Paris Trout (15 page)

He held her there until the bottle was empty.

He pulled it out, almost gently, and then took his
hand off her neck. He had yet to speak an intelligible word. He stood
over her, holding the bottle, and watched as she slowly straightened
up.

She was dizzy, and as moments passed, she noticed a
burning sensation growing through her neck. She touched her face, and
her cheek was swollen and unfamiliar. She steadied herself against
the desk and pulled her underpants up. They were soaked through.

Then she pulled her skirt down, and she was finally
away from him. She felt the wet underpants against her skin, though,
and she felt what he had done to her. "Look at yourself? she
said again, and when he did not answer she left the room, her shoes
making wet noises as she walked.

The woman was standing at the counter. There was a
box of saltine crackers and some chicken noodle soup in front of her,
the child was holding a pack of Dentyne gum. She looked up when she
heard Hanna coming.

Hanna stepped behind the cash register and rang the
order. She accepted the woman's money, made the correct change. She
put the crackers and the soup in a brown bag and thanked the woman
for coming in. The woman looked at her face and then glanced back
toward the office.

She leaned forward, so that the child could not hear,
and said, "Are you all right, honey?"

And Hanna felt the cold underpants underneath her
skirt, and her legs had turned sticky. She said, "Yes, thank
you. My husband and I had a small emergency, but it's taken care of
now."

The woman left, and a moment later Hanna left too.
She did not close the door behind her, and as she walked along the
campus of the college a few minutes later, she had the impression
again that things were, at that moment, changing forever.

That Paris was gone
someplace and was lost for good.

* * *

SHE DID NOT Move out. She stayed, because that is
what you did.

The house, in some way, was hers.

By the time Paris Trout returned from work that
night, however, she had taken several chairs, a lamp, a table, and
the rug from the front room and carried them upstairs to her own
quarters. She watched him from the window, opening the gate and
walking up the sidewalk. She watched until the line of the house cut
him off from her, and then she g crossed the room and locked her
bedroom door.

He did not force his way in. She heard him on the
stairs and then in the hallway. He stopped outside, a long minute,
and then she heard his steps moving back in the direction he had
come, and somehow a bargain had been struck.

They did not speak, not a word, for three days. Each
evening she locked herself in her bedroom, and each morning, after he
left, she reclaimed her house. She read books in her room, Raymond
Chandler novels she borrowed from the public library. She bought a
radio. She took long baths and began a diary.

She did not clean anything
but herself and her own room, she did no dishes and no cooking and
took her laundry out, charging it to her husband's account. She saw
him, coming and going, and was careful that he did not see her.

* * *

THERE WAS A SERVICE for the child on Tuesday. She
called the coroner, a man named Cliff Collins, and caught him
drinking. He gave her the time and place.

The following morning he called back, sober, and
said, "Miz Trout, I can't have it coming back that this office
was the one gave you information."

She dressed in a dark suit and walked south and east,
through the college campus and into Bloodtown. The service was held
in a small white chapel across the street from Horn Cemetery.

She took a seat in back — there were only four rows
— sweating from the walk over, and listened to a Baptist preacher
say a few words over the open coffin. There were six other people in
the room, two young black men, an older black man, two children —
two little girls.

The smallest child sucked her thumb, staring at Hanna
over her small, wet fist all through the service. The preacher read
from the Bible and then put his hand inside the box to touch Rosie
Sayers. "Come down with me now," he said. "Come down
and join hands with me and say good-bye to this child."

Then he leaned into the coffin and kissed her lips.

Hanna Trout stood up with the others and walked to
the front of the chapel. She carried her purse under her arm. The
preacher took one of her hands, the older man took the other. Her
purse fell to the floor. The littlest child swayed between the two
younger men, her eyes fastened on Hanna's white skin.

Hanna watched the child and then looked into the
casket. There was another child inside, the one she had taken to
Comell Clinic for rabies treatment. They had laid her head on a pink
satin pillow.

The preacher closed his eyes and spoke. Jesus, thank
you for sending us this little girl," he said. '"We return
her to You now for safekeeping and pray for You to forgive us that we
didn't take better care of her here."

They all said "A-men," even the children.

The preacher closed the
lid to the coffin, and he and the three men carried it across the
street to a mound of freshly dug dirt. They set the box down, took
off their coats, and then lowered it into the ground.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER HANNA walked in the door of her house
and found her husband sitting in the front room with his attorney.
The attorney stood up to greet her. "Mrs. Trout," he said.

"
Mr. Seagraves."

Her husband had not shaved that morning and was
wearing the same pants and shirt he had worn the day before. She knew
he had slept — even with her door locked shut, she had heard his
snoring from down the hall — but he looked as tired as she had ever
seen him.

The attorney stepped closer and offered his hand. She
took it for I only a moment and then let go. His eyes hung on to her
a long time.

"
I hope I am not an inconvenience on you,"
he said.

"Convenience is no longer among my
considerations," she said.

He looked at her as if her husband were not in the
room at all. "You are a forthcoming woman, Mrs. Trout," he
said.

Her husband moved then, shifted himself on the
davenport to look out the window. The movement caught her eyes, and
when she returned her attention to the attorney, he was leaning
closer, as if to take her into his confidence.

"
The problem here, as I was telling your
husband, is partly psychological," he said.

