The Wounded and the Slain Read online

  He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Come on,” he said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  She didn’t answer. He lit her cigarette, lit one for himself. Then he waited for her to say something. Without sound he was begging her to say something, say anything that would establish some line of communication. But all she did was stand there showing him her profile as she took slow, calm drags at the cigarette.

  Oh, well, he thought, and shrugged inside himself. But the shrug didn’t work, and he snatched almost frantically at the gin-and-tonic. He took several gulps and the alcohol charged his brain with a series of stimulating stabs that brought a dim, half-pleased smile to his lips. The smile became dimmer and somewhat sardonic as he stepped back to give her an appraising look.

  This is better, he told himself. This is a lot better than trying to talk to her. He went on giving her the up-and-down look, as though it weren’t his wife standing there, but some interesting-looking female he was seeing for the first time.

  Really interesting, he estimated. The breeding shows, and you know right away it was first a governess and then finishing school in New England, followed by Bryn Mawr or Vassar, someplace like that. They wouldn’t let her attend a coed institution; you can bet they stood firm on that issue.

  It was gaining momentum in his brain, and he went on: Stands to reason she comes from people with a comfortable amount of cash. Not exactly in the ultra-ultra bracket, but comfortable enough to own property with considerable ground around it, a two- or three-car garage, maybe some horses, a summer home out on Long Island. Oh, they have it, all right. But check that just-right tilt of her chin, and you know they never lavished the cash on her. She doesn’t look the least bit pampered or spoiled. She looks as if been guided and guarded very carefully. So the governess must have been Swedish; they’re usually the strictest. Then later, when she started going out with boys, there was always a chaperone.

  Oh, yes, there had to be a chaperone. And that made it tough on the boys. That is, if they went for the fragile type, the dainty and delicate little lady with the pale-gold hair and pale-blue eyes and very-pale-ivory complexion. You go for that? Yes, I guess you go for that.

  The way a moth goes for the blue-white flame, but it turns out to be an icicle that freezes him to nothingness very quickly.

  With frozen eyes he stared at his wife and saw the pale-gold hair parted in the middle and sleeked down to partially cover her delicate ears. And the pale-blue eyes, the very-pale-ivory complexion that harmonized with her fragile slenderness. Just a tiny suggestion of bosom and hardly any hips at all. But it wasn’t entirely a string-bean build; there was just enough subtle molding of breast and thigh to make it interesting.

  Let’s get away from that, he thought. Let’s get it more in terms of statistics. She’s five feet four inches tall. She weighs exactly 109 pounds. She’s twenty-nine years old and you’ve been married to her for nine years. Hey, now, a lot of nines coming up here. Maybe nine is your lucky number. You mean your unlucky number. For instance, it takes nine months to produce a baby, and she hasn’t been able to produce one yet. I think you better pull away from number nine. Let’s try a number we all know is lucky, like seven. That’s a good number. Oh, sure, that’s a very good number. It’s been seven months since you’ve done it with her. That’s unbelievable. Yet it’s a fact, mister, an irrevocable fact.

  And please, whatever you do, don’t blame the individual that invented twin beds. The twin beds have nothing to do with this problem. This problem is founded on the premise that she doesn’t want it and even if she wanted it you wouldn’t be capable. We might as well put it plainly and say she’s frigid and you’ve become impotent because of it.

  Well, sir, that balances the equation, it makes the score zero-zero. So what say we have a drink on that?

  But the glass was empty. He called to the barman and ordered another. He heard Cora saying, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  He leaned low over the bar, aiming a grin at empty air. “It’s just a way to pass the time.”

  “Please don’t drink any more tonight.”

  “It isn’t drinking, really. It’s just taking medicine.”

  “James, don’t talk foolishly. All that gin in you, it doesn’t do you any good.”

  He was still grinning, still aiming his eyes at nothing. “I wish there were a substitute.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you? The hell you don’t.”

  The barman arrived with the gin-and-tonic and placed it in front of Bevan. He reached for it, then decided to let it stay there for a while. He grinned at the glass, at the glimmering ice cubes in the bubbling colorless liquid. He heard Cora saying, “You’re getting drunk, James. I can always tell when you’re getting drunk.”

