The Moviegoer (13 page)

“Yes.”

“It isn't as if Kate were another Otey Ann,” says my aunt after a moment.

“No, it isn't.” She is thinking of two things: one, an acquaintance from Feliciana named Otey Ann Aldridge who went crazy and used to break out of the state hospital in Jackson and come to New Orleans and solicit strangers on Bourbon Street; two, she is thinking of the look in Nell Lovell's eye, the little risible gleam, even as she reassured my aunt.

I awake with a start at three o'clock, put on a raincoat and go outside for a breath of air.

The squall line has passed over. Elysian Fields is dripping and still, but there is a commotion of winds high in the air where the cool heavy front has shouldered up the last of the fretful ocean air. The wind veers around to the north and blows away the storm until the moon swims high, moored like a kite and darting against the fleeing shreds and ragtags of cloud.

I sit in the shelter outside Mrs Schexnaydre's chain link fence. Opposite the school, it is used by those children who catch buses toward the lake. The streetlight casts a blueblack shadow. Across the boulevard, at the catercorner of Elysian Fields and Bons Enfants, is a vacant lot chest high in last summer's weeds. Some weeks ago the idea came to me of buying the lot and building a service station. It is for sale, I learned, for twenty thousand dollars. What with the windfall from Mr Sartalamaccia, it becomes possible to think seriously of the notion. It is easy to visualize the little tile cube of a building with its far flung porches, its apron of silky concrete and, revolving on high, the immaculate bivalve glowing in every inch of its pretty styrene (I have already approached the Shell distributor).

A taxi pulls up under the streetlight. Kate gets out and strides past the shelter, hands thrust deep in her pockets. Her eyes are pools of darkness. There is about her face the rapt almost ugly look of solitary people. When I call out to her, she comes directly over with a lack of surprise, with a dizzy dutiful obedience, which is disquieting. Then I see that she is full of it, one of her great ideas, the sort that occur to people on long walks.

“What a fool I've been!” She lays both hands on my arm and takes no notice of the smell of the hour. She is nowhere; she is in the realm of her idea. “Do you think it is possible for a person to make a single mistake—not do something wrong, you understand, but make a miscalculation—and ruin his life?”

“Why not?”

“I mean after all. Couldn't a person be miserable because he got one thing wrong and never learned otherwise—because the thing he got wrong was of such a nature that he could not be told because the telling itself got it wrong—just as if you had landed on Mars and therefore had no way of knowing that a Martian is mortally offended by a question and so every time you asked what was wrong, it only grew worse for you?” Catching sight of my sleeve, she seizes it with a curious rough gesture, like a housewife fingering goods. “My stars, pajamas,” she says offhandedly. “Well?” She searches my face in the violet shadow.

“I don't know.”

“But I do know! I found out, Binx. None of you could have told me even if you wanted to. I don't even know if you know.”

I wait gloomily. Long ago I learned to be wary of Kate's revelations. These exalted moments, when she is absolutely certain what course to take for the rest of her life, are often followed by spells of the blackest depression. “No, I swear I don't believe you do,” says Kate, peering into my face, into one eye and then the other, like a lover. “And my telling you would do no good.”

“Tell me anyhow.”

“I am free. After twenty-five years I am free.”

“How do you know?”

“You're not surprised?”

“When did you find out?”

“At four thirty this afternoon, yesterday afternoon.”

“At Merle's?”

