“Maybe not, Gussie.”
“Anyhow, never mind. I’m just a filthy morbid woman, and I wish I were dead instead of Aaron, and that’s the truth. It’s the truth at this time, at any rate, but I admit it may no longer be true tomorrow, or even an hour from now.”
She finished her Martini and signified to the waitress that she wanted a second, but after it was brought she sat looking at it sourly, as if she were not sure that she wanted it after all. It was her second at this sitting, but it was far past her second for the day, and she had gone to the chapel with gin on her breath. Not drunk, nor on the other hand quite sober. Just quietly and bitterly fortified by gin.
“I’m glad he wasn’t buried,” she said again. “It’s much too cold and wet a day to be buried.”
“Why don’t you quit thinking about it?”
“I’d be glad to quit thinking about it if I could, but I can’t. It seems to be something I can’t control at present. Do you know why that is? It’s because I am reminded by association of another person who was put into a hole in a soggy cemetery when I was there, but that was a long time ago, and I was a young girl at the time. This person they put into the hole was a person I was going to marry, but of course after they put him into the hole, it was impossible. His name was Aloysius, which is a name I can’t imagine any mother giving to a child. But I called him Al, and I loved him, and what is truly remarkable is that he loved me too.”
“Don’t say things like that, Gussie. Surely lots of people have loved you.”
“I don’t think so. At least not in the same way as Al. He was a crazy little son-of-a-bitch, to tell the truth, and he insisted on riding a goddamn motorcycle all over the place at simply incredible speeds. I don’t know why he did this, but it seemed as if he had to. Maybe it’s the sort of thing a kid has to do if he’s named Aloysius. Anyhow, he went too fast around a curve on a gravel road, and he hit too much loose gravel or something, and that was the end of him. At least that’s what they figured afterward had happened, and he broke a number of bones, including his neck. It was impossible to patch him up properly for display, so I was unable to see him after it happened, but what I remember most about it now is putting him into a wet hole on a day very much like this one.”
Donna looked across the tiny table at the ugly, emaciated woman staring sourly at a Martini as if it were the total distillation of her life in a brittle glass bulb, and she thought that Aaron Burns had surely been in Gussie’s life a late and rather distorted recapitulation of this boy who had insisted on riding a motorcycle until he broke his neck at it. For this reason, because Aaron had turned to her and not to Gussie, Donna felt as if she had cheated and betrayed a friend. She knew that this feeling was ridiculous, but it disturbed her just the same, and she didn’t know what to say.
“What a rotten thing to happen,” she said. “I’m sorry, Gussie.”
“Well, it hardly matters any more, and I only mentioned it because of circumstances. It had very little effect on me, except to make me hate motorcycles and wet holes in the ground and sometimes myself and everything in general, and now I think we’d better talk about what is likely to happen to the shop. Do you think it will open again?”
“I don’t know. Surely it will open, if only until it’s finally disposed of. That will probably be quite a long time off, for there are sure to be a lot of legal things to be settled. I don’t know much about such matters.”
“Neither do I, and I guess there isn’t much use in discussing it at all, so far as that goes. We’re sure to be notified of what is expected of us.”
“For the present, I should think it is in the hands of Aaron’s lawyer, Mr. Joslin. Do you think I should contact him?”
“I doubt it. If he wants to talk with you about anything, he’ll let you know. Do you know him?”
“Not well. I’ve met him a couple of times when I was with Aaron.”
“He’s a nice guy. He was Aaron’s friend, as well as his lawyer, and once I spent a weekend with him at a place that doesn’t matter. I thought it would be pretty dull because he’s so dry and reserved, but on the weekend he was altogether different, quite gay and charming, and I had a very pleasant time.”
Suddenly Gussie picked up her glass and drained it of the second Martini, as if it were something she had decided to get down quickly after considering it all this time. After setting her glass down empty, she stood up.
“I don’t believe I’ll stay and get slightly drunk after all,” she said. “I believe that I’ll go home and get thoroughly drunk instead. Would you care to come along and join me in the project?”
“I don’t think so, Gussie. Thanks, anyhow. I’ll stay and have another Martini, if you don’t mind, and then I may go to the shop and try to work. I guess there would be no objection to my going to the shop now.”
“Why should there be? You still have your key, and no one’s fired you yet. Call me if you learn anything, will you, darling?”
“All right, Gussie. I’ll call.”
Gussie left, and Donna ordered another Martini and drank it slowly. She didn’t actually feel like working, and did not, moreover, want to be alone in the shop where she had been so much. On the other hand, she did not want to go alone to her apartment, which was the only other alternative. So she continued to sit at the tiny table and nurse her drink, and when it was finally gone, she ordered and nursed another. This one, too, was gone after a while, and she was left with the choice of ordering still another or leaving. She would have preferred to stay, but she decided that she had better not. So she got up and went outside on the street and waited for a taxi to come along. While she waited, she still hesitated between the shop and her apartment, but once in a taxi she decided abruptly to go home.
In the apartment, looking at herself in the long mirror of the dressing table, she thought that the dress she was wearing was one that Aaron would have liked. When she had passed by his casket, he had looked remote and unreal and utterly unlike anyone who had ever happened in her life, but now, thinking of him without seeing his gray husk, he was credible again and completely believable. She wondered where he really was, where he had gone off to so precipitately from the hall of his house, or if he had simply ceased to function or to exist in any conscious way. She had a feeling that she could at that moment, by making herself inwardly and outwardly utterly still, establish contact of some kind with him. She tried intensely to accomplish this, standing immobile before the glass that no longer reflected her image in the black dress, but there was only silence and stillness. After a while there was a stir and a sigh, and sound and motion resumed: nothing now was clear that had been obscure, nothing now was known that was not known before. Her mirror image returned, and she considered changing into something else, but at that moment the telephone rang in the living room.
The voice that responded to hers was dry and precise, and careful with syllables.
“Miss Buchanan?”
“Yes.”
“This is Earl Joslin speaking. Mr. Burns’ lawyer. I should like to see you at your earliest convenience.”
“Today?”
“It it’s convenient.”
“What do you want to see me about?”
“I’d prefer to tell you when I see you, if you don’t mind.”
“I see. Do you want me to come to your office?”
“I’m not in my office now and would rather not go there. May I call on you for a few minutes at your apartment?”