  “Hello,” he said to the glass. “Hello, palsy-walsy.” She put her hand on his arm. “Listen to me.” “You really my pal?” he asked the glass. “You wanna be my pal, you gotta stick with me. O.K.?” “James—”

  “It’s gotta be true-blue all the way,” he said to the glass. “None of this fair-weather-friend routine. What I need is a real pal, someone I can talk to. That’s been my trouble, I got nobody to talk to. So let’s have an understanding, pal. There’s nothing in this world like understanding.”

  She was pulling at his sleeve. “Will you please listen to me?”

  “Can’tcha see I’m busy? I’m busy here, I’m talking to my pal.”

  “I can’t stand it when you’re drunk.”

  “And I can’t stand it when I’m not drunk.”

  He was leaning very low over the bar. She gripped his middle and tried to straighten him. He pulled away from her and stumbled sideways and she said, “James, there are other people in this room. They’re looking at you.”

  “Me?” He was gripping the edge of the bar to keep himself from falling to the floor. “Why they wanna look at me? I’m nobody.”

  “I wish you’d stop trying to prove it.”

  “Don’t hafta prove it. Got the evidence right here.” He pointed to himself. “All wrapped and sealed and labeled fourth-class mail. Better handle it gently, boys, it might fall apart.”

  Then he reached for the glass and missed and his groping hand went sliding across the bar, his head going down and his chin hitting the polished hardwood surface. He let his head stay there, and heard her saying, “Get up, James. Stand up straight.”

  “I been trying that for years. Can’t do it. Not up to it at all.”

  “Here, let me help you.” She took hold of his shoulders.

  He pushed her away. “Don’t need any help. Need another drink, that’s what.”

  There was some awkward stifled laughter at the other end of the bar. Cora made another attempt to pull him upright and again he pushed her away. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then said very quietly, “The very least you could do is think of me.”

  “My dear adorable girl, I’m always thinking of you.” And then laughing, biting on it and sobbing it, “Can’t ever stop thinking of you.”

  He tried to straighten himself, but as he lifted his head his knees gave way. Cora grabbed him and he fell against her, his weight throwing her off balance. As they went stumbling away from the bar, a man detached himself from the group at the other end and came hurrying toward them. The man caught Bevan under his armpits, held him upright, then took him to the tables near the bar and put him in a chair. Bevan’s head flopped onto his folded arms. He heard a dull humming in his brain, then heard Cora say, “Thank you,” to the man. The man said, “Quite all right,” and then Cora said, “I’m terribly ashamed.” The humming came in again, but through it he heard the man say, “I guess he had too much.”

  Bevan raised his head and looked at the man. “Now, how in hell did you figure that out?”

  The man gave him a tolerant and somewhat amused smile. Bevan decided it wasn’t a smile, it was more on the order of a leer. But of course he couldn’t be sure about that because now
the man was twins and then triplets seen through a wall of glue-stained celluloid. The wall moved in, then tilted abruptly, and he was on top of it and sliding down. He told himself he wasn’t ready to go out yet. Inside himself he punched back at the gin that was punching away at his brain. It helped some, and he managed to sit up fairly straight. Again he was focusing on the man. He saw that the man was of average height but on the heavy side, with reddish complexion and carrot-colored close-curled hair. The man had gray-green eyes and his nose was slightly flattened. He wore a beige suit of thick Italian silk and butter-colored buckskin shoes. He looked to be a fairly prosperous and maybe important alumnus of whatever college he’d attended, probably an Ivy League school.

  “So who cares?” Bevan mumbled to no one in particular. “I’m a Yale man myself.”

  The man was looking at Cora. “I’d better take him to his room.”

  “I hate to trouble you,” she said.

  “It won’t be any trouble.”

  “Don’t bet on that, brother,” Bevan said. He smiled amiably at the man and the man smiled back.

  Cora said, “We’re in Three-o-seven.”