“Yes. I was looking up at his bookshelf and I hadn't said anything for a long time. I saw his book, a book with a sort of burlap cover that always struck me unpleasantly. Yet how hard I had tried to live up to him and his book, live joyfully and as oneself etcetera. There were days when I would come in as nervous as an actress and there were moments When I succeeded—in being myself and brilliantly (look at me, Merle, I'm doing it!), so brilliantly that I think he loved me. Poor Merle. You see, there is nothing he can say. He can't tell me the secret even if he knew it. Do you know what I did? After a minute or so he asked me: what comes to mind? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and then it dawned on me. But I couldn't believe it. It was too simple. My God, can a person live twenty-five years, a life of crucifixion, through a
misunderstanding?
Yes! I stood up. I had discovered that a person does not have to
be
this or
be
that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free. But even if Merle knew this and told me, there is no way in the world I could have taken his advice. How strange to think that you cannot pass along the discovery. So again Merle said: what comes to mind? I got up and told him good-by. He said, it's only four thirty; the hour is not yet over. Then he understood I was leaving. He got interested and suggested we look into the reasons. I said, Merle, how I wish you were right. How good to think that there are reasons and that if I am silent, it means I am hiding something. How happy I would be to be hiding something. And how proud I am when I do find secret reasons for you, your own favorite reasons. But what if there is nothing? That is what I've been afraid of until now—being found out to be concealing nothing at all. But now I know why I was afraid and why I needn't be. I was afraid because I felt that I must
be
such and such a person, even as good a person as your joyous and creative person (I read your articles, Merle). What a discovery! One minute I am straining every nerve to be the sort of person I was expected to be and shaking in my boots for fear I would fail—and the next minute to know with the calmest certitude that even if I could succeed and become your joyous and creative person, that it was not good enough for me and that I had something better. I was free. Now I am saying good-by, Merle. And I walked out, as free as a bird for the first time in my life, twenty-five years old, healthy as a horse, rich as cream, and with the world before me. Ah, don't disapprove, Binx. Binx, Binx. You think I should go back! Oh I will, no doubt. But I know I am right or I would not feel so wonderful.”

She will not feel wonderful long. Already the sky over the Chef is fading and soon the dawn will glimmer about us like the bottom of the sea. I know very well that when the night falls away into gray distances, she will sink into herself. Even now she is overtaking herself: already she is laboring ever so slightly at her exaltation.

I take her cold hands. “What do you think of this for an idea?” I tell her about the service station and Mr Sartalamaccia. “We could stay on here at Mrs Schexnaydre's. It is very comfortable. I may even run the station myself. You could come sit with me at night, if you liked. Did you know you can net over fifteen thousand a year on a good station?”

“You sweet old Binx! Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Sure.” I watch her uneasily.

“Not a bad life, you say. It would be the best of all possible lives.” She speaks in a rapture—something like my aunt. My heart sinks. It is too late. She has already overtaken herself.

“Don't—worry about it.”

“I won't! I won't!”—as enraptured and extinguished in her soul, gone, as a character played by Eva Marie Saint. Leaning over, she hugs herself.

“What's the matter?”

“Ooooh,” Kate groans, Kate herself now. “I'm so afraid.”

“I know.”

“What am I going to do?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yes.”

“We'll go to my car. Then well drive down to the French Market and get some coffee. Then well go home.”

“Is everything going to be all right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me. Say it.”

“Everything is going to be all right.”

Three

1

SATURDAY MORNING AT
the office is dreary. The market is closed and there is nothing to do but get on with the letter writing. But this is no more than I expected. It is a fine day outside, freakishly warm. Tropical air has seeped into the earth and the little squares of St Augustine grass are springy and turgid. Camphor berries pop underfoot; azaleas and Judas trees are blooming on Elysian Fields. There is a sketch of cloud in the mild blue sky and the high thin piping of waxwings comes from everywhere.

As Sharon types the letters, I stand hands in pockets looking through the gold lettering of our window. I think of Sharon and American Motors. It closed yesterday at 30
¹
/
₄
.

At eleven o'clock it is time to speak.

“I'm quitting now. I've got sixty miles to go before lunch.”

“Wherebouts you going?”

“To the Gulf Coast.”

The clatter of the typewriter does not slacken.

“Would you like to go?”

“M-hm”—absently. She is not surprised. “It just so happens I got work to do.”

“No, you haven't. I'm closing the office.”

“Well I be dog.” There is still no surprise. What I've been waiting to see is how she will go about shedding her secretary manner. She doesn't. The clatter goes on.

“I'm leaving now.”

“You gon let me finish this or not!” she cries in a scolding voice. So this is how she does it. She feels her way into familiarity by way of vexations. “You go head.”

“Go?”

“I'll be right out. I got to call somebody.”

“So do I.” I call Kate. Mercer answers the phone. Kate has gone to the airport with Aunt Emily. He believes she is well.

