“You know as well as I do what I’m doing here. What do you want with me?”
“Sure; sure,” Snopes said. “I know how a feller feels, married and all and not being sho where his wife is at.” Between jerky glances over his shoulder he winked at Horace. “Make your mind easy. It’s the same with me as if the grave knowed it. Only I hate to see a good—” Horace had gone on toward the door. “Judge,” Snopes said in a penetrant undertone. Horace turned. “Dont stay.”
“Dont stay?”
“See her and then leave. It’s a sucker place. Place for farm-boys. Higher’n Monte Carlo. I’ll wait out hyer and I’ll show you a place where—” Horace went on and entered the lattice. Two hours later, as he sat talking to Miss Reba in her room while beyond the door feet and now and then voices came and went in the hall and on the stair, Minnie entered with a torn scrap of paper and brought it to Horace.
“What’s that?” Miss Reba said.
“That big pie-face-ted man left it fer him,” Minnie said. “He say fer you to come on down there.”
“Did you let him in?” Miss Reba said.
“Nome. He never tried to git in.”
“I guess not,” Miss Reba said. She grunted. “Do you know him?” she said to Horace.
“Yes. I cant seem to help myself,” Horace said. He opened the paper. Torn from a handbill, it bore an address in pencil in a neat, flowing hand.
“He turned up here about two weeks ago,” Miss Reba said. “Come in looking for two boys and sat around the dining-room blowing his head off and feeling the girls’ behinds, but if he ever spent a cent I dont know it. Did he ever give you an order, Minnie?”
“Nome,” Minnie said.
“And couple of nights later he was here again. Didn’t spend nuttin, didn’t do nuttin but talk, and I says to him ‘Look here, mister, folks what uses this waiting-room has got to get on the train now and then.’ So next time he brought a half-pint of whiskey with him. I dont mind that, from a good customer. But when a fellow like him comes here three times, pinching my girls and bringing one half-pint of whiskey and ordering four Coca-Colas . . . Just a cheap, vulgar man, honey. So I told Minnie not to let him in any more, and here one afternoon I aint no more than laid down for a nap when — I never did find out what he done to Minnie to get in. I know he never give her nuttin. How did he do it, Minnie? He must a showed you something you never seen before. Didn’t he?”
Minnie tossed her head. “He ain’t got nothing I wantin to see. I done seed too many now fer my own good.” Minnie’s husband had quit her. He didn’t approve of Minnie’s business. He was a cook in a restaurant and he took all the clothes and jewelry the white ladies had given Minnie and went off with a waitress in the restaurant.
“He kept on asking and hinting around about that girl,” Miss Reba said, “and me telling him to go ask Popeye if he wanted to know right bad. Not telling him nuttin except to get out and stay out, see; so this day it’s about two in the afternoon and I’m asleep and Minnie lets him in and he asks her who’s here and she tells him aint nobody, and he goes on up stairs. And Minnie says about that time Popeye comes in. She says she dont know what to do. She’s scared not to let him in, and she says she knows if she does and he spatters that big bastard all over the upstairs floor, she knows I’ll fire her and her husband just quit her and all.
“So Popeye goes on upstairs on them cat feet of his and comes on your friend on his knees, peeping through the keyhole. Minnie says Popeye stood behind him for about a minute, with his hat cocked over one eye. She says he took out a cigarette and struck a match on his thumbnail without no noise and lit it and then she says he reached over and held the match to the back of your friend’s neck, and Minnie says she stood there halfway up the stairs and watched them: that fellow kneeling there with his face like a pie took out of the oven too soon and Popeye squirting smoke through his nose and kind of jerking his head at him. Then she come on down and in about ten seconds here he comes down the stairs with both hands on top of his head, going wump-wump-wump inside like one of these here big dray-horses, and he pawed at the door for about a minute, moaning to himself like the wind in a chimney Minnie says, until she opened the door and let him out. And that’s the last time he’s even rung this bell until tonight. . . . Let me see that.” Horace gave her the paper. “That’s a nigger Minnie, tell him his friend whorehouse,” she said. “The lous — aint here. Tell him I dont know where he went.”
