m back? Don’t kid yourself, Sheik. There’s a lot more reason than that, I’ll say! What time is it?” We danced past Myrtle and she said how wonderful it was to see how Jan and I still felt about each other, and my conscience screamed at me. What else can I do, I said silently; sit in a corner and sulk till she leaves?

  I remember slamming the door of the Packard and letting my head drop back onto the leather seat back, hearing the other door slam, hearing the whir of the starter motor.

  Marion was driving when I woke, but while there was champagne left in my veins and mind, I still didn’t seem drunk. My head on the leather seat back as I opened my eyes, I saw the low skyline of a building sliding along beside us and knew I’d seen it before. We were slowing at the curb: that’s what had awakened me. And yes; I knew these tiled roof surfaces, beige stucco walls, the arched doorways of this vaguely mission-style building. What was it?

  I sat up, staring at it as we stopped, Marion pulling up the hand brake, turning off engine and lights; it was a handsome building still, but old now, feebly lighted by too few bulbs, not another car at this long empty stretch of red-painted curbing before it. “Nick, hurry! Get rid of the car somewhere, park it in a garage, we’ll be late!” I turned; in Jan’s street coat Marion was sliding out on her side, then she slammed the door, ran around the front of the car and across the sidewalk, and in through one of the long row of double doors stretching across the building’s front.

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew where we were now; this was the SP depot. After a moment or so, I got out, walked inside, then stopped. Across the tiled floor Marion stood at a ticket window, her back to me. Except for the man behind the window there was only one other person in all of the waiting room, an old man waiting on one of the long, varnished wood benches, a brown-paper shopping bag, its entire surface wrinkled and creased many times over, between his feet.

  Marion turned from the ticket window, walked to the center of the empty floor, and stopped. I walked toward her but she didn’t see me immediately; she was looking slowly around at the old depot, even glancing up at the ceiling. Her eyes, I saw, walking toward her, were bewildered. She heard my steps then and turned. “Nick, he says there isn’t a Lark any more!” She turned to glance back at the man behind the one open window; a boy, actually, of no more than nineteen, a Mexican, with a wisp of mustache, sitting in shirt sleeves, elbows on the counter, cheekbones on fists, reading a magazine lying open on the counter before him. “
He says there’s no night train to Los Angeles at all!” Her words were a wail; I was afraid she might cry.

  “I know.” I reached out to take her elbow. Gently I said, “Marion, people don’t ride trains any more. There are hardly any left.”

  She didn’t answer or move. She looked slowly around at the worn empty benches; at the long row of ticket windows nearly all permanently boarded over with raw plywood; at the dusty-windowed restaurant in a corner of the waiting room, the big handles of its entrance doors chained together and padlocked; at the great overhead blackboard labeled arrivals—departures, its green-ruled spaces empty; at the dismantled lunch counter, its row of metal stool supports still bolted to the floor, the stool tops gone. She said, “I came down here one night. I was in a play at the Alcazar. I was in the first and third acts but not in the second, and there was time to rush down here and back before my last entrance. Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were leaving for Hollywood.

  “They were going home to Pickfair; they’d been here for three days. They saw the play the second night, from the fifth row; I spotted them. And they were going back to Hollywood. On the Lark, of course. I got here in time to see them get out of a big dark-green touring car with a tan canvas top folded back; it was a nice night. It was right out there.” She nodded toward the street and began walking toward the open door. I walked along, still holding her elbow. “Doug was waving and grinning, you know that wonderful, wonderful grin, as he helped Mary out of the car. And she was smiling that beautiful smile.” We stopped on the walk, Marion staring out at the dark empty street. “She was carrying a tremendous armful of yellow roses. And their car was stopped just where yours is; they’d held the space open for it. I couldn’t get anywhere near it, though. There must have been a thousand people here on the walk and out in the street calling ‘Doug! Mary!,’ the people nearest trying to touch them. Doug was still grinning, and he had an arm around Mary, working their way across the walk. Right here, right where we’re standing! People who were arriving to take the Lark—there were hundreds every night, Nick!—had to get out of their cabs and cars in the middle of the street at the edge of the crowd. And people were standing on running boards, and jumping up in the air, trying to see Doug and Mary over the heads of the crowd. Then everyone followed them into the station, every doorway jammed, and we all went on through to see them off. When the Lark pulled out, right on time, Doug and Mary were on the observation platform standing just above the big, round lighted circle that said ‘Lark.’ Doug was waving back at the crowd, and Mary stood throwing her roses out to the people one at a time; some men ran along the platform beside the train for the last of them. Doug stood waving and Mary blew kisses for as long as we could see them down the track, and we waved back till there were only two red lights and the big round lighted Lark sign.” Marion turned to look up at the faded station front, then turned abruptly away, and we crossed the empty walk to the car.

