“Vivaldo, it’s a terrible time to ask you, I know — but do you think it’s at all likely that you — and Ida — will feel up to coming over to my joint tomorrow night, or the night after?”
“What’s up?”
“Yves will be here in the morning. I know he’d like to meet my friends.”
“That was the cablegram, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Are you glad, Eric?”
“I guess so. Right now, I’m just scared. I don’t know whether to try to sleep — it’s so early, but it feels like midnight — or go to a movie, or what.”
“I’d love to go to a movie with you. But — I guess I can’t.”
“No. When will you let me know about tomorrow?”
“I’ll call you later tonight. Or I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okay. If you call in the morning and miss, call back. I’ve got to go to Idlewild.”
“What time is he getting in?”
“Oh, at dawn, practically. Naturally. Seven A.M., something convenient like that.”
Vivaldo laughed. “Poor Eric.”
“Yes. Life’s catching up with us. Good night, Vivaldo.”
“Good night, Eric.”
He hung up, smiling thoughtfully, switched on his worktable lamp, and scribbled his note. Then he walked into the kitchen, turned off the gas, and poured the coffee. He knocked on the bathroom door.
“Ida? Your coffee’s getting cold.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right out.”
He sat down on his work stool, and, presently, here she came, scrubbed and quiet, looking like a child. He forced himself to look into her eyes; he did not know what she would see in them; he did not know what he felt.
“Vivaldo,” she said, standing, speaking quickly, “I just want you to know that I wouldn’t have been with you so long, and wouldn’t have given you such a hard time, if”—she faltered, and held on with both hands to the back of a chair—“I didn’t love you. That’s why I had to tell you everything I’ve told you. I mean — I know I’m giving you a tough row to hoe.” She sat down, and picked up her coffee. “I had to say that while I could.”
She had the advantage of him, for he did not know what to say. He realized this with shame and fear. He wanted to say, I love you, but the words would not come. He wondered what her lips would taste like now, what her body would be like for him now: he watched her quiet face. She seemed utterly passive; yet, she was waiting, in a despair which steadily chilled and hardened, for some word, some touch, of his. And he could not find himself, could not summon or concentrate enough of himself to make any sign at all. He stared into his cup, noting that black coffee was not black, but deep brown. Not many things in the world were really black, not even the night, not even the mines. And the light was not white, either, even the palest light held within itself some hint of its origins, in fire. He thought to himself that he had at last got what he wanted, the truth out of Ida, or the true Ida; and he did not know how he was going to live with it.
He said, “Thank you for telling me — everything you’ve told me. I know it wasn’t easy.” She said nothing. She made a faint, steamy sound as she sipped her coffee, and this sound was unaccountably, inexpressibly annoying. “And forgive me, now, if I don’t seem to know just what to say, I’m maybe a little — stunned.” He looked over at her, and a wilderness of anger, pity, love, and contempt and lust all raged together in him. She, too, was a whore; how bitterly he had been betrayed! “I’m not trying to deny anything you’ve said, but just the same, there are a lot of things I didn’t — don’t — understand, not really. Bear with me, please give me a little time—”
“Vivaldo,” she said, wearily, “just one thing. I don’t want you to be understanding. I don’t want you to be kind, okay?” She looked directly at him, and an unnameable heat and tension flashed violently alive between them, as close to hatred as it was to love. She softened and reached out, and touched his hand. “Promise me that.”
“I promise you that,” he said. And then, furiously, “You seem to forget that I love you.”
They stared at each other. Suddenly, he reached out and pulled her to him, trembling, with tears starting up behind his eyes, burning and blinding, and covered her face with kisses, which seemed to freeze as they fell. She clung to him; with a sigh she buried her face in his chest. There was nothing erotic in it; they were like two weary children. And it was she who was comforting him. Her long fingers stroked his back, and he began, slowly, with a horrible, strangling sound, to weep, for she was stroking his innocence out of him.
By and by, he was still. He rose, and went to the bathroom and washed his face, and then sat down at his work table. She put on a record by Mahalia Jackson, In the Upper Room, and sat at the window, her hands in her lap, looking out over the sparkling streets. Much, much later, while he was still working and she slept, she turned in her sleep, and she called his name. He paused, waiting, staring at her, but she did not move again, or speak again. He rose, and walked to the window. The rain had ceased, in the black-blue sky a few stars were scattered, and the wind roughly jostled the clouds along.
2
The sun struck, on steel, on bronze, on stone, on glass, on the gray water far beneath them, on the turret tops and the flashing windshields of crawling cars, on the incredible highways, stretching and snarling and turning for mile upon mile upon mile, on the houses, square and high, low and gabled, and on their howling antennae, on the sparse, weak trees, and on those towers, in the distance, of the city of New York. The plane tilted, dropped and rose, and the whole earth slanted, now leaning against the windows of the plane, now dropping out of sight. The sky was a hot, blank blue, and the static light invested everything with its own lack of motion. Only things could be seen from here, the work of people’s hands: but the people did not exist. The plane rose up, up, as though loath to descend from this high tranquility; tilted, and Yves looked down, hoping to see the Statue of Liberty, though he had been warned that it could not be seen from here; then the plane began, like a stone, to drop, the water rushed up at them, the motors groaned, the wings trembled, resisting the awful, downward pull. Then, when the water was at their feet, the white strip of the landing flashed into place beneath them. The wheels struck the ground with a brief and heavy thud, and wires and lights and towers went screaming by. The hostess’ voice came over the speaker, congratulating them on their journey, and hoping to see them soon again. The hostess was very pretty, he had intermittently flirted with her all night, delighted to discover how easy this was. He was drunk and terribly weary, and filled with an excitement which was close to panic; in fact, he had burned his way to the outer edge of drunkenness and weariness, into a diamond-hard sobriety. With the voice of the hostess, the people of this planet sprang out of the ground, pushing trucks and waving arms and crossing roads and vanishing into, or erupting out of buildings. The voice of the hostess asked the passengers please to remain seated until the aircraft had come to a complete halt. Yves touched the package which contained the brandy and cigarettes he had bought in Shannon, and he folded his copies of France-Soir and Le Monde and Paris-Match, for he knew that Eric would like to see them. On the top of a brightly colored building, people were driven against the sky; he looked for Eric’s flaming hair, feeling another excitement, an excitement close to pain, well up in him. But the people were too far away, they were faceless still. He watched them move, but there was no movement which reminded him of Eric. Still, he knew that Eric was there, somewhere in that faceless crowd, waiting for him, and he was filled, all at once, with an extraordinary peace and happiness.