“It’s not so terrible. It’s just the idea that frightens you and sounds so terrible.”
“It’s accursed,” she cut in sharply. “It’s unclean. It’s forbidden,” but he paid no attention.
“We were complete strangers,” he said, raising his voice in his own defense. “Even if we’d spent a year together as children — even a half year, a month. But we’d never set eyes on each other in our lives before, until the day we met and started to fall in love. No one was as complete strangers as we two were. The only thing that was the same was the blood. And what does the blood know, how can it tell? Cousins often marry cousins. In ancient Egypt the law in the ruling family was for brother to marry sister. It was traditional. It’s only because it’s taboo now that it shocks so.”
“That was paganism. This is Christianity. And by that I mean as well Judaism, Islam, call it what you will; it’s condemned by all of them alike. It’s taboo for a reason,” she said coldly, “and it’s not meant to be disobeyed.”
“You see this beautiful face,” he said dreamily. “You love this beautiful face. You love this beautiful person. Then you find out that for a little while, at the start of life, you nursed at the breast of the same woman who nursed her afterward. But if you already love as deeply as you do it’s too late to make a difference anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter, it fans your love even more. Now you love not only her, you love the added closeness that brings you that much nearer to her each time. Your sense of owning, of possessing, is strengthened that much more.”
“You’re not trying to convince me,” she said dully. “You’re trying to convince yourself. It’s written on your face, the guilt, the fear—”
“Yes, because now she’s gone. She’s not here anymore to keep the guilt, the fear, at a distance, make me forget.”
“You can’t bury your conscience, you can’t kill it completely. You’ve destroyed yourself. Now you won’t be able to bear living, and you’ll be terrified of dying. Or you should be.”
He hung his head in admission.
“How did you first find out?”
He spoke with his head still downturned, without looking up at her. “Quite simply, nothing complicated about it. My mother died about seven, eight years ago. The night before she passed, I was sitting there beside her bed, and she told me there was something she wanted to get off her mind before she went, she’d feel better about it if she did. It sounds like one of those old melodramas, I know, but it really happened this way.
“She was jilted, as a young girl, after the guy got her pregnant. The child, when it came, was stillborn. This preyed on her mind and, I guess, turned her queer for a while.
“She talked about walking through a certain street one day, and seeing this small child playing there in front of a house. She named the street and even gave the number of the house. She said she couldn’t help herself. Before she realized she was doing it, she was leading the child by the hand down the street.
“Around the corner she got into a taxi with it, and had the taxi drive her to a false address, completely away from where she really lived. Then from there she rode a bus back to her own place.
“They lived in one of these old-fashioned private houses, just she and her mother, and so they were at least safe from the prying eyes of neighbors in adjoining flats. I don’t know how they got away with it, but they did. I suppose they kept me indoors and away from the windows for the remainder of their stay there. It was easier to get away with things like that in the thirties than it would be in the sixties. The mother was in a wheelchair and couldn’t have done much to oppose the thing even if she’d wanted to. But she was all for it, because it made her daughter happy and in a very short while she herself had grown very attached to me.
“As soon as it was safe to do so, in about a year’s time, after most of the furor had subsided, they took the precaution of selling the house and moving out to a place in the country.
“Then when my father appeared on the scene — I should say the man she married — and proposed to her, she told him all about the old-time seduction, but not the other thing, and let him think that I was the child in question. He married her, anyway, and he was not only a good husband but a good father to me all his life.
“It’s as simple as that.
“Then after I met Starr, about a month after we first started making love to each other, she was lying next to me talking to me one night. You know how people tell everything about themselves at times like that. She mentioned her father’s drinking, and said she thought it was caused by her mother’s resentment because he’d tricked her into having her, Starr, when she didn’t want to have any more children. And she went on to tell about this little brother of hers who’d disappeared before she was born and never’d been seen again. Quite casually, she mentioned the street and the house number where they’d been living when it happened. I didn’t even ask her to. It was the same street, the same house, my mother had referred to.
“I knew I was that same child.”
“Didn’t you show anything? Couldn’t she tell you were surprised?”
“We were in the dark. She couldn’t see my face.”
“And you never told her.” It wasn’t a question.
“Never to the end.”
“Then how did she find out?”
“It must have been my first wife, Dell. I never found out for sure, but it couldn’t have been anyone else but Dell.
“Starr and I had been making love, that one night. Later I was drowsing, half asleep. It seemed like far off — you know how things sound when you’re half asleep like that — far off I seemed to hear the phone ring. It was right there next to the bed, but I was too groggy to answer it, so I guess she must have. If only I’d picked it up instead, maybe we’d still be together today, the two of us. I didn’t hear her saying much. Just one thing came through clearly. She must have raised her voice or something at that point. Just one thing is all I heard. ‘You must be crazy!’ The next thing, I could feel her shaking me and shaking me, as though she were half distracted. I couldn’t snap out of it, I couldn’t open my eyes. I heard her say, ‘Were you adopted? Were you an adopted child? Were you?’ She kept on shaking me, until I mumbled yes. All I wanted was for her to stop shaking me, let me go back to sleep. I said my address, with my eyes closed. And that was all, not another word from either of us.
“Suddenly the lights flashed on. That opened my eyes finally, I was awake at last. And she was running from the room, running from the room. I can’t tell you how she was running from the room. As if — as if pursued by the very hounds of hell. I jumped up and went after her. I caught up to her here, in this room we’re in now. I asked her what the matter was, and I put out my hand and touched her. At the mere touch of my hand, she fell down on the floor like I told you, in this shock state.”
This was no petty harm, she thought, no little meanness, no small unhappiness. This was an enormity. It was no wonder that Starr wanted him dead. He deserved to die.
She took up the handbag, held it upright in her lap, a hand at each corner of its frame. She wondered if he had any idea what was in it. How could he? But he would, very soon now.
“Aren’t you asking yourself why I came here tonight?”
“That was a thousand years ago,” he said listlessly, “before I knew she was dead. I remember now, you came here to have dinner.” He looked at the table they’d used. “We did have dinner. A thousand years ago.”
“But is that all I’d come here for, a dinner? I can get a dinner anywhere. Why should I come here to you? We’re not in love. We’re not even close friends.”
“Then why did you?”
“I told you she died in my arms. Now do you understand?”