Katherine stood up. “Don’t go, Felix. Stay and take my place, will you? I’m sort of tired, and I drink I’ll go home. I got used to going to bed early while I was in the country.”
“I’ll take you home,” Felix said.
“Kitten, please stay,” Pete said, in the same breath.
“I’m going home, and I want to go alone.” Her voice was quite definite; it sounded flattened out, a tube that had been crushed.
When she was out on the street, she was aware that all three of them were following her. She walked very quickly, trying to ignore them, trying to shake them off as she hurried toward the subway.
She remembered, incongruously, it seemed, the way the storms had been sometimes over the lake at school. Clouds, gray angry ones, rolled up and filled the valley between the two mountain ranges, the mountains of France and the mountains of Switzerland, rising up behind the school. Then, suddenly, there would be a rift in the clouds, and a shaft of very bright sunlight would sharply, swiftly, thrust itself out and splash down onto the lake. Understanding had come now, with the dazzle and clarity of one of those shafts of sunlight.
Pete caught up with her and took her arm, but she pulled away, saying quietly, “Please.”
Walking rapidly through the busy night streets, they passed newspaper stands, the bright glare of movie houses, old women selling corsages of gardenias and violets. As they turned down the subway stairs, Sarah gasped, “But this is like a nightmare!”
Inside the subway station the air was stale. Katherine went to the newsstand and bought a paper, which she opened and held in front of her all the way downtown. Although there was no danger of tears, she felt as though she were stripped, as though she could bear to have no one look at her, especially Pete or Sarah or Felix.
When they reached the apartment house, Pete said, “Look, Felix, please go home.”
Sarah added, “Please, Felix. Let us have this out between ourselves.”
“There isn’t anything to have out, is there?” Katherine said.
Felix turned to her. “Do you want me to go or stay?”
“I suppose you’d better go,” she said, turning her back on them and pulling out her latchkey. She climbed the stairs quickly, listening to the sound of Pete’s and Sarah’s feet behind her.
Automatically, Sarah turned on the lights and lit the fire. Katherine went to the hall closet and pulled down her sheets and blankets. “There isn’t any need to talk, is there? I understand. I have a music lesson tomorrow and I want to sleep. Go home, Pete, or go out with Sarah, whichever you prefer. Just let me go to bed.”
Sarah stood with her back to the room, staring down into the fire, tears spilling through her fingers. “I couldn’t help it, Kat, honestly I couldn’t.”
Katherine tucked in the bottom sheet, pulling it very smooth and tight. “I suppose this has been coming for a long time. Now that I look back I can see it. I understand. You’ve been working together. The same play. You’re both in the theater. I’m a musician. I guess I’ve neglected Pete for my music. Sarah’s much more beautiful than I am, more interesting, you have more things in common. It’s quite understandable, I realize that.”
Pete handed her the top sheet and helped tuck it in. “It was all my fault, not Sarah’s,” he said.
Sarah didn’t look away from the fire, but continued to stand there, crying. “No. If anyone is to blame, I am.”
“It doesn’t really matter whose fault it was, does it?” Katherine said. “The blanket, please, Pete.”
“We couldn’t even run away from it,” Pete said, “because of the show, you know.”
“I understand,” Katherine said again. “It had started even before we went to Connecticut for the week end, hadn’t it, Pete?”
“A little.”
“Because even then, before Mr. Peytz spoke to me, I was practicing too much, more than was fair to you. And then, after that all I needed was to go away for two weeks. It’s quite simple. But I don’t know …”
“What?” Pete asked, taking her pillow off a chair and putting it on the couch.
“I don’t know what. My bed’s all ready. Would you mind going? I want to go to bed. My lesson tomorrow …”
“Your music—it’s terribly important to you, isn’t it?” Pete asked.
“Of course.”
“More important than I am.”
“We don’t need to go into relativity.” Every word she said seemed to her unreal. This was not Katherine Forrester talking, but someone else saying words that had nothing to do with her, using a judgment of which she personally had no understanding. But since this strange person seemed to be saying and doing things that were more or less reasonable under the circumstances, Katherine let her go on controlling matters. “I suppose we’ll have to tell Father and Aunt Manya.”
“I suppose so,” Pete said. “Do you want me to? I will, if you want me to. If you think it would be better.”
“No. I’ll do it,” the strange person in charge of the situation said. “By the way, how did Felix know?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “I guess he just knew.”
Katherine went to the closet and brought out her pajamas and bathrobe. “I think we’ve said everything we need to. Please go, will you?”
“Coming, Sarah?” Pete asked.
“I don’t know … Do you want me to go, Kat?”
“It doesn’t matter to me what you do. I just want to go to bed. I’m sleepy.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go,” Sarah said.
