The candles burnt down one by one, gasping out their last flame, throwing one last long, agonized skeleton on the wall.
The river rocked the barge.
Hours passed and Djuna fell into a half sleep.
The catch of the door was gradually lifted off the hinge by some instrument or other and Zora stood at the opened door.
Djuna saw her when she was bending over her, and screamed.
Zora held a long old-fashioned hatpin in her hand and tried to stab Djuna with it. Djuna at first grasped her hands at the wrists, but Zora’s anger gave her greater strength. Her face was distorted with hatred. She pulled her hands free and stabbed at Djuna several times blindly, striking her at the shoulder, and then once more, with her eyes wide open, she aimed at the breast and missed. Then Djuna pushed her off, held her.
“What harm have I done you, Zora?”
“You forced Rango to join the party. He’s trying to become someone now, in politics, and it’s for you. He wants you to be proud of him. With me he never cared; he wasn’t ashamed of his laziness… It’s your fault that he is never home… Your fault that he’s in danger every day.”
Djuna looked at Zora’s face and felt again as she did with Rango, the desperate hopelessness of talking, explaining, clarifying. Zora and Rango were fanatics.
She shook Zora by the shoulders, as if to force her to listen and said: “Killing me won’t change anything, can’t you understand that? We’re the two faces of Rango’s character. If you kill me, that side of him remains unmated and another woman will take my place. He’s divided within himself, between destruction and construction. While he’s divided there will be two women, always. I wished you would die, too, once, until I understood this. I once thought Rango could be saved if you died. And here you are, thinking that I would drive him into danger. He’s driving himself into danger. He is ashamed of his futility. He can’t bear the conflict of his split being enacted in us before his eyes. He is trying a third attempt at wholeness. For his peace of mind, if you and I could have been friends it would have been easier. He didn’t consider us, whether or not we could sincerely like each other. We tried and failed. You were too selfish. You and I stand at opposite poles. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me either; even if Rango did not exist you and I could never like each other. Zora, if you harm me you’ll be punished for it and sent to a place without Rango… And Rango will be angry with you. And if you died, it would be the same. He would not be mine either, because I can’t fulfill his love of destruction…”
Words, words, words…all the words Djuna had turned in her mind at night when alone, she spoke them wildly, blindly, not hoping for Zora to understand, but they were said with such anxiety and vehemence that aside from their meaning Zora caught the pleading, the accents of truth, dissolving her hatred, her violence.
At the sight of each other their antagonism always dissolved. Zora, faced with the sadness of Djuna’s face, her voice, her slender body, could never sustain her anger. And Djuna faced with Zora’s haggard face, limp hair, uncontrolled lips, lost her rebellion.
Whatever scenes took place between them, there was a sincerity in each one’s sadness which bound them too.
It was at this moment that Rango arrived, and stared at the two women with dismay.
“What happened? Djuna, you’re bleeding!”
“Zora tried to kill me. The wounds aren’t bad.”
Djuna hoped once more that Rango would say, “Zora is mad,” and that the nightmare would cease.
“You wanted us to be friends, because that would have made it easier for you. We tried. But it was impossible. I feel that Zora destroys all my efforts to create with you, and she thinks I sent you into a dangerous political life… We can never understand each other.”
Rango found nothing to say. He stared at the blood showing through Djuna’s clothes. She showed him that the stabs were not deep and had struck fleshy places without causing harm.
“I’ll take Zora home. I’ll come back.”
When he returned he was still silent, crushed, bowed. “Zora has moments of madness,” he said. “She’s been threatening people in the street lately. I’m so afraid the police may catch her and put her in an institution.”
“You don’t care about the people she might kill, do you?”
“I do care, Djuna. If she had killed you I don’t think I could ever have forgiven herBut you aren’t angry, when you have a right to be. You’re generous and good…”
“No, Rango. I can’t let you believe that. It isn’t true. I have often wished Zora’s death, but I only had the courage to wish it… I had a dream one night in which I saw myself killing her with a long old-fashioned hatpin. Do you realize where she got the idea of the hatpin? From my own dream, which I told her. She was being more courageous, more honest, when she attacked me.”
Rango took his head in his hands and swayed back and forth as if in pain. A dry sob came out of his chest.
“Oh, Rango, I can’t bear this anymore. I will go away. Then you’ll have peace with Zora.”
“Something else happened today, Djuna, something which reminded me of some of the things you said. Something so terrible that I did not want to see you tonight. I don’t know what instinct of danger made me come, after all. But what happened tonight is worse than Zora’s fit of madness. You know that once a month the workers of the party belonging to a certain group meet for what they call auto-criticism. It’s part of the discipline. It’s done with kindness, great objectivity, and very justly. I have been at such meetings. A man’s way of working, his character traits, are analyzed. Last night it was my turn. The men who sat in a circle, they were the ones I see every day, the butcher, the postman, the grocer, the shoemaker on my own street. The head of our particular section is the bus driver. At first, you know, they had been doubtful about signing me in. They knew I was an artist, a bohemian, an intellectual. But they liked me…and they took me in. I’ve worked for them two months now. Then last night…”
He stopped as if he would not have the courage to relive the scene. Djuna’s hand in his calmed him. But he kept his head bowed. “Last night they talked, very quietly and moderately as the French do… They analyzed me, how I work. They told me some of the things you used to tell me. They made an analysis of my character. They observed everything, the good and the bad. Not only the laziness, the disorder, the lack of discipline, the placing of personal life before the needs of the party, the nights at the cafe, the immoderate talking, irresponsibility, but they also mentioned my capabilities, which made it worse, as they showed how I sabotage myself… They analyzed my power to influence others, my eloquence, my fervor and enthusiasm, my contagious enthusiasm and energy, my gift for making an impression on a crowd, the fact that people are inclined to trust me, to elect me as their leader. Everything. They knew about my fatalism, too. They talked about character changing, as you do. They even intimated that Zora should be placed in an institution, because they knew about her behavior.”
All the time he kept his head bowed.
“When you said these things gently, it didn’t hurt me. It was our secret and I could get angry with you, or contradict you. But when they said them before all the other men I knew it was true, and worse still, I knew that if I had not been able to change with all that you gave me, years of love and devotion, I wouldn’t change for the party either… Any other man, taking what you gave, would have accomplished the greatest changes…any other man but me.”
The barge was sailing nowhere, a moored port of despair.
Rango stretched himself and said: “I’m tired out…so tired, so tired…” And fell asleep almost instantly in the pose of a big child, with his fists tightly closed, his arms over his head.