“And me nutsiest of all — but I want it.”
She wept a bit more, then mentioned that the bedroom had twin beds, “Which won’t help much,” I said.
Then, wailing, she said: “But I was hoping you’d protect me.”
“From what? Nobody knows we’re here.”
“From what’s going to happen to me.”
“But nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Oh yes, something is.”
What she was talking about I hadn’t the faintest idea, but I had a pretty good idea it wasn’t about anything — that it was just a bugaboo she’d made up, to make me say yes, that we’d stay in the bedroom together. By then I was kneeling beside her, first patting her, then giving her little slaps on the cheek, which she didn’t seem to mind. Then she rubbed her cheek against mine and smeared me with her tears. Then she kissed me. Then she took off the wig, unpinned the knot of hair on top of her head and let the curls fall on my face. Then she poked a hole in them with her finger and kissed me through the hole. Then she got up, put her bag on a chair, and said: “I put two nighties in, one fresh back from the laundry, the other, the one I slept in all week. Which one do you want me to wear?”
“The one you slept in all week.”
“I thought you would.”
She took both bags into the bedroom and undressed, so she was naked, but without turning on the light. Then she opened her bag and took out a nightie, holding it out to me. I smelled it and she put it on. She whispered: “I’m glad you like how I smell. I love how you smell, Mr. Kirby. Get undressed. But don’t put pajamas on yet. I want to smell under your arms.”
“Sonya, you’re making it tough.”
“I love you, that’s why.”
I undressed down to my underpants, and she came and sniffed my chest, sliding around to my armpit. I said: “That’ll do, that has to be all.” She stepped back and I got my pajamas out, peeling off price tags and labels. I slipped out of my underpants, then put them on. She stood watching, then turned down a bed and got in it. I turned down the other and got in it. She came over and slipped into bed beside me. I said: “Know what’s going to happen to you?”
“You’re kissing me nice, that’s what.”
“That’s right, and the—!”
I kissed her, doubled up my legs, put both feet on her bottom, and pushed her out on the floor. “Well that’s nice,” she said; “I’ll say it is, that’s nice.”
“You git! You git in your own bed.”
She knelt by her bed and bawled even louder than she had in the sitting room. I said: “You can howl your head off and you don’t get back in this bed. Keep it up and I’ll blister your backside.”
She kept it up.
I rolled out of bed and blistered her. She stopped howling, sniffled, and said: “Okay — now that I know you love me.” I don’t figure that one out.
We lay there some little time, she in her bed, I in mine, her hand occasionally finding my hand, where it lay outside the covers, and patting it. She excited me though, just having her there in the dark near me, and it seemed impossible I’d ever drop off. I must have, though, because suddenly I came wide awake, from some kind of scream in my ear. When it came again, I realized it was from her. Then I realized she was dreaming. I jumped up, shook her, and then shook her again. She woke up, saying: “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
I whispered: “Easy does it, you’re having a dream.”
“Oh!... I told you, didn’t I?”
“Is that what you were afraid of?”
“I have that dream every night, that same horrible one. I’m in Prince Georges General Hospital, in the delivery room, giving birth. I have awful pain, but the child comes at last — it’s over. Then the nurse is going to bring it, but I say I don’t want to see it. But she says I have to, it’s the rules. And then she brings it, squirming around and covered with blood. And it’s a gorilla.”
She called it goriller.
I told her: “Now, now, now! Calm down — it was only a dream, and I’m here. Go to sleep — there won’t be any gorilla, they’re taking it from you Tuesday. Then it’ll all be over. So, relax.”
“Okay, I’m trying to.”
“You’re a sweet, wonderful child.”
“Now we can go back to sleep.”
After a long time her breathing slowed, then got deeper, so I knew she’d fallen asleep. I went back to my bed, but didn’t sleep right away. I kept thinking about what it meant, in under her little jokes, about food, about her father’s dumbness, about the love my blistering proved, to have this thing inside her. And if I had been chosen, as the instrument of her deliverance, I felt I was consecrated, somehow.
Chapter 10
When I woke up the sun was shining in, and when I looked she was sitting there, in the chair, all dressed, in plaid shorts, blouse, red socks, and tennis shoes, the wig on, her face made up, and wobbling her finger at me.
I said “Good morning” and she said “Haya,” and when I asked what time it was, she said eight-fifteen. I said I’d get up if she’d take herself off, but refused to do it with her sitting there. She asked: “But aren’t you taking a bath? Don’t you want me to scrub your back?”
I said I could scrub my own back, and that she could wait in the lobby, “where I’ll join you all in due time.” To my surprise she agreed, and went.
I got up, shaved, bathed, and dressed, and when I went down, found her next to the dining room door, waiting. I thanked her for being so sensible, and she said: “Okay, but I’m hungry.” I once said she was born hungry, and she said, “You’re only young once.”
So we went in and ordered, and she had melon, cornflakes, three fried eggs and bacon, toast and coffee — but I loved watching her eat. I had my usual, orange juice, two eggs and bacon, toast, and coffee.
When we were done I said, “So! Let’s get our shopping done, your wedding dress, engagement ring, wedding ring, and beach outfit — so long as we have an ocean, we ought to do something about it.” I also thought: The more we sit by the sea, the more we don’t sit in that suite, hankering to do things we’re not permitted to do.
So we strolled out on the boardwalk, walked down a few steps, came to a shop with clothes in the window, went in, and began buying her stuff. For a wedding dress, she picked out a white linen suit, with white hat, white gloves, white shoes, white stockings, and white bag — and the woman who waited on us, the proprietress as it turned out, found a yard of lace, white lace twelve inches wide, for a veil. Sonya borrowed needle and thread, and “tacked” it, as she called it, to the hat. Then she tried it on and crumpled me up by how she looked, the veil over her face. Then she took the hat off and pinned the veil up, so she could wear it without the veil showing, and at the same time drop it down whenever she wanted, just by pulling the pins. The lady packed the whole outfit into a box that she did up in ribbons.
Then we went on to beachwear. Sonya picked out a bikini, yellow with red lacing, yellow beach shoes, and a red beach cap. Then for me she picked out blue trunks, beach shoes, and a duck hat. Then I picked out robes for us both, and a beach blanket. That all called for another box, so then we had two, one for her to carry, one for me. It all came to $275, and I gave the woman a check, first showing my credit card. She disappeared to phone, though what she’d find out I couldn’t think, as it was Saturday and the bank would be closed. But it turned out she had her own system. We heard her call Information and ask for my number. Then we heard her say: “Yes, both numbers, please” — and realized that for free she’d found out I was listed as Graham Kirby, Residence, and Graham Kirby, Inc., Real Estate — a pretty good credit reference.