She rose, and poured herself a fresh drink.
“Then he took me to that place he has, way over on the East River. I kept wondering what I was going to do. I didn’t know what to do. I watched his face in the taxicab. He put his hand on my leg. And he tried to take my hand. But I couldn’t move. I kept thinking of what that black man had said to me, and his face when he said it, and I kept thinking of Rufus, and I kept thinking of you. It was like a merry-go-round, all these faces just kept going around in my mind. And a song kept going around in my head, Oh, Lord, is it I? And there he sat, next to me, puffing on his cigar. The funny thing was that I knew if I really started crying or pleading, he’d take me home. He can’t stand scenes. But I couldn’t even do that. And God knows I wanted to get home, I hoped you wouldn’t be here, so I could just crawl under the sheets and die. And, that way, when you came home, I could tell you everything before you came to bed, and — maybe — but, no, we were going to his place and I felt that I deserved it. I felt that I couldn’t fall much lower, I might as well go all the way and get it over with. And then we’d see, if there was anything left of me after that, we’d see.” She threw down about two fingers of whiskey and immediately poured herself another drink. “There’s always further to fall, always, always.” She moved from the table, holding her glass, and leaned against the icebox door. “And I did everything he wanted, I let him have his way. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” She gestured aimlessly with her glass, tried to drink from it, dropped it, and suddenly fell on her knees beside the table, her hands against her belly, weeping.
Stupidly, he picked up the glass, afraid that she would cut herself. She was kneeling in the spilt whiskey, which had stained the edges of her skirt. He dropped the broken glass in the brown paper bag they used for garbage. He was afraid to go near her, he was afraid to touch her, it was almost as though she had told him that she had been infected with the plague. His arms trembled with his revulsion, and every act of the body seemed unimaginably vile. And yet, at the same time, as he stood helpless and stupid in the kitchen which had abruptly become immortal, or which, in any case, would surely live as long as he lived, and follow him everywhere, his heart began to beat with a newer, stonier anguish, which destroyed the distance called pity and placed him, very nearly, in her body, beside that table, on the dirty floor. The single yellow light beat terribly down on them both. He went to her, resigned and tender and helpless, her sobs seeming to make his belly sore. And, nevertheless, for a moment, he could not touch her, he did not know how. He thought, unwillingly, of all the whores, black whores, with whom he had coupled, and what he had hoped for from them, and he was gripped in a kind of retrospective nausea. What would they see when they looked into each other’s faces again? “Come on, Ida,” he whispered, “come on, Ida. Get up,” and at last he touched her shoulders, trying to force her to rise. She tried to check her sobs, she put both hands on the table.
“I’m all right,” she murmured, “give me a handkerchief.”
He knelt beside her and thrust his handkerchief, warm and wadded, but fairly clean, into her hand. She blew her nose. He kept his arm around her shoulder. “Stand up,” he said. “Go wash your face. Would you like some coffee?”
She nodded her head, Yes, and slowly rose. He rose with her. She kept her head down and moved swiftly, drunkenly, past him, into the bathroom. She locked the door. He had the spinning sensation of having been through all this before. He lit a flame under the coffee pot, making a mental note to break down the bathroom door if she were silent too long, if she were gone too long. But he heard the water running, and, beneath it, the sound of the rain. He ate a pork chop, greedily, with a piece of bread, and drank a glass of milk; for he was trembling, it had to be because of hunger. Otherwise, for the moment, he felt nothing. The coffee pot, now beginning to growl, was real, and the blue fire beneath it and the pork chops in the pan, and the milk which seemed to be turning sour in his belly. The coffee cups, as he thoughtfully washed them, were real, and the water which ran into them, over his heavy, long hands. Sugar and milk were real, and he set them on the table, another reality, and cigarettes were real, and he lit one. Smoke poured from his nostrils and a detail that he needed for his novel, which he had been searching for for months, fell, neatly and vividly, like the tumblers of a lock, into place in his mind. It seemed impossible that he should not have thought of it before: it illuminated, justified, clarified everything. He would work on it later tonight; he thought that perhaps he should make a note of it now; he started toward his work table. The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver at once, stealthily, as though someone were ill or sleeping in the house, and whispered into it, “Hello?”
“Hello, Vivaldo. It’s Eric.”
“Eric!” He was overjoyed. He looked quickly toward the bathroom door. “How did things go?”
“Well. Cass is beautiful, as you know. But life is grim.”
“As I know. Has anything been decided?”
“Not really, no. She just called me a few minutes ago — I haven’t been home long. Oh, thanks for your note. She thinks that she might go up to New England for a little while, with the kids. Richard hasn’t come home yet.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s probably out getting drunk.”
“Who with?”
“Well, Ellis, maybe—”
They both halted at the name. The wires hummed. Vivaldo looked at the bathroom door again.
“You knew about that, Eric, didn’t you, this morning.”
“Knew about what?”
He dropped his voice lower, and struggled to say it: “Ida. You knew about Ida and Ellis. Cass told you.”
There was silence for a moment. “Yes.” Then, “Who told you?”
“Ida.”
“Oh. Poor Vivaldo.” After a moment: “But it’s better that way, isn’t it? I didn’t think that I was the one to tell you — especially — well, especially not this morning.”
Vivaldo was silent.
“Vivaldo—?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you think I was right? Are you sore at me?”
“Don’t be silly. Never in this world. It’s — much better this way.” He cleared his throat, slowly, deliberately, for he suddenly wanted to weep.