Minnie went out. Miss Reba said:
“I’ve had all sorts of men in my house, but I got to draw the line somewhere. I had lawyers, too. I had the biggest lawyer in Memphis back there in my dining-room, treating my girls. A millionaire. He weighed two hundred and eighty pounds and he had his own special bed made and sent down here. It’s upstairs right this minute. But all in the way of my business, not theirs. I aint going to have none of my girls pestered by lawyers without good reason.”
“And you dont consider this good reason? That a man is being tried for his life for something he didn’t do? You may be guilty right now of harboring a fugitive from justice.”
“Then let them come take him. I got nuttin to do with it. I had too many police in this house to be scared of them.” She raised the tankard and drank and drew the back of her hand across her mouth. “I aint going to have nuttin to do with nuttin I dont know about. What Popeye done outside is his business. When he starts killing folks in my house, then I’ll take a hand.”
“Have you any children?” She looked at him. “I dont mean to pry into your affairs,” he said. “I was just thinking about that woman. She’ll be on the streets again, and God only knows what will become of that baby.”
“Yes,” Miss Reba said. “I’m supporting four, in a Arkansaw home now. Not mine, though.” She lifted the tankard and looked into it, oscillating it gently. She set it down again. “It better not been born at all,” she said. “None of them had.” She rose and came toward him, moving heavily, and stood above him with her harsh breath. She put her hand on his head and tilted his face up. “You aint lying to me, are you?” she said, her eyes piercing and intent and sad. “No, you aint.” She released him. “Wait here a minute. I’ll see.” She went out. He heard her speak to Minnie in the hall, then he heard her toil up the stairs.
He sat quietly as she had left him. The room contained a wooden bed, a painted screen, three overstuffed chairs, a wall safe. The dressing-table was littered with toilet articles tied in pink satin bows. The mantel supported a wax lily beneath a glass bell; above it, draped in black, the photograph of a meek-looking man with an enormous moustache. On the walls hung a few lithographs of spurious Greek scenes, and one picture done in tatting. Horace rose and went to the door. Minnie sat in a chair in the dim hall.
“Minnie,” he said, “I’ve got to have a drink. A big one.”
He had just finished it when Minnie entered again. “She say fer you to come on up,” she said.
He mounted the stairs. Miss Reba waited at the top. She led the way up the hall and opened a door into a dark room. “You’ll have to talk to her in the dark,” she said. “She wont have no light.” Light from the hall fell through the door and across the bed. “This aint hers,” Miss Reba said. “Wouldn’t even see you in her room at all. I reckon you better humor her until you find out what you want.” They entered. The light fell across the bed, upon a motionless curving ridge of bedclothing, the general tone of the bed unbroken. She’ll smother, Horace thought. “Honey,” Miss Reba said. The ridge did not move. “Here he is, honey. Long as you’re all covered up, let’s have some light. Then we can close the door.” She turned the light on.
“She’ll smother,” Horace said.
“She’ll come out in a minute,” Miss Reba said. “Go on. Tell her what you want. I better stay. But dont mind me. I couldn’t a stayed in my business without learning to be deaf and dumb a long time before this. And if I’d ever a had any curiosity, I’d have worn it out long ago in this house. Here’s a chair.” She turne
d, but Horace anticipated her and drew up two chairs. He sat down beside the bed and, talking at the top of the unstirring ridge, he told her what he wanted.
“I just want to know what really happened. You wont commit yourself. I know that you didn’t do it. I’ll promise before you tell me a thing that you wont have to testify in Court unless they are going to hang him without it. I know how you feel. I wouldn’t bother you if the man’s life were not at stake.”
The ridge did not move.
“They’re going to hang him for something he never done,” Miss Reba said. “And she wont have nuttin, nobody. And you with diamonds, and her with that poor little kid. You seen it, didn’t you?”
The ridge did not move.
“I know how you feel,” Horace said. “You can use a different name, wear clothes nobody will recognise you in, glasses.”
