“I appreciate your position,” she said. “Don’t think I don’t. Look, I’m sorry. There are letters. Did you happen to see them?”
“No.”
“Could I have a look around? I think they may be in his desk.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Could I come with you?”
“You think I’ll read them?”
“No, of course not. I could help you look. I know what they look like.”
“You mean you’d recognize your writing?”
“That’s right.” She grinned.
“Come on, then,” he said.
She went to the right drawer immediately and removed a pale blue box which she slipped into her handbag. Preminger decided she should suffer. “How do I know those are only your letters in there?”
“They are. He kept them in this box.”
“I’d have to see.”
“They’re innocent,” she said, “there’s nothing in them.”
“I’d have to see.” He spoke like a landlord, feeling the full weight of the law on his side. He could beat her up now, take the letters from her by force. They were his property, as much a part of his legacy as the furniture. She was trespassing, and if she refused to let him see them he could even kill her. He was stunningly in the right, stunningly protected.
“Hand over the box,” said the wise steward, “hand it over by the time I count three or I’ll take it away from you. I know my rights. I don’t even have to count three. Give me the box or I’ll hurt you bad.” She looked at him, shocked, and surrendered it. “You can have your letters back,” he said, “I won’t read them. But first I have to see if there’s anything that doesn’t belong to you.”
“They’re my letters,” she cried, “they’re the letters I wrote him.”
“That’s as may be. If so, you’ll get them back. But there may be wristwatches, jewelry. There may be fountain pens.”
“Paper clips,” she said, “rubber bands around the envelopes.”
It was so. He returned the letters.
“There’s nothing in them,” she said. “It’s a mountain out of a molehill. Read them if you want to.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“But there’s nothing in them. Just my thoughts, only my thoughts.”
“It’s not important. I don’t have to know anything about it. My father was free to live his own life. You are.”
“I made you think terrible things,” she said, opening the box and pulling an envelope from the stack. “I’ll read one. Does this sound like we were having an affair? Does this sound dirty?”
“Please.”
“You son of a bitch, you listen to this.” She began to read rapidly. Everything was as she said. The letters were her thoughts, letters he might have written a cousin. He understood that on her part at least there was nothing between them. The subject never came up. What came up were the movies she’d seen, how she felt about the war news, where she thought the economy was headed, her hopes for a better world. It was incredible. They lived in the same building, on the same floor, yet the letters could have been written from one pen pal in Australia to another in Alaska.
She read through three of them before stopping. She showed him the formal signature: Evelyn Riker. “It was an outlet,” she cried. “It was only an outlet.”
Preminger was confused. “But you have his key.”
“He wanted me to have it. He insisted. That was his outlet, that a woman have a key to his apartment. Do you think I ever used it?”
“Jesus.”
“What was so terrible? As long as I had it he could fantasize that I might use it. It was innocent. We talked by the pool. I wrote him letters. He gave me his key. Nothing happened. I can’t help what people think.”
“I’m sorry I bullied you.”
“How could you know what to think?”
The doorbell rang.
“They thought we were mixed up together,” she said, looking toward the door.
“I better get that.”
“I wanted to be gone when they came. I handled it badly. I can’t think straight. In the letters I’m composed, organized. On my feet I can’t think straight. They shouldn’t see me here.”
“Do you want me to hide you?” Preminger asked. “If you want me to hide you I will.”
“There are only three floor plans. We know each other’s layouts. If the hall toilet was occupied they’d come use the one off the master bedroom and find me.”
“I don’t have to answer it. Then, after they’ve gone, you could wait a few minutes and slip out.”
“Answer it,” she said, “answer it. This is terrible for you. Phil dead and so much crazy excitement. Answer it or I’ll bust.” They left the bedroom together.
It was two men from Ashkenaz Delicatessen delivering trays, two enormous platters round as old shields.
“I didn’t order this stuff,” Preminger told them. One of the men, his tray before his belly like a cigarette girl, shrugged. “It’s a mistake,” Preminger insisted. “Who asked for all this?”
“It’s paid for, Mister,” the other one said, and again Preminger had a sudden sense of theater, of being on stage, his every step back from the advancing food a piece of alarmed comic business, of conventional blocking in farce. Crazily he felt an overwhelming fondness for the two men, their brusque man-in-the-street manners, their stolid cabby character; he found himself extrapolating their fidelity to their wives, their love of kids, their goofy loyalty to the White Sox. Putting himself in their shoes he thought he understood their surprise at the queer scene — Evelyn still suspiciously sniffing in the corner, his own bare feet, the box of letters, the odd look of the living room, lived in for two days but somehow not as mussed as it should have been, as though the real action had to be going on in the bedroom. Since they worked for a delicatessen they would even have taken in the significance of the vacant cardboard mourner’s bench. He had an urgent impulse to behave for them, to rectify their faulty impression. They would know his tourist condition, the unsavory quality of displaced person he gave off, and would have sniffed out all the willful bad timing of his lousy choices. He wanted these decent men in his corner, and would have bent over backwards to demonstrate his piety for them, as he always did in the face of another’s.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Good friends have sent it. We’re in mourning here. Deep sorrow has visited this place. I’m not able to go out. My father passed away suddenly. I’m his only son. Everything looks delicious.” The men remained impassive, and he wondered if he ought to tip them. No, he decided, guys like this can’t be bought. They asked for a ten-dollar deposit on the trays and left.
Evelyn had stopped whimpering; without his noticing she had performed some invisible toilet and reapplied make-up which had smeared when she was crying, her hair and clothes made neat and fresh, the hospital corners of appearance. Unrecovered himself — he still thought of their scene as a debauch — and sick of his sideburns and immodest flash (how should he dress? What was the apparel of his station? where could he get trousers with cuffs, white long-sleeved shirts, correct ties?) he sought to make amends.
Instead he made promises. “Harris wants to buy the place. He offers a ridiculous figure. But I’m not holding out for more. Even if I let him cheat me it would mean more money than I ever had in my life. The money isn’t in it. I mean to live here. I can do my dissertation on the kitchen table, use the place like an office. Most of the books I need are in Missoula, but I’m sending for them. Maybe I’ll fly out and drive back with the stuff. What I don’t have I can get from inter-library loan. As soon as this sitting shivah is over I’ll get organized. The job market’s terrible now — that’s why I’m taking my time. Actually, that might even work in my favor, be a blessing in disguise. If I don’t rush the thesis it could be publishable. Either way, conditions can’t stay like this forever; something has to give. Then, when I’ve got my doctorate I’ll get a job right here in Chicago. Northwestern, the U of C, Loyola, Marquette — there are plenty of good places. Roosevelt or even Wright Junior College. If I concentrate just on those I should be able to get something.”