Sarah was holding the knife in both hands. My eyes were watering and she seemed to be deep in a fog.
«What do I do, Darius?»
She was sitting on the chest of Anonymous. He was thoroughly immobilized and not because of his dislocated shoulder, either. When my vision cleared a bit, I wasn’t surprised that he was, for she was holding the knife just over one of his eyes, virtually making contact. He could easily have rolled away faster than she could move, considering that she was clearly no expert in rough-and-tumble, but his dislocated shoulder made motion difficult for him and I could see that he hesitated to risk his eye—and the brain behind it.
«What do I do, Darius?»
«Just hold him like that a minute,» I gasped. «I’ll be there as soon as I can move. If he moves, just stick it in.»
«That’s what I said I’d do, but I don’t want to.»
«Do it, anyway. You can scream while you’re doing it.»
I managed to move and to limp over, feeling as though I would go down at every step. It was twenty steps and maybe twenty years before I got there.
I looked down at Anonymous and he looked sick and sweaty in the dim light, sicker and sweatier than I felt. His arm must have been killing him and he was staring at a knife point at a distance too close to focus. I tried to memorize his face, which had a blunt, somewhat twisted nose that I would have difficulty forgetting.
«Who the hell sent you out to do this?» I asked in a low voice. «You tell me what’s going on or your friends will call you Johnny One-Eye.»
He tried to talk, but it dawned on me that Sarah was liable to drop the knife any moment, she was shaking so hard.
I said, «Give me the knife, Sarah,» and reached downward.
But between my inability to move quickly and Sarah’s eagerness to let go, the maneuver went wrong. She didn’t wait for me to reach down so that the knife would stay in position as it was transferred. She reached it up to me.
Anonymous moved quickly, rolling over onto his good arm, dumping Sarah. He managed to make it to his feet and was staggering away, with his good hand grasping the elbow of his dislocated arm, long before I could do anything about it.
«Let him go,» I muttered. «We can’t catch him.»
I looked stupidly at the knife for a moment. It was a switchblade and I made its point vanish. I dropped it into my pocket.
She said, «Aren’t we going to the police?»
«Why? What do you suppose they’ll do, except go to the trouble of putting down the story and filing it?»
«But when we go to a doctor, we’ll have to tell him—»
«I don’t need a doctor,» I said wearily. «I’m perfectly all right. Just got to get home and sleep it off.» I was lying, of course. My head hurt as though it were one great big bad tooth.
«But how will you get home?» said Sarah. «Can you make it to the street? We can get a taxi.»
«Don’t need a taxi,» I said. «I’m on home turf. Just two blocks. Help me a bit and I’ll walk it. Just make sure I get to the door, then—you can go home. No danger for you—promise—» I managed a feeble imitation of a smile, I think.
«Lean on me,» she said, paying no attention to what I was saying.
But I couldn’t let go. I said, «I’m in no position—to endanger your virtue. Sorry about that.»
She said, «Oh, shut up. Which direction?»
19 SARAH VOSKOVEK 9:30 P.M.
It was a strange walk home. Two blocks, then left and half a block from the park, then up twelve stories in an elevator.
It seemed to last an age. My head ached abominably and it was very difficult to keep walking a straight line. I dared not look down, for when I did things began swimming. I took to staring at the streetlights, walking slowly, and breathing deeply.
Mostly I tried to look as though I weren’t drunk. There’s something about seeming drunk, when you’re a teetotaler, that is the essence of humiliation. Besides, I didn’t want to put Sarah in the position of seeming to be guiding some sot home.
I did a lot of leaning on her and I suppose it was a good thing that I weighed no more than 120 pounds at that, or she couldn’t have managed.
I tried to talk, just to give a general air of self-possession, but I think I made a miserable failure at that. I hardly remember what I said, except that I’m under the impression that I tried to apologize to her for thinking she had set me up.
I remember that more because I remember her answering than because I remember saying it.
She said, «The trouble, Darius, is that you’re a romantic. You keep trying to make me a villain because otherwise I don’t interest you. I’m too short, I think.»
«No,» I said. «Just right. Just—just right.»
I tried to pat her in a fatherly way, but I think I missed.
That’s all I remember about any conversation. I know that when we went through the lobby, I was very grave and solemn with the doorman, much more grave and solemn than I ordinarily am.
«Ah, there, George,» I said, «how are you? This is Miss Voskovek. She’ll just go up with me for a moment, George. Be leaving right away.»
«Yes, sir, Mr. Just,» said George, grinning and nodding.
Sarah hissed in my ear, «You don’t know when I’ll be leaving.»
«You’ll have to leave right away, Sarah. It’s your reputation I’m thinking about.»
«You need a doctor. That’s what to think about.»
«No doctor,» I said, and the elevator came.
There was no one in the elevator and I remember how nice it was to lean against the wall and close my eyes. Sarah kept her hand on my elbow.
She said, «Do you have your keys?»
I pulled them out of my pocket and gave them to her. She opened the door after some experimentation. I was very patient.
I walked in and said, «Okay, dear. You can go now, because I’ll just go to sleep.»
«No, I don’t. Not yet. Good Lord, look at your clothes. I can’t imagine what the doorman thought.»
I tried to look down but it hurt too much. «Just a little dirt,» I muttered, closing my eyes.
«And a little tear, and rip.» She began pulling at my jacket.
I tried to resist, but it was a terrible effort to do so and I ended by letting her. Until she came to my pants, «Come on, now,» I said feebly. «What are you doing?»
«All off,» she said. «Everything off. You’d get them off fast enough if we were going to bed together.»
«Well, we’re not and I don’t want them off.»
«I don’t care what you want. I’m getting them off.»
And she did, too. Everything. I remember standing there with my hands over my genitals, feeling like a maiden in a Victorian melodrama surprised by a bad baronet with rape on his mind. It was the damnedest feeling, but I don’t think Sarah cared anything at all about it.
She got me into the bathroom and then made me step into the tub and sponged me down. That was the damnedest feeling, too.
I started to laugh, but I couldn’t keep it up for long. It hurt.
She was drying me and said, «Lift your leg, and why are you laughing?»
I said, «Poor Giles. This is what he wanted. Only you wouldn’t do it for him.»
«Because it was his idea. This is my idea. It makes a difference.»
«Sexist,» I said.
«Also, that was sex, and this is nursing.»
«Are you a nurse?» I asked. For a minute I think I couldn’t remember who she was.
«No,» she said, «but I am a mother.»
«Oh? And I’m a little boy? I’m not, you know.»
«Please! Where are your pajamas?»
I told her and she managed to struggle me into them after I had used my spray deodorant (I insisted) and then I was in bed and, boy, what a wonderful feeling that was. Better than sex. If a million girls, one after the other, had asked me just then, What do you want, Darius, bed with me or bed alone? I’d have said, Bed alone, one million times.