  The carrot-colored hair and flattened nose came slowly toward Bevan and he widened his smile and said, “You really think you can do it?”

  “We’ll both do it,” the man said. He sounded like a kindly scoutmaster. “We’ll make it together, sonny.”

  “Sonny,” Bevan said. “Don’t gimme that sonny business.”

  “Come on,” the man murmured gently, moving in close and reaching for him. “Let’s give it the old college try. Let’s score one for Old Eli.”

  “Oh, get away,” Bevan said wearily. “Get the hell away from me.”

  “Easy, now,” the man said, taking hold of Bevan’s arms, lifting him from the chair. “Let’s do this nice and easy as we can.”

  Bevan allowed himself to be pulled upright and when he was sure he had the floor under his feet he pivoted in the man’s grasp, yanking himself free. Then he hauled off with his right hand and aimed a roundhouse delivery that went very wide, the impetus carrying him past the man, sending him into a table that overturned. He landed hard on his face, his head resting on the slant of the overturned table. The table drifted away from under him and he was asleep.

  They’re laughing, Cora said to herself. You can hear them laughing. It isn’t the loud raucous jeering laughter, it’s more on the quiet tactful side and they’re trying to hold it back. But they can’t hold it back, it’s really such a funny sight. Yes, it’s so funny. It’s a kind of slapstick, I guess. Can you see it that way? You wish you could see it that way.

  She stood there listening to the muffled laughter from the other end of the bar. They were looking at the drunk who was sleeping with his head resting against the overturned table. The heavily built man moved toward the drunk and lifted him from the floor, then carried him as though he were a rolled-up blanket, one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees. The man supported his weight quite easily, and smiled placidly at Cora and said, “The room key?”

  “It’s in his pocket,” she said. “His trousers pocket.”

  “Good,” the man said. He widened the smile just a trifle. “Don’t look so worried. He’s all right.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “He’s quite all right,” the man said. “He’s doing fine now.”

  Bevan mumbled something in his sleep. He squirmed in the man’s arms. The man went on smiling at Cora and said, “He needs a pillow under his head. That’s all he needs.”

  “Then why don’t you take him upstairs? What are you waiting for?”

  The man’s eyebrows went up just a little, but the smile stayed on his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” Cora murmured. “I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” the man said lightly. “It’s understandable.”

  Then he turned away and carried the drunken sleeper out of the bar and across the lobby and toward the row of elevators. At the doorway between bar and lobby, Cora stood watching him as he waited with his burden for the elevator. She was thinking, Whoever he is, he’s a brute. Very polite and considerate and completely a brute. Look at him, how big he is. Look his shoulders. Such wide shoulders. He’s so much bigger than the man he’s carrying. That’s what he wants me to know. That’s why he stood there smiling at me, drilling it into me that he’s bigger, he’s bigger and better. Next thing he’ll want to do is show me his hairy chest. Does he have a hairy chest? Why do you ask? I don’t know. Then stop asking. But does he really have a hairy chest? And will you please stop trembling? But it isn’t trembling. It’s shivering. Yes, you’re shivering, you feel so cold, so terribly cold. But there’s a furnace somewhere, it’s coming nearer, it’s very hot, it’s white-hot coming nearer and nearer, but no, it isn’t a furnace, it’s a hand, it’s a man’s hand. It’s the hand of… Of whom? Of what?

  There was no answer to that, and she thought. It’s nothing, really. It’s just a momentary lapse. You know you can get rid of it if you try because you’ve had this sort of thing before and you’ve always managed to get rid of it. But what is it? Why does it happen?

  She stood rigidly, watching the man as he entered the elevator with the sleeping burden slung across his arms. Then the elevator door was closed and she looked up to the floor indicator and saw the pointer moving slowly toward two and past two and toward three. It stopped at three. Her eyes were focused on the numeral three engraved in the bronze of the floor indicator. Three, she thought. What’s the meaning of three? There’s a saying, three little words. There’s another saying, three’s a crowd. There’s also the arithmetic we learn in first grade and it tells us that three and three are six and three are nine. And what’s the meaning of nine?

