“Of course, Mr. Benjamin.”
“Good.” With his little collection of papers, Mr. Benjamin turned resolutely toward the stairs, leaving behind him the breakfast dishes and the coffeepot and Genevieve’s incurious eyes.
His wife’s room was at the head of the stairs, a heavy oaken door with brass-trimmed knobs and hinges. The key hung always on a hook just beside the doorway, and Mr. Benjamin sighed a third time as he lifted it down and weighed it for a minute in his hand. When he fitted the key to the lock in the door he heard the first split second of stunned silence within, and then the rattle of dishes as his wife set aside her breakfast tray and waited for the door to open. Sighing, Mr. Benjamin turned the key and opened the door.
“Good morning,” he said, avoiding looking at her and going instead to the window, which showed him the same view of the garden that he had seen from the dining room, the same flowers a little farther away, the same street beyond, the same rows of houses. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Very well, thank you.”
The lawn, seen from this angle, showed more clearly that it needed trimming, and he said, “Have to get hold of that fellow to do the lawn.”
“His name’s in the little telephone book,” she said. “The one where I keep numbers like the laundry’s, and the grocer’s.” There was the sound of her coffee cup being moved. “Kept,” she said.
“It’s going to be another nice day,” he said, still looking out.
“Splendid. Will you play golf?”
“You know I don’t play golf on Mondays,” he said, turning to her in surprise; once he had looked at her, even without intending to, he found it not difficult; she was always the same, these mornings now, and it came as more of a shock to him daily to realize that although, throughout the rest of the house, she existed as a presence made up half of recollection and half of intention, here in her room she was the same as always, and not influential at all. She sometimes wore a blue bed jacket and had an egg on her tray, and she sometimes put her hair onto the top of her head with combs instead of letting it fall about her shoulders, and she sometimes sat in the chair next to the window, and she was sometimes reading the books he brought her from the library, but essentially she was the same, and the same woman as the one he had married and probably the same woman that he might one day bury.
Her voice, when she spoke to him, was the one she had used for many years, although recently she had learned to keep it lower and without emotion; at first, that had been because she disliked the thought of Genevieve and Mrs. Carter hearing her, but now it was because it did so little good to shout at him, and frequently drove him away. “Any mail?” she asked.
“A letter from your mother, one from someone named Joanie.”
“Joanie?” she said, frowning. “I don’t know anyone named Joanie.”
“Helen,” he said irritably, “will you please stop talking like that?”
She hesitated, and then took up her coffee cup again with a gesture that made it clear that whatever she had intended to say, she was persuaded that there was no reason to say it again.
“I don’t know her name,” he said patiently, “but it was on her letter. She said Smitty wasn’t married yet. She said how wonderful that you were married and would you and your hubby visit her soon.”
“Joan Morris,” she said. “Why didn’t you say so instead of letting me—” She stopped.
“There were no other letters,” he said deliberately.
“I wasn’t expecting any but Mother’s.”
“Has Mr. Ferguson forgotten you, do you suppose? Or perhaps given up a difficult job?”
“I don’t know Mr. Ferguson.”
“So easily discouraged…” he said. “It could hardly have been a very… passionate affair.”
“I don’t know anyone named Ferguson.” She kept her voice quiet, as she always did now, but she moved her coffee cup slightly in its saucer, and looked at it with interest, the thin cup moving in a tiny delicate circle on the saucer. “There wasn’t any affair.”
He went on, speaking as quietly as she did, and watching the coffee cup, but he sounded almost wistful. “You gave him up so easily,” he said. “Hardly a word from me, and poor Mr. Ferguson was abandoned. And now he seems to be weakening in his efforts to release you.” He thought. “I don’t believe there’s been a letter for nearly a week,” he said.
“I don’t know who writes the letters. I don’t know anyone named Ferguson.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps he saw you in a bus, or across a restaurant, and had since that magic moment dedicated his life to you; perhaps, even, you succeeded in dropping a note out the window, or Genevieve took pity on you… perhaps Genevieve’s fur coat was a bribe?”
