The Last Chance (32 page)

After a while a doctor came to see their mother, examined her, and smiled kindly at the two girls, who were sitting beside her bed. Ellen was awake but seemed a little confused. He told her she was in the hospital and would have to stay a few days for observation until she was better. She nodded.

“What happened?” he asked gently.

“I have a headache.”

“That’s natural. I’ll give you some medication. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“An accident,” Ellen said. She closed her eyes. “I want to sleep now.”

The doctor looked at the two girls: the small, sturdy one and the taller, emaciated one, sitting side by side holding hands. His eyes told them that he had seen worse crimes in this hospital, much worse, that whatever had happened to bring their mother here was already well known to him and could not surprise him. He looked at them, and his kind, lined face told them they were not criminals, that life held all sorts of tragic and inexplicable things. Jill felt a surge of warmth toward him. He was only a little older than her father, but he looked so tired.

“What are your names?” he asked them.

“Stacey.”

“Jill. What’s yours?”

“Dr. Wilson. Why don’t you girls go home and get some sleep? You can come to visit your mother tomorrow.”

“Are you going to be her doctor?” Jill asked.

“Yes.”

“Is she going to have a scar?”

“I don’t think so.”

Where had she heard that conversation before? When she was in the hospital and her mother was assuring her she would have no scar. She was saying the same thing her mother had said! Jill fought down the panic. She wasn’t going to be like her mother, she wasn’t! Her question had been only natural. After all, if there was a scar, it would be her fault.

“Come on,” he said gently. “There’s nothing for you to do now.” He led them out of their mother’s room and put them into the elevator and set them free.

In the street, in the dark, the gang of boys swooped down on Nikki and pulled her handbag and her packages from her numb hands, tore off her earrings, her watch, her rings. She felt them plucking at her as if they were taking bites from her skin, more shock than pain. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might have a heart attack and die right here before they had a chance to do whatever they were going to do to her. She felt the sidewalk hit her shoulder and leg as they threw her down, and suddenly they were gone. Gone, just like that, running off into the darkness carrying her things, tossing her gift-wrapped packages into the air and from one to another, turning the corner, gone.

She rose slowly, feeling such relief at being alive that it made her dizzy. Then she was angry. She felt violated, she wanted to kill them. Why wasn’t there anybody around to protect decent, innocent people on the streets? She ran to her building and leaned on the super’s bell, beginning to sob.

“Who is it?” his tinny voice came from the speaker.

“Nikki Gellhorn. I was mugged and they took my keys.”

He came right out to let her in, and when he saw the state she was in he insisted on accompanying her into her apartment, until she sent him away, insisting she was all right.

“Have a drink,” the super said. “A drink. It’s good, you’ll feel better.”

“Okay, thank you. Goodbye.” She locked the door and threw the heavy metal bar, knowing the boys had her address and her keys and could come back any time except for that bolt, which suddenly looked fragile. She forced herself to pour a shot of vodka, spilling most of it, and gulped it down like medicine. Then she called the locksmith. First things first. She felt as if she and the locksmith had become old friends. He said he would bring new cylinders for both locks and three sets of keys, one for her, one for the super, and one for the cleaning woman. Oh, no, he remembered, she needed four, didn’t she? Four? Oh—Robert. No, Nikki told him, three sets were fine.

The vodka, or perhaps the locksmith, had calmed her somewhat. She poured herself another shot and drank it more slowly. Robert … Would he have been angered, horrified, or pleased if he knew of her encounter tonight? Would he have said “I told you so”? Of course he would. He would have told her that none of it would have happened if she had stayed with him in the country where she belonged. What about all the housewives who got raped and murdered in their own houses in the country while their husbands were at work? He would never think of that.

