“Yeah. Me and my notions. What about yours.”
“What.”
“It’s all becoming blindingly clear, like a sunrise in a melodrama in the best Woolworth style, complete with a noble sacrifice. You know, you almost make me sick.”
“Speak.”
“So you’re willing to do all this, at the drop of a hat, and on a shoestring — practically give up your job, spend all your savings, run yourself ragged to raise money, work your head off and generally worry yourself to death, and all to provide a goody-goody little husband for the gal you’re in love with!”
Off came the dark glasses: Key’s blue eyes were laughing. Blomberg felt his own smile expand and contract, forced into his staring eyes the expression he willed, a far and shrewd foresight, a contemplative wisdom superior to the absurd antics of time. This could be turned to advantage. It was nearly eight o’clock, Key would now move towards the North Station, something must be done, or decided, soon. He must call up Gil, call up Noni, get, or not get, the tickets from Mr. Albumblatt at the South Station — he had promised the little man that he would be back before ten — and after that, packing, or helping Noni to pack. Time with its hundred hands, Time with its thousand mouths! The vision of a train came sharply, too, before him — all trains that he had ever seen or known; the melancholy, slow ylang-ylang, ylang-ylang, of the little switch engine in the frost-bound train-yard; the profound cries of freight trains climbing dark defiles of mountains at midnight; rows of phantom lights sweeping across a lonely station-front. And the transcontinental track, the curved parallel rails embracing the three-thousand-mile-long curve of the submissive and infinitely various earth, from night into day, into night again — this, too, he saw, deep in Key’s eyes. And Noni, solitary as a bird, on the great circle to Mexico.… He said, as if he were only formulating these very things:
“Not in love with her, Key, no.”
“Yes.”
“Not in love with her, no. I love her, yes — I’m not in love with her, it’s been for years. Do you love sunsets and sunrises? Or your own left hand?”
“You don’t convince me.”
“You don’t listen.”
“I’m listening.”
Their voices had insensibly softened, and it was on a quieter note still that Blomberg went on.
“It’s been for years, and always just like that; just like this — even, and calm, and leisurely, and serene, on both sides. There never was anything else, not a trace. I never wanted to make love to her, and she never made the slightest sign that she wanted to be made love to. In a way, it was really too good and too deep for that — don’t smile, such things do happen. I love her, I think in a sense she loves me, just as I think she loves Gil. But she has very odd and individual, and perhaps old-fashioned, views about sex — she gave me a lecture once, when I was a little tight and tried to kiss her, and it was one of the most moving things I ever heard. I wish I could remember it. It was like being talked to by Emily Dickinson, or the sunny slope of a New England pasture in spring. Something about the soul’s election, the soul’s eligibility — said very quietly, but with intense conviction, said very shyly, too, as if it were something infinitely precious to her. As I’m sure it was.”
“You interest me strangely.”
“Yes. For the whole doctrine of sex as pleasure, and promiscuity as a kind of loving kindness to all — you know, the preachings of the shabby little bedroom philosophers of Greenwich Village and Beacon Hill, who under the guise of brotherly love turn all their womenfolk into prostitutes — she has nothing but contempt. Not even contempt. It just doesn’t mean anything to her. It just seems to her a little dirty. But Noni loves. Everyone who knows her knows that, and everyone who knows her loves her. I’m damned if I know what it is, Key. I suppose sex must play a part in it, but if so it’s so deep and anonymous as to become in effect spiritual. You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true.”
“Okay, just for fun I’ll believe you, Blom! And what about some coffee.”
“Turkish coffee medium.”
“Make it two, Henry. And bring me the bill.”
“Yes, sir; certainly, Mr. Key.”
“And to go back to what you said, about my being a fifth wheel, and raising the question of my going with them at all — and the effect on Gil — well, that’s the answer. Noni needs me. Noni loves us both, and knows that we both love her, in our very different ways, and what she needs right now is love. She wants to take all — I was going to say, all she loves — with her — for she’s going off to die. What could be more natural? Do pretend to try to understand it, Key — it scares me and horrifies me, the whole thing, I can’t tell you how much, but all the same I think it’s wonderful, it’s like the creation of a work of art, a piece of superb music. What can I do but say yes, and try to do everything I can to help her?”
“Work of art!.. If it’s a work of art, I’m a horse thief. And you’re a sucker!”
“No, it’s the most heroic thing I ever encountered. And the noblest. She’s taking this pitiful little tag-end of her life, this handful of days with already a shadow across them, and making of them, and of us — herself and Gil and me — a farewell symphony; like that one of Haydn’s, which you probably don’t know—”
“—keep the bouquets—”
“—where, as the orchestration thins, towards the end, the different sections of the orchestra rise, as soon as they finish their parts, and go quietly out, and the lights in the hall are extinguished one by one, to the last note and the last light. Just like that. I’m being used like Gil, in the making of a piece of music; I’m being used; and if nothing else ever happens to me again in all my life, this will have been enough to justify it, and to give it dignity.… To change the subject, Key, I’ve got some first editions I could sell you.”
“First editions! What would I do with them?”
“Or you could have them as security on a loan.”
“No, Blom, I don’t want no first editions; I want a train to Concord. What about taking the subway down, and stopping for a nightcap at the Manger.”
“Yeah, sure. But I can warn you, Key, I’m going to curse your conscience like the very devil! You wait and see.”
“Henry, you can keep the change out of that — if they’ll give it to you. And good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Key, and thank you, sir. Good night! Good night.”
Key lit a cigarette as he rose, Blomberg took out his pipe and held the bowl of it in his hand, reflecting that he would not have time to light it until they got to the North Station. Eight-twenty. As they descended the marble stairs, the sound of time once more came around him, oppressive and rich and nostalgic, and again as if in the form of the train itself, the train to Mexico. They would be taking a train. This time tomorrow, where in God’s name would they be? In a strange world, on their way to a strange world, on their way to the unknown. And Noni, above all—! He closed his eyes to that notion, the notion of that terminus, and watched Key precede him into the street and the mild May evening. Was it going to be all right? He smiled grimly, looking down at the funny little man, and wondered. “The odds are even,” he muttered to himself, “the odds are even, the odds are about even.” He might give twenty-five, he might give fifty — he might give nothing at all. But the fact that he had suggested the drink at the North Station — and something in the persistence of his attention, his dwelling, even though it was in itself somewhat hostile, on the circumstances of the situation, was just possibly indicative of a latent sympathy and desire to help. If he didn’t — but the idea was unthinkable, it was to plunge at once into chaos again, a swarm of irreconcilables and accidentals and impossibles, exactly like the senseless hurry and confusion of Washington Street, which they were crossing towards the subway station. There was no one left to turn to now; no one. Except possibly Edes at the office. But no.