“It hardly seemed likely that I should be needing a fur coat,” she said.
“It was a present from me, originally, was it not? You will be pleased to know that Genevieve came directly to me and offered to return the coat.”
“I suppose you did take it back?”
“I did,” he said. “I prefer not to have Genevieve indebted to you.”
He was already tired of her this morning; it was not possible to communicate with her because she would not abandon her coffee cup, and she knew already of course that he had taken the coat and the jewelry away from Genevieve. There was not even the hope between them that he believed she had actually dropped a note from the window, or somehow gotten word to the outside world; there was not even, they both knew, any way in which she might sit down and, hands trembling and with nervous glances at the door, set upon paper any statement of her position which might bring someone to unlock the door and let her out. Even if she had been allowed pencil and paper or had found it possible to scrawl with a lipstick upon a handkerchief, she was not capable anymore of expressions such as “I am kept prisoner by my husband, help me” or “Save an unfortunate woman unjustly confined” or “Get the police” or even “Help”; there had been a period when she had tried to force her way out of the room when the door was opened, but that had been only at first. She had then fallen into a sullen indifference and during that time he had watched her closely, since the (then almost daily) letters from Ferguson had suggested methods for release and he had suspected then that she was trying to communicate with her mother. Now, however, in this fairly new attitude of hers, which had begun when she gave away her clothes to Genevieve and began to stay in bed all day, and the letters from Ferguson were not as frequent, he had become easier in his mind about her, and even allowed her books and magazines, and had once brought her a dozen roses for her room. He did not for a minute believe that she was crafty enough to be planning an escape, or to use this apparent resigned state of mind to deceive him into thinking she had accepted his authority. “You still remember,” he asked her, thinking of this, “that you may at any time resume your normal life, and wear your pretty clothes again, and return to normal?”
“I remember it,” she said, and laughed.
He came toward her, toward the bed and the coffee cup and toward her blue bed jacket, until he could see clearly the combs on the top of her head and the small hairs that escaped. “Just tell me,” he said beggingly. “All you have to do is to tell me—only a few words—tell me about Ferguson, and where you met him and what—” He stopped. “Confess,” he said sternly, and she lifted her head to look at him. “I don’t know anyone named Ferguson. I never loved anyone in my life. I never had any affairs. I have nothing to confess. I do not want to wear my pretty clothes again.”
He sighed, and turned toward the door. “I wonder why not,” he said.
“Don’t forget to lock the door,” she said, turning to take her book from the table.
Mr. Benjamin locked the door behind him and stood for a minute holding the key in his hand before he hung it again on its hook. Then he turned wearily and went down the stairs. Genevieve was dusting the living room and he stopped in the doorway and said, “Genevieve, Mrs. Benjamin would like somet
hing light for lunch; perhaps a salad.”
“Certainly, Mr. Benjamin,” Genevieve said.
“I won’t have dinner home,” Mr. Benjamin said. “I thought I might, but I believe I’ll stay in town after all. I believe Mrs. Benjamin needs new library books; will you take care of that for her?”
“Certainly, Mr. Benjamin,” Genevieve said again.
He felt oddly hesitant, almost as though he would rather stand there and talk to Genevieve than go on into his study; perhaps that was because Genevieve would certainly answer “Yes, Mr. Benjamin.” He moved abruptly before he could say anything else, and went into his study and closed and locked the door, thinking as he did so, two rooms locked and shut away from the rest of the house, two rooms far apart, and all the house in between not being used, the living room and the dining room and the hall and the stairs and the bedrooms all just lying there, shutting two locked rooms away from each other. He shook his head violently; he was tired. He slept in the bedroom next to his wife’s and sometimes at night the temptation to unlock her door and go inside and tell her she was forgiven was very strong for him; he was fortunately kept from this by the frightful recollection of the one time he had unlocked his wife’s door during the night and she had driven him out with her fists and had locked the door from the inside, returning the key to him in the morning without a word; he suspected that soon it would not be possible for him to enter her room even by day.