She called the police, just in case someone found her wallet and credit cards after the boys had taken her money. God, those credit cards! She’d had all of them with her. She went through her dresser drawer until she found the list of credit-card numbers she’d kept in case something happened. The department stores, of course, were closed. The credit-card companies had numbers to call, but one was busy and the other didn’t answer. Nikki decided to leave them all for the morning. She wouldn’t go to the office until she had everything done. She felt filthy and defiled and wanted to take a shower, but she had to wait for the locksmith. She inspected her leg. Nothing lethal. What was she going to do about the presents? They’d have to be replaced, of course, and she’d never get her money back. To have a mugger charge things on a stolen charge card was one thing, but if he took your merchandise after you’d charged it yourself, tough luck. She sighed. Why had she bought that Gucci attache case?

Tomorrow was the lunch with Rachel, Margot, and Ellen. She’d have to replace their presents on the way to the lunch. Where could she go, with no money and no charge cards? She thought. Her driver’s license, which she never used any more, was tucked into her dresser drawer with her checkbook and other important documents. She could use it for identification and go to Tiffany’s. Chic, expensive places were so much more trusting than ordinary stores. Besides, she didn’t plan to go into hock, just buy them each something nice in silver as a memento of their friendship. That was what Christmas should be for anyway.

She kicked off her shoes and telephoned Rachel. No answer. It wasn’t very late, so maybe she was still out somewhere. Nikki dialed Ellen. She was out too? The whole family was out. Maybe they were at the stores. Margot was probably home. She dialed Margot’s number. No answer. Was everybody in the world out tonight? Nikki felt very alone and deserted. She wanted to call her daughters, hoping Robert wouldn’t answer, but she restrained herself. They’d only get upset, and there was nothing they could do. She knew she couldn’t pretend everything was all right and she’d just called to say hello; they knew her voice and its intonations too well for that.

Who in the world could she call? She had dozens of casual friends, but it didn’t seem right to call them to tell them what had happened, not because they wouldn’t care, but because telling an acquaintance made it seem as if it were an anecdote instead of a personal trauma. She knew herself, and she knew she would try to pretend it was less upsetting than it had been. Was it possible, Nikki wondered, to become strong without giving up something on the way? She had come so far, but there was so much more to learn.

She turned on the television, imagining for one irrational moment that the lead story on the news would be her mugging. Then she laughed. She was alive! Her watch and rings and earrings might or might not turn up in some pawnshop, but who cared? She was alive! Her shoulder ached where she had fallen and her leg was scraped, but none of that was fatal. Her anger and hate and resentment and helplessness were not going to prove fatal either. She was
alive
. And life was the only gift she really wanted.

At this moment the life force in Rachel had never been stronger. Even now, as she let Hank drag her to the bed, she was thinking, terrified but trying to figure out what to do. Her thoughts rushed toward Lawrence and his love for her, the preciousness of her body, but she forced herself to put her mind on a simple course of self-preservation. If she thought of what she had become because of Lawrence—a woman who was loved beyond all others by a man she adored in turn—she knew she would break down and cry. Crying would not help her. She looked at Hank’s wild, almost hypnotized eyes and wondered why she had never noticed before that he was crazy. Probably because she had never really noticed him at all. Everyone thought of him as that jerk Ellen had married. She wondered if he had always known it and if that had in part been what had driven him mad.

Who did he want her to be now, Ellen or Rachel? Not Ellen, for Hank was afraid of Ellen. Yet when he threatened to punish her, it was Ellen he hated, not Rachel, for she had never done anything to make him angry. Or had she? Had she done something without knowing it? Had his distorted mind imagined she had? She knew he intended to rape her, it was quite clear. She also considered the possibility he might kill her. He could easily kill her accidentally with those big hands of his, it would take only a small shifting of his mood. She tried to be as passive as she could and not break into hysterics, which she felt would anger him.

“Please, Hank,” she said, “don’t hurt me.” Her soft voice sounded like a gasp. “I’ve always been your friend. Please let go.”