  I drove, watching Marion. She’d look out at the city moving past us, look away to stare down at the floor of the car, out at the city again, then back to the floor. Presently, eyes on the floor, she said, “Drive to O’Farrell Street, will you, Nick? Between Mason and Powell,” and I nodded.

  We crossed Market Street, drove to O’Farrell, waited for a light at Mason, then drove slowly on toward Powell; near the middle of the block I slowed. “Here?”

  “A little farther, I think … No, we’re too far now. Or are we? Wait.”

  I pulled to the curb. The top was still down, and Marion looked back over the rear of the car, then turned to lean forward, staring through the windshield. She studied a building just ahead, on the other side. “Moatle? What’s that mean?” She was pointing at an enormous sign of yellow-red-and-white plastic hanging out from the front of the building.

  “Motel,” I said. “It’s a … well, it’s something like a hotel. But without any lobby or anything. Just rooms and a place to park your car…” My voice trailed off; she was shaking her head to shut out my words, eyes squeezing closed as she turned from the motel.

  Then they popped open, and she stared up at it again. “Look at that thing!” she said angrily. “Jesus, it’s ugly! Get us out of here, Nick. That’s where the Alcazar once stood.”

  A block farther on I said, “Anything else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then maybe you ought to tell me what this is all about.”

  Listlessly she said, “We were going to Hollywood.”

  “To Hollywood.” I nodded. “What for?”

  “What for? You saw Flaming Flappers! I was great,” she said simply. “I was already at work on another picture. And in that one I was greater still. We were going to Hollywood, Nickie—the way we should have once before! So that I could resume my career.”

  I nodded several times, then said very gently, “Well, now you know. It’s a different world, Marion. The Alcazar’s gone. So is the Lark. So will the SP station before long. And the world is filling up with motels. Flaming Flappers was long, long ago. And I’m not my father.”

  She nodded, then dropped her head to the back of the seat, and I glanced at her. Her eyes were closed; tears were sliding down her cheeks. “Goddamn it. I had a career coming to me!”

  In front of the house I set the hand brake, and Marion opened her eyes and lifted her head to look up at the house. For some seconds she sat staring up at it, then she turned to me. “Good-bye, Nickie.” She shook her head slowly. “I’m tired, so tired.” Then she smiled and reached out to put a hand on my arm. “But it was nice, wasn’t it.” I didn’t answer; to say yes seemed disloyal to Jan, and I felt guilty enough as it was. “Come on, Nickie,” she said reproachfully, disappointed in me, “say it was nice. That won’t hurt you!”

  I sat looking at her for a moment or so. “You’re really going? Forever?”

  She nodded, and swallowed. “Yes.”

  “All right,” I said. “Why not, then? I’ll admit it was nice because it was; I can’t help that.” I thought about it, then smiled at her. “So, yeah; it was very nice, Marion. In fact, it was wonderful, and I’ll never forget it.”

  “I’ll say.” She smiled and laid her head back.

  I was feeling enormously better just being able to say these things out loud, to speak the truth. “You’re a terrific girl, Marion. Different than any other I ever knew. In more ways than one.”

  “You tell ‘em,” she murmured, eyes closed, “I stutter.”

  “Don’t ask me to make comparisons between you and Jan, because I won’t do that.” I sat staring through the windshield at the deserted street. “But hell, yes, I’ll admit it was nice. It was wonderful, Marion. Absolutely marvelous.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” She sat up.

