A thin red ribbon rose in the water from his wrist and diffused and darkened the water around, and the water grew slowly darker and darker, and the darkness spread from the water over everything, and he died kneeling in the darkness.
3.
At five-thirty, Tyler called.
“I’m relieved to find you still there,” he said. “I was afraid you might have gone.”
“No, I’m still working,” Donna said. “I’ll be here for at least another hour.”
“Have you had a good day?”
“Yes. Everything has gone well. I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight, of course.”
“Well, that’s what I’m calling about. Something has developed to prevent my coming. It’s a nuisance, I know, but I simply can’t avoid it.”
“I’m sorry.”
He was silent for a moment, and she could hear faintly in the background the lilting sound of music — strings and brass and reeds forming the light and perishable pattern of a popular tune. She listened to the tune and liked it and was able to name it. Lisbon Antigua. A jukebox. She wondered if he was calling from the small bar to which she had first gone to meet him and where she still frequently met him. She was sure that he was there, and she could suddenly see and feel the place as truly as if she were there, and she wished that she were. Without forewarning, with the faint and perishable tune on the wire between them, it was quite abruptly an instant of crisis, a point from which her life would move inexorably one way or another, and she felt in the instant a surge of panic. He was calling to put an end to things. Already, she was certain, he had simply gone away, leaving the wire open to the inconsequential tune as a kind of commentary on the inconsequential affair he had initiated and tolerated and was now ending, for his own reasons, in this contemptuous manner.
“Are you there?” she said.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m here.”
“Are you at our bar?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I can hear music. Lisbon Antigua.”
“Oh. I see. There’s a fellow here who seems to like it. He insists on playing it over and over. Would you like me to explain why I can’t come tonight?”
“If you want to.”
“It would be easier if you were here. Can you come for a drink, or does that work have to be done immediately?”
“It can wait.”
“Shall I have a drink ready for you?”
“A Martini, please.”
“All right. I’ll be expecting you.”
She hung up and went out into the salon. Gussie was standing at the rear alone, a cigarette hanging loosely from her lips and leaking smoke in a thin ascending wisp. She spoke without removing the cigarette, squinting through the smoke.
“Leaving, darling?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Tyler again?”
“Yes. I’m meeting him for a drink.”
“How are things going?”
“About the loan?”
“Yes, of course, darling. Did you think I was being inquisitive about your sex life?”
“I think it may work out all right, Gussie.”
“Well, it seems to me that it’s taking a hell of a long time. Why don’t you simply tell him to crap or get off the pot?”
Donna laughed. She loved Gussie and was never offended by what she said, and she knew quite well that Gussie’s vulgarities were a kind of derision directed toward her own sentimentality.
“I’m afraid he might get off,” she said.
“Sure. I can see where that would leave us, all right. Right up that well-known creek without a paddle. Do you think this joint is really worth the trouble?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I guess it is, at that. For you, anyhow.”
“It takes time, Gussie. We have to be patient.”
“I know, I know. I’m just a sour bitch, and you mustn’t pay the least attention to me. I think I need a hobby or something. You know. Something to take my mind off things after hours. Isn’t that a hell of a confession for a woman to make? Time was I had an entertaining hobby that just came naturally, but I’m getting too old for it. But then, no one wants what I haven’t got any longer, so it comes out even in the end. Maybe I’ll buy myself a motorcycle.”
“You’d better buy yourself a drink.”
“That’s a superfluous suggestion, darling. Buying myself a drink is something that still comes naturally, and something for which, apparently, one does not become too old. However, thank you for reminding me. Run along, darling, and have fun. I’ll finish up here and get out myself in a few minutes.”
“All right, Gussie. Goodby, now.”
She went out and caught a taxi and went to the bar between the books and the flowers, and Tyler was waiting for her, and so, as he’d promised, was the Martini. The man who liked Lisbon Antigua was still playing it — probably it had associations for him. He stood leaning against the jukebox and listened to the music and thought about the associations, whatever they were. At the small table with Tyler, Donna lifted her glass and drank from it and set it down again, and Tyler took and held her hand. And her recent panic and sense of crisis, the irrational reaction on the telephone, was instantly and properly reduced to absurdity.
“I’m glad you could come,” he said.
“You only had to ask,” she said.
“I want to explain why I must break our date.”
“It isn’t necessary to explain.”
“Anyhow, I would like to. It’s nothing much, really. Merely that I must drive my wife to the airport.”
“Oh? Is she going away?”
“Yes. For quite a long time. The truth is, she is going to Europe.”
“Did she decide so suddenly to go so far?”
He shook his head. “No. It has been planned for some time, of course. Originally, she intended to leave next week, but she decided all at once to leave earlier in order to have an extra week in New York before sailing.”
“Is she going alone?”
“No.” He looked down at her hand in his, and his voice went curiously flat. “She is going with a friend. Of hers, not ours. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call her a protégée. A young woman who is studying music at the local conservatory. A harpist, I believe. The primary purpose of the trip, I’m told, is to give her training and experience abroad. Harriet is very generous in such matters. Anyhow, it seems that I am expected to drive her to the airport, though I should think a servant would do as well. Perhaps it is merely something a husband is required to do when his wife goes to Europe.”
“It’s all right, of course. There’s nothing else you can do.”
“I’d much prefer keeping our date.”
“Will it be too late after the plane leaves?”
“It will be quite late. Midnight, I suspect, before I could get back to your apartment.”
“That’s all right if you want to come.”
“Would it be all right if I wanted to stay?”
“You’re imposing a condition, and so I won’t answer. If you want to stay, you must ask me directly, and I’ll give you a direct answer.”
“All right. So far as I’m concerned, the preliminary period we agreed upon is over. I want to stay, and I am asking you directly if I may.”
“Are you sure it’s what you want? Do you remember what it commits you to?”