He sat down at his desk and pressed his hand to his forehead irritably. It had to be done, however, and he took a sheet of her monogrammed notepaper and opened his fountain pen. “Dearest Mommy,” he wrote, “my mean old finger is still too painful to write with—James says he thinks I may have sprained it, but I think he is just tired of taking dictation from me—as if he had ever done anything else; anyway, we’re both just sick that we can’t join you in Paris after all, but I really think we’re wiser not to. After all, we only came back from our honeymoon in July, and James just has to spend some time at his old office. He says maybe this winter we can fly down to South America for a couple of weeks, and not let anyone know where we’re going or when we’re coming back or anything. Anyway, have a lovely time in Paris, and buy lots of lovely clothes, and don’t forget to write me.” Mr. Benjamin sat and regarded his letter and then, sighing, took up his pen and added, “Love, Helen and James.” He sealed and addressed the letter and then, sitting quietly at his desk with his hands folded in front of him, he spent a moment thinking. He reached a sudden decision and opened the bottom drawer of the desk and took out a box of rather cheap notepaper, faintly colored, and a fountain pen filled with brown ink. With a sober air which made his gesture somehow ominous, he took the pen into his left hand and began to write in a bold hand, “My dearest, I have finally thought of a way to get around the jealous old fool. I’ve spoken to the girl a couple of times at the library and I think she’ll help us if she’s sure she won’t get into trouble. Here’s what I want to do…”
DEVIL OF A TALE
AND THE DEVIL SAT in the lonely silences of hell, lost in thought. There had been upon Earth a man, son of God, and he had put the devil to rout. And the world worshipped God’s son, and through him God, and the devil sat alone.
“I will have a son,” the devil said. “There will be a woman who will bear me a son.”
And, taking himself to Earth, he sought out one Lady Katharine, wise and witty, mother of no children, but wife to a weak man. And the devil, speaking with Lady Katharine, put her his problem, and offered her the mothering of his son.
But Lady Katharine was wiser than that. “What assurance will I have,” she said to the devil, “that you will reward me suitably?”
“You have my word, madam,” said the devil courteously.
But Lady Katharine laughed, and said to the devil: “I will bear your son, and then you will forget your word and carry me off to hell. I will require adequate security.”
“I will give you a throne in hell,” the devil promised.
“I will take a throne on Earth,” Lady Katharine replied.
“I will give you all you ask of me,” said the devil, “and you will have my son as hostage.”
“You will care for your son well enough without me,” said Lady Katharine. “I will take your right eye as hostage.”
So a bargain was struck, and the devil gave Lady Katharine his right eye as security for his bargain. And Lady Katharine bore a son to the devil, and kept the devil’s eye in the form of a ruby in a box with a cross on the lid. And during her lifetime she possessed the wealth of the world, and all its joys, and she lived many long and pleasant years with the devil’s right eye as hostage for her soul. And the devil’s son grew and flourished under his father’s watchful care, and he was the only son of Lady Katharine’s life, and upon her death he would assume the wealth she had taken from the devil.
And Lady Katharine died, and the devil took her soul, and demanded his eye for her soul’s freedom.
But the devil’s son was possessed of all Lady Katharine’s wealth, and the box with the cross as well, and having not his father’s dread of the cross, he opened the box and found therein the ruby that was the devil’s eye, and with it a note saying that it was Lady Katharine’s wish that it be thrown into the sea to redeem her soul from hell.
But the devil’s son, being his father’s heir, laughed and closed the box upon the ruby. And the devil, wanting his eye, came to his son, and disclosed himself, and said: “I am your father, and I have protected and guided you all your life. You have my eye, and the redemption of your mother’s soul; throw the box into the sea and free yourself from my anger.”