She stared at him, not understanding what he meant,
not caring to have it explained.

"
In that vein," he went on, "there are
two considerations. One is the age of the deceased. She was fourteen,
which as you may know is legal age of consent, and it could be argued
that makes her an adult."

"Consent to what?"

He did not answer the question. "The other
consideration," he said, "is the fact that your husband is
perceived as a rich and powerful man, and in some ways that could be
used against him now, the circumstances making the girl look more
defenseless by comparison."

"
Mr. Seagraves," she said, "I have
just come from the child's funeral, and I have no interest in the
legal problems her death has presented you or my husband, nor in the
way you overcome them."

Seagraves turned to Trout, who was still staring out
the window.

"A service?" he said.

She looked at the davenport too. She thought of what
he had done to her with the bottle, wondering how long it had been
there, waiting in his mind, before the act.

"You went to the service?" the attorney
said. She was pleased to note the cordiality had gone out of his
voice.

She did not answer.

"
Mrs. Trout," Seagraves said, "I know
that you wouldn't intentionally hurt your husband's case — "

"
I have no interest, Mr. Seagraves," she
said. "No interest in this subject at all."

He put his fingertips against his temples, as if she
had built him a headache. "I don't mean to exhaust your
patience," he said a moment later. "I appreciate your
abhorrence at what has happened. But please understand that whatever
you do now reflects on your husband."

"
Mr. Seagraves," she said, looking at
Paris, "you cannot begin to appreciate my abhorrence."

And she turned away from them, pleased with the way
that had sounded, and walked up the stairs and locked herself in her
bedroom. She undressed, drew a bath, and sat in the tub a long time.
They were downstairs another hour. She heard the drone of voices, and
then, as she became accustomed to the quiet, she began to make out
the words.

Much of it concerned the physical location of her
husband and Buster Devonne during the firing of the shots. The
attorney wanted to know their exact stations, her husband did not
seem to know. She heard him say, "It was smoked all through that
house .... " again and again.

Her husband was not a good liar, and the words came
out sounding unnatural and practiced. She touched the lips of her
vulva, softly, and it hurt her. She was discolored and cut.

The lawyer was asking about her. If there was a
"disharmony" between them, it was better to know it now
than later.

Her husband raised his voice. "She don't matter
in this," he said. "She ainlt a consideration."

She could not hear the lawyer's reply, but then her
husband's voice was back again, louder, as clear as if he were
standing there in the bathroom. "She can't accomplish nothing
against me," he said. "She's my wife."

They were moving toward the front door. She heard it
open and close, and then her husband's footsteps were on the stairs
again and then in the hall. She sat still, looking at her fingers.
Wrinkled and white from the water.

He stopped at the door to her bedroom, and she
noticed that the water she had been sitting in had chilled, and she
shivered.

He knocked on the door.

She reached for the hot-water tap with her toe and
turned it on. Her foot was as white and wrinkled as her fingers. He
knocked again, then tried the door. Even with the water running, she
heard the handle rattle. It went on a long time, as if he were a
child who had never encountered locked doors before and did not
understand what they were.

She heard his voice suddenly, and the sound startled
her. "You can't pretend I ain't here," he said.

She slid farther down, until the water covered her
ears and raised almost level with the lip of the tub. Rather than
turn off the faucet, she found the plug with her toe and pulled it.

His voice came to her through the water. It seemed to
come from a long ways off "Cut off the goddamn water," he
said.

There was a book on the floor, one of Raymond
Chandler's novels she had borrowed from the library, and she picked
it up now, opened it to the bookmark, and started to read. The water
drained slowly out of the tub. He kicked the door, but it was an inch
thick, and it held. The noise was solid and in some way comforting.

He kicked it again, harder, and she began to whisper
the words in the book out loud. When Paris spoke again he was out of
breath. Even with the water running, the tub had almost drained, and
the inch or two left was scalding hot on her bottom. "You got
obligations to me," he said. "You best keep that in mind."

She put her toes on the faucet and turned it off. His
voice filled the room. "They ain't nobody gets in trouble if
they live up to their obligations, not with me. That's the cause of
this whole mess now."

She put the book back on the floor, stood up in the
tub, and then stepped out. She dried herself in front of the mirror,
noticing the discoloration where she had been pinned against the edge
of his desk.

"Hanna Nile," he said. "You can't
pretend I ain't here."

She wrapped herself in a robe and crossed the bedroom
to the door.

She opened it and found him leaning against the far
wall, his forehead pressed into his arm. She stood in the doorway and
waited. He walked past her into the room. The smell of urine came in
with him.

He sat on her bed, she stayed in the doorway. She saw
that he didn't know what to say. He looked at the ceiling and then
covered his eyes."Mr. Seagraves has said you made it worst than
it was," he said. "He believes it was accidental."

She squared herself but did not answer.

"He don't want you near this," he said.

"
I've done all I'm going to," she said, and
the sound of her voice was stronger than she felt. Stronger than his.
"I paid my respects."

"You flew in my face, is what. You didn't know
who they was." She thought of the girl she had taken to Cornell
Clinic and saw part of what he said was true.

"
Mr. Seagraves has cautioned us to present a
front," he said, "for the sake of appearances. That it
would be harmful if we were perceived to be different than we were."