We’re getting married, remember? And I’m going overseas next week.
Anybody can find us here!
Nobody ever comes this way. Everybody’s gone away.
Not here.
Where?
“No,” he said, with a dangerous quietness, “it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it.”
“Well. It doesn’t matter. I’ve just left Ida.”
“With Vivaldo?”
She hesitated, and he smiled. “We were all together earlier. Then she and I went up to Harlem and had a drink.”
“Alone?”
She shrugged. “With lots of other people. Why?” But before he could answer, she added, “Ellis was there. He said he’s going to call you in a couple of days.”
“Ah,” he said, “Ellis was there.” He sipped his drink. “And you left Ida with Ellis??”
“I left Ida with Ellis’s party.” She stared at him. “What’s going on in your mind?”
“And what did you do when you left Ida?”
“I came home.”
“You came straight home?”
“I got into a taxi and I came straight home.” She began to be angry. “What are you cross-examining me for? I will not be cross-examined, you know, not by you, not by anyone.”
He was silent — finished his vodka, and walked to the bar. “I think you’re drunk enough already,” she said, coldly. “If you have a question you want to ask me, ask it. Otherwise, I’m going to bed.”
He turned and looked at her. This look frightened her, but she willed herself to be calm. “You are not going to bed for a while yet. And I have a great many questions I want to ask you.”
“You may ask,” she said. “I may not answer. You’ve waited a very long time, it seems to me, to ask me questions. Maybe you’ve waited too long.” They stared at each other. And she saw, with a sense of triumph that made her ill, that, yes, she was stronger than he. She could break him: for, to match her will, he would be compelled to descend to stratagems far beneath him.
And her mind was filled again with that bright, blue field. She shook with the memory of his weight, her desire, her terror, and her cunning. Not here. Where? Oh, Richard. The cruel sun, and the indifferent air, and the two of them burning on a burning field. She knew that, yes, she must now surrender, now that she had him; she knew that she could not let him go; and, oh, his hands, his hands. But she was frightened, she realized that she knew nothing: Can’t we wait? Wait. No. No. And his lips burned her neck and her breasts. Then let’s go to the woods. Let’s go to the woods. And he grinned. The memory of that grin rushed up from its hiding place and splintered her heart now. You’d have to carry me, or I’d have to crawl, can’t you feel it? Then, Let me in Cass, take me, take me, I swear I won’t betray you, you know I won’t!
“I love you, Cass,” he said, his lips twitching and his eyes stunned with grief. “Tell me where you’ve been, tell me why you’ve gone so far away from me.”
“Why I,” she said, helplessly, “have gone away from you?” The smell of crushed flowers rose to her nostrils. She began to cry.
She did not look down. She looked straight up at the sun; then she closed her eyes, and the sun roared inside her head. One hand had left her — where his hand had been, she was cold.
I won’t hurt you.
Please.
Maybe just a little. Just at first.
Oh. Richard. Please.
Tell me you love me. Say it. Say it now.
Oh, yes. I love you. I love you.
Tell me you’ll love me forever.
Yes. Forever. Forever.
He was looking at her, leaning on the bar, looking at her from far away. She dried her eyes with the handkerchief he had thrown in her lap. “Give me a cigarette, please.”
He threw her the pack, threw her some matches. She lit a cigarette.
“When was the last time you saw Ida and Vivaldo? Tell me the truth.”
“Tonight.”
“And you’ve been spending all this time — every time you come in here in the early morning — with Ida and Vivaldo?”
She was frightened again, and she knew that her tone betrayed her. “Yes.”
“You’re lying. Ida hasn’t been with Vivaldo. She’s been with Ellis. And it’s been going on a long time.” He paused. “The question is — where have you been? Who’s been with Vivaldo while Ida’s been away — till two o’clock in the morning?”
She looked at him, too stunned for an instant, to calculate. “You mean, Ida’s been having an affair with Steve Ellis? For how long? And how do you know that?”
“How do you — not know it?”
“Why — everytime I saw them, they seemed perfectly natural and happy together—”
“But many of the times you say you’ve been with them, you couldn’t have been with them because Ida’s been with Steve!”
She still could not quite get it through her head, even though she knew that it was true and although she knew that precious seconds were passing, and that she must soon begin to fight for herself. “How do you know?”
“Because Steve told me! He’s got a real thing about her, he’s going out of his mind.”
Now, she did begin to calculate — desperately, cursing Ida for not having given her warning. But how could she have? She said, coldly, “Ellis at the mercy of a great passion—? don’t make me laugh.”
“Oh, I know you think we’re made of the coarsest of coarse clay, and are insensitive to all the higher vibrations. I don’t care. You can’t have been seeing much of Ida — that I know. Have you been seeing much of Vivaldo? Answer me, Cass.”
She said, wonderingly — for it was this she could not get through her head: “And Vivaldo doesn’t know—”
“And you don’t, either? You’re the only two in town who don’t. What mighty distractions have you two found?”
She winced and looked up at him. She saw that he was controlling himself with a great and terrible effort; that he both wanted to know the truth, and feared to know it. She could not bear the anguish in his eyes, and she looked away.
How could she ever have doubted that he loved her!
“Have you been seeing a lot of Vivaldo? Tell me.”
She rose and walked to the window. She felt sick — her stomach seemed to have shrunk to the size of a small, hard, rubber ball. “Leave me alone. You’ve always been jealous of Vivaldo, and we both know why, though you won’t admit it. Sometimes I saw Vivaldo, sometimes I saw Vivaldo with Ida, sometimes I just walked around, sometimes I went to the movies.”
“Till two o’clock in the morning?”
“Sometimes I’ve come in at midnight, sometimes I’ve come in at four! Leave me alone! Why is it so important to you now? I’ve lived in this house like a ghost for months, half the time you haven’t known I was here — what does it matter now?”
His face was wet and white and ugly. “I have lived here like a ghost, not you. I’ve known you were here, how could I not know it?” He took one step toward her. He dropped his voice. “Do you know how you made your presence known? By the way you look at me, by the contempt in your eyes when you look at me. What have I done to deserve your contempt? What have I done, Cass? You loved me once, you loved me, and everything I’ve done I’ve done for you.”