The Wounded and the Slain Page 3

  Toy balloon. Little girl. Is that a clue?

  Not really. But let’s stay with little girl. What are little girls made of?

  Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what Mother always said. She told you to remember it always, to keep yourself dainty and neat, and most important of all, don’t get yourself dirty. You can hear her saying it again: “All right, go out in the garden and play, but don’t get yourself dirty.”

  Dirty. That reminds me, I ought to start the water running in the tub. But you don’t need a bath. Oh, yes, you do. You need plenty of soap and water, little girl. You must—

  But wait now. The garden. What about the garden? I remember, we lived in that big house on Long Island and there was a very large garden and I was seven or eight or nine years old or maybe five or six or eleven. If only I could remember…Yes, if only you could remember. But of course your only memory is Mother saying, “Don’t get yourself dirty.” But the garden, I think there was something in the garden….

  The flowers? What flowers? No, it wasn’t the flowers. Was it that thing made of marble? The bird bath? No, it wasn’t the bird bath. What else was there? Some kind of pond, I think. A small pond. It was very small, a fish pond. Yes, I remember now it was a gold-fish pond.

  Goldfish pond. Goldfish pond. Keep saying it. Please keep saying it. I think it means something. I’m sure it does. Oh, it must mean something. In connection with what? With whom? With whose face? Whose voice?

  I can’t remember. The only voice I remember is the voice of Mother saying, “Don’t get yourself dirty.”

  She went in to the bathroom and started the hot water running in the tub.

  Chapter Two

  He stayed in bed until well past noon. His stomach felt awful and his throat burned. A colored girl came up with a tray and he tried to get some food down, but he gagged on it and said that what he really needed was another drink. The girl went out and some minutes later came back with a double whisky and a small pitcher of ice water. The whisky lifted him a little and he told the girl to bring him a bottle and a large pitcher. But as the girl started out he changed his mind and said, “Let’s see if I can hold off till tonight.”

  Then the girl was gone and he was alone in the room. He wondered where Cora was. Then he told himself it didn’t matter where she was or what she was doing. For a while he sat there in the bed, smoking cigarettes and looking at the opened window, wishing a breeze would come in. It was terribly hot in here. It was the middle of February and he thought of them freezing in New York while here in Jamaica it was well over ninety. A ribbon of blinding-yellow Caribbean sunlight slashed across the pale-yellow percale that covered his upraised knees. Then something else came through the window and it was a mosaic of quietly pleasant sound from down below, in and around the swimming pool. He climbed out of bed and walked to the window and looked out.

  He saw them down there, the American and British tourists wearing sunglasses and carefully selected beach attire. Even from this distance one could tell they were people of means and good breeding. They were having fun down there and it was clean quiet fun; there were no show-offs on the diving board, no pseudo acrobats on the sand, no scanty bathing suits. The chatter and laughter was tempered, blending with the serene design of the pool and its surroundings. Altogether it was a placid scene of nice placid people enjoying themselves. He wanted to put on his bathing trunks and go down there and get in on it.

  And yet, as he gazed down from the opened window, he knew there was something wrong with the picture. What you mean is, he thought, there’s something wrong with this party looking at the picture. This party doesn’t belong in that setting. That setting is strictly for sober-minded individuals who know how to behave themselves. And this party here, this weak-kneed, weak-brained gin-head—oh, yes, this perfect example of self-ruination, this absolute failure—

  “Oh, screw that noise,” he muttered aloud. But the sound of his own voice, burned with gin and twisted With anguish, made dismal contrast with the gay care-free sounds from the pool and sand and garden down below. He moved away from the window, noticed the radio on the small table set between the twin beds. He turned on the radio and listened to a calypso singer complaining to the neighbors that they should stop stealing from his kitchen, his wife was getting too skinny. It wasn’t very good calypso.