From the small changes in the pressure he was exerting on her throat she knew he was trying to read her mind and was reacting to what he thought he saw there, but she didn’t know what he really wanted, and she suspected he didn’t either. Sex, he had to want sex. It was what they all wanted, really. All those years before she met Lawrence, all those men who dated her and lied to her and wanted only to jump on her—in the end it was all they had ever wanted, to get her into their beds, to use her—and she had let them, because she was beautiful and dumb in the sixties, and that was what people did. It had ensured her survival then, she had thought, to be an acquiescent doll, a body. She had blocked it out and made it meaningless when they took her to their beds, so they could have what they insisted on and expected.

“No, Hank,” Rachel said. “I don’t want to. Don’t do this. I don’t want to.”

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re mine. You owe me.”

“Why?”

“Your fault. Everything. Your fault.”

Now, suddenly, something in Rachel snapped and she was back in the past. Let him fuck her if he wanted to. Then he wouldn’t hurt her any more and he would go away.

“All right,” she said. Her voice was emotionless. “Do it.”

He wondered what was going wrong. All the time he had imagined this scene it had been so perfectly choreographed, so exactly conforming to his lusts and desires that it had driven him into a sexual frenzy. But now he was here, and she was in his hands, and it was not going right at all. At first it had been perfect. Her terror, the way he had ripped off her clothes, all had been perfect. He pushed her naked body down now on the huge bed in her bedroom, and she lay there, looking at him calmly, as if he wasn’t there at all. Her legs were slightly parted, as if she was waiting for him. But she was not excited, she was just … there. Not the frightened, begging goddess of his fevered fantasies but just a limp and very beautiful woman who didn’t care what he did to her. She seemed almost to be inviting him.

Inviting him? No, it was not him she invited. She had turned into a vessel, available to anyone, untouched, uninterested. She might as well be dead the way she lay there, and yet she moved one hand slightly, automatically, as if to caress him. He shrank away from her touch.

“Be Rachel,” he commanded, but his voice came out like a moan of entreaty, not a firm command. “Be Rachel …”

She lay there, her soft lips curved in a half smile that was both invitation and introspection. She wasn’t Rachel. She was just … anybody. He had never been so disappointed in his life. He tore off his clothes, knowing she wasn’t going anywhere if he let go of her, trying to reawaken his fantasy, but it did no good. Hank hunched over her, four-legged like a beast, and saw his erection dwindle away to nothing. She didn’t even seem to notice. If she had noticed, if she had laughed at him, he would have killed her on the spot. But she just lay there as if they had all the time in the world, and he knew then that there would never be a time for them.

He heard noises coming out of his throat, animal noises, and he threw himself on the bed beside her, curled up like a fetus, his back turned to her, his hands covering his face, his knees drawn up to his hated groin, and he wept.

Rachel turned her head and saw Hank huddled on her bed crying. “You don’t love me,” he kept gasping, “you don’t love me.” She could hardly make it out. She raised herself on one elbow and looked at him. He was completely oblivious of her. Her hand, almost of its own volition, reached out to stroke his tormented head, and then she drew back. She got up and put on her robe again.

She knew she could call the doorman or the police, but she also knew with certainty that she was safe, and so she sat down on the edge of the bed, as far away from him as possible, and watched him, waiting for him to calm down. His great, white naked body was pathetic, a beached whale. She was suddenly overwhelmed with an exhaustion so draining that she nearly fell. It was over. All she wanted was for him to dress and go home so she could sleep.

But he wouldn’t stop crying for a long time, and then he wouldn’t stop talking. He finally pulled on his undershorts and his shirt, but he wouldn’t go. He kept repeating the same things: that he had always felt unloved, inferior, that no one wanted him, no one respected him, he was a failure, he had nothing to live for. She wished he would go. Part of her felt slightly compassionate in spite of what he had done to her, because she had never seen a human being suffering such an abject and obviously painful loss of dignity. It was as if she was his mother and he a child who had come home from school to tell her he had been made the outcast: he couldn’t seem to tear himself away from her presence, as if she was the only warm, comforting thing left.

He stayed there until morning. At last, when the light showed under the shades and it was eight o’clock, she persuaded him to go.

“You must go now, Hank,” she said softly. “Your family will be worried to death.”