“They aint going to catch Popeye, honey,” Miss Reba said. “Smart as he is. You dont know his name, noway, and if you have to go and tell them in the court, I’ll send him word after you leave and he’ll go somewheres and send for you. You and him dont want to stay here in Memphis. The lawyer’ll take care of you and you wont have to tell nuttin you—” The ridge moved. Temple flung the covers back and sat up. Her head was tousled, her face puffed, two spots of rouge on her cheekbones and her mouth painted into a savage cupid’s bow. She stared for an instant at Horace with black antagonism, then she looked away.
“I want a drink,” she said, pulling up the shoulder of her gown.
“Lie down,” Miss Reba said. “You’ll catch cold.”
“I want another drink,” Temple said.
“Lie down and cover up your nekkidness, anyway,” Miss Reba said, rising. “You already had three since supper.”
Temple dragged the gown up again. She looked at Horace. “You give me a drink, then.”
“Come on, honey,” Miss Reba said, trying to push her down. “Lie down and get covered up and tell him about that business. I’ll get you a drink in a minute.”
“Let me alone,” Temple said, writhing free. Miss Reba drew the covers about her shoulders. “Give me a cigarette, then. Have you got one?” she asked Horace.
“I’ll get you one in a minute,” Miss Reba said. “Will you do what he wants you to?”
“What?” Temple said. She looked at Horace with her black, belligerent stare.
“You needn’t tell me where your — he—” Horace said.
“Dont think I’m afraid to tell,” Temple said. “I’ll tell it anywhere. Dont think I’m afraid. I want a drink.”
“You tell him, and I’ll get you one,” Miss Reba said.
Sitting up in the bed, the covers about her shoulders, Temple told him of the night she had spent in the ruined house, from the time she entered the room and tried to wedge the door with the chair, until the woman came to the bed and led her out. That was the only part of the whole experience which appeared to have left any impression on her at all: the night which she had spent in comparative inviolation. Now and then Horace would attempt to get her on ahead to the crime itself, but she would elude him and return to herself sitting on the bed, listening to the men on the porch, or lying in the dark while they entered the room and came to the bed and stood there above her.
“Yes; that,” she would say. “It just happened. I dont know. I had been scared so long that I guess I had just gotten used to being. So I just sat there in those cottonseeds and watched him. I thought it was the rat at first. There were two of them there. One was in one corner looking at me and the other was in the other corner. I dont know what they lived on, because there wasn’t anything there but corn-cobs and cottonseeds. Maybe they went to the house to eat. But there wasn’t any in the house. I never did hear one in the house. I thought it might have been a rat when I first heard them, but you can feel people in a dark room: did you know that? You dont have to see them. You can feel them like you can in a car when they begin to look for a good place to stop — you know: park for a while.” She went on like that, in one of those bright, chatty monologues which women can carry on when they realise that they have the center of the stage; suddenly Horace realised that she was recounting the experience with actual pride, a sort of naïve and impersonal vanity, as though she were making it up, looking from him to Miss Reba with quick, darting glances like a dog driving two cattle along a lane.
“And so whenever I breathed I’d hear those shucks. I dont see how anybody ever sleeps on a bed like that. But maybe you get used to it. Or maybe they’re tired at night. Because when I breathed I could hear them, even when I was just sitting on the bed. I didn’t see how it could be just breathing, so I’d sit as still as I could, but I could still hear them. That’s because breathing goes down. You think it goes up, but it doesn’t. It goes down you, and I’d hear them getting drunk on the porch. I got to thinking I could see where their heads were leaning back against the wall and I’d say Now this one’s drinking out of the jug. Now that one’s drinking. Like the mashed-in place on the pillow after you got up, you know.
“That was when I got to thinking a funny thing. You know how you do when you’re scared. I was looking at my legs and I’d try to make like I was a boy. I was thinking about if I just was a boy and then I tried to make myself into one by thinking. You know how you do things like that. Like when you know one problem in class and when they came to that you look at him and think right hard, Call on me. Call on me. Call on me. I’d think about what they tell children, about kissing your elbow, and I tried to. I actually did. I was that scared, and I’d wonder if I could tell when it happened. I mean, before I looked, and I’d think I had and how I’d go out and show them — you know. I’d strike a match and say Look. See? Let me alone, now. And then I could go back to bed. I’d think how I could go to bed and go to sleep then, because I was sleepy. I was so sleepy I simply couldn’t hardly hold my eyes open.