But the devil’s son, knowing his father well, said: “I am your only son, and you are not likely to have another; I will keep your eye as guarantee of your continued favors to me, and you dare not harm me; as for my mother’s soul, let it lie in hell.”
And he turned his back on the devil and went out into the world.
THE MOUSE
THE NEW APARTMENT INTO which Mrs. and Mr. Malkin moved on the first of October was large and comfortable. It had a woodburning fireplace, and a big kitchen, and was near Mr. Malkin’s office; Mrs. Malkin had had the living room painted a soft rose, and the bedroom an equally soft blue, and the kitchen green, and then, in a sudden burst of what Mr. Malkin might have thought was wifely humor, she had taken the room Mr. Malkin had felt immediately was to be his study and had had it painted gray, a heavy slate gray. Mr. Malkin worked for an insurance company and had read somewhere that light, cheerful colors were best for work—Mr. Malkin’s minor executive’s office at the company had tan plaster walls and straight chairs—but Mrs. Malkin had been firm. “You’re such a gloomy type anyway,” she had said unkindly. She had relented to the extent of orange drapes and a bright rug, but Mr. Malkin never did like working in the room. Sundays, when Mrs. Malkin was moving cheerfully about in the kitchen, Mr. Malkin sat in his gray and orange room and pretended he was working, but at the end of the year, when he proposed repainting it, Mr. Malkin was to bring up as an unanswerable argument the fact that he felt he never had done any work in that room. And Mrs. Malkin was going to say that he never did any work anywhere anyway.
Mrs. Malkin had felt privately for a long time that it was her duty to see that her husband wasn’t always as boyish as he intended to be; she had squashed with some enthusiasm his attempts to take up golf, had discouraged his friendship with an older member of the firm whom she thought patronizing, and had seen to it that at twenty-nine Mr. Malkin was always correctly dressed, good-mannered, childless, and taciturn.
Mr. Malkin liked his wife, or did until the terrible incident of the mouse.
The mice, both of them, had come with the apartment. The minute Mrs. Malkin had gone into the new kitchen and found the mousetrap the old tenant had left in the back of a cupboard, she had known she was going to have trouble. “They’ve been using this mousetrap right along,” she told Mr. Malkin, “and you can see it hasn’t do
ne any good. Prints all over the kitchen.”
“Trouble with this trap,” said Mr. Malkin, getting down on his knees beside it, “they used the same trap over and over. Mice smell where traps have caught other mice, won’t go near a trap that’s been used.”
Mrs. Malkin regarded her husband. “What makes you think you know anything about mice?” she asked.
“You get me a new trap,” Mr. Malkin said, “and I’ll have your mice caught for you.”
Mrs. Malkin didn’t remember to get a new trap until after the painters were finished and Mr. Malkin had put up the drapes and the pictures and she had had her new lampshades made and set them up. Then one night when she went out into her freshly painted kitchen to get a pack of cigarettes, Mrs. Malkin put her foot down on the mouse, which was racing for cover under the refrigerator. She screamed and ran into the living room, where Mr. Malkin was sitting and reading.
“I didn’t know you were afraid of mice,” Mr. Malkin said soothingly.
“I’m not,” Mrs. Malkin said, “except I do hate to have one of them scare me like that.”
“You get a trap in the morning,” Mr. Malkin said, “and I’ll have that mouse by night.”
Mrs. Malkin got a trap the next morning, Mr. Malkin set it that night, and the mouse was caught, but just as Mr. Malkin was telling Mrs. Malkin, “You see, trouble with that old trap was that the mouse smelled where other mice had been caught,” Mrs. Malkin heard a suspicious rustling in the newspapers behind the stove, and the next morning there were mouse tracks all over the sink.
“I’m going to have to get the exterminator,” Mrs. Malkin said to Mr. Malkin over the breakfast table, “this cannot go on. I’m not afraid of mice—you know that—but they’re making me so nervous.”
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 17