  There were some ten minutes more of calypso, then a station break, and then the broadcast of a cricket match between Jamaicans and a team from England. The announcer was very technical and Bevan had very little knowledge of cricket and had no idea what the man was talking about. But he stood there and listened anyway, trying to follow it, trying to aim his mind at the cricket players and away from himself.

  “A truly splendid score,” the announcer said. “For Baxter it’s now—”

  Good for Baxter, he said without sound as the score was stated. But not at all good for Bevan. Let’s try another cigarette. No, that won’t improve matters. Let’s try a cold shower.

  He showered and shaved and put on his clothes. Then he took them off and got into his bathing trunks. Then he took off the trunks and put on his clothes again. He tied his shoelaces slowly at first, fumbling with the laces, then suddenly very quickly and instinctively because his brain was aimed at something else he had to do.

  He had to take another look out that window. At the window he aimed his eyes at what he’d seen before but hadn’t wanted to notice. Delayed reaction, he thought, focusing on the pale-orange bathing suit she wore, her pale-yellow hair glimmering almost white under the scorching sun. She was sitting in a beach chair near the edge of the swimming pool and without sound he said, Hello Cora. He saw her turning her head, saying something to the man who sat in the adjoining beach chair. Without sound Bevan said, Hello, Flatnose, but he knew the nickname was an exaggeration; the man’s nose was not that flat. He tried Carrot-top, but that didn’t seem proper, either. The carrot-colored hair was somewhat on the darkish side, not the flaring red-orange that would automatically label one a carrot-top. And anyway, he told himself, the name isn’t important. What’s important is the fact that (here they are, sitting next to each other. And look at her now, look at the way she’s smiling at him. Now he’s saying something and she’s paying very close attention.

  Tell you what, you better go down there and break it up before it starts. Or maybe it’s started already. Yes, you might as well admit it’s started already. It got started last night when he moved in to lend a hand, gallantly aiding the tearful lady who couldn’t manage her drunken husband. Well, that’s the way it happens sometimes. And in this case it was bound to happen sooner or later. It certainly stands to reason she’d come across a Someone Else. Or make it Mr. Something who moves in to replace Mr. Zero. That sounds logical, it’s altogether functional. All right, let’s stop it right there.

  But look at them; they’re not stopping it. Look how interested she is. She can’t take her eyes off him. You can actually measure the vibration between them. Or is it merely something you’re imagining? No, I don’t think so. It’s a decisive vibration, it’s like an ache that throbs and throbs and it’s getting worse. If it doesn’t stop…

  If it doesn’t stop, Cora was thinking, I’m afraid something will happen. I know something will happen. But 1 of course it’s happening already and there’s no way to I break it off, unless I just get up from this beach chair and walk away from him. I can’t do that. Why can’t you? Well, it wouldn’t be right. It would be terribly rude, outrageously rude. But that isn’t the answer. The answer is that you’re chained to this chair, you can’t move.

  She was sitting there in the beach chair next to the heavily built man whose nose was slightly flattened, whose hair was carrot-colored, who sat with his legs crossed so that his thickly muscled thighs bulged prominently. His only attire was navy-blue swimming shorts and navy-blue leather sandals. His bare chest was very hairy and there was considerable hair on his arms and on the backs of his large hands. He had very large hands a
nd he used them with moderate expressiveness while he talked.

  He was talking about the theatre. He was telling her about a very fine performance of Ibsen he’d recently seen in New York. He said that Bankhead was really wonderful when she was doing Ibsen, and of course Le Gallienne was always superlative, and then he included Cornell and Nazimova. But the greatest of Ibsen he’d ever seen, he said, was Bankhead doing Hedda Gabbler.

  “I saw it on television,” Cora said.

  “Did it get across?”

  “It was all right.”

  “I wouldn’t want to see it on television. If I’m going to see it, I want to see it on the stage. And no further back than the fourth row.”

  “And if you can’t get the fourth row?”

  “Oh, I get it,” he said. “When I want it badly enough, I always manage to get it.”