“So I’d hold my eyes tight shut and say Now I am. I am now. I’d look at my legs and I’d think about how much I had done for them. I’d think about how many dances I had taken them to — crazy, like that. Because I thought how much I’d done for them, and now they’d gotten me into this. So I’d think about praying to be changed into a boy and I would pray and then I’d sit right still and wait. Then I’d think maybe I couldn’t tell it and I’d get ready to look. Then I’d think maybe it was too soon to look; that if I looked too soon I’d spoil it and then it wouldn’t, sure enough. So I’d count. I said to count fifty at first, then I thought it was still too soon, and I’d say to count fifty more. Then I’d think if I didn’t look at the right time, it would be too late.
“Then I thought about fastening myself up some way. There was a girl went abroad one summer that told me about a kind of iron belt in a museum a king or something used to lock the queen up in when he had to go away, and I thought if I just had that. That was why I got the raincoat and put it on. The canteen was hanging by it and I got it too and put it in the—”
“Canteen?” Horace said. “Why did you do that?”
“I dont know why I took it. I was just scared to leave it there, I guess. But I was thinking if I just had that French thing. I was thinking maybe it would have long sharp spikes on it and he wouldn’t know it until too late and I’d jab it into him. I’d jab it all the way through him and I’d think about the blood running on me and how I’d say I guess that’ll teach you! I guess you’ll let me alone now! I’d say. I didn’t know it was going to be just the other way . . . I want a drink.”
“I’ll get you one in a minute,” Miss Reba said. “Go on and tell him.”
“Oh, yes; this was something else funny I did.” She told about lying in the darkness with Gowan snoring beside her, listening to the shucks and hearing the darkness full of movement, feeling Popeye approaching. She could hear the blood in her veins, and the little muscles at the corners of her eyes cracking faintly wider and wider, and she could feel her nostrils going alternately cool and warm. Then he was standing over and she was saying
Come on. Touch me. Touch me! You’re a coward if you don’t. Coward! Coward!
“I wanted to go to sleep, you see. And he just kept on standing there. I thought if he’d just go on and get it over with, I could go to sleep. So I’d say You’re a coward if you dont! You’re a coward if you dont! and I could feel my mouth getting fixed to scream, and that little hot ball inside you that screams. Then it touched me, that nasty little cold hand, fiddling around inside the coat where I was naked. It was like alive ice and my skin started jumping away from it like those little flying fish in front of a boat. It was like my skin knew which way it was going to go before it started moving, and my skin would keep on jerking just ahead of it like there wouldn’t be anything there when the hand got there.
“Then it got down to where my insides begin, and I hadn’t eaten since yesterday at dinner and my insides started bubbling and going on and the shucks began to make so much noise it was like laughing. I’d think they were laughing at me because all the time his hand was going inside the top of my knickers and I hadn’t changed into a boy yet.
“That was the funny thing, because I wasn’t breathing then. I hadn’t breathed in a long time. So I thought I was dead. Then I did a funny thing. I could see myself in the coffin. I looked sweet — you know: all in white. I had on a veil like a bride, and I was crying because I was dead or looked sweet or something. No: it was because they had put shucks in the coffin. I was crying because they had put shucks in the coffin where I was dead, but all the time I could feel my nose going cold and hot and cold and hot, and I could see all the people sitting around the coffin, saying Dont she look sweet. Dont she look sweet.
“But I kept on saying Coward! Coward! Touch me, coward! I got mad, because he was so long doing it. I’d talk to him. I’d say Do you think I’m going to lie here all night, just waiting on you? I’d say. Let me tell you what I’ll do, I’d say. And I’d lie there with the shucks laughing at me and me jerking away in front of his hand and I’d think what I’d say to him, I’d talk to him like the teacher does in school, and then I was a teacher in school and it was a little black thing like a nigger boy, kind of, and I was the teacher. Because I’d say How old am I? and I’d say I’m forty-five years old. I had iron-gray hair and spectacles and I was all big up here like women get. I had on a gray tailored suit, and I never could wear gray. And I was telling it what I’d do, and it kind of drawing up and drawing up like it could already see the switch.
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 122