Katherine listened to them go downstairs. She undressed and took a bath. When she was in pajamas and bathrobe and had turned out the lights, she opened the windows wide and stood staring down at the court below, at the single ailanthus tree growing up through the shallow, unfertile ground, at the wooden fence with the paint peeling off, at the hardness of the cement of the courtyard. She went over to the piano and sat down in the darkness, but she didn’t play. She thought, but it was still not Katherine Forrester but someone else thinking. Nevertheless, words formed and came out of her mind.—I can’t be unhappy, I can’t be really unhappy—she thought—because I don’t want to die.—
She was awake when Sarah came back. Although she knew Sarah couldn’t see her lying there on the couch, with the light from the fire almost dead, she closed her eyes. Sarah got ready for bed quietly, tiptoeing so as not to disturb her, but instead of going into her room, she stopped at the foot of the couch, looking down at Katherine, who had opened her eyes and was staring up at her in the hazy, golden light coming in from the bedroom door.
“Kat, are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Look.” (And Katherine noticed that Sarah had picked up Pete’s way of saying “Look” before starting anything important.) “Look,” Sarah said. “What do you want to do about the apartment?”
“Oh. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Do you want to go? or do you want me to go? Or what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to go, then?”
“I guess you’d better.”
“I couldn’t—just stay—could I?”
“It would be sort of difficult.”
“When do you want me to go?”
“Could you go tomorrow?”
“I guess so.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want to go home, although, God knows, Mamma’d be glad to have me. Maybe I will, for a few days. Or maybe I’ll take a room in Pete’s hotel.”
“We’ve paid the rent here through the end of the month,” Katherine said. “I’ll pay you back your share.”
“Don’t be silly … Kat …”
“What?”
“Look, Kat, I just want to say …”
“What?”
“Maybe—maybe it doesn’t do any good to say things, but there is something I do want to say.”
“All right.” Katherine knew that Sarah would say her little speech an
d then feel a great deal better. She lay on the sofa, watching Sarah’s profile, dim and beautiful in the light from the bedroom, and waited for the speech. She still felt very calm, very untouched. It was as though the power of feeling had been cut off, as though the nerves had been temporarily anesthetized.
“Look,” Sarah said again, “I just want you to know how—how sorry I am—about everything.” She spoke slowly. The words came out with difficulty. Katherine was not sure how much of it was real sincerity, painful honesty, and how much was just a very good scene from a second-rate problem play. “About—about everything,” Sarah repeated. “I’ve always brought you nothing but unhappiness. Every time I’ve had anything to do with you, except that very first time I met you in Central Park. At school. All that mess with Val and Halsey. I was bad about that. And Pete. I don’t know. I’ve been tad about that, too. I guess I could have stopped it, if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I tried to make Pete fall in love with me. I did it deliberately. Whenever you were practicing. Or when we were at the theater. I knew what I was doing. And you made it so easy for me. I love Pete so desperately that hurting you didn’t seem—didn’t seem big enough to keep me from trying to get him. I’ve never really thought of anyone but myself. I don’t think I ever will. So you mustn’t blame Pete. I am the one who is culpable. You see, I’ve never loved anyone before Pete. It’s awfully important to me.”
“I know, I understand,” Katherine said. “Do go to bed, Sarah.”
“But, Kat, I want you to realize I do love you so very tenderly. You’ve meant more to me than anyone in the world, until Pete came. And Pete loves you too, so very much—”
“All right,” Katherine said. “And I love you and Pete, so everybody loves everybody, and you’ve had too much wine. Go on to bed.”
“All right. I’m going … You want me to leave tomorrow?”
“Please. I’ll stay away all day. Do you think you can have everything out by six?”
“I think so.”
“You can leave your keys in the mailbox.”
“All right. Good night, Kat.” Sarah’s shoulders began to shake with sobs.
“Good night,” Katherine said.
Sarah slid off the arm of the couch and went into the bedroom, shutting the door. Katherine heard her fling herself down on the bed and sob and sob, easily, loosely, like a child. She knew that Sarah wanted her to come in to her, to comfort her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right. But she didn’t move. After a while the crying stopped.
She got up early the next morning, before Sarah was awake, dressed, and made herself some coffee. Then she knocked on the bedroom door. Sarah rolled over sleepily.
“You’d better get up and start to clear your things out,” Katherine said. “I’m going now. I left some coffee for you.”
Once she was downstairs, she went into the drugstore on the corner. She hadn’t wanted to call Manya while Sarah was in the apartment, and she remembered that she hadn’t called the night before to say she was home from the country. Manya answered the phone by her bed.
“Hello, Aunt Manya. It’s Katherine.”
“Hello, my darling.”
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I was awake. Dunyasha brought me my breakfast half an hour ago. I was reading scripts. So. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m very healthy.”
“Something wrong?”
Katherine was silent. She tried to speak and couldn’t. Although she was still feeling nothing, the person who had been in control of her anesthetized senses and thoughts the night before was no longer there.
“Katyusha!”
“I’m still here.”
“Is something wrong?”
Again Katherine was silent.
“Is Pete all right?”
Now words could come. “Yes. Pete’s all right. Will you tell Father, please, that we aren’t getting married?”
Now Manya was silent at her end of the wire.
“Tell him, will you?” Katherine asked.
“I’ll tell him. Is it Sarah?”
“Did everyone know about it but me!” Katherine exclaimed, with more feeling in her voice than had been there since she got back from the country.
“No, my darling, it isn’t that … I just sense these things … I always have … Will you come to us?”