Sharon looks at me with a yellow eye. “Is Miss Cutrer any kin to you?” she cries in her new scolding voice.

“She is my cousin.”

“Some old girl told me you were married to her. I said nayo indeed.”

“I'm not married to anyone.”

“I said you weren't!” She tilts her head forward and goes off into a fit of absent-mindedness.

“Why did you want to know if I was married?”

“I'll tell you one thing, son. I'm not going out with any married man.”

But still she has not come to the point of waiting upon my ministrations—like a date. Still very much her own mistress, she sets about tidying up her desk. When she shoulders her Guatemalan bag and walks briskly to the door, it is for me to tag along behind her. Now I see how she will have it: don't think I'm standing around waiting for you to state your business—you said you were closing the office—very well, I am leaving.

I jump ahead of her to open the door.

“Do you want to go home and let me pick you up in half an hour? Put your suit on under your clothes.”

“All right!” But it isn't all right. Her voice is a little too bright.

“Meanwhile I'll go get my car and my suit.”

“All right.” She is openly grudging. It is not right at all! She is just like Linda.

“I have a better idea. Come on and walk home with me to get my car and then I'll take you to your house.”

“All right.” A much better all right. “Now you wait right here. This won't take me long.”

When she comes out, her eyes are snapping.

“Is everything all right?”

“You mighty right it is”—eyes flashing, Uh oh. The boy friend has torn it.

“I hope you brought your suit down from Eufala.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Why no.”

“It's some suit. Just an old piece of a suit. I was going to get me one at Maison Blanche but I didn't think I'd be going swimming in March.”

“Do you like to swim?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No.”

“I'd rather swim than eat. I really would. Where're we going?”

“To the ocean.”

“The ocean! I never knew there was an ocean anywhere around here.”

“It's the open Gulf. The same thing.”

When I put her in the car, she addresses an imaginary third person. “Now this is what I call real service. Your boss not only lets you off to go swimming—he takes you to the beach.”

On these terms we set forth: she the girl whose heart's desire is to swim; I, her generous employer, who is nice enough to provide transportation.

Early afternoon finds us spinning along the Gulf Coast. Things have not gone too badly. As luck would have it, no sooner do we cross Bay St Louis and reach the beach drive than we are involved in an accident. Fortunately it is not serious. When I say as luck would have it, I mean good luck. Yet how, you might wonder, can even a minor accident be considered good luck?

Because it provides a means of winning out over the malaise, if one has the sense to take advantage of it.

What is the malaise? you ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo's ghost.

You say it is a simple thing surely, all gain and no loss, to pick up a good-looking woman and head for the beach on the first fine day of the year. So say the newspaper poets. Well it is not such a simple thing and if you have ever done it, you know it isn't—unless, of course, the woman happens to be your wife or some other everyday creature so familiar to you that she is as invisible as you yourself. Where there is chance of gain, there is also chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise.

The car itself is all-important, I have discovered. When I first moved to Gentilly, I bought a new Dodge sedan, a Red Ram Six. It was a comfortable, conservative and economical two-door sedan, just the thing, it seemed to me, for a young Gentilly businessman. When I first slid under the wheel to drive it, it seemed that everything was in order—here was I, a healthy young man, a veteran with all his papers in order, a U.S. citizen driving a very good car. All these things were true enough, yet on my first trip to the Gulf Coast with Marcia, I discovered to my dismay that my fine new Dodge was a regular incubator of malaise. Though it was comfortable enough, though it ran like a clock, though we went spinning along in perfect comfort and with a perfect view of the scenery like the American couple in the Dodge ad, the malaise quickly became suffocating. We sat frozen in a gelid amiability. Our cheeks ached from smiling. Either would have died for the other. In despair I put my hand under her dress, but even such a homely little gesture as that was received with the same fearful politeness. I longed to stop the car and bang my head against the curb. We were free, moreover, to do that or anything else, but instead on we rushed, a little vortex of despair moving through the world like the still eye of a hurricane. As it turned out, I should have stopped and banged my head, for Marcia and I returned to New Orleans defeated by the malaise. It was weeks before we ventured out again.