He peered into the darkness of the room. Through a gauzy white curtain, plumped out from the window on a breeze, he saw a ghostly streetlight. The furnishings, bed, bureau, reading chair, and lamp were silhouetted against the glowing curtain.
He went inside.
The place smelled of Clarise’s perfume. Despite himself, he allowed himself a moment’s pleasure by closing his eyes and recalling last night by the river, the wonderful floating death of his orgasm and the fast roar of the water and the sweet, soft scent of her perfume.
She took one step from the shadows behind the door and quite skillfully got him square across the back of the head.
He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
“You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to hate me, Leo.”
“You killed two men tonight.”
“Sovich has killed enough colored people. I don’t worry about him. And you know what Rooney did. I wanted him to be blamed. I figured white folks would make his last minutes a lot more miserable than I could.”
“A minister killed him. A crazy white man. But you knew a white man would kill him, didn’t you?”
“That’s what I was hoping. White folks don’t like black folks who kill whites.”
“You should have seen him, Clarise. There at the last.”
“Did he suffer?”
“He suffered a lot. He was really scared, Clarise. The way you’re going to be. The way I’m going to be.”
“He killed my brother.”
“I know.”
“I tried to forgive him, Leo. I couldn’t.” She sighed and walked over to the window. In the street below, the clatter of hooves was sharp. “Back at the arena, I didn’t think I could go through with it. I looked at him for the first time. Really looked at him. I saw that he was just human like the rest of us. You ever convince yourself somebody’s not human and then all of a sudden you see they’re a scared animal just like you?”
“All the time.”
She turned back to Guild. She came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Her brown, gentle hands were folded in her lap. “I prayed God to forgive me, Leo, but somehow I couldn’t warn Rooney. I wanted to. I wanted to get up and shout out that-”
She started crying.
Guild rolled himself a cigarette and watched her. He took two long drags, and then he got up and went over and sat next to her, taking her gently into the crook of his arm, putting her warm, wet cheek on his shoulder. Her whole body trembled.
“I wish I could feel good, Leo,” she said. “I wish I could feel some satisfaction.” She cried harder again. “I deserve what happens to me, Leo. I shouldn’t have done it. I surely shouldn’t have.”
Guild walked over to the dresser. He took her bag and started throwing her things into it. He was neither gentle nor orderly.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You’ve got to go,” he said. “Fast.”
“But Leo, I killed a man this afternoon.”
“He killed your brother.”
“But I still didn’t have any right to-”
“I said hurry.”
Looking at him in a kind of shocked disbelief, she rose from the bed and moved like an uncertain child to the closet.
“Hurry,” Guild said again.
She began taking dresses down from the closet and folding them in half. When she was finished, Guild took the dresses and put them inside the bag.
“Come on,” he said.
“Where?”
“Depot.”
“Depot?”
“There’s a train pulling out of here in fifteen minutes.”
“To where?”
“Does it matter? Now, come on.”
Downstairs she paid the room clerk. He gave Guild, who was obviously nervous, a queer look.
In the street Guild kept her arm, steering her through the foot traffic and across the wide wagon-packed streets.
A block away they could hear the train getting ready to pull out. People’s loud good-byes floated on the air like colorful balloons.
He made her sit as he bought her a one-way ticket at the counter.
On the way to the train, their footsteps loud on the wooden platform, she said, “You sure you should be doing this, Leo?”
“You let me worry about this.”
At the car she boarded, she turned and said, “I wish we were going to be together again, Leo.”
“It wouldn’t work.”
“Why?” she said.
Without humor, he replied, “We’re too much alike. Now get on up there.”
She started crying. “Leo, please, won’t you reconsider? We could-”
“Board!” shouted the strolling conductor, checking his Ingram pocket watch. “Board!”
“You get up there,” Guild said. “You get up there right now.”
She leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the mouth.
He felt the kiss inside and out. He looked at her and felt alone. He wished there were some way she could stay.
“Board!” shouted the conductor.
The crowd pressed in, and she was lost in the midst of it, buoyed up the steps of the car as she moved inside with the others.
Guild knew better than to wait and wave.
He needed no more pain today.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the morning Guild came down from his hotel room carrying his carpetbags. He had slept ten hours without any alcohol. Alcohol would just have made things worse.
He stood on the steps in the shade of the overhang. The bright day was already so hot the livery man down the street was sloshing water on horses.
From behind him a voice said, “I’d like to talk to you a minute.”
Guild turned to find John T. Stoddard standing there, carrying carpetbags of his own. Guild said nothing to him, just turned away and started down the steps, heading for the railroad station where he’d taken Clarise yesterday.
As he walked, he heard Stoddard coming up behind him, panting, change jingling in his pockets.
“I’m sorry about the way I treated Stephen,” Stoddard said. “If I could do it all over again-”
Guild set his bags down in the middle of the street and turned around and faced Stoddard. “I don’t have any right to judge you, Stoddard. I’ve done some pretty terrible things in my own life.” He frowned. “But don’t ask me to forgive you, all right? That’s something I can’t do.”
“He liked you, Guild. Did he-” He paused, looking aggrieved. “Did he ever say anything about me?”
“He said he loved you. He said that I didn’t know anything about your suffering and that I shouldn’t judge you. That’s exactly what he said.”
Guild picked up his bags and turned back in the direction of the depot. He walked as fast as he could. He didn’t want to see Stoddard ever again.
“Guild! Guild!” Stoddard shouted after him. “Please! Talk to me, Guild! Talk to me!”
But then a streetcar came, and John T. Stoddard vanished behind it. Not even his voice could be heard now, not even his voice.