“Does it mean so much to you?” she said suddenly.
Carl started. “What?” He lowered the page.
“Does your paper mean so much to you? You’re holding it so tightly.”
Carl noticed his hands. “I am, aren’t I?”
“I didn’t mean for you to stop. Go on.”
“No. I’ll rest my voice for a moment.” He laid the paper with the others on his lap. She saw how careful he was to handle them loosely, now. Carelessly.
“I didn’t mean to criticize you. I only wondered why. I wondered what was going on in your mind.”
Carl tried to think what was going on in his mind, but he did not seem to know. “Why?” he asked.
“I like you, I suppose.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Which is strange. I don’t usually like people. I’ve always been remote from people. Off to my self. As long as I can remember.”
Carl nodded.
“Carl, what was your mother like?”
“My mother? Oh, I don’t know how to answer that. She was very business-like. I didn’t like her. She had some sort of job in personnel work. Job interview work. I always think of her looking up over her desk with her glasses on, business forms in her hands. And a sharp new pencil and eraser.”
“She’s not alive?”
“She was killed in an accident when I was quite young.”
“I think you told me. I’m sorry.”
“I never missed her. I lived with my grandparents until I was old enough to work. It was my father that I loved. He played golf and wore an old cap. He had an old Model T Ford. We used to go out into the woods and have picnics. Maybe that’s why I like the woods so much. He died when I was only six. It’s funny. I haven’t thought of him in years. I remember his voice. He had a big booming voice. He was huge. He towered over me.”
“Did you have many girlfriends in high school?”
Carl’s answer came slowly. “Not exactly. I went out a few times. But I was wrapped up in my books and that sort of thing.”
“Did you have a crush on a certain girl?”
Carl flushed. “No.”
“Don’t you want to talk about it?”
He did not answer. His face was red.
“I’m sorry.” Barbara touched his arm. “I didn’t mean to pry. I want to know about you. I want to know the things that have happened to you. You don’t mind, do you? Would you rather not talk to me?”
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk to—to a woman.”
Barbara smiled. “I won’t make you talk. Do you want to go on?”
“Go on?”
“Reading. Your treatise.”
Carl snatched it up. “Yes, I’ll read some more.” He found his place quickly. “I’ll go on.”
Barbara lay back again, against the wall. The room was warm and quiet. She closed her eyes. “It is comfortable. It’s nice to lie here and listen to you read. You have a nice reading voice. It’s pleasant to listen to. It makes me feel relaxed. I’ve been very taut, the last few days.”
“Thank you.” Carl cleared his throat. He went on, reading slowly and carefully, not looking at the girl beside him, but keeping his eyes on the page he held.
Again she was becoming sleepy. She tried to concentrate, but she could not make head nor tail of what he was reading.
What did it all mean? Ideas, words, carefully prepared sentences. She was going faster and faster to sleep. Her eyelids were like stones. She was slipping down farther each moment, her body lifeless, unresponding. She was powerless to help herself.
Carl glanced out of the corner of his eye at the girl. The sight of her, lying so close to him, gave him a sense of importance. He was glad to read to her. She was the first person who had heard his treatise. He was happy. Barbara liked him. She had said so. It was a long time since a girl had told him that. Had any girl ever told him that? He tried to think, but he could not remember. Perhaps this was the first time.
Carl read on and on, happily, contented to sit with the pages in his hands, aware of the room, the textures and colors in the half-darkness, the unmoving girl on the bed so near to him. It was very pleasant. Barbara was right. He felt relaxed, too. It was a good feeling. Warmth and the soft colors in the room.
After a while he set the manuscript down and took a deep breath. He was finished. He had read all the good parts to her. The reading was over. He turned toward her.
Barbara was asleep. She lay, partly against the wall, her hands limp in her lap, her body sagging, her head to one side. Her mouth was open slightly. Her chest rose and fell under her flowered blouse.
Carl was astonished. Dismay flooded over him. He stared at her. She did not stir.
“My gosh!” Carl exclaimed. “My good gosh!”
Nineteen
Barbara stirred and turned a little in her sleep. Carl gazed down at her. How could it be? How could she fall asleep? It did not seem possible.
Deep sorrow rolled over Carl. A tide of misery and despair. The silence of the room made him want to shout out loud. He gathered up his papers numbly and pushed them onto the table.
Barbara lay outstretched on the bed, one arm across her chest. She was pretty. Carl’s unhappiness ebbed slightly. He studied her. What a strange face she had. There was nothing cute about it. The features were stiff, the nose a trifle too large, the teeth crooked and uneven. But her hair was thick and deeply colored. And her skin was clear and smooth. In her blouse and slacks she seemed quite slim. The heaviness that he had seen in that moment, as he stood watching her across the lake, was completely gone. She was supple and lithe, like a sleeping animal. Her inert body was full, rounded and filled out.
She was close. He could touch her if he wanted.
He fixed his gaze on her hand, resting only inches from him. Her fingers were white and tapered. Her nails a light red. A small hand. It was really a woman’s hand that he saw. Strange. The hand seemed quite different from his own. Perhaps hands were more a key than anything else. The narrow wrist. Smooth skin.
Many times in his youth he had imagined this moment, when he would be sitting with a woman beside him. He could touch her. He could touch any part of her that he wished. Again, as in the early morning hours, he was a king, and this was one of his stone subjects, one of his enchanted people who had fallen into eternal sleep. As he had walked in the morning he had known the buildings belonged to him. They were silent and empty, and his footsteps had echoed hollowly as he passed them. They were his. The hills had been deserted, too. They also belonged to him.
It was the same way now. Beside him the girl lay, sleeping silently. She belonged to him. She had become his, to do with as he wished. It had been a long struggle to reach this point. He had never been this close to a woman before, close enough to see her chest rising and falling, close enough to hear the sound of her breathing. He leaned over her. He could touch her hair if he wanted to. He could let the strands of dark brown fall between his fingers.
She was enchanted, turned to stone, but not a hard and rigid stone. She was soft to the touch. He could see that. When he was a boy he had played with plastic oil clay, kneading and mashing the clay with his hands, making it warm and pliable. The Bible said that man was made from the clay of the ground. But this girl was made from soft clay, the soft warm clay that melted and bent in his hands, forming itself into shapes and forms that he wished, the soft oil clay that was never dry, never hard to the touch.
The clay of the ground from which man had come was a dry clay, nothing like this at all. He could almost feel the softness of her face. His fingers were only a little distance away. Carl trembled. It had been a long way for him, to come this far. Many years. His heart was pounding. Perspiration rose on his neck.