Not physical as yet, this play and counterplay, still of the reason; still spiritual, the bonds that he tried to reaffirm while she severed and escaped them.
“Don’t come to me now with flowers,” she cried out in a hurried frightened voice. “Don’t come to me now with kisses. I didn’t marry you. You’re not the man I was married to. He died in the dark, in our bedroom that night, in the faraway town. Or else he never lived at all, only in my own imagination. I was married to a ghost, an illusion. How can I go back to you? There never was a you, as I thought you were. You kill people.”
“It isn’t true, it isn’t true. Now is the lie, then wasn’t. You knew my arms, I knew your kisses and you knew mine, I knew your body and you knew mine. You can’t tear yourself away from me now, you’re tearing the living flesh apart.”
And went to her and took her in his arms and turned her to him.
“Words can’t change it, can’t change us. There aren’t words in the whole world strong enough. Give me a chance. Look, I’ll show you.” And with throbbing lips, found hers, and tried to hold them. And failed, and tried again. “Was our love a he? Was our love an illusion?”
“No, don’t. For two years you drugged me that way, with those lips. The drug’s worn off, I can see what they’re bringing me now. They’re not bringing me kisses. They’re bringing me the smell of death.”
And then he sealed the kiss. And with it sealed his own fate.
It was the spark to the tinder of her hysteria. He had pushed her too much. He had frightened her beyond recovery. In a moment he didn’t know her. She was rabid. There was nothing there to reason with any longer.
“Murderer,” she panted, straining to tear her face away. “Don’t come near me. You’re all covered with... I’ll call the police!”
And now it was his fright that kindled itself from hers, and they were both lost.
He sought to seal her mouth with his hand.
“Stop, Marjorie. Marjorie, stop. I’m your husband. Look at me. Don’t say those things...”
And now she had reached the point of screams, he could feel them blasting hot against his hand, and if he took his hand away they would wing out. He couldn’t hold them much longer, couldn’t hold them much longer.
There was a better, an easier place, to stop them, further down.
His hand shifted.
His love story came to an end.
9
Lying there now, side by side upon the floor, like lovers in a vain embrace. Speaking to her, pleading to her, making his love to her, without avail. One-sided love to a sudden indifference, where there had never been indifference before. Her face had an absent-minded expression; drowsy, dull-witted, dead.
“Let me hear your voice again. Just say one word, just say my name. ‘Press.’ I can almost hear the echo of it now. Ah, call me ‘Press’ again, call me ‘Press.’ ” And putting his ear close to her recalcitrant lips, seemed to drink it up privately from there. “Louder. Louder than that. So that I can be quite sure. I know you said it just then, I heard it in my heart, but say it beyond all dispute. Say ‘Press, you didn’t hurt me.’ Say ‘Press, you should be ashamed, now help me up.’ Louder, louder than that. I can’t hear it well yet.
“Let me see your eyes again. Look this way. Look at me, look at me. What do you see over there? Turn them, turn them to me. Make them warm again. Make them dance again with those little specks of sunny stuff that used to be in them. Oh, I can’t stand it without your eyes, Marjorie.”
And taking her hand, as if teaching it, as if reminding it, caused it to caress him, drawing it lightly, lingeringly down the side of his face. And put it to his lips and held them to it, on this side, on that, now back again. But his kiss didn’t warm it any, nor cause it to stir in response.
Indifference; indifference for all time, for all eternity now. Never again to change.
He stopped and looked at it, her hand.
“You took it off,” he said in tender accusation. “You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t.”
And rising, left her for a moment and went to look for it. And found it soon, almost as though he’d known, in a little trinket box within a bureau drawer. Came back with it, and knelt beside her, and in a ghastly repetition of their wedding vows, the living marrying the dead, replaced the wedding band upon her finger. Where it once had rested in such bright hope and promise, such trust and faith and selfless devotion. And tears of the irreparable streaming from his eyes, repeated once again the words that made them one.
“I, Prescott, take thee, Marjorie, to my lawful wedded wife... To have and to hold... To love and to cherish... In sickness and in health... Until death do us part...
“And beyond— And beyond— And beyond—”
And as his voice swelled toward agonized screams, he had to stifle it with the back of his hand, until blood had joined the tears that coursed down it.
Then he had to leave her at last. For there was nothing there. Nothing that heard nor heeded, nor cared nor loved. He’d been trying to marry himself to empty space.
Alone. Alone now, in the dark. Forever alone, forever in the dark.
Never again Marjorie.
And staggering, swimming through mazes of pain and fear, like someone breasting a tide while he treads erect on his feet underwater, his after-life began.
To the telephone. Remembering another time, long ago. Someone who had helped him. Memory is long.
Took the piece of paper. Spoke from it to the telephone.
And then Lansing’s voice, out somewhere in the world of light.
“Hello. Who’s this?”
“Prescott... Marshall.”
“Press! When did you get in town?”
Trying to come up through the layers of fog and darkness, to reality, to the upper world, where that voice was; like a drowned man’s body trying to come up to the surface of the water from its smothered depths. Looking at that empty place over there. At that empty face that he knew wasn’t there. Warning himself, craftily, ‘I must not tell him, or he may not come. He may not come alone, and to help me he must come alone.’
He said with slow care: “I... have to... see you.” And took a breath between each word or two, to see the next pair through.
“Why sure. I’m working right now. But look, how about us having dinner tonight?”
The fool. He thought it was just a plea for sociability.
He looked at her and closed his eyes in woe. She shouldn’t look so clear, so plainly seen, in a place where she wasn’t any more. It was like a decalcomania pattern left on the carpet, in her own exact image. Too exact. It had to be erased.
“It can’t wait... until tonight. I have to see you... now. I have to see you... quickly.”
“You sound... Are you in trouble?”
No answer, so the stupid voice tried to provide one, out of its own scant fund of knowledge.
“Look, Press, if it’s money— Why don’t you let me know now about how much you could use; that way I won’t have to come out, and then make an extra trip back to the office again to get it for you. I’ll bring something right with me, if you’ll—”
“Don’t stop to bring any money. Just come to me.”
“All right, I’ll go down and jump in a cab, that’d be the quickest. Now, where do you want to make it? Where’ll I meet you?”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” said Marshall with haunted simplicity, “outside the door of Marjorie’s apartment. You’ll find me there. All by myself.”