He could do with her what he willed, move her any way and she obeyed; and now that he could, he didn’t want to any more, he wanted her as she had been. And that was the one thing that he couldn’t do with her, make her as she had been.
Dead. They called this being dead. This was what it was when they said someone was dead. He’d never seen anyone like this before. He’d seen them dead in coffins, stylized, prepared, but not like this, just minutes after. And — done by himself.
Four whimpered words escaped from him into bated sound.
“Christ, I’ve killed her.”
It was very quiet, and he didn’t move. It was as though he was given that one precious, gratuitous minute to rest upon, to gather himself together upon as best he could, for there would be no more, for the rest of his life, for the rest of all time.
And then the knock came at the door. The knock he’d once been expecting, and now had forgotten to expect any more. Of his best man, come to take him to his wedding, come to take him to his bride.
10
The next few moments were living horror.
The knock had caught him on his knees, in a peculiar double penitential position, holding her partly uprighted form at arm’s length away from him. There was a blur. Then he was across the room, standing just inside the door. The bolt had just been drawn closed.
Another flurried blur. Like smoke swirling within a tumbler, unable to escape, repeating itself and repeating itself and repeating itself. He found himself by the door of his clothes closet now. The closet door stood wide. The row of clothes, on hangers, were all eddying a trifle in unison, as though something had been forced through their midst, parting them violently. On the floor, blatant, her legs stuck out, still projecting a little across the sill.
He dropped down, seized them both together by the one hand, and switched them over into a straight line that followed the back wall of the closet. She could not be seen from standing position now, but she could still be seen when the beholder was down low, as he was. He reared, and reached for a hanger, and swept its garment off it. It dropped deftly upon her, and covered up that section of her where her knees were. He swept another one off; that covered up her feet. Another; her waist. Two, three more, and her shoulders and her head went. There was just a pile of massed clothing now, strewn along the closet floor at the back, rising highest in the corner, for she had been propped sitting upright there, limp and dead.
He got the closet door closed.
He closed it not only with his hands and arms. He closed it agonizedly, expiringly, by pressing the side of his face against it as well. Letting his cheek lie flat upon it, exhaustedly, as though that would add to the security of its closure.
His heart was pounding on wood. No wonder it hurt, it was striking the door so hard, through his skin and shirt and all. Then he forced space between his breast and the panel, by stiffening his arms against it and thrusting himself back.
Talk to him, say something. Look around, make sure nothing of hers, left out.
Voice wouldn’t come. He had to cough first and break the rigor in his throat. Then it flowed through, hoarse and scratchy.
“All right, Lance. All right.”
Handbag exploded into his awareness, as though a small flashlight picture had just been taken of it, where it lay.
He went to it and got it, got it into a drawer, got the drawer closed.
A muffled voice came through; cheerful but remonstrative. Its effect for a moment was acute nervous shock, as though someone had spoken unexpectedly right into his ear.
“Come on, come on. That won’t save you. I’ve got you cornered. Open up. You can’t get out of it that easy.”
My God! he thought, and the edge of his hand flew up and struck him just above the eyes. Then: No, he doesn’t know, he can’t. That was just badinage.
One more thing: the check. She had put it into the handbag, he had seen her do it, but that only came back to him now.
Then he was at the door. Then the bolt had been drawn. Then the door was back. His aloneness had ended. He was looking into another man’s eyes. Accordingly, enemy eyes. The eyes of his best friend. Still — enemy eyes.
“Well, it’s about time,” Lansing expostulated, with a broad yet perplexed grin. “What were you doing in here, anyway?” He strode in, as one who has the right to uninvited. “Who is she?” he demanded ribaldly. “Where y’ got her?”
Marshall could feel his heart give a single pained afterbeat, like a postscript to the hurtful way it had been throbbing just now.
He tried to produce a disclaiming smile, but it wasn’t on secure foundations, it soon lost its hold and slipped off.
Imagine having killed someone, and then looking into your friend’s face like this, three or four minutes later, he thought wryly. If he knew.
“You’ve got the funniest expression,” Lansing chuckled. “I wish you could see yourself.”
“What’d you do, come over here to make it easier for me?” His smiles wouldn’t stay on long enough, there was too much quivering underneath.
“I’ve seen them nervous, but man you’ve got them all beat. I never saw them as nervous as you yet. You take the cake.”
“Here,” Marshall said casually, to get him off the subject. “This is for you.” He handed him the gift on the table.
“Well, that’s a peach, that’s dandy,” Lansing said enthusiastically. And then he threw in the current slang catchword for good measure. “That’s a bear.”
He began to open and close it repeated times, as people invariably do with such a sectional or hinged gift. It made little sharp clicks.
“It works, it works—” Marshall pleaded, harassed, and his hand went up toward his ear for an instant, although he never quite completed the silencing gesture.
Lansing stopped short, peered at him. “You need a drink. And I mean a drink. Where’s your liquor. Marsh?” Then he answered it for himself, out of old recollection. “Oh yes, in the closet.”
And he stepped over to it, and put his hand out, and grasped the knob. He was so springy, Marshall protested to himself, expiringly. He said, “No—” And then, “Wait a—” And then, “I’ll—” Without completing a phrase. And then finally got one out intact. “Here, let me. You get the glasses; there’s a couple of them in the bathroom.” And took a weaving step toward the door, to replace Lansing.
“Man, you act like you had a drink already,” Lansing remarked appraisingly.
But he took his hand off the knob and went into the bathroom.
“Rinse them out a minute,” Marshall called after him, to hold him in there a little longer.
“Particular,” he heard Lansing comment drily.
He got the door open — the way it opened it was a barrier between him and Lansing — and dropped down to his heels. He wormed his arm into the sediment of clothes. He had to reach behind her to get the bottle out. It had been in the corner, originally, and she was now propped up against it.
He had to spade his hand behind her, feeling her all the way, until he found the neck of the bottle; and then he had to wrench it bodily free, and yet hold her back with his other hand, so she wouldn’t come out along with it.
Bottle in hand, he got up on his feet again by clawing at the edge of the door. He let his forehead roll itself along the surface of the door, as though he had an intolerable headache and were seeking to ease it by such pressure.
Then he got the door closed, just as Lansing went striding by with the two glasses in his hand, saying jauntily, “Here we go!”