He trailed off, still talking to her, and then sat looking at nothing while she stared at him for a long while.
“You haven’t answered my question,” I said. “Why—?”
“Oh. Oh, yes. If Hortense divorced me, Lloyd, I’d be free to marry this woman. I don’t think I would, but I might — I’m nuts about her, that I have to admit. I must not, cannot, will not let it happen! If she had stolen a million dollars or murdered someone or danced the hula in church, I don’t think I’d mind very much. I could probably tough it out. But marry a servant — no. No, NO!”
He breathed it in a whisper that had the Book of Revelations in it. Hortense got up, walked around, and looked out the window as though thinking it over.
“Yiss,” she trilled, “it devolves. It devolves that you smaken me on my pretty Swenska tail whenever I uppen my skurt. But wait, wait, wait unteel I peepen and see if mein pantyhosen iss clean!”
“Goddamn it, knock it off!”
“Now there’s a hostess for you! ‘Come in, pliz! Yiss, he iss home — aye tink.’ ” And she popped two or three kneebends which I have since heard are called “knicks,” so jerky they make you uncomfortable, while he chased her around, furious. I stepped between them and motioned for her to sit down.
“We get the idea,” I said. Mr. Garrett stood for several moments, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he stalked to the foyer, got his hat and coat from the closet, and put them on. He turned to her and said: “The answer is still no. While Inga is alive, there will be no divorce for you.”
“But what am I going to do?”
“Nothing! Nothing. Do that, you will be sitting pretty. Have your child — and who knows whose child it is except you, me, and Lloyd? I’ve told you, it’s well provided for. I’m putting it in my will, as well as any other children you have. I’m providing for you in the trust fund that’s already set up for you. I dote on you, you must know by now. I feel for Lloyd much as he says he feels for me. You can’t have everything, Hortense. All you need do is nothing and you’re sitting so pretty, someone should take your picture.”
“Except for the one thing I want!”
“I don’t. That’s the difference.”
I went to bed but lay in the dark a long time before she came in and undressed and presently slipped into bed beside me. But she didn’t come close. Then, when I turned on the light, she was staring at me with a strange look in her eyes, as though she were scared to death or had just waked up to something or had gotten a terrific idea — or all three. I made a speech about getting some sleep, how we needed it so we would be fresh in the morning to tackle what had to be done in some kind of clear-headed way. She made no answer, so I turned out the light.
I must have fallen asleep, because all of a sudden I woke up with the feeling that I was alone. I put out my hand. She wasn’t there! I turned on the light. Jumping out of bed, I rushed through the apartment, shouting her name; but she wasn’t there. She was gone.
I came back to bed and turned out the light. Now I faced a darkness blacker than black. I had lost my job, my dream, and now this woman who had meant so much to me. Yet there is a limit to how much you can feel. By daybreak I didn’t feel anything — just cold gray nothingness.
22
For the next two weeks I didn’t live. I skulked — alone, seeing no one except people who meant nothing to me, such as parking lot attendants, gas station men, and waiters, and doing nothing but pray she would come back. I’d make my own breakfast, go down and pick up my mail, the paper, and messages, then go out as though I were going to work, the way I always had. I would walk around to the parking lot, have a look at my car, then let myself in the back way and come back up on the freight elevator to the apartment again. Every time the phone rang, I dived for it. Around ten each morning, Eliza would come, make the bed, put out fresh towels, and straighten up; but on Fridays she really cleaned and would be there till midafternoon. So I wouldn’t be underfoot, I would go down the back way again, get in the car, and drive — anywhere — Annapolis, Baltimore, Richmond, Frederick, wherever. Then I would come back and at six watch the news on TV. I would go out to dinner, generally the Royal Arms. Then back to the apartment, “to catch up on my reading.” But reading just to kill time is the most pointless thing I can think of, and pretty soon, I would turn to cards. Then to bed, for the simple reason that there was no place else to go.
The day after the hearing, Mr. Garrett called to say that Georgia had seen the news stories and that the aftermath was terrific, with editorials in the papers, “and all kinds of beautiful stuff.” But no word about my resignation or what his reaction was. Then Sam Dent called to find out where I was. When I told him that I had quit, he was stunned. Then, in no more than a couple of minutes, Mr. Garrett called again.
“What the hell is this, Lloyd? I just read your note, the one you gave me last night. It’s been in my pocket all the time. I forgot it completely. What’s the point of it? Have I done something? Why are you resigning?”
“That handshake we had did it.”
“Did what?”
“It meant I had to end the deception. On my part, sir, that handshake was sincere, and I felt it was on yours, too. So I had to resign.”
“What deception?”
“Do I have to draw you a picture?”
“You mean, about Hortense?”
“That’s right — about Hortense.”
“But, Lloyd, I wasn’t deceived, so what deception was involved?” He paused and then said: “Well, yeah, I suppose I flinched a little. But not from what I knew had to be going on. It was how to take it that bothered me. But little by little we all liked each other so well that it was nothing to flinch from at all. You’ve dreamed yourself up a bugbear that doesn’t exist. What the hell. Let me talk to her.”
“She’s not here.”
“Well, she’s not at the Watergate apartment. Where is she, then?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, then: “I don’t know.”
“Say what you mean, Lloyd.”
“I mean she’s walked out on me — or, at least, I think she has.”
“If she wasn’t so goddamned headstrong—” He let it dangle, then finished: “She wouldn’t be Hortense, otherwise, Lloyd.”
“You can say that again.”
“Getting back to your note—”
“I’m sorry, sir, it’s final.”
“It certainly is final. I’ve just burned it in the ashtray. I’m punching the ashes now. Now — will you be in? Can I tell Sam to simmer down?”
“No, Mr. Garrett, I won’t be in.”
“Lloyd, goddam it, I’m getting annoyed.”
“O.K., but I won’t change my mind.”
“Suppose I find her for you? Suppose I bring her back?”
“Shut up, damn it, shut up!”
“All right, now I know what I have to do.”
On Friday when I got in, I rang downstairs to ask Miss Nettie if I had had any calls, and she said no but that I did have a visitor. “That girl who was here before. Rodriguez, I think her name is. She’s been here since just after lunch. I said you were out, but she said she would wait.”