  I’ll tell you what the meaning is, she said to herself. You’re thinking the way a child thinks. A child who is nine years old. Please try to remember you’re grown up, you’re twenty years older than nine years old… nine years old…nine years old…

  She shivered again. It was a convulsive shiver and in the moment that it lasted there was the coldness and then the awful heat changing shape and becoming a man’s hand. She took a backward step to get away from it, then another backward step, and her hands came up to her eyes, her palms pressing hard against her eyes so that what she saw was blackness. It was a thick and greasy and terribly filthy blackness, it was like the dark of a sewer that went down and down and now she could feel the wetness and she knew where it was. She tried to believe it wasn’t there but it was there. It was actually there, the seething hot wetness that caused her to gasp and groan without sound.

  So it’s happened, she thought. It’s happened again. It hasn’t happened for quite a while now but tonight something brought it on, although we’re agreed the circumstances are quite different from that last time, more than a year ago, that rainy afternoon when you couldn’t get a taxi and you used the subway. It was during the rush hour and the car was packed and you were standing next to that big man wearing the shipyard worker’s helmet. He was so big, so ugly, and his shirt was unbuttoned and you saw the hair on his chest. What a horrible-looking beast he was, and he saw you were looking at him, and it was as though he knew what you were thinking. Or what you didn’t know you were thinking. Because he grinned at you as I though to say, “You ain’t kidding me, girlie. On the I outside you looked scared stiff, really freezing-scared. I But inside you’re on fire.” Was it true? Of course it was true. First thing I did when I got home was take a hot bath. I think that’s what I’ll do tonight. I’ll take a hot bath. But you don’t need a bath, you had one just an hour ago. You really don’t need a bath. Oh, don’t you? Not much you don’t. You feel as though you haven’t bathed for a week. Oh, this is such an awful mess. I wish there were some kind of soap that washes out the mind.

  She walked across the lobby and seated herself in an armchair with her back to the elevator doors. A few minutes passed and then she heard the act
ion of the elevator door as it opened. She was slumped low in the chair and she was hoping he wouldn’t see her, then I hoping he would see her, and then hoping he wouldn’t see her.

  He didn’t see her. She heard the heavy footsteps of his thick-soled shoes under his bulky weight, moving across the lobby in the other direction, going toward the bar. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of him as he entered the bar, seeing him in profile, his close-curled carrot-colored hair and slightly flattened nose and thick shoulders and bulging chest. Then he was out of sight, but in her mind she sensed the brute force of his presence moving toward her and she shivered again.

  The elevator door remained open and she got up and hurried toward it. In Room 307 she undressed quickly, in a hurry to get into the tub. But as she started toward the bathroom, she glanced at the twin bed where the drunken sleeper was flat on his back. His leg was bent over the side of the bed at what appeared to be an uncomfortable angle. She lifted his leg, getting his foot onto the bed, and as she did this the look on her face was wifely and tender. She stood there gazing at him and sighing, and thinking, It isn’t Ins fault he drinks so much. It’s your fault. You know it’s your fault. At moments such as this you understand clearly and completely that it’s your fault. You’re his burden and his grief, you’re the living puzzle that he can’t solve. Why don’t you give him the answer?

  You can’t give him the answer. Because there’s no answer to give. You wish you knew the answer. Oh, how you wish it would come to you, or at least come close enough so you could reach out and make a grab for it. hut it’s very far away, this certain answer, this dancing joker of an answer that tells the why and wherefore of all these twisted, strangled, anguished years.

  How many years?

  When did it happen?

  When did what happen? What was it? You have no

  idea what it was. Whatever it was, it must have been something on the dreadful side. It must have been so shockingly dreadful that you couldn’t tell anyone. You must have said to yourself, Not a living soul must know. So you had it buried inside yourself, buried deep and then deeper and finally drifting down and away from all known depth of memory. I guess that’s what you wanted it to do. You wanted it to go away, you wished to forget all about it. The wish was granted and here you are just like the little girl who tosses away her toy balloon, and as it soars away she wants it to come back, but of course it won’t come back.