  It was quiet for some moments and then he went on talking about Ibsen. He compared Ibsen with some of the moderns and he said a few of the moderns were quite good but not really up there with Ibsen. The way he put it, he said these moderns kept using left jabs and sometimes they managed to rock you with a right to the jaw. But it took Ibsen to smash you so hard that you were knocked flat. He said it was the same feeling that came from hearing a record of the voice of John McCormack. He had a great many records by John McCormack, and another favorite of his was Chaliapin. He stated emphatically that none of the modern singers could approach those two.

  For a while he talked about singers and then he came back to Ibsen, but now she couldn’t follow what he was saying. She sat there looking directly at him but not hearing the words that came from his mouth, hearing only the sound of his voice, which was thick and rumbling and seemed to be closing in on her like thunder approaching from all directions. And then, all at once, she forgot who he was.

  She forgot that he’d said his name was Atkinson and that his home was in New York and whatever else he’d mentioned about himself. Now it was as though he had no identity; he was just a big man with a rough-textured face and a hairy chest and large hands. She looked at his hands, which were scrubbed spotless, the fingernails neatly trimmed and buffed. She tried to stop looking at his hands but she couldn’t stop looking and now her brain was a screen that showed the hands moving toward her, the fingers clawing, the hands now grimy, the fingernails blackened and filthy. There was the far-off echo of a voice that said to her: “You can’t get away. He’s so big—he’s so rough….”

  When did you hear that? she asked herself. And who said it? Then the voice spoke again. It said, “Please don’t. Oh, please don’t.” It was such a tiny voice, like the pleading chirping of a frightened little bird. Or a child, she thought. A girl-child. Yes, a very little girl, let’s say seven or eight or nine years old. Can you be more specific? No, and it’s no use trying. And leave me alone, she said to herself.

  She heard him saying, “—is probably the trouble with the theatre these days. Don’t you agree?”

  She nodded mechanically.

  He smiled and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bevan. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” “Interrupt what?”

  “Whatever it was you were thinking about.”

  She smiled back at him. “It wasn’t anything important.” And then, apologetically, “You must think I’m awfully impolite.”

  “Not at all,” and he laughed lightly. “You just went away for a moment and then you came back.”

  She laughed with him. She was thinking, You’re all right now. You’re just sitting here making conversation. That’s all it is, it’s nothing more than a pleasant conversation.

  Bevan stood there at the window, watching them. Then gradually and for some unaccountable reason his attention was drawn away and he was focusing on the yellow-brown stone wall beyond the far side of the swimming pool. It was a high wall and it marked the line of separation between the Laurel Rock Hotel and the native dwellings. Now he was looking out and over the fence wall and he had a clear view. He could see the narrow streets crowded with dark-skinned people who either sat motionless on doorsteps or moved listlessly, seeming to have nothing special to do and no special place to go. They were too far away for him to check their attire, but he received the impression that most of them wore rags, and he saw many of them walking barefoot. There were some women carrying baskets on their heads, their hands not touching the baskets, their legs and torsos moving in a steady rhythm that balanced the baskets, and it amounted to an art. He remembered the travel folder that had played it up big: “See the colorful native women who carry baskets on their heads.” Except that in the travel folder the baskets were filled with flowers and the women wore a lot of jewelry and trinkets and bright-Imed dresses, grinning brightly and happily from the glossy page. He told himself there was little or no similarity between the travel folder and what he was seeing now. These women wore no jewelry, and the dresses looked like something made from flour bags. 1 The baskets on their heads contained no flowers, only food, and even from this distance he could see the blackness on the skins of the bananas. He thought technically, They better hurry and sell that fruit. It’ll soon get spoiled in the sun.

  He watched a flock of naked children racing across a garbage-littered back yard that faced the harbor. 1 They came onto a splintered, deserted pier and leaped feet first into the scummy water. He saw them swimming out toward cleaner, bluer water where a large cabin cruiser was anchored. They were hoping to attract some attention and then go diving for tossed pennies. Without realizing what he was doing, Bevan put his hand in his pocket, reaching for coins. As he felt the silver between his fingers he said to himself, It’s only a phony gesture.