  “Jan…?”

  “Jan? Well of course it’s Jan.” She glanced around her, then said, “Oh, my God,” and put her hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut. “Nickie … I don’t feel so good. Again!” she added, and her eyes popped open. “Nickie, we’ve been drinking again, haven’t we? I have those same … fragmentary memories. Little glimpses now and then. What’s happening to us! Drinking this way two nights in a row like … a throwback to the Twenties or something!”

  “Champagne for a hangover; that was our big mistake.” I reached over and opened her door, trying to end this conversation, and she slid out.

  But upstairs every light in the house was on, the living-room furniture was shoved out of place, there were spilled potato chips all over the rug, an empty champagne bottle lying on a chair, and—final triumph of anarchy—Al lay asleep on the chesterfield. Jan looked, then just shook her head, and we walked on down the hall toward the bedroom. In the doorway she stopped short. “What in the world is the bed doing clear out there in the middle of the room?”

  “Well. You. Said. You. Wanted to rearrange the furniture.”

  She wasn’t listening. Walking on into the room she pointed at the floor. “And what are your pajama pants doing over there?”r />
  “Well.” I tried to grin lewdly. “You threw them.”

  “I don’t remember doing that.” She frowned. “Why would I throw your pajama pants. In fact, I don’t even remember when we … Or do I? I remember starting…” It seemed to me that the thing to do was get us to bed and the lights out, and I began unbuttoning my shirt. But Jan was pointing upward now, to the top of the open closet door, her mouth open in astonishment. “What are your ski pants doing up there!”

  “Well. You. Wanted to mend them. That was to remind you. One of the cuffs is torn. See?”

  “Mend them? Your ski pants? Why should I be worrying about them at a time like…” She had turned, unbuttoning her street coat, and stared at me. “You’ve got your pajama tops on!”

  “Oh, Christ.” I had run out of things to answer, but Jan didn’t notice. She stood thinking, then walked slowly to her closet, taking off her coat, hung it up, turned, then noticed the dress she was wearing, very short, its pattern looking as though it had been designed by throwing globs of thick paint in primary colors. “I said I’d never wear this again … I hate this dress!”

  She walked to the bed and sat down, staring thoughtfully across the room. I walked slowly and unobtrusively over to my pajama pants, making as little sound as possible, hooked them up with my foot, slipped out of my slacks, and got them on. I was hanging up the slacks when I heard Jan murmur, “Now I remember us,” and I turned quickly to look at her. But she was smiling, nodding slowly. “Sort of,” she added. “It was wild; my God…” She looked over at me, suddenly happy. “And you said it was wonderful. You said it was absolutely marvelous. Oh, Nickie, it’s been a long time since you’ve said anything like that.” I tried to smile, holding my breath. Her hands folded in her lap, Jan’s face went thoughtful. “But it’s as though … it wasn’t me. It was, of course, but…” She shook her head. “But it wasn’t. I don’t even know what I mean by that, but…” She shook her head again. “I remember us. Sort of. In little bits.” She sat staring, then repeated firmly, stubbornly, “But it wasn’t me.” I just stood there across the room in my pajamas, waiting. Jan suddenly swung around to look at me, her eyes widening. “And it wasn’t me last night! Dancing! Singing! Up there on the platform making a fool of myself! I’d never do that!” I thought about yelling, slumping to the floor, hopping around on one leg as though the other had a cramp, but I just stood hypnotized. Jan turned to face the wall again. Very slowly she said, “It wasn’t me the night before that, either. Here. In bed. After Marion’s movie.” Moving as though in a trance, Jan stood up. Barely breathing the word, she whispered, “Marion … What you said downstairs in the car was, ‘It was absolutely marvelous … Marion.’ ” She yelled it. “You said ‘MARION’! My God…” Abruptly she sat down. “She’s been … taking me over. Hasn’t she! And you knew it. You knew it! Oh, Nickie,” she wailed, “I never dreamed you’d be unfaithful to me!”