“No. Sarah’s leaving the apartment. She’s leaving today. If you don’t mind, I’d rather stay.”
“Don’t you think you’d better come to us?”
“No. I’d rather stay.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course.”
“I want to see you. Will you come and have lunch with me?”
“No. Please.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to the movies.”
“All day, until Sarah leaves?”
“Sarah’ll be gone at six. And I have a lesson.”
“But still—”
“We’ll have to stop talking. My nickel’s almost up.”
“Where are you?”
“The drugstore.”
“What’s the number? I’ll call you back.”
“No.”
“Are you going home at six?”
“Yes.”
“Will you phone me this evening then? Before I leave for the theater?”
“All right. There goes my nickel. Good-bye.”
She went to her lesson. She went to the movies. At six she went back to Eleventh Street. Opened the mailbox. The keys were there, so she climbed the stairs, rubbing her eyes, which ached from the strain of so many movies. She did not know whether Sarah had gone home to her family or taken a room in Pete’s hotel; perhaps it was best for her not to know.
Since the furniture of their apartment had all been Julie’s, Katherine had expected it to look more or less like itself, even with all Sarah’s things gone. When she opened the door, the mutilated living room hit her eyes with a shock. The gaps where Sarah’s books had been on the shelves were like missing teeth. Even in the short months they had hung there, the pictures of Manya and Paul LeStrade had made marks on the wall. The victrola and the painted stool it stood on were gone; there were no more records. The desk lamp looked decapitated, with Sarah’s yellow shade off. Her rag rug was gone, leaving a bare patch in front of the fireplace; the cannel coal was piled neatly on the hearth, because the black coal scuttle had been Sarah’s. Her green Finnish bowl was off the table, her yellow and red cushions gone from the couch. The room looked betrayed, desecrated, humiliated.
Somehow, the bedroom was not so bad. Only the furniture remained. The door to Sarah’s empty closet stood open; her brush and comb and the pictures of her parents were gone from the bureau; the drawers were empty.
So Katherine took her bed clothes out of the closet in the hall and made the bed.—This was Mother’s bed—she told herself sternly.
Then she went into the living room and phoned Manya. “Here I am,” she said. “I promised I’d phone.”
“Thank you, darling. How are you?”
“I’m all right.”
“Movies good?”
“Mostly pretty feeble.”
“Will you speak to your father?”
“Must I?”
“Of course not, dear, if you don’t want to. Sarah gone?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Practicing.”
“Not going out?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got to work. I hardly touched the piano while I was in the country … well, good night, Aunt Manya, unless there’s anything else you want to say.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Good night, then. I hope it’s a good performance this evening.”
“Thank you. Good night, Katya, my darling.”
Katherine straightened up the room, pushing the books on the shelves together, trying as far as she could to make the room look complete. But
it was impossible. She boiled an egg and drank a glass of milk for dinner, because it would be foolish to undo the physical good the two weeks in the country had done her. Then she practiced until quite late, when the doorbell rang stridently.
Pushing the piano bench back so violently that it fell over, she tore to the door and pushed the buzzer, calling breathlessly over the banisters, “Who is it?”
“Felix.”
She turned without answering, and went slowly back into the room, and righted the piano bench. Of course, it couldn’t have been Pete. But her heart was beating heavily.
Felix came in, panting from the climb. “Am I disturbing you?”
“I was practicing.”
“Don’t you think you ought to stop for a while?”
“No.”
“Sarah called me and told me she’d left.”
“Oh … Did she tell you to come around tonight?”
“No. I wanted to.”
“Well, I wish you’d go away, Felix.”
“Wouldn’t you come out for a drink with me?”
“No. Please go away, Felix, and don’t come back.” She spoke coldly, sharply, aware that she was being cruel, and ashamed of herself before she spoke. Nevertheless, she spoke.
Felix looked as though she had struck him. He sat down on the sofa, moving jerkily, like a marionette. “What have I done?” he gasped.
Katherine stood leaning against the piano. “You haven’t done anything. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Then, what is it? Why are you driving me out like this, if I haven’t done anything? You’re my very favorite person in the world, and I thought you were a little fond of me. Why must I go away?”
“It isn’t you,” Katherine said. “I’m very fond of you, window cleaner.”
“You see, you called me ‘window cleaner’ again,” Felix said excitedly. “You haven’t called me that in ages. That’s a good sign, that you should call me that, isn’t it? And if you’re fond of me, why should you send me away?”
“It isn’t you,” Katherine said again. “It’s what you stand for.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like so many things that you’re part of. That awful tavern you and Sarah took me to. Your way of life. The people who came to our parties—your friends. They’re part of your world. I think, of Sarah’s world. And maybe Pete’s. At least, they don’t bother him. They bother me. Awfully. I don’t want anything more to do with them. And you’re so much part of everything I want to forget that I just can’t go on seeing you. I’ve got to cut everything off, clean and sharp. I’ve got to, don’t you understand? That’s why I don’t want to see you, even though I’m fond of you and will miss you very much. But I can’t see anyone who belongs irremediably to things I want to put behind me forever. That’s all.”
The Small Rain Page 32