  You sure have a gift for that. You’re a first-rate performer when it comes to making phony gestures. If you want to look back and examine the record, you’ll see just how dismally phony. But you better not do that; you better not look back. If you do, you’ll require another drink, a great many drinks. So please don’t do it, please don’t allow yourself to remember.

  His eyes went on aiming at the slum area on the other side of the hotel wall. But the scene reflected on the screen of his mind had nothing to do with the city of Kingston on the island of Jamaica. It was another slum area, located in Manhattan. Around Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue.

  Some two years ago. Or was it three? Stop it, he begged himself.

  Hut his brain said, No, you can’t stop it. You’ve tried so many times, but there’s no set of brakes for this kind of action. Once it starts, it keeps on going, with the gears in reverse and the wheels rolling downhill past all (he used-up calendars.

  His head went down. He slumped into a chair near the window. There was a dazed and stricken look on his face as he surrendered himself to the tides of memory.

  It begins, he told himself, with a sleepless night.

  Hut that wasn’t it, not really. He knew it actually began with his marriage to Cora. It had seemed like a proper marriage, properly romantic and with all the proper factors of mutual respect and tenderness and affection During the seven months of their engagement their only physical contact had been when they danced and when they kissed. Of course he wanted to do more than that, but he’d made a firm resolve not to try. He knew he was marrying a girl who hadn’t been around, a girl of better-than-average breeding and background, her chastity a precious truth that needed no words, because it showed in her eyes. So he forced himself to wait until the wedding night, anticipating that the wedding night would be sweetly magical and wonderful.

  The wedding night was miserable. She sobbed, “It’s horrible. I can’t—I just can’t.” It went on like that through the honeymoon, and later it fell into the dreary pattern of an ordeal for her and little or no pleasure for him. Of course, she tried, she really tried, but that only made it worse. He developed the guilty I knowledge that he was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do, hated to do. And what made it tougher on him was that she never wanted to tall about it. One night she wept terribly and begged himl to be patient with her,
and he bit hard at the side of his mouth to keep from exclaiming impatiently. She said she’d keep on trying, but it wasn’t long after that she] suggested they purchase twin beds. “But why?”

  “Well—I know it’s difficult for you. I mean—”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.”

  “I’m sorry, James. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. He managed to smile at her. “Don’t let it worry you, dear. It isn’t anything to worry about.”

  But during the first three years he worried plenty. Then gradually he became accustomed to the twice-a-month routine and later the once-a-month routine. He was working very hard on Wall Street, and weekends he concentrated on his golf, so at night he was more or less played out, really anxious for sleep and nothing but sleep. In the fifth year of their marriage she became pregnant and for a time he thought that might change matters; the doctor told him that after a woman has her first child she becomes aroused, becomes a] hungry female animal fully aware of her gender.

  That never happened because in the seventh month she had a miscarriage. Two years later she had another miscarriage and for several months thereafter she was very sick. The doctor said she was too narrow in the hips, and recommended that she put on weight before attempting another pregnancy. During her convales-cence she gained a few pounds, but she lost it just as soon as she was back on her feet. One night she climbed into his bed and put her arms around him and said. “You want me?”

  Sure,” he said. “I always want you.” Hut as he hugged her, his fingers caressing her fragile shoulders, he could feel she was trembling, and he sensed the effort she was making, forcing herself to give him what he needed. He told himself she was a good girl, she was sweet and generous and he was awfully lucky to have her for a wife. What followed after that was a stab of guilt that told him he had hurt her enough with his animal requirements and he mustn’t hurt her any more. But Jesus Christ, he thought, I’m flesh and blood, and I need it, I’ve got to have it, and what am I to do? All right, I know it’s a wonderful marriage from the standpoint of how much